The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War 4 volumes : A Political, Social, and Military History

How to go to your page This eBook set contains four volumes. Each volume has its own page numbering scheme for front matter and contiguous numbering for all other content. The front matter pages and indices are labeled with the Volume number and page separated by a colon. For example, to go to page xxv of Volume 1, type ‘1:xxv’ in the “page #” box at the top of the screen and click “Go”. To go to page xv of Volume 2, type ‘2:xv’ in the "page #" box… and so forth. Inside content has regular numbering. Please refer to eTOC.

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR Second Edition

This page intentionally left blank

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR A Political, Social, and Military History, Second Edition

VOLUME I: A–G

Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Editor Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Associate Editor

Merle L. Pribbenow II Dr. James H. Willbanks, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (retired) Dr. David T. Zabecki, Major General, Army of the United States (retired) Assistant Editors

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history / Spencer C. Tucker, editor. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-960-3 (hard back : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-85109-961-0 (e-book) 1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Encyclopedias. I. Tucker, Spencer, 1937– DS557.7.E53 2011 959.704'3—dc22 2011007604 ISBN: 978-1-85109-960-3 EISBN: 978-1-85109-961-0 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

To all those who fought in the Indochina and Vietnam Wars

About the Editor

Spencer C. Tucker, PhD, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was a Fulbright scholar in France. He was a U.S. Army captain and an intelligence analyst in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and then taught for 30 years at Texas Christian University before returning to his alma mater for 6 years as the holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History. He retired from teaching in 2003. He is now Senior Fellow of Military History at ABC-CLIO. Dr. Tucker has written or edited 38 books, including ABC-CLIO’s award-winning The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as the comprehensive A Global Chronology of Conflict.

E DITORIAL A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Col. Walter J. Boyne

Dr. Carol Reardon

U.S. Air Force (Ret.)

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. David Coffey Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Shawn Livingston, MLIS Director of Information Service University of Kentucky Libraries

Capt. Carl O. Schuster

Dr. Michael R. Nichols

U.S. Navy (Ret.) Adjunct Professor Hawaii Pacific University

Department of Social Sciences Tarrant County College

Sandra Wittman Library Services Oakton Community College

Nguyen Cong Luan Independent Scholar

Cartographer Internal Mapping Associates

ABC-CLIO M ILITARY H ISTORY A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Dr. David Coffey

Dr. Carol Reardon

Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Don Hickey

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts

Professor of History Department of History Wayne State College (Nebraska)

Associate Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Dr. James Matray Professor and Chair Department of History California State University, Chico

Dr. James H. Wi llbanks Director, Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth

Dr. Jack McCallum Adjunct Professor Department of History and Geography Texas Christian University

Dr. Steven E. Woodworth Professor of History Department of History Texas Christian University

Dr. Justin D. Murphy Director, Academy of Freedom; Brand Professor of History Department of History, Political Science, and Geography Howard Payne University

Dr. Jim Piecuch Associate Professor of History Department of History Kennesaw State University

Dr. David T. Zabecki Major General Army of the United States, Retired Honory Senior Research Fellow in War Studies University of Birmingham, England

Contents Volume I: A–G List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv Foreword xxvii Preface xxxi General Maps xxxiii Overview of the Vietnam War Entries 1 Index I-1

Volume III: Q–Z List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 951 Index I-1 xli

Volume IV: Documents List of Documents xi Introduction—xvii Documents 1365 Appendix A: Unit Designations 1679 Appendix B: Military Ranks 1683 Appendix C: Order of Battle 1691 Chronology 1731 Glossary 1765 Selected Bibliography 1779 List of Editors and Contributors 1789 Categorical Index 1795 Index I-1

Volume II: H–P List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 439 Index I-1

ix

This page intentionally left blank

List of Entries

VOLUME I

Amerasians American Friends of Vietnam American Red Cross Amnesty Amphibious Warfare Andersen Air Force Base Angkor Wat An Khe An Loc, Battle of Annam Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Antiwar Movement, U.S. Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. APACHE SNOW, Operation Ap Bac, Battle of Arc Light Missions Armored Personnel Carriers Armored Warfare Army Concept Team in Vietnam Arnett, Peter Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius Art and the Vietnam War Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Artillery Fire Doctrine A Shau Valley A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for Assimilation versus Association Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam ATLAS WEDGE, Operation Atrocities during the Vietnam War ATTLEBORO, Operation

ABILENE, Operation

Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr. Abzug, Bella Acheson, Dean Gooderham Adams, Edward Adams, Samuel A. Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee African Americans in the U.S. Military Agnew, Spiro Theodore Agricultural Reform Tribunals Agroville Program Aiken, George David Air America Airborne Operations Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Aircraft, Bombers Aircraft Carriers Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Air Mobility Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company Airpower, Role in War Air-to-Air Missiles Air-to-Ground Missiles Air War Study Group Report, Cornell University ALA MOANA, Operation Alessandri, Marcel Ali, Muhammad Alpha Strike Alsop, Joseph Wright, V Alvarez, Everett, Jr. xi

xii

List of Entries

Attrition August Revolution Au Lac, Kingdom of Australia BABYLIFT, Operation Bach Dang River, Battle of Ba Cut Baez, Joan Chandos Ball, George Wildman Baltimore Four Ban Karai Pass Ban Me Thuot, Battle of Bao Dai Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr. BARREL ROLL, Operation Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul Beckwith, Charles Alvin Ben Suc Ben Tre, Battle of Berger, Samuel David Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, Philip Bidault, Georges Bien Hoa Air Base Binh Gia, Battle of BINH TAY I–IV, Operations Binh Xuyen Bird & Sons Black Flags Black Muslims Black Panthers Blaizot, Roger Blassie, Michael Joseph BLU-82/B Bomb BLUE LIGHT, Operation Blum, Léon Body Armor Body Count BOLD MARINER, Operation Bollaert, Émile BOLO, Operation Bombing Halts and Restrictions Bombs, Gravity Booby Traps Bowles, Chester Bliss Bradley, Omar Nelson Brady, Patrick Henry BRAVO I and II, Operations Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation Brown, George Scratchley

Brown, Hubert Gerald Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr. Browne, Malcolm Wilde Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz Buddhism in Vietnam BUFFALO, Operation Bui Diem Bui Phat Bui Tin BULLET SHOT, Operation Bundy, McGeorge Bundy, William Putnam Bunker, Ellsworth Burchett, Wilfred Burkett, Bernard Gary Bush, George Herbert Walker Calley, William Laws, Jr. Cambodia Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of Cambodian Airlift Cambodian Incursion Camden 28 Cam Lo Camp Carroll Cam Ranh Bay Canada Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang Cao Bang Cao Dai Cao Van Vien Caravelle Group Carpentier, Marcel Carter, James Earl, Jr. Case, Clifford Philip Case-Church Amendment CASTOR, Operation Casualties Catholicism in Vietnam Catonsville Nine Catroux, Georges CEDAR FALLS, Operation Cédile, Jean Central Highlands Central Intelligence Agency Central Office for South Vietnam Chams and the Kingdom of Champa CHAOS, Operation Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr. Chappelle, Georgette Meyer Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph

List of Entries CHECO Project Chennault, Anna Chennault, Claire Lee Chicago Eight Chieu Hoi Program China, People’s Republic of China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam China, Republic of Chinese in Vietnam Chomsky, Avram Noam Church, Frank Forrester Chu Van Tan Civic Action Civilian Irregular Defense Group Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support Civil Rights Movement Clarey, Bernard Ambrose Clark, William Ramsey Clark Air Force Base Clear and Hold Cleland, Joseph Maxwell Clemenceau, Georges Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Clifford, Clark McAdams Clinton, William Jefferson Cochin China Coffin, William Sloane, Jr. Cogny, René Colby, William Egan Collins, Joseph Lawton COMMANDO FLASH, Operation COMMANDO HUNT, Operation Concerned Officers Movement “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report Conein, Lucien Emile Confucianism Conscientious Objectors Con Son Island Prison CONSTANT GUARD, Operation Containment Policy Con Thien, Siege of Continental Air Services Cooper, Chester Lawrence Cooper, John Sherman Cooper-Brooke Amendment Cooper-Church Amendment Corps Tactical Zones Counterculture Counterinsurgency Warfare CRIMP, Operation Cronauer, Adrian Cronkite, Walter Leland

Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines Cu Chi Tunnels Cunningham, Randall Harold Cuong De Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr. Da Faria, Antônio Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang Dak To, Battle of Da Lat Daley, Richard Joseph Da Nang DANIEL BOONE, Operation Dao Duy Tung D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Dau Tranh Strategy Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr. Davis, Raymond Gilbert Davis, Rennard Cordon Day, George Everett Dean, John Gunther Dèbes, Pierre-Louis De Castries, Christian Marie DECKHOUSE V, Operation Decoux, Jean Deer Mission Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Defense Satellite Communications System DEFIANT STAND, Operation Defoliation De Gaulle, Charles DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation Dellinger, David Demilitarized Zone Democratic National Convention of 1968 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr. DePuy, William Eugene De Rhodes, Alexandre DEROS Desertion, U.S. and Communist DeSoto Missions Détente De Tham Devillers, Philippe Dewey, Albert Peter DEWEY CANYON I, Operation DEWEY CANYON II, Operation Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dien Triet Lake, Battle of Dikes, Red River Delta Dinassauts Dith Pran

xiii

xiv

List of Entries

Dixie Station Doan Khue Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich Do Cao Tri Doi Moi Domino Theory Do Muoi Don Dien Dong Ha, Battle of Dong Quan Pacification Project Dong Xoai, Battle of Donlon, Roger Hugh C. Donovan, William Joseph Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III Do Quang Thang DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation Doumer, Paul Drugs and Drug Use Dulles, Allen Welsh Dulles, John Foster Duong Quynh Hoa Duong Van Duc Duong Van Minh Dupuis, Jean Durbrow, Elbridge Dustoff Duy Tan Dylan, Bob EAGLE PULL, Operation

Easter Offensive Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War Eden, Sir Robert Anthony Eisenhower, Dwight David Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971 Elections, U.S., 1964 Elections, U.S., 1968 Elections, U.S., 1972 Elections, U.S., 1976 Electronic Intelligence Ellsberg, Daniel EL PASO II, Operation Ély, Paul Henri Romuald Elysée Agreement Embargo, U.S. Trade Enclave Strategy ENHANCE, Operation ENHANCE PLUS, Operation ENTERPRISE, Operation Enthoven, Alain Enuol, Y Bham Ethnology of Southeast Asia

European Defense Community Ewell, Julian Johnson FAIRFAX, Operation

Fall, Bernard B. FARM GATE, Operation Faure, Edgar Federal Bureau of Investigation Fellowship of Reconciliation Felt, Harry Donald Fernandez, Richard Ferry, Jules Film and the Vietnam Experience Fire-Support Bases Fishel, Wesley Robert Fishhook Five O’Clock Follies FLAMING DART I and II, Operations Flexible Response Fonda, Jane Seymour Fontainebleau Conference Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Ford, Gerald Rudolph Forrestal, Michael Vincent Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire Fortas, Abraham Fort Hood Three Forward Air Controllers Four-Party Joint Military Commission Fragging France, Air Force, 1946–1954 France, Army, 1946–1954 France, Navy, 1946–1954 France and Vietnam, 1954–Present FRANCIS MARION, Operation Franco-Thai War Fratricide FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation Free Fire Zones Free World Assistance Program French Foreign Legion in Indochina French Indochina, 1860s–1946 FREQUENT WIND, Operation Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées Fulbright, James William Galbraith, John Kenneth Galloway, Joseph Lee GAME WARDEN, Operation Garnier, Marie Joseph François Garwood, Robert Russell

List of Entries Gavin, James Maurice Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth Gelb, Leslie Howard Geneva Accords of 1962 Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954 Geneva Convention of 1949 Genovese, Eugene Dominick Geography of Indochina and Vietnam Germany, Federal Republic of Ginsberg, Allen Godley, George McMurtrie Goldberg, Arthur Joseph Goldman, Eric Frederick Goldwater, Barry Morris Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gracey, Douglas David Gravel, Maurice Robert Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr. Great Society Program GREELEY, Operation Greene, Graham Greene, Wallace Martin Grenade Launchers Groupement Mobile 100, Destruction of Gruening, Ernest Henry Guam Guam Conference Guizot, François Gulf of Tonkin Incident Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

VOLUME II Habib, Philip Charles Hackworth, David Haskell Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. Hainan Island Haiphong Haiphong, Shelling of Halberstam, David Halperin, Morton H. Hamburger Hill, Battle of Hamlet Evaluation System Ham Nghi Hand Grenades Hanoi Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Hanoi Hannah Harassment and Interdiction Fires Hardhats Harkins, Paul Donal Harriman, William Averell

Harris, David Hartke, Vance Rupert HARVEST MOON, Operation HASTINGS, Operation Hatfield, Mark Odom Hatfield-McGovern Amendment HAWTHORNE, Operation Hayden, Thomas Emmett Healy, Michael D. Heath, Donald Read Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam Helms, Richard McGarrah Henderson, Oran K. Heng Samrin Herbert, Anthony Herbicides Hersh, Seymour Myron Hershey, Lewis Blaine Herz, Alice Hickey, Gerald Cannon HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON 54, Operation HICKORY II, Operation High National Council Hilsman, Roger Hilsman-Forrestal Report Hispanics in the U.S. Military Historiography, Vietnam War Hmongs Hoa Binh, Battle of Hoa Hao Hoa Lo Prison Hoang Duc Nha HOANG HOA THAM, Operation Hoang Van Hoan Hoang Van Thai Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh Campaign Ho Chi Minh Trail Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur Hoffman, Abbie HOMECOMING, Operation Honolulu Conference Hooper, Joe Ronnie Hoopes, Townsend Hoover, John Edgar Hope, Leslie Townes HOP TAC, Operation Ho-Sainteny Agreement Hot Pursuit Policy Hourglass Spraying System Hue

xv

xvi

List of Entries

Hue, Battle of Hue and Da Nang, Fall of Hue Massacre Humanitarian Operation Program Humphrey, Hubert Horatio Hun Sen Huston Plan Huynh Phu So Huynh Tan Phat Huynh Van Cao Ia Drang, Battle of Imperial Presidency India Indochina War Indonesia International Commission for Supervision and Control International Rescue Committee International War Crimes Tribunal Iron Triangle IRVING, Operation Jackson State College Shootings JACKSTAY, Operation Jacobson, George D. James, Daniel, Jr. Japan Jaunissement Javits, Jacob Koppel JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation Jiang Jieshi Johnson, Harold Keith Johnson, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech Johnson, Ural Alexis Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office Jones, David Charles JUNCTION CITY, Operation K-9 Corps Kampuchean National Front Kattenburg, Paul Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville Kelly, Charles L. Kelly, Francis J. Kennan, George Frost Kennedy, Edward Moore Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Robert Francis Kent State University Shootings KENTUCKY, Operation Kep Airfield

Kerrey, Joseph Robert Kerry, John Forbes Kerwin, Walter T., Jr. Key West Agreement Khai Dinh Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, Fall of Khe Sanh, Battle of Khieu Samphan Khmer Kampuchea Krom Khmer Rouge Khmer Serai Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Kien An Airfield King, Martin Luther, Jr. KINGFISHER, Operation Kinnard, Harry William Osborn Kissinger, Henry Alfred Kit Carson Scouts Knowland, William Fife Koh Tang Komer, Robert W. Kong Le Kontum, Battle for Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korean War Koster, Samuel William, Sr. Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich Kovic, Ronald Kraft, Joseph Krulak, Victor H. Kunstler, William Moses Laird, Melvin Robert Lake, William Anthony Kirsop LAM SON 719, Operation Landing Zone Land Reform, Vietnam Lang Bac, Battle of Lang Son Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Laniel, Joseph Lansdale, Edward Geary Lao Dong Party Laos Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de Lavelle, John Daniel LÉA, Operation Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe Le Duan Le Duc Anh Le Duc Tho

List of Entries Le Dynasty Lefèbvre, Dominique LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Le Kha Phieu Le Loi LeMay, Curtis Emerson Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie Le Nguyen Khang Le Nguyen Vy Le Quang Tung Leroy, Catherine Le Thanh Nghi Le Thanh Tong Letourneau, Jean Le Trong Tan Le Van Hung Le Van Kim Le Van Vien Levy, Howard Brett LEXINGTON III, Operation Lifton, Robert Jay Lima Site 85 Lin, Maya Ying LINEBACKER I, Operation LINEBACKER II, Operation Lippmann, Walter Literature and the Vietnam War Loc Ninh, Military Operations near Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong Long Binh Long Chieng Long-Range Electronic Navigation Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols Lon Nol LORRAINE, Operation Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth Luce, Henry Robinson Lu Han Luong Ngoc Quyen Ly Bon Lynd, Staughton MacArthur, Douglas MACARTHUR, Operation Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Madman Strategy Mailer, Norman Malaysia MALHEUR I and II, Operations Manila Conference

xvii

Mansfield, Michael Joseph Mao Zedong March on the Pentagon MARIGOLD, Operation Marine Combined Action Platoons MARKET TIME, Operation Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Martin, Graham A. MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation Mayaguez Incident May Day Tribe MAYFLOWER, Operation McCain, John Sidney, Jr. McCain, John Sidney, III McCarthy, Eugene Joseph McCloy, John Jay McCone, John Alex McConnell, John Paul McGarr, Lionel Charles McGee, Gale William McGovern, George Stanley McNamara, Robert Strange McNamara Line McNaughton, John Theodore McPherson, Harry Cummings Meaney, George Medevac Media and the Vietnam War Medicine, Military Medics and Corpsmen Medina, Ernest Lou Mekong Delta Mekong River Mekong River Project Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham Mendès-France, Pierre MENU, Operation Michigan State University Advisory Group Midway Island Conference Military Airlift Command Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Military Decorations Military Regions Military Revolutionary Council Military Sealift Command Mine Warfare, Land Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations Minh Mang Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam

xviii

List of Entries

Mini–Tet Offensive Missing in Action, Allied Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist Mitchell, John Newton Mobile Guerrilla Forces Mobile Riverine Force Mobile Strike Force Commands Moffat, Abbot Low Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Momyer, William Wallace Montagnards Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr. Moore, Robert Brevard Moorer, Thomas Hinman Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam Mordant, Eugène Morrison, Norman Morse, Wayne Lyman Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Mortuary Affairs Operations Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Moyers, Billy Don Mu Gia Pass Muller, Robert Munich Analogy Murphy, Robert Daniel Music and the Vietnam War Muste, Abraham Johannes My Lai Massacre Nam Dong, Battle of Nam Tien Nam Viet Napalm Napoleon III Na San, Battle of National Assembly Law 10/59 National Bank of Vietnam National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam National Leadership Council National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia National Security Action Memorandum Number 328 Native Americans in the U.S. Military Naval Gunfire Support Navarre, Henri Eugène Navarre Plan Neutrality

NEVADA EAGLE, Operation

New Jersey, USS New Zealand Ngo Dinh Can Ngo Dinh Diem Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Khoi Ngo Dinh Luyen Ngo Dinh Nhu Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Ngo Dinh Thuc Ngo Quang Truong Ngo Quyen Nguyen Binh Nguyen Cao Ky Nguyen Chanh Thi Nguyen Chi Thanh Nguyen Co Thach Nguyen Duy Trinh Nguyen Dynasty Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Ha Phan Nguyen Hue Nguyen Huu An Nguyen Huu Co Nguyen Huu Tho Nguyen Huu Tri Nguyen Khanh Nguyen Khoa Nam Nguyen Luong Bang Nguyen Manh Cam Nguyen Ngoc Loan Nguyen Ngoc Tho Nguyen Phuc Anh Nguyen Sinh Sac Nguyen Thai Hoc Nguyen Thi Binh Nguyen Thi Dinh Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Nguyen Tuong Tam Nguyen Van Binh Nguyen Van Cu Nguyen Van Hieu Nguyen Van Hinh Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Thieu Nguyen Van Toan Nguyen Van Xuan Nguyen Viet Thanh NIAGARA, Operation Nitze, Paul Henry

List of Entries Nixon, Richard Milhous Nixon Doctrine Noel, Chris Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr. Nong Duc Manh Novosel, Michael, Sr. Nui Ba Den Nuon Chea Nurses, U.S. Oakland Army Base Oberg, Jean-Christophe O’Daniel, John Wilson Office of Strategic Services Olds, Robin Olongapo, Philippines Operation Plan 34A Order of Battle Dispute Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard Pacification Palme, Olof Palmer, Bruce, Jr. Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Paris Negotiations Paris Peace Accords Parrot’s Beak PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation Pathet Lao Patti, Archimedes L. A. Patton, George Smith, IV PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations Paul VI, Pope Pearson, Lester Bowles Peers, William R. Peers Inquiry PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, Operation PENNSYLVANIA, Operation Pentagon Papers and Trial People’s Self-Defense Forces Perot, Henry Ross PERSHING, Operation Peterson, Douglas Brian Pham Cong Tac Pham Duy Pham Hung Pham Ngoc Thao Pham The Duyet Pham Van Dong Pham Van Phu Pham Xuan An

Phan Boi Chau Phan Chu Trinh Phan Dinh Phung Phan Huy Quat Phan Khac Suu Phan Quang Dan Phan Van Khai Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix Philippines Phnom Penh Phoenix Program Phoumi Nosavan PIERCE ARROW, Operation Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre Pignon, Léon PIRANHA, Operation PIRAZ Warships Pistols Plain of Jars Plain of Reeds Pleiku Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich Poland Polgar, Thomas Pol Pot POPEYE, Operation Porter, William James Port Huron Statement Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Potsdam Conference Poulo Condore Powell, Colin Luther PRAIRIE I, Operation PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations Precision-Guided Munitions Prisoners of War, Allied Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam Project Agile Project Delta Project Omega Project 100,000 Project Sigma Protective Reaction Strikes PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation Provincial Reconnaissance Units Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam Proxmire, Edward William Psychological Warfare Operations Public Opinion and the War, U.S. Pueblo Incident

xix

xx

List of Entries

Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr. Punji Stake

VOLUME III Quach Tom Quadrillage/Ratissage Quang Ngai Quang Tri, Battle of Qui Nhon Quoc Ngu Racial Violence within the U.S. Military Radford, Arthur William Radio Direction Finding RANCH HAND, Operation RAND Corporation Raven Forward Air Controllers Read, Benjamin Huger Reagan, Ronald Wilson Red River Delta Red River Fighter Pilots Association Reeducation Camps Refugees and Boat People Reinhardt, George Frederick Republican Youth Research and Development Field Units Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Revers Report Rheault, Robert B. Richardson, John Hammond Ridenhour, Ronald Ridgway, Matthew Bunker Rifles Rigault de Genouilly, Charles Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for Risner, James Robinson River Assault Groups Riverine Craft Riverine Warfare Rivers, Lucius Mendel Road Watch Teams Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich Rockets and Rocket Launchers Rogers, William Pierce ROLLING THUNDER, Operation Romney, George Wilcken Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Rostow, Eugene Victor Rostow, Walt Whitman Route Coloniale 4, Battles for Route Packages

Rowe, James Nicholas Rubin, Jerry Rules of Engagement Rusk, David Dean Rusk-Thanat Agreement Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr. Russo, Anthony J., Jr. Sabattier, Gabriel Saigon Saigon Military Mission Sainteny, Jean Salan, Raoul Albin Louis Salisbury, Harrison Evans SAM HOUSTON, Operation San Antonio Formula Sanctuaries Sarraut, Albert Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. Schlesinger, James Rodney SCOTLAND, Operation Scruggs, Jan Craig Seabees SEA DRAGON, Operation Seale, Bobby SEALORDS SEAL Teams Seaman, Jonathan O. Sea Power, Role in War Search and Destroy Search-and-Rescue Operations Selective Service Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney SHINING BRASS, Operation Shoup, David Monroe Sigma I and II Sihanouk, Norodom Sijan, Lance Peter Simons, Arthur David Sino-French War Sino-Soviet Split Sino-Vietnamese War Sisowath Sirik Matak SLAM Smith, Walter Bedell Snepp, Frank Warren, III SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation Song Be, Battle of Son Tay Raid Son Thang Incident Souphanouvong

List of Entries Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Souvanna Phouma Spellman, Francis Joseph Spock, Benjamin McLane Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam Staley, Eugene STARLITE, Operation Starry, Donn Albert STEEL TIGER, Operation Stennis, John Cornelius Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II Stilwell, Richard Giles Stockdale, James Bond Stockdale, Sybil Bailey Strategic Air Command Strategic Hamlet Program Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Students for a Democratic Society Studies and Observation Group Submachine Guns Sullivan, William Healy Summers, Harry G., Jr. SUNFLOWER, Operation SUNRISE, Operation Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training Swift Boats Swift Boat Veterans for Truth SWITCHBACK, Operation Tache D’Huile Tactical Air Command Tallman, Richard Joseph Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Tan Son Nhut Taoism Tarr, Curtis W. Task Force 116 Task Force Oregon Taylor, Maxwell Davenport Taylor-McNamara Report Taylor-Rostow Mission Tay Ninh Tay Son Rebellion Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins Television and the Vietnam War Territorial Forces Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle TEXAS, Operation TEXAS STAR, Operation Thailand

Thanh Hoa Bridge Thanh Thai Thich Quang Duc Thich Tri Quang Thieu Tri Thomas, Allison Kent Thomas, Norman Mattoon Thompson, Hugh, Jr. Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thud Ridge THUNDERHEAD, Operation Tianjin, Treaty of Tiger Cages TIGER HOUND, Operation Tinker v. Des Moines TOAN THANG, Operation To Huu Ton Duc Thang Tonkin Ton That Dinh Ton That Thuyet Top Gun School Torture Tran Buu Kiem Tran Do Tran Dynasty Tran Hung Dao Tran Kim Tuyen Transportation Group 559 Tran Thien Khiem Tran Van Chuong Tran Van Do Tran Van Don Tran Van Giau Tran Van Hai Tran Van Huong Tran Van Lam Tran Van Tra Trieu Au Trieu Da Trinh Lords Truman, Harry S. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Truong Chinh Truong Dinh Dzu Truong Nhu Tang Truong Son Corridor Truong Son Mountains Tsuchihashi Yuitsu Tu Duc Tuesday Lunch Group Tunnel Rats

xxi

xxii

List of Entries

Tunnels Tu Ve Tuyen Quang, Siege of Twining, Nathan Farragut U Minh Forest Uniforms Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UNION I and II, Operations UNIONTOWN, Operation United Front United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars United Nations and the Vietnam War United Services Organization United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present United States, Nongovernmental Organizations, 1954–Present United States Agency for International Development United States Air Force United States Army United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii United States Army Special Services United States Coast Guard United States Congress and the Vietnam War United States Department of Justice United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam United States Information Agency United States Joint Chiefs of Staff United States Marine Corps United States Merchant Marine United States Navy United States Reserve Components United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Special Forces United States Veterans Administration United States v. O’Brien United States v. Seeger University of Wisconsin Bombing Ut, Nick UTAH, Operation U Thant Valluy, Jean-Étienne VAN BUREN, Operation Van Cao Vance, Cyrus Roberts

Van Es, Hubert Vang Pao Van Lang Vann, John Paul Van Tien Dung Versace, Humbert Rocque Vessey, John William, Jr. Vientiane Agreement Vientiane Protocol Viet Cong Infrastructure Viet Minh Vietnam, Climate of Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force Vietnam, Republic of, Army Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos Vietnam, Republic of, Da Lat Military Academy Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps Vietnam, Republic of, National Police Vietnam, Republic of, Navy Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Vietnamese Communist Party Vietnamese Culture Vietnamese National Army Vietnam Information Group Vietnamization Vietnam Magazine Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang Vietnam Syndrome Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Memorial Vietnam Veterans of America Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes Vinh Vo Chi Cong Vogt, John W., Jr. Voices in Vital America Vo Nguyen Giap Vo Tran Chi Vo Van Ba

List of Entries Vo Van Kiet Vu Hong Khanh VULTURE, Operation Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong Spy Case Vung Tau Vu Oanh Vu Quoc Thuc Vu Van Giai Wage and Price Controls Waldron, Adelbert F., III Wallace, George Corley, Jr. Walt, Lewis William Ware, Keith Lincoln Warnke, Paul Culliton War Powers Act War Resisters League Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Wars of National Liberation War Zone C and War Zone D WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation Washington Special Actions Group Watergate Scandal Weathermen Webb, James Henry, Jr. Wei Guoqing Weiss, Cora Welsh v. United States

Westmoreland, William Childs Weyand, Frederick Carlton Wheeler, Earle Gilmore WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation White Star Mobile Training Teams Wild Weasels Williams, Samuel Tankersley Wilson, James Harold Wilson, Thomas Woodrow Wise Men Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Women Strike for Peace Woodstock Xa Loi Pagoda Raid Xuan Loc, Battle of Xuan Thuy Yankee Station YANKEE TEAM, Operation YELLOWSTONE, Operation Yen Bai Mutiny Youth International Party Zhou Enlai Zorthian, Barry Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr.

xxiii

This page intentionally left blank

List of Maps

General Maps Map Key: xxxv French Indochina, 1954: xxxvi Provinces of North Vietnam: xxxvii Provinces of South Vietnam: xxxviii Cease-Fire Areas of Control, January 1973: xxxix Collapse of South Vietnam, March–April 1975: xl

Demilitarized Zone: 279 Ethnology of Vietnam: 353 Expansion of Imperial Vietnam: 1256 French Conquest of Indochina, 1858–1893: 399 French Reoccupation of Indochina, September 1945–August 1946: 397 Indochina War: Situation in 1953: 1236 Indochina War in Northern Vietnam, 1946–1954: 534 Infiltration Routes: 504 Operation CEDAR FALLS, January 8–26, 1967: 181 Operation LAM SON 719, February 8–March 24, 1971: 618 Operation ROLLING THUNDER: Bombing Restrictions: 123 Operation ROLLING THUNDER, March 2, 1965–October 31, 1968: 992 Siege of Khe Sanh, January–April 1968: 581 South Vietnam: 752 Tet Offensive: Battle for Saigon, January–February 1968: 1106 III Corps Tactical Zone in South Vietnam: 241 Vietnamese Invasion of Cambodia and Sino-Vietnamese War, 1978–1979: 1047

Entry Maps Air War in Southeast Asia: 33 Ambush at LZ Albany, November 17, 1965: 620 Battle of Dak To, November 1967: 255 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, March 13–May 7, 1954: 295 Battle of Hamburger Hill, May 11–20, 1969: 448 Battle of Hue, January 31–February 25, 1968: 518 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, October 19–November 26, 1965: 529 Cambodian Incursion, April 29–July 22, 1970: 159 Corps Tactical Zones in South Vietnam: 1189

xxv

This page intentionally left blank

Foreword

My own experience with Vietnam began in 1962 when I became director of arms control in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. The assistant secretary, Paul H. Nitze, a brilliant and experienced statesman, made use of his staff without bureaucratic regard for their assigned titles, and so I began to be involved in analyses of the Vietnam situation, among other assignments. In late 1963 Nitze became secretary of the navy and took me with him as his executive assistant; our involvement with Vietnam intensified until my departure for sea duty in 1965. From 1966 to 1968 I served as the U.S. Navy’s director of systems analyses, where Nitze, by then deputy secretary of defense, involved me almost weekly in discussions of Vietnam. From 1968 until 1970 I served as commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. From 1970 to 1974 as chief of naval operations and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), I was involved in the assignment of forces, analyses of strategic and tactical issues, and, subject to presidential direction, the overall conduct of the war.

attendance of the chairman of the JCS to ensure military input directly to the commander in chief. For me this inappropriate system provided the opportunity to participate with Nitze for the three years of increased involvement (1962–1965) in the development of national strategy. In 1962 Dr. Walt Rostow, in discussions with Defense Department officials, espoused on behalf of President John F. Kennedy a theory of reprisal attacks by U.S. forces against North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were to be given warnings that if their support of the war in South Vietnam continued, the United States would initiate a “punishing” strike. After a pause, if their action continued or increased, greater “punishment” would be administered. The military view was strongly against such a strategy. We believed that the “punishment” would not deter the Communist regime and that pauses between strikes would allow them to rebuild and learn lessons as to how better to deal with such strikes and thus would be totally counterproductive. Regrettably, this strike and pause theory within the White House continued under both Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and pauses in military action against North Vietnam, while building up U.S. forces in South Vietnam, greatly hampered the opportunity for a favorable outcome in the war. While this overall strategy of reprisal and pause against North Vietnam persisted throughout the war, the strategy with South Vietnam developed in several phases. Initially those of us preparing discussion papers for Nitze to use with McNamara, reflecting Nitze’s guidance, advocated that

The Formulation of Policy as I Saw It The development of consensus concerning U.S. strategy for Vietnam was made much more difficult by virtue of the personality of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, who demonstrated essential contempt for military leaders; frequently bypassed the JCS by using his secretaries of air force, army, and navy and his assistant secretaries of defense to do operational analyses; and often provided military advice to the president without the

Editor’s note: Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr. died in 2000. His distinguished career included command of U.S. Navy forces in Vietnam (1968–1970) and then the highest command position in the navy, chief of naval operations (1970–1974). His insights regarding the Vietnam War are therefore especially important and for that reason are included in this new edition of the encyclopedia.

xxvii

xxviii

Foreword

Vietnam was not the place to maintain the U.S. policy of containment of communism. We believed in the policy of containment of Communist expansion by the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), North Korea, and North Vietnam. But we held that South Vietnam was not a viable national entity, that the conditions for nation building did not exist, and that containment should be achieved by building the economies and military capabilities of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Under this concept our efforts in South Vietnam would be limited to modest logistic support and military advisory personnel. This advice was not acceptable to McNamara, who insisted that the uncertainty of a favorable outcome for South Vietnam using the above strategy made it mandatory to do more. The second phase of U.S. involvement, resulting from McNamara’s rejection of the “contain elsewhere” policy, flowed from consideration of another two alternative views. Those of us working with Nitze presented the view that for South Vietnam to have a high probability of survival as a non-Communist regime upon commitment of U.S. forces, U.S. forces would have to be brought to bear against North Vietnam by air and naval surface ship bombardment and by blockade. If this did not cause Hanoi to cease its infiltration of South Vietnam, amphibious landings to seize Haiphong and Hanoi would have had to follow. In that later eventuality we estimated that on the order of 5,000 U.S. casualties would result and that with all logistic lines by land and sea cut off, only limited efforts by the Communists could continue. We held that Chinese forces would not intervene against such U.S. action. U.S. forces had improved by an order of magnitude over PRC forces since they had last fought each other in Korea. U.S. nuclear superiority over the PRC was apparent to both sides. These facts plus assurances to Beijing that U.S. forces would not operate in the vicinity of the PRC borders were, we judged, adequate to neutralize the PRC. We further believed that if our calculations were proven inaccurate, U.S. forces would defeat invading PRC forces, as did the North Vietnamese military forces (who were good but not as formidable as U.S. forces) in the subsequent invasion of North Vietnam by the Chinese after the U.S. war ended. We advocated that U.S. Army forces in South Vietnam be limited to major advisory efforts to equip and train South Vietnamese forces to fight their own war against indigenous Communist forces as the United States contained the threat in North Vietnam as outlined above. McNamara was unwilling to depart from his grand strategy of reprisal and pause in North Vietnam, accepting the view that a PRC invasion was highly likely and that the risks to the United States were too great. His alternative was almost the exact opposite of our proposals: no invasion in North Vietnam, no all-out use of air and sea power in North Vietnam, reprisal against limited target systems followed by pauses, and ultimately a massive buildup of U.S. ground forces in South Vietnam. Having been overruled by McNamara’s decision, the Nitze school of thought maintained that we were in for a long-drawn-out war,

that the U.S. public support would weaken as American casualties mounted in such inconclusive operations, and that we must therefore move to Vietnamize the war as rapidly as possible. This strategy was not to be fully implemented until Richard Nixon became president. By that time, beginning the withdrawal of U.S. forces was judged to be politically necessary, and this meant that Vietnamization had to be accomplished in a much shorter than optimal time frame. Having been ordered in September 1968 to Vietnam to accomplish the Vietnamization of naval forces, which I had been advocating, I told my staff that if Hubert Humphrey were to be elected that November we would probably have one year to complete Vietnamization and that if Nixon was elected we would probably have three years. We drew up a one-year plan with an alternatively more efficient three-year option. In fact, we were able to follow the three-year plan. U.S. naval forces set up a river/canal blockade along the Cambodian border. Communist logistic support of their forces in the Mekong Delta was greatly curtailed; Vietnamese sailors were trained and replaced U.S. sailors, one sailor at a time on each boat, ship, and shore facility. By the time of the fall of Saigon, the delta had been so completely pacified and the people had become so supportive of U.S. objectives that it took a considerable amount of time for the Communist forces to take control there after the fall of Saigon. As an interesting footnote, South Vietnam’s navy never surrendered. Naval personnel loaded their families on board their ships and steamed to Subic Bay in the Philippines, where they turned the ships over to the U.S. Navy. Despite all obstacles and despite a far less than optimal strategy, by the time of the truce in 1973 U.S. forces had successfully turned over the war fighting to the South Vietnamese. These forces proved their steadfastness in defeating and driving back the North Vietnamese invasion by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regular units after U.S. forces had departed. Had the United States been politically capable of carrying out in 1974 and 1975 President Nixon’s two secret commitments to President Nguyen Van Thieu—that is, to replace attrited equipment and to retaliate vigorously against truce violations—in my judgment a successful two-Vietnams solution would have been achieved. The balance of forces between the two sides was much more favorable to South Vietnam than in the case of South Korea after the Korean War. With continuing U.S. support, as occurred in the Korean case, over time South Vietnam’s burgeoning economy would have achieved a superiority over the Communist forces, as had happened in Korea. In my meetings with former North Vietnamese leaders in 1994, there was general agreement on their part that they always knew that they had to win the war in the United States and that the great constitutional crisis brought on by Watergate, superimposed upon the efforts of the antiwar faction in the United States, was responsible for their victory. One additional point needs to be made to put the Vietnam War into historical context. Despite the great loss of political support

Foreword for strong foreign policy initiatives by the United States as a result of Watergate and the defeat of South Vietnam that followed, despite the tragic loss of 58,000 lives versus the 5,000 or so that would likely have been lost with an aggressive early strategy against North Vietnam, and despite the success that the Soviet Union was able to achieve in such places as Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia as the United States lay prostrate in the post–Vietnam War environment, the U.S. actions in Vietnam gave Southeast Asia time to gain an economic and defense posture to survive Communist penetration. As I left Vietnam in 1970 to become a member of the JCS, I visited Lee Quan Yew in Singapore and General Jiang Jieshi (Chiang

xxix

Kai-shek) in Taipei. Both of these leaders made the point to me then and again in later years that the U.S. stand in Vietnam had given Southeast Asia nations the time to prosper and survive. In the long light of history, the disastrous, grossly inefficient, and incompetently conceived U.S. strategy in Vietnam caused a breakdown in containment in Africa but did contain Communist expansion in Southeast Asia, with the result that, coupled with the resurgence of U.S. power and influence during the Reagan and Bush years, the free world’s global containment policy proved successful. ADMIRAL ELMO R. ZUMWALT JR. U.S. NAVY (RETIRED)

This page intentionally left blank

Preface

Until the Iraq War that began in 2003, the Vietnam War was to many the most controversial of U.S. military conflicts. No U.S. war since the 1861–1865 American Civil War has sparked so much public debate and protest, and the Vietnam War continues to impact public policy. Democratic Party candidate Senator John Kerry’s Vietnam War service and his subsequent antiwar activities became a major issue in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and some contend that his failure to respond promptly to attacks by his critics in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth cost him the election. More recently, the Vietnam War has been much discussed in the debate over Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, the U.S. military effort to destroy the Al Qaeda terrorist organization in Afghanistan. There is an ongoing debate about the reasons behind America’s involvement in Vietnam and possible lessons to be learned from the conflict. When Stanley Karnow, author of the best-selling book Vietnam, was asked by General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, what lessons he had learned from studying the war, Karnow reportedly replied that the one lesson he had learned was that we should not have been there in the first place. How did the United States come to be involved in Vietnam? Was the war indeed winnable? If so, what are the tactics and strategies that might have brought success? What were the major political influences in the United States? Are there indeed lessons to be learned from the war that we can apply to other conflicts? These are but some of the enduring questions. This encyclopedia seeks to address these issues. It is the second encyclopedia published by ABC-CLIO on the war. The first, appearing in 1999, was a three-volume award-winning work of two volumes of entries and one volume of documents. This new version follows the same general format of the first but adds an entire additional volume of entries and updates all entries from the first

edition. It is certainly the most comprehensive reference work on the war to appear in print. One of the major contributions of the new edition is that it adds significant new information, heretofore unavailable in English, on Communist participation in the war in both the political and military realms. This is evident not only in the individual entries but also in a number of new documents provided and translated by Assistant Editor Merle Pribbenow. Unlike the first version, this new encyclopedia also has detailed introductions to the 225 documents. The encyclopedia traces the long history of Vietnam and details America’s involvement there, beginning in the 19th century. The encyclopedia also covers the period of French rule including the Indochina War, during which the seeds of America’s participation in the Vietnam conflict were sown. The encyclopedia contains entries on key individuals who fought in the war and who shaped American policy as well as those who were outspoken proponents and opponents of U.S. involvement; has detailed descriptions of battles and campaigns and of weapons systems, ground, sea, and air; and discusses the contributions of other nations in the conflict and details the antiwar movement in the United States and its impact on the conflict. In addition, the encyclopedia has articles on Vietnam War–related literature and film, a detailed chronology of events, an extensive bibliography of works on the war, and the most comprehensive Vietnam War order of battle ever to be published. I would be remiss without thanking these individuals who were of special assistance in the first iteration of the encyclopedia: Professor Michael R. Nichols, then my graduate assistant at Texas Christian University (TCU) and now a professor at Tarrant County College, Texas; David Coffey, another TCU graduate student who is currently chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin; Nguyen Cong Luan, a xxxi

xxxii

Preface

former Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) officer now residing in California; and Sandra Wittman, who is now retired but was then the head of library services at Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, Illinois. I am also most grateful to Shawn Livingston, MLIS, director of Information Service at the University of Kentucky Libraries, who has been able to answer many questions concerning reference citations. This new edition particularly benefits from the input of four key individuals. As always, my good right-hand and associate editor Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., a specialist in 20th-century American history, has helped solicit contributors, written a number of his own entries in addition to keeping track of all the contributions, and helped me edit the whole. This new edition benefits particularly from three extraordinarily knowledgeable individuals as assistant editors. Merle L. Pribbenow II is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Vietnamese specialist who served in Saigon during 1970–1975. Following his retirement from the CIA in 1995, Mr. Pribbenow has worked as an independent researcher and author specializing in the Vietnam War and as a translator of Vietnamese-language

source materials. He has published numerous articles on the Vietnam War, and his translation of the official Vietnamese history of the war was published in 2002 under the title Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lieutenant Colonel USA (Ret.) James H. Willbanks, PhD, is a retired army officer who served in Vietnam during 1971–1972 as an adviser with a South Vietnamese infantry division. The author of a number of books on the Vietnam War, he is the director of the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Major General AUS (Ret.) David T. Zabecki, PhD, served in Vietnam during 1967–1968 as a rifleman in the 9th Infantry Division. The author of numerous books of military history, he is editor emeritus of Vietnam Magazine and an honorary senior research fellow in war studies at the University of Birmingham in England. All three assistant editors read the entire manuscript and suggested numerous changes. All of us in the project have worked very hard to minimize mistakes. I take full responsibility for any that may appear. SPENCER C. TUCKER

General Maps

This page intentionally left blank

Map Key X

Generic Troops

Brigade III

Cavalry

Regiment II

Forces/Troops/Infantry

Battalion I

Armored

Company

Armored Cavalry

Fortification/Redoubts

Mechanized

Fort/Station/Military Base

Air Assault

Battery/Artillery

International Boundary

Palisade

Major Roads

City

Minefields/Landmines

State Capital

Battle Site

Capital (of country)

Railroad

Bridge/Pass

Army Group

Hills

Army

Military Camp

Corps

Swamp

Division

Surrender

XXXXX

XXXX

XXX

XX

xxxv

xxxvi

General Maps

General Maps

xxxvii

xxxviii

General Maps

General Maps

xxxix

xl

General Maps

Overview of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, or what the Vietnamese call the “American War,” grew out of the Indochina War (1946–1954). The 1954 Geneva Conference, which ended the Indochina War between France and the nationalist-Communist Viet Minh, provided for the independence of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Agreements reached at Geneva temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th Parallel, pending national elections in 1956. In the meantime, Viet Minh military forces were to withdraw north of that line and the French forces south of it. The war left two competing entities, the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the southern French-dominated State of Vietnam (SV), each claiming to be the legitimate government of a united Vietnam. In June 1954 SV titular head Emperor Bao Dai appointed as premier the Roman Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem, whom Bao Dai believed had Washington’s backing. Diem’s base of support was narrow but would soon be strengthened by the addition of some 800,000 northern Catholics who would relocate to southern Vietnam. In a subsequent power struggle between Bao Dai and Diem, in October 1955 Diem established the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), with himself as president. The United States then extended aid to Diem, most of which went to the South Vietnamese military budget. Only minor sums went to education and social welfare programs. Thus, the aid seldom touched the lives of the preponderantly rural populace. As Diem consolidated his power, U.S. military advisers also reorganized the South Vietnamese armed forces. Known as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and equipped with American weaponry, it was designed to fight a conventional invasion from North Vietnam rather than deal with countering the growing insurgency in South Vietnam. Fearing a loss, Diem refused to hold the scheduled 1956 elections. This jolted veteran Communist North Vietnamese leader

Ho Chi Minh. Ho had not been displeased with Diem’s crushing of his internal opposition but was now ready to reunite the country under his sway and believed that he would win the elections. North Vietnam was more populous than South Vietnam, and the Communists were well organized there. Fortified by the containment policy, the domino theory, and the belief that the Communists, if they came to power, would never permit a democratic regime, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration backed Diem’s defiance of the Geneva Accords. Diem’s decision led to a renewal of fighting, which became the Vietnam War. Fighting resumed in 1957 when Diem moved against the 6,000–7,000 Viet Minh political cadres who had been allowed to remain in South Vietnam to prepare for the 1956 elections. The former Viet Minh (now called Viet Cong [VC], for “Vietnamese Communists”) began the armed insurgency on their own initiative but were subsequently supported by the North Vietnamese government. In December 1960 the Viet Minh established the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). Supposedly independent, the NLF was controlled by Hanoi. The NLF program called for the overthrow of the Saigon government, its replacement by a “broad national democratic coalition,” and the “peaceful” reunification of Vietnam. In September 1959 North Vietnamese defense minister Vo Nguyen Giap established Transportation Group 559 to send supplies and men south along what came to be known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, much of which ran through supposedly neutral Laos and Cambodia. The first wave of infiltrators were native southerners and Viet Minh who had relocated to North Vietnam in 1954. VC sway expanded, spreading out from safe bases to one village after another. The insurgency was fed by the weaknesses of the central government, by the use of terror and assassination, and by xli

xlii

Overview of the Vietnam War

Saigon’s appalling ignorance of the movement. By the end of 1958 the insurgency had become a serious threat in several provinces. In 1960 the Communists carried out even more assassinations, and guerrilla units attacked ARVN regulars, overran district and provincial capitals, and ambushed convoys and reaction forces. By mid-1961, the Saigon government had lost control over much of rural South Vietnam. Infiltration was as yet not significant, and most of the insurgents’ weapons were either captured from ARVN forces or were left over from the war with France. Diem rejected American calls for meaningful reform until the establishment of full security. He did not understand that at that time the war was still primarily a political problem and could be solved only through political means. Diem, who practiced the divide-and-rule concept of leadership, increasingly delegated authority to his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and his secret police. Isolated from his people and relying only on trusted family members and a few other advisers, Diem resisted U.S. demands that he promote his senior officials and officers on the basis of ability and pursue the war aggressively. By now, U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s administration was forced to reevaluate its position toward the war, but increased U.S. involvement was inevitable, given Washington’s commitment to resist Communist expansion and the belief that all of Southeast Asia would become Communist if South Vietnam fell. Domestic political considerations also influenced the decision. In May 1961 Kennedy sent several fact-finding missions to Vietnam. These led to the creation of the Strategic Hamlet Program as part of a general strategy emphasizing local militia defense and to the commitment of additional U.S. manpower. By the end of 1961, U.S. strength in Vietnam had grown to around 3,200 men, most in helicopter units or serving as advisers. In February 1962 the United States also established a military headquarters in Saigon, when the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) was replaced by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), to direct the enlarged American commitment. The infusion of U.S. helicopters and additional support for the ARVN probably prevented a VC military victory in 1962. The VC soon learned to cope with the helicopters, however, and with the increased flow of infiltrators and weapons from North Vietnam, the tide of battle turned again. Meanwhile, Nhu’s crackdown on the Buddhists in the spring and summer of 1963 led to increased opposition to Diem’s rule. South Vietnamese generals now planned a coup, and after Diem rejected reforms, the United States gave the plotters tacit support. On November 1, 1963, the generals overthrew Diem, murdering both him and Nhu. Three weeks later Kennedy was also dead, succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson. The United States seemed unable to win the war either with or without Diem. A military junta now took power, but none of the South Vietnamese leaders who followed Diem had his prestige. Coups and countercoups occurred, and much of South Vietnam remained in turmoil. Not until General Nguyen Van Thieu became president in 1967 was there a degree of political stability.

Both sides steadily increased the stakes, apparently without foreseeing that the other might do the same. In 1964 Hanoi made two important decisions. The first was to send to South Vietnam units of its regular army, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). The second was to rearm its forces in South Vietnam with modern Communist-bloc weapons, giving them a firepower advantage over the ARVN, which was still equipped largely with World War II–era U.S. infantry weapons (up until this time, because the Hanoi leadership was trying to conceal its involvement in the insurgency in South Vietnam, most of the weapons being sent down from North Vietnam had been older weapons of Western manufacture). On August 2, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the U.S. destroyer Maddox in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack on the Maddox and another U.S. destroyer, the Turner Joy, that was reported two days later probably never occurred, but Washington believed that it had, and this led the Johnson administration to order retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnamese naval bases and fuel depots. It also led to a near-unanimous vote in Congress for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing the president to use whatever force he deemed necessary to protect U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. Johnson would not break off U.S. involvement in Vietnam, evidently fearing possible impeachment if he did so. At the same time, he refused to make the tough decision of fully mobilizing the country and committing the resources necessary to win, concerned that this would destroy his cherished Great Society social programs. He also feared a widened war, possibly involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC). By 1965 Ho and his generals expected to win the war. Taking their cue from Johnson’s own pronouncements to the American people, they mistakenly believed that Washington would not commit ground troops to the fight. Yet Johnson did just that. Faced with Hanoi’s escalation, in March 1965 U.S. marines arrived to protect the large American air base at Da Nang. A direct attack on U.S. advisers at Pleiku in February 1965 also led to a U.S. air campaign against North Vietnam. Ultimately more than 2.5 million Americans served in Vietnam, and nearly 58,000 of them died there. At the height of the Vietnam War, Washington was spending $30 billion per year on the war. Although the conflict was the best-covered war in American history (it became known as the first television war), it was conversely the least understood by the American people. Johnson hoped to win the war on the cheap, relying heavily on airpower to inflict pain on North Vietnam and frighten the Communist leaders in Hanoi into halting their support for the war in South Vietnam. Johnson’s goal was to hold down American casualties but also to secure the support of the Republican Party for his domestic Great Society program. Under the code name Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing of North Vietnam, which was paralleled by Operation BARREL ROLL, the secret bombing of Laos

Overview of the Vietnam War

A U.S. Navy McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II of Fighter Squadron 3 from the aircraft carrier Coral Sea drops bombs on North Vietnam. (National Museum of Naval Aviation)

(which became the most heavily bombed country in the history of warfare), the air campaign would be pursued in varying degrees of intensity over the next three and a half years. Its goals were to force Hanoi to negotiate peace and to halt infiltration into South Vietnam. During the war, the United States dropped more bombs on Indochina than it had on the Axis powers in all of World War II, but the campaign failed in both its objectives. In the air war, Johnson decided on graduated response rather than the massive strikes advocated by the military. Gradualism became the grand strategy employed by the United States in Vietnam. Haunted by the Chinese intervention in the Korean War, at no time would Johnson consider an invasion of North Vietnam, fearful of provoking a Chinese reaction. By May and June 1965, with PAVN forces regularly destroying ARVN units, MACV commander General William Westmoreland appealed for U.S. ground units, which Johnson committed. PAVN regiments appeared ready to launch an offensive in the rugged Central Highlands and then drive to the sea, splitting South Vietnam in two. Westmoreland mounted a spoiling attack, with the recently arrived 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) formed around some 450 helicopters. During October–November 1965 the 1st Cavalry Division won one of the war’s rare clear-cut victories in the Battle of Ia Drang and may have derailed Hanoi’s plan of winning a decisive victory before full American might could be deployed. Hanoi, however, took encouragement from the heavy casualties that the 1st Cav-

xliii

alry Division had suffered during this battle (230 U.S. troops were killed during the four-day battle, with 155 Americans killed during a single afternoon). To Hanoi, these casualty figures meant that in spite of tremendous U.S. superiority in firepower and mobility, Communist troops were capable of inflicting sufficient casualties on U.S. forces to weaken America’s resolve and ultimately force the United States to give up the effort in South Vietnam. Heavy personnel losses on the battlefield, while regrettable, were entirely acceptable to the North Vietnamese leadership. Ho remarked at one point that North Vietnam could absorb an unfavorable loss ratio of 10 to 1 and still win the war. Washington never understood this and continued to view the war through its own lens of what would be unacceptable in terms of casualties. From 1966 on the Vietnam War was an escalating strategic stalemate, as Westmoreland requested increasing numbers of men from Washington. By the end of 1966 U.S. troop strength in Vietnam had reached 385,000. In 1968 U.S. strength was more than 500,000 men. Johnson also secured some 60,000 troops from other nations—most of them from the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and Thailand—surpassing the 39,000-man international coalition of the Korean War. Terrain was not judged important. The goals were to protect the population and kill the enemy, with success measured in terms of body counts that, in turn, led to abuses. During 1966 MACV mounted 18 major operations, each resulting in more than 500 PAVN or VC troops supposedly verified dead. Fifty thousand enemy combatants were supposedly killed in 1966. By the beginning of 1967, the PAVN and VC had 300,000 men versus 625,000 ARVN and 400,000 Americans. Hanoi, meanwhile, had reached a point of decision, with casualties exceeding available replacements. Instead of scaling back, North Vietnam prepared a major offensive that would employ all available troops to secure a quick victory. Hanoi believed that a major military defeat for the United States would end its political will to continue. Hanoi now prepared a series of peripheral attacks at Con Thien, Song Be, Dak To, and Loc Ninh, followed in January 1968 by the start of a modified siege of some 6,000 U.S. marines at Khe Sanh near the demilitarized zone (DMZ). With U.S. attention riveted on Khe Sanh, Hanoi planned a massive offensive to occur during Tet, the lunar new year holiday, called the General Offensive–General Uprising. The North Vietnamese government believed that this massive offensive would lead people in South Vietnam to rise up and overthrow the South Vietnamese government, bringing an American withdrawal. The attacks were mounted against the cities and key military installations. In a major intelligence failure, U.S. and South Vietnamese officials misread both the timing and the strength of the attack, finding it inconceivable that the attack would come during the sacred Tet holiday because this would mean that the Communists were sacrificing the goodwill of the South Vietnamese public. Both the Americans and the South Vietnamese had forgotten that there was a precedent in Vietnamese

xliv

Overview of the Vietnam War

history for such an attack; one of Vietnam’s most renowned emperors had won a decisive victory over an invading Chinese army with a surprise attack during the Tet holiday in 1798. The Tet Offensive began in full force on January 31 and ended on February 24, 1968. Poor communication and coordination plagued Hanoi’s plans. Attacks against several provinces and cities in the northern part of South Vietnam occurred a day early, alerting the U.S. command. The following night, Communist forces mounted simultaneous attacks against 40 cities and province capitals throughout South Vietnam, including the South Vietnamese capital city of Saigon. Hue, Vietnam’s former imperial capital, was especially hard hit. Fighting there lasted for three weeks and destroyed half the city. Hanoi’s plan failed. ARVN forces generally fought well, and the people of South Vietnam did not support the attackers. In Hue the Communists executed 3,000 people, and news of this caused many South Vietnamese to rally to the South Vietnamese government. Half of the 85,000 VC and PAVN soldiers who took part in the of-

fensive were killed or captured. It was the worst military setback for North Vietnam in the war. Paradoxically, the Tet Offensive was also North Vietnam’s most resounding victory, in part because the Johnson administration and Westmoreland had trumpeted prior allied successes. The intensity of the fighting came as a profound shock to the American people. Disillusioned and despite the victory, they turned against the war. At the end of March, Johnson announced a partial cessation of bombing and withdrew from the November presidential election. Hanoi persisted, however. In the first six months of 1968, Communist forces sustained more than 100,000 casualties, and the VC was virtually wiped out. In the same period, 20,000 allied troops died. All sides now opted for talks in Paris in an effort to negotiate an end to the war. American disillusionment with the war was a key factor in Republican Richard Nixon’s razor-thin victory over Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the November 1968 presidential election. With no

Men of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, rest alongside a battered wall of the Imperial Palace in Hue while fighting for the Citadel during the Tet Offensive, February 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Overview of the Vietnam War plan of his own, Nixon embraced Vietnamization, actually begun under Johnson. This turned over more of the war to the ARVN, and U.S. troop withdrawals began. Peak U.S. strength of 543,400 men occurred in April 1969. There were 475,000 men by the end of the year, 335,000 by the end of 1970, and 157,000 at the end of 1971. Massive amounts of equipment were turned over to the ARVN, including 1 million M-16 rifles and sufficient aircraft to make the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) the world’s fourth largest. Extensive retraining of the ARVN was begun, and training schools were established. The controversial counterinsurgency Phoenix Program also operated against the VC infrastructure, reducing the insurgency by 67,000 people between 1968 and 1971, but PAVN forces remained secure in sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. Nixon’s policy was to limit outside assistance to Hanoi and pressure the North Vietnamese government to end the war. For years, American and South Vietnamese military leaders had sought approval to attack the sanctuaries. In March 1970 a coup in Cambodia ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk. General Lon Nol replaced him, and President Nixon ordered U.S.-ARVN combined operations against the PAVN Cambodian sanctuaries. Over a two-month span there were 12 cross-border operations, collectively known as the Cambodian Incursion. Despite widespread opposition in the United States to the widened war, the incursions raised the allies’ morale, allowed U.S. withdrawals to continue on schedule, and purchased additional time for Vietnamization. PAVN forces now concentrated on bases in southern Laos and on enlarging the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In the spring of 1971 ARVN forces mounted a major invasion into southern Laos, known as Operation LAM SON 719. There were no U.S. advisers, and ARVN units took heavy casualties. The operation may have set back Hanoi’s plans to invade South Vietnam but took a great toll on the ARVN’s younger officers and pointed out serious command weaknesses. Shrugging off its own losses, the PAVN was encouraged by the performance of its main-force troops against some of ARVN’s finest fighting units and massive U.S. air support, and this helped to solidify PAVN plans for an all-out offensive the following year. By 1972 PAVN forces had recovered and had been substantially strengthened with new weapons, including heavy artillery and tanks, from the Soviet Union. The PAVN now mounted a major conventional invasion of South Vietnam. Hanoi believed that the United States would not be able to reintervene with ground troops and that PAVN forces were capable of destroying ARVN in a headto-head battle. PAVN general Vo Nguyen Giap had 15 divisions. He left only 1 in North Vietnam and 2 in Laos and committed the remaining 12 to the invasion. The attack began on Good Friday, March 30, 1972. Known as the Spring Offensive or the Easter Offensive, it began with a direct armor strike southward across the DMZ at the 17th Parallel, surprising the South Vietnamese, whose defenses were oriented against an attack from the west, out of Laos, and who had assigned

xlv

a newly formed and inexperienced division to man their critical northern defense line. Allied intelligence misread the invasion’s scale and its precise timing. Giap risked catastrophic losses but hoped for a quick victory before ARVN forces could recover. At first it appeared that the PAVN would be successful. Quang Tri fell after a month of fighting, and bad weather initially limited the effectiveness of airpower. However, at Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese forces held out against repeated PAVN attacks. In April, President Nixon authorized B-52 bomber strikes on Hanoi and North Vietnam’s principal port of Haiphong, and in early May he approved the mining of Haiphong’s harbor. This new air campaign was dubbed LINEBACKER I and involved the use of new precision-guided munitions (so-called smart bombs). The bombing cut off much of the supplies for the invading PAVN forces. Allied aircraft also destroyed 400–500 PAVN tanks. In June and July the ARVN counterattacked. The invasion cost Hanoi half its force—some 100,000 men reportedly died—while ARVN losses were only 25,000. With both Soviet and Chinese leaders anxious for better relations with the United States in order to obtain Western technology and with their forces on the front lines beginning to lose the territory that they had taken during the early days of the invasion, Hanoi gave way and switched to negotiations. Finally in October an agreement was hammered out in Paris, but South Vietnamese president Thieu balked and refused to sign, whereupon Hanoi made the agreements public. A furious Nixon blamed both Hanoi and Saigon for the impasse. In December he ordered a resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam and at the same time issued a stern warning to Thieu to drop his opposition to the peace agreement. The bombing of North Vietnam, the principal element of which was the use of concentrated B-52 strikes against Hanoi, Haiphong, and other key targets in the Red River Delta, was dubbed LINEBACKER II but was also known as the December Bombings and the Christmas Bombings. Although 15 B-52s were lost during the two-week campaign, by the end Hanoi had fired away virtually its entire stock of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and now agreed to resume talks. After a few cosmetic changes, an agreement was signed on January 23, 1973, with Nixon forcing Thieu to agree or risk the end of all U.S. aid. The United States recovered its prisoners of war and departed Vietnam, leaving the South Vietnamese alone to face the PAVN. Following the signing of the peace agreement and especially as the growing Watergate crisis weakened President Nixon’s hand, the U.S. Congress steadily reduced the budget for aid to South Vietnam. Tanks and planes were not replaced on the promised onefor-one basis as they were lost, and ammunition, spare parts, and fuel were all in short supply. All of this had a devastating effect on ARVN morale. In South Vietnam both sides violated the cease-fire, and fighting steadily increased in intensity. In January 1975 Communist forces attacked and quickly seized Phuoc Long Province on the Cambodian border north of Saigon. Washington took no action.

xlvi

Overview of the Vietnam War In March the Communists took Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands, and in mid-March President Thieu decided to try to preserve his forces by abandoning much of the northern half of South Vietnam. Thieu issued his order to his top generals in total secrecy without informing the United States and with no prior planning or preparation. Confusion led to disorder and then disaster; six weeks later PAVN forces controlled all of South Vietnam. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, to be renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam was now reunited but under a Communist government. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese—soldiers and civilians—had died in the struggle. Much of the country was devastated by the fighting, the economies of both North Vietnam and South Vietnam were in shambles, and Vietnam suffered from the effects of the widespread use of chemical defoliants. The effects were also profound in the United States. The American military was shattered by the war and had to be rebuilt. Inflation was rampant from the failure to face up to the true costs of the war. Many questioned U.S. willingness to embark on such a crusade again, at least to go it alone. In this sense, the war forced Washington into a more realistic appraisal of U.S. power. SPENCER C. TUCKER

A U.S. civilian pilot tries to maintain order as panicked Vietnamese civilians scramble to get aboard an aircraft during the evacuation of Nha Trang on April 1, 1975. Thousands of civilians and soldiers fought for space on aircraft to Saigon as Communist forces advanced on the city following the fall of Qui Nhon to the north. (AP/Wide World Photos)

References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam, 1945–1975. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954–1980. Rev. ed. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

A ABILENE,

Operation

Start Date: March 30, 1966 End Date: April 15, 1966 U.S. Army military operation conducted from March 30 to April 15, 1966. The 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) in Vietnam named many of its operations—such as ABILENE, JUNCTION CITY, and MANHATTAN—after familiar landmarks near their home station at Fort Riley, Kansas. Operation ABILENE involved the 2nd and 3rd brigades of the division, reinforced by the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment and Number 161 Battery Royal New Zealand Artillery, in a search-and-destroy operation 40 miles east of Saigon in Phuoc Tuy and Long Khanh provinces. On April 11 about 10 miles south of Cam My village, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (nicknamed the “Rangers”), of Colonel Albert E. Milloy’s 2nd Brigade initiated a pitched battle against the well-trained D800 main-force Viet Cong (VC) battalion (the D800 Battalion was also known as the 1st Battalion/4th Regiment/VC 5th Division). The Americans killed five VC soldiers and then pursued the fleeing survivors toward Cam My village in heavy jungle growth, not realizing that the VC platoon was falling back on its battalion base. Near the end of the afternoon, the VC battalion reacted with heavy mortar and automatic weapons fire. The VC mounted three successive human-wave assaults against Charlie Company’s defensive positions during the night. According to an official Vietnamese Communist unit history, by the end of the afternoon all three battalions of the VC 4th Regiment/5th Division had become involved in the assaults on the American position. Rifle platoon team leader Sergeant James W. Robinson received the Medal of Honor posthumously for conspicuous heroism in this action, as he charged and destroyed a VC heavy machine-gun em-

placement with only hand grenades. Many other members of the company were also cited for bravery. On the morning of April 12, Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters brought in engineers to chop a landing zone out of the jungle and medics to treat the many wounded soldiers. Charlie Company was then evacuated by helicopter to the 2nd Brigade’s operational base at Ben Cat, situated to the north along National Highway 15. Company B had reached the battle area before dawn and linked up at 7:15 a.m. Other brigade units continued to search for the VC but without further major contacts. Charlie Company’s battle was the significant action of Operation ABILENE. It cost the Viet Cong 41 dead and perhaps another 100 dead or wounded who were not found. Postwar Vietnamese histories admit that their forces suffered heavy casualties in this battle, including more than 80 dead or wounded personnel who were transported back to the rear. The Americans lost 36 killed and 71 wounded from a company team of 134 men that had taken the field the day before. During the balance of Operation ABILENE, U.S. forces killed another 40 VC soldiers, captured a number of supply caches, and destroyed more than 50 bases. The allied forces had penetrated a major Viet Cong sanctuary, but the jungle still belonged to the Communists. George C. Wilson, who described the unit and the battle in Mud Soldiers (1989), reported that after Charlie Company’s costly battle, U.S. Army chief of staff General Harold K. Johnson flew to Vietnam and told 1st Infantry Division commander Major General William E. DePuy that the American people would stop supporting the war if such high casualties continued. Battle casualties continued to increase, but the end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam was still seven years in the future. JOHN F. VOTAW

2

Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.

See also DePuy, William Eugene; Johnson, Harold Keith; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Search and Destroy; United States Army References Haldane, Robert, ed. The First Infantry Division in Vietnam, 1965–1970. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1993. Ho Son Dai, Lieutenant Colonel, and Major Nguyen Van Hung. Lich Su Su Doan 5. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1995. Wheeler, James Scott. The Big Red One. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. Wilson, George C. Mud Soldiers: Life Inside the New American Army. New York: Collier Books, 1989.

Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr. Birth Date: September 15, 1914 Death Date: September 4, 1974 U.S. Army general; commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), during 1968–1972; and celebrated combat leader. Born on September 15, 1914, in Springfield, Massachusetts, Creighton Williams Abrams Jr. grew up in a family of modest means in the semirural setting of nearby Agawam. Graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1936, Abrams was posted to the famous 7th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Bliss, Texas. When World War II loomed he volunteered for armored service, finding there a mode of warfare entirely congenial to his own hard-driving and imaginative style of leadership. Abrams rose to professional prominence as commander of a tank battalion that often spearheaded General George Patton’s Third Army during World War II. Abrams led the forces that punched through German lines to relieve the encircled 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, earned two Distinguished Service Crosses and many other decorations, and received a battlefield promotion to full colonel. He inspired General Patton to say that “I’m supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army, but I have one peer—Abe Abrams. He’s the world’s champion.” After World War II Abrams served as director of tactics at the Armor School, Fort Knox (1946–1948); graduated from the Command and General Staff College (1949); and was a corps chief of staff at the end of the Korean War (1953–1954). He graduated from the Army War College in 1953 and then was promoted to brigadier general in 1956 and major general in 1960. Abrams held a variety of staff assignments during this period, and from 1960 to 1962 he commanded the 3rd Armored Division. In 1963 he was promoted to lieutenant general and was made commander of V Corps in Germany. When American involvement in Vietnam intensified, in mid-1964 Abrams was recalled from Germany, promoted to full (four-star) general from far down the list of lieutenant generals, and made the army’s vice chief of staff. In that assignment during 1964–1967 he was deeply involved in the army’s troop buildup, a task made infinitely more difficult by President Lyndon Johnson’s

refusal to call up reserve forces. In tandem with U.S. Army chief of staff General Harold K. Johnson, with whom he shared a set of professional values rooted in integrity and concern for the soldier, Abrams made an effective steward of the army’s affairs. In May 1967 Abrams was assigned to Vietnam as deputy commander of MACV. In that position he devoted himself primarily to the improvement of South Vietnamese armed forces, crisscrossing the country to see firsthand what units and commanders were doing and what they needed in the way of training, support, and guidance. When during the 1968 Tet Offensive the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces gave a far better account of themselves than was expected, Abrams rightly received much of the credit. Soon after the beginning of the Tet Offensive, Abrams was sent north to Phu Bai to take command of fighting in I Corps. Operating out of a newly established headquarters designated MACV Forward, Abrams concentrated on the battle to retake Hue, forming in the process a close relationship with ARVN general Ngo Quang Truong, commander of the ARVN 1st Division. Abrams coordinated the efforts of a growing assortment of U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps elements and ARVN forces while working to improve the logistical system.

U.S. Army general Creighton W. Abrams Jr. (1914–1974) was deputy commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), during 1967–1968 and its commander during 1968–1972. As chief of staff of the army from 1972 to 1974, Abrams worked to rebuild the army and laid the foundation for its later success. (Herbert Elmer Abrams/ Center for Military History)

Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr. After a month of hard fighting, Truong’s forces cleared Hue and raised the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) flag over the Citadel. Truong praised Abrams for knowing exactly what his forces were doing and supplying them with what was necessary if they aggressively accomplished their mission. Soon it was announced that Abrams would assume the top job in Vietnam. General Abrams formally assumed command of MACV on July 3, 1968, having been in de facto command since shortly after the Tet Offensive. As commander of MACV, Abrams changed the conduct of the war in fundamental ways. His predecessor’s attrition strategy, search-and-destroy tactics, and reliance on body count as the measure of merit were discarded. “Body count,” Abrams said, “is really a long way from what’s involved in this war. Yeah, you have to do that, I know that, but the mistake is to think that that’s the central issue.” Instead Abrams stressed population security as the key to success. He directed a one-war approach, pulling together combat operations, pacification, and upgrading South Vietnamese forces into a coherent whole. “In the whole picture of the war,” he observed, “battles really don’t mean much.” Under Abrams, combat operations had as their ultimate objective providing security for the population so that pacification, the most important thing, could progress. “That’s where the battle ultimately is won,” he said. Abrams was a consummate tactician who proved to have a feel for this kind of war. He urged his commanders to reduce drastically so-called H&I (harassment and interdiction) fires, unobserved artillery fire that he thought did little damage to the enemy and a good deal of damage to innocent villagers. He also cut back on the multibattalion sweeps that gave Communist forces the choice of terrain, time, and duration of engagement. He replaced these with multiple small-unit patrols and ambushes that blocked the enemy’s access to the people, interdicting their movement of forces and supplies. Abrams’s analysis of the enemy system was key to this approach. He had observed that to function effectively the enemy needed to prepare the battlefield extensively, pushing forward a logistics nose instead of being sustained by a logistics tail, as in common military practice. This meant that many enemy attacks could be preempted if their supply caches could be discovered and captured or destroyed. Abrams also discerned that Communist main forces depended heavily on guerrillas and the Viet Cong (VC) infrastructure in the hamlets and villages, not the other way around, and that digging out that infrastructure could deprive the main forces of the guides, bearers, intelligence, locally procured food and supplies, and other elements that they needed to function effectively. These insights were key to revising the tactics of the war. By April 1970 Abrams’s staff had developed a briefing titled “The Changing Nature of the War.” Change had been under way since Tet 1968, said the study: “Although shifts in the level of violence, type of military operations, and size and location of forces involved are characteristics of this change, the allied realization that the war was basically a political contest has, thus far, been

3

decisive.” The significant aspect was what Abrams had done about acting on that realization. “For the first time in the war,” said the analysis, “the enemy’s traditional bases of power are being directly challenged—his political organization and his control of the population.” That, it appeared, was where the outcome of the war would be decided, because “both sides are finally fighting the same war.” Abrams’s force of personality and strength of character were, during his years in command, at the heart of the American effort in Vietnam. Over the course of the years his army was progressively taken away from him, withdrawn chunk by chunk until he was in a symbolic sense almost the last man left. Still, Abrams did what he could to inspire, encourage, and support the remaining forces, American and Vietnamese alike. A diplomat, observing the skill with which Abrams orchestrated the complex endeavor, once remarked that he “deserved a better war.” That wasn’t the way Abrams looked at it, recalled his eldest son: “He thought the Vietnamese were worth it.” Abrams left Vietnam in June 1972 to become army chief of staff. In that position he set about dealing with the myriad problems of an army that had been through a devastating ordeal. He concentrated on readiness and on the well-being of the soldier, always the touchstones of his professional concern. Stricken with cancer, Abrams died in office on September 4, 1974. However, he had set a course of reform and rebuilding that General John W. Vessey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), later recalled: “When Americans watched the stunning success of our armed forces in DESERT STORM, they were watching the Abrams vision in action. The modern equipment, the effective air support, the use of the reserve components and, most important of all, the advanced training which taught our people how to stay alive on the battlefield were all seeds planted by Abe.” LEWIS SORLEY See also Body Count; Clear and Hold; Hue, Battle of; Johnson, Harold Keith; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Ngo Quang Truong; Provincial Reconnaissance Units; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamization References Buckley, Kevin. “General Abrams Deserves a Better War.” New York Times Magazine, October 5, 1969. Colby, William, with James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1999. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

4

Abzug, Bella

Abzug, Bella Birth Date: July 24, 1920 Death Date: March 31, 1998 Attorney, U.S. congresswoman (1971–1977), and leader in the Civil Rights, antiwar, women’s rights, and environmental movements. Bella Abzug was born Bella Savitsky to poor Russian immigrant parents in Bronx, New York, on July 24, 1920. Her admirers have jokingly claimed that she was born “yelling.” Certainly her indomitable spirit manifested itself at an early age, when she began to challenge the status quo in her synagogue and school. Her father died when she was 13 years old, and at that point in her life she defied Jewish tradition—and her rabbi—by insisting that she say kaddish, or special prayers for the departed, even though tradition prohibited her from doing so. She asserted that because her father did not have a son, she was the one who should offer the prayers. Savitsky graduated from Hunter College (New York) in 1942, and after defiantly applying to Harvard Law School, which at the time did not admit women, she received a scholarship to Columbia University, from which she earned a law degree in 1945. A brilliant student, she married Martin Abzug that same year and passed the New York bar exam in 1947. Her lengthy legal career centered on labor law and civil rights and liberties, and she handled a number of civil rights cases in the South during the 1950s and 1960s. Her law career was remarkable, not least of all because very few women became attorneys in the 1940s and 1950s. Although she did not attain elective office until 1970, Abzug was very much in the vanguard of American politics and political causes in the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, she was one of the few lawyers willing to stand up against the excesses of McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 1950s. During the next decade she cofounded and led Women Strike for Peace, an organization dedicated to ending nuclear testing, curbing the nuclear arms race, and bringing to a close American involvement in the Vietnam War. In the meantime, Abzug continued to work for the civil rights agenda and women’s rights. She also became a prominent voice in the anti–Vietnam War movement. Disgusted with the Lyndon Johnson administration’s war policies, she actively campaigned for Democratic senator Eugene McCarthy for president in 1968. By this time Abzug was already noted for her seemingly endless array of colorful and sometimes overwrought hats, which became her trademark. In 1970 Abzug ran for a U.S. congressional seat as a Democrat and won. She was the first female of Jewish heritage to serve in the House of Representatives. She served three full terms, during which she lambasted the Richard Nixon administration for its continuation of the Vietnam War, excoriated Republican economic policy, and introduced or cosponsored numerous landmark legislative initiatives. Her outspoken brashness reportedly earned her a high spot on Nixon’s infamous “enemies list” in the early 1970s. Before long, her congressional colleagues were referring to her as “Battling Bella” and “Hurricane Bella.” Indeed, on her first day in

Congress she introduced a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. In 1974 Abzug introduced the first gay rights bill in Congress. She also actively advocated a feminist agenda, which included ardent backing of the Equal Rights Amendment. When the Watergate Scandal became public in 1973, Abzug was the first in Congress to call for Nixon’s impeachment. In 1976 Abzug lost a Democratic primary to become a New York state U.S. senator by the narrowest of margins to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She left Congress in January 1977. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York that same year but continued her advocacy of civil rights, women’s rights, and increased economic opportunity. Two other attempts to regain a seat in the U.S. House, once in 1978 and again in 1986, ended in failure. In the late 1970s she headed the Jimmy Carter administration’s National Advisory Committee on Women until she was asked to step down in 1979 after she criticized Carter’s economic policies. Later that same year Abzug founded Women USA, a nonprofit women’s advocacy group that counted among its leadership many of the illuminati of the women’s movement, including Gloria Steinem. In the meantime, Abzug continued to practice law, gave many speeches and talks, took a key role in the International Women’s Conferences sponsored by the United Nations (UN), and published numerous articles, books, and opinion pieces. In 1990 she established the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), an international association that wedded environmental activism and women’s rights. In her later years her health declined precipitously due to a bout with breast cancer and then heart failure. Abzug, one of the great liberal voices of the post–World War II era, died in New York on March 31, 1998. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Women Strike for Peace References Abzug, Bella. Bella! Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972. Faber, Doris. Bella Abzug. New York: William Morrow, 1976. Levine, Suzanne Braun, and Mary Thom. Bella Abzug. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Acheson, Dean Gooderham Birth Date: April 11, 1893 Death Date: October 12, 1971 U.S. lawyer, diplomat, secretary of state (1949–1953), and frequent presidential adviser. Born on April 11, 1893, in Middletown, Connecticut, Dean Gooderham Acheson graduated from Yale University in 1915 and Harvard University Law School in 1918. He served in the U.S. Navy in 1918 and as private secretary

Acheson, Dean Gooderham

Dean G. Acheson was U.S. secretary of state during 1949–1953. President Harry S. Truman’s principal foreign policy adviser during the Korean War, he also helped set U.S. policy toward Indochina in this critical period. (Harry S. Truman Presidential Library)

to U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis D. Brandeis from 1919 to 1921. Acheson then joined a law firm, where he remained until he reentered government service in 1933 as undersecretary of the treasury and subsequently assistant secretary of state for economic affairs (1941–1944), where he managed the LendLease program and played a key role in creating several postwar international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, and the World Bank. He was an undersecretary of state from 1945 to 1947. He became President Harry S. Truman’s secretary of state in 1949. Truman and Acheson agreed that differences between the United States and the Soviet Union were so great that negotiations with the Soviets would be fruitless. The two men believed that the Soviets respected only power, so the task of the West was to maintain its strength and contain Soviet expansionism. This attitude was expressed most clearly in a top-secret report given to President Truman in April 1950, National Security Council Report 68 (NSC68), which anticipated continuing difficulty with communism and recommended that the United States maintain military superiority. NSC-68, which was championed by Acheson, envisioned a vast conventional and nuclear rearmament effort. Truman at first chose not to adopt the plan because of fiscal and political considerations. Meanwhile, the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization

5

(NATO), which Acheson had helped to create in 1949, had little military means at that point to check a Soviet incursion into Western Europe. Nevertheless, some Republicans charged that Democratic policies were too Eurocentric and slighted Asia, an attitude that intensified after the October 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War and Acheson’s speech before the National Press Club on January 12, 1950. Defining the U.S. “defense perimeter” in Asia as a line extending along the Aleutians to Japan and through the Ryukyu Islands to the Philippines, Acheson did not state specifically that the United States would not assist the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) if it was attacked. Critics, however, charged that his omission of South Korea from the defensive perimeter encouraged the invasion of South Korea by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) that June. Historians later proved this conclusion to be unfounded. The Korean War essentially vindicated Acheson’s hawkish policy vis-à-vis defense spending. By September 1950 Truman had reluctantly embraced NSC-68, and between 1950 and 1953 U.S. defense expenditures nearly quadrupled. The Korean War, however, proved unwinnable for the Democrats, and rising casualties set against a static war of attrition made Truman and Acheson very unpopular. Regarding Southeast Asia, Acheson, although critical of French colonialism, presumed that the Communist-led Vietnamese independence movement was dominated by China and the Soviet Union. He thus believed in what would later be termed the domino theory: that the collapse of Vietnam to communism would result in the fall of all of Southeast Asia. Thus, by the end of 1950 the United States was supporting the French effort in Vietnam with $100 million in aid in addition to military equipment. By 1952 U.S. aid to the French had doubled to $300 million per year; by 1954 it was more than $1 billion per year. Near the end of the Truman administration, in late 1952, Acheson tried unsuccessfully to convince Britain and France to join the United States in a program to develop and support an indigenous Vietnamese force to combat the Communist movement. In a significant way, the Korean War marked the commencement of growing U.S. involvement in Vietnam. After leaving office in January 1953, Acheson continued in an unofficial advisory role. He was one of the prominent figures known as the so-called Wise Men, a group of senior advisers who served Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, advising them on numerous foreign policy issues. In 1968 Acheson joined other Wise Men in advising Johnson to de-escalate the Vietnam War. Acheson died on October 12, 1971, in Sandy Spring, Maryland. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Ball, George Wildman; Bundy, McGeorge; Clifford, Clark McAdams; Containment Policy; Domino Theory; European Defense Community; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Rusk, David Dean; Truman, Harry S.

6

Adams, Edward

References Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department. New York: Norton, 1969. Brinkley, Douglas, ed. Dean Acheson and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993. McLellan, David S. Dean Acheson: The State Department Years. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976. Smith, Gaddis. Dean Acheson. New York: Cooper Square, 1972.

ACTIV See Army Concept Team in Vietnam

Adams, Edward Birth Date: June 12, 1933 Death Date: September 19, 2004 Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist who gained worldwide fame with his 1968 photograph showing a suspected Viet Cong (VC) infiltrator being shot in the head at point-blank range by Brigadier

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, director of the National Police of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Edward (“Eddie”) Adams was born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, on June 12, 1933. Becoming interested in photography while in high school, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served in the Korean War as a combat photographer. One of his assignments called upon him to photograph the entire length of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) along the 38th Parallel, a task that took him nearly six weeks to complete. Following the Korean War, Adams took a job with the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin newspaper and then joined the Associated Press (AP). After a brief stint with Time magazine, he rejoined the AP as a special correspondent. Adams usually focused on the human element of warfare, having covered 13 wars in a career that spanned some 45 years. His photos, he explained, were meant to tell a story and often zeroed in on the human suffering brought about by war. Having won an estimated 500 photojournalism awards over the course of his career, Adams became forever known as the photographer who captured the iconic execution of Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street on February 1, 1968. The black-and-white photograph, taken during the Tet Offensive, shows the VC prisoner, with his face toward the camera, grimacing as the police chief pulls the trigger of a handgun. Nguyen Ngoc Loan’s back is toward the cam-

Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams in the field near Da Nang, South Vietnam, June 1965. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Adams, Samuel A. era, but his face is easily recognizable because it is turned toward the prisoner as he shoots him. The photo earned Adams a Pulitzer Prize in 1969. The photo also served to further galvanize antiwar passions in the United States and around the world. Much to the chagrin of Adams, many interpreted the photo as more proof that the U.S. presence in Vietnam had run amok and that the South Vietnamese regime was a heavy-handed bloodthirsty government with little regard for human rights. The picture, without an accompanying explanation of the circumstances surrounding it, would appear to be a grisly and random execution. However, as Adams pointed out, the picture was taken while Saigon was under siege by the VC during the infamous Tet Offensive. After Adams shot the picture, General Nguyen explained to Adams that the man he had shot was a VC infiltrator who had just shot and killed a friend of his—a South Vietnamese colonel— along with his wife and six children. Adams, who had no reason to disbelieve this story, spent the remainder of his life defending the action taken by Nguyen. Indeed, it may not be an exaggeration to say that Adams regretted having shot the picture. Adams later apologized for the negative publicity his photograph had engendered for Nguyen and his family. In the mid-1970s Adams began to concentrate on the plight of the Vietnamese boat people fleeing their homeland in the aftermath of the takeover of South Vietnam by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in 1975. One photo, which he captured as a small boat packed with Vietnamese refugees tried to make it to the Thai coast, showed petrified women and children clinging to one another after they had been robbed by pirates and turned away by Thai marines. Adams’s photos of the boat people ultimately helped to persuade the U.S. Congress and the Jimmy Carter administration to admit up to 200,000 Vietnamese refugees to the United States. Adams always said that he was most proud of the boat photos and that they, and not the execution scene, had made a real difference. Nevertheless, Adam’s Saigon street photo, along with Huynh Cong (Nick) Ut’s 1972 photo showing a young naked Vietnamese girl fleeing her just-napalmed village, remain the most iconic of the entire war. During the final 20 years of his life, Adams was a special correspondent for the weekly magazine Parade. Adams died in New York City on September 19, 2004, following a struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Media and the Vietnam War; Nguyen Ngoc Loan; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Ut, Nick References Appy, Christian G. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Viking, 2003. Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

7

Adams, Samuel A. Birth Date: June 14, 1934 Death Date: October 10, 1988 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst during the Vietnam War. Born outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 14, 1934, Samuel A. Adams attended St. Mark’s in Southampton, Massachusetts; Harvard University; and Harvard University Law School. After Adams joined the CIA in 1963, his duties included developing estimates of Viet Cong (VC) troop strengths in South Vietnam. Adams believed that U.S. officials conspired to conceal the actual number of VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) soldiers in South Vietnam from Congress and the American public to convey a favorable impression of the military situation in Vietnam, particularly during the period from 1967 to 1968. His first public articulation of this belief came in a May 1975 article in Harper’s Magazine. He noted that senior-level CIA personnel consistently rejected information that contradicted their presentation of the situation. Adams charged that this selfdelusion or “groupthink” led to misleading intelligence reports. He constructed his own estimates based on an analysis of captured documents and interviews with individuals in the field. Adams discovered high desertion rates among the VC and took these to be the result of poor morale. This coupled with casualty rates and other factors gave the impression of success of the allied forces. But agents in the field revealed that this was not the case. Adams compared notes about troop strengths in captured documents to intelligence figures already gathered. His findings indicated that U.S. estimates were much lower than those documented in captured Communist reports and directives. Thus, the desertion rate was high only when CIA troop strength projections were used. Adams brought these discrepancies to the attention of his superiors, but they rejected his conclusions. It was not until after the 1968 Tet Offensive that the various intelligence agencies reopened discussions of VC troop strength estimates. The problem was that acceptance of higher estimates implied greater American participation. Consequently, Adams found himself increasingly isolated within the CIA. This situation intensified after he and a colleague concluded that there were approximately 20,000 Communist agents within the South Vietnamese military and government. As a result, Adams was transferred to a Cambodian research post, where he found the same techniques of troop strength estimation. Adams argued strenuously for an upgrading of Communist troop strength estimates. He even charged that General William C. Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, might have been involved in a conspiracy to conceal true Communist troop strengths. Adams testified at the trial of Daniel Ellsberg in connection with the troop numbers controversy. Adams left the CIA in 1973. Upon publication of his account in Harper’s in 1975, he was denounced by former deputy director of the CIA Admiral Rufus Taylor, former

8

Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee

member of the Board of National Intelligence Estimates James C. Graham, and others. Adams’s position was then attacked as an intellectually arrogant and unjustified assault on those within the CIA who were working through proper channels to provide the best intelligence estimates. They insisted that there had been no “sell-out” by the CIA to the military. Adams’s work formed the basis for the 1982 CBS Television documentary The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, which accused General Westmoreland of ordering intelligence officers to manipulate enemy troop strengths to give the appearance of battlefield success. Westmoreland sued CBS, and the case was later settled out of court. Adams died on October 10, 1988, of an apparent heart attack at his home in Strafford, Vermont. His book concerning the affair was published posthumously in 1994. PAUL R. CAMACHO See also Central Intelligence Agency; Ellsberg, Daniel; Order of Battle Dispute; Westmoreland, William Childs References Adams, Sam. “Vietnam Cover-Up: Playing War with Numbers.” Harper’s Magazine (May 1975): 41–44, 62–73. Adams, Sam. War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth, 1994. Janis, Irving L. Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee Group of private citizens formed to provide awareness of U.S. military policies in Vietnam. In April 1972 a small group of New England–area activists and veterans opposed to the war in Vietnam formed to monitor, document, and publicize information on the mobilization of American forces to Southeast Asia. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dubbing themselves the Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee (AHMBC), they organized in the wake of increased bombing campaigns against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) by the Richard Nixon administration. The objective was to raise awareness of and expose renewed deployments of American forces to the region, as an indicator of the U.S. government’s determination and willingness to continue the war in support of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). As an outgrowth of the antiwar movement, the AHMBC worked jointly with other groups in collecting data, including Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), its parent organization, the GI Movement, and the GI Press Service, a Washington, D.C.–based publisher of an antiwar newspaper. Through an extensive network of antiwar servicemen and veterans groups operating throughout the United States and Asia, the AHMBC was able to reveal American military preparations for the war effort weeks in advance in an attempt to prevent such measures. Even more, the AHMBC often revealed the information to the media in advance of the government’s public acknowledgment

of the plans. Because of the efficiency and depth of this network, the AHMBC accurately determined within two weeks of its formation a major upcoming deployment of military personnel and materials scheduled for the war zone. This included the movement and operational preparations of numerous naval ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of servicemen. For the most part, the information was gathered by telephone through active-duty or civilian contacts at locations on or near military facilities, including restaurants, bookstores, and coffeehouses. In certain instances, the AHMBC was able to receive official recognition of its goals. On April 24, 1972, AHMBC representatives brought before the Cambridge, Massachusetts, City Council a motion demanding that the U.S. government cease any further expansion of the war, disclose the extent of the American commitment in Southeast Asia, and immediately withdraw all American troops from Vietnam. Accordingly, the Cambridge City Council passed a resolution calling for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia and the release of information detailing the scope of American involvement in the region. Needless to say, this resolution was not binding on the federal government. To some, the AHMBC’s actions amounted to treason that aided the enemy; to others, the AHMBC’s actions provided a valuable public service and a voice against the war. In spite of its short-lived existence, lasting less than a month, the AHMBC’s work demonstrated the declining morale among troops and waning global support, at home and abroad, for the war. STEPHEN R. SAGARRA See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Vietnam Veterans Against the War References Committee on Internal Security, United States Congress. Investigation of Attempts to Subvert the United States Armed Services: Hearings. 92nd Congress, 1st session. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972. Cortright, David. Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance during the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Rothrock, James. Divided We Fall: How Disunity Leads to Defeat. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

African Americans in the U.S. Military African Americans have served in every war waged by the United States. Throughout the nation’s history, African American soldiers, sailors, and marines have contributed conspicuously to America’s military efforts. From the American Civil War through

African Americans in the U.S. Military the Korean War, segregated African American units, usually officered by whites, performed in both combat and support capacities. In 1948 President Harry Truman ordered the military establishment to desegregate. Although the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force accomplished integration by 1950, the U.S. Army, with the vast majority of African American servicemen, did not achieve desegregation until shortly after the Korean War ended in 1953. The Vietnam War thus marked the first major combat deployment of an integrated military and the first time since the turn of the century that African American participation was actually encouraged. In 1962 President John F. Kennedy reactivated the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces. Chaired by attorney Gerhard Gesell and known as the Gesell Committee, the panel explored ways to draw qualified African Americans into military service. In 1964 African Americans represented approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population but less than 9 percent of the nation’s men in arms. The committee found uneven promotion, token integration, restricted opportunities in the National Guard and the Reserves, and discrimination on military bases and in surrounding communities as causes for low African American enlistment. Before the government could react to the committee’s report, the explosion of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia changed the problem. An expanded military, a discriminatory draft, and other government programs brought not only increased African American participation but also accusations of new forms of discrimination. U.S. involvement in Vietnam unfolded against the domestic backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, which had begun in earnest in the mid-1950s and accelerated rapidly in the early 1960s. From the outset the use, or alleged misuse, of African American troops in Vietnam brought charges of racism. Civil rights leaders and other critics, including the formidable civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., described the Vietnam conflict as racist: “a white man’s war, a black man’s fight.” King maintained that black youths represented a disproportionate share of early draftees and that African Americans faced a much greater chance of seeing combat. The draft did indeed pose a major concern. Selective Service regulations offered deferments for college attendance and a variety of essential civilian occupations that favored middle- and upperclass whites. The vast majority of draftees were poor, undereducated, and urban blue-collar workers or were unemployed. This reality struck hard in the African American community. Furthermore, African Americans were woefully underrepresented on local draft boards. In 1966 blacks accounted for slightly more than 1 percent of all draft board members, and seven state boards had no black representation at all. Project 100,000, a Great Society program launched in 1966, attempted to enhance the opportunities of underprivileged youths from poverty-stricken urban areas by offering more lenient military entrance requirements. The project largely failed. Although more than 350,000 men enlisted under Project 100,000 during the

9

An African American marine in the 1st Division on patrol south of Da Nang. U.S. involvement in Vietnam unfolded against the domestic backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement. From the outset, there were charges that African Americans faced a much greater chance of seeing combat. (National Archives)

remainder of the war, 41 percent were African American, and 40 percent drew combat assignments. Casualty rates among these soldiers were twice those of other entry categories. Few Project 100,000 inductees received training that would aid their military advancement or create better opportunities for civilian life. African Americans often did supply a disproportionate number of combat troops, a high percentage of whom had voluntarily enlisted. Although they made up less than 10 percent of American men in arms and about 13 percent of the U.S. population between 1961 and 1966, they accounted for almost 20 percent of all combat-related deaths in Vietnam during that period. In 1965 alone, African Americans represented almost one-fourth of the army’s killed in action. In 1968 African Americans, who made up roughly 12 percent of U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps total strengths, frequently contributed half the men in frontline combat units, especially in rifle squads and fire teams. Under heavy criticism, army and marine commanders worked to lessen black casualties after 1966, and by the end of the conflict African American combat deaths amounted to approximately 12 percent, more in line with national population figures. Final casualty estimates do not support the assertion that African Americans suffered disproportionate losses in Vietnam, but this in no way diminishes the fact that they bore a heavy share of the fighting burden, especially early in the conflict.

10

Agnew, Spiro Theodore

Destructive riots in Harlem in 1964, in the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965, and in Detroit in 1967 had negative effects on the military, but the widespread violent reaction to the April 1968 assassination of Dr. King brought the greatest racial turmoil to the armed forces. After that, racial strife, rarely an issue among combat units because of shared risk and responsibility, became most evident in rear areas and on domestic installations. At the naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), white sailors donned Ku Klux Klan–like outfits, burned crosses, and raised the Confederate flag. African American prisoners, many of whom were jailed for violent crimes, rioted at the U.S. Army stockade at Long Binh in South Vietnam; one white soldier was killed and several others were wounded during the upheaval, which spread over weeks. The marine base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and the army’s base at Fort Benning, Georgia, were among the important domestic posts to witness serious racial problems. African Americans played a major role in the Vietnam War and in the process changed the complexion of the U.S. armed forces. Contrary to popular impressions, a large proportion of African American servicemen were well-trained, highly motivated professionals; some 20 received the Medal of Honor, and several became general officers. Despite the likelihood of seeing hazardous duty, they reenlisted at substantially higher rates than whites. In 1964 blacks represented less than 9 percent of all U.S. armed forces; by 1976 they made up more than 15 percent of all men in arms. Much remained to be done. Although the percentage of African American officers doubled between 1964 and 1976, they still accounted for less than 4 percent of the total. DAVID COFFEY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Casualties; Civil Rights Movement; Desertion, U.S. and Communist; James, Daniel, Jr.; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Powell, Colin Luther; Project 100,000; Selective Service; Truman, Harry S.; United States Air Force; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy References Appy, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers & Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Binkin, Martin, Mark J. Eitelberg, et al. Blacks in the Military. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1982. Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Goff, Stanley, and Robert Sanders, with Clark Smith. Brothers: Black Soldiers in the Nam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982. Nalty, Bernard C. Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. New York: Free Press, 1986.

Agent Orange See Defoliation; Herbicides

Agnew, Spiro Theodore Birth Date: November 9, 1918 Death Date: September 17, 1996 Attorney, Republican politician, governor of Maryland (1967– 1969), and vice president of the United States (1969–1973). Born on November 9, 1918, in Baltimore, Maryland, Spiro Theodore Agnew attended Johns Hopkins University for three years and then the University of Baltimore, where he eventually earned a law degree in 1947. During World War II he was a U.S. Army captain and company commander, after which he entered law practice. He was recalled to service for a year during the Korean War (1950–1953). During the 1950s Agnew worked in several successful Republican campaigns, earning an appointment to the Baltimore Zoning Board of Appeals. From that post he rose to Baltimore County executive and finally, in 1966, was elected governor of Maryland. Two years later in a surprise to almost everyone, including Agnew, Republican standard-bearer Richard M. Nixon selected him as his vice presidential running mate. The Republicans won the 1968 presidential election by a narrow margin, and Vice President Agnew faithfully served as a battering ram for Nixon and the Republican Party, despite Agnew’s exclusion from the president’s inner circle. In speeches crafted by Patrick J. Buchanan and William Safire, Agnew frequently polarized the nation. He often attacked the media, which he accused of lacking neutrality and blamed for undermining the U.S. effort in Vietnam. In a speech on November 13, 1969, at Des Moines, Iowa, for example, he charged the media with consistently interfering with Nixon’s ability to communicate directly with the American people. Agnew maintained that the press should report the news without interpreting it so that the people might form their own opinions. He also held that network broadcasts on the war were inaccurate, intentionally misleading, and designed to criticize the armed forces and discourage American patriotism. Agnew maintained that network broadcasts were not entitled to First Amendment protection because the impact of television was different than that of print media. Perhaps his most famous line describing the press and antiwar activists, penned by Safire, was “nattering nabobs of negativism,” which soon found its way into the American vernacular. Agnew was also the Nixon administration’s point man on Vietnam, frequently attacking the student protest movement. Agnew concluded that educational pursuits on college campuses had been replaced by illicit drug use and anti-American activities that were injurious to the U.S. war effort. He blamed campus unrest on the intellectual community, which he referred to as “impudent snobs.” Agnew accused the media of encouraging student demonstrations by providing television coverage of them. As vice president, Agnew consistently favored any option that might win an outright victory in Vietnam. He endorsed the Cambodian Incursion, the blockade of Haiphong Harbor, and the De-

Agricultural Reform Tribunals

11

See also Amnesty; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Hardhats; Media and the Vietnam War; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Agnew, Spiro T. Go Quietly . . . or Else. New York: William Morrow, 1980. Cohen, Richard M., and Jules Witcover. A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. New York: Viking, 1974. Lucas, Jim Griffing. Agnew: Profile in Conflict. New York: Award, 1970.

Agricultural Reform Tribunals Start Date: 1953 End Date: 1956

Spiro T. Agnew was vice president of the United States in the Richard Nixon administration during 1969–1973. An outspoken critic of the media, Agnew resigned in October 1973 amid charges of bribery and tax evasion. (Library of Congress)

cember 1972 bombings of Hanoi. While on a second inspection tour of Asia in February 1973, he maintained that these actions helped bring about the January 1973 peace settlement. On this trip Agnew met in Saigon with President Nguyen Van Thieu to assure him that the United States would not abandon the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). On October 10, 1973, Agnew resigned the vice presidency following allegations of bribery and income tax evasion while he was governor of Maryland. In a negotiated settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, he pleaded no contest. Although Agnew maintained his innocence and blamed the press for persecuting him for his outspokenness on controversial issues, the deal plunged him into political obscurity and denied him the opportunity to become president after Nixon’s resignation less than a year later. After the State of Maryland disbarred Agnew in 1974, he pursued a second successful business career as a broker of international deals. In 1976 he published The Canfield Decision, a novel about a vice president destroyed by ambition. His 1980 memoir Go Quietly . . . or Else contended that he had accepted only campaign contributions, not bribes. Agnew died of leukemia in Ocean City, Maryland, on September 17, 1996. DALLAS COTHRUM

Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) land reform campaign. The December 1953 Land Reform Law called for the confiscation of the lands and property of almost the entire landlord class. Those who supported the Lao Dong Party (Workers Party, Communist Party) were compensated with government bonds but were permitted to keep only subsistence land. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh described it as a “peasant revolution, a class struggle in the countryside,” and explained that it would be tightly managed by the party as to timing, location, leadership, and “correct implementation.” As in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), advisers from which were plentiful in North Vietnam at that time, the North Vietnamese program was preceded by a rent-reduction program. During this phase cadre were trained, and selected poor peasants were led to believe that landlords were their enemy and that the party was their guide. Those successfully indoctrinated were called cot can and were expected to be the backbone of the land reform. The population was divided into five categories: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, and farm workers. Cadre and cot can teams surveyed village landholdings and brought those classified as landlords before peasant-struggle meetings, where they were denounced and sentenced. In 1955 these trials gave way to the more formal agricultural reform tribunals or people’s courts consisting of 6 to 10 members, drawn mostly from the cot can, that continued to denounce even greater numbers of landlords, about 25 percent of whom were labeled “despots.” The party had calculated that landlords made up 5 percent of the rural population, and the tribunals zealously fulfilled the quotas they had been given. Anxious to avoid indictment, many peasants trumped up charges against their neighbors. Anyone who worked for the French or had merely showed insufficient ardor for the Viet Minh might be a victim. Tens of thousands were executed, sent to forced labor camps, or starved to death. Despite a law that permitted appeal to the president for clemency, Ho pardoned no one. There are reports, however, of pardons arriving after the victims had been executed. Bureaucratic

12

Agroville Program

problems were blamed for this, and formal ceremonies were held to restore the victims’ party membership and/or citizenship. Exploitation of mass psychology was apparent in the preplanned Rectification of Errors campaign, during which 12,000 victims were released from labor or reeducation camps. Employing the Marxist cathartic of criticism and self-criticism, after the reform ended in August 1956 Ho apologized to the people, admitting that “errors” had been committed and that those wrongly classified as landlords or rich peasants would be reclassified. General Vo Nguyen Giap, head of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), told the party Central Committee in October that there had been too many executions, widespread terror and torture, and failures to respect religion and minorities. The government allowed the relatives of many victims to take revenge on Land Reform Group members and cot can. Many hundreds of those who had recently carried out government orders now became secondary victims of the campaign. But this was not enough to prevent a number of peasant revolts, the most serious of which occurred in Ho’s native province of Nghe An. Perhaps the party’s plans to collectivize the land had been discovered and were a factor in the revolt, which was crushed by the PAVN 325th Division. The people who had served on the tribunals or supported the process were now committed to the Lao Dong leadership by their complicity. Many of them took positions in the party, while the rest of the population was shocked into submission, thus ensuring that collectivization would not meet with the popular resistance encountered in the Soviet Union. In June 1958 the party acknowledged that the ultimate objective of the land reform had not been confiscating land of landlords but instead had been “motivating the masses” to suppress the landlord class. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Ho Chi Minh; Land Reform, Vietnam; Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vo Nguyen Giap References Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of the Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Gheddo, Piero. The Cross and the Bo Tree: Catholics and Buddhists in Vietnam. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1970. Hoang Van Chi. From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History of North Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1964. Moise, Edwin E. Land Reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.

Agroville Program A Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) program of fortified communities designed to isolate South Vietnam’s rural population from the Viet Cong (VC) Communist insurgents. In mid-1959, responding to mounting VC attacks throughout South Vietnam, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem launched

the Agroville Program. Envisioned as a series of strategically located, fortified settlements into which the populations of entire rural villages could be relocated, Agrovilles theoretically offered security to peasants while denying the VC access to recruits, information, and logistical support. Administered by Diem’s brother Nhu, the ambitious relocation campaign called for construction of more than 80 Agrovilles, each offering water, electricity, health care, and security to several thousand peasants. The program was doomed from its inception. First, the Ngo brothers displayed a remarkably poor understanding of the peasant population. The plan required peasants to abandon their homelands and the graves of cherished ancestors, it frequently demanded substantial sacrifice with few governmental incentives, and the Agrovilles more resembled concentration camps than the advertised protected havens. The program was plagued from the beginning by governmental corruption. The peasants largely resisted relocation, and many came to view the Diem government as a greater menace than the VC. By 1961 the Agroville Program was abandoned. Less than 20 of the proposed communities were ever constructed, and most of these were in ruin within months of completion. Nor did the Agrovilles ever substantially isolate nonaffiliated peasants from VC operatives. The Ngo brothers, however, retained their belief in the Agroville concept, more as a means of extending their influence than winning the hearts and minds of the peasants. British counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson advanced the idea of strategic hamlets, based on the successful British experience against Malayan guerrillas. Diem remained noncommittal until a similar proposal, submitted by American economist Eugene Staley, brought a favorable response from the John F. Kennedy administration. With U.S. backing, the South Vietnamese government enacted the Strategic Hamlet Program in 1962. This effort, like the Agroville Program before it, ended in failure. DAVID COFFEY See also Staley, Eugene; Strategic Hamlet Program; Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker References Asprey, Robert B. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. New York: William Morrow, 1994. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Aiken, George David Birth Date: August 30, 1892 Death Date: November 19, 1984 Republican politician, governor of Vermont (1937–1941), and U.S. senator (1941–1975). Born on August 30, 1892, in Dummerston,

Air America

13

an alternative policy. In May 1969 Aiken called for U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and the next year he voted for the Cooper-Church Amendment barring the president from sending funds to support U.S. troops in Cambodia. Aiken retired from the Senate in 1975 and died on November 19, 1984, in Putney, Vermont. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Cooper-Church Amendment; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Morse, Wayne Lyman References Aiken, George D. Aiken: Senate Diary, January 1972–January 1975. Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene, 1976. Lichtenstein, Nelson, ed. Political Profiles: The Johnson Years. New York: Facts on File, 1976. Sherman, Michael. The Political Legacy of George D. Aiken: Wise Old Owl of the U.S. Senate. Montpelier, VT: Vermont Historical Society, 1995.

Air America

George D. Aiken (R-Vt.), shown here in 1947, was a U.S. senator from 1941 to 1975. By 1965 he had become an early critic of American involvement in Vietnam. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Vermont, George David Aiken became owner of a Vermont nursery store. He entered politics as a Republican member of the state legislature in 1930. He later became Speaker of the Vermont House, lieutenant governor, and governor of the state, a post he held from 1937 to 1941. Aiken was a progressive Republican and supported numerous New Deal social and economic programs, which often put him at odds with conservative Republicans. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1940, Aiken took office in 1941 and remained there until his retirement in 1975. Despite expressed misgivings, Aiken voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964. By April 1965, however, he had become an early critic of the Vietnam War. He participated in a fact-finding mission to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in November 1964, during which he concluded that the United States should seek a political rather than a military settlement of the war. In a Senate speech on October 19, 1966, Aiken proposed that the United States declare that it had won the war, stop bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and redeploy its forces in strategic centers only. Despite his opposition to the war, Aiken continued to vote for appropriations for it because he believed that troops in Vietnam should be supported. In May 1967 he argued that the Lyndon B. Johnson administration could not achieve an “honorable peace” in Southeast Asia and called for the Republican Party to develop

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) air operation in Asia, especially Laos. Air America’s origins can be traced to the CIA’s requirement for air transport capability to conduct covert operations in Asia in support of U.S. policy objectives. In August 1950 the CIA secretly purchased the assets of Civil Air Transport (CAT), an airline started in China after World War II by General Claire L. Chennault (of Flying Tiger fame) and Whiting Willauer. CAT continued to fly commercial routes throughout Asia, acting in every way as a privately owned commercial airline. At the same time, under the guise of CAT Incorporated, the airline provided airplanes and crews for secret U.S. intelligence operations from Tibet to Indonesia. On March 26, 1959, largely because of administrative problems connected with doing business in Japan, the name of CAT Incorporated was changed to Air America. Air America took on an increasingly prominent role in Southeast Asia as the United States became more deeply involved in the growing conflict in the region. Although the airline developed extensive operations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), providing air transport for CIA activities in the country, it played an even more important role in Laos, where it became a key element in U.S. assistance to the Royal Lao Government in its struggle against the Communist Pathet Lao and its allies in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The growth of Air America in Laos began early in 1961 after Washington approved a CIA recommendation to arm and train Hmong tribesmen as a counterweight to Communist forces in the northern part of the country. With the Hmongs scattered on mountainous terrain surrounding the strategic Plain of Jars, CIA paramilitary specialist James W. Lair recognized that effective communications would be essential for successful operations. Air America, he believed, would have to develop both a rotary-wing and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability to assist Laotian guerrilla forces.

14

Airborne Operations

Air America had only four helicopters at the beginning of 1961 but expanded that March when President John F. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Marine Corps to transfer 14 Sikorsky UH-34 Choctaws to the CIA’s airline. At the same time, Air America acquired a small fleet of single-engine Helio Courier aircraft that were able to use the short, primitive airstrips that dotted the mountainous areas of Laos. From less than a dozen Victor sites, as they were known in 1961, the STOL program grew to encompass more than 100 Lima sites by late 1964 and more than 400 by the early 1970s. Air America quickly became involved in the war in Laos, supplying arms and ammunition to the 9,000 Hmong tribesmen who had been trained by the CIA and air-dropping rice to the tens of thousands of refugees who had been displaced by the fighting. On May 30, 1961, the airline suffered its first casualties in Laos when helicopter pilots Charles Mateer and Walter Wizbowski crashed in bad weather while attempting to land supplies to a besieged Hmong garrison at Padong, a mountaintop position adjacent to the Plain of Jars. Air America’s operations declined sharply following the signing in Geneva of the Declaration of the Neutrality of Laos on July 23, 1962. Helicopter flight operations, for example, went from a monthly average of 2,000 before the agreement to 600 by early 1963. The truce in Laos, however, proved temporary. Full-scale fighting broke out again in March 1964 as Communist forces attacked government positions on the Plain of Jars. Washington declined to commit U.S. combat forces to the war and instead expanded the role of the CIA in Laos in an effort to avoid a major confrontation with North Vietnam in an area of clearly secondary importance. North Vietnam also controlled the level of violence in the country. As CIA analysts recognized, while Hanoi had the capability of overrunning most of Laos in short order, the North Vietnamese were mainly interested in protecting their supply routes to South Vietnam and did not wish to destroy the general framework of the 1962 Geneva settlement. Nonetheless, within this general context of restraint, a bitter guerrilla war took place in Laos over the next four years. Air America embarked upon an expansion program as it assumed a paramilitary role in support of CIA-led forces. In addition to providing air transport for the Hmongs, Air America also took responsibility for search-and-rescue operations as the U.S. Air Force began to fly combat sorties in the country. The character of the war began to change in 1968 and 1969 as the North Vietnamese introduced major new combat forces of its People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) into Laos. Air America’s role in the war continued to grow as the fighting increased in intensity. By the summer of 1970, the airline was operating in Laos some two dozen twin-engine transports, another two dozen STOL aircraft, and some 30 helicopters. Air America had more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and air freight specialists flying out of Laos and Thailand. During 1970 Air America air-dropped or landed in Laos 46 million pounds of foodstuffs,

mainly rice. Helicopter flight time reached more than 4,000 hours a month during that year. Air America crews transported tens of thousands of troops and refugees, flew emergency medevac missions, and rescued downed airmen throughout Laos. The crews also inserted and extracted road-watch teams, flew nighttime airdrop missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, spent long nights at high altitudes monitoring sensors along infiltration routes, and conducted a highly successful photo reconnaissance program over northern Laos. They also engaged in numerous clandestine missions, using night-vision glasses and state-of-the-art electronic equipment. Air America’s operations became increasingly hazardous during the early 1970s as the Communists launched a series of major offenses in the country. Although CIA-led forces were able to delay a final Communist victory, they could not prevent it. In February 1974 a cease-fire agreement was signed, leading to the formation of a coalition government for Laos. On June 3, 1974, the last Air America aircraft crossed the border from Laos into Thailand. The war had cost the lives of 97 crew members, lost as a result of enemy action and operational accidents. Air America continued to fly in South Vietnam, as it had since the early 1960s. The airline went on to take a major part in the final evacuation of the country in April 1975. Indeed, one of the most enduring images of the final days in Saigon is a photograph of an Air America helicopter loading passengers atop the Pittman Apartments. Even before the departure of the United States from Vietnam, Air America’s fate had been decided. On April 21, 1972, CIA director Richard Helms had ended a lengthy debate within the CIA over the continued need for a covert airlift capability and ordered the agency to divest itself of ownership and control of Air America and related companies. Air America would be retained only until the end of the war in Southeast Asia. On June 30, 1976, Air America closed its doors and returned $20 million to the U.S. Treasury. WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Bird & Sons; Central Intelligence Agency; Continental Air Services; Geneva Accords of 1962; Helms, Richard McGarrah; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Laos; Plain of Jars References Leary, William M. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984. Parker, James E., Jr. Covert Ops: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos. New York: St Martin’s, 1997. Robbins, Christopher. Air America. New York: Putnam, 1979.

Airborne Operations The term “airborne” has traditionally referred to combat troops who are transported by aircraft and parachuted into battle or, as in certain instances in World War II, landed by glider. The term

Airborne Operations also refers to a much broader class of actions. In this sense, the Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military defines an airborne operation as one “involving movement and delivery of combat forces by air.” In current usage, the term “airborne” refers to those troops who are parachute qualified. Here airborne operations are defined as those involving troops parachuting into battle. During the Indochina War, the French employed airborne tactics in their fight against the Viet Minh. Elite paratroopers (known as paras) jumped to relieve isolated posts, carry out raids, and gather intelligence. They also supported infantry units during ground operations. On July 17, 1953, three French parachute battalions conducted an operation at the Viet Minh–occupied border town of Lang Son. Located along Route Coloniale 4 on the China border, Lang Son was a major logistics center for incoming Chinese military supplies. The French withdrew after destroying 5,000 tons of matériel, including arms and ammunition. In Operation CASTOR (November 20, 1953), France conducted its largest airborne operation of the war in northwestern Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu. Sixty-five Douglas C-47 Skytrains dropped two battalions of paratroopers into the valley; they dropped a third battalion during a second lift that same afternoon. By November 22 the French had deployed six airborne battalions to Dien Bien Phu. By December airborne forces, utilizing the airstrip at Dien Bien Phu, began being replaced by ground units there. One of the heroic stories of the Indochina War came during the Siege of Dien Bien Phu (April–May 1954) when parachute reinforcements insisted on dropping into a battle that was already lost so that they might fight alongside their comrades. During the Vietnam War, airborne operations were not a major factor. This was because of the terrain and the development of air mobile–air assault tactics. The first major U.S. Army ground combat unit sent to Vietnam, however, was the 173rd Airborne Brigade (Separate). Known as the “Sky Soldiers,” the brigade arrived in Vietnam on May 7, 1965. Formed in May 1963 and headquartered at Okinawa, the 173rd Airborne Brigade was the U.S. Pacific Command’s quick-reaction strike force. The brigade was initially sent to Vietnam on temporary assignment to provide security for the Bien Hoa Air Base complex until elements of the 101st Airborne Division could be deployed from the United States. The 173rd Airborne Brigade remained in Vietnam for six years. The 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade conducted the only major U.S. airborne operation of the war while attached to the 1st Infantry Division. This was during Operation JUNCTION CITY in February 1967 and included 800 troopers of the 2nd Battalion in a 30,000-man multidivision force against War Zone C. On the morning of February 22 the 2nd Battalion, lifted by 16 Lockheed C-130 Hercules transports, carried out the first major U.S. airborne assault since the Korean War. The “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Airborne Division also served in Vietnam. Its 1st Brigade arrived there in the summer of

15

1965, and the remaining brigades arrived by November 1967. With the introduction of new tactics involving helicopters during this period, the division was in the process of transforming itself from parachute operations to air mobile–air assault tactics. While the 101st Airborne Division remained one of the premier U.S. combat units in Vietnam, it did not conduct airborne operations there. The U.S. Marine Corps had parachute-qualified reconnaissance battalions in Vietnam, and in June 1966 a marine reconnaissance company conducted a combat jump near Chu Lai. Other military formations possessing an airborne capability and conducting limited airborne operations were the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV SOG); the Vietnamese Strategic Technical Directorate; and the Australian Special Air Service (SAS). All members of U.S. Army Special Forces in Vietnam were airborne qualified. Other U.S. units, including the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, were airborne qualified but generally used riverine craft and air assault (helicopters) during the war. Airborne units also developed within the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). These began in 1955 with the three battalions of the Airborne (or Parachutist) Group. In 1960 the Airborne Group was reorganized as the Airborne Brigade. On December 1, 1965, it officially became the Airborne Division, with three brigades. A fourth brigade was added in early 1975. Between 1962 and 1966, ARVN Airborne units conducted various parachute assaults. In 1966 with the infusion of helicopters from the United States, these elements began adopting air mobile– air assault tactics. By 1968 the Airborne Division, headquartered in Saigon, was serving as a helicopter-borne reaction force. ARVN Airborne units made a combat parachute jump on May 4, 1972, during an operation near Pleiku. During 1966–1968 U.S. Army Special Forces units trained six airborne-qualified battalions of Montagnards as well as other ethnic groups. Led by American Special Forces advisers, these battalions conducted four airborne operations during 1967 and 1968 and established Special Forces camps in Communist-held territory. Special warfare operations incorporating native fighters and marked by rapid movement and fluidity were, on the whole, very effective in dealing with Communist guerrillas. Attempts to construct stationary compounds with set defensive perimeters were not as successful as operations depending on stealth, natural cover, and surprise. Given U.S. domination of the air, neither the Viet Cong (VC) nor the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) utilized airborne forces during the Vietnam War. The small North Vietnamese airborne force, developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s as a part of the North Vietnamese 335th Brigade, was disbanded during the course of the war. JAMES MCNABB See also Air Mobility; CASTOR, Operation; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Montagnards; Studies and Observation Group

16

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

References Arkin, William M., et al., eds. Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military. New York: Hallinger, 1990. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Hoyt, Edwin F. Airborne: The History of American Parachute Forces. New York: Stein and Day, 1979. Galvin, General John R. Air Assault: The Development of Airmobile Warfare. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1969. Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994.

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Aerial warfare over Indochina began as early as 1941, when Japanese land-based bombers took off from airports near Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) to sink the British capital ships Repulse and Prince of Wales. During the Indochina War (1946–1954), there were insufficient numbers of French aircraft available to contain the Viet Minh and carry out effective airlift. Most French aircraft were of World War II vintage, including the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Junkers Ju-52 and Douglas C-47 transports. A few remnant Japanese aircraft were used briefly but were quickly retired for maintenance reasons. The Grumman F8F Bearcat, introduced at the end of World War II but too late to see service in that conflict, became the chief French ground-support aircraft during the Indochina War. U.S. Fairchild C-119s were pressed into covert service in the futile attempts to relieve the French cornered at Dien Bien Phu. The French sought heavy bomber aircraft, which the United States refused to supply. When the United States began military assistance to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in October 1954, the initial aviation equipment supplied was of similar limited capability. By the end of the war, however, the United States had made a large commitment in aircraft and associated necessary equipment. Unfortunately for the United States and its South Vietnamese ally, the level of strategy and political leadership did not measure up to the quantity of aircraft or the quality of technology employed. The principal fixed-wing aircraft used in the Vietnam War, along with a brief description of their missions and characteristics, follow.

Allied Forces Bombers Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. An eight-engine heavy jet bomber originally designed as an intercontinental weapon system, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (“Buff”) in Vietnam was utilized in duties equivalent to World War I artillery bombardments. Operating from Andersen Air Force Base at Guam and the Royal Thai Navy Air Force Base at U-Tapao, Thailand, the B-52s usually flew Arc Light strikes in three-ship cells and dropped their bombs on

cue from special equipment such as the Combat Skyspot. Primarily B-52D and G aircraft were employed, although F models were used early in the war. Used for carpet bombing, B-52s were eventually called upon for close air support, bombing near perimeters of fortified camps. D models were capable of carrying up to 108 500-pound bombs. Specifications (typical B-52D) are wingspan, 185 feet; length, 156.6 feet; height, 48.25 feet; empty weight, 173,600 pounds; maximum weight, 450,000 pounds; power plants, eight 13,750-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J57-P-43 engines; maximum speed, 610 miles per hour (mph); and range (unrefueled), 6,400 miles. Douglas A-1 Skyraider. Originally developed as a U.S. Navy single-place, carrier-based dive bomber and torpedo plane, the Douglas Skyraider (“Spad”) served in both the Korean War and Vietnam War, in the latter with U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine, U.S. Air Force, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) units. Several versions were developed, but most bombing was carried out by the single-seat A-1 version, powered by a Wright R-3350 reciprocating engine. A-1s were prized for their accuracy in close support, particularly in air-rescue operations, and for the ability of their rugged fuselage and engine to sustain damage and keep flying. Specifications (typical A-1) are wingspan, 50 feet 9 inches; length, 40 feet 1 inch; height, 15 feet 10 inches; empty weight, 12,313 pounds; maximum weight, 25,000 pounds; power plant, one 2,700-horsepower (hp) Wright R-3350 engine; maximum speed, 320 mph; and range, 1,202 miles. Douglas B-26 Invader. First flown in July 1942 as the XA-26, the Douglas Invader flew in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Redesignated the B-26 after World War II, the basic design was extensively modified by On Mark Engineering as the B-26K Counter-Invader, and when introduced in Vietnam it was redesignated the A-26A. This twin-engine light bomber was a delight to fly and was among the first U.S. combat aircraft introduced in Operation FARM GATE. Many operated out of Nakhom Phanom, Thailand. Some RB-26s were used for reconnaissance. Specifications are wingspan, 71 feet 6 inches; length, 51 feet 7 inches; height, 19 feet; empty weight, 25,130 pounds; maximum weight, 39,250 pounds; power plants, two 2,500-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines; maximum speed, 327 mph; and range, 1,480 miles. Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk was first flown in 1954 and was in continuous production longer than any other combat aircraft. The last of 2,960 A-4s was delivered in 1979. Small and rugged, the A-4 was a favorite workhorse of U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps crews in Vietnam. The Skyhawk carried a wide variety of weapons during tens of thousands of sorties against enemy targets. Specifications (typical A-4E) are wingspan, 27 feet 6 inches; length, 40 feet 1.5 inches; height, 15 feet 2 inches; empty weight, 9,853 pounds; maximum weight, 24,500 pounds; power plant, one 8,500-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J52-P-2 engine; maximum speed, 660 mph; and range, 1,160 miles.

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

17

U.S. Navy Douglas A-1 Skyraiders, their wings collapsed to save space, crowd the flight deck of USS Core after that escort carrier arrived in Saigon with more than 70 aircraft in June 1965. The A-1 was a primary ground-support aircraft for both the U.S. Air Force and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force during the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer, A-3 Skywarrior. First flown in October 1952 as the Navy XA3D-1 Skywarrior, a twin-jet carrierbased nuclear bomber, this durable aircraft served in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy as the KA-3B tanker and EKA-3B tanker/electronic countermeasures (ECM) aircraft. The U.S. Air Force employed it principally as the EB-66 ECM aircraft. Operating with or without fighter escort, EB-66s probed deep into Communist-held territory; 15 were lost, 6 in combat and 9 to accidents. Specifications (typical RB/EB-66C) are wingspan, 74 feet 7 inches; length, 75 feet 2 inches; height, 23 feet 7 inches; empty weight, 43,966 pounds; maximum weight, 82,420 pounds; power plants, two 10,200-pound thrust Allison J71-A-13 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 640 mph; and range, 2,935 miles. Martin B-57/RB-57 Canberra. The only non-U.S. design adopted by the U.S. Air Force since World War II, the B-57 was originally built by Britain’s English Electric as the Canberra, with its first flight in May 1949. The first U.S. Air Force example was

English built, but Martin was awarded a contract to redesign the aircraft and produce it. A Martin B-57B was the first American jet to be employed in Vietnam. Canberras were subsequently used in bombing, flak-suppression, night-interdiction, and reconnaissance roles. The Viet Cong (VC) called the B-57 the con sau (“caterpillar”) and dreaded its long time on-station and its great bomb capacity. The VNAF also operated a few B-57s for a brief period. B-57s and RB-57s flew almost 38,000 sorties in Southeast Asia. A total of 33 B-57s were lost. Specifications (B-57B) are wingspan, 64 feet; length, 65 feet 6 inches; height, 15 feet 7 inches; empty weight, 27,000 pounds; maximum weight, 55,000 pounds; power plants, two 7,200-pound thrust Wright J65 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 598 mph; and range, 2,300 miles. Grumman A-6, EA-6A Intruder, EA-6B Prowler (also KA-6D Tanker). The innocuous-looking Grumman A2F-1 (later designated A-6) first flew on April 19, 1960; it went on to serve an

18

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

increasingly important role as an attack, reconnaissance, electronic-warfare, and tanker aircraft. Intruders began operations in Vietnam in 1965 and were in the forefront of battle until the end of the war. Always a complex aircraft with a difficult mission, the Intruder/Prowler’s versatility won wide popularity. Specifications (EA-6B) are wingspan, 53 feet; length, 59 feet 7 inches; height, 17 feet; empty weight, 32,162 pounds; maximum weight, 60,610 pounds; power plants, two 11,200-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J52-P408 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 659 mph; and range, 2,022 miles. Vought A-7 Corsair II. Designed to replace the McDonnell Douglas A-4 and based heavily on the Vought F-8 design, the Vought A-7 proved to be a highly successful attack bomber for both the U.S. Navy and, later, the U.S. Air Force. Built for a ground-attack role with armor and damage-resistant systems, the Corsair II proved to be as rugged as its World War II namesake. Specifications (A-7E) are wingspan, 38 feet 9 inches; length, 46 feet 1.5 inches; height, 16 feet .75 inch; empty weight, 19,111 pounds; maximum weight, 42,000 pounds; power plant, one 15,000-pound thrust Allison (Rolls-Royce) TF41-A-2 engine; maximum speed, 691 mph; and range, 2,861 miles.

Fighters and Fighter-Bombers Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. First flown in October 1953, the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger (“Deuce”) delta-wing aircraft was modified to have an area-ruled fuselage and became a missile-carrying supersonic interceptor. The F-102 flew air-defense missions in Vietnam from 1962 to 1969, was phased out of the U.S. Air Force inventory in 1976, and had a second career as a drone aircraft (PQM-102A). Specifications are wingspan, 38 feet 1.5 inches; length, 68 feet 5 inches; height, 21 feet 2.5 inches; empty weight, 19,050 pounds; maximum weight, 31,500 pounds; power plant, one 17,000-pound thrust (with afterburner) Pratt & Whitney J-57-P-25 turbojet engine; maximum speed, 825 mph; and range, 1,350 miles. General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, EF-111A Raven. One of the most controversial of warplanes, the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, derived from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s quest for the TFX triservice fighter. The variable-geometry F-111 overcame early problems to become an extraordinarily capable long-distance low-level fighter-bomber and, as the EF-111A, a remarkable ECM aircraft. The first deployment of F-111s to Thailand for the Vietnam War ended in disaster, but the second deployment allowed the F-111A to perform brilliantly, flying more than 4,000 missions at night and in bad weather. Specifications (F-111A) are wingspan, 63 feet (unswept) and 31 feet 11 inches (fully swept); length, 73 feet 6 inches; height, 17 feet .5 inch; empty weight, 45,200 pounds; maximum weight, 92,500 pounds; power plants, two 18,500-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney TF30-P3 turbofan engines; maximum speed, 1,650 mph; and range, 3,800 miles. Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. A product of Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works, the F-104 Starfighter was to have far more success

in foreign service than it did with the U.S. Air Force. Intended as a lightweight air superiority fighter, the F-104 set numerous speed and altitude records. It was transferred from Air Defense Command squadrons to National Guard units when the U.S. Air Force decided that it lacked the endurance and all-weather capability required for the interceptor role. Ironically, the F-104 proved more useful in its foreign F-104G ground-support role. U.S. Air Force F-104s, despite their inability to carry an adequate weapons load, were deployed to Vietnam in 1965 and to Thailand in 1966–1967 for operations over both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam, where heavy losses eventually forced their replacement by McDonnell F-4s. Specifications (F-104C) are wingspan, 21 feet 9 inches; length, 54 feet 8 inches; height, 13 feet 5 inches; empty weight, 12,760 pounds; maximum weight, 27,853 pounds; power plant, one 15,800-pound thrust (with afterburner) General Electric J79GE-7 turbojet engine; maximum speed, 1,150 mph; and range, 1,500 miles. McDonnell F-101 (RF-101). Originally designed to the concept of penetration fighter, the McDonnell F-101 (“Voodoo”) was an outgrowth of the earlier XF-88. First flown in September 1954, the F-101 was subsequently developed in a wide variety of roles, including interceptor, tactical bomber, and nuclear bomber and, in the RF-101, as a reconnaissance aircraft. RF-101s flew the majority of U.S. Air Force reconnaissance missions in Vietnam until replaced by RF-4C Phantoms. Specifications (RF-101C) are wingspan, 39 feet 8 inches; length, 69 feet 4 inches; height, 18 feet; empty weight, 26,136 pounds; maximum weight, 51,000 pounds; power plants, two 15,000pound thrust (with afterburner) Pratt & Whitney J57-P-13 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 1,012 mph; and range, 2,145 miles. McDonnell Douglas F-4 (RF-4) Phantom. Unquestionably the most successful Western fighter produced during the Vietnam War period, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom was both versatile and rugged, performing well for all three U.S. Air Force services. Originally designed as a missile-equipped all-weather fleet-defense fighter for the U.S. Navy, the Phantom was adopted by the U.S. Air Force initially as an interceptor and later served in a variety of roles, including air-superiority fighter, fighter-bomber, reconnaissance, fast forward air control, Wild Weasel, and many others. Not an aesthetic triumph but continually modified and upgraded, the Phantom earned a formidable reputation in Vietnam. Specifications (F-4E) are wingspan, 38 feet 4.875 inches; length, 63 feet; height, 16 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 29,535 pounds; maximum weight, 61,651 pounds; power plants, two 17,900pound thrust (with afterburner) General Electric J79-GE-17 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 1,485 mph; and range, 1,885 miles. North American F-100 (RF-100) Super Sabre. The world’s first operational fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight, the North American F-100 Super Sabre first flew in May 1953. Distinguished by its 45-degree swept wings, the Super Sabre had a somewhat troubled early development. This was followed by

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

19

A flight of U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4C Phantom fighter-bombers refuel from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft before striking targets in North Vietnam. The Phantoms are fully loaded and carrying 750-pound general-purpose bombs and rockets. (U.S. Air Force)

widespread service, first as an air-superiority fighter and then in Vietnam as a ground attack, Wild Weasel, reconnaissance, and fast forward air control aircraft. As many as 13 squadrons of F-100s served in Vietnam, prolonging the F-100’s life in service. Specifications (F-100D) are wingspan, 38 feet 9 inches; length, 47 feet 5 inches; height, 16 feet 2.5 inches; empty weight, 20,638 pounds; maximum weight, 38,048 pounds; power plant, one 16,000-pound thrust (with afterburner) Pratt & Whitney J57-O21A engine; maximum speed, 892 mph; and range, 1,200 miles. North American T-28 (RT-28) Trojan. Used for training, ground attack, and reconnaissance, the North American T-28 Trojan was one of the first U.S. Air Force aircraft to participate in the Vietnam War. Specifications are wingspan, 40 feet 1 inch; length, 33 feet; height, 12 feet 8 inches; empty weight, 6,424 pounds; maximum weight, 8,486 pounds; power plant, one 1,425-hp Wright R-1820 engine; maximum speed, 343 mph; and range, 1,060 miles. Northrop F-5 Tiger. Designed as a lightweight fighter to be furnished to approved nations by the United States under the Military Assistance Program, the Northrop F-5 Tiger was sold aggressively to many countries around the world. In 1965 the U.S. Air Force took 12 F-5As (modified with aerial refueling equipment to F-5C

status) to Vietnam in the Skoshi Tiger program. These aircraft were later transferred to the VNAF. A later version, the F-5E, with more powerful engines, was called the Tiger II and was used subsequently for dissimilar air combat training. Specifications (F-5C) are wingspan, 25 feet 3 inches; length, 47 feet 2 inches; height, 13 feet 2 inches; power plants, two 4,090pound thrust General Electric GE85–13 turbojets; empty weight, 8,085 pounds; maximum weight, 20,667 pounds; maximum speed, 924 mph; and range, 700 miles. Republic F-105 Thunderchief. Originally designed as a supersonic fighter-bomber to deliver nuclear weapons, the Republic F-105 Thunderchief distinguished itself by carrying the brunt of the aerial offensive against North Vietnam. Familiarly known as the “Thud” and first flown in October 1955, the F-105 went through a troublesome development period that marred its reputation, which was redeemed over Vietnam. The Thunderchief served brilliantly in fighter-bomber and Wild Weasel roles. About 350 Thunderchiefs were lost in action to either combat or operational causes. The last operational flight in a Thunderchief was in 1984, almost 30 years after its first flight. Specifications (F-105D) are wingspan, 34 feet 11 inches; length, 64 feet 5 inches; height, 19 feet 8 inches; power plant, one 16,100-

20

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

pound thrust (24,500 pounds with afterburning) Pratt & Whitney J57-P-19W engine; empty weight, 26,885 pounds; maximum weight, 52,550 pounds; maximum speed, 1,390 mph; and range, 1,500 miles. Vought F-8 (RF-8A) Crusader. Often called “the last of the gunfighters,” the Vought F-8 Crusader was beloved by its pilots and ground crew members. Designed as a supersonic air-superiority fighter, it exceeded Mach 1 on its maiden flight in March 1955. Unusual with its variable-incidence wing, the Crusader had the great advantage in Vietnam of carrying four 20-millimeter (mm) cannons at a time, while F-4s had only missiles. The F-8 was credited with downing 19 MiGs in Vietnam. The RF-8 served equally well in the reconnaissance role, although suffering heavy losses. Specifications (F-8E) are wingspan, 35 feet 2 inches; length, 54 feet 6 inches; height, 15 feet 9 inches; power plant, one 18,000pound thrust (with afterburner) Pratt & Whitney J-57-P20A engine; empty weight, 19,925 pounds; maximum weight, 28,000 pounds; maximum speed, 1,120 mph; and range, 1,100 miles.

Trainers, Transports, Reconnaissance Aircraft, Defoliators, Psychological Warfare, Forward Air Control, Etc. Cessna A-37 Dragonfly. The Cessna T-37 trainer first flew on October 12, 1954. The design was modified to the A-37A Dragonfly (“Tweetie-Bird”) attack plane that was sent to Vietnam for evaluation in 1967. An advanced version with in-flight refueling provisions and a reinforced airframe was placed into production as the A-37B. Many of these were delivered to the VNAF and to U.S. Air National Guard units. The A-37 was used in Vietnam for forward air control and designated the OA-37B. Specifications are wingspan, 33 feet 9 inches; length, 29 feet 3 inches; height, 9 feet 2 inches; empty weight, 7,300 pounds; maximum weight, 12,000 pounds; power plants, two 2,400-pound thrust General Electric J85–17A turbojet engines; maximum speed, 476 mph; and range, 1,200 miles. Douglas C-47 (AC-47, HC-47, EC-47, RC-47, SC-47) Skytrain. First flown in December 1935, the Douglas DC-3 gained a reputation more as a civilian transport than as the military jack-of-alltrades C-47. More than 13,000 of the type were built by 1945, and they continue in military and civil service. The faithful “Gooneybird” was adapted to the gunship role in Vietnam, where, known as “Puff the Magic Dragon” and outfitted with three General Electric 7.62 miniguns, it proved invaluable. It also did well in electronic reconnaissance, photographic reconnaissance, and psychological warfare roles. Specifications (C-47) are wingspan, 95 feet 6 inches; length, 63 feet 9 inches; height, 17 feet; power plants, two 1,200-hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830–92 engines; empty weight, 18,200 pounds; maximum weight, 26,000 pounds; maximum speed, 230 mph; and range, 1,600 miles. Curtiss C-46 Commando. Another World War II design, the Curtiss C-46 Commando was first flown in March 1940. It served in World War II and the Korean War and received a brief new

period of service with the 1st Air Commando Group of the Tactical Air Command in Vietnam in 1962. Many Commandos were also used by civil and paramilitary airlines in the area. Specifications are wingspan, 108 feet 1 inch; length, 76 feet 4 inches; height, 21 feet 9 inches; empty weight, 32,400 pounds; maximum weight, 56,000 pounds; power plants, two 2,000-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines; maximum speed, 269 mph; and range, 1,200 miles. Fairchild C-119 (AC-119, RC-119) Flying Boxcar. An outgrowth of the Fairchild C-82 Packet, the Fairchild C-119 “Flying Boxcar” first flew in November 1947 and was used extensively in the Korean War. In the Vietnam War the C-119 was a troop and cargo transport but came into its own as the AC-119 gunship, of which there were several variants. The C-119Ks had the added power of two J85 jet engines slung under the wing. Specifications (C-119G) are wingspan, 109 feet 3 inches; length, 86 feet 6 inches; height, 26 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 40,785 pounds; gross weight, 72,000 pounds; power plants, two 3,500hp Wright R-3350–89A engines; maximum speed, 281 mph; and range, 1,630 miles. Fairchild C-123 (UC-123K, NC-123K, AC-123K) Provider. Developed from a Chase XG-20 cargo glider, the Fairchild C-123 “Provider” had first two and then four engines installed to undertake a variety of roles in Vietnam. Its most controversial use was during Operation RANCH HAND, the herbicide-spraying campaign used by the U.S. Air Force to defoliate the jungle to permit observation of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) operations. These aircraft were fitted with spray bars and two additional J85 jet engines. Specifications (C-123B) are wingspan, 110 feet; length, 75 feet 9 inches; height, 34 feet 1 inch; empty weight, 29,900 pounds; gross weight, 60,000 pounds; power plants, two 2,300-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800–9W engines; maximum speed, 245 mph; and range, 1,470 miles. Douglas C-54 Skymaster. One of the most beloved transports in history, the Douglas C-54 Skymaster distinguished itself in World War II, the Berlin Airlift, and Korea. In Vietnam it served in small numbers as an early airborne command post; the U.S. Marine Corps also used some as transports. Specifications are wingspan, 117 feet 6 inches; length, 93 feet 10 inches; height, 27 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 37,000 pounds; maximum weight, 62,000 pounds; power plants, four 1,290-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2000–7 engines; maximum speed, 265 mph; and range, 3,900 miles. Douglas C-124 Globemaster II. The portly Douglas C-124 Globemaster II was a workhorse, carrying tons of supplies around the world and into Vietnam. Called “Old Shakey” because of its shake, rattle, and roll vibrations, it nonetheless was a dependable aircraft with a great capacity for outsize cargo. Specifications are wingspan, 174 feet 2 inches; length, 130 feet; height, 48 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 101,165 pounds; maximum weight, 194,500 pounds; power plants, four 3,800-hp Pratt & Whit-

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam ney R-4360–63A engines; maximum speed, 271 mph; and range, 4,050 miles. Lockheed EC-121 (RC-121) Super Constellation. Considered by many to be the most beautiful piston-engine airliner ever built, the Lockheed EC-121 (RC-121) Super Constellation served in Vietnam to provide air defense control and as an airborne communication relay aircraft. Specifications (EC-121D) are wingspan, 123 feet 5 inches; length, 116 feet 2 inches; height, 27 feet; empty weight, 80,611 pounds; maximum weight, 143,600 pounds; power plants, four 3,250-hp Wright R-3350 Turbo-Compound engines; maximum speed, 321 mph; and range, 4,600 miles. Lockheed C-130 (DC-130, WC-130, RC-130, AC-130, EC-130, HC-130) Hercules. One of the most efficient and longest-lived aircraft in history, the Lockheed C-130 served in multiple roles in Vietnam and did them all well. First flown in August 1954 and still in production four decades later, the “Herky-bird” distinguished itself as a troop carrier, a gunship, an electronic reconnaissance craft, and a drone launcher and in a variety of other roles. Rugged, reliable, and able to endure flak damage, the C-130 was and remains indispensable. Specifications (C-130H) are wingspan, 132 feet 7 inches; length, 97 feet 9 inches; height, 38 feet 3 inches; empty weight, 76,780 pounds; maximum weight, 175,000 pounds; power plants, four 4,910-equivalent shaft horsepower Allison T56-A15 turboprops; maximum speed, 386 mph; and range, 2,745 miles. Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. Based on the experience gained with the C-130 but much larger and with more advanced systems, the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter brought jet power to the cargo transport age and did yeoman service, transporting large cargo and personnel to Vietnam especially during times of emergency. Specifications are wingspan, 160 feet; length, 145 feet; height, 39 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 136,900 pounds; maximum weight, 323,100 pounds; power plants, four 21,000-pound static thrust Pratt & Whitney TF33-P7 engines; maximum speed, 565 mph; and range, 4,155 miles. Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. Designed to be able to carry cargo as wide and as heavy as the largest army tanks, the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy was destined for a turbulent introduction to a skeptical Congress and public. Despite early difficulties, it proved itself during the Vietnam War where, in conjunction with the Starlifter, it was able to rush supplies on an emergency basis. The Galaxy’s capability for in-flight refueling made it especially valuable. Specifications are wingspan, 222 feet 8.5 inches; length, 247 feet 9.5 inches; height, 65 feet 1.25 inches; empty weight, 321,000 pounds; maximum weight, 769,000 pounds; power plants, four 40,000-pound thrust General Electric TF-39 turbofans; maximum speed, 564 mph; and range, 8,400 miles (unrefueled). Boeing KC-135 (EC-135, RC-135) Stratotanker. Developed in parallel with the famous Boeing 707 transport, the Boeing KC-135 became a true force multiplier, enabling bombers and fighters to extend their range and increase their sortie rate as well as

21

permitting them to take off with larger loads of ammunition. KC135s served dangerously near enemy positions, and amazingly none were lost to North Vietnamese fighters. Many a returning fighter pilot owed his life to the persistence and daring of KC-135 crews. Specifications (KC-135A) are wingspan, 130 feet 10 inches; length, 136 feet 3 inches; height, 38 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 98,466 pounds; maximum weight, 297,000 pounds; power plants, four 11,200-pound static thrust (13,750 pounds augmented) Pratt & Whitney J57-P-9W turbojet engines; maximum speed, 585 mph; and range, 9,200 miles. De Havilland C-7 (CV-2) Caribou. Originally developed for the U.S. Army, the De Havilland C-7 Caribou served the U.S. Air Force well in Vietnam with its short takeoff and landing (STOL) characteristics. After U.S. forces departed, some Caribous were turned over to the VNAF and presumably were later of use to the air force of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF), previously the air force of North Vietnam. Specifications are wingspan, 95 feet 7.5 inches; length, 72 feet 7 inches; height, 31 feet 9 inches; empty weight, 18,260 pounds; maximum weight, 28,500 pounds; power plants, two 1,450-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2000-D5 engines; maximum speed, 230 mph; and range, 600 miles. McDonnell Douglas C-9 Nightingale. Appearing in Vietnam in 1972, the McDonnell Douglas C-9 Nightingale aeromedical evacuation plane was a welcome sight for sick and wounded military personnel leaving the country. A straightforward development of the standard Douglas DC-32CF, the C-9 supplemented the venerable C-118s also used for the task. Specifications are wingspan, 93 feet 5 inches; length, 119 feet 5 inches; height, 27 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 59,706 pounds; maximum weight, 110,000 pounds; power plants, two 14,500pound thrust Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9 engines; maximum speed, 576 mph; and range, 2,900 miles. Douglas C-118 (R6D-1) Liftmaster. The military version of the marvelous, beloved Douglas DC-6, the Douglas C-118 Liftmaster was used both by the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy. Rugged, dependable, and comfortable, the C-118s gave good service in Vietnam. Specifications are wingspan, 117 feet 6 inches; length, 100 feet 7 inches; height, 28 feet 5 inches; empty weight, 51,495 pounds; maximum weight, 97,200 pounds; power plants, four 2,500-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines; maximum speed, 356 mph; and range, 3,820 miles. Douglas F-10 (F-3D) Skyknight. The portly Douglas F-10 Skyknight was first flown in 1950 and was used effectively in the Korean War, where it destroyed more enemy aircraft than any other U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps aircraft. Aging and difficult to exit in an emergency, the Skyknight was pressed into service in Vietnam as an ECM aircraft. Specifications are wingspan, 50 feet; length, 45 feet 6 inches; height, 16 feet; empty weight, 18,160 pounds; maximum weight,

22

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

26,850 pounds; power plant, two 3,400-pound static thrust Westinghouse J34-WE-36 engines; maximum speed, 600 mph; and range, 1,200 miles. Cessna O-1 (L-19) Bird Dog. Following in the tradition of liaison aircraft in World War II, the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog played an essential forward air control role in Vietnam. Unarmed and unarmored, O-1s were constantly in the thick of the battle spotting enemy targets. Specifications are wingspan, 36 feet; length, 25 feet 9.5 inches; height, 7 feet 3.5 inches; empty weight, 1,614 pounds; maximum weight, 2,400 pounds; power plant, one 213-hp Continental O-470 engine; maximum speed, 151 mph; and range, 530 miles. Cessna O-2A (O-2B). A militarized version of the standard Cessna 337 “Push-Pull” Skymaster, the O-2A supplemented the Bird Dog in the forward air control role. The O-2B version was used for psychological warfare. Specifications are wingspan, 38 feet 2 inches; length, 29 feet 9 inches; height, 9 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 2,848 pounds; maximum weight, 5,400 pounds; power plants, two 210-hp Continental IO-360C/D piston engines; maximum speed, 199 mph; and range, 1,060 miles. Grumman OV-1 Mohawk. The Mohawk served the U.S. Army well in Vietnam as a night reconnaissance and battlefield surveillance aircraft. It was modified continually with equipment such as Side-Looking Airborne Radar. Specifications are wingspan, 48 feet; length, 41 feet; height, 12 feet 8 inches; empty weight, 11,747 pounds; maximum weight, 17,826 pounds; power plants, two 1,400-hp Lycoming T53-L-701 turboprops; maximum speed, 305 mph; and range, 1,080 miles. North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco. The product of a competition for a so-called COIN aircraft (an armed reconnaissance plane for counterinsurgency work), the North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco was delivered to both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps. The Bronco served as a forward air control aircraft and in reconnaissance. Specifications are wingspan, 40 feet; length, 41 feet 7 inches; height, 15 feet 2 inches; empty weight, 6,969 pounds; maximum weight, 14,466 pounds; power plants, two 715-shaft horsepower (shp) AiResearch T76-G-416/417 turboprop engines; maximum speed, 281 mph; and range, 1,428 miles. Lockheed P-3 Orion. A development of the ill-starred Lockheed Electra civil transport, the Lockheed P-3 Orion was originally intended for antisubmarine warfare work but was adapted for a variety of other roles. Specifications are wingspan, 99 feet 8 inches; length, 116 feet 10 inches; height, 33 feet 8.5 inches; empty weight, 61,491 pounds; maximum weight, 142,000 pounds; power plants, four 4,910-shp Allison T-56 turboprops; maximum speed, 473 mph; and range, 2,384 miles. Lockheed P-2 (RB-69A, OP-2E) Neptune. From its first flight in May 1945, the Lockheed P-2 Neptune proved to be an aircraft of exceptional ability. The P-2 filled the U.S. Navy’s requirement for a long-range land-based patrol and antisubmarine warfare plane.

The U.S. Air Force used the P-2 in Vietnam as the RB-69A for electronic countermeasure tests and training. Specifications are wingspan, 103 feet 10 inches; length, 91 feet 4 inches; height, 29 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 49,350 pounds; maximum weight, 79,985 pounds; power plants, two 3,500-hp Wright R-3250 engines; maximum speed, 400 mph; and range, 3,685 miles. De Havilland U-6 (RU-6A, TU-6A, L-20) Beaver. Known as “the General’s jeep” in Korea, the De Havilland U-6 Beaver served equally well in Vietnam. A simple aircraft that was easy to maintain, the U-6 was popular with its pilots. Specifications are wingspan, 48 feet; length, 30 feet 3 inches; height, 9 feet; empty weight, 2,850 pounds; maximum weight, 5,100 pounds; power plant, one 450-hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 engine; maximum speed, 163 mph; and range, 455 miles. De Havilland U-1 Otter. The De Havilland U-1 Otter was built in Canada for the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Capable of STOL performance, it was both rugged and versatile. Specifications are wingspan, 58 feet; length, 41 feet 10 inches; height, 12 feet 7 inches; empty weight, 4,431 pounds; maximum weight, 8,000 pounds; power plant, one 600-hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 engine; maximum speed, 153 mph; and range, 875 miles. Lockheed U-2C and U-2R. Another of the great triumphs of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, the U-2 first gained international prominence when one was shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960. The high-flying U-2s operated out of both Vietnam and Thailand. Specifications (U-2R) are wingspan, 103 feet; length, 63 feet; height, 16 feet; empty weight, 15,101 pounds; maximum weight, 41,000 pounds; power plant, one 17,000-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J75-P-13B engine; cruising speed, 470 mph; and range, 3,455 miles. Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. An aircraft that excited public imagination since it was first announced, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird’s performance outstripped all other aircraft for a period of more than 20 years. Specifications are wingspan, 55 feet 7 inches; length, 107 feet 5 inches; height, 18 feet 5 inches; empty weight, 60,000 pounds; maximum weight, 172,000 pounds; power plants, two 32,500-pound static thrust (with afterburner) Pratt & Whitney J58 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 2,275 mph; and range, 3,250 miles (at Mach 3). Helio U-10 Super Courier. The Helio U-10 Super Courier is a six-seat long-range STOL aircraft with the capability of getting into and out of primitive airstrips. Specifications are wingspan, 39 feet; length, 31 feet; height, 8 feet 10 inches; empty weight, 2,010 pounds; maximum weight, 4,420 pounds; power plant, one 295-hp Lycoming GO-480 engine; maximum speed, 167 mph; and range, 615 miles. Beech QU-22B Bonanza. An adaptation of a conventionally tailed A-36 Bonanza with drone capability, the QU-22B was usually flown in Vietnam as a radio-relay aircraft in Igloo White operations.

Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

23

The SR-71 is unofficially known as the “Blackbird.” (Department of Defense)

Specifications are wingspan, 33 feet 5.5 inches; length, 26 feet 8 inches; height, 8 feet 5 inches; empty weight, 2,020 pounds; maximum weight, 3,600 pounds; power plant, one 280-hp Continental IO-520 engine; maximum speed, 204 mph; and range, 980 miles.

Democratic Republic of Vietnam Aircraft (Principal Types Only) Antonov AN-2. An outstanding light transport built in large numbers, the biplane Antonov AN-2 (North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] code name “Colt”) appeared anachronistic but possessed exactly the performance needed for a transport in North Vietnam. Specifications are wingspan, 59 feet 8 inches; length, 41 feet 10 inches; height, 13 feet 1.5 inches; empty weight, 7,606 pounds; maximum weight, 12,125 pounds; power plant, one 1,000-hp Shvetsov radial engine; maximum speed, 160 mph; and range, 600 miles. Ilyushin IL-28. The twin-jet Ilyushin IL-28 bomber (NATO code name “Beagle”) was reportedly easy to fly and to maintain. Although only a threat in the Vietnam War, it was a significant one, for it could have done damage to U.S. airfields. Specifications are wingspan, 70 feet 4.5 inches; length, 57 feet 10.75 inches; height, 22 feet; empty weight, 28,417 pounds; maximum weight, 49,300 pounds; power plants, two 5,952-pound thrust Klimov VK-1 turbojets; maximum speed, 559 mph; and range, 1,355 miles. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15. A classic fighter of the Korean War, Chinese-built versions of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (NATO code name “Fagot”) were the first jet fighters delivered to the VPAF. They were used primarily for training.

Specifications are wingspan, 33 feet 1 inch; length, 33 feet; height, 12 feet 2 inches; empty weight, 7,456 pounds; maximum weight, 10,595 pounds; power plant, one 5,952-pound static thrust Klimov RD-45 jet engine; maximum speed, 652 mph; and range, 882 miles. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17. A development of the famous MiG15 of the Korean War, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (NATO code name “Fresco”) began equipping frontline Soviet units in 1953. More than a decade later, the MiG-17 was still a formidable opponent in Vietnam because of its great maneuverability and firepower. Specifications are wingspan, 31 feet 7 inches; length, 36 feet 11 inches; height, 12 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 8,663 pounds; maximum weight, 13,400 pounds; power plant, one 5,730-pound thrust (7,450 pounds augmented) Klimov VK-1F turbojet engine; maximum speed, 710 mph; and range, 1,230 miles. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (J-6). Built in large numbers in the Soviet Union and as the Shenyang J-6 in China, the MikoyanGurevich MiG-19 (NATO code name “Farmer”) was a formidable supersonic fighter with a very effective armament package centered around three 30-mm cannon. Specifications are wingspan, 30 feet 2 inches; length, 48 feet 11 inches; height, 12 feet 10 inches; empty weight, 11,402 pounds; maximum weight, 19,621 pounds; power plants, two 7,165-pound thrust (with afterburning) Tumansky RD-9B turbojet engines; maximum speed, 901 mph; and range, 1,367 miles. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21. An interceptor designed for high speeds and a swift climb, the tiny delta-wing Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (NATO code name “Fishbed”) was a formidable opponent to the heavier F-4s and F-105s it faced in Vietnam.

24

Aircraft, Bombers

Specifications are wingspan, 23 feet 6 inches; length, 51 feet 9 inches; height, 14 feet 9 inches; empty weight, 13,500 pounds; maximum weight, 22,000 pounds; power plant, one 19,850-pound thrust (augmented) Tumansky R-25 turbojet engine; maximum speed, 1,385 mph; and range, 400 miles. WALTER J. BOYNE See also Airpower, Role in War; FARM GATE, Operation; McNamara Line; RANCH HAND, Operation; Raven Forward Air Controllers; Search-and-Rescue Operations References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Bowers, Peter M., and Gordon Swanborough. United States Military Aircraft since 1909. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Bowers, Peter M., and Gordon Swanborough. United States Navy Aircraft since 1911. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968. Bowers, Ray L. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Tactical Aircraft. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1983. Francillon, René J. Lockheed Aircraft since 1913. London: Putnam, 1982. Francillon, René J. McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920. London: Putnam, 1979. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Van Vleet, Clarke, and William J. Armstrong. United States Naval Aviation, 1910–1980. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980.

Aircraft, Bombers Boeing B-52 Stratofortress An eight-engine heavy jet bomber originally designed as an intercontinental weapon system, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (“Buff”) in Vietnam was converted to duties equivalent to World War I artillery bombardments. Operating from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and the Royal Thai Navy Air Force Base at U-Tapao, Thailand, the B-52s usually flew Arc Light strikes in three-ship cells and dropped their bombs on cue from special equipment such as the Combat Skyspot. Primarily B-52D and G were employed, although F models were used early in the war. Used for carpet bombing, B-52s were eventually called upon for close air support, bombing near perimeters of fortified camps. D models were capable of carrying up to 108 500-pound bombs. The B-52s also contributed heavily to LINEBACKER I and LINEBACKER II operations over North Vietnam, and a number were shot down. Specifications (typical B-52D) are wingspan, 185 feet; length, 156.6 feet; height, 48.25 feet; empty weight, 173,600 pounds; maximum weight, 450,000 pounds; power plants, eight 13,750-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J57-P-43 engines; maximum speed, 610 miles per hour (mph); and range (unrefueled), 6,400 miles.

Douglas A-1 Skyraider Originally developed as a U.S. Navy single-place, carrier-based dive bomber and torpedo plane, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider (“Spad”) served in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War, in the latter with U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) units. Several versions were developed, but most bombing was carried out by the single-seat A-1 version, powered by a Wright R-3350 reciprocating engine. A-1s were prized for their accuracy in close support, particularly in air-rescue operations, and for the ability of their rugged fuselage and engine to sustain damage and keep flying. Specifications (typical A-1) are wingspan, 50 feet 9 inches; length, 40 feet 1 inch; height, 15 feet 10 inches; empty weight, 12,313 pounds; maximum weight, 25,000 pounds; power plant, one 2,700-horsepower (hp) Wright R-3350 engine; maximum speed, 320 mph; and range, 1,202 miles.

Douglas B-26 Invader First flown in July 1942 as the XA-26, the Douglas Invader flew in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Redesignated the B-26 after World War II, the basic design was extensively modified by On Mark Engineering as the B-26K Counter-Invader, and when introduced in Vietnam it was redesignated the A-26A. This twin-engine light bomber was a delight to fly and was among the first U.S. combat aircraft introduced in Operation FARM GATE. Many operated out of Nakhom Phanom, Thailand. Some RB-26s were used for reconnaissance. Specifications are wingspan, 71 feet 6 inches; length, 51 feet 7 inches; height, 19 feet; empty weight, 25,130 pounds; maximum weight, 39,250 pounds; power plants, two 2,500-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines; maximum speed, 327 mph; and range, 1,480 miles.

Douglas A-4 Skyhawk The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk was first flown in 1954 and was in continuous production longer than any other combat aircraft. The last of 2,960 A-4s was delivered in 1979. Small and rugged, the A-4 was a favorite workhorse of U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps crews in Vietnam. The Skyhawk carried a wide variety of weapons during tens of thousands of sorties against enemy targets. Specifications (typical A-4E) are wingspan, 27 feet 6 inches; length, 40 feet 1.5 inches; height, 15 feet 2 inches; empty weight, 9,853 pounds; maximum weight, 24,500 pounds; power plant, one 8,500-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J52-P-2 engine; maximum speed, 660 mph; and range, 1,160 miles.

Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer, A-3 Skywarrior First flown in October 1952 as the Navy XA3D-1 Skywarrior, a twin-jet carrier-based nuclear bomber, this durable aircraft served in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy as the KA-3B tanker and EKA-3B tanker/electronic countermeasures (ECM) aircraft. Its principal use there was by the U.S. Air Force as the EB-66 ECM aircraft.

Aircraft Carriers

25

Operating with or without fighter escort, EB-66s probed deep into enemy territory; 15 were lost, 6 in combat and 9 to accidents. Specifications (typical RB/EB-66C) are wingspan, 74 feet 7 inches; length, 75 feet 2 inches; height, 23 feet 7 inches; empty weight, 43,966 pounds; maximum weight, 82,420 pounds; power plants, two 10,200-pound thrust Allison J71-A-13 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 640 mph; and range, 2,935 miles.

pounds; maximum weight, 42,000 pounds; power plant, one 15,000-pound thrust Allison (Rolls-Royce) TF41-A-2 engine; maximum speed, 691 mph; and range, 2,861 miles. WALTER J. BOYNE

Martin B-57/RB-57 Canberra

References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Bowers, Peter M., and Gordon Swanborough. United States Military Aircraft since 1909. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Bowers, Peter M., and Gordon Swanborough. United States Navy Aircraft since 1911. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968. Bowers, Ray L. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Tactical Aircraft. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1983. Francillon, René J. Lockheed Aircraft since 1913. London: Putnam, 1982. Francillon, René J. McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920. London: Putnam, 1979. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Van Vleet, Clarke, and William J. Armstrong. United States Naval Aviation, 1910–1980. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980.

The only non-U.S. design adopted by the U.S. Air Force since World War II, the B-57 was originally built by Britain’s English Electric as the Canberra, with its first flight in May 1949. The first U.S. Air Force example was British built, but Martin was awarded a contract to redesign the aircraft and produce it. A Martin B-57B was the first American jet to be employed in Vietnam. Canberras were subsequently used in bombing, flak-suppression, nightinterdiction, and reconnaissance roles. The Viet Cong (VC) called the B-57 the con sau (“caterpillar”) and dreaded its long time onstation and its great bomb capacity. The VNAF also operated a few B-57s for a brief period. B-57s and RB-57s flew almost 38,000 sorties in Southeast Asia. A total of 33 B-57s were lost. Specifications (B-57B) are wingspan, 64 feet; length, 65 feet 6 inches; height, 15 feet 7 inches; empty weight, 27,000 pounds; maximum weight, 55,000 pounds; power plants, two 7,200-pound thrust Wright J65 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 598 mph; and range, 2,300 miles.

Grumman A-6, EA-6A Intruder, EA-6B Prowler (also KA-6D Tanker) The innocuous-looking Grumman A2F-1 (later designated A-6) first flew on April 19, 1960; it would go on to serve an increasingly important role as an attack, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and tanker aircraft. Intruders began operations in Vietnam in 1965 and were in the forefront of battle until the end of the war. They remain in active service. Always a complex aircraft with a difficult mission, the Intruder/Prowler’s versatility has won wide popularity. Specifications (EA-6B) are wingspan, 53 feet; length, 59 feet 7 inches; height, 17 feet; empty weight, 32,162 pounds; maximum weight, 60,610 pounds; power plants, two 11,200-pound thrust Pratt & Whitney J52-P408 turbojet engines; maximum speed, 659 mph; and range, 2,022 miles.

Vought A-7 Corsair II Designed to replace the McDonnell Douglas A-4 and based heavily on the Vought F-8 design, the Vought A-7 proved to be a highly successful attack bomber for both the U.S. Navy and, later, the U.S. Air Force. Built for a ground-attack role with armor and damage-resistant systems, the Corsair II proved to be as rugged as its World War II namesake. Specifications (A-7E) are wingspan, 38 feet 9 inches; length, 46 feet 1.5 inches; height, 16 feet .75 inch; empty weight, 19,111

See also Airpower, Role in War; FARM GATE, Operation; McNamara Line; RANCH HAND, Operation; Raven Forward Air Controllers; Search-and-Rescue Operations

Aircraft Carriers From the early days of the Viet Minh insurgency against the French to the Mayaguez Incident almost 30 years later, both French and American aircraft carriers played a prominent role in the fighting in Southeast Asia. On April 2, 1947, the Dixmude, an ex-American escort carrier, sent its Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers into action supporting French forces in the central section of Vietnam. Then, steaming to France to ferry additional planes to the war, the Dixmude returned to launch strikes near Hanoi in October of the same year. The Dixmude set a pattern of aircraft transport and strike operations that French carriers would follow until 1954. In November 1948 the light carrier Arromanches, formerly of the British Royal Navy, joined the fray, and its aircraft repeatedly struck the Viet Minh in 1949, in 1951, and in 1954 during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. The U.S. Navy also transferred to France light carriers, which were renamed the LaFayette and the Bois Belleau. Only the former saw action, with the Bois Belleau arriving in Haiphong in June 1954. The operations of U.S. aircraft carriers overlapped with those of France and closely paralleled the American involvement in the Southeast Asian struggle. U.S. carriers made their first appearance in the theater in March 1950 when aircraft from the Boxer overflew Saigon in a show of support for the French. Soon thereafter the

26

Aircraft Carriers

U.S. Navy transferred to France two light aircraft carriers. During the Dien Bien Phu crisis, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration deployed several carriers to the South China Sea, as did President John F. Kennedy in 1961 during the Laotian crisis of that year. Full-fledged operations for carriers began three years later with reconnaissance flights over the Plain of Jars from Seventh Fleet warships deployed on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. On June 6, 1964, a Vought RF-8A Crusader from the Kitty Hawk became the first American carrier plane lost to enemy fire. Two months later, carrier planes initiated combat strikes during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, followed by the PIERCE ARROW, BARREL ROLL, and FLAMING DART retaliatory raids. In March 1965 the carriers Hancock and Ranger joined the U.S. Air Force in opening the episodic campaign dubbed ROLLING THUNDER. By the end of that year U.S. carriers had launched 31,000 sorties; their planes would strike targets in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) until 1973. Additionally, the ships also operated from Dixie Station to the south, their aircraft flying one-third of the missions directed at Communist forces in

the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) over a 16-month period beginning in April 1965. From 1964 to 1975 carriers averaged three on-station at a time, but they reached peaks of seven in June 1972 and January 1973. Twentyone carriers made at least one deployment to the theater, with four of those ships (the Bennington, Hornet, Kearsarge, and Yorktown) conducting only antisubmarine sweeps and rescue operations. Except for the John F. Kennedy, all of the U.S. Navy’s large attack carriers (the America, Constellation, Enterprise, Forrestal, Independence, Kitty Hawk, Ranger, and Saratoga) made at least one tour, as did the three carriers of the Midway class (the Coral Sea, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Midway). Six ships of the smaller Essex class also participated: four attack carriers (the Bon Homme Richard, Hancock, Oriskany, and Ticonderoga) and two antisubmarine carriers (the Intrepid and Shangri-La) with air groups configured for attack purposes. Individual tours generally lasted about nine months, and most of the carriers returned repeatedly to the war. The Hancock held the record for the highest number of cruises (eight); however, the Coral Sea made the longest cruise (331 days between December

The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany (CVA-34) en route to the Gulf of Tonkin and operations off Vietnam, June 23, 1967. Operating from both Dixie and Yankee stations, carriers were a vital part of U.S. air operations over both South and North Vietnam. (Naval Historical Center)

Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam 1964 and November 1965) and spent the most time (875 days) on the line. Conversely, the Forrestal operated during its single war tour for only five days before an accident and fire sent it home. The navy’s first nuclear-powered carrier, the Enterprise, made six tours to Southeast Asia. Unlike their World War II predecessors, U.S. carriers off Vietnam remained in action day after day for months at a time. For example, during the summer of 1972, carriers launched an average of 4,000 sorties monthly and accounted for 60 percent of all missions supporting ground operations in South Vietnam. Techniques such as vertical replenishment and at-sea transfer of munitions and stores made possible such lengthy time on-station. The air groups on the largest carriers numbered about 90 airplanes each and, on the three Midway-class ships, about 75 airplanes. The smaller Essex-class carriers were quite crowded with their complements of 70 airplanes. The carriers operated a number of aircraft types. For attack, the propeller-driven Douglas A-1 Skyraider and the jet-powered Douglas A-3 Skywarrior and Douglas A-4 Skyhawk were gradually supplanted by the Ling-TemcoVought A-7 Corsair II and the Grumman A-6 Intruder. Fighter coverage was provided by the Vought F-8 Crusader and increasingly by the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II that also conducted attack missions. Reconnaissance tasks fell to the North American RA-5 Vigilante and Douglas RA-3B Skywarrior and specially configured fighters. The Grumman E-1 Tracer and Grumman E-2 Hawkeye provided air-control and early-warning capabilities. A few Grumman EA-6 Prowler electronics countermeasures aircraft saw service beginning in 1972. Helicopters such as the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King and the Sikorsky UH-2 Seasprite were employed primarily for antisubmarine patrols and search-and-rescue missions. Unlike their U.S. Air Force counterparts, most U.S. Navy planes retained their light colors (for ease of deck spotting at night) and vivid squadron insignia. Despite restrictions imposed by Washington, carrier strike aircraft frequently hit with success important North Vietnamese targets. These included the Uong Bi thermal power plant in December 1965 and the oil tank farms in 1966. Efforts to interfere with North Vietnamese lines of communication proved less effective, however. Although Communist forces never confronted carriers directly, on many occasions North Vietnamese fighters challenged U.S. Navy planes that flew from them. Following an unacceptably high loss rate early in the war, in 1969 the U.S. Navy instituted its Top Gun School and thereafter enjoyed a 12:1 kill ratio. The Constellation fighters alone claimed 15 Soviet-made MiGs; airmen flying from this carrier included the team of Randall H. Cunningham and William P. Driscoll, the only navy aces of the conflict. Overall, carrier pilots received credit for 62 confirmed kills while losing 15 planes to enemy aircraft. More dangerous than MiGs to U.S. Navy aviators was enemy antiaircraft fire, which downed 345 planes. An additional 91 aircraft fell victim to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and 79 were lost to other causes, making a total of 530 planes destroyed in action.

27

Operational losses totaled 329 aircraft. Accidental fires claimed 39 additional planes aboard the Oriskany, Forrestal, and Enterprise. Even as the Richard M. Nixon administration gradually wound down the war, it kept a large carrier presence in the theater. For instance, six carriers were still on-station for much of 1972; naval aviators spent more time on the line that year than during any other period of the war. The number of attack sorties dropped, however; by the end of 1972, the majority of missions were reconnaissance flights. Carriers remained on-station following the cease-fire of January 23, 1973; four of the ships participated in Operation FREQUENT WIND, the final evacuation of Saigon. On May 15, 1975, planes from the Coral Sea helped cover the Mayaguez rescue operations. Over the long conflict, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers provided one of the strong arms of the U.S. war effort. Essentially invulnerable to enemy countermeasures, the carriers gave policy makers flexibility, mobility, and power. In return, the war validated the large carrier. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also BARREL ROLL, Operation; Dixie Station; FLAMING DART I and II, Operations;

Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Mayaguez Incident; Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard; PIERCE ARROW, Operation; Plain of Jars; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Top Gun School; United States Navy; Yankee Station References Francillon, René J. Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club: U.S. Carrier Operations off Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Friedman, Norman. U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Rausa, Rosario. Gold Wings, Blue Sea: A Naval Aviator’s Story. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980.

Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Air defenses of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) expanded rapidly during the conflict in Southeast Asia and became one of the most formidable integrated air defense systems (IADS) yet seen in modern warfare. When American air strikes began against North Vietnam in 1964, North Vietnamese air defenses resembled those of North Korea in 1950. They included an estimated 1,426 antiaircraft guns, 22 early-warning radars, and 4 fire-control radars (the latter capable of directing the fires for medium and heavy guns). By the end of 1968, however, North Vietnamese air defenses included 8,050 antiaircraft artillery (AAA) pieces, 152 fighter aircraft (106 of these safely based in China), 40 active SA-2 missile battalions, and more than 400 radars of all types.

28

Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) personnel man a surface-to-air missile (SAM) launcher on the outskirts of Hanoi during the Vietnam War. Such missile systems were a key component of North Vietnam’s air defenses. (Bettmann/Corbis)

North Vietnam’s IADS consisted of three elements: detection, communication, and response. Detection elements provided warning of an imminent air attack by either active or passive means, including early-warning radars, radar-detection devices, and even observers with binoculars. Communication elements tied this system together by telephone or radio. Because North Vietnamese air defenses operated under strict Soviet-style centralized control, they were highly dependent on fast, efficient communications. There were three basic types of response elements available: AAA, airborne interceptors, and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). Antiaircraft artillery, responsible for 80 percent of American aircraft losses over Southeast Asia, fired unguided shells into the sky based on either the gunner’s judgment or radar-based predictions. The sizes, tactical ranges, and rates of fire of these weapons varied. Smaller-caliber weapons (7.62-millimeter[mm], 20-mm, and 37-mm) had higher rates of fire and threw a high volume of projectiles into the air. Medium-caliber (57-mm) and heavycaliber (85-mm and 100-mm) weapons had relatively slower rates of fire and often relied on fire-control radars for target data. Antiaircraft artillery fire was exceptionally deadly at lower altitudes simply because of the amount of bullets flying in the air. For example, from January 1965 to December 1966 AAA downed 384 U.S. aircraft, and for every 1 of these, 3 others suffered battle dam-

age. Of those aircraft lost, more than 53 percent were initially hit once the aircraft descended below 4,500 feet in altitude. Regarding fighter aircraft, North Vietnam had no interceptor force at the time of the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Two days later, however, Vietnam’s first fighter regiment flew 36 Sovietmade MiG-17 aircraft from the regiment’s training base in China to an airfield near Hanoi. In 1966 the newer, more capable Soviet MiG-21s entered North Vietnam’s inventory. North Vietnamese aircraft operated sporadically throughout the conflict, working in concert with the other elements of the air defense system. U.S. aviators noted that on some days the MiGs assumed primary responsibility for the air defense, while on other days the SAMs assumed the role. Interceptor pilots might entice American pilots to pursue them into an area well defended by SA-2s, or SA-2s might be fired to force U.S. air formations into a MiG ambush. North Vietnamese pilots followed the Soviet doctrine of operating under strict ground control. North Vietnamese radar operators and their Soviet advisers directed every action of fighter pilots other than takeoffs and landings. Radar operators would typically vector MiGs to the rear of U.S. formations, where they would strike either early in a mission, forcing U.S. Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs to jettison their bombs, or after the bomb run, when escorting McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs would be low on

Air Mobility fuel. These guerrilla-style air tactics were often effective especially throughout Operation ROLLING THUNDER, when North Vietnamese airfields were declared off-limits to U.S. air strikes. SAMs, primarily the radar-guided SA-2 (and in 1972 the infraredguided SA-7), constituted the third response element of the IADS. Although SA-2s were relatively ineffective at low altitudes (where AAA was deadliest), they were much more effective at higher altitudes (where AAA was less accurate). Of the more than 9,000 SA-2s fired from 1965 to 1972, fewer than 2 percent brought down aircraft. However, SAMs were a constant threat to aircraft formations, and in the early stages of ROLLING THUNDER, SA-2s actually denied U.S. aircraft the opportunity to operate at medium and high altitudes until the advent of Wild Weasels, AGM-45 Shrikes, and ALQ-71 jamming pods. PATRICK K. BARKER See also Aircraft Carriers; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Lavalle, A. J. C., ed. The Tale of Two Bridges and the Battle for the Skies over North Vietnam. Monographs 1 and 2. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Staff, 2001. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John, et al., eds. Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Nordeen, Lon O. Air Warfare in the Missile Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.

29

his corps being decimated in a nuclear attack. He proposed using aircraft to disperse his troops in defense and to concentrate them for attack, thus presenting fleeting nuclear targets. While heading operations on the U.S. Army General Staff, Gavin pushed the idea of using troops in helicopters to fulfill traditional cavalry missions. Like-minded officers soon advocated development of a turboshaft utility helicopter, an experimental cavalry unit, and armed helicopters. Gavin secured an airmobile doctrine, appointed a director of U.S. Army aviation to push air cavalry concepts, and arranged flight training for senior officers. Thus, somewhat ironically the foundations for air mobility were laid under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, despite his administration’s emphasis on massive retaliation by nuclear weapons. The John F. Kennedy administration placed emphasis on conventional warfare during a nuclear standoff and was highly receptive to air mobility because it promised increased combat power through greater mobility. Despite opposition from the U.S. Army staff, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara ordered the army to experiment with air mobility. The result was the 1962 Tactical Mobility Requirements Board (also known as the Howze Board, named for its chair, Major General Hamilton H. Howze), which recommended the organization of airmobile units. McNamara supported further testing of the Howze Board recommendations, using the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1964 the airmobile 11th Division, commanded by Major General Harry W. O. Kinnard, outperformed the 82nd Airborne Division in Exercise Air Assault II in the Carolinas. The need for such a division in Vietnam led to the redesignation of the 11th Di-

Air Mobility Tactical doctrine developed by the U.S. Army in the 1960s. An innovative concept, air mobility entailed the use of helicopters to find the enemy, carry troops to battle, provide them with gunship support, position artillery, carry out medical evacuation, and provide communications and resupply. In Vietnam the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions were designated airmobile divisions, but most other allied combat units used air mobility to some degree. Air mobility had its origins in the Korean War (1950–1953) and the potential for tactical nuclear war in Europe. In their infancy in the 1950s, helicopters proved their worth in Korea by completing many missions, including reconnaissance, limited repositioning of troops, aerial resupply, and medical evacuation. So impressed was the U.S. Army with the helicopter’s potential that in 1952 it committed itself to organizing 12 helicopter transport battalions. The danger of tactical nuclear warfare in Europe led the U.S. Army to examine the helicopter not just for transport but also for direct use in combat. Lieutenant General James Gavin, a U.S. Army corps commander in Germany in 1952, ran war games that showed

A Boeing CH-47 Chinook delivers a 105-mm howitzer and ammunition pallet to American soldiers in South Vietnam. The use of these powerful helicopters greatly expanded the versatility of combat units on the ground. (U.S. Army Center of Military History)

30

Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company

vision as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and its deployment there in 1965. Before the 1st Cavalry Division arrived in Vietnam, the army had already been experimenting there with airmobile concepts. In 1962, U.S. Army Piasecki H-21 Shawnee/Workhorse and U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw helicopters began lifting Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops into battle. Using ground troops or air reconnaissance to locate Viet Cong (VC) units, army and marine advisers developed quickreaction “Eagle Flights” of ARVN troops to be flown into pursuit or blocking positions. Beginning in 1962, the army used the Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV) to test airmobile concepts. The team tested many workable ideas, including armed helicopters, Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters as troopships, reconnaissance helicopters, and improved communications and navigation. In Vietnam, the 1st Cavalry Division consisted of eight maneuver battalions controlled by three brigades. Other units included four artillery battalions, an air cavalry squadron, an engineer and signal battalion, and an aviation group. Artillery was organized into three 105-millimeter howitzer battalions and an aerial rocket artillery battalion. The aviation group included two UH-1 Huey battalions and a Boeing CH-47 Chinook battalion, enough lift for a third of the division’s troops at one time. After organizing at An Khe, the 1st Cavalry entered battle near the Ia Drang Valley. The tactics used were typical of later operations. Teams of Bell H-13 Sioux scouts and UH-1 gunships from the 9th Cavalry sought out and located People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces near the Ia Drang. Then CH-47s lifted artillery to landing zones (LZs) Columbus and Falcon to cover infantry landing sites near the Chu Pong Massif. After suppressive fire at the LZ, UH-1s lifted infantry to LZ X-Ray on the Chu Pong, where they made contact with the PAVN troops. Soon Hueys carried reinforcements and supplies to LZ X-Ray and evacuated the wounded. As PAVN troops hurled themselves at the U.S. forces, forward observers called in artillery and air strikes, the latter delivered by the air force and the division’s own aerial artillery battalion. The area outside the infantry’s perimeter became a killing zone. When the battle ended, UH-1s lifted the troops to home base. These airmobile tactics were repeated in fast-paced actions that emphasized attrition rather than holding ground. Later tactics featured airlifted platoons or companies to contact the enemy while other units were inserted in blocking positions. Operations in which the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne divisions used airmobile tactics included the Ia Drang operation; Operations MASHER/WHITE WING, CRAZY HORSE, LEJEUNE, PERSHING, PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, DELAWARE–LAM SON 216; and the Cambodian Incursion. These operations showed that airmobile units were capable of many types of missions, including scouting, search and destroy, pursuit, raiding, and cordon. Airmobile divisions were also capable of long moves on short notice. While the 1st Cavalry and the 101st Airborne had organic (dedicated) aircraft, many other combat units had helicopters attached

to make them airmobile for short periods. For this reason, the U.S. Army located aviation units in every corps tactical zone. Units using these aircraft developed their own procedures, so aviation units could not easily be switched from one combat unit to another. The army thus established the 1st Aviation Brigade in 1966 and named Brigadier General George P. Seneff its commander. He quickly established training schools, enforced safety regulations, and standardized operating procedures throughout Vietnam. Seneff allocated one aviation battalion headquarters to each division. By 1968 the 1st Aviation Brigade managed four combat aviation groups containing a total of 14 aviation battalions and 3 air cavalry squadrons. Air mobility proved itself in Vietnam, and the war thus became known as the “Helicopter War.” Airmobile divisions were proficient in airmobile operations because artillery, aviation, cavalry, and infantry units worked together. Their men had a different concept of combat because terrain was not a major obstacle. These units were more flexible in responding to enemy initiatives and had shorter reaction time. Troops could go into battle rested and carrying less weight. While helicopters proved survivable in battle, a great many were also shot down, and they still required the air superiority and close air support provided by the U.S. Air Force. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Army Concept Team in Vietnam; Gavin, James Maurice; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Ia Drang, Battle of; Kinnard, Harry William Osborn; McNamara, Robert Strange References Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company Tracing its roots back to the Joint Assault Signals Companies (JASC) that supported the amphibious assaults in the Pacific theater during World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company (ANGLICO) is a specialized unit that reports directly to the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) commander. Normally the MEF commander allocates his subordinate teams to other service’s units as required to ensure that they receive the most effective air, artillery, and naval gunfire support. As did their predecessors in the JASC units, ANGLICO teams coordinate the use of air, artillery, and naval gunfire support. ANGLICO personnel are airborne and scuba qualified and train with all the U.S. military services as well as most allied militaries. As such, they are intimately familiar with the specific tactics and procedures of all the military services that might be involved in supporting various operations, including amphibious landings. Only the U.S. Air Force provides similar fire-support and coordi-

Airpower, Role in War nation teams. In Vietnam, the 1st ANGLICO was assigned to the III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF) headquartered at Da Nang in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in the northern portion of Military Region I. Subunit 1 of 1st ANGLICO was the first to deploy to Vietnam, landing at Da Nang in late May 1965. Initially deployed to support U.S. Marine Corps operations along the coast, ANGLICO’s mission expanded after 1966 to providing air, artillery, and naval gunfire support to all allied units operating within III MAF’s area of responsibility. As the ground war escalated, ANGLICO teams were assigned to support Australian, South Vietnamese, New Zealand, and U.S. Army forces as well as U.S. and South Korean Marine Corps units. This expanded mission required Subunit 1 to draw more 1st ANGLICO personnel from Hawaii into South Vietnam. By late 1968, more than 75 percent of 1st ANGLICO’s 120 personnel were in-country. The headquarters remained at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Base Kaneohe, training and equipping the personnel and teams that deployed to South Vietnam. Subunit 1 commanded the units in-country, normally deploying teams of 4–6 men to work with allied ground forces. These teams saw extensive combat, participating in the battles for Da Nang and Hue City and in virtually every ground combat action conducted within 10 nautical miles of the coast between 1968 and 1972. With III MAF’s 1971 withdrawal, Subunit 1 increasingly assigned its teams to South Vietnamese marine and army units, with their fire-support coordination proving critical during the 1972 Easter Offensive carried out by Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Allied air and artillery support was often the difference between victory and defeat in those battles as well as the battles of the war’s earlier years. The last ANGLICO teams were withdrawn from South Vietnam in 1973, having provided a critical service during the Vietnam War. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER

31

U.S. Marine Corps; allied aviation; and civilian contract airlines. Although occasionally pivotal, especially in supporting ground operations, airpower was never decisive. The role of airpower in the Vietnam War remains subject to controversy and myth. Airpower enthusiasts perpetuate the myth that if U.S. air forces had been unleashed, quick and decisive victory would have followed. To support their contention, they point to the so-called Christmas Bombings (Operation LINEBACKER II) in December 1972. Advocates of airpower claim that air operations did all they were asked to do and that they could have been more effective had their hands not been tied. The myth perpetuated by some in the antiwar movement is that a cruel technology was unleashed on the people of Indochina. They claim that the cities of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) were carpet bombed and that napalm was used indiscriminately throughout the war. Although many of these claims are the result of ignorance or shoddy scholarship, some, such as the contention that 100,000 tons of bombs fell on Hanoi during LINEBACKER II, border on the fanciful. Indeed, from 1962 through 1973 the United States dropped nearly 8 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) received about half

See also Easter Offensive; Hue and Da Nang, Fall of; Naval Gunfire Support; United States Marine Corps References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Gilbert, Edward. The U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006. Henderson, Charles. Marshalling the Faithful: The Marines’ First Year in Vietnam. New York: Berkeley Publishing, 2006. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994.

Airpower, Role in War More than half of the $200 billion that the United States expended to wage the Vietnam War went to support air operations, including those of the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, and the

Four Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs bomb a North Vietnamese target at the direction of a Douglas B-66 Destroyer. From 1962 to 1973, the United States dropped nearly 8 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. This compares to 3.4 million tons dropped by the Allies in all of World War II. (Department of Defense)

32

Airpower, Role in War

that tonnage, making it the most-bombed country in the history of aerial warfare, a dubious distinction for an ally. The air campaign resulted in the U.S. Air Force losing 2,257 aircraft. Total air losses for the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Army came to 8,588 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Although missions against North Vietnam caught the popular imagination and perhaps inspired the most controversy, the focus of air operations was South Vietnam. Nearly 75 percent of all sorties (one aircraft on one mission) were flown in support of U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) ground forces. Indeed, many veterans claim that they owed their survival to close air support by the air force and marines. But airpower played a larger role than dropping bombs. Helicopters provided unprecedented mobility to American and allied forces by hauling troops and artillery to and from the battlefield. Medical evacuation helicopters carried wounded—many of whom otherwise would not have survived—to modern rear-area medical facilities, where specialists performed life-saving surgery. Air force transports kept far-flung outposts such as Kham Duc and Khe Sanh supplied, even when they were surrounded by Communist forces and cut off from land lines of communications. Twinengine, propeller-driven, side-firing gunships, such as the Douglas AC-47 Spooky and, later, the Fairchild AC-119 Shadow/Stinger and Lockheed AC-130 Spectre, went aloft at night to prevent Communist forces from overrunning isolated Special Forces outposts. Boeing B-52 Stratofortress Arc Light missions pounded supply caches and sometimes obliterated entire Communist regiments when they massed for an attack. These were particularly effective during the siege of Khe Sanh in 1968 and at An Loc in 1972. The unprecedented weight of this effort indicates that the primary role for airpower in Vietnam was in support of ground operations. This ran counter to the tenets of U.S. Air Force doctrine that held that airpower could be better used in a strategic air campaign against North Vietnam. The argument can be made that airpower played a strategically counterproductive role in South Vietnam. Images of napalm bursting over villages and huts, of denuded forests resulting from the use of Agent Orange, and of bombs tumbling from B-52s fed the claims of the antiwar movement. On a more rational level, the argument can be made that the ability of the air force to provide support for troops actually prolonged the war by making it possible for army and marine forces on the ground to remain engaged in a conflict that they really did not know how to win. Airpower used outside South Vietnam in so-called out-country operations accounted for nearly another 4 million tons of bombs. Out-country operations included three major air campaigns over North Vietnam, a series of interdiction campaigns along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, and various air operations over Cambodia. Of all the campaigns conducted out of country, only Operation LINEBACKER I, the air response to North Vietnam’s Spring Offensive of 1972, was an unmitigated success. The rest either failed or are subject to conflicting interpretations.

Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing of North Vietnam from March 2, 1965, to October 31, 1968, was the longest air campaign ever conducted by the U.S. Air Force. ROLLING THUNGER was an effort at both strategic persuasion and interdiction. Although the vast majority of historians agree that ROLLING THUNDER failed to achieve its stated objectives, the most ardent airpower enthusiasts claim otherwise. They maintain that Hanoi was on the verge of defeat when the bombing was curtailed following the 1968 Tet Offensive. Critics contend that the shift from what had been a guerrilla war, albeit with increasingly conventional aspects, to what had become much more a conventional war by 1969 was indicative both of Hanoi’s ability to move supplies and troops to South Vietnam and of the failure of ROLLING THUNDER. LINEBACKER I, the air response to Hanoi’s 1972 Spring Offensive, was the most successful employment of airpower in the Vietnam War. The strategy of using conventional airpower to stop a conventional invasion was effective. The nature of the war in South Vietnam had changed by the spring of 1972, and Hanoi’s 14 divisions fighting inside South Vietnam needed up to 1,000 tons of supplies a day to continue their operations. Furthermore, LINEBACKER I was the first modern air campaign in which precision-guided munitions (so-called smart bombs) played an integral role in a coherent and effective strategy. The use of conventional airpower to stop a conventional invasion made it the classic example of a successful aerial interdiction campaign. LINEBACKER II (the “Eleven-Day War” as it is called by some airpower enthusiasts) took place during December 18–29, 1972. Some 739 B-52 sorties dropped 15,000 tons of bombs on targets in and around Hanoi, Haiphong, Vinh, and other major North Vietnamese cities. Fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons. The North Vietnamese launched virtually every SA-2 surface-toair missile (SAM) in their inventory to shoot down 15 B-52s, nine fighter-bombers, a U.S. Navy reconnaissance jet, and a U.S. Air Force Sikorsky HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopter. Airpower advocates claim that LINEBACKER II brought North Vietnam to its knees. They further contend that if airpower had been used with equal resolve at any point after 1965, the war could have been concluded quickly and on terms favorable to the United States. Critics point out that just as the nature of the war in 1972 was different than it was earlier, U.S. demands on Hanoi were also different. By 1972 most American troops had been withdrawn. All that the leaders in Washington wanted was to get the remaining U.S. troops out and get prisoners of war back and for the Saigon government to survive for a reasonable interval. With its air defenses in shambles, however, Hanoi had little reason to test U.S. resolve. The bombing compelled them to sign an agreement that basically allowed for the continued withdrawal of U.S. forces and the return of prisoners of war held in North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos was subjected to a massive aerial interdiction effort that dwarfed ROLLING THUNDER and LINEBACKER I combined. Bombing of the trail began in 1965 with Operations BARREL ROLL, STEEL TIGER, and TIGER HOUND. None of these had

Airpower, Role in War

33

34

Air-to-Air Missiles

much effect on what was still a guerrilla war in South Vietnam. But as the war steadily escalated and the flow of supplies became more critical, the bombing increased. On November 15, 1968, two weeks after President Lyndon Johnson ended ROLLING THUNDER, Operation COMMANDO HUNT began. Before the United States stopped bombing Laos in February 1973, nearly 3 million tons of bombs were dropped, mostly on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. COMMANDO HUNT was a series of seven campaigns, each of about six months’ duration. During this effort, gunships such as the fourengine Lockheed AC-130 Spectre roamed over the trail at night using infrared sensors and low-light–level television to find trucks, which were then destroyed by their computer-aimed 40-millimeter (mm) cannon or 105-mm howitzers. B-52s flew up to 30 sorties a day to dump bombs into interdiction boxes around Tchepone (a key transshipment point) and in the four passes leading from North Vietnam into Laos and from Laos into South Vietnam and Cambodia. During the day when few trucks ventured onto the trail, fighter-bombers attacked suspected truck parks, storage areas, and antiaircraft gun emplacements. But in the final analysis this massive employment of airpower, while generating statistical success, failed to curtail the flow of troops and supplies moving from North Vietnam into South Vietnam and Cambodia. In fact, airpower never effectively shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Air operations over Cambodia made up the last component of the out-country air war. Beginning with the secret Operation MENU (March 18, 1969–May 26, 1970) bombing until August 15, 1973, when Congress mandated an end to air operations over Cambodia, about 500,000 tons of bombs fell on People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), Viet Cong (VC), and Khmer Rouge base camps and supply dumps. Although it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of this bombing, the argument can be made that the MENU bombing helped prevent a major buildup of Communist forces that would have preceded an attack toward Saigon. Had such an attack developed, Vietnamization and the continued withdrawal of American troops might have been jeopardized. On the other hand, despite the dropping of half a million ton of bombs, the Khmer Rouge steadily increased its strength and extended its hold on the countryside to win the war in April 1975. Despite what may seem to be a succession of failures, airpower did some remarkable things. There were noteworthy technical and tactical innovations introduced during the Vietnam War. These included aerial defoliation of jungles and crop destruction, the development and employment of propeller-driven side-firing gunships, and the use of forward air controllers (FACs) to coordinate air strikes in South Vietnam and northern Laos. One of the greatest success stories for the U.S. Air Force was the development of a superb long-range combat aircrew search-and-rescue (SAR) capability. Although the recovery of downed aircrews is a good operational capability to have when rescuing downed pilots is a highlight of an air war, this says something about the overall performance of airpower.

The United States was the first major power to lose a war in which it controlled the air but was not, however, the last. In the 1980s the Soviet Union experienced some of the same frustrations in its long and bloody war in Afghanistan. What Vietnam did indicate for airpower is that winning or losing in warfare is much more than a function of sortie generation and firepower on targets. Airpower incorporates many factors, including politics, national will and resolve, geography, time, and the weather. Above all, warfare, especially limited warfare, is an art. U.S. airpower leaders in Vietnam may have been masters of airpower, but they were not masters of the art of war. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Forward Air Controllers; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Long-Range Electronic Navigation; MENU, Operation; Raven Forward Air Controllers; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Search-and-Rescue Operations; Yankee Station References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Morrocco, John, et al., eds. Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984.

Air-to-Air Missiles The Vietnam War was the first war to see extensive use of air-toair missiles (AAMs), first by the United States and, after 1965, by the Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force). The United States employed two main types: the AIM-7 Sparrow and the AIM-9 Sidewinder (the U.S. Air Force also used the much-reviled AIM-4 Falcon for a few months in 1967). VPAF fighters carried the Soviet-supplied AA-1 Alkali and AA2 Atoll (the Soviet copy of the American Sidewinder). Although many air warfare theorists believed that the introduction of these missiles had eliminated the need for guns on fighter aircraft and dogfight training, the war’s air-to-air combat engagements demonstrated that the days of the gunfighter were not over. American fighter pilots quickly learned that missiles that

Air-to-Ground Missiles performed well against straight-flying drones in peacetime training exercises were not so successful against an agile fighter aircraft flown by an experienced pilot. AAMs of the Vietnam War came in two types: those that relied on radar guidance and those that used infrared guidance. Both types were susceptible to countermeasures (e.g., flares to defeat infrared and chaff to defeat radar). Infrared-based systems guided the missile up the target aircraft’s exhaust plume. They were simpler and more reliable than radar-guided systems but had a shorter range and had to be launched from behind the target. Most Sidewinder and all AA-2 missiles used in the war were infrared guided and had an engagement range of less than two nautical miles. Radar guidance theoretically enabled the missile to be launched from any quadrant of the target aircraft, but as a practical matter the target had to be either coming at or going away from the launch platform. However, radar guidance stretched the engagement range in head-on intercept out to four (AA-1) and six nautical miles (Sparrow). Unfortunately, radar guidance relied on the launch aircraft maintaining a radar track on the target and used either the reflected radar signal (e.g., the American AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9C) or the launch aircraft’s radar beam (Soviet AA-1) to guide the missile onto the target. In either case, the launch platform had to maintain radar lock on the target; that is, the launch aircraft’s radar had to be pointed onto and maintain constant radar contact on the target until the engagement was completed. If that radar contact was lost for any reason, the missile flew off and missed the target. Often the radarguided missile’s vacuum tube technology failed. The problems involved in maintaining radar lock throughout the engagement made most pilots prefer infrared-guided missiles. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) quickly dropped the AA-1 and generally flew only with the AA-2. The American F-8, A-4, and F-100 aircraft carried only Sidewinders, while the F-4 carried both Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles, up to four of each. Unfortunately, the Sparrow was designed to engage large and relatively unmaneuverable bombers, not nimble fighter aircraft. Sparrows suffered a 66 percent failure rate in combat, and only 9 percent hit their targets. Sidewinders were more reliable, suffering a 47 percent failure rate, with 18 percent hitting their targets. Statistics on the AA-2 remain unavailable, but most consider its success rate to have been slightly lower than that of the AIM-9. The uncertainty of missile engagements in the Vietnam War era drove most aerial engagements into a gunfight in which the pilot’s marksmanship and skill at employing his plane’s strengths determined the victor. The absence of a cannon placed the early American F-4s at a disadvantage, exacerbated by the decision in the early 1960s to eliminate aerial combat maneuver from fighter pilot training. After the early combat experiences against obsolete VPAF MiG-17s, the U.S. Air Force quickly installed guns on its

35

F-4s, and a cannon has remained a feature on modern fighter aircraft to this day, serving alongside the now-reliable AAMs. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER See also United States Air Force; United States Navy; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Michel, Marshall L., III. Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965–1972. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Sherwood, John D. Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Air-to-Ground Missiles Although World War II saw the introduction of the first air-toground missiles, the Vietnam War was the first major conflict to see widespread use of these weapons, particularly by tactical aircraft. In 1959 the U.S. Navy developed the first tactical air-toground missile, known as the Bullpup. Initially designated the ASM-N-7, in 1962 it became the AGM-12 under U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara’s new joint weapons designation system of that year. Weighing in at just under 1,000 pounds, the Bullpup could be employed by the U.S. Navy’s Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Grumman A-6 Intruder, and Chance Voight A-7 Corsair and the U.S. Air Force’s Republic F-105 Thunderchief as well both services’ McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. Designed to enable the attacking aircraft to make a precision attack from outside antiaircraft artillery range, the early Bullpups had a 250-pound warhead and were powered by a small solid-fuel rocket engine. The pilot or the A-6/F-4 weapons operator visually guided the missile to the target via a joystick control, not unlike that used by the German Fritz X guided bomb of World War II. As with the German weapon, the Bullpup had a burning tracer in its tail fin that enabled the operator to track the missile as it flew to the target. The Bullpup also came in a larger version with a 1,000-pound warhead and a more powerful rocket engine to increase range and speed. Nonetheless, it lacked the range to enable a standoff attack from outside the reach of the SA-2 surface-toair missile (SAM) systems of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). To deal with the SA-2 threat, the United States developed the AGM-45 Shrike antiradiation missile. Essentially an AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile with its seeker modified to home in on missile fire-control and acquisition radars, the Shrike weighed less than 200 pounds and was carried by A-4, A-7, and F-4 aircraft. Although

36

Air War Study Group Report, Cornell University

its range of 10–12 nautical miles placed the launch aircraft within the SA-2’s maximum range, the Shrike’s 44-pound warhead shredded the SAM’s fire-control radar. The Shrike also proved to be an easy system to modify in the face of newly emerging threats. North Vietnamese radar operators often shut down their systems if they thought they were facing a Shrike attack, effectively ending the SAM threat to incoming U.S. aircraft without a missile being fired. Phased out in the early 1990s, the Shrike has been replaced by the AGM-88 high-speed antiradiation missile (HARM). The U.S. Army also employed air-to-ground missiles in Vietnam, both optically tracked and wire guided. The French-produced AGM-22 (AS-11 is the French and German designation) was carried by UH-1 gunships for most of the war. Developed in the 1950s, it entered service with the U.S. Army in 1961 and first saw combat in 1966, being employed primarily against bunkers, but it is also credited with destroying North Vietnamese PT-76 tanks. The AGM-22 had a maximum range of 9,842 feet but proved slow and inaccurate under combat conditions. The missile-guidance system required the operator to guide it with a joystick while the pilot maintained a stable flight path, something that proved to be almost impossible in combat conditions. Intended as an interim solution to the army’s need for a guided antitank missile (ATM) following the failure of the army’s DART ATM program, the AGM-22 was to become the primary helicopter-borne air-to-ground missile of the war. However, its shortcomings drove the army to accelerate development of an aerial version of the BGM-71 tube-launched optically tracked wire-guided (TOW) missile. Developed by Hughes Aircraft between 1963 and 1968, the ground-launched version entered production in 1970. The TOW operator tracks the target optically, and the guidance system guides the missile onto the target via commands sent through two wires that trail behind the missile. Missile guidance was not affected by the helicopter’s flight path, ensuring more accurate placement in combat. Maximum effective range of the model used in Vietnam was approximately 9,842 feet. The ground-launched missile had a shaped charge 5-inch–diameter warhead with 5.4 pounds of HDX explosive. The air-launched version and the assigned evaluation and related support personnel arrived in Vietnam on April 14, 1972, along with two specially modified UH-1B helicopter gunships. The detachment first saw combat on May 2, 1972, destroying four captured tanks, a truck, and a howitzer near the Dak Poko River. Seven days later the detachment destroyed its first North Vietnamese armor near Kontum. The detachment was credited with destroying more than 24 North Vietnamese tanks during its five weeks of combat operations. The air-launched version entered production in late 1972, becoming the standard guided missile on U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps AH-1 Cobra and later-model scout and attack helicopters. The TOW has seen constant improvement since first employed in Vietnam, receiving more powerful warheads, longer range, and a more reliable guidance system. It has remained in American ser-

vice through Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and among America’s militaries through 2010. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER See also Air-to-Air Missiles; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Frieden, David R. Principles of Naval Weapons Systems. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989. McCarthy, Mike. Phantom Reflections. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Sherwood, John D. Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 2004. Yenne, Bill. Secret Weapons of the Cold War. New York: Berkley Publishing, 2005.

Air War Study Group Report, Cornell University Report produced in 1972 by Cornell University’s Program on Peace Studies, which sought to assess the military and political impact of U.S. aerial bombing against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. The Air War Study Group was headed by professors Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphoff. Assistance in compiling the report was obtained through military, National Security Council, and congressional documents and from various academic and public policy research institutions. The report begins by describing how the United States became involved in the conflict and the origins and evolution of U.S. military airpower strategy during the Vietnam War. Specific chapters address the use of airpower in particular theaters of operation, such as North Vietnam, South Vietnam, northern and southern Laos, and Cambodia. Later chapters examine the air war’s ecological impact as a consequence of defoliants and herbicides, economic costs incurred by the United States in the bombing, the evolution of air war technology, and whether the president has the power to engage the United States in a war without explicit congressional declaration. These later chapters also assess whether the war met international legal normative standards and analyze existing military aeronautic trends such as the initial emergence of precisionguided missiles (so-called smart bombs) capable of homing in on their targets to minimize collateral civilian damage and casualties. An initial conclusion of the report is that U.S. airpower in Vietnam had limited positive military effects but also produced devastating collateral civilian psychological, political, and environmental consequences. The report goes on to argue that while the economic cost of the air war continued to increase, its military successes did not; that airpower escalation is a facile, attractive option because of the low likelihood of retaliatory action by hostile

Alessandri, Marcel forces; that withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from combat operations leaves airpower as the only way to achieve military objectives; that airpower has limited effect in a restricted conventional conflict, such as the Vietnam War; and that continued bombing would have increased political polarization in Southeast Asia and might indeed have strengthened the position of hostile governments in the area. Finally, the report concluded that U.S. political and military leaders had placed excessive faith in technology such as airpower as a means of resolving the political issues that had produced the conflict. The Air War Study Group was inspired at least in part by the existing political climate in the United States and antiwar sentiment. The report reflected this, as it frequently denigrated U.S. civilian and military policy makers and their objectives while at the same time uncritically accepting as legitimate the political and military objectives of the U.S. opponents. While the report contains some useful analysis, scholarship, and quantitative data on U.S. aerial operations, readers should be aware of its ideological biases regarding U.S. political and airpower strategy during the war. The report also failed to examine the relationship of U.S. airpower strategy in Vietnam to U.S. ground force strategy. Another weakness is that it did not consider the more successful strategic bombing of World War II against Germany and Japan, as documented in the U.S. military’s postwar strategic bombing surveys. Serious students of the air war in Vietnam will need to examine official U.S. Air Force histories and other analytical assessments of this conflict for more dispassionate and summative analyses of U.S. airpower strategy during the Vietnam War. ALBERT T. CHAPMAN See also Airpower, Role in War; United States Air Force References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Stanford Biology Study Group. “The Destruction of Indochina.” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 27(5) (May 1971): 36–40. U.S. Congress, Senate Armed Services Committee, Preparedness Investigative Subcommittee. Air War against North Vietnam, Pts. 1–5. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. U.S. Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Bombing as a Policy Tool in Vietnam: Effectiveness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972.

ALA MOANA,

Operation

Start Date: December 1, 1966 End Date: May 14, 1967 Military operation conducted by elements of the 25th Infantry Division, principally in Hau Nghia Province, from December 1,

37

1966, to May 14, 1967. The choice of the operation’s name reflects the “Tropic Lightning” Division’s Hawaiian home. The operation’s goal was to push Viet Cong (VC) forces away from a major rice-producing area near Saigon. During the first month of ALA MOANA, 25th Infantry Division troops made sporadic contact with VC forces near Duc Hoa to the south of Cu Chi. In the early months of 1967, units of the 25th Infantry operated principally along Highway 1 east of their base camp at Cu Chi and also in the area to the northeast. Concurrent with ALA MOANA in January, the division’s 2nd Brigade, serving temporarily as a blocking force 10 miles north of Cu Chi as part of a multidivision operation, known as Operation CEDAR FALLS, in the so-called Iron Triangle collided with a company of the VC 165th Regiment and killed 50 VC soldiers. The heaviest action in Operation ALA MOANA occurred in late February, when the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, and the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, engaged in a tough fight in the Filhol Rubber Plantation northeast of Cu Chi. In this battle, 25th Infantry Division forces claimed 381 killed in action, detained 650 VC troops, and captured 120 tons of rice. After the conclusion of CEDAR FALLS, the heaviest action shifted to the area around Duc Hoa, south of Cu Chi, as elements of the 2nd Brigade swept along the banks of the Vam Co River and claimed another 67 killed in action by the end of March. Again while ALA MOANA continued, elements of the 25th Division participated in another multidivision operation, JUNCTION CITY, in War Zone C. During most of ALA MOANA, several battalions of the 25th Infantry Division also were assigned to clearing operations between Cu Chi and Trang Bang District to the west but made little contact. After ALA MOANA officially ended on May 14, for the remainder of 1967 the 25th Division’s 1st and 2nd brigades returned from big-unit war and began an all-out pacification effort in Hau Nghia Province, which had been a Communist stronghold since the days of the Viet Minh. JOHN D. ROOT See also CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Iron Triangle; JUNCTION CITY, Operation

References Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Alessandri, Marcel Birth Date: July 23, 1895 Death Date: December 26, 1968 French Army general and second-in-command to General Gabriel Sabattier during the French Army retreat into Yunnan following the Japanese coup of March 9, 1945. Born at Boulogne-sur-Mer on

38

Ali, Muhammad

July 23, 1895, Marcel Alessandri entered Saint-Cyr in 1914. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1916 and to captain in 1917. Alessandri was posted to French West Africa in 1923 and to Morocco in 1930. He first went to Indochina in 1939 as a lieutenant colonel. Alessandri was promoted to colonel in 1940. In Indochina he served as chief of staff to the commander of French forces there, General Maurice Martin. Alessandri then commanded Foreign Legionnaires in Tonkin. In 1943 he was promoted to brigadier general. A year later he secretly joined the Resistance headed by Charles de Gaulle. Alessandri was in command of the 2nd Tonkin Brigade when on March 9, 1945, the Japanese staged their coup and endeavored to arrest all French officials and military personnel in Indochina. During the retreat to escape from the Japanese on March 11, Alessandri decided to disarm his Indochinese riflemen and leave them behind to their own devices. Most were loyal to the French, and the action was a great affront to them; the Viet Minh used it as an example of French perfidy. At the end of the war, Alessandri commanded in southern China some 5,000 French troops who had escaped Indochina. Regarded as anti-American and anti-Chinese, Alessandri returned to Indochina on September 19, 1945. The next month he became commissioner to Cambodia. In March 1946 he led French troops into Laos to replace the Chinese there. He then commanded French Army units in Tonkin. Alessandri left Indochina at the end of August 1946 but returned two years later as commander of French ground forces. Commander of the Expeditionary Corps General Marcel Carpentier had little knowledge of Indochina and deferred to Alessandri’s judgment. Alessandri opposed the May 1949 recommendation by General Army chief of staff Georges Revers that France evacuate its outposts along Route Coloniale 4. Following the disastrous French defeat in the battles for Route Coloniale 4 and the evacuation of Cao Bang, Alessandri was relieved of command and recalled to France. He departed Indochina on December 2, 1950. Two years later in September 1952, Alessandri again went to Vietnam as military adviser to the Bao Dai government. Alessandri returned to France in June 1955. He died in Paris on December 26, 1968. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also France, Army, 1946–1954; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Sabattier, Gabriel References Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Ali, Muhammad Birth Date: January 18, 1942 American prizefighter who lost his boxing title when he refused to be drafted or serve in the Vietnam War. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 18, 1942, Muhammad Ali captured the gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. As a professional fighter, he introduced an aggressive and flamboyant style that attracted publicity and sponsors. He first captured the heavyweight title in 1964. In 1965 Ali joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name. Because many white Americans viewed this organization as racist, Ali’s conversion, along with his brash style, sparked much controversy. Previously deferred by the Selective Service because of slow reading, Ali was reclassified and called for service in 1966. He sought conscientious objector (CO) status on religious grounds. Denied the exemption, Ali was called to service in April 1967. He refused induction and was stripped of his title and boxing license. On June 20, 1967, he was found guilty of violating the Selective Service Act, fined $10,000, and sentenced to five years in prison, although he remained free pending appeal. In 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction; Ali never spent time in prison for his refusal to serve. Subsequently a federal court ruled that he had been arbitrarily denied his boxing license. Supposedly disgraced after his conviction, Ali became a focal point for the peace movement and disenchanted African Americans. A spokesman against injustice and oppression, he spoke at colleges and peace rallies, calling for social change in America. Ali also returned to the ring, regaining his heavyweight title in 1974. He held the heavyweight championship a total of three times, the last time in 1978. Already showing signs of a general physical decline, he retired from boxing in 1979, only to come back in 1980 in an attempt to gain the heavyweight title for an unprecedented fourth time. He lost that bid and fought his last professional match in 1981. Three years later Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and since then he has suffered a slow decline in his health. The disease robbed him of the grace of movement from his earlier days and affected his speech, which was so much a part of his career and persona. Nevertheless, Ali has stayed active in philanthropic endeavors and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2005. Ali remains a beloved and revered figure in the United States and around the world. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Conscientious Objectors; Selective Service References Ali, Muhammad, with Richard Durham. The Greatest: My Own Story. New York: Random House, 1975. Hauser, Thomas. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Vantage, 1999.

Alpha Strike

39

Prizefighter Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, with sportscaster Howard Cosell on WABC radio in 1965. Ali was stripped of his boxing title when he refused to be drafted or serve in Vietnam. (Library of Congress)

Alpha Strike Name for a carrier air strike. The term “Alpha Strike” was first coined during the Vietnam War. Usually involving anywhere from 25 to 32 aircraft launched from U.S. carriers in the South China Sea, Alpha Strikes during the Vietnam War were the means whereby military planners could launch large surprise strikes against designated targets in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) usually in Route Packages V and VI. Alpha Strikes had their origins in remarks to Congress on February 23, 1966, by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concerning the success of carrier strikes in Vietnam and the need for more carriers. The typical composition of an Alpha Strike was three groups of 10–16 aircraft, 1 navigation aircraft, electronic countermeasure aircraft off the coast, and fighter aircraft protecting the bombers to the sides of and behind the formation. There would be perhaps one hour between each recovery and launch, with a total time involved of six to seven hours.

The carriers operated in groups of three in 12-hour shifts to permit around-the-clock missions. Between April 1965 and March 1973 the United States flew 528,000 missions into North Vietnam; of those, 52 percent were flown by U.S. Navy aircraft, 5 percent by the U.S. Marine Corps, and the remainder by the U.S. Air Force. The use of multiple groups of aircraft could overwhelm a target’s air defenses. The pilots of the Alpha Strike could approach, drop their bombs, and leave the target area in just three minutes. Once an aircraft returned to the carrier, it would land, rearm and refuel, and then launch for second and third missions of the day. The three strikes from the carrier would usually take six to seven hours each from the first launch to the last recovery. Mission targets for the Alpha Strikes were usually approved in Washington, D.C., and then transmitted to the carrier groups off Vietnam. Mission planning would also involve briefings to pilots and crews two to two and a half hours before a strike would launch. Arming and fueling of aircraft would occur just before launch. The

40

Alsop, Joseph Wright, V

fighters would launch first, followed by bombers, tanker aircraft, and other support aircraft. The strike would also have aircraft tasked with suppressing enemy antiaircraft gunfire and surface-toair missiles (SAMs) around the target. STEVEN FRED MARIN See also Aircraft Carriers; Aircraft, Bombers; Dixie Station; LINEBACKER I, Operation; McNamara, Robert Strange; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Route Packages; Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. References Levinson, Jeffery. Alpha Strike Vietnam: The Navy’s Air War, 1964 to 1973. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1989. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987.

Alsop, Joseph Wright, V Birth Date: October 11, 1910 Death Date: August 28, 1989 Journalist and syndicated columnist who was perhaps the most prominent and outspoken journalist supporting the Vietnam War. Born on October 11, 1910, in Avon, Connecticut, to a distinguished and well-to-do family, Joseph Wright Alsop V graduated from Groton in 1928 and from Harvard University in 1932. He began reporting from Washington, D.C., in 1935. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy before Pearl Harbor, he served during World War II with Colonel (later general) Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group (known as the “Flying Tigers”) in China. From 1946 to 1958 Alsop and his brother Stewart Alsop wrote columns for the New York Herald Tribune syndicate that appeared three times per week. Joseph Alsop’s own influential column, “Matter of Fact,” appeared three times per week in the Washington Post from 1958 to 1974. From 1953 to 1972 Alsop made annual trips to Vietnam. His January 27, 1954, article “Where Is Dien Bien Phu?” was the first detailed account of the impending battle there. Until 1963 Alsop lauded and defended the Ngo Dinh Diem regime against increasing attacks by other American journalists. In turn, Alsop was one of the few to whom Diem would grant interviews. In later years Arthur Krock of the New York Times would assert that it was Alsop, along with Walt W. Rostow, who talked President John F. Kennedy into escalating the American commitment in Vietnam. In September 1963, however, while accusing youthful American correspondents such as David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan of having instilled paranoia in a heroic anti-Communist leader, Alsop advised Kennedy that Diem had lost his ability to govern, and Alsop subsequently felt guilty that his advice may have led to Diem’s overthrow and assassination on November 2, 1963. Obsessed with what he believed to be the necessity of winning the

Vietnam War, Alsop was highly critical of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s policy of gradual escalation and goaded him, privately and in print, to commit more troops or be prepared to preside over America’s first military defeat. During his visits to Vietnam, Alsop was accorded VIP status, often staying in the U.S. ambassador’s residence and always given complete access to the highest U.S. military and civilian officials. Former national security adviser McGeorge Bundy told Johnson in October 1967 that one favorable report from Alsop was worth 10 official spokesmen. Consequently, Alsop was fed classified information that allegedly demonstrated the precariousness of the Communist position. In late 1967 Alsop was one of the few journalists to predict that climactic fighting in Vietnam lay ahead. After the failure of the Communist January 1968 Tet Offensive, he urged that the United States press home the attack, and he thought that President Johnson’s speech of March 31, 1968, which offered to renew peace talks and an end to attacks on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), represented a loss of nerve. Johnson also declined not to run for reelection in this landmark address. Although suspicious of President Richard M. Nixon and worried that Vietnamization might be a cover for surrender, Alsop heartily approved of the Cambodian and Laotian invasions and developed an intimate relationship with Nixon’s national security adviser and later secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Alsop’s increasingly bitter feuds with prominent liberals and his fellow journalists left him isolated but unapologetic by the time of his retirement at the end of 1974. The eminent journalist Walter Lippmann suggested that Alsop bore 50 percent of the responsibility for President Johnson’s decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, and John Kenneth Galbraith declared that next to Johnson, Alsop was “the leading noncombatant casualty of Vietnam.” Alsop died in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1989. JOHN D. ROOT See also Bundy, McGeorge; Galbraith, John Kenneth; Halberstam, David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lippmann, Walter; Media and the Vietnam War; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney References Almquist, Leann G. Joseph Alsop and American Foreign Policy: The Journalist as Advocate. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. Alsop, Joseph W., with Adam Platt. “I’ve Seen the Best of It”: Memoirs. New York: Norton, 1992. Andrews, Deborah, ed. The Annual Obituary, 1991. Detroit: St. James, 1992. Merry, Robert W. Taking On the World: Joseph and Stewart Alsop— Guardians of the American Century. New York: Viking, 1996. Yoder, Edwin M., Jr. Joe Alsop’s Cold War: A Study of Journalistic Influence and Intrigue. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

Amerasians

Alvarez, Everett, Jr. Birth Date: December 23, 1937 U.S. Navy officer and the first American pilot taken prisoner by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The grandson of Mexican immigrants, Everett Alvarez Jr. was born on December 23, 1937, in Salinas, California. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1960 and was eventually deployed to Vietnam. On August 5, 1964, 26-year-old Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Alvarez was flying a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk when it was shot down over Hon Gai during Operation PIERCE ARROW, the first bombing raids against North Vietnam in retaliation for the disputed August 2 and August 4, 1964, attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Alvarez spent eight and a half years in captivity, the first six months as the only American prisoner of war (POW) in North Vietnam. Although he was among the more junior-rank POWs, his conduct helped establish the model emulated by the many others who joined him in captivity during the next few years. He finally returned home to the United States in 1973 and as such was the second-longest-held POW in U.S. history.

41

After retirement from the U.S. Navy in 1980, Alvarez served as deputy director of the Peace Corps and deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration (VA) during the Ronald W. Reagan administration. After leaving the service Alvarez also earned a master’s degree and a law degree. Later he was a vice president for the Hospital Corporation of America, served as chair of the VA CARES Commission, and was president of Conwal, Inc., a defense firm. Alvarez has also written two books: Chained Eagle (1989) and Code of Conduct (1991). JOE P. DUNN See also Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Prisoners of War, Allied References Alvarez, Everett, Jr., and Anthony S. Pitch. Chained Eagle. New York: Dell, 1989. Alvarez, Everett, Jr., with Samuel A. Schreiner Jr. Code of Conduct: An Inspirational Story of Self-Healing by the Famed Ex-POW and War Hero. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1991. Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976.

Amerasians

Navy commander Everett Alvarez Jr. was the first American pilot to be shot down in the Vietnam War. Captured on August 5, 1964, he was held as a prisoner of war until February 12, 1973. (Department of Defense)

Children born of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers. Born between 1962 and 1975, Amerasian children formed only a tiny fraction of Vietnamese refugees admitted to the United States until the late 1980s. The fall of the U.S.-backed government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1975 and the reunification of the country under Communist leadership led to the evacuation of about 130,000 Vietnamese, mostly former employees of U.S. government agencies. For Amerasian children, however, if they could not provide documentation of their American citizenship, exit visas from Vietnam proved almost impossible to acquire. Vietnamese officials refused to negotiate through intermediaries with the U.S. government for the immigration of these children and their relatives; Washington in turn refused to negotiate directly with the Vietnamese government. For more than 10 years after the end of the war, these children of American servicemen and officials were held hostage to leftover suspicions and diplomatic hostility. Vietnamese called Amerasian children con lai (“half-breed”) and bui doi (“dust of life”). Although rumors of retribution against the children and their mothers spread through the country, no national policy sanctioned such discrimination. On the local level, however, social ostracism often existed. Attitudes of local officials apparently determined the extent of this. Many officials selected families with Amerasian children for movement into the New Economic Zones (uninhabited or unimproved land intended for

42

Amerasians

A group of Amerasian children with their mothers on a street in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in 1981. Amerasian children were subjected to widespread discrimination, and many mothers simply abandoned them. Orphanages took some, but many grew up on the streets. Children of black American soldiers usually suffered a higher level of discrimination. (Bettmann/Corbis)

settlement by the surplus urban population). Mothers of Amerasian children heard taunts of “whore” and “bastard,” and some families abandoned their Amerasian children. Orphanages took a small number, but many grew up on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Children of African American soldiers usually suffered a higher level of discrimination. Mothers interviewed by refugee workers often reported that they had lived with their American lovers for several years, but for most the relationship ended with the termination of the father’s tour of duty. Some men returned to the United States never knowing that they were fathers of Vietnamese children. Others hoped to bring their Vietnamese families back to America with them but were stymied by bureaucratic red tape. Between 1975 and 1982 only children recognized as American citizens could hope to leave Vietnam. Refugee organizations attempted to identify fathers, who were then asked to have their state governments recognize the children as legitimate. If the father and state officials cooperated, the children could be declared U.S. citizens. Even with citizenship, immigration from Vietnam required

a mastery of extensive bureaucratic red tape in both Vietnam and the United States. In 1982 Congress passed the Amerasian Immigration Act, designed to expedite the immigration of Amerasian children from a host of Asian countries. Unfortunately, this law required a consular interview for the Amerasian immigrant, and at that time the United States had no official diplomatic contact with Vietnam. Other provisions, intended to keep the refugees from overwhelming the U.S. welfare system, required American sponsors who agreed to support each child up to age 21 or for five years (whichever was longer). Despite these restrictions, in September 1982 under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) Orderly Departure Program (ODP), a small number of Amerasian children left Vietnam for the United States. Two years later Secretary of State George P. Shultz announced a special Amerasian subprogram within the ODP, but the rate of departures remained very slow. In 1986, citing a backlog of 25,000 applicants, the Vietnamese government stopped processing new cases. Amerasian immigrants dropped from 1,498 in 1985 to 578 in 1986 and to 213 in 1987.

American Friends of Vietnam Congress responded to magazine articles about these “forgotten children” by passing the Amerasian Homecoming Act. Sponsored by U.S. representative Robert Mrazek, the act took effect on March 21, 1988. It allowed Vietnamese Amerasians and specified members of their families to enter the United States as immigrants and provided resettlement assistance in the states. The act had an immediate effect. Between 1982 and 1988, the ODP brought about 11,500 Vietnamese Amerasian children and their relatives to the United States. By 1991, 67,028 had arrived. In 1994 refugee aid societies estimated that only a few thousand Amerasians remained in Vietnam, mostly by choice. Resettlement in the United States was not easy. Given their general backgrounds of poverty, limited education, parental loss, and discrimination, Amerasian children faced formidable obstacles. Usually the children had no contact with their American relatives. Just as they faced discrimination in Vietnam, the doors to the American Vietnamese community were not opened for many of the Amerasians. Many had unrealistically optimistic expectations about their future in the United States. Those who identified themselves in Vietnam as Americans found that culturally, linguistically, and in all ways but appearance, they were Vietnamese in America. Mothers of Amerasian children had similar problems. Many hoped to find the fathers of their children, but few had enough information on which to base a search. The American Red Cross helped those who wished to search for the fathers of their children. If a father could be located, he was told of the search, and the decision to contact the child or mother was left up to him. Only about 2 percent of father searches ended positively. Most articles written about Amerasian children have stressed their adjustment problems. Success stories do exist, however. Many children who came to America as young teenagers graduated from high school and went on to college, some graduating with honors. Those who came to America with their relatives, especially their mothers, seemed to fare best. Big Brother and Big Sister organizations were especially important in locating mentors for Amerasian children, and studies demonstrated their effectiveness. When the youngest members of this legacy of the Vietnam War reached adulthood in the mid-1990s, programs to assist their assimilation ended. ELIZABETH URBAN ALEXANDER See also United Nations and the Vietnam War; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Bass, Thomas A. Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home. New York: Soho Press, 1996. DeBonis, Steven. Children of the Enemy: Oral Histories of Vietnamese Amerasians and Their Mothers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Montero, Darrel. Vietnamese Americans: Patterns of Resettlement and Socioeconomic Adaptations in the United States. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1979.

43

American Friends of Vietnam One of the first privately organized associations promoting U.S. interests in Vietnam. American Friends of Vietnam (AFV) was announced to the press in December 1955. It was formed by prominent liberals and conservatives who considered Vietnam a critical contest in the Cold War. The AFV had its roots in an earlier network of people that had vigorously promoted U.S. support for Ngo Dinh Diem, the Vietnamese Catholic considered the antiCommunist/nationalist answer to Ho Chi Minh. When Diem came to power in southern Vietnam in July 1954, the so-called Vietnam Lobby organized formally and pushed the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration to bolster the new nation in southern Vietnam. International Rescue Committee members Leo Cherne and Joseph Buttinger founded the AFV along with Harold Oram and Elliot Newcombe, both of whom were employed by the New York public relations firm hired by Diem. The AFV attracted support from such politically diverse figures as Cardinal Francis Spellman, publisher Henry Luce, U.S. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, and senators John F. Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Hubert Humphrey, and William Knowland. AFV members had the specific goal of saving Vietnam from communism. They sponsored conferences and relief projects, solicited business investments, and published articles to win support for Diem’s regime. The U.S. government provided information, speakers, and fund-raising assistance to help the AFV counter criticism of U.S. policy regarding Vietnam. In the early 1960s AFV activities dwindled when its members became bitterly divided over how to respond to Diem’s autocratic rule. Still believing that a non-Communist nation in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was necessary and possible, the AFV revived after Diem’s November 1963 ouster. Working closely with the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, the AFV supported military escalation against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and countered criticism of U.S. policy with government help and funds. These official connections made the AFV a frequent target of policy critics and antiwar protesters. By the 1970s, however, financial and administrative problems plagued the organization and undermined its operations, and by 1975 it had all but ceased to exist. There is debate over the extent of AFV influence on U.S. policy regarding Vietnam. Contemporary critics charged that the Vietnam Lobby purposely distorted Diem’s capabilities and set the ideological stage for American intervention in Vietnam. The AFV’s first two presidents, generals William Donovan and John O’Daniel, were so intimately connected to America’s covert operations that some scholars have suggested that the group likely had the endorsement—if not the veiled support—of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Still, most historians argue that the AFV’s influence was marginal because the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations were always strongly committed to

44

American Red Cross

Vietnam, and thus the AFV was preaching to the converted. Still, the group represents the shared assumptions held by those Americans who supported and advanced U.S. intervention in Vietnam. The AFV also illustrates how private groups attempt to sway the government, the press, and the public. DELIA PERGANDE See also Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; Ngo Dinh Diem; O’Daniel, John Wilson; Spellman, Francis Joseph References Anderson, David L. Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953–1961. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Morgan, Joseph G. The Vietnam Lobby: The American Friends of Vietnam, 1955–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

American Red Cross The American Red Cross was founded in May 1881 by Clara Barton. Barton, a nurse during the American Civil War, had learned of the activities of the International Red Cross while on a trip to Europe after the war. On her return she campaigned both to found an American organization to be affiliated with it and for U.S. ratification of the Geneva Convention protecting those individuals wounded in war, which occurred in 1882. Thereafter the Red Cross took an active role in American wars, especially World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. The Vietnam War was no exception. Although closely associated with the U.S. government in pursuit of its goals, the Red Cross is an entirely independent volunteer-led organization that is supported by voluntary public contributions and cost-reimbursement charges. The American Red Cross operated three primary programs during the Vietnam War. The first of these was Service to Military Installations (SMI). This program arranged military leaves and acted as a liaison for pertinent information between families back home and the military for such events as births and deaths. The SMI employed both men and women. The second program was Service to Military Hospitals (SMH). SMH groups were all-female recreation programs within designated hospital complexes. SMH women wrote letters for the soldiers, ran day rooms and centers for convalescing patients, and helped with the general morale of those hospitalized. The third program was Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO). This program hired only women to run recreation centers and construct and deliver active audience participation programs to firebases, landing zones, signal sites, and other locations. The SRAO provided for psychological health and welfare programs to able-bodied soldiers.

The SRAO began in World War II. Located primarily in Britain and later in Western Europe, the SRAO also had a presence in India. After the war the program operated at U.S. air bases in France and Morocco. The SRAO concept carried over to Korea, where United Nations Command (UNC) commander General Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. Department of Defense requested that the American Red Cross establish its recreation program for military clubs. Some of the first Korean War SRAO women had been performing this function in Europe. In 1953 the Army Special Services picked up the Recreation Center Program, and the SRAO women established a clubmobile program for the more isolated units, which continued until 1973. The SRAO program in Vietnam began in 1965 and ended in 1972. It was started there at the request of the Department of Defense and the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Initial personnel were transferred from other sites to the first Vietnam locations. The first unit was established in Da Nang in September 1965. The last unit departed the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in May 1972. The Red Cross had units at two locations during 1965–1966: Da Nang and then Bien Hoa. As U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam increased in 1966, so did the SRAO program. Locations expanded to Nha Trang, Phan Rang Air Force and Army Base, Cam Ranh Bay Air Force and Army Base, Qui Nhon, An Khe, Cu Chi, Di An, Lai Khe, Long Binh, Dong Ba Thin, and Pleiku-Camp Enari. By 1967 other units such as Xuan Loc–Black Horse, Chu Lai, Phu Loi, Dong Tam, and Phu Bai were in operation. The need for starting and stopping certain program locations changed with the military situation, but by August 1967 the Red Cross had 20 units and 12 recreation centers run by 109 young women. The clubmobile program made 2,635 visits to outlying units a month. Although accurate mileage records were difficult to maintain, it is estimated that clubmobile workers logged more than 2.125 million miles via truck, jeep, helicopter, airplane, and boat during the program’s seven-year history. During the course of the war there were a total of 627 women in Vietnam in the SRAO program. Unit size varied from 4 to 10 women. The base locations rotated on a regular basis to maintain morale. Many women began as recreation aides and were then promoted to program director and finally to unit director. A few previous ARC or SRAO service personnel performed Saigon staff functions such as training and logistical organization. Qualifying requirements for the women stipulated that they had to be 21 years of age or older, college educated, and single. The women were predominately white, but varying ethnicities were in the program. The uniforms consisted of issued U.S. Army fatigues and regulation Arc Light blue dresses, culottes, and a box-style jacket, or Class “A” uniforms. Initial training occurred in Washington, D.C., by American Red Cross staff and returning SRAO personnel. On arrival in South Vietnam, SRAO members attended an orientation program in Saigon before being assigned to a unit. The remaining training came from on-the-job experiences. SRAO women were housed in

Amnesty

45

See also BABYLIFT, Operation; United Services Organization References Lamensdorf, Jean Debelle. Write Home for Me: A Red Cross Woman in Vietnam. Milsons Point, New South Wales: Random House, 2006. Morgan, Marjorie Lee. The Clubmobile: The ARC in the Storm. St. Petersburg, FL: Hazlett Printing and Publishing, 1982. Reunion ’93: From Saigon to DC; The American Red Cross Women Who Served. Bowie, MD: American Red Cross Reunion Committee, 1998. Walker, K., ed. A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of Twenty-Six American Women Who Served in Vietnam. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Amin, Jamil Abdullah alSee Brown, Hubert Gerald

Amnesty A Red Cross volunteer worker plays cards with a marine, August 23, 1967. (National Archives)

military-supplied billets, sometimes sharing facilities with nurses. Quarters included tents, wood and canvas houses, local homes called villas, and base houses and trailers. Most accommodations had locals hired to help maintain the facilities and do laundry. Programs were often self-made audience-participation venues based around game shows, magazines, or knowledge that the women brought to Vietnam via their personal backgrounds and educational experiences. The units that had a recreation center always maintained two women in the center. Hours of operation varied but generally were from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. If not on center duty the remaining women were sent in pairs to isolated areas such as firebases, landing zones, and signal sites. These women offered a sense of security and a bit of home for the soldiers. Three SRAO women were killed while in Vietnam, and a fourth former SRAO woman was killed during Operation BABYLIFT. The SRAO women were called by many affectionate names such as Donut Dollies, DDs, Delta Deltas, Chopper Chick, Kool-Aid Kids, and Round Eyes. On occasion there were pejorative names, such as Biscuit Bitches. Many of the women received the Civilian Service Medal for their tour in Vietnam. In addition to the American Red Cross women, there were also a limited number of Australian Red Cross women working in the Australian hospitals. The United Services Organizations (USO) had 17 recreation centers staffed by civilian women, and the U.S. Army provided the Special Services Program. There were also civilian contractors and airlines employing women as well as news organizations, U.S. governmental agencies, and humanitarian assistance programs. JEANNE CHRISTIE

A pardon or exemption from prosecution granted to groups or individuals convicted or accused of violations of law. Amnesty in the United States dates back to the presidency of George Washington and the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion. Since Washington’s first proclamation of amnesty, presidents and the U.S. Congress had granted amnesty 33 times prior to the Vietnam War. Amnesty has been granted in cases of treason, civil and racial strife, draft avoidance, tax refusal, espionage, bigamy, polygamy, and murder, often in cases involving political or religious beliefs as grounds for violations. Amnesty was first proposed during the Vietnam War when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked President Richard M. Nixon to grant it to draft evaders, deserters, exiles, and lessthan-honorable dischargees. Vice President Spiro Agnew expressed his opposition to the move. He believed that an amnesty proclamation of this extent would be one of the broadest and most unconditional in U.S. history. President Nixon stated his policy in a news conference late in 1972 when he said that those who served had paid their price and that those who deserted must pay theirs. The price of desertion was a criminal charge, and those who sought to return to the United States would have to pay that penalty. Public support for amnesty grew as the Vietnam War came to an end. Yet the government still avoided implementing it. Something of an us-against-them scenario existed that pitted many American citizens against their government. The ACLU was the strongest advocate of amnesty. According to ACLU records, 7,400 draft evaders had been convicted by federal courts, while 39,000 were referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution. Another 5,700 draft evaders still had indictments pending. Between August 1964 and December 1972 there were 495,689 cases of desertion. Adding to these numbers were approximately 37,000 to 40,000 exiles who resisted prosecution by

46

Amphibious Warfare

fleeing the country. Less-than-honorable discharges accounted for another 450,000 men seeking official relief. Amnesty organizations repeatedly proposed a blanket amnesty, but Congress and the president refused to act. Nixon once claimed that he held a liberal view on amnesty; what he actually supported was executive clemency in cases of the convicted. He never supported a true blanket amnesty program. Exiles saw a midwar amnesty as an empty gesture, but by 1972 most supported the idea. Arguments for amnesty evolved from an issue of relief to exiles and draft dodgers and then to moral condemnation of the Vietnam War altogether. Yet Nixon believed that amnesty was “the most immoral thing [he] could think of.” The antiwar movement reconstituted itself into an amnesty lobby. In 1971 Senator Robert Taft (R-Ohio) sponsored a bill providing that draft resisters could gain amnesty if they worked for four years at a public service job. Taft’s bill was defeated. Following the Watergate Scandal and Nixon’s forced resignation from office in August 1974, President Gerald R. Ford sought to restore public confidence in the federal government, and he believed that compromise would be one of the best ways to accomplish this. Ford saw clemency as a midway course between those opposed to amnesty and those who supported it. But shortly after he announced his clemency program, Ford granted Nixon a full pardon. This action angered many Americans. Ford’s clemency program offered leniency to offenders rather than a full pardon. The program required that draft resisters, exiles, and deserters meet with their local U.S. attorneys and sign an agreement to work for 24 months in alternative service. After their alternative service terms were completed, charges against them would be dismissed. Ford’s clemency program reduced the fugitive list by two-thirds, but it was not ultimately successful. Only 6 percent of 350,000 offenders applied for it, and of these only a limited number completed their terms because of the lack of hiring opportunities. Few employers would hire draft dodgers, especially if the employer had family members who had served in the war. The program did work as a symbol of forgiveness and did achieve its purpose in disarming the amnesty issue, however. In fact, the ACLU abandoned its amnesty project in 1975. Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Ford in the 1976 presidential election. Carter had attempted to avoid amnesty issues while campaigning, but he favored a blanket pardon for deserters and draft resisters. On his first full day in office in January 1977, he offered a blanket pardon to draft resisters. He granted no relief to deserters but asked the Defense Department to conduct a study on the issue. Carter’s pardon received mixed reactions. In March 1977 the Defense Department announced the Special Discharge Review Program, which offered 432,000 veterans the opportunity to apply for upgrades from undesirable/clemency discharges and to receive medical benefits. However, the program did not extend to all veterans. It omitted more than 22,000 Vietnam War veterans. The Carter program was not as strong as it first appeared; it required offenders to apply for their pardons within

the first six months of the announcement. At the end of the sixmonth period, only 15 percent had applied. This small number was attributed to the requirement that offenders apply in person. The Defense Department’s program was even less successful. Only 9 percent of 432,000 persons eligible applied for upgrades. This lack of success led to a public perception that both programs were unfair and that the Carter administration had been as unsuccessful in resolving this issue as had previous administrations. In the end, there was to be no national reconciliation. The amnesty issue faded in importance as many Americans lost interest in it. LACIE BALLINGER See also Agnew, Spiro Theodore; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Baskir, Lawrence M., and William A. Strauss. Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: 1978. Schardt, Arlie, et al. Amnesty? The Unsettled Question of Vietnam. Lawrence, MA: Sun River, 1973.

Amphibious Warfare Military activity involving landing from ships, either directly or by means of landing craft or helicopters. During the Indochina War, the French developed and employed with some success special integrated tactical army and navy units for conducting riverine warfare. These were the Dinassauts, for divisions navales d’assaut. Dinassauts played a key role in the French victories in the 1950 battles for the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam. U.S. amphibious warfare during the Vietnam War was based in large part on U.S. Marine Corps doctrine developed during the 1920s and 1930s by Major Earl H. Ellis. He had studied amphibious operations in World War I, most notably the Gallipoli Campaign, and in 1934 produced his Tentative Manual of Landing Operations. Amphibious warfare was widely conducted in the Pacific theater of operations during World War II, and the European theater also saw large amphibious landings including the Normandy Invasion. In Korea, the masterful Inchon Landing of September 1950 that turned the tide of war was made possible because of the U.S. Marine Corps’ now highly refined amphibious warfare capability. For U.S. planners, the Vietnam War posed a far different challenge to amphibious operations, procedures for which were spelled out in Doctrine for Amphibious Operations (also known as LFM-01), than these two prior conflicts had posed. South Vietnam did not offer the hostile shore environment that this doctrine was directed toward in conventional warfare considerations. Instead, the fighting early in the Vietnam War was marked by guerrilla warfare waged by Communist forces against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). This situation resulted in unanticipated problems for the more than 50 amphibious operations conducted during the war.

Amphibious Warfare

47

U.S. marines of the Special Landing Force approach the shore in the Rung Sat Special Zone. Controlling the Rung Sat was essential for the safety of supply ships to and from Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) during the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

Initial U.S. Marine Corps landings were anticlimactic. Marine support elements were sent to Vietnam in mid-February 1965, a few weeks ahead of Marine Corps combat units. Furthermore, the traditional absolute authority of the Amphibious Task Force commander within the Amphibious Objective Area (AOA) came into question. Innocent civilians loyal to the South Vietnamese government resided in this area, and friendly air operations were being conducted by allied forces within it, as were commercial flights. Finally, potential security breaches existed because these commercial flights had to be warned of no-fly zones for impending amphibious operations. The Seventh Fleet’s amphibious task force was designated Task Force 76 and was composed of the Amphibious Ready Group/ Special Landing Force (ARG/SLF). Created in 1960, the task force was subsequently augmented by a second force created in April 1967. An ARG was initially composed of three to four ships (later raised to five), an amphibious assault ship (LPH), an attack transport (APA), a landing platform dock (LPD), a landing ship, a dock (LSD), and a tank landing ship (LST). Each 2,000-man SLF was composed of a U.S. Marine Corps Battalion Landing Team (BLT) and a helicopter squadron. Four types of amphibious operations took place in Vietnam. The first type, including operations such as DECKHOUSE I (June 1966)

and BEAU CHARGER (May 1967), was based solely on Fleet Marine Force (FMF) and Seventh Fleet forces. The second was composed of FMF and Seventh Fleet forces as part of an in-country operation. Operation BEAVER TRACK (July 1967) was representative of this most common type of operation. The third type was an amphibious operation utilizing in-country, FMF, and Seventh Fleet forces. Operation DOUBLE EAGLE (January–February 1966) is a prime example. The fourth type of amphibious operation was based on in-country and Seventh Fleet forces. Operation BLUE MARTIN (November 1965) is an example. Two debates concerning amphibious forces raged during this period. The initial debate dealt with the deployment of the SLF. The commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet viewed this force as a naval contribution to the war effort and, for that reason, under its direct authority. The commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), however, viewed it as a ready manpower reserve that circumvented Pentagon-mandated troop ceilings. The second debate concerned the needs of brown-water (riverine) versus blue-water operations. The U.S. Marine Corps was criticized for not adapting its amphibious doctrine to proper operations suited for the Mekong Delta. In both of these debates, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps kept their focus on future naval requirements and successfully fended off critics.

48

Andersen Air Force Base

With the policy of Vietnamization in the 1970s, one of the final amphibious operations was conducted by the 31st Marine Amphibious Unit during Operation LAM SON 719 (February–March 1971). The 31st Marine Amphibious Unit provided helicopter support on the eastern side of the Vietnamese border with Laos and carried out a demonstration near Vinh in southern North Vietnam. The last U.S. Marine Corps amphibious operations ashore in Vietnam occurred during the April 1975 Operations EAGLE PULL and FREQUENT WIND that evacuated U.S. personnel from Phnom Penh and Saigon, respectively. With the fall of Cambodia and South Vietnam, the final employment of U.S. amphibious forces in the Vietnam War took place in May 1975 during the Mayaguez Incident. Although some U.S. Marine Corps officers considered amphibious warfare doctrine adequate, others viewed it as inappropriate for the needs of the overall counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam. They noted that the air space and landing sites were already controlled by U.S. forces. Because of this fact, it has been suggested that most SLF operations were simply contrived to protect the future of the Marine Corps. In 1972 new U.S. Marine Corps commandant General Robert E. Cushman Jr. best summed up this institutional perspective when he wryly observed that “we are pulling our heads out of the jungle and getting back into the amphibious business.” ROBERT J. BUNKER See also Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr.; Dinassauts; DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation; EAGLE PULL, Operation; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; MARKET TIME, Operation; Mayaguez Incident; McNamara Line; PIRANHA, Operation; United States Marine Corps References Alexander, Joseph H., and Merrill L. Bartlett. “Amphibious Warfare and the Vietnam War.” In Sea Soldiers in the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare, 1945–1991, 45–61. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994. Hilgartner, Lieutenant Colonel P. L. “Amphibious Doctrine in Vietnam.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 294–297. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Marolda, Edward J., and G. Wesley Pryce III. A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asia Conflict, 1950–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1984. Shulimson, Jack, and Charles M. Johnson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977. Simmons, Brigadier General Edwin H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1965–66, 1967, 1968, 1969–72.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 35–157. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974.

Andersen Air Force Base U.S. Air Force base located on the northern end of the island of Guam in the western Pacific Ocean. Liberated from the Japanese in 1944 and made an operational base by 1945, North Air Force Base,

Guam, was renamed Andersen Air Force Base in 1949 in honor of Brigadier General James Roy Andersen, who died in an aircraft accident near Kawajalein in February 1945. Early in 1965 the number of Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses at Andersen sharply increased with the escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. On June 18, 1965, 27 B-52s took off from Andersen and struck Viet Cong (VC) targets in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the first in a long series of such strikes under the Arc Light code name. From June 1965 until August 1970, B-52s from Andersen flew numerous Arc Light missions over Vietnam. Because of Andersen’s distance from Vietnam, the U.S. Air Force initiated B-52 missions from Thailand, which was closer to Vietnam than was Guam. In April 1967 U-Tapao Air Base in Thailand opened as a forward base for American B-52s, and by January 1968 U-Tapao became a fully operational base for B-52 strikes. In 1965, 1,500 B-52 missions were flown, and in 1966 the number of missions increased fourfold. In 1967 almost 10,000 missions were flown. The year 1968 was the peak for B-52 missions, with more then 20,000 flown from Andersen and U-Tapao. After the end to the bombing pause between August 1970 and early 1972, the number of B-52s based at Andersen again increased. At the peak of Operation LINEBACKER II (December 18–29, 1972), Andersen had 153 B-52s stationed there on five miles of ramp space as well as 15,000 personnel and aircrews. The base normally had 1,000–2,000 personnel permanently deployed. Massive tent cities sprang up all over the base to house the influx of personnel supporting the raids in Vietnam. The largest LINEBACKER II raid was on December 18, 1972, when 87 B-52s from Andersen and 40 more from U-Tapao flew and struck targets in and around Hanoi. B-52s launching from Andersen to Hanoi flew 8,200 miles round trip and were in the air for 18 hours from takeoff to landing. In all, Andersen lost 15 of its B-52s in combat during the Vietnam War. The worst single loss was 6 B-52s on the night of December 20, 1972, during Operation LINEBACKER II. Throughout the entire Vietnam conflict, 31 B-52s were lost; of those, 17 were due to combat. By the end of the conflict, 7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Some 2.5 million tons of those explosives were dropped by B-52s from Andersen and U-Tapao. Flying more then 102,000 missions throughout the war, B-52s from Andersen and U-Tapao dropped more tonnage then all the aerial ordnance used in World War II. With the end of American military involvement in Vietnam in early 1973, B-52s from Andersen continued flying missions in Cambodia and in Laos until August 1973, when all combat missions were halted. By the end of September 1973, the 100 B-52s stationed at Andersen were redeployed to other bases. Andersen played a role during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 and the evacuation that followed. In Operation NEW LIFE, refugees taken out of Vietnam by air were transported to Andersen and housed on the base. Andersen sheltered some 40,000 refugees and

Angkor Wat saw 109,000 moved through the base on their way to the United States on 500 aircraft. After the war in Vietnam ended, Andersen continued as a key U.S. base in the Southwest Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Andersen served as a transshipment point for supplies during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and continues to serve U.S. forces in the global War on Terror. Andersen Air Force Base is also one of the few authorized alternative landing sites for the Space Shuttle outside the continental United States. STEVEN FRED MARIN See also Arc Light Missions; Guam; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Thailand References McCarthy, James R., and George B. Allison. Linebacker II: A View from the Rock. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1985. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Thornborough, Anthony, and Tony Cassanova. B-52: A History of an American Icon. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2008.

Angkor Wat A massive Khmer temple and capital city complex constructed under King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century and located a

49

short distance north of the present-day Cambodian town of Siem Reap (Siemreab). The image of the main entrance to Angkor Wat (Angkor Vat) has come to symbolize Cambodia and has appeared on each of the country’s national flags since the 19th century. Angkor Wat is part of a huge area of Khmer ruins, collectively referred to as Angkor, and was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1992. The site has been repeatedly sacked by foreign invaders, including a Cham army in 1177 and Siamese forces in 1353 and again in 1431. Much of the site was subsequently abandoned except for Angkor Wat, which continued to be visited by Buddhist pilgrims. In the 19th century the site became a popular destination for European visitors. Angkor Wat covers an area of 203 acres and is surrounded by a wall more than 2 miles long and a water-filled moat. The larger area of Khmer ruins surrounding it covers more than 1,000 square miles, which is nearly the size of the state of Rhode Island. Warfare returned to Angkor Wat in 1970 when the Vietnam War spilled over into the interior of Cambodia. Following the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk on March 18, 1970, and the formation of the Khmer Republic under Lon Nol, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) sought to protect its logistical lifelines in Cambodia that supported its forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Clashes occurred between the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese

View of the 12th-century ruins of Angkor Wat and its surrounding moat. (PhotoDisc, Inc.)

50

An Khe

Army) forces and Lon Nol’s weak Forces Armées Nationale Khmer (FANK, Khmer National Armed Forces). The mixed Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer, Cambodian Communists) and Viet Cong (VC) C-40 Division swiftly entered Siem Reap Province, seizing control of the ruins at Angkor Wat, followed by a reinforced PAVN regiment. Two miles to the south at Siem Reap, three FANK brigades established defensive positions. French archaeologist Philippe-Bernard Groslier was able to direct maintenance and restoration of the ruins until January 1972, when 20 of his Cambodian employees were executed for purportedly providing information to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). A stalemate then ensued. Beginning in May 1972, FANK launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Angkor Wat; these efforts were terminated in September. FANK units at nearby Siem Reap found themselves progressively isolated but managed to hold out until the collapse of Lon Nol’s government in mid-April 1975. During the years of Khmer Rouge rule (1975–1979) the site was subject to vandalism. Relatively little damage was done, although at least one mass grave of Khmer Rouge victims is located nearby. Restoration of the site resumed after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Today Angkor Wat is once again a popular tourist destination. GLENN E. HELM See also Cambodia; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Sihanouk, Norodom References Deac, Wilfred P. Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970–1975. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. Freeman, Michael, and Roger Warner. Angkor: The Hidden Glories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Higham, Charles. The Civilization of Angkor. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

ANGLICO See Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company

An Khe Primary base camp in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) for the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) from August 1965 to early 1968. Located in an area that saw major fighting in early 1953 during the Indochina War, the base was situated on exceptionally difficult terrain at the top of An Khe Pass in Gia Lai Province, II Corps Tactical Zone. The base permitted wide access to the Central Highlands, a key strategic region. Highway 19, which ran along An Khe Pass, witnessed many ambushes by the Viet Cong (VC). Originally the base was named “The Golf Course” when the division commander selected the site in August 1965 and told

his advance team to “Cut brush until we have a golf course.” The 1,000-man advance party arrived on August 25, with security for the site being provided by the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. Once the advance party had cleared the area and prepared it for occupation, the rest of the 1st Cavalry Division began to arrive. When the division had settled in, the base was renamed Camp Radcliff to honor the first man from the division killed in Vietnam. Major Donald G. Radcliff, executive officer of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, died on August 18, 1965, when the helicopter gunship he was flying was struck by enemy ground fire while supporting U.S. marines during Operation STARLITE. Camp Radcliff remained the home of the 1st Cavalry Division until January 1968, when most of the division was moved to I Corps north of Hue. The division comprised 16,000 men organized to move using just over 400 aircraft, mainly tactical helicopters. Helicopters ferried not only men and light weapons but also artillery, motor vehicles, and all required support matériel. The versatile Bell UH-1 (“Huey”) helicopter, a symbol of American airmobile operations in the Vietnam War, was used extensively for fire support as well as transport. However, a wide range of helicopters was used by the 1st Cavalry at An Khe. In addition to a number of helicopter landing areas, the base included a C-130–capable airfield on the north end of the base and a smaller fixed-wing airstrip on the southwest corner. To mark its area of operations, the 1st Cavalry Division cut and painted a huge replica of the division patch and emplaced it on the south face of Hon Cong Mountain, just adjacent to the base. The patch was several stories high and could be seen for many miles. Important operations supported from An Khe included the Battle of Ia Drang Valley and Operations MASHER/WHITE WING, CRAZY HORSE, PAUL REVERE II, THAYER I–II, and PERSHING. After the 1st Cavalry Division was redeployed to I Corps, An Khe was occupied by the 173rd Airborne Brigade. ARTHUR I. CYR AND JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Central Highlands; Ia Drang, Battle of; MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation; PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations; PERSHING, Operation References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1992. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987.

An Loc, Battle of Start Date: April 13, 1972 End Date: July 20, 1972 An Loc, located only 65 miles from Saigon, was the capital of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Binh Long Province

Annam in III Corps Tactical Zone. The struggle for An Loc was the southernmost prong of the 1972 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) Easter Offensive, which was a large-scale conventional three-pronged attack designed to confuse and defeat the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) defenders. The architect of the offensive plan, PAVN commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, divided his assault force of more than 120,000 troops into three separate operations. The offensive began with a multidivisional PAVN attack across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) toward the cities of Hue and Da Nang, with other forces pressing in from the A Shau Valley in the west. Giap wanted to force South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu to commit reserves to protect his northern provinces, after which Giap planned to launch a second assault from Cambodia to threaten Saigon. Then Giap would launch the third attack in the Central Highlands to take Kontum and aim for the coast in Binh Dinh Province, thus splitting South Vietnam in two. This would lead to a collapse of the South Vietnamese government or, at the very least, a peace agreement on Hanoi’s terms. Giap launched the offensive on March 30, 1972. PAVN forces routed ARVN defenders in Quang Tri Province. On April 2 Giap launched the second prong of the offensive when PAVN troops crossed the Cambodian border into III Corps area of operations and threatened Tay Ninh City. This proved to be a feint, and the main attack followed on April 5 against Loc Ninh to the east. The town was quickly overwhelmed, opening up a direct route down Highway QL-13 to Saigon through An Loc and Lai Khe. After the fall of Loc Ninh, the 5th, 7th, and 9th Viet Cong (VC)/ PAVN divisions moved to prepare for the attack on An Loc itself. President Thieu ordered the ARVN 5th Division, normally headquartered at Lai Khe, to move to An Loc and assume control of the defense of the city. By April 7, PAVN forces had surrounded An Loc and blocked QL-13, effectively cutting off An Loc from outside ground reinforcement and resupply. On April 12, PAVN troops began shelling the city with mortars, rockets, and artillery. Major General James F. Hollingsworth, senior adviser to the ARVN III Corps commander, persuaded Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Creighton Abrams to provide maximum U.S. air strikes against what he saw as the coming main attack. On April 13, PAVN troops began a massive infantry attack supported by T-54 and PT-76 tanks and increased artillery fire on An Loc from several directions. The attackers were almost successful in the hand-to-hand and house-to-house fighting, but Bell AH-1G Cobra helicopter gunships and continuous tactical air support from U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps fighter-bombers and U.S. Air Force Lockheed AC-130 Spectre gunships enabled the defenders to hold out against the initial assault, but not before they were pushed into an area less than a mile square. Another factor in the ability of the ARVN forces to hold out in this and subsequent attacks was B-52 Arc Light strikes that ringed the city and precluded the Communists from massing their forces and completely overrunning the defenders.

51

President Thieu ordered an attack by the ARVN 21st Division to relieve the city from the south, but this attempt quickly bogged down, and An Loc remained cut off and besieged, suffering repeated ground attacks and round-the-clock heavy shelling. ARVN forces, aided by U.S. Army advisers and U.S. airpower, continued to hold their ground against overwhelming odds, sustaining heavy casualties in the process. Air support was vital. During the course of the battle, Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses flew 252 missions; there were also 9,023 tactical air strikes. The siege was finally lifted in June, and the ARVN 5th Division was replaced in July by the ARVN 18th Division. During the siege, the three attacking PAVN divisions sustained an estimated 10,000 casualties and lost most of their tanks and heavy artillery. The ARVN suffered 5,400 casualties, including 2,300 dead or missing. Although An Loc was in ruins, the ARVN defenders had been successful in stopping a direct assault on Saigon and effectively blunted the PAVN Easter Offensive in South Vietnam. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Airpower, Role in War; Arc Light Missions; Easter Offensive; Nguyen Van Thieu; Vietnamization; Vo Nguyen Giap References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Ngo Quang Truong. The Easter Offensive of 1972. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Pimlott, John. Vietnam: The Decisive Battles. New York: Macmillan, 1990. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Willbanks, James H. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Willbanks, James H. Thiet Giap! The Battle of An Loc, April 1972. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1993.

Annam The middle state of the three former French possessions—Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China—that make up present-day Vietnam. The name “Annam” (or “An Nam”) was first applied to all of Vietnam by the Chinese during their first occupation of the country between the first century BCE and the tenth century CE. The name “An Nam” was composed of the Chinese characters for an, meaning “contented or pacified,” and nam, meaning “south,” but the Vietnamese were far from pacified then or under any conqueror. From 1883, the French divided Vietnam into the three administrative states of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China. Under the French, the Vietnamese people became known as Annamese and even referred to themselves as such over time. Tonkin and Annam were ruled by titular Vietnamese emperors under the imposed protectorate, while Cochin China was administered directly as a

52

Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

French colony. In Hue, the emperor and his mandarins continued to administer internal affairs observed by the French resident superior, who answered to the French Indochina governor-general headquartered in Hanoi. Geographically Annam was a relatively narrow strip of land about 750–800 miles long and encompassing some 50,000 square miles. Its main geographical features were plateaus and wooded mountains that generally ran north-south. The area was rich in mineral resources, and its plateaus and mountain valleys were ideal for agriculture, which thrived in its well-drained fertile soil. Annam was well served by a series of river systems that runs to the coast. The area had a correspondingly long coastline, and fishing was a major local occupation. Chief crops raised at the time of the French occupation included rice, cotton, tea, cinnamon, tobacco, jute, sugarcane, and coffee. Rubber was also harvested from Annam’s forests, and silkworms were cultivated here. Annam was also a significant source of gold, silver, lead, and iron. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Cochin China; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Minh Mang; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Tonkin; Tu Duc; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam During the Vietnam War, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) developed the most sophisticated antiaircraft defense network in the world. This included antiaircraft artillery (AAA), Soviet-supplied MiG interceptors and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and extensive communications and radar links. The United States ultimately developed effective countermeasures to the North Vietnamese system, but AAA took a heavy toll on American aircraft throughout the war. In contrast, the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) did not require or develop robust air defenses against North Vietnam, which used its air force purely in a defensive role and restricted it to its own airspace. Through late 1964, the North Vietnamese air defense system was very primitive and had no more than 700 AAA weapons. However, when the United States began its bombing campaign, Operation ROLLING THUNDER, against North Vietnam in early 1965, the Chinese quickly supplied air defense equipment. When China subsequently refused to supply additional amounts of AAA weapons to Hanoi, the Soviet Union became the primary supplier. Moscow

provided a wide variety of guns, ranging from the 85-millimeter (mm) M1944 to the ZU-23. The 12.7-mm and 40-mm weapons were capable of firing 80 and 50 rounds per minute, respectively, up to 4,500 feet; the 37-mm gun fired 80 1.6-pound shells a minute up to 9,000 feet; the 57-mm S-60 fired 70 6-pound rounds a minute to 15,000 feet; the 85-mm M1944 fired 20 shells a minute up to 30,000 feet; and the 100-mm weapon fired 15 35-pound rounds a minute to 45,000 feet. As a result of their widespread ranges, North Vietnamese AAA weapons were responsible for approximately 80 percent of all American aircraft shot down. AAA rapidly became the primary concern for U.S. pilots, and things only got worse in 1968, when North Vietnam married radar tracking to many of its 8,000 AAA weapons. Prior to radar tracking, U.S. pilots sacrificed bombing accuracy for safety. They operated at altitudes of more than 5,000 feet to avoid the low-altitude lethality of the 12-mm and 40-mm guns. With radar tracking, however, the genuinely effective range of North Vietnamese AAA now covered from 1,500 to more than 40,000 feet. Only in 1972, with the LINEBACKER bombing campaigns, did U.S. air forces finally neutralize the North Vietnamese air defense system. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese AAA batteries performed multiple roles, including air-base defense and the protection of the Hanoi and Hai Phong areas. In the latter cases, AAA units often operated in residential areas, hospitals, and dikes. This practice violated international law, but North Vietnamese leaders knew that the rules of engagement, as defined by the United States, protected these batteries from attack. As a result, American pilots basically had two options for neutralizing the AAA threat, which in 1967 lobbed up to 25,000 tons of ammunition a month at them. First, the American pilot could jam AAA batteries that were equipped with radar, although low-flying aircraft were still vulnerable to line-of-sight fire. The other option was jinking. This involved radical random changes in speed, altitude, and/or direction to confuse the radar fix on an aircraft. However, when the pilot approached the target, he had to fly straight and steady to drop his bombs accurately, at which point he was extremely vulnerable to enemy fire. In contrast to South Vietnam’s very limited air defense system, which included two Hawk missile battalions from 1965 to 1968 along with three AAA battalions used to support ground combat, North Vietnam’s system was exceptionally well equipped. One very simple but effective North Vietnamese antiaircraft device against low-flying aircraft was the so-called People’s Air Defense. This tactic relied on large numbers of rifles and machine guns provided by the government to private citizens in urban areas. Alerted by loudspeakers, these individuals would take up assigned positions. A central commander would then order them to concentrate fire on one selected low-flying aircraft. By requiring time, resources, and technology to neutralize their air defense system, North Vietnam was able to deny the United States total control of North Vietnamese airspace until 1972. North

Antiwar Movement, U.S. Vietnam’s air defense system, of which AAA was a major component, thus became the model for other nations to follow during and after the Vietnam War. ADAM J. STONE See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Lavalle, A. J. C., ed. The Tale of Two Bridges and the Battle for the Skies over North Vietnam. Monographs 1 and 2. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Staff, 2001. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Nordeen, Lon O. Air Warfare in the Missile Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985. Sharp, U. S. G., and W. C. Westmoreland. Report on the War in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

Antiwar Movement, U.S. Along with the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s, the antiwar movement was one of the most divisive forces in 20th-century U.S. history. The movement actually consisted of a number of independent interests, often only vaguely allied and contesting each other on many issues and united only in opposition to the Vietnam War. Attracting members from college campuses, middle-class suburbs, labor unions, and government institutions, the movement gained national prominence in 1965, peaked in 1968, and remained powerful throughout the duration of the conflict. Encompassing political, racial, and cultural spheres, the antiwar movement exposed a deep schism within 1960s’ American society. A small core peace movement had long existed in the United States, largely based in Quaker and Unitarian beliefs, but had failed to gain popular currency until the Cold War era. The escalating nuclear arms race of the late 1950s led Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, along with Clarence Pickett of the American Society of Friends (Quakers) to found the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) in 1957. Their most visible member was the prominent pediatrician and writer Dr. Benjamin Spock, who joined in 1962 after becoming disillusioned with President John F. Kennedy’s failure to halt nuclear proliferation. A decidedly middle-class organization, SANE represented the latest incarnation of traditional liberal peace activism. Its goal was a reduction in nuclear weapons. Another group, the Student Peace Union (SPU), emerged in 1959 on college campuses across the country. Like SANE, the SPU was more liberal than radical. After the Joseph McCarthy–inspired dissolution of Communist and Socialist organizations on campuses in the 1950s, the SPU became the only option remaining for nascent activists. The goal of

53

the SPU went beyond that of SANE. Unwilling to settle for fewer nuclear weapons, the students desired a wholesale restructuring of American society. The SPU, never an effective interest group, faded away by 1964, its banner taken up by a more active assemblage, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The SDS formed in 1960 as the collegiate arm of an Old Left institution with an impressive heritage, the League for Industrial Democracy. Jack London had been a member, as had author and journalist Upton Sinclair, but the organization had long lain dormant until Michael Harrington, a New York Socialist, revived it late in the 1950s as a forum for laborers, African Americans, and intellectuals. Within a single year, however, the SDS was taken over by student radicals Al Haber and Tom Hayden, both of the University of Michigan. In June 1962, 59 SDS members met with Harrington at Port Huron, Michigan, in a conference sponsored by the United Auto Workers. From this meeting materialized what has been called the manifesto of the New Left, the Port Huron Statement. Written by Hayden, the editor of the University of Michigan student newspaper, the 64-page Port Huron Statement expressed disillusionment with the military-industrial-academic establishment. Hayden cited the uncertainty of life in Cold War America and the degradation of African Americans in the South as examples of the failure of liberal ideology and called for a reevaluation of academic acquiescence in what he claimed was a dangerous conspiracy to maintain a sense of apathy among American youths. Throughout the first years of its existence, the SDS focused on domestic concerns. The students, as with other groups of the Old and New Left, actively supported President Lyndon Johnson in his 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater. Following Johnson’s victory, the SDS refrained from antiwar rhetoric to avoid alienating the president and possibly endangering the social programs of the Great Society. Although not yet an antiwar organization, the SDS actively participated in the civil rights struggle and proved an important link between the two defining causes of the decade. Another bridge between civil rights and the antiwar crusade was the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California at Berkeley. Begun in December 1964 by students who had participated in the Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi, the FSM provided an example of how students could bring about change through organization. In several skirmishes with university president Clark Kerr, the FSM and its dynamic leader Mario Savio publicized the close ties between academic and military establishments. With the rise of the SDS and the FSM, the Old Left peace advocates had discovered a large and vocal body of sympathizers, many of whom had gained experience in dissent through the civil rights battles in the South. By the beginning of 1965 the base of the antiwar movement had coalesced on campuses and lacked only a catalyst to bring wider public acceptance to its position. That catalyst appeared early in February 1965 when the United States began bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV,

54

Antiwar Movement, U.S.

In Washington, D.C., more than 100,000 antiwar protesters rally near the Lincoln Memorial on October 21, 1967, before marching across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon. The march was one of the first important anti–Vietnam War demonstrations in the United States. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

North Vietnam). The pace of protest immediately quickened, and the scope of protest broadened. In February and again in March, the SDS organized marches on the Oakland Army Terminal, the departure point for many troops bound for Southeast Asia. On March 24 faculty members at the University of Michigan held a series of teach-ins, modeled after earlier civil rights seminars, that sought to educate large segments of the student population about both the moral and political foundations of U.S. involvement. The teach-in format spread to campuses around the country and brought faculty members into active antiwar participation. In March the SDS escalated the scale of dissent to a truly national level, calling for a march on Washington to protest the bombing. On April 17, 1965, between 15,000 and 25,000 people gathered at the capital, a turnout that surprised even the organizers. Buoyed by the attendance at the Washington march, movement leaders, still mainly students, expanded their methods and gained new allies over the next two years. “Vietnam Day,” a symposium held at Berkeley in October 1965, drew thousands to debate the moral basis of the war. Campus editors formed networks to share

information on effective protest methods; two of these, the Underground Press Syndicate (1966) and the Liberation News Service (1967), became productive means of disseminating intelligence. In the spring of 1967 more than 1,000 seminarians from across the country wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara advocating recognition of conscientious objection on secular, moral grounds. In June 10,000 students wrote, suggesting that the secretary develop a program of alternative service for those who opposed violence. A two-day march on the Pentagon in October 1967 attracted nationwide media attention, while leaders of the war resistance called for young men to turn in their draft cards. The movement spread to the military itself; in 1966 the so-called Fort Hood Three gained acclaim among dissenters for their refusal to serve in Vietnam. Underground railroads funneled draft evaders to Canada or to Sweden, and churches provided sanctuary for those attempting to avoid conscription. Perhaps the most significant development of the period between 1965 and 1968 was the emergence of civil rights leaders as active proponents of peace in Vietnam. In a January 1967 article written for the Chicago Defender, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. openly expressed support for the antiwar movement on moral grounds. Reverend King expanded on his views in April at the Riverside Church in New York, asserting that the war was draining much-needed resources from domestic programs. He also voiced concern about the percentage of African American casualties in relation to the total population and stated that war burdens fell disproportionately to the poor. King’s statements rallied African American activists to the antiwar cause and established a new dimension to the moral objections of the movement. The peaceful phase of the antiwar movement had reached maturity, as the entire nation was now aware that the foundations of administration foreign policy were being widely questioned. As the movement’s ideals spread beyond college campuses, doubts about the wisdom of escalation also began to appear within the administration itself. As early as the summer of 1965, Undersecretary of State George Ball counseled President Johnson against further military involvement in Vietnam. In 1967 Johnson fired Defense Secretary McNamara after the secretary expressed concern about the moral justifications for war. Most internal dissent, however, focused not on ethical but instead on pragmatic criteria, with many believing that the cost of winning was simply too high. But widespread opposition within the government did not appear until 1968. Exacerbating the situation was the presidential election of that year in which Johnson faced a strong challenge from peace candidates Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and George McGovern, all Democrats, as well as his eventual successor, Richard M. Nixon. On March 25, 1968, Johnson learned that his closest advisers now opposed the war; six days later he withdrew from the race. As with the bombing of North Vietnam in 1965, which had touched off an explosion of interest in peace activities, another Southeast Asian catalyst instigated the most intense period of

Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. antiwar protest early in 1968. The Tet Offensive of late January led many Americans to question the administration’s veracity in reporting war progress and contributed to Johnson’s decision to retire. After the Tet Offensive, American public opinion shifted dramatically, with fully half of the population opposed to escalation. Dissent escalated to violence. In April protesters occupied the administration building at Columbia University; police used force to evict them. Raids on draft boards in Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Chicago in which activists smeared blood on records and shredded files soon followed. Offices and production facilities of Dow Chemical, manufacturers of napalm, were targeted for sabotage. The brutal clashes between police and peace activists at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago typified the divided nature of American society and foreshadowed a continuing rise in domestic conflict. The antiwar movement became both more powerful and, at the same time, less cohesive between 1969 and 1973. Most Americans pragmatically opposed escalating the U.S. role in Vietnam, believing that the economic cost was too high. In November 1969 a second march on Washington drew an estimated 500,000 participants. At the same time, most disapproved of the counterculture that had arisen alongside the antiwar movement. The clean-cut, well-dressed SDS members, who had tied their hopes to McCarthy in 1968, were being subordinated as movement leaders. Their replacements deservedly gained less public respect, were tagged with the label “hippie,” and faced much mainstream opposition from middle-class Americans uncomfortable with the youth culture of the period that included long hair, casual drug use, and sexual promiscuity. Protest music, typified by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, contributed to the gulf between young and old. Cultural and political protest had become inextricably intertwined within the movement’s vanguard. The new leaders became increasingly strident, greeting returning soldiers with jeers and taunts and spitting on troops in airports and on public streets. A unique situation arose in which most Americans supported the cause but opposed the leaders, methods, and culture of protest. The movement regained solidarity following several disturbing incidents. In February 1970 news of the My Lai Massacre became public and ignited widespread outrage. In April President Nixon, who had previously committed to a planned withdrawal, announced that U.S. forces had entered Cambodia. Within minutes of the televised statement, protesters took to the streets with renewed focus. Then on May 4, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on a group of student protesters at Kent State University, killing 4 and wounding 16. Death, previously distant, was now close at hand. New groups, including Nobel science laureates, State Department officers, and the American Civil Liberties Union, all openly called for withdrawal. Congress began threatening the Nixon administration with challenges to presidential authority. When the New York Times published the first installment of the Pentagon Papers on June 13, 1971, Americans became aware of the

55

true nature of the war. Stories of drug trafficking, political assassinations, and indiscriminate bombings led many to believe that military and intelligence services had lost all accountability. Antiwar sentiment, previously tainted with an air of anti-Americanism, became instead a normal reaction against zealous excess. Dissent dominated America; the antiwar cause had become institutionalized. By January 1973 when Nixon announced the effective end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, he did so in response to a mandate unequaled in modern times. MARK BARRINGER See also Ali, Muhammad; Baez, Joan Chandos; Clark, William Ramsey; Conscientious Objectors; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Dylan, Bob; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Fort Hood Three; Ginsberg, Allen; Goldman, Eric Frederick; Hardhats; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Hoover, John Edgar; Huston Plan; International War Crimes Tribunal; Jackson State College Shootings; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Kent State University Shootings; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Levy, Howard Brett; May Day Tribe; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; McGovern, George Stanley; McNamara, Robert Strange; My Lai Massacre; Pentagon Papers and Trial; Seale, Bobby; Spock, Benjamin McLane; Students for a Democratic Society; Tinker v. Des Moines; United States Department of Justice; University of Wisconsin Bombing; Vietnamization References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Garfinkle, Adam. Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995. Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978.

Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. People around the world followed print and broadcast news reports on the Vietnam War with considerable interest. Many viewed televised images of the war from U.S. as well as non-U.S. sources, all of which helped shape antiwar sentiments across the globe. Opposition to the Vietnam War manifested itself in multiple ways. This included foreign activists’ and politicians’ public criticism of U.S. policy and of U.S.-allied governments seen as complicit in the war, demonstrations by university and high school students and other political activists, and assistance to American males seeking to evade conscription or deserting military service. Antiwar sentiment also showed up in popular media, including graffiti, posters, and music. Protests abroad became evident in 1965 and 1966 in response to the U.S. escalation of the war in the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the deployment of large numbers of U.S. combat personnel to Vietnam. In Great Britain in 1966 Tariq Ali, an immigrant from Pakistan, helped to found the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. In 1967 the British philosopher

56

Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S.

Police arrest an anti–Vietnam War demonstrator outside the American embassy in London in June 1966. There was little popular support in Britain for the U.S. role in Vietnam, and the British government did not provide military or material support. (AP/Wide World Photos)

and peace activist Bertrand Russell published a condemnation of the war titled War Crimes in Vietnam. He was one of the organizers of the Russell Tribunal (also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal and the Russell-Sartre Tribunal) in Stockholm and Copenhagen that brought together prominent intellectuals and political leaders from around the world. Journalists, physicians, academics, and other speakers presented reports on the effects of the war in Southeast Asia. The organizers compared the tribunal to the post–World War II Nuremberg Trials of Nazis in 1945 and 1946. Although the hearings publicized charges of illegal acts committed by the United States and its allies in the Vietnam War, the tribunal did not itself possess any official powers of prosecution. Although the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) remained a close U.S. ally during the Vietnam War, many West Germans disapproved of U.S. military actions in Southeast Asia. In February 1968 the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (West German League of Socialist Students) hosted the International Vietnam Congress, attended by student activists from various countries, and arranged a march in West Berlin that drew an estimated 8,000–20,000 participants. There they encountered large numbers of counterdemonstrators who declared their support for the United States. In the late 1960s West German students established contact with some African American military personnel stationed in West Germany, many of whom would be or had

been deployed to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Together they sought to oppose the American role in the war, U.S. military interventions generally, and racism in the U.S. military and in American and German societies as a whole. In Japan, activists protested at U.S. military installations that provided support for operations in Vietnam. Although a majority of Australians backed their nation’s commitment to South Vietnam until 1969, at which time public support for the war began to recede, a protest movement had emerged in Australia by 1967 that was comprised of members of religious groups, veterans, students, and opponents of Australia’s conscription of young men to serve in the war. Demonstrators all over Western Europe used tactics similar to those employed by the American civil rights and antiwar movements, such as sit-ins and teach-ins. Some radical activists, like their counterparts in the United States, studied the example of revolutionaries such as Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Mao Zedong. Activists outside the United States were also informed by their own nations’ histories. For example, West Germans compared atrocities in Vietnam to Nazi war crimes, while Japanese activists recalled the aggression of their country’s military in the 1930s and 1940s. Protests against the U.S. role in the war intermingled with local concerns. In Western Europe, youths who opposed the war also criticized authoritarianism, the lack of student input in educational institutions, crowded and run-down universities, racism against nonwhite immigrants, colonialism in Africa and the developing world, and the excesses of capitalism. Many West German and Japanese opponents of the war also objected to the large and continuing U.S. military presence in their countries. In addition to protesting against the Vietnam War, some Japanese activists also demanded the reversion of Okinawa, under U.S. control, to Japanese control. Although most activists demonstrated peacefully, violence did occur. On March 17, 1968, in London’s largest Vietnam War rally to date, an estimated 20,000 marchers, including British students and workers and members of the West German League of Socialist Students, approached the U.S. embassy. Although organizers had not planned to attack the embassy, some marchers did charge the building, resulting in clashes between police and demonstrators and inspiring the Rolling Stones’ song “Street Fighting Man.” Mass violence also occurred in Paris in 1968 in confrontations between student leftists, police, and right-wing supporters of South Vietnam. Although international peace activists were among the many critics of the U.S. role in the war and sought an end to the violence in Southeast Asia, not all demonstrators opposed warfare as a means to bring about political change. Many protesters outside the United States not only demonstrated opposition to the U.S. intervention in Vietnam but also expressed support for the Vietnamese fighting to overthrow the South Vietnamese government and allied forces. North Vietnamese leaders believed that the worldwide protests could affect Americans’ will to continue the war and contribute to the U.S. government’s decision to withdraw its forces.

Ap Bac, Battle of While in no way equal to the fervor and numbers of antiwar protestors in the United States, widespread condemnation abroad of U.S. military operations in Vietnam showed that many people, including those in allied nations, doubted the judgment and the morality of the United States as a global leader and its claims that it sought to promote democracy and freedom abroad. DONNA ALVAH See also Antiwar Movement, U.S. References Daum, Andreas W., Lloyd C. Gardner, and Wilfried Mausbach, eds. America, the Vietnam War, and the World: Comparative and International Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Duffett, John, ed. Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal, Stockholm, Copenhagen. New York: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1968. Fraser, Ronald, et al., eds. 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. Höhn, Maria. “The Black Panther Solidarity Committees and the Voice of the Lumpen.” German Studies Review 31(1) (February 2008): 133–154. Kurlansky, Mark. 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004. Suri, Jeremi. Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.

APACHE SNOW,

57

became embroiled in heavy contact on the second day of the operation as it approached Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937 on their maps), the predominant hill in a series of ridges. Having engaged the 7th and 8th battalions of the PAVN 29th Regiment that were dug into heavily fortified positions on the hill, the Rakassans were reinforced with two more 101st Airborne Division battalions (1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, and 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry) and a battalion of the ARVN 3rd Regiment. The Battle of Ap Bia Mountain (also known as the Battle of Hamburger Hill) became one of the more infamous engagements of the war and the major event of APACHE SNOW. Although at heavy cost, the battle forced PAVN forces out of the A Shau Valley into Laotian sanctuaries. Despite this success, as soon as U.S. and ARVN forces withdrew, PAVN troops moved back into the area, as occurred in previous operations. Total U.S. losses in APACHE SNOW were 113 killed in action and 627 wounded; 5 South Vietnamese troops were also killed. Communist losses were given at 977 killed in action. In addition, 152 individual and 25 crew-served weapons were captured. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Attrition; Hamburger Hill, Battle of References Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Zaffiri, Samuel. Hamburger Hill: The Brutal Battle for Dong Ap Bia, May 11–20, 1969. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988.

Operation

Start Date: May 10, 1969 End Date: June 7, 1969 U.S. military operation designed to keep pressure on People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units and base camps in the A Shau Valley. Located southwest of the city of Hue in western I Corps Tactical Zone near the Laotian border, the A Shau Valley was, during the Vietnam War, a PAVN base area and terminus for replacements and supplies sent south by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Cessation of bombing during the limited visibility of the monsoon season allowed the Communists to move and stockpile large quantities of matériel throughout their infiltration network in the A Shau Valley. In February 1969 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), intelligence reported a rush of bunker and way station construction in the valley, and several Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and U.S. operations were conducted there to disrupt the activity and destroy PAVN units in order to prevent attacks on the coastal provinces. APACHE SNOW involved the 3rd Brigade, U.S. 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile); the U.S. 9th Marine Regiment; and the ARVN 3rd Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. Although most elements met with some resistance, the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry (“Rakassans”),

Ap Bac, Battle of Event Date: January 2, 1963 A fierce battle fought on January 2, 1963, in the small village of Bac (the Vietnamese term ap means “hamlet”), located approximately 40 miles southwest of Saigon. Stung by the October 1962 loss of a South Vietnamese Ranger platoon and concerned about the ease with which the Viet Cong (VC) was recruiting support in the important Mekong Delta region, Lieutenant Colonel John Vann, senior adviser to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 7th Division, hoped for a quick victory at Ap Bac and its sister hamlet, Ap Tan Thoi, 1 mile to the north. Aware that an ARVN attack was imminent, Communist regular forces totaling about 320 men (the headquarters and one company of the main-force 261st Battalion, one company from the 514th

Estimated Casualties at the Battle of Ap Bac, January 2, 1963 ARVN PAVN

Killed

Wounded

Total

80 18

100 39

180 57

58

Ap Bac, Battle of

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) paratroopers run to board CH-21 Shawnee helicopters during the Battle of Ap Bac with Communist Viet Cong (VC) forces in January 1963. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Provincial Battalion, and several support units), augmented by about 30 local guerrillas, assumed strong defensive positions in tree lines and along canals. Dedicated and well-trained fighters, they demonstrated superior weapons discipline throughout the day. Conversely, the ARVN 7th Division exhibited incompetence, confusion, and cowardice. Despite Vann’s well-conceived plan calling for a three-pronged attack from the north, south, and east, the mission quickly disintegrated on January 2, as ARVN soldiers refused to advance under fire despite exhortations of the few U.S. advisers on the scene. By noon, five U.S. helicopters carrying ARVN soldiers had been downed. Intermediate ARVN commanders refused to act. Finally ARVN paratroopers, hoping to contain the Communist forces, dropped into the battle zone, but they landed on the west side rather than on the east side of Ap Bac, as Vann intended. As in October, the greatly outnumbered Communist troops outfought ARVN forces, and when nighttime covered their movements, they simply escaped. Miscommunication, perhaps intended, compounded the negative consequences of the battle. General Paul Harkins, then the senior-ranking military officer in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN,

South Vietnam) and commander of the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), claimed that the mission was a success because Ap Bac had been secured, although he neglected to mention that this occurred after the VC enemy had escaped the ARVN’s blunder-filled attack. However, reporters David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, and Malcolm Brown, covering the battle at the site, revealed what they observed to be a debacle. They reported that even with the assistance of American technology and planning, the ARVN was still an inferior fighting force. Although the Communist forces lost 18 men killed and 39 wounded that day, the ARVN suffered about 80 dead and more than 100 wounded. Rather than demonstrating a strengthening ARVN as officials had hoped, the Battle of Ap Bac became emblematic of that army’s difficulties. Furthermore, in mishandling communications about this event, the U.S. military severely damaged its credibility with the press, a problem that increased as the war continued. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Halberstam, David; Harkins, Paul Donal; Mekong Delta; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Taylor-McNamara Report; Vann, John Paul

Arc Light Missions References Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. Rev. ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Toczek, David M. The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007.

Ap Bia Mountain, Battle of See Hamburger Hill, Battle of

Arc Light Missions Start Date: 1965 End Date: 1973 General term and code name for U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress operations in Vietnam flown out of Guam and Thailand during the period June 18, 1965, to August 15, 1973. Arc Light missions were flown above 30,000 feet in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Laos in support of ground troops or to interdict Communist infiltration. In the 1950s when the earliest versions of the B-52 “Buffs” were being incorporated into the primary nuclear strike force of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), they were not designed to carry conventional iron bombs. When in 1965 President Lyndon Johnson committed U.S. air forces to the Vietnam War, however, it became clear that nuclear weapons would not be used. Thus, in a program dubbed Project Big Belly, all B-52Ds and one B-52F, which flew the majority of Arc Light sorties, were modified to enable each to carry nearly 30 tons of conventional bombs. Arc Light operations were most often close air support carpet bombing raids of Communist base camps, troop concentrations, and/or supply lines. These were unusual close air support operations in that they were carried out at high altitudes by strategic bombers, but they were welcomed by the ground forces, who called the raids “aerial excavations.” The majority of Arc Light sorties were flown south of the 17th Parallel, particularly before 1966. Only 141 missions were flown in the northern region, most near the demilitarized zone (DMZ). One of the most famous southern operations came during the 1968 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) siege of the U.S. Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh. The two most famous B-52 operations in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) were the 1972 LINEBACKER I and II operations, but these were not Arc Light strikes.

59

On June 28, 1965, 27 B-52Fs of the 7th and 320th Bomb Wings in Guam made the first Arc Light raid against a Viet Cong (VC) jungle redoubt. No VC were killed, and two B-52s were lost in a midair collision. Eight of the 12 crew members died. One newspaper report later compared Arc Light to a housewife “swatting flies with a sledge-hammer.” Nonetheless, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland was convinced of the B-52s’ potential effectiveness, but he had no role in planning or commanding air strikes against North Vietnam. From June through December 1965, the 7th, 320th, and 454th Bomb Wings flew more than 100 missions. Most were saturation attacks, but some were tactical support missions, such as for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Operation HARVEST MOON and the U.S. Army’s Ia Drang Valley operations. These initial missions were flown with F-model B-52s that could carry 51 750-pound bombs, 27 internally and 24 externally on the wings. The need for greater payload led to the initiation of the aforementioned Big Belly program for B-52Ds. The program increased internal 500-pound bomb capacity from 27 to 84 and 750-pound bomb capacity from 27 to 42. Concurrently, they still carried 24 500-pound or 750-pound bombs externally. Between April 12 and 16, 1966, B-52s raided outside South Vietnam for the first time when they bombed the Mu Gia Pass in Laos to stop PAVN infiltrations. Later they also attacked PAVN infiltration routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1966 they dropped an average of 8,000 bombs a month and flew 5,000 sorties. In this period the Buffs flew out of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. By April the B-52Fs had been replaced by the Big Belly B-52Ds of the 28th and 484th Bomb Wings. That summer SAC units also began arriving in Thailand for operations from U-Tapao Airfield. In early April 1967, B-52s began Arc Light operations from UTapao. On September 13, 1967, the final modified B-52D arrived at Guam. By the end of the year, B-52 units in Southeast Asia had been augmented by elements of the 306th, 91st, 22nd, 454th, 461st, and 99th Bomb Wings. Operations in support of U.S. marines at Khe Sanh began in late January 1968, and even though the siege ended in early April, B-52s continued to pound areas in northern South Vietnam throughout the year. Targets of particular importance included the A Shau Valley, the Kontum–Dak To triborder area, and the PAVN/VC infiltration area in southeastern War Zone C (the Cambodian border nearest Saigon). During the fighting at Khe Sanh, crews used ground-based radar to direct their aircraft to the targets. The attacks on PAVN supply and troop concentrations were one of the greatest Arc Light successes. During the battle the Buffs dropped some 60,000–75,000 tons of bombs, most of them 500- and 750-pounders. Even though President Johnson halted the bombing of North Vietnam in March 1968, numerous B-52 strikes continued throughout 1969 in South Vietnam. With the election of Richard M. Nixon as president, raids increased. In January 1969 U-Tapao was converted from a forward operating base to a main operating base. In

60

Arc Light Missions

Bombs are loaded aboard a U.S. Strategic Air Command B-52 Stratofortress aircraft participating in Arc Light strikes over South Vietnam, December 1972. (Department of Defense)

1970 Nixon’s Vietnamization program led to a reduction of Arc Light raids. Even so, significant missions were flown against Laotian infiltration routes and Cambodian supply dumps, base areas, and troop concentrations. From November 1969 to April 1970, B-52s flew in Operation COMMANDO HUNT III in Laos. In April and May they supported ground operations in both Laos and Cambodia. In 1972 in an effort to stem the tide of the PAVN’s Easter Offensive and to force North Vietnam and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) back to the Paris peace talks, Nixon twice ordered B-52 raids on Hanoi and Hai Phong. LINEBACKER I lasted from May 10 to October 23, 1972, and was composed of raids on infiltration routes and some attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong. LINEBACKER II lasted from December 18 to 29, 1972, and focused on 24 military targets including rail yards, shipyards, communications facilities, power plants, railway bridges, MiG bases, air defense radars, antiaircraft artillery (AAA) sites, and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites. B-52s accounted for 15,000 of the 20,370 tons of bombs dropped. SAMs

downed 15 B-52s. Of the 92 downed crew members, 26 were rescued, 33 bailed out and were captured, 29 were listed as missing, and 4 were killed. On December 30, 1972, Hanoi agreed to return to negotiations (resumed on January 8, 1973), which concluded with the Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973. Because of cease-fire violations in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, B-52 raids continued until August 15, when the last Arc Light raid was carried out over targets in Cambodia. Between June 18, 1965, and August 15, 1973, SAC scheduled 126,663 B-52 combat sorties, of which 126,615 were launched. Of these, 125,479 actually reached their targets and 124,532 released their bombs. More than 55 percent of these sorties were flown over South Vietnam, 27 percent over Laos, 12 percent over Cambodia, and only 6 percent over North Vietnam. Altogether, the U.S. Air Force lost 31 B-52s, 18 to enemy fire over North Vietnam and 13 due to operational problems. WILLIAM P. HEAD

Armored Personnel Carriers See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; HARVEST MOON, Operation; Ia Drang, Battle of; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Westmoreland, William Childs References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Hopkins, J. C., and Sheldon A. Goldberg. The Development of the Strategic Air Command, 1946–1986: The Fortieth Anniversary History. Offutt Air Force Base, NE: Office of the Historian, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, 1986. Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1988. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1991. U.S. Air Force Special Study, Headquarters Strategic Air Command. Activity Input to Project Corona Harvest–Arc Light Operations, 1 Jan 65–31 Mar 68. 3 vols. (declassified May 31, 1990). Omaha: Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, 1990.

Armored Personnel Carriers Armored vehicles that are used for transporting personnel and equipment. Despite an operational terrain consisting largely of

61

jungles, rice paddies, and mountains, armored personnel carriers (APCs) were widely and successfully employed in Vietnam. Based on studies conducted by the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), two companies of APCs were organized in April 1962 and assigned to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 7th and 21st Infantry Divisions, operating in the Mekong Delta. By January 1968 more than 2,100 APCs were operating with ARVN and American units. Most APCs in Vietnam were variants of the M-113, which became the most successful and widely used APC in the non-Communist world. The M-113 was first introduced in 1960 to replace the bulky post–Korean War M-59. Designed to carry 11 infantrymen plus a driver, the M-113 was constructed from aluminum armor welded over a watertight hull. Its 1.5- to 1.75-inch armor provided ballistic protection only from shell fragments, flash burns, and small-arms fire of less than .50 caliber. The M-113 was not intended as a fighting platform; instead, it was designed to carry troops to the point of combat, where they would dismount and fight, supported by the APC’s machine gun. Thus, the M-113 was a personnel carrier rather than a true infantry fighting vehicle (IFV). The first version of the M-113 was powered by a gasoline engine. Gasoline is a highly combustible fuel, and this soon caused serious problems in combat. In 1964 the U.S. Army introduced the M-113A1 with a diesel engine. The new engine not only reduced the combustible fuel hazard but also increased the M-113’s

U.S. infantrymen and M-113 armored personnel carriers in a jungle clearing three miles inside Cambodia, May 2, 1970. (AP/Wide World Photos)

62

Armored Personnel Carriers

Characteristics of Armored Personnel Carriers Used during the Vietnam War Model M-113 M-113A1 M-114A1 M-125A1 M-106A1 M-577A1 LVTP-5

Type APC APC Carrier Carrier Carrier Carrier Landing

Post Tracked ACAV Recon Mortar Mortar Command Vehicle Variant

Personnel Gross Weight (pounds)

Height (inches)

Width (inches)

Length (inches)

Crew

22,900 24,238 15,276 24,527 26,147 24,570 65,563

86.5 86.5 84.9 86.5 86.5 101.0 115.7

106.00 106.00 91.75 106.00 106.00 106.00 141.30

191.5 191.5 175.75 191.5 191.5 191.5 358.1

1+11 1+11 3 6 6 1+7 3+34

cruising range by 50 percent. With its watertight hull, the M-113 was designed to be amphibious. The front of the vehicle was fitted with a hinged breakwater plate (called a trim vane) that maintained the vehicle’s balance in water. In actual operations, conditions had to be almost perfect for the M-113 to swim properly. Swamped M-113s were not uncommon. Most of the M-113 variants were based on the M-113A1. Worldwide, more than 150 variants of the M-113 appeared. Those most commonly used in Vietnam included the M-125A1, a self-propelled platform for an 81-millimeter (mm) mortar; the M-106A1, a self-propelled 4.2-inch mortar; and the M-132, a self-propelled flamethrower that GIs called the “Zippo.” Another variant was the M-577A1 command post carrier. The M-577 had a large armored box added just behind the driver’s compartment to provide 15 inches of additional headroom. Equipped with extra radios but no armament, M-577s were used as mobile command posts, fire direction centers, and even ambulances. Several other APC models saw service in Vietnam. The much smaller M-114A1 was intended as a reconnaissance vehicle. It was underpowered and too light and was withdrawn from service after only a few years. The thin-skinned M-548 tracked cargo carrier was based on the M-113 drive train. In the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the U.S. Marine Corps used its huge LVTP-5 (Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Personnel) as an APC. When the troops in Vietnam received a newly issued M-113, they immediately began making their own modifications. First to go were the rubber mud guards that covered the upper half of the road wheels and tracks. These made repairing the tracks quickly in difficult situations more difficult. Next, troop seats were ripped out and replaced with more practical wooden benches. The insides of the benches were used to store ammunition, C-rations, and personal gear. The most significant local modifications to the M-113 was the armored cavalry assault vehicle (ACAV). This included mounting an armor shield in front of the .50-caliber M2 machine gun and installing extra plating around the gunner’s cupola. All APCs were supposed to carry an extra 7.62-mm M60 machine gun inside the vehicle for the troops to use while dismounted. That machine gun was mounted behind a small armor plate on one side of the top

deck cargo hatch. Another M60 was mounted on the other side of the hatch. Thus, with the ACAV, the M-113 evolved into the IFV that it was never intended to be. At first the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) did not know how to engage the APCs, but they learned quickly. Weapons of choice against the M-113 were the 57-mm and later the 75-mm recoilless rifle, the RPG-2 (rocket-propelled grenade) and later the more powerful RPG-7, and the antivehicular mine. All of these could easily destroy or cripple an M-113 with a solid hit. If an M-113 was hit by an RPG or if it hit a mine, the chances were very slim that anyone inside the vehicle would survive. Anyone riding on top of the vehicle had a better chance of surviving, as the full impact of an RPG blast was directed into the vehicle. If the APC hit a mine, those on top stood a good chance of being thrown clear. Thus, almost all the pictures of APCs in Vietnam show the troops riding on the top, preferring to take their chances with small-arms fire. Usually only the driver rode inside. Casualty rates for drivers were high. In the final analysis the M-113 did not provide very much protection, but it did offer significant increases in firepower, speed, and mobility. Soldiers in the mechanized infantry and armored cavalry units grew very attached to their own APCs, which they called “tracks.” Crews often painted wild designs on their APCs, reminiscent of World War II aircraft nose art. Improved versions of the M-113 remained in service in the U.S. Army until the 1990s, when they were replaced by the M-2 Bradley IFV. In many other Western armies, M-113 and M-113 variants have remained in service into the 21st century. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Armored Warfare References Crimson, Fred W. U.S. Military Tracked Vehicles. Osceola, WI: Motor Books International, 1992. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Starry, Donn A. Mounted Combat in Vietnam. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1978.

Armored Warfare

Fuel

Max Speed (miles per hour)

Cruising Range (miles)

Vertical Obstacle (inches)

Trench (inches)

Gas Diesel Gas Diesel Diesel Diesel Gas

40 40 36 40 40 35 28

200 300 300 300 300 300 185

24 24 18 24 24 24 36

66 66 60 66 66 66 145

Armored Warfare During the Vietnam War, allied tanks were deployed both offensively and defensively. The offensive employment of allied tanks made good use of their mobility, heavy firepower, defensive armor, and shock effect. Communist tanks were deployed mostly during the conflict’s last few years and primarily in an offensive role. Initially the American military held that Vietnam was not appropriate tank country. Although some lighter combat vehicles, such as the M551 Sheridan and M50A1 Ontos, were viewed as better suited for this combat environment, the perception was eventually dispelled by the M48 Patton. Known for its jungle-busting ability, the Patton was commonly used to create paths through dense vegetation. It was also used to assault Viet Cong (VC) bunkers and grind them down beneath its tracks in a can opener–like motion. M48 crews often sandbagged the tank turrets for crew protection, and the bulldozer variant of this tank commonly had Claymore mines directly attached to its working blade for added firepower. In a counterinsurgency support role, tanks were used to help clear out Communist strong points, patrol secure areas, and engage in sweeps and ambushes. When armor went on the defensive, crews employed night laagers (defensive perimeters), with fighting positions between each vehicle that had supporting infantry—usually but not always mechanized infantry—deployed between them. The crews placed concertina wire and Claymore mines around the defensive perimeter and employed listening posts. The defenders employed harassment and interdiction (H&I) missions fired by supporting artillery to keep Communist forces off balance and away from the night laager positions. Tanks were prime targets for VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces. They attacked tanks with mines and with rocket-propelled grenades, recoilless rifles, Sagger antitank missiles, satchel charges, or antitank grenades. Land mines were the principal cause of U.S. armor losses in Vietnam and were placed in roads, possible routes of advance, and likely night laager positions. Consequently, armor units did not normally use the same static position two nights in a row. Mines ranged from TNT demolition blocks and converted dud

63

Main Armament

Secondary Armament

1x .50 machine gun 1x .50 machine gun 4.2'' mortar 1x 7.62-mm machine gun 1x .50 machine gun 81-mm mortar None

1x 7.62-mm machine gun 2x 7.62-mm machine gun 1x .50 machine gun None 2x 7.62-mm machine gun 1x .50 machine gun None

bombs to conventional Soviet and Chinese antitank munitions. Although crews of the heavy M48 had a good chance of surviving a mine detonation, crews of lighter armored vehicles had a much lower survival rate. Attacks on tanks with rocket-propelled grenades—Soviet RPG2 (Vietnamese B40) and RPG7V (Vietnamese B41)—were a common problem, especially when the tanks were in static positions. Crews soon discovered that regular cyclone fencing would defeat both of these grenades. The RPG2 would prematurely detonate, while RPG7 detonation circuitry would be rendered inert from the initial impact with the fencing. A second fencing screen was usually established by command elements to protect vehicles in static positions.

M50 Ontos antitank tracked and light-armored vehicles deploy from landing craft on Chu Lai beach in South Vietnam in 1965 during the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

64

Army Concept Team in Vietnam

The first use of a Sagger (9M14M Malyukta) antitank guided missile in Vietnam occurred in April 1972 when one destroyed an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) M48A3. Armor units soon learned how to counter this missile by firing at the gray plume of smoke at the launch site to make the gunner, who controlled the wire-guided missile with a joystick, flinch and miss the target. In the meantime, the crew of the target vehicle counted to five and maneuvered it violently in hopes of disrupting the missile’s flight path. ARVN crews also sought to confuse the missile’s control system by throwing flares. Tank crews used two methods to repel suicide groups with satchel charges or antitank grenades. The first was the lobbing of a so-called tanker’s grenade—two pounds of TNT wrapped with barbed wire or chain—over the side. The other was back-scratching, the firing of small-caliber weapons by one tank at a buttonedup tank that had come under assault. Armor was never considered a strong point for North Vietnamese forces. PAVN tank crews tended to be undertrained, and in any case their tanks were inferior to their U.S. counterparts. The optic systems in the T-54 and T-55, for example, were inferior to that of the M-48. In 1972 in Quang Tri, an M-48 scored a hit on one at a range of nearly 1.5 miles. The side-mounted gasoline tanks and ammunition storage of the T-54 and T-55 were also vulnerable to enemy fire. Furthermore, PAVN tanks were not initially well integrated with infantry and artillery units. This was in direct contrast to such highly decorated allied units as the U.S. Army’s Company A, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment. Prior to 1973 Communist armor forces were seen only sporadically in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Laos, and the tank employed tended to be the light PT-76 amphibious tank, which was an excellent design. Tanks did prove critical to the Communist victories at the Lang Vei Special Forces camp in February 1968 and at Landing Zone 31, north of A Luoi, during Operation LAM SON 719 in February 1971. At the Battle of An Loc during the 1972 Easter Offensive, however, the PAVN employed approximately 100 tanks, 80 of which they lost. These fell prey to ARVN tank-hunter teams, armed with M72 light antitank weapons (LAWs), and allied air assets. Farther to the north during the Battle of Kontum, tube-fired optically tracked wire-guided (TOW) missiles, mounted on Bell UH-1B Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters, only recently deployed, registered a remarkable number of kills. With the U.S. military withdrawal from Vietnam in January 1973, military and material support for ARVN forces began to evaporate. With fuel, ammunition, and spare parts dwindling, ARVN armor forces became nothing more than a hollow shell confined to motor parks. In the final 1975 offensive, PAVN armor units, now better trained and integrated with infantry and artillery, proved integral in the swift conquest of South Vietnam. ROBERT J. BUNKER

See also An Loc, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Grenade Launchers; LAM SON 719, Operation; Mine Warfare, Land; Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Dunstan, Simon. Vietnam Tracks: Armor in Battle, 1945–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982. Hay, John H. Tactical and Materiel Innovations. U.S. Army Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Pimlott, J. C. “Armour in Vietnam.” In Armoured Warfare, edited by J. P. Harris and F. H. Toase, 145–157. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990. Starry, Donn A. Armored Combat in Vietnam. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980. Zumbro, Ralph. Tank Sergeant. New York: Pocket Books, 1988. Willbanks, James H. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Army Concept Team in Vietnam When the Tactical Mobility Requirements Board (also known as the Howze Board, named for its chair, Major General Hamilton H. Howze) in August 1962 recommended new airmobile units, air mobility was still unproven. Secretary of the Army Cyrus R. Vance prevailed on Brigadier General Edward L. Rowny to take a team to Vietnam to explore ways to improve counterinsurgency warfare. Rowny drafted his own charter that required his team of 30 military and 25 civilian personnel to evaluate “new or improved operational and organizational concepts, doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures, and to gain further information on materiel.” Although the major emphasis was on air mobility, the Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV) also examined armor, communications, logistics, civic action, and even scout dogs and snipers. Knowing ACTIV’s interest in air mobility, the U.S. Air Force opposed its mission because air mobility would impinge on its troop transport and close air support missions. ACTIV first experimented with armed Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters. Hueys armed with rockets and machine guns were found to be essential in escorting Piasecki H-21 Shawnee helicopters loaded with Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops and in providing suppressive fire at landing zones (LZs). Hueys were survivable in combat and could also be used for reconnaissance and surveillance. ACTIV also found Hueys to be acceptable troop carriers and useful for night illumination. Tests of the U.S. Army’s armed Grumman OV-1 Mohawks, allowed by the U.S. Air Force to fire only defensively, found that their infrared, radar, and photography capabilities could provide effective intelligence on the Viet Cong (VC). ACTIV tested the De Havilland CV-2 Caribou light transport plane in various modes. It was found to be adaptable in radio relay,

Arnett, Peter command and control, air support operations, and troop carrier, low-level extraction, and general supply functions. A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft, the Caribou could fly into 77 percent of all landing strips in Vietnam, whereas the U.S. Air Force Chase/ Fairchild C-123 Provider could use only 11 percent of them. In 1966 the army gave up the armed Mohawks and Caribous to the air force in return for the latter dropping its opposition to the armed helicopter. ACTIV also tested Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters armed with various machine guns and grenade launchers. The 1st Cavalry troops liked its massive firepower, but the army decided that it needed the Chinook more for lift capability. Experiments conducted by ACTIV improved counterinsurgency warfare in Vietnam and also contributed to the development of air mobility concepts in the army in the United States. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Air Mobility; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Vance, Cyrus Roberts References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Rowny, Edward L. It Takes One to Tango. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1992. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Army of the Republic of Vietnam See Vietnam, Republic of, Army

Arnett, Peter Birth Date: November 13, 1934 Acclaimed foreign correspondent and television journalist who covered much of the Vietnam War. Born on November 13, 1934, in Riverton, New Zealand, Peter Arnett left college to become a journalist. Subsequently he worked for newspapers in New Zealand and Australia. On June 26, 1962, the Associated Press sent Arnett to Saigon. In August of that year near the Mekong Delta he first witnessed combat, an experience that led him to question U.S. involvement in the war. Arnett’s coverage of the Vietnam War established him as a high-profile reporter. His commitment to get the real story, no matter the danger, won him the admiration of his peers and the respect of soldiers. Journalist David Halberstam once remarked that Arnett was the “gutsiest” man he had ever known and was a consummate combat reporter.

65

Arnett’s candor created controversy, however. In 1963 Premier Ngo Dinh Diem, who was upset with Arnett’s coverage of the treatment of Buddhist monks by the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), threatened him with expulsion from the country. On July 23, 1963, members of the South Vietnamese secret police accosted Arnett on a Saigon street and began to beat him; a colleague intervened, saving Arnett from possible serious injury. The Diem regime then demanded that Arnett leave the country; only after the John F. Kennedy administration intervened on his behalf was he allowed to remain in South Vietnam. Arnett’s forthright style also caused tension with the U.S. military establishment. On several occasions officials attempted to convince him to report a more sanitized version of the war. Because he refused to compromise the accuracy of his stories, Arnett was targeted by the Lyndon B. Johnson administration for surveillance. Military officials also sought to limit his access to combat, but Arnett’s many connections with men in the field negated those efforts. Arnett developed a penchant for covering difficult and revealing stories. In 1966 his dedication earned him a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1968 Tet Offensive he reported the now-infamous statement of an American officer who said that U.S. forces had to destroy the village of Ben Tre in order to save it. That same year Arnett quoted John Paul Vann, U.S. chief of the civilian pacification program, who opined that the initial U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam would consist of “nonessentials.” That statement led readers to question the veracity of the Richard M. Nixon administration’s promised troop reductions. In 1972 Arnett witnessed the release of the first American prisoners of war in Hanoi, and in 1975 he covered the fall of Saigon to Communist forces. Arnett believes that newsmen do not deserve much of the negative criticism they have received for their coverage of the war. He maintains that journalists merely reported the events and did not make policy decisions. In 1981 Arnett joined the Cable Network News (CNN); he was with the network until 1999. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War he became well known for his “Live from Baghdad” reports. In the opening hours of the war he was the only Western reporter airing live as air raid sirens blared in the background and bombs exploded in the distance. Later Arnett’s reports on civilian casualties in Iraq earned him the enmity of the U.S. military and the White House. Two weeks after the war began, Arnett conducted an uncensored interview with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Arnett also secured the first-ever television interview with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which took place in eastern Afghanistan in late March 1997. In late 2001 Arnett reported on the war in Afghanistan (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM) for HDNet. Two years later, reporting for National Geographic and NBC television, Arnett covered the beginning of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, which ousted Hussein from power. Arnett again sparked controversy after giving an interview to statecontrolled Iraqi television. After being dismissed by both NBC and

66

Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius

Acclaimed war correspondent Peter Arnett talks with an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldier in South Vietnam, October 1965. (AP/Wide World Photos)

National Geographic, Arnett became a correspondent for the British tabloid Daily Mirror, which had opposed the invasion of Iraq. DEAN BRUMLEY AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Halberstam, David; Media and the Vietnam War; Ngo Dinh Diem; Vann, John Paul References Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battle Field: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Prochnau, William. “If There’s a War, He’s There.” New York Times Magazine, March 3, 1991. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.

Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius Birth Date: November 8, 1925 Death Date: August 18, 2009 Controversial U.S. naval officer and commander of USS Vance from 1965 to 1966 who was relieved of his command because

of differences with his crew and his superiors. Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, who was named after the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, was born on November 8, 1925, in New Jersey and raised in New York City. His grandfather, Louis van Arnheiter, was a pioneer inventor in the aeronautics industry. The younger Arnheiter attended the Millard Preparatory Academy in Washington, D.C.; Amherst College; and then the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, from which he graduated in 1952. In the last years of the Korean War he served on the battleship Iowa and then was assigned to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. By 1960 Arnheiter was working in the Progress Analysis Group. On December 22, 1965, as a lieutenant commander he took command of the Vance, an Edsall-class destroyer escort. The Vance had been commissioned in 1943 and had been decommissioned three years later but was refitted during 1955–1956 and recommissioned. Arnheiter, however, professed to be appalled by the condition of the ship and the apparent laxness of its crew when he took command. Indeed, he claimed that the Vance was not fit to be sent into combat off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He stated in reports that the ship was poorly maintained and that the crew was not suitably trained or motivated for combat duty. There was also clear evidence, Arnheiter claimed, of nonrated seamen threatening, intimidating,

Art and the Vietnam War and actually attacking petty officers. However, a number of the Vance’s crew disagreed with Arnheiter’s assessment, and some of them began keeping notes of Arnheiter’s comments in what became known as the “Marcus Mad Log,” a 38-page dossier critical of Arnheiter’s command of the Vance. Assigned to support Operation MASHER (later renamed Operation WHITE WING), a combined operation by South Vietnamese, U.S., and South Korean troops to sweep through the Bong Son Plain and Kim Son Valley in January–March 1966, the Vance performed coastal patrol duties, searching small vessels off Binh Dinh Province for weapons and contraband that might be used by the Communist insurgents. On one occasion the Vance shelled a Buddhist pagoda, which Arnheiter suspected was being used by the Viet Cong (VC). The ship nearly ran aground during this action. Because the destroyer’s motor whaleboat was not fast, Arnheiter used monies set aside for crew welfare and recreation for the purchase of a new model that was faster. This was misappropriation of funds, and by now some of the crew members were complaining about Arnheiter, comparing him to Captain Queeg in Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny. Reports of Arnheiter’s actions came to the attention of his superiors, and on March 31, 1966, when the Vance was refitting at Manila, Arnheiter was relieved of his command after just 99 days. Vice Admiral B. J. Semmes Jr., the chief of naval personnel, stated that Arnheiter was guilty of “a gross lack of judgment and inability to lead people.” Arnheiter responded by claiming that his aim had been to “prosecute the war effort wherever I could, as forcefully as I could, and that got in the way of the holiday routine I found when I came aboard.” Arnheiter demanded that a court-martial be convened so that he could clear his name, but the navy refused, and he then left the service. The Arnheiter Affair, as the entire incident became known, was well covered in the press at the time and received much more publicity after the publication of The Arnheiter Affair by journalist Neil Sheehan in December 1971. In February 1972 Arnheiter launched legal proceedings against Sheehan and Random House, the book’s publisher, as well as the New York Times, which had printed a long account of the story in August 1968. None of the suits were successful. The Vance was decommissioned for a second time in 1969 and was struck from the U.S. Navy list on June 1, 1975. Arnheiter retired to Santa Rosa, California, shunning all publicity. He died in Novato, California, on August 18, 2009. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation References “The Arnheiter Incident.” Time Magazine, December 1, 1967, 18–19. Regan, Geoffrey. The Brassey’s Book of Naval Blunders. London: André Deutsch, 2001. Sheehan, Neil. The Arnheiter Affair. New York: Random House, 1971.

67

Art and the Vietnam War Following the formal U.S. commitment of troops to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in March 1965, artists in New York collectively known as the Artists and Writers Protest (AWP) group published on April 18, 1965, the first of two openletter advertisements in the New York Times intended to arouse the attention of the art community. Similarly, the Artists Protest Committee in Los Angeles began orchestrating a series of socalled whiteout demonstrations in front of local museums to close down the galleries. This same committee would later oversee the construction of the Peace Tower on a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by Mark di Suvero and erected with the help of Mel Edwards, the tower was decorated with 400 uniformly sized panels contributed by artists from around the world and was intended to stand from February 26, 1966, until the end of the war. More than 600 artists gathered during January 29–February 5, 1967, for Angry Arts Week, a series of well-received dance, art, film, poetry, and music exhibitions that served as the catalyst to help launch a more comprehensive protest movement among the artists. Included in the exhibition was the 10-foot by 150-foot Collage of Indignation, a collaborative work of more than 150 artists organized by critics Dore Ashton and Max Kozloff at the New York University Student Center. Although such nascent attempts at protest succeeded in arousing the public consciousness, the art itself was a popular expression of revulsion against the Vietnam War. While the desire to speak out against the war quickly surfaced within the artistic community, the artists themselves had not yet perfected a means of expressing externally through art their outrage and opposition to the American involvement in Vietnam. Imbued with the selfreflective values that governed the predominant pop, minimalist, kinetic, and abstract art movements of the time, artists in 1967 had rarely touched on social issues, for the artists themselves had been convinced early on that political art was old-fashioned, and few possessed the prescience to break from this dominant view. As it would do in many other aspects of American life, however, the Vietnam War sparked a revolution of sorts within the art world and marked the return of political art. Although the general climate in the art world of the 1960s refrained from touching upon social issues, a few striking individuals, most notably Wally Hedrick, began producing serious responses to the Vietnam conflict as early as the late 1950s. A veteran of the Korean War, Hedrick was knowledgeable of the troubles brewing in Vietnam under the French and U.S. presence throughout the 1950s. Hedrick’s 1963 Anger/Madame Nhu’s BarB-Q detailed a black sun with a brown penis penetrating into a red vagina, readable as a heart and a mushroom cloud; in addition, the piece bears the inscription “Madam Nhu Blows Chiang.” A reaction to both the self-immolation of Vietnamese Buddhist monks and the American presence, Hedrick’s early works more closely resemble the grotesque expressions of rage common to the late 1960s, particularly evidenced in the works of Peter Saul.

68

Art and the Vietnam War

Such productions were exceptions rather than the rule, however, as artists continued to focus on group antiwar actions. On April 2, 1969, the Art Workers Coalition (AWC) and the AWP engineered a “Mass Antiwar Mail-In” in which mailable artworks, including a papier-mâché bomb, were marched in procession down to the Canal Street Post Office in New York and mailed to Washington. Public artistic activities, known as “Events” or “Happenings,” also became popular during the war, especially under the guise of the Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG). The group, which consisted mainly of Jon Hendricks and Jean Toche, often performed unannounced. In October 1969 Hendricks and Toche entered the Museum of Modern Art and replaced Malevich’s White on White with a manifesto denouncing poverty, war, and the enjoyment of art during wartime. At the Whitney Museum of American Art in November 1969 the two again dropped a list of written demands on the floor while ripping at each other’s clothes and screaming “Rape!” By 1969 artists were beginning to produce individual pieces of protest. One of the more powerful pieces done in this early period was Jasper Johns’s subtly critical poster Moratorium (1969). The work, which consisted of black stars and stripes on an orange and green field with a bullet hole in the middle, stood in stark contrast to the respected flag series that Johns had done in the late 1950s. In Moratorium the colors produce an afterimage of the American flag, with the bullet hole possibly referencing lines from a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko: “The stars / in your flag America / are like bullet holes.” Numerous other artists also began to utilize the poster as a means of criticism. Between 1965 and 1973 an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 posters of protest were produced. One of the allures of political protest posters was their visibility, as issues too controversial for media coverage could be expressed in these works. Among the more successful poster images to emerge from this period was one produced by the AWC’s Poster Committee titled Q: And Babies? A: And Babies (1970). Picturing Ronald Haeberle’s graphic color photo of the My Lai Massacre and titled after a Mike Wallace interview with My Lai participant Paul Meadlo, this collaborative effort by Irving Petlin, Jon Hendricks, and Fraser Dougherty was reproduced more than 50,000 times, showing up in all parts of the world. In 1972 a second version of Q: And Babies? surfaced again, although this time with the caption changed to “Four More Years?” in reference to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign. Similarly, by the early 1960s artists were also beginning to incorporate war images into paintings, as evidenced by James Rosenquist’s gigantic 10-foot by 86-foot F-111 (1965). Trained as a billboard painter in Times Square, Rosenquist completed F-111 in 1964, just as U.S. involvement in the war was escalating. Although F-111 was not initially viewed in an antiwar context, Rosenquist himself admitted in a 1994 interview with Craig Adcock that the Vietnam War influenced this particular work. The painting contrasts the dominant image of the U.S. Air Force fighter-bomber of the same name against a montage that includes a mushroom cloud shaded by a beach umbrella, a small girl seated under a hair

dryer, a large Firestone tire preparing to crush a light bulb, an angel food cake, and bubbles from a scuba diver. In addition, the red tip of the plane penetrates into a field of spaghetti and tomato sauce; the reference to entrails is clearly visible. The “gulp” of bubbles, according to the artist himself, represents the “gulp” of the atomic explosion represented by the mushroom cloud. Moreover, the inclusion of the little girl points out that some little girls could live in style because other little girls were going to be burned alive. Rosenquist’s 1968–1969 Horse Blinders dealt with the war as well. In the same 1994 interview the artist stated that Blinders “dealt with the idea of painting in the dark, like those people who wouldn’t believe the newspaper accounts of what was happening in Vietnam.” F-111 and Horse Blinders represent a powerful critique against both the war and the U.S. military-industrial complex of the 1960s. Other large works, known as “installations,” also began to emerge in the 1960s. Claes Oldenburg’s sarcastic Lipstick Monument (1969), a 24-foot-high red and gold lipstick mounted on a red tractor tank, served as a biting commentary on how the American munitions industry maintained the affluence of the 1960s. Duane Hanson’s installation, known as War or Vietnam Scene (1969), presented the gross brutality of war by contrasting realistic scenes of mud-caked and bloody dead and wounded American soldiers against the clean white galleries. Ed Kienholz also contributed two major installations, the first of which was The Portable War Memorial (1968). On the left side of the work, a television showing the classic “I Want You” Uncle Sam poster provides the background for a group of Iwo Jima soldiers raising the American flag over an overturned café chair. The café furniture serves to link the war side of the work with the peace side, a hot dog and chili stand emerging from a blackboard containing the names of some 475 extinct countries. Moreover, the two scenes are further linked by a tombstone cross in the middle of the work that commemorates “V__ Day, 19__.” A young smiling couple sits at the hot dog stand, oblivious to the action. Kienholz’s other piece, The Eleventh Hour Final (1968), denounced the media’s rosy approach to the Vietnam conflict, especially criticizing the daily body count numbers that had become a staple of the evening news. In an average American TV room replete with coffee table, TV Guide, remote control, flowers, ashtray, and wood paneling, a television encased in a tombstone displays the daily body count numbers over the watchful eyes of an Asian child. The remote control stretches to the couch, implicating the viewer in the carnage on the television. Along with the numbers of enemy and allied deaths, on-thescene reporters in South Vietnam brought home images of combat and war. Leon Golub, whose wife Nancy Spero was instrumental in championing the cause of the woman artist in her spectacular and powerful Bombs and Helicopter series, had been incorporating these scenes of combat into his works since the early 1960s. Heavily influenced by classical mythology, Golub in the earlier part of the decade had painted large scenes of monstrous nude he-

Art and the Vietnam War

Excerpt of a lithograph by James Rosenquist titled F-111, 1974. Vietnam War images increasingly found their way into art in the 1960s and 1970s. (© James Rosenquist/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY/ www.vagarights.com)

roic figures engaged in battle in his Gigantomachy series. In 1969 Golub did a variation on this theme, draping molten-looking paint across the chest of a fallen wounded giant; Golub subsequently titled the work Napalm (I). Beginning in 1972 Golub expanded on this theme in his Assassins series, later titled the Vietnam series for timelessness. Consisting of three oversized canvases, the Vietnam series represented a modernization of sorts for the classical Golub. Whereas previously his antique figures were nude and somewhat abstract, the figures here were clothed in modern military garb. Moreover, the gestures, stances, and bodies of the figures moved toward naturalism. Influenced by media photos and military handbooks, Golub even included machine guns and an armored car in his works. To depict the savage brutality of war, Golub began manipulating his canvases. His practice of scraping paint from and into the canvas not only conveyed a sense of time passing yet going nowhere but also showed how his surfaces endure, like ruins. In addition, Golub cut large chunks out of his canvases to demonstrate the savage brutality of war. Throughout the Vietnam series Golub painted with reds, blacks, browns, grays, and beiges to resemble hell on earth; that the soldiers fight shiftless (because of the heat) and that their guns are “nasty pointy things” reinforce this image. The empty background invokes the feeling of timelessness and space, as all that exists is merely a dragging, relentless now. Although the first two works in the series depict actual battle scenes as American soldiers massacre unarmed, horrified, and naked Vietnamese civilians, there still remains a curi-

69

ous timelessness as Golub depicts the moments before the conflict when the impending violence is being drifted into, just as the U.S. gradually drifted into Vietnam. The void between the Americans and the Vietnamese in the paintings further heightens the sense of blankness and desperation, so clearly manifested in the screaming and bewildered head of the Vietnamese boy staring out at the viewer in Golub’s 1973 Vietnam (II). Peter Saul took a somewhat different approach. His work was geared more toward shocking the passing viewer into disapprobation through a series of graphic pictorial state-of-emergency addresses. Saigon (1967), one of Saul’s earliest social consciousness canvases, demonstrates the artist’s affinity for racist and sexist pornography in his Vietnam paintings. The writhing and active work centers around a yellow Vietnamese whore labeled “innocent virgin.” Also included in the colorful composition are “her father,” “her mother,” and “her sister,” all of whom are grotesquely contorted and are in the act of being severely abused by American Coke-guzzling GIs. Myriad eyeballs, mines, helmets, and palm trees further confuse the canvas, with oriental inscriptions reading “White Boys Torturing and Raping the People of Saigon” and “High Class Version” rounding out the painting. Typical Saigon (1968) and Pinkville (1969–1970) present similar repulsive scenes in inexhaustible detail, for in Saul’s view, “wasting the Viet Cong or screwing their women pretty much amounted to the same thing, since the entire conflict was more of an opportunity for robust American farm boys to give their libidos healthy exercise than any serious attempt to resolve global political instability.” With equal brutality, Fantastic Justice (1968) depicts a disfigured Lyndon Johnson crucified on a yellow palm tree cross with live firecrackers inserted into his rectum. Saul felt no obligation to cater to the standards of decency but sought instead to evince the unabashed spectacle of a national consciousness focused on destruction. Sam Wiener focused not on American atrocities but instead made his appeal through American dead in his 1970 work originally titled 45,391 . . . and Counting. Simple yet haunting and moving, Wiener’s work is a small open-topped box sculpture filled with six coffins, each draped with an American flag and lined with mirrors that cause the coffins to stretch into infinity. Following U.S. involvement in Central America, this work, now titled Those Who Fail to Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It, was resurrected and used in the 1980s in poster form. For many African Americans, Vietnam was somewhat of a paradox. African American troops often bore an excessive burden of the fighting. Vietnam, however, was for many the only alternative to a futureless America back home. Aware of these difficulties, African American artists spoke out against both the war and racist America. Cliff Joseph’s 1968 My Country, Right or Wrong presented black and white Americans blindfolded with American flags and drifting through a sea of bombs, bones, skulls, and blood. In the periphery of the painting a cross, the Star of David, and an upside-down flag all reference different historical and militaristic

70

Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

chauvinisms. Rupert Garcia, who guarded planes, bombs, and other munitions in Thailand in the 1960s, began painting about his experiences in the mid-1970s. Disturbed by American incursions into the affairs of Central America, Garcia produced Fenixes and another work, Prometheus under Fire, in 1984. Broken into three sections, Fenixes details a burning man, a swarm of helicopters, and the profile of a Sandinista during the Nicaraguan Revolution, giving the work a cyclical dimension that connects present and past. Michael Aschenbrenner sustained a leg injury during the Tet Offensive of 1968 near Laos, an experience that obviously affected him, as evidenced in his Damaged Bone Series: Chronicle 1968 (1982). In this work, begun in 1980 and created over a six-year period, the leg bone is represented in its many forms: broken, split, bandaged, healed, and splinted as a bow. Originally displayed in varying situations, in 1982 these pieces were consolidated into a unified 10-foot by 12-foot wall of fragments. As such, Aschenbrenner made this work into a new whole. Like Aschenbrenner’s art, works by John Wolfe do not focus so much on laying blame for his experiences as they do on the experiences themselves. This is not to say that Wolfe never incorporated atrocities into his paintings. Indeed, his 1986 piece Incident near Phu Loc details the story of three young GIs standing above a nude spread-eagled Vietnamese woman. At least one of the soldiers is contemplating raping the girl, who is bound by her pajamas; at least one other looks skeptical of the situation. Three Buddhists stand at the woman’s head proselytizing to the soldiers, while a South Vietnamese soldier arbitrates the developing confrontation. Taken as a whole, Incident near Phu Loc passes no judgment on the players involved in the drama. Instead Wolfe merely presents in unflinching sincerity events as they occurred, and events such as these are unlikely to be forgotten. Other veteran art is more gentle and even somewhat regretful. Michael Page’s wooden sculpture Pieta (1980) beautifully represents a helmeted, hooded, and despairing GI holding a dead Vietnamese baby in his arms. The work is particularly distinguished by the soldier’s face, which seems to depict the face of a man at the point of realization of what has happened, what is happening, and what lies ahead for both him and his enemies. Not all veteran art bears this self-reflective quality, however. Several Americans who participated in the war, such as Leonard Cutrow and William Linzee Prescott, were sent over as combat artists. Commissioned by the American armed forces, these men were charged with creating war images to commemorate the conflict for the armed forces museums. In response, other veterans such as Kim Jones helped “commemorate” the war on their own terms. With mud-caked boots, body-stockinged face, and a bundle of bound sticks jutting from his back and head, Jones adopts the persona of the Mudman to help the American public remember the legacy of the Vietnam War. Appearing unannounced at art galleries, public streets, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, the Mudman exists as the Lazarus who reminds us not

of the political maelstrom surrounding the Vietnam conflict but instead of the harsh reality that was the war, resisting any popular effort to sanitize the war in retrospect. No piece of artwork, however, better captures the spirit of conflict and controversy surrounding the war than does the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., completed in 1982. From the outset, the debate over the extent to which memorials should combine war and politics marred Maya Lin’s effort to honor American casualties of war. Indeed, the conflict grew so heated that Frederick Hart was later commissioned to supplement her work with a statue of three soldiers gazing at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, along with an American flag on a flagpole. There is nothing heroic about the monument, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial makes no reference to the political turmoil that clouded the era. Instead, the memorial merely honors the patriotic service of the veterans themselves. Contemplative in nature, the memorial’s main purpose is therapeutic. Thus, the artwork itself is apolitical and leaves the viewer to come to his or her own conclusions regarding the Vietnam War. JOHN GREGORY PERDUE JR. See also Film and the Vietnam Experience; Goldman, Eric Frederick; Lin, Maya Ying; Literature and the Vietnam War; Media and the Vietnam War; Vietnam Veterans Memorial References Cameron, Dan. “The Trials of Peter Saul.” Arts Magazine, January 1990. Castelli, Leo. James Rosenquist: The Big Paintings. New York: Leo Castelli Gallery, 1994. Castleman, Riva. Jasper Johns: A Print Retrospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1986. Lippard, Lucy R. A Different War: Vietnam in Art. Seattle: Real Comet, 1990. Marzorati, Gerald. “Leon Golub’s Mean Streets.” ARTNews, February 1985. Mitchell, W. J. T., gen. ed. Art and the Public Sphere. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Norris, Margot. “Painting Vietnam Combat: The Art of Leonard Cutrow.” Michigan Quarterly Review (Spring 1989): 155–173. Safer, Morley. “Prescott’s War.” American Heritage (February–March 1991): 100–113. Walsh, Jeffrey, and James Aulich, gen. eds. Vietnam Images. New York: St. Martin’s, 1989.

Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Artillery is called the “king of battle” and for good reason. Although it does not have the reach of aerial-delivered fire support, artillery fire is more accurate. Unless an aircraft is already orbiting onstation, artillery can deliver fire much more quickly. Artillery is far more flexible than close air support because artillery can easily shift to firing different types of ammunition. Once an aircraft is loaded and in the air, it is limited to delivering the ordnance that

Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 71

U.S. Artillery Weapons Used during the Vietnam War Model M55 quad machine gun M42A1 SP twin AA gun M101A1 towed howitzer M102 towed howitzer M108 SP howitzer M114A1 towed howitzer M109 SP howitzer M107 SP gun M110 SP howitzer

Caliber

Weight (pounds)

Projectile Weight (pounds)

Time to Emplace (minutes)

Range (meters)

Maximum Rate of Fire (rounds per minute)

.50-in 40-mm 105-mm 105-mm 105-mm 155-mm 155-mm 175-mm 8-in

3,000 48,000* 4,980 3,017 46,221* 12,950 52,461* 62,100* 58,500*

n/a 2 33 42 42 95 104 147 200

1 1 3 4 1 5 1 3 2

18,252 5,000 11,000 11,500 11,500 14,600 14,600 32,700 16,800

2,000 240 30 30 30 12 12 4.5 4.5

*Note: Total weight for self-propelled weapons includes the gun and the motor carriage.

it has on board. Because artillery is not limited by fuel capacity and on-station loiter time, it can continue to hit a target for longer periods, although in the short run aircraft can put more ordnance on the target. In addition, artillery can fire in all sorts of weather and all conditions of visibility. The U.S. Army used both towed and self-propelled artillery in Vietnam. Although all artillery cannon are generically called “guns,” the vast majority of the U.S. weapons were actually howitzers. A gun has a relatively long barrel and fires at a high velocity and a flat trajectory. A howitzer has a shorter barrel and fires at a lower velocity and a more arched trajectory. Guns are used almost exclusively as tank weapons because they are best suited for direct fire. Howitzers generally make better artillery weapons because their trajectory is better suited for indirect fire. The most widely used American artillery piece in Vietnam was the venerable M101A1 towed 105-millimeter (mm) howitzer. Based on a post–World War I design, the M101A1 was a slightly modified version of the American mainstay in World War II and the Korean War. The M101A1 is probably the most widely used artillery piece in history. Although it was finally phased out of U.S. service in the early 1990s, it had remained in the inventory of other armies into the 21st century. The M102 towed 105-mm howitzer was a completely new design particularly suited to the environment in Vietnam. As the M102 was almost a ton lighter than the M101A1, more ammunition could be carried when the gun was helicopter lifted. The M102’s much lower silhouette made it a more difficult target for enemy ground fire. Rather than being stabilized by conventional spades and trails as with the M101A1, the M102 used a firing platform mounted in the center of its undercarriage. This gave the M102 the ability to traverse 6,400 mils (360 degrees). The M101A1 could traverse only about 450 mils (25 degrees), right and left. Firing on targets outside the arc of traverse meant pulling the spades out of the ground and relaying the gun, all of which took time. The M102 was therefore capable of faster fire in many missions. The first M102s arrived in Vietnam in March 1966. The M109 155-mm howitzer is to self-propelled (SP) weapons what the M101A1 is to towed howitzers. The M109 saw its

first combat service in Vietnam and has since become the most widely used SP weapon in the world. An improved version of the M109 was the main American howitzer in the Persian Gulf War and, with upgrades, will remain in the American arsenal for many years to come. The M107 SP 175-mm gun was the only actual gun that the Americans used in Vietnam. The M107 was the longest-range artillery weapon of the war but was fairly inaccurate. The M110 SP 8-inch howitzer had the same motor carriage and gun mount as the M107. With its 200-pound shell, the M110 packed the heaviest punch of all U.S. artillery. It was also one of the most accurate artillery pieces in the world. The U.S. Army used two semiobsolete air defense systems in a ground fire role in Vietnam. The M42A1 SP twin 40-mm automatic cannon and the truck-mounted M55 .50-caliber quad machine gun were widely used for perimeter defense and convoy escort. Not in the active army inventory at the start of the war, the weapons were recalled from National Guard and Army Reserve units. During the Vietnam War, an air defense artillery battalion armed with the M42A1 “Duster” was usually augmented with an additional air defense artillery battery armed with the M55 “Quad 50.” The Viet Cong (VC) for the most part did not have conventional artillery. Generally the VC relied on mortars and rockets for fire support. Occasionally the VC used U.S.-made 75-mm pack howitzers that Communist forces had captured from the French years earlier. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) was well equipped with Soviet-designed artillery and some American weapons, captured either from the French or from the South Vietnamese, and those supplied by the Chinese, who had taken them from the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War (1945– 1949). The American M101A1 was used by both sides at Dien Bien Phu. Some of the PAVN’s older Soviet-designed guns, such as the M46 and M38, were actually Chinese-made. During the early part of the Vietnam War, PAVN artillery was deployed mostly along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Later in the war the PAVN moved more of its big guns into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The PAVN and the VC employed some 400 artillery pieces in their 1975 final offensive.

72

Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

At Khe Sanh, a marine throws aside an empty shell casing after having just fired a 105-mm howitzer against a nearby People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) position during the siege of the marine base, February 28, 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

During the final attack in the Central Highlands, PAVN artillery had a two-to-one superiority over the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). According to an old gunner’s axiom, the shell, or projectile (called a “projo” by the cannoneers), is the real weapon of the artillery. The gun is simply the means of pointing it at the target. During the Indochina War, in 1951 French artillery fired almost half a million rounds. During the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Viet Minh gunners put more than 2,000 rounds a day into the French positions. In 1969 alone, U.S. artillery in Vietnam fired in excess of 10 million rounds. The basic shell for all artillery is the high-explosive (HE) round, which produces both blast and fragmentation effects, the latter usually being the most lethal to troops. Different fuses also produce different effects. The most commonly used fuse is the point detonating fuse (called “Fuze Quick”). The time fuse is used to achieve air bursts of varying heights. The fragmentation pattern from an air burst is always much more deadly than from a ground burst. The variable time fuse is a proximity fuse that produces a

65-foot-high air burst, generally considered the optimal height of burst. Concrete-piercing fuses are effective against bunkers, and delay fuses are used to penetrate thick jungle canopy. The 8-inch and 175-mm guns fired HE projectiles for the most part. The 105-mm howitzers had the widest range of ammunition types. Although not designed as an antitank gun, the 105-mm did have high-explosive antitank (HEAT) ammunition. HEAT rounds were very effective against bunkers. Other specialized shells included the smoke round, used for signaling and screening; the white phosphorus round, used for quickly establishing a smoke screen as well as for incendiary effect; and the illumination round, which deposited a parachute flare 600 feet above the target. The 105-mm howitzer also had a leaflet-scattering round, which was rarely used in Vietnam. Not used at all in Vietnam were various types of gas rounds for both the 105-mm and 155-mm guns and nuclear rounds for the 155-mm and 8-inch guns. Two new types of artillery ammunition were introduced in Vietnam; both were resurrections of old ideas wrapped in new technology. The antipersonnel round, which fired 8,000 one-inch-long steel

Artillery Fire Doctrine fléchettes, was designed to defend firebases from ground attack by firing almost point-blank into attacking enemy formations. Codenamed the “Beehive” round, it was simply a revival of the old canister round that had proved so deadly in the days of muzzle-loading smooth-bore artillery. The first major use of the Beehive round came on March 21, 1967, during the defense by the 2nd Battalion, 77th Artillery, of Fire Support Base Gold. The battalion commander in that fight was Lieutenant Colonel John W. Vessey, who in 1982 became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The improved conventional munition (ICM) round was another new application of an old idea. The ICM round was an artillery-fired version of a cluster bomb. In effect, the shell itself was little more than a cargo carrier that transported the bomblets and ejected them into the air over the target. This essentially is the same principle as the World War I–era shrapnel round except that the submunitions in the shrapnel round did not contain explosive charges. Code-named “Firecracker,” the 105-mm ICM round carried 18 bomblets, the 155-mm round carried 60, and the huge 8-inch round carried 104. The first ICM round was fired in combat by Battery C, 1st Battalion, 40th Artillery, on February 12, 1968, in the northern I Corps Tactical Zone. Every American division normally had one battalion of direct support (DS) artillery for each maneuver brigade and a battalion of general support (GS) artillery for the entire division. DS battalions had 105-mm howitzers, with three batteries of six guns each. GS battalions normally had 155-mm howitzers. In some cases divisional GS battalions were composite units of 155-mm towed howitzers and 8-inch SP howitzers or 175-mm guns and 8-inch howitzers. The heavy 8-inch and 175-mm batteries had only four guns each. During the war the U.S. Army put 68 artillery battalions into Vietnam to support 93 maneuver battalions. The total figure included 32 105-mm towed and 2 105-mm SP battalions, 7 155mm towed and 5 155-mm SP battalions, 5 composite battalions of 155-mm and 8-inch guns, 12 composite battalions of 175-mm and 8-inch guns, 2 aerial rocket artillery battalions, and 3 40-mm Duster battalions. Five separate target-acquisition batteries provided survey control, meteorological data, and radar support, and four separate searchlight batteries provided battlefield illumination. Two of the 155-mm battalions—the 2nd Battalion, 138th Artillery, and the 3rd Battalion, 197th Artillery—were National Guard units. The nondivisional artillery units, for the most part larger than 105-mm, were organized into five artillery groups. The 41st and 52nd Artillery groups supported I Field Force, the 23rd and 54th Artillery groups supported II Field Force, and the 108th Artillery Group supported IV Corps. The U.S. Marine Corps 1st Field Artillery Group consisted of the 11th and 12th Marine regiments, totaling 10 artillery battalions. The Marine Corps also had five separate batteries and a searchlight battery. Among the allied forces, New Zealand had one artillery battery, Australia and the Philippines had an artillery battalion

73

each, Thailand had a three-battalion artillery brigade, and South Korea had six 105-mm battalions and two 155-mm battalions. In 1972 the ARVN had 44 battalions of 105-mm howitzers, 15 battalions of 155-mm howitzers, and 5 battalions of 175-mm SP guns. By 1975, many of these weapons had passed into the PAVN arsenal. During the 1972 Easter Offensive alone, the ARVN lost 117 guns and howitzers, enough to arm 6.5 battalions. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Artillery Fire Doctrine; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Harassment and Interdiction Fires; Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Rockets and Rocket Launchers; Rules of Engagement; Vessey, John William, Jr. References Caruthers, Lawrence H. “Characteristics and Capabilities of Enemy Weapons.” Field Artilleryman 24 (September 1970): 11–24. Ott, David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Scales, Robert H., Jr. Firepower in Limited War. 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

Artillery Fire Doctrine The two basic elements of combat power are maneuver and firepower. Maneuver is the movement of combat forces to gain positional advantage, psychological shock, physical momentum, and massed effects. Firepower is the destructive force essential to defeating an enemy’s ability and will to fight. Throughout history, maneuver and firepower have alternated in dominating the battlefield. In World War I the new firepower technologies completely dominated the tactical situation, resulting in the gridlock of trench warfare. As a revolutionary war, the Vietnam War might have seemed like an ideal environment for maneuver to dominate. The U.S. military, however, had a long-standing tradition of heavy reliance on firepower, and the Vietnam War was no exception. Until the 20th century, artillery was almost the sole source of battlefield firepower. During the Vietnam War, firepower support also came from U.S. Army helicopters and U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps tactical and strategic (B-52s) aircraft. Each system had its advantages, which compensated for the disadvantages of the others. Artillery is accurate, responsive, and flexible; helicopters offer precision and direct observation; and close air support is highly destructive. The challenge for ground commanders was to integrate these forms of firepower with the scheme of maneuver to produce the desired tactical effect. Most field artillery units had a mission of either direct support (DS) or general support (GS). A division normally had one DS artillery battalion for each maneuver brigade plus a GS battalion to provide fires for the whole division. Nondivisional artillery units were

74

Artillery Fire Doctrine

organized into artillery groups, which had a mission of providing general support to an entire corps (called “field forces” in Vietnam). For some specific operations, nondivisional artillery could be given the mission of reinforcing the fires of a divisional unit. In the absence of large divisional operations in Vietnam, most nondivisional artillery units were used to provide support for a specific geographical area. When supporting a brigade, the DS artillery battalion normally had three firing batteries of six guns each. In conventional operations this would mean that there was one artillery battery to support each maneuver company, although the firing batteries remained under the control of the artillery battalion to provide massed fires across the brigade sector. In Vietnam, however, operations tended to be fragmented and dispersed, and the guns had to disperse in order to support them. This was a violation of the time-proven principle that artillery is effective only when fired in mass, but during the Vietnam War the enemy rarely presented massed targets for allied artillery. Starting at the company level, every echelon in the maneuver chain of command had a fire-support coordinator (FSCOORD). The company FSCOORD was the company commander, but he was assisted in this task by a forward observer (FO) from the DS artillery battalion. FOs generally were the most junior lieutenants in the artillery. Nonetheless, good FOs were highly prized by their infantry units, and a company commander usually kept his FO within arm’s reach. Communist forces were well aware of the extra combat power the FO represented and made special efforts to identify and kill him quickly if possible. At the maneuver battalion the FSCOORD was the artillery liaison officer (LNO), a more senior captain also supplied by the DS artillery battalion. Quite often the artillery LNO worked from a command and control (C2) helicopter, along with the supported maneuver battalion commander and his operations officer (S-3). The LNO was responsible for coordinating all fires for the battalion, not just artillery-delivered fires. Thus, the LNO had to ensure that artillery, helicopters, and tactical air were synchronized on the target yet separated from each other in time and space to preclude midair collisions. Making the task more complicated, radios in U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force strike aircraft were incompatible. Operating a bank of radios in the C2 helicopter, the LNO had to pass messages and commands back and forth between FOs on the ground, army helicopters in the air, and air force forward air controllers on the ground or in the air, who then talked to the air force aircraft. The commander of the DS artillery battalion was the designated FSCOORD for the brigade, and the division artillery commander was the FSCOORD for the division. In practice, assistant FSCOORDs at the brigade and division fire-support coordination centers (FSCCs) performed the day-to-day tasks. When a company FO called for fire on the radio, his request went directly to either the battery or battalion (depending on the situation) fire direction center (FDC). The LNO at the maneuver battalion monitored the call and had the authority to cancel or modify the

request. If the LNO failed to intervene, his silence implied consent, and the mission continued. The fire direction officer made the final determination and issued the fire order. The FDC crew then computed the data and sent the fire commands to the gun crews. Most FDCs in Vietnam, especially in the later years, were equipped with FADAC (also known as “Freddy”), the U.S. Army’s first digital fire direction computer. Freddy, however, was a notoriously unreliable piece of equipment and was often inoperable for one reason or another. It was also slow, requiring two-thirds of the projectile time of flight for an initial solution. A well-trained FDC using manual charts and graphical computational tools could beat Freddy every time. Where Freddy excelled was in handling multiple fire missions simultaneously. Artillery was (and still is) the fastest of the fire-support means. Under ideal conditions, a well-trained battery had the technical capability of placing rounds on the target within two to three minutes of the FO’s initial request. Combat conditions are never ideal, however, and in Vietnam the actual average was something more like 6 minutes for light artillery and 13 minutes for heavy guns, which often had to shift their trails to fire. Even longer delays were caused by the political nature of the war itself. In populated areas, the local Vietnamese sector headquarters had to approve the mission before it could be fired. Later in the war, Air Warning Control Centers were established to broadcast warnings to all friendly aircraft in the area. This added another element of delay. Despite these delays, artillery was still much more responsive than tactical air, which took anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour from the initial call to target attack. A revolutionary war such as the Vietnam War warped the traditional relationships between firepower and maneuver in subtle ways. On the strategic level, the front line of the war may have been the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and the Cambodian border, but on the operational and tactical levels there were no front lines. Instead of being linear, the war was circular. The enemy was capable of being anywhere. This combined with the dense jungle in which actions were often fought reduced the effectiveness of envelopments, turning movements, and the other classical forms of tactical maneuver. Company commanders quickly learned that adding more friendly infantry to a fight quite often led to more friendly casualties. Concern about friendly casualties was another factor inhibiting maneuver in Vietnam. More than any other war in American history, the preservation of soldiers’ lives was the overriding tactical imperative. This was driven by the very shaky political support for the war at home combined with the close scrutiny and almost immediate (and sometimes inaccurate) media coverage. The war had no clearly defined objectives, and no clearly articulated national interests were at stake. Faced with these tactical, social, and political imperatives, the only alternate course of action was to use firepower in massive quantities and to give it primacy over maneuver. The prevailing philosophy became “bullets, not bodies.” The United States, with its abundant matériel resources, could of course do this easily. But in so doing the United States provided

Artillery Fire Doctrine

75

Five U.S. Army 105-mm howitzers at Fire Support Base O’Reilly near Hue in South Vietnam respond to Communist mortar and recoilless rifle fire. (AP/Wide World Photos)

the worst sort of role model for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), which did not have the resources but knew no other way of operating once it had to fight on its own. Thus, infantry units in Vietnam maneuvered to achieve two objectives: first to find the enemy and then to take up the best position from which to call in and direct overwhelming fire assets to finish the job. The automatic response of bringing in heavy firepower meant that infantry units had to stay at least 218–328 yards away from the enemy to avoid becoming casualties of their own supporting fires. The Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) quickly recognized this weakness and developed so-called hugging tactics, which brought them in so close that allied firepower became unusable. Some U.S. commanders decried this overdependence on firepower and the corresponding loss of infantry maneuver skills. They advocated the adoption of the same guerrilla tactics used by the VC and the PAVN. But even these minority voices recognized that U.S. firepower was the final trump card. As Lieutenant Colonel David Hackworth said of his experiences with the 9th Infantry

Division’s 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, “Only guerrilla tactics augmented by U.S. firepower can defeat the enemy at low cost.” Of all the forms of allied operations, the VC and the PAVN most feared the cordon. This operation normally began with multiple helicopter assault landings to isolate and encircle an enemy unit in its base camp. Once on the ground, allied troops formed a perimeter with a radius of 547 to 1,094 yards. When the cordon was sealed, everything inside was systematically pounded with air and artillery firepower. This was both slow and methodical to avoid casualties from friendly fire. It became even more careful as infantry moved in toward the center, shrinking the circle and the target area. The slowly moving infantry always carefully marked their positions well to avoid taking friendly fire. If set up properly and sprung quickly, cordon operations were very effective. Earlier in the war, firebases were little more than temporary artillery emplacements established to support infantry operating in a given area. They were set up quickly, usually by air, and abandoned just as quickly. But then the Communist forces drastically scaled back operations after suffering a crushing tactical defeat in the

76

A Shau Valley

1968 Tet Offensive. The allies responded by using firebases as a means to lure the enemy into firepower traps. Firebases thus became semipermanent fortresses with dug-in gun pits, bunkers, and up to 25,000 sandbags for a single battery. This basically was the same tactic that the French had tried, and they failed with it on a grand scale at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. For the Americans it was a success, on the tactical level at least, because they had both the artillery and air assets to overwhelmingly reinforce any firebase that came under attack. One result of this approach was that many infantry units were reduced to little more than perimeter security guards for the firebases. Another result was that American artillery positions routinely came under direct ground attack more than at any other time since the American Civil War, when artillery was still a direct-fire weapon. Artillerymen devised many innovative ways to defend themselves, including the fléchette-firing “Beehive” round and the “Killer Junior,” a high-explosive round with a time fuse set to detonate 30 feet off the ground at ranges of between 218 and 1,094 yards. Communist forces never managed to overrun a single American firebase. Operating from firebases required new ways of thinking for American artillerymen. In conventional operations, the guns of a battery usually were positioned in a staggered line parallel to the infantry front line, 2,187 or 3,281 yards to the front. In Vietnam the front was in all directions and was only 55 or 109 feet away. The solution was to position the guns on a firebase in either a diamond (four-gun battery) or a star (six-gun battery) formation. The guns could thus fire in any direction, and the pattern of rounds (called a sheaf) impacting on the ground would be the same. Setting up to fire in all directions also required special preparations in the gun pits and modifications to the firing charts in the FDC. The firebase concept led to a sharp increase in one particularly worthless form of artillery fire. Harassment and interdiction (H&I) fire consisted of random rounds fired at suspected and likely enemy locations and routes. H&I fire was usually used at night and was unobserved. It became slightly more effective later in the war with the introduction of sophisticated remote sensors, which served as firing cues. In general, however, H&I fire was largely a waste of ammunition, accounting for some 60 percent of all artillery fire during the war. In fact, only about 15 percent of all artillery rounds fired was in support of troops in contact. From a purely systems analysis standpoint, artillery fire in Vietnam was rather ineffective. According to the most optimistic estimates, killing a single enemy solder took well over 1,000 rounds. But these results were no different than in other wars. Artillery is effective only when used in conjunction with maneuver to produce a synergistic effect. Artillery is in fact most effective when used to neutralize (rather than destroy) an enemy force while friendly maneuver units gain overwhelming positional advantage for the final kill. This, of course, did not happen during the Vietnam War. Early in the war, U.S. policy makers opted for a war of attrition based in part on an imperfect understanding and unrealistic expectations of the ability of American firepower to send a persuasive message.

The Communist forces never did crack despite the ever-increasing levels of destruction. In the end it came down to a classic Clauswitzian test of wills and national resolve. U.S. Army major general Robert H. Scales Jr. best summarized the principal firepower lesson of the Vietnam War in his book Firepower in Limited War: “If a single lesson is to be learned from the example of Vietnam it is that a finite limit exists to what modern firepower can achieve in limited war, no matter how sophisticated the ordnance or how intelligently it is applied. Overwhelming firepower cannot compensate for bad strategy.” DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Rules of Engagement References Bailey, Jonathan B. A. Field Artillery and Firepower. Oxford, UK: Military Press, 1987. Ott, David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Scales, Robert H., Jr. Firepower in Limited War. 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995. U.S. Department of the Army. FM 6-40 Field Artillery Cannon Gunnery. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967.

A Shau Valley Valley in northwestern South Vietnam and the location of some of the fiercest fighting of the Vietnam War. Located southwest of Hue, the valley is approximately 22 miles in length and 2 to 3 miles in width. It runs from northwest to southeast in Thua Thien Province, close to and roughly paralleling the border with Laos. The eastern and western sides of the valley are mountainous and thickly forested. During the period of the Vietnam War, the valley contained only a few isolated hamlets. The Da Krong River crosses north of the valley. Route 548, a loose-surface dry-weather road, runs almost the entire length of the valley. Finally, the A Shau can be considered as the valley through which the headwaters of the Rao Lao (A Sap) River flow. The northernmost of the two western fingers of the long and narrow valley was the site of the May 1969 Battle of Ap Bia Mountain, better known as the Battle of Hamburger Hill, one of the bloodiest fights of the Vietnam War. PAUL R. CAMACHO See also Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Hamburger Hill, Battle of; Vietnam, Climate of References Dutt, Ashok J., ed. Southeast Asia: Realm of Contrasts. 3rd rev. ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. Marshall, S. L. A. Battles in the Monsoon: Campaigning in the Central Highlands, South Vietnam, Summer, 1966. New York: William Morrow, 1967.

Assimilation versus Association U.S. Army Military Maps: Sheet 6441 II, “A SAP,” Series L 7014, Edition 3-TPC (29 ETB), Prepared by 29th Engr Bn U.S. Army, 1970, Printed by 29th Engr Bn (BT) in April 1971; and Sheet 6441 IV, Series L 7014, “A LUOI” [A LUOi], Edition 3-TPC, Prepared by U.S. Army Topographic Command and printed in September 1970. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Topographical Command.

A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for Start Date: March 9, 1966 End Date: March 10, 1966 U.S. Special Forces had established a camp with a garrison of Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) personnel in the A Shau Valley of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The camp was in Thua Thien Province some 30 miles southwest of Hue near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the principal Communist infiltration route into South Vietnam through Laos. A total of 434 people were in the camp. There were 17 U.S. Army Special Forces personnel commanded by Captain John D. Blair IV, 6 Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces), 143 Nungs of the Nha Trang Mobile Strike Force Command (Mike Force), 210 CIDG personnel, 7 interpreters, and 51 civilians. Throughout February the camp came under regular Communist harassment attacks. On March 5, 1966, two People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) defectors revealed under questioning that four battalions of the PAVN 325th Division were planning an attack. Ground and aerial reconnaissance also indicated a major Communist buildup, and the defenders called in air strikes by Douglas A-1 Skyraiders and Douglas AC-47 Spooky gunships. Taking advantage of poor weather to negate air support for the defenders, beginning at 3:50 a.m. on March 9 heavy PAVN mortar fire on the camp destroyed a number of structures and severed communications. Some 2,000 PAVN 325th Division and Viet Cong (VC) troops then attacked. The A Shau Valley Special Forces camp was beyond friendly artillery range and was thus entirely dependent on air support. An AC-47 attacked the Communist positions but was shot down by antiaircraft fire and crashed about three miles from the camp. All six crewmen survived the crash but came under PAVN attack, in which three were killed. The three survivors were rescued by helicopter. Although U.S. aircraft dropped supplies of ammunition by parachute, these most often went awry and landed outside the camp perimeter, where they could not be retrieved. Also, troop reinforcements from Hue and Phu Bai could not be deployed because of the poor weather. Early on March 10 the Communists launched another attack, supported by mortar and recoilless rifle fire. The attackers breached the reconstructed defensive perimeter; hand-to-hand combat ensued, with the defenders consolidating in the northern part of the camp. U.S. Marine Corps and Republic of Vietnam Air Force

77

(VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) aircraft attacked the Communist positions that afternoon. One A-1 Skyraider was lost to antiaircraft fire and crash-landed on the airstrip, but its pilot was picked up almost immediately by another A-1 that landed briefly and then took off again. But with the defenders’ supplies and ammunition stocks running low, the decision to evacuate was made. The defenders destroyed their communications equipment and heavy weapons, and the evacuation was carried out by 15 Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw helicopters and 4 Bell UH-1B Iroquois (“Huey”) gunships. There was near chaos that afternoon as South Vietnamese forces rushed the helicopters in an effort to escape, greatly impeding the evacuation effort. Two of the H-34s were shot down during the evacuation. Those in the camp who were unable to be evacuated by air attempted escape and evasion action, and a number were subsequently rescued. Of 434 people in the camp at the start of the battle (including 53 civilians), only 186 returned, 101 of them wounded. U.S. casualties were 5 missing and presumed dead and 12 wounded. The Communist death toll was estimated at 800. PAVN forces then consolidated their hold over the A Shau Valley, bringing in antiaircraft guns and artillery. U.S. forces did not return to the A Shau Valley until 1968. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; A Shau Valley; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Mobile Strike Force Commands; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Dooley, George E. Battle for the Central Highlands: A Special Forces Story. New York: Ballantine, 2000. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Assimilation versus Association Terms used to describe two conflicting French colonial policies. Assimilation built on the principles of the French Revolution of 1789 that professed the universality of French civilization. Assimilation, which attempted to bridge the gap between humanitarianism and the actualities of French colonial role, was bound up in the term mission civilisatrice (“civilizing mission”), a kind of generous cultural imperialism that suggested that the French government should undertake to make the colonies a carbon copy of France in institutions and in culture. This would be best accomplished by promoting the French language and France’s educational system and laws. It also meant employing French officials at every administrative level to train the natives so they would act as if they were French. The pull of assimilation was strongest in the late 19th century when, as Joseph Buttinger has noted, many Frenchmen regarded their country’s overseas possessions as “distant suburbs of Paris.” Assimilation failed because of a shift of opinion in France itself

78

Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam

(many anthropologists and sociologists had come to the conclusion that desirable or not, assimilation was in fact impossible) and because it failed in practice. By 1905 association rather than assimilation held sway in France. Association held that France should work with native leaders and concentrate on economic policies (economic exploitation), leaving cultural patterns largely untouched. Defenders of association included political scientists and colonial writers who had studied the issue. Among them were such proponents of the French Empire as the editor of L’Economiste française Pierre Paul Leroy-Beaulieu and politician and premier Jules Ferry. Associationists attacked assimilationists on pragmatic grounds. Associationists believed that what really mattered was the volume of trade rather than the number of civilized souls. Associationists believed that Franco-native cooperation was indeed possible. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), the idea of association also received support in some military circles that saw Japan as bent on endeavoring to control all of South Asia. This group included French Army officers such as Joseph Gallieni and Louis Hubert Lyautey. Some even proposed the use of natives in colonial armies. In Vietnam the two conflicting viewpoints are exemplified by, for assimilation, Le Myre de Vilers, Cochin China’s first civilian governor (1879–1882), and Governor-General Paul Beau (1902– 1908) and, for association, by Indochina governor-general Paul Doumer (1897–1902). SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul; Cochin China; Doumer, Paul; Ferry, Jules; Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968.

Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam Professional association of foreign correspondents in Southeast Asia. The Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam (AFCV) represented foreign journalists of all media with the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), foreign embassies, and international organizations such as the International Press Institute and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The AFCV’s annual General Assembly and monthly meetings of the board were held at the Hotel Continental Palace in Saigon. The AFCV also published a mimeographed annual report. In 1970 AFCV membership totaled 66 people. To confront the tragic disappearance in Cambodia of a large number of foreign journalists, the AFCV attempted to draw international attention to the problem by distributing a list of those missing, dates and places

of disappearance, and their credentials. The AFCV circulated the list to the various parties to the conflict. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Media and the Vietnam War References Brown, Malcolm, Stuart MacGladrie, and Candace Sutton. You’re Leaving Tomorrow: Conscripts and Correspondents Caught Up in the Vietnam War. Sydney, Australia: Random House, 2007. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1988. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002.

ATLAS WEDGE,

Operation

Start Date: March 18, 1969 End Date: April 2, 1969 Joint military operation conducted northwest of Lai Khe along Highway 13 north of Saigon in the Michelin Rubber Plantation area. ATLAS WEDGE was part of the larger Operation TOAN THANG 3 that began on February 17, 1969. For ATLAS WEDGE, the 1st Infantry (“Big Red One”) Division exercised operational control of the 11th Armored Cavalry (“Blackhorse”) Regiment and worked with the 25th Infantry (“Tropic Lightning”) and 1st Cavalry (“First Team”) divisions. Combat activities consisted of reconnaissance in force, night ambush patrols, land clearing, and route security. The objective was “to control land areas to include population and resources.” U.S. forces were poised to enact the Vietnamization program, with emphasis on securing the local hamlets from Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infiltration and control while providing support units of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) that ultimately had to manage the operational area. The 1st Division’s 3rd Brigade committed one armor and two infantry battalions plus the division’s cavalry squadron (1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, the “Quarterhorse”). The Blackhorse Regiment provided two cavalry squadrons and its air cavalry troop to give a heavy armored punch to ATLAS WEDGE. The operation’s target was the 7th PAVN Division. Using its maneuverability and firepower, the Blackhorse Regiment’s air cavalry troop effectively engaged large PAVN groups in the central and northern parts of the Michelin Plantation on March 18. A major contact was developed by the Quarterhorse on March 30 while it was securing emplacement of an armored vehicle–launched bridge (AVLB) over a creek at the southern end of the Michelin’s heavily wooded area. Hit by rocket-propelled grenades, the cavalrymen pursued a platoon-sized PAVN force northward until they came under fire from both sides of the road. The mounted column reacted to the ambush by maneuvering their armored personnel carriers (APCs)

Atrocities during the Vietnam War into a herringbone formation, created by driving their armored vehicles slightly off the road and angled to the flanks so that all automatic weapons could be fired at the attackers. Charlie Troop, supported on its left flank by a company of tanks, began to move on line to the south when the left flank came under fire from low, heavily fortified bunkers. Bravo Troop then moved through Charlie Troop to continue the attack. This armored force, supported by artillery and air strikes, exacted a heavy toll on PAVN soldiers boxed in the killing zone in fierce close combat, killing about 90 by the onset of darkness. For the entire operation, U.S. forces claimed a total of 421 PAVN soldiers killed. They also captured more than seven tons of rice and seized many small arms and a large quantity of ammunition. U.S. losses were 20 soldiers killed and 100 wounded. Operation ATLAS WEDGE was followed on April 10 by a five-day operation named ATLAS POWER that featured armor and infantry attacks into the same operational area after it had been pounded by Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Airborne Operations; TOAN THANG, Operation; United States Army References Haldane, Robert, ed. The First Infantry Division in Vietnam, 1965–1970. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1993. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

79

ficient, these booby traps killed or maimed many GIs and left their frightened and angry comrades with no means for revenge. Veterans regaled new soldiers arriving in-country with tales of buddies who had been blown up while buying soft drinks or cigarettes from children. Although in truth only a small minority of American soldiers in Vietnam experienced an ambush or encountered mines or booby traps, the stories created an atmosphere of distrust toward all Vietnamese civilians. Retribution, or payback as it was known to GIs, took several forms. Mutilation was by far the most prevalent. Taking an ear or finger from a dead enemy or emptying a clip of ammunition into an incapacitated foe proved adequate vindication for some. Others were not so easily satisfied. One of the most horrific examples of a U.S. atrocity occurred in 1966 when some soldiers stopped a passing flatbed truck, claiming that they were out of gas. When the driver consented, the soldiers siphoned fuel from the tank and carried it to the middle of a field where a young Vietnamese girl had been staked to the ground. Soaking her with the gasoline, they set fire to her. Some GIs sought recreation in taking target practice on farmers or their stock. Less random was the torture of captured VC suspects, which ranged from bare-knuckle beatings to forcible ejection from airborne helicopters. Members of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) police accompanied

Atrocities during the Vietnam War The Communist insurgents in Vietnam, the Viet Cong (VC), outmatched by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and the United States in a material sense, carried out guerrilla warfare. Evasion of decisive set-piece battles, surprise attacks, and civilian cover served to counterbalance limited resources. The practice of seeking refuge in the guise of civilians frustrated and infuriated American troops and led to misdirected reprisals. Likewise, the VC perpetrated a number of massacres to achieve political ends. Writers on both sides of the conflict have also employed the term “atrocity” to describe every action from bombing raids to American involvement in the war. To avoid such philosophical questions, the present discussion describes only those situations in which an unarmed nonresisting noncombatant or prisoner of war (POW) died as the result of small-arms fire, beating, or other corporal assault. Most U.S. atrocities occurred because of the nature of the American response to guerrilla tactics. Search-and-destroy missions, designed to deprive the VC of civilian cover and supplies, replaced conventional large-unit tactics early in the war. A search might reveal hidden weapons caches, rice stores, or a variety of booby traps. Small units patrolled the countryside in pursuit of the VC, who left mines or punji pits in their wake. Viciously ef-

Atrocities during wartime are axiomatic, and perhaps inevitable. When two Viet Cong (VC) battalions attacked and systematically killed 252 civilians in the small hamlet of Dak Son, they left three-year-old Dieu Da, pictured here, wounded, homeless, and fatherless. (National Archives)

80

ATTLEBORO, Operation

American units in the field, serving as interpreters and, on occasion, as executioners. Some operations that seemed routine at the outset degenerated into massacres. Early in 1967 two marine companies advanced on Thuy Bo expecting only token resistance. The engagement lasted for three days, however, resulting in heavy casualties for the Americans. Upon withdrawal of the VC, the marines entered the village and, by their own account, began shooting anything that moved. In 1968 three companies of the Americal Division committed what were probably the best-known atrocities of the war at My Lai. Unlike Thuy Bo, American forces expected heavy resistance but met with little or none. Estimates of Vietnamese civilian dead, however, ranged from 100 to 400 women, children, and elderly men. The unpredictable nature of the war dictated tactical adjustments. The method of drawing the enemy out and annihilating him, so effective in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, no longer sufficed. The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), thus resorted to a policy of attrition. The term “body count” replaced the term “area secured” as a measure of progress. As support for the war waned and pressure for some indication of success mounted, the body counts became increasingly inflated. Commanders padded mission reports at every level; some offered extra rest and recuperation (R&R) to units with the highest counts. Many GIs, already disillusioned about their role in the conflict, interpreted the incentive as tacit approval for indiscriminate killings. Attrition policy thus gave rise to the philosophy that “if it’s dead and Vietnamese, it’s VC.” The VC engaged in atrocities as well but in different situations and for different reasons. Emotional outbursts triggered American atrocities, and, excluding some Phoenix Program operations, few were planned as such. In contrast the VC killed systematically, most often with a political end in mind. The VC assassinated village leaders, disemboweling and decapitating them in full view of the rest of the village to demonstrate the VC’s primacy in a given area. The VC also used terror tactics during the 1968 Tet Offensive, most notably in the ancient imperial capital of Hue, where they killed thousands of people judged to be hostile to their side in the war. Communist operatives abducted “enemies” and either clubbed or shot them or buried them alive. In battle, some VC units skinned or eviscerated captured GIs. Hung in the paths of American patrols, the defiled corpses elicited rage in some and fear in others, robbing commanders of control and the entire unit of its focus. Allied units of the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) also contributed to the gruesome litany of human suffering. Like many U.S. atrocities, a surprise mine detonation triggered the action by South Korean troops at Phong Nghi, Quang Nam Province, in 1968. After the explosion had destroyed one of their armored personnel carriers, the South Korean 2nd Marine Brigade turned on the hamlet. The South Koreans leveled the village, and the evidence suggested that they had shot women and children at point-blank range. Although it is unclear whether the South Korean troops involved in the Phong Nghi massacre received disciplinary action,

at least some war crimes did not go unpunished. The records of the U.S. judge advocate general show that between 1965 and 1971 courts-martial convicted 201 U.S. Army personnel and 77 U.S. Marine Corps personnel of murder, rape, and assault. Interestingly, more than three-quarters of this number received sentences after public revelation of the My Lai Massacre in September 1969. More enlisted men served time than did officers, and few of either group served the entire length of their sentences. Atrocities in war are axiomatic, perhaps even inevitable. The conflict in Vietnam, however, bears the dubious distinction of having been especially dirty and loathsome. Advances in communications technology allowed almost instantaneous dissemination of reports of search-and-destroy missions, torture of POWs, and other alleged misdeeds. For the first time, national and local news services broadcast a war, concentrated to fit the demands of scheduling, to an already antagonized and confused public. Some 200 documented and 500 suspected American atrocity cases over a more than 10-year period during which some 3 million GIs served in Vietnam hardly constitutes a widespread and pervasive pattern. War by its very definition is a brutal and dehumanizing environment, and the sad truth is that soldiers on all sides of all the wars in recorded history have committed atrocities. The perception of the Vietnam War as atrocity-ridden owes as much to the various sociopolitical contexts of American wars in this century as to any illegal military action. BENJAMIN C. DUBBERLY See also Body Count; Booby Traps; My Lai Massacre; Search and Destroy References Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. Ebert, James R. A Life in a Year. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. MacPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984.

ATTLEBORO,

Operation

Start Date: November 5, 1966 End Date: November 25, 1966 Major military operation that occurred during November 5–25, 1966, in War Zone C. Although Operation ATTLEBORO had modest beginnings in September 1966—a single battalion air assault followed by a search-and-destroy mission in a tactical area of operations about 12 miles by 37 miles north and west of Tri Tam (Dau Tieng)—by the end of November it had gradually expanded into a confrontation between the resurgent 9th Viet Cong (VC) Division

ATTLEBORO, Operation

and more than 22,000 allied troops. The U.S. 196th Light Infantry Brigade conducted battalion-sized operations in the area with very few VC contacts until the end of October, when the 1st Infantry (“Big Red One”) Division encountered a battalion of the 9th VC Division’s 273rd Regiment just east of the ATTLEBORO area. The 196th Light Infantry Brigade expanded the operation to include the entire brigade, reinforced by a battalion from the 25th Infantry (“Tropic Lightning”) Division. In early November contacts with units of the 9th VC Division near Dau Tieng and the Special Forces camp at Suoi Da, in the shadow of Nui Ba Den (“Black Virgin Mountain”), led to an expansion of the operation, with command passing first to the Big Red One Division and then to II Field Force, the U.S. corps-sized headquarters near Saigon. ATTLEBORO had become the largest American joint operation of the war to date. Later intelligence estimates indicated that VC/People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces sustained a total of 2,130 killed (1,000 by air strikes alone), nearly 900 wounded, and more than 200 missing or captured. The casualties included four battalion and five company commanders killed in action. U.S./Allied losses were 155 killed and 494 wounded. The Communist casualties were serious enough, but the allies destroyed the 9th VC Division’s extensive base area, including shops and factories. Operation ATTLEBORO reduced the effectiveness of one of the first-echelon VC divisions for about six months but did not knock it out of the war. More importantly for the United States and its allies, ATTLEBORO suggested that large numbers of battalions could arrive quickly in an operational area to confront major VC and PAVN troop concentrations and bring them to battle. ATTLEBORO thus set the scene for Operations CEDAR FALLS and JUNCTION CITY. Several pitched battles occurred between allied forces and the Communist forces, but the fight at Ap Cha Do on November 8 was perhaps the most significant of the operation. Ap Cha Do was a small village located about 65 miles northwest of Saigon in the battle area known as War Zone C, directly west of the Minh Thanh Rubber Plantation. On November 4 II Field Force (IIFFV) commander Lieutenant General Jonathan O. Seaman, former commander of the Big Red One, committed the 1st Infantry Division to ATTLEBORO. The division’s 3rd Brigade closed into Suoi Da, and its 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, moved by helicopter to a landing zone north of Suoi Da by noon on November 6. The landing zone had been cleared by its sister battalion (2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry), which was located nearby. Both battalions were in defensive positions by nightfall on November 7 after a day of vigorous patrolling and small skirmishes. Early on the morning of November 8, the 1st Battalion’s commander alerted his forces and commenced a reconnaissance by fire using mortars, which fired from east to west along the northern edge of the battalion’s defensive perimeter. This prematurely triggered intense small-arms fire from VC units that had assembled during the night to attack the 1st Battalion’s perimeter. The first Communist assault fell on the defensive perimeter at 6:20 a.m.,

81

followed by others in rapid succession. The 1st Battalion brought withering artillery fire and air strikes down on the heads of the attacking VC soldiers. By 11:30 a.m. the battle was over. The 2nd Battalion swept through the battle area and discovered an enormous Communist base camp, large enough to support the 9th VC Division’s operations. The 2nd Battalion recovered 19,000 grenades, 1,135 pounds of explosives, 400 bangalore torpedoes, 121 bicycles, and numerous field kitchens and discovered a maze of bunkers and underground storage depots. Captured documents revealed that the PAVN 101st Regiment and the VC 272nd Regiment, both assigned to the VC 9th Division, had been engaged in the battle at Ap Cha Do. They lost nearly 400 soldiers killed, compared with 21 Americans killed and 42 wounded. This battle demonstrated that in a stand-up fight between large U.S. units and equivalent VC and PAVN units, the advantage lay with the allies because of their maneuverability and firepower. Operations CEDAR FALLS and JUNCTION CITY, both of which followed ATTLEBORO by several months, again demonstrated that disparity. But a string of successful battles did not necessarily guarantee strategic victory in Vietnam. As Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. concluded in The Army and Vietnam, Communist documents show that the VC and PAVN forces were concentrating their main-force units in remote areas in order to prevent the concentration of American forces in the populated Coastal Plain. Moreover, the Communists hoped to distract the allies from pacification and tie them down in battle deep in the jungle so as to inflict casualties and erode their determination to stay the course in a protracted war. Krepinevich’s analysis suggests that North Vietnamese military leader Vo Nguyen Giap, not General William Westmoreland, had a better understanding of what was happening in 1967. The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was convinced that the character of the war had changed from insurgency/guerrilla warfare to large-unit conventional warfare; statistics and analysis of captured PAVN documents, however, suggested that it was still a smallunit war. As General Bruce Palmer Jr. noted in The 25-Year War, the U.S. strategy to force the VC/PAVN away from the populated areas was undermined by the Communist troops slipping past U.S. and allied forces into the populated areas, with the local populace failing to reveal their presence during the 1968 Tet Offensive. JOHN F. VOTAW See also CEDAR FALLS, Operation; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Palmer, Bruce, Jr.; War

Zone C and War Zone D References Haldane, Robert, ed. The First Infantry Division in Vietnam, 1965–1970. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1993. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Rogers, Bernard W. Cedar Falls Junction City: A Turning Point. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974.

82

Attrition

Attrition Attrition was the military strategy adopted by General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), to win the Vietnam War. Also referred to as the body count syndrome, attrition became the measure of progress of a war in which neither conquering and holding enemy territory nor winning total victory were U.S. objectives. To Westmoreland and his supporters, the attrition strategy had two strengths in the effort to find, fight, and destroy the enemy: it appeared to be the quickest way to end hostilities, and it also preserved the traditional mission of the U.S. infantry. The goal of the strategy was to cajole the Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) to fight a midintensity war. U.S. forces would then destroy their opponents at a rate faster than the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or VC could replace them. Unfortunately, and despite its elegant logic, the attrition strategy suffered from four basic problems. First, it did not account for the American people’s historical antipathy toward long-drawn-out conflicts, especially in the absence of a formal declaration of war. In the case of Vietnam, this national hostility toward gradualism collided with two revealing statistics: North Vietnam had 13 million people available for military service during the war, and unlike other nations, which historically capitulated when they lost 2 percent of their prewar population, Hanoi readily and consistently accepted losses closer to 3 percent and showed no signs of surrender. Given these numbers, U.S. military analysts determined by 1969 that the attrition strategy had failed. The analysts concluded that based on 1965 rates of attrition, North Vietnam could have continued the war until 1981. Westmoreland’s strategy was thus tragically overly optimistic. After the Tet Offensive in early 1968 the American people turned against the war, but the strategy had yet to succeed. A second problem with the attrition strategy was that it vainly tried to turn what was at first largely an insurgency in the jungles of Southeast Asia into a conventional European-style war. But the Vietnam War was a war unlike anything the United States had ever fought. U.S. forces did perform extremely well in large operations that matched their European-style training; however, if North Vietnamese troops suffered defeat in conventional battles, they quickly reverted back to irregular warfare in which they employed hit-and-run tactics that minimized contact with U.S. troops. As a result, the Vietnam War was a mismatch in paradigms. The U.S. Army’s approach, which emphasized body counts and conventional warfare, did not match North Vietnam’s Maoist, largely unconventional strategy. The consequence was a grinding (and lengthy) war of attrition rather than a quick war of annihilation. A third problem with attrition was that it was not compatible with the U.S. Army’s pacification program. Not only did the strategy pull U.S. troops away from the population centers, but it typically allowed Hanoi to determine when and where combat would

occur. As a result, Communist commanders could control their own attrition rates to a level low enough to sustain the war indefinitely and thus fatigue U.S. forces to the point of defeat. The fourth problem with the attrition strategy was that it indirectly eroded the moral fiber of American forces. As the war staggered on, distinguishing insurgents from civilians remained a problem. Some U.S. units became less concerned about inflicting civilian casualties. Furthermore, field commanders began padding reports of enemy dead to make themselves appear more efficient and thus enhance their own prospects for promotion in what they saw was a dead-end war. ADAM J. STONE See also Body Count; Casualties; Westmoreland, William Childs References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

August Revolution Event Date: August 19, 1945 The proclamation of a sovereign Vietnamese government in August 1945. When Japan agreed to Allied surrender terms on August 14, 1945, thereby ending World War II, this created a power vacuum in Indochina, for the previous March the Japanese had arrested all French officials and French Army personnel they could find. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh now filled the void. On August 16, 1945, in Hanoi, Ho declared himself president of the provisional government of a “free Vietnam.” Three days later, on August 19, the Viet Minh seized power in Hanoi in what was known at the time as the August General Uprising and was soon renamed the August Revolution. It was followed by uprisings against the French in other towns and cities across Vietnam. Five days later in Saigon, Tran Van Giau declared the insurrection under way in southern Vietnam. Ho held his first cabinet meeting on August 27, at which time it was decided to fix September 2 as National Independence Day. On that day Ho publicly announced the formation of the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), with its capital at Hanoi. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Ho Chi Minh; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 References Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Australia Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Au Lac, Kingdom of The second Vietnamese kingdom. According to Vietnamese legend, Vietnam began as the kingdom of Van Lang, ruled by the Hong Bang dynasty for more than 2,600 years, from 2879 BCE to 258 BCE. Van Lang was located in what was subsequently known as Tonkin, today northern Vietnam. In 258 BCE (some sources say 257 BCE), King Thuc Phan of neighboring Tay Au to the north mounted a surprise invasion of Van Lang and overthrew the last of the Hong Bang rulers. Thuc Phan then annexed Van Lang to his own territory, creating the new kingdom of Au Lac, with himself as ruler. Co Loa (some dozen miles west of present-day Hanoi) became the new capital, and soon a citadel was under construction there. A vast undertaking that involved the removal of some 2 million cubic yards of earth, Co Loa Citadel was a sophisticated defensive work to enable defense from both land and the Red River. It had two circular ramparts (the outer being some 5 miles in circumference, 36 feet high, and 75 feet wide at the base) surrounding a rectangular citadel. The Co Loa Citadel is regarded as the most important historical ruin of ancient Vietnam. Based on the large number of bronze arrowheads recovered in the vicinity, it is assumed the citadel was the site of a number of battles. Little is known of Au Lac society or culture, although it is assumed to have been based on slavery, which would have permitted the construction of such works as the citadel. The new Vietnamese state of Au Lac lasted only half a century, for in 207 BCE Chinese warlord Zhao Tuo (Chao T’o), who was known to the Vietnamese as Trieu Da and who had broken with the Qin (Ch’in) emperor, defeated King An Duong Vuong and conquered Au Lac. Trieu Da combined Au Lac with his previously held territory to form the new kingdom of Nam Viet (Nan Yueh), or “southern country of the Viet.” Its capital was Phien Ngu (later Canton and today Guangzhou). The formation of Nam Viet marks the beginning of verifiable Vietnamese history. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Nam Viet; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

83

Australia Large primarily English-speaking nation located in the South Pacific and south of Indonesia and surrounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and the South Pacific to the east. Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, comprises more than 2.9 million square miles. In 1960 it had a population of approximately 10.392 million people. Australia was founded as a penal settlement for Great Britain in the 18th century. In 1901 the six former colonies on the continent united to form the Commonwealth of Australia, with a constitution modeled after that of the United States. Australia remained closely tied to the British Commonwealth through the first half of the 20th century, after which Cold War realities pushed the Australians away from their Commonwealth obligations and toward alliance with the United States. Following World War II, Australia sought to rank among the leading nations in Asia, which sometimes resulted in conflict with U.S. policy. Throughout the Cold War, Australia played a delicate balancing act that allowed it to pursue its own interests while still remaining a key U.S. Cold War ally. Australia was one of the original signers of the United Nations (UN) Charter and greatly contributed to the economic, social, and humanitarian efforts of that organization, including peacekeeping activities. Australia was also a founding member of the Colombo Plan for the Cooperative Economic and Social Development of Asia and the Pacific and used its economic prosperity to aid in the advancement of its regional neighbors. Australia was also a charter member of the 1954 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and committed forces to the 1950–1953 Korean War. During the early years of the John F. Kennedy administration, the military involvement of the United States in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) significantly expanded. Indeed, by the end of 1963 there were some 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam. In early 1962 U.S. officials asked Australia and New Zealand to support the American effort in South Vietnam. Australia, long concerned that a Communist victory in Vietnam would threaten its interests, responded quickly. During the summer of 1962 Australia provided 30 military advisers to South Vietnam. The group, known formally as the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), or simply “The Team,” was roughly a counterpart to the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, which were highly favored by the Kennedy White House and were then serving as advisers in Vietnam as well. By 1964 under the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, the Australian ground troop deployment had increased to 80 personnel, and their mission was changed to include direct combat in April 1965 in tandem with the major expansion in the role as well as numbers of U.S. forces. In June 1965 the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) was augmented by the 79th Signal Group and a logistical support company. That September, artillery, armored personnel carriers, engineers, and light support aircraft also arrived intheater. This force, numbering 1,400 troops, was attached to the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade.

84

Australia

By 1967 the Australian government, under increased pressure from the United States, had deployed to Vietnam some 8,000 ground troops, which marked the peak of the Australian commitment. In June 1966 the 1st Battalion, RAR, was replaced by the 1st Australian Task Force (ATF), formed by the newly arrived 5th and 6th Battalions, RAR, and attached logistical support elements. The ATF was later augmented by a Special Air Service squadron of commandos, a medium tank squadron, a helicopter squadron, artillery, engineers, and supply, signal, and other support elements, including a new field hospital. A unit from New Zealand, including two infantry companies and a Special Air Service outfit, was also added to the ATF. Australian troops were rotated by unit; during the war, nine battalions of the RAR saw duty in Vietnam. Reflecting the manpower pressures generated by the conflict in Southeast Asia, Australia had reintroduced military conscription in 1964. Women from Australia also served in Vietnam in nursing and support-related capacities, primarily in the 1st Australian Field Hospital and the medical evacuation (medevac) service. In South Vietnam, Australian ground forces were notable for their emphasis on small-unit tactics; they generally avoided largescale conventional military sweeps and the heavy use of artillery and air support that characterized U.S. Army strategy during the second half of the 1960s. The largest concentration of ATF (joint Australian and New Zealand forces) forces was in Phuoc Tuy Province, southeast of Saigon. In August 1966 Australian success in beating back sizable North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (VC) attacks in the Battle of Long Trang resulted in the awarding of a U.S. Presidential Unit Citation to D Company, 6th Battalion, RAR. In October 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson became the first U.S. president to visit Australia, where he sought to bolster cooperation in Vietnam with the Australian government led by Prime Minister Harold Holt. Holt pledged continued support for the war in Vietnam. At the time, Australian public opinion toward the conflict was still fairly positive. The Australian emphasis on working directly with the local population in Phuoc Tuy to build support as well as provide basic security was generally successful. In March 1967 a civil affairs unit was added to the combat units already based in Phuoc Tuy. The civil affairs unit permitted construction of new facilities and the introduction of programs to promote education, medical and dental care, and the resettlement of refugees. Three major operations beyond Phuoc Tuy Province involved Australian ground forces operating as distinctive units. Operation COBURG during January–February 1968, Operation THOAN THANG I in May 1968, and Operation FEDERAL in February 1969 all helped to secure fortified bases in Long Binh, Bien Hoa, and Saigon. During this period, ATF forces also were successful in defending against VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) attacks, which at times were quite sizable. By 1971, few attacks against Australian forces were occurring. Units of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) began operations in Vietnam in August 1964. Australia’s air commitment to

Vietnam was divided into three main missions. The first was led by the RAAF Transport Flight Vietnam, which was initially responsible for airlift operations. Reconstituted as No. 35 Squadron on June 1, 1966, it was equipped with the versatile fixed-winged De Havilland A-4 Caribou transportation aircraft. The squadron remained in continuous operation from August 1964 to February 1972. During the course of the war, No. 35 Squadron flew approximately 81,500 sorties (43,800 hours) and transported 676,353 passengers, including 45 medical evacuations. Twelve Caribou aircraft flew during the war, three of which were lost; two others were retired for major repairs. The RAAF’s second mission involved direct support to the ATF in Phuoc Tuy Province. No. 9 Squadron, employing helicopters, deployed to Nui Dat in June 1966 to conduct a series of diverse missions, from psychological operations such as dropping leaflets to the spraying of insecticides to control the mosquito population and of herbicides for defoliation. However, the primary mission of the 32 Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters was troop-lift and combat support, including the insertion of Special Air Service units into contested areas to engage the enemy. No. 9 Squadron moved 409,972 passengers in 237,424 sorties (58,745 hours) and was also responsible for the medical evacuation of 4,280 soldiers. No. 9 Squadron served in South Vietnam until November 1971. The squadron suffered six fatalities and six helicopters destroyed or written off as damaged beyond repair. The final mission of the RAAF included bombing missions by No. 2 Squadron, which flew 18 English Electric Canberra Mk 20 aircraft. No. 2 Squadron arrived in South Vietnam in April 1967 and was placed under the tactical control of the U.S. 35th Tactical Fighter Wing based in Phan Rang. The squadron flew 11,994 sorties over South Vietnam, attacking 13,503 targets and delivering 26,938 tons of bombs. Before it was redeployed to Australia in May 1971, the squadron had lost two aircraft in the war, one as a result of a surface-to-air missile and one retired after a landing accident. The squadron also lost three pilots to nonbattle casualties and reported two pilots as missing in action but presumed dead. Three additional members of the RAAF died in Vietnam, all as a result of nonbattle injuries. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) also participated in the Vietnam War. Contributions from the RAN included transport and logistical support for the Australian ground forces based in Phuoc Tuy Province, the use of Australian destroyers with the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, Fleet Air Arm involvement, and the insertion of Clearance Diving Team 3 to ensure the safety of the ports and waterways around Vung Tau. The converted aircraft carrier HMAS Sidney served as the principal fast troop transport for the RAN’s mission of transport and support. Known by the Australian troops as the “Vung Tau Ferry,” the Sidney made 24 trips to South Vietnam from April 1965, with the insertion of the 1st Battalion, RAR, until November 1972. In 1966 as Australia’s commitment to the war increased with the creation of the 1st ATF stationed in Phuoc Tuy Province, the Sid-

Australia

85

Royal Australian Air Force airmen deplane at Saigon in South Vietnam on August 10, 1964. The Australian Air Force aided South Vietnamese and U.S. forces by transporting soldiers and supplies. (National Archives)

ney was joined by the hired Australian National Line cargo ships Jeparit and Boonaroo as well as a series of escorts for the voyage between Australia and South Vietnam. The RAN contingent attached to the U.S. Seventh Fleet was Australia’s most publicized naval contribution during the war. The RAN destroyers were attached to Task Force 77.1, which revolved around Operation SEA DRAGON (the destruction of coastal targets north of the 17th Parallel), and Task Unit 70.8.9 (Naval Gunfire Support). HMAS Hobart, a guided missile destroyer, was the first RAN destroyer to join the gun line in March 1967 in what would be the first of nine deployments that saw the continuous service of at least one Australian destroyer until October 1971. Three Charles F. Adams–class guided missile destroyers (the Hobart, Perth, and Brisbane) and one Daring-class escort (the Vendetta) took part in operations with the Seventh Fleet. They fired a combined 101,602 rounds from 4.5-inch and 5-inch naval guns during the duration of the operation. Clearance Diving Team 3 (CDT3) arrived in South Vietnam on February 6, 1967, for its first active-service deployment in the branch’s history and commenced missions that included clearing mines planted by Communist forces in the water surrounding Vung Tau and inspecting ships and harbors used by allied

forces. The eight contingents of CDT3 inspected more than 7,000 vessels before it departed in August 1970. The final contingent to see action in Vietnam was the RAN’s helicopter pilots, who were attached to the Royal Australian Air Force Squadron No. 9, operating in Phuoc Tuy in support of the ATF. They also contributed to the 135th Assault Helicopter Company, which also operated in Phuoc Tuy. Overall, 7 RAN personnel were killed in action during the war, all in 1968, while 2 RAN personnel were killed in nonbattle incidents. Eighteen sailors were wounded, 7 were injured in action in battle, and 23 were injured in nonbattle events. As the Vietnam War dragged on, opposition to the war in Australia steadily grew, in parallel with the antiwar movement in the United States. In the case of Australia, the unpopularity of the military draft was combined with frustration over steadily growing casualties to turn public opinion sharply against the war. In November 1970 the Australian government began to sharply reduce the number of Australian forces in South Vietnam. In November 1971 the principal Australian expeditionary force departed from Phuoc Tuy. However, a small contingent of Australian military personnel continued training South Vietnamese forces until January 11, 1973, when the Australian government announced

86

Australia

that all Australian forces in South Vietnam would be withdrawn by December 31, 1971, except for an army platoon guarding the embassy in Saigon. A total of about 50,000 Australian military personnel from all branches served in the Vietnam War. A total of 423 Australians were killed, and 2,398 others were wounded in the conflict. ARTHUR I. CYR, RONALD B. FRANKUM JR., AND JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Free World Assistance Program; Korea, Republic of; New Zealand; SEA DRAGON, Operation; United States Air Force; United States Army; United States Navy References Coulthard-Clark, Chris. The RAAF In Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1962–1975. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1995.

Fairfax, Denis. Navy in Vietnam: A Record of the Royal Australian Navy in the Vietnam War, 1962–1972. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1980. Foster, Randy E. M. Vietnam Firebases, 1965–73: American and Australian Forces. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. Grey, Jeffrey. Up Top: The Royal Australian Navy and Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1955–1972. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1998. Grey, Jeffrey, Peter Pierce, and Jeff Doyle, eds. Australia’s Vietnam War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. King, Peter, ed. Australia’s Vietnam: Australia in the Second Indo-China War. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1983. McNeill, Ian. The Team: Australian Army Advisers in Vietnam, 1962–1972. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1984. Odgers, George. Mission Vietnam: Royal Australian Air Force Operations, 1964–1972. Canberra: Australian Government Publication Service, 1974.

B B-52 Raids See Arc Light Missions

BABYLIFT,

Operation

Start Date: April 4, 1975 End Date: April 14, 1975 Plan to bring 2,000 Vietnamese orphans to the United States for adoption by American parents. Operation BABYLIFT was announced by President Gerald R. Ford on April 3, 1975, and went into effect the next day. BABYLIFT was to last 10 days and was to be carried out during the final desperate phase of the war as People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) forces closed in on Saigon. The first flight, on April 4, ended in tragedy. The airplane crashed soon after takeoff from Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut Air Base, killing 138 people, most of them Vietnamese children. It was not until the 1980s that settlements were reached in legal suits. All subsequent flights took place without incident, and BABYLIFT continued to ferry orphans across the Pacific until its conclusion on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war. In all, more than 2,600 children were adopted. At the time some questions were raised regarding how these particular children were selected. Also, there was the possibility that at least some of them were not technically orphans at all but were children whose parents wanted them safely out of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). But for better or worse, the operation that had been decreed by President Ford was successfully completed.

Two women carry Vietnamese orphans off a plane after they arrived in the United States during Operation BABYLIFT, a program to find the orphans new homes. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

88

Bach Dang River, Battle of

Subsequent critics of the operation pointed to the excessive public relations spin that accompanied it. This included oftrepeated predictions of a bloodbath once North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam. Covered by the major media, President and Mrs. Ford personally greeted one flight on April 5 in San Francisco. Much was made of the fact that the 325 orphans who arrived that day had been brought over in a $250,000 charter flight paid for by an American businessman. Another criticism focused on the possible political motives behind the airlift. There was the accusation, for instance, that the Ford administration hoped that the flights would create public sympathy for the embattled Nguyen Van Thieu government, thus pressuring Congress into rushing emergency aid to South Vietnam. In fact, the entire BABYLIFT experience was simply a footnote to a long, violent, and divisive war. As with the U.S. involvement in the war, the operation represented a combination of humanitarianism and political manipulation. ERIC JARVIS See also Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Nguyen Van Thieu; Saigon References Burkard, Dick J. Military Airlift Command: Historical Handbook, 1941–1984. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Military Airlift Command, 1984. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Leuter, David. “The Babylift Case Goes On Despite New Settlement.” National Law Journal 7 (December 3, 1984): 6. Taylor, Stuart, Jr. “Settlement Reached in 1975 Crash of Orphans’ Jet.” New York Times, November 15, 1984.

Bach Dang River, Battle of Event Date: 938 CE One of the great battles in Vietnamese history that freed Vietnam (then known as Giao Chi) from Chinese control. The Chinese had conquered Giao Chi in 111 BCE. With the decline of the Tang dynasty in the 10th century CE, chances improved for the Vietnamese to shake off Chinese rule. Vietnamese success in this endeavor owed much to Duong Dinh Nghe, who ruled Ai and Hoan (the area of present-day Ha Trung and Thanh Hoa) in the south. Although the Southern Han had ennobled him in hopes that he would remain loyal, Dong Dinh Nghe was determined to drive the Chinese from Giao Chi. In 931 after first assembling and training an army of 3,000 men, he marched north from Ai, routed the Chinese, and took Dai-la (Ha Dong) on the Red River. Dong Dinh Nghe then defeated a Chinese relief force, after which he proclaimed himself military governor and won recognition of this from the Chinese. Although later revered by the Vietnamese for his accomplishments, Dong Dinh Nghe ruled only briefly. In the spring of 937 he was assassinated by Kieu Cong Tien,

a lesser military officer, who took power himself and attempted to institute pro-Chinese policies. Ai governor Ngo Quyen took up arms against Kieu Cong Tien. Recognized for his bravery, physical strength, and wisdom, Ngo Quyen was a general at age 33. When Dong Dinh Nghe defeated the Southern Han, he had given Ngo Quyen one of his daughters in marriage and appointed him governor of Ai Province. Ngo Quyen now took the field to defeat Kieu Cong Tien and avenge the death of his father-in-law. Undoubtedly the Vietnamese of Giao Chi preferred rule by the smaller Ai to that of the more powerful Han. In any case, they did not rally to Kieu Cong Tien, which forced him to call on the Chinese for assistance. Southern Han ruler Liu Kung (known as Luu Nham to the Vietnamese), who wanted Giao Chi for himself, promptly assembled a force at Sea Gate to conquer Giao Chi. He placed his son Liu Hongcao (Luu Hoang Thao to the Vietnamese) in command of the expeditionary force, naming him peaceful sea military governor and king of Giao. Luu Nham then ordered Liu Hongcao to sail to Giao Chi. By the time Liu Hongcao arrived in Vietnamese waters in 938, Ngo Quyen had already defeated and executed Kieu Cong Tien. Ngo Quyen also had sufficient time to prepare to meet the anticipated Chinese invasion force. Ngo Quyen anticipated the Chinese plan to sail up the Bach Dang River, the main water route into the Red River plain. Liu Kung planned to advance deep into Giao Chi before disembarking his forces to fight ashore. In the autumn of 938 Ngo Quyen assembled his army at the mouth of the Bach Dang River and had his men plant stakes in the water. Sharpened and tipped with iron, these were of such height to be concealed beneath the water’s surface at high tide. When the Southern Han force appeared, Ngo Quyen sent out a small naval force of shallow-draft ships to engage them. Operating according to plan, his ships then withdrew up the Bach Dang, and the Chinese fleet followed. When the tide fell, the Chinese ships were trapped on the stakes in the river and were easily destroyed. Reportedly more than half of the Chinese, including Liu Hongcao, perished. Liu Kung then withdrew what remained of his army to Guangzhou (Guangdong, Canton). This great Vietnamese victory ended the long Chinese rule over Vietnam. After more than 1,000 years of Chinese control, the Vietnamese were again independent. Although China continued to enjoy nominal suzerainty over Vietnam until the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) in 1885, the Vietnamese in fact now controlled all the territory from the foothills of Yunnan to the 17th Parallel. Nonetheless, under the long period of Chinese domination the country had slowly separated from other nations of Southeast Asia to become a part of East Asia, and the Chinese imprint on Vietnam proved permanent. The Vietnamese continued to use Chinese characters in writing and Chinese traditions and customs, although over time a synthesis emerged that combined native and Chinese elements. In 939 Ngo Quyen took the title of king. Duong Dinh Nghe had not dared to call himself anything other than military governor.

Baez, Joan Chandos Ngo Quyen chose Co Loa as his capital. His dynasty did not last long, however. He died in 944, and his children were unable to maintain order. Vietnam soon fell into serious troubles, especially in 965 in the Period of the Twelve Lords (Muoi Hai Su Quan), a time of civil strife that lasted until 968, when Dinh Bo Linh reunified the kingdom. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

89

Cut was guillotined in Can Tho on July 13, 1956, against the advice of American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) adviser Colonel Edward Lansdale, who feared that the act would solidify the opposition of Ba Cut’s followers to the South Vietnamese government. True to Lansdale’s prediction, most Hoa Hao supporters joined the Viet Cong (VC) guerrilla movement against the South Vietnamese government following Ba Cut’s execution. MICHAEL R. HALL See also Bao Dai; Buddhism in Vietnam; Cao Dai; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Hoa Hao; Ho Chi Minh; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Ngo Dinh Diem; Viet Cong Infrastructure; Viet Minh References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Nguyen Long Thanh Nam. Hoa Hao Buddhism in the Course of Vietnam’s History. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2004.

Ba Cut Birth Date: 1924 Death Date: July 13, 1956 Vietnamese nationalist and anti-Communist. Le Quang Vinh, commonly known as Ba Cut, was born in French-held Vietnam sometime in 1924. Little is know of the circumstances of his birth or his early years. In 1939 he led a resistance movement of men recruited from the Hoa Hao, an ultranationalist militaristic Buddhist sect formed by Huynh Phu So, in the Mekong Delta. The Hoa Hao sect, which vehemently opposed French colonial rule in Vietnam, supported Coung De, a member of Vietnam’s Nguyen royal family living in exile in Japan, as the legitimate ruler of Vietnam. To emphasize his determination in the struggle against the French, in 1941 Le Quang Vinh cut off the tip of his third finger and assumed the name Ba Cut (“Short Third”). During World War II Ba Cut and the Hoa Hao supported the Japanese occupation of Vietnam as the best way to end French colonialism. At this point Ba Cut came into conflict with Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh because of the latter’s anti-Japanese agenda and Marxist opposition to organized religion. After World War II Ba Cut led some 20,000 men in an armed struggle against the French colonial government, the Viet Minh, and a rival religious sect, the Cao Dai. Although giving nominal support to French-supported Emperor Bao Dai, Ba Cut believed that the Vietnamese emperor was tainted by his collaboration with the French colonial administrators and was a mere puppet of them. Following the Geneva Conference in 1954, which resulted in the end of French colonial rule in Vietnam and the temporary division of the country pending nationwide elections in 1956, Ba Cut vowed not to cut his hair until Vietnamese reunification. Although most leaders of the Hoa Hao chose to support Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Ba Cut led 4,000 men against the South Vietnamese government until he was captured in April 1956. Condemned to death, Ba

Baez, Joan Chandos Birth Date: January 9, 1941 Popular American musician, songwriter, folk singer, and social protestor. Born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York, the daughter of a Mexican father and an Anglo mother, Joan Chandos Baez encountered discrimination at an early age. After briefly attending Boston University Fine Arts School, she dropped out to pursue a career in folk music. In 1959 she received an invitation to perform at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival, where the audience enjoyed her mysterious soprano voice and traditional style. Despite little original material, Baez recorded her debut album in 1960 and within two years had sold more folk records than any other American female singer. She altered her act in 1963 with songs written by Bob Dylan, with whom she often appeared and collaborated. Although their personal and professional relationship ultimately failed, the collaboration nonetheless pushed Baez to social protest and humanitarian causes. In the 1960s Baez dedicated herself to myriad protest movements. She sang and marched for civil rights in the South, and in August 1963 she led Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in singing “We Shall Overcome” during King’s March on Washington. Baez was a severe critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, often making significant financial donations to antiwar movements and draft-resistance groups. While performing at a reception to honor President Lyndon B. Johnson, Baez performed Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and voiced her opposition to the war in Vietnam. In 1964 she informed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that she would not pay that portion of her taxes going to the armed forces. The following year Baez gained international recognition when she established the School for the Study of Nonviolence to

90

Ball, George Wildman

Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan entertain demonstrators during the 1963 March on Washington. (National Archives)

examine the concept, history, and various applications of nonviolence. Her activities in 1967 included an antiwar performance in Tokyo; a draft card turn-in and concert for 30,000 people at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.; and her arrest along with her mother and sister for demonstrating at an induction center in California. At the 1969 Woodstock Festival, Baez, the most experienced protest singer of the many performers, brought an intellectual and political element to the generally reckless nature of the proceedings. In 1972 Baez visited Hanoi as a guest of the Committee for Solidarity with the American People and was there during the so-called Christmas Bombings. Upon her return home she produced a bitter antiwar album, Where Are You Now, My Son? The album included recordings from her time in Hanoi. After the mid-1970s Baez was not as successful as she had been in the 1960s, but she continued to perform on behalf of humanitarian causes and was active in numerous protest movements. Among the social causes that Baez has more recently championed are gay and lesbian rights, environmental issues, international human rights, poverty mitigation, and opposition to the death penalty. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War and again during the 2003 Anglo-American– led invasion of Iraq, she performed at numerous protest rallies around the United States. Baez continues to write, sing, and record

songs, having released more than 30 albums in her career; she also continues to perform alone and in concert in a variety of venues. DALLAS COTHRUM See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Dylan, Bob; Music and the Vietnam War; Woodstock References Baez, Joan. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. New York: New American Library, 1987. Garza, Hedda. Joan Baez. New York: Chelsea House, 1991. Scadato, Anthony. Bob Dylan. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1971.

Ball, George Wildman Birth Date: December 21, 1909 Death Date: May 26, 1994 Lawyer, diplomat, presidential adviser, and steadfast opponent of the Vietnam War. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, on December 21, 1909, George Wildman Ball was educated at Northwestern University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1930 and a law degree in 1933. Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1934, he pursued a

Baltimore Four successful career as a lawyer with both federal government agencies and private firms. From 1933 to 1935 Ball served in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of General Counsel. During World War II he served with the Lend-Lease Administration (1940–1942) and as director of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in London from 1944 to 1945. For a few months during 1945–1946 he also served as general counsel of the French Supply Council in Washington, D.C. Later in 1946 Ball returned to his legal practice and became involved in Democratic Party presidential politics, first on behalf of Adlai Stevenson, who ran for the presidency in 1952 and 1956, and then on behalf of John F. Kennedy. After Kennedy received the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, Ball drew up a memorandum that urged the Kennedy campaign to begin a comprehensive review of U.S. foreign policy for the new decade. Kennedy liked the idea, and Ball ultimately bore the responsibility for drafting the report, which was well received. When Kennedy assumed office in January 1961, he named Ball undersecretary of state for economic affairs and, later, undersecretary of state, a post he held until 1966. A close adviser to President Kennedy, Ball became an early opponent of American military involvement in Vietnam. In November 1961 he privately warned Kennedy that committing troops there would prove a tragic error. “Within five years we’ll have 300,000 men in the paddies and jungles,” Ball predicted. “That was the French experience.” Kennedy replied that Ball was “just crazier

91

than hell.” Although Ball was best known for his antipathy to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, he also participated in the secret meetings of the Executive Committee (EXCOM) during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, brokered a wheat deal with the Soviet Union, and served as a mediator for crises in Cyprus, Pakistan, the Congo, and the Dominican Republic. Following Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination, Ball continued in his role as devil’s advocate in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, arguing against escalation of the war in Vietnam. Ball opposed the conflict on the grounds that Southeast Asia was diverting attention from more important European affairs. Instead, he sought de-escalation and a political settlement with Hanoi. Realizing that his position with the Johnson administration was increasingly untenable, Ball resigned in 1966 and returned to private legal practice. Ball’s public service days were not over, for in 1968 he was called upon to chair a committee investigating the Pueblo Incident. Later that same year Johnson nominated Ball to become the permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations (UN), a post he was reluctant to take. Nevertheless Johnson pressured Ball, who took up the post in June 1968. In September, however, he resigned, fearing that Republican Party presidential nominee Richard M. Nixon was poised to win the November 1968 election. Ball subsequently campaigned hard for Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who lost the contest to Nixon by a narrow margin. Had Humphrey won, Ball would undoubtedly have been named secretary of state. After Nixon took office in 1969, Ball continued to openly criticize the U.S. government’s Vietnam policies until the conflict finally ended with an American withdrawal in 1973. Ball remained active in diplomatic and Democratic Party political circles, serving as an ad hoc adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s and to the early Bill Clinton administration in the 1990s. Ball wrote five books after he left office in 1968 and was working on a sixth when he died of cancer in New York City on May 26, 1994. JAMES FRIGUGLIETTI AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Clinton, William Jefferson; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II; United Nations and the Vietnam War References Ball, George W. The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs. New York: Norton, 1982. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Baltimore Four George W. Ball, undersecretary of state for economic affairs, after taking his oath of office in Washington, D.C., February 1, 1961. Ball was a major critic of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s Vietnam War policies. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Group of antiwar activists that orchestrated a raid on a draft board office in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 17, 1967. The incident was spearheaded by Father Philip Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and well-known peace activist. After having participated in

92

Ban Karai Pass

numerous antiwar protests and actions, Berrigan decided to make a bold statement by raiding the local draft board offices located in the Baltimore Custom House in downtown Baltimore. Berrigan sought to move from dissent to open resistance. Accompanying Berrigan in his act of defiance were Tom Lewis, an artist, teacher, and author; David Eberhardt; and Reverend James L. Mengel, a missionary and pastor of the United Church of Christ. On October 17, 1967, in broad daylight and in the presence of draft board employees, Berrigan and Lewis casually entered the office of the Baltimore Draft Board. Despite warning from the employees, the two men walked around a long counter and began opening filing cabinets, searching for draft cards. Eberhardt and Mengel meanwhile physically kept the employees at bay, preventing them from stopping Berrigan and Lewis. Using vials of blood (some of which came from the four men, the rest being poultry blood purchased from a butcher), Berrigan, Lewis, and Eberhardt proceeded to deface and ruin numerous draft cards by pouring the blood onto them. Mengel handed out Bibles to the employees, newsmen, and curious onlookers as the Baltimore Four waited for police to arrive. None of the men threatened anyone or used violence to carry out their act of resistance. Nevertheless, all four were promptly arrested and put on trial. Berrigan provided a written statement explaining the group’s actions: “This sacrificial and constructive act is meant to protest the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina.” All four men were subsequently found guilty. Berrigan and Lewis received six-year sentences, Eberhardt received a two-year sentence, and Mengel was given probation and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation. The incident and trial received much domestic and international coverage and helped spur on the growing antiwar movement in the United States. In May 1968 Berrigan, who had been released on bail, and his brother Daniel, also a Roman Catholic priest, staged an even bigger raid on a local draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland. That protest would ignite an even bigger groundswell of civil disobedience among antiwar protesters. The Baltimore Four action is considered the first openly defiant act against a local draft board in the United States. After the Baltimore Four there were more than 100 copycat groups that perpetrated various acts of resistance against draft boards. By 1972, draft board raids had all but ceased, however, as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War wound down. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

Ban Karai Pass

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Berrigan, Daniel; Berrigan, Philip; Camden 28; Catonsville Nine

See also

References Berrigan, Daniel. To Dwell in Peace: An Autobiography. New York: HarperCollins, 1988. Polner, Murray, and Jim O’Grady. Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Brothers in Religious Faith and Civil Disobedience. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

References Head, William P. “Playing Hide-and-Seek with the ‘Trail’: Operation Commando Hunt, 1968–1972.” Journal of Third World Studies 19(1) (Spring 2002): 101–115. Mark, Eduard. Aerial Interdiction: Air Power and Land Battle in Three American Wars. Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1994.

Located in rugged mountains on the border between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Laos, Ban Karai Pass was considered a major gateway to the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail logistics network from North Vietnam into Laos and then the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Route 137 traversed through the pass. The construction of infiltration routes began in the 1950s during the Indochina War, although the Ho Chi Minh Trail can be said to date from 1959. In the early 1960s Hanoi sought to expand and upgrade the infiltration network by carving roads through mountain passes as high as 5,000 feet, an arduous task that necessitated hacking through dense jungles and fording raging rivers. By 1971, the North Vietnamese had expanded the Ho Chi Minh Trail from a jungle footpath into thousands of miles of motor roads. Hanoi subdivided southern Laos into 15 semiautonomous military districts, or Binh Trams, each with a commander responsible for keeping his section of the route open. Truck convoys carrying supplies and troops began their journey from the supply hub at Vinh, North Vietnam, through the Mu Gia and Ban Karai passes. Traffic moved mostly at night; in daylight vehicles were concealed under camouflage in the jungle. The U.S. Seventh Air Force bombed the caravans using squaremile boxes labeled A, B, C, and D representing the Mu Gia, Ban Karai, Ban Raving, and Nape passes, respectively. The passes, including Ban Karai, were a major focus of U.S. air strikes throughout the course of the Vietnam War but never more so than during Operation COMMANDO HUNT (November 1968–March 1972). At that time the passes were a chief target for B-52 bombers, their bombs causing massive landslides, altering the courses of rivers, flattening elevations, and stripping vegetation from the jungles, all in an effort to block the passes. The bombing transformed the area into a virtual wasteland. In theory, once the passes had been closed, U.S. aircraft could then attack trucks and supply centers with impunity, reducing the flow of supplies and troops into South Vietnam. While the number of bombs dropped seemed impressive, the fact that the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) was able to mass 14 divisions and 200 tanks for a major offensive into South Vietnam on March 30, 1972, brought into question the effectiveness of the raids. WILLIAM P. HEAD COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Mu Gia Pass; Laos; Viet

Minh; Vinh

Ban Me Thuot, Battle of Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Ban Me Thuot, Battle of Start Date: March 10, 1975 End Date: March 12, 1975 The first major battle of the final People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) offensive in the Vietnam War that took place during March 10–12, 1975, at Ban Me Thuot, a city in the Central Highlands and the capital of Darlac Province. Encouraged by the failure of the United States to respond militarily to their seizure of Phuoc Long Province in early January 1975, two months later the PAVN undertook an offensive, code-named CAMPAIGN 275. Under the direct supervision of General Van Tien Dung, the operation was to prepare the way for a decisive general offensive the following year. CAMPAIGN 275 began with small diversionary attacks north of Ban Me Thuot, followed on March 4 by the isolation of the Central Highlands from the coast with the blocking of Route 19

93

east of Pleiku and the cutting off of Route 21 a day later. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) II Corps commander Major General Pham Van Phu ignored mounting evidence of the forthcoming attack on Ban Me Thuot, convinced that the main blow would fall on or near his Pleiku headquarters. On March 8 Dung’s forces blocked Route 14 between Pleiku and Ban Me Thuot. Attacks in Quang Duc Province, south of Ban Me Thuot, began the following day. Early on March 10 three PAVN divisions moved against Ban Me Thuot, sidestepping outlying defenses to attack command posts and supply depots. Initially the ARVN put up a stout resistance, particularly at the Phung Duc airfield east of the city. Destruction of the ARVN sector command post ended defensive coordination, and ARVN attempts to reinforce the city from Buon Ho to the north failed. By March 12 General Dung’s forces had secured the city, although fighting continued on its periphery and around the Phung Duc airfield. An ARVN attempt to mount a counterattack from Phuoc An to the east failed as airlifted soldiers deserted in large numbers to save their families. With many of the city’s defenders and their dependents already fleeing in disarray toward the coast, resistance ended entirely on March 18.

A refugee family flees fighting in and around the key Central Highlands city of Ban Me Thuot in South Vietnam, March 14, 1975. The struggle for Ban Me Thuot was the opening battle in the final People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) offensive. (AP/Wide World Photos)

94

Bao Dai

On March 14 President Nguyen Van Thieu made a difficult situation worse when he ordered the withdrawal of regular ARVN forces from the Central Highlands in an attempt to bolster defenses around Saigon and along the coast. A complete debacle ensued. Neither regional forces nor civil administrators were informed of Thieu’s plan, and when General Phu’s units began to withdraw, thousands of civilians, many already in flight from Kontum, joined the exodus. General Phu, abandoning his command, flew to Nha Trang. Although the South Vietnamese forces surprised the enemy by withdrawing along Route 7B, an abandoned provincial highway, General Dung soon had units moving to engage them. PAVN troops struck the fleeing column at Cheo Reo on March 18, and from that time on the commingled mass of disorganized military and civilian refugees suffered almost constant attack. They sustained heavy casualties, and only a small fraction managed to reach the coast. The withdrawal from the Central Highlands dealt a devastating blow to South Vietnamese morale and furthered the disintegration of its military. PAVN forces occupied Kontum and Pleiku on March 18, and two days later the Hanoi Politburo began to reevaluate its timetable for the final offensive, sensing that it need not wait until 1976 to achieve complete victory. By April 3, 1975, all of the major coastal cities in the ARVN II Corps area except Phan Rang had fallen to Dung’s rapidly advancing troops. JOHN M. GATES See also Nguyen Van Thieu; Pham Van Phu; Van Tien Dung

crowned emperor, taking the imperial name Bao Dai (“Keeper or Preserver of Greatness” or “Protector of Grandeur”) before returning to France. The French government did not permit him to return to Vietnam until September 10, 1932. Enthusiastic about forming a loyal alliance between the colonial power and his own government, Bao Dai was left with little maneuvering room. The 1884 Treaty of Protectorate gave France the ability to manage affairs as it wished, and the Agreement of 1925 stripped the Vietnamese court of most of its remaining authority, leaving emperors with little to do except issue ritual decrees. All other matters would be left to the French resident superior. Undaunted, Bao Dai began a series of reforms. He hoped in that fashion to erect a modern imperial government and to convince France to establish a framework allowing limited independence for Vietnam under his rule. He fired most of his Francophile mandarin advisers in order to bring new blood into the Vien Co Mat, or cabinet. He established the Commission of Reform, abolished the requirement that people prostrate themselves in his presence, and dissolved his official harem. In 1933 he promulgated his Labor Charter, prohibiting requisitioned labor except in time of public emergency. The French stymied his zeal at every turn, however. In March 1934 Bao Dai married a daughter of the wealthy Nguyen Huu Hao, Marie-Therese Nguyen, who became Empress Nam Phuong. As Bao Dai’s enthusiasm for reform waned, he settled into a sedentary life, browbeaten also by his mother. He complained of debilitating migraine headaches and neurasthenia, characterized by fatigue, depression, worry, and localized pains without apparent

References Dougan, Clark, and David Fulghum. The Fall of the South. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Hosmer, Stephen T., Konrad Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins. The Fall of South Vietnam: Statements by Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders. New York: Crane, Russak, 1980. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.

Bao Dai Birth Date: October 22, 1913 Death Date: July 30, 1997 The last of the Nguyen emperors. Bao Dai, son of Khai Dinh, was born in Hue on October 22, 1913, and was named Nguyen Phuoc Vinh Thuy. Educated in France, he lived with a wealthy dignitary’s family under the charge of nannies and tutors and was immersed in the French language as well as French history, music, and art. He did not return to Vietnam until the death of his father, whose funeral he attended in November 1925. On January 8, 1926, he was

Bao Dai, the last of the Nguyen emperors, and his first wife, Empress Nam Phuong. After the start of the Indochina War, Bao Dai struck a deal with the French that led to the creation of the State of Vietnam, but the French never permitted it real independence and Bao Dai soon succumbed to a playboy lifestyle. (Library of Congress)

Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr. causes. He spent ever more time at his villa in Da Lat on hunting expeditions that lasted for weeks. With little else to do, he traveled regularly around Vietnam on ceremonial visits. He became a playboy governor, interested primarily in gambling, women, and hunting; reportedly he shot a large percentage of Vietnam’s tigers. As the years passed he was increasingly occupied with gambling on the French Riviera and jet-setting from one spa to another. Bao Dai cooperated with the Japanese during their World War II occupation and in March 1945, at their behest, declared independence from France in proclaiming the Empire of Viet Nam. In the few months allotted to this government Bao Dai tried to deal with northern famine, supported extensive press freedoms, and called on his people for support. It was not to be. With the collapse of the Japanese government, the Viet Minh took control during the August Revolution and called on Bao Dai to abdicate. This he did on August 25, 1945, becoming simply First Citizen Vinh Thuy. Elected to a seat in the new Viet Minh legislature from his dynasty’s ancestral home in Thanh Hoa Province, Vinh Thuy quickly became dissatisfied with his Communist overlords and left his country as part of an official diplomatic delegation to China. Bao Dai remained in Chongqing (Chungking) until September 1946, when he moved to Hong Kong and remained there through late 1947 until he returned to Europe. In June 1946 French high commissioner for Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu created the Autonomous Republic of Cochin China as a means to limit Viet Minh power and called on Bao Dai to serve as its head. Unenthusiastic, Bao Dai called instead for real Vietnamese independence. Émile Bollaert, d’Argenlieu’s replacement, continued to urge Bao Dai to return to Vietnam as chief of state. Bao Dai did so, somewhat reluctantly, after signing the Elysée Agreements with French president Vincent Auriol on March 8, 1949. Now designated as an Associated State within the French Union, the State of Vietnam received official acknowledgment on January 29, 1950, when the Elysée Accords were ratified by the French National Assembly. Bao Dai took up residence in Saigon and remained head of this government through the partitioning of Vietnam by the 1954 Geneva Conference and the first year of existence of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In this capacity Bao Dai institutionalized corruption by his dealings with Le Van “Bay” Vien, leader of the Binh Xuyen gang, the illicit activities of which included control of opium trafficking, gold smuggling, racketeering, prostitution, and gambling in South Vietnam. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, Bao Dai, then in France, named Ngo Dinh Diem as his premier. Later regretting this move, Bao Dai tried to regain control, finally authorizing one of his generals to lead a coup against Diem. This failed, and Diem then called for an election to determine whether the nation should be a monarchy or a republic. Held on October 23, 1955, the voting was supervised by Diem’s henchmen; Diem won handily and became the president of South Vietnam. Bao Dai spent much of the remainder of his life at his chateau near Cannes. His first wife died in 1968, and the next year he mar-

95

ried Monique Baudot. From these two marriages he had two sons and four daughters. With most of his royal fortune gone, Bao Dai spent the final years of his exile in a modest Paris apartment. He died in a military hospital in Paris on July 30, 1997. CECIL B. CURREY See also Binh Xuyen; Bollaert, Émile; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Elysée Agreement; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Le Van Vien; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Currey, Cecil B. “Bao Dai: The Last Emperor.” Viet Nam Generation 6(1–2) (1994): 199–206. Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr. Birth Date: January 26, 1928 Death Date: June 13, 1968 Commander of Task Force Barker, a part of which committed the 1968 My Lai Massacre. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on January 26, 1928, U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Frank A. Barker Jr. had previously served in Vietnam with the Special Forces. In March 1968 he commanded Task Force Barker, a battalion-sized strike force of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, that on March 16, 1968, killed some 400 Vietnamese civilians in Son My village, in Quang Ngai Province, in what became known as the My Lai Massacre. Barker conceived and planned the My Lai operation against an area allegedly occupied by a large Viet Cong (VC) force. Whether or not Barker directly ordered the deliberate killing of noncombatants, Company C commander Captain Ernest Medina later testified that Barker had instructed him to destroy the hamlet known as My Lai. After the dimensions of the massacre and its cover-up became known, the Peers Inquiry concluded that at least 28 officers, including 2 generals and 4 colonels, were at fault, but only Lieutenant William Calley was convicted for wrongdoing. The inquiry found that Barker, who has killed in a helicopter crash on June 13, 1968, was culpable of at least 11 violations of army regulations, some of which were considered war crimes. Among his alleged violations were the following: he planned and directed an unlawful operation and created a belief that his men were authorized to kill noncombatants; the artillery preparation violated the intent of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), regulations; he intentionally or negligently told his commanders that no civilians would be present; he conspired to conceal the number of civilians killed, falsely attributing most of the casualties to artillery fire; he submitted a false and misleading

96

BARREL ROLL, Operation

after-action report; and he failed to investigate indications of war crimes that were reported to him. Barker’s report, which describes the operation as “well-planned, well-executed, and successful,” is a sad and dishonorable epitaph to what had been a promising military career. JOHN D. ROOT See also Calley, William Laws, Jr.; Medina, Ernest Lou; My Lai Massacre; Peers Inquiry References Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Bolton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Viking, 1992. Goldstein, Joseph, Burke Marshall, and Jack Schwartz. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of the Law? New York: Free Press, 1976.

BARREL ROLL,

Operation

Start Date: 1964 End Date: 1973 Allied air campaign carried out in northern Laos primarily to support ground forces of the Royal Lao Government and General Vang Pao’s Hmong (mountain people) irregular forces, trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The area of operation stretched from the Laotian capital of Vientiane on the border of Thailand north to the strategic Plain of Jars and then northeast to the Pathet Lao capital of Sam Neua in Sam Neua Province bordering the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Operation BARREL ROLL was born out of the North Vietnamese government to support implementation of the July 1962 Geneva Accords, which declared Laos an independent and neutral state. In 1963 when Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma failed to create a coalition government as a result of Communist intransigence, he called for and received U.S. military aid in the form of arms and supplies, including North American T-28D Trojan aircraft. These trainers were adapted to a counterinsurgency role as fighter-bombers. In June 1964 in response to a Pathet Lao and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) spring offensive in the Plain of Jars, allied air forces, with approval from President Lyndon Johnson, commenced Operation BARREL ROLL in support of Royal Laotian forces. The first attacks were on June 9 by U.S. Air Force North American F-100 Super Sabres against Communist antiaircraft artillery (AAA). Throughout its nine years, BARREL ROLL operated under a strange set of rules of engagement; all air assets were controlled by the U.S. ambassador in Vientiane. America’s three ambassadors during this time were, in succession, Leonard Unger, William H. Sullivan, and G. McMurtrie God-

ley. As head of the so-called Country Team (i.e., all the Americans in-country), they were responsible for directing all air operations in northern Laos. Although they did not develop the details, they did validate targets, usually with approval of the Laotian government. No target could be bombed without their permission. Attacks were often limited to specific areas to avoid hitting irregular units operating beyond the control of allied authorities. At the outset, the U.S. Air Force established Headquarters 2nd Air Division/Thirteenth Air Force at Udorn, Thailand, 45 miles from Vientiane to support the Royal Lao Air Force (RLAF). This command was headed by a major general who reported directly to the Thirteenth Air Force commander and the 2nd Air Division commander in Saigon as well as to the U.S. ambassadors in Thailand and Laos. This officer established actual directives for daily BARREL ROLL missions. The Udorn headquarters unit was redesignated Seventh Air Force/Thirteenth Air Force in April 1966 when the Seventh Air Force was established at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. The U.S. embassy in Vientiane also had an air staff that by the end of 1969 had grown to 125 personnel. There were also air operations centers in each of the five military regions of Laos. In turn, American-flown forward air controllers (FACs), known as “Ravens,” were also assigned to support Hmong units as well as Royal Laotian air and ground forces. Ravens flew Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs, Cessna U-17 Skywagons, and T-28Ds during their six-month tours of duty. They also employed Douglas C-47 Skytrains as airborne battlefield command and control centers. These tours were hazardous and unofficial, since the United States and Laos maintained the fiction of adhering to the 1962 Geneva Accords that forbade belligerent forces of any nation in Laos. Between 1965 and 1973 the war in Laos took on a regular pattern tied to the region’s weather. The makeup of the warring forces in Laos was almost exactly the opposite of those in Vietnam. In this case, the Communists had the regular army troops, tanks, and trucks, while the Hmongs, who did the vast majority of the fighting for the allies, operated most often as guerrilla or irregular units. Indeed, because Royal Lao Army (RLA) troops were generally poor fighters, U.S. interests increasingly depended on General Vang Pao’s youthful soldiers. However, attrition soon took its toll, and by the 1970s the United States was also depending on Thai volunteer forces. Given the relative size and firepower of Hmong and Communist forces (increasingly PAVN regulars), it was the Hmongs who used the monsoon season (April–August) to take to the offensive; the Pathet Lao and PAVN, needing open roads, used the dry season (September–March) to launch counterattacks. Even though Vang Pao’s forces were most often outnumbered and outgunned, with significant support from U.S. and RLAF airpower they not only held their own but often launched highly successful offensives deep into Communist territory. By August 1966 Hmong forces had pushed to within 45 miles of the North Vietnamese border, only to be countered by 14,000 PAVN regulars and 30,000 Pathet Lao. By April of the next year the Communist counteroffensive had overrun several key Royal

BARREL ROLL, Operation

97

Sorties Conducted and Ordnance Dropped by the U.S. Air Force as Part of Operation BARREL ROLL Phase 1: November 1968–July 1970

Phase 2: August 1970–March 1972

Phase 3: April 1972–February 1973

Total

Location

Sorties

Ordnance Dropped (tons)

Sorties

Ordnance Dropped (tons)

Sorties

Ordnance Dropped (tons)

Sorties

Ordnance Dropped (tons)

South Vietnam North Vietnam Cambodia Laos Total

239,952 867 9,266 241,741 491,826

1,044,024 1,559 21,384 902,223 1,969,190

38,767 1,702 25,065 140,217 205,751

203,941 4,989 76,856 688,935 974,721

80,921 44,431 5,479 19,338 150,169

541,062 230,588 45,305 108,089 925,044

359,640 47,000 39,810 401,296 847,746

1,789,027 237,136 143,545 1,699,247 3,868,955

Lao and Hmong villages and defensive positions including several Lima sites (LSs), mountaintop strong-point bases. By diverting significant numbers of aircraft from Operation ROLLING THUNDER in North Vietnam, intensive U.S. air strikes halted Communist advances and allowed Vang Pao’s forces to go on the offensive during the monsoon season of 1967. However, the dry season of late 1967 and early 1968 witnessed another counterattack led by PAVN regulars using Soviet tanks and Soviet AN-2 Colt aircraft to overrun several allied towns and bases, including the key LS85 position only 25 miles from Sam Neua and 180 miles west of Hanoi. LS85 had an important 700-foot runway and tactical air navigation system built by U.S. Air Force personnel in 1966. In late 1967 this system was augmented with an all-weather unit manned by 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. Not only did PAVN forces capture and destroy the site in March 1968, but they killed 7 of the U.S. airmen. The ebb and flow of events continued in 1968 and 1969. The Communists employed more and better Soviet tanks and artillery throughout. In spite of these additions, RLA and Hmong forces enjoyed their greatest victories in the summer of 1969. By September of that year, supported by hundreds of BARREL ROLL sorties, they had taken nearly all of the Plain of Jars, including Xieng Khouang. They captured enormous caches of ammunition, supplies, food, and fuel as well as 12 frontline tanks, 13 jeeps, and 30 trucks. Unfortunately for the allies, the Communist counteroffensive that began in December 1969 retook all the lost territory, including Xieng Khouang and most of the high ground surrounding the Plain of Jars. So significant was it that in February 1970 Ambassador Godley was forced to beg President Richard M. Nixon for Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes to save the situation. During February 17–18, 1970, B-52s flew 36 sorties and dropped 1,078 tons of bombs. During the first battle for Skyline Ridge, B-52s, supported by truck-killing night-raiding T-28Ds, AC47s, Fairchild AC-119 gunships, and Lockheed AC-130 Spectres, flew nearly 3,000 sorties. By March 18, 1970, Communist forces had been beaten back from Vang Pao’s base camp at Long Tieng. The next year the Communists repeated their successes during the second battle for Skyline Ridge, only to be pushed back again by determined Hmong defenders and 1,500 American air sorties. Between August and November 1972 a third PAVN offensive

pushed to within 16 miles of Long Tieng, only to be halted by massive B-52 and General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark strikes. On November 10, 1972, cease-fire talks began between the Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government of Souvanna Phouma. Anticipating a cease-fire, Communist forces used the negotiation period to mop up Royal Lao outposts on the Plain of Jars. On February 21, 1973, Washington signed the cease-fire agreement and all but abandoned its Laotian allies. While B-52 sorties were flown on February 23 followed by tactical aircraft sorties in April, because of potential cease-fire violations they were futile gestures. The last BARREL ROLL sortie was flown on April 17, 1973. Before the end of the war, allied aircraft had dropped more than 3 million tons of bombs on Laos, three times the tonnage dropped on North Vietnam. Of this number, 500,000 tons were dropped in northern Laos. From 1965 to 1968, allied aircraft flew fewer than 100 sorties per day on average over northern Laos. In 1969 this number jumped to approximately 300, but in 1970 it fell back to 200 and from 1971 to 1973 returned to pre-1969 levels. As with other Laotian air operations such as STEEL TIGER and TIGER HOUND, the numbers and performance were impressive but in the end proved fruitless. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Airpower, Role in War; Geneva Accords of 1962; Godley, George McMurtrie; Hmongs; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Laos; Lima Site 85; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Plain of Jars; Raven Forward Air Controllers; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Souvanna Phouma; STEEL TIGER, Operation; Sullivan, William Healy; TIGER HOUND, Operation; Vang Pao; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Morrocco, John, et al., eds. Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1988. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

98

Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul

Ba Trieu See Trieu Au

Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul Birth Date: January 26, 1857 Death Date: February 14, 1927 French government administrator, diplomat, and governorgeneral of French Indochina (1902–1908). Jean-Baptiste Paul Beau (usually known as Paul Beau) was born in Bordeaux on January 26, 1857. He entered the French diplomatic service in 1882. Ten years later he was head of the Bureau of Personnel in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1894 he was an aide to Foreign Minister Gabriel Hanotaux. Two years later Beau was chief of staff to French premier Léon Bourgeois. Beau then performed the same functions for Foreign Minister Theophile Delcassé. In 1901 Delcassé sent Beau to Beijing to negotiate peace with China following the Boxer Rebellion. In June 1902 Premier Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau appointed Beau governor-general of French Indochina, succeeding Paul Doumer; Beau took up his duties that October. In contrast to his predecessor, Beau fostered assimilation. Although his administration paid lip service to the principle of association, Beau pursued a whole range of assimilationist policies. He believed that France had the duty to bring about material change and also to reform Vietnamese customs and institutions. Handicapped by financial constraints (the good harvests of the Doumer years gave way to three bad harvests in a row under Beau), he was able to reform only those areas that involved little capital outlay. Beau reorganized the administrative system. In the first serious attempts at a form of representative government, he created provincial councils and advisory chambers at the regional level in Annam and Tonkin. These had both fiscal and administrative responsibilities. Beau was heavily involved in educational reform, although it should be pointed out that through World War I Franco-Vietnamese education was limited to the largest cities. In 1906 Beau created a public educational system based on three levels: primary, secondary, and university. Primary education was based on the vernacular. Because the government considered education in Chinese characters a barrier to modernization, it provided textbooks in the Vietnamese romanized writing form of quoc ngu (“national language”). Chinese and French studies were added at the higher levels, and courses in such modern subjects as mathematics and science were increased. These subjects were also added to the civil service examinations. At the highest level, Beau created a university at Hanoi composed of colleges of literature, law, and natural science. It should be borne in mind, however, that these reforms by no means made for universal education in Vietnam. Even after World War I, only some 10 percent of Vietnamese of school age were attending Franco-Vietnamese schools.

Beau also greatly improved the quality of local medical care and worked to reduce the opium trade. He also ended certain corporal punishments. In addition, he was instrumental in railroad construction, made Saigon very much a European city, and negotiated with Siam (present-day Thailand) the 1907 demarcation of the borders between that country and Cambodia that saw the retrocession of the provinces of Angkor and Battambang to Cambodia. Beau’s hopes that his reforms would make the Vietnamese more grateful to France proved fleeting. Many French in Vietnam considered the reforms dangerously radical, while Vietnamese patriots, such as Phan Chu Trinh, considered them totally insufficient. With the example of an Asian nation defeating a European power in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and resentment to heavy taxes resulting from poor harvests during the Beau years, the French administration found itself having to deal with rising Vietnamese nationalism. Beau forfeited what confidence he had gained from the Vietnamese by ordering the 1907 exile of Emperor Thanh Thai after the latter had demanded political reforms. The necessity of maintaining order co-opted Beau’s policy of cooperation. In 1908 Beau published a multivolume account of his tenure in Indochina. Recalled to France in February of that year, he became minister plenipotentiary to Belgium. Three years later he was ambassador to Switzerland, where he performed important service for France during World War I. After the war he served on the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. Beau died in Paris on February 14, 1927. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Annam; Assimilation versus Association; Doumer, Paul; Franco-Thai War; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Phan Chu Trinh; Quoc Ngu; Thanh Thai; Tonkin References Beau, Paul. Situation de L’Indo-Chine de 1902 à 1907. 2 vols. Saigon: Imprimerie Commerciale Marcellin Rey, 1908. Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Prevost, M., and Roman D. Amat, eds. Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, Vol. 5. Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1951. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968.

Beckwith, Charles Alvin Birth Date: January 22, 1929 Death Date: June 13, 1994 U.S. Army officer and U.S. Army Special Forces leader. Charles Alvin Beckwith was born on January 22, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. In high school he was an outstanding all-state football player, and he went on to play football at the University of Georgia. Beckwith

Beckwith, Charles Alvin

99

U.S. Army Special Forces colonel Charles Beckwith, who is largely credited with the creation of Delta Force and who led the unsuccessful attempt to rescue the Americans held hostage in Iran, at the White House ceremony for the released hostages on January 27, 1981. (AP/Wide World Photos)

also participated in the university’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program and upon graduation in 1952 was commissioned a second lieutenant. In the mid-1950s Beckwith was assigned to the elite 82nd Airborne Division, where he was a support company commander of the 504th Infantry Regiment. In 1957 he joined the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets), an unconventional warfare branch that became a high priority of the John F. Kennedy administration. Beckwith went to Southeast Asia in 1960 and served as military adviser in Laos and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). This was followed by a tour as an exchange officer in Great Britain with that nation’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) during 1962–1963. Beckwith was impressed by both the antiterrorism focus of the SAS and the expertise and effectiveness of the unit. Beckwith returned to Vietnam to command a Special Forces unit dubbed Project Delta, a 250-man force. In 1966 he was seriously wounded in combat while flying in a helicopter. Medical personnel initially estimated the wound to his abdomen, caused by a large 50-caliber bullet, as fatal and his condition as hopeless. Nevertheless, he recovered fully from the wound, a result credited to his iron will and superb physical condition. After his service in Vietnam, Beckwith assumed command of the Florida component of the rigorous U.S. Army Ranger School. In this assignment he is credited with reforming the school to ad-

dress unconventional Vietnam War–style challenges and environments. The program previously had been based on the U.S. Army’s lessons from conventional military conflicts, in particular World War II. Beckwith’s work with the rangers made it a unit that was well prepared to deal with both regular and irregular warfare. Beckwith, promoted to colonel in 1976, played a principal role in the formation of Delta Force, formally known as the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta. This elite fighting unit, formally established in 1977, was in part inspired by and based generally on the British SAS antiterrorism unit. Beckwith had repeatedly sought to create an American version of the SAS, and his superiors finally gave in to his urgings in 1974. The unit focuses on countering terrorists, including hostage rescues, specialized reconnaissance, and other particularly demanding and irregular warfare missions. Beckwith became generally well known to the public as the commander of the unsuccessful Operation EAGLE CLAW in April 1980, which involved a special interservice military task force to rescue the American embassy hostages being held in Tehran, Iran. The embassy had been overrun and occupied on November 4, 1979, and American diplomatic personnel were taken captive at that time and held for 444 days. The complex rescue effort involved a dangerous night flight across Iran by RH-53D helicopters and a rendezvous in a remote desert location in Iran with C-130 aircraft. Three of the eight

100

Ben Suc

helicopters on the mission experienced mechanical problems en route, leaving one ship less than the minimum required for success. Beckwith himself took the decision on April 25, 1979, to terminate the mission at the rendezvous site. A collision in the dark between a helicopter and an aircraft killed three marines and five airmen and seriously injured eight others. The incident ended Beckwith’s military career, and he retired in 1981 at the rank of colonel. His book Delta Force, published in 1983, blamed the failure of the mission on the marines piloting the helicopters and the helicopters themselves, which he argued were not designed for operation in adverse conditions such as the ones found in the Iranian desert. Beckwith’s principal legacy is his devotion to the development of unconventional warfare skills and techniques, primarily through the Special Forces and Delta Force. After leaving the service he formed his own security company, Security Assistance Services, in Austin, Texas, where he died suddenly on June 13, 1994. ARTHUR I. CYR See also Project Delta; United States Special Forces References Beckwith, Charlie A., and Donald Knox. Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit. New York: Avon Books/HarperCollins, 2000. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Ben Suc Vietnamese village along the Saigon River at the southwestern boundary of the Iron Triangle and site of the blocking position in Operation CEDAR FALLS (January 8–26, 1967). Operation CEDAR FALLS, the first corps-sized search-and-destroy operation of the war, was a hammer-and-anvil attack directed against the Iron Triangle and headquarters of Viet Cong (VC) Military Region IV. The anvil, or blocking position, was along the Saigon River at the southwestern boundary of the Iron Triangle. Ben Suc and three nearby villages housed a VC base responsible for moving supplies by sampan along the river. At 8:00 a.m. on January 8 without preparatory artillery fire, 60 transport helicopters protected by 10 armed helicopters lifted 500 men of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division directly into Ben Suc itself. The assault achieved tactical surprise. Artillery fire was then directed north of the village to prevent escape by that route and at 8:30 a.m. men from the 2nd Brigade were airlifted south of the village to block escape in that direction. There were no U.S. casualties, and by midmorning the village was secured. An Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) battalion that had been driven out of the area by the VC months earlier then returned to conduct a methodical search of Ben Suc. The village itself was destroyed. Bulldozers knocked down buildings, scrub trees, and brush. Acetylene gas, explosives, and, later,

Vietnamese forced to leave their homes at Ben Suc on the Saigon River in the Iron Triangle area near Saigon during Operation CEDAR FALLS on January 11, 1967. U.S. forces surrounded the Viet Cong–controlled area and evacuated its population to a refugee center north of Saigon. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Ben Tre, Battle of bombs were used to collapse VC tunnels beneath the village. Nearly 6,000 villagers (some 3,500 of them from Ben Suc), two-thirds of them children, were removed to a resettlement camp at Phu Loi. By January 26 engineers had cleared some 2,711 acres of jungle. For the most part, VC forces avoided battle and escaped. For all of CEDAR FALLS, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), reported 750 VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) killed, 280 captured, and 540 defectors. Allied losses came to 83 killed and 345 wounded. Although a setback for the VC, the operation was hardly what Major General William DePuy, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, characterized as a “turning point . . . and a blow from which the VC in this area may never recover.” Indeed, Communist forces soon returned there. For the villagers, relocation was a nightmare. They were allowed only such personal possessions as they could carry, and for security reasons no advance preparations had been made to receive them at Phu Loi. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Iron Triangle; Search and Destroy

References Rogers, Bernard W. Cedar Falls Junction City: A Turning Point. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Schnell, Jonathan. The Village of Ben Suc. New York: Knopf, 1967.

101

Ben Tre, Battle of Start Date: January 31, 1968 End Date: February 2, 1968 A fierce battle raged for control of Ben Tre in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the 1968 Communist Tet Offensive. Ben Tre, with a population of 18,000 people, was the capital of Ben Tre Province, located less than 50 miles south of Saigon in the northeastern region of the Mekong Delta. The area around the town is covered with rice paddies and coconut groves. During the month prior to Tet, tension remained high in the province as intelligence reports indicated Viet Cong (VC) units moving into staging areas prior to the launching of ground attacks. VC units numbering some 2,500 men began to infiltrate Ben Tre during the night of January 30–31, 1968. Gunfire broke out at 4:00 a.m., followed by a mortar barrage and small-arms fire that lashed the downtown South Vietnamese administrative bunker complex. After fierce fighting, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces secured the vicinity of the provincial hospital and reinforced troops at the beleaguered local radio station. Beginning in the afternoon and continuing through the next morning, two battalions of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division were deployed by air to prevent the town from being overrun.

The central market hall of the provincial capital of Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam and much of the city lie in ruins as a result of fighting during the Tet Offensive in early 1968. Some 1,000 civilians died at Ben Tre. (AP/Wide World Photos)

102

Berger, Samuel David

Until fighting subsided on February 2, allied infantry supported by air strikes successfully battled to clear the VC from the urban area. During the fighting nearly 1,000 civilians were killed, more than 50 percent of the town’s houses were destroyed, and many of the remaining 2,000 structures were badly damaged. Allied military casualties around Ben Tre numbered 101 killed and 242 wounded; VC casualties came to approximately 300. The most notable quote to emerge from the Tet Offensive resulted when a U.S. Army briefing officer reportedly attempted to explain the widescale destruction in Ben Tre by saying that “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” GLENN E. HELM

Vietnamese Army) was “developing a healthy professional quality.” Berger remained a “hopeful pessimist.” In February 1971 he wrote that the operations in Laos and Cambodia were accomplishing what had been hoped for. After he had finished his four-year tour, he optimistically wrote that “I do not believe that they [the Communists] will succeed.” In 1973 Berger received an appreciative letter from President Nixon thanking him for serving “America with such dedication” and helping to “achieve the honorable peace we fought for.” Berger died on February 12, 1980, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. PAUL S. DAUM AND B. J. ROGERS

See also Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle

See also Bundy, William Putnam; Harriman, William Averell; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Vietnamization

References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Pham Van Son and Le Van Duong, eds. The Viet Cong Tet Offensive. Saigon: Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, 1969.

References Berger, Graenum. Not So Silent an Envoy: A Biography of Ambassador Samuel David Berger. New Rochelle, NY: John Washburn Bleeker Hampton, 1992. Dougan, Clark, and Stephen Weiss. Nineteen Sixty-Eight. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1983.

Berrigan, Daniel Berger, Samuel David Birth Date: December 4, 1911 Death Date: February 12, 1980 U.S. career diplomat and deputy ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1968–1972. Born in Gloversville, New York, on December 4, 1911, Samuel David Berger attended the University of Wisconsin and the London School of Economics. He then served with the U.S. Army in World War II and subsequently joined the U.S. State Department. Following assignments in both Europe and Washington, Berger went to Japan during 1953–1954. Vice President Richard M. Nixon, after visiting Japan, insisted on Berger’s removal for underestimating Japan’s internal Communist threat. Some think that Berger’s ties with W. Averell Harriman and the Democrats were a more likely reason. After a benevolent exile in New Zealand (1954–1958) and a tour in Greece (1958–1961), Berger served as ambassador to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) from 1961 to 1964. The following year he became deputy to Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs William Bundy, who was then devoting most of his energies to Vietnam. From 1968 to 1972 Berger served as deputy ambassador to South Vietnam, where he supported President Nguyen Van Thieu as the best means of establishing a stable South Vietnamese government. In 1970 Berger thought that Vietnamization was working and that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South

Birth Date: May 9, 1921 Roman Catholic priest, prominent antiwar and peace activist, poet, and writer. Born on May 9, 1921, in Virginia, Minnesota, Daniel Berrigan is the brother of the late antiwar activist Philip Berrigan. Interested in the Jesuit order at an early age, Daniel Berrigan entered training for the priesthood in 1939 directly out of high school and was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1952. He received a BA degree from St. Andrew-on-Hudson in 1946 and an MA degree from Woodstock College, Baltimore, in 1952, the same year he was ordained. He spent the next year in France as part of his religious training. Influenced by French worker-priests, Berrigan returned to the United States a social activist. This found expression at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he taught from 1957 to 1963. One of Berrigan’s students later became the first convicted draft card burner in the United States. Berrigan’s opposition to American involvement in Vietnam was evident as early as 1964, when he helped found the Catholic Peace Fellowship. In 1968 he witnessed firsthand the effects of the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) when he traveled to Hanoi and secured the release of three captured American pilots. On May 17, 1968, Berrigan joined his brother Philip and seven other Catholic activists who used napalm to burn draft cards from the draft office in Catonsville, Maryland. Sentenced to three years in prison for this action, Daniel Berrigan went underground for several months before being apprehended in August 1970. Poor

Berrigan, Daniel

103

Reverend Daniel Berrigan speaks at a news conference in New York City on March 11, 1966. Berrigan and his brother Philip, also a Catholic priest, were outspoken critics of the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

health led to his parole on January 26, 1972. Later he became prominent in the antinuclear movement. In 1980 along with his brother Philip and several other peace activists, Berrigan founded the Plowshares Movement. To inaugurate the movement, on September 9, 1980, the Berrigan brothers and six accomplices broke into a General Electric nuclear-missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they carried out some damage and poured blood on company documents before being apprehended. They were tried and convicted of numerous crimes. Berrigan now resides in New York City, where he continues to write and involve himself in activist movements, including women’s rights, the pro-life movement, and the abolition of capi-

tal punishment. He is also active in volunteer work, counseling AIDS and cancer patients. Berrigan actively protested against and criticized the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War (2001–), and the Iraq War (2003–2010). A prolific author, he has published more than a dozen books. JAMES E. SOUTHERLAND See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Berrigan, Philip; Catonsville Nine References Berrigan, Daniel. No Bars to Manhood. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970. Cargas, Harry. “Daniel Berrigan: The Activist as Poet.” Laurel Review 9 (1969): 11–17.

104

Berrigan, Philip

Polner, Murray, and Jim O’Grady. Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Brothers in Religious Faith and Civil Disobedience. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Zinn, Howard. The Twentieth Century: A People’s History. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

Berrigan, Philip Birth Date: October 5, 1923 Death Date: December 6, 2002 Prominent antiwar activist, former Roman Catholic priest, and younger brother of peace activist Father Daniel Berrigan. Born on October 5, 1923, in Two Harbors, Minnesota, Philip Berrigan was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 while studying at St. Michael’s College in Toronto. He served in the artillery and infantry in the European theater during World War II. In 1950 he earned a BA degree in English from the College of the Holy Cross. He later earned a BS degree in secondary education from Loyola University of the South and in 1961 received an MS degree from Xavier University. In 1955 Berrigan was ordained a Josephite priest. His first assignment after ordination was to teach at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. His activities in the Civil Rights Movement there led his superiors to transfer him to a seminary in Newburgh, New York, where in 1964 he founded the Emergency Citizens’ Group concerned about Vietnam and helped found the Catholic Peace Fellowship. On October 27, 1967, Berrigan and three others poured blood onto draft records at the Selective Service Office in Baltimore. Brought to trial, he became the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States to be sentenced to prison for a political crime. Before his sentencing, on May 17, 1968, he participated in burning draft files in Catonsville, Maryland, along with his brother, for which he was sentenced to federal prison for three and a half years for conspiracy and destruction of private property, to be served concurrently with his earlier six-year sentence from the Baltimore protest. While in prison, Berrigan was unsuccessfully prosecuted for conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up the heating systems of federal buildings in Washington, D.C. Berrigan was paroled in December 1972 and left the priesthood in 1973. He thereafter married. In September 1980 Berrigan and his brother Daniel created the Plowshares Movement, a peace association whose major goal was the eradication of nuclear weapons. To inaugurate the movement, on September 9, 1980, the Berrigan brothers and six accomplices broke into a General Electric nuclear-missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they managed to carry out some damage and pour blood on company documents before being apprehended. They were tried and convicted of numerous crimes. Philip Berrigan nevertheless continued his peace and social activism and operated Jonah House in Baltimore, Maryland, which

is involved in antiwar activities and in feeding the hungry. He also wrote several books. He died in Baltimore on December 6, 2002, following a battle with cancer. JAMES E. SOUTHERLAND See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Baltimore Four; Berrigan, Daniel; Catonsville Nine; Kissinger, Henry Alfred References Berrigan Philip, and Fred A. Wilcox. Fighting the Lamb’s War: Skirmishes with the American Empire. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2002. Meconis, Charles. With Clumsy Grace: The American Catholic Left, 1961–1975. New York: Continuum, 1979. Polner, Murray, and Jim O’Grady. Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Brothers in Religious Faith and Civil Disobedience. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984. Zinn, Howard. The Twentieth Century: A People’s History. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

Bidault, Georges Birth Date: October 5, 1899 Death Date: January 26, 1983 French politician, Resistance leader, premier (1946, 1949–1950), and foreign minister (1944–1948, 1953–1954). Georges Bidault was born on October 5, 1899, in Moulins (Allier Department), France. As a student he was active in one of the Catholic Action movements. A history teacher by training at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), in 1938 he published a series of articles condemning the Munich Agreement. During World War II Bidault was cofounder of the Combat Resistance organization. After the 1943 arrest and execution of Jean Moulin, Bidault was elected president of the National Resistance Council, which coordinated Resistance activities in occupied France. Bidault was foreign minister in the provisional government, a post he held from 1944 to 1948 and again from 1953 to 1954. He was twice premier, from July to December 1946 and from October 1949 to June 1950. Bidault was a cofounder of the Christian Democrat Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP, Popular Republic Movement) that became, along with the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, one of the three large political parties in immediate postwar France. Bidault was closely associated with the formation of the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Coal and Steel and European Defense Communities, but he feared a resurgent Germany. In colonial matters Bidault was a staunch defender of the French Empire. He was premier on November 23, 1946, when the French cruiser Suffren bombarded the port of Haiphong. Bidault had approved French high commissioner in Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu’s request to “teach the Vietnamese

Bien Hoa Air Base

105

Bidault, Georges. Resistance: The Political Biography of Georges Bidault. Translated by M. Sinclair. New York: Praeger, 1967. Callot, E.-F. Le M.R.P., Origine, structure, doctrine, programme et action politique. Paris: M. Rivière, 1978. Irving, R. E. M. Christian Democracy in France. London: Allen and Unwin, 1973.

Bien Hoa Air Base

French politician Georges Bidault was a leader in the Resistance during World War II and cofounder of the Christian Democrat Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP, Popular Republic Movement) afterward. Bidault was premier of France at the start of the Indochina War in 1946. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

a lesson,” which resulted in the bombardment. In fairness to Bidault, he probably did not believe that such action was imminent. He left office the next month. Bidault supported General Charles de Gaulle’s return to power in May 1958 but broke with the general over his Algerian policies. Bidault then formed the new National Resistance Council and expressed unequivocal support for Algerie française (the retention of Algeria as a part of France) and the activities of the terrorist Secret Army Organization. Threatened with arrest, in 1962 Bidault went into exile and did not return to France until 1968. He was in poor health during much of his later years and reportedly had a drinking problem. Bidault died at Cambo-les-Bains in the PyrénéesAtlantiques Department on January 26, 1983. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Haiphong, Shelling of References Bell, David S., Douglas Johnson, and Peter Morris, eds. Biographical Dictionary of French Political Leaders since 1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Major U.S. air base in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. Bien Hoa’s importance to U.S. military operations, especially in the form of close air support, rendered it a frequent target for Viet Cong (VC) attacks. Located about 20 miles north of Saigon, the air base is adjacent to the major city of Bien Hoa in Dong Nai Province. In 1964 the air base was the scene of the first major VC operations against U.S. forces. Beginning in August 1964, the airfield supported a squadron of Martin B-57 Canberra bombers deployed for training South Vietnamese pilots. In October insurgents infiltrated surrounding communities in preparation for a mortar assault on the base. The ensuing raid killed 4 Americans and wounded 72 others while destroying six bombers before the guerrillas disappeared unscathed. With the U.S. elections just four days away, President Lyndon B. Johnson refrained from ordering retaliation. Nevertheless, the Communist attack on Bien Hoa played a key role in high-level deliberations to escalate the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam well beyond that necessary for an advisory effort. With two 10,000-foot runways, Bien Hoa housed a wide range of military aircraft during its years of operation, including Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter and North American F-100 Super Sabre fighters, Douglas A-26 Invader and Cessna A-37 Dragonfly attack aircraft, Douglas C-47 Skytrain transports, Douglas B-26 Invader bombers, North American T-28 Trojan trainers, and Boeing CH-47 Chinook and Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters. At its peak capacity in 1969, the base housed 815 officers and more than 8,000 enlisted personnel. By 1968 Bien Hoa was busy providing air support for the III Corps Tactical Zone and the IV Corps Tactical Zone. On January 30, 1968, during the Tet Offensive, Communist forces stormed the air strip and the city of Bien Hoa. The VC overran several of the airfield’s eastern bunkers. Roughly 300 U.S. Air Force security personnel and 100 rear-echelon troops struggled to halt the assault until they could be reinforced. Only Bunker Hill 10, a holdover from the French occupation, lay between the VC and F-100 fighter jets, among other valuable aircraft. With Bien Hoa’s 10-mile perimeter breached, it became impossible to launch jets safely from the air base. Almost reaching the hangars, the guerrillas were engaged by helicopter gunships and the makeshift ground forces. Captain Reginald Maisey Jr. was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross and the Purple Heart for rallying the beleaguered defenders at Bunker Hill 10.

106

Binh Gia, Battle of

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) rangers board U.S. Army helicopters at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon to be airlifted into Viet Cong–controlled mountains, July 31, 1965. (AP/Wide World Photos)

But success rested on the arrival of part of the U.S. Army’s 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Coping with ambushes and the detonation of a key bridge, these troops joined with reinforcements from the 101st Airborne Division to reclaim control of Bien Hoa. By February 1 the battle had concluded, with perhaps more than 200 Communist personnel killed. Although the political impact of the Tet Offensive greatly intensified the controversy surrounding the Vietnam War, the successful U.S. defense of Bien Hoa contributed significantly to the military success of U.S. forces during the Communist offensive. By the time of the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1973, the base had been responsible for more than 360,000 sorties by U.S., Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force), and Australian Air Force aircraft. Bien Hoa Air Base was also a major terminal for chartered commercial aircraft bringing troops into and back from South Vietnam during the war. On April 14, 1975, during the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 130-millimeter heavy guns shelled Bien Hoa for the first time in the war, and the next day Communist sappers blew up its ammunition dump. On April 16 PAVN gunners damaged 20 aircraft on the ground,

effectively ending close air support for beleaguered Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese) troops. JEFFREY D. BASS See also Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Fox, Roger. Air Base Defense in the Republic of Vietnam, 1961–1973. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Vick, Alan. Snakes in the Eagle’s Nest: A History of Ground Attacks on Air Bases. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1995.

Binh Gia, Battle of Start Date: December 28, 1964 End Date: January 1, 1965 Binh Gia was a village some 40 miles southeast of Saigon in coastal Phuoc Tuy Province (now part of Ba Ria–Vung Tau Province) in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Most of Binh

Binh Gia, Battle of

107

The sun breaks through the dense jungle foliage around the embattled town of Binh Gia, 40 miles southeast of Saigon, in early January 1965. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers, joined by U.S. advisers, rest after a cold, damp, and tense night of waiting in an ambush position. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Gia’s 1964 population of 6,000 people were Catholics who had been resettled there from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) after 1954. In late 1964 the 271st and 272nd regiments of the Viet Cong (VC) 9th Division moved in small groups from War Zone C and War Zone D to the coast to receive supplies sent by sea from North Vietnam. They then regrouped to train in rubber plantations surrounding Binh Gia. Early on the morning of December 28, 1964, a battalion of the 9th Division attacked Binh Gia, which was defended by two platoons of South Vietnamese regional forces. Never before in the war had VC troops attacked in such a large number. After their successful attack, the Communists were reinforced. The South Vietnamese regional forces were also reinforced, for Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Military Region III headquarters dispatched there the 30th Ranger Battalion by helicopter. The VC laid an ambush and attacked the Rangers in the landing zone. Surviving Rangers sought refuge in the village church. The next day the 33rd Ranger Battalion was also lifted by helicopter to a point south of Binh Gia and counterattacked toward it. The fight lasted all day, but the Rangers could not clear the VC from their dug-in positions. On the morning of December 30

the South Vietnamese 4th Marine Battalion was also sent into the battle; the VC had already moved to the northeast, and the marines were able to retake the village. At night the VC returned and attacked but were pushed back. On December 31 the 4th Marine Battalion was ordered to retrieve a downed helicopter and its crew on the Quang Giao rubber plantation about 2.5 miles from Binh Gia. In trying to reach the helicopter, the 2nd Company of the marines fell into a VC ambush. The remainder of the battalion then arrived but took heavy casualties and was forced to retreat to Binh Gia. On January 1, 1965, the 1st and 3rd Airborne battalions were airlifted to the eastern side of the battlefield, but the Communists had already left. On January 4, 1965, the VC held a press conference, with reporters Wilfred Burchett (Australian) and M. Riffaud (French) in attendance. The VC announced that during the Battle of Binh Gia they had killed 2,000 ARVN and 28 American troops and destroyed 37 military vehicles and 24 airplanes. Actual casualties were some 200 killed, including 5 U.S. advisers. The 4th Marine Battalion was especially hard hit. It had 112 men killed and 71 wounded, including its commander, Major Nguyen Van Nho, and 29 of its 35 officers. Probably 250 VC died in the battle.

108

BINH TAY I–IV, Operations

Seven battalions of elite ARVN units fought in the Battle of Binh Gia, which served as a warning to South Vietnam and the United States that well-trained VC forces supplied with modern weapons were capable of fighting large battles. The battle also signaled a mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare in the Vietnam War. HIEU DINH VU See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps References Maitland, Terrence, and Peter McInerney. A Contagion of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Nguyen, Duc Phuong. Nhung tran danh lich su trong chien tranh Viet Nam 1963–1975. Glendale, CA: Dai Nam, 1993. Pham, Kim Vinh. The ARVN, a Stoic Army: How They Victimized the Army of Free Vietnam. Orange County, CA: Pham Kim Vinh, 1983.

BINH TAY I–IV,

Operations

Start Date: May 4, 1970 End Date: June 27, 1970 The northernmost operations of the 1970 Cambodian Incursion that occurred during May 4–June 27, 1970. Binh Tay means “Taming the West.” While the principal allied thrusts were in the Fishhook and Parrot’s Beak areas abutting III and IV Corps (Operations TOAN THANG 43 and 44), Operation BINH TAY was a fourstage primarily Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) operation directed at logistical support complexes of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) B-3 front in northeastern Cambodia. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division and the 40th Regiment of the ARVN 22nd Division initiated BINH TAY I on May 4, 1970, although the American participation was poorly executed and relatively brief. In fairness, Major General Glen D. Walker’s 4th Infantry Division was overextended. It had only recently relocated to Binh Dinh Province and turned over the western Central Highlands to the ARVN 22nd Division. Having no forward installations and only limited logistical support, Walker planned to place artillery at the Plei D’Jereng Special Forces Camp. A convoy of 4th Infantry Division mechanized infantry and the 40th Regiment, ARVN 22nd Division, moved down Highway 19, reaching Plei D’Jereng on May 4. This occurred before the artillery arrived and before Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo planes could supply sufficient helicopter fuel. Despite bombing in the form of six Boeing B-52 Stratofortress sorties, the U.S. 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry (3-506 Infantry), encountered heavy machine-gun fire while attempting to land at densely vegetated landing zones (LZs), and the insertions were aborted. By late the following day, the 3-506 Infantry and the 1st

Battalion, 14th Infantry (1-14 Infantry), were on the ground but were under heavy fire and at the cost of several helicopters down. Joined by the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry (2-8 Infantry), on May 6, during the next few days 1st Brigade troops discovered an abandoned PAVN training camp, complete with a 30-bed hospital and large amounts of supplies. As his battalions took significant casualties without making substantial contact with PAVN units, Walker decided to turn the operation over to the ARVN. All 4th Infantry Division units had left Cambodia by May 16. Supported by U.S. air and artillery from inside the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the ARVN 22nd and 23rd divisions, 2nd Ranger Group, and 2nd Armored Brigade moved into Ratankiri Province. When BINH TAY I terminated on May 25, allied forces claimed 212 PAVN dead. They had also seized 20 crew-served and 859 individual weapons and had destroyed 500 tons of rice and more than 2,000 huts. Allied casualties were 43 killed and 118 wounded. Captured documents revealed that the PAVN B-3 front had anticipated the allied incursion and had orders to avoid direct contact as much as possible. BINH TAY II began on May 14 along the border with Darlac Province in Vietnam and was directed at Enemy Base Area 701, from which three known PAVN regiments had operated. Following air strikes, U.S. helicopters inserted the 40th and 47th regiments of the ARVN 22nd Division, while the 3rd Armored Cavalry Squadron drove across the border. The ARVN troops discovered caches of hundreds of weapons and tons of ammunition and medical supplies. Contact was made only with PAVN security forces. When BINH TAY II ended on May 27, the ARVN claimed to have killed 73 PAVN soldiers and captured 6 at the cost of only 1 killed and 4 wounded. BINH TAY III was conducted by the ARVN 23rd Division in three phases from May 20 to June 12. Its objective was Enemy Base Area 740, located in Cambodia west of Ban Me Thuot. In the first phase, supported by U.S. artillery and gunships, 23rd Division troops were inserted into the area to search for the PAVN 33rd Regiment and 251st Transportation Battalion. The most dramatic event was the destruction of a 10-truck convoy by U.S. gunships and ARVN infantry. ARVN forces killed 98 PAVN troops while suffering 29 killed and 77 wounded. During the second and third phases, conducted in the Nam Lyr Mountains area, tactical air and gunship attacks inflicted heavy casualties on company-sized PAVN units on the move. Together, Operations BINH TAY I–III accounted for 434 PAVN troops killed, 1,900 weapons captured, and more than 1,000 tons of rice destroyed. A final unplanned operation, called BINH TAY IV, took place during June 23–27. An ARVN 22nd Division task force of military and civilian vehicles, protected by U.S. artillery and air cavalry, moved deep into Cambodia along Highway 19 to reach a Khmer army garrison and hundreds of refugees threatened by PAVN forces at Labang Siek. On June 25 the ARVN forces transported the Khmers east to Ba Kev, from where U.S. helicopters flew them to Duc Co in

Bird & Sons Pleiku Province. Several hundred more refugees who arrived in Ba Kev by foot were transported to Duc Co in ARVN vehicles. BINH TAY IV ended on June 27, with 6 PAVN killed and 2 ARVN killed and 8 wounded. By then, all ARVN II Corps troops had left Cambodia, and a total of 7,571 Khmer soldiers, dependents, and refugees had been evacuated to Camp Enari at Pleiku. JOHN D. ROOT

109

See also Le Van Vien; Ngo Dinh Diem References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamization References Nolan, Keith William. Into Cambodia: Spring Campaign, Summer Offensive, 1970. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990. Shaw, John M. The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and America’s Vietnam War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Tran Dinh Tho. The Cambodian Incursion. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979.

Binh Xuyen Bandit organization that operated along the Saigon River area beginning in the 1920s. A loosely knit confederation of pirate gangs, they numbered perhaps 200–300 men and were involved in such activities as piracy and kidnappings. Under the leadership of Bay Vien (real name Le Van Vien), the Binh Xuyen became a political force after World War II. Headquartered in the Cholon District of Saigon, Binh Xuyen entered an alliance with the Viet Minh, and Binh Xuyen mercenaries participated in the massacre in Saigon on September 15, 1945, of some 150 French and Eurasian civilians, most of whom were women and children. In 1947 the Binh Xuyen switched loyalties. Recognized as a legal sect by the French and the Bao Dai regime, the Binh Xuyen offered monetary, military, and political support to the government in exchange for governmental protection of Binh Xuyen’s illegal activities. Bay Vien soon gained total control of the region’s gambling, prostitution, money laundering, and opium trafficking. By the early 1950s he controlled a private army that numbered 40,000 soldiers. In 1955 Ngo Dinh Diem gained control of southern Vietnam and immediately launched a crackdown on his political and religious opposition. Binh Xuyen posed a major obstacle. On April 27, 1955, Bay Vien refused Diem’s order to move his army out of Saigon. Diem ordered an attack on Binh Xuyen, which brought a bloody battle in the streets of Saigon that left 500 dead and 25,000 homeless. Vicious fighting followed, but within a month Diem’s forces had scattered the Binh Xuyen army, and Bay Vien escaped to France, taking most of his personal fortune with him. Some survivors joined the Viet Cong (VC), but Binh Xuyen thereafter ceased to exist as an organized entity. DAVID COFFEY

Bird & Sons An air carrier that operated in Southeast Asia for the U.S. government between 1960 and 1965 and from 1970 to 1975. Bird & Sons (Birdair) was owned by William H. Bird, a construction contractor who had been based in the Philippines following World War II. In 1959 he received a contract to construct an all-weather runway at Wattay Airport in Vientiane, Laos. The following year he acquired a Twin Beechcraft and began an air division of his company. Bird & Sons grew in response to the expanding American role in Laos. By 1965 the company was operating 22 aircraft and had 350 employees. It flew primarily short takeoff and landing (STOL) airplanes into tiny airstrips throughout Laos under contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Bird & Sons had the distinction of introducing to Southeast Asia the Swiss-manufactured Pilatus Porter, the most capable STOL aircraft used during the war. Bird & Sons also flew clandestine missions for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). CIA operations personnel valued the flexibility offered by Bird & Sons, which often could respond more promptly to urgent requests than the CIA’s own proprietary airline, Air America, a much larger and more bureaucratic organization. In addition, the CIA admired the piloting skill and personal discretion of Robert L. Brongersma, Bird & Sons’ operation manager, who flew many of the most sensitive covert missions. In September 1965 Bird sold his air division to Continental Airlines for $4.2 million. The agreement included a five-year nocompetition restriction. In 1970 after the restriction lapsed, Bird returned to air transport operations. His new company, Birdair, flew helicopters in northern Thailand and Laos, mainly for the USAID medical program, until 1975. WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Air America; Central Intelligence Agency; Laos; United States Agency for International Development References Leary, William M. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984. Parker, James E., Jr. Covert Ops: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos. New York: St Martin’s, 1997. Seagrave, Sterling. Soldiers of Fortune. Alexandria, VA: Time Life Books, 1981.

110

Black Flags

Black Flags Following the great Taiping Rebellion in China (1850–1864), many Chinese armed bands sought refuge in Tonkin (present-day northern Vietnam). They were known as the White Flags, the Yellow Flags, and the Black Flags for the colors flown by each section and officer. The French called them pirates, which they were. Only the Black Flags submitted to the authority of the imperial Vietnamese court at Hue. The Black Flags were known in Vietnam as Giac Co Den and were especially feared by the peasants, for the Black Flags seized whatever they wanted. The ensuing fighting between the French and the Black Flags came to be known as the Black Flags Wars or the Tonkin Wars. The Vietnamese imperial court extended recognition to the Black Flags because they helped control the Montagnards to the northeast of the Red River Delta. In 1865 Liu Yongfu (Liu Yungfu), self-proclaimed leader of the Black Flags, established a base at the strategically located town of Son Tay on the Red River. Although illiterate, Liu Yongfu was a capable leader, and his Black Flags enjoyed support from the Chinese armed forces in Guangxi and Yunnan, especially after Liu cooperated with the Chinese in 1869 to defeat the Yellow Flags. The Black Flags soon controlled traffic on the Red River and imposed a levy on goods using that route. This prompted the French governor of Cochin China, Admiral Marie-Jules Dupré in Saigon, to send former French Navy lieutenant Francis Garnier to Hanoi in 1873 to extricate French arms merchant Jean Dupuis and to negotiate freedom of navigation on the Red River. On arriving in Hanoi with about 60 marine infantry in three small ships, Garnier

Illustration showing Black Flag fighters preparing to ambush French troops in northeastern Vietnam. (L. Huard, La guerre du Tonkin, 1887)

exceeded his instructions and joined his forces to the private army of Dupuis and attempted to conquer Tonkin. On November 15 Garnier announced that the Red River was open for international trade and that he would be introducing more favorable tariffs. On November 20 after receiving modest reinforcements from Saigon and using his artillery to good effect, Garnier’s forces stormed the Hanoi citadel. He then sought to expand his control beyond Hanoi to the coast. Although his forces did capture Nam Dinh, Garnier was killed fighting some 600 Black Flags under Liu Yongfu outside of Hanoi on December 21, 1873. There matters rested until 1882, when some 1,500 Chinese regular troops reinforced 3,000 Black Flags at Son Tay, some 20 miles west of Hanoi, and the French grew concerned about their own small garrisons in Hanoi and Haiphong. In March 1882 the French authorities in Saigon dispatched 233 French marines and Vietnamese auxiliaries under French Navy captain Henri Rivière to Tonkin. Despite orders to the contrary, Rivière proceeded to reprise Garnier’s action and storm the Hanoi citadel. The French then sent reinforcements to Haiphong. Rivière, meanwhile, was killed in a Black Flag ambush outside of Hanoi. When news of these events reached Paris, the government of the Third Republic voted 5.5 million francs to support operations in Tonkin and sent out 3,000 reinforcements. The French dispatched a naval force up the Perfume River, seized forts guarding access to Hue, and forced the imperial court to sign a treaty that established a French protectorate over Vietnam. In December 1883, 600 French troops, including a Foreign Legion battalion, attacked and captured the Black Flag base at Son Tay. This action prompted the Chinese to reinforce Bac Ninh, which they believed would be the next French target. However, after only slight resistance the Chinese abandoned it to the French on March 12, 1884, and two months later agreed to withdraw entirely from Tonkin. In June 1884 when the French sent troops to Lang Son, fighting broke out en route between them and the Chinese. This began the Sino-French War of 1884–1885 in which the Black Flags fought on the side of the Chinese. Liu Yongfu became a divisional commander in the Yunnan Army. The Black Flags distinguished themselves in the subsequent fighting at Hung Hoaa, Phu Doan, and Tuyen Quang. Reportedly some 3,000 Black Flags took part in the epic siege of the French garrison at Tuyen Quang. When the French carried the war to Taiwan (then known as Formosa) and Fuzhou (Foochow), the Chinese agreed to peace. The ensuing Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) of June 9, 1885, saw China recognize French control of Indochina. The treaty also required Liu Yongfu and the remaining 2,000 men of his Black Flag army to quit Tonkin. Liu crossed into China with his more loyal followers, but most of the Black Flag army simply disbanded in Tonkin. Not having been paid in months, they took to banditry. It was February 1886 before the French were able to secure the route between Hunh Hoa and Lao Cai. SPENCER C. TUCKER

Black Muslims See also Garnier, Marie Joseph François; Nguyen Dynasty; Sino-French War; Tianjin, Treaty of; Tonkin; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Dupuis, Jean. Les Origines de la Question du Tonkin. Paris: Challamel, 1886. McAleavy, Henry. Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese Intervention. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Nguyen Van Ban. Giac Co Den: Mot Ong Cu Gia 90 Tuoi Ke Truyen [The Black Flags Pirates as Told by a Ninety-Year-Old Man]. Hanoi: Trung Bac Thu Xa, 1941. Pham Cao Duong. Vietnamese Peasants under French Domination, 1861–1945. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Black Muslims A term given to African American Muslims by C. Eric Lincoln in 1961. Black Muslims have mainly been members of the Nation of Islam, founded in the United States, although the group has avoided using the term to describe itself. They were generally the followers of Elijah Muhammad, a charismatic African American Black Muslim leader. In 1930 Wallace Fard founded the Lost Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness. He called for African Americans to embrace Islam, teaching them that they were being oppressed by whites, whom he labeled “evil creatures.” Because many African Americans were yearning for relief from oppression and discrimination, a sizable number embraced Fard’s theology. Fard preached to his followers that they were superior to whites, doing so in the name of Islam. In 1934 when Fard disappeared without any trace, Elijah Muhammad became the leader of the Nation of Islam and moved its headquarters to Chicago, where he built a successful movement that shaped the future of Islam in America. The term “Black Muslims” also applies to other African American Muslim organizations, whether they are orthodox Muslims or not. Under Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam became a racist movement that preached the supremacy of blacks over whites. However, he also encouraged African Americans to free themselves of the “slave mentality” and to be financially independent. He established numerous companies and opened schools and stores where many Black Muslims were employed, and he encouraged his followers to become industrious, educated, and well behaved. Although Elijah Muhammad worked hard to build the Nation of Islam, the roles that some of his followers—such as Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Warithu Deen Mohammed—played in sustaining the organization cannot be overlooked. Indeed, it was Malcolm X who recruited many black youths into the Nation of Islam through his tireless efforts and charisma. When Malcolm X joined the Nation of Islam, there were only a few thousand youth members and limited numbers of temples. Elijah

111

Muhammad appointed Malcolm X a minister, and through his eloquence and hard work he brought thousands of blacks from all fields of life into the organization. As he became famous, however, tensions grew between himself and Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X was excommunicated in 1964 because of comments he made about the November 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. Malcolm X eventually established a new organization, the Muslim Mosque Incorporation, after he left the Nation of Islam. He also traveled to Mecca and throughout Africa preaching black nationalism and Pan-Africanism and became a Sunni Muslim. Early on Malcolm X became a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, asserting that its sacrifices fell disproportionately to African Americans. He began to make such assertions even before the first major escalations of the Vietnam War began in mid-1965. Malcolm X was assassinated in February 1965 while giving a speech in New York. The murder plot has never been fully revealed, although many believe that he was killed on Elijah Muhammad’s orders. Other Black Muslim groups similarly challenged the American establishment, especially after the major war escalations began in 1965, and Black Muslims played a notable role in the antiwar movement. Boxing great Muhammad Ali, who had become a Black Muslim in 1965, greatly raised the profile of the movement in 1966 when he refused to be inducted into the military on religious grounds, realizing that he would probably be sent to fight in Vietnam. In 1967 he was convicted of violating the Selective Service Act and was stripped of the heavyweight boxing title. Although the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1970, Ali forever linked antiwar sentiment and Black Muslims in the minds of most Americans. Malcolm X left behind a lofty legacy of fighting for the rights of blacks all across the globe and emphasizing the pursuit of truth wherever it might be found. After Malcolm X’s death, Elijah Muhammad appointed Louis Farrakhan to head New York’s Temple, where Malcolm X had previously preached. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son, Warithu Deen Mohammed, succeeded him. Mohammed immediately introduced a deeper understanding of Islam and denounced many of his father’s ideas of Islam and racism. Mohammed thus turned the Nation of Islam into a mainstream Islamic group and linked African American Muslims with universal Islam. He also flatly rejected the label “Black Muslims.” That change of direction angered some of the older members of the organization, who did not like his new approach, but Imam Mohammed was convinced of the dire need for change and for a better understanding of Islam, which he insisted must be based on the Qur’an. Eventually Farrakhan broke with Mohammed in 1978 and renewed the old racist ideologies of Elijah Muhammad. In 1985 Imam Mohammed decentralized his group and asked each imam to lead his group. In October 2003 he resigned from the national leadership of the African American Muslims and encouraged each local mosque to be in charge of its own affairs. Farrakhan remains the spiritual leader of the Nation of Islam. At present, Black Muslims engage in community activities as well

112

Black Panthers

Members of the Nation of Islam, known as “Black Muslims,” in traditional dress at a 1974 gathering in Chicago, Illinois. (National Archives)

as local and national politics. Farrakhan launched the Million Man March in 1995 and 2005 to boost the morale of African Americans as he encouraged them to be industrious and to take care of their own lives and be responsible for their actions. Although many Americans during the 1960s decried the ideology and tactics of some Black Muslims, the movement did serve to raise black consciousness and certainly fed into the emerging Black Power movement of the late 1960s. The Black Muslim movement also raised awareness of the Civil Rights Movement, which marched in lockstep fashion with the antiwar movement after 1966. While it is true that Black Muslims generally embraced an ideology that was too extreme for most Americans, both black and white, it did add a new dimension to the antiwar movement, especially with high-profile cases such as that of Muhammad Ali. YUSHAU SODIQ

See also Ali, Muhammad; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Civil Rights Movement; King, Martin Luther, Jr. References Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994. Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Transition from Separatism to Islam 1930–1980. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1984. Turner, Richard Brent. Islam in the African American Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Black Panthers A radical black nationalist group founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Angered by police

Black Panthers brutality against the black community and impatient with the pace of nonviolent reform espoused by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panthers, or the Black Panther Party, encouraged self-reliance and the right to self-defense. The Black Panthers’ leadership considered American blacks an oppressed minority and part of an international insurgency throughout the developing world. Along these lines, the Black Panthers’ Ten-Point Program called for an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of black people, other people of color, and all oppressed people inside the United States. Their domestic agenda called for full employment, decent housing, improved education, free health care, and the release from prison of “black and oppressed people.” Their international agenda, linking their cause with the anti–Vietnam War movement, demanded “an immediate end to all wars of aggression.” Black Panther popularity increased, especially in Oakland, as members established free health clinics, created organizations to mitigate drug and alcohol dependency, held adult education classes, and sponsored free breakfast programs for children in the community. As the Black Panthers established roots in other cities around the country and grew to approximately 5,000 members, they attracted the attention of both local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Members of the Black Panther Party, emphasizing the right to self-defense, carried guns publicly in certain states (such as California), where doing so was legal. By 1968–1969 the FBI had focused its domestic counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) on the Black Panthers and accordingly increased its surveillance and infiltration of the group to disrupt its activities. Police and federal agencies conducted raids of Black Panther houses, which often resulted in violence. In one controversial raid, the Chicago police killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Hampton’s apartment in December 1969. While the police claimed that they had met resistance, Black Panther reports insisted that the men were killed while sleeping and unable to defend themselves. Law enforcement agencies continued to target Black Panther leaders, the best known of whom included the founders Newton and Seale as well as Eldridge Cleaver and Angela Davis. After a gunfight between Black Panthers and police in 1967, Newton was charged with killing an officer and was convicted of manslaughter. A Free Huey movement soon developed, and Newton’s conviction was eventually overturned. Nevertheless, his life remained difficult. Arrested again for murder, he sought asylum in Cuba. He later returned to the United States, was tried but not convicted, and was then murdered by a drug dealer in Oakland in 1989. Seale was arrested and charged with conspiracy in the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. During the trial of the Chicago Eight, his demand to represent himself enraged presiding Judge Julius Hoffman, who ordered Seale bound and gagged. Seale was convicted and sentenced to prison, where he was accused of killing another Black Panther inmate who was suspected of being a police informant. Seale’s subsequent trial

113

ended in a hung jury, and he was released in 1971. Since leaving the Black Panthers, Seale has written several books and devoted himself to community projects in Philadelphia. Cleaver had been in and out of jail as a young man before joining the Black Panthers. He became famous for his book Soul on Ice (1968), a series of essays that dealt with race, masculinity and sexuality, and prison life. After a shoot-out with police in 1968, Cleaver was charged with attempted murder. He fled the United States and lived in Mexico, Cuba, and Algeria. He later became increasingly conservative and flirted with several religions. Cleaver eventually returned to the United States but had problems with cocaine addiction. He died in 1998 of unknown causes. Davis was a member of the Communist Party–USA as well as the Black Panthers. A gun registered in her name was used in a murder in 1970, but after a controversial trial she was acquitted because she had not been present when the murder took place. Her support for Reverend Jim Jones and his movement located in Jonestown, Guyana, remains controversial. In 1980 and 1984 she was a candidate for vice president on the Communist Party ticket. Davis is currently a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The Black Panther Party eventually fell apart. Various factors played a role in its downfall, including splits within the leadership over tactics and goals, police and FBI repression, and changes in the political atmosphere of the United States. Indeed, by the mid1970s the Black Panther Party had largely disintegrated. HAROLD J. GOLDBERG See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Civil Rights Movement; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Seale, Bobby References Austin, Curtis J. Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2006. Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Anchor Books, 1993. Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. 1968; reprint, New York: Delta, 1999. Foner, Philip. The Black Panthers Speak. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1995. Forbes, Flores A. Will You Die With Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party. New York: Atria Books, 2006. Jones, Charles Earl. The Black Panthers Reconsidered. Baltimore: Black Classic, 1998. Joseph, Peniel E. Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. New York: Henry Holt, 2006. Newton, Huey. Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, 1995. Seale, Bobby. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. 1970; reprint, Baltimore: Black Classic, 1997.

Black Virgin Mountain See Nui Ba Den

114

Blaizot, Roger

Blaizot, Roger Birth Date: May 17, 1891 Death Date: March 21, 1981 French Army officer and commander of French forces in Indochina during 1948–1949. Born at Saint-Denis, Department of the Seine, on May 17, 1891, Roger Blaizot entered the French Army in 1910 and Saint-Cyr in 1911. Choosing colonial troops, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1912. Promoted to captain in 1916, he returned to France in 1917 and served on the Western Front. Following World War I, Blaizot was posted to China during 1919 and 1920. He attended the École de Guerre in 1923, and from 1928 to 1930 he was military attaché in Chile. Blaizot was promoted to major in 1929 and to lieutenant colonel in 1933. In 1936 he spent some months in Indochina and the next year was advanced to colonel. In 1941 he became a brigadier general, and the next year he was advanced to major general. In 1942 he was named commander of ground forces at Dakar. Command of divisions of colonial infantry followed. On September 8, 1943, the French Committee of National Liberation named Blaizot to head the French military mission in India. On September 20 he received command of a future expeditionary corps to participate in the war against Japan and liberate Indochina. At the same time Blaizot was promoted to general de corps d’armée (lieutenant general), to date from November 10. It was not until after the liberation of France in 1944, however, that the provisional government authorized creation of the French Far East Expeditionary Forces of 60,000 men under Blaizot. Blaizot reached Kandy, Ceylon, that October, but for months he had nothing to command; even at the end of the war he had only 1,000 men. He remained head of the French military mission with the South-East Asia Command from October 6, 1944, until June 16, 1945. In June 1945 when the French government created an expeditionary corps of two divisions for Indochina, command went to General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc. On April 22, 1948, Blaizot replaced General Étienne Valluy as commander of French forces in Indochina. Blaizot arrived in Saigon on May 15. He favored concentrating on the northern part of the country, and within it he wanted ambitious operations against enemy strongholds in the highlands to retake parts of Tonkin that had been abandoned by the French the previous year. The major French military effort that autumn was in the north, although the tardy arrival of reinforcements caused Blaizot to push back his plans. Operation DIANE, which began in October 1948 and extended into mid-February 1949, had as its goal the expansion of French military control of the Red River Valley upstream in order to control the Tonkin redoubt. Largely unsuccessful, this operation had to be scaled back. Blaizot also soon found himself in disagreement with High Commissioner Léon Pignon, who wanted the main military effort to be in the south. During May and June 1949 French Army chief of staff General Georges Revers made a fact-finding trip to Indochina. In his report

he recommended the evacuation of vulnerable French military positions in northern Tonkin to concentrate on the vital Red River Delta. Just as Blaizot was about to evacuate Cao Bang and Route Coloniale 4 (the operation was planned for that September), General Marcel Carpentier replaced him as French military commander in Indochina. Hounded by those who opposed the evacuation, Carpentier put it on hold. Ironically, the outcry over the French loss of Cao Bang the next year led to Carpentier’s replacement. Blaizot left Indochina on September 2, 1949. He retired in 1950 and died in Lyon, France, on March 21, 1981. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Carpentier, Marcel; De Gaulle, Charles; France, Army, 1946–1954; Indochina War; LE HONG PHONG II, Operation; Pignon, Léon; Revers Report; Tonkin References Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Blassie, Michael Joseph Birth Date: April 14, 1948 Death Date: May 11, 1972 U.S. Air Force pilot killed in action in 1972 and until 1998 the serviceman whose remains represented the Vietnam War at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Michael Joseph Blassie was born on April 14, 1948, in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. Following additional training, he joined the 8th Special Operations Squadron and deployed to Vietnam. On May 11, 1972, 24-yearold First Lieutenant Blassie had already flown 132 missions as a tactical fighter when his A-37 Dragonfly light attack aircraft was shot down over An Loc in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the East Offensive conducted by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). His remains were not immediately found, and he was classified as “Killed In Action, Body Not Recovered.” Five months later, remains recovered from the crash site were turned over to the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. In the beginning they were labeled as “BTB Lieutenant Blassie,” but they were later classified “unknown” and marked “X-26.” In 1973 Congress passed Public Law 93-43, which directed the secretary of defense to bury an unknown American serviceman from the Vietnam War at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. Finally, on May 17, 1984, during ceremonies at Pearl Harbor, Sergeant Major Allan J. Kellogg Jr., a Medal of Honor

BLU-82/B Bomb recipient from the Vietnam War, placed a wreath before a casket containing a few bones, a piece of a parachute, and other remnants of an American flier that were still labeled X-26. The remains of the unknown arrived at the U.S. Capitol on May 25, 1984, and lay in state in the Rotunda for three days. On May 28, 1984, President Ronald Reagan presided over the funeral of the Vietnam War Unknown Soldier and presented the Medal of Honor to him posthumously. The Vietnam War hero was then laid to rest with the unknowns of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. A decade later, mounting evidence had indicated that X-26 was Blassie. His family was convinced, despite opposition from some veterans’ groups, that they had to uncover the entire story. Enduring the protests from veterans groups and from people who believed that they were dishonoring the tradition of the unknowns, the Blassies persevered. After much lobbying by the Blassie family and their supporters, the U.S. government finally agreed to an

115

exhumation, and on May 14, 1998, 26 years after Blassie was shot down over South Vietnam, the body of X-26 was exhumed for Mitochondrial DNA testing. On June 30 Secretary of Defense William Cohen notified the Blassie family that the bones that had rested in the Tomb of the Vietnam War Unknown Soldier were in fact those of Michael Blassie. On July 10, 1998, an MC-130 plane from Blassie’s unit, the 8th Special Operations Squadron, flew his casket home to St. Louis. The next morning he was laid to rest in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery with full military honors. With the advent of DNA technology, it is more and more likely that future conflicts may not produce unknown casualties. The Medal of Honor awarded to the Vietnam War Unknown Soldier did not stay with Blassie once he was identified. KATHLEEN WARNES See also Casualties References Scott, Wilbur J. Vietnam Veterans since the War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. Sheehan, Susan. A Missing Plane. New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1988.

BLU-82/B Bomb

Jean Blassie and her son George Blassie, brother of U.S. Air Force first lieutenant Michael Blassie, gather at his gravesite in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Lieutenant Blassie was shot down over South Vietnam and killed on May 11, 1972. A mix-up with dog tags and body identification led the remains to be listed as unknown and to be buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Using DNA testing, the remains were identified as those of Blassie and were then reburied in St. Louis. (Department of Defense)

Bomb initially developed to clear helicopter landing areas. The BLU-82/B “Daisy Cutter” bomb is a large high-altitude bomb developed for use in the Vietnam War. During that war the United States Air Force (USAF) at first employed World War II–vintage M121 10,000-pound bombs to blast instant clearings in jungle and dense undergrowth from which helicopters could operate in connection with U.S. ground forces and those of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). With stocks of M121s diminishing, the USAF embarked on a replacement program and developed the Bomb Live Unit-82/B. Known as the “Daisy Cutter,” the large (11 feet 10 inches long and 4.5 feet in diameter) BLU-82/B weighs 15,000 pounds. It is the heaviest bomb currently in use. The largest bomb of all time is the Grand Slam of 22,000 pounds employed by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command against strategic targets in Germany during World War II. Some 225 BLU-82/Bs have been produced. Contrary to reports that it is a fuel-air explosive device, the BLU-82/B is in fact a conventional bomb. It has a very thin .25-inch steel wall and is filled with 12,600 pounds of a GSX explosive slurry of ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and a binding agent. This filler has perhaps twice the power of TNT. As a result, the bomb can produce casualties among humans out to a radius of almost 400 yards from the point of detonation. The Daisy Cutter has a minimum release altitude of 6,000 feet above the target. It relies upon a cargo extractor/stabilization parachute to slow its descent to the target (approximately 27 seconds from a release point of 6,000 feet). A 38-inch fuse extender detonates the bomb just above ground level without producing a crater.

116

BLUE LIGHT, Operation

At the point of blast, there is an overpressure of some 1,000 pounds per square inch. The BLU-82/B was first utilized in combat during the Vietnam War on March 23, 1970. The bomb found employment as means to create helicopter landing zones and artillery firebases in terrain covered by dense growth, to cause landslides for road interdiction, and for use against enemy troop concentrations. The BLU-82/B was also utilized during the rescue of the crew of the American merchant ship Mayaguez from the Cambodian Khmer Rouge in May 1975. The remaining bombs were then placed in storage. In air operations during Operation DESERT STORM the USAF 8th Special Operations Squadron employed Lockheed MC-130E Combat Talon aircraft to drop 11 BLU-82/Bs, first in an attempt to clear mines and then for both antipersonnel and psychological effects. The USAF also dropped several BLU-82/Bs in Afghanistan to attack Taliban and Al Qaeda strongholds. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bombs, Gravity; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Landing Zone; Mayaguez Incident Reference Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984.

BLUE LIGHT,

Operation

Start Date: December 23, 1965 End Date: January 23, 1966 First major U.S. Air Force airlift operation of the Vietnam War. Two Military Airlift Command units, the 60th and 61st Military Airlift Wings (MAWs), demonstrated U.S. ability to deploy large numbers of men and matériel on short notice. The units flew a combination of Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, McDonnell-Douglas C-133 Cargolifter, and Douglas C-124 Globemaster II aircraft to transport 2,841 troops and 6,087 tons of equipment from Hawaii to Pleiku in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Flying troops and equipment from the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division into Pleiku presented several challenges to Twenty-Second Air Force planners. The runway there was an asphalt-covered pierced steel plate (PSP) design only 6,000 feet long. Combat engineers did not know whether the runway surface could withstand the strain of heavy aircraft loads. In addition, landing C-141s would be difficult since 6,000 feet was the minimum runway length that the aircraft required. Finally, BLUE LIGHT missions would complicate an already heavy transport schedule. To meet the challenge, Twenty-Second Air Force planners decided that utilizing a combination of C-141 and C-133 aircraft would result in the least amount of interference with other operations. The Twenty-Second Air Force also used experienced flight

examiners on all missions into Pleiku to assist C-141 crews during the difficult landings. Operation BLUE LIGHT had two phases. The first involved transporting the 25th Infantry’s advance deployment team to Pleiku. This took place during December 23–26, 1965, and used four C-133 and two C-141 missions to transport 111 men and 104 tons of equipment required for the advance team. The second phase involved transporting the remainder of the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division. The 61st MAW, assisted by aircraft and crews from the 60th MAW, flew 88 C-141 missions carrying personnel and individual equipment. The 61st MAW also flew 126 C-133 missions that moved oversized cargo, including the brigade’s larger vehicles. Crews from other wings flew 11 C-124 missions to fill in gaps left by primary aircraft shortfalls. BLUE LIGHT was the first impromptu test of the new C-141, which had entered service in 1964 as the U.S. Air Force’s first turbojet transport aircraft. The operation also highlighted the older turboprop C-133’s ability to deliver oversized cargo to forward locations. Finally, by conducting 231 missions into a marginal airfield without incident, the U.S. Air Force demonstrated that it could project military power into areas that had been inaccessible. LARRY GATTI See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Gunston, Bill. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World’s Modern Military Aircraft. New York: Crescent Books, 1978. U.S. Department of the Air Force. Military Airlift Command History, Jul 65–Jan 66. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air Force Historical Research Agency, n.d. U.S. Department of the Air Force. 61st Military Airlift Wing History, Dec 65–Jan 66. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air Force Historical Research Agency, n.d.

Blum, Léon Birth Date: April 9, 1872 Death Date: March 30, 1950 French political leader, premier, and man of letters. Léon Blum was born in Paris on April 9, 1872, into a middle-class republican Jewish family. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1890 but did not pursue an academic career. After obtaining degrees in law and literature at the University of Paris (the Sorbonne), Blum made his mark in literary criticism and law before abandoning both on the eve of World War I to enter politics. Blum was a supporter of French Socialist Party leader Jean Juarès and in 1919 won election to the Chamber of Deputies as a Socialist. Soon Blum drafted the French Section of the Workers’ International (Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière, SFIO) program. After the split at the 1920 party congress (Ho Chi Minh was among those voting with the majority, thereby becoming a founder of the

Blum, Léon French Communist Party), Blum devoted his efforts to reviving the SFIO. His leadership was a major factor in rebuilding the SFIO into a formidable political force. This is remarkable, given that Blum was an intellectual with no great oratorical skills and was heading a proletarian party. He also established a new party newspaper, Le Populaire (the Communists had taken control of L’Humanité). By the mid-1930s the SFIO was the leading party in the leftist Popular Front (with the Radical Socialists and Communists), and the 1936 election victory catapulted Blum into the premiership in June. He was the first Jewish and first Socialist premier of France. The Popular Front was not a success, and Blum lasted barely a year as premier, the coalition collapsing under economic pressures and the Spanish Civil War. The liberal labor laws of the Popular Front government did, however, directly influence the 1937 labor code in Vietnam that reduced hours of work for women, prohibited labor by children younger than 12 years old, and provided for an obligatory one-day rest per week and minimum wages. Blum’s second premiership, March–April 1938, was even less successful. Long an advocate of disarmament, Blum now championed French rearmament. The defeat of France in 1940 splintered the SFIO. Blum was among those who refused to vote for Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain to assume power and courageously chose to

117

remain in France. Arrested by the Vichy government, Blum was brought to trial at Riom, an event that he turned into a major triumph and defense of republicanism that helped inspire the Resistance. Blum supported General Charles de Gaulle, and in 1943 the Gestapo took Blum to Buchenwald. Blum was welcomed back to France after the war, although his role was then that of an elder statesman. From December 1946 to January 1947 he headed an all-Socialist government. It was during this turbulent period in the new Fourth Republic that events in Indochina came to crisis. A week before heading the government, Blum had written in Le Populaire that independence (later qualified to read “independence within the French Union”) was the only solution for Vietnam. A hopeful Ho Chi Minh sent Blum proposals to relieve Franco-Vietnamese tensions, but French military censors in Saigon held up the cable until it was too late to do any good. Even so, it is doubtful if Blum could have carried this off. Since the Liberation the Socialists were but one of three major French political parties, locked in uneasy coalition with the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (Popular Republican Movement, MRP) and the Communists. The French political centrists and the Right opposed colonial concessions. And Blum’s government was a stopgap affair designed to bridge the period until the new constitution took effect. In any case, there was a certain irony that a long-standing critic of French colonialism should be premier when the Indochina War began. In responding to the events of December 19, 1946, Blum reacted very much as a leader of the center or Right would have done. He told the Assembly that France was using military force in self-defense, certain of the justness of its cause. “Before all, order must be established,” he said. In January fellow Socialist Paul Ramadier replaced Blum as premier. After leaving the premiership, Blum carried out a number of important diplomatic assignments. He continued to write for Le Populaire until his sudden death during a party meeting on March 30, 1950. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also De Gaulle, Charles; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Haiphong, Shelling of; Ho Chi Minh References Blum, Léon. Léon Blum, chef de gouvernement. Paris: A. Colin, 1967. Colton, Joel. Léon Blum. Humanist in Politics. New York: Knopf, 1966. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Hutton, Patrick H., ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870–1940, Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Logue, William. Léon Blum: The Formative Years, 1872–1914. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1973. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968.

Léon Blum was one of the most important French politicians in the first half of the 20th century. An intellectual and political activist, he became the leader of the French Socialist Party and the first socialist premier of France. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Boat People See Refugees and Boat People

118

Body Armor

Body Armor Body armor in Vietnam was primarily known by the terms “flak jacket” and “flak vest.” The term “flak” is derived from the German word for antiaircraft gun, fliegerabwehrkanone. The American soldier—sleeveless in his flak jacket, bug juice stuck in his helmet band, and M16 rifle at the ready—became a common media image in this war. Flak suits were in widespread use by the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1945. These protected an airman’s torso, groin, and thighs and were complemented by an armored centerpiece on which the airman sat. These suits evolved into infantry body armor during the Korean War. The M1951 flak vest represented a significant technical innovation that protected the ordinary soldier’s chest, abdomen, and back from small shell and grenade fragments. The U.S. Marine Corps’ M1955 armored vest and the U.S. Army’s M69 fragmentation protective vest, fielded in 1962, both offered neck protection. These two vests, along with the earlier M1951 and M1952 models, were standard for U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army forces in Vietnam. The M1955 armor weighed about 10 pounds, while the M69 armor weighed about 8.5 pounds. These sleeveless vests were composed of nylon filler and inserts enclosed in cloth. Although they were against regulations, slogans such as “LBJ’s Hired Gun” typically adorned such flak jackets. Until late 1968, helicopter crewmen generally wore infantry body armor. Hard face composite (HFC) kits were commonly used to provide seat ballistic protection. In 1965 about 500 HFC chest protectors also existed, but these were never used because of design problems. They were reengineered as T65–1 frontal torso armor. Aviator body armor was introduced in 1968. Sarcastically referred to as “chicken plate,” its official classified designation was Body Armor, Small Arms Protective, Aircrewmen. Gunners wore full armor, while pilots and copilots generally wore only frontal armor. Torso armor was composed of aluminum oxide ceramics and was able to defeat high-velocity small-arms projectiles. Leg armor was made from composite steel. Full armor weighed about 25 pounds; however, new variants incorporated even lighter and stronger ceramics based on boron carbide. Body Armor, Fragmentation-Small Arms Protective, Aircrewmen was introduced in 1968; it became the standard-issue body armor. Later infantry body armor developments were directly inspired by advances in aircrew armor. Special body armor was also used by naval and riverine forces. Naval and coast guard forces were issued floating body armor, while many riverine troops wore a light flak jacket composed of a special titanium-nylon composite that offered better protection against fléchettes. ROBERT J. BUNKER See also Riverine Warfare; United States Air Force; United States Army; United States Coast Guard; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy

References Dean, Bashford. American and German Helmets and Body Armor of World War I and Body Armor in Modern Warfare. Baltimore: Gateway Printing, 1980. Dunstan, Simon. Flak Jackets: 20th Century Military Body Armor. London: Osprey, 1984. Katcher, Philip. The American Soldier: U.S. Armies in Uniform, 1755 to the Present. New York: Military Press, 1990. Kennedy, Stephen J. Battlefield Protection of the Soldier through His Clothing/Equipment System. Natick, MA: U.S. Army Natick Lab, 1969. U.S. Army. Body Armor for the Individual Soldier: DA PAM 21-54. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965.

Body Count The term “body count” refers to the calculation of the number of enemy troops killed in battle. As Lieutenant General William R. Peers observed in his book The My Lai Inquiry, “It certainly was not a new concept; in most battles throughout history a count of enemy and friendly killed in action was made to determine the ratio of casualties.” But in Vietnam “the problem was that, with improper leadership, ‘body count’ could create competition between units, particularly if these statistics were compared like baseball standings and there were no stringent requirements as to how and by whom the counts were to be made.” There is little doubt that preoccupation with body count during the Vietnam War was fueled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s obsession with statistical indicators. General Earle G. Wheeler told General William Westmoreland in a January 1967 cable that there was “an insatiable thirst for hard numbers here in Washington.” General Westmoreland, in turn, kept pushing his commanders to achieve the “crossover point,” at which more of the enemy were being killed than could be replaced by infiltration from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or recruitment in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), essential to success in his strategy of fighting a war of attrition. That elusive goal was never reached, but in striving for it considerable corruption was introduced into the reporting of body counts. The unreliability of body counts was well documented by Brigadier General Douglas Kinnard in his book The War Managers. Based on input from army general officers who had commanded in Vietnam, Kinnard revealed that only 2 percent of respondents thought that body count was “a valid system to measure progress in the war.” Fully 61 percent thought that body count as reported was “often inflated.” As one general officer wrote, body counts “were grossly exaggerated by many units primarily because of the incredible interest shown by people like McNamara and Westmoreland.” Besides the pressure from Washington and General Westmoreland’s decision to conduct a war of attrition, the importance

BOLD MARINER, Operation

119

Clearly fearful, women and children loaded down with their possessions scurry past the bodies of three Viet Cong killed in the fighting during the Communist Mini-Tet Offensive in May 1968. (National Archives)

of body count in Vietnam was also increased by the absence in this peculiar war of the usual indicators of progress, such as seizing and holding enemy terrain and advancing the front lines. Ultimately body count was irrelevant because, as General Kinnard wrote, “there was no way of really comparing the number of enemy against his manpower potential because the manpower base varied with the effectiveness of his political apparatus and losses never approached his absolute limit to sustain them.” Besides being deceptive, body count was an inappropriate and misleading method of trying to determine the course of the war. As became evident when General Creighton Abrams assumed command in 1968, it was security of the populace of South Vietnam, not slaughter of enemy main forces, that was the real determinant of progress. Abrams made this clear early in his tenure. “Body count is really a long way from what’s involved in this war,” he told his commanders, a radical change in outlook on what mattered in this complex war. LEWIS SORLEY

See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Attrition; Casualties; McNamara, Robert Strange; Peers, William R.; Westmoreland, William Childs; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore References Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979.

BOLD MARINER,

Operation

Start Date: January 13, 1969 End Date: February 9, 1969 Operation during January–July 1969 that employed two battalions of the U.S. Army’s 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division and two U.S. Marine Corps battalion landing teams. RUSSELL BEACH was the army’s name for the operation; the marines knew it as BOLD

120

BOLD MARINER, Operation

MARINER. The operation began on January 13, 1969, in the Batangan Peninsula in Quang Ngai Province, one of the least secure provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Previous efforts by U.S., Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), and Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) forces had failed to clear the Viet Cong (VC) from the peninsula, site of the infamous massacre of Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai in March 1968. The operation’s basic objective was to support the pacification of the peninsula by clearing out VC forces and converting the Communist stronghold into an area of government control. In RUSSELL BEACH/BOLD MARINER, U.S. forces helped to cordon the peninsula and round up VC forces. The operation involved the deliberate relocation of people from their homes and the destruction of property, a tactic that the Ministry of Refugees, the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), policy normally discouraged. Civilians were to be moved to a tent encampment, screened for VC cadres, and then returned home. Because the operation envisioned the return of the villagers to their homes in about a month, the government and CORDS approved the relocation.

The operation began on January 13 when two U.S. marine battalions were landed on the peninsula, one by helicopter and the other from the sea. The landings met little resistance. On the same day Task Force Cooksey, composed of units from the U.S. 23rd Infantry Division, sealed off the southern boundary. The cordon lasted until February 6, and the operation ended in July. The peninsula was laced with tunnels and caves, and army engineers destroyed more than 13,000 yards of underground passages and hiding places. All dwellings in the area of operation were destroyed to preclude the VC from using them and to facilitate the identification of tunnel entrances. The Americans suffered 56 combat deaths; VC losses were put at 158. Most casualties resulted from concealed mines and booby traps. The sweep displaced close to 12,000 persons. Villagers were evacuated by helicopter to a holding and interrogation center, where they were crowded into 125 tents. The operation was conducted in the cold season, but the South Vietnamese government did not have enough blankets for everyone. Of the 1,000 people detained for screening, the 23rd Division asserted that 256 belonged to the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI). Other reports more realistically placed the number of confirmed members of the VCI captured at fewer than 50.

Two battle-weary leathernecks of the 26th Marine Regiment take a break in the rain during Operation BOLD MARINER (January–February 1969) on the Batangan Peninsula in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam. (National Archives)

BOLO, Operation

121

By late February, province officials began to resettle refugees in new settlements south of the peninsula but refused to let people rebuild on their original home sites. The new camps proved inaccessible by land and difficult to expand because of mines and booby traps in surrounding areas. As of January 1970 some refugees were still unable to return to their original hamlets, and farmers were unable to work their plots because of continuing insecurity and uncleared minefields. People in one hamlet were living on manioc because they had exhausted their government rice allowance. To feed persons displaced from the Batangan Peninsula, the ARVN 2nd Division made available 36 tons of rice that it had confiscated from the VC. Not until 1971 did security improve sufficiently to permit all refugees displaced during BOLD MARINER to return to the areas where their homes once stood. The operation bestowed little political advantage on the South Vietnamese government because it mishandled the relocation of people and alienated them. No lasting military gains accrued, and the area remained insecure for another two years. Allied forces had entered a Communist stronghold but had failed to eliminate it. VC forces continued to levy taxes and abduct local officials. A second operation, NANTUCKET BEACH, took place in the same area in February 1970. Again numerous GIs were killed by booby traps and mines, and army engineers destroyed additional bunkers and tunnels in nearly the same sites as during the previous operation. By January 1971 the VC 48th Battalion was back in action on the peninsula. RICHARD A. HUNT

tried to keep the door open to negotiations with Ho as well as with Bao Dai but lacked both boldness and authority. Bollaert succeeded Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu in February 1947 as high commissioner for Indochina. Treading a thin line between the advocates of improved Franco-Vietnamese relations and the military, who favored a hard-line policy, Bollaert prepared a plan for announcing an offer of independence tied to a unilateral cease-fire on August 15, 1947, the same day that the British were to grant independence to India. However, news of the plan alarmed opponents of concessions to the Viet Minh, and Bollaert was forced to delay the speech and tone down its political content considerably. In the end, it came to naught. Instead of engaging the Viet Minh in a dialogue, Bollaert approached Bao Dai, then in exile in Hong Kong, and signed a preliminary agreement with him in the Bay of Ha Long on December 7, 1947, to assuage his nationalist supporters. This agreement was formalized in a second meeting in the Bay of Ha Long on June 5, 1948, by which Vietnam was to be granted a carefully circumscribed independence as an Associated State within the French Union. The Bao Dai solution, in the hands of Bollaert’s successor, Leon Pignon, was to become a pretext for waging all-out war against the Viet Minh and ultimately failed to win the struggle for allegiance of the Vietnamese people. Bollaert died in Paris on May 18, 1978. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN

See also Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; My Lai Massacre; Refugees and Boat People

References Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968.

References Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Bollaert, Émile Birth Date: November 13, 1890 Death Date: May 18, 1978 French high commissioner for Indochina from March 1947 to October 1948. Born on November 13, 1890, in Dunkerque, France, Émile Bollaert, a member of the Radical Socialist Party, went to Indochina for only a period of 6 months but stayed for 18 months. He is best remembered for presiding over the beginning of the socalled Bao Dai solution in which the French attempted by guarded concessions to build up the former Vietnamese emperor as an alternative to Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh. For a while Bollaert

See also Bao Dai; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Pignon, Léon; Viet Minh

BOLO,

Operation

Event Date: January 2, 1967 A ruse designed by the U.S. Air Force to engage Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force) MiG-21s on an equal footing. Because the Lyndon B. Johnson administration prohibited U.S. aircraft from bombing airfields in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) until April 1967, the U.S. Air Force sought another method of reducing increasingly dangerous levels of MiG activity in North Vietnam. Consequently, in December 1966 Seventh Air Force Headquarters planned a trap for the MiGs by exploiting deception and the weaknesses of the North Vietnamese ground radar network. Normally U.S. Air Force strike packages flew in standard formations, which included refueling Republic F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers at lower altitudes than their McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II escorts. In Operation BOLO, F-4s imitated F-105

122

Bombing Halts and Restrictions

formations—including their electronic countermeasure emissions, attack patterns, and communications—to convince North Vietnamese ground controllers that their radars showed a normal F-105 strike mission. However, when controllers vectored VPAF MiG interceptors against their enemies, the MiG-21s found F-4s, equipped for air-to-air combat, rather than the slower bomb-laden F-105s. To maximize fighter coverage over Hanoi and deny North Vietnamese MiGs an exit route to airfields in China, Operation BOLO called for 14 flights of U.S. Air Force fighters to converge over the city. Aircraft from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) based at Ubon Air Base in Thailand would fly into the Hanoi area from Laos, while fighters from the 366th TFW based at Da Nang would arrive from the Gulf of Tonkin. Marginal weather on January 2, 1967, delayed the start of the mission until the afternoon and prevented more than three flights of F-4s from reaching the target area. Colonel Robin Olds, 8th TFW commander, led the first of the three flights; Lieutenant Colonel Daniel “Chappie” James led the second flight; and Captain John Stone led the third flight. Olds’s flight passed over the Phuc Yen airfield twice before MiG-21s popped out of the clouds. The intense air battle that followed lasted less than 15 minutes but was the largest single aerial dogfight of the Vietnam War. Twelve F-4s destroyed seven VPAF MiG-21s and claimed two more probable kills. Colonel Olds shot down two aircraft himself. There were no U.S. Air Force losses. The VPAF admits that it lost five MiG-21s in this battle. One of the Vietnamese pilots shot down that day, Nguyen Van Coc, went on to become North Vietnam’s top-scoring ace, credited with shooting down nine American aircraft. Ultimately Operation BOLO destroyed almost half of the VPAF inventory of MiG-21s. Although bad weather prevented the full execution of the plan, it did achieve its primary objective of reducing U.S. aerial losses. Because of the reduced number of MiG-21s, the VPAF had no choice but to stand down its MiG-21 operations. JOHN G. TERINO JR. See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Olds, Robin References Bell, Kenneth H. 100 Missions North. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1993. Middleton Drew, ed. Air War—Vietnam. New York: Arno, 1978. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Nordeen, Lon O. Air Warfare in the Missile Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985. Pimlott, John. Vietnam: The Decisive Battles. New York: Macmillan, 1990. Ta Hong, Vu Ngoc, and Nguyen Quoc Dung. Lich Su Khong Quan Nhan Dan Viet Nam (1955–1977) [History of the People’s Air Force of Vietnam (1955–1977)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1993.

Bombing Halts and Restrictions The sustained air bombardment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was an integral element of U.S. prosecution of the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1972. However, the bombing was viewed by American leaders not only as a military tool to be finely calibrated but also as a vehicle to convey political and diplomatic messages. As such, factors unrelated to the tactical and operational military situation limited and in some periods precluded its use. The use of U.S. airpower against North Vietnam commenced on August 5, 1964, with strikes against military targets in retaliation for perceived attacks against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. These actions were sharply limited in time and were restricted to attacks on naval bases and barracks complexes. Attacks against Americans and U.S. military facilities on November 1, 1964, and February 6, 1965, with attendant American fatalities, led to demands for an American military response. The debate over how to respond presaged the deep policy disagreements between civilian and military authorities that would play out for the duration of the war. The military chain of command, including Pacific commander in chief Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), favored a robust bombing campaign centered on North Vietnam’s industry and infrastructure, much of which was in close proximity to civilian population centers. Civilian leaders, mindful of possible Soviet or Communist Chinese reaction as well as the potential for sullying the image of the United States worldwide, placed restrictions on the bombing campaign. On February 13, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson approved Operation ROLLING THUNDER, which was subsequently divided into smaller numerically sequenced operations. This was to be the overall scheme for attacking North Vietnam from the air. Vietnam was divided at the 17th Parallel, with the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) south of that line. Bombing during most of the war was restricted south of the 20th Parallel. The area south of this demarcation line, the so-called panhandle of North Vietnam, comprised half the length of the country but excluded most of its population and industrial centers, including the capital of Hanoi and the principal port of Haiphong. Additionally, air strikes were roughly sorted into two types: attacks against preplanned, mostly fixed targets and armed reconnaissance flights in which targets of opportunity, such as trucks or trains along transportation routes, might be engaged. Some initial bombing restrictions dictated that all strikes by U.S. aircraft were to be accompanied by Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) planes; U.S. aircraft were to strike the primary target only, with any deviation to a secondary target due to weather requiring approval from Washington; authority to change the precise days of strikes resided in Washington; no classified munitions were to be used; and narrow geographical restrictions were employed in targeting. Over the next three months the first four of the above restrictions were moderated or lifted, and by May 1965 Operation ROLLING

Bombing Halts and Restrictions

123

124

Bombing Halts and Restrictions

targeted sites mostly south of the 20th Parallel, avoiding Hanoi and Haiphong. It was at this time that President Johnson, without publicity, ordered the first bombing halt, effective May 12 and designed to test the willingness of the North Vietnamese government to negotiate. After a week of no discernible change, the bombing was resumed on May 18. However, targeting of the most sensitive areas of North Vietnam remained tightly circumscribed and controlled by decision makers in Washington. Specifically, prohibited area circles of 10 and 4 miles, respectively, were drawn around Hanoi and Haiphong, with JCS permission required to strike targets within these areas. Areas of slightly looser rules of engagement (restricted areas), still subject to JCS oversight, were scribed in a 30-mile radius from the center of Hanoi and 10 miles from the center of Haiphong. Washington also continued to tightly meter the total number of sorties flown each month. An intense debate on the direction of the war in late 1965 culminated in the first large-scale bombing halt of North Vietnam beginning on Christmas Day 1965. This halt, initially planned as a short holiday cessation, was extended by President Johnson at the urging of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and was to last until January 31, 1966. The bombing halt was accompanied by increased U.S. efforts to open channels of negotiations with the North Vietnamese. These efforts met rebuff from the Communists, and after intense lobbying by Admiral Sharp, the bombing of North Vietnam resumed. As 1966 progressed, the issues of restrictions on targets and the degree of control exercised by Washington continued to manifest themselves. In April the number of sorties was increased, and armed reconnaissance flights by U.S. warplanes were allowed in the northeast quadrant of North Vietnam for the first time. However, restrictions that placed petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) storage facilities in the vicinity of Hanoi and Haiphong off limits were stridently opposed by Sharp. After several months of policy deliberations, strikes on a significant number of these targets were made on June 30, 1966. Also, armed reconnaissance restrictions were lifted on all of North Vietnam except for a 30-mile buffer along the Chinese border and the Hanoi and Haiphong restricted areas on July 9, 1966. During February 8–13, 1967, the United States initiated a bombing pause during the Tet New Year holiday. This applied to all of North Vietnam; any major increase in North Vietnamese logistics activity in the southern part of North Vietnam was to be reported to the JCS for analysis only. Following a large increase in such activity, bombing of North Vietnam resumed. Beginning on May 19, 1967, restrictions were loosened to allow strikes on military airfields and power plants in the Hanoi restricted area. However, the possibility of negotiations with North Vietnam once again prompted the United States to cease all bombing in the Hanoi prohibited zone from August 24 to October 23. On October 24 limited bombing resumed, but military, diplomatic, and political developments were soon to lead to the end of Operation ROLLING THUNDER. THUNDER

President Lyndon B. Johnson reads a newspaper headline regarding the halt in Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, November 1, 1968. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

The year 1968 marked a significant watershed in U.S. war policy, particularly with regard to the bombing of North Vietnam. On January 29, 1968, a bombing halt of 36 hours for the Tet holiday ended when the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong (VC) launched the Tet Offensive, a series of attacks throughout South Vietnam. A reappraisal of American strategy in March 1968 resulted in a halt of all bombing north of 20 degrees north latitude and renewed efforts at negotiations on March 31. On November 1 this was expanded to all of North Vietnam, thus ending ROLLING THUNDER. Reconnaissance flights continued, however, with aircraft allowed to return fire when fired upon. Although the U.S. bombing of Laos and Cambodia continued throughout 1969–1971, American aircraft would not bomb North Vietnam again until Operation LINEBACKER I, which commenced on April 7, 1972. January 15, 1973, saw the final halt to U.S. bombing as part of the Paris Peace Accords that ended U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. ROBERT M. BROWN See also Airpower, Role in War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; McNamara, Robert Strange; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr.

Booby Traps References McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Sharp, Ulysses S. Grant. Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1978. Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971.

Bombs, Gravity A class of unguided munitions dropped by aircraft that relies primarily on gravity and prerelease aiming to reach a target. Precisionguided bombs (also known as smart bombs) date from World War II and were also employed in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, a wide variety of so-called dumb bombs were employed by U.S. forces. These can be principally classified into standard bomb and cluster bomb types; however, such classification is at times misleading. Standard bombs tend to be more effective against troops in fortified bunkers or in dense vegetation such as jungles. Cluster bombs tend to be more useful against troops in open ground. Standard, or conventional, bombs have been extensively employed in modern warfare since World War I. Those used in Vietnam were larger and more streamlined than earlier conventional bombs because of advances in aircraft and bomb design. General purpose (GP) bombs, such as the Mk82, M-117, Mk84, and M-118 weighed 500, 750, 2,000, and 3,000 pounds, respectively. These bombs had equal proportions of high-explosive filler and fragmenting steel casing. Variants of the GP bomb, known as fragmentation bombs, had a higher percentage of steel casing, while those with a higher percentage of explosive filler were known as concussion bombs. There were also incendiary bombs. Cluster bombs are a more recent development than standard bombs. Their origins can be traced back to the so-called Molotov bread basket, first used in 1937 in the Spanish Civil War. Cluster bombs, as the name implies, are groups of bombs released together in a cluster. This allows a larger area to be targeted than with single conventional munitions. An extensive series of dispensers and cluster bombs was employed in the Vietnam War. A dispenser, or suspension and release unit (SUU), carried a large number of submunitions, or bomblet units (BLUs). Later modifications to both dispensers and cluster bombs resulted in the development of almost indecipherable designations. To add to this confusion, many BLUs, such as the 500pound BLU-57 fragmentation bomb, are in actuality conventional bombs. A wide range of munitions was thus used in BLU designations. These ranged in weight from about 1 pound for bomblets up to 15,000 pounds. Such munitions were based on blast, antipersonnel fragmentation, antiarmor shaped charge, white phosphorus, smoke, napalm, fuel-air explosive (FAE), and chemical warfare types. Specific bombs of note are the BLU-82B, MK20, and BLU-73. The BLU-82B is the renowned “Daisy Cutter,” first employed in early 1970. This

125

15,000-pound bomb is filled with DBA-22M, a special slurry of ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and a binding agent. The result is an explosive filler with about twice the power of TNT that for this bomb produced casualties out to a radius of almost 450 yards. The Daisy Cutter, which relied on a parachute to slow its descent, was used to create helicopter landing zones, to cause landslides for road interdiction, and against enemy troop concentrations. The MK20 “Rockeye” was a very common 500-pound antitank cluster bomb. It dispensed 247 Mk118 nine-inch antiarmor/ antipersonnel bomblets shaped like darts and could discriminate between hard and soft targets. The BLU-73 was a 100-pound FAE bomblet. Three of them were contained within a CBU-55 and relied on a parachute for a controlled descent. These bomblets burst on impact with the ground and sprayed out an ethylene oxide vapor cloud. After a few seconds’ delay the cloud was detonated, producing an immense and violent explosion. The explosive principle here is similar to what happens in a grain elevator explosion. This bomb became operational in Vietnam in October 1970. Cluster bombs, while considered “dumb,” should still be considered highly advanced from a technical perspective. The number of bomblets that a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber could drop is almost unimaginable. In a single sortie, a B-52 can disperse 25,488 BLU-26B or BLU-36B submunitions. A BLU-26B “Guava” fragmentation bomblet was 2.3 inches in diameter, and upon impact each projected some 300 steel pellets. The BLU-36B variant had a random delay fuse. A single B-52 loaded with these bomblets could thus saturate an area of approximately 629 acres, slightly less than a square mile, with more than 7.5 million steel pellets. ROBERT J. BUNKER See also Arc Light Missions; Napalm; Precision-Guided Munitions References Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Naval Air Systems Command. Antitank Bomb Cluster Mk 20, Mods 2, 3, 4 and 6 and Antipersonnel/Antimateriel Bomb Cluster CBU-59/B. NAVAIR 11-5A-3. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Anti-Personnel Weapons. London: Taylor and Francis, 1978. U.S. Army. Bombs and Bomb Components. TM9-1325-200. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966.

Bong Son Campaign See MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation

Booby Traps Concealed devices used to inflict casualties. Booby traps were an integral component of the war waged by Viet Cong (VC) and

126

Booby Traps

A medic treats a young U.S. Army lieutenant whose leg has been burned by an exploding Viet Cong white phosphorus booby trap in 1966. (National Archives)

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces in Vietnam. Between January 1965 and June 1970, 11 percent of the fatalities and 17 percent of the wounds sustained by U.S. Army troops were caused by booby traps and mines. These devices were used to delay and disrupt the mobility of U.S. forces, divert resources toward guard duty and clearance operations, inflict casualties, and damage equipment. They were a key component in prearranged killing zones. The use of booby traps also had a long-lasting psychological impact on marines and soldiers and helped to further alienate them from civilian populations that could not be distinguished from combatants. Many of the materials for the mines and booby traps were of U.S. origin. These included dud bombs, discarded and abandoned ammunition and munitions, and indigenous resources such as bamboo, mud, coconuts, and venomous snakes. Booby traps can be divided into explosive and nonexplosive antipersonnel devices and antivehicle (i.e., tank, vehicle, helicopter, and riverine craft) devices. Antipersonnel booby traps were concentrated in helicopter landing zones, narrow passages, paddy dikes, tree and

fence lines, trail junctions, and other commonly traveled routes. Antivehicle booby traps were deployed primarily on road networks, bridges, potential laager positions, and riverine choke points. Nonexplosive antipersonnel devices included punji stakes, bear traps, crossbow traps, spiked mud balls, double-spike caltrops, and scorpion-filled boxes. Punji stakes were sharpened lengths of bamboo with needlelike tips that had been fire-hardened. Often they were coated with excrement to cause infection. Dug into shallow camouflaged holes and rice paddies and mounted on bent saplings, the punji stake was a common booby trap. Another similar device was a spiked mud ball suspended by vines in the jungle canopy with a trip-wire release. It functioned as a pendulum, impaling its intended victim. Variations of explosive antipersonnel devices encompassed the powder-filled coconut, mud ball mine, grenade in tin can mine, bounding fragmentation mine, cartridge trap, and bicycle booby trap. The mud ball mine was a clay-encrusted grenade with the safety pin removed. Stepping on the mud ball released the safety lever, resulting in the detonation of the mine. The cartridge trap

Bowles, Chester Bliss was a rifle round buried straight up and resting on a nail or firing pin. Downward pressure applied to the cartridge fired it into the foot of the intended victim. Antivehicle devices included the B-40 antitank booby trap, concrete fragmentation mine, mortar shell mine, and oil-drum charge. The B-40 was a standard artillery rocket, which in this instance was placed in a length of bamboo at the shoulder of a road and commandfired at a vehicle crossing its forward arc. The mortar mine was simply the warhead of a large-caliber mortar that had been separated from its body and retrofitted with an electric blasting cap. The oil-drum charge was based on a standard U.S. five-gallon oil drum filled with explosives and triggered by a wristwatch firing device. This booby trap had immense sabotage applications for use against fuel dumps. As the Vietnam War progressed and the casualty list stemming from booby traps mounted, U.S. forces employed numerous countermeasures. The most effective countermeasures were proactive in nature and focused on the destruction of underground VC and PAVN mine and booby trap factories and the elimination of raw materials used in the manufacture of such devices. Tactical countermeasures included using electronic listening devices and ground-surveillance radar, patrolling, deploying scout-sniper teams and Kit Carson Scouts, booby-trapping trash left by a unit, and employing artillery ambush zones. Principal individual countermeasures were wearing body armor, sandbagging the floors of armored personnel carriers, and abstaining from the collection of souvenirs. ROBERT J. BUNKER

127

on April 5, 1901, in Springfield, Massachusetts. After graduating from Yale University he worked in advertising in New York City. In 1929 he established the agency of Benton and Bowles, serving as its chairman from 1936 to 1941. During World War II Bowles was a government official, serving as head of the Office of Price Administration (1943–1946). He later was governor of Connecticut (1949–1951), ambassador to India (1951–1953), and U.S. congressman from Connecticut (1959–1961). Bowles essentially owed his State Department position, which he took in January 1961, to his political connections. A New Deal Democrat who preferred economic aid and development to military coercion, he opposed the growing U.S. troop commitment to Laos and Vietnam, arguing that they might provoke Chinese intervention. He recommended that conflict in Southeast Asia be neutralized under international guarantees. Fired from the State Department in November 1961, Bowles then received a vague and largely meaningless appointment as the president’s special representative for foreign policy. In this capacity Bowles continued to call for a “Peace Charter for Southeast Asia,” a continuation of his earlier neutralization schemes, together with massive economic aid for the region. He resigned in

See also Kit Carson Scouts; Mine Warfare, Land References Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. U.S. Army Foreign Service and Technology Center. Mines and Booby Traps. (Translation of Minas e Armadilhas.) Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1969. U.S. Marine Corps. Vietcong Mine Warfare. Quantico, VA: Department of the Navy, 1966. Wells, Robert, ed. The Invisible Enemy: Boobytraps in Vietnam. Miami: J. Flores Publications, 1992.

Border Campaign See LE HONG PHONG II, Operation

Bowles, Chester Bliss Birth Date: April 5, 1901 Death Date: May 25, 1986 Advertising executive, diplomat, Democratic Party politician, and U.S. undersecretary of state (1961). Chester Bliss Bowles was born

Chester Bowles was a successful businessman, U.S. government administrator, politician, and diplomat. As undersecretary of state in 1961, Bowles opposed the growing U.S. commitments to Laos and the Republic of Vietnam. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

128

Bradley, Omar Nelson

January 1963 and later that year returned to India as ambassador, staying there until 1969. As a private citizen Bowles continued to advocate similar economic policies and supported a halt to bombing in Vietnam and the opening of peace negotiations; publicly he remained silent. The Lyndon Johnson administration ignored Bowles’s dissenting advice. In January 1968 Bowles represented the United States in talks with Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. Bowles’s intended objectives were to deny Cambodian sanctuary to Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces and to limit U.S. military incursions into Cambodian territory to preserve that country’s neutrality and integrity. The talks were initially successful but ultimately failed to prevent a full-scale American invasion of Cambodia. Bowles died of Parkinson’s disease on May 25, 1986, in Essex, Connecticut. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Cambodia; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Sihanouk, Norodom References Bowles, Chester B. Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life, 1941–1969. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Schaffer, Howard B. Chester Bowles: New Dealer in the Cold War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.

II Corps, leading it with distinction in both the Tunisian and Sicily campaigns. In October 1943 Bradley assumed command of First Army and led American ground forces in the June 1944 invasion of France. In August he received command of the 12th Army Group and directed the southern wing of the Allied drive across northern France. At its peak Twelfth Army Group included 1.3 million men, the largest force ever commanded by an American general. Promoted to full general in March 1945, Bradley continued in command of Twelfth Army Group until the end of the war. From 1945 to 1947 he headed the Veterans Administration. In February 1948 he succeeded Eisenhower as army chief of staff and in August 1949 became the first chairman of the JCS, a post he held throughout the Korean War until August 1953. Bradley was promoted to general of the army (five-star rank) in September 1950. Bradley sought to maintain the Korean War as a limited conflict and to keep Europe as the top U.S. military priority, something that General Douglas MacArthur could not appreciate. This was exemplified in Bradley’s well-known 1951 characterization of a potential

Bradley, Omar Nelson Birth Date: February 12, 1893 Death Date: April 8, 1981 U.S. Army general and first chairman (1949–1953) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Born on February 12, 1893, in Clark, Missouri, Omar Nelson Bradley graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1915 and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. He served in several posts in the United States including along the Mexican border in 1916. He missed combat in World War I but was promoted to major in 1918. Bradley taught at West Point and in 1925 graduated from the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He then served in Hawaii before graduating from the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He next served as an instructor at the Infantry School before graduating from the Army War College in 1934. Bradley returned to West Point and in 1936 was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Bradley was on the Army General Staff from 1938 to 1941 and was promoted to brigadier general in February 1941. He then commanded the Infantry School before taking command of the 82nd Infantry Division and next commanded the National Guard 28th Infantry Division. He was promoted to major general in February 1942. Bradley served briefly as aide to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and then was assigned by him as deputy commander of Lieutenant George S. Patton’s II Corps in Tunisia. When Patton took command of Seventh Army, Bradley assumed command of

General of the Army Omar Bradley, shown here in 1950, was the last U.S. Army five-star general (promoted in September 1950) and the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1949–1953. (Library of Congress)

BRAVO I and II, Operations

wider war in Asia as the “wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” Bradley backed President Harry S. Truman’s decision to relieve MacArthur. Bradley supported U.S. military aid for the French in Indochina. He characterized the Navarre Plan as “a marked improvement in French military thinking” but added a cautionary note that based on “past performances” by the French, there could be no predictions regarding the effects of increased U.S. assistance. In U.S. contingency planning, Bradley doubted that American air and naval attacks could alone bring victory, although he accepted these as preferable to U.S. involvement in another Asian ground war. Bradley retired from the service in August 1953. In 1968 he was one of the so-called Wise Men who advised President Lyndon Johnson. Bradley opposed a withdrawal from Vietnam. He died in Washington, D.C., on April 8, 1981. Modest, unassuming, and concerned about the welfare of his men, Bradley was regarded as a soldier’s general and one of the most successful commanders of World War II. He was known for his excellent administrative skills and his calmness when under stress. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; MacArthur, Douglas; Navarre Plan; Wise Men References Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention in Vietnam. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier’s Story. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1951. Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Prados, John. The Sky Would Fall: Operation Vulture, the U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954. New York: Dial, 1983.

Brady, Patrick Henry Birth Date: October 1, 1936 U.S. Army officer, considered by many to be the top helicopter pilot of the Vietnam War. Born in Philip, South Dakota, on October 1, 1936, Patrick Henry Brady joined the military and first reported to Vietnam in January 1964. He was assigned as a medical evacuation pilot in the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance), then under the command of Major Charles L. Kelly. After Kelly was killed in action on July 1, 1964, Brady assumed command of the 57th’s Detachment A, operating out of the Mekong Delta. In August 1967 Brady returned to Vietnam for a second tour of duty, this time as the operations officer and later commander of the 54th Medical Detachment. He instilled in his new unit the ethos of his old mentor Kelly: “No compromise. No rationalization. No hesitation. Fly the mission. Now!” Patients came above all else.

129

On January 5, 1968, piloting “Dust Off 55,” Brady flew an incredible series of medevac missions in the fog-wrapped mountains near Chu Lai, south of Da Nang. Under intense enemy fire, he flew nine different missions and evacuated 51 wounded soldiers. He went through three different helicopters. On his third mission of the day, three helicopters following his own were forced back by thick fog and Communist ground fire. For his actions that day Brady was awarded the Medal of Honor. By the time he finished his second tour in Vietnam, he was also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross with five Oak Leaf Clusters. Brady retired from the U.S. Army in September 1993 as a major general. One of his last assignments was as the U.S. Army’s chief of public affairs. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Dustoff; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Kelly, Charles L.; Medevac References Brady, Patrick H. “When I Have Your Wounded.” ARMY (June 1989): 64–72. Dorland, Peter, and James Nanney. Dust Off: Army Aeromedical Evacuation in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982.

BRAVO I

and II, Operations

Start Date: October 29, 1963 End Date: November 2, 1963 The two stages of the 1963 pseudocoup in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) devised by Ngo Dinh Nhu to preempt an anticipated generals’ revolt and preserve the regime of his brother, President Ngo Dinh Diem. In early October 1963 political chaos, religious repression, and military reverses racked South Vietnam. Against this backdrop, a cabal of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) generals conspired with U.S. approval to overthrow the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Led by General Tran Van Don, the plotters included generals Duong Van Minh, Le Van Kim, Nguyen Van Vy, Mai Huu Xuan, and Ton That Dinh and Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao. As the planning went forward, U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Lieutenant Colonel Lucien Conein provided crucial support and encouragement to the conspirators. The generals’ coup was first scheduled for October 26, Armed Forces Day in South Vietnam, so that insurgent ARVN units could be deployed in the capital without attracting undue attention. Uncertainties, however, caused the date to be pushed back to November 2. The generals proceeded cautiously, anxious about U.S. policy and unsure of themselves in the complex and turbulent world of South Vietnamese politics. Saigon seethed with obscure and murky plots within plots.

130

Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich

A thorny problem for the plotters was the recruitment of Saigon regional commander General Ton That Dinh, whose cooperation was essential if the coup was to succeed. Adroitly playing to Dinh’s ego, Don advised him to demand that Diem appoint him minister of the interior. When Diem refused, as Don knew he would, Don then promised Dinh the same post in the successor regime if he joined the conspiracy. Dinh accepted. Although now officially a conspirator, Dinh was far from a trusted partner. Don used Dinh’s position to neutralize General Huynh Van Cao, a Diem loyalist commanding ARVN forces in the Mekong Delta. Cao’s three divisions, deployed near Saigon, could easily thwart the coup if they were allowed into the city. To avert this, Don and Dinh planned to have Dinh’s deputy, Colonel Nguyen Huu Co, take temporary command of Cao’s nearest division at My Tho on the eve of the coup. Co would then use these troops to block any rescue attempts by Cao’s other forces. News of this supposedly secret maneuver, however, reached Ngo Dinh Nhu. Nhu called Dinh to his office in the presidential palace and confronted him with his knowledge of Co’s role. Feigning astonishment, Dinh flew into such a theatrical rage at his deputy’s supposed duplicity that he convinced Nhu of his complete loyalty to the regime. Nhu then took Dinh into his confidence, advised him of his knowledge of the rest of the plot, and proposed an elaborate phony coup to trap the generals in their betrayal. “Coups,” Nhu told Dinh, “like eggs, must be smashed before they are hatched.” Nhu divided his scheme into two phases, designated BRAVO I and BRAVO II, and assigned Dinh a pivotal role in each. In early November, Dinh would begin BRAVO I by ordering Colonel Le Quang Tung’s loyalist Special Forces out of the city on the pretext of campaigning against guerrillas. During their absence loyalist police and other soldiers disguised as rebels and hoodlums would stage a spontaneous revolt, murdering selected Vietnamese and U.S. officials and spreading terror throughout the city. During the uproar, Diem and Nhu would flee to a secure refuge. Saigon radio would then issue a false proclamation announcing the creation of a revolutionary government dedicated to the eviction of all Americans and conciliation with the Communists. BRAVO II would follow a few days later. Spearheaded by Tung’s Special Forces, Dinh would sweep back into Saigon, crush the uprising, rescue the Diem brothers, and triumphantly return the rightful government to power. His legitimacy reaffirmed, Diem would emerge stronger than ever. His opponents would be crushed, and he would appear the champion of anti-Communists in both his own country and the United States. The success of Nhu’s plot, of course, rested with the ubiquitous Dinh. General Dinh promptly informed Don of Nhu’s scheme, prompting the generals to move up their own coup to November 1 to preempt that of Nhu. In turn, when he learned through more informants of the generals’ change of schedule—although astonishingly not of Dinh’s treachery—Nhu moved BRAVO I up to October 29. Believing that he could now turn his phony coup into a real countercoup, Nhu instructed Dinh to order Colonel Tung’s Special

Forces out of the city to begin BRAVO I. Dinh obeyed but insisted on command of General Cao’s Mekong Delta divisions to ensure the smooth unfolding of BRAVO II. Despite all of his informants, Nhu was still unaware of Dinh’s true purpose and agreed. Thus, at the start of the coup Dinh personally controlled almost all of the military forces in and around Saigon. During the last days of October, Dinh freely deployed troops inside the capital and positioned them to attack key government installations. The Ngo brothers, sequestered in the Presidential Palace and still believing Dinh to be on their side, confidently awaited news of their countercoup. On November 1 the coup leaders summoned Colonel Tung and Captain Ho Tan Quyen, Diem’s loyalist navy commander, to a routine meeting. Both men were killed along with Tung’s brother, Major Le Quang Trieu. Still believing that BRAVO I was unfolding smoothly, Diem and Nhu rejected the generals’ initial demands that they surrender. They began to have doubts when Dinh would not return their calls. At about 3:00 p.m. on November 1 Diem telephoned Don and attempted to initiate conciliatory talks. Then when calls for resistance failed, the Ngo brothers fled to Cholon, where they were arrested and murdered on November 2. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Conein, Lucien Emile; Duong Van Minh; Huynh Van Cao; Le Quang Tung; Le Van Kim; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Huu Co; Pham Ngoc Thao; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Ton That Dinh; Tran Van Don References Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Morrison, Wilbur H. The Elephant and the Tiger: The Full Story of the Vietnam War. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990.

Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich Birth Date: December 19, 1906 Death Date: November 10, 1982 Soviet leader, secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1964–1982), and head of state (1977–1982). Born on December 19, 1906, in the Ukrainian town of Dneprodzerzhinsk (then called Kamenskoye), Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev graduated as an engineer from the Kamenskoye Metallurgical Institute in 1935 and rose through the local party ranks, holding various positions. In 1957 he became a member of the Communist Party secretariat and the Politburo, the two most important bodies in the Soviet Union. His rapid ascent to power can be credited in

Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich

131

Leonid Brezhnev was the dominant figure in the Soviet Union from 1966, when he became secretary-general of its Communist Party, until his death in 1982. (AFP/Getty Images)

large measure to his patron, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. After Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964 in which Brezhnev played a key part, Brezhnev became the Communist Party’s first secretary. Two years later he appointed himself secretary-general, the Soviet Union’s most important position. Brezhnev was a moderate conservative in both domestic and foreign affairs. Under his leadership the Soviet Union achieved strategic nuclear parity with the United States. Yet this came at a very heavy cost that eventually resulted in an economic crisis in the late 1980s, which destroyed the Soviet Union. In August 1968 Brezhnev sent Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring reform movement. He justified this with what became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, which held that Socialist regimes had the obligation to intervene whenever socialism was perceived to be threatened in any country where it had come to power. Brezhnev viewed American involvement in Vietnam as a windfall for the Soviet Union. Almost immediately he reversed Khrushchev’s policy of disengagement. Brezhnev increased economic and military aid to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), hoping to entice it from its pro-Chinese position. Yet

he discouraged a further escalation of the war, fearing a direct confrontation with the United States. Thus, Soviet assistance was carefully calculated to allow North Vietnam to hold its own and to tie up American forces. Brezhnev greatly improved relations between North Vietnam and the Soviet Union. Vietnam, however, was never high on Brezhnev’s list of priorities, and he would not allow the Vietnam War to destroy his emerging détente with the United States. After North Vietnam’s 1975 military victory, Brezhnev continued the close relationship and extensive aid. The North Vietnamese/Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) leadership held Brezhnev in higher regard than any other Soviet leader, believing that he best understood their North Vietnamese efforts and goals. In recognition of this, in 1980 the SRV awarded Brezhnev its highest decoration, the Order of Golden Star. Brezhnev also engaged in détente with the West, signing the 1968 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, and the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II, the latter two with the United States. Détente collapsed, however, when Brezhnev applied the Brezhnev Doctrine to Afghanistan by sending thousands of troops there in December 1979 to prop up

132

BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation

the pro-Soviet Communist regime. As it turned out, the war in Afghanistan, which lasted for nearly 10 years, was a disaster that embroiled the Soviets in a vicious war of attrition against determined insurgents who were being aided by the West. The war ruined the morale of the Soviet Army and virtually bankrupted the nation. Bitterly disappointed at the revival of the Cold War after the invasion of Afghanistan and increasingly inactive due to poor health, Brezhnev died in Moscow on November 10, 1982. MICHAEL SHARE See also Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Bacon, Edwin, and Mark Sandle. Brezhnev Reconsidered. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Gelman, H. The Brezhnev Politburo. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984.

BRIGHT LIGHT,

Operation

Start Date: 1966 End Date: 1970 Generic code name for operations designed to rescue American and allied servicemen captured by Communist forces during the Vietnam War. Operation BRIGHT LIGHT included rescue operations that targeted North Vietnamese, Viet Cong (VC), or Pathet Lao captors. Between 1966 and 1970, U.S. forces mounted 45 separate raids in Cambodia, Laos, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to rescue American prisoners of war (POWs) but freed only one. He died shortly after the rescue of injuries inflicted by his captors only moments before he was rescued. In many of the BRIGHT LIGHT attempts time was of the essence because of the fragility of the intelligence on which these rescue attempts were based and the fact that their captors often moved the POWs at unscheduled intervals. The rescue operations were often joint efforts between U.S. Air Force and/or naval aviation assets and the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), a Special Operations command. A typical MACV-SOG operation would be launched using sufficient air cover and delivery aircraft, while on the ground a Hatchet Team (a special operations unit numbering between a platoon and a company of indigenous personnel or contracted troops and led by Americans) would be inserted into the target area to locate, forcibly free if necessary, and egress the rescued personnel. After a U.S. serviceman was lost, a search-and-rescue effort was immediately mounted. If the attempt was unsuccessful, the individual was presumed missing or captured. Early in the war there was no U.S. effort to collect intelligence on U.S. POWs for possible rescue attempts. This problem was remedied with the creation

of the Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC), a joint command charged with both developing that needed intelligence and launching possible rescue operations. Unfortunately, while many POWs were indeed rescued via JPRC operations, none were Americans. There were several reasons for this, including interservice rivalry, command issues, political complications, and the problem of securing and acting on accurate and timely intelligence. Communist counterintelligence activities and leaks from American or South Vietnamese sources added to the frustration. Political difficulties were especially prevalent in Laos, where many aircrew and Special Forces members were actually but not officially lost because U.S. personnel were not supposed to be fighting there. Thus, when the JPRC wanted to launch a rescue operation in Laos, it needed special permission from State Department personnel, which in the best of times came very slowly and was sometimes denied. The largest rescue attempt of the war was of course the Son Tay Raid of November 21, 1970, code-named Operation KINGPIN. This was a joint U.S. Army/U.S. Air Force raid on a POW camp 23 miles northwest of Hanoi in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to free about 70 American POWs. The raid was almost flawless in its execution but ended in failure because the POWs had been moved just prior to the raid. While no POWs were rescued, many defenders were killed, and no American lives were lost. The Son Tay Raid led the North Vietnamese authorities to consolidate their American POWs in fewer well-defended locations. SCOTT R. DIMARCO See also Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Missing in Action, Allied; Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist; Prisoners of War, Allied; Son Tay Raid; Studies and Observation Group References Gargus, John. The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Plaster, John L. Secret Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines with the Elite Warriors of SOG. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Plaster, John L. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Schemmer, Benjamin F. The Raid. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. Veith, George J. Code Name: Bright Light. New York: Free Press, 1998.

Brown, George Scratchley Birth Date: August 17, 1918 Death Date: December 5, 1978 U.S. Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1974–1978. Born on August 17, 1918, in Montclair, New Jersey, George Scratchley Brown graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1941 and was

Brown, Hubert Gerald commissioned in the Army Air Forces. After distinguished service as a bomber pilot in Europe with the Eighth Air Force during World War II that included the costly raid on Ploesti, Romania, in August 1943, Brown held various command and staff assignments, including service on the Joint Staff and as an assistant to the secretary of defense. During the Korean War (1950–1953) Brown commanded the 62nd Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base in Washington state and then the 56th Fighter Wing at Selfridge Air Force Base in Michigan. In May 1952 he was assigned as director of operation at Headquarters, Fifth Air Force, in Seoul, Korea. Brown graduated from the National War College in 1957 and then served in the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force. In 1959 he became military assistant to the deputy secretary of defense and then held the same post under the secretary of defense. In 1963 Brown assumed command of the Eastern Transport Air Force, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. During 1966–1968 he was assistant to the JCS chairman in Washington, D.C. In 1968 Brown was promoted to full (four-star) general and assumed command of the Seventh Air Force. He was also designated deputy commander for air operations for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). In these dual capacities Brown emphasized his role as MACV commander General Creighton Abrams’s primary adviser on air operations while delegating great authority over daily operations to his staff. Brown believed that airpower was underutilized, and he sought to fully integrate air operations into all tactical and strategic plans. Abrams agreed with this approach, and the two men worked well together in the effective management of joint operations. After two years of service in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Brown left there in 1970. In 1973 he served briefly as U.S. Air Force chief of staff, and in June 1974 he was appointed chairman of the JCS. In this position he successfully led the services through the initial crises of the post–Vietnam War era. His tenure was somewhat tarnished by comments he made that were interpreted to be anti-Semitic, or certainly anti-Israeli. Brown claimed that Israel was becoming a burden to the United States because of military aid to the Jewish state and that this was a result of the hold of Israel’s supporters over U.S. newspapers and elected officials. Although there were calls for his resignation regarding these remarks, Brown finished out his term. Among his other statements, he predicted that Iran would become a major Middle Eastern military power. Brown retired in June 1978 and died of cancer in Bethesda, Maryland, on December 5, 1978. RICHARD D. STARNES See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Air Force References Bongard, David L. “Brown, George Scratchley.” In The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, edited by Trevor N. Dupuy, Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard, 106. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

133

Puryear, Edgar F., Jr., and George S. Brown. General, U.S. Air Force: Destined for Stars. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Brown, Hubert Gerald Birth Date: October 4, 1943 Civil rights leader, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and militant proponent of the Black Power movement. Hubert Gerald Brown, also known as H. Rap Brown and later as Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on October 4, 1943. He attended Southern University and A&M in Baton Rouge during 1960–1964, when he became involved in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement.

H. Rap Brown, national chairperson of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a leader in the Black Power movement, during a press conference on July 27, 1967. Brown was shot and wounded in 1967 after delivering a fiery speech about the cause. The Black Power movement was an attempt by militant African Americans to establish their own political, cultural, and social institutions independent of white society. (Library of Congress)

134

Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr.

While at Southern, Brown joined the SNCC and became an active leader in the organization. By 1966 he had become the SNCC’s project director in Alabama, and in 1967 he succeeded Stokely Carmichael as national director. That same year Brown was arrested in Cambridge, Maryland, for inciting a crowd to riot. Brown soon abandoned the pacifistic premises of the SNCC and Martin Luther King Jr., believing that they had not advanced the agenda of African Americans. In 1968 Brown left the SNCC to join the radical Black Panthers. In 1969 Brown cemented his reputation as a militant radical with his incendiary autobiography titled Die Nigger Die! He also became known for his famous cry “Burn, Baby, Burn!” during the race riots of 1968. Between 1969 and 1971 Brown was charged several times with inciting riots and for weapons violations but remained on the lam. He was finally apprehended in New York during an armed robbery of a bar. Tried and convicted of this offense, he spent the next five years in prison. While imprisoned in New York State’s infamous Attica State Prison, Brown converted to Islam, changing his name to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. Upon his release Brown settled in Atlanta, where he became a community activist and religious leader. In March 2000 two Atlanta area police officers, Aldranon English and Rick Kinchen, arrived at Brown’s home to serve him with an arrest warrant for an alleged theft. Brown inexplicably opened fire on the officers, wounding one and killing the other. In March 2002 Brown was convicted of 13 felonies, including murder, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Black Panthers; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee References Hogan, Wesley C. Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Rhodes, Jane. Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. New York: New Press, 2005.

Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr. Birth Date: July 27, 1943 Political activist and organizer and cofounder and coordinator of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee. Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on July 27, 1943, Samuel Winfred Brown Jr. received his BA from Redlands University, where he was president of the student body and the Young Republicans. While he was at Redlands he participated in the National Student Association, met Allard Lowenstein, joined the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, and became an anti–Vietnam War activist. In 1966 after receiving his MA from Rutgers University, Brown enrolled at Harvard Divinity School, where Lowenstein recruited him to organize seminarians against the Vietnam War and to help form the Alternative Candidate Task Force. Brown directed the

Children’s Crusade, student volunteers in Senator Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 New Hampshire presidential primary campaign. Responding to the concept of a nationwide strike against the war, on June 30, 1969, Brown and others established the Vietnam Moratorium Committee. His impressive organizational skills contributed in large measure to the success of the October and November demonstrations, the largest public protests to that time in U.S. history. The following year he coedited Why Are We Still in Vietnam?, an examination of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. In May 1970 Brown cofounded Operation Pursestrings to lobby for the McGovern-Hatfield end-the-war amendment. In 1972 Brown actively supported Senator George McGovern’s presidential campaign. After holding the office of Colorado state treasurer (1974–1977), Brown served as President Jimmy Carter’s director of ACTION, the umbrella agency of the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). In the 1980s Brown became a Colorado real estate developer, financing low- and middle-income housing. He also raised funds for the nuclear freeze movement and for Colorado Democratic senator Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign. Ironically, Brown supported the 1991 Persian Gulf War, believing that it was necessary to keep the Iraqis from attaining nuclear weapons and to stabilize the Middle East. He rejected parallels at the time that had warned that the conflict would become another Vietnam. On May 4, 1994, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Brown as ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Senate Republicans, especially Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Vietnam War veteran Hank Brown of Colorado (no relation), led an opposition filibuster. Opponents of the nomination focused on Brown’s activities as an anti–Vietnam War protester and a supporter of Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign and, as an example of Vietnam revisionism, knowingly misrepresented Brown as an unrepentant 1960s radical who engaged in violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and celebrated the Communist victory in Vietnam. The nomination failed when the Senate was twice unable to break the filibuster. Nevertheless Clinton went ahead with the appointment, although Brown would not have ambassadorial rank. In 2000 Brown became executive director of the Fair Labor Association, and in 2004 he worked for the John F. Kerry presidential campaign. Brown was reportedly outraged by right-wing attempts to blemish Kerry’s Vietnam War record and resurrect the war for crassly political purposes. PAUL S. DAUM AND FRANCIS RYAN See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Kerry, John Forbes; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; McGovern, George Stanley; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam References Brown, Sam, and Len Ackland, eds. Why Are We Still in Vietnam? New York: Random House, 1970.

Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Rosenbaum, David E. “Moratorium Organizer.” New York Times, October 16, 1969. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

135

References Browne, Malcolm. Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter’s Life. New York: Crown, 1993. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este Browne, Malcolm Wilde Birth Date: April 17, 1931 Journalist, Vietnam War correspondent, and photographer. Malcolm Wilde Browne was born on April 17, 1931, in New York City. He was educated at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and at New York University. His career in journalism began when he was drafted into the U.S. Army during the 1950–1953 Korean War and was assigned to write for Pacific Stars and Stripes. When he returned home from the war, he continued his career as a journalist, joining the Associated Press and working in Middletown for the New York Daily Record (1958–1960) and in Baltimore for the Associated Press (1960–1961), at which point he became chief correspondent for Indochina. He was among a group of young journalists who reported that there were serious problems with the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and with the conduct of the war there, contradicting the optimistic reports coming from Ambassador Frederick Nolting and head of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), General Paul Harkins. In January 1963 Browne covered the Battle of Ap Bac, reporting on the ineptitude of the South Vietnamese armed forces. On June 11, 1963, he photographed the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc in Saigon. The photograph of the Buddhist’s supreme act of protest against the government in Saigon reportedly helped convince President John F. Kennedy that South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem would have to be removed from office. Browne and David Halberstam of the New York Times shared the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for their 1963 reporting from Vietnam. Browne worked for ABC News from 1965 to 1966. In 1968 he joined the New York Times in 1968 as foreign correspondent and later became a science reporter. He left the New York Times for several years to serve as a senior editor for Discover magazine but returned to New York Times science department in 1985. In 1991 he covered the Persian Gulf War, but he has primarily been a science writer in recent years. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Halberstam, David; Harkins, Paul Donal; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.; Thich Quang Duc

Birth Date: February 12, 1898 Death Date: December 5, 1977 American diplomat and head of the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks (1970–1971). Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 12, 1898, David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce was educated at Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Maryland Law School. From 1917 to 1919 he served in the U.S. Army, and in 1918 he went with the American Expeditionary Forces to France. This experience began a lifelong fascination with Europe. In the late 1920s Bruce’s initial attempt to join the U.S. Foreign Service was postponed because of the health problems of his first wife, wealthy heiress Ailsa Mellon, daughter of Andrew W. Mellon, whom Bruce married in 1927. In 1939 the outbreak of war in Europe gave Bruce a second opportunity to serve his country, which with only short interruptions

Ambassador David K. E. Bruce headed the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks during 1970–1971. (National Archives)

136

Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz

he continued to do until two years before his death in 1977. In the process he became one of America’s most respected and professional diplomats, his noncareer status notwithstanding. A brief assignment as chief representative of the American Red Cross War Mission in London in 1940 was followed the next year by a four-year posting to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), becoming the head of its European branch in 1943. A committed advocate of European integration, Bruce was successively assistant secretary of commerce (1947–1948), chief of the European Cooperation Administration (1948–1949), and ambassador to France (1949–1952). In these posts he was heavily involved in Europe’s postwar reconstruction. His subsequent assignments included undersecretary of state during 1952–1953, U.S. observer to the European Defense Community interim committee and U.S. representative to the nascent European Coal and Steel Community during 1953–1955, ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) during 1957–1959, and ambassador to Great Britain during 1961–1969. From the late 1940s on Bruce, who did not share the anticolonialist leanings of many Americans, paid much attention to French Indochina and at first enthusiastically urged greater American military and economic assistance for French efforts to subdue the Viet Minh and promote Emperor Bao Dai, to whom Bruce thought his own government was too unsympathetic. He was, however, somewhat relieved by the final French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, which he believed ended an increasingly pointless and expensive commitment to an unwinnable war. Dubious as to the wisdom of American involvement in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Laos, and Cambodia and unconvinced that U.S. military efforts were likely to succeed, Bruce in the 1960s nonetheless believed that the United States, having pledged itself to these states, should keep its commitments. He loyally supported his country’s policies, which, as ambassador to Great Britain, he was frequently obliged to defend in public, even as private skepticism led him to question the accuracy of reports of the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Bruce was repelled by growing public protests against the war, particularly the violent demonstrations of which both the London embassy and his Georgetown home were targets. Bruce’s growing private doubts as to the likelihood of an American victory in Southeast Asia and concern over the war’s domestic and international political implications for the United States led him to hope for a negotiated settlement. To this end he supported various proposals, particularly an abortive attempt to end the war mounted in 1967 by British prime minister Harold Wilson in collaboration with visiting Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin. Bruce therefore welcomed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision in 1968 to seek peace and American withdrawal, efforts in which from 1970 to 1971 Bruce participated, heading the American delegation at the largely nonsubstantive peace talks in Paris. There he frequently found himself frustrated by the lengthy propaganda harangues of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North

Vietnam) and came to regard his assignment as an empty charade in which each side’s rhetoric was designed for public consumption rather than to further genuine negotiations. Bruce’s penultimate assignment was as the first head of the new U.S. Liaison Office to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) during 1973–1974. In this largely symbolic position his seniority, ability, and charm proved important assets at a crucial stage in the reopening of Sino-American relations. In poor health, he retired after a final stint as ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during 1974–1975. Bruce died in Washington, D.C., of heart failure on December 5, 1977. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Paris Negotiations References Lankford, Nelson D. The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of Ambassador David K. E. Bruce. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz Birth Date: March 28, 1928 Prominent international affairs scholar, academic, leading Sovietologist, diplomat, and U.S. assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security adviser) from 1977 to 1981. The son of a Polish diplomat who immigrated to Canada, Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski was born on March 28, 1928, in Warsaw, Poland. In 1938 he went to Canada with his father, a diplomat stationed there, and in 1953 settled in the United States. Brzezinski received a BA from McGill University in 1949 and an MA in 1950. He earned his doctorate at Harvard University in 1953. The Communist takeover of his homeland may have led him to study communism and the Communist bloc. Noted throughout his political career as a hard-line antiCommunist, Brzezinski was an early advocate of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. An academic by profession, he served as a foreign policy adviser to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Brzezinski was appointed to the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Council in 1966. He resigned in 1968, however, over U.S. policies toward the Vietnam War, which he viewed as ineffective. In the 1960s and 1970s Brzezinski saw Communist expansion in Asia as the greatest threat to world peace and worked to oppose it. His antiexpansionism persisted during his tenure on the National Security Council under President Jimmy Carter, although the focus shifted to the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Named national security adviser in 1977, Brzezinski played a key role in the 1978 Camp David meetings and the 1979 Camp David Accord, which brought peace between Egypt and Israel. Like Carter, Brzezinski became engrossed in the Iran Hostage Crisis,

Buddhism in Vietnam

137

Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.

Buddhism in Vietnam

Foreign policy specialist Zbigniew Brzezinski served as an adviser to Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. Known as a staunch anti-Communist, he strongly supported U.S. assistance to the Republic of Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

which commenced in November 1979 and did not end until Carter left office in January 1981. The crisis was a large factor in Carter’s loss to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Hailed by Carter as his “teacher” in international affairs, Brzezinski received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. That same year he became Nitze Scholar on Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, having previously taught at Harvard (1954–1960) and Columbia University (1960–1962 and 1981–1989). Brzezinski has written numerous books on international affairs. TIMOTHY C. DOWLING See also Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald References Andrianopolis, Gerry Argyris. Kissinger and Brzezinski: The NSC and the Struggle for Control of U.S. National Security Policy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Brown, Seyom. The Faces of Power: United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Clinton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Buddhism is a body of beliefs and practices based largely on the teachings of Siddhartha Guatama, otherwise known as Buddha (the “Awakened One”), who lived in the northeastern portion of the Indian subcontinent circa 525–405 BCE. He is recognized as the enlightened spiritual leader who shared his insights with his followers so that they could understand the true nature of all things and thereby achieve Nirvana, which is the absence of the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Buddha’s teachings are believed to have been transcribed and handed down over the centuries in the Buddhist texts. Buddha is not technically viewed as a deity; rather, he is seen as the pinnacle of earthly enlightenment and is therefore to be emulated. There are two major schools of Buddhist thought: Mahayana and Theravada. All schools of Buddhism teach to one extent or another that Nirvana may be attained by practicing scrupulously ethical conduct, compassion, altruism, asceticism, meditation, physical fitness, and the constant cultivation of wisdom. Most Buddhists also engage in regular devotional ceremonies and read the Buddhist texts. Because there is much disagreement among Buddhists over sacred texts and beliefs, there is no set of core beliefs or teachings embraced by all such as exist in Islam or JudeoChristian traditions. Buddhism was introduced to Vietnam from China in the second and third centuries. Vietnamese culture modified the traditional observance of the popular Mahayana school to include animism, ancestor cults, and Confucianist and Taoist ethics. After a period of growth lasting until the 15th century, Buddhism declined slightly during Confucianist rule. With the French control of Indochina in the second half of the 19th century, Buddhism faced some restrictions as the French sought to spread Catholicism. In 1951 Vietnamese Buddhists formed the General Association of Buddhists (GAB) to reorganize their religious activities. By the mid-1960s only 3 million Vietnamese considered themselves active Buddhists, but 15 million, or 80 percent of the population, were nominally associated with the religion. President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), who was raised in a prominent Catholic family, granted high-level administrative and military positions to Catholics and refused to repeal anti-Buddhist restrictions remaining from the French occupation. On May 8, 1963, thousands of Vietnamese gathered in the city of Hue to celebrate Buddha’s birthday. A local military official enforced the restriction prohibiting Buddhists from flying their flag. Just a week before, however, he had encouraged the Catholics to fly the papal flag in a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary

138

Buddhism in Vietnam

Elders of the Hoa Hao Buddhist sect participate in an interdenominational prayer for peace on April 22, 1975, at Saigon Cathedral. The banner above them reads “pray for peace.” Today, there are some 2 million Hoa Hao in Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

of the ordination of the archbishop of Hue, Ngo Dinh Thuc, President Diem’s brother. At the rally several thousand people gathered in front of a radio station to hear the broadcast of a speech by the Venerable Thich Tri Quang, popular leader of the militant Buddhists in Hue and the central provinces. The station manager canceled the speech, saying that it had not been censored. He then called a local military official, who sent five armored cars and then ordered his men to fire on the crowd. Nine people were killed. Diem ignored the bloodshed. A Buddhist delegation presented him with five demands calling for an end to religious persecution. Diem claimed that the deaths were from a Communist terrorist’s grenade. This blatantly false statement outraged the Buddhists, who publicized their complaints and called for Diem’s resignation. His intransigence had forced them to act. On June 11, 1963, the 60-year-old monk Thich Quang Duc sat down at a busy Saigon intersection, doused himself with gasoline, and then quietly folded his hands in prayer. As 200 to 300 monks and 400 to 500 spectators watched, a fellow monk ignited the gasoline, immolating Duc. Another monk had also volunteered for this protest, but Duc prevailed because of his age and respected position in the community.

During the next few months more protests and self-immolations took place. In August 1963 special troops disguised as regular soldiers attacked Buddhists in Saigon and Hue, jailing more than 1,000 monks, nuns, and students. Citizens rioted in protest. Washington demanded that Diem deal with the unrest, but he refused to capitulate. Madame Nhu, wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, Diem’s brother and adviser, exacerbated the situation by characterizing the self-immolations as “barbecues.” The Buddhist protests were religious in nature. Recognizing that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) would use them to denounce Diem and the United States, the leaders wanted to keep political grievances separate. No evidence existed to support Diem’s accusation of Communist intervention. His stubbornness led Buddhist leaders to the conclusion that religious freedom would be achieved only with a new government. Although they did not take part in the actual coup, Buddhists were partly responsible for Diem’s November 1963 overthrow. Their unrest had diverted much of his government’s attention away from counterinsurgency operations and created a schism in Diem’s supporters. Three cabinet officials and 80–90 percent of the nation’s military forces were Buddhist.

BUFFALO, Operation

Following Diem’s assassination, General Nguyen Khanh, his successor, lifted some restrictions and appointed Buddhists to high-level positions. The Venerable Thich Tam Chau, recently elected leader of the growing GAB, cooperated with the government. Later when Khanh reneged on pledges, Thich Tri Quang organized more protests in Hue, citing the United States as an accomplice in the repressive regime. The American Library and Consulate in Hue as well as the U.S. embassy in Saigon were burned. Vietnamese Buddhists denounced communism, military governments, and the entrenched power of Roman Catholics. Their unified strength contributed to the collapse of Khanh’s regime in 1964 and the government headed by Tran Van Huong in 1965 and forced Nguyen Cao Ky to place political power in elected representatives. In May 1966 after Ky was accused of harboring pro-Diem sentiments, 10 monks and nuns, more than during the Diem protests, set themselves afire. General Nguyen Chanh Thi, the commander of South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam’s northernmost five provinces, openly supported the Buddhist protest, provoking a major military and political crisis. General Ky was able to win back the allegiance of military leaders who had been supporting the Buddhists and jailed Thich Tri Quang, who was in the middle of a hunger strike. Because of strong support from Washington for Ky, the protest movement soon collapsed. CHARLES N. FASANARO See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Nguyen Cao Ky; Thich Quang Duc; Thich Tri Quang References Boetcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow. Boston: Little Brown, 1985. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. McHale, Shawn Frederick. Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.

BUFFALO,

Operation

Start Date: July 2, 1967 End Date: July 14, 1967 Military operation conducted in the summer of 1967 by U.S. military forces at Con Thien just south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). A relatively small bit of terrain less than 250 feet in elevation and two miles south of the DMZ along roughly the 17th Parallel, Con Thien was considered by many on both sides as the most important natural observation post along the entire DMZ. Washington saw it as a critical element in the construction and completion of the McNamara Line, the purpose of which was to impede the movement of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regiments across the DMZ into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South

139

Vietnam). Con Thien overlooked the crucial area known as Leatherneck Square, a quadrilateral defined by U.S. Marine Corps strong points at Con Thien, Gio Linh, Dong Ha, and Cam Lo. At the end of June 1967 some 35,000 PAVN troops were positioned above the DMZ. Their mission was to launch a major invasion into Quang Tri Province and score an important propaganda victory. PAVN forces were organized into four divisions: the 304th, 320th, 324B, and 325C. Operation BUFFALO began on July 2, 1967, when Companies A and B of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Schening’s 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment (1/9 Marines), went out to sweep an area east of Con Thien. The battalion’s primary mission was defense of the Con Thien combat base. Constraints imposed by Washington allowed PAVN troops to utilize the northern half of the DMZ for regrouping and employment of heavy artillery, and Companies A and B immediately came under fire from two PAVN battalions in prepared positions. Schening alerted Company C in Dong Ha to prepare for lifting by helicopter into Company B’s area. To support Companies A and B, he also dispatched four tanks and a platoon from Company D, under Assistant S-3 Captain Henry Radcliffe. As Company C arrived by helicopter, Captain Radcliffe ordered the platoon of Company D to secure the landing zone (LZ) and evacuate casualties. The battle grew in intensity. More than 700 artillery rounds fell on the 1/9 Marines alone, and Captain Albert Slater’s Company A remained under heavy fire. PAVN forces came within 55 yards of his lines before artillery and small arms broke their attack. Late in the afternoon commander of the 9th Marines Colonel George Jerue ordered Major Willard Woodring’s 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, to move by helicopter to assist the 1/9 Marines. During the next three days there was constant contact, especially with heavy mortar and artillery fire. On July 3 Lieutenant Colonel Peter Wickwire’s battalion landing team (BLT) 1/3 Marines from Special Landing Force (SLF) Alpha joined the 9th Marines. The regiment planned to drive north and push the PAVN troops out of the Lang Son area to the northeast of Con Thien by 4,375 yards. Major Wendell Beard’s BLT 2/3 Marines from SLF Bravo joined the operation on July 4. The next day all units came under heavy artillery fire while recovering Company B’s dead. On July 6 following preparatory artillery fire, all units continued their drive north. By late afternoon on July 6 both Wickwire’s and Woodring’s battalions were taken under heavy PAVN artillery fire and were unable to move. Some 500 to 600 rounds hit the 3rd Battalion’s position, and more than 1,000 rounds fell on the BLT 1/3 Marines. Providing security on the left flank, Major Woodring’s forces were able to move into position without opposition and establish a strong outpost. By early evening heavy PAVN probes, including small-arms and mortar fire, were directed at Slater’s unit. Throughout the night PAVN units maintained pressure on the marines. On July 7 Woodring ordered Captain Slater’s Company A to pull back into the battalion perimeter.

140

Bui Diem

Late in the afternoon on July 7 the marines countered with supporting arms, attack aircraft, flare ships, naval gunfire, and artillery. By July 8 the marines had repelled the assault and reported that the Communists had pulled back across the Ben Hai River. The marines could not give an accurate count of PAVN losses because they could not continue north of the river. Based on recovered documents, the PAVN 90th Regiment had borne the brunt of the attack. Postwar Vietnamese military histories confirm that the PAVN 90th Regiment, a unit of the 324th Division that was operating under the direct command of the North Vietnamese B5 Front Headquarters, was the primary PAVN unit involved in this battle. Following this battle the B5 Front Headquarters sent the 101D Regiment of the 325th Division and the 803rd Regiment of the 324th Division south across the DMZ to replace the 90th Regiment in the Con Thien area. The last major engagements of Operation BUFFALO took place on July 8 when Companies F and G came under small-arms fire. The marines responded with both artillery and air strikes. Operation BUFFALO ended on July 14, 1967. The marines reported 1,290 PAVN dead and losses of their own totaling 159 killed and 345 wounded. Con Thien had held, and the fighting affirmed the importance of the U.S. Marine Corps doctrine with regard to close coordination between ground and air elements. Two ominous developments were evident, however: the ability of PAVN gunners to employ accurate long-range artillery and the increased use of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). WILL E. FAHEY JR. See also Con Thien, Siege of; Demilitarized Zone; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Lich Su Su Doan Bo Binh 324, 1955–2005 [History of the 324th Infantry Division, 1955–2005]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2005. Nolan, Keith William. Operation Buffalo: U.S.M.C. Fight for the DMZ. New York: Dell, 1991. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

Bui Diem Birth Date: 1923 Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) ambassador to the United States during 1967–1972. Bui Diem was born in 1923 in Phu Ly in northern Vietnam. His father was the respected scholar Bui Ky. Bui Diem’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all attained the highest mandarin rank. His family refused to collaborate with the French, preferring to teach and write. In 1936 Bui Diem entered Thang Long high school in Hanoi, where he was deeply influenced by the anticolonialism of its faculty and

students. Among his professors was Vo Nguyen Giap, who taught a course in French history. Diem was also influenced by his uncle Tran Trong Kim, who wrote the classic Vietnamese history Viet Nam Su Luoc. Diem received his baccalaureate degree in June 1941 and matriculated to Hanoi University to study mathematics. In 1944 he joined the Dai Viet nationalist party and soon became a confidant of its leader, Truong Tu Anh. Following the Japanese anti-French coup of March 9, 1945, and Japan’s promises of Vietnamese independence, Emperor Bao Dai asked Kim to be prime minister of a new government in Hue, and Diem acted as liaison between Kim and Anh. That government fell in August when Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh took control of northern Vietnam. In October 1945 Bui Diem was sent to Lao Cai for Dai Viet military training. However, by early 1946 the French had returned and were negotiating with the Viet Minh. Diem’s father and brother eventually became Viet Minh supporters. In December 1946 the Viet Minh murdered Anh, and the Dai Viet fell apart. Diem spent the next two years in hiding and then in May 1949 went to French-controlled Hanoi. In 1951 Dai Viet members created a new party, the Quoc Gia Binh Dan (Popular Nationalist Party), headed by Dr. Phan Huy Quat. Diem edited its newspaper, Quoc Dan (The People). In early 1951 Diem married, and a year later the couple’s first daughter was born. His wife soon contracted tuberculosis, and she and Diem went to a sanatorium in France for a year. When they returned in April 1953, Bao Dai had created a new government with Dr. Quat as defense minister. Diem became Quat’s deputy chief of staff and chief negotiator with the French for an autonomous Vietnamese military. In November 1953 Tran Trong Kim died and was buried with national honors in Hanoi. The next spring Viet Minh forces defeated the French in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Bui Diem participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference that eventually ended the Indochina War, but he then remained outside of politics until after the November 1963 coup that toppled Ngo Dinh Diem. New efforts to create a democracy in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) soon failed. A succession of military leaders followed Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1965 Phan Huy Quat became prime minister, but he had no real power. Bui Diem became his chief of staff and, in 1966, secretary of state for foreign affairs. From 1967 to 1972 Bui Diem was South Vietnamese ambassador to Washington. Between 1973 and 1975 he was ambassador at large and special envoy to the Paris peace talks. In April 1975 Bui Diem settled in the United States. Since then he has been president of the executive board of the National Congress of Vietnamese in America. He also helped set up the Indochina Studies program at George Mason University. In 1987 Diem published his autobiography, In The Jaws of History. He now resides in Washington, D.C. WILLIAM P. HEAD

Bui Tin See also Bao Dai; Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ngo Dinh Diem; Paris Negotiations; Phan Huy Quat References Bui Diem. “Reflections on the Vietnam War: The Views of a Vietnamese on Vietnamese-American Misconceptions.” In Looking Back on the Vietnam War: A 1990s Perspective on the Decisions, Combat, and Legacies, edited by William Head and Lawrence Grinter, 241–248. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Bui Diem and David Chanoff. In The Jaws of History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Bui Phat Refugee slum located in Saigon. Bui Phat was created by peasants, many of whom were Catholic, who had migrated from the northern dioceses of Phat Diem and Bui Chu after the signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords. The name of this ghetto was a blending of the names of the bishoprics of Phat Diem and Bui Chu. Because of their religion, the refugees provided a political power base for President Ngo Dinh Diem and actively supported his regime. Other such shantytowns formed as the Vietnam War expanded. Increasing military operations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), including American aerial bombardment, the establishment of free fire zones, and search-and-destroy missions, displaced thousands of people and swelled refugee areas. Eventually the people residing in such slums represented 40–50 percent of South Vietnam’s total population. These refugees became so dependent on the American presence in South Vietnam that they actively resisted efforts by the Viet Cong (VC) and the Buddhists to organize protests against the growing American presence. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Saigon; Search and Destroy; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Bui Tin Birth Date: 1927 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) officer, correspondent, and later opposition figure. Born near Hanoi in 1927 to an elite mandarin family, Bui Tin was educated in Hue and joined the Viet Minh struggle against the French in 1945. For

141

a time he served as one of Ho Chi Minh’s bodyguards before entering officer training. Bui fought with Viet Minh forces in the 1951 battles in the Red River Delta area and at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. As a major commanding the 14th Battalion, 304th Division, in Nghe An Province, he watched the effects of the Great Migration as some 1 million of his countrymen went south from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). One of his own sisters was among them. Bui and members of his 14th Battalion helped move the refugees, gave them some of their own food, and sometimes carried those who were ill and children to points of departure. A trusted member of the Communist Party in the years that followed, Bui was sent south in 1963 by foot down the Ho Chi Minh Trail—a trip that lasted five weeks—to assess and report back on the situation in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). He returned to Hanoi in the spring of 1964 to inform his government that the Viet Cong (VC) would have to have help from the North Vietnamese government. During the course of the next decade Bui rose to the rank of colonel. During the final PAVN thrust into South Vietnam in 1975, he covered the battles as a newspaper correspondent. He rode a tank into the grounds of the South Vietnamese presidential palace on April 30, 1975, and, as the senior officer on the spot, reportedly accepted General Duong Van (“Big”) Minh’s surrender of South Vietnam. Bui then served in Hanoi as deputy editor of the Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People’s Army) newspaper and as deputy editor in chief of the Nhan Dan (People’s Daily) newspaper. Often using the pseudonym of Thanh Tin, Bui argued that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) must not turn its back on the Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese), as there was great potential for the state if all 2 million of them could be mobilized, as were overseas Chinese, to help build their fatherland with modern technology, science, and management. Slowly frustrated by the conservative intransigence of the government, Bui went to Paris, ostensibly for health reasons, and chose not to return to Vietnam, living in Paris in exile. The Vietnamese government thereafter labeled him a traitor. In 1991 Bui traveled to the United States to appear before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. He testified that to his knowledge no American prisoners of war (POWs) were still alive in Vietnam. Later he and Arizona senator John S. McCain III, a former Vietnam POW, embraced, a move that captured national deadlines. Bui’s credibility was called into question, however, after he stated in 2000 that no American POWs had been tortured. In the early 1990s under the pseudonym of Thanh Tin, Bui published his memoirs Hoa Xuyen Tuyet (Snowdrop) (1991) and Mat That (The Real Face) (1993) in which he called for significant changes in his country’s government. He continues to live in Paris. CECIL B. CURREY

142

BULLET SHOT, Operation

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) lieutenant colonel Bui Tin, official spokesman for the North Vietnamese delegation to the Joint Military Commission (JMC), encounters an unidentified U.S. Air Force sergeant during the departure of the last American servicemen from Vietnam, May 29, 1973. (Bettmann/Corbis) See also Duong Van Minh; McCain, John Sidney, III; Prisoners of War, Allied; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Bui Tin. Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995. Bui Tin. From Enemy to Friend: A North Vietnamese Perspective on the War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

BULLET SHOT,

Operation

Start Date: February 5, 1972 End Date: May 23, 1972 The U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC) five-phase redeployment of B-52 bombers, from February 5 to May 23, 1972, in support of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Initially U.S. leaders hoped that the redeployment would prevent an invasion of South Vietnam by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Later stages of Operation BULLET SHOT were in response to the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive on March 30, 1972.

In late 1971 U.S. reconnaissance flights discovered that People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces were amassing supplies along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and sending troops into South Vietnam. Concerned that an invasion by PAVN forces might be in the offing, U.S. president Richard M. Nixon reversed his decision to withdraw U.S. air assets under the Vietnamization program. Between late 1971 and mid-1972 U.S. officials began a series of redeployments designed to augment Seventh Air Force and U.S. naval air assets. In so doing, the number of U.S. aircraft was increased from 375 to 900. On February 5, 1972, SAC officially initiated Operation BULLET SHOT. All total, SAC sent an additional 124 B-52 bombers to Andersen Air Base in Guam and to U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. Ultimately there were 150 B-52s stationed in Guam alone, making it the largest such unit in the U.S. Air Force at that time. Operation BULLET SHOT I sent 8 B-52Ds to join 42 B-52Ds still operating out of U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base. Two days later SAC deployed 29 B-52Ds to Andersen Air Base. BULLET SHOT II began on April 4 in direct response to the PAVN’s initial assault during the Nguyen Hue (Easter) Offensive by 14 PAVN divisions and 200 tanks, which lasted from March 30 to October 22, 1972, and threatened to overthrow South Vietnam’s government.

Bundy, McGeorge On April 8 BULLET SHOT IIA (BULLET SHOT II extended) deployed 6 more B-52s to Guam, and three days later BULLET SHOT III sent 28 B-52Gs to Andersen. This was the first deployment of G models. The Gs were not as well suited to conventional bombing, however, since the Ds had been converted into “Big Bellies” to support Arc Light and COMMANDO HUNT operations. The Ds carried 60,000 pounds of iron bombs, 22,000 pounds more than the Gs. In the late 1960s the Ds had replaced B-52Fs in flying Arc Light raids. Operation BULLET SHOT IV began on May 21, 1972, and deployed 6 more B-52s. Two days later BULLET SHOT V became the final deployment of B-52s. A total of 58 G models were dispatched, bringing the number of B-52s to 209. To support the bombers, between February 8 and May 21, 1972, SAC also deployed 24 KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft to Kadena Air Base in Japan and 7 to U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base. From the time B-52 Arc Light operations began on July 27, 1965, B-52s fell into a routine that seldom changed. Launch times, tactics, and even attack altitudes were all standardized. By July 1971 with the U.S. drawdown well under way, Arc Light sortie rates were down to 1,000 per month. By the time BULLET SHOT ended, B-52s were capable of 3,150 sorties per month. They were also able to expand their bombing missions throughout Vietnam, even attacking north of the DMZ. Between May and October 1972 the bombers and other aircraft became the weapons of choice for what became known as Operation LINEBACKER I. When the peace talks in Paris stalled, President Nixon employed the B-52s during LINEBACKER II (December 18–29, 1972) to force the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to sign the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords. WILLIAM P. HEAD

143

Yale University in 1940. As a young man he assisted former secretary of war Henry Stimson in writing his memoirs. Bundy then served as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard University (1953–1961) before joining the John F. Kennedy administration as national security adviser. Bundy continued in this post under President Lyndon B. Johnson until February 1966. Robert Komer, one of Bundy’s deputies, handled Bundy’s job on an interim basis until Walt W. Rostow permanently assumed the position. Bundy was known for his intelligence, although some thought him smug, even arrogant. But he was one of the most powerful and influential advisers in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and as such held the respect and confidence of both presidents. During his five years as special assistant, Bundy was intimately involved in critical decisions on the Vietnam War. He was part of Kennedy’s inner circle during the Buddhist Crisis of 1963 and the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), that November. Bundy sought to ensure the survival of a democratic independent South Vietnam, but he did not want the United States to take over the fight against the Communist insurgents.

See also Andersen Air Force Base; Arc Light Missions; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Demilitarized Zone; Easter Offensive; Guam; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Strategic Air Command References Head, William P. War from above the Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2002. Lake, John. B-52 Stratofortress Units in Combat, 1955–1973. Botley, Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2004. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1991.

Bundy, McGeorge Birth Date: March 30, 1919 Death Date: September 16, 1996 Academic, foreign policy expert, special assistant to the president for national security affairs (1961–1966), and a key figure in the development of U.S. Vietnam policy. Born on March 30, 1919, in Boston, Massachusetts, McGeorge (“Mac”) Bundy graduated from

McGeorge Bundy was one of the young, brash, bright advisers who gave the administration of John F. Kennedy its reputation for intellectual prowess and ideological toughness. Bundy was also one of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Wise Men” and a key figure in the development of U.S. Vietnam policy throughout the war. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

144

Bundy, William Putnam

After the assassinations of both President Diem and President Kennedy in November 1963 and the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964, Bundy changed his views. By the end of that year he favored an enlarged U.S. role, including a graduated bombing campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the buildup of U.S. troops in South Vietnam. He was in South Vietnam when the Viet Cong (VC) attacked the U.S. barracks and helicopter base at Pleiku in February 1965, killing nine Americans and destroying five aircraft, an event that helped to confirm his belief that the U.S. military had to intervene. He supported retaliatory air raids on North Vietnam and believed that a strong military presence would strengthen the position of the United States and South Vietnam in peace negotiations. Yet even in the midst of the 1965 troop buildup, Bundy feared that the Americanization of the war would overwhelm civil reform programs and pacification efforts in South Vietnam. During 1965 he urged Johnson to enhance the pacification effort by allocating more resources and improving its management. By 1965 Bundy also began to question the continuing military escalation. He resigned from government service because he had already served more than five years, and he questioned continuing escalation in Vietnam. He had played an influential role in centralizing American management of pacification programs in Washington under Robert Komer and in Saigon under Ambassador William Porter. As one of Johnson’s so-called Wise Men, Bundy continued to advise the president after leaving the administration. During the critical post–Tet Offensive meeting with Johnson in March 1968, Bundy supported de-escalation and a new approach to the war. After leaving government, Bundy served as president of the Ford Foundation until 1979, at which time he left to become a professor of history at New York University for 10 years. In 1990 he joined the Carnegie Corporation of New York as the chairman of its committee on reducing the danger of nuclear war. He was its scholar-in-residence at the time of his death of a heart attack in Boston on September 16, 1996. RICHARD A. HUNT See also Bundy, William Putnam; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Komer, Robert W.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Pacification; Porter, William James; Read, Benjamin Huger; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Rusk, David Dean; Wise Men References Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Bird, Kai. The Color of Truth: McGeorge and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Preston, Andrew. The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC and Vietnam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Bundy, William Putnam Birth Date: September 24, 1917 Death Date: October 6, 2000 Vietnam policy maker (1961–1969). Born in Washington, D.C., on September 24, 1917, William (Bill) Putnam Bundy was the brother of influential presidential adviser McGeorge Bundy. Bill Bundy was educated at Yale University and Harvard University and married the daughter of Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson. A liberal Democrat, Bundy worked at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until his appointment as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He became deputy secretary of defense for international security affairs in 1961 and eventually assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Bundy, a devoted yet unheralded bureaucrat, knew Southeast Asia well and, as a supporter of U.S. objectives in the region, helped to frame policy for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). As a Cold War warrior and advocate of military force, he favored covert operations and questioned President John F. Kennedy’s firmness. Bundy supported South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and opposed pressuring his regime. Bundy thought that the Communist threat warranted a U.S. response and favored U.S. troop deployments to South Vietnam. By 1964 Bundy bore much of the responsibility for Vietnam policy making. Intolerant of in-house dissent, he labored to stave off doubters while proposing to strike the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) through interdiction of the port of Haiphong and through air attacks on transportation routes, industrial areas, and military bivouac areas. Such action, he believed, would bolster the South Vietnamese but required congressional authorization in the form of a resolution, the rough draft of which Bundy coauthored by late May 1964. Once Congress ratified the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that August, Bundy again recommended forceful measures against the Hanoi government until its leadership decided to disengage. In November 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson created a unit of eight intermediate-level State Department, Defense Department, and CIA functionaries chaired by Bundy. Instructed to examine U.S. policy choices for Southeast Asia, the group offered three approaches: Option A advanced limited bombing, additional reprisals, and greater resort to clandestine operations; Option B pleaded an all-out air campaign from the outset; and Option C, which Bundy backed, called for a graduated pressure but was noncommittal regarding the use of U.S. combat troops. Situated between administration hawks and doves, Bundy supported the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy until leaving government in 1969. Even though he supported air raids against North Vietnam in 1965, he expressed reservations about South Vietnam’s leaders, generals Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu. Bundy went along with a bombing pause, yet he belittled a peace initiative by Florentine law professor Giorgio La Pira and questioned W. Averell Harriman’s appointment as ambassador-

Bunker, Ellsworth at-large, tasked with representing the United States at the Vietnam War peace negotiations. In 1966 Bundy accompanied President Johnson to the Honolulu Conference and felt relieved once the president decided against disengagement following the Buddhist Crisis. However, disenchantment with the president’s management style and the poor coordination of the war effort contributed to a growing pessimism about escalation that brought Bundy to the brink of hopelessness after the 1968 Tet Offensive. He left government service when Johnson left office in January 1969. From 1969 to 1971 Bundy served as a senior research associate at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then joined the faculty of Princeton University, a position he retained from 1972 to 2000. Between 1972 and 1984 he was also an editor of Foreign Affairs. Bundy also published several books before he died in Princeton, New Jersey, on October 6, 2000. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Buddhism in Vietnam; Bundy, McGeorge; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Harriman, William Averell; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Taylor-McNamara Report; Wise Men

145

president. These constitute an impressive record of sound judgment and wise counsel, including his insight into military matters. After General Creighton Abrams took command, Bunker often emphasized, as he did in an October 1968 cable, that U.S. authorities were stressing more heavily than ever before that there was only one integrated military effort rather than separate wars of big battalions, pacification, and territorial security. On the political side, Bunker’s reporting was both practical and timely. In May 1968 he cabled that most Vietnamese regarded peace negotiations with trepidation and expected few results to come from them. Bunker consistently urged that the United States not cease bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) until it provided a serious commitment to cease activity in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The wisdom of this approach was demonstrated when, on the representations of W. Averell Harriman, the United States accepted vague assurances that reciprocity would be demonstrated, only to see the enemy subsequently deny that there had been any “understandings” while simultaneously violating their supposed terms.

References Bird, Kai. The Color of Truth: McGeorge and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms; A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971.

Bunker, Ellsworth Birth Date: May 11, 1894 Death Date: September 27, 1984 U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), 1967–1973. Born on May 11, 1894, in Yonkers, New York, Ellsworth Bunker graduated from Yale in 1916 and entered the family sugar business. Not until midlife, after an extremely successful international business career, did he become a diplomat. Named first to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Bunker later held that same rank in Italy and then in India. He was U.S. representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) at the time of the 1965 U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic. Bunker played a key role in promoting a moderate civilian government there and worked closely with Lieutenant General Bruce Palmer Jr., the American commander of OAS forces. Bunker was lauded as a naturally skilled and highly effective diplomat. Arriving in Saigon as U.S. ambassador in April 1967, Bunker established the practice of sending periodic reporting cables to the

Ellsworth Bunker was the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) for seven years, during 1967–1973. His open support for South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu drew criticism in some quarters. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

146

Burchett, Wilfred

Bunker developed great regard for the South Vietnamese during his years in their country. He also appreciated and stressed how the Vietnamese were taking on a growing share of the financial burden of prosecuting the war. He reported that in 1967 American support for the budget accounted for 40 percent of the total, in 1968 it was 24 percent, and in 1969 it was projected to be 16 percent. Furthermore, he believed that the Vietnamese reacted with great resolution and perseverance to the war. Bunker’s regard for President Nguyen Van Thieu also grew year by year. Bunker in turn enjoyed the wide respect of leaders of the South Vietnamese government. Bunker did draw criticism from some quarters for his open support for Thieu in the 1967 and 1971 elections, however. Bunker served as ambassador to South Vietnam for six years, a longer time than any other senior American official, military or civilian, had been in continuous service there. Between 1973, when he left his post, and 1978, Bunker performed an important last public service as chief negotiator of the Panama Canal Treaty. He died on September 27, 1984, in Brattleboro, Vermont. LEWIS SORLEY

was accused of interrogating American and Australian prisoners of war for the Communists. Burchett first went to Vietnam in March 1954, where he met Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh in his jungle encampment. For more than 20 years in articles in leftist publications such as Ce Soir and The Guardian and in six books, Vietnam preoccupied Burchett’s writing. From North of the Seventeenth Parallel (1956), which examined land reform, to the overtly polemical Vietnam Will Win! (1968) and to Grasshoppers and Elephants (1977), which depicted the Paris peace talks, Burchett steadfastly proselytized the Communist struggle against the evils of capitalism. Even his best book, Vietnam: Inside Story of the Guerrilla War (1965), which presents in firsthand immediacy the experiences of a National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) cadre, is politicized to his purposes. Burchett’s affiliation with leftist political and military causes alienated him from Western governments, but his works influenced antiwar sympathizers. He continued to write about politics in Cambodia (with Prince Norodom Sihanouk), Portugal, and elsewhere until his death on September 27, 1983, in Sofia, Bulgaria. CHARLES J. GASPAR

See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Harriman, William Averell; Nguyen Van Thieu; Palmer, Bruce, Jr.; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973

See also Australia; Fall, Bernard B.; Media and the Vietnam War; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Sihanouk, Norodom

References Bunker, Ellsworth. The Bunker Papers: Reports to the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973. 3 vols. Edited by Douglas Pike. Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 1990. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978. Schaffer, Howard B. Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Burchett, Wilfred Birth Date: September 16, 1911 Death Date: September 27, 1983 Australian journalist and author of 35 books. Born on September 16, 1911, in Melbourne, Australia, Wilfred Burchett was hardened by his family’s financial difficulties. When he left Australia to cover World War II in China for the London Daily Express, his leftist political sympathies were already evident. As a journalist Burchett strove to be in the action, and he was the first Western journalist to publicize the destruction of Hiroshima in August 1945. His leftist views showed during his reporting of the Korean War. He alleged that United Nations (UN) forces had used biological weapons, which was patently untrue, and he

References Burchett, Wilfred. At the Barricades. New York: Times Books, 1981. Kiernan, Ben. Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World, 1939–1983. London: Quartet, 1986. Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam, 1945–1975. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981.

Burkett, Bernard Gary Birth Date: 1944 Businessman, military researcher, and Vietnam War veteran who has tried to debunk pervasive myths about the war and also expose fake Vietnam veterans and wannabes. Bernard Gary Burkett (known as B. G. Burkett) was born in 1944, the son of a U.S. Air Force colonel, and is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee. He joined the U.S. Army in June 1966 and served in Vietnam with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Upon his return from the war he left the service and entered the financial world. He also joined with a group of other businessmen and Vietnam War veterans in Dallas, Texas, to raise money for the Texas Vietnam Memorial. As part of this effort, Burkett found himself continually having to counter the Vietnam War veteran stereotypes and what he saw as pervasive negative perceptions about those who served in Vietnam. Burkett set out on a mission to attack the stereotypes. In the process of conducting his research, Burkett discovered hundreds of instances of fake Vietnam War veterans. When he saw what he believed were phony news stories about veterans, usually

Bush, George Herbert Walker committing criminal acts, he took it upon himself to research the supposed war service of the individual in question. When he discovered that the subjects of the news stories had lied about their service, he contacted the journalist involved and offered to provide a copy of the alleged veteran’s military record. More often than not, journalists made no attempt to verify their stories and refused to change their reports when provided with contrary evidence. In the process of debunking individual stories, Burkett also began to collect data that flew in the face of conventional wisdom about Vietnam War veterans. After 10 years of research in the National Archives and filing hundreds of requests for military documents under the Freedom of Information Act, he uncovered a massive amount of information that he believed proved a distortion of history and the defamation of Vietnam War veterans. Burkett found that Vietnam War veterans were just as successful, or even more successful, than men of their age who did not go to war. He also found that contrary to popular opinion, Vietnam War veterans did not have higher incidences of drug abuse, unemployment, suicide, divorce, or homelessness than nonveterans of the same age. In the process of conducting this research, he exposed more than 1,200 bogus Vietnam War records, including those of prominent activists, celebrated war heroes, criminals, politicians, and even actors. Working with journalist Glenna Whitley, Burkett recorded his findings in the controversial 1998 book Stolen Valor, which exposed a number of prominent individuals who had falsely represented themselves as Vietnam War veterans. Following the publication of his book Burkett turned his attention to media bias, attempting to hold the media accountable for the way in which Vietnam War veterans were still being portrayed in the press. In 2003 Burkett received the U.S. Army’s highest decoration for civilians, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award. At the award ceremony he was cited for his tireless defense of the honorable records and reputations of Vietnam War veterans whom he had defended so tirelessly. JAMES H. WILLBANKS

147

States during 1989–1993. Born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, to a politically prominent and affluent family, George Herbert Walker Bush graduated from the exclusive Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1942. Despite his acceptance at Yale University, Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy’s flight training school on his 18th birthday. In the autumn of 1943 Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Bush, then the youngest pilot in the navy, reported for duty on the Independence-class light aircraft carrier San Jacinto. On September 2, 1944, Bush’s plane, a three-man Grumman TBM torpedo bomber, was shot down while on a diversionary attack in the Palau campaign. The other two crew members did not survive, but Bush parachuted from his burning plane and spent 1 night in a life raft and then 30 days with his rescuers of the U.S. submarine Finback. He then returned to the San Jacinto, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals. After the war Bush entered Yale and majored in economics. After graduation in 1948 and determined to make his own mark, he moved to Texas, attacking the oil business with the same enthusiasm he had displayed during World War II and, in the process, becoming a multimillionaire.

See also Vietnam Veterans of America; Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes References Appy, Christian G. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Viking, 2003. Burkett, B. G., and Glenna Whitley. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Dallas, TX: Verity, 1998.

Bush, George Herbert Walker Birth Date: June 12, 1924 Republican politician, diplomat, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during 1976–1977, vice president of the United States during 1981–1989, and president of the United

U.S. representative George H. W. Bush (R-Tex.) talks with a group of young people at a rally in Houston on October 9, 1970. Before becoming president of the United States in 1989, Bush was a congressman, United Nations ambassador, Republican National Committee chairman, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and vice president under President Ronald Reagan. (AP/Wide World Photos)

148

Bush, George Herbert Walker

Bush entered politics in 1964, running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. Two years later he won a seat in U.S. House of Representatives. In 1970 he again ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat; he left the House that same year. He then sought an appointment in the Richard M. Nixon administration and served as ambassador to the United Nations (UN) from 1971 to 1973. Bush continued in public service as chairman of the Republican National Committee (1973–1974). He then headed the U.S. mission to China during 1974–1975 and served as director of the CIA from 1976 to 1977. As CIA head, Bush managed to restore the organization’s morale after a series of shocking public revelations about the agency’s past operations, which had included assassinations of foreign leaders and covert overseas coups engineered and financed by the CIA. Bush briefly returned to private life between 1977 and 1980 before running for vice president and winning election in November 1980 on the Republican Party ticket with President Ronald Reagan. Bush’s eight-year tenure was uneventful, and he was viewed by many as a loyal Reagan supporter and heir apparent. In 1989 Bush was elected president. Bush appears to have avoided much of the rancor of the Vietnam War in his public service. In 1991 during the Persian Gulf War he pledged that “this will not be another Vietnam.” After the quick U.S. victory he exclaimed, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.” Indeed, the Persian Gulf War was the first major conflict in which the United States fought since the Vietnam War. Many had feared that the United States might become bogged down in a similar quagmire in Iraq, but the Bush White House dedicated overwhelming power to the war and had a fixed exit strategy, which had not included ousting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power or occupying Iraq. In 1989 Bush also presided over a very successful invasion of Panama, which had ousted Manuel Noriega from power. While the Bush administration conducted talks with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) concerning diplomatic recognition, Bush pleased conservatives in the United States by refusing to lift

the trade embargo or establish diplomatic relations. These were finally extended by President William J. Clinton in 1995. Bush served just one term in office, for as popular as he was after the Persian Gulf War, his approval ratings plummeted because of a steep and persistent economic downturn that his opponent, Clinton, worked to his advantage. Bush left office in January 1993 and retired to Houston, Texas. He also helped oversee construction of his presidential library at Texas A&M University. The first retired or sitting president to visit Vietnam since the war, in September 1995 Bush traveled to and spoke in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on behalf of Citibank, reportedly for a six-figure fee. He welcomed the new relationship between the United States and the SRV but mildly criticized the Vietnamese government on its human rights record. In Hanoi, Bush said that he had delayed establishing diplomatic relations because of the issue of Americans missing in action. He subsequently took an active role with former president Clinton in world humanitarian relief causes. In a bitter irony Bush’s son, George W. Bush, who became president in 2001, chose to topple Saddam Hussein from power and occupy Iraq in 2003. He had done exactly what his father’s administration had sought to avoid: embroil the United States in a brutal civil war in the name of nation building. The Iraq War, in the eyes of many Americans, became a modern version of Vietnam, with the so-called Vietnam Syndrome again in evidence. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also Central Intelligence Agency; Clinton, William Jefferson; Reagan, Ronald Wilson References Bush, George, with Victor Gold. Looking Forward. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Bush, George H. W., and Brent Scowcroft. A World Transformed. New York: Knopf, 1998. Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of George Bush. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

C CALCAV See Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam

Calley, William Laws, Jr. Birth Date: June 8, 1943 U.S. Army lieutenant and platoon leader found guilty in the 1968 My Lai Massacre. William Laws (“Rusty”) Calley Jr. was born on June 8, 1943, in Miami, Florida, the only son of middle-class parents. Calley’s school years were characterized by mediocrity, a trait that continued to haunt him as an adult. After flunking out of junior college he worked several jobs, including as a bellhop and as an insurance adjuster. Although he had been rejected by the military for health reasons (ulcers) several years earlier, the U.S. Army drafted Calley in 1966. After basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas, he was assigned as a clerk-typist to Fort Washington. Private First Class Calley excelled at this position and attracted the attention of his superiors, who helped secure his assignment to Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia. The army was then short of officers, which had much to do with Calley’s commissioning despite criticism of his “command presence.” Calley graduated 120th in his OCS class of 156 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in September 1967. In Vietnam, Calley commanded a platoon in Captain Ernest Lou Medina’s Company C of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division. On March 16, 1968, Calley participated, as part of Task Force Barker, in an assault on the hamlet of My Lai 4 in Quang Ngai Province. The Americans believed that My Lai was

An April 23, 1971, photo of Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr., taken during his court-martial at Fort Benning, Georgia, in connection with the largest U.S. atrocity of the Vietnam War, the massacre of 200 to 500 civilians in the village of My Lai in South Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

150

Cambodia

the headquarters of the Viet Cong (VC) local-force 48th Battalion, which had inflicted heavy losses on Charlie Company during the previous weeks. Although expecting a hot zone, the attack force encountered mainly women, children, and elderly persons. During the next several hours hundreds of civilians were killed; some women were raped and then murdered. Charlie Company’s official report listed 128 VC killed and 3 weapons captured. In April 1969 Vietnam veteran Ronald L. Ridenhour exposed the massacre in letters to the Pentagon, the White House, and members of Congress. Upon recommendation of the Peers-MacCrate Commission, in September 1969 the U.S. Army indicted Calley for the murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians. After a 4-month-long court-martial (the longest in U.S. history), Calley was convicted and sentenced in March 1971 to life imprisonment. After he had served only 3 months in the stockade, President Richard M. Nixon freed him and ordered him confined to quarters pending review of the case. Calley’s punishment was subsequently reduced to 20 and then to 10 years. Finally, in November 1974 Federal District Court judge J. Robert Elliott, citing “prejudicial publicity,” ruled that Calley was convicted unjustly. Although the army disputed the civil court jurisdiction, Calley was paroled for good behavior after serving onethird of his sentence or 40 months, of which 35 were in the relative comfort of his own quarters. Calley worked for many years in his father-in-law’s jewelry store in Columbus, Georgia. He left Columbus in 2005 and took up residence in Atlanta, where his son, Laws Calley, lives. Calley had repeatedly turned down interviews with journalists about My Lai, but on August 21, 2009, speaking to the Columbus, Georgia, Kiwanis Club, Calley made an extraordinary public apology for his role in the massacre. “There is not a single day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened,” Calley said. “I am very sorry.” BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report; Medina, Ernest Lou; My Lai Massacre; Peers, William R.; Peers Inquiry References Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. “Ex Officer Apologizes for Killings At My Lai.” New York Times, August 23, 2009. Hersh, Seymour M. Cover-Up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. New York: Random House, 1972. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. My Lai: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998.

Cambodia Cambodia, the last of the countries of Indochina to be drawn into the violence of the Vietnam War, ultimately endured an even greater tragedy of death and devastation than any of its neighbors. Present-day Cambodia occupies an area of 70,238 square

miles, about the size of the U.S. state of Missouri, and is wedged into the Indochina peninsula between southeastern Thailand and southern Vietnam. Cambodia’s 1965 population was estimated to be 6.602 million people. On the map Cambodia resembles a nut held tightly in the jaws of a giant wrench, an image that accurately reflects Cambodians’ historic fears of being extinguished by their larger, more powerful, and more vigorous neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam. King Norodom Sihanouk once called the Thai and Vietnamese “eaters of Khmer earth.” To the northeast, Cambodia borders on Laos; on the southwest is the Gulf of Thailand. Cambodia is rimmed by the Cardamom and Elephant mountains in the southwest, the Dangrek Hills in the northwest, and boulder-strewn ridges in the east along the border with Vietnam. Within that ring of mountains, Cambodia’s heartland is a flat green expanse of forests and alluvial fields watered by numberless brown streams that flow into three great rivers, the Mekong, the Bassac, and the Tonle Sap. The latter is also the name of the violin-shaped Great Lake, Southeast Asia’s largest lake, that stretches across the center of Cambodia. With Cambodia’s well-watered fields and rivers teeming with fish, Cambodians were traditionally well fed in times of peace, but a violent and turbulent history also brought periods of terrible hardship. Cambodia’s first major civilization, Funan (Kingdom of the Mountain, according to ancient Chinese chronicles), arose from among the Mon-Khmer tribes that had migrated to the Mekong basin from deep in Asia’s interior during earlier centuries. Although the Khmer people, like the Thai and Lao, originated in central Asia, their cultures were chiefly influenced by India, whose traders and priests had brought to Southeast Asia their religion, dress, legends, technology, artistic styles, and economic and administrative structures. Funan, which flourished from the first to the sixth centuries CE, was essentially Indian in culture. So were its successors, the state of Chenla and the Angkor kingdom, which represented the high point of Khmer civilization. Ruling from the 9th to the 15th centuries, the Angkor kings at the height of their power dominated most of present-day Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam as well as Cambodia. At the seat of their realm they built the great city of Angkor. Their temples were constructed in the shape of hills and symbolized Mount Meru, the sacred mountain at the center of the universe (later the design symbolized Mount Kailasa, abode of the god Shiva). On walls and pillars craftsmen sculpted images of gods, angels, serpents, lions, elephants, and other real and mythical creatures along with scenes from court life and epic legends. Among the carvings were glimpses of a dark strain of violence and cruelty that also ran through Khmer tradition. Stone friezes showed battle scenes full of dead and wounded soldiers, grisly executions, and prisoners tortured and burned. The greatest of the temples, Angkor Wat, was built during the reign of Suryavarman II, who ruled from 1113 to 1150. The older temples honor Shiva, the Hindu deity worshiped by the earlier Angkor rulers (“the one whom the sages adore like an inner light,”

Cambodia says one inscription). Later temples, though still bearing many Hindu symbols, reflect the Angkor kings’ 12th-century conversion to Buddhism. The Theravada branch of Buddhism, which teaches that every person must seek his or her own enlightenment through meditation, austerity, humility, and poverty, eventually became the religion practiced by the great majority of Cambodians. Except when it was brutally suppressed by the radical Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979, Buddhism and the sangha (clergy) have remained pervasive and powerful influences in the country’s life and beliefs. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Khmer kingdom declined. Thai invaders captured and destroyed Angkor in 1431. In succeeding centuries as the Thais seized more Cambodian territory, an expanding Vietnam also pressed into Cambodia from the east, gradually occupying the fertile lands of the Mekong Delta. With the Thai, the Khmers at least shared a common religion and cultural heritage. The Vietnamese, whose culture and political structures were essentially derived from China, were more alien. Their encroachments aroused among Cambodians a lasting legacy of hatred and racial fear. By the mid-19th century Angkor was a forgotten ruin, crumbling away in the jungle. The Cambodian monarchy was a virtual vassal of Thailand, which chose and crowned the Khmer kings. Cambodia appeared in danger of losing its national identity altogether until France, then in the process of establishing colonial rule over Vietnam, made Cambodia a protectorate in 1864. Cambodia’s King Norodom welcomed French protection but not France’s later moves that gave ever greater powers to its colonial administrators. Although Norodom and his successors remained on the throne, within 20 years Cambodia became a de facto colony, with all real governing power in French hands. Cambodia did, however, survive as an identifiable state, a status that it might well have lost had France not intervened. French rule lasted 90 years, with little benefit for the Cambodians. The French did oversee the construction of roads and a railway as the infrastructure for a colonial economy based chiefly on rubber plantations, rice exports, and small-scale timber and gemmining industries. There was no real development of a modern economy or of the educated population that modernization would require. Instead of training Cambodians, the French customarily brought in Vietnamese to fill civil service jobs; traders and shop owners were also predominantly Vietnamese. Thus, when Cambodia recovered its independence in November 1953 under King Norodom’s great-grandson Norodom Sihanouk, it lacked not only resources and infrastructure but also the trained technicians, managers, and administrators needed in a modern state. Cambodia’s independence was part of a larger upheaval in the region that spanned five years of Japanese occupation (1940–1945) and nine more years of conflict between France and Viet Minh revolutionaries led by Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. The July 1954 Geneva Accords ended French rule in all of

151

Indochina but also left Vietnam divided, with the Viet Minh ruling in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and an anti-Communist government under Ngo Dinh Diem in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Within a few years violence occurred again in South Vietnam as Diem, supported by the United States, attempted to destroy the Communist movement in South Vietnam while the revolutionaries fought to reunify the country under their rule. In Cambodia, Sihanouk’s chief concern was to prevent his country from becoming involved in the violence that was engulfing its larger neighbor. In 1955 he had abdicated the throne in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit, in order to control the government more directly as the country’s prime minister. After Suramarit died in 1960, Sihanouk was given the title of chief of state; the throne remained vacant. Outside Cambodia the prince was widely regarded as erratic, even flighty. But his frequent reversals of policy did have a consistent goal: to keep Cambodia neutral. After first cultivating relations with the United States, in 1963 Sihanouk abruptly ordered U.S. military and economic aid programs canceled and two years later broke relations completely. Believing that the Vietnamese revolutionaries were ultimately going to win, he then entered into a fateful compromise that allowed the Vietnamese Communists to set up bases on Cambodian territory along the border and to receive arms shipments that came by sea to Cambodia’s main port of Sihanoukville (later renamed Kompong Som) and then overland to the border region. Underlying this accommodation was Sihanouk’s calculation that if Cambodia helped the Vietnamese win their revolution, the Vietnamese might respect Cambodian independence after their victory. There was another benefit for Sihanouk. As part of the arrangement, the Vietnamese gave no help to the small Khmer Rouge (“Red Khmer”) Communist insurgency that was opposing the prince’s regime. The United States entered the Vietnam War, and instead of a quick Communist victory the conflict became a prolonged stalemate. In Cambodia, resentment of Sihanouk’s policies and Vietnamese encroachments grew among military leaders and students and in other segments of the population. Sihanouk’s authority was meanwhile weakening as the result of economic strains, corruption, and abuses of power in his regime. As the 1960s drew to a close, the prince was still balanced on his diplomatic and political tightrope, but his position was more precarious than ever, as was peace in Cambodia. Violence expanded in stages. In March 1969 the United States began secretly bombing Vietnamese Communist positions on the Cambodian side of the border. In August, Sihanouk named Cambodian Army commander General Lon Nol to head a new rightwing Government of National Salvation. The secret U.S. bombings meanwhile encouraged Cambodian Army commanders in the border region to conduct harassing operations against Communist Vietnamese bases. In November reinforcements were sent to the area, and attacks were stepped up. Then in March 1970 after

152

Cambodia

violent government-orchestrated anti-Vietnamese demonstrations in Phnom Penh, Lon Nol publicly demanded a complete Vietnamese withdrawal from all Cambodian territory within 72 hours. Prince Sihanouk, who was traveling abroad, denounced the demand, but Lon Nol and his allies sent troops to surround the National Assembly and government ministries and obtained a unanimous National Assembly vote on March 18 deposing Sihanouk as chief of state. Five days later in Beijing, Sihanouk sealed an alliance with his former mortal enemies, the Khmer Rouge, against Lon Nol’s “reactionary and pro-imperialist” government. A month later Sihanouk formally allied with the Lao and Vietnamese Communists as well. The new leaders in Phnom Penh, having inflamed Cambodia’s traditional anti-Vietnamese feelings for their own political purposes, now called for national mobilization against the estimated 40,000 Vietnamese Communist troops on Cambodian territory. Thousands of young men and women enthusiastically flocked to recruiting stations to join the Forces Armées Nationale Khmer (FANK, Khmer National Armed Forces) and the national crusade against the Yuon, the pejorative Khmer term for Vietnamese. Legally the new government’s policy was indisputably justified: the Vietnamese were occupying Cambodian territory in flagrant violation of Cambodian sovereignty. Whether the policy was prudent was another matter. Cambodia’s small and poorly trained army was no match for the Vietnamese, who easily defeated the poorly armed and inexperienced Cambodian soldiers whenever an engagement took place. In their ambition and naïveté, Lon Nol and his associates marched blindly into a war they could not win, with catastrophic consequences for the land and people they sought to lead. Naive about their own weakness, the new Cambodian leaders were also naive about the United States, which they assumed would come unstintingly to their defense as it had come to the aid of the neighboring South Vietnam. But after years of frustrating stalemate in Vietnam, the American public had no appetite for a wider war. U.S. military leaders perceived Cambodian events through lenses that were focused almost entirely on their own tactical needs in Vietnam. Seeing a chance to disrupt the Communist logistical network on the Cambodian side of the border, the U.S. command supported several sizable operations by South Vietnam forces in Cambodia during April 1970. Then on April 30, 1970, 32,000 U.S. troops rolled across the border. This “incursion,” as U.S. officials insisted on calling it, aroused such a storm of protest at home that President Richard Nixon soon promised to withdraw all U.S. troops from Cambodia by the end of June. Although the United States continued to provide air support even after its troops left, FANK suffered a series of disastrous defeats. In less than four months the Communists took the entire region east of the Mekong River and large areas in the rest of the country. Those early defeats set a pattern that would never be reversed. During the five years of war that followed Lon Nol’s troops steadily lost ground,

while Cambodia’s economy disintegrated and its 7 million people sank into an agony of defeat, hunger, and despair. When the war began, the forces opposing Lon Nol’s hapless army were chiefly Vietnamese Communists. The Vietnamese moved quickly, however, to build up a Khmer resistance movement. A group known as Khmer Viet Minh, Cambodian veterans of the Viet Minh war who had been living in Vietnam ever since the 1950s, were sent back to Cambodia to manage the armed struggle there. The Khmer Rouge, now allies (if uneasy and mistrustful ones) of the Vietnamese Communists, were also expanding their strength. Joining the insurgent side too were soldiers, officials, and others who remained loyal to Sihanouk. Gradually Cambodians took over most of the fighting, although still with guidance and some direct combat support from North Vietnam. Led by two French-educated Cambodian Communists, Saloth Sar (better known by his pseudonym, Pol Pot) and Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge would emerge during the 1970s as the most extreme and violent of all the Indochina revolutionary movements. Sar and his colleagues nursed a bitter resentment toward the Vietnamese that was at least partly rooted in the Vietnamese Communists’ failure to support their struggle when it was young and weak. Cooperation between Vietnamese and Cambodians against Lon Nol ended after North Vietnam and the United States concluded a peace agreement in January 1973. The Khmer Rouge, regarding the cease-fire as a betrayal, secretly demanded that the Vietnamese leave Cambodia, meanwhile carrying out a bloody purge inside the insurgent ranks that killed hundreds of Khmer Viet Minh cadres and (although Sihanouk remained the titular head of the revolution) Sihanouk loyalists as well. From 1973 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge imposed the violent and fanatical doctrines they had nursed through years of isolation, hatred, and a war that was spiraling deeper and deeper into savagery. Meanwhile, the war-weary U.S. Congress ended U.S. bombing in Cambodia on August 15, 1973. On April 17, 1975, Lon Nol’s decrepit government surrendered. In five years of war approximately 10 percent of Cambodia’s 7 million people had died. The economy was in ruins, schools and hospitals had virtually ceased to exist, and half of the population had been uprooted from their homes. But worse was to come. The Khmer Rouge, bent on extirpating all traces of the old society, renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea and emptied the cities, forcing millions of Cambodians into the countryside in what amounted to slave labor camps. The Khmer Rouge also murdered hundreds of thousands of real or imagined opponents and caused more hundreds of thousands of deaths from exhaustion, hunger, and disease. Khmer Rouge rule came to an end in January 1979 when some 120,000 Vietnamese troops, who had invaded Cambodia after months of escalating border clashes, occupied Phnom Penh and installed a new pro-Vietnamese government. Falling back to the countryside, Khmer Rouge guerrillas—eventually joined by two smaller groups backed by the United States and the non-Communist Southeast Asian states—mounted a stubborn resistance

Cambodia against the Vietnamese and their Cambodian allies. Although the Khmer Rouge terror had ended, the new war brought new miseries. A third of 1 million Cambodians spent years in dismal refugee camps along the Thai border, and millions of others struggled to survive in a country devastated by years of butchery. After a 10-year occupation Vietnamese troops withdrew in 1989, but war continued between the Khmer Rouge and its allies and the Vietnamese-sponsored Phnom Penh government headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen. A peace agreement was finally signed under United Nations (UN) auspices on October 23, 1991. All sides agreed to give up their arms, but the Khmer Rouge never fully complied and also refused to participate in UN-supervised elections for a new government. Despite widespread Khmer Rouge attacks meant to disrupt the voting, the election was held in May 1993. Prince Sihanouk’s party, the United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (called FUNCINPEC, from its French initials), won a narrow plurality over Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party. Following the election, a new constitution restored the monarchy. On September 24, 1993, Sihanouk resumed the throne that he had abdicated 38 years earlier. His son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh,

153

and Hun Sen shared leadership as co–prime ministers of the new government. Ranariddh nominally ranked first among the two, reflecting the election results. Hun Sen’s loyalists, however, controlled most of the army, the police, and the judiciary and much of the press. Openly or in secret, Hun Sen’s network also owned a huge part of the Cambodian economy and largely controlled the flow of international aid, which reached more than $3 billion in the next three years. The power-sharing arrangement did not lead to a new era of compromise, cooperation, and multiparty democracy, as international peace brokers had hoped. Instead, Ranariddh and Hun Sen and their followers steadily broke apart into two hostile camps, each with its own armed bands of supporters. Killings and violent clashes grew so frequent that one foreign diplomat in Phnom Penh compared the two factions to “rival mafias competing for territory and assets.” Meanwhile, although free-market policies and the flow of foreign dollars brought prosperity to some Cambodians, corruption, abuses of power, and incompetent administration sapped the government’s moral authority. The coalition’s final destruction was precipitated in the late spring of 1997 when representatives of the disintegrating Khmer

Homeless Cambodian orphans await their turn to receive a bowl of rice at a refugee camp north of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Cambodia ultimately endured an even greater tragedy of death and devastation than any of its neighbors. A third of a million Cambodians spent years in refugee camps along the Thai border, and millions of others struggled to survive in a country decimated by years of butchery at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. (Bettmann/Corbis)

154

Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of

Rouge, in defiance of their longtime leader Pol Pot, began negotiating with associates of Prince Ranariddh on the possible surrender of their remaining forces. In the talks the Khmer Rouge offered to join Ranariddh’s alliance in opposition to Hun Sen, whom they still regarded as a puppet of the hated Vietnamese. Under the terms of the deal, Khmer Rouge soldiers would change into government uniforms and pledge allegiance to the king, the government, and the constitution but would not be disbanded or disarmed and would remain in the territory they previously occupied. After Pol Pot and his few remaining followers were captured and put under arrest by the new Khmer Rouge leaders, the two sides were only a day away from announcing the surrender when Hun Sen, fearing that a Khmer Rouge alliance with Ranariddh’s forces would tilt the military balance against him, seized power in Phnom Penh early on the morning of July 6. Hun Sen, insisting that Ranariddh’s troops had started the fighting, called the coup a “counteroffensive.” But the United States and most other countries condemned him for overturning the elected government. Whoever actually fired the first shots, it was evident that both sides shared the blame for the climate of violence, revenge, and fear that had overtaken Cambodian political life. During the fighting Prince Ranariddh fled the country, while Hun Sen’s forces hunted down his political allies and armed supporters. A number of captured Ranariddh loyalists were tortured and then put to death in mass executions, a chilling reminder even if the killings did not reach the same unspeakable depths of horror of the Khmer Rouge bloodbath between 1975 and 1979. The coup left Hun Sen seemingly in firm control of Phnom Penh and most of the country. King Sihanouk, who by ironic coincidence was receiving medical treatment in Beijing on the day of Hun Sen’s coup exactly as he had been when he himself was overthrown 27 years before, was once again pushed to the sidelines, unable to protect his son’s position just as he had been unable to protect his own in the fateful events of 1970. Nevertheless, political stability slowly took root in Cambodia after the 1997 coup, and King Sihanouk remained king until 2004, when he voluntarily abdicated, allowing his son Norodom Sihamoni, Prince Ranariddh’s brother, to ascend the throne. In the meantime, in 1998 the Khmer Rouge finally bowed to pressure and agreed to turn Pol Pot over to an international war crimes tribunal. On April 15, 1998, the day that the announcement was made, Pol Pot was found dead, allegedly of a heart attack. His handlers promptly cremated the body, which prompted suspicions that he had been murdered to keep him quiet or that he had committed suicide. By 2000 the Khmer Rouge’s power had virtually evaporated except for isolated spots in the rural areas of Cambodia. Cambodia has been the beneficiary of significant foreign aid since the early 1990s, with the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia giving the most. Reconstruction efforts have been steady if slow, and Cambodia is once again drawing in tourists. In 2007 alone some 4 million foreign travelers visited the Angkor Wat temple complex. Since the late

1990s Cambodia’s economic growth has been in the double digits, and foreign government and private investments have been on the increase. Corruption continues to be a major problem, however, and this has tended to keep the rising economic tide from working its way to the poorest citizens. In 2005 abundant petroleum and natural gas reserves were discovered in Cambodia’s territorial waters; extraction is slated to begin in 2011. If estimates hold true, these reserves will provide a huge windfall for the Cambodian economy. ARNOLD R. ISAACS See also Angkor Wat; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Cambodian Incursion; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Parrot’s Beak; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Washington Special Actions Group References Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Hardy, Gordon, Arnold R. Isaacs, MacAlister Brown, and the Editors of Boston Publishing Company. Pawns of War: Cambodia and Laos. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1987. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Mazzeo, Donatella, and Chiara Silvi Antonini. Monuments of Civilization: Ancient Cambodia. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978.

Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of Start Date: December 25, 1978 End Date: September 26, 1989 The Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia during December 25, 1978–September 26, 1989, isolated the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) from much of the international community, exacerbated troubled relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), led to a brief war in 1979 between the PRC and the SRV, proved a serious drain on the Vietnamese economy, delayed normalization of relations between Vietnam and the United States, and drove the Khmer Rouge from power. The background of the conflict lay not in ideology but rather in traditional animosity between Vietnam and Cambodia. Khmer Rouge leaders were also bitter that in the 1960s the Vietnamese Communists, anxious to keep their own useful accommodation with Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s government intact, had given the Khmer Rouge little support. This permanently embittered Khmer Rouge leaders, who were in any case instinctively anti-Vietnamese. After entering into an uneasy alliance with the Vietnamese Communists after Sihanouk’s fall, Khmer Rouge leaders believed that they had been betrayed a second time after the Vietnamese Communists signed the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Khmer Rouge lead-

Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of ers ordered the Vietnamese to leave Cambodian territory and even launched a purge to eliminate pro-Vietnamese elements within the Khmer Rouge. These purges killed nearly all the Khmer Viet Minh, those Cambodians who had fought against the French and had gone on to live in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) until 1970, when the government there had ordered them south to help lead the Cambodian resistance. From the spring of 1973 on, the Vietnamese Communists no longer played any role in the Khmer Rouge fight against the Lon Nol government except for serving as a conduit for aid shipments from China to the Khmer Rouge sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They remained in their Cambodian sanctuaries, however, and from time to time there were armed clashes between them and the Khmer Rouge. In April 1975 the Khmer Rouge defeated the Lon Nol government. After they came to power, the Khmer Rouge ordered the people out of the capital of Phnom Penh and larger towns and put them to work in agricultural labor camps in the countryside. All private property was abolished, and paper money disappeared, replaced by ration tickets earned by productive labor. Schools were closed, and Buddhist temples were destroyed. Thousands of people died, including many ethnic Vietnamese; some 200,000 Vietnamese were expelled from the country. In January 1976 the Khmer Rouge promulgated a new constitution and changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. In April, Prince Sihanouk resigned as head of state. Khieu Samphan took his place, but Pol Pot, another Khmer Rouge leader, was the dominant figure in the cabinet. Meanwhile, the government announced that 800,000 people, or roughly 10 percent of the population, had died in the war that brought the Khmer Rouge to power. There had long been border disputes between Vietnam and Cambodia, and in 1977 these disputes again led to serious fighting. In September, Vietnam claimed that four Kampuchean divisions had invaded its Tay Ninh Province. In September and December, Vietnam retaliated. The December incursion saw 60,000 troops, supported by tanks and artillery, striking as far as the outskirts of Svay Rieng and Kompong Cham. This incursion led to the first public disclosure of the conflict, and on December 31, 1977, an angry radio broadcast from Phnom Penh denounced the Vietnamese. A week later the Vietnamese withdrew, most probably on their own accord, but the Khmer Rouge declared that it had won a “historic victory” and rejected calls for negotiations. The Khmer Rouge also proceeded to carry out a violent purge centered on its armed forces in the eastern part of the country that were supposed to defend the regime from the Vietnamese. Up to 100,000 Cambodians were executed. Many Khmer Rouge fled into Vietnam to avoid being arrested and killed. Later they formed the backbone of the Vietnamese-sponsored anti–Khmer Rouge resistance. Kampuchea also laid claim to much of Cochin China (southernmost Vietnam), which had a large Khmer minority, and to small islands in the Gulf of Thailand. In 1960 Saigon had claimed seven of these, including the largest island of Phu Quoc, and had landed

155

troops. In May 1975 there was a major clash over these islands when the new Khmer Rouge government sent troops to occupy several of them, including Phu Quoc. This clash was almost certainly prompted by the belief that there was oil in the area. The battle for these islands was ferocious, and it took the Vietnamese almost a month of heavy fighting, including numerous heavy air strikes flown by North Vietnamese pilots in U.S.-made South Vietnamese bomber aircraft, to expel the Cambodian troops from the islands. As the border conflicts escalated, Hanoi supported an anti– Khmer Rouge resistance. Eastern Cambodia had been an important part of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) logistics system during the Vietnam War, and ties between the people there and Vietnam were strong. This was strengthened by the fact that many of those opposed to the Khmer Rouge fled to the border area. Hanoi now organized those who had fled to Vietnam, including many ex–Khmer Rouge fighters, into anti–Khmer Rouge units to fight alongside the PAVN against Kampuchean forces. Much of this fighting occurred in the Parrot’s Beak area. Fighting along the border escalated, and by 1978 the Vietnamese were regularly conducing air strikes against Cambodian targets along the border. There were also reports of Cambodian planes being flown by Chinese pilots, but these were never confirmed. Although Hanoi made several offers to negotiate, all of these were rebuffed by the Khmer Rouge. Even though Kampuchea remained largely cut off from the outside world, stories of mass killings there began to circulate. In October 1978 Hanoi claimed that the Khmer Rouge had killed 2 million Kampucheans. At the time this was thought to be propaganda, but clearly something was happening. Kampuchea, regarded as a major rice producer in Southeast Asia, was close to starvation. Tensions between Vietnam and Kampuchea were exacerbated by the fact that the two states became proxies in the developing Sino-Soviet rivalry. Kampuchea was a client state of China, while Vietnam was a client state of the Soviet Union. Loyalties of the Communist world divided accordingly; most of the Warsaw Pact nations and Cuba, then relying heavily on financial assistance from the Soviet Union, supported Vietnam; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) supported Kampuchea. At the beginning of December 1978, several anti–Khmer Rouge factions came together to form the Kampuchean National Front (KNF) led by Khmer Rouge defector Heng Samrin, former deputy commander in eastern Cambodia. Hanoi gave the KNF full support, including military assistance, and the KNF soon fielded an army of 20,000. Finally on December 25, 1978, the VPA invaded Cambodia along a broad front. Initially the SRV committed 18 divisions, or more than half of its army, to the operation. Ultimately there were 200,000 Vietnamese troops in Cambodia, along with Heng Samrin’s army. Pol Pot’s army was much smaller, perhaps less than a third of the size of the invading Vietnamese forces, and

156

Cambodian Airlift

the Vietnamese had total air and naval supremacy as well as tremendous superiority in armor and heavy artillery. Heavily outnumbered and outgunned, the Khmer Rouge retreated into the countryside and waged guerrilla warfare. Vietnamese armored columns took Phnom Penh with little opposition and installed Heng Samrin and his supporters as the new Cambodian government. Soon Heng Samrin and his Vietnamese allies had all major Kampuchean cities under their control. Heng Samrin became president of the country, but only the presence of several Vietnamese divisions enabled him to remain in power. The Soviet Union, Laos, the SRV, and most other Communist states recognized the new government. In January 1979 the Soviet Union used its veto in the United Nations (UN) Security Council to kill a resolution demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Kampuchea. Heng Samrin meanwhile entered into treaties with the SRV and Laos. With his forces down to only about 25,000 troops, Pol Pot continued to conduct guerrilla warfare, concentrating what remained of his army in the thick jungles of southwestern and northeastern Kampuchea near the Thai border. China meanwhile aided the Khmer Rouge, funneling this assistance through Thailand. Thai generals profited handsomely from the misery, allowing the transit of military assistance to the Khmer Rouge and securing gems and timber from their area of control. Only the Vietnamese occupation prevented the Khmer Rouge from returning to power and continuing their genocidal policies. Indeed, it was only because of the Vietnamese invasion that the mass killings of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge were confirmed. China meanwhile threatened the SRV with force to punish Hanoi for the invasion of Kampuchea, and divisions of the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army) actually invaded Vietnam in a brief war in February and March 1979. The Chinese invasion did not drive the Vietnamese from Cambodia. That came about from the sheer expense of the operation, the resultant drain on the Vietnamese economy, and the SRV’s attendant isolation in the international community at a time when the leadership recognized the need to revitalize the national economy and secure foreign investment. Finally in May 1988 Hanoi announced that it would withdraw 50,000 troops, about half of its forces, from Cambodia by the end of the year. In July the Phnom Penh government and rebel coalition met for the first time face-to-face in inconclusive peace talks in Indonesia. On April 5, 1989, Hanoi and Phnom Penh announced jointly that all Vietnamese troops would leave Cambodia by the end of September even if no settlement was found. On September 26, 1989, Vietnam announced that all its troops had withdrawn from Cambodia. Some 25,000 Vietnamese troops had died there. In the late 1990s after prolonged negotiations, rival Cambodian factions including the Vietnamese-installed regime (then headed by Hun Sen) and the Khmer Rouge agreed to a supreme national council headed by Prince Sihanouk. The UN also mounted a vast peacekeeping operation and supervised elections. The Khmer Rouge have

not returned to power, and by the early 2000s the group had splintered apart and was a mere shadow of its former self. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Cambodia; China, People’s Republic of; Heng Samrin; Kampuchean National Front; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Parrot’s Beak; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War after the War. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Chen, King C. China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: Issues, Decisions, and Implications. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1987. Etcheson, Craig. The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984. Hardy, Gordon, Arnold R. Isaacs, and MacAlister Brown. Pawns of War. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1987. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Colonel Nguyen Van Phuc, ed. Lich Su Trung Doan Khong Quan 937 [History of the 937th Air Force Regiment]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2005. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954–1980. Rev. ed. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981.

Cambodian Airlift Start Date: September 1974 End Date: April 1975 The Cambodian airlift occurred after the U.S. Congress imposed restrictions on the presence of U.S. personnel in Cambodia. Anxious to support the government headed by Lon Nol, the Richard M. Nixon administration turned to an unorthodox solution to keep open the supply lines to Phnom Penh. After Communist Khmer Rouge forces threatened to close the 60-mile route along the Mekong River, Washington turned to William H. Bird, a longtime air transport operator in Southeast Asia, to organize a government-funded airlift. In July 1974 Bird submitted an “unsolicited proposal” to conduct an airlift from Thailand to Cambodia. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) would supply five Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, fuel, and required maintenance; Bird would furnish the necessary aircrews and operations personnel. Within five months, Bird’s company, Birdair (formerly Bird & Sons), would have the capability of flying 450 hours per month. Although USAF personnel in Southeast Asia viewed with extreme distaste the use of civilian crews to fly its aircraft into combat conditions, a letter contract for $1.4 million was issued on August 28. Birdair mobilized five crews in September. After airmen had passed USAF ground and flight checks, they began operations from

Cambodian Incursion U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base, 100 miles south of Bangkok. In October the civilian crews flew more than 350 hours, air-dropping 472 tons of ammunition and 277 tons of rice to Lon Nol’s troops in the field and landing another 258 tons at Phnom Penh’s Ponchentong airport. By the end of the year, Birdair had flown more than 1,000 hours, carrying 450,000 tons of supplies to Cambodia. In February 1975 military pressure against Phnom Penh intensified after Communist forces blocked the Mekong River supply route that had been carrying some 60,000 tons of supplies a month to the beleaguered capital. The U.S. government turned over to Birdair seven additional C-130s, ordered daily sorties doubled to 20 by the end of the month, and added $1.9 million to the original contract. At the same time, Washington awarded contracts to World Airways, Airlift International, and Trans-International Airlines to fly rice from Saigon to Phnom Penh. Each carrier would be paid $30,000 a day for every DC-8–60 used on the airlift, with full indemnification of $9 million if an aircraft was lost due to act of war. By March 1975 Birdair was employing 15 aircrews to fly 30 missions a day from U-Tapao to Phnom Penh, delivering 1,000 to 1,500 tons of supplies. As Communist troops neared the capital, flight operations often took place in the midst of rocket and artillery fire. Although several aircraft suffered damage, no crew members were injured. Although the airlift prolonged the life of the Lon Nol government, it could not affect the outcome of the conflict in Cambodia. On April 12, 1975, U.S. Marine Corps helicopters evacuated the embassy staff and other American personnel from Phnom Penh. Five days later Khmer Rouge troops entered the city, bringing the airlift—and the war—to an end. WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Bird & Sons; Cambodia; EAGLE PULL, Operation; Khmer Rouge References Hardy, Gordon, Arnold R. Isaacs, MacAlister Brown, and the Editors of Boston Publishing Company. Pawns of War: Cambodia and Laos. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1987. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

Cambodian Incursion Start Date: April 29, 1970 End Date: July 22, 1970 Joint U.S. Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) invasion of officially neutral Cambodia. With progress in pacification, Vietnamization, and U.S. troop withdrawals, 1970 may have passed quietly were it not for the overthrow of Cambodia’s neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk on March 18. Pro-U.S. prime minister General Lon Nol closed the

157

port of Sihanoukville and sent his small army, the Forces Armées Nationale Khmer (FANK, Khmer National Armed Forces), against an estimated 60,000 Vietnamese Communist troops entrenched in three border provinces. On April 4, 1970, the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Politburo directed Vietnamese Communist forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), in cooperation with Cambodian Communist forces, to seize control of the 10 Cambodian provinces that bordered South Vietnam. The Politburo’s reference to “cooperation with Cambodian communist forces,” which were extremely weak at that time, was essentially a facade. In his postwar memoirs, senior Vietnamese Communist leader Vo Chi Cong admitted that in April 1970 after Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary rejected a Vietnamese offer to send troops to “liberate” northeastern Cambodia, the Vietnamese disregarded Ieng Sary’s response and sent several People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regiments into Cambodia from Vietnam’s Central Highlands. The Vietnamese then informed Ieng Sary of their action after the fact. PAVN and Viet Cong (VC) forces went on to occupy two more Cambodian provinces and threaten Phnom Penh itself. What became known as the Cambodian Incursion actually began in early April when Republic of South Vietnamese forces, ostensibly with Lon Nol’s assent and unaccompanied by American advisers, mounted multibattalion raids against Communist bases in the Parrot’s Beak next to the III Corps border. Surprised PAVN and VC forces withdrew deeper into the Cambodian jungles, but by April 20 the ARVN claimed to have killed 637 PAVN/VC troops while losing 34. U.S. leaders viewed these raids with alarm, emphasizing to South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu the need to keep Cambodia neutral. But when Communist forces seriously threatened the new government in Cambodia, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Creighton Abrams argued for a full ARVN intervention with U.S. combat support. On April 25, despite opposition from Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers, President Richard Nixon ordered both ARVN and U.S. ground forces into Cambodia to relieve pressure on FANK, to destroy Communist sanctuaries, and perhaps to capture the elusive headquarters of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), assumed to be located in the Fishhook area. Broader goals included demonstrating the progress of Vietnamization, buying time for additional U.S. troop withdrawals, and breaking the bargaining stalemate. The Cambodian Incursion involved 50,000 ARVN and 30,000 U.S. troops and was the largest series of allied operations since Operation JUNCTION CITY in 1967. Troops were divided among three groups of operations: TOAN THANG (TOTAL VICTORY), conducted by ARVN III Corps and the U.S. II Field Force; CUU LONG (MEKONG), conducted by the ARVN IV Corps; and BINH TAY (TAME THE WEST), conducted by the ARVN II Corps and the U.S. I Field Force. The ARVN would operate more than 37.28 miles inside Cambodia, while U.S. forces would penetrate only 18.64 miles. Ordered by Abrams to be

158

Cambodian Incursion

A U.S. armored personnel carrier passes by dead civilians as it pushes into Cambodia on May 9, 1970. Although Cambodia was supposed to be a neutral country, it had long served as a sanctuary for Communist forces fighting in Vietnam, and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and U.S. forces invaded the country that spring to destroy the Communist base areas and buy time for “Vietnamization.” (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

ready to move into the Fishhook on 72 hours’ notice, Lieutenant General Michael S. Davison, II Field Force commander, met with Lieutenant General Do Cao Tri, ARVN III Corps commander, and Major General Elvy Roberts, commander of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), to select areas of operation. Roberts quickly assembled a joint task force but without clear guidance about the real objectives or the duration of the operation and lacking hard intelligence about the Communist situation. Set for April 30, the hastily planned Fishhook invasion was delayed to allow ARVN forces to initiate Phase I of Operation TOAN THANG 42 on April 29, which was aimed at clearing Communist base areas in the Parrot’s Beak. Because this operation was entirely run by the ARVN, it attracted little media attention. During the first two days, an 8,000-man ARVN III Corps task force, including two infantry divisions, four Ranger battalions, and four armored cavalry squadrons, killed 84 Communist soldiers while suffering 16 dead and 157 wounded.

Phase II began on May 2, with ARVN III Corps forces attacking south of Route 1 into the Parrot’s Beak, while an ARVN IV Corps task force pushed north. The Communists broke contact after losing 1,043 killed and 238 captured; ARVN casualties were 66 killed and 402 wounded. Hundreds of individual and crew-served weapons and tons of ammunition were captured. In Phase III, which began on May 7, ARVN forces killed 182 retreating Communist soldiers near Prasot and also discovered a 200-bed hospital and several supply caches. The allies also rushed thousands of small arms and ammunition to Lon Nol’s army, which quickly expanded to more than 100,000 men but retreated into urban areas and never launched a real offensive. When the ARVN linked up with FANK forces, it discovered that Khmer soldiers had murdered hundreds of ethnic Vietnamese. ARVN troops avenged these acts by looting several Cambodian towns. In Phase IV as ARVN forces began clearing Route 1 as far as Kompong Trabek, some 30 miles inside Cambodia, President Thieu began assembling an armed flotilla to sail up the Mekong to repatriate as many as 50,000 ethnic Vietnamese. Ironically, while the ARVN was concerned with rescuing ethnic Vietnamese, the Cambodians asked them to relieve a FANK garrison under siege at Kompong Cham northeast of Phnom Penh. In Phase V of TOAN THANG 42, General Tri rushed a column of 10,000 men to accomplish this mission, but ARVN forces would have to retake Kompong Cham in June, inflicting and absorbing significant losses. When the Communists overran Kompong Speu southwest of Phnom Penh on June 13, a 4,000-man ARVN mechanized force quickly advanced to retake the town. ARVN and FANK troops then cleared Route 4 from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, which had been blockaded by the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy). TOAN THANG 42 had upset Communist plans to overthrow the Lon Nol regime and accounted for 3,588 Communist killed or captured and the seizure of more than 2,000 weapons, 308 tons of ammunition, and 100 tons of rice. The second stage of the Cambodian Incursion, called TOAN THANG 43–46, was a series of joint U.S.-ARVN operations aimed at clearing Communist sanctuaries located in the densely vegetated Fishhook area. Commanded by Brigadier General Robert H. Shoemaker, deputy commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, the initial task force consisted of the 1st Cavalry’s 3rd Brigade (reinforced by a mechanized infantry battalion), the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), and the ARVN 3rd Airborne Brigade. TOAN THANG 43 began early on May 1, coinciding with President Nixon’s televised announcement that the incursion would “guarantee the continued success of our withdrawal and Vietnamization program.” Following extensive preparatory support by Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombing, tactical air strikes, and artillery fire, an armada of U.S. helicopters inserted the ARVN Airborne troops into three landing zones (cleared by dropping 15,000-pound bombs) to block escape routes. The 1st Cavalry’s 3rd Brigade and the 11th ACR then advanced across the border in what Roberts described as “a walk in the sun.” On the first day, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1-9 Cavalry),

Cambodian Incursion

159

160

Cambodian Incursion

gunships and ARVN Airborne troops accounted for 259 killed and 7 captured from the PAVN 7th Division. General Davison then ordered the 11th ACR to move north to capture the Communist-occupied town of Snoul. When sporadic fire greeted the armored column, the town was leveled in two days of incessant bombardment. No dead PAVN soldiers were found, only the bodies of 4 civilians. As the expectation of open-battlefield victories faded, the mission of TOAN THANG 43 largely became one of seizing and destroying supply depots. After entering the Fishhook on May 2, the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade stumbled into a massive but lightly defended supply base extending over 1.15 square miles of jungle and dubbed “The City.” Although not the COSVN, The City contained large weapons and ammunition caches and a training base with 18 buildings, including mess halls and a surgical hospital. Captured materials included more than 2,000 individual and crew-served weapons, 2 million rounds of ammunition, and nearly 40 tons of foodstuffs. By mid-June, allied forces in the Fishhook also captured or destroyed more than 300 trucks and other vehicles. TOAN THANG 43 accounted for 3,190 Communist soldiers killed or captured. TOAN THANG 44 began on May 6 as the U.S. 25th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade, including two mechanized battalions, drove across the border west of Tay Ninh to search for Enemy Base Area 354. By May 14 in engagements south of the Rach Ben Go, the American forces accounted for 302 killed or captured and more than 300 weapons, 4 tons of ammunition, and 217 tons of rice seized. Also on May 6, the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade initiated TOAN THANG 45, aimed at Enemy Base Area 351 located north of Phuoc Long Province. Facing only sporadic contact, the brigade uncovered the largest depot ever captured during the war, so huge that it was dubbed “Rock Island East.” As at The City, the tonnage of supplies was so great that a road was built to remove them. By June, the entire 1st Cavalry Division was inside Cambodia and, amid frequent contact with Communist forces, uncovered many more weapons and supply caches as well as a vehicle-maintenance depot and an abandoned communications depot. TOAN THANG 45 accounted for 1,527 Communist troops killed or captured and 3,500 weapons, 791 tons of ammunition, and 1,600 tons of rice seized. 1st Cavalry Division units repelled numerous harassing attacks as they rushed to meet the withdrawal deadline. Their last firebase in Cambodia was dismantled by June 27, and all troops were back inside South Vietnam by June 29. Simultaneously with TOAN THANG 45, an ARVN 5th Division regiment and a squadron of the ARVN 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment launched TOAN THANG 46 against Enemy Base Area 350, north of Binh Long Province. ARVN forces discovered another surgical hospital and several major caches of supplies and ammunition. By June 20 increased Communist activity forced the termination of TOAN THANG 46 but not before it accounted for 79 Communist soldiers killed or captured and 350 weapons, 20 tons of ammunition, and 80 tons of rice seized.

ARVN IV Corps troops initiated Operation CUU LONG I, designed to open the Mekong River, on May 9. Within two days the ARVN 9th and 21st divisions, augmented by five armored cavalry squadrons, cleared both banks of the river, allowing a 100-ship convoy (including 30 U.S. vessels) to reach Phnom Penh and proceed north to Kompong Cham. By May 18 the convoy had repatriated nearly 20,000 Vietnamese held in refugee camps. Simultaneously, ARVN III Corps forces cleared Route 1 as far as Neak Luong. In CUU LONG II, from May 16 to May 24, ARVN IV Corps troops joined FANK forces in recapturing Takeo, 25 miles south of Phnom Penh, and cleared Route 2 and Route 3, killing 613 Communist troops while suffering only 36 killed and 112 wounded. IV Corps forces then launched CUU LONG III, again joining with FANK forces to reestablish control over towns south of Phnom Penh and to evacuate more ethnic Vietnamese. Two days after the Parrot’s Beak and Fishhook incursions began, the allies decided to expand operations to attack Communist base areas in northeastern Cambodia facing II Corps. In this operation, designated Operations BINH TAY I–IV, allied forces included the ARVN 22nd and 23rd Infantry divisions, the 2nd Ranger Group, the 2nd Armor Brigade, and two brigades of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. These operations are absent from most accounts of the incursion, perhaps because American participation was relatively brief and poorly executed. In fairness, Major General Glen D. Walker’s 4th Infantry Division was overextended, having recently relocated to Binh Dinh Province, leaving the ARVN in control of the western Central Highlands. Having no forward installations and only limited logistical and artillery support, the 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry (3-506 Infantry), had to abort its initial insertion into Cambodia on May 4. The next day the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry (1-14 Infantry), joined them in a successful insertion, but heavy hostile fire downed several helicopters. Joined by the 2-8 Infantry on May 6, 4th Division troops uncovered an abandoned PAVN training camp that included a 30bed hospital and tons of supplies. After his understrength battalions took significant casualties without making direct contact with Communist forces, Walker decided to turn the operation over to the ARVN. All 4th Infantry Division troops left Cambodia by May 16. When terminated on May 25, BINH TAY I had accounted for 212 Communist dead and the seizure of more than 1,000 weapons and 50 tons of rice. Allied casualties were 43 killed and 18 wounded. In BINH TAY II, from May 14 to May 27, battalions of the ARVN 22nd Division swept across the border from Darlac Province searching for Enemy Base Area 701. Contact was limited, but the ARVN uncovered several more caches of weapons and supplies. In BINH TAY III, from May 20 to June 12, the ARVN 23rd Division searched for Enemy Base Area 740, located west of Ban Me Thuot. The most dramatic event was the destruction of a 10-truck convoy. In BINH TAY II and III, ARVN forces killed 171 while losing 30 dead and 77 wounded. In BINH TAY IV, from June 23 to June 27, an ARVN 22nd Division task force of military and civilian vehicles, sup-

Camden 28 ported by U.S. artillery and helicopter gunships, moved deep into Cambodia along Route 19 to reach a beleaguered FANK garrison at Labang Siek and managed to evacuate more than 7,000 Khmer soldiers and dependents across the border to Pleiku Province. All II Corps ARVN troops left Cambodia by June 27. Although all American ground forces had departed Cambodia by June 30, President Thieu considered the survival of Lon Nol’s regime vital to Saigon and would not be bound by the deadline. ARVN units continued operating up to 37 miles inside Cambodia into 1971, supported by U.S. long-range artillery, tactical air support, and B-52 bombings. During the Cambodian Incursion the amount of supplies uncovered was 10 times more than that captured inside Vietnam during the previous year: 25,401 individual and crew-served weapons; nearly 17 million rounds of small-arms, 200,000 rounds of antiaircraft, and 70,000 rounds of mortar ammunition; 62,022 hand grenades; 43,160 B-40 and 2,123 107-millimeter (mm) or 122-mm rockets; 435 vehicles; 6 tons of medical supplies; and 700 tons of rice. The total was enough to supply 54 Communist main-force battalions for as much as a year. The human cost also was great: officially, at least 11,349 Communist, 638 ARVN, and 338 U.S. killed; 4,009 ARVN and 1,525 U.S. wounded; and 35 ARVN and 13 U.S. missing. In addition, 2,328 Communist soldiers rallied or were captured. U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger believed that the Cambodian Incursion dealt a stunning blow to the Communists, drove main-force units away from the border and damaged their morale, and bought as much as a year for the survival of the South Vietnamese government. During 1970 and 1971 the ARVN held the initiative on all battlefields in South Vietnam. The incursion temporarily reduced the pressure on Lon Nol, lessened the dangers to withdrawing American troops, and showcased the improvement of the ARVN. But while enhancing Vietnamization, the operations also exposed critical tactical and organizational deficiencies in the ARVN and its complete dependence on U.S. air support. The facade of renewed ARVN strength became evident during the disastrous Laotian incursion in February 1971. The short-term gains from the Cambodian Incursion actually may have boomeranged. Knowing that American intervention would be limited in both time and scope, Communist forces avoided open confrontation and quickly returned to reclaim their sanctuaries and reestablish complete control in eastern Cambodia. The PAVN compensated for its temporary losses in Cambodia by seizing towns in southern Laos and expanding the Ho Chi Minh Trail into an all-weather network capable of handling tanks and heavy equipment, eventually enabling the PAVN to overrun much of southern Laos with massive conventional assaults. Furthermore, the continuing withdrawal of U.S. combat units from III Corps forced the ARVN to deploy an excess of troops there, thus reducing their strength in northern South Vietnam where the Communist threat grew incessantly. In the long run, the Cambo-

161

dian Incursion posed only a temporary disruption of the march of Communist forces toward the domination of all of Indochina. Despite Nixon’s boast in July 1970, the prospects for a “just peace” were as dim as ever. Hanoi now believed that little could be gained through negotiations. An unanticipated result of the Cambodian Incursion was to give the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. Dissent was not limited to campus confrontations such as the tragedies at Kent State University in early May and at Jackson State later that month but also led to a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president. By the end of 1970 Congress had prohibited expenditures for U.S. forces operating outside of South Vietnam. Finally, the widening of the battlefield in 1970 eventually left Cambodia the most devastated nation in Indochina. To avoid massive allied bombings, Communist forces spread deeper inside Cambodian territory, and Lon Nol’s army, receiving only minimal U.S. assistance, would struggle futilely for five more years against both the Khmer Rouge and the PAVN. The Cambodian Incursion had turned the war into one for all of Indochina, and the departure of U.S. troops left a void too great for the ARVN or FANK to fill. JOHN D. ROOT See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Cambodia; Cambodian Airlift; Cao Van Vien; Central Office for South Vietnam; Do Cao Tri; Fishhook; Forces Armées Nationales Khmères; Hardhats; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Kent State University Shootings; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Laird, Melvin Robert; Lake, William Anthony Kirsop; Lon Nol; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Rogers, William Pierce; Sihanouk, Norodom References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Nolan, Keith William. Into Cambodia: Spring Campaign, Summer Offensive, 1970. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990. Shaw, John M. The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and America’s Vietnam War. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2005. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Tran Dinh Tho. The Cambodian Incursion. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979. Vo Chi Cong. Tren Nhung Chang Duong Cach Mang (Hoi Ky) [On the Road of Revolution: A Memoir]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2001.

Camden 28 Antiwar group that staged a raid on a local draft office in Camden, New Jersey, on August 21, 1971, designed to disrupt the draft board’s operations and showcase its antiwar sentiments.

162

Cam Lo

The so-called Camden 28 was part of a group of leftist ministers, Catholic priests and nuns, and laypeople who were vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War. The raid was stymied by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the resulting trial became a public referendum on the Vietnam War. The Camden 28 laid plans to raid and burglarize the Camden draft board office under the cover of night. Their goal was the location and destruction of all 1A status draft registration cards. However, one of the group’s members, Robert Hart, was conflicted about the planned raid. While he disdained the Vietnam War, he also believed that the raid was wrong. He voiced his concern to local FBI agents, who then recruited him as an informant. Hardy alleged that he did so only on the condition that none of the conspirators be imprisoned for their role in the soon-to-be crime. With the FBI’s help, Hardy took a major role in the planning of the raid, which would take place at the Federal Building in Camden, where the draft board offices were located. In the early morning hours of August 21, 1971, under the cover of darkness, the Camden 28 began to execute their plan. Unbeknownst to them, some 40 FBI agents were clandestinely watching their every move and recording their activities via videotape. The raiders gained entrance to the offices and began systematically riffling through draft board files. Soon thereafter, FBI agents moved in and arrested the burglars. Among those arrested were two Catholic priests and a Protestant minister. All 28 of those arrested desired to be tried together; each one had been charged with seven felony counts, punishable by up to 40 years in prison. By the time the trial began in May 1973, the case had become well-known around the nation, and its outcome was seen as a referendum on the Vietnam War itself. The prosecution offered to reduce the charges to one misdemeanor each, but the group decided in unison to go through with the trial. Hardy, who now believed he had been duped by the FBI, became a hostile witness for the prosecution, and ended up aiding the defense’s case. Indeed, he testified that the FBI had actually goaded the group to raid the draft board and had aided and abetted the break-in. On May 20, 1973, the jury found all 28 antiwar protesters not guilty of all charges. The outcome was startling, given the fact that there was incontrovertible evidence that the Camden 28 had indeed broken into and burglarized the Camden draft board offices. Indeed, after the so-called Baltimore Four broke into selective services offices in Baltimore in 1967 and defaced records, a jury had convicted them all, and one of the defendants, Father Philip Berrigan, a Catholic priest, had received a six-year prison term. The Camden 28 case clearly showed the collapse of public support for the Vietnam War. At the end of the trial, one jury member, a U.S. Army veteran, wrote a letter to the 28 congratulating them for their actions. Writing about the event in the New York Times, C. L. Sulzberger stated, “We lost the war in the Mississippi valley, not the Mekong valley.” PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Selective Service References Hixson, Walter L. The Vietnam War: The Antiwar Movement. London: Routledge, 2000. Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003.

Cam Lo A U.S. Marine Corps base camp during the Vietnam War, located on Highway 9 in Quang Tri Province, the northernmost province of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Located approximately 8.5 miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), Cam Lo was the site of the 3rd Marine Division headquarters and home to the 12th Marine Artillery Battalion, which provided artillery support to U.S. and South Vietnamese forces operating in the area during many military engagements beginning in the summer of 1966. The U.S. Marine Corps transferred the base to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) as the marines withdrew from South Vietnam in the early 1970s as part of President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnamization program. At the beginning of the 1972 Easter Offensive, the South Vietnamese abandoned the base in the face of the onslaught from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The base was never retaken by the South Vietnamese and remained in Communist hands for the rest of the war. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Demilitarized Zone; Easter Offensive; United States Marine Corps; Vietnamization References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Kelley, Michael P. Where We Were in Vietnam: A Comprehensive Guide to the Firebases, Military Installations and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War, 1945–75. Central Point, OR: Hellgate, 2002. Whitlow, Robert H., and Jack Shulimson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam. 8 vols. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977–1997. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

Camp Carroll U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army artillery firebase during the Vietnam War located about five miles southwest of the town of Cam Lo in the region just south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), halfway between the Vietnamese coast and the Laotian border.

Cam Ranh Bay Built in November 1966, the base became the home of the 3rd Marine Regiment. Originally known as Artillery Plateau, it was renamed for Captain James J. Carroll, commanding officer of M Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, who was killed by friendly fire on September 27, 1966, during Operation PRAIRIE. Camp Carroll, one of nine artillery bases constructed along the DMZ, was home to 80 artillery pieces, to include the M107 selfpropelled 175-millimeter gun, the most powerful American field artillery tube, that could fire a 150-pound projectile 20 miles. These guns played a key role in supporting the marines at Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Camp Carroll became less important after 1968, when the U.S. Marine Corps began emphasizing more mobile operations. The U.S. Marine Corps transferred the base to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) as the marines withdrew from Vietnam as part of President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnamization program in the early 1970s. On April 2, 1972, during the Communist Easter Offensive after several days of heavy shelling and several ferocious ground assaults by the 24th Regiment, 304th Division of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), ARVN lieutenant colonel Pham Van Dinh surrendered the facility, which had been renamed FSB Tan Lam, to the PAVN. The land is now part of a state-owned pepper business. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Easter Offensive; Khe Sanh, Battle of; United States Marine Corps; Vietnamization References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Kelley, Michael P. Where We Were in Vietnam: A Comprehensive Guide to the Firebases, Military Installations and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War, 1945–75. Central Point, OR: Hellgate, 2002. Nguyen Huy Toan and Pham Quang Dinh. Su Doan 304, Tap Hai [304th Division, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990. Whitlow, Robert H., and Jack Shulimson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam. 8 vols. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977–1997. Wiest, Andrew. Vietnam’s Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

Cam Ranh Bay Protected natural harbor located in Khanh Hoa Province south of the city of Nha Trang about 180 miles northeast of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). Cam Ranh Bay was developed into one of the largest seaports in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), with a population of 104,666 by 1971. Regarded

163

as the best deep-water harbor in Southeast Asia, Cam Ranh Bay has been an important way station for navigators since the days of Marco Polo. In 1905 the Russian Baltic fleet stopped at Cam Ranh Bay on the way to its confrontation with the Japanese Navy in the Tsushima Strait. During World War II the Imperial Japanese Navy staged at Cam Ranh Bay for its invasion of Malaya in 1942. In 1944 the U.S. Navy attacked and largely destroyed Japanese facilities at Cam Ranh Bay, and the base was abandoned. In the 1960s the influx of U.S. military supplies and personnel into South Vietnam increased the need for an alternative deepwater port to relieve pressure on South Vietnam’s only modern facility at Saigon. Beginning in May 1965 the U.S. Army’s First Logistical Command established a support unit at Cam Ranh Bay to provide defense for the 72,000 U.S. and allied troops in the southern half of the II Corps Tactical Zone. In June 1965 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began improving the port with 70 miles of roads as well as warehouses, fuel tanks, and larger cargohandling facilities. A new pier was shipped from South Carolina and assembled at Cam Ranh Bay, giving the facility the ability to handle six large vessels simultaneously. These terminals and supply depots were turned over to the South Vietnamese government in June 1972, as was a jet-capable airfield with a 10,000-foot runway, constructed to serve as a base for the U.S. Air Force’s 12th Tactical Fighter Wing and 483rd Tactical Air Wing. Area security was provided by the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) 9th Infantry (“White Horse”) Division, whose 30th Infantry Regiment was headquartered at Cam Ranh Bay. The port was considered so safe that President Lyndon Johnson visited the base twice. The first incumbent president to visit Vietnam, Johnson plunged into a crowd of stunned GIs, exhorting them to “nail the coonskin to the wall.” Three years later, in 1969, Viet Cong (VC) forces raided Cam Ranh Bay, destroying a water tower and chapel and damaging a hospital. Most of the patients in the hospital were evacuated safely, but 2 Americans were killed and 98 wounded, while the attackers escaped with no apparent casualties. Security was tightened, and Cam Ranh Bay continued to serve as a key logistical base throughout the war, even after the port fell to Communist forces on April 3, 1975. The Soviet Union used Cam Ranh Bay as a naval base after the Socialist Republic of Vietnam signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1978. In 2002 Russia, the successor state to the Soviet Union, balked at Vietnam’s demand for a $200 million per year rental fee and pulled out of Cam Ranh Bay altogether. The Vietnamese government has since been trying to develop the area into a civilian port facility, although India has also been reported as being interested in a naval base there. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

164

Canada

The U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay, photographed circa 1970–1971. Cam Ranh Bay is considered the finest deepwater harbor in Southeast Asia. (Naval Historical Center) References Dunn, Carroll H. Base Development in South Vietnam, 1965–1970. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972. Dunn, Carroll H. Building the Bases: The History of Construction in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Ploger, Robert R. U.S. Army Engineers, 1965–1970. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Smith, Harvey H., et al. Area Handbook for South Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

Canada A large North American nation comprising 3.855 million square miles. Larger in area than the United States, Canada is bordered to the south by the continental United States, to the west by the Pacific Ocean and the U.S. state of Alaska, to the east by

the Atlantic Ocean and Greenland, and to the north by the Arctic Ocean. In 1965 Canada’s population was 20.071 million. Canada is both a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. The prime minister is the head of government, and the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is the titular head of state. Canada’s Liberal Party was in power during the duration of heavy U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Both Lester B. Pearson, prime minister during 1963–1968, and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, prime minister during 1968–1979, found themselves caught between their general support of U.S. foreign policies in Southeast Asia and their desire to remain out of the Vietnam War militarily. As such, Canada never played a direct role in the Vietnam War. Canada did not send military units to participate in the fighting, nor did it consistently support American policies. The Canadian government was generally sympathetic to Washington’s concerns regarding the containment of communism and support for a democratic Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). However, Canada was often anxious about the degree of U.S. involvement in

Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang Southeast Asia and with what Canadian leaders saw as the excesses of American military strategy there. Canadian leaders attempted, generally unsuccessfully, to utilize their influence to moderate U.S. policy toward a more restrained approach. Washington’s response was to view Canada as unsupportive and somewhat sanctimonious. This attitude surfaced, for instance, in the case of a speech by Prime Minister Pearson at Temple University in Philadelphia on April 2, 1965. He called for a brief cessation of the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). President Lyndon Johnson was furious over the speech and soon let Pearson know of his displeasure in person. Canada participated in two peacekeeping organizations during the war. The first was the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC), also known as the International Control Commission (ICC). In 1954 following the Geneva Accords that ended the French phase of the conflict, Canada became a member of the ICSC along with Poland and India. Canada clearly represented Western non-Communist interests and used its position to feed intelligence about Communist activities to the United States. The second body, actually a reconstituted version of the first, was the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), formed in 1973 to oversee the Paris Peace Accords that ended American military involvement in Vietnam. Canada reluctantly joined alongside Hungary and Indonesia but soon left the ICCS in July 1973 when it was obvious that the accords were not being honored. In addition, Canada had other indirect connections to the war. Many Canadian companies profited from the sale of war matériel to the United States that was later used in the war effort. This included nickel, aircraft parts, TNT, radio relay sets, chemical defoliants, napalm, and much more. Also, an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 Canadians served in the American military in Vietnam, although nearly half were Canadian citizens living in the United States. Seventy-eight Canadians are listed on the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. At the same time, however, the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Pearson’s successor, eased immigration laws and allowed into Canada a significant number of American draft resisters and a small number of deserters. Also, in January 1973 the Canadian Parliament passed a resolution condemning American prolongation of the war, an action that was strongly denounced by the Richard M. Nixon administration. By the late 1960s the growing American involvement in Vietnam and the domestic problems that it was causing tended to enhance the belief of many Canadians that their country was different from, and perhaps better than, the United States. Thus, ironically, the war that was tearing apart American society was, in the short term, creating an increased sense of national identity in Canada. ERIC JARVIS See also International Commission for Supervision and Control; Pearson, Lester Bowles; Selective Service; Vietnam Veterans Memorial

165

Members of the American Deserters Committee in Montreal, Canada, gather at a Christmas party in 1969. Although Canada did not play a direct role in the Vietnam War, and its government did not take a consistent position of support or opposition to U.S. involvement, it did ease immigration laws to allow American draft dodgers and some deserters to live there. (Bettmann/Corbis) References Gaffen, Fred. Unknown Warriors: Canadians in the Vietnam War. Toronto: Dundurn, 1990. Granatstein, J. L., with Norman Hillmer. For Better or for Worse: Canada and the United States to the 1990s. Toronto: Copp Clark Pittman, 1991. Levant, Victor. Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1986. Ross, Douglas. In the Interests of Peace: Canada and Vietnam, 1954– 1973. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.

Canines See K-9 Corps

Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang Political party and intelligence apparatus on which Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South

166

Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang

Vietnam), relied in his early years in power. The Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party) grew out of other parties. Not long after Ho Chi Minh established his provisional government in 1945, Diem’s supporters formed the Catholic Socialist Party to promote an anti-Communist front. To attract non-Catholic patriots, the party was later renamed the People’s Coalition Movement. When Diem left Vietnam in 1950, his younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu sought to establish a doctrine to counter communism. In 1952 Nhu began promoting Socialist personalism, which sought to combine social reform with respect for personality. In 1953 Nhu and five others formed a political group known as the Revolutionary Party of Workers and Peasants. It soon changed its name to Le Parti Travailliste (Labor Party) and then to Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), usually known simply as the Can Lao. Nhu became its secretarygeneral and leader. Can Lao ideology drew on the writings of French philosopher Emmanuel Mournier, who had founded the journal Esprit in 1932. Nhu had become acquainted with Mournier’s writings during his prewar studies in France at the École des Chartres. Mournier, a leftist Catholic writer, accepted many of the economic propositions of socialism and communism, but his ideas were somewhat ambiguous. Diem and his brother fostered a Vietnamese version of the ideology. Their version included a virulent anticommunism (especially important in enlisting American support), respect for the dignity of the individual, a community life in which the common good took precedence over that of the individual, and a democratic structure that allowed pluralism within certain bounds. The relationship between individualism and the community on the one hand and democracy on the other were expounded in the regime’s doctrine of personalism, or nhan vi (“person” and “dignity”). This stressed human dignity and the value of humanism in modern society, in contrast to communism’s treatment of human beings as the masses. Can Lao’s professed objective was a harmony between society’s interests and the rights of its citizens. In addressing the importance of labor and the laborer, Nhu said that “Personalism stresses hard work, and it is the working class, the peasants, who are better able to understand the concept than the intellectuals.” But the Vietnamese also sought to incorporate elements from Confucianism. Can Lao placed emphasis on thanh (defined as “acute consciousness and clear vision”) and tin (“sincere and courageous practice of all duties”). In this way, cultivation of individuality became compatible with duty and obedience in Confucianism. Adherence to democracy took on a very special form. Diem believed that to think of form before substance was to invite failure, and he championed strong control as necessary for fostering a solid moral basis over a pluralistic bourgeois democracy. This opened the way for a cult of personality, which was very much at odds with the pluralistic and democratic society favored by the Americans. Personalism thus

became a useful cloak for the authoritarianism that was so much a part of the Diem regime. Appointed premier by State of Vietnam chief of state Bao Dai in June 1954, Diem returned to South Vietnam the next month. Support for Diem’s regime was at first quite narrow, resting primarily on Catholics and other northerners who had fled to the south following the 1954 Geneva Accords. To create a wider base of support, Diem and Nhu worked to build up the Can Lao as a political organization. In September 1954 the government authorized the Can Lao party. Can Lao was organized along the lines of the French Sûreté into four bureaus: Premier Bureau, administration; Deuxième Bureau, intelligence; Troisième Bureau, operations; and Quatrième Bureau, finances. The party came to have immense influence, largely because all government officials assumed its omnipotence. Nhu used Can Lao as an instrument of power to strike down opponents, real and imagined. Can Lao operated semicovertly. The party existed publicly, but its members and activities were secret. Can Lao’s actual active membership was quite small, not more than 20,000 to 25,000 people. The party was to be supported by the Phong Trao Cach Mang Quoc Gia (National Revolutionary Movement), founded in October 1954 with Diem as leader and Nhu as adviser. The National Revolutionary Movement was intended to provide mass support for the regime but in 1955 had only some 10,000 members. The National Revolutionary Movement also supported the Republican Youth. At its height Can Lao had about 50,000 members, most of them high-ranking government employees and military officers. Government officials were pressured to join and to submit to an initiation ceremony that reportedly involved kissing a picture of Diem and swearing loyalty to him. Certainly the party did not shrink from employing terror and intimidation against its opponents. Can Lao was closely linked to a secret police force and an intelligence organization that also answered to Nhu. This organization, which was called Service des Etudes Politiques, Economiques et Sociales (SEPES), was headed by Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen. The party was also involved in a number of shady financial dealings and reportedly siphoned off a proportion of U.S. aid to South Vietnam. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lansdale, a U.S. adviser to Diem, early on recognized the threat that Can Lao posed to democratic institutions and a pluralistic society and strongly opposed it, both to Diem and the U.S. government. U.S. ambassador George F. Reinhardt, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration were unsympathetic to Lansdale’s arguments. They believed that Diem needed his own political party and ordered U.S. officials in Vietnam to support Can Lao. Nhu’s doctrine should not be confused with that espoused by Bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, Diem’s oldest brother and bishop of the Vinh Long Diocese who became the archbishop of Hue in 1960 and advocated a Catholic form of personalism that differed from the Can Lao line. This displeased Nhu, who in any case did not inter-

Cao Bang fere with his brother. Can Lao was the strongest before Diem came to power and immediately afterward. As dissatisfaction with the Ngo family increased, Diem came under pressure to make changes in his government and to make public the activities of Can Lao or to dissolve it. After 1960 the party played an increasingly smaller role in the government. But it was not until General Nguyen Khanh took power that Can Lao and many other political parties were officially dissolved in March 1964. The dissolution of Can Lao, the trial and execution of Diem’s younger brother and warlord of central Vietnam Ngo Dinh Can, and the seizure of the Ngo brothers’ property were all considered positive steps for General Khanh’s regime. Enough Can Lao influence remained, however, for it to play a role in deposing General Khanh in 1965. The end of Can Lao contributed to instability in South Vietnam because it removed restraints on labor unions and student associations, which were now free to agitate against the government. HO DIEU ANH, NGUYEN CONG LUAN, AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Lansdale, Edward Geary; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Thuc; Nguyen Khanh; Reinhardt, George Frederick References Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale. The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Cao Bang Vietnamese city and province. The city of Cao Bang is located some 116 miles north-northeast of Hanoi and perhaps 20 miles from the border with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Cao Bang sits astride a traditional Chinese invasion route into Vietnam. Mountainous Cao Bang Province shares a 186-mile-long common frontier with Guangzi Province of the PRC. At least nine ethnic minorities inhabit the province, and Ban Gioc Falls in the province is regarded as the most impressive waterfalls in Vietnam and an important tourist attraction. Ban Gioc Falls was a favorite location for French vacation homes during the colonial era. Cao Bang is regarded as a cradle of the Vietnamese revolution. During the 1920s several anti-French Vietnamese nationalist groups were established. In December 1940 Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh, then in China, decided to make Cao Bang a revolutionary base. He arrived there in late January 1941 and made it his headquarters for some time. In December 1944 Cao Bang Province was the site of the formation by Vo Nguyen Giap of the first unit of what would become the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Cao Bang saw considerable fighting during the Indochina War (1946–1954). In Operation LÉA during October 1947, French gen-

167

eral Raoul Salan directed some 12,000 French troops in the region to try to capture the Viet Minh leadership and destroy their main battle units. As part of the operation, French troops occupied Cao Bang. While this operation and the follow-on Operation CEINTURE destroyed major supply caches and arms factories, they failed to take the Viet Minh leadership or destroy major military units. The operations also revealed the severe limitation imposed on the French by their lack of sufficient manpower to hold territory they had taken. Following the Communist victory in China in 1949, Cao Bang and the border region assumed new importance. On January 18, 1950, the PRC formally recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and agreed to supply it with military assistance. Many would argue that the Indochina War was lost for the French at this point, for their long border with Vietnam allowed the PRC easy access to furnish the Viet Minh arms and equipment and provide a sanctuary to train Viet Minh forces. In early 1950 Viet Minh forces controlled virtually the entire northeastern corner of Tonkin except for a string of border outposts along the border with China on Route Coloniale 4, which ran from Cao Bang through Dong Khe, That Khe, and Lang Son to the Gulf of Tonkin. The 10,000 French troops manning the Route Coloniale 4 outposts were now in perilous position. High Commissioner Léon Pignon and French field commander Major General Marcel Alessandri opposed withdrawal. They believed that control of the route was necessary to block Chinese resupply of the Viet Minh. Nonetheless, the supply run to Cao Bang from Lang Son was soon costly for the French. From January 1950 their convoys could not reach beyond That Khe. Both Dong Khe and Cao Bang had to be supplied by air. On May 27, 1950, following two days of shelling, the Viet Minh took Dong Khe, midway between Cao Bang and That Khe. The French immediately inserted paratroopers and forced the Viet Minh to withdraw. On September 18 in Operation LE HONG PHONG II, Giap sent a larger force and retook Dong Khe. Cao Bang was now cut off. On September 24 French commander in Indochina General Marcel Carpentier ordered Cao Bang evacuated. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Charton, the French garrison consisted of a reinforced battalion of legionnaires and a battalion of Tho (Tay) partisans as well as the latter’s families and several hundred Vietnamese and Chinese merchants. The roads from Cao Bang, Route Coloniale 3 and Route Coloniale 4, ran through difficult Viet Minh– controlled terrain, so Carpentier ordered Charton to destroy his heavy equipment and motor transport and bring out his 2,600 men and 500 civilians via foot trails. He also ordered a relief force of some 3,500 men commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Le Page to move from That Khe to Dong Khe and retake that place to allow the Cao Bang garrison to join it there on the morning of October 2. The Cao Bang garrison could have been evacuated by air. Its runway was long enough to accommodate Junkers JU-52 and

168

Cao Dai

Douglas C-47 Dakota aircraft. French air commander in Tonkin Colonel Alain de Maricourt believed that the entire garrison could have been withdrawn in two days, but Carpentier was unwilling to leave the civilians behind. Including them would take more time and entail considerably more risk. Carpentier’s decision to retreat on Route Coloniale 4 rather than Route Coloniale 3 led to disaster. While Route Coloniale 3 was a longer route to the main French defensive line, it was safer because there were fewer Viet Minh there. Route Coloniale 4, while only 45 miles to Dong Khe and 15 miles farther to That Khe, ran close to the Chinese border and through difficult terrain. As it turned out, the Viet Minh were far more numerous there than the French had believed. Still, Carpentier’s plan probably would have been successful had Charton followed orders. Instead, Charton attempted to bring out his vehicles. Progress was slow, and by the time Charton reverted to the original plan, it was too late. Remnants of the two French forces met in the hills around Dong Khe, only to be annihilated there on October 7, 1950. Only 12 officers and 475 men ultimately made it to That Khe. Carpentier then panicked and ordered a precipitous evacuation of Long Son. By the end of October 1950 northeastern Vietnam was for all intents and purposes a Viet Minh stronghold. Cao Bang was again the scene of fighting in the spring of 1954 when it briefly came under siege by French forces. During the Sino-Vietnamese War (February 17–March 16, 1979), Chinese forces captured Cao Bang on February 22 but withdrew at the end of the war. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Ho Chi Minh; LÉA, Operation; LE HONG PHONG II, Operation; Vo Nguyen Giap References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Cao Dai Indigenous religion founded in southern Vietnam in 1926. By the 1940s, Cao Dai (formally known as Dai Dao Tam Ky Pho Do, or the Great Religion of the Third Period of Revelation and Salvation) had become a major social and political force in Vietnam, playing a significant role in the conflicts that engulfed the country. The massive Cao Dai Great Temple at Tay Ninh, built between 1933

and 1955, was the spiritual center of the movement and became an enduring symbol of self-identity for many Vietnamese during the wars that plagued them throughout the 20th century. The Cao Dai religion is based on the beliefs of a Frencheducated civil servant turned mystic named Ngo Van Chieu, who in 1919 claimed to have communicated with supernatural spirits. The spirits told him to establish a new religion promoting world peace by mixing a belief in the supernatural with other faiths, including Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Islam. The Cao Dai religion was formally launched at Tay Ninh in 1926. Adherents claimed that through repeated séances with the dead, many led by Chieu himself, understanding and even selfenlightenment could be achieved. The idea quickly developed into a popular religion. The supreme being or God is called Cao Dai, literally the “high palace” or “high tower.” It has no gender or personality and is regarded as the same God recognized by other faiths. Cao Daism holds that God created all things and instilled in them his spirit. Cao Daists worship God in the form of the Sacred Eye that shines over many saints, immortals, Buddhas, and others. The Sacred Eye is a symbol of universal consciousness, which includes humankind. Cao Daism believes in the existence of a God-endowed eternal spirit that stays with a person beyond earthly death and through subsequent reincarnations, which is in accordance with Karma and Buddhism. Like Buddhism and other religions, Cao Daism teaches its follower to eschew greed, avarice, materialism, earthly desires, and anger. Followers of Cao Dai engage in frequent meditation and self-enlightenment to achieve a higher religious purpose, with the goal of becoming one with their God-endowed spirits and thus attaining Nirvana, or Heaven. The structure and organization of the faith closely resemble that of the Roman Catholic Church, with a pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests. Cao Dai also developed an eclectic collection of saints, including Jesus Christ, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, a 16th-century Vietnamese poet named Nguyen Binh Khiem, the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen), and the 19thcentury French writer and humanist Victor Hugo. Prominent historical figures such as Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare, and Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin are also recognized for their teachings. Embracing all world ideas and religions, Cao Dai adherents chose as their symbol the all-seeing eye. French authorities governing Vietnam at the time viewed the new religion with great suspicion. As an inclusive faith, Cao Dai attracted many Vietnamese, the majority of whom were Mahayana Buddhists, and challenged the powerful Catholic elite who ran the country. Moreover, Cao Dai quickly became a focal point for Vietnamese nationalists who fought against French colonial rule. By the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Cao Dai had more than 300,000 followers, many of whom also served in various revolutionary movements throughout Vietnam. In fact, some Cao Daists fought alongside the Viet Minh, the major nationalist movement led by the Communist Ho Chi Minh, that directly battled the French.

Cao Dai

169

A service at the Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh. The Cao Dai religion was founded in 1926. Its greatest influence in nationalist politics came during the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and it waned with the ascent of President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam in the 1950s. After the Communist victory in 1975, many Cao Dai practitioners fled the country, fearful of religious persecution. Today the temple in Tay Ninh is a major tourist attraction. (Valery Shanin/Dreamstime.com)

Most Vietnamese initially welcomed the Japanese invasion of Indochina, beginning in September 1940, as liberation from the French. However, Japanese rule quickly turned into a brutal occupation, and many Vietnamese, including some Cao Daists, turned against the Japanese. A Cao Dai army was formed in 1943 and quickly established itself as a fairly effective and even ruthless fighting force. As World War II came to end in 1945, the Cao Daists clashed with other nationalist groups for control, including the Viet Minh, the Communist La Lutte (“the Conflict”), and the Buddhist reform movement Hoa Hao. Some Cao Dai units even switched sides and supported the French during the Indochina War (1946–1954). With the French withdrawal and the partition of Vietnam in 1954, the Cao Dai religion soon confronted a new rival in the government of Ngo Dinh Diem, who came to rule the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Diem regime worried that the Cao Dai undermined its authority, especially the 25,000-strong armed faction that supplemented both the French and South Vietnamese armed forces. Between March and May 1955 the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) battled against the Binh Xuyen, a criminal syndicate approximately 40,000 strong that dominated the drug and prostitution trades in Saigon.

In June 1955 Diem turned against the Hoa Hao and began rounding up members of other sectarian groups, including Cao Dai. The Cao Dai army was forcibly disbanded, and some of its leadership went into exile. Several thousand Cao Dai followers fled to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or joined Communist networks in South Vietnam. Subsequent leaders of South Vietnam also kept the Cao Dai prostrate, although it continued to draw adherents as both a religion and an underground paramilitary organization. Some Cao Dai followers fought with the Viet Cong (VC) against U.S. forces during the American phase of the Vietnam War (1965– 1973). Cao Dai adherents served on the Central Committee of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and on the Advisory Council of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. However, most Cao Dai did not support the Communist VC, the southern guerrillas who initially led the fight. Consequently, when the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) eventually overran South Vietnam in 1975, the Cao Dai were persecuted because they were seen as a possible source of opposition. However, Cao Dai continued to attract followers, even expanding overseas with expatriate Vietnamese who fled the Communist takeover.

170

Cao Van Vien

The Cao Daists continued to fight, however. Cao Dai guerrillas allegedly joined an anti-Communist coalition known as the Phuc Quoc (“National Salvation”) with remnants of the Hoa Hao, elements of the former ARVN, and the Montagnard (Degar) people of the Central Highlands. Cao Dai resistance activity continued into the mid-1980s before it was finally overwhelmed. After enduring more than 20 years of government suppression, the Cao Dai religion was finally recognized in 1997. Today its followers number approximately 6 million worldwide, half of them in Vietnam, making it the third-largest religion in the country behind Buddhism and Christianity. Cao Dai leaders remain politically active, championing the expansion of religious freedoms in the country. The Cao Dai Great Temple, still in existence, is located about 60 miles northwest of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). The temple gained some international notoriety as a focal point in the best-selling novel The Quiet American by British author Graham Greene, published in 1955 and made into movies in 1958 and 2002. The Cao Dai Great Temple is now one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist attractions. ARNE KISLENKO See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Catholicism in Vietnam; Confucianism; Ngo Dinh Diem; Pham Cong Tac; Taoism; Viet Cong Infrastructure; Viet Minh References Blagov, Serguei A. Caodaism: Vietnamese Traditionalism and Its Leap into Modernity. New York: Nova Science, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Phan, Khanh. Caodaism. London: Minerva, 2000. Tran Bach Dang, ed. Chung Mot Bong Co (Ve Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam Viet Nam) [Under One Flag (The National Liberation Front for South Vietnam)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1993. Unger, Ann Helen. Pagodas, Gods and Spirits of Vietnam. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Werner, Jayne Susan. Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dai in Vietnam. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981.

Cao Van Vien Birth Date: December 11, 1921 Death Date: January 22, 2008 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and chief of the Joint General Staff (1965–1975). Cao Van Vien was born on December 11, 1921, in Vientiane, Laos, where his father was a merchant of Vietnamese ethnic origin. Vien enlisted in the French Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1949. After an initial assignment as a staff officer in army headquarters, he was sent to a combat unit in northern Vietnam. By 1953 he was a battalion commander in the Red River Delta near Hanoi.

During his rapid rise through the ranks, Vien developed a reputation for skill and courage. While in the army he continued his education and finally, in 1966, received a Licentrate of Letters degree from the University of Saigon. During 1956–1957 Vien attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1957 Vien returned from the United States and became chief of staff to Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Vien had high admiration and respect for Diem and his brother Nhu. In November 1960 after Airborne Brigade commander Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi fled to Cambodia after an unsuccessful coup attempt against the Diem government, President Diem appointed Cao Van Vien to the post of Airborne Brigade commander. Colonel Vien was not a paratrooper and had never attended parachute training. In spite of his age (39 years old), Vien immediately went through the airborne training program in order to be able to jump into battle with his men. During the November 1963 overthrow of the Diem regime, Vien, who still commanded the airborne brigade, refused to participate in the coup and was briefly imprisoned. Later released, he was returned to command of the Airborne Brigade. In 1964 he was wounded while commanding his paratroopers in battle. He was awarded the U.S. Silver Star for gallantry in this action. In the autumn of 1965 Vien was appointed chief of staff to the ARVN Joint General Staff and subsequently commanded III Corps. He was later appointed chief of the Joint General Staff, concurrently acting as minister of defense for much of the time. Vien was a close friend of President Nguyen Van Thieu, and their families at one time shared the same house. However, Thieu maintained close control over the South Vietnamese armed forces, leaving Vien with little direct control of military matters. Vien’s role was further diminished as the Americans largely directed the conduct of the war. Vien attempted to resign his post as chief of the General Staff in 1970 to return to a combat command, and he reportedly attempted to resign on several other occasions. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Vien used all of his staff and service personnel, with few exceptions, as combat troops and took personal command of them. Colonels and majors commanded platoons, with junior officers filling the ranks as privates. Vien later held that the United States and South Vietnam missed an opportunity to win the war immediately after the Tet Offensive by not going on the offensive with massive large-scale attacks. He also complained of not being consulted by the U.S. government on what he considered its expedient policy of Vietnamization, for which he considered the Vietnamese armed forces neither psychologically nor physically prepared. Vien was an enthusiastic advocate of the 1971 ARVN invasion of Laos, Operation LAM SON 719, having proposed in 1965 a strategy of isolation that involved establishing a fortified zone along the 17th Parallel and running through Laos to block infiltration by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), together with an amphibious landing at Vinh.

Carpentier, Marcel General Vien appeared in public for the last time on April 27, 1975, at a joint session of the South Vietnamese Congress, to which he reported on the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. He made it clear that the ARVN was no match for the powerful Communist forces that were approaching Saigon. The next day he and his family secretly left Vietnam for the United States, where they settled and he became a citizen. Vien summed up the 1975 defeat by saying that the ARVN had fought well before it was overwhelmed by events over which it had no control. After his arrival in the United States, Vien worked at the U.S. Army Center of Military History and produced two monographs on his experiences in the war. He died in Annandale, Virginia, on January 22, 2008. HO DIEU ANH AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also LAM SON 719, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Van Thieu; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff References Cao Van Vien. The Final Collapse. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982. Cao Van Vien and Dong Van Khuyen. Reflections on the Vietnam War. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Kiem Dat. Chien Tranh Viet Nam [The Vietnam War]. Glendale, CA: Dai Nam, 1982. Nguyen Khac Ngu. Nhung Ngay Cuoi Cung Cua Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Last Days of the Republic of Vietnam]. Montreal: Nhom Nghien Cuu Su Dia, 1979. Post, Ken. Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Viet Nam. 5 vols. Brookfield, VT: Darmouth, 1989–1994. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Who’s Who in Vietnam. Saigon: Vietnam Press Agency, 1967–1968.

Caravelle Group A group of 18 prominent South Vietnamese belonging to various professions (law, medicine, religion) who, at a press conference at the Hotel Caravelle in Saigon on April 26, 1960, made public a manifesto addressed to President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Couched in moderate terms, the theme of the manifesto was that Diem had betrayed the hopes his people had placed in him in 1954 and thereby endangered the country. Among the main points of criticism were claims that Diem had isolated himself from his people by delegating power to family members, that repressive measures against religious sects had turned these into allies of the Viet Cong (VC), that public opinion and the press had been silenced, and that election fraud had been committed. The manifesto also called for total reorganization of the administration and the armed forces and for liberalization of the economy.

171

The signatories included several former ministers and high officials, which gave the manifesto a credibility beyond that of an ordinary political tract. In 1960 such open dissent risked imprisonment, as the manifesto itself acknowledged. In fact, the government at first ignored its Caravelle critics, only later venturing to quietly arrest a number of them. Frank Gonder, an American businessman living in Saigon, acted as the Caravelle Group’s spokesman with the American embassy, attempting to bring about pressure for reform, but the embassy, while accepting much of the criticism as valid, maintained a hands-off policy. Significantly, the manifesto had nothing to say about the alleged persecution of the Buddhists, which three years later became a crucial issue in Diem’s downfall. In succeeding years one member of the Caravelle Group became head of state, two members became prime ministers, and another member headed a constitutional drafting convention. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Carpentier, Marcel Birth Date: March 2, 1895 Death Date: September 14, 1977 French general and commander of French forces in Indochina during 1949–1950. Born in Touraine on March 2, 1895, Marcel Carpentier entered the French military academy of Saint-Cyr at age 18 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in August 1914. In May 1915 he was the youngest captain in the French Army. In 1916 he became a pilot. Carpentier was wounded 10 times, 4 times seriously, during the war. His war decorations included the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre (five citations). Carpentier continued in the army after World War I and, on the outbreak of World War II, was serving in the Middle East. In March 1941 as a lieutenant colonel he was transferred to Algiers, where he was promoted to colonel the following year. After the Allied landing, Carpentier’s 7th Moroccan Regiment participated in the Battle of Tunis. Promoted to brigadier general in July 1943, he served as chief of staff to Marshal Alphonse Juin’s French Expeditionary Corps in Italy. In June 1944 Carpentier became chief of staff of the French First Army. In November 1944 as a major general he took command of the 2nd Moroccan Division and had charge of it during the liberation of Alsace and the crossing of the Rhine. In 1946 as a lieutenant general Carpentier commanded French forces in Morocco.

172

Carter, James Earl, Jr.

In August 1949 Carpentier was named commander in chief of French forces in Indochina, replacing General Roger Blaizot there shortly before the Communist victory in China. Carpentier used this latter event as justification for U.S. military aid. He referred to the French Army on the border with China as the “last bulwark against Communism” and was quoted in Life magazine as saying that “The problem here has ceased to be Franco-Vietnamese. It is international. I don’t consider myself the commander of a colonial army but one of the vanguards of Western civilization confronting Communism.” Carpentier’s military strategy was a cautious one. Rather than seeking out the Viet Minh, he garrisoned northern Vietnamese frontier posts to defend against a Chinese invasion. The previous March the French government had concluded the Elysée Agreement, which provided for the creation of a Vietnamese National Army (VNA). Although Carpentier welcomed the expanded military manpower, he demanded that it be firmly in French hands. U.S. major general Graves B. Erskine reported that Carpentier told him that Vietnamese troops were unreliable, would not make good soldiers, and were not to be trusted on their own. Carpentier steadfastly refused to allow U.S. military aid to be channeled directly to the Vietnamese; if this was done, he said, he would resign within 24 hours. By late 1949 the French Army had lost the initiative in the war. General Blaizot had planned the evacuation of Cao Bang and Route Coloniale RC 4, but on pressure from his subordinate, General Marcel Allesandri, Carpentier had put it off. Later Carpentier was blamed for the disastrous October 1950 French withdrawal from Cao Bang. In November 1950 Paris named General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny to replace Carpentier as commander of French forces in Indochina. Upon leaving Indochina, Carpentier became deputy chief of staff to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme allied commander in Europe. From 1953 to 1956 Carpentier commanded North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) land forces in central Europe. Carpentier died in Paris on September 14, 1977. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Blaizot, Roger; Elysée Agreement; France, Army, 1946–1954; Indochina War; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; LE HONG PHONG II, Operation; Vietnamese National Army References Current Biography, 1951. Edited by Anna Rothe. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1952. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983. Who’s Who, 1974–1975. New York: St. Martin’s, 1975.

Carter, James Earl, Jr. Birth Date: October 1, 1924 Governor of Georgia (1971–1975) and president of the United States (1977–1981). Born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, James Earl (Jimmy) Carter Jr. graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1946 and was commissioned an ensign. In 1952 he transferred to the nuclear submarine program and commanded the precommissioning crew of the second U.S. Navy nuclear submarine, the Sea Wolf. Upon the 1953 death of his father, Carter left the navy to manage the family peanut business. In 1962 he was elected as a Democrat to the Georgia state senate, where he served two terms. In Georgia state races as late as 1971, Carter supported increased military aid to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and did not oppose U.S. action there. After an initially unsuccessful bid for governor, Carter was elected to that post and served a single fouryear term, from 1971 to 1975. He launched his 22-month presidential campaign while still in the governor’s mansion. During his campaign Carter was especially critical of secrecy in foreign policy and insisted that the pall over the country from the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal called for a candidate who could restore integrity and faith in government. Trust became a key campaign issue, and Carter repeatedly assured Americans that he would not lie to them. In position papers released by the Carter campaign headquarters in 1976, he promised a pardon for those “outside our country, or in this country, who did not serve in the armed forces.” He refused an amnesty because that implied that what they did was right; a pardon conveyed that whether right or wrong they were forgiven. Deserters would be treated on a case-by-case basis. He attributed his election to the presidency to American disillusionment with the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal and to his promise not to allow the government to go back to its old ways. Although prepared to establish normal relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) in 1977, the Carter administration ended negotiations until the summer of 1978, when Hanoi dropped demands for reparations. Talks did not proceed, however, because of what Washington saw as Hanoi’s callous disregard for refugees (the so-called boat people) and because of intelligence reports revealing the SRV’S preparations to invade Cambodia. The U.S. State Department announced on August 9, 1979, that normalization was impossible for these reasons. The United States restored diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on January 1, 1979, and the potential for widening conflict between China and the Soviet Union, which had signed a friendship treaty with Hanoi, was at the center of Carter’s talks with Chinese vice chairman Deng Xiaoping that same month. Carter disapproved of Chinese intentions to invade Vietnam in retaliation for its strikes against Cambodia. When the Chinese subsequently did attack Vietnam in February–March 1979, he warned the Soviets against intervening in the conflict. During the June 1979 Tokyo Economic Summit, Carter doubled the U.S. Indochina refugee quota, which led to openings in other

Case, Clifford Philip

173

been deeply involved in its work for more than 25 years. Carter has also maintained a high-profile association with Habitat for Humanity and has written numerous books, including memoirs of several types and books on poetry, religion, human rights, and current events. It is entirely fair to say that Carter, who continues to reside near Plains, Georgia, has proven to be far more popular as an ex-president than he was as president. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also Amnesty; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Habib, Philip Charles; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Refugees and Boat People; Selective Service; Vance, Cyrus Roberts

President Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Carter attributed his election to the presidency in 1976 to American disillusionment with Vietnam and the Watergate Scandal. (Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)

countries to resettlement, a policy described by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as one of the most significant acts of the Carter administration. There was much criticism of Carter’s lack of foreign policy cohesion, but author Kenneth A. Oye blamed this on the diffusion of power in the international arena. The United States had held hegemony between the end of World War II and the height of the Vietnam conflict, but America’s dominance ended with its defeat there. Carter’s presidency was severely tested by a series of domestic and foreign policy crises that included a deep economic recession, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Iranian Revolution of that same year, and a resulting Middle East oil crisis that led to huge increases in the price of energy as well as gasoline shortages. Although much of this was beyond Carter’s control, many Americans believed—and with some justification—that the Carter White House had responded ineptly to these crises. Carter was especially taken to task for the bad economy, and his frosty relations with a Democratically controlled Congress meant that he had little room in which to maneuver. Carter lost his 1980 reelection bid to Republican Ronald Reagan largely due to Carter’s perceived mishandling of the Iran Hostage Crisis, which had begun in November 1979. That notwithstanding, he nevertheless deserves high praise for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East that resulted in the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. Since leaving office Carter has been one of America’s most active former presidents, offering his services as a foreign elections monitor, mediator, and negotiator in several major conflicts. In 1982 he founded the Carter Center, a nonprofit global organization for the advancement of human rights, and has

References Adee, Michael J. “American Civil Religion and the Presidential Rhetoric of Jimmy Carter.” In The Presidency and Domestic Policies of Jimmy Carter, edited by Herbert D. Rosenbaum and Alexej Ugrinsky, 73–82. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: Bantam Books, 1982. Oye, Kenneth A. “The Domain of Choice: International Constraints and Carter Administration Foreign Policy.” In Eagle Entangled: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World, edited by Kenneth A. Oye, 304–335. New York: Longman, 1979. Vance, Cyrus. Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Case, Clifford Philip Birth Date: April 16, 1904 Death Date: March 6, 1982 U.S. congressman (1945–1953) and U.S. senator from New Jersey (1955–1979). Clifford Philip Case was born on April 16, 1904, in Franklin Park, New Jersey. A New York corporate lawyer and moderate-liberal Republican, he served 10 years as a U.S. congressman from New Jersey (1943–1953) and won election to the U.S. Senate in 1954, defeating the extreme-right McCarthyites in the New Jersey Republican Party. Case took his seat in January 1955. In the Senate, Case became known as a champion of social and civil rights programs. He served on various committees, among them Appropriations, Atomic Energy, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations. In 1967 he became a strong critic of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia and remained so throughout the Richard M. Nixon administration. Case condemned the Vietnam War as an unconstitutional extension of executive power. Along with Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), Case authored the 1973 Case-Church Amendment that severely restricted U.S. expenditures in Southeast Asia without explicit congressional approval. He also argued that the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was so dependent on the United States that it could not survive alone and that the war itself was destroying Vietnam and damaging the United States. Case opposed U.S. military aid to Laos and Cambodia and was particularly hostile to the manner in which presidents Lyndon

174

Case-Church Amendment

Johnson and Richard Nixon used the military assistance program to enlarge U.S. military commitments overseas without congressional consent. Defeated for reelection in 1978, Case subsequently practiced law in New York City and lectured at Rutgers University. He died in Washington, D.C., on March 6, 1982. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

to prevent the Nixon administration from engaging in any other covert or overt operations in Vietnam. The amendment also sent a strong signal that the United States was unprepared to prop up South Vietnam’s government even if that meant the fall of the regime to the Communists. DAVID C. SAFFELL

See also Case-Church Amendment; Church, Frank Forrester; Fulbright, James William; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous

See also Cambodia; Case, Clifford Philip; Church, Frank Forrester; CooperChurch Amendment; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Watergate Scandal

Reference Schoenebaum, Eleanora W. Political Profiles: The Nixon/Ford Years. New York: Facts on File, 1979.

References Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1973. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Case-Church Amendment Legislation that sought to end U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia that was passed by Congress in June 1973. President Richard M. Nixon’s decision to continue heavy bombing of Cambodia in early 1973 and his June 27 veto of a bill to immediately terminate that bombing provoked a strong reaction in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Senators Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.) and Frank Church (D-Idaho), authors of several end-the-war measures, introduced an amendment to the State Department authorization bill in June 1973 to bar appropriations from being used to finance U.S. military operations in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Laos, or Cambodia unless specifically authorized by Congress. Fearful that President Nixon might initiate a massive reconstruction program in which North Vietnam would receive aid, the Case-Church Amendment also blocked assistance “of any kind, directly or indirectly, to or on behalf of North Vietnam, unless specifically authorized hereafter by Congress.” In June the Case-Church Amendment was added to the bill in committee and slipped through the full Senate without debate. The amendment was modified in a House-Senate conference to conform to an August 15, 1973, cutoff compromise favored by the Nixon administration. The measure then was approved by the House. By the summer of 1973 events related to the Watergate Scandal were dominating the news. White House counsel John Dean had accused the president of a cover-up, and presidential aide Alexander Butterfield had disclosed the existence of White House tape recordings corroborating Dean’s allegations. In July testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee by a former U.S. Air Force major revealed that the United States had secretly bombed Cambodia a year before the 1970 incursion that had prompted the Senate to pass the Cooper-Church Amendment. American troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam, and the second round of U.S.– North Vietnamese negotiations was being conducted in Paris. It is clear that Congress intended, via the Case-Church Amendment,

CASTOR,

Operation

Event Date: November 20, 1953 Operation initiated by French commander in Indochina General Henri Navarre that led to the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Operation CASTOR was Navarre’s response to the plans of Vo Nguyen Giap, commander of all Viet Minh military forces, to invade northern Laos. Navarre decided to establish an airhead in northwestern Tonkin (northern Vietnam) astride the main Viet Minh invasion route into Laos. Although Navarre was not enthusiastic about the idea, he believed that a strong base there would prevent an outright enemy invasion of Laos. The key position would be at Dien Bien Phu, some 185 miles by air from Hanoi. Despite Navarre’s statement in his memoirs Agonie de l’Indochine, 1953–1954, published in 1956, that “Contrary to what has been said many times, absolutely no unfavorable opinion on the tactical site of Dien Bien Phu was expressed by anyone before the battle,” many well-placed French officers in the north had opposed CASTOR. These included brigadier generals Jean Giles, the commandant of French airborne forces in Indochina; Jean Dechaux, commander of the Northern Tactical Air Group; and René Masson, deputy French commander in northern Vietnam. Nonetheless, in November 1953 Navarre, in Saigon, gave orders for CASTOR to proceed. In midmorning on November 20, 1953, the entire French transport lift of 65 Douglas C-47 Skytrains dropped 1,500 paras (paratroopers), the cream of the French Expeditionary Corps, into the valley north and south of the village of Dien Bien Phu, with its small Viet Minh garrison (two companies of the 910th Battalion of the 148th Regiment and a heavy weapons company of the 351st Division, armed with 120-millimeter mortars). The first drop consisted of Major Marcel Bigeard’s 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion and Major Jean Brechignac’s 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, of Parachute Chasseurs. Lieutenant Colonel Fourcade, commander of the 1st Airborne Battle Group, dropped with them. The speed of the aircraft and the extended length of the drop time

Casualties caused some of the paras to land outside the drop zone, where they were ambushed. French Martin B-26 Marauders assisted the operation by strafing Viet Minh positions. A second lift later on November 20 brought 700 additional French troops in the form of Major Jean Sousquet’s 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion and its equipment. Surgical teams, airborne engineers, and heavy weapons companies were also included in the drops. By the end of the day Dien Bien Phu was in French hands, at a cost of 11 dead and 52 wounded. Viet Minh casualties were given as 115 dead and 4 wounded. Hardly anyone had heard of Dien Bien Phu when the French arrived there. It was an obscure village situated in a valley surrounded by hills on all sides. To leave his enemy the opportunity to control the high ground surrounding it was dangerous, but as Navarre put it later, at the time the French arrived the Viet Minh did not have artillery, and there was then no danger. There is controversy surrounding Navarre’s exact motives in CASTOR. There were Montagnard tribesmen in the area around Dien Bien Phu, and some maintain that he merely intended to use the base as a blocking position or mooring point (mole de amarrage) from which the French and their auxiliaries could assault Viet Minh rear areas. Others hold that Navarre saw this as his best chance of inflicting serious losses on the Viet Minh by engaging them in conventional warfare. Inserting a force at Dien Bien Phu would tempt Giap and allow Navarre, with his artillery, airpower, and trained troops, to inflict a serious defeat on his adversary. At most he expected Giap to commit one division to the fight. Giap, however, took the bait and put all available resources into what would become the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. What is surprising is how in 1953, after more than six years of war, Navarre could have so badly underestimated his adversary. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Navarre Plan References Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Navarre, General Henri. Agonie de l’Indochine, 1953–1954. Paris: Plon, 1956. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

175

Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

Casualties It is often difficult to arrive at precise casualty figures in war, and the Indochina War and the Vietnam War are not exceptions in this regard. For the Indochina War, the French government has given figures for France and its allies as 172,708: 94,581 dead or missing and 78,127 wounded. These are broken down as 140,992 French Union casualties (75,867 dead or missing and 65,125 wounded), with the allied Indochina states losing 31,716 (18,714 dead or missing and 13,002 wounded). Viet Minh losses have been estimated at perhaps three times those of the French. Vietnamese civilian deaths from the fighting are estimated at about 250,000. For the Vietnam War, estimates for troop losses for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) vary. A low figure is 110,357 killed in action and 499,026 wounded. Some figures range as high as 184,000 or even as many as 250,000. The number of civilians killed in the war will never be known with any accuracy. Estimates vary widely, but the lowest figure given is 415,000, while the highest total may be 1 million. U.S. forces had 47,382 killed in action, 10,811 noncombat deaths, 153,303 wounded in action (some 74,000 survived as quadriplegics or multiple amputees), and 10,173 captured or missing in action. The majority of the U.S. casualties were from the U.S. Army. Between 1961 and 1975, 30,868 soldiers died in Vietnam as the result of hostile action, and 7,193 died from other causes. Of those killed, the U.S. Army accounted for 65.8 percent, the U.S. Marine Corps accounted for 25.5 percent, the U.S. Navy accounted for 4.3 percent, the U.S. Air Force accounted for 4.3 percent, and the U.S. Coast Guard accounted for .1 percent. Of ranks (including navy equivalents), 88.8 percent were enlisted men and warrant officers, 8.6 percent were lieutenants and captains, and 2.6 percent were majors and colonels. Twelve U.S. generals died in Vietnam. In April 1995 the U.S. Department of Defense listed 1,621 Americans missing in Vietnam and 2,207 for all of Southeast Asia. On

Estimated Casualties of the Vietnam War

United States South Vietnam Other Allied Forces Australia New Zealand South Korea Thailand North Vietnam and Viet Cong

Peak Troop Strength

Killed in Action or Died of Wounds

Wounded

Missing

Captured

Civilian Dead

543,400 1,048,000

47,382 225,000

203,678 1,170,000

2,207 75,000

7,966 Unknown

N/A 2,000,000

7,700 550 48,900 11,600 300,000

423 83 4,407 351 1,100,000

2,398 212 17,060 1,358 600,000

6 N/A N/A N/A 225,000

0 Unknown Unknown Unknown 127,500

N/A N/A N/A N/A 2,000,000

176

Catholicism in Vietnam

A U.S. marine fires a rifle salute to comrades killed in Operation OSAGE during April–May 1966. During the Vietnam War, U.S. forces had some 47,000 personnel killed in action, nearly 11,000 noncombat deaths, more than 200,000 wounded in action, and some 10,000 captured and missing in action. (National Archives)

November 13, 1995, the Department of Defense announced that the remains of more than 500 American servicemen missing in Southeast Asia would never be recovered but held out hope for the recovery of the others. Other allied casualties included the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), 4,407 killed in action; Australia, 436 killed in action, 64 dead from other causes, 2,398 wounded in action, and 6 missing in action (4 accounted for and repatriated); Thailand, 351 killed; and New Zealand, 83 killed. Previous estimates had placed total Communist losses at some 666,000 dead, but in April 1995 Hanoi announced that 1.1 million Communist fighters had died and another 600,000 were wounded between 1954 and 1975. This casualty total included both Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas in South Vietnam and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) personnel. Presumably the figure includes some 300,000 missing in action. Hanoi estimated civilian deaths in the war in the same 1954–1975 time period at 2 million. The U.S. government estimate for civilians killed in the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) is 30,000 people. In addition, losses for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) were reported as totaling 14, 11 of whom were pilots. The People’s Republic of China

(PRC) reported losing 1,100 soldiers killed and 4,200 wounded. The Soviet Union lost around one dozen personnel killed. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Fragging; Fratricide References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Qiang Zhai. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Catholicism in Vietnam The Roman Catholic Church left a significant mark on Vietnam, more so than in any other part of Asia except for the Philippines. The first Catholic missionaries arrived in Vietnam in the 15th century, but Catholic proselytizing made its greatest inroads

Catholicism in Vietnam two centuries later. In 1622 French Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes arrived in Vietnam. He transcribed the Vietnamese language into the Roman alphabet and converted thousands of Vietnamese to Catholicism. He also successfully petitioned the Vatican to train indigenous priests and promoted a partnership of French religious and commercial interests to sponsor future Vietnam projects. This union of missionaries and merchants laid the groundwork for the French colonization of Indochina. By 1700, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese had embraced Catholicism. Some merchants converted to ingratiate themselves with Western traders, while others saw Catholicism as an escape from the traditions of Confucian society and oppressive mandarins. Often whole districts and villages converted and turned to priests as community leaders. Vietnamese government attitudes toward Catholics vacillated. The missionaries’ technical information and connections to European arms suppliers encouraged toleration, yet some government officials feared that Christianity’s emphasis on individual salvation would undermine the Confucianist society’s reverence for state authority. Vietnamese Catholics’ divided loyalties and adherence to Vatican decrees made them a potentially subversive force. The emperors also correctly assumed that most Catholic missionaries were allied with European advocates of imperial conquest. Consequently, to varying degrees Vietnamese governments limited Catholic activities, jailed priests, deported missionaries, and persecuted converts. By the 19th century, France used Vietnam’s increasing hostility toward Catholicism as a pretext for military intervention and colonial domination, as in the case of the arrest of Catholic missionary Dominique Lefèbvre. Although Vietnamese Catholics often refused to support French forces, the declining mandarinic regime executed an estimated 20,000 of them for allegedly cooperating with France. Once France established imperial control, the Catholic Church enjoyed a privileged position and became one of the largest landholders in Indochina. The French hoped that Catholicism would disseminate Western culture and eventually shift the religious balance from Buddhism. Vietnamese Catholics both supported and resisted the return of French colonial forces after World War II. Still, the Viet Minh accused all Catholics of collaboration, attacked their villages, and, after the 1954 Geneva Accords, confiscated Church property and arrested priests. With help from the U.S. government and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the Church launched a propaganda campaign, proclaiming that “The Virgin has gone South” to entice an estimated 800,000 Catholics among nearly 1 million refugees to flee from the Communist-controlled Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Life for the approximately 600,000 Catholics who stayed in the North Vietnam was not easy. The Liaison Committee of Patriotic and Peace Loving Catholics encouraged them to “reintegrate” into society. Although the Church supposedly retained links to the Vatican, most of its foreign priests had fled to South Vietnam or

177

U.S. marines camp on the grounds of a Roman Catholic church, a symbol of an older Western presence in Vietnam. An estimated 2.9 million Catholics remained in Vietnam after April 1975. (National Archives)

had been expelled. The Church also lost control of its property, including its schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Officially Catholics were free to worship, but they were forbidden to question collective socialism. South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem welcomed the Catholics who moved to South Vietnam after 1954. Diem was a devout Catholic, and he and U.S. officials viewed these refugees as a critical part of his regime’s anti-Communist constituency and allocated millions of dollars to resettle them. Prominent Catholics worldwide urged support for Diem’s nationalist struggle against communism and contributed to the misconception that South Vietnam was a predominantly Catholic nation. Under Diem, Catholics enjoyed special advantages in commerce, education, and the professions. They occupied positions of power at all government levels and helped polarize South Vietnamese society and politics. They strongly rejected accommodation with the Communists, the democratic Left, or southern insurgents, many of whom merely sought land reform and social justice. In fact, Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Thuc, served as archbishop of Hue and exercised great influence within the government and among Vietnamese Catholics. Such patronage and intransigence precipitated a political crisis that eventually toppled Diem and led to increased military control.

178

Catonsville Nine

As the insurgency of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) strengthened, Catholics were among its first targets. NLF leaders pushed rural anti-Communists, especially Catholics, out of land-development centers and villages, increasing South Vietnam’s refugee burden. South Vietnamese Catholics became a wandering underclass, dependent on the uncertain aid of the government and private agencies. Thousands lost faith in the South Vietnamese government and fled the country in anticipation of the 1975 Communist takeover. An estimated 2.9 million Catholics remained in Vietnam after April 1975. The new regime promised to rebuild churches, but the government still viewed Catholicism as a reactionary force and urged Church members to join a Communist Party–controlled “renovation and reconciliation” movement. When Catholics continued to oppose Communist authority, the state created various organizations to recruit recalcitrant elements of the Catholic community and unite them behind socialism. Despite efforts to create the impression of cooperation, Hanoi officials continue to view the Catholic Church as a subversive force. An estimated 4 million to 6 million Catholics continue to practice in Vietnam under 3 archdioceses and 22 dioceses, but surveillance of Catholic activities by the Religious Affairs Committee persists. DELIA PERGANDE See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Confucianism; De Rhodes, Alexandre; Lefèbvre, Dominique; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Thuc References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Cima, Ronald, ed. Vietnam: A Country Study. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Catonsville Nine A group of seven men and two women who staged a raid on a local draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore), on May 17, 1968, that led to the burning of draft cards in protest of the Vietnam War. The group included three Roman Catholic priests and a former Catholic nun. Father Philip Berrigan, a noted antiwar activist who had staged a similar raid in Baltimore, Maryland, the preceding year, orchestrated the Catonsville Nine raid. Berrigan had already been tried and convicted for that action but was free on bail when the Catonsville raid occurred. The group heavily publicized its actions in Catonsville, so they received much media attention, as did the subsequent trial of the nine perpetrators. Many see the raid as a pivotal turning point in the antiwar movement, as the number of similar actions of open

defiance accelerated rapidly after May 1968. The raid also precipitated a major schism in the Roman Catholic Church that pitted social and political activist clergy against the old guard clergy, who eschewed overt political participation. By 1968 Philip Berrigan, a pastor in a Catholic church in Baltimore, had orchestrated a significant antiwar protest organization through the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission, an ecumenical group dedicated to ending the war in Vietnam specifically and to bringing about social justice and world peace more generally. Over several years, Berrigan and others in the mission intensified their antiwar activities, using increasingly active forms of social disobedience and resistance to advance their agenda. Following the 1967 Baltimore Four raid, led by Berrigan, some members had sought to resort to less risky tactics to get their point across. Berrigan, however, was determined to continue his hard-ball tactics in spite of the risk that this would mean for his life and career. Throughout March and April 1968 Berrigan and his accomplices carefully planned out their activity, choosing the quiet town of Catonsville in which to stage their raid for symbolic and public relations purposes. Berrigan hoped that a raid in a small, peaceful, middle-class suburb would jolt the American public and take the antiwar movement to the front yards of Middle America. This time instead of using blood to deface draft cards, which Berrigan had employed in Baltimore, the group would resort to burning draft cards in the parking lot in front of the draft office. Around noon on May 17, 1968, the nine protesters left Baltimore for Catonsville, timing their arrival and raid for early afternoon to maximize their publicity. Berrigan carefully orchestrated the raid, and he arranged for the local press to be called after the group had arrived on the scene in order to prevent the police from being tipped off but to ensure that their actions would be recorded by the media. The Catonsville Nine included Philip Berrigan; his brother Daniel, also a Catholic priest; David Darst; John Hogan; Tom Lewis, who had participated in the Baltimore Four raid; Marjorie Bradford Melville, a former Catholic nun; Thomas Melville, a former Catholic priest; George Mische; and Mary Moylan. After arriving in Catonsville, the group calmly went up to the second-floor offices of the Draft Board, brushed aside incredulous employees, riffled through filing cabinets, removed several hundred A-1 draft cards (those of potential draftees), and piled them into two wire baskets. Within minutes the deed was done, and the draft board employees had phoned the police. Before they could arrive, however, the raiders emptied the baskets onto the parking lot and, using improvised napalm, set them ablaze. Watching the action and recording it were several members of the media. The group then held hands and recited the Lord’s Prayer as the draft cards were incinerated. When the police arrived, the Catonsville Nine went quietly with them; they were arrested and would be tried together. Defended by famed leftist attorney William Kunstler, who would also defend the Chicago Eight, the group began its trial on October 5, 1968, less than two months after the tumultuous rioting in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. Tensions

Catroux, Georges were running high, and local officials feared more violence during and after the trial. The trial was held in Baltimore’s Main Post Office building, which was surrounded by several hundred riot police armed with tear gas. Crowds numbering in the several thousands gathered along the police periphery, and antiwar protesters staged demonstrations. In the end, all nine protesters were found guilty on all charges. On November 9 the judge passed sentence. Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis were given three and a half years in prison, to run concurrently with their previous sentence given during the Baltimore Four raid. The remaining raiders received sentences ranging from three years to two years. The Catonsville Nine raid was a seminal event in the antiwar movement, principally because of the media coverage it received and because of those involved. The press focused most intensely on the Berrigan brothers, who had become the darlings of the Catholic Left. Indeed, Philip and Daniel Berrigan’s picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine with the caption “Rebel Priests.” The action was important in a wider context because it demonstrated to Americans that the antiwar movement was not just the domain of long-haired hippies and radicals. The Berrigans appeared in conservative clerical attire and seemed on the outside to mirror solid middle-class values. The incident at Catonsville also prompted similar measures of civil resistance, including a draft board raid by the Camden 28 in 1971 that included numerous Catholic clergy. Also, the raid in Catonsville opened a noisy and sometimes vitriolic dialogue within the Catholic Church about the wisdom of clergy members becoming social activists and involving themselves in political activities, something that the old guard, including the Vatican, was very much against. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Baltimore Four; Berrigan, Daniel; Berrigan, Philip; Camden 28; Chicago Eight References Berrigan, Daniel. To Dwell in Peace: An Autobiography. New York: HarperCollins, 1988. Polner, Murray, and Jim O’Grady. Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Brothers in Religious Faith and Civil Disobedience. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

Catroux, Georges Birth Date: January 29, 1877 Death Date: December 21, 1969 French soldier, civil servant, and governor-general of Indochina. Aristocratic in origin and bearing, Georges Catroux was born in Limoges on January 29, 1877. After graduation from the French military academy of Saint-Cyr in 1898, Catroux entered the

179

Foreign Legion and served in North Africa. In 1916 during World War I, he was wounded and captured by the Germans. While a prisoner, Catroux became associated with another young captured French officer, Captain Charles de Gaulle. Catroux remained in the French Army after the war, and in 1931 he became a brigadier general and then in 1936 a lieutenant general. Advanced to full general in 1938, he commanded the XIX Army Corps in Algeria. In 1939 Catroux vainly urged change in the French military command. Only a few months before the start of World War II he was placed on the reserve list, but in August 1939 Georges Mandel named him governor-general of Indochina. Catroux, who came to be a colonial troubleshooter, was also one of the outstanding advocates of a liberal policy toward nationalism in the colonies. As governor-general, Catroux had the difficult task of dealing with the Japanese. With Indochina weak militarily, he had virtually no bargaining power. In the summer of 1940 Tokyo demanded the closing of the Sino-Vietnamese border and an end to transportation of war matériel from Indochina to the Chinese government at Chongging. Catroux tried to stall for time, but Japanese demands coincided with the French military defeat by Germany and replacement of the Third Republic with the collaborationist Vichy government. With the British and U.S. governments unwilling to help, Catroux had to accept Tokyo’s demands, including a Japanese control commission to oversee French compliance. Catroux hoped to use the rainy season to strengthen his forces with U.S. assistance and then deal with the Japanese. Catroux protested the armistice between the French government and the Germans, and he refused to submit to its conditions. This and his independence of action in dealing with the Japanese led the Vichy government to replace him with the commander of French naval forces in the Far East, Vice Admiral Jean Decoux. No more able to resist the Japanese, Decoux in September 1940 was forced to grant Japan the right to transport troops across northern Vietnam to southern China, to build airfields, and to station 6,000 men in Tonkin. Many in the British government and the Free French preferred Catroux to de Gaulle. When the British transported Catroux to London, some believed that Brigadier General de Gaulle would have to defer to the full general, but Catroux placed himself at de Gaulle’s disposal. In 1941 de Gaulle named Catroux Free French commander in the Near East. Catroux subsequently served as governor-general of Algeria (1943–1944) and French ambassador to Moscow (1944–1948). In 1955 Catroux negotiated with Sultan Mohammed ben Youssef of Morocco for the latter’s return to power. In 1956 Socialist French premier Guy Mollet named Catroux resident minister of Algeria, but his liberal reputation caused consternation among European settlers there, leading Mollet to rescind the appointment. Catroux’s memoirs, published in 1959, discuss both the June 1940 situation in Hanoi and the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Catroux died in Paris on December 21, 1969. SPENCER C. TUCKER

180

CEDAR FALLS, Operation

See also De Gaulle, Charles; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Catroux, General [Georges]. Deux Actes du Drame Indochinois. Paris: Plon, 1959. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954.

CEDAR FALLS,

Operation

Start Date: January 8, 1967 End Date: January 26, 1967 U.S. military operation against the Iron Triangle during January 8–26, 1967. In the early summer of 1966 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland directed II Field Force (II FFV) to develop an operation in War Zone C to occur shortly after the Christmas–New Year holiday period. Lieutenant General Jonathan O. Seaman’s II FFV staff added as a preliminary to Operation JUNCTION CITY a strike into the Iron Triangle to interdict Viet Cong (VC) control of the transportation and communications network emanating from that base area. A coordinated intelligence-gathering plan tracked and analyzed VC movements and contacts over a period of months to identify patterns. The target of Operation CEDAR FALLS was the headquarters of the VC Military Region IV and its support units. The tactical technique chosen was that of the hammer-andanvil attack. The anvil was to be positioned along the Saigon River at the southwestern boundary of the Iron Triangle, with the hammer to swing through the triangle. Local residents were then evacuated, and the triangle area was stripped of vegetation. To preserve security for the operation, the plan was known only to a small group at II FFV headquarters, and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) III Corps commander was not briefed until January 6, 1967, two days before the operation commenced. Operation CEDAR FALLS consisted of two phases. Phase I was the stealthy positioning of forces (the anvil) during January 5–8, with an air assault on the village of Ben Suc on January 8. Phase II began on January 9 with two squadrons of the 11th Armored Cavalry (“Blackhorse”) Regiment and elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade (Task Force Deane) making the hammerlike penetration from east to west beginning near Ben Cat and the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) making airmobile assaults into the jungle of the Thanh Dien forest to the north of the triangle to seal off the area and then sweep south toward the junction of the Saigon and Thi Tinh rivers. In all, CEDAR FALLS saw the commitment of two U.S. infantry divisions and one ARVN infantry division, supported by extensive artillery, engineer, and aviation units; it was the largest such operation of the war to date. The village of Ben Suc at the northwest corner of the Iron Triangle was the headquarters of the VC secret base area known as Long

Nguyen. About 6,000 Vietnamese residents had been organized into four service units charged with moving supplies by sampan on the Saigon River. Ben Suc and three smaller villages nearby were to be attacked by the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry (“Blue Spaders”), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander M. Haig Jr. The villages would then be evacuated and demolished. A reinforced VC battalion was responsible for the defense of Ben Suc. Accordingly, without preparatory artillery fires, the U.S. infantry battalion was lifted swiftly in 60 transport helicopters directly into the village. Ten armed helicopters protected the troops on the closely coordinated route into Ben Suc. It took only minutes to land an entire infantry battalion of more than 400 men, achieving complete tactical surprise. By midmorning the village was secured, and an ARVN battalion that had been driven out of the area by the VC months earlier returned to conduct a methodical search of Ben Suc. VC tunnels beneath the village were collapsed by a combination of acetylene gas and explosives, while bulldozers knocked down scrub trees and brush. Nearly 6,000 villagers (two-thirds of them children), along with their livestock and food, were moved to a resettlement camp near Phu Cuong. The five infantry battalions, two cavalry squadrons, and one artillery battalion of the 3rd Brigade of the Big Red One had commenced operations in the heavily wooded and entrenched area of the Thanh Dien forest north of the Iron Triangle on the morning of January 9. They formed the hammer, along with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, reinforced by the Blackhorse Regiment, striking into the triangle from the east. Despite the large number of allied units engaged in the operation, the actual work of search and destroy was done by small units: infantry squads and fire teams. Search by day and ambush by night became the routine. The absence of strongly held VC defensive positions and counterattacks confirmed that the VC were trying to slip away from the attacking forces and exfiltrate the Iron Triangle to fight another day. Gradually the forces committed to CEDAR FALLS wound down their search-and-destroy activities in the Iron Triangle, with the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry (“Quarterhorse”), providing security for the engineer parties who completed their work by midnight on January 26. By the end of CEDAR FALLS 2,711 acres of jungle had been cleared, and 34 landing zones were chopped out of the jungle in the Iron Triangle. CEDAR FALLS provided important tactical lessons about engineers and infantry working in unison to deny cover and concealment to the VC and about the preparation of helicopter landing zones and artillery firebases. Procedures for clearing VC tunnel systems were refined, and a new type of soldier was introduced to the American reading public: the so-called tunnel rat. Tons of VC documents were recovered from the Military Region IV headquarters, many of which, when exploited, told the allies a great deal about their Communist antagonists. MACV estimated VC/People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) losses as 750 killed, 280 prisoners taken, and 540 Chieu Hoi converts, compared to allied losses of 83 killed and 345 wounded.

Cédile, Jean

The VC had suffered a significant setback with the penetration of their previously safe base areas close to Saigon, but they had avoided the destruction of their major combat forces in the area. The American commanders, however, ever optimistic of their combat power and ultimate victory, were not able to understand fully the determination of their foe to continue the war despite stinging losses. Communist forces had been damaged, but their will had not been destroyed. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Ben Suc; DePuy, William Eugene; Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr.; Iron Triangle; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Search and Destroy; Tunnel Rats; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Army References Rogers, Bernard W. Cedar Falls Junction City: A Turning Point. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Cédile, Jean Birth Date: January 26, 1908 Death Date: 1983 French commissioner for Cochin China immediately after World War II. Jean Cédile was born on January 26, 1908, at Pointe-à-Pitre

181

(Guadeloupe). An administrator before World War II, during that conflict he joined the Gaullist Resistance. After seeing action in Tripolitania and Tunisia, Cédile became director of cabinet for René Pleven. Cédile was head of the French administrative mission at Vice Admiral Louis Mountbatten’s South East Asia Command headquarters in Kandy at the end of 1944. Cédile parachuted into Indochina on August 24, 1945, and was immediately captured by the Japanese, who interrogated him under torture even though the war had ended. A few days later Cédile escaped from the Saigon school where he was being held prisoner and, with the help of Loyalists, reasserted French control over the governor’s palace by outwitting Japanese soldiers and Viet Minh militia guarding the building. In this action as in later ones (he was adviser to the French delegations in the 1946 Dalat negotiations between the French and Viet Minh), he carried out his mission of reestablishing French administrative and political institutions in Cochin China. After leaving Indochina in 1947, Cédile served in various French territories until his retirement. He died in 1983. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954.

182

Central Highlands

Central Highlands Important geographical feature of southern Vietnam. The Central Highlands, or Cao Nguyen Trung Phan, is located at the southern terminus of the Truong Son Mountains in remote west-central southern Vietnam. The northern part consists mainly of bamboo and tropical forests, with peaks ranging up to more than 8,000 feet in Ngoc Linh (90 miles north of Kontum City and the highest elevation in southern Vietnam). The southern portion is mostly more than 3,000 feet above sea level. The entire area is approximately 100 miles wide by 200 miles long (20,000 square miles). The area’s sparse population consists of tribes of Austroasiatic (related to Khmer) and Austronesian (related to Cham, Malay, and Indonesian) peoples, whom the Vietnamese call moi (“savages”) and the French call Montagnards (meaning “mountain people”). Principal ethnic groups include the Rhade, Jarai (Austronesian), and Bahnar (Austroasiatic). The French introduced coffee, tea, and rubber to the area and built the towns of Kontum, Dalat, and Ban Me Thuot to market their goods and serve as provincial capitals. Isolated by the forested mountains of the region, the Montagnards did not adopt Chinese tradition or writing and are considered backward by the Vietnamese, with whom there is a natural antipathy. In 1953 during the Indochina War the Viet Minh attempted to unify the disparate tribal groups into the National Union Front, and in 1954 following the Geneva Accords the North Vietnamese took about 1,000 disgruntled minority cadres with them to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for training and subsequent use in their homelands. After President Ngo Dinh Diem came to power in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), he settled thousands of poor peasants from overpopulated central Vietnam coastal lowland villages in the area, and by 1958 the Montagnards were demanding autonomy. In 1961 U.S. Special Forces set up Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs) in an effort to block North Vietnamese infiltrations, which used the Central Highlands as the southern terminus of the Ho Chi Minh Trail logistic corridor into South Vietnam. A short-lived Montagnard rebellion in 1964, organized by the United Front of Liberation of the Oppressed Races (FULRO), was settled peacefully with U.S. assistance. FULRO subsequently led resistance to the Communists in the Central Highlands, but the Montagnards turned against the South Vietnamese government because of the exploitation of Montagnards by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) officers and favoritism shown to Vietnamese soldiers. The Central Highlands has been known as the strategic fulcrum of South Vietnam, because South Vietnamese independence hung in the balance each time the North Vietnamese attempted to sever the country at its waist by attacking the area and aiming toward the coast to the east. Important battles here include attacks on the French in 1953 and 1954, the Ia Drang Valley Campaign of 1965, the Battle of Dak To in 1967 on the eve of the January 1968 Tet Offensive, the defense of Kontum during the 1972 Easter Offensive,

and the fall of Ban Me Thuot to People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces in 1975 that led to President Nguyen Van Thieu’s decision to concede central Vietnam and the subsequent collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Although Communist cadres speaking for the North Vietnamese had promised the Montagnards autonomy after the war, the promise was unfulfilled; many were instead sent to reeducation camps, and approximately 1 million Vietnamese were forcibly resettled on their lands. FULRO led an armed resistance against the government after the reunification of Vietnam in 1975. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Ban Me Thuot, Battle of; Dak To, Battle of; Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Ia Drang, Battle of; Montagnards References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Nguyen Van Canh. Vietnam under Communism, 1975–1982. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1983. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

Central Intelligence Agency Primary U.S. intelligence agency during the Cold War. Congress established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in July 1947 to centralize and coordinate intelligence and espionage activities in reaction to the deepening Cold War. Early on the CIA’s main focus was on the Soviet Union and its satellites. The CIA assumed primary responsibility not only for intelligence collection and analysis but also for covert actions. Its origins can be traced to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War II, which had conducted espionage, intelligence analysis, and special operations from propaganda to sabotage. The main impetus for the creation of the CIA came from the investigation into Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. President Harry S. Truman vowed to prevent a repetition of this massive intelligence failure. On January 22, 1946, Truman signed an executive order forming the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) modeled after the OSS. The CIG’s mission was to provide analysis and coordination of information about foreign threats and to undertake advantageous policy initiatives. On July 26, 1947, Truman signed the National Security Act, replacing the CIG with the new CIA as an independent agency operating within the executive office of the president. Truman appointed legendary OSS spymaster William “Wild Bill” Donovan to serve as the first CIA director. The CIA’s primary function was to advise the National Security Council (NSC) on intelligence matters and make recommendations for coordination

Central Intelligence Agency of intelligence activities. To accomplish these goals, the CIA was to correlate, evaluate, and disseminate intelligence as well as perform other services in accordance with NSC directives. Because Congress was vague in defining the CIA’s mission, broad interpretation of the act provided justification for subsequent covert operations, although the original intent was only to authorize espionage. The CIA director was responsible for reporting on intelligence activities to Congress and the president. Power over the budget and staffing only of the CIA meant that no director ever exerted central control over the other 12 government entities in the U.S. intelligence community. Known to insiders as “The Agency” or “The Company,” the CIA consisted of four directorates. The Directorate of Operations supervised official and nonofficial agents in conducting human intelligence collection, covert operations, and counterintelligence. The Directorate of Operations was divided into geographic units and also contained the Center for Counterterrorism. The Directorate of Administration managed the CIA’s daily administrative affairs and housed the Office of Security. Created in 1952, the Directorate of Intelligence conducted research in intelligence sources and analysis of the results. The Directorate of Intelligence produced the “President’s Daily Brief” and worked with the National Intelligence Council in preparing estimates and studies. The Directorate of Science and Technology, created in 1963, was responsible for development and operation of reconnaissance aircraft and satellites, operation and funding of ground stations to intercept Soviet missile telemetry, and analysis of foreign nuclear and space programs. The Directorate of Science and Technology also operated the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which monitored and analyzed all foreign media outlets. The Directorate of Administration was responsible for support, including logistics, personnel, finance, and security (which included polygraph). During its first years the CIA had difficulty prevailing in bureaucratic battles over authority and funding. For example, the State Department required CIA personnel abroad to operate under a U.S. ambassador. Walter Bedell Smith, who replaced Donovan in 1950, was an effective director, but the CIA’s power increased greatly after Allen W. Dulles, brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, became CIA director in 1953. An 80 percent increase in the agency’s budget led to the hiring of 50 percent more agents and a major expansion in covert operations. The CIA played a key role in the overthrow of allegedly radical governments in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. With the advice of CIA operative Edward G. Lansdale, Philippine secretary of national defense Ramon Magsaysay during 1950–1954 crushed the Hukbalahap uprising in his country. The CIA was heavily involved in the Vietnam War. During World War II its predecessor, the OSS, had worked in Vietnam with the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, to oppose the Japanese. Ho himself became Agent 19, charged with providing information about Japanese troop movements and general conditions in Indochina. After World War II the CIA supported France in its war against the Viet Minh.

183

Following the 1954 Geneva Conference, the CIA strongly supported Ngo Dinh Diem’s effort to create a new state, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The CIA provided him funds with which to bribe the leaders of South Vietnam’s religious sects so that he could consolidate his control. One of Diem’s strongest American backers was Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lansdale. During World War II Lansdale had served with the OSS; later he went to the Philippines, where he helped rebuild the Philippine Army to suppress a Communist insurrection. Lansdale went to Saigon as CIA station chief in 1954 and used his expertise in countersubversion and guerrilla warfare to combat the Communists and undermine the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). For example, Lansdale launched a black propaganda campaign in North Vietnam to portray forthcoming conditions under Communist rule as grimly as possible. That campaign, called Operation EXODUS, helped stimulate the mass migration of some 900,000 people, mostly Roman Catholics, from North Vietnam in 1954 in the resettlement period following the Geneva Accords. Author Neil Sheehan asserts in A Bright Shining Lie that Lansdale’s actions prevented a total Communist victory by 1956. The CIA also conducted numerous missions against North Vietnam ranging from sabotage to intelligence gathering to bribes to bolster Diem. Yet even Lansdale, a strong friend of Diem, recognized that the South Vietnamese president’s repressive measures were proving counterproductive and driving all opposition into the hands of the Communists. Gradually Lansdale and the CIA turned against Diem. During a 1960 abortive coup against Diem, the CIA was in touch with the plotters but did not aid them. Following massive Buddhist demonstrations in 1963, several senior Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) officers plotted another coup against Diem. Of crucial importance to the success of any coup was the position of the United States. Acting on instructions from President John F. Kennedy, CIA director John McCone instructed his Saigon station not to prevent the coup. Influential CIA agent Lucien Conein, pursuant to orders issued to him by U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, went further and assured the generals that they had U.S. support in implementing the November 1963 coup that toppled Diem. After the successful November 1963 coup, the United States put sustained pressure on the North Vietnamese government. CIA station chief William Colby sought to foster a guerrilla war in North Vietnam with South Vietnamese infiltrators trained by the CIA. The idea was to frighten the North Vietnamese leaders into abandoning the Viet Cong (VC). The CIA carried out air drops and conducted coastal raids on targets in North Vietnam, sabotaging roads, bridges, and railroad lines. Yet these efforts had little effect in halting the escalating war. Within South Vietnam, during the early years of the war the CIA supported U.S. Special Forces units (Green Berets), who were sent into rural areas to conduct unconventional warfare as well as political-psychological activities. The Special Forces were very successful in setting up paramilitary units, especially among the

184

Central Office for South Vietnam

Montagnards of the Central Highlands. Some 80 base camps were set up, all under Special Forces leadership, with the goal of sealing the border and cutting VC supply lines. By 1964 some 60,000 tribesmen were armed and trained. John Prados writes in Presidents’ Secret Wars that for all its difficulties, this effort in the Central Highlands was one of the most successful campaigns of the Vietnam War. In 1969 when American troops started withdrawing from Vietnam, Special Forces in the Central Highlands were also withdrawn. The number of Central Highlands Montagnard fighters was also reduced, and they were then integrated into ARVN. At the height of the Vietnam War the CIA built an extensive network of some 400 agents and officials, making the Vietnam station the largest in the world. One of their essential tasks was intelligence gathering. Throughout the war the CIA issued regular reports to Washington to assist in policy decisions. These reports make sobering reading. They pointed out, for example, that U.S. military operations had little long-term impact on the Communists. CIA reports detailed the political chaos, factionalism, and corruption within the South Vietnamese government that would only contribute to a Communist victory. As early as 1965 the CIA concluded that the war was stalemated and that the United States could not win it. Washington thus always had the information to allow policy makers to make accurate decisions based on facts. What U.S. officials did with that information was another story. In Laos, the United States engaged in a secret but extensive war. The CIA trained and equipped mountain tribesmen, mostly from the Hmong tribe, to fight the Communist Pathet Lao and to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. This CIA operation began in 1960 and continued throughout the decade. The CIA flew in food, medicine, weapons, ammunition, and personnel on their proprietary airline, Air America. A secret army of some 40,000 men led by General Vang Pao fought the CIA’s secret war in Laos. For several years the war went well. However, declining morale among Lao tribesmen combined with additional troop buildups by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Pathet Lao caused a deteriorating military situation for General Vang Pao’s army. Eventually after South Vietnam and Cambodia fell to the Communists in the spring of 1975, Vang Pao, his army, and many Hmongs had to be evacuated. Throughout the 1960s the CIA sought to destroy the VC infrastructure with pacification operations. The most controversial and brutal of these campaigns was the Phoenix Program, begun in 1968. Its task was to identify individual VC and then neutralize them through arrests, “conversion,” or assassination. Although Phoenix was basically a South Vietnamese operation, the CIA provided essential advice and personnel. In fact, its most ferocious section, the Provincial Reconnaissance Unit (PRU), was under direct CIA command. Interrogation centers were set up in every district and provincial capital. Monthly quotas of 3,000 people to be killed or captured were then sent to these centers. Some 600 Americans, most of them U.S. military personnel, were assigned to the program under Colby. Altogether, some 20,000 to 40,000 peo-

ple died, 28,000 were imprisoned, and 20,000 were “reeducated” or “converted.” Torture was routinely employed. Many were innocent, victims of personal vendettas or of corruption. The impact of the Phoenix Program is difficult to estimate. Although the VC infrastructure was definitely hurt, many peasants were alienated by the number of casual arrests. Early in the 1970s the CIA came under tremendous pressure from congressional political critics. Revelations concerning the Phoenix Program raised many eyebrows. Much more severe was public reaction to Operation CHAOS, a program of wiretapping and other surveillance of American opponents to the war. Operation CHAOS violated the CIA’s charter and led to the creation of files on more than 7,000 Americans. Then it was alleged, without any solid evidence, that the CIA had been indirectly involved in drug operations within South Vietnam and Laos and that this had contributed to a booming heroin market in the United States. These abuses led Congress in 1974 to amend the Foreign Assistance Act to require that the CIA only be involved in intelligence activities outside the United States. Both houses of Congress established permanent oversight committees to monitor CIA activities. The CIA reportedly always had a low regard for the regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu. When the end came for the South Vietnamese government in 1975, the CIA was forced into a frantic evacuation, which included flying Thieu himself, allegedly carrying two huge suitcases full of gold, to Taiwan. Many Vietnamese CIA employees and agents were left behind, along with key documents identifying them for the Communists to capture when they took Saigon. Thus, the CIA record in Vietnam was indeed a mixed one. MICHAEL SHARE AND JAMES I. MATRAY See also Adams, Samuel A.; Air America; CHAOS, Operation; Colby, William Egan; Conein, Lucien Emile; Donovan, William Joseph; Dulles, Allen Welsh; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Hmongs; Hoover, John Edgar; Huston Plan; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Laos; McCone, John Alex; Montagnards; Nguyen Van Thieu; Office of Strategic Services; Phoenix Program; Provincial Reconnaissance Units; Quach Tom; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos References Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1985. Prados, John. Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through Iranscam. New York: William Morrow, 1988. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

Central Office for South Vietnam Headquarters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for controlling all Viet Cong (VC) military forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Trung

Chams and the Kingdom of Champa Uong Cuc Mien Nam (Central Office for South Vietnam, COSVN) represented the Lao Dong (Worker’s, Communist) Party Central Standing Committee in South Vietnam and had charge of the war efforts on all fronts. Located in a corner of Tay Ninh Province, III Corps area of operations, near the Cambodian border, the COSVN was a continual target of American ground and air operations. The COSVN was the specific objective in Operation JUNCTION CITY in 1967 as well as the 1970 Cambodian Incursion. During the period May 1970 to 1972 the COSVN was located in Kratie Province, Cambodia, on the western side of the Mekong River. In early 1973 the COSVN moved from Cambodia back into Vietnam to a headquarters base in the Loc Ninh District, Binh Long Province, where it stayed until Communist forces captured Saigon on April 30, 1975. The COSVN eluded capture or destruction throughout the war. In terms of organization or structure, the COSVN itself was no more than what the U.S. Army would describe as a forward command post, consisting of a few senior officers and key staff personnel. As a result, the COSVN was extremely mobile and moved frequently to avoid capture or destruction. However, like any major headquarters, the COSVN had a large support apparatus. According to a postwar Vietnamese history, the COSVN’s total strength as of December 1969 was 7,357 personnel, consisting of more than 5,000 Lao Dong Party and government headquarters personnel, almost 1,300 armed security personnel, and more than 900 “Assault Youth” support personnel. The elusive American pursuit of the COSVN was symbolic of the myriad difficulties of fighting a guerrilla war. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Fishhook; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Colonel Ho Son Dai, ed. Lich Su Bo Chi Huy Mien (1961–1976) [History of the Military Headquarters for South Vietnam (1961–1976)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2004. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Reinberg, Linda. In the Field: The Language of the Vietnam War. New York: Facts on File, 1991. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Trinh Nhu. Lich Su Bien Nien Xu Uy Nam Bo Va Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam (1954–1975) [Historical Chronicle of the Cochin China Party Committee and the Central Office for South Vietnam (1954–1975)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2002.

185

Chams and the Kingdom of Champa The Chams are an ethnic minority in Southeast Asia, and the Kingdom of Champa existed along the central coast of Vietnam from as early as the late 2nd century to the late 15th century. In 2009 there were some 317,000 ethnic Chams in Cambodia, 127,000 in Vietnam, 15,000 in Laos, 10,000 in Malaysia, 4,000 in Thailand, 3,000 in the United States, and 1,000 in France. In Vietnam the Chams are concentrated along the south-central coast between Da Nang and Phan Rang, with the majority in Thuan Hai Province. Others live in An Giang, Dong Nai, and Tay Ninh provinces as well as in Ho Chi Minh City. The Chams are most recognizable today for their dress: long robes or the sarong worn by Cham women and the black head cloths that distinguish both men and women from ethnic Vietnamese. Chams are descendants of the ancient Kingdom of Champa, which evolved from the Hindu civilizations of India as early as 192 CE. Cham civilization flourished across central Vietnam until the kingdom was extinguished in 1471. At its height it stretched from Vinh southward along the central coast to Phan Rang. There were four major Cham centers: Amaravati (Quang Binh to Quang Nam–Da Nang), Vijaya (Nghia Binh), Kauthara (Khanh Hoa), and Panduranga (Binh Thuan/Thuan Hai). Archaeological remains have been found along the central coast, the most prominent located at My Son about 45 miles southwest of Da Nang, dating to the fourth century. My Son has temples dedicated to Hindu gods, with representations of Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu, as well as to Cham kings who were deified. Ceremonial complexes with stupas surround central squares. The inscriptions of stelae at My Son suggest the division of Cham society into four castes akin to the Hindu caste system of India. Buddhism also flourished in Champa as early as the fourth century, as seen most prominently in the Buddhist monasteries built at Dong Duong, some 40 miles south of Da Nang, in the ninth century. The beautiful style of the thap cham (Cham temples), built without cement or mortar, makes them a popular tourist attraction. The Chams settled in coastal enclaves and engaged in seafaring and maritime trade across the South China Sea as far as China and islands in Southeast Asia. Today the Chams of central Vietnam live in communities primarily in Thuan Hai Province. Many Chams still derive their livelihood from the sea, through fishing and maritime industries. The Chams are also wet-rice farmers. In the plains around Phan Rang, remains of ancient hydraulic works attest to the height of Cham civilization. The Cham language is MalayoPolynesian of the Austronesian language family. Their ancient Hindu heritage is also seen in the written Sanskrit language. Along the central coast, Chams still practice both Hinduism and Buddhism; in the south they are Muslims. Cham society is organized into two clans (“areca” and “coconut”), which are broken down into subclans, each of which include 10 to 15 families organized by matrilineal descent patterns and matrilocal residence. By the 10th century the Vietnamese, Cham, and Khmer kingdoms had fought a series of intermittent wars with and against

186

CHAOS, Operation

The Po Klaung Garai towers in Vietnam. The towers were constructed in the Cham Kingdom of central Vietnam at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries. (Simone Van Den Berg/Dreamstime.com)

each other, but the primary concern of the Vietnamese remained the domination of the Chinese from the north. With the defeat of the Chinese in 1427 and the reign of Emperor Le Loi (r. 1428– 1433), the Vietnamese began their “March to the South” along the central coast. During the reign of Le Thanh Tong (r. 1460–1497), the Vietnamese eventually subdued the Cham kingdom in 1471, although the Chams still retained lands south of the Cu Mong pass. Vestiges of the kingdom lived on until the late 18th century, when the end of the Tay Son Rebellion saw the final suppression of Cham autonomy as well. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Le Loi; Le Thanh Tong; Tay Son Rebellion; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Lebar, Frank C., Gerald C. Hickey, and John Musgrave. Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1964.

CHAOS,

Operation

Start Date: 1967 End Date: 1973 Domestic intelligence operation conducted in the United States between 1967 and 1973 and designed to identify and monitor antiwar organizations and individuals and to provide information on persons of interest traveling abroad. In 1967 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), responding to a directive from President Lyndon B. Johnson, began operating an internal surveillance program that was tasked with uncovering potential links between the antiwar movement and foreign governments. Richard Helms, CIA director from 1966 to 1973, launched the initiative and gave broad authority to his chief of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, to conduct surveillance and gather information on individuals and organizations that might have had ties to overseas governments. To carry out his mandate, Angleton used a wide variety of already in place CIA personnel and operations, including the use of foreign agents and offices. Upon the advent of the Richard M. Nixon administration in 1969, all domestic surveillance relating to dissent and antiwar

Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr. activities were brought under the CHAOS umbrella. Nixon had a visceral dislike for the counterculture and antiwar movements and was convinced that enemies of the United States—and even of his administration—had infiltrated these activities and were giving them aid and support. Soon some 60 CIA agents working abroad were conducting surveillance on U.S. citizens overseas, using electronic eavesdropping as well as physical surveillance to gather information on “persons of interest.” Clandestine surveillance in the United States also picked up in the early 1970s. Operation CHAOS kept close tabs on groups such as Women Strike for Peace, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the Black Panthers, among many others. The purview of Operation CHAOS quickly spun out of control, however, and the CIA began conducting surveillance on groups and individuals who did not have any direct links to the antiwar movement. The women’s liberation movement had become a target by the early 1970s, as had the Jewish organization B’nai B’rith. Indeed, the CIA even targeted the Israeli embassy to determine if B’nai B’rith had any links to the Israeli government. Reportedly, the agency was so intent on monitoring correspondence from the Israeli embassy that it formed its own bogus trash-removal company, which allowed it to sort through discarded mail. In his first report to President Johnson in November 1967, Helms reported that Operation CHAOS had found no substantial links between anyone in the antiwar movement and foreign governments. The five reports that succeeded this one all drew the same basic conclusion, yet the CIA’s activities were not only extended but also broadened, especially during Nixon’s first term. By the time CHAOS was ended in 1973, it is estimated that the CIA had compiled 7,000 files on individual Americans and 1,000 files on various groups and organizations. Furthermore, a list of some 300,000 Americans had been compiled, presumably as “persons of interest,” although there was little information on them. All of this domestic espionage had been conducted without Americans’ knowledge or permission. As the Watergate Scandal unfolded in 1973, laying bare the excessive secrecy and dirty tricks of the Nixon White House, Operation CHAOS was liquidated. Indeed, the Nixon administration feared that if the operation was revealed, its already-tenuous hold on power might be undermined entirely. But CHAOS did not stay secret for very long. On December 22, 1974, just four months after Nixon’s forced resignation from office, the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in the New York Times the basic outlines of Operation CHAOS. In the immediate aftermath of Watergate, the revelation sparked bipartisan outrage and triggered several investigations. The following year, U.S. representative Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.) conducted an investigation via the House Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights. The revelations coming from the hearings were troubling to all and triggered a larger investigation, the President’s Commission on CIA Activities in the United States (also known as the Rockefeller Commission),

187

chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. After the specifics of Operation CHAOS and other CIA activities had come to light, the government, and especially the CIA, attempted to downplay the impact of its programs on civil liberties. Dick Cheney, then President Gerald R. Ford’s deputy chief of staff, warned that the commission should resist congressional attempts to encroach on executive branch prerogatives. George H. W. Bush, CIA director in the last days of the Ford administration, downplayed the commission’s findings, saying only that Operation CHAOS “resulted in some improper accumulation of material on legitimate domestic activities.” PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Abzug, Bella; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Central Intelligence Agency; Counterculture; Helms, Richard McGarrah; Hersh, Seymour Myron; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Students for a Democratic Society; Watergate Scandal; Women Strike for Peace References Theoharis, Athan, ed., with Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted, and John Prados. The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr. Birth Date: November 3, 1913 Death Date: January 6, 2000 U.S. Marine Corps general and commandant during 1968–1972. Born in Key West, Florida, on November 3, 1913, Leonard Fielding Chapman Jr. graduated from the University of Florida in 1935. He resigned a reserve commission in the U.S. Army to take an active commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. Chapman was promoted to captain in 1941 and to major in 1942, the same year he became an artillery instructor at Quantico, Virginia. He saw combat in World War II in the Pacific theater and then held assignments in Japan; Washington, D.C.; and North Carolina. In 1958 Chapman was advanced to brigadier general, and in 1961 he became a major general. Following promotion to lieutenant general in January 1967, he served as U.S. Marine Corps chief of staff from 1964 to 1967. In July 1967 President Lyndon Johnson appointed Chapman assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and then that December named him commandant. Chapman was promoted to general (four stars) in January 1968. Although some saw Chapman’s appointment as a dark horse compromise among factions within the U.S. Marine Corps, he was soon recognized as an expert in military logistics and communications. Chapman traveled extensively during his tenure, reportedly some 100,000 miles during his first year, to visit marines and U.S. Marine Corps facilities around the world. Twice in 1968 alone he visited Vietnam to size up the situation there for himself. At the

188

Chappelle, Georgette Meyer

Chappelle, Georgette Meyer Birth Date: March 14, 1918 Death Date: November 4, 1965

U.S. Marine Corps commandant General Leonard F. Chapman Jr., shown in this photograph from August 11, 1970, oversaw the withdrawal of the corps’ last combat forces from Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

time of his four-year appointment, more than one-fourth of the U.S. Marine Corps’ 300,000 marines were on combat duty in Vietnam. Chapman’s main task was to use his considerable management skills to aid in their systematic withdrawal. He also had to deal with increased drug abuse in the ranks and racial tensions that often boiled over into physical violence. He has been credited with addressing racial strife in the U.S. Marine Corps by insisting on fairness in assignments and promotions and by fostering greater mutual understanding and respect within the ranks. Chapman retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1972 but served as commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service until he retired from public service in 1977. Both of his sons, also marines, saw active duty in Vietnam. Chapman died in Fairfax, Virginia, on January 6, 2000. GARY KERLEY See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; United States Marine Corps References Current Biography Yearbook, 1968. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1969. Jessup, John E., and Louise B. Ketz, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Military. 2 vols. New York: Scribner, 1994. Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991. Webster’s American Military Biographies. Springfield, MA: G. and C. Merriam, 1978.

Intrepid war correspondent and photojournalist. Born Georgette Louise Meyer on March 14, 1918, in Shorewood, Wisconsin, Meyer demonstrated a keen intellect at an early age, and by the time she was 16 was enrolled in aeronautical design classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. More interested in becoming a pilot than in designing aircraft, she took a job at an airfield outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When her mother disapproved of her decidedly unfeminine interests and found out that she was romantically involved with a pilot, she sent her daughter to live in Florida with her grandparents. Meyer gave herself the nickname “Dickey” in honor of her favorite modern explorer, Admiral Richard Bird. She subsequently relocated to New York City, where she began working for Trans World Airlines (TWA). There she began taking photographs for the airline and also met her soon-to-be husband, Tony Chappelle. When World War began, Georgette Chappelle secured a job as war correspondent and photojournalist for National Geographic magazine. Although ridiculed by her colleagues for her meager photography credentials and tender age, Chappelle soon proved her mettle. Unafraid to position herself in harm’s way at or near the battle lines, she took photos at the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Okinawa. She served alongside the U.S. Marine Corps for much of the war. Chappelle returned to the United States in 1946 but was almost constantly on the go, reporting from war zones and taking photographs whenever and wherever she could. Frequently she received permission to embed herself with troops from foreign nations in order to cover a war story. She reported alongside troops fighting in Algeria, Cuba, and Hungary. During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Chappelle was detained for seven weeks by Soviet troops who had initiated the crackdown against the Hungarian uprising. In the early stages of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution against the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba, Chappelle traveled to the island nation and was embedded with Castro’s forces. Initially she supported Castro’s movement but backed away from that position when he began to exhibit Communist leanings. Chappelle was a rabid anti-Communist who was not afraid to exhibit her political leanings in her war reporting. In the early 1960s Chappelle traveled to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to cover the growing U.S. presence there. Her stories and photos extolled the virtues of the American military advisers in South Vietnam, and she became the first female reporter to receive Pentagon authorization to jump with U.S. troops in Vietnam. In 1963 a photograph she took of a combatready marine in 1962 garnered the Press Photographers’ Association “Picture of the Year” award. However, her reporting became so biased that she was asked to leave South Vietnam by her editors.

CHECO Project Less than a year later, however, Chappelle, now working as a roving reporter for numerous large-circulation magazines, convinced her editors to send her back to South Vietnam. She once more joined the U.S. marines. On November 4, 1965, while on patrol with a platoon of marines, Chappelle was mortally wounded by a booby-trapped land mine near Chu Lai and the Song Tra Bong River. In what soon became a famous—and ironic—photograph, a bloodied Chappelle was captured as she lay dying, with a military chaplain bent over her administering the Last Rites. Chappelle thus became the first war correspondent killed in Vietnam as well as the first female U.S. reporter to die in combat. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Media and the Vietnam War; Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. References Bartimus, Tad, Denby Fawcett, and Jurate Kazickas. War Torn: The Personal Experiences of Women Reporters in the Vietnam War. New York: Random House, 2004. Ostroff, Roberta. Fire in the Wind: The Biography of Dickey Chappelle. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph Birth Date: February 13, 1797 Death Date: February 7, 1869 French admiral and commander of French forces in Cochin China in 1861. Born at Saint-Brieuc (Brittany) on February 13, 1797, Léonard Victor Joseph Charner entered the French Navy in February 1812 as a cadet at the École de Marine at Toulon. Appointed a midshipman in 1815, he served in various ships and took part in the expedition against Algiers in 1830. He attained the rank of captain in April 1841. Employed at sea from 1843 to 1848, in 1849 he entered the French Legislative Assembly as a representative of the Côtes-du-Nord. After Napoleon III’s 1852 coup, Charner became director general of the Ministry of Marine. He was promoted to rear admiral in February 1852. During the Crimean War (1854– 1856) Charner held a brief but important command in the Black Sea. In June 1855 he became a vice admiral. Named commander in chief of French naval forces in Chinese waters in February 1860, in 1861 Charner fought a brief but highly successful campaign against the Vietnamese as commander of French land and naval forces. By the end of the year the French were in control of much of Bien Hoa, Gia Dinh, and Dinh Tuong provinces. Returning to France, Charner became a senator in February 1862. In November 1864 he was promoted to full admiral. Charner died in Paris on February 7, 1869. The French named one of the principal boulevards of Saigon after him. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946

189

References Taillemite, Étienne, Dictionnaire des marines français. Paris: Tallandier, 2002. Whitfield, Danny J. Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1976.

CHECO Project Start Date: 1963 End Date: 1975 In-depth studies of military operations in Vietnam. In 1964 the U.S. Air Force created in Saigon the Contemporary Historical Examination of Combat Operations (CHECO) project. Its mandate was to provide top-level commanders with classified booklength studies that would contain immediate in-depth analyses of significant events and operations. The first title was The History of the War in Vietnam, October 1961–December 1963 (1964); one of the last titles was The Air War in Laos, January 1, 1972–February 22, 1973 (1974). The project produced in all more than 200 major studies. Titles included Night Interdiction in Southeast Asia (1966); Rolling Thunder, a continuing series about the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam); and The Royal Lao Air Force (1970). In 1967 CHECO’s mission was expanded to include microfilming of all pertinent documents, such as letters, unit histories, communications, and after-action reports. In addition, a Thailand office was opened at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base to cover operations in Laos. Key personnel involved in the project included Joseph Angell of the Office of Air Force History, Melvin Porter, and Kenneth Sams, chief in Saigon from 1964 to 1971. Numerous U.S. Air Force Academy faculty members also wrote reports on subjects ranging from rules of engagement to psychological operations. Some CHECO reports have since been declassified, and the complete collection, along with millions of frames of microfilmed documents, is deposited in the archives of the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. JOHN CLARK PRATT See also United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975; United States Air Force Reference Trest, William A. “Projects CHECO and Corona Harvest: Keys to the Air Force’s Southeast Asia Memory Bank.” Aerospace Historian (June 1986): 114–120.

Chemical Warfare See Defoliation; Herbicides; RANCH HAND, Operation

190

Chennault, Anna

Chennault, Anna Birth Date: June 23, 1925 Chinese-born widow of Major General Claire Chennault, commander of the American Volunteer Group (“Flying Tigers”) and then the Fourteenth Air Force during World War II, and Republican Party operative. Anna Chennault was born Chen Xiangmei in Beijing, China, on June 23, 1925. In 1944 she earned an undergraduate degree at Lingnan University in Hong Kong and entered the field of journalism. In 1947 she married retired U.S. Army Air Forces major general Claire Lee Chennault, who directed the Allied tactical air effort in China during World War II. At that time she began using “Anna Chennault” as her name. As a journalist, Chennault worked with a number of news outlets and services, including the Voice of America (1963–1966). An old friend of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), leader of the Republic of China on Taiwan, and other Asian and American right-wing politicians, in 1968 Chennault served as the chairperson of the Republican Women for Nixon organization.

Just days before the November 1968 presidential election, Chennault worked secretly to try to undermine Democrats in their efforts to halt the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). She recommended to President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that he object to the last-minute halt of the bombing of North Vietnam and stall on the Paris peace talks. Chennault hoped that this move would embarrass the Democrats and help Richard M. Nixon in the impending election. She also urged Thieu to make it clear that his support for U.S. policy would hinge on Nixon’s election as president in 1968. In shades of what would later become the hallmark of the Nixon administration, President Lyndon B. Johnson had Chennault’s telephone bugged. South Vietnamese ambassador to the United States Bui Diem was Chennault’s contact, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) monitored his telephone conversations. Johnson warned Nixon not to depend on Chennault’s maneuvering to win the election for him, but her efforts to stall the peace talks may have had an impact on the close

Anna Chennault, wife of the U.S. general of “Flying Tiger” fame, signs her U.S. citizenship certificate in district court. General Claire Chennault is second from the left. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Chennault, Claire Lee

191

presidential race. Nixon won the 1968 election with 43.3 percent of the vote to Democrat Hubert Humphrey’s 42.7 percent. Chennault remained in journalism for many years and also held several executive positions with privately held companies, including the Flying Tiger Line, an American-owned air cargo-transport company. She has also served on the President’s Advisory Committee for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since 1970; served as a representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and from 1960 to 1999 served as president of the General Claire Chennault Foundation. She has also remained active in Republican Party politics and for many years was a committee member of the Republican Party of Washington, D.C. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Bui Diem; Chennault, Claire Lee; Elections, U.S., 1968; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Forslund, Catherine. Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations. Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2002. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Chennault, Claire Lee Birth Date: September 6, 1893 Death Date: July 27, 1958 U.S. Army Air Forces general, leader of the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers), and founder of Civil Air Transport (CAT), which later became Air America. Born in Commerce, Texas, on September 6, 1893, Claire Lee Chennault was raised in rural Louisiana. He taught English and business at a number of southern colleges until August 1917, when he became a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve. He remained in the United States during World War I, transferring to the Signal Corps and completing pilot training in 1920. An accomplished airman, Chennault then held a number of assignments, among them command of the 19th Pursuit Squadron in Hawaii between 1923 and 1926. He developed into an outspoken advocate of fighter aircraft in a period when prevailing military thought subscribed to the doctrines espoused by Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet and the underlying assumption that “the bomber will always get through.” While serving as an instructor at the Air Corps Tactical School in 1935 Chennault wrote The Role of Defensive Pursuit, an important but controversial book at the time because it pointed out the need for fighter aircraft. In 1937 the army removed him from flying status because of a serious hearing loss and forced him into medical retirement as a captain.

U.S. Army Air Forces major general Claire Chennault, founder and leader of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), known as the Flying Tigers, in China in World War II. Chennault subsequently founded Civil Air Transport (CAT), which later became Air America. (National Archives)

In May 1937 Chennault went to China as aviation adviser to the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) government of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). When the Japanese attacked China that September, Chennault became a colonel in the Chinese Air Force and began testing his tactical theories. In late 1940 he was allowed to recruit American military pilots for service in China, despite the strong opposition of the State Department, the War Department, and the Department of the Navy. His American Volunteer Group, popularly known as the Flying Tigers, consisted of some 200 ground crew and 100 pilots flying semiobsolete Curtiss P-40B fighters. The Flying Tigers entered combat for the first time on December 20, 1941. By the time the unit disbanded in July 1942, it had claimed 296 Japanese aircraft shot down, with only 12 of its own planes and 4 of its pilots lost. In April 1942 Chennault was recalled to active duty with the U.S. Army as a colonel. A few months later he was promoted to brigadier general and put in command of the newly formed China Air Task Force (CATF), a subordinate command of the U.S. Tenth Air Force in India. In March 1943 the CATF became the Fourteenth Air Force, with Chennault promoted to major general. The CATF and the Fourteenth Air Force were economy-of-force organizations in a tertiary theater and therefore always operated on a shoestring. Utilizing Chennault’s theories, however, both organizations achieved combat effectiveness far out of proportion to their size and resources. By 1945, the Fourteenth Air Force had

192

Chicago Eight

destroyed some 2,600 Japanese aircraft and thousands of tons of supplies. During his time in China, Chennault conducted a long-running and public feud with Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, the equally stubborn and irascible U.S. commander of the China-Burma-India theater. Chennault engineered Jiang’s demand for Stilwell’s recall, but Chennault himself was removed from command and forced into retirement for a second time on August 1, 1945. Following the war, Chennault remained in China. In 1947 he married Anna (Chen Xiangmei) Chennault, an influential Chineseborn journalist and Republican Party operative. He then established and operated the Civil Air Transport (CAT) airline, which supported Jiang’s Nationalist government in its civil war with Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and his Communist forces. In 1950 Chennault sold his interest in CAT to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but he remained the chairman of the airline’s board until 1955. CAT later became known as Air America, but in the early 1950s while Chennault was still alive it flew clandestine supply missions for French forces in Indochina. In the 1960s Air America played a major role in Southeast Asia, both in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and in Laos. Air America was a key player in Laotian operations into the early 1970s, but the CIA disbanded the airline in 1976 after the South Vietnamese government had fallen. Chennault died at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., on July 27, 1958. Only days before his death, he was promoted to lieutenant general. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Air America; Chennault, Anna References Byrd, Martha. Chennault: Giving Wings to the Tiger. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987. Chennault, Claire Lee. Way of a Fighter. New York: Putnam, 1949. Ford, Daniel. Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Samson, Jack. Chennault. New York: Doubleday, 1987.

Chiang Kai-shek See Jiang Jieshi

Chicago Eight Those individuals charged with criminal responsibility for the violent demonstrations in Chicago during the August 1968 Democratic National Convention. Defendants in the so-called Chicago Conspiracy Trial, which began on September 24, 1969, included David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbie Hoffman,

Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, John Froines, and Bobby Seale, all charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to cause a riot. Dellinger, a longtime pacifist, chaired the National Mobilization Committee (NMC). Hayden and Davis, both products of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), helped plan the NMC’s antiwar demonstrations in Chicago. Flamboyant representatives of the 1960s counterculture, Hoffman and Rubin founded the Youth International Party (Yippies) in 1968, hoping to fuse the hippie and antiwar movements. Seale was chairman of the Black Panthers. Froines and Weiner were less well known. In the federal courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman, attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass represented all except Seale. Throughout the raucous trial while the judge and lawyers exchanged insults, the defendants used disruptive tactics, trying to make the Vietnam War, racism, and repression the real issues. When Seale’s attorney became ill, Judge Hoffman refused to allow Seale to defend himself. To blunt Seale’s outbursts, Hoffman ordered him gagged and strapped to a chair, eventually separating his trial from the others and imposing a four-year sentence for contempt. When the trial ended in February 1970, Hoffman found the seven defendants and their lawyers guilty of 175 counts of contempt and sentenced them to terms from two years (Weinglass) to four years (Kunstler) in prison. Although declaring the defendants not guilty of conspiracy, the jury found all except Froines and Weiner guilty of intent to riot. Each was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $5,000, but none served time. In 1972 a U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the criminal convictions, and eventually most of the contempt charges were dismissed. The cantankerous Judge Hoffman retired soon after the trial. Dellinger remained committed to pacifism until his death in 2004. Davis headed an environmental think tank and then a venture capitalist firm. Froines is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Weiner directs special projects for the Anti-Defamation League in New York. Seale is a lecturer and community activist in Philadelphia. Hayden was a California state legislator from 1982 to 2000. He now teaches occasionally at Occidental College in Los Angeles and continues to be active in the Democratic Party. Abbie Hoffman remained an activist until going underground in the late 1970s following his arrest for selling cocaine. After surfacing in 1980, he was placed in a work-release program. Hoffman’s death in 1989 from a drug overdose was ruled a suicide. Surprisingly, Rubin forsook revolution to become a securities analyst in 1980 and at his death in 1994 was a prosperous distributor of nutritional drinks. Kunstler continued to represent highprofile celebrity clients and controversial causes until his death in 1996. Weinglass continues to practice law, chiefly in the realm of civil rights and liberties. JOHN D. ROOT See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Davis, Rennard Cordon; Dellinger, David; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Ginsberg, Allen; Hayden,

Chieu Hoi Program

193

Demonstrators protest the trial of the Chicago Eight (also known as the Chicago Seven). The Chicago Eight, antiwar activists arrested for protests during the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1968, drew attention to their cause during a lengthy and often bizarre trial. (Library of Congress)

Thomas Emmett; Hoffman, Abbie; Kunstler, William Moses; May Day Tribe; Rubin, Jerry; Seale, Bobby; Students for a Democratic Society; Youth International Party References Epstein, Jason. The Great Conspiracy Trial. New York: Random House, 1970. Schultz, John. The Chicago Conspiracy Trial. Rev. ed. New York: Da Capo, 1993. Wiener, Jon. Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight. New York: Free Press, 2006. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

Chieu Hoi Program Start Date: 1963 End Date: 1973 Amnesty program in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) created in 1963 and ended in 1973. The Chieu Hoi Program, also known as the Great National Solidarity or Open Arms Program, was a decade-long campaign initiated by South Vietnamese

president Ngo Dinh Diem in April 1963 to subvert the Communist military effort and convince their troops to desert or rally to the South Vietnamese cause. The basic theme of the program was that both sides were brothers in the same family. Because all wanted to end the war, the best and least costly way to do so was to renounce internecine bloodletting, to forsake hatred, and to cooperate in rebuilding the nation. The campaign promised clemency, financial aid, free land, job training, and family reunions to those Communists who stopped fighting and returned to live under South Vietnamese authority. The program was officially supposed to be a meaningful and humanitarian effort that provided real opportunities for those whom the government considered wrongdoers to mend their ways and begin a new and peaceful life. To this end the government and its allies used family contacts, radio and loudspeaker broadcasts, and propaganda leaflets to convince Communists to defect. At first the Chieu Hoi Program produced an encouraging number of participants. It soon faltered, however, and fell short of the annual goal of 40,000 defectors set for 1964. Beginning in September 1964 the government offered financial rewards to defectors who surrendered with weapons or who volunteered to lead allied forces to guerrilla arms caches or sanctuaries. This

194

China, People’s Republic of

campaign uncovered a significant number of Communist arsenals and revived the program, aided in no small part by the arrival of U.S. combat forces in March 1965. During 1965 more than 11,100 Viet Cong (VC) defected, followed by a further 20,000 in 1966 and 27,000 more in 1967. Another reward campaign, the Third Party Inducement Program, was begun in mid-1967 in the IV Corps Tactical Zone. People who induced a Communist to defect received a financial reward commensurate with the defector’s rank and importance. Although most participants during the life of the program were of relatively low rank, evidence suggests that the Communists were hurt in limited ways by Chieu Hoi–induced manpower shortages. The reward programs of 1964 through 1967 and the increased allied military activities of 1967 and 1968 provided the entire Chieu Hoi Program with a needed boost, and in 1969 the number of defectors shot up from approximately 17,800 the previous year to more than 47,000. It was soon discovered, however, that many participants were not actually Communist defectors but instead were peasants who had been organized by corrupt South Vietnamese officials to surrender in return for a part of the reward. It was estimated in some areas that as many as 30 percent of all defectors were not actually VC at all but had merely agreed to turn themselves in to be awarded one year’s deferred conscription. When evidence of corruption became manifest in 1969, the financial reward aspects of the Chieu Hoi Program were terminated, causing a sharp drop in the number of defectors to about 16,400 by mid-1970. The Open Arms Program was run by the South Vietnamese government’s Chieu Hoi Ministry, which controlled a countrywide system of offices at the provincial, district, and village levels. Defectors were initially collected at provincial Chieu Hoi centers or in Saigon, where they underwent reeducation and rehabilitation. During the early years participants were well treated and were allowed to correspond with their families and receive visitors. They were also free to converse, watch television, listen to radio broadcasts, and read books. Depending on personal preferences, defectors were given access to vocational training, as the policy of the government was to help them acquire a skill to earn a living when they were eventually released after a period of 45 to 60 days. Defectors who wanted to return to their home villages were provided with an allowance to do so. The government also constructed more than 42 Chieu Hoi villages, 1 for each province, and provided free housing to defectors who had no place to go. Depending on their success at reeducation and rehabilitation, defectors were allowed to apply for civil service jobs; to enlist in South Vietnamese regular, territorial, or paramilitary forces; or to seek jobs in private industry. Of the total number who volunteered for government service as of 1970, 27 percent were employed in some capacity by the South Vietnamese government or armed forces, while another 20 percent were in private industry. The vast majority, more than 50 percent, returned to their villages and lived as farmers on land provided by the government.

Efforts to reintegrate defectors into society through government service had drawbacks. By late 1970 and early 1971, for example, evidence indicated that a concerted Communist effort was under way to use the various Chieu Hoi programs to infiltrate VC cadres into South Vietnamese territorial and paramilitary forces and pacification programs. Defectors were employed by U.S. military forces in large numbers, especially in units such as the Kit Carson Scouts, where their knowledge of terrain and Communist tactics proved very useful. Many other defectors were utilized for intelligence work against VC infrastructure throughout South Vietnam and came to make up the bulk of the membership of the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs) that operated as part of the Phoenix Program after 1968. They also participated in long-range reconnaissance operations in Communist-controlled areas, including those north of the 17th Parallel. From 1963 to 1973 the Chieu Hoi Program produced more than 159,700 Communist defectors, of whom 30,000 were positively identified as members of the VC infrastructure. The program also netted 10,699 individual weapons and 545 crew-served weapons. The most successful year for the Chieu Hoi Program was 1969, when more than 47,000 cadres, VC, and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) soldiers defected, primarily because of the setbacks suffered the previous year during the Tet Offensive and also because of the increasing pressures being placed on the VC infrastructure by South Vietnamese pacification programs. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Kit Carson Scouts; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Phoenix Program; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1990. Dinh Tan Tho. Pacification. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

China, People’s Republic of The world’s most populous nation, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a large Asian nation with an estimated 1965 population of 715.546 million. It covers 3.7 million square miles, just slightly smaller than the United States, and shares common borders with many nations. China is bordered to the north by Russia and Mongolia; to the south by the South China Sea, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), India, Bhutan, and Nepal; to the west by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; and to the east by North Korea and the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and

China, People’s Republic of the South China Sea. During the Cold War period the PRC promulgated several initiatives that led to China emerging from this period in a far more consolidated position than the Soviet Union. Over the Cold War period the PRC also developed more flexible external policies, with a strong focus on its relations with the two superpowers but also involving linkages with developing nations. By the late 1960s the PRC had become a significant player in the international arena. Even as the PRC consolidated internally and sought to secure its borders, it positioned itself for a larger role in Asia and beyond. The PRC officially came into existence following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949). On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Central People’s Administrative Council and leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. Zhou Enlai became premier and foreign minister. Domestically the PRC followed varied political and economic policies, combining considerable centralized political control with an increasingly decentralized market economy in the final stages of the Cold War. Helping to drive the Chinese economy was its burgeoning population, which more than doubled during 1945–2009; China’s current population is approximately 1.319 billion. Despite the early ideological rivalry with the United States, the CCP tried to convey its message to the American public through progressive writers such as Edgar Snow, Jack Belden, William Hinton, Agnes Smedley, and others even before it came to power in 1949. Nevertheless, with the growing influence of the so-called China Hands and the China Lobby in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, American administrations supported Jiang Jieshi’s rabidly anti-Communist Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) government. This along with the Korean War (1950–1953) set the stage for a Cold War freeze between the PRC and the United States that lasted for nearly 30 years. This situation was compounded by a series of restrictive trade policies enacted by the United States. As the chances of building understanding with the United States during the last years of the Chinese Civil War declined—despite the U.S. diplomatic missions of General Patrick Hurley and General George C. Marshall— from 1949 the PRC looked to the Soviet Union for support. During and after the Korean War, U.S. trade embargoes on the PRC, troop deployments to East Asia, and security alliances such as the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) along the peripheries of China made the PRC even more reliant on the Soviet Union. The 1950s saw massive Soviet arms sales, economic aid, and technical assistance to the PRC. After the United States and the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) signed a mutual security treaty in 1954, cooperation between the PRC and the Soviet Union increased again. The Communist Chinese and the Soviets differed on several political and international issues, however. When Soviet leader Joseph Stalin cautioned Mao against an open break with the Nationalists, PRC leaders felt slighted by the “superior” attitude with

195

On October 1, 1949, following the defeat of Guomindang (Nationalist) Forces, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong officially proclaims the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. (AP/Wide World Photos)

which the Soviets treated the PRC and other Socialist states. The leaders of the PRC and the Soviet Union disagreed sharply over who should lead the world Communist movement following Stalin’s death. The CCP also sharply criticized the Soviet leadership for its de-Stalinization campaign and for the policy of peaceful coexistence with the United States. The Soviet handling of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and its neutral position during the 1962 Sino-Indian border clash greatly angered the Chinese leadership. Closer to home, Soviet proposals for building a joint Chinese–Soviet Union nuclear submarine fleet and the construction of long-wave radio stations along the Chinese coast were seen by the CCP as infringements on its independence and further steps toward full PRC integration into the Soviet orbit. Likewise, the PRC refused to adhere to the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain, arguing that the treaty would impede the PRC’s own nuclear program and make the nation all the more reliant on the Soviet Union. The Sino-Soviet split, which began in earnest in August 1960, along with repeated Soviet-Chinese border clashes led the PRC to distance itself from the two superpowers. The PRC leadership

196

China, People’s Republic of

strongly denounced both of them, accusing the Americans of capitalist imperialism and the Soviets of Socialist imperialism. This led the Chinese leadership to identify with nations in the developing world, especially countries in Asia and Africa. In 1964 China exploded its first nuclear weapon and became the world’s fifth nuclear power, after the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France. The government communiqué issued on the occasion, while declaring a “no first-use principle,” stated that nuclear weapons were necessary to protect the nation “from the danger of the United States launching a nuclear war.” The PRC then developed long-range ballistic missiles for countering threats from either the United States or the Soviet Union. In 1954 China announced a good neighbor policy with the aim of building bridges along its periphery to counter what it saw as American encirclement efforts. In the mid-1950s the PRC, along with other Asian countries, also promulgated “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” which called for mutual respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, and economic equality. By the 1960s the Chinese had signed border agreements with Mongolia, Nepal, Afghanistan, Burma, and Pakistan. After the Korean War, however, China’s military engagements were mainly border disputes, such as in 1962 with India, in 1969 with the Soviet Union, and in 1979 with Vietnam. During the 1970s the PRC, prompted by increasing threats from the Soviet Union, normalized its relations with the United States under the policy of yitiao xian (“following one line”). U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger secretly visited China in 1971, setting the stage for the U.S.-Sino rapprochement. The following year President Richard Nixon made a historic visit to Beijing, opening the way for the normalization of relations. The Americans granted formal recognition to the PRC in 1978, and in 1979 both nations exchanged diplomatic legations. Despite their differences on issues such as democracy, human rights, the environment, and labor standards, the United States and China worked together in opposing the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. The 1979 trade agreement between the United States and China granting most-favored nation status to each other went a long way in fully normalizing relations in the economic sphere. U.S. defense secretary Harold Brown’s visit to Beijing in early 1980 opened the prospects for American arms sales to the PRC, although the Ronald Reagan administration’s 1982 decision to sell arms to the ROC put any such agreement on indefinite hold. While the United States now recognized the PRC as the legitimate government of the Chinese people, the status of Nationalist China (Taiwan) remained unclear. A triangular strategic ambiguity thus came to exist in the relationship among the United States, China, and Taiwan. The PRC has codified, as its minimalist policy toward Taiwan, the “three nos”: no deployments of foreign troops on Taiwan, no independence movement, and no nuclear weapons on Taiwan. While the 8,000 U.S. troops stationed on Taiwan were withdrawn, the PRC’s threats to use force against the ROC and con-

certed military modernization efforts with a Taiwanese focus not only increased U.S. arms supplies to the island but also prompted the passage of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act by the U.S. Congress. In the late 1970s the PRC proposed its formula of “one country, two systems,” that is, one China and two different systems—Socialist and capitalist—for eventual reunification of the PRC. This formula was also applied to Hong Kong and Macao in Chinese negotiations with the British and Portuguese. The U.S.-Chinese rapprochement also had an impact on the PRC’s relations with Japan, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe. In August 1978 the PRC and Japan signed a peace and friendship treaty. The PRC leadership was highly critical of Japan’s occupation of Manchuria and much of coastal China during World War II, the Nanjing Massacre, Japanese history textbooks glorifying Japanese militarism, and visits by Japanese prime ministers to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo to honor the war dead. China badly needed Japanese financial and technological assistance, however, especially during its economic reform and modernization efforts that had begun in the late 1970s. The PRC therefore granted incentives to Japan as well as to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and Taiwan to locate industry in China. There was a thaw in Sino-Soviet relations after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985. China conveyed to the Soviet Union that rapprochement was possible if the Soviets were to withdraw their troop concentrations from the Sino-Soviet border and Mongolia, cease their support of Vietnam, and pull out of Afghanistan. After 1989 Sino-Soviet relations continued to warm as some of the Chinese demands were met; others were realized as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the domestic political, social, and economic spheres, the PRC initially implemented a strong command-style Socialist system, with the CCP as the driving political force. During the Cold War the CCP held eight national congresses, from the Seventh Congress in April 1945 to the Fourteenth Congress in October 1992. CCP membership grew from an estimated 1.2 million in 1945 to 39.6 million during the Twelfth Congress in 1982. Still, CCP membership was small when compared to the PRC’s population. Three generations of top political leaders can be identified during the CCP’s Cold War history: Mao, Zhou, and Zhu De in the first generation; Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun in the second generation; and Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, and Qiao Shi in the third generation. Although there were eight other political parties, their role was quite limited. The PRC utilized competing political organizations and their leaders in the early years of postwar reconstruction. A united front of all Chinese parties was reflected in the work of the Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference, which was formed in September 1949. It held six conferences between 1949 and 1983, although the CCP was clearly the only party that wielded political and governmental control. Four constitutions were adopted (1954, 1975, 1978, and 1982) by the National People’s Congress (NPC), the highest executive body of state power in the PRC. Six NPC congresses were held dur-

China, People’s Republic of ing 1954–1987. Delegates to the NPC are elected for a period of five years. They in turn elect the president, vice president, and other high-ranking state functionaries. The State Council is the executive body of the PRC and includes the premier, vice premiers, councilors, ministers, and others. A similar dual political structure is reflected at the provincial levels of the country. There are no direct national elections in the PRC, although at the village and county levels direct elections for some local officials were gradually phased in after the end of the Cold War. During the Cold War several political campaigns were launched, which set the PRC’s political system apart from other Socialist countries and indicated its willingness to experiment. The CCP carried out a campaign to suppress so-called counterrevolutionaries during 1951–1953, effectively ending opposition from remnant Nationalists, feudal lords, and other dissident groups. This period also coincided with the campaign against corruption among government officials. In May 1956 the Hundred Flowers Movement was launched, inviting differing views from Chinese intellectuals. A barrage of criticism, however, led to the end of this program in the Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957. As China crushed the Khampa Rebellion in Tibet in 1959, sending the Dalai Lama to exile in India, the Soviets withdrew nearly 10,000 of their engineers and technicians in the

197

later part of 1960. This coincided with the disastrous failure of the Great Leap Forward, a massive program of nationwide industrialization launched by Mao in 1958 and sharply criticized by Defense Minister Peng Dehuai at the 1959 Lushan Conference. The 1960s brought more experiments. In May 1963 Mao began the Socialist Education Campaign to counter the growing influence of capitalism, end the corrupt practices of CCP cadres, and inculcate the idea of self-sacrifice among the population. The ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was launched by Mao via a 16-point program that encouraged Red Guards to “bombard the headquarters” of CCP leaders and take out those following the “capitalist road.” Many CCP leaders, including Liu Shaoqi, Peng Zhen, and Luo Ruiqing, were summarily purged from the party and zealously persecuted. Although Lin Biao was anointed as Mao’s heir apparent, Lin was killed—probably by design—in a 1971 plane crash in Mongolia. His crime was an alleged coup attempt against Mao. An anti–Lin Biao rectification campaign was launched from 1971 to 1973. The country underwent turmoil following the deaths in 1976 of Zhou in January and Mao in September, when several demonstrations were held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, supposedly mourning Zhou but also challenging the political ascendancy of the radical Gang of Four. These leftist extremists, who included Mao’s

Chinese poster from 1967 during the Cultural Revolution that shows an artist, a peasant, a soldier, and a Red Guard erasing an image of Liu Shaoqi, chairman of the People’s Republic of China, who had fallen out of favor. (Library of Congress)

198

China, People’s Republic of

wife, Jiang Qing, and three Shanghai-based Communist Party members, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan, initially tried to implement strongly ideological policies harkening back to the height of the Cultural Revolution. Within weeks of Mao’s death in September 1976, Hua Guofeng, who became premier in April 1976, ordered the arrest of the Gang of Four, who were tried and convicted of antiparty activities in 1981. Deng, who was rehabilitated a fourth and final time, introduced pragmatic policies of “seeking truth from facts” and extensive economic reforms in 1978. In response to growing corruption among the ranks of the CCP cadre, rising prices, and increased alienation among the people, in 1989 students, peasants, and workers launched prodemocracy protests leading to the Tiananmen Square Incident of June 4, which had been triggered by the death that April of a reformist former CCP chairman, Hu Yaobang, whose sympathies with previous prodemocracy groups had caused his expulsion from the CCP. The crisis resulted in scores of deaths, the resignation of Deng as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, and the appointment of Jiang in his place. An antibourgeois liberalization campaign was launched after this incident. In the economic arena, for most of the Cold War China followed Soviet-style centralized five-year plans designed to guide its economic and modernization activities. Given the backwardness and war-ravaged nature of the economy in 1949, when there was rampant and disastrous inflation, the PRC leadership undertook comprehensive measures in the reconstruction of the country. In the industrial sphere, private enterprise was encouraged initially to revitalize production, and 156 major projects were begun with Soviet assistance. The PRC established nearly 4,000 state-owned enterprises during 1949–1989, some allowing for the gradual incorporation of private enterprise in joint firms or state enterprises after paying interest on the private shares. In 1958 the Great Leap Forward was launched in part to increase iron and steel production by mobilizing the enthusiasm of the masses. State-controlled industrialization, the construction of transport and telecommunication networks, and trade with other Socialist countries based on import substitution have all been part of the Maoist self-reliance model of economic development at various times. While these endeavors greatly enhanced the PRC’s economic prowess, they also led to waste and increased bureaucratization. In 1975 China initiated the Four Modernizations Program of opening up to the outside world. The four modernizations dealt with agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense, in that order of priority. China also adopted special policies and flexible measures to attract foreign investments and technology sharing and established special economic zones in the coastal regions for wholly owned or joint enterprises to promote exports. In agriculture, the PRC immediately initiated land reform with the Agrarian Law of 1950. The regime seized land from landlords and redistributed it to the landless, a process largely completed

by 1952. Through this reform some 300 million peasants acquired 113.6 million acres of land. By 1953 after the end of the Korean War, the PRC introduced mutual aid teams and gradually imposed agricultural collectivization. Following the Great Leap Forward, these farming co-ops were converted into People’s Communes, combining industry, agriculture, trade, education, and the militia. More than 20,000 such communes were established, although declining production and natural calamities limited their effectiveness. In the post-1978 reform period the collectivization and communalization process was reversed, beginning with the institution of household land contracts, rural industrialization, and incentives to private enterprises. The main features of the new reforms included contracting land to private households, which would control land use; increasing agricultural production; raising farmers’ income; shifting to commodity agriculture; forming conglomerates; encouraging private enterprises to privately hire labor; and competing in international markets. China’s breakneck economic development and partial conversion to a market-based economy over the past 20 years or so have made it an emerging superpower in the 21st century. Indeed, China currently has the world’s third-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the world’s fourth-largest military budget, and the world’s largest standing army. The PRC is the world’s second-largest exporter and the third-largest importer. Between 1981 and 2001 China’s poverty rate tumbled from 53 percent to 8 percent. Because of these great strides, the Chinese leadership has taken a central role in the world’s financial markets and in international affairs in general. Relations with the United States are sometimes strained over trade matters and differing approaches to international affairs and human rights. The Chinese government, for instance, continues to stifle dissent, and the CCP retains a firm grip on power. The 2008 Summer Olympic Games, held in Beijing, however, served to showcase to the world China’s many significant accomplishments. There are clear signs that the PRC’s economic progress has come at a high price, however. In the early 21st century China faces an energy crisis, as it now consumes more energy than any other nation except for the United States. China’s heavy industries and automobiles are highly inefficient, and on average China consumes 20–100 percent more energy than the West to achieve the same productive output. Volatile energy markets and soaring petroleum costs in 2007 and 2008 dampened Chinese economic growth and helped contribute to a painful economic retrenchment that began in mid-2007. China’s vast investments in the United States also contributed to this downturn. It is not surprising that China has serious pollution problems; currently the PRC contains 20 of the world’s 30 most-polluted cities. The government is attempting to rectify this, but accomplishment will be difficult. China’s growth has also exacerbated a widening gap in income between urban and rural residents. SRIKANTH KONDAPALLI

China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam See also China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam; China, Republic of; Mao Zedong; Sino-Soviet Split; Sino-Vietnamese War; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Zhou Enlai References Camilleri, J. Chinese Foreign Policy: The Maoist Era and Its Aftermath. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980. Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Hinton, Harold C., ed. The People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979: A Documentary Survey. 5 vols. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1980. MacFarquhar, Roderick, ed. The Politics of China, 1949–1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Riskin, Carl. China’s Political Economy: The Quest for Development since 1949. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Robinson, Thomas W., and David Shambaugh, eds. Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice. Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1998. Schurman, Franz. Ideology and Organization in Communist China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Tan, Qingshen. The Making of U.S. China Policy: From Normalization to the Post–Cold War Era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992.

China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has had a long and tumultuous history with Vietnam. A small Vietnamese state called Van Lang had been founded in this region as early as 2879 BCE. But in 111 BCE Van Lang, now called Nam Viet under the Trieus, was overrun by the Han dynasty and was gradually absorbed into the Chinese empire. Despite intensive Chinese influence and more than 1,000 years of Chinese rule, however, in 939 CE the Vietnamese reclaimed their independence from China and expanded south of the Red River Valley. This new state was called Dai Viet (Great Viet). Although Dai Viet remained a tributary state of China and adopted many Chinese customs and practices, it retained its political autonomy until the 19th century. During this period Dai Viet successfully assimilated the Champa kingdom from the Chams and seized the Mekong Delta from the crumbling Khmer empire. At the end of the 19th century, however, Vietnam was conquered by France and was joined with the French protectorates of Laos and Cambodia into the Union of Indochina. After World War II the Chinese Communists supported Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh guerrillas against France. Following the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, Chinese aid to the Viet Minh increased. PRC support was vital to the Viet Minh. The Chinese not only supplied arms, many of them captured U.S. weapons supplied to the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) regime of China and captured during the civil war, but their long common border allowed the Chinese to set up training camps and base

199

areas. Chinese military assistance played a key role in the Viet Minh victory in the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) were not happy when, at the 1954 Geneva Conference, PRC premier Zhou Enlai pressured Ho Chi Minh to accept the “temporary” division of Vietnam at the 17th Parallel as well as a relatively long wait before national elections were to be held (two years). Zhou Enlai also agreed to recognize the states of Cambodia and Laos, in large part because the PRC sought to curtail Vietnamese influence over the remainder of Southeast Asia. The promised elections were not held, however. The civil war in Vietnam was then renewed, and Hanoi adopted the people’s war strategy favored by Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong. The PRC was the first Communist state to recognize the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). The PRC also provided substantial material support to the insurgents, including considerable quantities of arms and help in the movement of supplies. Mao was determined to keep Hanoi in the fight, and after the early August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, China, which had been training the first North Vietnamese jet fighter regiment at a Chinese air base in southern China, arranged with the Vietnamese for the fighter regiment to fly their aircraft (36 MiG-17s) to a Vietnamese airfield north of Hanoi. A Chinese instructor pilot named Tao Minh flew with the regiment’s lead element during the flight south to Vietnam. The PRC leadership expressed outrage over U.S. escalation of the war in 1965, and in April of that year China signed an agreement with North Vietnam providing for the introduction into North Vietnam of Chinese air defense, engineering, and railroad troops to help maintain and expand lines of communications within North Vietnam. China later claimed that 320,000 of its troops served in North Vietnam during 1965–1971 and that 1,000 died there. The Vietnamese state that several Chinese engineering divisions built, maintained, and repaired roads and railroad lines from the Chinese border south to Hanoi from 1965 to 1969 and that the Chinese 68th, 168th, and 170th Air Defense divisions, along with a number of other antiaircraft units, were sent to Vietnam a year later and engaged U.S. aircraft from late 1966 through the end of the ROLLING THUNDER bombing campaign (late 1968) in the provinces located north and northeast of Hanoi. China probably provided some three-quarters of the total military aid given to North Vietnam during the war. Vietnamese figures show that the Soviet Union provided a total of 513,582 tons of military aid, including weapons, ammunition, equipment, and logistics supplies, during the period 1954–1975, while China provided nearly 1.6 million tons of military aid during the same period. However, the value of China’s military aid probably represented only about one-quarter of the total value of all military aid received by North Vietnam. Chinese aid to North Vietnam between 1949 and 1970 is estimated at $20 billion. While China’s government refused to allow Soviet aircraft to overfly Chinese airspace to Vietnam, it did

200

China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam

Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (right) hosts North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh (left) at a banquet during the latter’s visit to Beijing, July 5, 1955. (AP/Wide World Photos)

permit the Soviets to ship military assistance to North Vietnam over its railroad network. The PRC took a hard line during negotiations between Hanoi and Washington. For the first time, however, the Chinese did endorse a North Vietnamese peace plan for ending the war in 1971. Worsening Sino-Soviet diplomatic relations and warming SinoAmerican friendship did play a role in ending the Vietnam War during the early 1970s. Certainly President Richard Nixon’s historic February 1972 visit to China shocked the North Vietnamese leadership and may have led it to put more pressure on Hanoi to reach a peace settlement, which was finally accomplished in January 1973. Diplomatic relations between China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam soon soured, however, leading to military clashes during the late 1970s. In November 1978 Vietnam signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union, and in early 1979 Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia and installed a pro–Hanoi government there. In response and on behalf of the ousted Khmer

Rouge government, Chinese troops invaded Vietnam the same year, and the two countries fought a short but costly border war that left the Sino-Vietnamese border virtually unchanged. During this entire period an estimated 1.4 million Vietnamese, many of them ethnic Chinese, fled Vietnam by boat. Approximately 50,000 of these so-called boat people perished at sea, while about 1 million settled abroad, including some 725,000 in the United States. In the 1990s Sino-Vietnamese relations developed into a new phase of cooperation. This was largely the result of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, which left the two governments isolated in a much smaller and far less powerful Communist bloc. Apparently putting aside inherent conflicts and past confrontations, the governments of China and Vietnam thereafter maintained as smooth a relationship as they could manage. In the early 2000s both nations continued to foster a mutual rapprochement as trade and cultural exchanges increased. In December 2007 Hanoi and Beijing announced their intention to construct a major highway linking

China, Republic of

201

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) soldiers carry part of an antitank gun in the Vietnamese-Chinese border area on February 22, 1979, during the first days of the Chinese invasion of northern Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

the two countries, which will go a long way toward demilitarizing their shared border and fostering improved economic and political relations. BRUCE ELLEMAN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Mao Zedong; Refugees and Boat People; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest; Zhou Enlai References Butterfield, Fox. China: Alive in the Bitter Sea. New York: Times Books, 1982. Chen, King C. China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: Issues, Decisions, and Implications. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1987. Fairbank, John King. The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800–1985. New York: Harper and Row, 1992. Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. The Rise of Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Nguyen Van Minh, ed. Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc, 1954– 1975, Tap IV, Cuoc Dung Dau Lich Su [History of the Resistance War against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954–1975, Vol. 4, A Historic Confrontation]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1999. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton, 1990. Ta Hong, Vu Ngoc, and Nguyen Quoc Dung. Lich Su Khong Quan Nhan Dan Viet Nam (1955–1977) [History of the People’s Air Force of Vietnam (1955–1977)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1993.

China, Republic of Small island enclave located off the southeastern coast of China. The Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) is bordered to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait, and to the north by the East China Sea. Taiwan encompasses a total land area of 13,823 square miles and had a 1965 population of approximately 12.978 million. Although the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has claimed Taiwan as its own since 1949, when Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) leader Jiang Jieshi abandoned mainland China and established a rump government on Taiwan, the Chinese Communists have never controlled the island politically or economically. Over the years mainland China has made numerous threats to unite Taiwan with the PRC but has never made good on them, fearing intervention from the United States, which has generally supported Taiwanese autonomy. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Jiang and his GMD government ran Taiwan as a virtual dictatorship. There was one-party rule, state-run security forces kept opposition minimal, and citizens enjoyed limited economic and personal freedoms. As Taiwan became more prosperous, however, the Taiwanese people gained more freedoms, and the government loosened its grip on political power. In 1969 open elections were held for the national assembly for the first time. After Jiang’s death in 1975, the process

202

Chinese in Vietnam

of democratization sped up enormously. By 1987 martial law had been lifted, and the political system allowed parties other than the GMD to participate in open elections. By the early 1970s the United States had virtually ceased all aid to Taiwan, and the U.S. rapprochement with the PRC, which began in earnest in 1972 when President Richard Nixon visited mainland China, seriously strained U.S.-Taiwan relations. Since then the United States has supported continued Taiwanese autonomy, but whether the United States would intervene directly in an all-out war between China and Taiwan remains unclear. Taiwan made several offers to the United States to provide combat troops during the Vietnam War. These included the use of Taiwanese military forces against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and against the Chinese island of Hainan. Taiwanese military contributions to the war effort remained limited, however. Washington did not want to offend the Taiwan government by declining its offers but feared provoking overt retaliation by China. Furthermore, as the United States moved toward rapprochement with Beijing in the early 1970s, U.S. policy makers did not wish to derail that process by involving Taiwan in the Vietnam War. An anti-Chinese attitude among the Vietnamese was also a factor in U.S. considerations. Consequently, the United States minimized Taiwanese military assistance and sought to channel its aid into the area of civic action. Taiwanese assistance to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) began with the dispatch of a military assistance advisory group in 1964. Taiwan gave aid in such areas as political warfare, health care, refugee relief, logistics, electrical power generation, and agriculture. In all, Taiwanese economic and technical assistance totaled some $3 million. Taiwan also sent 31 military advisers. Approximately 300 Vietnamese technicians received training in Taiwan. During the January 1968 Tet Offensive, Taiwan was one of the first countries to provide emergency assistance to South Vietnam. This took the form of 5,000 tons of rice. Other materials provided by Taiwan included prefabricated warehouses, agricultural implements, seeds, fertilizers, and textbooks. Improved Taiwanese agricultural techniques were also much appreciated by South Vietnamese farmers. PETER W. BRUSH See also China, People’s Republic of; Civic Action; Jiang Jieshi; Order of Battle Dispute; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle References Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Rubinstein, Murray A., ed. Taiwan: A New History. New York: Sharpe, 1999.

Chinese in Vietnam In 1960 Chinese made up the largest single minority group in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), numbering some 1 million people, or about 8 percent of the total population. The first mass migration of Chinese to Vietnam occurred in the late 17th century, when defeated Ming dynasty generals and their followers received large landholdings in the Saigon area and in the Mekong Delta. They founded Cholon, near Saigon. Ultimately 85 percent of all Chinese lived in the Saigon-Cholon area. Cholon became Vietnam’s greatest commercial city, and soon the Chinese community dominated Vietnam’s economy. The Chinese organized themselves according to their origins into five groups (bangs), known as congregations by the French. These bangs were responsible to the government for both the good behavior of their members and payment of taxes. In return each bang had substantial autonomy. In fact, the Chinese were somewhat compartmentalized and segregated from the local Vietnamese population. The self-contained world of the congregations set the Chinese on a collision course with Vietnamese nationalism in its first attempts to seek assimilation by all minority groups in an independent Vietnam. During the period of French administration, the Chinese acquired a commanding position in rice processing, marketing, transport, meat slaughtering, and small grocery stores. Their privileges in Vietnamese society were ratified through a series of bilateral treaties between France and China. Eventually the Chinese had the same privileges as the French. The Vietnamese resented these special privileges, Chinese domination of much of the economy, and Chinese isolation from the rest of the Vietnamese community. During the Indochina War the Chinese were caught in the middle, not clearly allied with one side or the other. Taking advantage of the conflict, they continued to prosper economically. Close relations developed between the Chinese community and the Chinese Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) government, located after 1949 on Taiwan. Vietnamese nationalists questioned whether the Chinese were loyal to Vietnam or to Taiwan. In the autumn of 1956 President Ngo Dinh Diem launched an attack against the Chinese community on both the political and economic fronts. His intention was to assert his nationalist credentials and to curb Chinese economic power. One decree required that all Chinese become Vietnamese citizens and adopt Vietnamese names. Another barred Chinese nationals from several occupations, including those involving meat and fish processing, coal, petroleum, scrap metal, transport, cereals, and rice processing. A third decree required that the Vietnamese language be used exclusively in Chinese schools, which would come under direct Vietnamese government control. A final decree in 1960 ordered the dissolution of all five Chinese bangs. Had these decrees been fully enforced, they would have politically, economically, and culturally destroyed the Chinese community.

Chinese in Vietnam The Chinese reacted immediately to these decrees. Their response to demands that they become Vietnamese citizens was outright refusal. Furthermore, Taiwan vigorously protested these decrees, bringing relations between these two anti-Communist states and U.S. allies to a new low. The Chinese also demonstrated their great economic power by withdrawing all their money from banks, causing a collapse of the piaster. As the Chinese ran Vietnam’s distribution system, commercial transactions virtually ceased. In 1957 South Vietnam quickly plunged into a near economic depression. The United States pressured both sides to negotiate face-saving steps so that the effects of these assimilationist measures were at best limited. At the same time, government discrimination against Chinese nationals provoked more resentment by the Chinese. During the Vietnam War the Chinese continued to control most South Vietnamese commerce, industry, and trade (in fact, some 80–90 percent of the wholesale and retail trades). Cholon remained the economic hub of South Vietnam. As in several other Southeast Asian countries, crony capitalism was prevalent in South Vietnam. For Chinese merchants, bribes (food, liquor, women, and antiques as well as the more customary cash) were an integral part of business. In the absence of effective legal and judicial mechanisms to protect wealth and property, business leaders were forced to

203

develop relations with political patrons to gain protection. Corruption pervaded South Vietnam right up to the end of the war, although occasionally the government embarked on a campaign against corruption. These campaigns were often for show and were often directed against the obvious scapegoat of the Chinese. The Chinese community was represented in only token numbers in the upper and middle ranks of the South Vietnamese government and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Few Chinese played an active role militarily. Many Chinese were middle class or even rich, and virtually all were urban. Although the Chinese were apolitical, remaining aloof from South Vietnam’s turbulent political life, they were deeply conservative. Thus, the Chinese were a natural constituency for the rightist South Vietnamese government. But Diem’s policy of forced assimilation, an endless war, economic depression, endemic corruption, discrimination, and persecution all caused this group to become essentially neutral. Above all, the Chinese were pragmatists. They were never ideologically motivated in Vietnam. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Cholon came under attack and was badly damaged in heavy street fighting. After the offensive inflation increased, causing popular resentment among the mostly Chinese merchants. The government arrested and executed many

The destruction to a residential area along Minh Mang Street in the Chinese Cholon district of Saigon during the Communist Tet Offensive, February 10, 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

204

Chomsky, Avram Noam

Chinese to assure the population that the government was cracking down on corruption. The 1972 Spring Offensive by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) worsened the economy, plunging South Vietnam into an economic depression. Numerous Chinese factories and businesses closed. Unsure of their future, people held on to their money. As they controlled the bulk of imports to South Vietnam, the Chinese suffered the most. Thus, in April 1975 when PAVN troops entered the Saigon area, thousands of Chinese in Cholon welcomed them. All were glad to see the end of the war. Perhaps then, with peace and unification, economic prosperity could resume. In the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the Chinese had lived in all-Chinese neighborhoods for hundreds of years. During the French period the Chinese were privileged aliens, although interaction with local Vietnamese was not as favorable as in South Vietnam. After 1954 the North Vietnamese government continued to give Chinese favorable privileges. As relations between Vietnam and China worsened in the postreunification period, however, Chinese in both northern and southern Vietnam became hostages. In 1976 virtually all southern Chinese were forced to become Vietnamese citizens, an action contrary to all prior North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong (VC) pledges. Then the Vietnamese government nationalized some 30,000 Chinese businesses, impoverishing the Chinese community and ending their livelihoods. Many Chinese were forced by the government to leave Cholon for a harsh life in the New Economic Areas, recently created in underpopulated and poor regions. As a result of these actions, thousands of Chinese sought to leave Vietnam. In May 1978 China charged Vietnam with deliberate persecution and sent a few ships to rescue the Chinese. Vietnam’s reaction was sharp and harsh. Government officials expelled hundreds of thousands of Chinese, demanding exorbitant fees in hard currency or gold. More than 250,000 Chinese fled, often in tiny poorly equipped boats, out on the open seas. Between 30,000 and 40,000 drowned under horrible circumstances. Thousands of others crossed the northern border into China. As tensions mounted between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) over this issue and other matters, the SRV government sent to internment camps at least 6,000 Vietnamese suspected of being Chinese moles or sympathizers. With the expulsion of the skilled Chinese the economy of southern Vietnam deteriorated, but the SRV had solved its socalled China problem. Since the institution of free-market reforms and the opening of the SRV to foreign investment, those Chinese remaining in Cholon resumed their commercial roles, this time with the support of compatriots in Taiwan and the United States. They continue to have a major influence in the Vietnamese economy, perhaps greater than before 1975. Although many Vietnamese do not like the Chinese, there has never been any movement against them comparable to the massacres of ethnic Vietnamese by Cambodians. MICHAEL SHARE

See also China, People’s Republic of; China, Republic of; Ngo Dinh Diem; Refugees and Boat People; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Pao-min Chang. Beijing, Hanoi, and the Overseas Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Schrock, J. L. Minority Groups in the Republic of Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966. Share, Michael. “The Chinese Community in South Vietnam during the Second Indochina War.” Journal of Third World Studies (Fall 1994): 240–265. Tsai Maw-Kuey. Les Chinois au Sud-Vietnam. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1968.

Chin Vinh See Tran Do

Chomsky, Avram Noam Birth Date: December 7, 1928 Linguist, philosopher, writer, and leading critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War. Born on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Avram Noam Chomsky was the son of a prominent Hebrew scholar, which helped orient Chomsky’s interests toward linguistics. He earned a BA in 1951 from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD from the same institution in 1955. As a young man Chomsky also developed an interest in Zionism and politics. After receiving his doctorate, Chomsky joined the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has made major contributions to the development and progress of linguistic theory. His book Syntactic Structures (1957) helped begin a new approach to linguistics, sometimes known as the Chomskian Revolution. Chomsky was also a leading intellectual critic and political activist in the antiwar movement. His critiques emphasized the immorality of the Vietnam War and the institutional culpability of the state and other institutions, such as the mass media, corporations, and universities. He was particularly critical of what he called the “new mandarins,” or elite intellectuals who he believed provided an ideological defense for an indefensible war. Chomsky argued that U.S. policy in Vietnam had an imperial strategic objective. Namely, because Southeast Asia had global significance, it had to be ordered according to American dictates. He rejected the view that U.S. policy was largely the result of wellintentioned but misguided leaders. Chomsky defended the courage and moral commitment of the antiwar protestors and was respected in turn by nearly all segments of the antiwar movement. Although his political cri-

Church, Frank Forrester

205

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky was a leading intellectual critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

tiques have evolved over time, they are perhaps best described as anarcho-syndicalist. Indeed, Chomsky views syndicalism as the primary ordering principle in an essentially anarchist world. He favors replacing traditional states and corporate capitalism by laborers who would democratically control the means of production. Although he has certainly criticized Socialist and Communist nations from time to time, he has remained a consistently harsh critic of American foreign and domestic policies. Chomsky continues to teach as professor emeritus in linguistics and philosophy at MIT, publish in linguistics and politics, and lecture on a wide variety of subjects. In recent years Chomsky has resurrected his former antiwar persona by sharply criticizing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. MICHAEL G. O’LOUGHLIN See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Spock, Benjamin McLane References Barsky, Robert. Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. Chomsky, Noam. American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon, 1969.

Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Peck, James, ed. The Chomsky Reader. New York: Pantheon, 1987.

Chou En-lai See Zhou Enlai

Christmas Bombings See LINEBACKER II, Operation

Church, Frank Forrester Birth Date: July 25, 1924 Death Date: April 7, 1984 Attorney, U.S. senator, and opponent of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Frank Forrester Church was born in Boise, Idaho, on July 25, 1924. He served in World War II and graduated from

206

Chu Van Tan

Stanford University in 1947. In 1950 he earned a law degree at Stanford and returned to Boise to practice law. Elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1956, Church became a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. An early critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, in 1963 the liberal Church opposed U.S. aid to the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. In June 1965 Church called for direct negotiations with the Viet Cong (VC), free elections in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and a scaling down of the U.S. effort there. During the remainder of 1965 and throughout 1966 Church voted against supplemental appropriations for the war. In May 1967 he drafted a letter signed by 16 antiwar senators warning the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) that the U.S. objective was to settle the war at the conference table but not at the expense of American commitments or unilateral withdrawal. In the spring of 1970 Church and Senator John Sherman Cooper, a liberal Republican from Kentucky, introduced an amendment to the foreign military sales bill that barred funding future military operations in Cambodia. Although the bill eventually passed the Senate, the House rejected it. A scaled-down version did pass in December 1970 as part of the defense appropriations bill. As a result, limitations were imposed on the president’s power as commander in chief. In 1973 Congress passed a bill sponsored by Church and Senator Clifford Case (R-N.J.) that authorized a complete cutoff of all funding of American combat operations in Indochina, a move that deeply angered the Richard M. Nixon administration. Defeated for reelection in 1980, Church died of cancer in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 1984. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Case, Clifford Philip; Case-Church Amendment; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Church Amendment; Fulbright, James William; Kennedy, Edward Moore; McGovern, George Stanley References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

In 1934 Tan joined the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). Over the next six years he organized protest demonstrations, strikes, and secret self-defense groups. In 1941 Tan received a field command in the newly formed National Salvation Army. He held out for eight months against French military raids but in March 1942 was forced to withdraw to the Chinese border. In February 1943 when the French concentrated to the south, Tan returned to his old base in the Bac Son–Vu Ninh area. During the course of the next two years he built up his military strength, and in March 1945 he joined Vo Nguyen Giap in the Cao Bang area to form the Vietnam Army of Liberation. Elected to the ICP Central Committee in 1945, Tan continued in that capacity into the mid-1970s. He was minister of defense in Ho Chi Minh’s first cabinet. Tan held a variety of other posts in the North Vietnamese government, including being a member of the National Defense Council. Promoted to the rank of colonel general in 1959, he served as chairman of the Viet Bac Autonomous Zone near the Chinese border from 1956 until 1975. Suspected of being pro-Chinese, in August 1979 Tan was removed from his posts and reportedly placed under arrest. He is said to have died in a prison in a Saigon suburb in 1984. Whether or not the stories of Tan’s arrest are true, his reputation has now been rehabilitated, and he has been awarded a place of honor in the pantheon of Vietnamese Communist military leaders. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Chu Van Tan. Reminiscences on the Army for National Salvation: Memoir of General Chu Van Tan. Translated by Mai Elliott. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

CIDG Chu Van Tan

See Civilian Irregular Defense Group

Birth Date: 1910 Death Date: 1984 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general and key political figure in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). A member of the Nung Chinese ethnic group, Chu Van Tan was born in 1910 to a peasant family in Thai Nguyen Province in Tonkin. Because his family was poor, Tan was able to attend school only to age 10.

Civic Action General term used by Americans for civilian assistance programs and projects of U.S. military units within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Sometimes referred to as military-civic action, civic action was viewed as one component of the nationbuilding effort also known as pacification. Civic action projects

Civic Action were to promote social and economic development and identification with and support for the Saigon government. This was more commonly known as “winning the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people. The pacification effort was also known as “the other war,” hence the common references to “the two wars” being fought parallel to each other at the same time and in the same places, one to destroy the enemy who threatened the nation and the other to build the nation itself. Other terms used in reference to civic action programs were “revolutionary development” and “rural reconstruction.” To military and civilian personnel at the ground level, the pacification effort was seen in concrete form through a variety of civic action projects. These included the construction of schools, health centers, wells, roads, bridges, and canals; the distribution of food, clothing, and medical supplies to orphanages; and medical civic action programs (MEDCAPs) that brought military doctors and medics to rural villages and hamlets. Civic action also included American military personnel conducting English classes for Vietnamese, agricultural advisers under the protection of military patrols introducing new strains of rice to villagers in contested areas, and the placing of Montagnard and Vietnamese refugees in refugee resettlement centers. In some cases, civic action projects were viewed as an extension of the role of many military units. In other cases, civic action programs became the primary mission of many units operating in the Vietnamese countryside. The MEDCAP was perhaps the best known form of civic action project. U.S. military units, often with their medics or corpsmen and sometimes escorting doctors from nearby field or evacuation hospitals, offered medical assistance to villages in their area of operations. Doctors or medics would treat villagers for conditions ranging from minor illnesses (including pulling abscessed teeth and giving aspirin for headaches) to major illnesses (including treatment of malaria, yellow fever, bubonic plague, and tuberculosis). In many cases, villagers were brought back to military or civilian hospitals for treatment. MEDCAPs also provided preventive medicine in the form of inoculations against illnesses, established local dispensaries, and conducted training programs for local villagers for the treatment of minor conditions. Such civic action projects served two purposes. First, they addressed the primary mission of the pacification effort, to win the hearts and minds of the people for the South Vietnamese government. A government commitment to address such basic needs of the population as health care was an attempt to gain the allegiance of the population in the face of Viet Cong (VC) opposition. The problem with this was that these projects were usually carried out by U.S. forces without the involvement of the Saigon government or the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Second, in the process of addressing the pacification effort, civic action projects also served military objectives. MEDCAPs, for example, involved military patrols into rural villages and portrayed the U.S. military presence in a positive light. During these opera-

207

A soldier conducts an English class during a civic action program of the 199th Infantry Brigade. Viewed as one component of the nation-building effort known as pacification, civic action programs were designed to promote social and economic development and support for the Saigon government. (National Archives)

tions, patrols often gathered intelligence through their own observations and discussions with local villagers. Over time, patrols developed intelligence on the movement of villagers, on VC infiltration, on executions or kidnappings that had taken place, and on the allegiance of the village to either the government or the VC. U.S. Marine Corps civic action programs were of particular note. They evolved out of the tactical situation in the I Corps Tactical Zone where in March and April 1965 U.S. Marine Corps combat operations began against the VC in heavily populated areas along the coast. As the marines moved inland from the coastal enclaves of Da Nang, Chu Lai, and Phu Bai, they created tactical areas of responsibility (TAOR), enlarging the coastal enclaves through clearand-hold operations. These deprived the VC of perhaps 90 percent of the population base of the I Corps Tactical Zone. The marines also instituted pacification programs to gain the allegiance of the estimated 2 million people living in the coastal area. This approach was in direct opposition to more conventional search-and-destroy operations conducted by the U.S. Army. The chief advocates of this strategy were Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, commanding general of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, and Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt, commanding general of the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF). They believed that military civic action programs were the key to the pacification

208

Civic Action

effort. Every battalion in the III MAF, for example, was responsible for military civic action programs in their TAORs. Initially the most common form of civic action was the MEDCAP, whereby marine units with navy corpsmen paid regular visits to villages in their areas, offering medical assistance and training local villagers in basic medical practices. Because haphazard civic action programs proved ineffective in gaining the allegiance of the local population, during August 1965 the U.S. Marine Corps developed the combined action company (CAC), whereby South Vietnamese Popular Forces (PF) soldiers were integrated into marine tactical units. By placing these units into Vietnamese hamlets and relying on indigenous PFs, combined action operations began to achieve success against the VC. By the spring of 1966 there were some 40 CACs operating throughout the I Corps area. By February 1967 the combined action platoon (CAP) became the means to wage what the marines termed “the other war.” The CAP combined a marine rifle squad of 14 men and 1 navy corpsman with three 10-man PF militia squads and a five-man platoon headquarters into a combined platoon of 50 American and Vietnamese soldiers to provide security at the local level and initiate civic action programs as part of the pacification effort. As William Corson noted in The Betrayal, the CAP mission was to destroy the VC infrastructure within the village or hamlet area of responsibility, protect public security and help maintain law and order, protect the friendly infrastructure, protect bases and communication axes within the villages and hamlets, organize people’s intelligence nets, and participate in civic action and conduct propaganda against the VC. The marines saw civic action projects as an outgrowth of the military and security mission to gain the allegiance of the local population within the TAOR. Underneath the security umbrella, civic action programs were an integral part of the CAP mission. Over their six-year existence (1965–1971), some 114 marine CAPs operated throughout the five I Corps provinces to implement the marine counterinsurgency strategy. U.S. Army civic action programs developed within a somewhat different tactical situation. Army combat operations first began against regular People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units in the Central Highlands with the October–November 1965 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. The Central Highlands was occupied primarily by indigenous Montagnard tribesmen whose subsistence base was slash-and-burn agriculture, made possible by the low population density in the Central Highlands. Early army experiences in hunting regular PAVN units underlay its search-and-destroy operations, which were generally conducted in less densely populated areas than the coastal lowlands of the I Corps Tactical Zone. The primary army mission was to hunt down and destroy PAVN main-force units. Pacification, or “the other war,” became a secondary emphasis. With their military bases more segregated from the indigenous population than those of the marines along the coast, army civic action programs tended to emphasize specific civic action projects rather than the ongoing

military civic action programs of the marines that were integrated with indigenous units at the village or hamlet level. One notable and short-lived exception was the 25th Infantry Division’s Operation LANIKAI in Long An Province. Begun in September 1966 by the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, in conjunction with ARVN units, the operation sought to secure a district with a dense population. Battalion units lived with the indigenous population to develop cooperation with local forces and provide security for the local population. The operation lasted only two to three months, until the battalion was pulled out to participate in Operation FAIRFAX, a search-and-destroy operation in Gia Dinh. MEDCAPs were perhaps the most common form of civic action. The 25th Infantry Division initiated the Helping Hand program, which involved the distribution of thousands of parcels of goods to villages along Highway 1, along with various self-help projects, such as the construction of public works. The 1st Cavalry Division out of An Khe distributed health care supplies to villages along Highway 14 and sponsored Boy Scout jamborees. In fact, most army units had a G-5 and/or S-5 civil affairs officer, whose primary responsibility was the coordination of civic action programs within the unit’s area of operations. Civil affairs teams were the closest U.S. Army analogy to the U.S. Marine Corps’ combined action platoons. By 1968 there were three army civil affairs companies and one detachment, a total of 439 men, operating in South Vietnam in conjunction with the Refugee Division of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). The 29th Civil Affairs Company operated in the I Corps Tactical Zone and worked exclusively on refugee assistance. The other two companies, the 41st Civil Affairs Company in the II Corps Tactical Zone and the 2nd Civil Affairs Company in the III Corps Tactical Zone, also worked on refugee resettlement but had other civic action responsibilities. In the case of the 41st Civil Affairs Company, for example, 15 teams of 6 men each were spread throughout the II Corps Tactical Zone with various command and mission responsibilities. Under the operational command of the Pleiku Province senior adviser, Team 9 was assigned to the Edap Enang Resettlement Center in western Pleiku Province. Working with Regional Forces (RF) and PF units, who provided local security, and CORDS advisers, the team provided refugee assistance and worked to resettle some 5,000 indigenous Jarai Montagnard tribesmen, many of whom were refugees from the Ia Drang Valley. Team 14 was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division at Camp Enari under the operational command of the division civil affairs officer. Team members coordinated division civic action programs in Montagnard villages and resettlement centers in the immediate area of the camp. Team 15 worked in the Montagnard villages to the north of Pleiku, also under the operational command of the Pleiku Province senior adviser, coordinating civic action projects of military units in the area. Civic action programs were an outgrowth of U.S. military efforts to win the war by destroying Communist forces while at the same time attempting to win the hearts and minds of the indig-

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support enous population. Civic action was viewed by the U.S. military as integral to the “other war” and part of the pacification effort to gain the allegiance of the people for the South Vietnamese government. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps viewed civic action in different terms, however, based on their initial experiences in combat operations against the PAVN and the VC and the environments in which these operations took place. In the short term, civic action projects had positive benefits including the inoculation of people against various diseases, improvement of medical care for the local population, resettlement of Vietnamese and Montagnard refugees, construction of housing and public works, establishment of short-term goodwill toward the government, and the gathering of intelligence information. In the long term, the results were at best minimal. With the exception of the U.S. Marine Corps CAPs and U.S. Army civil affairs teams, few U.S. military personnel lived with the Vietnamese long enough to learn their language and their culture in order to win their hearts and minds and thus their allegiance to a government that failed to heed their concerns. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Clear and Hold; Krulak, Victor H.; Marine Combined Action Platoons; Montagnards; Pacification; Refugees and Boat People; Search and Destroy; United States Agency for International Development; Walt, Lewis William References Corson, William R. The Betrayal. New York: Norton, 1968. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. West, F. J. The Village. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Civilian Irregular Defense Group In 1961 and 1962 U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) on temporary duty (TDY) established a number of isolated camps in remote areas in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). These camps served three purposes: to extend the influence of the South Vietnamese government, to provide security for the local population, and to isolate the people from Communist influence and intimidation. The Special Forces recruited volunteers from the local populations and trained them as soldiers. Known as the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and, until July 1963, paid by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Combined Studies Division/Group through the Special Forces (in July 1963, the U.S. military took over funding for the program), the CIDG played a significant role in securing sparsely populated highland areas. At its peak, CIDG strength was some 45,000 men. U.S. Special Forces first operated around Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands with Rhade and

209

Jarai Montagnards. The vast majority of CIDG personnel throughout Vietnam were Montagnard tribesmen, although there were also Cambodians and Vietnamese. The initial Special Forces approach was to organize the Montagnards, place them under government control, and train them to fight the Viet Cong (VC). The Special Forces troopers organized CIDG personnel into combat units. CIDG units were assigned specific missions: border surveillance and interdiction of Communist infiltration, communications and supply routes, offensive operations against VC units and sanctuaries, identification and destruction of VC infrastructure, and establishment of area security. Another CIDG concept was to organize and train tactical reserve reaction forces to serve as mobile strike force units. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Special Forces (Luc Luong Dac Biet) placed officers in each camp to serve as its commander and staff; the Special Forces assumed the CIA mission and served as advisers. Camps were organized into three companies of 132 men each, three reconnaissance platoons, a heavy weapons section with two 105-millimeter howitzers, and a political warfare section. Each camp was authorized a total of 530 men. Because of their isolated locations, many CIDG camps came under attack or siege. In 1965 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces besieged the CIDG camp at Duc Co in the Central Highlands for more than two months. In June 1965 VC units overran the CIDG camp at Dong Xoai but failed to take the town because of fierce CIDG resistance. In March 1966 two PAVN regiments attacked the A Shau CIDG camp, forcing U.S. and ARVN Special Forces to withdraw. Other CIDG camps were abandoned because of insufficient manpower. The CIDG program also experienced problems with fraud and corruption, and in March 1970 U.S. and South Vietnamese military leaders agreed to convert the CIDG camps to ARVN Border Ranger camps. The last two CIDG border camps were officially converted on January 4, 1971. HIEU DINH VU AND HARVE SAAL See also Central Intelligence Agency; Montagnards; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Ahern, Thomas L. Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009. Kelly, Francis J. The Green Berets in Vietnam, 1961–71. New York: Brassey’s, 1991. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support Umbrella organization for U.S. pacification efforts in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) organized all civilian

210

Civil Rights Movement

agencies involved in the pacification effort in South Vietnam under the military chain of command. Established under the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), on May 10, 1967, CORDS was placed under the direction of Robert Komer, a MACV civilian deputy commander. Komer, special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson, held the rank of ambassador and the military equivalent of three-star general and reported directly to MACV commander General William C. Westmoreland. Upon Komer’s departure in November 1968, William Colby, who had been the assistant chief of staff for CORDS, took direction of CORDS. CORDS succeeded the Office of Civil Operations (OCO), originally created to assume responsibility over all civilian agencies working in South Vietnam under the jurisdiction of the U.S. embassy in Saigon. CORDS integrated American aid programs targeting the social and economic development of South Vietnam. These were viewed as the basis upon which to build the Vietnamese nation and win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people in the face of Communist political and military opposition. CORDS activities were primarily directed toward the 80 percent of the South Vietnamese population who lived in the rural villages and hamlets most vulnerable to the Viet Cong (VC). In this way, the Communists would be deprived of their traditional population base. CORDS was organized into six operational divisions: Chieu Hoi, Revolutionary Development, Refugees, Public Safety, Psychological Operations, and New Life Development. The Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) program was designed to induce VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) soldiers to turn themselves in to the South Vietnamese government as hoi chanh (“returnees”) through government propaganda campaigns and monetary payments. Returnees were given job training, welfare services, and resettlement assistance and were also integrated into Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) military units. The Revolutionary Development (RD) division was organized into 59-member teams designed to provide security and promote economic development at the village level. RD teams were trained at the National Training Center in Vung Tau and assigned to villages throughout the country. Working through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the refugee program was designed to resettle millions of displaced villagers across the country, often through the establishment of refugee resettlement centers, and to provide them security. CORDS integrated all military and civilian personnel into a single chain of command by assigning them to the same missions through the establishment of CORDS advisory teams at the province level. During 1968, for example, in the 12 II Corps provinces some 4,000 CORDS personnel served under the operational command of CORDS deputy James Megellas, who held the military equivalent of major general and reported directly to Lieutenant General William R. Peers, commander of I Field Force, Vietnam. CORDS teams at the province level consisted of State Department, USAID, U.S. Information Agency (USIA), and U.S. Public Health

Service personnel. In Khanh Hoa Province, for example, Team 35 had 87 military and 23 civilian personnel, including foreign service officers, public health nurses, and rural health and agricultural advisers. Priority projects in 1968 were the resettlement of Montagnard tribesmen and improving the quality and effectiveness of Regional Forces/Popular Forces (RF/PF) units to provide security at the village level. With the war intensifying and the increasing vulnerability of civilian aid efforts in the countryside, providing security for what became known as nation building or pacification became a military priority. In September 1969 there were 6,464 U.S. military advisers assigned to CORDS, 5,812 of whom served in the field. Major efforts were made within the U.S. Army in particular (which had 95 percent of CORDS military advisers) to assign qualified military advisers to CORDS advisory teams. Three army civil affairs companies (the 2nd, 29th, and 41st companies) were directly involved in pacification programs under CORDS administration. Major efforts were also made under both Komer and Colby to improve the effectiveness of RF/PF units by increasing both their manpower and their firepower equivalent to local VC units. By the end of 1969, RF/ PF units numbered 475,000 men. Their effectiveness was a major factor in providing security at the village level in support of pacification efforts. With the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords and the withdrawal of American armed forces, the rationale for the existence of CORDS was removed. CORDS ceased operations on February 27, 1973, and selected functions were assumed by the office of the special assistant to the ambassador for field operations, a civilian operation headed by George Jacobson, who had been assistant chief of staff of CORDS under Colby. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Chieu Hoi Program; Civic Action; Colby, William Egan; Komer, Robert W.; Marine Combined Action Platoons; Pacification; Psychological Warfare Operations; Refugees and Boat People; Territorial Forces; United States Agency for International Development; Vann, John Paul; Westmoreland, William Childs References Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Free in the Forest: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954–1976. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Civil Rights Movement The Civil Rights Movement began in earnest in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, where African Americans successfully organized a boycott that desegregated public buses. Reverend Martin Luther

Civil Rights Movement

211

Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and fueled the Civil Rights Movement, sits in the front of a bus on December 21, 1956. After the court ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission banned the segregation of public transit. (Library of Congress)

King Jr. came to the fore during this yearlong struggle. This event came on the heels of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which had asserted that segregated educational facilities were unconstitutional. Lasting until roughly 1968, the movement sought racial equality, economic and political selfsufficiency, and freedom from the constraints of white society. Civil rights advocates argued that although slavery had ended in the 19th century, racism and prejudice continued through overt and covert racial segregation. Racial segregation was especially prevalent in the South, but more insidious racism and segregation were widespread in the North as well. The movement brought about specific civil rights legislation that codified the equality of all races in the United States and increased awareness of continued racism and inequalities. Rosa Parks, regarded as the “mother” of the Civil Rights Movement, provided inspiration for the cause through her refusal to give her seat to a white man on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest and conviction on this charge led to the Montgomery

Bus Boycott. With the success of this boycott, the direct-action emphasis of the Civil Rights Movement began. As events progressed, the national media began focusing on the cause of civil rights, providing greater national support for the movement’s advocates. The next significant step took place in 1957 with the fulfillment of the requirement to integrate black and white schools. In 1963 the movement reached full force, witnessing King’s nationally televised March on Washington in August 1963. Some 250,000 people attended the gathering. That same year under the glare of the news media, Eugene “Bull” Connor (Birmingham, Alabama, commissioner of public safety) unleashed police dogs and used the city’s fire hoses against thousands of unarmed black high school students. The replaying of this event across the United States garnered greater support for the Civil Rights Movement throughout the country. As the Civil Rights Movement progressed, it split into two forms: active nonviolent resistance, advocated by King and his adherents, and Black Power. The nonviolent faction organized marches and

212

Clarey, Bernard Ambrose

Registered African American Voters in Selected Southern States (1960, 1966) State Alabama Mississippi South Carolina

Registered African American Voters (1960)

Registered African American Voters (1966)

66,000 22,000 58,000

250,000 175,000 191,000

demonstrations throughout the South and the Midwest to protest against continued segregation and racism. King also masterfully used the media to bring the civil rights agenda to the forefront of Americans’ attention. After 1965 King decried the Vietnam War as a war against poor African American youth, but he refused to employ militancy to further his agenda. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. His nonviolent methods had brought about significant progress for the Civil Rights Movement through the media’s coverage of the events he had led. The second form of resistance within the Civil Rights Movement was that of Black Power. Disillusioned by the slow progress of nonviolent resistance and convinced that King’s efforts were having little effect in northern cities, the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam led the Black Power movement. Calling for violent resistance, Black Power groups began standing up to the Ku Klux Klan, armed and ready to fight. The Nation of Islam, a black organization with beliefs diverging from mainstream Islam, sought to establish a country apart from the white people of the United States through violent action if necessary. This segment of the movement effected little change, however, as many Americans were turned off by its radical rhetoric and activities. The Civil Rights Movement certainly brought about significant progress in civil rights and liberties. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, transforming society through its prohibition against discrimination in all areas of American society. The 1965 Voting Rights Act removed all impediments to voting, which had kept many African Americans away from the polls, by ensuring the power of the federal government to enforce voting laws. The efforts of civil rights advocates throughout the 1950s and 1960s brought about significant changes to the United States and helped secure greater civil liberties for all people regardless of race or color. After King’s assassination the work of the movement continued, as it does today, but never again would the movement have another spokesman as forceful and dynamic as Dr. King. After 1968 the Civil Rights Movement witnessed continual but slower and more episodic progress than it did during the 1950s and 1960s. Some historians have argued that the Civil Rights Movement— especially the Black Power movement—radicalized some African American servicemen serving in Vietnam, leading to racial tensions between blacks and whites in the armed forces in the late 1960s. Many African American soldiers questioned their role in

defending democracy abroad when they still faced racial and economic inequality at home. This is a theme that King took up in 1966, when his opposition to the Vietnam War began to take shape. Black involvement in the war certainly raised black consciousness and politicized many returning veterans who had not formally considered themselves politically engaged. As the Vietnam War took center stage in the United States, many civil rights advocates took up the mantle of antiwar opposition; other 1960s reform groups, particularly Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), underwent similar transformations. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Black Muslims; Black Panthers; King, Martin Luther, Jr. References Bullard, Sara, and Julian Bond. Free At Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Davis, Jack E., ed. The Civil Rights Movement. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. Morris, Aldon D. Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Free Press, 1986. Tarrow, Sydney. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Clarey, Bernard Ambrose Birth Date: May 4, 1912 Death Date: June 15, 1996 U.S. Navy admiral and commander of U.S. Navy forces in the Pacific (1970–1973). Born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on May 4, 1912, Bernard Ambrose (“Chick”) Clarey graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1934. He subsequently trained at the Submarine School in New London, Connecticut. Clarey survived the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and participated in submarine operations against Japan during the remainder of World War II. During the Korean War (1950–1953), Clarey served with the U.S. Seventh Fleet as executive officer on the heavy cruiser Helena. Promoted to captain in July 1953, he then held a variety of assignments, including tours in Washington, D.C.; Norfolk, Virginia; and Pearl Harbor. He was promoted to rear admiral in July 1959 and to vice admiral in June 1964. In 1967 he became director of navy program planning and budgeting. In January 1968 Clarey was promoted to full admiral and was appointed vice chief of naval operations. In 1970 when Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt became chief of naval operations and chose his own aides, Clarey became commander of the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. As such, he had command of all U.S. Navy ships in Pacific waters, including those off Vietnam, as well as naval air operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Agitation at home was accompanied by

Clark, William Ramsey racial unrest in the Pacific Fleet, leading Clarey to order his unit commanders to be more sensitive to minority grievances. Clarey retired from the U.S. Navy in Honolulu in October 1973. He was then vice president of the Bank of Hawaii for Pacific Rim operations. He died in Honoloulu on June 15, 1996. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also United States Navy; Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr. Reference Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr. On Watch. New York: Quadrangle, 1976.

Clark, William Ramsey Birth Date: December 18, 1927 Lawyer and U.S. attorney general of the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson during 1967–1969. Born in Dallas, Texas, on December 18, 1927, William Ramsey Clark served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1945 to 1946. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas in 1949 and MA (in history) and JD degrees from the University of Chicago in 1950. Clark then joined the Dallas law firm of Clark, Coon, Holt & Fisher, a firm founded by his grandfather, and worked there for 10 years, losing only one jury trial. Because his father Tom had become an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1949, Ramsey avoided high court cases except for one in which his father recused himself. Clark worked actively in Democratic Party politics, and in 1960 he campaigned for John F. Kennedy. In 1961 Kennedy appointed Clark assistant attorney general in charge of the Lands Division of the Justice Department (1961–1965). During his tenure Clark instituted cost-cutting measures and reduced the backlog of cases. He also supervised other projects, mainly in the civil rights area. He headed federal civilian forces at the University of Mississippi after the 1962 riots there and served in Birmingham in 1963. He visited school officials throughout the South in 1963 to help them coordinate and implement desegregation plans. He also helped formulate the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. As a consequence of his diligent work, Clark was appointed deputy attorney general in 1965. In this post he helped to draft the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and after the riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1965, he headed federal forces sent to find solutions to the problems that led to the violence. When Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach became undersecretary of state in 1966, President Johnson appointed Clark acting attorney general. Five months later Johnson made the promotion permanent. Two hours after the official appointment, Justice Tom Clark announced his retirement from the Supreme Court to avoid any potential conflict of interest. On March 10, 1967, Ramsey Clark was sworn in as attorney general; his father administered the oath of office. As attorney general from 1967 to 1969, Clark strongly supported civil rights for all Americans. He also opposed the death

213

penalty, criticized police violence toward citizens and antiwar protesters, and steadfastly refused to use wiretaps except in cases of national security. These positions, in addition to his lenient stance on antiwar activities, attracted criticism from within the Johnson administration and from conservatives, who labeled him as being soft on crime. After leaving office in 1969 Clark actively opposed the Vietnam War, and in 1972 he visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to investigate American bombing of civilian targets. He also taught, first at Howard University (1969–1972) and then at Brooklyn Law School (1973–1981). Clark continued to practice law in New York City, and in 1974 he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. In 1980 he led a group of private citizens to Tehran, Iran, during the hostage crisis there, and in 1982 he made a private fact-finding tour of Nicaragua. Clark also found time to write a book, Crime in America (1970), that examines the social and economic causes and potential solutions to crime. In more recent years Clark has proven even more controversial, as he vigorously and publicly opposed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the War on Terror, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. In 1991 he accused the George H. W. Bush administration of crimes against humanity committed during the Persian Gulf War. Clark views the War on Terror as a war against Islam and believes that the War on Terror is eroding American’s civil liberties. He has even gone so far as to propound, with no evidence to support this, that Al Qaeda was not behind the September 11, 2001, attacks. Instead he

Ramsey Clark, U.S. attorney general during 1967–1969, in August 1974. After leaving office, Clark actively opposed the Vietnam War, and in 1972 he traveled to North Vietnam to investigate American bombing of civilian targets. (AP/Wide World Photos)

214

Clark Air Force Base

blames the U.S. government, which he believed planned and staged the event in order to wage war against the Taliban and Iraq. From 2003 to 2009 Clark was active in the drive to bring impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. After the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing campaign of Yugoslavia, Clark “charged” the organization with 19 counts of genocide. Equally controversial have been the clients he has chosen to defend. They include Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic, former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Clark insisted that Hussein would be unable to receive a fair trial if it was held in Iraq. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville References Clark, William Ramsey. Crime in America: Observations on Its Nature, Causes, Prevention and Control. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. Who’s Who in America, 1968–1969. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1969.

Clark Air Force Base U.S. Air Force base in the Republic of the Philippines located 3 miles west of Angeles City, itself north of Manila on the island of Luzon. Before its closure in 1991, Clark Air Force Base was the largest overseas U.S. military installation, with an area of more than 156,000 acres. The United States acquired the Philippine Islands as a consequence of the 1898 Spanish-American War, and in 1903 the U.S. Army established a cavalry installation known as Fort Stotsenburg some 50 miles north of Manila. A flying school was located there in 1912, and an air strip was constructed during 1917–1918. A portion of the fort was then set apart for flying activities. It was named Clark Field in September 1919 for Major Harold M. Clark, a U.S. Army pilot killed in a crash in the Panama Canal in May 1919. Clark Field was an important U.S. air base at the beginning of World War II, and both fighters and a significant number of fourengine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses based there. Clark came under Japanese air attack on December 8, 1941, and most of the big bombers were destroyed on the ground. In the course of their invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese captured the airfield in December 1941. The Americans did not retake Clark Field until January 1945, after which a number of U.S. Army Air Forces bombardment groups (mostly Consolidated B-24 Liberators) and several fighter groups were located there. The bombers mounted attacks on targets in Japan, Taiwan (Formosa), and mainland China. In 1947 with the establishment of the independent U.S. Air Force, Clark Field became Clark Air Force Base, and the next year all

of Fort Stotsenburg was designated Clark Air Force Base. During the Korean War (1950–1953) photo reconnaissance missions operated from the base, while during the Indochina War (1946–1954) aircraft from Clark flew both special operations and resupply missions. Clark Air Force Base was especially active during the Vietnam War. During that conflict the base’s population swelled to 60,000 personnel, and from 1963 to 1967 Clark was the second-mostpopulous U.S. Air Force installation in the world. During the 1960s and 1970s the base underwent several significant improvements, including a large hospital and improved living quarters. Clark served as a major U.S. military logistical hub for operations in the Southeast Asian theater. During the war U.S. Air Force units stationed there included the 405th Fighter Wing, the 1st Medical Service Wing, the 6200th Air Base Wing, and the 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing, the latter of which rotated its C-130 squadrons between Clark and Tan Son Nhut Air Base in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Thai Air Force personnel also received air defense training there. The base played a key role in Operation HOMECOMING as the first stop for returning American prisoners of war. At Clark Air Force Base they underwent medical evaluations, were debriefed, and began their readjustment from captivity. At the end of the conflict, Clark also provided important support for Operations BABYLIFT and NEW LIFE, the evacuations of Vietnamese for resettlement in the United States. Once close relations between the United States and the Philippines soured with the overthrow of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcus in 1986, many Filipinos held the United States responsible for the excesses of his rule. An agreement to extend the leasing arrangement on Clark Air Force Base was rejected by the Philippine Senate, which sought greater compensation. Negotiations continued, with the United States warning the Philippine government that it might give up the lease entirely. Clark Air Base was completely evacuated in June 1991 following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Damage to the base was so extensive that it became increasingly likely that the United States would not increase the leasing offer. The base was turned over to the Philippine government in November 1991. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also BABYLIFT, Operation; HOMECOMING, Operation; Philippines; Prisoners of War, Allied; United States Air Force References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Fletcher, Harry R. Air Force Bases: Air Bases Outside the United States of America, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1993. Rochester, Stuart I., and Frederick Kiley. Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973. Washington, DC: Historical Office Secretary of Defense, 1998. Utts, Thomas C. GI Joe Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: A History of Clark Air Base, America’s Mighty Air Force Bastion in the Philippines. Baltimore: Publish America, 2006.

Cleland, Joseph Maxwell

Clay, Cassius See Ali, Muhammad

215

References Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press 1995. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Claymore Mines See Armored Warfare; Fire-Support Bases; Mine Warfare, Land

Cleland, Joseph Maxwell Birth Date: August 24, 1942

Clear and Hold Designation for allied military efforts to eradicate the Communist presence in selected areas of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Part of the pacification program, the clear and hold concept was an attempt to solve the unconventional problems of a guerrilla conflict with a conventional solution of traditional land warfare: the effective garrisoning of territory after it was taken. The dilemma in Vietnam lay in holding, not clearing. Although massive sweep operations against areas controlled by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) or the Viet Cong (VC) were generally successful, these effects were temporary. Communist guerrillas simply reasserted themselves once clearing forces departed. Also, the civilian population fully understood that any cooperation with allied soldiers during the sweeps could well prove fatal to them afterward when the guerrillas returned. The clear and hold concept envisioned the permanent stationing of garrison troops in selected areas after their clearing to prevent a Communist return. The problem with the clear and hold solution was the large numbers of personnel required for success. The allies did not have enough reliable soldiers to both conquer the countryside and control it. General William Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), stated that the main goal was to seek out and destroy PAVN and VC forces rather than to pacify the countryside. He later argued that he believed that the clear and hold concept could have worked had he received sufficient numbers of American troops to perform both functions. The larger numbers he wanted, however, would have required the mobilization of U.S. reserve forces, an option that was unacceptable to both President Lyndon Johnson and the American people. Consequently, while U.S. combat troops pursued an attrition strategy against Communist main-force units, MACV was forced to use unreliable soldiers from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), the Popular Forces, and the Regional Forces to hold the cleared areas. The combination proved unsuccessful. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Civic Action; Marine Combined Action Platoons; Pacification; Search and Destroy; United States Marine Corps; Westmoreland, William Childs

U.S. Army officer, head of the Veterans Administration (VA) during 1977–1981, Democratic Party politician, and U.S. senator during 1997–2003. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 24, 1942, Joseph Maxwell (Max) Cleland received a BA from Stetson University in Florida in 1964 and earned an MA in American history from Emory University the following year. Shortly thereafter he entered the U.S. Army, initially serving in the Signal Corps. After successfully completing jump school, in 1967 he volunteered for duty in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). The next year near Khe Sanh, Captain Cleland lost both legs and his right arm as a result of a grenade blast. He received numerous citations, including the Bronze Star and the Silver Star. Not released from the hospital until 1970, Cleland wasted little time in resuming a productive life. In 1971 he won a seat

U.S. senator Max Cleland of Georgia was a major force behind improvements in the Veterans Administration and in issues affecting the disabled. (U.S. Senate)

216

Clemenceau, Georges

in the Georgia Senate and used his position to promote issues related to veterans and the handicapped. From 1975 to 1977 he served on the professional staff of the U.S. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. In February 1977 President Jimmy Carter nominated his fellow Georgian to head the VA. Speedy Senate confirmation followed, and Cleland became at age 34 the youngest person to ever head the VA and the first Vietnam veteran to hold the position. He launched a vigorous expansion of VA programs, including drug and alcohol treatment and counseling services. He also worked to improve the public image of the VA and Vietnam veterans. His tenure at the VA ended in 1981 with the election of President Ronald Reagan. Returning to Georgia, Cleland became secretary of state, holding that position from 1982 to 1996. In 1996 he received the Democratic nomination to fill the Senate seat vacated by Democrat Sam Nunn and won the election that November, joining such prominent Vietnam veterans as John Kerry (D-Mass.), Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.), and John McCain (R-Ariz.). In 2003 Cleland was among 29 Senate Democrats to vote for the authorization for war with Iraq. Later he announced that he deeply regretted his decision and admitted that his vote was in part influenced by his upcoming reelection bid. In 2002 Cleland experienced a bruising reelection campaign, running against Republican Saxby Chambliss. The election made national news after the Chambliss campaign ran incendiary television commercials implicitly questioning Cleland’s patriotism because he had failed to support some of the George W. Bush administration’s homeland security decisions. The ads featured likenesses of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The ads were pulled amid much uproar, and senators McCain and Chuck Hagel, both Republicans, chastised Chambliss for his tactless and meanspirited campaign. Nevertheless, Cleland lost the election to Chambliss, who had no military experience at all. The smear campaign against Cleland was in a sense a dry run of the smear campaign against Senator John Kerry, who ran for president on the Democratic ticket in 2004. Cleland campaigned vigorously for Kerry, and when the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth organization ran ads questioning Kerry’s patriotism and war record, Cleland paid a personal visit to President Bush’s Texas ranch to protest the ads. Cleland’s appeal had little effect, however. Kerry lost the election to the incumbent Bush. Cleland has written extensively on veterans’ issues and the plight of Vietnam veterans. DAVID COFFEY

Clemenceau, Georges Birth Date: September 28, 1841 Death Date: November 24, 1929 French politician and premier (1906–1909, 1917–1920). Born at Mouilleron-en-Pareds in the Vendée on September 28, 1841, Georges Clemenceau was the son of a doctor and was educated at the medical schools of Nantes and Paris. After pursuing a career in medicine and journalism in the United States during 1865–1869 he returned to France, where he first rose to national prominence as the mayor of the Eighteenth Arrondissement of Paris during the German siege of Paris in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War. A political leftist, he was nonetheless a maverick. Elected to the National Assembly, Clemenceau voted against the peace terms that yielded Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans. As a leader of the Radical Party and a newspaper publisher, he was a leading figure during the travails of the Third Republic. During the Dreyfus Affair he strongly defended Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish army captain wrongly accused of treason. Clemenceau was a strong opponent of French imperial efforts in Indochina and elsewhere, believing that these detracted from France’s real interests in Europe and inhibited military preparedness against Germany. His reputation in debate led to the nickname “the Tiger.” Clemenceau first served as premier of France from 1906 to 1909. The outbreak of World War I found him an outsider and critic of

See also Kerry, John Forbes; Khe Sanh, Battle of; McCain, John Sidney, III; Swift Boat Veterans for Truth References Cleland, Max. Strong at the Broken Places. Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing, 1989. Who’s Who in America, 1997. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1996.

Georges Clemenceau was arguably the most important French politician in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His lively and often controversial career spanned the first 55 years of the French Third Republic, and he served as prime minister several times, most notably during World War I. (Library of Congress)

Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam what he believed was a failure on the part of the government to push for an all-out effort to win. In November 1917 following the disastrous Nivelle Offensive and wide-scale French Army mutinies, Clemenceau again became premier. He thoroughly dominated the government and was known as France’s “one-man Committee of Public Safety.” His leadership helped infuse the French with the will to fight through to final victory. Much criticized in Britain and the United States for his role at the Paris Peace Conference, Clemenceau was seen as a vengeful Shylock determined to exact the pound of flesh and keep Germany in subjection, but his goal was simply security for France. Forced to compromise over the Rhineland issue (both on its separation from Germany and the length of the Allied occupation), he endured bitter attacks by the French Right. At the peace conference, Clemenceau rejected concessions to native nationalists in the French colonies, including Indochina. In January 1920 most observers expected the 78-year-old “Father of Victory” to easily win election to the presidency. But Clemenceau’s many enemies felt free to attack him, and he was passed over. He immediately resigned the premiership and went into embittered retirement. He spent his remaining years writing and trying to warn the French people about the need for vigilance and enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles. Clemenceau died in Paris on November 24, 1929. SPENCER C. TUCKER

217

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Brunn, Geoffrey. Clemenceau. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943. Jackson, John Hampden. Clemenceau and the Third Republic. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Watson, David R. Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography. New York: David McKay, 1974.

Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Religiously based antiwar organization. Several New York religious leaders, including Reverend Richard Neuhaus, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and Father Daniel Berrigan, founded Clergy Concerned about Vietnam in October 1965. The organization, most often known by the acronym CALC, went through a number of name changes: National Emergency Committee of Clergy Concerned about Vietnam in January 1966, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam—A National Emergency Committee (CALCAV) in April 1966, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam in 1967, and Clergy and Laity Concerned in 1973. Creating an outlet for religious antiwar protest and building on interfaith cooperation in

Members of the clergy demonstrate against the Vietnam War in 1972. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

218

Clifford, Clark McAdams

the civil rights struggle, CALC evolved in 1966 into a national organization with reverends John Bennett, Martin Luther King Jr., and William Sloane Coffin assuming leadership roles. CALC sought an indefinite halt to the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and a negotiated settlement. Under Executive Director Richard Fernandez (1966–1973), CALC broadened its base by recognizing the interest of laypeople in its moderate forms of protest that avoided the stigma of radical antiwar organizations. In February 1967, with King as chairman, CALC initiated the Fast for Peace, which included possibly 1 million participants. Its moderate approach did not keep the federal government from targeting CALC in 1967 for investigation as a threat to national security. In February 1968 CALC released In the Name of America, accusing the United States of violating international law and being guilty of war crimes. CALC protested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and in 1972 CALC had representatives at the World Assembly for Peace and Independence of the Peoples of Indochina. By August 1973 the founders, never believing that the war would last so long, changed the name to Clergy and Laity Concerned, enabling the group to address a wider variety of issues. PAUL S. DAUM AND FRANCIS RYAN

Washington, D.C., which, with the exception of his time as secretary of defense, he continued to do. By 1960 Clifford was widely regarded as the most influential and well-connected Democratic Party lawyer in Washington. After handling several delicate legal matters for then-Senator John F. Kennedy, in late 1960 Clifford headed the president-elect’s transition team but refused any formal office for himself. Both Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, however, called upon Clifford for advice on various issues. In the early 1960s Clifford did not oppose the relatively smallscale incremental increases in U.S. economic and military aid to Vietnam. In May 1965 Johnson consulted Clifford as to the proposed major escalation of American ground forces in Vietnam by 100,000 men, with further increases to follow. Together with George W. Ball, Clifford argued forcefully but unsuccessfully against this, urging that Washington should seek a negotiated settlement at that time, even if it was unsatisfactory, rather than entering into a potentially dangerous and limitless commitment that might require ever-larger troop deployments without the hope of a likely victory. After losing this argument Clifford believed that the United States should prosecute the war strongly, without being diverted

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Berrigan, Daniel; Coffin, William Sloane, Jr.; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Fellowship of Reconciliation; Fernandez, Richard; King, Martin Luther, Jr. References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Hall, Mitchell Kent. “Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam: A Study of Opposition to the Vietnam War.” PhD dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1987. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

Clifford, Clark McAdams Birth Date: December 25, 1906 Death Date: October 10, 1998 Prominent attorney, presidential adviser to four administrations, and U.S. secretary of defense (1968–1969). Clark McAdams Clifford was born on December 25, 1906, at Fort Scott, Kansas. He earned an LLB from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1928. After spending some years in St. Louis as a lawyer, in 1944 he joined the U.S. Navy and undertook various administrative assignments. A posting to the White House in 1945 as assistant naval aide soon led to his appointment as naval aide, then assistant, and finally counsel to President Harry S. Truman, a position that Clifford held until late 1949. He then began to practice law in

Clark M. Clifford served as U.S. secretary of defense during 1968–1969. In early March 1968, Clifford recommended to President Lyndon Johnson that the United States commit only those forces necessary to meet immediate needs in Vietnam and not embark on another major buildup. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

Clinton, William Jefferson from its aims. Until 1967 he therefore opposed bombing halts and pauses and recommended that the United States make an intensive effort to win the war. On a mission to Vietnam in late 1965 Clifford was impressed by the evidence of American progress, even as he noted the signs of counterescalation by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). At a meeting of the so-called Wise Men, Johnson’s senior policy advisers, in November 1967, which Clifford attended, he joined the rest in urging Johnson to stand firm in Vietnam. Later that month Clifford spoke against a memorandum by Robert S. McNamara that called for determined U.S. efforts to make peace. In late January 1968 Clifford was confirmed as secretary of defense, replacing the now-dovish McNamara who had resigned. Almost immediately the Tet Offensive occurred, after which General William C. Westmoreland requested an additional 206,000 U.S. troops. Clifford set up a Vietnam Task Force to reassess the situation in Vietnam and learned to his dismay that U.S. military leaders could offer no plan for victory or assurance of success. In early March he therefore recommended to the president that the United States commit only the forces necessary to meet immediate needs in Vietnam and not embark on another major buildup. Fearing that victory was impossible, Clifford summoned another meeting of the Wise Men. After extensive briefings from State Department and Defense Department officials, most of this group concluded that the United States could not attain its ends in Vietnam and should begin peace negotiations. Throughout 1968 Clifford, now opposed to further escalation of the war, battled the hawks in the administration, most notably National Security Advisor Walt W. Rostow and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in pushing for a bombing halt and negotiations with North Vietnam and in publicly putting pressure on the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to join in peace talks. He left office in 1969 with the rest of the Johnson administration. In the early months of the Richard M. Nixon administration, Clifford approved of the new president’s intention to withdraw American troops. But Clifford alienated both Nixon and Johnson when he published an article in the summer 1969 issue of Foreign Affairs in which he called for the withdrawal of 100,000 American troops by December 1969 and all U.S. ground forces by December 1970. Clifford believed that only this prospect would impel South Vietnam to enter into serious negotiations. He repeated these suggestions in an article in Life magazine the following summer in which he also condemned the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in May 1970. Clifford continued to practice law in Washington and to play the role of an elder statesman of the Democratic Party. In the late 1980s and early 1990s his involvement with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which lost billions of dollars under fraudulent circumstances, proved highly embarrassing to him, although he pleaded ignorance of any knowledge of its criminal activities. His advanced age, poor health, and marginal role saved him from prosecution, but his image was tarnished and his influ-

219

ence in Democratic circles greatly diminished. Clifford died in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 10, 1998. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Harriman, William Averell; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Rusk, David Dean; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Truman, Harry S.; Vietnamization; Warnke, Paul Culliton; Westmoreland, William Childs; Wise Men References Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1989. Clifford, Clark, with David Holbrooke. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1991. Frantz, Douglas, and David MacKean. Friends in High Places: The Rise and Fall of Clark Clifford. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. Hoopes, Townsend. The Limits of Intervention. New York: David McKay, 1969. Schandler, Herbert Y. Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a President. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Climate of Vietnam See Vietnam, Climate of; Vietnam, Climate and Terrain of, Impact on the Vietnam War

Clinton, William Jefferson Birth Date: August 19, 1946 Democratic Party politician, governor of Arkansas (1979–1981 and 1983–1992), and president of the United States (1993–2001). William Jefferson Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, to a family of humble origins. He attended Georgetown University, graduating in 1968. While a student there he worked part-time for Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The committee’s investigation in 1968 of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident appears to have increased the Georgetown senior’s interest in the war. As a draft-age male, Clinton was determined to keep his deferment by entering law or graduate school; a Rhodes Scholarship proved the solution. While studying in England from 1968 to 1970, he protested U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Clinton secured a II-S student deferment from the military draft to attend Georgetown, but the government stopped granting graduate deferments in late 1967. Influenced by Fulbright, the Hot Springs draft board passed over Clinton’s file in 1968, but in February 1969 he received a draft notice. That summer he solicited a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) appointment

220

Clinton, William Jefferson

at the University of Arkansas, receiving a deferment; in October Clinton reversed his decision and requested a return to his available status. Later, critics accused Clinton of realizing that the likelihood of his being drafted was nil, as President Richard M. Nixon had announced in September that draft calls would be curtailed for the rest of the year. Clinton’s avoidance of the draft became a major issue in the 1992 presidential campaign. Indeed, the “draftdodger” label followed Clinton into the presidency and soured his relationship with the military. Clinton graduated from Yale University Law School in 1973; there he met future U.S. senator and secretary of state Hillary Rodham. The two married in 1975. After a failed election bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974, Clinton taught law at the University of Arkansas from 1974 to 1976. From 1977 to 1979 he served as attorney general of Arkansas. In 1978 he was elected governor of Arkansas, serving from 1979 to 1981; subsequently reelected, he served as governor again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton was elected president of the United States in 1992, defeating Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush. Clinton’s campaign revolved around new ideas for government programs, including an overhaul of the health care system, and a promise to revitalize the economy after a major downturn that had begun in 1992. Clinton’s first year in office witnessed numerous controversies, including his order to end restrictions on gays in the military, which caused such an uproar, especially from the military establishment, that he had to settle for the awkward “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that appeased no one. The president’s attempt to overhaul the health care system was torpedoed by conservatives in Congress, who resented First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s attempts to assemble a sprawling bureaucratic apparatus to administer health insurance, which was done without the input of the political opposition. Nevertheless, Clinton did enjoy successes during his first term in office, particularly after economic health and prosperity returned by 1994. Indeed, he did an admirable job juggling foreign and domestic policy initiatives, which included welfare reform, deficit reduction, peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, free trade agreements, and the extraction of American troops from Somalia. In 1995 Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam, and he appointed Douglas “Pete” Peterson the first U.S. ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), in effect ending the Vietnam War as far as Americans were concerned. Clinton, however, suffered a major political setback in 1994 when Republicans swept the congressional elections and took majorities in both the House and Senate. A shrewd campaign run by Republicans had painted Clinton’s presidency as a return to big intrusive government. Clinton won reelection handily in 1996, running against Kansas senator Bob Dole who was almost old enough to be Clinton’s father. Clinton trumpeted the booming economy and his achievements in foreign policy. To beat the Republicans at their own game, he also

pledged a tough approach to crime and continued welfare reforms and deficit reduction initiatives. Clinton’s second term began amid much promise. The economy was the healthiest it had been in years, and in 1997 the president submitted to Congress the first balanced budget in almost 30 years. Thereafter, working with Republicans and Democrats, Clinton submitted balanced budgets that soon turned into huge budget surpluses by the end of his term. By 1998 unemployment was at an all-time low, and the stock market was soaring. In 1998 Clinton ordered air strikes against Iraq to coerce that nation to comply with United Nations (UN) weapons inspections. The next year he assembled a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military air campaign to stop the genocide being waged against Albanians in Kosovo by the Serbians. The campaign forced Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to end the carnage. Meanwhile, Clinton continued to bring the Israelis and Palestinians closer together in a series of conferences and retreats, which included much personal diplomacy on Clinton’s part. Although he failed to arrive at a final comprehensive peace in the Middle East, Clinton had done more to foster peace in the region than any president since Jimmy Carter, some 20 years before. Clinton’s second term was, however, soon marred by myriad legal difficulties and a personal scandal that nearly cost him the presidency. From 1998 to 2001 in fact, much of Clinton’s time and energy were spent fending off allegations of wrongdoing. In 1998 his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, resulted in embarrassing details made public of the president’s personal life, on which many Republicans were all too eager to capitalize. In a strictly partisan vote, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton for having lied under oath to a federal grand jury and for having obstructed justice in December 1999. The following month the U.S. Senate acquitted him. The scandal badly damaged Clinton’s effectiveness in office. When Clinton left office in January 2001 the United States had record budget surpluses, but there was still no peace in the Middle East. There were also signs that the economy was beginning to suffer. Many have posited that had Clinton not been involved in scandal, these problems may have been resolved or significantly reduced in scope. Clinton has enjoyed a high-profile ex-presidency. He helped his wife win election to the U.S. Senate, representing New York; wrote his memoirs; planned and established his presidential library in Little Rock; opened an office for himself in Harlem (New York City); and traveled extensively on speaking engagements and to raise huge sums of money for philanthropic causes, including AIDS and, with former president George H. W. Bush, tsunami relief in 2005–2006. Clinton also founded the William Clinton Foundation, an internationally based initiative that seeks to fund myriad humanitarian causes. He also received mixed reviews for his involvement in Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful run for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2008. BRENDA J. TAYLOR AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

Coffin, William Sloane, Jr. See also Bush, George Herbert Walker; Embargo, U.S. Trade; Fulbright, James William; Peterson, Douglas Brian; Selective Service; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present References Clinton, William J. My Life. New York: Knopf, 2004. Marannis, David. First in His Class. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Oakley, Meredith L. On the Make: The Rise of Bill Clinton. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1994.

Cluster Bombs See Bombs, Gravity

Coastal Surveillance Force See MARKET TIME, Operation

221

only outright colony. This was only a fiction, however, for all three were administrated from Paris. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Annam; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Minh Mang; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Tonkin; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Coffin, William Sloane, Jr. Birth Date: June 1, 1924 Death Date: April 12, 2006

Cochin China Cochin China (Cochinchina) was the southernmost of the three former French colonies that today constitute the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). The area occupied approximately 30,000 square miles of territory. The name “Cochinchina” originated from “Cauchinchina,” a title given to all of Vietnam by Portuguese explorers and traders in the 16th century. “Cauchin” was derived from “Giao Chi,” the Chinese characters for “Vietnam,” and “China” was added to distinguish it from Cochin, one of the Portuguese colonies in India. Later the French used the term “Cochinchine” to describe only the southern part of Vietnam in order to perpetuate the notion of a divided country. The French established their first trading post in Vietnam in 1680, but Vietnamese persecution of French Catholic missionaries provided an excuse for French military intervention there. Cochin China was the first to fall to French control, in 1862. The administrative center of the region was Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). The French believed that what was then a small fishing village would become an important commercial center once it was opened to Europeans. Even though Tonkin had larger numbers of Vietnamese Catholics, Cochin China was the initial focus of the French colonization efforts because it constituted the “rice bowl” of Vietnam and because it was the newest territory to be colonized by the Vietnamese and thus would be the easiest to conquer. (The Vietnamese did not secure the lower plain of the future Cochin China until the last decades of the 18th century.) With the creation of French Indochina in 1887, Annam and Tonkin were listed as protectorates, with Cochin China being the

Ordained minister, liberal clergyman, prominent anti–Vietnam War activist, and lifelong peace proponent. Born in New York City on June 1, 1924, to a prominent and well-to-do family, William Sloane Coffin Jr. served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He later studied at both Yale University, graduating in 1949, and Union Theological Seminary. His uncle Henry Sloane Coffin, one of the nation’s foremost clergymen, had been the president of that seminary. For a time William Coffin worked at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a specialist on the Soviet Union, but he left the agency after becoming disillusioned with its policies. Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1956, two years later Coffin became the chaplain of Yale University and held that position during the course of the Vietnam War. There he came under the influence of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who inculcated in Coffin the need for social activism. Active in the Civil Rights Movement, Coffin also came to hold a prominent position in the antiwar movement as both a moral leader and a political strategist. He was particularly involved in efforts to resist the military draft. In September 1967 Coffin cosigned with 319 other ministers, writers, and professors “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority.” Among other things, the document pledged aid to draft resisters. That same year he played an important role in a national Stop the Draft week. On October 20, 1967, he and others attempted to deliver more than 1,000 draft cards to the Justice Department in Washington, which refused them. He was also active in the organization Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. In 1968 Coffin was indicted for his role in the drafting of “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” along with other coconspirators. In June 1968 he was found guilty for having aided and abetted draft

222

Cogny, René

Presbyterian minister William Sloane Coffin Jr. was a prominent activist in the antiwar movement of the 1960s. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

evasion, but the verdict was overturned in 1970. Throughout the war Coffin emphasized the immorality of the conflict. Coffin resigned his position at Yale in 1975 to pursue interests in writing and lecturing. He also served several high-profile churches in New York City. Coffin continued to champion civil and human rights and became an outspoken proponent of gay rights. He also founded a significant antinuclear organization in the 1970s, and in 1987 he became the head of SANE/FREEZE, the largest U.S. antinuclear/peace organization. Coffin became emeritus president in the early 1990s and thereafter concentrated his work on speaking and advocating for peace and human rights issues. He also authored numerous books. After several years of failing health, Coffin died at his home in Strafford, Vermont, on April 12, 2006. MICHAEL G. O’LOUGHLIN See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam; Conscientious Objectors; Selective Service References Goldstein, Warren. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Mailer, Norman. Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History. New York: New American Library, 1968. “320 Vow to Help Draft Resisters.” New York Times, September 27, 1967.

Cogny, René Birth Date: April 25, 1904 Death Date: September 11, 1968 French Army general and commander of French forces in northern Vietnam during the final phase of the Indochina War, when the siege of Dien Bien Phu caught the world’s attention. René Cogny was born on April 25, 1904, in Saint-Valéry-en-Caux (Seine-Inférieure). He joined the French Army in 1925, was commissioned in 1929, and was promoted to captain of artillery in 1935. Taken prisoner by the Germans in World War II, he escaped from a prison camp in 1941 and joined the Resistance. Arrested in 1943, he was sent to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945. Cogny rose rapidly through a number of staff positions with General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Promoted to general in 1950, Cogny went to Indochina with his chief and served as director of de Lattre’s military cabinet there. Virtually alone among senior officers who had accompanied de Lattre to Indochina, Cogny stayed on there after de Lattre’s departure. He then commanded a division in northern Vietnam and in May 1953 became commander of ground forces in northern Vietnam. After advocating the occupation of Dien Bien Phu as a means of controlling Viet Minh movements threatening Laos, Cogny oversaw the hasty abandonment of Lai Chau in December 1953, which

Colby, William Egan led to the loss of most of the groupements de commandos mixtes aéroportés (airborne battle groups) based there. They were left to their own devices, remaining on the sidelines as the Viet Minh encircled the camp at Dien Bien Phu in preparation for the climactic battle of the war. Cogny’s orders to Colonel Christian M. de Castries were criticized afterward as indecisive, but this was largely because General Henri Navarre denied Cogny the use of the forces that would have been necessary to mount an operation to save the camp. Cogny was reduced to coordinating aerial resupply from his headquarters in Hanoi. After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, Cogny gave a good account of himself in waging a punishing campaign against the Viet Minh that succeeded in preserving French control of the Hanoi-Haiphong axis. By then, however, the fate of Indochina was being decided in the armistice negotiations at Geneva. After the armistice and partition of Vietnam, Cogny served briefly as French delegate general for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) before being posted to Africa, where he continued to hold commands until being forced to retire on April 25, 1964, because of his age. He died in the crash of an Air France Caravelle airliner in the Mediterranean on September 11, 1968. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; France, Army, 1946–1954; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Indochina War; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis

223

agents into Europe and assisting resistance forces during World War II, led to a 33-year intelligence career. In 1947 Colby earned a law degree from Columbia University, and in 1950 he joined the CIA. In 1959 he became CIA station chief in Saigon. During the next three years Colby and other CIA officials experimented with various forms of security and rural development programs for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). From these endeavors the Citizens’ (later Civilian) Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs), the Mountain Scout Program, and the Strategic Hamlet Project emerged in 1961. In 1962 Colby became chief of the CIA’s Far East Division, a position he held until 1968. This new appointment forced him to concentrate not only on Southeast Asia, including Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, but also on China and other areas, such as the Philippines. In this new position he stressed pacification as the key to overcoming Communist aggression in Vietnam. In 1965 CIA analysts established the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) to measure certain factors in the villages in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). These elements contributed to identifying the progress of pacification in the countryside. Despite this, an aggressive pacification strategy did not emerge until 1968. In 1968 Colby returned to Vietnam and, with ambassadorial rank, succeeded Robert Komer as deputy to the commander of MACV for Civil Operations and Revolutionary (later changed to Rural) Development Support (CORDS). While serving in this post, Colby oversaw

References Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

Colby, William Egan Birth Date: January 4, 1920 Death Date: April 27, 1996 U.S. Army officer; ambassador; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Saigon; deputy to the commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV); and director of the CIA (1973–1976). Born on January 4, 1920, in St. Paul, Minnesota, William Egan Colby graduated from Princeton University in 1940. He obtained a commission in the U.S. Army and in 1943 began working with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Colby’s involvement with this organization, which included parachuting

William Colby, shown here in 1973, was director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during 1973–1976. Earlier, Colby had headed Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), the umbrella organization for U.S. pacification efforts in the Republic of Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

224

Collins, Joseph Lawton

the Accelerated Pacification Campaign. Initiated in November 1968, the campaign focused on enhanced security and development within South Vietnam’s villages and included such components as the Phoenix Program and the People’s Self-Defense Force. From 1969 to 1970 planning for pacification and development shifted from the Americans to the South Vietnamese in accordance with the Richard M. Nixon administration’s policy of Vietnamization. Then in 1971 the program shifted to a more self-oriented role for the villages of South Vietnam. A year later Colby returned to Washington, D.C., to become the executive director of the CIA and then served as CIA director from May 1973 until his retirement in November 1976. Colby assumed leadership of the CIA during the worst crisis in its history, triggered in part by that agency’s assistance of former agent E. Howard Hunt in his illegal break-ins, including that at the Watergate complex in June 1972. Colby’s predecessor, James R. Schlesinger, had ordered the compilation of a list of CIA actions that might have violated its charter. Colby inherited that list and revealed to Congress the agency’s involvement in illegal domestic surveillance programs, plots to kill foreign leaders and overthrow governments, use of humans as guinea pigs in mind-control experiments, and other violations of its charter. He believed that revealing to Congress the agency’s unsavory side helped to save it from congressional abolition. This action earned Colby admiration from many in Congress and the public but also earned him the enmity of many Cold War warriors, which helped bring an end to his tenure as director in 1976. In retirement Colby maintained that the United States and South Vietnam might have won the war if only they had fought the CIA’s kind of war and countered Communist guerrilla tactics. In his 1989 memoir he argued that the Americans had employed incorrect strategy and tactics. He claimed that in the early 1970s Vietnamization was succeeding and pacification was building the base for a South Vietnamese victory, culminating in the defeat of the 1972 Communist offensive, with U.S. air and logistical support but no ground assistance. Colby believed that this chance for victory was thrown away when the United States sharply reduced its military and logistical support and then “sold out” the South Vietnamese government during negotiations in Paris. The final straw came when Congress dramatically cut aid to South Vietnam, making inevitable the 1975 Communist victory. Colby also spoke out against the nuclear arms race, and in 1992 he spoke out in favor of cutting the defense budget and spending the money on social programs. Colby drowned in a canoeing accident off Rock Park, Maryland, on April 27, 1996. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also Air America; Central Intelligence Agency; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Hamlet Evaluation System; Komer, Robert W.; Pacification; Phoenix Program; Psychological Warfare Operations; Schlesinger, James Rodney; Strategic Hamlet Program; Taylor-McNamara Report; Watergate Scandal

References Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1990. Colby, William. Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. Colby, William, with James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989.

Collins, Joseph Lawton Birth Date: May 1, 1896 Death Date: September 12, 1987 U.S. Army general and special representative of President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent to Vietnam in 1954 to assess the situation following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords and to determine the size and scope of future U.S. assistance. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 1, 1896, Joseph Lawton Collins graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1917 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He rose steadily through the ranks and commanded a division and a corps in World War II. In 1947 he became deputy chief of staff of the U.S. Army under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Promoted to full general in January 1948, Collins became chief of staff of the U.S. Army in 1949, a post he held until 1953. Collins was intimately involved in the Korean War and was the first commander to recommend that U.S. ground troops be sent to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) to repel the June 25, 1950, invasion by forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). By 1953 Collins had grown sufficiently weary of the costly and stalemated Korean War to support the use of nuclear weapons to force the Communists back to the negotiating table. His routinely scheduled retirement as chief of staff in August 1953 occurred only weeks after the July armistice agreement was signed. Collins is credited with fully integrating U.S. Army units during the Korean War, per President Harry S. Truman’s 1948 executive order calling for the racial integration of American armed forces. When sending Collins to Vietnam in November 1954, President Eisenhower gave him the rank of ambassador and, in his letter of introduction, “broad authority to direct, utilize and control all agencies and resources of the U.S. government with respect to Vietnam.” Upon his arrival in Saigon, Collins found the government under challenge from the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects and from the Binh Xuyen gangsters, and there was also a threatened coup by General Nguyen Van Hinh, chief of staff of the armed forces of southern Vietnam. After Collins reached agreement with the French authorities in Vietnam, combined French and U.S. pressure induced General Hinh to go to France for “consultations” with State of Vietnam titular head of state Bao Dai. Although Collins personally agreed with the French that Ngo Dinh

COMMANDO FLASH, Operation

225

U.S. Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins (left) and French high commissioner for Indochina, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (right) in Hanoi, October 1951. Later, as ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam, Collins believed that President Ngo Dinh Diem was incapable of leading his country. (National Archives)

Diem was not capable of leading the State of Vietnam, his instructions were to support the Diem government by helping it establish a military training program and agrarian reforms, which he did. The observations and reports that Collins relayed to Washington solidified the American commitment in Vietnam and served as a blueprint for U.S. policy there until the early 1960s. Collins retired from the army in March 1956 at four-star rank and worked for the pharmaceutical firm of Chas. Pfizer & Co. from 1957 to 1969. He died in Washington, D.C., on September 12, 1987. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Bao Dai; Binh Xuyen; Cao Dai; Dulles, John Foster; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Ély, Paul Henri Romuald; Hoa Hao; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Van Hinh References Collins, General J. Lawton. Lightning Joe: An Autobiography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Combined Action Platoons See Marine Combined Action Platoons

COMMANDO FLASH,

Operation

Start Date: December 29, 1971 End Date: February 8, 1972 Military operation carried out by U.S. forces to prevent a potential invasion of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) by forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In late 1971 U.S. reconnaissance flights identified a large buildup of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) supplies along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and an increase in the number of PAVN troops entering South Vietnam along the Ho Chi Mint Trail infiltration network. Concerned that the Communists might be planning a major offensive against South Vietnam as his Vietnamization plan was unfolding, President Richard M. Nixon decided to take steps to prevent this from occurring.

226

COMMANDO HUNT, Operation

In early November 1971 Nixon decided to reverse the drawdown of U.S. air forces in Vietnam to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) ground forces, which were still reeling from the bloodbath of Operation LAM SON 719 into Laos during the summer of 1971. The United States also initiated Operation PROUD DEEP ALPHA on December 26, 1971. The largest U.S. bombing campaign since the end of Operation ROLLING THUNDER in November 1968, PROUD DEEP ALPHA extended for five days and was directed against PAVN supply and troop concentrations in southern North Vietnam. Coincidentally, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces planners developed Operation Plan C-101 designed to augment the in-theater Seventh Air Force F-4 Phantom fighter force. In one of many redeployment operations undertaken in late 1971 and early 1972, Operation COMMANDO FLASH sent F-4 fighter jet aircraft from the Philippines to Thailand. COMMANDO FLASH began on December 29, 1971, when 6 F-4s flew from Clark Air Base in the Philippines and relocated to Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. On February 8, 1972, 12 additional aircraft departed Clark Air Base, with 6 going to Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base and 6 to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base. Even as the F-4s were arriving in Thailand, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces developed a second plan known as Operation Plan C-103 or Operation COMMANDO FLY. It began on April 3, 1972, only 5 days after the PAVN’s Easter Offensive began. Eight F-4s deployed to Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base and to Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam. It soon became clear that the magnitude of the invasion would require more fighter aircraft from the United States. This led to the redeployment of 144 additional F-4s and 12 F-105s during Operation CONSTANT GUARD. These aircraft were employed during Operation LINEBACKER I (May–October 1972) to blunt the Easter Offensive. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Demilitarized Zone; Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Trail; LAM SON 719, Operation; LINEBACKER I, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation References Mark, Eduard. Aerial Interdiction: Air Power and Land Battle in Three American Wars. Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1994. Nicholson, Capt. Charles A. The USAF Response to the Spring 1972 NVN Offensive: Situation and Redeployment (Project CHECO Report). Saigon: 7AF DOAC, 1972. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1991.

COMMANDO HUNT,

Operation

Start Date: November 15, 1968 End Date: April 10, 1972 A series of aerial interdiction campaigns aimed at the Ho Chi Minh Trail logistical corridor in southeastern Laos. Each campaign lasted approximately six months, covering the period of either

a dry or a wet season as dictated by the monsoonal climate. The objectives of Operation COMMANDO HUNT were twofold: first to reduce the flow of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops and supplies from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Cambodia, and second to destroy trucks, supply caches, storage bases, the trail support structure, and even the topography of the area around the trail. Of the nearly 3 million tons of bombs that fell on Laos from 1962 to 1973, approximately 95 percent were dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Laos became the third most-bombed country in the history of warfare. The U.S. Air Force conducted most of these attacks, although U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and Royal Laotian Air Force planes also participated. During the day, jet fighters and Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses attacked suspected truck parks and storage areas. Bombs fell on the passes leading from North Vietnam into Laos in an attempt to cause landslides. Into 1969 occasional Operation RANCH HAND jungle-defoliation missions were also flown. At night, when the bulk of the traffic moved on the trail, U.S. Air Force Lockheed AC-130 Spectre and Fairchild AC-119 Shadow gunships, specially modified Martin B-57G Canberras, and a variety of other aircraft attacked trucks. Meanwhile, up to 30 B-52 sorties a day were flown to bomb predetermined interdiction boxes located around Tchepone, a key transshipment point leading into South Vietnam, and in each of the four passes leading from North Vietnam into Laos. Although the operation was intensive and sophisticated, COMMANDO HUNT failed for two reasons. First, PAVN forces controlled the tempo of the war in South Vietnam, and their consumption of supplies was easily regulated according to their ability to receive those supplies. Second, while the war was becoming increasingly conventional, the Ho Chi Minh Trail possessed no easily spotted and targeted railroad marshaling yards or difficult-to-repair steel and concrete bridges. The trail consisted of some 200 miles of paved roads and 6,000 miles of dirt roads, pathways, and waterways down which supplies could move. The truck count, a statistical compilation of trucks destroyed or damaged, was the measure of success. But statistics became meaningless estimates based on faulty assumptions for determining whether or not a truck had been destroyed. For instance, during COMMANDO HUNT V (October 1970–April 1971), the U.S. Air Force claimed 16,266 vehicles destroyed and 4,700 damaged. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) countered that according to its estimates, there were only 10,000 trucks in all of North Vietnam and Laos. Official Vietnamese figures show that in fact COMMANDO HUNT V destroyed a total of 2,120 Vietnamese vehicles, a little more than 50 percent of all Vietnamese vehicles operating along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during this period. The American figures for trucks destroyed, although adjusted, were never rectified because COMMANDO HUNT became an exercise in the compilation of statistics, which, given the managerial ethos of the U.S. Air Force at that time, became an end unto themselves.

Concerned Officers Movement On April 20, 1972, as the North Vietnamese Spring (Easter) Offensive got under way and 14 PAVN divisions streamed into South Vietnam, COMMANDO HUNT VII came to an end, and the operation was canceled. Concerted bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail continued, however, until February 1973. According to Vietnamese figures, COMMANDO HUNT VII was the most successful of all the bombing campaigns against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Vietnamese records reveal that U.S. forces destroyed almost 60 percent of all Vietnamese trucks operating along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during this time period (3,373 out of a total force of 5,756 trucks). EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Laos; RANCH HAND, Operation; STEEL TIGER, Operation; TIGER HOUND, Operation References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Gibson, James William. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Van Tai Quan Su Chien Luoc Tren Duong Ho Chi Minh Trong Khang Chien Chong My [Strategic Military Transportation on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Resistance War against the Americans]. Hanoi: People’s Army of Vietnam, General Department of Rear Services, 1988. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1991.

Concerned Officers Movement An organization of junior U.S. military officers who were opposed to the Vietnam War. In September 1970 following the Labor Day weekend (September 4–7) protest sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, popularly known as Operation RAW (“Rapid American Withdrawal”), 28 naval officers held a press conference on September 28 announcing the creation of the Concerned Officers Movement (COM). The organization tied its opposition to the Vietnam War with domestic social reconstruction. In a prepared statement, the young officers not only decried the military policies that had turned an internal struggle into a nationdestroying bloodbath but also called for American leaders to shift funds away from military priorities to areas such as poverty mitigation, education, and the environment. No one individual assumed leadership of COM. It was instead a collective effort on the part of the officers to act as one in their criticisms of the war. The movement was short-lived for two principal reasons. First, its appearance coincided with a drawdown in American military operations in Vietnam. Second, many of the junior officers were discharged or forced to resign their commissions. However, during its brief tenure the COM was able to estab-

227

lish close to 28 locals throughout all the military branches and at its peak had approximately 3,000 members, including many supporters from the enlisted ranks. COM carried out antiwar actions in various ways. It published a newsletter, Common Sense, and distributed it to junior officers throughout the armed services. COM also paid for advertisements in local newspapers, calling for an immediate withdrawal of American combat forces from Vietnam. Junior officers in COM’s local chapter at the Norfolk Naval Base, for example, paid for a local billboard advertisement outside the installation that read “Peace Now.” By 1971 COM’s actions became bolder. The revelations associated with Lieutenant William Calley and the My Lai Massacre of 1968 increased its opposition to the war. That same year a series of written and public protests took place. Some 29 members of COM from Fort Bragg and Polk Air Force Base in North Carolina along with 38 members from Fort Knox, Kentucky, publicly signed antiwar statements. On the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Hancock, 20 officers demanded an open discussion of the war, and 27 others signed a letter addressed to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird demanding an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. On April 23, 1971, junior officers organized a memorial service at Washington’s National Cathedral. The purpose of the memorial was to honor all the war dead; more than 250 officers in uniform attended the service. Those who attended ignored the higher brass’s warning that it considered such action a political demonstration. A letter signed by 40 COM members was also sent directly to President Richard M. Nixon urging him to end the war immediately. One local chapter, Concerned Military, was particularly active as early as the summer and autumn of 1970. In San Diego, California, the Concerned Military chapter joined with other antiwar protestors in an effort to mobilize opposition to the departure of the carrier Constellation, then bound for Vietnam. Working with veteran antiwar activists, this local chapter also helped organize a local referendum on whether the ship should set sail. This action led to other “Stop Our Ship” (SOS) campaigns in a wider effort to prevent naval vessels from heading to Southeast Asia. A strong resistance movement within the Seventh Fleet was led by COM and its local chapter. Even the Pentagon had a local COM chapter by 1971. When officials discovered that it had been organized by a U.S. Navy physician, he was given a discharge in less than 48 hours. COM did not capture the headlines as dramatically as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War had done in the final years before the war ended. Most of COM’s actions took place in the form of letter writing and petitions. Some of COM’s public statements were reflective of more popular views espoused by war resisters who linked peace with domestic social and economic reform. Nevertheless, the creation of COM symbolized an important political shift among junior officers in the early 1970s and growing concerns about the duration and impact of the Vietnam War upon the military and American society at large. CHARLES FRANCIS HOWLETT

228

“Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Laird, Melvin Robert; My Lai Massacre; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Vietnam Veterans Against the War References Anderson, Terry. “The GI Movement and Response from the Brass.” In Give Peace a Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, edited by Melvin Small and William D. Hoover, 93–115. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992. Cortright, David. Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance during the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Hauser, William L. America’s Army in Crisis: A Study in Civil-Military Relations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Moser, Richard. The New Winter Soldiers: GI and Veteran Dissent during the Vietnam Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Nicosia, Gerald. Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement. New York: Carroll and Graff, 2004. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

“Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report Report commissioned in the wake of public outrage over the March 16, 1968, My Lai Massacre that explored the question of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland’s personal culpability for war crimes. In early 1970 Columbia University law professor Telford Taylor, who had been the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, published Nuremberg and Vietnam in which he argued that General Westmoreland was culpable for war crimes committed at My Lai and would have been held responsible had World War II–era standards been in effect. Taylor lent a note of academic respectability to the cacophony of sometimes sensational public criticism of the U.S. Army’s handling of the My Lai Massacre, which included the perceived coverup and questionable dismissal of charges by Lieutenant General Jonathan O. Seaman, commander of First Army and the deciding officer in the cases of Major General Samuel W. Koster and 13 other officers involved in the failure to investigate or in covering up the My Lai Massacre. Under increasing public pressure and encouraged by General Westmoreland, who wanted to clear his name, the U.S. Army commissioned a task force to prepare an investigative report of the allegations against him. In May 1971 after an extensive 14-week investigation, the task force produced a report titled “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” (also known as the COWIN Report). The task force had been instructed to examine how effectively the rules of engagement had been carried out, whether violations had occurred, if those violations had been properly reported, and if so whether appropriate

disciplinary measures had been taken. The committee investigated whether the need to adhere strictly to the rules of engagement had been communicated to the troops involved at My Lai or if they had been communicated with the tacit understanding that they were merely “window dressing.” If the latter was true, it was those at the top of the chain of command who should have been held culpable rather than individuals such as Lieutenant William Calley, who had previously been found guilty of the murder of 25 people at My Lai. Westmoreland’s critics, including Professor Taylor, compared his situation to that of convicted Japanese general Yamashita Tomoyuki during World War II, who had denied knowledge of war crimes committed by troops under his command. The COWIN Report did not accept this comparison and exonerated General Westmoreland. The report concluded that the undeniable crimes against Vietnamese civilians had been investigated and prosecuted appropriately. The fact that the charges against many of those originally implicated had been dropped by highranking military officers held no sway with the task force. The report concluded that Westmoreland had in fact outlined clear and appropriate procedures for the proper treatment of civilians and had sufficiently communicated these guidelines to his immediate subordinates. In conclusion, the task force determined that there was no basis whatsoever for holding General Westmoreland responsible for war crimes committed by the troops. JOHN M. BARCUS See also Calley, William Laws, Jr.; Koster, Samuel William, Sr.; My Lai Massacre; Seaman, Jonathan O.; Westmoreland, William Childs References Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Taylor, Telford. Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970. Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994.

Conein, Lucien Emile Birth Date: November 29, 1919 Death Date: June 3, 1998 Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer in Vietnam. Lucien Emile Conein was born in Paris, France, on November 29, 1919. His widowed mother sent him alone at age five to live in Kansas City, Missouri, with his aunt, who had married a U.S. World War I veteran. In 1939 Conein returned to France and enlisted in the 13th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion and served with it in Africa and Europe. In 1940 when his unit withdrew from Narvik, Norway, and returned to Africa

Confucianism following the French surrender to Germany, Conein had to decide whether to continue in the legion and serve the Nazi-sponsored French Vichy government or join Free French Forces under General Charles de Gaulle. Happy with neither option, Conein used the existing confusion to make his way back to the United States by way of Dakar and Martinique. Conein joined the U.S. Army in September 1941. After basic training and jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia, he attended Officer’s Candidate School. He received his commission as a second lieutenant in July 1943. Recruited by the OSS, he soon parachuted into France, where he worked with the Resistance until France was liberated by advancing Allied armies. When the fighting in Europe ended in May 1945, he was sent to China. After further training and briefing, Conein parachuted into northern Vietnam to provide aid and advice to French troops there who were still fighting against the Japanese. When Japan surrendered in August 1945 Conein made his way to Hanoi, where he met Ho Chi Minh and other senior Viet Minh leaders. When the OSS was abolished at the end of the war, Conein served on different classified assignments both in Europe and in Southeast Asia. Between 1954 and 1956 he was back in Vietnam as a vital part of Colonel Edward Lansdale’s Military Mission team, working on sabotage and destabilization activities north of the 17th Parallel. Returning to the United States, Conein joined the Special Forces but was still occasionally employed by the CIA. He was involved in training Cuban Brigade 2506 for its invasion, which failed, at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. Conein retired from the U.S. Army in 1961. The next year he was called back by the CIA, given the cover of an army lieutenant colonel, and sent to Saigon, ostensibly assigned to the Interior Ministry. His real mission was to maintain CIA contacts with senior Vietnamese generals, many of whom he had known in northern Vietnam in 1945 when they were junior officers. Conein was one of the few Americans they were willing to trust. Operating under the code names Lulu or Black Luigi, he served as liaison between Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and such Vietnamese generals as Tran Van Don and Duong Van Minh at the time of the November 1963 coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Conein let the generals know that America would not look unfavorably on a change in their government. In the autumn of 1964 almost a year after the coup, Conein departed Vietnam. He left the CIA in 1968. He later joined the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as a senior intelligence officer. He retired from government service in the early 1970s to McLean, Virginia, and died in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 3, 1998. CECIL B. CURREY See also Central Intelligence Agency; Duong Van Minh; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Office of Strategic Services; Richardson, John Hammond; Tran Van Don

229

References Ahern, Thomas L., Jr. CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998; declassified 2009. Grant, Zalin. Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1991. Prados, John. Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through Iranscam. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

Confucianism Confucianism (in Vietnamese, Khong Giao) is not so much a religion as a way of life. Since being founded in China by the disciples of Confucius (551–449 BCE) some 2,500 years ago, Confucianism has had a pervasive influence on China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam. In Vietnam the traditional social structure was largely based on the Confucian model, which binds subject to ruler, son to father, wife to husband, younger brother to older brother, and friend to friend. Confucius believed that the primary goal of education was to train noblemen so that they could serve the public good as retainers of the emperor. Because Confucius supported the rights of the ruler over his subjects, Confucianism was later used in the service of autocratic governments to justify strong central states. Thus, as happened in China, Vietnam’s traditional government was extremely hierarchical, with a large class of mandarin bureaucrats trained in the Confucian classics. These bureaucrats acted as emissaries of the emperor throughout the country, all the way down to the village level. Confucian literature consists of Five Canonical Books and Four Books. The Five Canonical Books are the Book of Rites, the Book of Change, the Book of History, the Book of Poetry, and the Book of Spring and Autumn Annals (Kinh Le, Kinh Dich, Kinh Thu, Kinh Thi, and Kinh Xuan Thu). The Four Books are the Analects, the Golden Mean, the Great Learning, and the Book of Mencius (Luan Ngu, Trung Dung, Dai Hoc, Manh Tu). The Book of Change in particular promotes a belief in the cyclical movement of history. This is called the Theory of Cyclical Change, which means that the movement of the universe is cyclic. At the end of its revolution, beginning and end are the same (Tian di xun huan zhong er h shi, Thien Dia tuan hoan chung nhi phuc thuy). In the sense that history is thought to move forward by stages, this aspect of Confucianism was not radically different from the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism. In addition, even though oriental Marxists have generally accused Confucianism of supporting feudalism and thus have sought to destroy it, many elements of Confucianism, such as unquestioned loyalty to the ruler and the state, have been successfully incorporated into the revolutionary philosophy of numerous Communist regimes. NGUYEN VAN THO

230

Conscientious Objectors

Statue of Confucius in the Temple of Confucius in Beijing, China. Confucius was the most influential thinker in Chinese history. His philosophy dominated China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam. In Vietnam, the traditional social structure was largely based on the Confucian model. (Sofiaworld/Dreamstime.com) See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References The I Ching, or Book of Changes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. Legge, James. The Chinese Classics. 5 vols. London: H. Frowde, 1861–1876. Legge, James. Four Books of the Chinese Classics. 8 vols. Tokyo: Z. P. Maruya, 1885.

Conscientious Objectors U.S. classification for active-duty or draft-eligible individuals opposed to war or combatant participation in war on certain moral or religious grounds. Throughout American history potential soldiers have sought, often without success, to avoid military service on grounds of conscientious objection. During World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, men who opposed war

because of religious training or deeply held beliefs were allowed to perform nonmilitary service. This status, normally restricted to members of historically pacifist groups such as Mennonites, Quakers, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, was not open to all persons who sought exemption on matters of conscience. Recognized conscientious objectors (COs) endured ridicule, isolation, and, frequently, hard labor, but those without official sanction faced harsh punishments, including prison terms. Throughout most of the 20th century, COs represented a very small percentage of service-eligible and active-duty men. Resistance to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, however, significantly changed the aspect of conscientious objection. As U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia deepened in the early 1960s, more than 20 million draft-eligible young Americans faced the increasing possibility of being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Many of these sought to avoid military service by taking advantage of the numerous deferment and exemption programs available. Conscientious objection also became a popular avenue of draft avoidance.

Conscientious Objectors Existing rules limited the scope of conscientious objection. Applicants had to present convincing pacifist credentials (such as letters from clergy) and declare opposition to all war. Selective aversion, such as moral opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, did not justify eligibility. Applicants were also subject to inconsistent review from local draft boards. A study of three boards in one southern city found that one board granted CO exemptions to almost every applicant, another granted no CO exemptions, and one reviewed the merits of each case. Growing opposition to the draft brought challenges to traditional interpretations of conscientious objection. A barrage of lawsuits and court decisions continually expanded the criteria. The 1965 case United States v. Seeger held that neither church affiliation nor belief in God was required for CO status: a “sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by God” would suffice if the applicant met all other requirements. This left with draft boards the ill-defined task of establishing sincerity. Pacifist Muslims tested the law on grounds that they could fight only if called to do so by Allah. Since they could not claim opposition to all wars, most were denied CO exemptions, and consequently many Muslims went to prison for refusing military service.

231

Selective Service System (SSS) classifications listed three CO categories: I-A-O: CO available for noncombatant military service only. I-O: CO available for civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest. I-W: CO performing civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest. By far, I-O status proved the most sought after. Between 1960 and 1973, more than 170,000 men received I-O status, which became I-W upon entering alternative service. Almost 100,000 men accepted two years of alternative service as hospital orderlies or in other low-paying public-service positions. The monitoring of I-W COs usually fell to overburdened local draft boards, which exercised little supervision. More than 70,000 I-O COs never completed alternative service, a third of whom were later excused because of high lottery numbers. Of the remaining 40,000 who faced prosecution, only 1,200 were ever convicted. COs granted I-A-O status were included with I-As (available for military service) in the group most likely to be drafted. These COs were just as likely to be sent to Vietnam as any draftee. I-A-Os were assigned noncombatant duties (not required to carry or fire

Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali has a “no comment” as he is confronted by newsmen leaving the Federal Building in Houston during a court recess on June 19, 1967. Ali was on trial, charged with refusing induction into the U.S. Army. (AP/Wide World Photos)

232

Con Son Island Prison

weapons) as cooks, orderlies, and drivers. Many of these were trained as medics, and while most of these worked in field hospitals and rear-area medical facilities, others went into combat units. Although no accurate statistics exist, COs did see combat, and a number were killed or wounded in action. CO status was not restricted to potential draftees. Active-duty personnel could also apply. Between 1965 and 1973, almost 20,000 active-duty personnel from all branches of service applied for discharges or noncombatant assignments as COs. Active-duty applicants confronted a more rigorous examination process. Potential COs applied through company or base commanders and had to be interviewed by an officer, a chaplain, and a psychiatrist. A unanimous finding was required in order to receive CO status. Many active-duty COs received discharges, but others, as with I-A-O inductees, worked in numerous noncombatant capacities and often saw hazardous duty as combat medics. Between 1966 and 1969 the military granted fewer than 20 percent of all CO applications processed, but by 1975 almost all were being confirmed. Disapproved CO applicants were required to return to duty without any restrictions. Those who refused faced court-martial and imprisonment. DAVID COFFEY See also African Americans in the U.S. Military; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Project 100,000; Selective Service; United States v. Seeger References Baskir Lawrence M., and William A. Strauss. Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: 1978. Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Gioglio, Gerald R. Days of Decision: An Oral History of Conscientious Objectors in the Military during the Vietnam War. Trenton, NJ: Broken Rifle, 1989.

Conscription See Selective Service

Con Son Island Prison Commonly referred to as the “Devil’s Island of Southeast Asia,” Con Son Island Prison, begun by French colonial authorities in 1862 to incarcerate political prisoners, was used by the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to house prisoners during the Vietnam War. The penal colony was located on Con Son Island, the largest of the 16 islands and islets in the Con Dao archipelago located in the South China Sea. Measuring 13 miles long and 5 miles wide, the heavily wooded island of Con Son is 60 miles off the coast of the Ca Mau Peninsula. Eventually

growing to include 11 distinct prison camps, the largest and most notorious prison camp established on the island was the Phu Hai prison complex. During the 1930s and 1940s the French imprisoned hundreds of Vietnamese nationalists, including Pham Van Dong and Le Duc Tho, on the island. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, the French turned over control of the facility to the South Vietnamese government. Between 1954 to 1975 an estimated 20,000 prisoners died at the Con Son Island Prison, many of them from torture and abuse. Allegations of torture and human rights violations prompted the July 1970 visit to the prison by Democratic Party congressmen Augustus Hawkins from California and William Anderson from Tennessee. Accompanying the representatives were congressional aide Tom Harkin, translator and human rights advocate Don Luce, and director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Public Safety Frank Walton. During the short plane trip from Saigon to Con Son Island, Walton described the prison as a well-run humane facility that did not engage in human rights violations. During its tour of the prison complex, however, the congressional delegation, armed with information (including a detailed map) provided by a former prisoner, located the barracks housing the infamous “tiger cages.” Initially constructed by the French in 1939 and modeled after similar holding cells on Devil’s Island in French Guiana, the 120 tiger cages were five-by-nine-foot cement pits with metal bars serving as the ceiling. At the time the Con Son Island Prison was the largest South Vietnamese prison for noncombatants, housing more than 9,000 prisoners, all with no legal rights. The tiger cages, which usually held five men shackled to the floor, were used to torture the most recalcitrant prisoners. Guards would frequently douse the prisoners with buckets of lime. After months of internment, prisoners lost the use of their legs and frequently developed tuberculosis. Photos taken by Harkin were published in the July 17, 1970, issue of Life magazine. The graphic brutality depicted in the photos helped convince scores of Americans that supporting the South Vietnamese government was unethical and undemocratic. The revelation of human rights abuses strengthened the antiwar movement in the United States, although some critics of the antiwar movement argued that the photos were merely journalistic propaganda that attempted to undermine the war effort. Following the reunification of Vietnam in 1975, the Vietnamese government closed the penal colony on Con Son. The Vietnamese government subsequently incorporated much of the island into the Con Dao National Park. Today tourists who visit the pristine beaches of Con Son are afforded the opportunity to visit the Con Son Island Prison and the adjacent Hang Doung Cemetery, where the victims of the penal colony are interred. MICHAEL R. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Le Duc Tho; Pham Van Dong; Tiger Cages; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

CONSTANT GUARD, Operation

233

Prisoners being held in so-called “tiger cages” at the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) prison on Con Son Island on July 7, 1950. Although RVN and U.S. officials claimed the prisoners were treated humanely, a fact-finding mission composed partly of U.S. congressmen reported shocking conditions there. (Bettmann/Corbis) References Bordenkircher, D. E., and S. A. Bordenkircher. Tiger Cage: An Untold Story. Morristown, TN: Abby Publishing, 1998. Brown, Holmes, and Don Luce. Hostages of War: Saigon’s Political Prisoners. Washington, DC: Indochina Mobile Education Project, 1973. Zinoman, Peter. The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

CONSTANT GUARD,

Operation

Start Date: April 1, 1972 End Date: May 13, 1972 One of several operations designed to redeploy U.S. aircraft to Southeast Asia in 1972 initially to prevent an invasion by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and later in response to the Easter Offensive by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) that began on March 30, 1972. Operation CONSTANT GUARD consisted of four phases. CONSTANT GUARD I–III was the buildup of Tactical Air Command (TAC) fighters and

fighter-bombers in response to the PAVN invasion of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), while CONSTANT GUARD IV was designed to augment tactical airlift capabilities in Southeast Asia. On April 1, 1972, TAC initiated CONSTANT GUARD I, sending 36 F-4E Phantom fighters from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, to Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, and 4 EB-66s equipped with electronic warfare (EW) systems from Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, to Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base. Also dispatched to Korat were 12 F-105G Thunderchiefs from Seymour Johnson Air Base. The F-105s were equipped with Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) systems designed to disable enemy surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) by firing antiradiation missiles at the radars guiding them. By April 15, 1972, the first deployment was complete. CONSTANT GUARD II began the next day with the deployment of two squadrons of 18 F-4s, one from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and the other from Homestead Air Force Base, Florida. Both were restationed at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base. The final deployment of fighters began on May 3, 1972, when Operation CONSTANT GUARD III sent 72 F-4s from Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, to the reopened Takhli Royal Thai Air Force

234

Containment Policy

Base, which had been closed in 1970 as part of President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnamization drawdown program. This redeployment ended on May 13, 1972. In total, the U.S. Air Force deployed 144 F-4s and 12 F-105s, first to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and then to various bases in Thailand. These aircraft played a key role in Operation LINEBACKER I during May 9–October 23, 1972, which more than anything else halted the PAVN invasion of South Vietnam. During CONSTANT GUARD III, the 49th Fighter Wing sent 2,600 personnel to reopen Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in support of the F-4s. Even though the personnel of the 49th Fighter Wing arrived without any of their basic equipment and supplies, their aircraft flew 21,000 combat hours without the loss of a single plane. The 49th Fighter Wing subsequently received the Outstanding Unit Award with Combat “V” Device. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Easter Offensive; LINEBACKER I, Operation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; United States Air Force References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Morocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Nicholson, Capt. Charles A. The USAF Response to the Spring 1972 NVN Offensive: Situation and Redeployment (Project CHECO Report). Saigon: 7AF DOAC, 1972.

Containment Policy Strategic policy by which the U.S. government endeavored to limit the expansion of communism during the Cold War. The doctrine of containment originated in the antagonism that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II and in the immediate postwar period. The doctrine gained potency from the historical lessons that American policy makers learned from the prewar era—that appeasement of aggression merely fueled increasingly more strident and unreasonable demands from dictators—and from the domino theory, the belief that the fall of one country to communism would lead to a chain reaction in neighboring nations. George F. Kennan, a career foreign service officer stationed in Moscow from July 1944 to April 1946, was the architect of containment. On February 22, 1946, he sent the State Department what has since been called the Long Telegram, an 8,000-word analysis of Soviet actions and ideology asserting that the Soviet Union was driven by a traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity and hostility blended with the rhetoric of messianic Marxism. The Soviet Union, Kennan said, represented a political force fanatically

committed to the destruction of capitalist society. The Long Telegram received a positive reception in Washington and was distributed to officials, diplomats, and the military. The next year Kennan was selected to head the newly created State Department Policy Planning Staff, an exclusive study and reporting group charged with advising the secretary of state on foreign policy. Kennan’s containment doctrine was cogently expressed in his essay “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” published under the pseudonym “Mr. X” (although his authorship was soon revealed) in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs. In the article, Kennan suggested “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” The Soviets, he believed, would eventually mellow or break up, but in the meantime the United States should “confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce, at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.” Kennan’s views did not go unchallenged. Journalist Walter Lippmann wrote 12 critiques of the article that were later published as the book The Cold War. Kennan himself acknowledged deficiencies in the article, including the failure to show clearly that he meant “political containment of a political threat” rather than containment by military means. Kennan’s views were readily adopted by U.S. policy makers suspicious of Soviet actions and intentions. Containment, along with the domino theory, became the touchstone of U.S. Cold War policy, and its implementation through military as well as political and economic means can be seen in conflicts with the Soviet Union and, after 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Examples of containment in action include the 1947 Marshall Plan for European economic recovery, the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the 1948–1949 Berlin Airlift, the refusal to recognize the PRC, the 1950–1953 Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Containment in Vietnam initially was linked with checking communism in Europe. During World War II President Franklin D. Roosevelt had favored the independence of France’s Indochina colonies, but in the postwar period American leaders supported French colonialism because they needed France as a military ally to contain the Soviet Union in Europe. They also believed, erroneously, that because Ho Chi Minh was a Communist, he was controlled by Moscow and Beijing. Beginning in 1950 soon after the Korean War began in June, the United States provided France with direct military and economic assistance in the Indochina War. Containment of communism seemed jeopardized by the 1954 French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the de facto division of Vietnam at the Geneva Conference later that year. To contain the Communist threat, U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles took the lead in establishing the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1955, which included the United States, France, and Britain in a defense alliance with Asian nations. In 1956 the United States assumed responsibility for training and supporting the military in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam).

Con Thien, Siege of President John F. Kennedy continued the policy of Communist containment and increased the American presence in Vietnam. In May 1961 he authorized commando raids against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and sent Special Forces advisers to South Vietnam. When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, the United States had about 16,000 troops in Vietnam. In the following years under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the number of U.S. troops increased to more than 500,000 men, and the war destroyed Johnson’s presidency. In the end, the United States was unable to contain communism in Vietnam. On April 30, 1975, Communist forces captured Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. Kennan, the original author of the containment doctrine, regarded American involvement in Vietnam as a tragic mistake. He believed that Vietnam was a marginal area in the Cold War and thought that involvement there kept the United States from taking advantage of divisions within the Communist world. In 1966 he testified before Senator J. William Fulbright’s hearings on the war that containment was designed for Europe and did not fit Asia. In the judgment of many historians, Kennan was right. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also China, People’s Republic of; Domino Theory; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennan, George Frost; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Korean War; Munich Analogy; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II; Truman, Harry S.; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Kennan, George F. Memoirs, 1925–1950. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Lippmann, Walter. The Cold War: A Study in U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Harper and Row, 1947.

Contemporary Historical Examination of Combat Operations See CHECO Project

Con Thien, Siege of Start Date: September 4, 1967 End Date: October 4, 1967 Site of major fighting during the later part of 1967, Con Thien (correct Vietnamese spelling: Con Tien) was located 14 miles from the coast of Vietnam and 2 miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). A low hill just 525 feet in elevation, Con Thien overlooked one of the principal People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infiltration routes into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam).

235

In the spring of 1967 the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), ordered the construction of an anti-infiltration barrier across the DMZ. Manned strong points would occupy prominent terrain features overlooking infiltration routes. Artillery positions would provide fire support and house reaction forces needed to man the strong point system. Con Thien was to be an important component of this anti-infiltration barrier. By mid-1967, U.S. marines had established a formidable presence in the area. Dong Ha was the major logistics base in the region, and Con Thien provided a clear view of it. If the PAVN could seize Con Thien, they would be able to bring the Dong Ha base under artillery and rocket fire. Con Thien remained a primary target for PAVN artillery. During September 1967 the PAVN subjected the marines at Con Thien to one of the heaviest shellings of the war. Con Thien’s defenders came to expect 200 rounds of incoming artillery fire daily, and on September 25 more than 1,200 rounds fell there, killing 23 marines. PAVN ground activity increased under this artillery umbrella. On September 4 and 7 marines located and fought PAVN forces south of Con Thien. On September 10 the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, engaged a PAVN regiment in battle near Con Thien, spoiling a major attack. On September 13 a PAVN company attacked the perimeter at Con Thien but failed to breach the defensive wire. The marines then sent two additional battalions to reinforce Con Thien. The PAVN response was to blast the defenders with 3,000 incoming rocket, artillery, and mortar rounds during September 19–27. U.S. forces reacted to these attacks with one of the greatest concentrations of artillery and air firepower of the Vietnam War. PAVN forces were struck by what MACV commander General William C. Westmoreland called Operation NEUTRALIZE. This 49-day bombing campaign was orchestrated by Seventh Air Force commander General William M. Momyer and was known as SLAM (for Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor). During the period aircraft flew 4,200 sorties to drop 40,000 pounds of bombs, while the U.S. Navy fired 6,148 shells, and land artillery added another 12,577 shells. This intense bombardment was undoubtedly the major reason that the PAVN siege forces around Con Thien (101D Regiment of the 325th Division and the 803rd Regiment of the 324th Division) pulled back across the DMZ into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during this time period, although an official Vietnamese account claims that the forces were withdrawn because of the effects of unusually heavy monsoon rains. The constant combat took a heavy toll. In a one-month period, the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, saw its strength cut in half, from 952 to 462 men. On October 14 a PAVN ground force attacked 2nd Battalion’s position, overran a company command post, and engaged the marines in hand-to-hand combat. By the end of October, the 2nd Battalion’s strength was down to about 300 men. Although fighting around Con Thien fell off after October, it remained a harsh environment. The monsoon provided endless drizzle and turned roads into quagmires. The threat of Communist

236

Continental Air Services

A member of the U.S. 3rd Marine Division looks for snipers north of Con Thien. During September 1967, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) subjected the marines at Con Thien to one of the heaviest shellings of the war. (National Archives)

artillery fire was constant, as was the possibility of massed infantry attacks. Neuropsychiatric, or shell shock, casualties were common. Westmoreland described the fighting around Con Thien as a “crushing defeat” for the PAVN. MACV estimated PAVN deaths in the area of Con Thien during the autumn of 1967 at 1,117. The fighting had taken a heavy toll on the Americans as well. U.S. Marine Corps casualties totaled more than 1,800 killed and wounded. PETER W. BRUSH See also Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Clear and Hold; Momyer, William Wallace; SLAM; United States Marine Corps; Westmoreland, William Childs References Coan, James P. Con Thien: The Hill of Angels. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Pham Gia Duc. Su Doan 325, 1954–1975, Tap II [325th Division, 1954–1975, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1986. Simmons, Edwin H., ed. The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography. 2nd ed. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1985. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

Continental Air Services Airline that flew for the U.S. government in Southeast Asia. Continental Air Services (CAS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Continental Airlines, began flight operations in Southeast Asia on September 1, 1965. Robert Six, president of the parent company, had been anxious to expand his airline’s activities in Asia. As part of Continental’s growing presence in the Pacific, Six had acquired the assets of Bird & Sons for $4.2 million. CAS continued to fly under U.S. government contracts, especially for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In addition to routine commercial business, CAS often functioned (as had Bird & Sons) as a paramilitary adjunct to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–led guerrilla forces in Laos. Six hired Robert E. Rousselot, formerly head of flight operations for Air America, as the president of CAS. Rousselot hoped to dominate the air transport market in Laos by introducing Lockheed 382Bs into the country. The civilian version of the military’s Lockheed C-130 Hercules, however, never lived up to Rousselot’s expectations. Plagued by operational problems, these four-engine aircraft were soon withdrawn from Laos. By the early 1970s, De Havilland Twin Otters and Pilateus Porters were the workhorses of CAS. These planes carried rice, ammunition, and personnel throughout Southeast Asia. The airline’s 50 aircraft averaged 4,000 hours per month, transporting 20,000 passengers and 6,000 tons of cargo.

Cooper, John Sherman CAS and Air America performed identical tasks in support of the American war effort, and both airlines suffered losses due to hostile action and the difficult operating conditions. More than a dozen CAS aircrew members were killed in Laos, Cambodia, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The airline’s business declined as the war in Southeast Asia drew to a conclusion. On December 19, 1975, Six dissolved the company. WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Air America; Bird & Sons; Cambodian Airlift; Central Intelligence Agency; Laos; United States Agency for International Development References Davies, R. E. G. Continental Air Lines: The First Fifty Years, 1934–1984. The Woodlands, TX: Pioneer Publications, 1985. Leary, William M. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984.

Cooper, Chester Lawrence Birth Date: January 13, 1917 Death Date: October 30, 2005 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer and National Security Council (NSC) assistant for Asian affairs (1964–1966). Chester Lawrence Cooper was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 13, 1917. He first attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then New York University, where he received a BA degree in 1939 and an MBA in 1941. Cooper undertook doctoral work at Columbia University but ultimately received his PhD from American University. He served with the U.S. Army in the infantry and intelligence branches. From 1945 to 1964 Cooper worked for the CIA and specialized in Far Eastern affairs in the Office of National Estimates. He served on the U.S. delegations to the 1954 Geneva Conference, the 1954 Manila Conference that established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), and the 1961–1962 Geneva Conference on Laos. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Cooper was sent to London to show British prime minister Harold Macmillan in person the incriminating aerial photos of the Soviet missile buildup in Cuba. From 1964 to 1966 Cooper served on McGeorge Bundy’s NSC staff as assistant for Asian affairs, where Cooper was one of the few policy makers genuinely knowledgeable on Indochina. Throughout the Vietnam conflict he recommended that it be resolved by political rather than military means. Unlike many who supported this approach, he stood by the American commitment to Ngo Dinh Diem, arguing that it was inappropriate for Washington to treat Diem in the manner of a colonial master. Cooper also warned President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 that there were inherent and

237

potentially dangerous risks involved in bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In 1966 Cooper left the NSC but shortly thereafter became chief of staff to the group of would-be peace negotiators surrounding W. Averell Harriman. Disillusioned by their lack of progress, however, in the autumn of 1967 he again resigned. Cooper opposed the American invasion of Cambodia, which he feared would make any peace settlement impossible. By 1972 he was convinced that the Indochinese states should be neutralized, that is, left to work out their own futures free from interference by the Great Powers. After leaving government service, he held several important executive positions. He also headed international programs at the Battelle Memorial Institute at the University of Maryland from 1995 to 2001. Cooper died on October 30, 2005, in Washington, D.C. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Bundy, McGeorge; Harriman, William Averell; Ngo Dinh Diem References Cooper, Chester L. In the Shadows of History: Fifty Years behind the Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005. Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. Rev. and updated edition. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995.

Cooper, John Sherman Birth Date: August 23, 1901 Death Date: February 21, 1991 U.S. senator, ardent opponent of American involvement in Southeast Asia, and cosponsor of the 1970 Cooper-Church Amendment. John Sherman Cooper was born in Somerset, Kentucky, on August 23, 1901, and graduated from Yale College in 1923. He attended law school at Harvard University but did not receive a degree. In 1928 he was admitted to the Kentucky bar and began practicing law in Somerset. Cooper then embarked on a life of public service, beginning with the Kentucky legislature from 1928 to 1930. He spent eight years as a judge in Pulaski County, was a circuit judge in the 28th Judicial District between 1938 and 1946, and was elected to a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1946. Cooper, a Republican, served in the Senate from 1946 to 1948, from 1952 to 1955, and from 1956 to 1973. During the 1960s Cooper became a vocal critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam. Along with Senator George McGovern (D-S.Dak.), Cooper expressed reservations about the power that the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution had provided the president. Under pressure from Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), Cooper voted for the resolution. He expressed confidence in the Johnson administration

238

Cooper-Brooke Amendment

but urged the president to keep in mind the difference between defensive measures and offensive operations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In 1970 after the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, Cooper called for a U.S. troop withdrawal from that country. Cooper and Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) sponsored the Cooper-Church Amendment that barred funds for U.S. ground combat forces and advisers in Cambodia after June 30, 1970, and prohibited any combat activity in the air above Cambodia in support of Cambodian forces unless preapproved by Congress. The amendment passed in the Senate but met failure in the House of Representatives. Cooper chose not to run in the autumn 1972 election and left the Senate in January 1973. From 1974 to 1976 he was U.S. ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). Cooper retired from public life in 1976 and again took up the practice of law. He died on February 21, 1991, in Washington, D.C. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Case, Clifford Philip; Case-Church Amendment; Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper-Church Amendment; Fulbright, James William; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; McGovern, George Stanley References Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Cooper-Brooke Amendment Amendment attached to a U.S. Senate foreign military aid bill in 1972 that linked American troop withdrawal from Vietnam with the release of U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) without provisions or preconditions. The amendment was named for Republican senators John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky and Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. By the summer of 1972, despite generally favorable public opinion subsequent to the peace negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and increased military pressure by American forces, there remained strong and growing support for a legislative push to end American involvement in Vietnam. Simultaneously, U.S. ground troops had already largely been withdrawn under President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization policy. The Senate approach to ending the war generally fell along one of three lines: an unconditional deadline for American withdrawal based on the belief that this would lead North Vietnam to release the American POWs held in Hanoi, American withdrawal contingent upon the release of American POWs, or American withdrawal dependent upon a cease-fire. Throughout 1971 and early 1972 the Senate group that favored American withdrawal contingent only

upon release of POWs grew, while support for the stipulation of a cease-fire dwindled. Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger continued to insist on a mutual cease-fire and an agreedupon release of POWs as preconditions for a withdrawal; the opposition favored simply the release of POWs, if that. In July 1972 Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) attempted to force the issue of withdrawal by proposing an amendment to the foreign military aid bill then being considered. This would have required American withdrawal by August without provision for the release of American POWs; it failed by a vote of 49 to 44. Senator Cooper subsequently proposed an amendment that supported funds for Indochina for the express purpose of withdrawing American troops from Vietnam in four months. However, before the amendment could come to a vote (it probably would not have passed), Senator Brooke proposed a change to the amendment. His proposal specifically linked the release of POWs to the withdrawal. Floor debate in the Senate on the amendment was spirited. Senator John Stennis (D-Miss.) opposed the amendments and protested that the power of negotiation rested with the office of the president, not Congress. Senator Cooper replied that “If we accept this argument for all time, we will have placed upon ourselves a condition, a prohibition that would forbid us from ever exercising our constitutional responsibility.” However, Stennis’s opposition was checked. On July 24 the Brooke amendment carried with a vote of 50 to 46. Ironically, Cooper then voted against his own amendment because he did not like Brooke’s addition to it, but it passed nevertheless by a vote of 49 to 46. The Cooper-Brooke Amendment, attached to the foreign military aid bill that included aid to Indochina, stipulated that all funding for air, naval, and ground combat in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos would cease based solely upon the successful release of U.S. POWs held in North Vietnam. On the same day an attempt by Senator James Allen (D-Ala.) to make withdrawal contingent upon a supervised cease-fire was defeated by only five votes. Nixon’s policy stipulating withdrawal based on a cease-fire and release of POWs now appeared in jeopardy by congressional action. In what Senator Robert Dole (R-Kans.) later called a “rearguard action,” Nixon’s Senate allies rallied to vote down the foreign military aid bill because of the Cooper-Brooke amendments. Ironically, Senator Mansfield and longtime anti–Vietnam War interventionist Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), both leaders of the opposition to Nixon’s Vietnam policies, voted with the Nixon supporters in defeating the foreign military aid bill by a vote of 48 to 42. They believed that the most pragmatic approach to ending the war was to deny President Nixon the necessary funds to continue involvement in Vietnam and also believed that the amendments would have been deleted in the ensuing legislative action if the bill had passed. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), longtime opponent of the Vietnam War, opposed the Mansfield-Fulbright move to defeat the bill in its entirety, desiring instead to leave the antiwar amendments

Cooper-Church Amendment

239

in place. Following the vote, a dejected Church complained that his erstwhile allies had allowed Nixon to “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.” But victory was not especially sweet for the backers of the president’s policy, because more senators than ever seemed to be wavering in their support of the White House’s war policies. KARL LEE RUBIS See also Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Fulbright, James William; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States Congress and the Vietnam War; Vietnamization References Kissinger, Henry. Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003. Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Cooper-Church Amendment U.S. legislation imposing restrictions on U.S. military action in Southeast Asia. The U.S. military incursion into Cambodia in late April 1970 provoked antiwar demonstrations across the United States and spurred the most serious congressional challenge to date of the president’s war powers in Indochina. As passed by the U.S. Senate, the Cooper-Church Amendment, introduced by John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) and Frank Church (D-Idaho), would have barred funds for the support and maintenance of U.S. ground combat forces and advisers in Cambodia after June 30, 1970, and prohibited any combat activity in the air above Cambodia in support of Cambodian forces unless Congress approved such operations. The amendment also would have barred U.S. support for third-country forces, in particular forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), in Cambodia. During the seven-week Senate debate from May 13 through June 30, 1970, the amendment and the military appropriations bill to which it was attached brought about heated discussion of the Richard M. Nixon administration’s Asian policy and blocked Senate action on other major legislation. After numerous amendments were introduced to weaken it, the Cooper-Church Amendment was approved by a vote of 58 to 37 on June 30, 1970. During the debate, Senator Robert Dole (R-Kans.), a leader of the anti–Cooper-Church forces, introduced an amendment to repeal the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. It was overwhelmingly approved. The Nixon administration opposed the Cooper-Church Amendment but was neutral on the Gulf of Tonkin matter. House and Senate conferees remained deadlocked for six months over the Cooper-Church Amendment. Eventually the Cooper-Church Amendment was attached to the supplementary foreign aid authorization bill but was later dropped from the bill. A revised Cooper-Church Amendment was added to the fiscal 1971 foreign aid authorization bill, clearing Congress on December 22,

Republican senator John Sherman of Kentucky was a staunch opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and a sponsor of the Cooper-Church Amendment. He is shown here in 1972. (Bettmann/Corbis)

1970. The bill was enacted on January 5, 1971. Unlike the earlier Cooper-Church Amendment passed by the Senate, the final version did not prohibit U.S. air activity over Cambodia. The amendment’s approval came about six months after U.S. ground troops had pulled out of Cambodia. President Nixon denounced the Cooper-Church Amendment and other antiwar amendments as harmful to his bargaining position with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In February 1971 the Nixon administration supported the South Vietnamese invasion of Laos and eventually rode out the political storm over Cambodia. Still, the Cooper-Church Amendment and the proposal of even more restrictive amendments in the Senate put increasing pressure on the Nixon administration to end the war in Indochina. Senate debate also encouraged increased antiwar sentiment among the media, clergy, and other opinion leaders in the United States. DAVID C. SAFFELL See also Cambodia; Case, Clifford Philip; Case-Church Amendment; Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Brooke Amendment; Fulbright, James William; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; McGovern, George Stanley; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Morris, Roger. Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.

240

Corps Tactical Zones

CORDS See Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support

Corps Tactical Zones Designation of military operational regions in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. Following the Geneva Conference of 1954 that ended the fighting between French and Communist forces, Vietnam was divided, ostensibly temporarily, at the 17th Parallel. The South Vietnamese government, in cooperation with the United States, sought to provide for the security of South Vietnam by dividing the country into corps tactical zones (CTZ) to help provide for the military and administrative control of its territory. Four such zones were established: the I CTZ in the region immediately south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) included the five northernmost provinces of the country, the II CTZ consisted of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, the III CTZ encompassed 11 provinces surrounding the capital city of Saigon, and the IV CTZ included the southwestern portion of South Vietnam, encompassing the remainder of the Mekong Delta and bordering Cambodia and the South China Sea. Originally created by the Joint General Staff of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces

(RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) to help organize military operations against Viet Cong (VC) and Peoples’ Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces, the CTZ concept remained in place throughout the American phase of the war. The Vietnamese Joint General Staff appointed commanders for each CTZ, and these commanders served as governors in each region; as such, they enjoyed tremendous authority in their respective zones. Each CTZ was subdivided into smaller military districts, although a special zone was created for the administration and protection of Saigon. There was no overall coordination of military operations between the CTZs under the RVNAF, with all major decisions emanating from the government in Saigon. Civilian authorities were responsible for the nonmilitary aspects of governance within each CTZ and continued to work with civilian ministries in Saigon. With the introduction of allied (mostly American) ground forces in 1965, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), under the command of General William Westmoreland, assigned U.S. ground forces to each of the CTZs. In addition to commanding U.S. combat forces in each CTZ, ranking American commanders in each region served as senior advisers to ranking commanders of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) in each CTZ. American forces in each CTZ remained under the operational control of the MACV com-

Artillerymen of the new Army of the Republic of Vietnam 25th Division line up for a parade in front of their 105-mm and 155-mm howitzers in the coastal town of Quang Nai in the I Corps Tactical Zone of northern South Vietnam, August 15, 1962. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Counterculture

mander and worked in coordination with ARVN forces. The III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF) assumed responsibility for the I CTZ; the U.S. Army’s I Field Force and II Field Force assumed responsibility for the II and III CTZs, respectively; and the IV Corps Advisory Group controlled combat and advisory units in the IV CTZ. Although ARVN commanders assumed overall responsibility for military operations in each CTZ, Free World infantry units operated in tactical areas of responsibility (TAORs) within each CTZ and directed operations within their respective TAOR. KELLY E. CRAGER See also Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Military Regions; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Eckhardt, George S. Command and Control, 1950–1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

COSVN See Central Office for South Vietnam

241

Counterculture A sociological reference that describes the cultural and/or societal values and modes of behavior of a specific group, or subculture, within a larger culture. The values and behavior of a counterculture are not in sync with the larger culture’s values, mores, or behavior, therefore causing friction between the larger culture and the subculture. In the political realm, a countercultural group would be akin to a political opposition party. The term “counterculture” in the United States is usually attributed to the historian Theodore Roszak, who popularized the word with his 1968 book The Making of a Counter Culture. The term was certainly used before that, however, and had been previously employed by some political scientists. By the late 1960s the media, both foreign and domestic, began employing the term “counterculture” to describe a wide array of subgroups and behaviors that ran counter to prevailing cultural prescriptions. During the late 1960s and early 1970s countercultures were said to exist not just in the United States but also in Western Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. In the United States the counterculture was chiefly a reaction to the conservative and culturally homogenous society that had prevailed in the 1940s and 1950s; the American racial divide, especially in the South; and the Vietnam War. A wide-ranging phenomenon, the counterculture encompassed many kinds of cultural nonconformity. In the 1960s in the United States, what became known as the counterculture movement was a major driving force behind

242

Counterculture

Concertgoers on the roof of a Volkswagen bus at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, in August 1969. (AP/Wide World Photos)

opposition to the Vietnam War. College students, young people, intellectuals, musicians, artists, and political activists of many stripes challenged the existing American culture along with governmental and political assumptions. The counterculture challenged, among other things, the post–World War II U.S. foreign policy doctrine of containment, which the counterculture blamed for the quagmire in Vietnam. Members of the counterculture movement, most of whom were white middle-class teenagers and young adults, became known as and were often referred to as Hippies. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panthers were two of the most famous—perhaps even infamous—groups in the counterculture movement. The SDS was a radical student organization formed in 1960 to promote political and social activism, such as ending racial discrimination and the nuclear arms race, increasing government spending to end poverty, and halting what it viewed as America’s anti-Communist fanaticism. The Black Panthers was a sometimes militant African American organization dedicated to the promotion of civil rights, social justice, and self-defense. The 1960s, especially the period after 1965, exposed a chasm in American politics and society between both youths and middle-

and older-aged Americans and between the traditional Left— mostly elected party officials who controlled the Democratic Party—and the New Left, which comprised youthful, militant, and more liberal counterculture activists disenchanted with the traditional Left, particularly with its anticommunism. The social conservatism of the 1950s, along with the political upheaval of the 1960s owing to the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the women’s rights movement, contributed to the counterculture movement. Although the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960 portended an administration geared toward youthful boldness, Kennedy’s policies reflected a continuation of the old Cold War consensus, and his short administration left many issues outstanding. Following Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Lyndon Johnson became president. His decision in 1965 to escalate the war in Vietnam ultimately cast a long shadow on his presidency and led him to bow out of the 1968 presidential race. By the late 1960s the counterculture movement, including the SDS, viewed the Vietnam War with open hostility. The war came to serve as a catalyst for the SDS’s activism and militancy. Universities became incubators for antiwar protests, often led by professors who encouraged sit-ins and teach-ins. University students protested against the war and demonstrated for other causes, such as civil rights, women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights, and an end to wars and poverty. Whereas deference to authority and tradition had been typical in the 1950s, a new attitude of hostility toward authority emerged in the 1960s in reaction to, at least in the eyes of the restless youths, the seemingly complacent 1950s that, admittedly, had not improved the political and legal situations for minorities and women. Components of the counterculture included a questioning of the older generation’s sexual mores, which led to fundamental changes in relations between men and women, the alteration of gender roles, and the introduction of abortion into the nation’s social and political discourse. Drug use became prevalent among the counterculture adherents, including the use of psychedelic drugs, and new forms of musical expression, such as acid rock, began to appear in the late 1960s. The counterculture also made its way into film, the most famous example of which was Easy Rider, released in 1969, a movie that showcased the wanderings and ramblings of a group of social misfits who experience mind-altering drug use. The Vietnam War was the first so-called television war, and as such the daily images of that conflict on the small screen, whether accurate or not, led Americans viewers to more easily identify with and form their own personal views of that war, unlike earlier wars. The Selective Service, which naturally fell mostly on young adults, became increasingly unpopular with male youths as the war continued on and U.S. casualties increased. Moreover, the draft was viewed as unfair, with the rich and well-connected and college students, including Hippies, often able to avoid military service through student deferments. Unquestionably the draft fell disproportionally on workingclass and poor whites and black youths. To Hippies and SDS ac-

Counterinsurgency Warfare tivists the draft seemed to be a metaphor for the exploitive and oppressive nature of American politics and society. In addition, because enforcement of draft regulations depended somewhat on local boards, the Selective Service system served only to further de-legitimize the war among many of the youths, who believed that the way they were being recruited and sent to fight in an increasingly unpopular war was both un-American and patently unfair. Moreover, the inability of the Johnson administration to rally public support for the war contributed to the perception by many Americans, especially the young, that the United States had no business being in Vietnam. In sum, the Vietnam War crystallized the restless and politically active youths of America, many of whom became part of the counterculture. The counterculture movement petered out by the early 1970s as the Vietnam War wound down and Americans became exhausted by the social and political upheavals that were the movement’s hallmarks. With American involvement in Vietnam at an end, the counterculture movement proved incapable of sustaining itself. Its legacy is still actively debated. STEFAN M. BROOKS See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Drugs and Drug Use; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Music and the Vietnam War; Students for a Democratic Society References Carter, Dan. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.

Counterinsurgency Warfare An insurgency is defined as an armed or unarmed rebellion against an established authority with the ultimate goal of undermining and/or overthrowing the ruling party or government. Insurgencies have been around as long as human history. In more recent history many have come to be known as guerrilla wars. The term “guerrilla” (literally meaning “little war”) is derived from the Spanish diminutive of guerra (“war”), with its origin in the Peninsular War against Napoleon. However, modern insurgencies (also known as revolutionary wars) imply not merely fighting another force by guerrilla tactics but also trying to seize political power. Revolutionary war is perhaps best exemplified by the Communist struggle against the Nationalists in China and the post–World War II conflicts in Vietnam. Counterinsurgency is in effect the strategy whereby a government sets out to defeat an insurgency, a guerrilla war, or a revolutionary war. British counterinsurgency expert Robert Thompson, drawing on his own experience in helping to defeat Communist

243

guerrillas in Malaya, gave five rules for successfully defeating an insurgency: (1) the goal must be the establishment of a democratic, economically stable state; (2) this must be done within the law rather than outside of it, avoiding brutal methods; (3) there must be a coherent plan; (4) the first priority must be the defeat of opposing political operatives rather than the guerrillas; and (5) making base areas secure must be a top priority. Those knowledgeable about insurgencies recognize that the key in defeating them is to win control of the people: the “sea” in which the guerrillas “swim,” as Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong once put it. The French Army did not ignore what it called revolutionary war, although its theories for combating such a war were for the most part developed after the Indochina War and were used in Algeria. Early theorists who wrote about revolutionary war during the Indochina War included General Lionel-Max Chassin, who commanded the French Air Force against the Viet Minh. His book La conquête de la Chine par Mao Tsé-Toung (1945–1949) was published in 1952. Others were Colonel Charles Lacheroy and General J. M. Nemo (En Indochine: Guérilla et contre-guérilla, 1952), both of whom contributed articles to Revue de Défense Nationale. Their principal argument was that a numerically inferior military force can triumph over a larger one only if the inferior force has the support of the people in a particular area. The French theorists also came to appreciate the close marriage of politics and the military by both the Chinese Communists and the Viet Minh. They were convinced that proper psychological measures could create cohesion among fighters and the civilian population. The point missed by the French and later by the Americans was that as foreigners in Southeast Asia they were operating at a tremendous disadvantage. Given the long history of Vietnamese resistance to foreign occupation, this was a serious and perhaps insurmountable liability especially for the French, who were seen as returning foreign masters. Despite appearances, Paris never did grant Vietnam its independence. The State of Vietnam was always a sham with no real power, including none over its own army. As such, it was the Viet Minh rather than the State of Vietnam that gained the loyalty of the people. Although the lessons learned had largely been forgotten, the United States had more experience in guerrilla war than almost any other country, extending from wars against the Native Americans to the Philippine Insurrection (1899–1902). For all practical purposes, U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine came into being in the 1960s to counter Communist “wars of national liberation.” On January 6, 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had stated that while the Soviet Union and other Communist-bloc nations opposed world wars and local wars, they recognized and would support “just wars of liberation and popular uprisings.” This led President John F. Kennedy to seek solutions for countering Communistsupported insurgencies against vulnerable friendly nations. Washington’s interest in counterinsurgency predated U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In 1952 Congress gave the U.S. Army authority to create a new formation that would mirror American

244

Counterinsurgency Warfare

heritage in unconventional warfare. Known as the Special Forces, the military formation would carry on the traditions of Roger’s Rangers, Francis Marion, Darby’s Rangers, Merrill’s Marauders, the 1st Special Service Force, and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Special Forces had come into being in June 1952 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Their training stressed infiltration and land-navigation techniques and the use of parachutes and small boats. More individually suited specialized training followed and included sabotage, intelligence gathering, communications, medicine, and weaponry. Volunteers from the U.S. Army who successfully completed the secret training were detached from the army and assigned directly to Special Forces. This did not sit well with many in the U.S. Army’s hierarchy, however. Both President Kennedy and his military adviser, General Maxwell D. Taylor, were strong advocates of counterinsurgency and an enhanced Special Forces capability. In his book The Uncertain Trumpet (1959), Taylor had argued that the United States should not place undue reliance on nuclear deterrence and massive retaliation (President Dwight Eisenhower’s “more bang for the buck”) and should develop its own limited-war capability, including the ability to fight local and regional insurgencies. Kennedy relieved U.S. Army chief of staff General George Decker, who opposed anything apart from conventional warfare. Kennedy also strongly supported the development of counterinsurgency forces, and in February 1962 he appointed U.S. Marine Corps major general Victor Krulak to a newly established position as a counter–guerrilla warfare specialist within the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). In this position, identified as the special assistant for counterinsurgency and special activities, Krulak had responsibility for monitoring the use of unconventional warfare in Southeast Asia and reporting his findings to the JCS and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The chief instrument of U.S. counterinsurgency policy was the U.S. Army Special Forces. Here the goal was not so much to destroy enemy armed forces as to win the allegiance of the people, inspiring them to defend themselves and reject the insurgent fighters. On September 21, 1961, the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, was activated at Fort Bragg. Its mission was to train personnel in counterinsurgency methods to be employed in Vietnam. Under a number of guises, including pacification and population control, the United States set out not only to destroy the Viet Cong (VC) infrastructure but to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. A variety of programs involved the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Special Forces (operating mainly with Montagnards), doctors, engineers, agricultural experts, and civilian advisers. During January 1962 the Special Topographic Exploitation Service of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was given responsibility for internal security and operations outside South Vietnam. An activated element, the Special Branch for Clandestine Operations, had the mission of recruiting military and civilian per-

sonnel for intelligence operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). To increase counterinsurgency initiatives in Vietnam, in August 1962 a paramilitary program was established throughout South Vietnam under the control of the CIA’s Combined Studies Division/Group. Known as the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), its members were to defend villages and carry out interdiction operations, including ambushes, against the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and VC guerrillas. CIDG members concentrated their efforts in areas where the Ho Chi Minh Trail entered South Vietnam. Beginning in November 1962, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), gradually took over control of the CIA’s paramilitary operations. The CIDG and the border surveillance program were transferred to MACV (military) control. When intelligence reports indicated increased Communist activities during December 1962, emphasis was placed on building and occupying border camps for the CIA’s Border Surveillance program. Initially five Special Forces camps were built to hold the troops who performed the border surveillance mission. During the Vietnam War it made little sense for U.S. forces, most of whom did not speak Vietnamese and did not understand the language, to be the chief instrument of counterinsurgency. By 1964 the vast majority of Special Forces, prior to being sent on temporary duty to Vietnam for six-month periods, were being schooled in the Vietnamese language at Fort Bragg. In January 1962 Roger Hilsman, assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, presented “A Strategic Concept for South Vietnam” that defined the war essentially as a political struggle and proposed policies aimed at the rural Vietnamese as the key to victory. This led to the Strategic Hamlet Program. Hilsman also recommended that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) adopt guerrilla warfare tactics. President Lyndon Johnson rejected the latter. In any case, General William Westmoreland’s priority was never pacification but rather seeking out and destroying main Communist battle units. He left pacification and counterinsurgency largely up to the South Vietnamese government. The South Vietnamese leadership was little interested in pacification and saw the Strategic Hamlet Program as a means of control rather than an exercise in materially aiding the peasants and in the process winning their allegiance. In any case, established programs were riddled with corruption, including the CIDG program controlled by the Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces). In 1970 the CIDG camps were abandoned altogether and were turned over to the ARVN Rangers. In 1967 a great many U.S.-sponsored projects were brought together under one authority, Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), headed by Robert W. Komer. This also led to the controversial Phoenix Program, which incorporated the use of counterterrorism. Whether earlier implementation of a fully developed pacification effort would have been successful remains questionable. In

CRIMP, Operation

any case, the principal U.S. effort in that regard came when the insurgency was already too well established for the pacification effort to have a chance at success. HARVE SAAL AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Central Intelligence Agency; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Hilsman, Roger; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Komer, Robert W.; Krulak, Victor H.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Montagnards; Pacification; Phoenix Program; Psychological Warfare Operations; Strategic Hamlet Program; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker; United States Army; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces; Westmoreland, William Childs References Bell, J. Bower. The Myth of the Guerrilla: Revolutionary Theory and Malpractice. New York: Knopf, 1971. Blaufarb, Douglas S. The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance 1950 to Present. New York: Free Press, 1977. Cable, Larry. Conflict of Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1988. Johnson, Chalmers. Autopsy on People’s Wars. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. McClintock, Michael. Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency and Counter-Terrorism, 1940–1990. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Paret, Peter. French Revolutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria: The Analysis of a Political and Military Doctrine. New York: Praeger, 1964. Saal, Harve. MACV, Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 4 vols. Milwaukee, WI: Jones Techno-Comm, 1990. Shafer, D. Michael. Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Sutherland, Ian D. W. 1952/1982: Special Forces of the United States Army. San Jose, CA: R. James Bender, 1990. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

COWIN Report See “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report

CRIMP,

Operation

Start Date: January 7, 1966 End Date: January 13, 1966 Joint American-Australian search-and-destroy operation launched on January 7, 1966. The objective of Operation CRIMP was to clear out the Ho Bo woods, a Viet Cong (VC) stronghold located west of the so-called Iron Triangle in Tay Ninh Province

245

in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). General William Westmorland who ordered the operation, billed as the largest military operation conducted in South Vietnam to date, hoped that a massive attack utilizing troops, airplanes, helicopters, tanks, and other vehicles would be a crippling blow to insurgent forces in South Vietnam. Operation CRIMP commenced with a massive bombing raid in the area, U.S. B-52s dropping as much as 30 tons of ordnance over the suspected area. Units from the U.S. 1st Division, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and the Royal Australian Regiment made up the 8,000-strong strike force. Opposing the allied force was the 7th Cu Chi Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Linh. The operation led to the discovery of the vast tunnel complex known as the Cu Chi Tunnels used by the VC. Shortly after the operation began allied units along the entire front came under hostile fire, but when the troops advanced to the presumed VC positions, they found nothing but empty trenches and some rice; their attackers had seemingly vanished into thin air. The operation proceeded to sweep through the woods, continuously coming under fire. Yet despite finding traces of a sizable enemy presence, the Americans and Australians could not locate any enemy troops. The mystery was solved when an American private sat down to rest and immediately jumped back to his feet, feeling something sharp on the ground. Initially he thought that he had received an insect or snake bite. The “bite,” however, was actually a nail attached to a hidden trapdoor that led to a tunnel. Beyond the trapdoor lay an immense network of tunnels and rooms that included barracks, kitchens, and hospital facilities (where VC doctors performed procedures ranging from amputations to brain surgery), ammunition and food depots, and workshops. Smoke and gas blown into the tunnels in the hopes of flushing out the enemy forces revealed the full extent of the network when the smoke began to rise from locations scattered throughout the jungle. The troops of Operation CRIMP were not trained for tunnel warfare, so the mission was terminated on January 13. Operation BUCKSKIN was subsequently launched to clear the tunnels uncovered by CRIMP. New units composed of infantry and engineers were sent into the tunnels, often equipped only with a flashlight, a side arm, and a combat knife. These “tunnel rats,” as they came to be known, crawled throughout the vast network on the lookout for documents, hidden rooms, booby traps, weapons, and enemy soldiers. The discovery of the tunnel networks forced changes in military strategy. Massive search-and-destroy operations such as CRIMP could be easily weathered by the VC in their tunnels. The network meant that the enemy could be hiding anywhere on, above, or below the ground. This forced the Americans to concentrate on suspected tunnel areas instead of embarking on wide-ranging search-and-destroy missions. The VC also learned lessons during CRIMP. Linh used the opportunity of living among the enemy to study their tactics and formations, harass them with sniper fire, and learn which booby traps were the most effective. CHRIS THOMAS

246

Cronauer, Adrian

See also Cu Chi Tunnels; Iron Triangle; Tunnel Rats; Tunnels; Viet Cong Infrastructure; Westmoreland, William Childs References Mangold, Tom, and John Penycate. The Tunnels of Cu Chi. New York: Random House, 1985. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong and NVA Tunnels and Fortifications of the Vietnam War. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006.

Cronauer, Adrian Birth Date: September 8, 1938 Attorney and celebrated disc jockey whose program on American Forces Network (Armed Forces Network) entertained thousands of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Born on September 8, 1938, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Adrian Cronauer began his broadcasting career at age 12 as an amateur guest on a Pittsburgh radio station. He attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he helped create the university’s college radio station, and he also attended American University, where he worked at the student radio station. Later he earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Cronauer honed his morning radio broadcast skills listening to Rege Cordic’s morning radio show in the 1950s in Pittsburgh. After joining the armed forces, Cronauer broadcast to Iraklion Air Station in Crete, where he opened his program with “Good Morning, Iraklion.” When he went to Vietnam as a U.S. Air Force sergeant, he changed his greeting to “Good Morning, Vietnam,” and began every program with it. His show was broadcast from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. during 1965–1966 in Saigon. Cronauer’s show was the focus of a major Hollywood motion picture titled Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which picked up on the signature phrase that he used to begin his show. He was played by comedic actor Robin Williams. Cronauer’s real-life program hardly resembled the madcap antics of the movie, however. Instead, Cronauer stayed within the limits of the Armed Forces Radio format. He recalled that in contrast to the one-liners that Williams had delivered in the movie, his humor was much more situational. Cronauer crafted a program of a mix of top-40 songs and oldies and also presented a stock of prerecorded characters, conducted interviews, and talked to studio drop-ins. He saw his job in Vietnam as one that would counteract the culture shock and homesickness experienced by many young soldiers while serving in Vietnam. When Cronauer returned from his stint in Vietnam, he wrote a story about his experiences there that ultimately served as the inspiration for the film Good Morning, Vietnam. He subsequently worked in a number of radio and television venues, provided voice-overs, and became a senior partner in a law firm based in Washington, D.C. Cronauer continues to appear on television from time to time and is sometimes a guest on syndicated radio programs. His 1991 program on National Public Radio about the role of military radio in Vietnam won a 1992 Ohio State Award and

two 1991 Gold Medals from the New York Radio Festival. In 1994 he played a cameo role in Street Fighter, portraying a comic radio personality that mirrored his job in Vietnam. Cronauer, a longtime Republican, was such a well-known veteran that President George W. Bush asked him to serve in his first administration. While Cronauer was considering the offer, terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Cronauer thought about rejoining the military but instead became special assistant to the director of the Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office at the Department of Defense. He also serves as an adviser to the deputy assistant secretary of defense and is responsible for programs that provide outreach to family, veterans, and activist groups. According to Cronauer, the work is both rewarding and frustrating. He notes that there are still approximately 88,000 people missing from all the American wars. KATHLEEN WARNES See also Film and the Vietnam Experience; Literature and the Vietnam War References Baker, Mark. Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There. New York: William Morrow, 1981. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Cronkite, Walter Leland Birth Date: November 4, 1916 Death Date: July 27, 2009 Influential and iconic CBS television news reporter and anchorman. Born on November 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Missouri, Walter Leland Cronkite moved to Texas as a young boy. After two years at the University of Texas–Austin, he left school and began his journalism career at the Houston Post in 1933. He then entered the world of radio broadcasting, taking his first job as a radio journalist and announcer in Oklahoma City in the 1930s. During World War II he worked for United Press International (UPI), and during 1945–1946 he served as chief correspondent for the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals. Cronkite spent two years as the chief UPI correspondent from the Moscow desk before joining CBS News in 1950. He was personally recruited by the venerable journalist Edward R. Murrow, who admired Cronkite’s work during World War II. Besides working as a reporter, Cronkite also narrated several popular series, which earned him wide public recognition. In 1962 Cronkite became the anchor and editor of the CBS Evening News. A year later he convinced CBS management to extend the evening news from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, which became the industry standard for years thereafter. He also anchored CBS space launches and national political conventions. From 1953 to 1957 Cronkite also hosted You Are There, a popular television program dedicated to reenacting significant historical events.

Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines

247

philanthropic and political causes. Cronkite died on July 27, 2009, in New York City. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Media and the Vietnam War; Television and the Vietnam War; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle References Fensch, Thomas, ed. Television News Anchors. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. Hallin, Daniel C. Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. James, Doug. Cronkite: His Life and Times. Brentwood, TN: JM Press, 1991.

Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines

Highly respected journalist Walter Cronkite was among the first of the profession to use television as his primary medium. As the anchor of the popular CBS Evening News from 1962 until 1982, Cronkite reported from Vietnam in early 1968 and, on his return, stated publicly that he believed the United States could not win the war. President Lyndon B. Johnson allegedly commented, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” (AP/Wide World Photos)

With his reputation for hard work, accuracy, competitiveness, gravitas, and impartiality, Cronkite achieved great believability, often ranking in polls as the “most trusted man in America.” As such, his rarely seen emotions carried great significance to his viewing public. His emotional coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination in November 1963 mirrored the feelings of the American public. In 1968 Cronkite, upon returning from a trip to Vietnam from which he reported extensively, stated publicly that he believed that American policy there would not win the war. This statement came shortly after the Tet Offensive and, coupled with the public’s growing doubts about the war, seemed to confirm that Americans wanted out of the Vietnam War. President Lyndon B. Johnson allegedly lamented that “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” Although Cronkite was not by a long shot the only American journalist to proclaim the Vietnam War to be unwinnable, he was certainly the most influential and well-respected reporter to do so. During his career Cronkite received two Peabody Awards and an Emmy Award. After retiring in 1982 he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After his retirement, he contributed to numerous special television projects and was active in

Cubi Point Naval Air Station (NAS), located in the Republic of the Philippines (abutting the Bataan Peninsula on Luzon), played a critical role in the U.S. Navy’s air war in Vietnam. Cubi Point was constructed by U.S. Navy Construction Battalion (Seabee) units beginning in 1951. The project involved displacing an entire town and cutting away half of a mountain to build a 10,000-foot runway and supporting facilities. This project extended over five years and cost $100 million. Naval Air Station Cubi Point was commissioned on July 25, 1956. As the Vietnam War intensified in 1964–1965, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers began operating from two main locations off the Vietnam littoral, Yankee Station off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Dixie Station off the coast of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Three to five carriers and up to 400 mostly jet aircraft were involved in this portion of Operation ROLLING THUNDER. This huge air armada required a proximate base to provide maintenance and provisioning, and NAS Cubi Point filled that bill. Located approximately 700 nautical miles, or two days’ steaming time, from carrier stations in the South China Sea, Cubi Point was an ideal location to provide logistical support for Commander Task Force 77, the carrier strike force of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. In addition to its long runway, Cubi Point contained a pier capable of accommodating the largest carriers in the fleet. The pier was enlarged in 1965 to include pipelines for both ship and aircraft fuel. The NAS also was abutted by a large naval magazine from which aircraft carriers and their supporting ammunition ships took aboard large quantities of bombs and other ordnance. Critical spare parts and mail were staged for delivery by carrier onboard delivery aircraft. Another significant capability was the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Facility, which at its peak was able to deliver two fully refurbished jet engines to the fleet on a daily basis. The rugged terrain and tropical climate of Cubi Point also made it an ideal home for the U.S. Navy’s Jungle Environmental Survival Training

248

Cu Chi Tunnels

A view of the runway at the Naval Air Station at Cubi Point in the Philippines. This installation played an important role in the U.S. Navy’s air operations during the Vietnam War. (Department of Defense)

School. This school held weekly classes for more than 300 U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Army pilots and aircrew bound for Vietnam. Beginning in 1971, Cubi Point also hosted a number of rotating deployed U.S. Navy aircraft squadrons, including maritime patrol squadrons of up to nine Lockheed P-3C Orion aircraft. Aircraft of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One and Composite Squadron Five were also based at the NAS and provided intelligence, logistics, and training support to U.S. Navy forces in the Gulf of Tonkin. NAS Cubi Point was also famous for its Officers Club, the contents of which were transferred intact to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, upon the closure of the Cubi Point installation in 1992. ROBERT M. BROWN See also United States Navy References Hooper, Edwin B. Mobility, Support, Endurance. Washington DC: Department of the Navy, 1972. Mersky, Peter B., and Norman Polmar. The Naval Air War in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1981.

Cu Chi Tunnels Important Communist base area. The district of Cu Chi is located some 40 miles northwest of Saigon on the way to Tay Ninh. In 1966 Cu Chi lay astride the Viet Cong (VC) main supply line to Cambodia. Thus, it is not surprising that VC leaders decided to locate a headquarters complex here as well as to fortify the surrounding area. What was surprising to Americans was that the VC constructed these positions underground. The interlocking series of tunnels and chambers, sometimes three or four levels in depth, were a marvel of military engineering, made possible by dense clay soil in the Cu Chi area. Stretching well over 100 miles, the tunnels contained hospitals, armories, classrooms, kitchens, living quarters, and even munitions factories. A complex series of ventilation shafts allowed occupants to survive underground for months at a time. Trapdoors at the surface were well concealed, and the tunnels themselves had many hidden doors and passages that enhanced their tactical advantage. Although they did not find it pleasant duty, VC soldiers were able to use the tunnel networks to considerable advantage. On January 7, 1966, units of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade discovered this extensive network. This initial contact provided only a glimpse of the problems that

Cunningham, Randall Harold tunnel fortifications would pose for U.S. forces at Cu Chi and across Vietnam. When the 25th Infantry Division established its base camp at Cu Chi later that spring, it assumed the task of clearing the tunnels. For several weeks the rear areas of the division were attacked by VC soldiers emerging from the tunnels, a type of envelopment from below. U.S. personnel attempted different approaches to clearing the tunnels. These included tear gas, acetylene gas, and explosives. Soon U.S. commanders realized that the only way to clear them effectively was by hand. This task fell to a group of volunteers who became known as “tunnel rats.” Because of the narrow tunnel passages, these men were almost uniformly small in stature and performed their duties with a minimum of equipment. Usually a tunnel rat went below with a pistol, a knife, and a flashlight. The tunnels proved to be physically and psychologically draining on American troops, and most tunnel rats served relatively short periods in this taxing assignment. Tunnel networks were later discovered in other parts of Vietnam, but none were as extensive or as problematic as those at Cu Chi. By 1967 the tunnels had been cleared, but they served as an early example of the tactical ingenuity and tenacity facing U.S. forces in Vietnam. Today the Cu Chi tunnels are a major tourist attraction. RICHARD D. STARNES See also Clear and Hold; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Tunnel Rats; Tunnels References Bergerud, Eric M. Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. San Francisco: Westview, 1993. Mangold, Tom, and John Penycate. The Tunnels of Cu Chi. New York: Random House, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Culture, Vietnamese See Vietnamese Culture

Cunningham, Randall Harold Birth Date: December 8, 1941 U.S. Navy officer and first ace in the Vietnam War (five MiG kills), television commentator, and U.S. congressman. Born in Los Angeles, California, on December 8, 1941, Randall Harold (Duke) Cunningham graduated from the University of Missouri in 1964 and the following year earned a master’s degree in education. Between 1965 and 1967 he became a highly successful swimming coach; three of his students went on to win Olympic gold or silver medals.

249

Cunningham joined the U.S. Navy in 1967 and received his pilot’s wings the next year. He took his operational training in McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms at the Naval Air Station in Miramar, California, and then joined Fighter Squadron 96. His first combat deployment was aboard the carrier America during 1969 and 1970. On January 19, 1972, during Lieutenant Cunningham’s second Vietnam tour he shot down a Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force) MiG-21, and on May 8, 1972, he shot down a VPAF MiG-19. On May 10, 1972, he downed three MiG-17s. While returning to the carrier Constellation, his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) and downed, but Cunningham and his radar intercept officer, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Bill Driscoll, were picked up at the mouth of the Red River by a search-andrescue (SAR) helicopter. In all, Cunningham flew 300 Vietnam combat missions. His decorations included the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, and the Purple Heart. In 1984 Cunningham returned to Miramar, assigned to train fighter pilots at the Navy Fighter Weapons School in the Top Gun program. As commanding officer of the elite Navy Adversary Squadron, he flew Soviet/Russian tactics and formations against some of the best U.S. fighter pilots. Many of his real-life experiences as both naval aviator and fighter pilot instructor were depicted in the 1986 film Top Gun. Cunningham retired from the navy with the rank of commander in 1988. He subsequently became a part-time commentator for CNN television on military matters and became well know for his observations during the lead-in to the Persian Gulf War (1991). In 1990 Cunningham was elected on the Republican ticket to the U.S. House of Representatives from California. He was chairman of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families and served as assistant majority whip. He was also a member of the Committees on Economic and Educational Opportunities and National Security. The archly conservative Cunningham became well known for his frequent outbursts and intemperate remarks. In one instance, he became involved in a shoving match with a Democratic colleague over the prospect of sending American troops to Bosnia in 1999. In December 2005 Cunningham was forced to resign his seat after he pled guilty to having accepted more than $2 million in bribes in exchange for federal government contracts and to conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. In March 2006 he was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution. The judge refused to grant Cunningham a lighter sentence, despite the fact that he was suffering from prostate cancer. JAMES MCNABB See also Aircraft Carriers; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Alvarez, Everett, Jr.; McCain, John Sidney, III; Search-and-Rescue Operations; United States Navy

250

Cuong De

Lieutenant Randall Cunningham (center, left) and Lieutenant William Driscoll (center, right) are honored in June 1972 as the U.S. Navy’s only Vietnam War flying aces. The two aviators are flanked by Secretary of the Navy John Warner (left) and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt (right). Cunningham was a Republican congressman from California during 1991–2003. (Naval Historical Center)

References Cunningham, Randy, and Jeffrey L. Ethell. Fox Two: The Story of America’s First Ace in Vietnam. New York: Warner Books, 1989. Duncan, Phillip D., and Christine C. Lawrence, eds. Congressional Quarterly’s Politics in America: The 104th Congress. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995.

Cuong De Birth Date: 1882 Death Date: 1951 Prince of the Nguyen dynasty and leader of an anti-French movement in the early 20th century. Also known as Ky Ngoai Hau Cuong De, Cuong De was a direct descendant of Prince Canh, the first son of Emperor Gia Long (r. 1802–1820), founder of the Nguyen dynasty (1802–1945). Cuong De was selected by Phan Boi Chau and other Confucian scholars in central Vietnam to head their anti-French movement in 1903. In 1906 through the Dong Du (Travel to the East) movement, Cuong De left Vietnam for Japan

and was elected president of the Viet Nam Duy Tan Hoi (Association for Modernization of Vietnam). In 1910 following an agreement with the French in 1907 and to please them, the Japanese deported all Vietnamese students. Cuong De then moved to China where, together with Phan Boi Chau, he founded the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi (Association for the Restoration of Viet Nam), of which Cuong De was elected president. During World War I Cuong De visited Berlin seeking assistance from the German government, and in 1915 he returned to Japan. During World War II the Japanese had a plan to support him as an alternative ruler to Bao Dai for Vietnam. This plan attracted many Vietnamese nationalists, including Ngo Dinh Diem and leaders of the Cao Dai religious sect, but it was never realized. In January 1945 Japanese administrator for Indochina General Tsuchihashi Yuichi rejected a proposal to fly Cuong De from Tokyo to Saigon, deciding that Bao Dai should remain on the throne to maintain “social order.” Cuong De died in Tokyo in 1951. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Cao Dai; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Dynasty

Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr. References Cuong De. Cuoc Doi Cach Mang Cuong De. Saigon: Trang Liet, 1957. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Vietnam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970.

Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr. Birth Date: December 24, 1914 Death Date: January 2, 1985 U.S. Marine Corps general and commandant. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on December 24, 1914, Robert Everton Cushman Jr. graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1935 and was commissioned in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served with distinction in the Pacific theater during World War II in Guam,

251

Bougainville, and Iwo Jima. Later he served in important staff assignments with Vice President Richard Nixon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Cushman was promoted to brigadier general in July 1958 and to major general in August 1961. General Cushman’s most important combat assignment was as commander of the III Marine Amphibious Force in Vietnam from June 1967, when he was promoted to lieutenant general, to March 1969. Numbering more than 172,000 troops, this was the largest force ever commanded by a U.S. Marine Corps officer to that date. Cushman was responsible for operations in the I Corps Tactical Zone, a task that required him to manage assets from all arms and services. Cushman distinguished himself directing operations during the 1968 Tet Offensive. First and foremost a marine, he clashed with the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), staff and even its commanding officer, General William Westmoreland, over what Cushman saw as mismanagement of U.S. Marine Corps assets, particularly the U.S. Air Force control of U.S. Marine Corps air wings. Cushman left Vietnam in March 1969 to become deputy director of the CIA. In January 1972 upon promotion to full (four-star) general, he became commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. Much

U.S. Marine Corps general Robert E. Cushman Jr. holds his first press conference since becoming Marine Corps commandant in January 1972. During 1967–1969, Cushman had commanded the III Marine Amphibious Force in Vietnam. He had then been deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. (Bettmann/Corbis)

252

Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr.

of his time as commandant was spent overseeing a reduction in the strength of the U.S. Marine Corps while at the same time maintaining readiness. Cushman retired in June 1975 and died on January 2, 1985. RICHARD D. STARNES See also United States Marine Corps; Walt, Lewis William

References Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991. Smith, Charles R. High Mobility and Standdown, 1969, Vol. 6, U.S. Marines in Vietnam. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 1988. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

D Da Faria, Antônio

Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang

the Ly (1010–1225 CE), Tran (1225–1400 CE), and Le (1428–1788 CE) dynasties. The party’s founder, Truong Tu Anh, and most of the party’s members were Hanoi-based university students. For ideology the Dai Viet adopted the theory of dan toc sinh ton (“people’s existence”), which focused on economic development and the people’s welfare. During World War II the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (DVQDD, National Party of Greater Vietnam) established a number of bases in locations such as Viet Tri and Dong Trieu and also established a training center. But during 1945–1946 the DVQDD shared the fate of other nationalist parties in being subsumed by the Communists. The DVQDD’s leaders, including Truong Tu Anh, were killed or kidnapped. In the early 1950s the DVQDD began a revival in areas controlled by Bao Dai’s State of Vietnam. According to one of its leaders, the DVQDD recruited up to 200,000 new members, most of whom were in northern Vietnam and in the provinces of Quang Tri, Thua Thien, and Quang Nam in southern Vietnam. Besides the DVQDD, many other Vietnamese nationalist parties chose to incorporate the term “Dai Viet” in their names. These included the Dai Viet Duy Dan, well known among Vietnamese intellectuals for its nhan chu duy dan (“people’s populism”) theory. Its founder, Ly Dong A, was also kidnapped and disappeared. Another such party was the Dai Viet Dan Chinh headed by Nguyen Tuong Tam, the well-known founder of the Tu Luc Van Doan group. A third party was the Dai Viet Quoc Xa of Phan Quang Dan, a party supported by the Japanese. A fourth such party was the Dai Viet Quoc Gia Lien Minh, founded by Ngo Thuc Dich, Nguyen Xuan Mai, Nhuong Tong, and others. PHAM CAO DUONG

Vietnamese nationalist party founded in 1936. Dai Viet, which can be translated as “Greater Viet,” was the name of Vietnam under

See also Bao Dai; Viet Minh

Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: Unknown Portuguese explorer. During the 16th century, many European powers launched exploration and empire-building efforts. The Portuguese were particularly successful in Asia, where they gained important footholds in India, Malaya, Siam, Burma, and China. In 1535 Portuguese Antônio da Faria became the first European to establish a lasting settlement in Vietnam. The village of Faifo, located 15 miles south of present-day Da Nang, offered a usable harbor that da Faria hoped to exploit. He envisioned a major Portuguese trade center, such as those developed at Goa and Malacca, but Faifo never prospered to that extent. DAVID COFFEY See also Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Daisy Cutter Bomb See BLU-82/B Bomb

254

Dak To, Battle of

References Nguyen Khac Ngu. Dai Cuong Ve Cac Dang Phai Chinh Tri Viet Nam [Overview of Political Parties in Vietnam]. Montreal: Tu Sach Nghien Cuu Su Dia, 1989. Nguyen Van Canh. “Thanh Nien Va Cac Phong Trao Chong Phap Thoi Can Dai (1900–1945).” In Tuyen Tap Ngon Ngo Va Van Hoc Viet Nam: Essays on Vietnamese Language and Literature, No. 2, Fascicle II, 491–505. San Jose, CA: Mekong-Tynan, 1994.

Dak To, Battle of Start Date: June 17, 1967 End Date: November 22, 1967 Series of battles in 1967 at the U.S. Special Forces camp at Dak To, northeast of Pleiku. On June 17, 1967, Dak To came under heavy mortar fire. During the next few days the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, searched the slopes of Hill 1338 for the attackers. On June 22 Company A encountered a battalion of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 24th Infantry Regiment. The difficulty of fighting in the junglecovered mountains became immediately evident. Commanders

in helicopters could not see their units on the ground, artillery exploded in treetops rather than on the ground, and smoke from smoke grenades dissipated before reaching the top of the jungle and served only to identify for the enemy the location of American soldiers. In this battle, U.S. losses were 76 killed in action and 23 wounded. PAVN losses were estimated at 475 killed or wounded, although that number is disputed. During July, companies from the 173rd Airborne Brigade continued to patrol near Dak To. Documents found in numerous PAVN camps indicated the presence in the area of three PAVN regiments with a mission to attack U.S. Army Special Forces camps blocking infiltration routes into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). On July 7 Company B, 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, met a strong PAVN force on Hill 830 and suffered 24 killed and 62 wounded. Contacts continued throughout the month. In late 1967 the PAVN began moving more units south to prepare for the Tet Offensive. Units from the U.S. 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry divisions, units from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), and other battalions from the 173rd Airborne Brigade deployed to Dak To. Facing the Americans in the Dak To area were four regiments (the 24th, 66th, 174th, and 320th regiments) of the reinforced PAVN 1st Division,

On November 22, 1967, members of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade reached the crest of Hill 875. In the late afternoon of November 19, a U.S. Air Force fighter dropped a 500-pound bomb in the middle of Company C, killing 42 Americans and wounding 45. Three days of fighting here against entrenched People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) soldiers cost the Americans 115 killed, 253 wounded, and 5 missing. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Dak To, Battle of

led by the division commander Nguyen Huu An, who had commanded PAVN forces during the brutal fight against the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. During the first nine days of November, companies from the 8th Infantry and 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, and from the 173rd Airborne Brigade engaged in savage fighting near Hill 823. In the ensuing battles, paratroopers from the 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, killed about 125 PAVN soldiers but lost 15 killed and 48 wounded. Examination of PAVN dead revealed that the unit was composed of well-equipped fresh troops. A major battle occurred on November 11 between the PAVN 66th Regiment and American units. On Hill 724 the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, fought off a PAVN attack that resulted in 92 PAVN troops killed. U.S. casualties were 18 killed and 188 wounded. On Hill 223, Companies A, C, and D of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, encountered a PAVN battalion. Hit by mortar, rocket, and small-arms fire from the well-camouflaged PAVN, Companies A, C, and D were surrounded. Company C of the 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, arrived about 875 yards from the battle and relieved the 1st Battalion. U.S. casualties were 20 killed, 184 wounded, and 2 missing. PAVN losses were officially

255

reported as 175 killed, but participants believed that no more than 80 were actually killed. During November 12–15 units from the 1st and 2nd battalions, 503rd Infantry, encountered PAVN troops in well-constructed bunkers and trenches. In the ensuing battles, American troops lost numerous killed and found 85 PAVN troops dead. PAVN rockets meanwhile destroyed the ammunition dump at the Dak To firesupport base. On November 19 the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry began moving up Hill 875, unaware that in front of them the PAVN 174th Regiment occupied bunkers and trenches connected by tunnels. As two companies advanced, PAVN troops closed behind them. Company A’s command post was overrun, and the remnants of that company plus Companies C and D were surrounded. In late afternoon a U.S. Air Force fighter dropped a 500-pound bomb in the middle of Company C. The explosion killed 42 Americans (several of them officers) and wounded 45. Throughout November 20 the survivors repelled numerous PAVN attacks. That night three companies from the 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, arrived to reinforce the defenders. Units from the 4th Infantry Division and the ARVN 42th Infantry Regiment encountered PAVN troops west, south, and northeast of Dak To.

256

Da Lat

Not until November 22 did the 4th Battalion, along with two 4th Infantry Division companies, gain the crest of Hill 875. In the battle American casualties totaled 115 killed, 253 wounded, and 5 missing. Total PAVN losses since November 1 were estimated at 1,000. In these engagements, known collectively as the Battle of Dak To, the PAVN failed to achieve one of its main objectives: the destruction of an American unit. The PAVN had, however, come close. Despite heavy losses, the Americans had achieved a victory. Three PAVN regiments scheduled to participate in the upcoming Tet Offensive were so mauled that they had to be withdrawn to refit. In his memoirs General Nguyen Huu An admitted that at the time of the 1968 Tet offensive, “After the battle of Dak To, the combat strength of [my] 1st Division had deteriorated, and we no longer possessed the strength to ‘devour’ an American infantry brigade.” RICHARD L. KIPER

of the 1968 Tet Offensive. From January 31 to February 9, 1968, fierce fighting occurred in and around Da Lat between South Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong (VC). After the war the Communists used the city as a rehabilitation center for their cadre. With its European-style villas, cobbled streets, churches, and pagodas, Da Lat is a popular tourist resort venue. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Bao Dai; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Viet Cong Infrastructure References Shipway, Martin. The Road to War: France and Vietnam. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1996. Warner, Denis. Out of the Gun. London: Hutchinson, 1956.

See also Central Highlands; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army

Da Lat Military Academy

References Murphy, Edward F. Dak To: The 173rd Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, June–November 1967. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Nguyen Huu An and Nguyen Tu Duong. Chien Truong Moi [New Battlefield]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2002.

Daley, Richard Joseph

Da Lat City located at the southern end of the Central Highlands in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam [RVN, South Vietnam] until 1975), with a population in 2008 of some 120,000 people. Da Lat was established in 1897 by the French as a mountain resort for Europeans and remained a popular destination during the period of French colonial rule (up to 1954). French officials dammed up the Cam Ly River, which led to the creation of Lake Xuan Huong near the city center. The city was the location of the Da Lat Military Academy, where many Vietnamese officers were trained including Nguyen Van Thieu, later president of South Vietnam. In April and May 1946 the city was the location of the Da Lat Conference, where representatives of the French government met with Vietnamese Communists to discuss the terms of the March 1946 Ho-Sainteny Agreement. The failure of the conference helped contribute to the start of the Indochina War in December 1946. Da Lat was popular with Emperor Bao Dai during the latter period of the Indochina War, and after the end of French rule many of the Saigon elite bought homes there, including members of the Ngo Dinh Diem family. With the surrounding region populated by the Montagnards and other tribes people, there was little fighting around the city during the Vietnam War with the notable exception

See Vietnam, Republic of, Da Lat Military Academy

Birth Date: May 15, 1902 Death Date: December 20, 1976 Democratic politician and longtime mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Born in Chicago on May 15, 1902, Richard Joseph Daley was the son of an Irish American sheet-metal worker and union activist. A hard worker even as a teenager, Daley early became interested in politics. A Democrat, he was a precinct captain at the age of 21. Later he became a state assembly member and state senator. Going to school at night, he earned a JD degree from DePaul University in 1933, although he rarely practiced law. As a member of the Cook County (in which the city of Chicago is located) Democratic Central Committee, Daley increased his political importance. In 1955 he was elected mayor of Chicago and became the powerful boss of that city’s potent political machine. The positions that Daley held allowed him to fill thousands of patronage jobs with loyal supporters. His close ties to industry and labor gave him considerable control over the sizable African American vote in the city. There is no question that Daley was the most powerful mayor in the nation. During his 21 years in office, Daley presided over numerous and massive construction and development projects in America’s second-largest city. These included the University of Illinois–Chicago campus, McCormick Place (a massive convention center), O’Hare International Airport, the Sears Tower (the nation’s tallest building, renamed the Willis Tower in 2009), and myriad highway and subway construction and extension projects. As such, he

Da Nang

Richard J. Daley was mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976. As the head of Chicago’s Democratic Party machine, Daley was one of the most powerful politicians in the country. (City of Chicago, Office of the Mayor)

was credited with having saved Chicago from the plight of many other northern industrial cities, which experienced painful and long-term declines after the late 1960s. It is almost axiomatic that what Daley accomplished included a significant amount of graft, corruption, and patronage, but although many of his subordinates were accused and convicted of abuse of power, bribery, etc., Daley remained above the fray and was enormously popular for much of his tenure. Daley famously extended his control over Illinois and Chicago voters to sway the 1960 presidential vote in favor of John F. Kennedy. In 1964 Daley again delivered the Illinois vote to President Lyndon Johnson. Daley’s heavy-handed response to three days of rioting in Chicago following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, was a preview of the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots. Daley made security the number-one priority at the convention site by creating a fortress there, complete with barbedwire and chain-link fencing outside, while inside he clearly tried to manipulate the convention in favor of his choice for the nomination, Senator Hubert Humphrey.

257

The Chicago police clashed with antiwar demonstrators before the convention even opened, and Daley’s opening remarks to the convention included a promise to keep law and order. On his orders, Chicago police brutally attacked the crowds. During the unrest, Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.) denounced Daley’s “law and order” outside the convention hall as “Gestapo tactics” and attempted to close the convention down and reconvene it elsewhere. Daley, outraged, shouted the senator down and prevented the motion from reaching the floor for a vote. Later dubbed a “police riot,” the brutality on the streets of Chicago stunned the nation as it watched the violence unfold on television. After the August riots the Daley administration was lambasted for its repressive policies, and for the first time the shine on Daley’s image became somewhat tarnished. Nevertheless, Daley insisted that what he had done was right and made no apologies for the violence, instead attributing it to “radicals.” Despite his loss of popularity, Daley was reelected to an unprecedented fifth term in 1971, although many have pointed out that this was due more to the lack of worthy opposition rather than Daley’s popularity itself. It was also obvious that Daley, through his political machine and patronage, saw to it that he had no viable opposition. Daley died suddenly of a heart attack in Chicago on December 20, 1976. His son, Richard M. Daley, has been mayor of Chicago since 1989. If he finishes his current term, which ends in 2010, he will have bested his father’s record as the city’s longestreigning mayor. CHARLOTTE A. POWER AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Elections, U.S., 1968; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio References Cohen, Adam, and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000. Lichtenstein, Nelson, ed. Political Profiles: The Johnson Years. New York: Facts on File, 1976. Royko, Mike. Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago. New York: Signet, 1971.

Da Nang Capital of Quang Nam Province and the second-largest city in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Da Nang had a 1967 population of 143,910 people. In 1954 the Geneva Conference partitioned Vietnam along the 17th Parallel. Da Nang represented a major concession by the Communists because the Viet Minh controlled much of the territory between the 13th and 17th parallels. On March 8, 1965, the first U.S. combat units in Vietnam landed at Da Nang. The city was the headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) I Corps. Da

258

Da Nang

U.S. marines come ashore at Da Nang, South Vietnam, on March 8, 1965. The marines were dispatched to the Republic of Vietnam to protect U.S. air bases there and were the vanguard of U.S. ground troops in the country. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

Nang was also the site of a major military base, port, and resupply area for ARVN and U.S. forces and became headquarters for the U.S. III Marine Amphibious Force, the U.S. 1st and 3rd Marine divisions, and later the U.S. Army’s XXIV Corps. As the Vietnam War progressed, Da Nang was strangled with refugees who had been forced to flee their ancestral homes; many of them entered the drug trade or prostitution. During the 1966 Buddhist Crisis, the city was the site of massive antigovernment demonstrations as rebellious ARVN troops joined the Buddhists against Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky’s government. U.S. marines secured the city and averted the confrontation by positioning themselves between belligerent troops. In 1967 Communist forces mortared and rocketed Da Nang’s air base, destroying aircraft valued at $75 million. During the January 1968 Tet Offensive, Da Nang was attacked by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) forces. During the Communist 1975 Spring (Easter) Offensive, large numbers of refugees desperately attempting to stay close to their families crammed into the city, which fell quickly to the PAVN onslaught, prompting a catastrophic retreat in which thousands of ARVN soldiers and civilians perished amid heavy fighting. Following the Communist victory, Da Nang became a major staging area for the mass flight of Vietnamese boat people.

Today Da Nang remains an important city and port in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and since the 1970s the city has experienced a large increase in population. Da Nang is one of five independent municipalities in the country and has a current estimated population of 750,000 people. The larger metropolitan area boasts a population of slightly more than 1 million. With four major universities, Da Nang is home to a myriad of light and medium industries and derives much of its income from the massive port facilities along the coast. Tourism has also emerged as a major industry. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Hue and Da Nang, Fall of; Nguyen Cao Ky; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Marine Corps References Dunn, Carroll H. Base Development in South Vietnam, 1965–1970. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972. Dunn, Carroll H. Building the Bases: The History of Construction in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Smith, Harvey H., et al. Area Handbook for South Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967.

D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry

Dang Xuan Khu See Truong Chinh

DANIEL BOONE,

259

Dao Duy Tung Birth Date: ca. 1922 Death Date: 1998

Operation

Start Date: May 1967 End Date: December 1968 Code name for cross-border reconnaissance operations from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) into Cambodia by U.S. Special Forces. In June 1966 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) authorized Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland to institute this project, which developed under the code name DANIEL BOONE. Final approval for the conduct of these operations was not granted until May 1967 and then only for the small section of the Cambodian triborder area above the Se San River. Teams typically included 2 or 3 Americans and about 10 indigenous personnel. Their mission was to penetrate Cambodia on foot or by helicopter-borne insertion, conduct reconnaissance, plant sanitized self-destruct antipersonnel mines, commit sabotage, and gather intelligence. DANIEL BOONE operations were expanded in October 1967 to cover Cambodia’s border facing Vietnam to a depth of 12.5 miles (later 18.75 miles) and was divided into two zones. Zone Alpha stretched approximately from Snoul north to Laos, while Zone Bravo stretched from Snoul to the Gulf of Thailand. Missions in Zone Bravo required presidential approval on a case-by-case basis. In November 1967 assets from Project Sigma were transferred to DANIEL BOONE, and the DANIEL BOONE teams increased their efforts. During November and December 1967 DANIEL BOONE teams detected a large People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) buildup in such areas as the so-called Fishhook. General Westmoreland urgently requested approval to launch spoiling attacks into the detected base areas, but his appeals were denied. The success of the DANIEL BOONE strategic reconnaissance effort was not capitalized upon, and these areas later proved to be key PAVN/VC staging bases for the 1968 Tet Offensive. Operation DANIEL BOONE was renamed SALEM HOUSE in December 1968 and THOT NOT in 1971. During the four-year life of these operations, 1,835 missions were conducted. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Project Sigma; United States Special Forces; Westmoreland, William Childs References Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Key figure in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). Dao Duy Tung, a northerner, built up his strength in the VCP hierarchy as a veteran officer in charge of propaganda. Born probably in 1922, he was a high school classmate of many Vietnamese leaders, including Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach and Minister of Interior Mai Chi Tho. Little is known about Tung’s activities during the Indochina War. Tung had been deputy chief of the Propaganda and Training Department of the VCP Central Committee at least since the 1960s. He was also the editor of Hoc Tap, later renamed Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Review), the political journal of the VCP. Tung became an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee at the party’s Fourth Congress in December 1976. In the March 1982 VCP Fifth Congress, Tung was elected a full member of its Central Committee and was promoted to chief of the Propaganda and Training Department. Tung became the sole alternate member of the Politburo by the VCP 6th Congress and was also appointed to its Central Committee’s Secretariat in December 1986. He relinquished his post as chief of the Propaganda and Training Department of the Central Committee, but it is believed that he continued to supervise propaganda and training. In June 1991 Tung was promoted to become a full member of the VCP Politburo. Considered a hard-liner who tried to adhere to Socialist ideology, Tung was dropped from the Politburo at the 8th Communist Party Congress in June 1996. He reportedly died in 1998. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Daoism See Taoism

D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Birth Date: August 7, 1889 Death Date: September 7, 1964 Roman Catholic priest, diplomat, commander in chief of Free French naval forces in World War II, and high commissioner of Indochina during 1945–1947. Born on August 7, 1889, in Brest, France, Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu followed his father into the navy, becoming a naval cadet at age 16. From 1912 to 1914 the

260 Dau Tranh Strategy younger d’Argenlieu saw service in Morocco, and during World War I he served in the Mediterranean in patrol boats and submarine chasers. After the war d’Argenlieu resigned his commission and began studying for the priesthood. Taking the name of Louis de la Trinité, in 1920 he became a Carmelite friar. Twelve years later he was chosen to restore the old Carmelite province of Paris, and in 1939 he became the provincial of all the Carmelite Order for France. Recalled to service at the start of World War II, d’Argenlieu was posted to Cherbourg. Captured with the fall of the arsenal there, he escaped by leaping from a moving prison train headed to Germany. One of the first to rally to Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle in London, d’Argenlieu remained fiercely loyal to the general. De Gaulle named him chaplain to the Free French Navy. D’Argenlieu was seriously wounded while serving as captain of a French shore party in the 1940 effort to capture Dakar in French West Africa. Within six weeks d’Argenlieu was back aboard ship commanding raids to seize West African ports, and he played a key role in assisting General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc once ashore. In 1941 d’Argenlieu was appointed high commissioner for the French territories of the Pacific and the Far East. Later he received plenipotentiary powers and the rank of rear admiral. Under his command, New Caledonia became a staging point for the Allied naval advance in the Pacific. In 1943 d’Argenlieu returned to London as commander of French naval forces in Britain. He was French naval adviser to the 1944 Normandy Invasion and accompanied de Gaulle on his return to France later that summer. In 1945 d’Argenlieu was appointed vice president of the Supreme Naval Council and inspector general of French naval forces, and in mid-August de Gaulle named him high commissioner to Indochina with instructions “to restore French sovereignty in the Indo-China Union.” It was in this period of his public service that d’Argenlieu became controversial. He was correctly seen as a staunch defender of French colonialism and its mission civilisatrice (“civilizing mission”), and his appointment to the Indochina post came over heated Socialist opposition. In The Two Viet Nams, Bernard Fall writes that d’Argenlieu’s appointment was France’s “major postwar blunder in Southeast Asia.” Fall describes d’Argenlieu as a man of narrow vision who saw the world as one of extremes in which evil was to be eradicated: “He had neither the patience nor the tact for negotiating with ‘natives.’” D’Argenlieu’s June 2, 1946, proclamation of a “Republic of Cochin-China” presented both Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the French government in Paris with a fait accompli, effectively torpedoing the Fontainebleau Conference and ending the possibility of working out accommodation with Ho and the Viet Minh. D’Argenlieu succeeded in convincing French premier Georges Bidault of the need to “teach the Vietnamese nationalists a lesson.” D’Argenlieu, who was in Paris at the time, cabled General Jean-Étienne Valluy, his deputy in Saigon, who in turn ordered

the French commissioner in Tonkin, General Louis Constant Morlière, to use force in north Vietnam. This produced the November 23, 1946, shelling of Hai Phong by the cruiser Suffren, which led directly to the December 19 outbreak of war. In February 1947 d’Argenlieu was recalled to France. He immediately reentered the Carmelite order and died at a monastery near Brest on September 7, 1964. He had pursued his two contradictory careers as a man of war and a man of peace with the same intense dedication. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bidault, Georges; De Gaulle, Charles; Fontainebleau Conference; Haiphong, Shelling of; Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe; Valluy, Jean-Étienne References Alford, Elisée. Le Père Louis de la Trinité, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1969. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954.

Date of Estimated Return from Overseas See DEROS

Dau Tranh Strategy Strategy reportedly devised by Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh, and Truong Chinh, leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The theory of a long war, or people’s war, is incomprehensible to Western military and political leaders. Truong Chinh said that because war is the most acute form of struggle between man and man, people’s warfare rather than weapons and techniques decides victory. People’s warfare means mobilization of every person in the nation. Involvement of entire families becomes critical to dau tranh (“struggle”) because the idea of a noncombatant is eliminated. Dau tranh has two elements, political struggle and armed struggle. They are the jaws of the pincer movement and must work together against an enemy. Only then is victory possible, and that dualism forms the dogma. Armed struggle is the program of violence involving military actions and other forms of bloodshed. Political struggle is the systematic coercive activity involving individual and societal mobilization, organization, and motivation. Every action taken in war falls within the framework and scope of these two elements. In one interpretation, dau tranh means “the people as instrument of war.” The strategy has a threefold sequence of implementation: control the people, forge them into a weapon, and hurl the

Dau Tranh Strategy

261

An Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldier questions a suspected Viet Cong sympathizer in a South Vietnamese village on January 5, 1967. (Bettmann/Corbis)

weapon into battle. Dau tranh is a political strategy in that any revolution is political. In that sense, violence is necessary to dau tranh but is not its essence. The strategy’s goal is to seize power by disabling society through primarily organizational means. Organization becomes more important than ideology or military tactics. A united front, an organization of organizations, is the basic instrument of control. The organizations become channels of communication. Organization leads to mobilization and then motivation. Victory goes to the side that is best organized, stays best organized, and most successfully disorganizes the other side. The dau tranh strategist never uses a real grievance to undermine the enemy because spontaneity is unpredictable. The strategist manufactures a grievance and follows a manufactured timetable to achieve a new social order. Armed dau tranh is unlike ordinary military combat because it includes various military actions as well as assassinations, kidnappings, and other activities not usually associated with regular armed forces. This method is a program of violence that is always cast in a political context. Dau tranh’s strategic objective is to put armed conflict in the context of political dissidence so that available resources must constantly be divided between the armed and political methods. Political dau tranh consists of three programs that move the abstract into reality. The first is action among the people, its most

potent aspect being the village-level effort to gain support. In the Vietnam War, this program worked to limit American military response and to affect the American public’s perception of the war, undermining support for the war and therefore undercutting American international diplomacy. This program required complete advanced planning and absolute control during execution. The second program, action among the military, was a proselytizing effort aimed at individual enemy soldiers and civil servants. Its goal was to weaken the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The third program, action among the people controlled by the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), also known as the Viet Cong (VC), exercised administrative and motivational control of liberated areas (the rudimentary beginning of Marxist society) and gave Communist forces a place to rest and recuperate in liberated areas. Superior organization to allow more complete mobilization is the key to success in dau tranh. This kind of struggle channels the enemy’s response and in effect dictates the enemy’s strategy. The enemy is forced to fight under unfavorable terms. The devastation formerly directed at a target or confined to a battle zone is turned on the people themselves, for they have become the battlefield. Countering the dau tranh strategy requires control of resources and population, which inevitably means deliberately inflicting

262

Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr.

civilian casualties. Moreover, dau tranh confuses the enemy’s perception of the war and can channel that perception. This aspect of the strategy confused Americans about the essential nature of the war and its conduct and its outcome as well as the nature of their enemy. Dau tranh succeeds only to the extent that it avoids or nullifies an enemy’s total military, political, and economic strength. THOMAS R. CARVER See also Ho Chi Minh; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Truong Chinh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vo Nguyen Giap References Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Truong-Chinh. Selected Writings. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 1994. Vo Nguyen Giap. People’s War People’s Army: The Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for Underdeveloped Countries. New York: Praeger, 1962.

Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr. Birth Date: November 26, 1915 Death Date: February 7, 1996 U.S. Army general and assistant chief of staff for intelligence (G-2), Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Born on November 26, 1915, at Hachita, New Mexico, Phillip Buford Davidson Jr. graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of cavalry in 1939. During World War II he served in various command and staff positions in armored cavalry units. After the war his career turned largely to intelligence. During the 1950–1953 Korean War, Davidson was an intelligence staff officer in General Douglas MacArthur’s United Nations Command (UNC). The unexpected massive Chinese intervention in the conflict in November 1950 is still considered one of the greatest failures of military intelligence in modern history. In May 1967 Major General Davidson was appointed assistant chief of staff for intelligence in MACV. As chief intelligence adviser to MACV commander General William C. Westmoreland, Davidson revamped and redirected U.S. military intelligence efforts, focusing on providing useful intelligence estimates and accurate predictions of future enemy activities. In this assignment he played a prominent role in the controversial 1967 enemy order of battle estimates. Davidson left Vietnam in 1969 to command Fort Ord, California. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1972 and retired from the army at that rank in 1974. In 1984 Davidson was a plaintiff’s witness in the libel case brought by Westmoreland against the Columbia Broadcasting

System (CBS). The lawsuit alleged that CBS erroneously reported during a television special about the Vietnam War that Westmoreland and others had knowingly and purposely underestimated the strength of the Viet Cong (VC) in 1967 to boost the morale of the military and maintain public support for the war. Davidson testified as to the accuracy of estimates of enemy order of battle in 1967 and claimed that possible political considerations had not influenced that process. He wrote two books about the Vietnam War, one of which, Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975 (1988), treats both the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. Davidson died on February 7, 1996, in San Antonio, Texas. RICHARD D. STARNES See also Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Order of Battle Dispute; Westmoreland, William Childs References Davidson, Phillip B. Secrets of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990. Davidson, Phillip B. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994.

Davis, Raymond Gilbert Birth Date: January 13, 1915 Death Date: September 3, 2003 U.S. Marine Corps officer and commanding general, 3rd Marine Division, Vietnam (May 1968–April 1969). Born in Fitzgerald, Georgia, on January 13, 1915, Raymond (Ray) Gilbert Davis graduated from the Georgia School of Technology in 1938. A member of the U.S. Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), he resigned his army reserve commission on graduation to accept an appointment as a U.S. Marine Corps second lieutenant. During World War II he fought in the Pacific theater, participating in the Battle for Guadalcanal, where he cultivated a close personal relationship with Lewis B. (“Chesty”) Puller. Davis also saw service in the Eastern New Guinea and Cape Gloucester campaigns and in the fighting on Peleliu. In April 1944 while commanding a battalion of the 1st Marine Division, he earned both the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart. During the Korean War, Davis, then a lieutenant colonel, commanded a battalion, the 7th Marines, from August to December 1950. He earned the Medal of Honor for his heroic efforts in extricating his men from the Changjin (Chosin) Reservoir region in December 1950. He also was awarded two Silver Stars and the Legion of Merit with “V” Device. Davis was then executive officer of the 7th Marines from December 1950 to June 1951. Following a variety of assignments, Davis was promoted to colonel in October 1953 and to brigadier general in July 1963. He graduated from the National War College in Washington, D.C., in 1960 and was then assigned to the United States European Com-

Davis, Rennard Cordon mand. From March 1965 until March 1968 he served as assistant chief of staff, G-1, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps. He was promoted to major general in November 1966. Ordered to Vietnam, Davis served briefly as deputy commanding general, Provisional Corps. From May 1968 to April 1969 he was commanding general of the 3rd Marine Division. Under Davis, marine tactics changed from manning fixed defensive positions to conducting highly mobile operations throughout western Quang Tri Province. This change led to Operation DEWEY CANYON in early 1969. Davis was also instrumental in the reestablishment of unit cohesion at the battalion and regiment levels within the 3rd Marine Division. For his Vietnam service he received the Distinguished Service Medal. Davis earned promotion to lieutenant general in July 1970. In March 1971 he received his fourth star and appointment as assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. Davis retired in March 1972. In 1975 he became president of RGMV, Inc., in Stockbridge, Georgia. Later President George H. W. Bush appointed Davis chairman of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Advance Board. Davis died on September 3, 2003, in Conyers, Georgia. WILL E. FAHEY JR.

263

See also Bush, George Herbert Walker; DEWEY CANYON I, Operation; United States Marine Corps Reference Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991.

Davis, Rennard Cordon Birth Date: May 23, 1941 Outspoken anti–Vietnam War activist and one of the Chicago Eight. Rennard (“Rennie”) Cordon Davis was born on May 23, 1941. He received an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in Ohio and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois. While in school he became active in the antiwar movement and was the national director of community organizing programs for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). During the tumultuous year of 1968, Davis worked closely with the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam

Rennie Davis (center) with Abbie Hoffman (left) and Jeremy Rubin (right) during a press conference as they await the verdict on their case in Chicago, Illinois, February 14, 1970. They were three of the so-called Chicago Eight, charged with conspiring to incite a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP/Wide World Photos)

264

Day, George Everett

and collaborated with Tom Hayden, another outspoken opponent of the war. Through the committee Davis, Hayden, and others hatched plans to stage massive antiwar demonstrations during the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Major rioting ensued, with hundreds wounded and several thousand jailed or manhandled by Chicago police and national guardsmen. Davis, along with seven others, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale, were arrested and indicted for conspiracy, inciting a riot, and various other serious offenses. Seale’s case was separated from the others, so the Chicago Eight now became the Chicago Seven. The raucous trial, which resembled more a farce than a criminal proceeding, began in September 1969. Davis’s claim to fame came in the fact that he was only one of two members of the Chicago Seven who testified during the trial. Hoffman was the other. In February 1970 Davis was acquitted on the charge of conspiracy, but he and four others were found guilty of crossing state lines to incite a riot, a federal offense that carried more weight than a state offense. The conviction was later reversed by a U.S. Court of Appeals. Davis kept a low profile for several years before becoming an adherent of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat), an Eastern mystic and founder of the Divine Light Mission. Davis became an organizer for the Divine Light Mission and frequently spoke at its meetings and conventions. Many questioned Davis’s sanity because of his rabid devotion to Prem Rawat and the Divine Light Mission. In 1973 when Davis promoted a huge meeting of the Divine Light Mission in the Houston Astrodome, the San Francisco Sunday Examiner asserted that perhaps he had undergone a lobotomy and went on to recommend that “if not, maybe he should try one.” After his dalliance with Eastern philosophy, Davis became a fairly successful venture capitalist. He continues to lecture on meditation and self-awareness. In 1996 Davis and Hayden chaired a well-received panel at the Democratic National Convention titled “A Progressive Counterbalance to the Religious Right.” PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Students for a Democratic Society References Seale, Bobby, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Abbie Hoffman. The Conspiracy: The Chicago Eight. New York: Dell, 1969. Weiner, John, ed. Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight. New York: New Press, 2006.

Day, George Everett Birth Date: February 24, 1925 U.S. Air force officer, Vietnam War prisoner of war (POW), and Medal of Honor recipient. Born in Sioux City, Iowa, on February 24, 1925, George “Bud” Everett Day left high school prior to graduation in order to join the U.S. Marine Corps during World War

II. He served on active duty for two and a half years, posted to an artillery battalion on Johnson Island in the South Pacific. Upon returning from the war, he attended Morningside College and then the University of South Dakota School of Law. Day was admitted to the South Dakota bar in 1949. The next year he received a direct commission as a second lieutenant in the Iowa Air National Guard. Called to active duty in 1951 during the Korean War, he underwent flight training. He then saw combat in two tours as a pilot flying the Republic F-84 Thunderchief fighterbomber in Korea. Promoted to captain, Day remained in the air force. In 1967 with the anticipation of retiring the next year, Major Day requested assignment to Vietnam. There he was assigned in April 1967 to the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Tuy Hoa Air Base in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Shortly after his arrival he took command of Detachment 1, 416th Tactical Fighter Wing. His men flew North American F-100 Super Sabres out of Phu Cat Air Base. His aircraft served as fast forward air controllers in missions over Laos and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). On August 26, 1967, in the course of his 65th mission while directing an air strike against a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile (SAM) site west of Dong Hoi, 20 miles north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), Day’s aircraft was shot down. During his ejection his right arm was broken in three different places, and he sustained eye and back injuries. The other member of his crew ejected safely and was subsequently picked up by a rescue helicopter. Day, however, was taken prisoner by local militia forces shortly after he landed. On the fifth night of his captivity Day escaped, and despite his injuries and the fact that the North Vietnamese had taken his boots, he was able to cross the DMZ back into South Vietnam. Unfortunately for Day, following 12 days of successful evasion and just two miles from the U.S. Marine Corps firebase at Con Thien, he was again captured, this time by a Viet Cong (VC) patrol, the members of which wounded him in the leg and hand. Returned to his original prison camp, Day was tortured for having escaped, during which his right arm was again broken. He was then moved to a succession of prison camps near Hanoi, where he was starved, beaten, and tortured. In December 1967 he shared a cell with U.S. Navy lieutenant commander John S. McCain III. Following the Paris Peace Accords and after five years and seven months as a POW, Day was released on March 14, 1973. He had been promoted to colonel during his captivity, and he now decided to remain in the U.S. Air Force in hopes of earning promotion to general. After a year in physical rehabilitation and with 13 medical waivers, he was finally returned to flying status. He subsequently served as vice commander of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. On March 4, 1976, President Gerald R. Ford awarded Day the Medal of Honor for his personal bravery while a captive in North Vietnam. Day retired from active duty in 1977. He then took up the practice of law in Florida. In 1996 Day took the lead in filing

Dean, John Gunther a class action lawsuit against the U.S. government on behalf of military retirees who had been stripped of their medical benefits. He won the case in district court in 2001, but that decision was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2002. During the 2004 U.S. presidential election Day appeared in a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement, speaking against Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Forward Air Controllers; Kerry, John Forbes; McCain, John Sidney, III; Prisoners of War, Allied References Coram, Robert. American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Day, George E. Return With Honor. Mesa, AZ: Champlin Museum Press, 1991. Newman, Rick, and Don Shepperd. Bury Us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Novato, CA: Presidio, 2007.

265

Dean, John Gunther Birth Date: February 24, 1926 U.S. diplomat who saw lengthy service in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Laos, and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Born in Breslau, Germany, on February 24, 1926, John Gunther Dean immigrated to the United States in 1939 and was naturalized in 1944. He served in the U.S. Army between 1944 and 1946. Dean graduated from Harvard University with a BS degree in 1947, obtained a doctorate in law from the Sorbonne in 1949, and received an MA from Harvard in 1950. After entering the U.S. Foreign Service, Dean was stationed in Paris from 1950 to 1953. He was in the embassy in Saigon from 1953 to 1956; with the embassy in Vientiane, Laos, from 1956 to 1958; in Washington, D.C., from 1961 to 1965; and with the embassy in Paris from 1965 to 1969. In Paris he played a central role in the peace talk between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Dean was regional

New U.S. ambassador to Cambodia John Gunther Dean confers with Cambodian president Lon Nol after presenting his credentials in Phnom Penh on April 5, 1974. (AP/Wide World Photos)

266

Dèbes, Pierre-Louis

director of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) in central Vietnam from 1970 to 1972. Between 1972 and 1974 he was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Vientiane, where he was involved in efforts to recover American prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action, thought at the time of the Vientiane Agreement to be in Pathet Lao hands. From Laos, Dean went to Phnom Penh as U.S. ambassador to Cambodia from 1974 to 1975. There he was involved in American attempts to negotiate a settlement of the bitter war between Lon Nol’s government forces and the Khmer Rouge. These efforts failed, and when the Khmer Rouge prepared to enter the capital, Dean oversaw the embassy evacuation, code-named Operation EAGLE PULL, in April 1975. He was then successively ambassador to Denmark, Lebanon, Thailand, and India from 1975 to 1988. He retired from public service in 1988. While Dean was at the U.S. embassy in Beirut, he helped negotiate the release of several American hostages being held by radical students in Tehran, Iran. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Cambodia; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Khmer Rouge; Laos; Lon Nol References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge. 3rd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

Dèbes, Pierre-Louis Birth Date: November 17, 1900 Death Date: March 30, 1947 French Army officer and commander at Haiphong in November 1946 when a bombardment of the town by naval gunfire caused serious damage and many casualties in what is sometimes considered to be the opening shots of the Indochina War. Pierre-Louis Dèbes was born in Paris on November 17, 1900. In May 1918 he entered the French military academy at Saint-Cyr, and after graduation he chose service with colonial troops. He served first in French West Africa, next in Indochina (1931–1934), and then in Morocco. During World War II he served in the 9th Division d’Infanterie Coloniale, General Jean-Étienne Valluy’s future command. Dèbes went to Indochina soon after his promotion to colonel in 1945. The so-called Haiphong Incident began when a French patrol boat accosted a Chinese junk smuggling fuel and brought it into the port. The patrol boat was fired upon by Viet Minh militia on shore and returned fire. Exchanges of fire between French troops and Viet Minh militia in the town, in violation of the modus vivendi negotiated the previous March between General Jacques-Philippe

Leclerc and Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), went on for several days in spite of efforts by the beleaguered French to contact local Viet Minh commanders under a flag of truce. Dèbes, having received orders from General Valluy to obtain the evacuation of the town by the Viet Minh as a guarantee against a repetition of the exchanges of gunfire, then issued an ultimatum threatening heavy reprisals. Local Viet Minh commanders pleaded for additional time to consult their leaders in Hanoi, but Dèbes gave the order to French ships in the harbor to open fire. At the end of five days the French were in complete control, at a cost of 23 dead and 86 wounded. Estimates of the number of dead among the Vietnamese civilian population range from the official 300 to 6,000, the latter a frequently published figure that some consider highly exaggerated. Although criticized later for his actions by the commander in Tonkin General Louis Constant Morlière, Dèbes was not reprimanded and went on to take part in the clearing of the area around Hanoi. He died in an airplane accident on March 30, 1947. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Haiphong, Shelling of; Indochina War; Valluy, Jean-Étienne References Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992.

De Castries, Christian Marie Birth Date: August 11, 1902 Death Date: July 29, 1991 French Army general and commander of French forces in the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Born in Paris on August 11, 1902, Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries came from an aristocratic family with a tradition of high-ranking military service dating back to King Louis XV. De Castries did not attend the French military academy at Saint-Cyr; in 1921 he enlisted in the army as a private. Commissioned a cavalry officer in 1926, he was regarded as an excellent soldier, but bored by garrison life he resigned from the army. During the 1930s he represented France in international equestrian events; he also held a commercial pilot’s license. In 1940 De Castries rejoined the French Army as a lieutenant. Fighting in Lorraine, he and the 60 men he commanded held out for three days against a German battalion reinforced with tanks and aircraft. Wounded and captured, he was later decorated for valor. In 1941 he escaped on his fourth attempt and joined the Free French resistance. He fought in Italy and was again wounded but recovered in time to take part in the 1944 invasion of southern France, where

De Castries, Christian Marie

267

French Army brigadier general Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries is best remembered for his heroic but ill-fated defense of Dien Bien Phu during the Indochina War. The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French rule in Indochina. (Roger-Viollet)

he served in Colonel Henri Navarre’s regiment of the 3rd Moroccan Spahis in the French First Army. Promoted to major, he led his troops in a bold maneuver that took the city of Karlsruhe. De Castries remained in the army and from 1946 to 1949 served in Indochina, where he gained an excellent reputation in command of a mobile raiding force. After study in France at the Army Staff College, in 1950 Lieutenant Colonel de Castries returned to Indochina and in 1951 commanded the critical Red River Delta sector. A swashbuckling and elegant adventurer, this tall steely-eyed soldier-aristocrat, who always seemed to have a cigarette pressed to his lower lip, was an inveterate gambler and womanizer (the French strong points at Dien Bien Phu were supposedly named for his then-current lovers). In November 1953 French commander in Indochina General Henri Navarre named de Castries to command at Dien Bien Phu. Navarre knew de Castries through his service under him on several occasions and respected the former cavalryman’s dash and leadership. De Castries’s men also greatly admired and trusted him. During the subsequent battle, de Castries kept a high profile and called his wife, a nurse in Hanoi, daily. At times he showed reckless bravery under fire, but at other times he seemed detached and withdrawn. De Castries was promoted to brigadier general during the battle.

In retrospect, it is easy to question de Castries’s defensive dispositions at Dien Bien Phu, especially the separation of the Isabelle strong point, with one-third of the French defenders, too distant from the other defensive positions, but it is unlikely that anything de Castries could have done would have changed the outcome. His appeals for reinforcements were rejected, and on May 7, 1954, after a siege of nearly two months that resembled the World War I Battle of Verdun, he surrendered what remained of the garrison. As a prisoner, de Castries fared better than the vast majority of his men. He was released after four months and found himself a national hero. On his return from Indochina, he commanded the 5th Armored Division in Germany. After an automobile accident, in 1959 he retired from the army and headed a firm engaged in recycling waste paper. De Castries died in Paris on July 29, 1991. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Indochina War; Navarre, Henri Eugène References Andrews, Deborah, ed. The Annual Obituary, 1991. Detroit: St. James, 1992. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

268

DECKHOUSE V, Operation

Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

DECKHOUSE V,

Operation

Start Date: January 6, 1967 End Date: January 15, 1967 Multibattalion amphibious assault launched by the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s Special Landing Force against a Viet Cong (VC) coastal stronghold in the Mekong Delta in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Both U.S. and South Vietnamese forces participated in the operation during January 6–15, 1967. Unlike previous DECKHOUSE landings, which were conducted in support of operations taking place on the ground, DECKHOUSE V was conceived as a strictly amphibious undertaking aimed at several

VC battalions concentrated in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Hoa about 60 miles south of Saigon. The operation brought together a U.S. Marine Corps battalion landing team and two Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps (RVNMC, South Vietnamese Marine Corps) battalions in the first and only major combined amphibious expedition of the Vietnam War. DECKHOUSE V also marked the first time that American combat troops were committed in force to the Mekong Delta region. Bad weather and rough seas delayed the start of the operation by two days to January 6, 1967, and as a result part of the assault force ended up being landed by helicopter. Once ashore, the marines of both nations spent a fruitless week chasing the VC, who may have been tipped off in advance by a security leak. The operation was supported by Sikorsky UH-34 Choctaw and Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters operating from the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima. The marines were withdrawn on January 15. The entire operation resulted in 21 VC killed, 2 weapons workshops destroyed, 44 weapons confiscated, 42 tons of rice seized, and 25 prisoners taken, only 10 of whom turned out to be actual guerrillas.

Marine amphibious tractors in the water during Operation DECKHOUSE V, a multibattalion amphibious assault by the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s Special Landing Force against the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta. (National Archives)

Decoux, Jean The United States lost 7 marines, while 1 South Vietnamese marine died from drowning. The operation was generally considered a failure. JEFF SEIKEN See also Amphibious Warfare; Mekong Delta; Mekong River; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

Decoux, Jean Birth Date: May 5, 1884 Death Date: October 20, 1963 French Navy admiral, commander of the French Far Eastern Fleet in 1939, and governor-general of French Indochina during 1940–1945. Born on May 5, 1884, at Bordeaux, Jean Decoux entered the École Navale in 1901. He served with the French Navy in the Pacific and the Mediterranean. Promoted to lieutenant in October 1913, during 1914–1916 he commanded the submarine Volta in the English Channel and then in the Mediterranean. For the rest of World War I he was attached to the General Staff, where he again served from 1923 to 1925. He was promoted to lieutenant commander in October 1920, to commander in April 1923, and to captain in July 1929. He served in other staff positions and then commanded the cruiser Primauguet. In February 1935 he was raised to rear admiral. In 1936 he became commander of the 3rd Light Cruiser Division in the Mediterranean, and in April 1938 he had charge of the defenses of Toulon. Promoted to vice admiral on April 11, 1939, Decoux was named on May 12, 1939, to head all French naval forces in the Far East. A protégé of Admiral Jean Darlan, Decoux in June 1940 succeeded Georges Catroux as governor-general in Indochina. In this capacity Decoux was obliged to negotiate a series of agreements with the Japanese, who were endeavoring to take advantage of France’s weakness to press for concessions in the region. Decoux tried to limit the extent of these concessions and avoid the outbreak of hostilities with the vastly superior Japanese military. Within the bounds imposed by the agreement that allowed the Japanese to station troops in Indochina, Decoux endeavored to maintain the symbols and substance of French sovereignty over Indochina. He was successful in this to a considerable degree despite the loss to

269

Thailand of Laotian territory on the right bank of the Mekong River and of the Cambodian provinces of Siem-Reap and Battambang following a Japanese-brokered armistice ending the Franco-Thai War of November 1940–January 1941. Decoux at least had the satisfaction of winning a naval victory over Thailand in that war. Eventually Decoux’s policies became controversial. His insistence on strict allegiance to Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain’s Vichy government brought punishment for “dissidents,” as Decoux called them, who followed General Charles de Gaulle and the Resistance. Also, it became increasingly difficult for Decoux to meet the ever-growing demands of the Japanese occupiers. He was able to circumvent or delay meeting many of their demands for war production, particularly of rice, and for measures to ensure the common defense of Indochina. On the former he simply pleaded poor harvests. On the latter he ensured that French antiaircraft batteries did not aim accurately, while making a lot of show, when U.S. planes bombed Japanese shipping at Saigon, Haiphong, and Nha Trang. Efforts by de Gaulle’s provisional government to set up Resistance forces in Indochina that would lead toward liberation by the French themselves finally doomed Decoux’s efforts. Because of Decoux’s pro-Vichy sympathies, Gaullist agents contacted General Eugène Mordant about placing Indochina under the National Council of the Resistance. When Decoux found out about this arrangement and threatened to resign, a deal was struck in which the admiral was confirmed as nominal head of the new Council of Indochina and Mordant actually ran affairs. Decoux, however, warned that the Gaullist efforts to parachute in agents and stockpile arms to prepare for an uprising against the Japanese were foolhardy in the extreme. The resulting chaos and clash of personalities inevitably caused confusion among the French authorities in Indochina. As Decoux feared, the Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, soon discovered the too-open Resistance activities. On March 9, 1945, Japanese authorities demanded that Decoux hand over command of all French forces to them. He refused and was immediately arrested. After the Japanese surrender to the Allied forces, Decoux was held incommunicado. His plea to be reinstated in office was ignored. In October 1945 Decoux was returned to France in humiliating circumstances and in May 1946 was brought up for trial on a charge of treason. A mistrial was declared, although he was dismissed from the navy. But after charges of collaboration with the Vichy government were dropped, he was restored to his rank and prerogatives in February 1949. He wrote three books about his experiences. Decoux died in Paris on October 20, 1963. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Catroux, Georges; De Gaulle, Charles; Franco-Thai War; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Mordant, Eugène References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958.

270

Deer Mission

Decoux, Admiral Jean. A la barre de L’Indochine (1940–1945). Paris: Plon, 1949. Devillers, Philippe. Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 à 1952. Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1952. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Taillemite, Étienne, Dictionnaire des marines français. Paris: Tallandier, 2002.

Deer Mission Event Date: 1945 World War II U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operation in Indochina. Conceived by OSS headquarters in Kunming, China, the Deer Mission had two objectives. The first was to support Operation CARBANADO, the possible landing of a U.S. expeditionary force in southern China. A Deer Mission team would penetrate Vietnam on foot, set up a base, and destroy the Hanoi–Lang Son railroad and highway to hinder movement of Japanese troops from Vietnam into China. The second objective was to gather intelligence on Japanese forces in Vietnam for the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force. This became critical after March 9, 1945, when the Japanese carried out a coup against the Vichy French government in Indochina. On that date the Japanese incarcerated all French troops and took over direct rule of the French colony, cutting off the flow of intelligence from Free French agents located there. The OSS canceled the walk-in approach after making contact with Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh. His headquarters was 65 miles northwest of Hanoi in mountainous jungle in the area of Kim Lung (later Tan Trao). Contact was made possible through the help of the Air Ground Aid Service (AGAS) and the three-man private intelligence net known as GBT, operated by Laurence Gordon, Harry V. Bernard, and Frank Tan. Ho said that he and his group would be glad to help the OSS gather intelligence, retrieve downed fliers, and cooperate on other matters. On July 16, 1945, the seven-man Deer Mission, led by Major Allison Kent Thomas, parachuted from Douglas C-47 Dakota airplanes. With them came containers of small arms and explosives sufficient to equip 100 guerrillas. When the Deer Mission team arrived they learned that Ho was extremely ill. Team medic Paul Hoagland treated the Viet Minh leader and possibly saved his life. In the weeks that followed, Deer Mission personnel trained the guerrillas, observed them in the attack, and had many conversations with Ho and Vo Nguyen Giap, both of whom gave assurances that they were friendly to the United States and were willing to assist the United States against the Japanese. They also expressed hatred of the French and swore willingness to fight to the death to secure their independence.

On August 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered. Deer Mission team members ceased their operations and reached Hanoi on September 16, 1945. Soon afterward they were withdrawn. CECIL B. CURREY See also Ho Chi Minh; Office of Strategic Services; Thomas, Allison Kent; Vo Nguyen Giap Reference Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1985.

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program A satellite program developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to provide worldwide meteorological, oceanographic, and solar geophysical data and imagery to the U.S. military for use in planning and executing military operations. The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in California designed, built, and launched the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. Since the launch of the first DMSP satellite in 1965, the U.S. Air Force has launched 34 more. In December 1972 the Department of Defense made DMSP data available to civil and scientific communities. In June 1998 the air force transferred the control of the satellites to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), but the SMC retained responsibility for the development and acquisition of future DMSP satellites. DMSP satellites send images and data to tracking stations in New Hampshire, Greenland, Alaska, and Hawaii. These sites in turn send the images to the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska; the 55th Space Weather Squadron at Falcon Air Force Base, Colorado; and the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) at Monterey, California. The AFWA and the FNMOC process the images and data into a product that is then sent to military installations, where meteorologists develop up-to-date weather observations and forecasts for use by unit commanders in scheduling and planning military operations. During the Vietnam War, early DMSP satellites supplied cloud-cover information to military headquarters in Saigon and to aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin for more precise planning of tactical air missions. DMSP imagery provided highly accurate weather forecasting that operational commanders used to plan air strikes over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and close air support over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), determine air-to-air refueling tracks, and plan rescue operations. The DMSP weather data eliminated the need for weather reconnaissance aircraft in Southeast Asia. For Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM from August 1990 to February 1991, the SMC procured the Rapid Deployment

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program

271

An illustration of a Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) satellite. (U.S. Air Force)

Imagery Terminal, which supplemented by older weather terminals provided DMSP data and images directly to the commanders of field forces in the Persian Gulf region. The terminals provided commanders with high-resolution nearly real-time weather information that allowed them to select targets and munitions, especially laser-guided weapons that required clear weather for accurate targeting, during the air campaign. Commanders also used weather data and images to plan and redirect aerial and ground missions and optimize night-vision equipment and night-capable targeting systems. DMSP satellites also provided information to alert troops to sandstorms and to predict the possible use and spread of chemical agents. In December 1990 the U.S. Air Force launched a third DMSP satellite to augment coverage in the Persian Gulf area. With the additional capability of detecting areas of moisture and standing water, DSMP imagery helped coalition ground forces plan movement routes into Kuwait during Operation DESERT STORM. DMSP and other weather satellites also provided extensive imagery and data of the oil fires

ignited by the Iraqi Army as it fled Kuwait in February 1991. The fires produced large smoke plumes, causing significant environmental effects in the Persian Gulf region. There have been some problems with the terminals and dissemination networks, however. For example, the incompatibility of the four different types of terminals delayed the receipt of timely weather data. With rapidly changing weather conditions, field units often did not have the latest target-area weather data, and high-quality satellite imagery did not get to the flyers. Some U.S. Navy ships could not receive DMSP data at all. These problems emphasized the need for more compatible and userfriendly systems. During Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM some of these problems had been eliminated, and DMSP provided badly needed weather data to troops in both theaters of war. ROBERT B. KANE See also ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; United States Air Force; United States Navy

272

Defense Satellite Communications System

References Hall, R. Cargill. A History of the Military Polar Orbiting Meteorological Satellite Program. Chantilly, VA: National Reconnaissance Office History Office, 2001. History Office, Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base. Historical Overview of the Space and Missile Systems Center, 1954–2003. Los Angeles: Missile Systems Center, 2003. Peeples, Curtis. High Frontier: The United States Air Force and the Military Space Program. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 1997. Spires, David N. Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership. 2nd ed. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air Force Space Command and Air University Press, 2007.

Defense Satellite Communications System A constellation of nine satellites in geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the earth that provides high-volume secure voice and data communications among the White House, senior U.S. defense officials, and U.S. military forces in the field worldwide. The U.S. Air Force launched the first Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) satellite in 1966. In 1967 DSCS I satellites transmitted reconnaissance photographs and other data from military headquarters in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to Hawaii and from Hawaii to Washington, D.C. In 1968 the air force declared the satellite system, along with 2 fixed and 34 mobile ground terminals, to be operational and changed the system’s name to the Initial Defense Satellite Communication System (IDSCS). After having launched 26 IDSCS satellites, the U.S. Air Force renamed the program the Defense Satellite Communications System. In 1971 the air force began launching a more sophisticated satellite, DSCS Phase II (DSCS II). DSCS II, the first operational military communications satellite system to occupy a geosynchronous orbit, became fully operational in early 1979. By 1989 the air force had launched 16 DSCS II satellites. In 1982 the U.S. Air Force launched the first DSCS III, the only current model of the DSCS family still operational, and achieved a full constellation of five satellites in 1993. The DSCS III satellites carry multiple beam antennas that provide flexible coverage over six communication channels and resistance to jamming. The U.S. Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center at the Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, contracted with Martin Marietta to build the DSCS III satellites and ground segment. The Electronics Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, developed the air force portion of the terminal segment. The 3rd Space Operations Squadron, 50th Space Wing, at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, provides command and control of the DSCS satellites. During Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM (August 1990–February 1991), satellite communications provided essential command and control of deployed coalition forces. Although military communications were very tenuous at the start of DESERT

SHIELD, U.S. military forces within the first 90 days established more

military communications connectivity to the Persian Gulf than they had achieved in Europe over the previous 40 years. Operation DESERT SHIELD forces communicated through a U.S. Navy Fleet Satellite Communications satellite (FLTSATCOM), a Leased Satellite program satellite, and two DSCS satellites over the Indian Ocean. In addition, the U.S. Department of Defense used FLTSATCOM satellites over the Atlantic Ocean and DSCS satellites over the eastern Atlantic to facilitate communications between the U.S. Central Command headquarters in the Persian Gulf and various headquarters in the United States. DSCS III satellites also provided long-haul communications for U.S. military forces during Operations DENY FLIGHT (1993–1995) and ALLIED FORCE (1999) in the Balkans and during Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM in the Middle East since 2001. Throughout these operations, communications requirements steadily grew, reaching the capacity of the DSCS satellites to provide for the increasing needs. For Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, the U.S. Air Force reconfigured the DSCS satellites to provide added bandwidth. The introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) and increased use of digital imagery and data in Middle Eastern combat operations contributed to the growing demand for large communications networks. Since 2000 the U.S. Air Force, through the DSCS Service Life Enhancement Program, has upgraded the last four DSCS III satellites prior to launch to extend the usable lifetime of the DSCS III satellites. In addition, the air force has incorporated several technology upgrades to increase the capabilities of the DSCS satellites prior to launch into orbit. ROBERT B. KANE See also United States Air Force References History Office, Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base. Historical Overview of the Space and Missile Systems Center, 1954–2003. Los Angeles: Missile Systems Center, 2003. Levis, Alexander H., John C. Bedford (Colonel, USAF), and Sandra Davis (Captain, USAF), eds. The Limitless Sky: Air Force Science and Technology Contributions to the Nation. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2004. Peeples, Curtis. High Frontier: The United States Air Force and the Military Space Program. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 1997. Spires, David N. Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership. 2nd ed. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air Force Space Command and Air University Press, 2007.

DEFIANT STAND,

Operation

Event Date: September 7, 1969 The last of 62 Seventh Fleet Special Landing Force operations in Vietnam. Operation DEFIANT STAND was also the first amphibious

Defoliation assault conducted in the 25-year history of the Republic of Korea Marine Corps (ROKMC, South Korean Marine Corps). On September 7, 1969, an ROKMC battalion, in conjunction with the U.S. 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, landed by amphibian tractor on sandy, squalid Barrier Island, 34 miles south of Da Nang. The Special Landing Force then swept inland across the island while naval patrol craft cut off escape routes. The Viet Cong (VC), however, offered only light resistance and successfully avoided the massive sweep, the third landing on the island. The marines would not use the Seventh Fleet for amphibious operations again until the evacuations of Saigon and Phnom Penh in the spring of 1975. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Korea, Republic of; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Defoliation Systemic defoliation is the process of applying herbicides to plants to inhibit their growth. Long used in the United States and elsewhere in agriculture and in the vicinity of roads and highways, in Vietnam defoliation became a recognized tactic with two primary objectives: to reduce the dense jungle foliage so that Communist forces might not use it for cover and to deny them use of crops needed for subsistence. Secondary objectives included spot clearing in sensitive areas such as around base perimeters. About 19 million gallons primarily of three major herbicides were applied in Vietnam over the nine years from 1961 through 1970. Operation RANCH HAND aircrews, flying specially equipped C-123 Chase/Fairchild Provider aircraft, sprayed more than 90 percent of that quantity; other distribution equipment, for use in specific small-scale situations, included backpacks, towed vehicles, and helicopters. The optimal application rate was 3 gallons per acre. RANCH HAND aircraft would deliver their payload, 1,000 gallons, in a 300-foot-wide path about 8.5 miles long. The preferred herbicides to defoliate both inland forests and maritime mangrove forests were Agent Orange and Agent White, each of which had its own characteristics. Both acted by causing drying of the foliage, with the leaves dropping about three to eight weeks after application. Generally, foliage would not reappear for four to six months. During the rainy season Agent Orange, which was oil soluble, was preferred because it would not wash away. For similar reasons, it was the optimal herbicide for use on thick jungle canopy and on trees with waxy leaves. On crops the preferred herbicide was Agent Blue, although about half of this chemical’s use was as a jungle defoliant. Agent

273

Blue was most effective when applied during a period of rapid crop growth. A fast-acting desiccant, it prevented the fruit or grain from forming without killing the plant itself. Within two to four days Agent Blue would affect a wide range of crops including rice, manioc, and sweet potatoes. It was less persistent than other agents; new growth after this water-soluble herbicide was applied usually began about 30 days after spraying. In terms of area, inland forest defoliation missions were the most extensive. Agents Orange and White were sprayed on approximately 450,000 acres, mostly in the III Corps area north of Saigon, during the nine years of application. In addition, inland forest areas near borders with Cambodia and Laos and along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) were sprayed to help prevent Communist troops from using these areas to mask their movements into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Agents Orange and White were also used on about 50,000 acres of mangrove forest to discourage the use of these areas to interrupt supplies coming to the city. These areas included the Rung Sat Special Zone near Saigon and the Ca Mau Peninsula at South Vietnam’s southernmost tip. Agent Blue was used on approximately 40,000 acres of cropland, primarily in tightly defined areas in the northern and eastern provinces of South Vietnam. Initial results of defoliation missions were extremely positive, and field commanders requested more support than the RANCH HAND aircrews could provide. Surveys of those responsible for operations indicated the significant effects of the defoliation efforts. For example, when field commanders were surveyed in 1968, they reported that horizontal visibility increased by as much as 70 percent and vertical visibility increased by as much as 90 percent, and they believed that these were significant factors in increasing the safety and efficiency of their operations. The precise long-term effects of defoliation on the ecosystem are difficult to assess for several reasons, some political and some experimental. Certainly some soil damage occurred, yet dioxin, the most dangerous contaminant of the herbicides, has only a

Herbicides Sprayed by the U.S. Military in Vietnam by Year Year 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 Year Unknown Total

Herbicides Sprayed (gallons)

Area Sprayed (square miles)

17,171 74,760 281,607 664,657 2,535,788 5,123,353 5,089,010 4,558,817 758,966 10,039 281,201 19,395,369

27 117 440 1,039 3,962 8,005 7,952 7,123 1,186 16 439 30,305

274

Defoliation

A Fairchild UC-123 Provider aircraft completes an Operation RANCH HAND mission during the Vietnam War. Defoliation operations had the goals of reducing the dense jungle foliage so that Communist forces might not use it for cover and denying them crops needed for subsistence. About 19 million gallons of herbicides were applied in Vietnam during 1961–1970. (AP/Wide World Photos)

three- to five-year half-life in the soil. Moreover, while some species of animals appear less frequently than before the war, many others have begun to reappear as the forests return to fuller growth. The forests themselves suffered immediately after the war from inept reforestation techniques, which included annual burning, and from erosion by heavy rains. By the late 1980s, evidence suggested that the environment was recovering more rapidly than originally expected. In the inland forests, which in some areas were sprayed repeatedly, growth was starting to return when shade trees were planted first, followed later with native trees planted in the shade. In the mangrove forests, where extensive damage occurred to the sensitive coastal habitat, growth began when plantings were done in a dense pattern to allow interlocking root systems to develop. Despite these

successes, however, as late as the 1990s some land still needed to be properly reforested in order to recapture that land from nonproductive grass cover and bamboo. The effects of defoliants on humans has been well documented. Dioxin has been clearly shown to be a human carcinogen and is believed to induce genetic defects, all of which have been reported among Vietnamese exposed to the chemical as well as among U.S. soldiers. Agent Orange especially had been suspected of causing illness and premature death in thousands of individuals. Exposure to Agent Orange has been a major issue among Vietnam War veterans for years, many of whom allege sickness due to the defoliant. The U.S. government, however, has been slow to react to these complaints, and only recently has it begun to take steps to fully investigate veterans’ claims and conduct research into the effects

De Gaulle, Charles of defoliants on humans. The Vietnamese government claims that as many as 5 million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in the deaths and/or disabilities of some 400,000 people and an estimated 500,000 children born with birth defects. The U.S. government has dismissed such figures as unreliable and unrealistically high. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Herbicides; International War Crimes Tribunal; RANCH HAND, Operation References Carlson, Elof Axel. “International Symposium on Herbicides in the Vietnam War.” Bioscience (September 1983): 507–512. Gough, Michael. Dioxin, Agent Orange. New York: Plenum, 1986. Irish, Kent R. Information Manual for Vegetation Control in Southeast Asia. Frederick, MD: Department of the Army, 1969.

275

French citizens to continue the war against Germany. De Gaulle headed the French Resistance in World War II, but his wartime relations with the British and Americans were often difficult. De Gaulle acted as if he were a head of state, while the British and Americans persisted in treating him as an auxiliary. De Gaulle was embittered by blatant British efforts to dislodge the French from prewar positions of influence in Syria and Lebanon and by the continued failure of the Allies to consult him in matters regarding French interests. From late August 1944 de Gaulle ruled France as provisional president. He was determined that France would retain its role as a Great Power. To reestablish French influence in Asia, in late 1943 the French Committee of National Liberation had called for the future creation of an expeditionary corps to participate in the war against Japan and liberate Indochina. After the liberation of France in 1944, the provisional government authorized the creation of a Far East Army. On June 4, 1945, de Gaulle, acting with the National Defense Committee, decided to create an expeditionary corps of two divisions for Indochina, command of which

De Gaulle, Charles Birth Date: November 22, 1890 Death Date: November 9, 1970 French Army general, head of the French government-in-exile during World War II, provisional president of the French Fourth Republic (1944–1946), and president of the French Fifth Republic (1958–1969). Born in Lille, France, on November 22, 1890, Charles André Marie Joseph de Gaulle was arguably France’s greatest 20th-century statesman. In 1909 de Gaulle joined the French Army and three years later graduated from the French Military Academy at Saint-Cyr. He fought in World War I and was severely wounded twice. Promoted to captain in September 1915, de Gaulle was wounded a third time and captured by the Germans at Verdun in March 1916. After the war, de Gaulle returned to Saint-Cyr as professor of history. Later he taught at the École de Guerre and then served for a time as aide-de-camp to French Army commander Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain. De Gaulle also became a theorist of the new highspeed armored warfare and in 1934 published an important book on the subject, Vers l’Armée de métier (published in English as The Army of the Future). Had his ideas been followed, the 1940 defeat of France by the Germans might never have occurred. When World War II began, Colonel de Gaulle commanded a tank brigade. As the start of the May 1940 battle for France began, he received command of the 4th Tank Division. The division achieved one of the few successes scored by the French Army, and on June 1 de Gaulle was promoted to brigadier general. Within a week Premier Paul Reynaud brought him into his cabinet as undersecretary of state for national defense. When a new defeatist government took power in France, on June 17, 1940, de Gaulle left Bordeaux for London. A day later he spoke over the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) airwaves and urged

Charles de Gaulle was a French Army general, head of the French government-in-exile in World War II, provisional president of the Fourth Republic from 1944 to 1946, and president of the Fifth Republic from 1958 to 1969. As president, he was a staunch ally yet persistent critic of U.S. foreign policy. (Library of Congress)

276

DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation

went to an unenthusiastic General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc. In mid-August the National Defense Committee decided to send the expeditionary force along with a naval squadron centered on the battleship Richelieu, already in the Far East, and three aviation groups of about 100 aircraft. De Gaulle wrote in his memoirs that “The sending of troops was the condition on which everything else depended. Seventy thousand men had to be transported along with a great deal of material. This was a considerable undertaking, for we had to begin it in a period of demobilization and while we were maintaining an army in Germany. But it was essential, after yesterday’s humiliation, that the arms of France give an impression of force and resolution.” At the same time, in perhaps the most fateful decision in the coming of the Indochina War, de Gaulle appointed Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu to be high commissioner to Indochina and charged him with restoring French sovereignty over the Indochina Union. The command arrangement placed General Leclerc under Admiral d’Argenlieu. In January 1946 when political parties in France rejected his plan for a strong presidency, de Gaulle abruptly resigned. He spent the next years writing his war memoirs. Meanwhile, the Fourth Republic was stumbling toward disaster. In May 1958, having survived the long war in Indochina, the Fourth Republic finally collapsed under the weight of another war, this one in Algeria, and de Gaulle returned to power, technically as the last premier of the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle’s preservation of the democratic process was his greatest service to France. His Fifth Republic brought the strong presidential system that he had long advocated. The most pressing domestic problem remained that of Algeria, which became independent in 1962. In foreign affairs de Gaulle was arguably less successful, largely because he sought to reassert a French greatness that was gone forever. He saw France as leader of a “third” European force, between the two superpowers. De Gaulle pushed the development of a French atomic bomb and then a nuclear strike force, the Force de Frappe, to deliver it. His entente with Konrad Adenauer’s Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) was a success, and he began the process of détente with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. More questionable was his withdrawal of France from the military command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), although he gave strong support to NATO when the West was pressured by the Soviets. He twice vetoed British entry into the Common Market, cut France’s close ties to Israel, and called on Quebec to seek separation from Canada. De Gaulle also lectured the Americans on Vietnam. He warned President John F. Kennedy about involvement in Indochina. “You will find,” de Gaulle told him, “that intervention in this area will be an endless entanglement.” On the defeat of a national referendum in 1969, which he made a test of his leadership, de Gaulle again resigned and retired to write his final set of memoirs. He had completed two volumes and

part of the third when he died at Colombey-les-Deux Eglises on November 9, 1970. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Faure, Edgar; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Indochina War; Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe References De Gaulle, Charles. The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, Vol. 3, Salvation, 1944–1946. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890–1944. Translated by Patrick O’Brian. New York: Norton, 1990. Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Ruler, 1945–1970. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1972.

DELAWARE–LAM SON

216, Operation

Start Date: April 19, 1968 End Date: May 17, 1968 Operation in the A Shau Valley to eliminate People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) bases used in the 1968 Tet attack on Hue. U.S. Army lieutenant general William B. Rosson planned the operation, which called for his Provisional Corps of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 3rd Regiment to air assault into the valley while the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division and ARVN Airborne troops blocked routes of escape. The 101st Airborne Division’s firebase of 175-millimeter (mm) guns would cover most of the valley, which was about 18 miles long and hedged in by 3,000-foot mountains. Lacking intelligence on the enemy, 1st Cavalry Division commander Major General John J. Tolson used Lieutenant Colonel Richard W. Diller’s 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry, to conduct aerial reconnaissance. Diller uncovered heavy antiaircraft positions of 37-mm guns that were then attacked from the air. Still, PAVN fire destroyed 23 of Diller’s helicopters. Tolson attacked on April 19, 1968, landing Lieutenant Colonel James B. Vaught’s 5th Battalion and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E. Wasiak’s 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry on peaks at the northern end of the valley. Heavy antiaircraft fire downed 10 U.S. helicopters. That night PAVN forces probed the U.S. defenses as a severe storm obscured visibility and forced Wasiak’s men to make a grueling three-day march to a lower elevation where resupply could reach them. For several days flying conditions were dangerous for aircrews. On April 24 Colonel John E. Stannard’s 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division began an air assault near the A Luoi airstrip and

Dellinger, David quickly developed it into an airhead. CH-54 flying cranes lifted in engineering equipment while the men received air-dropped supplies from C-130s, one of which was shot down. Soon Caribous and C-130s landed to resupply the men. The 1st Brigade attacked south and west, discovering a mile-long depressed storage area defended by a PAVN company. Dubbed the “Punchbowl,” this area was secured on May 3. It contained a large logistical center of the PAVN 559th Transportation Group. On April 29 the ARVN 3rd Regiment landed and attacked southward along the Rao Lao River, uncovering a large supply cache. Operating to the east of A Shau, the 101st Airborne Division and ARVN Airborne troops made contact with the enemy and also uncovered large caches. Meanwhile, the troops came under heavy PAVN artillery and rocket attacks from Laos. DELAWARE–LAM SON 216 resulted in the capture of 2,319 small arms, 36 machine guns, 10 recoilless rifles, and 31 flamethrowers. The allies also took 135,000 small arms and 70,000 machinegun rounds, 8,000 artillery shells, 2,500 grenades, 2 bulldozers, 78 wheeled vehicles, and many other items. A 1st Cavalry Division sergeant also destroyed a PT-76 tank with an M-72 LAW (light antitank weapon). But U.S. losses included some 60 helicopters (including the first giant CH-54 Flying Crane lost in the war) and a C-130 cargo aircraft. The allies claimed 869 PAVN killed. U.S. personnel losses were 142 killed and 731 wounded, while the ARVN lost 26 killed and 132 wounded. As the troops began leaving on May 10, they booby-trapped the area and left acoustic sensors. Within weeks, however, PAVN troops returned to the A Shau Valley. They had to be cleared out again in 1969. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Airborne Operations; Air Mobility; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; A Shau Valley; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Dellinger, David Birth Date: August 12, 1915 Death Date: May 25, 2004 Pacifist and antiwar activist. David Dellinger was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, on August 12, 1915, to a well-to-do family; his father

277

Peace activist David Dellinger, one of the Chicago Eight arrested and tried for their part in the violent anti–Vietnam War protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, talks to the press on October 22, 1967. (AP/Wide World Photos)

was a prominent Republican Party attorney. Dellinger graduated from Yale University in 1936 and from Union Theological Seminary in 1939. He represented an older generation of pacifists, active since the 1930s. He was a conscientious objector during World War II and worked with civil rights groups in the 1940s and 1950s. When President Lyndon Johnson ordered the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in early 1965, Dellinger organized a coalition of groups that held protests in Washington, D.C. The resulting August 1965 demonstrations marked the first use of civil disobedience tactics in the anti–Vietnam War movement. In November 1966 Dellinger served as cochairman of the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE). The MOBE chose April 15, 1967, for protests and spent five months organizing churches, women’s leagues, universities, and peace groups to show that opposition to the war was not limited solely to radicals or the nation’s youth but instead included many Americans. The

278

Demilitarized Zone

April marches were the largest demonstrations in U.S. history to that date. Dellinger was involved in the Chicago riots during the August 1968 Democratic National Convention and was one of the so-called Chicago Eight tried in 1969 for inciting violence at the convention. He was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned by a higher court in 1972. In September 1972 Dellinger was part of an antiwar delegation admitted into North Vietnam to accept the early return of three American prisoners of war. In 1971 he published a book, Revolutionary Non-Violence. A lifelong member of the Socialist Party of the United States, Dellinger worked tirelessly for social change and the establishment of peace in the international arena. He was active in the antinuclear movement and spoke out against the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 1996 during the Democratic National Convention, he was arrested outside Chicago’s federal building along with several other protesters. He was there to remind the country of the violence that had ensued at the last Democratic National Convention to have been held in Chicago, in 1968. Dellinger died in Montpelier, Vermont, on May 25, 2004. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Democratic National Convention of 1968 References Dellinger, David. Revolutionary Non-Violence. New York: Doubleday, 1971. Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam, 1945–1975. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981.

By 1956, however, the United States decided officially to support the government in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and helped scuttle the scheduled elections throughout Vietnam. The DMZ then became, in Washington’s eyes, the official boundary between South Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). To the leaders of North Vietnam, it was no such thing. During the Vietnam War, both the United States and North Vietnam regularly violated the neutrality of the DMZ by moving troops and matériel in and out of the area. North Vietnam sent soldiers and supplies through the zone to aid and train the Viet Cong (VC), while the United States conducted military operations to try to stop its enemy from doing so. Despite its failure to fulfill its original charter, the DMZ remained politically intact until the 1972 Spring (Easter) Offensive, when three People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) divisions crossed the DMZ and overran 12 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) bases and outposts in the area. The political integrity of the DMZ was never restored, not even by those political leaders who had justified its existence years earlier. Today the only remnants of the DMZ are the decaying outposts that once lined its borders. BRENT LANGHALS See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954

Demilitarized Zone At the 1954 Geneva Conference, representatives from 11 nations, including the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), agreed with Vietnamese negotiators to divide Vietnam “temporarily.” Their motive was to separate French colonial forces from the Viet Minh, at least until 1956. The Geneva Accords provided that at that point there would be elections to establish a national government and reunify the country. In the interim, a demarcation line would divide Vietnam at roughly the 17th Parallel. From the South China Sea to the village of Bo Ho Su the line followed the Ben Hai River, and from Bo Ho Su the line proceeded due west to the border of Laos. This approximately 39-mile-long demarcation line also had a buffer zone, known as the demilitarized zone (DMZ), that was 5 miles wide. According to the Geneva Accords, there were to be no military forces, supplies, or equipment within the zone during its “temporary” existence.

U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel William Rice is silhouetted by the setting sun as he looks through high-power binoculars into the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam, April 9, 1967. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Democratic National Convention of 1968

References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Fall, Bernard B. Viet-Nam Witness, 1953–66. New York: Praeger, 1966. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954–1980. Rev. ed. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981. Randle, Robert F. Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. Turley, William S. The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986. Young, Kenneth T. The 1954 Geneva Conference. New York: Greenwood, 1968.

Democratic National Convention of 1968 Start Date: August 26, 1968 End Date: August 29, 1968 Political controversy and civil unrest plagued the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago during August 26–29, 1968. The Democrats nominated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota for president and Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine for vice president. But the Democratic Party was sharply divided,

279

all the more so after Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in early June 1968. Two major issues—civil rights and the Vietnam War—polarized the convention and the city. Inside the Chicago Amphitheater the party establishment, dominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson and his loyalists, used political force and procedural manipulation to control official proceedings. On the streets outside, the Chicago police and Illinois state troopers and National Guardsmen, some 23,000 in all and directed by Mayor Richard J. Daley, used physical force to suppress unofficial opposition. The Democrats had suffered through tumultuous times in the months preceding the convention. President Johnson faced a challenge from within his own party from Minnesota senator Eugene J. McCarthy, who announced his candidacy in the autumn of 1967 as the standard-bearer of antiwar Democrats. Early in March 1968 McCarthy nearly upset Johnson in the New Hampshire primary; Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York then entered the contest and divided the party’s peace faction. Johnson withdrew from the race on March 31, 1968, and Humphrey became a candidate on April 27. Kennedy’s death on June 6 further disrupted the process, and his campaign organization transferred its loyalty to Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota, who took up his martyred colleague’s antiwar crusade. And yet another Kennedy—Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts—loomed as a possible contender at convention time in August. Despite the bitter

280

Democratic National Convention of 1968

Chicago policemen with nightsticks in hand confront a demonstrator on the ground in Grant Park, Chicago, on August 26, 1968. The site of the antiwar demonstrations, timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention, became the scene of a number of violent clashes, while the scene inside the convention hall was one of political rancor and division over the issues of the Vietnam War and civil rights. (AP/Wide World Photos)

campaign, Humphrey arrived in Chicago with a clear majority of committed delegates and appeared to have the nomination firmly in hand. Following a week of platform hearings in Washington, D.C., on August 25 delegates descended upon Chicago to begin their convention. Clear distinctions, centered upon U.S. policy regarding Vietnam, had already been established between the majority loyal to Johnson, Humphrey, and Daley and a minority made up of McCarthy and McGovern supporters. Credentials and rules debates dominated the agenda of the first two days, which the majority effectively controlled, compromising only on the seating of delegations from Mississippi and Georgia. The decisive issue, adoption of a platform plank supporting administration Vietnam policies, was introduced by Platform and Rules Committee chairman Hale Boggs after midnight on Tuesday, August 27, a move orchestrated by the majority to limit television coverage of the debate. McCarthy supporters, unable to gain recognition from Permanent Chairman Carl Albert on an adjournment motion, loudly

protested. After several minutes of chaos, Albert abandoned the platform debate and adjourned the convention until noon the following day. The debate over the Vietnam plank highlighted the convention; the actual nominating process was anticlimactic. Throughout the afternoon of August 28, speakers from both majority and minority factions passionately defended their positions before the delegates and a national television audience. The debate was a final test of strength for the majority; the adoption of its plank would virtually assure Humphrey of the nomination. After four hours of heated exchange, the final vote of 1,567.75 to 1,041.25 favored the majority position supporting administration policy. By 12:02 a.m. on August 29, Humphrey had secured a first-ballot nomination and had become the Democratic Party candidate for president. While the establishment majority managed events inside the amphitheater, Daley’s Chicago police force, assisted by Illinois state troopers and National Guardsmen, attempted to control the far more contentious events outside. Thousands of antiwar pro-

DePuy, William Eugene testers had also converged upon Chicago for the convention and, although denied permits to demonstrate, marched, sang, and lobbied in support of the antiwar candidates and platform. The convention site itself, surrounded with barbed wire and defended by combat vehicles, resembled an armed camp. In several violent clashes thoroughly documented by television and print media and watched by a stunned nation, police and protesters epitomized the emotions on both sides of the Vietnam War debate. Chicago police arrested 668 demonstrators during the convention. The number of injuries on both sides remains in dispute, with estimates ranging from 200 to more than 1,000. Despite the spirited political fight within the convention hall, the images of armed conflict on Chicago streets remain the overriding memory for many Americans of the Democratic National Convention of 1968. For many years the convention was a black mark on Chicago, and not until 1996 did the Democratic Party return to the city to hold its convention. The spectacle also severely tarnished Mayor Richard Daley’s public image. MARK BARRINGER See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Daley, Richard Joseph; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; McGovern, George Stanley; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Foote, Joseph, ed. The Presidential Nominating Conventions 1968. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1968. Mailer, Norman. Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968. New York: New American Library, 1968. Walker, Daniel. Rights in Conflict: Chicago’s Seven Brutal Days. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1968.

Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr. Birth Date: July 15, 1924 U.S. Navy admiral, one of the first and most senior-ranking prisoners of war (POWs), and U.S. senator (1981–1987). Born in Mobile County, Alabama, on July 15, 1924, Jeremiah (Jerry) Andrew Denton Jr. graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1946 and became a naval aviator. He later graduated from the Armed Forces Staff College and from the Naval War College in 1964. He also earned an MA degree in international affairs from George Washington University. In 1965 Denton was the commander of Attack Squadron 75 (VA75) aboard the aircraft carrier Independence in waters off the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). On July 18, 1965, he was piloting a Grumman A-6A Intruder with his bombardier/navigator, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Bill Tschudy, as part of a bombing mission over the city of Thanh Hoa. Their aircraft was shot down, and both men were taken prisoner and held by North Vietnam.

281

Commander Denton spent seven and a half years in captivity (including more than four years of solitary confinement punctuated by torture). He was a key leader of the resistance movement, universally recognized by his peers as one of the bravest, toughest, and most inspirational of the POWs. In April 1966 during a televised interview with Japanese journalists, he blinked the word “torture” in Morse code. During the infamous July 1966 Hanoi Parade, he ordered his fellow POWs to keep their heads up and walk with pride. As the senior officer on the first plane of American POWs that landed in the Philippines in February 1973, Denton made his famous statement “We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances.” Denton’s book When Hell Was in Session (1976), among the best captivity accounts, was made into a television movie starring Hal Holbrook. After retirement from the U.S. Navy as a rear admiral, Denton worked for the Christian Broadcasting Network. In 1980 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama, the first Republican senator from that state since Reconstruction. Denton was a leading conservative voice in the Senate, especially on so-called family issues. Defeated for reelection in 1986, he retired from public life after leaving the Senate in 1987. Denton stated repeatedly that he believes that the error in Vietnam was not using decisive force early in the conflict. The Admiral Jeremiah Denton Foundation that he founded is involved in promoting fundamentalist Christian values and in relief work in the developing world. JOE P. DUNN See also Hoa Lo Prison; HOMECOMING, Operation; McCain, John Sidney, III; Prisoners of War, Allied References Denton, Jeremiah A., with Ed Brandt. When Hell Was in Session. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976.

Deo Mu Gia See Mu Gia Pass

DePuy, William Eugene Birth Date: October 1, 1919 Death Date: September 9, 1992 U.S. Army general and commander of the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam (1966–1967). Born in Jamestown, North Dakota, on October 1, 1919, William Eugene DePuy graduated from South

282

DePuy, William Eugene

Major General William E. DePuy, commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, shown here in September 1966. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Dakota State College and in June 1941 was commissioned an infantry lieutenant. Most of his wartime experience was with the 90th Infantry Division. DePuy’s personal combat experience in World War II as a company and battalion officer firmly established his attitudes about leadership and survival in wartime. DePuy’s post–World War II assignments included military professional schools and the Army Language School. In 1949 he served as a military attaché in Budapest, Hungary, followed by an assignment with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He commanded a battalion in Europe in 1954 and then served in staff assignments in Washington. He attended the British Imperial Defence College in 1960 and then commanded a battle group in Germany. In 1962 he was assigned as director of special warfare in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. The following year while serving as the director of plans and programs in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development, DePuy was promoted to brigadier general. In 1964 he was assigned as assistant chief of staff for operations (G-3) of General William C. Westmoreland’s Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). In March 1966 DePuy took command of the 1st Infantry (“Big Red One”) Division and was promoted to major general in April. Douglas Kinnard, in The War Managers, described DePuy as a person of great intensity,

with indefatigable energy and lofty ambitions, who was always well informed, well spoken, and persuasive. DePuy’s command of the 1st Infantry Division was anything but tranquil. While on Westmoreland’s staff DePuy had argued convincingly for more troops and an offensive strategy of attrition. Other units, notably the 25th Infantry (“Tropic Lightning”) Division and U.S. Marine Corps units in the I Corps Tactical Zone in the north, gave priority to supporting the Vietnamese by protecting them from Viet Cong (VC) harassment and recruiting, but DePuy’s 1st Infantry Division pursued Communist troops in their own territory and sought to destroy them by maneuver and firepower. In his book Changing an Army, DePuy described his philosophy as going “after the Main [VC] Forces wherever they could be found and to go after them with as many battalions as I could get into the fight,” what was later called “pile-on.” In January 1967 Major General John H. Hay Jr. took command of the division from DePuy. In July 1973 General DePuy became the first head of the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. In this post he helped fashion the organization and cultivated a talented group of subordinates to develop a new fighting doctrine to carry the army in the post–Vietnam War era. His intellect and leadership helped resurrect the spirit, morale, and fighting efficiency of the army. DePuy retired from active duty in July 1977 to Highfield, Virginia. The 1st Division Scholarship Fund he established to benefit the children of those of the division killed in Vietnam subsequently distributed more than $1 million in assistance. DePuy died on September 9, 1992. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References DePuy, General William E. Changing an Army: An Oral History of General William E. DePuy, USA Retired. Interviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Romie L. Brownlee and Lieutenant Colonel William J. Mullen III. Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA: United States Military History Institute, 1986. DePuy, General William E. Selected Papers of General William E. DePuy. Compiled by Colonel Richard M. Swain. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1994. DePuy, General William E. “Troop A at Ap Tau O.” Bridgehead Sentinel, Summer 1988. Gole, Henry G. General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Herbert, Paul H. Deciding What Has to Be Done: General William E. DePuy and the 1976 Edition of FM 100-5, Operations. Leavenworth Paper No. 16. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1988. Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.

DEROS

De Rhodes, Alexandre Birth Date: March 15, 1591 Death Date: November 5, 1660 French Jesuit missionary to Vietnam who devised quoc ngu (“national language”), the Vietnamese writing system. Born in the papal city of Avignon in southern France on March 15, 1591, Alexandre De Rhodes became a Jesuit priest and dedicated himself to spreading the Roman Catholic faith among Asians. Weakened by civil wars, in the 17th century the Mac dynasty in Vietnam fell to the jealousies of the Le, Trinh, and Nguyen families. Intent upon battling one another for the right to rule, they barely noticed the arrival of De Rhodes, who came to Hanoi in 1627. Despite the fact that French, Portuguese, and Spanish Catholic missionaries had been in Indochina since the 16th century, it was De Rhodes who opened the door between East and West, between France and Vietnam. He learned Vietnamese quickly, although he said that at first it sounded to his Western ears like “twittering birds.” To enable Vietnamese to read the Gospel, he devised a Roman alphabet transliteration of the Vietnamese spoken language that came to be known as quoc ngu. De Rhodes initially had great success in his work, pacifying Lord Trinh Trang, who ruled the northern part of the country where De Rhodes resided, with gifts of books and clocks. A tireless worker, De Rhodes recorded how he preached six sermons daily and eventually baptized 6,700 Vietnamese into the Catholic faith. His activities aroused great animosity and suspicion among traditional Confucianists when some 18 members of the Trinh court nobility converted to Catholicism. In 1630 De Rhodes was banished from the north. He moved to the south, but his missionary labors there were found to be unacceptable by the equally hostile Nguyen court. Exiled from his chosen mission field, between 1640 and 1645 De Rhodes lived in the Portuguese Crown Colony of Macao but made repeated trips to Vietnam to continue his work to spread Catholic Christianity among the Vietnamese people. On each trip he risked his life. On one occasion he was sentenced to be beheaded but was expelled after three weeks’ imprisonment. When the Vatican failed to support his work, he turned to the French Catholic Church and urged it to increase its efforts in Vietnam. In 1644 De Rhodes convinced the French Catholic Church to organize the Société des Missions Etrangères (Society of Foreign Missions) to oversee mission endeavors in Vietnam. By 1700 there were hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Christians. De Rhodes died on November 5, 1660, while on an assignment in Persia. CECIL B. CURREY See also Nguyen Dynasty; Quoc Ngu; Trinh Lords; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest

283

References Chesneaux, Jean. Contribution à l’Histoire de la Nation Vietnamienne. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1955. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

DEROS A U.S. military term. Because tours of duty in Southeast Asia were fixed in length, an individual’s Date of Estimated Return from Overseas (DEROS) was established at the same time as the assignment date. Standard combat area tours for all branches were 12 months except for the U.S. Marine Corps, for which tours of duty were generally 13 months. Assignments to nontheater areas in support of the war were also fixed in length, ranging from 12 to 24 months, again with the DEROS known before the assignment began.

A soldier of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) keeps track of the time he has left in Vietnam using marks on his helmet (known as the “Date of Estimated Return from Overseas”). Military tours during the war were fixed in length, which negatively impacted military effectiveness. (National Archives)

284

Desertion, U.S. and Communist

An individual might request an extension to the length of the tour, usually 6 months or a year. In some cases a shortened term of enlistment was offered as an incentive for such extensions so that upon returning from overseas, the individual would be separated from active duty rather than serving out the remainder of his or her enlistment in a stateside assignment. The 12- or 13-month combat tour was an innovation in the Vietnam War. Originally intended, among other purposes, to increase morale by giving combat troops an idea of when their ordeal might end, the purpose seemed to work during the early years of the war. However, as other morale factors worsened in later years, the fixed DEROS was blamed for creating a so-called short mentality, a slackening of effort in anticipation of departure. Whether or not this was so, consciousness of the DEROS was an important part of every soldier’s life. Countdowns to the date were elaborately kept and sometimes displayed on equipment or in living and working quarters in base camps, and the term itself, originally a noun, was quickly transformed into a verb, for example, “When do you DEROS?” The individual replacement policy also destroyed the cohesion of American units, making it impossible for commanders to build effective teams. PHOEBE S. SPINRAD See also United States Army Reference Appy, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers & Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Desertion, U.S. and Communist By U.S. military definition, desertion means “absent with the intention to remain away permanently.” The term “AWOL” (absent without leave) is used for those in the military who overstay their leaves or are absent without permission but do not intend to desert. Although the two are often confused, they are quite different. Unless there are complicating circumstances, being AWOL is a misdemeanor, whereas desertion is a felony. A soldier can be charged with being AWOL for something as minor as being five minutes late signing in from a pass or missing morning roll call formation. It was not at all uncommon for a young soldier to be charged with being AWOL more than once during the period of his military service. Once a soldier has been absent from his unit for more than 30 days, the charge usually converts to desertion. Thus, although some 500,000 of the nearly 7.6 million Americans who served in the U.S. military during 1965–1973 were AWOL at some point or deserted, fewer than one-fifth (93,250 men and women) remained away from their units more than 30 days. Altogether there were 32,000 reported cases of failure to report for duty in Vietnam, refusal to return from rest and relaxation (R&R), and

desertion after service in Vietnam. Most of these, some 20,000, fell in the AWOL category. It is difficult to secure precise numbers regarding desertions during the Vietnam War. In many if not most cases, turning oneself in led to a removal of the desertion charge and to punishment assessed by a nonjudicial hearing under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is clear, however, that the U.S. Army had the highest levels of desertion, while the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps, with many more volunteers versus draftees, experienced much smaller rates. Desertion during the Vietnam War reflected that conflict’s growing unpopularity and peaked in 1971. For the entire conflict desertions were the highest for any U.S. war since the American Civil War. Most desertions occurred in the continental United States. Few took place in Vietnam, one of the reasons being that there was no place to go. Within the combat zone, there were only 24 cases of desertion related to avoidance of hazardous duty. Three-quarters of U.S. Army deserters were white, but African Americans were twice as likely to desert. U.S. Navy deserters also tended to be white, but U.S. Air Force deserters tended to be African American and better educated. Most desertions were prompted by noncombat-related reasons, such as personal and financial problems. Within the U.S. military, those deserters who were later located were given discharges under less-than-honorable conditions. In many cases the judicial proceedings against deserters included charges for other serious crimes committed while in a deserter status. Deserters were more reviled than draft dodgers. Nevertheless, presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter initiated clemency and amnesty programs. Ford formed the Presidential Clemency Board, which reviewed individual cases and assigned specific sanctions or acquittal. Ford proposed two years of alternate service for both draft resisters and deserters in return for clemency discharges. Carter, who in 1977 offered blanket pardons to draft resisters, succumbed to national outrage and offered almost nothing to deserters; they were ordered to apply in person to secure a change in their discharge status. The Ford and Carter administrations did agree to upgrade the discharges of the 20,000 who deserted after service in Vietnam. The highest desertion rates of the Vietnam War occurred among soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). This grew particularly after 1960, when fighting intensified in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Between 1967 and 1971 more than 570,000 ARVN soldiers deserted. Desertion was primarily a problem in regular ARVN units. Regional Forces had a very low desertion rate, and there were almost no deserters in the village-level Popular Forces. Factors prompting ARVN desertions included low pay, separation from families, military corruption, dangerous field conditions, and hardships (including transportation problems that made taking leaves difficult). Although there were a number of Communist

DeSoto Missions moles within the ARVN personnel, only rarely did deserters join the Communists. Within South Vietnam, desertion was relatively easy. An ARVN deserter could easily find his way to a populous area and live there with little risk of being found and arrested. Most deserters sooner or later enlisted in another unit, usually under a different name. In the later years of the war little was done to pursue identity matters. Not unrelated to this, during large-scale Communist offensives the number of those volunteering for the ARVN dramatically increased, while the number of deserters decreased. Between 1967 and 1971 only 87,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) troops deserted within South Vietnam. This desertion rate was low in the early years of the war but grew as the fighting intensified. The much lower desertion rate for Communist troops is attributable primarily to their dedication and higher morale. Desertion from the PAVN within the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was virtually impossible because of rigid population control. Every citizen had to present food stamps to buy basic foodstuffs, and on the date that a draftee was to report to local military authorities for basic training, these were canceled. Ethnic South Vietnamese soldiers serving in the PAVN deserted at a higher rate than native North Vietnamese. Desertion also grew during periods of intense allied military activity. In 1967 some 90 percent of two elite VC battalions, Phu Loi I and Phu Loi II in Binh Duong Province, deserted in a two-month period. Communist deserters who openly declared their intentions to become citizens of South Vietnam were given Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) status and then South Vietnamese citizenship. The few who refused were sent to prisoner-of-war camps. Some elite ARVN units, especially the Rangers, contained a high percentage of Communist defectors. Perhaps the best known of these was former PAVN lieutenant Bui Ngoc Phep, a talented sapper who surrendered in 1968 and became the leader of the Kit Carson Scouts working with the U.S. Army. Killed by a sniper, he was buried with full military honors by the U.S. Army and the ARVN. After the April 1975 Communist victory, almost all former Communist defectors were detained. Many were killed in the immediate aftermath, among them members of the elite Armed Propaganda Companies in Hue and Da Nang. In 1978 Hanoi courts-martial handed down death sentences to former PAVN colonel Le Xuan Chuyen and Captain Phan Van Xuong. Chuyen was executed by a firing squad in 1980. Xuong died in prison at about the same time. Others were given lengthy prison sentences. In more recent years, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) allowed many former Chieu Hoi to immigrate to the United States. NGUYEN CONG LUAN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Amnesty; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Chieu Hoi Program; Conscientious Objectors; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Kit Carson Scouts; Selective Service

285

References Baskir, Lawrence M., and William A. Strauss. Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: 1978. Dong Van Khuyen. The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. MacPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988.

DeSoto Missions Start Date: 1963 End Date: 1964 Clandestine U.S. naval mission designed to monitor and record electronic military transmissions of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). As American interest in Vietnam increased, the U.S. Navy looked for an opportunity to become involved. It had already carried out surreptitious projects along the coastlines of China, North Korea, and even the Soviet Union, using electronic listening gear to photograph, map locations, and measure frequencies of coastal radar stations in addition to monitoring shipping and naval traffic. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized a late 1963 four-month experimental program (later extended for an additional year) dubbed DeSoto. Certain ships of the Seventh Fleet with electronic intelligence listening gear would cruise the coast of North Vietnam. While commandos of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) landed shore parties at various locations to harass radar installations, electronic intelligence (ELINT) ships would record resulting electronic transmissions. The first DeSoto mission was assigned to the destroyer Craig, but inclement weather forced its cancellation. The destroyer Maddox was then ordered from Japanese waters to the Gulf of Tonkin, where it was to take up station. Its captain was warned to go no closer than eight miles from the North Vietnamese coast and not to approach within four miles of coastal islands. Commissioned in June 1944, the Maddox was an Allen M. Sumner–class destroyer armed with 6 5-inch guns and 10 21-inch torpedoes. Securing its ELINT gear in Taiwan, it made its way into the Gulf of Tonkin, zigzagging its way seven to nine miles off the coast and four to six miles away from various islands along its course. At the same time, another program was in motion. Known as OPLAN 34A, it employed several U.S. Navy patrol torpedo (PT) boats stripped of their torpedo tubes as well as American-built light craft called “Swifts,” captained occasionally by Norwegian skippers, and Norwegian-built aluminum patrol boats nicknamed “Nasties,” captained by Americans. The Swifts were being phased out because of their insufficient weaponry and speed as Nasties came on line. Nasties were equipped with mounted machine guns and light cannon

286

Détente

and were capable of speeds in excess of 50 knots. They transported South Vietnamese commandos from their base at Da Nang to locations on the coast above the 17th Parallel. These teams engaged in various covert actions ashore, including sabotage and kidnapping. In the early minutes of July 31, 1964, one such mission raked the shoreline of the island of Hon Me with its weaponry while another OPLAN 34A team fired at the island of Hon Ngu. The Maddox monitored these activities; at no time was the ship closer to Hon Me than five miles. In reaction, just after 3:00 p.m. on August 2 North Vietnamese patrol boats from Vinh attacked the Maddox, perhaps under the impression that it was part of OPLAN 34A activities. The patrol boats were driven off or sunk by aircraft from the carrier Ticonderoga. Commander of the Pacific Fleet Admiral Ulysses Grant Sharp Jr. then ordered another carrier, the Constellation, and another destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, as reinforcement. The latter, a 4,200-ton Forrest Sherman–class ship, carried three 5-inch guns, two 3-inch guns, six torpedoes, and depth charges. A supposed second attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats against both the Maddox and the C. Turner Joy came on August 4, whereupon President Johnson temporarily suspended both DeSoto missions and OPLAN 34A activities. These Gulf of Tonkin incidents paved the way for the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by the U.S. Congress and greater American involvement in the war in Vietnam. CECIL B. CURREY See also Electronic Intelligence; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Operation Plan 34A; Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. References Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1976–1977. London: Jane’s Publishing, 1977. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Mooney, James L., ed. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, DC: U.S. Navy Department, 1959.

Détente Period of relaxed Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that began in the late 1960s and ended by 1980. The French term “détente” originally referred to the slackening of tension on the string of a crossbow. To release the tension on the string meant that the crossbow could not be fired quickly, as it would have to be cranked up again before it could be used. This explains the application of the term to warfare and to the Cold War. Détente figured fairly prominently in U.S. attempts to end the Vietnam War in the early and mid-1970s. Although U.S. president Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger rightfully laid claim to the implementa-

tion of détente, a Cold War thaw was clearly well under way as early as 1967, the year that U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet prime minister Aleksei Kosygin met at Glassboro, New Jersey, in a summit that produced little of substance but was nonetheless hailed as a breakthrough in superpower diplomacy. That same year saw the superpowers sign the Outer Space Treaty, which forbade the placement of nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction in space. When Nixon took office in January 1969, he and Kissinger immediately began to sketch out their grand design for the recasting of East-West relations. Part of the plan was to engage the Soviets in trade agreements, increased cultural exchanges, and arms limitation negotiations. Another piece of détente would capitalize on the growing Sino-Soviet split by simultaneously reaching out to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which the United States had heretofore refused to officially recognize. Nixon and Kissinger hoped to play the Soviets and Chinese against one another in order to entice both nations to alter their policies toward the West and its proxies. They also hoped to prod the Soviets and Chinese into diminishing their aid to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and believed that one or both nations might put pressure on Hanoi to bring an end to the Vietnam War. Larger international developments also played a part in the development of détente. Chancellor Willy Brandt (1969–1974) of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) and his successor Helmut Schmidt (1974–1982) helped ease East-West tensions with Brandt’s policy of Ostpolitik, which sought to smooth relations with the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Soviet Union. Ostpolitik successfully drew West and East Germany closer together and undoubtedly added urgency to Nixon and Kissinger’s détente. The fact that the Soviets and Americans had reached rough nuclear parity by 1968 and were both eager to implement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which went into effect in March 1970, suggested that détente was a necessary and desirable progression for both sides. Clearly, both the United States and the Soviet Union stood to gain from détente. The Soviets saw it as a way to boost East-West trade and to buy badly needed agricultural products, particularly grain, from the Americans. The Americans in turn viewed détente as a way to seal lucrative large-scale trade deals and to lessen the burden of high defense budgets resulting from the Vietnam War. Obviously, all benefited by reducing Cold War antipathies that might escalate to nuclear war. For his part, Nixon used détente for political gain as well. Seeking a way to boost his reelection chances in 1972, the president employed his high-profile trips to Beijing and Moscow that year to focus public attention on foreign policy triumphs during a time in which the economy was faltering, the backlash against Vietnam was increasing, and race relations were still at a slow boil. Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev also employed détente for political expediency. Indeed, given the rocky relations with China, Brezhnev saw in détente a way to boost his popularity

Détente at home, elevate the Soviet position within the Communist bloc, and consolidate his power within the Kremlin. Nixon visited Beijing in February 1972, a widely publicized spectacle in which two former enemies—Nixon and Chairman Mao Zedong—were seen amiably toasting one another. That the opening of relations with China began before Nixon first visited Moscow in May 1972 was not lost on the Soviets, who showed a renewed commitment to détente, fearing that the Americans and the Chinese would conspire against them. Nixon and Brezhnev’s first summit took place in Moscow during May 22–30, 1972. The meeting was a cordial one that resulted in concrete diplomatic achievements. Altogether the two leaders arrived at seven separate agreements, ranging from the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) Interim Agreement and the beginning of SALT II talks to expanded commerce, limiting the likelihood of accidental war, and promoting cooperative research projects. That summer the U.S. Congress approved the SALT I accords and a three-year grain deal with the Soviets. In the meantime, both nations became signatories to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Biological Warfare Convention in 1972. Brezhnev visited Washington in June 1973 for the second summit. The meeting was a generally productive one, and both men had obviously developed a considerable personal rapport. Both sides agreed to redouble their efforts in negotiating a second SALT agreement, which had run into technical problems over the existence of multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The third and last summit between Nixon and Brezhnev—occurring in June 1974—was the least productive. By then, Nixon’s personal and political fortunes as well as other roadblocks conspired to work against a broadening of détente. Although the Americans and the Chinese continued to inch their way toward normalized relations, after 1974 the forward momentum of the U.S.-Soviet détente began to falter. By the summer of 1974 Nixon was clearly preoccupied with the Watergate Scandal, which was about to doom his presidency; he was a lame duck. The SALT II talks were stalled, and neither side seemed willing to break the logjam. The U.S. Congress, which already had its sights on Nixon, balked at making any further trade or arms deals with the Soviets as long as they continued to mistreat their Jewish population. Nixon’s successor, Gerald R. Ford, was committed to détente. But his uneasy and brief term, seen by many as a caretaker presidency, did not give him much clout with a hostile and Democratically controlled Congress. When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, he too supported détente. However, his administration’s emphasis on human rights soon strained relations with Moscow. Détente came unglued in 1979. The 1979 Iranian Revolution hamstrung Carter, compelling many Americans to conclude that the United States had become a toothless tiger. Deteriorating relations with the Soviets became a full-blown crisis when they invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Carter, now under enormous pressure to act tough, condemned the Afghanistan invasion, initiated

287

General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev (left) and U.S. president Richard Nixon (right) after signing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow on May 26, 1972, the first significant arms limitation agreement between the two superpowers. (National Archives)

a substantial military buildup, and pointedly boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Détente was all but finished. When Ronald Reagan came to office in January 1981, he took a hard-line stance with the Soviets. He engaged the nation in a massive conventional and military buildup, resorted to bellicose anti-Soviet rhetoric reminiscent of the early Cold War, and refused to negotiate with the Soviets. The doomed SALT II treaty was abandoned, and U.S.-Soviet relations reached a nadir not known since the early 1960s. Only after Soviet secretary-general Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in late 1985 did superpower relations improve, beginning the final phase of the Cold War that ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 31, 1991. The extent to which détente helped Vietnam War peace negotiations is still subject to conjecture, although there is little doubt that improved relations with both Moscow and Beijing gave the United States more latitude in its Vietnam policies without worrying about a Soviet or Chinese intervention. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; China, People’s Republic of; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Sino-Soviet Split; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Froman, Michael B. The Development of the Idea of Détente. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991.

288

De Tham

Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Lafeber, Walter. America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945–2002. Updated 9th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Nelson, Keith L. The Making of Détente: Soviet-American Relations in the Shadow of Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

De Tham Birth Date: 1858 Death Date: February 10 or March 18, 1913 Vietnamese nationalist hero who led an uprising against the French. De Tham, also known as Hoang Hoa Tham, was born in 1858 as Truong Van Nghia, son of Truong Van Than and Luong Thi Minh, in Di Chien village, Tien Lu District, Hung Yen Province, in northern Vietnam. Taking up arms against the French, Truong Van Nghia centered his resistance activities in the Yen The area of Bac Giang Province. He was subsequently honored by Vietnamese nationalists with the titles of De Tham (Marshal Tham) and the Gray Tiger of Yen The Area. Operating from Yen The, from 1886 De Tham expanded his activities, chiefly to Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, and Hung Hoa provinces. In 1892 the French sent forces into Yen The without significant success. In late 1895 De Tham attacked Bac Ninh and secured a number of weapons. When he refused to return these, that November the French mounted a larger effort under Colonel Joseph Gallieni to destroy De Tham’s movement, but this met only partial success. De Tham withdrew into the jungle. In 1897 the French agreed to create an autonomous zone of six cantons containing 22 villages in the Phon Xuong area in return for disarmament by De Tham’s group. In fact, De Tham did not disarm. By 1899 he commanded some 500 well-armed combatants. In 1905 after contact with Phan Boi Chau, Phan Chu Trinh, and Pham Van Ngon, Tham decided to expand his activities and established the Nghia Hung Party. During the next eight years his forces battled the French and inflicted serious losses on them. In 1908 De Tham was involved in the revolt of the Garde Indochinoise (Linh Kho Xanh) at Bac Ninh, Nam Dinh, and Nha Nam. He participated in the plot on June 27, 1908, to poison the French garrison at the Hanoi citadel during a banquet while the Garde Indochinoise mounted simultaneous attacks on other French posts. The poison did not have the desired effect, proving to be only a strong purgative and alerting the French. De Tham’s troops outside the citadel then withdrew. The French authorities handed out a number of death sentences for the participants and demanded De Tham’s surrender. During January–November 1909 the French mounted a series of military operations against De Tham and his followers, winning

nearly a dozen pitched battles in the process. De Tham and his remaining followers were finally forced to take refuge at Yen The. The French surrounded him there, captured his wife, and deported her to Guyana. Most of his followers deserted him. On the night of March 18, 1913 (February 10, 1913, has also been given), De Tham was assassinated near Cho Go by one of his associates, Luong Tam Ky, a former member of the Black Flags and also a Vietnamese agent working for the French. De Tham’s death was a great blow to the Yen The resistance movement. His associates tried to continue the struggle, but the movement soon collapsed. De Tham continued to be revered by Vietnamese nationalists. During the Indochina War, the Viet Minh offensives of the first half of 1951, Operation HOANG HOA THAM, were named after him. NGO NGOC TRUNG AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Black Flags; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; HOANG HOA THAM, Operation References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Gendre, Claude. Le De Tham (1858–1913): Un Résistant Vietnamien à la colonisation française. L’Harmattan, Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan, 2007. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990.

Devillers, Philippe Birth Date: November 11, 1920 French journalist and writer who went to Vietnam in 1945 with hardly any knowledge of the country and wrote the most influential political history of the Indochina War. Philippe Devillers was born Philippe Mullender in the town of Villers-Cotterêts in the Aisne on November 11, 1920. While in the army in August 1945 he accepted a position in the press section of General JacquesPhilippe Leclerc’s Expeditionary Corps leaving for Indochina to restore French sovereignty there in the wake of Japan’s surrender. Mullender arrived in Saigon in November 1945 and was assigned to write articles for the official publication Caravelle, but under a private arrangement with Hubert Beuve-Mery, the newspaper’s founder and director, he also began contributing articles to Le Monde using the pseudonym Devillers, after his birthplace. Devillers quickly made up for his lack of knowledge of Vietnam by a series of lucky breaks. First he made the acquaintance of F. Moresco, director of the Sûreté under the Vichy-supporting regime of Admiral Jean Decoux. Moresco allowed Devillers to consult and make notes from the dossiers of political parties in Vietnam, dossiers that had been prepared in exhaustive detail since 1932. This provided Devillers with a background on the Communists and the

Dewey, Albert Peter Viet Minh. In Hue in March 1946, Devillers made contact with the Viet Minh themselves through a métis engineer friend. Devillers then consulted other sources of information in the old imperial capital including newspaper files, which made him determined to write a book on the dramatic and little-known events of 1944– 1946. Finally, again through friends, he obtained copies of the typewritten transcripts of the negotiations between the French and the Viet Minh in Da Lat in April–May 1946 for a political settlement following the March 6 modus vivendi. Repatriated to France in October 1946, Devillers began turning his voluminous notes, documents, and reference books into the first draft of a book. Continuing his newspaper interviews with key players such as Decoux, Bao Dai, and others in the unfolding drama of Franco-Vietnamese relations, Devillers worked steadily at his project, all the while remaining in government service. A series of seven one-hour lectures on contemporary Vietnam that he was invited to give at the Collège Libre des Sciences Sociales et Economiques in the winter of 1949–1950 compelled him to arrange his material in readable form, and a strongly Vietnamese nationalist viewpoint emerged in his writing. The book, Histoire du Viet-Nam de 1940 à 1952, was published by Editions du Seuil in Paris on April 28, 1952, three days after Devillers resigned his civil service position. By presenting a firmly nationalist point of view rooted in Vietnam’s own history of struggle against outside domination, the book acted as a counterweight to the arguments of those who wanted to keep Indochina in the French Empire at all costs and a foil to propagandistic portrayals of the Viet Minh that had dominated the press up to that point. With the ensuing Vietnam War, Devillers experienced a renewal of his reputation as an expert on Vietnamese politics, and his subsequent writings provided ammunition for antiwar writers in the United States. Oddly enough, his first book was never translated into English. Many years later his research in the French archives confirmed the correctness of the documents he had seen and taken notes from, which up to the time of their declassification were merely “pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that I kept in my head,” as he said. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN

289

in Chicago, Illinois, on October 8, 1916, Albert Peter Dewey was the son of Charles Dewey, who was secretary of the treasury in the Calvin Coolidge administration and a Republican congressman from Illinois. The younger Dewey was educated at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire; in Switzerland; and at Yale University, from which he graduated in 1939. Dewey then became a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. In Paris when World War II began, Dewey enlisted in September 1939 as a lieutenant in the Polish Army. After the German victory in the East, he returned to France and covered the war in the West through the 1940 fall of Paris to the Germans and then wrote a book about his experiences. Dewey was able to escape France through Spain and Portugal and return to the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was ordered to Africa as an intelligence officer with the Air Transport Command. He was a captain in a paratroop unit when he was recruited by the OSS. As an OSS major, he was parachuted into southern France five days before the Allied invasion at Normandy in June 1944 to gather intelligence and assist the French underground. Decorated for this, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

See also Fall, Bernard B.; French Indochina, 1860s–1946 Reference Devillers, Philippe. Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 à 1952. Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1952.

Dewey, Albert Peter Birth Date: October 8, 1916 Death Date: September 26, 1945 Journalist, U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer, and the first American killed in Vietnam. Born

U.S. Army lieutenant colonel A. Peter Dewey, ordered by British major general Douglas D. Gracey to leave Vietnam, was mistaken for a French officer and shot and killed by the Viet Minh at a roadblock outside of Saigon on September 26, 1945. Dewey is sometimes held to be the first American fatality of the Vietnam conflict. (Bettmann/Corbis)

290

DEWEY CANYON I, Operation

In August 1945 Dewey was in Asia, sent to Saigon by his superiors as head of a seven-man contingent to search for missing Americans and to gather information on conditions there. That portion of Vietnam was then under British control, the Potsdam Conference having assigned Britain responsibility for disarming Japanese troops below the 16th Parallel. The British commander, Major General Douglas D. Gracey, was trying to cope with problems that he found there. In August 1945 the Viet Minh declared themselves the legitimate government for all of Vietnam. That claim was disputed by the French, the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, other indigenous political parties, and the Binh Xuyen gangsters. The tattered remnants of the French military remained stripped of their weapons and confined to their barracks. Various representatives of the Paris government beset General Gracey to urge him to help them regain control of their colony. Unsympathetic to Viet Minh claims, on September 21, 1945, Gracey declared martial law and rearmed 1,400 French soldiers (mostly Legionnaires) as well as some of the Japanese who had not yet been sent home in order to augment his own British, Indian, and Gurkha troops. The next day these troops forced the Viet Minh from their government offices. Dewey’s sympathies lay with the Viet Minh, and Gracey took this as an affront to his own authority. He had already come to despise this outspoken and abrasive U.S. officer who dared to ride around Saigon flying the American flag from his jeep. Now Gracey forbade Dewey to do so, stating that only the area commander was entitled to a flag on his vehicle. When Dewey ignored him, Gracey ordered him to leave Indochina. Dewey’s flight was to leave Tan Son Nhut Airport on September 26, 1945. Early that day Dewey drove to the airport, only to learn that his plane had not yet arrived. He then returned to the city. Still in the morning hours, Dewey returned to the airport to check on his flight, this time accompanied by another OSS officer, Captain Herbert J. Bluechel. The two discussed the situation of a teammate who had just been wounded by soldiers of the Viet Minh. Now no flag identified the vehicle as American. Dewey took a shortcut past the Saigon golf course on his way to the airfield and encountered a roadblock staffed by three Viet Minh soldiers. In no mood to stop and parley, Dewey shouted at the three men in French, their only common language, as he attempted to drive around the pile of logs. It was a serious mistake, for the men at the barrier mistakenly assumed Dewey to be French and opened fire on him and his jeep. Dewey died instantly. Bluechel was not wounded and managed to escape on foot. In this way a tragic case of mistaken identity made Peter Dewey the first American fatality in Vietnam. CECIL B. CURREY AND SCOTT ROHRER See also Binh Xuyen; Cao Dai; Gracey, Douglas David; Hoa Hao; Office of Strategic Services

References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

DEWEY CANYON I,

Operation

Start Date: January 22, 1969 End Date: March 18, 1969 Military operation in early 1969 in the southwest corner of Quang Tri Province conducted by Major General Raymond Davis’s 3rd Marine Division. Operation DEWEY CANYON I took place in the I Corps Tactical Zone along the Laotian border approximately 35 miles west of Hue and 50 miles south of the principal marine support facility at Vandergrift Combat Base. The operation was conducted in response to a Communist buildup in Base Area 611 in the Da Krong Valley, an important location because it fed Route 548 through the A Shau Valley, off Route 922 into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from Laos. From the A Shau Valley, troops and supplies went east into Hue and southeast to Da Nang. DEWEY CANYON’s mission was to deny the Communist forces access to the critical populated areas of the coastal lowlands. The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), believed that it was critical to cut infiltration of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces and supplies from the Laotian sanctuaries, eliminate Communist antiaircraft capabilities, and destroy basic infrastructure capable of supporting another major offensive such as occurred with the 1968 Tet Offensive. On January 22, 1969, General Davis sent three battalions of the 9th Marine Regiment into the Da Krong Valley. The 9th Marines, commanded by Colonel Robert Barrow, were completely dependent upon helicopters for their logistical support. This proved a challenge, as the northwest monsoon season was then in its final month. Although rainfall was minimal, there was continual cloud cover for periods of longer than a week. General Davis and Colonel Barrow made skillful use of firesupport bases (FSBs). Initially the 9th Marines developed FSBs Shiloh, Razor, and Riley. As the regiment advanced, other FSBs were opened in a leapfrog manner. Phase I of DEWEY CANYON involved getting the forces established in the operation area. Under the FSB concept, engineer and reconnaissance elements went in first. Phase II commenced on January 24 and 25 as Colonel Barrow ordered his 2nd and 3rd battalions to extend their perimeters north of the east-west axis of the Da Krong River. Phase II was designed to clear out the area around the FSBs and gradually move into position for Phase III.

DEWEY CANYON I, Operation

291

Smoke hangs over 105-mm howitzers as U.S. marines pour artillery shells into the A Shau Valley during Operation DEWEY CANYON I in Quang Tri Province in northern South Vietnam in 1969. The operation began on January 22, 1969; its objective was to deny Communist forces access to the populated coastal lowlands. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

During the first week of February bad weather set in, and visibility and ceiling were near zero. With rations and water a potential problem, Colonel Barrow ordered the commanders of the 2nd and 3rd battalions to pull their companies into areas from which they could be supported. Continued bad weather during February 4–10 cost the regiment some of its momentum and also permitted the Communist forces to strengthen defenses to the south and better prepare to meet the marine attack. In Phase III each battalion had a zone of action (ZOA) about three miles wide. The total regimental ZOA was thus about nine miles east to west. From Phase Line Red, the regimental jumping-off point, each battalion would have to cover about five miles to the regimental objective. During February 11–12 as the battalions moved across Phase Line Red, they encountered very heavy enemy contact, with PAVN units fighting from their defensive positions until destroyed. During February 16–23 as the marine battalions pushed south toward their objectives, new FSBs were established; however, these remained under fire from reinforced PAVN units. The Americans uncovered large quantities of arms and ordnance, with most supplies stored in the bottoms of bomb craters. Company C, 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, overran a bunker complex and captured two 122-millimeter (mm) field guns. While the marines experi-

enced success, heavy PAVN mortar fire hampered resupply of rifle companies and casualty evacuation and replacement. By March 1 the weather closed in again. FSBs and company positions were not always open for helicopters, and only the skill and courage of the pilots made possible resupply, replacement of manpower, and casualty evacuation. Only marine pilots had full instrumentation to fly in such weather. Despite difficulties, the pilots were generally able to accomplish their missions within three hours after receiving orders. On March 18 with the extraction of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, Operation DEWEY CANYON was terminated. On March 19 MACV reported PAVN dead at 1,617 and 1,461 weapons recovered, along with hundreds of tons of ammunition, equipment, and supplies. DEWEY CANYON claimed 121 marines killed and 803 wounded over its 56 days. While PAVN forces involved in the fight (including the main-force 6th Regiment, the 3rd Sapper Battalion, the 675B Artillery Regiment, and logistics and support forces) claimed to have defeated the American operation, the Vietnamese admit that their forces suffered heavily in this operation. The 675B Artillery Regiment alone recorded the loss of eight long-range 122-mm guns and four 85-mm guns as well as 29 officers and men killed (including the regiment’s deputy chief of staff) and 39 wounded.

292

DEWEY CANYON II, Operation

Arguably, Operation DEWEY CANYON was the most successful highmobility regimental-size action of the war. WILL E. FAHEY JR. See also Davis, Raymond Gilbert; Fire-Support Bases; United States Marine Corps References Davis, Gordon M. “Dewey Canyon: All Weather Classic.” Marine Corps Gazette, July 1969, 32–40. Kieu Tam Nguyen. Chien Truong Tri-Thien-Hue Trong Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc Toan Thang [The Tri-Thien-Hue Battlefield during the Victorious National Salvation Resistance War against the U.S.]. Hue: Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 1985. Simmons, Edward H. The United States Marines, 1775–1975. New York: Viking, 1976. Vu Lam, ed. Phao Binh Nhan Dan Viet Nam: Nhung Chang Duong Chien Dau, Tap II [Vietnam’s People’s Artillery: Combat Operations, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1986.

DEWEY CANYON II,

Operation

Start Date: January 30, 1971 End Date: February 7, 1971 Operation DEWEY CANYON II supported Operation LAM SON 719, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) invasion of Laos in early 1971. The first major ARVN deployment unaccompanied by American advisers, LAM SON 719 was a 20,000-man operation to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail, advance to Tchepone, and destroy People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) supply dumps. DEWEY CANYON II technically lasted only from January 30 to February 7, 1971, but American involvement continued until the last ARVN troops departed Laos in late March. DEWEY CANYON II was a special operation because in 1970 Congress had prohibited American ground troops from entering Cambodia or Laos. U.S. Army lieutenant general James Sutherland, commander of U.S. XXIV Corps, coordinated airmobile and aviation operations, while commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division U.S. Army major general Thomas Tarpley led the ground forces. U.S. forces included two brigades of the 101st Airborne Division and its 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry (2-17 Cavalry); the mechanized 1st Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division; the 196th Light Infantry Brigade; two battalions of the 11th Infantry Brigade; two battalions of the 45th Engineer Group;, six battalions of the 101st Aviation Group; and four battalions of the 108th Artillery Group. The United States also supplied tactical air and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombing support. Operation DEWEY CANYON II began on January 30 when an armored cavalry detachment from the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, moved down Route 9 to the Khe Sanh area, followed by an infantry insertion. Armored personnel carriers then reconnoitered

Route 9 to the Laotian border, securing the road by February 5. Meanwhile, the 101st Airborne Division launched a feint into the A Shau Valley to distract PAVN forces. Following B-52 strikes, the cross-border attack began on February 8 with U.S. helicopter gunships of the 2-17 Cavalry attacking PAVN weapons sites and troop columns and securing landing zones north and south of Route 9. ARVN armor proceeded into Laos, and U.S. helicopters inserted two ARVN divisions into the landing zones. Intense antiaircraft fire hampered American helicopter missions, and the flanks of the ARVN advance came under heavy attack. In the next three weeks, despite hundreds of U.S. tactical air and B-52 strikes, the PAVN mauled three ARVN battalions, completely overrunning one firebase. Nevertheless, the offensive continued. On March 3 an ARVN battalion air assaulted to the outskirts of Tchepone, but PAVN fire brought down 11 helicopters and damaged several more. Three days later following additional air strikes and a PAVN withdrawal, an ARVN regiment air assaulted into the ruined Laotian ghost town. Reports show that by this point ARVN forces and U.S. air assets had destroyed or captured 4,000 individual and 1,500 crew-served weapons, 20,000 tons of ammunition, 106 tanks, 76 artillery pieces, 405 trucks, and 12,000 tons of rice. The combined operations reported a total of 13,914 PAVN troops killed and 69 captured. After reaching Tchepone, officials of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and U.S. officials proclaimed LAM SON 719 a tactical and strategic success, but the continued presence in southern Laos of 5 PAVN divisions, 1 tank regiment, and 20 antiaircraft battalions ruled out any further advance by ARVN units, severely weakened by 3,000 casualties. His forces having reached the primary objective, President Nguyen Van Thieu claimed a victory and ordered a withdrawal that soon became a chaotic retreat and, finally, a chaotic thrashing. A PAVN ambush of an armored convoy on March 19 caused panic. U.S. gunships had to destroy abandoned tanks and artillery, and in the following days, thousands more tactical air and B-52 sorties covered the retreat. When the ARVN 1st Airborne, responsible for flank security along Route 9, lost several firebases, only daring U.S. helicopter sorties enabled the disintegrating ARVN regiments to escape destruction. When the ARVN’s last unit pulled out of Laos on March 24, ARVN forces had suffered 1,500 killed, 5,400 wounded, and 425 missing. U.S. casualties totaled 219 killed, 1,200 wounded, and 37 missing. U.S. forces also lost 107 helicopters, with 615 more damaged. The PAVN was hurt, but within days its base at Tchepone was back in service. The LAM SON 719 debacle proved that PAVN troops still could defeat the best ARVN units, but President Richard M. Nixon nevertheless proclaimed to the American public on April 7, 1971, that “Tonight I can report that Vietnamization has succeeded.” JOHN D. ROOT See also Air Mobility; Airpower, Role in War; LAM SON 719, Operation; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Vietnamization

Dien Bien Phu, Battle of References Nolan, Keith William. Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son 719, Vietnam 1971. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Diem, Overthrow of See Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of

Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Start Date: March 13, 1954 End Date: May 7, 1954 Set-piece battle that ended the Indochina War. The siege of Dien Bien Phu was the most famous battle of the Indochina War and one of the great battles of the 20th century. In 1953 French military commander in Indochina General Henri Navarre decided to establish an airhead in northwestern Tonkin astride the main Viet Minh invasion route into Laos. Although not enthusiastic about the idea, Navarre believed that a strong base there would prevent an outright enemy invasion of Laos. The position would be located at the village of Dien Bien Phu, then held by a small Viet Minh garrison. Dien Bien Phu had a small airstrip and was some 185 miles by air from Hanoi. In November 1953 Navarre in Saigon gave orders for the operation, dubbed CASTOR, to proceed. On November 20, 2,200 French paras (paratroopers), the cream of the French Expeditionary Corps, dropped into the valley north and south of Dien Bien Phu. They easily defeated the few Viet Minh there and began establishing defensive positions. With a hubris not unknown to other French military commanders in Indochina, Navarre completely underestimated his enemy. He expected to use superior French artillery and airpower to destroy any Viet Minh forces attacking Dien Bien Phu and assumed that at most Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap would commit one division to such an effort. Should this belief prove incorrect, Navarre was confident that the garrison could be evacuated. Even in retrospect, it is hard to believe that he could have so seriously underestimated his enemy, given prior experience and especially the 1951–1952 Battle of Hoa Binh. Hardly anyone had heard of Dien Bien Phu when the French occupied it. Dien Bien Phu was an obscure village situated in a valley surrounded by hills on all sides. To leave the enemy the opportunity to be in control of the high ground surrounding the base was dangerous, but as Navarre put it later, when the French arrived, the Viet Minh did not have artillery there.

293

Colonel Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries (promoted to brigadier general during the subsequent battle) commanded French forces at Dien Bien Phu. An aristocrat with a reputation of a playboy (the French strong points were reportedly named for his current mistresses), de Castries had wide experience in Indochina and was regarded as a capable commander. During the subsequent battle, however, he at times showed signs of detachment, seeming to withdraw mentally. By the end of the first week, the French had 4,500 men in the valley. They were entirely dependent on air supply by a small number of transport aircraft (three groups totaling 75 Douglas C-47s Dakotas). The French also had available 48 Martin B-26 Marauder and Privateer bombers and 112 Bearcat and Hellcat fighter-bombers. There were also a few helicopters. After the battle Navarre wrote in his memoirs that “The insufficiency of aviation was, for our side, the principal cause of the loss of the battle.” The Viet Minh on the other hand relied, as they had in previous battles, on the very primitive system of transport by human porters. Giap’s troops later improved Route 41 leading to Dien Bien Phu to enable the roadway to handle trucks and artillery pieces. At the end of April thanks to Chinese support, Giap had 14 transport companies with 800 trucks in a total of 1,200 to 1,300 vehicles. Nonetheless, the laborers (the “people’s porters,” Giap called them) remained the core of the Viet Minh supply system and were critical to the battle’s outcome. The French central command post was in Dien Bien Phu itself. Around it de Castries ordered the construction of a series of strong points: Beatrice, Gabrielle, Anne-Marie, Dominique, Huguette, Françoise, Elaine, and Isabelle. Unfortunately for the French, Isabelle was separated from the others; some three miles to the south, it was easily cut off and diverted a third of the French forces. De Castries had originally planned a wider defensive ring, perhaps 30 miles in length, but the problems of bringing everything in by air shrank the perimeter. Fortifications were also woefully inadequate. The French assumed that they could use airpower and counterbattery artillery fire to knock out any Viet Minh artillery before it became a problem. Indeed, the French were contemptuous of Viet Minh artillery capabilities. The French made no effort to camouflage their own positions and placed their own guns in open pits without protective cover. The Viet Minh easily observed French work from the hills, but French light observation aircraft failed to detect the Viet Minh buildup. The Chinese directly supported the Viet Minh by handling some of the artillery batteries and helping to draw up fire plans. Chinese general Vy Quoc Thanh was also at Dien Bien Phu as military adviser and to help plan the campaign. The French flew in reinforcements, but these were negated because Giap had not only called off his northern offensive but also decided to commit all available divisions to attack Dien Bien Phu. Thus, the defenders would encounter a much larger force than the

294

Dien Bien Phu, Battle of

On November 20, 1953, 2,200 French “paras” dropped into the valley near Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Vietnam. They easily defeated the few Viet Minh there and established defensive positions. Both sides then built up their forces and, in the spring of 1954, the most important battle of the Indochina War occurred here. The Viet Minh defeat of the French paved the way for the French departure from Indochina. (AFP/Getty Images)

single division that Navarre had anticipated. Giap also worked to cripple the French airlift capacity. In daring raids in early March, Viet Minh commandos attacked French air bases at Gia Lam near Hanoi and at Do Son and Cat Bi airfields near Haiphong, destroying 22 aircraft. Meanwhile at Dien Bien Phu, the French had undertaken patrols. Ominously these were routinely mauled by the Viet Minh, and de Castries’s own chief of staff was killed just a few hundred yards from one of the strong points. The French then abandoned such patrolling as being counterproductive and providing little information about the enemy. Giap now closed the ring on the French fortress. The 304th, 308th, 312th, and 316th divisions were brought to the area. The French called in airpower. Grumman F-8F Bearcats and Martin B-26 Marauder bombers attacked Viet Minh hill positions with bombs, napalm, and rocket fire, but the positions were well disguised by natural camouflage and were difficult to identify. The French also flew in 10 M-24 Chaffee light tanks by air and assembled them in the fortress under fire, although these had little impact on the battle.

By mid-February de Castries had sustained casualties of almost 1,000 men. The Viet Minh meanwhile continued to build their strength. Bernard Fall estimates that the Viet Minh ultimately assembled at Dien Bien Phu some 49,500 combat troops and 31,500 support personnel, mostly unskilled porters. An additional 23,000 troops maintained supply lines back to the Chinese border. In midMarch the French had 10,814 men in the valley, of whom about 7,000 were frontline combat troops. Fully a third of the garrison was Vietnamese, although most of these were tribal Thai. The Viet Minh thus enjoyed a superiority of approximately 5 to 1 in manpower, and they also had greater firepower. The siege of Dien Bien Phu officially opened on March 13 with a heavy Viet Minh bombardment. Although the French added 4,000 men during the siege, Giap more than offset this with manpower increases of his own. He also steadily improved both the quantity and quality of his artillery. Ultimately the Viet Minh deployed 20 to 24 105-millimeter (mm) howitzers, 15 to 20 75-mm howitzers, 20 120-mm mortars, and at least 40 82-mm mortars. They also had some 80 Chinese-crewed 37-mm antiaircraft guns, 100 antiaircraft machine guns, and 12 to 16 six-tube Katyusha

Dien Bien Phu, Battle of rocket launchers. During the battle, the Viet Minh fired 103,000 rounds of 75-mm or larger-size artillery shells, most of it by direct fire, simply aiming down their gun tubes at the French positions. Approximately 75 percent of French casualties came from artillery fire. By contrast, French artillery assets were entirely inadequate. The French had only 4 155-mm howitzers, 24 105-mm howitzers, and 4 120-mm mortars. In contrast to the Viet Minh, the French fired only 93,000 shells during the battle and, unlike the Viet Minh, had difficulty identifying their targets. On the very first night of the siege, March 13–14, the Viet Minh took Beatrice. Gabrielle fell two days later. Giap’s basic tactic was massive artillery fire followed by waves of infantry. The Viet Minh also brought the airstrip under fire to try to destroy F-8F Bearcat fighters there. One was destroyed on March 13, and two escaped to Vientiane. The next day three more got away to Cat Bi airfield; the remaining six were destroyed on the ground. The control tower was also badly damaged, and the radio beacon guiding planes there in bad weather was knocked out. Pessimism now began to spread in the French command. In Hanoi, French commander in the north General René Cogny, who was never enthusiastic about the operation, now began to consider the possibility of losing the fortress. His resources were stretched thin, as Giap had sent the 320th Division, 3 autonomous regiments, and 14 regional battalions to disrupt the vital transportation link be-

295

tween Hanoi and Haiphong and divert French resources by attacking French outposts in the Tonkin Delta. The Viet Minh offensive there began on March 12, the day before the battle began at Dien Bien Phu. Thus, Cogny had to fight two battles at once. Navarre, who held to the primacy of central Indochina, refused all reinforcements to Cogny. It is not surprising that de Castries’s pleas for reinforcements fell on deaf ears. Even ammunition was in short supply, as Viet Minh sappers blew up French stocks. On March 22 the French used their last four tanks to counterattack People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops that had cut off Isabelle. This met up with units from Isabelle striking north. It was the first French success of the battle, but it cost 151 French dead, 72 wounded, and 1 missing. Viet Minh casualties were heavier, but Giap had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of manpower. The arrival of the rainy season made conditions more miserable for attacker and defender alike and further complicated French resupply problems. C-47 transports still flew in supplies and evacuated wounded but at great risk. On March 26 one transport was shot down; two more were shot down on March 27. Late that same day one managed to land and pick up 19 wounded. This was the last flight in or out of Dien Bien Phu. On March 26 Major Marcel Bigeard, who had parachuted into the fortress only 10 days before, commanded a successful attack against Viet Minh positions. Supported by artillery, fighter

296

Dien Triet Lake, Battle of

aircraft, and a tank platoon from Isabelle, the French paras sallied from the fortress to assault the Viet Minh. Bigeard later gave Viet Minh losses at 350 dead and more than 500 wounded as well as 10 taken prisoner. The raiders also captured 5 20-mm AA cannon, 12 .50-caliber machine guns, 2 bazookas, and 14 submachine guns and reclaimed 10 prisoners. Having already suffered about 6,600 killed and 12,000 wounded, Giap’s force suffered from low morale, what Giap later called “right-wing tendencies.” Discussions led by political cadres about courage, right thinking, and dedication helped to restore morale, as did a more important change in tactics. Giap abandoned the costly human-wave attacks in favor of attrition warfare, resembling World War I. He pushed forward trenches until the particular target strong point was cut off from outside support. The last stage of the battle was fought without letup in an area of about a square mile around the airstrip. The Viet Minh attacked on April 29, and by May 4 French senior officers knew there was no longer any hope. The last French reinforcements, 165 men of the 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion, jumped into the garrison during May 5–6. They had come at their own insistence to share the fate of their comrades. This brought the cumulative total of the garrison to 16,544 men. By now most of the airdrops of supplies were falling into Viet Minh hands. The final Viet Minh assault occurred on May 6, accompanied by the explosion of mines and the firing of Katyusha rockets. The last French troops surrendered on the evening of May 7. During the siege, more than half of the French troops had been rendered hors de combat: 1,600 dead, 4,800 wounded, and 1,600 missing. The Viet Minh immediately sent their 8,000 prisoners off on foot on a 500-mile march to prison camps; less than half of them would return. Of the Vietnamese defenders taken, only 10 percent would be seen again. The Viet Minh had also shot down 48 French planes and destroyed 16 others on the ground. Viet Minh casualties are estimated at approximately 7,900 killed and 15,000 wounded. The French had two plans to rescue the garrison. Operation CONDOR called for an infantry thrust from Laos to link up with airborne forces sent from Hanoi. Operation ALBATROSS was a plan for the garrison to break out on its own. Navarre did not order Cogny to begin planning for this until May 3. Not until May 7 did de Castries decide to attempt to execute the plan, but it was then too late. Another plan, code-named VULTURE, was also considered. This envisioned massive U.S. intervention in the form of air strikes, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower could not secure British support, and the plan was dropped. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the death knell of the French in Asia. In Paris, Premier Joseph Laniel, dressed entirely in black, gave the news to the National Assembly. The Geneva Conference was already in progress to discuss a host of Asian issues, and the French defeat provided the politicians with an excuse to shift blame for the Indochina debacle to the military. Although France had not provided the troops or resources that the French military required to win the war, it could now blame the military for the

defeat and extricate the nation from the Indochina morass. A new government under Pierre Mendès-France came to power to carry out that mandate. Almost immediately after the Indochina War, the French Army found itself transferred to Algeria to fight again. This time, the army promised, there would be no sellout. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also CASTOR, Operation; Cogny, René; De Castries, Christian Marie; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Laniel, Joseph; Mendès-France, Pierre; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Navarre Plan; VULTURE, Operation References Bigeard, General Marcel. Pour une parcelle de gloire. Paris: Plon, 1975. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Morgan, Ted. Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War. New York: Random House, 2010. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

Dien Triet Lake, Battle of Event Date: 546 CE Following the introduction of higher taxes by the Chinese governor of Giao Chi (northern Tonkin), in 541 CE Ly Bon (Ly Bi), a government official of Chinese extraction in Duc Province at the mouth of the Ca River, led a sizable rebellion against Chinese rule. His forces were at first successful, defeating the Chinese and advancing north into Ai Province, where they were also victorious. The next year Bon defeated another invading Chinese army. At the beginning of 544 he proclaimed himself Ly Nam De, emperor of Nam Viet. He called his new state Van Xuan (“Ten Thousand Springs”). Bon’s base of operations was probably Gia Ninh at the head of the Red River plain where the river is joined by its two principal tributaries, but his territory reportedly included virtually the entire Red River Delta area from Lang Son to the border with Lin Yi (the Champa kingdom). Bon’s chief preoccupations during his short rule were to keep peace at home and prevent foreign invasion, including attacks by the mountain tribes that were known as the Lao. Bon’s fortunes changed in 545 when he came up against yet another invading Chinese army, this time led by Chen Baxian (Ch’en Pa-hsien) and that most likely came by sea. Defeated in the lower Red River Delta, Bon retreated to near present-day Hanoi, where he was again defeated. He then withdrew to his citadel at Gia Ninh, which Chen Baxian put under siege and took early in 546. Bon escaped into the nearby mountains, where he rallied what remained of his army. Winning the support of some of the Lao,

Dikes, Red River Delta by autumn he had assembled some 20,000 men on the shores of Dien Triet Lake. He had his men build a number of boats, which he planned to use to attack the Chinese army camped at the mouth of the lake. In the midst of this activity General Chen Baxian called together his dispirited generals and urged an attack. He reportedly told them that they were but one army deep in enemy territory and that if they lost the next battle they would probably not get out alive. He pointed out that the Vietnamese had earlier fled, that the loyalty of Bon’s supporters was shaky, and that his Lao allies were unreliable. The Chinese should therefore act immediately and decisively. If Bon’s earlier battles, described by the Chinese as defeats, had been part of a strategic plan to draw the Chinese deep into his territory so that they might be cut off and destroyed, they were countered by Chen Baxian’s stubbornness. Taking advantage of a sudden rise in the lake level, Chen Baxian launched his ships into the lake, crossed it, and utterly defeated Bon’s army, which was unprepared for the attack. Bon escaped into the mountains, but he was slain the next year by the Lao; his head was sent to the Chinese to collect the bounty placed on it. Resistance continued against the Chinese for a time under Bon’s elder brother Ly Thien Bao, who reportedly raised a force of as many as 20,000 men and again secured control of Bac. He then marched on Ai, but Chen Baxian returned and defeated him and drove him back into the mountains. Despite strong Tang rule, Vietnamese revolts against the Chinese continued to occur sporadically thereafter. As for Chen Baxian, he later took power in China, becoming Emperor Wu, founder of the Chen dynasty that ruled over parts of China roughly south of the Huai River from 557 to 589. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Ly Bon; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Dikes, Red River Delta System of walls or embankments built of earth and/or rock, usually along rivers or shorelines, to prevent flooding. Dikes can also be used as causeways separating two bodies of water. The Vietnamese constructed dikes throughout the country. They were especially prominent along rivers in northern Vietnam to protect the important Red River Delta and tributaries against flooding. Reportedly the first dike to be built in the Red River Delta was that of Co Xa under King Ly Nhan Tong (1072–1127 CE). Chinese sources hold that construction of the dikes dates back to very early

297

times when the country was still known as Giao Chi. Later under the Tang dynasty Governor Cao Bien raised dikes around his capital of Dai La to protect it from river flooding. These dikes had a total length of 9,850 yards. Materials used for the construction of the dikes had never been well chosen or well packed down, and the courses were never well marked out. Therefore, over the centuries the Vietnamese undertook large-scale projects to reinforce the dikes. During the period of their rule in Indochina, the French not only consolidated the existing dikes but also raised their height to approximately 29.5 feet around the Hanoi area to hold floods. The total volume of the system reached 20.3 billion gallons in 1930, compared with 5.3 billion gallons in the late 19th century. Under French rule, the dikes were also widened. By the time of the Vietnam War, there were some 2,500 miles of earthen dikes, dams, levees, and sluices in the Red River Delta region. During the Vietnam War there was some discussion by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) planners of a campaign to destroy the dikes and create widespread flooding. Similar action had been deliberately undertaken by the U.S. Air Force in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) during the Korean War (1950–1953). With nearly 15 million North Vietnamese living in the Red River Delta region at the time, such a campaign would have caused widespread crop and property destruction and great misery to the civilian population of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), not to mention loss of life. A confidential U.S. Air Force memorandum of 1965 concluded, however, that a conventional bombing campaign was unlikely to destroy the dike system entirely. In 1966 John T. McNaughton, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, proposed bombing the dikes to put pressure on Hanoi to reach a peace settlement, but Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara refused. In 1972 during Operation LINEBACKER II, U.S. president Richard Nixon reportedly again raised the issue, this time with Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, including the use of nuclear weapons. No action was taken, however. Although there was no systematic U.S. effort to destroy the dike system of North Vietnam, this did not prevent the government of the North Vietnamese government from charging that such an effort took place. In June 1972 Xuan Thuy, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator to the Paris peace talks, claimed that the United States was “purposely creating disaster for millions of people during the flood season.” Some Europeans in North Vietnam, including two Swedish journalists, confirmed damage to the dikes and stated that they thought it had been methodically inflicted. Hardly an impartial witness, actress and anti–Vietnam War activist Jane Fonda returned from a two-week visit to North Vietnam with a 20-minute film that purported to show damage to the dikes. Undoubtedly there was damage to the dike system because of the U.S. bombing of the Hanoi area due to errant weaponry dropped against elements of the North Vietnamese antiaircraft system and also in large part the consequence of the North Vietnamese

298

Dinassauts

interceptor aircraft tactics that would cause U.S. fighter-bombers to release their bomb loads early. Despite this damage, U.S. investigations revealed that there were never any major breaks in the dike system protecting Hanoi. PHAM CAO DUONG AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; McNamara, Robert Strange; McNaughton, John Theodore; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Red River Delta; Xuan Thuy References Bac K Ha De Su Tich [History of Red River Dikes in North Vietnam]. Translation into Modern Vietnamese by Ha Ngoc Xuyen. Saigon: Bo Quoc Gia Giao, 1963. “The Battle of the Dikes.” Time Magazine, August 7, 1972. Dao Duy Anh. Viet Nam Van Hoa Su Cuong [An Outline History of Vietnamese Culture]. Saigon: Bon Phuong, 1961. Hersh, Seymour M. “Dikes in Hanoi Represent 2,000-Year Effort to Tame Rivers.” New York Times, July 14, 1972. Pham Cao Duong. Vietnamese Peasants under French Domination, 1861–1945. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.

Dinassauts French abbreviation for divisions navales d’assaut, integrated French tactical units composed of naval and army forces for riverine warfare during the Indochina War. Although riverboats had long been used to transport troops up and down rivers, the French were the first to develop specialized formations for that task. These units patrolled and, in the south, controlled the key rivers upon which Indochina’s inland commerce and communications so depended. Each Dinassaut had a permanently assigned light infantry battalion operating from a mix of landing craft, river patrol boats, and river transports. The units not only patrolled the rivers but could also project power inland. Dinassauts were formidable fighting units that achieved a remarkable combat record. Dinassauts evolved from operations conducted by the French Far East Naval Brigade (BMEO, for Brigade Marine l’Extrême Orient) during the war’s first 18 months. Drawing its personnel from a cadre of recently released French prisoners of war (POWs) and elements from two naval regiments sent from France, the BMEO was the first French unit to operate on the rivers. Originally forced to use requisitioned civilian craft and borrowed British landing craft, the Dinassauts eventually acquired four 200-ton river barges, which were then motorized, armored, and armed. With these they formed the first Naval Infantry River Flotilla. Two companies of naval infantrymen constituted the ground element. Naval Brigade commanding officer Commander François Jaubert used these barges to form combined-arms units capable of operating anywhere in the country, even in small creeks and estuaries. Jaubert’s first opportunity to prove his concept of combinedarms riverine units came in October 1945 during Operation MOUS-

SAC.

This operation, in which Jaubert borrowed British landing craft to transport 270 French naval infantrymen, was intended to relieve the siege of the provincial capital of My Tho by Viet Minh sappers. A French airborne relief force had become bogged down in rice paddies outside the city. The riverine force successfully relieved My Tho, landing ground troops to outflank Viet Minh ambushes. A similar joint army-riverine operation later retook Vinh Long. These initial successes along with the lessons learned from them provided the doctrinal foundations for the Dinassauts. Despite these successes, the formation of standing riverine forces awaited the arrival of permanently assigned river craft. Availability of British craft was subject to Britain’s requirements for its own forces. Permanent riverine units were therefore not established until the arrival of French landing craft (acquired from British stocks) in December 1945. One month later, with the addition of landing parties from the battleship Richelieu and the aircraft transport Bearn, the BMEO reached a strength of nearly 3,000 men, all naval personnel. The brigade’s ground component numbered some 700 men: approximately 400 naval commandos and nearly 300 naval infantrymen. Now under the command of French Navy captain Robert Kilian, the brigade finally had sufficient troops to assign specific Fusilier Marin (naval infantry) units to naval river flotillas. On January 1, 1947, the French units were organized into two flotillas, one in the north and one in the south. Each flotilla included river commandos, the combined-arms teams operating on the rivers. Five sections of commandos were assigned to the north and two to the more tranquil south. Designated Dinassauts in 1948, they became the primary French force on the rivers of Indochina. By 1950 there were six permanent Dinassauts in Indochina, as the landing parties from the surface ships returned to France on the departure of the Richelieu. By then, “Dinassaut” had become a term used to describe any combined-arms riverine units. Temporary units, involving river-transport units and locally available army troops, were also formed into Dinassauts when necessary, but the navy used the term only when referring to the permanent units. Dinassauts were employed whenever Viet Minh ground units were suspected of operating in a river area. Dinassauts fought their way through to isolated French garrisons, relieved towns, paved the way for supply convoys, and rushed reinforcements to threatened outposts and provincial capitals. Operating as self-contained units, they proved eminently flexible in combat. The Dinassauts were remarkably successful, especially considering that the total force structure never exceeded 6,000 personnel. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Kilian, Robert. Fusiliers-Marins d’Indochine. Paris: Editions BergerLevrault, 1948.

Dith Pran

299

Koburger, Charles W., Jr. The French Navy in Indochina. New York: Praeger, 1991. McClintock, Robert. “The River War in Indochina.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1954, 1303–1311.

Dith Pran Birth Date: September 27, 1942 Death Date: March 30, 2008 Cambodian-born translator and journalist who worked for the New York Times in Cambodia (Khmer Republic). Born in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on September 27, 1942, the son of farmers in the northwestern part of Cambodia, Dith Pran attended the Lycée Siem Reap, where he learned to speak English. He then worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) in Cambodia from 1960 until 1965, when Cambodia broke diplomatic relations with the United States. Soon afterward he found work with a British camera crew filming Lord Jim in Cambodia. He then became a receptionist at the Hotel Auberge Royale des Temples, which catered to tourists visiting nearby Angkor Wat. In 1970 with the outbreak of fighting in Cambodia and with many Western journalists going to Phnom Penh to cover the war, Dith moved to the Cambodian capital and became an interpreter and a guide for journalists. He later became the assistant to Sydney Schanberg of the New York Times and with Schanberg covered many of the major stories in the war, including the accidental U.S. bombing of the Cambodian government naval base at Neak Luong and the subsequent escalation of the conflict. When the United States evacuated its Cambodian embassy and most remaining U.S. and allied citizens from Phnom Penh on April 11, 1975, Schanberg decided to remain in the country. Dith stayed with him, although Dith’s family was evacuated to the United States. Six days later the pro-U.S. Khmer Republic fell, with the Cambodian Communists (Khmer Rouge) capturing Phnom Penh. Schanberg and Dith, along with two other journalists, were taken prisoner, but Dith managed to persuade the Khmer Rouge to let them all go. The four made their way to the French embassy as the Khmer Rouge organized a forced evacuation of the entire city of Phnom Penh. When the Cambodians were forced to leave the French embassy, Schanberg and others contrived to forge a British passport for Dith to allow him to remain. This failed, and he was forced to leave the embassy, expecting to be killed straight away. However, when all of the Cambodians had been ejected from the embassy earlier, the Khmer Rouge had taken them all off for interrogation, and their interrogators had left. As a result, Dith was able to get away and make his way to the countryside, where he was forced to work in a labor gang at Dam Dek. He was there when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in December 1978–Janu-

Dith Pran, center, whose ordeals in a Khmer Rouge camp were depicted in the film The Killing Fields, embraces some of his relatives at a refugee camp in Thailand, August 16, 1989. Dith, who became a photographer for The New York Times, visited the camp with Dr. Haing Ngor, the Oscar-winning physician who portrayed him in the 1984 film. (AP/Wide World Photos)

ary 1979 and briefly worked for the new Vietnamese-installed government. Fearing arrest, however, Dith contacted Cambodian refugees on the Thai-Cambodian border, and a group of them rescued him. On October 9, 1979, Dith arrived in Thailand, where he was reunited with Schanberg. Dith then moved to the United States, where he rejoined his wife and four sons and settled in Brooklyn, continuing to work for the New York Times as a journalist and photojournalist. Dith’s journalistic accounts of the genocide carried out by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge became the central theme of the popular film The Killing Fields (1984). Dith was portrayed in the movie by first-time actor Haing S. Ngor, whose performance won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 1986 Dith became an American citizen and actively worked to publicize worldwide the horrors of the Cambodian genocide instigated by the Khmer Rouge. In 1994 he established the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project to educate others about the Khmer Rouge genocide. He was awarded an Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1998. Pran died from pancreatic cancer on March 30, 2008, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Cambodia; Khmer Rouge; Pol Pot

300

Dixie Station

References Dith Pran, and Kim DePaul, eds. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. Schanberg, Sydney H. The Death and Life of Dith Pran. New York: Penguin Books, 1980.

Dixie Station U.S. Navy area of operations in the South China Sea from which carrier-based aircraft supported U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops fighting Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In early 1965 as the American advisory mission gave way to active ground combat operations in South Vietnam and an air offensive (Operation ROLLING THUNDER) against targets in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), General William C. Westmoreland, head of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), lacked sufficient airpower to support the expanding military efforts. To buy time for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps to expand facilities for the additional land-based squadrons now required, Westmoreland asked Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr., commanding the United States Pacific Command, for additional carrier-based aircraft to provide the required air support. Westmoreland was so impressed with the initial performance of naval airpower that he asked for a permanent presence, and Sharp formally established Dixie Station on May 16, 1965. A series of changing map coordinates rather than a specific point, Dixie Station was located some 100 miles southeast of Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam. Yankee Station, the coordinates established for naval air operations against North Vietnam, was located farther to the north, approximately 100 miles east of Da Nang, South Vietnam. Collectively the carriers and support vessels operating in these two areas became known as Task Force 77. Dixie Station operated officially until August 1966, by which time sufficient aircraft had taken up station at land bases in South Vietnam. Still, until the end of the U.S. military effort in early 1973, the typical line period for any carrier began with a few days at Dixie Station’s coordinates to refresh the aircrews’ skills in the comparatively low-threat environment of South Vietnam’s skies before continuing on to Yankee Station to join one or two other carriers stationed there to keep around-the-clock pressure on North Vietnam when weather permitted. At the end of each line period a carrier’s aircrews kept their skills sharp by flying missions against targets in South Vietnam from Dixie Station’s coordinates while on their way to liberty ports, usually Subic Bay in the Philippines. Predominant aircraft that flew tactical air missions from carriers at Dixie Station during 1965–1966 included the Douglas A-1 Skyraider and the McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair, and F-4 Phantom picked up many missions

as the war continued. Regardless of aircraft type, American aircrews flying from Dixie Station generally operated first through ground control centers in South Vietnam that directed them to areas where air support was required, and then they worked directly with airborne forward air controllers. Arguably the most useful aircraft at Dixie Station during the war’s early years was the Skyraider because of its low speed and high bomb load, especially in close air support missions in locations where ground fire was less of a threat. Missions flown from Dixie Station were generally safer than those flown from Yankee Station. American aircrews faced significantly less antiaircraft fire and until 1972 faced no serious threat from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The greatest risk was exposure to small-arms fire during low-altitude flight or on an attack run. If ground fire managed to shoot down an aircraft, the chances for a successful rescue of the aircrew remained high. Because of the relatively short distance to targets in northern South Vietnam or the Central Highlands, returning aircraft even volunteered on occasion to serve as bogey aircraft for Vought F-8 Crusaders, many based at Da Nang, that protected the airspace over the ships at Dixie Station. However, the 400- to 600-mile round trips for missions over the Mekong Delta area southwest of Saigon necessitated airborne refueling. By 1972, depending on the flying time to the target and other factors, the cycle for launching, executing the mission, and recovering the aircraft from a carrier strike might vary from a minimum of 1 hour and 30 minutes to as much as 1 hour and 45 minutes. KARL LEE RUBIS See also Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr.; Westmoreland, William Childs; Yankee Station References Foster, Wynn F. Captain Hook: A Pilot’s Tragedy and Triumph in the Vietnam War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. Mersky, Peter B., and Norman Polmar. The Naval Air War in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1981. Mumford, Robert E. “Jackstay: New Dimensions in Amphibious Warfare.” In Vietnam: The Naval Story, edited by Frank Uhlig Jr., 344–364. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986.

Doan Khue Birth Date: October 29, 1923 Death Date: 1998 Key figure in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) army general and minister of defense. Born on October 29, 1923, in Trieu Phong District, Quang Tri Province, in the same hometown as Le Duan, Doan Khue joined the antiFrench cause as early as 1939 and was a member of the Communist Party since 1945. During the Indochina War, Khue was known as

Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich an intelligence specialist, and he was once political commissar of a regiment in Interzone V of central Vietnam. During the Vietnam War he returned to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and fought there as a deputy political commissar from 1964 to 1975. At the VCP Fourth Congress in December 1976, Khue was a member of the Central Committee. In 1977 he was a major general and commander and chief political officer of Military Zone V in Quang Nam–Da Nang. In late 1980 he was promoted to lieutenant general. He retained his position in Military Zone V until elected a member of the Politburo in December 1986. In 1987 Khue assumed the position of vice minister of defense and chief of staff. He then commanded Vietnamese forces in Cambodia. In early 1990 he was promoted to senior general. In August 1991 Khue was appointed minister of defense by the SRV’s National Assembly. Doan Khue died in 1998. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Le Duan; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference Colonel Bui Vinh Phuong, ed. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Military Encyclopedia of Vietnam]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2004.

301

Dobrynin have the power to play a substantive role in making or affecting Soviet foreign policy. Recognizing Dobrynin’s talents as a negotiator, Moscow rewarded him by making him first a candidate member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1966 and then a full member in 1971. In 1986 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev appointed him a senior foreign policy adviser. From 1986 to 1988 Dobrynin served as a deputy in the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union’s parliament. In 1989 he attended the Malta Summit between President George H. W. Bush and Gorbachev that unofficially ended the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Dobrynin retired from all public service. Dobrynin died in Moscow on April 6, 2010. MICHAEL SHARE See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Dobrynin, Anatoly. In Confidence. Edited by Lawrence Malkin. New York: Times Books/Random House, 1995. Longmire, R. A. Soviet Relations with South-East Asia: An Historical Survey. London: Keegan Paul International, 1989. Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987.

Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich Birth Date: November 16, 1919 Death Date: April 6, 2010 Soviet diplomat and politician. Anatoly Fedorovich Dobrynin was born in Krasnoya Gorka, near Moscow, on November 16, 1919. An aircraft engineer during World War II, he joined the diplomatic service in 1946 a year after having joined the Communist Party. He worked at the Soviet embassy in Washington from 1952 to 1955, first as counselor and then as minister counselor. He was junior foreign affairs minister and from 1957 to 1959 United Nations (UN) undersecretary general for political and security council affairs. Dobrynin became the Soviet Union’s chief expert on the United States. From 1959 to 1961 he headed its American department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1962 he returned to Washington as ambassador, a post he held for nearly a quarter of a century until 1986. As Soviet ambassador during the Vietnam War, Dobrynin acted as a conduit for messages from the U.S. State Department to the Soviet government, most often regarding the sincerity of negotiations between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the United States. Dobrynin gave optimistic assessments that U.S. concessions would be positively received not only in Moscow but also in Hanoi. During two U.S. bombing pauses in May and December 1965, Dobrynin passed messages from the State Department to Moscow that sought Soviet support for negotiations. Nothing came of those attempts, however. At no time did

Newly-appointed Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly F. Dobrynin, shown here in April 1962. A highly effective diplomat, Dobrynin held this post for nearly a quarter century, until 1986. (Getty Images)

302

Do Cao Tri

Do Cao Tri Birth Date: November 1929 Death Date: February 23, 1971 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general, respected as an effective commander. Born in Bien Hoa in November 1929 into a wealthy Buddhist family, Do Cao Tri received his basic officer training from the French and advanced military training in the United States. During the administration of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Tri, then a colonel, commanded at Hue, where he repressed the militant Buddhists. His seeming indifference to his own safety and his charisma soon won the attention of Diem, who promoted him to general. In 1963 as commander of I Corps, Tri participated in the coup d’état that removed Diem from power. Informed that the coup was imminent, Tri arranged a meeting in Da Nang with the province chief and other government officials to preclude their calling out

the Republican Youth or other movements that might defend the government. Tri then received command of II Corps (the 12 central provinces), but when General Nguyen Cao Ky became premier in 1965, Tri was one of a number of Buddhist generals exiled by Ky. After two years of traveling from Hong Kong to Paris to Washington, D.C., Tri was invited to return to Vietnam and was promptly appointed ambassador to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). After the 1968 Tet Offensive, Tri was recalled from Korea and appointed commander of III Corps. General William Westmoreland referred to Tri in his book A Soldier Reports as “a tiger in battle, South Vietnam’s George Patton.” In the Cambodian operation, Tri demonstrated his flamboyance by dropping down by helicopter to personally take command whenever his troops appeared stalled. On one occasion he rode into battle astride an armored personnel carrier, swagger stick in hand. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker reported on December 21, 1970, that Tri led a multibattalion operation to

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) lieutenant general Do Cao Tri, who directed ARVN operations in Cambodia in 1970, here confers with Cambodian brigadier general Pham Muong, who sought help for his troops who were under attack by Communist forces at Kampong Cham. Tri was widely regarded as one of the best ARVN generals, and his death in a helicopter crash in 1971 was a serious blow to the South Vietnamese military. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Domino Theory relieve pressure on Kompong Cham, Cambodia, “with great precision.” General Bruce Palmer referred to Tri’s impressive leadership during the Cambodian Incursion and noted that the February 23, 1971, death of the colorful Tri in a helicopter crash in Cambodia while fighting People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces on the Chup rubber plantation caused the ARVN to lose heart and give up their campaign. President Richard M. Nixon described Tri’s death as a great loss to his nation. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Cambodia; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Bunker, Ellsworth. The Bunker Papers: Reports to the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973. 3 vols. Edited by Douglas Pike. Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 1990. Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Dogs See K-9 Corps

Doi Moi Commonly translated as “renovation,” the term doi moi is used to signify the liberalization of the economic and, to a lesser extent, political policies of the Vietnamese government ratified by the Sixth National Congress in July 1986. Although some of the policies included in doi moi can be traced back to earlier local experiments, the need to “renovate” the Vietnamese economy was clear by 1979. Faced with a serious loss of morale and an upsurge in refugees after an overly hasty socialization of southern agricultural lands and small businesses, a costly invasion of Kampuchea, and a U.S.-organized economic boycott, the Vietnamese economy was doing poorly in both the north and the south. By 1981 the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) therefore ended some of its restrictions on rural trade and established a contract system whereby the government leased land to peasants for a set fee, and the peasants could keep any surplus over that amount. Similarly, industries were given permission to break away from centrally planned allocations and buy and sell more on their own. Upset by the inflation and corruption that increased after economic controls were lightened, conservatives managed to stop further change and dismiss the reformist Nguyen Van Linh as mayor of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). On

303

the other hand, continued economic difficulties undermined the conservative position, as did the rise of the reformist Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, Vietnam’s chief patron. Reformers also gained power after the death of Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) secretary Le Duan in July 1986. An important sign of this power shift came when Nguyen Van Linh was quickly restored to the Politburo. Thus for a variety of reasons, the VCP and the National Congress officially proclaimed doi moi at the end of 1986. Economically this meant that a host of new regulations were written to decentralize economic decisions, to demand that government industry be (in what is called “Socialist accounting”) profitable, to pay workers by productivity, to further strengthen the contract system in agriculture, and to encourage foreign investment. Politically there were some relaxation in censorship and an effort to allow voters more choices in elections, but these efforts were already being cut back even before major student protests in Tiananmen Square in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1989 and the fall of Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Political pluralism, the regime declared, was not the proper system for Vietnam. The Vietnamese policy of doi moi thus resembled policies in China. Although the Vietnamese would hardly approve of the comparison, in both countries the same sorts of demands for a better life that had toppled so many Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union led to a rather unique effort to maintain a Communist government by liberalizing economically but not politically. Put another way, doi moi represented not simply a risky political maneuver but also an important change in basic Marxist theory. PETER K. FROST See also Nguyen Van Linh; Refugees and Boat People; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Marr, David G., and Christine White, eds. Postwar Vietnam: Dilemmas in Socialist Development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Studies Program, 1988. Turley, William S., and Mark Selden, eds. Reinventing Vietnamese Socialism: Doi moi in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993.

Domino Theory Foreign policy precept and a view held by many U.S. policy makers during the Cold War that if one country fell to communism, its neighbors were threatened with a chain reaction of Communist takeovers. The domino theory arose from fear that the withdrawal of colonial powers from Southeast Asia would lead to the fall of Vietnam and then the rest of Southeast Asia and perhaps India, Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

304

Domino Theory

U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk (left), President Lyndon B. Johnson (center), and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (right) confer on February 9, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Johnson, like presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy before him, believed strongly in the domino theory, which held that if one nation in Southeast Asia fell to Communism, others would surely follow. (National Archives)

Remembering the failure of appeasement before World War II, policy makers believed that unchecked aggression would eventually force a larger crisis, but firmness might deter Communist takeovers. The domino theory was also certainly influenced by the fall of China to the Communists in 1949 and the Korean War (1950–1953), which attempted to prevent a domino effect in East Asia. It was also likely informed by the rapid succession of Communist takeovers that occurred in Eastern and Central Europe in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In many ways, the theory was a natural extension of the containment policy, which had been operative—if not overtly expressed—since 1946. The domino theory was first publicly expressed by U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower at a press conference on April 7, 1954, in anticipation of French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Eisenhower explained that “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.” Although the phrase “domino theory” was not used until Eisenhower’s press conference, the idea was already in place as early as 1947. When the Soviet Union supported Azerbaijani separat-

ists in Iran, Soviet client states backed a Communist rebellion in Greece, and the Soviet Union pressured Turkey to share control of the straits between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, President Harry S. Truman requested $400 million of aid for free peoples resisting subjugation by outside forces. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, a Michigan Republican, publicly warned that failure to support the president could result in a “communist chain reaction from the Dardanelles to the China Sea and westward to the rim of the Atlantic.” Asia and Vietnam occupied a central place in the domino paradigm. A 1950 study commissioned by President Truman emphasized Vietnam’s strategic importance as a natural invasion route into Southeast Asia and anticipated repercussions for other countries in the region if Vietnam became Communist. U.S. aid for French operations in Vietnam began that year, soon after the Korean War began. Two years later National Security Council Report 124/2 (NSC-124/2) of June 24, 1952, warned that the loss of any one Southeast Asian country to communism would probably lead to the “relatively swift submission to or an alignment with communism by the remaining countries.” President Truman announced during the Korean War that the United States was fighting

Do Muoi in Korea “so we won’t have to fight in Wichita, or in Chicago, or in New Orleans, or on San Francisco Bay.” Entering office in 1953, Eisenhower accepted the domino theory without reservation. In August 1954 following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the temporary division pending elections of Vietnam along the 17th Parallel at the Geneva Conference, Eisenhower approved NSC-5429/2, which stated that the United States had to prevent further losses to communism in Asia through all available means. Therefore, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted a number of sabotage efforts against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Additionally, in September 1954 the United States signed a treaty with Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines creating the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to defend each other against attack. With part of Vietnam under communism, Eisenhower saw Laos as the next domino. During a foreign policy briefing the day before John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration, Eisenhower informed the president-elect that if Laos fell to the Communists, it was only a matter of time until the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma collapsed. Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson also subscribed to the domino theory. Kennedy increased aid and the number of U.S. military advisers in Vietnam, which numbered about 16,000 when he was assassinated in November 1963. Johnson increased the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam to about 546,000. In a speech at Johns Hopkins University in April 1965, he said that retreat in Vietnam would not end conflict with communism in Southeast Asia. Echoing the lesson of appeasement for the generation that fought World War II, Johnson asserted that the “central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next.” Much later, in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan revived the domino theory to justify his administration’s policies that sought to overthrow the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. In 1990– 1991 President George H. W. Bush again invoked the theory during the Persian Gulf War, which sought to prevent Iraq from annexing or toppling any more regional powers in the Middle East. The eventual Communist victory in Vietnam in 1975 did not substantiate the domino theory in Southeast Asia. The neighboring states of Cambodia and Laos did fall to communism, but these nations were destabilized by the Vietnam conflict itself, and Cambodia is no longer Communist. Other Asian nations have remained safely non-Communist. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Central Intelligence Agency; Containment Policy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Laos; Munich Analogy; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II; Truman, Harry S.

305

References Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Do Muoi Birth Date: February 2, 1917 Prominent Vietnamese Communist revolutionary, Viet Minh general, and government official of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on February 2, 1917, at Dong Phu village, Thanh Tri District, in the suburb of Hanoi, son of Nguyen Xeng, Do Muoi’s real name is Nguyen Cong. Muoi participated in revolutionary activities from an early age, joining the Popular Front against fascism at age 14. In 1939 he joined the Indochinese Communist Party to fight French colonial rule. The French arrested Muoi in 1942 and sentenced him to 10 years of hard labor. He escaped from Hoa Lo Prison, later known as the “Hanoi Hilton,” in 1945 when the Japanese overthrew the French in Indochina. Muoi then rejoined the Viet Minh underground movement against the French in his hometown of Ha Dong. He assumed various posts at the provincial level during the Indochina War and reached the rank of brigadier general. Muoi commanded the Viet Minh during the battle for Haiphong at the end of the war. From May 1955 to December 1956 Muoi was chairman of the People’s Military and Administrative Committee of Hai Phong. Within the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), in 1955 Muoi was elected an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee. In 1960 he became a full member, in 1982 he became an alternate Politburo member, and in 1986 he became a full member of the Politburo. His first post at the central government level was that of vice minister of commerce from December 1956 until April 1958, when he was appointed minister of domestic trade. Muoi held this post until February 1961, when he left politics because of poor health. He was out of public life until November 1967, when he returned to government work as chairman of the Economy Board of the Premier’s Office, later renamed the State Pricing Commission. In 1969 Muoi was assigned to the building and construction sectors. It is believed that he was the liaison officer who worked with a Soviet team to build the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi. In December 1969 Muoi became vice premier and minister of construction in the North Vietnamese government. After the 1975 Communist victory, Muoi took charge of the unsuccessful effort to amalgamate the economies of North Vietnam and the former Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) by introducing socialism in the former capitalist South Vietnam. This

306 Don Dien policy prompted a serious economic crisis and exodus of people from the country. Muoi survived politically, however, and was the SRV’s key economic liaison with Soviet-bloc countries in the 1980s. In June 1988 he was elected chairman of the SRV’s Council of Ministers (the equivalent of premier) on the sudden death of Pham Hung. At that time Muoi was seen as a transitional figure. In June 1991 he was elected secretary-general of the VCP. Although Muoi was criticized for the economic failures after the war, something that he himself admitted, he was respected as an incorruptible idealist. In December 1997 General Le Kha Phieu replaced Muoi as secretary-general of the VCP. NGO NGOC TRUNG

Dong Ap Bia

See also Pham Hung; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party

Start Date: April 29, 1968 End Date: May 15, 1968

Reference Vu Thu Hien. Dem Giua Ban Ngay. Westminster, CA: Van Nghe, 1997.

Don Dien Form of military settlement or colony dating from the 14th century CE. This form of settlement was widely used in traditional Vietnam as a strategy both to increase the amount of land under cultivation and to protect the border from foreign infiltration. The don dien can be traced at least as far back as 1343 under the Tran dynasty when the position of don dien su (military settlement commissioner) was created in the khuyen nong ty (agriculture encouragement department). After Vietnam was liberated from Ming rule, the Le kings used the don dien as a way to exploit lands abandoned during wartime or usurped by the Mings and those who had collaborated with them. After 1471 and the destruction of Champa following the expedition of Le Thanh Tong, the system had more of a military emphasis. In the 19th century under Minh Mang, the don dien were used as a means to improve peasant conditions in southern Vietnam and in the coastal region of northern Vietnam. By the middle of the same century under the direction of Nguyen Tri Phuong, about 100 villages were created in the Mekong Delta through the don dien system. These later became centers of resistance against the French. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Le Thanh Tong; Minh Mang; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Pham Cao Duong. Vietnamese Peasants under French Domination, 1861–1945. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.

See Hamburger Hill, Battle of

Dong Da, Battle of See Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive

Dong Ha, Battle of

Battle in 1968 between the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and U.S. marines in the northern I Corps Tactical Zone. On April 29, 1968, the PAVN 320th Division launched a widespread offensive through the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The 3rd Marine Division officially labeled the engagements above the Bo Dieu and Cua Viet rivers between April 29 and May 15 the Battle of Dong Ha. A town located in northeastern Quang Tri Province in I Corps Tactical Zone, Dong Ha provided the southeast anchor of “Leatherneck Square,” a defensive barrier along the DMZ. At the junction of Highway 1 and Highway 9 (the only major north-south and eastwest land lines) and accessible to the Cua Viet River system, this proved to be an ideal site for the Dong Ha Combat Base (DHCB). Located approximately half a mile south of the town, the DHCB served as 3rd Marine Division headquarters and logistics center for III Marine Amphibious Forces units. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, the strategy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) for improving their bargaining position at the upcoming Paris peace talks was to carry out successful military action. This led to 119 attacks on civilian and military targets. As the 3rd Marine Division was preparing a counteroffensive to attack PAVN units along the DMZ, on April 29 elements of the PAVN 320th Division were spotted about four miles north of the DHCB. The 1st and 2nd battalions, 2nd Regiment, ARVN 1st Division, made contact with a PAVN regiment along Highway 1. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (“Magnificent Bastards”), engaged the PAVN main force in fierce fighting at Dai Do hamlet, one and a half miles northeast of Dong Ha. Following three days of hard fighting, the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, relieved the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, for an additional three days at Dai Do. The 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry (“Gimlets”), 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division (under the operational control of the 3rd Marines), shared in taking the brunt of

Dong Quan Pacification Project

Estimated Casualties at the Battle of Dong Ha, April 29–May 15, 1968 U.S. Marines ARVN PAVN

Killed

Wounded

Captured

Missing

233 42 2,366

821 124 Unknown

0 0 42

1 0 0

the PAVN attack in a bitter battle at Nhi Ha, six miles northeast of Dong Ha. On May 16 the PAVN 320th Division was able to break off contact (that division returned in late May; once again met the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines; and by the end of the month was temporarily combat ineffective). Other marine units (in order of insertion the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines; 1st Battalion, 9th Marines; 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines; and 1st Battalion, 26th Marines) saw significant combat, as did the ARVN 1st Division. The 1st and 2nd battalions, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), with its units positioned from northeast of Nhi Ha to north of Dong Ha, operated under the 3rd Marines during May 6–17 and called its participation Operation CONCORDIA. Total casualties in units under operational control of the 3rd Marines numbered 233 killed, 821 wounded, and 1 missing in action. ARVN casualties were estimated at 42 killed and 124 wounded. PAVN forces reportedly lost 2,366 dead and 43 taken prisoner. Dong Ha retained its role as command and logistics center until it was turned over to the ARVN in November 1969. During the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, U.S. Marine Corps captain John Ripley braved enemy fire to rig explosives on the Dong Ha bridge across the Cua Viet River. When the span fell, a major route south from the DMZ was closed to the attacking North Vietnamese troops, temporarily slowing down their advance. Ripley received the Navy Cross for this action. PAUL S. DAUM AND B. J. ROGERS See also Demilitarized Zone; Easter Offensive; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Botkin, Richard. Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph. Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009. Miller, John G. The Bridge at Dong Ha. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Nolan, Keith William. The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong Ha, 1968. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Simmons, Edwin H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1968.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 99–129. Washington, DC:

307

History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1974. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Dong Quan Pacification Project Event Date: 1953 Dong Quan was an American-funded village regroupment plan developed in northern Vietnam in 1953 by the governor of Bac Bo, Nguyen Huu Tri. It was a prototype for the pacification of the Red River Delta. Tri, a staunch anti-Communist and leader of the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (National Party of Greater Vietnam), proposed the Dong Quan project to the French. It was based on the successful model used by the British in Malaya, but Tri found little enthusiasm to fund it until he described his plans to the U.S. Special Technical and Economic Mission (STEM). STEM, which was a part of the Mutual Security Agency, consisted of a team of experts who bought fertilizer and seed to restore war-devastated agriculture, built medical dispensaries, and provided water pumps and other improvements. STEM representatives were proud of their public health and literacy programs, but the program that came to be considered most important to the war effort was Tri’s village regroupment plan. With an estimated 40,000 Viet Minh infiltrators in the ostensibly French-controlled Red River Delta, pacification held particular appeal to STEM special representative James P. Hendrick. The site selected for the first Great Village was 20 miles south of Hanoi near the boundary of Viet Minh–held territory in a region of destroyed villages and heavy Viet Minh presence. Because delta villages were often very small, Tri’s plan called for regrouping peasant farmers of 25 surrounding villages into Dong Quan. To attract the villagers to such an arrangement, the Great Village offered a handicraft and commercial area, a residential area with subsidized housing, and an agricultural area. It also included a hospital, a Catholic church, a pagoda, a school, a market, and a river port. STEM authorized an initial outlay of $340,000, but the key to the success or failure of the plan was security in a region where the Viet Minh ruled at night. Dong Quan appeared defensible, as it was situated on National Road 1 and surrounded on three sides by water (the Nhue River and two canals). Because the French would not detach troops from the war effort to provide security, Tri used three companies of recently reorganized and reequipped Bao Chinh Doan (national guardsmen). From the beginning of the project, the Viet Minh targeted Dong Quan. They terrorized the workers and residents alike with frequent attacks and threats. After local worker families were threatened with retaliation, workers had to be brought in from Hanoi. A trination committee made up of Vietnamese from Governor Tri’s

308

Dong Xoai, Battle of

government, Americans from STEM, and a French military representative met weekly to oversee the project and adopt countermeasures. Despite their efforts, the project never reached its full potential. Although other less costly pacification sites similar to Dong Quan were set up in 1954, these mainly became sites to house the thousands of war refugees fleeing Viet Minh areas. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Agroville Program; Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang; Nguyen Huu Tri; Pacification; Strategic Hamlet Program; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 References Dommen, Arthur J. The Indochinese Experience of the French and Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. “Mission to Vietnam.” Record Group 469, Records of U.S. Foreign Assistance Agencies, 1942–1961, Regrouping Village Program (Dong Quan), ARC Identifier 2108979/MLR Number UD 1450, National Archives, Washington, DC.

a rubber plantation, the paratroopers were ambushed and quickly overrun, although some survivors made it back to Dong Xoai. Later the U.S. advisers were airlifted out. Lieutenant Charles Q. Williams was awarded the Medal of Honor for this battle. Wounded four times, he rallied defenders, personally knocked out a VC machine gun, and guided medevac helicopters to evacuate the wounded. The Americans suffered 8 killed, 40 CIDG were killed and another 124 captured, approximately 200 civilians died, and ARVN casualties totaled approximately 600. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), estimated VC casualties at 700; dead left behind totaled 134. VC propaganda claimed the Battle of Dong Xoai as a major victory. In it the VC proved that they were capable of fighting large battles and confronting ARVN elite units. The battle was important in undermining Washington’s confidence in the ARVN and thus bolstered arguments for the commitment of large numbers of American ground forces. HIEU DINH VU See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Montagnards; Rifles; Seabees; Vietnam, Republic of, Army

Dong Xoai, Battle of Start Date: June 9, 1965 End Date: June 12, 1965 Military engagement precipitated by a Viet Cong (VC) attack on a U.S. Special Forces camp on June 9, 1965. Beginning at 11:30 p.m. on June 9, approximately 1,500 men of the VC 762rd and 763nd regiments attacked the newly established U.S. Special Forces camp at Dong Xoai, a district capital in Phuoc Long Province in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Approximately 400 Montagnard Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops and 24 U.S. Seabees staffed the camp. In their attack the VC employed AK-47 assault rifles (the first time in the war by a VC unit), grenades, and flamethrowers. Unprepared for the attack, the defenders retreated to the district headquarters inside the town. The VC mounted four separate assaults but were pushed back, leaving their dead on the battlefield. The next morning Saigon dispatched one Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) infantry battalion by land and the 52nd Ranger Battalion into Dong Xoai by helicopter. Ambushed at Thuan Loi plantation, the infantry battalion was scattered. The 52nd Ranger Battalion counterattacked, supported by U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft, which dropped napalm and phosphorous bombs. On June 11 the 52nd Ranger Battalion rested and regrouped because of casualties incurred. Pursuit of the VC went to the ARVN 7th Airborne Battalion, which had just arrived. Late on June 12 at

A weeping mother holds her child, killed in an air strike that preceded the recapture of Dong Xoai by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) rangers, June 1965. Hundreds of villagers were caught in the fierce fighting after the Viet Cong swept into the village. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Donovan, William Joseph

References Nguyen Duc Phuong. Nhung Tran Danh Lich Su Trong Chien Tranh Viet Nam 1963–1975. Glendale, CA: Dai Nam, 1993. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Donlon, Roger Hugh C. Birth Date: January 30, 1934 U.S. Army officer, distinguished Vietnam War veteran awarded the first Medal of Honor since the Korean War, and executive director of the Westmoreland Scholar Foundation. Roger Hugh C. Donlon was born in Saugerties, New York, on January 30, 1934. In 1953 he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force with the intention of flying but failed his second physical examination because of cataracts. Discharged from the air force in 1955, he was admitted to the United States Military Academy, West Point, that same year. He resigned from West Point in April 1957 and returned to military service in February 1958, when he joined the U.S. Army. Donlon secured a commission through Officer Candidate School (OCS). He spent the first few years of his army career at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, progressing in responsibility from company officer to instructor, company commander, and finally staff officer. In September 1961 he served as platoon leader in the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Jonathan Wainwright, Alaska, until he became aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Lester L. Wheeler. In August 1963 Donlon joined the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but later transferred to the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) because of his training in Alaska. He assumed command of Detachment A-726, C Company, of the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in January 1964 and began preparations for deployment to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Captain Donlon arrived in South Vietnam with his 12-man detachment on May 27, 1964, and took over the camp at Nam Dong, 35 miles west of Da Nang. In the early morning of July 6, 1964, a reinforced Viet Cong (VC) battalion attacked the camp with mortar and small-arms fire, threatening to overrun the defending Americans, 1 Australian, the South Vietnamese, and Nung forces guarding Nam Dong. During the nearly five-hour battle for Nam Dong, Donlon received wounds in the stomach, left shoulder, leg, and face as well as other minor wounds over his body as a result of shrapnel. Throughout the fight and despite his wounds, Donlon regrouped his troops, administered first aid, directed counterfire with the camp’s mortars, and rallied his men against the VC assault. Two members of Detachment A-726, Gabriel R. Alamo and John L. Houston, died in the battle, along with the Australian adviser, Kevin Conway, the first Australian to be killed in action in the Vietnam War. Donlon returned to the United States shortly thereafter to recuperate. On December 17, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented him with the Medal of Honor for

309

his actions during the Battle of Nam Dong, making him the first recipient of the nation’s highest decoration for valor during the Vietnam War. After the war Donlon held a variety of assignments before retiring to Kansas from the army as a colonel on December 14, 1988. He has written two books about his Vietnam experiences, Outpost of Freedom (1965) and Beyond Nam Dong (1998). Donlon is also the executive director of the Westmoreland Scholarship Foundation. RONALD B. FRANKUM JR. See also Nam Dong, Battle of References Donlon, Roger. Beyond Nam Dong. Leavenworth, KS: R and N Publishers, 1998. Donlon, Roger H. C., with Warren Rogers. Outpost of Freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Proft, Robert J. United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients: Their Official Citations. Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 2007.

Donovan, William Joseph Birth Date: January 1, 1883 Death Date: February 8, 1959 American lawyer, army officer, administrator, and diplomat who directed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) from 1942 to 1945. Born in Buffalo, New York, on January 1, 1883, William Joseph Donovan graduated from Columbia University with an undergraduate degree in 1905; three years later he earned a law degree, also from Columbia. While there he met and formed a close personal friendship with future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1907 Donovan began practicing law in New York City. He served in the New York National Guard on the Mexican border in 1916, and in World War I he went to France with the 165th Infantry Regiment (formerly the New York 69th Regiment). He advanced to the rank of colonel and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Donovan was appointed U.S. district attorney for western New York in 1922, and he served as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department from 1924 to 1929. Thereafter he resumed the practice of law. In July 1941 President Roosevelt appointed him coordinator of information under the State Department. In 1942 with the need for more ambitious intelligence gathering and covert operations capability, Roosevelt created within the military command structure the OSS and named Donovan as its director. The following year he was promoted to brigadier general. By the autumn of 1942 Donovan had developed plans for intelligence-gathering operations in China, Mongolia, and Indochina. His base for operations in Indochina was Yunnan Province in southern China, especially the city of Kunming. The OSS stepped up activities in Indochina following the Japanese takeover in March 1945, as valuable French sources of information about the

310

Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III allow him to serve in that post no longer than one year, he left Thailand in August 1954. Donovan died in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1959. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Deer Mission; Dewey, Albert Peter; Office of Strategic Services; Patti, Archimedes L. A. References Brown, Anthony Cave. The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan. New York: Vintage Books, 1982. Donovan, William Joseph. Papers. United States Army Military History Institute, Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA. Dunlop, Richard. Donovan, America’s Master Spy. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1982. Fineman, Daniel. A Special Relationship: The United States and Military Government in Thailand, 1947–1958. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. Ford, Carey. Donovan of OSS. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970. Troy, Thomas F. Donovan and the CIA. Frederick, MD: Aletheia Books, 1981.

Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III During World War II, William Donovan organized and directed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the military precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS was active in northern Vietnam and supported the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

Japanese armed forces in Indochina disappeared. The OSS began contacting groups of Vietnamese living in exile in southern China. Among these were the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. In the summer of 1945 with the Japanese defeat imminent, the OSS dispatched teams into the mountains of northern Indochina to establish Vietnamese intelligence networks and train guerrillas to cut Japanese supply routes. The most famous of these was the Deer Mission. After the Japanese surrender, teams were also sent from Kandy to Saigon (the Embankment Mission) and from Kunming to Vientiane (the Raven Mission) to recover prisoners of war and internees. The leader of the Embankment Mission, Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey, was killed in a road ambush on the outskirts of Saigon; he is often considered to be the first American casualty of the Vietnam War. After the disbanding of the OSS, Donovan founded the law firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton, and Lumbard in New York City. In August 1953 he was named ambassador to Thailand by President Dwight Eisenhower and became a strong advocate of using Ho Chi Minh’s guerrilla tactics against the Communists. Donovan was instrumental in establishing Police Aerial Reconnaissance Units (PARUs), elite paramilitary units that were to play a role in advising the Hmongs in Laos from 1961 to 1973. In accordance with his stipulation that financial constraints would

Birth Date: January 17, 1927 Death Date: January 18, 1961 Physician, U.S. Navy officer, humanitarian, and ardent antiCommunist. Thomas Anthony Dooley III was born on January 17, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating from St. Louis University High School in 1944, he attended Notre Dame University and later that year joined the U.S. Navy’s corpsman program and was assigned to a navy hospital in New York. He returned to his studies at Notre Dame in 1946. Two years later he entered St. Louis University Medical School, graduating in 1953. Dooley promptly reenlisted in the navy, serving a medical internship as a lieutenant. In 1954 the navy assigned him to the attack cargo ship Montague, which that year participated in the evacuation of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and their transportation to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as part of what was known as Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM. He also served for a time as an interpreter and medical officer for a preventive medicine unit at the North Vietnamese port of Haiphong. Dooley was also involved in the supervision of the building and then the maintenance of refugee camps in Haiphong until May 1955, when the operation ended and the Viet Minh took over that city. He then helped relocate the refugees to South Vietnam. While Dooley worked in the Haiphong camps, Lieutenant Colonel Edward G. Lansdale, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) office in Saigon, recognized his potential as an intelligence operative and recruited him to work for the agency. Lansdale saw Dooley as a symbol of Vietnamese-American cooperation

DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation

and encouraged him to write about his refugee camp experiences. Lansdale also asked Dooley to gather intelligence information. According to the Pentagon Papers, Dooley’s activities significantly aided in this effort. Apparently the CIA, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and several other agencies conducted fund-raising campaigns for the refugees that would be described in Dooley’s books. Late in 1955 Dooley returned to the United States, and in 1956 he published his first book, titled Deliver Us from Evil: The Story of Viet Nam’s Flight to Freedom. It became a best-seller and won him international recognition. It also instantly established him as a strong anti-Communist. Dooley was awarded the navy’s Legion of Merit, the youngest Medical Corps officer to be so honored, and he received the highest national decoration of the South Vietnamese government. During a promotional tour for the book in 1956, however, the navy accused him of having participated in homosexual activities and forced him to leave the service. After Dooley resigned from the navy, he convinced the International Rescue Committee to sponsor a bush hospital in Nam Tha, Laos. At Nam Tha during the summer and autumn of 1957 Dooley wrote his second book, The Edge of Tomorrow. Early in 1958 he established a second hospital in Laos at Muong Sing, near the Chinese border, and later that year he founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO), which established 17 medical programs in 14 countries. As he provided medical care to Laotian refugees, Dooley also collected intelligence, reported civilian movements to the CIA, and provided cover for U.S. Army Special Forces medics posing as civilian doctors. In August 1959 doctors at New York Memorial Hospital operated on Dooley for malignant melanoma, a rapidly spreading cancer. In October he went on the lecture circuit, raising nearly $1 million for MEDICO. In 1960 he published his third book, The Night They Burned the Mountain, detailing his experience in Laos. In early January 1961 Dooley flew back to New York Memorial Hospital, as his cancer had spread to his lungs, spleen, heart, and brain. He died at the hospital on January 18, 1961, a day after his 34th birthday. After Dooley’s death many of his admirers urged the Roman Catholic Church to canonize him, and his friend Father Maynard Kegler accepted the task of compiling and presenting research about Dooley’s life to the Church. While researching Dooley’s life, Kegler discovered nearly 500 CIA files through the Freedom of Information Act that revealed that Dooley had provided the CIA with information on villagers’ sentiments and troop movements around his hospitals in Laos in the mid and late 1950s. When President John F. Kennedy launched the Peace Corps in 1961, he invoked Dooley’s name as an example of selfless dedication to the cause of freedom and humanitarian relief around the world. Dooley was also posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his work. KATHLEEN WARNES

311

See also Central Intelligence Agency; Lansdale, Edward Geary References Dooley, Thomas A. Deliver Us from Evil: The Story of Viet Nam’s Flight to Freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956. Fisher, James T. Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927–1961. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. Gallagher, Teresa. Give Joy to My Youth: A Memoir of Dr. Tom Dooley. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1965.

Do Quang Thang Birth Date: June 12, 1927 Death Date: August 17, 2009 Prominent leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on June 12, 1927, in Pho Cuong village, Duc Pho District, Quang Ngai Province, Do Quang Thang was active only at the local level during the Vietnam War. He became secretary of Nghia Binh Province’s VCP committee in May 1983 and was reelected to this post in 1986. After the division of Nghia Binh Province into two provinces, in April 1991 Thang became secretary of the Quang Ngai Province Party Committee. He was also elected a full member of the national Central Committee during the 1986 VCP Sixth Congress and became chairman of the party Control Commission and secretary of the Secretariat. He ranked ninth in the Secretariat, being promoted to the Politburo in January 1994. Thang was also elected as a National Assembly deputy from Quang Ngai Province in July 1992. Do Quang Thang died in Ho Chi Minh City on August 17, 2009. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party Reference Biographical Files, Indo-China Archives, University of California at Berkeley.

DOUBLE EAGLE,

Operation

Start Date: January 28, 1966 End Date: March 6, 1966 Unsuccessful attempt in 1966 by U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces to trap major Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units in Quang Ngai Province. In the autumn of 1965, I Corps intelligence analysts concluded that Communist main-force units were in Quang Ngai and that their critical base areas were in the Tam Quan region near the

312

Doumer, Paul battered a limited number of targets, but rain and mountainous jungle terrain quickly impeded marine progress inland. Despite the large numbers of deployed U.S. units, Communist forces evaded contact. The marines moved toward Binh Dinh Province and the expected trap planned in conjunction with the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. Unlike the marines, the 1st Cavalry Division did encounter heavy PAVN resistance when it moved north. In the first six days of the operation, U.S. Army soldiers killed more than 600 PAVN soldiers and captured 357. The marines and the 1st Cavalry Division were now poised to squeeze the PAVN 18th Regiment between them, especially when they linked up on February 4. During the next week, however, PAVN forces evaded the trap, and there were no real engagements. Despite numerous patrols and gunfire-support missions, the VC and PAVN had escaped. As a result, DOUBLE EAGLE ended on March 6, 1966, with most of the reported 2,000 Communist casualties occurring in the first week of the operation. DOUBLE EAGLE’s early delays had given Communist forces a window of opportunity to escape. VC and PAVN units moved too fast for the slow, linear U.S. tactics. By the time U.S. helicopters finally entered the fray, their targets had already vanished. This scenario would repeat itself throughout the war. LINCOLN HILL See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

Marines bring a Viet Cong (VC) prisoner taken during Operation DOUBLE EAGLE to a collection area on February 1, 1966. DOUBLE EAGLE was an unsuccessful effort by U.S. Army and Marine Corps and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces to trap VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) units in Quang Ngai Province. (National Archives)

coast. As a response, the U.S. Marine Corps planned Operation DOUBLE EAGLE during December 1965 and January 1966. The final plan called for the 4th and 7th Marines, both based in Quang Tin Province, to join units of the ARVN 2nd Division and deploy south. At the same time, units of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the ARVN 22nd Division, both of which were operating in Binh Dinh Province, would move north and attack suspected VC-PAVN base areas. The pincer movements were designed to crush the Communist forces caught between them. DOUBLE EAGLE began on January 28, 1966, and soon included an operating area of 500 square miles. Members of the III Marine Amphibious Force began the operation by assaulting Red Beach, three miles northeast of Duc Pho. After the landing, the marines attempted to deceive their enemy into thinking that they would conduct only limited strikes against coastal areas. The buildup on the beach was intentionally slow, and two marine battalions remained at sea. On the second day when the exploitation phase began, the marines encountered problems. Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses

References Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. West, Francis J. Small Unit Action in Vietnam, Summer 1966. Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1967.

Doumer, Paul Birth Date: March 22, 1857 Death Date: May 6, 1932 French politician, governor-general of Indochina (1897–1902), and president of France (1931–1932). Joseph Athanase Paul Doumer (commonly known as Paul Doumer) was born on March 22, 1857, at Aurillac (Cantal Department) in the Dordogne region, the son of a railroad worker who died the same day. Doumer earned a teaching certificate and taught briefly before becoming a journalist and civil servant. In 1888 he won election to the Chamber of Deputies from the Department of the Aisne. Defeated in a reelection bid in 1889, the next year he won election from the

Drugs and Drug Use Department of Yonne. He was reelected in 1893. His special talents for finance brought him appointment as minister of finance in the 1895–1896 cabinet of Léon Bourgeois, when Doumer proposed a national income tax. In 1897 Premier Jules Méline appointed Doumer governorgeneral of French Indochina, perhaps to remove a political rival. Doumer arrived in the colony that summer and over the next five years set in motion the economic patterns that guided the colony throughout the French period. Interested in centralization, Doumer’s byword was “efficiency.” He also believed that the French government would have to take an active role in bringing about social change. He unified colonial administration by replacing the emperor’s mandarin advisory council with a new body containing French officials. Doumer also worked to expand industrialization on the basis that the colony was to be exploited for the benefit of France. He believed that Indochina should pay for its own development, and he set about transferring the financial burden from French taxpayers to the Vietnamese people, a major factor in reducing anticolonialism in France. Doumer also accelerated land policies that dispossessed many Vietnamese peasant proprietors. He created official monopolies on sales of salt, opium, and rice alcohol, and he was an inveterate builder, responsible for the construction of opera houses, roads, and railways as well as the long Hanoi railroad bridge that crossed the Red River and was named after him. In 1902 Doumer returned to France. This former member of the Radical Party presented himself as a nationalist, and he won reelection to the Chamber of Deputies from the Aisne. In 1905 he was president of the Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives) and in 1912 was elected senator from Corsica. During World War I he supported Georges Clemenceau’s efforts to mobilize support for the war effort. Doumer lost four sons in the conflict. In the 1920s Doumer served as minister of finance in two cabinets, and in 1927 he was elected president of the Senate, a post he held until 1931, when he was elected president of France. On May 6, 1932, while presiding over the opening of a Paris book fair, Doumer was assassinated by Russian anarchist Pavel Gurgulov, who hoped to call attention to the plight of Ukraine under Soviet rule. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Assimilation versus Association; French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Doumer, Paul. L’Indochine française (Souvenirs). Paris: Vuibert, 1930. Doumer, Paul. Situation de l’Indo-Chine, 1897–1901. Hanoi: F. H. Schneider, 1902. Hutton, Patrick H., ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870–1940, Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

313

Draft, Military See Selective Service

Drugs and Drug Use Drug use was a serious problem for U.S. forces in Vietnam, especially from 1968 onward. A Department of Defense study revealed that in 1968, slightly more than half of American servicemen in Vietnam used drugs. By 1970 that number had risen to more than 60 percent. The study estimated that by the time of American withdrawal in 1973, almost 70 percent of American servicemen in Vietnam had used some type of illicit drug. Cheap and readily available, drugs provided an escape from the anxiety and boredom prevalent among combat soldiers. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, drug use rose dramatically. Marijuana was the drug of choice for most GIs. In 1969, 30 percent of enlisted men sent to Vietnam had used marijuana previously. That rate jumped to nearly 60 percent after arrival in Vietnam. A marijuana cigarette cost a mere dime in Saigon but cost nothing when Vietnamese threw them into passing American jeeps and trucks. A soldier could buy an entire carton of prerolled marijuana cigarettes in resealed cigarette packs for either $5 or a carton of American cigarettes. Smoking marijuana eventually became part of the standard initiation rite for those arriving in Vietnam. Thomas Boettcher, in Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow, quotes a U.S. Marine Corps colonel as saying that “When a man is in Vietnam he can be sure that . . . there are probably drugs within twenty-five feet of him.” Amphetamines were also popular. GIs could purchase vials of liquid amphetamine on the black market and use it for staying alert on patrol or for parties in rear areas. Christian Appy noted in Working-Class War that some veterans remarked that coming down from an amphetamine high made them edgy and extremely irritable, so much so that they felt like shooting “children in the streets.” Perhaps for that reason, amphetamines were not as commonly used as marijuana. Narcotics, such as opium and heroin, ran a distant third behind marijuana and amphetamines for obvious reasons; no one wished to be caught nodding during an ambush. Binges remained fairly common in the rear, however, because of the astoundingly low prices and remarkable purity. In Vietnam soldiers could buy a gram of 95 percent pure heroin for $2. The same amount in the United States cost more than $100, and it was rarely more than 10 percent pure. Opium, available either in liquid form or rolled into cigarettes, gave the user a similar high. Although less common, opiates produced more lasting addictions than marijuana or amphetamines and led some veterans to crime to support their habits back in the United States. The relatively high incidence of drug use among GIs in Vietnam may be seen as either a predisposition to use of drugs or as a reaction to one’s environment. Easy access to the drugs may have been a determining factor. Statistics show, however, that personnel in

314

Dulles, Allen Welsh

Vietnam were much more likely to use drugs than were their comrades-in-arms in Europe, where drugs were also easily accessible. Combat stress certainly accounts for a portion of the disparity. Still, men who had used marijuana, narcotics, or amphetamines before entering the military composed the vast bulk of the user population. Many users in Vietnam did so for the first time, but for the vast majority this consequence of combat experience was not a lasting one: 93 percent of first-time narcotics users and 86 percent of first-time marijuana users stopped completely upon returning to the United States. BENJAMIN C. DUBBERLY See also Selective Service References Appy, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers & Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Boetcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow. Boston: Little Brown, 1985. Ebert, James R. A Life in a Year. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Duc Thanh Tran See Tran Hung Dao

University and went into private practice with the international law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, where his brother John was a senior partner. As head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland during World War II, Allen Dulles penetrated German intelligence networks and was responsible for secret negotiations that led to the German surrender in northern Italy. At the end of the war Dulles returned to the private practice of law, but following passage of the National Security Act of 1947, which he had helped draft and which established the CIA, he headed a study on the role and structure of the agency, which was submitted to President Harry S. Truman as National Security Council Report 50 (NSC-50). From 1951 to 1953 Dulles was deputy director of the CIA, and during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, from 1953 to 1961, Dulles served as the agency’s director. Because his brother John was secretary of state at the same time, Allen Dulles had more than usual influence on foreign policy in the Eisenhower years. During the Sect Crisis of 1955—in which South Vietnamese prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem challenged the power of the Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, and Binh Xuyen—French officials and U.S. ambassador to Vietnam General J. Lawton Collins argued that Diem was ineffective and should be removed. The Dulles brothers convinced the president to continue support for Diem. The United States was now the primary support for the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam).

Duc Tong Anh Hoang De See Tu Duc

Dulles, Allen Welsh Birth Date: April 7, 1893 Death Date: January 29, 1969 Diplomat, national security and intelligence expert, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1953 to 1961, and brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Born on April 7, 1893, in Watertown, New York, Allen Walsh Dulles graduated from Princeton University in 1914 and, after completing an MA at the same institution in 1916, began what proved to be a long career in diplomatic service as a secretary of legation at the U.S. embassy in Vienna. During World War I he was stationed at Berne, Switzerland, where he oversaw intelligence gathering, and in 1919 he was a member of the U.S. Peace Commission at Paris. Subsequently assigned to missions in Berlin and Istanbul, Dulles was chief of the Far Eastern Affairs Division at the State Department in Washington from 1922 to 1926. He left government service in 1926 to earn a law degree from George Washington

Allen Dulles played a major role in the creation and organization of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and served as the first civilian director from 1953 to 1961. (Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library)

Dulles, John Foster Reflecting the Eisenhower administration’s preference for covert operations in lieu of overt military engagements, Allen Dulles was successful in helping to launch a successful antileftist coup in Iran in 1953, which restored Shah Reza Pahlavi to power, and a coup in Guatemala that ousted suspected Communist Jacobo Arbenz from power the following year. In 1961, however, Dulles presided over a disastrous plan to overthrow the Communist regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba, which ended in failure and greatly embarrassed the newly installed John F. Kennedy administration. Dulles resigned shortly after the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs Invasion. In the immediate aftermath of President Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination, Dulles served on the highly controversial Warren Commission, which was tasked with investigating the president’s murder. The commission’s work has been subject to much refutation, leading to myriad conspiracy theories, and Dulles’s participation in it only sowed the seeds of more distrust. Indeed, he argued that national security imperatives might compel CIA operatives to lie in their testimony, which did nothing to quiet critics of the commission. After he retired, Dulles authored several books on intelligence and national security issues. He died in Washington, D.C., on January 29, 1969. KENNETH R. STEVENS AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Binh Xuyen; Cao Dai; Central Intelligence Agency; Collins, Joseph Lawton; Dulles, John Foster; Hoa Hao; McCone, John Alex; Ngo Dinh Diem References Dulles, Allen. The Craft of Intelligence. New York: Harper and Row, 1963. Grose, Peter. Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Mosley, Leonard. Dulles: A Biography of Eleanor, Allen, and John Foster Dulles and Their Family Network. New York: Dial, 1978. Srodes, James. Allen Dulles: Master of Spies. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1999.

Dulles, John Foster Birth Date: February 25, 1888 Death Date: May 24, 1959 American lawyer; diplomat; secretary of state, 1953–1959; and brother of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Allen W. Dulles. Born in Washington, D.C., on February 25, 1888, the son of a Watertown, New York, Presbyterian minister, John Foster Dulles was also the grandson of President Benjamin Harrison’s secretary of state, John W. Foster, and the nephew of Robert Lansing, President Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state. Following his graduation from Princeton University in 1908, where he studied under Woodrow Wilson, Dulles spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris and then enrolled in the George Washington University Law School,

315

Staunch anti-Communist John Foster Dulles was U.S. secretary of state in the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration from 1953 until his death in 1959. (Library of Congress)

from which he graduated in 1911. In 1913 Dulles joined the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. Dulles’s family connections certainly contributed to his wealth of experience in diplomacy. In 1907 he served as secretary to his grandfather, a delegate to the second Hague Peace Conference. During World War I Dulles served in army intelligence and on the War Board of Trade. As a member of the U.S. delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where he dealt with the issue of German reparations, Dulles disapproved of the harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty and later wrote in War, Peace, and Change (1939) that the treaty contributed to the rise of totalitarianism in Europe. Dulles was an internationalist. He believed that the United States, as the world’s leading creditor nation in the 1920s, had to assume a leading part in world affairs. In the 1930s Dulles attended church councils on world peace, and in 1940 he chaired the Commission on a Just and Durable Peace, sponsored by the Federal Council of Churches, that led to a call for the United Nations (UN). Dulles served as foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey in the 1944 and 1948 campaigns and was appointed to a year’s term as a Republican U.S. senator during 1948–1949. As such, Dulles championed the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and favored increased European integration as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. He also sought an American commitment to support Jiang Jieshi’s rump nationalist government on Taiwan (then known as Formosa).

316

Duong Quynh Hoa

Dulles generally supported a bipartisan foreign policy for the Cold War. During the Harry S. Truman administration, from 1946 to 1949, Dulles was a U.S. representative to the UN General Assembly. During 1950–1951 he negotiated the U.S. peace treaty with Japan and a U.S.–Japanese security pact. He also supported Truman’s decision to intervene in the Korean War. Although he had earlier espoused bipartisanship in foreign relations, Dulles, who drafted the Republican Party’s foreign policy statement during the 1952 presidential campaign, criticized the Truman administration’s policy of containment as “negative, futile, and immoral.” Republican rhetoric promised the “rollback of the iron curtain” and the liberation of Eastern Europe from communism plus the prospect of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons against attacks by America’s enemies. After serving as the chief foreign policy adviser to Dwight D. Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential campaign, Dulles became secretary of state in January 1953. He hoped to create a European Defense Community (EDC) that combined military forces from France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, linked with NATO. Dulles’s ideas were soon tested in Southeast Asia in the spring of 1954. With French military forces under attack by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, the Joseph Laniel government requested U.S. military intervention. American officials debated such a plan (Operation VULTURE), which Dulles favored, but President Eisenhower refused unless it was supported by the “united action” of Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand and the U.S. Congress, which proved unobtainable. With the surrender of the French forces at Dien Bien Phu, attention shifted to a conference on Asian problems at Geneva in April 1954. Dulles only attended briefly and refused to negotiate with the Communist delegates. The United States also refused to sign the final declaration, although the government said that it would abide by the declaration’s provisions. Subsequently, Dulles helped establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to resist Communist expansion in the region and undertook an increased program of military and economic aid to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Under Dulles, U.S. relations with Britain and France deteriorated, especially during the 1956 Suez Crisis. During the crisis Dulles joined Eisenhower in vigorously protesting the joint BritishFrench-Israeli military operation to seize the Suez Canal, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had recently nationalized. The incident had been precipitated by Dulles’s decision earlier in the year to withdraw American pledges to provide Egypt with funds for the massive Aswan Dam project. Dulles’s decision was fueled in part by Nasser’s purchase of weapons from the Soviet bloc. Later, in Eisenhower’s second term, Dulles’s hard-line anticommunism seemed more restrained, especially during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958. Still, however, Dulles’s detractors allege that he needlessly accelerated Cold War tensions with ideas such as massive retaliation, nuclear brinksmanship, and incendiary rhetoric.

After contracting cancer, Dulles resigned his office on April 15, 1959; he died in Washington, D.C., on May 24, 1959. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Containment Policy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dulles, Allen Welsh; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Faure, Edgar; Heath, Donald Read; Knowland, William Fife; Laniel, Joseph; Murphy, Robert Daniel; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; VULTURE, Operation References Gerson, Louis L. John Foster Dulles. New York: Cooper Square, 1968. Goold-Adams, Richard. The Time of Power: A Reappraisal of John Foster Dulles. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962. Guhin, Michael. John Foster Dulles: A Statesman and His Times. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. Hoopes, Townsend. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. Immerman, Richard H. John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999. Marks, Frederick W., III. Power and Peace: The Diplomacy of John Foster Dulles. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.

Dumb Bombs See Bombs, Gravity

Duong Quynh Hoa Birth Date: 1930 Death Date: 2006 Vietnamese nationalist, Communist, and founding member of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). Born in 1930 to a prominent southern family, Duong Quynh Hoa attended medical school in Paris. While in France she joined the Communist Party. Upon her return to Vietnam in 1954 she established a medical practice in Saigon. Joining the resistance to President Ngo Dinh Diem, Duong used her access to Saigon social circles to gather information on the Diem government and its American supporters. In 1960 she became a founding member of the NLF while continuing her clandestine activities. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Duong, along with her husband and son, slipped out of Saigon to a Viet Cong (VC) jungle camp, where her child soon died. That year she was appointed deputy minister of health in the NLF’s Provisional Revolutionary Government. For the remainder of the war she worked tirelessly for the Communist effort, traveling abroad to garner support. Following the 1975 fall of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Duong administered a children’s hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Disillusioned with the leadership of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), however, Duong eventually became an outspoken critic of that regime. In a 1981 interview with Stanley Karnow, she spoke with dismay and bitterness of the northern domination of postwar

Duong Van Minh Vietnam: “I’ve seen the realities of Communism, and it is a failure—mismanagement, corruption, privilege, repression. My ideals are gone.” In her view the northerners resented the southerners for having prospered from the American presence while the northerners carried the burden of war. She observed that the northerners did not understand local traits and conditions and acted accordingly. An example of this was their attempt to collectivize peasants in the Mekong Delta, whose desire to own land had inspired many of them to support the VC during the war. Pointing to the corruption, she told of administrators who padded payrolls, took kickbacks, and pilfered precious drugs for resale on the black market. Commenting on the disproportionately heavy losses suffered by the VC during the 1968 Tet Offensive, she said that “We lost our best people.” She noted that those killed during the Tet Offensive or lost through the Phoenix Program that followed were replaced by northerners who rebuilt the Communist apparatus and remained after the war to manage it. As a result, the northerners alienated their southern compatriots who still clung to their regional character despite attempts to forge a national identity. Duong remained a high-profile critic of Vietnamese communism until her death in 2006. ROBERT G. MANGRUM

Duong Van Minh Birth Date: February 19, 1916 Death Date: August 6, 2001 Leading Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and politician. Born on February 19, 1916, in My Tho in the Mekong Delta, Duong Van Minh, who became known as “Big Minh,” was trained by the French and rose to importance during the early years of Ngo Dinh Diem’s presidency. Considered a Diem loyalist in the military, Minh in early 1956 helped subdue religious sects causing problems for the Diem regime by capturing Hoa Hao guerrilla commander Ba Cut. Diem came to view the popular Minh as a threat, and in 1963 after Diem demoted Minh to special adviser because of his immense popularity among his troops, General Tran Van Don and General Le Van Kim recruited him into their planned coup d’état. On October 5, 1963, Minh met with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Lucien Conein at Camp Le Van Duyet, Saigon, garrison headquarters. He informed Conein that the conspirators did not expect U.S. assistance in the coup and that they sought only assurances that the Americans would not attempt to thwart it. Minh also asked for more military and economic aid after the overthrow of Diem.

See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam References Hiebert, Murray. “Ex-Communist Official Turns into Vocal Critic.” Far Eastern Economic Review 156 (December 2, 1993): 90. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Duong Van Duc Birth Date: 1926 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general. Born in Sa Dec in the Mekong Delta in 1926, Duong Van Duc graduated from the Vietnam Military Academy at Da Lat and in 1953 from the French Staff School. He came to command paratroopers in the ARVN and was promoted to brigadier general in 1956. From 1956 to 1957 he served as minister to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). In September 1964 he participated in an unsuccessful coup, prompted by the situation that he was being relieved of command of ARVN forces in the Mekong Delta. The coup attempt collapsed within 24 hours. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Republic of, Army Reference Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

317

Duong Van Minh, known as “Big Minh,” was an influential Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) general. He led the 1963 coup that overthrew and killed President Ngo Dinh Diem. In April 1975, Minh was the last president of the Republic of Vietnam and surrendered to Communist forces when they took Saigon. (AP/Wide World Photos)

318

Dupuis, Jean

This dialogue gave U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. the situation that he wanted in that the United States could encourage the plot without directly assisting the plotters. Conein later told Minh that the United States would not attempt to stop the coup. Minh then assigned General Don to continue meeting with Conein. It was Minh’s bodyguard, Captain Nguyen Van Nhung, who was the executioner in the November 1, 1963, coup. He shot both Colonel Le Quang Tung and Major Le Quang Trieu. As General Mai Huu Xuan, Major Duong Hiuu Nghia, and Captain Nhung left army headquarters to secure Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, Minh raised two fingers of his right hand to Nhung, a signal to kill the two Ngo brothers. Nhung and Nghia carried out the assassinations. When news of the deaths reached shocked U.S. authorities, Lodge ordered Conein to meet with Minh. Minh lamely claimed that Diem had committed suicide. Following the coup, the ruling generals formed a 12-member Military Revolutionary Council. Minh publicly stated that this arrangement would prevent the excesses of the previous regime. In truth, however, he had created this body to increase his prestige without assuming more personal responsibility. Minh preferred playing tennis and tending his orchids and birds to the tedious government meetings and business. Lodge tried to help Minh rule but concluded that the general was not strong enough to last very long. On the morning of January 30, 1964, General Nguyen Khanh carried out a coup in which he had Nhung executed, made Minh the head of state in name only, and made himself prime minister. Khanh replaced Minh in the summer of 1964 when Khanh promoted himself to the presidency. When Saigon erupted in protest Khanh resigned, and the Military Revolutionary Council met to choose a new president. The council decided to install a compromise triumvirate of Khanh, Minh, and General Tran Thien Khiem, with Khanh as acting prime minister. In the autumn of 1964 Khanh continued his plotting and sent Khiem to Washington as the ambassador for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and assigned Minh to a goodwill tour abroad. During this period the Communists dispatched Minh’s younger brother, Duong Thanh Nhat, a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) officer who in 1960 had been sent to work for the Communists in South Vietnam, to try to influence or recruit Minh. Minh gave his brother sanctuary and allowed Nhat to live with him in Minh’s personal residence until Minh was sent abroad. Minh’s protection of his Communist younger brother became known and raised suspicions about Minh’s loyalties, even though Nhat apparently had no success in trying to win his brother over to the Communist side. After spending several years living in exile in Thailand, Minh returned to South Vietnam in 1969. In the 1971 South Vietnamese presidential election he challenged President Nguyen Van Thieu, but Minh dropped out of the race when he realized that he was unlikely to win. Minh played a final political role during the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. On April 28, 1975, seven days after

Thieu resigned, Minh became the president of South Vietnam. He and his supporters mistakenly thought that he would be an acceptable figure to the Communists. As PAVN forces rolled into Saigon and took the presidential palace, they found Minh and his cabinet waiting in business suits in the reception chamber on the second floor to transfer the government to the Communists. Minh surrendered unconditionally. In 1983 the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) allowed Minh to move to France. In the late 1990s as his health began to fail, he moved to California to be near his daughter. Minh died on August 6, 2001, in Pasadena, California. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Ba Cut; Conein, Lucien Emile; Hoa Hao; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Le Quang Tung; Le Van Kim; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Military Revolutionary Council; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tran Thien Khiem; Tran Van Don References Ahern, Thomas L., Jr. CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998; declassified 2009. Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Tran Bach Dang, ed. Chung Mot Bong Co (Ve Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam Viet Nam) [Under One Flag (The National Liberation Front for South Vietnam)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1993.

Dupuis, Jean Birth Date: December 8, 1829 Death Date: November 28, 1912 French explorer, arms merchant, and writer who demonstrated in the early 1870s the navigability of Vietnam’s Red River for trade with China. Born in Saint-Juste-la-Pendue on December 8, 1829, Jean Dupuis learned Chinese, established himself at Hankow, and traveled in 15 of China’s 18 provinces in quest of business. From 1870 to 1871 he was in Yunnan, where he sold salt and rice at Kunming for 30 times their cost in Hanoi. In 1872 Dupuis was in Paris, where he met with French government officials. He may well have worked out a secret arrangement with the French government concerning Tonkin but was warned by the minister of the navy not to expect any assistance from France.

Durbrow, Elbridge Dupuis purchased two former gunboats in Shanghai and secured a steam launch in Hong Kong. He also recruited a force of some 25 Europeans and 150 Asian mercenaries. In late October, 30 cannon and 7,000 rifles arrived from France. In a daring move on December 22, 1872, without the approval of the Vietnamese court, Dupuis and his heavily armed men occupied a section of Hanoi and announced their intention to set up trade in arms and salt, the latter prohibited by Vietnamese law. When Vietnamese government permission was not secured, a frustrated Dupuis started up the Red River from Hanoi. He made the mistake of visiting with the Yellow Flag Chinese bandits, which led Liu Yongfu (Liu Yung-fu), the leader of the rival Black Flags, to refuse to meet with him and also led to fighting between the Black Flags and the French that inflicted a number of casualties on the latter. In March Dupuis’s ships reached Mang Chao, his destination in China. With the navigability of the Red River now proven, French governor-general in Cochin China Admiral Marie-Jules Dupré cabled Paris and urged an immediate French occupation of Tonkin. The French government declined. Fellow Frenchman Francis Garnier then secured approval from the Vietnamese court to lead a small force from Saigon to Hanoi with the stated purpose of removing Dupuis. Garnier then joined forces with Dupuis in an attempt to conquer Tonkin. With Garnier’s death and the failure of this attempt in 1873, Dupuis was obliged to depart Hanoi without his ships and return to France. He died in Monaco on November 28, 1912. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Black Flags; Garnier, Marie Joseph François; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.

Durbrow, Elbridge Birth Date: September 21, 1903 Death Date: May 16, 1997 U.S. Foreign Service officer and ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from March 1957 to April 1961. Born in San Francisco on September 21, 1903, Elbridge Durbrow graduated with a degree in philosophy from Yale University in 1926. He began his career in the Foreign Service in 1930 as a viceconsul in Warsaw. He then served in Bucharest, Moscow, Naples, Rome, and Lisbon. In 1944 he was an American delegate to the Breton Woods Conference that created the World Bank. Durbrow then served briefly as chief of the Eastern European Division of the State Department, and from 1946 to 1948 he suc-

319

ceeded George Kennan as deputy chief of mission at Moscow under ambassador to the Soviet Union General Walter Bedell Smith. It was Durbrow’s third tour in Moscow, and he strongly warned of Soviet expansionism and efforts to subvert the West. An instructor at the Naval War College between 1948 and 1950, Durbrow afterward became chief of the Division of Foreign Service Personnel. As ambassador to South Vietnam from 1957, Durbrow urged that military aid be conditioned on Saigon’s progress in political and economic reform, while Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) chief Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams placed greater emphasis on building the armed forces. Durbrow minimized the guerrilla threat and doubted the need to maintain an army of 150,000 men, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s policy of giving priority to military strength remained unchanged. In early 1960 Durbrow told Ngo Dinh Diem that the repressive actions of his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, had damaged his regime. After this, Diem and Durbrow rarely spoke. When Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces suffered heavy casualties during Viet Cong (VC) attacks in mid-1960, even Durbrow supported increased military assistance, but he again urged Diem to take measures to increase his public support, including relaxing controls over the press and conducting village elections, and boldly suggested that Nhu be sent out of the country. Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale called Durbrow’s advice “misinformed and unfriendly.” As certain as Durbrow was that without reforms Diem’s government faced disaster, Lansdale was sure that undercutting Diem would be counterproductive. Despite U.S. embassy neutrality during the abortive coup of November 1960, Lansdale, Williams (now at the Pentagon), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief William Colby spread word that Durbrow welcomed it, thus destroying his effectiveness. Durbrow left South Vietnam in April 1961. His final report to the Eisenhower administration acquiesced in MAAG’s proposal for a 20,000-man increase in ARVN forces but advised withholding funds pending the initiation of reforms. Meanwhile, returning from a Saigon fact-finding trip, Lansdale warned of the imminent danger of a Communist victory. This report alarmed President John F. Kennedy, who even considered appointing Lansdale the new ambassador. When Secretary of State Dean Rusk instructed Durbrow to tell Diem that future aid would depend on reform, Lansdale privately informed Diem that he was being watched and should make token gestures of change. Rusk rejected naming Lansdale as Durbrow’s replacement as well as national security adviser Walt Rostow’s attempt to have Lansdale appointed coordinator of Vietnam policy. To replace Durbrow, Kennedy eventually settled on Frederick E. Nolting, another career Foreign Service officer. From 1961 to 1965 Durbrow served as delegate to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Council in Paris. He was then State Department adviser to the National War College in Washington and the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. He retired in 1968. He then wrote and lectured on foreign affairs. In

320

Dustoff

the 1970s Durbrow was chairman of the American Foreign Policy Institute and advised President Jimmy Carter concerning the Panama Canal Treaty in the late 1970s. Durbrow died at his home in Walnut Creek, California, on May 16, 1997. JOHN D. ROOT See also Colby, William Egan; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Rusk, David Dean; Williams, Samuel Tankersley References Anderson, David L. Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953–1961. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Newman, John M. JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power. New York: Warner Books, 1992.

Dustoff Radio sign call adopted by the U.S. Army’s 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance), which was the first American medical helicopter evacuation unit to operate in Vietnam. The term “dustoff” soon became the sign call for nearly all medical helicopter evacuation units and became synonymous for aerial medical evacuation. Major Charles L. Kelly, who commanded the 57th Medical Detachment, was the foremost proponent of medevac operations. Major Kelly was killed in Vietnam. The 57th Medical Detachment was first deployed to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), in April 1962. The U.S. Navy’s Support Activity Group, which assigned and controlled all sign calls in South Vietnam, permitted the use of the term “dustoff” after a chopper pilot utilized it during one of the 57th Medical Detachment’s first missions, sometime in 1962. Each unit used the radio sign call “dustoff,” which was followed by its specific numerical designation. The only helicopter ambulance service that did not use “dustoff” in Vietnam was the 1st Cavalry Division, which used “medevac.” The medical evacuation UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopter had a crew of four, consisting of a pilot, copilot, crew chief, and medic. During most missions, only two casualty patients were airlifted at any given time. Aerial medical evacuation units frequently encountered dangerous conditions, as they often had to fly into combat zones and were fired upon despite their clear markings as a medical transport unit. From 1962 to 1973 (when U.S. forces were entirely withdrawn from South Vietnam), dustoff units evacuated between 850,000 and 900,000 individuals, many of them allied military personnel and Vietnamese civilians. About 45 percent were U.S. casualties; the remainder were Vietnamese, both military and civilian. The year in which the most missions were flown (and the most patients were transported) was 1969, when 145 medevac units were operat-

ing in South Vietnam. In 1965 each helicopter averaged two missions per day, but that increased to four missions per day in 1969. After 1970 the number of missions per unit declined. However, because of mechanical problems with the UH-1 helicopter, which was notorious for its high maintenance, only about 75 percent of the air ambulances were actually operational at any given time. Dustoff crew members, who usually served one-year tours, had a high incidence of casualties and fatalities because of the inherently dangerous nature of their missions. Of the approximately 1,400 men who flew missions during the war, 40 pilots and copilots were killed by hostile fire; an additional 180 were wounded. In addition, 48 others died in crashes and other non–hostile-fire accidents; an additional 200 were injured in non–hostile-fire incidents. The helicopters were frequently operated at night or in poor weather conditions, which greatly increased the chances of accidents and crashes. Indeed, medical evacuation helicopters had a loss rate to hostile fire 3.3 times greater than that of all other helicopters in the Vietnam War. Hoist missions, which involved lowering a stretcher on a cable to the ground and then hoisting the stretcher into the helicopter in midair, were perhaps the most dangerous of all. It is estimated that hoist missions were 7 times more likely to end in a crash that caused deaths or fatalities. Dustoff units made a significant contribution to the war effort despite the inherent dangers of the work and helped keep the number of deaths down among Americans as well as South Vietnamese. In 1980 former staff sergeant Thomas L. Johnson, a member of the 57th Medical Detachment, organized a reunion for all Vietnam medevac pilots and crew. The first reunion of its kind ultimately became the Dustoff Association, dedicated to the veterans of medevac missions in Vietnam. The organization now has more than 1,000 members and meets annually. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Brady, Patrick Henry; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Kelly, Charles L.; Medicine, Military; Medics and Corpsmen; Novosel, Michael, Sr. References Bonds, Ray, ed. The Vietnam War: The Illustrated History of the Conflict in Southeast Asia. New York: Salamander, 1999. Neel, Spurgeon. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965– 1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1973. Novosel, Michael J. Dustoff: The Memoir of an Army Aviator. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1999.

Duy Tan Birth Date: August 14, 1899 Death Date: December 26, 1945 Eleventh emperor of the Nguyen dynasty (1802–1945) and son of Emperor Thanh Thai. Born on August 14, 1899, Duy Tan (which means “reformism”) was his ruling name; his real name was Vinh

Dylan, Bob

321

was sent into exile on Reunion Island. Thai Phien and Tran Cao Van were beheaded. During World War II Duy Tan joined the French Army as a major. After the war he went to Paris. Reportedly the French considered him as a replacement for Emperor Bao Dai. Duy Tan died in a plane crash in Africa on December 26, 1945. PHAM CAO DUONG See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Nguyen Dynasty References Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Hoang Trong Thuoc. Ho So Vua Duy Tan (Than The Va Su Nghiep). San Francisco: Nha Xuat Ban Mo Lang, 1993. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Vietnam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970.

Dylan, Bob Birth Date: May 24, 1941 Duy Tan, the 11th emperor of the Nguyen dynasty, was placed on the throne by the French at age eight but proved to be a staunch Vietnamese patriot and opponent of French rule. (Vietnam Information Service)

San. The French authorities placed Duy Tan on the throne at the age of eight, when they deposed Emperor Thanh Thai and sent him into exile on Reunion Island. During his 9-year reign, Duy Tan proved to be intelligent and a staunch patriot. When he was 13 years old he sent a letter to the French authorities to protest their violation of the 1884 Treaty and requested that it be faithfully carried out. In 1915 with France occupied in World War I, he believed that this was a good opportunity for the Vietnamese to fight for their independence. To do this he secretly contacted leaders of the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi (Association for the Restoration of Viet Nam), among them Thai Phien and Tran Cao Van, and planned an uprising in three provinces: Thua Thien, Quang Nam, and Quang Ngai. The plan was to spread the revolt throughout central Vietnam. The date for the uprising was set for the second day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, or May 3, 1916. Duy Tan left the palace to meet Thai Phien and Tran Cao Van and followed them to Quang Ngai to lead the movement. The uprising was a failure because a mandarin, Phan Liem of Quang Nam, revealed the plans to the French. The emperor was arrested with his two lieutenants and detained in the Mang Ca prison. Later Duy Tan

Popular American musician, folk singer, and social protester. Born Robert Allen Zimmermann on May 24, 1941, in the mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota, Bob Dylan briefly attended the University of Minnesota where he changed his name in homage to his favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. After Dylan relocated to New York, his music was influenced by the music of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie and by the Beat generation poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Although lacking a great voice, Dylan succeeded through his charisma and the symbolic poetry of his lyrics. In the 1960s he helped the folkrock style he was inventing gain acceptance and emerged as a symbol of the counterculture movement. Dylan radicalized popular music and underscored domestic tensions. The Civil Rights Movement and groups opposing American involvement in Vietnam adopted as anthems Dylan songs “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” These songs and others suggested that the dissatisfied younger generation could find solutions to problems that the older generation could not. Dylan’s songs frequently criticized the Vietnam War. “John Brown,” performed for years but not officially recorded and released until 1995, tells of a young man sent to the war much to the delight of his mother, who represents the Establishment; the soldier returns disabled but with medals to present to his mother. In August 1963 Dylan performed “Masters of War” for hundreds of thousands of civil rights protesters participating in Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington. This song holds the older generation

322

Dylan, Bob

responsible for creating a situation in which military leaders could hide the horrors of war “while young people’s blood runs out of their bodies and into the mud.” In 1965 Dylan unveiled a new blend of folk and rock when he included electric instruments and a broader subject matter. Joan Baez and other folk purists criticized this change, but Dylan overcame the criticism and reached an even larger audience. He emerged as a bona fide rock star, but his songs maintained their social commentary and helped change conceptions about popular rock music. In “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan continued the theme of generational conflict. In this song he used a culturally familiar symbol to indicate that the previously outcast generation had supplanted the Establishment. Dylan’s credibility and commercial success paved the way for other protest rock performers to excel in the 1960s and beyond, including Jefferson Airplane; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; and the Grateful Dead. Dylan’s 1966 near-fatal motorcycle accident forced a recuperative period of several years, yet he remained a prolific artist, to date producing more than 50 albums (including country-

and-western and gospel efforts), several plays, a novel, and poetry. He is also a painter and has published a compilation of his paintings and drawings. In more recent years, Dylan played a part in protests against the Persian Gulf War (1991) and the Iraq War (2003–). In 2004 he released the first part of his memoirs, Chronicles: Volume One, to critical acclaim. Since the 1990s, Dylan had been engaged in what he has billed as the “Never Ending Tour,” having performed some 100 concerts a year in the United States and abroad. DALLAS COTHRUM See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Baez, Joan Chandos; Students for a Democratic Society; Weathermen References Heylin, Clinton. Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades. New York: Summit Books, 1991. Scadato, Anthony. Bob Dylan. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1971. Shelton, Robert. No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986.

E EAGLE PULL,

Operation

Event Date: April 12, 1975 U.S. air evacuation of personnel from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in April 1975. On June 27, 1973, the U.S. Support Activities Group/ Seventh Air Force (USSAG/7AF), located at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, published Contingency Plan 5060C (CONPLAN 5060C), code name EAGLE PULL, concerning the evacuation of Phnom Penh. Rescue units received the EAGLE PULL plan as Khmer Rouge units closed in on the capital, and it seemed that Phnom Penh and all of Cambodia would fall. But to the surprise of many, when the U.S. bombing stopped on August 15, 1973, the Cambodian Army repulsed the Khmer Rouge attack. During the next 20 months, the USSAG/7AF changed EAGLE PULL to meet evolving circumstances. When one Cambodian town after another fell to the Khmer Rouge, EAGLE PULL focused only on evacuating Americans and a handful of others from Phnom Penh. A complex prioritization system that classified noncombatant evacuees according to sex, age, and physical condition was developed, and a U.S. Marine Corps ground security force was added to the plan. On April 3, 1975, as Khmer Rouge forces again closed in on Phnom Penh, EAGLE PULL forces were placed on alert. An 11-man marine element flew into the city to prepare for the arrival of the evacuation helicopters. The marines designated a soccer field located a quarter of a mile from the American embassy as Landing Zone (LZ) Hotel. On April 10 Ambassador Gunther Dean asked that EAGLE PULL be executed no later than April 12. At 8:50 a.m. on April 12, an Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (ARRS) HH-53 landed a four-man U.S. Air Force combat control team to coordinate the operation. Three minutes later, it

guided in a U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion with the first element of the marine security force. Marine and air force helicopters then carried 276 evacuees, including 82 Americans, 159 Cambodians, and 35 foreign nationals, to the safety of U.S. Navy assault carriers in the Gulf of Thailand. By 10:00 a.m., the marine contingency force, the advanced 11-man element, and the combat control team had been evacuated. There were no casualties in the operation. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Cambodia; Search-and-Rescue Operations References Benjamin, Milton R., and Paul Rogers Brinkley. “Farewell to Phnom Penh.” Newsweek, April 2, 1975, 27. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1980.

Easter Offensive Event Date: 1972 The 1972 Easter or Spring Offensive carried out by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) is frequently referred to as the Nguyen Hue Campaign, so-named for the Vietnamese ruler who defeated the Chinese in 1789, although technically the term “Nguyen Hue Campaign” was used by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to refer only to the offensive campaign in the Binh Long–Tay Ninh area northwest of Saigon and not to the entire 1972 offensive. The Easter Offensive consisted of a massive coordinated three-pronged

324

Easter Offensive

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers man a checkpoint in Kontum on April 26, 1972, during the successful defense of the city against the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) during the Communist Easter Offensive (Nguyen Hue Campaign). (Bettmann/Corbis)

attack designed to strike a decisive blow against the government and armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Within two weeks of the operation’s beginning on Easter Sunday, large conventional battles were fought simultaneously on three major fronts. The PAVN employed conventional tactics and introduced weaponry beyond that of any previous campaign. This was the largest offensive ever launched by Hanoi and was a radical departure from North Vietnam’s past strategy and methods of warfare historically used in its attempt to conquer South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese leaders decided to employ conventional tactics for this offensive for several reasons. First, they did not believe that the Americans, with only 65,000 troops left in Vietnam, could influence the situation on the ground; Hanoi believed that the political situation in the United States would not permit President Richard M. Nixon to commit any new troops or combat support to assist the ARVN. Hanoi hoped to discredit Nixon’s Vietnamization and pacification programs and cause the remaining U.S. forces to be withdrawn quicker. Additionally, a resounding North Vietnamese military victory would humiliate Nixon, force the Nixon administration to negotiate a peace agreement favorable to Communist forces but that contained terms that might entice Nixon to accept it prior to November 1972 presidential elections, or perhaps even help to defeat Nixon’s reelection bid, opening the White House to a more

moderate Democratic Party president less disposed to further U.S. involvement in Vietnam. PAVN general and North Vietnamese defense minister Vo Nguyen Giap was the reluctant architect of the 1972 Easter Offensive. Despite his own belief that this was not yet the time for an offensive, Giap prepared to carry out the Politburo’s orders. The campaign was designed to destroy as many ARVN forces as possible, thus permitting the Communists to occupy key South Vietnamese cities and enabling PAVN forces to be in position to directly threaten the government of South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu. Giap hoped to achieve a knockout blow, but if that could not be achieved, he hoped to seize at least enough critical terrain to strengthen the North Vietnamese position in any subsequent negotiations. Throughout 1971 Hanoi requested and received large quantities of modern weapons from the Soviet Union and China. These included MiG-21 jets, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), T-54 medium tanks, 130-millimeter (mm) field guns, 160-mm mortars, 57-mm antiaircraft guns (including self-propelled guns), and for the first time heat-seeking shoulder-fired SA-7 Strella antiaircraft missiles. In addition, other war supplies such as spare parts, ammunition, vehicles, and fuels were shipped to North Vietnam in unprecedented quantities.

Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War Giap’s offensive plan called for a multidivisional attack across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) toward Hue and Da Nang, with other forces pressing in from the A Shau Valley in the west. Giap wanted to force President Thieu to commit reserves to protect his northern provinces, after which Giap would launch a second assault from Cambodia to threaten the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). Then Giap would launch the third attack in the Central Highlands to take Kontum and aim for the coast in Binh Dinh Province, thus splitting South Vietnam in two and leading to its collapse or, at the very least, a peace agreement on Hanoi’s terms. The North Vietnamese offensive began on Good Friday, March 30, 1972, when three PAVN divisions, reinforced by T-54 medium tanks, attacked south across the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam and along Highway 9 out of Laos toward Quang Tri and Hue in I Corps Tactical Zone. Three days later three additional divisions moved from sanctuaries in Cambodia and pushed into Binh Long Province, capturing Loc Ninh and surrounding An Loc, the provincial capital only 65 miles from the national capital of Saigon. Additional PAVN forces attacked across the Cambodian border in the Central Highlands toward Kontum in the II Corps Tactical Zone. Finally, two more PAVN divisions took control of several districts in Binh Dinh Province, along the coast of the South China Sea. In each case the PAVN assault was characterized by human-wave attacks backed by tanks and massive artillery support. Fourteen PAVN infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments (including more than 120,000 troops and some 500 tanks and other armored vehicles) participated in the offensive. The PAVN thrusts were at first very successful, particularly in northern South Vietnam where they quickly overran the newly formed ARVN 3rd Division in Quang Tri. The PAVN also threatened both Hue and Kontum, but ARVN forces were able to stiffen their defenses 25 miles north of Hue, while defenders at Kontum were also successful in halting the PAVN assault there. ARVN forces at An Loc were besieged by the PAVN and sustained repeated ground attacks and massive artillery and rocket fire; nevertheless, the ARVN forces held out until the siege there was broken in July 1972. President Nixon resumed the bombing of North Vietnam on May 8, 1972 (Operation LINEBACKER I) and ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor as well as several other North Vietnamese ports. This took some of the pressure off ARVN forces, but intense fighting continued throughout the summer all over South Vietnam. In June, ARVN forces in Military Region I launched a counteroffensive that eventually resulted in the recapture of Quang Tri Province. The Easter Offensive had failed. Although the combat performance of the ARVN had been uneven at best, the ARVN had held, supported by U.S. advisers and massive American airpower, including Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes that repeatedly broke up attacking Communist formations and reduced the odds against the ARVN. Estimates placed North Vietnamese casualties at more than 100,000 killed; in addition,

325

North Vietnam lost at least half of its large-caliber artillery and tanks. However, the PAVN still controlled more territory in South Vietnam than before, and Hanoi believed that it was in a stronger bargaining position at the Paris negotiations. Nevertheless, the success of South Vietnamese forces in confronting the North Vietnamese onslaught was touted as proof that President Nixon’s Vietnamization policy had worked. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also An Loc, Battle of; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pacification; Quang Tri, Battle of; Vietnamization; Vo Nguyen Giap References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Lavalle, A. J. C. Airpower and the 1972 Spring Invasion. U.S. Air Force Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Vol. 2, Monograph 3. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1985. Military Arts Faculty, Military Science Institute. Chien Dich Tien Cong Quang Tri 1972 [1972 Quang Tri Offensive Campaign]. Hanoi: Military Science Institute, 1976. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Chien Dich Tien Cong Nguyen Hue (Nam 1972) [The Nguyen Hue Offensive Campaign (1972)]. Hanoi: Military History Institute, 1988. Ngo Quang Truong. The Easter Offensive of 1972. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Willbanks, James H. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War To fight the Vietnam War, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration had to increase defense expenditures. These expenditures could have been financed by tax increases, by reductions in outlays in other parts of the federal government’s budget, or by deficit spending and borrowing. Tax revenues did not keep pace with expenditure increases, reductions in other spending did not occur, and thus the war was partially financed by deficit spending. From 1965 to 1969, the years in which U.S. involvement in the war increased most dramatically, defense expenditures increased by $31.9 billion while total federal government outlays increased by $65.4 billion, indicating that the defense buildup was not being financed by reductions in other parts of the budget. Furthermore, the increase in tax revenues was not enough to keep pace with the increased spending; thus, the deficit reached $25.2 billion in fiscal year 1968. An increased budget deficit has the following anticipated impacts on the major macroeconomic measures of the economy: an increase in the nation’s overall price level, a decrease in the

326

Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War

Deficit Spending during the Vietnam War Fiscal Year

Defense Expenditures (in billions)

Total Outlays (in billions)

Tax Revenue (in billions)

Surplus or Deficit (-) (in billions)

1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

$50.60 $58.10 $71.40 $81.90 $82.50 $81.70 $78.90 $79.20

$118.20 $134.50 $157.50 $178.10 $183.60 $195.60 $210.20 $230.70

$116.80 $130.80 $148.80 $153.00 $186.90 $192.80 $187.10 $207.30

–$1.4 –$3.7 –$8.6 –$25.2 $3.2 –$2.8 –$23.0 –$23.4

unemployment rate, an increase in the output level, a deterioration in the international trade account, and an increase in interest rates. The impact of the increased deficits was as expected through 1969. The economy did well as measured by the real gross domestic product and the unemployment rate, but the cost was felt in inflation, in an increased international trade deficit, and in higher interest rates. Another aspect to consider would be the impact of the higher interest rates on private-sector spending. Increased interest rates should reduce private-sector expenditures that are financed by borrowing, such as homes, business investments, and consumer durable goods. Construction of new private housing units declined in 1966, 1969, and 1970. Net fixed investment expenditures (in 1987 dollars) decreased in 1967, 1968, and 1970. Expenditures on consumer durable goods decreased in 1970. Thus, there is some evidence that private-sector expenditures were adversely affected by the deficit spending associated with the war. One other interesting aspect of the war’s impact is that a massive rethinking of macroeconomic theory occurred because of the difficulty encountered when the Richard M. Nixon administration embarked on policies to decrease the inflation rate. Examining the data on the price level and unemployment, one observes a steady increase in the price level and a decrease in the unemployment rate from 1965 through 1969. Then something curious happens. The price level continues to rise in 1970, 1971, and 1972, while the unemployment rate also increases. In fact, in 1972 the unemployment rate was 1.1 percentage points (24.4 percent) higher than in 1965, and the price level was still increasing. Consider what one would expect the data to show, given macroeconomic theory at the time. The Vietnam War caused an increase in government expenditures, not fully financed by tax increases. This led to a demand-side expansion during the years 1964–1969. The data for those years completely match what should happen in a demand-side expansion: an increase in the price level and a reduction in unemployment. In response to the increase in inflation, the Nixon administration embarked on the standard policy response of a tight government budget and a tight monetary policy. If all went according to theory, the reduction in inflation would result in some increase in unemployment, but

the increase should match the decrease in unemployment that occurred during the expansionary phase. Thus, a contractionary policy that resulted in an unemployment rate increase to 4.9 percent should have reduced the inflation rate to about 1.4–1.5 percent. If the policy further increased the unemployment rate to 5.9 percent, the inflation rate should have decreased further to under 1 percent. Instead, the inflation rate increased to 5.7 percent and then decreased somewhat to 4.4 percent. (The 1971 inflation rate was a bit misleading, as the Nixon administration’s frustration with the unresponsiveness of the inflation rate resulted in the imposition of price and wage controls on the economy in August 1971.) Something had gone wrong. Economists had thought that they had achieved the ultimate breakthrough in policy making: there was a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment so that an estimate could be made as to how much of each the economy should have. An increase in the inflation rate would be accompanied by a decrease in the unemployment rate, and a decrease in the inflation rate would be accompanied by an increase in the unemployment rate. The first aspect worked fine during the years 1965 through 1969, but the process did not reverse itself in 1970 and 1971. The changes in macroeconomic theory that were spawned by the unreaction of the inflation rate resulted in what economists would dub “stagflation” by the mid-1970s. Stagflation was a situation in which inflation was rising, unemployment was rising, and overall economic growth was either negative or stagnant. Stagflation plagued the U.S. economy for the remainder of the 1970s and into the early 1980s before a tough monetary policy and supplyside policies of the 1980s and 1990s began to reverse the trend. The only way that the inflation rate could continue to increase when unemployment was also increasing was if something was occurring on the supply side as well. The first attempt to analyze these “somethings” was with the role of expectations on labor supply. It was thought that inflation would not be expected when it had been historically low, so wages were slow to catch up to price increases. Once inflation becomes expected, wage increases would immediately match, or even precede, price increases. This would have the effect of increasing costs of production and the unemployment rate. This was called adaptive expectations. It also had the side effect of implying that activist government demand-management policy would be ineffective, which led to the next step in theory revamping. Why would people be slow to catch on to inflation? If it was known that expansionary policy would cause inflation, then as soon as an expansionary policy was discovered, wages and prices would immediately adjust, and no expansion could occur. Even more important, government attempts to stabilize the economy would only result in destabilization; thus, the government must cease all efforts at demand management and move to the supply side of the economy. What could be done on the supply side? Remove the impediments to work efforts and saving. These could be accomplished by lowering taxes and reducing regulations.

Eden, Sir Robert Anthony

327

In summary, the deficit financing of the war led to a demand-side expansion that increased the consumer price index, the international trade deficit, unemployment, and interest rates. The increased interest rates decreased some private expenditures. The inflation that occurred did not respond to the traditional demand-side remedy and therefore led to a massive rethinking of macroeconomic theory. It is worth noting, however, that supply-side economic prescriptions demonstrated their own problems, as did deregulation. Under the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, inflation was kept in check, and the economy did fairly well. However, massive budget deficits ensued, partly because there were large increases in government spending, especially for defense during the 1980s. Beginning in 2007, the United States entered a prolonged and severe economic downturn, which many blamed on President George W. Bush’s supply-side tax cuts, stratospheric deficit spending, and laissez-affair approach to market regulation. EDWARD M. MCNERTNEY See also Great Society Program; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; Wage and Price Controls References Matusow, Allen J. The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Stein, Herbert. Presidential Economics: The Making of Economic Policy from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. U.S. Council of Economic Advisors. Economic Report of the President. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964–1972.

Eden, Sir Robert Anthony Birth Date: June 12, 1897 Death Date: January 14, 1977 British Conservative Party politician, foreign secretary who helped negotiate the 1954 Geneva Accords, and prime minister (1955– 1957). Born on June 12, 1897, near Bishop Aukland, County Durham, England, Robert Anthony Eden served in World War I, advancing to brigade major at age 21, the youngest in the British Army. During 1919–1922 he studied at Christ Church, Oxford University, before winning his first election to Parliament in 1923 as a Conservative. Eden served as foreign minister three times: during 1935–1938 under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (before resigning in disgust over appeasement policies), during 1940–1945 as part of the wartime coalition, and during 1951–1955 under Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Beginning in 1945, with the Labour Party in office, Eden served as shadow prime minister. In October 1951 after the Conservatives defeated the Labourites, he began serving his third term as foreign secretary.

Anthony Eden, British prime minister during 1955–1957, enjoyed a meteoric political rise in the years surrounding World War II. His dramatic political career ended with the British debacle of the Suez Crisis of 1956. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

British foreign policy concerns in Southeast Asia centered on the well-being of investments in Thailand and Malaya and the potential threat of the spread of communism. Eden believed as early as 1953 that the so-called domino theory could be halted if Communist control in Vietnam was limited to the north. When the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, Eden cochaired the 1954 Geneva Conference and, despite U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles’s push for military intervention, worked to forge an alternative to a wider war. Acting as an intermediary among the Soviets, Chinese, and Americans, Eden brokered a political division of the area, temporarily conceding the north to the Communists above the 17th Parallel pending nationwide elections scheduled for 1956. The accords also established neutral governments in Cambodia and Laos to act as a buffer between the Communist states and the rest of Southeast Asia. Eden became prime minister in 1955, but he resigned in January 1957 because of political pressure and ill health following the 1956 Suez Crisis debacle, in which he played a leading role and in which British and French forces were compelled by the United States to end their military intervention in Egypt. Eden retired to the House of Lords and was made the Earl of Avon in 1961. He wrote several volumes of memoirs and died on January 14, 1977, in Alvediston, England. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD

328

Eisenhower, Dwight David

See also Dulles, John Foster; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich; United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars References Aster, Sidney. Anthony Eden. New York: St. Martin’s, 1976. Dutton, David. Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Rothwell, Victor. Anthony Eden: A Political Biography, 1931–57. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1992.

Eisenhower, Dwight David Birth Date: October 14, 1890 Death Date: March 28, 1969 U.S. Army general and U.S. president (1953–1961). Born in Denison, Texas, on October 14, 1890, Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower was raised in Kansas. In 1915 he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. During World War I he commanded the Tank Corps training center at Camp Colt near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In the interwar years, Eisenhower graduated first in his class from the Command and General Staff School (1926) and from the Army War College (1928). In a variety of assignments he established himself as a promising young staff officer. Following his return from the Philippines in 1939, he was successively the chief of staff of the 3rd Infantry Division, IX Corps, and Third Army. Eisenhower was promoted to brigadier general in October 1941. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor two months later, he was called to Washington as deputy head of the War Plans Division of the War Department and then the Operations Division of the General Staff. He was promoted to major general in April 1942. In June, U.S. Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall named him commanding general of the European theater of operations, which brought Eisenhower promotion to lieutenant general in July. Eisenhower then commanded Operation TORCH, the November 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, and Operation HUSKY, the July 1943 invasion of Sicily. He was promoted to full general in February 1943. In September 1943 Eisenhower’s forces invaded Italy. His success in forging harmonious multinational coalitions brought his appointment as supreme commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, for Operation OVERLORD, the cross-channel invasion of France in June 1944. Eisenhower also assumed direct command of all Allied land forces fighting in Northwestern Europe on September 1, 1944. While there was some criticism at the time and since of Eisenhower’s more cautious broad-front approach, he proved a highly effective manager of the large coalition of forces commanded by generals who were often at odds with one another. In December 1944 he was promoted to general of the army (five-star rank).

Following the war, Eisenhower returned to the United States to serve as U.S. Army chief of staff (1945–1948), president of Columbia University (1948–1950), and the first supreme allied commander, Europe, of the newly formed (1949) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military forces (1950–1952). In 1952 he ran as a Republican against Democrat Adlai Stevenson for the presidency of the United States and was easily elected that November, succeeding Harry S. Truman. Eisenhower served two terms (1953–1961). As president, Eisenhower sought to limit the growth of domestic programs while at the same time retaining the bulk of the New Deal reforms. In his defense policies he placed emphasis on nuclear weapons (massive retaliation, or “more bang for a buck”) at the expense of conventional forces. He did so in an effort to reduce defense spending, in which he was only modestly successful. But at the end of his tenure in office in January 1961, Eisenhower also warned the nation about the cost to society of unbridled military spending and the growth of a “military-industrial complex.” In international affairs Eisenhower endeavored to calm tensions arising from the Cold War. Early in his first term as president an armistice was achieved in Korea, in part by his campaign pledge to “go to Korea” and by hinting about the possible employment of nuclear weapons to end the conflict. The latter so impressed Vice

President Dwight D. Eisenhower. General Eisenhower was supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, European Theater of Operations, during World War II. He was subsequently the first commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, then president of the United States during 1953–1961. (Library of Congress)

Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971 President Richard Nixon that early in his own presidency he tried the same (“Mad Man”) technique against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) but without success. Eisenhower proclaimed a new U.S. policy (known as the Eisenhower Doctrine) for the Middle East, which endeavored to limit Communist influence and the effects of Arab nationalism in the region. But his efforts to reduce international tensions with the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev were stymied in part because of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) missteps, such as the May 1, 1960, U-2 incident. Eisenhower’s policies in Indochina were cautious and measured. There he followed the containment doctrine begun by his predecessor, and his administration subscribed to the domino theory, which held that a Viet Minh victory in Vietnam would soon bring Communists to power throughout Southeast Asia. His policies included increasing weapons and logistical support for the French in their war with the Viet Minh in Indochina, and by 1954 the United States was paying as much as 80 percent of the cost of the war there. It was under Eisenhower that the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) was created for Indochina, although the French insisted that all military aid be channeled through them. Publicly the Eisenhower administration supported the French line that they had turned over real political control in Vietnam to the Vietnamese and that the war was a Cold War struggle between democracy and communism rather than a colonial war for independence. Privately it was another matter; as late as 1953 Eisenhower was pushing U.S. ambassador to France C. Douglas Dillon to insist that the French grant real independence to Vietnam. In the spring of 1954 Eisenhower debated active U.S. military intervention in the Indochina War, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, to help rescue the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. He resisted advocates of intervention, such as Vice President Nixon, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Admiral Arthur Radford, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, because U.S. Army chief of staff General Matthew B. Ridgway was firmly opposed and because the British government refused to participate. British foreign secretary Anthony Eden believed that the battle was too far gone and placed his hopes for peace with talks in Geneva. Eisenhower was, in any case, thinking only in terms of air strikes and material support rather than ground troops. Eisenhower said that he would not leave his party open to charges of having lost Vietnam, as his party had saddled the Democrats with the loss of China. The State Department participated in the 1954 Geneva talks only as an observer, and the Eisenhower administration came to distance itself from the resulting Geneva Accords. Cold War warrior Dulles led the way in the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which, however, did not prove supportive of U.S. plans to create a separate state in southern Vietnam and, if need be, fight collectively to maintain it. The Eisenhower administration did give unqualified and substantial economic and political support to the government of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam)

329

and supported Diem in his refusal to hold the elections called for in the Geneva Accords. After leaving office in 1961, Eisenhower retired to his Pennsylvania farm. As a private citizen he continued to support U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He reportedly warned his successor, John F. Kennedy, to stand firm there, although Eisenhower disliked Kennedy’s acceptance of a coalition government in Laos. Eisenhower also disapproved of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s failure to use sufficient military force to bring the war to a successful conclusion but insisted that the Vietnamese would have to do the bulk of the fighting themselves. Eisenhower opposed Johnson’s decision to impose a bombing halt and also considered some demonstrations against the war as tantamount to treason. In 1968 Eisenhower enthusiastically supported Nixon’s run for the presidency. Eisenhower died in Washington, D.C., on March 28, 1969. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Central Intelligence Agency; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dulles, John Foster; Eden, Sir Robert Anthony; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Madman Strategy; Murphy, Robert Daniel; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Radford, Arthur William; Ridgway, Matthew Bunker; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Truman, Harry S.; Twining, Nathan Farragut; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954; VULTURE, Operation References Alexander, Charles C. Holding the Line: The Eisenhower Era, 1952–1961. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower, Vol. 2, The President. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. Billings-Yun, Melanie. Decision against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Divine, Robert A. Eisenhower and the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Eisenhower, Dwight D. The White House Years. 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1963–1965. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971 Accruing political legitimacy was one of the principal difficulties facing all governments in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The development of a politically viable electoral system was seen as one way of bolstering support. Such an effort would provide legitimacy, accountability, and stability; it would also help develop participation in the government by interest groups and political parties. Information contained in declassified memos and directives from the U.S. Defense Department, State Department, and various security agencies reveals an ethnocentric pattern that combined desire for true reform and democratic institution building with determination to reject any results indicating that the

330

Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971

people of South Vietnam favored choices differing from what the U.S. government thought they should seek. There is no doubt that Washington demanded that the people of South Vietnam recast themselves and their government in the U.S. image. Equally without doubt are that the United States helped President Ngo Dinh Diem consolidate his authority, prevented the unifying election called for by the 1954 Geneva Accords, and assisted South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu in eliminating opponents in 1967 and did the same in 1971.

Election of 1955 In 1954 the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration supported Catholic anti-Communist Ngo Dinh Diem’s efforts in establishing a pro–U.S. government in the southern half of the country. Washington favored Diem over playboy emperor Bao Dai, head of the State of Vietnam that had been established by the French during the Indochina War. The extent of U.S. support for Diem was reflected by the fact that in October 1954 Washington decided to channel all economic and military assistance directly to his government rather than through the French mission. The United States provided not only military and economic assistance but also advice on democratic institution building, including the conduct of elections. Later, critics such as Edward S. Herman and F. Brodhead charged that the election process in South Vietnam produced the appearance of a democracy that did not in fact exist there. Official documents bear out this assessment. An excerpt of National Security Council Draft 5519 of May 17, 1955, provides a good summary of the basic situation in South Vietnam with regard to the all-Vietnam elections called for by the 1954 Geneva Accords. Essentially the United States and the Diem administration weighed the dilemma of appearing undemocratic if they avoided or postponed the elections against the danger of losing to a better-organized Communist Party apparatus should elections be held. In lieu of simply having the elections, Washington recommended a strategy whereby the Diem government would engage in talks with the Viet Minh about preconditions for the elections to ensure their integrity. It is clear from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’s memo that Washington’s strategy was to make the conditions mirror those supported by the West in other areas. Dulles assumed that such conditions would be so difficult for the Communists that they would be refused. On June 28, 1955, Dulles said that Washington did not fear elections because the Communists could never win a free election. Yet a series of memos from the State Department to the Saigon embassy indicates that Washington was prepared to “review” the entire situation if the Communists managed to win an election. As for the Communists, they sought the elections called for in the accords because they were confident that they would win them. The Communists believed that they held the nationalist card from having led the fight against the Japanese and French. The Communists also believed that they benefited from Diem’s use of force

to silence political opposition. Indeed, in his efforts to crush opposition, Diem abolished local (village-level) elections and installed political friends and supporters. In the end, it was Diem who refused to even discuss the unification election issue. In a radio broadcast on July 16, 1955, he rejected free elections while simultaneously promising freedom for all Vietnam. The implication was that the Communists would have to give up power in North Vietnam before there could be discussions of elections. Finally, instead of an election, Diem arranged a referendum in South Vietnam between himself and Bao Dai, held on October 23, 1955. There was rampant fraud in the process, with Diem receiving some 5.7 million votes to only 63,000 for Bao Dai. Diem would probably have won a free election easily, and the U.S. embassy thought that the winner’s total of 98.9 percent of the vote was excessive. As a developing new nation-state under U.S. tutelage, South Vietnam lacked even the most basic institutional structures. On March 4, 1956, the South Vietnamese elected a national legislative assembly of 123 members. During the year following Diem’s referendum victory, the initial constitution for South Vietnam was developed but was done exclusively by Diem’s close advisers. Diem submitted only a general statement of basic principles to the assembly to provide the appearance that the finished product was of their making. Initially, it was to be ratified by the voting public. Later, Diem thought better of this and had the assembly ratify it. The constitution came into effect on October 26, 1956.

Election of 1967 The development of more meaningful national institutional structures continued after the November 1963 assassination of Diem. The South Vietnamese constitution of 1967, ratified on April 1, 1967, reflected a number of improvements. The original 1956 constitution had called for a separation of powers, but virtually all power went to the executive branch. The legislative branch was extremely weak; its only official lawmaking function was the allocation of budget appropriations. The judiciary was left undefined and attached to the executive branch. Virtually all appointments were made by Diem. He had even dismantled the structure of local government and replaced officials with personal appointments. The 1967 document changed things for the better, at least on paper. The document provided that the judiciary would be equal to the executive and legislative branches. It also called for the addition of an Upper House (commonly referred to as the Senate), to the National Assembly. It acknowledged the acceptability of political parties and opposition to the government, although neither of these two provisions could be taken too far. The complex electoral law involved the use of 10-member slates, and voters in 1967 had to choose from 48 such slates. This ensured that well-organized voting blocks could achieve electoral power. In the September 3, 1967, election, army general Nguyen Van Thieu and air vice marshal and vice president Nguyen Cao Ky

Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971

331

Nguyen Van Thieu takes the oath as the elected president of the Republic of Vietnam in Saigon on October 30, 1967. At right is Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, who stepped down to become the vice president. (AP/Wide World Photos)

were able to prevent a few of their most politically threatening opponents from participating as candidates. One of these was General Duong Van (“Big”) Minh, who had directed the coup against Diem in 1963. Another candidate, Au Truong Thanh, advocated an immediate cease-fire and a negotiations platform. The Thieu forces were able to derail these candidacies. Thieu and Ky were able to garner only 34.8 percent of the vote, but this was sufficient for victory because the remaining votes were split among 10 sets of candidates. The runner-up, Saigon attorney Truong Dinh Dzu, advocated a peace effort but only after he was certified as an acceptable candidate. In Region I, the Buddhist vote was solidly in support of General Tran Van Don. His “Worker-Farmer-Soldier” slate included individuals respected by a wide spectrum of the population. Buddhist support also carried the Phan Khac Suu and Phan Quang Dan slate to victory in both Da Nang and Hue. Catholic candidates did very well in Military Regions II, III, and IV.

Election of 1971 One of the more controversial actions of President Thieu’s administration was the passage of an election law requiring candidates

to obtain the support of at least 40 National Assembly members or 100 provincial/municipal councilors. Various minority opposition groups opposed this change, arguing that its sole purpose was to exclude them from participation. Although the Senate rejected the law, it was reinstated by the Lower House. Critics charged that this had occurred only as a result of bribery and intimidation. In the election, President Thieu’s chief rivals were General Duong Van Minh and then-current Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky. General Minh was able to secure enough support to become a certified candidate, but Ky was not. Ky later charged that his efforts had been illegally thwarted by President Thieu’s campaign apparatus. An appeal to the entire Supreme Court resulted in Ky being certified as a candidate. However, shortly afterward both he and General Minh determined that the election would be unfair and decided to withdraw from it. Ky subsequently challenged President Thieu to resign with him in favor of a new election organized by the Senate chairman. Thieu rejected this. He did, however, offer to resign if he did not receive 50 percent of the votes cast. All invalid ballots (blank, torn, improperly marked, etc.) would count as opposing votes in what

332

Elections, U.S., 1964

became a referendum. Ky’s efforts to encourage an election boycott were no match for the Thieu administration’s efforts to get out the vote. On October 3, 1971, a purported 87 percent of the electorate cast ballots. Thieu won 90 percent of these in each of the four military regions. He fell below this figure in only two major cities, Hue and Da Nang. Objective assessments of the 1971 election generally concede that it was a brilliant tactical success for Thieu. Unfortunately the election was clearly rigged, but despite that Thieu would have probably won by a good margin even had it been fair. His course of action significantly damaged the legitimacy of the entire election process, the National Assembly as a representative institution, and the government as a whole. It also compromised the South Vietnamese government’s credibility with the population. Both antigovernment and Communist forces were able to capitalize on this. Writer Donald Kirk quoted a deputy of the Lower House, Ly Quy Chung, as saying that had the election been fair and free, the 1972 offensive by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) would have never occurred because the people would have supported the government they freely elected. PAUL R. CAMACHO See also Bao Dai; Dulles, John Foster; Duong Van Minh; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tran Van Don; Truong Dinh Dzu; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Herman, Edward S., and F. Brodhead. Demonstration Elections—U.S.: Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador. Boston: South End, 1984. Kirk, Donald. “Presidential Campaign Politics: The Uncontested 1971 Election.” In Electoral Politics in South Vietnam, edited by John C. Donnell and C. A. Joiner, 53–75. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1974. Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions. 2 vols. Stanfordville, NY: Earl M. Coleman Enterprises, 1979. Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: A History in Documents. New York: New American Library, 1981. Scigliano, Robert G. South Vietnam: Nation under Stress. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. Tull, Theresa. “Broadening the Base: South Vietnamese Elections, 1967–71.” In Electoral Politics in South Vietnam, edited by John C. Donnell and C. A. Joiner, 35–52. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1974.

Elections, U.S., 1964 The 1964 election in the United States pitted incumbent Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson, originally from Texas, against Republican U.S. senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona. The election also determined a sizable number of seats in the U.S. Congress, with the Democrats gaining 2 additional Senate seats, giving

them a critical two-thirds majority over the Republicans, the last time either party has enjoyed such dominance in the Senate. In the House of Representatives the Democratic sweep was even more evident, with the Democrats gaining a net 36 seats over the Republicans, giving them a two-thirds majority in that body as well. Johnson won an astoundingly lopsided victory, capturing more than 61 percent of the popular vote in the largest presidential landslide to that point in time. He also garnered 486 electoral votes to Goldwater’s 52. Indeed, the Republican nominee carried just six states: his native Arizona and five states in the Deep South. With such an impressive mandate, Johnson and the Democrats were poised to implement sweeping domestic reforms and were given virtual free rein to handle the growing Vietnam War in any manner they deemed appropriate. Goldwater, a senator since 1953, ran on a traditionally conservative platform. His campaign stressed opposition to big government and welfare programs, defended states’ rights, and advocated a hard-line anti-Communist foreign policy that emphasized the need for a strong military to confront international communism. Johnson, who had become president following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, characterized himself as Kennedy’s heir. Johnson sought to secure the assassinated president’s legacy and implement sweeping liberal-minded reforms that would address the plight of the poor, advance the Civil Rights Movement, and bolster the fortunes of the middle and working classes. Portraying himself as a champion of the poor and the oppressed, Johnson declared war on poverty and called for the implementation of a so-called Great Society by significantly expanding the role of the federal government so that social welfare spending would increase by some 25 percent. Unsurprisingly, Goldwater characterized Johnson’s policies as creeping socialism and denounced the wholesale transfer of money to programs that were as yet untested. Johnson accused Goldwater of being insensitive to the poor, the working class, and minorities. Perhaps the major potential problem for Johnson in 1964 was the Vietnam War. Kennedy, who had sought to bolster the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), had increased the U.S. commitment there so that by the time of his assassination there were 16,000 U.S. Special Forces soldiers and military advisers in South Vietnam, many of whom were already involved in combat operations. With the coming election, Johnson faced a difficult dilemma in Vietnam. War is rarely popular with voters, and Johnson certainly knew that. But he had inherited a commitment, which he also shared, from Kennedy to defend South Vietnam against what he perceived as Communist aggression. At the same time, the war in Vietnam was escalating due to increased Communist attacks in South Vietnam. In addition, Johnson’s Republican opponent was a staunch if not militant anti-Communist, and Johnson was very conscious that if voters perceived him and his party as soft on communism, Democratic fortunes would be quickly reversed. Indeed, Johnson recalled with much trepidation the Republicans’ searing

Elections, U.S., 1968 criticism of President Harry S. Truman’s decision not to aid the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War. When China was “lost” to the Communists in 1949, the Republicans launched vitriolic attacks against Truman and the Democrats. Therefore, Johnson was determined not to “lose” South Vietnam, but fearing a public backlash against a wider war before the November elections, he delayed for as long as possible any escalation in America’s commitment to South Vietnam. Although the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution had essentially given Johnson a blank check as far as conduct of the war was concerned, little was made of the resolution at the time, and the president remained noncommittal on the dispatch of more troops to South Vietnam until well after the election. The Resolution did, however, make it appear that Johnson was tough on communism, largely removing that as an issue in the campaign. During the election Johnson sought to position himself as the peace candidate while portraying Goldwater as reckless and a warmonger who, if elected, would not only escalate the Vietnam War by sending thousands of U.S. troops to Southeast Asia but might also precipitate a nuclear war. Johnson deftly exploited Kennedy’s assassination and the nation’s mourning to secure favorable legislation and thus “finish President Kennedy’s work.” Despite a political career that was ambiguous toward civil rights for African Americans, upon becoming president Johnson announced his intention to push Kennedy’s stalled civil rights legislation through Congress, which he did. Although many Republicans in Congress supported civil rights, Goldwater was one of only 6 Republicans and 21 Democrats in the Senate to vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which ended segregation in the South and also outlawed discrimination in employment and education. Goldwater claimed that this act violated private property rights and freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. Johnson, however, skillfully exploited Goldwater’s controversial vote to suggest that he was a racist. Not surprisingly, some 90 percent of African Americans voted for Johnson in 1964, thereby cementing the Democratic Party’s strong support among black Americans. With respect to Vietnam, fortunately for Johnson his opponent’s militant rhetoric, including talk of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam to destroy the thick jungle foliage and jokingly musing about “lobbing a nuke” into the men’s room of the Kremlin, and a series of other political gaffes effectively removed the Vietnam War as a campaign issue. Ironically, on the very eve of the first huge escalation of the Vietnam War, which began in 1965, the conflict was not a priority issue among U.S. voters. Instead, Goldwater and his alleged warmongering became the central issue of the campaign. Goldwater’s perceived extreme anti-Communist rhetoric and talk of employing nuclear weapons along with his hostility to so-called big government and welfare programs alienated many voters, including many Republicans, who regarded Goldwater’s views as extreme and inconsistent with the party’s traditional platform. Thus, Goldwater’s candidacy not only turned off many moderate Republican voters but also alien-

333

ated many independent voters, the result of which was Johnson’s stunning victory. As the leader of the Republican right wing, Goldwater’s candidacy was part of a larger struggle for control of the party, which pitted the moderate or progressive wing, which was oftentimes allied with and supportive of liberal Democratic Party positions, against Goldwater’s conservative wing. Conservative Republicans eagerly accepted Goldwater’s challenge to take over the party, and Goldwater’s nomination in 1964 was a triumph for the right wing of the party. The beginning of a shift in the party’s base of support from the more liberal and moderate Northeast and Midwest to the more conservative South and West also occurred. In addition, Goldwater’s perceived hostility toward civil rights and opposition to big government and welfare programs endeared him to disaffected white Southern Democratic voters, thereby allowing him to crack the heretofore solidly Democratic South. Goldwater’s nomination ultimately helped to pave the way for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential win and the implementation of the so-called Reagan Revolution. Unable to run for reelection as a senator while also running for president, Goldwater left the Senate but would return in 1968. That same year after having deployed some 500,000 U.S. troops to South Vietnam and suffering a collapse of his approval ratings over his conduct of the Vietnam War, the formerly invincible Johnson dropped out of the presidential race. STEFAN M. BROOKS See also Civil Rights Movement; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Great Society Program; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; United States Congress and the Vietnam War References Dallek, Robert. Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999. Middendorff, William II. A Glorious Disaster: Barry Goldwater’s Presidential Campaign and the Origins of the Conservative Movement. New York: Basic Books, 2006.

Elections, U.S., 1968 The 1968 national elections in the United States were among the most contentious in modern history. The January 1968 Tet Offensive was followed by equally startling political developments in the U.S. presidential race, including President Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination, riots at the Democratic National Convention, and the election of Republican Richard M. Nixon, who had not expected to return to national politics after losing the 1960 presidential election and a 1962 bid to become governor of California. Opposition to Johnson’s renomination began in late 1967. Allard Lowenstein, who had close ties with college student

334

Elections, U.S., 1968

organizations, originated a “Dump Johnson” movement, and Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, a Vietnam War opponent, announced his candidacy for the nomination in late 1967. Perceiving the first presidential primary (March 12) as an early test, thousands of “Clean for Gene” college students canvassed New Hampshire voters. McCarthy did not win the primary, but his unexpectedly strong showing against a sitting president exposed Johnson’s vulnerability. Johnson received 49.5 percent of the Democratic primary vote to McCarthy’s 42.4 percent. Many polls had predicted that McCarthy would receive only 10 percent of the vote. Johnson’s weakened position was not lost on Senator Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.), who also opposed Johnson’s war policies; Kennedy declared his candidacy a few days after the New Hampshire primary. In a nationally televised address on the Vietnam War on March 31, Johnson, in an attempt to start peace negotiations, announced a partial bombing halt of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and then stunned the nation by closing with the statement “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” The two major parties held their national nominating conventions in August. The Republicans met first, in Miami Beach, fol-

lowed by the Democrats in Chicago, where violence and massive protests marred the proceedings. Although the New Hampshire primary received considerable media attention, only one-third of the delegates attending both parties’ national conventions were selected at primary elections. The 1968 conventions followed the classic model whereby most delegates were controlled by state party leaders, frequently a governor or big-city mayor, and were selected in state conventions and caucuses rather than primaries. The eventual nominee was determined by candidates bargaining with leaders of state delegations. Nixon had spent much of 1966 cementing his ties with the Republican Party by raising money and campaigning for its candidates for Congress. At the start of 1968, polls of Republican voters showed Nixon as almost a two-to-one favorite over his rivals: Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and, with a poor third, Governor George Romney of Michigan. In short, Nixon had the support of party regulars and used the primaries to demonstrate support among Republican voters. Rockefeller’s late-starting campaign never got off the ground. In the Democratic Party, the road to the convention was anything but smooth. Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy in late April. Avoiding all the primaries, he preferred to deal directly with delegates and state party leaders. Although

Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigns for the presidency in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Elections, U.S., 1968 McCarthy and Kennedy traded early primary victories, Kennedy won the last one in delegate-rich California, only to be assassinated on June 5, 1968, minutes after his victory speech. Kennedy might have attracted support from party professionals at the convention. His death ensured Humphrey’s nomination. Alabama governor George Wallace formed a third party, the American Independence Party. He was on the ballot in all 50 states but only after considerable work in gathering signatures of registered voters on petitions and occasionally asking and receiving help from federal courts. At the start of the general election campaign, a Gallup Poll showed Nixon (43 percent) with a clear lead over Humphrey (31 percent) and Wallace (19 percent). According to opinion surveys, Americans saw the Vietnam War as the most important problem facing the country (51 percent). A plurality (48–49 percent) thought that the United States had made a mistake in sending troops to fight in Vietnam, and nearly two-thirds disapproved of President Johnson’s handling of the war. The Vietnam War had more than a two-to-one lead over both civil rights and law-andorder issues. In fact, there were few differences between Nixon’s and Humphrey’s Vietnam War positions. Both candidates favored a gradual reduction of U.S. forces by replacing them with soldiers from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Neither candidate had a timetable in mind, and both opposed invading North Vietnam. Nixon frequently disparaged Johnson’s war policies but avoided discussing specifics for fear that this would undermine efforts to get real negotiations started. In Salt Lake City, Utah, on September 30, Humphrey tried to disassociate himself as much as he could from Johnson’s war policies by proposing a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam to improve the outlook for negotiations. Wallace attracted voters not for his position on the Vietnam War but instead because of his opposition to desegregation and his get-tough stance toward student demonstrations and African American rioting in cities. Not surprisingly, most of Wallace’s support was found among Southern whites. However, Wallace did say that if Vietnam negotiations failed, he would ask the military for a plan to win. Voters’ perceptions of the candidates were reasonably accurate: Humphrey and Nixon were perceived as occupying a middle position between hawk and dove, with Wallace closer to the hawk position. Most voters occupied the middle position, which might be described as “Don’t pull out, but try to end the fighting.” The Nixon campaign’s careful exploitation of what would be called the silent majority clearly helped its candidate gain the votes of white conservative southerners who found Wallace too extreme and incendiary. Indeed, this southern strategy prevented Wallace from siphoning even more votes from the Republicans’ column and became a winning strategy for Republicans for more than a generation. Humphrey’s standing in the polls was improved by the Salt Lake City speech and organized labor’s efforts to bring back to the

335

Democratic Party many of its members who were leaning toward Wallace. Mid-October polls showed support for Nixon at 44 percent, Humphrey at 36 percent, and Wallace at 15 percent; 5 percent of those polled declared themselves undecided. Humphrey continued to gain, however. By election day the race was a toss-up between him and Nixon. In the weeks prior to the election, the Johnson administration searched for a way to make progress in peace talks that had begun in Paris in May. In October the North Vietnamese government agreed to South Vietnam’s participation in exchange for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu, at the last minute and with apparent encouragement from members of Nixon’s campaign staff, refused to participate in the negotiations. Johnson announced a complete bombing halt on October 31, five days before the election; South Vietnamese representatives did not attend the Paris negotiations until January 25, 1969. No one can say with certainty if the start of serious negotiations before the election would have affected the outcome. Ultimately it was the voters’ judgment that the policies of Johnson and the Democrats had failed. But with Wallace in the race, Nixon’s victory over Humphrey was extremely close. In the popular vote, Nixon received 31,770,237, Humphrey received 31,270,533, and Wallace received 9,906,141. In the electoral college, Nixon received 301 votes (270 needed to win), Humphrey received 191, and Wallace received 46. In Congress, Nixon’s coattails proved only a modest success. Republicans gained just 4 seats in the House, but the Democrats still had a large majority (243 to 192). In the Senate the Democrats lost 5 seats, with the Republicans gaining 5. But the Democrats held a solid 62 to 38 majority. HARRY BASEHART See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Peace Accords; Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich; Romney, George Wilcken; Wallace, George Corley, Jr. References Asher, Herbert B. Presidential Elections and American Politics. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1992. Clifford, Clark, with David Holbrooke. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1991. Converse, Philip E., Warren E. Miller, Jerrold G. Rusk, and Arthur C. Wolfe. “Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election.” American Political Science Review 63 (December 1969): 1083–1105. Page, Benjamin I., and Richard A. Brody. “Policy Voting and the Electoral Process: The Vietnam War Issue.” American Political Science Review 66 (September 1972): 979–995. White, Theodore H. The Making of the President, 1968. New York: Atheneum, 1969.

336

Elections, U.S., 1972

Elections, U.S., 1972 At the beginning of 1972, the landslide reelection of Republican president Richard Nixon was not a foregone conclusion, although Democratic presidential nominee Senator George McGovern of South Dakota was virtually unknown to the American public. A Gallup survey asking voters a “presidential trial heat” question in January found a close contest: Nixon was favored by 43 percent; Senator Edmund Muskie (D-Maine), the likely Democratic nominee, polled at 42 percent; and Alabama Governor George Wallace, running as a third-party candidate, had 12 percent. The remaining 3 percent of voters polled were undecided. By the end of 1971, Nixon’s Vietnam policies had reduced the number of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam to 156,800. In January 1972 Nixon announced that in addition to the ongoing formal peace talks in Paris, secret negotiations between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) had started in August 1969. Neither had made any progress. According to the Gallup Poll and other surveys, voters still identified the Vietnam War as the most important issue facing the country. But the percentage of voters with this view (25 percent) was about half as large as it had been in 1968. A majority of the public approved of Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam War (52

percent approved, 39 percent disapproved, and 9 percent had no opinion). The economy—rising inflation and unemployment— was on voters’ minds as much as the Vietnam War, and the Nixon White House had enjoyed only modest success in dealing with these problems. In early January 1972 Nixon announced that he would seek reelection, and he faced little opposition within his party. He won the New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, with nearly 70 percent of the vote. Nixon was renominated by the Republican National Convention held in August at Miami Beach. In addition to McGovern and Muskie, serious candidates for the Democratic nomination were Hubert Humphrey, who had lost to Nixon in the 1968 presidential election, and George Wallace, who made a strong showing in 1968 as a third-party candidate. Wallace planned to enter several Democratic primaries and also kept open the option of a third-party candidacy. The road to capturing the nomination at the 1972 Democratic National Convention was much different than previous ones. Almost overlooked at the tumultuous 1968 convention was the adoption of resolutions authorizing the creation of a commission to reform the national convention delegate-selection process. The McGovern-Fraser Commission, as it was informally called, ad-

President Richard Nixon campaigns in Ohio on October 28, 1972. Nixon easily beat Democratic Party candidate George McGovern in November. Less than two years later, however, Nixon was forced to resign the presidency because of the Watergate Scandal. (National Archives)

Elections, U.S., 1972

337

Results of the 1972 U.S. Presidential Election Popular Vote Candidate

Party

Richard Milhous Nixon George Stanley McGovern John G. Schmitz Other candidates

Republican Democratic American Independent Various

Electoral Votes

Number

Percentage

520 17 0 1

47,169,911 29,170,383 1,100,868 301,227

60.7% 37.5% 1.4% 0.4%

opted guidelines that made extensive changes. Receiving the most publicity were those that encouraged each state to have minority groups, women, and people between the ages of 18 and 30 in their delegation in “reasonable relationship to their presence in the population of the State.” This was not, the commission said, to be interpreted as a quota system, but it was widely perceived as such. Other changes, less noticed, were also important, such as the elimination of ex officio delegates, which had made it easy for Democratic governors and members of Congress to attend the convention. To comply with the recommendations, many states simply switched to primaries to select delegates. At the 1972 convention, 60 percent of the delegates were chosen in primaries; in 1968 it had been only 38 percent. These new rules angered party regulars who lost influence, as they saw it, to individuals who were committed to a candidate or issue but not the party as a whole. McGovern thundered from obscurity not by beating Muskie in the New Hampshire primary but instead by surprising everyone with a strong second-place finish, much as Eugene McCarthy had done in 1968. Muskie faded in subsequent primaries and ceased to be a viable candidate. Wallace won the Florida primary and went on to win alternating primary victories with Humphrey and McGovern. An assassination attempt on Wallace on May 15 while he was campaigning in Wheaton, Maryland, resulted in him being partially paralyzed and forced him from the race. The showdown between Humphrey and McGovern was in California, where McGovern emerged victorious; because of California’s winner-takesall law, all of the delegates were bound to vote for McGovern. In a crucial procedural vote at the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, the unit rule was allowed for California even though it went against commission guidelines. McGovern was selected as the party nominee on the first ballot. The general election campaign began with Nixon well ahead. According to the Gallup Poll, Nixon had 64 percent to McGovern’s 30 percent; only 6 percent remained undecided. Although five men with cameras and electronic surveillance equipment were arrested in June 1972 inside the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, the full story of what became known as the Watergate Scandal was contained by the White House, and Nixon’s involvement in the cover-up was kept secret during the election campaign. McGovern was unable to persuade voters to his moral position that the United States should withdraw immediately from Vietnam. Most voters were satisfied with Nixon’s policy of gradual withdrawal. McGovern’s proposals for

cuts in defense spending and for a controversial welfare program were viewed as too extreme. On all but a few issues, voters perceived themselves to be closer to Nixon’s positions than those of McGovern. Voters also questioned McGovern’s competence. This was underscored when the media disclosed that his vice presidential nominee, Senator Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.), had suffered from mental exhaustion a number of times and had undergone electric-shock treatments. McGovern initially said that he fully backed Eagleton but soon dropped his beleaguered running mate in favor of Sargent Shriver. Still, the election did not end with the Vietnam War as only a backdrop issue. The war dramatically reasserted itself when on October 26 the North Vietnamese government unexpectedly revealed that secret negotiations had produced an agreement to end the war. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, who was having difficulty gaining Saigon’s acceptance of the agreement, nonetheless announced that “Peace is at hand.” Nixon won the 1972 election by a landslide, although it may have been more a rejection of McGovern than a mandate for Nixon. In the popular vote, Nixon received 47,169,911, and McGovern received 29,170,383; the electoral college vote was 521 for Nixon to only 17 for McGovern. In Congress, the Democrats lost 13 seats while the Republicans gained 12, but the Democrats still enjoyed a 242 to 192 advantage. In the Senate, the Democrats lost 2 seats while the Republicans picked up 2, giving the Democrats a 56 to 42 majority. HARRY BASEHART See also Elections, U.S., 1968; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; McGovern, George Stanley; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Wallace, George Corley, Jr.; Watergate Scandal References Asher, Herbert B. Presidential Elections and American Politics. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1992. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Miller, Arthur H., Warren E. Miller, Alden S. Raine, and Thad A. Brown. “A Majority Party in Disarray: Policy Polarization in the 1972 Election.” American Political Science Review (September 1976): 753–778. Ranney, Austin. Curing the Mischiefs of Faction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. White, Theodore H. The Making of the President, 1972. New York: Atheneum, 1973.

338

Elections, U.S., 1976

Elections, U.S., 1976 The elections of 1976, while not a direct referendum on the Vietnam War per se, were certainly a referendum on the legacy of the Watergate Scandal and of the Republican Party, which had suffered from President Richard M. Nixon’s policies and behavior while in office. In many ways, however, Watergate itself had been a by-product of the Vietnam War, particularly given Nixon’s penchant for secrecy and take-no-prisoners politics. Clearly, the Vietnam War was very much on the electorate’s mind in 1976, and the wounds from that conflict had not yet begun to heal. The presidential election was a close one during that bicentennial year, and the American public was searching for an alterative to the increasingly divisive politics that had held sway over the preceding decade. Upon President Nixon’s resignation from office in August 1974, his appointed vice president, Gerald R. Ford, a longtime congressman from Michigan, became president. Ford was a moderate Republican, perhaps a bit more conservative than Nixon had been, and an honest and decent man. He had not sought the presidency but assumed the office because of an unparalleled sequence of high-level resignations: that of Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973 and Nixon’s resignation the following year. Ford immediately reached out to the Democratically controlled Congress and sought

to put the Watergate Scandal to rest. In so doing he issued a full and unconditional pardon to Nixon, giving him virtual immunity from prosecution. Many decried Ford’s move, with some alleging that Nixon and Ford had “struck a deal” before Ford was named vice president. There was indeed no such deal, and Ford believed that this action was in the nation’s best interest. Since that time, many historians have come to agree that Ford’s pardon likely saved the country from many more months of political turmoil and paralysis had Nixon been brought up on charges. Nevertheless, many Americans held the Nixon pardon against Ford. Ford also had to deal with an economy wracked by recession, high unemployment, and stratospheric inflation that he had inherited from Nixon. Despite numerous attempts to tame inflation and spur economic growth, however, the Ford administration was unable to bring about a meaningful or sustainable economic recovery. As the election year of 1976 loomed, many Americans, including moderate Republicans, saw Ford as ineffectual—rightly or wrongly—and distrusted his motives because of the Nixon pardon. To make matters worse, Ford and his appointed vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, had to fend off a strong challenge for the Republican nomination that year by Ronald Reagan, former governor of California and the darling of the conservative wing of the party.

Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter (left) and his running mate Walter Mondale react to the crowd at the Democratic National Convention in New York City on July 15, 1976. Carter, the governor of Georgia, defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford in the November election. (Library of Congress)

Electronic Intelligence On the Democratic side the field was wide open, and there were no front-runners or incumbents going into the winter 1976 primaries. Alabama governor George Wallace competed in the primaries, as did Senator Henry M. Jackson. In a significant upset, a newcomer with virtually no national name recognition—Georgia governor Jimmy Carter—placed second in the Iowa Caucus and then won the New Hampshire primary. Carter stunned the political pundits by capturing the nomination that summer, running as a “fresh-faced” outsider who would eschew politics as usual. He asked Americans to “trust him,” and trust they did. Carter, a born-again Christian from the Deep South who deplored segregation, was a former naval officer and a successful farmer. Generally speaking, he ran a good campaign and hammered home the message that he would help reform American politics because he was not a Washington insider. Carter was vague on many policy positions, however. After the Democratic National Convention and having chosen Minnesota senator Walter Mondale as a running mate, Carter enjoyed a huge 33-point lead over Ford and his running mate, Senator Bob Dole. That advantage was soon erased, however, as Ford finally found his voice after several missteps on the campaign trail and in televised debates. As the election approached Carter and Ford were in a virtual dead heat, despite the fact that Ford asserted—and rightly so—that Carter lacked any experience in national or international politics. In the end Carter won a bare majority of the vote, 50.1 percent, to Ford’s 48 percent (independent candidate Eugene McCarthy garnered most of the remaining). Carter captured 297 electoral votes, including every southern state except Virginia; Ford won 240 electoral votes, running strongest in states west of the Mississippi River. In the House of Representatives the Democrats gained just one seat from the Republicans. In the Senate the elections were a wash; neither side won or lost seats, and the Democrats retained their preelection 61–38 majority. Had it not been for Watergate, Carter may well never have become president. In this sense, the 1976 elections were a referendum on Nixonian policies and reflected the public’s frustration with the Vietnam War’s troubling legacy, Watergate, political corruption, economic uncertainty, and politics as usual. Carter, a complete outsider, appealed to Americans’ search for a new approach to entrenched problems. As it turned out, however, Carter would be no more successful in easing America’s economic woes than Ford or Nixon, although he did make good on a controversial campaign promise by issuing an amnesty to Vietnam War draft resisters who had shirked their military duty during the war. The amnesty program was lambasted by many conservative groups, but it did bring at least partial resolution to a nagging legacy of the war. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Amnesty; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War; Elections, U.S., 1968; Elections, U.S., 1972; Ford, Gerald Rudolph;

339

Nixon, Richard Milhous; Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich; Watergate Scandal References Asher, Herbert B. Presidential Elections and American Politics. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1992. Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: Bantam Books, 1982. Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

Electronic Intelligence After 1964, the integrated air defense system (IADS) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) expanded rapidly. With the appearance of new Soviet- and Chinese-supplied antiaircraft weapons (and their associated radars), U.S. military planners needed a more complete picture of the scale and complexity of the IADS. The primary method of obtaining information on types and capabilities of the growing North Vietnamese system was through electronic intelligence (ELINT). ELINT provided the U.S. military an electronic order of battle, listing all known types of North Vietnamese radars, their projected capabilities, and their locations. The United States deployed special ELINT collectors to Southeast Asia to obtain this information. Specially configured U.S. Navy ships, for example, gathered ELINT data on North Vietnamese radars from the Gulf of Tonkin. A variety of aircraft, a common example of which was the Douglas RB-66 or EB-66 (a B-66 destroyer bomber reconfigured for the gathering of ELINT; the designation “RB-66” was changed to “EB-66” in 1966), also performed ELINT duties. Two electronic warfare squadrons of E/RB-66s operated in Southeast Asia throughout most of the Vietnam War. In performing airborne ELINT missions, they typically orbited well beyond the range of North Vietnam’s air defense weapons, high over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Laos, or the Gulf of Tonkin. Each E/RB-66 carried specialized avionics, including sensitive antennas, receivers, pulse analyzers, and recorders. As a result, the E/RB-66 could display and record unique radar characteristics, such as the pulse width, scan pattern, frequency, and even the rate at which the North Vietnamese radars sent signals. This information was crucial to the development of U.S. electronic countermeasures. For example, a typical radar jammer, designed to overpower, or blind, a North Vietnamese radar, would have to match its same frequency in order to be effective. Because ELINT data could determine the range of frequencies within which a hostile radar operated, the radar would remain jammed no matter what its transmission frequency. Accurate ELINT was particularly crucial to deceptive jammers that relied on finesse rather than brute strength. These types of jammers were most commonly carried on U.S. Navy fighter-bombers that went to North Vietnam (such as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and A-4 Skyhawk

340

Ellsberg, Daniel

and the Grumman A-6 Intruder). By mimicking the enemy’s radar pulse exactly, these jammers would make North Vietnamese radar operators believe that the target aircraft was somewhere other than where it really was. ELINT data gathering was not easy. Six E/RB-66s were shot down by the North Vietnamese during the war (five by SA-2 missiles and one by a MiG-21). A major example of a successful operation was UNITED EFFORT, implemented by the U.S. Air Force to determine the exact frequencies of the SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) radar proximity fuse. Beginning in late 1965, crewless drone aircraft flew at high altitude right over North Vietnamese air defenses in order to provoke SA-2 launches. One of the drones launched in 1966 was able to relay the proximity fuse signal to a nearby orbiting Strategic Air Command Boeing RB-47H Stratojet aircraft seconds before two missiles blew it apart. The collected signal was an important piece to the puzzle of how American electronic countermeasures (ECM) might defeat SA-2 air defenses. ELINT efforts were not always successful, however. During Operation LINEBACKER II in December 1972, U.S. Air Force aircrews—especially those in Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers—suffered heavy losses to North Vietnamese SA-2 missiles. Fifteen B-52s were shot down (and more were damaged) during the 11 days of LINEBACKER II. The losses were due in part to new Soviet modifications to the SA-2 missile’s guidance antenna, in part to new North Vietnamese missile procedures that fired several missiles at the same time and then guided them manually toward the aircraft’s electronic jamming signal, and in part to the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command’s flawed bombing tactics and failure to upgrade the electronic jamming equipment carried by some of its B-52 models. The Vietnam War drove home to American military aviation the lesson that any advantage it enjoyed on the electronic battlefield was fleeting at best; ELINT capabilities had to be continuously updated to prevent further losses. PATRICK K. BARKER See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Long-Range Electronic Navigation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Eschmann, Karl J. Linebacker: The Untold Story of the Air Raids over North Vietnam. New York: Ivy Books, 1989. Francillon, René, and Mick Roth. Douglas B-66 Destroyer. Arlington, TX: Aerofax, 1988. Michel, Marshall L., III. Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965–1972. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Naderveen, Gilles Van. Sparks over Vietnam: The EB-66 and the Early Struggle of Tactical Electronic Warfare. Airpower Research Institute Paper ARI Paper 2000-03. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: U.S. Air Force Air University, 2000.

Ellsberg, Daniel Birth Date: April 7, 1931 RAND Corporation and U.S. government intelligence analyst who helped compile the Defense Department’s secret history of the Vietnam War, later known as the Pentagon Papers, and leaked it to the New York Times in 1971. Born on April 7, 1931, in Chicago, Daniel Ellsberg graduated from Harvard University in 1952 and returned there for a master’s degree before volunteering for the U.S. Marine Corps in 1954. He rose to the rank of first lieutenant and emerged with a view of international affairs that emphasized military solutions. After returning to Harvard to earn a PhD in economics, Ellsberg joined the RAND Corporation in 1959 and consulted with government officials on such matters as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Moving to Washington in 1964, he took a staff position within the U.S. Defense Department and maintained a special interest in policy-making decisions related to Vietnam. Ellsberg traveled to Vietnam in July 1965 to evaluate the civilian pacification program and stayed on as assistant to Deputy Ambassador William Porter. The apparent failure of pacification in addition to increasing civilian casualties and widespread corruption within the Saigon government convinced him that the war had reached a stalemate. This began to erode his support for Washington’s Vietnam policy, and he repeatedly communicated with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara about his views. In late 1967 McNamara assigned 36 researchers to document and analyze the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam since World War II. Ellsberg focused on the early John F. Kennedy years. Ellsberg had assumed that presidents had been misled by overly optimistic advisory reports into accepting an ever-growing commitment that exceeded their expectations; this was known as the quagmire theory. In actuality, the Pentagon Papers revealed the accuracy of many of the antiwar movement’s criticisms: that American policy developed with little concern for Vietnamese desires and that leading U.S. officials had deceived the public about their intent and actions. The Pentagon Papers clearly showed that the government was not the reluctant participant it had often claimed to be. Ellsberg, now opposed to the war’s escalation, returned to RAND in 1968 and worked within the system to influence policy. He drafted Senator Robert Kennedy’s policy statements on Vietnam during the 1968 presidential campaign and later provided National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger with an extensive list of policy options. Using his security clearance, Ellsberg read additional sections of the Pentagon Papers and concluded that American aggression was the primary force behind the war. Ellsberg’s role in policy development weighed heavily on his conscience, and in the autumn of 1969, with the help of RAND colleague Anthony Russo, Ellsberg began copying the Pentagon study

EL PASO II, Operation

341

chiatrist’s office, and offered Judge Byrne the directorship of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Ellsberg remained a target of White House animosity until Nixon resigned in August 1974 as a result of the Watergate Scandal. In the post–Watergate Scandal years, Ellsberg became a visible activist who spoke out on a variety of peace, nuclear disarmament, and civil rights issues. These included support for Polish dissidents in 1984, opposition to President Ronald Reagan’s Central American policies in 1985, protest against the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and public dissent with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Adams, Samuel A.; Fulbright, James William; McNamara, Robert Strange; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pentagon Papers and Trial; RAND Corporation; Russo, Anthony J., Jr.; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Watergate Scandal

Daniel Ellsberg is an author, economist, and political scientist. He achieved public notoriety in the early 1970s after releasing to the press portions of the top-secret Pentagon file, which became known as the Pentagon Papers, that traced U.S. involvement in the war and its escalations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. (Getty Images)

in the hope that public knowledge of its conclusions would speed the end of the war. Senator J. William Fulbright refused to act on the copies he received, and Ellsberg had no more success in approaching other government officials. Tormented over the war’s continuation, Ellsberg became increasingly involved in antiwar activities and resigned from RAND in early 1970. Frustrated over the government’s disinterest in the Pentagon study, he leaked the report to Neil Sheehan of the New York Times, which began publishing excerpts on June 13, 1971. After three days the Justice Department under President Richard M. Nixon’s administration temporarily blocked publication of the Pentagon Papers with an injunction, arguing that prior restraint was necessary to prevent damage to national security. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected this claim on June 30, and publication continued. When Ellsberg identified himself as the source of the leak, a grand jury indicted him on various charges, including illegal possession of government documents, conspiracy, theft, and violation of the Espionage Act. After an initial late 1972 mistrial, the second Pentagon Papers trial began on January 18, 1973, in Los Angeles. On May 11, 1973, Judge Matthew Byrne dismissed the charges prior to jury deliberations after government misconduct—the beginning of the Watergate Scandal—became known. Determined to discredit Ellsberg, the White House had conducted illegal wiretapping, ordered a break-in of Ellsberg’s psy-

References Ellsberg, Daniel. Papers on the War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Ellsberg, Daniel. Secrets: A Memoir on Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971. Schrag, Peter. Test of Loyalty: Daniel Ellsberg and the Rituals of Secret Government. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974. Ungar, Sanford J. The Papers & the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers. 1972; reprint, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

EL PASO II,

Operation

Start Date: June 2, 1966 End Date: July 13, 1966 Military operation conducted by the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division against the Viet Cong (VC) 9th Division in Binh Long Province, War Zone C, from June 2 to July 13, 1966. EL PASO II’s objective was to open Route 13 and deter a VC offensive against An Loc before the monsoon season. The first of four major encounters occurred on June 8 when the VC 272nd Regiment ambushed Troop A, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, north of the Ap Tau O bridge on Route 13 below An Loc, disabling several tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs). The cavalry underestimated the size of the VC force, and although infantry arrived too late to be a factor, they claimed more than 100 VC. Three days later the 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry (2-28 Infantry), battled an entrenched VC 273rd Regiment northwest of Loc Ninh. On June 30 the VC 271st Regiment ambushed Troop B, 1st Squadron, at Srok Dong on Route 13 south of Loc Ninh, taking out four tanks and inflicting heavy casualties. Troop C advanced to evacuate the dead and wounded and clear a landing zone (LZ) for the insertion of two companies of the 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry

342

Ély, Paul Henri Romuald

(2-18 Infantry). The VC initially offered stiff resistance but soon broke contact. Despite the killing of 270 VC at Srok Dong, only U.S. air superiority prevented a major Communist victory. Major General William E. DePuy, commanding the 1st Infantry Division, then developed a plan to lure the VC into attacking his armor. Rumors circulated that a large U.S. column would move up Route 13 and a smaller one would move down Minh Thanh Road, running southwest from An Loc. The opposite was true. Potential ambush sites were identified along Minh Thanh Road, and two armored cavalry troops and a company of mechanized infantry prepared to move. Two other companies were airlifted into counterambush positions, and artillery was positioned at Minh Thanh village. Early on July 9 following artillery and air strikes, the task force passed the first checkpoint, but before the task force reached the second checkpoint the VC 272nd Regiment attacked Troop C, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, knocking out its lead tank and destroying two M-113s. VC fire rained down on disabled vehicles as Troop C’s 2nd and 3rd platoons advanced and jockeyed for positions. Air and artillery fire was called for, and Troop B moved forward. When VC forces were found to be west of the road, the prepositioned infantry went into action, attacking the ambush force frontally and from both flanks. Well-timed air strikes ended the ambush. The following day, U.S. troops sweeping the area found 240 dead VC, captured 8 prisoners, and recovered dozens of individual and crew-served weapons. A postwar Vietnamese history lists Communist losses in this battle as 128 killed and 167 wounded. When EL PASO II ended on July 13, the VC had lost 855 dead and had failed to seize An Loc. Although U.S. forces suffered nearly 200 casualties, the operation was termed a success because Route 13 was reopened and secure. Learning from the near disasters of the two engagements prior to the Battle of Minh Thanh Road, the 1st Division had developed an effective counterambush tactic by which armored cavalry with coordinated air and artillery support would be used as a fixing force against a numerically superior enemy until airmobile infantry could be inserted as encircling maneuver elements. The VC 9th Division, rebuilt with People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) replacements, encountered U.S. troops five months later during Operation ATTLEBORO. JOHN D. ROOT See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; DePuy, William Eugene; United States Army; War

Zone C and War Zone D References Nguyen Quoc Dung. Su Doan 9 [9th Division]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Starry, Donn A. Armored Combat in Vietnam. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980.

Ély, Paul Henri Romuald Birth Date: December 17, 1897 Death Date: January 16, 1975 French Army general, army chief of staff (1953–1954, 1956–1958), high commissioner and commander in chief of French forces in Indochina (1954–1955), and chief of the National Defense Staff (1959–1961). Paul Henri Romauld Ély was born on December 17, 1897, in Salonika, Greece, where his father was a French civil servant. Ély spent much of his early childhood in Cyprus, where he learned Greek and developed an interest in the culture and literature. During World War I, in March 1915 Ély enlisted in the French Army. Wounded in battle, he won the Croix de Guerre with two citations for bravery. In 1917 Ély entered the French military academy of Saint-Cyr, from which he graduated in 1919 as a second lieutenant. Assigned to the French Army General Staff, in 1928 he attended the École de Guerre. He was promoted to captain in 1930 and to major in 1939. In June 1940 during the Battle for France, Ély was so severely wounded in his right hand that it became permanently disabled. Again awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery, he joined the Resistance and in 1942 became a lieutenant colonel and deputy head of the French Forces of the Interior, the military arm of the French underground. In 1944 he was promoted to colonel and served as liaison between the National Resistance Council in France and Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Government, making a number of hazardous trips across the English Channel with military intelligence for the 1944 Normandy Invasion. In 1945 Ély was promoted to brigadier general and then in 1947 to major general in command of Military Region VII. In 1948 he became chief of staff to the inspector general of the French Army, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. In 1949 Ély was promoted to lieutenant general and was sent to Washington as the French representative to the three-member Standing Group of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In August 1953 he returned to Paris as chief of staff of the French Army. That December he also became president of the military committee of NATO. In February 1954 Ély and Defense Minister René Pleven undertook a fact-finding mission to Indochina. Convinced that France could not win the war there without massive military assistance, Ély arrived in Washington on March 20, 1954, in an effort to secure that aid. He candidly informed his American counterpart, Admiral Arthur Radford, of the likely fall of Dien Bien Phu and the dire consequences this would have for the Indochina War and perhaps all of Southeast Asia. It quickly became apparent to the Dwight Eisenhower administration that the only way to save the French would be massive U.S. military intervention, possibly including nuclear weapons. With the British government opposed and the battle apparently too far gone, Eisenhower decided against U.S. intervention, although he did agree, after Ély’s return to Paris, to supply 25 additional Douglas B-26 Invader bombers.

Embargo, U.S. Trade After the fall of Dien Bien Phu, Ély again went to Indochina with generals Raoul Salan and Pierre Pélissier to prepare a military report on which the French government might base requests to its allies for aid. Ély returned to France three weeks later to recommend that France immediately evacuate northern Vietnam and replace General Henri Navarre as commander in chief. On June 3, 1954, the French government named Ély to succeed both Navarre as military chief and Maurice Dejean as French high commissioner. On June 11 French and Vietnamese troops in the southern Red River Delta began Operation AUVERGE, the last major battle of the war, in which they fought their way toward the Hanoi-Haiphong lifeline. On June 17, 1954, Ély returned to France to present alternate military plans to the government of Pierre Mendès-France and then returned to Indochina. The July 21, 1954, Geneva Accords brought the Indochina War to an end. The pro-American Ély contributed much to Ngo Dinh Diem’s consolidation of power, and the training of the Vietnamese armed forces came under Ély’s overall authority. But friction between the French and Americans as well as the presence of French troops wounded the nationalist sensibilities of the Diem government. The last French troops departed Vietnam in April 1956. During 1956–1958 Ély was president of the Chief of Staff’s Committee. In 1958 during the Algerian War (1954–1962) when French settlers and army professionals in Algiers made common cause against the French government in order to keep Algeria an integral part of France, Ély resigned as chief of staff in order to resolve his conflict of loyalties. De Gaulle brought Ély back as chief of staff and in 1960 sent him to Algiers to get the reactions of French Army leaders there to the idea of a truce and proclamation of an autonomous Algerian government. Ély retired as chief of staff of the army in 1961, the year before Algeria became independent. He died in Paris on January 16, 1975. Ély was widely respected for his high principles, modesty, ability to work with others, and capacity for hard work. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also De Gaulle, Charles; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Mendès-France, Pierre; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Ngo Dinh Diem; Radford, Arthur William; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis; VULTURE, Operation References Ély, Paul. Mémoires: L’Indochine dans la Tourmente. Paris: Plon, 1964. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967.

Elysée Agreement Formal treaty signed at Elysée Palace in Paris on March 8, 1949, between French president Vincent Auriol and Emperor Bao Dai whereby France recognized Vietnam as an associated state within the French Union and promised to support its application for

343

membership in the United Nations (UN). According to the treaty, formally ratified by the French Chamber of Deputies in January 1950, France promised to incorporate the Republic of Cochin China within the State of Vietnam. Paris lauded the agreement as proof that Vietnam was “independent,” and the agreement no doubt helped convince Washington that the war in Indochina had been transformed into a civil war between Vietnamese democrats and Vietnamese Communists rather than being a colonial conflict. The reality was quite different. Under the constitutional framework of the French Union, Vietnam could not receive full independence; it could only receive autonomy. France recognized Vietnam’s right to have diplomats in only a few specified countries: China, Thailand, and the Vatican. (Because of the subsequent victory of the Communists in China, India was substituted for China, but India did not recognize the Bao Dai regime.) Proof that the new State of Vietnam was not independent was seen in the fact that it recognized Paris’s right to control its army and foreign relations, and French economic domination of Vietnam was preserved. Stanley Karnow quotes Bao Dai as remarking soon after the treaty was signed that “What they call a Bao Dai solution turns out to be just a French solution.” This meant that Bao Dai was unable to offer Vietnamese nationalists any alternative to the Communists. The French had, however, recognized the territorial unity of Vietnam. By the end of 1949 Laos and Cambodia signed treaties similar to the Elysée Agreement. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bao Dai; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Indochina War References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Embargo, U.S. Trade U.S. trade embargo against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and later the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). U.S. hostility to the Hanoi regime did not end with the fall of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) in April 1975. Washington soon extended its trade embargo, formerly affecting only North Vietnam, to include the SRV. Using the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act for authority, the embargo had originally prohibited trade with or investment in the Communist-controlled portion of Vietnam. With the capitulation of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Washington strengthened the sanctions to prohibit aid from multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank.

344

Embargo, U.S. Trade

U.S-Vietnam Merchandise Trade, Selected Years 1994–2008 Year

U.S. Imports from Vietnam (in millions)

U.S. Exports to Vietnam (in millions)

Trade Balance (in millions)

1994 2001 2002 2005 2006 2007

$50.5 $1,026.4 $2,391.7 $6,522.3 $8,463.4 $10,541.2

$172.2 $393.8 $551.9 $1,151.3 $988.4 $1,823.3

$121.7 –$632.6 –$1,839.8 –$5,371.0 –$7,475.0 –$8,717.9

2008

$12,610.9

$2,673.0

–$9,937.9

The purpose of the embargo in the immediate postwar years was essentially punitive, and U.S. policy makers had no real expectation of influencing Vietnamese actions. As time passed, however, issues arose that hardened the American position and led to an increase in international support for the embargo. Most important in this regard was the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and occupation of that country until 1989. Vietnamese resistance on the lingering prisoners of war/missing in action issue further embittered the Americans. However, persistent frustration over the U.S. failure in Southeast Asia and the need to save face also worked to ensure the embargo’s continuation. The effectiveness of the embargo is difficult to access. Vietnam certainly faced disastrous economic conditions in the years after gaining unification, but the unwise and dogmatic policies pursued by the SRV bore as much responsibility for these problems as did the embargo. Rebuilding the war-torn country under these policies and without significant foreign aid proved slow, and Vietnam faced famine more than once in these years. The most damaging aspect of the trade restrictions was the denial of access to international aid. Postwar Vietnam had little to trade anyway, as its offshore oil deposits remained undeveloped and in dispute. During these years of Vietnamese economic isolation, the Soviet Union proved to be Vietnam’s greatest source of aid. Ironically, the greatest effect of the trade embargo may have been to drive Vietnam closer to the Soviet Union. The Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia drained precious economic resources and was the primary impediment to foreign investment. With the Soviet Union itself teetering on economic collapse and with aid from that country diminishing, the SRV withdrew its troops from Cambodia in September 1989. Foreign aid and investment soon began trickling in. Although trade with the former Soviet Union fell off significantly, new relationships with Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong proved fruitful. By 1991 these were the top three traders with Vietnam, accounting for an influx of some $2.1 billion. Economic assistance to the SRV also began to grow, amounting to some $600 million in 1992. As foreign investment in the SRV grew, U.S. firms pressed Washington to relax restrictions to prevent American companies from losing more opportunities. Many Americans still smarted from the experience of the war, however, and the trade barriers fell slowly and in piecemeal fash-

Notes Embargo ended Normal trading relations (NTR) status established Permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) status established

ion. In April 1992 the United States allowed the reestablishment of direct telephone service with Vietnam, a useful precursor to doing business. That December the George H. W. Bush administration responded to Hanoi’s increased cooperation in recovering and identifying the remains of American soldiers by allowing U.S. businesses to enter into contracts with Vietnamese businesses and government. Although these contracts could not yet take effect, this action hinted at the imminent further relaxation of restrictions. In July 1993 President Bill Clinton renewed Vietnamese access to international funds, and in February 1994 he formally lifted remaining trade restrictions. American firms such as IBM, General Electric, and Citibank soon entered the newly opened Vietnamese market. U.S. investment in the SRV mushroomed from only $3.3 million in 1993 to $1.2 billion in 1995, although the United States was only the sixth-largest investor, trailing Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). Complete normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam occurred in 1997, including the arrival of the first U.S. ambassador in more than 20 years. That same year the SRV agreed to assume debts, the worth about $140 million, incurred by the Saigon government for roads, power stations, and grain shipments before its fall in 1975. Hanoi took this step to help pave the way for most-favored-nation trading status. In the years since the late 1990s Vietnam slowly but steadily moved toward a marketoriented economy, which helped to attract more foreign and U.S. investments. In 2000, Vietnam and the United States concluded a bilateral trade agreement, which strengthened economic ties between the two nations; the agreement went into force in 2001. By 2004 the United States was the SRV’s largest importer of goods, representing about 19 percent of all Vietnamese goods imported by foreign nations. In late 2006 the SRV gained acceptance into the World Trade Organization (WTO), one of the last steps in ending its former economic isolation. MATTHEW A. CRUMP See also Clinton, William Jefferson; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Abegglen, James C. Sea Change: Pacific Asia as the New World-Industrial Center. New York: Free Press, 1994.

Enclave Strategy Beresford, Melanie. Vietnam: Politics, Economics and Society. Marxist Regimes Series. New York: Pinter, 1988. Kim, Young C., ed. The Southeast Asian Economic Miracle. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995. Schultz, Clifford J., II, et al. “American Involvement in Vietnam, Part II: Prospects for U.S. Business in a New Era.” Business Horizons 38(6) (March–April 1995): 21–28. U.S. House Select Committee on Hunger. Three Asian Countries in Crisis: Afghanistan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 100th Cong., 2nd sess., serial 100-27. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988.

Enclave Strategy The enclave strategy was adopted in early 1965 by the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and restricted the movement of U.S. forces to Vietnam’s coastal areas. The strategy was suggested by U.S. ambassador to Vietnam General Maxwell Taylor, who opposed the introduction of large numbers of American troops. The strategy was considered a go-slow approach that would keep the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) as a key player in the war and was supported by the State Department’s George Ball, Robert Johnson, and Thomas Hughes.

345

The strategy was indicative of a larger struggle within the Johnson administration about how far the commitment to Vietnam should go. Inherent in the enclave strategy was the idea that the war had to be won by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and that the most effective U.S. role was to aid ARVN forces by controlling the densely populated coast. The ARVN could then fight inland while American troops protected rear areas. State Department advocates pointed out that the Communists were unlikely to adopt a strategy that would increase their vulnerability to U.S. military might and that given the nature of the conflict, U.S. forces could not hope to win the war for South Vietnam. It was also thought that U.S. forces could not be driven out by Communist military action. The enclave strategy seemed to promise the lowest possible cost in American lives. It would allow ARVN forces to recover and take control of the countryside while the government built credibility and legitimacy, secure in the knowledge that Americans held strategic points. The enclave strategy was first applied to the 3,500 U.S. marines who landed in Da Nang in March 1965. The marines were restricted to occupying and defending critical terrain around the airfield and to support and communications facilities. They were not to engage the Viet Cong (VC) in offensive operations.

A U.S. outpost on a hill above the beach at Da Nang in 1965. The enclave strategy called for U.S. forces to restrict their operations to defense of the densely populated coastal areas. (Bettmann/Corbis)

346

ENHANCE, Operation

The enclave strategy never had the support of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland. He claimed that the strategy would induce a garrison mentality among U.S. troops, who would lose their combat edge and advantages in mobility and firepower if they sat by while the ARVN fought. Increasingly Westmoreland pushed for the introduction of U.S. troops. President Johnson responded with National Security Action Memorandum 328 on April 1, 1965, which reinforced the marines at Da Nang with an additional battalion and 20,000 support troops. The memorandum also allowed the marines to engage in combat as a reserve force in ARVN actions within 50 miles of Da Nang. ARVN’s continued poor performance, coupled with increased Communist attacks in June 1965, convinced U.S. leaders that their strategy was not working. With the Communists seizing one district capital town and destroying at least 1 ARVN infantry battalion each week, Westmoreland on June 7 requested 44 U.S. battalions. He estimated that if this rate continued, South Vietnam could not survive more than six months. On June 27 U.S. forces began to engage the Communists in their own right along the coast and in the Central Highlands, effectively ending the enclave strategy. CLAYTON D. LAURIE

32 UH-1H and 37 CH-47 helicopters, 48 A-37 attack aircraft, 23 AC-119K fixed-wing gunships, additional aircraft, and thousands of other vehicles and weapons. The intent was to replace the equipment that the South Vietnamese had lost in combat during the early days of the Spring (Easter) Offensive in 1972 and also to provide the resources to form new armor, artillery, and air units. In October, Washington launched Operation ENHANCE PLUS to expedite delivery of all items promised from Operation ENHANCE and earlier resupply initiatives, in addition to other matériel that the United States might not be able to send once a cease-fire had taken effect. The result was a massive effort by sea and air between October 23 and December 1972 that brought more than 105,000 major items of military equipment to South Vietnam, about 5,000 tons by air and the rest by sea. The intent was to expand and strengthen South Vietnamese armed forces before any peace agreement went into effect. Unfortunately, South Vietnamese forces were not prepared to handle or maintain the huge influx of equipment, and much of it was still in warehouses when South Vietnam fell to the Communists in April 1975. JAMES H. WILLBANKS

See also Ball, George Wildman; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Westmoreland, William Childs

References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

END SWEEP, Operation See Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam

ENHANCE,

Operation

Start Date: May 1972 End Date: October 1972 U.S. effort designed to increase the combat capability of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1972. The operation began in May 1972 and lasted until December 1972. Operation ENHANCE involved increased weapons and equipment shipments to South Vietnam beginning in May 1972. This resupply effort included shipments of 39 175-millimeter artillery pieces, 120 M-48 tanks,

See also Easter Offensive

ENHANCE PLUS,

Operation

Start Date: October 12, 1972 End Date: December 23, 1972 Massive short-term 1972 logistical aid to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). On October 8, 1972, a delegation from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to the Paris Peace Conference offered the U.S. representatives a peace proposal, which was timed to coincide with the 1972 U.S. presidential election in which President Richard M. Nixon was running for reelection and to pressure his administration to accept a peace treaty. On October 12 the Nixon administration ordered the U.S. military to supply the South Vietnamese government with billions of dollars in military supplies and equipment. Washington hoped that with replenished military stocks the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) would conduct successful offensive operations to strengthen the South Vietnamese position in negotiations following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. This massive influx of aid was dubbed Operation ENHANCE PLUS. From October to December 1972 the United States sent by sea and air to South Vietnam more than 105,000 tons of arms, am-

ENHANCE PLUS, Operation

347

An M-48 tank, several UH-1 Huey helicopters, and a CH-54B Skycrane helicopter, some of which are still in protective coverings, after being unloaded from U.S. ships in Saigon. The equipment was part of Operation ENHANCE PLUS, which provided massive short-term military assistance to the Republic of Vietnam. (Bettmann/Corbis)

munition, fuel, spare parts, and communications items. ARVN ammunition stockpiles, for example, were increased from 146,000 tons to more than 165,000 tons during ENHANCE PLUS. By January 1973 the United States had provided $2 billion worth of military equipment, and South Vietnam possessed the fourth-largest air force in the world. In 1972 General Creighton Abrams directed that Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), change its emphasis from direct combat support of the ARVN to restructuring its administration, supply, and logistics. U.S. combat units were continuing their phased withdrawal, and the ARVN assumed greater responsibility for the conduct of operations. U.S. advisory teams, while still accompanying ARVN units on combat missions, would be gradually withdrawn, but U.S. advisers would continue to assist in upgrading ARVN command, staff, and logistical functions. Operation ENHANCE PLUS was an outgrowth of Operation ENHANCE, which began in May 1972 after the ARVN successfully blunted the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) Easter Offensive. Originally ENHANCE was the replenishment of all ARVN equipment lost during the Easter Offensive. In addition, Washington directed MACV to provide South Vietnam with new equipment for future increases in ARVN force structure. ENHANCE scheduled for delivery to the ARVN 70,767 individual and crewserved weapons, 382 artillery pieces, 622 tracked vehicles, 2,035

wheeled vehicles, and more than 11,000 major communications items. On October 12, 1972, Operation ENHANCE PLUS commenced to ensure delivery of all Operation ENHANCE items as well as any other outstanding logistical support packages promised by the United States to South Vietnam. On October 19 National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and General Creighton Abrams, who in June had assumed duties as chief of staff of the U.S. Army, arrived in Saigon for consultations with Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and General Frederick C. Weyand, who had replaced Abrams as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Kissinger also presented to South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu texts of the Paris Peace Accords. Although Thieu torpedoed the agreement, infuriating Kissinger and leading to Operation LINEBACKER II, material provided by ENHANCE and ENHANCE PLUS was important in securing Thieu’s eventual grudging support of the reworked Paris Peace Accords that followed the LINEBACKER II campaign. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Bunker, Ellsworth; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Le Duc Tho; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975; Vietnamization; Washington Special Actions Group; Weyand, Frederick Carlton

348

ENTERPRISE, Operation

References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

ENTERPRISE,

Operation

Start Date: February 13, 1967 End Date: March 11, 1968 Military operation initiated south of Saigon in Long An Province during February 13, 1967–March 11, 1968. Operation ENTERPRISE involved the U.S. 9th Infantry Division, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) units, and Regional Forces and Popular Forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry—the first of

the 9th Division’s elements to arrive in Vietnam—reached Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) in January 1967. The 3rd Battalion moved south to Rach Kien the next month. At that time the area was undisputed Viet Cong (VC) territory, and the 3rd Battalion came under harassing fire almost immediately. Platoon- or even company-sized commands venturing outside the camp were certain to meet heavy opposition. Other units of the 9th Infantry Division soon arrived. The entire 3rd Brigade colocated at Rach Kien, while the mechanized 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry, established itself nearby at Binh Phuoc. On February 13, 1967, these elements initiated Operation ENTERPRISE to clear Long An Province of VC forces. On April 9 the 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry, was airlifted into battle along the Rach Dia River against the VC 506th Battalion. Reinforced by two battalions of the 60th Infantry and the ARVN 2nd Squadron, 10th Cavalry, the allied troops swept the area through April 11. Despite suffering considerable losses, the bulk of the VC 506th Battalion managed to scatter and escape. Allied operations continued in the province for another six months, inflicting more than 2,000 VC casualties by the time ENTERPRISE finally ended on March 11, 1968. The operation failed,

A Vietnamese peasant leans on a walking stick as American infantrymen search his village during Operation ENTERPRISE in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam in early 1967. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Enuol, Y Bham however, to clear Long An Province. The VC remained a popular and powerful presence throughout the area even after the events of the 1968 Tet Offensive. EDWARD C. PAGE

349

See also Air Mobility; Attrition; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

See also Clear and Hold; LAM SON 719, Operation; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamization

References Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

References Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Enuol, Y Bham Birth Date: 1913 Death Date: ca. 1975

Enthoven, Alain Birth Date: September 10, 1930 U.S. Department of Defense official. Born in Seattle, Washington, on September 10, 1930, Alain Enthoven was educated as an economist at Stanford University (BA, 1952), Oxford University (MPhil, 1954), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD, 1966). After working for the RAND Corporation from 1956 to 1960, Enthoven served as a systems analyst in the Department of Defense from 1960 to 1969, studying the costs and effectiveness of alternative solutions to defense problems. From 1961 to 1965 he was deputy assistant secretary of defense, and from 1965 to 1969 he was deputy assistant secretary of defense for systems analysis. Enthoven’s early work examined budgetary process and nuclear issues, but in 1961 his office focused on the U.S. Army’s use of its aircraft. Believing that air mobility had merit, Enthoven’s office persuaded the secretary of defense to conduct tests that led to the organization of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) that fought in Vietnam. Beginning in 1966, Enthoven examined the American strategy of attrition in Vietnam and found it wanting. He concluded that Communist forces initiated most firefights and controlled their rate of attrition. Therefore, sending more troops in 1967 would not achieve greater attrition. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed with this conclusion and rejected the request by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, for 200,000 more troops. By 1968, Enthoven strongly opposed the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). After leaving the Department of Defense in 1969, Enthoven served in industry and academe. From 1969 to 1971 he directed economic planning for Litton Industries, and from 1971 to 1973 he was president of Litton Medical Products. From 1973 Enthoven held an endowed chair of public and private management at Stanford University; he currently has emeritus status. He has published significant works on public health care and has focused his work on health care issues. JOHN L. BELL JR.

Rhadé Montagnard and activist and president of the Bajaraka movement and of Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races). Born in 1913 in the Vietnamese village of Buon-Ale-A, Y Bham Enuol was educated at the Franco-Rhadé School and the Christian and Missionary Alliance Bible School in Buon-Ale-A. He later received advanced agricultural training during a threeyear course of study at the École Nationale d’Agriculture in Tuyen Quang. Upon completion of his studies, he became a technical agent in the Darlac Province Agricultural Service and eventually received civil service status in the Cadre Indochinois of the French colonial administration. Enuol was an activist in the ethnonationalist Bajaraka (a consolidation of Bahnar, Jarai, Rhadé, and Koho) movement created in opposition to President Ngo Dinh Diem’s land development program in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to resettle Vietnamese refugees on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands and force the resettlement of Montagnard villagers. For his leadership in the movement, Enuol was imprisoned in 1958 by the South Vietnamese government. Released in 1964, he resumed his work as deputy province chief for Central Highland affairs in Darlac Province as well as his ethnonationalist activities. Bajaraka evolved into FULRO. In 1964 during an uprising at Special Forces camps around Ban Me Thuot, Enuol delivered a FULRO manifesto calling for action to reclaim Montagnard lands taken by the Vietnamese. Again under threat of imprisonment by South Vietnamese authorities, he fled to Mondolkiri Province in Cambodia, where he assumed leadership of a FULRO army of 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers, many of whom had left Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) units, and their 15,000 dependents. There Enuol, as FULRO president, represented the Montagnards in negotiations with the Cambodian and South Vietnamese governments and with the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong (VC). With the 1968 Tet Offensive and the increasing vulnerability of Montagnard villages in the Central Highlands, Enuol sought to return to Vietnam with his FULRO army to protect Central

350

Ethnology of Southeast Asia

Highlands villages from Communist attack. In negotiations with the Saigon government, he was promised that FULRO army units would be integrated into Regional Force units to protect Central Highlands villages and that FULRO leaders were to receive positions in the government in exchange for their support. FULRO militants overthrew Enuol, however, and exiled him, along with his family and immediate followers, to Phnom Penh, where he was placed under house arrest by the Cambodian government in 1970. With the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Enuol and some 150 followers took refuge in the French embassy. Forced to evacuate the embassy by French officials, he was last seen leading the Montagnards from the embassy to surrender to the Khmer Rouge. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Ban Me Thuot, Battle of; Cambodia; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées; Hickey, Gerald Cannon; Khmer Rouge; Mobile Strike Force Commands; Montagnards References Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Free in the Forest: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954–1976. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival among Vietnam’s Highland Peoples during the Vietnam War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Ethnology of Southeast Asia A branch of anthropology, ethnology refers to the study of the origins and distribution of various races, ethnicities, and national boundaries of human beings. While indicators for ethnicity are subjective, ethnicity can usually be identified by certain physical characteristics common in a given population but also by culture, language, and self-identity. Throughout mainland Southeast Asia, most nation-states bear the name of the dominant ethnic group. The Viets, Tais, Malays, Burmans, and Khmers (Cambodians) each gave their own name to the nation-state they dominated or continue to dominate. However, the divisions of ethnicity there have never been precise, and wide overlap and broad dispersions of ethnicities occur throughout the region. The current ethnic distribution in Southeast Asia resulted from the movement of several large tribal groups, beginning with the Khmers who migrated into Southeast Asia from southern China beginning in the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). The Khmers were followed by the Mons and Burmans, who settled along the Irrawaddy River basin in the area of present-day Myanmar (Burma); the Tais, who dominated the center of the region; and the Viets, who pushed down the east coast of Southeast Asia. Through in-

termarriage, enslavement, assimilation, and cultural exchange, the newcomers also inherited some culture and genes from the indigenous Malayo-Polynesian peoples, creating the basis of most major ethnic groups of modern Southeast Asia. The peoples of Southeast Asia had long been influenced by both Hindu and Chinese cultures. In general, the Khmers, Tais, Mons, and Burmans were more heavily influenced by Indian-Hindu culture, while the Viets were more heavily influenced by Chinese culture. Vietnamese culture includes elements of Confucianism, and to a lesser extent Taoism, as a result of almost a millennium of Chinese rule over Vietnam. The strongest Chinese influence is in religion, where Viets tend to be Mahayana (or “Chinese”) Buddhists, while other peoples of Southeast Asia tend to be Theravada (or Hinayana) Buddhists. The division is also reflected in writing systems. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma use an alphabetical script adopted from India, while Vietnam used a Chinese-based writing system until it was replaced with the Latin alphabet by the French in the late 18th century. Despite outside influences, the major ethnicities of Southeast Asia each retained their core cultural aspects. Many smaller ethnic groups also live in Southeast Asia. Most of these marginalized people, usually collectively known as “Hill Tribes” (the French referred to the hill peoples in Central Vietnam as Montagnards) occupy less-fertile lands on the margins of society, while the dominant ethnic groups occupy the lowland river valleys. Most hill tribes are remnants of earlier inhabitants of the region who were pushed to the hills by later arrivals or retreated into the highlands to avoid assimilation. However, in some cases they are descendants of groups who came after the dominant peoples. In addition to Hill Tribes, various ethnicities of “overseas Chinese” (Huaqiao) also live throughout Southeast Asia, usually in urban enclaves. The ancestors of most of these overseas Chinese came from Fujian and Guangdong provinces in southern coastal China and were not Mandarin speakers. Most Chinese in Southeast Asia tend to speak and identify themselves as Hokkien or Teochiu, with lesser numbers of Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese. Most are descendants of people who first began migrating into Southeast Asia during the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE), with larger numbers migrating in the middle of the 19th century. Most of these Chinese sojourners were men who usually married local women but raised their children as Chinese. Only in Thailand did the Chinese largely assimilate, mostly through force, although even Thailand has its distinct Chinese populations. Malaysia has the largest Chinese population, constituting about a third of the population and largely dominating the economy, while the Malays, who are mostly Muslim, dominate politics. Vietnam is one of the most ethnically homogeneous nations in Southeast Asia, with ethnic minorities found mainly in border areas. While ethnically Viet (Kinh) people make up slightly over 86 percent of the population of Vietnam, Chinese as well as other ethnic groups, collectively referred to as Nguoi Dan Toc (“ethnic people”) by the Vietnamese, dominate certain areas of the nation

Ethnology of Southeast Asia

351

Vietnamese Buddhist monks follow prominent monk Thich Nhat Hanh, unseen, in a procession for a ceremony at Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, March 16, 2007. (AP/Wide World Photos)

demographically. The Chinese of Vietnam, mostly Hokkien with lesser numbers of Teochiu, are concentrated in the Cholon (Viet for “Big Market”) section of Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon was known as until 1975. Cholon, also called Tai-Ngon (Cantonese for “embankment”), is situated on the right bank of the Saigon River, across from Saigon proper. While Cholon remains to this day ethnically Chinese, large numbers of Chinese left Cholon and Vietnam following the fall of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to the Communists in 1975, contributing significant numbers of boat people, as the refugees who left Vietnam by sea were called. Cholon lost still more of its population to emigration during the run-up to and aftermath of the 1979 war between the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) and Vietnam. Other ethnic minorities in Vietnam include the Tay, Muong, Khome, Nung, Hmong, and other groups, each of which constitutes less than 2 percent of the population. In general, Viets inhabit the coastal regions and the river valleys. Viet (Viet Kieu) and mixed Viet-Khmer people comprised almost 10 percent of the population of Cambodia, mainly in eastern Cambodia adjacent to Vietnam, until the genocidal policies of the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 until 1979, drastically decreased their numbers. In the far south of Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta and along the southern Cambodian border, live small communities of

Chams, descendants of a people whose kingdoms once controlled all of what is now southern Vietnam. The Viets began migrating into the region from the north by the 16th century and thoroughly dominated southern Vietnam demographically and politically by the early 19th century. Much of the highlands in the inland central region of Vietnam are populated by tribal groups, collectively known as the Degar. Viet people usually refer to the Degar as Nguoi Dan Toc or even as Moi (“savages”). Like many so-called Hill Tribes throughout Southeast Asia, they had originally occupied the coastal areas before being driven into the mountains by the Viets beginning in the ninth century. Most Degars belong to one of about 40 tribes, mostly of Tai, Mon-Khmer, or Malayo-Polynesian origin. The Jarai, Rhade, Bahnar, Koho, Sedand, Bru, Pacoh, Katu, Jeh, Cua, Halang, Rongao, Monom, Roglai, Cru, Mnong, Lat, Sre, Nop, Maa, and Stieng represent the largest of the Degar tribes. Many Degars adopted Christianity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with about half professing Protestantism and the remainder divided between Roman Catholicism and traditional beliefs. The Degars were usually referred to by the Americans during the Vietnam War as Montagnards. American soldiers often shortened the term to “Yard” in spoken English, although the term has since become offensive.

352

Ethnology of Southeast Asia

Minority Montagnards, who had fled from Vietnam, await registration by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in northeastern Cambodia on July 22, 2004. Many Montagnards fled Vietnam’s Central Highlands following massive demonstrations against religious repression and land confiscation. The protests turned violent when Vietnam’s police and security forces clashed with the demonstrators. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Relations between Degars and Viets have often been hostile, with the Degars resisting both the Communists and the South Vietnamese regimes during the Vietnam War. The strategic importance of their lands, on the border area between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam and Laos, brought increased involvement by American Special Forces with the Degars, whose Christianity and hostility to Viets made them natural allies of the Americans. The South Vietnamese government often distrusted American involvement with the Degars, suspecting that American sympathies might lead to support for an independent Degar nation. Their numbers declined after the Vietnam War because of immigration, forced assimilation, and death. The most numerous minority of Vietnam, the Tais, in the far north on the Chinese border, comprise almost 2 percent of the population. In the hills of extreme northwestern Vietnam live the Red Tais and the Black Tais, far more closely related to the Thais of Thailand than to the Viets. The Tais are the most numerous and widespread ethnicity of Southeast Asia. The Tai peoples, also referred to as Siamese, Thai, Shan, and Lowland Lao and by other

names, are settled over large areas of Southeast Asia and parts of southern China. The tonal language of the modern Tais contains several dialects, some of which are not readily mutually intelligible. Tais who remained geographically closer to China, such as those in northwestern Vietnam, remained more Sinoized in their culture. Tais who pushed down the Chao Praya River valley between the Mons and Burmans to the west and Khmers to the east adopted elements of Indian culture, both through contact with the Khmers and by direct Indian involvement in the region. The Tais built several kingdoms in Southeast Asia, culminating in the founding of Siam (called Thailand since 1949), with its capital of Bangkok (Krung Thep) near the mouth of the Chao Praya River, in the late 18th century. The Tais continued to conquer and absorb the indigenous Malayo-Polynesian peoples farther south while confining the Khmers to a rump state of their former empire. This small Khmer kingdom, Cambodia, served as a buffer between Siam and Vietnam and often had to submit to vassal status to both. While Tais account for about 75 percent of the population of Thailand, other Tai people can be found in the Shan states of

Ethnology of Southeast Asia

353

354

European Defense Community

A Tai-minority girl carries a bundle of local roots used for traditional medicine on May 6, 1999, at a market in Lai Chau Province, where ethnic Tai people sell their goods. Minority groups such as the Tai and Hmong make up some 60 percent of the population in this remote Vietnamese province, some 300 miles from Hanoi and bordering Laos. They live in stilt houses and practice slash and burn wet-rice cultivation. They also enjoy a rich culture, including their own written script. (AFP/Getty Images)

Burma, northern Malaysia, western and north-central Cambodia, and parts of inland central and northern Vietnam. Laos is also dominated by Tai people, with the Lao Loum, or lowland Lao, peoples accounting for about 68 percent of the population. The Lao Loums, also called the Thai Nois (“Little Thais”), are culturally similar to the Isan Thais of northeastern Thailand. The Mekong River that divides the Lao Loum from the Isan Thai is a political border, not a cultural or ethnic division. The Lao Theungs, or upland Laos, account for about 22 percent of the population of Laos. The remaining population of Laos consists of Hmongs, with about 9 percent, and Chinese/Viets, with about 1 percent. While the ethnic groupings of Southeast Asia present complex patterns, with few exceptions the various ethnicities of the region show strong cultural and genetic links to each other. Differences in language or religion are all the more conspicuous given the general similarities of the ethnicities of the region. BARRY M. STENTIFORD See also Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest; Vietnamese Culture

References Bellwood, P. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. New York: Academic Press, 1985. Heidhues, Mary Somers. Southeast Asia: A Concise History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000. Higham, Charles. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. SarDesai, D. R. Southeast Asia: Past and Present. 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003. Wang, Gungwu. The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

European Defense Community Treaty that attempted to create a unitary West European army of West German, French, Italian, and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) forces. As the Korean War and the Indochina War raged in Asia, leaving Europe virtually defenseless, pressure mounted for the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). In 1950 French premier René Pleven

Ewell, Julian Johnson developed an alternate plan that would allow West Germany to rearm within an international structure. He proposed the creation of a European Army in which there would be no national units larger than battalions or brigades. This would allow a German manpower contribution without the creation of a general staff or armaments industry. Prolonged negotiations resulted in the signing of a treaty on May 27, 1952, for a European Defense Community (EDC). The treaty provided for a structure of about 40 divisions in which no national unit would be larger than a single division. All soldiers, regardless of nationality, would wear the same uniform, and there would be one general staff. The soldiers would take their orders from the supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a supranational authority. Troops not in the EDC would remain under their own flag. This would allow the signatories, with the exception of West Germany, to retain their national armies. In France there was acrimonious debate over the treaty, as many French citizens had second thoughts about it. Meanwhile, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died in March 1953, the Korean War ended in July 1953, and there were fears in France that the strength of the West German economy meant that West Germany would dominate the new structure. Washington pushed hard for the EDC, but inevitably the EDC became linked with the war in Indochina. Paris tried to tie French approval of the treaty to increased U.S. aid for the Indochina War, bringing an accusation of blackmail from U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson. Acheson’s indictment aside, the new Dwight D. Eisenhower administration in 1953 allotted more than $1 billion to support the French in Indochina. The French, who had first proposed the EDC, ultimately scuttled it. On August 30, 1954, Premier Pierre Mendès-France let treaty ratification die in the National Assembly. At the time, defeat of the EDC was seen as a serious setback for the United States and the Atlantic Alliance, but ultimately an arrangement was worked out whereby West Germany was allowed to rearm within the framework of NATO. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Faure, Edgar; France and Vietnam, 1954– Present; Mendès-France, Pierre References Cook, Bernard. “European Defense Community.” In Europe Since 1945, Vol. 1, edited by Bernard A. Cook, 347–348. New York: Garland, 2001. Monnet, Jean. Memoirs. Translated by Richard Mayne. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978.

Ewell, Julian Johnson Birth Date: November 5, 1915 Death Date: July 27, 2009 U.S. Army officer who commanded the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South

355

Vietnam) during 1968–1969 and II Field Force, Vietnam, during 1969–1970. Born on November 5, 1915, in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Julian Johnson Ewell was the son of a U.S. Army officer. Ewell attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army War College, and the National War College. Upon graduation from West Point in 1939, Ewell was commissioned a second lieutenant. During World War II he took part in the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, as a battalion commander in the 101st Airborne Division. Later that year he commanded a regiment in the defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. During the Korean War (1950–1953), Ewell was a regimental commander in the 2nd Infantry Division. Following promotion to brigadier general on April 8, 1963, he served as assistant division commander of the 8th Infantry Division in Europe during 1963–1965. Between 1965 and 1966 he served as chief of staff of V Corps in Europe. Promoted to major general on April 1, 1966, Ewell served as chief of staff (later deputy commanding general and chief of staff) for the U.S. Army Combat Development Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Assigned to Vietnam, Ewell commanded the 9th Infantry Division from 1968 to 1969. Between December 1968 and May 1969 he led Operation SPEEDY EXPRESS. The large-scale operation claimed 10,899 Communist troops killed at a cost of only 267 American lives, and earned Ewell the nickname “the Butcher of the Delta” because of his alleged fixation on body count. Under Ewell’s command, the 9th Infantry Division achieved a purported kill ratio of 76:1, while the average for U.S. forces at the time was 10:1. In April 1969 Ewell assumed command of II Field Force, Vietnam, then the largest U.S. combat command in the world. A month later, on May 15, he was promoted to lieutenant general. In 1970 Ewell left Vietnam to serve as the top U.S. military adviser at the Paris peace talks. Although he retired in 1973, he was invited to work with Ira Hunt (who served with Ewell as chief of staff of the 9th Infantry Division and as the 1st Brigade commander) in detailing their methods utilized during the Vietnam War. In their book Sharpening the Combat Edge, published by the U.S. Army in 1974, Ewell and Hunt had the final word on Operation SPEEDY EXPRESS. Although the name of the operation was absent from the text, the authors roundly defended both the techniques and the operation itself. Ewell died in Falls Church, Virginia, on July 27, 2009. KIRSTY ANNE MONTGOMERY See also Body Count; Paris Peace Accords References Ewell, Julian J., and Ira A. Hunt. Sharpening the Combat Edge: The Use of Analysis to Reinforce Military Judgment. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973. Martell, Paul, and Grace P. Hayes, eds. World Defence Who’s Who. London: Macdonald & Jane’s, 1974. Who’s Who in America, 1976–1977. Wilmette, IL: Marquis Who’s Who, 1976.

This page intentionally left blank

F FAIRFAX,

Operation

Start Date: November 30, 1966 End Date: December 14, 1967 U.S. military operation to improve security around Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). In 1966 the Viet Cong (VC) threatened to take over parts of Gia Dinh Province, surrounding the capital of Saigon in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI) was especially strong in the Thu Duc and Binh Chanh districts of Gia Dinh. In virtual control of Binh Chanh, the VC could approach Saigon from the west and southwest and cut roads from Long An Province to Gia Dinh. Alarmed by this deterioration in security so near the capital, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland decided to employ U.S. Army battalions to inspire reluctant South Vietnamese regular and territorial units to take action. He hoped that the Americans would lead by example and induce the Vietnamese to improve security around the capital through small unit actions against the local VC forces and cadres. FAIRFAX began on November 30, 1966. The commander of II Field Force Vietnam, Major General Jonathan Seaman, assigned one U.S. Army battalion to each district in Gia Dinh. The South Vietnamese employed three Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) battalions, each linked to an American unit. For example, Brigadier General John Freund’s 199th Light Infantry Brigade paired up with the ARVN 5th Ranger Group. The plan called for U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to operate jointly and restore security to the point that the South Viet-

namese could manage the province themselves and their forces would operate more aggressively. Security improved in Gia Dinh by the end of 1967, according to MACV’s Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) evaluators. But confusion and duplication in collating intelligence led to little progress in identifying or eliminating the VCI. Poor coordination among the district adviser, the adviser to the Provincial Reconnaissance Units, and the American battalion commander hampered the effort. The various American and South Vietnamese intelligence agencies operating in the province failed to share information on VCI in a timely manner. Although the presence of American troops caused some VC forces to depart and the guerrillas to shift underground, in 1967 the VC were still collecting taxes and recruiting. FAIRFAX did not disrupt the web of interpersonal relations and institutions that allowed the VCI to function in Gia Dinh, and the operations of the Americans achieved a stalemate. A South Vietnamese intelligence officer predicted in May 1967 that if the Americans left Gia Dinh, the VC would go on the offensive in a week’s time. The Americans, especially Robert Komer, later head of the American pacification effort, studied FAIRFAX and concluded that the anti-VCI effort needed better coordination. Consequently, Komer sought a way to bring together at the district level all available intelligence information, a search that culminated in 1967 in the establishment of the Phoenix Program. FAIRFAX ended on December 14, 1967. RICHARD A. HUNT See also Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Komer, Robert W.; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Phoenix Program; Westmoreland, William Childs

358

Fall, Bernard B.

References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.

Fall, Bernard B. Birth Date: November 11, 1926 Death Date: February 21, 1967 Prominent war correspondent, author, teacher, and keen analyst of the military and political situation in Vietnam. Born in Vienna, Austria, on November 11, 1926, Bernard B. Fall grew up in France. He served in the French Resistance against the Germans from 1942 and then in the French Army. After discharge in 1946, he was a research analyst at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. In 1951 he went to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar and the following year earned a master’s degree at Syracuse University. In 1953 Fall traveled to Indochina to do research for his doctorate. There he observed firsthand the end of French rule in Indochina and was allowed to accompany French forces into the field on combat operations. He returned to the United States in 1954 and completed his PhD at Syracuse in 1955. He then began an

academic career as an assistant professor at American University. Later he went to Howard University, attained a full professorship, and remained on the faculty there until his death. Fall wrote seven books and more than 250 magazine articles about Vietnam and Southeast Asia. His 1961 book Street without Joy became a classic account of the Indochina War. In 1966 he also published Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, a definitive account of that battle. Both books were widely read by American officers and many GIs who served in Vietnam. Fall was deeply critical of both French and U.S. approaches to the Vietnam War. He admitted that America, with its massive mobility and firepower assets, could not be defeated militarily by the Communists. But the Vietnam War, he maintained, was first and foremost political, a fact that neither the Americans nor the French before them fully understood. Because Fall analyzed all sides of an issue with the same degree of penetrating criticism, his writings were often cited by supporters as well as opponents of the war. Fall believed in collecting information firsthand. On February 21, 1967, while accompanying a U.S. Marine Corps patrol near the coast northwest of Hue, he was killed by a Viet Cong (VC) mine. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Halberstam, David; Salisbury, Harrison Evans References Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Fall, Bernard B. Last Reflections on a War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. Vietnam Witness, 1953–66. New York: Praeger, 1966. Fall, Dorothy. Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006.

FARM GATE,

Operation

Start Date: 1961 End Date: 1967

Prominent Vietnam analyst Bernard Fall of Howard University in Washington, January 1965. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Extended U.S. air operation in Vietnam. Operation FARM GATE began on October 11, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy ordered the United States Air Force (USAF) to send a combat detachment to assist the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in its struggle against an increasingly aggressive Communist insurgency. Kennedy earlier had asked the military services to develop a counterinsurgency capability. The USAF had responded by forming the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron. Nicknamed “Jungle Jim,” the unit relied on older propeller-driven aircraft to both train indigenous air forces and undertake limited combat missions in support of ground forces. Code-named operation FARM GATE, the 155 officers and airmen of Detachment 2A, 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron, arrived at Bien Hoa Air Base—some 10 miles from the South Vietnamese

Faure, Edgar capital of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City)—in November 1961. Distinctive in their Australian-type bush hats, fatigues, and combat boots, the air commandos (as they were known) initially were restricted to training South Vietnamese airmen. Soon, however, the mission’s eight North American T-28 Trojans, four Douglas A-26 Invaders, and four Douglas C-47 Skytrains became involved in other tasks. FARM GATE’s expanding role in the war began shortly after the detachment’s arrival in Vietnam when it started flying reconnaissance missions and providing logistical support to U.S. Army Special Forces. On December 6, 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) authorized FARM GATE to undertake combat missions, provided that at least one Vietnamese national was carried on board strike aircraft for training purposes. During 1962 the propeller-driven B-26s and T-28s of FARM GATE became the nucleus of an expanding American air effort in Vietnam. The emphasis continued to focus on training South Vietnamese airmen to bear the burden of combat. FARM GATE aircraft also flew air strikes; however, they were restricted by rules of engagement to missions that the Vietnamese were not able to undertake. Poor facilities, inadequate supplies, and the lack of a clearly defined role in the war contributed to morale problems within FARM GATE throughout the year. Ever-increasing requests for air support as the war intensified led President Kennedy on December 31, 1962, to approve an expansion of FARM GATE. Its growth in 1963 brought organizational changes. In July the contingent at Bien Hoa became the 1st Air Commando Squadron (Provisional), part of the Pacific Air Force (PACAF). The squadron contained two strike sections of 10 B-26s and 13 T-28s plus support sections of four Helio Aircraft U-10 Super Couriers (used for psychological warfare) and six C-47s. In addition, there were small detachments of B-26s at Pleiku and Soc Trang. Although the PACAF wanted to drop the code name of FARM GATE, Washington disapproved on grounds that the change might cause confusion for the logistical facilities supporting the operation in Vietnam. Despite the expansion of FARM GATE, the growing intensity of the ground war brought demands for combat operations that the air commandos were unable to fulfill. For example, between May and August 1964, 431 requests for air support went unanswered. The sortie rate for FARM GATE aircraft suffered from shortages of spare parts and structural problems with the wings of the B-26s. Aircraft problems continued to plague FARM GATE during the early months of 1964. Following several structural failures, that spring FARM GATE’s B-26s and T-28s were replaced by more modern Douglas A-1E Skyraiders. The growth of the American role in the war also led to the establishment of a second squadron of A-1Es (the 602nd Fighter Commando Squadron) at Bien Hoa in October. FARM GATE underwent a major change in March 1965. Washington finally dropped the requirement that a South Vietnamese national be carried on combat missions. At the same time, Sec-

359

retary of Defense Robert S. McNamara approved the replacement of South Vietnamese markings on the aircraft with regular USAF markings. The two FARM GATE squadrons of A-1Es were now flying 80 percent of all sorties in support of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). As the USAF presence in South Vietnam increased in 1966, FARM GATE declined in importance. In January the two A-1E squadrons moved out of Bien Hoa. One went to Nha Trang and then transferred to Thailand at the end of the year. The other squadron flew out of Pleiku. The last vestiges of FARM GATE disappeared at the end of 1967, when the squadron at Pleiku redeployed to Thailand. By this time, the war in South Vietnam had long since lost its counterinsurgency character and assumed a more conventional nature. The air commandos would find a more congenial environment for their special talents in Laos, where a different kind of war was being fought. WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; United States Air Force References Futrell, Robert F. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years to 1965. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1981. Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1988.

Faure, Edgar Birth Date: August 18, 1908 Death Date: March 30, 1988 French centrist politician, cabinet minister 11 times, and premier of France twice (1952 and 1955–1956). Born on August 18, 1908, in Béziers, southern France, Edgar Faure studied to become a concert pianist before attending the School of Law in Paris, where he took high honors and became a lawyer at age 19. In November 1942 when the Germans occupied southern France, Faure and his family escaped by boat to Algiers. Faure then joined the government-in-exile headed by General Charles de Gaulle. After the war Faure assisted at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. In 1946 Faure was elected to the first regular postwar National Assembly, and the next year he became vice president of a legislative committee investigating war guilt in France during 1933–1945. He first secured full cabinet minister rank in 1950 as budget minister, and he then served in a succession of governments as either justice or finance minister. In January 1952 Faure became premier for the first time, but his ministry lasted only 40 days. Three years later in February 1955, Faure again became premier following the collapse of the government headed by his friend Pierre Mendès-France, holding the

360

Federal Bureau of Investigation

French premier Edgar Faure answers reporters’ questions following a meeting at the Elysée Palace in Paris, France, November 30, 1955. (AP/Wide World Photos)

position until January 1956. Faure’s major accomplishment was to pass the accords permitting rearmament by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany), an effort to ease disagreement over the Saar region, which the French had occupied since the end of the war. In May 1955 during a meeting in Paris, Faure had a confrontation with U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles regarding French influence in Vietnam. Judging Ngo Dinh Diem, leader of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), to be “not only incapable but mad,” Faure broke with Washington over its support of Diem. This French attitude helped pave the way for unilateral American action in South Vietnam. Lessened French interest in Indochina at this time was also occasioned by unrest in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. Defeated for reelection to the National Assembly in November 1958, Faure undertook a series of diplomatic assignments for President de Gaulle, including the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In 1968 as education minister, Fauer carried out the reforms that eased tensions following student riots that May.

Faure wrote numerous books on history, law, politics, and international relations. He even published several novels. Faure died in Paris on March 30, 1988. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also De Gaulle, Charles; Dulles, John Foster; European Defense Community; Mendès-France, Pierre; Ngo Dinh Diem References Smith, M. S. “Faure, Edgar.” In Historical Dictionary of the French Fourth and Fifth Republics, 1946–1991, edited by Wayne Northcutt, 172–174. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Branch of the U.S. Justice Department responsible for investigating violations of federal law in cases not specifically assigned to

Fellowship of Reconciliation other federal agencies; these include more than 200 categories of federal-level crimes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may also act as a de facto domestic intelligence agency. Created in 1908 to bolster Justice Department enforcement capabilities, the FBI evolved into one of the most advanced and respected investigatory agencies in the world. From 1924 to 1972 the FBI operated under the close, almost dictatorial, control of Director J. Edgar Hoover, whose longevity and personal power within the executive branch was unparalleled in American history. But the FBI’s role in law enforcement and its performance have often attracted controversy and criticism. Charged with investigating such activities as bank robbery, kidnapping, organized crime, sabotage, and fraud against the federal government, the FBI during the mid1930s received the additional responsibility of conducting domestic counterintelligence. Beginning with John F. Kennedy, U.S. presidents frequently authorized the use of wiretaps, many of dubious legality, to counter perceived domestic threats. The Civil Rights Movement attracted much attention from the FBI. Dr. Martin Luther King, for example, was subjected to almost constant FBI surveillance for several years, including wiretaps. The FBI devoted much effort in trying to establish a link between King and foreign Communist interests but to no useful end. This unfortunately obscured the FBI’s many positive contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. The anti–Vietnam War movement greatly concerned presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Under its domestic counterespionage mandate, the FBI conducted numerous counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs), including the electronic surveillance, infiltration, and harassment of antiwar groups believed to be supported or encouraged by Communist governments. COINTELPRO initiatives also focused attention on such groups as the Black Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan. For most of the Vietnam War period, Hoover was a willing accomplice of Johnson and Nixon and shared many of their concerns and obsessions. But the relationship changed as Nixon’s paranoia intensified. Nixon extended electronic surveillance to his own administration, especially the State Department and the Defense Department, in an effort to plug information leaks. In 1970 Nixon attempted to create a covert, extralegal intelligence force that would include elements of the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council (NSC). The so-called Huston Plan found some favor in the Nixon administration, but according to former FBI official Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, Hoover killed the plan when Nixon refused to provide written authorization. The director also feared the loss of the FBI’s long-standing autonomy in such an arrangement, something he was unwilling to allow. Hoover’s death in 1972 opened the door for a more accommodating director, L. Patrick Gray. But by this time the Watergate Scandal was unfolding, and the FBI was involved in ongoing investigations that Gray could not control. With the bureau making some headway, Nixon, along with Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman,

361

conspired to have the CIA derail the FBI investigation into the Watergate Scandal. Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 largely ended the issue, but in the wake of the Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam War, the FBI faced a major image crisis as a convenient, if not totally deserving, example of governmental excess, a problem that continues to plague the bureau. In more recent years, particularly after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, the FBI has reoriented its focus of operations, making counterterrorism one of its highest priorities. DAVID COFFEY AND LEE ANN WOODALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Black Panthers; Central Intelligence Agency; Civil Rights Movement; Hoover, John Edgar; Huston Plan; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States Department of Justice References DeLoach, Cartha D. “Deke.” Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995. Kessler, Ronald. The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. New York: St. Martin’s, 2002. Ungar, Sanford J. FBI. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976. Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. The Final Days. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976.

Fellowship of Reconciliation International peace organization. The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) played an important, although not very public, role in the American Civil Rights Movement and antiwar movement. The organization was founded in Great Britain during World War I in 1914, and its American branch opened in 1915. FOR is currently located in Nyack, New York. With organizations in some 50 countries, FOR is an interdenominational religious pacifist organization dedicated to antimilitarism, peace, international reconciliation, domestic social and economic justice, environmental preservation, and racial harmony. FOR has assisted groups such as the War Resisters League, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and Another Mother for Peace. During the 1950s FOR conducted workshops on civil disobedience and nonviolence to support the Civil Rights Movement. The leading spokesperson for FOR during most of the 1960s was A. J. Muste (1885–1967), who in 1964 issued the first public statement advocating draft resistance to the Vietnam War. In 1965 antiwar sentiments arose in response to the rapid military buildup in Vietnam. Disparate groups, each with its own agenda, began protesting. FOR provided leadership and organization that helped focus these groups and guide the movement. Throughout the period of the Vietnam War, FOR’s actions remained consistent with its position of a freely elected government

362

Felt, Harry Donald

in Vietnam and a negotiated settlement that would stop killing by both sides. The organization did not debate with or confront radical antiwar leaders. Instead, FOR acted as a moderating influence on radical groups who advocated anti-U.S. demonstrations or who burned American flags or displayed flags or slogans of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). FOR conducted nonviolent demonstrations that stressed education and peaceful solutions. One such activity was the Movement Center established for the November 1969 demonstration in Washington, D.C. The center served as a clearinghouse for information and a forum for discussion of nonviolent means. In 1970 after the shootings at Jackson State College and Kent State University sparked by antiwar protests, FOR assembled an interdenominational group of clergy who asked for an immediate cutoff of military funding and held a Prayer Service for Peace at the White House. President Richard M. Nixon originally blocked the protest but later backed down, a move that antiwar leaders considered a major victory. In 1971 FOR initiated Project Daily Death Toll (also known as Project DDT) in which Americans, every day in November until Thanksgiving Day, gathered in front of the White House and lay down as if dead to illustrate the 2,000 people of Southeast Asia dying each week from the war. Perhaps the most far-reaching contribution of FOR to its objective of peace has been draft-resistance counseling. During the Vietnam War era, as in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, FOR advised and supported conscientious objectors and those opposed to military service. The organization has also done so for subsequent U.S. conflicts. FOR also assisted Vietnamese victims of the war by raising money for medical aid and assisting Buddhist groups in their peace efforts. For example, FOR sponsored Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh when he visited the United States in 1965. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, FOR protested the mistreatment of Buddhist pacifists and other antimilitary activists in Vietnam and continued its activities of working for peace. Today FOR remains one of the country’s most active peace organizations, committed to nonviolence and social justice. Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War and again during the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, FOR sponsored delegations of peace activists and clergy who traveled to Iraq in an attempt to avert war. CHARLES N. FASANARO See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Buddhism in Vietnam; Civil Rights Movement; Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam; Conscientious Objectors; Jackson State College Shootings; Kent State University Shootings; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Dekar, Paul R. Creating the Beloved Community: A Journey with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing, 2005. Wallis, Jill. Valiant for Peace: A History of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1914–1989. London: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1991.

Felt, Harry Donald Birth Date: June 21, 1902 Death Date: February 25, 1992 U.S. Navy admiral and commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command, during 1958–1964. Born in Topeka, Kansas, on June 21, 1902, Harry Donald Felt graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1923. After several assignments on battleships and destroyers, in 1929 he earned his wings as a naval aviator. During World War II Felt served in the Pacific theater in squadron, air group, and carrier commands. During the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on August 14, 1942, Commander Felt led Air Group 3 from the carrier Saratoga to attack and sink the Japanese light carrier Ryujo. Felt was promoted to captain in July 1943. In March 1944 he was the first naval aviator to be assigned to the U.S. Military Mission to the Soviet Union. During 1945–1946 he commanded the escort carrier Chenango, participating in the Battle for Okinawa. Following World War II, Felt was assigned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. He graduated from the Naval War College in 1948 and then assumed command of the carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Mediterranean. In January 1951 Felt was promoted to rear admiral and assumed command of the Middle East Force in the Persian Gulf. Promoted to vice admiral in February 1956, he commanded the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean until his promotion in September 1956 to admiral and appointment as vice chief of naval operations. In July 1958 Felt became commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command (CINCPAC). Because of his strong personality, he was informally known as “CINCFELT.” During his tenure of 1958–1964, he directed the U.S. efforts involving the Taiwan Strait, Laos, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Felt was an intense officer who had a reputation as a harddriving perfectionist with an abrasive personality. A supporter of the John F. Kennedy administration’s counterinsurgency strategy, Felt oversaw the deployment to Laos and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) of increasing numbers of U.S. Army Special Forces, U.S. Navy SEAL (sea, air, land) teams, and U.S. Air Force Air Commandos. Felt also presided over the employment of the South Vietnamese–crewed fast patrol craft of OPLAN 34A in the coastal waters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). During Felt’s tour as CINCPAC, U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps helicopter companies, U.S. Navy coastal patrol ships, and U.S. Air Force tactical squadrons operated in support of the South Vietnamese forces. Although he was publicly optimistic about the outcome of the Vietnam War, Felt opposed the dispatch of U.S. ground troops, warning that there was no sound strategy, that it would only lead to a prolonged U.S. presence there, and that it would be perceived throughout Asia as the reintroduction of colonialism. In 1962 he predicted that the Viet Cong (VC) would adopt prolonged attrition warfare in South Vietnam that could not be defeated by purely mil-

Fernandez, Richard

363

Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command Admiral Harry Felt (right) is greeted on his arrival in Saigon on March 6, 1962, by U.S. ambassador Frederick Nolting. An energetic supporter of the Kennedy administration’s counterinsurgency strategy, Felt oversaw the deployment of increasing numbers of U.S. forces to Laos and South Vietnam. (Naval Historical Center)

itary means. Felt favored U.S. training of Vietnamese and Laotian forces without the introduction of U.S. ground force units. In February 1962 upon the orders of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Felt created the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), headed by General Paul D. Harkins. MACV was subordinate to the CINCPAC, and Felt exercised close control over MACV’s activities, on occasion denying Harkins’s requests for equipment, interfering with MACV strategic planning, and insisting that Harkins communicate with the JCS through CINCPAC. Some observers believed that Felt impeded Harkins’s work. Having reached mandatory retirement age, Felt retired in July 1964. Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp succeeded him as CINCPAC the month before. Felt spent his later years in Hawaii, dying there on February 25, 1992. EDWARD J. MAROLDA AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also DeSoto Missions; FARM GATE, Operation; Harkins, Paul Donal; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Operation Plan 34A; Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr.; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States Navy References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994.

Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Fernandez, Richard Birth Date: July 1, 1934 Executive director of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), America’s largest religiously based antiwar organization, and an important figure in national antiwar activities. Born on July 1, 1934, in Nutley, New Jersey, Richard Fernandez graduated from Andover-Newton Theological School in 1964 and was ordained in the United Church of Christ. He participated in the Civil Rights Movement and worked as a campus minister prior to joining CALCAV in May 1966. Fernandez strengthened CALCAV by organizing local chapters across the country, planning creative actions against the war, and being a highly effective fund-raiser. Acting as a liaison between CALCAV and the larger antiwar movement, he represented the organization in national meetings and contributed to coalition

364

Ferry, Jules

activities. Fernandez joined Lee Webb in 1967 as codirector of Vietnam Summer, an effort to build a grassroots political base for de-escalating the war. Fernandez also involved himself with the Committee of Liaison to facilitate communications between American prisoners of war and their families. Despite his outreach, however, CALCAV rarely established formal ties to the antiwar coalitions out of concern that inflammatory rhetoric or radical leadership might alienate its primary constituency. Fernandez resigned from CALCAV in June 1973 and since 1981 has directed Philadelphia’s Northwest Interfaith Movement. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam; Fellowship of Reconciliation References Hall, Mitchell K. Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Ferry, Jules Birth Date: April 5, 1832 Death Date: March 18, 1893 French politician, promoter of imperialism and educational reform, and twice premier of France (1880–1881 and 1883–1885). Born into a prosperous family on April 5, 1832, at Saint-Dié (Vosges), Ferry enhanced his financial position through marriage. Following his father in the practice of law, the staunch republican Ferry was influenced by positivism and was also active as a journalist. He gained national attention in 1868 when he published a report detailing financial mismanagement by Baron GeorgesEugène Haussmann in the rebuilding of Paris. In 1869 Ferry won election to the Corps Legislatif (the French parliament) from Paris as a radical republican. During the FrancoPrussian War (1870–1871) he played a leading role in the September 1870 revolution in Paris and the city’s subsequent siege, but these experiences and the Paris Commune turned him toward moderate republicanism, and he became a leader of the so-called Opportunists. From 1871 to 1875 Ferry was a deputy in the National Assembly, and from 1876 to 1889 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies. As minister of public instruction (1879– 1881 and 1882–1883), he was the prime mover behind the important educational reform and anticlerical legislation known as the Ferry Laws. As premier, Ferry secured his goals by working piecemeal. Largely indifferent to criticism, he had a bland leadership style that helped root the Third Republic’s tradition of premiers dependent on Parliament. To many Frenchmen, Ferry’s chief claim to great-

ness lay in expanding French colonial power, but he showed no interest in supporting imperialism before he came to power and initiated almost none of the colonial enterprises of the 1880s, most of which were the work of officials on the spot. As someone has noted, the French Empire was largely the work of “bored army officers looking for excitement.” Ferry’s own conversion to imperialism seems to have been motivated by the desire to restore French greatness rather than by economics. Apparently he nurtured the hope that France might one day exchange some colonies with Germany for the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. During Ferry’s first premiership (September 1880–November 1881), the French took Tunis (1881) in North Africa. During both his premierships the French expanded their colonies in Africa and French Oceania and consolidated their hold over Indochina with the establishment of protectorates on Annam and Tonkin. Ferry’s second ministry (1883–1885) provided three years of governmental and political stability. He fell from power in May 1885 when a minor French defeat at Lang Son in March gave his opponents the opportunity to drive “Le Tonkinois,” as Ferry became known, from office. Defeated in an election for the Chamber of Deputies in 1889, Ferry won election to the Senate in 1891. Selected as its president, he never fully recovered from wounds sustained in an assassination attempt (December 10, 1887) by a religious fanatic. Ferry died in Paris on March 18, 1893, and was accorded a state funeral. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Bailey, Lois Esther. Jules Ferry and French Indo-China. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1946. Gaillard, Jean-Michel. Jules Ferry. Paris: Fayard, 1989. Guilhaume, Philippe. Jules Ferry. Paris: Albin Michel, 1992. Hutton, Patrick H., ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870–1940, Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Power, T. Jules Ferry and the Renaissance of French Imperialism. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1944. Reclus, Maurice. Ferry le Tonkinois; récit historique. Paris: Oeuvres Libres, 1946.

Film and the Vietnam Experience The Background Prior to the 1960s, few Americans knew Vietnam’s geographical location or its history. Saigon, an ephemeral 1948 film noir featuring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd, formed the extent of Hollywood awareness. Americans had little understanding of European colonialism or Asian reactions to it, while communism, in any form, appeared evil. In the exhilaration of his 1961 inauguration, President John F. Kennedy promised to go anywhere and bear any burden in the name of freedom. Yet when young men were called

Film and the Vietnam Experience to fight in a faraway Asian land in a few short years and when they did not believe that their own country was threatened, most showed little enthusiasm for the endeavor. The Vietnam conflict differed from other wars in which Americans had fought, and when major motion pictures inevitably appeared, they reflected these differences. Perhaps only the 1950–1953 Korean War came close to offering an example of the struggle, but even that was a fundamentally different conflict. The self-congratulatory tone of post–World War II films was clearly lacking in Vietnam War film genres. After the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) fell in 1975, it was impossible to perpetuate the myth that Americans did not lose wars. The carnage of the Vietnam War, the first so-called living room war, had been flashed nightly into American homes along with images of frightened children napalmed and young Viet Cong (VC) insurgents bracing for execution. With the Civil Rights Movement heating up at home, the perception grew that minorities and the poor were dying in Vietnam in disproportionate numbers while more affluent youths safely waited out the war in universities and National Guard units. Without time for introspection, Vietnam movies appeared almost immediately in theaters and on television. Of the hundreds of documentaries, television series, and feature films made in several countries, a substantial number have survived, now permanently available through video and DVD. The films benefited from technical advances in special effects, making battle scenes more realistic. Cinematic taboos on sexuality, violence, and profanity, which had made movie soldiers in previous wars seem like Boy Scouts, also evaporated. Since the 1970s, these films have conditioned American perceptions of the Vietnam conflict. Some have been among the most influential motion pictures ever made, winning numerous awards for their directors and actors. A few are now regarded as cinema classics. Because their themes and subjects overlap and although they were made during four separate decades, Vietnam films are best categorized according to type rather than chronology.

The Colonial Period Of the many French films reflecting life in colonial Vietnam, two movies released in 1992 reached wide international audiences. Indochine covers events from 1930 through 1955, providing insight into the colonial oppression against which the Vietnamese revolted. The elegant and cool Catherine Deneuve plays a wealthy plantation owner reared in Vietnam. Her attitude toward the coolies she employs is cruelly patronizing. Even though she entertains a collection of casual lovers, the genuine object of her affections is her adopted Vietnamese daughter. This younger woman soon develops a social conscience, betraying her mother by joining the Communist rebels. Less political but equally revealing of the colonial milieu was The Lover (1992), a fictionalized memoir first published in 1984 by Marguerite Duras, a noted French writer who grew up in Vietnam. Although primarily the love story of a wealthy Chinese bachelor and an adolescent French girl edged into quasi prostitution by her

365

impoverished mother, ethnic complexities of colonial society are well depicted. The Lover, despite its French director and actors, was filmed in English. Two movies based on a novel by British author Graham Greene explored the initial American involvement in Vietnam in the late colonial period. The Quiet American (1958), directed by the renowned Joseph L. Mankiewicz, featured a real-life military hero, Audie Murphy, in the title role. Set in 1952 Saigon, Murphy played a naive American equally perturbed by the corrupt colonial administration and the Communist uprising while advocating a vague “Third Force” as a solution. To accommodate American sensibilities the ending of the story was changed, much to the annoyance of Greene, who had little love for Americans. Greene would certainly have preferred the 2002 remake, more faithful to the original novel. Technicolor also made far better use of the lush Vietnamese countryside in the latter. Saigon Year of the Cat (1983), although originally made for British television, reached substantial American audiences. The 1975 fall of Saigon, described as “the old French city soon to become Ho Chi Min City,” is backdrop to a bittersweet love affair between a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and a British bank officer, played by Dame Judi Dench. The rendering of the frantic American exodus from the city is especially memorable.

Combat Films The most vivid and enduring of the Vietnam films are those that feature vivid scenes of combat. Not surprisingly, they are as controversial as the war itself. The Green Berets (1968) is one of the few abashedly prowar films. Codirected and acted by John Wayne, that symbol of solid American patriotism who nonetheless never served in the military, the movie was popular with audiences even though it was attacked by critics, who delighted in pointing out its numerous anachronisms. The Rambo franchise (1985–1988), directed and acted by Sylvester Stallone, attracted many of the same fans with its larger-than-life hero, a former Green Beret who returns to Vietnam to free American prisoners of war. Go Tell the Spartans (1978), derived from David Ford’s novel Incident at Muc Wa and starring Burt Lancaster, fared better with the critics, and some veterans acclaimed it as the most authentic of the Vietnam films to date. Hamburger Hill (1987) boasted no big-name actors or pronounced ideology but was capably directed by John Irvin and benefited from his firsthand combat experiences. The movie also was heralded as a realistic depiction of combat. Also released in 1978 was an extraordinary film, The Deer Hunter. The winner of five Academy Awards, it introduced Michael Cimino, an eccentric director widely hailed as a genius. His subsequent career would prove disastrous to his studio, but The Deer Hunter remains a classic. With a languid pace appropriate to theme and subject, the plot concentrates on three friends from a Pennsylvania steel town and follows their adventures in Vietnam and beyond. Before leaving for duty, one marries in a beautifully detailed Russian Orthodox ceremony; he returns home an amputee.

366

Film and the Vietnam Experience

Robert Duvall, Albert Hall, and Martin Sheen in a scene from the film Apocalypse Now (1979), one of a number of films depicting the brutality of the Vietnam War and the belief that American involvement in the war was a tragic mistake. (AP/Wide World Photos)

A second returns physically whole but emotionally maimed. The third member of the team, effectively played by Christopher Walken, is the most interesting. He dies in a Saigon gambling den during a game of Russian roulette. Although there were no actual reports of Russian roulette sessions in Vietnam, the death made a dramatic cinematic statement and seemed to suggest that the war was as capricious and vapid as a game of Russian roulette. Platoon (1986) was the first entry in director Oliver Stone’s Vietnam trilogy, inspired by his personal experiences in Vietnam. While it was admired by film buffs, veterans’ organizations found the film highly offensive, with its cliché-ridden emphasis on drug use, drinking, open conflicts between officers, and joy in killing. Equally objectionable to veterans was Full Metal Jacket (1987), the work of film auteur Stanley Kubrick, employing as background the 1968 Tet Offensive. Not Kubrick’s best film, the excessive profanity, marine boot camp clichés, and general caricaturing of military personnel as well as the detailed rendering of the brutal killing of a VC girl, led critic Joseph Roquemore to pronounce Full Metal Jacket “an annoying, pretentious movie.” Although developed from rescue accounts of fighter pilots shot down behind enemy lines, Bat 21 (1988) rarely rises above war-movie clichés. Casualties of War (1989), directed by Brian De

Palma with his usual penchant for violence, is also based on a firsthand account. Michael J. Fox portrays a sensitive youth in a squad led by a mentally deranged sergeant, played by Sean Penn. The sergeant leads a violent raid on a Vietnamese village, abducting and gang raping before finally killing a simple country girl. When the young soldier refuses an order to take part in the brutality and plans to report it, he becomes a marked man. One of the most savage of war movies, Casualties of War seems to indict American soldiers as out-of-control, their moral bearings lost in a foreign land. We Were Soldiers, released in 2002, certainly benefited from additional years of reflection on the Vietnam experience. Featuring Mel Gibson on the battlefield and Madeleine Stowe on the home front, the plot alternates battle scenes with cozy domestic ones that could turn traumatic when taxis arrive bringing telegrams of a battlefield casualty. The soldiers portrayed here are disciplined and dedicated, with troopers of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division fighting bravely, against odds, in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in October–November 1965. The film, dedicated to all who died in Vietnam, friend and foe, pays tribute to the courage of soldiers while avoiding the politics of the war. The most unusual film to come out of the Vietnam conflict is certainly Apocalypse Now (1979), with the expanded Apocalypse

Film and the Vietnam Experience Now Redux issued in 2001 and perpetuating interest in the film and the war. The trials endured in the making of this epic (in which the Philippines substituted for Vietnam) have become legend: typhoons that destroyed sets, actors drugged out or suffering heart attacks, and the eccentricities of actor Marlon Brando. Yet director Francis Ford Coppola persevered to produce this strange masterpiece. Using the Vietnam War as backdrop, Coppola set to work retelling Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Accuracy of Vietnam’s geography and history was sacrificed to the requirements of a gripping narrative of almost absolute evil. The dense atmosphere, fine acting, and several unforgettable scenes make this film a standout. To actor Robert Duvall is given the now famous line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” And the helicopter raid he conducts to a recording of Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” has become a part of military lore. The scenario involves the secret upriver mission of a young U.S. officer (played by Martin Sheen) into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has established a personal cult and committed war crimes. This journey becomes an excursion into hell when the officer finally confronts the notorious colonel (played by Marlon Brando), who quotes T. S. Eliot in a grim monotone and is surrounded by skulls and corpses hanging from trees. Another outstanding movie, more faithful to history, is The Killing Fields (1984), dramatizing events on the periphery of the main action in Vietnam. It was director Roland Jaffe’s first feature film after earning his reputation making documentaries. His subject was the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal campaign in Cambodia. One-third of Cambodia’s population perished during the rampage in the most deadly holocaust, proportionally, in human history. Haing S. Ngor, a doctor who had never before acted but had personally survived the Cambodian massacre, won an Oscar for his portrayal of the native assistant of an American journalist. Ngor was ironically later murdered in a robbery at his California home. One of the best Vietnam War films made was the sadly overlooked Gardens of Stone, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Based on the book by Nicholas Proffitt, it accurately portrays what it was like to be a soldier in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War years.

Comedies Although there was bitter satire in most of the combat movies, actual Vietnam comedies are rare. Three exceptions are notable. Good Morning Vietnam (1988) features Robin Williams in a virtuoso performance as a manic Armed Forces Radio disc jockey who reports the truth, defying his superiors. The disc jockey is relieved of duty, has a frightening adventure in the Vietnamese jungles, and discovers to his sorrow how difficult it is in this land to separate friend from foe. His best friend is revealed to be a VC terrorist. Air America (1990) was Mel Gibson’s first journey into the fray. The film fell short of its stated aim to provide “biting black comedy,” emerging as just another thriller. Its subject was secret operations in Laos, but it did celebrate the courage of American pilots on hazardous missions.

367

Forrest Gump (1994), a blockbuster hit, won six Academy Awards, although many critics found it ethically irresponsible. Rather than a war film, it is a picaresque narrative of an innocent, played by Tom Hanks, who always emerges triumphant from momentous events despite his imbecility. In one episode Gump finds himself in combat in Vietnam as a soldier in the 9th Infantry Division’s 47th Infantry, where he instinctively behaves heroically and saves lives. He then returns home, where he is thrown into a protest demonstration. The film is perhaps best remembered for its trick cinematography, which enabled Gump to come face to face with historical personalities such as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Homecoming Surviving the battlefields and jungles of Vietnam was one feat. Returning home sound of body and mind often turned out to be an even greater challenge, which filmmakers were ready to confront. Dead Presidents (1990) is a so-called ghetto melodrama about African American veterans who resort to crime because of their inability to reconnect with a homeland that denies them equality. Jacob’s Ladder (1990) deals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complete with vivid hallucinations. Actor Tim Robbins is convincing as Jacob, the tormented veteran, but the film’s unfounded accusation, that harmful drugs were tested on soldiers in the field, subverts the film’s authenticity. A host of other motion pictures present more convincing pictures of postwar dislocations. In Coming Home (1978) actress Jane Fonda (known to her detractors as “Hanoi Jane”) plays a nursing volunteer in a hellish military hospital, where Jon Voight plays a paraplegic back from Vietnam. With her husband away in service, the volunteer and her charge fall in love. When the husband returns, he is physically whole but so psychologically depleted that he walks into the ocean. In Born on the Fourth of July (1989), another paralyzed veteran, played by Tom Cruise, endures the horrors of military hospitalization. Based on Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic’s autobiography, it was the second film in Oliver Stone’s acclaimed Vietnam trilogy. With his initial patriotism shattered, the injured veteran joins the antiwar movement and appears at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Stone’s strident tone alienated many viewers, while others responded favorably to his message. Heaven and Earth (1993) completed Stone’s trilogy. Based on the memoir of Ly Le Hayslip, the film provides plenty of action as well as pleasing scenes of Vietnam village life (filmed again in the Philippines) amid the devastations of war. Strongly propagandistic, the plot borders on sentimental romance. A peasant girl is abused by both the VC and the South Vietnamese before being rescued by an American serviceman (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who marries her, brings her to the United States, and then turns abusive. Hayslip asserts her independence and eventually revisits Vietnam as a successful American businesswoman. Three Seasons (1999), directed by Tony Bui, is the first American film made entirely in Vietnam. In four loosely linked stories,

368

Film and the Vietnam Experience

actor Harvey Keitel is a former soldier now seeking the daughter he fathered in Vietnam; a young woman, employed tending lotus blossoms, assists her elderly patron, a poet dying of leprosy; a “cyclo” (bicycle rickshaw) driver falls in love with a feisty prostitute; and an engaging street urchin peddles contraband in the pelting rain of Ho Chi Minh City. The Beautiful Country (2004) examines the plight of a halfAmerican orphan in Vietnam. She escapes with difficulty from Saigon after the war as one of the so-called boat people and has many misadventures before locating her natural father in Texas. In a joyful reunion, she learns that her father, now blinded, had not coldly deserted her mother but instead had been unwilling to burden his young bride with a disabled husband. Also inspired by the plight of the boat people was Journey from the Fall (2005), which details the harsh life in reeducation camps where American collaborators were incarcerated. Those who escape fare little better, their families divided by Communist brutality and the difficulties of U.S. immigration. Piracy at sea is only one of many hazards they face. In Country (1989) differs from other Vietnam films in its focus on the home front. Based on a story by Bobbie Ann Mason, this modest gem of cinema is set in a small Kentucky town. Emily Lloyd plays a woman just out of high school who is haunted by the image of her father, who perished in Vietnam a month before her birth. Her mother has moved on with a second family, and her grandmother is consoled by the belief that her son died for his country. The young woman lives with her uncle (played by Bruce Willis), a Vietnam veteran who is angered by the refusal of his community to honor sacrifices made during an unpopular war. Uncle and niece finally come to terms with their losses in a moving visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The Aftermath The Vietnam experience is now indelibly imprinted on the American psyche. There is even a sort of Vietnam nostalgia, with a proliferation of tourist tours and books about the country. With the emergence of an artistic film industry in the formerly divided country, one talented director has become known in the United States. Three of Anh Hung Tran’s films have appeared in art theatres and on video. They come close to pure cinema, with so little dialogue that the English subtitles are almost superfluous. With their extraordinary visual beauty, they have been called poems in motion. The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) reveals a prosperous Saigon household in the 1950s, with only hints of what is to come, as the camera hovers lovingly over vases and delicate arrangements of food. Cyclo (1996) is a more gritty film, with postwar Ho Chi Minh City revealed, according to critic Kane Kehr, as “a lost circle of hell” where Americans have gone but the dollar is still important. A young man from a good family earns his living as a cycle driver, a human beast of burden, while his sister is forced into prostitution by her lover, an aristocratic poet who now survives by pimping and fencing. Cyclo has been compared, in its

neorealistic style and subject matter, to Vittorio de Sica’s masterpiece The Bicycle Thief (1948) and to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). Still, there are scenes of great beauty, as flowers, food, and lodgings are arranged by humble people of artistic sensibility. With The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000), Tran returned to his earlier impressionistic style. Shot on location in Hanoi and the surrounding lakes, countryside, and Buddhist temples, the sensuous images are more important than the scenario. The viewer can almost feel the dampness of Hanoi in the rain or smell the incense in the temple. As in his earlier films, Tran is more indebted to the classic French cinema than to Hollywood.

The Meaning of It All As this selective survey of films indicates, there were a variety of public responses to the Vietnam War. Even when the war itself was condemned, the heroism of servicemen was frequently acknowledged. Yet the films are limited as historical pieces. They are often inaccurate as to chronology and geography, hazy on explanations of political movements and attitudes, and largely indifferent to prisoner-of-war treatment or the well-documented atrocities of the VC and the Communists. Almost no attention is given to the women who assisted in many phases of the war. Unlike the films of World War II, these movies have not glorified America’s military involvement. The Vietnam films seem to contradict the famous observation of French New Wave director François Truffaut that a genuine antiwar film cannot exist because it is impossible not to make combat exciting. Indeed, the wastefulness of battle has never before been so poignantly revealed. And the shadow of Vietnam has continued to fall on the United States, even as newer military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought renewed attention to these motion pictures. As cinema critic Jamie Russell has observed, these films “aren’t about the war but about America’s attempts to get over defeat and redefine what ‘America’ actually represents.” ALLENE S. PHY-OLSEN See also Art and the Vietnam War; Literature and the Vietnam War; Music and the Vietnam War References Carnes, Mark C., ed. Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. New York: Henry Holt, 1995. Devine, Jeremy. Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second: A Critical and Thematic Analysis of over 400 Films about the Vietnam War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999. Heberie, Mark A., ed. Thirty-Years After: New Essays on Vietnam War; Literature and Film. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. Roquemore, Joseph. History Goes to the Movies. New York: Doubleday, 1999. Russell, Jamie. Vietnam War Movies. London: Pocket Essentials, 2002. Suid, Lawrence H. Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.

Fire-Support Bases

Fire-Support Bases Temporary fortified positions, usually occupied by at least one artillery platoon of two guns and one infantry company, established to support an offensive operation. The early search-anddestroy campaigns in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) demonstrated the need to provide American infantry with maximum artillery and air support while protecting artillery units from Communist attacks. Responding to the widespread enemy threat, the Americans dispersed artillery units in a series of mutually supporting sites capable of assisting ground forces virtually anywhere they operated. Between 1961 and 1973, U.S. forces established more than 8,000 fire-support bases in Southeast Asia, only a fraction of which existed at any given time. The paucity of good, secure roads mandated that most firesupport bases be established by air assault, which required the existence of a suitable landing zone. The bases had to be within range of the ground units they were meant to support. A support base was almost always placed within range of at least one other fire-support base as well as other artillery units (e.g., divisional, corps, and naval) and air support. The site also had to be defensible against infantry assault. Finally, it had to possess a water supply and soil suitable for artillery firing. While the layout of fire-support bases varied, most were constructed with approximately as much depth as width in order to facilitate the quick and accurate delivery of artillery fire in every possible direction. Bases occupied by entire six-gun batteries were usually star-shaped, with one gun emplaced at each point of the star and the sixth in the center. Bases with three-gun or fourgun platoons or batteries were usually arrayed in triangular or diamond formations, respectively. Bases constructed along ridges were often rectangular in shape to conform to the terrain. To warn of possible enemy attacks, base commanders relied on intelligence reports, aerial reconnaissance, trip flares, electronic sensors, radar, and constant patrolling. Standard doctrine was to pair each artillery firing unit with an infantry company to provide for base security. The garrison relied upon multiple layers of defense to defeat an enemy assault. Engineers cleared and leveled ground around the base to establish a killing zone and arrayed barbed wire and Claymore mines to impede attackers. Between the killing zone and artillery pieces lay infantry positions, usually a compact perimeter of mutually supporting bunkers connected by a trench. Behind the infantry positions lay the artillery pieces, each dug in. Some bases featured a central artillery keep, surrounded by an earthen berm. The firebase garrison could deliver or summon an impressive amount of firepower, including artillery support from distant units, air strikes, and fire generated by the base’s own guns. A firedirection center (or fire-support center in bases with more than one battery) coordinated available firepower, while aiming posts, azimuth markers, and sound and digital computers (which almost never worked in Vietnam’s harsh climate) aided in the accurate delivery of fire. Infantrymen covered the killing zone with inter-

369

locking fields of fire from machine guns, automatic rifles, grenade launchers, and light antitank weapons. In some bases, antiaircraft guns and armored fighting vehicles supplemented available firepower. While firebase positions were well dug in whenever possible, this could not be accomplished where water tables were high. Here, positions were built aboveground and fortified as much as practicable. In every base certain structures, such as radar installations and barracks, had to be placed aboveground and thus remained vulnerable to enemy fire. The Americans employed a variety of standard and improvised construction and fortification materials, from sandbags and timber to concrete, steel planking, and discarded freight containers. The primary mission of the fire-support base was to provide artillery support to friendly ground forces engaged in offensive operations within range of the so-called artillery umbrella. During such operations, firebases served as assembly points, command and control centers, and landing zones. Following the 1968 Tet Offensive, the Americans pioneered a tactical concept called an artillery raid whereby guns were rapidly deployed, usually by helicopter, to engage Communist units that were otherwise beyond the reach of artillery fire and then withdrawn. Another important mission of the firebase was to help defend other firebases against enemy assault. The constant establishment, maintenance, and redeployment of fire-support bases posed an immense logistical challenge to U.S. ground forces, which never had enough transport, construction equipment and material, and manpower to meet demands. The relatively small garrison size of firebases made them tempting targets for Communist forces, however, and often forced the Americans to divert resources from other missions to firebase defense. On the other hand, the Americans proved capable of establishing firebases almost anywhere, even in the Mekong Delta, where they employed fixed platforms, landing craft, and pontoon barges. While Communist forces did indeed attack many firebases, they never did overrun one and invariably suffered heavy losses. Finally, firebases regularly provided American and South Vietnamese troops with reliable, accurate, and effective artillery support. FRANCIS M. COAN See also Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Artillery Fire Doctrine; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Search and Destroy References Dastrup, Boyd L. King of Battle: A Branch History of the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery. Fort Monroe, VA: Office of the Command Historian, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1992. Foster, Randy E. M. Vietnam Firebases, 1965–73: American and Australian Forces. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. McKenney, Janice E. The Organizational History of Field Artillery, 1775–2003. Washington, DC: United States Army, Center of Military History, 2007. Ott, David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975.

370

Fishel, Wesley Robert

Fishel, Wesley Robert Birth Date: September 8, 1919 Death Date: April 14, 1977 American political science professor and influential adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Born on September 8, 1919, in Cleveland, Ohio, Wesley Robert Fishel obtained a BS degree from Northwestern University in 1942, did graduate study at the University of Michigan in 1943, and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1948. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945 as a lieutenant and military language specialist in the Pacific theater. Fishel’s professional career combined academic pursuits in the United States with work for the U.S. government in the Far East. He first met Ngo Dinh Diem in Japan in 1950. The following year the two men resumed their acquaintance in the United States. When Diem took control of the Saigon government in 1954, he invited Fishel to advise him on governmental reconstruction. Fishel was an instructor in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, during 1948–1951. He joined the faculty of Michigan State College in 1951 and continued there after it became Michigan State University as assistant professor (1951–1954), associate professor (1954–1957), professor (1957–1967), and finally professor in the affiliated James Madison College (1967–1977). He also filled shorter-term assignments at Johns Hopkins University (1952–1956), American University (1958–1961), and Southern Illinois University (1969), where at the latter he edited Southeast Asia: An International Quarterly. At Diem’s invitation, Fishel arranged for Michigan State University to set up a program under which a faculty resident in South Vietnam would advise Diem’s government on a wide range of issues. This was financed by the U.S. aid program in South Vietnam. Fishel served as chief administrator of the program from 1956 to 1958 and was influential therein until its termination by Diem in 1962. Fishel served as an adviser to the Department of State in the critical weeks of 1963 prior to Diem’s overthrow. Fishel became a member of the American Friends of Vietnam, a public relations lobby for South Vietnam that had been founded in 1954 by historian Joseph Buttinger, and served as its chairman from May 1964 until the spring of 1966. Fishel’s involvement in South Vietnamese affairs as probably the leading academic proponent of American policy there (although he became a strong critic of Diem after 1962) brought him into controversy at home. The Michigan State University program, especially its police training component, was accused of acting as a cover for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) activities. Fishel’s continued advocacy of American policy, and particularly his attempt to rally support for U.S. military intervention in 1965, made him unpopular with the antiwar movement, and he was pilloried in articles and at campus teach-ins. Fishel died in Lansing, Michigan, on April 14, 1977. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN

See also Michigan State University Advisory Group; Ngo Dinh Diem; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Problems of Freedom: South Vietnam since Independence. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1961. Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. Morgan, Joseph G. The Vietnam Lobby: The American Friends of Vietnam, 1955–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Fishhook Name given to a densely forested region in Cambodia across the border from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), immediately north of Tay Ninh Province and west of Binh Long Province and only 60 miles from Saigon. Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces, infiltrating into War Zones C and D, maintained semipermanent installations in the Fishhook area, one of which was the location of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the headquarters that controlled all Communist political activities and military forces in South Vietnam. Fearful of expanding the war, President Lyndon B. Johnson prohibited American forces from pursuing Communist forces into these Cambodian sanctuaries. Beginning in March 1969, however, President Richard M. Nixon authorized secret Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombing strikes against Communist locations in Cambodia, especially in the Fishhook. Throughout 1969 and in early 1970, allied forces destroyed a number of storage depots in War Zones C and D and drove mainforce PAVN units across the border into Cambodia, where they regrouped and expanded their support bases. Base Areas 350, 352, and 353, known to be located in the Fishhook area, became the major objectives of the so-called Cambodian Incursion, ordered by President Nixon and begun on May 1, 1970. During the 60-day operation, the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and 25th Infantry Division, supported by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Airborne Division, pushed Communist forces deeper inside Cambodia and discovered two huge but abandoned fortified bases, which became known as “The City” and “Rock Island East.” In addition to destroying thousands of bunkers, 1st Cavalry units captured massive amounts of military supplies: 23,000 individual and crew-served weapons, more than 15 million rounds of ammunition, 60,000 grenades, 140,000 rockets, 200,000 antiaircraft rounds, 5,000 mines, hundreds of trucks, and more than 20,000 tons of rice. While the Communists chose retreat over pitched large-scale battles, allied forces experienced significant casualties in continuous skirmishes and, especially during the last weeks, in mortar and rocket attacks on temporary firebases. Although the elusive COSVN was not found, the foray into the Fishhook was successful in that the capture

Five O’Clock Follies or destruction of such huge caches of supplies effectively prevented significant main-force activity in War Zones C and D for more than a year, allowing the planned withdrawal of American combat units to proceed. Nevertheless, when the Cambodian Incursion ended, PAVN and VC units quickly reoccupied the Fishhook and, despite the continuation of secret B-52 bombing, replenished their forces and reestablished their operational and supply bases. In the spring of 1972, War Zones C and D again became bloody battlegrounds. JOHN D. ROOT See also Cambodian Incursion; Central Office for South Vietnam; MENU, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Parrot’s Beak References Coleman, J. D. Incursion. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

371

Five O’Clock Follies Derisive epithet appended by the media to daily media briefings by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Office of Information (MACOI) at the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) in Saigon. The JUSPAO was essentially a resource and logistics center for newspeople, providing many services to media personnel to assist in their quest for news. The MACOI was the interservice information office located at MACV headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside of Saigon. MACOI staff compiled daily communiqués from operational reports received at the MACV operations center and monthly chronologies of U.S. military actions. Each day members of the MACOI staff would travel to the JUSPAO building auditorium to present the military portion of the daily 5:00 p.m. briefing. The Five O’Clock Follies was so-named because of the little trust that reporters had in the information presented by those briefings.

Brigadier General Stan McClellan, chief of staff of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), conducts a press conference in 1973. Daily media briefings by MACV were derisively termed the “Five O’Clock Follies” by many members of the press corps, who believed the briefings were a propaganda exercise and often lacked credibility. (Department of Defense)

372

FLAMING DART I and II, Operations

In reality, this distrust of official information provided to the press began in the advisory period during the John F. Kennedy administration, when U.S. information sources in Saigon were obligated to stress the positive side of the conflict. As the war escalated under the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and with the Americanization of the war, pressure to stress damage done to the Communists while limiting the impact of that to the United States and its allies led to what became known as a credibility gap. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office; Media and the Vietnam War; Television and the Vietnam War References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Wyatt, Clarence R. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

FLAMING DART I

and II, Operations

Event Date: February 1965 Reprisal air raids signaling a sustained bombing campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Influenced by U.S. ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor in Saigon, the National Security Council proposed on December 1, 1964, a two-sided program for aerial attacks aimed at North Vietnamese targets. President Lyndon Johnson endorsed the first phase that called for reprisals as well as U.S. Air Force raids into Laos (Operation BARREL ROLL). Johnson postponed the start of the second phase, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam. Troubled by the political instability in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and wanting to assess the effects of Operation BARREL ROLL, Johnson remained unyielding yet was willing to consider retaliatory air strikes, provided they be executed jointly by South Vietnamese and American airmen. Early on Sunday, February 7, 1965, Viet Cong (VC) forces mounted a combined mortar and sapper attack against the U.S. helicopter installation at Camp Holloway and the adjacent Pleiku airfield in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The attacks killed 8 U.S. servicemen, wounded 109, and destroyed or damaged 20 aircraft. Even before this attack, presidential advisers John T. McNaughton and McGeorge Bundy had favored bombing North Vietnam. Bundy, present in Saigon on a fact-finding mission,

joined with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William C. Westmoreland and U.S. ambassador Taylor in urging a retaliatory raid. Johnson agreed. Along with demonstrating U.S. resolve, he hoped that quick and effective retaliation would persuade the North Vietnamese that their leadership could not rely on continual freedom from bombing while persevering in belligerent actions against South Vietnam. Johnson dismissed the possibility that a restricted attack would bring Chinese or Soviet involvement. Carried out with South Vietnamese concurrence and participation under a previously developed Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) contingency plan labeled FLAMING DART, the attack was directed by Rear Admiral Henry L. Miller, commander of Task Force 77 of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet. On February 7, 49 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk and Vought F-8 Crusader aircraft from the carriers Coral Sea and Hornet bombed and rocketed North Vietnamese training installations at Dong Hoi, some 40 miles north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the 17th Parallel. One A-4 was lost in the attack. The next day 24 Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) propeller-driven Douglas A-1 Skyraiders, led in person by Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, hit the Chap Le barracks and communication center at Vinh Linh, 15 miles north of the DMZ. The attackers destroyed 47 buildings and damaged 22 of 500 targeted. The VC quickly retaliated for FLAMING DART I. On February 10 VC operatives smuggled 100 pounds of explosives into the four-story Viet Cuong Hotel in the coastal city of Qui Nhon in Binh Dinh Province. The ensuing blast reduced the building to rubble and killed 23 Americans and wounded another 21. Two VC were slain at the hotel. FLAMING DART II was the retaliation for the Qui Nhon attack. On February 11 Admiral Miller launched 99 sorties from the Coral Sea, Hancock, and Ranger against the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) facilities at Chanh Hoa. At the same time, 28 VNAF A-1 aircraft again struck the Chap Le facility. Three U.S. Navy aircraft were shot down in the attack, and one pilot was taken prisoner. Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the sustained bombing campaign of North Vietnam, began on March 2. RODNEY J. ROSS AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Airpower, Role in War; BARREL ROLL, Operation; Bundy, McGeorge; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNaughton, John Theodore; Nguyen Cao Ky; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Clodfelter, Mark. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986.

Fonda, Jane Seymour

Flexible Response U.S. strategic defense policy developed in the early 1960s by retired U.S. Army general Maxwell Taylor that called for the equilibration of nuclear and conventional forces in order to give U.S. war planners more options in the event of a regional or limited war. The policy essentially called for an end to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration’s policy of massive retaliation, which relied heavily upon U.S. nuclear might rather than large and costly conventional forces to avert war. Massive retaliation, also known as “More Bang for a Buck,” had been contrived to curtail defense expenditures after the Korean War by threatening the Soviet Union with a nuclear response to any potential conflict, whether it be nuclear or conventional in nature. Critics of Eisenhower’s so-called New Look defense posture pointed out that military expenditures were not substantially reduced during the 1950s, and they hastened to point out that massive retaliation increased the likelihood of a nuclear war and provided only two options in a future crisis: surrender or suicide. In 1959 Taylor wrote The Uncertain Trumpet in which he called for a diversified military with broad counterinsurgency capability. He also lamented the growing disparity in spending among the major service branches and the fact that spending on the U.S. Army had fallen precipitously since the mid-1950s. This had occurred principally because the Pentagon had shifted many resources to its nuclear forces, first to the U.S. Air Force and then later in the decade to the U.S. Navy. Taylor hoped to reverse that trend, building up conventional (and special) forces that might be employed in areas where nuclear weapons were not effective or would represent a disproportionate response to a limited crisis. In advocating flexible response, which called for a sizable increase in spending on nonnuclear forces, Taylor essentially rejected the economic tenets upon which the New Look defense policy had rested. While the Eisenhower administration argued that defense outlays should not be more than 10 percent of gross national product (GNP), Taylor and his adherents believed that defense spending could exceed that percentage without harming the economy. In fact, Taylor asserted that tax increases should be enacted to help pay for increased defense budgets. President John F. Kennedy read The Uncertain Trumpet and was influenced by it. In fact, on July 1, 1961, Taylor became the president’s military adviser. Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara especially embraced the need for a new defense program, one in large measure shaped by Taylor, who was tired of seeing the army downsized, denigrated in budget considerations, and ill-prepared for a ground war. Kennedy accepted Taylor’s policy of flexible response, namely a sizable increase in armed forces prepared to fight nonnuclear battles or so-called brushfire wars, including wars of counterinsurgency against Communist guerrillas. Key to flexible response was the augmentation of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces and the U.S. Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) teams. The adoption of flexible response helped to facilitate U.S. involvement in Vietnam, especially the military escalations during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.

373

Although the U.S. military was largely discredited in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War, flexible response was never completely abandoned. The defeat in Vietnam did compel policy makers to augment the policy of flexible response with other defense approaches during the last 15 years of the Cold War. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Buzzanco, Robert. Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kinnard, Douglas. The Certain Triumph: Maxwell Taylor and the American Experience in Vietnam. New York: Brassey’s, 1991. Taylor, General Maxwell D. The Uncertain Trumpet. New York: Harper, 1960.

Fonda, Jane Seymour Birth Date: December 21, 1937 American actor and controversial anti–Vietnam War activist. The daughter of actor Henry Fonda, Jane Seymour Fonda was born in New York City on December 21, 1937, and was educated at Vassar College for two years. She studied acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and began her Hollywood career in 1960. Impressed by her all-American good looks, the Pentagon in 1962 named her “Miss Army Recruiting.” Fonda then went to Paris and became an international sex symbol by starring (and virtually disrobing) in Barbarella, a rather silly science-fiction film directed by Roger Vadim in 1968. Fonda was married to Vadim until 1970 and had one child, Vanessa. Fonda became increasingly politicized and outspoken about the Vietnam War, to the extent that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began to hatch plots to discredit her. She supported Black Panther founder Bobby Seale and was accused of drug smuggling and assaulting a police officer (charges that were later dropped). In 1971 she met Thomas Emmett Hayden at an antiwar rally. Hayden was one of the founders of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and had helped to orchestrate the August 1968 antiwar demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Fonda and Hayden married in 1972; had a son, Troy; and were divorced in 1989. In 1972 Fonda appeared with actor Donald Sutherland in FTA (“Free the Army” or “Fuck the Army”), a collection of skits that she described as “political vaudeville.” She then returned to Paris to work with the Marxist French director Jean-Luc Godard on a film titled Tout va bien (1972) and became increasingly radicalized.

374

Fonda, Jane Seymour

American actress and anti–Vietnam War activist Jane Fonda seated at a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun during a visit to Hanoi in July 1972. Propaganda broadcasts of Fonda’s trip were a coup for the North Vietnamese and an affront to many Americans. Years later, Fonda apologized for her actions. (AP/Wide World Photos)

After winning an Academy Award for Klute (1971), an Oscar she nearly refused as a symbolic protest against the war, in July 1972 she flew to Hanoi, where she made 10 propaganda broadcasts over Radio Hanoi, a decision that she would later regret. To many Americans, Fonda became “Hanoi Jane,” the Vietnam equivalent of Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose. Fonda appeared with eight American prisoners of war (those who refused were allegedly tortured); met with the vice premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Nguyen Duy Trinh; and returned home with a 25-minute film she had made. The U.S. Justice Department decided to ignore Fonda’s actions so as not to make her an antiwar martyr, but her Hollywood career was badly compromised, and she went abroad to make her next film with Joseph Losey, an expatriate American director who had moved to London to escape the Joseph McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s. In 1974 after a second trip to Vietnam with Hayden, Fonda made a 60-minute documentary, Introduction to the Enemy. Her last Vietnam-related picture, for which she garnered another Oscar, was Coming Home, directed by Hal Ashby in 1978 and inspired by Ron Kovic, the paraplegic veteran she met in 1972 at an antiwar rally. By 1981 Fonda had reentered the American mainstream with On Golden Pond, a film that costarred her father and

that symbolized reconciliation and earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, but many Americans still despised her for her antiwar activities. In 1984 conservative protesters forced Fonda to cancel appearances at department stores in Miami, New Orleans, and New York as she toured the country promoting a new line of exercise clothing. In 1987 she had problems scouting locations in New England for the film Stanley and Iris when aldermen in Holyoke and Chicopee, Massachusetts, passed resolutions to keep her out of their towns. She also was confronted in Waterbury, Connecticut, with a local campaign, mounted by Gaetano Russo, a retired National Guard officer, to protest her presence there. To counter this backlash, Fonda decided to make a public statement, apologizing for her 1972 actions in a Barbara Walters televised interview titled “Healing Wounds” on ABC’s 20/20, broadcast on June 17, 1988. Fonda admitted to having been “thoughtless and careless” and expressed regret if anyone who had served in Vietnam had been hurt “because of things I said or did.” This performance closed the chapter on Vietnam for Fonda, who after divorcing Hayden in 1989 even put her acting career on hold and married Atlanta media mogul Ted Turner. The two divorced in 2001.

Fontainebleau Conference Fonda’s career reflects the political turmoil of her times and is oddly contradictory, as Christopher Andersen pointed out in his unflattering biography titled Citizen Jane (1990). He described Fonda as “the sex symbol who went on to champion feminism; the Miss Army Recruiting of 1962 who rooted for the enemy during the Vietnam War; the chain-smoking, pill-popping bulimic who became the world’s leading health and fitness advocate.” On the other hand, in her radical days Fonda spoke out courageously against the Vietnam War in defiance of government constraints, risking surveillance and blacklisting and at the expense of alienating her public. She learned that her extreme actions did have consequences, and in a way she too was a victim of Vietnam. Her brother, Peter Fonda, starred in the 1960s’ counterculture film Easy Rider. JAMES MICHAEL WELSH See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Film and the Vietnam Experience; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Students for a Democratic Society References Andersen, Christopher. Citizen Jane: The Turbulent Life of Jane Fonda. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Collier, Peter. The Fondas: A Hollywood Dynasty. New York: Putnam, 1990. Guiles, Fred Lawrence. Jane Fonda: The Actress in Her Time. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982. Herman, Gary, and David Downing. Jane Fonda: All-American AntiHeroine. New York: Quick Fox, 1980.

Fontainebleau Conference Start Date: July 6, 1946 End Date: September 10, 1946 Eight-week conference between political leaders of France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). This conference at the Chateau of Fontainebleau south of Paris in the summer of 1946 was an effort to work out implementation of the Ho-Sainteny Accord, which was signed in Hanoi on March 6, 1946, between North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and French government representative Jean Sainteny, and a last chance for the French government to develop a working relationship with the North Vietnamese government. This arrangement was undermined by French high commissioner Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu’s June 2 proclamation of a Republic of Cochin China in southern Vietnam and his efforts afterward and by political developments in France. The two French political parties on which Ho Chi Minh had counted, the Socialists and Communists, failed to support him. Both had lost seats in the June French national elections, and the Communists, then in the government, were trying to prove their French patriotism. The North Vietnamese delegation, led by Ho, departed Vietnam at the end of May 1946 on a French warship; two days after sailing

375

they learned of d’Argenlieu’s proclamation. When they reached France the government had fallen, and the delegation was forced to wait while a new cabinet was formed under Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP, Popular Republican Movement) leader Georges Bidault. This represented a political shift to the right. During that time, the Vietnamese delegates were shunted off to Biarritz and did some fishing. One of them remarked later that “the conference was fishy from the start.” The conference finally opened on July 6. The French delegation contained colonial officials and no prominent politicians. Two months of talks between the two sides accomplished nothing. The French would make no meaningful concessions, and in the middle of the conference d’Argenlieu torpedoed the effort by calling his own conference at Da Lat, to which he invited representatives of the Republic of Cochin China and “Southern Annam,” in effect carving another chunk out of Vietnam. The French government delegation at Fontainebleau made no concessions to the North Vietnamese government, and its attitude is best summed up by the remarks made by one French official to delegation head Pham Van Dong. The latter reported the official as saying that “We only need an eight-day police action to clear out all of you.” The sum of the conference’s work was a draft accord reinforcing France’s economic rights in North Vietnam without solving the problem of Cochin China. The conference ended on September 10, and Ho sent the North Vietnamese delegation home. Ho extended his stay in France a bit longer after the conference terminated. He told French diplomat Jean Sainteny, who had returned to Paris with him, “Don’t let me leave this way. Give me some weapon against the extremists. You will not regret it.” Ho also talked with American correspondent David Schoenbrun and forecast an early start for war and predicted how it would be fought. It would be, Ho said, the contest of the lion and elephant. The lion, less powerful than the elephant, could not meet the elephant in open combat, so the lion would lie in wait in the jungle and leap on the elephant’s back, tearing out huge chunks of its flesh. Ultimately the elephant would bleed to death. On September 14 Ho signed the modus vivendi worked out with the French. On September 19 he departed France by ship, never to return. The Indochina War began that December. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Ho Chi Minh; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Indochina War; Sainteny, Jean References Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Sainteny, Jean. Histoire d’une Paix Manquée: Indochine, 1945–1947. Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953. Schoenbrun, David. As France Goes. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957.

376

Forces Armées Nationales Khmères

Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Army of the Khmer Republic (République Khmère), 1970–1975. In November 1953 during the Indochina War, Cambodia concluded a convention with France in which Indochina was permitted its own military establishment. Known as the Forces Armées Royale Khmères (FARK, Royal Khmer Armed Forces), it numbered fewer than 35,000 men and was organized in battalions operating under supreme commander of the armed forces and head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Following the overthrow of Sihanouk on March 18, 1970, by pro-U.S. prime minister and defense minister Lon Nol and the establishment of the Khmer Republic, FARK was renamed Forces Armées Nationales Khmères (FANK, Khmer National Armed Forces). Having exploited traditional Cambodian animosity toward the Vietnamese to come to power, Lon Nol now continued to play the nationalist card. He closed the port of Sihanoukville to resupply activities by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for Communist forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), thus shutting down the so-called Sihanouk Trail. He also called for a national effort by FANK against the estimated 40,000–60,000 Vietnamese Communist troops in three eastern Cambodian border provinces. Thousands of young Cambodian men and women enthusiastically joined this crusade against the Yuon, the pejorative Khmer term for Vietnamese. The new government’s policy was entirely legal, for People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops were occupying Cambodian territory in violation of its sovereignty. Yet Cambodia’s small military, while its members were enthusiastic, was clearly no match for the PAVN forces. In April 1970 U.S. president Richard M. Nixon authorized military assistance to Cambodia to shore up the Lon Nol regime. A training command staffed by U.S. Army Special Forces personnel was created to train FANK at locations in Vietnam at Chi Lang, Phuoc Thuy, Dong Ba Thien, and Long Hai as well as at sites in Laos and in Cambodia. After the 5th Special Forces departed Vietnam in the spring of 1971, the training sites were retained and redesignated the U.S. Army Individual Training Group in March 1971. During the following months Australian and New Zealand jungle instructors were assigned to the group, and it was redesignated FANK Training Command in May 1972. Renamed the Field Training Command on December 1, 1972, it was closed down at the end of January 1973. As a result of U.S. influence, FANK shifted from the French staff system to that of the U.S. Army, and the staff members were given crash courses by U.S. personnel in Vietnam. The United States also provided small arms and ammunition to FANK, which quickly expanded to more than 100,000 men. Unfortunately, the training was insufficient, and leadership of FANK was inadequate. Whenever the poorly armed and inexperienced Cambodian soldiers engaged in combat with PAVN forces, the Cambodian forces were defeated. The consequences would be catastrophic for Cambodia and its people. FANK was soon driven back into the urban areas.

The Cambodian Incursion beginning in April 1970 was another effort by Nixon to shore up Lon Nol’s regime but also to strike at the Cambodian sanctuaries, a move long sought by the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). During the Cambodian incursion, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces in Cambodia, outraged by FANK murders of hundreds of ethnic Vietnamese, looted several Cambodian towns. Later South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu ordered his troops to evacuate some 20,000 Vietnamese from Cambodia. In any case, the gains of the Cambodian Incursion were shortlived. The Communists soon reclaimed their sanctuaries and reestablished control in eastern Cambodia. The departure of U.S. troops from Cambodia at the end of June left a void far too great for the ARVN or FANK to fill. This 1970 widening of the battlefield in Indochina eventually left Cambodia the most devastated nation in the region. To avoid massive Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombings, Communist forces moved into the Cambodian interior. Meanwhile, Lon Nol’s army struggled for the next five years against both the PAVN and the indigenous Cambodian Communists, known as the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer), which now received increased PAVN military assistance. At the same time, U.S. assistance to FANK was being reduced as the United States wound down its presence in Indochina. When FANK’s war with the Khmer Rouge followed, Lon Nol declared a state of emergency, and FANK’s size was expanded to some 200,000 military personnel organized in brigades and divisions. The increased numbers could not turn the tide. Beginning in November 1973, Khmer Rouge forces blockaded Phnom Penh. At the end of February 1974 Lon Nol’s FANK troops pushed the Khmer Rouge back some distance from the capital. In March the Khmer Rouge captured the old royal capital of Oudong, about 24 miles from Phnom Penh. It was the first provincial capital they had taken since 1970. FANK recaptured Oudong in July. Throughout the second half of 1974 there was a stalemate in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge, not as well armed or supplied as its adversary, was, however, better led. The Khmer Rouge controlled the countryside but, with only about 70,000 men, lacked the strength for an offensive against the cities. The much larger FANK controlled the towns but, plagued by poor leadership, low morale, and corruption, was in turn unable to undertake aggressive action in the rural areas. FANK resources were also spread thin. FANK’s best troops, numbering some 50,000 men and representing a quarter of its total force, defended Phnom Penh, while the remainder were dispersed throughout the rest of the country. At the end of 1974 U.S. aid to Lon Nol was sharply curtailed. Up to that point Washington had provided him some $1.85 billion in assistance. U.S. bombing counted for an additional $7 billion. In December, however, Congress placed rigid restrictions on U.S. aid. This had both a material effect on FANK’s fighting ability and a great psychological impact on the troops themselves.

Ford, Gerald Rudolph In January 1975 the Khmer Rouge received, according to PAVN records, 4,000 tons of weapons and ammunition shipped to them by PAVN down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This supply shipment, which represented 80 percent of the total amount of supplies scheduled for delivery to the Khmer Rouge for the entire year, was intended to enable the Khmer Rouge to begin a major offensive against FANK forces; soon the Khmer Rouge controlled the Mekong River access to Phnom Penh. Previously some 80 percent of provisions for the capital had come in by water; now the city could only be resupplied by air. Hunger became a major problem for the city’s 600,000 people. Pursuant to the demands of the Cambodian National Assembly, Lon Nol resigned on March 11, 1975, and left the country on April 1. After the last U.S. personnel left the Cambodian capital on April 12, airborne provisions no longer arrived in Phomn Penh. On April 17 Khmer Rouge troops simply walked into the capital and took control. Five years of war had brought the deaths of some 10 percent of Cambodia’s 7 million people. The economy was in ruins, few schools and hospitals were operating, and half of the population had been uprooted from their homes. But much worse lay ahead. The new leaders renamed the country Kampuchea, emptied the cities of their populations, and tried to take the country back into the Middle Ages, herding the population into agricultural communes and initiating a reign of terror that has few precedents in history. After the fall of the Khmer Republic regime in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge established a new military force called the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea, composed purely of Khmer Rouge fighters. SPENCER C. TUCKER

377

14, 1913, Gerald Rudolph Ford’s birth name was Leslie Lynch King Jr. He was reared in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was adopted by his stepfather, at which time his name was changed. Ford received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, where he played football, and received his law degree from Yale University in 1941. He served in the U.S. Navy as an ensign during World War II and was elected to the first of 12 consecutive terms in the House of Representatives in 1948. Throughout his years in Congress, a tenure that was highlighted by service as his party’s minority leader (1965–1973), Ford developed an expertise in the area of defense appropriations and became a leader of the moderate Republican bloc. He was a consistent supporter of the U.S. commitment in Vietnam, differing with the Lyndon B. Johnson administration only in that Ford believed that more money and resources should be allocated there. As vice president, a position to which he was appointed by President Richard Nixon in October 1973 after the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew, Ford publicly defended the administration’s record on Vietnam. It was left to Ford, who became president upon Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974, to preside over the final stage of the Vietnam War. Ford was also given the unenviable tasks of healing a country ripped apart by Vietnam and the Watergate Scandal, dealing with rampant inflation, and attempting to jump-start a nearly moribund economy.

See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Khmer Rouge; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Sihanouk, Norodom; United States Special Forces References Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Van Tai Quan Su Chien Luoc Tren Duong Ho Chi Minh Trong Khang Chien Chong My [Strategic Military Transportation on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Resistance War against the Americans]. Hanoi: People’s Army of Vietnam, General Department of Rear Services, 1988. Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Ford, Gerald Rudolph Birth Date: July 14, 1913 Death Date: December 26, 2006 U.S. Republican congressman (1949–1973), vice president (December 1973–August 1974), and president of the United States (August 1974–January 1977). Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on July

Gerald Ford served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and vice president. He became president of the United States in August 1974 on the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. (Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library)

378

Forrestal, Michael Vincent

Perhaps Ford’s most controversial move came only weeks into his presidency when he granted Nixon a full and unconditional pardon on September 8, 1974. Many at the time decried the move, and some claimed that Ford had struck a deal with Nixon before becoming vice president the year before. In retrospect, however, Ford’s decision might well have been for the best, as it spared the nation many more months of acrimonious proceedings related to Watergate. There is no credible evidence to suggest that Ford had made any deal with Nixon, although Ford’s move might well have cost him the presidency in 1976. As president, Ford moderated his earlier, more hawkish views on the Vietnam War. Only two weeks into his presidency, he ignored the advice of those—including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—who counseled a harsh policy against draft dodgers and combat personnel who were absent without leave (AWOL). Ford formed the Presidential Clemency Board, which reviewed individual cases and assigned specific sanctions or acquittal. In January 1975 Ford faced the final offensives of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Rather than risk political opposition to an American recommitment in Vietnam, the Ford administration took no serious steps to counter either attack. With no treaty commitment to Cambodia, it was relatively easy for Ford to order Operation EAGLE PULL, the abandonment of the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh on April 11, 1975. But in a secret correspondence delivered before his resignation, President Nixon had promised Nguyen Van Thieu, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), that if North Vietnam violated the 1973 truce, the United States would recommit troops to South Vietnam. Nevertheless, despite the advice of Kissinger and ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin, Ford refused to honor that pledge. Instead, after the North Vietnamese began their 1975 Spring Offensive (the Ho Chi Minh Campaign), Ford made only a halfhearted attempt to cajole Congress into appropriating monies for South Vietnam’s defense. When Congress refused, Ford ordered the evacuation of all remaining U.S. military and embassy personnel. The April 29–30 evacuation of Saigon (Operation FREQUENT WIND) removed some 1,400 Americans and 5,600 Vietnamese. The evacuations from Phnom Penh and Saigon as well as the May 1975 Mayaguez Incident, America’s final military engagements of the Vietnam War, were all used against Ford during the 1976 presidential election. The evacuations were cited as evidence that the Ford administration did not adequately support U.S. allies, while the Mayaguez Incident was cited to show that Republican administrations, by choosing force over diplomacy in a crisis, had learned nothing from Vietnam. Ford faced a complete Washington outsider in the 1976 election, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Carter promised honest and transparent government, a foreign policy based on human rights, and a reinvigorated economy. Carter defeated Ford by a razor-thin margin. Ford’s link to Nixon, his inability to resolve the country’s economic problems, and his perceived missteps during

the last throes of the Vietnam War all worked against him. Be that as it may, Ford was a decent and honorable man who brought a modicum of normalcy to a deeply divided and demoralized nation. Ford entered private life in January 1977 and was a member of many corporate boards. He died on December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California. JOHN ROBERT GREENE See also Agnew, Spiro Theodore; Amnesty; Cambodia; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; EAGLE PULL, Operation; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Martin, Graham A.; Mayaguez Incident; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Watergate Scandal References Brinkley, Douglas. Gerald R. Ford. New York: Times Books, 2007. Ford, Gerald R. A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford. New York: Harper and Row, 1979. Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

Forrestal, Michael Vincent Birth Date: November 26, 1927 Death Date: January 13, 1989 Attorney and head of the Vietnam Coordinating Committee of the National Security Council (NSC) during 1962–1965. Michael Vincent Forrestal was born on November 26, 1927, in New York City, the elder son of James V. Forrestal, the first U.S. secretary of defense. The younger Forrestal briefly attended Princeton University in 1949 and earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1953. That same year he began practicing law with the Shearman & Sterling firm in New York City. In the late 1940s he had served as an aide to W. Averell Harriman in Moscow and Paris. In late 1962 Forrestal and Roger Hilsman, then director of intelligence for the U.S. State Department, visited Vietnam to review the situation there. Although both men were initially committed to U.S. intervention in Vietnam, they produced a mixed report on the war that reinforced growing doubts as to the viability of the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). They pointed to ominous increases in Viet Cong (VC) strength that might lead to a lengthier and costlier war than had been predicted. Although agreeing with the Strategic Hamlet Program in principle, they expressed doubts as to the effectiveness of the program. A secret annex to their report recommended that the United States exert additional pressure on South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem to institute reforms and liberalize the “authoritarian political structure.” Both Forrestal and Hilsman were central figures in the hectic maneuverings of late August 1963 when, working with Harriman, they secured presidential approval of the dispatch of a cable recommending the overthrow of the Diem government, which occurred that November.

Fortas, Abraham Forrestal remained in government until mid-1965, but his discontent with official Vietnam policy steadily increased. He believed that military estimates were overly optimistic and, as with Harriman, supported a negotiated settlement, a position that earned Forrestal the disfavor of President Lyndon Johnson. In mid-1965 Forrestal returned to the practice of law in New York City. He died there of a ruptured aneurysm on January 13, 1989. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Harriman, William Averell; Hilsman, Roger; Hilsman-Forrestal Report; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Taylor-McNamara Report References Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972.

Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire Event Date: July 29, 1967 Massive fire on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal that resulted in one of the U.S. Navy’s worst accidental losses of life in the post–World War II era. On July 29, 1967, the Forrestal was in its first week of combat operations at Yankee Station, an area in the South China Sea from which the naval air war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was largely conducted. The carrier’s crew totaled almost 6,000 sailors and navy airmen, and the ship had an air wing of 80 aircraft. The evening before, the Forrestal had received 400 tons of bombs from an ammunition ship. Many of the bombs were of World War II vintage and were much more unstable and prone to detonation in a fire than more modern ordnance. At 10:47 a.m. on July 29 the Forrestal’s flight deck was filled with manned, fueled, and armed aircraft being readied for the launch of the day’s second strike. At that moment a Zuni air-to-ground rocket on an F-4 Phantom fighter was accidentally triggered by a stray surge of electricity. The rocket flew across the flight deck and struck an A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft. Almost instantly the area around the aircraft was awash in flaming jet fuel. Immediately the ship’s well-trained flight deck firefighting crew swung into action, attempting to extinguish the fire and rescue aircrews trapped in their planes. The situation became catastrophic less than two minutes later when one of the old World War II–era bombs detonated in the heat of the fire. The initial explosion killed the firefighters along with many other flight deck crewmen and pilots. It also shredded many of the flight deck’s fire hoses. From this point on the fire would be fought by largely inexperienced firefighters with equipment salvaged or borrowed from other ships in the area. The efforts of the improvised fire crews, while at times disorganized and clumsy,

379

were nothing short of heroic. Crewmen also pushed several hundred tons of ordnance and several aircraft over the side and clear of the fire’s path. Before the fire was declared out on the flight deck one hour later, nine bombs (eight of them World War II vintage) had exploded, punching four holes in the deck, killing sailors in compartments below, and dumping burning jet fuel several decks down into the ship. All fires throughout the ship would not be extinguished until the early morning hours of July 30. Among those who narrowly escaped death was Lieutenant Commander John S. McCain III, future U.S. senator from Arizona and 2008 presidential candidate. The final grim casualty report was 134 killed, more than 100 wounded, 21 aircraft destroyed in the fire or pushed over the side, and 31 aircraft damaged. Damage was set at $72 million, excluding the lost or damaged aircraft. After returning to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, on September 14, 1967, USS Forrestal underwent repairs until April 1968, when it returned to service. An investigation placed blame for the fire on aircraft electrical component malfunctions and dangerously unstable bombs. Lessons learned from the disaster allowed the U.S. Navy to make improvements in aircraft carrier design, firefighting equipment, and training of flight deck personnel. To this day the fire is studied by navy officers and sailors. ROBERT M. BROWN See also Aircraft Carriers; McCain, John Sidney, III References Freeman, Gregory A. Sailors to the End. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Tillman, John B. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987.

Fortas, Abraham Birth Date: June 19, 1910 Death Date: April 5, 1982 Adviser to U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during 1965–1969. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, on June 19, 1910, Abraham (Abe) Fortas graduated from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) in 1930. He then enrolled at Yale University, where he earned a law degree in 1933. That same year he joined President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal effort as an attorney for the Agriculture Adjustment Administration while holding a faculty position at Yale Law School. After service in several New Deal agencies and developing a distinguished private law practice in Washington, D.C., Fortas was appointed by President Johnson to the Supreme Court in 1965. Officials in the Johnson administration recalled Fortas as having the most influence of any individual on the president’s Vietnam War policies. A progressive with an unsurpassed record of support for social justice and civil liberties, Fortas retained the foreign policy outlook of the 1940s, when New Deal liberals abhorred

380

Fort Hood Three duced by his agreement to accept a retainer from the Louis Wolfson Foundation for legal services while serving on the Supreme Court. Returning to his private law practice, Fortas continued to write and speak on U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He died in Washington, D.C., on April 5, 1982. ELIZABETH URBAN ALEXANDER See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Wise Men References Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Kalman, Laura. Abe Fortas: A Biography. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Murphy, Bruce Allen. Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Court Justice. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

Abraham Fortas was a close adviser to President Lyndon Johnson and an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during 1965–1969. He was a staunch supporter of Johnson’s Vietnam War policies. (Library of Congress)

“appeasement.” As a member of the so-called Wise Men, a group of senior advisers convened by Johnson, Fortas at first feared that the costs of war would bankrupt the social programs of the Great Society. Between 1965 and 1967, however, as Johnson’s other advisers became more and more disenchanted with prospects for victory in Vietnam, Fortas hardened his support for U.S. involvement there. The 1968 Tet Offensive intensified Fortas’s commitment to U.S. participation in the war. He believed that policies such as the 1965 Christmas bombing halt had only caused the Communists to increase agitation for a total withdrawal of U.S. troops. Victory in Vietnam, Fortas now reasoned, was essential. He saw no alternative but to proceed with the war until the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) agreed to end the fighting. Fortas’s arguments impressed Johnson but not the president’s other advisers. When the Wise Men met in March 1968 to advise Johnson that the United States should reduce its involvement in Vietnam, Fortas stood almost alone in advocating further expansion of the conflict. A few days later Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection in 1968. Soon after Johnson’s statement, the now lame-duck president nominated Fortas to succeed Earl Warren, who was retiring, as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Republicans saw the appointment as an attempt to replace Warren with another liberal chief justice and prevent Richard M. Nixon, if he won the November 1968 election, from controlling the Court. A filibuster sent the nomination down to defeat. The following year Fortas resigned from the Supreme Court under allegations of impropriety pro-

Fort Hood Three Collective name given U.S. Army privates James Johnson, Dennis Mora, and David Samas. Their case attracted national attention as the first highly publicized refusal of American soldiers to accept duty in Vietnam. The three privates were members of the 142nd Signal Battalion of the 2nd Armored Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. When their unit received a 30-day leave and orders to report to Oakland Army Terminal on July 13, 1966, for transportation to Vietnam, Johnson, Mora, and Samas decided to refuse the assignment. To avoid the fate of forced shipment or arrest suffered by earlier military dissidents, they contacted New York’s Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee. Supported by the committee, the Fort Hood Three held a June 30, 1966, press conference at New York’s Community Church, indicating their belief that the Vietnam War was immoral, illegal, and unjust. They also filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court challenging their orders on the grounds that the Vietnam War was illegal and requesting an injunction to prevent the U.S. Army from sending them to Vietnam. Antiwar activists established a Fort Hood Three Defense Committee. As the three made their way to a July 7 meeting with antiwar activists at the New York Community Church, military authorities arrested them for making disloyal statements and placed them in “investigative detention” at Fort Dix, New Jersey, until July 14. On July 11 District Court judge Edward Curran denied their lawsuit, affirming the president’s authority in foreign policy and denying that civilian courts had jurisdiction in such a case. On July 14 Johnson, Mora, and Samas each refused orders to board transportation for Vietnam. They were placed in a maximum security stockade and on August 15 were formally charged with insubordination. Separately court-martialed at Fort Dix in September, all three were convicted. The military court refused to allow the defense to

Four-Party Joint Military Commission argue the war’s illegality. The civilian U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the district court, and on February 6, 1967, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Initially Mora received three years in prison, while Johnson and Samas each received five years, but on July 3, 1967, the Army Board of Review reduced Johnson’s and Samas’s sentences to three years. In addition, all suffered forfeiture of pay and upon release received dishonorable discharges. They served most of their sentences at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Following their release, they became active supporters of the antiwar movement. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S. References Bannan, John F., and Rosemary S. Bannan. Law, Morality, and Vietnam: The Peace Militants and the Courts. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1974. Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Lynd, Alice, ed. We Won’t Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors. Boston: Beacon, 1968.

Forward Air Controllers Individuals who direct the actions of military aircraft or ground forces from a forward position—either on the ground or in the air—usually during close air support activities. Forward air controllers are the outgrowth of the coordination effected between artillery units and observation aircraft. During World War I the Germans were the first to experiment with ground-support aviation and experimented with techniques for coordination between advancing infantry and attack aircraft. In some instances, primitive cloth signals were laid out to signal aircraft equipped with one-way radios. In World War II both the Allied and Axis powers employed dedicated forward air controllers, both ground-based and occasionally airborne. The Germans used them early on in effective cooperation with their panzer divisions, often placing the controller in a forward tank to oversee the battle and contact aircraft. The Royal Australian Air Force employed the Commonwealth Boomerang (a modified version of the North American Aviation Harvard trainer aircraft, known as the T-6 Texan in its U.S. designation) as a true forward air controller in the New Guinea campaign. The U.S. Army Air Forces created the “Horsefly” system (a possibly pejorative nickname) for the Stinson L-5 liaison aircraft in a forward air control role in Italy. Forward air controllers were especially effective during the Korean War. There the Stinson L-5 and Ryan L-17s were used initially, later supplemented by the T-6s. These operated under the call-sign of “Mosquito.” During the Vietnam War, difficult terrain, heavy jungle vegetation, and innovative Communist tactics made it difficult for

381

U.S., Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), and other allied military forces to easily recognize targets. Toward that end, the U.S. Air Force relied heavily on airborne forward air controllers who flew the Cessna O-1 single engine aircraft, the O-2 push-pull twin engine aircraft, and, during the later years of the war, the OV-10 Bronco. Other services also adopted the technique. The U.S. Marine Corps used the O-1 and the OV-10. The forward air controller became a critical component of U.S. airpower in the Vietnam War for reconnaissance, directing the fire of fighters and fighter-bombers, and even engaging the enemy. The two primary functions of forward air controllers flying in Vietnam were allied visual reconnaissance and air-strike control. Flying alone at low altitudes, often with little or no armament, the vulnerable forward air control aircraft were often at risk, and many were lost. Both the North American F-100 and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 were employed in the fast forward air control role, ranging far behind enemy lines to conduct essential reconnaissance. Forward air controllers worked closely with air and ground commanders and served as vital interfaces between strike aircraft and ground forces. Only forward air controllers were in a position to identify precisely the desired target location in real time and simultaneously warn of friendly ground force positions and then convey that information to the strike aircraft. Forward air controllers were vitally important in rescue operations. Their efforts provided greater air-strike accuracy and effectiveness against Communist forces while also protecting U.S. forces on the ground. TARA K. SIMPSON AND WALTER J. BOYNE See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Aircraft, Bombers; Airpower, Role in War References Lane, John J., Jr. Command and Control and Communications Structures in Southeast Asia. Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1981. Lavalle, Jack, ed. Air War: Vietnam. Indianapolis: Arno, 1980.

Four-Party Joint Military Commission Created January 27, 1973, by the Paris Peace Accords to monitor the arrangements reached, the Four-Party Joint Military Commission (FPJMC), based in Saigon, consisted of representatives from the United States, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG, Viet Cong [VC]). Its mission was to establish a cease-fire, supervise the withdrawal of the remaining 23,516 American and 30,449 Free World Military Forces, conduct an exchange of prisoners of war (POWs), and resolve the status of those missing in action (MIA). All of these missions were to be accomplished within 60 days of the signing of the peace accords. On March 29, 1973, the FPJMC was disbanded, with 587 American POWs repatriated and the last of the American/Free World

382

Fragging

Members of the Four Party Joint Military Commission delegations meet at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon on February 2, 1973. The conference was held to finalize details on the release of prisoners held by the four parties (the United States, the Republic of Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam). (Department of Defense)

combat forces withdrawn. The only American military personnel remaining in Vietnam were those attached to the Defense Attaché Office in Saigon. Less successful were the efforts to enforce the cease-fire. In its first three weeks more than 3,000 violations of the cease-fire were reported, leaving a total of 17,653 dead on the two sides. More than 200,000 Vietnamese were driven from their homes, 60,000 of them permanently. The MIA issue was not satisfactorily concluded, and this task was turned over to the Four-Power Joint Military Team (FPJMT). The FPJMT had even less success, as the VC and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), no longer threatened by the American military presence, refused to cooperate any longer. As a result of the Communist 1975 Spring Offensive, the U.S. delegation to the FPJMT withdrew from Saigon on April 10, 1975. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Ho Chi Minh Campaign; HOMECOMING, Operation; Missing in Action, Allied; Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam References Cao Van Vien. The Final Collapse. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982.

Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977.

Fragging The term “fragging” is the euphemism introduced during the Vietnam War to describe the intentional causing of friendly casualties from weapons in American hands. This form of homicide gained its name from the use of fragmentation hand grenades (which left no fingerprints) as the weapon of choice. Fragging was directed primarily toward unit leaders, officers, and noncommissioned officers (NCOs). This intentional fratricide was not limited to a single type of weapon; however, it is virtually impossible to determine how many officers and NCOs might have been shot by their own men during engagements with the enemy. Fragging was practically unheard of in the early days of U.S. involvement in ground combat. But leadership declined, and the rapid turnover caused by the one-year rotation policy weakened unit cohesion. Also, the withdrawal of public support led to a questioning of purpose on the battlefield. As discipline declined, incidents of combat refusal (mutiny) and fragging increased.

France, Air Force, 1946–1954 Fragging incidents in combat were attempts to remove leaders perceived to be incompetent and a threat to survival. Most fragging incidents, however, occurred in rear-echelon units and were drug-related. Unit leaders who were perceived as too stringent in their enforcement of discipline or regulations sometimes received warnings via a fragmentation grenade with their name painted on it left on their bunk or a smoke grenade discharged under their bunk. Most understood the message, and intimidation through threat of fragging far exceeded actual incidents. For a time toward the end of American involvement, however, some fraggings took place without any visible provocation or motive. Violence directed toward military superiors was not a phenomenon limited to the Vietnam War, and reliable statistics are far from available for any conflict, including Vietnam. The incidence of fragging took a dramatic upswing in 1969, coincident with the initiation of the policy of Vietnamization, and increased as a percentage of troop strength each year until final withdrawal. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Attrition; Casualties; Drugs and Drug Use; Fratricide; Hand Grenades References Appi, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers in Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Neel, Spurgeon. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965– 1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1973. Office of Information Management and Statistics. Data on Vietnam Era Veterans. Washington, DC: Veterans Administration, 1983.

France, Air Force, 1946–1954 The French Air Force during the Indochina War was employed primarily as a ground-support force. The air force there was reconstituted in 1946 from personnel and aircraft already in Indochina. The latter were a mixture of captured Japanese aircraft as well as British Spitfire and American-made Bell P-63A Kingcobra fighters, German trimotor Junkers JU-52, and American Douglas C-47 Skytrain (“Gooneybird”) transports. The French built up their air assets as quickly as resources were available. In 1947 additional C-47s and British Mosquito fighterbombers arrived from Europe. The fragile plywood Mosquito proved unsuitable for Indochina’s climate, however, and was replaced with the American-made Douglas B-26 Invader light bomber, which the United States began to supply to the French in Vietnam. Later in the war Washington sent Grumman F6F Hellcat and F8F Bearcat fighters as well as Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar transports. The French also purchased aircraft from a variety of sources, such as the Dutchmanufactured Fokker transport. France also introduced its own Bretagne transports, twin-engine planes equipped with auxiliary wing-tip jet engines for short-terrain takeoff assistance. The French Air Force also experimented with helicopters (American-made Sikorsky H-51s) for medical evacuation and observation.

383

The French Air Force command was organized into four regional headquarters to support operations throughout Vietnam. Aircraft performed traditional reconnaissance, ground-support bombing and strafing, and airlift activities. Initially aircraft were dispatched in pairs from various air bases to provide limited air support to French units under siege in isolated locations. In 1950 French commander in Indochina General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny reorganized the air force and changed its doctrinal role. French air doctrine now called for increased massed tactical strikes and strategic objectives working in conjunction with the French Army rather than as subordinate to it. From 1950 until the end of the conflict, French fighter-bombers and light bombers flew numerous close air support missions, dropping napalm in support of ground units. French bombers attempted strategic bombing of Viet Minh targets whenever they were identified; however, the French bomber force played only a small role in the war. As the French began to place more reliance on close air support, the Viet Minh began to adopt tactics and acquire antiaircraft weapons that, as in the case of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, largely negated their opponent’s air superiority. Throughout the conflict, the French suffered a chronic shortage of transport aircraft. Transports, crucial to airborne and logistical missions, were always in short supply. They required longer runways and could not easily take off and land on improvised jungle air strips. The shortage of transports proved to be a factor in the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The French did not possess sufficient helicopters or have experience in what would later be termed airmobile warfare to conduct effective helicopter operations. Although aircrews and ground-support personnel of the French Air Force attempted to provide the French Army with a capability to win the Indochina War, shortages of equipment, maintenance problems, imperfect facilities, and the considerable distances involved as well as a lack of effective doctrine doomed that effort to failure, despite the bravery of the aircrews and ground-support personnel. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; France, Army, 1946–1954; Indochina War; Order of Battle Dispute References Beckett, Brian. The Illustrated History of the Viet Nam War. New York: Gallery Books, 1985. Bishop, Chris, and Ian Drury, eds. Combat Guns: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Firearms. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1987. Bonds, Ray, ed. The Vietnam War: The Illustrated History of the Conflict in Southeast Asia. New York: Salamander, 1999. Christienne, Charles, and Pierre Lissarague. A History of French Military Aviation. Translated by Francis Klanka. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1986. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966.

384

France, Army, 1946–1954

Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

France, Army, 1946–1954 In 1940 French Army forces in Indochina numbered 50,000 men, but 38,000 of these were native troops of questionable loyalty. The heart of the French military presence was the 5,000-man 5th Foreign Legion Regiment. Beginning that September, the Japanese sent troops into Indochina. The Japanese left the French authorities in charge, governing through them. With the end of the war approaching and aware that the French were planning a coup against them, the Japanese moved first and decisively. On March 9, 1945, they arrested the French troops in their barracks and placed them in prison camps. Few French escaped and were able to make their way to southern China and safety. With the end of the war, the government in Paris, eager to reestablish its control over its richest colony, ordered the creation of the Far East Expeditionary Force for service in Indochina. The Potsdam Conference in July 1945 called for British troops to disarm Japanese forces in Indochina south of the 16th Parallel; Chinese troops would have a similar responsibility north of that line. France, recovering from the ravages of defeat and German occupation in World War II, would assume control as soon as a colonial administration could be reconstituted. On October 5, 1945, General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc arrived in Saigon. The French also sent out 25,000 reinforcements. French authority was first established in southern Vietnam, where the British cooperated with the French and released the French troops who had been imprisoned by the Japanese. On October 16 after negotiations with the Vietnamese nationalists, the Viet Minh, failed, Leclerc, supported by British and rearmed Japanese soldiers, attacked the Viet Minh and drove them from Saigon. The French then retook the major urban centers of Indochina and sought to reestablish their colonial rule. The chief instrument of that effort was the French Army. French forces in Indochina were composed of Europeans, native peoples of French Indochina, men from France’s colonies in North African and sub-Saharan Africa, and the French Foreign Legion, which included a great many non-French Europeans. After 1948 the French began to raise a colonial army from the indigenous peoples of Vietnam and supplemented this force with troops from other colonial possessions and metropolitan France. French Union Forces, so-named because they were formed from all French territories, were primarily a professional force that served under the direction of the colonial administrator, known as the high commissioner (formerly the governor-general). The commander in chief of the expeditionary force was the military

adviser to the high commissioner, who was responsible to the government in Paris. In March 1949 in an effort to garner support from the Vietnamese people and from the international community, Paris established the State of Vietnam, with Emperor Bao Dai as chief of state. Unfortunately, for the French military effort, in Indochina, however, that did not translate into real independence of action for the State of Vietnam. France continued to run the State of Vietnam’s major affairs to the end. France’s efforts in Indochina suffered from a rapid changeover of military commanders and the lack of a cohesive aggressive strategy. Between 1948 and 1954 French forces in Indochina had eight different commanders: generals Jacques-Philippe Leclerc, Jean-Étienne Valluy, Roger Blaizot, Marcel Carpentier, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Raoul Salan, Henri Navarre, and Paul Henri Romuald Ély. This frequent change at the top undoubtedly hurt the overall efficiency and morale of the expeditionary force. Of the French commanders, only de Lattre seemed to be able to infuse a fighting spirit and a successful cohesive military policy. He presented a tough no-nonsense approach to the war, remarking that whatever else, his men would know they had been commanded. De Lattre was unique in that he also held political power as high commissioner. The conventional French Army in Vietnam consisted of infantry, armor, artillery, airborne, and support forces. Major troop concentrations were based throughout Vietnam fairly close to regional urban centers. As the war progressed, to expand their presence throughout the country the French made the battalion rather than the regiment the standard garrison unit. These battalions were then configured into mobile battle groups to respond to Viet Minh attacks throughout the country. At the same time that the French were at war in Indochina, the French Army was being rebuilt, combining Free French and Vichy units into a cohesive fighting machine to defend France and its colonial possessions. The division was the primary unit of organization in the European or metropolitan French Army. The division was built around the regiment, which had been the central military formation in European armies. A typical French infantry division consisted of headquarters and support units, such as antitank, signals, and medical units. The heart of the division was its three infantry regiments of approximately 3,100 officers and soldiers each. Artillery support for the division was provided by two artillery regiments of two to three battalions each, with 75-millimeter (mm) or 105-mm howitzers. The division artillery was enhanced by a battalion of 155-mm howitzers. Other than the initial deployment of a division-sized force with Leclerc in 1945, the French Army reinforced its colonial forces with battalions rather than regiments. French armor was designated as cavalry and included all armored fighting vehicles, such as armored cars. The armor battalion, or cavalry squadron, contained approximately 17 tanks, and an infantry division had one cavalry regiment of nearly 60 tanks.

France, Army, 1946–1954

385

Two French soldiers take prisoner a Viet Minh youth with a communist flag in his possession during the Indochina War (1946–1954). (National Archives)

French infantry weapons constituted a wide variety of small arms. The 7.5-mm MAS 36 (Manufacture d’Armes de Saint-Etienne) rifle was the standard-issue small arm. Originally adopted by the French government in 1932, the MAS 36 was a bolt-action 8-pound weapon equipped with a 5-round box magazine. The MAS 36 was the standard French rifle until the 1956 adoption of the semiautomatic MAS 49. Jungle warfare called for weapons capable of delivering high volumes of fire in rather contained areas. For this reason the submachine gun was very popular, and the French 9-mm MAT 49 was an excellent weapon. Weighing 9 pounds with a 20- or 32-round magazine, it was issued in large quantities to the French Union Forces. The MAT 49 was augmented by the British Sten gun. This 9-mm weapon weighed 8 pounds and had an unusual sidemounted 32-round box magazine. As U.S. military aid began to reach Indochina, .30-caliber M-1 and M-2 carbines were distributed in large numbers to French units. The carbine was popular because

it was a magazine-fed (20 or 30 rounds) lightweight (5.2 pounds) weapon with the range and accuracy of a rifle but in its automatic version could produce the volume of fire of a submachine gun. Light automatic weapons used by the expeditionary force were the French Mitrailleuse 1931 7.5-mm light machine gun (26 pounds) or the .303-caliber British Bren gun (22 pounds). These weapons were important because they provided sustained firepower at the small-unit level. Many engagements during the Indochina War took place between forces of 20 men or less. The French used the American .30-caliber light and M-2 .50-caliber heavy Browning machine guns in a number of different roles, such as in fixed defensive positions or mounted on vehicles. French forces used a variety of pistols, but the American M-1911A1 .45-caliber Colt was the official-issue handgun. Because handguns proliferated throughout Southeast Asia, most known types of pistols were in evidence during the Indochina War.

386

France, Army, 1946–1954

French Expeditionary Force in Indochina, 1953 French Army Foreign Legion North African troops Allied Vietnamese troops French Air Force French Navy Total

54,000 20,000 30,000 70,000 10,000 5,000 189,000

The expeditionary force’s primary armor was the American M-26 Chaffee light tank, which saw considerable service in Indochina. The French also used the U.S. 81-mm and 4.2-inch mortars. Field artillery weapons were the American-made 105-mm and 155mm howitzers. French artillery battalions were divided and employed as separate batteries supporting isolated garrisons. Artillery batteries were also included as part of French mobile battle groups. On occasion, French artillery was outgunned by the Viet Minh. At Dien Bien Phu, for example, the French deployed 24 105-mm guns and 4 155-mm howitzers. They also had 24 heavy mortars. The Viet Minh, on the other hand, had 24 105-mm howitzers, 25 75-mm howitzers, and 20 120-mm mortars. Later in the siege, they added 12 Soviet-made Katyusha multiple rocket launchers. The Viet Minh also had 36 37-mm antiaircraft guns. The Viet Minh deployed all of these on the high ground surrounding the French garrison and virtually wiped out the French guns. The initial French strategy was to establish a series of forts garrisoned by small forces that would link the major population centers. These forts, or postes, stretched throughout Vietnam, linked by the major highways (Routes Coloniales [RCs]). French dependence upon the road networks led to disaster, however, as conventional mechanized forces were vulnerable to the Viet Minh, who were able to cut highways at will and destroy French convoys as they attempted to resupply and reinforce beleaguered outposts. French airborne forces were unable to offset this, as the French lacked sufficient air transport to employ them in a rapid response role. Conventional airborne doctrine proved ineffective in smallunit actions because parachute troops were widely scattered upon landing; by the time they had consolidated, generally the Viet Minh had already inflicted substantial losses upon their targets and vanished into the jungles. Despite the difficulties inherent in airborne operations with inadequate airlift capacity and general air support, the French placed increasing reliance upon parachute troops, raising a number of colonial parachute battalions. Following the reestablishment of their control of the major cities, the French mounted several operations into Viet Minh strongholds in northern Vietnam in an effort to capture its leadership and destroy the Viet Minh logistical base. These efforts were largely unsuccessful, for the French lacked sufficient manpower to clear and hold large swaths of territory apart from the Red River Delta. During the period 1947–1950 the Viet Minh carried out a concerted offensive to drive the French from their Red River stronghold. In the September 1950 Battle of Dong Khe, the

Viet Minh overwhelmed the French garrison there and forced a general French retreat. The Viet Minh cut the primary road, RC 4, and massacred French relief convoys. The French effort to maintain their outposts was a failure, and by the end of 1950 the Viet Minh controlled most of northern Vietnam, while the French controlled only the cities. To restore French fortunes, Paris sent out the country’s most illustrious army general, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, to command in Indochina. General de Lattre designed a new doctrine to effectively use French forces in a conventional role. He embarked upon the setpiece battle and established a fortified base, offering Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap an irresistible target and an opportunity to destroy the French Army. In the January 14–15, 1951, Battle of Vinh Yen, French massed conventional forces, well supported by airpower, decisively defeated the Viet Minh. French artillery fire and aircraft-dropped napalm turned the tide in favor of the French. This victory, along with that at Mao Khe in the Mekong Delta (June 1951), restored French tactical fortunes and morale. De Lattre’s strategic enclave policy was continued by his successors, generals Raoul Salan and Henri Navarre. This strategy culminated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March 13–May 8, 1954). The Viet Minh was receiving military aid from Communist China, and Giap had built a professional and competent fighting machine, well equipped with modern weapons, that effectively used terrain to negate French airpower. Giap’s victory at Dien Bien Phu was a testament to his battle planning and the extraordinary endurance of Viet Minh soldiers. French mismanagement and command failures also contributed to the defeat. During the Indochina War the French also experimented with new tactics to combat the Viet Minh’s guerrilla warfare. The French raised several commando brigades for raids and other light infantry operations. These forces were multinational and reflected the composition of French Union Forces troops. Perhaps the most effective of the French special forces were the Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés (GCMA). The GCMA was similar to U.S. Special Forces in that the GCMA was designed for long-range penetration missions into Viet Minh territory. GCMA missions included intelligence gathering and training, equipping, and leading indigenous peoples in a counterguerrilla campaign against the Viet Minh. GCMA troops were to enter Communist-controlled areas, live in the jungle, and receive supplies by air while carrying out their mission of attacking the Viet Minh where they lived. GCMA troops faced numerous difficulties. The teams lacked sufficient radio communications, and shortages of air support left them virtually isolated in the jungle. The French high command failed to plan for extractions or reinforcements, and the Viet Minh gradually eliminated the GCMA teams. The Communists reserved a special enmity for these French soldiers, few of whom survived the conflict. Many GCMA missions during the Indochina War are still classified by the French government, and after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, some GCMA teams in the field were simply abandoned in the French withdrawal.

France, Navy, 1946–1954 In summary, the French Army attempted to fight an unconventional war with conventional strategy and tactics. The French never convinced the great number of Vietnamese that colonialism was better than independence. The Viet Minh wisely downplayed communism and therefore developed support not only from Vietnamese nationalists but also from many French. Despite its stated determination to hold on to Indochina, the French government never made the commitment in manpower necessary for France to have a chance to win. The war was essentially fought by the professional officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who led the French Expeditionary Corps. The French government never allowed draftees to be sent to Indochina. The small number of effectives available to French commanders left them very few options as far as strategy was concerned. Shortages of NCOs, a lack of trained intelligence officers and interpreters, and little interest in or knowledge of the mechanics of pacification all hampered the French military effort. As the war dragged on, popular support for the French military effort in Indochina eroded in metropolitan France. Yet the French Expeditionary Force fought well in Indochina. The French experimented with helicopter warfare, counterinsurgency warfare techniques, and psychological warfare (concerted efforts to mix political persuasion with military objectives to convince the Vietnamese people of the rightness of France’s cause). Despite the French Army’s best efforts, after the disaster at Dien Bien Phu the French government negotiated at Geneva an end to the war. French operational doctrine and air employment were too little studied by the United States, which endeavored to improve on these during the subsequent Vietnam War. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Carpentier, Marcel; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; French Foreign Legion in Indochina; Indochina War; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Order of Battle Dispute; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Beckett, Brian. The Illustrated History of the Viet Nam War. New York: Gallery Books, 1985. Bishop, Chris, and Ian Drury, eds. Combat Guns: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Firearms. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1987. Bonds, Ray, ed. The Vietnam War: The Illustrated History of the Conflict in Southeast Asia. New York: Salamander, 1999. Christienne, Charles, and Pierre Lissarague. A History of French Military Aviation. Translated by Francis Klanka. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1986. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

387

France, Navy, 1946–1954 In August 1945 when the French government decided to send an Expeditionary Corps to Indochina, it also dispatched air and naval units. The naval assets would be a squadron already in the Far East to support the planned invasion of Japan. Commanded by Admiral Philippe Auboyneau, the squadron was centered on the battleship Richelieu, supported by the cruisers Gloire and Suffren, two destroyers, and the old aircraft carrier Bearn, in service since the 1920s and now used as an aircraft transport vessel. Additional naval assets had to be dispatched from France. These were delayed by the refusal of the United States to provide logistical support, and France’s difficult postwar economic situation constrained the size and extent of its naval forces in the Indochina War. In 1945 French Indochina depended heavily upon its river and coastal waters for the movement of people and commerce. The bulk of the region’s population lived either on the rivers or the coast, and most roads were small, primitive, and usable only during the dry season. Controlling those waters thus became critical to both sides during the Indochina War. Unfortunately for the French effort, only the authorities in the south realized that fact, and it was there, with British support, that the French first gained control of the rivers and coastal seas. The French never achieved the same level of naval dominance in the north, where the war was lost. The French Navy began operations in the Indochina War with little in the way of assets conducive to riverine warfare: a handful of converted civilian barges and personnel only recently released from Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camps. Operating with only limited logistics and personnel support, those early units gained control of the lower Mekong Delta and eventually opened the river as far as Phnom Penh. The arrival of reinforcements in late 1945, which included former British landing craft, enabled the navy to conduct amphibious raids, interdict Viet Minh coastal traffic, and penetrate the Red River. Outposts, forts, and cities within the navy’s reach held out against the seemingly invincible Viet Minh forces, even after Communist Chinese forces began to support their cause. Unfortunately for France, however, economic devastation at home limited the resources available to support a land war in Asia. Given the navy’s low priority in the defense budget and lack of American aid to support a war for recolonization, reduction in naval forces was inevitable. In 1950 the Richelieu and all but one cruiser were withdrawn to be decommissioned. Only a single cruiser and a handful of destroyers and sloops remained to carry the coastal war to the enemy, while riverine forces operated inland almost unsupported. This naval downscaling could not have come at a worse time. From 1950 the Viet Minh contested the rivers. The reduced French naval presence was unable to prevent a steady increase in the level of Viet Minh coastal infiltration. Supported by only a handful of seaplanes and not equipped with radar, French coastal units attempted random patrols, then resorted to establishing ambush sites in likely staging areas, and finally turned to coastal sweeps.

388

France, Navy, 1946–1954

The Indochina War saw the rebirth of French naval aviation. In 1946 the French had only the aircraft transport vessel Bearn. Two modern carriers under construction in 1939 had been destroyed in the war. The only modern carrier available was the Arromanches, which the British transferred in August 1946. In 1951 the United States supplied the light fleet carrier Langley, renamed the Lafayette, and in 1953 its sister ship the Belleau Wood, renamed the Bois Belleau. The effectiveness of the French air arm declined even with the deployment of two French aircraft carriers to the theater. French naval air assets were increasingly committed to supporting fighting ashore, and few resources were left for coastal surveillance. French riverine forces meanwhile enjoyed two more years of success before the Viet Minh’s overall supremacy on land began to be evident. Much of the French success in riverine warfare can be credited to the innovative tactics and leadership of France’s first naval chief in Indochina, Commander François Jaubert, head of the Far East Naval Brigade. He realized the importance of the rivers, and in 1945 he formed the first combined naval-land river units and employed them around Saigon. Jaubert’s objective was to regain control of the critical provincial cities and towns dominating the Mekong and Bassac rivers. His first operation, MOUSSAC (October 1945), used British landing craft and improvised French river gunboats to recapture the provincial capitals of My Tho and Can Tho. Army units, which were to have participated, arrived only after the two cities had been taken. By December, Jaubert had expanded his force by 14 LCAs (landing craft, assault) and 6 LCVPs (landing craft, vehicle and personnel) brought in by the Bearn from Singapore. He also had two companies of naval infantry, supported by landing parties from the Richelieu and the Bearn. His force expanded again when the British withdrew from Saigon in December and transferred their landing craft to the French. One of the French Navy’s first steps in 1946 was to expand its operations into the north. The most important of these was Operation BENTRE, in which 21,700 French troops were landed just outside Hanoi after a brief firefight with Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) Chinese forces holding the city. The Nationalist Chinese were not convinced to withdraw until October. Soon afterward, the uneasy truce between the French and Ho Chi Minh in the north gave way to open fighting. A French naval bombardment of Haiphong helped to drive Viet Minh forces out of that key coastal city, but the resulting civilian casualties led to much local resentment against the French. French amphibious operations brought coastal towns and the main channel town of Nam Dinh under French control, and later operations opened the Red and Clear rivers to French use, but a lack of resources prevented the French from retaining a continuous presence on those rivers. As 1946 wore on, Jaubert noted that his units were best employed when they operated with army units familiar with naval and riverine operations. That realization led in January 1947 to the first permanent riverine organizations in Indochina. Designated Dinassauts, these units consisted of a variable number of armored and unarmored landing craft, river monitors, gunboats, and approxi-

mately one battalion of either naval or light (army) infantry. Total unit strength was approximately 1,200 men. Two formal Dinassauts were established, one each north and south. At various times in the war, other ad hoc Dinassauts would be formed from local forces. The combined land-naval riverine force was the basis for all French riverine operations from 1947 to the end of the war. The basic patrol craft operating in advance of these units was the 82-foot vedette patrouille, an unarmored motor launch equipped with two 20-millimeter (mm) cannon, two .50-caliber machine guns, a light mortar, and a .30-caliber machine gun. The troops themselves were transported in unarmored landing craft supported by armored landing craft mounting light cannon and heavy machine guns. The French also converted some craft by adding tank turrets and such weapons as the 40-mm Bofors and 20-mm Oerlikon antiaircraft guns. French naval efforts in Indochina reached their peak in 1951 following the introduction of U.S. assets, including landing craft, patrol boats, and carrier aircraft. This U.S. equipment and financial support enabled the French to form four more Dinassauts and employ them against Viet Minh offensives along the Red and Clear rivers. The French also increased surveillance along the coast and intercepted more than 1,500 Viet Minh junks and other transports. For the first time in the war, the Red River and its tributaries were firmly under French control. Facing a logistical shortfall, the Viet Minh withdrew into the mountains and shifted their supply routes to the slower but now safer land lines from China. The French Navy provided critical support to French Army land offensives in late 1951, providing sea-based air support, transporting supplies and units upriver, and conducting amphibious raids against suspected Viet Minh coastal strong points. French casualties mounted on the river routes as convoys faced increasingly more powerful and numerous ambushes as the convoys worked their way north and as enemy strength grew along the waterways. By March 1952 river convoy escort had become the French Navy’s primary mission in the north. River and coastal patrol (and thereby control) remained the primary mission only in the south. The lack of a coordinated French strategy after 1950, a dearth of resources, the reluctance to transfer political control to Vietnamese officials, and a declining will to pursue the war all led to the French defeat. Nothing illustrates this more than the mounting losses sustained by French riverine units as they were increasingly committed to escorting convoys on the Red and Black rivers after 1952. Lacking the resources to conduct both patrol and escort missions, the French essentially surrendered the coastal waters of the north to the Viet Minh, which used them to great effect from mid-1952 until the war’s end. The French Navy’s efforts in Indochina were exemplary and yet ultimately unsuccessful. Growing from a force of 1,200 former POWs to nearly 12,000 men, it successfully transported and supported almost 200,000 troops in-theater. The navy provided strategic and tactical mobility to French forces on the ground prior to

France and Vietnam, 1954–Present the advent of airmobile warfare. Its efforts could never reverse the outcome of the ground war, however. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER See also Dinassauts; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Indochina War; Order of Battle Dispute; Riverine Warfare References Jenkins, E. F. A History of the French Navy: From Its Beginnings to the Present Day. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973. Kilian, Robert. History and Memories: Naval Infantryman in Indochina. Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1948. Koburger, Charles W., Jr. The French Navy in Indochina. New York: Praeger, 1991. McClintock, Robert. “The River War in Indochina.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (December 1954): 1303–1311.

France and Vietnam, 1954–Present During the Geneva Conference of 1954 the French government attempted to disengage from the Indochina War, seeking a quick withdrawal from what had become a political quagmire. The cease-fire agreement implied continued French responsibility for the administration in southern Vietnam, but a French conference declaration recognized the independence of Vietnam without specifying the government, Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or Bao Dai’s State of Vietnam. On June 4, 1954, Paris formally granted full independence to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). During Franco-American talks in Washington in September 1954, the French grudgingly reaffirmed official support for State of Vietnam premier Ngo Dinh Diem. Negotiations on December 13, 1954, between U.S. general J. Lawton Collins and French general Paul Ély produced an agreement to officially transfer responsibility for the training and financing of Vietnamese troops from France to the United States. This agreement went into effect on February 12, 1955. Paris then gave formal notice of its withdrawal from Vietnam on April 3, 1956. On April 29, 1963, Paris officially informed Laotian prince Souvanna Phouma of its intention to withdraw immediately from its Seno base in Laos, authorized under terms of the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Accords. The French departure gave the United States responsibility for Western military support of the Laotian government, removed the last elements of French military presence in Laos and Vietnam, and permitted French president Charles de Gaulle to play a more independent role in trying to resolve the Vietnam quagmire. On August 29, 1963, in the first of many such pronouncements, de Gaulle indicated French support for eventual neutralization of South Vietnam. In the preceding months it had been asserted that French ambassador to Saigon Roger Lalouette was endeavoring to assist Ngo Dinh Diem and Ho Chi Minh in negotiating a purely Vietnamese solution of the conflict. Following this attempt Lalou-

389

ette was recalled to Paris, supposedly for exceeding his official capacity. Lalouette’s contacts may have been the basis for de Gaulle’s statement of August 29. The French president was also undoubtedly influenced by his desire to improve French relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In early January 1964 French minister of defense Pierre Messmer traveled to Phnom Penh and promised the Cambodian government some military equipment, reestablishing a military relationship between the two countries. Washington became concerned when on January 27, 1964, Paris announced that France was opening full diplomatic relations with Beijing. All future French efforts at neutralizing South Vietnam were based on the triangular relationship among Paris, Phnom Penh, and Beijing. In June 1967 de Gaulle informed British prime minister Harold Wilson that Paris had told the United States repeatedly that it should leave Vietnam but that Washington ignored the advice. The longer the United States stayed in Vietnam, he said, the greater the risk of a wider war. Partly for this reason, France had left the military command apparatus of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson thoroughly resented what he regarded as meddling French diplomacy, and de Gaulle’s statements concerning neutralization were taken as unwanted intrusions. This did not bother the French leader, who continued to insist on the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. Relations between the United States and France became more cordial in 1969 with the beginning of Richard M. Nixon’s presidency. De Gaulle and Nixon got along well with each other, and this personal rapport transferred smoothly to Georges Pompidou when he became president of France in June 1969. These improved relations spilled over into France’s attitude toward American involvement in Vietnam. Pompidou and de Gaulle both believed that Nixon intended to withdraw from Vietnam and took U.S. de-escalation efforts as a sign of that. This belief kept France from speaking out against American actions such as the 1970 Cambodian Incursion, which took place during the peace negotiations in Paris. Even when the U.S. bombing of Hanoi in 1972 killed the French delegate general to North Vietnam, Paris issued only routine protests. The French explained this in terms of their responsibility as hosts to the peace talks. Although the government attempted to remain neutral, it could not prevent demonstrations against the United States from taking place in Paris and throughout France. Regardless of these protests, the French government was particularly proud of its ability to keep the first two years of the Henry Kissinger–Le Duc Tho talks secret. Economic and cultural ties between France and Vietnam ran deep after the war’s conclusion. France became the third-largest foreign investor (after Taiwan and Hong Kong) in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), and French aid to Vietnam ran to more than $30 million in 1989. France normalized relations with

390

FRANCIS MARION, Operation

Thousands of protesters march from the Place de la République to the Bastille in Paris, France, on May 1, 1968. The demonstrators carry banners demanding higher wages and peace in Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

the SRV in 1989 after Hanoi withdrew its troops from Cambodia. In February 1993 French president François Mitterrand led a 200-member delegation to the SRV, the first Western leader to visit Vietnam since 1975. Mitterrand promised to increase French aid to the SRV if the latter would improve human rights. Since the late 1990s, French political and economic exchanges with the SRV have steadily grown, and those connections were further solidified by the normalization of relations between the United States and the SRV during the late 1990s. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS

Sullivan, Marianna P. France’s Vietnam Policy: A Study in FrenchAmerican Relations. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978. Wilson, Harold K. A Personal Record: The Labour Government, 1964–1970. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1971.

See also Bao Dai; Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Collins, Joseph Lawton; De Gaulle, Charles; Ély, Paul Henri Romuald; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Laos; Le Duc Tho; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Sainteny, Jean; Souvanna Phouma

The last in a series of U.S. Army screening operations in 1967 along the Cambodian border of Pleiku Province. Operation FRANCIS MARION was named after American Revolutionary War general Francis Marion, known as the “Swamp Fox,” who gained renown for punishing and eluding British forces in the swamps, bayous, and forests of South Carolina; many consider him one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare. Operation FRANCIS MARION was intended to prevent the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 1st Division from pushing into the Central Highlands.

References Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

FRANCIS MARION,

Operation

Start Date: April 5, 1967 End Date: October 12, 1967

Franco-Thai War Conducted by the 1st and 2nd brigades of the 4th Infantry Division from April 5 to October 12, 1967, FRANCIS MARION followed Operation SAM HOUSTON (January–April 1967). The 1st Brigade patrolled the area north from Duc Co to the Plei D’Jereng Special Forces camp, while the 2nd Brigade worked south toward the Ia Drang Valley. By the end of Operation FRANCIS MARION, there had been eight major military engagements. On April 30 after ambushing a PAVN patrol north of Duc Co and pursuing stragglers into a tree line, Company A, 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 8th Infantry (2-8 Infantry), came under withering machine-gun fire from a battalion of the PAVN 95B Regiment. After a harrowing night, U.S. artillery, air strikes, and tanks allowed Company A’s M113s to push through the tree line into a large bunker complex and inflict heavy casualties on PAVN troops surprised by the firepower of 90-millimeter tank rounds. The tables were turned on May 18 when a battalion of the PAVN 32nd Regiment trapped a platoon of Company B, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry (1-18 Infantry). Its remaining platoons were unable to break through, and the company lost 21 killed, 31 wounded, and 1 missing. Two days later the 1-18 Infantry repulsed a night attack on its hilltop positions by the same PAVN unit, at heavy cost. On May 22 as the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry (3-12 Infantry), moved to link up with the 2-8 Infantry near Duc Co, they were caught in a mortar barrage and attacked by the PAVN 66th Regiment. The PAVN troops broke contact only after being battered by artillery and air strikes. On July 12 two companies of the 3-12 Infantry again fought the PAVN 66th Regiment, this time in the hills south of Duc Co. On July 23 in the same area, a battalion of the PAVN 32nd Regiment nearly destroyed a platoon that had become separated from a company of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry (3-8 Infantry). The remaining platoons established a defensive line and managed to repulse two attacks. Slow to retreat, PAVN troops were pulverized by air strikes. Contact with PAVN units in western Pleiku Province diminished by the early autumn, and it became evident that the principal thrust was to be farther north in Kontum Province, where Operation GREELEY was under way. On October 12, 4th Division commander Major General William R. Peers consolidated FRANCIS MARION with GREELEY to create Operation MACARTHUR, which became the context for the pivotal struggle of the Central Highlands campaign, the Battle of Dak To. In 191 days FRANCIS MARION accounted for 1,203 known PAVN dead, but the operation failed to prevent significant PAVN units from moving into the Central Highlands. JOHN D. ROOT See also Armored Warfare; Dak To, Battle of; GREELEY, Operation; Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Peers, William R.; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

391

References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Franco-Thai War Start Date: November 1940 End Date: January 1941 Undeclared war between Vichy France and Thailand during November 1940–January 1941. The Thais began the war to regain the three rich rice-growing provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap (Siemreab), and Sisophon that it had annexed in 1862 from Cambodia but that the French had forced them to restore to Cambodia in 1907. Thailand also claimed territory in Laos, the return of which the French had secured in 1904. Although in early June 1940 Thailand concluded nonaggression pacts with France and Britain, after the defeat of France by Germany the Thais lost interest in ratifying them. Instead, the pro-Japanese military government of Marshal Pibul Songgram (which had renamed the country Thailand, formerly Siam) sought to capitalize on France’s weakness. In 1939 the Thai Army was comprised of some 26,500 soldiers. With reservists, in 1940 it numbered nearly 50,000 men. The Thai Air Force had about 270 planes, 150 of them combat types mostly of U.S. manufacture. The 10,000-sailor Thai Navy had 24 obsolete land-based aircraft, but Japan delivered 93 planes in December 1940. Thai naval vessels consisted of royal yachts, a British-built World War I destroyer, two British-built small gunboats, and eight motor torpedo boats. Italy also supplied nine small torpedo boats, two minesweepers, and nine minelayers. Two light cruisers under construction in Italy for the Thais were not yet available (they were, in fact, sequestered by Italy in 1941). In addition, Japan delivered two armored coast-defense AA vessels, four small submarines, two escort/training ships, and three small torpedo boats. The Thai Navy also had a number of auxiliary vessels. Despite its relatively large number of vessels, the Thai Navy suffered from serious shortcomings. Older vessels were of limited fighting value, the modern Italian torpedo boats were too flimsy for service in rough seas, and the Japanese submarines could not dive. Also, most of the Thai sailors were poorly trained. French Army forces in Indochina numbered 50,000 men, but 38,000 of these were native troops of questionable loyalty. The heart of the French military presence was the 5,000-man 5th Foreign Legion Regiment. The French possessed 30 World War I–vintage tanks, and most of their artillery was also outdated; they were also short of artillery ammunition. The French Air Force had fewer than 100 planes. The French Navy in Indochinese waters consisted of the light cruiser La Motte-Picquet, two gunboats, two sloops, two auxiliary patrol craft, and several noncombatants. Most French

392

Fratricide

warships were old and poorly armed and suffered from mechanical problems. The French in Indochina appeared vulnerable militarily and diplomatically. Not only had the Germans defeated France in Europe, but there was military pressure from Japan. In September 1940 Japanese troops invaded Tonkin, killed 800 French troops, and secured occupation concessions and airfields. For all these reasons, Bangkok believed that there was no better time than the present to reassert its claims. Beginning in mid-November 1940, the Thais sent military units across the Mekong River into eastern Cambodia. These incursions led to skirmishes with the French, who were temporarily sidetracked by the November 23 Indochinese Communist Party uprising in Cochin China. The French managed to crush this uprising in the first week of December, however. French high commissioner Admiral Jean Decoux decided to answer the Thai attacks with offensives on land and sea. The land offensive began on January 16, 1941, when a mixed French brigade attacked Thai positions at Yang Dom Koum. This effort failed for lack of manpower and an insufficient number of heavy weapons. The Thais, who had planned an attack for the same day, then counterattacked. Their offensive, supported by tanks, was beaten back by Legionnaires with grenades. Although Bangkok claimed a major victory, both sides then withdrew from the immediate area. Simultaneously, there was fighting at sea. The French Navy planned to attack the Thai Navy detachment at Koh Chang and the principal Thai Navy base at Sattahib. The initial strike was to be carried out by virtually the entire French flotilla: one cruiser, two gunboats, and two sloops. On January 16 this force sailed for the Gulf of Siam to attack Koh Chang, which guarded the passage to Sattahib. The French warships surprised the Thais early on the morning of January 17. In the ensuing 90-minute action, the French sank two Thai torpedo boats and a coast-defense vessel and mortally damaged another coast-defense ship. The French task force escaped with no direct hits or losses and returned to Saigon on January 19. There was little air action during the war, although the Thais did use their Curtiss Hawk III biplanes in a dive-bombing role. The French had a plan, never implemented, to firebomb Bangkok from the air. The indecisive land and naval actions of January 1941 did not end the war. The French triumph at Koh Chang was short-lived; the Japanese applied diplomatic pressure and threatened intervention on the Thai side. On January 31 a Japanese-dictated armistice was signed at Saigon aboard the Japanese cruiser Natori. Also under pressure from Germany, in March the Vichy government agreed to accept Japanese mediation. Negotiations were held in Japan, and by Japanese edict France and Thailand signed on May 9, 1941, in Tokyo, a peace treaty whereby France transferred to Thailand three Cambodian and two Laotian provinces on the right bank of the Mekong, in all some 42,000 square miles of territory. In September 1945 with the reintroduction of significant French military forces into Indochina, Thai officials agreed to return this

ceded territory and accept the Mekong River as the boundary between their country and Laos and Cambodia. That the issue remained unsettled was seen in border skirmishes along the Mekong River in 1946, in clashes during May 1987–February 1988 between Thailand and Laos, and in continuing Thai support of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Japan; Thailand References Decoux, Admiral Jean. A la barre de L’Indochine (1940–1945). Paris: Plon, 1949. Meisler, Jurg. “Koh Chang. The Unknown Battle. Franco-Thai War of 1940–41.” World War II Investigator [London] 2(14) (1989): 26–34. Mordal, Jacques. Marine Indochine. Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953. Mordal, Jacques, and Gabriel Auphan. La Marine Française pendant la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale. Paris: Hachette, 1958.

Fratricide Also known as friendly fire or, more correctly, friendly casualties due to friendly fire, fratricide describes the incidence of human deaths incurred by military forces in active combat operations as a result of being fired upon by their own or allied forces. Since the intentional production of friendly casualties (homicide) during the Vietnam War generated a new appellation, “fragging” (from the use of fragmentation grenades as the weapon of choice), only unintentional fratricide is discussed here. In an era of highly mobile forces and weapons of great range, lethality, and complexity, particularly those employed in the indirect fire mode combined with the fear and confusion induced by noise, smoke, tension, and faulty communications (the fog of war) on the modern battlefield, friendly casualties resulting from friendly fire are difficult to prevent. In Vietnam, with the lack of defined front lines and with units operating independently, sometimes overlapping within the same area of operations, in dense jungle and often at night, the incidence of friendly fire casualties might seem to be higher than in past American conflicts. Even when factoring in the fog of war along with sometimes poorly planned or coordinated operations or truly mistaken identity, when friendly forces inadvertently engaged each other with weapons ranging from rifles and hand grenades to artillery and attack aircraft, American losses to friendly fire in Vietnam do not appear to have exceeded those of previous modern wars. However, documented friendly fire cases in Vietnam exist for all forces engaged. It is important to remember that fratricide is, of course, as old as warfare. Fratricide rates in Vietnam were far lower than in previous wars, especially World War I and World War II. There was a lot more attention paid to fratricide in Vietnam because for the first time technology made it more preventable. Even so, exact figures for casualties caused by friendly fire during the Vietnam

FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation

War are not available. This may be explained by the failure of commanders at all levels to report the incidence of casualties produced by friendly fire out of concern for the loss of benefits and honors due the dead and wounded, the desire not to damage the reputation of the unit or personnel involved or the morale of surviving troops, or the inability to prove fratricide or simply not knowing if a casualty was caused by friendly fire. If circumstances permit, in general where fratricide is recognizable a formal investigation and report are required. Casualty statistics published by the Department of Defense for the Vietnam War appear to include friendly fire losses in “Casualties Not the Result of Hostile Forces,” which are made up of “Deaths from aircraft accidents/incidents” and “From ground action,” which totaled some 18 percent of all casualties. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Attrition; Casualties; Fragging References Neel, Spurgeon. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965– 1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1973. Office of Information Management and Statistics. Data on Vietnam Era Veterans. Washington, DC: Veterans Administration, 1983.

FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO,

Operation

Start Date: April 15, 1972 End Date: April 16, 1972 A U.S. air assault against critical military targets in the Democratic People’s Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Part of Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, the April 15–16, 1972, American attack on North Vietnamese supply stockpiles was a means of thwarting the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) Spring (Easter) Offensive against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO marked the first time that U.S. B-52s attacked petroleum products storage (PPS) areas in one of North Vietnam’s largest cities, Haiphong. The operation also targeted PPS areas in the capital of Hanoi. FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO necessitated the use of B-52s with their 30-ton bomb capacity, and planners expanded the strike area in order to destroy supply depots and disrupt the conventional military onslaught into South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese had launched a conventional threepronged offensive into South Vietnam on March 30, 1972. The U.S. military, despite having recently drawn down significant numbers of its ground, air, and surface forces, had detected the enemy buildup. Indeed, plans for a counterattack against North Vietnam were drafted nearly two months prior to the initial Communist assault. Throughout most of the early years of the Vietnam War, fears of political or military confrontations with North Vietnam’s allies, primarily the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic

393

of China (PRC), had severely limited bombing areas north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). However, North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive led U.S. leaders to lift the bombing restrictions and allow U.S. air strikes on targets from the front line to Hanoi. Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, beginning on April 6, 1972, utilized all available airpower in the region in the first major aerial bombing mission since 1968. President Richard M. Nixon approved of the use of the B-52 sorties, launched from bases in Guam and Thailand, as a swift and effective method of shutting down the supply lines that were necessary to supply North Vietnamese conventional military units in the field. Unlike Operation ROLLING THUNDER, which was a slow-escalation limited bombing campaign, in the spring of 1972 U.S. forces activated a swift, large, and deliberate air campaign. Operation FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO was specifically directed against the PPS areas that would fuel the PAVN tanks and other vehicles in their conventional military operation. U.S. Air Force fighters, stationed at bases in Thailand, and U.S. Navy aircraft from the carriers USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), USS Constellation (CV-64), and USS Coral Sea (CV-43) worked together with the B-52s. U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and U.S. Navy Grumman A-6A Intruders were charged with countering North Vietnamese MiG fighters, the suppression of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and electronic countermeasures to clear the way for the B-52s to strike their targets. In the first attack wave, the aircraft attacked PPS targets in the Haiphong area. The second and third waves of Tactical Air Command then struck 10 other targets in both the Haiphong and Hanoi vicinities. North Vietnamese air defense was largely ineffective. Some 250 SAM launches resulted in the loss of two aircraft. Thirty North Vietnamese MiG fighters were scrambled to try to intercept the American strike aircraft. Not only did the MiGs fail to shoot down any U.S. aircraft, but three MiGs were lost to U.S. fighter escorts. Fires from the burning North Vietnamese PPS areas could be seen more than 100 miles away. The failures of North Vietnam’s MiG fighters and SAM missiles during the FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO attacks stunned the North Vietnamese Air Defense Command and prompted it to conduct a wholesale reevaluation of its tactics and a major redeployment of its air defense forces. TARA K. SIMPSON See also Bombing Halts and Restrictions; Easter Offensive; FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation References Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Givens, Robert P. Turning the Vertical Flank: Air Power as a Maneuver Force in the Theater Campaign. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2002. Ho Si Huu, Chu Thai, The Ky, Nghiem Dinh Tich, and Dinh Khoi Sy. Lich Su Quan Chung Phong Khong, Tap III [History of the Air Defense Service, Vol. 3]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1994.

394

FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation

Ta Hong, Vu Ngoc, and Nguyen Quoc Dung. Lich Su Khong Quan Nhan Dan Viet Nam (1955–1977) [History of the People’s Air Force of Vietnam (1955–1977)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1993.

FREEDOM TRAIN,

Operation

Start Date: April 6, 1972 End Date: May 10, 1972 Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, a direct response to the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) Easter Offensive of 1972, was the first major U.S. air operation against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) since President Lyndon B. Johnson halted Operation ROLLING THUNDER in 1968. Operating from April 6 to May 10, 1972, FREEDOM TRAIN was the precursor to Operations LINEBACKER I and II. While U.S. authorities were aware in late 1971 that the North Vietnamese had been massing forces along the border of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as well as infiltrating Laos and Cambodia, the United States was nevertheless proceeding with the program of Vietnamization and withdrawing its combat troops from South Vietnam. Indeed, on January 25, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon stated in a nationally televised address that the number of Americans in South Vietnam would be reduced to 68,000 by May 1, 1972. On February 9, 1972, he announced that American involvement in the war had shifted to a defensive and base-security role. While American ground troops were being withdrawn, U.S. air assets would be largely responsible for providing security. Nonetheless, American airpower in Southeast Asia was woefully ill-prepared for the extent and intensity of the North Vietnamese 1972 Easter Offensive. On March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese began a massive three-pronged invasion of South Vietnam. In response, Nixon ordered available air assets to the Southeast Asian theater to conduct operations designed to impede North Vietnamese military activity south of the 17th Parallel and to hamper their ability to support the offensive. On April 6 after sufficient aircraft had been redeployed to airfields in South Vietnam, Thailand, and Guam and while U.S. aircraft carriers returned to the theater to support the air effort, Operation FREEDOM TRAIN began. FREEDOM TRAIN air sorties concentrated on targets south of the 20th Parallel. Meanwhile, Operation FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, a subset of FREEDOM TRAIN, targeted several strategic facilities to the north of that parallel, such as the April 16 B-52 air strike from Guam against petroleum products storage complexes in the area of the port of Haiphong, including several large petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) storage tanks and railroad car transports. In all, 10 major objectives were struck in this attack, which destroyed an estimated 50 percent of the POL storage facilities in the HanoiHaiphong area. Shortly thereafter, carrier aircraft joined U.S. Air

Force fighter-bombers in striking a POL tank farm and warehouse complex on the outskirts of Hanoi. When these attacks did not arrest the PAVN offensive, on May 8 naval aircraft began mining North Vietnamese harbors, and on May 10 the Nixon administration extended the air campaign, now designated LINEBACKER, to include all of North Vietnam. Operation FREEDOM TRAIN/LINEBACKER was unique to the Vietnam War in that it was not based on the gradual escalation approach identified with ROLLING THUNDER. Operation FREEDOM TRAIN was instead a comprehensive effort designed to destroy North Vietnam’s ability to continue its offensive in South Vietnam. FREEDOM TRAIN ended on May 10, to be redesignated Operation LINEBACKER as American air efforts expanded to targets throughout North Vietnam. During FREEDOM TRAIN/LINEBACKER I, U.S. B-52s dropped 155,546 tons of bombs, and U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy tactical aircraft flew 1,216 sorties, dropping an additional 5,000 tons of bombs. RONALD B. FRANKUM JR. See also Easter Offensive; FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Head, William P. War from above the Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2002. Smith, John T. The Linebacker Raids: The Bombing of North Vietnam, 1972. London: Arms and Armour, 1998. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000.

Free Fire Zones Term used early in the Vietnam War by the U.S. Department of Defense for bombing and artillery fire against purported Viet Cong (VC) personnel and strongholds. In 1965 after critical publicity, the term “free fire zones” was changed to “specified strike zones.” By whatever name, it was a failed tactic. Designated areas were, by definition, supposedly nearly uninhabited by noncombatants. This tactic was an effort to structure the conflict along conventional lines, with Communist and allied forces separated and occupying distinct and identifiable zones. In actuality, such divisions seldom occurred. Vietnam was the first American war in which an effort was made to restrict such zones. Saigon-appointed Vietnamese district and province chiefs charted these zones and authorized the use therein of unrestricted bombing and artillery fires. Often such individuals did not come from the zones for which they approved targets. Following such approval, friendly inhabitants in a designated zone were to be warned that it had now become a specified strike zone. This was done by loudspeaker, leaflet drops from low-flying aircraft, and infantry sweeps. Noncombatants were told to leave their homes immedi-

Free World Assistance Program

395

one-twelfth that of the United States, comparable American figures for 1968, had this nation been undergoing the same sort of generalized combat, would have been 3.5 million civilian casualties. CECIL B. CURREY See also Artillery Fire Doctrine; Clear and Hold; Pacification; Strategic Hamlet Program References Cincinnatus [Cecil B. Currey]. Self-Destruction: The Disintegration and Decay of the United States Army during the Vietnam Era. New York: Norton, 1981. Gibson, James William. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971.

Free Khmer See Khmer Serai

Free World Assistance Program A free fire zone was a U.S. military term designating an area in which bombing and artillery fire could be freely employed. Civilians were forcibly removed (as is shown here) and any people remaining were presumed to be Communist troops or sympathizers. (Bettmann/Corbis)

ately to seek safety elsewhere, usually in so-called protected villages. Reluctant to leave the land on which their ancestors were buried, many had to be forcibly evacuated, usually by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops. Others could not read the leaflets that fluttered down to them and thus remained in the zone, soon to become hapless casualties of war. Nor were the often cruel evacuations carried out by the ARVN particularly effective. Wailing people, forced onto trucks at rifle point, saw their crops destroyed, their animals shot, their wells poisoned, and their homes burned. Many of those who were moved to new locations found the facilities either strange or insufficient, so they returned to their homes. These returnees were then viewed by the Saigon government and the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), as VC sympathizers. For the first time the human factor was taken into account. In previous wars if civilians got in the way, it was their problem. Certainly the loss of life among noncombatants was large, as in most other wars in recorded history. A U.S. Senate subcommittee released figures purporting to show that civilian casualties from such actions were 100,000 in 1965 and 300,000 by 1968. Because the population of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was

To help remove the contention that the Vietnam War was solely an American conflict, the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) requested and received assistance from other free-world nations. In 1964 prior to the buildup of American combat forces, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for “Free World Military Forces” to create an alliance of “Many Flags” to aid South Vietnam, “a beleaguered friend.” This decision to request support was confirmed in National Security Policy Memorandum Number 328 on April 6, 1965. Over time, 39 nations in addition to the United States provided help to South Vietnam under the Free World assistance program. Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) participated with combat forces. The Philippines provided a Civic Action group, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) provided a Military Assistance Advisory Group, consisting primarily of political warfare advisers and medical personnel. The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany), Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the Netherlands established continuing programs of economic, humanitarian, and technical assistance, either as part of bilateral agreements or under the Colombo Plan (a plan drafted in Colombo, Ceylon, in 1951 for the cooperative development of South and Southeast Asia). In all cases, military working agreements were signed between commanders of the various Free World forces and the commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), that placed their combat forces under MACV operational control. The Korean agreement required South Korean forces to operate under parameters established by the Free World Military

396

French Foreign Legion in Indochina

Assistance Council, comprised of the chief of the Vietnamese Joint General Staff (JGS), the senior Korean officer in Vietnam, and the commander of MACV. This council provided operational guidance to, not control of, Free World forces through the annual Combined Campaign Plan, which broke the operational effort down geographically and functionally but did not assign tasks or goals. Although a combined command and staff arrangement was considered, it was rejected because of political sensitivities in both South Korea and South Vietnam to their forces falling under U.S. military command. Coordination of combat operations without the benefit of an integrated command at the top was provided through joint agreements between local Free World commanders and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) ground commanders. While ARVN corps commanders retained overall responsibility for military actions in each corps tactical zone (also known as military regions), U.S. and other Free World commanders accepted responsibility for tactical areas of responsibility, arbitrary geographical areas in which American and Free World units conducted combat operations. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Australia; Canada; China, Republic of; Civic Action; Germany, Federal Republic of; Japan; Korea, Republic of; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; New Zealand; Philippines; Thailand; United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars

seven decades, and for most of this period it was the backbone of French military presence in Indochina. The fighting against the Black Flags and the Chinese ended with the June 1885 Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) between France and China and recognition of French control of Vietnam. The French Foreign Legion then helped undertake the pacification of the Tonkin region. This new mission set the stage for future conflict in the region, as the legion was forced to fight against insurgent forces opposed to French rule. The geography initially presented tactical and logistical problems, but the general pacification of Tonkin was accomplished by 1897, and the legion then assumed rather routine security duties until the 1930s. Indochina was an extremely popular assignment for Legionnaires. A number claimed it as “a second fatherland” for the French Foreign Legion. The availability of opium attracted some, while officers saw Indochina as an opportunity for career advancement. Because of a high number of volunteers and the importance of the mission, the legion was able to exercise stringent selection criteria. Although there had been periodic uprisings against French rule, by the late 1930s Vietnamese nationalism was increasing. The French Foreign Legion was called out to restore order and quickly earned a deserved reputation for its effective and severe treatment of the rebels.

References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975.

French Foreign Legion in Indochina The French Foreign Legion was created by King Louis Philippe on March 10, 1831, in consequence of a prohibition on foreigners serving in the French Army that followed the July Revolution in 1830. The legion soon developed a reputation as a formidable elite fighting force of strict discipline and iron will. The legion saw its first service in Algeria and was then employed to further French interests abroad, in Spain and in Mexico, before fighting in the Franco-Prussian War. The French Foreign Legion was first sent to Indochina in the autumn of 1883 during the Black Flags/Sino-French Wars (1883– 1885). The legion saw its first action in December 1883 during an operation to seize the town of Son Tay. Two companies of the legion also participated in the celebrated siege of Tuyen Quang (November 1884–March 1885), which greatly enhanced its reputation as an elite fighting force. The legion remained in Indochina for

Members of a French Foreign Legion patrol question a suspected member of the Viet Minh. The French Foreign Legion played a major combat role during the Indochina War. (National Archives)

French Foreign Legion in Indochina

397

398

French Indochina, 1860s–1946

In 1940 French Army forces in Indochina numbered 50,000 men, but 38,000 of these were native troops of questionable loyalty. The heart of the French military presence was the 5,000-man French Foreign Legion 5th Regiment. The legion, although short of equipment, distinguished itself in the 1940 Franco-Thai War and also during the November 1940 Indochinese Communist Party uprising in Cochin China. The French managed to crush this uprising by the first week of December. Legionnaires continued to be stationed in Indochina during the Japanese occupation beginning in 1940. When the Japanese rounded up French forces in 1945, the French Foreign Legion alone put up stiff resistance. After the war the legion continued duty in this colonial posting, and when fighting erupted in 1945 and 1946, the legion played a prominent role. The post–World War II French Foreign Legion included a great many non-French. The legion included especially Germans who had fought in World War II (the legion asked no questions as to background, and recruits could assume new identities) but also Russians and other East Europeans who wished to pursue or to continue military careers. For the French Foreign Legion, the Indochina War posed familiar tactical problems. Fighting primarily a guerrilla war, the legion perpetuated its superior combat reputation, participating in the major operations of the war. Legionnaires served with distinction in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, Legionnaires constituted the bulk of the volunteer relief troops parachuted into the valley as reinforcements. The defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the subsequent French withdrawal from Indochina was a severe blow to morale in the French Foreign Legion as well as in the French Army. Although not broken by Indochina, the legion was certainly changed by the experience. Soon, however, it was fighting in Algeria. RICHARD D. STARNES See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; France, Army, 1946–1954; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Indochina War; Order of Battle Dispute; Tianjin, Treaty of References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Dunn, Peter M. The First Vietnam War. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

French Indochina, 1860s–1946 European powers came to Vietnam in their quest for religious converts, trade, and naval facilities. The first lasting contact between Vietnam and Europe resulted from the 1535 arrival of Portuguese explorer Antonio da Faria at Faifo (present-day Hoi An). Subsequently both the Portuguese and the Dutch established rival trading posts in Vietnam. Although Catholic missionaries might have

come to Vietnam before da Faria, the first permanent Catholic mission was not established there until 1615. French priest Alexandre de Rhodes made Catholicism a cultural as well as religious force in Vietnam. He is generally credited with the creation of quoc ngu, written Vietnamese with a Latin alphabet and diacritical marks. Previously Vietnamese had been written in Chinese ideographs. The French used quoc ngu to eliminate the political and cultural influence of Vietnamese Confucian scholars. Quoc ngu also became a boomerang against the French; with it came the introduction of Western ideas of freedom and democracy. Steadily Southeast Asia began to attract more European attention. The term “Indochina” is attributed to Danish cartographer Konrad Malte-Brun (1775–1826) and was applied collectively to Burma, Thailand, Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China, Laos, and Cambodia. Another Catholic priest, Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine, became influential in Vietnamese history in the late 18th century. He helped secure European mercenaries and military equipment crucial in enabling Nguyen Phuc Anh (from 1802, Emperor Gia Long) to reunify Vietnam. The French mercenaries brought with them numerous Western technological advances, including improved engineering and metallurgical techniques. Emperor Gia Long (r. 1802–1820) may have welcomed Westerners’ military and technological assistance, but he was not interested in advancing their religion. His successors, Minh Mang (r. 1820–1841), Thieu Tri (r. 1841–1847), and Tu Duc (r. 1848– 1883), lacked Gia Long’s flexibility and appreciation of Western strengths and weaknesses. Certainly they were much less successful than he in dealing with Western pressures. In fairness to them, it should also be pointed out that during Gia Long’s reign, the European powers were too embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars to pay much attention to Vietnam. Dealing with reawakened European imperialism fell to Gia Long’s successors; Gia Long himself would probably have been little more successful in resisting European imperialism. The Vietnamese emperors regarded Catholicism as a threat to the Confucian concept of order and harmony. Catholics were not singled out; the imperial court persecuted Buddhists and Taoists as well. Certainly the royal concubines were a powerful source of opposition to the Western religion; they saw Christian opposition to polygamy as a direct threat to their own position. Regardless of the reasons behind it, the attempt by the 19th-century Vietnamese emperors to root out Christian missionaries provided the excuse for French intervention. Unfortunately for the Vietnamese, they, unlike the Japanese, had shown little interest in the vast improvements in armaments that had occurred in the half century since the reunification of their country. This put them at a great disadvantage when the inevitable collision with the West occurred. Missionary fervor was not the only factor pushing the French to intervene in Vietnam. Another more powerful force was trade. In the 1840s the British had taken the lead in obtaining trading concessions in China. The French were fearful of being left out and

French Indochina, 1860s–1946

399

400

French Indochina, 1860s–1946

French colonial forces transport a 75-mm gun artillery battery in Indochina around 1930. (Library of Congress)

soon followed suit; their China squadron was the chief military means of applying pressure on Vietnam. The French also hoped that Vietnam might provide access to the interior of China by means of the Mekong and Red rivers. Alleged mistreatment of Catholic missionaries was the excuse for French intervention. In 1845 and again in 1846, French warships were sent to Vietnam to secure the release of Monseigneur Dominique Lefèvre, who had been imprisoned on imperial order for refusing to leave the country. During the second intervention, French warships sank four Vietnamese warships that they regarded as presenting a hostile intent. On August 31, 1858, a Franco-Spanish squadron of 14 ships and 3,000 men (500 of them Spanish troops from the Philippines) commanded by Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly arrived at Tourane (Da Nang) and anchored there. The next day a landing party went ashore. Tourane proved no prize, and the expedition soon moved southward. On February 18, 1859, the French took Saigon. At the time a sleepy little fishing village, Saigon had promise of being an excellent deep-water port. In 1862 Emperor Tu Duc was obliged to sign a treaty confirming the French conquest. It was no accident that the French chose to penetrate southern Vietnam first; it was the newest part of the country. In France, those favoring empire building gradually overcame the arguments of those opposed to colonialism. By 1867 the French had conquered all of Cochin China, the southernmost part of Vietnam. From 1862 to 1887 France established control over

Indochina: first Cochin China and then Cambodia, Annam, and Tonkin. Guerrilla warfare continued in parts of the country for a time. The young emperor Ham Nghi led a brief rebellion until he was captured in 1888. One last nationalist leader, De Tham, was killed in 1913. In 1887 Paris formed its conquests into French Indochina. Laos was added in 1893. Technically only Cochin China was an outright colony; the others were merely protectorates. The reality was that all were ruled by a French governor-general responsible to the minister of colonies in Paris. For the next 50 years the French ruled Indochina. It was to be a very influential period in the history of Vietnam, as fateful for the country as the 1,000 years of Chinese domination. French administration in Indochina was haphazard. Both ministers of colonies and governors-general changed frequently, and with each came policy changes. Also, Indochina did not attract the most capable civil servants, and many of those who went there never bothered to learn the local language. French officials were found at all levels, and their salaries consumed what little money was available in the colonial budget. Little was left to spend on education or public works, and life in the countryside was little affected by French rule. The small French community (40,000 to 50,000 people) dominated the economy of what was France’s richest colony. In education the ideal was to turn the Vietnamese into a cultural copy of mainland France, but even after World War I only some 10 percent of Vietnamese of school age were attending

French Indochina, 1860s–1946 Franco-Vietnamese schools. And as late as 1940 there were only 14 secondary schools in all of Vietnam and only 1 university (at Hanoi). This produced a talented but very small native elite aspiring to positions of influence that were closed to them by the colonial regime. Ultimately their frustration drove many of them to turn against France. Vietnamese nationalist hopes were raised due to a victory by an Asian power over a European state in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and by the Allied victory in World War I, with President Woodrow Wilson’s call for the self-determination of peoples. But at the Paris Peace Conference, Vietnamese patriots and other nationalists found out that this latter doctrine was limited to Europe. Moderate nationalists in Vietnam after World War I took China’s Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist Party of China) as their model. Their organization, the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party), was not well organized. The VNQDD led premature uprisings in 1930–1931, notably at Yen Bai. These were easily crushed by the authorities, but they had the unfortunate effect for the French of opening the way for the more militant Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). By World War II the ICP was the dominant nationalist force in Indochina. World War II brought the Japanese in 1940. Having been crushed militarily by Germany in that year, France was in no position to resist Tokyo’s demands for bases. Ironically, it was Vietnam that brought the United States into the war. Japan’s July 1941 move into southern Indochina meant that Japanese long-range bombers could now reach Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines. The United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands then imposed an embargo on scrap iron and oil to Japan, a decision that caused Tokyo to embark on a war with the United States. During World War II the Japanese left the Vichy French government in Indochina in place, but as the conflict neared its end, the French were determined to liberate themselves. With these plans an open secret, it was hardly a surprise when the Japanese struck first. On March 9, 1945, they arrested virtually all French administrators and military personnel. Tokyo created a further problem for France by declaring Vietnam independent under Emperor Bao Dai. Vietnamese nationalist and Communist leader Ho Chi Minh moved into the vacuum left by the defeat of Japan. On August 16, 1945, in Hanoi, Ho declared himself president of a “free Vietnam,” and on September 2 he proclaimed the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Even before the end of the war, the French government had planned to make concessions and grant more freedom to Indochina but only if Paris retained ultimate authority. World War II marked the end of European colonialism. French leaders, however, chose not to see the inevitable and failed to seek accommodation with nationalist leaders. In Indochina the result was a missed opportunity for orderly transition to self-rule and a close relationship with France. The war itself was a principal reason why Paris refused to compromise. It is hard for the weak to be

401

generous, and only with its empire could France hope to continue as a Great Power. According to the July 1945 Potsdam Agreement, the British were to take the surrender of Japanese troops south of the 16th Parallel and of Chinese troops north of the parallel. The British released French troops from Japanese camps, and Paris sent reinforcements to reestablish its control over southern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The French also arranged a Chinese withdrawal from North Vietnam. In January 1946 Ho carried out elections in the northern part of the country. Although these were not entirely free, there was no doubt that Ho had won. There remained the problem of dealing with France, and in March 1946 Ho worked out an agreement with French diplomat Jean Sainteny. The terms of the agreement had Paris recognizing North Vietnam as a free and independent state within the French Union. France was allowed to send a limited number of troops into North Vietnam to protect its interests there, although all were to be withdrawn over a five-year period. Paris also accepted the principle of a united Vietnam by agreeing to a plebiscite in the southern Vietnam that would allow a vote on whether it would join North Vietnam. French high commissioner for Indochina Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu refused to allow the promised southern plebiscite. In a direct appeal to Paris, Ho led a delegation to France. By the time it had arrived the French government had fallen, and it was weeks before a new one was formed. Unfortunately, the Socialists lost seats in the June elections, and the Communists, who were in the government, were trying to demonstrate their patriotism. As a result, at the Fontainebleau Conference Paris made no concessions to the Vietnamese nationalists. Meanwhile, d’Argenlieu had on his own initiative proclaimed the independence of southern Vietnam as the “Republic of Cochin China.” D’Argenlieu’s action clearly violated the Ho-Sainteny Agreement and left Vietnamese leaders feeling betrayed. Although there is still disagreement on this point, Ho was probably a nationalist before he was a Communist, and, given Vietnam’s long antagonistic relationship with China, he certainly might have become an Asian Tito. In September, Ho left Paris and forecast an early start of war. He also correctly predicted how it would be fought and how it would end. The war began in Hanoi on December 19, 1946, following the November 23 shelling of the port of Haiphong by the French cruiser Suffren on d’Argenlieu’s orders as a show of force. This fighting, including its American phase, would last 29 years and would be the longest war in the 20th century. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bao Dai; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; De Rhodes, Alexandre; Fontainebleau Conference; Haiphong, Shelling of; Ham Nghi; Ho Chi Minh; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Minh Mang; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre; Potsdam Conference; Rigault de Genouilly, Charles; Sainteny, Jean; Thieu Tri; Tu Duc; Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

402

FREQUENT WIND, Operation

References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Lacouture, Jean. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography. New York: Random House, 1968. Sainteny, Jean. Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam: A Personal Memoir. Chicago: Cowles, 1972. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968.

FREQUENT WIND,

Operation

Start Date: April 29, 1975 End Date: April 30, 1975 The final U.S. evacuation from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation FREQUENT WIND began at 10:51 a.m. Saigon time on April 29, 1975. Before dawn that morning a heavy artillery and rocket barrage on Tan Son Nhut Air Base signaled that the final assault on Saigon was imminent. At first light, with shells still crashing onto the field, South Vietnamese aircrews began fleeing in their planes, leaving jettisoned bombs and fuel tanks strewn on runways. From his headquarters at the air base, Major General Homer D. Smith, head of the U.S. Defense Attaché Office (DAO), reported to Ambassador Graham A. Martin that the runways were unusable and that Americans and endangered South Vietnamese would have to be flown out by helicopter to ships waiting off the Vietnamese coast, Option IV in the evacuation plan. Martin insisted on coming to Tan Son Nhut to see for himself and, even then, waited nearly two more hours before ordering the evacuation. Finally, at 10:51 the message was flashed: “Execute Frequent Wind Option IV.” Before the airlift could begin, however, a complicated series of ship-to-ship flights had to be carried out to load 865 marines who were to provide security for the evacuation. The first Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallions landed at the DAO Tan Son Nhut compound at 3:06 p.m. The marines sprinted off, and waiting evacuees scrambled on. Six minutes after landing the helicopters were airborne again, heading back to the fleet through a sky full of woolly clouds. By evening, nearly 4,500 Vietnamese and 395 U.S. citizens had been flown out of the air base. The marines began withdrawing at 10:50 p.m. The last to leave were demolition teams who blew up secret communications gear and then the DAO building itself, along with barrels containing more than $3.6 million in U.S. currency. No large-scale airlift was planned from the U.S. embassy. Accordingly, U.S. Marine Corps commander Brigadier General Richard E. Carey was stunned when shortly before 4:00 p.m., word

came that several thousand people, about half of them Vietnamese, were stranded in the embassy compound, and growing crowds were gathering outside. Carey issued new orders directing helicopters and 130 additional marines to the embassy, where around 5:00 p.m. the first evacuees were lifted out. Only one CH-53 at a time could land in the embassy’s courtyard parking area, while the rooftop pad accommodated only the smaller Boeing CH-46 Sea Knights. Darkness fell, and with it came thunderstorms that dispersed the crowds outside the walls and also made flying hazardous. To guide the CH-53s, an embassy officer used a slide projector to mark the landing area with a brilliant white rectangle of light. A slow but steady stream of flights continued until about 11:00 p.m., paused while the marines were evacuated from the DAO, and then resumed after midnight. The task force commanders and officials in Washington were increasingly anxious to finish the operation, but no one knew how many Vietnamese remained in the embassy. Helicopters kept returning to the fleet with more Vietnamese, leaving an impression, one pilot recalled, that they were trying to empty “a bottomless pit.” Fearing that the operation might go on indefinitely, task force commanders and White House officials ordered the refugee flights stopped. At 4:30 a.m. Carey radioed to his pilots that only Americans were to be flown out from then on. A communications plane over Saigon relayed a presidential message ordering Ambassador Martin to board the next helicopter. Just before 5:00 a.m., Martin climbed onto a CH-46 and left. The handful of remaining Americans followed. About 420 Vietnamese were still waiting on the parking lot. Among them were the embassy’s firemen, who had volunteered to stay until the last flight in case of an emergency. Hundreds of other Vietnamese employed by the U.S. government, including many who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. Information Agency, were abandoned elsewhere in Saigon because their American superiors failed to get them into the embassy or to Tan Son Nhut. Altogether, 978 Americans and approximately 1,100 Vietnamese were flown out of the embassy. At daybreak only the marine security force remained. Barricading the stairs behind them, they climbed to the roof. One by one the last nine CH-46s dropped down, loaded, and left for the fleet. Master Sergeant Juan Valdez was the last to board. At 7:53 a.m. on April 30, the final helicopter lifted off the roof, turned, and flew eastward. ARNOLD R. ISAACS See also EAGLE PULL, Operation; Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth; Ho Chi Minh Cam-

paign; Martin, Graham A.; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 References Herrington, Stuart A. Peace with Honor? Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

Fulbright, James William

Friendly Fire See Fratricide

Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées Indigenous Vietnamese resistance organization. Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races) was the ethnonationalistic movement of the Front pour la Libération des Montagnards (FLM), Front pour la Libération des Khmer Krom (FLKK), and Front pour la Libération des Chams (FLC). FULRO evolved out of the Bajaraka (a consolidation of Bahnar, Jarai, Rhadé, and Koho) movement created in opposition to President Ngo Dinh Diem’s land development program in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to resettle Vietnamese refugees on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands and force the resettlement of Montagnard villagers. FULRO made its presence known in 1964 through a military uprising at Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) camps around Ban Me Thuot where Y Bham Enuol, a Rhadé, offered a FULRO manifesto that called for action to reclaim Montagnard lands taken by the Vietnamese. Although the Ministry for Development of Ethnic Minorities was created by the Saigon government in response to the uprising in efforts to win Montagnard support, Enuol and his followers fled to Mondulkiri Province in Cambodia under threat of imprisonment by the South Vietnamese government. By 1965 FULRO maintained an army of 5,000 to 6,000 men, many of whom had left Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) units for Cambodia, along with some 15,000 of their dependents. As FULRO president, Enuol represented the Montagnards in negotiations with the Cambodian and South Vietnamese governments, the Viet Cong (VC), and the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Following the January 1968 Tet Offensive and the increasing vulnerability of Montagnard villages to Communist attack, Enuol sought to return to the Central Highlands to protect Montagnard villages from Communist attacks. In negotiations with the Saigon government, he was promised that FULRO army units would be integrated into Regional Force (RF) units to protect Montagnard villages and that FULRO leaders would receive positions within the government. This arrangement upset the more militant FULRO members, who then overthrew Enuol’s leadership in December 1968 and exiled him and his followers to Phnom Penh. The agreement to integrate FULRO forces into RF units was nevertheless upheld, and with the return of FULRO soldiers to Vietnam and the exile of Enuol to Cambodia, FULRO lost its position as an ethnonationalistic movement by early 1969. FULRO resurfaced around 1974–1975 as the Dega Highlands Provisional Government, with its military arm, the Dega Highlands Liberation Front (referred to by Gerald Hickey in 1993 as Dega-

403

FULRO), in opposition to Communist rule. Perhaps as many as 2,000 Montagnard soldiers held out against superior Communist forces for 10 years, finally giving up their struggle in 1984. Many of the Montagnards returned to the Central Highlands, but the 200 men who formed the core of the resistance fled to refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1985. They were found at Site 2 South by three Americans, Don Scott, Pappy Hicks, and Jim Morris, who arranged their passage to the United States, where they were resettled in North Carolina and South Carolina. The resistance leaders include Pierre Toplui K’Briuh, Nay Rong, R’Mah Dock, Y Pat Buon Ya, Y T’Lur Eban, and Ksor Kok, executive director of the Montagnard Foundation. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Ban Me Thuot, Battle of; Cambodia; Central Highlands; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Enuol, Y Bham; Hickey, Gerald Cannon; Mobile Strike Force Commands; Montagnards; Territorial Forces References Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Free in the Forest: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954–1976. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival among Vietnam’s Highland Peoples during the Vietnam War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Fulbright, James William Birth Date: April 9, 1905 Death Date: February 9, 1995 U.S. senator and outspoken Vietnam War critic. Born in Sumner, Missouri, on April 9, 1905, James William Fulbright received his BA in history from the University of Arkansas in 1925 and an MA from Oxford University in 1928 before earning a law degree from George Washington University in 1934. He then became an attorney in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice and taught law at the University of Arkansas. In 1939 he was appointed president of the university, a post he held until 1941. An ardent and lifelong Democrat, during 1943–1945 he represented Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives, authoring the Fulbright-Connally Resolution that ultimately facilitated the creation of the United Nations (UN). Fulbright then served in the U.S. Senate from 1945 to 1974. In 1945 convinced that education brought out the good in the young and cultivated a desire to preserve the American republic, Fulbright, himself a Rhodes Scholar, took the lead in the establishment of Fulbright Fellowships, an international exchange program. Independent by nature, Fulbright disagreed with aspects of foreign policy of every U.S. president from Harry S. Truman to Richard M. Nixon but especially attacked the Lyndon B. Johnson

404

Fulbright, James William Although Fulbright helped shepherd the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through the Senate, by 1966 he had concluded that the Vietnam War was primarily an insurgency against a corrupt and repressive Saigon government that did not deserve the backing of the United States. He believed that Vietnam had no bearing on the vital interests of the United States and that American involvement was undermining democracy and individual liberty at home as well as overseas. That same year, televised hearings held by Fulbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee helped turn popular opinion against the war and endeared him to antiwar activists. Johnson was furious at Fulbright’s scathing criticism, but the senator kept up the pressure until the last American troops left Saigon in 1973. Fulbright was defeated in his 1974 reelection bid and resigned from the Senate in December 1974. After leaving office he joined the law firm of Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C. Fulbright also stayed very active in international affairs and national politics. His greatest legacies during his long public service career are certainly his anti–Vietnam War stance and the Fulbright Fellowship, which to date has sponsored more than 250,000 individuals. Fulbright died in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1995. BRENDA J. TAYLOR

U.S. senator from Arkansas J. William Fulbright. Fulbright initially supported the Vietnam War and helped shepherd the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through the Senate, but by 1966 he had turned against U.S. involvement and became one of its most outspoken critics. (Library of Congress)

administration on the Vietnam issue. In the early 1950s Fulbright also took a sharp public stand against Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the excesses of McCarthyism, certainly a risky move at the time.

See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Truman, Harry S. References Berman, William C. William Fulbright and the Vietnam War: The Dissent of a Political Realist. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988. Woods, Randall Bennett. J. William Fulbright, Vietnam, and the Search for a Cold War Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

G Galbraith, John Kenneth Birth Date: October 15, 1908 Death Date: April 29, 2006 Acclaimed economist, government official, diplomat, prolific author, and critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Born in Iona Station, Ontario, Canada, on October 15, 1908, John Kenneth Galbraith received a BA from Ontario Agricultural College (University of Toronto) in 1931. He subsequently earned a master’s degree in 1933 and then in 1934 a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley and Princeton University before taking a faculty position at Harvard University in 1948. There he contributed to the so-called dangerously liberal reputation of Cambridge economists in the 1940s and 1950s. Galbraith supported Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reelection in the 1936 presidential campaign and gained U.S. citizenship in 1937. During World War II Galbraith helped write price control policy for the Office of Price Administration. He continued his government service by surveying the effects of strategic bombing on the wartime German economy. During the 1940s Galbraith also wrote for Fortune magazine, developing a friendship with publishing magnate Henry Luce. Galbraith was a campaign adviser and wrote campaign speeches for Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 and published The Great Crash in 1955 and The Affluent Society in 1958. During these years Galbraith, having known John F. Kennedy at Harvard as the younger brother of Joe Kennedy, was consulted by the senator on economic legislation. Following his election to the presidency in 1960, John Kennedy appointed Galbraith ambassador to India (1961–1963). As early as the spring of 1961 Galbraith began warning Kennedy of potential

conflict in Vietnam, writing that President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) had alienated his own people. In September, Kennedy sent General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow to Vietnam to investigate the need for armed American intervention, which their subsequent report advocated. Kennedy requested Galbraith, in Washington at the time, to return to India via Saigon and report his findings. Indicting Diem’s regime, Galbraith opposed sending troops. Kennedy concurred and sent only helicopters and advisers. Galbraith became more outspoken against the Vietnam War during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, supporting Eugene McCarthy’s presidential candidacy in 1968. Galbraith served as the national chairman for Democratic Action (1967–1968) and as president of the American Economic Association (1972). After the defeat of Democrat George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election, Galbraith eschewed active politics in favor of writing and publishing. He officially retired from Harvard in 1975 and produced a film series, The Age of Uncertainty, in 1977. Thereafter Galbraith continued to write, speak, and teach on a variety of subjects well into his nineties. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 29, 2006. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Galbraith, John Kenneth. A Life in Our Times: Memoirs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Lamson, Peggy. Speaking of Galbraith: A Personal Portrait. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1991. Parker, Richard. John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

406

Galloway, Joseph Lee

Galloway, Joseph Lee Birth Date: November 13, 1941 Newspaper correspondent and writer. Joseph Lee Galloway was born on November 13, 1941, in Refugio, Texas. He became a newspaper reporter at age 17 and within two years was a bureau chief for United Press International (UPI) in the Kansas City office. In early 1965 as U.S. involvement in Vietnam intensified, Galloway undertook the first of his three tours as a war correspondent for UPI in Vietnam. In September 1965 the 1st Cavalry Division departed Fort Benning, Georgia, for its base camp at An Khe in the Central Highlands of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In late October a large People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) force attacked the Plei Me Special Forces Camp, and U.S. forces then began an effort to locate and destroy the PAVN forces. On November 14 Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. Moore and the lead elements of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry (Airmobile), were airlifted by helicopters into the Ia Drang Valley, initiating the first major battle of the Vietnam War between the U.S. Army and PAVN forces. Soon after Moore’s troopers arrived at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray, they were surrounded by 2,000 PAVN regulars. Another 2,000 awaited other U.S. troops as they arrived later. From November 14 to 18, U.S. forces at LZ X-Ray and later LZ Alpha, supported by air strikes, managed to hold their positions. On the evening of November 14 Galloway joined the engagement, intending to gather information for a newspaper article. He soon found himself aiding wounded American soldiers while under heavy fire and returning fire with a borrowed M-16 at PAVN troops attempting to overrun the position. After suffering heavy casualties, the PAVN eventually broke off the attack. In the aftermath of the battle, the surviving Americans withdrew from the area. While Moore considered the battle a draw since the enemy ultimately reoccupied the valley, General William Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), hailed it as a victory. Many believe that this battle set the pattern for U.S. ground operations during most of the war. Galloway spent more than 40 years altogether as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for UPI and as senior editor and writer for U.S. News & World Report. His reports from Vietnam were invariably accurate, highly informed, and unbiased. Besides his tours in Vietnam, Galloway spent time overseas in Japan, Indonesia, India, Singapore, and the Soviet Union. In 1990–1991 Galloway covered the Persian Gulf War, accompanying the 24th Infantry Division during its famous end-run around Iraqi defenses. Allied commander General H. Norman Schwarzkopf called Galloway “the finest combat correspondent of our generation—a soldier’s reporter and a soldier’s friend.” In 1992 Galloway and Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore coauthored the best-selling book We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young about their experiences in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965. In 2002 the book was made into a popular film with Barry Pepper playing Galloway and Mel Gibson portraying Moore. Both the book

and film received critical acclaim. In 2008 Moore and Galloway published a sequel, We Are Soldiers Still. On May 1, 1998, Galloway received the Bronze Star Medal with V Device for his actions at Ia Drang. He is the only civilian to receive such a medal for the Vietnam War. Shortly thereafter, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund members created the Joseph L. Galloway Award, presented to war correspondents serving with U.S. troops overseas. In the autumn of 2002 Galloway joined Knight Ridder as its senior military correspondent, working in its Washington Bureau. During this time he also served as a special consultant to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. More recently, Galloway was an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush and his Iraq War policies. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Film and the Vietnam Experience; Ia Drang, Battle of; Media and the Vietnam War; Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr.; Search and Destroy; Westmoreland, William Childs References Galloway, Joe. “A Reporter’s Journal From Hell.” In The Greatest U.S. Army Stories Ever Told: Unforgettable Tales of Courage, Honor and Sacrifice, edited by Ian C. Martin, 215–222. Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2006. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam. New York: Harper, 2008. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1992.

GAME WARDEN,

Operation

Start Date: December 1965 End Date: December 1970 U.S. Navy operation in the Mekong Delta to halt Viet Cong (VC) inland waterways logistics and military operations. On December 18, 1965, Rear Admiral Norvell G. Ward, chief of the Naval Advisory Group, formed the River Patrol Force (Task Force 116). Known as Operation GAME WARDEN, it was to conduct patrols along the major rivers of the Mekong Delta to interdict VC activities there. The primary impetus for GAME WARDEN emerged in September 1965 when naval and military representatives from the Naval Advisory Group and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, as well as the chief of naval operations, and Pacific commander in Chief, and the Pacific Fleet commander in chief decided that the Coastal Surveillance Force (Task Force 115), Operation MARKET TIME, although successful at countering seaborne traffic, could not prevent enemy movement on inland waterways. To accomplish its task, the River Patrol Force required a mission-designed shallow-draft high-speed boat to navigate the inland waterways. From December 1965 to March 1966 the U.S. Navy adopted and procured the fiberglass-hulled river patrol boat (PBR) to

GAME WARDEN, Operation

407

A U.S. Navy lieutenant aims a flaming arrow at a hut that conceals a Viet Cong (VC) bunker, December 8, 1967. Operation GAME WARDEN aimed to halt Communist military use of Vietnam’s waterways. (Bettmann/Corbis)

operate in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Upon arrival, PBRs were placed into River Divisions based either around landing ship tanks (LSTs) anchored at the mouths of rivers or at shore installations. In addition to river craft, in 1967 the U.S. Navy allocated 24 Bell UH-1B Iroquois helicopters to provide air support for the PBRs. This air component, designated HAL-3 (Helicopter Attack Light Squadron 3), or “Seawolves,” was stationed aboard the LSTs with their PBR counterparts. Another air component, VAL-4 (Navy Attack Light Squadron 4), which consisted of heavily armed North American Rockwell OV-10 Broncos to bridge the gap between helicopter and jet and known as the “Black Ponies,” arrived in Vietnam in April 1969. VAL-4 provided additional air support for GAME WARDEN and later for Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS) forces. Once operational, GAME WARDEN forces conducted day and night patrols. These patrols, usually consisting of two boats, inspected Vietnamese river craft, enforced curfews, established ambushes, and supported allied troops ashore. GAME WARDEN forces also inserted SEALs (Sea Air Land teams, a U.S. Navy special warfare group) to collect intelligence data and assault VC units in the Mekong Delta. Task Force 116 responsibilities also included minesweeping the vital Long Tao shipping channel to Saigon. The Saigon River,

which meandered through the Rung Sat Special Zone, a VC-dominated area also known as the “Forest of Assassins,” provided allied seaborne logistics a direct route to the South Vietnamese capital. After a combined U.S. and Vietnamese operation in the Rung Sat Special Zone in March 1966, U.S. minesweeping boats (MSBs) and converted mechanized landing craft (LCMs) began successful mine-clearing operations. In 1968, the commander of Naval Forces, Vietnam, combined elements of the River Patrol Force with other task forces to create and participate in SEALORDS operations. The same year the Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program, the U.S. Navy’s Vietnamization program, began. Under this withdrawal policy, GAME WARDEN material shifted to the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy), and by December 1970 Task Force 116 had been dissolved. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also MARKET TIME, Operation; Mekong Delta; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare;

SEALORDS; United States Navy References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988.

408

Garnier, Marie Joseph François

Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Garnier, Marie Joseph François Birth Date: July 25, 1839 Death Date: December 21, 1873 French naval officer, administrator, explorer, and writer. Marie Joseph François Garnier was born on July 25, 1839, in St. Étienne, France. He entered the French Navy and, after service off Brazil, participated in fighting in China. Garnier then secured a position on the staff of Admiral Léonard Victor Joseph Charner, who was appointed French commander in Cochin China in 1861. After a brief period spent in France, Garnier returned to Indochina and had charge of the administration of Cholon, then a suburb of Saigon. Garnier then proposed an expedition to determine the course of the Mekong River. Although he was too young to lead the expedition himself, he was second-in-command under Captain Doudart de Legree. The expedition set out in 1866 and lasted until 1868. Legree died in the course of the enterprise, and Garnier took command. Throughout the long trip, he made a detailed survey buttressed by astronomical observations. The French hoped to be able to secure a commercial route to western China, but Garnier’s report on the expedition showed that the Mekong River was not navigable from the sea to China. The expedition nonetheless earned Garnier the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, presented to him in London in 1870. Garnier then fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, distinguishing himself during the siege of Paris and the Commune. After the war Garnier returned to Indochina, but finding no opportunity for further exploration, in 1872 he resigned from the navy and went to China as an explorer and entrepreneur, traveling the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River). In 1873 governor of Cochin China Admiral M. J. Dupré recruited Garnier to lead an expedition to extricate French arms merchant Jean Dupuis from Hanoi and to negotiate freedom of navigation on the Red River in Tonkin. Garnier advised Dupré to obtain the goodwill of Emperor Tu Duc by promising to evict Dupuis. But once he was in Hanoi, Garnier joined forces with Dupuis. Dupuis’s force substantially reinforced Garnier’s tiny army, which consisted of 60 Europeans and the crews of three small ships. Convinced of Tu Duc’s local weakness, Garnier dropped all pretense of negotiation and issued a proclamation on November 15 informing all that the Red River was open for international trade. He also ordered that all Vietnamese customs tariffs be suspended and be replaced by more favorable rates. On November 20, 1873, after receiving small reinforcements from Saigon, Garnier bombarded and stormed the Hanoi Citadel. He then began to use his artillery

against all important and fortified places between the coast and Hanoi. Garnier’s three-week campaign culminated in the capture of Nam Dinh. However, he was killed on December 21, 1873, in an engagement with Black Flag pirates outside Hanoi. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Black Flags; Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph; Cochin China; Dupuis, Jean; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Garnier, Francis. Voyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine, 1866–68. Paris: Editions la Découverte, 1985. Osborne, Milton. River Road to China: The Mekong River Expedition, 1866–73. New York: Liveright, 1975. Whitfield, Danny J. Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1976.

Garwood, Robert Russell Birth Date: April 1, 1946 U.S. Marine Corps private, prisoner of war (POW) during 1965–1979, and Vietnam War defector. Born on April 1, 1946, in Greensburg, Indiana, Robert (Bobby) Russell Garwood enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at an early age. He was sent to Vietnam, where he was attached to the Headquarters Company, 3rd Marine Division, at Da Nang as a motor pool driver. On September 28, 1965, less than two weeks before he was due to leave Vietnam, Garwood was captured by the Viet Cong (VC) in a village just south of Da Nang. As a prisoner of the VC, Garwood was treated roughly and was moved about from one jungle camp to another over the next few years. However, he had an aptitude for languages and taught himself enough Vietnamese to converse with his guards, which made him useful to them. The example of some other American POWs he had met in these camps who gave up hope and died produced in him a sheer determination to survive. Whether it was this determination to survive or some other motivating factor, Garwood by all accounts began to actively cooperate with the VC and is even alleged to have been allowed by them to carry weapons. Garwood was not released in 1973 along with other POWs. Instead, he was moved to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). After the Communists captured Saigon, he was working as a mechanic in the motor pool of a reeducation camp for South Vietnamese POWs near the border with China. Garwood soon found that he could use the occasional supply trips he made to Hanoi to induce his guards to let him visit the hotels reserved for foreigners so that he could buy candy, cigarettes, and liquor, which he then smuggled back to camp. Garwood made use of one such trip during Tet in 1979 to the Victoria Hotel to hand a hastily scribbled note, identifying himself as an American, to an

Gavin, James Maurice

409

Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Jensen-Stevenson, Monika. Spite House: The Last Secret of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1997. Jensen-Stevenson, Monika, and William Stevenson. Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam. New York: Dutton, 1990. “Report to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence, June 1993.” Defense Intelligence Agency POW/MIA Documents, Hickham Air Force Base, Hawaii.

Gavin, James Maurice Birth Date: March 22, 1907 Death Date: February 23, 1990

U.S. Marine Corps private Robert Garwood. Taken prisoner in South Vietnam in 1965, Garwood was not released until 1979. He was accused of collaboration with the enemy. (Bettmann/Corbis)

English-speaking guest in the snack bar. As promised, the guest, who worked for the World Bank, reported the incident to the U.S. State Department on his return to Washington. Publicity surrounding the case led to Garwood’s release, and he was flown back to the United States in military custody, arriving on March 22, 1979. At a court-martial at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Garwood was found guilty of serving as a guard for the VC, informing on his comrades, interrogating them on military and other matters, and assaulting a fellow American POW. He was given a dishonorable discharge. Garwood was the only U.S. serviceman to be charged with these crimes from the Vietnam War. He claimed that he had been singled out in order to discredit his claims that there were still American POWs being held in Vietnam, stories that were never corroborated. In 1992 Garwood acted as a consultant for a made-for-television movie titled The Last P.O.W.: The Bobby Garwood Story. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Prisoners of War, Allied References Grant, Zalin. Survivors. New York: Norton, 1975. Groom, Winston, and Duncan Spencer. Conversations with the Enemy: The Story of Pfc. Robert Garwood. New York: Putnam, 1983.

U.S. Army general and outspoken critic of America’s role in Vietnam. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 22, 1907, James Maurice Gavin enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1924. Securing an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, he graduated in 1929 and was a captain in 1940 when he began his meteoric rise. One of the army’s authentic heroes of World War II, Gavin commanded the first regimental-sized parachute assault in Sicily in July 1943. Promoted to brigadier general that October, he was assistant division commander of the 82nd Airborne Division when it jumped into Normandy on June 6, 1944. In October at age 37, Gavin became the youngest major general in the U.S. Army. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division during the Battle of the Bulge. Gavin led from the front even as a division commander, preferring to carry the M-1 rifle issued to every common soldier. After World War II Gavin served in a number of key military positions. By 1958 he was a lieutenant general and the army’s chief of Research and Development. Although one of the army’s best battlefield commanders, Gavin was far less successful in the bureaucratic battles at the Pentagon. In 1954 he strongly opposed committing any U.S. forces to Indochina to support the French there. As with his World War II contemporary General Matthew B. Ridgway, Gavin opposed the New Look military policy of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson. This policy placed high reliance on nuclear weapons and the concept of massive retaliation and reduced reliance on conventional ground forces. Early in 1958 Gavin abruptly retired from the army in frustration. Later that year he joined the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little as a vice president. In 1960 Gavin became the organization’s president, but the following year during the John F. Kennedy administration Gavin accepted appointment as ambassador to France. He held that position for a short time and then returned to Arthur D. Little. Gavin’s experience in France turned him even more strongly against American involvement in Vietnam. In 1965 he wrote an

410

Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth

article on U.S. Vietnam strategy that Infantry magazine rejected as too controversial. In February 1966 the article was published in Harper’s under the title “General James Gavin vs. Our Vietnam Strategy.” In that article Gavin clearly pointed out that the American leadership had articulated no clear military objective. Gavin spoke out against the war before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February 1966 and again in February 1967. During his second appearance he stated his belief that at the core of the Vietnam dilemma was internal civil war, which necessitated an American commitment to winning over the goodwill of the Vietnamese people. He further stated that bombing campaigns designed for psychological effect alone, in which civilians are killed or wounded, were wrong. At the invitation of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William C. Westmoreland, Gavin toured the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), but nothing he saw changed his mind. In 1968 he published the book Crisis Now, and he briefly flirted with the idea of running for president. Political professionals of both parties were unsupportive of him, and he quietly dropped from the public scene. Gavin retired from Arthur D. Little in 1977 and died in Baltimore on February 23, 1990. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Da Nang; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Ridgway, Matthew Bunker; Westmoreland, William Childs References Booth, Michael T. Paratrooper: The Life of General James M. Gavin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Gavin, James M. On to Berlin: Battles of an Airborne Commander, 1943–1946. New York: Viking, 1978.

Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth Birth Date: December 25, 1913 U.S. Navy admiral and commander in chief, Pacific, during the final stages of the Vietnam War. Born on December 25, 1913, son of a navy captain, Noel Arthur Meredyth Gayler attended the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. After commissioning on graduation in 1935, he was a gunnery and engineering officer. Gayler became a naval aviator in 1940 after graduating from flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola and served aboard the carriers USS Saratoga and Lexington in the early years of World War II. He became an ace in 1942 by shooting down five Japanese warplanes. While serving as a test pilot in the United States, Gayler received promotions to lieutenant commander and commander. In 1944 he became commander of a fighter group and returned to the Pacific theater with it the following January. He then moved to the Pacific Fleet Air Force Staff and then to the staff of Task Force 38. Prior to his promotion to captain in 1953, Gayler held a variety of posts. In 1959 and 1960 he commanded the carrier USS Ranger.

He was promoted to rear admiral in July 1961 while in London. During the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Gayler commanded a carrier division in the Atlantic. He then served in Washington in staff positions before being promoted to vice admiral in 1967. He later became deputy director, Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, for nuclear missile and bomber forces. From 1969 to 1972 Gayler was director of the National Security Agency. In September 1972 he received promotion to admiral and was made commander in chief, Pacific, for the final stages of the Vietnam War. In this capacity he directed Operation FREQUENT WIND, the April 1975 airlift of hundreds of Americans and South Vietnamese from Saigon. He was also named U.S. military adviser to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), U.S. military representative to the Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS) Council, and military adviser to the U.S.-Japanese Security Consultative Committee. Admiral Gayler continued in these posts until his retirement from the U.S. Navy in September 1976. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also FREQUENT WIND, Operation; United States Navy

Reference Reynolds, Clark G. Famous American Admirals. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978.

Gelb, Leslie Howard Birth Date: March 4, 1937 Journalist, foreign policy expert, deputy director of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Defense Department, and director of the Defense Department’s Vietnam Task Force during 1967–1968. Leslie Howard Gelb was born on March 4, 1937, in New Rochelle, New York. He pursued undergraduate studies in philosophy at Tufts University, graduating in 1959, and earned master’s and doctoral degrees in government and social science from Harvard University in 1961 and 1964, respectively. Gelb then taught at Harvard and later at Wesleyan University. After spending a year as an assistant to Senator Jacob K. Javits, in 1967 Gelb joined the Department of Defense as deputy director of the Policy Planning Staff. Outgoing secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara, who had come to doubt both the wisdom and morality of the Vietnam War, entrusted Gelb with the responsibility of undertaking a secret comprehensive review of the origins of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Gelb and 35 others took 18 months to produce the 47-volume History of the United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy. Based on Defense Department materials and popularly known as the Pentagon Papers, it traced the deepening American role in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968. Intended as a classified study not to be shared with other government departments, the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the

Geneva Accords of 1962 press in March 1971, and the New York Times and the Washington Post published substantial portions of it. Shortly afterward the U.S. Congress and, within months, the U.S. Government Printing Office each brought out far lengthier editions. The publication of the Pentagon Papers further stoked the heated public debate then in progress as to how the United States had become involved in the Vietnam War and who, if anyone, should shoulder the blame. They revealed that successive presidential administrations from that of Dwight D. Eisenhower onward had all been committed to aiding the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After several months as acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for Policy Planning and Arms Control, Gelb left the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Gelb’s subsequent career was divided among academe, journalism, and government service. From 1973 to 1977 he served as a diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times. From 1977 to 1979 he served in the Jimmy Carter administration as director of the State Department’s Bureau of PoliticoMilitary Affairs. Periods at the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment resulted in several books on American foreign relations including The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1979), which suggested that a seriously flawed bureaucratic decision-making process had led U.S. policy makers to deepen their commitment to Vietnam even though they were well aware that success was highly unlikely.

411

From 1981 to 1993 Gelb returned to the New York Times, working successively as national security correspondent, editorial page editor, and foreign affairs correspondent. In 1993 he became president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the most prestigious and influential private American think tank on international affairs, a post he held until 2005 at which time he became president emeritus. In 2006 Gelb and Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) put forth a comprehensive plan, known as the Biden-Gelb Proposal, to extricate the United States from Iraq and end the ongoing insurgency there. The proposal advanced the idea of partitioning Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines. The idea received much serious scrutiny at the time, but the George W. Bush administration ultimately dismissed it, arguing that it might not end sectarian violence and would invite stronger Middle Eastern powers to wield more influence in newly autonomous regions. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also McNamara, Robert Strange; Pentagon Papers and Trial References Gelb, Leslie H., with Richard K. Betts. The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1979. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Rudenstine, David. The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Geneva Accords of 1962

Leslie H. Gelb, director of Policy Planning and Arms Control for International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense (1967–1969), director of the Vietnam Study Task Force, and diplomatic correspondent at The New York Times (1973–1977). (Bettmann/Corbis)

Big-power agreement in 1962 regarding Laos. Laos presented a difficult problem for President John F. Kennedy’s administration. The Communist Pathet Lao, advised and supported by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and supplied by the Soviets since 1960, was threatening in 1961 to take Vientiane and convert Laos into a Communist satellite country and conduit for the export of wars of national liberation throughout Southeast Asia, this despite the fact that Laotian neutrality had been guaranteed by the 1954 Geneva Accords. Advised by U.S. assistant secretary of state W. Averell Harriman, who met with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in the spring of 1961 and received assurances of cooperation from him, the Kennedy administration rejected military intervention under Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Plan 5 in favor of neutralization, as suggested by Khrushchev. The Kennedy administration insisted on a cease-fire before convening a 14-nation conference on Laos. In the interim the Pathet Lao engaged in a land grab, seizing key towns such as Tchepone, which subsequently became the center of PAVN supply activity serving the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Geneva Conference convened on May 6, 1961, but dragged on despite the U.S. concession that provided for a weak International Control Commission

412

Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954

(ICC), which could inspect only if all three factions in the proposed coalition government for Laos agreed. The Pathet Lao, whose offensive was often spearheaded by PAVN troops, exploited the months of no progress by extending the area under its control to support North Vietnamese use of the trail in southeastern Laos. When the Pathet Lao seized the key town of Nam Tha, Kennedy, in what proved to be a successful bluff, sent 5,000 U.S. troops into northeastern Thailand and sent the Seventh Fleet to the Gulf of Siam. This produced a halt in the Communist advance and permitted the formation of the neutralist government of Souvanna Phouma, recognized in the final accords of July 23, 1962. Although the accords required the removal of all foreign military personnel from Laos under international supervision within 75 days, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) allowed the international inspectors to observe the departure of only 40 personnel, and the Pathet Lao announced that they had no foreign troops. Thus, the North Vietnamese, who then had an estimated 10,000 troops inside Laos at the time the Geneva Accords was signed, continued to exploit southeastern Laos as a corridor to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and the Soviets deflected U.S. pressure to adhere to their promises and responsibilities to ensure compliance. Vietnamese sources state that while the North Vietnamese allegedly withdrew the bulk of their military personnel from the Plain of Jars and northern Laos, the North Vietnamese in fact did not withdraw their forces stationed along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in central and southern Laos. These Vietnamese histories reveal that during a three-month period following the signing of the Geneva Accord on Laos, Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh Trail forces, which according to Vietnamese statistics totaled almost 5,000 men as of December 1962, transported almost 1,000 tons of supplies, including more than 600 tons of weapons and ammunition, down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos to delivery points in South Vietnam. The Kennedy administration removed its military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel from Laos, accepting a “tacit agreement” that, in effect, conceded southeastern Laos as a corridor for guerrilla infiltration into South Vietnam in return for the continuation of a neutralist government in northeastern Laos. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said that Communist noncompliance “bitterly disappointed” Kennedy and affected his subsequent decision making on Vietnam. In fact, the facade of a neutral Laos during the course of the Vietnam War restricted U.S. strategic options and enabled the transport of some 500,000 troops and 45 million tons of war matériel along the Ho Chi Minh Trail network to South Vietnam. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Harriman, William Averell; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Laos; Rusk, David Dean; Souvanna Phouma

References Hannah, Norman, B. The Key to Failure: Laos and the Vietnam War. New York: Madison Books, 1987. Johnson, U. Alexis, with Jef Olivarius McAllister. The Right Hand of Power. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Lich Su Bo Doi Truong Son Duong Ho Chi Minh [History of the Annamite Mountain Troops of the Ho Chi Minh Trail]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1994. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Van Tai Quan Su Chien Luoc Tren Duong Ho Chi Minh Trong Khang Chien Chong My [Strategic Military Transportation on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Resistance War against the Americans]. Hanoi: People’s Army of Vietnam, General Department of Rear Services, 1988. Rusk, Dean. As I Saw It. Edited by Daniel S. Papp. New York: Norton, 1990.

Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954 International conference held in 1954 that brought to an end the Indochina War. The Geneva Conference had begun on April 26, 1954, with negotiations directed toward converting the previous year’s armistice in Korea into a permanent peace. Negotiations on that issue produced no result, however. Separate negotiations over the ongoing war in Indochina began on May 8, one day after the fall of the French bastion of Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Vietnam to the Viet Minh. The Indochina talks involved representatives— in most cases the foreign ministers—of France, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain, Laos, Cambodia, and the State of Vietnam (later the Republic of Vietnam [RVN, South Vietnam]). The United States and the State of Vietnam proposed that North Vietnamese forces (the Viet Minh) be disarmed and that the French-created State of Vietnam be left in control of all of Vietnam. Because North Vietnam was winning the war, while the State of Vietnam was a junior partner on the losing side, this proposal was simply ignored by those who were serious about an agreement, principally the representatives of France, North Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Washington never really believed that there was a chance that its proposals would be accepted. U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles was a restive participant in the first few days of the talks on Korea but then left the conference. He saw no likelihood of an agreement on Indochina that Washington could approve, and he disliked the idea of negotiating with Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), foreign minister and premier of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Washington did not recognize the PRC, and Dulles despised it. Indeed, when Zhou approached Dulles to shake hands during a recess in the first session over the issue of Korea, Dulles simply turned his back. After Dulles’s May 3 departure, the U.S. delegation in Geneva was headed at various times by Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith or by U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia U. Alexis

Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954

413

The delegations of the Republic of Colombia and the Soviet Union listen to discussions at the Geneva Conference on April 28, 1954. Though the focus of the conference was to be a peace settlement for Korea, negotiations centered on ending the Indochina War. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Johnson. Johnson was under orders from Dulles not to participate in the negotiations but instead to sit and listen. On June 17, 1954, Pierre Mendès-France became France’s premier and minister of foreign affairs. In a bold statement on June 20 he threatened to resign if he could not achieve an agreement in one month (i.e., by July 20). The accords were actually completed during the early morning hours of July 21, but the clocks had been stopped to allow a pretense that it was still July 20. During the Geneva Conference, both China and the Soviet Union had put pressure on North Vietnam to conclude a settlement. They were eager to end the fighting in order to reduce world tensions and make it easier for them to break out of their international isolation. This pressure was instrumental in causing North Vietnamese leaders to accept an agreement under which the Viet Minh gave up large amounts of territory and population then under its control in exchange for a promise of later reunification. There have also been assertions that Moscow obtained something more concrete in exchange for its pressure on North Vietnam to accept the Geneva Accords: a promise that France would refuse to join the proposed European Defense Community (EDC), an organization that would have considerably strengthened the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). North Vietnamese foreign minister Pham Van Dong, who was less than certain that reunification of North Vietnam and South Vietnam would actually occur as promised in the accords, submitted to this pressure reluctantly. Some authors have stated that the North Vietnamese leadership believed that reunification would not occur as promised, but evidence for that assertion is questionable. The accords included separate peace agreements for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (signed by French, North Vietnamese, and Cambodian officers) and an unsigned declaration of the conference. There were also unilateral declarations by several governments. The Laotian and Cambodian governments associated with the French Union were left in control of their respective countries except for two provinces of northeastern Laos, where the Pathet Lao (Laotian Communists) were to concentrate their forces pending a political settlement. Vietnam was to be temporarily split in approximately equal halves. A demilitarized zone (DMZ) along the 17th Parallel separated the two areas. The portion north of the DMZ was to be governed by the DRV, and the portion south of the DMZ would be

414

Geneva Convention of 1949

governed by the French Union until 1956. North Vietnam had slightly more than half the population of Vietnam, but this was also considerably less territory and population than the Viet Minh controlled at the time the agreement was signed. Authorities in each zone were forbidden to take reprisals against people who had supported the other side in the recent war. The two zones were to be reunified following internationally supervised elections in 1956, and most participants at the conference assumed that the Communist leaders of North Vietnam would win such elections if they were held. During the 300-day period that it would take for all North Vietnamese armed forces to leave South Vietnam and for all French Union forces to leave North Vietnam, civilians could also move from one zone to the other if they so chose. Many northerners, mainly Catholics, went south; far fewer southern supporters of the North Vietnamese government moved north. The accords forbade Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from participating in military alliances; this is why none became members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) when it was established a few months after the end of the Geneva Conference. The accords also limited the introduction of foreign troops and weapons into Indochina. As the Geneva Accords provisions for Vietnam collapsed over the following years, the restriction on foreign troops eventually became the only important part of the accords still taken seriously, the only issue in regard to which there continued to be at least a pretense of compliance and enforcement. Supervision of the implementation of the Geneva Accords was left to the International Commission for Supervision and Control, usually referred to as the International Control Commission (ICC). India, Canada, and Poland each supplied one-third of the ICC personnel, and India furnished the chairman. Washington was not happy with the Geneva settlement. The widespread belief that the U.S. government pledged not to undermine the accords arises from misreading of a U.S. declaration of July 21, 1954. This stated only that the United States would not go so far as to use force or the threat of force in undermining the accords. Washington certainly hoped to prevent the reunification of Vietnam as called for by the accords but was not sure of its ability to do so. Years later after reunification had indeed been blocked, Washington began claiming that the Geneva Accords had proclaimed South Vietnam an independent country. Ngo Dinh Diem, who in June 1954 became premier of the State of Vietnam, disliked the accords even more than did the Americans, but his position in his early months in office was weak. He did not at first have real control over the Vietnamese National Army or even the Saigon police. His representative at Geneva, Foreign Minister Tran Van Do, was unable to influence the shaping of the accords, and Diem obviously did not have the ability to block their implementation. Before the middle of 1955, however, Diem had attained effective control of most of South Vietnam, and in July of that year he declared his refusal to discuss with North Vietnam the

holding of the 1956 elections. Diem endorsed the idea of reunification—he always said that Vietnam was one nation rather than two—but rejected the procedures established by the accords for achieving reunification. EDWIN E. MOISE See also Canada; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dulles, John Foster; India; Indochina War; Johnson, Ural Alexis; Knowland, William Fife; Mendès-France, Pierre; Ngo Dinh Diem; Pham Van Dong; Poland; Smith, Walter Bedell; Zhou Enlai References Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention in Vietnam. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Randle, Robert F. Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Vol. 16, The Geneva Conference. U.S. Department of State Publication 9167. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981. Young, Kenneth T. The 1954 Geneva Conference. New York: Greenwood, 1968.

Geneva Convention of 1949 The Geneva Convention of 1949 was an enlarged version of the Geneva Convention of 1929, which it replaced. The Geneva Convention dealt with the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). During the Korean War, controversy centered on the 1949 document’s Convention IV, covering the treatment of POWs, specifically their right to repatriation. The Communists stuck to the literal interpretation of Article 118 of the 1949 convention. Article 118 stated that “Prisoners of War shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.” The United Nations Command (UNC), on the other hand, favored a looser interpretation of the accords and proposed nonforcible repatriation. This difference was present not only during the armistice negotiations but also in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. The United States emphasized that the 1949 document was to defend the individual, whereas the Communist side argued that the document was meant to ensure the rights of the countries to which the POWs belonged. The U.S. stand arose in part from World War II, during which millions had escaped from the Communist sphere of influence to Western Europe, only to be returned and punished. Washington did not wish to suffer such a political defeat again. Another reason for the UNC stand was that there were about 150,000 Communist POWs, whereas only 10,000 UNC POWs were held by the Communists in their POW camps. Thus, compulsory repatriation would have yielded excessive advantage to the Communist forces. Interestingly, the United States, although among the signatory powers of the 1949 Geneva Convention, never ratified the docu-

Genovese, Eugene Dominick ment. And neither the People’s Republic of China (PRC) nor the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) had signed the convention. Still, both sides professed their intention to adhere to its principles and spirit, although on occasion the Communists articulated that because they had not signed the document, they were not bound by its terms. The Geneva Convention of 1949 required that adequate information regarding the number, location, and general situation of POWs be forwarded to the Red Cross. The Communists repeatedly failed to provide this information in spite of UNC protests. The Chinese held that the return of POWs should be more important than information about them. Because China was not among the Geneva Convention signatory powers, the Chinese took the position that they were not bound by its terms. The Geneva Convention of 1949 also called for marking POW and civilian internee camps. Yet most Communist camps were unmarked, and the loss of prisoner lives during UNC aerial attacks always presented the Communists with a good opportunity for propaganda. POW camps in North Korea were often in close proximity to potential UNC targets. Indeed, UNC POWs were held as human shields against UNC air strikes. Communist propaganda did not fail to exploit the underlying opportunities in having masses of Chinese and North Korean prisoners in the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). Defying the terms of the Geneva Convention, Communist leaders often encouraged riots in UNC camps. One infamous example was the Koje-do POW uprising of May–June 1953. In the Communist-controlled camps, the Chinese also launched a massive program of indoctrination. In their camps, compulsory political lessons were held every day to prove the superiority of the Communist system and indoctrinate the prisoners for propaganda purposes. To a lesser extent, the United States introduced an educational program for Communist POWs to demonstrate the supremacy of capitalism and Western values. After the most divisive issue of the talks had delayed the armistice by more than a year, the first steps toward a compromise came in early 1953 when, in Operation LITTLE SWITCH under Article 109 of the Geneva Convention, both sides agreed to an exchange of sick and wounded POWs. ZSOLT J. VARGA See also China, People’s Republic of; Japan; Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of; Korea, Republic of; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 References Bailey, Sydney. The Korean Armistice. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992. Clark, Mark W. From the Danube to the Yalu. New York: Harper and Row, 1954. The Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 1949. Hastings, Max. The Korean War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Vatcher, William H., Jr. Panmunjom. New York: Praeger, 1958.

415

Genovese, Eugene Dominick Birth Date: May 19, 1930 Noted U.S. historian, educator, and antiwar activist whose Marxist historical interpretations raised much controversy. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 19, 1930, the son of Italian immigrants, Eugene Dominick Genovese earned a BA degree from Brooklyn College in 1953 and then attended Columbia University, where he received a master’s degree in 1955 and a PhD in 1959. As a teenager he joined the Communist Party, only to be expelled in 1950. Genovese remained a Marxist, however, reflecting his convictions in his writings on slavery. In April 1965 while an associate professor at Rutgers University, Genovese stirred controversy when he declared at an antiwar teach-in his Marxist/Socialist predilections and further stated that he would neither fear nor regret a Viet Cong (VC) victory in Vietnam. His remarks quickly became an issue in the New Jersey gubernatorial contest. Republican candidate Wayne Dumont demanded Genovese’s dismissal and attacked Democratic incumbent Richard Hughes for refusing to do so on grounds of academic freedom. Richard Nixon, who supported Dumont, also called for Genovese’s ouster. For his part, Genovese wanted a political rather than a military victory by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and had no wish for American troops to die in Vietnam. Nevertheless, conservatives such as 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater denounced Genovese for “treason.” Although Hughes’s victory in the November election defused the issue, Genovese left Rutgers to teach in Canada. He continued to denounce American military involvement, commenting that U.S. forces sought to fight the Vietnamese revolution by destroying the Vietnamese people. In 1969 Genovese returned from his selfimposed exile in Canada to teach at the University of Rochester. He remained there until 1990, when he became a scholar-in-residence at Emory University, Georgia. Genovese is a prolific scholar, having written or cowritten some nine monographs, including his most famous, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974), which won the prestigious Bancroft Prize. In the 1990s Genovese seemed to move rightward, virtually abandoning his lifelong affinity for Marxism. In 1998 he helped found an alterative professional association for historians known as the Historical Society. With it he hoped to bridge the divide among historians by uniting them around traditional methodologies. His journey toward the Right also saw him reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church and witnessed his critique of classical liberalism shift from a Marxist interpretation to a conservative interpretation. JAMES FRIGUGLIETTI See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Nixon, Richard Milhous

416

Geography of Indochina and Vietnam

References Beichman, Arnold. “Study in Academic Freedom.” New York Times Magazine, December 19, 1965. Linden, Adrianus Arnoldus Maria Van Der. A Revolt Against Liberalism: American Radical Historians, 1959–1976. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996. Steirer, William F. “Eugene D. Genovese: Marxist-Romantic Historian of the South.” Southern Review 10 (1974): 840–850.

Geography of Indochina and Vietnam Located in the Northern Hemisphere within the Southeast Asian realm between the 8th and 23rd parallels and the 100th and 110th meridians, the Indochinese peninsula acts as a crossroads with India to the west, China to the north, and a large archipelagic extension into the South China Sea to the southeast. A part of Indochina, Vietnam is situated east of Laos and Cambodia along the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea littoral. Indochina goes by different names. It is known in the German language as Hinterindien, while the French have for some time referred to the area as I’Inde extérieure, alluding to its Indianized portion to the west. Indochina was actually a political creation of France, a colonial area containing Laos, Cambodia, Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China, with the latter three reunited in 1975 as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Topographically, Indochina’s mountains overlay nearly as much territory as its plains, but the level lands house most of the population. Chinese mountain chains reach into the region and provide threadlike river valleys used as paths by migratory groups entering from the north. Consequently, the Indochinese peninsula has been greatly affected by the contacts and cultures of outside civilizations. Climatically, northern Indochina experiences weather controlled by tropical and polar air masses, creating a noticeable winter season, while the south is regulated by equatorial and tropical air masses, resulting in warm temperatures during the entire year. Rainfall quantity and its seasonal occurrence affect farming intensity, distributions, and limitations. Rice, the primary crop, is grown throughout Indochina because precipitation and summer temperatures are close to perfect for its cultivation. Unfortunately, typhoons threaten recurrently, and with winds surpassing 90 miles per hour, the Vietnamese seacoast in particular is often ravaged. The Indochina peninsula contains seven physical regions. To the southwest in Cambodia, the jagged Cardamom and Elephant Mountains, forested and agriculturally unyielding, are lightly settled and occupied by the tribal Pears. The Tonle Sap Basin, Mekong Lowlands, and Angkor region, a second Cambodian area, is located to the northeast of the Cardamom and Elephant Mountains and is bordered by the Dangrek Range to the north and the Annamite Cordillera to the east. The region houses the ancient Khmer core at Angkor. To the north lie the Upper Mekong Valley and Laos, the heartland of the Lao people. Farther east are the Annamite Cordillera and Northern Mountains and Plateaus, a highland re-

gion situated in parts of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and a local sanctuary for the Montagnards. The northeastern corner of Indochina, or Tonkin, holds the productive Red River Delta, the center of Vietnamese civilization, while the narrow coastal plains and former Champa area connect the Red River Delta with the mainly Vietnamese region of the Mekong Delta and Funan to the south. Called the “starving seahorse” because of an elongated shape stretching 1,000 miles from north to south, Vietnam is accessible by land and water to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the north. Vietnam’s extensive coastline means vulnerability to invasion and exposure to typhoons yet contributes to the country’s food supply and promotes national unity via sea communications. Indeed, the Vietnamese, renowned as skillful sailors, draw on their “balcony of the Pacific” for salt and fish to produce the well-known condiment nuoc mam, a fish sauce. Often described as “two rice baskets at the opposite ends of their carrying pole,” Vietnam’s two broad deltas are linked by a long and thin stretch of territory that is no more than 50 miles wide east to west. This central section, called Annam (from the Chinese meaning “Pacified South”) by the French, is interspersed by rivers and mountains, a few touching the shoreline, that inhibit north-south landward transportation. However, this narrow strip yields rice, salt, and fish and possesses Da Nang (Tourane) and Cam Ranh Bays as well as the onetime imperial capital of Hue. The northern Red River Delta is 250 miles wide and bracketed by inland hills and mountains. With fertile alluvium produced by numerous rivers, particularly the Red River, this deltaic agricultural heartland and Hanoi, the national capital, experience temperatures averaging 85 degrees in the summer and 62 degrees in the winter. Rainfall is heavy but variable and is influenced by seasonal winds, or monsoons, that bring forth wet and dry periods with an average six feet of rain in the summer months. Yet uneven precipitation can bring as little as three and as much as more than eight feet of rain during the rainy season. Such extremes portend either aridity or inundation and require the creation of a hydraulic system of dikes, canals, and dams for water control. Designated Tonkin by the French, the north is Vietnam’s core, acting as a market complex, manufacturer drawing on nearby minerals, and transportation hub served by the port of Haiphong at the mouth of the delta. In the south, or what France labeled Cochin China, the Mekong Delta has temperatures averaging 86 degrees in the summer and 80 degrees in the winter. During rainy summer months, mean precipitation is six feet but, like the north, could be less or exceed that amount. The wide and fertile delta, interlaced by streams and canals, is a major rice-growing region despite the existence of extensive forests, swamps, and jungle, or what the Vietnamese refer to as the land of “bad water,” inhabited by beasts they defer to as “mister.” Although there are a number of large cities including the capital of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) remains the country’s most important urban area. RODNEY J. ROSS

Germany, Federal Republic of

417

U.S. soldiers transport a wounded comrade in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam, an area of great strategic importance throughout the Indochina and Vietnam wars. The Mekong Delta has temperatures averaging 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and 80 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. Precipitation averages more than six feet of rainfall a year. (National Archives)

See also Annam; Cambodia; Central Highlands; Chams and the Kingdom of Champa; Cochin China; Dikes, Red River Delta; Laos; Mekong Delta; Montagnards; Red River Delta; Tonkin; Vietnam, Climate of References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Dutt, Ashok J., ed. Southeast Asia: Realm of Contrasts. 3rd rev. ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. Dwyer, Denis J., ed. South East Asian Development. New York: Wiley/ Longman, 1990. SarDesai, D. R. Southeast Asia: Past and Present. 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.

Germany, Federal Republic of Central European nation with a 1968 population of 60.16 million people. During the Cold War (1945–1991), the Federal Republic of

Germany (FRG, West Germany) covered 96,019 square miles. West Germany was bordered by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and Czechoslovakia to the east; Austria and Switzerland to the south; France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west; and the North Sea to the north. West Germany was a federated representative democracy with a chancellor as head of government who exercised broad executive powers and a president who was head of state and largely handled legislative-related issues. Under Chancellors Ludwig Erhard (1963–1966) and Kurt Kiesinger (1966–1969), the government of West Germany loyally supported U.S. policies in Vietnam. West Germany’s contributions consisted of economic and humanitarian aid. In 1966 the West German government sent the hospital ship SS Helgoland as well as more than 200 medical and technical personnel to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). West Germany also provided approximately $7.5 million annually in foreign aid to South Vietnam. Additionally, the West German government gave $21.3 million in credits for capital projects and commodity imports, constructed

418

Ginsberg, Allen

and staffed nine social centers in Saigon, and donated large quantities of medical supplies and equipment to South Vietnam. In 1969 the West German government financed a 170-bed hospital in Da Nang to replace the SS Helgoland. In March 1967 West Germany’s Maltese Aid Service program for refugees included doctors, dentists, and nurses to provide health care to Vietnamese civilians. German teachers taught at the high school and university level in Vietnam, and scholarships were awarded annually for Vietnamese students to study in West Germany. Three professors, members of the West German Cultural Mission who taught at the Hue Faculty of Medicine, and the wife of one of them were among those people abducted and murdered by Communist forces during the attack on Hue, part of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Although Bonn had supported, albeit reluctantly, Washington in South Vietnam, as the war dragged on the West German public, especially its youths, became critical of American policy there. This was particularly true among university students. The protest movement was centered in the major German cities and reached a peak with the eruption of violent demonstrations in 1968. Although Chancellor Willy Brandt (1969–1974) got along tolerably with President Richard Nixon, the American president was far less popular in West Germany than was Brandt in the United States. In January 1973 Brandt’s finance minister and Social Democratic Party colleague Helmut Schmidt criticized in a speech in Washington the December 1972 bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The end of the war, however, removed Vietnam as an impediment in U.S.–West German relations. PIA C. HEYN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER

Naomi Levy, a Russian émigré and devoted Marxist. Ginsberg attended Columbia University with the intention of becoming a lawyer but soon switched to literature, graduating in 1948. After college he held a variety of jobs, including stints as a dishwasher, a welder in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and a merchant sailor. He rose to prominence in the 1950s as a leader of the Beat generation, along with novelist Jack Kerouac and others, and shocked America with his celebration of drugs and alternative lifestyles. Perhaps Ginsberg’s best-known work was Howl! and Other Poems (1956). This profane and graphic work lauded homosexuality, dealt with Ginsberg’s Communist upbringing, and scandalized 1950s America. The poem “Howl!” begins with “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” The work goes on to sharply condemn militarism and materialism, which Ginsberg believed were bankrupting the nation both monetarily and spiritually. Although the poem was carefully and methodically crafted, its style lends to it an air of improvisation, as if it were a mere spontaneous ode to the present. Ginsberg was equally at home in the protests and sexual liberation of the 1960s and in the forefront of whatever movement was in vogue. In 1962 and 1963 he traveled widely in the Far East, where he soon became an adherent of Zen Buddhism. He sought

See also Nguyen Phuc Anh References Brandt, Willy. People and Politics: The Years 1960–1973. Translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978. Gatzke, Hans W. Germany and the United States: “A Special Relationship?” Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975.

Gia Long See Nguyen Phuc Anh

Ginsberg, Allen Birth Date: June 3, 1926 Death Date: April 5, 1997 Counterculture artist and poet of the Beat generation. Born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey, Allen Ginsberg was the son of schoolteacher and sometime poet Louis Ginsberg and the former

Poet Allen Ginsberg opposed the Vietnam War. His poems, particularly “Howl” and “Kaddish,” embody the values and aesthetic of the Beat Generation of writers in the 1950s and 1960s. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Godley, George McMurtrie the decriminalization of marijuana and marched against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the shah of Iran. Ginsberg also opposed the Vietnam War and was arrested in 1967 in New York City for protesting against the war and again in Chicago at the protest demonstrations held during the August 1968 Democratic National Convention. Ginsberg testified at the trial of the Chicago Eight. Ginsberg was also a proponent of gay liberation, the drug culture, and pacifism in general. By the 1960s his poetry had evolved to reflect their function as performance pieces, taking on the incantatory quality of Indian mantras. Other notable works by Ginsberg include Airplane Dreams: Compositions from Journals (1968); The Gates of Wrath: Rhymed Poems, 1948–1952 (1972); The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1973), winner of the National Book Award; and White Shroud: Poems, 1980–1985 (1986). Ginsberg continued to write poetry into the 1990s, and in 1995 his Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems, 1986–1992 was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Ginsberg, who had liver cancer, died of a heart attack in New York City on April 5, 1997. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Democratic National Convention of 1968 References Kramer, Jane. Allen Ginsberg in America. New York: Random House, 1969. Miles, Barry. Ginsberg: A Biography. Riverside, NJ: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

Godley, George McMurtrie Birth Date: August 23, 1917 Death Date: November 7, 1999 U.S. diplomat. George McMurtrie Godley was born on August 23, 1917, in New York City. He graduated from Yale University in 1939, undertook graduate work at the University of Chicago, and entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1941. He spent the World War II years in Bern, Switzerland, where he worked closely with Allen Dulles, head of the Office of Strategic Service’s operations in that country and future director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Godley occupied a variety of diplomatic positions in Washington and abroad during the postwar years. His first Asian assignment came in 1955, when he served two years as counselor of the embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He went on to hold a similar position in Leopoldville, Congo, and then became director of the Office of Central African Affairs in Washington. Godley’s first ambassadorial posting was to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (later Zaire) in 1964. Shortly after his arrival, a rebellion supported by states of the Communist bloc broke out

419

against the government of Moise Tshombe. Godley played a key role in suppressing the rebellion, coordinating the air operations that were sponsored by the CIA with the Belgian-paid mercenaries who fought for Tshombe. Godley’s experience in the Congo made him a natural choice for Laos, where he became ambassador in April 1969. By presidential directive, Godley was responsible for “overall direction, coordination, and supervision” of all military operations in Laos. By all accounts, the cigar-smoking, tough-talking, six-foot-tall Godley brought a great deal of enthusiasm to the job. He presided over daily embassy operations meetings, where he received detailed briefings on developments in the war over the preceding 24 hours. During critical periods, Godley would attend evening meetings at the airport in Vientiane, where he would hear directly from CIA case officers who had just returned from the fighting. In January 1970 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) expanded the war in Laos by sending two People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) divisions to deal with the CIA-led forces there. Godley secured Washington’s approval to use Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses against the PAVN troop concentrations. Although U.S. airpower managed to arrest the Communist offensive, the fighting took a heavy toll on the Hmongs, who shouldered most of the combat burden in Laos. To replace the declining numbers of Hmong soldiers, Godley arranged with Thai officials to recruit “volunteer” battalions to serve in Laos. Led by Thai regular officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs), these units were funded by the U.S. government. The B-52s and CIA-paid Thai troops delayed a Communist victory in Laos, but they could not prevent it. By the time Godley left his post in April 1973, a cease-fire agreement had been signed and a new coalition government formed. Within two years the Communists gained complete control over Laos. Godley was caught in the antiwar sentiment that dominated Congress in the mid-1970s, and his nomination as assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs was rejected by the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Committee chairman J. William Fulbright pointedly argued that Godley’s association with failed policies in Southeast Asia made him a poor choice to oversee U.S. diplomacy in the region. Godley went on to serve as ambassador to Lebanon prior to his retirement from the Foreign Service in 1975. In 1992 he was asked to testify at the Senate’s Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs. At those hearings he stated that the U.S. government had done all in its power to recover prisoners of war (POWs) and that when American forces pulled out of the region in 1973, all had been accounted for. This was in contrast to government reports that as many as 135 American POWs had been left behind. After his retirement, Godley successfully battled a bout with throat cancer and founded the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York, of which he was chairman emeritus at the time of his death in Oneonta, New York, on November 7, 1999. WILLIAM M. LEARY

420

Goldberg, Arthur Joseph

See also Central Intelligence Agency; Hmongs; Laos; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References ”Diplomat with Aggressive Style.” New York Times, July 12, 1973. Healy, Barth. “McMurtrie Godley, 82, Envoy to Laos during Vietnam War.” Washington Post, November 10, 1999. Leary, William M. “The CIA and the ‘Secret’ War in Laos: The Battle for Skyline Ridge, 1971–1972.” Journal of Military History 59 (July 1995): 505–517. “Our Man in Vientiane.” Washington Post, October 1, 1972.

Goldberg, Arthur Joseph Birth Date: August 8, 1908 Death Date: January 20, 1990 U.S. secretary of labor during 1961–1962, U.S. Supreme Court justice during 1962–1965, ambassador to the United Nations (UN) during 1965–1968, and presidential adviser on Vietnam War policy. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 8, 1908, Arthur Joseph Goldberg attended De Paul University in Chicago and received his

law degree from Northwestern University in 1929. He then opened a practice specializing in labor law in Chicago. Goldberg served in the U.S. Army during World War II, beginning at the rank of captain and leaving the service in 1945 at the rank of major. Prominent in the field of labor law, Goldberg became general counsel of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the United Steelworkers of America in 1948. As such, he was instrumental in the 1955 merging of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CIO. As President John Kennedy’s secretary of labor during 1961– 1962, Goldberg was also often consulted on foreign affairs, including the evolving Vietnam War. Kennedy appointed Goldberg to the Supreme Court in 1962, and President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Goldberg to leave the Court for the UN in 1965, which he did only after much prodding from the president. Goldberg was a member of the inner-circle group known as the Wise Men, which Johnson often consulted on Vietnam policy. Goldberg was a consistent critic of the war, often urging Johnson to withdraw from the conflict. Goldberg maintained a good working relationship with UN secretary-general U Thant of Burma, and the two men tried several times to initiate a negotiated peace in Vietnam. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, Goldberg became weary of his attempts at peace and resigned that June. He returned to his law practice, this time in New York City. In 1970 Goldberg ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of New York against popular Republican incumbent Nelson Rockefeller. After Goldberg’s loss, he moved to a farm in northern Virginia and commenced the practice of law in Washington, D.C. In 1977 at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, Goldberg served as U.S. ambassador to the Belgrade Conference on Human Rights, for which service he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1978. He also served on numerous boards and organizations and authored two books. Goldberg died in New York City on January 20, 1990. DEBRA HALL AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Paris Negotiations; U Thant; Wise Men References Frank, John P., Leon Freedman, and Fred L. Israel, eds. The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. New York: Chelsea House, 1995. Goldberg, Arthur J. Equal Justice: The Supreme Court in the Warren Era. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1971. The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1993.

Goldman, Eric Frederick Arthur Goldberg served as U.S. secretary of labor, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and ambassador to the United Nations. A member of the presidential advisory group known as the “Wise Men,” he was a consistent critic of U.S. Vietnam policy. (Harris & Ewing/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States)

Birth Date: July 15, 1915 Death Date: February 19, 1989 Noted historian, author, commentator, speaker, and special consultant to President Lyndon B. Johnson from February 1964 to

Goldwater, Barry Morris August 1966. Born in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 1915, Eric Frederick Goldman received a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1937 at just 22 years of age. He then joined the faculty at Princeton University, where he taught American history until his death in 1989. In 1964 President Johnson asked Goldman to join the White House staff. As special consultant, one of his projects was to associate the White House with the blossoming arts community. In June 1966 Goldman organized the White House Festival of the Arts. Artists, writers, photographers, sculptors, musicians, dancers, and filmmakers were selected to participate in the event. Selection was based on talent, with no consideration given to the artist’s political ideology. Days before the festival, Robert Lowell, a prominent writer, sent to Johnson a letter in which he turned down the invitation to participate because he said that it would give the impression that he condoned several of Johnson’s recent foreign policy decisions, including the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and intervention in the Dominican Republic. The letter was published in the New York Times. From that point on the festival became a source of tension, as several participants used the opportunity to express antiadministration sentiments. Problems associated with the event ultimately led to Goldman’s resignation in August 1966. After leaving the White House, he returned to Princeton University to teach. Goldman wrote a number of critically acclaimed books, including a study of President Johnson, and also wrote for both scholarly and popular journals and magazines and was a speaker and commentator on both radio and television. Goldman died on February 19, 1989, in Princeton, New Jersey. CYNTHIA NORTHRUP See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Art and the Vietnam War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines References Goldman, Eric F. Crucial Decade: America, 1945–1955. New York: Knopf, 1965. Goldman, Eric F. The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Knopf, 1969. Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.

Goldwater, Barry Morris Birth Date: January 1, 1909 Death Date: May 29, 1998 U.S. senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and Republican Party candidate for president in 1964. Born in Phoenix in the U.S. Territory of Arizona on January 1, 1909, Barry Goldwater graduated from the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia in 1928. He then attended the University of Arizona for one year, leaving to run the family’s department store upon the

421

Senator Barry Goldwater was the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party in the 1960s and a strong supporter of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He won his party’s nomination for president in 1964 but lost the general election in a landslide to Democratic Party candidate and sitting president Lyndon B. Johnson. (Library of Congress)

death of his father. Goldwater became president of the company in 1937. During World War II, Goldwater served in the Army Air Forces in the Pacific theater, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel; he later rose to the rank of major general in the reserves. After the war, in 1949 Goldwater was elected to the Phoenix City Council, and in 1952 he was elected U.S. senator. Among his varied committee assignments, he served as chair of the Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 1973 he voted against the War Powers Act, arguing that it was improper and probably illegal. During his time in the Senate, Goldwater became an articulate champion of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. He became renowned as a plainspoken advocate of smaller, less intrusive government and the proponent of a hawkish stance visà-vis communism. In 1964 Goldwater ran for the presidency as the Republican nominee. During the campaign he advocated a strong military establishment with a heavy reliance on airpower and a rollback of government-sponsored social welfare programs. He was also steadfast in his commitment to halting the spread of communism, and on more than one occasion he referred to Communist leaders

422

Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson

as captors of enslaved peoples. Goldwater was very hawkish on the issue of the war in Vietnam. He thought that the United States should do whatever it took, short of nuclear weapons, to support U.S. troops in the field. He also believed that if the United States was not prepared to make a major military commitment, including “carrying the war to North Vietnam,” it should withdraw completely. He talked about the possibility of low-level atomic weapons to defoliate infiltration routes, but he never actually advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Nonetheless, the Democrats easily painted Goldwater as a warmonger, eager to use atomic weapons against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). This was undoubtedly a key factor in his crushing defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson, who took about 61 percent of the vote to only 39 percent for Goldwater. The 1964 campaign also witnessed one of the most memorable Cold War–influenced campaign commercials, the so-called Daisy Spot that featured a little girl picking petals from a daisy. She was overshadowed by an ominous countdown followed by a nuclear detonation. As the war wound to a close, Goldwater remained a consistent critic of U.S. command decisions. He blamed America’s defeat in Vietnam on the government bureaucracy and governmental officials who stood in the way of aiding the troops and commanders in the field. In spite of his crushing loss in the 1964 election, Goldwater was credited with reinvigorating the conservative wing of the Republican Party and with greatly influencing Ronald Reagan, who was elected president 16 years later. Goldwater’s campaign also marked the beginning of the end of the Democrats’ dominance in the southern United States. After the election, Republicans made great in-roads in what had previously been referred to as the “Solid South.” During his last year in office, Goldwater cosponsored the Goldwater-Nichols Military Reform Act, which gave military commanders greater flexibility on the battlefield and granted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) more influence as the president’s principal military adviser. Goldwater did not run for reelection in 1986 and retired from the Senate in 1987. An accomplished photographer, he published several books of his photographs of the landscape and people of the southwestern United States. As he grew older, he came to moderate some of his views and criticized liberals and conservatives alike. Goldwater died in Paradise Valley, Arizona, on May 29, 1998. LAURAINE BUSH AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II References Goldberg, Robert Alan. Barry Goldwater. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Goldwater, Barry N. The Conscience of a Conservative. New York: Victor, 1960. Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.

Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson Birth Date: February 12, 1915 Death Date: May 16, 2005 U.S. Army general, presidential adviser, delegate to the Paris peace talks in 1968, and deputy commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), during 1968–1969. Born in Granite City, Illinois, on February 12, 1915, Andrew Jackson Goodpaster graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1939. He commanded a combat engineer battalion in North Africa and in Italy during World War II. Twice wounded, Goodpaster was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S. Army’s secondhighest decoration for valor, as well as a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. During 1947–1950 Goodpaster attended Princeton University, where he earned a master’s degree in engineering in 1948 and a PhD in international relations in 1950. Goodpaster served on the White House staff from 1954 to 1961 and became one of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s most trusted advisers and confidants. As White House staff secretary, Goodpaster closely managed the information that went to the president and maintained a careful record of conversations and decisions reached during meetings with the president. Goodpaster assisted the incoming John F. Kennedy administration with the presidential transition in 1960–1961 and then during 1964–1968 served in a representative and advisory capacity to President Lyndon B. Johnson. On several occasions Goodpaster chaired or served as a participant in high-level groups convened to study the conflict in Vietnam. He routinely briefed Eisenhower on the situation in Vietnam and on Johnson’s intended actions and decisions and then relayed Eisenhower’s advice and recommendations back to Johnson. Johnson appointed Goodpaster to be the third-ranking member and the senior military adviser of the U.S. delegation to the negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Paris in the spring of 1968. Goodpaster then became deputy commander of MACV from 1968 to 1969, serving under General Creighton W. Abrams. Goodpaster’s tour in Vietnam coincided with increased efforts to pacify rural areas in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), debates over the bombing of North Vietnam, and planning for Vietnamization, the process of transferring primary responsibility for the war effort to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). After working with the Richard M. Nixon administration during the presidential transition, in 1969 Goodpaster became commander in chief of the U.S. European Command and supreme allied commander, Europe. He held both positions until his retirement in December 1974 as a full general. Goodpaster was recalled to active duty in June 1977 to become the 51st superintendent of the United States Military Academy. He came out of retirement and accepted the post knowing that it meant a temporary reduction in grade from general to lieutenant

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich

423

general. Goodpaster’s competence and integrity were seen as indispensable to leading West Point through the aftermath of a cheating scandal and to continuing the process of integrating women into the corps. Goodpaster retired again in 1981, reverted to four-star rank, and in 1984 received from President Ronald Reagan the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Goodpaster remained a prolific writer and speaker on national security matters and became an advocate for the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. He died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on May 16, 2005. BENJAMIN P. GREENE See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pacification; Paris Negotiations; Vietnamization References Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower, Vol. 2, The President. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Goodpaster, Andrew J. Civil-Military Relations: Studies in Defense Policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977. Goodpaster, Andrew J. When Diplomacy Is Not Enough: Managing Multinational Military Interventions; A Report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. New York: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1996. McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Birth Date: March 2, 1931 Secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during 1985–1991 and the Soviet Union’s last president (1988–1991). Born on March 2, 1931, on a collective farm in Privolnoye (Stavropol Province), Russia, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev earned degrees in agronomy and law at Moscow State University and joined the CPSU in 1952. He then became the party boss of Stavropol and in 1972 was elected to the Central Committee. By 1980 he had become the youngest and best-educated full member of the Soviet Politburo. His meteoric rise was due in part to his intelligence and political skills but also because of the important connections he made at the top of the Soviet hierarchy. After making a name for himself as an agricultural reformer under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, in March 1985 Gorbachev became secretary-general of the CPSU. He tried to bring change to the Soviet Union by adopting a series of reforms based on glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), but his reform efforts to save the Soviet state backfired, leading instead in

With his policies of glasnost and perestroika, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to democratize his country’s political system in the 1980s. Although he had hoped to strengthen the Soviet state, he was ultimately forced to resign, and his programs helped bring the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. (Corel)

1991 to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russian critics have accused Gorbachev of destroying the very state that nurtured him and brought him to prominence. Some of Gorbachev’s most notable accomplishments were in the field of international relations. Although he continued the Soviet policy of supporting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), he played a crucial role in persuading the SRV to withdraw from Cambodia in 1989. He withdrew the Red Army from Afghanistan after a disastrous eight-year-long war there and initiated a period of more friendly relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Finally, in 1989 Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, which had asserted the Soviet Union’s right to intervene militarily to uphold communism where it was already in place. This action in addition to Gorbachev’s insistence that former Soviet satellite states also adopt reforms quickly led to the fall of the East European Communist regimes beginning in the autumn of 1989. For his role in ending the Cold War, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Once Gorbachev defeated his more conservative opponents at Central Committee plenums in 1988 and 1989, he turned sharply to

424

Gracey, Douglas David

the Right and declared his intention of preserving a Marxist-Leninist government. Following the failure of the August 1991 coup by Communist hard-liners, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev was forced to resign his position as Soviet president. Boris Yeltsin succeeded him as president of a new Russian federation. Gorbachev continues to play a role in Russia as a political voice, writer, and humanitarian. BRUCE ELLEMAN See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Cambodia; Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Cohen, Stephen F. Sovieticus. New York: Norton, 1985. Dunlop, John B. The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Gorbachev, Mikhail. Memoirs. Translated by Georges Peronansky and Tatjana Varavsky. New York: Doubleday, 1996. Malia, Martin. The Soviet Tragedy. New York: Free Press, 1994. Sakwa, Richard. Gorbachev and His Reforms, 1985–1990. New York: Prentice Hall, 1991. Woodby, Sylvia. Gorbachev and the Decline of Ideology in Soviet Foreign Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989.

Gracey, Douglas David Birth Date: September 3, 1894 Death Date: 1964 British Army general who led Allied land forces that entered Saigon in September 1945 under terms of the Potsdam Agreement to disarm Japanese forces but who instead triggered clashes with the Viet Minh by arming French troops. Douglas David Gracey was born in Mozaffurnagar, India, on September 3, 1894. His father was a member of the Indian Civil Service. Educated at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he served in France and the Middle East during World War I. Between 1928 and V-J Day in 1945 he held various commands in India, the Middle East, and Burma, rising to major general. A field officer with limited political experience, Gracey, upon his assignment to Vietnam, was ordered by supreme Allied commander for Southeast Asia Lord Louis Mountbatten to remain neutral in Vietnam, even though Gracey had indicated his support of French aspirations in Indochina before leaving India. Gracey’s first action on reaching Vietnam was to declare martial law on September 12, 1945, an action directed against the Viet Minh, whom he held in disdain. Gracey released and rearmed 1,400 French soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese. They and the Viet Minh clashed, and a number of innocent civilians were killed on both sides. French and British troops along with Japanese forces ordered by Gracey to assist them were unable to prevent bloodshed against Europeans in Saigon, although by October 2 they had crushed Viet Minh resistance there.

Gracey remained in Vietnam to direct British efforts to assist the French in subduing Viet Minh opposition in the countryside. He left Vietnam in March 1946, retired from the British Army in 1951, and died in June 1964. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Potsdam Conference; United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars; Viet Minh References Boetcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow. Boston: Little Brown, 1985. Who Was Who, Vol. 6. New York: St. Martin’s, 1975.

Gravel, Maurice Robert Birth Date: May 13, 1930 U.S. senator from Alaska (1969–1981). Maurice Robert (Mike) Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on May 13, 1930. He spent 1951 to 1954 in Europe as a counterintelligence officer in the U.S. Army. In 1956 he moved to Alaska, where he became a real estate developer and was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1962, becoming Speaker of the House in 1965. Three years later he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, where he generally aligned himself with the liberal wing of the party. At the time he was considered hawkish, since in the Democratic Party senatorial primary of 1968 he defeated incumbent senator Ernest Gruening, one of the first critics of the Vietnam War. Gravel did not gain major public attention until the spring of 1971, when he placed large portions of the Defense Department study of the Vietnam War, known as the Pentagon Papers, into the Senate record. In June 1971 when a federal grand jury indicted former Defense Department aide Daniel Ellsberg on charges of the theft of those documents, Gravel immediately responded by reading aloud for three hours from the documents in a meeting of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings. Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the next day that senatorial immunity did not protect Gravel and his aides from prosecution for acquiring the papers but only for publicizing them, no action was taken against him, and in 1972 he oversaw their publication in a five-volume edition. From then onward Gravel became an increasingly active and vocal opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In the summer of 1972 he filibustered against the extension of the draft, and he voted against the military appropriations bill of 1971. He opposed President Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 resumption of bombing and the mining of Haiphong Harbor and supported all attempts to cut off further funding for the war. Gravel criticized Vietnamization as a means of extending indefinitely the U.S. commitment to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and he unsuccessfully attempted to bring to the Senate floor a vote on a declaration of war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam).

Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr. Gravel also called for major cuts in the “warfare state” and the defense budget, from $55 billion to less than $30 billion, and in troop levels from 2.5 million to 1.5 million to sustain a volunteer army as opposed to a conscript army. Such developments would, he claimed, facilitate worldwide U.S. troop withdrawals and discourage future military interventions and adventures unless the president had the strong support of the American people. Gravel argued that the U.S. government had become overly authoritarian and had lost touch with the concerns and desires of the average American and that this development must be reversed. He easily won reelection in 1974, but in 1980 he lost the Democratic senatorial primary to Clark Gruening, his predecessor’s grandson. Gravel had a difficult time transitioning to life as a private citizen, and he engaged in several failed career paths and business concerns, including a real estate venture that forced him into bankruptcy. Gravel now lives in northern Virginia and has regained an interest in politics. In 1989 he founded the Democracy Foundation, which advocates direct democracy. In 2006 in an effort to promote his ideas about direct democracy, he announced his intention to run for president in 2008 on the Democratic ticket, becoming the first declared candidate for that election. He participated in some of the early Democratic debates and remained in the race until March 2008, despite the fact that he was drawing less than 1 percent of the likely vote. That same month he announced his intention to join the Libertarian Party, and at the Libertarian Convention in May 2008 he placed fourth among eight candidates. In addition to direct democracy ideals, Gravel pushed for the elimination of the federal income tax in favor of a national sales tax, a single-payer national health care system, term limits, and an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Gruening, Ernest Henry; Pentagon Papers and Trial; Russo, Anthony J., Jr. References Gravel, Mike. Citizen Power: A People’s Platform. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Gravel, Mike. Introduction to the Pentagon Papers: The Senator Gravel Edition. 5 vols. Boston: Beacon, 1972. Schoenebaum, Eleanora W. Political Profiles: The Nixon/Ford Years. New York: Facts on File, 1979.

Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr. Birth Date: June 4, 1922 Death Date: October 22, 2004 African American naval officer and the first African American to command a U.S. warship and attain flag rank. Samuel Lee Gravely Jr. was born on June 4, 1922, in Richmond, Virginia. After finishing high school in Richmond, he spent two years at Virginia Union

425

Captain Samuel L. Gravely Jr. at the 1971 ceremony for his promotion to flag rank on board the guided-missile cruiser Jouett. Gravely was the first African American to command a U.S. warship and to attain flag rank. (Naval Historical Center)

University. On September 15, 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserves and trained as an apprentice fireman. During World War II he took part in the navy’s V-12 program to train naval officers and again attended Virginia Union University but interrupted his studies to attend the Pre-Midshipman School in New Jersey and then the Midshipman School at Columbia University in New York. On December 14, 1944, having completed his training, Gravely became the first African American from the navy’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) to be commissioned as an officer. He subsequently served on USS PC-1264, a submarine chaser with a largely African American crew. In April 1946 Gravely returned to Richmond and Virginia Union University to complete a degree in history. Recalled to active duty in 1949, Gravely worked as a naval recruiter to encourage more African Americans to enlist in the navy. At the time the U.S. armed services were attempting to attract more minorities after President Harry S. Truman’s 1948 directive ordering the desegregation of the armed forces. During the Korean War, Gravely served as communications officer on the battleship USS Iowa and then on the cruiser USS Toledo. When he was assigned to command the destroyer USS Theodore E. Chandler, he became the first African American to command a U.S. Navy ship, and he

426

Great Society Program

was one of the first African Americans to attend the U.S. Naval War College in 1962. Gravely next commanded the large destroyer USS Taussig, and he became the first African American to command a U.S. warship in combat conditions. In 1965 the ship was posted to Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Promoted to captain on November 1, 1967, Gravely was subsequently the first African American to command a major naval warship, the guided missile cruiser USS Jouett, which served in the U.S. Pacific Fleet with some of the most modern antisubmarine detection equipment and missile warfare technology in use at the time. In July 1971 while commanding the Jouett, Gravely became the first African American to attain the rank of rear admiral. In 1976 Gravely assumed command, as a vice admiral, of the U.S. Third Fleet, based at Pearl Harbor. Retiring at that rank in 1980, Gravely left active duty to become director of the Defense Communications Agency in Washington, D.C. His responsibilities included overseeing the communications network that linked Washington, D.C., with military bases operated by the United States and its allies around the world. In 2003 Gravely’s reminiscences, based on interviews by Paul Stillwell, were published by the Naval Institute Press. After suffering a stroke, Gravely died on October 22, 2004, at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also African Americans in the U.S. Military; United States Navy; Yankee Station References Gravely, Samuel Lee. The Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Samuel L. Gravely Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003. Greenfield, Eloise. How They Got Over: African Americans and the Call of the Sea. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Latty, Yvonne, and Rob Tarver. We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

racial discrimination. During his retirement Johnson revealed to his biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that he knew he would be crucified no matter his course: “If I left the woman I really loved— the Great Society—in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home.” The climate that allowed for Johnson’s initial success in domestic reform developed in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination along with the emerging Civil Rights Movement, an increasing awareness of poverty, and a lessening of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Influential men such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry Luce supported Johnson’s reforms. Sensing the urgency surrounding his program, Johnson sent 63 messages to Congress (the average number of presidential communications was only 2) that encompassed recommendations from 17 task forces. The resulting legislation included the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, granting federal aid to impoverished children; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, guaranteeing African American prerogatives at the polls; and Medicare, providing government-sponsored medical assistance to the elderly. Despite these early successes, however, all of which occurred prior to 1967, the Great Society ultimately stalled in large part because of Johnson’s decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, a process that began in 1965. Johnson claimed, with some justification, that this was in part necessary to secure Republican approval for his domestic program, but that decision siphoned more and more money away from Great Society programs and soon refocused the nation’s attention from domestic reform to the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. By the late 1960s the American economy was straining from ballooning military budgets, which quickly affected funding for social welfare initiatives, and Johnson was loath to increase taxation to make up for growing budget deficits. Ironically, the program for which Johnson had hoped to be best known fell victim to his own policies regarding the Vietnam War. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Luce, Henry Robinson

Great National Solidarity Program See Chieu Hoi Program

Cost of the Vietnam War as Compared to Other U.S. Conflicts

Great Society Program President Lyndon B. Johnson’s domestic reform program, enunciated in 1965. Influenced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, Johnson sought to fight for social justice, economic equity, and racial equality with legislation. The idea was to build upon earlier New Deal–style programs to bring about sweeping reforms to health care, education, and urban renewal. Johnson hoped to also address rural isolation and poverty as well

Conflict World War I World War II Korean War Vietnam War Persian Gulf War

Cost (in billions of current year $)

Cost (in billions of FY2008 $)

Peak Year of War Spending

War Cost as % of GDP during Peak Year of War Spending

$20 $296 $30 $111 $61

$253 $4,114 $320 $686 $96

1919 1945 1952 1968 1991

13.60% 35.80% 4.20% 2.30% 0.30%

GREELEY, Operation

427

President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” leaving the Inez, Kentucky, home of Tom Fletcher, a father of eight who had been unemployed for nearly two years when the Johnsons visited on April 24, 1964. After touring the Appalachian area of eastern Kentucky, Johnson declared the nation’s War on Poverty from the front porch of Fletcher’s home. (AP/Wide World Photos)

References Divine, Robert A., ed. The Johnson Years, Vol. 1. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. Helsing, Jeffrey W. Johnson’s War/Johnson’s Great Society. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. Kearns, Doris. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.

GREELEY,

Operation

Start Date: June 17, 1967 End Date: October 12, 1967 Vietnam War military operation occurring from June 17 to October 12, 1967, and more appropriately identified as the second phase of the Battle of Dak To. Operation GREELEY began on June 17, 1967, when two battalions of the 173rd Airborne Brigade deployed to Kontum Province in anticipation of a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) attack on the Dak To Special Forces camp. At the time, the 173rd’s 1st and 2nd battalions, 503rd Infantry (1-503 Infantry and 2-503 Infantry), were under the operational control of the 4th Infantry Division.

On June 22 Alpha Company, 2-503 Infantry, met an entrenched battalion of the PAVN 24th Regiment while moving up the thickly wooded Hill 1338 south of Dak To. In one of the bloodiest single battles of the Vietnam War, 76 paratroopers from Alpha Company were killed and another 23 wounded. The after-action report claimed 513 PAVN troops killed, but only 75 bodies were actually counted. With indications that a full PAVN division was present, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William C. Westmoreland, who arrived at Dak To on June 23, hoped to force a decisive battle for the Central Highlands. That day the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry (1-12 Infantry), was airlifted from Binh Dinh and immediately thrown into combat south of Dak To. Within three days the 1st Cavalry’s entire 3rd Brigade arrived to begin search-and-destroy missions to the north and northeast. The remaining units of the 173rd Airborne Brigade also moved into Kontum. Augmenting U.S. forces were the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 5th and 8th Airborne battalions and one battalion from the ARVN 42nd Regiment. To coordinate the expanding operation, Major General William R. Peers established the 4th Infantry Division’s command post in Kontum City.

428

Greene, Graham

On July 10 while approaching the crest of Hill 830 southwest of Dak To, companies of the 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry (4-503 Infantry), encountered heavy mortar and machine-gun fire and sustained devastating casualties in fighting that continued through the night. The 4-503 Infantry suffered 28 dead and 62 wounded, but at daybreak only 9 PAVN bodies were discovered in the abandoned bunkers. When contact ebbed, the battered remnants of the 4-503 infantry withdrew to Dak To. But in the next two months, both 4th Infantry Division and 173rd Airborne troops continued to suffer heavy casualties while attacking heavily fortified bunker complexes in the triple-canopied jungles. Also in July, the 1st Cavalry’s 3rd Brigade continued airmobile operations north of Kontum, and its artillery supported a Special Forces–Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) force as it successfully ambushed a PAVN unit. By July 25 the 3rd Brigade was recalled to Binh Dinh, but fighting around Dak To continued. At the end of July, PAVN troops mortared isolated CIDG camps to the north of Dak To, and on the night of August 6 the ARVN Airborne battalions withstood no less than five mass attacks by the PAVN 174th Regiment. But just 10 days later the ARVN Airborne also withdrew from Kontum, and by early September contact with the PAVN had so diminished that the bulk of the 173rd Airborne Brigade departed to assume a new mission near the coastal city of Tuy Hoa. It was thought that the 4th Infantry Division, now at full strength, could handle the situation in Kontum. In fact, the Battle of Dak To was not over. On October 12 Operation GREELEY was folded into Operation MACARTHUR, and the decisive battle began. JOHN D. ROOT See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Dak To, Battle of; HAWTHORNE, Operation; MACARTHUR, Operation; Peers, William R.; Search and Destroy; Westmoreland, William Childs References Murphy, Edward F. Dak To: The 173rd Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, June–November 1967. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Greene, Graham Birth Date: October 2, 1904 Death Date: April 3, 1991 British novelist, foreign correspondent, and political activist. Born on October 2, 1904, in Hertfordshire, England, to a well-to-do family, Graham Greene was educated at Baliol College, Oxford. He wrote nine novels between 1929 and 1939. From 1926 to 1930 he was an editor for the Times, and from 1940 to 1941 he was an editor for the Spectator. During World War II Greene served as an intelligence officer for MI6 in Sierra Leone, an experience with war that provided ma-

British novelist Graham Greene (1904–1991) wrote The Quiet American. Published in 1955 and probably his best-known work, it was based on his own observations in Vietnam and chronicled the failures of colonialism. (Bettmann/Corbis)

terial for his book The Heart of the Matter (1948). In the immediate postwar years he became increasingly disenchanted with imperialism. From 1944 to 1948 he was director of Eyre and Spottiswoode Publishers, and from 1958 to 1968 he served as director of Bodley Head Publishers. Greene visited Vietnam four times from 1951 to 1955, filing reports for the Spectator and other magazines. Initially apolitical, Greene’s growing admiration for Ho Chi Minh and his increasing disaffection with General Trinh Minh The, a leader of the Cao Dai army, over his indiscriminate violence in Saigon solidified his disenchantment with colonialism. Greene’s book The Quiet American (1955), perhaps his bestknown work, fictionalizes his observations in Vietnam and chronicles the faults of colonialism. In linking Alden Pyle, a composite character based on Colonel Edward Lansdale and Leo Hochstetter, a member of the American legation in Saigon, with General The, Greene implicated the United States with violent covert operations. Increasingly engaged, the cynical Thomas Fowler, Greene’s alter ego, becomes the novel’s hero when he helps the Viet Minh murder Pyle. Greene’s attraction to the Third World communism of Ho Chi Minh alienated many American readers. Nevertheless, Greene’s blending of fact into fiction, using a method that he called “rapportage,” greatly influenced American writers such as Michael

Grenade Launchers Herr and Gloria Emerson. Greene’s 1957 book Our Man in Havana was a thinly veiled condemnation of British policies toward the corrupt Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba and the British refusal to acknowledge the popularity of then-rebel Fidel Castro. Greene remained engaged in political activism for the rest of his life, and in 1977 he participated in Panama’s delegation to the Canal Treaty negotiations in Washington, D.C. In addition to his novels Greene also penned several screenplays, most notably for the classic film The Third Man (1949). Greene continued to travel and write until his death in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 3, 1991. CHARLES J. GASPAR AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Cao Dai; Ho Chi Minh; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Literature and the Vietnam War References Adamson, Judith. Graham Greene: The Dangerous Edge. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990. Bergonzi, Bernard. “Graham Greene.” In British Writers, Supplement 1, 1–20. New York: Scribner, 1987. Shelden, Michael. Graham Greene: The Man Within. London: Heinemann, 1994. Sherry, Norman. The Life of Graham Greene. 3 vols. New York: Viking, 2004.

Greene, Wallace Martin Birth Date: December 27, 1907 Death Date: March 8, 2003 U.S. Marine Corps officer and commandant (1964–1967). Born on December 27, 1907, in Waterbury, Vermont, Wallace Martin Greene spent a year at the University of Vermont before entering the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, where he graduated and was commissioned in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1930. In 1937 he served with the 4th Marines in China, and in 1941 he attended the British Amphibious Warfare School and the Royal Engineer Demolition School in London as a special naval observer. In 1943 Lieutenant Colonel Greene was assistant chief of staff for the 5th Amphibious Corps. He helped plan the invasions of the Marshall Islands as well as Saipan and Tinian. In 1953 after his graduation from the National War College, Greene became staff special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) for national security affairs in Washington. Three years later he was promoted to brigadier general and that same year took command of the Recruit Training Command at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was promoted to major general in August 1958. In January 1960 Greene became chief of staff of the U.S. Marine Corps with the rank of lieutenant general. In September 1963 President John F. Kennedy nominated Greene as commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. Greene was promoted to full (four-star) general upon assuming that post on January 1, 1964. Under Greene, the U.S. Marine Corps perfected its operational readiness, response time, and sustainability as the nation’s pri-

429

mary strategic reinforcement outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Greene was a staunch advocate of combining new technology with traditional marine tactics to make the U.S. Marine Corps a more effective element of flexible response. He saw the Communist insurgency in Southeast Asia as a direct challenge to U.S. Pacific interests. Greene believed that American military power and political credibility were too committed there to allow withdrawal without victory. He opposed the limited air raids and graduated response of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and thought that the idea of a negotiated settlement was illusory. Greene believed that 750,000 men (including mobilized reserve forces) and a minimum of five years would be required to defeat the Communists. He was a strong advocate of pacification-andhold operations as the means of conducting the ground war by the marines in the I Corps Tactical Zone. He was also very critical of the micromanagement of the war under Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. By the end of his tour as commandant in 1967, General Greene feared that the war of attrition was not working and that despite the excellent performance of the marines in Vietnam, the war could not be won. Greene retired from the U.S. Marine Corps on December 31, 1967. In his retirement he helped found the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. Greene died in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 8, 2003. WILL E. FAHEY JR. See also Attrition; McNamara, Robert Strange; Pacification; United States Marine Corps References Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991.

Grenade Launchers With the first appearance of hand grenades in about the 8th century, soldiers began experimenting with ways to project the explosive weapons farther than they normally could be thrown by a human arm. By World War I most armies had systems for launching hand grenades hundreds of feet using standard rifles. The system had three basic components: the rifle grenade launcher, a tubular device that fixed over the muzzle of the rifle; a grenadeprojection adapter that held a standard hand grenade and had a hollow launching tube that fit over the rifle launcher and was then fired forward carrying the grenade; and a special grenadelaunching rifle cartridge that had no bullet but sufficient powder to produce the gas necessary to launch the grenade and adapter. The grenade-launching cartridge had a crimped end and looked somewhat like a blank cartridge but was much more powerful.

430

Grenade Launchers

Major Joseph Flynn of the U.S. 1st Marine Division explains the use of an XM 174 40-mm grenade launcher to generals. Two principal types of launched grenades were used in Vietnam. Those employed by allied forces were based on the 40-mm grenade series, whereas those employed by Communist forces were based on the PG2 (later PG7) grenade series. (National Archives)

During World War II the U.S. M-7 grenade launcher was designed for the M-1 Garand rifle, and the M-8 grenade launcher was designed for the M-1 carbine. Both systems were used by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) units during the earlier days of the Vietnam War. During the later phases the M-1 rifle and the M-1 carbine and their associated grenade launchers were still used by Local Forces, Regional Forces, and Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops. There were two basic rifle-launched grenades. The most widely used was the M-17, which was a standard Mk-II hand grenade mounted on an M-1 grenade-projection adapter. The other was the M-9, a purpose-designed launchable antitank grenade with a shaped-charge warhead. The U.S. M-79 grenade launcher was the first post–World War II weapon specifically developed to launch a family of newly designed 40-millimeter (mm) cartridge grenades. Introduced in 1960 and known to GIs as the “Thump-gun,” the M-79 was a simple but rugged shoulder-fired single-shot weapon that operated exactly like a break-open shotgun. It weighed 5.95 pounds and was only 28.78 inches long. The barrel was 14 inches long. The M-79’s maximum effective range was 492 feet for point targets and 1,148

feet for area targets. A well-trained grenadier could repeatedly put a grenade through a building window 492 feet away. The M-79’s official maximum rate of fire was five to seven rounds per minute, but an experienced grenadier could easily double that rate. Most of the grenades for the M-79 had a minimum arming range of 98 feet. Grenadiers therefore also carried an M-1911A1 .45-caliber pistol for close-in self-defense. The standard U.S. infantry rifle squad had two M-79s, one per fire team. Later in the war ARVN units had the M-79, and captured M-79s were weapons highly prized by the Viet Cong (VC). But as with all captured weapons, ammo supply was always the key challenge. The XM-148 grenade launcher was an attempt to give a single soldier the combined firepower of both the M-79 and the M-16 rifle. The XM-148 weighed only 3 pounds, was 16.5 inches long, and mounted directly under the barrel of the M-16. It was a good concept, but the design was riddled with flaws. The XM-148 was cumbersome and slow to operate. Its complex tangent sight was difficult to use and too fragile for field conditions. Selected U.S. infantry units in Vietnam were issued the XM-148 on a test basis in 1967. Almost all grenadiers who had to give up their M-79s hated the XM-148, and it was withdrawn after only a few months.

Groupement Mobile 100, Destruction of The M-203 grenade launcher was a greatly improved and more robust version of the XM-148. Like its predecessor, the M-203 weighs 3 pounds but is only 15 inches long. It has an easier to use leaf sight that mounts separately on top of the M-16’s barrel. The M-203 has the same maximum effective ranges as the M-79 and the same official maximum rate of fire, but in the case of the M-203 even the most experienced grenadier cannot fire much more than seven rounds per minute. Introduced in 1969, the M-203 eventually replaced the M-79, although many grenadiers continued to swear by the older weapon. The M-203 remains in service today, but replacements are under development. The M-79, XM-148, and M-203 all fired a family of 40-mm by 46-mm low-velocity grenades at 247 feet per second. The M-406 was the basic high-explosive (HE) fragmentation round with a lethal radius of 16 feet and a casualty radius of 49 feet. Introduced later in the war, the M-433 high-explosive dual-purpose (HEDP) round was capable of penetrating 2 inches of armor. The M-576 antipersonnel round was the only one that did not have a minimum arming range and was therefore effective at close quarters. Also called the canister round, the M-576 contained 20 pellets of No. 4 buckshot, in effect a huge shotgun shell. The M-651 riot control round dispersed o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile tear gas. The M-680 smoke round dispersed white smoke. Other colors were also available. The M-583 parachute star cluster round was used for battlefield illumination at night. Depending on weather conditions, the M-583 produced about 40 seconds of illumination. The M-585 star cluster round was used for signaling and had a descent time of about seven seconds. The M-406 HE round weighs half a pound. Most of the special-purpose rounds weigh somewhat less. During the Vietnam War the United States also used for the first time automatic belt-fed grenade launchers that fired 40-mm by 53-mm high-velocity cartridge grenades at 790 feet per second. The M-75 grenade launcher was introduced in 1958 as a helicopter-mounted weapon. It had a cyclic rate of fire of 230 rounds per minute. The M-129 grenade launcher, introduced in 1963, was an improved version of the M-75. The M-75 was used in the M-5 Armament Subsystem on the UH-1B/C (“Huey”) gunships and the M-8 Armament Subsystem on the OH-6 Cayuse. Both the M-75 and the M-129 grenade launchers were used in the M-28 Armament Subsystem for the AH-1 Cobra gunship. The M-75 and the M-129 remained in service until 1975. Based on the M-75, the Mk-19 grenade launcher was developed by the U.S. Navy and used on river patrol boats in the Mekong Delta. The Mk-19 has a cyclic rate of fire of 325 rounds per minute and a maximum effective range of 4,921 feet. It weighs 72.5 pounds and can be fired from a ground tripod or a vehicle mount. After the Vietnam War the U.S. Army adopted the Mk-19 as a vehiclemounted weapon. The Mk-19 remains in service today and has been used extensively in the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War. Prior to the Mk-19, the U.S. Army experimented with an automatic grenade launcher designed to fire the same 40-mm by 46-mm low-velocity ammunition used by the shoulder-fired

431

launchers. The XM-174 was tested briefly in Vietnam in 1968. Mounted on a ground tripod or a vehicular mount, it fed from a 12-round drum and had a cyclic rate of fire of 350 rounds per minute. The 40-mm by 53-mm high-velocity ammunition proved better suited for automatic firing systems. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Hand Grenades; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Hogg, Ian V. The American Arsenal. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996. Hogg, Ian V. Jane’s Infantry Weapons, 1991–92. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group, 1991. Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965–73. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2005. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong Fighter. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. Smith, W. H. B., and Edward C. Ezell. Small Arms of the World. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992.

Groupement Mobile 100, Destruction of Event Dates: June 24 and 28, 1954 The last major battle of the Indochina War and a French military defeat. Concerned about the possibility of a disaster similar to Dien Bien Phu, the French high command ordered Groupement Mobile (GM, Mobile Group) 100, a regimental-sized task force of some 2,500 men commanded by Colonel Barrou, to abandon its base at An Khe in the Central Highlands and move to Pleiku some 50 miles distant. GM 100 included the famed Régiment de Corée, an elite formation that had distinguished itself during the Korean War. GM 100 was to come out by means of Route Coloniale 19, which was dominated by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops who soon became aware of the French plans. The plans were an open secret, as some 1,100 civilians and some equipment were evacuated by air. Equipment that could not be moved easily and extra ammunition stacked near the airfield were to be destroyed by French B-26 bombers after withdrawal of the last troops. Following word that a large PAVN force, possibly its entire 803rd Regiment, might be preparing to ambush the French, the evacuation was advanced by one day. GM 100 set out at 3:00 a.m. on June 24, 1954. In the early afternoon GM 100, only about 9 miles from its starting point and after several earlier skirmishes, was ambushed by the 803rd Regiment. The ensuing fighting was fierce. On June 28 those French troops who managed to escape the first ambush were again hit, this time at Dak Ya-Ayun by the PAVN 108th Regiment. Again fighting was heavy. The French who survived both battles reached Pleiku the next day. In the two battles, GM 100 lost all its artillery and almost all its vehicles. Some 900 of its men were killed or captured (Barrou was among the wounded who were taken prisoner), and many of the

432

Gruening, Ernest Henry

1,593 men who reached Pleiku were walking wounded. Thereafter French control in the Central Highlands was limited to a small area around Ban Me Thuot and Da Lat. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also An Khe; Central Highlands References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Mesko, Jim. Ground War: Vietnam 1945–1965. Carrollton, TX: Squadron Signal Publications, 1990. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1992.

Gruening, Ernest Henry Birth Date: February 6, 1887 Death Date: June 26, 1974 Physician, journalist, Democratic U.S. senator (1959–1969), and opponent of the Vietnam War. Born on February 6, 1887, in New York City, Ernest Henry Gruening graduated with an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1907 and received an MD degree from there in 1912. That same year he decided to pursue a career in journalism and took a position as a reporter for the Boston American. He held a series of positions with newspapers thereafter and eventually served as the managing editor of the New York Tribune. He also served in World War I in the Field Artillery Corps. He subsequently served as editor of The Nation and the New York Post. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gruening as director of U.S. territories and island possessions. He served as territorial governor of Alaska from 1939 to 1953 and was elected Democratic senator from Alaska when it became a state in 1958. He took office in January 1959. As senator, he was among the first critics of the Vietnam War, arguing in a March 10, 1964, Senate speech that the United States should withdraw its military forces. On August 7, 1964, Gruening and Senator Wayne Morse (D-Ore.) were the only two members of Congress to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. For the remainder of his political career, Gruening voted against appropriations for the Vietnam War. In April 1965 he supported and spoke before antiwar demonstrators in Washington, D.C. He opposed bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and called on President Lyndon B. Johnson to open negotiations with Hanoi. On March 1, 1966, Gruening and Morse were again the only senators to vote for Morse’s proposal to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Gruening’s proposal to send only volunteers to Vietnam. Although he lost the Democratic primary in 1968 to fellow Democrat Mike Gravel, the 81-year-old Gruening still received 15 percent of the vote in write-ins as an in-

dependent candidate. In 1972 he supported the antiwar presidential campaign of Senator George McGovern (D-S.Dak.). Gruening continued on as a legislative consultant and president of an investment firm until his death in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 1974. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Gravel, Maurice Robert; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Morse, Wayne Lyman References Gruening, Ernest. Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening. New York: Liveright, 1973. Lichtenstein, Nelson, ed. Political Profiles: The Johnson Years. New York: Facts on File, 1976.

Guam Strategically located island in the western Pacific about 3,700 miles west of Hawaii. With a land area of 212 square miles, Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands. Guam has a tropical marine climate characterized by hot, rainy summers and slightly cooler and drier winters. There is little change in temperature between winter and summer, and the island lies within a region that is vulnerable to tropical storms and typhoons. The U.S. Navy captured Guam in June 1898 during the Spanish-American War and retained it under terms of the Treaty of Paris that ended the war. The navy soon established a naval base on Guam, using it as a coaling station between the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines. Guam is an unincorporated U.S. territory with an elected governor and a legislature. Its inhabitants are U.S. citizens. Since the end of World War II, the United States has maintained a large military presence on Guam, which has periodically served as a base for the projection of American military power in Asia. During the Vietnam War era, Guam was vital to the American war effort as a depot for American supplies and for B-52 bombers. The U.S. military has in fact been Guam’s largest industry since the end of World War II. The island is the site of two large bases: the U.S. Navy facility at Apra Harbor and Andersen Air Force Base located at the island’s northern tip. Both of these served important functions during the Vietnam War. The U.S. military’s presence on the island grew steadily after direct American intervention in the Vietnam fighting began in March 1965. Between 1965 and 1972, Guam’s principal role in the war was as a maintenance and repair facility. From Guam, the U.S. Air Force flew B-52 Arc Light missions, the bombing of Communist areas in Vietnam and Laos during 1965–1973, but most of those missions were mounted from U-Tapao, Thailand, or Clark Field in the Philippines. It was not until the Easter Offensive by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) beginning in March 1972 and the commencement of Operation LINEBACKER I (May–October 1972) that Guam moved to the forefront of the Vietnam War. The

Guam Conference buildup of B-52 wings that were to carry out the bombings from Andersen Air Force Base actually began in February and initially involved bomb wings from the United States. The buildup and the subsequent operations placed considerable strain on the facilities at Andersen and on the island as a whole. Equipped to accommodate about 3,000 people, Andersen was already over capacity because of ongoing support of the war. The new buildup caused the population to swell to 12,000 people by July 1972. A tent city known as the “Canvas Courts” was constructed to accommodate some of the overflow along with corrugated temporary barracks known as “Tin City.” Many U.S. Air Force personnel were moved into barracks at the island’s naval air station at Agana. The island’s hotels were also requisitioned, a move that disrupted Guam’s tourist industry. When LINEBACKER I ceased in October there was a temporary slackening of demand on the island’s facilities, but the population surged again when the Richard M. Nixon administration launched Operation LINEBACKER II (which became known as the Christmas Bombings) on December 18, 1972. At the height of the LINEBACKER operations, 155 B-52s operated out of Andersen, carrying out 55 percent of the total B-52 raids against North Vietnam. Soviet trawlers took up position in international waters off the island to carry out electronic surveillance and to plot estimated arrival times for the big bombers over Vietnam. Cessation of the bombings in January 1973 brought a return to normalcy on the island. Guam, however, had one more role to play in the war’s denouement. With the sudden collapse of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in the spring of 1975, hundreds of thousands of non-Communist Vietnamese were evacuated by the United States. Many of these refugees were processed through Guam, and the stress placed on the island’s facilities and people was enormous. Andersen Air Force Base received an estimated 40,000 refugees in the months immediately following the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In the ensuing year, almost 100,000 people were processed for transportation to the United States. To take some of the burden off Andersen, the U.S. Navy constructed a tent city at Guam’s Orote Airfield. Overall, the Vietnam War had only a limited impact on Guam’s government and society. In the post–Vietnam War period, Guam has grown in importance even as the United States has scaled back its military presence in Asia. WALTER F. BELL See also Andersen Air Force Base; Arc Light Missions; Easter Offensive; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Refugees and Boat People References McCarthy, James R., and George B. Allison. Linebacker II: A View from the Rock. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1985. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Rogers, Robert F. Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

433

Guam Conference Start Date: March 20, 1967 End Date: March 21, 1967 Third summit between leaders of the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The U.S. territory of Guam, southernmost of the Mariana Islands, was symbolic of U.S. interests and power. From Andersen Air Force Base there, Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses flew missions in Southeast Asia. Guam also presented a safe Pacific location close to Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara led the U.S. delegation to the Guam Conference. From Saigon came Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and South Vietnamese leaders, headed by Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu. In all, 22 U.S. and 10 South Vietnamese principal officials participated in the meeting. President Johnson reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to its ally and personally introduced new appointments: Ellsworth Bunker, assuming Lodge’s responsibilities, would have as his assistant Eugene Locke, Johnson’s friend and ambassador to Pakistan; General Creighton Abrams would become General William Westmoreland’s deputy and eventually take over command from him; and Robert Komer would become Westmoreland’s deputy for Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) and, as a civilian under Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), would direct the pacification effort. Seeking to de-emphasize the military dimension, Johnson rejected both Westmoreland’s request for 200,000 additional troops (but agreed to 55,000) and Ky’s proposal to step up bombing raids against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) sanctuaries and supply routes in Cambodia and Laos. South Vietnamese ambassador to the United States Bui Diem wrote that the agenda consisted of a review of the war, United Nations (UN) secretary-general U Thant’s peace proposal, South Vietnamese political developments, and the pacification effort. Although Washington viewed U Thant’s initiative with skepticism, the timing of it—just before the conference—ironically convinced the Vietnamese public that the U.S. government was behind the proposal. U.S. officials reassured their South Vietnamese counterparts by promising full consultation should there be developments. South Vietnamese leaders presented their new constitution to persuade Johnson that they were moving meaningfully toward democracy (which had been promised in February 1966, in Honolulu). Johnson reportedly reacted positively to the constitution. The Vietnamese, concerned about the faltering pacification program, responded positively to Komer’s appointment. Journalists I. F. Stone and Frances FitzGerald reacted with less enthusiasm. Stone criticized not only Komer but also the conference for omitting the issue of South Vietnamese shortcomings, such as land reform and

434

Guam Conference

Republic of Vietnam (RVN) president Nguyen Van Thieu (left), U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson (center), and RVN prime minister Nguyen Cao Ky (right) during the playing of the U.S. and RVN national anthems during welcoming ceremonies at Guam’s international airport on March 20, 1967. The Guam Conference was the third summit between U.S. and RVN leaders during the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

freedom of the press. FitzGerald wrote that to put all pacification operations under the military “signified that Washington no longer gave even symbolic importance to the notion of a ‘political’ war waged by the Vietnamese government. The reign of the US military had begun, and with it the strategy of quantity in civilian as well as military affairs.” U.S. officials tried to put a positive light on the conference but indicated privately that it was hastily convened and short on specifics. Johnson pointed out that the United States and South Vietnam faced major and potentially long-lasting problems for which neither side yet had viable solutions. PAUL S. DAUM AND TREVOR CURRAN

See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Bui Diem; Bunker, Ellsworth; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Honolulu Conference; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Komer, Robert W.; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Pacification; Rusk, David Dean; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; U Thant; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Bui Diem. In The Jaws of History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Stone, I. F. Polemics and Prophecies, 1967–1970: A Non-Conformist History of Our Times. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Guizot, François Birth Date: October 4, 1787 Death Date: September 12, 1874 French statesman and historian. Born in Nîmes (Gard Department) on October 4, 1787, François Guizot was the son of a prosperous Protestant lawyer and advocate of federalism. The elder Guizot was executed during the French Revolution of 1789, and his property was confiscated. Educated in Geneva, François Guizot was influenced by English political thought. From 1812 he was professor of modern history at the University of Paris. Guizot held government posts after the restoration, but his moderate views offended ultraroyalists, and he soon lost these posts and his teaching position. He then turned to writing and in the 1820s produced important books treating English history and European and French civilization. An advocate of reform, he won election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1830. In the July Revolution in 1830, Guizot supported the Duc d’Orléans for the throne and then held ministerial posts for 13 of the 18 years of King Louis Philippe’s reign. As minister of public instruction, in 1833 Guizot secured passage of France’s first basic law on primary education. From 1840 to 1848 he was minister of foreign affairs and de facto head of the ministry. A straightforward and effective orator, Guizot advocated conservative policies designed to maintain peace abroad and order at home and to restrict political rights to the wealthy. Under Guizot’s influence, a new French concept of colonialism evolved. Colonies received new military and commercial significance. In the Far East, this began to supplant French traditional interest in missionary activities. More concerned with the restoration of France’s position in Europe than expansion in Asia, Guizot initially resisted suggestions that he send a naval squadron to the Far East. Following the 1841 British acquisition of Hong Kong as a consequence of the Opium War, however, Guizot changed his mind. Two years later he dispatched sizable French naval forces to Asian waters under the command of Admiral Jean-Baptiste Cécille and Captain Léonard Charner. Guizot instructed his naval commanders to acquire positions equal to those that the British enjoyed in Hong Kong and Singapore and that the Portuguese enjoyed in Macao and Manila. But Guizot also wanted the French to avoid operations along the coast of Vietnam. He viewed the country as too unhealthy and the coastal positions there as too difficult to defend. Although he himself disdained wealth (he died poor), Guizot was an adroit practitioner of parliamentary corruption to secure votes. He refused to end this practice or to expand political rights. Despite demands that he do so, Louis Philippe resisted pressure to dismiss his favorite minister until early 1848, too late to save his throne. With the Revolution of 1848, Guizot retired to write. He died at Val Richer in Normandy on September 12, 1874. SPENCER C. TUCKER

435

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Guizot, François. Memoires pour servir à l’histoire de mon temps. 8 vols. Paris: Nichel Levy Frères, 1872. Johnson, Douglas W. J. Guizot: Aspects of French History, 1787–1874. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963. Newman, Edgar L. Historical Dictionary of France from the 1815 Restoration to the Second Empire. New York: Greenwood, 1987. Woodward, Ernest L. Three Studies in European Conservatism: Metternich, Guizot, the Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident Event Dates: August 2 and 4, 1964 Major event in the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that prompted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. On July 31, 1964, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox began a reconnaissance cruise in international waters off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The destroyer carried extra radio gear and personnel to monitor North Vietnamese radio communications but not enough of either to give the ship the capabilities of a true electronic espionage vessel. Around the time of the cruise, the United States also scheduled an unusually intense string of covert operations against the North Vietnamese coast. These were carried out by relatively small vessels (mostly Norwegian-built “Nasty” boats) that had Vietnamese crews but operated under American orders, were based in the vicinity of Da Nang, and were part of a program called Operation Plan 34A (OPLAN 34A). Two islands off the North Vietnamese coast were to be attacked on the night of July 30–31, and two points on the North Vietnamese mainland were to be shelled on the night of August 3–4. One island was to be shelled, and the crew of one fishing boat was to be seized and taken south for interrogation on August 5. One of the Maddox’s main missions was to learn about North Vietnamese coastal defenses, and it was apparently believed that more would be learned if those defenses were in an aroused state during the patrol. On the evening of August 1 the Maddox approached within gun range of the island of Hon Me (one of the two islands shelled by OPLAN 34A vessels on the night of July 30–31), and the coastal defense forces became more aroused than the Americans had planned. On the afternoon of August 2 three North Vietnamese torpedo boats came out from the island and attacked the destroyer. The attack was unsuccessful, and the torpedo boats suffered varying degrees of damage and crew casualties from the Maddox’s guns and from strafing by four U.S. Navy aircraft from the carrier USS Ticonderoga, which reached the scene as the torpedo boats were

436

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

retreating from the attack. The American belief that they actually sank one of the torpedo boats was mistaken, as was the Vietnamese belief that they had shot down one of the planes. President Lyndon Johnson was annoyed that the torpedo boats had not all been sunk but decided not to order any further retaliation, partly because he had reason to believe that the attack had been a result of confusion in the North Vietnamese chain of command rather than a deliberate decision by the government in Hanoi. On August 3 the Maddox and another destroyer, USS C. Turner Joy, went back into the Gulf of Tonkin to resume the patrol, operating under orders more cautious than those with which the Maddox had gone into the Gulf of Tonkin on July 31. The new orders kept the destroyers farther from the North Vietnamese coast and completely out of the extreme northern section of the gulf. These limitations seriously reduced the ability of the destroyers to collect useful information. Many sailors on the destroyers, including the patrol commander Captain John Herrick, thought that another attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats was likely. For about two hours on the night of August 4 such an attack seemed to be in progress, but the situation was very confused. The C. Turner Joy was firing at objects on the radar screens that were invisible to the Maddox’s radar, while the Maddox’s sonar equipment was picking up sounds interpreted as the motors of North Vietnamese torpedoes, which could not be heard by the sonar equipment on the C. Turner Joy. Those who were aboard the destroyers that night are still divided on the issue. Some think that they were attacked by torpedo boats, while others think that what appeared on their radar screens was nothing but weather-generated anomalies, seagulls, foam on the crests of waves, or other natural disturbances. The overall weight of the evidence is with those who deny that an attack occurred. In Washington, after some initial uncertainty it was decided that there had been a genuine attack. Intercepted North Vietnamese radio messages seemed to provide the clinching evidence. The texts of the messages have never been released; it seems likely that they were in fact descriptions of the combat between the Maddox and the three torpedo boats on August 2, being misinterpreted by the Americans as references to a more recent event. Years after the Vietnam War, former U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara traveled to Vietnam, where he met with the former North Vietnamese minister of defense, Vo Nguyen Giap, who assured McNamara that no second attack had occurred. President Johnson, believing that an attack had occurred, ordered retaliatory air strikes (Operation PIERCE ARROW), which were carried out on the afternoon of August 5. He also asked for and quickly obtained a congressional resolution (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), passed almost unanimously on August 7, authorizing him to do whatever was necessary to deal with Communist aggression in Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was politically very profitable for President Johnson in the short run. Public opinion polls showed not just overwhelming approval of the way he had handled the cri-

sis but a dramatic improvement in the public’s rating of his handling of the Vietnam War as a whole. In the long run, however, the cost to the president’s credibility was considerable. It became plain that Congress and the public had been misled about the administration’s intentions and about the relationship between the OPLAN 34A raids and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Eventually many people came to doubt that there had been any attack on the night of August 4 and suspected that the report of such an attack had been a deliberate lie rather than the honest mistake that it had been. EDWIN E. MOISE See also DeSoto Missions; Electronic Intelligence; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Operation Plan 34A; PIERCE ARROW, Operation; Stockdale, James Bond; Vo Nguyen Giap References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Congressional resolution passed in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 2 and August 4, 1964. During 1964, senior Lyndon Johnson administration officials became increasingly convinced that an acceptable conclusion of the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) would require some form of military attack on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and began to consider obtaining a congressional resolution that would endorse U.S. military action. President Johnson, wary of the prospect of a major war in Vietnam and cognizant of the problems that President Harry S. Truman had faced while waging the Korean War (1950–1953) without explicit congressional approval, was especially determined not to get into such a war without a prior commitment of congressional support. As Johnson put it, “I’m gonna get ’em on the takeoff so they’ll be with me on the landing.” In May and June 1964 senior administration officials produced drafts of a possible resolution. They decided not to present these to Congress, however; there seemed too little chance of such a resolution being passed without a politically damaging debate. On August 2 and again on August 4, it was reported that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked U.S. Navy destroyers on the high seas (the Gulf of Tonkin Incident). A revised draft of the resolution was quickly presented to the Congress on August 5. The crucial passages read: Whereas naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly at-

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

President Lyndon Johnson signs the August 7, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave him for all practical purposes a free hand to commit U.S. military resources in Vietnam. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

tacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace; and Whereas these attacks are part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of aggression that the Communist regime in Vietnam has been waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the collective defense of their freedom. . . . Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. . . . [T]he United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom. The members of Congress were given the impression that the heart of the resolution, the aspect that they should consider voting

437

for or against, was the passage about supporting the president in repelling armed attacks on U.S. forces. The congressional members were told that they should not worry about the implications of the next paragraph that authorized the president to do whatever he felt necessary to assist South Vietnam, because the administration had no intention of escalating American involvement in the war. Most members of Congress accepted these assurances, and the resolution passed on August 7, unanimously in the House of Representatives (416 to 0) and with only 2 dissenting votes, by Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska) and Wayne Morse (D-Ore.), in the Senate. In voting in favor of the measure, Congress gave Johnson carte blanche to wage war in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. There was a very brief debate on the resolution in Congress, but few serious reservations surfaced. After Johnson had sent U.S. combat forces to Vietnam and cited the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as his authority, many who had voted for the resolution regretted their action, and some began to investigate the circumstances. They found that the first attack (on August 2, 1964) had not been so clearly unprovoked as they had been told, that there was serious reason to doubt that the second attack (on August 4) had ever happened, and that the administration had been working on preliminary drafts of such a resolution, which it wanted precisely because it was considering an escalation of the war long before the incidents had arisen. By 1968 the resulting disillusionment had become a serious liability for the administration. When Senator Morse first proposed in 1966 that Congress repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, there was hardly any support. Sentiment gradually shifted, however, and the resolution was finally repealed by a vote in both houses of Congress at the end of 1970. Furthermore, in November 1973 Congress passed the War Powers Act, which very explicitly laid out the president’s authority to wage war and the role that Congress should play in future conflicts. EDWIN E. MOISE See also Gruening, Ernest Henry; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Morse, Wayne Lyman References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

This page intentionally left blank

Index

1st Air Cavalry Division (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), xliii, 30, 50, 158, 160, 254, 276, 283 (image), 312, 349, 370, 461, 474, 517, 519, 527, 528 (image), 593, 771, 893, 1239, 1245, 1324, 1325 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment (ARVN), 160 1st Infantry Division (ARVN), 2, 306, 307, 448, 814 1st Infantry Division (PAVN), 254, 390–391 1st Infantry Division (U.S. [“Big Red One”]), 78, 81, 245, 248, 1029, 1324, 1325 1st Infantry Regiment (VC), 462 1st Marine Field Artillery Group (U.S.), 73 2nd Armored Brigade (U.S.), 160 2nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 312 2nd Infantry Division (PAVN), 1340 2nd Infantry Division (VC), 462 3rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 325 3rd Infantry Regiment (ARVN), 448 3rd Marine Division (U.S.), 290, 306, 485, 591–592 3rd Sapper Battalion (PAVN), 291 4th Air Cavalry Division (U.S.), 180 4th Infantry Division (U.S.), 160, 254, 388, 427, 1324 4th Marine Division (U.S. [“Magnificent Bastards”]), 306, 485 5th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 529 5th Infantry Division (ARVN), 51, 150, 1324 5th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 1, 51 5th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 292, 466 5th Marine Regiment (U.S.), xliv (image) 5th Ranger Group (ARVN), 357 6th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 291 7th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 406, 527, 528

7th Infantry Division (ARVN), 57, 58, 981 7th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51 9th Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 9th Infantry Division (ROK [“White Horse”]), 163, 602 (image) 9th Infantry Division (U.S.), 348, 467, 981, 983–984 9th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51, 80–81, 107, 342 9th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 57, 139, 448, 485 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (U.S. [“Blackhorse”]), 78, 370 12th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 14th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rangers”]), 470 (image) 16th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 1 18th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 21st Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 21st Marine Regiment (U.S. [“Gimlets”]), 306 22nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 312, 1326 23rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 608 23rd Infantry Division (U.S. [“Americal Division”]), 119–120, 785, 1340 24th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 163, 254, 427, 466 25th Infantry Division (U.S. [“Tropic Lightning”]), 78, 81, 208, 249, 370, 457, 1324 26th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Blue Spaders”]), 180 26th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 485 29th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 57, 448 31st Marine Amphibious Unit (U.S.), 48 31st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 32nd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 33rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 528 39th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 348

I-1

42nd Regiment (ARVN), 427, 466 52nd Ranger Battalion (U.S.), 308 57th Medical Detachment (U.S.), 320, 564 66th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 82nd Airborne Division (U.S.), 29, 467 82nd Medical Detachment (U.S.), 853 90th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 140 101st Airborne Division (U.S. [“Screaming Eagles”]), 15, 50, 57, 276, 292, 349, 448, 464, 474, 546, 803, 1340 101st Aviation Group (U.S.), 292 101st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 81 173rd Airborne Brigade (U.S. [“Sky Soldiers”]), 15, 50, 180, 245, 248, 254, 427, 428, 693, 1325 (image), 1326 174th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254, 428 187th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rakassans”]), 57 196th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 81, 292, 306 199th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 357, 1162 237th Infantry Regiment (VC), 81 271st Infantry Regiment (VC), 107 272nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 81, 107, 341, 342 304B Infantry Division (PAVN), 163, 517, 977 320th Infantry Division (PAVN), 306 320th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 324B Infantry Division (PAVN), 235, 462, 463, 517, 977 325th Infantry Division (PAVN), 77, 235 325C Infantry Division (PAVN), 517, 579, 1244 327th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 502nd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 503rd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 254, 255 506th Infantry Battalion (VC), 348 675B Artillery Regiment (PAVN), 291

I-2

Index

762nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 763rd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 803rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 235 812th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 I Corps (ARVN), 517, 520, 814 I Corps (U.S.), 50, 311 II Corps (ARVN), 161 II Field Force, 875 III Corps (ARVN), 158, 161 III Corps (U.S.), 51 III Marine Amphibious Force (U.S. [MAF]), 31, 312, 704 LXX Corps (PAVN), 617 ABILENE, Operation, 1–2 Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr., 2–3, 2 (image), 51, 133, 347, 548, 576, 599, 616, 625, 692–693, 814, 847, 872, 875, 934, 970, 1062, 1174, 1175, 1176–1177, 1176–1177, 1188, 1203 (image), 1212, 1215, 1345 (image) analysis of the enemy systems used in the Vietnam War, 3 as commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 3 as overseer of Vietnamization, 747 Abzug, Bella, 4, 187, 712 Accelerated Pacification Campaign, 872–873 Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program, 407 Acheson, Dean Gooderham, 4–6, 5 (image), 566, 603, 1143, 1168 “defense perimeter” in Asia established by, 5 memorandum of, 1404Doc. press release urging aid for Indochina, 1410Doc. report to the National Security Council, 1416–1417Doc. telegram to Abbot L. Moffat, 1390–1391Doc. telegram to the consulate in France, 1403–1404Doc. telegram to the consulate in Hanoi, 1404Doc. telegram to the embassy in France, 1402–1403Doc. telegram to the embassy in the United Kingdom, 1407–1408Doc. telegram to the legation in Saigon, 1415–1416Doc. telegram to Walter Robertson, 1378–1379Doc. telegrams to David Bruce, 1409–1410Doc., 1412–1413Doc. ACTIV. See Army Team Concept in Vietnam Adams, Eddie, 6–7, 6 (image), 727 Adams, Samuel A., 7–8, 865 Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee (AHMBC), 8

Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), 934 Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (AARS), 1032 African Americans, in the U.S. military, 8–10, 9 (image), 69 effects of the civil rights movement on, 212 Agent Orange. See Defoliation; Herbicides Agnew, Spiro Theodore, 10–11, 11 (image), 45, 338, 457, 464, 465 criticism of the media, 1622–1624Doc. resignation of the vice presidency by, 11, 377 Agricultural reform tribunals, 11–12 Agroville Program, 12, 808, 811, 1061 Aiken, George David, 12–13, 13 (image) Air America, 13–14 Airborne operations, 14–16 Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 16–24, 17 (image), 19 (image), 23 (image), 579 allied bombers, 16–18 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, 16, 24, 32, 48, 59–60, 60 (image), 79, 97, 108, 125, 142–143, 158, 292, 312, 325, 340, 370, 376, 462, 466, 503, 527, 578, 582, 592, 625, 646, 659 (image), 661, 662, 693, 698, 709, 724, 740, 770, 802, 845, 879, 887, 944, 952, 958, 1001, 1018, 1021, 1034, 1036, 1049, 1053, 1068, 1130, 1154, 1184 Douglas A-1 Skyraider, 16, 17 (image), 24, 27, 77, 300, 372, 578, 838, 911, 917, 1080, 1265, 1356 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, 16, 24, 27, 35, 41, 300, 339, 372, 379, 679, 713, 911, 930, 1066, 1124, 1205, 1265 Douglas AD-6 Skyraider, 838, 1264 Douglas B-26 Invader, 16, 24, 105, 342, 383, 644 Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer, 17, 24–25, 31 (image) Grumman A-6 Intruder, 24, 25, 300, 340, 659, 1206 Martin B-57/RB-57 Canberra, 18, 25, 27, 35, 105, 990 (image) Vought A-7 Corsair II, 18, 25, 27, 35, 300, 659, 758, 1032 allied fighters and fighter-bombers, 18–20 McDonnell Douglas Phantom F4, xliii (image), 18, 19 (image), 27, 28, 35, 121, 226, 233, 300, 339, 379, 1040, 1051, 1079, 1085, 1086, 1119, 1205, 1206, 1248, 1341, 1342 allied trainers, transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and defoliators, 20–23 Democratic Republic of Vietnam aircraft, 23–24 See also Tactical Air Command Aircraft carriers, 25–27, 26 (image) length of individual tours/cruises, 26–27

reconnaissance tasks of, 27 Air defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 27–29, 28 (image) antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 28, 52–53 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image) Air Ground Aid Service (AGAS), 270 AirLand Battle doctrine, 1062 Air mobility, 29–30, 29 (image) Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company (ANGLICO), 30–31 Airpower, role of in the Vietnam War, 31–32, 33 (map), 34 air operations over Cambodia, 34 amount/tonnage of bombs dropped during the war, 31–32 focus of air operations in South Vietnam, 32 Air War Study Group Report (Cornell University), 36–37 ALA MOANA, Operation, 37 Albert, Carl, 280 Albright, Madeleine K., 1181 Alcatraz Gang, 1066 Alessandri, Marcel, 37–38, 172, 1009 Alexander, Jerome, 1031 (image) Ali, Muhammad, 38, 39 (image), 111, 231 (image) Allen, James, 238 Allied strength in Vietnam, 1964–1972 (table) Alpha Strike, 39–40 Alsop, Joseph Wright, V, 40 Alvarez, Everett, Jr., 41, 41 (image), 931 Amerasians, 41–43, 42 (image) American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 45, 46 American Friends of Vietnam (AFV), 43–44, 861 American Indian Movement (AIM), 798 American Red Cross, 44–45, 45 (image) Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO) program of, 44–45 American Society of Friends (Quakers), 53 Amin, Jamil Abdullah al-. See Brown, Hubert Gerald Amnesty, 45–46 Amphibious Objective Area (AOA), 47 Amphibious warfare, 46–48, 47 (image) amphibious task force of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, 47 brown water versus blue water operations, 47 deployment of the Special Landing Force (SLF), 47 during the period of Vietnamization, 48 marine landings, 47 Andersen, Christopher, 375 Andersen Air Force Base, 48–49 Anderson, Jack, 921 Anderson, William, 927, 1118 Andreotta, Glenn, 786, 1116 Andropov, Yuri, 423 Angell, Joseph, 189

Index Angkor Wat, 49–50, 49 (image), 150–151 ANGLICO. See Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company An Khe, 50 An Loc, Battle of, 50–51 casualties of, 51 Annam, 51–52 Antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 52–53, 1248 Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems Treaty (ABM Treaty) (1972), 778 Anti-Party Affair, 638, 639, 1043 Anti-Rightist campaign, 1043 Antiwar movement, in the United States, 53–55, 54 (image), 610 bombing of North Vietnam as the catalyst for, 53–54 common denominators among college campuses, 571 spread of beyond college campuses, 54 See also Baltimore Four; Camden 28; Catonsville Nine; Chicago Eight; Fort Hood Three; Jackson State College, shootings at; Kent State University shootings; March on the Pentagon; May Day Tribe; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) Antiwar protests, non-U.S., 55–57, 56 (image) APACHE SNOW, Operation, 57, 709 Ap Bac, Battle of, 57–59, 58 (image), 1035, 1261 casualties of, 57 (table) Ap Bia Mountain, Battle of. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Appeasement policy, 781 Approval ratings, of U.S. presidents during U.S. involvement in Indochina, 569 (table) Appy, Christian, 313 Aptheker, Herbert, 688 Arc Light missions, 59–61, 60 (image), 1069, 1186 ARDMORE, Operation, 579 Armored personnel carriers (APCs), 61–63, 61 (image) characteristics of, 62–63 (table) Armored warfare, 63–64, 63 (image) antitank attack methods, 63–64 lack of armor in North Vietnamese forces, 64 Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV), 64–65 Army of the Republic of Vietnam. See Vietnam, Republic of, Army Arnett, Peter, 65–66, 66 (image), 727, 728, 1078 Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius, 66–67 Arnold, Henry, 960 Art, and the Vietnam War, 67–70, 69 (image) African American artists’ response to the Vietnam War, 69–70

Artillery, 70–73, 72 (image) antipersonnel “Beehive” rounds, 72–73 high-explosive antitank (HEAT) ammunition, 72 improved conventional munitions (ICM), 73 number of U.S. Army artillery battalions in Vietnam, 73 specific People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) artillery, 71–72, 1251 (table) specific U.S. artillery, 71 (table) use of by the Viet Cong, 71 See also Antiaircraft artillery (AAA) Artillery fire doctrine, 73–76, 75 (image) chain of command for artillery, 74 direct support (DS) and general support (GS) operations, 73–74 and the effectiveness of firebases, 75–76 and fire direction centers (FDCs), 74 specific doctrines for artillery maneuvers, 74–75 Artists and Writers Protest (AWP) group, 67 Aschenbrenner, Michael, 70 A Shau Valley, 76–77, 1239 A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 77 Ashley, Eugene, Jr., 625 Asselin, Pierre, 490 Assimilation versus association, 77–78 Athenagoras I, Patriarch, 884 Atlantic Charter, 1167–1168 ATLAS WEDGE, Operation, 78–79 casualties of, 79 Atrocities, 79–80, 79 (image) committed by U.S. armed forces, 55, 79–80, 149–150, 481, 521 committed by the Viet Cong (VC), 79, 80, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) committed by Republic of Korea (ROK) allied forces, 80 See also Torture ATTLEBORO, Operation, 80–81 casualties of, 81 Attrition, 82 Aubrac, Raymond, 889, 1016–1017 August Revolution, 82–83, 1010 Au Lac, kingdom of, 83 Ault Report, 1124 Australia, 83–86, 85 (image), 395 casualties suffered by in the Vietnam War, 85, 86 deployment of ground troops to Vietnam, 84 military advisors provided to Vietnam, 83 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operations in Vietnam, 84 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) operations in Vietnam, 84–85, 1321 See also CRIMP, Operation Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), 83 Australian Special Air Services (SAS), 15

I-3

“Awesome foursome,” 961 B-52 raids. See Arc Light missions BABYLIFT, Operation, 87–88, 87 (image)

Bach Dang River, Battle of, 88–89 Ba Cut, 89, 830 Baez, Joan Chandos, 55, 89–90, 90 (image) Baker, Carroll, 1166 (image) Baker, Ella, 1072 Ball, George Wildman, 54, 90–91, 91 (image), 218, 345, 551, 562, 569, 808, 1201, 1345, 1345 (image) memorandum to President Johnson, 1549–1551Doc. telegram to President Johnson and Dean Rusk, 1506–1508Doc. Ball, Roland, 583 Baltimore Four, 91–92 Ban Karai Pass, 92–93 Ban Me Thuot, Battle of, 93–94, 93 (image) Bao Dai, xli, 94–95, 94 (image), 140, 330, 654, 655, 806, 807, 811, 839, 913 (image), 1010, 1258, 1272, 1286, 1287 abdication message of, 1376–1377Doc. Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr., 95–96 BARREL ROLL, Operation, 26, 32, 96–97, 503, 1119 sorties involved in and total ordnance dropped, 97 (table) BARRIER REEF, Operation, 917, 1026 Barrow, Robert, 290–291 Basic Principles of Mutual Relations (1972), 778 Bassford, Christopher, 1077 Batcheller, Gordon, 516 Bates, Carol, 797 Ba Trieu. See Trieu Au Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961), 568 Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul, 78, 98 BEAU CHARGER, Operation, 47 BEAVER TRACK, Operation, 47, 485 Beckwith, Charles Alvin, 98–100, 99 (image) role of in the formation of Delta Force, 99 Bennett, John, 218 Benson Report (1969), 969 Ben Suc, 100–101, 100 (image) Ben Tre, Battle of, 101–102, 101 (image) BENTRE, Operation, 388 Berger, Samuel David, 102 Berlin Wall, 568 Bernard, Harry V., 270, 862 Bernhardt, Michael, 971 Berrigan, Daniel, 102–104, 103 (image), 178, 179, 217 Berrigan, Philip, 91–92, 103, 104, 178, 179 Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 537 Betts, Richard K., 491 Bidault, Georges, 104–105, 105 (image), 375, 651–652, 1307 Bien Hoa Air Base, 105–106, 106 (image) Bigeard, Marcel, 174, 295–296 Big Medicine, Joseph, Jr., 799 (image)

I-4

Index

BIG PATCH, Operation, 1325

Binh Gia, Battle of, 106–108, 107 (image) casualties of, 107 BINH TAY I–IV, Operations, 108–109, 157, 160–161 Binh Xuyen, 109, 169, 314, 654, 1010 Bird, William H., 109, 156 Bird & Sons, 109, 156–157, 236 Blackburn, Donald D., 1052 Black Flags, 110–111, 110 (image) BLACKJACK, Operation, 564, 764 Black Muslims, 111–112, 112 (image) Black Panthers, 112–113, 242, 361, 1024–1025 Black Power movement, 212, 591 Black Virgin Mountain. See Nui Ba Den Blair, John D., IV, 77 Blaizot, Roger, 114, 172, 532, 1242 Blassie, Michael Joseph, 114–115, 115 (image) BLU-82/B bomb, 115–116, 1239–1240 Bluechel, Herbert J., 290 BLUE LIGHT, Operation, 116 BLUE MARTIN, Operation, 47 Blum, Léon, 116–117, 117 (image) Boat people. See Refugees and boat people Body armor, 118 Body count, 118–119, 119 (image) Boettcher, Thomas, 313 BOLD MARINER, Operation, 119–121, 120 (image), 1030 Bollaert, Émile, 121 BOLO, Operation, 121–122, 862–863 Bombing, of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, restrictions on, 122, 123 (map), 124–125 Bombs BLU-82 (“Daisy Cutter”) bombs, 115–116, 619, 1239–1240 gravity (cluster bombs), 125 Bon Son Campaign. See MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation Booby traps, 125–127, 126 (image) hand grenades used in, 452 Border Campaign. See LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Boston Five, 1060 Bowles, Chester Bliss, 127–128, 127 (image) Bradley, Mark, 490 Bradley, Omar Nelson, 128–129, 128 (image), 606, 1345 Brady, Patrick Henry, 129, 564 Braestrup, Peter, 1100 Brandt, Willy, 286, 418 BRAVO I–II, Operations, 129–130, 649, 1123 Brechignac, Jean, 174 Breezy Cove, 1026 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich, 130–132, 131 (image), 286–287, 287 (image), 609, 918 the Brezhnev Doctrine, 131, 423 domestic policy of, 131 relationship with North Vietnam, 131 relationship with the West, 131–132

See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Brigham, Robert, 490 BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation, 132, 1028 Brindley, Thomas, 580–581 Brodie, Bernard, 960, 1029 BROTHERHOOD, Operation, 907, 1012 Brown, Andrew J., 915 (image) Brown, Earl, 656 Brown, George Scratchley, 132–133 Brown, Hank, 134 Brown, Harold, 196 Brown, H. Rap, 1072 Brown, Hubert Gerald, 133–134, 133 (image) Brown, James, 958–959 Brown, Malcolm, 58 Brown, Rayford, 560 (image) Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr., 134–135, 773 Brown, Winthrop, 631 Browne, Malcolm Wilde, 135 Browne, Michael W., 1246 Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este, 135–136, 135 (image) telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420–1421Doc. Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz, 136–137, 137 (image), 1226 Bucher, Lloyd M., 947 BUCKSKIN, Operation, 245 Buddhism, 137–139, 138 (image) Buddhist protests in Vietnam, 138 introduction of into Vietnam from China, 137 Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia, 151 Buddle, Reggie L., 1299 BUFFALO, Operation, 139–140, 485 Bui Diem, 140–141 Bui Phat, 141 Bui Tin, 141–142, 142 (image), 875 Bui Van Sac, 818 BULLET SHOT, Operation, 142–143 Bundy, McGeorge, 143–144, 143 (image), 372, 797, 871, 917, 1345, 1345 (image) cablegrams to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499–1501Doc. memorandum to President Johnson, 1514–1515Doc. Bundy, William Putnam, 144–145, 1095 memorandum to Dean Rusk, 1571–1572Doc. Bunker, Ellsworth, 145–146, 145 (image), 302, 347, 496 (image), 576, 599, 872, 1175 Burchell, Don, 949 (image) Burchett, Wilfred, 146, 1145 Burkett, Bernard Gary, 146–147, 1298, 1299 Bush, George Herbert Walker, 147–148, 147 (image), 187, 220, 305, 464, 781, 1280 education of, 147 political career of, 148 service of in World War II, 147 Bush, George W., 148, 595, 715, 1181, 1209– 1210, 1299, 1319–1320

BUTTERCUP, Operation, 1129

Byrne, William Matthew, 341, 1007 Byrnes, James F., note to French ambassador Henri Bonnet, 1382–1383Doc. Byroade, Henry, aide-mémoire to North Vietnamese consul Vu Huu Binh, 1569Doc. CALCAV. See Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Calley, William Laws, Jr., 149–150, 150 (image), 608, 785, 786, 886, 971, 1116, 1190 Cambodia, xlv, 49, 128, 150–154, 153 (image), 155, 325, 352, 414, 1246, 1274, 1278 air operations over, 34 bombing of, 151, 370, 594, 740, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 history of, 150–151 neutral status of, 802, 1018 North Vietnamese headquarters in, 557 political stability in, 154 political turmoil and civil war in, 152–154 population of, 1964–1964, 585 (table) Theravada Buddhism in, 151 See also Angkor Wat; Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of; Cambodian airlift; Cambodian Incursion; Hot pursuit policy; Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of, 152–153, 154–156, 200 background of, 154–155 Cambodian airlift, 156–157 Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 158 (image), 159 (map), 160–161, 803, 848, 1176 first phase of, 157–158 number and types of troops involved in, 157–158 second phase of, 158, 160 third phase of, 879 Camden 28, 161–162 Cam Lo, 162 CAMPAIGN 275, 93 Camp, Carter, 798 Camp Carroll, 162–163 Campbell, Roger, 581 Cam Ranh Bay, 163–164, 164 (image), 1279 Canada, 164–165, 165 (image) Canines. See K-9 Corps Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), 165–167, 803, 811, 967 Cao Bang, 167–168 Cao Dai, 168–170, 169 (image), 314, 654, 1089, 1096 Cao Van Vien, 170–171 Caravelle Group, 171, 903 CARBANADO, Operation, 270 Carmichael, Stokley, 1072 Carpentier, Marcel, 167, 171–172, 532, 545, 642, 643, 998, 1242, 1286

Index Carter, James Earl, Jr., 46, 136, 137, 172–173, 173 (image), 284, 287, 338 (image), 339, 378, 411, 547, 1278, 1318 Case, Clifford Philip, 173–174 Case-Church Amendment (1973), 174 Casey, Aloysius, 635 Casey, Patrick, 635 CASTOR, Operation, 15, 174–175, 800–801, 802 Casualties, of the Vietnam War, 175–176, 175 (table) Australian, 176 French, 175 Republic of Korea (ROK), 176 Republic of Vietnam (RVN), 175 U.S., 175 Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 176 Catholicism, 176–178, 177 (image) Catonsville Nine, 178–179 Catroux, Georges, 179–180 Cau Nguyen Loi, 1119 (image) CEDAR FALLS, Operation, 81, 100, 101, 180–181, 181 (map), 539, 555, 873 casualties of, 180 target of, 180 Cédile, Jean, 181 Center for Constitutional Rights, 613 Central Highlands, 182, 184, 1015, 1239, 1264 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 43, 182– 184, 186, 190, 223–224, 229, 244, 319, 412, 459, 507, 717, 1050, 1126–1127, 1328 Border Surveillance program of, 244 cablegram on the CIA channel to Henry Cabot Lodge concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc. intelligence memorandum concerning bombing damage to North Vietnam, 1589–1590Doc. See also Air America Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), 157, 160, 184–185, 1245, 1323 cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to, 1606Doc. Directive 02/73, 1649–1650Doc. Directive 03/CT 73, 1654–1656Doc. Directive (un-numbered), 1606–1607Doc. Resolution No. 9, 1614–1615Doc. summary of Directive No. 1/CT71, 1627–1629Doc. Chamberlain, Neville, 781 Chams, 185–186, 186 (image), 199 Chandler, David, 920 CHAOS, Operation, 186–187 Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr., 187–188, 188 (image) Chappelle, Georgette Meyer, 188–189 Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph, 189 Charton, Pierre, 643 CHECO Project, 189 Chemical warfare. See Defoliation; Herbicides; RANCH HAND, Operation

Cheney, Dick, 187 Chen Geng, 1332 Cheng Heng, 684 Chennault, Anna, 190–191, 190 (image), 192 Chennault, Claire Lee, 191–192, 191 (image), 1009 Chen Yun, 196 Chernenko, Konstantin, 423 Chiang Kai-shek. See Jiang Jieshi Chicago Eight, 192–193, 193 (image), 506, 613, 1329 Chieu Hoi Program, 193–194, 596, 869, 943 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 156, 172, 194–199, 195 (image), 197 (image), 204, 234, 293, 1241, 1332 domestic policies of, 195 economic development in, 198 formation of after the Chinese Civil War, 195 National People’s Congresses (NPCs) of, 196–197 relations with the Soviet Union, 195, 423 relations with the United States, 195, 196 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 status of following the Korean War, 607 Tiananmen Square uprising in, 197–198 See also China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam; Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward; Hundred Flowers campaign China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam, 199–201, 200 (image), 201 (image) amount of foreign aid to North Vietnam, 199 military aid to North Vietnam, 324 post–Vietnam War policy, 200–201, 204 provision of war materiel to the Viet Minh and North Vietnamese, 676 support of the Viet Minh, 293, 532–533, 547–548 China, Republic of, 201–202, 548 China Lobby, 597 Chinese, in Vietnam, 202–204, 203 (image) attacks on the Chinese community, 202 control of South Vietnam’s commerce by the Chinese, 203 expulsion of the Chinese from Vietnam, 204 organization of the Chinese in Vietnam, 202 response of the Chinese to Vietnamese decrees and demands, 203 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 195, 196, 197 Chin Vinh. See Tran Do Chomsky, Avram Noam, 204–205, 205 (image) Chou En-lai. See Zhou Enlai Christmas Bombings. See LINEBACKER II, Operation Church, Frank Forrester, 173, 174, 205–206, 238–239, 464, 1196 Churchill, Winston, 995, 1143 Chu Van Tan, 206 CIDG. See Civilian Irregular Defense Group

I-5

Civic action, 206–209, 207 (image) combined action platoon (CAP) mission, 208 Helping Hand program, 208 Marine Corps civic action programs, 207–208 medical civic action programs (MEDCAPS), 207 Civil Air Transport (CAT), 13 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), 209, 223, 244, 564, 769, 1084, 1213, 1214 Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), 120, 208, 209–210, 223, 357, 433, 509, 872, 873, 909, 934, 1183–1184, 1272 Civil Rights Act (1964), 591 Civil rights movement, 210–212, 211 (image), 607 and the Black Power movement, 212 effect of on African American soldiers in Vietnam, 212 and voter registration of African Americans, 212 (table) Clarey, Bernard Ambrose, 212–213 Clark, Joseph S., 1196 Clark, Mark, 113 Clark, William Ramsey, 213–214, 213 (image), 1198 Clark Air Force Base, 215 Clausewitz, Carl von, 990, 1077 Clay, Cassius. See Ali, Muhammad Claymore Mines. See Armored warfare; Firesupport bases; Mine warfare, land Clear and hold operations, 215 Cleaver, Eldridge, 113 Cleland, Joseph Maxwell, 215–216, 215 (image), 925, 1216 Clemenceau, Georges, 216–217, 216 (image) Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), 217–218, 217 (image) Clifford, Clark McAdams, 218–219, 218 (image), 510, 551, 1209, 1318 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 220 Clinton, William Jefferson, 148, 219–221, 344, 616, 762 lifting of the trade embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1674–1675Doc. normalization of relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1675–1676Doc. Cluster bombs. See Bombs, gravity (cluster bombs) Coalition for a Democratic Majority, 996 Coastal surveillance force. See MARKET TIME, Operation Cochin China, 51–52, 95, 155, 181, 221, 343, 375, 398, 400, 401, 408, 416, 1241 Co Chi tunnels, 245, 248–249 Coffin, William Sloane, 218, 221–222, 222 (image)

I-6

Index

Cogny, René, 222–223, 295, 802 COINTELPRO, 1025 Colburn, Lawrence, 786, 1116 Colby, William Egan, 223–224, 223 (image), 319, 599, 615, 815, 872, 873, 909, 970, 1095, 1175, 1176 Collins, Arthur, 456 Collins, Joseph Lawton, 224–225, 225 (image), 314, 812, 1169 Collins-Ely Agreement, 861 Colvin, John, 1245 Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC), 967–968 Combat Operations Research Center (CORC), 967–968 Combined action platoons. See Marine combined action platoons COMMANDO FLASH, Operation, 225–226 COMMANDO HUNT, Operation, 34, 60, 226–227, 505, 617, 1063, 1185–1186 Committee on the Present Danger, 996 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 1244 Concerned Officers Movement (COM), 227–228 CONCORDIA, Operation, 306 “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report (COWIN Report), 228 Conein, Lucien Emile, 129, 228–229, 674, 808, 809, 970, 1012, 1133 Confucianism, 229–230, 230 (image) Conscientious objectors (COs), 230–232, 231 (image) Conscription. See Selective Service Con Son Island Prison, 232–233, 233 (image), 763 CONSTANT GUARD, Operation, 233–234 Containment policy, 234–235, 566, 569, 781, 945, 1143, 1199 militarization of following the Korean War, 607 Contemporary Historical Examination of Combat Operations. See CHECO Project Con Thien, siege of, 235–236, 236 (image) casualties of, 236 See also BUFFALO, Operation Continental Air Services (CAS), 236–237 Cooper, Chester Lawrence, 237, 871 Cooper, John Sherman, 237–238, 239 (image), 464, 1196 Cooper-Brooke Amendment (1972), 238–239 Cooper-Church Amendment (1970), 239, 617, 849, 1196–1197 CORDS. See Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support CORONADO I–XI, Operations, 983 Corps tactical zones (CTZs), 240–241, 240 (image), 241 (map) Corsi, Jerome E., 1084 Cosell, Howard, 39 (image) COSVN. See Central Office for South Vietnam

Counterculture(s), 241–243, 242 (image) components of, 242 sociological definition of, 241 Counterinsurgency warfare, 243–245 CIA involvement in, 244 U.S. experience with, 243–244 Cousins, Norman, 53 COWIN Report. See “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report Cranston, Alan, 610 CRIMP, Operation, 245–246 Crittenberger, Willis, 871 CROCKETT, Operation, 579 Croizat, Victor, 1270 Croly, Herbert, 663 Cronauer, Adrian, 246 Cronkite, Walter Leland, 246–247, 247 (image), 1100 criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam, 1601–1602Doc. Cuba, 155 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 568 Cubi Point Naval Air Station, 247–248, 248 (image) Cultural Revolution, 197, 703, 1043 Cunningham, Randall Harold, 249–250, 250 (image), 1124 Cuong De, 250–251 Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr., 48, 251–252, 251 (image), 592, 1203 (image) Dabney, William, 580–581 Da Faria, Antônio, 253 Daisy Cutter. See BLU-82/B bomb Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang, 253–254 Dak To, Battle of, 254–256, 254 (image), 255 (map), 465–466, 692–693, 1239 casualties of, 254, 255, 693 Da Lat, 256 Da Lat Military Academy, 1269 Daley, Richard Joseph, 256–257, 257 (image) Da Nang, 257–258, 258 (image), 345, 345 (image) See also Hue and Da Nang, fall of Dang Con San Viet Nam. See Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party), 1244 Dang Si, 1113 Dang Xuan Khu. See Truong Chinh DANIEL BOONE, Operation, 259 Dao Duy Tung, 259 Daoism. See Taoism D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry, 95, 259–260, 276, 375, 401, 532, 769, 1168, 1241 Darst, David, 178 Date of Estimated Return from Overseas. See DEROS Dau Tranh strategy, 260–262, 261 (image) Davidson, Carl, 1073 Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr., 262

Davis, Angela, 113 Davis, Raymond Gilbert, 262–263, 290 Davis, Rennard Cordon, 192, 263–264, 263 (image), 711 Davison, Michael S., 158 Day, George Everett, 265–266, 932–933, 1126 Dean, Arthur, 1345 Dean, John Gunther, 265–266, 265 (image) Débes, Pierre-Louis, 266 ultimatum to the Haiphong Administrative Committee, 1389–1390Doc. De Castries, Christian Marie, 266–268, 267 (image) See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dechaux, Jean, 174 DECKHOUSE I, Operation, 47 DECKHOUSE V, Operation, 268–269, 268 (image) Decoux, Jean, 269–270, 392 Deer Mission, 270 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), 270–272, 271 (image) Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS), 272 DEFIANT STAND, Operation, 272–273 Defoliation, 273–275, 274 (image), 1239 amount of herbicides used in, 273 (table), 480 (table) initial results of, 273 long-term effects of, 273–274 See also RANCH HAND, Operation Deforest, Orrin, 1127 De Gaulle, Charles, 105, 269, 275–276, 275 (image), 637, 774, 995, 1014, 1129 DELAWARE-LAM SON 216, Operation, 276–277 casualties of, 277 Dellinger, David, 192, 277–278, 277 (image), 1060 Dellums, Ron V., 1197 DeLoach, Cartha, 511 Delta Force, 99 Demilitarized zone (DMZ), 278–279, 278 (image), 279 (map), 306, 325 establishment of, 413–414 Democratic National Convention (1968 [Chicago]), 55, 113, 134, 178, 218, 264, 278, 279–281, 280 (image) See also Chicago Eight Deng Xiaoping, 196, 198, 1046 Denney, Stephen, 964 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr., 281, 495 Deo Mu Gia. See Mu Gia Pass DePuy, William Eugene, 1, 281–282, 282 (image), 555, 728 view of pacification, 871 See also Search and destroy De Rhodes, Alexandre, 283 DEROS (Date of Estimated Return from Overseas), 283–284, 283 (image) DESERT SHIELD, Operation, 270–271 DESERT STORM, Operation, 270–271

Index Desertion, 284–285 of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 284–285 of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC), 285 of U.S. military personnel, 284 DeSoto missions, 285–286, 864 Détente, 286–288, 287 (image), 778 De Tham, 288 Devillers, Philippe, 288–289 Dewey, Albert Peter, 289–290, 289 (image), 310, 862 Dewey, Thomas, 315, 988 DEWEY CANYON I, Operation, 290–292, 291 (image), 617, 1294 casualties of, 291 success of, 292 DEWEY CANYON II, Operation, 292–293, 1294 casualties of, 292 Dewey Canyon III, 657 Diem, overthrow of. See Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Dien Bien Phu, Battle of, 15, 76, 140, 174, 234, 267, 293–296, 294 (image), 295 (map), 342, 535, 675, 1169, 1250 artillery of the French forces, 295 artillery of the Viet Minh, 294–295 casualties of, 295, 296 effects of the French defeat, 296 French rescue plans for (Operation ALBATROSS and Operation CONDOR), 296 See also VULTURE, Operation Dien Triet Lake, Battle of, 296–297 Dikes, on the Red River Delta, 297–298 Diller, Richard W., 276, 887 Dillon, C. Douglas, 329, 1345 telegram to John Foster Dulles, 1433Doc. Dinassauts, 298–299, 764 Dith Pran, 299–300, 299 (image) Dix, Drew, 940 Dixie Station, 300 Doan Khue, 300–301 Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich, 301, 301 (image) Do Cao Tri, 158, 302–303, 302 (image), 827 Dogs. See K-9 Corps Doi Moi, 303, 820, 1278–1279 Domino theory, 303–305, 304 (image), 569, 781, 945 Do Muoi, 305–306 Don Dien, 306 Dong Ap Bia. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Dong Da, Battle of. See Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Dong Ha, Battle of, 306–307 casualties of, 307 (table) Dong Quan Pacification Project, 307–308 Dong Xoai, Battle of, 308–309, 308 (image) Don Khoi, 835 Donlon, Roger Hugh C., 309 Donnell, John, 1078

Donovan, Jack, 1341 Donovan, James, 1036 Donovan, William Joseph, 182, 309–310, 310 (image), 861, 862 Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III, 310–311, 880 Do Quang Thang, 311 D’Orlandi, Giovanni, 704 Doubek, Bob, 1295, 1296 DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation, 47, 311–312, 312 (image), 709 Doumer, Paul, 78, 312–313 Dow Chemical Company, 789 Draft, military. See Selective Service Driscoll, William, 250 (image), 1124 Drugs and drug use, 313–314 Duc Thanh Tran. See Tran Huang Dao Duc Tong Anh Hoang De. See Tu Duc Dulles, Allen Welsh, 183, 314–315, 314 (image), 1011 Dulles, John Foster, 183, 315–316, 315 (image), 329, 330, 412, 597, 802, 807, 957, 1011, 1055, 1056, 1169, 1199, 1307 minutes of meeting with Eisenhower, 1437–1439Doc. telegram to the embassy in Saigon, 1452–1453Doc. telegrams to C. Douglas Dillon, 1423Doc., 1423–1424Doc., 1426–1427Doc., 1436– 1437Doc., 1439–1440Doc. Dumb bombs. See Bombs, gravity “Dump Johnson” movement, 685 Duong Hiuu Nghia, 318 Duong Quynh Hoa, 316–317 Duong Thanh Nhat, 318 Duong Van Duc, 317 Duong Van Minh, 129, 317–318, 317 (image), 331, 458, 653, 675, 753, 808, 809, 827, 830, 831 (image), 1134, 1135, 1261, 1263, 1264 Dupré, Marie-Jules, 110 Dupuis, Jean, 110, 318–319 Durbrow, Elbridge, 319–320 assessment of the Diem regime, 1462Doc. telegrams to Christian Herter, 1473– 1475Doc., 1481Doc. Dustoff, 320 Dutton, Frederick, 1195 Duy Tan, 320–321, 321 (image) Dylan, Bob, 55, 89, 90 (image), 321–322 EAGLE CLAW, Operation, 554

EAGLE PULL, Operation, 48, 323 Easter Offensive, xlv, 31, 51, 60, 142, 162, 163, 182, 226, 233, 258, 278, 323–325, 324 (image), 346, 348, 393, 498, 599, 652, 672, 680, 736, 749, 758, 769, 814, 842, 843, 909, 910, 917, 946, 952, 1024, 1029, 1080, 1096, 1140, 1175, 1176, 1186, 1205, 1246, 1251, 1270, 1300, 1304, 1310, 1327, 1364 role of aircraft in, 1069, 1184–1185, 1300 See also Kontum, Battle for

I-7

East Meets West (EMW) Foundation, 1182 Eberhardt, David, 92 Eden, Robert Anthony, 327–328, 327 (image), 767 Edwards, Mel, 67 Egan, David, 1116 Eisenhower, Dwight D., xli, 43, 166, 172, 224, 244, 296, 316, 328–329, 328 (image), 342, 409, 568, 607, 692, 696, 807, 847, 957, 1055, 1056, 1164, 1169, 1169, 1199–1200, 1202, 1259 (image) approval ratings for, 569 (table) belief in the “domino theory,” 304, 305 conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1463Doc. domestic policies of, 328 international policies of, 328–329 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1450–1451Doc. minutes of meeting with Dulles, 1437–1439Doc. news conference notes, 1437Doc. policies of in Southeast Asia, 329 Electronic intelligence (ELINT), 339–340, 864 “Eleven Day War.” See LINEBACKER II, Operation Elleman, Bruce, 1046 Ellis, Randolph, 1151 Ellsberg, Daniel, 7, 340–341, 341 (image), 489–490, 594, 763, 891 (image), 960, 1006, 1035. See also Pentagon Papers and trial EL PASO II, Operation, 341–342 casualties of, 342 Ély, Paul Henri Romuald, 342–343, 532, 957, 1014 Elysée Agreement (1949), 343, 545, 913, 1402Doc. Emerson, Gloria, 662 Emspak, Frank, 793 Enclave strategy, 345–346, 345 (image) END SWEEP, Operation. See Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam ENHANCE, Operation, 346, 1265 ENHANCE PLUS, Operation, 346–348, 347 (image), 842 ENTERPRISE, Operation, 348–349, 348 (image) Enthoven, Alain C., 349, 722 Enuol, Y Bham, 349–350 Erhard, Ludwig, 417 Erskine, Graves B., 172, 545 European Defense Community (EDC), 354– 355, 413 Ewell, Julian Johnson, 355 EXODUS, Operation, 880 FAIRFAX, Operation, 357–358

Fall, Bernard, 294, 358, 358 (image), 643, 933, 1244 Fancy, Henry F., 655, 656 FARM GATE, Operation, 358–359, 959, 1184 Fatherland Front, 898 Faure, Edgar, 359–360, 360 (image)

I-8

Index

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 190, 360–361, 1327, 1329 Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 361–362 and Project Daily Death Toll (DDT), 362 Felt, Harry Donald, 362–363 Fernandez, Richard, 218, 363–364 Ferry, Jules, 78, 364 Fieser, Louis, 788 Film, and the Vietnam experience, 364–368, 366 (image) background of, 364–365 colonial period, 365 combat films, 365–367 comedies, 367 films concerning soldiers returning home, 367–368 films concerning the war’s aftermath, 368 Fire-support bases (FSBs), 290, 369 First National Conference on the Emotional Needs of Vietnam-Era Veterans, 657 Fishel, Wesley Robert, 370, 741 Fisher, Roger, 722 Fishhook, 370–371 FitzGerald, Frances, 433–434 Five O’Clock Follies, 371–372, 371 (image), 553, 554, 1099 FLAMING DART I–II, Operations, 26, 372, 816, 917, 990 Flexible response, 373 Flynn, John, 933 Fonda, Jane Seymour, 373–375, 374 (image), 860, 1293 broadcast of from Hanoi, 1640–1641Doc. Fontainebleau Conference, 375 Food for Peace program, 719 Forces Armées Nationale Khmères (FANK [Khmer National Armed Forces]), 50, 152, 157, 158, 161, 376–377, 585 Ford, Gerald R., 46, 284, 287, 338, 377–378, 377 (image), 1021, 1197, 1319 and the Mayaguez incident, 378, 710–711 pardoning of Nixon by, 378 Forrestal, James, 577 Forrestal, Michael Vincent, 378–379, 1095 Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of, 379 Fortas, Abraham, 379–380, 380 (image), 1345 Fort Hood Three, 380–381 Forward air controllers, 381 Fosdick, Raymond B., memorandum to Philip Jessup, 1405–1406Doc. “Four Nos” policy, 793–794 Four-Party Joint Military Commission, 381– 382, 382 (image) Fragging, 382–383 France, 15, 1168 involvement of in Southeast Asia, 243, 500 military logistics used in Vietnam, 676–677 nineteenth-century military intervention in Vietnam, 641–642 and Vietnam (1954–present), 389–390, 390 (image), 1240–1242

See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; FrancoThai War (1940–1941); Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946); Indochina War (1946–1954) France, Air Force of, 383–384 France, Army of (1946–1954), 384–387, 385 (image) armor of, 384, 386 French Expeditionary Force in Vietnam, 386 (table) infantry weapons of, 385 initial strategy of in Indochina, 386 makeup of in Vietnam, 384 tactics used by to combat guerilla warfare, 386 France, Navy of, 387–389 lack of a coordinated strategy in Indochina, 388 and riverine warfare, 387–388 FRANCIS MARION, Operation, 390–391, 1015 Franco, Francisco, 1058 Franco-Thai War (1940–1941), 391–392 Franco–Viet Minh Convention, excerpts from, 1382Doc. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi, 1386–1387Doc. Fraser, Michael Allan, 1299 Fratricide, 392–393 Freedom Company, 907 FREEDOM DEAL, Operation, 1048 FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation, 393–394 Freedom Rides, 1072 Freedom Summer, 1072 FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation, 393, 394 Free fire zones, 394–395, 395 (image) Free Khmer. See Khmer Serai Free Speech Movement (FSM), 53 Free World Assistance Program, 395–396, 602, 907 Free World Military Assistance Council, 747 French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), 1272 French Foreign Legion, 396, 396 (image), 397 (map), 398 French Indochina, 398, 399 (map), 400–402, 400 (image) missionaries in, 398, 400 nineteenth-century emperors of, 398 FREQUENT WIND, Operation, 27, 48, 402, 708, 755, 965, 1030, 1051 Friendly Fire. See Fratricide Froines, John, 192 Front for National Salvation, 811 Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO [United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races]), 403 Fulbright, J. William, 235, 238, 403–404, 404 (image), 508, 551, 1195, 1196 Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, 1657Doc. Fuller, J. F. C., 1077 Gabriel, Richard A., 1188

GADSEN, Operation, 556 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 405 Gallieni, Jiseph, 78 Galloway, Joseph Lee, 406, 771 GAME WARDEN, Operation, 406–408, 407 (image), 1030, 1091 Garcia, Rupert, 70 Garnier, Marie Joseph Francis, 110, 408 Garwood, Robert Russell, 408–409, 409 (image), 761, 797, 931, 933 Gavin, James Maurice, 29, 409–410, 1030–1031 Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth, 410 GBT intelligence network, 270, 862 Gelb, Leslie Howard, 410–411, 411 (image), 491 Geneva Accords (1954), 411–412, 880, 898, 1050, 1165, 1169, 1271, 1272 Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962), 631, 1245 Geneva Convention (1949), 414–415, 1125 Geneva Convention and Geneva Accords (1954), 165, 330, 343, 412–414, 413 (image), 597, 767 final declaration of, 1445–1446Doc. response of the United States to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. Genovese, Eugene Dominick, 415–416 Germany, Federal Republic of (FRG [West Germany]), 417–418 Gia Long. See Nguyen Phuc Anh GIANT SLINGSHOT, Operation, 1025–1026, 1364 Giles, Jean, 174, 791 Gilpatric Task Force Report, 1481–1482Doc. Gilpatrick, Roswell, 808 Ginsberg, Allen, 418–419, 418 (image) Global positioning system (GPS), 681 Godley, George McMurtrie, 419–420 Goff, Dave, 1298–1299 Goldberg, Arthur Joseph, 420, 1345, 1345 (image) Goldman, Eric Frederick, 420–421 Goldwater, Barry, 53, 332–333, 421–422, 421 (image) Golub, Leon, 68–69 Goodacre, Glenna, 857 Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson, 422–423 Go Public Campaign, 796, 1067–1068 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich, 196, 423– 424, 423 (image), 1158, 1160, 1181, 1279 Gordon, Lawrence, 270, 862 Gracey, Douglas David, 424, 1164, 1240 Gradualism, xliii Graham, James C., 8 Gras, Yves, 643 Gravel, Maurice Robert, 424–425 Gravel, Mike, 892 Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr., 425–426 Graves Registration. See Mortuary Affairs operations Great Leap Forward, 198, 702–703, 1043–1044

Index Great National Solidarity Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Great Society Program, 426–427, 549 impact of the Vietnam War on, 550–551 GREELEY, Operation, 427–428 Greenblatt, Robert, 1060 Greene, David M., 1030 Greene, Graham, 428–429, 428 (image) Greene, Wallace Martin, 429 Gregory, Dick, 1358 Grenade launchers, 429–431, 430 (image) Grew, Joseph telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, 1373Doc. telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, 1374Doc. Griffin, R. Allen, telegram to Richard Bissell, Jr., 1417–1418Doc. Griswold, Erwin, 890 Gromyko, Andrei, 1225 Groom, John F., 1119 Grossman, Jerome, 773 Groupement Mobile 100, destruction of, 431–432 Gruening, Ernest Henry, 432, 550, 776, 1171, 1195 Guam, 432–433 Guam Conference (1967), 433–434, 434 (image) Guizot, François, 435 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, xlii, 26, 286, 435–436, 864, 1171, 1195 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964), 144, 436– 437, 437 (image), 530, 550, 562, 864, 996, 1171, 1195 text of, 1512Doc. Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist), 199, 201, 202, 388 Gurfein, Murray I., 890 Habaib, Philip Charles, 439–440 Hackworth, David Haskell, 75, 440–441, 440 (image), 466, 707, 1077 Hague Convention (1907), 802, 1018 Hai Ba Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr., 180, 441–442, 441 (image), 740 Hainan Island, 442–443 Haiphong, 443–444 shelling of, 444–445 Halberstam, David, 58, 445–446, 445 (image), 611, 717, 1035, 1094 Haldeman, H. R., 696 Halperin, Morton H., 446–447 Hamburger Hill, Battle of, 447–448, 447 (image), 448 (map), 1239 Hamilton, Steve, 460 Hamlet Evaluation System (HES), 223, 449, 869 Hammond, William M., 729 Ham Nghi, 449–450 Hampton, Fred, 113

Hand grenades, 450–452 chemical grenades, 451 concussion grenades, 451 fragmentation grenades, 450 hand grenades used in booby traps, 452 incendiary grenades, 451 smoke grenades, 451 sources of grenades used by Communist forces, 450–451 Hanh Lang Truong Son. See Truong Son Corridor Hanoi, 452–453, 452 (image) bombing of, xlv, 453 industry and commerce of, 452–453 population of during the Vietnam War, 452 Hanoi, Battle of, 453–454 Hanoi Hannah, 455 Hanoi Hilton. See Hoa Lo Prison Hanoi March, 977 Harassment and interdiction fires (H&I fires), 455–457, 456 (image) debate concerning the effectiveness of, 456, 457 and the use of remote sensors, 456–457 Hardhats (National Hard Hats of America), 457 HARDNOSE, Operation, 984 Harkin, Thomas, 927, 1118, 1119 (image) Harkins, Paul Donal, 363, 458–459, 458 (image), 569, 674, 809, 851, 1035, 1070, 1095 Harriman, William Averell, 459–460, 459 (image), 562, 631, 876, 1076, 1225 Harris, David, 460 Hart, Frederick, 70, 658, 1296 Hart, Gary, 134 Hartke, Vance Rupert, 460–461 HARVEST MOON, Operation, 461–462, 461 (image) HASTINGS, Operation, 462–463, 463 (image) Hatfield, Mark Odom, 464, 464–465, 720, 1197 Hatfield-McGovern Amendment (1970), 464–465, 720 Hawk, David, 773 Hawkins, Augustus, 927, 1118 Hawkins, Gains, 865 HAWTHORNE, Operation, 465–466, 465 (image) Hay, John H., Jr., 673 Hayden, Thomas, 192, 264, 373, 374, 466–467, 688, 923, 1072 Healy, Michael D., 467–469 Heath, Donald Read, 468, 861 telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420Doc. Heath, Edward, 1165 Hedrick, Wally, 67 Heinl, Robert D., Jr., analysis of the decline of U.S. armed forces, 1632–1635Doc. Helicopters, xlii, xliii, 14, 15, 46, 30, 50, 58, 70, 73, 74, 77, 84, 100, 106 (image), 108, 115, 158, 180, 245, 268, 273, 276, 277, 290, 291, 292, 347 (image), 383, 402, 445, 468–473, 470 (image), 471 (image), 472 (image), 474 (image), 520, 556, 564, 569, 577, 578, 598, 607, 617, 625, 676,

I-9

678–679, 693, 695, 711, 732, 743, 744, 758, 764, 771, 777, 853, 867, 883, 894, 917, 977, 987, 1016, 1030, 1032, 1080, 1107, 1108, 1116, 1118, 1119, 1171, 1177, 1180 (image), 1194, 1205, 1215, 1238, 1249, 1265, 1326, 1340 Democratic Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 473 U.S. and Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 469–473 AH-1 Cobra, 36, 1051 Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”), 30, 64, 84, 105, 346, 347 (image), 407, 462, 470 (image), 618, 1091, 1265, 1289 (image) Boeing CH-47 Chinook, 1, 65, 105, 346 CH-21 Shawnee, 58 (image), 64 Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw, 30, 77, 473, 1074 See also Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War, 473–476, 474 (image), 1265 ambulance helicopters, 732 combat and fire support, 473–474 evacuation of casualties (medevac), 32, 308, 320, 323, 473, 475, 564, 592, 726–727, 727 (image) Ground Proximity Extraction System (GPES) run, 679 Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) run, 679 rescue, 472 (image), 914, 1052–1053, 1215 supply missions, 473, 475, 678–679 total number of helicopter losses in the Vietnam War, 476 total number of helicopter missions in the Vietnam War, 475–476 transport, 180, 475 U.S. Marine Corps helicopter missions, 474–475 See also Air mobility; Landing zone Heller, Lennie, 460 Helms, Jesse, 134 Helms, Richard McGarrah, 14, 476–477, 477 (image) Henderson, Oran K., 477–478, 608, 887 Hendricks, Jon, 68 Hendrix, Jimi, 783 (image) Heng Samrin, 155, 156, 478–479, 478 (image), 561, 586 Hennessy, John J., 977 Herbert, Anthony B., 479, 1126 Herbicides, 479–480, 1239, 1325 Agent Blue, 480 Agent Green, 479, 480 Agent Orange, 480, 1216, 1240 Agent Pink, 479 Agent Purple, 479 Agent White, 480 dioxin content of, 479–480 types of herbicides used in Vietnam, 273 (table), 480 (table)

I-10

Index

Herman, Judith, 925 Herr, Michael, 783 Herring, George, 704 Hersh, Seymour Myron, 481–482, 481 (image), 786 Hershey, Lewis Blaine, 482–483, 1033 Herz, Alice, 483–484, 775 Heschel, Abraham, 217 Hess, Gary, 489, 490 Hickel, Walter, 803 Hickey, Gerald Cannon, 484, 768, 770, 1078 HICKORY-BELT TIGHT-BEAU CHARGER-LAM SON 54, Operation, 484–485 HICKORY II, Operation, 485–486 High National Council (HNC), 486–487 Hilsman, Roger, 244, 487–488, 487 (image), 808, 1070, 1095 “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam,” 1491–1492Doc. Hilsman-Forrestal Report, 488 Hispanics, in the U.S. military, 488–489 Historiography, of the Vietnam War, 489–491 on history and memory, 491 new historical methodologies, 490–491 on the origins of the Vietnam War, 490 orthodox, revisionist, and neo-orthodox views, 489–490 Hitch, Charles J., 721–722 Hmongs, 491–493, 492 (image) Hoa, 1045 Hoa Binh, Battle of, 493 Hoa Hao, 314, 494, 654 Hoa Lo Prison (the “Hanoi Hilton”), 494–496, 495 (image) deplorable conditions at, 495 improved conditions at after the death of Ho Chi Minh, 496 torture used at, 495 Hoang Cam, 555, 556 Hoang Duc Nha, 496, 496 (image) Hoang Hao Tham. See De Tham HOANG HOA THAM, Operation, 497–498, 634 Hoang Thuy Nam, 537 Hoang Van Hoan, 498 Hoang Van Thai, 498–499 Hoang Xuan Lam, 517, 618, 619, 1220 Ho Chi Minh, xli, xlii, 11, 140, 151, 166, 199, 200 (image), 234, 270, 310, 375, 401, 499–501, 499 (image), 531, 537, 577, 621, 628, 794, 806, 822, 898, 1158, 1168, 1240, 1241–1242, 1241 (image), 1244, 1302 account of meeting with Paul Mus, 1394Doc. answers to the U.S. press regarding U.S. intervention in Indochina, 1411–1412Doc. appeal made on the occasion of the founding of the Communist Party, 1367Doc. death of, 496, 500–501, 1246 declaration of the policy of the Provisional Coalition Government, 1381–1382Doc.

as a diplomat, 500 final statement of, 1615–1616Doc. and the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party, 499 as leader of the Lao Dong, 500 letter from abroad, 1368–1369Doc. letter to compatriots in Nam Bo, 1383Doc. letter to James F. Byrnes, 1379–1380Doc. letter to Léon Archimbaud, 1366Doc. letter to President Johnson, 1581–1582Doc. letter to President Truman, 1379Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. proclamation to the people after negotiations with France, 1387–1389Doc. replies to an interviewer on Japanese TV, 1573–1574Doc. reply to a foreign correspondent, 1427Doc. reply to Georges Bidault, 1384Doc. report to the National Assembly, 1427–1429Doc. report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1442–1443Doc. speech concerning the resistance war in South Vietnam, 1380–1381Doc. speech at the Tours Congress, 1365–1366Doc. talk to a cadres’ meeting concerning draft law, 1472–1473Doc. talk to officers preparing for military campaign, 1421–1422Doc. telegram to Léon Blum, 1392Doc. as a war leader, 500 Ho Chi Minh Campaign, 501–502, 641 Ho Chi Minh City. See Saigon Ho Chi Minh Trail, xli, 225, 226, 377, 412, 502–503, 503 (image), 504 (map), 505, 617, 631, 676, 723–724, 802, 1018, 1063, 1119, 1133, 1245, 1250, 1252, 1324 bombing of, 32, 34, 503, 505, 802, 1018 building of, 502–503 electronic barrier across (the “McNamara Line”), 503, 505 improvements to, 680 in Laos, 505 length of, 503 transport of supplies on, 503 Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur, 505–506, 573, 592 Hoffman, Abbie, 192, 263 (image), 506–507, 506 (image), 1000, 1358–1359, 1359 (image) Hoffman, Julius Jennings, 113, 192, 613, 1000, 1025 Hogan, John, 178 Holbrooke, Richard, 1278 Holder, Stan, 798 Hollingsworth, James F., 51, 1086 Holm, Jeanne, 1346 Holt, Harold, 1056 (image) Holyoake, Keith Jacka, 1056 (image) HOMECOMING, Operation, 507–508, 797, 933, 1177

Hong Nham. See Tu Duc Honolulu Conference (1966), 508–509, 509 (image) Hooper, Joe Ronnie, 509–510 Hoopes, Townsend, 510 Hoover, J. Edgar, 361, 510–512, 511 (image), 1198 calls for the ouster of, 511–512 criticism of, 511 domestic counterintelligence programs of, 511 and the expansion of the role of law enforcement in the United States, 511 Hope, Leslie Townes, 512–513, 512 (image) HOP TAC, Operation, 513–514, 675 Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946), 514, 637, 1013 Hot pursuit policy, 514–515 Hourglass spraying system, 515 Ho Viet Thang, 621 Hue, 515–516 Hue, Battle of, 516–517, 517 (image), 518 (map), 519 atrocities committed by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) casualties of, 516 (table) initial Communist attack, 516–517 U.S. air assaults on Communist positions, 517 Hue and Da Nang, fall of, 519–521, 520 (image) Hughes, Thomas, 345 Humanitarian Operation Program, 522 Humphrey, Hubert H., 279, 280, 334–335, 522–524, 523 (image), 571, 1345 Humphrey, Ronald, 1202 Hundred Flowers campaign, 197, 1043 Hung Dao Vuong. See Tran Hung Dao Hun Sen, 153–154, 156, 524–525, 586, 587, 1039 Hurley, Patrick, 195 Hussein, Saddam, 148 Huston, Tom, 1198 Huston Plan, 511, 525, 1198 Huynh Cong Ut. See Ut, Nick Huynh Phu So, 525 Huynh Tan Phat, 526, 941, 941 (image) Huynh Van Cao, 130, 526 Ia Drang, Battle of, xliii, 50, 527–529, 528 (image), 529 (map), 1173, 1239 casualties of, 529, 1173 Imperial presidency, 529–530 India, 530–531 Indochina, geography of, 416–417 Indochina War (1946–1954), xli, 531–535, 533 (image), 534 (map), 621, 675, 978 changes in French commanders during, 532 Chinese support for the Viet Minh during, 532–533 U.S. policy concerning, 533 as the war of the “elephant and tiger,” 531

Index See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Indochinese Communist Party. See Lao Dong Party Indonesia, 535–536 Initial Defense Satellite Communication System. See Defense Satellite Communications System Institute for Defense Analysis, 1099 Intelligence, electronic. See Electronic intelligence (ELINT) Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX), 909 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 780 International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), 919 International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC), 165, 530, 536–537, 919, 1244 International Control Commission (ICC), 165, 411–412, 414 International Rescue Committee (IRC), 537 International Volunteer Service (IVS), 1183 International War Crimes Tribunal, 537–538, 538 (image) Iran-Contra Affair, 962 IRON HAND, Operation. See Wild Weasels Iron Triangle, 180, 539 IRVING, Operation, 539–540 IVORY COAST, Operation, 1052–1053 Jackson, Henry M., 339 Jackson, Joe M., 578 Jackson State College, shootings at, 541, 572 JACKSTAY, Operation, 542, 542 (image) Jacobs, Seth, 490 Jacobson, George D., 543 James, Daniel, Jr., 543–544, 544 (image) Japan, 544–545, 1167 impact of on the Vietnam conflict, 544 as the most important Asian ally of the United States, 545 Jason Study, 725 Jaubert, François, 388 Jaunissement, 545, 634 Javits, Jacob Koppel, 546, 546 (image), 1064 JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation, 546–547 casualties of, 547 Jenkins, Henry, 734 Jiang Jieshi, 547–548, 547 (image), 701, 702, 1163 Jiang Qing, 198 Jiang Zemin, 196 Johns, Jasper, 68 Johnson, Claudia Alta, 427 (image) Johnson, Harold Keith, 1, 548, 933, 1172, 1174 Johnson, James, 380–381 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, xlii–xliii, 43, 53, 54, 124, 124 (image), 144, 145, 165, 173–174, 186, 219, 235, 242, 244, 247, 277, 279, 286, 304 (image), 329, 346, 372, 395, 427

(image), 460, 483, 505, 509 (image), 515, 523, 549–552, 549 (image), 562, 660, 700, 779 (image), 798, 807, 816–817, 846, 884 (image), 889, 903 (image), 1056 (image), 1078, 1143, 1170, 1171, 1172, 1195–1196, 1201, 1261, 1339, 1345, 1345 (image) address in San Antonio, Texas, 1590–1591Doc. announcement of bombing halt over North Vietnam, 1607–1609Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) authorization of the DeSoto missions by, 285 belief in the domino theory, 305, 550 message to Congress (1964), 1511–1512Doc. message to Maxwell Taylor, 1548–1549Doc. news conference excerpts (1968), 1592–1593Doc. “Peace without Conquest” address at Johns Hopkins University, 1525–1528Doc. and the presidential election of 1964, 332– 333, 550 (table), 552 and the presidential election of 1968, 333– 334, 551, 571 response to the Pueblo incident, 947–948 revival of pacification, 871 telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1506Doc. television address, 1603–1606Doc. visit to Cam Ranh Bay, 163 See also Great Society Program; Guam Conference (1967); Honolulu Conference (1967); Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech; San Antonio Formula; United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech, 552–553 as the “Mekong Delta Speech,” 552 Johnson, Robert, 345 Johnson, Ural Alexis, 412–413, 553 Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), 762 Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA), 761 Joint U.S. Public Affairs Organization (JUSPAO), 553–554, 942–945 Jones, David Charles, 554–555, 554 (image) Jones, Kim, 70 Joseph, Cliff, 69 Juin, Alphonse, 774 JUNCTION CITY, Operation, 15, 81, 157, 555–557, 555 (image) casualties of, 556 Phase I, 556 Phase II, 556 Phase III, 556 primary objective of, 555 K-9 Corps, 559–561, 559 (table), 560 (image) the ARVN dog program, 559

I-11

medical histories of the dogs (Howard Hayes’ epidemiological research), 560–561 tributes to the dogs that served, 561 the U.S. Air Force dog program, 559–560, 560 the U.S. Army dog program, 560 the U.S. Marine Corps dog program, 560 the U.S. Navy dog program, 560 Kalergis, H., 456 Kampuchea. See Cambodia Kampuchean National Front, 561–562 Karman, Theodore von, 960 Karnow, Stanley, 1010, 1094 Kattenburg, Paul, 562 Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville, 562–563, 563 (image), 1198 Kaufmann, William, 960 Kegler, Maynard, 311 Kelly, Charles L., 563–564 Kelly, Francis J., 564–565, 764 Kennan, George Frost, 234, 551, 565–566, 565 (image), 1199 Long Telegram of February 22, 1946, 566 “X article” of, 566 See also Containment policy Kennedy, Edward Moore, 279, 566–567 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, xlii, 9, 53, 144, 183, 235, 242, 244, 276, 311, 319, 329, 359, 361, 405, 459, 549, 567–570, 567 (image), 591, 631, 717, 781, 807, 808, 809–810, 851, 864, 1020, 1200–1201, 1202–1203, 1213, 1261 aid to the Republic of Vietnam under his administration, 83 anti-Communist sentiments of, 567–568 approval ratings for, 569 (table) assassination of, 144, 247, 315, 570 belief in the domino theory, 305 health problems of, 568 New Frontier agenda of, 568 policies regarding Vietnam, 569–570, 1170–1171 remarks on the situation in Vietnam, 1495–1496Doc. support for counterinsurgency, 647 See also Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961); Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962) Kennedy, Joseph P., 567, 1058 Kennedy, Robert Francis, 54, 334, 334 (image), 335, 459, 551, 567, 570–571, 685, 715, 1020 assassination of, 279, 523, 571 as legal counsel to Senate committees in the 1950s, 570 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1490Doc. and the presidential election of 1968, 571 public opposition of to the Vietnam War, 1595–1597Doc. as U.S. attorney general, 570–571

I-12

Index

Kent State University shootings, 55, 571–573, 572 (image), 594, 610 KENTUCKY, Operation, 573 casualties of, 573 Kep Airfield, 573 Kerr, Clark, 53 Kerrey, Joseph Robert, 573–574, 951 Kerry, John Forbes, 134, 265, 574–576, 575 (image), 760–761, 951, 1083–1084, 1197 antiwar activities of, 574, 1630–1632Doc. and the presidential election of 2004, 575–576 Kerwin, Walter T., Jr., 576–577 Key West Agreement (1948), 577 Khai Dinh, 577–578 Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, fall of, 578–579 Khe Sanh, Battle of, xliii, 72 (image), 576, 579– 583, 580 (image), 581 (map), 1103, 1339 and air resupply, 679 board replica of Khe Sanh at the White House, 581–582, 1103 casualties of, 582 as a Communist ruse, 582 See also Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Khieu Samphan, 583–584, 583 (image), 586, 587 Khmer Kampuchea Krom, 584–585, 584 (image) Khmer National Armed Forces. See Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Khmer Republic, 49 Khmer Rouge, 50, 151, 152–153, 154, 378, 585–587, 586 (image), 855, 908–909, 920, 1039, 1247 as the peap prey (“forest army”), 586 See also Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of Khmers. See Cambodia; Southeast Asia, ethnology of Khmer Serai, 587–588, 1038 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich, 243, 411, 568, 588–589, 588 (image), 631, 1043–1044, 1159, 1165, 1245 developments leading to the downfall of, 589 See also Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) Kien An Airfield, 589 Kienholz, Ed, 68 Kiesinger, Kurt, 417 KILLER, Operation, 972 Kim Il Sung, 600, 603, 604 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 9, 54, 113, 210–211, 218, 361, 511, 590–591, 590 (image), 937, 1060, 1072 antiwar stance of, 591 assassination of, 10, 257, 591, 955 “I Have a Dream” speech, 591 sermon against the Vietnam War, 1582–1589Doc.

KINGFISHER, Operation, 591–593

casualties of, 592 KINGPIN, Operation. See Son Tay Raid Kinnard, Douglas, 118, 119 Kinnard, Harry William Osborn, 29, 593 Kirk, Donald, 332 Kissinger, Henry Alfred, 161, 286, 340, 347, 378, 496 (image), 593–596, 594 (image), 616, 660, 696, 710, 740, 743, 773, 778, 842, 847, 850, 878 (image), 888–889, 989, 1016–1017, 1175, 1178, 1179, 1186, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1247, 1292, 1327 news conference excerpt, 1643–1644Doc. request for emergency aid for South Vietnam, 1660–1662Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973); Watergate Scandal Kit Carson Scouts, 596 Knight, Hal, Jr., 740 Knowland, William Fife, 596–597, 597 (image) Kohler, Foy, 712 Koh Tang, 597–598 Komer, Robert W., 143, 144, 223, 244, 433, 576, 598–599, 598 (image), 871–873, 909, 934 Kong Le, 599, 630, 631, 1057 Kontum, Battle for, 599–600 casualties of, 600 Kopechne, Mary Jo, 567 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (DPRK), 600–601 as an ally of North Vietnam, 600–601 See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of (ROK), xliii, 80, 163, 395, 601–603, 602 (image). See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of, Army (ROKA), 540, 600, 601, 602, 603, 605, 606, 882, 883, 893 Korean War (1950–1953), 195, 304, 355, 530, 533, 600, 601, 603–608, 604 (image), 1168–1169, 1199 aeromedical evacuations during, 726 casualties of, 607 effect of on U.S. foreign policymakers, 607 the Inchon landing, 605 lack of U.S. forces’ preparedness for, 605 results of, 607 Koshiro Iwai, 545 Koster, Samuel William, Sr., 608–609, 785, 786, 886–887, 1340 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich, 286, 609–610, 609 (image), 917, 1078, 1245, 1343 joint statement of with Pham Van Dong, 1515–1516Doc. Kovic, Ronald, 610–611, 650 Kraft, Joseph, 611 Krassner, Paul, 1000, 1358 Krepinevich, Andre, 490 Kroesen, Frederick, 814 Krulak, Victor H., 207, 244, 611–612, 612 (image), 738, 1095

disagreement with Westmoreland’s strategy and tactics, 612 Ksor Kok, 770 Kuby, Ron, 613 Ku Klux Klan, 361 Kulikov, Viktor, 1247 Kunstler, William Moses, 178, 192, 612–613 Ky Ngoai Hau Cuong De. See Cuong De Lacy, William S. B., 813 Ladd, Jonathan, 625 Lair, James W., 13 Laird, Melvin Robert, 157, 227, 615–616, 616 (image), 921, 939, 989, 1203 (image) Lake, William Anthony Kirsop, 616–617 Lamb, Al, 1341 LAM SON 719, Operation, 48, 226, 505, 617–619, 618 (map), 842, 848, 989, 1018, 1176, 1294 casualties of, 619 objectives of, 617 as a test of Vietnamization, 617 Landing zone (LZ), 619–621, 620 (image), 620 (map) hot LZ, 619 Land reform, Vietnam, 621–622 Diem’s land reform law, 621, 769 Ho’s land reform policy, 628 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam land reform program, 621–622 Thieu’s land reform law, 622, 841–842 of the Viet Minh, 621 Lane, Mark, 1293 Lane, Sharon, 857 Lang Bac, Battle of, 622–623 La Ngoc Chau, 527 Lang Son, 623–624, 623 (image) Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 624–625 casualties of, 625 Laniel, Joseph, 626, 626 (image) Lansdale, Edward Geary, 183, 229, 310, 319, 626–627, 807, 907, 996, 1010, 1012, 1031 Lao Dong Party (Indochinese Communist Party Politburo [ICP]), 500, 502, 628, 1240, 1244, 1348 phase two of the Politburo Conference, 1659–1660Doc. Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW, 1662–1664Doc. secret cable no. 17-NB to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1478–1479Doc. secret cable no. 160 to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1475–1476Doc. Lao Issara, 630 Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), 632–633 major issues between the party and the United States, 633

Index Laos, xlii–xliii, 14, 96, 110, 161, 174, 223, 414, 492, 536, 537, 568–569, 629–633, 629 (image), 631 (image), 632 (image), 1246 bombing of, 505, 631 neutral status of, 802, 1018 Latham, Michael, 490 Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de, 172, 222, 225 (image), 386, 493, 532, 545, 633–635, 634 (image), 1286–1287 Lau Ben Kon. See Nuon Chea Lavelle, John Daniel, 635, 938–939, 939 Lavelle Case, 635 Layton, Gilbert, 769 LÉA, Operation, 636 League of Wives of American Prisoners of War, 1067 LEAPING LENA, Operation, 681, 935 Le Chieu Thong, 453, 454 Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe, 276, 384, 531–532, 636–637, 636 (image), 1163 (image) Le Duan, 628, 637–638, 637 (image), 1162, 1244, 1247, 1250, 1303 “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” (The Path of Revolution in the South), 1459–1462Doc. letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam, 1553–1567Doc. “Letters to the South,” 1519–1522Doc. speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1569–1571Doc. speech in Hanoi celebrating victory, 1665–1668Doc. Le Duc Anh, 638–639 Le Duc Tho, 595, 639–641, 640 (image), 878 (image), 1186, 1278, 1279 Cable No. 119, 1637–1640Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973) Le dynasty, 641 Lefèbvre, Dominique, 641–642 Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for Oppressed Races), 769, 770 LE HONG PHONG I, Operation, 642 LE HONG PHONG II, Operation, 642–643 casualties of, 643 Le Kha Phieu, 643–644, 644 (image) Le Loi, 644–645, 1123 LeMay, Curtis Emerson, 645–646, 645 (image), 960, 1068 Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis, 646–647, 647 (image) Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie, 647–648 leng Sary, 586, 587 Le Nguyen Khang, 648 Le Nguyen Vy, 648–649 Lenin, Vladimir, 702, 1286 (image) Lenin Polemics, 1044 Le Quang Trieu, 318, 649 Le Quang Tung, 130, 318, 649, 649 (image), 967

Le Quang Vinh. See Ba Cut Leroy, Catherine, 649–650 Le Thai To. See Le Loi Le Thanh Nghi, 650–651 Le Thanh Tong, 651 Letourneau, Jean, 651–652 Le Trong Tan, 652–653, 1130 Le Van Giac. See Le Duc Anh Le Van Hung, 653, 828 Le Van Kim, 129, 653–654, 809, 827, 1134, 1137 Le Van Nhuan. See Le Duan Le Van Vien, 654–655, 654 (image) Levy, Howard Brett, 655–656, 656 (image) Lewandowski, Janusz, 550, 704, 919 Lewis, Tom, 92, 178, 179 Lewy, Guenter, 490 LEXINGTON III, Operation, 656–657 Le Xuan Phoi, 528 Le Xuan Tau, 625 Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, 490 LIEN KET 22, Operation, 709 Lifton, Robert Jay, 657, 924, 925, 1293, 1294 Lightfoot, George, 1031 (image) Lima Site 85, 657–658 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 568, 589 Lin, Maya Ying, 658, 1296 Lin Biao, 197 LINEBACKER I, Operation, xlv, 31, 32, 60, 325, 659–660, 659 (image), 848, 860, 939, 1069, 1111, 1176, 1186 as the classic air interdiction campaign, 659, 660, 661 operational objectives of, 659 reasons for its success, 660 strategic objectives of, 660 LINEBACKER II, Operation, xlv, 32, 48, 60, 297, 340, 347, 595, 640, 660–663, 849, 860, 877, 1069, 1177, 1186 casualties of, 662 psychological effect of on Hanoi’s leaders, 662 use of LORAN in, 681 Li Peng, 196 Lippmann, Walter, 234, 663–664, 663 (image) Literature and the Vietnam War, 664–672 drama, 669–671 novels, 664–667 poetry, 667–669 prose narrative, 671–672 short stories, 667 Li Zhisui, 702 L’Obervateur, 583 Loc Ninh, military operations near, 672–674, 673 (image) Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 129, 459, 570, 674– 675, 674 (image), 704, 808, 809, 871, 970, 1095, 1261, 1345 cablegram to on the CIA channel concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc.

I-13

cablegram to McGeorge Bundy, 1499–1500Doc. cablegram to from John McCone, 1499Doc. phone conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1502Doc. telegram to Nicholas Katzenbach, 1577Doc. telegrams to Dean Rusk, 1574–1577Doc. Lodge Bill, 1213 Logistics, allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Vietcong, 675–680 French military logistics, 676–677 physical characteristics of Vietnam affecting military logistics, 676 Viet Minh military logistics, 677–678 Long Binh, 680 Long Chieng, 681 Long-Haired Army (Doi Quan Toc Dai), 835 Long March, 702 Long-range electronic navigation (LORAN), 681 limitations of, 681 Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs), 681–682, 682 (image) Lon Nol, xlv, 49–50, 151–152, 156, 157, 158, 161, 265 (image), 376, 682–684, 683 (image), 908, 1048 defeat of by the Khmer Rouge, 155, 909 LORRAINE, Operation, 684–685, 1242 Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth, 333–334, 685, 685 (image) assassination of, 685 Lowndes, David, 580, 581, 582, 583, 625 Lucas, Andre C., 977 Luce, Don, 927, 1118 Luce, Henry Robinson, 686, 686 (image) Luc Luong Dac Biet. See Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident, 702 Lu Han, 686–687 Luong Ngoc Quyen, 687 Lutyens, Edwin, 658 Lyautey, Hubert Gonzalve, 1085 Lyautey, Louis, 78 Ly Bon, 687–688 Lynd, Staughton, 688–689, 688 (image) Ly Quy Chung, 332 MacArthur, Douglas, 604–606, 691–692, 692 (image) MacArthur, Douglas, II, memorandum, 1424–1425Doc. MACARTHUR, Operation, 692–694. See also Dak To, Battle of casualties of, 693 Machine guns, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 694–696, 694 (table), 695 (image) classifications of (heavy, medium, and light), 694 as crew-served weapons, 694 dominant tactical feature of (rate of fire), 694

I-14

Index

Madman Strategy, 696 Magsaysay, Ramón, 627, 907 Mai Chi Tho, 1279 Mai Huu Xuan, 129, 318 Mailer, Norman, 696–697, 697 (image) Mai Van Bo, 889 Malaysia, 697–698 Malcolm X, 111, 591, 1025 Malenkov, Georgy, 588 MALHEUR I and II, Operations, 698–699 casualties of, 698–699 Maneli, Mieczyslaw, 537 Manila Conference, 699–700, 699 (image) Manor, Leroy J., 1052–1053 Mansfield, Michael Joseph, 238, 700–701, 701 (image), 1195, 1196 report to President Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 1492–1493Doc. Many Flags Program. See Free World Assistance Program Mao Zedong, 195, 195 (image), 196, 199, 287, 547, 604, 605, 701–703, 701 (image), 870, 1043–1044, 1199 contribution to Marxism, 702 See also Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward March against Death, 773 March on the Pentagon, 703–704, 703 (image) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1072 March to the South. See Nam Tien Marco Polo Bridge Incident. See Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident Marcos, Ferdinand, 907, 907–908, 1056 (image) Marcovich, Herbert, 889, 1016–1017 Maricourt, Alain D. de, 643 MARIGOLD, Operation, 550, 704 Marine combined action platoons (CAPs), 704–705 MARKET TIME, Operation, 676, 705–706, 706 (image), 981, 1029, 1081, 1091, 1207, 1364 patrol system of, 705 Marshall, George C., 195, 968 telegram to the Consul General of Saigon, 1397–1398Doc. telegrams to Jefferson Caffery, 1393– 1394Doc., 1395–1396Doc. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood, 706–707, 1105 Martin, Graham A., 378, 707–708, 1178, 1179 Marx, Karl, 702 Marxism, 702 MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation 67, 708–709, 708 (image) casualties of, 709 Massachusetts Political Action for Peace (MassPax), 773 MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation, 709–710, 710 (image) Masson, René, 174

Mast, Charles, 969 Mayaguez incident, 378, 597, 710–711, 711 (image), 1206, 1319 casualties of, 711 May Day Trive, 711–712 MAYFLOWER, Operation, 712 McCain, John Sidney, Jr., 712–713 McCain, John Sidney, Sr., 712, 713 McCain, John Sidney, III, 264, 495, 379, 713– 715, 714 (image), 797, 1084, 1127, 1128, 1128 (image), 1128–1129 McCarthy, Eugene, 54, 55, 339, 523, 551, 571, 685, 715 McCarthy, Joseph, 597, 1058 McCarthy, Mary, 977 McCauley, Brian, 759 McChristian, Joseph, 865 McClellan, Stan, 371 (image) McCloy, John Jay, 716, 716 (image), 1345 McClure, Robert A., 1213 McCone, John Alex, 183, 716–717 cablegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499Doc. McConnell, John Paul, 717–718, 718 (image), 1030 McCoy, Alfred, 1126 McDade, Robert, 527–528 McGarr, Lionel Charles, 718–719, 1070 McGee, Gale William, 719 McGovern, George Stanley, 54, 336–337, 405, 465–466, 719–720, 720 (image), 1195, 1196, 1197 McKean, Roland N., 721–722 McMahon, Robert, 491 McNamara, Robert Strange, 29, 39, 124, 219, 503, 505, 551, 562, 563, 599, 720–722, 721 (image), 725, 772, 775, 809, 846, 889, 937, 960, 981, 997, 1017, 1034, 1084, 1093–1094, 1170, 1172, 1188, 1200, 1202, 1203, 1262, 1318, 1345 memoranda to President Johnson, 1504–1506Doc., 1547–1548Doc., 1551– 1553Doc., 1567–1568Doc. memorandum to President Kennedy, 1486–1489Doc. memorandum of with Dean Rusk and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc. recommendation of for troop escalation in Vietnam, 1512–1514Doc. report of the McNamara-Taylor mission to South Vietnam, 1496–1498Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. See also McNamara Line; Taylor-McNamara Report McNamara Line, 485, 503, 722–724 the antivehicular barrier in Laos, 723–724 the barrier in Vietnam, 723 and the Jasons, 722 McNaughton, John Theodore, 724–725, 960 McPherson, Harry Cummings, 725–726 Meaney, George, 726 Medevac, 564, 726, 727 (image), 732

Media and the Vietnam War, 727–729, 728 (image) “court journalism,” 728 oversight of by public affairs officers (PAOs), 728 rules imposed on by the MACV, 728 Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP), 734 Medical evacuation. See Medevac Medicine, military, 729–733, 730 (image), 730 (table), 731 (image) division of the military medical system (five echelons), 730–731 drug abuse in Vietnam, 732 major disease problems in Vietnam, 732 psychiatric illnesses, 732 surgical specialists in Vietnam, 732–733 twentieth-century advances in battlefield medicine and surgery, 730 See also Medevac Medics and corpsmen, 733–735, 734 (image) casualty rates among, 733 required test standards for, 733 training classes for, 733 Medina, Ernest Lou, 149, 608, 735, 785 Meisner, Maurice, 702 Mekong Delta, 416, 417 (image), 735–736, 981 Mekong River, 735, 735–736, 736 (image) Mekong River Project, 737 Melby, John F., telegram to Dean Rusk, 1412Doc. Melville, Marjorie Bradford, 178 Melville, Thomas, 178 Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham, 612, 738, 1095 Mendès-France, Pierre, 535, 738–739, 739 (image) Mengel, James L., 92 MENU, Operation, 739–741, 847, 879, 1048, 1197 objectives of, 739–740 Meos. See Hmongs Meshad, Shad, 925 Michigan State University Advisory Group, 741 Midway Island Conference (1969), 741–743, 742 (image) Mien Tong. See Thieu Tri Mildren, Frank T., 455 Military Airlift Command (MAC), 743–744 Military Air Transport Service (MATS), 743 Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, xlii, 319, 329, 458, 676, 744–746, 745 (image), 861, 1169, 1187, 1270 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), xlii, 2, 3, 47, 80, 120, 133, 157, 244, 291, 347, 363, 395, 422, 433, 509, 569, 746–747, 746 (image), 981, 1171, 1187, 1213, 1214, 1270, 1272, 1335, 1340 See also Five O’Clock Follies; Order of battle dispute (1967) Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV SOG), 15, 132, 579, 984–985, 1214

Index Military decorations, 747–751, 748 (table), 749 (table), 750 (tables), 751 (table) French, 747 North Vietnamese and NLF, 748–749 South Vietnamese, 747–748 U.S., 749–751 Military regions, 751–753, 752 (image) Military Revolutionary Council, 753–754 Military Sealift Command (MSC), 754–755, 754 (image) Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), 754 Miller, Henry L., 372 Milloy, Albert E., 1 Mine warfare, land, 755–756, 755 (image) Mine warfare, naval, Communist forces and allied countermining operations, 756–757 Minh Mang, 757 Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam, 758–759, 758 (image) Mini-Tet Offensive, 759–760, 1121 casualties of, 760 Mische, George, 178 Missiles air-to-air missiles, 34–35 air-to-ground missiles, 35–36 guidance systems for air-to-air missiles, 35 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image), 340, 780, 1079–1080, 1248, 1251, 1341–1342 Missing in action, allied (MIAs), 760–762, 761 (table), 1180, 1302 Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist, 762–763 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1072 Mitchell, John Newton, 763–764, 763 (image), 890, 1198 “Mobe, the,” 773 Mobile Guerrilla Forces, 564, 764 Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), 764–765, 765 (image), 981–984 Mobile Strike Force Commands, 765–766 Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), 277 Moffat, Albert Low, 766, 1168 memorandum to John Carter Vincent, 1384–1386Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich, 767–768, 767 (image) Momyer, William Wallace, 579, 582, 768, 961, 1049 Mondale, Walter, 338 (image), 339 MONGOOSE, Operation, 627 Montagnards, 15, 110, 182, 184, 209, 244, 256, 349–350, 351, 352 (image), 403, 768–770, 769 (image), 943, 1183 tribal groupings of, 768 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 590

Montini, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria. See Paul VI, Pope Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr., 406, 527, 770–771, 1173 Moore, Robert Brevard, 771 Moorer, Thomas Hinman, 771–774, 772 (image), 985, 1034, 1203 (image), 1203, 1274 (image) message to Captain John Herrick, 1510–1511Doc. order to all subordinate units, 1509–1510Doc. Mora, Dennis, 380–81 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, 773–774, 774 (image), 848 Mordant, Eugène, 774–775, 1009 Morgan, Charles, Jr., 656 Morrill Act (1862), 968 Morrison, Norman, 775 Morse, Wayne Lyman, 550, 775–776, 864, 1195 Mortality rates among soldiers, from the midnineteenth century, 729–730 Mortars, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 776–777, 776 (image) Mortuary Affairs operations, 777 Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon, 778 Mountbatten, Louis, 1163 Mournier, Emmanuel, 166, 811 Moyers, Billy Don, 778–780, 779 (image) Moylan, Mary, 178 Mudd, Roger, 610 Mu Gia Pass, 780 Muhammad, Elijah, 111 Mullender, Philippe. See Devillers, Philippe Muller, Robert, 780–781 Munich analogy, 781 Muoi Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Murphy, Robert Daniel, 781–782, 1345 Mus, Paul, account of meeting with Ho Chi Minh, 1394Doc. Music and the Vietnam War, 782–783 Muskie, Edmund S., 279, 336–337 Muste, Abraham Johannes, 361, 784, 1060 My Lai Massacre, 55, 149–150, 481, 521, 608, 784–786, 785 (image), 886, 970–971, 1092, 1115–1116. See also Peers Inquiry Nakahara Mitsunobu, 545 Nam Dong, Battle of, 787 casualties of, 787 Nam Dong Publishing House, 833 Nam Tien, 787–788 Nam Viet, 788 NANTUCKET BEACH, Operation. See BOLD MARINER, Operation Napalm, 788–790, 789 (image) Napoleon III, 790–791, 790 (image) Na San, Battle of, 791 casualties of, 791 Nasser, Abdel Gamal, 316

I-15

National Assembly Law 10/59, 791–792 National Bank of Vietnam, 792–793 National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC), 793 National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC), 793–794 National Defense Act (1916), 968 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), xli, 178, 261, 794–795, 795 (image), 870, 1162, 1261, 1323, 1348 manifesto of, 1479–1481Doc. See also Viet Cong National Hard Hats of America. See Hardhats National Intelligence Estimate (1954), 1447–1448Doc. National Intelligence Estimate (1956), 1457Doc., 1458–1459Doc. National Leadership Council (NLC), 796, 816, 1270 National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (NLOF), 796–797 National Mobilization Committee (NMC), 192 National Party of Greater Vietnam. See Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang National Security Act (1947), 577, 1202 National Security Council (NSC), 182 draft statement and study on U.S. policy toward all-Vietnam elections (NSC 5519), 1454–1456Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 52, 1213 National Security Action Memorandum Number 57, 1084 National Security Action Memorandum Number 80, 1484Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 111, 1489–1490Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 328, 797–798, 1523–1524Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 64 (NCS-64), 744, 1406–1407Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 5429/1 (NSC-5429/1), 744–745, 1202 National Security Council Memorandum 5429/2 (NSC-5429/2), 1448–1450Doc. National Security Council Planning Board Report (No. 1074-A), 1434–1436Doc. National Security Council Report 50 (NSC-50), 314 National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), 5, 846 National Security Council Report 124/2 (NSC124/2), 304 National Security Council Staff Study (Annex to NSC 48/4), 1418–1420Doc. National Security Study Memorandum 1 (NSSM-1), 594, 1609–1612Doc. National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), 924

I-16

Index

Native Americans in the U.S. military, 798, 799 (image) Naval gunfire support, 799–800 Navarre, Henri Eugène, 174, 267, 293, 386, 532, 534, 535, 626, 652, 800–801, 801 (image), 861, 1242, 1303 See also Navarre Plan Navarre Plan, 652, 801–802 Nedzi, Lucien N., 1197 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 536 Nelson, Deborah, 1126 Nessen, Ron, 711 Neuhaus, Richard, 217 Neutrality, 802–803 NEUTRALIZE, Operation, 235 NEVADA EAGLE, Operation, 803 casualties of, 803 New Jersey, USS, 804–805, 804 (image) New Journalism, 696 NEW LIFE, Operation, 48 New Look policy, 846, 972 New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 773 Newton, Huey P., 112, 113, 1024 New Zealand, 395, 805 Ngo Dinh Can, 805–806, 1123 Ngo Dinh Diem, xli, 12, 43, 109, 130, 137, 140, 177, 224–225, 314, 316, 319, 330, 370, 414, 458, 488, 500, 537, 569, 569–570, 621, 627, 653, 654–655, 674–675, 791– 792, 806–809, 807 (image), 811, 812, 813, 817, 826, 847, 861, 869–870, 1010, 1012, 1070, 1095, 1123, 1169–1171, 1199, 1258–1262, 1259 (image), 1272 assassination of, 139, 144, 318, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 attacks against the Chinese community in Vietnam, 202 conversation with Eisenhower, 1463Doc. rejection of the MSU Advisory Group’s advice, 741 reliance on Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang, 165–166 See also Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of, 129–130, 317– 318, 809–810, 1201 Ngo Dinh Khoi, 806, 810 Ngo Dinh Luyen, 806, 810–811 Ngo Dinh Nhu, xlii, 12, 129, 130, 166, 318, 319, 488, 569–570, 601–602, 627, 674–675, 792, 807, 808, 809, 811–812, 1070, 1079 (image), 1133 assassination of, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame, 808, 809, 812–813 Ngo Dinh Thuc, 138, 166, 806, 808, 813, 813 (image) Ngo Quang Troung, 2, 516, 519, 814 Ngo Quyen, 814–815 Ngo Thi Trinh. See Hanoi Hannah Nguyen Ai Quoc. See Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Binh, 815 Nguyen Buu Dao. See Khai Dinh Nguyen Cao Ky, 139, 144, 330–331, 331 (image), 331–332, 433, 508, 700, 753, 796, 815–817, 816 (image), 817, 827, 830, 841, 1056 (image), 1262, 1263–1264 Nguyen Chan. See Tran Van Tra Nguyen Chanh Thi, 139, 675, 816, 817–819, 818 (image), 1263 Nguyen Chi Thanh, 794, 819, 1102, 1303 article concerning the Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1493–1494Doc. Nguyen Cong. See Do Muoi Nguyen Co Thach, 819–820, 964 Nguyen Duc Thang, 871 Nguyen Duy Trinh, 820–821, 821 (image) report to Party Central Committee on the new talk-fight strategy, 1577–1581Doc. Nguyen dynasty, 821 Nguyen Hai Than, 687, 822 Nguyen Ha Phan, 822–823 Nguyen Hue, 453–454, 823–824, 823 (image) Nguyen Hue Campaign. See Easter Offensive Nguyen Huu An, 528, 693, 693–694, 824–825 Nguyen Huu Co, 130, 796, 825, 825 (image) Nguyen Huu Tho, 794, 795, 825–826, 941 (image) Nguyen Huu Tri, 826 Nguyen Khac Xung. See Le Thanh Nghi Nguyen Khanh, 139, 318, 513, 648, 653, 675, 753, 818 (image), 827, 1094, 1135, 1261–1262 Nguyen Khoa Nam, 653, 827–828 Nguyen Kim Thanh. See To Huu Nguyen Luong Bang, 828, 1130 Nguyen Manh Cam, 828–829 Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 829–830, 829 (image), 1108, 1272 Nguyen Ngoc Tho, 830–831, 831 (image) Nguyen Phuc Anh, 831–832 Nguyen Phuoc Dom. See Minh Mang Nguyen Phuong Thao. See Nguyen Binh Nguyen Sinh Cung. See Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Sinh Sac, 832–833 Nguyen Thai Hoc, 833–834 Nguyen Thanh Linh, 245 Nguyen Thi Binh, 834–835, 834 (image), 941, 1129 Nguyen Thi Dinh, 835–836, 836 (image) Nguyen Thi Giang, 834 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, 836–837 Nguyen Ton Hoan, 753 Nguyen Trai, 644 Nguyen Tuong Tam, 837 Nguyen Van, 516 Nguyen Van Binh, 837–838, 838 (image) Nguyen Van Cao. See Van Cao Nguyen Van Coc, 863 Nguyen Van Cu, 838 Nguyen Van Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Hieu, 839

Nguyen Van Hinh, 839, 861 Nguyen Van Linh, 839–840, 840 (image), 1278 Nguyen Van Muoi. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Nhung, 318, 649, 1262 Nguyen Van Thang. See Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Van Thieu, xlii, xlvi, 11, 94, 144, 146, 157, 292, 324, 330–331, 331 (image), 501, 508, 509 (image), 519, 595, 599, 618, 619, 640, 793–794, 796, 817, 827, 840–843, 841 (image), 848, 1056 (image), 1186, 1246, 1263 address to the National Assembly of South Vietnam, 1612Doc. See also Midway Island Conference Nguyen Van Toan, 843 Nguyen Van Vinh, 502 Nguyen Van Vy, 129 Nguyen Van Xuan, 843–844, 843 (image) Nguyen Viet Thanh, 844 Nguyen Xuan Oanh, 1262 Nhan Van Giai Pham, 1224 Nhat Linh. See Nguyen Tuong Tam NIAGARA, Operation, 844–845 casualties of, 845 Nicholas, Fayard, 512 (image) Nicholas, Harold, 512 (image) Nickerson, Herman, Jr., 596 Nitze, Paul Henry, 845–846, 845 (image) Nixon, Richard M., xliv–xlv, 45, 55, 150, 157, 174, 225–226, 239, 297, 325, 326, 338, 380, 418, 464, 483, 523, 553. 571, 615, 617, 619, 640, 660, 660–661, 760, 761, 772, 842, 846–849, 847 (image), 927, 939, 946, 957, 986, 988–989, 1090, 1169, 1196–1197, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1316 (image) address to the nation, 1640Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) and the bombing of Cambodia, 151, 370, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 and détente, 286–287 foreign policies developed with Kissinger, 593–595 involvement in the aftermath of My Lai, 887 letter to Pham Van Dong, 1653–1654Doc. letters to Nguyen Van Thieu, 1647–1649Doc. news conference excerpt, 1656Doc. and the opening of China, 200, 595 pardon of by Ford, 378 and the presidential election of 1968, 334– 335, 551 and the presidential election of 1972, 336– 337, 336 (image) resignation of, 361, 849 secret authorization of more aggressive bombing of North Vietnam, 635 “Silent Majority” speech, 773, 848, 946 speech on Cambodia, 1625–1627Doc. speech on Vietnamization, 1617–1622Doc.

Index success of in foreign affairs (“linkage diplomacy”), 849 televised interview with, 1629–1630Doc. television address, 1612–1614Doc. See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Madman Strategy; Midway Island Conference; Nixon Doctrine; Vietnamization; Watergate Scandal Nixon Doctrine, 848, 850, 1175, 1292 Noel, Chris, 850–851, 850 (image) Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr., 569, 809, 851–852, 1261 Nong Duc Manh, 852–853, 852 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 5, 23, 104, 172, 214, 220, 234, 276, 315, 319, 355, 413 Novosel, Michael, Jr., 853 Novosel, Michael, Sr., 853–854 Nui Ba Den, 555, 854–855, 854 (image), 1096 Nuon Chea, 855 Nur, Paul, 769 Nurses, U.S., 855–857, 856 (images) Nuttle, David, 769 Oakland Army Base, 859 Obama, Barack, 715 Oberdorfer, Don, 521 Oberg, Jean-Christophe, 859–860 O’Brien, David, 1217 O’Daniel, John Wilson, 860–861, 860 (image) report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1425–1426Doc. Office of Civilian Operations (OCO), 871, 922 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 182, 183, 223, 229, 289, 309–310, 861–862 See also Deer Mission Ohly, John, memorandum to Dean Acheson, 1413–1414Doc. Oldenburg, Claes, 68 Olds, Robin, 862–863, 863 (image) Olongapo, Philippines, 863–864 O’Neill, John, 1084 Open Arms Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34A, 550, 864 Orderly Departure Plan, 1181 Order of battle dispute (1967), 864–866 Oriskany, USS, fire aboard, 26 (image), 866– 867, 866 (image) O’Sullivan, James L., telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Otis, Glenn K., 1107 Pacification, 869–874, 870 (image), 933, 1176. See also Accelerated Pacification Campaign; Phoenix Program Page, Michael, 70 Palme, Olof, 859, 860, 874, 874 (image) Palmer, Bruce, Jr., 81, 303, 603, 674, 722, 814, 875, 1335 Palmer, Dave Richard, 1031

Paracel and Spratley Islands, South China Sea, 875–876 Paris peace negotiations, 551, 639–641, 876–877 document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Vietnam concerning the negotiations, 1642–1643Doc. Paris Peace Accords (1973), 760, 793, 842, 877–879, 878 (image), 1165, 1177 failure of, 878–879 text of, 1650–1652Doc. Park Chung Hee, 1056 (image) Parks, Rosa, 211, 211 (image) Parrot’s Beak, 879, 1026 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) (1963), 1044 PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation, 310, 754, 880– 881, 880 (image), 1012, 1170, 1242 Pathet Lao, 411, 412, 630, 631, 632, 881–882, 881 (image), 1054, 1057, 1162, 1250 Patti, Archimedes L. A., 882 Patton, George Smith, IV, 882–883 PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations, 883, 1015 casualties of, 883 Paul VI, Pope, 838, 883–885, 884 (image), 1959 Peace Corps, 311 Pearson, Lester B., 164, 165, 885, 885 (image) Peers, William R., 118, 608, 786, 886, 886 (image). See also Peers Inquiry Peers Inquiry, 886–887 PEGASUS-LAM SON 207A, Operation, 582, 887–888, 888 (image), 1022 casualties of, 888 Pell, Claiborne, 921 Peng Phongsavan, 1232 (image) PENNSYLVANIA, Operation, 888–889 Pentagon, March on the. See March on the Pentagon Pentagon Papers and trial, 340–341, 341 (image), 889–892, 891 (image), 960, 1006–1007, 1035, 1173, 1174 People’s Anti-Corruption Movement, 842 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). See Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF), 892, 1348 (image) Perot, Henry Ross, 760, 796, 893, 893 (image) PERSHING, Operation, 893–894, 894 (image) casualties of, 894 Peterson, Douglas Brian, 220, 894–895, 1181 Pham Cong Tac, 895, 895 (image) Pham Duy, 895–896 Pham Hong Thai, 833 Pham Hung, 896–897 Pham Ngoc Thao, 129, 897, 897 (image) Pham Phu Quoc, 838 Pham Quynh, 810 Pham The Duyet, 898 Pham Thi Yen, 1129 Pham Van Dinh, 163

I-17

Pham Van Dong, 638, 818 (image), 820, 889, 898–899, 898 (image), 964, 1278 joint statement of with Aleksei Kosygin, 1515–1516Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly, 1528–1547Doc. speech delivered on National Day, 1668–1674Doc. Pham Van Phu, 93, 94, 899–900 Pham Van Thien. See Pham Hung Pham Xuan An, 617, 818, 900, 1133 Phan Boi Chau, 499, 833, 900–901 Phan Chu Trinh, 901–902 Phan Dinh Khai. See Le Duc Tho Phan Dinh Phung, 902 Phan Huy Quat, 140, 796, 903–904, 903 (image) Phan Khac Suu, 904 Phan Quang Dan, 904–905 Phan Van Hoa. See Vo Van Kiet Phan Van Khai, 905–906, 905 (image) Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix, 906 Philippine Civil Action Group (PHILCAG), 907–908 Philippines, 906–908 Phnom Penh, 908–909 Pho Duc Chinh, 834 Phoenix Program, 184, 869, 872, 873, 909–910, 940, 1126, 1176 demise of, 909 success of, 910 Phong Trao Cach Mang Quoc Gia (National Revolutionary Movement), 166 Phoumi Nosavan, 910–911, 910 (image) Phoumi Vongvichit, 1232 (image) Phou Pha Thi. See Lima Site 85 PHU DUNG, Operation. See SHINING BRASS, Operation Pickett, Clarence, 53 PIERCE ARROW, Operation, 26, 911–912, 912 (image) Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre, 912–913 Pignon, Léon, 913, 913 (image) Pike, Douglas, 1158 PIRANHA, Operation, 914 casualties of, 914 PIRAZ warships, 914–915 Pistols, 915–916, 915 (image) French, 915 U.S., 915–916 Vietnamese, 916 Plain of Jars, 916, 916 (image) Plain of Reeds, 917 Platt, Jonas, 1220 Pleiku, 917–918 POCKET MONEY, Operation, 758 Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich, 918 Podhoretz, Norman, 490 Poland, 918–919

I-18

Index

Polgar, Thomas, 919 Pol Pot, 154, 155, 156, 561, 585, 587, 855, 919–921, 920 (image), 1039 trial of, 587, 921 Poola, Pascal, 798 POPEYE, Operation, 921 Porter, Melvin, 189 Porter, William James, 144, 340, 871, 922–923, 922 (image) Port Huron Statement, 53, 923, 1072–1073 Potsdam Conference (1945), 862, 926 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 923– 926, 924 (image), 925 (table) Poulo Condore, 926–927 Powell, Colin Luther, 927–929, 928 (image), 1292. See also Powell Doctrine Powell Doctrine, 928, 1292 PRAIRIE I, Operation, 929 casualties of, 929 PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations, 929–930 casualties of, 929, 930 PRAIRIE FIRE, Operation, 163, 503, 985 Precision-guided munitions, 930–931 electro-optical guided bomb (EOGB) program, 930–931 laser-guided bomb (LGB) program, 930, 931 President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 572 President’s Special Committee, report on Southeast Asia, 1434Doc. Prisoners of war (POWs), 141 repatriation of following the Korean War, 607 See also Four-Party Joint Military Commission; HOMECOMING, Operation; Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist; Prisoners of war, allied Prisoners of war, allied, 931–933, 932 (image), 1302 Prisoners of war, Communist. See Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist Program for the Pacification and LongTerm Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), 548, 598, 933–934, 1174, 1175 Programs Evaluation Office (PEO), 1341 Project 100,000, 937–938 Project Agile, 934–935 development of Agent Orange, 935 development of the Armalite AR-15, 935 Project Delta, 681–682, 935–936, 938 Project Dye Marker. See McNamara Line Project Gamma, 682 Project Igloo White, 723–724 Project Illinois City, 485 Project Muscle Shoals, 503 Project Nine, 485, 503 Project Omega, 682, 936–937, 938 Project Practice Nine. See McNamara Line Project Sigma, 682, 938 Protective Reaction Strikes, 938–939 PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation, 226, 939–940

Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), 184, 940 Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), 941–942, 941 (image) Proxmire, Edward William, 942, 942 (image) Psychological warfare operations (PSYOPS), 942–945 deficiencies of, 944 media used in, 944 military targets of, 943 themes of, 943–944 Public opinion and the war, U.S., 945–947, 946 (table) Pueblo incident, 601, 710, 947–949, 948 (image), 1209, 1212 Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr., 949 Punji stake, 949–950, 949 (image) Python God movement, 769 Qiao Shi, 196 Quach Tom, 951 Quadrillage/ratissage, 951 Quakers. See American Society of Friends (Quakers) Qualye, Daniel, 1209–1210 Quan Ngai, 952 Quang Tri, Battle of, 952–953, 953 (image) casualties of, 953 Quang Trung. See Nguyen Hue Qui Nhon, 953–954 Quoc Ngu, 954 Racial violence within the U.S. military, 955– 956, 956 (image) Radcliffe, Henry, 139 Radford, Arthur William, 329, 846–847, 957, 957 (image), 1093 Radio direction finding (RDF), 958 ground installations of, 958 mobile capabilities of, 958 signals intelligence activities, 958 Ranariddh, Norodom, 153, 586, 1039 RANCH HAND, Operation, 226, 958–960, 959 (image), 1239 RAND Corporation, 960–961 RANDOLPH GLEN, Operation, 1108–1109 Rangel, Charles, 712 Rangoon Initiative, 1221 Raven Forward Air Controllers, 961 Read, Benjamin Huger, 961–962 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 137, 760, 850, 962– 963, 962 (image), 1180, 1319 Red River Delta, 963 Red River Fighter Pilots Association, 963–964 Reed, Charles airgram to Dean Acheson, 1396–1397Doc. telegram to James F. Byrnes, 1392–1393Doc. telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Reeducation camps, 964–965

Refugees and boat people, 965–966, 965 (image) Regional forces. See Territorial forces Reinhardt, George Frederick, 166, 966–967 Reissner, Robert, 495 Rejo, Pete, 1151 Republican Youth, 967 Research and development field units, 967– 968. See also Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC); Combat Operations Research Center (CORC) Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), 968–969 Reston, James, 611 Revers, Georges, 969. See also Revers Report (1949) Revers Report (1949), 969 Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center. See Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party. See Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party) Rheault, Robert B., 969–970, 1190 Rhee, Syngman, 601, 603 Richardson, John Hammond, 970 cablegram to CIA director concerning the situation in South Vietnam, 1498Doc. Ridenhour, Ronald L., 150, 785–786, 970–971 Ridgway, Matthew Bunker, 329, 409, 606, 861, 971–972, 971 (image), 1307, 1345 Rifles, 972–976, 973 (image), 974 (image) AK-47, 975–976 Australian, 975 classification of, 972–973 French, 975 New Zealand, 975 U.S., 973–975 Vietnamese, 975 Rigault de Genouilly, Charles, 976 Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for, 976–977 casualties of, 977 Ripley, John, 307 Risner, James Robinson, 977–978 River Assault Flotilla 1, 981–982 River assault groups, 978 Riverine craft, 978–981, 979 (image), 980 (image) armored troop carrier (ATC), 979–980 assault patrol boat (ASPB), 979 command-and-communication boat (CCB), 979–980 fast patrol craft (PCF), 979 France Outre Mere (FOM), 980 patrol air cushion vehicle (PACV), 980 river patrol boat (PBT), 978, 979 river patrol craft (PBC), 980 Riverine warfare, 981–984, 982 (image) RIVER RAIDER I, Operation, 983

Index River Rats. See Red River Fighter Pilots Association Rivers, Lucius Mendel, 984 Road Watch Teams (RWTs), 984–985 Roberts, Elvy, 158 Robinson, James W., 1 Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil, 985 Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich, 334, 338, 986, 986 (image) Rockets and rocket launchers, 986–988 Chinese, 987, 988 Soviet, 987, 988 U.S., 987, 988 Vietnamese, 987 Rodgers, William, 157 Rodriguez, Felix, 940 Rogers, William Pierce, 553, 849, 988–989 ROLLING THUNDER, Operation, 26, 32, 34, 122, 123 (map), 124, 503, 550, 552, 573, 712, 722, 758, 768, 889, 917, 989–994, 990 (image), 992 (map), 1069, 1150, 1172, 1184–1185, 1248, 1341–1342 casualties of, 989 failure of, 993, 1184 objectives of, 991, 1184 phases of, 991, 993 targets of, 991 Rome Plow, 1239 Romney, George Wilcken, 334, 994 Romney, Mitt, 994 Ronning, Chester A., 820 “Ronning Missions,” 820 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 234, 309, 861, 994–995, 995 (image), 1009, 1168 memorandum to Cordell Hull, 1369Doc. Rosenquist, James, 68 Rosson, William B., 698, 1092, 1340 Rostow, Eugene Victor, 995–996, 1070 Rostow, Walt Whitman, 143, 219, 563, 569, 721, 725, 996–998, 997 (image), 1093, 1170. See also Taylor-Rostow Report ROTC Vitalization Act (1964), 968 Rousselot, Robert E., 236 Route Coloniale 4, Battles for, 998 Route packages, 998–999 Rovere, Richard, 716 Rowe, James Nicholas, 999–1000, 999 (image), 1126, 1155 Rowny, Edward L., 64 Roy, Jules, 626 Rubin, Jerry, 192, 263 (image), 703, 1000, 1000 (image), 1358–1359 Rudd, Mark, 1218 Rules of Engagement (ROE), 1001–1003 purposes of, 1001 Rung Sat, 1028 Rusk, David Dean, 219, 319, 412, 562, 563, 569, 885, 889, 1003–1004, 1004 (image), 1200, 1345 (image) memorandum of with McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc.

memorandum to President Kennedy, 1487–1489Doc. telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1581Doc. telegram to Maxwell Taylor, 1516Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. Rusk-Thanat Agreement (1962), 1004–1005 Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr., 1005–1006, 1006 (image), 1209 Russell Amendment, 1209 RUSSELL BEACH, Operation, 873 Russell Tribunal. See International War Crimes Tribunal Russo, Anthony J., Jr., 891, 1006–1007, 1007 (image) Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 401, 544 Ryan, John D., 1203 (image) Sabattier, Gabriel, 774–775, 1009–1010 SAFESIDE, Operation, 560

Sagan, Ginette, 964 Saigon, 501, 1010–1011, 1011 (image) Saigon Circle. See Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Saigon Military Mission (SMM), 1011–1012 Sainteny, Jean, 1012–1013, 1168, 1241 Salan, Raoul Albin Louis, 386, 514, 532, 684, 791, 1013–1014, 1013 (image), 1242 Salisbury, Harrison Evans, 1014–1015, 1015 (image) Saloth Sar. See Pol Pot Samas, David, 380–381 SAM HOUSTON, Operation, 391, 1015–1016 casualties of, 1016 Samphan, Khieu, 155 Sams, Kenneth, 189 San Antonio Formula, 846, 1016–1017 Sanctuaries, 1017–1018 Sarraut, Albert, 1018–1019, 1019 (image) Saul, Peter, 67, 69 Sauvageot, Jean, 705 Savage, Paul L., 1188 Savang Vatthana, 632 Savio, Mario, 53 Schell, Jonathan, 952 Schemmer, Benjamin, 495 Schening, Richard, 139 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr., 489, 529, 1019– 1020, 1020 (image) Schlesinger, James Rodney, 224, 711, 960, 1020–1021 Schmidt, Helmut, 286, 418 Schumaker, Bob, 494 Schuman, Robert, 652 Schungel, Daniel F., 625 Schweiter, Leo H., 693 SCOTLAND, Operation, 582, 1021–1022 casualties of, 1022 Scranton Commission. See President’s Commission on Campus Unrest Scruggs, Jan Craig, 1022–1023, 1295, 1296 Seabees, 1023

I-19

Seaborn, J. Blair, 537 notes of on meeting with Pham Van Dong, 1508–1509Doc. SEA DRAGON, Operation, 85, 799, 804, 1023– 1024, 1024 (image), 1030, 1207 Sea Float, 1026 Seale, Bobby, 112, 113, 192, 264, 1024–1025 SEALORDS operations, 984, 1025–1027, 1026 (image), 1091 SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) teams, 574, 1027–1028 Seaman, Jonathan O., 81, 357, 555, 608, 887, 1028–1029 Sea power, role in war, 1029–1030 Search and destroy, 1030–1031, 1031 (image) Search-and-rescue operations, 1031–1032 SEARCH TURN, Operation, 1025 Secret Army Organization, 1014 Seeger, Daniel Andrew, 1218 Seeger v. United States (1965), 1333, 1334 Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor. See SLAM Selective Service, 242, 482–483, 1032–1032, 1033 (image), 1033 (table) Selective Training and Service Act (1940), 1033 Shanghai Communiqué (1972), 702 Sharon Statement, 923 Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr., 122, 286, 300, 991, 998–999, 1034–1035 Shatan, Chaim, 924 Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney, 58, 67, 341, 890, 894, 1035–1036 SHENANDOAH II, Operation, 673 Shields, Marvin G., 1023 SHINING BRASS, Operation, 503, 1036 Shinseki, Eric, 1216 Shoup, David Monroe, 1036–1037, 1037 (image) Shulimson, Jack, 582 Shultz, George, 964 Sian (Xi’an) Incident, 702 Sigma I and II, 1037 Sihamoni, Norodom, 154 Sihanouk, Norodom, xlv, 151, 152, 157, 561, 585, 631, 683–684, 908, 918, 1037–1039, 1038 (image), 1048, 1129 Sihanouk Trail, 676 Sijan, Lance Peter, 932–933, 1039–1040 Simons, Arthur David, 893, 1040–1041, 1052–1053 Sinn, Jerry, 1151 Sino-French War (1884–1885), 1041–1043, 1042 (image) Sino-Soviet split, 1043–1044 Sino-Vietnamese War (1979), 1044–1048, 1045 (image), 1047 (map) casualties of, 1046 causes of, 1044–1046 Sisowath Sirik Matak, 683–684, 1048–1049 Sit-ins. See Teach-ins and sit-ins Sitton, Ray B., 740

I-20

Index

Six, Robert, 236 Six-Day War (1967), 550 Skriabin, Vyacheslav. See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Slagel, Wayne, 734 SLAM, 579, 1049 Slater, Albert, 139 Sletten, David, 1121 (image) Smart bombs. See Precision-guided munitions Smith, Hedrik, 1035 Smith, K. Wayne, 722 Smith, Walter Bedell, 319, 412, 597, 1049– 1050, 1050 (image) declaration to the Geneva Conference, 1447Doc. telegrams to John Foster Dulles, 1440– 1442Doc., 1143–1445Doc. Snepp, Frank Warren, III, 919, 1050–1051, 1127 SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation, 1051– 1052, 1051 (image) casualties of, 1052 Song Be, Battle of, 1052 casualties of, 1052 Son Sen, 587 Son Tay Raid, 132, 1052–1053 Song Thang Incident, 1053–1054 Souphanouvong, 1054–1055, 1055 (image) Southeast Asia, ethnology of, 350–352, 351 (image), 352 (image), 353 (map), 354, 354 (image) ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, 350, 351 ethnic groups within Vietnam, 350–351 highland tribal groups in Vietnam, 351 the Tais people of Vietnam and Thailand, 352, 354, 354 (image) Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy. See SEALORDS Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 195, 234, 329, 411, 601, 1005, 1055–1057, 1056 (image), 1169, 1200 protocol to the SEATO Treaty, 1450Doc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 590–591 Souvanna Phouma, 631, 632, 1057–1058 Soviet Union. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Soviet-Vietnam Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (1978), 610, 638 Soyster, Harry, 1128 Special Forces. See United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Special Landing Force (SLF), 462, 485 Special National Intelligence Estimate 10-3/65, 1517–1518Doc. Special Technical and Economic Mission (STEM), 307 SPEEDY EXPRESS, Operation, 355 Spellman, Francis Joseph, 806, 813, 1058–1059 Spero, Nancy, 68

Spock, Benjamin McLane, 53, 1059–1060, 1059 (image), 1198 Spratly Islands. See Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, 784, 1060 Spring Offensive. See Easter Offensive Staley, Eugene, 569, 1061 Stalin, Joseph, 355, 588, 604, 605, 1043, 1158–1159 Stannard, John E., 276–277 STARLITE, Operation, 50, 799, 914, 1061, 1062 (image), 1204 casualties of, 1061 Starry, Donn Albert, 1062–1063, 1174 STEEL TIGER, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119 Stennis, John Cornelius, 1063–1065, 1064 (image) Stephenson, William, 862 Steve Canyon program, 961 Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II, 1019, 1020, 1065– 1066, 1065 (image), 1221 Stevenson, Charles, 1076 Stilwell, Richard Giles, 1066 Stilwell, Joseph W., 564 Stockdale, James Bond, 495, 796, 932–933, 1066–1067, 1067 (image), 1126 Stockdale, Sybil Bailey, 796, 1067–1068 Stolen Valor Act (2006), 1299 Stone, I. F., 433, 611 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 142, 1068– 1069, 1184 Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT I Interim Agreement) (1972), 778 Strategic Hamlet Program, 244, 513, 697, 808, 811, 870–871, 952, 1061, 1070–1071, 1071 (image), 1171 failure of, 1071 See also SUNRISE, Operation Stratton, Samuel, 608 Struggle Movement, 675 Stubbe, Ray W., 582 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 133, 1072 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 53, 192, 242, 373, 923, 1072–1074, 1073 (image) See also Weathermen Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG), 1074, 1215 Subic Bay Naval Base, 863 Submachine guns, 1074–1076, 1075 (image) Chinese, 1076 French, 1076 Soviet, 1076 Swedish, 1076 U.S., 1075–1076 Vietnamese, 1076 Sullivan, William Healy, 1076–1077, 1095 Summers, Harry G., Jr., 490, 728, 1077–1078 SUNFLOWER, Operation, 1078

SUNRISE, Operation, 1078–1079, 1079 (image) Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). See Missiles, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training, 999–1000, 1080–1081 Sutherland, Donald, 373, 1293 Sutherland, James, 292 Suvero, Mark di, 67 Sweeney, Dennis, 460 Swift boats, 1081–1083, 1082 (image) Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 575, 1083–1084 SWITCHBACK, Operation, 1084, 1214 Symington, Stuart, 1076

Tache d’huile, 1085 Tactical Air Command (TAC), 1085–1086 Tactical air control and navigation (TACAN), 681 Taft, Robert, 46 Taiwan. See China, Republic of Tallman, Richard Joseph, 1086 Tam Dao Mountains. See Thud Ridge Ta Mok, 587 Tam Vu. See Tran Van Giau Tan, Frank, 270, 862 Ta Ngoc Phach. See Tran Do Tanks, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 63, 1087–1088, 11087 (image), 1252 Tan Son Nhut, 1088–1089 Taoism, 1089–1090 Tarpley, Thomas, 292 Tarr, Curtis W., 1090–1091, 1090 (image) Task Force 116, 1091 Task Force 117. See Mobile Riverine Force Task Force 194. See SEALORDS Task Force Oregon, 698, 699, 1092 Taussig, Charles, memorandum of conversation with Franklin Roosevelt, 1369–1370Doc. Taylor, Maxwell Davenport, 244, 345, 405, 550, 553, 569, 607, 721, 728 (image), 753, 796, 808, 809, 997, 1092–1094, 1093 (image), 1170, 1202, 1203, 1213, 1345 cable to President Kennedy, 1484–1486Doc. telegram to Dean Rusk, 1522–1523Doc. See also Taylor-McNamara Report; TaylorRostow Report Taylor, Rufus, 7–8 Taylor, Telford, 656 Taylor-McNamara Report, 1094–1095 text of, 1496–1498Doc. Taylor-Rostow Report, 1095–1096 Tay Ninh, 1096–1097 Tay Son Rebellion, 1097 Teach-ins and sit-ins, 1072, 1098–1099, 1098 (image) Television and the Vietnam War, 1099–1100, 1100 (image) reporting of the Battle of Khe Sanh, 1099–1100

Index reporting of the Tet Offensive, 1100 Territorial forces, 1101–1102 Tet Offensive, xliii–xliv, xliv (image), 2, 6, 7, 32, 40, 55, 65, 70, 76, 81, 101, 101 (image), 102, 105, 106, 124, 145, 163, 170, 182, 194, 202, 203, 203 (image), 219, 251, 254, 258, 259, 313, 316, 317, 333, 349, 380, 486, 498, 500, 509, 519, 521, 551, 554, 576, 582, 638, 643, 665, 680, 722, 732, 735, 749, 757, 760, 841, 844, 845, 865, 873, 932, 940, 945, 947, 955, 959, 993, 1010–1011, 1023, 1083, 1089, 1092, 1096, 1100, 1117, 1121, 1130, 1138, 1140, 1155, 1162, 1173–1174, 1196, 1204, 1212, 1238, 1245–1246, 1252, 1265, 1270, 1272, 1300, 1303, 1304, 1336, 1337, 1339, 1240 assessment of by Saigon and Washington, 872 casualties of, 317, 1104 Communist Party evaluation of, 1601–1603Doc. failure of, 1010, 1304, 1336 participation of women in, 1348 political impact of, 106, 144, 145 terror tactics used by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 80 See also Ben Tre, Battle of; Hue, Battle of; Khe Sahn, Battle of; Tet Offensive, overall strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Tet Offensive, overall strategy, 1102–1103, 1103 (image), 1104 (image) Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle, 1105– 1108, 1106 (map) TEXAS, Operation, 1108 casualties of, 1108 TEXAS STAR, Operation, 976, 1108–1109 casualties of, 1109 Thai Khac Chuyen, 970 Thailand, xliii, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 48, 59, 70, 96, 110, 150, 156, 223, 234, 269, 305, 343, 352, 395, 1109–1111, 1110 (image) See also Franco-Thai War (1940–1941) Thai Thanh, 896 Thanh Hoa Bridge, 1111 Thanh Nien, 628 Thanh Nien Cong Hoa. See Republican Youth THAN PHONG II, Operation, 709 Thanh Phong Massacre, 574 Thanh Thai, 1111–1112 Thanh To Nhan Hoang De. See Minh Mang THAYER/IRVING, Operation, 709 Thich Quang Duc, 483, 775, 808, 809, 1112– 1113, 1112 (image) Thich Tri Quang, 138, 674, 817, 1113 Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, 658 Thieu Tri, 1114 Third Indochina War, 1247 Thomas, Allison Kent, 1114

Thomas, Norman Mattoon, 1114–1115, 1115 (image) Thompson, Floyd James, 931 Thompson, Hugh, Jr., 785, 786, 1115–1117, 1116 (image) Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker, 12, 1061, 1070, 1117 Thud Ridge, 1117 THUNDERHEAD, Operation, 1118 Tianjin, Treaty of (1885), 1118 Tiger cages, 1118–1119, 1119 (image) TIGER HOUND, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119–1120 Tilford, Earl H., Jr., 505 Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), 1120–1121 TOAN THANG, Operation, 1121–1122, 1121 (image) casualties of, 1121 TOAN THANG 3, Operation, 78 TOAN THANG 42, Operation, 157, 158 TOAN THANG 43–46, Operations, 160 Toche, Jean, 68 To Huu, 1122 Tolson, John J., 276, 887–888, 893–894 Ton Duc Thang, 1122 Tonkin, 1122–1123 Ton That Dinh, 129, 130, 649, 808, 1123–1124, 1261, 1263 Ton That Thuyet, 1124 Top Gun School, 1124–1125 Torture, 495, 1125–1129, 1127 (image),1128 (image) Total Force Concept, 1212 Tourison, Sedgwick, 951 Tran Buu Kiem, 1129–1130, 1129 (image) Tran Do, 1105–1106, 1130–1131 Tran dynasty, 1131–1132 Tran Hieu, 1164 Tran Hung Dao, 1132 TRAN HUNG DAO, Operation. See SEALORDS Tran Kim Tuyen, 967, 1133 Tran Le Xuan. See Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Tran Ngoc Chau, 940 Tran Quoc Tuan. See Tran Hung Dao Tran Quy Hai, 845 Transportation Group 559, 1133–1134 Tran Thien Khiem, 318, 827, 1133, 1134–1135, 1134 (image) Tran Trong Kim, 140 Tran Van Chuong, 1135–1136, 1136 (image) Tran Van Dac, 1105 Tran Van Do, 1136–1137 Tran Van Don, 129, 130, 331, 649, 653, 808, 809, 827, 1123, 1134, 1137, 1137 (image), 1261 Tran Van Giau, 1137–1138 Tran Van Hai, 1138 Tran Van Huong, 139, 501, 839, 1138–1139, 1139 (image), 1262, 1264 Tran Van Lam, 1139–1140, 1140 (image) Tran Van Tra, 842, 941, 1140–1141, 1141 (image)

I-21

Treaty of Independence of the State of Vietnam, 1439Doc. Trieu Au, 1141 Trieu Da, 1141–1142 Trieu Thi Trinh. See Trieu Au Trieu Vu Vuong. See Trieu Da Trinh lords, 1142 Trinh Van Can, 687 Trinité, Louis de la. See D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Trudeau, Pierre Elliot, 165 Truehart, William, 851 Truman, Harry S., 5, 182, 304, 314, 316, 328, 530, 603, 604, 606, 691, 744, 781, 862, 1020, 1143–1144, 1143 (image), 1168, 1199 statement announcing military aid to Indochina, 1410–1411Doc. telegram to Jiang Jieshi, 1376Doc. U.S. State Department memoranda to, 1370–1371Doc., 1371–1373Doc. Trung Nu Vuong. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Queens. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, 1144 Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam. See Central Office for South Vietnam Truong, David H. D., 1198 Truong Chinh, 621, 628, 638, 1144–1146, 1244, 1278 Truong Dinh Dzu, 1146–1147, 1146 (image) Truong Nhu Tang, 941, 1147 Truong Son Corridor, 1147–1148 Truong Son Mountains, 1148 Truong Van Nghia. See De Tham Truscott, Lucian K., 576 Tsuchihashi, Yuitsu, 1148–1149 TUCSON, Operation, 556 Tu Duc, 1149–1150, 1149 (image) Tuesday Lunch Group, 1150 Tully, Robert, 527 Tu Luc Van Doan (Self-Reliance Literary Group), 837 Tunnel rats, 1151, 1151 (image) Tunnels, 1151–1152. See also Tunnel rats Tun Razak, 698 Turner, Ted, 374 Turse, Nick, 1126 Tu Ve, 1152 Tuyen Quang, siege of, 1152–1153 casualties of, 1153 Twining, Nathan Farragut, 1153–1154, 1154 (image) Two Ladies Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Udall, Morris, 786 U Minh Forest, 1155 Underwater demolition teams (UDTs), 1027–1028 Ung Lich. See Ham Nghi

I-22

Index

Uniforms, 1155–1158, 1157 (image) French expeditionary forces, 1155–1156 Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, 1156 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, 1157–1158 Viet Minh, People’s Army of Vietnam, and Viet Cong, 1156 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 195, 234, 243, 1158–1160, 1291 military and economic aid sent to North Vietnam by, 199, 324, 344, 676, 1159– 1160, 1244 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 See also Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) UNION I and II, Operations, 1160–1161, 1161 (image) casualties of, 1161 UNIONTOWN, Operation, 1162 United Buddhist Association (UBA), 827 United front strategy, 1162–1163 United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam wars, 1163–1165, 1163 (image) United Nations (UN), 315. See also United Nations and the Vietnam War United Nations and the Vietnam War, 1165–1166 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 966 United Services Organization (USO), 1166, 1166 (image) Family Support Fund, 1166 Operation Enduring Care, 1166 United States, 1291 message to the North Vietnamese government on the pause in bombing, 1549Doc. military logistics used in Vietnam, 678–679 national elections (1964), 332–333 national elections (1968), 333–335, 334 (image), 848 (table) national elections (1972), 336–337, 336 (image), 337 (table), 346 national elections (1976), 338–339, 338 (image) praise of for the Elysée Agreements, 1402Doc. relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), 195, 196 response of to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. trade embargo of against North Vietnam, 343–345, 344 (table). See also United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War; United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975;

United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975–present United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War, 325–327 deficit spending during the war, 326 (table) effects on macroeconomic theory, 326 impacts of increased budget deficits, 325–326 and inflation, 326 United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954, 1167–1169, 1167 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954– 1965, 1169–1172, 1171 (image) U.S. Army manpower in Vietnam, 1170 (table) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965– 1968, 1172–1175, 1172 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969– 1973, 1175–1177, 1175 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973– 1975, 1177–1179, 1178 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975– present, 1179–1181, 1180 (image) United States, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 1954–present, 1181–1182 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 1182–1184 United States Air Force (USAF), 121–122, 142–143, 156, 226, 300, 780, 1184–1186, 1185 (image) U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), 270 U.S. Seventh Air Force, 92 See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Andersen Air Force Base; FARM GATE, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Wild Weasels United States Army, 1187–1190, 1187 (image), 1238 army units in Vietnam, 1214 (table) casualties during the Vietnam War, 1190 corps tactical zones in South Vietnam, 1189 (map) deaths by Vietnam province, 1097 (table) office corps of, 1188 organization of a typical infantry division, 1188 (table) position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A, 1432Doc. replacement system of, 1188 See also K-9 Corps United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade (USARVIS), 1190–1191 United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (USACILHI), 761, 1191–1192, 1191 (image) United States Army Special Services, 1191–1193 United States Coast Guard, 1193–1194, 1194 (image), 1275

United States Congress and the Vietnam War, 1195–1198 United States Department of Justice, 1198–1199 United States Department of State aide-mémoire to the North Vietnamese government, 1572–1573Doc. and formation of U.S. policy toward Vietnam, 1199–1201, 1201 (image) memorandum of meeting of August 31, 1963, 1494–1495Doc. paper on military aid for Indochina, 1408–1409Doc. paper on U.S. post–World War II policy concerning Asia, 1374–1376Doc. policy statement on Indochina, 1400–1402Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. White paper on Vietnam, 1518–1519Doc. United States Information Agency (USIA), 1201–1202 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 259, 297, 359, 372, 422, 551, 576, 691, 1202– 1204, 1203 (image), 1269, 1292, 1339 memorandum 46-64, 1502–1504Doc. memorandum of with Rusk and McNamara, 1482–1484Doc. memorandum to Charles E. Wilson, 1430–1432Doc. memorandum to George C. Marshall, 1414–1415Doc. See also Key West Agreement (1948) United States Marine Corps (USMC), 207–208, 300, 1204–1205, 1205 (image), 1238, 1263 casualties during the Vietnam War, 1205 use of helicopters by, 474–475 See also JACKSTAY, Operation; Special Landing Force (SLF) United States Merchant Marine, 1205–1206 United States Navy, 780, 1206–1208, 1207 (image), 1275, 1321 (image) adverse effects of the Vietnam War on, 1208 Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC), 270 lack of preparedness for the Vietnam War, 1206 U.S. Seventh Fleet, 268, 268 (image) warships of, 1322–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) See also DeSoto Missions; Dixie Station; Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of; GAME WARDEN, Operation; Guam; JACKSTAY, Operation; Naval gunfire support; Riverine craft; Riverine warfare; YANKEE TEAM, Operation United States Navy Fighter Weapons School. See Top Gun School United States Navy River Patrol Force. See Task Force 116 United States Reserve Components, 1208–1212

Index calling up of reservists, 1209 categories of reservists, 1209 organization, training, and structure of, 1208–1209 reservists serving in the Vietnam War Air Force Reserve, 1210 Air National Guard, 1210 Army National Guard, 1210–1211 Army Reserve, 1211 Navy Reserve, 1211 See also United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize, 1211–1212 United States Special Forces (USSF), 1212– 1216, 1213 (image) United States Special Operations Forces (SOF), 579 United States Veterans Administration (VA), 1216 United States v. O’Brien (1968), 1217 United States v. Seeger (1965), 1217–1218 United We Stand, 893 University of Wisconsin bombing, 1218–1219 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 236 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (1960), 545 U.S. v. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (1972), 1198 U Thant, 700, 1165, 1221, 1221 (image) Ut, Nick, 1219–1220, 1219 (image) UTAH, Operation, 1220 casualties of, 1220 Valluy, Jean-Étienne, 532, 1223, 1241, 1242 telegram to Pierre-Louis Debès, 1389Doc. Van Ba. See Ho Chi Minh VAN BUREN, Operation, 1223–1224 casualties of, 1224 Van Cao, 1224 Vance, Cyrus, 64, 876, 1224–1226, 1225 (image), 1345 Vance incident, 66–67 Van Devanter, Lynda, 1294 Van Es, Hubert, 1226–1227, 1226 (image) Van Fleet, James A., 606, 972 Vang Pao, 96, 632, 965, 1227 Van Lang, 1228 Vann, John Paul, 65, 467, 600, 1035, 1228– 1229, 1228 (image) Van Tien Dung, 93, 94, 1229–1230, 1229 (image), 1252 Vaught, James B., 276 Versace, Humbert Rocque, 933, 1126, 1230–1231 Vessey, John W., Jr., 73, 761, 820, 1180, 1231– 1232, 1231 (image), 1278 Veteran Outreach Centers (Vet Centers), 657, 925 Veterans for America (VFA), 780, 781

Vientiane Agreement, 1232–1233, 1232 (image) Vientiane Protocol, 1233–1234 Viet Cong (VC), xli, xliv, 15, 75, 77, 78, 141, 157, 163, 169, 171, 183, 184, 215, 244, 319, 372, 394, 537, 638, 795 (image), 1238, 1240, 1245, 1265, 1323 atrocities committed by, 79, 80, 519, 521– 522, 521 (image) effect of the Tet Offensive on, 1104, 1304 infrastructure of, 1234–1235, 1234 (image) military logistics used in Vietnam, 678 use of tunnels by, 245, 248–249 See also Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Viet Cong Military Region IV, 100, 180 Viet Minh, xli, 140, 174, 199, 243, 289, 298, 307, 310, 386, 412, 493, 497, 500, 536, 544–545, 822, 898, 1162, 1199, 1235, 1236 (map), 1237, 1240, 1244, 1250, 1287, 1332 Chinese support of, 293, 532–533, 1199 contributions of Japanese deserters to, 545 creation of, 628 impact of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on, 547 land reform of, 621 military logistics used in Vietnam, 677–678 OSS support of, 862, 1167 river warfare of, 387 See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Vietnam, climate of, 1237–1238, 1237 (image) impact of climate and terrain on the Vietnam War, 1238–1240 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam), 35, 43, 52, 238, 378, 401, 422, 495, 500, 501, 536, 537 bombing of, 122, 123 (map), 124, 325, 1246 declaration of independence, 1377–1378Doc. peace proposal of, 1635–1636Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/TW, 1624–1625Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/TW, 1658–1659Doc. Soviet and Chinese military support for, 324 statement of, 1644–1647Doc. U.S. trade embargo against, 343–345, 344 (table) See also Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]); Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]) Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]), 1240–1242, 1241 (image) national call to arms in, 1242 negotiations with the French, 1241–1242 surrender of the French in, 1242 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]), 1243–1247, 1243 (image), 1245 (image)

I-23

acceptance of the Geneva Accords by, 1245 declaration on normalizing relations between northern and southern zones, 1451–1452Doc. emigration from, 1244 goals of, 1244–1245 people’s courts in, 1244 and reunification, 1244, 1250 role of the peasantry in land reform, 1243–1244 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force (Vietnam People’s Air Force [VPAF]), 1247–1249, 1248 (image) air defense system of, 1248 effects of U.S. bombing on, 1248–1249 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Armed Forces (Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces [RVNAF]), 1269, 1270 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army (People’s Army of Vietnam [PAVN]), xlii, xliv, xlv, xlvi, 7, 14, 30, 49–50, 51, 77, 78–79, 93, 142, 157, 163, 169, 201 (image), 208, 215, 225, 226, 244, 290, 291, 390–391, 1239, 1240, 1245, 1247, 1249–1253, 1265 artillery used by, 71–72, 1251 (table) defense of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by, 505 in eastern Cambodia, 155 equipment of, 1252 initial lack of organization in, 1249 logistics of, 1251–1252 military logistics used in Vietnam, 679–680 number of personnel in, 1250, 1252 origin of, 167 reunification of Vietnam as driving force behind its strategy, 1250 support of the Pathet Lao by, 411, 412 tanks as prime targets of, 63 use of tanks by, 1252 victories of over the French, 1249–1250 and wartime atrocities, 79–80 women in, 1348–1349 See also Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Navy (Vietnam People’s Navy [VPN]), 1321 Vietnam, geography of, 416–417 Vietnam, history of (prehistory to 938 CE), 1252–1254 Chinese domination of, 1253–1254 prehistory, 1253 under the Thuc and the Trieu, 1253 Vietnam, history of (938 CE through the French conquest), 1254–1255, 1255 (image), 1256 (map), 1257–1258, 1257 (image) cultural development during, 1255, 1257 French conquest during, 1257–1258 and the Nam Tien (March to the South), 1257 Vietnamese dynasties, 1254–1255

I-24

Index

Vietnam, Republic of (RVN, South Vietnam), xli, 43, 64, 173, 324, 500, 501, 536, 1238, 1258–1264, 1259 (image), 1260 (image), 1264 (image) aid to under the Kennedy administration, 83 declaration of concerning reunification, 1458Doc. document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks, 1642–1643Doc. Law 10/59 of, 1472Doc. national assembly and constitution of, 1260, 1263 national elections in, 329–332, 331 (image) 1955 election, 330 1967 election, 330–331 1971 election, 331–332 opposition to Diem within, 1260–1261, 1262 opposition to the Paris peace agreements, 1264 peace proposal of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1636–1637Doc. prime ministers of, 1955–1975, 1135 (table) protests by students and Buddhist monks in, 1262 statement of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1641–1642Doc. Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force, 1264–1266, 1269 expansion of, 1265 types of U.S. planes used in, 1264–1265 Vietnam, Republic of, Army (Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN]), xli, xlv, 2, 15, 51, 57, 58, 64, 100, 101, 180, 208, 226, 240 (image), 278, 292, 319, 347, 422, 1261, 1266–1268, 1267 (image), 1268 (image) and the Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 160–161 corruption in, 1266–1267 fighting against the Binh Xuyen, 169 lack of leadership in, 1268 military logistics used in Vietnam, 678, 679 military strength of (1955–1972), 1266 (table) number of personnel in, 1268 organization of, 1268 pacification efforts of, 1246 U.S. training of, 1267 women in, 1348–1349 See also Enclave strategy; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff (JGS), 1269–1270 Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps (RVNMC), 1270–1271, 1271 (image) Vietnam, Republic of, National Police, 1271–1273 National Police Field Force (NPFF), 1272

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy (VNN), 1273– 1275, 1274 (image), 1321–1322 and the Cambodian Incursion, 1274 deficiencies of, 1273–1274 patrol of the coastal zones by, 1273 River Force of, 1273 Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center, 1275 Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces, 244, 1276 Vietnam, Socialist Republic of (SRV), 204, 1276–1282, 1277 (image), 1279 (image), 1281 (image), 1286 Doi Moi reform program in, 303, 820, 1278–1279 economic growth in after 2000, 1281–1282 economy of, 1277 farm collectivization in, 1277 liberalization in, 1280 lifting of the trade embargo against, 1674–1675Doc. outside investment in, 1280–1281 PAVN influence in, 1280 political struggles in, 1279–1280 population of, 1281 post–Vietnam War problems faced by, 1276 power of the Communist Party in, 1276–1277 relations with Cambodia, 1278 relations with China, 1278 relations with the United States, 1280, 1675–1676Doc. Vietnam Independence League. See Viet Minh Vietnam Information Group (VIG), 1287–1288 Vietnam Magazine, 1289–1290 Vietnam Nationalist Party. See Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party) Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party), 833, 1290–1291 admission of women to, 1347 Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association. See Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Syndrome, 1291–1292 Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, 1292–1293 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), 610, 657, 1293–1295, 1294 (image) Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), 1297–1298 statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1630–1632Doc. Vietnam Veterans Intertribe Association, 798 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 658, 1022, 1295– 1297, 1296 (image) Vietnam War (1961–1975), xliii (image), xlvi (image), 675 as “America’s first rock-and-roll war,” 782 casualties of, 175–176, 175 (table), 1247 cost of, xlii, 426 (table)

economic indicators during, 1314 (table) effect of on the U.S. economy, 325–327 escalation of, xliii goals of, xliii as the “Helicopter War,” 30 as “Johnson’s War,” 551 as a “living room war,” 728 number of U.S. deaths in, xlii opposition to in the United States, 551 overview of, xli–xlvi as the “television” war, 242, 1099 War Zone C, 555 See also Historiography, of the Vietnam War; Women, in the Vietnam War Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, 1126 Vietnam War frauds and fakes, 1298–1299 Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), 1276– 1277, 1282–1283 Vietnamese culture, 1283–1286, 1285 (image), 1286 (image) effects of war on, 1285 fine arts of, 1284–1285 influence of Chinese culture on, 1283–1284 literature of, 1284 music of, 1284 under Communism, 1285–1286 Vietnamese National Army, 1286–1287 Vietnamese Workers’ Party Third National Congress on missions and policies, 1476–1478Doc. Vietnamization, xlv, 48, 163, 170, 224, 594, 615, 616, 679, 847, 1074, 1175, 1246, 1265, 1288–1289, 1289 (image). See also Jaunissement Vilers, Le Myre de, 79 Vinh, 1299–1300 Vinh San. See Duy Tan Vinh Yen, Battle of, 497 Vo Bam, 1133 Vo Chi Cong, 1300 Vogt, John W., Jr., 1301, 1301 (image) Voices in Vital America (VIVA), 797, 1301–1302 Vo Nguyen Giap, xli, xlv, 51, 81, 167, 175, 324– 325, 386, 497, 514, 556–557, 579, 582, 618, 634, 638, 642–643, 684, 693, 759, 791, 801, 998, 1046, 1102, 1105, 1249, 1252, 1279, 1302–1304, 1303 (image) initial actions of against the French in Vietnam, 1240–1241, 1242, 1303 issuance of a national call to arms by, 1303 as leader of the military campaign against the Republic of Vietnam, 1303–1304 opposition to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, 1304 “People’s War, People’s Army,” 1463–1472Doc. report on the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 1429–1430Doc. revamping of the Viet Minh’s intelligence organization, 636

Index See also Dau Tranh strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Indochina War Voting Rights Act (1965), 591 Vo Tran Chi, 1304 Vo Van Ba, 1304–1305 Vo Van Kiet, 1278, 1305–1306, 1305 (image) Vua Duc Tong. See Tu Duc Vua Thanh To. See Minh Mang Vu Hai Thu. See Nguyen Hai Than Vu Hong Khanh, 1307–1307 VULTURE, Operation, 847, 907, 957, 1169, 1307–1308 Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong spy case, 1308 Vung Tau, 1308–1309, 1309 (image) Vung Tau Charter, 827 Vu Oanh, 1309–1310 Vu Quoc Thuc, 1310 Vu Thu Hien, 639 Vu Van Giai, 1310–1311 Vu Van Giang. See Vu Hong Khanh Wage and price controls, 1313–1314, 1314 (table) Waldron, Adelbert F., III, 1314–1315 Walkabout, Billy, 798 Walker, Walton, 605, 606 Wallace, George C., 335, 339, 646, 1315–1316, 1315 (image) Walt, Lewis William, 207, 1316–1317, 1316 (image) Ware, Keith Lincoln, 1106, 1317 Warner, John, 250 (image) Warnke, Paul Culliton, 1317–1319, 1318 (image) War Powers Act (1973), 546, 849, 1064, 1178, 1197, 1319–1320 text of, 1657–1658Doc. War Resisters League, 1320–1321 Warships, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1321–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) Wars of national liberation, 1323–1324 War Zones C and D, 1324–1326, 1325 (image) WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation, 873, 1326–1327 Washington Special Actions Group, 1327 Wasiak, Joseph E., 276 Watergate Scandal, 187, 530, 595, 763, 772–773, 847, 849, 892, 1020, 1203, 1327–1329, 1328 (image)

Weathermen, 1218–1219, 1329–1330, 1330 (image) Webb, James Henry, Jr., 1330–1331, 1331 (image) Wei Guoqing, 1331–1332 Weiner, David, 973 (image) Weiner, Lee, 192 Weinglass, Leonard, 192 Weiss, Cora, 1333 Welsh v. United States (1970), 1218, 1333– 1335, 1334 (image) Westmoreland, William C., xliii, 81, 118, 180, 215, 235, 236, 244, 300, 302, 346, 406, 458, 461, 462, 509 (image), 513, 517, 550, 555, 576, 578, 579–580, 596, 599, 608– 609, 625, 693, 700, 723, 728 (image), 771, 844, 845, 872, 887, 934, 1078, 1092, 1204, 1209, 1318, 1335–1337, 1336 (image) accusations against concerning enemy casualty figures, 1336–1337 and the buildup of U.S. troops in Vietnam, 219, 510, 550, 551, 747, 991, 1094, 1105, 1173–1174 difficulties with ROKA forces in Vietnam, 602 lawsuit against CBS, 865–866 National Press Club address, 1591–1592Doc. on the operations in War Zones C and D, 1325–1326 and the Peers Inquiry, 886, 887 reaction to the Tet Offensive, 1136 service of in Korea, 1335 on SLAM, 1049 strategies and tactics employed by, 598, 1335–1336 view of the media, 729, 1100 view of pacification, 871 See also Honolulu Conference (1967); Khe Sanh, Battle of; Search and destroy Weyand, Frederick Carlton, 347, 1103, 1105, 1106, 1177, 1337–1338 Whalen, Charles W., Jr., 1197 Wheeler, Earle Gilmore, 118, 1105, 1174, 1338–1339, 1338 (image), 1345 (image) report on the situation in Vietnam, 1597–1599Doc. Wheeler, Jack, 1295, 1296 WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation, 784, 1340–1341, 1341 (image) White Star Mobile Training Teams, 1341 Whitley, Glenna, 1298 Wickwire, Peter, 139

I-25

Wiener, Sam, 69 Wild Weasels, 1341–1342 Wilk, David, 1299 Williams, Charles Q., 308 Williams, Samuel Tankersley, 319, 1342–1343 Willoughby, Frank C., 624 Wilson, Charles E., 409 Wilson, George C., 1 Wilson, James Harold, 1078, 1164, 1343–1344, 1343 (image) Wilson, Thomas Woodrow, 1344 Wilson, Woodrow, 315, 401, 663 Winter Soldier Investigation, 574, 657, 1083 Wise Men, 551, 716, 782, 972, 1225, 1344– 1346, 1345 (image) Women, in the Vietnam War U.S. women, 1346–1347, 1346 (image) Vietnamese women, 1347–1349, 1348 (image) Women Strike for Peace, 1349 Women’s Liberation Association (WLA), 1348 Women’s Solidarity League, 967 Woodring, Willard, 139 Woods, Robert, 1151 Woodstock, 1349–1350, 1350 (image) Woodward, Gilbert H., 948 Wyatt, Clarence R., 727 Xa Loi Pagoda Raid, 1351–1352 Xuan Loc, Battle of, 1352 Xuan Thuy, 876, 1352–1353, 1353 (image) XYZ, 820 Yankee Station, 1355 YANKEE TEAM, Operation, 1356–1357, 1356

(image) Yellowing. See Jaunissement YELLOWSTONE, Operation, 1357 Yen Bay (or Yen Bai) Mutiny, 833, 1358 Young, Samuel, 1072 Young Americans for Freedom, 923 Young Turks, 753, 796, 816, 841, 1138, 1262 Youth International Party (Yippies), 192, 506, 1000, 1358–1360, 1359 (image) Zhang Xueliang, 702 Zhou Enlai, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200 (image), 412, 595, 1361–1362, 1362 (image) Zhu De, 196, 702 Zorthian, Barry, 553, 728, 1362–1363 Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr., 250 (image), 956, 956 (image), 1025, 1203 (image), 1363–1364, 1363 (image)

This page intentionally left blank

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR Second Edition

This page intentionally left blank

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR A Political, Social, and Military History, Second Edition

VOLUME II: H–P

Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Editor Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Associate Editor

Merle L. Pribbenow II Dr. James H. Willbanks, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (retired) Dr. David T. Zabecki, Major General, Army of the United States (retired) Assistant Editors

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history / Spencer C. Tucker, editor. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-960-3 (hard back : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-85109-961-0 (e-book) 1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Encyclopedias. I. Tucker, Spencer, 1937– DS557.7.E53 2011 959.704’3—dc22 2011007604 ISBN: 978-1-85109-960-3 EISBN: 978-1-85109-961-0 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

To all those who fought in the Indochina and Vietnam Wars

About the Editor

Spencer C. Tucker, PhD, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was a Fulbright scholar in France. He was a U.S. Army captain and an intelligence analyst in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and then taught for 30 years at Texas Christian University before returning to his alma mater for 6 years as the holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History. He retired from teaching in 2003. He is now Senior Fellow of Military History at ABC-CLIO. Dr. Tucker has written or edited 38 books, including ABC-CLIO’s award-winning The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as the comprehensive A Global Chronology of Conflict.

E DITORIAL A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Col. Walter J. Boyne

Dr. Carol Reardon

U.S. Air Force (Ret.)

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. David Coffey Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Shawn Livingston, MLIS Director of Information Service University of Kentucky Libraries

Capt. Carl O. Schuster

Dr. Michael R. Nichols

U.S. Navy (Ret.) Adjunct Professor Hawaii Pacific University

Department of Social Sciences Tarrant County College

Sandra Wittman Library Services Oakton Community College

Nguyen Cong Luan Independent Scholar

Cartographer Internal Mapping Associates

ABC-CLIO M ILITARY H ISTORY A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Dr. David Coffey

Dr. Carol Reardon

Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Don Hickey

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts

Professor of History Department of History Wayne State College (Nebraska)

Associate Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Dr. James Matray Professor and Chair Department of History California State University, Chico

Dr. James H. Wi llbanks Director, Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth

Dr. Jack McCallum Adjunct Professor Department of History and Geography Texas Christian University

Dr. Steven E. Woodworth Professor of History Department of History Texas Christian University

Dr. Justin D. Murphy Director, Academy of Freedom; Brand Professor of History Department of History, Political Science, and Geography Howard Payne University

Dr. Jim Piecuch Associate Professor of History Department of History Kennesaw State University

Dr. David T. Zabecki Major General Army of the United States, Retired Honory Senior Research Fellow in War Studies University of Birmingham, England

Contents Volume I: A–G List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv Foreword xxvii Preface xxxi General Maps xxxiii Overview of the Vietnam War Entries 1 Index I-1

Volume III: Q–Z List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 951 Index I-1 xli

Volume IV: Documents List of Documents xi Introduction—xvii Documents 1365 Appendix A: Unit Designations 1679 Appendix B: Military Ranks 1683 Appendix C: Order of Battle 1691 Chronology 1731 Glossary 1765 Selected Bibliography 1779 List of Editors and Contributors 1789 Categorical Index 1795 Index I-1

Volume II: H–P List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 439 Index I-1

ix

This page intentionally left blank

List of Entries

VOLUME I

Amerasians American Friends of Vietnam American Red Cross Amnesty Amphibious Warfare Andersen Air Force Base Angkor Wat An Khe An Loc, Battle of Annam Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Antiwar Movement, U.S. Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. APACHE SNOW, Operation Ap Bac, Battle of Arc Light Missions Armored Personnel Carriers Armored Warfare Army Concept Team in Vietnam Arnett, Peter Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius Art and the Vietnam War Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Artillery Fire Doctrine A Shau Valley A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for Assimilation versus Association Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam ATLAS WEDGE, Operation Atrocities during the Vietnam War ATTLEBORO, Operation

ABILENE, Operation

Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr. Abzug, Bella Acheson, Dean Gooderham Adams, Edward Adams, Samuel A. Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee African Americans in the U.S. Military Agnew, Spiro Theodore Agricultural Reform Tribunals Agroville Program Aiken, George David Air America Airborne Operations Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Aircraft, Bombers Aircraft Carriers Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Air Mobility Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company Airpower, Role in War Air-to-Air Missiles Air-to-Ground Missiles Air War Study Group Report, Cornell University ALA MOANA, Operation Alessandri, Marcel Ali, Muhammad Alpha Strike Alsop, Joseph Wright, V Alvarez, Everett, Jr. xi

xii

List of Entries

Attrition August Revolution Au Lac, Kingdom of Australia BABYLIFT, Operation Bach Dang River, Battle of Ba Cut Baez, Joan Chandos Ball, George Wildman Baltimore Four Ban Karai Pass Ban Me Thuot, Battle of Bao Dai Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr. BARREL ROLL, Operation Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul Beckwith, Charles Alvin Ben Suc Ben Tre, Battle of Berger, Samuel David Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, Philip Bidault, Georges Bien Hoa Air Base Binh Gia, Battle of BINH TAY I–IV, Operations Binh Xuyen Bird & Sons Black Flags Black Muslims Black Panthers Blaizot, Roger Blassie, Michael Joseph BLU-82/B Bomb BLUE LIGHT, Operation Blum, Léon Body Armor Body Count BOLD MARINER, Operation Bollaert, Émile BOLO, Operation Bombing Halts and Restrictions Bombs, Gravity Booby Traps Bowles, Chester Bliss Bradley, Omar Nelson Brady, Patrick Henry BRAVO I and II, Operations Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation Brown, George Scratchley

Brown, Hubert Gerald Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr. Browne, Malcolm Wilde Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz Buddhism in Vietnam BUFFALO, Operation Bui Diem Bui Phat Bui Tin BULLET SHOT, Operation Bundy, McGeorge Bundy, William Putnam Bunker, Ellsworth Burchett, Wilfred Burkett, Bernard Gary Bush, George Herbert Walker Calley, William Laws, Jr. Cambodia Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of Cambodian Airlift Cambodian Incursion Camden 28 Cam Lo Camp Carroll Cam Ranh Bay Canada Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang Cao Bang Cao Dai Cao Van Vien Caravelle Group Carpentier, Marcel Carter, James Earl, Jr. Case, Clifford Philip Case-Church Amendment CASTOR, Operation Casualties Catholicism in Vietnam Catonsville Nine Catroux, Georges CEDAR FALLS, Operation Cédile, Jean Central Highlands Central Intelligence Agency Central Office for South Vietnam Chams and the Kingdom of Champa CHAOS, Operation Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr. Chappelle, Georgette Meyer Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph

List of Entries CHECO Project Chennault, Anna Chennault, Claire Lee Chicago Eight Chieu Hoi Program China, People’s Republic of China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam China, Republic of Chinese in Vietnam Chomsky, Avram Noam Church, Frank Forrester Chu Van Tan Civic Action Civilian Irregular Defense Group Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support Civil Rights Movement Clarey, Bernard Ambrose Clark, William Ramsey Clark Air Force Base Clear and Hold Cleland, Joseph Maxwell Clemenceau, Georges Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Clifford, Clark McAdams Clinton, William Jefferson Cochin China Coffin, William Sloane, Jr. Cogny, René Colby, William Egan Collins, Joseph Lawton COMMANDO FLASH, Operation COMMANDO HUNT, Operation Concerned Officers Movement “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report Conein, Lucien Emile Confucianism Conscientious Objectors Con Son Island Prison CONSTANT GUARD, Operation Containment Policy Con Thien, Siege of Continental Air Services Cooper, Chester Lawrence Cooper, John Sherman Cooper-Brooke Amendment Cooper-Church Amendment Corps Tactical Zones Counterculture Counterinsurgency Warfare CRIMP, Operation Cronauer, Adrian Cronkite, Walter Leland

Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines Cu Chi Tunnels Cunningham, Randall Harold Cuong De Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr. Da Faria, Antônio Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang Dak To, Battle of Da Lat Daley, Richard Joseph Da Nang DANIEL BOONE, Operation Dao Duy Tung D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Dau Tranh Strategy Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr. Davis, Raymond Gilbert Davis, Rennard Cordon Day, George Everett Dean, John Gunther Dèbes, Pierre-Louis De Castries, Christian Marie DECKHOUSE V, Operation Decoux, Jean Deer Mission Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Defense Satellite Communications System DEFIANT STAND, Operation Defoliation De Gaulle, Charles DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation Dellinger, David Demilitarized Zone Democratic National Convention of 1968 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr. DePuy, William Eugene De Rhodes, Alexandre DEROS Desertion, U.S. and Communist DeSoto Missions Détente De Tham Devillers, Philippe Dewey, Albert Peter DEWEY CANYON I, Operation DEWEY CANYON II, Operation Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dien Triet Lake, Battle of Dikes, Red River Delta Dinassauts Dith Pran

xiii

xiv

List of Entries

Dixie Station Doan Khue Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich Do Cao Tri Doi Moi Domino Theory Do Muoi Don Dien Dong Ha, Battle of Dong Quan Pacification Project Dong Xoai, Battle of Donlon, Roger Hugh C. Donovan, William Joseph Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III Do Quang Thang DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation Doumer, Paul Drugs and Drug Use Dulles, Allen Welsh Dulles, John Foster Duong Quynh Hoa Duong Van Duc Duong Van Minh Dupuis, Jean Durbrow, Elbridge Dustoff Duy Tan Dylan, Bob EAGLE PULL, Operation

Easter Offensive Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War Eden, Sir Robert Anthony Eisenhower, Dwight David Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971 Elections, U.S., 1964 Elections, U.S., 1968 Elections, U.S., 1972 Elections, U.S., 1976 Electronic Intelligence Ellsberg, Daniel EL PASO II, Operation Ély, Paul Henri Romuald Elysée Agreement Embargo, U.S. Trade Enclave Strategy ENHANCE, Operation ENHANCE PLUS, Operation ENTERPRISE, Operation Enthoven, Alain Enuol, Y Bham Ethnology of Southeast Asia

European Defense Community Ewell, Julian Johnson FAIRFAX, Operation

Fall, Bernard B. FARM GATE, Operation Faure, Edgar Federal Bureau of Investigation Fellowship of Reconciliation Felt, Harry Donald Fernandez, Richard Ferry, Jules Film and the Vietnam Experience Fire-Support Bases Fishel, Wesley Robert Fishhook Five O’Clock Follies FLAMING DART I and II, Operations Flexible Response Fonda, Jane Seymour Fontainebleau Conference Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Ford, Gerald Rudolph Forrestal, Michael Vincent Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire Fortas, Abraham Fort Hood Three Forward Air Controllers Four-Party Joint Military Commission Fragging France, Air Force, 1946–1954 France, Army, 1946–1954 France, Navy, 1946–1954 France and Vietnam, 1954–Present FRANCIS MARION, Operation Franco-Thai War Fratricide FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation Free Fire Zones Free World Assistance Program French Foreign Legion in Indochina French Indochina, 1860s–1946 FREQUENT WIND, Operation Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées Fulbright, James William Galbraith, John Kenneth Galloway, Joseph Lee GAME WARDEN, Operation Garnier, Marie Joseph François Garwood, Robert Russell

List of Entries Gavin, James Maurice Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth Gelb, Leslie Howard Geneva Accords of 1962 Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954 Geneva Convention of 1949 Genovese, Eugene Dominick Geography of Indochina and Vietnam Germany, Federal Republic of Ginsberg, Allen Godley, George McMurtrie Goldberg, Arthur Joseph Goldman, Eric Frederick Goldwater, Barry Morris Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gracey, Douglas David Gravel, Maurice Robert Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr. Great Society Program GREELEY, Operation Greene, Graham Greene, Wallace Martin Grenade Launchers Groupement Mobile 100, Destruction of Gruening, Ernest Henry Guam Guam Conference Guizot, François Gulf of Tonkin Incident Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

VOLUME II Habib, Philip Charles Hackworth, David Haskell Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. Hainan Island Haiphong Haiphong, Shelling of Halberstam, David Halperin, Morton H. Hamburger Hill, Battle of Hamlet Evaluation System Ham Nghi Hand Grenades Hanoi Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Hanoi Hannah Harassment and Interdiction Fires Hardhats Harkins, Paul Donal Harriman, William Averell

Harris, David Hartke, Vance Rupert HARVEST MOON, Operation HASTINGS, Operation Hatfield, Mark Odom Hatfield-McGovern Amendment HAWTHORNE, Operation Hayden, Thomas Emmett Healy, Michael D. Heath, Donald Read Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam Helms, Richard McGarrah Henderson, Oran K. Heng Samrin Herbert, Anthony Herbicides Hersh, Seymour Myron Hershey, Lewis Blaine Herz, Alice Hickey, Gerald Cannon HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON 54, Operation HICKORY II, Operation High National Council Hilsman, Roger Hilsman-Forrestal Report Hispanics in the U.S. Military Historiography, Vietnam War Hmongs Hoa Binh, Battle of Hoa Hao Hoa Lo Prison Hoang Duc Nha HOANG HOA THAM, Operation Hoang Van Hoan Hoang Van Thai Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh Campaign Ho Chi Minh Trail Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur Hoffman, Abbie HOMECOMING, Operation Honolulu Conference Hooper, Joe Ronnie Hoopes, Townsend Hoover, John Edgar Hope, Leslie Townes HOP TAC, Operation Ho-Sainteny Agreement Hot Pursuit Policy Hourglass Spraying System Hue

xv

xvi

List of Entries

Hue, Battle of Hue and Da Nang, Fall of Hue Massacre Humanitarian Operation Program Humphrey, Hubert Horatio Hun Sen Huston Plan Huynh Phu So Huynh Tan Phat Huynh Van Cao Ia Drang, Battle of Imperial Presidency India Indochina War Indonesia International Commission for Supervision and Control International Rescue Committee International War Crimes Tribunal Iron Triangle IRVING, Operation Jackson State College Shootings JACKSTAY, Operation Jacobson, George D. James, Daniel, Jr. Japan Jaunissement Javits, Jacob Koppel JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation Jiang Jieshi Johnson, Harold Keith Johnson, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech Johnson, Ural Alexis Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office Jones, David Charles JUNCTION CITY, Operation K-9 Corps Kampuchean National Front Kattenburg, Paul Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville Kelly, Charles L. Kelly, Francis J. Kennan, George Frost Kennedy, Edward Moore Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Robert Francis Kent State University Shootings KENTUCKY, Operation Kep Airfield

Kerrey, Joseph Robert Kerry, John Forbes Kerwin, Walter T., Jr. Key West Agreement Khai Dinh Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, Fall of Khe Sanh, Battle of Khieu Samphan Khmer Kampuchea Krom Khmer Rouge Khmer Serai Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Kien An Airfield King, Martin Luther, Jr. KINGFISHER, Operation Kinnard, Harry William Osborn Kissinger, Henry Alfred Kit Carson Scouts Knowland, William Fife Koh Tang Komer, Robert W. Kong Le Kontum, Battle for Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korean War Koster, Samuel William, Sr. Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich Kovic, Ronald Kraft, Joseph Krulak, Victor H. Kunstler, William Moses Laird, Melvin Robert Lake, William Anthony Kirsop LAM SON 719, Operation Landing Zone Land Reform, Vietnam Lang Bac, Battle of Lang Son Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Laniel, Joseph Lansdale, Edward Geary Lao Dong Party Laos Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de Lavelle, John Daniel LÉA, Operation Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe Le Duan Le Duc Anh Le Duc Tho

List of Entries Le Dynasty Lefèbvre, Dominique LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Le Kha Phieu Le Loi LeMay, Curtis Emerson Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie Le Nguyen Khang Le Nguyen Vy Le Quang Tung Leroy, Catherine Le Thanh Nghi Le Thanh Tong Letourneau, Jean Le Trong Tan Le Van Hung Le Van Kim Le Van Vien Levy, Howard Brett LEXINGTON III, Operation Lifton, Robert Jay Lima Site 85 Lin, Maya Ying LINEBACKER I, Operation LINEBACKER II, Operation Lippmann, Walter Literature and the Vietnam War Loc Ninh, Military Operations near Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong Long Binh Long Chieng Long-Range Electronic Navigation Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols Lon Nol LORRAINE, Operation Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth Luce, Henry Robinson Lu Han Luong Ngoc Quyen Ly Bon Lynd, Staughton MacArthur, Douglas MACARTHUR, Operation Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Madman Strategy Mailer, Norman Malaysia MALHEUR I and II, Operations Manila Conference

xvii

Mansfield, Michael Joseph Mao Zedong March on the Pentagon MARIGOLD, Operation Marine Combined Action Platoons MARKET TIME, Operation Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Martin, Graham A. MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation Mayaguez Incident May Day Tribe MAYFLOWER, Operation McCain, John Sidney, Jr. McCain, John Sidney, III McCarthy, Eugene Joseph McCloy, John Jay McCone, John Alex McConnell, John Paul McGarr, Lionel Charles McGee, Gale William McGovern, George Stanley McNamara, Robert Strange McNamara Line McNaughton, John Theodore McPherson, Harry Cummings Meaney, George Medevac Media and the Vietnam War Medicine, Military Medics and Corpsmen Medina, Ernest Lou Mekong Delta Mekong River Mekong River Project Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham Mendès-France, Pierre MENU, Operation Michigan State University Advisory Group Midway Island Conference Military Airlift Command Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Military Decorations Military Regions Military Revolutionary Council Military Sealift Command Mine Warfare, Land Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations Minh Mang Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam

xviii

List of Entries

Mini–Tet Offensive Missing in Action, Allied Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist Mitchell, John Newton Mobile Guerrilla Forces Mobile Riverine Force Mobile Strike Force Commands Moffat, Abbot Low Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Momyer, William Wallace Montagnards Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr. Moore, Robert Brevard Moorer, Thomas Hinman Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam Mordant, Eugène Morrison, Norman Morse, Wayne Lyman Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Mortuary Affairs Operations Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Moyers, Billy Don Mu Gia Pass Muller, Robert Munich Analogy Murphy, Robert Daniel Music and the Vietnam War Muste, Abraham Johannes My Lai Massacre Nam Dong, Battle of Nam Tien Nam Viet Napalm Napoleon III Na San, Battle of National Assembly Law 10/59 National Bank of Vietnam National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam National Leadership Council National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia National Security Action Memorandum Number 328 Native Americans in the U.S. Military Naval Gunfire Support Navarre, Henri Eugène Navarre Plan Neutrality

NEVADA EAGLE, Operation

New Jersey, USS New Zealand Ngo Dinh Can Ngo Dinh Diem Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Khoi Ngo Dinh Luyen Ngo Dinh Nhu Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Ngo Dinh Thuc Ngo Quang Truong Ngo Quyen Nguyen Binh Nguyen Cao Ky Nguyen Chanh Thi Nguyen Chi Thanh Nguyen Co Thach Nguyen Duy Trinh Nguyen Dynasty Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Ha Phan Nguyen Hue Nguyen Huu An Nguyen Huu Co Nguyen Huu Tho Nguyen Huu Tri Nguyen Khanh Nguyen Khoa Nam Nguyen Luong Bang Nguyen Manh Cam Nguyen Ngoc Loan Nguyen Ngoc Tho Nguyen Phuc Anh Nguyen Sinh Sac Nguyen Thai Hoc Nguyen Thi Binh Nguyen Thi Dinh Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Nguyen Tuong Tam Nguyen Van Binh Nguyen Van Cu Nguyen Van Hieu Nguyen Van Hinh Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Thieu Nguyen Van Toan Nguyen Van Xuan Nguyen Viet Thanh NIAGARA, Operation Nitze, Paul Henry

List of Entries Nixon, Richard Milhous Nixon Doctrine Noel, Chris Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr. Nong Duc Manh Novosel, Michael, Sr. Nui Ba Den Nuon Chea Nurses, U.S. Oakland Army Base Oberg, Jean-Christophe O’Daniel, John Wilson Office of Strategic Services Olds, Robin Olongapo, Philippines Operation Plan 34A Order of Battle Dispute Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard Pacification Palme, Olof Palmer, Bruce, Jr. Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Paris Negotiations Paris Peace Accords Parrot’s Beak PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation Pathet Lao Patti, Archimedes L. A. Patton, George Smith, IV PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations Paul VI, Pope Pearson, Lester Bowles Peers, William R. Peers Inquiry PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, Operation PENNSYLVANIA, Operation Pentagon Papers and Trial People’s Self-Defense Forces Perot, Henry Ross PERSHING, Operation Peterson, Douglas Brian Pham Cong Tac Pham Duy Pham Hung Pham Ngoc Thao Pham The Duyet Pham Van Dong Pham Van Phu Pham Xuan An

Phan Boi Chau Phan Chu Trinh Phan Dinh Phung Phan Huy Quat Phan Khac Suu Phan Quang Dan Phan Van Khai Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix Philippines Phnom Penh Phoenix Program Phoumi Nosavan PIERCE ARROW, Operation Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre Pignon, Léon PIRANHA, Operation PIRAZ Warships Pistols Plain of Jars Plain of Reeds Pleiku Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich Poland Polgar, Thomas Pol Pot POPEYE, Operation Porter, William James Port Huron Statement Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Potsdam Conference Poulo Condore Powell, Colin Luther PRAIRIE I, Operation PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations Precision-Guided Munitions Prisoners of War, Allied Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam Project Agile Project Delta Project Omega Project 100,000 Project Sigma Protective Reaction Strikes PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation Provincial Reconnaissance Units Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam Proxmire, Edward William Psychological Warfare Operations Public Opinion and the War, U.S. Pueblo Incident

xix

xx

List of Entries

Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr. Punji Stake

VOLUME III Quach Tom Quadrillage/Ratissage Quang Ngai Quang Tri, Battle of Qui Nhon Quoc Ngu Racial Violence within the U.S. Military Radford, Arthur William Radio Direction Finding RANCH HAND, Operation RAND Corporation Raven Forward Air Controllers Read, Benjamin Huger Reagan, Ronald Wilson Red River Delta Red River Fighter Pilots Association Reeducation Camps Refugees and Boat People Reinhardt, George Frederick Republican Youth Research and Development Field Units Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Revers Report Rheault, Robert B. Richardson, John Hammond Ridenhour, Ronald Ridgway, Matthew Bunker Rifles Rigault de Genouilly, Charles Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for Risner, James Robinson River Assault Groups Riverine Craft Riverine Warfare Rivers, Lucius Mendel Road Watch Teams Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich Rockets and Rocket Launchers Rogers, William Pierce ROLLING THUNDER, Operation Romney, George Wilcken Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Rostow, Eugene Victor Rostow, Walt Whitman Route Coloniale 4, Battles for Route Packages

Rowe, James Nicholas Rubin, Jerry Rules of Engagement Rusk, David Dean Rusk-Thanat Agreement Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr. Russo, Anthony J., Jr. Sabattier, Gabriel Saigon Saigon Military Mission Sainteny, Jean Salan, Raoul Albin Louis Salisbury, Harrison Evans SAM HOUSTON, Operation San Antonio Formula Sanctuaries Sarraut, Albert Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. Schlesinger, James Rodney SCOTLAND, Operation Scruggs, Jan Craig Seabees SEA DRAGON, Operation Seale, Bobby SEALORDS SEAL Teams Seaman, Jonathan O. Sea Power, Role in War Search and Destroy Search-and-Rescue Operations Selective Service Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney SHINING BRASS, Operation Shoup, David Monroe Sigma I and II Sihanouk, Norodom Sijan, Lance Peter Simons, Arthur David Sino-French War Sino-Soviet Split Sino-Vietnamese War Sisowath Sirik Matak SLAM Smith, Walter Bedell Snepp, Frank Warren, III SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation Song Be, Battle of Son Tay Raid Son Thang Incident Souphanouvong

List of Entries Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Souvanna Phouma Spellman, Francis Joseph Spock, Benjamin McLane Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam Staley, Eugene STARLITE, Operation Starry, Donn Albert STEEL TIGER, Operation Stennis, John Cornelius Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II Stilwell, Richard Giles Stockdale, James Bond Stockdale, Sybil Bailey Strategic Air Command Strategic Hamlet Program Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Students for a Democratic Society Studies and Observation Group Submachine Guns Sullivan, William Healy Summers, Harry G., Jr. SUNFLOWER, Operation SUNRISE, Operation Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training Swift Boats Swift Boat Veterans for Truth SWITCHBACK, Operation Tache D’Huile Tactical Air Command Tallman, Richard Joseph Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Tan Son Nhut Taoism Tarr, Curtis W. Task Force 116 Task Force Oregon Taylor, Maxwell Davenport Taylor-McNamara Report Taylor-Rostow Mission Tay Ninh Tay Son Rebellion Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins Television and the Vietnam War Territorial Forces Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle TEXAS, Operation TEXAS STAR, Operation Thailand

Thanh Hoa Bridge Thanh Thai Thich Quang Duc Thich Tri Quang Thieu Tri Thomas, Allison Kent Thomas, Norman Mattoon Thompson, Hugh, Jr. Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thud Ridge THUNDERHEAD, Operation Tianjin, Treaty of Tiger Cages TIGER HOUND, Operation Tinker v. Des Moines TOAN THANG, Operation To Huu Ton Duc Thang Tonkin Ton That Dinh Ton That Thuyet Top Gun School Torture Tran Buu Kiem Tran Do Tran Dynasty Tran Hung Dao Tran Kim Tuyen Transportation Group 559 Tran Thien Khiem Tran Van Chuong Tran Van Do Tran Van Don Tran Van Giau Tran Van Hai Tran Van Huong Tran Van Lam Tran Van Tra Trieu Au Trieu Da Trinh Lords Truman, Harry S. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Truong Chinh Truong Dinh Dzu Truong Nhu Tang Truong Son Corridor Truong Son Mountains Tsuchihashi Yuitsu Tu Duc Tuesday Lunch Group Tunnel Rats

xxi

xxii

List of Entries

Tunnels Tu Ve Tuyen Quang, Siege of Twining, Nathan Farragut U Minh Forest Uniforms Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UNION I and II, Operations UNIONTOWN, Operation United Front United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars United Nations and the Vietnam War United Services Organization United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present United States, Nongovernmental Organizations, 1954–Present United States Agency for International Development United States Air Force United States Army United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii United States Army Special Services United States Coast Guard United States Congress and the Vietnam War United States Department of Justice United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam United States Information Agency United States Joint Chiefs of Staff United States Marine Corps United States Merchant Marine United States Navy United States Reserve Components United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Special Forces United States Veterans Administration United States v. O’Brien United States v. Seeger University of Wisconsin Bombing Ut, Nick UTAH, Operation U Thant Valluy, Jean-Étienne VAN BUREN, Operation Van Cao Vance, Cyrus Roberts

Van Es, Hubert Vang Pao Van Lang Vann, John Paul Van Tien Dung Versace, Humbert Rocque Vessey, John William, Jr. Vientiane Agreement Vientiane Protocol Viet Cong Infrastructure Viet Minh Vietnam, Climate of Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force Vietnam, Republic of, Army Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos Vietnam, Republic of, Da Lat Military Academy Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps Vietnam, Republic of, National Police Vietnam, Republic of, Navy Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Vietnamese Communist Party Vietnamese Culture Vietnamese National Army Vietnam Information Group Vietnamization Vietnam Magazine Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang Vietnam Syndrome Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Memorial Vietnam Veterans of America Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes Vinh Vo Chi Cong Vogt, John W., Jr. Voices in Vital America Vo Nguyen Giap Vo Tran Chi Vo Van Ba

List of Entries Vo Van Kiet Vu Hong Khanh VULTURE, Operation Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong Spy Case Vung Tau Vu Oanh Vu Quoc Thuc Vu Van Giai Wage and Price Controls Waldron, Adelbert F., III Wallace, George Corley, Jr. Walt, Lewis William Ware, Keith Lincoln Warnke, Paul Culliton War Powers Act War Resisters League Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Wars of National Liberation War Zone C and War Zone D WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation Washington Special Actions Group Watergate Scandal Weathermen Webb, James Henry, Jr. Wei Guoqing Weiss, Cora Welsh v. United States

Westmoreland, William Childs Weyand, Frederick Carlton Wheeler, Earle Gilmore WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation White Star Mobile Training Teams Wild Weasels Williams, Samuel Tankersley Wilson, James Harold Wilson, Thomas Woodrow Wise Men Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Women Strike for Peace Woodstock Xa Loi Pagoda Raid Xuan Loc, Battle of Xuan Thuy Yankee Station YANKEE TEAM, Operation YELLOWSTONE, Operation Yen Bai Mutiny Youth International Party Zhou Enlai Zorthian, Barry Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr.

xxiii

This page intentionally left blank

List of Maps

General Maps Map Key: xxix French Indochina, 1954: xxx Provinces of North Vietnam: xxxi Provinces of South Vietnam: xxxii Cease-Fire Areas of Control, January 1973: xxxiii Collapse of South Vietnam, March–April 1975: xxxiv

Demilitarized Zone: 279 Ethnology of Vietnam: 353 Expansion of Imperial Vietnam: 1256 French Conquest of Indochina, 1858–1893: 399 French Reoccupation of Indochina, September 1945–August 1946: 397 Indochina War: Situation in 1953: 1236 Indochina War in Northern Vietnam, 1946–1954: 534 Infiltration Routes: 504 Operation CEDAR FALLS, January 8–26, 1967: 181 Operation LAM SON 719, February 8–March 24, 1971: 618 Operation ROLLING THUNDER: Bombing Restrictions: 123 Operation ROLLING THUNDER, March 2, 1965–October 31, 1968: 992 Siege of Khe Sanh, January–April 1968: 581 South Vietnam: 752 Tet Offensive: Battle for Saigon, January–February 1968: 1106 III Corps Tactical Zone in South Vietnam: 241 Vietnamese Invasion of Cambodia and Sino-Vietnamese War, 1978–1979: 1047

Entry Maps Air War in Southeast Asia: 33 Ambush at LZ Albany, November 17, 1965: 620 Battle of Dak To, November 1967: 255 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, March 13–May 7, 1954: 295 Battle of Hamburger Hill, May 11–20, 1969: 448 Battle of Hue, January 31–February 25, 1968: 518 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, October 19–November 26, 1965: 529 Cambodian Incursion, April 29–July 22, 1970: 159 Corps Tactical Zones in South Vietnam: 1189

xxv

This page intentionally left blank

General Maps

This page intentionally left blank

Map Key X

Generic Troops

Brigade III

Cavalry

Regiment II

Forces/Troops/Infantry

Battalion I

Armored

Company

Armored Cavalry

Fortification/Redoubts

Mechanized

Fort/Station/Military Base

Air Assault

Battery/Artillery

International Boundary

Palisade

Major Roads

City

Minefields/Landmines

State Capital

Battle Site

Capital (of country)

Railroad

Bridge/Pass

Army Group

Hills

Army

Military Camp

Corps

Swamp

Division

Surrender

XXXXX

XXXX

XXX

XX

xxix

xxx

General Maps

General Maps

xxxi

xxxii

General Maps

General Maps

xxxiii

xxxiv

General Maps

H Habib, Philip Charles Birth Date: February 25, 1920 Death Date: May 26, 1992 Career diplomat and U.S. minister-counselor at the Saigon embassy in 1965–1966, subsequently the highest-ranking State Department official specializing in Vietnamese affairs. Philip Charles Habib was born on February 25, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Lebanese Maronite Christian family. He attended the University of Toledo for a time and received a BA degree in forestry at the University of Idaho in 1942. After serving with the U.S. Army in World War II, he earned a doctorate in agricultural economics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1952. In 1949 Habib joined the U.S. Foreign Service, where he enjoyed a long career, with service that included numerous posts at the State Department in Washington, D.C., and in the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). In 1965 he went to Saigon to serve as chief political adviser to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Habib returned to Saigon to participate in talks with officials of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) following President Nguyen Van Thieu’s 1967 election. As deputy assistant secretary of state, Habib accompanied General Earle Wheeler on a fact-finding mission to Saigon following the 1968 Tet Offensive. On March 25, 1968, Habib shocked the so-called Wise Men, President Lyndon Johnson’s senior policy advisers, with the pessimistic assessment that it would take 5 to 10 years to make any substantial progress in Vietnam. This led to President Johnson’s famous remark that “somebody poisoned the well” and ultimately to a significant change in U.S. policy on the war.

Habib was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks, and in November 1969 President Richard Nixon appointed him to head that delegation. In 1974 Habib was appointed assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and went to Saigon to determine the need for a $300 million supplemental aid package. During the first few months of 1975 Habib worked to obtain military and economic aid for Cambodia. From 1976–1978 during the Jimmy Carter administration Habib was undersecretary of state for political affairs. He retired in 1978 because of a heart attack. In 1981, however, President Ronald Reagan tapped Habib to serve as U.S. special envoy to the Middle East. He was given the unenviable task of brokering a peace agreement in war-torn Lebanon. After grueling negotiations and frantic shuttle diplomacy, Habib successfully arranged a cease-fire and resolved the crisis over control of West Beirut. The peace was soon broken, but Habib received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts in 1982. In 1986 the Reagan administration again appointed Habib a special envoy, this time to Central America, where he was to mediate the ongoing conflict in Nicaragua. After just five months on the job, however, Habib resigned, apparently because he viewed U.S. objectives in the region as impediments to peace. Habib died while vacationing in Puligny-Montrachet, France, on May 26, 1992. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Peace Accords; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore; Wise Men References Boykin, John. Cursed Is the Peacemaker: The American Diplomat versus the Israeli General, Beirut 1982. Belmont, CA: Applegate, 2002.

440

Hackworth, David Haskell

U.S. diplomat Philip C. Habib was chief negotiator for his country at the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam War. He is shown here in 1970. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Bui Diem. In The Jaws of History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Hackworth, David Haskell Birth Date: November 11, 1930 Death Date: May 4, 2005 Much-decorated soldier and strong critic of the war in Vietnam; later a defense commentator and journalist. David Haskell Hackworth was born on November 11, 1930, in Santa Monica, California. His family was of modest means, and in 1945 Hackworth enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 15 by falsifying his age. In October 1950 he went to Korea, where he served briefly with the 8th Rangers commanded by Captain John Paul Vann. In May 1951

Hackworth received a battlefield commission. In 1952 he returned to the United States after having been wounded four times. Later he served a second tour in Korea. In Hackworth’s early service, noncommissioned officer (NCO) veterans of World War II and the Korean War taught him the importance of hard training, discipline, unit cohesiveness, and confidence in being able to accomplish a mission. They instilled in him the necessity of being concerned for the welfare of the men and the need for commanders to personally lead and train. After two years as a civilian, Hackworth rejoined the army in December 1955 as a captain. In the early 1960s he was an infantry company commander in Germany, where he became known for training his men under battlefield conditions. He also became an outspoken opponent of the M-16 rifle, the early models of which were susceptible to jamming. In January 1965 Hackworth was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. Sent to the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, he studied

Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. counterinsurgency doctrine. Discussions with Special Forces officers who had served in Vietnam led him to become highly critical of army tactics that, in his view, failed to address basic issues of how to fight and win a guerrilla war. In July 1965 Hackworth, now a major, arrived in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with the 101st Airborne Division. During his one-year tour he served as brigade operations officer and battalion executive officer. Upon his return to the United States he was assigned to the Pentagon, but he spent much of that assignment accompanying Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall on a research trip to Vietnam. Hackworth then served as commander of a training battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington. This tour convinced him of the ineffectiveness of training being given to soldiers sent to Vietnam. In 1969 Hackworth returned to Vietnam, this time as a lieutenant colonel, and served as an infantry battalion commander. He also served successively as adviser to the operations officer of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) II Corps, to the ARVN Airborne Division, and to the Vietnamese commander of the 44th Special Tactical Zone. Hackworth was wounded four more times. His assignments further strengthened his disenchantment with the U.S. military effort, particularly its emphasis on body count, overly optimistic reports, and the awards system. He was also highly critical of many ARVN officers and the ARVN as a whole. Hackworth departed Vietnam in June 1971, having been promoted to full colonel. Hackworth’s disenchantment erupted in an interview aired on June 27, 1971, on the ABC news program Issues and Answers. This broadcast led to an investigation of his conduct in Vietnam, which Secretary of the Army Robert F. Frohlke eventually directed be dropped. Colonel Hackworth retired from the U.S. Army in September 1971 and subsequently became a frequent commentator on military affairs. Beginning in the mid-1980s, he served as a contributing editor for defense and military issues for Newsweek magazine. He also wrote a syndicated column for newspapers titled “Defending America,” which ran until his death in 2005. Hackworth’s criticisms of the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War, shared by many of his contemporaries, helped bring about substantial military reform. Hackworth lived in Australia for many years, where he made substantial sums of money in real estate, farming, and the restaurant business. When he contracted bladder cancer, many of his friends and supporters alleged that the illness was precipitated by chemical defoliants used in Vietnam. Hackworth died of cancer in Tijuana, Mexico, on May 4, 2005. RICHARD L. KIPER See also Body Count; HAWTHORNE, Operation; Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood; Rifles; United States Special Forces; Vann, John Paul References Hackworth, David H., and Eihys England. Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. New York: Touchstone, 2003.

441

Hackworth, Colonel David H., and Julie Sherman. About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Marshall, S. L. A., and David Hackworth. The Vietnam Primer. Greenwich, CT: Twin Eagles Ink, 2003.

Hai Ba Trung See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi

Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. Birth Date: December 2, 1924 Death Date: February 20, 2010 U.S. Army general, deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs (1970–1972), vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army (1972–1973), White House chief of staff (1973–1974), supreme allied commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces (1974–1979), and U.S. secretary of state (1981–1982). Born on December 2, 1924, in Bala-Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, Alexander

U.S. Army general Alexander Haig as a lieutenant colonel commanded a battalion in Vietnam. He went on to serve in the administrations of Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He was U.S. secretary of state during 1981–1982. (Department of Defense)

442

Hainan Island

Meigs Haig Jr. graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1947. After World War II he served on General Douglas MacArthur’s personal staff in Japan and saw combat duty in the Korean War. Haig studied at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, during 1955–1956 and was logistics staff officer at U.S. Army headquarters in Europe during 1958–1959. He received a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University in 1961 and was assigned to the Pentagon. He served as deputy special assistant to the secretary and deputy secretary of defense during 1964–1965. Haig had the reputation of being a diligent administrator, well schooled in both politics and diplomacy. From 1965 to 1967 Haig served in Vietnam with the 1st Infantry Division. As commander of a battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment, he led a surprise clearing operation against the Communistcontrolled village of Ben Suc; this operation became the subject of a best-selling book by journalist Jonathan Schell titled The Village of Ben Suc. Haig also won acclaim for his performance in commanding his battalion during a desperate but ultimately successful defense of a landing zone near the Cambodian border against a massive attack by Communist forces on April 1, 1967. After his Vietnam War service he was stationed at West Point, where he became deputy commandant of cadets in 1968. When Henry Kissinger reorganized the foreign affairs staff for newly elected president Richard M. Nixon in late 1968, Kissinger sought a capable military adviser with real experience in Vietnam and chose Haig. Colonel Haig became military assistant to the assistant to the president for national security affairs. Although the position was not well defined at first, his work included organizing Kissinger’s staff for the National Security Council, acting as liaison between the Pentagon and the State Department, screening intelligence information, preparing security reports for the president, and running the National Security Council when Kissinger was absent. Haig was promoted to brigadier general in October 1969. In early 1970 Haig went to Vietnam to make a personal assessment of the situation for Nixon and Kissinger and continued these visits every few months. In June 1970 Haig became deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs and thus gained direct access to President Nixon. Haig reportedly had a major role in planning and executing the secret bombing of Cambodia. In early 1972 he headed the advance party to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that cleared the way for Nixon’s historic February 1972 visit. Haig was promoted to major general in March 1972. In September 1972 Nixon promoted Haig from two-star to four-star rank and to the post of U.S. Army vice chief of staff, bypassing 240 higher-ranking generals with greater seniority and prompting much criticism (Haig had been a lieutenant colonel as late as 1967). Some of these critics believed that Haig was simply a yes-man for the president and had been rewarded for this. In his new position, Haig continued to work with Kissinger on the secret peace negotiations concerning Vietnam and accompanied Kissinger on secret trips to Saigon and Paris. In 1973 Haig retired

from the army to become White House chief of staff for President Nixon. After Nixon’s August 1974 resignation, Haig engineered a smooth transition for President Gerald R. Ford. In 1974 Haig resumed his military career when President Ford named him supreme commander of NATO operations in Europe, a post that Haig held until his second retirement from the army in 1979. During the 1980 presidential election, Haig was a foreign policy and military adviser to Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. After Reagan won the election, Haig served as his first secretary of state (1981–1982). Haig advocated a tough stance against the Soviet Union and supported proposals to help Afghan rebels fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. In March 1981 when President Reagan was shot and seriously wounded, Haig appeared on national television in the chaos that followed, erroneously claiming that he was “in control” pending the return of the vice president. Haig’s performance angered many, including those within the Reagan administration. In 1982 Haig engaged in a spate of shuttle diplomacy, ostensibly designed to head off war between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. He appeared more supportive of the British, however, and his mismanagement of the crisis led to his resignation on June 25, 1982. Haig ran unsuccessfully for the 1988 Republican Party presidential nomination. He then formed his own consulting business. Haig died on February 20, 2010, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; JUNCTION CITY, Operation;

Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Watergate Scandal References Haig, Alexander. Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy. New York: Macmillan, 1984. Haig, Alexander. Inner Circles: How America Changed the World; A Memoir. New York: Warner Books, 1992. MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1998. Morris, Roger. Haig. New York: Playboy, 1982. Schell, Jonathan. The Village of Ben Suc. New York: Knopf, 1967.

Hainan Island Large tropical island that forms the southernmost uncontested part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Located approximately 30 miles south of Guangdong Province’s Leizhou Peninsula, across the Qiongzhou (Hainan) Strait, Hainan was a part of that province until 1988. It now constitutes a separate province, with its capital at the port city of Haikou on the northern coast. The island is 160 miles long and some 90 miles wide, with mountains in its southern and central zones and foothills and plains in the north and east. Lying in the South China Sea, Hainan

Haiphong is bounded on the west by the Gulf of Tonkin. Because of Hainan’s proximity to northern Vietnam, the island has been a frontline location for China’s involvement with Vietnam. Japanese military forces occupied Hainan in 1939 and intensified the extraction of minerals and lumber while also building a light railway and several airfields. The latter were used, along with airfields in Indochina, as bases for the December 1941–April 1942 attacks across Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Hainan came under Nationalist Chinese control at the end of World War II, but a strong underground Chinese Communist movement, active since the late 1920s, established and maintained base areas in the mountainous south of the island. In these areas Communist-led militia troops organized and trained, and in early 1950 they assisted in preparations for an amphibious invasion of Hainan by the Fourth Field Army of the Chinese Communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army). More than 100,000 PLA troops were deployed to the Leizhou Peninsula for the campaign, which resulted in a collapse of the Nationalists’ coastal defense positions during April–May 1950. Almost immediately the victorious Chinese Communists established maritime links from Hainan’s ports to locations in northern Vietnam controlled by the Vietnamese Communist–led Viet Minh. A military supply chain between Hainan and various drop points on the Tonkin coast soon emerged. While overland supply sources remained the most vital to Viet Minh operations against the French in northern Vietnam, the overseas route from Hainan provided locally significant military assistance. Throughout the period of direct American military involvement in the Vietnam War, there were risks that American and Chinese forces would come into direct conflict, thus igniting a wider SinoAmerican war. Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States actively sought to avoid such a possibility, but for each the air war over northern Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin presented serious problems of restraint and policy planning for untoward conflict contingencies. With U.S. land- and carrier-based aircraft flying both bombing and air defense missions near Chinese territory, including Hainan, the risks of infringement of Chinese airspace were substantial. After August 15, 1964, U.S. forces were authorized to conduct hot-pursuit air operations against attacking ships and aircraft of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). This further heightened the potential for direct U.S.-Chinese military conflict, including China’s airspace near and over Hainan. In midApril 1965, for example, North Vietnamese Soviet-supplied MiG fighter aircraft engaged U.S. jets in aerial warfare. To evade them, U.S. aircraft reportedly flew into Chinese airspace over Hainan, whereupon the Chinese Communists scrambled their own MiG fighters, which may even have shot at and damaged American aircraft. Such episodes were rare but remained a daily possibility as long as U.S. aircraft continued their missions over North Vietnam. Hainan also remained important as a transshipment point in nonmilitary trade between North Vietnam and China during

443

the Vietnam War era. Trading vessels regularly plied the Gulf of Tonkin between Haikou and Haiphong carrying food, iron ore, steel, farming equipment, fertilizer, and coal. America’s military terms of engagement forbade attacks on civilian shipping, even that of Communist origin. Consequently, bilateral trade between North Vietnam and Hainan’s ports, along with those on the southern coast of the Chinese mainland, remained off limits to American military operations. LAURA M. CALKINS See also Airborne Operations; China, People’s Republic of; China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam References Hatcher, Patrick Lloyd. The Suicide of an Elite: American Internationalists and Vietnam. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990. Lawrence, Mark Atwood, and Fredrik Logevall, eds. The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Haiphong Principal port and a significant industrial center for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Situated along the Cua Cam River on the northeastern edge of the Red River Delta 30 miles inland from the Gulf of Tonkin, Haiphong is about 60 miles east of Hanoi. The city was founded in the 1st century CE but became a major seaport only in the past several hundred years. Following the establishment of French control in Tonkin in the late 19th century, Haiphong became the major French naval base in Indochina. The city was also the southeastern terminus of an important rail line linking northern Vietnam with southwestern China. Following World War II the French reasserted their authority over Indochina, despite a declaration of independence by the Viet Minh political front led by Ho Chi Minh. Following the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of March 1946 and the return of French troops to northern Vietnam, a dispute over control of customs in Haiphong led to the outbreak of violence and the November 1946 French shelling of the Vietnamese section of Haiphong that helped spark the Indochina War. Haiphong remained in French hands throughout the Indochina War. The French made extensive use of Cat Bi Airfield there. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, Soviet and Chinese economic aid improved Haiphong’s port facilities. The Soviets sent most of their aid to North Vietnam by sea through the port instead of shipping it across China by rail. Although the Lyndon Johnson administration sought to avoid air attacks on Haiphong during Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the city was struck by U.S. bombing during Operation LINEBACKER I and especially Operation LINEBACKER II (also known as the Christmas Bombings) of December 1972, when oil-storage

444

Haiphong, Shelling of

and rail yards were hard hit. The port was also mined in May in Operation POCKET MONEY and again in December. Following the cease-fire agreement in January 1973, the U.S. Navy assisted in clearing mines from Haiphong Harbor during Operation END SWEEP to reopen the port. Following the Vietnam War, the SRV built up Haiphong as an industrial center. The city remains an important port and industrial hub and has a current population of about 600,000; the population of the greater Haiphong area is close to 1.5 million. Haiphong is today Vietnam’s third-largest city. JEFFREY D. BASS See also Haiphong, Shelling of; Indochina War; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam; Moorer, Thomas Hinman; Nixon, Richard Milhous; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Grant, Zalin. Over the Beach: The Air War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1986. Sherwood, John Darrell. Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Haiphong, Shelling of Event Date: November 23, 1946 The bombardment of the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong by French naval vessels on November 23, 1946, helped touch off the long Indochina War. In November 1946 a French War Crimes Commission was sent to Lang Son to investigate a mass grave where a number of French troops killed by the Japanese during World War II had been buried. On November 20 an armed clash occurred between French troops escorting the commission and Vietnamese. The French lost six men killed, and each side accused the other of responsibility. This was soon overshadowed by another more ominous event. The French Navy had virtually blockaded northern Vietnam’s principal port of Haiphong, and on November 20 a French patrol vessel seized a Chinese junk attempting to run contraband into the port. Vietnamese soldiers on the shore fired on the French ship, and shooting broke out in the city itself. A subsequent meeting between French and Vietnamese officials resulted in a French promise to respect Vietnamese sovereignty, and both sides agreed to separate their troops within Haiphong. By the afternoon of November 22, the fighting had ended. At the time, French high commissioner Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu was in Paris reporting to the French government. D’Argenlieu proposed using the Haiphong clash to teach the Vietnamese a lesson, and this suggestion was approved. “Even going so far as the use of cannon?” he asked. “Even that,” Premier Georges

Bidault replied, although Bidault probably did not realize that there was a likelihood of immediate action. D’Argenlieu then cabled General Étienne Valluy, his deputy in Saigon, who ordered General Louis Constant Morlière, commander in northern Vietnam, to use force against the Vietnamese. Morlière pointed out that the situation in Haiphong had been stabilized and that any imprudent act might lead to general hostilities. Not satisfied with this reply, Valluy telegraphed directly to Colonel Pierre-Louis Dèbes, commander of French troops at Haiphong: It appears that we are up against premeditated aggressions carefully staged by the Vietnamese regular army, which no longer seems to obey its government’s orders. Under these circumstances, your commendable attempts at conciliation and division of quarters, as well as the inquiry I asked you to make, are out of season. The moment has come to give a severe lesson to those who have treacherously attacked you. Use all the means at your disposal to make yourself complete master of Haiphong and so bring the Vietnamese army around to a better understanding of the situation. Dèbes delivered an ultimatum to the Vietnamese at Haiphong on November 23, ordering them to withdraw from the French section of the city, the Chinese quarter, and the port. He gave them only two hours in which to reply. When that time was up, the French subjected the Vietnamese positions to air, land, and sea bombardment. The bulk of firepower came from the French Navy cruiser Suffren. Commissioned in 1927, its armament consisted of eight 8-inch, eight 3-inch, eight 40-millimeter (mm) antiaircraft (AA), 20 20-mm AA, and 12 13-mm AA guns. The Vietnamese quarter was largely destroyed in the shelling. Estimates of the number killed vary widely. French admiral Robert Marie Joseph Battet later told French sociologist Paul Mus that no more than 6,000 Vietnamese had died; total casualties may have been some 20,000. However, in 1981 Vu Quoc Uy, then chairman of the Haiphong municipal committee, told author Stanley Karnow that the figure was only 500 to 1,000 dead. Although fighting in Haiphong halted on November 28, FrancoVietnamese relations steadily deteriorated after the November 23 incident. Whatever confidence remained on both sides had been shattered. On December 19 the fear and mistrust, fueled by bloodshed and broken promises, erupted into all-out war. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bidault, Georges; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Dèbes, Pierre-Louis; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Indochina War; Valluy, Jean-Étienne References Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II. 1946; reprint, London: Bracken Books, 1969.

Halberstam, David Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Halberstam, David Birth Date: April 10, 1934 Death Date: April 23, 2007 Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author. Born in New York City on April 10, 1934, David Halberstam graduated from Harvard University in 1955 and began a career in journalism, covering the early Civil Rights Movement in the American South. Hired by the

445

New York Times in 1960, the next year he reported on the bloody civil war in the Congo. In September 1962 the New York Times dispatched Halberstam to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), where his honest, if impressionistic, reporting was criticized by those who wanted only to portray the military situation in positive terms. In January 1963 Halberstam reported that the Battle of Ap Bac had been a shattering defeat for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Although several journalists covered this unexpected debacle, Halberstam’s focus on the loss of American helicopters and his open defiance of General Paul Harkins, then head of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), earned Halberstam the distrust of high-ranking military officials.

Journalist David Halberstam, the New York Times correspondent who was awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the Vietnam War, shown at his desk in New York in 1964. (AP/Wide World Photos)

446

Halperin, Morton H.

In the summer of 1963 Halberstam also covered with unflinching honesty the disintegrating political situation in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). For reporting on the Buddhist dissent against the government, he became hated by President Ngo Dinh Diem and his family, and Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu said publicly that Halberstam ought to be “barbecued.” His reporting of extensive mass arrests contradicted official Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and embassy accounts and thus created a difficult situation for his New York editors, who at the time supported the U.S. war effort. Using the excuse that Halberstam’s reporting was too subjective, President John F. Kennedy asked for his reassignment from Vietnam. Although the New York Times did not honor this request, Halberstam returned to New York in early 1964. For his powerful New Journalism style of reportage, Halberstam shared a 1964 Pulitzer Prize. Disturbed by the deteriorating situation in Vietnam, a country he had come to love, Halberstam continued to write on the subject. The Making of a Quagmire (1965) is an astute early examination of the war and reflects Halberstam’s desire to win a war that he feared was unwinnable. One Very Hot Day (1968) is a novel depicting problems with the ARVN that he had first exposed in writing about Ap Bac. Ho (1971) is a short personalized biography of the charismatic leader Ho Chi Minh. The Best and the Brightest (1972) is Halberstam’s best-known book. It is a lengthy biographical and psychological examination of those in the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations whose search for power had led America into Southeast Asia. This very popular work won the 1973 National Book Award. Halberstam wrote narratives about other subjects central to American life, such as the power of television (The Powers That Be [1979]) and amateur and professional sports (October 1964 [1994]). Halberstam died in a car accident in Menlo Park, California, on April 23, 2007. His book on the Korean War titled The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War was published a few months after his death. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Buddhism in Vietnam; Cronkite, Walter Leland; Fall, Bernard B.; Harkins, Paul Donal; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Literature and the Vietnam War; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Salisbury, Harrison Evans; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney References “Halberstam, David.” In World Authors: 1970–1975, edited by John Wakeman, 336–339. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1980. Misra, Kalidas. “Print-Journalism and Vietnam: Shifting Perspectives.” Indian Journal of American Studies 15(2) (1985): 105–111. Prochnau, William. Once upon a Distant War: David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Peter Arnett—Young War Correspondents and Their Early Vietnam Battles. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Straub, Deborah A. “Halberstam, David.” In Contemporary Authors, Vol. 10, edited by Ann Evory and Linda Metzger, 215–218. New Revision Series. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983.

Halperin, Morton H. Birth Date: June 13, 1938 Foreign policy and civil liberties expert, academic, deputy assistant secretary of defense during 1966–1969, senior staff member for planning in the National Security Council (NSC) during 1969, special assistant to the president during 1994–1996, and director of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff during 1998– 2001. Born on June 13, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York, Morton H. Halperin earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1958 and a PhD in political science from Yale University in 1961. A protégé of Henry Kissinger at Harvard, where Kissinger taught in the early 1960s, Halperin specialized in arms control and published several books on the subject during those years. He initially supported U.S. involvement in Vietnam and in December 1965 was one of 190 American academics who signed a petition supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson’s conduct of the war. In 1966 Halperin became deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, responsible for political-military planning and arms control. In January 1969 Halperin followed his former mentor Kissinger to the NSC and became senior staff member for planning. In this capacity Halperin’s knowledge of bureaucratic theory enabled him to devise strategies whereby Kissinger essentially seized control of foreign policy from the Department of State. Other members of President Richard M. Nixon’s administration, however, notably top presidential aide H. R. Haldeman, considered Halperin too liberal and accused him of leaking confidential information to the press. For 21 months Halperin’s telephone was tapped, and in September 1969 he resigned from the NSC and became a senior staff fellow of the Brookings Institution. By the time of his resignation, Halperin had become highly critical of aspects of American involvement in Vietnam, and during the 1970s he expressed these reservations in a series of books and articles. He was particularly scathing as to the manner in which successive administrations’ fears of domestic consequences of appearing soft on communism led to the escalation of the war. He also condemned the manner in which the imperatives of secrecy inhibited or completely precluded public discussion of such initiatives as the bombing of Cambodia and the use of herbicides and chemical weapons. Throughout the 1980s Halperin continued to express his objections to governmental secrecy in the making of controversial foreign policies, which he believed should be subordinated to the public’s right to know. Halperin was also active in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), heading the Washington, D.C., office from 1984 to 1992. In 1993 President Bill Clinton nominated Halperin as assistant secretary of defense for democracy and peacekeeping, but Republicans in the Senate rejected him, arguing that his past lack of patriotism and judgment rendered him unfit for the position. In compensation, in February 1994 Halperin joined the NSC as a

Hamburger Hill, Battle of special assistant to the president and held that post until 1996. Two years later Clinton tapped Halperin to head the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, considered perhaps the most important position in the department behind that of secretary of state. He remained at the State Department until 2001. Haplerin continues to teach, speak, and write and is active on numerous boards and organizations. He has authored many books and articles and has been an ardent supporter of nuclear disarmament. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Clinton, William Jefferson; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Watergate Scandal References Halperin, Morton H. Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1974. Halperin, Morton H. National Security Policy-Making. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1975. Halperin, Morton H., et al. The Lawless State: The Crimes of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies. New York: Penguin Books, 1976. Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

447

Hamburger Hill, Battle of Start Date: May 11, 1969 End Date: May 20, 1969 One of the bloodiest military engagements of the Vietnam War. The Battle of Ap Bia Mountain, also known as the Battle of Hamburger Hill, occurred during May 11–20, 1969, as part of Operation APACHE SNOW (May 10–June 7, 1969). The battle was fought against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regulars who were entrenched and who, as they seldom did during the war, decided to stand against repetitive U.S. frontal assaults. This created the bloody meat-grinder battle that led U.S. participants to call the location “Hamburger Hill.” Coming near the time when the first American troop withdrawals were announced, the battle kindled controversy and a public debate over military objectives and tactics in Vietnam. Dong Ap Bia, or Ap Bia Mountain, located in the A Shau Valley in the western I Corps Tactical Zone near the Laotian border southwest of Hue, is known to local Montagnards as “the mountain of the crouching beast.” Not part of a larger chain, as are most other mountains on the western side of the A Shau Valley, Ap Bia stands

A wounded U.S. soldier is rushed to a medical evacuation helicopter amid fierce fighting against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces during the Battle of Ap Bia Mountain on May 18, 1969. Known by its U.S. participants as the Battle of Hamburger Hill, it was one of the bloodiest engagements of the Vietnam War. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

448

Hamburger Hill, Battle of

alone some 3,175 feet above sea level. It sends several large ridges, fingers, and ravines out in all directions, covered by thick doubleand-triple–canopy jungle. Hill 937 on the north and Hill 916 on the southeast are formed from these ridges. Operation APACHE SNOW was designed to keep pressure on PAVN units and base camps in the A Shau Valley, a base area and terminus for replacements and supplies sent south by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation involved units from the 3rd Brigade, U.S. 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile); the U.S. 9th Marine Regiment; and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 3rd Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. On the second day of the operation, Company B of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry (3-187 Infantry), also known as “Rakassans,” came under concentrated PAVN fire by machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on Hill 937. The units they engaged were the 7th and 8th battalions of the PAVN 29th Regiment, dug into heavily fortified bunker positions on the hill. After several assaults conducted over three days, the 3-187 Infantry was reinforced with two more 101st Airborne Division battalions (the 1-506 Infantry and 2-501 Infantry) and a battalion of the ARVN 3rd Regiment. On May 18 with the ARVN battalion posted to seal off the hill, a two-battalion assault nearly took the summit before a torrential rainstorm forced a withdrawal. Finally, on May 20 after 10 previous tries, a four-battalion assault drove the PAVN from their mountain fortress and into their Laotian sanctuaries.

Because the allied objective was to kill PAVN soldiers and disrupt operations in the valley, once the PAVN withdrew from the mountain, U.S. and ARVN forces abandoned it as well. And as in previous operations, as soon as U.S. and ARVN forces withdrew, PAVN troops moved right back into the area. Official U.S. casualty figures for the whole of Operation APACHE SNOW were 56 American and 5 South Vietnamese killed in action; enemy losses were estimated at 630. However, Samuel Zaffiri in Hamburger Hill (1988) gives American casualties as 70 dead and 372 wounded. Fanned by media attention to the battle, which seemed to symbolize the frustration of winning battles without ever consummating the strategic victory, the debate questioned the cost in American lives of taking the hill only to abandon it for the Communists to reoccupy. The controversy led to the limiting of American military operations in the face of U.S. troop withdrawals and Vietnamization. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also APACHE SNOW, Operation; A Shau Valley; Attrition; United States, Involve-

ment in Vietnam, 1969–1973; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnamization References Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Zaffiri, Samuel. Hamburger Hill: The Brutal Battle for Dong Ap Bia, May 11–20, 1969. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988.

Ham Nghi

Hamlet Evaluation System Technique to measure the pacification process in Vietnam. The Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) began in January 1967. Some 250 U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), district advisers completed monthly evaluation worksheets for 9,000 of the 13,000 hamlets in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), using a matrix of 18 equally weighted indicators, 9 for security and 9 for development. MACV assigned graduated decimal values (5 to 0) to conditions A (best) through E (worst), respectively, and determined averages. A-, B-, and C-rated hamlets were considered relatively secure, the majority being in the C category (2.50–3.49), while D and E hamlets were considered contested. Approximately 3,000 acknowledged Viet Cong (VC) hamlets were not evaluated. Advisers also indicated the degree of severity of problem areas, but these responses were not included in the scoring system. Beginning in October 1967, results appeared in the form of a “Monthly Pacification Status Report.” Critics noted, however, that high development scores often offset low security scores and that increases in the secure population often were the result of refugees moving to cities rather than an extension of government control into the hamlets. A frequent charge was that favorable HES data was used as propaganda to support the U.S. position in Vietnam. Robert Komer, who became director of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) in May 1967, insisted that HES was designed as a tool for pacification management and analysis, not progress reporting, and never claimed that it could get at the question of “hearts and minds.” But he conceded that Washington officials relied on HES output as an indicator of overall pacification “progress,” thereby contributing to the “credibility gap.” However useful for managing the pacification program, HES was not satisfactory for use in decision making. Simply put, while Washington thought that Vietnam was becoming pacified, the district advisers did not. Despite its data-gathering problems, HES was more accurate than the subjective system it replaced and could identify major pacification trends and problems. At the end of 1967, HES indicated that two-thirds of the population was living in relatively secure areas, although this figure is open to interpretation. Following the Tet Offensive in 1968, the percentage dropped to 60 percent, a smaller setback than expected, and then rose to 63 percent by June 1968. When William Colby replaced Komer as head of MACV’s CORDS in late 1968, he initiated an accelerated pacification program to upgrade all hamlets. In December 1969 HES claimed that 90 percent of hamlets merited C ratings or above, half of those in the A or B categories. By late 1971 this figure reached 97 percent, with most gains in rural areas. Unquestionably, much of this alleged progress was due to a drop in the intensity of the war, increasing the Regional and Popular forces, and the success of the Phoenix Program. Retrospective studies show that HES figures suffered from inflation caused principally by command pressure and undervaluing security. Surveys of former district advisers revealed the existence of so-called gut

449

HES parallel reports that were more realistic and pessimistic, but these never made their way into the computer. JOHN D. ROOT See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Colby, William Egan; Komer, Robert W.; Pacification; Phoenix Program; Strategic Hamlet Program; Territorial Forces References Bole, Albert G., Jr., and K. Kobata. An Examination of the Measurements of the Hamlet Evaluation System. Newport, RI: Naval War College, 1975. Brigham, Colonel Erwin R. “Pacification Measurement.” Military Review (May 1970): 47–54. Komer, Robert W. “Impact of Pacification on Insurgency in South Vietnam.” Journal of International Affairs 25 (1971): 48–69.

Ham Nghi Birth Date: July 22, 1872 Death Date: January 14, 1943 Seventh emperor of the Nguyen dynasty (1884–1885) and hero of the Vietnamese resistance movement against the French invasion of the late 19th century. His real name was Ung Lich; Ham Nghi was his ruling name. Born on July 22, 1872, in Hue, Ham Nghi at the age of 12 was placed on the throne to succeed his brother, Emperor Kien Phuoc (r. 1883–1884), by regents Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet, who then effectively controlled Ham Nghi. The regents managed to assemble a fair amount of artillery and small arms at the imperial palace. When the French demanded their removal, Thuyet transferred them to a secret location. Believing that French commander General Count Roussel de Coucey intended to crush them, the two regents decided on a desperate surprise attack on the French at their Mang Ca fort near the capital at 1:00 a.m. on July 5, 1885. The French reacted quickly and seized six of the Vietnamese guns, which they then turned against the attackers. The Vietnamese began to disperse before dawn, and Thuyet then forced Ham Nghi to accompany him to the Tan So fortress in Quang Tri Province. Meanwhile, the French seized a considerable number of artillery pieces, small arms, and silver ingots from the imperial palace. From Tan So, Thuyet forced Ham Nghi to issue an appeal to mandarins, scholars, and the people throughout the country asking them to support him in his fight against the French. Many responded to the appeal, which opened a great anti-French movement known as the Phong Trao Can Vuong (Support the King). Betrayed by a local chief and one of his guards, Ham Nghi was captured by the French on November 1, 1888. Although he had been poorly served by Thuyet, Ham Nghi nonetheless refused to reveal Thuyet’s location to the French. Ham Nghi was sent into exile in Algeria that December. There was some discussion about

450

Hand Grenades

returning him to the throne, but he died in Algiers on January 14, 1943, without seeing his homeland again. His tomb is in Thonoc cemetery near Sarlat, Dordogne, France. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) has made efforts to secure the return of the body to Vietnam, where a number of cities have major streets named after Ham Nghi, but the family has thus far refused. PHAM CAO DUONG See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Minh Mang; Thieu Tri; Tu Duc; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Vietnam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970. Phan Tran Chuc. Vua Ham Nghi. Hanoi: Chinh Ky, 1951.

Hand Grenades Hand grenades are short-range infantry weapons used for lethal or nonlethal antipersonnel effect, signaling, screening, or equipment destruction. Rarely weighing more than 1.5 pounds, the usual effective range of a hand grenade is limited by how far it can be thrown by an individual soldier. Singly or in groups, hand grenades also can be rigged into booby traps, or what today are called improvised explosive devices. The French term grenade means “pomegrante,” which is similar in size and shape to the hand grenade. The first primitive explosive grenades appeared in the Byzantine Empire sometime around the 8th century. The prototype of all modern military hand grenades was the Mills Bomb, introduced by the British during World War I. Up until then, grenades were handled only by specialist troops called grenadiers, who usually were very tall and strong and therefore could throw the grenades the greatest distances. Today hand grenades are carried by all ground troops, and soldiers classified as grenadiers carry weapons called grenade launchers, which project specially designed launchable grenades to far greater distances than hand grenades. Hand grenades fall into five basic categories: fragmentation, concussion, incendiary, smoke, and chemical. All hand grenades consist of a body, a filler, and a fuse. The variations in these three basic components are a function of the grenade’s purpose. Although some hand grenade fuses produce detonation on impact, most hand grenade fuses are the delay type. For the most common fuse designs a thin metal lever, called a spoon, holds back the spring-activated trigger on the top of the fuse. The spoon is held in place by a large cotter pin with a ring attached to it. A soldier holding the grenade in his hand also keeps the spoon held

tightly in place against the body of the grenade even when the safety pin has been pulled. When the grenade is thrown, the spoon falls off and the fuse triggers. The three- to five-second delay between triggering and detonation gives the grenade the time to fly its maximum throwable distance of about 131 feet before it goes off. If the grenade is thrown for a shorter distance, an enemy might have enough time to pick the grenade up and throw it back. To counter this tactic, American GIs in Vietnam sometimes used the very risky procedure of cooking-off the grenade. When the pin was pulled, the thrower released the spoon but still held onto the grenade for two to three seconds before throwing it. Fragmentation grenades are lethal antipersonnel weapons designed to produce casualties primarily through fragmentation rather than blast effect. The standard American hand grenade of World War II, the Mk-II fragmentation grenade, was widely used in Vietnam up through the late 1960s. Known to GIs as “Frag” and a direct descendent of the British No. 36 Mills Bomb, the Mk-II was nicknamed the “pineapple” because of its shape and its heavily serrated cast iron body. The outer serrations did not actually improve fragmentation effect, but they did make the grenade easier to hold. The Mk-II weighed 1.5 pounds and had 2 ounces of explosive Composition B (TNT) filler. When the grenade exploded, its lethal radius was about 16 feet, and its wounding radius was about 49 feet. In the late 1960s the Mk-II was replaced by the M-26. Nicknamed the “lemon,” it was roughly the same size and shape as the Mk-II, but its outer body was smooth. A prenotched fragmentation coil inside the body produced the primary fragmentation. The M-26 weighed 1 pound and had 5.8 ounces of Composition B filler. A variant designated the M-61 had a so-called jungle safety clip that kept the spoon in place if the pin accidentally became disengaged. Late in the war the M-26 was replaced by the M-33. Weighing only 14 ounces and spherically shaped, it was nicknamed the “baseball.” Rather than having a prenotched fragmentation coil inside the grenade, the interior of the M-33 body itself was prescored, producing an even more efficient fragmentation effect. The lighter weight and spherical shape also made it easier to throw farther. After the Vietnam War, further modifications led to the currentissue standard fragmentation grenade, the M-67. The Communist forces in Vietnam used hand grenades from a wide variety of sources, including Soviet, Chinese, North Korean, East European, French, Japanese, and especially captured U.S. grenades. The grenade most widely used by the Viet Cong (VC) was the Chinese Type 67. Universally called the “Chicom,” it was a crude and low-quality copy of the Soviet RGD-33 grenade, which in turn was based on the German Stielhandgranate 24, the infamous “potato masher” hand grenade of World War II. The Type 67 was a stick grenade consisting of an explosive charge encased in a metal can and mounted on a wooden shaft to facilitate throwing. Fortunately for many American and Allied troops, the Chicom’s poor quality often resulted in duds, and when it did detonate it

Hand Grenades produced a relatively weak blast but was nonetheless deadly within a radius of about 6.5 feet. The Soviet F-1 (Chinese Type 1) was a World War II fragmentation grenade similar in appearance to the U.S. Mk-II and the British No. 36 Mills. The F-1 weighed 1.3 pounds, had 2.1 ounces of TNT filler, and had a fragmentation radius of 49 to 65 feet. The post–World War II RGD-5 (Chinese Type 59) had a smooth body and weighed only .7 of a pound but had 3.9 ounces of TNT filler, producing a 65-foot fragmentation radius. The Chinese Type 42 was a copy of the Soviet RG-42 hand grenade, a cheaply made World War II expedient that had 3.9 ounces of TNT filler but a bursting radius of only 6.5 to 16 feet. The standard American concussion grenade was the Mk-IIIA2, originally introduced in World War II. Unlike a fragmentation grenade, the primary casualty-producing effect of a concussion grenade is the blast and resulting overpressure. The MK-IIIA2’s cylindrical body was about the same diameter and just slightly longer than a standard soft drink can and was made from laminated cartridge paper. The grenade weighed .88 of a pound, of which 6.83 ounces was Composition B filler. The Mk-IIIA2 was especially effective inside bunkers and other enclosed spaces. It was also used underwater against VC combat swimmers operating against bridges, docks, and riverine barges. The Soviet RKG-3 shaped-charge hand grenade was technically neither a fragmentation nor a concussion grenade, but it was closer to a concussion weapon because its primary effect came from its blast. The RKG-3 was a favorite weapon of VC sappers. Similar in appearance but larger than the Chinese Type 67, the RKG-3 was a stick grenade originally designed as an antitank weapon. The VC used the RKG-3 against bunkers and other fortified positions. It weighed 2.4 pounds and had 20 ounces of explosive filler. It was detonated by an impact fuse that was activated when the safety pin was pulled. As soon as the RKG-3 was thrown, a small drogue chute deployed from the base of the handle to stabilize the grenade and keep the fuse properly oriented to the surface of the target. Smoke grenades are used for screening, signaling, and marking targets and landing zones (LZs). All American smoke grenades had cylindrical bodies that were 5.7 inches long and were roughly the same diameter as the Mk-IIIA2 concussion grenade. The smoke grenade bodies are made of thin sheet steel with emission holes at the top and bottom for the smoke. The fuse mechanism is similar to that used on fragmentation grenades, but the delay time is only about one to two seconds. The American M-8 smoke grenade produced white smoke, while the M-18 produced one of four different colors (yellow, red, green, and purple). The colored smoke was used primarily for signaling and marking LZs and targets; the white smoke was used for screening friendly movements and positions and obscuring enemy observation. The M-8 weighs 1.5 pounds and burns for 105 to 150 seconds, producing a thick smoke screen. The smoke produced by the M-8 filler, hexachloroethane (HC), is toxic, and long-term exposure can produce serious health effects. The M-18 weighs 1.2

451

pounds and burns for 50 to 90 seconds. Its smoke dissipates more rapidly than that produced by the M-8. Communist forces in Vietnam used the two standard Soviet smoke grenades, the RGD-1 and RGD-2. In design and construction both were quite different from their American equivalents. The bodies of both grenades were molded cardboard cylinders weighing about 1.1 pounds. They functioned similar to a roadside emergency flare. The RGD-1 had a burning time of 80 seconds and produced either white or black smoke. It was waterproof and floated, making it ideal to screen water-crossing operations. The RGD-2 was not waterproof, produced only white smoke, and had a burning time of 1.5 minutes. Incendiary grenades are used to start fires and damage equipment. The M-14 thermite grenade is similar in size and shape to the American smoke grenades. Its 32 ounces of filler burns for 30 seconds at 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It burns underwater and can melt through an engine block. The most effective way to neutralize a captured artillery piece or one that is about to be captured by the enemy is to set off a thermite grenade in the breech and then close the breechblock. Technically classified as a smoke grenade, the M-34 white phosphorus (WP) grenade also produced a significant incendiary effect. Its 15 ounces of filler burned for 60 seconds at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Like thermite, white phosphorus burns underwater, but unlike thermite, “Willy Pete,” as the GIs called it, also produced a cloud of thick white smoke. The smoke buildup was much faster than HC smoke. A standard tactic was to initiate the smoke screen with WP and then maintain it for the required period with HC. The M-34 was a very dangerous weapon to use, however. Its bursting radius was 114 feet, requiring a thrower with a very good arm and access to immediate cover once the grenade was in the air. Depending on their filler, chemical hand grenades produce a wide range of antipersonnel effects from irritating to debilitating to lethal. No lethal antipersonnel chemical agents were used in Vietnam. Those antipersonnel chemical agents used were generally classified as riot-control agents. American forces used riot-control hand grenades to clear enemy tunnels and bunker complexes. North Vietnamese forces reportedly used such weapons during their 1972 and 1975 offensives. The three primary fillers used for American chemical grenades were diphenylaminochloarsine (DM), chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile (CS), and chloroacetophenone (CN). DM is commonly called vomiting gas. CS and CN are commonly called tear gas, with CN being the stronger of the two. All of the American chemical hand grenades were similar to the M-8 and M-18 smoke grenades in size, shape, weight, and function. The M-6 and M-6A1 grenades had a mixed CN/DN filler and a 20- to 60-second burn time. The M-7 and M-7A1 had a CN filler and a similar burn time. The M-7A3 had a CS filler and a burn time of only 15 to 35 seconds. The United States no longer uses grenades filled with either CN or DM.

452

Hanoi

The VC made extensive use of hand grenades in booby traps and other innovative homemade weapons. The pole charge was an improvised sapper weapon for bunker assaults, consisting of an 8to 10-foot-long bamboo pole with any combination of two to four hand grenades mounted on one end. When the sapper pulled the safety pins on the grenades, he thrust the business end of the pole charge into an entrance or a firing port of a bunker, almost always with deadly results. The VC also were masters of fabricating hand grenades from almost any material available. They produced homemade incendiary grenades using sodium, which ignites upon contact with water. Following firefights, the VC scoured the battlefields collecting expended American M-8 and M-18 smoke grenade bodies and took them back to clandestine armament workshops deep in the jungles. There the burnt residue was scraped out of the canisters, which were then refilled with TNT or C-4 plastic explosive with nails or any other hard objects packed in to produce a fragmentation effect. The refurbished grenades were completed with improvised fuses fabricated from blasting caps and rifle cartridge cases. In the absence of expended smoke grenades, discarded soft drink or beer cans worked almost as well. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Booby Traps; Cu Chi Tunnels; Grenade Launchers References Baud, Jacques F. Warsaw Pact Weapons Handbook. Boulder, CO: Paladin, 1989. Emering, Edward J. Weapons and Field Gear of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1998. Hogg, Ian V. Jane’s Infantry Weapons 1991–92. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group, 1991. Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965–73. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2005. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong Fighter. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. U.S. Army. FM 23-30 Grenades and Pyrotechnic Signals. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988.

Hanh Lang Truong Son See Truong Son Corridor

Hanoi Capital of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during the Vietnam War and now the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Throughout much of modern Vietnamese history, Hanoi, known as Thang Long from the early 11th century, served as the capital of Vietnam. The Nguyen dynasty moved the capital south to Hue in 1802 and renamed the city Hanoi in 1831. Hanoi was again the capital of Vietnam with the establishment of French Indochina in 1887.

A view of Hanoi, the capital city of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 2010. (Michalakis Ppalis/Dreamstime.com)

Centered on the western bank of the Red River within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is Vietnam’s second-largest city; Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) is the largest metropolitan area. The city of Hanoi covers 71.9 square miles, while the metropolitan areas cover 1,291.4 square miles. Over the centuries Hanoi expanded in size, incorporating various villages within the city’s boundaries. Numerous lakes, both natural and artificially created, are located throughout the city. Hanoi’s 2007 population was just over 6.25 million people, with a population density of approximately 4,800 individuals per square mile. Among its ethnic groups, the Vietnamese are the most significant group in Hanoi. The Chinese, Khmer, and Cham peoples are the next largest groups, with other minority groups making up a relatively tiny percentage of the population. Hanoi’s climate is classified as humid tropical. Winter temperatures range from lows of 58 degrees to a high of 66 degrees Fahrenheit, and summer temperatures range from lows of 80 degrees to highs of 90-plus degrees. The city averages anywhere from 7.5 to 13.5 inches of rain per month during the rainy season (May–October). During the Vietnam War era, Hanoi’s population ranged from 415,000 in 1960 to about 645,000 in 1968. As American bombing raids targeted Hanoi, government officials ordered long-term temporary evacuations, resulting in 50–75 percent of the population being required to depart. Economically the city is primarily focused on light industry, such as apparel and food processing, with some heavy industries such as tool shops. Additionally, the

Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive region includes some agricultural production. Hanoi has served as a central transportation hub for northern Vietnam since its founding and especially since the French built a railway system in Vietnam. Located upriver from Haiphong, Hanoi was also able to act as a transshipment point for the interior. Because flooding constituted a major threat to Hanoi, dikes and levees were constructed along the riverbanks to protect the city from the Red River. King Ly Thai To’s construction of a royal citadel in 1010 CE became the basis for the founding and establishment of his new capital city of Thang Long. Since its founding, the city has been known by several different names, including Dong Kinh and Tong King. Throughout its long history, Hanoi has seen considerable warfare and occupation by the Chinese, the French, and the Japanese. The Vietnamese expelled the Chinese from Hanoi in 1789 only to see the French take control of the city a century later. Japanese troops occupied Hanoi during World War II. In the aftermath of the war, the Viet Minh seized control of the capital and there established the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), led by Ho Chi Minh. The French were finally able to return in strength, and fighting broke out in nearby Haiphong at the end of 1946, leading to the Indochina War (1946–1954). During that war, Hanoi was the ultimate objective for a series of offensives mounted by Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, the North Vietnamese government established itself in Hanoi and controlled all of northern Vietnam down to the 17th Parallel. In the subsequent Vietnam War, America’s military policy regarding operations against Hanoi varied through the course of the conflict. Throughout most of the war, Hanoi, despite being a major military target, was largely off limits for bombing. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson initially removed Hanoi and Haiphong from bombing target lists for political reasons. On occasion, however, U.S. forces were authorized to attack Hanoi’s railroad bridges or electrical plants. President Richard Nixon approved punishing raids against Hanoi in an attempt to force concessions during the Paris peace talks. Operation LINEBACKER II, the so-called Christmas Bombings of December 18–29, 1972, particularly targeted Hanoi and its air defense system. During the war, Hanoi boasted the most powerful air defense system of any world capital, including antiaircraft guns, interceptor aircraft, and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). Several different groups of Americans were in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. American prisoners of war came to be housed in the Hoa Lo Prison (also known as the “Hanoi Hilton”). A few U.S. reporters visited Hanoi, as did a number of prominent U.S. antiwar protestors such as Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark. Certainly the North Vietnamese government made every effort to convince the world that U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft were attacking civilian targets in the city, including its dikes. Although Hanoi suffered significant damage during the war, especially to its airfields, rail yards, and bridges, it was apparent after the conflict that the

453

North Vietnamese government had grossly exaggerated the damage sustained. Reconstruction of Hanoi began in the immediate aftermath of the war. Although a few buildings remain as they were at the end of the war as war memorials, the vast majority of the city has been reconstructed. Since 1975 the city has steadily increased its area by incorporating suburbs and other nearby regions into its boundaries. Much of the building boom in the city has been financed by lucrative deals that have benefited the Communist Party hierarchy. Among prominent tourist attractions in the city today are the Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, the One Pillar Pagoda, the Presidential Palace (formerly the residence of the French governor-general for Indochina), the many picturesque lakes, Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and his personal residence, the Opera House, the Military Museum, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail Museum. WYNDHAM E. WHYNOT See also Bombing Halts and Restrictions; Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive; Hoa Lo Prison; Ho Chi Minh; Indochina War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Red River Delta; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Saigon; Vo Nguyen Giap References Doyle, Edward, Samuel Lipsman, and Terrence Maitland. The North: The Communist Struggle for Vietnam. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1986. Logan, William S. Hanoi: Biography of a City. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.

Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Event Date: January 30, 1789 Culminating military engagement of the 1771–1789 Tay Son Rebellion, regarded as one of the greatest victories in Vietnamese history. What might be called the first Tet Offensive, the January 30, 1789, Battle of Hanoi (also known as the Battle of Dong Da) is worth remembering, because just as the 1940 Japanese strike at Port Arthur, Russia, foreshadowed the 1941 Japanese attack without declaration of war at Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Hanoi was proof that the Tet holiday had not always been peacefully observed by warring Vietnamese. In a brilliant two-month campaign between May and July 1786, Nguyen Hue, the military genius of the three Tay Son brothers, defeated the Trinh lords in northern Vietnam and brought Emperor Le Chieu Thong under his control. After Nguyen Hue’s victory, he returned to southern Vietnam to consolidate his authority there. Nguyen Hue’s lieutenant in northern Vietnam, together with the emperor, then attempted to fortify the region against Nguyen

454

Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive

Hue’s return. Before Nguyen Hue could arrive with his army, the emperor lost his nerve and fled to China. Once again Nguyen Hue returned to the south. The Le emperor’s only hope of reclaiming his throne was by Chinese assistance. Sun Shiyi, the Chinese governor of territory bordering Vietnam, advised military intervention as an opportunity to assert Chinese influence in an area weakened by civil war. The Chinese emperor agreed, and in November 1788 an expeditionary force commanded by Sun crossed the frontier at three points. Faced with overwhelming Chinese strength, Nguyen Hue’s generals sent ships with provisions south to Thanh Hoa, while the remainder of the troops retired overland. The Chinese took the capital of Hanoi in late December 1788 after a campaign of less than two months, but events worked to undermine their authority. They treated Vietnam as if it were captured territory and forced Le Chieu Thong to issue pronouncements in the name of the Chinese emperor. Many Vietnamese resented reprisals against imperial officials who had earlier rallied to the Tay Son. Typhoons and disastrous harvests also led many northerners to believe that the emperor had lost the so-called Mandate of Heaven. On December 22, 1788, after learning of the Chinese invasion, Nguyen Hue proclaimed himself Emperor Quang Trung. He then raised an army. To widen his appeal, he played to Vietnamese nationalism, stressing the long history of Chinese efforts to subjugate Vietnam. The key to his military success was careful planning. As historian Le Thanh Khoi noted, in the course of a 40-day campaign Quang Trung devoted 35 days to preparations and only 5 to actual battle. Quang Trung ordered his soldiers to celebrate the Tet holiday early. He then sent a delegation to Sun with a request that the Chinese withdraw from Vietnam. Sun tore up the appeal and put the head of the delegation to death, boasting that he would soon take Quang Trung himself. Quang Trung ordered the main military effort to be made against the principal Chinese line, where he concentrated his elite troops and elephants (which transported his heavy artillery on their backs). At the same time, he sent a part of his fleet north as a feint against the capital to prevent the Chinese from concentrating all their reserves on the main front. His plan to attack on the eve of the Tet holiday was a brilliant stroke, catching the Chinese off guard celebrating the lunar new year. Quang Trung’s offensive, once launched, went forward both day and night (especially the latter) for five days. Each attack was mounted rapidly to prevent the enemy from bringing up reserves. Tay Son forces covered nearly 50 miles and took six forts defending access to the capital, a rate of 10 miles and more than one fort a day. At dawn on the fifth day of Tet (January 30, 1789), Tay Son forces approached the fort of Ngoc Hoi and came under heavy enemy fire. Elite commandos assaulted the fortress in groups of

20 men, protected under wooden shields covered by straw soaked in water. From atop an elephant, Quang Trung exhorted his troops. When the assault force had reached the fort’s ramparts, the troops discarded their protective shields. Following intense fighting, the Tay Son emerged victorious; large numbers of Chinese, including general officers, died in the attack. Sun learned of the disaster that same night. With fires visible in the distance, he fled north across the Red River, not bothering to put on his armor or saddle his horse. Chinese horsemen and then infantry soon joined the flight, but the bridge they used was soon overburdened and collapsed. According to Vietnamese accounts thousands drowned, and the Red River was filled with bodies. Le Chieu Thong also fled and found refuge in China, ending the 300-year-old Le dynasty. True to his word, on the afternoon of the seventh day of the new year Quang Trung entered Hanoi. His generals continued to pursue the Chinese to the frontier. The victory is still celebrated in Vietnam as one of the nation’s greatest military achievements. Mobility and concentration of force, rather than numbers, were the keys in the Tay Son victory. The attackers were motivated by a desire to free their country from foreign domination. Tens of thousands of civilians had joined the Tay Son army as it moved north. Quang Trung also profited from Chinese errors. Sun had taken virtually his entire army to Hanoi. Although he had encountered little resistance, he halted there instead of continuing his offensive against the Tay Son. Confident in his superior numbers, Sun had underestimated his adversary and thus had relaxed discipline. Quang Trung became one of Vietnam’s greatest kings. Unfortunately, his reign was short. He died in the spring of 1792, so he did not have the “dozen years” he believed necessary to build a strong kingdom. Many Vietnamese believe that had Quang Trung lived a decade longer, their subsequent history would have been different. Quang Trung’s brothers also died in the early 1790s, and his son was only six years old in 1792. Within a decade the surviving Nguyen lord, Nguyen Anh, had come to power, and the Nguyen dynasty was dominant throughout Vietnam. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Nguyen Dynasty; Nguyen Hue; Tay Son Rebellion; Trinh Lords References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Déveria, G. Histoire des Relations de la Chine avec L’Annam-Vietnam du XVIe au XIXe Siècle. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1880. Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire de Viet Nam des origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Truong Buu Lam. Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution: Popular Movements in Vietnamese History. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984. Viet Chung. “Recent Findings on the Tay Son Insurgency.” Vietnamese Studies 81 (1985): 30–62.

Harassment and Interdiction Fires

Hanoi Hannah Birth Date: ca. 1929 U.S. GI nickname for Ngo Thi Trinh, a broadcaster who was part of the Voice of Vietnam, a propaganda vehicle that was broadcast by radio in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Several broadcasters were known by the name “Hanoi Hannah,” but Trinh was the most important. She chose as a professional name the more lyrical Thu Huong (“Autumn Fragrance”). Raised in Hanoi amid a wealthy family, she learned English in school and from American cinema; her parents reportedly secured for her private lessons in English. She joined the Voice of Vietnam in 1955 because, as she said, “It was a good opportunity to help my country.” Known to the Americans as Hanoi Hannah (in the tradition of Tokyo Rose in World War II and Seoul City Sue in the Korean War), Trinh hosted an English-language program as part of the psychological war waged to discourage U.S. troops. She would report news, including the names of Americans who had died in battle; criticize the U.S. war effort and praise the antiwar movement; appeal to class and racial differences to sow discord; utilize tapes of Americans whose comments she thought helpful; and play music in half-hour segments at times convenient for listening American GIs. There is little evidence that the broadcasts achieved their purpose; to the contrary, reportedly they either amused or angered their audience. American prisoners of war at times found her broadcasts helpful as a connection to the outside world and as a source of occasional good news. Radio Hanoi’s transmitters and antennas were located in a suburb south of Hanoi and were not attacked until the December 1972 bombing, when bombs damaged the antennas. Signals received in Saigon were very weak for several weeks thereafter. Made less meaningful by the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the show was canceled. In 1976 Trinh and her husband moved to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), where she worked for a number of years in Vietnamese television. PAUL S. DAUM AND B. J. ROGERS See also Prisoners of War, Allied; Psychological Warfare Operations References Doyle, Edward, Samuel Lipsman, and Terrence Maitland. The North: The Communist Struggle for Vietnam. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1986. Hanoi Hannah. Audiotape of interview by Janet Gardner and Paul Camacho, Ho Chi Minh City, June 1987. Boston: William F. Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences. Shenon, Philip. “Air Warfare: The Broadcaster Once Known to GIs as Hanoi Hannah Has No Regrets.” Fort-Worth Star Telegram, November 26, 1994. Vietnam Revisited. Videotape of interview with Ngo Thi Trinh, “Hanoi Hannah on Vietnam.” Day 1, tape 1.21 minutes. Washington, DC:

455

C-SPAN; West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, Public Affairs Video Archives, 1992 (19 videocassettes).

Hanoi Hilton See Hoa Lo Prison

Harassment and Interdiction Fires U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 6-40, Field Artillery Cannon Gunnery, defines harassment fires as “fires delivered for the purpose of disturbing rest, curtailing the movement and lowering the morale of enemy troops by the threat of casualties or losses in material.” The same publication defines interdiction fire as “fire delivered for the purpose of denying the enemy the unrestricted use of an area or point. Interdiction fire is usually of less intensity than neutralization fire.” These two types of missions are usually tactically combined and are known as harassment and interdiction (H&I) fires. The use of H&I by field artillery units regardless of nationality has been employed since the late 19th century with the advent of indirect fire. H&I fires are usually unobserved, of short duration, and delivered against likely enemy troop concentrations or routes of supply. In 1965 U.S. field artillery doctrine changed from a conventional emphasis to maximize the role of fire support in a limited war as America became more committed to the war in Vietnam. By 1967 firebases, semipermanent fortified locations that contained one or two batteries of artillery and supporting infantry, dotted the Vietnamese landscape. These firebases were an attempt to provide responsive artillery fires in support of ongoing maneuver operations or Special Forces camps or to provide mutual support if one of them came under attack. Massive employment of field artillery in conjunction with airpower was an essential American strategy for keeping casualties to a minimum while inflicting maximum losses on the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) or the Viet Cong (VC). H&I fires were unobserved, and therefore targets were mainly determined by map, aerial reconnaissance, or intelligence gathered by ground forces. Communist troops proved to be elusive, frustrating attempts to contain them in fixed locations. Despite the tremendous amounts of ammunition expended by artillery units during H&I missions, there was little confirmation of success when target areas were swept by infantry. In most cases, H&I missions were planned and executed without efforts to confirm targets. In 1969 U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), deputy commander General Frank T. Mildren stated that H&I fires in Vietnam were having little effect and were not damaging the enemy. Mildren recommended that all units in the USARV drastically reduce H&I missions. Mildren was not alone. U.S. 4th Infantry Division

456

Harassment and Interdiction Fires

A young Vietnamese girl joins U.S. artillerymen in covering their ears as a self-propelled 8-inch howitzer blasts Viet Cong positions from the 25th Division base at Cu Chi, 20 miles northwest of Saigon, September 19, 1966. (AP/Wide World Photos)

commander General Arthur “Ace” Collins was awakened one night by a 700-round H&I mission. He promptly decreased the ammunition allocation by half, and within one week the 4th Division artillery was prohibited from firing H&I missions. Collins did, however, institute a program that he labeled intelligence and interdiction (I&I) whereby those missions were permitted only if targets were confirmed by intelligence sources. Collins, like Mildren, questioned the effectiveness of H&I against suspect locations, especially when the threat of collateral damage to the civilian population was high. Collins was also concerned that his division was substituting massive artillery fire for infantry closing with and destroying Communist units. In 1970 General H. Kalergis, the commander of II Field Force Artillery, concluded that H&I missions did not achieve results in proportion to ammunition expended. He directed that artillery batteries relocate to areas of known contact rather than continue to conduct high numbers of H&I missions. Most field commanders disagreed with the sentiments expressed by Mildren, Collins, and Kalergis and enthusiastically

supported active H&I programs. Infantry and armored forces conducting search-and-destroy operations believed that H&I fires helped deter ambushes or were effective in hitting VC or PAVN staging areas before those forces could mass against allied forces. H&I did prove effective when enhanced by technology. U.S. division artillery headquarters, artillery brigade headquarters, and field force headquarters batteries were equipped with the AN/ TPQ-4 countermortar radar. This was capable of locating mortar fire by tracking the projectiles in flight back to their points of origin. In addition, the AN/TPS-25 ground surveillance radar was able to detect movement of vehicles and troops at a six-mile range within its sectors of search. If firing elements could respond to radar sightings within approximately five minutes, the effectiveness of H&I fires was greatly enhanced. Radar platoons supporting U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps field artillery units significantly enhanced target-acquisition capabilities. In 1968 remote sensors were introduced into Southeast Asia as part of the Igloo White program, which also increased the effect of H&I missions. Sensors, fired by artillery or dropped by aircraft,

Hardhats were battery-powered and could be activated by individual footprints. Army sensors were radio-linked with fire-direction centers at numerous firebases, giving artillery units almost immediate response to confirmed targets. On September 24, 1968, U.S. 25th Infantry Division artillery engaged PAVN troops using sensor-acquired targets near Tay Ninh. Sensors detected movement near a crossroads upon a known infiltration route, and this information was received at firebase French Fort. In immediate response, four 175-millimeter (mm) guns engaged targets at the edge of the sensor field. The division’s light (105-mm) and medium (155-mm) howitzer battalions fired at positions to block PAVN movements, while all medium (81-mm) mortars within range fired directly upon the intersection of the trails. The next day infantry patrols reported at least seven PAVN soldiers killed, with evidence of numerous wounded being evacuated from the field. Radars, sensors, and aerial reconnaissance did in fact increase the effects of H&I over the traditional method of mapspotting and routine intelligence dissemination. Yet there were insufficient radar and other target-acquisition assets to increase the overall effect of daily H&I missions fired throughout Vietnam. Despite the misgivings of certain senior American commanders, H&I could be an effective tool when certain conditions were met: confirmed or fixed-target locations and observed and adjusted artillery fires. In most cases the U.S. use of H&I met neither of the above parameters. Additionally, H&I accounted for approximately 50 percent of all missions fired by American field artillery units, resulting in almost 70 percent of all ammunition expenditures. In Vietnam, H&I did not achieve the kill ratios that it might have but produced a morale-building factor for American and allied forces engaged in ground operations. Ironically, the PAVN began its 1972 offensive with H&I missions against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) from positions across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The textbook use of H&I occurred during the 1982 Falklands War when ships of the British Royal Navy fired rounds, adjusted by British Army observers, at Argentine positions around Port Stanley. The results were devastating, with targets destroyed and Argentine morale shattered. The British indeed learned from the mistakes of the American experience in the Vietnam War. H&I fires were a controversial element of the artillery war in Vietnam. The political climate of the war encouraged the use of H&I in addition to massive amounts of ground and air-delivered ordnance in support of operations. Artillery was used in lieu of extended ground combat in an attempt to lessen American casualties. The fire-support coordination measures peculiar to Southeast Asia such as no-fire zones, free-fire zones, and restricted fire zones also forced artillery commanders to expend ammunition in H&I missions in support of maneuver forces. H&I was not totally effective, but it was a significant tool in an attempt to inflict maximum damage upon Communist forces. JULIUS A. MENZOFF

457

See also Artillery Fire Doctrine References Dastrup, Boyd L. King of Battle: A Branch History of the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery. Fort Monroe, VA: Office of the Command Historian, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1992. Ott, David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Scales, Robert H., Jr. Firepower in Limited War. 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995. U.S. Government. Field Artillery Cannon Gunnery. Field Manual 6-40. Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1965.

Hardhats National Hard Hats of America, construction workers organized to support President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnam War policies. The Hardhats mounted several often brutal counterdemonstrations against antiwar protests. In New York City on May 8, 1970, only 10 days after Vice President Spiro T. Agnew invited Americans to view protesters as Nazi storm troopers or Ku Klux Klan members and to “act accordingly,” 200 Hardhats attacked a group of peaceful student demonstrators who were protesting the deaths at Kent State University and the Cambodian Incursion. Using fists, crowbars, and metal wrenches, the construction workers forced the student protesters to disperse and then marched on city hall to raise the flag that had been lowered to half-staff in mourning for the Kent State victims. Seventy demonstrators were injured. During the noontime melee two men in gray business suits were seen directing the well-organized attack, which came from four directions. One construction worker revealed that workers were offered a monetary bonus by at least one contractor if they would take time off to “break some heads.” Some New York City police officers were also included in the assault and cheered the workers on. President Nixon told New York union leaders that he found their expressions of the support for the war “very meaningful,” which fueled speculation that the White House had helped to engineer Hardhat activities, although there is no clear evidence to support such an allegation. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL See also Agnew, Spiro Theodore; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Cambodian Incursion; Kent State University Shootings; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

458

Harkins, Paul Donal

Harkins, Paul Donal Birth Date: May 15, 1904 Death Date: August 21, 1984 U.S. Army general and commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), during 1962–1964. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1904, Paul Donal Harkins graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1929. Promoted to captain in June 1939, he served during World War II in Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s Third Army. Harkins was promoted to major in June 1946 and to lieutenant colonel in July 1948. In March 1952 he was promoted to colonel, and in May 1952 he was promoted to brigadier general. At the end of the Korean War in 1953 Harkins was chief of staff of Eighth Army, then in Korea. He subsequently served as commandant of cadets at West Point. During 1954–1957 he was stationed at the Pentagon. Promoted to major general in April 1957 and lieutenant general that July, he was deputy commander, chief of staff of U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, between 1960 and 1962 before being appointed the initial commander of MACV. Promoted to full general, Harkins arrived in Saigon on February 13, 1962.

U.S. Army general Paul D. Harkins, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), during an inspection tour of an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) training camp in 1963. Harkins expressed great confidence about the war’s course and firmly supported RVN president Ngo Dinh Diem. (National Archives)

As part of Project Beefup in 1962, President John F. Kennedy’s administration replaced the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) with the expanded and remodeled MACV, situated in Saigon and commanded by Harkins. There he expressed confidence about the war’s course and stood firmly behind President Ngo Dinh Diem. Harkins favored postponing political and social improvements until the military had subdued the Communist insurgents, the Viet Cong (VC), and secured the countryside. He endorsed the use of napalm against villages housing the VC, regardless of its political effects, and he supported the version given by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) of the disastrous Battle of Ap Bac in the Mekong Delta on January 2, 1963. Harkins also believed that the Strategic Hamlet Program was conceptually valid and impressive in implementation. In fact, he was so optimistic about an eventual victory over the insurgents that he told a group of high-level policy makers in Honolulu that the conflict might well peter out by the end of 1963. General Harkins’s tenacious support for President Diem nearly caused South Vietnamese generals to hesitate in a coup attempt against Diem, which nonetheless occurred in early November 1963. Harkins approved of deposing Ngo Dinh Nhu and his wife but at no time consented to Diem’s ouster. Harkins’s insistence on retaining Diem while eliminating the Nhus brought him into disagreement with U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who supported the South Vietnamese president’s removal. From the beginning Harkins and his aides were on bad terms with the successor junta headed by Duong Van Minh. MACV became uneasy with the new administration’s endeavors to assert its independence and to restrict the U.S. advisory functions. When the junta’s leadership demonstrated little initiative against the Communists, Harkins, who admired General Nguyen Khanh and was aware of his plot against Minh, promoted Khanh’s coup, a move labeled “Harkins’ Revenge” by some in the South Vietnamese military. In March 1964 President Lyndon Baines Johnson replaced Harkins with General William C. Westmoreland. Harkins retired from the U.S. Army and lived in Dallas, Texas, before his death there on August 21, 1984. In retirement he authored a book titled When the Third Cracked Europe: The Story of Patton’s Incredible Army (1969), a largely autobiographical work, and he served as a technical consultant to the 1970 biographical film Patton, which starred George C. Scott as General Patton. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Duong Van Minh; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Khanh; Strategic Hamlet Program References Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987.

Harriman, William Averell

459

Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.

Harriman, William Averell Birth Date: November 15, 1891 Death Date: July 26, 1986 Businessman, diplomat, Democratic Party politician, U.S. secretary of commerce (1946–1948), governor of New York (1955–1958), U.S. ambassador-at-large (1960–1961), assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs (1962–1963), undersecretary of state for political affairs (1963–1964), and ambassador-at-large (1965–1969). William Averell Harriman was born in New York City on November 15, 1891, the son of railroad magnate E. H. Harriman. When the Vietnam War erupted, the younger Harriman was one of the most senior Democratic Party figures within the foreign policy establishment, widely regarded as a leading architect of Cold War policy. Following his graduation from Yale University in 1913, Harriman inherited the massive fortune of his father. During World War II he served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s special envoy to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin (1941–1943) and then as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union (1943–1946). Under President Harry S Truman, Harriman was ambassador to Great Britain (1946), secretary of commerce (1946–1948), special representative in Europe for the Marshall Plan’s Economic Cooperation Administration (1948–1950), special assistant to the president (1950–1951), and head of the Mutual Security Administration (1951–1953). In 1954 Harriman was elected governor of New York and served one four-year term, beginning in 1955. Although not initially close to John F. Kennedy, in 1960 the ambitious Harriman made strenuous efforts to win a foreign policy position within the newly elected administration. In March 1963 he worked his way up to undersecretary of state for political affairs, the third-ranking position in the Department of State. Harriman’s involvement with Indochina initially centered upon his 1961 and 1962 attempts to broker a settlement between warring factions in Laos that would effectively have neutralized that country and prevented the passage through it to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) of people and supplies to aid the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency there. Hawks in the Kennedy administration harshly criticized Harriman’s efforts as unrealistic, but after protracted negotiations at Geneva involving the United States and the three warring Laotian factions in 1962, an agreement was reached. In practice this understanding was not honored by the Communist Pathet Lao and their allies in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In later years Harriman claimed that he had always opposed U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which is an exaggeration. In 1954 he had

W. Averell Harriman, U.S. politician, businessman, and diplomat. Widely regarded as an expert on the Soviet Union and Asia, Harriman was one of the most influential figures in the shaping of U.S. Cold War policy. (National Archives)

called for the commitment of U.S. troops to Indochina to forestall the region’s possible loss to communism. Later, however, he was to become the most senior leader of the Vietnam doves, favoring reforms in Vietnam and a negotiated settlement. As the U.S. military commitment to Vietnam developed in the early 1960s, Harriman visited Vietnam and warned that President Ngo Dinh Diem’s government was corrupt and unstable. In the summer of 1963 Harriman urged that Diem be pressured to accept the demands of Buddhist monks for punishment of government soldiers who had fired on Buddhist demonstrators in Hue that spring or lose U.S. support. In late August 1963 over a weekend when most U.S. government officials were absent from Washington, Harriman, working with Roger Hilsman, his successor as assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, and National Security Council staffer Michael V. Forrestal, drafted and dispatched a cable to U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge that implicitly authorized U.S. support for a coup against Diem. Although this cable provoked bitter recriminations within the State Department, the Defense Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose secretaries and director had not seen it before its dispatch, it was never revoked. Harriman never developed the close relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson that he had come to enjoy with President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. In March 1964 Harriman was given charge of African affairs, and in February 1965 he was once more named ambassador-at-large. In this capacity he vigorously defended the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy,

460

Harris, David

while privately he continually urged a bombing halt and the opening of negotiations with North Vietnam. Harriman was excluded from operational meetings on Vietnam and the Tuesday White House discussion luncheons of top policy makers. Harriman was generally restrained in expressing his criticism directly to Johnson, an omission that distressed many of those closest to him, who ascribed his reticence to his fear of losing office. Even so, at a November 1967 meeting of the president’s most senior advisers, the so-called Wise Men, Harriman dissented from the consensus that favored Johnson’s bombing policy and instead called for the opening of negotiations. After the Tet Offensive and the consequent reassessment of U.S. policy goals in Vietnam, Johnson named Harriman his representative in peace negotiations at Paris. Several months of lengthy discussions, both open and secret, finally succeeded in establishing procedural guidelines for the talks, at which the Soviet Union, the United States, North Vietnam, the VC, and South Vietnam were to be represented. At this stage Richard M. Nixon took office, and Harriman returned to Washington, completing his last formal government assignment. He died in New York City on July 26, 1986. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Forrestal, Michael Vincent; Hilsman, Roger; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennan, George Frost; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Paris Negotiations; Truman, Harry S.; Wise Men References Abramson, Rudy. Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, 1891–1986. New York: William Morrow, 1992. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.

more than 2,000 men returned their draft cards. The Resistance conducted three more national draft card returns by the end of 1968. Harris delivered hundreds of speeches promoting draft resistance, sometimes appearing with activist folksinger Joan Baez, whom he married on March 26, 1968. Two months later a jury convicted Harris for refusing draft induction, a verdict upheld on appeal. He spent nearly two years in federal prison before being paroled on March 15, 1971. Divorced from Baez shortly after his release, Harris pursued a career in journalism, interrupted by an unsuccessful run for the 1976 Democratic nomination in California’s 12th congressional district. Harris is a regular contributor to such publications as Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine. His 1996 book Our War: What We Did in Vietnam and What It Did to Us was a well-received account of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement. His latest book, The President, the Prophet, and the Shah, published in 2004, examined the 1979–1981 Iranian Hostage Crisis based on extensive interviews with the hostages and the hostage takers. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Baez, Joan Chandos; Conscientious Objectors; Selective Service References Ferber, Michael, and Staughton Lynd. The Resistance. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Harris, David. Dreams Die Hard. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982. Harris, David. I Shoulda Been Home Yesterday. New York: Delacorte, 1976.

Hartke, Vance Rupert Birth Date: May 31, 1919 Death Date: July 27, 2003

Harris, David Birth Date: February 28, 1946 Political activist, journalist, and author who cofounded and spearheaded the antidraft movement known as The Resistance. David Harris was born on February 28, 1946, in Fresno, California. He entered Stanford University in the autumn of 1963 and was elected student body president three years later. His relatively radical campaign platform and counterculture style attracted national notoriety. Increasingly disturbed by the Vietnam War, in August 1966 Harris renounced his student draft deferment and indicated his intent to refuse induction. With Dennis Sweeney, Lennie Heller, and Steve Hamilton, in March 1967 Harris founded The Resistance to encourage opposition to the Selective Service System. They organized approximately three dozen chapters across the country, and on October 16, 1967,

Attorney, Democratic Party politician, and U.S. senator (1959– 1976). Born in Stendal, Indiana, on May 31, 1919, Vance Rupert Hartke received his undergraduate degree from Evansville College (University of Evansville). In 1940 and during 1942–1946 he served in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1948 he earned a law degree from Indiana University, and he practiced law in Evansville from 1948 to 1958. In 1958 Hartke won election to the U.S. Senate from Indiana as a Democrat. He was an avid supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs, and Johnson counted Hartke as one of his most loyal supporters in Congress until early 1966, when Hartke began questioning American involvement in Vietnam. In January 1966 Hartke drafted a letter, cosigned by 15 other senators, urging President Johnson not to resume the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In February, Hartke delivered his first major speech opposing escala-

HARVEST MOON, Operation

tion of the war. He did, however, vote for a $13 billion arms appropriations bill that included funding for the war. In 1967 Hartke wrote The American Crisis in Vietnam, but he withheld publication for a year to prevent it from damaging the Democratic Party in Indiana during a presidential election year. Hartke continued as a vocal critic of U.S. Vietnam involvement, however. Political opponents charged that Hartke was guilty of conflict of interest because in his 1964 campaign for reelection he accepted large cash contributions from a Chicago-based mail-order firm. Hartke had received an appointment to the Senate Post Office Committee, where he worked to stall postal increases for thirdclass mail. He won reelection to the Senate from Indiana in 1970 but lost six years later to Republican Richard Lugar. Hartke ran unsuccessfully for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. He subsequently moved to northern Virginia, where he practiced law. He died on July 27, 2003, in Falls Church, Virginia. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Case, Clifford Philip; Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Fulbright, James William; Great Society Program; Hatfield, Mark Odom; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Edward Moore; McGee, Gale William; McGovern, George Stanley; Proxmire, Edward William

461

References Lichtenstein, Nelson, ed. Political Profiles: The Johnson Years. New York: Facts on File, 1976. Who’s Who in American Politics, 1996. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker, 1995.

HARVEST MOON,

Operation

Start Date: December 8, 1965 End Date: December 20, 1965 Military operation in December 1965 and the largest U.S. Marine Corps combat effort in the Vietnam War to that point. Operation HARVEST MOON came about as a result of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision in March 1965 to send U.S. ground troops to Vietnam. The operation was also an early test of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoseland’s strategy of attrition through search-and-destroy missions. Although often overshadowed by the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division campaign in the Ia Drang Valley (October–November 1965), HARVEST MOON was a violent and frustrating test of U.S.

U.S. marines on the banks of a dike in a rice paddy on December 15, 1965, during Operation HARVEST MOON, south of Da Nang in what was the largest combat operation for the marines in the war to that point. A house is on fire across the dike. (AP/Wide World Photos)

462

HASTINGS, Operation

Marine Corps tactics and equipment. The operation was carried out during December 8–20, 1965, and was carried out during the monsoon season, a situation that added significantly to the operation’s problems and to the misery of its participants. HARVEST MOON was intended to find and attack Viet Cong (VC) units in the Phuoc Ha Valley, a Communist base area southwest of Da Nang. The operation was a combined U.S. Marine Corps and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) expedition to trap the VC in the valley. However, the ARVN units involved were attacked by the VC 2nd Division’s 70th Battalion on December 8 while en route to the valley and sustained heavy casualties. On December 9 the marines moved into the area under a temporary command structure known as Task Force Delta. Originally the plan called for the marines to trap the VC from the flank and rear; now they also had to come to the aid of ARVN forces. On December 10 the marines counterattacked overland in the face of stiff resistance from VC local forces and three battalions of the VC 2nd Division’s 1st Regiment. The Special Landing Force (SLF), a newly created unit stationed in reserve aboard an aircraft carrier off the coast, was brought in by helicopter. When the SLF reached the battlefield, it came under heavy Communist fire. The SLF had a difficult time securing its landing zones before the VC withdrew into the Phuoc Ha Valley. During December 12–24 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers attacked VC positions in the valley, but the VC had already pulled out. On December 18 one last battle took place in the southern margin of the HARVEST MOON operating area. After being ambushed by the entire 1st Regiment of the VC 2nd Division, a marine battalion employed superior firepower in defeating the attackers. HARVEST MOON was the U.S. Marine Corps’ last battle of 1965. The Marine Corps learned a number of lessons, including the necessity for better air-to-ground coordination and the need for more advanced planning. The technique of search and destroy had brought only mixed results, as did the use of B-52 bombers, the SLF, and UH-1E (“Huey”) helicopters. Marine casualties numbered 51 dead and 256 wounded. VC dead were estimated at 407. Although the VC proved aggressive and skillful both in attack and in their ability to elude entrapment, the marines had been able to defeat them in open firefights. Still, following the operation the marines returned to their enclave base area, meaning that the Phuoc Ha Valley would be the scene of future battles. ERIC JARVIS See also Ia Drang, Battle of; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Search and Destroy; United States Marine Corps; Westmoreland, William Childs References Ngo Quy Nhon, Pham Hong Nhan, and Tran Thuc. Su Doan 2, Tap 1 [2nd Division, Vol. 1]. Da Nang, Vietnam: Da Nang Publishing House, 1989.

Shulimson, Jack, and Charles M. Johnson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Walt, Lewis W. Strange War, Strange Strategy: A General’s Report on Vietnam. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1976.

HASTINGS,

Operation

Start Date: July 7, 1966 End Date: August 3, 1966 U.S. Marine Corps reconnaissance operation in Quang Tri Province. U.S. marines in Vietnam were deployed in the I Corps Tactical Zone, the northernmost of the four military regions in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). South Vietnam’s five provinces contained some 2.6 million people as well as the important cities of Da Nang and Hue. Prior to Operation HASTINGS, the marines in the I Corps Tactical Zone were primarily engaged in counterguerrilla warfare against the Viet Cong (VC) political and guerrilla infrastructure. Most marine activities took place in the southern part of the I Corps Tactical Zone. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland did not approve of the marine emphasis on counterinsurgency. He wanted them to conduct largeunit operations against Communist main forces. Westmoreland was convinced that the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) was building up its strength in northern South Vietnam for a major offensive, possibly including an attack on Hue. In the spring of 1966 the marines, at Westmoreland’s insistence, began conducting reconnaissance operations in Quang Tri Province to determine the extent of the PAVN buildup. On July 7, 1966, the code name Operation HASTINGS was given to these reconnaissance operations. Fighting during HASTINGS took place across a broad front between Route 9, the major regional east-west highway, and the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The marines’ adversaries were not local VC guerrillas but rather well-armed and well-trained members of the PAVN 324B Division, which frequently ambushed marine patrols from strongly fortified positions. These light infantry forces were equipped with Chinese assault rifles, automatic weapons, and mortars. The heaviest fighting took place during July 12–25, and the operation officially ended on August 3. HASTINGS was the largest and most violent operation of the war to that point. Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers from Guam carried out strikes to support the marines, bombing the DMZ for the first time. In addition, marine artillery fired nearly 34,500 rounds in support. Eight thousand marines and 3,000 troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese army) took

HASTINGS, Operation

463

U.S. marines fording a stream at Dong Ha, South Vietnam, as they move to join other elements of their battalion during Operation HASTINGS in July 1966. HASTINGS was the largest and most violent U.S. operation of the war to that point. (National Archives)

part in HASTINGS. Marine casualties were 126 killed in action and 498 wounded in action. MACV reported more than 800 PAVN dead. Fighting in the area continued after the conclusion of HASTINGS as the marines continued their reconnaissance of the area and established permanent bases. The marine command was uncertain as to the tactical goals of the PAVN 324B Division. Perhaps the division sought to shorten the long march down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos, but the division might also have wanted to disrupt successful marine pacification programs in the southern I Corps Tactical Zone by drawing U.S. forces farther north, away from the more heavily populated areas. Postwar Vietnamese Communist sources, quoting from a 1966 high-level Communist Party document on military strategy, reveal that one of the purposes of the North Vietnamese operation was indeed to divert U.S. forces away from the heavily populated areas to the south to ease the pressure on VC forces there. However, the April 1966 party document also says that another goal of this operation was to seize the offensive initiative in the northern I Corps Tactical Zone in order to prevent U.S. forces from conducting ground attacks into the southern panhandle of North Vietnam, where the hub of North Vietnam’s troop infiltration and supply operations down the Ho Chi Minh Trail was located.

HASTINGS did bring a realignment of marine forces in the I Corps Tactical Zone. No longer would primary emphasis be on pacification. The North Vietnamese had expanded the war, and the U.S. military believed that it had little choice but to respond. In March 1965 marine strength in Vietnam was 5,000 men. By the end of the following year there would be 70,000 marines in the I Corps Tactical Zone. PETER W. BRUSH

See also Clear and Hold; Pacification; PRAIRIE I, Operation; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Nguyen Van Minh, ed. Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc, 1954– 1975, Tap IV, Cuoc Dung Dau Lich Su [History of the Resistance War against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954–1975, Vol. 4, A Historic Confrontation]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1999. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982.

464

Hatfield, Mark Odom

Hatfield, Mark Odom Birth Date: July 22, 1922 Educator, politician, and Republican U.S. senator (1967–1997) who was a steady critic of American involvement in Vietnam. Mark Odom Hatfield was born in Dallas, Oregon, on July 22, 1922. He graduated from Willamette University in 1943 and served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater during World War II. Receiving a master’s degree in political science from Stanford University in 1948, Hatfield joined the faculty at Willamette University, where he held a position until 1959. During his time there he also served as dean of students (1950–1956). Running as a Republican, Hatfield served in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1950 to 1955 and in the Oregon Senate from 1955 to 1957. Hatfield was Oregon’s secretary of state from 1957 to 1959, at which time he became governor. He served an eight-year term until he was elected to the U.S. Senate and took his seat in January 1967. Hatfield was elected to the Senate essentially on an antiwar platform in 1966. During Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, Hatfield was one of the major doves in the Senate. In June 1970 he proposed replacing the Nixon administration because it had failed to deliver on its 1968 campaign promise to end the war. Following the American incursion into Cambodia in May 1970, Hatfield cosponsored with Democratic senator George McGovern from South Dakota an amendment to the arms appropriations bill calling for a cutoff of funds for the war after December 31, 1970. Although defeated twice by the Senate, the Hatfield-McGovern Amendment became the rallying point for many antiwar activists. Hatfield also proposed an end of the military draft by replacing it with an all-volunteer force. Although this bill never passed, Nixon eventually ended the draft in 1973. Quite liberal for a Republican, Hatfield championed other traditionally leftist causes, including that of civil rights. Indeed, in the early 1950s while still in the Oregon House of Representatives, he successfully guided a bill through the House that ended racial discrimination in public places well before such an effort was successful at the national level. During his U.S. Senate career he favored moderate positions for his party and was not supportive of many of the causes embraced by its conservative wing. Hatfield was prochoice on the abortion issue and was against the death penalty. In 1981 he was the only Republican senator to vote against the Ronald Reagan administration’s budget increases for the Pentagon. A decade later Hatfield voted against empowering the George H. W. Bush administration to wage war on Iraq (Hatfield was one of only two Republican senators to cast a nay vote). Throughout his long senatorial career, Hatfield earned a reputation as a man of great principle who was unwilling to sacrifice his beliefs for political gain. In 1990 Hatfield was reelected to his fifth term in the Senate, but he chose to retire from public life in 1996. He returned to Oregon and began teaching political science and history at several colleges and universities in his home state. Hatfield has also au-

thored several books and was the subject of an entire chapter in Tom Brokaw’s popular book The Greatest Generation (1998). ROBERT G. MANGRUM AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Case, Clifford Philip; Case-Church Amendment; Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Church Amendment; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; McGovern, George Stanley References Hatfield, Mark, and Diane L. Soloman. Against the Grain: Reflections of a Rebel Republican. Ashland, OR: White Cloud, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Hatfield-McGovern Amendment The most significant defiance in the U.S. Senate of executive power between 1965 and 1970. Before President Richard M. Nixon ordered the Cambodian Incursion in April 1970, he conferred with only a few supportive lawmakers. Many senators, upset with his secrecy and enraged at his expansion of the conflict in Southeast Asia, bestirred themselves to a symbolic challenge of presidential authority. They revoked the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and ratified a proposal by John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) and Frank Church (D-Idaho) calling for severing all financing for U.S. military activity in Cambodia beyond June 30, 1970. More restrictive was an amendment affixed to military procurement legislation sponsored by Senators George S. McGovern (D-S. Dak.) and Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) known as the “amendment to end the war.” This amendment required the termination of U.S. military operations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) by December 31, 1970, and the withdrawal of American forces by mid-1971. Soon rewritten to garner more favor, the revised version set the maximum U.S. troop level at 280,000 men by April 30, 1971, and changed the removal deadline to the end of 1971. The revised amendment also urged the Nixon administration to tender information concerning the difficulties of implementing disengagement. The White House, joined by its congressional allies, pounced upon the Hatfield-McGovern Amendment. Accusing domestic critics of protracting the conflict, Nixon warned the legislative leadership that if lawmakers checked him, Congress would have to live with the unfortunate result. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, charging the amendment’s partisans with being isolationists, asserted that the proposal would undermine the Paris negotiations, cause America’s first defeat, and open South Vietnam and the rest of Indochina to communism. Senators John C. Stennis (D-Miss.) and Cooper backed the administration, arguing that the amendment would impede the president’s role as chief diplomat as well as the U.S. position at the Paris peace talks. McGovern and Hatfield responded to the Nixon administration’s accusations, censuring Agnew for his failure to understand

HAWTHORNE, Operation

the constitutional obligation of joint accountability for cessation of the war. McGovern added that “If the Cambodian invasion was ‘the finest hour in the Nixon presidency,’” as Agnew claimed, “God save us from whatever may be the worst hour.” McGovern likewise held each senator partially answerable for the thousands dead and wounded as a result of the conflict. The Hatfield-McGovern Amendment suffered defeat on September 1, 1970, by a vote of 55 to 39, with 34 Republicans and 21 Democrats opposed and 32 Democrats and 7 Republicans in favor. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Agnew, Spiro Theodore; Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Church Amendment; Hatfield, Mark Odom; McGovern, George Stanley; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Stennis, John Cornelius

465

References Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon. 3 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 1989, 1991. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Sobel, Lester A., ed. South Vietnam: U.S.-Communist Confrontation in Southeast Asia, Vol. 5, 1970. New York: Facts on File, 1973.

HAWTHORNE,

Operation

Start Date: June 2, 1966 End Date: June 20, 1966 The first phase in the Battle of Dak To, an outpost in northern Kontum Province. Operation HAWTHORNE began on June 2, 1966, with the mission to rescue Vietnamese irregulars at the Tou Morong

A U.S. infantry patrol moves into position to assault a Communist position after an attempted Communist effort to overrun a U.S. fire base during Operation HAWTHORNE at Dak To in South Vietnam in June 1966. (National Archives)

466

Hayden, Thomas Emmett

Special Forces camp, near Dak To, that was surrounded by units of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 24th Regiment. The 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment (1-327 Infantry), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David H. Hackworth, and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 1st Battalion of the 42nd Regiment fought through moderate resistance to reach the hilltop garrison and evacuate its 150 inhabitants. The 1-327 Infantry then pursued the PAVN forces into the surrounding valleys. On the night of June 6, 1966, a large PAVN force attacked and partially overran a U.S. artillery position. American casualties were 4 killed and 10 wounded; a sweep of the perimeter revealed 86 PAVN dead. The next day a company of the 1-327 Infantry was mauled as it wandered into the middle of a PAVN base camp and was saved only by artillery fire and the insertion of additional infantry. As a second company maintained contact with the Communists for 10 days, it was apparent that a major PAVN force was present, and the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry (2-502 Infantry) joined the fray. In a famous and tragic episode, waves of PAVN attackers surrounded and nearly overran the night position of one of the companies. Headlines were generated at home when it was learned that the company commander, Captain William S. Carpenter, well known as an all-American football player at West Point, bravely called in napalm strikes on his own position to repel the attack. Carpenter’s company suffered 6 killed and 25 seriously wounded, many from napalm burns, but at daybreak very few PAVN dead were found around the hilltop. Soon afterward, the remaining company of the 1-327 Infantry moved out of Tou Morong and encountered well-entrenched PAVN positions. Companies of the 2-502 Infantry immediately air assaulted from Dak To as a blocking force. Hoping to trap the entire PAVN 24th Regiment, II Corps command flew in the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry (1-5 Infantry), from An Khe and a company of the 2-327 Infantry from Tuy Hoa. U.S. forces were supported by 463 air strikes and 36 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress sorties that sometimes cut safety margins to a minimum but accounted for more than 200 PAVN casualties. HAWTHORNE was nearing termination when, on June 17, a company of the 1-327 Infantry engaged a small PAVN force in dense terrain. Responding to a call for support, 1st Cavalry gunships hit the company position itself, killing 1 and wounding 29. Finally on June 20 the remaining PAVN forces withdrew, having suffered more than 500 dead. U.S. casualties during the 19 days of Operation HAWTHORNE were more than 50 dead and 200 wounded. JOHN D. ROOT See also Air Mobility; Dak To, Battle of; Fratricide; Hackworth, David Haskell References Hackworth, David H., and Eihys England. Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. New York: Touchstone, 2003.

Hackworth, Colonel David H., and Julie Sherman. About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Marshall, S. L. A. Battles in the Monsoon: Campaigning in the Central Highlands, South Vietnam, Summer, 1966. New York: William Morrow, 1967. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Hayden, Thomas Emmett Birth Date: December 11, 1939 Influential early leader of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), antiwar activist associated with the August 1968 demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and later Democratic politician. Born on December 11, 1939, in Royal Oak, Michigan, Thomas Emmett Hayden entered the University of Michigan in 1957 and, as editor of the student newspaper, advocated liberal social causes. Student demonstrations against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and civil rights sit-ins galvanized his political activism. After graduation he worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register voters in the southern United States. Returning to Ann Arbor, Hayden was among the founders of the SDS, an organization calling for social changes to align America with its often unrealized ideals. He served as SDS president during 1962–1963 and was the primary author of the 1962 Port Huron Statement. This extensive critique of U.S. society called for individuals to share in making the decisions that affected their lives and proved to be one of the defining documents of the New Left. From 1964 to 1967 Hayden headed the SDS Economic Research and Action Project in Newark, New Jersey, one of several efforts to organize the poor in northern cities. Finding government response to racism, poverty, and militarism inadequate, Hayden sought increasingly radical solutions to America’s social problems. Hayden’s opposition to the Vietnam War twice took him to Indochina. In December 1965, he visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) with Herbert Aptheker and Staughton Lynd, and in 1967 Hayden accompanied three released American prisoners of war from Cambodia. As a leader of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Hayden acted as a key planner of demonstrations during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. These often violent confrontations between police and protesters, labeled a “police riot” by investigators, led the government to charge Hayden and several others with conspiracy to riot. As a defendant in the highly publicized trial of the Chicago Eight, later known as the Chicago Seven after defendant Bobby Seale’s trial was separated, Hayden and six others initially were convicted in February 1970, but an appeals court overturned the verdict in November 1972 because of Judge Julius Hoffman’s improper and antagonistic conduct.

Healy, Michael D. Following the trial Hayden continued to speak and write against the war, but a period of intense introspection tempered his radicalism. Although still critical of the nation’s flaws, he moved his dissent back into the mainstream. With actor Jane Fonda, whom he married and later divorced, he organized the Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC) in 1972. The IPC toured the country during that year’s presidential campaign with speeches, visual displays, pamphlets, and music to reinvigorate the war issue and register antiwar voters. After the war Californians elected Hayden to the state legislature in 1982, where he continued to serve until 2000. During his tenure he mounted an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1994 and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Los Angeles in 1997. In 1999 he was a featured speaker at protests surrounding the World Trade Organization’s meeting in Seattle, Washington. Hayden has also taught courses at Occidental College and at Pitzer College and has authored numerous books. He remains active in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and he supported and actively campaigned for President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Fonda, Jane Seymour; Seale, Bobby; Students for a Democratic Society References Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Hayden, Tom. Reunion: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1988. Miller, James. Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. New York: Random House, 1973.

Healy, Michael D. Birth Date: June 13, 1926 U.S. Army officer and last commander of the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 13, 1926, Michael “Iron Mike” D. Healy entered the U.S. Army in June 1945 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, as an enlisted man. Commissioned in the infantry in December 1946 and reassigned to Japan, he served in a number of troop assignments with the 1st Cavalry Division in the U.S. occupation forces there until 1949. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Healy joined the 4th Ranger Infantry Company in Korea, where he participated in four major campaigns involving extensive behind-the-lines special operations including the parachute assault on Musan-Ni in March 1951, when his Ranger company was attached to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. After the war he joined the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

467

In 1953 Healy volunteered for the newly formed 77th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he served as operational detachment commander, operations officer, and instructor in guerrilla warfare. He attended the Marine Corps School at Quantico, Virginia, and was assigned to the European-based 10th Special Forces Group in January 1957. After attending the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in 1960, Healy was assigned to the Pentagon. In July 1963 he was reassigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Forces, Vietnam, with duty initially as the operations officer and then as senior adviser to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Special Forces. In August 1964 Healy returned to the United States and assumed command of the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry, 101st Infantry Division. After almost two years in command he elected to deploy to Vietnam with his battalion, which was redesignated as the 4th Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade (Separate). After 30 consecutive months in command, he returned to the United States to attend the U.S. Army War College. In March 1969 Colonel Healy returned for his third tour of duty in Vietnam, where he became commander of Special Troops and assistant chief of staff, G-1, XXIV Corps. In August 1969 he assumed command of the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, and redeployed the brigade to Hawaii. After only three weeks in Hawaii, he was recalled to Vietnam to take over the 5th Special Forces Group, which he commanded for 20 months. Healy supervised the conversion of the South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) to Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) rangers and the subsequent phase down of the 5th Special Forces Group. This involved the conversion of the 38 remaining A-detachment camps to ARVN ranger battalions by the end of 1970; Special Forces strength in support of the CIDG program was reduced to zero by March 31, 1971. Colonel Healy presided over the last 5th Special Forces Group formation on February 28, 1971. The Department of the Army officially closed the 5th Special Forces Group out of South Vietnam effective March 3, 1971. Healy returned to the United States, where he was assigned to Headquarters, Department of the Army. He later became the assistant division commander, 82nd Airborne Division, at Fort Bragg. In May 1972 Healy was once again recalled to Vietnam, where he initially served as the deputy commanding general, 3rd Regional Assistance Command, Military Region III and III Corps. In June 1972 when John Paul Vann was killed in a helicopter crash near Kontum, Healy replaced him and became commanding general, 2nd Regional Assistance Command, Military Region II and II Corps. He remained in command until all U.S. forces were withdrawn in 1973. Upon his return to the United States, General Healy assumed command of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Center and Institute for Military Assistance at Fort Bragg. He was promoted to major general and remained in command until

468

Heath, Donald Read

October 1975. After a number of other important assignments, General Healy retired from the army in 1981. He now resides in Jacksonville, Florida. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; United States Special Forces; Vann, John Paul; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Heath, Donald Read Birth Date: August 12, 1894 Death Date: October 15, 1981 U.S. career diplomat and minister to the Associated States of Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) from 1950 to 1952; ambassador to Vietnam and Cambodia from 1952 to 1955. Born in Topeka, Kansas, on August 12, 1894, Donald Read Heath attended Topeka’s Washburn College and the University of Montpellier in France. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War I, he entered the Foreign Service in 1920. From 1921 until 1950 Heath held a variety of posts in Europe and Latin America, becoming minister to Bulgaria in 1947. In 1950 he was expelled from Bulgaria on accusations of interference in that nation’s internal affairs. Later that year he was named U.S. minister to the Associated States of Indochina. In 1952 Heath became the first U.S. ambassador to Vietnam and Cambodia. Although supportive of the French cause in Southeast Asia, he met stern resistance from French officials who resented U.S. interference. When Ngo Dinh Diem emerged as the de facto leader of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1954, Heath argued in favor of prompt U.S. support for the Diem regime. Heath was sustained in his opinion by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and soon massive amounts of U.S. aid were pouring into Saigon. In 1955 Heath left Vietnam to become ambassador to Lebanon. Two years later he assumed the same post in Saudi Arabia, where he remained until his retirement from government service in 1961. He subsequently held a professorship at the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for a private company that sought to receive payment by foreign governments on defaulted bonds held by Americans. Heath died on October 15, 1981, in Orinda, California. DAVID COFFEY See also Dulles, John Foster; Ngo Dinh Diem

References Findling, John E. Dictionary of American Diplomatic History. 2nd ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1989. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Who Was Who in America with World Notables, Vol. 9, 1985–1989. Wilmette, IL: Macmillan Directory Division, 1989.

Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam The Vietnam War has become known as the “Helicopter War.” More helicopters were used for more purposes in the Vietnam War than in any previous war. For many reasons, hardly an operation was executed without them. Poor roads and dense jungles made Vietnam ideal for guerrilla ambushes and difficult for ground transport. Guerrillas could easily attack outlying bases, ambush the rescuers, and then vanish into the trackless bush. Troop-carrying helicopters avoided ambushes by avoiding roads. This was one factor that led the United States to send helicopters to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1961. As the French discovered by 1950, helicopters could also quickly evacuate the wounded and were also ideal for reconnaissance because of their good crew visibility and maneuverability. Still in their infancy in the 1950s, helicopters improved greatly in the 1960s. Most important was the change from piston to turboshaft engines and from wooden to composition rotor blades. Other improved parts led to longer runs between overhauls, less downtime, and higher availability rates. Better helicopters led the U.S. Army in the 1960s to experiment with the concept of air mobility, and Vietnam provided the laboratory. Air mobility involved flying troops into battle and supporting them with an air line of fire support and supply. American forces used air mobility repeatedly. Air mobility was not possible unless helicopters proved survivable in combat. From the first, they were survivable against small-arms fire. The U.S. Air Force and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) enjoyed complete air superiority in South Vietnam, and allied helicopters thus flew under a friendly air umbrella. Helicopters were survivable also because initially Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units lacked antiaircraft weapons. Later in the war when they did have these weapons, as in Operations DELAWARE–LAM SON 261 and LAM SON 719, Communist forces shot down many helicopters. Defensive techniques such as treetop flying and suppressive fire at the landing zone (LZ) improved helicopters’ survivability. The following are the various types of helicopters used in the Vietnam War.

Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 469

United States and Republic of Vietnam Westland Sikorsky S-51 (R-6) Manufactured in Great Britain under license from Sikorsky, the R-6 was an improved version of the R-4. The French used it for medical evacuation and supply before 1954. Specifications are crew consisting of one pilot; power plant, one 240-horsepower (hp) Franklin 0-405-9 radial piston engine; length, 38 feet 3 inches; rotor diameter, 38 feet; loaded weight, 2,590 pounds; maximum speed, 96 miles per hour (mph); and service ceiling, 10,000 feet.

Hiller H-23 Raven Utilized by the French for medical evacuation, observation, and supply before 1954, the H-23 was also used by Americans for observation before it was replaced by the Hughes OH-6A Cayuse about 1968. Specifications are crew consisting of one pilot and one copilot; power plant, one 323-hp Lycoming VO-540-A1B piston engine; length, 40 feet 8 inches; height, 9 feet 9.5 inches; rotor diameter, 35 feet 5 inches; empty weight, 1,755 pounds; maximum weight, 2,800 pounds; maximum speed, 96 mph; service ceiling, 16,200 feet; and range, 225 miles.

Bell H-13 Sioux First used by the French before 1954, the H-13 was the main American light observation helicopter in Vietnam until it was replaced by the Hughes OH-6A Cayuse around 1968. Specifications are crew consisting of one pilot; power plant, one 240-hp Lycoming 0-435-6 piston engine; length, 32 feet 4 inches; height, 9 feet 6 inches; rotor diameter, 37 feet 2 inches; empty weight, 1,652 pounds; maximum weight, 2,700 pounds; maximum speed, 100 mph; and range, 300 miles.

Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw Employed by the French for troop movement and supply before 1954, the H-19 found use as a utility helicopter in the early days of American involvement. Specifications are crew consisting of one pilot and one copilot; power plant, one 600-hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340-57 Wasp radial piston engine; length, 42 feet 2 inches; height, 13 feet 4 inches; rotor diameter, 53 feet; empty weight, 4,795 pounds; maximum weight, 7,900 pounds; maximum speed, 101 mph; service ceiling, 10,500 feet; and range, 405 miles.

Piasecki CH-21C Shawnee Employed by the first U.S. Army units in Vietnam in 1961 as a troop carrier and for search-and-rescue operations, the CH-21C’s laminated wooden rotor blades often came apart in the humid heat, and the small exits made troop debarkation difficult. To afford better protection at LZs, some Shawnees were armed with machine guns and rockets. By 1964 the Shawnee was replaced as a troop carrier by the UH-1 Iroquois.

Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and gunners; power plant, one 1,425-hp Wright R-1820-103 radial piston engine; length, 52 feet 6 inches; height, 15 feet 5 inches; rotors, two in tandem, 44 feet 6 inches in diameter; empty weight, 8,000 pounds; maximum weight, 15,000 pounds; maximum speed, 131 mph; and service ceiling, 9,450 feet.

Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw The United States sent H-34s to Vietnam in 1961 for use in an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) strike force, but President Ngo Dinh Diem used them for administrative purposes. The U.S. Marine Corps sent an aviation unit of H-34s to Vietnam in 1962. The unit was moved to the mountains below the demilitarized zone (DMZ) because the H-34 had more lifting power at high altitude than the CH-21C. The H-34 was utilized for troop movement, supply, and artillery emplacement. In 1966 the Boeing-Vertol CH-46A Sea Knight replaced the H-34. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and two crewmen; power plant, one 1,525-hp Wright R-1820-84 radial piston engine; length, 46 feet 9 inches; height, 15 feet 11 inches; rotor diameter, 56 feet; empty weight, 8,400 pounds; maximum weight, 13,300 pounds; maximum speed, 123 mph; service ceiling, 9,500 feet; and range, 182 miles.

Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave The U.S. Army used the Mojave in Vietnam from 1962 until the late 1960s largely for recovering downed aircraft and for heavy lift. The Boeing-Vertol CH-47 Chinook replaced the Mojave. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and crew chief; power plant, two 2,100-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800-54 radial piston engines; length, 88 feet; height, 22 feet; rotors, two, one on either side of the fuselage, with a diameter of 72 feet; empty weight, 20,831 pounds; maximum weight, 31,000 pounds; maximum speed, 130 mph; service ceiling, 8,700 feet; and range, 145 miles.

Bell UH-1H Iroquois Known as the “Huey,” the UH-1 went through several design changes from 1962 until the end of the war. Especially notable were the A, B, and D models. The UH-1 was the principal helicopter used by all allied forces in Vietnam for many missions: troop carrying, gunship escort, supply, command and control, medical evacuation, rocket artillery, radio relay, reconnaissance, rescue, base security, and psychological warfare. Specifications for the H model are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and crew chief/door gunner; power plant, one 1,400shaft horsepower (shp) Lycoming T-53-L-13 turboshaft engine; length, 44 feet 7 inches; height, 13 feet 5 inches; rotor, 48 feet; empty weight, 5,090 pounds; maximum weight, 9,500 pounds; maximum speed, 130 mph; service ceiling, 12,700 feet; and range, 357 miles.

470

Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

U.S. Army Bell UH-1D helicopters airlift members of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, from the Filhol Rubber Plantation area to a new staging area during Operation WAHIAWA, a search and destroy mission conducted by the 25th Infantry Division, northeast of Cu Chi, South Vietnam, May 16, 1966. (National Archives)

Boeing-Vertol CH-47 Chinook Irreverently referred to as the “Shithook” by troops, the Chinook was the U.S. Army’s primary medium-lift helicopter in Vietnam starting in 1965. ARVN forces also employed the Chinook. Its major missions included troop transport, medical evacuation, artillery emplacement, aircraft retrieval, and supply. An external sling allowed transport of heavy objects. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and crew chief; power plant, two 3,750-shp Lycoming T55-L-11A turboshaft engines; length, 99 feet; height, 18 feet 8 inches; rotors, two in tandem, 60 feet in diameter; empty weight, 21,464 pounds; maximum weight, 33,000 pounds; maximum speed, 189 mph; service ceiling, 15,000 feet; and range, 230 miles.

Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe The CH-54 provided heavy lift capability for the U.S. Army in Vietnam beginning in 1965. Known as the “Flying Crane” or “Skycrane,” the CH-54 could lift externally slung objects weighing up to 12.5 tons. These included vehicles, 155-mm artillery, disabled aircraft, and special command and troop transport modules. Downdraft from its blades could easily blow away tents and similar objects.

Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and freight master; power plant, two 4,500-shp Pratt & Whitney JFTD12-4A turboshaft engines; length, 88 feet 6 inches; height, 25 feet 5 inches; rotor diameter, 72 feet; empty weight, 19,234 pounds; maximum weight, 42,000 pounds; maximum speed, 126 mph; service ceiling, 9,000 feet; and range, 230 miles.

Bell AH-1 Huey Cobra The Cobra was designed and developed by Bell Helicopter around UH-1 Iroquois components. Its two crew members had tandem seats in the sleek fuselage, and they controlled mixes of armaments to include 7.62-mm miniguns, 40-mm grenade launcher, 20-mm cannon, and various rockets. The AH-1 was designed to replace the slower armed UH-1B, called a “Hog,” for suppressive fire at the LZ. Coming into service in 1967, the Cobra proved very versatile in fire support for U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot and copilot/gunner; power plant, 1,800-shp Lycoming T53-L-703 turboshaft engine; length, 44 feet 7 inches; height, 13 feet 6 inches; rotor diameter, 44 feet; empty weight, 6,479 pounds; maximum weight, 10,000 pounds; maximum speed, 141 mph; service ceiling, 12,200 feet; and range, 315 miles.

Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 471

A Sikorsky CH-54A Tarhe, known as the “Skycrane,” of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). The twin-engine, heavy-lift Skycrane, which had a payload of 20,000 pounds, performed highly effective service during the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

Hughes OH-6A Cayuse This helicopter was also called a “Loach” because it won the 1962 U.S. Army Light Observation Helicopter (LOH) competition. Coming into service in 1967, the Hughes OH-6A Cayuse replaced the Bell H-13 and Hiller H-23 observation helicopters. The U.S. Marine Corps also used the Cayuse beginning in 1969. A major tactic was to fly low to draw and then pinpoint enemy fire. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot and copilot; power plant, 317-shp Allison T63-A-5A turboshaft engine; length, 30 feet 31 inches; height, 8 feet 1.5 inches; rotor diameter, 26 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 1,229 pounds; maximum weight, 2,400 pounds; maximum speed, 150 mph; service ceiling, 15,800 feet; and range, 380 miles.

Bell OH-58 Kiowa The Kiowa, which won the 1968 U.S. Army LOH competition, replaced the OH-6A Cayuse.

Specifications are crew consisting of pilot and copilot; power plant, 317-shp Allison T63-A-700 turboshaft engine; length, 32 feet 7 inches; height, 9 feet 6.5 inches; rotor diameter, 35 feet 4 inches; empty weight, 1,464 pounds; maximum weight, 3,000 pounds; maximum speed, 138 mph; service ceiling, 18,900 feet; and range, 298 miles.

Kaman H-43 Husky Introduced in 1958, the Husky was used by the U.S. Air Force mainly for air base crash-and-rescue functions in Vietnam. The Husky had two counterrotating rotors and tail fins on twin booms but no tail rotor. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and two firefighters; power plant, one 825-shp Lycoming T53-L-1B turboshaft engine; diameter of rotors, 47 feet; fuselage length, 25 feet 2 inches; height, 15 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 4,469 pounds; maximum weight, 9,150 pounds; maximum speed, 130 mph; service ceiling, 25,000 feet; and range, 235 miles.

472

Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Kaman UH-2 Seasprite

Sikorsky H-3 Sea King

The U.S. Navy used the Seasprite mainly for rescue, firefighting, and antisubmarine warfare after its introduction in 1962. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and sensor operator; power plant, two 1,350-shp General Electric T58-GE-8F turboshaft engines; single rotor diameter, 44 feet; length, 52 feet 7 inches; height, 15 feet 6 inches; empty weight, 7,040 pounds; maximum weight, 12,800 pounds; maximum speed, 165 mph; service ceiling, 22,500 feet; and range, 422 miles.

The U.S. Air Force used the Sea King for search and rescue, while the U.S. Navy used it mainly for antisubmarine warfare. The air force HH-3E model was called the “Jolly Green Giant.” By 1967 the Sea King had air-refueling capability. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and two sensor operators (maximum crew); power plant, two 1,400-shp General Electric T58-GE-10 turboshaft engines; length, 72 feet 8 inches; height, 16 feet 10 inches; single rotor diameter, 62 feet; empty weight, 11,865 pounds; maximum weight, 21,000 pounds; maximum speed, 166 mph; service ceiling, 14,700 feet; and range, 625 miles.

Boeing-Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps used the Sea Knight for troop transport. During 1966 the Sea Knight replaced the H-34 Choctaw. The Sea Knight is similar in design to the CH-47 Chinook, having tandem rotors. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and crew chief; power plant, two 1,400-shp General Electric T58-GE-10 turboshaft engines; length, 84 feet 4 inches; height, 16 feet 8 inches; diameter of rotors, 51 feet; empty weight, 13,342 pounds; maximum weight, 23,000 pounds; maximum speed, 166 mph; service ceiling, 14,000 feet; and range, 237 miles.

Sikorsky HH-53B Sea Stallion Known as the “Super Jolly Green Giant” or “Buff” (for “Big Ugly Fat Fellow”), the Sea Stallion replaced the Sea King in search and rescue. The U.S. Navy used one model for minesweeping, and the U.S. Marine Corps used another model for assault. To build the Sea Stallion, designers stretched the Sea King fuselage and used CH-54 Tarhe components. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and crew chief; power plant, two 3,925-shp General Electric T-64-GE-3 tur-

Sikorsky HH-3E “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters were often employed in search-and-rescue operations to locate pilots downed in Vietnam or in the South China Sea. (Department of Defense)

Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam boshaft engines; length, 88 feet 3 inches; height, 24 feet 11 inches; single rotor diameter, 72 feet 3 inches; empty weight, 23,485 pounds; maximum weight, 42,000 pounds; maximum speed, 196 mph; service ceiling, 21,000 feet; and range, 257 miles.

Democratic Republic of Vietnam Mil Mi-4 Hound The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) used this Soviet helicopter for transporting troops and cargo and carrying crews to repair damaged roads and bridges. The Mi-4 was first produced in 1953. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot and copilot; power plant, one 1,700-hp Shvestov ASh 82V radial piston engine; length, 55 feet 1 inch; height, 17 feet; rotor diameter, 68 feet 11 inch; empty weight, 11,614 pounds; maximum weight, 17,196 pounds; maximum speed, 130 mph; service ceiling, 18,040 feet; and range, 370 miles.

Mil Mi-6 Hook Introduced by the Soviets in 1960, the Hook was used by North Vietnam as a heavy lift helicopter for emplacing heavy artillery, antiaircraft guns, and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and for transporting MiG jet fighters back and forth from distant dispersal areas to airfield runways. Specifications are crew consisting of pilot, copilot, and three crew members; power plant, two 5,500-shp Soloviev D-25V turboshaft engines; length, 108 feet 10 inches; height, 32 feet 4 inches; rotor diameter, 114 feet 10 inches; empty weight, 60,053 pounds; maximum weight, 93,695 pounds; maximum speed, 186 mph; service ceiling, 14,750 feet; and range, 385 miles. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Air Mobility; DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; LAM SON 719, Operation References Bell, Dana. Vietnam Warbirds in Action. London: Arms and Armour, 1986. Dunstan, Simon. Vietnam Choppers: Helicopters in Battle 1950–1975. Rev. ed. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2003. McGowen, Stanley S. Helicopters: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005. Polmar, Norman, and Floyd D. Kennedy, Jr. Military Helicopters of the World: Military Rotary-Wing Aircraft since 1917. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981.

Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam The French introduced the first helicopters in Indochina, using them primarily in medical evacuation. These small Hiller 360s proved too underpowered, and soon Sikorsky H-5s and H-19s bolstered the French helicopter forces. By 1954, 42 American-built helicopters served with French troops in Indochina, where they

473

compiled an impressive record in medical evacuation and in supplying isolated units. Several helicopters received hits from ground fire, but none had been shot down. French pilots usually flew along secured roads, and fighter aircraft accompanied them on missions where Viet Minh resistance could be expected. Helicopters made their real mark in Indochina during the Vietnam War, however. On December 11, 1961, two companies of Piasecki CH-21 Shawnees arrived by carrier in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Twelve days later they lifted more than 1,000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) paratroopers in the first helicopter combat assault in Vietnam. From late 1961 to early 1965, American helicopter crews, expanding their knowledge by trial and error, taught ARVN commanders tactical employment of helicopters. U.S. Army CH-21 and U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-34 Choctaws evacuated casualties, supplied outlying camps, and provided rapid disposition of units to meet Communist threats. By the end of 1964 the United States had more than 250 helicopters in Vietnam. The success of these units was one factor forcing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to supply insurgent forces in South Vietnam with modern weapons and to escalate movement of regular People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops and supplies south by the Ho Chi Minh Trail network. Tactical helicopter-borne transportation initially received little artillery or tactical air support, and U.S. advisers realized that they needed additional firepower to conduct airmobile operations. In September 1962, 15 Bell UH-1 Iroquois “Hueys,” modified to fire 2.75-inch folding fin aerial rockets and 7.62-millimeter (mm) forward-firing machine guns, deployed to Tan Son Nhut. By experimentation in actual combat, pilots developed tactical concepts governing gunship employment. Air assault operations included three phases: en route, approach, and landing. Armed helicopters proved most effective during the landing phase. After a few missions, hits on transport helicopters dropped from .011 hits per flying hour to .0074 for escorted aircraft. Hits on unescorted helicopters doubled during the same period. Suppressive fire delivered by armed helicopters proved very effective in reducing the amount and effectiveness of fire on transport helicopters. As a result of initial combat experience, a platoon of 5 to 7 armed helicopters formed an escort for 20 to 25 troop-carrying helicopters. As transportation helicopters approached a landing zone (LZ), gunships began racetrack or similar patterns on each side of landing helicopters. Gunships directed rocket and machine-gun fire on hostile concentrations while their door gunners covered their breakaway from these positions. U.S. forces also instituted Eagle Flights. These included an armed Huey piloted by the American aviation commander and carrying the ARVN troop commander. This command and control aircraft flew at a safe altitude and directed 7–10 transport helicopters

474

Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam

Piasecki CH-21C Shawnee/Workhorse (“Flying Banana”) helicopters returning from a mission.These helicopters were deployed to Vietnam in December 1961 by the Kennedy administration with American crews and support personnel to provide the Army of the Republic of Vietnam with air mobility. (U.S. Army Historical Foundation)

(“slicks”) escorted by 5 gunships to provide fire support for the insertion. A medevac helicopter trailed the formation to extract any casualties. Eagle Flights provided immediate response to targets of opportunity and could easily be melded into one large airmobile operation. These became the basis for airmobile concepts employed by American combat units arriving in Vietnam in 1965. In August and September 1965 elements of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) began to arrive at An Khe. The 1st Cavalry Division organization departed radically from a standard infantry division. The first such division in the U.S. Army, it contained 434 helicopters divided into two battalions of assault helicopters, a battalion of attack helicopters, a battalion of assault support helicopters, an aerial rocket artillery (ARA) battalion (the first one in the army), and an air cavalry squadron. The division had the capability of moving one-third of its combat power at one time into terrain inaccessible to normal infantry vehicles. To support the large number of aircraft in the division, an aviation maintenance battalion augmented normal division support command. In June 1968 the 101st Airborne Division, in Vietnam since 1965, received a change of organization and became the second airmobile division in the U.S. Army. ARA units, in contrast to other gunships, operated under direction of artillery officers. Divisional or separate artillery commanders used these helicopters as an adjunct to tube (field) artillery. When called, ARA platoons communicated on fire-direction frequencies, and their fires were adjusted much the same as with conventional artillery. ARA’s great advantage lay in its long-range and heavy firepower; ARA provided rocket support to units beyond the range of conventional artillery. The Bell AH1G Cobra carried up to 76 rockets. With 17-pound warheads, these could deliver the same initial firepower as a battalion of 105-mm artillery.

Boeing CH-47 Chinooks and Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhees (“Skycranes”) expanded the combat versatility of ground units in Vietnam. Chinooks lifted artillery pieces to forward positions to provide fire support for units moving into contact. Towed 155mm and 8-inch artillery pieces could be transported by the huge Skycrane. Chinooks unloaded large numbers of infantrymen on precarious mountaintop LZs and, employing a long rope ladder that dangled down through the trees, delivered infantrymen into triple-canopy jungle. Outlying firebases and Special Forces camps relied on frequent resupply from these workhorse helicopters. Airmobile units used the CH-47 to preposition fuel and ammunition for future operations. Forward-area refueling points cut down turnaround time for helicopters to return to their missions. The excellent lift capabilities of the CH-47 and CH-54 allowed U.S. forces to recover aircraft that would have been lost in other circumstances. They could sling-load downed aircraft back to be repaired. U.S. Marine Corps helicopter operations followed much the same pattern with a few exceptions. Beginning in March 1966, Boeing CH-46 Sea Knights and Sikorsky CH-53 “Super Jolly Green Giants” replaced older CH-34 and CH-37 Mojave helicopters. UH1Es provided the marines with gunships throughout their service in Vietnam. AH-1s began to augment the Hueys in April 1969. Despite visibility limitations, U.S. Marine Corps helicopter crewmen conducted several night operations. In August 1965 they flew the first night assault in Vietnam, using CH-34s to insert infantry into the Elephant Valley northwest of Da Nang. During the Vietnam War, U.S. Marine Corps medevacs extracted several severely wounded men during night operations. Radar operators guided the pilots to the wounded, while other aircraft dropped

Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam flares to illuminate LZs long enough for the medevac to quickly evacuate casualties. Radar guidance allowed the U.S. Marine Corps to resupply units under inclement weather conditions. During the siege of Khe Sanh and 1969 operations in the A Shau Valley, CH-46s and CH53s made instrument climbs through the overcast skies at Quang Tri and Da Nang and with radar directions flew to the beleaguered marines. When an opening in the clouds appeared, they spiraled down to drop their external loads of water, rations, ammunition, and medical supplies into small LZs hacked into the cloud-covered rain forests of the Central Highlands. Because of thick triple-canopy jungle, helicopters could not accomplish conventional resupply or insertion of troops. Innovative commanders soon remedied this problem by adopting tactics used by Special Forces. They trained their men to rappel from long ropes dangling from hovering Hueys. If time permitted, ground units used engineer demolitions to blast openings in the jungle. Some of these clearings were so small that pilots could only hover over them and drop supplies to the waiting infantry. In some areas, the U.S. Air Force dropped a special 15,000-pound bomb (the BLU-82, or “Daisy Cutter”) to blast clearings in the dense tropical foliage large enough to accommodate several Hueys. The Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) controlled all South Vietnamese helicopters. In 1963 the United States began supplying the Vietnamese with H-34s and upgraded VNAF utility and transport helicopters as newer types became available. VNAF pilots also received training by American advisers on the same tactics and procedures implemented by U.S. forces. Because of U.S. requirements for helicopters, VNAF units did not acquire enough aircraft to institute airmobile operations to any large degree. Despite American equipment and training, Vietnamese units on the whole did not deliver the same results as U.S. units. Interservice rivalry between VNAF and ARVN commands decisively hampered cooperation with and support to ARVN ground units. Many VNAF pilots seemed reluctant to press combat operations in support of their own ground troops in the face of heavy ground fire. Often they refused to reinforce or resupply government troops caught in ambushes or hot LZs. In most cases, ARVN troops received much better support from U.S. aviators. Initially, transportation helicopter companies doubled medical evacuation aircraft. In April 1962 the first five UH-1s arrived in South Vietnam. These Hueys were expressly modified for medical evacuation. The ARVN never established its own medevac organization. Each medevac helicopter carried trained medics, up to nine litters, and medical supplies to care for critically wounded soldiers. Crews waited on alert for a mission. When called, they could be airborne in less than three minutes. Because Viet Cong (VC) and PAVN troops ignored the large red crosses painted on medevac helicopters (the U.S. Army even tried all-white helicopters in late 1972) and fired on helicopters attempting to extract wounded from

475

combat zones, armed helicopters were requested to provide suppressive fire for medevacs going into hot LZs. In many instances, medevac pilots violated standard operating procedure by going into hot LZs without gunship cover. They flew day or night and in inclement weather conditions, sometimes hovering just over the trees to locate casualties. Extracting wounded from the 200-foot-tall triple-canopy jungle proved almost impossible until the 1966 introduction of a rescue hoist and a so-called jungle penetrator. The penetrator could be lowered to the jungle floor, and casualties were strapped to the device and hoisted up to the hovering medevac. Daring crews endured heavy enemy fire while executing rescue hoist operations. Dedicated medevac crewmen accomplished hundreds of nearly impossible day and night rescues during the Vietnam War. Wounded soldiers could expect to arrive at a hospital within 15 minutes of being lifted out of a pickup zone. Only 1 percent of the wounded died if they survived the first 24 hours after being injured. Hueys carried specialized equipment to perform distinctive missions. Some carried radio consoles to intercept communications and locate PAVN or VC headquarters. Others known as “people sniffers” flew low over the jungle with chemical equipment that collected air samples and measured concentrations of uric acid. High concentrations of uric acid supposedly indicated latrines, but rumors abounded about water buffalo bombed because of sniffer reports. Psychological warfare units used Hueys to drop leaflets and to broadcast with large loudspeakers Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) amnesty program messages to VC and PAVN troops. Search-and-rescue tactics evolved around an operational plan developed by the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Four A-1E or A-7 fixed-wing fighters, broken into a high and low section of two aircraft each, escorted two HH-3 or, after 1967, HH-53 rescue helicopters into the pickup zone. The helicopters and two escorts orbited out of range of antiaircraft fire. The high section of fighters reconnoitered the site to determine resistance and attacked antiaircraft weapons in the vicinity. With hostile fire diminished sufficiently, the leader then called in the first helicopter with its two escorts. The second helicopter remained available to act as a recovery vehicle if the first helicopter was shot down or damaged. Many times the alternate helicopter swooped in to rescue both the downed helicopter crew and the object of the rescue mission. However, on numerous occasions several American aircraft and men were lost attempting to rescue downed airmen. From administrative assignments (so-called ash-and-trash missions) to combat and service operations, helicopters changed American military doctrine forever. Used properly, helicopters proved much less fragile than some critics had predicted and flew thousands of hours for every aircraft lost or damaged. Many of those listed as destroyed in combat were lost to mortar and rocket fire as they sat in revetments. During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy helicopters flew some 36.125 million sorties (a sortie being one individual flight by one aircraft): 3.932

476

Helms, Richard McGarrah

million attack sorties, 7.547 million assault (troop landing) sorties, 3.548 million cargo sorties, and 21.098 million observation, reconnaissance, search-and-rescue, command, and other sorties. U.S. forces lost 10 helicopters over North Vietnam and 2,066 in South Vietnam. An additional 2,566 were lost to nonhostile causes. Pilots killed in action totaled 564 for the U.S. Army, 74 for the U.S. Marine Corps, 17 for the U.S. Air Force, 12 for the U.S. Navy, and 1 for the U.S. Coast Guard; 1,471 aircrew members were also killed in action. An additional 401 pilots and 994 aircrew died from noncombat-related accidents. U.S. Army aviators suffered the highest per capita ratio of casualties of any contingent of American combat troops participating in the Vietnam War. STANLEY S. MCGOWEN See also Air Mobility; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Brady, Patrick Henry; Chieu Hoi Program; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Kelly, Charles L.; Medevac; Psychological Warfare Operations; Rockets and Rocket Launchers; Search-and-Rescue Operations; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Galvin, John R. Air Assault: The Development of Airmobile Warfare. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1969. Gregory, Barry. Vietnam Helicopter Handbook. Wellingborough, Northants, UK: Patrick Stephens, 1988. Gurney, Gene. Vietnam: The War in the Air. New York: Crown, 1985. Johnson, Lawrence H., III. Winged Sabers: The Air Cavalry in Vietnam, 1965–1973. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1990. McGowen, Stanley S. Helicopters: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1980.

Helms, Richard McGarrah Birth Date: May 13, 1913 Death Date: October 22, 2002 U.S. journalist, intelligence officer, ambassador, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during 1966–1973, and consultant. Richard McGarrah Helms was born in St. David’s, Pennsylvania, on May 13, 1913. After attending high schools in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, he graduated from Williams College in 1935. Soon afterward the United Press sent him to Europe as a correspondent. Initially stationed in London, he then moved to Berlin. In 1937 Helms returned to the United States to accept a management position with the Indianapolis Times, which he left to accept a naval commission in 1942. Helms’s newspaper experience and German-language fluency landed him an August 1943 assignment with the Office of Strategic

Services (OSS), which sent him to Europe. By the end of the war he was serving in Germany. Discharged from the navy as a lieutenant commander in 1946, he joined the fledgling Central Intelligence Group, which became the CIA in 1947. Helms specialized in organizing and managing covert operations in Europe, and he progressed steadily through the ranks of the Directorate of Plans. In 1962 he succeeded Richard Bissell as its director in the wake of the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle, an operation that Helms had opposed. In June 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Helms director of the CIA, a position that made him an extremely important and controversial figure during America’s involvement in Vietnam. As CIA director, Helms was no firebrand with regard to U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. On the contrary, he was extremely skeptical about the potential for U.S. success there. Helms did not directly formulate U.S. policy, but it was often based on information that the CIA provided. As the CIA’s advocate at the highest levels of government, Helms often clashed with the military services over the accuracy of intelligence. He battled the military establishment over issues such as the effectiveness of the bombing campaign in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), control of covert operations, and the 1970 Cambodian Incursion. The most important controversy occurred in 1967 when the CIA estimated Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) order of battle at nearly 600,000 troops. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), put it at only 270,000. To avoid a schism within the American intelligence community, Helms forwarded the document to President Johnson with a compromise figure of 334,000. Following the January 1968 Tet Offensive, the original report resurfaced and, after debate, was adopted as the official U.S. estimate. Helms’s capitulation on this and other estimates caused him to become increasingly unpopular within his own agency. During Helms’s directorship, the CIA engaged in domestic surveillance operations. Although a serious violation of the CIA charter, Helms launched Operation CHAOS, which was designed to investigate the relationships between American dissidents and foreign governments. Also in 1967 the CIA launched Project Merrimack and Project Resistance, which targeted Washington-based peace movements and radical college organizations, respectively. These lasted until American combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973. Helms also presided over various CIA paramilitary and intelligence operations, such as Air America, and supported active CIA covert action in Southeast Asia. Helms enjoyed the confidence of President Johnson, especially after the CIA correctly predicted an Israeli victory in the 1967 SixDay War. However, the president considered Helms a bearer of information rather than a member of the inner circle. President Richard M. Nixon believed that the CIA had an overt liberal bias and was always skeptical of information that Helms brought him. As a result, Helms had limited access to Nixon and in 1973 was

Henderson, Oran K.

477

Former CIA director Richard Helms appears in Washington D.C., before a closed hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that investigated government intelligence operations during the Vietnam War, May 16, 1973. (AP/Wide World Photos)

not reappointed to the directorship, allegedly because he refused to involve the CIA in the Watergate cover-up. Helms then served as ambassador to Iran from 1973 to 1976. In 1977 Helms pled guilty to perjury for his answer to a question about CIA attempts to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende in Chile during his ambassadorship confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate. Helms testified that the agency had not played a role in Allende’s ouster, which was not true. He was fined and given a suspended prison sentence, although he wore the charge as a badge of honor, insisting that he had done the right thing in his answers to Senate inquirers by protecting the secrets with which he has been entrusted. Beginning in 1977 Helms worked as an international business consultant. In 1983 President Ronald Reagan awarded him with the National Security Medal, but in the eyes of Helms’s detractors this honor did not negate his actions as CIA director. Helms died in Washington, D.C., on October 22, 2002. RICHARD D. STARNES See also Air America; Central Intelligence Agency; Colby, William Egan; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pacification; Phoenix Program; Studies and Observation Group; Watergate Scandal; Wise Men

References Ameringer, Charles D. U.S. Foreign Intelligence: The Secret Side of American History. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990. Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA. New York: Knopf, 1979. Ranelegh, John. The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

Henderson, Oran K. Birth Date: August 20, 1920 Death Date: June 2, 1998 Highest-ranking U.S. Army officer to stand trial for the 1968 My Lai Massacre. Oran K. Henderson was born on August 20, 1920, in Indianapolis, Indiana. A career army officer, he saw service in World War II, in the Korean War, and in the Vietnam War. March 16, 1968, the day of the My Lai Massacre, was Colonel Henderson’s first day as commander of the newly formed 11th Infantry Brigade, which included Lieutenant William Calley’s platoon of Company

478

Heng Samrin

C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment. Henderson observed the operation from a helicopter circling over My Lai. After the My Lai Massacre became public, charges were brought against 25 officers and enlisted men, either as participants in the event or as part of the effort to cover it up. Henderson was the highest-ranking officer among them, and his was the last case to be heard. Charged with willful dereliction of duty for not having carried out an adequate investigation into the events at My Lai, Henderson’s court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland, at the end of 1971 lasted 62 days, tying the Calley case as the longest courtmartial in U.S. history. The prosecution argued that with the information available to Henderson, it was inconceivable that he could have reported to his commander that only 20 civilians died at My Lai and that they had been killed “inadvertently” by artillery fire. The defense claimed that subordinates had lied to Henderson and pointed to his excellent military record to that point. The jury acquitted him. Henderson returned to active duty as commandant of the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation in Pennsylvania, retired from the army in 1974, and then became Pennsylvania’s director of civil defense. He died of cancer on June 2, 1998, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Calley, William Laws, Jr.; My Lai Massacre; Peers Inquiry

Eastern Zone, where Khmer Rouge policies were less draconian than in the rest of the country. The growing anti-Vietnamese line followed by the top Khmer Rouge leaders in Phnom Penh, which resulted in purges of those suspected of pro-Vietnamese sentiments and the outbreak of hostilities on the border in 1977, induced Samrin and a number of other leaders to defect to the relative safety of Vietnam. They reappeared on December 2, 1978, with the announcement of the formation of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation. Samrin was the president of its Central Committee. This front served as cover for the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnamese “volunteer forces,” and Samrin became president of the Revolutionary People’s Council, the new government formed after the January 7, 1979, capture of Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese. This was formalized in 1981 in the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, with a State Council with Samrin as president. On December 5, 1981, he also assumed the top post of secretary of the ruling Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP). Samrin remained as head of state and the party until the changes made necessary by the Paris Agreement of 1991 that finally ended the continuing guerrilla war against coalition forces including the Khmer Rouge. This agreement brought withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and interim institutions pending elections, which were held in May 1993.

References Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Hersh, Seymour M. Cover-Up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. New York: Random House, 1972. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970.

Heng Samrin Birth Date: May 25, 1934 Cambodian Communist leader who became head of state of the Vietnamese-installed government in Phnom Penh after Vietnamese troops invaded in 1979 and occupied Cambodia, driving out the Khmer Rouge. Heng Samrin was born on May 25, 1934, in Anlong Kres, a village in Kompong Cham Province near the border with Vietnam. A man of little formal education, he became involved in cattle smuggling across the border in the 1950s, which brought him into contact with Vietnamese Communist revolutionaries. He took up the revolutionary cause in 1959, when Prince Norodom Sihanouk was at the height of his power in Phnom Penh. As with many Cambodian Communists, Samrin joined the Khmer Rouge when it began organizing resistance to Sihanouk from rural bases in 1967. Samrin rose to second-echelon leadership in the Khmer Rouge during its war against the Lon Nol government (1970–1975) and became one of the top figures in the

President of Cambodia Heng Samrin at the fifth anniversary celebrations of the arrival of Vietnamese troops in Phnom Penh, January 7, 1984. (Pascal Manoukian/Sygma/Corbis)

Herbicides Abandoning its revolutionary name, the KPRP transformed itself into the Cambodian People’s Party and contested the elections in which Prince Sihanouk’s party won a narrow plurality over the Cambodian People’s Party. When Hun Sen became prime minister in 1985 and Vietnamese influence in Cambodian affairs declined, Samrin began to lose his government posts. He remains honorary chairman of the party but does not wield any real power. However, he has been chairman of the Cambodian National Assembly since 2006. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Cambodia; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Hun Sen; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Sihanouk, Norodom References Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Kiernan, Ben. How Pol Pot Came to Power. London: Verso Books, 1985.

479

ment with private corporations in the marketing of high-technology weapons. The issue at the heart of the lawsuit was perhaps even more celebrated than the original charges. The presumption in the case was the notion that in libel issues a person could question a reporter’s state of mind, thoughts, and opinions at the time the story was written and thereby establish bias and/or intentions of malice. Although restricting its opinion to the Herbert case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the editing process of the newsroom was open to inquiry. Herbert later was an associate professor of humanities and psychology at the Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. PAUL R. CAMACHO See also Media and the Vietnam War; United States Army References Herbert, Anthony B., with James T. Wooten. Soldier. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. Zito, Tom. “Old Soldier’s Media Battle: Colonel Herbert’s War with CBS.” Washington Post, October 1, 1979.

Herbert, Anthony Birth Date: April 17, 1930

Herbicides

U.S. Army officer. Born April 17, 1930, in Herminie, Pennsylvania, Anthony Herbert joined the U.S. Army as an enlisted man in 1947. He was one of the most decorated U.S. soldiers of the Korean War (1950–1953). Herbert earned a BA from the University of Pittsburgh in 1956 and a PhD from the University of Georgia in 1968. He won promotion to lieutenant colonel in August 1968 and volunteered for Vietnam War service, becoming a battalion commander in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Herbert was later sharply critical of the wasteful employment of the brigade. He charged that the 10,000-man brigade was sending, at most, only 800 men into the field. In 1970 Herbert publicly accused two of his immediate superiors in Vietnam, Major General John Barnes and Colonel J. Ross Franklin, of ignoring and subsequently covering up acts by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam that were in violation of the Geneva Convention. The official U.S. Army response was that there was no documentary evidence to support Herbert’s claims of war crimes. Sometime later, however, at least two of Herbert’s charges were verified. Claiming that the army was harassing him, Herbert retired from the army in February 1972 at the rank of lieutenant colonel amid a storm of controversy. Herbert went on to publish his version of these events in a military autobiographical memoir, Soldier, in 1973. That same year, CBS Television in a 60 Minutes program questioned the veracity of Herbert’s claims. In retaliation, Herbert sued CBS. His attorneys pointed out that CBS selected the weakest of Herbert’s claims and used it to attack all the claims as well as Herbert’s credibility. In addition, the attorneys claimed that CBS was offering Herbert as a sacrifice to offset an earlier scathing exposé on military involve-

Chemicals designed to inhibit or destroy plant life. Technically herbicides act in one of five ways: by inhibiting further growth, by prematurely removing leaves, as desiccants (drying the foliage), as sterilants (neutralizing the soil of its plant nutrients), and as active surface agents, causing chemicals to adhere to various parts of the plants. In using herbicides in Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and U.S. governments wanted to deny the Communists a natural environment in which to hide and also wanted to deny easy access to locally available food crops. Beginning with a small test program in July 1961, more than 30 herbicidal chemicals were tested or used in Vietnam during the succeeding nine years. Most of these were employed in only very small quantities. Each of the six major herbicides was given a military code name based on the color of the bands around the 55-gallon drums used as shipping containers. Although each of these chemicals was slightly different and usage data vary slightly depending on the source, certain important patterns emerge. From 1962 to 1964 three herbicides—Agent Purple, Agent Pink, and Agent Green—were applied in relatively modest amounts. Less than 9,000 gallons of Agent Green were used, while about 123,000 gallons of Agent Pink and 145,000 gallons of Agent Purple were employed on defoliation missions. Mixed with oil or diesel fuel, these agents were generally used to attack jungle vegetation. Tragically, unknown to those applying the chemicals or apparently to anyone in the Department of Defense, these herbicides shared a common deadly characteristic: each contained significant amounts of dioxin (also known by its chemical names of 2,3,7,8TCDD or 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), an extremely toxic chemical. Dioxin, which existed in Agent Purple, Agent Pink, and

480

Herbicides

Herbicides Used by the U.S. Military in Vietnam

Herbicide

Active Ingredient(s)

Agent Orange Agent White Agent Blue Agent Purple Agent Pink Agent Green Total

2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and Picloram sodium cacodylate and cacodylic acid 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid

Agent Green as an unintended contaminant in the manufacture of one of the active components of the agents, 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, was later discovered to be highly toxic to humans and wildlife even in minuscule amounts. Two other herbicides that did not contain dioxin were also used. Agent Blue, the preferred chemical for crop-denial missions, was manufactured in two varieties. Between 1962 and 1964 only 5,200 gallons of the first type of Agent Blue were used; between 1965 and 1971 approximately 1 million gallons of a second variety were employed. About half of that amount was used on defoliation missions. Agent White, another herbicide without dioxin, was employed fairly extensively after 1966, and when Agent Orange missions were stopped after the toxic effects of that chemical became known, Agent White continued in use in its stead. About 5.2 million gallons of Agent White were used. Because both Agent Blue and Agent White were water soluble, they were not particularly effective against the thickest jungle canopies, nor were they effective during the rainy season. The military began using Agent Orange in the middle of 1965 and continued its use through 1970. Soluble in diesel fuel and organic compounds, Agent Orange was employed primarily on jungle-defoliation missions. Toxicologically, Agent Orange was much less potent than Agent Purple, Agent Pink, and Agent Green. These three agents contained dioxin at a rate of between 32 and 66 parts per million, while the two versions of Agent Orange were contaminated with only 1 or 2 parts per million. Nevertheless, the extensive use of Agent Orange as well as its employment at the time when the awareness of the toxicity of these herbicides became known made this chemical the most notorious of the group. In all, about 11.22 million gallons of Agent Orange were used in Vietnam. A number of studies on American veterans have been conducted by, among others, the U.S. Air Force, the National Cancer Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control. In 1992 after much controversy, the Department of Defense decided to officially accept that the following diseases could be caused by exposure to dioxin in herbicides: Hodgkin’s disease, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, softtissue sarcoma, chloracne, and birth defects.

Level of Dioxin Contamination (parts per million)

Obtained by Military (gallons)

Used by Military (gallons)

1.77 to 40 None None 32.8 to 45 65.6 65.6

13,927,985 5,600,000 2,166,656 145,000 122,792 8,208 21,970,641

11,712,860 5,239,853 2,166,656 145,000 122,792 8,208 19,395,369

This decision began closure for a legal debate that had begun in the late 1970s as Vietnam veterans attempted to obtain medical treatment and disability compensation for a number of illnesses of unknown origin. As the pattern of certain ailments recurred and as the media brought increased attention to the plight of these individuals and their families, Dow Chemical Company along with several other manufacturers of Agent Orange agreed to an out-ofcourt settlement in 1984. To conclude this agreement, the manufacturers established a $180 million trust fund, administered by Aetna Life and Casualty Company. Despite the size of this fund, each affected veteran (or affected child of a veteran) would receive only a relatively small compensation, ranging from $3,400 to $12,800. The fund was largely depleted by the early 2000s, and when a group of veterans filed suit against several defoliant manufacturers, including Dow, their charges were dismissed; an appeals court upheld the dismissal. As of the end of 1999, some 120,000 individuals had requested claims application packages. In Vietnam itself the medical effects of herbicide use are more difficult to verify, but the impact on the ecology is beginning to be understood. In all, about 19 million gallons of herbicides were sprayed over approximately 10 percent of the landmass of South Vietnam. Although in the short term these defoliation missions affected all aspects of the ecosystem, studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s demonstrated some significant recovery in this area. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Defoliation; International War Crimes Tribunal; RANCH HAND, Operation References Berman, Harvey P. “The Agent Orange Payment Program.” Law and Contemporary Problems (Autumn 1990): 49–60. Carlson, Elof Axel. “International Symposium on Herbicides in the Vietnam War.” Bioscience (September 1983): 507–512. Verger, Paul, et al. “Correlation between Dioxin Levels in Adipose Tissue and Estimated Exposure to Agent Orange in South Vietnamese Residents.” Environmental Research (May 1994): 226–243. Young, A. L., and G. M. Reggiani, eds. Agent Orange and Its Associated Dioxin. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1988.

Hersh, Seymour Myron

Hersh, Seymour Myron Birth Date: April 8, 1937 Controversial Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist. Seymour Myron Hersh was born in Chicago on April 8, 1937, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and grew up in a working-class inner-city neighborhood. Hersh graduated from the University of Chicago in 1959 and began his long journalism career as a police reporter in Chicago. In 1962 he joined United Press International (UPI) and by 1963 had become a UPI correspondent covering both Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Hersh soon earned the reputation as a hard-driving investigative reporter. In 1968 he served as Senator Eugene McCarthy’s press secretary during his unsuccessful bid for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. In November 1969 it was Hersh who first revealed the story of the March 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, perpetrated by U.S. soldiers against South Vietnamese civilians. His scoop, which appeared in the New York Times, also included the bombshell that the Pentagon had engaged in a purposeful campaign to cover up the massacre to ensure that it did not become public knowledge. For his reporting of the incident and its aftermath, Hersh received the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for 1970.

481

That same year he published his well-read book on the subject, My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath, the first of many books he would author. In his follow-up book, Cover-Up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai (1972), he detailed the investigation of the incident and the trial of Lieutenant William Calley, the perpetrator of the massacre. Hersh continued his investigative reporting, often working independently of any publication or news agency so that he could be free to pursue those stories that most interested him. He did, however, develop a long-standing relationship with New Yorker magazine, for which he has frequently written articles and opinion pieces. Another incendiary book, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), excoriated Henry Kissinger for his foreign and military policy adventures. Hersh’s reports also detailed the secret bombings of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the clandestine military incursion into Cambodia during the Nixon years. Hersh made it his business to seek out stories that he knew would be hard to break and that would generate a maximum amount of attention. In 1986 three years after a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 jetliner was blasted out of the sky by Soviet jet fighters, Hersh published The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed to the American public the March 1968 My Lai Massacre. He also detailed the attempted coverup of the massacre by the U.S. military. His reporting won Hersh the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for 1970. (Wally McNamee/Corbis)

482

Hershey, Lewis Blaine

Flight 007 and What America Knew about It, a book in which he alleged that the incident, coming as it did at the height of the renewed Cold War, was caused by Soviet stupidity and provocative U.S. intelligence operations that had been sanctioned by the Ronald Reagan administration. Hersh’s critics on the Right were outraged by his allegation that the tragedy had been brought about by U.S. policy. Perhaps nothing else has attracted Hersh’s attention and scrutiny more than the Iraq War, which began in March 2003. Since that time he has launched numerous in-depth investigations into various events and developments in Iraq. In the spring of 2004 Hersh published a series of articles illuminating the extent of the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Prison. This unleashed a torrent of media attention, the release of photos showing prisoner abuse, and a major congressional investigation. Hersh also alleged that prisoners had been tortured in other holding facilities, including those in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. That same year he also wrote in Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 had been based on faulty intelligence about Iraq and that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had purposely misused prewar intelligence to manufacture a justification of war. In March 2007 Hersh excoriated the Bush administration’s surge strategy, alleging that it would only embolden Sunni extremists in Iraq. Beginning in January 2005, Hersh began publishing a series of articles in which he alleged that the U.S. government was clandestinely preparing to launch preemptive air strikes against suspected nuclear weapons facilities in Iran. The Bush administration denied that such plans were in place but did not deny that they existed. In 2006 Hersh wrote that the United States was preparing to use a nuclear bunker-busting bomb against Iranian nuclear facilities. This provoked a vehement denial from the White House and the Pentagon. Hersh’s journalism and writing have traditionally been designed to cause maximum shock value for the reading public. He has been a sharp critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations, so he appears not to be politically partisan. But his detractors—and there are many, both inside and outside the Fourth Estate—have faulted him for one-sided reporting and the use of myriad anonymous sources, which they say raise questions about his evidence and accuracy. In 1997 Hersh was lambasted for a book he published on President John F. Kennedy both for its evidentiary value and its dubious allegations that Kennedy had been married before he wed Jacqueline Bouvier and that the president had a long-standing relationship with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Calley, William Laws, Jr.; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Media and the Vietnam War; My Lai Massacre; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Hersh, Seymour M. Cover-Up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. New York: Random House, 1972. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970.

Hershey, Lewis Blaine Birth Date: September 12, 1893 Death Date: May 20, 1977 Career U.S. Army officer and during 1941–1970 director of the U.S. Selective Service System, the federal agency responsible for managing military conscription. Lewis Blaine Hershey was born near Angola in Steuben County, Indiana, on September 12, 1893. He graduated with honors in 1914 from Tri-State College (now Trine University) in Angola. His long military career began when he joined the Indiana National Guard in 1911. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1916. As a member of the National Guard, Hershey received his first deployment orders to the U.S.-Mexican border in 1917. He then served with the artillery in the U.S. Army during World War I and was promoted to captain but did not see combat. After the hostilities ended, he worked as a transportation officer at the French port of Brest, where American soldiers returning home were processed. He returned to the United States in September 1919 and secured a regular army commission in July 1920. Hershey graduated from the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1923; the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1931; and the Army War College in Washington, D.C., in 1933. He was promoted to major in 1935. Hershey’s career in manpower policy and procurement began in 1936 when he received an appointment as secretary of the Joint Army-Navy Selective Service Committee. After the passage of the Selective Service Act of 1940, Hershey became the deputy director of the Selective Service System under Clarence Dykstra, then president of the University of Wisconsin. While deputy director, Hershey was advanced to brigadier general in October 1940. He was appointed major general in April 1942. Dykstra resigned in 1941, and in July Hershey became director. As a result of this promotion, Hershey was responsible for overseeing the entire conscription apparatus during World War II. He remained in this post for almost 29 years. Hershey’s ideology and actions shaped the Selective Service System and the draft throughout its existence. He fervently believed in the decentralization of the administration of conscription and was a proponent of the idea that local communities represented the true America. Because of that, some 6,400 local draft boards dominated the dynamics of the system. Consisting of local civic, business, and patriotic leaders, such boards in communities across the nation were responsible for the operations of conscription (classifying eligible young men), while the Selective Service

Herz, Alice System headquarters in Washington, D.C., set policy and handled appeals cases. Hershey saw himself as equal part civilian bureaucrat and soldier, and he often appeared publicly in civilian dress. Although the original Selective Service Act expired in 1947, the coming of the Cold War led to its reinstatement the next year, and President Harry S. Truman reappointed Hershey as director of the Selective Service System. Hershey thus administered the draft during the Korean War (1950–1953). He was promoted to lieutenant general in June 1956. Although well known nationally and respected in Congress as a longtime public servant, Hershey became a controversial figure during the Vietnam War years. As involvement in that conflict became increasingly unpopular in the United States, the draft and Hershey became focal points for the antiwar movement. Hershey, with the support of President Lyndon B. Johnson, began to limit student draft deferments in the late 1960s, and that coupled with Hershey’s age made him seem out of touch with the young generation eligible for the draft. When Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election, he believed that one of the ways to quell the antiwar protests, particularly among students, was to remove Hershey as director of the Selective Service System. Nixon could not openly fire Hershey, however, because that might have appeared that he was giving in to the protesters. Yet Hershey did not resign under pressure, either. In 1969 Hershey agreed to a reassignment and became a special adviser on manpower to Nixon beginning in February 1970. In return, Nixon awarded him his fourth star, making him a full general in November 1970. Nixon’s desires and Hershey’s removal from the Selective Service System led directly to the federal government’s adoption of a draft lottery, a system that Hershey had resisted for years. His role as a manpower adviser was largely ceremonial, and he found his advice largely ignored by the Nixon administration. After the last draft calls in 1973, Hershey was forced into retirement. During his years as director of the Selective Service System, Hershey oversaw the induction of about 14.555 million men into the armed forces of the United States. He served under six presidents and controlled manpower classification for three wars of conscription (World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War). Because of the prevalence of the draft during the years of those conflicts, he had a more personal effect on individual men eligible for service than any other military officer of his generation. Hershey died of a heart attack on May 20, 1977, while on a trip to his boyhood home of Angola, Indiana. NICHOLAS A. KREHBIEL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Truman, Harry S. References Flynn, George Q. The Draft, 1940–1973. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 1993. Flynn, George Q. Lewis B. Hershey, Mr. Selective Service. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

483

Gerhardt, James M. The Draft and Public Policy. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1971. Seiverling, R. E. Lewis B. Hershey: A Pictorial and Documentary Biography. Hershey, PA: Keystone Enterprises, 1969. Small, Melvin. Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Hearts and Minds. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002.

Herz, Alice Birth Date: 1883 Death Date: March 26, 1965 German-born U.S. peace activist who immolated herself in 1965 to protest the escalating war in Vietnam. This action led to seven other antiwar protestors committing the same act. Born in Germany in 1883 (the exact date of her birth is unknown), Alice Herz, a widow and a Jew, fled Germany with her daughter Helga in 1933 when the Nazis seized power. Herz and her daughter first relocated to France, living there until the German invasion of that country in 1940. Both mother and daughter were temporarily forced to live in an internment camp near the Spanish border. In 1942 Herz and her daughter were able to immigrate to the United States. They settled in Detroit, where Herz managed to secure work as an adjunct instructor of German at Wayne State University. Herz’s experience in an internment camp and the grim realities of Nazi persecution of Jews and World War II in general convinced her to join the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). After World War II the increasing threat of nuclear war and the arms race between the world’s two superpowers increased her pacifist activities. At first she was denied U.S. citizenship because of her role in the WILPF, which was considered a radical organization. She later reapplied and was granted citizenship in 1954. Thereafter her hopes for a world without war and the abolition of nuclear weapons motivated her increasing involvement in local peace activities in the Detroit area. By the mid-1960s mounting U.S. military involvement in Vietnam spurred Herz to consider committing a dramatic act of civil disobedience. Linking the peace movement and the Civil Rights Movement of the era as part of the growing social justice movement in America, Herz took to heart President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech before Congress urging passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It was at that point, however, that Herz decided to publicly protest the Vietnam War. She was prompted to take the drastic measure of self-immolation by the example set by Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, who had burned himself to death in June 1963 in protest of the oppression of Buddhists by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Buddhists in South Vietnam opposed violence and publicly criticized the U.S.-backed government there. Prior to her dramatic act, Herz wrote a note to friends and fellow activists stating that “I choose the illuminating death of a

484

Hickey, Gerald Cannon

Buddhist to protest against a great country trying to wipe out a small country for no reason.” Herz commented that she had exhausted all the traditional methods of protests such as marching, civil disobedience, and writing numerous articles and letters. On March 16, 1965, at a busy intersection in Detroit, the 82-year-old Herz set herself on fire. Passersby in an automobile stopped and put out the flames, but Herz died 10 days later on March 26, 1965. Herz’s decision to follow the protest methods of Vietnamese Buddhist monks was designed to attract national attention. Her actions were soon followed by pacifists Norman Morrison and Roger Allen LaPorte as well as five others. Herz is considered the first American martyr of the anti–Vietnam War movement. CHARLES FRANCIS HOWLETT See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Morrison, Norman; Thich Quang Duc References Cooney, Robert, and Helen Michalowski. The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1987. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Shibata, Shingo. Phoenix: Letters and Documents of Alice Herz. New York: Bruce Publishing, 1969.

Hickey, Gerald Cannon Birth Date: December 27, 1925 Anthropologist and principal ethnographer of the Montagnards of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Born on December 17, 1925, in Chicago, Illinois, Gerald Cannon Hickey first went to Vietnam in 1956 to conduct research on the Vietnamese village for the Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1958. Hickey’s first book, Village in Vietnam (1964), was the ethnographic study of Khanh Hau village in the Thu Thua District of Long An Province in the Mekong Delta. His primary research interest, however, was the Montagnard tribes of the Vietnamese Central Highlands. He spent more than 13 years in their villages, living among them and describing their cultural patterns and charting the course of their destruction through the fall of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1975. In addition to his academic interests, Hickey became the principal advocate for the Montagnard peoples in the face of impending threats to their traditional homelands. He wrote working papers on the effects of herbicides in the Central Highlands, spoke on the plight of refugees before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, worked with government officials to protect Montagnard land rights, and intervened with military commanders to protect Montagnard villages. As a visiting researcher at Nam Dong Special Forces camp during July 1964, Hickey became an

honorary member of Special Forces Team A-726 for his service during an assault there. Hickey taught at several universities both during and after the Vietnam War, first at Monteith College of Wayne State University and then at Yale University and Cornell University. He also taught at the National Institute of Administration (NIA) in Saigon, where civil servants were trained for public administration; the NIA was modeled after the École Nationale d’Administration in Paris. For working in Vietnam, Hickey was ostracized by some academicians and effectively blackballed at several institutions. Hickey’s works include the two-part ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands Sons of the Mountains (1982), an ethnohistory through 1954, and Free in the Forest (1982), charting the war years of 1954–1976. A more recent book, Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival among Vietnam’s Highland Peoples during the Vietnam War (1993), charts the destruction of indigenous Montagnard culture during the war. Hickey remains the foremost authority on the Montagnard tribes of the Vietnamese Central Highlands. In 2002 he published Window on a War: An Anthropologist in the Vietnam Conflict. Hickey now lives in Chicago, where he continues to write and occasionally lecture on the Montagnards and his personal experiences in Vietnam. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Civic Action; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Defoliation; Herbicides; Michigan State University Advisory Group; Montagnards; Nam Dong, Battle of; Refugees and Boat People References Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Free in the Forest: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954–1976. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival among Vietnam’s Highland Peoples during the Vietnam War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Village in Vietnam. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Window on a War: An Anthropologist in the Vietnam Conflict. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON

54,

Operation

Start Date: May 18, 1967 End Date: May 28, 1967 The spring of 1967 saw heightened People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) military operations, to include heavy artillery, mortar, and rocket attacks just south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Quang Tri Province in the Republic of

HICKORY II, Operation

Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). These were directed against U.S. Marine Corps bases running east-west along Route 9. In response, marines initiated Operations PRAIRIE I–IV; U.S. Army 175-millimeter heavy artillery had fired into the DMZ for the first time on February 18 to silence PAVN artillery there. During the course of Operation PRAIRIE IV (April 20–May 31), on May 18 as part of Operation HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON 54, for the first time other U.S. marines and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces moved in multibattalion strength into the DMZ as far north as the Ben Hai River. This joint operation was designed to relieve PAVN pressure on marine positions along Route 9 and to clear areas for the installation of anti-infiltration barrier mines and electronic sensors, dubbed Project Practice Nine but most commonly known as the McNamara Line for its chief proponent, U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara. The barrier was to stretch west from the sea into Laos. The timing was conditioned by intelligence reports of a major PAVN offensive planned either for March 19, the birthday of Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), or prior to a scheduled cease-fire set for Buddha’s birthday on May 23. The allies hoped to break up PAVN preparations and destroy facilities and supplies. Operation HICKORY, as all the disparate operations are sometime known, was to cover the entire eastern portion of the DMZ. In HICKORY itself, three marine battalions—the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Marine Regiment, the 2nd Battalion of the 26th Marine Regiment, and the 3rd Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment—accompanied by tanks and armored vehicles moved into the DMZ by helicopter and overland from Con Thien. At the same time in Operation LAM SON 54, five battalions of the ARVN 1st Division moved into the DMZ from Gio Linh. Two battalions moved east, while three battalions moved west. In Operations BEAU CHARGER and BELT TIGHT, the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 3rd Marine Regiment of the Special Landing Force struck into the DMZ from their ships in the East China Sea. The four operations involved a total of more than 5,500 U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. The allied forces encountered immediate heavy resistance from the PAVN 31st, 32nd, and 812th regiments, forcing the commitment of three additional marine battalions: the 1st Battalion of the 4th Regiment and the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 9th Regiment. Heavy fighting occurred between the advancing marines and PAVN forces on both May 20–21 and May 25. The incursion into the DMZ did not last long. Ten days later on May 28 the allies withdrew, taking with them some 11,000 civilians who were sent to the Cam Lo refugee center to be relocated, thus creating a free-fire zone for allied forces in the area north of Cua Viet. PAVN casualties in the operation were given as 789 killed and 37 captured; 187 weapons were recovered. The marines had accounted for 447 of the total, most of them in HICKORY. Marine casualties were 142 killed and 896 wounded. ARVN forces claimed to have killed 342 PAVN soldiers while losing 22 killed and 122 wounded. SPENCER C. TUCKER

485

See also Demilitarized Zone; McNamara, Robert Strange; McNamara Line; PRAIRIE I, Operation; PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations References Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

HICKORY II,

Operation

Start Date: July 14, 1967 End Date: July 16, 1967 Search and destroy operations carried out during July 14–16, 1967, south of the Ben Hai River by U.S. marines to destroy People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) weapons positions and fortifications in the southern half of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) east of Con Thien in Quang Tri Province, I Corps Tactical Zone, in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The area of operations was nicknamed “Leatherneck Square” by the marines. Operation HICKORY II followed Operations HICKORY I (May 15–29), BUFFALO (July 2–14) and BEAVER TRACK (July 5–12) but was much smaller in size than those operations, utilizing seven maneuver battalions and four blocking battalions. HICKORY I employed 13 battalions during its sweep in May. The marine units involved in HICKORY II were the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division; the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines; Marine Special Landing Forces (SLF) Alpha (1st Battalion, 3rd Marines); and Bravo (2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines). All HICKORY II battalions came under the operational control of the 9th Marines with the exception of SLF Bravo, which served the 3rd Marines as a blocking force on the western edge of the sweep zone. Operation HICKORY II was one operation in a series of American operations in 1967 with the overall objective of clearing the southern side of the DMZ of all enemy forces and fortifications in order to construct an electronic infiltration barrier across the country, from the South China Sea to the Lao border. The plan to construct the barrier was called Project Practice Nine, later renamed Project Illinois City and then Project Dye Maker, and was nicknamed the “Electric Fence” and the “McNamara Line.” The Department of Defense believed that a barrier consisting of a strip of bulldozed jungle fortified with mines, obstacles, booby traps, and electronic sensors would help block movement across the border between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam and reduce the need for larger troop reinforcements in the I Corps Tactical Zone. In May 1967 the Defense Department assigned the task of constructing the

486

High National Council

barrier to the 3rd Marine Division. Shortly thereafter the marines launched Operation HICKORY I to clear the area. The goal of HICKORY II was to sweep through a designated area of operations south of the DMZ, locate and destroy all PAVN fortifications and weapons, and engage and defeat those PAVN forces with which the marines came in contact. This action would clear the area for the commencement of construction of the barrier. The ground forces were supported by U.S. tanks, artillery, and air support. There was not a significant amount of contact with the North Vietnamese during HICKORY II, unlike HICKORY I in which there was intense combat between PAVN forces and U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. When contact did come in HICKORY II, it occurred in bursts in the form of mortar and small-arms fire. Perhaps most troublesome to the marines on the ground were the antipersonnel devices in the form of grenades rigged as booby traps. In general, U.S. ground operations near the DMZ were bloody affairs. In HICKORY II, in two days 39 PAVN personnel were killed and an unknown number wounded. Four marines were killed and 90 wounded. Although the American ground operations in the spring and summer of 1967 were successful in terms of achieving objectives on the ground, the DMZ remained porous and was an area under great contention. Only test areas of the electronic barrier across Vietnam were ever constructed. Despite their losses during this time period, PAVN forces were far from defeated and in the coming months, in conjunction with the Viet Cong (VC), would launch the siege of the Khe Sanh base and the 1968 Tet Offensive, the largest coordinated offensive action by North Vietnam of the Vietnam War. RICHARD B. VERRONE See also Demilitarized Zone; HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON 54, Operation; McNamara Line; United States Marine Corps References McNab, Chris, and Andy Weist. The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War. San Diego: Thunder Bay, 2000. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

High National Council Political body created in 1964 to govern the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). On January 30, 1964, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general Nguyen Khanh overthrew the regime headed by General Duong Van Minh. Minh and his supporters had failed to rally public support following the November 1963 overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem; they had also failed to deal effectively with the growing Communist insurgency. General Minh, as a figurehead, was retained as head of state, and Khanh became premier.

In August 1964 after months of delay, Khanh moved to rid himself of his rival Duong Van Minh. On August 16 Khanh secured approval from the Military Revolutionary Council (MRC) for a new constitution that abolished the office of head of state and, in effect, made him president. This move triggered opposition and protests in the cities, especially from students and Buddhists. The MRC then reversed its decision, revoking the new constitution and announcing that a National Provisional Steering Committee comprised of generals Khanh, Minh, and Tran Thien Khiem would direct national affairs until a National Congress was established to elect a head of state. Khanh would continue as premier of an interim government. Confronted with another attempted coup led by younger army officers, Khanh found it difficult to regain the power he had lost earlier, and a 17-member High National Council (HNC) was established, with members chosen by General Duong Van Minh from among elderly personages. The High National Council earned from Saigon cynics the label “High National Museum.” The HNC proved more assertive than expected. It insisted on making Minh head of state with strong constitutional powers and chose a civilian premier. U.S. ambassador Maxwell Taylor, who supported Khanh, blocked this. With an energy belying its collective image, at the end of September the HNC produced a new constitution. Failing to get Minh to accept the office with reduced powers, the HNC nominated as president Phan Khac Suu, an agricultural engineer and officeholder under Bao Dai and Diem who had been imprisoned briefly by Diem. Suu then nominated Tran Van Huong, a former teacher, as premier. Khanh had to be content with the consolation prize of ARVN commander in chief. The HNC’s attempt to promote civilian rule in South Vietnam after a succession of military governments did not stabilize the political situation. The new government was divided and weak, the military threatened another coup against civilian rule, and there were popular demonstrations. The Huong government had to resort to martial law and government by decree. When Buddhist leaders called on the HNC for a vote of no confidence in Huong, the government reacted by relying more heavily on the military and instituted repressive measures. Younger officers (known as the Young Turks) meanwhile demanded that the HNC retire all officers with 25 years or more of service, including Duong Van Minh. When the HNC refused, on December 20, 1964, the Young Turks arrested 5 HNC members and nearly 20 other politicians, student leaders, and government officials. They also formed a new Armed Forces Council. Nguyen Khanh, privy to the conflict between the HNC and the younger officers, attempted his own coup by announcing the dissolution of the HNC. The Huong government tried to hang on and insisted on carrying out repressive measures to keep order. After further student demonstrations, U.S. authorities concluded that increased military participation in the government was needed to restore order. Huong was then forced to accept General Nguyen Van Thieu, head of the Armed Forces Council (AFC), and General

Hilsman, Roger Linh Quang Vien as deputy premiers, along with U.S.-educated economist Nguyen Xuan Oanh. This was in fact a step toward a complete military takeover. As Buddhists demonstrated in major cities on January 27, the AFC called for ARVN commander General Khanh to restore order. After this was accomplished Suu remained as head of state, but Nguyen Xuan Oanh replaced Huong as acting premier. HO DIEU ANH AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Duong Van Minh; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Khanh; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Tran Thien Khiem; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

487

Hilsman, Roger Birth Date: November 23, 1919 U.S. State Department official, adviser on Vietnam policy, political scientist, and author. Born in Waco, Texas, on November 23, 1919, Roger Hilsman graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1943 and briefly served with Merrill’s Marauders in the China-Burma-India theater before being wounded. After recovering he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and remained with that organization until 1946. In August 1945 he parachuted into Manchuria to free prisoners of war (POWs) being held by the Japanese. Among the POWs was his father, who had been captured several years earlier. Hilsman subsequently received his doctorate in international relations from Yale University in 1951. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed him director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Charged with analyzing current foreign

Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Roger Hilsman on March 13, 1963. Hilsman saw the Vietnam War as essentially a political struggle and believed that winning the support of the rural population was the key. He was a strong advocate of the Strategic Hamlet Program. (AP/Wide World Photos)

488

Hilsman-Forrestal Report

developments in order to allow for long-term planning, Hilsman was one of the principal early architects of U.S. Vietnam policy. In January 1962 Hilsman presented a plan titled “A Strategic Concept for South Vietnam.” This plan, which defined the war as a political struggle, proposed policies aimed at the rural Vietnamese as the key to victory and led to the Strategic Hamlet Program. The report also recommended that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) adopt guerrilla warfare tactics. In December 1962 Hilsman and Michael Forrestal, head of the National Security Council’s Vietnam Coordinating Committee, were sent on a fact-finding mission to Vietnam. In July 1963 following attacks on Buddhist dissidents by Ngo Dinh Nhu’s police in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Hilsman recommended, along with Forrestal and W. Averell Harriman, that new instructions be relayed to U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in Saigon. These led to at least tacit approval by the United States of the military coup that was carried out against South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and Nhu in November 1963. Increasingly at odds with President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk over U.S. Vietnam policy, Hilsman resigned in February 1964. He then joined the political science faculty at Columbia University. In 1967 Hilsman wrote To Move a Nation, which praised the process of foreign policy formulation under President Kennedy while criticizing President Johnson’s escalation of the war. Among nearly a dozen of Hilsman’s books on 20th-century American foreign policy are The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs (1971), To Govern America (1979), The Politics of Policy Making (1986), George Bush vs Saddam Hussein: Military Success, Political Failure (1992), and American Guerilla: My War behind Japanese Lines (2005). As professor emeritus of government and international relations, Hilsman was associated with the Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia. In 1994 President Bill Clinton named Hilsman a member of the National Security Education Board. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Forrestal, Michael Vincent; Harriman, William Averell; HilsmanForrestal Report; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Rusk, David Dean; Strategic Hamlet Program; Taylor-McNamara Report References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Hilsman-Forrestal Report Report submitted to President John F. Kennedy on January 25, 1963, concerning the viability of Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). President Kennedy,

concerned about contradictory reports from the news media and the American military, sent a fact-finding mission to South Vietnam in December 1962. Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research Roger Hilsman and presidential aide Michael Forrestal were charged with determining whether the South Vietnamese government could be salvaged. While arguing that American policies in Southeast Asia should be continued, the Hilsman-Forrestal Report exposed the weaknesses of the South Vietnamese government, which the report contended were caused in part by corruption within the Ngo Dinh Diem government. The report further asserted that Diem was increasingly isolated from his own people and that only those with close ties to the Diem family actually supported Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. The report especially criticized the Strategic Hamlet Program as it was being administered by Nhu. Although the report raised doubts about Diem’s viability and concluded that America’s commitment to South Vietnam would be much longer than originally anticipated and that the war would be long and costly, it had an overall optimistic tone and thus contributed to a continued escalation of American war efforts. The report also served to provide tacit support for the overthrow of the Diem government in November 1963. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Forrestal, Michael Vincent; Hilsman, Roger; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Strategic Hamlet Program References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Hispanics in the U.S. Military During the Vietnam War era, the U.S. Department of Defense did not separate information on Hispanics from that regarding other ethnic groups or races. In consequence, evidence of distinctive military experiences concerning Hispanics is relatively difficult to ascertain and gather. Nonetheless, some generalizations are possible, thanks in particular to several analyses resulting from the determined research of both individuals and organizations. William F. Abbott, a Vietnam War veteran, has conducted extensive research in an effort to provide a portrait of Hispanic involvement in the war. Based on a comprehensive review of Pentagon data, he estimates that 5–6 percent of all soldiers who served had Hispanic surnames. Most of these individuals were from California and Texas. Other states represented were Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and New York, with considerably smaller numbers from other states. A similar review of 1970 U.S. Census data revealed that 4.5 percent of the population had Hispanic names.

Historiography, Vietnam War Frederick P. Aguirre, president of Latino Advocates for Education, Inc., has done research on Hispanic veterans in California and supports the conclusion that this population group was overrepresented in the military during the Vietnam War. A total of 15 percent of military casualties in Vietnam among residents of California were Hispanics, even though that ethnic group comprised only 7 percent of the total population. A total of 321 servicemen from Orange County, one of the largest and most diverse counties in California, died in the conflict. Of those, 27 servicemen, or 9 percent, were Hispanic at a time when this ethnic population was only 5 percent of the total in the county. Hispanics also are heavily represented among those receiving distinguished awards for combat service. A total of 15 received the Congressional Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam, while 49 received the Distinguished Service Cross and 23 received the Navy Cross. Reuben Treviso, a Vietnam War veteran, served as staff coordinator for the Forum of National Hispanic Organizations and the associate editor of the publication Hispanic Link. He conducted a survey of U.S. Census and draft board information from the state of New Mexico in 1970. This analysis concluded that Hispanics accounted for 27 percent of the population of the state but 69 percent of the young men drafted into the military. Treviso echoes other sources in estimating that approximately 20 percent of the Hispanics who served became casualties. Retired U.S. Navy commander Everett Alvarez Jr. received his commission in 1960 at a time when very few Hispanics were going to flight school. On August 5, 1964, he became the first American aviator shot down over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the first to be incarcerated in the notorious Hoa Lo (“Hanoi Hilton”) prison. He had been participating in a bombing raid in retaliation for alleged attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats against the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Alvarez was released along with 575 prisoners of war on February 12, 1973. George Mariscal, a professor of literature at the University of California–San Diego and a Vietnam War veteran, has captured various aspects of the Hispanic experience during the War in the book Aztlàn and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War (1999). The book is a collection of more than 60 articles, essays, poems, short stories, and speeches and represents the first anthology of Chicano/Chicana writings about the war. The volume encompasses both the experiences of soldiers and the antiwar movement at home. In general, the Hispanic experience during the war mirrored that of the African American community. Hispanics served in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the total population and had a higher-than-average casualty rate. This was chiefly because of their lower socioeconomic level, which did not lend itself to large numbers of college deferments and reflected endemic poverty levels. The Hispanic population, like other groups at home, was involved in protests and other anti–Vietnam War activities. During a

489

demonstration against the war on August 29, 1970, Reuben Salazar was killed when he was hit in the head by a tear-gas canister fired by a deputy of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Salazar, a prominent Hispanic journalist, had been covering the demonstration. Salazar Park in East Los Angeles is now named for him, and a U.S. postage stamp was also issued in his honor. ARTHUR I. CYR See also African Americans in the U.S. Military; Antiwar Movement, U.S. References Mariscal, George, ed. Aztlàn and Vietnam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Treviso, Ruben. “Hispanics and the Vietnam War.” In Vietnam Reconsidered, edited by Harrison E. Salisbury, 135–156. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

Historiography, Vietnam War Historiography generally refers to the body of historical literature on a given subject and the study of how it has evolved over time. The historiography of the Vietnam War is complex and often contains conflicting elements. The conflict’s historiography has differed because of the politics and socioeconomic milieu in which some of the works were written, the political predilections of the various authors, and the proximity of a book’s publication date to the end of the conflict. The historiography has also been affected by the various historical methods, or methodologies, used to produce the studies. The following paragraphs briefly consider some important emphases and debates within the historiography of the Vietnam War.

Orthodoxy, Revisionism, and Neo-Orthodoxy Several important articles analyze the historiography of the Vietnam War, including Robert Divine’s of 1988, Robert McMahon’s of 1996, and Gary Hess’s of 1994. In the first of these articles, Divine argues for the existence of an orthodox interpretation of the war in which analysts criticized U.S. policy before and during the Vietnam War. Divine discusses three kinds of orthodox interpretations. The first is referred to as the “liberal internationalist interpretation,” characterized by the 1969 work of Arthur Schlesinger Jr., historian and presidential adviser to John F. Kennedy. Schlesinger’s quagmire theory contended that American leaders had accidentally embroiled the United States in the war owing to a chain of small decisions, each of which further deepened the American commitment. The second orthodox interpretation identified by Divine is the stalemate theory, which is most clearly represented in the 1972 work of the journalist Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg argued that domestic politicians, still reeling from the loss of China to communism in 1949, could not appear to be weak on communism and thus involved the United States in an

490

Historiography, Vietnam War

unnecessary war. The third pillar of orthodoxy, Divine writes, deals with the flaws of Cold War containment policy. This theory, elucidated in the many writings of the leftist Gabriel Kolko, shifts the onus of the war from politicians to the blind anti-Communist ideology that set the United States against any actors in the international system that opposed liberal capitalist internationalism. Revisionist interpreters soon began to argue against these criticisms of the Vietnam War, however. This interpretation, Hess contends, began to emerge with the publication in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers and continued to gain credibility in the late 1970s as the military victory by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) brought about a series of introspective analyses of the Vietnam War. Early revisionists, importantly including Guenter Lewy and Norman Podhoretz, contended in 1978 and 1982, respectively, that the United States made a moral decision in defending the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from communism, although they disagreed on whether the war was winnable or not. Hess separates the progeny of the early revisionists into three categories. The first group, represented by Harry Summers Jr. in 1982, employs Karl von Clausewitz’s On War to hold U.S. civilian leaders responsible for defeat because they neither declared war nor invaded North Vietnam, instead misusing time and energy in the extended counterinsurgency against the Viet Cong (VC). The second group, labeled “Hearts and Minders” by Hess, also based their revisionism on a criticism of American military strategy. In 1986, historians such as Andre Krepinevich Jr. believed that U.S. leadership should have understood the new challenge of counterinsurgency and sought to pacify the Vietnamese countryside rather than searching and destroying enemy units. The third set of revisionists considered U.S. security a justifiable motive for intervention in Vietnam and contended that the United States should have given greater support to the nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem government in the early 1960s. R. B. Smith, writing in 1983, supports this position by underscoring the threat of growing Chinese and Soviet interests in the region. Hess contends that neo-orthodox scholarship responded to revisionism. This scholarship found its strongest voice in the historian George Herring, who recentered the emphasis on the shortcomings of Communist containment as an international policy. In America’s Longest War (1979), Herring posits that policy makers developed containment to respond to the needs of Western Europe immediately following World War II. The application of containment policy to Southeast Asia was thus invalid and was doomed because the cultural and temporal contexts were poles apart from Soviet containment in Europe. The Vietnam War, from this stilldominant perspective, was a heartbreaking catastrophe that could have been avoided if American leaders had exercised objectivity instead of monolithic containment. Since the late 1980s, new scholarship has moved beyond this standardized historiographical structure. The following sections discuss the most important developments within the field over the last 20 years.

Origins of the Vietnam War What factors led to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and to the war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam? Similarly, how did other countries become interested in Vietnam before and after World War II? To answer these two questions, historians have examined the different goals of the principal political actors in the region, namely the governments of France, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, as well as international bodies such as the United Nations (UN). This literature examines the effects of European and Japanese imperialism, the Communist victory in China in 1949, and World War II on Vietnamese nationalist thought. In one example, Mark Atwood Lawrence in 2005 examined the diplomatic details of the French departure from Indochina through a comparative approach that examines the relationship between U.S. international power and European decolonization and how the connection between the two elevated the importance of Vietnam for Cold War warriors. In a 1987 argument, Andrew Rotter discussed containment and the origins of American involvement in Vietnam as both a foreign policy strategy and a domestic ideology against communism. Recent work by Michael Latham (2000) builds on this dual emphasis through an examination of policy making based on the principles of liberal capitalism and global anticommunism, effectively connecting policy makers to the ideology of modernization. Simplistic notions about advocating progress in the decolonizing world drove U.S. policy in this early period of the Cold War, ultimately pointing toward greater U.S. involvement amid the competing demands of the colonizers and the colonized.

New Historical Methodologies and New Documents Recently the historical debate has also gained considerable nuance for two reasons: new available documents and new methodologies. The recent opening of international archival repositories has helped to illuminate Vietnamese, Soviet, and Chinese policies during the Vietnam War. For example, the literature holding the Viet Minh as operating under the auspices of Beijing or Moscow has been eclipsed by a more thorough and nuanced examination of the motives for nationalism, most importantly through the work of historians Mark Bradley, Pierre Asselin, and Lien-Hang T. Nguyen and Southeast Asian scholar Truong Buu Lam, among others. In the same way, these authors have elucidated Vietnamese methods and philosophies of protracted warfare. Just as important, close studies of North Vietnamese and Chinese policy, especially studies by William Duiker in 2000, Hue-Tam Ho Tai in 2001, and Robert Brigham in 2006, demonstrate the close attention paid by the North Vietnamese government to the needs of the people and the importance of family ties in Vietnamese culture. New historical methodology also has made the debate over the Vietnam War more complex. In particular, the introduction of culture and ideology into the study of diplomacy further questions the sufficiency of hard matters of policy in explaining the greater trends of the war. In 2004 Seth Jacobs examined American policy

Hmongs toward Diem within the domestic racial and political climate of the 1950s. In 2000 Mark Philip Bradley combined the approaches of culture and transnational history to examine the local context of Vietnam.

History and Memory The new studies continue to prod the fire of the orthodox-revisionist debate. Although general agreement exists that the protracted and costly effort in South Vietnam was a failure, historians invariably call attention to different causes. For this reason, the study of the memory of the Vietnam War merits attention. In their important book titled The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1979), Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts categorized nine orthodox explanations for the American failure in Vietnam, demonstrating that analysts have varied on the reasons for failure and the relative magnitude of the different causes of American involvement. What lessons should Americans learn from defeat in Southeast Asia? How and how well have the deep fractures in American society opened by the war been closed? And most importantly, how should the traumatic episode be presented within the greater narrative of American and international history? Several historians of American foreign relations, including Robert McMahon in 1999 and Robert Schulzinger in 2006, have emphasized how the legacy of Vietnam has affected U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics. The application of the increasing sophistication of thought regarding the Vietnam War clearly illustrates the utility in possessing a knowledgeable historical memory in finding meaning in the conflict. The Vietnam War’s comparative value has been utilized during the current U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a 2008 workshop conducted by the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. CHRISTOPHER R. W. DIETRICH See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Literature and the Vietnam War; Pentagon Papers and Trial; Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. References Bradley, Mark. Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919–1950. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Brigham, Robert K. ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Divine, Robert. “Vietnam Reconsidered.” Diplomatic History 12 (1988): 79–93. Duiker, William J. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion, 2000. Ellsberg, Daniel. Papers on the War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Gaiduk, Ilya V. Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Gelb, Leslie H., with Richard K. Betts. The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1979. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Hess, Gary. “The Unending Debate: Historians and the Vietnam War.” Diplomatic History 18 (1994): 239–264.

491

Hess, Gary. Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Jacobs, Seth. America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and U.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Jian, Chen. Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1985. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Latham, Michael A. Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and Nation Building in the Kennedy Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Lawrence, Mark Atwood. Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. McMahon, Robert. The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia since World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. McMahon, Robert. “U.S.-Vietnamese Relations: A Historiographical Survey.” In Pacific Passage: The Study of American East-Asian Relations on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Warren I. Cohen, 313–336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Podhoretz, Norman. Why We Were in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. Rotter, Andrew J. The Path to Vietnam: Origins of the American Commitment to Southeast Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power, and Violence in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991. Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press 1995. Tai, Hue-Tam Ho. The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. United States Department of Defense. United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense. 12 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Hmongs One of the principal ethnic minorities of Laos, the Hmongs live in the mountains surrounding the Plain of Jars. They migrated there from China in the 19th century. China still has the largest numbers of Hmongs. Hmong native speakers are estimated at up to 3 million people. The Hmong population in Laos is estimated at some 500,000 people. Vietnam has more than 800,000 Hmongs, while the Hmong population of Thailand is perhaps 150,000 people. The

492

Hmongs

A “Black” Hmong woman in traditional dress in northern Vietnam, near the border with China. (Corel)

largest Hmong population outside of Asia is in the United States, with as many as 300,000 people. The Hmong swidden (slash-and-burn) farming system is based on growing white (nonglutinous) rice and corn, with tubers, vegetables, and occasionally meat to round out the diet. The Hmongs are excellent hunters, using crossbows as well as firearms. The Hmongs have traditionally grown opium in small quantities for medicinal and ritual purposes. Opium poppies are a cold-season crop and are typically planted in cornfields after the corn crop has been harvested. Being of high value and low bulk and also being nonperishable, opium makes an excellent cash crop and has always found ready buyers, whether these were the traditional caravans from Yunnan, the French opium monopoly, or, in more recent times, heroin processors and smugglers supplying international markets. The Hmongs were traditionally paid in silver for their opium. Hmongs regard kinship patrilineally and identify 15 or 16 patrilineal exogamous clans, each tracing its descent to a common mythical ancestor. There are several subdivisions in Hmong society, usually named according to features of traditional dress. The White Hmongs, the Striped Hmongs, and the Green Hmongs (sometimes called the Blue Hmongs) are the most numerous.

Their languages are somewhat different but mutually comprehensible. The Hmongs practiced polygamy; divorce is possible but discouraged. Gender roles are strongly differentiated. Women are responsible for child care and all household chores, including cooking, grinding corn, and husking rice. Farming tasks are the responsibility of both men and women. Only men fell trees in the swidden-clearing operation, although both sexes are involved in clearing grass and light brush. During planting, men drilled holes in the ground with a sharp stick and were followed by women, who placed and covered the seeds. Weeding, harvesting, and threshing are shared tasks. Women care for small animals, while men care for large animals. In Laos, the Hmongs live in houses built directly on the ground that have bamboo or wood planking walls, thatch roofs, and a stamped earthen floor. In size the houses range from about 16 by 23 feet to 33 by 49 feet. The interior is divided into a kitchen/ cooking alcove at one end and several sleeping alcoves at the other, with beds or sleeping benches raised 12 to 16 inches above the dirt floor. Rice and unhusked corn are stored in large woven bamboo baskets inside the house. Furnishings are minimal and consist of a low table, stools of wood or bamboo, and a large clay stove for cooking. Almost every house has a simple altar mounted on one wall for offerings and ceremonies associated with ancestral spirits. In contrast with the lowland Lao, the Hmongs share no temple or common house in their village. Hmong cultural norms are individualistic, and the household is more important than the village. Most of the Hmongs supported the French, first against the Japanese and then against the Viet Minh. In 1961 Hmong leaders were enlisted by the United States and Thailand to fight against the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese. At their request, the Hmongs received modern weapons that enabled them to defend their villages as the Plain of Jars became a major battleground. As a result, many Hmong men were fighting almost continuously from 1961 until the 1973 cease-fire, and Hmong casualties were heavy. The main Hmong base was Long Chieng, situated in a valley surrounded by karst mountains. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided support for the anti-Communist Hmongs because of the prohibition against U.S. military personnel on the ground in Laos. Throughout their wars, the French and the Americans called the Hmongs the Meos, a term later judged by some to be derogatory. After 1975 the Hmongs were left on their own. Many fled to Thailand, eluding the patrols of the Communist regime. Others organized resistance in their old mountain bases but were relentlessly pursued by the new government, which accused them of having committed “crimes against the people.” Many ended up in refugee camps in Thailand, where they spent up to a decade or more. Some were accepted to begin new lives in the United States, France, Australia, and other countries. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Central Intelligence Agency; Laos; Long Chieng; Vang Pao

Hoa Binh, Battle of References Chan, Sucheng. Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994. Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Quincy, Keith. Hmong: History of a People. Cheney: Eastern Washington University Press, 1988. Savada, Andrea Matles, ed. Laos: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995. Warner, Roger. Back Fire: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Yang Dao. Hmong at the Turning Point. Minneapolis: WorldBridge Associates, 1993.

Hoa Binh, Battle of Start Date: November 14, 1951 End Date: February 24, 1952 Key Indochina War battle initiated by the French. Following the French victories in battles provoked by Viet Minh Operations HOANG HOA THAM and HA NAM NINH, French military commander in Indochina General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny decided to go on the offensive. This was made possible by increasing U.S. military aid and was influenced by the success of meat-grinder battles in the Korean War and the need to secure a victory to influence the French National Assembly debate over the 1952–1953 Indochina budget. De Lattre chose as his objective the major Viet Minh road connecting northeastern Viet Minh strongholds on the southern edge of the Red River Delta redoubt with Viet Minh–controlled areas north of central Vietnam. The battle’s focus was the city of Hoa Binh (which ironically means “peace”) on the Black River. Another important consideration for de Lattre in choosing Hoa Binh was maintaining the support of Muong Montagnards of the area, who thus far had remained staunch French supporters. The Battle of Hoa Binh began on November 14, 1951, when three French paratroop battalions dropped on Hoa Binh, the last operation in which the French used trimotor JU-52 transports for their paratroop and resupply operations. The French occupied the city with almost no resistance. At the same time, 15 infantry battalions, 7 artillery battalions, and 2 armored groups, all supported by 2 Dinassauts (naval assault divisions) and engineering forces, worked their way into the Black River Valley. After his defeats in Operations HOANG HOA THAM and HA NAM NINH, Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap had been avoiding battle with the French except in conditions of his choosing; thus, the Viet Minh at Hoa Binh simply melted away. But the French position there seemed to offer an excellent opportunity for Giap to repeat his 1950 successes along Route Coloniale 4. Therefore, against the advice of his Chinese Communist military advisers, who for the first time refused to accompany into battle the Viet

493

Minh units they advised, Giap ordered south the 304th, 308th, and 312th Infantry divisions, along with artillery, antiaircraft, and engineer troops, and he called in Viet Minh regional forces stationed to the west of the Red River Delta. Giap also ordered his 316th and 320th divisions to infiltrate French lines and disrupt their lines of communication feeding Hoa Binh. French land access to Hoa Binh was by means of Route Coloniale 6. This road, which had been in disrepair since 1940 and was now little more than a trail, wound for 25 miles through difficult terrain marked by underbrush and high cliffs on either side, making it ideal for ambushes. The French now worked to improve Route Coloniale 6. Communication with Hoa Binh by means of the Day River was almost three times as long as by Route Coloniale 6, but it was much more secure; however, the thin-skinned French landing craft were vulnerable to Viet Minh recoilless rifle and bazooka fire. This led the French, as in the case of Route Coloniale 6, to develop a string of forts and strong points that helped secure the river but at high cost in manpower and equipment. Hoa Binh became a meat-grinder battle for both sides. De Lattre, consumed by the cancer that was to kill him early the next year, left Indochina in December 1951 before the battle was over. But before his departure, he stripped French outposts as far as Laos and Cambodia of manpower, making these more vulnerable to Viet Minh attack. The Battle of Hoa Binh thus clearly showed the limitations imposed by the paucity of French manpower resources. Although the French held Hoa Binh, it was to no advantage. The Viet Minh simply built a bypass road around the town, and by the end of the battle on February 24, 1952, they had succeeded in penetrating the Red River Delta as never before. French participants remembered the battle as “the hell of Hoa Binh.” There the French lost 894 killed or missing. Although the Viet Minh paid a heavy price in the battle, sustaining perhaps 12,000 casualties, all of their divisions gained firsthand experience in fighting the French and learned enemy strengths and weaknesses. This would be of immense benefit in the battles to come. Giap rotated units in and out of the fighting, and those that were bloodied merely had to withdraw into the jungle free from French pursuit to rest and regroup. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dinassauts; France, Air Force, 1946–1954; France, Army, 1946–1954; HOANG HOA THAM, Operation; Indochina War; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; Vo Nguyen Giap References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Duong Toi Dien Bien Phu [The Road to Dien Bien Phu]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001.

494

Hoa Hao

Hoa Hao Religious sect in southern Vietnam. The Hoa Hao was founded in 1939 by Huynh Phu So in the hamlet in southern Vietnam that gave the religion its name. So, a native of Hoa Hao, preached a revised Buddhism targeting the impoverished peasantry. Greatly influenced by the ideas of Phat Thay Tay An, the so-called Buddha of Western Peace, So claimed that his adherents made contact with God, believing that they could call upon him whenever and wherever they chose. So conveyed his teachings through a dialectal poetry and charismatic appeal. As his sermons circulated orally from village to village, his flock increased to some 2 million people prior to World War II. He prophesied global conflict, French defeat, and Japan’s occupation of Indochina. In contrast to the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao’s worldly message placed greater emphasis on millenarianism, nationalism, and human equality. Without a formal ruling body of clergy or edifices for religious exercises, the Hoa Hao was less a church and more an impassioned sectarian crusade. Desiring to create a Buddhist community on earth rather than in heaven, So criticized the populace’s extravagance, ceremony, and irrational beliefs. Stressing inner reliance instead of external display, his instructions limited gift giving to ancestors, patriots, and Buddha only. Therefore, donations to supernatural beings and bronzes were unnecessary, and sacrifices to deities went unsolicited. So called for four daily prayers at home, unarranged marital unions without dickering and dealing, and ungarnished observances for the dead. He also urged renunciation of drugs, alcohol, and gambling. The Hoa Hao established committees in the hamlets of its followers. Above these was organized a secular-sectarian tier preoccupied with social programs, proselytization, and community protection. Structurally, the Hoa Hao operated out of hamlet and provincial councils and a tiny national council and through the four regional military leaders. The latter, hoping to increase the people’s independence from the influential gentry, provided aid regarding taxation, property rights, and social services. Philosophically, the Hoa Hao blamed Westernization for afflicting the Vietnamese with an immoderate urban lifestyle. Harking back to a simpler time, the sect longed for a less sophisticated and more earnest peasantry. Scoffing at upper-class assimilation of French culture, So sympathized with the impoverished and favored an end to class differences. Despite a program promoting equal treatment and the termination of special privilege, he opposed Marxism and class struggle. In fact, the Hoa Hao imposed heavy taxes upon its converts for payments of welfare benefits and for military protection. The growing anticolonial Hoa Hao soon menaced France’s authority. In 1940 So, apprehended and institutionalized, managed to proselytize his doctrine. He was freed but confined to the town of Bac Lieu, where he received pilgrims through whom he circulated religious inspiration and anti-French propaganda. In effect, the Hoa Hao subverted imperial administration in areas under its in-

fluence. The Hoa Hoa replaced colonial courts, converted Frenchled native soldiers, and later provisioned Japanese forces with rice. So created the Dan Xa Dang (Social Democratic Party), which called for common land ownership on a voluntary basis. He continued to reject Marxist ideology and waged a brutal war against the Viet Minh after 1945. So eventually died at the hands of the Communists two years later. Following So’s death the sect fragmented into four parts, each commanded by one of his former military subordinates. Thereafter hamlet and provincial tiers administered welfare, while the military regions controlled political matters. The Hoa Hao engaged in a power struggle with the Cao Dai and other nationalist groups even while it participated in various national coalitions and united fronts. The sect fought the efforts of Emperor Bao Dai and later President Ngo Dinh Diem to assert central government authority over its autonomous domain northwest of Saigon. Despite the Hoa Hao’s 1 million supporters and 20,000 troops, Diem, through a combination of military action and bribery, finally broke the back of its resistance in 1954. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Bao Dai; Buddhism in Vietnam; Cao Dai; Huynh Phu So; Ngo Dinh Diem References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Popkin, Samuel L. The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Woodside, Alexander B. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.

Hoa Lo Prison The best-known and most notorious of the camps or prisons housing U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) in the Hanoi area. Hoa Lo Prison, dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton” by Bob Schumaker, the second U.S. POW there, was a large fortress covering a city block in the heart of Hanoi. Built by the French in 1886, its original name was Prison Centrale; later it was known as the Maison Centrale. Hoa Lo, which means “fiery furnace” or “fiery crucible,” was taken from the location of the prison on Hoa Lo Street, where earthen coal stoves were once made and sold. Some called the prison “the Devil’s Island of Southeast Asia.” Hoa Lo’s 4-foot thick walls were 20 feet high, but electrified barbed wire extended them an additional 5 feet. The prison was a series of beige stucco-walled cell blocks and administration buildings. It had glass-embedded walls and red-tiled roofs. Some POWs said that it reminded them of the description of the Bastille in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Formerly a place of incarceration for high-ranking Vietnamese government officials, the Hanoi Hilton was one of a number

Hoa Lo Prison

495

North Vietnamese guards talk to American prisoners of war at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” during the Vietnam War. The prison, officially known as Hoa Lo, was built by the French at the turn of the 20th century when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. (Bettmann/Corbis)

of prisons located in or near Hanoi, including those known as the Zoo, Alcatraz, the Briarpatch, and Camp Hope (Son Tay). Some 700 American POWs were housed in these camps between August 1964 and February 1973, when Operation HOMECOMING began their release. There are no exact U.S. figures on the total number of POWs who were held in the Hanoi Hilton, but it is estimated that by late 1970 as many as 360 POWs were housed in the so-called Camp Unity, one of its cellblocks. This prison of concrete and mortar was a forbidding structure. A dry moat separated the prison’s tall walls from the surrounding area. The prison itself was divided into sections, and each of these cell blocks was further divided. The POWs gave each cell block different names, such as “New Guy Village,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Little Vegas,” and “Camp Unity.” Almost all new POWs were housed temporarily in “New Guy Village.” Sanitation was poor, and the cells were infested with insects and rodents. Much of the food was inedible, and medical treatment was poor to nonexistent. Torture and isolation were commonplace. Benjamin Schemmer, a POW, recalls that prisoners “were crowded 40 to 60 men in each room, some of them only 22 by 45 or 60 feet long.” Most of our knowledge of Hoa Lo Prison and other POW camps comes from prisoner debriefings and numerous published personal accounts. These are testimonials of faith and courage. Robert Reissner, shot down on September 16, 1965, stated that “I guess

if there was any one thing that happened to many of us in prison, it was that we were no longer embarrassed talking about God or religion. We gained a lot of faith not only from private prayers but also from sharing our feelings about God with each other.” The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) constantly used various means to break captives psychologically, mostly to gain confessions or information for propaganda purposes. Prisoners were isolated and prohibited from communicating and were tortured in specially designed interrogation rooms. Other deprivations included beatings, extended darkness, shacklings, and not being permitted to bathe. In spite of deplorable conditions and inhumane treatment, prisoners managed to maintain communication with each other and to get news from the outside. The prisoners organized, held regular church services, taught each other foreign languages and math, and reenacted their favorite movies. At one time Hoa Lo held such notable POWs as Jeremiah A. Denton Jr., John S. McCain III, and James B. Stockdale. Some POWs had been held there since as early as 1967. Two factors contributed to the increase in the POW population at Hoa Lo. A November 21, 1970, attempt to rescue POWs at Son Tay camp caused the North Vietnamese to move more than 200 American aircrew members there. And in 1972 as bombing raids of Hanoi continued, the North Vietnamese rounded up POWs from camps scattered throughout North Vietnam and moved them to

496

Hoang Duc Nha

downtown Hanoi. The prison was poorly equipped to handle the increasing number of American POWs, however. Even before the Son Tay Raid and the bombing of Hanoi, conditions at the Hanoi Hilton improved. Some attribute this to a letter-writing campaign by Americans demanding more humane treatment of the POWs. Others attribute the change to the death of Ho Chi Minh in September of 1969 or to propaganda statements by North Vietnamese that backfired. Whatever the reasons, torture sessions to gain military information abated, and POWs were even allowed to write and receive letters. Captives were given new clothes, were allowed to exercise and bathe regularly, and were given much-needed medical treatment and food. With the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 23, 1973, the release of the POWs began. The first 116 of the 566 American POWs released landed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines on February 12, 1973. The first man off the plane was U.S. Navy captain Jeremiah Denton, who after seven and a half years in captivity saluted the American flag. In 1997 a Singapore company began turning most of what had been the Hanoi Hilton into a block of luxury apartments and stores. GARY KERLEY AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr.; HOMECOMING, Operation; McCain, John Sidney, III; Missing in Action, Allied; Prisoners of War, Allied; Son Tay Raid; Stockdale, James Bond References Gargus, John. The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Routledge, Howard, and Phyllis Routledge. In the Presence of Mine Enemies, 1965–1973: A Prisoner at War. London: Collins, 1974. Rowan, Stephen A. They Wouldn’t Let Us Die: The Prisoners of War Tell Their Story. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 1973. Risner, Robinson. The Passing of the Night: My Seven Years as a Prisoner of the North Vietnamese. New York: Random House, 1973. Schemmer, Benjamin F. The Raid. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.

Nha was unqualified for the positions he held and owed them to his close links to Thieu. As the author of the 007 Decree, which required all newspapers and magazines in South Vietnam to pay at least 10 million dong (20 million was the actual required amount) to the government if they wanted to continue publication, he earned widespread scorn. This measure, which eliminated many critics who were too poor to pay, was correctly perceived as censorship. Nha also used his influence to place many of his cronies, who were also young and unqualified, in important positions within the government. Nha did more harm than good to the Thieu government. As a source of mounting public disfavor, Nha was forced to leave office in October 1974. Reportedly U.S. ambassador Graham Martin made Nha’s dismissal a condition for continued aid to the Thieu government. When the South Vietnamese government collapsed in 1975, Nha fled to the United States, where he settled permanently. HO DIEU ANH See also Nguyen Van Thieu; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kiem Dat. Chien Tranh Viet Nam [The Vietnam War]. Glendale, CA: Dai Nam, 1982. Nguyen Khac Ngu. Nhung Ngay Cuoi Cung Cua Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Last Days of the Republic of Vietnam]. Montreal: Nhom Nghien Cuu Su Dia, 1979.

Hoang Duc Nha Birth Date: 1941 Minister of information for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1973–1974. Hoang Duc Nha was born at Phu Yen in central Vietnam in 1941 and was a cousin of Nguyen Van Thieu, who served as president of South Vietnam during 1967– 1975. Nha was educated at the French Lycée Yersin in Da Lat and the School of Commerce in Saigon before receiving a scholarship to study civil engineering in the United States at the University of Pittsburgh. After graduation he returned to Vietnam in 1968 and began to work with Thieu, then chairman of the National Leadership Council. Nha became an influential special adviser to Thieu after 1972 and then in 1973 he was appointed minister of information.

Hoang Duc Nha (right), Republic of Vietnam president Nguyen Van Thieu’s press secretary and confidant, shakes hands with U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam Ellsworth Bunker (left) at the start of a meeting between Thieu and National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger (center). (AP/Wide World Photos)

HOANG HOA THAM, Operation

Hoang Hoa Tham See De Tham

HOANG HOA THAM,

Operation

Start Date: January 1951 End Date: June 1951 First set-piece battles of the Indochina War. Following his 1950 victories that wrested northeastern Tonkin from the French, Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap believed that the time had come for a general counteroffensive against the main French defensive line in the flatlands of the Red River Delta. The prize was Hanoi itself, and Viet Minh propagandists began to post leaflets with the inscription “Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi for Tet.” By mid-January 1951 Giap had assembled 81 battalions, including 8 of engineers and 12 of heavy weapons. On January 13 he struck with two divisions from the Tam Dao Massif at the end of the Red River Delta against two French groupes mobiles (mobile groups [GM], equivalent to a U.S. regimental combat team) defending the approaches to Vinh Yen, some 30 miles from Hanoi. This operation was known as HOANG HOA THAM for Vietnamese guerrilla leader De Tham, who had held out against the French from 1887 to 1913. The Battle of Vinh Yen initially favored the Viet Minh, but on January 14 French commander General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny took personal charge, flying there in a small liaison plane and immediately ordering the airlift of reserve battalions from the south. On January 16 for the first time in the war, the French experienced human-wave assaults by much of the Viet Minh 308th Division. De Lattre ordered all available fighter aircraft, even transport planes capable of dropping bombs, to Vinh Yen. In what became the most massive aerial bombardment of the Indochina War, the French dropped large quantities of napalm on their attackers. On January 17 de Lattre committed his last reserves, and by the end of the day the Viet Minh withdrew. Airpower and artillery were the keys to the French victory. Giap lost some 6,000 dead and 500 captured in the battle. Giap was not prepared to concede defeat, and in Operation HOANG HOA THAM II he employed three divisions to try to cut the French in Hanoi from the port of Haiphong, which handled the bulk of French military sea lift in the north. De Lattre misread Giap’s intentions, believing that he would next strike at Viet Tri, northwest of Hanoi. As a result, de Lattre had the bulk of his heavy forces to the west of the capital. The attack began on the night of March 23–24, 1951. General Raoul Salan was commanding for de Lattre, who was in France. Salan immediately dispatched French reinforcements eastward, including naval units. The deep water of the Da Bach River allowed the cruiser Duguay-Trouin, two destroyers, and two landing ships to provide supporting fire. One of the most incredible

497

incidents of the Indochina War occurred during the fight for Mao Khe, the location of a large coal mine, when a company of 95 Tho (Tay) tribesmen, commanded by Vietnamese lieutenant Nghiem Xuan Toan and three French noncommissioned officers, managed to hold off a Viet Minh division for an entire day. Again Giap had failed to pierce the French defensive Red River Delta ring. In the offensive Giap lost another 3,000 men. In his memoirs he claims that his forces lost only about 2,000 men dead or wounded in this offensive, but he acknowledges that these losses were the heaviest that the Viet Minh had ever suffered up to that point in the war. Undaunted, Giap tried again when three Viet Minh divisions attacked from the south in an effort to secure important riceproducing areas of the southern part of the delta. One important Viet Minh innovation in this battle was the coordination of the frontal attack with the infiltration beforehand of two entire regiments within the French battle line. This offensive, known as HA NAM NINH for its objective of Ha Nam and Ninh Binh provinces, resulted in major battles at Ninh Binh and Phat Diem. Giap failed to realize the great demands of supplying conventional forces in battle, and the French were again able to bring superior firepower to bear, especially from the air and from along the Day River, where they were able to employ a naval assault division, or Dinassaut. The Viet Minh offensive began on May 29 and, as usual, achieved surprise, but by June 18 it too had ground to a halt largely because the French had been able to disrupt Viet Minh supply lines along the Day River. The Viet Minh had suffered another 10,000 dead. Giap then withdrew his forces into the mountains. He stated that while his Chinese advisers viewed his losses in the Ha Nam Ninh campaign as relatively small, he personally considered his losses so high that they were “difficult to accept.” These battles helped restore some French confidence and allowed General de Lattre to go to Washington and press the case for additional U.S. assistance. They also revealed French shortcomings such as inadequate cross-country mobility and the lack of sufficient airpower and manpower to exploit local victories. On the Viet Minh side, the battles caused Giap to go back to phase-two guerrilla strategies. He would refuse to accept battle unless it was on his own terms while seeking out vulnerable French peripheral units and working to undermine French authority. He and the Viet Minh leadership believed that a combination of factors would ultimately force the French to quit Indochina. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also De Tham; Dinassauts; France, Air Force, 1946–1954; France, Army, 1946–1954; Indochina War; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994.

498

Hoang Van Hoan

Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Duong Toi Dien Bien Phu [The Road to Dien Bien Phu]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001.

Hoang Van Hoan Birth Date: 1905 Death Date: 1991 Vietnamese revolutionary and influential official of the Lao Dong Party. Born in Nghe An Province in central Vietnam in 1905, Hoang Van Hoan joined the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association) in 1926 and became a founding member of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) in 1930. He joined the party’s Central Committee shortly after the August Revolution (1945). During the 1950s Hoan served as ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and in 1956 he was elected to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party, as the Communist Party was then renamed. In 1958 the delegates of North Vietnam’s National Assembly elected Hoan as vice chairman of the Standing Committee, a position he held throughout the Vietnam War. In 1976 at the Fourth National Party Congress after bitter political disputes, Hoan’s colleagues voted him out of the Political Bureau and the Central Committee. He had openly criticized the leadership of powerful Lao Dong secretary-general Le Duan, and as a result in 1979 Hoan defected to China. He was the highestranking Vietnamese Communist official to leave Vietnam. Hoan died in China in 1991. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Lao Dong Party; Le Duan; Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi References Garver, John W. Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. Hoang Van Hoan. A Drop in the Ocean: Hoang Van Hoan’s Revolutionary Reminiscences. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1988.

Hoang Van Thai Birth Date: 1915 Death Date: July 2, 1986 Prominent Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) official and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general. Born into a poor peasant family in 1915 in Tay An village, Tien

Hai District, Thai Binh Province, Hoang Van Xiem as a young man worked first in the coal mines at Hon Gai and then in the tin mines at Cao Bang. In 1936 he returned to Tien Hai to join the antiFrench movement. At that time, he took the alias of Thai. In 1938 Thai joined the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and worked to establish its first cells in his hometown. Arrested by French authorities in September 1940, he was released a month later. He then went underground, continuing anti-French activities in Lang Giang and Hiep Hoa. In March 1941 Thai was appointed commander of the National Salvation Army (predecessor of the PAVN) in Bac Son and was sent to China for military training. In October 1944 he returned to Vietnam and joined the Viet Minh as a staff officer. In April 1945 he was in charge of Truong Quan Chinh Khang Nhat (Military and Political School for the Anti-Japanese Cause). Thai held a series of important posts in the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). These included chief of the General Staff of the PAVN, member of the Military Central Party Committee, director general of the Military Training General Department, commander and commissar of Military Zone V, secretary of the Military Zone V Party Committee, commander of Armed Forces for the Liberation of South Vietnam, deputy secretary of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) Party Committee, and deputy secretary of the Southern Region Party Committee. Thai also played a major role in the Indochina War and the Vietnam War and participated in most of the major military campaigns and battles. In the Indochina War, as the commander of the Viet Minh army’s General Staff, Thai participated in the 1950 Border Campaign as well as the northeastern Ha Nam Ninh and Hoa Binh and northwestern region campaigns. He served as General Vo Nguyen Giap’s chief of staff in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. During the Vietnam War, Thai commanded Communist forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from 1967 to 1973, seeing action during the 1968 Tet Offensive, the battle against the U.S.–South Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia in the spring of 1970, the Chen-la I and Chen-la II campaigns in Cambodia during 1970–1971, and the 1972 Easter Offensive. General Thai returned to North Vietnam in 1973 and served as the deputy chief of the PAVN’s General Staff during the 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign that resulted in the fall of Saigon and the conquest of South Vietnam. After 1975 Thai, an in-law of Minister of Defense Vo Nguyen Giap, became deputy minister of defense with responsibility for training and military technology research. Thai served as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1960 onward and later was elected as a member of parliament. He died suddenly in Hanoi on July 2, 1986. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Hoa Binh, Battle of; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Lao Dong Party; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vo Nguyen Giap

Ho Chi Minh

499

References Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996.

Ho Chi Minh Birth Date: May 19, 1890 Death Date: September 2, 1969 Leading Vietnamese revolutionary and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from 1945 until his death in 1969. Born Nguyen Sinh Cung in Nghe An Province on May 19, 1890, Ho Chi Minh was the son of Nguyen Sinh Sac, a mandarin and itinerant teacher. Ho received his formal education in Hue at the Quoc Hoc school. After graduation, he taught school in a number of southern Vietnamese towns, including Saigon. In 1911 Ho, now called Van Ba, hired on to a French ship as a galley helper and traveled to France and the United States and then back to Europe. While in the United States during 1912–1913, Ho supposedly was interested in the American concepts of political rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. During his years abroad he held a variety of jobs, working as a gardener, a waiter, and a photography assistant before settling on more permanent work in London as a dishwasher and an assistant pastry chef at the Carlton Hotel. When World War I erupted Ho moved from London to Paris, joining many Vietnamese nationals and changing his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot). In France he accepted Marxist Leninism because of its anticolonial stance and position on national liberation. Ho argued that the true path to liberation for Vietnam rested in the writings of Lenin, and as a result Ho joined the French Socialist Party and founded the Association of Vietnamese Patriots. In 1920 after the Paris Peace Conference failed to address Indochinese independence, he helped found the French Communist Party, claiming that anticolonial nationalism and class revolution were inseparable. In 1923 and 1924 Ho traveled to Moscow to attend the Fourth and Fifth Comintern congresses and to receive formal theoretical and revolutionary training. While in Moscow he utilized his extensive foreign-language training, writing Marxist critiques of the Indochina problem in several languages. In late 1924 Ho traveled to China, where he visited one of the most important Vietnamese nationalists of the modern period, Phan Boi Chau. Ho stayed in Canton for two years, organizing what would become the first Vietnamese Communist Party and writing his highly influential Duong Cach Mang (Revolutionary Path). In 1925 he founded the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League), commonly known as the Thanh Nien. The Thanh Nien was an anticolonial organization

Ho Chi Minh was the most prominent Vietnamese revolutionary leader of the 1930s and 1940s and the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

that attempted to unite political and social issues for the ultimate liberation of Vietnam. Ho’s efforts within the Thanh Nien led to the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929, and Ho spent much of 1930 recruiting skilled organizers and strategists. He also managed to carry out a fusion of three Communist parties that had emerged in Vietnam. Ho attracted the attention of the British police in Hong Kong, and in June 1931 they arrested him. After release from a British prison, Ho returned to Moscow for more revolutionary training at Lenin University. By the early 1940s Nguyen Ai Quoc had changed his name to Ho Chi Minh (Ho the Bringer of Light or Ho the Enlightened One). With the Japanese invasion of Vietnam during World War II, he moved his revolutionary group to the caves of Pac Bo in the northernmost reaches of Vietnam. In Pac Bo at the Eighth Plenum of the Indochinese Communist Party in May 1941, Ho supervised the organization of the Viet Minh, a nationalist and Communist front organization created to mobilize the citizenry to meet party objectives.

500

Ho Chi Minh

During World War II the Viet Minh entered into an alliance with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), providing the allies with tactical and logistical support and helping to rescue downed American pilots. Some scholars have suggested that Ho’s revolutionary army even received financial and military support from the OSS and that Ho himself was an official agent. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Viet Minh seized power in Hanoi during the August Revolution. On September 2, 1945, with several Americans present, Ho declared Vietnamese independence from French colonial rule and announced the formation of the DRV. On March 2, 1946, he became president of the newly formed North Vietnam. Not surprisingly, France and North Vietnam soon clashed, and a nine-year war began. Most of the Soviet-bloc countries had quickly recognized the North Vietnamese government, and it was therefore easy for the French to cast their colonial reconquest of Vietnam in Cold War terms. After years of bloody stalemate, in 1954 the French suffered a humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu and accepted the subsequent 1954 Geneva Accords that recognized the supremacy of Ho’s Communists north of the 17th Parallel. The Geneva Accords called for nationwide elections in 1956 to reunify the country, but these elections never took place. Instead, the United States and southern Vietnamese nationals tried to build a non-Communist counterrevolutionary alternative south of the 17th Parallel. The end result was the creation of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), with Ngo Dinh Diem as its president. Diem quickly went on the offensive, rounding up thousands of suspected Communists and sending them to prison. His anti-Communist sweeps devastated the party and led to a sharp decrease in the number of cadres operating in South Vietnam. Ho called these “the darkest days” for the revolutionary movement. He vowed to reunify the country and called the South Vietnamese government a historical aberration because “Vietnam is one country, and we are one people with four thousand years of history.” In 1960 after six years of trying to unify the country through political means, the Lao Dong, a national united Communist party under Ho’s leadership, approved the use of armed violence to overthrow Diem and liberate Vietnam south of the 17th Parallel. In December 1960 the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) was established to unite former Viet Minh activists with elements of southern society who opposed the U.S.-backed Diem regime. The character and nature of the NLF and its relationship to the government in Hanoi remains one of the most controversial issues from the war. Some scholars have suggested that Ho and the Lao Dong Party (as the Communist Party was renamed in 1951) had little influence over the NLF and that the conflict in South Vietnam was essentially a civil war. Policy makers in Washington claimed that Ho himself had presided over the birth of the NLF and that the insurgency was an invasion by North Vietnam against South Vietnam. This provided the rationale for U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It appears

that both explanations are wanting, since Ho’s Communist party was a nationwide national organization with representation from all regions of Vietnam. In March 1965 the United States intervened militarily in Vietnam, presenting Ho with the most difficult challenge of his life. He remained steadfast in his determination to see Vietnam reunified and refused to discuss any settlement with the United States that did not recognize this objective. In addition, Ho demanded that any settlement of the war must recognize the political and military supremacy of the NLF in South Vietnam. Because the second of these two goals was not compatible with Washington’s rationale for fighting the war, Ho was clearly outlining the parameters of a struggle with no clear or easy solution. Ho was a skillful leader who knew how to adapt revolutionary strategy to meet changing conditions. In 1965 he supervised the transition from total battlefield victory to victory through a protracted war strategy. He believed from his experience with the French that Westerners had little patience for a long and indecisive conflict. Supposedly Ho once remarked that “you can kill ten of our people for every one I kill of yours, but eventually you will grow tired and go home and I will win.” From late 1965 until his death in 1969, Ho supervised the protracted war strategy that offered neither side a quick or decisive victory. As the war dragged on, Ho used his considerable leadership gifts to mobilize the Vietnamese population. As preparations for the 1968 general offensive and uprising, known in the West as the Tet Offensive, were being made, Ho threw his enormous prestige behind the effort. He made his first public appearance in many months just weeks before the offensive to ensure universal support. Many scholars also credit Ho with ending several bitter inner-party disputes throughout the arduous conflict with the United States. He was especially skillful at managing the conflict between Le Duan, secretary-general of the Lao Dong Party, and his political rivals Truong Chinh, leader of the National Assembly, and Vo Nguyen Giap, commander in chief of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Ho proved to be an able diplomat in the international arena as well. Beginning in 1956 the Soviets and the Chinese began a period of intense rivalry caused in part by Moscow’s strategy of peaceful coexistence with the West and Beijing’s adamant support of wars of national liberation. For years Ho skillfully managed to avoid taking sides in the Sino-Soviet dispute and had successfully played one against the other to secure increased aid. Eventually the Lao Dong Party moved closer to Moscow, and Ho accepted the Soviet-supported strategy of fighting while negotiating. During the last year of his life, Ho worked closely with the Vietnamese negotiators in Paris, outlining the nuanced differences in the Lao Dong Party’s strategy. Despite his indefatigable drive for Vietnamese liberation, Ho never lived to see his country reunified. He died on September 2, 1969, of a heart attack on the anniversary of his independence speech. His death inspired a tremendous emotional outpouring in Vietnam, adding significantly to the powerful imagery surround-

Ho Chi Minh Campaign ing his name. Throughout the war, the Lao Dong Party cultivated the image of Ho as the protector of the Vietnamese people, and the label “Uncle Ho” was exploited to its fullest potential. Following the Communist victory in South Vietnam, the former South Vietnamese capital of Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. Today Ho’s remains are enshrined in central Hanoi in a public mausoleum that attracts throngs of visitors each year. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Agricultural Reform Tribunals; August Revolution; Dau Tranh Strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Lao Dong Party; Le Duan; Ngo Dinh Diem; Office of Strategic Services; San Antonio Formula; Truong Chinh; United Front; Viet Minh; Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi References Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Fenn, Charles. Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction. New York: Scribner, 1973. Halberstam, David. Ho. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Hemery, Daniel. Ho Chi Minh: De l’Indochine au Vietnam. Paris: Gallimard, 1990. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh on Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–1966. New York: Signet Books, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Lacouture, Jean. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Sainteny, Jean. Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam: A Personal Memoir. Chicago: Cowles, 1972. Woodside, Alexander B. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Ho Chi Minh Campaign Event Date: April 1975 The Ho Chi Minh Campaign culminated in the April 1975 attack on Saigon, which gave the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) the decisive victory over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that North Vietnam had fought so long to achieve. Encouraged by the collapse of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) in early 1975 in Military Regions I and II, the Hanoi Politburo revised its timetable, deciding late in March that Saigon should be taken before the beginning of the 1975 rainy season rather than the following year. The plan was to achieve victory in what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Campaign before their dead leader’s birthday (May 19). In early April, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units engaged ARVN forces around Saigon, block-

501

ing roads and shelling Bien Hoa Air Base. While cadres moved into the city to augment their already significant organization there, sappers positioned themselves to interrupt river transportation and attack Bien Hoa. At Xuan Loc, some 35 miles northeast of Saigon, a hard-fought battle began on April 8, the same day that a Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) pilot attacked the presidential palace and then defected. The U.S. evacuation of Cambodia on April 12 further reinforced the North Vietnamese assessment that Washington would do nothing to prevent the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, although some members of the Saigon government could not bring themselves to believe that they would be abandoned. Even after the fall of Military Regions I and II, U.S. officials in Vietnam and visitors from Washington continued to act as if the Saigon government could successfully defend itself or, at worst, achieve some kind of negotiated settlement. Among South Vietnamese, however, opposition to President Nguyen Van Thieu was growing, and talk of a coup was widespread. As PAVN forces cut Route 1 to the east and prepared to prevent reinforcement from the Mekong Delta by blocking Route 4 and from Vung Tau by interdicting Route 15 and the Long Tau River, the ARVN engaged in some maneuvering of its own. On April 21 President Thieu resigned in favor of Vice President Tran Van Huong, but all attempts by Washington to support the Saigon regime with increased aid failed in Congress. Thieu’s resignation did nothing to stall the PAVN offensive or buoy South Vietnamese morale. While some ARVN units fought on, leaders such as Thieu began sending personal goods and money out of the country. Banks and foreign embassies began closing, and a steady stream of foreign nationals, including many Americans, left the country, often with their Vietnamese employees. Xuan Loc fell on April 21, and by April 25 ARVN forces around Saigon were under pressure from all sides. The PAVN attack on Saigon proper began on April 26 with artillery bombardments and a ground assault in the east, where troops had to move early to be in position to coordinate their final assault with units attacking from other directions. PAVN forces also occupied Nhon Trach, southeast of Saigon, enabling them to bring 130-millimeter artillery to bear on the Tan Son Nhut airport. On April 27 they cut Route 4, but ARVN forces fought back, counterattacking sappers who had seized bridges and putting up stiff resistance, particularly against PAVN units attacking from the east. As an increasing number of ARVN military and civilian officials abandoned their posts, on April 28 President Huong resigned in favor of Duong Van Minh. That same day a flight of captured Cessna A-37 Dragonfly aircraft struck the Tan Son Nhut airfield, and the Communists pushed forward their attack, positioning units for the final assault and successfully attacking ARVN units in bases surrounding the city. U.S. ambassador Graham Martin delayed beginning a full evacuation, fearing its negative impact on morale. When the evacuation did begin on April 29, the final U.S. pullout was chaotic, a poorly organized swirl of vehicles and

502

Ho Chi Minh Trail

crowds trying to connect with helicopters, ships, and planes. In the confusion the Americans left many Vietnamese employees behind, and as few as a third of the individuals and families deemed to be at risk were evacuated or managed to escape. Units around the Saigon perimeter came under heavy attack on April 29. While some PAVN units held outlying ARVN garrisons in check, other elements of General Van Tien Dung’s large force moved toward the center of the city and key targets, including the presidential palace. Although some ARVN units continued to resist, they could not slow the PAVN advance. On April 30 President Minh ordered ARVN forces to cease fighting. The Ho Chi Minh Campaign had achieved its goal. The Vietnam War ended just as students of revolutionary warfare theory had expected. Drawing upon the power developed in their North Vietnamese base area, the Communists combined five corps-sized regular army units with southern guerrillas and cadres in a final offensive that grew in strength as it piled victory upon victory against a demoralized opposition. PAVN forces could sustain their momentum in part because they did not have to detach a significant portion of their strength to administer conquered areas. That task could be left to local forces and the political infrastructure already in place before the final offensive began. Against such a strong opponent, the Saigon government proved incapable of continued resistance without active U.S. support. JOHN M. GATES See also Bui Tin; Duong Van Minh; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Martin, Graham A.; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tran Van Tra; Van Tien Dung; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Xuan Loc, Battle of References Dougan, Clark, and David Fulghum. The Fall of the South. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Hosmer, Stephen T., Konrad Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins. The Fall of South Vietnam: Statements by Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders. New York: Crane, Russak, 1980. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.

Ho Chi Minh City See Saigon

Ho Chi Minh Trail A network of roads, paths, and waterways that stretched from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) through eastern Laos and Cambodia to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN,

South Vietnam), forming the main supply route for troops and matériel that supported the North Vietnamese war against the South Vietnamese government. At its greatest extent, the Ho Chi Minh Trail consisted of some 12,700 miles of paths, trails, roads, and waterways that often traversed extraordinarily difficult terrain. Indeed, the trail represents one of history’s great military engineering feats. The United States recognized the importance of this vital logistics link for the Communist forces in South Vietnam and waged a massive air interdiction campaign against it. This represented one of the central struggles of the Vietnam War. On May 19, 1959, Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, Major General Nguyen Van Vinh of Hanoi’s Central Military Committee instructed Major Vo Ban to open a supply route to South Vietnam. The Lao Dong Party’s (Worker’s Party or Communist Party) Central Committee had decided to support the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam, and men and matériel would have to be moved south to support this new phase of the struggle against the South Vietnamese government. Assigned 500 troops for the task, Major Ban set to work building the necessary staging areas, depots, and command posts along the ancient system of footpaths and roads that connected North and South Vietnam. In August, Ban’s Unit 559 (so-named because it was formed during the fifth month of 1959) delivered the first supplies—20 boxes of rifles and ammunition—to Viet Cong (VC) insurgents in Thua Thien Province. By the end of the year some 1,800 men had used the trail to infiltrate South Vietnam. The need for secrecy led in 1960 to the development of a new route along the western side of the rugged Truong Son Range in Laos. The trail’s segments gradually were widened during the year, and bicycles were introduced to transport supplies along the roads. With strengthened frames, each bicycle could handle loads averaging 220 to 330 pounds, with loads in excess of 700 pounds on occasion. The use of bicycles meant that three or four times the load of backpacking porters could move along the trail at 1.5 times the speed of porters on foot. Hanoi continued to expand the trail during the next two years. Infiltration training centers were established at Son Tay and Xuan Mai, where soldiers underwent rigorous physical training and instruction in the use of camouflage. Once en route, infiltrators would average six miles a day along the trail. Major Ban spent 26 days on the trail at the end of 1962 observing conditions along the route. He came away impressed. He saw soldiers who were carrying loads that weighed more than 200 pounds. Not just soldiers but civilians living along the Truong Son Range helped transport supplies to South Vietnam, and although many civilians were themselves short of food, they continually offered sustenance to the soldiers. By the winter of 1962–1963 North Vietnam had some 5,000 troops plus an engineering regiment assigned to the trail. The road complex now stretched for more than 600 miles, nearly all of it well hidden from aerial observation. Engineers had widened segments of the roads, enabling trucks to begin using portions of the route in

Ho Chi Minh Trail the summer of 1962. Some 100 tons of supplies now moved weekly along the trail, transported by trucks, bicycles, elephants, and porters. An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 men had made the long journey to South Vietnam since the opening of the trail in 1959. In October 1964 following a decision in Hanoi to expand the war in South Vietnam, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 95th Regiment completed its infiltration training and departed for Laos. This first large PAVN unit to move down the trail intact arrived in Kontum Province in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands in December. Two additional regiments reached South Vietnam in January and February 1965. The North Vietnamese in 1965 undertook a massive effort to improve the trail to handle the increased traffic. Engineers, assisted by North Korean, Russian, and Chinese advisers, widened footpaths into roads, strengthened bridges, and piled rocks in streams and rivers to create fords. Truck convoys, covering 50 to 75 miles during night, moved increasing amounts of matériel to South Vietnam. Despite the beginning of heavy U.S. air attacks, the number of infiltrators increased from 12,000 in 1964 to 33,000, while truck traffic quadrupled, reaching 300 to 400 tons per week. The tremendous expansion of the supply route led to a reorganization of the trail command. Unit 559’s area of operation was redesignated a military zone under the authority of the Lao Dong Party’s Central Committee. Brigadier General Phan Trong Tue took charge of the new zone, with the veteran Ban as his deputy. In December 1966 General Dong Sy Nguyen was assigned to replace Phan Trong Tue as the commander of Group 559 and the Ho Chi Minh Trail zone, a position he held until the war ended in 1975. The war in South Vietnam during 1966 and 1967 saw heavy fighting between PAVN regular army units and U.S. forces that increased from 180,000 to 500,000 during the period. The trail ultimately became a sprawling network of hundreds of roads, paths, streams, rivers, passes, caves, and tunnels. It wound through bamboo thickets and heavy undergrowth in river valleys and under the layered canopies of tall trees in tropical rain forests at higher elevations. Supplies were generally transported at night as trucks moved between stations 6–18 miles apart, with a PAVN officer at each station to ascertain if a convoy could reach the next station before daybreak. Trucks were hidden or camouflaged during daylight hours. Thirty to 60 PAVN soldiers manned each station, while PAVN personnel and civilian road repair crews, armed with tools and material to repair or maintain the trail, were positioned at vulnerable points between stations. Refueling facilities were located at every third to fifth station, all linked by field telephones. Convoys generally moved between three to seven shelter areas and returned to their starting point to familiarize drivers with the run and mechanics with particular trucks. This system lessened the likelihood of a large number of trucks piling up at bottlenecks and presenting a lucrative target. By the end of 1966 according to U.S. intelligence estimates, the Ho Chi Minh Trail consisted of some 820 miles of well-hidden fair-

503

Communist porters transport supplies along a section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network, a system of roads and trails stretching from North Vietnam through eastern Laos to South Vietnam. Heavily bombed by U.S. aircraft, the trail was the main supply route for Communist troops and equipment into South Vietnam. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

weather roads. Supplies moved mainly during the dry season in southern Laos, which extended from November to April. It was becoming increasingly clear to U.S. planners that a major effort had to be undertaken to cut this essential supply route to South Vietnam. In September 1966 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson that the task of stopping the flow of troops and supplies from North Vietnam represented “one of our most serious unsolved problems.” Attempts to use small ground units to disrupt the flow of supplies—Operation LEAPING LENA in 1964, Operation PRAIRIE FIRE in 1965, and Operation SHINING BRASS in 1966—had proved ineffective. The U.S. Air Force had first attacked the trail in 1964 as part of Operation BARREL ROLL. Although air attacks had increased in 1965 with ROLLING THUNDER, operations against the trail remained secondary to the air war against North Vietnam. In any event, the bombing—including the introduction of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes in December 1965—had not slowed the rate of infiltration. A new study by the Jason Division of the Institute of Defense Analysis recommended the placement of an electronic barrier across the infiltration routes in Laos. McNamara warmed to this suggestion and ordered the construction of what became the McNamara Line (also known as Project Practice Nine, Project Dye Marker, and Project Muscle Shoals). In December 1967 the electronic barrier,

504

Ho Chi Minh Trail

Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur with its 20,000 sensors linked to computer arrays and mines, was placed into operation. The sensors were designed to detect motion and sound and were used to call in air strikes. The appearance of the McNamara Line coincided with a shift in the air campaign from North Vietnam to Laos. On April 1, 1968, President Johnson announced a limitation on bombing North Vietnam. When the air war against North Vietnam ended in November, American air assets focused on interdiction. Operation COMMANDO HUNT formally began on November 15, 1968. Over the next five years, U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft would drop more than 3 million tons of bombs on Laos in what historian Earl H. Tilford Jr. has described as the largest aerial interdiction campaign ever undertaken to that date. The air campaign was directed in part against the trail itself. Mountainsides were bombed so that landslides would block key passes, cumulus clouds were seeded with silver iodide in an effort to extend the rainy season, and chemicals were used to defoliate the jungle. None of these tactics proved effective, however. COMMANDO HUNT’s main target was the truck traffic along the trail. Initially, propeller-driven fighter-bombers and jets had been used against the growing number of trucks that carried supplies to South Vietnam. As time passed, however, the offensive burden shifted to gunships. By the late 1960s Lockheed AC-130 Spectres had replaced the earlier Douglas AC-47 Spookys and Fairchild AC119K Stingers. Equipped with 20-millimeter (mm) Gatling guns and 40-mm Bofors guns (later computer-aimed 105-mm howitzers) that were combined with low-light television and infrared and ignition detection systems, the AC-130s proved a formidable truck killer, at least until the North Vietnamese introduced surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the early 1970s. The U.S. Air Force generated impressive numbers during COMMANDO HUNT. In 1969 the air campaign claimed 9,012 trucks destroyed. This number grew to 12,368 the following year. At the same time, however, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated the total number of trucks in all of North Vietnam at only 6,000. In the end, none of the U.S. efforts to sever the trail or even sharply curtail the flow of matériel along it was successful. This failure meant that the war could not be won. By late 1970 some 70,000 PAVN soldiers defended the trail in Laos. An estimated 8,000 men marched southward every month during the year, while more than 10,000 tons of war matériel moved monthly along the roads. Even the closure of the port of Sihanoukville in March 1970 (which since 1966 had been a major source of supplies, carried through Cambodia on the Sihanouk Trail to link up with the Ho Chi Minh Trail) failed to stem the tide of troops and matériel flowing south. In 1971 following an abortive attempt by the United States to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail at Tchepone in Laos (Operation LAM SON 719), the North Vietnamese seized Attopeu and Saravane in southern Laos, widening the trail to the west. It now included 14 major relay stations in Laos and 3 in South Vietnam. Each station, with attached transportation and engineering battalions, served as a pe-

505

troleum-oil-lubricants (POL) storage facility, supply depot, truck park, and workshop. Soviet ZIL trucks, with a capacity of five to six tons, now traveled by day and night on all-weather roads. Protected by nature and sophisticated antiaircraft defenses, the PAVN thoroughly dominated a vast network of roads, trails, paths, and rivers stretching more than 12,700 miles in length. On March 31, 1972, COMMANDO HUNT VII ended. It proved to be the last of the interdiction efforts waged by the U.S. Air Force against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Following the Paris Peace Accords, the trail was extensively improved. By 1973 it had become a twolane highway that ran from the mountain passes of North Vietnam to the Chu Pong Massif in South Vietnam. By 1974 the trail was a four-lane route from the Central Highlands to Tay Ninh Province, northwest of Saigon. The trail also boasted four oil pipelines. Reportedly from 1965 to 1975, the North Vietnamese government moved 1.777 million tons of supplies down the trail. The North Vietnamese had won the battle of supply, a victory that spelled defeat for South Vietnam and its U.S. ally. There is a museum in Hanoi devoted exclusively to the Ho Chi Minh Trail and its important role in the Communist victory. WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; BARREL ROLL, Operation; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Defoliation; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong; McNamara, Robert Strange; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; SHINING BRASS, Operation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Transportation Group 559; Vietnam, Climate of; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999. Staaveren, Jacob Van. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1960–1968. Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1993. Stevens, Richard Linn. The Trail: A History of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Role of Nature in the War in Viet Nam. New York: Garland, 1993. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur Birth Date: May 10, 1911 Death Date: November 14, 1967 U.S. Marine Corps officer and the first U.S. general officer to be killed in Vietnam. Bruno Arthur Hochmuth was born in Houston, Texas, on May 10, 1911. Hochmuth graduated from Texas A&M University in 1935 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Later that same year he resigned his army commission to take a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps as a second lieutenant. From 1936 to 1940 he served with the 4th Marines and

506

Hoffman, Abbie

the 6th Marines in China. He remained in the Pacific until 1943, at which point he returned to the United States. In May 1944 Hochmuth returned to the Pacific theater, where he served in the 3rd Marine Amphibious Corps, taking part in both the Saipan and Tinian campaigns. During the Okinawa Campaign he commanded the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. In 1947 Hochmuth returned stateside and held a series of increasingly responsible staff and command positions. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1961. From 1963 to 1967 during which time he was promoted to major general, he was commanding general of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego. Hochmuth was regarded as a soft-spoken amiable man who commanded the respect of those serving under him as well as his peers. In early 1967 Hochmuth went to Vietnam as commander of the 3rd Marine Division (some 26,000 personnel). His men performed well in a series of battles and campaigns around Khe Sanh, Con Thien, and Cam Lo. In May 1967 he conducted a sweep of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), during which some 1,500 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnam Army) soldiers were killed and tons of supplies were either seized or destroyed. Hochmuth died on November 14, 1967, on the outskirts of Hue when the Bell UH-1E Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopter in which he was a passenger exploded and crashed to the ground shortly after takeoff. The North Vietnamese claimed to have downed the helicopter with small-arms fire. That has never been confirmed, however, and numerous witnesses claim that the aircraft was beyond effective range of most hostile small-arms fire when it burst into flames. Five other individuals also died in the crash. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

Hoffman viewed himself as an artist who created images that subverted conventional politics and promoted revolution. He designed protest demonstrations as entertainment so that the media would cover them and disseminate radical images to a mass audience. Hoffman organized the “exorcism” of the Pentagon in 1967. In 1968 under Hoffman’s leadership, the Youth International Party nominated a pig for president. Following his indictment for activities during the August 1968 Democratic National Convention, Hoffman transformed the Chicago Eight conspiracy trial of antiwar leaders into a piece of guerrilla theater that ridiculed the government by depicting the trial as a sporting event, “the Chicago Conspiracy versus the Washington Kangaroos.” Hoffman was convicted of crossing state lines for the purposes of inciting a riot and was also convicted of contempt of court; the convictions were subsequently overturned on appeal. Hoffman remained a radical until his death. In 1986 he was arrested along with several other protesters, including Amy Carter, daughter of former president Jimmy Carter, for trespassing on the University of Massachusetts–Amherst campus. He was there to

See also Demilitarized Zone; United States Marine Corps References Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991. Simmons, Edwin H., ed. The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography. 2nd ed. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1985.

Hoffman, Abbie Birth Date: November 30, 1936 Death Date: April 12, 1989 Anarchist, social and political activist, and cofounder of the Youth International Party (Yippies) who developed a theory, applied in demonstrations against the Vietnam War, of political protest as theater. Abbie Hoffman was born on November 30, 1936, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was educated at Brandeis University and the University of California, Berkeley, and from 1964 to 1966 was an organizer in the Civil Rights Movement.

During the 1960s, Abbie Hoffman led the Youth International Party (known as Yippies). He became a standard-bearer for the radical youth of the counterculture, often resorting to outrageous behavior to dramatize causes to which he was committed. (AP/Wide World Photos)

HOMECOMING, Operation

protest against on-campus recruiting efforts by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During his trial, Hoffman acted as his own attorney; he was eventually found not guilty. Hoffman’s body was found on April 12, 1989, at his home in New Hope, Pennsylvania. His death, caused by an overdose of phenobarbital, was ruled a suicide. DONALD WHALEY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Dellinger, David; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Rubin, Jerry; Youth International Party References Hoffman, Abbie. Revolution for the Hell of It. New York: Dial, 1968. Hoffman, Abbie. Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture. New York: Perigee, 1980. Whitfield, Stephen J. “The Stunt Man: Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989).” In Sights on the Sixties, edited by Barbara L. Tischler, 103–119. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.

HOMECOMING,

507

Operation

Start Date: February 12, 1973 End Date: March 29, 1973 Return of U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) who had been held in Southeast Asia, an event that generated a homecoming never before seen during a POW repatriation effort. In August 1972 a final planning conference for Operation HOMECOMING occurred in Honolulu. A month later the 9th Aeromedical Evacuation Group, heading the recovery operation, had a rehearsal opportunity when the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) released three POWs early. On January 27, 1973, the “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam” (the Paris Agreement) called for both the release of U.S. POWs (591 men) and the simultaneous final reduction in active U.S. forces (24,000 troops) within 60 days. The parties agreed to four stages, the first on February 12 and the last, which included 9 Americans captured in Laos,

Former American prisoners of war (POWs) cheer as their aircraft takes off during Operation HOMECOMING in 1973. The operation represented a publicrelations event orchestrated by the White House and Pentagon. The POWs were among the few popularly recognized heroes of the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

508

Honolulu Conference

ending on March 29 (one day late). The operation consisted of three phases. First, after initial reception at Saigon (for those imprisoned by the Viet Cong [VC], the political arm of which was known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam [PRG]), Hanoi (for those imprisoned by North Vietnam), and Hong Kong (for the 3 to be freed from China), all U.S. POWs would be flown to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. Second, at the Joint Homecoming Reception Center at Clark, the former POWs would go through processing, debriefing, and medical examinations. Third, those released could go to any of 31 U.S. military hospitals for recovery. Of the 591 U.S. POWs returned, 566 were military personnel (497 officers, 69 enlisted) and 25 were civilians. Not only had some of these former POWs survived the longest captivity of any POWs in U.S. military history, but many had become, from reports of their courage, the focus of widespread affection and respect. This important event gave many Americans, on a personal level, a successful final closure to the story of the POWs, whose increasing publicity they had followed for so long. On the other hand, Operation HOMECOMING also represented a major public relations event orchestrated by the White House and the Pentagon. The POWs were among the few popularly recognized heroes of the war, and their release represented possibly the only positive result of negotiations in Paris. After elaborate receptions at each stop along their journey home, POWs arrived in the United States to a hero’s welcome. Although President Richard M. Nixon proudly spoke of the return of “all” POWs, and Walter Cronkite, CBS news anchor, thought that the United States was ending one of the most difficult periods in its history, the joy that Operation HOMECOMING generated for some still left the door ajar for questions by others. Had any men been left behind, and when would there be an accounting of those missing in action? It would take many more years to answer these questions, and for some the answers that were eventually provided never did satisfy completely. PAUL S. DAUM AND JOSEPH RATNER See also Casualties; Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr.; Hoa Lo Prison; McCain, John Sidney, III; Missing in Action, Allied; Paris Peace Accords; Prisoners of War, Allied; Stockdale, James Bond References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Franklin, H. Bruce. M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America: How and Why Belief in Live POWs Has Possessed a Nation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Gruner, Elliott. Prisoners of Culture: Representing the Vietnam POW. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Lipsman, Samuel, Stephen Weiss, and the Editors of Boston Publishing. The False Peace, 1972–1974. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985.

Hong Nham See Tu Duc

Honolulu Conference Start Date: February 7, 1966 End Date: February 9, 1966 Meeting between leaders of the U.S. and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during February 7–9, 1966, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In January 1966 the United States had more than 184,000 soldiers in South Vietnam, yet neither a military victory nor a victory in what President Lyndon Johnson termed “the other war” was in sight. On January 31, 1966, the United States resumed bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). That same day Johnson’s staff recommended that he meet with South Vietnamese leaders to discuss the economic and political future of South Vietnam. Johnson believed that a renewed pacification and rural development program, coupled with the creation of a viable democratic South Vietnamese government (“the other war”), were keys to the future security of South Vietnam. Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee J. William Fulbright had already turned against the war and had scheduled congressional hearings for early 1966. Among the charges was that the South Vietnamese government was corrupt, authoritarian, and unconcerned with the welfare of its people. Johnson believed that a meeting between himself and South Vietnamese leaders to discuss economic and political stability would defuse some of the criticism being leveled by Fulbright and others. Accompanying Johnson to Honolulu were the secretaries of the State Department, the Defense Department, the Agriculture Department, and the Health, Education, and Welfare Department as well as the director of the Agency for International Development. They were joined in Honolulu by U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge and commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), General William Westmoreland. The South Vietnamese delegation included Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky and General Nguyen Van Thieu. Meetings involving the participants began on February 7 and concluded with a joint communiqué on February 9. Johnson referred to the latter as a “kind of bible.” From his cabinet officers he expected not promises but progress. Social, political, and economic goals were to be as important as those for the military. Ky and Thieu pledged to defeat the Viet Cong (VC), eradicate social injustice, establish a stable economy, and build a true democracy, to include the writing of a constitution and the holding of elections. They also planned to offer incentives to those who defected from the Communists and joined the South Vietnamese camp. Westmoreland was directed to continue efforts to destroy Communist forces and was assigned percentage goals for securing

Hooper, Joe Ronnie

509

Opening ceremony of the February 7–9, 1966, Honolulu Conference. From left to right are U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson, U.S. Army general William Westmoreland, and Republic of Vietnam president Nguyen Van Thieu. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

the population and geographic areas of the country. To achieve these, two of Johnson’s principal assistants developed a plan to increase U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam. As a result of the conference, Johnson established a White House office to coordinate the pacification program in South Vietnam. More than a year later that office would become Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), under the direction of MACV headquarters. Ky returned to Vietnam to face a crisis with the Buddhists, during which he had to dispatch soldiers to suppress the dissidents. Nevertheless, in 1967 the South Vietnamese government drafted a new constitution and held elections that September. Despite this, lack of coordination among U.S. and South Vietnamese military and civilian agencies precluded substantive progress in the rural pacification effort. RICHARD L. KIPER See also Civic Action; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Fulbright, James William; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Pacification; Westmoreland, William Childs References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Hooper, Joe Ronnie Birth Date: August 8, 1938 Death Date: May 6, 1979 Highly decorated Vietnam War veteran who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the 1968 Battle of Hue. Born in Piedmont, South Carolina, on August 8, 1938, Joe Ronnie Hooper moved as a boy to Washington state with his family. There he attended but did not complete high school. In 1956 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving a three-year tour of duty. Serving on the aircraft carriers Hancock and Wasp, he left the navy in 1959 with the rank of petty officer 3rd class. Less than a year later in May 1960, Hooper enlisted in the U.S. Army and was trained as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After a tour of duty in the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Promoted to platoon sergeant, he also served with the 508th Infantry Regiment in the Panama Canal Zone. By the summer of 1967, however, Hooper had been demoted to corporal because of his penchant for getting into trouble. In October of that year he was advanced to staff sergeant and was deployed to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as a squad leader in the 501st Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. During the Tet Offensive on February 21, 1968, in the Battle of Hue, Hooper was credited with having killed 22 enemy combatants;

510

Hoopes, Townsend

in the process of the vicious fire fight, he was wounded seven times. Despite his injuries he left a field hospital still badly injured to rejoin his outfit, as he was concerned about the welfare of the young recruits under his charge. Returning stateside in June 1968, he was discharged from the service but promptly reenlisted in the army in September 1968. On March 7, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon presented him with the Medal of Honor for his gallantry at Hue. Hooper subsequently served as a public relations specialist and served another tour of duty in Panama before returning to Vietnam for a second time, a posting that he himself requested. Hooper was commissioned a second lieutenant in December 1970 while in Vietnam, a highly unusual advancement for an enlisted man who had not yet attained a top noncommissioned officer’s rank. He then served out the remainder of his tour as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division. In April 1971 he returned to the United States. It is estimated that by this point he had 115 enemy kills, including the 22 in the Battle of Hue. Among his many decorations were the Medal of Honor, two Silver Stars, six Bronze Stars, and eight Purple Hearts. Back home, Hooper was restless and had grown disillusioned by the lack of discipline in the army and American policy toward the Vietnam War. In 1972 he resigned his commission; two years later he left the service. Hooper stayed active by giving speeches and granting interviews about his combat experiences, and he also joined an Army Reserve outfit in Washington state. In March 1977 he attained the rank of captain, but his absences and infrequent presence at drills did not endear him to his superiors. In September 1978 he left the Army Reserves. This ended his military career, during which he had received 37 citations. Unable to adjust fully to civilian life— some say that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—Hooper became increasingly despondent. He was certainly disillusioned over the defeat of South Vietnam in 1975 and the vicious antiwar politics of the 1970s. He held a succession of civilian jobs and began to drink heavily. Hooper died of a stroke on May 6, 1979, at the age of 40, in Louisville, Kentucky. Many have argued, with considerable justification, that Hooper fell victim to the poisonous atmosphere that greeted returning Vietnam veterans; other have argued with similar justification that Hooper never gained the celebrity status enjoyed by someone such as Audie Murphy, a highly decorated World War II veteran, because the Vietnam War was an unpopular conflict that most Americans wanted to forget. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Hue, Battle of; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Krohn, Charles F. The Lost Battalion: Controversy and Casualties in the Battle of Hue. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. Maslowski, Peter, and Don Winslow. Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Hoopes, Townsend Birth Date: April 28, 1922 Death Date: September 20, 2004 U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (1965–1967), undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force (1967– 1969), and prolific scholar and author. Townsend Hoopes was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on April 28, 1922. He earned an AB degree from Yale University in 1944. During the latter stages of World War II he served in the Pacific as a marine lieutenant. From 1948 to 1953 he served on the staffs of four successive secretaries of defense, and during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration Hoopes was an occasional consultant on foreign policy issues to the White House, the State Department, and the Defense Department. After joining the Lyndon B. Johnson administration in 1965, Hoopes became convinced that the Vietnam War was unwinnable and turned against it. In 1968 he put these views forcefully to Clark Clifford after the latter succeeded Robert McNamara as secretary of defense. Hoopes also recommended a bombing pause and a less aggressive ground strategy. He helped convince Clifford that the United States must reverse its Vietnam policy. Hoopes was also a source for the New York Times article of March 22, 1968, that revealed that General William C. Westmoreland was requesting 206,000 more troops for Vietnam, a demand that Hoopes personally opposed and that was promptly refused by President Johnson. After Hoopes left government service in 1969, he served as president of the Association of American Publishers (1973–1986) and then held several university faculty positions. He wrote biographies of John Foster Dulles and James V. Forrestal along with numerous other books, including one of fiction. Hoopes died on September 20, 2004, in Baja California, Mexico, where he was undergoing cancer treatment. He had made his home in Chestertown, Maryland. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Clifford, Clark McAdams; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; McNaughton, John Theodore; Media and the Vietnam War; Warnke, Paul Culliton; Westmoreland, William Childs References Clifford, Clark, with David Holbrooke. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1991. Hoopes, Townsend. The Limits of Intervention. New York: David McKay, 1969. Schandler, Herbert Y. Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a President. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Hoover, John Edgar Birth Date: January 1, 1895 Death Date: May 2, 1972 Controversial director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during 1924–1972. Born in Washington, D.C., on January

Hoover, John Edgar 1, 1895, John Edgar (J. Edgar) Hoover attended night classes at George Washington University Law School while working days at the Library of Congress. An excellent student, he received an LLB in 1916 and an LLM the following year. In 1917 he joined the U.S. Department of Justice, handling alien enemy cases. Hoover soon developed staunch anti-Communist credentials through his zealous leadership in numerous crackdowns on suspected Communists. He rose rapidly in the Justice Department, becoming assistant director of the department’s Bureau of Investigation in 1921. In 1924 he was appointed director, a position that he would hold for the next 48 years. Although the Bureau of Investigation had limited jurisdiction, Hoover worked tirelessly to expand its law enforcement role while emphasizing professionalism and scientific investigation methods. He mandated college education for special agents and crime laboratory personnel. He also carefully cultivated for his agency a public image of integrity, patriotism, and devotion to crime fighting that made heroes of agents in newsreel footage and motion pictures and on radio. High-profile cases such as the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and attacks on gangsters such as John Dillinger made “G-man” (government man) a household word. Under Hoover’s single-minded direction, his agency established itself as arguably the finest investigative police agency in the world, employing advanced training and techniques, state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, and highly qualified personnel. In 1935 Congress redesignated the Justice Department’s law enforcement division as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with Hoover firmly at the helm. The next year the FBI’s jurisdiction was expanded to include domestic counterintelligence, a function that Hoover and the presidents he served interpreted quite loosely. Under this mandate, the FBI investigated not only threats to national security but also political enemies, real or imagined, using electronic surveillance equipment such as wiretaps. Indeed, behind the publicity-grabbing crime-fighting efforts was an extremely effective information-gathering operation whose power proved irresistible to presidents and Hoover himself. The director controlled thousands of special files that included potentially damaging information on politicians, government officials, and celebrities, not to mention suspected Communists and subversives. Such information, coupled with great public support, helped Hoover create for himself a power position within the executive branch that was unique in American history. Hoover appeared untouchable, as no president or Congress would challenge him publicly or, apparently, privately. But in the turbulent 1960s, Hoover and the FBI began to draw criticism from a number of fronts: the Civil Rights Movement, antiwar activists, a more inquisitive Congress, and a more restrictive U.S. Supreme Court. Regarding civil rights issues, Hoover believed that the FBI lacked clear jurisdiction, but nonetheless he willingly involved the bureau when directed to do so. Unfortunately, the FBI’s many positive efforts in the civil rights arena went mostly unnoticed because of Hoover’s personal and often public

511

J. Edgar Hoover was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and created a powerful federal government crime-fighting agency. He served in that post from 1924 until his death in 1972. Hoover and the FBI drew criticism for a number of actions in the 1960s, including those against Vietnam War protests. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Hoover believed to be immoral and supported by Communist interests. The director devoted substantial resources to discrediting King, something that Hoover was largely unable to accomplish. King was but one of numerous targets of domestic counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) launched by the FBI during the 1960s and early 1970s. Other targets included antiwar groups, the Black Power movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and government employees. President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy strongly advocated wiretapping as a means of exposing domestic foes, and presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon authorized massive FBI surveillance and infiltration of antiwar groups. But Hoover apparently recognized some limits. Former FBI assistant director Cartha “Deke” DeLoach credited Hoover with torpedoing the Nixon administration’s socalled Huston Plan, which would have created under White House direction a special (and highly illegal) multiagency intelligence organization to attack perceived threats to domestic security such as the antiwar movement and information leaks within the government. This notwithstanding, Hoover’s heavy-handed approach to domestic dissent was viewed by many as an attack on civil liberties and constitutional rights. During his final years Hoover faced repeated calls for his ouster, saw his methods curtailed by the Supreme Court, and dealt with an increasingly hostile Congress. Still, his power and public prestige

512

Hope, Leslie Townes

held sway. Presidents Johnson and Nixon waved mandatory retirement after Hoover reached 70 years of age and continually sustained him in office, although some evidence suggests that Nixon had planned to force him out after the 1972 presidential election. Hoover’s death from natural causes at his Washington, D.C., home on May 2, 1972, freed Nixon to appoint a more cooperative director. Hoover’s death sparked an outpouring of accolades and more than a few condemnations. Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to him as an “American Legend”; President Nixon cited his “courage, patriotism, dedication to his country and a granite-like honesty and integrity.” But Dr. Benjamin Spock, himself a target of FBI action, called Hoover’s death “a great relief, especially if his replacement is a man who better understands democratic institutions.” In death Hoover received an honor bestowed on only a select few Americans; by congressional order, his body was placed in state in the Capitol rotunda, where it was viewed by thousands of mourners. His funeral, attended by a who’s who of Washington, featured a eulogy delivered by Nixon himself. Hoover remains a controversial figure. Admirers point to the director’s devotion to law enforcement, personal integrity, and patriotism, while critics see a man of enormous unchecked power who used his position to assail civil liberties and conduct personal vendettas against those he did not like. Well after his death, his personal life came under increasing scrutiny when allegations surfaced of a homosexual relationship with his longtime friend and confidant, FBI assistant director Clyde Tolson, allegations that Deloach maintains are erroneous but that nonetheless persist. DAVID COFFEY

graduation from high school, Hope took a job at a local automobile manufacturer and also tried to become a professional boxer. Hope’s first real experience with show business began in Cleveland, where he and a partner secured a job as a dancing act. They then went on the road and by 1927 were appearing on Broadway. In 1929 Hope went it alone as a comedian, taking the name Bob Hope and honing his routine in nightclubs and small theaters around Ohio. After some lean times he formed his own vaudeville company and ultimately returned to Broadway as a headliner at a major theater. From 1932 to 1936 he appeared in a number of Broadway shows. In 1933 he married Dolores Reade, with whom he adopted four children over the years. Hope first appeared on radio in 1935. He worked on several different shows before Paramount Studios asked him to appear with other radio performers in the movie The Big Broadcast in 1938. Although he was not able to do any of his comedy routines in the film, he sang the song “Thanks for the Memories,” which would later become his theme song. The tune was an immediate hit, winning the Oscar for best song of the year, and this led to more work. Other movies followed. Hope teamed with his new golfing friend Bing Crosby to make a movie with Dorothy Lamour, Road to Singapore. That was the first of the new comedy team’s

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Central Intelligence Agency; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Huston Plan; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Spock, Benjamin McLane References DeLoach, Cartha D. “Deke.” Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995. Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. Dictionary of American Biography. Suppl. 9, 1971–1975. New York: Scribner, 1994. Powers, Richard Gid. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: Free Press, 1988. Ungar, Sanford J. FBI. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.

Hope, Leslie Townes Birth Date: May 29, 1903 Death Date: July 27, 2003 American comedian and actor. Leslie Townes “Bob” Hope was born in Eltham, Kent, England, on May 29, 1903, and moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907. His father was a stonemason, and his mother had been a concert singer in Wales. On

Hollywood comedian Bob Hope (right) joins dancers Harold and Fayard Nicholas in a dance routine aboard the carrier Ticonderoga during a United Services Organizations (USO)–sponsored show. Hope was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his generosity and selflessness in entertaining U.S. troops overseas. (National Archives)

HOP TAC, Operation

many road movies in which they played bungling crime solvers in exotic locales. When the United States entered World War II Hope tried to enlist, but army staffers said that he could best serve the nation’s war effort by entertaining the troops. Hope assembled a troupe of entertainers and set off to cover as many overseas bases as he could, traveling to Africa, Britain, Sicily, Alaska, the Aleutians, and the Pacific theater. Despite a grueling schedule for the military, Hope also managed to make half a dozen films during the war years. When the war ended in 1945, Hope continued his radio show and starred in more films. He also began a tradition of entertaining American troops stationed overseas at Christmas. Hope made his first appearance on television in 1950 and, as he grew older, began to do more television shows and fewer movies. As one of the most revered entertainers in the United States, his presence on a television special virtually guaranteed its success. During the 1952–1953 television season Hope served as one of the hosts of The Colgate Comedy Hour, and from 1963 to 1967 he was involved with the production of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, which won several Emmy awards and nominations. Chrysler also sponsored Hope’s annual Christmas shows during the 1960s, which were 90-minute telecasts that highlighted his shows before military audiences in Vietnam. Hope was especially beloved for his entertainment of U.S. troops, often traveling to within just miles of the front. He almost always performed in fatigues to demonstrate his support for the troops, and his schedule of shows was grueling. Hope attempted to reach as many soldiers as possible, frequently employing music and shapely women as part of a show that went well beyond comedy and his legendary one-liners. Although some anti–Vietnam War protesters believed that Hope was supporting government policies in Vietnam, Hope saw his task strictly as providing a morale booster for the troops. His generosity and selflessness were rewarded with a Congressional Gold Medal (1962) and a Presidential Medal of Freedom (1969). In 1997 the U.S. Congress passed a resolution, signed by President Bill Clinton, that proclaimed Hope an “honorary U.S. veteran.” At the age of 88 Hope insisted on performing for troops during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He received four special Academy Awards, an Emmy, and three People’s Choice Awards as well as 44 honorary degrees from universities and colleges. He also wrote 10 books. After a period of declining health, Hope died at age 100 at his longtime residence of Toluca Lake, California, on July 27, 2003. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Film and the Vietnam Experience References Hope, Bob. Have Tux, Will Travel: Bob Hope’s Own Story. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003. Morella, Joe, Edward Epstein, and Eleanor Clark. The Amazing Careers of Bob Hope. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973. Thompson, Charles. Bob Hope. London: Thames Methuen, 1981.

HOP TAC,

513

Operation

Event Date: 1964 Code name for a U.S.-sponsored combined military-political pacification plan for the Saigon area. At a June 1964 Honolulu meeting, top U.S. political and military policy makers endorsed a plan presented by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William C. Westmoreland, who took charge of U.S. forces in Vietnam that same month. Code-named HOP TAC (the Vietnamese term for “cooperation”), the scheme called for pacification of guerrilla-held areas in six provinces around the city of Saigon. Colonel Wilbur Wilson, adviser to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) commander of III Corps, developed the concept and organization; his successor, Colonel Jasper Wilson, worked out the details. Under HOP TAC, military forces were to drive Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas from the selected provinces. Aggressive patrolling and ambushes would follow until such time as security could be entrusted to local militia or an expanded police force. Civilian officials would then establish government agencies in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and provide protection, services, and amenities. Westmoreland explained that the goal was to offer a standard of living better than that provided by the VC. Westmoreland’s staff expressed the plan’s essence with the terms “clearing,” “securing,” and “search and destroy.” As Westmoreland admitted, HOP TAC incorporated elements of the French tache d’huile (“oil slick”) pacification method pursued during the Indochina War. This involved dividing the territory to be pacified into grids, or squares. Once this gridding (quadrillage) had been accomplished, each square was then to be raked (ratissage) by pacification forces, who knew the area well. If accomplished in smaller areas, the program could be expanded over a much larger area, much the way an oil slick spreads on water. Westmoreland saw HOP TAC as an experiment in pacification that, if successful, could be duplicated around other large cities, at which point they might converge. HOP TAC also sought to incorporate lessons learned in the Strategic Hamlet Program. Under HOP TAC, the Vietnamese would carry the brunt of the effort against the VC. To coordinate the military and political agencies, the South Vietnamese government established a HOP TAC council that included General Westmoreland and South Vietnam premier General Nguyen Khanh as well as local officials and representatives from the ministry of the interior, the national police, and intelligence agencies. HOP TAC got off to a slow start in September 1964. Determined at this stage to keep the ARVN at the center of efforts against the VC, Westmoreland informed the South Vietnamese government that the United States would contribute only advice and commodities. He persuaded the ARVN to transfer its 25th Division from Quang Ngai Province in the I Corps Tactical Zone to join the operation. This proved to be a mistake. Many of the division’s soldiers, faced with separation from their families and having to fight the VC,

514

Ho-Sainteny Agreement

deserted. As Westmoreland admitted, it was three full years before the 25th Division regrouped and became proficient at the task. Political instability in Saigon was another negative factor. General Khanh became so involved in political concerns that he was little interested in HOP TAC. He seemed more concerned with holding back troops to prevent a possible coup than with allowing them to participate in the project. The South Vietnamese police failed to do their job, and the South Vietnamese government also did not deliver the American supplies that were to be the economic leverage. HOP TAC did give the ARVN experience in pacification. The operation increased the National Police by several thousand and made the capital more secure. But these positives did not outweigh the negatives, and the South Vietnamese government formally ended HOP TAC in 1965. Even Westmoreland admitted that it was a failure. Westmoreland claimed that the HOP TAC prevented the Communists from seizing control around the capital. The operation probably also removed some illusions that Westmoreland may have had about the ARVN and weakened his commitment to pacification. In 1965 he would rely increasingly on U.S. troops to carry the war. HO DIEU ANH AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Desertion, U.S. and Communist; Pacification; Quadrillage/Ratissage; Strategic Hamlet Program; Westmoreland, William Childs References Cable, Larry E. Conflict of Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1988. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Ho-Sainteny Agreement Important agreement between the French and Vietnamese nationalists that, had it been effectively implemented, would most likely have prevented the Indochina War (1946–1954). The agreement was signed in Hanoi on March 6, 1946, by President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party) leader Vo Hong Khanh for the Vietnamese and by French diplomat Jean Sainteny for France to set the future relationship between North Vietnam and France. Abandoned at the end of World War II by both the United States and the Soviet Union and under pressure from China, the North Vietnamese leadership reluctantly agreed to a French military presence in North Vietnam. Under the terms of the agreement, France was allowed to introduce 15,000 French and 10,000 Vietnamese troops under unified French command (the first French troops returned to Hanoi on March 16, 1946) to protect French lives and property, but France promised to withdraw 3,000 of them

each year. All were to be gone by the end of 1951, with the possible exception of those guarding bases. In return, France agreed to recognize the North Vietnamese government, which it had thus far refused to do. North Vietnam was to be a “free state with its own government, parliament, army and finances, forming part of the Indo-Chinese Federation of the French Union.” In a key provision, France also agreed to the holding of a plebiscite in southern Vietnam to see whether it wanted to join North Vietnam in a unified state; however, no date for the vote was specified. France also agreed to train and equip units of the new Vietnamese army. In April general staff accords were signed by generals Vo Nguyen Giap for North Vietnam and Raoul Salan for France, setting the location and size of troop garrisons. The Ho-Sainteny Agreement, although much less than the Viet Minh wanted, was a framework that might have led to a working and positive relationship between France and North Vietnam had it been allowed to stand. The agreement was undermined, however, by French high commissioner Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu’s proclamation in Saigon on June 2, 1946, of the “Republic of Cochin China,” announced just after Ho Chi Minh’s departure for Paris to negotiate with the French government on issues to implement the Ho-Sainteny Agreement. With an “independent” Republic of Cochin China, there would be no need of a plebiscite in southern Vietnam. D’Argenlieu’s pronouncement and the intransigence of French negotiators in the ensuing Fontainebleau Conference helped produce the Vietnamese nationalist frustration that led to bloodshed and the beginning of the Indochina War that December. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ho Chi Minh; Indochina War; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis; Vo Nguyen Giap References Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Sainteny, Jean. Histoire d’une Paix Manquée: Indochine, 1945–1947. Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953.

Hot Pursuit Policy Designation for 1965 U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), requests for authority to pursue Communist forces withdrawing across the border from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) into sanctuaries in Cambodia. Hot Pursuit was to be used in conjunction with a proposed blockade of the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville. The U.S. State Department opposed such plans, stating in a memorandum that “It would seem at least necessary to show Cambodian government connivance in the use of its territory as a base for armed attack before the RVN (and the U.S.) would be justified in using armed force against Cambodian territory.” Also,

Hue President Lyndon Johnson was reluctant to widen the conflict because Cambodia, then led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was officially neutral. Nonetheless, small allied units did occasionally cross the border without official sanction. Although the Hot Pursuit debate continued, it ultimately became academic in May 1970 when President Richard M. Nixon ordered the military incursion into Cambodia. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Sihanouk, Norodom References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Maitland, Terrence, and Peter McInerney. A Contagion of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Hourglass Spraying System A 1,000-gallon tank that was part of the aerial spraying system aboard U.S. Air Force cargo aircraft employed to drop herbicides in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Hourglass, nicknamed after the speed with which the system was developed and produced, was used as part of Operation RANCH HAND, the American mission to defoliate the South Vietnamese jungle between 1962 and 1971 in an effort to deny enemy forces the use of jungle cover and access to food crops. The Hourglass MC-1 spraying system was first developed in the early 1950s at Fort Detrick, Maryland, home of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. The system was developed after the U.S. Air Force determined that it needed a large spraying system that Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Boeing B-50 Superfortress, and Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar aircraft could carry for purposes of large-scale defoliation. Originally developed for spraying missions in the Korean War, the Hourglass system became a standard item in the U.S. Air Force inventory and was used extensively in South Vietnam. The system was manufactured by the Hayes Aircraft Corporation of Birmingham, Alabama, and was originally made for C-119s, but during the Vietnam War the system was retrofitted to Chase Fairchild C-123 Providers. The MC-1 system itself included a 1,000-gallon cylindrical aluminum tank, which was insulated with a fiberglass blanket; a centrifugal pump; a control valve between the pump and tank; a pipe assembly with fittings for six spray nozzles; an opening for emergency chemical dumps; an outlet for connection with a heating and recirculating unit; and a dual set of instruments and controls. RICHARD B. VERRONE

515

See also Defoliation; Herbicides; RANCH HAND, Operation References Buckingham, William A., Jr. Operation RANCH HAND: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1982. Cecil, Paul F. Herbicidal Warfare: The Ranch Hand Project in Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1986.

Hue Capital city of Thua Thien Province in the northern portion of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War and today located in the center of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam some 700 miles south of the capital of Hanoi and an equal distance north of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Situated on the Huong (Perfume) River and originally known as Phu Xuan, during 1802–1945 Hue was the imperial capital for the Nguyen dynasty rulers. The climate is both hot and wet. Hue experiences an average rainfall of 120 inches per year. Hue rose to prominence as the capital of the Nguyen Lords, who dominated southern Vietnam beginning in the 17th century. In 1801 Nguyen Phuc Anh (who later became known as Emperor Gia Long), captured Phu Xuan and the next year established his control over all of Vietnam. He moved the capital from Hanoi (then Thang Long) to Phu Xuan, which became Hue. The city remained the national capital until 1945 and the abdication of the last of the Nguyen emperors, Bao Dai. Hanoi then became the capital of the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), headed by Ho Chi Minh, while Saigon in southern Vietnam became the capital city of the new State of Vietnam supported by the French, which in 1955 became the Republic of Vietnam. Hue saw Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government in 1966. The city’s location near the border between North and South Vietnam and its important cultural and historic status led the Communists to make a major investment of resources there during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Fighting was house to house and reminiscent of the street fighting in Europe during the latter stages of World War II. In the 25 days that it took to retake Hue, perhaps 50 percent of the city was destroyed, and 116,000 civilians out of a population of some 140,000 were left homeless, largely as a consequence of American bombing, artillery, and tank fire necessary to root out Communist forces. Hue also suffered in that as many as 7,000 people held to be “enemies of the people,” including students, teachers, and government officials, were summarily executed by the Communists during their occupation of the city and were buried in unmarked graves, an event that goes unrecognized in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. A major urban center with a 2009 population of some 340,000 people, Hue is now an important tourist site. Its historic monuments have earned it United Nations Educational, Scientific and

516

Hue, Battle of

Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designation as a World Heritage Site. Attractions in the city include the Thsi Hoa imperial palace, which has been restored after the heavy damage of the Tet Offensive. Efforts are also ongoing to rebuild portions of the Forbidden City patterned after that of China. Other popular sites include the tombs of Nguyen emperors Minh Mang, Tu Duc, and others and the Thien Mu Pagoda, the official symbol of Hue. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bao Dai; Hue, Battle of; Hue and Da Nang, Fall of; Hue Massacre; Minh Mang; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tu Duc References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Warr, Nicholas. Phase Line Green: The Battle for Hue, 1968. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Hue, Battle of Start Date: January 31, 1968 End Date: February 25, 1968 Longest and bloodiest of all the Tet Offensive battles. The old imperial city of Hue, astride Highway 1 and situated about 6 miles from the coast and some 60 miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), was a cultural and intellectual center of Vietnam. The city’s Quoc Hoc school boasted among its alumni Ngo Dinh Diem, Ho Chi Minh, and Vo Nguyen Giap. The third largest city in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1968, Hue was a complex metropolis divided by the Perfume River. North of the river, the 2-square-mile Citadel formed the interior of the city, with the tightly packed district of Gia Hoi outside the Citadel’s walls to the east. South of the river lay the hospital, the prison, the Catholic cathedral, many of the city’s modern structures, and the newer residential districts. The imposing Citadel was constructed in 1802. The fortress was surrounded by a zigzag moat and protected by an outer wall 30 feet high and 20 feet thick. The heart of the Citadel was the imposing Imperial Palace of Peace. There were two key allied military installations in Hue: the headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN,

Estimated Casualties at the Battle of Hue, January 31–February 25, 1968 U.S. Army U.S. Marines ARVN PAVN and VC

Killed

Wounded

Captured

74 147 384 5,000+

507 857 1,830 Unknown

Unknown Unknown Unknown 89

South Vietnamese Army) 1st Division at the northwest corner of the Citadel and the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), compound on the south side of the river, near the city’s eastern edge. On the morning of January 30, 1968, Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong, commander of the ARVN 1st Division, put his headquarters on alert after receiving reports of the premature Tet Offensive attacks against the cities to the south. Truong’s move was critical in preventing a complete Communist takeover of Hue. Inside Hue, Communist supporters had been preparing for several months. Two days before the actual attack, elements of the Viet Cong (VC) 12th and Hue City Sapper battalions slipped into Hue and began their own preparations. At 2:00 a.m. on January 31, ARVN patrols reported battalionsized People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) elements advancing on the city from the west. Aided by dense fog, these forces made their approach march unhindered. Less than two hours after the first reports, the 1st Division headquarters compound came under attack from 122-millimeter (mm) rocket fire. The main attack on Hue was made by two regiments. The PAVN 6th Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Trong Dan, attacked north of the river from the west. The 6th Regiment’s objective was the Citadel. The PAVN 4th Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van, approached Hue from the south and east. Initially delayed by an ARVN ambush, the 4th Regiment finally attacked the southern part of the city and the MACV compound. By dawn, Communist forces held much of Hue south of the river, all of Gia Hoi, and the southern half of the Citadel. At 8:00 a.m. they hoisted the VC flag on the huge flagpole in front of the Palace of Peace. ARVN troops, however, still held the northern half of the Citadel, while inside the MACV compound approximately 200 Americans and a handful of Australian advisers continued to hold out. These two unexpected allied enclaves completely unhinged the Communist plans. Some eight miles south of Hue, the U.S. Marine Corps base at Phu Bai received the distress call from the MACV compound and dispatched a relief column. Unfortunately, this force, Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, commanded by Captain Gordon Batcheller, was far too small to accomplish the mission. With additional augmentation, the marines eventually reached the MACV compound. They were then ordered to move across the river and link up with General Truong’s ARVN forces. The marines still did not have sufficient combat power to accomplish that mission and were beaten back. Over the next few days, the 1st Marine Division continued to send units piecemeal into the action, all without achieving the desired effect of clearing the city. When the Communists first stormed the city, they captured the jail and freed some 2,500 inmates, about 500 of whom joined the attacking forces. The PAVN troops also captured an ARVN depot that was well stocked with American-made weapons and ammunition. For most of the next three weeks the main Communist sup-

Hue, Battle of

517

A U.S. marine carries a Vietnamese woman to safety during the Battle of Hue, the longest and bloodiest of all the Tet Offensive battles. The old imperial city of Hue, ravaged during the war, was a cultural and intellectual center of Vietnam. (National Archives)

ply line into the city from the A Shau Valley, 30 miles to the west, remained open, ensuring that the attackers were well armed and well supplied. Eventually five PAVN reinforcing battalions joined the nine constituting the initial assault. Believing that the situation in Hue required only local mopping-up action, the American high command underestimated the size and nature of the PAVN threat until well into the battle. MACV commander General William Westmoreland also continued to believe that the Communists would attempt to overrun Khe Sanh, and thus for several weeks he kept a tight rein on allied strategic reserve forces in that area. The nature of the urban fighting also considerably neutralized U.S. advantages in mobility, and the desire to minimize the damage to Hue itself hamstrung the allies’ enormous firepower assets. As the fighting dragged on, however, on February 12 ARVN I Corps commander Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam finally authorized allied forces to use whatever weapons necessary to dislodge the Communists. In an attempt to cut the Communist supply lines into Hue, on February 2 the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division began an air assault into a landing zone six miles northwest of the city. Instead of cutting the supply lines, the Americans ran into a strong Communist blocking force. After three days of fighting, the 12th Cavalry was still four miles from the city. Meanwhile, another unit from the 1st Cavalry Division, the 5th Battal-

ion, 7th Cavalry, approached from the west and attempted to link up with its sister battalion but was prevented from doing so until February 9. PAVN blocking forces were much stronger than the allies had anticipated. In fact, the units opposing the 1st Cavalry Division consisted of elements of the PAVN 304th, 325C, and 324B divisions, all of which U.S. intelligence had placed at Khe Sanh massing to overrun the U.S. Marine Corps base there. As Communist forces fighting inside Hue City came under increasing pressure, the local front headquarters recommended that Communist forces be withdrawn before they were destroyed. The PAVN high command in Hanoi, however, instructed them to hold on and to continue to fight in order to encourage and support the Communist offensive throughout the rest of South Vietnam. The high command also informed them that it was sending reinforcements to Hue. In view of the desperate situation and despite bad weather and total U.S. air supremacy, the Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force) sent a number of Soviet-built twin-engined IL-14 transport aircraft down from Hanoi to drop ammunition and weapons by parachute to Communist forces attacking the ARVN 1st Division headquarters on the outskirts of the city. Between February 7 and February 12, a total of four IL-14 aircraft and their crews were lost while attempting to resupply Communist forces in Hue City.

518

Hue, Battle of

Hue and Da Nang, Fall of By the second week in February, Westmoreland had committed six battalions to cutting off Hue. The 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division (reinforced to a strength of four battalions), attacked from the west and north, and two battalions of the 101st Airborne Division attacked from the south. The marines also continued to feed forces into the fight. By the time the south bank of the city was cleared on February 10, elements of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, and 1st and 2nd battalions, 5th Marines, were in the fight. Late on February 11 the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, crossed the river and joined the fight for the Citadel. ARVN forces, which now had close to 11 battalions in the city, had cleared about three-quarters of the Citadel, but Communist forces stubbornly held on to the southernmost section against the river. For another two weeks the bitter house-to-house fighting continued. In one of the few such instances in the Vietnam War, both sides used tear gas. Sometimes allied progress was as slow as 220 yards per day. On February 21 the 1st Cavalry Division finally closed off the last Communist supply route into Hue. Three days later the ARVN 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment, overran the defenders on the south wall of the Citadel. On February 25 ARVN troops swept into the Imperial Palace, only to find that the few surviving Communist troops there had slipped away during the night. The Battle of Hue was for all practical purposes over, although Hue was not declared secure until March 2. On February 26 the allies unearthed the first of the mass graves containing civilian victims of the Communist occupation. This systematic slaughter, which apparently was carried out by local VC cadres rather than PAVN regular troops, had begun as soon as the Communists had moved into Hue. Entire classes of people were purged, including foreigners, intellectuals, religious and political leaders, and other “cruel tyrants and reactionary elements.” Searchers eventually found 2,810 bodies, while thousands more remained missing. Vietnamese scholar Douglas Pike has estimated that the Communists may have assassinated as many as 5,700 people. Hue was a costly battle. Through February 26 the U.S. Army suffered 74 dead and 507 wounded, the U.S. Marine Corps lost 147 dead and 857 wounded, and ARVN losses totaled 384 dead and more than 1,830 wounded. The allies claimed PAVN and VC losses in excess of 5,000 dead, 89 captured, and countless more wounded. In addition to the civilians executed by the Communists, many others died or were hurt in the cross fire between the opposing forces. The intense fighting had destroyed upwards of half of the city, leaving 116,000 civilians homeless of a pre–Tet Offensive population of approximately 140,000. The experience did produce a sharp change in the attitude of the population there against the Communists, even from among Communist sympathizers. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Hue and Da Nang, Fall of; Hue Massacre; Ngo Quang Truong; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Westmoreland, William Childs

519

References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Ho Ban, ed. Huong Tien Cong va Noi Day Tet Mau Than o Tri-Thien-Hue (nam 1968) [The 1968 Tet Offensive and Uprisings in Tri-Thien Hue]. Hanoi: Military History Institute of Vietnam, 1988. Hoang Ngoc Lung, Colonel. The General Offensives of 1968–69. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Pike, Douglas. The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror. Saigon: U.S. Mission South Vietnam, 1971. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Ta Hong, Vu Ngoc, and Nguyen Quoc Dung. Lich Su Khong Quan Nhan Dan Viet Nam (1955–1977) [History of the People’s Air Force of Vietnam (1955–1977)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1993.

Hue and Da Nang, Fall of Start Date: March 19, 1975 End Date: March 29, 1975 The fall of Hue and Da Nang to the Communists compounded the disaster created by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) withdrawal from the Central Highlands. Although not directly assaulted, Hue was threatened in early March by attacks on all sides. On March 19, 1975, to prevent the orderly withdrawal of ARVN forces from Hue to Da Nang, Communist forces attacked aggressively, particularly in Quang Tri Province. The fighting prompted a massive refugee exodus. In Hue the frightening memory of Communist massacres during the 1968 Tet Offensive heightened civilian fears, and Hue residents joined the refugee throng moving south from Quang Tri toward Da Nang. President Nguyen Van Thieu’s decision to withdraw the airborne division to bolster the defenses of Saigon further complicated the rapidly deteriorating situation, leaving I Corps commander General Ngo Quang Truong with insufficient troops to defend both Hue and Da Nang. Although Thieu had told Truong to defend Hue, he changed his mind when Truong protested that he needed the 1st Division there to defend Da Nang. Thieu then led Truong to believe that he was to defend Hue only as long as he could still withdraw the unit, but in a taped televised address Thieu also publicly committed himself to the city’s defense. As Communist units moved on Hue, the level of anxiety in the demoralized city increased. News of the total collapse of ARVN resistance in the Central Highlands had already spread, and fearing for the safety of their families, troops in Hue began to desert,

520

Hue and Da Nang, Fall of

Overburdened trucks and buses in a traffic jam between Hue and Da Nang on March 23, 1975. Thousands of civilians and military personnel fled Hue, Vietnam’s old imperial capital, following a government decision not to defend the city against advancing Communist forces. (AP/Wide World Photos)

many joining refugees trying to leave the city. By March 23 the situation was too chaotic for a defense or an orderly withdrawal. Communist forces had cut Route 1 to Da Nang, and their artillery bombarded Hue’s airfield and the roads out of the city. Civilians, mixed with troops and equipment, panicked as evacuation became more difficult. Many people attempting to leave by sea drowned when overloaded boats capsized in rough water. Unopposed, Communist troops occupied Hue on March 24. As the pressure on Hue increased, Communist units also encircled Da Nang, cutting Route 1 south of the city on March 21, taking Tam Ky on March 24, and occupying Quang Ngai the following day. As refugees poured into Da Nang the airport became a scene of constant activity, as both the government and the U.S. embassy in Saigon attempted to relieve the pressure by significantly increasing the number of flights out of the city. Initially the airlift proceeded in an orderly fashion, but after March 25 as Communist forces pressed toward the city from all three sides, the situation became chaotic. By March 27 desperate crowds at the airport rushed each plane as it landed, and more than one aircraft took off with people clinging to its landing gear. At the deepwater pier people crowded onto tugs and barges, and ships arriving offshore were quickly surrounded by small craft filled with

refugees, some of whom fell into the sea or were crushed by the crowds as they fought to board the larger ships. The situation deteriorated as the city, the airport, and the docks came under fire from Communist artillery. Looting soldiers and civilians rampaged through the streets, while the Communist troops held back their advance, allowing panic to destroy any semblance of order among defenders in the city. The Communists occupied Da Nang on March 29. In less than a month the Communist offensive had destroyed virtually all ARVN forces in I Corps. Combined with the disaster in the Central Highlands, the losses were significant. Twelve of 44 provinces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) had fallen to the Communists, as had 150,000 regular soldiers and militia and roughly $1 billion of equipment, including some 400 airplanes and helicopters, approximately half of the Saigon government’s inventory. Despite predictions in some quarters of a bloodbath, in the immediate days following the Communist victory only a few hundred people were killed. On April 1 Qui Nhon and Nha Trang fell. The following day ARVN forces evacuated Tuy Hoa. Communist forces then prepared to move against the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. JOHN M. GATES

Hue Massacre See also Ban Me Thuot, Battle of; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of; Ngo Quang Truong; Nguyen Van Thieu References Dougan, Clark, and David Fulghum. The Fall of the South. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Hosmer, Stephen T., Konrad Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins. The Fall of South Vietnam: Statements by Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders. New York: Crane, Russak, 1980. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.

Hue Massacre Event Date: February 1968 More than four decades after its occurrence, the massacre of civilians and military personnel in Hue during the Communist occupation of the city in the January–February 1968 Tet Offensive remains a murky episode. Conflicting interpretations of this incident reflect the political debates regarding the Vietnam War. In late January 1968 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces, assisted by the Viet Cong (VC), seized the former imperial capital of Hue. This operation was part of a Communist offensive throughout the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that took place during the Vietnamese lunar New Year holiday, known as Tet. Hue was only one of many cities and towns struck, but it and the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon were two of the principal targets. Hue saw some of the most bitter fighting of the entire offensive. Nearly a month passed before U.S. marines and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops recaptured what remained of the largely destroyed city. Once Hue had been secured on February 25, 1968, reports of the disappearance and execution of South Vietnamese civilians proliferated. Indeed, on February 26 allied forces uncovered the first of a number of mass graves. Eventually searchers unearthed 2,810 bodies, but many more of the missing were never found. Estimates of the dead range as high as 7,000. One possible explanation for the bloodbath is that it was a desperate attempt to eliminate witnesses once the VC faced a return to clandestine operations. But clearly the VC had long possessed lists of assassination targets, including bureaucrats, teachers, intellectuals, ARVN soldiers, and foreigners, all of whom were presumed to oppose Communist rule. Journalist Don Oberdorfer, who conducted an extensive investigation of the massacre in 1969, maintains that there were two classifications for those murdered in Hue. Among the first were politicians, civil servants and their families, and collaborators with

521

U.S. forces. Among the second were civilians who tried to flee or refused to submit to questioning, those who spoke against the occupation, and those who spoke ill of or displayed a poor attitude toward the occupiers. In the Catholic section of Hue the Communists killed virtually every able-bodied male over the age of 15, many of whom had taken refuge in the cathedral there. After some of the details of the massacre became public, the Saigon government suggested that a similar fate lay in store for other communities should the Communists win. American officials subsequently echoed this in later public statements. Fears of a bloodbath became a justification for the continued U.S. presence. Some compared the massacre at Hue with the slaughter of civilians by U.S. Army forces at My Lai in March 1968. Although the atrocity at My Lai was on a much smaller scale, the media proved more eager to investigate the My Lai Massacre. The killings at Hue elicited much less media coverage, in part because of the widespread nature of debate over the Tet Offensive and its consequences, and they brought only a tepid response from the U.S. public. A precise accounting of the cost of the massacre at Hue was impossible because of the great destruction in the city and the

A young widow carrying a photograph of her missing Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldier husband at a mass funeral service in Hue in 1968. Although searchers eventually located 2,810 bodies, thousands more remained missing. The Communists may have assassinated as many as 5,700 people during their occupation of Hue. (National Archives)

522

Humanitarian Operation Program

large number of civilian casualties that occurred as a consequence of the actual fighting. Not surprisingly, Hanoi denied any complicity, arguing that some Hue residents must have risen up against their oppressors in an opportunity for justice. If the executions had been conducted spontaneously rather than having been the result of meticulous planning, it would have strengthened the case that the conflict in Vietnam amounted to more of a civil war than a conventional conflict. It does appear that the massacre was solely the work of the VC rather than PAVN regular forces. JEFFREY D. BASS See also Hue, Battle of; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Pike, Douglas. The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror. Saigon: U.S. Mission South Vietnam, 1971.

Humanitarian Operation Program Resettlement program in the United States of military officers, officials, and political leaders of the former Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) after they were detained by the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) in so-called reeducation camps. The Humanitarian Operation Program was begun in 1989 and worked in tandem with the Orderly Departure Program, begun in 1979. Although there had been rumors of such a program since the early 1980s, the U.S. and SRV governments did not begin to exchange proposals until April 1984, and not until late 1988 were there official negotiations that produced an agreement on the resettlement program. The Humanitarian Operation Program was a part of the larger Orderly Departure Program to assist in family reunification and resettlement of political refugees, including former political prisoners, sponsored by their relatives in the West. Since October 1988, applicants who had been imprisoned in reeducation camps for three or more years were put on separate lists numbered with the prefix “H” (e.g., H-01, H-09, or H-15). These were misinterpreted with the designation “H.O.,” which in fact stood for “Humanitarian Operation.” Under the Humanitarian Operation Program, former South Vietnamese political prisoners were sponsored by their relatives, if any, or by private organizations involved in the Orderly Departure Program, and the U.S. government provided assistance in the form of social security programs. By 2002 this program had provided assistance in the immigration of more than 70,000 Vietnamese to the United States. Most former political prisoners averaged 50 years

of age, and many faced difficulties in finding jobs. Their children have proven much more adaptable in securing a higher education and employment. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Reeducation Camps Reference Segal, Uma. A Framework for Immigration: Asians in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Humphrey, Hubert Horatio Birth Date: May 27, 1911 Death Date: January 13, 1978 U.S. senator (1949–1964, 1971–1978), vice president (1965– 1969), and Democratic Party candidate for president (1968). Born on May 27, 1911, in Wallace, South Dakota, Hubert Horatio Humphrey earned a BA from the University of Minnesota in 1939 and an MA from Louisiana State University in 1940. He taught for a year at the University of Minnesota, and in 1941 he began his public career as head of the Minnesota branch of the Federal War Production Administration. Later he taught in the U.S. Army Air Force training program at Macalester College in Minneapolis. Humphrey became involved in politics and in 1943 was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. The next year he worked to merge the state’s Democratic Party and Farm Labor Party. He helped manage President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 reelection campaign in Minnesota and was elected mayor of Minneapolis on the Democratic–Farm Labor ticket, a post to which he was reelected by a large plurality in 1947. In 1948 Humphrey attracted national attention by advocating a strong civil rights plank at the Democratic National Convention. That autumn he was elected U.S. senator from Minnesota, and he was reelected in 1954 and 1960, becoming one of the most important members of that body in the 20th century. In 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson chose Humphrey as his vice presidential running mate, and he was vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. It was one of the many ironies of 1968 that the New Left repudiated Humphrey until the closing days of the presidential campaign. Throughout his public life, Humphrey was one of the chief voices of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. With an unabashedly liberal record, the exuberant, loquacious Humphrey helped found the Americans for Democratic Action and was most proud of his success in the Senate in passage of Medicare, prolabor, and civil rights legislation, especially his floor management of the epochmaking 1964 Civil Rights Act. After he became vice president, Humphrey irritated Johnson by arguing against expansion of the Vietnam War. In 1966, however, Johnson sent Humphrey on a fact-finding trip to Asia, including

Humphrey, Hubert Horatio

U.S. vice president and Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey ran against Republican Richard M. Nixon for the presidency in 1968. Late in the campaign, Humphrey distanced himself from President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policies, narrowly losing the election. (Library of Congress)

the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Humphrey returned full of praise for administration policies, a stance that then angered many liberals and intellectuals. The Vietnam War ultimately undid Humphrey. After Johnson announced his withdrawal from the 1968 presidential campaign, Humphrey entered the race as the administration candidate. Johnson endeavored to keep Humphrey on a short leash, but Humphrey’s dilemma was that he needed to distance himself from the president’s unpopular Vietnam War policies while at the same time maintaining the support of the party apparatus. Candidate Humphrey called for making equal opportunity and social justice realities in American life and for completing the “unfinished peaceful American revolution” with its goal of “equal freedom for all.” The June 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, who was also competing for the Democratic nomination, ensured Humphrey of the Democratic Party’s nomination, although the August party convention in Chicago was divisive, bitter, and bloody. Unfortunately for Humphrey’s campaign, the public tended to associate him with this chaos and vented on him its dissatisfaction with the war. Some observers thought that if one factor cost Humphrey the election, it was his loyalty to President Johnson that

523

prevented him from reasserting his own liberal identity early in the campaign. Some of Humphrey’s advisers urged him to break completely from Johnson, but Humphrey refused. He said later that “I did what I thought was right. And I don’t give a damn if I lost the election. I know that I would have been a scoundrel. I never would have felt good in my heart had I broken with him.” During the campaign Humphrey was constantly heckled by antiwar protesters, a number of them shouting “Dump the Hump.” Ironically, they left more hawkish Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon largely alone. At Salt Lake City on September 30, 1968, Humphrey finally distanced himself a bit from Johnson when he announced that “As President I would stop the bombing of the North as an acceptable risk for peace because I believe it could lead to success in the negotiations and thereby shorten the war.” Now energized, Humphrey began picking up support as the peace candidate. He also attacked Nixon’s refusal to debate and tore into American Independence candidate George Wallace for his appeals to racism and intolerance. On October 31 Johnson announced a halt in the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Humphrey’s reaction was that “I have been hoping for months that it would happen.” Undoubtedly the bombing halt helped Humphrey, but it also came too late. Momentum was on his side, and many political observers believe that with only a few more days he would have won the election. Nixon’s victory margin was only 500,000 votes: 43.3 percent for Nixon, 42.7 percent for Humphrey, and 13.5 percent for third-party candidate Wallace. Nixon’s margin in the Electoral College was much larger, however (302, 191, and 5, respectively). One thing is reasonably certain: had Humphrey been elected president, the United States would have departed Vietnam earlier than it did under Nixon. In 1970 Humphrey was reelected to the Senate after winning the seat vacated by Eugene McCarthy and was reelected in 1976. Looking back on the Vietnam War from a 1974 vantage point, Humphrey said that “Like many things in our national life, we miscalculated. We overestimated our ability to control events, which is one of the great dangers of a great power. Power tends to be a substitute for judgment and wisdom.” Shortly before his death, he said that he wanted “to be known in the history books as an effective man in government.” Humphrey died of cancer in Waverly, Minnesota, on January 13, 1978. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Democratic National Convention of 1968; Elections, U.S., 1968; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Read, Benjamin Huger; Wallace, George Corley, Jr. References Eisle, Albert. Almost to the Presidency: A Biography of Two American Politicians. Blue Earth, MN: Piper, 1972. Humphrey, Hubert H. Beyond Civil Rights: A New Day of Equality. New York: Random House, 1968.

524

Hun Sen

Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York: Norton, 1984.

Hung Dao Vuong See Tran Hung Dao

Hun Sen Birth Date: April 4, 1951 Cambodian military commander, party leader, cabinet minister, and prime minister since 1998. Hun Sen was born in Kompong Cham Province on April 4, 1951. He was the third of six children in a family of peasant farmers. Sen left home at age 13 to live in a pagoda in Phnom Penh. At age 19 he went into the bush to join the guerrillas who opposed the ouster of Prince Norodom Sihanouk by Lon Nol. During the fighting against the Lon Nol regime (1970–1975), Sen was wounded five times. The last time, the day before the capture of Phnom Penh, was the most serious. According to Sen, he commanded a battalion that was preparing to take a major position near the Mekong River. Amid the noise of heavy weapons’ firing, he did not pay attention to incoming fire and was wounded by an exploding mortar shell. He was unconscious for 10 days and lost sight in his left eye. He remained with the guerrillas, the Khmer Rouge, after their capture of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, until he defected to Vietnam in June 1977. Again according to Hun Sen, he was forced to marry at one of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s mass wedding ceremonies on January 5, 1976. He and his wife, Bun Sam Hieng, lost their first child in 1976 when a Khmer Rouge nurse dropped him. This occurred in the period when the Khmer Rouge regime, known as Democratic Kampuchea, emptied the cities and forced everyone to live in the countryside. In June 1977 with relations between Democratic Kampuchea and Vietnam deteriorating, Sen defected along with 200 of his men in the Eastern Zone after they had been ordered to attack Vietnamese villagers. When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and expelled the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, in January 1979 Hun Sen became foreign minister of the new pro-Vietnamese regime known as the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK). At an unknown date, he became a member of the governing Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP), which traces its founding to 1951 and claims to be a direct descendant of the old Indochinese Communist Party founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930. Sen became prime minister (called chairman of the Council of Ministers) in January 1985. He continued the war against the Khmer Rouge, then holed up in western Cambodia on the border with Thailand, and their nonCommunist allies led by Prince Sihanouk and Son Sann.

As a consequence of international peace negotiations, the PRK changed its name to the State of Cambodia (SOC). At a plenum in Phnom Penh on October 19, 1991, four days before the Paris Peace Agreement was signed ending the Cambodian fighting, Sen became vice chairman of the KPRP, which was renamed the Cambodian People’s Party at the same plenum. The new party platform endorsed a multiparty political system, free enterprise, and freedom of religion (Buddhism as the state religion). The party’s symbol of the hammer and sickle was replaced by Angkor Wat and rice sheaves, and red was replaced by blue and white in its banners. A United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force entered Cambodia to supervise implementation of the Paris Peace Agreement, and during May 23–28, 1993, elections were held throughout Cambodia for a Constituent Assembly. Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won 51 seats with 38.22 percent of the popular vote, compared with the royalist United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC, from its French initials) party’s 58 seats and 45.47 percent of the vote. In an arrangement brokered by Prince Sihanouk (who then took the position of king), Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh (Sihanouk’s son) agreed to form a coalition government and became co–prime ministers of the new Kingdom of Cambodia. Sen, as second prime minister, wielded more effective power, however, because the SOC had controlled the administrative machinery and armed forces over most of the country, compared with FUNCINPEC’s control of relatively small areas of the country and limited armed forces. Relations between Sen and Ranariddh gradually deteriorated, with mutual accusations of corruption and power wielding. The rivalry between the two men finally came to a head over the opening of negotiations in the late summer of 1996 with Khmer Rouge remnants on the Thailand border for their reintegration into Cambodia’s political life. Efforts by Cambodian political figures to form third parties also contributed to the rising tension, with some grenade-throwing incidents in Phnom Penh. On July 5 and 6, 1997, forces loyal to Sen moved against Ranariddh, who was forced to leave the country. Sen, claiming that FUNCINPEC had voted to remove Ranariddh and replace him as co–prime minister, had the Constituent Assembly vote into office a replacement who was much more amenable to manipulation by the Cambodian People’s Party. Some 40 of Ranariddh’s close lieutenants were reportedly killed in this action, which some (although not the U.S. Department of State) called a coup d’état. In November 1998 Sen consolidated his power, becoming Cambodia’s only prime minister, a post he continues to hold. Critics have charged his regime with corruption, and his land policies have led to wholesale land transfers to foreigners at bargain-basement prices, which has led to the displacement of thousands of Cambodians. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN AND STEPHEN DENNEY See also Heng Samrin; Pol Pot

Huynh Phu So References Human Rights Watch. Cambodia: Aftermath of the Coup. New York: Human Rights Watch, August 1997. Mehta, Harish C., and Julie B. Mehta. Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia. Singapore: Graham Brash Pte, 1999.

Huston Plan Plan advanced by the Richard M. Nixon administration to coordinate intelligence-gathering agencies in order to control so-called subversive elements within the United States during the Vietnam War. The plan was named for one of its sponsors, administration staffer Tom Huston. Formally known as the “Domestic Intelligence Gathering Plan: Analysis and Strategy,” the Huston Plan was developed in June 1970 in response to the antiwar demonstrations that erupted in the wake of the U.S. incursion into Cambodia. The plan called for the formation of a permanent interagency intelligence committee to coordinate domestic intelligence gathering by elements of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. A variety of methods were to be used to carry out unrestricted domestic surveillance, including wiretaps, infiltration of subversive groups, mail opening, electronic surveillance, and break-ins, to gather information on individuals and groups believed to be an internal threat to the United States. Although the plan was highly illegal, President Richard M. Nixon initially approved it on July 14. After FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General John Mitchell voiced their objections to the plan’s illegality, Nixon withdrew his approval. Although the Huston Plan was never implemented, a new Intelligence Evaluation Committee as well as the CIA’s Operation CHAOS were later established for the purpose of gathering internal intelligence. The Huston Plan offered a preview of things to come. Illegal efforts to stamp out criticism of Nixon’s Vietnam policy and plug information leaks ultimately resulted in the Watergate Scandal and the president’s downfall in 1974. CYNTHIA NORTHRUP See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Central Intelligence Agency; CHAOS, Operation; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Hoover, John Edgar; Mitchell, John Newton; United States Department of Justice; Watergate Scandal References Genovese, Michael A. The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics in Turbulent Times. New York: Greenwood, 1990. Haldeman, H. R. The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House. New York: Putnam, 1994.

Huynh Cong Ut See Ut, Nick

525

Huynh Phu So Birth Date: 1919 Death Date: April 1947 Founder of Hoa Hao Buddhism, one of the most important religious sects in southern Vietnam. Born in 1919 in Hoa Hao village, Chau Doc Province, to a well-to-do family, Huynh Phu So (also known as Huynh Giao Chu) led a tranquil life until age 15. From then until age 21 he was affected by a persistent illness. In 1939 while visiting Mounts That Son and Ta Lon, he underwent a religious experience and began to found and preach a new religion based on the teachings of Buddha and Confucius and other Vietnamese traditional beliefs. Combining preaching with curing diseases by simple means such as green leaves and pure water, So achieved his first conversions among modern and traditional doctors, other intellectuals, and peasants. His followers grew rapidly to some 2 million people, and his popularity soon attracted French concern. The French placed So under house arrest at Nghia village in Can Tho Province and then under administrative surveillance at Cho Quan Hospital (a mental medical facility) and finally in the town of Bac Lieu. When Japanese troops occupied Indochina during World War II, they forced the French to transfer So to their Kempetai’s headquarters in Saigon, hoping that through him they could reach the huge mass of his followers. After the Japanese surrender, So called on the leaders of political parties and religious groups to set up a National Unified Front (NUF) to confront the new situation. The NUF was later integrated into the Viet Minh Front, and So was the representative of southern Vietnam. Following the signing of the March 6, 1946, Ho-Sainteny Agreement, So joined other nationalist leaders to create the Front for National Union and became commissioner of the Administrative Committee of southern Vietnam. In September of that year he founded the Dan Xa Dang (Social Democratic Party). All of So’s activities, according to later Hoa Hao leaders, were to save his people from the “threat of extermination” by the Communists. Because he was thought to be a considerable threat to them, the Communists ambushed and captured So in April 1947 at Doc Vang. So was reportedly killed and his body dismembered so that it could not be found and turned into an object of veneration. Many of his followers, however, continued to believe that So could not be harmed and would some day return. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Confucianism; Hoa Hao; Ho-Sainteny Agreement References Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Hoa Hao Buddhism. Bibliography and Teaching of Prophet HuynhPhu-So. Santa Fe Spring, CA: Overseas Office, Hoa Hao Buddhism Church, 1983. Nguyen Long Thanh Nam. Phat Giao Hoa Hao Trong Dong Lich Su Dan Toc [Hoa Hao Buddhism in Our Nation’s History]. Santa Fe Spring, CA: Tap San Duoc Tu Bi, 1991.

526

Huynh Tan Phat

Huynh Tan Phat Birth Date: 1913 Death Date: September 30, 1989 Southern Vietnamese revolutionary, secretary-general of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) during 1964–1969, and president of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG). Born in 1913 at My Tho in Dinh Tuong Province in the Mekong Delta, Huynh Tan Phat attended Hanoi University, earned a degree in architecture, and then joined the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) in 1936. Arrested twice by the French, Phat returned to southern Vietnam after the August Revolution (1945) and helped organize the local resistance movement. During the Indochina War, Phat led the Information Service of the Southern Revolutionary Region and served as a member of the Administrative and Resistance Committee of the Saigon–Gia Dinh area. After the end of the Indochina War in 1954 he opened an architecture office in Saigon but remained active in politics. In 1960 he was one of the founding members of the NLF and in 1964 assumed its top leadership post. He was considered the NLF’s chief theorist. In 1969 he became president of the PRG in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Following the end of the Vietnam War, Phat was one of the few southern Communists who maintained a key political position, serving as a vice minister to the central government from 1976 to 1982. In 1982 he became a vice president on the Council of State, a post he held until his death on September 30, 1989, in Ho Chi Minh City. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam References Personalities of the South Vietnam Liberation Movement. New York: Commission for Foreign Relations of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, 1965. Thayer, Carlyle A. War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954–60. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1989. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Huynh Van Cao Birth Date: September 26, 1927 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and commander of IV Corps during the disastrous Battle of Ap Bac in the Mekong Delta (January 2, 1963). Born on September 26, 1927, in Quang Tri Province, the Catholic Huynh

Van Cao is said to be an adopted son of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and a nephew of a Buddhist leader, the Venerable Thich Tri Thu. Cao’s devotion to Diem led the latter to promote him over more competent officers. Cao was a political general who preferred to involve himself in Saigon political intrigue rather than engage in military action. He also belonged to Ngo Dinh Nhu’s secret political organization, the Can Lao. Cao appointed Colonel Bui Dinh Dam, his protégé and a Catholic favorite of Diem, to control his 7th Division, which was under his nominal command and was the principal South Vietnamese unit in the area of Ap Bac. In December 1962 intelligence reported three Viet Cong (VC) companies in the neighborhood of Ap Bac. This was the situation that U.S. military adviser Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann had been waiting for in which the VC would be forced to stand and fight. He believed that the insurgents could not win such a battle. The Battle of Ap Bac opened when the VC defeated two prongs of an ARVN attack from the north and south. Vann advised Cao to send paratroopers to block the VC avenue of retreat. Cao, however, did not want to commit more troops when he had already lost many. He finally agreed to send them but to the west, where they would be practically useless. Disastrously, the troops arrived at twilight and were dropped at the wrong location, right in front of VC troops waiting in dug-in positions. The paratroopers suffered significant losses. Following this battle, the VC were able to slip away safely under the cover of darkness. During the planning of the Diem coup in 1963, the plotters believed that the weakest link to their plans was dealing with Cao’s troops in the Mekong Delta. The plotters devised a strategy in which Colonel Nguyen Huu Co would take charge of the nearest division to Cao at My Tho and move these soldiers to block Cao’s forces from moving into Saigon. This maneuver proved successful. Following the coup against Diem, Cao was forced to retire from the army. He went into politics and eventually was elected as a senator in the South Vietnamese parliament. After the April 1975 collapse of the South Vietnamese government, Cao spent several years in reeducation camps before leaving for the United States in the early 1990s. He subsequently settled in Virginia and has contributed articles to Vietnam Magazine. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Huu Co; Vann, John Paul References Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

I Ia Drang, Battle of Start Date: October 19, 1965 End Date: November 26, 1965 Battle between U.S. and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces, significant because it prevented the PAVN from seizing control of the Central Highlands and cutting the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in two. The battle also demonstrated the effectiveness of air mobility against regular army units. On October 19, 1965, PAVN troops attacked the Plei Me Special Forces camp southwest of Pleiku. Initially, troopers from the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) helped Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops relieve Plei Me. On October 27 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland ordered the 1st Cavalry Division to seek out and destroy the PAVN 32nd, 33rd, and 66th regiments commanded by Brigadier General Chu Huy Man. General Man also sought battle to learn how to fight the 1st Cavalry Division, whose base at An Khe blocked his route of advance to the coast. The location of PAVN units was unclear until November 1, when the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1-9 Cavalry), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John B. Stockton, located and captured a PAVN hospital area five miles west of Plei Me, killing or capturing 135 PAVN troops. Further reconnaissance indicated a PAVN presence in the Ia Drang Valley and on the Chu Pong Massif. The 1-9 Cavalry sprang a night ambush and developed contacts that were turned over to the infantry. The heaviest contact developed on November 14 as Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. Moore’s 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry (1-7 Cavalry),

assaulted landing zone (LZ) X-Ray on Chu Pong. Elephant grass, scrub trees, and tall anthills obstructed fields of fire. Moore made heavy contact with the PAVN 9th Battalion, 66th Regiment, before his whole understrength battalion could be landed. The American attack threw the PAVN 66th Regiment, which had just arrived in the area after a long trek down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, into total confusion. The 66th Regiment commander was away from his headquarters, leaving command of the regiment in the hands of Regiment Political Commissar La Ngoc Chau. The overall commander of all PAVN forces in the Ia Drang Valley was Colonel Nguyen Huu An, whose small forward headquarters arrived on the scene in the middle of the first day’s fighting. Under intense artillery fire and bombardment by the U.S. Air Force, Chau’s 9th Battalion tried to outflank LZ X-Ray to the south, but Moore was able to get his companies in line just in time. One of Moore’s platoons advanced too far and was cut off and almost destroyed, but it delayed Chau in locating the main American line. His line fully extended to the south, Moore called for help and received Company B, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, which he used as a reserve during the night. At first light on November 15 Chau resumed the attack using his previously uncommitted 7th Battalion, and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Tully’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry (2-5 Cavalry), marched in to give much-needed support. Chau’s vicious attacks were all repulsed. The lost platoon’s survivors were pulled to safety, and Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses began the first of six days of strikes on Chu Pong. Two additional batteries of artillery arrived at LZ Columbus to provide a total of 24 pieces in support. During the night the PAVN 66th Regiment withdrew. Early on November 16 Chau launched a last attack, which was easily repulsed. Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade’s 2nd

528

Ia Drang, Battle of

U.S. Army second lieutenant C. R. Rescorla of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) prepares to engage People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) snipers on November 17, 1965, during the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Battalion, 7th Cavalry (2-7 Cavalry), arrived, and the 1st Cavalry Division troops located their dead and counted the dead of the PAVN 66th Regiment. By body count PAVN losses were 634, but U.S. estimates placed the number at 1,215 killed, more than 10 times the losses of the 1st Cavalry. During the day Moore’s battalion was lifted to Camp Holloway at Pleiku, but Tully’s 2-5 Cavalry and McDade’s 2-7 Cavalry remained to secure LZ X-Ray. On November 17 continued B-52 sorties against the Chu Pong Massif made it necessary for Tully and McDade to move from LZ X-Ray and seek PAVN forces elsewhere. McDade’s 2-7 Cavalry, with Company A of the 1-7 Cavalry attached, was ordered to march toward LZ Albany two miles away to try to regain contact with PAVN units. Tully’s unit was ordered to march to the firebase at LZ Columbus. Having little combat experience and not yet working together as a cohesive unit, McDade’s men, who were strung out in a 500-yard column in high elephant grass and jungle, blundered into a PAVN ambush, and a savage battle ensued. The head of the column had just reached LZ Albany when McDade halted it and assembled his company commanders for a council. The previous night Colonel Nguyen Huu An, not knowing that the U.S. troops planned to abandon LZ X-Ray the next morning,

had ordered the 66th Regiment’s 8th Battalion, which was some distance away and had not yet been engaged in the battle, to move to LZ X-Ray to attack the American units there. As he marched toward LZ X-Ray, 8th Battalion commander Le Xuan Phoi, who had no communications with either the 66th Regiment or Front Headquarters, learned of the presence of American forces in the area (McDade’s 2-7 Cavalry). Phoi quickly deployed his battalion to attack McDade’s men and requested assistance from nearby troops of the PAVN 1st Battalion, 33rd Regiment, who were in the area preparing to attack the U.S. artillery position at LZ Columbus. Phoi ordered his men to chop the American column into many pieces and to hug it as closely as possible in order to avoid U.S. artillery fire and air bombardment. Bunched up at rest, McDade’s men were easy targets for PAVN mortars and grenades. All unit cohesion was lost as the commanders were separated from their companies and the battle devolved into many individual combats. PAVN troops moved about killing the wounded. No artillery fire or air support was possible until McDade’s men could mark their positions. After two hours of close combat, the survivors threw smoke grenades, and artillery fire and napalm rained down on the attacking PAVN troops, killing the commanders of both PAVN battalions.

Imperial Presidency

By late afternoon, Company B of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry (1-5 Cavalry), was ordered to help McDade’s men. Marching from LZ Columbus, Company B of the 1-5 Cavalry fought its way into LZ Albany and collected the wounded into one of two perimeters for evacuation by helicopter. At dusk, Company B of the 2-7 Cavalry also reinforced McDade. PAVN troops withdrew during the predawn hours of November 18. PAVN losses were heavy, but McDade’s unit lost 151 men killed, 121 wounded, and 4 missing in action. When the Battle of Ia Drang ended on November 26, the 1st Cavalry Division had successfully spoiled the PAVN attack along Route 19 to the sea. The battle demonstrated the effectiveness of a new kind of warfare, that of air mobility. In the entire campaign U.S. losses were 305 killed, while PAVN killed were estimated at 3,561. Vietnamese postwar sources give much lower figures of PAVN losses: 559 killed and 669 wounded. These figures have been questioned by some PAVN veterans, and Vietnamese histories note that PAVN units involved in the battle suffered severe morale problems immediately following the battle. While acknowledging that its forces made many mistakes during the battle, PAVN commanders viewed the results of the battle, especially the heavy American casualties, as vindicating their new close-quarter battle tactics. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Air Mobility; Central Highlands; United States Army; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

529

References General Dang Vu Hiep, with Le Hai Trieu and Ngo Vinh Binh. Ky Uc Tay Nguyen [Highland Memories]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2002. Kinnard, Harry W. O. “A Victory in the Ia Drang: The Triumph of a Concept.” Army 17 (September 1967): 71–91. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Chien Thang Play Me: Ba Muoi Nam Sau Nhin Lai [Plei Me Victory: Looking Back after Thirty Years]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1995. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1992. Pribbenow, Merle L. “The Fog of War: The Vietnamese View of the Ia Drang Battle.” Military Review (January 2001): 93–97. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Imperial Presidency A term coined by historian and presidential adviser Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in the late 1960s to describe the modern American presidency. The term “imperial presidency” implies the steady increase in and concentration of power in the office of the president since the 1930s. The term can also describe the increased secrecy and isolation revolving around the executive branch and

530

India

its decision-making process. According to Schlesinger’s usage and theory, the late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the apogee of the imperial presidency. Indeed, the failures in Vietnam and the 1973–1974 Watergate Scandal that brought down President Richard M. Nixon appeared to lend credence to the idea of an imperial presidency. Throughout most of American history, Congress was the predominant power in the U.S. government. In the 1930s, however, owing first to the Great Depression and then to World War II, the power and responsibility of the president increased dramatically and eclipsed that of Congress, particularly in foreign affairs. This trend became even more pronounced with the coming of the Cold War in the late 1940s. Congress increasingly seemed to defer to the actions and policies of the president with little, if any, critical debate or oversight. President Harry S. Truman broke new ground by committing U.S. troops to the Korean War in 1950 with no prior congressional approval or debate and no formal declaration of war. This acquiescence to presidential power reached its zenith during the Vietnam War, a war to which President Lyndon B. Johnson had committed half a million U.S. troops by 1968. Expansion of the war was achieved largely without much congressional involvement. Certainly there was virtually no congressional oversight leading up to escalation of the war in 1965, and for the remainder of the war the Johnson and Nixon administrations either misled or lied to both Congress and the American people regarding their conduct of the war. We also now know that the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the only congressional authorization for President Johnson to wage war in Vietnam, was based on the false premise of a second attack on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Nixon misled the American people about U.S. involvement in Cambodia, widening the war in Vietnam to include that country. Believing that presidents Johnson and Nixon had usurped the power to declare war and seeking to reassert its traditional role in foreign policy decisions, Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973. This law limited the ability of the president to dispatch U.S. troops into hostilities, mandated that the president advise Congress regarding such deployments, and stipulated that the president must remove troops from a foreign conflict if Congress did not approve or no longer approved of the deployment. It was not, however, simply in foreign policy that the imperial presidency was an operative assumption. The growth in the staff and bureaucracy of the White House and the executive branch in general has also been cited as another example of the imperial presidency. Indeed, the size of these bureaucracies had increased exponentially. Until the 1930s the White House had few staff members. Beginning with the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the number of White House staffers increased significantly, as did bureaucracies and agencies within the White House. The creation of the Executive Office of the President in 1939 formalized by law this expansion in personnel working for the president. These personnel

included political advisers, such as the chief of staff, who with few exceptions do not require Senate confirmation and are thus free of most congressional oversight. More recently, some observers have suggested that because of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent War on Terror, the 2001 Patriot Act, revelations of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Iraq War (2003–2010), President George W. Bush resurrected the imperial presidency. In 2006 there were 17 separate offices, consisting of more than 1,500 individuals, that comprised the Executive Office of the President. STEFAN M. BROOKS See also Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr.; War Powers Act References Fisher, Louis. Presidential War Power. Rev. ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Gould, Lewis. The Modern American Presidency. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2003. Irons, Peter. War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005. Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Imperial Presidency. New York: Mariner, 2004. Schlesinger, Arthur M. War and the American Presidency. New York: Norton, 2005. Siff, Ezra. Why the Senate Slept: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Beginning of America’s War in Vietnam. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.

India South Asian nation encompassing an area of 1.269 million square miles. The Republic of India became an independent nation in 1947. India is bordered by Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma) to the east; Pakistan to the west; Bhutan, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and Nepal to the north; and the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south. With 529.362 million people in 1968, India was the world’s most populous democracy and second in world population only to China. India’s government is a mixed parliamentary-presidential system in which the president is elected indirectly by an electoral college for five-year terms. The president is head of state. The head of government is the prime minister, appointed by the president based upon the parliamentary majority in power; most executive power is invested with the prime minister. During the 1960s and 1970s India’s politics were dominated by the Indian National Congress (INC), which held a parliamentary majority from 1950 to 1990 except for a brief period in the late 1970s. India was a member of the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC). As a formerly colonized state and a leading nonaligned nation, India had a keen interest in events in Southeast Asia. From

Indochina War the beginning of war in Vietnam, both official Indian policy and public opinion generally favored Ho Chi Minh’s government, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), against the French and, later, it and the Viet Cong (VC) against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the United States. In the 1950s India resisted U.S. pressure to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The Sino-Indian War of 1962 and continuing tension with China to some extent lessened India’s sympathy for the North Vietnamese government, an ally of China. Even so, the Indian government resisted appeals from successive U.S. administrations to take a more favorable view of U.S. policies in Vietnam. After the 1954 Geneva Conference, India was one of the three neutral nations (along with Poland and Canada) that formed the ICSC, charged with supervision of the implementation of the Geneva Accords. India chaired this body and furnished its personnel. The ICSC was to oversee the cease-fire, elections, and reunification of Vietnam envisaged in the Geneva Accords. Over time the ICSC became badly fractured, as India and Poland tended to support North Vietnamese positions, while Canada took a more pro-U.S. position. India withdrew from the ICSC in 1973. Over almost 20 years, the Indian stance on the ICSC generally contributed to the continuing tension between India and the United States. In turn, from 1965 onward Indian criticism of U.S. policies led the United States under presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to adopt restrictive policies on American food shipments to India, further exacerbating a difficult relationship. In 1965 the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a report calling for an end to U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and the convening of an international conference to reach a solution of the Vietnam imbroglio based on the withdrawal of all troops from South Vietnam and the reunification of Vietnam. The report also largely rejected the prospect of a military solution of the war. In the early 1970s relations between India and the United States reached a nadir when the United States leaned toward Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani crisis that ultimately resulted in the creation of an independent Bangladesh. In 1970 Indian foreign minister Swaran Singh called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, and in 1972 the Indian consulate in Hanoi was upgraded to an embassy, whereas the consulate in Saigon remained such. Upon the fall of Saigon in 1975, India promptly recognized the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam. Relations between India and Vietnam have remained close since, with bilateral cooperation in trade, energy (nuclear power), and regional security issues such as combating drug trafficking and terrorism. Vietnam has supported India’s effort to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council and has backed a closer relationship between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which Vietnam belongs. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

531

See also Canada; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; International Commission for Supervision and Control; Poland References Brands, H. W. India and the United States: The Cold Peace. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Chary, M. Srinivas. The Eagle and the Peacock: U.S. Foreign Policy toward India since Independence. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Kux, Dennis. Estranged Democracies, 1941–1991: India and the United States. Washington, DC: Sage, 1994. McMahon, Robert J. Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. SarDesai, D. R. Indian Foreign Policy in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam 1947–1964. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Sharma, Geetesh. India-Vietnam Relations: First to Twenty-First Century. Kolkata: Dialogue Society, 2004. Sridharan, Kripa. The ASEAN Region in India’s Foreign Policy. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth, 1996. Thakur, Ramesh. Peacekeeping in Vietnam: Canada, India, Poland, and the International Commission. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1984.

Indochina War Start Date: 1946 End Date: 1954 Although there were other explosions of nationalist sentiment in the French Empire after World War II (most notably in Algeria in 1945 and Madagascar in 1947), that in Indochina was by far the most damaging. The Indochina War lasted eight years, from 1946 to 1954. The failure of the French government to realize that the days of colonialism were over collided with Vietnamese nationalist sentiment. The French fought the Indochina War not so much for economic reasons (by 1950 French military expenditures surpassed the total value of all French investments there) but rather for political and psychological reasons. Perhaps only with its empire could France be counted a great power. Colonial advocates also argued that if France let go of Indochina, the rest of its overseas possessions, including those in North Africa, would soon follow. This idea bore some similarity to the domino theory that was widely believed in the United States during the Vietnam War. The Indochina War began in December 1946. Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), predicted how it would be fought. It would be, he said, the war of the tiger and the elephant. The tiger could not meet the elephant in an equal contest, so tiger would lay in wait for the elephant, drop on his back from the jungle, and rip huge hunks of flesh with his claws. Eventually the elephant would bleed to death. The war played out very much along those lines. Initially the war did not appear to proceed that way. After the defeat of Japan in World War II, French general Jacques-Philippe Leclerc arrived in Indochina with reinforcements. He used his

532

Indochina War

small yet mobile force of about 40,000 men to dash through the country and secure southern Vietnam and Cambodia. The nationalist Viet Minh were quickly forced out into the countryside, and life returned to normal or almost so. There were those who dreaded the Viet Minh’s retreat into the jungle. Leclerc was one; he was convinced that the Viet Minh represented a nationalist movement that France could not subdue militarily. Unlike most of his compatriots, he was aware of the great difficulties of jungle warfare and favored negotiations. In a secret report to Paris, Leclerc said that there would be no solution through force in Indochina. Although the French Socialist Party showed interest in ending the war through peace talks, the steady drift of the coalition government to the Right and increasing bloodshed prevented this. French high commissioner to Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu and other French colonial administrators opposed meaningful concessions to the nationalists, and in the summer of 1946 Leclerc departed Indochina in frustration. Leclerc was but the first in a succession of French military commanders. He was followed by generals Jean-Etienne Valluy, Roger Blaizot, Marcel Carpentier, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Raoul Salan, Henri Navarre, and Paul Henri Romuald Ély. This frequent change in commanders undoubtedly affected the overall efficiency and morale of the Expeditionary Force. Most French leaders assumed that the conflict would be little more than a classic colonial reconquest, securing the population centers and then expanding outward in the classic oil slick (tache d’huile) method they had practiced so effectively in Morocco and Algeria. Meanwhile the Viet Minh, led by General Vo Nguyen Giap, steadily grew in strength and controlled more and more territory. In May 1947 the French did make a stab at settling the war peacefully when Paul Mus traveled from Hanoi to meet with Ho Chi Minh in the latter’s jungle headquarters. Mus was an Asian scholar sympathetic to the Vietnamese nationalist point of view and a personal adviser to Émile Bollaert, who had replaced d’Argenlieu as high commissioner. Mus told Ho that France would agree to a cease-fire on the condition that the Viet Minh lay down some of their arms, permit French troops freedom of movement in their zones, and turn over some deserters from the French Foreign Legion. Ho rejected this offer, which was tantamount to surrender. In May, Bollaert declared that “France will remain in Indochina.” Despite its stated determination to hold on to Indochina, the French government never made the commitment in manpower necessary to have a chance to win. The war was essentially fought by the professional soldiers: officers and noncommissioned officers who led the French Expeditionary Corps. The French government never allowed draftees to be sent to Indochina. The small number of effectives available to French commanders left them very few options as far as strategy was concerned. Shortages of noncommissioned officers, a lack of trained intelligence officers and interpreters, and little interest in or knowledge of the mechanics of pacification all hampered the French military effort.

The French held much of Cochin China in large part because the powerful religious sects and Buddhists there opposed the Viet Minh. The French also controlled the Red River Delta in the north along with the capital, Hanoi. But the Viet Minh controlled much of the countryside, and the area they dominated grew as time went on. Initially the Viet Minh largely withdrew into the jungle to indoctrinate and train their troops. The French invested little attention and resources in pacification efforts, and their heavyhandedness alienated many Vietnamese. The French scenario had the Viet Minh eventually tiring of their cause and giving up. It never played out that way. To increase available manpower, attract Vietnamese nationalist support, and quiet critics at home and in the United States, Paris sought to provide at least the facade of an indigenous Vietnamese regime as a competitor to the Viet Minh. After several years of negotiations, in March 1949 the French government concluded the Elysée Agreements with former emperor Bao Dai. These created the State of Vietnam, and Paris made a key concession that Vietnam was in fact one country. The State of Vietnam allowed the French government to portray the war as a conflict between a free Vietnam and the Communists and thus not a colonial war at all. Washington, which supported France in Indochina because the United States needed French military support in Europe, claimed to be convinced. The problem for Vietnamese nationalists was that the State of Vietnam never truly became established. The French continued to control all of its institutions, and its promised army never really materialized. France simply took the recruited soldiers and added them to its own Expeditionary Corps, in which they were commanded by French officers. In effect there were only two choices for the Vietnamese: either the Viet Minh or the French. The French therefore pushed Vietnamese nationalists into the Viet Minh camp. In October 1947 the French mounted Operation LÉA. Involving some 15,000 men and conducted over a three-week period, it was devoted almost exclusively to the capture of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh leadership and the destruction of their main battle units. LÉA involved 17 French battalions, and while it succeeded in taking Thai Nguyen and some other Viet Minh–controlled cities, it failed to both capture the Viet Minh leadership and destroy the main Communist units. It also showed the paucity of French resources in Indochina. The troops in LÉA were badly needed elsewhere, and their employment in the operation opened up much of the countryside to Viet Minh penetration. As time went on, the military situation continued to deteriorate for the French, despite the fact that by the end of 1949 Paris had expended $1.5 billion on the war. The Indochina War changed dramatically in the autumn of 1949 when the Communists came to power in China. While that event and the recognition of the North Vietnamese government by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) helped change Washington’s attitude toward the war, in effect the war was lost for the French then and there. The long Chinese-Vietnam border allowed the Chi-

Indochina War

533

Vietnamese villagers in Ba Tri perform training drills with makeshift bamboo rifles during the Indochina War in 1951. (Library of Congress)

nese to supply arms and equipment to the Viet Minh across their common border and provided sanctuaries in China in which the Viet Minh could train and replenish their troops. And there were plenty of arms available from the substantial stocks of weapons, including artillery, that the United States had previously supplied to the Chinese Nationalists. The Korean War, which began in June 1950, also profoundly affected the U.S. attitude toward the war in Indochina. Korea and Vietnam came to be viewed as mutually dependent theaters in a common Western struggle against communism. Washington recognized the State of Vietnam and changed its policy of providing only indirect aid to the French effort in Indochina. In June 1950 President Harry S. Truman announced that the United States would provide direct military aid to French forces in Indochina and establish a military assistance and advisory group there. By the end of the Indochina War in 1954, the United States had provided a total of $2.5 billion in military aid to the French. The French insisted that all U.S. military assistance be given directly to them rather than channeled through the State of Vietnam. Although a Vietnamese National Army was established in 1951, it

remained effectively under French control, and France continued to dominate the State of Vietnam down to the 1954 Geneva Conference. Regardless, the Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations assured the American people that real authority in Vietnam had been handed over to the Vietnamese. With Paris refusing to concede real authority to the State of Vietnam, Vietnamese nationalists had no other recourse but the Viet Minh. In the end, Vietnamese nationalism was completely usurped by communism. The Indochina War became an endless quagmire. By 1950 it was costing France 40–45 percent of its entire military budget and more than 10 percent of the national budget. That same year, Giap and the Viet Minh won control of Route Coloniale 4. Located in the far north, the highway paralleled the Chinese frontier and ran from the Gulf of Tonkin to Cao Bang. With the loss of this critical China frontier section, for all practical purposes the war was over for France. The Viet Minh now had ready access to China. That the war was allowed to drag on past this point is proof of the dearth of political leadership in Paris. In 1951 Giap, who believed that the circumstances were ripe for conventional large-unit warfare, went on the offensive in Operations

534

Indochina War

HOANG HOA THAM and HA NAM NINH. His divisions were stopped cold by

French forces led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, probably the most capable of French commanders in the war. After these rebuffs, Giap simply shifted back to his phase-two strategy of engaging the French in circumstances of his own choosing. In November 1951 de Lattre initiated a battle outside the important Red River Delta area. What became the Battle of Hoa Binh was a meat-grinder battle as de Lattre envisioned but for both sides. By the end of the battle in February 1952 the Viet Minh had paid a heavy price, but they had learned how to deal with French tactics and weapons and had penetrated the French defensive ring as never before. Giap now undertook the conquest of the Thai Highlands in northwestern Vietnam. By the end of November 1952 Viet Minh units had penetrated to the Lao border. New French commander General Raoul Salan tried to halt this offensive by striking at Viet Minh supply lines. But Giap refused to take the bait, and Operation LORRAINE, which involved 30,000 French troops in special airborne, commando, and support formations, was soon in reverse. By December, Viet Minh units were still at the Lao border, and the French were back within their heavily fortified “de Lattre” defensive line of the Red River Delta. The Viet Minh also made significant gains in central Vietnam. French control in the plateau area of the Central Highlands was narrowed to a few beachheads around Hue, Da Nang, and Nha Trang. The only areas where the French enjoyed real success were in Cochin China and in neighboring Cambodia.

In the spring of 1953 Giap assembled a powerful force to invade Laos. That country had an army of only 10,000 men supported by 3,000 French regulars. Giap employed four divisions totaling 40,000 men, and he had the assistance of 4,000 Communist Pathet Lao troops. Once more the French were compelled to disperse their slender resources. They were, however, successful in preventing the Communists from overrunning the Plain of Jars, and in late April the French halted the Viet Minh and inflicted heavy casualties on them. The onset of the rainy season forced the Viet Minh to fall back on their bases, and Laos was saved for another summer. In July 1953 new French commander General Henri Navarre arrived in Indochina. Buoyed by promises of increased U.S. military aid, Navarre attempted a general counteroffensive. The press in both France and the United States gave much attention to the so-called Navarre Plan. Unknown to the public, however, was Navarre’s own secret pessimistic assessment to his government that the war could not be won militarily and that the best that could be hoped for was a draw. Using his increased resources (French forces now numbered about 517,000 men, while the Viet Minh had perhaps 120,000 men), Navarre vowed to go over to the offensive. He ordered the evacuation of a series of small posts, and this was accomplished successfully. At the same time, the State of Vietnam’s army was given more responsibility, although this was a case of too little, too late. Concurrently, Giap was gathering additional resources for a larger invasion of Laos. With five divisions he hoped to overrun all

Indonesia of Laos and perhaps Cambodia, then join up with Viet Minh units in the south for an assault on Saigon itself. In the meantime, some 60,000 guerrillas and five regular regiments would tie down the French in the north. In December 1953 and January 1954 the Viet Minh overran much of southern and central Laos. Navarre’s response was the establishment of an airhead in far northwestern Vietnam astride the main Viet Minh invasion route into Laos. Navarre envisioned this either as a blocking position or as bait to draw some enemy forces into a set-piece conventional battle, in which they would be destroyed by French artillery and airpower. The location that Navarre selected, the village of Dien Bien Phu, was in a large valley, and the French conceded the high ground around it to the Viet Minh. When he was asked later how he got into this position, Navarre said that at the time the French arrived there the Viet Minh did not have artillery, so there was no danger from the heights. It was an astonishing statement. Dien Bien Phu was also a considerable distance, some 200 miles by air, from Hanoi, and the French had only a very limited transport airlift capability (approximately 100 aircraft). Giap took the bait, but he sent four divisions rather than the one that Navarre had envisioned to engage the French at Dien Bien Phu. The siege of the French fortress lasted from March 13 to May 7, 1954. The battle’s outcome was largely decided by two key factors: the Viet Minh’s ability to bring Chinese-supplied artillery to the heights by means of an extensive supply network of coolies (the “People’s Porters,” Giap called them) and the inadequacy of French air support. On May 7 the French garrison surrendered. Although there was some debate in Washington over possible U.S. military intervention (Operation VULTURE), President Dwight D. Eisenhower rejected it because the British refused to go along. The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu allowed political leaders in Paris to shift the blame to the generals and at last bring the war to an end. Attention now turned to a conference previously scheduled in Geneva to deal with a variety of Asian problems. New French premier Pierre Mendès-France imposed a 60-day timetable for an agreement, threatening to resign if one was not reached. The Geneva Accords were signed on the last day of the deadline. The Vietnamese were pressured by China and the Soviet Union into an agreement that gave them less than they had won on the battlefield. Cambodia and Laos were declared independent, but the key provision was recognition of the unity of Vietnam. Pending unification, there were to be an armistice and a temporary dividing line at the 17th Parallel. The agreements also provided for the compulsory regroupment of troops and, if they desired, civilians. Nationwide elections were to be held in two years. Ultimately the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), headed by Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to permit the elections, and the United States supported Diem in his stand. This led to a renewal of the war in an American phase. In the Indochina War, the French and their allies sustained 172,708 casualties: 94,581 dead or missing and 78,127 wounded. These are broken down as 140,992 French Union casualties (75,867 dead or missing and 65,125 wounded), with allied Indochina states

535

losing 31,716 (18,714 dead or missing and 13,002 wounded). Viet Minh losses were perhaps three times those of the French and their allies. Some 25,000 Vietnamese civilians also died. For France, the struggle had been a distant one. Paris had not dared send draftees to Indochina, and the conflict had been fought largely by the professionals. The French government almost immediately transferred these men to Algeria, where another insurrection had broken out. The soldiers pledged that this time there would be no betrayal. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bao Dai; CASTOR, Operation; Casualties; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Elysée Agreement; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Haiphong, Shelling of; Hoa Binh, Battle of; HOANG HOA THAM, Operation; Ho Chi Minh; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; LÉA, Operation; Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe; LE HONG PHONG II, Operation; LORRAINE, Operation; Mendès-France, Pierre; Na San, Battle of; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Ngo Dinh Diem; Truman, Harry S.; Vo Nguyen Giap; VULTURE, Operation References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Dunn, Peter M. The First Vietnam War. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Kelly, George A. Lost Soldiers: The French Army and Empire in Crisis, 1947–1962. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965. Maneli, Mieczyslaw. The War of the Vanquished. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Indochinese Communist Party See Lao Dong Party

Indonesia Predominantly Southeast Asian nation, formerly a Dutch possession, straddling the equator. Indonesia, which had a 1968 population of 117.530 million, is an archipelago of some 17,000 islands (of which only 6,000 are inhabited) and covers 741,096 square miles. It is located amid the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Pacific Ocean south of the Philippines and the Indochinese Peninsula and north of Australia. Indonesia was a member of the International Commission for Control and Supervision, replacing India in 1973.

536

International Commission for Supervision and Control

As a former colonial possession and regional power, the Republic of Indonesia (previously the Dutch East Indies) was necessarily interested in the events of Southeast Asia. Beginning in 1920, the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) led several minor revolts against the Dutch. Other anti-Dutch parties soon followed, including the Indonesian Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia) founded by Sukarno in 1927. During World War II, the Japanese conquered the Dutch East Indies. Following the defeat of Japan, Sukarno and other Indonesian nationalists declared independence on August 17, 1945. Fighting between them and the Dutch and British ensued. The Dutch did not formally surrender their rule until December 1949. Indonesia joined the United Nations (UN) the following year. Relations with the United States deteriorated, and Indonesia moved closer to China. In January 1965 Indonesia withdrew from the UN. Under Sukarno the Indonesian government was critical of U.S. policy in Vietnam, in part because much of Indonesia’s national debt was owed to Communist states. After a bloody 1966 coup, General Suharto seized formal power in 1967. He had commanded troops that had crushed PKI-led uprisings against the continued economic chaos in Indonesia that the government had blamed on the United States. Suharto helped stabilize the economy and moved the country closer to the West, but his long tenure in power was marked by rampant corruption, intimidation, fraud, and rigged elections. In September 1966 Indonesia rejoined the UN. The government even attempted without success to play a peacemaking role in Vietnam. In 1973 Indonesia replaced India as a member of the International Commission for Control and Supervision, a revamped version of the International Commission for Supervision and Control that was mandated in the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. LESLIE-RAHYE STRICKLAND See also Paris Peace Accords References Crouch, Harold. The Army and Politics in Indonesia. Rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988. Osborne, Milton. Southeast Asia: An Illustrated History. 5th ed. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1990. Sievers, Allen M. The Mystical World of Indochina: Culture and Economic Development in Conflict. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Initial Defense Satellite Communications System See Defense Satellite Communications System

Intelligence, Electronic See Electronic Intelligence

International Commission for Supervision and Control Watchdog body established by the 1954 Geneva Conference to oversee implementation of the armistice agreements in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) is frequently referred to simply as the International Control Commission (ICC). Although having largely the same mandate and rules of procedure in the three countries, the ICSC in fact operated independently in each, having its own staff of military and political experts, means of transportation, and offices and housing. The ICSC was made up of India as chair and Canada and Poland as members. A major weakness was that it had no enforcement powers other than sending reports on any armistice violations to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in their continuing role as cochairs of the 1954 Geneva Conference. In Laos the ICSC, although facing a nearly impossible task of verifying the withdrawal of Viet Minh “volunteer” forces across the long and rugged jungle border in accordance with the 1954 provisions, played a useful role in encouraging the Royal Lao Government and the rebel Pathet Lao to open negotiations for reintegration of the latter. The 1957 agreement for a coalition government and full restoration of royal authority in Sam Neua and Phong Saly provinces, where the Pathet Lao had regrouped after the armistice, was due in no small part to the ICSC’s facilitating role of ensuring communications between the two sides and providing security guarantees to Pathet Lao representatives in Vientiane. After Prince Souvanna Phouma declared that the May 1958 elections had fulfilled the obligations assumed by the royal government at Geneva, the ICSC adjourned sine die on July 20, 1958. The ICSC published four interim reports on its activities. The peaceful respite was to be brief. When fighting resumed on a large scale in the spring of 1961, the ICSC was reactivated at the suggestion of Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, thereby meeting a demand of the Communist powers. ICSC delegates were present at the truce talks among the three Laotian factions at Ban Namone and thereafter remained in Laos in accordance with new provisions in the 1962 Geneva Protocol on the Neutrality of Laos. After 1964, however, when it had to remove its field teams from the embattled Plain of Jars, the ICSC played a declining role in the escalating war in Laos. The ICSC finally left Laos following the 1975 Communist takeover there. In Vietnam the ICSC operated under the close surveillance of the rival governments in Saigon and Hanoi. The ICSC was so unpopular that demonstrators ransacked its hotel in Saigon on one occasion, some claimed at the instigation of the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The major question with which the ICSC grappled was to what extent the escalating guerrilla war in South Vietnam was the result of the intervention of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in South Vietnam. The ICSC’s most decisive answer to

International War Crimes Tribunal this question was a special report that it issued, over Polish objections, in June 1962 in which the ICSC accused the Hanoi government of violations of the 1954 agreement with respect to its actions in South Vietnam over and above propaganda broadcasts on Radio Hanoi. On October 17, 1961, Colonel Hoang Thuy Nam, the South Vietnamese officer in charge of liaison with the ICSC, was found assassinated, although Hanoi denied responsibility for the crime. In 1963 the Polish delegate, Mieczyslaw Maneli, was active in a diplomatic move never envisioned in the ICSC mandate. ICSC delegates traveled periodically between Saigon and Hanoi by way of Vientiane, the only diplomats to have such freedom. The Polish delegate acted as an intermediary between South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh when Diem wished to sound out Ho about restoring peace. Nothing came of these soundings, however, before Diem was killed in a November 1963 coup. The ICSC remained in Vietnam until the war escalated beyond retrieval except by negotiations involving the United States, which in 1964 unsuccessfully attempted to use the Canadian delegate, J. Blair Seaborn, as a channel to open talks with Hanoi. In Cambodia the ICSC presence was always at the pleasure of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who fitted it into his overall policy of seeking to maintain a precarious neutrality between more powerful neighbors. The country was at peace, and there was no thorny problem of reintegrating Communist insurgents left over from the Indochina War because they had all departed for the safety of Hanoi. The ICSC was revived from a largely inactive role by Sihanouk’s insistence that it investigate bombings of Cambodian border villages by South Vietnamese and U.S. aircraft (which became more frequent in the 1960s) and condemn them. However, ICSC investigations in the eastern border regions of Cambodia carried the risk of stumbling onto military installations of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) troops, and some believe that it was mainly for this reason that Sihanouk demanded the withdrawal of the ICSC from Cambodia at the end of 1969. Although the ICSC was an integral part of the 1954 Geneva settlement, the overall role of the ICSC in the Vietnam War can be characterized as marginal. Some histories of the war omit mention of it altogether. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Cambodia; Canada; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; India; Laos; Poland; Sihanouk, Norodom; Souvanna Phouma; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Randle, Robert F. Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. Young, Kenneth T. The 1954 Geneva Conference. New York: Greenwood, 1968.

537

International Rescue Committee Humanitarian organization concerned with resettlement of Vietnamese refugees during and after the Vietnam War. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) was organized during World War II for the purpose of assisting the escape and resettlement of intellectuals from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Although the IRC’s primary focus had been Europe, its board of directors recognized the need for humanitarian assistance in Vietnam after the temporary division of the country by the 1954 Geneva Accords resulted in some 40,000–50,000 civilians daily fleeing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The IRC was the first organization to assist these refugees by rushing food, clothing, and medical supplies to refugee camps. After the initial crisis, the IRC focused on education, literacy programs, rural self-help programs, day care centers, orphanages, public sanitation, the establishment of medical facilities, and the coordination of volunteer medical teams. These volunteer medical teams began the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO), which has also sent teams to Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East. With the withdrawal of American troops and the fall of Saigon in 1975, the IRC began locating sponsors and finding employment for the 150,000 Vietnamese refugees who had fled their country within the first 10 weeks of the end of the war. IRC efforts resulted in the relocation of the refugees within a few months. The organization continues to assist refugees around the world. CYNTHIA NORTHRUP See also PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; Refugees and Boat People

References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Operation Passage to Freedom: The United States Navy in Vietnam, 1954–1955. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2007. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

International War Crimes Tribunal Antiwar organization sponsored by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. The International War Crimes Tribunal, also known as the Russell Tribunal, met in May and November 1967 under the direction of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. The tribunal was constituted in 1966 and featured representatives from 18 countries. Among the participants were 25 internationally renowned individuals, including French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Most were from leftist peace organizations, and several were Nobel Prize winners. During the first session in Stockholm, Sweden, the

538

International War Crimes Tribunal

The anti–Vietnam War International War Crimes Tribunal met in Roskilde, Denmark, and on December 1, 1967, announced that it had found the United States guilty of “numerous war crimes” in Vietnam. Here, tribunal president and French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, left, explains the decision. Other jury members shown are, from left to right, Vladimir Dedijer, Laurent Schwartz, and David Dellinger. (AP/Wide World Photos)

panel accused U.S. forces in Vietnam of aggression, waging war against civilians, use of experimental weapons, torture and mutilation of prisoners, and genocide. The second meeting, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, addressed the use of herbicides, chemicals, poison gas, and phosphorus weapons. The conferees also condemned the use of napalm and cluster bombs (CBUs). The tribunal indicted the United States for “genocide” and violations of various international treaties, including the 1907 Hague Convention, the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and the United Nations (UN) Charter. Although the tribunal found the U.S. government guilty of criminal warfare on all charges, its rulings received scant worldwide attention and had minimal impact on U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, the U.S. State Department refused to dignify the proceedings with an official response. The tribunal meetings did not include any members from the United States or Vietnam. The tribunal was revived for meetings in 1974, 1975, and 1976 that dealt chiefly with human rights abuses in Brazil and Chile. In the late 1970s and

early to mid-1980s, other tribunals were held to investigate human rights violations in various parts of the world. The World Tribunal on Iraq, formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was modeled directly after the Russell-sponsored tribunals. LACIE BALLINGER AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Defoliation; Herbicides; Napalm References Clark, Ronald. The Life of Bertrand Russell. London: Jonathan Cape, 1975. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

IRON HAND, Operation See Wild Weasels

IRVING, Operation

Iron Triangle The Iron Triangle was a Viet Cong (VC) base area and sanctuary located 15 miles north of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). Comprising about 125 square miles of scrub jungle and rice paddies, the triangle was bounded on the east by National Highway 13 and the Thi Thanh River and on the southwest by the Saigon River. The thick jungle area nicknamed the Trapezoid west and north of Ben Cat and the Thanh Dien forest lay across the northern side of the triangle. The villages of Ben Suc at the northwest corner, Ben Cat at the northeast corner, and Phu Cuong at the southeast corner marked the points of the triangle. Ben Suc was for a time the location of the VC’s Military Region IV headquarters, which was responsible for the area in and around the city of Saigon. In January 1967 Operation CEDAR FALLS was launched to eliminate the Iron Triangle as a VC base area. The native residents were evacuated, villages were razed, hundreds of acres of jungle were cut back by Rome plows, and the tunnel systems lying underneath were destroyed. The Iron Triangle became a wasteland under the surveillance of U.S. bombers and artillery. This did not keep the Communists from returning there, however.

539

By 1995 the Iron Triangle area had been resettled, the village of Ben Suc on the Saigon River was again a thriving fishing and agricultural area, and the jungle had reclaimed the wasteland. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Ben Suc; CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam References Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

IRVING,

Operation

Start Date: October 1, 1966 End Date: October 24, 1966 Military operation in October 1966 between U.S. Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army)

Troops check for Communist soldiers during a patrol in Qui Nhon, South Vietnam. More than 1,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) troops and members of the Viet Cong infrastructure were captured by U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldiers during Operation IRVING in October 1966. (National Archives)

540

IRVING, Operation

forces and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Operation IRVING occurred during October 1–24 in an area of southeastern Binh Dinh Province bounded by the South China Sea, the Phu Cat Mountains to the south, and the Mieu Mountains to the north. Technically an extension of Operation THAYER I, which began in September, IRVING developed as units of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) forced the 18th Regiment of the PAVN 3rd Division to retreat from the Kim Son Valley east to the densely populated coastal plain. As elements of the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) Capital Division and the ARVN 22nd Division moved into blocking positions from the south, a reconnaissance team of the U.S. 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1-9 Cavalry), discovered an unknown number of entrenched PAVN forces. Supported by artillery, helicopter gunships, and naval gunfire, five battalions of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st and 3rd brigades were inserted by air from the west and north. They immediately found themselves engaged in pitched battles with heavily armed soldiers of the PAVN 18th Regiment and a local Viet Cong (VC) force. The heaviest fighting occurred when Lieutenant Colonel James T. Root Jr.’s 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry (1-12 Infantry), entrapped several companies of the 7th and 8th battalions of the PAVN 18th Regiment in the coastal village of Hoa Hoi. As the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry (1-5 Cavalry), was inserted to complete the encirclement, hundreds of civilians were permitted to exit the village safely. In the ensuing battle, 1st Cavalry infantry and artillery killed more than 200 Communist troops while themselves suffering only 3 dead and 29 wounded.

During its 23-day duration, IRVING produced 681 known Communist casualties and more than 1,000 prisoners identified as PAVN regulars or members of the VC infrastructure, the first time in a 1st Cavalry operation that the number of captured outnumbered those killed. Remarkably, 1st Cavalry forces suffered fewer than 40 killed or wounded. An intensive psychological warfare effort by civic action teams generated more than 10,000 refugees, while only 10 civilians died. At the time, IRVING was recognized as a brilliant display of air mobility. To that date, it was the most successful combined operation for the 1st Cavalry Division working with allied forces. Nevertheless, the remaining units of the PAVN 18th Regiment were able to exfiltrate to the Kim Son and Suoi Ca areas. During Operation THAYER II that followed, 1st Cavalry Division troops failed to track down these units, but they did uncover caches of nearly 100 weapons, 170,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, and several tons of rice. JOHN D. ROOT See also Air Mobility; Korea, Republic of; MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation; PERSHING, Operation; Psychological Warfare Operations; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Marshall, S. L. A. The Fields of Bamboo. New York: Dial, 1967. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

J Jackson State College Shootings Event Date: May 14, 1970 Predominant African American academic institution and site of unrest that resulted in the deaths of two students. On May 14, 1970, 10 days after the tragic killings at Kent State University, a similar incident took place at Jackson State College, located in Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson State College had been founded in 1877 as a private seminary for African Americans. In 1940 the State of Mississippi assumed control of the school, and its chief mission became one of educating primary and secondary school teachers. In the 1950s its curriculum was broadened to include numerous other disciplines and a graduate program. The school officially became Jackson State College in 1956. In 1974 its name again changed to Jackson State University in acknowledgment of its wider curriculum and numerous graduate programs. Since 1965 there had been instability each spring at Jackson State. The issues were antiwar protests, racial injustice, and alleged harassment of students by white motorists on Lynch Street, the major thoroughfare that divided the campus and linked western Jackson to downtown. During May 14–15, 1970, Jackson State students were protesting these issues as well as the May 4, 1970, tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio. After two nights of campus demonstrations, a violent confrontation occurred on May 14, 1970, sparked by a rumor that Fayette, Mississippi, mayor Charles Evers (brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers) and his wife had been shot and killed. A group of nonstudents began throwing rocks at white motorists on Lynch Street, which bisected the campus. Student demonstrators then set several fires and overturned a dump truck left on campus during a construction project. Jackson firefighters extinguishing the fires

requested police backup support when they were harangued by demonstrators. Claiming that they had come under fire from a sniper, police and state highway patrolmen fired into a dormitory, killing 2 students and wounding 12 others. Twenty-eight seconds of gunfire left Phillip Gibbs, a married 20-year-old junior and father of an 18-month-old son, dead from a shotgun blast, while James Earl Green, a high school student, was slain after trying to escape across nearby Lynch Street. No warning had been given, and despite a thorough investigation by the Commission on Campus Unrest, no evidence was ever found of student sniping that might have justified the killings. This incident at Jackson State, coupled with the Kent State shootings and protests on other college campuses across the country, exacerbated an already tumultuous situation. Although students at Jackson State were concerned about racial injustice and the war in Vietnam, according to the college’s president there were no large-scale civil rights or antiwar organizations on the campus. The Jackson State incident is significant because it evoked little national attention, unlike Kent State. More importantly, the shootings at Jackson State had a long-term effect, as many Americans believed that the killing of black students was not taken as seriously as that of whites. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Kent State University Shootings References President’s Commission on Campus Unrest. Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest. New York: Arno, 1970. Spofford, Tim. Lynch Street: The May 1970 Slayings at Jackson State College. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988.

542

JACKSTAY, Operation

JACKSTAY,

Operation

Start Date: March 26, 1966 End Date: April 7, 1966 Major U.S. Navy and Marine Corps amphibious operation and the first involving forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation JACKSTAY occurred in the Rung Sat Special Zone during March 26–April 7, 1966. The Rung Sat Special Zone was an area of some 300 square miles of swampy land and canals on either side of the Saigon River, the vital logistics link between the city of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) and the sea. The Rung Sat was largely inundated at high tide. The operation involved the Seventh Fleet’s Special Landing Force as well as other U.S. marine, navy, army units and South Vietnamese navy and marine units. In early 1966 the Communists secured practical control of the Rung Sat Special Zone, as was demonstrated in attacks against merchant shipping en route to Saigon in the Saigon River in late February and early March. The last of these occurred on March 2, when the Panamanian transport Paloma was attacked and set afire. As a result of the attacks, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), requested that the Seventh Fleet’s Special Landing Force be committed to an operation in the Rung Sat Special Zone for a duration of about 10 days. Planning for the operation began on March 10, 1966, at the Naval Advisory Group headquarters at MACV. The operation commenced on March 26 with a landing on the Long Thanh peninsula some 30 miles southeast of Saigon. The naval force assigned was the Seventh Fleet’s Ready Amphibious Force consisting of the flagship USS Princeton (the former aircraft carrier CV-37 and now designated helicopter carrier LPH5), the Alamo (LSD-33), and the Pickaway (APA-222). Supporting were the Weiss (APD-135), with an underwater demolition team embarked; the Merrick (AKA-97); the Henry County (LST-824); the Washoe County (LST-1165); and the Reclaimer (ARS-42). The guided missile destroyer Robinson (DDG-12) provided naval gunfire support, while aircraft from the carrier Hancock (CVA-19) provided regular air support. Following the initial landing, U.S. forces carried out a large number of helicopter and surface landings in the Rung Sat. Ships in the river and coastal patrol craft supported these. JACKSTAY was the most southerly commitment of U.S. forces in Vietnam to that point. The operation is also significant as the first joint U.S.–South Vietnamese amphibious operation of the war, for on March 31 Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) River Assault Groups provided screening and minesweeping escort for U.S. marines in landing craft in a 24-boat convoy that worked its way seven miles down the narrow Vam Sat River in what was JACKSTAY’s deepest penetration. The extraction of the U.S. marines on April 7 effectively signaled the end of JACKSTAY. The operation resulted in the capture and destruction of three Communist base areas serving a reported

A U.S. Navy gunner mans his .50-caliber machine gun on a utility boat during a patrol in the Rung Sat Special Zone southeast of Saigon during Operation JACKSTAY, March 26, 1966. (National Archives)

1,000 Viet Cong (VC). Sixty-six weapons were recovered along with stocks of rice and fresh water. Announced casualties were 63 VC dead against U.S. casualties of 5 killed, 2 missing, and 25 wounded. Although the Rung Sat was only temporarily cleared and not held, the marines had demonstrated their ability to move freely in the area and thus reduced the threat to the river lifeline to Saigon. Following Operation JACKSTAY, allied river craft maintained a regular presence and carried out patrols in the Rung Sat. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Riverine Warfare; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps References Christopher, Ralph. Duty Honor Sacrifice: Brown Water Sailors and Army River Raiders. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982.

James, Daniel, Jr.

Jacobson, George D. Birth Date: 1913 Death Date: May 18, 1989 U.S. Army officer and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) official. George D. Jacobson joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and served with an armored cavalry unit in France and Germany during World War II. He arrived in Vietnam in 1954 as a special assistant to U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) commander Major General John W. (“Iron Mike”) O’Daniel, and by 1962 Jacobson headed MAAG’s Organization and Training Division under Lieutenant General Charles J. Timmes. Jacobson retired from the army as a colonel in 1964 and arranged the following year to work for USAID on pacification projects. At the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive, he was coordinator of the Mission Council. After the Tet Offensive, Jacobson held a key position in the pacification program as assistant chief of staff for CORDS under William Colby. Jacobson succeeded Colby as head of CORDS in 1971. After the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, Jacobson served as special assistant to the ambassador for Field Operations, the successor organization to CORDS. Jacobson was known for his coolness under pressure. During the Tet Offensive, a Viet Cong (VC) raiding party entered the U.S. embassy compound in Saigon, trapping him alone in his residence on the embassy grounds. With a pistol that a military police officer tossed to him through a window, Jacobson, in an exchange of gunfire at point-blank range, shot and killed the VC guerrilla who was stalking him. Jacobson was one of the last Americans to leave Saigon in April 1975. He died in Washington, D.C., on May 18, 1989. RICHARD A. HUNT See also Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Colby, William Egan; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; O’Daniel, John Wilson; Pacification; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Agency for International Development References Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.

James, Daniel, Jr. Birth Date: February 11, 1920 Death Date: February 25, 1978 U.S. Air Force combat pilot in Korea and Vietnam and America’s first African American full (four-star) general. Born the last in a

543

family of 17 children in Pensacola, Florida, on February 11, 1920, Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. graduated from Washington High School in 1937. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1942 along with his pilot’s license under the Civilian Pilot Training Program. He served as a flight instructor for Army Air Corps cadets until being accepted into the Army Aviation Cadet program in January 1943. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in July 1943, James received fighter pilot training. During the last two years of World War II he trained fighter pilots. He also participated in a black officers’ civil rights sit-in at the white officers’ club at Freeman Field in Seymour, Indiana, in April 1945. In 1949 James became flight leader in the 12th Fighter Bomber Squadron in the Philippines. Captain James flew 101 combat missions during the Korean War before being assigned in July 1951 to a fighter squadron in Massachusetts; he was also promoted to major. James then attended the Air Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, during 1956–1957. In 1957 he moved to Washington as a staff officer in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. This was followed by a succession of command and staff appointments. In 1967 James, as vice commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing in Thailand, flew 78 combat missions over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He returned to the United States briefly in 1969, but in August he took command of Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya, the largest American air base outside of the United States. He proved adept at handling relations with the military junta that had just seized control of the country. In March 1970 James, by then a brigadier general, was assigned to the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, a job that required him to talk to students on college campuses throughout the country during the height of the Vietnam War protests. James’s rhetoric and booming voice made him an eloquent spokesman. He was promoted to three-star rank and in 1974 became vice commander of the Military Airlift Command at Scott Air Base in Illinois. In 1975 James was promoted to fourstar general and was assigned as commander in chief of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, where he was responsible for the operational command of all U.S. and Canadian strategic aerospace defense forces. James retired from the U.S. Air Force in early February 1978 and shortly thereafter suffered a fatal heart attack in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on February 25, 1978. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also African Americans in the U.S. Military References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977.

544

Japan

U.S. Air Force general Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. was the first African American to achieve the rank of full (four-star) general. Throughout his long career, sometimes laced with racism, James never swerved from what he deemed the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not quit.” James is shown here in the Cheyenne Mountain command post in 1976. (Department of Defense)

Phelps, J. Alfred. Chappie, America’s First Black Four Star General: The Life and Times of Daniel James, Jr. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1991.

Japan East Asian nation with a 1968 population of 101,961 million people. Japan encompasses 145,883 square miles and is an archipelago separated from the east coast of Asia by the Sea of Japan. The island nation also borders the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Philippine Sea and the East China Sea to the south and southwest. Japan is a constitutional monarchy; however, the emperor’s function is largely symbolic and ceremonial. The head of government, the prime minister, wields most of the executive power. He is selected by the emperor based upon the makeup of political power in the Diet (Japanese parliament). The Japanese political landscape features a multiparty system in which the major political parties either seek a majority in the Diet or form alliances to attain a working majority. Japan had a considerable impact on the Vietnam conflict both before and during the critical years of U.S. involvement. The Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) forever de-

molished the image of European military invincibility and inspired Asian nationalists everywhere, including those in Vietnam. During their occupation of Vietnam in World War II, the Japanese provided an additional, if unintentional, boost to Vietnamese nationalism. Also, protection of Japan and its access to markets was a major factor in the U.S. decision to intervene in Vietnam after the French withdrawal. Finally, Japan served as a critical staging area for U.S. forces in the prosecution of the Vietnam War, while Japanese companies provided U.S. armed forces with supplies, ranging from body bags to chewing gum, that averaged $1 billion per year between 1966 and 1971. The Viet Minh formed as a nationalistic front in the wake of Japan’s seizure of Southeast Asia in 1940. Although many Vietnamese nationalists welcomed the Japanese as liberators, Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communists were as wary of Japanese imperialism as they were of French colonialism. The Viet Minh deliberately masked its Communist roots to appeal to the broad patriotic feelings stirred up in the Vietnamese people by the Japanese. As a result, the Viet Minh established itself as the principal organ of Vietnamese resistance and nationalism during World War II and after. The Viet Minh gathered popular support, gained experience as the de facto government of several provinces, and sharpened

Jaunissement guerrilla techniques that later proved successful against the French and the Americans. Although the well-disciplined Japanese soldiers rarely committed crimes against individual Vietnamese, many Vietnamese blamed the Japanese Army for the 1945 famine in Tonkin that killed an estimated several million people. Indeed, the famine resulted in large part from the Japanese requisitions of large amounts of rice and ordering farmers to grow jute instead of rice. Following Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, hundreds of Japanese soldiers joined the victorious Viet Minh forces rather than surrender to Allied forces. Japanese deserters made important contributions to the fledgling Viet Minh armed forces by serving as military trainers, tactical advisers, and reconnaissance and heavy weapons specialists up through 1950, when Chinese Communist military advisers began arriving to assist Viet Minh forces. After the signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords, those who survived were repatriated to Japan, where several (including Koshiro Iwai and Nakahara Mitsunobu) became prominent supporters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). After World War II, Japan became the most important Asian ally of the United States and as such also provided a major rationale for U.S. intervention. During the Cold War, the U.S. antiSoviet containment policy predicted that Southeast Asian states would fall like dominoes if only one went the way of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). American leaders argued that intervention was necessary to protect Japan and to maintain access—for both the United States and Japan—to neighboring resources and markets. Japan served as a vital staging area for U.S. forces in Vietnam, providing ports, repair and rebuild facilities, supply dumps, airports, and hospitals critical to the U.S. military effort. Despite a growing Japanese protest movement, the United States used the bases provided by the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty to dispatch troops and supplies to the war zone. The United States interpreted the terms of the security treaty as broadly as possible to support almost unrestricted operations out of the 88 U.S. bases in Japan. Although Article IX of the Japanese Constitution prohibited direct Japanese involvement in the Vietnam War, Tokyo tolerated Washington’s approach because Japanese businesses reaped huge profits by supplying U.S. forces both directly, with a broad range of supplies, and indirectly, with weapon components and ammunition. NOEL D. FULTON See also Domino Theory; Korea, Republic of; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present; Viet Minh

545

References Blaker, Michael, ed. Development Assistance to Southeast Asia: The U.S. and Japanese Approaches. New York: Columbia University Press, East Asian Institute, 1984. Gordon, Andrew, ed. Postwar Japan as History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Goscha, Christopher E. “Belated Allies: The Technical and Military Contributions of Japanese Deserters to the Viet Minh (1945–1950).” In A Companion to the Vietnam War, edited by Marilyn B. Young and Robert Buzzanco, 37–64. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2006. Havens, Thomas R. Fire across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan 1965–1975. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996.

Jaunissement French term used to describe the Vietnamization of the 1946– 1954 Indochina War. The Elysée Agreements of March 8, 1949, had called for the creation of a Vietnamese National Army. Paris lauded this as proof that Vietnam was independent, and the agreement helped convince Washington that the war in Indochina had been transformed into a civil war between Vietnamese democrats and Vietnamese Communists rather than being a colonial conflict. Proof that the new State of Vietnam was not independent is evident in the fact that the Vietnamese National Army was completely controlled and officered by the French. The French attitude was shown by French commander in chief in Indochina General Marcel Carpentier when he told U.S. major general Graves B. Erskine that Vietnamese troops would not make good soldiers and were not to be trusted on their own. Erskine said that he replied, “General Carpentier, who in hell are you fighting but Vietnamese?” The French also insisted that all U.S. military support be channeled only to the French. Carpentier said that if this was not done he would resign within 24 hours. Carpentier’s successor, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, pushed le jaunissement, creating wholly Vietnamese units commanded by Vietnamese officers. At the same time, however, he was adamant that France retain overall authority and that the United States channel all aid through the French authorities in Indochina. Perhaps it was already too late. Hopes of the French attracting nationalists to their cause had already been lost, as most Vietnamese nationalists rallied to the Viet Minh. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Carpentier, Marcel; France, Army, 1946–1954; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de References Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

546

Javits, Jacob Koppel

Javits, Jacob Koppel Birth Date: May 18, 1904 Death Date: March 7, 1986 U.S. senator and sponsor of the 1973 War Powers Act that restricted presidential war-making authority. Born in New York City on May 18, 1904, Jacob Koppel Javits received a law degree from New York City University in 1927 and then practiced law. He served with the U.S. Army in World War II and afterward won election to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York City as a Republican in 1946. In 1954 he was elected New York State attorney general. In 1956 Javits won election to the U.S. Senate from New York. A skillful politician, a natural negotiator, and a liberal when it was acceptable within the Republican Party, Javits relied on solid support in New York City. Two of his favorite issues were civil rights and presidential war-making powers. Javits was the leading Senate Republican critic of the Vietnam War. He voted for both the Cooper-Church Amendment and the Hatfield-McGovern Amendment. In 1970 following the allied incursion into Cambodia, Javits sponsored legislation to restrict presidential war-making authority. What became known as the War Powers Act, passed on November 7, 1973, over President Richard M. Nixon’s veto, requires

that the president consult with Congress before military forces are sent into combat abroad or to areas where hostilities are likely and to report in writing within 48 hours after troops are deployed. The president must then terminate the use of military force within 60 to 90 days. Deployment can continue for another 60 days and for an additional 30 days beyond that if the president certifies to Congress in writing that the safety of the force so requires. Unless Congress authorizes a continuation, through a declaration of war, a concurrent resolution, or other appropriate legislation, the deployment cannot be continued beyond 90 days. Javits explained the reasons behind the act in his 1970 book Who Makes War: The President versus Congress. In 1980 Javits lost his reelection bid in the New York Republican primary. He died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 7, 1986, of a heart attack brought on by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Church Amendment; Fulbright, James William; Hatfield, Mark Odom; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Kennedy, Edward Moore; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; McGovern, George Stanley; Morse, Wayne Lyman References Fisher, Louis. Presidential War Power. Rev. ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Javits, Jacob K., with Donald Kellerman. Who Makes War: The President versus Congress. New York: William Morrow, 1973. Javits, Jacob K., with Rafael Steinberg. Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Stern, Gary M., and Morton Halperin, ed. The U.S. Constitution and the Power to Go to War: Historical and Current Perspectives. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994.

JEFFERSON GLENN,

Operation

Start Date: September 5, 1970 End Date: October 8, 1971

Jacob Javits served longer in the U.S. Senate than any other New York congressman, from 1956 to 1981. He was the leading Republican critic of the Vietnam War in the Senate and introduced the War Powers Resolution in 1970. (U.S. Senate)

Last major U.S. ground combat operation of the Vietnam War. Following the early 1971 failure of Operation LAM SON 719, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) gradually disengaged from aggressive field operations in accordance with the decreasing combat role of U.S. ground forces. On September 5, 1970, however, three battalions from the 101st Airborne Division inaugurated Operation JEFFERSON GLENN, establishing fire-support bases in the coastal lowlands of Thua Thien Province. Their objective was to shield both Thua Thien and Quang Tri provinces by patrolling the so-called Communist rocket belts that threatened critical installations. As JEFFERSON GLENN continued, the 101st Airborne Division gradually disengaged and turned the fighting over to Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops. The 101st

Jiang Jieshi

547

Airborne Division and the ARVN 1st Infantry Division claimed a total of 2,026 casualties inflicted on People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) forces before JEFFERSON GLENN was finally terminated on October 8, 1971. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Airborne Operations; Air Mobility; LAM SON 719, Operation; Vietnamization References Fulghum, David, and Terrence Maitland. South Vietnam on Trial, Mid-1970 to 1972. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Jiang Jieshi Birth Date: October 30, 1887 Death Date: April 5, 1975 Chinese general, leader of the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalists), and president of the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan). Born to a merchant family on October 30, 1887, at Xikou, Fenghua County, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) was determined to become a military officer. He passed the competitive entrance examinations and began his military instruction in 1906 at China’s prestigious Baoding (Paoting) Military Academy in Hebei Province. He was then selected by the faculty to go to Japan to attend the Preparatory Military Academy in Tokyo. While in Tokyo, Jiang met several key members of China’s revolutionary party, the Tongmenghui (Dongmenghui, Alliance Society or United League), and developed the political and military associations that would involve him over the next several years in the founding and consolidation of the ROC in the aftermath of the 1911 revolution. His military prowess and political sense eventually led to his leadership role in the military arm of the GMD. In 1924 Jiang became the commandant of the GMD’s Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou (Canton). Upon the death of GMD leader Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen) in 1925, Jiang’s influence in the party increased, and he became the leader of the GMD. He purged the Communists from the GMD, culminating in the 1927 Shanghai Massacre. With the success of his Northern Expedition during 1926 and 1927 against the weak government in Beijing (Peking) and various powerful warlords, Jiang not only consolidated his power as the leader of the GMD but in 1928 also reunited northern and southern China and established a republican government in Nanjing. Jiang then worked to cement his power. After the 1937 beginning of the Sino-Japanese War, Jiang’s government was forced by the Japanese to retreat from Nanjing to the more defensible city of Chongqing in Sichuan Province. Jiang then formed a temporary anti-Japanese United Front with Mao Zedong,

Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), the pre-Communist leader of China. Jiang and his Nationalist Party supporters were forced to flee the mainland for Taiwan in 1949 when the Communists came to power under Mao Zedong. Jieshi ruled Taiwan until his death in 1975. (Library of Congress)

leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With the end of World War II, however, civil war erupted in 1945 between the two parties. Jiang’s refusal to institute reforms until after the war was won was a major factor in the Communist victory in the autumn of 1949. The Nationalists fled mainland China to the island of Taiwan, where Jiang served as president of the rump ROC government until his death in 1975. The October 1949 proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had a direct impact on the Viet Minh’s struggle for Vietnam because China could now provide the Vietnamese nationalists with a secure base area and a steady stream of supplies. After the Korean War began in June 1950, the United States took measures to safeguard Jiang’s regime on Taiwan and thereafter sold it substantial quantities of military hardware. The Americans also pledged to protect Taiwan from Chinese aggression into the early 1970s until warming relations between Beijing and Washington forced at least a rhetorical change in U.S. policy. Thereafter the United States attempted to distance itself from Taiwan, and in 1979 President Jimmy Carter terminated official U.S. recognition of the ROC. In August 1958 fierce fighting broke out between China and Taiwan over the tiny islands of Quemoy and Matsu, located in the Taiwan Strait. These islands were the Nationalist government’s

548

Johnson, Harold Keith

closest military strongholds to the Chinese mainland. Although this struggle quickly ended in stalemate, it proved that China was willing to support a more aggressive military policy against Taiwan. This military confrontation increased concern in the United States that China might also adopt a more expansionist foreign policy in Southeast Asia. When China increased its aid to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during the 1960s, Jiang publicly accused Mao Zedong of trying to use the Vietnamese conflict to divert U.S. military forces away from China. According to Jiang, final resolution of the Vietnam War could only be brought about if the United States helped the Nationalists take mainland China from the Communists, of which Washington wanted no part. Jiang also embraced the socalled domino theory, warning that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, other Southeast Asian countries would soon follow. Meanwhile, thanks to U.S. aid and support, Jiang was able to build a modern and prosperous free-market economy, which permitted him to put in place political and agricultural reforms that earned him renewed credibility in the international arena. Regardless, Jiang’s rule still bordered on dictatorial, and true political freedom on Taiwan did not blossom until after his death. Although Jiang did not play a direct political or military role in the Vietnam War, Taiwan became an important Pacific base for the United States. Taiwanese industry provided essential goods and services to the American military. Finally, Taiwan was a popular rest and relaxation (R&R) destination for GIs on leave from Vietnam. Jiang died in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 5, 1975. BRUCE ELLEMAN See also Carter, James Earl, Jr.; China, People’s Republic of; China, Republic of; Chinese in Vietnam; Domino Theory; Mao Zedong References Chiang Kai-shek. Soviet Russia in China. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1957. Crozier, Brian. The Man Who Lost China: The First Full Biography of Chiang Kai-shek. New York: Scribner, 1976. Fenby, Jonathan. Chiang Kai-Shek: China’s Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. New York: Da Capo, 2005. Fenby, Jonathan. Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the China He Lost. London: Free Press, 2003. Hu Pu-yu. The Military Exploits and Deeds of President Chiang Kai-shek. Taipei, Taiwan: Chung Wu Publishing, 1971. Loh, Pichon. The Early Chiang Kai-shek. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.

Johnson, Harold Keith Birth Date: February 22, 1912 Death Date: September 24, 1983 U.S. Army chief of staff (1964–1968). Born on February 22, 1912, in Bowesmont, North Dakota, Harold Keith Johnson graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1933 and was

commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. In 1938 he graduated from the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia. On the eve of World War II, he was stationed in the Philippines with a regiment of Philippine Scouts. He assumed battalion command shortly before U.S. and Filipino forces there were overwhelmed by the invading Japanese. Taken prisoner, Johnson survived the infamous Bataan Death March. He then spent three and a half years in a succession of prison camps and was close to death when liberation came. After World War II Johnson fought his way back to professional prominence, earning the Distinguished Service Cross as a regimental commander early in the Korean War. In 1953 he graduated from the Naval War College and in 1956 was promoted to brigadier general. He held a series of successively more responsible positions and in 1959 was promoted to major general. After serving as commandant of the Command and General Staff College for three years, in 1963 he was promoted to lieutenant general. In 1964 Johnson was selected from far down the list of lieutenant generals for promotion to four stars and assignment as army chief of staff at a most critical point, when American involvement in Vietnam began to accelerate. It fell to Johnson to manage a huge and rapid expansion of the army for the war. To do this without resorting to the mobilization of reserve forces proved a daunting task that he handled with characteristic energy and conscientiousness. Publicly, Johnson supported General William Westmoreland’s tactics and repeated requests for additional troops, but negative findings in a study that Johnson had ordered in the spring of 1965—the Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN)—reinforced his own misgivings about how the war was being conducted, and he worked behind the scenes to get the tactics changed, the commander replaced, or both. When General Creighton Abrams took over the top post in Vietnam in 1968, he essentially put into effect PROVN’s findings, with results that vindicated Johnson’s judgment. Widely admired for his dedication and ethical standards, Johnson retired from military service in 1968 and for several years headed the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He died of cancer in Washington, D.C., on September 24, 1983. LEWIS SORLEY See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; Westmoreland, William Childs References Johnson, Harold K. Challenge: Compendium of Army Accomplishment; A Report by the Chief of Staff, July 1964–April 1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, July 1, 1968. McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Sorley, Lewis. Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines

Johnson, Lyndon Baines Birth Date: August 27, 1908 Death Date: January 22, 1973 Congressman, senator, vice president, and president (1963–1969) of the United States. Born in Stonewall in the Texas Hill country near Austin on August 27, 1908, Lyndon Baines Johnson became secretary to Texas congressman Richard Kleburg following graduation from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1930. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Johnson Texas administrator of the National Youth Administration in 1935. Two years later he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served very briefly in the U.S. Navy during World War II and in 1948 was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1953 he became Senate minority leader and in 1955 became Senate majority leader. As minority leader during the 1954 Dien Bien Phu crisis, Johnson opposed unilateral U.S. intervention. Later, despite opposition from other southerners in the Senate, he was instrumental in securing passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. He sought the Democratic nomination for the 1960 presidential election but lost to Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy, who chose Johnson as his vice presidential running mate largely to help balance the

549

ticket. Following Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, Johnson took the oath of office aboard the presidential plane, Air Force One. As president Johnson tried to establish what he termed “the Great Society,” an ambitious program of civil rights legislation and social welfare programs. Using his considerable legislative skill and the reverence attached to the memory of the slain Kennedy, Johnson won passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. He declared a “War on Poverty” and secured passage of the Economic Opportunity Act. Soundly defeating Republican senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential race, Johnson used his popularity and the large Democratic majority in Congress to push through the Medicare Act of 1965, federal aid to education, increased funds for the War on Poverty, and enactment of consumer protection laws and environmental protection laws. In 1965 Johnson personally appeared before Congress to urge passage of the Voting Rights Act. The act became law that same year. Johnson was less deft and less successful in foreign relations, however. In January 1964 Panamanians rioted against the U.S. presence there and demanded U.S. withdrawal. Skirmishes with U.S. soldiers resulted in the deaths of 4 U.S. soldiers and 20 Panamanians. The Panamanian government then broke relations with

U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson greets American troops in Vietnam in 1966. The Vietnam War shaped Johnson’s entire presidency and overshadowed his considerable achievements in domestic policy. (National Archives)

550

Johnson, Lyndon Baines

Results of the 1964 U.S. Presidential Election Popular Vote Candidate Lyndon Baines Johnson Barry Morris Goldwater Eric Hass Other candidates

Party

Electoral Votes

Number

Percentage

Democratic Republican Socialist Labor Various

486 52 0 0

43,127,041 27,175,754 45,189 303,314

61.1% 38.5% 0.0% 0.4%

the United States for three months. In April 1965 Johnson ordered the landing of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Dominican Republic, fearing that Dominican internal strife posed a danger to Americans there and might result in a Communist takeover. During the June 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli jets attacked the U.S. intelligence ship USS Liberty off the Sinai coast, killing 10 crew members and wounding 100. The Six-Day War also produced strained relations with the Soviet Union, which supported the Arab states. Johnson made an effort to thaw the Cold War in a meeting to discuss nuclear weapons and other issues with Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey, in June 1967, but Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia led to postponement of substantive follow-up negotiations. It was the war in Vietnam, however, that consumed Johnson’s energy and ultimately his presidency. Johnson, who fervently believed in containment and the domino theory, saw Vietnam as a test of national resolve. His foreign policy advisers (many of them retained from the Kennedy administration) shared his views. Moreover, Johnson had been in Congress when China became Communist in 1949, and he vividly recalled the domestic political turmoil that followed as Republicans attacked Democrats for “losing” China. He informed one biographer that the fall of China to the Communists ended the effectiveness of the Harry S. Truman administration and was a factor in the rise of McCarthyism. Johnson would not, he vowed, “be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” Soon after taking office, Johnson began escalating the war in Vietnam. In February 1964 he authorized Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34A, providing U.S. support for raids by forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In April he appointed General William C. Westmoreland as U.S. commander in Vietnam. In June, Johnson replaced Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge with General Maxwell Taylor. Both Westmoreland and Taylor favored increased troop levels in Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964 was a crucial event in the war’s escalation. In retaliation for reported attacks on U.S. destroyers, President Johnson ordered bombing of North Vietnamese naval bases and oil depots. He also asked Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing him to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” The measure passed the House by a vote of 416 to 0 and the Senate by a vote of 88

to 2, with dissenting votes by Democratic senators Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon. There was virtually no floor debate on the resolution. In the years that followed, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was used to justify presidential war making in Vietnam. In February 1965 Johnson ordered retaliatory bombing of North Vietnam after Communist forces attacked U.S. military posts at Pleiku and Qui Nhon. When presidential adviser McGeorge Bundy, after a visit to Vietnam, warned Johnson that without increased U.S. action defeat appeared inevitable within a year, Johnson commenced Operation ROLLING THUNDER, regular (rather than reprisal) air strikes on North Vietnam. Along with intensified bombing came increased troop commitments. The same month that ROLLING THUNDER began, Westmoreland requested and received troop increases. In April 1965 Johnson approved Westmoreland’s request to use U.S. forces for offensive operations anywhere in South Vietnam. An important turning point came in July 1965, when Johnson announced that U.S. forces there would be increased from 75,000 to 125,000 men, with additional troops to be provided as Westmoreland requested them. The war now became increasingly Americanized. Before the close of Johnson’s presidency in January 1969, there were more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam. Johnson frequently expressed desire for peace. In a speech at Johns Hopkins University on April 7, 1965, he offered to open discussions and suggested a Southeast Asia economic development plan that would include North Vietnam. On May 10 he called the first of several bombing halts, but when Hanoi did not respond, air strikes resumed. In 1966 an attempt by Polish diplomat Janusz Lewandowski to initiate discussions between the countries, code-named Operation MARIGOLD, failed after several months’ effort. Speaking in San Antonio on September 29, 1967, Johnson offered to stop air and naval attacks on North Vietnam in exchange for a promise not to take advantage of the halt to infiltrate men and supplies into South Vietnam. Hanoi refused, insisting that discussions could not take place until the United States stopped bombing without conditions. The war had a devastating impact on Johnson’s Great Society program and the U.S. economy as a whole. The cost of the war forced steady cutbacks in programs and promoted inflation. Johnson agreed to a $6 billion budget reduction in nondefense spending in 1967 and the next year imposed a 10 percent tax surcharge. The U.S. international balance-of-payments deficit, not caused but rather aggravated by the war, and devaluation of the British pound in November 1967 contributed to a run on the U.S. dollar and a

Johnson, Lyndon Baines gold crisis in March 1968. The federal deficit grew from $8.7 billion in 1967 to $25.2 billion in 1968. By 1968, the Johnson administration suffered from a credibility gap resulting from public disillusion produced by falsely optimistic statements about the war. Opposition to the Vietnam War soon developed at home. College students and faculty members began teach-ins against the war in 1964, and they were joined by others as the war continued. Democratic senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, began hearings on the war in 1966. George F. Kennan, father of the containment doctrine, was among those who appeared before the committee to criticize the war. In October 1967, 100,000 war protestors gathered in Washington, D.C. Passionate debate also swirled inside the Johnson administration. Undersecretary of State George W. Ball opposed the war early on, informing Johnson in a meeting on July 21, 1965, that it would be “long and protracted with heavy casualties.” Ball continued to argue against escalation until he resigned in 1966. Presidential adviser Clark Clifford, in a letter dated May 17, 1965, cautioned Johnson to keep ground forces in Vietnam to a minimum and warned that the U.S. presence there could turn into a “quagmire.” In a conference at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, on July 25, 1965, Clifford argued that the United States could lose 50,000 troops and spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a war that could not be won. By the spring of 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, once a proponent of escalation, recommended restricting bombing and limiting troop levels. He soon resigned in protest. These war critics were opposed by General Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), who continued to press for a more intensive ground war involving additional troops and increased bombing. It was during this period, in November 1967, that Johnson asked Clifford to arrange a meeting of a group of elder statesmen headed by Dean Acheson, subsequently dubbed the “Wise Men,” to advise him on Vietnam policy. In their meeting with the president on November 21, they offered divided opinions that bolstered Johnson’s determination to continue the war. The January 1968 Tet Offensive caused Johnson to reevaluate the war. When General Westmoreland requested another 205,000 troops after Tet to take the offensive against Communist forces, the president asked Clifford—who had just replaced McNamara as secretary of defense—to head a task force examining the request. The task force offered a dramatic reassessment of Vietnam, recommending only a 20,000-man increase there and urging increased responsibility for the war effort by the South Vietnamese government and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Johnson’s acceptance of the task force’s recommendations marked the first change in policy since escalation began in 1964. Preliminaries to the 1968 presidential election demonstrated the additional political costs of the Vietnam War. In the March 13, 1968, New Hampshire primary election, Senator Eugene McCarthy

551

of Minnesota, running on an antiwar platform, won 42 percent of the Democratic vote, which was regarded as a defeat for the president (who was not officially entered in the primary). Soon afterward Senator Robert F. Kennedy entered the nomination race as an antiwar candidate. In a television address to the nation on March 31, Johnson announced a halt to naval and air attacks against North Vietnam except in the area just north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). At the end of his speech he made the stunning announcement that he would neither seek nor accept the Democratic nomination for president. North Vietnam expressed willingness to enter peace talks, which began in May 1968 in Paris with the United States represented by W. Averell Harriman. On October 31 Johnson ordered a complete cessation of air and naval attacks on North Vietnam. The Paris talks, which bogged down in disagreements about the shape of the negotiating tables, proved inconclusive through the end of Johnson’s presidency. In the November presidential election, Richard Nixon narrowly defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey in a decision that was seen as a referendum on “Johnson’s War.” Johnson retired to his Texas ranch following Nixon’s inauguration in January 1969. Vietnam continued to trouble him deeply. He told biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin that “I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved—the Great Society—in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. . . . But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.” He also stated that part of his rationale for escalating the war was to win over the support of hawks, especially Republicans, for his Great Society legislation. Johnson died of a heart attack at his ranch near Stonewall, Texas, on January 22, 1973. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Bundy, McGeorge; Clifford, Clark McAdams; Containment Policy; Domino Theory; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Fortas, Abraham; Fulbright, James William; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Gruening, Ernest Henry; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech; Kennan, George Frost; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Manila Conference; MARIGOLD, Operation; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; McCone, John Alex; McNamara, Robert Strange; Morse, Wayne Lyman; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pearson, Lester Bowles; Project 100,000; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano; San Antonio Formula; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United Nations and the Vietnam War; United States Department of Justice; United States Joint Chiefs of Staff; Vietnam Information Group; Vietnamization; Westmoreland, William Childs; Wise Men

552

Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech

References Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1989. Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. Gardner, Lloyd C. Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995. Goldman, Eric F. The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Knopf, 1969. Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Schandler, Herbert Y. The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. VanDeMark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech Event Date: April 7, 1965 Televised address, sometimes referred to as the “Mekong Delta Speech,” by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 7, 1965, that explained the U.S. military escalation in Vietnam. Johnson also offered to participate in discussions toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict and pledged $1 billion in aid for the development of the Mekong Delta. He had won a landslide victory in the November 1964 presidential election in part by depicting himself as a peaceful candidate running against a reckless warmonger, Republican senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Following attacks in early 1965 on a base at Pleiku in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that killed eight American service members, Johnson approved Operation ROLLING THUNDER (March 1965–October 1968), a program of gradually intensifying air attacks against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He also sent, for the first time, U.S. ground combat units to South Vietnam to protect airfields against reprisal attacks. These actions prompted criticism from abroad that Johnson had spurned proposals for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in Vietnam. At home, critics in Congress, in the press, and on university campuses charged Johnson with moving recklessly beyond his predecessors’ more limited commitments. In their view, Johnson was getting the U.S. deeply involved in a civil war in South Vietnam, a country that was not vital to America’s national security. Moreover, they charged Johnson with needlessly provoking the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by sending U.S. troops close to its border. For Johnson, criticism of his Vietnam policy threat-

ened the political unity required to advance his cherished domestic reform agenda known as the Great Society. The president thus directed his staff to draft a speech that would either disarm or silence his critics. In his view, avoiding a domestic political debate over the escalation in Vietnam was essential to securing the passage of his proposed legislation. President Johnson delivered the speech on April 7, 1965, to a packed auditorium at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and a national audience on television estimated at more than 60 million people. In it he emphasized his determination to stand up to North Vietnamese aggression and asserted that he was not expanding the nation’s commitments abroad. He was, he insisted, merely keeping the promise made by his predecessors. Failing to uphold this promise, Johnson claimed, would embolden the nation’s enemies and shake the confidence of the nation’s friends and allies across the world. Johnson followed his pledge to defend South Vietnam with an offer to enter unconditional discussions with North Vietnam. Although he declared a willingness to enter talks, he also made it clear that he was unwilling to compromise on his fundamental objective of an independent non-Communist South Vietnam. Unsurprisingly, his offer was quickly rejected by the North Vietnamese government, which sought to unify the country under its rule. Significantly, the North Vietnamese rejection of what appeared to be a genuine offer of peace made escalation more palatable to the American public. Johnson’s speech included another proposal that linked his efforts abroad with his domestic political experience of using government aid as a positive force for economic change. He pledged $1 billion toward a Mekong River project. The project was an international program for the development of the Mekong Delta, an impoverished region in southwestern Vietnam that lacked electrification, clean water supplies, and industrial infrastructure. Johnson claimed that such a program could dwarf the Tennessee Valley Authority, an economic development agency created during the New Deal to use federal experts and electricity to rapidly modernize the region’s economy and society. The offer clearly reflected Johnson’s experience during the New Deal and his belief that electrification and rural development could reduce poverty and improve lives. His proposal for developing the Mekong Delta included pledges of medical and educational assistance along with the possibility of improved food sources, water, and power for the entire region. Although the North Vietnamese quickly rejected Johnson’s offer of negotiations without conditions and his economic development program for the Mekong Delta, the speech succeeded in temporarily reducing domestic and foreign criticism of the ongoing military escalation. For Johnson, the speech provided him broader approval to fight a wider war. The gradual military escalations continued in Vietnam without an extensive domestic political debate, allowing the administration to focus its attention and political capital on securing the passage of Great Society legislation.

Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office While the speech at Johns Hopkins provided short-term gains, it proved counterproductive in the long run, for it began the erosion of Johnson’s credibility, which eventually derailed his presidency. His gradual escalation of the American military role in Vietnam, designed to avoid a domestic political debate, has been criticized as a deceptive way to operate in a democracy and an irresponsible and ineffective way to defeat a determined enemy abroad. By the end of 1965 the number of U.S. combat troops in Vietnam would increase to more than 180,000 men, up from just 16,000 when Johnson took office in November 1963. BENJAMIN P. GREENE See also Bundy, McGeorge; Great Society Program; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Mekong Delta; National Security Action Memorandum Number 328; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Carter, James M. Inventing Vietnam: The United States & State-Building, 1954–1968. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Dallek, Robert. Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961– 1973. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Gardner, Lloyd C. Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995. Nguyen, Thi Dieu. The Mekong River and the Struggle for Indochina: Water, War, and Peace. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. VanDeMark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Yuravlivker, Dror. “‘Peace without Conquest’: Lyndon Johnson’s Speech of April 7, 1965.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (September 2006): 457–481.

553

of State William Rogers, was largely excluded from major decisions on Vietnam, a result of President Richard M. Nixon’s desire to keep foreign policy formulation within the West Wing under the coordination of National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. In June 1969 Johnson believed that it was unwise to withdraw American troops, as Hanoi would interpret this as a failure of U.S. resolve. Johnson believed that Vietnamization of the war was too hastily implemented to be successful and that the United States should have been more generous in supplying the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with military advisers and equipment. Johnson retired from the State Department in 1977, and in 1983 he became vice chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States and chairman of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs. He died in Raleigh, North Carolina, on March 24, 1997. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Rogers, William Pierce; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; Vietnamization; Washington Special Actions Group References Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Johnson, U. Alexis, with Jef Olivarius McAllister. The Right Hand of Power. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984.

Joint Chiefs of Staff See United States Joint Chiefs of Staff

Johnson, Ural Alexis Birth Date: October 17, 1908 Death Date: March 24, 1997 U.S. career diplomat and State Department official. Born in Falun, Kansas, on October 17, 1908, Ural Alexis (known as U. Alexis) Johnson graduated from Occidental College in 1931. He attended the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service during 1931 and 1932 and joined the State Department in 1935. He served as U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1953–1958), Thailand (1958–1961), and Japan (1966–1969). Johnson’s 1964 appointment as deputy ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) under General Maxwell D. Taylor was intended to underscore the importance of the Saigon embassy. In 1965 the two men initially opposed the commitment of U.S. ground troops to Vietnam, but once the commitment was made they believed that the United States should not retreat from it. Johnson opposed any bombing halt or attempt to open negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). As undersecretary of state for political affairs (1969–1973), Johnson, like other State Department officials, including Secretary

Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office Office handling both relations with the news media and psychological warfare operations against the enemy. The Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) was created in 1965 under the direction of Barry Zorthian, who remained its director until July 1968. JUSPAO coordinated a huge propaganda campaign, but it is best remembered for becoming a quasi-military/civilian ministry of information. For many in the news media, daily briefings by information officers of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), at JUSPAO’s six-story headquarters in Saigon became the main source of hard news about U.S. military activities. These briefings became known pejoratively as the Five O’Clock Follies because of the extensive use of charts and statistics and the reliance on fragmentary, inevitably inaccurate field reports. Each Thursday JUSPAO released weekly casualty figures, or body counts, that the media routinely passed on without comment. Prior to the Tet Offensive of 1968, the press usually took claims of impending victory at face value, but reporters coming from the scenes of action would sometimes rise to tell what really happened.

554

Jones, David Charles

JUSPAO’s more than 600 employees provided abundant services to reporters. JUSPAO employees facilitated accreditation, arranged in-country flights, and provided compilations of news clippings and other handouts. By late 1967, JUSPAO had become an indispensable logistics headquarters for war correspondents. The confusion of the Tet Offensive nullified an extensive campaign to counteract negative reporting of the pacification effort, and JUSPAO made major public relations errors. Optimistic early descriptions at the Five O’Clock Follies about the combat situation in Saigon and Hue and the soaring statistics on Communist casualties denied realities observed by reporters. Certainly the daily fragmentary communiqués were inadequate for providing overviews of countrywide trends or of the performance of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), conspicuously excluded from MACV reports. Efforts by JUSPAO to inculcate a sense of the importance of public relations among leaders of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and its armed forces were largely unsuccessful. JUSPAO was operational until 1972. JOHN D. ROOT

planning and operations, including air missions over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Cambodia. With promotions to lieutenant general in 1969 and to full general in 1971, Jones held various assignments in the United States and Europe, where he established the integrated air headquarters in the Central Region (Allied Air Force, Central Europe) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1974 Jones became chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, and in 1978 he was appointed chairman of the JCS. In April 1980 he oversaw the unsuccessful rescue mission, Operation EAGLE CLAW, designed to retrieve 52 American hostages being held by radical Iranian students in Tehran. General Jones was roundly criticized for its failure. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in June 1982. CYNTHIA NORTHRUP See also Airpower, Role in War; United States Air Force

See also Body Count; Five O’Clock Follies; Media and the Vietnam War; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Zorthian, Barry References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988.

Jones, David Charles Birth Date: July 9, 1921 U.S. Air Force general, deputy commander for operations and vice commander of the U.S. Seventh Air Force in Vietnam in 1969, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) from 1978 to 1982. Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, on July 9, 1921, David Charles Jones completed high school in Minot, North Dakota, and then attended the University of North Dakota and Minot State College. He entered the Army Air Force in 1942 and received his pilot’s wings in February 1943. During the Korean War, Jones flew 300 mission hours with a bomber squadron. Following the war, he held various assignments within the United States and overseas before being assigned in 1969 during the Vietnam War to Tim Son Nhut Air Base in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). As deputy commander of operations and vice commander of the Seventh Air Force in Vietnam, Jones coordinated mission

U.S. Air Force major general David C. Jones was deputy commander for operations and vice commander of the Seventh Air Force in Vietnam in 1969. As such, he coordinated mission planning and operations, including air missions over North Vietnam and Cambodia. As a full general, in 1974, he became chief of staff of the air force, and in 1978 he was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Department of Defense)

JUNCTION CITY, Operation

References Cole, Robert H., Lorna S. Jaffe, Walter S. Poole, and Willard J. Webb. The Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, DC: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

JUNCTION CITY,

Operation

Start Date: February 22, 1967 End Date: May 4, 1967 Second corps-sized operation of the Vietnam War and one of the largest offensive operations conducted by allied forces. Lasting from February 22 to May 14, 1967, Operation JUNCTION CITY involved 4 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and 22 U.S. battalions, including elements of the U.S. 1st, 4th, 9th, and 25th Infantry divisions; the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment; and the 196th Infantry and 173rd Airborne brigades. JUNCTION CITY followed by one month Operation CEDAR FALLS, the first corps-sized operation of the war. Actually, JUNCTION CITY was planned first, in late 1966. At the last minute, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), intelligence located a Communist regional headquarters along the Saigon River in the area of the Iron

555

Triangle. Major General Jonathan O. Seaman, commander of U.S. II Field Force, wanted to delay JUNCTION CITY and launch an immediate attack into the Iron Triangle, and this operation became CEDAR FALLS. Commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division Major General William E. DePuy opposed the delay, but MACV commander General William Westmoreland sided with Seaman. According to the revised schedule, JUNCTION CITY was to be launched immediately following CEDAR FALLS. It was delayed another month, however, to allow planners to correct some of the operational problems that surfaced during the first operation. The primary objective of Operation JUNCTION CITY was the elimination of the elusive Viet Cong (VC) 9th Division, commanded by Colonel Hoang Cam, a native of northern Vietnam who commanded a Viet Minh regiment at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The area of operations was War Zone C, a Communistcontrolled sanctuary from which the VC 9th Division had long operated freely. War Zone C was a 50- by 30-mile flat, marshy area along the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. The region was checkered with open areas of rice paddies and thick patches of heavy jungle. Dominating War Zone C was Nui Ba Den (“Black Virgin Mountain”). This 3,235-foot-high landmass rose straight up from the flat surrounding countryside. Honeycombed with caves, Nui Ba Den was long suspected of being the forward headquarters of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN).

U.S. infantrymen in the high grass of a clearing in War Zone C, 80 miles northeast of Saigon and near the Cambodian border on February 24, 1967, during Operation JUNCTION CITY. The soldiers are advancing on snipers who had fired on helicopters bringing in the troops. (AP/Wide World Photos)

556

JUNCTION CITY, Operation

The JUNCTION CITY plan called for the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and the 196th Infantry Brigade to take up a western blocking position along the Cambodian border, roughly four to five miles east of Highway 22 and Highway 246. The 1st Infantry Division would block the east, along Highway 4. The 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, would seal off the northern section. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment on the right and the 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, on the left would then sweep into this giant inverted horseshoe from the south. Twenty days before the start of JUNCTION CITY the 25th Infantry Division launched Operation GADSDEN. Twelve days later, on February 14, the 1st Infantry Division launched Operation TUCSON. The objective of both operations was to position the western and eastern flank forces. JUNCTION CITY commenced on February 22 with the north envelopment. The 173rd Airborne Brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, parachuted into drop zones near Ca Tum, only seven miles from Cambodia. The unopposed drop was the only major U.S. combat jump of the war. Simultaneously, 249 helicopters inserted eight infantry battalions into the north side in one of the largest mass helicopter lifts of the war. The following day the southern forces positioned along Highway 247 started sweeping north into the horseshoe. On February 28 units of the 173rd Airborne Brigade discovered the VC’s Central Information Office, including an underground photographic laboratory complete with film. That same day near the eastern tip of the horseshoe, the 1st Division’s 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry, engaged the PAVN’s 2nd Battalion, 101st Regiment, at Prek Klok. Twelve days later, on March 10, the VC 272nd Regiment attacked the U.S. 168th Engineer Battalion, which was building a Special Forces base camp at Prek Klok. The engineers were defended by the mechanized 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry, and the 2nd Battalion, 33rd Artillery, firing howitzers point-blank into the attackers. On March 18 JUNCTION CITY entered its Phase II, which focused on clearing the eastern sector of War Zone C. The 173rd Airborne Brigade pulled out of the operation and was replaced by the 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division. During the course of the next two weeks, the three major engagements of Operation JUNCTION CITY followed in rapid succession. During the night of March 19 the VC 273rd Regiment attacked and almost overran the 9th Infantry Division’s Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, in its defensive perimeter at Ap Bau Bang. At one point the cavalry troopers were buttoned up inside their armored personnel carriers while artillery inside the perimeter fired antipersonnel beehive rounds directly at the vehicles to sweep off the attackers. While Troop A continued grimly to hold on, the 5th Cavalry’s Troop B and Troop C fought their way into the beleaguered perimeter to assist their comrades. Throughout the night, U.S. Air Force planes carried out 87 close air support runs under flare illumination.

In the early morning hours of March 21 under the direct command of VC 9th Division commander Hoang Cam, two Communist regiments, the 273rd Regiment, 9th Division, and the PAVN 16th Regiment (also known as the 70th Guards Regiment) attacked the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry, and 2nd Battalion, 77th Artillery, at Fire Support Base (FSB) Gold near Suoi Tre. As that battle wore on, a relief force from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry, fought its way into FSB Gold. Fighting there continued into the daylight hours, when FSB Gold was finally relieved by elements of the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment. In his postwar memoirs General Hoang Cam, while still claiming victory, acknowledged that his forces suffered heavy losses during this battle. The last big fight of JUNCTION CITY took place near Ap Gu at Landing Zone (LZ) George. The 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander M. Haig, had occupied LZ George on March 26. Five days later the battalion was moving east from LZ George when Company B came under heavy attack and was pinned down. Haig had to commit his Company A to break Company B free. Near the end of the day both companies were able to withdraw to the defensive perimeter near the LZ, which had been reinforced by elements of the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry. In the early morning hours of April 1, the VC 271st Regiment and the VC 1st Battalion, 70th Guards Regiment, attacked in force. A combination of artillery fire, helicopter gunships, and tactical air support finally drove them off. Although Operation JUNCTION CITY was originally planned to have only two phases, Phase III kicked off on April 15. A floating brigade of one mechanized battalion from the 25th Infantry Division and an ARVN battalion made constant sweeps through War Zone C. Meanwhile, the 196th Infantry Brigade was sent north to the I Corps Tactical Zone. Units from the 9th Infantry Division temporarily moved into the 196th Infantry Brigade’s former area of operations in the shadow of Nui Ba Den. For the most part, the Phase III sweeps turned up only empty countryside. On the tactical level, Operation JUNCTION CITY was a success. Although Communist propaganda organs claimed that the U.S. and the ARVN lost 13,500 killed, 800 armored vehicles, and 119 artillery pieces, actual tallies were 282 killed and 1,576 wounded. Three tanks, 4 helicopters, 5 howitzers, and 21 armored personnel carriers were also lost. MACV claimed Communist forces dead at 2,728, with an undetermined number of wounded. The allies also seized 490 weapons, 850 tons of rations, 500,000 pages of documents, and more than 5,000 bunkers and other military structures. Despite the tactical results, JUNCTION CITY, as with so many other American efforts in the war, failed to yield long-term strategic leverage. Although the three regiments of the VC 9th Division were temporarily shattered, they would be back in force less than a year later for the 1968 Tet Offensive. War Zone C was far from neutralized, but JUNCTION CITY made General Vo Nguyen Giap

JUNCTION CITY, Operation

painfully aware that the major VC operating and supply bases in South Vietnam were vulnerable to the vastly superior U.S. mobility and firepower. As a result, the Communists moved their headquarters across the border into Cambodia, where North Vietnamese regular forces were already based. With the United States (for a wide variety of reasons) unwilling to expand largescale offensive operations into Cambodia, American military planners were left with little choice but to pursue a defensive campaign with the objective of wearing down the VC and the PAVN through attrition. DAVID T. ZABECKI

557

See also CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Central Office for South Vietnam; DePuy, William

Eugene; Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr.; Iron Triangle; Vo Nguyen Giap; War Zone C and War Zone D; Westmoreland, William Childs References Hoang Cam and Nhat Tien. Chang Duong Muoi Nghin Ngay [The Ten Thousand-Day Journey]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001. Rogers, Bernard W. Cedar Falls Junction City: A Turning Point. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

This page intentionally left blank

K K-9 Corps Continuing the tradition of World War II and the Korean War, the U.S. military employed dogs during the Vietnam War. The K-9 Corps consisted of handlers with mainly German shepherds and several crossbreeds that performed sentry, scout, and mine and tunnel duty and with Labrador retrievers that served as trackers. The recommendation in 1960 by the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, to establish a military dog program for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) led the following year to the arrival of 300 dogs from Germany. In April 1962 four U.S. instructors arrived to provide tactical training for the ARVN at Go Vap, the old French dog compound near Saigon. Later they moved to the new ARVN dog training center built at Thanh Tuy Ha.

Because of a shortage of Vietnamese veterinarians, none of whom had any experience with dogs, the next month saw the establishment of a six-member U.S. veterinary support group. By 1966 the ARVN dog program, although authorized at 1,000 dogs, had only 130. Cultural differences, such as Vietnamese unfamiliarity with working dogs, and practical problems, including accidents and disease, continued to thwart U.S.-ARVN plans. U.S. canine efforts met with greater success. Following Communist penetration at the Da Nang Air Base in July 1965, the U.S. Air Force quickly launched Project Top Dog, which called for the deployment of 40 handlers and a like number of dogs for a fourmonth period. These sentry dog teams, sent to the Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa, and Da Nang air bases, proved an effective deterrent against attacks and led to a program involving hundreds of dogs

Vietnam War Dogs1 Branch of Service3 Occupation/Work Type2 4

Sentry Scout4 Mine/tunnel4 Tracker5 Water dog4 Unknown Totals 1

Air Force

Army

Marines

710 14

767 1,129 49 103

48 70 5

172 2,220

42 165

724

All procured for and used by U.S. troops. First occupation qualified for. 3 First branch of service entered. 4 German shepherds. 5 Labradors (with a few shepherds early in the program). 6 U.S. Army or U.S. Marine Corps. 2

Navy

Unknown

Total

37 2266

1,562 1,439 54 103 4 234 3,396

4

20

41

246

560

K-9 Corps

Specialist Rayford Brown of Florence, South Carolina, and his tracker dog relax at Fire Base Alpha Four, a U.S. outpost near the DMZ in South Vietnam, on January 2, 1971. Such dogs were used to track enemy troops and locate booby traps and mines. (AP/Wide World Photos)

and thousands of handlers. In January 1967 the number of dogs at U.S. air bases in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) peaked at 476. In August 1965 the U.S. Army began deploying its sentry dogs to Vietnam. Organized in 1966, the 212th Military Police Company (Sentry Dog), along with the 981st and 595th Military Police companies (Sentry Dog), which arrived in Vietnam in November 1967 and January 1970, respectively, brought the total number of sentry dogs to about 300, a wartime high. Also in 1965, the U.S. Army reactivated its program of scout dogs trained to give a silent alert based on airborne scent. In the summer of 1966 the first opportunity to employ scout dogs occurred when the 25th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) (IPSD) near Phuoc Vinh and the 38th IPSD near Cu Chi both engaged Communist forces in III Corps, the location of nearly half the scout dog platoons. By the end of 1967 there were 17 IPSDs and more than 1,000 scout dogs. The U.S. Marine Corps began tactical dog training in the winter of 1965 and deployed two scout dog platoons to Vietnam in February 1966. Kenneled near Da Nang at Camp Kaiser (named for the

first U.S. Marine Corps scout dog killed in action), by November the two platoons had participated in 11 major operations. The U.S. Navy, with the smallest canine program, had 37 sentry dogs and four aqua (water, swimmer) dogs. Begun in October and November 1969 as an air force project, the aqua dog program aimed at interdicting enemy swimmers and scuba divers. Although the program received a positive evaluation in 1970, Vietnamization prevented any further use in Vietnam. The U.S. Air Force, in its effort to develop a quick-reaction force that included scout dogs, in 1966 created Operation SAFESIDE, which never developed beyond an interim program utilizing only 14 dogs. In 1969 in spite of a positive evaluation, the air force, either as a result of interservice rivalry or Vietnamization or both, discarded the entire Combat Security Police concept. The U.S. Army expanded its use of dogs to include trackers. Using ground scent, the teams sought the reestablishment of contact with a fleeing enemy. In 1966 the United States made use of the British Jungle Warfare School in Malaysia for training the first teams. Designated the 63rd Infantry Platoon–Combat Tracker (IPCT), 23rd Infantry “Americal” Division, and the 65th IPCT, 9th Infantry Division, each platoon consisted of three teams of five men and a single tracker dog each, mainly black and golden Labrador retrievers. In November 1967 the U.S. Army opened its own Combat Tracking Team Center at Fort Gordon, Georgia. The army deployed 10 teams to Vietnam in 1968 and a final team in 1969. The Australians also employed two combat tracker teams located near Vung Tau and Nui Dat. In 1968 the U.S. Army contracted with Behavior Systems, Inc., a civilian company, to develop dogs to detect booby traps, mines, trip wires, and tunnels. A positive initial evaluation of these MDogs led to the 1968 activation of the 60th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) (Mine/Tunnel Detector Dog), which arrived at Cu Chi in April 1969. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps were the only two U.S. service branches to use dogs with this occupational specialty. The K-9 programs saw service as far as Camp Evans near Hue and as far south as Soc Trang. The best estimate of the number of dogs that served with U.S. forces is between 3,500 and 4,000, with an additional 639 procured and delivered directly to the ARVN. At Tan Son Nhut, the U.S. Army’s 936th Medical Detachment and the Seventh Air Force Hospital both served as war dog hospitals. There were also veterinary detachments in each corps. Yet alarmingly only about 500 dogs survived, with 190 of these returned to the United States. Hostile action accounted for fewer than 3 percent of canine deaths. A large number fell victim to accidents, but probably most died from illnesses endemic to the region. Finally, the U.S. military adopted policies that guaranteed that very few dogs would come home. Under Vietnamization, the military either euthanized the dogs or handed over to the ARVN hundreds of the animals, whose final disposition remains unknown. Dr. Howard Hayes, a veterinary epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute, has done extensive research into the medical his-

Kampuchean National Front tories of Vietnam War dogs and the exposures common to both the dogs and their handlers, such as to infectious agents, pesticides, herbicides, and therapeutic drugs. Among his findings is that these dogs showed much higher than normal rates of both testicular seminoma and testicular dysfunction. The best estimate on the number of U.S. Army handlers is 12,000 to 14,000 men. Poor U.S. Marine Corps record keeping and missing U.S. Army reports make it difficult to determine exact totals. Army after-action reports reveal 83,740 missions, but undoubtedly there were many others. The same documents credited the scout and mine/tunnel dog teams with more than 4,000 Communist troops killed and 1,000 captured, more than 1 million pounds of rice and corn recovered, 3,000 mortars located, and at least 2,000 tunnels and bunkers exposed. Such successes led the enemy to place bounties on the handlers and their dogs. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., includes the names of at least 211 dog handlers. Not officially part of the record-keeping procedure and therefore more difficult to determine, the number of allied lives saved certainly was in the thousands. Sentry dogs prevented penetration of allied perimeters, frequently because the enemy specifically avoided facilities with these assets. Unlike many other countries, the United States does not have specific military decorations, a museum, or a national memorial for canines. In June 1964 the only war dog memorial in the country was dedicated in Lincoln, Nebraska. Although not about working dogs, Kenn Miller’s Vietnam novel Tiger the Lurp Dog (1983) remains a moving account of a five-man long-range reconnaissance patrol team and its mascot. The Vietnam Dog Handlers Association and the Military Police–Vietnam–Sentry Dogs Alumni, both founded in 1993, honor this military occupational specialty and stand as testimony to the lasting relationships between these men and their dogs. PAUL S. DAUM AND ELIZABETH DAUM See also Cu Chi Tunnels; Tunnels References Lemish, Michael G. War Dogs: Canines in Combat. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1996. Miller, Kenn. Tiger the Lurp Dog. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983. Mitchell, Tom, ed. DogMan [Vietnam Dog Handlers Association Newsletter] 1(1) (March 1994); 3(2) (March 1996).

Kampuchea See Cambodia

Kampuchean National Front Organization sponsored by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and formed in 1978 to combat the Khmer Rouge regime

561

in Kampuchea. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge ousted the Cambodian government of Lon Nol, and the following January the Khmer Rouge proclaimed a new constitution and renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. Prince Norodom Sihanouk served briefly as head of state, but real power rested with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who instigated a ruthless resettlement policy that devastated the country. The Khmer Rouge was also hostile to Vietnam. This occurred because of what the Khmer Rouge perceived as an earlier lack of support for its cause by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), disputes over the common border between Kampuchea and Vietnam and over the sovereignty of a number of small islands in the Gulf of Thailand, and the position of Khmer peoples living in southern Vietnam. These clashes soon escalated into open conflict. Pol Pot’s army, equipped with a mixture of American, Chinese, and Soviet weapons and organized chiefly into more than a dozen small divisions, numbered probably around 100,000 men. In the spring of 1977 there were several serious clashes along Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, and in September 1977 the SRV claimed that four Kampuchean divisions had invaded its Tay Ninh Province and massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. In October and again in December Vietnam retaliated. In December 60,000 Vietnamese troops, supported by tanks and artillery, struck as far as the outskirts of Svay Rieng and Kompong Cham. After the Vietnamese withdrew from Kampuchea in early January 1978, the Khmer Rouge carried out a purge centered on its armed forces in the eastern part of the country that were supposed to defend the regime from the Vietnamese. Up to 100,000 Cambodians were executed. Many Khmer Rouge fled into Vietnam to avoid being arrested and killed. Later they formed the backbone of the SRVsponsored anti–Khmer Rouge resistance. In December 1978 the Vietnamese government assisted in the formation of the Kampuchean National Front from several Kampuchean dissident groups opposed to the Pol Pot regime. Led by Heng Samrin, a Khmer Rouge defector, their forces numbered about 20,000 men. Most were former Khmer Rouge. On December 25, 1978, 18 regular Vietnamese infantry divisions, numbering more than 120,000 men and soon increased to more than 200,000 men, invaded Kampuchea on a wide front. The overmatched Khmer Rouge, seeking to continue guerrilla warfare against the invaders, withdrew into the country’s western hinterlands. Powerful Vietnamese armored columns, accompanied by Heng Samrin’s small army, drove into Phnom Penh with little opposition on January 7, 1979. A pro-Vietnamese government known as the People’s Republic of Kampuchea was then installed, with Heng Samrin as president. Vietnamese troops occupied Cambodia for the next 10 years against opposition by Khmer Rouge and nonCommunist Cambodian guerrilla forces. Fighting in Kampuchea continued, however, even after the September 1989 withdrawal of the SRV. EDWARD C. PAGE

562

Kattenburg, Paul

See also Cambodia; Heng Samrin; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

of public affairs at the University of South Carolina. He died on June 12, 2004, aboard a cruise ship at Moscow. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

References Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War after the War. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Etcheson, Craig. The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984. Hardy, Gordon, Arnold R. Isaacs, and MacAlister Brown. Pawns of War: Cambodia and Laos. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1987. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954–1980. Rev. ed. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981.

See also Harriman, William Averell; McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem; Rusk, David Dean; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Kattenburg, Paul. The Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign Policy, 1945–75. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1980.

Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville Birth Date: January 17, 1922

Kattenburg, Paul Birth Date: 1922 Death Date: June 12, 2004 U.S. diplomat and State Department desk officer on Vietnam during 1963–1964. Born in Austria in 1922, Paul Kattenburg immigrated to the United States in 1940. He pursued undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina and obtained a master’s degree from Georgetown University and a doctorate from Yale in 1949. A career diplomat, Kattenburg was one of relatively few U.S. policy makers on Vietnam with long experience in the area. As an Indochina research analyst from 1952 to 1956, Kattenburg opposed Dean Rusk and others in the State Department who pushed for U.S. assistance to the French in Indochina. Kattenburg frequently visited the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and came to believe that the Ngo Dinh Diem government could not survive and that the Viet Cong (VC) would ultimately win the conflict. In the early 1960s Kattenburg became one of a group of skeptics, centered on W. Averell Harriman within the State Department, about the course of the war. At an August 31, 1963, meeting of the National Security Council, Kattenburg, then head of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Vietnam, expressed doubts about U.S. involvement in Vietnam and recommended American withdrawal, the first time that a U.S. government official had done so. A subsequent trip to Vietnam in January 1964 further convinced him that the war could not be won, even with massive U.S. military assistance and American casualties of 5,000 annually over a decade. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara rejected Kattenburg’s recommendations. Shortly afterward Kattenburg was transferred to the less sensitive position of director of regional planning, where he concentrated on peace negotiation scenarios. He was deliberately excluded from all Vietnam-related issues from late 1964 until his 1972 retirement from government, when he became a professor

U.S. attorney general (1965–1966) and undersecretary of state (1966–1969). Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 17, 1922. A graduate of Princeton University and Yale University, a Rhodes Scholar, and a lawyer, Katzenbach fought in World War II and spent much of it as a prisoner of war of the Germans and Italians. For eight years during the 1950s he taught law at Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School. In 1961 Katzenbach joined the John F. Kennedy administration as assistant attorney general specializing in civil rights issues. Katzenbach won a reputation for tough-minded realism particularly after the April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, when he handled negotiations with Cuba for the return of American prisoners. In 1964 he succeeded Robert F. Kennedy as attorney general on the latter’s resignation. In June 1965 President Lyndon Johnson and his close advisers sought Katzenbach’s professional opinion as to the legality of committing U.S. military forces in Vietnam under the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Then and in later congressional hearings Katzenbach stated that the resolution was sufficiently broad to encompass such action and that the president need seek no further authority from Congress to increase the number of American troops in Vietnam to 95,000 men. Katzenbach also warned that should Johnson consult Congress once more on this issue, the legislature might attach conditions to any troop commitment that would restrain presidential independence of action. Despite his lack of training or expertise in foreign affairs, Katzenbach in September 1966 was appointed undersecretary of state, succeeding George W. Ball, an outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Katzenbach’s legal background initially led him to adopt a rather narrow and hesitant conception of his role as that of an advocate and representative of his client, defending the administration’s policies, rather than of an active shaper of alternative options. Before congressional committees he continued to justify the government’s troop commitment of 1965. Privately he came to believe that the war was unwinnable, and by May 1967

Kelly, Charles L.

563

Nicholas Katzenbach was attorney general of the United States in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. He defended the Tonkin Gulf Resolution as sufficiently broad to permit the president to commit substantial military resources to Southeast Asia. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

he joined those in the administration, notably Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who favored negotiating a compromise peace plan and American withdrawal. In November 1967 Katzenbach, together with McNamara, argued that the government should resist any further increases in U.S. troop levels in Vietnam and move toward the stabilization of the existing government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and an American withdrawal, advice rejected by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor Walt Rostow. In mid-October 1967 and again in 1968 Katzenbach argued in favor of a bombing pause to allow negotiations to proceed. As acting secretary of state, Katzenbach attended the crucial meetings of the president’s senior advisers in late March 1968 that concluded that the United States should withdraw from Vietnam, a decision that contributed to President Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection. Katzenbach then helped to develop potential U.S. negotiating positions for use in anticipated peace talks with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Upon leaving government in 1969, Katzenbach became a senior vice president and general counsel for IBM and later practiced law with a New Jersey–based firm. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

See also Clark, William Ramsey; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; McNamara, Robert Strange; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Rusk, David Dean; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Department of Justice References Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1989. Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972.

Kelly, Charles L. Birth Date: April 10, 1925 Death Date: July 1, 1964 U.S. Army officer and the Vietnam War’s foremost exponent of aeromedical evacuation (medevac). Born on April 10, 1925, in Warm Springs, Georgia, Charles L. Kelly went into the military

564

Kelly, Francis J.

at an early age. Vietnam was his third war, and he was widely believed to be the only American soldier entitled to wear the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Combat Medic Badge, Parachutist Wings, and Aviator Wings. On January 11, 1964, Major Kelly assumed command of the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance). Although he was the unit’s third commander, he quickly instilled in his pilots his own philosophy of putting the patient before all else. This applied to all wounded soldiers, American, South Vietnamese, and even Viet Cong (VC). Kelly’s standard was “No compromise. No rationalization. No hesitation. Fly the mission. Now!” Kelly aggressively pushed his pilots and pioneered new techniques in dangerous night evacuations. He also fought a running bureaucratic battle with the U.S. Army Surgeon General’s Office in Washington and with Saigon-based U.S. Army Support Command chief Brigadier General Joseph W. Stilwell. Medevac was still in its infancy, and many commanders such as Stilwell believed that the valuable helicopters should be used for general duties and should be fitted with removable red crosses only when they were actually needed for medevac missions. Kelly fought hard to keep his five UH-1 Iroquois “Hueys” dedicated to his unit’s primary mission. Kelly led by example and flew as many missions as his pilots. On July 1, 1964, near Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta, Kelly was taking on wounded from a supposedly secure area when he came under fire. Troops on the ground screamed for Kelly to leave immediately. He quietly replied, “When I have your wounded.” An instant later, he was killed by a single bullet through the heart. Kelly was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross. After Kelly’s death, there was no more talk of using medevac helicopters for other missions. As other medevac units arrived in Vietnam, they adopted the Kelly philosophy and tradition, although few of those units ever reached the standards of the 57th Medical Detachment. According to Patrick Brady, one of Kelly’s pilots at the time, all medevac units also eventually adopted the 57th Medical Detachment’s radio call sign, which originally had been selected at random from a code-word list. The term “dustoff” still means aeromedical evacuation in the U.S. Army. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Dustoff; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Medevac; Medicine, Military References Brady, Patrick H. “When I Have Your Wounded.” ARMY (June 1989): 64–72. Dorland, Peter, and James Nanney. Dust Off: Army Aeromedical Evacuation in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982.

Kelly, Francis J. Birth Date: February 18, 1919 Death Date: December 26, 1997 U.S. Army officer who devised plans for unconventional warfare in the early 1960s and commanded the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam during June 1966–June 1967. Francis J. Kelly was born in New York City on February 18, 1919. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1941 and served during World War II. Commissioned the next year, he participated in the Allied invasion of Normandy in the summer of 1944. After briefly serving in the New York City Police Department following the war, Kelly returned to the army. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree from Georgetown University. After commanding a tank battalion, in 1963 at the age of 44 Kelly underwent airborne training and joined the Special Forces. He then commanded a Special Forces group in Okinawa during 1964–1966. In June 1966 Colonel Kelly assumed command of the 5th Special Forces Group in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Disappointed with previous efforts by the United States and South Vietnamese Special Forces to utilize indigenous peoples against the Viet Cong (VC), Kelly overhauled the American approach to this issue. Reflecting the growing U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Kelly increased the role of U.S. Special Forces working with various ethnic and tribal paramilitary groups, known as Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG), and shifted their operations from those of a defensive and intelligence-gathering nature to one that was much more aggressive, teaching them to seek out and destroy enemy forces. To help pursue this new mission, Kelly encouraged the creation of more mobile forces and brought about a much greater level of coordination and cooperation with the CIDG. He insisted on a more flexible system of logistics as well as a close and highly integrated system of intelligence gathering among the CIDG, U.S. Special Forces, and South Vietnamese Special Forces. Kelly’s most significant contribution to counterinsurgency warfare was his creation of the Mobile Guerrilla Forces. These units consisted of small bands of CIDG who were led by U.S. Special Forces soldiers. Usually numbering between 150 and 180 men, these units were intended to operate independently away from base camp for up to 60 days, although three weeks was often the norm because of resupply problems. Taking part in so-called Blackjack operations, these highly trained units roved throughout their areas of responsibility to locate, harass, and engage the VC and to provide intelligence on enemy location and unit strength. Upon leaving Vietnam in 1967, Kelly returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he assumed command of the Institute of Strategic and Special Operations. In 1970 he became the senior military adviser to the State of Colorado, a position he held until his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1972 as a colonel. Kelly also

Kennan, George Frost authored U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971, a comprehensive history of Special Forces operations in Vietnam. Later he became a professor of political science and economics at Loretto Heights College in Denver, Colorado. Kelly died in Aurora, Colorado, on December 26, 1997. KELLY E. CRAGER See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Counterinsurgency Warfare; Mobile Guerrilla Forces; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Donahue, James C. Mobile Guerrilla Force: With the Special Forces in War Zone D. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1952–1984. London: Osprey, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

565

Kennan, George Frost Birth Date: February 16, 1904 Death Date: March 17, 2005 U.S. career diplomat, historian, author, articulator of the policy of containment, and realist critic of American foreign policy. Born on February 16, 1904, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, George Frost Kennan entered the newly established U.S. Foreign Service following his graduation from Princeton University in 1925. Trained by the State Department in Russian history, language, and culture, he became part of the first U.S. embassy to the Soviet Union in 1933. He returned to Washington in 1937, where he headed the State Department’s Russian desk. Between 1938 and 1944 Kennan performed various assignments in Europe (he was interned by the Germans from December 1941 to May 1942) until ambassador to the Soviet Union W. Averell Harriman chose him as embassy counselor in July 1944. Despite their wartime alliance, the United States and the Soviet Union had strained diplomatic relations. While serving in Moscow,

George F. Kennan, U.S. diplomat and historian, was the energetic architect of a containment policy against Communist expansion. He was among the most influential shapers of American foreign policy in the post–World War II era. (Library of Congress)

566

Kennedy, Edward Moore

Kennan sent his well-known Long Telegram of February 22, 1946, an 8,000-word analysis and critique of Soviet behavior. Kennan asserted that the Soviet Union was driven by a combination of Communist messianic ideology and historic Russian insecurity. The message was well received by U.S. officials and contributed to Kennan’s reputation as a Soviet expert. He was appointed instructor in foreign relations at the National War College in 1946 and the next year became head of the State Department’s newly formed Policy Planning Staff (PPS). As head of the PPS, Kennan was instrumental in drafting a report on the European postwar economic crisis that resulted in the 1947 Marshall Plan. In July 1947 Foreign Affairs published Kennan’s essay “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” under the pseudonym “Mr. X” (although it soon became known that Kennan was the author). The “X article,” as it came to be known, reiterated points made in the Long Telegram and advocated “patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” Thus, Kennan became known as the “father” of the containment doctrine. Kennan briefly served as counselor of the State Department in 1950, but he disagreed with Dean Acheson’s desire to enlarge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany), with the development of the hydrogen bomb, and with the decision to send U.S. troops beyond the 38th Parallel in Korea. Kennan took a leave of absence from the State Department in August 1950 to join the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In 1952 Kennan became U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, but he found the post stifling. His service there came to an abrupt end when he told a reporter in Berlin that the Soviets treated U.S. officials as badly as had the Nazis. The Soviet government declared him persona non grata in October 1952. Kennan returned to the Institute for Advanced Study, which had provided an intellectual home for him since his first fellowship there in 1950. During the John F. Kennedy administration, Kennan held the post of ambassador to Yugoslavia from May 1961 through July 1963. He also achieved a notable record as a scholar of foreign policy. His book American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (1951) critiqued America’s “legalistic-moralistic” approach to foreign relations and urged realism in U.S. foreign policy. Russia Leaves the War (1956) and Memoirs: 1925–1950 (1967) both won Pulitzer Prizes. Kennan’s reputation as a diplomat and scholar made his views on the Vietnam War important. He believed that the war was based on a flawed understanding of his containment doctrine, overemphasis on the domino theory, and an unrealistic assessment of U.S. interests. In February 1965 he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a Communist Vietnam posed no probable threat to U.S. security and would likely adopt a foreign policy independent of Moscow or Beijing. The United States should not precipitately leave Vietnam, he asserted, but should gradually withdraw, leaving the effort to the South Vietnamese themselves. He denied that withdrawal would weaken U.S. credibility.

In 1968 Kennan supported Senator Eugene McCarthy’s effort to replace Lyndon Johnson as the Democratic candidate for the upcoming election, although Kennan remained a social conservative who also criticized the behavior of the student antiwar movement. He remained at the Institute for Advanced Study for many years. Periodically Kennan would comment and critique U.S. foreign policy right up to the end of his life. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he condemned the renewed nuclear arms race that resulted from the end of Soviet-U.S. détente, and he stated and wrote on numerous occasions that his thoughts on the containment policy had been subjected to long-term misinterpretation. He had not, he claimed, advocated the rampant militarization of U.S. foreign policy that had transpired beginning in 1950. As he neared his 100th birthday, Kennan opposed a U.S. invasion of Iraq and presciently predicted that doing so would bring unforeseen consequences. He rejected the George W. Bush administration’s claim of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq and argued that undertaking another war would dilute the War on Terror and take America’s eyes off Afghanistan. Kennan died in Princeton, New Jersey, on March 17, 2005. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Containment Policy; Domino Theory; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph References Hixson, Walter L. George F. Kennan: Cold War Iconoclast. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Kennan, George F. American Diplomacy 1900–1950. Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 1951. Kennan, George F. Memoirs, 1925–1950. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Kennan, George F. Memoirs, 1950–1963. New York: Pantheon, 1983. Kennan, George F. “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947): 566–582. Mayers, David. George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Miscamble, Wilson D. George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–1950. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Stephanson, Anders. George Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Kennedy, Edward Moore Birth Date: February 22, 1932 Death Date: August 25, 2009 Longtime U.S. senator from Massachusetts who vocally opposed the war in Vietnam. Born on February 22, 1932, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the last child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, Edward Moore (“Ted”) Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1956 with a degree in history and government. He earned a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1959. After helping manage his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s 1958 Senate and 1960 presidential primary campaigns, Ted Ken-

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald nedy worked as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. In 1962 he won John Kennedy’s abandoned Senate seat and was serving in the Senate when the president was assassinated in November 1963. Ted Kennedy won election to his first full Senate term in 1964, the youngest senator ever elected. Although initially supportive of American involvement in Southeast Asia, Kennedy turned against the war as American participation escalated and casualties increased. He began to speak out against the war with his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), who was assassinated in June 1968 as he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. Ted, who was devastated by this event and withdrew from public life for a short time, vowed to help end the war in Vietnam. He introduced a four-point plan that included an unconditional halt of the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and a unilateral reduction of American forces. He spoke out across the country, supported resolutions against the war, condemned President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnamization policy, and used Senate hearings to focus on the plight of Vietnamese refugees. Kennedy became Senate majority whip in 1969. However, his image was marred by an incident at Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts, that July in which Mary Jo Kopechne, a young female staffer who had worked on his brother’s 1968 campaign, was killed in a car wreck while riding with him. Also, Kennedy’s 1976 challenge for the Democratic presidential nomination was unsuccessful. Despite the negative publicity, his conviction on a misdemeanor charge, and constant threats, Kennedy retained his Senate seat and continued to speak frankly as a pragmatic liberal with special interests in social welfare legislation, in particular health care. He was critical of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and early on embraced fellow Democratic senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008. Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor in May 2008 and, after a courageous struggle, died on August 25, 2009. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD

567

was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917, into a large and wealthy Irish Catholic family. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a multimillionaire with presidential aspirations, and his mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, came from a prominent and politically active Boston family. After attending the elite Choate Preparatory School in Wallingford, Connecticut, Kennedy earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1940. He also spent six months of his junior year working in the U.S. London embassy while his father was U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. John Kennedy’s observations during this time inspired his senior honors thesis on British foreign policies, which was published the year he graduated under the title Why England Slept. During World War II Kennedy served four years in the U.S. Navy. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Purple Heart for action as commander of PT-109, which was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the South Pacific. Kennedy worked for a brief time as a newspaper correspondent before entering national politics at the age of 29, winning election as Democratic congressman from Massachusetts in 1946. In Congress, Kennedy backed social legislation that benefited his largely working-class constituents and criticized what he considered to be the Truman administration’s “weak stand” against Communist

See also Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Vietnamization References Burner, David. The Torch Is Passed. New York: Atheneum, 1984. Canellos, Peter S., ed. The Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. New York: St. Martin’s, 2009. Clymer, Adam. Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Sherrill, Robert. The Last Kennedy. New York: Dial, 1976.

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Birth Date: May 29, 1917 Death Date: November 22, 1963 U.S. congressman (1946–1952), senator (1953–1961), and president of the United States (1961–1963). John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Democrat John F. Kennedy was elected president in November 1960. He ushered in a new era in U.S. history. Kennedy escalated the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam but was reportedly contemplating a withdrawal of U.S. forces when he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)

568

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald

China. Throughout his career, in fact, Kennedy was known for his strong anti-Communist sentiments. Kennedy won election to the U.S. Senate in 1952. In 1953 he wed the New York socialite Jacqueline Bouvier. Kennedy had a relatively undistinguished Senate career. Never a well man, he suffered from several serious health problems, including a back operation in 1955 that nearly killed him. His illnesses limited his ability to become an activist senator. While he recuperated from his back surgery, Kennedy wrote—with the assistance of his wife—his second book, Profiles in Courage, that won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for History. Despite his fragile health and lackluster performance in the Senate, Kennedy nonetheless was reelected in 1958 after losing a close contest for the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in 1956. He now set his sights on the presidency. In 1960 he won the Democratic nomination for president on the first ballot. As a northerner and a Roman Catholic, he recognized his weakness in the South and shrewdly chose Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas as his running mate. As a candidate Kennedy promised more aggressive defense policies, health care reform, and housing and civil rights programs. He also proposed his New Frontier agenda, designed to revitalize the flagging U.S. economy and to bring young people into government and humanitarian service. Kennedy also charged the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration with allowing the Soviet Union to secure superiority in ballistics missiles over the United States. Winning by the narrowest of margins, Kennedy became the nation’s first Roman Catholic president. Only 42 years old, he was also the youngest man ever to be elected to that office. In his inaugural address Kennedy spoke of the need for Americans to be active citizens and to sacrifice for the common good. His address, which in some respects was a rather bellicose call to arms, ended with the now-famous exhortation “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” As president, Kennedy set out to fulfill his campaign pledges. Once in office, he was forced to respond to the ever-more-urgent demands of civil rights advocates, although he did so rather reluctantly and tardily. By establishing both the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, Kennedy delivered American idealism and goodwill to aid developing countries. Despite Kennedy’s idealism, no amount of enthusiasm could blunt the growing tension of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry. One of Kennedy’s first attempts to stanch the perceived Communist threat was to authorize American-supported Cuban exiles to invade the Communist island in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in April 1961. The Bay of Pigs Invasion, which turned into an embarrassing debacle for the president, had been planned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Eisenhower administration. Although Kennedy harbored reservations about the operation, he had nonetheless approved it. The failure heightened already-high Cold War tensions with the Soviets and ultimately set the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Cold War confrontation was not limited to Cuba. In the spring of 1961 the Soviet Union renewed its campaign to control West Berlin. Kennedy spent two days in Vienna in June 1961 discussing this hot-button issue with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. In the months that followed, the crisis over Berlin intensified with construction of the Berlin Wall, which prevented East Germans from escaping to the West. Kennedy responded to the provocation by reinforcing troops in West Germany and announcing an increase in the nation’s military strength. The Berlin Wall, unwittingly perhaps, eased tensions in Central Europe that had nearly resulted in a superpower conflagration. With the focus directed away from Europe, the Soviets began to clandestinely install nuclear missiles in Cuba. On October 14, 1962, U.S. spy planes photographed the construction of missilelaunching sites in Cuba. The placement of nuclear missiles only 90 miles from America’s shores threatened to destabilize the Western Hemisphere and undermine the uneasy Cold War nuclear deterrent. Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba that was designed to interdict any offensive weapons bound for the island. The world held its collective breath as the two Cold War superpowers appeared perched on the abyss of thermonuclear war, but after 13 harrowing days of fear and nuclear threat, the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles. In return the United States pledged not to preemptively invade Cuba and to remove its obsolete nuclear missiles from Turkey. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev had been sobered by the Cuban Missile Crisis, realizing that the world had come as close as it ever had to a full-scale nuclear war. Cold War tensions were diminished when the Soviets, British, and Americans signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on August 5, 1963, forbidding atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. In October 1963 the same three nations agreed to refrain from placing nuclear weapons in outer space. To avoid potential misunderstandings and miscalculations in a future crisis, a hot line was installed that directly linked the Oval Office with the Kremlin. The situation in Southeast Asia proved intractable, however. Throughout much of the Kennedy administration, Vietnam yielded place to Laos, the immediate Indochina problem. Eisenhower had told Kennedy that Laos was the key to Southeast Asia, for if Laos fell the Communists would bring “unbelievable pressure” on Thailand, Cambodia, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). By the end of 1960 Washington had already provided the Laotian government with $300 million in assistance, of which 85 percent was military. Civil war in Laos flared anew. A military coup had overthrown the rightist government of Laos in August 1960, and civil war had broken out. Both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Soviet Union actively intervened with troops and transport aircraft, but Kennedy decided not to send U.S. troops. In contrast to the Eisenhower administration, Kennedy was not averse to a neutralist solution. After much diplomatic activity, a 14-nation conference convened in Geneva in June 1961. During

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald

569

Approval Ratings for Past Presidents during the United States’ Involvement in Indochina President Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard M. Nixon

Term

Average Approval Rating

Highest Approval Rating

Lowest Approval Rating

1953–1961 1961–1963 1963–1969 1969–1974

65.0% 70.1% 55.1% 49.1%

79% (December 1956) 83% (March 1962) 79% (February 1964) 67% (January 1973)

48% (March 1958) 56% (September 1963) 35% (August 1968) 24% (August 1974)

the next year the conference hammered out a solution in the form of a tripartite coalition government, which proved short-lived. It was clear that the North Vietnamese government wanted to partition Laos in order to secure its vital Ho Chi Ming Trail network by which it supplied the Communist insurgents, known in South Vietnam as the Viet Cong (VC). The failure of the Communists to live up to the Geneva Accords concerning the neutralization of Laos greatly angered Kennedy and strongly influenced his policies regarding Vietnam, precluding an administration retreat there. Kennedy continued the previous administration’s policy of maintaining the South Vietnamese government. Indeed, well before he was president he had been a strong supporter of future South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1961 Kennedy sent Frederick Nolting to Saigon as the U.S. ambassador. Nolting had no Asian experience and deferred to Diem, meaning that there was no pressure on the South Vietnamese leader to institute meaningful reforms. Kennedy also escalated U.S. involvement, prompted by the long-standing U.S. commitment to battle communism as enunciated in the Containment Doctrine. Many in Washington professed to seeing South Vietnam as part of a larger fabric of Communist expansion. While Kennedy and many of his advisers tended to regard the fighting in Vietnam as a civil war, this position was not shared by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who held to the belief in “aggression from the North” in Vietnam. The so-called domino theory also held sway. This was the belief that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists, then the rest of Southeast Asia would surely follow. There was also the argument that U.S. prestige was on trial. If the United States failed in Vietnam, other nations would lose confidence in Washington’s willingness to project power. Also at stake was the matter of whether the West could respond to what was regarded as a new Communist strategy of wars of national liberation. Domestic political considerations also played a role. Kennedy was sensitive to Republican charges that the Democrats had “lost” China, and he had suffered rebuffs in the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and in the erection of the Berlin Wall. Another “retreat” before communism could have serious political repercussions. In May 1961 Kennedy dispatched Vice President Johnson to Saigon, and less than a week after his return Kennedy agreed to an increase in the size of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) from 170,000 to 270,000 men. The ARVN, however, continued to be indifferently led, inadequately equipped, and ineffective in combat. Kennedy then sent two fact-finding missions to Vietnam. Economist Dr. Eugene

Staley led the first in June and July 1961. His findings stressed that military action alone would not work, and he called for substantial social and political reform. He also pointed out the necessity for greater security and called for the construction of a network of strategic hamlets to protect the peasants. This belated South Vietnamese effort at counterinsurgency, run by Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, was plagued by inefficiency and corruption and proved to be a failure. In October 1961 Kennedy’s chief military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor and his special assistant for national security affairs Walt W. Rostow led another fact-finding mission to Vietnam. They saw the situation primarily in military terms and, among other recommendations, urged a large increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel. They even recommended the deployment of 8,000 American combat troops under the guise of a flood-control team. Undersecretary of State George W. Ball argued against any escalation in the U.S. role. He met privately with Kennedy to express his opposition to the Taylor-Rostow proposals and predicted that if the United States accepted these recommendations, in five years it would have 300,000 men in Vietnam. Kennedy responded, “George, you’re just crazier than hell. That isn’t going to happen.” Kennedy accepted the Taylor-Rostow recommendations except for the introduction of U.S. troops, which Diem, prescient in this at least, opposed as a potential propaganda bonanza for the Communists. To coordinate this increased aid, however, in February 1962 Washington opened a new military headquarters in Saigon. Known as the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), it was headed by General Paul D. Harkins. U.S. helicopter pilots were soon at work supporting ARVN troops in the field, and by the end of 1962 the number of American military personnel in South Vietnam had quadrupled to 11,326. The U.S. military infusion may have helped prevent an outright VC victory in 1962, but the advantage was only temporary. The North Vietnamese government was also escalating its support in the south, and increasingly large numbers of troops, along with weapons and ammunition, were arriving in South Vietnam. The war was not the only thing going badly for the Diem government. Buddhist displeasure with Diem’s government, which was heavily staffed with Catholics, led to demonstrations throughout the country and to the self-immolation of Buddhist monks. Diem’s Brother Nhu, who directed the secret police, greatly embarrassed the Kennedy administration with his raids on Buddhist pagodas and the arrest of some 1,400 people. Diem saw only the

570

Kennedy, Robert Francis

Communist threat and was quite oblivious to the fact that his regime’s oppression was feeding the insurgency. His response was more oppression. Increasing numbers of South Vietnamese saw Diem as isolated and out of touch with the people. Henry Cabot Lodge replaced Nolting in August 1963 and came to the conclusion that the war could not be won with Diem. The CIA had already reported that an influential faction of South Vietnamese generals wanted to overthrow Diem. Washington was initially opposed to a coup and favored a purge of Diem’s close advisers, but Diem refused to part with his brother and other loyal supporters, and the Kennedy administration then assured the generals that it would not intervene. Meanwhile, further outrages against the Buddhists led the Kennedy administration on October 2, 1963, to suspend economic subsidies and cut off financial support of Nhu’s Special Forces. This was a further encouragement to the plotters, who struck early on November 1, 1963. The next day both Diem and Nhu, who Washington had assumed would be given safe passage out of the country, were murdered. Diem’s death did not bring political stability, for Washington never could find a worthy successor to him. The United States, which could not win the war with Diem, apparently could not win the war without him either. Kennedy’s position on the war was by now ambiguous. In the spring of 1963 he told close advisers that he planned to use optimistic reports from Harkins and Taylor to justify a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces, something that he intended to keep secret until after the 1964 presidential elections. Kennedy’s last statement on Vietnam, made in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 22, 1963, reveals the dilemma he faced: “Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight.” While there is simply no way of knowing what Kennedy would have done about Vietnam had he lived, his statements about withdrawal were made when the United States was seen to be winning the war. In an effort to solidify political support in Texas, in November 1963 Kennedy embarked on a whirlwind tour of the state with his wife and vice president. On November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy, who was riding in an open car, was instantly killed by an assassin’s bullet. In the hours immediately after the murder, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination of the president. Two days later as the president’s body lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police station as millions of Americans watched on television. In a great national outpouring of grief, Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery on November 25, 1963. LACIE A. BALLINGER AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Ball, George Wildman; Containment Policy; Domino Theory; Harkins, Paul Donal; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Rusk, David Dean; Staley, Eugene; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport

References Beschloss, Michael R. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Bradlee, Benjamin C. Conversations with Kennedy. New York: Norton, 1975. Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Schlesinger, Arthur M. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. Sidey, Hugh. John F. Kennedy, President. New York: Atheneum, 1964.

Kennedy, Robert Francis Birth Date: November 20, 1925 Death Date: June 6, 1968 U.S. attorney general, 1961–1964; U.S. senator, 1965–1968; and presidential candidate, 1968. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925, Robert Francis Kennedy enlisted in the Naval Reserve and attended the V-12 training program at Harvard University. After a period of active duty during which he served on a destroyer, he received his honorable discharge in May 1946 and returned to Harvard, where he graduated in 1948. In 1951 he received a law degree from the University of Virginia and was admitted to the bar. The following year he managed his brother John F. Kennedy’s successful senatorial campaign. In September 1951 Robert Kennedy covered the proceedings surrounding the U.S.-Japan Peace Treaty in San Francisco for the Boston Post. As legal counsel to several Senate committees in the 1950s, Kennedy served on Republican senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. In 1957 as head counsel and staff director on the committee investigating racketeering in U.S. labor unions, Kennedy engaged in a high-profile confrontation with Teamster boss James (Jimmy) Hoffa, which earned Kennedy national notoriety. He also played a peripheral role in the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, although he allegedly professed a continued fondness for his former mentor. In 1960 Kennedy managed his brother’s successful campaign for the presidency. The president-elect soon selected his brother as attorney general of the United States. Not surprisingly, the move resulted in charges of nepotism among Kennedy’s detractors. At the Justice Department, Kennedy made civil rights and organized crime his top priorities. Indeed, he placed the full weight of the Justice Department behind the growing civil rights effort, while also keeping close tabs on civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. But Kennedy’s influence extended beyond the Justice Department. As his brother’s closest adviser, he became increasingly involved in foreign policy and national security issues and played

Kent State University Shootings a significant role in the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. He also supported U.S. initiatives in Southeast Asia, including those in Indochina. Following his brother’s assassination in November 1963, Kennedy stayed on as attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson but in 1964 resigned to run for the U.S. Senate from New York. Indeed, Johnson and Kennedy had little in common and little use for one another. In the Senate, Kennedy continued to support U.S. efforts in Vietnam, at least initially. He did lament the toll that the war took upon his brother’s Alliance for Progress and Johnson’s Great Society programs and criticized the 1965 U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic. Despite his growing apprehension toward the Vietnam War, especially the massive bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Kennedy refrained from openly opposing administration policy. He was also acutely aware of the appearance of opportunism and the public perception of his political motives. But as racial strife and urban violence convulsed the country along with mounting antiwar sentiment and massive protests, Kennedy found it increasingly difficult to support the war or to refrain from criticizing the Johnson administration. The presidential campaign of 1968 opened the door for Kennedy, but he held back, refusing at first to jump into the fray. After antiwar senator Eugene McCarthy’s unexpectedly strong performance in the New Hampshire primary, which essentially was a repudiation of Johnson, Kennedy entered the race. In March 1968 when President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection, Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the administration’s presidential candidate. In addition to his stated desire to end the fighting in Southeast Asia, Kennedy also sought to bridge the many rifts within American society. He quickly emerged as a serious contender for the presidency and became the darling of many in the antiwar Left. On June 4, 1968, he won the all-important California primary, thereby becoming his party’s front-runner. In the early morning hours of June 5 after addressing his supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy died the following day at the age of 42. Kennedy’s assassination, less than five years after that of his brother and only two months after that of King, devastated the nation and added sad punctuation to the divisive era. DAVID COFFEY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph References Palermo, Joseph A. In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator John F. Kennedy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.

571

Kent State University Shootings Event Date: May 4, 1970 Site of an incident on May 4, 1970, involving members of the Ohio National Guard and antiwar demonstrators that left four students dead and nine wounded. The incident at Kent State University in Ohio was perhaps the climax of both protests against the war in Vietnam and student unrest on campuses across the nation. The protests at Kent State were part of a widespread spontaneous reaction to the announcement by President Richard M. Nixon of the U.S. incursion into Cambodia, which had begun only days earlier. Other universities, Princeton University among them, voted at this time to strike in protest against the war. A strike center was established at Brandeis University, and by May 4 nearly 100 campuses were on strike or planning to do so. At Kent State, demonstrations began on May 1. Whether actually political in motivation or just an example of the rites of spring, property was damaged, and the mayor of Kent called for the National Guard. On May 2 a large rally took place on campus. After the rally, although not necessarily because of it, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) building on campus was set alight and burned down. The following day, a Sunday, the Ohio National Guard took up positions on campus. That evening students gathered on the Commons were tear-gassed and dispersed. On May 4 a rally was scheduled for noon. The National Guard attempted to disperse a crowd of perhaps 2,000 people. After some unsuccessful efforts, the National Guard suddenly began firing from the top of a small rise called Blanket Hill at students gathered in a parking lot below. The firing, which began at 12:25 p.m., lasted for 13 seconds. It was estimated that 61 rounds were fired. Four people were killed: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Only Krause and Miller had been active participants in the rally. The university was closed by court order later that day, but the National Guard remained on duty until May 8. As a result of what had transpired, hundreds more campuses went on strike or experienced demonstrations against the war and the killings at Kent State. Estimates vary, but it is likely that at least 500 campuses either went on strike or experienced serious disruption after the Kent State shootings. The nature of the strikes and demonstrations varied from campus to campus, but a few common denominators were evident. In addition to events held on campuses to protest the war and the incident at Kent State, students often attempted to influence public opinion in nearby communities. Plans were also made to take an active role in the congressional campaign that autumn (the Movement for a New Congress, or the Princeton Plan), the idea being to elect as many peace candidates as possible. Finally, some students formed committees to support the Nixon administration. A few students traveled from campus to campus to encourage strikes, but strike movements were almost always spontaneous reactions to events and were locally organized.

572

Kent State University Shootings

A Kent State University student lies on the ground after National Guardsmen fired into a crowd of demonstrators on May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio. Four students were killed and nine were wounded when the Guard opened fire during a campus protest against the U.S. “incursion” into Cambodia. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Ten days after the shootings at Kent State, 2 students were killed and 12 wounded when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory at Jackson State College in Mississippi in the aftermath of another student antiwar rally. Although many saw the Jackson State incident as another sign of disturbing trends, reaction to that event was relatively muted, and it has never been given the same attention as the Kent State incident. Some have argued that race played a role in that, as Jackson State was historically African American, and the students killed were black. The President’s Commission on Campus Unrest (also known as the Scranton Commission) issued its report on the Kent State shootings in September 1970. Although criticizing violent protest, the report condemned the actions of the National Guard as “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.” The report also called on President Nixon to provide “compassionate, reconciling moral leadership . . . [to] bring the country together again.”

Although protests against the war in Vietnam continued with some impressive events in the early 1970s, campus-based protest lost most of its momentum after the Kent State shootings. The Movement for a New Congress had little effect on the autumn campaigns. Other initiatives produced in reaction to the Cambodia Incursion and the Kent State shootings had a similar lack of impact. The Kent State shootings marked the end of an era. MICHAEL RICHARDS See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Jackson State College Shootings; Media and the Vietnam War; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Television and the Vietnam War References Anderson, Maggie, and Alex Gildzen, eds. A Gathering of Poets. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1992.

Kerrey, Joseph Robert Bills, Scott L., ed. Kent State/May 4: Echoes through a Decade. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1982. Gordon, William A. The Fourth of May: Killings and Coverups at Kent State. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1990. Morgan, Edward P. The 60s Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

KENTUCKY,

Operation

Start Date: November 1, 1967 End Date: February 28, 1969 U.S. Marine Corps operation, part of the bloody fighting along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). This 16th-month-long operation involving the 3rd Marine Division began on November 1, 1967, with the goal of securing territory to permit additional construction on the Con Thien–Gio Linh area of the electronic barrier known as the McNamara Line. On November 14 two weeks into the operation, the 3rd Marine Division commander, Major General Bruno A. Hochmuth, was killed when the helicopter in which he was flying from Hue to Dong Ha crashed five miles from Hue. Operation KENTUCKY continued until February 28, 1969. Casualty totals were 3,921 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops and Viet Cong (VC) killed in action. U.S. losses were 478 killed and 2,698 wounded. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Con Thien, Siege of; Demilitarized Zone; Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur; McNamara Line References Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Coan, James P. Con Thien: The Hill of Angels. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Shulimson, Jack, Leonard A. Blasiol, Charles R. Smith, and David A. Dawson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

Kep Airfield Communist-held airfield located approximately 40 miles northeast of Hanoi in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). During the Vietnam War, Kep Airfield served as one of the principal air bases for North Vietnamese Soviet-built MiG

573

fighters. The airfield was located within U.S. Route Package VI (a strike zone for both U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy air operations). The site for Kep Airfield lay just east of the American-named “Thud Ridge” along an important transportation network. Aircraft based at Kep could challenge American fighter-bombers attempting to interdict rail lines and roads that extended north from Hanoi to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The North Vietnamese upgraded and expanded the existing airfield at Kep during the summer and autumn of 1965 in order to make it capable of supporting MiG fighters. North Vietnamese MiGs began transferring to Kep from Phuc Yen Airfield in April 1966, although the 923rd Fighter Regiment was not officially established at Kep until September 1966. Throughout 1966 and part of 1967, the United States imposed a bombing restriction on Kep and other airfields, which allowed the MiGs to utilize these bases as refuges from American aircraft. The United States ended this restriction in 1967, however, and attacks against Kep occurred until the end of Operation ROLLING THUNDER on November 1, 1968. The United States renewed attacks on Kep in Operation LINEBACKER I during May–October 1972. Despite the American attacks, the North Vietnamese were able to quickly repair damages and put the airfield back into operation after each raid. TERRY M. MAYS See also Kien An Airfield; LINEBACKER I, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Route Packages; Thud Ridge References Staaveren, Jacob Van. Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965–1966. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000. Toperczer, Istvan. MiG-17 and MiG-19 Units of the Vietnam War. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2001. Toperczer, Istvan. MiG-21 Units of the Vietnam War. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2001.

Kerrey, Joseph Robert Birth Date: August 27, 1943 Businessman, politician, U.S. senator (1989–2001), and Vietnam veteran who earned the Medal of Honor. Joseph Robert (Bob) Kerrey was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on August 27, 1943. He attended the Nebraska public school system, graduating from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln with a degree in pharmacology in 1966. In spite of health problems, Kerrey was drawn to follow the family tradition of military service, and he volunteered for the U.S. Navy’s Officer Candidate School (OCS). Attendance at OCS was followed by additional training in the rigorous underwater demolition school at Coronado Island, California. After completing the challenging underwater program, Kerrey went on to more

574

Kerry, John Forbes

advanced training, ultimately becoming a member of the elite fighting force known as the Navy SEALS (Sea, Air, and Land). In 1968 Lieutenant Kerrey was assigned to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in SEAL Team 1. He and his men patrolled the Mekong Delta, where he led his men on an attack of a suspected Viet Cong (VC) meeting at Thanh Phong on February 29, 1969. However, as was often the case, by the time Kerrey’s unit arrived, the enemy was no longer present. Nonetheless, the SEAL attack at night on the village resulted in a number of civilian causalities. In recent years Kerrey has been criticized for his role in what some have called the Thanh Phong Massacre. Awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his actions, Kerrey has said that he deeply regrets what occurred at Thanh Phong and the loss of innocent lives. Some villagers later charged that civilians there had been rounded up after dark and summarily shot, something that Kerrey and his team adamantly deny. Kerrey’s unit carried out another attack, at Nha Thang, on March 14, 1969, capturing local political leaders there. Kerrey and his unit scaled a 350-foot cliff to drop unnoticed into the village, but during the descent the team’s cover was compromised, and the unit came under fire. Kerrey sustained a serious leg wound when a grenade exploded at his feet. In spite of his grave injuries, he continued to direct his unit until he was transported from the field of battle. The raid was hailed as a success, with several of the captured VC leaders providing vital intelligence. Kerrey meanwhile was treated for his wounds, which resulted in the amputation of the lower part of one of his legs. Returned to the United States for recuperation, Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Richard M. Nixon in May 1970. After receiving a medical discharge from the U.S. Navy, Kerrey went into business, operating a chain of restaurants and fitness facilities. His success in business was soon matched by his achievements in politics. Kerrey, a political novice, came from nowhere to challenge incumbent Republican governor Charles Thone of Nebraska in the 1982 gubernatorial election. Kerrey waged an effective campaign and won the election. He took office in January 1983. After serving one four-year term as governor, Kerrey ran successfully for the U.S. Senate in 1988, taking office in 1989. Kerrey distinguished himself in the Senate, and in 1992 he campaigned to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. He lost to former governor William J. Clinton from Arkansas, who went on to win the presidential election. Kerrey left the Senate in 2001. This did not mean an end to his public service, however. He subsequently served on the 9/11 Commission and, as a longtime advocate of higher education, accepted the presidency of the New School University in New York in 2001. JEFFERY B. COOK See also Viet Cong Infrastructure References Caldwell, Christopher. “Review of When I Was a Young Man.” Financial Times, May 31, 2002, 19.

Kerrey, Robert. When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir. New York: Harcourt, 2002. Malcolm, Andrew. “Democrats Gain Five Governors.” New York Times, November 4, 1982.

Kerry, John Forbes Birth Date: December 11, 1943 Vietnam War veteran, U.S. senator (1985–), and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. John Forbes Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado, on December 11, 1943, the son of a World War II Army Air Force test pilot, foreign service officer, and attorney. His mother, a nurse, was a member of the distinguished and wealthy Forbes family of Boston. As a child, Kerry lived abroad for a time and also attended an exclusive college preparatory school in New Hampshire. Kerry attended Yale University, graduating in 1966. That same year he joined the U.S. Navy, serving on a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam. During 1968–1969 he volunteered to command a Swift (navy patrol) boat; he was stationed first at Cam Ranh Bay and then on the island of Phu Quoc. He was wounded three times in combat, awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Hearts. Kerry returned to the United States in the spring of 1969, and he left the navy on March 1, 1970. Upon his return Kerry, who was proud of his service in the Vietnam War, nevertheless dedicated much energy to opposing the war and to speaking out on policies that he believed had failed the U.S. mission in Vietnam. Some of his actions were not without controversy. His antiwar activity included membership in several antiwar organizations, writings against the war, testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and participation in numerous demonstrations, including one in which he and nearly 1,000 fellow Vietnam veterans threw down their service medals on the steps of the U.S. Capitol while television reporters filmed the event. In 1971 he was a participant in the controversial Winter Soldier Investigation, during which more than 100 veterans gave testimony about war crimes they had seen or participated in. During testimony before the U.S. Senate, he asked a memorably rhetorical question: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” In 1972 Kerry decided to run for a U.S. House of Representatives seat, representing northeastern Massachusetts as a Democrat. He lost the race and decided to attend law school at Boston College, from which he earned a degree in 1976. He then became a fulltime prosecutor in Middlesex County. He left that post in 1979 to establish his own law firm, which was a modest success. In 1982 he successfully ran for the post of lieutenant governor in Massachusetts and served under Governor Michael Dukakis. Two years later Kerry ran for a U.S. Senate seat and won. He has remained in the Senate since January 1985.

Kerry, John Forbes

575

John Kerry, then a 27-year-old former navy lieutenant who headed the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), receives support from a gallery of peace demonstrators and tourists as he testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 1971. (AP/Wide World Photos)

In the Senate, Kerry earned a reputation for his earnestness, deep grasp of issues, and ability to reach across the aisle when necessary to effect bipartisan legislative compromises. He is considered a moderate to Left-leaning Democrat. From 1991 to 1993 Kerry chaired the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. The committee’s final report, issued in 1993, stated that there was no clear evidence to suggest that any Americans remained alive and in captivity in Southeast Asia. However, the report also concluded that it was possible that some detainees may have survived beyond Operation HOMECOMING. Kerry decided to run for president in 2004, and he soon established himself as one of the front-runners in an unusually crowded slate of Democratic hopefuls. After winning the January 2004 Iowa Caucus, Kerry went on to win a string of state primaries, and by the early spring he was the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. After choosing North Carolina senator John Edwards as his vice presidential running mate, Kerry was formally nominated at the Democratic National Convention that summer and began a hard-fought campaign to unseat incumbent George W. Bush. Kerry’s main platform in the election was his opposition to the war in Iraq and the administration’s handling of the War on Terror after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. He also took issue with Bush’s economic policies, which had caused huge budget defi-

cits and an uneven economy and had skewed income toward the already wealthy. Kerry also made vague promises of health care reform. Without a doubt, however, the Iraq War was the most important subject of debate. In this Kerry’s past voting record did not serve him well, as he strongly backed the October 2002 joint congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. After the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent revelation that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), Kerry turned sharply against the war and became an outspoken critic of the Bush administration. Not surprisingly, the Bush campaign jumped on Kerry’s position vis-à-vis the Iraq War, labeling him a “flip-flopper.” Over the course of the late summer and into the autumn, Bush campaign operatives planted seeds of doubt into the electorate as to Kerry’s competence, decisiveness, and ability to handle national security issues. The Kerry campaign was sometimes slow and tepid in its reactions to these attacks, which only compounded the damage. The Vietnam War also entered the campaign in the form of a series of searing television ads by the right-wing Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Among other things, the group accused Kerry of dishonorable conduct during and after his Vietnam War service and charged that he had lied or greatly exaggerated his role in the war. The commercials were without merit or substantiation, but Kerry

576

Kerwin, Walter T., Jr.

was too slow to respond to them. He went on to lose the 2004 election. The incumbent Bush bested him by less than 3 percent of the popular vote. Remaining in the U.S. Senate, Kerry continued to criticize the Bush administration’s policies, especially those toward the Iraq War. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; HOMECOMING, Operation; Riverine Warfare; Swift Boat; Swift Boat Veterans for Truth References Kerry, John. A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America. New York: Viking Books, 2003. Kimmery, Anthony. “John Kerry: The Senate’s Rising Voice for Veterans.” VVA Veteran 10(10) (October 1990): 1, 13–16. Kranish, Michael, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton. John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004.

Kerwin, Walter T., Jr. Birth Date: June 14, 1917 Death Date: July 11, 2008 U.S. Army officer; chief of staff of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), at the time of the Tet Offensive; and later commanding general of II Field Force. Walter T. “Dutch” Kerwin Jr. was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on June 14, 1917. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1939 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery. Throughout most of World War II he served with the 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and southern France. During the critical fighting for the Anzio beachhead in 1944, the commander of the U.S. VI Corps, Major General Lucian K. Truscott, placed Kerwin, then only a major, in charge of the corps’ counterbattery efforts to silence the German guns. Later in southern France, Kerwin was seriously wounded near Mutzig and almost lost a leg. Following the war and a lengthy period of recovery from his wounds, Kerwin progressed steadily through a series of service schools and command and staff assignments. In 1957 he was assigned as commander of the 56th Field Artillery Group, a unit of the Corps Artillery of the XVIII Airborne Corps. His first assignment as a brigadier general was command of the Divisional Artillery of the 3rd Armored Division in Germany in August 1961. The division commander was Major General Creighton Abrams. Kerwin assumed command of the 3rd Armored Division in March 1965. In May 1967 Kerwin, now a major general, and Abrams, now a full general, flew to Vietnam together. Abrams had been assigned as MACV deputy commanding general and was scheduled to replace General William C. Westmoreland shortly as commanding general. Abrams personally selected Kerwin to be his chief of staff. At the wish of President Lyndon B. Johnson, however, Westmoreland remained at MACV far longer than originally planned, and

Kerwin served as his chief of staff until Westmoreland relinquished command in June 1968. Rather than the traditional chief of staff’s role of answering only to the commander, Kerwin found himself in a position where he had to serve not only Westmoreland and Abrams but also U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Ellsworth Bunker and Robert W. Komer, MACV’s civilian deputy commander for Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). It was a difficult position that required great tact and diplomatic skill as well as the traditional organizational and directional talents of a successful chief of staff. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Kerwin was responsible for making sense out of the overwhelming flood of conflicting and incomplete information that poured into MACV headquarters at the start of the attack on January 31. Simultaneously, he had to handle all the frantic demands for situation reports coming from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington. It was the classic job of a military staff officer to bring order out of chaos. As the situation slowly clarified, Westmoreland was most concerned about the vulnerability of the northern provinces of Vietnam. At Kerwin’s suggestion, Westmoreland made the decision to establish a MACV Forward Headquarters at Phu Bai, just south of Hue, and to send Abrams north to assume direct tactical control of the fighting. The siege of Khe Sanh had begun before the countrywide attacks of the Tet Offensive, and as the main Tet attacks were beaten back, Khe Sanh assumed an even greater political and psychological significance. One of the biggest operational problems was the lack of coordination between the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force for air support of the beleaguered base. Remembering Kerwin’s performance at the Anzio beachhead, Abrams recommended to Westmoreland that he send his chief of staff north to untangle the situation. Kerwin finally secured a resolution to the problem by holding the representatives from the various services in a tent and refusing to let them leave until they hammered out an agreement. Kerwin later remembered that solving the fire-support problem at Anzio had been much simpler. After Westmoreland finally turned command over to Abrams, Kerwin continued to serve as MACV chief of staff for only about a month. In August 1968 Kerwin assumed command of II Field Force, a corps-level command. In April 1969 Kerwin left Vietnam and returned to an assignment on the Army Staff at the Pentagon. Over the course of the next nine years he was one of the key architects of the rebuilding of the U.S. Army following the devastating experience of Vietnam and its transition to an all-volunteer force. He served successively as the army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel, commanding general of the Continental Army Command, commanding general of U.S. Army Forces Command, and finally as vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, retiring in 1978 as a full (four-star) general. Kerwin was for many years a consultant for defense contractors Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin. He was also active in the Army and Air Force Mutual Aid Association and was its chairman

Khai Dinh

577

from 1982 to 1997. In addition, he was actively involved in the Association of the United States Army and other service-related organizations. Kerwin died in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 11, 2008. DAVID T. ZABECKI

See also Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; United States Air Force; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy

See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Bunker, Ellsworth; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Komer, Robert W.; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Westmoreland, William Childs

References Condit, Kenneth W. The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, Vol. 2, 1947–1949. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1979. Wolf, Richard I., ed. The United States Air Force Basic Documents on Roles and Missions. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987.

References Carafano, James Jay. “Walter T. Kerwin, Jr.” In Chief of Staff: The Principal Officers behind History’s Great Commanders, Vol. 2, edited by David T. Zabecki, 205–223. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

Key West Agreement Agreement made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal during a March 11–14, 1948, meeting at the Key West Naval Base. Forrestal called the meeting because the JCS could not agree on certain specific roles and missions. Confusion over roles and missions arose because the National Security Act of 1947 had failed to specify the contingencies in which one service might operate in another’s primary area of responsibility. These primary areas were the land for the U.S. Army, the sea for the U.S. Navy, and the air for the U.S. Air Force. Disputes arose when the U.S. Navy proposed building a large aircraft carrier to be used in launching nuclear attacks on land targets. The U.S. Air Force claimed this mission. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force were also in conflict over air defense of land areas. The army opposed the navy’s marine corps as a duplication of its own mission. The JCS could not resolve their differences, so Forrestal called the Key West meeting, where they hammered out an agreement. It included these points: (1) the navy would retain its aviation but would not develop a strategic air arm; (2) naval aviation should be used over land for interdiction and close air support but only with air force concurrence; (3) the U.S. Marine Corps would be limited in size to four divisions and one field corps; and (4) the air force and army would divide responsibility for air defense of land. The Key West Agreement gave the U.S. Air Force control of all land-based armed aircraft but allowed the U.S. Army to keep its small aircraft and helicopters for artillery spotting and a few other missions. In the 1950s the U.S. Army expanded this aviation charter to include the transportation of troops into battle and supplying them inside the combat zone. The army also armed its helicopters for defense. The Key West Agreement was the charter that ultimately made possible U.S. Army air mobility in Vietnam. JOHN L. BELL JR.

Khai Dinh Birth Date: October 8, 1885 Death Date: November 6, 1925 Vietnamese emperor. The 12th emperor of the Nguyen dynasty, Khai Dinh was born Prince Nguyen Buu Dao on October 8, 1885, in Hue. He was a son of Emperor Dong Khanh in Hue and was also the younger brother of acclaimed Vietnamese nationalist emperor Ham Nghi (r. 1884–1885). In 1916 the 18-year-old Emperor Duy Tan led an unsuccessful uprising against French rule. The French exiled him to Réunion Island and decided to install Nguyen Buu Dao as emperor. His father, Emperor Dong Khanh, had been the most pliable of recent Nguyen emperors, and the French hoped that Nguyen Buu Dao would prove the same. Assuming the throne on May 17, 1916, he took the name of Khai Dinh, meaning “auger of peace and stability.” As the French had hoped, Khai Dinh proved subservient to the colonial administration. Because he had the reputation of being a tool of the French, Khai Dinh was unpopular with most Vietnamese. Young nationalist Nguyen Ai Quoc (later known as Ho Chi Minh) wrote a play about Khai Dinh, “The Bamboo Dragon,” that ridiculed him as all show and no substance. Khai Dinh’s unpopularity peaked in 1923 when he authorized an increase in taxes on the peasantry proposed by the French, part of the income from which was used for the building of his own large, elaborate tomb. Khai Dinh also signed arrest warrants for a number of Vietnamese nationalist leaders. In 1922 Khai Dinh traveled to France to view the Marseille Colonial Exhibition. His second wife, Tu Cung, whom he married in 1913, gave birth to Nguyen Phuoc Thien, who on Khai Dinh’s death became, at age 12, the last Vietnamese emperor, Bao Dai. Frail and suffering from poor health, Khai Dinh ultimately became a drug addict. Although his 9-year reign was generally peaceful, during this time Vietnamese nationalist sentiment solidified. Khai Dinh died in Hue on November 6, 1925. His large tomb, located on the slopes of Chau Chu Mountain six miles from Hue, is today a tourist attraction. Begun in 1920 and completed in 1931, it is chiefly of reinforced concrete with statues of stone and is a blend of traditional Vietnamese and modern architectural styles. SPENCER C. TUCKER

578

Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, Fall of

See also Bao Dai; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ham Nghi; Ho Chi Minh References Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Nguyen Khac Vien. The Long Resistance, 1858–1975. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1975. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, Fall of Start Date: May 11, 1968 End Date: May 12, 1968 Kham Duc Special Forces Camp was located in northwestern Quang Tin Province, 10 miles from the Laotian border and 90 miles southwest of Da Nang. Named for a small village about half a mile from its defense compound, the camp was situated midway along a 3.4-mile paved runway dominated by jungle-covered hills. The base was a launch site for cross-border Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Studies and Observation Group (SOG) reconnaissance teams engaged in special operations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The garrison included U.S. and Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Special Forces, Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) soldiers, and U.S. Army engineers. A satellite camp located at Ngoc Tavak, on the site of an old French fort, was 3 miles closer to the Laotian border. Its defenders included 173 CIDG troops, 8 U.S. Army Special Forces personnel, 3 Australian advisers, and 33 U.S. marines. Kham Duc took on added significance when it became the only remaining Special Forces camp along the Laotian border in the I Corps Tactical Zone after the fall of Lang Vei during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Throughout April 1968 Communist units were noted to be concentrating in the vicinity of Kham Duc. According to postwar Vietnamese sources, the goal in the Kham Duc area was to clear a way to build a supply road usable by trucks to transport supplies and heavy equipment from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos down to the lowlands outside of Da Nang to support the next wave of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Because of the growing threat to the camp, 632 troops, primarily from the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division, were flown in on May 10 and 11, nearly doubling the size of the defending force. Early on the morning of May 10, Ngoc Tavak was assaulted by the 1st and 21st regiments of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 2nd Division. After fierce resistance, the camp was abandoned later that day. Subsequent Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes apparently had little effect on PAVN forces approaching Kham Duc from the direction of Ngoc Tavak, and the Communist troops encircled and brought Kham Duc under heavy fire during May 10 and 11.

On May 11 General William Westmoreland ordered the camp evacuated. That night, despite artillery and Douglas AC-47 Spooky gunship support, PAVN forces overran all seven allied hilltop outposts overlooking Kham Duc. During the morning of May 12, massive ground assaults were launched against the camp perimeter. At 6:05 a.m. Seventh Air Force was notified of the decision to evacuate the camp. All in-country and out-country air force units were ordered to make a maximum effort to support the evacuation. Tankers for air refueling as well as forward air controllers (FACs) were to provide continuous coverage. FACs were responsible for preparing a corridor for transport aircraft and keeping PAVN forces away from the defense perimeter by directing tactical air support. The first helicopter to land was hit by Communist fire and exploded, temporarily blocking the runway. Meanwhile, a U.S. Air Force Douglas A-1E Skyraider ground support aircraft was shot down, although this loss did not discourage the continuous stream of aircraft remaining overhead. After the runway was cleared, a Lockheed C-130 Hercules was crippled by gunfire while landing but subsequently managed to take off. Meanwhile, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army helicopters brought in ammunition and carried out wounded. Four of the helicopters were shot down, and virtually all helicopters participating were damaged. At 11:05 a.m. a Chase/Fairchild C-123 Provider picked up a load of personnel. The next fixed-wing aircraft to land was a C-130. At 1:30 p.m. the C-130 took off with a crew of five and at least 150 CIDG personnel and their dependents. Struck by antiaircraft fire, it exploded in a fireball off the end of the runway; there were no survivors. The next C-130 was hit by ground fire but managed to evacuate a load of passengers. The fourth C-130 was raked by enemy fire and crash-landed, fortunately not blocking the runway. Four more C-130s landed during the afternoon, with the last flight picking up the remaining evacuees but, because of error, dropping off a three-man airlift Combat Control Team. Knowing that his crew was probably landing on an enemy-controlled field, Lieutenant Colonel Joe M. Jackson, piloting a C-123, landed in a rescue attempt. The aircraft, on the ground for 40 seconds, was surrounded by exploding ammunition dumps and was under rocket and mortar fire. Hundreds of tracers crisscrossed in front of the aircraft, which during takeoff swerved around a dud 122-millimeter rocket on the runway. For the daring rescue, Jackson received the Medal of Honor. At 2:26 p.m. with the three airmen safely airborne, the evacuation of nearly 1,500 personnel was complete. Two days later, on May 14, a helicopter rescued three U.S. Army personnel who had escaped from an outpost overrun on the night of May 11. GLENN E. HELM See also Airpower, Role in War; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces

Khe Sanh, Battle of References Gropman, Alan L. Airpower and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005. Singlaub, John K., with Malcolm McConnell. Hazardous Duty: An American Soldier in the Twentieth Century. New York: Summit Books, 1991. Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1993. Vu Anh Tai, Le Minh Tan, and Phan Van Tich. Su Doan 2 (Tap 1) [2nd Division (Volume 1)]. Da Nang, Vietnam: Da Nang Publishing House, 1989.

Khe Sanh, Battle of Event Dates: April–October 1967 and January–March 1968 There were two distinct phases in the Battle of Khe Sanh. The first phase in the battle for the Khe Sanh base occurred in 1967 and evolved from U.S. and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) engagements in the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). As part of his overall strategy, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland ordered the construction of interconnected bases along the supposedly demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam to act as an infiltration barrier, later using sensors and motion detectors to alert these bases to Communist troop movements. The outposts were designed not to stop PAVN infiltration but instead to funnel the troop movements to areas where bombers could easily strike them. One such outpost was Khe Sanh, a base camp on high ground surrounded by dense tree-canopied heights of up to 3,000 feet. It was some 6 miles from Laos to the west and 14 miles from the DMZ to the north. The village of Khe Sanh, inhabited by Vietnamese and Montagnards, was surrounded by smaller villages and French coffee plantations in a majestic landscape of emerald-green jungles, piercing mountains, and mist-shrouded waterfalls. Westmoreland hoped that Khe Sanh could be used as a patrol base for arresting PAVN infiltration from Laos along Route 9, a long-range patrol base for operations in Laos, an airstrip for reconnaissance planes scanning the Ho Chi Minh Trail, an anchor for defenses south of the DMZ in the west, and a stepping-off point for ground operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In August 1962 MACV had ordered U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and allied troops to establish the camp near the village of Khe Sanh. SOF units, called Study and Observation Groups (SOGs), used it to launch extended long-range reconnaissance operations into Laos to observe PAVN infiltration. If they located a large enemy concentration, they would call in air strikes. In April 1966 a single marine battalion temporarily occupied the base. Six months later General Westmoreland directed the U.S. Marine Corps, over its objections, to build a single-battalion base

579

immediately above the SOG base. In October one battalion of marines occupied the base. By the spring of 1967 the battalion had been reinforced to regimental strength by the III Marine Amphibious Force. Soon afterward SOGs observed marked increases in traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as did observation posts along the DMZ. Westmoreland believed that the Communists were planning a siege at Khe Sanh reminiscent of that at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In September he directed Seabees to upgrade the Khe Sanh landing strip to accommodate Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft. Moreover, 175-millimeter (mm) guns with a 20-mile range were placed in a more secure area at Camp Carroll, 12 miles distant. In the spring of 1967 as part of the PAVN plan to open up a new battlefront along South Vietnam’s northern border to draw U.S. forces away from the heavily populated lowlands to the south and to inflict heavy U.S. losses by luring American units into terrain favorable to PAVN forces, the PAVN sent a reinforced regiment (95C Regiment, 325C Division, plus a battalion from the division’s 18C Regiment) south to the Khe Sanh area to attack U.S. forces there. In April 1967 a marine patrol was ambushed near one of the surrounding hills west of Khe Sanh. A large rescue patrol suffered heavy casualties when many of its M16 rifles jammed. This incident led to congressional hearings and army modifications that improved M16 reliability. From April 24 to May 12, 1967, the 3rd Marines initiated several major assaults on three Communist-occupied hills surrounding Khe Sanh. These so-called Hill Fights produced fierce hand-tohand fighting that left 160 marines dead and 700 wounded, but the Americans destroyed one entire PAVN regiment and a large artillery emplacement in progress. At the end of this period the 3rd Marines were replaced by the 26th Marines, which left its 1st Battalion at Khe Sanh. The above operations were part of Operations CROCKETT (April–July 1967) and ARDMORE (July–October 1967). Both were supported by a massive bombing campaign (SLAM, for Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor) planned by U.S. Seventh Air Force commander General William Momyer. These 1967 engagements convinced Westmoreland that with adequate bombing and aerial resupply, U.S. outposts could survive even when outnumbered, a notion that he sold to the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Thus, U.S. military planning called for maintaining and enlarging DMZ outposts, especially Khe Sanh. This led to the 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh. Between October and December 1967 PAVN commander General Vo Nguyen Giap greatly built up PAVN strength near Khe Sanh. U.S. marines, reluctant to garrison the base in the first place, were now ordered to fortify their defensive positions. At 8:30 p.m. on January 2, 1968, a marine reconnaissance patrol spotted six shadowy figures on a slope near the base’s outer defenses. The marines opened fire and killed five PAVN officers who were apparently on a reconnaissance mission. The incident convinced General Westmoreland that several thousand enemy soldiers were near Khe Sanh and that Giap hoped to repeat his

580

Khe Sanh, Battle of

A medical corpsman attempts to calm a wounded U.S. marine, January 26, 1968. The marine was wounded in a North Vietnamese rocket and artillery attack on the marine base at Khe Sanh in far northwestern South Vietnam. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Dien Bien Phu victory at Khe Sanh. Westmoreland, who was clearly using the marines as bait to draw out the PAVN units, saw this as an opportunity for a decisive engagement. Indeed, two regiments of the PAVN 325C Division that had fought at Dien Bien Phu had crossed into South Vietnam from Laos and were then located northwest of Khe Sanh. Two regiments of the 320th Division had crossed the DMZ and were 20 miles northeast. They were supported by an armored regiment, two artillery regiments, and the 304th Division in Laos. PAVN forces totaled between 20,000 and 30,000 men, many of whom were actually support or reserve forces. Route 9, the only road to Khe Sanh, had been cut by Communist forces months earlier, so Westmoreland poured in supplies and reinforcements by air. Included on the flights were numerous reporters anxious for a big story. By mid-January, 6,000 marines defended the main plateau and four surrounding hills named for their height: Hill 950, Hill 881, Hill 861, and Hill 558. Approximately 3,000 marines defended the Khe Sanh base itself, and the

same number were split among the hill positions. Infantry at each garrison were supported by 105-mm howitzers and mortars. At 5:30 a.m. on January 20, Captain William Dabney and 185 men of Company I launched a patrol from Hill 881 South to Hill 881 North. Although such patrols were common practice, Dabney sensed that he would make contact that day and requested additional support. Colonel David Lownds, commander of the 26th Marines, deployed 200 additional men to support the patrol. Dabney divided his group, sending one platoon up one ridge and another two platoons up the other. As they ascended, the marines were preceded by a rolling artillery barrage. Dabney hoped that the Communist troops would respond and give away their positions. Instead, the PAVN veterans waited until a platoon led by Lieutenant Thomas Brindley came within close range and opened up with automatic rifles, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades. The point man was killed immediately, and several other platoon members were hit. Dabney sent a second platoon to flank the PAVN position, while Brindley called in artillery directly on his position. The second unit

Khe Sanh, Battle of

was hit as it advanced, and a massive firefight followed. Brindley ordered his men to make a dash for the PAVN position. Even though Brindley was killed and dozens of his men were wounded, with the support of fighter-bombers dropping napalm the marines took the position. Lownds concluded early the same morning that a larger attack would ensue, and he ordered Dabney to withdraw. Already the marines had lost 7 killed and 35 wounded. By nightfall Dabney’s men were back on Hill 881 South, and the Khe Sanh combat base was on maximum alert. (Years later Dabney was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic leadership.) That night the marines received information from an apparent Communist deserter that a major attack was planned on Hill 881 South and Hill 861 at 12:30 a.m. on January 21. The marines brought up several special weapons, including two Ontos assault vehicles capable of firing fléchette rounds, each with thousands of steel darts. They also set out several layers of razor-sharp concertina wire, hundreds of Claymore mines, and trip flares. PAVN forces attacked Hill 861 on schedule using bangalore torpedoes to break through marine defenses. The marines’ initial position was overrun, but at 5:00 a.m., supported by mortars, they

581

counterattacked with success. At 5:30 a.m. PAVN forces commenced an intense rocket and artillery attack against Khe Sanh proper. The main ammunition dump took a direct hit, resulting in a succession of explosions that left the defenders with barely enough ordnance to return fire. Artillery officer Major Roger Campbell measured craters caused by enemy shells to target the distance and direction of the PAVN guns. Despite heavy damage to the landing strip, that afternoon six C-130 planes arrived. Their 24 tons of cargo was mostly artillery shells, but Colonel Lownds estimated that he would need 160 tons of supplies per day to hold out. At 6:30 a.m. the PAVN attacked the village of Khe Sanh. Allied troops utilized air and artillery support to repel the attack, but thousands of local villagers fled their homes to seek refuge with the marines. The marines did not allow them into their lines for fear of sabotage. Nearly 3,000 tried to escape down Route 9 to Dong Ha, but only 1,432 arrived. Despite setbacks, marine defenses remained strong. The ammunition dump explosion did produce wild headlines that fed public concerns about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. President Johnson became so concerned that he had hourly reports sent

582

Khe Sanh, Battle of

to him and a map room set up in the White House basement with a large board replica of Khe Sanh. Westmoreland controlled air operations, personally picking targets based on advice from General Momyer. For several days after the first attacks, Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses bombed targets every three hours. By March 31 they had dropped between 60,000 and 75,000 tons of bombs. In addition, U.S. fighter-bombers flew an average of 300 sorties daily. B-52s also struck PAVN command center caves in Laos. On occasion the B-52s dropped bombs within 1,000 yards of the Khe Sanh perimeter even though the marines were unable to see the high-flying bombers. Still, regular PAVN rocket attacks continued, making life on the plateau both difficult and dangerous. Hygiene and psychological strains were also a problem. Sniper duels were commonplace and became macabre games of life and death. Despite tensions, morale at Khe Sanh remained high throughout the siege. Between January 21 and February 5, PAVN forces mounted several small attacks against new marine positions on Hill 861A near a quarry just outside the perimeter. On February 5 PAVN troops overran a portion of Hill 861, killing seven marines. The marines retook the position using tear gas and air and artillery support. Mortar crews on Hill 881 South fired 1,100 rounds into PAVN positions. The fighting ended in hand-to-hand combat. Early on February 7 PAVN forces overran the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp about five miles southwest of Khe Sanh and only a mile from Laos. Early on February 8 three PAVN companies struck a platoon of about 50 members of A Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, holding little Hill 64 just outside the combat base. The assaulting troops knocked out the marine bunkers with satchel charges and rocket-propelled grenades. When marines reinforcements arrived at about 9:00 a.m., they found 21 marines dead, 26 badly wounded, and 4 missing in action. Only 1 of the defenders was unscathed. On February 25 a 29-man marine patrol looking for a Communist mortar position stumbled on a PAVN bunker and was overwhelmed. Unable to rescue the marines, Lownds ordered the men to escape the best way they could. Only 3 got away. Corporal Roland Ball, a Sioux Native American, carried out the body of his commanding officer, Lieutenant Dan Jacques. Dead marines lay on the field unburied for another month until the siege ended. On March 6 Communist forces began their withdrawal. By March 9 only a few thousand rear-guard units remained. Operation SCOTLAND, the final part of the siege at Khe Sanh, ended on April 1, officially terminating the battle. The same day allied units began Operation PEGASUS to reopen Route 9. On April 8 they linked up with Khe Sanh. The next day was the first since January 21 that no PAVN shells struck the marine base. Two months later, on June 26, 1968, U.S. forces abandoned the Khe Sanh base. The official casualty count for the second phase of the Battle of Khe Sanh was 205 marines killed in action and more than 1,600 wounded; however, base chaplain Ray W. Stubbe placed the death toll closer to 475. This does not include Americans killed in collateral actions, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South

Vietnamese Army) Ranger casualties on the southwest perimeter, 1,000 to 1,500 Montagnards who died during the fighting, or the 97 U.S. and 33 ARVN troops killed in the relief operation. MACV estimated PAVN losses at 10,000 to 15,000 men. Most of these casualties occurred as a result of U.S. B-52 Arc Light bombing raids and other aerial and artillery support. The official body count was 1,602. PAVN sources list a total of 2,270 PAVN troops killed during the siege of Khe Sanh, although it is not clear whether this total includes soldiers missing in action. The siege of Khe Sanh in particular and the Tet Offensive in general disheartened the American public, which began to question the cost and worth of the Vietnam War to America. Indeed, Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive marked the beginning of the end for America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. Who won the second phase of the Battle of Khe Sanh? U.S. Marine Corps historian Jack Shulimson observed that is not clear if North Vietnamese forces actually intended to seize Khe Sanh or merely used the assault as a way to draw American forces away from cities. General Giap claimed victory for the PAVN. According to him, the Communists never intended to overrun the marine base. Communist documents and histories that have become available since the war ended do not entirely support General Giap’s claim. These records state that the 1968 attacks on Khe Sanh and the rest of northern Quang Tri Province had two objectives: to draw U.S. and South Vietnamese forces away from the populated areas of South Vietnam and to inflict massive casualties on opposing forces (specific goals set were to kill 20,000–30,000 “enemy,” primarily American, soldiers and to “totally annihilate five to seven U.S. battalions”). These documents also reveal that while the primary PAVN plan was to lure U.S. forces out of their dug-in fortified positions and into the open so that they could be killed in large numbers, there was a provision in the plan to “attack and liberate [overrun] Khe Sanh” if that was possible. If the siege of Khe Sanh was meant to be only a Communist ruse, then it was a successful one. Significant U.S. military assets were diverted to this isolated area of South Vietnam, permitting Communist forces to attack many key cities in South Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. Looking back after the war while congratulating itself for important successes in the Khe Sanh campaign, the PAVN also admitted to a number of failures and “shortcomings.” In an internal battle study conducted 20 years after the Battle of Khe Sanh, PAVN historians concluded that “we did not draw U.S. relief forces out to the Route 9–Khe Sanh area as quickly as we should have” and that the PAVN had failed to reach its goals for killing U.S. troops and “annihilating” entire U.S. battalions. The battle study faulted the PAVN high command and the Khe Sanh Campaign Headquarters for their incorrect analysis of the probable U.S. reaction to the attack, for overestimating the PAVN’s own capabilities, for inadequate preparations, for failing to mass adequate forces to mount “annihilation attacks,” and for their “failure to direct the campaign with clarity.”

Khieu Samphan For the Americans, the Battle of Khe Sanh was meant to be the best opportunity to implement the strategy of attrition, to destroy Communist military forces at a rate above which they could be replaced. In the battle U.S. forces achieved one of their most satisfying victories. Colonel Lownds was convinced that they destroyed two entire PAVN divisions. Thus, if Khe Sanh was intended as another Dien Bien Phu, it had failed. WILLIAM P. HEAD AND PETER W. BRUSH See also Arc Light Missions; Demilitarized Zone; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for; Momyer, William Wallace; PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, Operation; SCOTLAND, Operation; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Marine Corps; United States Special Forces; Vo Nguyen Giap; Westmoreland, William Childs References Head, William, and Lawrence Grinter, eds. Looking Back on the Vietnam War: A 1990s Perspective on the Decisions, Combat, and Legacies. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Chien Dich Tien Cong Duong So 9–Khe Sanh, Xuan He 1968 [The Route 9–Khe Sanh Offensive Campaign, Spring–Summer 1968]. Hanoi: Ministry of Defense, 1987. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Murphy, Edward F. The Hill Fights: The First Battle of Khe Sanh. New York: Random House, 2003. Nalty, Bernard C. Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1973. Nguyen Viet Phuong, Le Van Bien, and Tu Quy. Cong Tac Hau Can Chien Dich Duong 9 Khe Sanh Xuan He 1968 (Mat) [Rear Services Operations during the Route 9–Khe Sanh Campaign, Spring–Summer 1968 (Secret)]. Hanoi: General Department of Rear Services, 1988. Pham Gia Duc. Su Doan 325, 1954–1975, Tap II [325th Division, 1954–1975, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1986. Pisor, Robert. The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: Norton, 1982. Prados, John, and Ray W. Stubbe. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982.

583

opment,” is a classical Marxist analysis of Cambodia’s backwardness and its agricultural and industrial problems. On returning to Phnom Penh in 1959, Khieu opened the biweekly French newspaper L’Observateur, which mixed praise of Cuba, China, and the Soviet Union with articles on Cambodia. He drew the attention of Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s security police, who on one occasion beat him in public. By 1962, however, Khieu had joined Sihanouk’s government and had been elected to the National Assembly. He served as secretary of state for commerce from October 1962 to July 1963. Reelected to the National Assembly in 1966, he fled to the countryside the following year when the Samlaut Uprising provoked Sihanouk to denounce the Khmer Rouge. After Sihanouk’s deposition in 1970, Khieu reappeared as deputy prime minister and defense minister in Sihanouk’s resistance government and then as commander in chief of the resistance forces. Khieu also became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. After 1976 he was the chairman of the State Presidium, the head of state of Democratic Kampuchea. Following the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, which ousted the Khmer Rouge from governance, he returned to the jungle, where his forces continued to be supplied arms by China. All the while, Khieu was reportedly very close and doggedly loyal to Pol Pot.

Khieu Samphan Birth Date: July 27, 1931 Khmer Rouge leader. Born in Svay Rieng, Cambodia, on July 27, 1931, Khieu Samphan was the son of a minor civil servant. He attended a lycée in Cambodia and then went to France in 1954 under a government scholarship to study law and economics. In 1959 he received a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris. While in France, Khieu already showed left-wing tendencies. He served as secretary-general of the Khmer student union, a center for left-wing agitation among young Cambodians in France. His doctoral dissertation, “Cambodia’s Economy and Industrial Devel-

Khieu Samphan was a leader of Cambodia’s infamous Khmer Rouge and president of Kampuchea (Cambodia) during 1976–1979. Arrested in November 2007, he underwent trial by a United Nations–sponsored tribunal in Cambodia for crimes against humanity but has insisted that he was not directly responsible for the deaths of millions of his people during the period of Khmer Rouge rule. (AFP/Getty Images)

584

Khmer Kampuchea Krom

Under the 1991 peace agreement implemented under United Nations (UN) auspices, Khieu became the senior Khmer Rouge member of the Supreme National Council, composed of two representatives of each faction under the chairmanship of Sihanouk. Khieu’s return to Phnom Penh was marked by a violent demonstration thought to have been organized by the security services of the Phnom Penh government faction, which forced him to temporarily flee for his safety to Bangkok. After the Khmer Rouge withdrew from the peace agreement, Khieu resurfaced in 1994 as prime minister and minister of the national army of the clandestine Provisional Government of National Union and National Salvation opposed to the Phnom Penh coalition government. By now he was the de facto head of the Khmer Rouge. In December 1998 after the Khmer Rouge broke apart, he surrendered to government forces. He was then allowed to live at government expense in a semiautonomous region of Cambodia. In November 2007 Khieu Khieu allegedly suffered a stroke one day after the Khmer Rouge’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and his wife were arrested and charged with crimes against humanity. Upon his release from the hospital in early 2008, Khieu was himself arrested and charged by the Cambodia Tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His first appearance in court was in April 2008; the trial is ongoing. He

has steadfastly denied that Khmer policies were aimed at genocide and stated that Pol Pot’s intention was to build a modern Cambodia, not tear it down. Khieu’s attorney has argued that as head of state, Khieu was not responsible for policies carried out poorly or incorrectly by subordinates. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Cambodia; Khmer Rouge; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom References Carney, Timothy Michael. Communist Party Power in Kampuchea (Cambodia). Data Paper No. 106. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, January 1977. Khieu Samphan. Cambodia’s Economy and Industrial Development. Data Paper No. 111. Translated by Laura Summers. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, March 1979.

Khmer Kampuchea Krom Anti-Communist faction, loosely allied with the Khmer Serai, that sought autonomy for Khmer Krom (ethnic Cambodian) people living in the Mekong Delta of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in return for their military services. During the 1960s

Mercenary troops fighting Communist forces in South Vietnam en route to a raid along the Cambodian border in September 1969. The Khmer Kampuchea Krom, an anti-Communist group, sought autonomy for the Khmer Krom people of the Mekong Delta in return for military assistance. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

Khmer Rouge a number of U.S. Special Forces–led Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and Mobile Strike Force (“Mike Force”) units were composed of Khmer Krom soldiers. After Cambodian general Lon Nol’s March 17, 1970, coup against Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a number of Khmer Krom units were sent from South Vietnam to Phnom Penh to strengthen the newly organized Forces Armées Nationale Khmer (FANK, Khmer National Armed Forces). Traditionally aggressive, Khmer Krom soldiers were highly experienced from years of fighting in South Vietnam. By February 1972 they made up a high percentage of FANK’s effective military strength, serving in some 13 infantry brigades and the Khmer Special Forces. However, extensive casualties in largely unsuccessful operations as well as increasing disaffection among some units at being kept in Cambodia past their promised return dates led to an increase of nonethnic replacements and a dilution of the best Khmer Krom formations. By March 1972 only the Khmer Krom 7th, 44th, and 51st brigades were still highly regarded. Six months later a mutiny in a Khmer Krom battalion led to an end in recruitment in South Vietnam, and the reputation of Khmer Krom military prowess came to an ignominious end. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Cambodia; Forces Armées Nationales Khmères; Khmer Serai; Lon Nol; Sihanouk, Norodom References Caldwell, Malcolm, and Lek Tan. Cambodia in the Southeast Asian War. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973. Conboy, Kenneth, and Kenneth Bowra. The War in Cambodia, 1970–75. Men-at-Arms Series. London: Osprey, 1989.

Khmer National Armed Forces See Forces Armées Nationales Khmères

Khmer Rouge The name most commonly used for the most extreme and violent faction of Cambodian Communists. While the Khmer Rouge (“Red Khmer”) held power in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, they herded millions of Cambodians into slave labor camps, executed hundreds of thousands, and were responsible for many more deaths from starvation, exhaustion, and disease. After being driven out of Phnom Penh by Vietnamese forces in early 1979, the Khmer Rouge waged a guerrilla resistance that was still active in large areas of the country more than 15 years later, despite an agreement sponsored by the United Nations (UN) that was supposed to bring peace to Cambodia after more than two decades of war.

585

The origins of the Khmer Rouge date to the early 1960s, when a small group of revolutionaries launched a rebellion against Cambodian ruler Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Among the leaders was a French-educated Communist, Saloth Sar. Sar would become known to history as Pol Pot, the pseudonym he adopted as leader of the Khmer Rouge after it came to power. The uprising remained small during the 1960s, while the war in neighboring Vietnam exploded. Khmer insurgents received no help from the Vietnamese Communists, who had reached an accommodation with Sihanouk that allowed them to resupply and rest their troops on Cambodian territory and who refrained, in return, from aiding Sihanouk’s enemies. To Saloth Sar and his colleagues this branded the Vietnamese as enemies of their own struggle, even though both groups were Communist. Making a virtue of their isolation, they nurtured an increasingly extreme and violent vision of a pure revolution, which would succeed through sheer ideological zeal and utter indifference to sacrifice and suffering. After Sihanouk’s overthrow by rightist military leaders in March 1970, the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists became partners, though mistrustful ones. Both were also now allied with Sihanouk, whose injured pride and thirst for revenge led him to join forces with his former enemies. Beside the Khmer Rouge there appeared a Vietnamese-sponsored Cambodian resistance force led mainly by a cadre of Cambodians who had fought with the Viet Minh against the French and had lived in Vietnam since the 1950s. Old antagonisms were submerged for several years, but around the beginning of 1973 the Khmer Rouge moved to seize full control of the revolution. Hundreds of Vietnamese-trained cadres were secretly executed, as were resistance leaders associated with Sihanouk, even while the prince himself, living in China, remained the figurehead leader of the revolutionaries’ exile government. Outside Cambodia throughout the war, almost nothing was known of the Khmer Rouge. The very name of the Communist Party of Kampuchea was kept secret (remaining so for two years after the war, history’s only case of a Communist party remaining clandestine even after it had won power). The insurgents were hardly less shadowy to the Cambodians themselves, who commonly referred

Estimated Population of Cambodia, 1964–1974 Year

Estimated Population

1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974

7,919,000 8,110,000 8,280,000 6,780,000 6,590,000 6,450,000 6,400,000 6,682,000 6,650,000 6,890,000 7,110,000

586

Khmer Rouge

With a skull on the muzzle of his M-16 rifle, a Khmer Rouge soldier waits with his comrades for word to move out from Dei Kraham, south of Phnom Penh along Highway 2, on September 5, 1973. (Bettmann/ Corbis)

to them only as the peap prey (“forest army”). But behind their veil of secrecy as they consolidated their power and pressed ever more heavily against Lon Nol’s increasingly decrepit regime, the revolutionaries nursed their hatred of the Vietnamese and their fantasies of a revolution so sweeping that it would obliterate every trace of Cambodia’s past. April 17, 1975, the date when Lon Nol’s hapless army surrendered and the victorious guerrillas marched into Phnom Penh, was for the Khmer Rouge the first day of “Year Zero,” the beginning of the total transformation of Cambodian society. Within hours the new rulers issued an astonishing order: the entire population of Phnom Penh was to be expelled to the countryside, at once and with no exceptions. Teenaged revolutionary soldiers, remembered by one witness as “grim, robotlike, brutal,” herded swarms of dazed civilians onto the roads leading out of the capital city. Sick and wounded hospital patients were turned out of their beds and forced to join the exodus. An estimated 2 million to 3 million people were marched out of Phnom Penh, and 600,000 to 750,000 more, in similar brutal fashion, were marched from other towns and cities, altogether about half of the country’s entire population.

In the countryside former city dwellers were put to work in slave labor camps, while the new regime, identifying itself only as Angka Loeu (“Organization on High”), embarked on a murderous purge of its former enemies and everyone else considered to represent the old society. Soldiers and civil servants of the former government were slaughtered, as were teachers, Buddhist priests and monks, intellectuals, and professionals. The party’s frenzied search for enemies inexorably led to fantasies of traitors in its own ranks. In waves of purges, hundreds of high-ranking leaders and thousands of their followers were killed, usually after gruesome torture. At Tuol Sleng, a Phnom Penh school converted into an interrogation center, a grisly archive documented approximately 20,000 executions there alone. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge were also engaged in increasingly violent clashes with their former allies, the Vietnamese. Finally, on Christmas Day 1978, 100,000 Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh two weeks later. The city was still virtually empty, however, and after the Khmer Rouge fled, residents began trickling back, “all in black pajamas,” a Vietnamese official recalled, “and thin, like ghosts.” The Vietnamese installed a new government headed by a former Khmer Rouge commander, Heng Samrin, but they were unable to quell continued resistance from Khmer Rouge soldiers who had regrouped in the countryside. Vietnamese forces withdrew in 1989 after a 10-year occupation. Two years later the Khmer Rouge and two smaller rebel factions signed a peace agreement with the Phnom Penh regime, now led by Hun Sen, but despite the pact the Khmer Rouge never disarmed. Nor did the Khmer Rouge take part in the May 1993 election for a new government. For several years Khmer Rouge guerrillas harassed government forces in widespread areas of the country. Beginning in 1996, however, the movement began to splinter. In August 1996 Ieng Sary, Pol Pot’s former brother-in-law and one of his closest collaborators while the Khmer Rouge was in power, defected to the government side, bringing with him about 4,000 guerrillas who had been operating in western Cambodia. In return Sary requested a royal amnesty, despite the fact that he had been under a death sentence since 1979 for the bloodshed committed by the Khmer Rouge regime. Reluctantly King Sihanouk granted his request. The following spring while increasingly violent conflict between the rival co–prime ministers Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh all but paralyzed the government in Phnom Penh, a new split opened up among Khmer Rouge leaders in their remaining stronghold in northern Cambodia. Dissident Khmer Rouge officials led by Khieu Samphan, the nominal prime minister, held a series of meetings with negotiators representing Prince Ranariddh in which they discussed terms for a cease-fire and the eventual reintegration of Khmer Rouge troops and territory under the national government. As part of the deal, the Khmer Rouge would overthrow Pol Pot, symbolically shedding its bloody past, and join Ranariddh’s National United Front, a multiparty alliance organized to oppose

Khmer Serai Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party. Their guerrillas would not be disarmed or disbanded and would remain in control of the territory they occupied. The talks led to a last spasm of bloodletting within the Khmer Rouge in June 1997 as Pol Pot and his supporters sought to block an agreement. On Pol Pot’s orders, longtime Khmer Rouge defense minister Son Sen was executed along with about a dozen family members. Shortly afterward Pol Pot’s group seized Khieu Samphan and the other senior members of the Khmer Rouge negotiating team. By this point, however, nearly all of Pol Pot’s comrades, including his old colleague Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge military commander, had turned against him. Replenishing their supplies with weapons and ammunition flown in on government helicopters, anti–Pol Pot forces pursued their former “Brother No. 1” through the jungles near the Khmer Rouge base at Anlong Veng. On June 19, 1997, the 72-year-old leader, sick and exhausted and being carried on a stretcher, was captured. With Pol Pot’s arrest, the bloody history of the Khmer Rouge should have reached its final page. However, the bargaining between his former comrades and Prince Ranariddh’s negotiators had not only divided the Khmer Rouge but had also fatally split the unstable coalition in Phnom Penh. On July 6, 1997, just a day before an agreement with the new Khmer Rouge leaders was to be announced, Hun Sen seized power, forestalling the alliance between the Khmer Rouge and Ranariddh’s forces. The prince fled the country, and the Khmer Rouge melted back into their forest camps. Several weeks later in an open-air meeting hall at their Anlong Veng headquarters, the Khmer Rouge staged an extraordinary show trial to condemn Pol Pot, not for the hundreds of thousands of murders carried out under his rule in the 1970s but rather for plotting against his fellow executioners Son Sen and Ta Mok during the final breakup of the movement. At his trial Pol Pot sat silent and seemingly dazed, leaning on a cane and holding a small rattan fan, while several hundred former followers chanted “Crush! Crush! Crush! Pol Pot and his murderous clique!” After the charges against him were read out, the tribunal announced a sentence of life imprisonment; however, he was under only in-house detainment. In April 1998 some of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge followers reportedly agreed to turn him over for trial in an international war crimes tribunal. The very same day that the news was leaked to the press, Pol Pot was found dead. His handlers quickly cremated the body before an autopsy could be performed, leading many to believe that he had either committed suicide or had been poisoned. Instead of being peacefully reabsorbed into Cambodian life, however, the Khmer Rouge and its new leaders were again engaged—in alliance with military units that had remained loyal to Prince Ranariddh—in armed resistance against the pursuing government army. But Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok, and others with a good deal of blood on their own hands continued to play their part in a sorrowful cycle of vengeance and violence that had already lasted more than 30 years and had begun to seem to be

587

Cambodia’s permanent destiny. By 1999 most of the Khmer Rouge leaders, including Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan, had surrendered, and the Khmer Rouge all but dissolved, leaving only nightmares in its wake. Most surviving Khmer Rouge leaders live in the area of Pailin or anonymously in Phnom Penh. Today Cambodia has largely recovered from the Khmer Rouge era. The nation has a very young population, with three-quarters of them too young to remember the time when the Khmer Rouge was in power. In 2009, however, the Cambodian Ministry of Education began requiring instruction in the schools regarding Khmer Rouge atrocities. ARNOLD R. ISAACS See also Cambodia; Heng Samrin; Hun Sen; Khieu Samphan; Lon Nol; Parrot’s Beak; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War after the War. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Deac, Wilfred P. Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970–1975. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. Ponchaud, François. Cambodia Year Zero. Translated by Nancy Amphoux. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978.

Khmers See Cambodia; Ethnology of Southeast Asia

Khmer Serai Anti-Communist Cambodian resistance group led by nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh. Throughout the 1960s the Khmer Serai (Free Khmer) waged an intermittent struggle against both the Communists and the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Loosely allied with the ethnic Khmer Kampuchea Krom (KKK) of the Mekong Delta in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the Khmer Serai could not always depend on assistance from the South Vietnamese government. Many Khmer Serai members, however, served in unconventional warfare units organized and run by U.S. Army Special Forces. The Khmer Serai operated from two main base areas. The first was in Cambodia’s Dongrek Mountains along its border with Thailand. Dongrek Serai soldiers wore identifying yellow or blue scarves and regular Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) field uniforms and were armed with AK-47 rifles to enable them to utilize captured Communist ammunition. The second Khmer Serai base area was in the Mekong Delta within the ARVN IV Corps operational area. These soldiers wore red scarves and South Vietnamese police field uniforms. They were

588

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich

armed with U.S. weapons to prevent them from being mistaken for Communist insurgents. Khmer Serai soldiers also commonly wore Buddhist amulets on gold chains around their necks. To petition divine protection, they frequently carried the amulets in their mouths during combat. On March 17, 1970, Khmer Serai rebel forces participated in General Lon Nol’s ouster of Prince Sihanouk. Dongrek Serai troops, after retraining in Thailand, then formed the core of the Siem Reap Special Brigade. This brigade later became the highly regarded 9th Brigade Group of the Forces Armées Nationale Khmer (FANK, Khmer National Armed Forces). EDWARD C. PAGE See also Forces Armées Nationales Khmères; Khmer Kampuchea Krom; Lon Nol; Sihanouk, Norodom; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Caldwell, Malcolm, and Lek Tan. Cambodia in the Southeast Asian War. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973. Conboy, Kenneth, and Kenneth Bowra. The War in Cambodia, 1970–75. Men-at-Arms Series. London: Osprey, 1989.

Union. At the 20th Party Congress in 1956, Khrushchev formally denounced Stalinism and its personality cult. In 1957 a failed attempt by Malenkov and his supporters to push aside Khrushchev ended the struggle, and Malenkov was purged from the party apparatus. Khrushchev was now poised to become the Soviet Union’s undisputed leader. Khrushchev’s tenure was marked by inconsistent policies, toofrequent shifts in high-level personnel, and poorly conceptualized ideas. Nevertheless, he did enjoy some success, especially in the Soviet space program and with some economic and industrial policies. In the international arena he tried to engage in détente with the West, but his frequent outbursts and bellicose policies often made that effort a difficult one. Certainly his initiation of the 1958 Berlin Crisis, his support of the decision to erect the Berlin Wall in 1961, and his reckless placement of intermediaterange ballistic missiles in Cuba that led to the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis all worked against a more cordial relationship with the West. Although Khrushchev never visited Vietnam, he was the first Soviet leader to show sustained interest in Southeast Asia. The Soviet Union’s influence with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) declined in the beginning of the 1960s as

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Birth Date: April 17, 1894 Death Date: September 11, 1971 Soviet politician, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and premier of the Soviet Union during 1958–1964. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was born in the village of Kalinovka near Kursk on April 17, 1894, to a peasant family. He spent the first half of his life in the Ukraine. He had little formal education, and the CPSU became his vehicle for social mobility. Joining the CPSU in 1918, Khrushchev rose rapidly in the hierarchy. In 1939, he became a full member of the Politburo, the party’s supreme policy-making body. He was among the few upper-echelon party officials to escape Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s Great Purges. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin named Khrushchev a lieutenant general and put him in charge of suppressing the Ukrainian resistance; he was also tasked with moving heavy Soviet industry farther to the east. After the war Khrushchev ran afoul of Stalin, who demoted him for a time, although by 1949 Khrushchev was again in Stalin’s good graces as chief party organizer in Moscow. In 1952 Stalin tasked Khrushchev with reorganizing the CPSU’s hierarchy. Upon the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953, Khrushchev succeeded him as the first secretary of the CPSU. For the next four years Khrushchev was locked in a power struggle with Georgy Malenkov over who would dominate the CPSU and the Soviet

Rising to the position of leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1953 after the death of Joseph Stalin, the mercurial Nikita Khrushchev led the Soviet Union through some of the tensest years of the Cold War before being ousted in 1964. (Library of Congress)

Kien An Airfield Hanoi increasingly sided with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the rivalry between the two Communist giants. Khrushchev’s policy regarding Vietnam was marked by two chief considerations. On one hand, the growing prospects of war between the United States and North Vietnam presented the Soviet Union with great opportunities. An American failure could reduce the influence of the West in Asia, which could improve the Soviet bargaining position vis-à-vis the United States. Soviet assistance to North Vietnam would also project a vitalized image of Soviet-style communism to counter the growing appeal of Maoism within the Third World. On the other hand, Vietnam offered a greater danger of a possible military confrontation with the United States. Following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev again sought better relations with the United States and signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, along with President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. Therefore, Khrushchev would tread very carefully in Vietnam. Yet this policy meant that he was trying to ride two horses at the same time: to achieve détente with the United States and to support North Vietnam in its war. As time passed Khrushchev became more disillusioned with the idea that Vietnam presented great opportunities. By 1964 he seemed essentially ready to disengage. In fact, U.S. intelligence agents believed that Khrushchev favored only minimal Soviet involvement in the region. Khrushchev recognized the trap posed for the Soviet Union by Vietnam. His souring on Vietnam was a significant factor in his removal from power in October 1964. His perceived weak response following the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident made him appear indecisive and badly weakened his political base. Certainly North Vietnamese leaders disliked Khrushchev. They understood that he was willing to sacrifice Vietnam for the sake of peaceful coexistence with the West, which would allow him to reduce defense spending and to concentrate on economic improvements for the Soviet Union. Khrushchev’s efforts to decentralize the Soviet economy alienated the entrenched bureaucracy, and his agricultural policies were a dismal failure. Furthermore, his colleagues came to distrust his aggressive personalized leadership. In October 1964 while Khrushchev was on holiday, they seized the opportunity to conduct a palace coup and remove him from power. After this Khrushchev essentially became a persona non grata. Indeed, a host of developments led to Khrushchev’s downfall: failed domestic policies, the Sino-Soviet split, inconsistent policies toward North Vietnam, the disastrous Cuban Missile Crisis, and the leader’s increasingly unstable behavior. Although he managed to write his memoirs in this period, Khrushchev remained in obscure retirement until his death on September 11, 1971, in Moscow. MICHAEL SHARE AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; United Nations and the Vietnam War; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975

589

References Cohen, Steven, ed. The Soviet Union since Stalin. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1980. Gaiduk, Ilya V. The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev Remembers. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971. Medvedev, R. A., and A. A. Medvedev. Khrushchev. New York: Norton, 1978. Taubman, William C. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: Norton, 2003.

Kien An Airfield Airfield located southwest of Haiphong in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), prior to 1975. During the Vietnam War, Kien An Airfield served as an important base for MiG fighters in the defense of the port of Haiphong and other potential American targets along the coast. Located within Route Package VI, aircraft based at Kien An could challenge U.S. Navy aircraft approaching from aircraft carriers located in the Gulf of Tonkin or U.S. Air Force planes flying from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) or Thailand against eastern North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese upgraded and expanded the existing airfield at Kien An during the second half of 1965, ensuring that it was ready to accommodate Soviet-made MiG fighters by the end of the year. Throughout 1966 and part of 1967, the United States imposed a bombing restriction on Kien An and other North Vietnamese airfields, allowing the MiG fighters to operate from them with impunity. This restriction was lifted in March 1967, and Kien An Airfield experienced its first bombing raid on April 23, 1967. Although the airfield suffered considerable damage in the attack, a combined military and civilian labor force managed to put it back into operation within 36 hours. Attacks against Kien An continued until the end of Operation ROLLING THUNDER in November 1968 and were briefly renewed during Operations LINEBACKER I and LINEBACKER II in 1972. Nevertheless, following each raid the North Vietnamese were able quickly to repair damage and restore the facility to operation. TERRY M. MAYS See also Airpower, Role in War; Haiphong; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Route Packages; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force References Staaveren, Jacob Van. Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965–1966. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000. Toperczer, Istvan. MiG-17 and MiG-19 Units of the Vietnam War. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2001. Toperczer, Istvan. MiG-21 Units of the Vietnam War. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2001.

590

King, Martin Luther, Jr.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. Birth Date: January 15, 1929 Death Date: April 4, 1968 Ordained minister, U.S. civil rights leader, political activist, and critic of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from high school at the age of 15 and attended Morehouse College, graduating in 1948. Two years later he earned a BA in divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary, and in 1955 he received a PhD from Boston University. Following in his father’s footsteps, King was ordained a minister in 1947. He was in the forefront of the fledgling Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s after he moved to Montgomery, Ala-

bama, as minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Under his direction, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began in December 1955, attracted national attention. The boycott was designed to end racial segregation on city buses and spoke to the larger problem of segregated public facilities nationwide but especially in the South. The boycott ultimately succeeded in its goal. In 1957 King cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to promote civil and voting rights. A strong advocate of nonviolent protest, King followed the example of India’s Mahatma Gandhi by urging civil disobedience instead of violence or intimidation to effect change. For the next several years the SCLC remained largely on the sidelines as African American students organized sit-ins to force the desegregation of lunch counters and restaurants in the South. In 1962 King and the SCLC launched

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at a press conference in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 16, 1963. King led the African American struggle to achieve the full rights of U.S. citizenship and eloquently voiced the hopes and grievances of African Americans and the poor before he was assassinated in 1968. King was a strong opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (Library of Congress)

KINGFISHER, Operation

a failed protest campaign in Albany, Georgia. The following year the SCLC began a successful protest campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, but police brutality at the hands of white officers toward the protesters shook the nation and caused much embarrassment internationally. King, however, knew that the violence in Birmingham helped showcase the nation’s archaic and disturbing policies toward race and, more importantly, highlighted the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy, which championed human rights abroad but glossed over civil rights abuses at home. Following the spectacular success of his August 1963 March on Washington, during which he delivered his stirring “I Have a Dream” speech, King reached the pinnacle of his career. The impact of the event, which attracted more than 250,000 people and was televised nationally, helped convince President John F. Kennedy, a somewhat reluctant promoter of the civil rights cause, that the federal government had to do more to promote desegregation and civil rights. In 1964 King received the Nobel Peace Prize and an honorary doctorate from Yale University, but, more importantly, he became a major player on the national political scene, with access to the White House and Congress. After Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination, King became an enthusiastic supporter of President Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society program. Indeed, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which Johnson lobbied hard to enact, implemented many of King’s goals. As early as mid-1965 King began to grow increasingly concerned over U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and as his concerns became increasingly public, his relationship with the Johnson administration deteriorated. King viewed U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia as little more than U.S. imperialism carried out under the banner of fighting communism. He also lamented the fact that a disproportionate share of draftees were African Americans and that as the conflict escalated they made up an equally disproportionate share of battle casualties. On numerous occasions he referred to the conflict as a “poor man’s war” fought for rich men. But chief among King’s concerns was his belief that an enlarged U.S. commitment to Vietnam seriously threatened hardwon civil rights and social gains in the United States, including the Great Society. In 1967 King began to devote entire speeches to Vietnam. He called for a cessation of bombing in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and for meaningful negotiations, offering himself as a moderator. King’s antiwar stance drew widespread criticism. Civil rights advocates implored him not to endanger the movement by linking it with the growing but controversial antiwar struggle. But to King the two were inseparable. Although most Americans still supported the war, King resolved to make it a major issue in the 1968 presidential election. By this time the rift between King and the Johnson administration had reached open hostility, and King and his followers were subjected to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance and government smear tactics. That same year the Civil Rights Movement began to splin-

591

ter, with some former King supporters abandoning his nonviolent tactics. Others advocated Black Power, a militant form of African American advancement that borrowed from the philosophy of slain black separatist Malcolm X. By 1968 King had lost the support of significant segments of the black population, and his anti–Vietnam War posture had alienated many whites. Rising racial tensions, rioting, and concerted opposition threatened to thwart much of what had been achieved, but despite serious challenges from both black and white critics, King elevated to new heights his campaign against the war, poverty, and inequality. In the midst of this, his most ambitious campaign to date, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, while organizing a strike of sanitation workers. His murderer was James Earl Ray, a longtime criminal who abhorred King’s attempts to achieve desegregation. Ray was eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted. He spent the remainder of his life in prison. DAVID COFFEY See also African Americans in the U.S. Military; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Civil Rights Movement; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Great Society Program; Hoover, John Edgar; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Project 100,000 References Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. King, Martin Luther, Jr. and Clayborne Carson, ed. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998. Oates, Stephen B. Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Signet, 1991.

KINGFISHER,

Operation

Start Date: July 16, 1967 End Date: October 31, 1967 Military operation conducted in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) area by the 3rd Marine Division beginning in July 1967. Its mission was to stop entry of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops into Quang Tri Province. Five battalions from the 3rd Marine Division and the 9th Marines initiated the early stages of the operation. The operation began on July 16, 1967. Through July 28 there was minimal contact with the PAVN. On July 28 the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, reinforced with tanks, went into the DMZ along Route 606. On the morning of July 29 the battalion began its withdrawal south of the DMZ when it came under fire from PAVN units in prepared positions along Route 606. Marine tanks and armored personnel carriers came under fire from small arms and machine guns, mortars, and command-detonated mines. Air strikes were then ordered to provide support for the marines. Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, which had been ordered to move up from Con Thien, assisted the command group

592

KINGFISHER, Operation

in breaking through PAVN lines and setting up a defensive position. The number of casualties in the other companies of the 2nd Battalion prevented further movement south until perimeter defenses were strengthened and medevac helicopters could evacuate wounded personnel. On July 30 helicopters evacuated all of the casualties. Prior to 2nd Battalion’s movement into the DMZ, what appeared to be a minor incident occurred that would later have significant tactical impact in the northern I Corps Tactical Zone. On July 21 a resupply vehicle convoy from Dong Ha left for Khe Sanh. A portion of its route ran through the tactical area of responsibility (TAOR) of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Needham’s 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, which had responsibility for security over part of Route 9. During an assigned sweep from Ca Lu, one of Needham’s platoons became engaged with a PAVN battalion. Intense PAVN fire necessitated air strikes and artillery fire before the platoon could disengage and return to Ca Lu. The next day elements of both the 3rd Marine Division and the 9th Marines moved along Route 9 toward Khe Sanh. Later that day the marines uncovered a PAVN base camp, fighting holes, four-man log bunkers, and ambush sites along the road. PAVN forces had also rigged antipersonnel mines with trip wires to catch the marines seeking cover from the ambush site. This discovery led to the end of vehicle convoys into Khe Sanh; until Operation PEGASUS (April 1–15, 1968) the Khe Sanh base relied on air resupply. With elections in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) scheduled for September 3, 1967, the Communists were determined to achieve victory at Con Thien. The most effective of enemy attacks took place on election day with the destruction of the ammunition storage area and bulk fuel farm at Dong Ha. Con Thien became the primary PAVN target; PAVN forces fired 200 rounds almost daily on marine positions there. On September 10 the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, engaged a major element of the PAVN 812th Regiment around Con Thien and suffered more than 200 casualties. Following this attack the battalion moved back near Phu Bai to refit. The battalion was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel James Hammond Jr.’s 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. On September 21 Hammond’s 2nd Battalion started a searchand-destroy operation some 2,000 yards east of Con Thien, and by the end of the day elements of the battalion were locked in a fierce firefight with part of the PAVN 90th Regiment. At dusk the battalion was forced to pull back inside its main perimeter. The PAVN had killed 16 marines and wounded 118; 15 bodies remained on the battlefield until October 10, when the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, returned to recover its dead. Before the end of September the PAVN mounted three failed attacks from three directions on Con Thien. More than 3,000 mortar, artillery, and rocket rounds were fired on Con Thien during September 19–27. Vietnamese sources confirm this figure, stating that during this 12-day period a total of 2,787 85-millimeter (mm), 100-mm, 105-mm, and 130-mm field artillery rounds and

1,051 82-mm mortar rounds were fired into the U.S. Marine Corps base. The Americans retaliated by massing one of the greatest concentrations of firepower in support of a single division in the Vietnam War. Artillery units of the III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF) fired 12,577 rounds, ships of the Seventh Fleet fired 6,148 rounds, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force fighter pilots flew more than 5,200 close air support sorties, and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers dropped tons of ordnance on PAVN positions in and north of the DMZ as well as around the Con Thien perimeter. Nonetheless, by the early part of October the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, had been reduced from 952 to 462 men. On the early morning of October 14 while defending a recently built bridge south of Con Thien, the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, was taken under attack by a large PAVN force. By late morning the battalion had managed to push the attackers back. The PAVN had been attempting to destroy the only supply line to Con Thien. Again the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, had sustained heavy casualties: 21 dead (including 5 officers) and 23 wounded. That afternoon Lieutenant General Robert Cushman, commanding general of III MAF, and Major General Bruno Hochmuth, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Division, visited the bridge. They granted Lieutenant Colonel Hammond’s request to name it “Bastards’ Bridge” in honor of the 21 dead marines. The last major action of Operation KINGFISHER took place between October 25 and 28. During this period the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, lost 8 killed and 45 wounded, resulting in the battalion strength dropping to fewer than 300 men. On October 28 the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, moved back to Dong Ha and assumed the role of regimental reserve. The U.S. Marine Corps reported that Operation KINGFISHER had resulted in 1,117 PAVN deaths, but a total of 340 marines had been killed in action, and 1,461 were wounded. A message from General Cushman to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, summed up the opinion of all concerning the heroic fighting around Con Thien. The last part read “2/4 has met and beaten the best the enemy had to offer. Well done.” WILL E. FAHEY JR. See also Con Thien, Siege of; Demilitarized Zone; Khe Sanh, Battle of; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Coan, James P. Con Thien: The Hill of Angels. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Command After Action Report. “Kingfisher.” Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, September–October 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museum Division, Marine Corps Historical Center. Nguyen Khac Tinh, Tran Quang Hau, Phung Luan, and Bui Thanh Hung. Phao Binh Nhan Dan Viet Nam: Nhung Chang Duong Chien Dau, Tap II [People’s Artillery of Vietnam: Combat History, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: Artillery Command, 1986. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

Kissinger, Henry Alfred KINGPIN, Operation See Son Tay Raid

Kinnard, Harry William Osborn Birth Date: May 7, 1915 Death Date: January 5, 2009 U.S. Army general and commander of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in Vietnam. Born in Dallas, Texas, on May 7, 1915, Harry William Osborn Kinnard graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1939. While a lieutenant colonel and assistant chief of staff of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, Kinnard suggested the reply of “Nuts!” to the German demand for surrender. Kinnard remained in the army after the war. From 1963 to 1965 he was at Fort Benning, Georgia, commanding the 11th Air Assault Division that mastered the air mobility concept. In 1965 the 11th Air Assault Division was renamed the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), and Major General Kinnard took it to Vietnam. He lobbied unsuccessfully to locate the 1st Cavalry Division in Thailand for greater base security and as a staging area for raids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Instead, the 1st Cavalry Division was located at An Khe in the Central Highlands. Its mission was to seek and destroy People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units that might cut the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in half along Route 19. The 1st Cavalry Division’s hard-fought and successful Ia Drang campaign in 1965 demonstrated the effectiveness of air mobility in crippling PAVN forces in their secure areas. Kinnard wanted to pursue fleeing PAVN troops into Cambodia, but the White House would not allow it. Kinnard believed that this restriction would cost the Americans the war. Early in 1966 the 1st Cavalry Division moved to the coast to seek out Viet Cong (VC) and PAVN units and deny them access to the rice harvest. More hard fighting proved the division’s abilities in pursuit. Departing the 1st Cavalry Division in May 1966, Kinnard retired from the army as a lieutenant general in 1969. His greatest achievement was to demonstrate the effectiveness of air mobility. Following retirement, Kinnard was a consultant and an adviser and served as president for both the 1st Cavalry Division Association and the 101st Airborne Division Association. He died in Arlington, Virginia, on January 5, 2009. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Air Mobility; Ia Drang, Battle of; United States Army References Kinnard, Harry W. O. “A Victory in the Ia Drang: The Triumph of a Concept.” ARMY 17 (September 1967): 71–91. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987.

593

Kissinger, Henry Alfred Birth Date: May 27, 1923 Academic, foreign policy consultant, national security adviser to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (1969–1975), and secretary of state (1973–1977). Henry Alfred Kissinger was born in Fuerth, Germany, on May 27, 1923. His family immigrated to New York in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime. After becoming a U.S. citizen, Kissinger was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. He returned to his birthplace as a member of the 84th Infantry Division. After discharge, he completed his undergraduate education at Harvard University in 1950 and entered the graduate program in government, completing a PhD there in 1954. Kissinger’s doctoral dissertation on Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Congress of Vienna, a study of how statesmen sought to preserve world order by maintaining a geopolitical balance of power, became a theme that has occupied him ever since. In 1955 Kissinger headed a Council on Foreign Relations study group on weapons and foreign policy, and the next year he directed a Rockefeller Fund project to examine the critical issues facing the United States. In reports for the two panels, he suggested that limited nuclear war was preferable to all-out nuclear war or surrender and recommended the construction of home bomb shelters. In 1957 Kissinger accepted a joint appointment as lecturer in the Government Department at Harvard and associate director of the university’s Center for International Affairs. He continued at Harvard until 1968 while also acting as an independent foreign policy consultant. A skilled politician in his own right, Kissinger used his Harvard credentials and growing name recognition to form relationships with influential Republicans, including New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and former vice president Richard M. Nixon. When Nixon was elected president in 1968, he named Kissinger as his national security adviser. Kissinger retained this post until 1975, and from 1973 to 1975 he was the only person ever to hold the posts of national security adviser and secretary of state concurrently. The two men shared a suspicion of the traditional, bureaucratic diplomacy found in the State Department, which they considered uncreative and slow moving. Nixon intended to keep control of foreign relations in the White House, with Kissinger as a more important adviser than Secretary of State William P. Rogers. Nixon and Kissinger also agreed that foreign policy should be based on realism rather than wishful idealism or moralism. Selfinterest required that foreign policy should rely on strength and the willingness to use force and that other nations understand this. In developing their realist policies, Kissinger and Nixon perceived a shift from the bipolar balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union to a more multipolar world that also included the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Working together although often not harmoniously, Nixon and Kissinger eventually brought an end to U.S. participation in the Vietnam War, reached a détente with the Soviet Union that culminated in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreement, established diplomatic

594

Kissinger, Henry Alfred

Henry Alfred Kissinger, U.S. national security adviser (1969–1975) and secretary of state (1973–1977). (Library of Congress)

relations with the PRC, and helped achieve stability in the Middle East following the October 1973 Yom Kippur (Ramadan) War. In engaging both the Chinese and Soviets concurrently, Kissinger and Nixon hoped to take advantage of the Sino-Soviet split and perhaps play one power off the other. They certainly hoped to shape policy in Vietnam by engaging both the Chinese and Soviets in meaningful diplomacy, as both nations considered the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) as a client state. The war in Vietnam was probably the most difficult issue Kissinger faced. His concern about the conflict predated his service in the Nixon administration. During Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, Kissinger visited Vietnam in October 1965 and July 1966 as a government consultant. He concluded that U.S. military victory was unlikely, and in 1967, using French contacts, he acted as an intermediary between the North Vietnamese government and the Johnson administration in a fruitless effort to start negotiations. In a critique of the Vietnam War written before he became national security adviser but published in the January 1969 issue of Foreign Affairs, Kissinger argued that the United States could not win the war “within a period or with force levels politically acceptable to the American people” but could not precipitately withdraw without damaging its “credibility.” Soon after taking office in 1969, Kissinger ordered a study of the Vietnam problem from the RAND Corporation. The resulting Na-

tional Security Study Memorandum 1 (NSSM-1), headed by Daniel Ellsberg, collected responses from government departments and agencies to 78 queries about the war. The responses demonstrated the differences that had developed within the government over the prospect of a satisfactory end to the war, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department generally more pessimistic than the military. Peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam—initiated on March 31, 1968, when Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek another presidential term—had stalled by the time Nixon took office. Before his inauguration Nixon, with Kissinger’s encouragement, sent a message to the North Vietnamese government indicating the new administration’s desire for serious discussions. The North Vietnamese reply of December 31, 1968, insisted on two points: unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces and removal of the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). These demands, which Nixon and Kissinger found unacceptable, were repeated in the first substantive private meeting between U.S. and North Vietnamese officials on March 22, 1969, and remained constant until nearly the end of negotiations in 1973. Negotiations were further hindered by events in Cambodia. In March 1969 Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia (Operation MENU), which continued until May 1970. When news of this was leaked to the New York Times in May 1969, Nixon—with Kissinger’s knowledge—initiated wiretaps on a number of government officials and reporters. In a press conference on May 14, 1969, Nixon unveiled his Vietnam policy, known as Vietnamization. He proposed simultaneous mutual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese forces, supervised free elections in South Vietnam with participation by the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), and a cease-fire. The following month on June 8 during a meeting with South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu at Midway Island, Nixon announced U.S. troop withdrawals. Kissinger questioned Vietnamization in a memorandum to the president, arguing that unilateral troop withdrawals would encourage North Vietnamese intransigence in negotiations, demoralize troops remaining in Vietnam, and result in further demands for troop reductions in the United States. Kissinger began intermittent secret peace talks with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris in August 1969. The negotiations deadlocked on North Vietnam’s insistence that the United States unilaterally withdraw its forces and that the Thieu government in Saigon be removed. On May 1, 1970, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia. Antiwar demonstrations erupted in the United States and climaxed when Ohio National Guardsmen fired on protesters at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, killing four students. Several of Kissinger’s longtime aides resigned over the Cambodian Incursion. In the aftermath of the Cambodian invasion, Nixon and Kissinger developed a proposal to restart negotiations with North Viet-

Kissinger, Henry Alfred nam. In a press conference on October 7, 1970, Nixon suggested a cease-fire in place (meaning that North Vietnamese troops then in South Vietnam would remain there). In a session in Paris on May 31, 1971, Kissinger spelled out the offer in detail, agreeing to unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops according to a timetable, with an understanding that there would be no further infiltration of “outside forces” into Vietnam; there would be a cease-fire in place throughout Indochina, guarantees for the neutrality and territorial integrity of Laos and Cambodia, release of prisoners of war, and an agreement to leave the political future of South Vietnam up to its people. Although these provisions signaled significant concessions from the United States, North Vietnam rejected them, probably because it thought that it could yet win greater concessions regarding the political settlement in South Vietnam. The Nixon administration’s simultaneous overtures to China and the Soviet Union likely had some impact on the Vietnam negotiations. In July 1971 following a series of preliminary contacts, Kissinger secretly traveled to Beijing, where he and Chinese leader Zhou Enlai arranged for an official presidential visit to China. The historic summit, which took place in February 1972, reversed a policy of nearly 25 years during which the United States denied the legitimacy of the PRC. Following Nixon’s trip, China moderated its protests against American action in Vietnam. In August 1972 following Nixon’s May summit meeting with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow, the Hanoi Politburo authorized a negotiated settlement with the United States. In a meeting with Kissinger on October 8, 1972, North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho proposed an accord settling military questions—a cease-fire, withdrawal of U.S. forces, acceptance of continuing U.S. aid to South Vietnam, and return of prisoners of war—while leaving political matters, namely the future of the South Vietnamese government, to an “Administration of National Concord” representing the Saigon government and South Vietnamese Communists. These terms were agreed to on October 11, with details to be worked out later. On his return to the United States, Kissinger announced in a press conference on October 26 that “We believe that peace is at hand.” On November 7 Richard Nixon easily won reelection as president over Democratic challenger George McGovern. Peace was not at hand, however. President Thieu refused to accede to the terms. Discussions with North Vietnam bogged down in disagreements about changes demanded by Thieu, details of prisoner exchanges, withdrawals, and other matters. Talks broke off on December 13. This interruption led to one of the most controversial acts of Nixon’s presidency. Although Kissinger urged Nixon to sign the agreement without Thieu, Nixon refused. Blaming Hanoi for the impasses, Nixon initiated Operation LINEBACKER II, the so-called Christmas Bombings of North Vietnam, on December 18, 1973. For the first time in the war, the United States employed Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses over Hanoi and Haiphong. The raids proved costly for the United States as well as North Vietnam, and they met

595

with outrage in the United States and throughout the world. Nixon halted them on December 30 after Hanoi, having exhausted its supply of surface-to-air missiles, indicated its willingness to return to negotiations. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho reached a final agreement on January 9, 1973. The terms were substantially the same as those reached the previous October and close to those discussed in 1969 except for provisions regarding the continuance of the South Vietnamese government. President Nixon announced the agreement on inauguration day, January 20, 1973. Ending U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam was the capstone of Kissinger’s diplomacy and earned him wide acclaim. In December 1972 Time magazine named Nixon and Kissinger “Men of the Year,” and a 1973 Gallup Poll rated Kissinger first in a list of most-admired Americans. In September 1973 Kissinger replaced William P. Rogers as secretary of state, a position that Kissinger retained through the end of the Gerald Ford administration in 1977. In October, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their Vietnam settlement. The North Vietnamese representative rejected the prize and his share of the $130,000 award. Kissinger accepted but donated the prize money to a scholarship fund for children of military personnel killed in Vietnam. In fact, Kissinger had achieved only what became known as a “decent interval” between removal of U.S. forces and a Communist takeover. Within a few months of the peace accord the Watergate Scandal began to unravel Nixon’s presidency, and the Vietnam peace accords came apart. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974; Saigon fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975. Kissinger has remained active as a presidential adviser, consultant, commentator, and speaker on international affairs. For many, however, Kissinger remains a deeply polarizing figure. Among the Left he has been vilified, and some have called for his trial for war crimes in association with his Indochina policies. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, Republicans and neoconservatives paid him little attention because they disagreed with his policies of détente with the Soviets and Chinese. In the new century, however, Kissinger has enjoyed renewed visibility, at least among Republicans. He reportedly met frequently with President George W. Bush about the Iraq War especially after the insurgency became critical, telling the president that a complete defeat of the insurgents was the only acceptable exit strategy. From 2001 to 2005 Kissinger also served as the chancellor of the College of William and Mary. KENNETH R. STEVENS See also Elections, U.S., 1968; Elections, U.S., 1972; Ellsberg, Daniel; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kent State University Shootings; Lake, William Anthony Kirsop; Le Duc Tho; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Madman Strategy; McGovern, George Stanley; Midway Island Conference; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Perot, Henry Ross; Rogers, William Pierce; San Antonio Formula; Vietnamization; Washington Special Actions Group

596

Kit Carson Scouts

References Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Hersh, Seymour. The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. New York: Summit, 1983. Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Schulzinger, Robert. Henry Kissinger: Doctor of Diplomacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Stoessinger, John. Henry Kissinger: The Anguish of Power. New York: Norton, 1976. Kalb, Marvin, and Bernard Kalb. Kissinger. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Kissinger, Henry. Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982. Morris, Roger. Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.

Kit Carson Scouts Former Vietnamese Communists, both military and political, who had defected to the allied side and then agreed to serve in combat units with U.S., Australian, and Thai military forces, primarily as scouts but also as soldiers, interpreters, and intelligence agents. According to the official U.S. Marine Corps history, the idea of using former Communists to aid U.S. military efforts began in May 1966 when a group of Viet Cong (VC) soldiers surrendered to units of the 9th Marines in the I Corps Tactical Zone and asked for asylum. The Communists immediately began a rumor among peasants of the area that the marines had tortured and killed a defector by the name of Ngo Van Bay. In response the marine regimental commander asked Bay and two of his fellow defectors to return to the village, talk to the peasants, and put the atrocity rumor to rest. The three agreed to do so and had such a positive effect on the local population that it was decided that other VC defectors brought under control of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) through the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) Program could be used to aid American military and pacification efforts. Soon other marine units at Da Nang, and eventually all marine commands in tactical areas, began using small numbers of rallied VC for a variety of combat and pacification tasks. The Kit Carson Scout program was officially established in October 1966. The choice of name is generally attributed to Major General Herman Nickerson Jr., commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, who was part American Indian and was also a Western history buff. He selected the name because the former VC working with the marines were good scouts in the tradition of Kit Carson, the famed 19th-century American frontiersman, Indian agent, and soldier. From October to December 1966 alone, the III Marine Amphibious Force credited their Kit Carson Scout units with killing 47 VC, capturing 16 weapons, and uncovering 18 mines and tunnels. The units proved so effective in their work for the U.S. Marine Corps that Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland soon encouraged all

American units to create similar units. By mid-1968 more than 700 former VC were serving with U.S. forces in South Vietnam. Many of these former Communists operated with or supplemented U.S. Army Special Forces long-range reconnaissance patrols, while others were responsible for leading American units to numerous VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) caches, camps, and trails during search-and-destroy operations. In the area of pacification support, Kit Carson Scouts repeatedly proved themselves a valuable propaganda tool when working with villagers who were far more willing to listen to and cooperate with fellow peasants who had defected from the Communists than they were representatives of the South Vietnamese government. When U.S. combat units withdrew from South Vietnam, most of the scouts volunteered to serve in ARVN units. After April 1975 when the North Vietnamese took control of South Vietnam, most of the scouts were imprisoned. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Chieu Hoi Program; Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols; Pacification; United States Marine Corps; United States Special Forces References Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982. Westmoreland, General William C. Report on the War in Vietnam, Section II, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 1964– June 1968. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

Knowland, William Fife Birth Date: June 26, 1908 Death Date: February 23, 1974 Republican U.S. senator from California and leader of the socalled China Lobby. Born in Alameda, California, on June 26, 1908, William Fife Knowland was the son of former congressman Joseph Russell Knowland. The younger Knowland graduated from the University of California–Berkeley in 1929 and soon thereafter became politically active. After serving one term in the California State Legislature and one term in the California State Senate, he entered national politics. In 1941 the Republican National Committee chose Knowland to be chairman of its Executive Committee. In 1945 while Knowland was still serving in World War II, California governor Earl Warren appointed him to finish the term of the late Republican senator Hiram Johnson. Knowland was elected to a full term in the U.S. Senate in 1946 and was reelected in 1952. Knowland quickly became a major force in the Senate and was known as an ardent anti-Communist and leader of the right wing of the Republican Party. He gained notoriety as leader of the China Lobby during the Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower

Koh Tang administrations. Although Knowland personally liked Truman, who himself was a former senator, Knowland decried the “loss” of China to the Communists in 1949 and was an outspoken critic of Truman’s Korean War policies. The China Lobby, a group of congressmen who shared Knowland’s beliefs on the subject, were staunch defenders of the Republic of China (ROC, Nationalist China) on Taiwan (then known as Formosa) and vehemently opposed the admission of Communist China to the United Nations (UN) following the 1949 Communist victory. The China Lobby also urged increased U.S. intervention to stop the spread of communism in Korea and Vietnam as well as in China. Knowland was such an ardent supporter of the Nationalists that his nickname became “the senator from Formosa.” Knowland was an especially vocal supporter of Ngo Dinh Diem, leader of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Knowland’s influence affected the 1954 Geneva Conference, for the senator and his supporters believed that any negotiations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would amount to U.S. recognition of the Communist regime, and they pressured Secretary of State John Foster Dulles into refusing to recognize Chinese foreign minister Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) while in Geneva. Knowland, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also prevailed on Dulles to downgrade the U.S. delegation to observer status, and thus Undersecretary of State Walter B. Smith took no part in negotiations. Knowland considered Geneva a “Communist victory.”

597

Not surprisingly, Knowland stood behind Senator Joseph McCarthy during the latter’s rise and fall and was among the minority voting against the condemnation of the Wisconsin Republican for his anti-Communist hysterics that had brought about McCarthyism. In domestic affairs Knowland, although one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress, also supported several civil rights initiatives. Knowland became majority leader after the 1953 health-related resignation of Republican senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Knowland also served two terms as minority leader, beginning in 1955. In 1958 he ran unsuccessfully for governor of California, losing to Democrat Edmund “Pat” Brown. Knowland then returned to his family’s Oakland Tribune newspaper and publishing business. He later served on Republican senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign staff and supported Ronald Reagan for California governor in 1968. Knowland committed suicide in Guerneville, California, on February 23, 1974. JOHN M. BARCUS See also China, People’s Republic of; China, Republic of; Dulles, John Foster; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ngo Dinh Diem; Smith, Walter Bedell; Zhou Enlai References Montgomery, Gayle B., and James W. Johnson. One Step Away from the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Randle, Robert F. Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Koh Tang

Republican senator William F. Knowland of California was a leading member of the so-called “China Lobby” and one of the strongest critics of the Truman administration’s Asian policies. Not surprisingly, Knowland was a staunch supporter of Republic of Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem. (Library of Congress)

Island located about 60 miles off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. Koh is the Cambodian word for “island.” On May 14, 1975, during the Mayaguez Incident, some 175 U.S. marines were transported by helicopters to Koh Tang. At the time the island was home to only several dozen Cambodian families. The marines were in search of the crew of the Mayaguez, a U.S.-registered cargo ship that on May 12 had been seized by the Khmer Rouge, who claimed that it had violated Cambodian territorial waters. The Cambodian Khmer Rouge took the Mayaguez crew members prisoner and were holding them on Koh Tang. However, by the time the marines arrived, the crew had been removed from the island via a fishing boat. Instead of finding the imprisoned Americans, the marines faced stiff opposition from as many as 200 Khmer Rouge fighters who were dug in on Koh Tang. In the fighting the marines faced heavy fire. The operation claimed 40 Americans dead and 50 wounded. Eight helicopters were also shot down. At least 60 Khmer Rouge also died. Between 1995 and 2001 concerted efforts were made to locate the bodies of the U.S. servicemen on Koh Tang, but only small bone fragments were recovered. The island is now occupied only

598

Komer, Robert W.

by Cambodian military personnel, but tourists occasionally visit to dive on the nearby coral reefs. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Mayaguez Incident References Guilmartin, John F. A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Rowan, Roy. The Four Days of Mayaguez. New York: Norton, 1975. Wetterhahn, Ralph. The Last Battle: The Mayaguez Incident and the End of the Vietnam War. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2001.

Komer, Robert W. Birth Date: February 23, 1922 Death Date: April 9, 2000 Deputy to the commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), for Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) during 1967–1968. Born on February 23, 1922, in Chicago, Robert W. Komer graduated from Harvard in 1942 and, following World War II army duty, received an MBA at Harvard in 1947. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

as an analyst during 1947–1960 and then moved to the National Security Council (NSC) as a senior staff member during 1961–1965. As a deputy special assistant to the president for national security affairs (1965–1966) and special assistant (1966–1967), Komer became increasingly involved with the pacification program in Vietnam. In February 1966 President Lyndon Johnson appointed him Washington coordinator for pacification activities. Komer’s office became useful to young army officers trying to overcome institutional resistance to results of the Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN) study, which had concluded that the attrition strategy and search-and-destroy tactics being employed by General William Westmoreland were not working and could not work. The key to success, the study held, was concentration on population security and pacification. Komer was sympathetic to that viewpoint and helped advance such ideas. Meanwhile, reporting on a June 1966 trip to Vietnam, Komer told President Johnson that the pacification effort was lagging: “Until we can get rolling on pacification in its widest sense—securing the villages, flushing out the local VC [Viet Cong] (not just the main force) and giving the peasant both security and hope for a better future,” he wrote, “we cannot assure a victory.” Soon Komer drafted a proposal that responsibility for support of pacification be assigned to the U.S. military establishment in the

Robert Komer, deputy to the commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, for Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson, November 16, 1967. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

Kontum, Battle for Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), with a civilian deputy running it. He had in effect written his own job description, although it took Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s backing for the idea to gain acceptance. In March 1967 the decision was announced to put the CORDS program under Westmoreland, with Komer as his deputy. In May 1967 Komer, given the personal rank of ambassador, headed for Vietnam to undertake his new duties. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker recalled in his oral history that Komer was both very able and very abrasive, thereby staking out the spectrum of viewpoints on Komer’s contribution, adding that he could be too pushy. In fact, Komer maintained that it was necessary to prod people aggressively if anything was going to be accomplished. He also took pride in his own incorrigible optimism. Once on the job Komer had been given his way by General Westmoreland who, according to William Colby in Lost Victory, did so with some relief that Westmoreland could let Komer do it while the general continued to conduct the military war that he saw as his primary responsibility. Colby credited Komer with an overdue effort to build up the territorial forces and with pulling together disparate elements of the American advisory effort at the province level. Komer’s overall influence on the pacification program remains uncertain. McNamara accords him a single mention, indeed a single sentence, in his memoirs, hardly an indication of substantial impact. The record shows that it was only after the Communists suffered disastrous losses during the 1968 Tet Offensive, after General Creighton Abrams assumed command of MACV and William Colby took over as deputy for CORDS and after President Nguyen Van Thieu personally launched and pushed the Accelerated Pacification Campaign in November 1968, that pacification really began to show results. Komer meanwhile had become ambassador to Turkey, an appointment that proved short-lived when the White House changed parties soon after he was nominated. He then spent a number of years at the RAND Corporation (1969–1977) and as a Pentagon official working on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) affairs (1977–1979) and as undersecretary of defense for policy (1979–1981). Komer died of a stroke in Arlington, Virginia, on April 9, 2000. LEWIS SORLEY See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Bunker, Ellsworth; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Colby, William Egan; McNamara, Robert Strange; Nguyen Van Thieu; Pacification; Westmoreland, William Childs References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Komer, Robert W. Bureaucracy at War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986. Scoville, Thomas W. Reorganizing for Pacification Support. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982.

599

Kong Le Birth Date: March 6, 1934 Laotian Army officer. Born on March 6, 1934, at Muong Phalane in Savannakhet Province, Laos, the son of Chantha and Nang Deng, Kong Le joined the army and underwent paratroop training in the Philippines and Thailand. His unit, the 2nd Paratroop Battalion, took part in the fighting against the Pathet Lao in Sam Neua in the summer of 1959. As a captain, Kong led his paratroop battalion in the August 1960 coup d’état that overthrew the pro-Western government in Vientiane, hoping to put an end to the civil war in Laos. Driven out of Vientiane by Phoumi Nosavan’s troops in December 1960, Kong took the Plain of Jars from Phoumi’s troops in January 1961 with assistance from the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). A neutralist at heart, Kong grew disillusioned by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) intervention in Laos and by the summer of 1963 was again on the side of Phoumi in supporting Prince Souvanna Phouma’s efforts to neutralize Laos with international backing. Promoted to general, Kong fought the Pathet Lao and PAVN forces in Laos as commander of the neutralist army. As a result of intrigues within the neutralist and rightist armies, Kong was discredited and, fearing for his life, took refuge in the Indonesian embassy in Vientiane in 1966. He later moved to France and eventually to the United States. A fierce opponent of Vietnamese communism, Kong visited the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the time of the SinoVietnamese War in 1979 in an attempt to gain Chinese support for liberating Laos from the Pathet Lao regime. He continues to advocate armed resistance to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Laos; Phoumi Nosavan; Souvanna Phouma References Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1971. Savada, Andrea Matles, ed. Laos: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995.

Kontum, Battle for Start Date: May 2, 1972 End Date: July 1, 1972 Kontum, the capital city of Kontum Province in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), is located in the Central Highlands near the Laotian-Cambodian border. The Battle for Kontum occurred during the People’s Army of Vietnam’s (PAVN, North Vietnamese) Easter Offensive of 1972. Two PAVN divisions, the 2nd and the 320th, were allocated to the attack. Both were well

600

Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of

equipped and supplied with artillery and armor support, chiefly the Soviet-made T-54 main battle tank. Kontum was defended by Major General Ly Tong Ba’s Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 23rd Division, with support provided by former lieutenant colonel John Paul Vann, the senior American adviser in the Central Highlands. During March and April 1972, ARVN fire-support bases and outposts north of Kontum came under relentless PAVN attack. ARVN troops defending these outposts were overrun or forced to abandon them, leaving behind a number of 105-millimeter howitzers. On May 2, 1972, PAVN forces began their assault at Kontum City itself, opening with a deadly rocket-fire and artillery barrage. The ARVN’s lighter U.S.-made M-41 tanks proved no match for the Soviet-supplied T-54s, and most were soon abandoned. Fighting waxed and waned throughout the month of May, but by May 30 PAVN forces appeared on the verge of overrunning Kontum. ARVN forces rallied, however, under the direction of Vann, who also called in some 300 B-52 strikes in a single three-week period. By mid-June, ARVN troops had rallied and were rooting out the remaining enemy soldiers on the outskirts of the city. By July 1 the Battle for Kontum was over. ARVN losses were heavy, probably on the order of several hundred dead with more than 100 killed on May 20 alone. PAVN deaths were probably several thousand. On July 9 only days after the battle had ended, Vann died in the crash of his helicopter. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Easter Offensive; Fire-Support Bases; Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Vann, John Paul References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Ngo Quang Truong. The Easter Offensive of 1972. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of East Asian nation with a 1968 population of approximately 13.1 million. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) was officially formed on September 9, 1948. The rigidly Communist country was the immediate by-product of World War II and the ensuing Cold War, which had left the Korean Peninsula artificially divided roughly along the 38th Parallel. North Korea occupied the Korean Peninsula north of that latitude. Covering 47,950 square miles, North Korea is bordered by the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) to the south, the People’s Republic of

China (PRC) and Russia to the north, the Yellow Sea to the west, and the Sea of Japan to the east. By 1948, Communist hard-liner Kim Il Sung, with the help of the Soviets, had consolidated his power in northern Korea and in September officially declared the establishment of the DPRK. When the Communists came to power in China the following year, Kim received even more aid and support so that by 1950 he was able to launch a massive invasion of South Korea. His intention was to unify all of Korea under Communist control. His move precipitated a bloody three-year-long war that eventually involved both the United States and China. The Korean War ended in a stalemate, however, with the border between the two Koreas remaining virtually unchanged. Although Kim’s Korean People’s Army (KPA, North Korean Army) and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) had fought the United Nations Command (UNC) forces to a draw, North Korea was devastated by the conflict, having lost almost 300,000 soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians. Its industry was wrecked, and its agricultural output was severely crippled. However, thanks to massive aid from both the Soviets and the Chinese, by the end of the 1950s North Korea’s economic output exceeded its prewar levels. Well into the 1970s, North Korea’s economy fared relatively well, driven by Kim’s desire to make his nation self-sufficient and a beacon of command-style Communist achievement. The friendly relationship between North Korea and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was not a product of the Vietnam War. Indeed, by 1965 North Korea was a well-established ally of North Vietnam. Fifteen years earlier, in January 1950, North Korea had formally recognized the DRV as the legitimate government of all Vietnam. North Korea was a staunch supporter of North Vietnam, being linked by Communist ideology and opposition to U.S. influence in Asia following the Korean War. Kim believed that unity among all Communist nations in Asia was vital to expelling the United States from the region. This is evidenced by North Korean participation in the Asian Communist Summit of October 1959. North Korean aid to the Communist forces of Vietnam was mostly of an indirect nature, being largely technical and financial. Numerous agreements promised assistance and provided terms for reciprocal trade between the two countries, but the exact nature and extent of this are somewhat ambiguous. North Korea sent teams of technicians to North Vietnam as early as 1960 and undoubtedly continued the practice throughout the war. Events such as the arrival of the North Korean defense minister in Hanoi on December 18, 1964, pointed strongly to military aid from Pyongyang. North Korea never did provide large-scale direct military aid to North Vietnam. Kim did advocate this, spurred by the deployment of Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) units to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in October 1965. Pyongyang pledged to Hanoi that it would match South Korea’s troop contribution to South Vietnam, but the North Vietnamese

Korea, Republic of government rejected the offer, preferring aid agreements of a more ambiguous nature. North Korea did provide a small amount of direct military support to the war. Postwar Vietnamese, Soviet, and North Korean sources have confirmed that during 1967 and 1968 a regimentalsized group of North Korean pilots flew combat missions over North Vietnam against U.S. aircraft and that North Korean propaganda specialists worked alongside Vietnamese Communist forces fighting against South Korean troops stationed in South Vietnam. Fourteen North Koreans died while fighting alongside Vietnamese Communist forces during the Vietnam War. North Korea provided indirect assistance to North Vietnam with the North Korean attack on and capture of the U.S. spy ship Pueblo in international waters off the eastern North Korean coast on January 23, 1968, although this was undoubtedly motivated by reasons other than the war in Vietnam. This action by Pyongyang did, however, force the redeployment of some U.S. military assets to South Korea. Thus, although North Korea did not achieve the level of participation that Kim desired, North Korea was by no means a passive observer of the Vietnam War. ERIC W. OSBORNE See also Korea, Republic of; Pueblo Incident; United States Reserve Components References Buzo, Adrian. The Making of Modern Korea. New York: Routledge, 2002. Defense Prisoner and Missing Office. 1992–1996 Findings of the Vietnam War Working Group. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 1996. Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. Hart-Landsberg, Martin. Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998. Koh, Byung Chul. The Foreign Policy of North Korea. New York: Praeger, 1969. Nguyen Van Minh, ed. Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc, 1954–1975, Tap V, Tong Tien Cong va Noi Day Nam 1968 [History of the Resistance War against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954–1975, Vol. 5, The 1968 General Offensive and Uprisings]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2001. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991. Wintle, Justin. The Vietnam Wars. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991.

Korea, Republic of East Asian nation with a 1968 population of 30.834 million. Formed on August 15, 1948, the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) was a direct result of World War II and the ensuing Cold War, which had left the Korean Peninsula artificially divided along the 38th Parallel. South Korea took root south of that latitude and featured a government that was nominally democratic and fiercely anti-Communist. President Syngman Rhee governed South Korea from 1948 to 1960. South Korea is bordered by the

601

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) to the north, the Sea of Japan to the east, the Korea Strait to the south, and the Yellow Sea to the west. Until North Korea mounted a massive invasion of South Korea in June 1950, sparking the Korean War (1950–1953), the United States had only hesitantly supported Rhee’s regime, refusing to provide it with offensive weaponry out of fear that Rhee would launch a war against North Korea in an effort to reunify the peninsula. The Korean War changed that. By the autumn of 1950, the United States was deeply involved in the ground war in Korea and began funneling massive aid to the Seoul regime. When the war ended in 1953, Washington made major defense and economic aid commitments to South Korea, and from the 1950s to the present day, the United States has maintained an average troop deployment of 36,000 in South Korea. Until the 1980s, South Korea was governed by a succession of military-style juntas that only vaguely resembled democratic regimes. Government repression could be severe during these years, and South Koreans enjoyed limited economic freedoms and little political freedom. Nevertheless, the once-impoverished country began an economic takeoff beginning in the 1970s. Since then it has enjoyed one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and has joined Japan and China as Asian economic powerhouses. The United States often defended its commitment in Vietnam because of obligations incurred under the 1954 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) pact. In fact, two major signatories of that treaty, France and Great Britain, felt no such obligation after 1954. Ironically, South Korea, the country that contributed the most troops to Vietnam after the United States, was not a SEATO member. From the beginning, the United States eagerly sought the participation of the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army), noted for its fighting ability. The ROKA had also benefited from three years of combat alongside the Americans during the Korean War and had undergone rigorous training instituted by the U.S. military thereafter. As early as 1953, President Rhee suggested to the United States that he would furnish troops to aid the French in Vietnam. The Dwight D. Eisenhower administration carefully studied the offer but took no action. In 1953 the American people were unlikely to accept the use of South Korean troops in Vietnam while U.S. troops were still stationed in Korea. In addition, U.S. policy makers reacted negatively to Rhee’s demand for a significant increase in American aid to South Korea. In June 1954, however, with events going poorly at the Geneva Conference, the idea resurfaced. Although Rhee’s offer was more favorably considered on that occasion, the French rejected it. Throughout the remainder of the 1950s, the United States was engaged in the difficult task of attempting to establish a democratic non-Communist government in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The United States strongly supported South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. By the early autumn of 1963,

602

Korea, Republic of

A Republic of Korea (ROK) soldier of the White Horse Division during an assault on a Communist position. The ROK sent 50,000 troops to Vietnam as part of U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson’s effort to gain the support of other nations in his Many Flags program. (Tim Page/Corbis)

however, the experiment in nation building was foundering. Diem’s stubborn refusal to heed American advice to institute reforms and his unpopular campaign against Vietnamese Buddhists led to his November 1963 overthrow and subsequent assassination. The virtual anarchy that followed Diem’s fall led in 1964 to renewed calls for the introduction of third-country troops. The Lyndon B. Johnson administration was obsessed with the need to widen participation from other countries to support the unstable Saigon government. The ensuing attempt to attract other nations was called the Many Flags program. Armies from South Korea provided the largest contingent to that program. South Korean troops began to arrive in Vietnam on February 26, 1965. In March of that year the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recommended the deployment of two U.S. divisions and one South Korean division to South Vietnam for ground combat operations, the first such recommendation for an open-ended commitment to combat. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland decided that South Korean troops would be deployed in the II Corps Tactical Zone on Vietnam’s east coast and dispersed between Nha Trang north to an area just below Da Nang. Westmoreland wanted troops from each third country to operate under its own command. With this administrative structure, he

hoped to avoid any resemblance to French colonialism and at the same time eliminate the complications inherent in a multinational operation. He assumed, however, that these forces would follow orders from the United States. The assumption proved correct for most of the militaries of the other countries involved, but not for the ROKA. From the first, its commanders operated as if on the same level as Westmoreland. In October 1965 the pride of the ROKA, the Capital Division, arrived in South Vietnam. By March 1966 there were 23,000 thirdcountry troops involved, the bulk of them South Korean. At the close of 1969 there were 47,872 South Korean troops in Vietnam, the maximum number deployed at any one time. However, the Many Flags program never included more than four other nations: Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Thailand. With the exception of Australia and New Zealand, all demanded and received remuneration for their service. None, however, demanded as much or received more than did South Korea. In addition to funds designed to upgrade the ROKA in Korea, the United States paid Korean officers and enlisted men more for their services in Vietnam than the South Korean government paid their counterparts at home. Also, many South Korean firms were awarded civil contracts in Vietnam. For example, one such firm received a lucrative contract to collect garbage in the city of Saigon.

Korean War Financed by the United States, the task could have been handled as efficiently, and certainly cheaper, by unemployed Vietnamese in the capital. Between 1966 and 1970, Washington doled out more than $900 million to the Seoul government, and the figure grew as the Richard M. Nixon administration added additional millions to persuade South Korea to leave two divisions in place until 1973. In that regard, forces from South Korea were mercenaries, not allies, and there is serious doubt that the United States received adequate dividends for such an enormous investment. Although the ROKA was certainly a capable and well-trained fighting force, its soldiers were under orders from Seoul to take as few casualties as possible. Hence, they were hesitant to move without significant support from U.S. air and ground forces. Also, reports of atrocities committed by South Korean troops against Vietnamese civilians are far too numerous to overlook. In the final analysis, Colonel Bruce Palmer was correct when he stated that “we never did get our full ‘money’s worth’ from the ‘ROKs.’ Although their troops fought bravely, carrying out their responsibilities in their assigned areas in a generally commendable way, their leaders were loath to move very far away from their whitewashed base camps.” FRANCIS H. THOMPSON See also Australia; IRVING, Operation; Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of; New Zealand; Ngo Dinh Diem; Order of Battle Dispute; Philippines; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Thailand; Westmoreland, William Childs References Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.

Korean War Start Date: 1950 End Date: 1953 The Korean War was a watershed conflict within the Cold War. The first shooting war of the Cold War, the Korean War was also the first limited war of the nuclear age. In many ways, the war foreshadowed American involvement in Vietnam, another artificially divided Asian nation. Indeed, the outbreak of the war in June 1950 prompted the Harry S. Truman administration to increase substantially its aid to the French in the Indochina War of 1946– 1954. As the Korean War progressed, American aid to the French increased, gradually raising the U.S. stakes in Vietnam. Korea was long the scene of confrontation among China, Japan, and Russia. Controlled by either China or Japan for most

603

of its modern history, Korea was divided in half after World War II. Wartime agreements called for the United States to temporarily occupy southern Korea up to the 38th Parallel, while the Soviet Union did the same north of that line. The Cold War brought the permanent division of Korea into two states. Efforts to establish a unified Korea failed, and in September 1947 the United States referred the issue to the United Nations (UN), which called for a unified Korean government and the withdrawal of occupation forces. In January 1948 Soviet authorities refused to permit a UN commission to oversee elections in northern Korea, but elections for an assembly proceeded in southern Korea that spring. By August 1948 the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) had officially formed, with its capital at Seoul and headed by 70-year-old Syngman Rhee, a staunch conservative. Washington then terminated its military government and agreed to train the South Korean armed forces. In September 1948 the Communists formed the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), with its capital at Pyongyang and led by veteran Communist Kim Il Sung. Both Korean governments claimed authority over the entire peninsula, but in December 1948 the UN General Assembly endorsed the South Korean government as the only lawfully elected government. That same month the Soviet Union announced that it had withdrawn its forces from North Korea. The United States withdrew all its troops from South Korea by June 1949. In May 1948 sporadic fighting began along the 38th Parallel. Washington, fearful that the United States might be drawn into a civil war, purposely distanced itself from these clashes. President Harry S. Truman announced that fighting in Korea would not automatically lead to U.S. military intervention. In January 1950 Secretary of State Dean Acheson excluded Korea from the U.S. strategic Asian defensive perimeter. Such pronouncements undoubtedly encouraged Kim to believe that the United States would not fight for Korea. For many years North Korea, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) maintained that the Korean War began with a South Korean attack on North Korea. This was propaganda. Beginning in late 1949, North Korea prepared for fullscale war. Its Korean People’s Army (KPA, North Korean Army) was well armed with Soviet weapons, including such modern offensive arms as heavy artillery, T-34 tanks, trucks, automatic weapons, and about 180 new aircraft. The KPA numbered about 135,000 men in 10 divisions. South Korea’s military situation was far different. The Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) lacked equipment and trained leaders because of Washington’s unwillingness to fight in Korea and because the meager U.S. defense budget would not allow it. ROKA training was incomplete, and the ROKA lacked heavy artillery, tanks, and antitank weapons. South Korea had no air force apart from trainers and liaison aircraft. The South Korean military numbered 95,000 men in eight divisions, only four of which were at full strength.

604

Korean War

United Nations forces withdraw from North Korea and recross the 38th Parallel that marks the boundary line between North and South Korea in early December 1950 during the Korean War. (National Archives)

Washington was aware of the North Korean military buildup but believed that the Communist powers would not risk war. Limited war was still a foreign concept to U.S. planners. The U.S. military was also woefully unprepared and ill-equipped. The U.S. Army numbered only nine divisions and 630,000 men. Kim planned to use his military superiority to invade and quickly conquer South Korea. Twice he consulted Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, promising him victory in a matter of weeks, assuring him that there would be a Communist revolution in South Korea, and insisting that Washington would not intervene. Moscow and Beijing were actively preparing for the invasion as early as the spring of 1949, and Russian military advisers assisted in its planning. Stalin concluded that even if the United States were to decide to intervene, it would come too late. Stalin pledged military assistance but not direct Soviet military involvement. He also insisted that Kim meet with PRC leader Mao Zedong and secure his assent to the plans. In late 1949 Mao released the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army) 164th and 166th divisions of Korean volunteers who had fought against

the Japanese and in the Chinese Civil War, providing North Korea with about 30,000–40,000 seasoned troops. On June 25, 1950, KPA forces launched a massive invasion of South Korea. The UN Security Council called for an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of North Korean forces, a resolution that went unchallenged because of a Soviet UN boycott. On June 27 the Security Council asked UN member states to furnish “assistance” to South Korea. President Truman also extended U.S. air and naval operations to include North Korea, authorized U.S. Army troops to protect the port of Pusan, and ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait. Upon General Douglas MacArthur’s recommendation, President Truman committed U.S. Far Eastern ground forces to Korea on June 30. The invasion caught both MacArthur and Washington by surprise. Yet U.S. intervention was almost certain, given the Truman Doctrine, domestic political fallout from the Communist victory in China in 1949, and the belief that success in Korea would embolden the Communists elsewhere. During the three-year conflict, no war was ever formally declared; Truman labeled it a “police action.”

Korean War At the time of the invasion, the United States had four poorly trained and equipped divisions in Japan. By cannibalizing his 7th Infantry Division, MacArthur was able to dispatch the 24th and 25th Infantry divisions and the 1st Cavalry Division to Korea within two weeks. Meanwhile, Seoul fell on June 28. Most of the ROKA’s equipment was lost when the bridges spanning the Han River were prematurely blown. On July 5 the first American units battled the KPA at Osan, 50 miles south of Seoul. Expected to stop a KPA division, Task Force Smith consisted of only 540 men in two rifle companies and an artillery battery. The KPA, spearheaded by T-34 tanks, easily swept it aside. At the request of the UN Security Council, the UN set up a military command in Korea. Washington insisted on a U.S. commander, and on July 10 Truman appointed MacArthur to head the United Nations Command (UNC). Seventeen nations contributed military assistance, and at peak strength UNC forces numbered about 400,000 ROKA, 250,000 U.S., and 35,000 from other nations. Two British and Canadian units formed the bulk of the 1st Commonwealth Division, which also included Australian infantry, New Zealand artillery, and Indian medical units. Turkey provided a brigade, and there were troops from Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Other nations provided medical units. U.S. forces were unprepared for the fighting. Difficult terrain, primitive logistics, poor communication, and refugees did as much to delay the North Korean offensive as did the defenders. By midJuly, UNC troops had been pushed back into the so-called Pusan Perimeter, an area of 30–50 miles around the vital port of Pusan on the southeastern coast of Korea. Here U.S. and ROKA forces bought valuable time and ultimately held. This success was attributable to UNC artillery, control of the skies, and Eighth Army (EUSAK, Eighth U.S. Army, Korea) commander Lieutenant General Walton Walker’s brilliant mobile defense. The KPA also failed to employ its early manpower advantage to mount simultaneous attacks along the entire perimeter. Even as the battle for the Pusan Perimeter raged, MacArthur was planning an amphibious assault behind enemy lines. Confident that he could hold Pusan, he deliberately weakened EUSAK to build up an invasion force. MacArthur selected Inchon as the invasion site. As Korea’s second-largest port and only 15 miles from Seoul, Inchon was close to the KPA’s main supply line south. Seizing it would cut off KPA troops to the south. MacArthur also knew that he could deal North Korea a major political blow if Seoul was promptly recaptured. The Inchon landing was a risky venture, and few besides MacArthur favored it. Inchon posed the daunting problems of a 32-foot tidal range that allowed only 6 hours in 24 for sea resupply, a narrow winding channel, and high seawalls. On September 15 Major General Edward Almond’s X Corps of the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division commenced the invasion. Supported by naval gunfire and air attacks, the marines secured Inchon with relatively few casualties. UNC forces reentered Seoul on September 24.

605

At the same time, EUSAK broke out of the Pusan Perimeter and drove north, linking up with X Corps on September 26. Only one-quarter to one-third of the KPA escaped north of the 38th Parallel. Pyongyang ignored MacArthur’s call for surrender, and on October 1 ROKA troops crossed into North Korea. On October 7 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a unified, independent, and democratic Korea, and two days later MacArthur ordered U.S. forces across the 38th Parallel. Pyongyang fell on October 19 as stunned KPA forces fled north. MacArthur then divided his forces for the drive to the Yalu River. He ordered X Corps transported by sea around the Korean Peninsula to the east coast port of Wonsan. Almond would then clear northeastern Korea. EUSAK would remain on the west coast and drive into northwestern Korea. The two commands would be separated by a gap of between 20 and 50 miles. MacArthur believed, falsely as it turned out, that the north-south Taebaek mountain range would obviate large-scale Communist operations there. EUSAK crossed the Chongchon River at Sinanju, and by November 1 elements of the 24th Division were only 18 miles from the Yalu. Several days earlier a South Korean unit reached the Yalu, the only UNC unit to get there. China now entered the war but unofficially. Alarmed over possible U.S. bases adjacent to Manchuria, Mao had issued warnings about potential Chinese military intervention. He believed that the United States would be unable to counter the Chinese numerical advantage and viewed American troops as soft and unused to night fighting. On October 2 Mao informed Stalin that China would enter the war. Stalin agreed to move Soviet MiG-15 fighters already in China to the Korean border. In this position they could cover the Chinese military buildup and prevent U.S. air attacks on Manchuria. Soviet pilots began flying missions against UNC forces on November 1 and bore the brunt of the Communists’ air war. Stalin also ordered other Soviet air units to deploy to China, train Chinese pilots, and then turn over aircraft to them. Although Russian and Chinese sources disagree on what the Soviet leader promised Mao, Stalin clearly had no intention of using his air units for anything other than defensive purposes. China later claimed that Stalin had promised complete air support for its ground forces, but this never materialized. On October 25 regular Chinese troops, formed into the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA), entered the fighting in northwestern Korea, and Walker wisely brought the bulk of EUSAK back behind the Chongchon River. Positions then stabilized, and the Chinese offensive slackened. The Chinese also attacked in northeastern Korea before halting operations and breaking contact. On November 8 the first jet battle in history occurred when an American Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star shot down a MiG-15 over Sinanju. The initial CPVA incursion ended on November 7. In a nowfamous meeting with President Truman at Wake Island on October 15, General MacArthur assured the president that the war was all but won, but if the Chinese intervened, their forces would be

606

Korean War

slaughtered. UNC airpower, he believed, would nullify any Chinese threat. Yet from November 1, 1950, to October 1951, MiGs so dominated the Yalu River area that U.S. Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers had to cease daylight operations. The initial Chinese intervention had consisted of 18 divisions. In early November they moved an additional 12 divisions, totaling some 300,000 men, into Korea. MacArthur responded by ordering the air force to destroy the bridges over the Yalu. Washington revoked the order, but MacArthur complained that this threatened his command, and Washington gave in. On November 8, 79 B-29s and 300 fighter-bombers struck bridges and towns on either side of the Yalu. The bombing had little effect. Most of the Chinese were then in North Korea, and the Yalu was soon frozen. Meanwhile, Washington debated how to proceed. The political leadership and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) under its chairman General Omar Bradley believed that Europe was the top priority. Washington decided that while Manchuria would remain off limits, MacArthur could take other military steps that he deemed advisable, including resumption of the offensive. The Democrats were reluctant to show weakness in regard to Korea, and the Republicans had gained seats in the November 1950 congressional elections. While much was being made in the United States about the prohibitions of strikes on Manchuria, the Communist side also exercised restraint. With the exception of a few ancient biplanes that sometimes bombed UNC positions at night, Communist airpower was restricted to north of Pyongyang. No effort was made to strike Pusan, and UNC convoys traveled without fear of air attack. Nor did Communist forces attempt to disrupt allied sea communications. MacArthur had made X Corps dependent logistically on EUSAK instead of on Japan, and Walker insisted on delaying resumption of the offensive until he could build up supplies. Weather also played a factor, with temperatures already below zero. Finally, Walker agreed to resume the offensive on November 24. To the east, X Corps was widely dispersed. MacArthur seemed oblivious to any problems, seeing the advance as an occupation rather than an offensive. The advance went well on the first day, but on the night of November 25–26, 1951, the Chinese attacked EUSAK in force. The Americans held, but on November 26 the ROKA II Corps disintegrated, exposing EUSAK’s right flank. The Chinese poured 18 divisions into the gap, endangering the whole of EUSAK. In a brilliant delaying action at Kunuri, the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division bought time for the other EUSAK divisions to recross the Chongchon. MacArthur now ordered a retirement just below the 38th Parallel to protect Seoul. Washington directed MacArthur to pull X Corps out of northeastern Korea to prevent it from being flanked. Under heavy CPVA attack, X Corps withdrew to the east coast for seaborne evacuation along with the ROKA I Corps. The retreat to the coast of the 1st Marine Division and some army elements from the Chanjin Reservoir was one of the most masterly withdrawals in military history.

X Corps was redeployed to Pusan by sea. On December 10 Wonsan was evacuated. At Hungnam through December 24, 105,000 officers and men were taken off, along with about 91,000 Korean refugees who did not want to remain in North Korea. The Korean War had entered a new phase: in effect the UNC was now fighting China. MacArthur refused to accept a limited war and publicized his views to his supporters in the United States, making reference to “inhibitions” placed on his conduct of the war. UNC morale plummeted, especially with General Walker’s death in a jeep accident on December 22. Not until Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway arrived to replace Walker did the situation improve. In the United States, Truman found himself under heavy pressure from Republicans to vigorously pursue the war. But the administration reduced its goal in Korea to restoring the status quo ante bellum. UNC troops were again forced to retreat when the Chinese launched a New Year’s offensive, retaking Seoul on January 4. But the CPVA outran its supply lines, and Ridgway took the offensive. Ridgway’s methodical, limited advance was designed to inflict maximum punishment rather than to secure territory. Nonetheless, by the end of March UNC forces recaptured Seoul, and by the end of April they were again north of the 38th Parallel. On April 11, 1951, President Truman relieved MacArthur of command, appointing Ridgway in his stead. Lieutenant General James Van Fleet took over command of EUSAK. Although widely unpopular at the time, MacArthur’s removal was fully supported by the JCS, as MacArthur had publicly expressed his disdain of limited war. He returned home to a hero’s welcome, but much to his dismay, political support for him promptly faded. On April 22 the Chinese counterattacked in Korea. Rather than expend his troops in a defensive stand, Van Fleet ordered a methodical withdrawal with maximum artillery and air strikes against Communist forces. The Chinese pushed the UNC south of the 38th Parallel, but the offensive was halted by May 19. UNC forces then counterpunched, and by the end of May the front stabilized just above the 38th Parallel. The JCS generally limited EUSAK to that line, allowing only small local advances to gain more favorable terrain. The war was now stalemated, and a diplomatic settlement seemed expedient. On June 23, 1951, the Soviets proposed a ceasefire. With the Chinese expressing interest, Truman authorized Ridgway to negotiate. Meetings began on July 10 at Kaesong, although hostilities would continue until an armistice was signed. UNC operations from this point were essentially designed to minimize friendly casualties. Each side had built deep defensive lines that would be costly to break through. In August armistice talks broke down, and later that month the Battle of Bloody Ridge began, developing into the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge that lasted until mid-October. In late October negotiations resumed, this time at Panmunjom, although the fighting continued. Half of the war’s casualties occurred during the period of armistice negotiations. On November 12, 1951, Ridgway ordered Van Fleet to cease offensive operations. Fighting now devolved into raids, local at-

Korean War tacks, patrols, and artillery fire. In February 1953 Van Fleet was succeeded as EUSAK commander by Lieutenant General Maxwell D. Taylor. Meanwhile, UNC air operations intensified to choke off Communist supply lines and reduce the likelihood of Communist offensives. In November 1952 General Dwight Eisenhower was elected president of the United States largely on a mandate to end the war. With U.S. casualties running 2,500 a month, the war had become a political time bomb. Eisenhower instructed the JCS to draw up plans to end the war militarily including the possible use of nuclear weapons, which was made known to the Communist side. More important in ending the conflict, however, was Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953. As the armistice negotiations entered their final phase in May, the Chinese stepped up military action, initiating attacks in June and July to remove bulges in the line. UNC forces gave up some ground but inflicted heavy casualties. The chief stumbling block to peace was the repatriation of prisoners of war (POWs). Truman was determined that no POW be repatriated against his will. This stance prolonged the war, but some U.S. officials saw a moral and propaganda victory in the Chinese and North Korean defections. The Communist side rejected the UNC position out of hand. Following intense UNC air strikes on North Korean hydroelectric facilities and the capital of Pyongyang, the Communists accepted a face-saving formula whereby a neutral commission would deal with POW repatriation. On July 27 an armistice was signed at Panmunjom, and the guns finally fell silent. Of 132,000 North Korean and Chinese military POWs, fewer than 90,000 chose to return home. Twenty-two Americans held by the Communists also elected not to return home. Of 10,218 Americans captured by the Communists, only 3,746 returned. The remainder were murdered or died in captivity. American losses were 142,091 (33,686 killed in action). South Korea sustained 300,000 casualties (70,000 killed in action). Other UNC casualties came to 17,260 (3,194 killed in action). North Korean casualties are estimated at 523,400 and Chinese losses at more than 1 million. Perhaps 3 million Korean civilians also died during the war. The war devastated Korea and hardened the divisions between North Korea and South Korea. It was also a sobering experience for the United States. After the war, the U.S. military establishment remained strong. For America, the Korean War institutionalized the Cold War national security state. The war also accelerated the racial integration of the armed forces, which in turn encouraged a much wider U.S. Civil Rights Movement. China gained greatly from the war in that it came to be regarded as the preponderant military power in Asia. This is ironic, because the Chinese Army in Korea was in many respects a primitive and inefficient force. Nonetheless, throughout the following decades exaggeration of Chinese military strength was woven into the fabric of American foreign policy, influencing subsequent U.S. policy in regard to Vietnam.

607

The Korean War effectively militarized the containment policy. Before the war, Marshall Plan aid had been almost entirely nonmilitary. U.S. aid now shifted heavily toward military rearmament. The war also marked a sustained militarization of American foreign policy, with the Vietnam War a logical consequence. Additionally, the Korean War solidified the role of the United States as the world’s policeman and strengthened the country’s relationship with its West European allies and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The war facilitated the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). In addition, the war impacted Japan and was a major factor fueling that nation’s economy. Militarily, the Korean War saw the extensive use of helicopters and jet aircraft. The conflict was also a reminder that airpower alone cannot win wars and showed the importance of command of the sea. No formal peace has ever been concluded in Korea. Technically the two Koreas remain at war, and the 38th Parallel remains one of the Cold War’s lone outposts. From the French perspective, the July 1953 cease-fire seemed to be a breach of faith on the part of Washington, which had previously viewed the Indochina War and the Korean War as “two fronts against communism.” The French also realized that with the Korean War over, the Chinese could now shift more resources to the Viet Minh. The Korean War appeared to have vindicated the concepts of a conventional war with set-piece battles. This led the United States to its first major military mistake in Vietnam, to insist that the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) create a conventional military establishment along U.S. lines to meet a possible invasion by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) across the DMZ, just as the North Koreans had invaded South Korea. The resulting Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) was thus ill-suited for the guerrilla warfare that would be waged by the Communist side in South Vietnam. Many American military personnel who served in Vietnam had also served in Korea. These individuals were once again subjected to an unpopular limited war with hazy and changeable war aims. Perhaps in part influenced by Truman’s firing of MacArthur in 1951, U.S. military officials were reluctant to challenge presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon regarding their Vietnam policies. Clearly the Korean War experience loomed large for U.S. policy makers. The Chinese were considered an omnipresent threat, and Washington refused to consider an invasion of North Vietnam, fearing another Chinese intervention and a wider war in Asia. Indeed, President Johnson was acutely aware of the problems that faced President Truman in the early 1950s and hoped to avoid them at all costs. In the end, although the mode and style of warfare in Vietnam differed greatly from that in Korea, both wars were waged with political rather than military motives as their driving force. SPENCER C. TUCKER

608

Koster, Samuel William, Sr.

See also Containment Policy; Dulles, John Foster; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of; Korea, Republic of; MacArthur, Douglas; Mao Zedong; Ridgway, Matthew Bunker; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Truman, Harry S. References Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953. New York: Times Books, 1987. Crane, Conrad C. American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Donovan, Robert J. Nemesis: Truman and Johnson in the Coils of War in Asia. New York: St. Martin’s/Marek, 1984. Ent, Uzal. Fighting on the Brink: Defense of the Pusan Perimeter. Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing, 1996. Field, James A. United States Naval Operations: Korea. Washington, DC: Director of Naval History, U.S. Navy, 1962. Korea Institute of Military History. The Korean War. 3 vols. Seoul: Korea Institute of Military History, 1997. Pierpaoli, Paul G. Jr. Truman and Korea: The Political Culture of the Early Cold War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

Koster, Samuel William, Sr. Birth Date: December 29, 1919 Death Date: January 23, 2006 U.S. Army general and the highest-ranking officer implicated in the March 16, 1968, My Lai Massacre. Born on December 29, 1919, in West Liberty, Iowa, Samuel William Koster was a 1942 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and saw combat service in Europe during World War II (1939–1945) and in the Korean War (1950–1953). He held a series of staff and command posts and rose steadily in rank and responsibility. On September 22 Koster assumed command of Task Force Oregon in Vietnam. On October 26 the 23rd Infantry Division was officially activated, and Koster was promoted to major general. More commonly known as the Americal Division (for the American, New Caledonia Division, one of only two unnumbered U.S. Army divisions in World War II), the 23rd Division was formed from Task Force Oregon, which had been established in February 1967 and consisted of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, and the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division to provide a strong U.S. military presence in Quang Tri Province in the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Americal, which was made up of the 11th, 196th, and 198th Light Infantry brigades, earned a negative reputation in the Vietnam War in part because its 11th and 198th brigades arrived as the division was being formed and were inadequately trained with no prior combat experience. On March 16, 1968, Lieutenant William L. Calley’s platoon from C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, of the 23rd Infantry Division was ordered into the village of My Lai 4 by Captain Ernest L. Medina. Subsequent investigations eventually de-

termined that Calley’s men murdered perhaps as many as 500 Vietnamese civilians, many of whom were women and small children. General Koster was one of several commanders circling over the battlefield in his observation helicopter above My Lai. Based on his own observations and immediate reports, Koster stated that he believed that at least 20 civilians had been killed from friendly artillery fire, a number that automatically required him to launch an inquiry. Only after receiving believable reports of the massacre did Koster order that the required investigation be conducted. The April 24, 1968, report of investigation, which should have been conducted by a disinterested officer, was instead submitted by the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, Colonel Oran Henderson. The report was never forwarded to higher command. This ultimately led to Koster’s implication in the My Lai cover-up. Ironically, Koster himself later testified that he thought the Henderson report was unacceptable. In June 1968 Koster rotated out of Vietnam to become superintendent at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. In November 1969 the Department of the Army ordered Lieutenant General William R. Peers to conduct a complete investigation of all events concerning the My Lai Massacre. When the Peers Inquiry was issued on March 17, 1970, Koster was one of 14 officers charged with participating in the cover-up. The inquiry accused him of failure to obey lawful regulations and with dereliction of duty, charges that were based on Koster’s failure to ensure the conduct of a proper investigation. In 1970 Koster was relieved as West Point superintendent and was reassigned to First Army Headquarters. He reportedly received a standing ovation from West Point cadets during his farewell ceremony. Koster had worked hard during his short tenure to end the harsh hazing that had become a part of West Point’s culture. The subsequent Article 32 investigation into the charges against Koster acknowledged his failure to report the 20 known civilian casualties and his failure to order a proper investigation. However, the investigating officer recommended that all charges be dismissed because of the general’s reputed fine character and his outstanding service record. On January 29, 1971, Lieutenant General Jonathan Seamen, Koster’s immediate superior at First Army, nullified all of Koster’s reported errors and ordered all charges dropped on the grounds that Koster had not intentionally intended to cover up the massacre. Widespread outrage over these actions soon reached Washington. Congressman Samuel Stratton, a member of the House Armed Services Investigative Subcommittee that had looked into My Lai, bitterly attacked both the U.S. Army and unnamed officers in the Pentagon for whitewashing the massacre and covering up what he characterized as a total command failure. Eventually Koster received non–court-martial punishment. Scheduled for three-star rank, his name was struck from the promotion list. On May 19, 1971, General William Westmoreland ordered Koster stripped of the Distinguished Service Medal awarded to him for his command of the Americal Division and also ordered

Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich his demotion to brigadier general. Koster also received a letter of censure from the secretary of the army. Koster retired from the service on January 1, 1973, and entered private business. Believing that the charges against him were unjust, he made a great effort to clear his name but lost his appeal before the Army Board for Correction of Military Records. Koster died on January 23, 2006, at his home in Annapolis, Maryland. THOMAS D. VEVE See also Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr.; Calley, William Laws, Jr.; “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report; Hersh, Seymour Myron; Medina, Ernest Lou; My Lai Massacre; Peers Inquiry References Beidler, Philip D. “Calley’s Ghost.” Virginia Quarterly Review (Winter 2003): 30–50. Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Goldstein, Joseph, Burke Marshall, and Jack Schwartz. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of the Law? New York: Free Press, 1976. Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979.

Although Soviet funding made possible a full-scale conflict in the region, it is difficult to assess Kosygin’s own attitude toward escalation of the war. China accused him of being too moderate, and yet it was after Kosygin’s trip to North Vietnam that the war escalated with major offensives in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and direct attacks on American military personnel. It may well be that these were unilateral decisions by the North Vietnamese leadership to thwart any attempt by Kosygin to force negotiations. In his speeches Kosygin consistently urged Communist unity against U.S. actions in Vietnam. In mid-May 1965 in Moscow he gave a strongly anti-American speech at a rally welcoming the arrival of the Indian prime minister. In an internal Kremlin power struggle in 1965, Kosygin appeared to lose ground to Brezhnev; however, Kosygin still enjoyed considerable authority, particularly within governmental affairs, until the late 1970s. Kosygin returned to North Vietnam in February 1966 and again discussed military strategy. In June 1967 he met President Lyndon B. Johnson at Glassboro, New Jersey, and urged that the United States stop its bombing of North Vietnam. Kosygin told Johnson

Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich Birth Date: February 21, 1904 Death Date: December 18, 1980 Soviet premier. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 21, 1904, Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin was educated there, joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1937, and became head of the Soviet textile industry in 1939. He served on the CPSU’s Central Committee (1939–1960) and then in the supreme policymaking Politburo (1946–1952). Holding numerous economic and industrial posts, Kosygin became first deputy prime minister in 1960, specializing in economic affairs. In the October 1964 palace coup that unseated Nikita Khrushchev, Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev as chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier). Many of Kosygin’s attempts at modest economic reforms and decentralization were blocked by party conservatives and the Soviet bureaucracy, however. After the coup Kosygin was initially considered to be equal to Leonid Brezhnev, then the first secretary of the CPSU. In November 1964 Kosygin sent a message of support to the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), the first by a Soviet leader. In February 1965 he also became the first Soviet premier to visit the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Seeking to restore Soviet influence in Hanoi, he promised financial aid and signed a defense pact. The latter proved to be the start of a long military alliance between the two states. Kosygin also discussed overall military strategy and future military needs.

609

Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin was premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980, although he shared leadership with Leonid Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny for much of that period. Kosygin visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) on several occasions to coordinate Soviet aid. (AP/Wide World Photos)

610

Kovic, Ronald

that once the bombing stopped, North Vietnam would begin negotiations to end the war. In September 1969 Kosygin headed the Soviet delegation at the funeral of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. When President Richard Nixon went to Moscow in May 1972, he met Kosygin, who bluntly told Nixon that the Americans were trying to solve the Vietnamese question solely on a military basis. Kosygin was a signatory to the Soviet-Vietnam Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed in Moscow in November 1978. That treaty renewed the close military and economic links between the two countries. As a reward for his support, the North Vietnamese government presented Kosygin its Order of the Golden Star, the country’s highest decoration. Suffering from poor health, Kosygin resigned all his government and party posts in 1980. He died shortly thereafter in Moscow on December 18, 1980. MICHAEL SHARE See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este; Ho Chi Minh; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Gaiduk, Ilya V. The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. Longmire, R. A. Soviet Relations with South-East Asia: An Historical Survey. London: Keegan Paul International, 1989. Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987. Taubman, William C. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: Norton, 2003.

Kovic, Ronald Birth Date: July 4, 1946 Vietnam War veteran, antiwar activist, and author. Ronald (Ron) Kovic was born on July 4, 1946, in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, but was reared in Massapequa (Long Island), New York. In 1964 at age 18, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was eventually sent to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), where he fought in the Vietnam War. Early in his tour he accidentally shot and killed a comrade whom he had mistaken for the enemy, an experience that traumatized him greatly. He was further troubled when his unit attacked a South Vietnamese village that was believed to be defended by Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas. After the village was fired upon and taken, Kovic was horrified to find that women, children, and elderly men had been wounded or killed during the assault. On January 20, 1968, Kovic was seriously wounded when a shell exploded at his feet, shattering his heel and sending shrapnel into

his back. Several pieces of shrapnel pierced his spinal cord, and he was rendered a paraplegic. After his condition had been stabilized, he was flown to the United States and given an honorable medical discharge later that year. He was subsequently awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Kovic undertook college studies for a time, but an accident sent him to a veteran’s hospital, where conditions were appalling and he received poor medical care. The experience left him enraged and bitter, and he now began to question both the Vietnam War itself and the way in which the U.S. government treated its veterans. Kovic refused to allow bitterness to control his life and instead channeled his energy and intellect into the antiwar movement. After the 1970 Kent State University shootings that had left four students dead and another nine wounded, he joined the antiwar organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War and began a lifelong commitment to antiwar and peace activism. Thereafter he was a regular feature at antiwar protests and demonstrations, and he went on a nationwide speaking tour addressing high school and college students. In 1972, Kovic along with several other Vietnam veterans in wheelchairs, interrupted President Richard M. Nixon’s acceptance speech at the Republic National Convention, being televised on national television. Kovic was quickly silenced by security personnel, but he made such an impression at the otherwise staid and predictable affair that CBS news correspondent Roger Mudd granted him a two-minute interview during one of the breaks in the coverage. This incident catapulted Kovic into the forefront of the antiwar movement, especially among veterans. In 1974 Kovic and other disabled Vietnam veterans staged a 17-day hunger strike at U.S. senator Alan Cranston’s Los Angeles, California, office. The strike ended only after the chief of Veterans Affairs agreed to fly to Los Angeles to meet with the protesters and listen to their grievances. In 1976 in a piece of fitting symbolism, the Democratic Party invited Kovic to speak at the Democratic National Convention. There he showcased his literary talents and also made a plea for veterans’ rights. That same year he published his highly regarded memoir, Born on the Fourth of July, in which he relates his Vietnam War experiences and the difficulties he faced after he returned home. Kovic also explains in the book how he came to be an antiwar activist. The book was well received, and in 1989 it was adapted into a Hollywood film of the same name starring actor Tom Cruise as Kovic. The 1978 film Coming Home, which starred Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern, is also said to have been loosely modeled on Kovic’s experiences. Kovic has been involved in numerous antiwar movements and protests since the 1970s. Prior to the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War he led an antiwar protest march in California. He has also protested against the 2003 Iraq War. In 2006 and 2007 when substandard conditions were found at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Kovic decried the continued poor treatment of U.S. veterans and appeared on numerous television programs as an inter-

Krulak, Victor H. viewee. Kovic, who lives in Redondo Beach, California, has stayed active in politics, and in the early 1990s California’s Democrats pressed him to run for Congress, but he declined. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Vietnam Veterans Against the War References Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Moss, Nathaniel. Ron Kovic: Antiwar Activist. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.

Kraft, Joseph Birth Date: September 4, 1924 Death Date: January 10, 1986 Influential American journalist, syndicated columnist, and author. Joseph Kraft was born on September 4, 1924, in South Orange, New Jersey. He began writing for newspapers at the age of 14, covering school sports events for the New York World Telegram. In 1947 he received an AB degree from Columbia University. He attended Princeton University during 1948–1949 and the Institute for Advanced Study in 1950. Kraft served in the U.S. Army as a cryptographer from 1943 to 1946. Kraft became an editorial writer for the Washington Post in 1951, and he was a writer for the New York Times from 1952 until 1957. He was Washington correspondent for Harper’s magazine from 1962 to 1965, and he wrote a syndicated column that was distributed widely by the Field Newspaper Syndicate until 1980, when he joined the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, which represented approximately 200 newspapers. He wrote for the syndicate until his death in 1986. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Kraft served as a speech writer for Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy. By the early 1970s Kraft was on President Richard M. Nixon’s “enemies list” because of his journalistic endeavors, which were often critical of Nixon’s policies. In the 1976 presidential campaign, Kraft served as one of three panelists in the third presidential debate. Kraft’s numerous books include The Struggle for Algeria (1961), The Grand Design: From Common Market to Atlantic Partnership (1962), The Chinese Difference (1973), and The Mexico Rescue (1984). Kraft’s strengths as an author and journalist included extensive field research and placing developments in their historical context. For example, his celebrated article “A Way Out in Viet-Nam” in the December 1964 issue of Harper’s was preceded by an extended stay in Southeast Asia. His feeling for the indigenous culture and society of the regions was always a strong suit, along with his understanding of the complex historical relationships between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the

611

People’s Republic of China (PRC). He also exhibited a keen grasp of the relationship of these two nations to the Soviet Union. Kraft was one of the first analysts to recognize the growing importance of civilian counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare experts and their influence on Vietnam War policy during the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations. Journalist and author David Halberstam credited Kraft with being an influential trendsetter in historical and investigative journalism, while James Reston, the distinguished senior columnist for the New York Times, described Kraft as equaled perhaps only by the legendary investigative journalist I. F. Stone in his commitment to factual research. Kraft’s analyses of the Vietnam War are among the best contemporary studies of that conflict. Suffering from a heart condition, Kraft died suddenly in Washington, D.C., on January 10, 1986. ARTHUR I. CYR See also Halberstam, David; Media and the Vietnam War References Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Krulak, Victor H. Birth Date: January 7, 1913 Death Date: December 29, 2008 U.S. Marine Corps general and commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, from March 1964 to May 1968. Born in Denver, Colorado, on January 7, 1913, Victor H. (“Brute”) Krulak graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1934. His fellow midshipmen nicknamed him “Brute” in an ironical reference to his diminutive size; he was just 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 120 pounds. His early service included sea duty, a tour at the Naval Academy, and assignments with the 6th Marines, the 4th Marines, and the Fleet Marine Force. In March 1943 Krulak, now a lieutenant colonel, took command in the Pacific of a parachute battalion of the I Marine Amphibious Corps at New Caledonia. That October he commanded the diversionary landing on Choiseul to cover the Bougainville invasion. Krulak assisted in the planning and execution of the Okinawa campaign. At the end of the war he helped negotiate the surrender of Japanese forces in the Tsingato, China, area. During the Korean War (1950–1953) Colonel Krulak was chief of staff of the 1st Marine Division. In June 1956 he was promoted to brigadier general and assistant division commander, 3rd Marine Division, on Okinawa. In November 1959 he was promoted to major general, and a month later he assumed command of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego. In February 1962 he became spe-

612

Kunstler, William Moses people from the guerrillas; concentrating airpower on rail lines, power, fuel, and heavy industry in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam); and placing maximum effort in pacification. Krulak believed that the Americans were far more efficient than the South Vietnamese government at civic action. The Vietnamese people were the key to victory, and if the Communists could be denied access to the bulk of them, the war could be won. Thus, the first order of business had to be to protect the civilian population. Krulak constantly pointed out to his superiors that the manpower necessary to protect the villages was sapped by the requirements of a war of attrition. Krulak retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in June 1968 and settled in San Diego, where he became a manager and writer for Copley newspapers. In 1984 he published his memoirs, First to Fight. Krulak died on December 29, 2008, in San Diego. WILL E. FAHEY JR. See also Attrition; Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham; Pacification; Search and Destroy; Taylor-McNamara Report; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Marine Corps; Westmoreland, William Childs

U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant general Victor H. Krulak, who commanded the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, during 1964–1968. Krulak believed strongly that major effort should be placed on pacification, rather than search and destroy operations, as the key to victory in Vietnam. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

cial assistant for counterinsurgency and activities of the Joint Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Over the course of the next two years much of his time was spent gathering information regarding the developing conflict in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After a fact-finding mission to Vietnam, Krulak held that the war was winnable if the John F. Kennedy administration firmly supported the Ngo Dinh Diem government. Krulak’s findings contradicted those of State Department official Joseph Mendenhall, who accompanied Krulak to Vietnam. In March 1964 Lieutenant General Krulak assumed command of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, and served in that post until he retired from active duty in May 1968. While he was commander of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, Krulak disagreed with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland on several key points. First, Krulak strongly opposed Westmoreland’s search-anddestroy strategy. Krulak believed that attrition of forces favored the enemy. He saw search and destroy as a complete waste of time and effort that reduced the effectiveness of air and artillery support. He believed that guerrillas constituted the main threat. His three-cornered strategy included protecting the South Vietnamese

References Coram, Robert. The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine. New York: Little, Brown, 2010. Krulak, Victor H. First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984. Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994.

Kunstler, William Moses Birth Date: July 7, 1919 Death Date: September 24, 1995 Prominent but controversial attorney and civil rights activist who defended the Chicago Eight during 1969–1970. William Moses Kunstler was born in New York City on July 7, 1919, the eldest of three children. Always a voracious reader, he graduated with a BA in French from Yale University in 1941. He served in the U.S. Army as a cryptographer during World War II in the Pacific theater, advancing to the rank of major and winning a Bronze Star. In 1948 he graduated from the Columbia Law School. In 1949 Kunstler and his brother Michael opened a law practice. Kunstler taught at various institutions in the 1950s and 1960s, including the New York Law School and the New School for Social Research. In addition to hosting a radio interview show, he also wrote for the New York Times book review section and wrote a volume on corporate tax law. In the mid-1950s Kunstler began to focus on civil rights issues. In 1956 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked him to defend an African American who had been accused of violating a

Kunstler, William Moses ban on travel to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After winning the trial, Kunstler worked on a number of important cases, including the defense of the Freedom Riders in Mississippi who were fighting against racial segregation. Kunstler would later become the director of the ACLU during 1964–1972. He represented many of the leading figures of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Stokeley Carmichael. In 1969 Kunstler represented seven anti–Vietnam War protestors, including Tom Hayden, Abbey Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin, who were accused of inciting a riot outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968. The so-called Chicago Seven (originally the Chicago Eight) were charged with violating the Anti-Riot Statute, which was a rider appended to the Civil Rights Act of 1968 in an effort to curb unrest and civil disobedience in the nation. The trial began on September 24, 1969, before District Court judge Julius Jennings Hoffman. The trial was well publicized and was filled with repeated disruptions and clashes involving the judge, the defendants, and their attorneys. To keep civil unrest outside the courtroom in check, National Guard units patrolled the area. Kunstler and Judge Hoffman had numerous heated exchanges during the trial. One of the more dramatic moments came when Judge Hoffman ordered defendant Bobby Seale to be gagged and bound hand and foot to a metal stool. The trial ended on February 20, 1970. The jury cleared all defendants of the conspiracy charges but found five of the seven guilty of having incited a riot while crossing state lines. The judge then issued contempt of court citations to the defendants and their attorneys. Kunstler received more than 150 charges of criminal contempt and was given the longest sentence of all involved, four years and 13 days. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed all the contempt convictions on November 21, 1972. In 1966 Kunstler cofounded the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public interest and educational organization committed

613

to the creative use of law as a tool for social change. In the 1970s he was involved in attempts to reform New York’s infamous Attica Prison. He also defended leading figures in the American Indian Movement, including Russell Means. In 1976 Kunstler was involved in the successful struggle to have the site of the 1970 Kent State Massacre declared a national landmark. In the 1980s and 1990s Kunstler and his protégé Ron Kuby took on a number of high-profiles case, including the defense of reputed mobster John Gotti; the terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel, convicted of a plot to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993; and Long Island Railroad gunman Colin Ferguson. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War Kunstler and Kuby represented numerous American soldiers who refused to fight and claimed conscientious objector status. Over the course of his career Kunstler authored a dozen books, including And Justice for All (1963) and his memoir My Life as Radical Lawyer (1994). He also appeared in numerous television and film productions, sometimes portraying himself. Kunstler died in New York City on September 4, 1995. BRIAN GURIAN See also Chicago Eight; Civil Rights Movement; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Hoffman, Abbie; Rubin, Jerry References Kunstler, William. My Life as a Radical Lawyer. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1996. Langum, David. The Most Hated Lawyer in America. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Schultz, John. Motion Will Be Denied: A New Report on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial. New York: Morrow, 1972.

Ky Ngoai Hau Cuong De See Cuong De

This page intentionally left blank

L Laird, Melvin Robert Birth Date: September 1, 1922 Republican politician and U.S. secretary of defense (1969–1973). Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 1, 1922, Melvin Robert (“Bom”) Laird graduated from Carleton College in 1942 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he won election to the Wisconsin State Senate as a Republican and served there until his 1952 election to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, a seat he held continuously until President Richard Nixon named him his first secretary of defense in 1969. As secretary of defense, Laird faced daunting problems in formulating policy, budgets, and force structure during a period of declining resources and shrinking manpower committed to defense. He gave the service secretaries and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) more of a role in these matters than had his predecessor, a welcome development from their standpoint. As a former congressman, he also proved effective in dealing with Congress. Sensitive to declining congressional support for the war in Vietnam, Laird pushed hard for rapid withdrawal of American ground forces. This put him frequently at odds with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger on such issues as the 1970 cross-border incursion into Cambodia. Indeed, a later analysis found that Laird had been bypassed on the planning for that operation, an extreme example of the Byzantine workings of the Nixon White House. Laird frequently attempted to change or countermand White House instructions. Nixon noted in his memoirs that “it was largely on the basis of Laird’s enthusiastic advocacy that we undertook the policy of Vietnamization.” Although this program of handing off more responsibility for the war to forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South

Melvin R. Laird was a long-time U.S. congressman who served as secretary of defense under President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War from 1969 to 1973. (Library of Congress)

Vietnam) had actually begun in the Lyndon Johnson administration, Laird was committed to making it work, so much so that in his book Lost Victory, William Colby, who headed American support for pacification in South Vietnam, called Laird “the unsung hero of the whole war effort.”

616

Lake, William Anthony Kirsop

Laird was also supportive of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Creighton Abrams and greatly admired his stoicism in fighting on even as his forces were progressively being taken from him. It was Laird who insisted that Abrams be named army chief of staff when he returned from Vietnam. Then the two men devised and promulgated a total-force policy that sought to ensure that reserve forces would be utilized in any future conflicts. In his final report as secretary of defense, Laird stated his view that “as a consequence of the success of the military aspects of Vietnamization, the South Vietnamese people today . . . are fully capable of providing for their own in-country security against the North Vietnamese.” However dubious that view was at the time, Laird had accomplished his major objective of withdrawing U.S. forces from Vietnam. Laird had stated at the outset that he intended to serve only four years as defense secretary. Leaving that post in January 1973, he later served briefly as counselor to the president for domestic affairs before returning to the private sector in February 1974. He later had a long association with Reader’s Digest as senior counselor for national and international affairs. In January 2006 Laird participated in a White House meeting that gathered current and past secretaries of defense and state to discuss the George W. Bush administration’s foreign and military policies, including the vexing war in Iraq. LEWIS SORLEY See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Cambodian Incursion; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Palmer, Bruce, Jr.; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 References Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978. Van Atta, Dale. With Honor: Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

Lake, William Anthony Kirsop Birth Date: April 2, 1939 Diplomat, academic, special assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger during 1969–1970, and national security adviser to President Bill Clinton during 1993–1997. Born in New York City on April 2, 1939, William Anthony Kirsop Lake grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. After earning a BA in history from Harvard University in 1961, he spent one year as a Fiske Scholar at Cambridge University in England studying international economics. Lake joined the Foreign Service in 1962 and was assigned in 1963 to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as staff assistant to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Lake then became

vice-consul in Hue during 1964–1965, where he saw firsthand the bloodshed and destruction caused by the war and became dismayed by the incongruity he observed in the optimistic military briefings that passed across his desk and the more realistic reporting from the field by journalists. Lake returned to the United States to become a staff assistant in the Far Eastern bureau of the U.S. State Department from 1965 to 1967. After a two-year leave of absence from work, Lake received an MA in public affairs from Princeton University in 1969. He became convinced that the Vietnam War not only was wrong but was being lost by the United States. Hoping to convince President Richard Nixon to end U.S. involvement in the war, in 1969 Lake accepted the job as special assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Lake accompanied Kissinger to secret negotiations with representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Paris. When U.S. forces invaded Cambodia in April 1970 Lake resigned in protest, believing that American policy was misguided and out of touch with the reality of the war. Lake subsequently worked as a foreign policy coordinator for Democratic senator Edmund Muskie for two years, directed projects for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace during 1972–1973, and directed International Voluntary Services during 1974–1976. He earned a doctorate from Princeton in 1974. In 1977 he became director of policy planning for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. In 1980 Lake left government service and returned to academia as a professor of international relations at Amherst College (1981–1984) and later at Mount Holyoke College (1984–1992). In 1993 Lake was appointed national security adviser by President Bill Clinton. Perhaps Lake’s greatest contribution in this capacity was his role in the resolution of the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. After Clinton won reelection in 1996 he tapped Lake to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but Republicans in Congress balked, and the appointment was eventually withdrawn. Many saw the Republican rebuke as a purely partisan move. Lake resigned from his post as national security adviser in 1997. The following year Clinton appointed Lake as a White House special envoy, a position he held until 2000. In this role he helped broker an agreement that ended the 1998–2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian War. Meanwhile, Lake remained on the faculty of Georgetown University, a post he continues to hold. In 2000 Lake cofounded Intellibridge Corporation, a strategic analysis firm; the company was sold in 2005. In 2008 Lake decided to support Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and reportedly advised the campaign on national security matters. When Obama was elected, Lake was among those considered for the secretary of state post, which ultimately went to Senator Hillary Clinton. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Cambodian Incursion; Clinton, William Jefferson; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Nixon, Richard Milhous

LAM SON 719, Operation

References Lake, Anthony, ed. The Vietnam Legacy: The War, American Society and the Future of American Foreign Policy. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1976. Lake, Anthony, I. M. Destler, and Leslie H. Gelb. Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.

LAM SON

719, Operation

Start Date: February 8, 1971 End Date: March 24, 1971 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) campaign to curtail southbound Communist supply shipments on the Ho Chi Minh Trail network. The operation occurred during February 8–March 24, 1971. In 1971, with Vietnamization under way and the withdrawal of American forces proceeding, troops and supplies continued to flow down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), U.S. Air Force claims of having destroyed legions of trucks in its COMMANDO HUNT campaigns notwithstanding. Operation LAM SON 719 had two objectives. The first was to capture Tchepone in Laos, a key transshipment point on Route 9 some 25 miles west of Khe Sanh. As a part of this effort, the ARVN was to destroy supplies in nearby Base Area 604 and in Base Area 611 south of Route 9, an area adjacent to the South Vietnamese border. The second, and more optimistic, objective was to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the long logistical corridor running through eastern Laos with several hundred miles of paved roads and thousands of miles of dirt roads, tracks, pathways, and waterways down which supplies could be funneled to South Vietnam. This logistical network was vital to North Vietnam’s ongoing war inside South Vietnam. The Cooper-Church Amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress on December 29, 1970, forbade the use of American ground forces in Laos. However, U.S. forces played a key part in LAM SON 719. American helicopters ferried ARVN troops into Laos, and U.S. fighter-bombers and Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses were available to provide air cover. On the ground in South Vietnam, the 1st Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division led the way back into Khe Sanh as a part of Operation DEWEY CANYON II. From Khe Sanh and from surrounding fire-support bases inside South Vietnam, some 9,000 U.S. troops gave logistical support to the ARVN and provided artillery fire into Laos. From Khe Sanh and other fire-support bases, some 2,600 helicopters carried ARVN troops into and, later, out of Laos. The ARVN plan had the full support of U.S. president Richard Nixon, who fully expected it to show the success of Vietnamization, the turning over of the war to the South Vietnamese. On February 8, 1971, a task force of 15,000 ARVN troops invaded Laos. The main thrust was along Route 9, a single-lane

617

dirt road leading from the Lao-Vietnamese border westward to Tchepone. At first the troops moved easily through the low hills that, within miles, turned more rugged and then changed to jungle as the road wound toward Tchepone. In imitation of the Americans, the ARVN built fire-support bases to serve as base camps and placed 105-millimeter (mm) and 155-mm howitzers in them to provide artillery support. The camps were also supposed to serve as bases from which patrols and raids could be mounted into the surrounding countryside. LAM SON 719 was a major test of Vietnamization. Because of the Cooper-Church Amendment, the ARVN was on its own. There were no U.S. advisers with the South Vietnamese and no American forward air controllers. The ARVN had only a few Englishspeaking soldiers who could serve in that capacity, and they were not very proficient. Intelligence estimates indicated that 11,000 to 12,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops would be present. About half of those were thought to be workers assigned to running daily activities along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, including managing the truck depots, cooking food for the troops and truck drivers, attending infirmaries, and repairing roads. The other half were security forces used to patrol the trail and to man the 1,400–2,000 heavy machine guns and antiaircraft artillery (AAA) in the area. In one of the greater intelligence miscalculations of the war, it was thought that it would take up to a month for the PAVN to move one division from the panhandle of North Vietnam into the LAM SON 719 area of operations. In fact, within two weeks as many as five PAVN divisions, including the fabled 304th, 308th, and 320th divisions, were engaging the ARVN. Postwar Vietnamese sources reveal that the North Vietnamese Politburo concluded as early as the summer of 1970, shortly after the U.S.–South Vietnamese Cambodian Incursion in May 1970, that the next U.S. move would be an attack aimed at cutting the PAVN supply route along Ho Chi Minh Trail, although they were not sure precisely where along the trail such an attack would be made. To defend against such an attack, which the PAVN anticipated would occur in the autumn of 1970, the PAVN formed LXX Corps, which included the 304th, 308th, and 320th divisions along with supporting artillery, armor, engineer, and antiaircraft units. The provisional corps and its subordinate units conducted extensive reconnaissance, planning, and logistics preparations to prepare for the anticipated attack. Even though the ARVN operation began several months later than the PAVN anticipated that it would, these advance preparations made it possible for PAVN forces to quickly move into position to block the ARVN operation. Famed Communist spy and Time magazine correspondent Pham Xuan An claimed to have provided the PAVN high command with advance warning of the LAM SON 719 operation. However, it is not clear just how important this intelligence was to the outcome of the battle.

618

LAM SON 719, Operation

By the third week of LAM SON 719, the ARVN advance had stalled at A Luoi, a fire-support base 12 miles inside Laos. ARVN armor was bottled up along Route 9, and other ARVN units had holed up inside A Luoi and other fire-support bases in the area. PAVN forces attacked these bases, first pounding them with 122-mm and 130mm artillery, Soviet-built guns with range superior to the 105-mm and 155-mm howitzers used by the ARVN. After the artillery had softened the ARVN positions, PAVN infantry, supported by PT-76 light tanks and, for the first time, heavier T-34 and T-54 tanks, attacked the fire-support bases. One after another, the bases fell to the counterattacking PAVN. Conventional wisdom held that U.S. airpower would be the pivotal, if not the deciding, factor. This was another miscalculation. As the PAVN counterattack commenced, the weather deteriorated. Low clouds prevented the use of American fighter-bomber jets. B-52s, which could bomb through the cloud cover, were useful against large-area targets, but PAVN leaders knew that the big bombers would not be employed against targets closer than about 1.8 miles from friendly forces except in the most dire circumstances. Accordingly, the PAVN adopted General Vo Nguyen Giap’s dictum of “clinging to the cartridge belts” of the ARVN and, by staying close to them, negated the effective use of B-52s. When the weather cleared, there was North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire with which to contend. As they did in North Vietnam, the PAVN relied on AAA and heavy machine guns to deny the

Americans effective use of the air. Heavy machine guns, supplemented by 23-mm and 37-mm AAA guns, covered virtually every potential helicopter landing zone. The 23-mm and 37-mm guns blanketed the area, and SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites were placed in Ban Raving Pass. These threatened B-52s bombing within 17 miles of the pass and fighter-bombers flying above 1,500 feet in the same area. During LAM SON 719, the U.S. Air Force directed 1,285 sorties against AAA guns, reportedly destroying 70 of them. In support of LAM SON 719, B-52s flew 1,358 sorties and dropped 32,000 tons of bombs, with most missions directed against suspected supply dumps in Base Area 604, well away from Ban Raving Pass. Despite increasingly heavy opposition from the PAVN, President Nguyen Van Thieu ordered the commander of Operation LAM SON 719, General Hoang Xuan Lam, to launch an airborne assault on Tchepone. By March 1 Tchepone had been abandoned by the PAVN and had little military value. But its psychological and political value seemed significant to Thieu. On March 6, 120 U.S. Army Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters, protected by Bell AH-1G Cobra helicopter gunships and U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers, lifted two ARVN battalions from the U.S. Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh into Tchepone. Only one helicopter was lost to AAA en route. Two days later another two ARVN battalions reached Tchepone on foot. The South Vietnamese troops spent the next two weeks ferreting out PAVN supply caches around the village.

Landing Zone The capture of Tchepone achieved one of LAM SON 719’s primary objectives. President Thieu then ordered General Lam to begin withdrawing the ARVN from Laos. Retreats are, however, among the most difficult of operational maneuvers. Even fine armies have disintegrated during withdrawals, especially if harried by enemy forces. By 1971 the best ARVN units were as good as many PAVN units, but they were not well enough trained, led, or disciplined to conduct an orderly retreat in the face of vigorous attack. The PAVN intensified its attacks on the withdrawing ARVN. Again, poor weather hampered effective air operations. But when the weather cleared, devastating AAA fire and the inability of U.S. Air Force pilots to coordinate their attacks with ground units diminished the effectiveness of airpower. The retreat turned into a rout. Meanwhile, almost 60,000 PAVN troops, including three armored battalions, five artillery regiments, and four antiaircraft regiments, hammered home their attacks on a massively outnumbered and increasingly demoralized South Vietnamese force. In large part due to the selflessness and bravery of U.S. Army helicopter pilots, about half of the original ARVN force of 15,000 troops managed to make its way to safety. At least 5,000 ARVN troops were killed or wounded, and more than 2,500 were unaccounted for and listed as missing. Additionally, 253 Americans were killed and another 1,149 wounded during LAM SON 719, although no Americans fought on the ground inside Laos. Many American troops were killed or wounded when the PAVN counterattack spilled into South Vietnam and when Khe Sanh came under a fierce artillery attack on March 15. In operations over Laos, at least 108 U.S. Army helicopters were destroyed and another 618 were damaged, many so badly that they were scrapped. Seven U.S. Air Force fixed-wing aircraft were also shot down. Despite the outcome and the losses, the allies declared victory. President Richard M. Nixon, in a televised address to the nation on April 7, 1971, stated that “Tonight I can report Vietnamization has succeeded.” President Thieu dubbed LAM SON 719 “the biggest victory ever.” In North Vietnam, however, Radio Hanoi proclaimed that “The Route 9–Southern Laos Victory” (as they called it) was “the heaviest defeat ever for Nixon and Company.” In retrospect, North Vietnam’s claim seems the correct one. The ARVN had suffered grievous losses, particularly among its junior officers. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Cao Van Vien; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Cooper-Church Amendment; DEWEY CANYON II, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Laos; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamization References Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

619

Fulghum, David, and Terrence Maitland. South Vietnam on Trial, Mid-1970 to 1972. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Ho De, Tran Hanh, and Hung Dat. Chien Dich Phan Cong Duong So 9–Nam Lao, Nam 1971 [The Route 9–Southern Laos Counteroffensive Campaign, 1971]. Hanoi: Military History Institute of Vietnam, 1987. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Nolan, Keith William. Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son 719, Vietnam 1971. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995.

Landing Zone Landing area for helicopters during the Vietnam War. In traditional military lexicon, a landing zone (LZ) would normally designate an area slated for an amphibious invasion. However, during the Vietnam War, the term “landing zone” became exclusively associated with helicopters. LZs were both temporary and permanent and were often the site of major battles during the Vietnam conflict. Although employed in the Korean War (1950–1953) for various purposes, including medical evacuations, helicopters in the Vietnam War were employed to ferry considerable numbers of troops into and out of combat. Much of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was heavily forested, with dense canopies. Where LZs were unavailable, teams would frequently clear them by dropping large drums of gasoline and jellied gasoline (napalm) from nets suspended from helicopters. Special explosives were also developed for this purpose, the best known being the 15,000-pound BLU-82 (“Daisy Cutter”) bombs. LZs allowed the U.S. military to insert forces immediately into a remote area. Occasionally LZs served as bait for enemy forces. More often, LZs were contested by Communist forces and were the sites of fierce battles. Where there was hostile fire, an LZ would be known as a “hot LZ.” Certainly, likely LZs were frequently targeted by the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) for ambushes, booby traps, and massed assaults. The battle for LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, part of the wider Battle of the Ia Drang in November 1965, is one of the best-known examples of a hot LZ. LZs were used, abandoned, and reoccupied throughout the conflict. Likely LZs were usually prepped by machine-gun fire. If an LZ was held by friendly forces, they would employ different colors of smoke grenades to signal incoming helicopters, which would often hover just off the ground. Troops would then move quickly to and from the helicopters, often ferrying supplies from the helicopters and carrying wounded comrades to them. Flying in and out of LZs required much of the crews involved, was extraordinarily

620

Landing Zone

Two U.S. paratroopers alerted by enemy sniper fire during landing operations in Vietnam’s D Zone north of Saigon on November 8, 1965. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Land Reform, Vietnam dangerous work, and resulted in the loss of many pilots and their machines during the war. RANDAL SCOTT BEEMAN See also BLU-82/B Bomb; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Ia Drang, Battle of; Medevac References Mesko, James. Airmobile: The Helicopter War in Vietnam. New York: Signal, 1984. Robert, Mason. Chickenhawk: A Shattering Account of the Helicopter War in Vietnam. New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

Land Reform, Vietnam Land reform generally refers to the confiscation of land from wealthy landlords for redistribution to poor peasants. In southern Vietnam, the impact of land reform would be greatest in the Mekong Delta, where most of the land was owned by large landlords and worked by tenant farmers. Tenancy was not unknown in central and northern Vietnam, but it was much less prevalent. During most of the Indochina War (1946–1954), the Viet Minh compromised its doctrines of class struggle to some extent in order to gain greater support against the French. Land reform, however, was the most important way that Communist principles of class struggle could be applied to Vietnam. Initially the Viet Minh confiscated land from landlords who supported the French, but those who supported the Viet Minh only had to reduce the level of rent they collected. In 1953 this compromise was rejected, and a very radical campaign of land reform was begun. Beginning in a pilot phase in Thai Nguyen Province north of the Red River, land reform was more brutal in Thanh Hoa and Ninh Binh provinces. The land reform campaign led thousands of non-Communist cadres in northern Vietnam to defect from the Viet Minh. The campaign paused after the 1954 Geneva Accords but was restored from mid-1955 to September 1956 on a larger scale and spread through all ethnically Vietnamese areas of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Land reform became more radical as it spread, both economically, with far more people being classified as “landlords” than actually met the official definition of the term, and politically, with an increasingly frenzied search for landlords and landlord agents within the Viet Minh village leadership. Many who owned as little as 18 acres of land were classified as landlords. On average, two landlords or “reactionaries” from each village were executed. Victims were put to death by firing squads and stoning; some were even starved to death. As the campaign was carried out in some 3,653 villages, probably fewer than 8,000 landlords and would-be opponents of the regime were put to death. Many others, however, were sent to reeducation camps.

621

On November 2, 1956, a revolt broke out against the land reform policies in Nghe An. This particularly shocked Ho Chi Minh, as it was his birthplace province and a supposed bastion of communism. The government had to call out the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 325th Division to crush the rebels. Ho now concluded that it was easier to change the policy than the peasants. The North Vietnamese leadership now initiated a correction of errors in which Viet Minh village leaders who had been falsely accused of being enemy agents were rehabilitated and people who had been wrongly classified as landlords had part of their confiscated land returned to them. Ho admitted no responsibility, but Ho Viet Thang, deputy minister for land reform, was sent to a reeducation camp, and Truong Chinh resigned as Vietnamese Communist Party secretary-general to become chairman of the parliament. In June 1958 the party affirmed that the purpose of the campaign was not only to confiscate land for the poor but also phat dong quan chung (“to motivate the masses”). According to Communist ideology, the landlord class was a threat, and through 1997 children and grandchildren of landlords were considered untrustworthy of party membership until proven otherwise by investigation. Certainly the land reform campaign was one of the greatest events in the history of the North Vietnamese government, second only to the Vietnam War. The need to repair the damage that this land reform had done to Communist political power in North Vietnam was one of the reasons that there was so little North Vietnamese pressure on Ngo Dinh Diem’s government in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from 1956 to 1958. Diem meanwhile was making South Vietnam an ally of the landlord class. In the Mekong Delta where most landlords were closely associated with the French, the Viet Minh had redistributed large amounts of land even before 1953. The South Vietnamese government nullified this redistribution and assisted the former landlords in resuming rent collection, averaging probably between one-fourth and one-third of crops. At American urging, Diem passed a land reform law of his own, Ordinance 57 of October 22, 1956, but his program was much less generous to the peasants than that of the Communists in three ways: it asked tenants to pay for land they received, it did not promise a thorough resolution of the tenancy problem (landlords were entitled to retain much of their land), and corruption and apathy on the part of officials kept the ordinance from being thoroughly implemented. The law specified accurate land surveys and ownership certificates, thus creating vast amounts of paperwork. The amount of land actually distributed to the peasants was far less even than the limited amount that under law was supposed to be distributed. The result was that when the Vietnam War began, the South Vietnamese government was still basically allied with absentee landlords. The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) land reform program, which dramatically reduced rent levels or simply gave land to tenant

622

Lang Bac, Battle of

farmers, was an important part of the NLF political appeal, especially in the Mekong Delta. Only late in the war did the South Vietnamese government become truly serious about bidding against the Communists for the allegiance of tenant farmers. The land reform law signed by President Nguyen Van Thieu on March 26, 1970, was far more radical than that of Diem. This law redistributed almost all landlord land to tenants and did not ask that the tenants pay for it. Furthermore, Thieu’s land reform law was actually carried out in a reasonably thorough fashion. Land reforms of the Viet Minh and the NLF had considerably reduced tenancy in South Vietnam. Thieu’s land reform abolished almost all of what remained. EDWIN E. MOISE See also Agricultural Reform Tribunals; Ho Chi Minh; Mekong Delta; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Van Thieu; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 References Callison, Charles S. Land-to-the-Tiller in the Mekong Delta: Economic, Social and Political Effects of Land Reform in Four Villages of South Vietnam. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983. Hoang Van Chi. From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History of North Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1964. Moise, Edwin E. Land Reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Sansom, Robert L. The Economics of Insurgency in the Mekong Delta. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970.

Lang Bac, Battle of Event Date: 42 CE Important Chinese military victory in Vietnam. At the beginning of the first century, the Chinese imposed their culture on the Vietnamese, to include veneration of the emperor, the use of Chinese ideographic writing, and Confucianism. The latter taught a hierarchical structure for society with a tightly woven system of obligations that bound subject to ruler, son to father, and wife to husband. The most important element was absolute loyalty to the emperor. At the same time, Chinese officials seized land from local nobles to distribute to Chinese settlers. This policy reached culmination under the corrupt Prefect Su Ting (To Dinh). Opposition to this policy along with the the belief that they were losing their national identity led the Lac lords in Giao Chi to revolt. In 39 CE Thi Sach, the Lac lord of Chu-dien, and his wife Trung Trac, daughter of the Lac lord of Me-linh, led a revolt against the Chinese. Apparently Trung Trac was the true leader of the revolt. In the spring of 40 CE the Vietnamese rebel forces successfully laid siege to the Chinese garrisons and ultimately secured all the territory from Cuu Chan to Hop Pho (Kwang Tung). Su Ting fled to Guangzhou (Canton), and the Vietnamese were independent for the first time in 150 years.

Trung Trac established a court at Me-linh, northwest of present-day Hanoi, and most of Giao Chi and Cuu Chan recognized Trung Trac as queen. Reportedly she abolished imperial taxes imposed by the Han in favor of gift exchanges based on hereditary rights and mutual benefits. Trung Trac and her sister Trung Nhi, apparently her constant companion, are today revered by Vietnamese as the Hai Ba Trung (the Two Trung Ladies or the Trung Sisters). The fact that many women took leadership roles in the revolt influenced later women’s rights in Vietnam. In 41 CE the Han Court appointed one of its best generals, Ma Yuan (Ma Vien), to command an invasion army. Given the title of “Tamer of Waters,” Ma Yuan moved south with 8,000 regular troops and some 12,000 militiamen from southern China. With an invasion fleet insufficient to transport his troops, Ma Yuan proceeded by land. In the spring of 42 CE Vietnamese forces halted the Chinese advance before Co-loa, and Ma Yuan withdrew eastward to high ground at Lang Bac, overlooking the southern shore of Lake Lang Ba. The Chinese were probably resupplied by ships sailing up the Cau River to the lake. The rainy season had begun, and Ma Yuan apparently decided to wait for dry weather before resuming the offensive. But with a number of the Lac lords losing heart and fearful that waiting would only encourage further disaffection, Trung Trac ordered an attack. We do not know anything about the Battle of Lang Bac except that it ended with the Chinese easily defeating their poorly disciplined opponents. Some 10,000 Vietnamese surrendered, and reportedly the Chinese beheaded several thousand of them. Trung Trac and some loyalists fled to her ancestral estates at Me-linh, where the Chinese sources assert that the Trung sisters were captured and executed, their heads sent to the Han court. Vietnamese tradition holds that the sisters committed suicide after the battle by leaping into the Day (Hat) River. General Ma Yuan spent 43 CE establishing direct Han rule in the Red River Delta. Near the end of that year he moved to the south in some 2,000 ships against Cuu Chan where some of the rebellious Lac lords had relocated, reaching as far as present-day Nghe Anh Province. After pacifying the area, in the spring of 44 CE Ma Yuan returned to a hero’s welcome at the Han court. The Han deprived the Vietnamese of their traditional ruling class. The Lac lords disappeared forever, and the Han established direct Chinese rule. They also gradually extended their control southward to include the area of Nhat Nam, immediately south of Cuu Chan. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Trung Trac and Trung Nhi; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Lang Son Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Lang Son Province and city in northeastern Vietnam. Lang Son Province, encompassing some 4,900 square miles, shares a 152-mile-long border with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Some 80 percent mountains, the province contains a large minority population to include Kinh, Tay, Nung, Dao, and Ngai peoples. The city of Lang Son is situated close to the Chinese border on the left bank of the Ky Cung River. It is linked with Hanoi, some 92 miles to the south, by National Highway 1A and by rail. Highway 4B runs from Lang Son northwest to Cao Bang, while Highway 4A runs from Lang Son to Loc Binh and beyond to the southeast. Lang Son is a major transshipment point for trade between China and Vietnam. As a Chinese invasion route into Vietnam, Lang Son occupies an important strategic position, and the city and its citadel have seen many significant battles.

623

In 1427, 100,000 Ming dynasty troops invaded and took Lang Son on their way to the Vietnamese western capital of Thanh Hoa (present-day Hanoi). Lang Son was occupied by Qing dynasty forces just before the 1884–1885 Sino-French War and was then taken by the French, who raised their flag over its citadel on February 13, 1885. The French were subsequently obliged to retreat through Lang Son following a failed attack into China. The Chinese retook Lang Son on March 29. On September 24, 1940, during World War II, the Japanese 5th Division attacked the French garrison at Lang Son, which surrendered following two days of fighting. Guerrilla groups were active in Lang Son Province against both the French and Japanese during World War II, and by 1943 the Viet Minh had gained firm control of the province. After the war the French again established an important garrison in the city of Lang Son, which became the major base area for the French forts on Route Coloniale 4 along the China border. During the Indochina War, Lang Son was a major base for Operation LÉA in October 1947. Lang Son fell to the Viet Minh in the course of the 1950 Battle for Route Coloniale 4. Many consider this to be the turning point of the Indochina War because it enabled the Viet Minh to establish a supply route from the PRC. The French

The rural village of Na Lia, Lang Son Province, in northern Vietnam, 2007. (AFP/Getty Images)

624

Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for

returned to Lang Son only once, briefly, in Operation HIRONDELLE (SWALLOW) in July 1953. Some 2,000 paratroopers retook the city in what proved to be more a psychological boost for the French than any military advantage. Lang Son was again the scene of fighting during the brief 1979 war between Vietnam and China, when Lang Son fell to Chinese forces in early March but was evacuated by them shortly thereafter. Today the economy of Lang Son Province is centered on agriculture, mining, and foreign trade, but with its picturesque nearby Vong Phu Mountain, grottoes, and pagodas, the city of Lang Son and its environs are becoming a major tourist area. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Indochina War; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Chapuis, Oscar M. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Start Date: February 6, 1968 End Date: February 7, 1968 The most significant ground assault by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) during the Second Battle of Khe Sanh. The Lang Vei Special Forces camp was located along Route 9 in northwestern Quang Tri Province, about 5 miles southwest of the Khe Sanh Combat Base, about 1 mile from the border with Laos to the southwest, and 21 miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The Lang Vei camp was one of 10 Special Forces A-Detachment camps of the 5th Special Forces Group. The camp had been established as a base for operations by Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. The original Lang Vei camp had come under PAVN attack in early May 1967. Communist infiltrators among the CIDG recruits had cut the wire on the south part of the camp and identified the location of mines there. These actions enabled PAVN forces to infiltrate the camp and use satchel charges and B-40 rockets to destroy the bunkers. A relief force found only one American alive. Following the successful PAVN attack, the Lang Vei camp was moved some 800 yards to the west. U.S. Army Special Forces captain Frank C. Willoughby commanded the Lang Vei camp. Its location meant that if PAVN forces wanted to mount a large-scale attack on Khe Sanh, they would first have to take Lang Vei.

Earlier in January, Company C augmented Willoughby’s small A-Detachment and Bru Montagnard with a Mobile Strike Force (“Mike Force”) company of Hre tribesmen along with six Green Beret advisers. Subsequent Mike Force patrols reported the presence in Laos of an empty tank park and fresh tank tracks, and a PAVN deserter at Khe Sanh confirmed that he had heard tanks. These reports were greeted with skepticism in Khe Sanh and Saigon, but some 100 M-72 66-millimeter (mm) light antitank weapons (LAWs) were delivered to Lang Vei. After live-fire training by a limited number of the camp defenders, 75 of the LAWs remained at the time of the battle. PAVN histories reveal that a company of PT-76 tanks had in fact moved into an assembly area only two miles from the Lang Vei camp 12 days before the attack. On January 24, 1968, Captain Willoughby learned that PAVN forces supported by tanks had taken Camp BV-33, just across the border in Laos. Its garrison—the indigenous Ca Royal Laotian Army 33rd Infantry Battalion, commonly known as the Elephant Battalion—had fled east into South Vietnam to Lang Vei. Willoughby accepted the more than 500 Laotian troops into the camp and settled their 2,200 dependents in Lang Vei village. Willoughby now radioed Da Nang for assistance, and a 6-man Special Forces augmentation team arrived with medical aid and food. Willoughby assigned them to work with the Laotians, and they all set to work to refortify the old Lang Vei camp, where the Elephant Battalion was established. Willoughby’s request for antitank mines was denied. To defend the Lang Vei camp, Willoughby now had 24 U.S. Special Forces members of Operational Detachment A-101, 5th Special Forces Group; 14 Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces); 161 Mike Force members who had been running patrols into Laos; 282 CIDG Bru Montagnard personnel; and 6 interpreters. The camp had crew-served automatic weapons and two 4.2-inch mortars as well as several dozen 81-mm and 60-mm mortars and two 106-mm and four 57-mm recoilless rifles. Nearby U.S. artillery available to act in support of the camp included 16 175-mm guns, 16 155-mm howitzers, and 18 105-mm howitzers at Khe Sanh and at nearby Camp Carroll and Thon San Lam. Willoughby had conducted registration fire on likely approach routes and possible staging areas. First contact between Lang Vei’s defenders and the approaching PAVN troops occurred a week later on January 31, when a patrol from the camp engaged in a firefight with an estimated battalion-sized PAVN force. With the addition of the recently arrived 520 Laotians of the Elephant Battalion, the Lang Vei area now had 1,007 defenders. PAVN activity and contacts increased in early February, and Willoughby sensed that an attack was imminent. On the morning of February 6 the camp came under PAVN mortar fire; the defenders replied in kind. That evening, however, the camp received some 50 rounds of PAVN 122-mm artillery fire. Marine artillery from Khe Sanh returned counterbattery fire. The PAVN ground assault began just before 1:00 a.m. on February 7, when the outpost was struck by the 4th and 5th battalions

Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for of the 24th Regiment, 304th Division; the 3rd Battalion, 101st Regiment, 325th Division; two companies of tanks of the PAVN 198th Battalion, 203rd Armored Regiment; two sapper companies; and a flamethrower team. It was the first PAVN use of tanks in the Vietnam War. The attack, which came from three directions, was led by 11 Soviet light (15-ton) PT-76 amphibious tanks mounting a 76-mm gun (Vietnamese sources state that 16 PT-76 tanks were employed in the attack). The defenders employed a 106-mm recoilless rifle fire to knock out two tanks. Special Forces lieutenant colonel Daniel F. Schungel, in the camp to serve as liaison with the Laotian commander, also a lieutenant colonel, organized antitank teams, but the LAWs proved largely ineffective. Some launchers failed to fire, and some rockets failed to detonate on impact. The defenders subsequently destroyed 5 other tanks for a total of 7, but the others were able to overrun the camp’s perimeter. The attacking PAVN infantry had been specially equipped with satchel charges, flamethrowers, and tear gas. By 3:00 a.m., several PT-76s had rolled atop the concrete reinforced tactical operations center, now held by 8 Special Forces troops and 40 indigenous soldiers. During the battle, supporting artillery fired 2,476 artillery rounds, while 12 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and 67 U.S. Marine Corps air sorties delivered some 120 tons of ordnance. The defenders at the tactical operations center now requested that Khe Sanh execute the previously agreed-upon contingency plan for ground reinforcements. Khe Sanh’s commander, U.S. Marine Corps colonel David Lownds, concerned about a possible PAVN ambush, refused the request. U.S. Army colonel Jonathan Ladd, commander of the 5th Special Force Group that was at Khe Sanh, expressed surprise at the decision, which was, however, supported by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Lownds also refused requests for a helicopter evacuation. Although MACV commander General William Westmoreland stated that he ordered the marines to provide helicopters to evacuate the Americans, Ladd later reported that he had difficulty securing approval from Westmoreland and had to appeal to his deputy, General Creighton Abrams, who immediately ordered the 3rd Marine Division air commander to evacuate the remaining defenders of Lang Vei. This operation, believed at the time to be a sure suicide mission, proceeded in midafternoon and was carried out by MACV-SOG (Special Operations Group) personnel in U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. The CH-46s carried out the seriously wounded, while the remainder of the defenders, supported by air strikes, were able to move overland to Khe Sanh, which they reached on the morning of February 8. Special Forces personnel were infuriated when Colonel Lownds, fearing infiltrators, refused to allow the indigenous survivors of Lang Vei and their families as well as civilian refugees into Khe Sanh. The indigenous troops were disarmed and, to the chagrin of Special Forces personnel, were held under armed guard in shell craters. Without food or water, many of the Laotians simply turned around and walked down Route 9 toward Laos, while the Bru were

625

forced to trek in the opposite direction on Route 9 to Cam Lo, some 17 miles to the east. The commander of ARVN I Corps rejected any evacuation of the Bru, who he said could not be permitted to move into the lowlands. U.S. casualties in the Battle of Lang Vei were 3 killed, 10 missing or taken prisoner (only 3 were later repatriated), and 11 wounded. Only 1 American was not wounded in the battle. The 24 U.S. defenders were awarded 1 Medal of Honor (posthumously to Sergeant 1st Class Eugene Ashley Jr.), 1 Distinguished Service Cross, 19 Silver Stars, and 3 Bronze Star Medals with V Device for valor. Other medals were awarded to the army rescue team. Indigenous Vietnamese and Laotian losses were reported as 209 killed and 64 wounded. PAVN sources claim 400 killed and 253 taken prisoner. The official history is silent on PAVN losses, but they may have been as high as 250 dead; seven tanks were also destroyed. Vietnamese sources list PAVN losses as 80 killed, 190 wounded, and three tanks destroyed. The capture of Lang Vei was the only PAVN military victory during the siege of Khe Sanh. Although the attackers secured a considerable quantity of weapons and ammunition, they suffered heavy losses themselves, and it is unclear what effect the battle had on PAVN plans to strike Khe Sanh. The PAVN official history reports it as “the first combined-arms operation” of the war and “a new step forward in the growth of the combat capabilities of our mobile main force troops.” The site of the Lang Vei camp is today marked by the remains of concrete bunker walls and a PT-76 tank. Le Xuan Tau, who commanded one of the PT-76 tank platoons that fought at Lang Vei, was later awarded the title “Hero of the People’s Armed Forces.” Le Xuan Tau rose to the rank of major general and served as the commander of the PAVN’s Armored Command from 2002 to 2005. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Khe Sanh, Battle of; United States Special Forces References Clark, Bruce B. Expendable Warriors: The Battle of Khe Sanh and the Vietnam War. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Nguyen Huy Toan and Pham Quan Dinh. Su Doan 304, Tap Hai [304th Division, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990. Phillips, William R. Night of Silver Stars: The Battle of Lang Vei. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Stockwell, David B. Tanks in the Wire! The First Use of Enemy Armor in Vietnam. New York: Jove Publications, 1990. 304th Division History Element. “Tran Tien Cong Cu Diem Lang Vay Cua E24(-)/FBB304” [Attack Against the Lang Vei Strong-Point by 24th Regiment (minus)/304th Division]. In Quan Doan 2: Nhung Tran Danh Trong Chien Tranh Giai Phong (1945–1975), Tap II [II Corps: Battles during the War of Liberation (1945–1975), Vol. 2], edited by Nguyen Tu Lap and Pham Dinh Bay, 19–35. Hanoi: II Corps Headquarters, 1992.

626

Laniel, Joseph

Laniel, Joseph Birth Date: October 12, 1889 Death Date: April 8, 1975 French conservative politician and premier during the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Joseph Laniel was born at Vimoutiers in Normandy on October 12, 1889. He distinguished himself during World War I and, at age 19, was the youngest officer in the French Army. At the end of the war he enjoyed great success with the family textile business. In 1932 Laniel was elected a deputy from Calvados to the National Assembly. In the assembly he showed more ideological flexibility than most of his fellow conservatives. In March 1940 he joined the Paul Reynaud government as undersecretary of finance. Following the defeat of France by the Germans, Laniel was one of the few right-wing politicians active in the Resistance, and he became a vice president of the National Resistance Council. Continuously elected to the National Assembly from 1945 through 1958, Laniel in 1946 founded the Parti Républicain de la Liberté, a moderate right-center party that was absorbed by the Centre Nationale des Indépendents et Paysans in 1951. Known for his financial acumen, Laniel served as undersecretary of finance (1948); minister of posts, telegraph, and telephones (1951); and minister of state (1951–1952). Laniel became premier in June 1953 following a parliamentary crisis over domestic policies and foreign policy matters including

the European Defense Community (EDC), the Indochina War, and North African policies. He was elected in part because of his anonymity. Laniel’s government had considerable success in stabilizing the franc and in encouraging economic modernization, but he was regarded as lacking imagination in foreign affairs. Laniel was premier when the 1954 Geneva Conference opened, but its apparent lack of progress haunted his government. Not kept informed by General Henri Navarre, his commander in Indochina, of military plans, Laniel was nonetheless forced to share blame for the debacle of Dien Bien Phu. Laniel’s government failed to secure last-ditch U.S. military aid, and Laniel, dressed in black, announced the fall of the fortress to the National Assembly. His government fell three days later on June 12, 1954. Laniel was followed as premier by Pierre Mendès-France. Laniel’s defenders have pointed out that his government was close to a breakthrough in talks with the Viet Minh and that his resignation helped preserve the peace process. Laniel was reelected to the National Assembly in 1956. He took no part in the politics of the Fifth Republic, although he welcomed the return to power of General Charles de Gaulle as the best means to keep Algeria in French hands. Laniel died in Paris on April 8, 1975. Jules Roy wrote that Laniel was “An honest weaver and a man who stood loyally by his friends. Never understood anything about politics, Indochina and Dienbienphu and went bravely to the slaughterhouse.” SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Indochina War; Mendès-France, Pierre References David S. Bell, Douglas Johnson, and Peter Morris, eds. Biographical Dictionary of French Political Leaders since 1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Laniel, Joseph. Le Drame Indochinois, de Dien Bien Phu au pari de Genève. Paris: Plon, 1957. Laniel, Joseph. Jours de Gloire et Jours Cruels (1908–1958). 1971. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

Lansdale, Edward Geary Birth Date: February 6, 1908 Death Date: February 23, 1987

Joseph Laniel was premier of France at the time of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and announced the fall of the French fortress to the National Assembly. Forced to share the blame for the disaster, his government was driven from power shortly thereafter. (Getty Images)

U.S. intelligence operative and father of the modern American counterinsurgency doctrine. Born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 6, 1908, Edward Geary Lansdale grew up in Michigan and California. In 1931 only a few credit hours short of graduation, he dropped out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was a journalism student. Working in New York City during the next four years, he married in 1932 and three years later moved with his wife to Los Angeles, where he began work as an advertising agent. In 1937 he moved to San Francisco.

Lansdale, Edward Geary Following the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lansdale entered the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In 1943 the U.S. Army reinstated his UCLA Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commission and assigned him to military intelligence. At the end of the war in the Pacific, Major Lansdale was in Manila. In 1947 Lansdale transferred to the newly established U.S. Air Force. After assignments in the United States, he returned to the Philippines in 1951, this time on loan to a new governmental intelligence and covert action group, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), successor to the OSS and forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale’s responsibilities were to revitalize the Philippine Army in its struggle with a Communistinspired rebellion and to help that country’s new secretary of defense, Ramón Magsaysay, become president in upcoming national elections. Through his patient ingenuity and assisted by considerable funds supplied by the OPC, Lansdale succeeded on both counts. Lieutenant Colonel Lansdale’s next assignment, now under CIA authority, took him to the newly divided Vietnam in June 1954. As chief of the covert-action Saigon Military Mission (SMM), he was tasked with weakening Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) through any means available while helping to strengthen Bao Dai’s southern State of Vietnam as a separate and non-Communist nation. Within weeks Lansdale became a principal adviser to Ngo Dinh Diem, who was simultaneously premier, defense minister, and commander of the military. Diem accepted many of Lansdale’s ideas, including urging northerners to move south (ultimately some 1.25 million did so), bribing sect leaders to merge their private armies into Diem’s or face battle with him, instituting service organizations and a government bureaucracy, planning reforms, and in October 1955 offering himself and a new constitution as an alternative to the tired administration of Bao Dai. A lopsided and manipulated vote for Diem ensued. While Lansdale worked with Diem in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), part of his SMM team labored in North Vietnam, with largely mixed and insignificant results, to carry out sabotage and to effect a psychological warfare campaign against the Communist government there. Lansdale became a close personal friend of Diem and was one of the very few men, outside of his own family, to whom Diem listened. Certainly Diem had great respect for Lansdale’s ideas and enthusiasm. Most Westerners found Diem aloof, unresponsive, boring, and given to oppressively lengthy lectures. Not Lansdale. Their unofficial relationship bypassed normal channels of diplomatic relations, causing many diplomatic, military, CIA, and other civilian leaders in the U.S. government to view Lansdale with distrust. They resented his presence and wondered what this “loose cannon” might do next. Yet Lansdale’s record of success in the Philippines, his early accomplishments in Vietnam, and his own network of friends and contacts in high places prevented his enemies from dismissing either the man or his ideas.

627

With his influence lessened by Diem’s growing reliance on his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, Lansdale returned to the United States in early 1957 and served both the Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy administrations as deputy director of the Office of Special Operations, Office of the Secretary of Defense. Lansdale also sat as a member of the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB). Whereas he had formerly carried out missions assigned by others, he was now one of those who formulated national covert intelligence policy. On occasional visits to Vietnam, he maintained his friendship with Diem. Lansdale’s views often conflicted with the findings of others who were ready to give up on Diem and were contesting vigorously on behalf of their own government agencies in Vietnam. In the declining days of the Eisenhower administration Lansdale, now a brigadier general, worked with the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) of the USIB that oversaw CIA efforts to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba. Lansdale argued against such actions. President John F. Kennedy briefly considered naming Lansdale as ambassador to Vietnam, but the new president’s secretary of state, Dean Rusk, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara vetoed the idea. In 1961 and 1963 as assistant to the secretary of defense for special operations, Lansdale served as executive officer for the president’s Special Group, Augmented (SGA), charged with freeing Cuba from Castro, a plan known as Operation MONGOOSE. Lansdale regarded with dismay the CIA-sponsored invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Cuba, by Cuban Brigade 2506 in April 1961, considering it illtimed and ill-planned. After several intelligence forays to Central and South American countries, he retired from the U.S. Air Force in October 1963 as a major general. President Lyndon B. Johnson recalled Lansdale to government service between 1965 and 1968, sending him to Vietnam with the rank of minister to work on pacification problems. His influence was less than in previous years, and his authority was not clearly defined. He accomplished little, and those years were for Lansdale a time of great frustration. He published his memoirs in 1972. Lansdale’s career was extolled (or lambasted) in two major novels: Eugene Burdick and William Lederer’s The Ugly American (1958) and Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955). Plagued by ill health while living quietly in retirement, Lansdale died on February 23, 1987, in McLean, Virginia. CECIL B. CURREY See also Central Intelligence Agency; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Greene, Graham; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Office of Strategic Services; Pacification; Rusk, David Dean References Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Lansdale, Edward Geary. In the Midst of Wars: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.

628

Lao Dong Party

Lao Dong Party Ruling party formed in 1951 in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and in existence until 1976. Its formal name was Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party). The Lao Dong Party was in fact synonymous with the Indochinese Communist Party, which underwent a number of 20th-century metamorphoses. The failure of moderate nationalism in Vietnam in the 1920s provided an opportunity for the more radical Communists. In 1925 in Canton, China, Ho Chi Minh (then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc) formed the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association), commonly known as Thanh Nien. Thanh Nien was an anticolonial organization that attempted to unite political and social issues for the ultimate liberation of Vietnam. Thanh Nien trained Vietnamese young people from Vietnam and from Siam in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In March 1929 the Communists organized their first cell in Hanoi. Two months later at a national congress of Thanh Nien, delegates from Tonkin proposed the establishment of a national Communist party. The majority postponed a decision in order to study its implementation, whereupon the Tonkin delegation acted on its own to found the Dong Duong Cong San Dang (Indochinese Communist Party). Meanwhile, the Thanh Nien Central Committee formed the Annam Cong San Dang (Annam Communist Party), and a Marxist party, the Tan Viet (New Vietnam), transformed itself into the Dong Duong Cong San Lien Doan (Indochinese Communist League). Thus, there were three Communist parties within Vietnam. In February 1930 Ho presided over a conference in Hong Kong of delegates from the three Vietnamese Communist parties. On February 3 the three agreed to merge into one party and to form common institutions, including labor unions and youth, women’s, and peasants’ organizations. In October 1930 at the first plenum of the new Central Committee, the party took the name of Dang Cong San Dong Duong (Indochinese Communist Party, ICP). Tran Phu was named its first secretary-general. The party adopted two basic goals: to achieve national independence by expelling the French and “to struggle against feudalism, and give the land to the tillers.” Crop failures in Vietnam in 1930 and 1931 gave the peasants additional reason for unrest and led to a series of rebellions in northern Annam that were led by leaders of the ICP. The French military put these down, and the party suffered an additional setback in 1931 when British authorities arrested Ho in Hong Kong. Following a period of political amnesty during the Popular Front in France (1936–1938) in which the French Communists participated, the ICP suffered further repression. Despite these setbacks, by World War II the Communists were the best organized of the nationalist groups opposing French rule in Indochina. In 1940 the Japanese moved into Indochina, and the ICP undertook resistance against them as well. The ICP soon was the focal

point for resistance against the Japanese, and in November 1940 the ICP led an abortive uprising in Cochin China that was crushed by the French military. In May 1941 Ho and his lieutenants met in southern China near the border with Vietnam to create the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Independence League, popularly known as the Viet Minh), a nationalist front organization in which the Communists were the leading faction. The Viet Minh represented Ho’s fusion of nationalism and communism. Although scholars differ on this point, Ho maintained that he was first a nationalist. Although there are some doubts as to Ho’s sincerity in doing so, in November 1945 he nominally dissolved the ICP. This was a bid to enlarge his support within Vietnam; to win Chinese departure from North Vietnam, where they had taken the Japanese surrender; and to secure support from the United States and other Western nations. In February 1951 Ho changed the name of the ICP to the Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam. Again the intention was to play down communism and widen nationalist support throughout Vietnam. Pressure from the PRC may also have played a part. At the same time, separate national parties were founded for Laos and Cambodia. It was through the Lao Dong Party that Ho carried out his policies. The most controversial of these was land reform that lasted into the autumn of 1956. The land reform policy led to the execution of at least 15,000 “landlords” and also led to open revolt on the part of some peasants that required intervention by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Truong Chinh was made the scapegoat, and Le Duan replaced him as head of the party, a position he continued to hold until his death in 1986. In June 1991 Do Muoi was elected party secretary-general. In December 1997 Le Kha Phieu replaced him. In December 1976 at the Fourth National Congress, the Lao Dong renamed itself the Dang Cong San Viet Nam (Vietnamese Communist Party, VCP). The Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) remains very much a one-party state, with the 1.5 millionmember VCP the only legal political party and dominating its political life. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Agricultural Reform Tribunals; Annam; Cochin China; Le Duan; Tonkin; Truong Chinh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party; Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese References Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987. An Outline History of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, 1930–1975. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Pike, Douglas. A History of Vietnamese Communism, 1923–1978. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1978.

Laos

Laos Landlocked Southeast Asian nation with a 1968 population of 2.73 million people. Laos is bordered by China and Burma (Myanmar) to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Laos covers approximately 91,429 square miles. The northern part of the country is very mountainous, with steep river valleys leading to the Mekong River, which in this region is tumultuous and unnavigable except by small craft. The Plain of Jars is a distinctive rolling plain. The center is notable for its karst formations stretching from the Mekong Valley to the Annamite Mountains to the east. The topography of the south is more even and uniform, with broad river valleys suitable for rice cultivation and the high Bolovens Plateau. The Mekong flows into Cambodia over a series of waterfalls known as the Khong Falls. In 1968 as now, the Lao economy was primarily agricultural. The country was inhabited by lowland rice cultivators, mostly Lao, and by highlanders from dozens of tribes who grew rice in forest clearings, raised a variety of other crops, and tended animals. Although the Lao are Theravada Buddhists, the highlanders are mainly animists. In the towns there are minority Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indian populations who are mainly traders and

629

shopkeepers. Some 85 percent of the Laotian population still reside in rural areas. The original inhabitants of Laos were Austroasiatic peoples who lived by hunting and gathering before the advent of agriculture. Trade developed at an early date, and the Laotians were skilled canoe navigators. The first political entities identified in what is today Laos were princely fiefdoms exercising power over their neighbors by expanding and contracting spheres of influence known as mandalas. From the 1st century CE through the 13th century, Laos was influenced by the Chams, the Khmers, the Yunnanese, the Thais, and the Mongols. It was as a result of Mongol interference at Luang Prabang that the first kingdom to encompass all the territory of present-day Laos, known as the Kingdom of Lan Xang, was founded in 1353 by the warrior king Fa Ngum. After fending off invasions from Vietnam (1478–1479), Siam (1536), and Burma (1571–1621), Fa Ngum’s successors fell to squabbling, and their kingdom split in 1690 into Luang Prabang, Vientiane, and Champassak. Siam assumed ever-greater ascendancy over Laos, defeating the Vientiane kingdom and razing the capital in 1828. The court at Bangkok established outposts on the left bank of the Mekong all the way up to the Annamite Cordillera and treated the kings of Luang Prabang and Champassak as

The town of Vang Vieng in Vientiane Province, northern Laos, 2009. During the Vietnam War, Air America aircraft flew from its airstrip, then known as Lima Site 6. (Worakit/Dreamstime.com)

630

Laos

vassals. Siamese military expeditions were actively involved in suppressing bands of pillagers, known as Haws, from Yunnan. When the French signed a protectorate agreement in 1884 with the Vietnamese court at Hue, which had been worried about Siamese expansion, they saw themselves as being entitled to establish a presence on the left bank of the Mekong in the name of the Vietnamese emperor by right of historic claims and proceeded to expel the Siamese garrisons. However, instead of claiming the left bank, the French established direct rule over southern Laos and signed a protectorate treaty with the king of Luang Prabang. French rule in Laos was consolidated by the treaty of October 3, 1893, signed with the king of Siam. The French ruled Laos with a generally light hand. They established hospitals, schools, and a unified civil service. They also levied taxes and imposed work on public road construction projects, which led to sporadic revolts in the provinces. Vientiane remained a sleepy town on the bank of the Mekong, and the French restored a number of ancient monuments, including Buddhist temples. Laos was hardly affected by World War II until March 9, 1945, when the Japanese suddenly ousted the French administration and made a brief but brutal appearance. In the wake of the Japanese surrender in August 1945, a group of nationalist-minded Laotians led by Prince Phetsarath, the viceroy of the kingdom of Luang Prabang, took the opportunity to seize power and form an independent government, ignoring the king’s proclamation that the French protectorate had been restored. The advocates of independence, known as the Lao Issara, received support from the Viet Minh in neighboring Vietnam and prepared to oppose the return of the French. The French received significant support, however, from some of the highlanders, particularly the Hmongs, and with the approval of the king and Prince Boun Oum na Champassak, the most influential figure in the south, succeeded in reimposing their presence in Laos by mid-1946. The Lao Issara fled across the river to Thailand, where they continued to agitate for opposition to France. The French progressively granted the attributes of independence to the royal government in Vientiane and in 1947 unified the country under the rule of the king of Luang Prabang, who became the king of Laos. A three-headed white elephant on a red background became the kingdom’s flag. Elections were held, a constitution was promulgated, and political parties flourished. Complete independence, including foreign affairs and defense, was granted by France in October 1953. Laos also took part in the 1954 Geneva Conference that ended the Indochina War. The major problem facing the royal government was the reintegration of the Pathet Lao rebels, some of them ex–Lao Issara, who had fought alongside the Viet Minh during the war. By the terms of the cease-fire agreement, the Pathet Lao had been awarded two northern provinces in which to regroup while the Viet Minh regular units withdrew from Laos into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Difficulties soon arose in the operations of the joint armistice commission and the International

Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) that consisted of representatives from India, Canada, and Poland. Higher-level negotiations between the royal government and the Pathet Lao led to the formation of a coalition government in 1957, a move supported by the powers that had been represented at Geneva. The United States, however, deeply suspicious of the Communist ties of the Pathet Lao and worried that Congress would cut off aid to Laos for having Communists in its government, maneuvered behind the scenes to bring down the coalition in 1958, when partial elections revealed the popular strength of the party formed by the Pathet Lao, the Neo Lao Hak Sat (NLHS). The Pathet Lao, for their part, had not given up their arms and now, having rejected integration into the royal army on their own terms, resumed military action against the U.S.-backed royal army in the two northern provinces. A series of attacks against royal army outposts in Sam Neua during the monsoon season of 1959 produced an international crisis in which the royal government charged that North Vietnam was aiding the insurgents and appealed for help to the United Nations (UN). The NLHS deputies to the National Assembly in Vientiane were imprisoned on charges of sedition but were never tried. Postwar Vietnamese historical documents now admit that the Royal Lao Government’s charges were true. The Vietnamese provided logistical and training support, advisers, and Vietnamese “volunteer army” units to support the Pathet Lao for two months during the late summer of 1959 before pulling their forces back to avoid giving their opponents an excuse to further complicate the situation. The United States stepped up aid to the royal army, which was channeled through a clandestine military aid mission, the Programs Evaluation Office (PEO). Following the establishment of a rightist government, excluding the NLHS, and the escape from prison of the NLHS deputies, on August 9, 1960, a young army captain, Kong Le, staged a coup d’état in Vientiane and demanded the resignation of the government and an end to the civil war. A new government was formed that vowed to end the fighting and renew negotiations for a peaceful settlement with the Pathet Lao. Not surprisingly, this initiative met with the overt hostility of Thailand, which instituted a blockade of Vientiane, and the more camouflaged opposition of the United States, which maintained its aid to the Laotian army outside Vientiane in view of the threat posed by the Pathet Lao. Attempts to find grounds for compromise proved unavailing, and even the king, Savang Vatthana, was completely ineffectual in steering the country away from disaster. Rightist forces under General Phoumi Nosavan, with U.S. arms, attacked Vientiane in mid-December 1960 and after three days of artillery and tank shelling drove Kong Le’s paratroop battalion out. However, Kong Le had received arms, ammunition, and a small Vietnamese advisory group led by General Chu Huy Man that included a small artillery unit equipped with 105-millimeter (mm) howitzers and 120mm mortars flown into Vientiane by Soviet aircraft from Hanoi. As Kong Le’s troops retreated northward along the road toward

Laos

A Laotian woman and child in Vientiane are lifted by stretcher onto a truck for transport to a hospital in December 1960 during fighting that saw rightist forces led by General Phoumi Nosavan regain control of the capital city. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Luang Prabang, Soviet aircraft continued to drop supplies. After the leftist troops captured the Plain of Jars on January 1, 1961, they were supplied by Soviet aircraft flying into the airfield there. The entry of the Soviet Union into the Laos crisis led to U.S. protests to Moscow. Furthermore, North Vietnamese troops were now openly involved as “volunteers” fighting on the side of the Pathet Lao– Kong Le alliance. Prime minister Prince Souvanna Phouma, who had fled to Phnom Penh before the battle, proclaimed the continued legitimacy of his government and began a campaign to drum up international support for a neutral Laos. The new administration of President John F. Kennedy had decided not to intervene with U.S. troops and was not averse to any plan to neutralize Laos, a solution propounded in January by the U.S. ambassador in Vientiane, Winthrop Brown. Kennedy asked roving ambassador W. Averell Harriman to meet with Souvanna Phouma in New Delhi and see whether a non-Communist outcome to the crisis could be salvaged. The two men got on well at their first meeting. From that point on the Kennedy administration worked for a new international conference on Laos of the Geneva type, a plan that had already been suggested by Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. After much diplomatic activity on all sides, a 14-nation conference convened in Geneva in June 1961 and during the next year worked on a solution by coalition government. In the spring of 1961 the Vietnamese exploited the unsettled situation to seize a large area along the Vietnamese border in central and southern Laos through which they could build roads (the famed Ho Chi Minh Trail) in order to send troops and supplies to the Vietnamese Communist insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam

631

(RVN, South Vietnam). Vietnamese regular army military units maintained control of this area from this time to the end of the war in 1975. Several factors favored the tripartite coalition that emerged in June 1962. One was the growing disinterest of Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in the Laos affair. His actions had been dictated by Moscow’s rivalry with Beijing, but by 1962 the Sino-Soviet split had grown so wide that he no longer had any leverage to compete with Beijing’s radical line. He admitted as much in his June 1961 meeting with Kennedy in Vienna, where the two leaders agreed that a neutral Laos without involvement of either power was in their mutual interest. The North Vietnamese, while receiving pledges of militant solidarity from Beijing, were finding their campaign to seize South Vietnam much more difficult than they had expected. Since they now controlled the section of Laos needed for them to send assistance to the insurgency in South Vietnam, their interest in the revolution in Laos accordingly diminished, at least temporarily. The North Vietnamese government did not, however, withdraw its troops from Laos as outlined under the 1962 Geneva Agreement, leaving them instead to revive the effort at a later date. After 1963 the second coalition existed in name only. Ignoring the cease-fire, both sides resumed military operations. The North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao subverted a section of Kong Le’s army, compelling Kong Le to withdraw from the Plain of Jars and ally himself with the rightists once again. Among the most effective forces against the renewed North Vietnamese–Pathet Lao offensive became the irregular Meo (Hmong) troops of General Vang Pao. These troops stayed in the field, thanks to a large-scale resupply effort mounted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Another important factor in keeping the Communists at bay was bombing by the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy during 1964–1973. The war seesawed back and forth, with the Hmongs capturing the Plain of Jars only to have to abandon it again. By 1973 Laos was in effect divided, with the Communists holding the entire east from China to the Cambodian border. This was the area through which the Ho Chi Minh Trail, built and maintained at great cost by the North Vietnamese beginning in 1959, passed. The trail was defended by regular People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units in complete mockery of Lao sovereignty and the royal government, with which Hanoi nevertheless maintained diplomatic relations. The lowlands along the Mekong, on the other hand, were held by the royal government. The mountainous area between Vientiane and the Plain of Jars was held by the Hmongs. Under an agreement signed in Vientiane on February 21, 1973, a new cease-fire was declared that was to take effect on the following day and gave the Pathet Lao equal status with the royal government for the first time. The U.S. bombing, which had dropped almost 2.1 million tons of ordnance on Laos (more than the total tonnage dropped by the United States in the European and Pacific theaters in World War II), came to a halt at noon on February 22.

632

Laos

Laotian students demonstrate their support for the cease-fire signed in Vientiane on February 22, 1973. They carry banners reading “let this cease-fire be permanent.” (AP/Wide World Photos)

The new coalition government took office on April 5, 1974, and each ministry had a minister from one side and a vice minister from the opposite side. Although the 1973 cease-fire left some 300 U.S. personnel unaccounted for in Laos, no U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) were returned by the Pathet Lao, with the exception of 8 who had been held in North Vietnam and were released in Hanoi. On April 27, 1975, North Vietnamese–Pathet Lao forces launched a strong attack against General Vang Pao’s Hmong troops at the strategic road junction of Sala Phou Khoun and drove southward toward Vientiane. Wishing to avoid a resumption of the war, Souvanna Phouma ordered Vang Pao to defend himself as best he could but without the benefit of air strikes by the small Royal Laotian Air Force. Feeling himself abandoned, Vang Pao had a last stormy meeting in Vientiane with the prime minister and then appealed to the CIA for evacuation of his troops and their families to safe haven in Thailand. On May 10 Vang Pao and 12 Hmong leaders signed a treaty reminding the United States of past pledges and agreeing to leave Laos and never return. The CIA refused an airlift, the only possible exit by that stage, although it did evacuate Vang Pao and his wives on May 14 as the North Vietnamese Pathet Lao closed in on his base at Long Chieng, which they captured without a fight and where they found the personnel files of Vang Pao’s Hmong soldiers intact.

Meanwhile, a campaign of intimidation against the non–Pathet Lao members of the coalition government gathered momentum in Vientiane. Key ministers, including the defense minister, fled across the Mekong. Demonstrators occupied the compound of the U.S. aid mission, forcing termination of the large aid program and the evacuation of its U.S. employees. Orchestrated demonstrations and the takeover of government offices led to the entry of the Pathet Lao into the other major towns of Laos, without their being damaged by fighting. The Pathet Lao seizure of power was completed on August 23, 1975. Military units belonging to the royal army were said to have requested Pathet Lao “advisers,” thereby facilitating the integration of the army. Officers and high-ranking government officials who remained in Vientiane, hoping for the best, were sent to attend “seminars” at camps in Sam Neua, where many of them died. At the beginning of December 1975 the Pathet Lao did away with the last facade of the coalition government and abolished the 600-year-old monarchy. A republic, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR), was proclaimed. Political parties were prohibited. King Savang Vatthana was named an adviser to the new president, but the king in fact played no role after his abdication. He died in a seminar camp in 1978 along with the queen and their eldest son. The December 1975 events also saw the emergence of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), the Communist party

Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de behind the Pathet Lao front. The LPRP acknowledged its lineage from the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930, that had been divided into three national parties for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1951. The LPRP declared itself a Marxist-Leninist party and, as the sole ruling party in the LPDR, began elaborating policies. For the first decade these policies were centered on state control of every aspect of life, although efforts to collectivize agriculture amounted to little more than rhetoric. A constitution was not elaborated until 1991. Meanwhile, the party’s propaganda organs extolled the heroic deeds of the victorious “people’s army” against the superior forces of the United States. Surprisingly, through all of this the U.S. embassy in Vientiane, manned by a skeleton staff since the departure of the last ambassador to the royal government in May 1975, was untouched, and the United States maintained diplomatic relations with the LPDR. The LPRP counted 60,000 members by March 1996, when the party held its Sixth Congress. Party leadership continued to be dominated by the veteran leaders of the 30-year struggle against the French and the Americans. Eight of the 9 Politburo members named in 1996 were military officers. The 49-member Central Committee, however, included several younger figures more in keeping with economic reforms enacted between 1986 and 1996. Overall, the degree of stability of leadership that the party has exercised during its three decades of being the only legal political party in the country has been remarkable. The lingering effect of the war also manifested itself in two of the major issues between the LPDR and the United States. These were the issue of POWs and those missing in action and the LPDR’s demand for U.S. humanitarian aid to help cope with the hundreds of thousands of unexploded bombs that were left scattered about the countryside and continued to cause injuries and death for civilians, particularly in the north, more than two decades after the end of hostilities. By the mid to late 1990s the LPDR had begun to open its economy and move somewhat haltingly toward a more market-oriented system. In recognition of this, the United States in 2005 normalized trade relations with Laos, ending years of punitive import duties on Laotian goods. Normalized relations between Vietnam and the United States, which occurred in the 1990s, also helped repair U.S.Laotian ties. Nevertheless, Laos remains a one-party state, and the LPDR is the only legal political entity, which governs via an allpowerful 9-member Politburo. Since 1992 Laos has had an 85-seat national assembly, but only LPDR members can be elected to it, and it is a body that largely rubber-stamps LPDR policies. Faced with the problems of economic opening coupled with political repression, lack of government funding for development projects, and leftovers from the war, Laos continues to be an impoverished nation with an economy more akin to the 19th century rather than the 21st century. Laos has practically no modern infrastructure and has only one railway, which links Vientiane with Thailand. There are few paved roads, and the existing road net-

633

work that connects the nation’s many remote villages is antiquated and frequently impassable. Communication networks are sparse and marginally reliable at best, which is a large disadvantage in a modern era of instantaneous communications. It will likely be some time before Laos frees itself from the ranks of the world’s least-developed countries and catches up with the other nonCommunist Southeast Asian countries. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Harriman, William Averell; Hmongs; International Commission for Supervision and Control; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Kong Le; Pathet Lao; Phoumi Nosavan; Plain of Jars; Souphanouvong; Souvanna Phouma; Vang Pao; Vientiane Agreement; Vientiane Protocol References Cordell, Helen, comp. Laos. World Bibliographical Series, Vol. 133. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1991. Lewis, Judy, ed. Minority Cultures of Laos: Kammu, Lua’, Lahu, Hmong, and Iu-Mien. Rancho Cordova, CA: Folsom Cordova Unified School District, 1992. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Lich Su Quan Tinh Nguyen Va Cac Doan Chuyen Gia Quan Su Viet Nam Tai Lao (1945–1975) [History of the Vietnamese Volunteer Army Forces and Vietnamese Military Advisory Units in Laos (1945–1975)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1999. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Savada, Andrea Matles, ed. Laos: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995. Stuart-Fox, Martin, and Mary Kooyman. Historical Dictionary of Laos. Asian Historical Dictionaries No. 6. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1992. Zasloff, Joseph J., and Leonard Unger, eds. Laos: Beyond the Revolution. London: Macmillan, 1991.

Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de Birth Date: February 2, 1889 Death Date: January 11, 1952 French general and high commissioner and commander of French forces in Indochina (1950–1951). Born at Mouilleron-en-Pareds in the Vendée on February 2, 1889, Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny graduated in 1910 from the French military academy of Saint-Cyr. In September 1914 as a cavalry lieutenant, he received the first of his six wounds during World War I. Transferred to the infantry, he rose to command a battalion, and during the war he received eight citations for bravery. Following the war, de Lattre fought in Morocco and was seriously wounded in the 1925 Rif Campaign. A breveted officer of the École Supérieure de Guerre, he served as General Maxime Weygand’s chief of cabinet and then as chief of staff of Fifth Army. On the eve of World War II de Lattre commanded an infantry regiment.

634

Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de

General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was France’s most distinguished military figure when he served as both high commissioner and commander of French military forces in Indochina during 1950–1951. He died in early 1952 of cancer. This photograph was taken in Washington, D.C., on September 24, 1951. (National Archives)

During the 1940 German invasion of France de Lattre commanded the 14th Infantry Division, which had an excellent combat record. After the armistice, he endeavored to retrain what remained of the French Army. In September 1941 the Vichy government reassigned him to command French forces in Tunisia. In fighting between British–Free French and German forces in Libya, de Lattre positioned his forces to cut off a German retreat. Alarmed, in January 1942 the Vichy government reassigned him to France to command an infantry division. After the November 1942 Allied landings in North Africa, de Lattre deployed his troops to prevent German units from quickly reaching the Mediterranean coast, enabling many anti-German French to escape by sea. This led to his arrest and trial by the Vichy government on charges of “attempting a putsch,” for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Although heavily guarded, in September 1943 de Lattre escaped from Riom Prison and made his way to England. After several months in a hospital, de Lattre joined Charles de Gaulle’s Free French government in Algiers. Given charge of training French troops, de Lattre commanded French forces in the June 1944 invasion of Elba. Two months later he commanded the Free French First Army in southern France;

the Free French First Army and the U.S. Seventh Army made up the Allied 6th Army Group. De Lattre’s army scored numerous successes, most notably inflicting 53,000 German casualties along the southern French coast and capturing the fortress of Belfort at a cost of only 1,000 French casualties. By the end of the war his troops had fought all the way to the Austrian border. His accomplishments earned him an invitation to witness the May 9, 1945, German surrender. Later he served on the Allied Control Commission for Germany. After the war de Lattre worked to restore the prestige of the French military. In 1945 he was appointed inspector general of the French Army and took charge of its retraining and modernization. From 1948 to 1950 he was commander of West European land forces. In December 1950 in a gesture of determination, the French government sent de Lattre, its greatest living soldier, to Indochina to replace General Marcel Carpentier. De Lattre was made high commissioner as well as commander of French forces. A handsome man with visible facial scars from his war wounds, de Lattre had panache and great personal magnetism. Known within the French Army as “le roi Jean” (King John) for his insistence on military ceremony, de Lattre was a tough, no-nonsense commander who promised little except that his men would know they had been commanded. In an effort to get the Vietnamese to fight on the French side, he created wholly Vietnamese units. Unfortunately for France, this policy, known as Jaunissement (Yellowing), came too late in the war to succeed. Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap played into de Lattre’s hands by initiating Operation HOANG HOA THAM, which sought conventional battle with French forces. Defeat of the Viet Minh in a series of battles in the first half of 1951 enabled de Lattre to make a forceful appeal for additional U.S. military assistance, a plea that he delivered in the course of a much-publicized September 1951 trip to Washington. In meetings with President Harry S. Truman and at the Pentagon, de Lattre stressed the interdependence of fronts in Vietnam and Korea against communism. The United States did increase economic aid to the French but was unwilling to offer any direct military assistance. Ignoring warnings from his Chinese advisers, Giap now shifted his attention to the Thai Highlands. The resulting December 1951–February 1952 fighting at Hoa Binh initiated by de Lattre became an inconclusive battle of attrition with high casualties for both sides. In December 1951 de Lattre left Indochina. Already consumed by cancer, he entered a Paris clinic that same month and died on January 11, 1952. His last audible word was the name of his only son Bernard, a French Army lieutenant who had died the previous May in the battle at Ninh Binh during the Day River Campaign. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Hoa Binh, Battle of; Indochina War; Jaunissement; Truman, Harry S.; Vo Nguyen Giap

Lavelle, John Daniel References Clayton, Anthony. Three Marshals Who Saved France: Leadership after Trauma. London: Brassey’s, 1992. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Duong Toi Dien Bien Phu [The Road to Dien Bien Phu]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001.

Lau Ben Kon See Nuon Chea

Lavelle, John Daniel Birth Date: September 9, 1916 Death Date: July 10, 1979 U.S. Air Force general and commander, Seventh Air Force (1971– 1972). Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 9, 1916, John Daniel Lavelle graduated from John Carroll University in 1938, enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet, and was commissioned in 1940. During World War II he served with a fighter squadron in the European theater, flying almost 80 combat missions as a P-47 pilot. Subsequently he served in Japan, where during the Korean War (1950–1953) he commanded a supply depot. He then commanded McGuire Air Force Base and the 568th Air Defense Group and after that a Military Air Transport Service airlift wing. After graduation from the Air War College in 1957, he began a five-year stint at the Pentagon, ending up as deputy director of programs for the U.S. Air Force. Following a term of duty with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in West Germany, Lavelle returned to U.S. Air Force headquarters as director of aerospace programs. In 1966 he took command of the Seventeenth Air Force in Germany, and then in late 1967 he was assigned to the Defense Communications Planning Group in Washington, subsequently becoming its director. In 1970 he was assigned as vice commander of Pacific Air Forces in Hawaii. In July 1971 he was promoted to four-star (full general) rank and given command of the Seventh Air Force in Southeast Asia. Lavelle soon became quite concerned for the safety of his pilots. Forced to operate under very complex and strict rules of engagement during missions over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), they were permitted to strike targets only in cases where “protective reaction” could be claimed. What came to be known as the Lavelle Case stemmed from charges that on occasion Lavelle directed preplanned strikes against certain targets, a violation of those rules of engagement. Furthermore, returning

635

aircrews were found to be fabricating enemy actions in an effort to justify these strikes. Lavelle offered the rationale that a wide-area radar network operated by the North Vietnamese was being used to alert targetacquisition radars and missile sites, giving aircrews little or no warning or reaction time and greatly increasing their risk, and that this in itself constituted hostile action. Lavelle argued that his superiors had encouraged him to interpret his rules of engagement as aggressively as possible. During the congressional hearings into the matter Lavelle was subjected to a firestorm of media criticism, with national periodicals such as Time and Newsweek accusing him of waging a “private war” and ignoring direct orders from the White House. Lavelle was subsequently determined to have acted improperly, including leading his subordinates in an attempted cover-up. He was relieved of command and retired in April 1972 as a major general, a rank two grades below that which he had held. General Lavelle died on July 10, 1979, in Arlington, Virginia. In 2007 in an article in Air Force Magazine, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general Aloysius Casey and his son Patrick Casey revealed that declassified documents and transcripts from the Nixon White House show conclusively that Lavelle was acting under secret orders from Nixon, who in February 1972 had authorized more aggressive bombing of North Vietnam. The transcripts also reveal that Nixon and his chief advisers were all aware that Lavelle had been scapegoated and yet took no steps to reveal the truth. Lavelle’s family petitioned the U.S. Air Force to correct his record and restore his rank. The Air Force Board for the Correction of Military Records found no evidence that Lavelle had caused the falsification of records or that he was even aware of their existence and that the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had all withheld important information in the case. In August 2010 more than 30 years after Lavelle’s death, President Barack Obama exonerated him of charges that he had violated presidential restrictions regarding the bombing of North Vietnam and requested that the U.S. Senate restore him posthumously to four-star rank. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Airpower, Role in War; Hersh, Seymour Myron; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States Air Force References Ginsburg, Gordon A. The Lavelle Case: Crisis in Integrity. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University, 1974. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000.

636 LÉA,

LÉA, Operation

Operation

Event Date: October 1947 French military operation during the Indochina War mounted over a three-week period beginning in October 1947. Devoted almost exclusively to the capture of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh leadership and the destruction of main Viet Minh battle units, Operation LÉA involved 17 French battalions, including 3 airborne and 3 armor. The operation succeeded in taking Thai Nguyen and some other Viet Minh–controlled cities, but it failed to capture the Viet Minh leadership or destroy main Viet Minh units. Ho escaped in disguise, but the French shot to death a well-known scholar, Nguyen Va To, whose white beard made him resemble Ho. The operation revealed the difficulty of the French military position in Indochina, especially the paucity of resources. Troops involved in Operation LÉA were badly needed elsewhere, and their employment in the operation opened up much of the countryside of Vietnam to Viet Minh penetration. Operation LÉA did, however, have a significant effect on the Viet Minh leadership. Stunned that his intelligence had not provided advance warning of the attack, enabling French paratroopers to come very close to capturing a number of senior Viet Minh leaders, General Vo Nguyen Giap completely revamped the Viet Minh’s military intelligence organization. SPENCER C. TUCKER

articles on social issues to the Revue Catholique. Wounded in June 1940 during the Battle of France, Leclerc was taken prisoner. The Germans believed him to be too weak to move and placed him at a chateau belonging to some of his friends, from which he escaped to join Charles de Gaulle’s Committee of National Liberation in London. After his recuperation, Leclerc went to Nigeria and gathered scattered groups of French colonial soldiers. In a daring campaign begun with only about 20 men, he won over garrisons and with them control of the Cameroons. By 1941 Free French forces controlled all of French Equatorial Africa. Leclerc, by now a colonel, commanded the Desert Army, made up of veteran colonial troops, Chad sharpshooters, an Arab camel corps, a few British officers, and some young Free Frenchmen. With this force and a few obsolete aircraft, Leclerc conducted successful raids against Italian outposts in the Sahara. In the late spring of 1942 Leclerc decided on a march from Lake Chad to the Mediterranean; de Gaulle sent both supplies and reinforcements. Begun on December 22, the march covered 2,000 miles in 39 days. On January 25, 1943, Leclerc’s force entered Tripoli concurrent with the British Eighth Army. In June 1944 Leclerc,

See also France, Army, 1946–1954; Ho Chi Minh; Indochina War References Goscha, Christopher E. “Overview: The Early Development of Vietnamese Intelligence Services, 1945–50.” In Exploring Intelligence Archives: Enquiries into the Secret State, edited by R. Gerald Hughes, Peter Jackson, and Len Scott, 103–115. London: Routledge, 2008. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992.

Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe Birth Date: November 28, 1902 Death Date: November 28, 1947 French Army general and commander of French Far Eastern forces (1945–1946). Born into an aristocratic family near Amiens on November 28, 1902, Count Jacques-Philippe de Hauteclocque took the nom de guerre of Leclerc during World War II to avoid reprisals against his family in France. After his 1924 graduation from the French military academy at Saint-Cyr, he distinguished himself the next year as a second lieutenant fighting Moroccan rebels. He returned to teach at Saint-Cyr and also contributed

French general Philippe Leclerc compiled an outstanding combat record with the Free French during World War II. During 1945–1946 he commanded French forces in the Far East, charged with restoring French rule in Indochina. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Le Duan now commanding the French 2nd Armored Division (Frenchmen, Arabs, and Africans manning U.S. tanks), landed at Normandy. His division captured Alençon, the first French city retaken by French troops. General Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed Leclerc’s division to be the first to liberate Paris, and the division also liberated Strasbourg and Bordeaux. With the end of fighting in Europe, in June 1945 de Gaulle appointed Leclerc to command the French Expeditionary Corps to restore French sovereignty in Indochina. Leclerc was unenthusiastic. “Send me to Morocco,” he reportedly said. De Gaulle claimed that he replied, “You will go to Indo-China because that is more difficult.” Leclerc signed the formal Japanese surrender document for France, and on October 5, 1945, he arrived in Saigon. Leclerc achieved an agreement with the British that preserved France’s position in southern Vietnam, and on October 25 he began the reconquest of Indochina for France, predicting it would take about a month for “mopping-up operations” to be concluded. Leclerc’s highly mobile mechanized forces quickly established French authority over southern Vietnam and Cambodia, but because they numbered only 40,000 men, they controlled little beyond the cities and main routes of communication. Leclerc became convinced that the Viet Minh was a nationalist movement that France could not subdue militarily, and he supported the talks that resulted in the March 1946 Ho-Sainteny Agreement with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Unlike most of his compatriots, Leclerc was aware of the great difficulties of jungle warfare and favored a course of negotiations that would mean abandoning the attempt to create an independent Cochin China. In a secret report to Paris on March 27, 1946, he said that there would be no solution through force in Indochina. The return of French high commissioner to Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu to assume political control relegated Leclerc to military functions. D’Argenlieu and other French colonial administrators opposed meaningful concessions to the nationalists, and at his own request Leclerc departed Indochina in frustration. On July 14, 1946, he was named inspector general of French forces in North Africa and was promoted to full general. Leclerc died in a military plane crash in Algeria at age 45 on November 28, 1947. SPENCER C. TUCKER

637

Le Duan Birth Date: April 7, 1907 Death Date: July 10, 1986 Secretary-general of the Communist Party of Vietnam and de facto leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) following the 1969 death of Ho Chi Minh. Born Le Van Nhuan on April 7, 1907, in Trieu Phong District, Quang Tri Province, Le Duan developed an early and active devotion to revolutionary politics. During the 1920s he worked as a clerk for French Railways in Hanoi and during that time cultivated his Marxist interests. He first joined the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League and then in 1930 became a charter member of the Indochinese Communist Party. He was elected to membership in the Communist Party Central Committee in 1939. An ardent opponent of French rule, Le Duan was twice imprisoned, from 1931 to 1936 and again from 1940 to 1945, on charges of political subversion. In the years following World War II Le Duan emerged as a trusted lieutenant of Ho Chi Minh and a key figure in the Viet Minh challenge to continued French rule. A capable strategist and tactician, Le Duan directed Viet Minh efforts in Cochin China from 1946 until 1952, when he was sent to North Vietnam to work at

See also D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; De Gaulle, Charles; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Indochina War References Clayton, Anthony. Three Marshals Who Saved France: Leadership after Trauma. London: Brassey’s, 1992. De Gaulle, Charles. The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, Vol. 3, Salvation, 1944–1946. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954.

Le Duan, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, was one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and its de facto ruler after the 1969 death of Ho Chi Minh. (Getty Images)

638

Le Duc Anh

party headquarters. Le Duan was elected to membership in the Communist Party Politburo in 1951. Although the 1954 Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu brought an end to French rule in Vietnam, the brokered agreement at the 1954 Geneva Conference left the country divided. Le Duan, who clung to the nationalist ideal of a united (as well as an independent) Vietnam, openly opposed the agreement. He nonetheless worked with Ho Chi Minh to secure Communist control in North Viet. Le Duan’s long service resulted in his continued upward advance within the party. In 1954 he was sent to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), where he again served as secretary of the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party, or the Communist Party) Central Committee for the Southern Region until 1957. In 1956 Le Duan wrote the “Tenets of the Revolution in South Vietnam,” which became the foundation of the Communist struggle in South Vietnam. In 1957 Le Duan was recalled to North Vietnam, where he was entrusted with the leadership of the party following the removal of Truong Chinh as party secretary-general as the result of the disastrous Land Reform Program in North Vietnam. In 1959 Le Duan was elected as party first secretary, a position he held for the next decade. A member of the Lao Dong Politburo as well as the Central Committee and Secretariat, he moved to the top echelon of the North Vietnamese power structure. In 1958 Le Duan secretly revisited South Vietnam to observe the situation there. He returned with recommendations for a dramatic escalation. Hanoi-supported Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas operating against the U.S.-backed government of Ngo Dinh Diem faced total destruction, Le Duan warned, unless the effort was prosecuted vigorously. Over the course of the next three years, largely under Le Duan’s direction, the VC launched a sweeping program of assassinations and urban terrorism while stepping up more conventional forms of military confrontation. Le Duan continued to play an important role in Hanoi’s prosecution of the conflict. A consistent advocate of the offensive, he supported the infusion of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces to South Vietnam as well as stronger support for the VC. In 1965 as U.S. involvement in the war increased, he advocated the move to conventional warfare, joining other North Vietnamese leaders in shunning Chinese advice to deescalate. He maintained that only through conventional offensive warfare, as practiced against the French, could Vietnam expel the foreign invaders. Le Duan reportedly had frequent clashes with North Vietnam’s military commander General Vo Nguyen Giap and other party leaders over war strategy and political ideology, culminating in a dispute during the summer of 1967 over the plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive. At around the same time Le Duan also presided over what was called the Anti-Party Affair, a purge of senior party and military figures including a number of General Giap’s closest supporters. With Ho Chi Minh’s death in September 1969, Le Duan became the undisputed leader of the party and the North Vietnamese gov-

ernment. He continued to press the war and maintained a hard line during cease-fire negotiations with the United States. He viewed a continued division of Vietnam as unacceptable; the conflict would be pressed until the invaders withdrew and unity was achieved. Under the leadership of Le Duan, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, Communist forces cemented their victory over South Vietnam with the capture of Saigon in 1975. As the leader of a united Vietnam, Le Duan faced the mammoth task of rebuilding a country ravaged by 35 years of almost continuous war. Reconciling opposing ideologies, restoring the economy, and feeding the people of Vietnam all posed major obstacles, with which he dealt with varying degrees of success. A devoted Marxist, he maintained close ties with the Soviet Union, a relationship that he solidified with the signing of the Friendship Treaty in 1978. Le Duan died in Hanoi on July 10, 1986. Le Duan continues to be a controversial figure in Vietnamese Communist Party circles because of his abrasive and autocratic personality and his clashes with other party leaders. In the summer of 2006 a leading Vietnamese newspaper published a series of articles revealing the long-rumored but never-before officially confirmed fact that contrary to party regulations, Le Duan had taken two wives and had two separate families. DAVID COFFEY See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Lao Dong Party; Pham Van Dong; United Front; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vo Nguyen Giap References Burgess, Patricia, ed. The Annual Obituary, 1986. Chicago: St. James, 1989. Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Pribbenow, Merle. “General Vo Nguyen Giap and the Mysterious Evolution of the Plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive.” Journal of Vietnam Studies 3(2) (Summer 2008): 1–33. Quinn-Judge, Sophie. “The Ideological Debate in the DRV and the Significance of the Anti-Party Affair, 1967–1968.” Cold War History 5(4) (November 2006): 479–500. Who’s Who in the World, 1984–1985. Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 1989.

Le Duc Anh Birth Date: December 1, 1920 Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) official, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general, and from

Le Duc Tho 1992 to 1997 president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born as Le Van Giac on December 1, 1920, in Truong Ha village, Phu Vang District, Thua Thien Province, he took the name Le Duc Anh when he first began his revolutionary career. He was admitted into membership in the Indochinese Communist Party in 1938. In the war against the French during 1948–1954, Anh served in Cochin China (southern Vietnam), rising through the ranks as a political officer and headquarters staff officer to become deputy chief of staff of the Southern Region in the early 1950s. After regrouping to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) following the 1954 Geneva Peace Agreement, from 1955 to 1964 he served successively as deputy chief of the Operations Department and then deputy chief of the General Staff, rising to the rank of colonel. In 1964 Anh was sent to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), where he served as chief of staff and later deputy commander of Communist forces in South Vietnam. In 1969 he was appointed commander of Military Region IX, which covered the southern half of the Mekong Delta. Immediately after the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, Anh continued aggressive military action in spite of the cease-fire, defying orders from the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). Anh’s actions were later vindicated by the VCP leadership. In 1974 he was promoted and transferred back to the post of deputy commander of Communist Forces in South Vietnam. In 1975 Anh served as deputy commander of the PAVN Ho Chi Minh Campaign and led one of the attack columns that took Saigon on April 30, 1975. The next year he was elected as a member of the VCP Central Committee during the VCP Fourth Congress. After serving as commander of the high command’s Forward Headquarters during the December 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Anh was promoted to deputy minister of defense and served as commander of all Vietnamese forces in Cambodia from 1981 to 1986. He was elected to membership in the VCP Politburo in 1982, and in 1984 he was promoted to the rank of full general. In December 1986 Anh was appointed as minister of defense and vice secretary of the Central Military Party Committee. During the Ninth National Assembly in September 1992 he was elected president of the SRV. During his long career, Anh gained a reputation for being the VCP’s troubleshooter. He was credited with the 1989 Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia and for resolving vexing issues with the United States regarding soldiers missing in action. A conservative, he insisted on relatively tight party control over domestic policies during his tenure in office. In 1996 Anh suffered a serious stroke, and he resigned his post as president in October 1997. He was succeeded by Tran Duc Luong. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

639

References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Khuat Bien Hoa. Dai Tuong Le Duc Anh [General Le Duc Anh]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2005. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996.

Le Duc Tho Birth Date: October 14, 1911 Death Date: October 13, 1990 Vietnamese revolutionary and influential member of the Lao Dong (or Communist) Party Political Bureau and Secretariat and chief negotiator for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) at the Paris peace talks. Born in Dich Le village, My Loc District, Nam Dinh Province, on October 14, 1911, into a mandarin family (his uncle was province governor Phan Dinh Hoe), Le Duc Tho (real name, Phan Dinh Khai) was the eldest of five brothers, three of whom became important figures in the Vietnamese Communist Party. Tho was one of the founders of the Indochinese Communist Party. As with many of his revolutionary compatriots, he was arrested and spent much of the 1930s in the French island prison of Poulo Condore. During much of the war with France he served as the party’s chief commissar for the Nam Bo (southern) region of Vietnam. In the 1950s Tho gained the reputation of a skilled theoretician and was often called upon to guide party directives. From the late 1950s until the beginning of the peace talks in Paris, he played a major role in directing the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Tho became a close ally of Communist Party first secretary Le Duan, and Vietnamese author Vu Thu Hien contends that on occasion Tho’s views overrode those of Ho Chi Minh. Tho was a key figure in the 1967–1968 round of arrests and purges of a number of party and military officials that became known as the Anti-Party Affair. When the Paris peace talks opened on May 13, 1968, Tho was the actual, although not the titular, head of the North Vietnamese negotiating team. The Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party had given Tho considerable latitude for discussion but insisted that no serious negotiations could take place unless the United States stopped bombing North Vietnam unconditionally and accepted a coalition government in South Vietnam in accordance with the platform of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). Furthermore, they demanded that any settlement address the political and military struggles together, beginning with the dismantling of Nguyen Van Thieu’s Saigon regime. U.S. negotiators, namely Henry Kissinger, balked at these demands. Beginning on February 21, 1970, Kissinger and Tho met secretly in Paris to discuss a way out of the stalemate.

640

Le Duc Tho

Communist revolutionary and tough-minded peace negotiator Le Duc Tho was a member of the Politburo of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and that country’s chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks. (Central Press/Getty Images)

The talks produced little substantive results, however, and in the spring of 1972 following the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) invasion of South Vietnam across the demilitarized zone (DMZ), President Richard Nixon resumed the bombing campaign against North Vietnam. By the early summer of 1972, Kissinger and Tho had both made substantial compromises. The United States now suggested that North Vietnamese troops could remain in South Vietnam after a cease-fire and supported a tripartite electoral commission in South Vietnam that represented a major step away from absolute U.S. support of the Saigon regime. Tho dropped his insistence on Thieu’s ouster, accepting a cease-fire that would leave Thieu in partial control. These compromises angered allies of both the United States and North Vietnam within South Vietnam when in October 1972 they learned of the terms of the draft peace agreement that had been reached during the secret negotiations between Tho and Kissinger. The Saigon regime called the compromise a sellout, and the indigenous Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) questioned the wisdom of leaving Thieu in control. In ad-

dition, the PRG worried that the freedom of South Vietnamese political prisoners was no longer linked with the release of American prisoners of war. When South Vietnamese president Thieu rejected the settlement and Hanoi refused to revisit the terms already agreed to and publicized the secret agreement, Nixon blamed the North Vietnamese government and ordered renewed air strikes against North Vietnam to force an agreement. These attacks, known as Operation LINEBACKER II (the so-called Christmas Bombings), struck Hanoi and Haiphong and were among the most devastating of the war. The negotiations between Kissinger and Tho resumed on January 8, 1973, and following some cosmetic changes, a final agreement was signed on January 27. Differing little from the October draft, the final peace accord left Thieu in power temporarily and allowed North Vietnamese troops to remain in South Vietnam. In addition, the PRG was accorded meaningful status and the possibility of obtaining broader political power. Ironically, the major question over which the war had been fought, the political future of South Vietnam, was left undecided. The Nixon administration

Lefèbvre, Dominique and Hanoi both claimed victory, and each side violated the spirit and nature of the agreement, causing the war to drag on for two more years until the Communists forced Saigon’s collapse in 1975. Meanwhile, late in 1973 the Nobel Peace Committee awarded Kissinger and Tho its Peace Prize. Tho refused to accept the award because the war continued. In 1975 Tho returned to South Vietnam to oversee the final stages of the Communist offensive against Saigon (the Ho Chi Minh Campaign). Between 1975 and 1986 Tho remained an active member of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee and helped direct the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. During this time he was also the director of the powerful Party Organization Department, the bureau that oversaw the assignment of cadres in both party and state organs. Tho’s power diminished in the mid-1980s, however, and after the sweeping economic reforms introduced at the 1986 Sixth Party Congress, he resigned his post and retired from public life. He died in Hanoi on October 13, 1990. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lao Dong Party; Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Poulo Condore; Prisoners of War, Allied; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam References Boudarel, Georges, ed. La bureaucratie au Vietnam. Paris: L’Hartmattan, 1983. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Kalb, Marvin, and Bernard Kalb. Kissinger. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Porter, Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Le Dynasty Longest dynasty in Vietnamese history. The Le dynasty (in Vietnamese, Nha Le or Nha Hau Le) ruled Vietnam from 1428, when its founder Le Loi drove the Minhs out of the country, until 1788, when it was ended by the Tay Son Rebellion. This long era was divided into two periods: the direct and unified Le government period that lasted for nearly 100 years (1428–1527) and the NorthSouth period (1527–1788) during which the Trinh lords controlled the north and the Nguyen lords controlled the south, both in the name of the Le kings. It was under the Le that the Vietnamese completed their Nam Tien (March to the South) in 1470 at the expense of the Chams and in the middle of the 18th century at the expense of Chenla (Cam-

641

bodia). Indeed, by the end of this dynastic era the kingdom had expanded practically to the modern borders of Vietnam. In culture and education, neo-Confucianism became the country’s main ideology, replacing Buddhism. The triennial competitive examinations were reorganized. Court examination laureates were covered with honors, including the vinh qui (“glorious homecoming”) and the engraving of names on stone stele housed in the Van Mieu (Temple of Literature). The dynasty’s civil service sector was consistently reviewed and reformed, as was the legal system. Many of the changes were modeled after those of the Chinese. In literature and poetry, besides the many works of Nguyen Trai, the most important scholar, strategist, writer, and poet in Vietnamese history, authors such as Ly Tu Tan, Phan Phu Tien, Nguyen Binh Khiem, Doan Thi Diem, On Nhu Hau, Nguyen Gia Thieu, Ngo Si Lien, and Le Qui Don marked this long era with a great number of works both in classical Chinese characters and in Nom, the vulgar or demotic language of Vietnam. Le Thanh Tong (1460–1497), the most important king of this dynasty next to its founder, Le Thai To, was also a writer and poet. His Hoi Tao Dan gathered 28 scholar-dignitaries into a kind of literary academy. It was also under Le Thanh Tong that a law code, known as the Luat Hong Duc (Hong Duc Code), one of the most important such codes in Vietnamese history, was promulgated. The Le dynasty was replaced by the Tay Son dynasty in 1786 following the Tay Son Rebellion. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Le Loi; Le Thanh Tong; Nguyen Dynasty; Trinh Lords; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Le Kim Ngan. To Chuc Chinh Quyen Trung Uong Duoi Trieu Le Thanh Tong, 1460–1497 [Organization of the Central Government under Le Thanh Tong, 1460–1497]. Saigon: Bo Quoc Gia Giao Duc, 1963. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971. Uy Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi Viet Nam. Lich Su Viet Nam, Tap I [History of Vietnam, Vol. 1]. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1971.

Lefèbvre, Dominique Birth Date: ca. 1810 Death Date: ca. 1865 Nineteenth-century Catholic priest and missionary to Vietnam who set in motion a chain of events that brought French military intervention in Vietnam. French missionaries who went to Asia in the 1820s aggressively pursued their proselytizing efforts in the conviction that doing so was strongly supported in France.

642

LE HONG PHONG II, Operation

Indeed, persecution of French missionaries in Vietnam during the reign of Emperor Minh Mang (r. 1820–1841) aroused considerable popular anger in a France that was experiencing a Catholic resurgence following the Napoleonic Wars. In 1843 French premier François Guizot sent a sizable squadron to the Far East to further French interests there, although he instructed its commander, Admiral Jean-Baptiste Cécille, not to undertake any action along the Vietnamese coast. Meanwhile, young French Catholic missionary Dominique Lefèbvre, who had arrived in Vietnam in 1835, had learned the language and had begun converting Vietnamese to Catholicism. He and other French missionaries had also been intriguing on behalf of the Le pretender to the throne. In 1845 Lefèbvre was arrested and sentenced to death. From his prison at Hue he managed to smuggle out a message to the captain of a foreign warship that had anchored at Tourane (present-day Da Nang). That warship was the U.S. frigate Constitution, commanded by Captain John Percival. Percival informed Cécille of Lefèbvre’s plight, and the admiral immediately dispatched a French warship, the Alcmène, commanded by Captain Fornier-Duplan, to Tourane. Emperor Thieu Tri (r. 1841–1847) not only released Lefèbvre but also presented gifts to Captain Fornier-Duplan. Thieu Tri’s intention was not to persecute foreign missionaries but rather to see them and French warships gone from Vietnam. The matter did not end there, for once again Lefèbvre provided the excuse for French armed intervention in Vietnam. Not easily put off, in May 1846 he and another priest, Duclos, tried to reenter Vietnam by bribing border guards. Promptly apprehended by the authorities, Lefèbvre was again sentenced to death. He may or may not have died in prison the following month. Historian John Cady contends that he did, but this view seems to be in the minority; most books on the period have Lefèbvre expelled from Vietnam for a second time some weeks before the arrival of captains Lapierre and Charles Rigault de Genouilly and then later returning there to continue missionary activities. In any case, Cécille now sent two warships, the Gloire and the Victorieuse, to Tourane, there to demand not only the priests’ release but freedom of worship for Catholics in Vietnam. The two French Navy commanders, captains Lapierre and Rigault de Genouilly, arrived at Tourane in the early spring of 1847. As a precaution, the French captains demanded that Vietnamese vessels at Tourane be stripped of their sails. After several weeks of waiting for a reply to their demands, the French became impatient. On April 15, 1847, four Vietnamese vessels approached the French warships, shots were fired, and within 70 minutes three of the Vietnamese ships were sunk. The French warships then sailed away without ever finding out what had become of Lefèbvre. Later the two French ships ran aground off the Korean coast. Lapierre and Rigault de Genouilly escaped punishment for this, and when he returned to France from the Far East in 1847, Admiral Cécille called for France to talk to Vietnam in the future “only with guns.” SPENCER C. TUCKER

See also Guizot, François; Rigault de Genouilly, Charles; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Cady, John F. The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1954. Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

LE HONG PHONG II,

Operation

Start Date: September 1950 End Date: October 1950 Important Viet Minh campaign along Route Coloniale 4 that in effect ended the Indochina War for the French, although the conflict dragged on for four more years. In 1949 the French lost the initiative in the Indochina War; when the Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) came to power in China that October, the entire frontier between northern Vietnam and China became available for secure Communist training camps, firing ranges, and logistics support. At the same time, French political leaders in Paris had come to believe that pacification was the key to victory. Not only would the French government not order reinforcements to Indochina, but the government also directed French commander General Marcel Carpentier to relocate troops from Tonkin to pacification duties elsewhere. In early 1950 Viet Minh forces penetrated deep into the Frenchcontrolled Red River Delta defensive belt, and in Operation LE HONG PHONG I they took the key frontier post of Lao Cai. By the end of the offensive the Viet Minh controlled virtually the entire northeastern corner of Tonkin except for a string of border outposts along the border with China on Route Coloniale 4 from Cao Bang via Dong Khe, That Khe, and Lang Son to the Gulf of Tonkin. His army now well trained and equipped by the Chinese, Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap was ready for a major offensive against French forts along the China border. Three hundred miles of jungle held by the Viet Minh separated the 10,000 French troops manning these outposts from the main French lines. In late May 1950 the Viet Minh, supplied by the PRC with U.S. howitzers captured from the Nationalists and supported by a small group of Chinese military advisers, took the key outpost of Dong Khe. Although the French retook it a few days later by airborne assault, the supply run to Cao Bang from Lang Son became a costly matter for the French. In fact, their convoys got no farther than That Khe, and after January 1950 Cao Bang and Dong Khe had to be resupplied by air. On September 16, 1950, Giap launched LE HONG PHONG II (also known as the Border Campaign), ordering 15 of his battalions,

Le Kha Phieu supported by an artillery regiment, to take Dong Khe, which was held by 2 Foreign Legion companies. The Viet Minh also pressed attacks at other French-held positions, including those in Laos. Despite French air strikes by Bell P-63A Kingcobra fighters and Junkers Ju-52 transports converted into bombers, Dong Khe fell two days later, cutting communications with Cao Bang and French garrisons to the northwest. On September 24 with much time already lost, General Carpentier ordered the evacuation of Cao Bang. The garrison there, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Charton, consisted of a reinforced battalion of Foreign Legionnaires and a battalion of Tho (Tay) partisans. There were also the latter’s families and several hundred Vietnamese and Chinese merchants. The roads from Cao Bang, Route Coloniale 3 and Route Coloniale 4, were through Viet Minh–controlled territory, and the terrain was difficult, so Carpentier ordered the commanding officer at Cao Bang to destroy his heavy equipment and motor transport and bring out his 2,600 men and 500 civilians via foot trails. At the same time, a relief force of some 3,500 men commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Le Page was to move from That Khe northwest to Dong Khe and retake that post long enough for the Cao Bang garrison to join it there on the morning of October 2. Another possibility existed: evacuation by air. The runway at Cao Bang was 2,950 feet long and thus accessible to Ju-52 and Douglas C-47 Dakota aircraft. Colonel Alain D. de Maricourt, French air commander in Tonkin, believed that the entire garrison could have been withdrawn in two days. Carpentier was unwilling to abandon the civilians, however. If they were included in the air operation, it would be more lengthy and considerably more dangerous. But Carpentier’s decision to order the garrison to retreat on Route Coloniale 4 rather than Route Coloniale 3 led to a disaster. Although Route Coloniale 3 was a longer route to the French main defensive line, it was safer, as there were fewer Viet Minh along the way. Route Coloniale 4, while only 45 miles to Dong Khe and 15 miles farther to That Khe, ran close to the Chinese border and was marked by very difficult terrain. In any case, no one in the high command seems to have anticipated a Viet Minh reaction, and no intervention force (to be used if needed) had been organized. As it turned out, the Viet Minh were far more numerous than the French forces. Carpentier’s plan nonetheless probably would have worked except for the fact that Lieutenant Colonel Charton failed to follow orders. With a profound disdain for his adversary and convinced that he could bring out his vehicles, he used the road, which was well covered by the Viet Minh. Progress was very slow, and by the time he decided to follow the original plan, it was too late. Remnants of the two French forces met in the hills around Dong Khe, only to be wiped out on October 7, 1950. Only 12 officers and 475 men managed to make it to That Khe. The French high command now panicked. On October 17 it ordered the evacuation of Lang Son, which had not been under attack and whose good airfield and excellent fields of fire would have

643

allowed a protracted defense. Most of its 1,300 tons of supplies fell into Viet Minh hands. By the end of October 1950 most of northeastern Vietnam was thus a Viet Minh stronghold, with the French largely forced back into their Red River Delta bastion. With the exception of a brief paratroop raid on Lang Son in July 1953, the French did not penetrate this area again. The debacle from Cao Bang cost the French at least 5,000 killed or missing, and at Lang Son alone the French lost 10,000 weapons, enough to supply an entire Viet Minh division. Bernard Fall believed that this was France’s “greatest colonial defeat since Montcalm had died at Quebec,” while General Yves Gras wrote that Cao Bang was comparable in its influence to the 1808 French defeat at Bailen for Napoleon. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; France, Air Force, 1946–1954; France, Army, 1946–1954; Indochina War; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Charton, Pierre. RC4, La tragédie de Cao Bang. Paris: Editions Albatros, 1975. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Le Kha Phieu Birth Date: December 27, 1931 Prominent People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general, Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) official, and secretary-general of the VCP from 1997 to 2001. Born on December 27, 1931, at Dong Khe village, Dong Son District, Thanh Hoa Province, Le Kha Phieu rose through the ranks as a political officer in the PAVN 304th Division. During the 1968 Tet Offensive he participated in the fighting in Hue City while serving as a regimental political commissar. His first important post was that of deputy commander of the Vietnam Volunteer Army in Cambodia. He proved his political mettle during Vietnam’s long involvement in Cambodia in the 1980s. After Vietnamese troops left Cambodia in 1989, Phieu was promoted to lieutenant general. In 1989 he also became deputy chief of the Political Department of the PAVN, and in September 1991 he was promoted to chief of that department, making him one of the top figures in the military hierarchy. Phieu and new defense minister General Doan Khue faced a formidable challenge in dealing with financial cutbacks and

644

Le Loi References Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Who’s Who in the World, 1999–2000. Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 2003.

Le Loi Birth Date: 1385 Death Date: 1433

Vietnamese Communist Party secretary general General Le Kha Phieu during an official ceremony in Hanoi to mark the 55th anniversary of the Communist regime. (AFP/Getty Images)

lowered military morale following the Cambodian withdrawal. Phieu appeared to be successful; he was promoted to colonel general in July 1992. Phieu also rose up rapidly in the VCP hierarchy. He became a new full member of the VCP Central Committee at the July 1991 VCP Seventh Congress. At a party plenum in mid-1992 he was added to the VCP Central Committee Secretariat as an additional representative from the Central Military Party Committee. In January 1994 he was promoted to the Politburo. Phieu was also elected a deputy to the National Assembly from Thanh Hoa Province in July 1992. In January 1994 he was appointed vice minister of defense in charge of politics. Although the PAVN is widely seen as being overwhelmingly loyal to the ruling VCP, Phieu is a younger-generation general who seemed to adapt more easily to the changing situation in Vietnam than the aging core of veteran guerrilla fighters. In December 1997 he replaced Do Muoi as secretary-general of the VCP. Phieu’s public pronouncements revealed a concern that free markets and outside influences might undermine party rule, but he also vowed to fight party corruption. Despite his concerns, Vietnam continued to embrace limited free-market mechanisms during his tenure in office. Phieu stepped down as secretary-general in April 2001. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

Founder of the later Le dynasty (1428–1788) and exemplar of Vietnamese resistance to foreign domination. Le Loi (Le Thai To) was born in 1385. Although he was the son of a wealthy landowner in the Lam Son village of Thanh Hoa Province, he possessed a deep sympathy for the common man that he took with him into government service as an imperial bureaucrat. Angered at the willingness of his fellow officials to accept and participate in the imposition of Chinese rule in 1407, he raised the standard of revolt that attracted the support of Nguyen Trai, Vietnam’s preeminent scholar-poet and military strategist. The harshness of the Chinese occupation and his own populist sympathies led Le Loi to mount a prolonged guerrilla campaign, during which he claimed the title of binh dinh vuong (“the pacifying king”) while pursuing Nguyen Trai’s dictum that “it is better to win hearts than conquer citadels.” Le Loi’s protracted war strategy laid the foundation for more conventional operations that ultimately forced a withdrawal of the exhausted Minh forces in 1428 via ships provided by the magnanimous Vietnamese leader. Le Loi won the peace as well as the war. His decision to attempt to discourage further Chinese intervention by offering Peking (present-day Beijing) the traditional vassal-state tribute while proclaiming the complete independence of Vietnam on the home front was both pragmatic and effective. After considering the costs of resuming the offensive in Vietnam, China’s Minh rulers chose Le Loi’s face-saving alternative. This arrangement led to more than 300 years of Sino-Vietnamese amity. After ascending to the throne in his own right as Le Thai To, the new emperor addressed the ever-vexing problem of landlessness by resuming the early Le dynasty’s equal-field system. He also introduced a nationwide sliding-scale land redistribution program, albeit one that acknowledged the claims of age, rank, and wealth. The emperor also instituted an extensive public works program to include the construction of roads, canals, and bridges. Le Loi’s patriotism, his hearts-and-minds approach to war and politics, and his pragmatic military and diplomatic strategies served as models for modern Vietnamese revolutionary nationalists. Nguyen Trai, in his famous “Proclamation of Victory over the Invader” (1428), wrote that Vietnam was fortunate in that it had never lacked heroes. Le Loi certainly is one of Vietnam’s greatest

LeMay, Curtis Emerson heroes, and almost every Vietnamese city has a street named for him. Le Loi died in 1433 and was followed as emperor by his second son, who ruled as Le Thai Tong. MARC J. GILBERT See also Le Dynasty; Nguyen Dynasty; Trinh Lords; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987. Whitmore, John W. “The Development of the Le Government in Fifteenth Century Vietnam.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1968.

645

LeMay, Curtis Emerson Birth Date: November 15, 1906 Death Date: October 1, 1990 U.S. Air Force general and candidate for the office of vice president of the United States. Born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 15, 1906, Curtis Emerson LeMay was commissioned in the U.S. Army through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at Ohio State University in 1928. Both a navigator and a pilot, he was a navigator on the first mass flight of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses to South America in 1938. During World War II while commanding the 3rd Bombardment Division, LeMay led the raid on Regensburg, Germany. In the Pacific theater in 1944, he directed Boeing B-29 Superfortress raids on Japan as commander of the Twentieth Air Force. By the end of the war he had the reputation for being a daring and innovative commander and tactician.

U.S. Air Force general Curtis E. LeMay was one of the 20th century’s greatest proponents of air power. He transformed the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into the world’s most lethal attack force. A political conservative, in 1968 he was a candidate for vice president on Alabama governor George C. Wallace’s American Independent Party ticket. (AP/Wide World Photos)

646

Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis

Indeed, it was LeMay who developed the highly effective low-level nighttime fire-bombing techniques that reduced Japanese cities to charred rubble while keeping B-29 losses to a minimum. He was promoted to brigadier general in September 1943 and to major general in March 1944, making him the youngest U.S. major general since Ulysses S. Grant. After the war, General LeMay commanded the newly established U.S. Air Force in Europe in 1947 and headed the Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1948 until 1957, when he was named U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff. He was promoted to full general in 1951. As SAC commander, LeMay greatly expanded SAC’s manpower and inventory of aircraft, adding Boeing B-47 Stratojet bombers, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers, and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker jet tankers. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed LeMay chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, a position he held until retiring on January 31, 1965. LeMay was at odds with both the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations over a variety of issues, including the switch from massive retaliation to flexible response as the focus of U.S. defense policy, whether or not to develop the XB-70 experimental bomber, and the conduct of the Vietnam War. During the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, LeMay advocated a tough response including the bombing of Soviet missile sites in Cuba, which might well have sparked war between the superpowers. Concerning the Vietnam War, LeMay said that “Instead of swatting flies we should be going after the manure pile.” The general’s background and experience had led him to believe that the concept of limited war was an oxymoron. He also believed that the policy of gradual escalation in Vietnam was antithetical to U.S. interests. In his book America Is in Danger (1968), he maintained that in Vietnam victory was the only recourse for the United States. He believe that to attain victory “We must return to the strategic bombing doctrine that was tried and proved in World War II.” After retiring from the U.S. Air Force, LeMay joined a California electronics firm as a senior executive. In 1968 LeMay was a candidate for vice president on Alabama governor George C. Wallace’s American Independent Party ticket. When LeMay stated that in Vietnam “I would use any weapon in the arsenal that is necessary,” the press and the opposing candidates depicted Wallace and LeMay as reckless and unstable warmongers. Wallace responded by sending LeMay on a fact-finding trip to Vietnam, a trip devised to keep the general out of the country until after the election. A member of Wallace’s entourage reportedly quipped that “I understand LeMay will be flying over and sailing back on a slow boat.” As a result of his association with the segregationist Wallace, LeMay lost his post with the electronics firm where he had been employed since leaving the air force. In occasional lectures at U.S. Air Force schools, he continued to argue that strategic bombing could have won the war in Vietnam “in any two-week period you

care to mention.” LeMay died of a heart attack at March Air Force Base, California, on October 1, 1990. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Elections, U.S., 1968; Flexible Response; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; RAND Corporation; United States Air Force; Wallace, George Corley, Jr. References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Coffee, Thomas M. Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis E. LeMay. New York: Crown, 1986. LeMay, Curtis E. America Is in Danger. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968. LeMay, Curtis E., with MacKinlay Kantor. Mission with LeMay: My Story. New York: Doubleday, 1965.

Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis Birth Date: August 29, 1899 Death Date: November 12, 1988 U.S. Army general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1960–1962. Born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, on August 29, 1899, Lyman Louis Lemnitzer graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1921 with a commission in the coast artillery. He served in the Philippines before returning to West Point as an instructor (1926–1930). He then returned to the Philippines, was again an instructor at West Point, and in 1936 graduated from the Command and General Staff College. Lemnitzer then was an instructor at the Coast Artillery School, and in 1940 he graduated from the Army War College. In early 1941 he joined the War Plans Division of the War Department. Promoted to brigadier general in June 1942, Lemnitzer commanded an antiaircraft brigade before joining General Dwight Eisenhower’s staff in Britain. Lemnitzer participated in planning the November 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa and in that connection accompanied Lieutenant General Mark Clark to a secret meeting in Algeria to confer with Vichy officials before the actual landings. Lemnitzer then commanded the same antiaircraft brigade during the Allied invasion of Sicily. He next was deputy chief of staff of the 15th Army Group and was promoted to major general in November 1944. He participated in secret talks in Switzerland that led to the surrender of German forces in Italy and southern Austria in May 1945. Following the end of World War II, Lemnitzer held a variety of staff assignments before undergoing parachute training and taking command of the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 1950. In November 1951 he took command of the 7th Infantry Division in Korea. Promoted to lieutenant general in August 1952, he became deputy chief of staff for plans and research.

Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie

647

the ability of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to defeat a conventional-style attack from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Lemnitzer believed that the American public would not support guerrilla war, and in early 1961 when Kennedy was considering intervention in Laos, Lemnitzer and the other members of the JCS warned the president not to do so with anything less than a substantial military force. Lemnitzer’s views clearly clashed with Kennedy’s own support for counterinsurgency as opposed to conventional war. In November 1962 Kennedy appointed Lemnitzer commander of U.S. Forces in Europe. He became supreme allied commander, Europe, in January 1963, and retired from the army in July 1969. In 1975 President Gerald R. Ford appointed Lemnitzer to a panel investigating domestic activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lemnitzer died at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., on November 12, 1988. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Laos; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport

U.S. Army general Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrives at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 18, 1961. (AP/Wide World Photos)

In March 1955 he was promoted to general and given command of Eighth Army and U.S. forces in the Far East. In July 1957 Lemnitzer became U.S. Army vice chief of staff, and in July 1959 he succeeded General Maxwell Taylor as chief of staff. In that capacity Lemnitzer supported the development of a mobile, hard-hitting, and flexible U.S. Army with more manpower and airlift resources. In September 1960 Lemnitzer became chairman of the JCS and pushed for strengthening U.S. forces in Europe in response to the erection of the Berlin Wall. Regarding Vietnam, in May 1961 Lemnitzer and the JCS pressed President John F. Kennedy to increase U.S. military strength in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in the belief that if the Communists were successful there, this would encourage similar insurgencies elsewhere. As Lemnitzer put it, the “loss” of South Vietnam would be a serious setback for the United States and would result in the Free World losing Asia all the way to Singapore. Lemnitzer continued to believe that the major military threat to South Vietnam was not guerrillas but rather an invasion by conventional forces across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). After a trip to Vietnam in the spring of 1961, he expressed the opinion that too much emphasis on counterinsurgency measures would impair

References Hilsman, Roger. To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Kellner, Kathleen. “Broker of Power: General Lyman L. Lemnitzer.” PhD dissertation, Kent State University, 1987. Korb, Lawrence J. The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty-Five Years. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. Walton, Richard J. Cold War and Counter-Revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy. New York: Viking, 1972.

Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie Birth Date: February 17, 1833 Death Date: 1918 Nineteenth-century French colonial administrator. Born in Vendöme on February 17, 1833, the son of an officer of the Napoleonic Empire, Charles Marie Le Myre de Vilers was the first civilian governor of Cochin China, succeeding a line of admirals. Although he attended the École Navale between 1850 and 1851 and reached the rank of ensign after service in the Baltic and Black seas, he left the navy in May 1861 and entered the civil service. Appointed governor of Cochin China in 1879, Le Myre de Vilers was generally in favor of a policy of peaceful integration. It is therefore ironic that it was he who ordered Captain Henri Rivière to attack Tonkin in 1883, setting off the chain of events connected to French-Chinese rivalry for hegemony over Vietnam that culminated in the signing of the 1885 Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) between France and China. Le Myre de Vilers went on to complete an illustrious administrative career, with service in Madagascar and Siam. Following his

648

Le Nguyen Khang

retirement he was elected a deputy to the National Assembly from Cochin China in 1889 and was reelected in 1893 and 1898. Le Myre de Vilers was also president of the Geographical Society from 1906 to 1908. He died in 1918. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Black Flags; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Tianjin, Treaty of References Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Dupuis, Jean. Les Origines de la Question du Tonkin. Paris: Challamel, 1886. McAleavy, Henry. Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese Intervention. New York: Macmillan, 1968.

See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Pham Phong Dinh. Thien Hung Ca Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Valiant Saga of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Tu Sach Vinh Danh, 2004.

Le Nguyen Vy Le Nguyen Khang Birth Date: June 11, 1931 Death Date: November 12, 1996 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general. Born in Son Tay Province in northern Vietnam on June 11, 1931, Le Nguyen Khang attended the Nam Dinh Reserve Officers School, graduated from the U.S. Army Infantry School (Fort Benning, Georgia) in 1956, and studied at the U.S. Marine Corps School at Quantico, Virginia, in 1958. Khang was instrumental in developing the Republic of Vietnam Marine Brigade (RVNMB, South Vietnamese Marine Brigade), later expanded into a division (RVNMD). A favorite of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Khang commanded the RVNMB during 1960– 1963. He did not participate in the November 1963 coup that resulted in Diem’s ouster and assassination. In December 1963 the new government headed by General Duong Van Minh appointed Khang the military attaché the the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to the Republic of the Philippines. Following General Nguyen Khanh’s assumption of power in February 1964, Khang returned to resume command of the RVNMB. He also had the confidence of President Nguyen Van Thieu. In 1968 in addition to his marine duties, Khang became commander of the Capital Military District, military governor of Saigon, commander of III Corps, governor-delegate for the III Corps Tactical Zone, and a member of the National Leadership Council. Khang was relieved of his duties as III Corps commander in 1968 and reverted to commanding the RVNMD. He retained this command until May 1972, when he was appointed assistant to the commander of the Joint General Staff. Khang remained in this position until 1975. Following the fall of Saigon in April 1975, Khang settled in the United States. Khang’s younger brother, ARVN brigadier general Le Nguyen Vy, committed suicide on April 30, 1975, rather than surrender to Communist forces. Khang died in Hope, California, on November 12, 1996. ROBERT G. MANGRUM

Birth Date: 1933 Death Date: April 30, 1975 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) brigadier general. Born in 1933 in Son Tay Province in northern Vietnam, Le Nguyen Vy graduated in 1951 from the officers’ candidate course in the Regional Military School, Military Region II, at Dap Da near Hue. After graduation he served with a battalion in the Mekong Delta. He then attended an airborne course at the Parachutists Training Center at Pau, France. Later he was in the 6th Airborne Battalion. After 1960 he was assigned to the 5th Infantry Division. In 1969 Vy attended the Command and General Staff Officer course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He then returned to the 5th Division and was its deputy commander during the bloody Battle of An Loc in the summer of 1972. After a year as deputy commander of the 21st Infantry Division, Vy returned to the 5th Division in 1973 as its commander. In the spring of 1975 General Vy was with the 5th Division at Lai Khe. Upon receiving an order to surrender, he shot himself to death on the morning of April 30, 1975, at the division headquarters at Lai Khe. Vy’s older brother was ARVN lieutenant general Le Nguyen Khang. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also An Loc, Battle of; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Ha Mai Viet. Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Pham Phong Dinh. Chien Su QLVNCH [ARVN War History]. 4th ed. Winnipeg: Pham Khac Thoai, 2008. Pham Phong Dinh. Chien Su Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Combat History of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Self-published, 2001. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998.

Leroy, Catherine Tran Van Nhut. An Loc: The Unfinished War. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2009.

Le Quang Tung Birth Date: 1923 Death Date: November 1, 1963 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) colonel. Born in 1923 in Quang Binh Province and trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States, Le Quang Tung was a Catholic who commanded the Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces) under Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Tung was in overall command of a program secretly run jointly with the CIA in which ARVN volunteers were parachuted into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to establish espionage networks and to carry out sabotage operations there. The program was a total failure. Tung’s forces were also later criticized, even in the United States,

649

as having been Ngo Dinh Nhu’s tool for repressing Buddhist dissidents. Tung was one of the most dangerous opponents of the coup plotters against Diem. Tung’s Special Forces could be counted on to defend the Ngo brothers, and this led the conspirators to decide early in the planning that Tung would have to be eliminated. In September 1963 coup planners convinced Washington to cut off U.S. funding of Tung’s forces unless they were deployed outside Saigon. Unfortunately for the Ngo brothers, Nhu relied heavily on Tung’s forces in the planning of Operations BRAVO I and II, the Ngo pseudocoup. BRAVO I called for a fake revolt in Saigon led by soldiers and police disguised as insurgents. BRAVO II would then have Tung’s Special Forces enter the city to quell the “disturbance.” The plan was flawed in that it relied heavily on General Ton That Dinh, one of the coup leaders. On October 29, 1963, however, Dinh ordered Tung’s troops out of Saigon. On the afternoon of November 1, 1963, a group of generals and senior officers, including Tung, met at the officers’ club inside staff headquarters near Tan Son Nhut Airport. At 1:30 p.m. General Tran Van Don announced that a military revolutionary council was taking power. All but Colonel Tung stood up to applaud. Captain Nguyen Van Nhung then took Tung to another room in the building. As he was being led away, Tung shouted, “Remember who gave you your stars!” Later that same day Nhung supervised the execution of Tung and his brother, Major Le Quang Trieu, at a spot outside the headquarters. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also BRAVO I and II, Operations; Buddhism in Vietnam; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ton That Dinh; Tran Van Don; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Le Quang Vinh See Ba Cut

Leroy, Catherine Birth Date: 1945 Death Date: July 7, 2006 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) colonel Le Quang Tung commanded the ARVN Special Forces under President Ngo Dinh Diem, which were widely criticized for their suppression of Vietnamese Buddhist dissidents. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Pioneering female photojournalist and combat photographer. Born in Paris, France, in 1945, Catherine Leroy was raised in a convent in the city. She arrived in Vietnam in February 1966 on a

650

Le Thanh Nghi

one-way ticket with only her camera and $100 to pursue a career in photojournalism but without having yet published a single photograph. She was hired by the Associate Press after falsely presenting herself to its Saigon office as having had experience in combat photography. The diminutive Leroy—she stood less than five feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds—was soon accompanying U.S. units, such as the 173rd Airborne Brigade, in the field. She was the only known accredited journalist, male or female, to have made a combat jump. Armed only with her Leica camera and admired by the soldiers for her pluck and courage, she took part in such major operations as Operation ATTLEBORO and documented some of the war’s fiercest fighting. Leroy remarked in the late 1980s that she found it “exhilarating to be shot at without result.” She was, however, wounded by a mortar round when on a patrol with the marines. Leroy’s photographs were soon appearing in such leading magazines as Life and Look. Perhaps her most famous photograph is “Corpsman in Anguish, 1967.” The image shows a kneeling marine corpsman, Vernon Wike, as he realizes that a comrade he had been attempting to save has just died of his wounds. The photograph was taken during the spring 1967 battle for Hill 881 near Khe Sanh. Leroy’s book Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam (2006) presented her own work along with that of other well-known photographers coupled with short essays by equally distinguished writers. Most often, these pairings dealt with the perspective of soldiers on the ground. Leroy left Vietnam in March 1969, acclaimed as the best-known woman photographer of the Vietnam War. She subsequently covered the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. In 1972 she directed a documentary film, Operation Lost Patrol, about Ron Kovic and other anti–Vietnam War veterans. She returned to Vietnam in 1975 to document the fall of Saigon to the Communists. Leroy then covered civil strife in Lebanon for several years. Her book God Cried is about the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982. By the late 1980s the strain of two decades of combat photography had taken a toll, and Leroy tried to move into other projects but with little success in finding support for them. She won numerous awards for her work, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal for conflict photography from the Overseas Press Club in New York in 1976, the first woman to be so honored. Leroy died of cancer in Los Angeles, California, on July 7, 2006. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Kovic, Ronald; Media and the

Vietnam War References Clifton, Tony, and Catherine Leroy. God Cried. London: Quartet Books, 1983. Leroy, Catherine. Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 2006.

Le Thai To See Le Loi

Le Thanh Nghi Birth Date: March 6, 1911 Death Date: August 16, 1989 Prominent leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on March 6, 1911, in Thuong Coc village, Tu Loc District, Hai Hung Province, into a poor scholar family, Le Thanh Nghi (real name Nguyen Khac Xung) worked as an electrician. From 1925 to 1930 he worked at the power stations of Cua Cam (Hai Phong) and Coc Nam (Hon Gai) and at the Vang Danh mineral depot. From 1928 Nghi was active in the workers’ movement against the French authorities and mine owners. He later joined the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association) and then the Indochinese Communist Party. In May 1930 he was arrested by the French and sent to Con Dao Prison. After being released in mid-1936 he returned to Hanoi, where he actively participated in the labor and union movements, setting up Communist Party cells and becoming a member of the Hanoi City Party Committee. In 1937 Nghi was sent back to his hometown in Hai Duong, where he continued his party activities and was a member of the Northern Region Party Committee. In 1940 he was again arrested and was exiled to Son La. After his release in early 1945 he returned to Hanoi and was assigned to the Northern Region Party Standing Committee. After the Japanese coup d’état of March 9, 1945, Nghi was assigned to lead the revolutionary movement in the Hoang Hoa Tham War Zone. A member of the Northern Region Military Committee, Nghi was a prominent commander of the II Military Zone. Following the August 1945 revolution, Nghi was a member of the Northern Region Party Committee in charge of coastal provinces. During the Indochina War he was one of the key leaders of the III Military Zone. He held a number of important party and governmental posts, including member of the Standing Committee of the Northern Region Party Committee, secretary of the Zone III Party Committee, chairman of the Zone III Resistance Committee, deputy secretary of the Interzone III Party Committee, and chief of staff of the Executive Committee of the VCP Central Committee. In 1951 the Indochinese Communist Party split into national branches, and the Vietnamese party was renamed the Lao Dong (Workers’) Party. At the party’s 1951 Second Congress, Nghi was elected a member of its Executive Committee. He was also a member of the Central Committee, secretary of the Interzone III

Letourneau, Jean Resistance Movement, chairman of the Interzone III Resistance Movement Party Committee, political commissar of Military Interzone III, and secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee. After the 1954 Geneva Accords, Nghi kept his post as chief of staff of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee, and in October 1956 he was elected to the Politburo. At the party’s 1960 Third Congress and 1976 Fourth Congress, Nghi was reelected to the party Central Committee and Politburo. His positions included head of the Industry Central Committee (1967) and secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat (1980). Within the government, Nghi was minister of industry (1955), vice premier and chairman of the Industry Commission (1969), chairman of the State Planning Commission (1967), and vice chairman and secretary-general of the State Council (1982). He also served as a deputy in the Second National Assembly through the Sixth National Assembly. Nghi coordinated all foreign assistance to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and later, until his death, to the SRV. Shortly after having been named the SRV’s economic czar, Nghi died on August 16, 1989, in Hanoi. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996.

Le Thanh Tong Birth Date: 1442 Death Date: 1497 Vietnamese emperor. Born in Thang Long in 1442, Le Thanh Tong came to the Vietnamese throne in 1460 and ruled for 37 years in what was a Golden Age for Vietnam. His key reform was to restructure the administration along Confucian lines. This system continued until the French conquest 400 years later. The administrative system consisted of a complex hierarchy beginning with six ministries ruling 13 provinces. The provincial headquarters had charge of district offices that oversaw 8,000 communes. The whole system was designed to ensure the authority of the central government yet allow the local administrations some flexibility. Emperor Le Thanh Tong also assembled a standing army of almost 200,000 men. Its officers had to pass competitive examinations designed by the emperor himself. Le Thanh Tong was also devoted to the advancement of learning. He encouraged literature through poetry contests, and he supported the development of scientific and mathematical treatises as well as a journal of his own reign. He also promoted the expansion of the national university

651

to include lecture halls and a new library. His reign also saw the compilation of the first complete map of Vietnam. Le Thanh Tong’s most important contribution was a comprehensive legal code, the Hong Duc code. Unusually liberal for its day, the code allowed women to own property brought into the wedding. If divorced without children, such women might reclaim their property. If the couple had children, common property passed to the possession of the children after the divorce. Severe punishments, such as banishment and strangulation, were retained for crimes threatening stability and order. These legalities reflected the sometimes precarious conditions under which Vietnamese emperors ruled but were no more cruel than many contemporary punishments in Europe. Le Thanh Tong died in 1497. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Le Dynasty; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Letourneau, Jean Birth Date: September 18, 1907 Death Date: March 16, 1986 Influential French politician. Born on September 18, 1907, in Lude (Sarthe), France, Jean Letourneau trained in law at the University of Paris. Between 1946 and 1953 he held 13 ministry- and/ or cabinet-level posts and as such had a significant impact on the Indochina War (1946–1954). He entered politics in 1933, joining the small and declining Parti Démocrate Populaire (PDP, Democratic People’s Party), which attempted to fuse politics and Christian (mainly Catholic) social democracy. During World War II Letourneau helped run resistance newspapers in occupied France. In 1944 he joined the newly formed Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP, Popular Republican Movement), which essentially replaced the PDP. In 1944 he was director of the press at the Ministry of Information. Elected in 1946 as an MRP deputy from Sarthe, he served in that position until 1956. Named in November 1950 as minister for the associated states in the cabinet of Prime Minister René Pleven, Letourneau took charge of French policy in the Indochina War. He steadfastly defended the conflict as a fight against global communism, and he advanced the belief that the French Union, France’s colonial empire, was indispensable to the country’s international standing and long-term prosperity. Accordingly, he sided with the Georges Bidault wing of the MRP, which stressed the importance of the

652

Le Trong Tan

French Union, instead of the Europe-centered wing of the party represented by Robert Schuman. Following the death on January 11, 1952, of French military commander and high commissioner of Indochina General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Letourneau, then still the minister for the associated states, added the post of high commissioner to his portfolio on April 1, 1952. On April 27, 1953, he also became commissionergeneral. These positions gave Letourneau such latitude in shaping France’s Indochina policy that in May 1953 a French parliamentary mission of inquiry accused him of dictatorship. Responding to American demands that France develop a wellplanned strategy to secure Indochina before the United States would provide additional aid, Letourneau hastily proposed a plan in March 1953. First, he vowed to pacify southern Vietnam and expand the Vietnamese Army to hold that area. Second, he hoped to deliver a definitive blow in northern Vietnam by 1955. Unimpressed, U.S. officials rejected Letourneau’s idea in favor of the Navarre Plan, devised by the new French military commander in Indochina General Henri Navarrre. Under Navarre’s plan, the French Army would shift from the defensive to the offensive. To carry out the plan, Navarre established an airhead at Dien Bien Phu, a remote valley in northwestern Vietnam. Launched in late 1953, the Navarre Plan failed miserably, and Dien Bien Phu surrendered to the Viet Minh on May 7, 1954, ultimately prompting France to negotiate an end to the war. Meanwhile, Letourneau was forced from office in the aftermath of the Piastre Affair, a scandal over illegal currency exchanges that was exposed in late April 1953. Replaced as minister of overseas France on June 28, 1953, by Independent Republican Louis Jacquinot, Letourneau’s exclusion from Prime Minister Joseph Laniel’s cabinet (1953–1954) meant that for the first time in almost a decade, France’s Indochina policy was not in the hands of the MRP. This exclusion presaged a shift in national policy to achieving a rapid withdrawal from Indochina. Letourneau ended his political career as the mayor of Chevillé (1953–1963), a commune located in Sarthe, and as a member of the Assembly of the French Union (1956–1958). He died in Paris, France, on March 16, 1986. MICHAEL H. CRESWELL See also Bidault, Georges; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Laniel, Joseph; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Navarre Plan; Viet Minh References Cesari, Laurent. “The Declining Value of Indochina: France and the Economics of Empire.” In The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis, edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik Logevall, 175–195. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. “U.S. Involvement in the Franco-Viet Minh War, 1950–1954.” In The Pentagon Papers, Vol. 1, The Defense Department History of United States Decision-making on Vietnam: The Senator Gravel Edition, 53–75. Boston: Beacon, 1971.

Le Trong Tan Birth Date: October 1914 Death Date: 1986 General in the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Born in October 1914 to a peasant family in Yen Nghia village (a suburb of Hanoi), Hoai Duc District, Ha Dong Province, Le Trong Tan’s real name was Le Trong To. He studied in Hanoi, where he became involved in revolutionary activities. A member of the Viet Minh since 1944, Tan was responsible for military recruiting in Bach Mai Ward, Hanoi City. In March 1945 he took charge of building up revolutionary bases and training selfdefense militia units in Ung Hoa District, Ha Dong Province. In June 1945 he helped command the attack and destruction of military posts at Dong Quan. He was also a member of the Ha Dong Uprising Committee, in charge of military affairs during efforts to take over that province. In December 1945 Tan became a member of the Indochinese Communist Party. During the Indochina War he held various important positions and worked to build up and train the armed forces. He served as commander of the Viet Minh 312th Division from its formation in December 1950 until the end of the war against France in 1954 and commanded the division during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. During the Vietnam War, Tan was one of the PAVN generals commanding units in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). He was sent to South Vietnam in 1964, where he served as deputy commander of the Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam during 1964–1979. He then returned north to serve as deputy commander of the General Staff. In this position Tan commanded all PAVN forces in the counteroffensive against Operation LAM SON 719 in southern Laos in early 1971, commanded PAVN forces in the Quang Tri–Thua Thien area during the 1972 Easter Offensive, commanded the PAVN offensive that captured the cities of Hue and Da Nang in March 1975, and was one of the deputy commanders of the 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign that captured Saigon in April 1975. In December 1978 Tan directed the successful Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia that ousted the Khmer Rouge regime from power. Tan held many important military and government posts, including commander of the PAVN General Staff, director of the Military Academy, member of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Central Military Party Committee, deputy minister of defense, deputy to the Seventh National Congress (1981), and a member of the VCP Central Committee of the Fifth Congress and Sixth Congress. He was promoted to full general in December 1984. Tan died in Hanoi in 1986. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue and Da Nang, Fall of; Indochina War; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

Le Van Kim References Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.

Le Van Giac See Le Duc Anh

See also An Loc, Battle of References Pham Phong Dinh, Chien Su QLVNCH [ARVN War History]. 4th ed. Winnipeg: Pham Khac Thoai, 2008. Tran Van Nhut. An Loc: The Unfinished War. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2009. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998. Willbanks, James H. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Le Van Hung

Le Van Kim

Birth Date: 1933 Death Date: April 30, 1975

Birth Date: 1918

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) brigadier general. Le Van Hung was born in 1933 in Gia Dinh Province near Saigon. Drafted in 1954, he received training in the Thu Duc Reserve Officers School, from which he graduated as a second lieutenant in 1955. In January 1959 First Lieutenant Hung was the 32nd Infantry Regiment S-2 when the Viet Cong (VC) attacked its base camp in Trang Sup, Tay Ninh Province, and captured a large number of weapons. As duty officer at headquarters, Hung took command of the reconnaissance platoon to defend the building and prevent equipment there from being destroyed or captured. In 1961 Hung became chief of police in Vinh Binh Province. In 1964 he commanded a battalion, and in 1967 he commanded the 31st Infantry Regiment. He was then assigned as province chief of Phong Dinh (at Can Thu). In June 1971 Hung took command of the 5th Infantry Division. He was promoted to brigadier general in March 1972. Hung proved to be a talented and brave infantry commander in the bloody Battle of An Loc in April 1972. His men held the city despite fierce People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) attacks over a two-month period. Hung then became assistant commander, III Corps/Military Region III; commander of the 21st Infantry Division; and finally deputy commander, IV Corps/Military Region IV. When Communist forces captured Saigon on April 30, 1975, Hung’s troops still held the city of Can Thu. A delegation of citizens convinced him that his forces should not prolong the fight because that would lead to a bloodbath and destruction of the city, as the Communist high command had vowed to do in Saigon. General Hung and his commander, General Nguyen Khoa Nam, decided not to fight to the end as had been their intention. Hung then bid farewell to his men, his wife, and his children and committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol on the evening of April 30, 1975. NGUYEN CONG LUAN

653

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and leading figure in the November 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. Born in 1918, Le Van Kim was raised in France and, after having worked as an assistant film director in Paris, joined the French Army. He served in Indochina as an aide to Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu and attended the 1954 Geneva Conference as a representative of Vietnamese colonial forces. Brigadier General Kim came to be recognized as one of the most capable soldiers of the ARVN. President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) respected Kim’s talent but did not trust him and in 1959 appointed him to head the ARVN military academy. With unrest growing over Diem’s ineffective rule, in November 1960 the leaders of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party) sought to replace Diem with Kim. This mutiny of military officers collapsed as a result of indecision and internal problems, however. After the failed coup Diem removed Kim from his military academy post, and he held various unimportant jobs until November 1963. In 1963 Kim became involved, with his brother-in-law General Tran Van Don, in another coup attempt against Diem. Together they recruited other discontented military officers. Following their successful November 1, 1963, coup, Kim, Don, and General Duong Van Minh held power. On January 30, 1964, General Nguyen Khanh seized control of Saigon and placed the three generals under arrest. He then accused Don and Kim of conspiring with the French to neutralize the South Vietnamese government and moved them to Dalat. In the courtmartial that followed, Khanh was not able to produce any evidence against the two. This made him look foolish, and he tried to repair the damage by appointing both generals to advisory positions. Kim retired from the ARVN in 1965 and entered business in Saigon. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Duong Van Minh; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Khanh; Tran Van Don; Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

654

Le Van Vien

References Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Le Van Nhuan See Le Duan

Le Van Vien Birth Date: 1904 Death Date: 1970 Leader of the bandit group Binh Xuyen in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Before World War II, Le Van “Bay” Vien escaped from Poulo Condore (Con Son), the French prison island in the Gulf of Siam, and made his way to the Mekong Delta area, where he joined a band of river pirates. The pirates called themselves the Binh Xuyen, after a tiny village that for a time served as their base of operations. In the 1930s and 1940s the Binh Xuyen raided commerce on the Saigon River and elsewhere. Bay Vien rose within the ranks of this group until, by the end of World War II, this illiterate man had become its chief. Under his tutelage, the Binh Xuyen expanded the scope of their operations. In the chaotic days that marked the close of the war, many factions in Vietnam were competing for power, and Vien seized the opportunity. He moved his headquarters to the Cholon District of Saigon, raised a private army, and for a time collaborated with the Viet Minh in their efforts to establish themselves as the legitimate government of all of Vietnam. Appreciative of his help, Viet Minh officials named him deputy commander of their military forces in Cochin China. In one instance Vien ordered the slaying of some 150 French civilians, including women and children. By 1947, however, with Viet Minh prospects in southern Vietnam very dim, Vien opened negotiations with the French and agreed to shift his allegiance when they offered to recognize the Binh Xuyen gang as a sect similar to the reformed Cao Dai and Buddhist Hoa Hao religious groups, each of which by this time also had its own private army. Now holding a commission as a colonel in the Vietnamese National Army, Vien led his own soldiers in attacks against his former Viet Minh allies. Soon Vien was a very rich man in control of all vice activities in Cholon and much of the surrounding area. The huge gambling complex in Cholon, Le Grande Monde, as well as many riverboat

gambling dens belonged to him, as did the Hall of Mirrors, the largest brothel in Asia. He owned or controlled most of the opium trade in southern Indochina and ran his own factory to provide his outlets with the supplies they needed. Such enterprises led Vien into gold smuggling, currency manipulation, and other enterprises. He was now a vice lord with whom to be reckoned, with millions of piasters flowing into his coffers. Since all of his funds were illegal, Vien laundered his money by buying up some of Saigon’s best department stores as well as many private villas and other real estate. In an effort to find funds necessary to sustain his foundering State of Vietnam, Bao Dai promoted Vien to general and sold him control of the national police. In this way Vien secured complete and official control over all racketeering in southern Vietnam. He shared a portion of his profits with Bao Dai. To protect his lucrative tourist business in Vung Tau that included hotels and a crosscountry bus company, Vien deployed his Cong An Xung Phong (Assault Police) to ensure the security of the highway from Saigon to Vung Tau. After becoming prime minister in South Vietnam in 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem recognized Vien as the most immediate threat

An envoy from the pope of the Cao Dai—a religious movement with its own army—presents a flag to Le Van Vien, leader of the Binh Xuyen, at the latter’s quarters near Saigon in 1955. Republic of Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem demanded the religious sects disarm and, when they refused, there was fighting in Saigon. Diem eventually crushed both the sects and the Binh Xuyen. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Levy, Howard Brett to his authority and a major stumbling block to gaining effective control. By then Vien had an army of more than 40,000 men. Diem instigated a showdown on April 27, 1955, when he ordered Vien to remove his troops from Saigon. Vien refused, and Diem’s soldiers attacked. A battle raged inside the city, killing more than 500 people and leaving 25,000 homeless. Both the French and Bao Dai tried to assist Vien, but Diem prevailed. By the end of May the National Army pushed the Binh Xuyen forces out of Saigon and into the swamps of the Mekong Delta. Many later joined the Viet Cong (VC). Le Van Vien escaped to France with much of his fortune, never to return to Vietnam. He died in 1970. CECIL B. CURREY See also Bao Dai; Binh Xuyen; Ngo Dinh Diem; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Fall, Bernard. “The Political-Religious Sects of Viet-Nam.” Pacific Affairs 28 (September 1955): 235–253.

655

Levy, Howard Brett Birth Date: April 10, 1937 Physician and U.S. Army officer tried in one of the first antiwar courts-martial of the Vietnam War era. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 10, 1937, Howard Brett Levy graduated from New York University in 1957; two years later he received his MD from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. Following a one-year internship, Levy accepted a commission in the Army Medical Corps that allowed him to complete specialty training in dermatology at the New York University Medical Center rather than be immediately drafted. During his residency Levy became involved in civil rights issues, and by 1965 he came to oppose the expanding Vietnam War. He was posted to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in 1965, and one of his duties there was to provide dermatological training for Special Forces personnel about to leave for Vietnam. After several months Captain Levy refused to participate further, despite a direct order from his commanding officer, Colonel Henry F. Fancy. Long before this incident, however, Levy had been placed under surveillance because of off-duty activities that included operating a

Dr. Howard Levy, shown here with another anti–Vietnam War activist, the actress Jane Fonda, during a press conference in New York City on February 16, 1971. Levy, a former army captain, had been court-martialed and served two years in prison for refusing to fulfill his duties in training U.S. Army Special Forces personnel. (AP/Wide World Photos)

656

LEXINGTON III, Operation

free clinic and promoting black voter registration. Levy later would claim that he was prosecuted in order to punish him for his civil rights activities. Indeed, a secret intelligence dossier described him as appearing “to think more of the Negroid race than of the White race.” After reading the dossier, Colonel Fancy decided against an administrative reprimand and formally charged Levy with not only willful disobedience but also “intent to create disloyalty and disaffection among enlisted men.” The general court-martial, which convened in May 1967, attracted widespread public attention when Levy invoked the socalled Nuremberg defense, justifying his refusal to instruct Special Forces troops on the grounds that they would use the training for criminal purposes. In a precedent-setting decision, Colonel Earl Brown, the army’s chief law officer, sent from Washington as the judge, ruled that the Nuremberg principles could be a standard and allowed Levy’s civilian attorney, Charles Morgan Jr. (provided by the American Civil Liberties Union), to offer evidence of criminal actions by Special Forces personnel in Vietnam. But Morgan was unable to satisfy Brown that there was proof of a criminal command practice. According to writer Telford Taylor, the defense’s argument was fraught with difficulties because nothing decided at Nuremberg suggested that “a soldier is entitled to disobey an intrinsically legal order . . . because other soldiers, halfway around the world, are given illegal orders.” Levy also argued that training the Green Berets compelled him to violate canons of medical ethics. Being soldiers first and aidmen second, the Green Berets’ provision of medical treatment (other than first aid) to civilians in order to make friends was illegitimate, for it could be taken away as easily as it was given. The court was not persuaded. Although the prosecution tried but failed to prove that a single person was made disloyal or disaffected by Levy’s words or actions, the 10-officer jury found him guilty on all charges and sentenced him to three years at hard labor and dismissal from the service. Viewed by many as a martyr, Levy became a widely admired figure in the GI antiwar movement. He was released in August 1969 after serving 26 months at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and Lewisburg Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, and his experience left him a committed radical who immediately became active in the so-called GI coffeehouse protests in army towns across the United States. Morgan appealed Levy’s case on constitutional grounds for several years and also accused the army of suppressing most of Levy’s classified security dossier. In 1973 a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Levy had been wrongfully convicted on two of the charges, but in 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions. By then Levy had resumed his medical career. Since 1976 he has been a member of the teaching staff at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx and is currently also an associate professor of dermatology at Cornell University Medical School. He remains a social activist. JOHN D. ROOT

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S. References Di Mona, Joseph. Great Court-Martial Cases. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1972. Hayes, James R. “The War Within: Dissent in the Military with an Emphasis on Vietnam.” PhD dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1975. Strassfeld, Robert. “The Vietnam War on Trial: The Court-Martial of Dr. Howard B. Levy.” Wisconsin Law Review (1994): 839–963. Taylor, Telford. Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970.

LEXINGTON III,

Operation

Start Date: April 17, 1966 End Date: June 9, 1966 U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division operation in the Rung Sat Special Zone. On April 17, 1966, the 1st Battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, of the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) was ordered into the Rung Sat Special Zone, a thick mangrove swamp located south of Saigon in the coastal region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Long considered impenetrable by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) command, it was a haven for main-force Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units operating in the Capital Military District that posed a direct threat to Saigon. The 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, detached from the 1st Division, conducted operations with the objective of finding and engaging sizable Communist forces. Assuming that no major action occurred, the 1st Battalion was to conduct search-and-clear operations within the zone. The soldiers found the swamps extremely difficult in which to maneuver and often had to wade in hip-deep mud. The battalion’s rifle companies were rotated every 48 hours to minimize trench foot and other ailments and to allow troops to rest and replenish their supplies. LEXINGTON III produced no major fighting. There were, however, numerous small-unit actions along the Rung Sat’s waterways as American ambush patrols engaged VC sampans and small boats. On June 9, the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, was ordered to rejoin the division near Loc Ninh, where 1st Infantry Division commander Major General William DuPuy was planning division-sized operations (EL PASO I and EL PASO II) against known concentrations of PAVN forces. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also EL PASO II, Operation; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Army; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

Lima Site 85 References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Lifton, Robert Jay Birth Date: May 16, 1926 Psychiatrist, prolific author, psychohistorian, critic of modern war, and in terms of Vietnam War issues, best known for his work on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the 1970s. Born in New York City on May 16, 1926, Robert Jay Lifton, the son of a physicist, attended Cornell University and obtained his MD degree from New York Medical College in 1948. He interned at the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn (1948–1949) and performed his residency in psychiatry at the Downstate Medical Center (1949–1951). Lifton served in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 through 1953, six months of which he served in the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). His study of prisoners of war (POWs) who had been allegedly subjected to brainwashing during the Korean War led to further research on the subject and his first book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China (1961). On his return to the United States in 1953, Lifton worked on the faculty of the Washington School of Psychiatry in the District of Columbia during 1954–1955. During 1956–1961 he was an associate in psychiatry and in East Asian studies at Harvard University. In 1961 he was appointed to the Foundation Fund for Psychiatric Research professorship at Yale University, and in 1985 he became distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology as well as director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. Lifton is well known for his work in the 1970s on PTSD. He had previously studied survivors of the World War II Holocaust, the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and POWs in prison camps in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). During the Vietnam War he participated in a number of antiwar activities, including the 1970 Winter Soldier Investigation, a media event in Detroit at which members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) attested to atrocities that they claimed to have committed or witnessed, and the 1971 Dewey Canyon III, at which veterans discarded their medals on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. In December 1970 Lifton began a series of rap groups, or group therapy sessions, with members of the New York chapter of the VVAW. From these sessions grew most of the subsequent definitions and treatment methods for PTSD, including the Vietnam Outreach Centers (Vet Centers) established in 1979 as part of the Veterans Administration (VA) system. In 1972 with the National Council of Churches, Lifton sponsored the First National Conference on the Emotional Needs of Vietnam-Era Veterans, attended by national VA officials. In 1973

657

he published his landmark book on the subject, Home from the War, based on his work with the New York rap groups. The book has since been reissued several times and is frequently cited not only in professional literature but also in the popular media. In 1976 Lifton headed the American Psychiatric Association’s task force to develop a description of PTSD for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The task force’s work, also based on Lifton’s own work with the New York rap groups, was published in 1980. A consistent critic of modern war and the ideology behind it, Lifton next turned his attention to the study of state-sponsored euthanasia and genocide. His 1986 book The Nazi Doctors was the first in-depth study of how German medical professionals were able to rationalize and justify their roles in medical experimentation and the Holocaust during the 1930s and 1940s. The book was well received and was widely read by both experts and the general public. Lifton also became a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons and nuclear war-fighting strategy, arguing that nuclear war makes mass genocide banal and thus conceivable, raising the likelihood of an actual nuclear exchange. After the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, Lifton rejected the term “War on Terror” as one that has little meaning and that destroys “all vulnerability.” At the same time he acknowledges that terrorism in the 21st century is a serious concern, especially with nuclear proliferation, and he has posited in his 1999 book Destroying the World to Save It that the possibility exists for the rise of an apocalyptic terrorist cult steeped in totalist ideologies that could hold most or all of the world hostage. Lifton has spoken out repeatedly against the Iraq War (2003–2010), arguing that it, like the Vietnam War, was driven by an irrational and aggressive strain in U.S. foreign policy that uses the politics of fear to rationalize wars in which the nation’s vital interests are not at stake. His 2003 book Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World takes up these very themes. PHOEBE S. SPINRAD See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Vietnam Veterans Against the War References Kimnel, Michael S. “Prophet of Survival.” Psychology Today (June 1988): 44. Lifton, Robert J. Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Random House, 1968. Lifton, Robert J. Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans, Neither Victims nor Executioners. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. Lifton, Robert J. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. New York: Norton, 1961.

Lima Site 85 A distinctive mountain in Sam Neua Province, Laos. Phou Pha Thi was prized during the Vietnam War as a stronghold near the border of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North

658

Lin, Maya Ying

Vietnam). Phou Pha Thi Mountain has almost sheer cliffs on three sides but has a flat summit. It was used as a landing site for helicopters during the war and was code-named Lima Site 85. Its principal importance was as the location of a tactical air control and navigation (TACAN) beacon that guided U.S. jet aircraft to targets in the Red River Delta of North Vietnam. Employing the beacon, jets were able to fly into the areas of Hanoi and Haiphong in all weather and deliver their bomb loads with accuracy. In March 1968 during the course of a combined military action involving People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Communist Pathet Lao forces, the TACAN station was overrun by a PAVN sapper squad, and several Americans on-station there were killed. The TACAN equipment was permanently put out of action, and the mountain and its commanding terrain were lost to the United States and its allies. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Airpower, Role in War; Laos; Pathet Lao References Castle, Timothy. One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Lin, Maya Ying Birth Date: October 5, 1959 Acclaimed U.S. artist and architect, best known for her sculpture and landscape work, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) in Washington, D.C. The monument has become the most popular monument in the nation’s capital. Maya Ying Lin was born in Athens, Ohio, on October 5, 1959. She earned both undergraduate (1981) and graduate degrees (1986) in architecture from Yale University. Following the Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Fund sponsored a competition to design a Vietnam memorial. The members of the organization sought to both commemorate the war dead and help the nation recover from the politically divisive war. The competition was open to all, not just professional architects. Lin’s design grew out of a senior class project at Yale and was selected in 1981 from among 1,421 entries. Lin’s stark design initially proved enormously controversial. Some of the controversy centered on Lin’s Chinese ethnicity, but most of it focused on the design itself. The monument broke sharply from the traditional design of past memorial sculptures, adhering only to the obligation to pay tribute to the dead. Instead

of displaying a figure or figures, it is a low 450-foot V-shaped veneered black granite wall that is partially submerged in the manner of ancient burial sites. The names of all service members who died or were missing in the Vietnam War are listed on the wall in the order in which they perished, from 1959 to 1975. The viewer recognizes the singularity of each name but also grasps the enormity of the number who perished. Lin’s overall intent was to create “a very psychological memorial” to help bring out the “realization of loss and a cathartic healing process.” In her work she acknowledged a debt to Edwin Lutyens’s Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, unveiled in 1932. This great abstract geometric form, located near the village of Thiepval in Picardie, France, has more than 72,000 names inscribed. Lin’s minimalist design for the Vietnam War memorial immediately provoked demands for a more traditional monument. Frederick Hart’s sculpture, showing three American servicemen, was subsequently added to the site not far from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Lin has since gained considerable acclaim as seamlessly blending sculpture with architecture. She began exhibiting as a professional artist in 1984, the same year that she won both the Honor Award of the American Institute of Architects and the Henry Bacon Memorial Award for her architectural work. She prefers to work with materials that are not considered inherently artistic in a traditional sense and has acknowledged a fascination with rocks. She is known for drawing forms in the landscape, as she did with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. With the completion of the Civil Rights Memorial in 1989, Lin retired from memorial making. Having addressed the two main emotional events of the 1960s, she was no longer interest in working on memorials. Lin subsequently completed the Women’s Table in 1993 for Yale University and Groundswell in 1993 for The Ohio State University. In 1986 she began making studio sculptures and has also received a number of architectural commissions. She was admitted to the International Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2003 she served on the board of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition, charged with selecting a design for the memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The chosen design, quite minimalist and stark in design, was likely influenced by Lin’s service on the board. In 2005 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She currently owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City. CARYN E. NEUMANN See also Vietnam Veterans Memorial References Morrissey, Thomas F. Between the Lines: Photographs from the National Vietnam Memorial. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Rogers, Sarah J. Maya Lin: Private/Public. Columbus: Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, 1994. Scruggs, Jan C., and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

LINEBACKER I, Operation

LINEBACKER I,

Operation

Start Date: May 10, 1972 End Date: October 23, 1972 U.S. airpower response to the 1972 Nguyen Hue Offensive (Spring Offensive) carried out by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Operation LINEBACKER I is notable for three reasons. First, it remains a classic aerial interdiction operation. Second, it was arguably the most effective use of airpower in the Vietnam War. And third, it was the first modern air campaign in which precision-guided munitions (laser-guided bombs, LGBs) and electro-optically guided bombs (EOGBs) played a key role. What made LINEBACKER I effective was the use of conventional airpower against North Vietnam to stop a conventional invasion by 14 divisions of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). By the spring of 1972 the war involved two modern and relatively well-equipped armies, the PAVN and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), locked in combat. U.S. airpower provided close air support for the ARVN while simultaneously attacking the transportation system, military installations, and other vital military targets inside North Vietnam. LINEBACKER I had three operational objectives: to destroy military supplies inside North Vietnam, to isolate North Vietnam from

659

outside sources of supply, and to interdict the flow of supplies and troops to the battlefields of South Vietnam. The targets were basically the same as those attacked during Operation ROLLING THUNDER: highways, railroads, bridges, warehouses, petroleum storage facilities, barracks, and power-generating plants. Operationally, two things were different. First, military commanders were given more latitude to select targets and to determine the best combination of tactics and weapons. Second, technological advances such as LGBs, EOGBs, and the introduction of the long-range electronic navigation (LORAN) bombing system made it possible to attack a greater variety of targets with the kind of precision that minimized collateral damage and civilian casualties. Operation LINEBACKER I commenced on May 10, 1972, when 32 U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms attacked Long Bien Bridge (formerly Paul Doumer Bridge) and the Yen Vien railroad yard in Hanoi. The Phantoms successfully dropped 29 LGBs on the bridge and 84 conventional bombs on the railroad marshaling yard. Two days earlier, U.S. Navy Grumman A-6 Intruder and Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II fighter-bombers had sown 2,000-pound mines at the entrance to Haiphong Harbor, initiating the isolation of North Vietnam from outside sources of supply. During the next few days LGBs and EOGBs were used to destroy bridges and tunnels along the northwest and northeast highways

Rows of B-52D Stratofortress aircraft at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on December 15, 1972. B-52s of the Strategic Air Command fleet were employed largely over South Vietnam in Arc Light missions but were used effectively over North Vietnam during operations LINEBACKER I and II. (Department of Defense)

660

LINEBACKER II, Operation

and railroads leading from Hanoi to the Chinese border. Because the bridges spanned gorges in the rugged Annamite Mountains, they were not as easily repaired as those that crossed the sandy streams of North Vietnam’s southern panhandle. Supplies, stacked up while North Vietnamese workers tried to repair the bridges and tunnels, were susceptible to attack by fighter-bombers using conventional munitions. By the end of June more than 400 bridges and tunnels had been destroyed, including the infamous Thanh Hoa and Long Bien bridges. Once the bridges were down and the railroads and highways had been interdicted, LINEBACKER I focused on petroleum-storage facilities, power-generating plants, military barracks, training camps, and air-defense facilities. Again, precision-guided munitions made it possible to attack targets proscribed during ROLLING THUNDER because of their proximity to civilian structures. For instance, on May 26 a flight of four F-4s used LGBs to destroy the three main buildings of the Son Tay warehouse complex, located in the middle of a residential area. All bombs hit their targets without causing collateral damage to the surrounding dwellings. Furthermore, because truck-repair facilities, often no larger than a neighborhood service station in the United States, were located in the middle of housing areas, these had been off limits during ROLLING THUNDER. During LINEBACKER I, however, LGBs destroyed many such repair facilities. By September, it was evident that LINEBACKER I was having an effect. Imports into North Vietnam dropped to half what they had been in May. The PAVN offensive inside South Vietnam stalled, and the ARVN regained much of the territory lost in the initial onslaughts of April and May. American airpower continued to pummel PAVN units inside South Vietnam while LINEBACKER missions pounded North Vietnam. Although LINEBACKER I was a classic interdiction campaign, it was one with a strategic effect. There were two strategic objectives. The first was to prevent North Vietnam from using military force to win the war. By June, it was clear the offensive would not succeed. Second, the bombing was intended to force North Vietnam to negotiate seriously so that an acceptable peace agreement could be obtained by the end of the year. Peace talks, which had been suspended on May 2, 1972, resumed 10 days later, just as the first LINEBACKER strikes hit North Vietnam. But the North Vietnamese did not negotiate seriously until September, when some 27,500 tons of bombs fell on their country. Between October 8 and 23, a peace agreement acceptable to Washington and Hanoi took shape. And on October 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon ordered a halt to bombing north of 20 degrees latitude, but South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu balked at the peace terms. Still, LINEBACKER I had achieved its stated objectives. From March 31 to October 23, 1972, some 155,548 tons of bombs fell on North Vietnam. LINEBACKER I had indeed succeeded where ROLLING THUNDER had failed. There were four reasons for its success. First, President Nixon used airpower more decisively than his predecessor. President Lyndon Johnson had worried about Chinese or Soviet inter-

vention; he had also fretted about the domestic political reaction to bombing and was constantly searching for political consensus among his advisers. By 1972, Henry Kissinger’s diplomacy had exploited the Sino-Soviet split, and intervention was no longer a major concern. Furthermore, Nixon’s primary political concern was with the Republican Right, which trusted him and wanted an end to the war. He was comparatively unconcerned with the political Left. Second, the nature of the war had changed. The 14 PAVN divisions attacking South Vietnam included hundreds of tanks and trucks that needed fuel. PAVN troops needed food as well as medical supplies to treat the considerable casualties they were sustaining. Their tank and artillery tubes required ammunition. This force required about 1,000 tons of supplies a day to sustain its offensive. Third, Nixon provided the military more latitude in deciding what targets should be struck and when. Finally, the employment of LGBs, EOGBs, and LORAN bombing techniques made precision strikes possible and helped limit collateral damage. These factors combined to make LINEBACKER I the most effective use of airpower in the Vietnam War. It remains the classic air interdiction campaign. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Precision-Guided Munitions; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Sharp, Ulysses S. Grant. Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1978. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

LINEBACKER II,

Operation

Start Date: December 18, 1972 End Date: December 29, 1972 U.S. bombing campaign over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). On December 13, 1972, the Paris negotiations, which had resumed in early November, broke down. Nguyen Van Thieu, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), had rejected the original terms agreed to in Paris, and the North Vietnamese government refused to make significant changes in a document already signed and, indeed, published the peace terms. When negotiations resumed and reached an impasse, President Richard M. Nixon blamed North Vietnam

LINEBACKER II, Operation

and issued an ultimatum that North Vietnamese representatives return to the conference table within 72 hours “or else.” Hanoi rejected Nixon’s demand. Nixon proved better than his word when he turned to airpower to enforce his ultimatum. Plans already existed for a winter phase of the original LINEBACKER campaign. The wintry skies over North Vietnam were overcast with a drizzle reminiscent of Germany or England at the same time of year. Such weather precluded operations focused on the use of laser-guided bombs (LGBs) or electro-optically guided bombs (EOGBs). The only planes in the U.S. military inventory capable of all-weather bombing operations were the U.S. Air Force’s Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses and General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark fighter-bombers and the U.S. Navy’s Grumman A-6 Intruders. Although A-6s and F-111s were capable of bombing almost any target with relative precision, there simply were not enough of them to continue the bombing of North Vietnam at the desired intensity. Targets suitable for B-52 attacks were those generally defined as area targets: airfields, petroleum-storage facilities, warehouse complexes, and railroad marshaling yards. A comprehensive list of those kinds of targets had been drawn up in August. On December 14 Nixon ordered mines resown in Haiphong Harbor. Meanwhile, the evacuation of Hanoi and Haiphong proceeded in anticipation of what was to come. On December 18 Operation LINEBACKER II, originally conceived as a three-day maximum-effort strategic bombing campaign, commenced. By that time more than half of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52 force was in the theater with 150 bombers at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and 60 B-52s based at U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. Flying in three-ship cells, each designated by a different color (e.g., red, blue, brown, cobalt, etc.), the B-52s carried the brunt of what airmen dubbed the “Eleven-Day War” and peace activists called the “Christmas Bombings.” On December 18 just after dark at 7:45 p.m., the first wave of 48 B-52s struck the Kinh No storage complex, the Yen Vien rail yard, and three airfields around Hanoi. An SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) claimed one B-52 over Yen Vien. At midnight, 30 Guam-based B-52s bombed additional targets around Hanoi. A second B-52 was severely damaged by a SAM but limped back to Thailand before crashing. The third wave struck just before dawn, and a third B-52 went down. A total of 129 B-52 sorties had taken off, and 3 bombers had been lost. The 3 percent loss rate, while regrettable, was also predictable and acceptable. The second night was a rerun of the first. Ninety-three B-52s struck the Thai Nguyen thermal power plant and the Yen Vien rail yard. Although SAMs damaged 2 bombers, there were no losses. The old saying “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” seemed to apply. On the night of December 21, the same basic attack plan was used when three waves of 33 B-52s each returned to the Yen Vien rail yard and the Thai Nguyen thermal power plant while oil-storage areas at Kinh No and other storage facilities around Hanoi were also struck. This time 6 B-52s were lost, and 1 B-52 was heavily damaged.

661

Although a 6 percent loss rate was acceptable for World War II B-17 missions over Germany, such a loss rate could not be sustained for long given the relatively small number of B-52s in the SAC inventory. The fault, however, lay squarely with the U.S. Air Force and SAC. Years of jungle-bashing missions in the relatively safe skies over South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia had lulled SAC planners into a false sense of security. The result was mission planning more suitable to raids on Schweinfurt or Dresden, Germany, nearly 30 years earlier. Furthermore, whereas LINEBACKER I had been a truly modern air campaign, LINEBACKER II was a throwback to the long bomber streams of B-17s and B-29s that ambled over their targets during World War II. The B-52 bomber streams during those first three nights were up to 70 miles long. The three-plane cells lumbered along toward their targets at more or less the same altitude, speed, and heading. The turn points were uniform and predictable, and the losses were inevitable. SAC now was forced to revamp its planning. The result was a switch in both force packaging and strategy. Over the next two nights the number of bombers scheduled dropped from the 100plus raids of the first three nights to 33 raids. On the night of December 21 the air defense support system took top priority as B-52s bombed SAM storage facilities. But because 2 more B-52s were lost on December 21, missions in the immediate vicinity of Hanoi were curtailed. On the following night, B-52s pounded petroleum-storage areas and rail yards around the port of Haiphong. There were no losses. One B-52 was shot down on raids over each of the next two nights before bombing was suspended for a 36-hour period to mark Christmas. At that point, 11 B-52s had been shot down. By Christmas, most of the legitimate targets in North Vietnam had been reduced to rubble. In fact, it was LINEBACKER I that had devastated North Vietnam. The so-called Christmas Bombings mostly just rearranged the rubble. The differences in the two campaigns, however, were in their objectives and in their intensity. During LINEBACKER I the primary objective was to stop a massive, conventional invasion. LINEBACKER I was an interdiction campaign that had the strategic effect of compelling North Vietnam to negotiate seriously for the first time in the war. LINEBACKER II, on the other hand, was a strategic bombing campaign aimed at the will of the North Vietnamese leadership. The campaign’s sole objective was to force the Hanoi government to quickly come to an agreement on a cease-fire. The fact that most of the targets constituted parts of the transportation system was simply because these targets, along with airfields and storage complexes, were suitable for area bombing. Furthermore, other than the Thai Nguyen steelworks, North Vietnam had no war-making industries. Most of the destruction wreaked on North Vietnam during LINEBACKER I had been inflicted by fighter-bombers, and while the bombing was substantial, it had taken place over a period of several months. North Vietnam had plenty of time to adjust and to get used to the bombing. LINEBACKER II was much more focused and intensive, meaning that more bombs fell on North Vietnam in a shorter period of time. The attacks by the B-52s were therefore

662

LINEBACKER II, Operation

psychologically more devastating if for no other reason than that a three-plane cell of B-52s could drop more than 300 bombs into an area the size of a railroad marshaling yard or an airfield in less than a minute. Although the effect could be mind-numbing, by Christmas the Hanoi leadership had given no indication that it was ready to negotiate seriously. The bombing resumed at dawn the day after Christmas. The objective at that point was to make the Politburo feel desperate by rendering North Vietnam defenseless. The Hanoi leadership would certainly notice that virtually every military target had been obliterated and that only the dike system and neighborhoods remained unscathed. Whether or not these would have been attacked is open to conjecture, but with no defenses the risk was not worth taking. At dawn on December 26 “Ironhand” Republic F-105 Thunderchief and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers, planes specially modified to attack SAM sites and their guidance radars, pummeled North Vietnam’s air defense system. During the day, although the weather was overcast, 16 U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantoms used the long-range electronic navigation (LORAN) bombing technique to blast the main SAM assembly area in Hanoi. When the remaining operational SAM sites fired the missiles they had on hand, there would be no resupply. At dusk, U.S. Air Force General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark swing-wing fighter-bombers swooped in low over the major airfields to crater the runways so that MiG interceptors could not take off. By dark, North Vietnam lay almost defenseless before the most concerted B-52 attack in history. That night’s B-52 assault was overwhelming. Instead of bombing throughout the night, 120 B-52s struck 10 different targets in a 15-minute period. Surviving SAM sites still had missiles, and 2 B-52s were lost. But the 1.66 percent loss rate was acceptable, especially since those seasoned in the art of aerial warfare knew that the end game was at hand. The bombing on the night after Christmas got the Politburo’s attention. Hanoi cabled Washington asking if January 8, 1973, would be an acceptable date to reopen negotiations. Nixon replied that negotiations must begin on January 2 and that there would a time limit for reaching an acceptable agreement. Until Hanoi acknowledged and accepted these terms, the bombing would continue. On December 27, 60 B-52s struck airfields and warehouses around Hanoi and Vinh. A number of B-52s bombed the Lang Dang rail yard near the Chinese border. SAMs knocked down 2 more B-52s, but returning pilots noted that missile firings were more random and that the entire North Vietnamese defense effort seemed uncoordinated and sporadic. No more B-52s were lost during LINEBACKER II. Sixty B-52 sorties were flown during each of the next two nights. Virtually no SAM firings were recorded, and B-52 crews were confident that they could fly over North Vietnam with impunity. On December 28 Hanoi agreed to all of President Nixon’s provisions for reopening negotiations. The next day Nixon limited the bombing to targets south of the 20th Parallel, and LINEBACKER II came to an end.

Even though Operation LINEBACKER II ended, the bombing did not. B-52s and fighter-bombers continued to pound North Vietnamese troops, supply lines, roads, bridges, and other military facilities in North Vietnam’s southern panhandle. People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops inside South Vietnam were bombed up until the cease-fire agreement was signed. This continued bombing was meant to encourage the North Vietnamese to negotiate quickly, seriously, and in good faith. For airmen, the “Eleven-Day War” took on special meaning. Airpower enthusiasts claimed that if given the opportunity, bombing on the scale of LINEBACKER II could have ended the war just as quickly at any time. It became an article of faith within the U.S. Air Force that LINEBACKER II had forced the enemy to capitulate. Likewise, antiwar activists held that the raids constituted another Dresden, referencing the destruction of that German city by Allied bombers in February 1945. Gloria Emerson, in her book Winners and Losers, quoted an unnamed Vietnamese official who claimed that 100,000 tons of bombs had fallen on Hanoi alone during the 11-day campaign. Both interpretations, although overly simplistic, took on mythological proportions among their proponents, and both were wrong. During LINEBACKER II, 739 B-52 sorties struck North Vietnam, dropping 15,237 tons of bombs. U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons. The North Vietnamese launched virtually every SAM in their inventory to shoot down 15 B-52s, 9 fighter-bombers, 1 U.S. Navy R-5A reconnaissance plane, and a U.S. Air Force CH-53 Sea Stallion “Jolly Green Giant” rescue helicopter. Damage inflicted on targets inside North Vietnam was significant, but the country was far from devastated. Although spent SAMs falling back to earth, crashing B-52s, and an occasional stray bomb caused some damage to neighborhoods in Hanoi, Haiphong, Vinh, and elsewhere, most were left virtually unscathed. According to Hanoi’s own figures, 1,312 people perished in the capital, and 300 more were killed in Haiphong. This is hardly comparable to the 100,000 people who perished in Dresden on the night of February 13–14, 1945. What LINEBACKER II did was to have a psychological effect on Hanoi’s leaders. With their air defense in shambles and virtually all the military targets left in rubble, they did not need to take the risk that the neighborhoods and dike system might be next. Accordingly, peace talks moved ahead expeditiously until January 23, 1973, when the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong (VC) signed a cease-fire agreement, little different from its predecessor, that took effect five days later. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; LINEBACKER I, Operation; Long-Range Electronic Navigation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Lippmann, Walter References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Eschmann, Karl J. Linebacker: The Untold Story of the Air Raids over North Vietnam. New York: Ivy Books, 1989. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Lippmann, Walter Birth Date: September 23, 1889 Death Date: December 14, 1974 American journalist, intellectual, and influential adviser to key U.S. policy makers, especially in matters of foreign policy. Walter Lippmann was born in New York City on September 23, 1889. He attended Harvard University, where he studied under influential writer and philosopher George Santayana and became a Socialist. Lippmann graduated in 1909. Always attuned to politics and international affairs, he soon became interested in journalism. In 1911 he was hired by the renowned muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, for whom Lippmann worked as an assistant. In 1913 the young Lippmann published a well-received book titled A Preface to Politics in which he analyzed popular prejudices in the United States and how they affected the political process. The book garnered much attention. That same year journalist Herbert Croly personally recruited Lippmann as one of the founding editors of the new liberal weekly publication the New Republic. Lippmann’s cogent essays and articles in the New Republic caught the eye of President Woodrow Wilson, and in 1916 Lippmann joined the Wilson administration as assistant secretary of war. He subsequently contributed to the drafting of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the League of Nation’s covenant. Lippmann also attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where he continued to offer advice to Wilson. After the war Lippmann expanded his writing to include columns and articles in the New York World and the New York Herald Tribune. He also became a critic of modern American journalism, arguing that many journalists, contrary to their stated goal of unbiased reporting, often wrote news articles that were based on preconceived notions of people and situations. Journalism was not, he opined, the best way to educate or inform the public. For their part, readers, he asserted, were often too self-absorbed and myopic to understand the nuances of national or international policy. Having lost faith in Americans’ capability of taking an active role in democracy, Lippmann came to believe that the United State had to, by necessity, be governed by a class of bureaucratic intellectual

663

elites who were specially trained to understand and overcome the biases and complexities of the modern industrialized world. In 1931 when the New York World closed its doors, Lippmann moved to the New York Herald Tribune. Besides his editing responsibilities there, he also authored a nationally syndicated column called “Today and Tomorrow,” which was carried in more than 250 newspapers. The column lasted for 30 years. Lippmann also contributed regularly to Newsweek magazine and the Washington Post and won two Pulitzer Prizes. He was not a doctrinaire politically and in fact took a very pragmatic, realist approach to politics and foreign policy. In the aftermath of World War II Lippmann wrote a book titled The Cold War, and he is generally credited with having coined the phrase “Cold War.” In the book he recognized the state of belligerency between the United States and the Soviet Union but recommended that Western economic and political integration would be better defenses against the Soviet threat than military power alone. Although considered a foreign policy realist, Lippmann did not support the containment policy, believing it to be an overreaction to the Soviet threat. He asserted that the United States should not support regimes that were either unpredictable or undemocratic

Walter Lippmann, a profound political thinker and an astute commentator on national and international events, influenced U.S. presidents for nearly 60 years. (Library of Congress)

664

Literature and the Vietnam War

just because they claimed to be anti-Communist. Lippmann dismayed politicians on both sides of the aisle by objecting to the Korean War, McCarthyism, and, most pointedly, the Vietnam War. Lippmann strongly opposed American military intervention in Vietnam, claiming that the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was an unsustainable, undemocratic regime that had little chance of attracting support from its own people. He warned as early as 1965–1966, quite presciently, that Lyndon Johnson’s systematic escalation of the war in Vietnam would turn it into an American war of attrition that would ultimately divide the nation. Lippmann’s opposition to the war was a boon to the early antiwar writers and protesters, and by 1968, when much of the mainstream media began to question the war, Lippmann was hailed for his earlier foresight. Retiring in 1967, Lippmann continued to write op-ed pieces for Newsweek and grant interviews. He died in New York City on December 14, 1974. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Containment Policy; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Media and the Vietnam War References Blum, D. Steven. Walter Lippmann: Cosmopolitanism in the Century of Total War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984. Steel, Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.

Literature and the Vietnam War For the United States, the Vietnam War era represented a 20thcentury “crisis of consciousness” perhaps equaled only by the American Civil War in the previous century. It is thus fitting to recall Walt Whitman’s statement about the earlier conflict that “the real war will never get in the books” (Specimen Days, 1882). Both conflicts were controversial from the outset, and both have inspired a huge body of study and literature in an attempt to come closer to the “real war.” In this context, literary responses work together with historiography and other media in the ongoing discourse about the war in Vietnam, one of the numerous hot conflicts of the Cold War (1945–1991). From all fronts, the war continues to be refought and reassessed. While literary texts may not serve as the most accurate sources to determine the who, where, when, what, why, and how of history, they are nevertheless an essential means of holding a finger to the pulse of an era, reflecting shifts in public attitudes and subjectively depicting the effects of conflict on the lives of multitudes of people, both on the battlefronts and at home. This entry traces shifting literary responses to the Vietnam War from its beginnings to the present, examining varied media including novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and personal narratives and, where possible, adopts a mainly chronological rather

than thematic approach. The focus is on the date of appearance of individual works and how they represent the lively public controversies that preceded, accompanied, and succeeded the war. A study of this type demonstrates how writers in different genres and in different eras viewed the war from highly diverse vantage points. For instance, while dramatists and poets took an overridingly critical or negative approach from the onset, a considerable amount of time elapsed before strongly discordant voices emerged among published works in popular prose genres, both fiction and nonfiction.

Prose Fiction Intimidating in its sheer volume and range, prose fiction about the Vietnam War covers a huge gamut, ranging from Harlequin-style nurse romances to pornography to potboiler suspense to a handful of works that stand out for their literary merit.

Novels American Involvement in Indochina, Pre-1960. The Geneva Conference (1954) officially ended French rule in Indochina and confirmed the ostensibly temporary partitioning of Vietnam at the 17th Parallel, developments that led to the separate governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and an everincreasing American presence in the region in an attempt to stem the spread of indigenous as well as Soviet and Chinese-backed communism. Prominent among early novels associated with the prewar era are Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955) and Eugene Burdick and William Lederer’s The Ugly American (1958). Both novels lodge outspoken criticism of the American advisory presence in Indochina and obliquely predict the disasters of direct military intervention. Greene’s novel focuses on the conflict between Fowler, a British journalist, and Pyle, an initially idealistic young American agent. Not only does Pyle steal Fowler’s mistress—a cynical commentary on the ongoing shift from old to new foreign influences—but Pyle’s involvement in subversive political activities to support the nationalist fight against Communist insurgents leads to his murder. Similarly, The Ugly American foresees a losing struggle against communism. Set in the fictional nation of Sarkhan, an allegory for Vietnam, the novel traces the failure of an American agent, Homer Atkins (possibly based on technician Otto Hunerwadel), and other officials to understand or address the needs of the local populace. Another major character, Colonel Hillandale, is more sympathetically drawn and is thought to be based on U.S. Air Force lieutenant general Edward Lansdale. The War Years, Post-1960. Adventure is the key word characterizing early novels of the American military involvement, and all but a handful glorify the war. Of these, Robin Moore’s account of Special Forces adventures in Green Berets (1965) is perhaps the best known, chiefly because of the 1968 movie by the same title starring John Wayne. Similar tales include Peter Derrig’s Pride of the Green Berets (1966), Jacob McCroskey’s Operation Axe-Handle (1967),

Literature and the Vietnam War and Con Sellers’s Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? (1969), a novel about how a war protester changes his attitude when he encounters professional soldiers in Vietnam. Chiefly addressing an adolescent readership, Suzanne Roberts’s Vietnam Nurse (1966) and Nell Dean’s Nurse in Vietnam (1969) represent another popular subgenre, the nurse narrative with a romantic focus. A spattering of further works with either romantic or pornographic themes reflects the general mediocrity of the early Vietnam War novel. A few early novels, however, modify the predominantly prowar stance of the early years of engagement. These include William Wilson’s LBJ Brigade (1966) and David Halberstam’s One Very Hot Day (1967), the latter of which, like The Quiet American and The Ugly American, is set before extensive deployment of American forces. Abraham Rothberg’s The Other Man’s Shoes (1968) moves from Saigon to California, where the central character encounters antiwar protesters and black revolutionaries. Lion Heart (1969), by British writer Alan Clark, emphasizes South Vietnamese corruption as opposed to Viet Cong (VC) commitment. In what is perhaps the first important literary novel of the early years of the war, William Eastlake’s Bamboo Bed (1969) symbolically represents Vietnam as the “bed” of the title and reflects the chaos and absurdity of the war, using dark humor in a surrealistic series of disconnected episodes. With the advent of the 1970s, new themes began to energize the war novel, even though the bulk of publications continued to address a readership eager for fast-moving plots that often showed little familiarity with military practice. Asa Baber’s Land of a Million Elephants (1970) adopts the genre of the fairy tale to create a might-have-been picture of Vietnam, wherein its inhabitants escape to a “Plain of Elephants” to avoid military advisers, diplomats, spies, Russian tanks, and American bombs. Reality, however, is the focus of Bill Williams’s Wasters (1971), a fictionalized account of the 1968 My Lai Massacre. The classic theme of conflict between officers and troops is at the core of Josiah Bunting’s The Lionheads (1972), set in the Mekong Delta in 1968. In The Lionheads, a general advances his career in a battle that decimates his troops, who struggle to use unreliable equipment against an enemy wise to jungle warfare. Predictably, prisoner-of-war narratives began to surface, as with William Crawford’s Marine (1972). Moreover, a number of novels set in battle zones begin to reflect raging controversies on the home front. Joe Haldeman’s War Year (1972) traces the experiences of a young draftee, initially a supply clerk, who fails to salute a senior officer and is sent on a suicidal assignment with little training. Similarly, William Pelfrey’s Big V (1972) deals with draftees who, in spite of poor morale, take some pride in their fighting ability. Corrine Ward’s Body Shop (1973) takes the war back home to the amputation ward of a California army hospital. William Huggett’s Body Count (1973), praised as one of the best U.S. Marine Corps–based novels of the conflict, addresses ongoing problems of the conflict, such as morale, race relations, and an unfamiliar countryside, while narcotic use among both fighting forces

665

and veterans is a prominent theme in Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers (1974), later filmed as Who’ll Stop the Rain? (1978). As the conflict neared its inconclusive end in 1975, antiwar themes became more strident. For instance, Peter Van Greenaway’s bizarre Take the War to Washington (1975) traces the movements of some 500 disenchanted soldiers who turn the war on their own country, eventually capturing the president and burning the White House. The Postwar Years: 1975 to the Twenty-First Century. Although a relative lull in publication appears to have followed in the years immediately after the American withdrawal, subsequent years demonstrated that the war in Vietnam was still very much on the minds of writers and the reading public, particularly as its aftereffects became increasingly evident. While many of the postwar novels focused chiefly on adventure, as did those published during the conflict, and others appeared only to land in a literary dustbin, this was also the era when most of the so-called classics of the conflict emerged. Many of these expand their focus to address not only the war but also its aftermath as it affected veterans and the general public. Among the genre introduced above, Larry Heinemann’s Close Quarters (1977), set in the claustrophobic isolation of an armored personnel carrier (APC) unit just before the 1968 Tet Offensive, portrays disenchanted young men who find meaning only in their own camaraderie of drugs, sex, and harassment of the indigenous population. Upon the central character’s return to the United States, he is unable to adapt to civilian society but remains trapped in his Vietnam combat experiences. On a similar note, James Webb’s Fields of Fire (1978) follows a U.S. Marine Corps infantry platoon in 1968 through its actions against both VC and North Vietnamese regulars. Base camp reveals hostilities between enlisted men and officers as well as racial tensions. By the end of the novel, many of the characters are dead or badly wounded. Also set in 1968, Gustav Hasford’s Short Timers (1979), which focuses on U.S. Marine Corps infantry during the Tet Offensive, inspired Full Metal Jacket (1987), one of the major movies based on the war. Adopting a less realist and more surrealist approach, Tim O’Brien’s celebrated Going after Cacciato (1978) centers upon an infantry member, Cacciato, who deserts and heads toward Paris, pursued by his unit. The novel interlaces the reflections of the central character, Paul Berlin, on what happened as opposed to what might have happened during the course of one night on sentry duty; concurrently, it traces his reflections of experiences both before and after Cacciato’s desertion and his concoction of the story of the men’s journey to Paris via foot, oxcart, rail, van, and VC tunnels in pursuit of the elusive deserter. A Southeast Asian woman whom the group meets early in the journey tries unsuccessfully to persuade Berlin to follow Cacciato’s example in deserting from this senseless war. Nevertheless, Berlin’s response echoes O’Brien’s earlier statement in his memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973) and a short story in his 1990 collection The Things They Carried: young men go to war not out of idealism but because of a fear of

666

Literature and the Vietnam War

being scorned by their families and friends. A vision of the unreality and futility of the Vietnam War emerges from O’Brien’s novel, which won a National Book Award in 1978. David Alexander’s When the Buffalo Fight (1980) serves as a reminder that all foreign troops deployed in Vietnam were not American. Centering on an experienced battalion of Australian infantry consisting of professional soldiers during 1965 and 1966, the novel depicts Australian troops scandalized by the inexperience and lack of professionalism among American soldiers they encounter, a view that John Del Vecchio’s The 13th Valley (1982) indirectly counters. Infantry and group cohesion are central to this novel, which follows a U.S. Army unit through a mission based on Khe Ta Laou Valley operations in 1970. In what could well be dubbed a documentary novel, The 13th Valley includes maps, a glossary, and a chronology of Vietnamese history. Depicted in a mainly positive light in spite of internal conflicts and a few jaded members, the unit finally manages to take a hill that other units have failed to capture but at the price of the deaths of three central characters in a freak helicopter accident. Unlike many other prominent postwar novels, Del Vecchio’s work thus takes a positive view of the war and combat troops. Predictably, the end of conflict brought the veteran experience to the fore, highlighting the well-known picture of the traumatized, guilt-ridden soldier who, upon his discharge, receives little welcome at home. Philip Caputo’s Indian Country (1987) is typical of this mode. In a classic American wilderness motif, the central figure must go into the wild to repair his shattered spirits, led through a spiritual healing process by a wise Native American. Less positively, the central character in Larry Heinemann’s Paco’s Story (1986) is both physically and psychologically scarred by his wartime experience. A suffering mentally deranged outsider, he drifts around the country, taking odd jobs. He is never entirely accepted by the civilian populace, to whom he is an ugly reminder of what the United States has suffered through during the war. On a more positive note, John Del Vecchio’s Carry Me Home (1994) depicts veterans who, in spite of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), criminal tendencies, and stigmatization upon their return, regain a sense of purpose and pride in what they have done and what they still can do. Less idealistically, Larry Brown’s Dirty Work (1989) focuses on two patients in a Veterans Administration (VA) hospital, one black, the other white. It is clear that the only future they have lies in their dreams. Not surprisingly, a substantial number of juvenile novels also focus on veteran adjustment, the refugee experience, and the social consequences of the war. For instance, Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country (1985) is about a young woman whose father has died in the war. She attempts to help her uncle, a veteran with emotional and physical problems that include exposure to Agent Orange, recover from his experiences. Initially idealistic about the war, the heroine is disillusioned when she reads her father’s war diary. This experience allows her to empathize with her uncle, and the novel culminates in a scene of mutual healing during a visit to the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Cynthia Rylant’s A Blue-Eyed Daisy (1987) deals with a family’s refusal to confront the meaning of war when the central character’s uncle returns from Vietnam. In Mary Hahn’s December Stillness (1990), a teenage girl befriends a homeless traumatized veteran and eventually assists her father, another veteran, in coming to terms with the war. Similarly, Kathryn Jensen’s Pocket Change (1990) deals with the devastating effects of PTSD on veterans and families alike, as does Candy Boyd’s Charlie Pippin (1987), which also highlights the role of African American soldiers in the war. Other juvenile novels such as Maureen Wartski’s Boat to Nowhere (1981), Jack Bennett’s Voyage of Lucky Dragon (1985), Jamie Gilson’s Hello, My Name Is Scrambled Eggs (1988), and Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge (1997) deal with the experiences of Vietnamese refugees both at home and in their adoptive country. As the 20th century neared its end, North Vietnamese voices representing the experience of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) expanded the predominantly Anglo-American focus of previous novels, and two works are particularly significant in this context: Duong Thu Huong’s Novel without a Name (1990; trans. 1995) and Bao Ninh’s Sorrow of War (1994; trans. 1995). Like their American counterparts, these two writers deal with disillusionment, ethnic conflicts, drug use, desertion, conflicts among ranks, and breakdown of discipline leading to rape and massacre. In Novel without a Name, Quan, a North Vietnamese soldier fighting in South Vietnam, has seen one of his childhood friends promoted in the command hierarchy, while the other friend has gone insane. Embarking on a perilous journey northward to his home village, he discovers that the state that was to have been transformed into “humanity’s paradise” by communism has become a site of death, misery, and corruption. Nevertheless, he doggedly continues to fight for a cause in which he no longer believes. On a similar theme but in a more fragmentary mode, The Sorrow of War follows Kien, the sole survivor of his platoon who currently collects bodies in a remains-gathering truck, through his painful military and personal memories. With the onset of the 21st century, readers may well have echoed the question of a recent reviewer: “Does anyone really need another Vietnam War novel?” The apparent answer is yes, for the past decade or so has seen a number of publications that may well rank among the best. In 1999 Sergeant Dickinson, written by Jerome Gold, a former Special Forces sergeant, was hailed as a first-rate novel about battlefield experience. In Don Lomax’s Vietnam Journal: A Graphic Novel (2003), a journalist discovers that “the real story was in the bush with the slime, the stink, the constant fear and frustration.” Only partially about the Vietnam conflict, Peter Pouncey’s Rules for Old Men Waiting (2005) focuses on a father who, after losing his own father to World War I and his son to the Vietnam War, strives to write a fiction about men at war. In 2007, Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, a lengthy novel featuring an array of intelligence officers and American and Vietnamese troops, was awarded the National Book Award. Another recent

Literature and the Vietnam War novel, Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn (2009), offers a panoramic depiction of the battle zone at an American fire-support base in Quang Tri Province.

Short Stories While short stories, apart from a few by Tim O’Brien and Robert Butler, are far less prominent than novels, the tense conflictridden era of the war, both on the battlefronts and at home, lends itself to treatment in short fiction. Unlike the novel, however, the short story adopts a largely critical stance toward the Vietnamese conflict from the outset. The enemy is not only outside of but also within the American ranks. For instance, Raymond Steiber’s “Lost Indemnity” (1964) highlights enmity among the ranks when an incompetent enlisted man leaves his lieutenant to die behind enemy barbed wire. On a similar theme, Thomas Parker’s “Troop Withdrawal—The Initial Step” (1969) relates how a specialist fourth class manipulates forms and regulations to have his old enemy, a lieutenant, declared dead. Racial conflicts are highlighted, as in George Davis’s “Coming Home” (1970) and Clarence Major’s “We Is Grunts” (1970). Other short stories address strategic failures, as when in David Huddle’s “Interrogation of the Prisoner Bung by Mister Hawkins and Sergeant Tree” (1971), a VC suspect is beaten by American and Vietnamese interrogators, only to return to his village, happy that he has acquired valuable information for his unit. Even during the conflict, veterans sound discordant voices. For instance, Michael McCusker’s “The Old Man,” in Wayne Karlin et al.’s Free Fire Zone: Short Stories by Vietnam Veterans (1973), recounts how an American infantryman amuses himself by killing an old man. In the same collection, James Dorris’s “The Accident” recounts how a sergeant, after a Vietnamese civilian is accidentally killed by a jeep that his major is driving, reports the accident to their commanding officer, who ignores the matter. The most celebrated name among short story writers of the Vietnam conflict is, however, Tim O’Brien, whose ironic gutwrenching stories appeared in a number of periodicals from 1975 onward. “The Things They Carried,” his best-known story, first appeared in 1985 and later served as the title of his award-winning 1990 collection. Featuring a group of hapless young enlistees, the title story graphically itemizes the physical weight that an infantryman was expected to carry in Vietnam. More burdensome than the physical weight, however, are the weights of memory and conscience, as when Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, blaming his obsession with a girl back home, realizes that his laxity of command has led to the death of one of his men, Ted Lavender. Tellingly, the story also implies that the unit’s rage at the death of their comrade leads to the burning of a Vietnam village. Other quality short stories also emerged, chiefly once the conflict had ended. For instance, W. D. Ehrhart, better known as a poet, is the author of “I Drink My Coffee Black” (1979). Like Jimmy Cross, his main character suffers a lapse of attention as he prepares a cup of coffee and allows his mind to wander homeward. This in-

667

attention results in his death when he unthinkingly fires twice from the same place in the building where he has taken refuge. The next major name emerged with Robert Butler in a number of stories, later collected in A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (1992; rereleased with additions in 2001). The collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1993. The South Vietnamese experience is at the core of his narratives, with each story narrated by an émigré or refugee transplanted from the Mekong Delta and now living in Louisiana. In “The American Couple,” the longest story in the collection, a Vietnamese immigrant couple meets American counterparts during a Mexican holiday. It so happens that the two husbands are veterans: one is a former major in South Vietnam, and the other is a veteran of the U.S. Army. Even though the Vietnamese man has struggled to Americanize himself while the American remains obsessed with the war, the two end up staging a mock battle, which culminates in a fistfight while their wives chat idly or look on uncomprehendingly. In the title story of the collection, an old Vietnamese man near death sees the vision of Ho Chi Minh. In short, the past is never truly dead. The first decade of the 21st century further demonstrates that the Vietnam War is still part of the present in the genre of the short story. The female voice has become more prominent, as in Diana Dell’s Saigon Party (1999) and Susan O’Neill’s Don’t Mean Nothing (2002). Saigon Party, a collection of stories inspired by the writer’s time in Vietnam as a civilian worker, covers an array of characters, ranging from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents to prostitutes and aid workers. Don’t Mean Nothing is inspired by the writer’s experiences as a nurse in Vietnam, which leads to stories about the harrowing reality of hospitals, causalities, and sexually hungry soldiers. In Kregg Jorgenson’s Very Crazy, G.I.: Strange but True Stories of the Vietnam War (2001), the writer demonstrates that truth is stranger than fiction in events ranging from the Central Highlands to the Mekong Delta. Other recent collections include Touring Nam: Vietnam War Stories (1997), edited by Martin Greenberg and Augustus Norton; H. Lee Barnes’s Gunning for Ho (2000); Bryon Tetrick’s In the Shadow of the Wall (2002); and Douglas Neralich’s Dear Donna, It’s Only 45 Hours from Bien Hoa (2002).

Poetry As with prose fiction, poetry has also extensively documented responses to the Vietnam War throughout the years preceding, during, and following the conflict. Even more than in prose fiction, Vietnamese voices attack American action during the war, and one of these, Thanh Hai’s Faithful Comrades (1962), is among the earliest voicing resistance to the American-backed South Vietnamese government. Faithful Comrades tells the stories of protesters who disappeared or were tortured, imprisoned, or killed. The next major Vietnamese voice in the English-language world emerged with Xuan Viet’s Nine Dragons Hymn (1966). In this collection, one poem memorably refers to the war as “a dagger . . . plunged into the heart of

668

Literature and the Vietnam War

my country.” In another notable collection, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Cry of Vietnam (1968), a Buddhist leader laments the destruction of villages and mounting hunger and destitution alongside the breakdown of traditional social values. Similarly, The Poetry of Viet Nam (1969), translated by Nguyen Ngoc Bich, contains a number of poems that attack the war and the motives of American propaganda. On a parallel note, Eleven Poems of Political Prisoners (1973), edited by Minh Duc et al., contains poems that depict the torture and cruel living conditions of political prisoners held by the South Vietnamese government. In addition, a number of poems by other Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao refugee poets appeared in the numerous volumes of the Viet Nam Forum Series and the Lac-Viet Series published after 1983 by the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University. In Viet Nam Forum 14 (1994), for instance, Viet Thanh Nguyen, then a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in a moving poem about a burning ash heap that he was “yearning to find a clue / in the ash to my people, / severed from me with the finality of a butcher’s cleaver.” In addressing a more limited intellectual group of readers than prose fiction, American poetry voices ring protests to the Vietnam War from the outset. Apart from often bawdy ballads sung by American fighter pilots, collected in Joseph F. Tuso’s Singing the Vietnam Blues (1990), and the short and sometimes humorous verses published in publications such as the satiric Grunt magazine or the Pacific Stars and Stripes, a constellation of major poets addressed the conflict. During the war years alone, these include John Berryman, “66” (1964); Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Where Is Vietnam?” (1965); Allen Ginsberg, Wichita Vortex Sutra (1966) and Collected Poems (1947–1980, 1984); Denise Levertov, Sorrow Dance (1967), her anthology titled Out of the War Shadow (1968), To Stay Alive (1987), and The Freeing of the Dust (1975); May Sarton, “We’ll to the Woods No More, the Laurels Are Cut Down” (1971); Muriel Rukeyser, Breaking Open (1973); and Adrienne Rich, “Dien Bien Phu” (1974). The first significant protest volume was A Poetry Reading against the Vietnam War (1966), edited by Robert Bly and David Ray. The next year, Walter Lowenfels edited the anthology Where Is Vietnam? in which the 87 contributing poets include James Dickey, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Denise Levertov. Two more collections followed: Out of the Shadow of War (1968) and Poetry against the War (1972). Although a few poems are set in Southeast Asia, most of the works presented in these anthologies reflect the writers’ attitudes toward U.S. involvement in Vietnam through references to the political scene, the war as seen on television or reported in the newspapers, or antiwar themes in general. These anthologies and the numerous individual poems that were published served to define and sustain the general intellectual opposition to the war. Of the verse novels, three stand out: Vietnam Simply (1967) by Dick Shea, How Audie Murphy Died in Vietnam (1972) by McAvoy Layne, and Interrogations (1990) by Leroy Quintana. In discursive, often sardonic selections, Shea presents the observations of a U.S. Navy lieutenant about the entrance of U.S. marines into the war

and other scenes and events in 1965 Vietnam. By means of short staccato verses, Layne’s book traces a marine recruit, who bears the name of the legendary American war hero, through basic training and combat. The narrative then becomes allegorically fanciful as “Audie” is captured by the VC and holds telephone conversations from Hanoi with the president of the United States yet still hums “The Theme from Marlboro Country.” Quintana, the only Hispanic veteran to publish a major collection of poetry, shows how a young army draftee experiences training, combat, and the aftermath of the war, where even “on city streets, in restaurants, bars” he “still walk[s] the jungle in camouflage,” his “M-16 mind still on recon patrol.” Each of these verse novels presents young men who shift from innocent acceptance to experienced disillusion about the American presence in Vietnam. This theme of the movement from innocence to experience was perhaps the most universal one explored by American poets, most of whom served in Vietnam either in the military or in noncombat roles as conscientious objectors. Many of them interrupted their college educations to go to war and then returned to earn graduate degrees in various writing programs and teach in universities. Before the April 1975 fall of Saigon, many poet-veterans joined protest organizations such as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, using their poems to substantiate their opposition not only to war in general but also to the Vietnam War in particular. What characterizes the majority of these poems is their specificity. Presenting much more shattering detail than did World War I poets such as Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen, these poets wrote about immediate wartime experiences: firefights, the death of a friend, smells of the jungle, rocket attacks, being wounded, seeing Vietnamese women and children killed, corpses in body bags, rape, arrival into and departure from Vietnam, street scenes, the beauty of the countryside, memories of the war after ending their tours, bombing missions, and letters from home. Brutally frank, much of the language of these poems represents the actuality of the discourse that prevailed, filled with the soldiers’ jargon and profanity and often requiring the use of a glossary because of the many references to historical events as well as specific people and place-names. The themes of the poems are both universal and particularly modern. Many show the horrors of war, the deaths of innocent civilians, the tragic ending of youthful lives, and the general sundering of moral and ethical values. Reflecting the consciousness of the 1960s and 1970s, however, a large number of poems mirror the feelings of all participants as America’s longest war began to seem more and more unwinnable: the sense of loss of individuality, the feeling of guilt at having participated, the impossibility of anyone understanding the totality of the experience, the realization of having been betrayed by higher authority, and, most often, the anger and bitterness at feeling like what fiction writer Larry Heinemann called not a cog in a mighty machine but merely “a slab of meat on the table.” There are also many poems that contain racial and ethnic themes, using both black versus white and white versus Asian conflicts.

Literature and the Vietnam War Of the hundreds of war veteran poets, a few achieved literary prominence. In 1994, U.S. Army veteran Yusef Komunyaka won the Pulitzer Prize for his Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems (1993). All of the selections in one of his earlier books, Dien Cai Dau (1988), are about the war and not only present richly metaphoric poems about Hanoi Hannah, Bob Hope, and night patrols but also offer the acute vision of a black soldier. Another major prizewinning poet is former marine W. D. Ehrhart, whose numerous collections of poetry, four nonfiction books, and many edited anthologies make him one of the most prolific and widely known Vietnam War writers. In A Generation of Peace (1977), his poem “A Relative Thing,” which details the feelings of many returned veterans, reminds America that “We are your sons” and that “When you awake, we will still be here.” The oldest of the major poets was Walter McDonald, a career officer teaching at the Air Force Academy when he was assigned to Vietnam in 1969. An editor as well as a fiction writer, McDonald was best known for his many volumes of poems, such as After the Noise of Saigon (1988). Bruce Weigl’s 1967–1968 army service in Vietnam sparked a number of collections such as Song of Napalm (1988), in which most of his war poems appear. The title poem is a haunting testament to his wife as he confesses his inability to forget aspects of the war. Also a college instructor, John Balaban spent three years in Vietnam, the first two as a conscientious objector. He published fiction and numerous translations of Vietnamese poetry, and his collections After Our War (1974), nominated for a National Book Award, and Blue Mountain (1982) contain memorable poems such as “The Guard at the Binh Thuy Bridge” and “April 30, 1975,” a poem written about the last day of the war. Among the other poets and their major books are Michael Casey, Obscenities (1972); David Huddle, Stopping by Home (1988); Kevin Bowen, Playing Basketball with the Viet Cong (1994); D. F. Brown, Returning Fire (1984); Horace Coleman, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, in Four Black Poets (1977); Gerald McCarthy, War Story (1977); Bill Shields, Nam Poems (1987); Steve Mason, Warrior for Peace, with an introduction by Oliver Stone (1988); Bryan Alec Floyd, The Long War Dead (1976); Perry Oldham, Vinh Long (1976); and D. C. Berry, Saigon Cemetery (1972). Individual works by most of these and other poets can be found in the following anthologies: Winning Hearts and Minds, edited by Larry Rottman, Jan Barry, and Basil T. Paquet (1972); Listen: The War, edited by Fred Kiley and Tony Dater (1973); Demilitarized Zones, edited by Jan Barry and W. D. Ehrhart (1976); Carrying the Darkness, edited by W. D. Ehrhart (1985, 1989); Shallow Graves: Two Women in Vietnam, by Wendy Wilder Larsen and Tran Thi Nga (1986); and Unaccustomed Mercy, edited by W. D. Ehrhart, with an introduction and bibliography by John Clark Pratt (1989). The dedication of The Wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., marked the first major gathering of Vietnam War creative writers and their public readings, held in New York City on March 23, 1984. There, W. D. Ehrhart defined what became apparent in most of the poetry that had been and was to

669

be published. Although most veteran-poets did write about many other subjects, it was the war that consumed them in their art and inspired their best poems because, according to Ehrhart, that was “the single most important experience of [one’s] life.” Accordingly, the poetry of the Vietnam War provides a historical, intellectual, and emotional chronology of men and women at war that is indeed unique. More recently, a number of new works are worthy of mention. Of particular interest is Philip Mahony’s From Both Sides Now: The Poetry of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath (1998), a collection of Vietnamese and American poems arranged in 10 parts to follow the progression of the conflict. In 2002, Rick St. John, a West Point graduate who served with distinction with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam in 1968, published his Circle of Helmets, a collection of letters and poems chronicling his tour, followed by W. H. McDonald Jr.’s Purple Hearts (2004).

Drama Much like other creative artists, playwrights of the Vietnam War used noticeably similar subjects, themes, and techniques. Often using the war as a metaphor for the problems of the world of the 1960s and 1970s, more than 200 plays (some full-length and a few as short as five minutes) considered such common subjects as the loss of identity, the use of drugs, the role of the individual, the morality of war, the draft, the returned veteran, the power of government, sexuality, the roles of men and women, and the race issue. As does most of the American poetry about the war, these plays present no traditional heroes and virtually nothing heroic. They all contain, with the one possible exception of the television drama The Final War of Ollie Winter (1967), definite and sometimes strident antiwar themes. With their dramatic styles varying widely, most of the plays use expressionistic or absurdist techniques and incorporate innovative character roles and narrators, sparse sets, music (both choral and background), and even puppets. Only about one-fourth to onethird of these plays were eventually published, with many, such as David Jones’s Saigon, Mon Ami Vieille (Denver, Colorado, 1979) receiving a onetime production and then disappearing from public availability. Many plays were products of the burgeoning street theater scene in cities such as San Francisco and New York and were written as protest statements in reaction to specific events that occurred during the war. Although most of the plays were written and produced in the United States, four foreign titles deserve notice. From Australia came Rob George’s Sandy Lee Live at Nui Dat (1983), which attacks the actions not only of some Australian soldiers but also entertainers, the antiwar movement, and elements of Australian society itself. Equally sardonic is Peter Brook’s US (London, 1968), which condemns British citizens and institutions that supported what is portrayed as the imperialistic venture of the United States in Vietnam. David Hare’s Saigon: Year of the Cat (London, 1983) is set during the 1975 fall of Saigon and shows the humanity and

670

Literature and the Vietnam War

confusion of that time. And in a Soviet stage version unavailable in English, Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955) was produced later in the Soviet Union. In a 1982 letter, Greene, who saw it in Moscow, called the actors “very funny because of the out-of-date gestures . . . and the kind of costumes that they wore. It was a fairly honest version but terribly long[,] running to nearly four hours.” Many of the major plays fall into three categories: those set in Vietnam, those that focus on racial issues, and those that feature returned veterans. Obviously unable to emulate the graphic visual realism of the movies, many playwrights nevertheless used settings such as firebases, medical trauma rooms, or unspecified locations in Vietnam. In-country plays include The Secret War of Olly Winter (1967), Botticelli (1968), The Dramatization of 365 Days (1972), G. R. Point (1975), How I Got That Story (1979), Back to Back (1981), Dustoff (1982), Eleven Zulu (1983), Tracers (1986), and Five in the Killing Zone (1989). Dramas that emphasize racial issues are Indians (1969), Soldado Raso (1971), Vietnam Campesino (1971), Medal of Honor Rag (1975), Streamers (1976), Back to Back (1981), Dustoff (1982), Eleven Zulu (1983), and Wasted (1983). Among those that feature the returned veteran are Sticks and Bones (1969), Kennedy’s Children (1973), Medal of Honor Rag (1975), Still Life (1980), Strange Snow (1980), and Tracers (1983). Unquestionably, the most distinguished playwright of the Vietnam War was David Rabe, who served with the U.S. Army for 11 months in Vietnam and then received his MA in theater from Villanova University. His first Vietnam-related play, Sticks and Bones, was produced in 1969, followed by The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel in 1971. The next year, Sticks and Bones was produced on Broadway and won the 1972 Tony Award for Best Play. In 1976 Streamers, produced by Mike Nichols, won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the best American play. Hurlyburly, also first produced in Chicago by Nichols, moved to Broadway in the mid-1980s and enjoyed a successful run. Rabe also authored numerous other plays and screenplays and was the winner of many other distinguished drama awards. One of the many ironies of the Vietnam War is that the first major play, Viet Rock (1966) by Megan Terry, can be seen as an avant-garde musical, and the most popularly acclaimed later production, Miss Saigon (1988) by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schoenberg, is a more traditional albeit high-tech Broadway musical. Both use striking expressionistic, dramatic, and musical effects. In Viet Rock, actors play multiple roles in often surrealistic scenes that include basic military training, U.S. Senate committee room proceedings, combat and death in Vietnam, and life in a VC prison. There are numerous solo and choral numbers as well as symbolic group dance scenes in this production that use the Vietnam War as a modern example of the senselessness of all wars. Miss Saigon, a loose retelling of the story line of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, features a simulated helicopter evacuation during the fall of Saigon, numerous choral and dance production scenes, and dazzling sets and special effects. Miss Saigon tells the story of an American war veteran who discovers that he has fathered a child

in Vietnam and then returns just before his former lover commits suicide so that their child can be brought to America. Most of these plays should be appreciated more as social rather than historical documents, and the following list (with brief plot summaries and arranged in order of performance) describes some of the significant plays that are available in print for production or reading: Megan Terry, Viet Rock (1966), in Viet Rock: Four Plays by Megan Terry (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 21–110. Described above. Terrence McNally, Botticelli (1968), in Coming to Terms: American Plays and the Vietnam War (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1985), 67–76; hereafter Coming to Terms. While waiting for a VC soldier to emerge from a tunnel, two American soldiers engage in an intellectual discussion that resembles the television show Jeopardy. After perfunctorily shooting their enemy, they return to their banter. Arthur Kopit, Indians (1968) (New York: Hill and Wang, 1969). An allegory that compares the decimating of Native American tribes with the U.S. actions in Vietnam. David Rabe, Sticks and Bones (1969) and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971), in David Rabe, The Vietnam Plays, Vol. 1 (New York: Grove, 1993). Sticks and Bones portrays the traditional American parents Ozzie and Harriet (from the television series) unable to understand or accept their son who has returned as a blinded war veteran. Pavlo Hummel traces a young recruit whose naïveté changes into coarse insensitivity and who is killed by another American soldier in a Vietnamese house of prostitution. Luis Valdez, Soldado Razo (1971) and Vietnam Campesino (1971), in Luis Valdez—Early Works (Houston, TX: Arte Publico, 1990), 98–133. Both protest plays are allegorical and expressionistic. Soldado Razo predicts the death in combat of a Hispanic young man, and Vietnam Campesino, not unlike Kopit’s Indians, parallels the problems of California migrant farm workers with those of Vietnamese peasants. H. Wesley Balk, The Dramatization of 365 Days (1972) (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972). A stage rendering of Dr. Ronald J. Glasser’s memoir about treating wounded soldiers during the war, The Dramatization of 365 Days is frank and brutal in its depiction of the effects of combat. David Berry, G. R. Point (1975) (New York: Dramatists’ Play Service, 1980). Set in a Graves Registration unit in Vietnam, this play shows the movement from innocence to experience of an intelligent draftee as he witnesses bodies being prepared for return to the United States. David Rabe, Streamers (1976), in Coming to Terms, 1–76. In the realistic setting of a cadre room, black and white

Literature and the Vietnam War soldiers are awaiting assignment to Vietnam. Tensions between the races as well as between young and older soldiers produce a violent ending that becomes a metaphor for the entire war. Streamers was also made into a movie by Robert Altman. Amlin Gray, How I Got That Story (1979), in Coming to Terms, 77–118. Set in “Ambo Land” (Vietnam), a reporter encounters some 21 American and Vietnamese characters (all played by the one other actor) and tries but fails “to understand one person who’s involved in all this.” How I Got That Story represents one of the best depictions of the feelings of bewilderment and loss held by so many Americans. Stephen Metcalf, Strange Snow (1982), in Coming to Terms, 275–312. Unique in that it shows a chance for resolution, this moving, realistic play is about two Vietnam veterans and the sister of one of them. The dramatic tension is acute, the dialogue is convincing, and the ending is satisfying. John DiFusco and others, Tracers (1983) (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986). One of the most panoramic of the expressionist works, this play was conceived and written by New York’s Vietnam Veterans Ensemble. The play traces the experiences of one army squad from training through combat to postwar attitudes and feelings. Shirley Lauro, A Piece of My Heart (New York: Samuel French, 1992). From Keith Walker’s 1985 book of the same title that contains interviews with female veterans and civilians, A Piece of My Heart presents the comments and experiences of nurses, a Red Cross worker, an entertainer, and an army intelligence officer. Since the 1990s, a modest number of new dramatic productions serve as reminders that the Vietnam War continues to live in the theater, often as a parallel to new military conflicts of recent years. For instance, Shirley Lauro’s A Piece of My Heart (1992) reopened in San Diego in 2005, with a focus on the context of the Iraq War. From the Australian experience, Minefields and Mini-skirts (2004), adapted by Terence O’Connell from a book by Siobhan McHugh, toured theaters in Australia. Blending the stories of 35 women who went to Vietnam as nurses, journalists, entertainers, volunteers, and consular staff with those of wives or mothers on the home front, this play demonstrates the increasing focus on women’s experiences in recent Vietnam War literature. In addition, Naomi Wallace’s In the Heart of America (2008), which juxtaposes the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the Vietnam War in 1969, opened on Broadway in 2009 to mixed reviews.

Prose Narrative Nonfiction prose narrative dealing with the American involvement in Vietnam takes a number of different forms: biography, memoir, combat narrative, oral history collections, and journalistic

671

reporting. Sometimes the categories blur, not only among themselves but also between fiction and nonfiction as well as memoir and formal history. Of the thousands of titles that have been published, this overview concentrates on the most often referenced books within the various subgenres. The most prevalent type of prose narrative is, of course, the combat narrative, usually written by a former combatant and often indistinguishable from memoir. Most of these narratives take the following pattern: A new recruit arrives in-country, usually with high ideals of what the war is about and what service entails. He is immediately faced with the severe physical hardships and danger of combat conditions and may either become disillusioned or grow to admire the fortitude of the other troops. In any case, the pattern is essentially the traditional one of a coming of age. The focus is normally on the narrator’s own development, and other individuals presented in the narrative tend to be standard types. However, even where serious attempts are made to create accurate portraits of people with whom the narrator has served, we generally do not see any development in them; they remain background for the narrator’s own development and are very often sounding boards for his opinions. Vietnamese people, both South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese, are also normally portrayed as background figures. As might be expected, the chief events in these combat narratives are military engagements: usually two or more minor engagements and finally one major battle in which the narrator’s views are solidified. But in some narratives, the culminating event is not a battle but rather an atrocity event: a rape, the killing of a civilian, the desecration of an enemy’s body, the destruction of a village, and so on. This is particularly true of Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War (1977), perhaps one of the most famous books of its kind. Caputo, a marine who was in fact charged with ordering the killing of two Vietnamese civilians (the charges were subsequently dropped), shapes his narrative around the attitudes and events leading up to the event in question in an attempt to explain how such things happen and, of course, implying that they happened with great frequency. The narrator of such books emerges from the experience with an understanding of the destructive influence of war, particularly the Vietnam War, on combatant and noncombatant alike. Interestingly enough, even the nondisillusioned narratives of this type might include an atrocity. In David Christian’s Victor Six (1991), for example, actually a celebration of a particular unit’s prowess in combat, members of the unit at one point desecrate the body of a dead enemy just for the experience of doing so. This event is held up as an evil omen for the unit. And surely enough, shortly afterward the unit meets its first defeat, and most of its members are killed or wounded. The heroes have ceased to be heroic and so must be defeated; they have betrayed the cause and must be punished. In Craig Roberts and Charles W. Sass’s The Walking Dead (1989), also a fairly positive memoir of the war, there is another variation on this theme. One member of a unit who has killed a

672

Loc Ninh, Military Operations near

suspected VC collaborator in anger later talks another man out of doing the same thing, telling him that the momentary anger is not justifiable and that the deed will haunt him afterward. Other motifs in these narratives are the loss of a best friend in combat and the first encounter with the gruesome carnage of war. In the disillusioned narrative, such scenes often become almost inverted conversion experiences, causing a loss rather than a gaining of faith. A Rumor of War contains a typical scene of this sort, as does Lynda Van Devanter’s Home before Morning (1983), one of the few such narratives by a woman. Van Devanter’s repeated question “Why, why, why?” about the maimed and dying soldiers she has seen as a combat nurse remains unanswered, implying that the war itself has no purpose. Among other disillusioned memoirs and combat narratives are W. D. Ehrhart’s Vietnam-Perkasie (1983), Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973), and Ron Kovic’s Born on the Fourth of July (1976). Later made into a film, Kovic’s book follows a paralyzed veteran home and through the peace movement and has sometimes been said to overlap into the fiction category. Combat narratives that focus on the positive development of the individual and the unit mission and assume a more positive view of military service and often of the war itself include Michael Lee Lanning’s The Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader’s Journal of Vietnam (1987) and its sequel, Vietnam, 1969–1970: A Company Commander’s Journal (1988); Larry Chambers’s Recondo: LRRPs in the 101st Airborne (1992); Lynn Hampton’s The Fighting Strength: Memoirs of a Combat Nurse in Vietnam (1990), an interesting counterview to Van Devanter’s more jaundiced one; Eric Bergerud’s Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning (1993); and Otto J. Lehrack’s No Shining Armor: The Marines at War in Vietnam (1992). Oral histories are particularly pervasive forms of narrative emerging from the Vietnam conflict, perhaps more than in any other American overseas engagement. The most widely read of these are Mark Baker’s Nam (1981), which is unfortunately marred by its failure to document the speakers’ identities and units of service so that the accuracy of the accounts cannot be verified, and Al Santoli’s Everything We Had (1981), which is more extensively documented but includes at least one questionable narrative. Women’s experiences have been assembled in such collections as Catherine Marshall’s In the Combat Zone (1987) and Keith Walker’s A Piece of My Heart (1985), and the African American experience has been documented in Wallace Terry’s Bloods (1982). Al Santoli’s To Bear Any Burden (1985) supplements his earlier collection and presents numerous accounts of Southeast Asian experiences both during and after the war. The fall of Saigon in 1975 and the flight of refugees from South Vietnam is further presented in the oral histories collected by Larry Engelmann in Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam (1990). And Bob Greene’s Homecoming (1989) addresses the experiences of troops returning from the war in a collection that is not specifically oral history but rather letters written by veterans in response to questions he posed in one of his newspaper columns.

Particularly difficult to categorize is Michael Herr’s Dispatches (1977), an account of his experience as a journalist in the field and in his bureau’s Saigon headquarters. Originally written as a series of travel pieces for Esquire and revised for book publication, this narrative describes the journalists’ milieu as strongly as it does that of the soldier in the field. The accuracy of some of the episodes has been questioned, particularly where the book versions differ from the original magazine texts, but on the whole Herr presents a view of the American involvement that has become pervasive in all the literature: Vietnam not only as event but also as metaphor, the shaping influence of post-1965 American society, and at the same time a reflection of what it shaped. His closing statement is one of the most often quoted in all of Vietnam literature: “Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, we’ve all been there.” ANNA M. WITTMANN See also Film and the Vietnam Experience; Historiography, Vietnam War References Bibby, Michael. Hearts and Minds: Bodies, Poetry, and Resistance in the Vietnam Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Jason, Philip K., ed. Acts and Shadows: The Vietnam War in American Literary Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. Neilson, Jim. Warring Fictions: American Literary Culture and the Vietnam War Narrative. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. Newman, John. Vietnam War Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Imaginative Works about Americans Fighting in Vietnam. 3rd ed. Lanham, NJ: Scarecrow, 1996. Ringnalda, Don. Fighting and Writing the Vietnam War. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. Ryan, Maureen. The Other Side of Grief: The Home Front and the Aftermath in American Narratives of the Vietnam War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008. Wittman, Sandra M. Writing about Vietnam: The Literature of the Vietnam Conflict. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989.

Loc Ninh, Military Operations near Start Date: 1967 End Date: 1968 Loc Ninh, a village with a 1967 population of fewer than 10,000 people located about 80 miles north of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) capital of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City), lies at the northern limit of National Route 13 (“Thunder Road”), only a few miles from the Cambodian border. The village was the focal point of major People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infiltrations into present-day Song Be and Tay Ninh provinces. During the April 1972 Easter Offensive, PAVN forces overran Loc Ninh as part of their unsuccessful attempt to seize the provincial capital at An Loc (Binh Long Province). But from that point forward the PAVN occupied Loc Ninh and designated it as the cap-

Loc Ninh, Military Operations near

673

The allied base at Loc Ninh, about 80 miles north of Saigon, after fighting there in November 1967. A key location, Loc Ninh was the site of many serious clashes in 1967 and 1968. (Bettmann/Corbis)

ital of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam. During the 1975 Spring Offensive, the PAVN launched one of its major attacks from Loc Ninh, funneling its armored columns south like a dagger pointed at the heart of the faltering South Vietnamese government. In 1967 and 1968 Loc Ninh was the site of many serious clashes. In October 1967 the 1st Brigade of the U.S. 1st Infantry (“Big Red One”) Division, participating in Operation SHENANDOAH II, fought one of the major engagements of the Vietnam War at Loc Ninh. In the early morning hours of October 29, the U.S. Special Forces and Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) camps were hit by heavy Communist mortar fire. Within three hours the first assault had been repulsed, but a Communist attack at 5:15 a.m. succeeded in breaching the perimeter defenses. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Recondo troops with U.S. Special Forces advisers arrived at the Loc Ninh airfield shortly thereafter and were joined by Company C, 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry (2–28th), of the Big Red One, which had set up a fire-support base with an artillery battery at the south end of the runway. The allied counterattack succeeded in ejecting the Communists from their positions after a fierce firefight. The commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, Major General John H. Hay Jr., decided to post four night defensive positions (NDPs) in the jungle behind the attacking Communist units to

intercept them as they made their way back to their Cambodian sanctuaries. In November the Communists attacked these battalion NDPs arrayed around Loc Ninh in Song Be Province, each time with disastrous results. In the fighting around Loc Ninh five PAVN regiments were engaged, with two (the 271st and 273rd) rendered combat ineffective with nearly 1,000 soldiers killed. Operation SHENANDOAH II concluded on November 19, 1967. In the autumn of 1968 Loc Ninh was the scene of more fierce combat actions between the 1st Infantry Division and the PAVN. In October the 2nd Battalion (mechanized) of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, and an infantry battalion of the ARVN 5th Division were under operational control of the 1st Cavalry (“First Team”) Division near Loc Ninh. There had been two previous battles around the town in August and September, and the air cavalrymen were brought in from the northern part of South Vietnam to increase efforts to interdict the flow of Communist troops from Cambodia. On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry (2–2nd), was responding to mortar fire received on their NDP just north of the junction of National Highways 13 and 14a. As its armored personnel carriers (APCs) moved through the rubber trees, the company came under attack by automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) fire from a line of PAVN bunkers. At the end of the action Company C had lost one APC (“track”) but had killed 70 PAVN soldiers. The

674

Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.

next day, joined by Company A, the mechanized infantry swept through the previous day’s battle area and again contacted PAVN forces just to the north, a battalion falling back on its bunkers. Following air strikes and intense artillery fire on the bunker complex, the infantry swept through the area against light resistance. PAVN losses there brought their two-day total to 148, while the two U.S. companies had lost 7 killed in action. As General Bruce Palmer Jr. observed in The 25-Year War, “Our greatest battle successes occurred when the enemy chose to attack a U.S. unit well dug in and prepared to defend its position.” The NDPs proved that point, but the reverse was not always true for the PAVN. Even when heavily entrenched, they could be rooted out or destroyed in place with heavy fire from allied artillery and aircraft. The superior mobility of U.S. infantry and artillery units was a major innovation of the battles for Loc Ninh. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Song Be, Battle of; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Army; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

A firm believer in the domino theory regarding Southeast Asia, Lodge thought that Vietnam could be kept free of Communist control with sufficient time purchased by the presence of U.S. troops. When he became convinced that the United States could not win with President Ngo Dinh Diem as an ally, Lodge acted to undermine that regime. He saw to it that Buddhist dissidents, including Thich Tri Quang, received refuge in the U.S. embassy, and opposition South Vietnamese generals were contacted through Lucien Conein, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative. Lodge circumvented the pro-Diem General Paul Harkins, head of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), by withholding U.S. State Department communications from Harkins’s purview and by undercutting his upbeat assessments. In late August 1963 the State Department instructed Lodge to give Diem an opportunity to oust Ngo Dinh Nhu, his controversial brother. Nhu controlled Colonel Le Quang Tung’s Special Forces and used them to suppress protestors in Saigon. If Diem proved unwilling, Lodge was directed to tell the dissident generals that the Kennedy administration was ready to desert Diem and back a successor regime. Fearing that the Ngo family’s repressive rule might affect the military situation in the countryside, Lodge wanted to

References Haldane, Robert, ed. The First Infantry Division in Vietnam, 1965–1970. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1993. Hay, John H. Tactical and Materiel Innovations. U.S. Army Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. Birth Date: July 5, 1902 Death Date: February 27, 1985 Republican politician, U.S. senator during 1937–1944 and 1947– 1953, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN) during 1953– 1960, and U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1963–1964 and 1965–1967. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was born in Nahant, Massachusetts, on July 5, 1902, to a politically prominent and wealthy family. A 1924 graduate of Harvard University, he undertook a career in newspapers and was elected to the state legislature in 1932. In 1936 he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican before completing two years of military service during World War II. Reelected to the Senate in 1946, he served in that body until 1953. That same year he was named ambassador to the UN, and in 1960 he was nominated as the Republican vice presidential candidate. President John F. Kennedy appointed Lodge ambassador to South Vietnam following the 1963 recall of Frederick Nolting Jr.

First a U.S. senator, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) during 1963–1964 and 1965–1967. Lodge supported the coup by RVN generals against RVN President Ngo Dinh Diem. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong 675 temporarily withhold economic and military assistance, especially to Tung’s unit, hoping to exert leverage and to force a change in policy. Such actions would also demonstrate support for the conspiring officers, and by October 5, 1963, President Kennedy endorsed Lodge’s proposals. After a number of confrontations with Diem, Lodge advocated a coup. Convinced that the South Vietnamese leader was unchangeable and loyal to his family, the ambassador gave tacit support to the generals’ planned overthrow of the Ngos. The coup against Diem began at 1:30 p.m. on November 1, 1963. Three hours later Diem phoned Lodge from the besieged Gia Long Palace and inquired as to the U.S. attitude about the uprising. Lodge, feigning ignorance, pretended to be alarmed for the safety of Diem and Nhu and offered them safe conduct out of the country or sanctuary in the embassy. Diem, determined to restore order and stay in power, refused. Diem and his brother were later apprehended and murdered by the putschists. Ambassador Lodge soon lost confidence in the languid military leadership of General Duong Van Minh, one of the anti-Diem coup leaders. By early 1964 Lodge supported Minh’s overthrow by Lieutenant General Nguyen Khanh. That summer Lodge resigned as ambassador and was replaced by General Maxwell Taylor. Ostensibly, Lodge returned to the United States to run against Senator Barry Goldwater for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. In reality, Lodge was weary and disappointed with Saigon politics, had no fresh thoughts on policy, and was ready to recommend that the United States launch an aerial bombing campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Succeeding General Taylor for a second tour as ambassador to South Vietnam in 1965, Lodge expressed qualms about holding free elections that might result in a neutralist regime that would seek to halt the war on less than satisfactory terms and remove U.S. forces. When Buddhists launched the Struggle Movement against the Saigon government of Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu in 1966, Lodge supported the regime’s actions in overcoming the dissidents and their ally General Nguyen Chanh Thi, who was discharged from the command of I Corps. Prior to leaving his post in 1967 Ambassador Lodge drafted a pacification scheme that he labeled Operation HOP TAC (the Vietnamese term for “cooperation”), which emphasized subduing the areas around Saigon. Lodge served as one of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s so-called Wise Men in 1968 and advocated the termination of search-and-destroy missions. From 1968 to 1969 Lodge was U.S. ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). In early 1969 President Richard M. Nixon assigned Lodge as a negotiator to the Paris peace talks, but he resigned because of a lack of progress. From 1970 to 1977 he served as special U.S. envoy to the Vatican. Lodge died in Beverly, Massachusetts, on February 27, 1985. RODNEY J. ROSS

See also BRAVO I and II, Operations; Conein, Lucien Emile; Domino Theory; Duong Van Minh; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Harkins, Paul Donal; HOP TAC, Operation; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lake, William Anthony Kirsop; Le Quang Tung; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Chanh Thi; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.; Paris Negotiations; Richardson, John Hammond; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Taylor-McNamara Report; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Blair, Anne E. Lodge in Vietnam: A Patriot Abroad. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong The equipping, supplying, quartering, and transporting of troops. The long war in Vietnam had two phases: the Indochina War (1946–1954), between the Viet Minh and the French, and the Vietnam War (1961–1975), fought by Viet Cong (VC) forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) against South Vietnam, the United States, and other allies. Logistics ultimately played a crucial role in deciding both conflicts. During the Indochina War, French forces, with massive assistance from the United States, were generally well supplied and equipped, but they were never strong enough logistically to win. Although possessing the supplies and much of the equipment necessary for victory, the French lacked both the manpower and the logistical means to deliver the supplies to sustain their forces during battle when and where they were most needed. The French lacked sufficient airlift capacity, and thanks to the jungle and primitive road and rail systems, transport by land was often very difficult. The Viet Minh, however, were able to make good use of human transport (the “People’s Porters,” North Vietnamese defense minister Vo Nguyen Giap called them) but also bicycles and some trucks in the resupply of Communist forces. The 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu provides an excellent example of the logistics strengths and limitations on both sides. In contrast, during the Vietnam War the United States possessed both the equipment and the means to employ it effectively. Despite their logistical strength, the Americans played into their enemy’s hands by utilizing tactics designed for a long war without the necessary domestic support for such a protracted strategy. The Viet Minh and their successors, the VC and the People’s Army of

676

Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong

Vietnam (PAVN, the North Vietnamese army), were able to dictate the pace of the conflict, successfully tailoring operations to their own inferior resources and often crude, although not ineffective, logistical abilities. The most important physical characteristics of Vietnam from a logistical standpoint are its tropical climate, vast forests and jungles, and rugged mountainous areas. Two monsoon seasons each year hampered military operations. The southwest monsoon starts in the middle of May and ends in the middle of October; the northeast monsoon lasts from mid-September to the end of December. Whereas the latter affects only areas along the central coast, the southwest monsoon brings rain, and in some places drizzle and fog, to the entire country, so the southwest monsoon has by far the greater impact on military operations. The dry season occurs between early January and mid-May. Most military operations in both phases of the war took place during the dry season. The triple-canopy jungle covering much of Vietnam provided cover for troop movements, concealment for supply lines and depots, and excellent defensive positions that the Viet Minh, the VC, and the PAVN all used to great advantage. Even in the more open areas, bamboo, shrubs, marshy ground, and high grass restricted the movement of modern motorized forces to the underdeveloped road system. Composed mostly of unsurfaced tracks that were overgrown and potholed nearly everywhere, roads were subject to frequent disruption. Demolished bridges, ambushes, and landslides exacerbated the situation. Wet weather turned most of Vietnam’s roads into quagmires. Rain produced floods in low-lying areas that made cross-country movement impossible by wheeled transport and precarious even for tracked vehicles. Dry weather brought great clouds of dust. Churned up by ground traffic, aircraft, and helicopters, the dust permeated everything, clogging engine intakes and damaging machinery and equipment. Vietnam had only one main railway line. Built by the French, it ran from Saigon through Hanoi and into China. Extremely vulnerable to sabotage, rail transportation proved unreliable at best. Although Vietnam featured a number of ports, most were underdeveloped and unprotected from the elements. Typhoons often endangered berthed vessels, snapped ship-to-shore lines, and halted unloading. Vietnam’s most important port complexes, Haiphong in North Vietnam and Saigon in South Vietnam, played vital roles in both phases of the conflict. During the Vietnam War, the United States developed other installations at great effort and expense. Strategically, the near proximity of Laos, Cambodia, and China to Vietnam offered the Vietnamese Communists invaluable logistical advantages over both their French and American adversaries. The inability of Cambodia and Laos to deny the use of their territory permitted the construction of two main lines of communication that carried huge quantities of personnel, war matériel, and supplies throughout the conflict. The first and best-known route, the Ho Chi Minh Trail (begun in 1959), ran south down the eastern side of Laos into northern Cambodia. The second, the Sihanouk

Trail, started at the port of Sihanoukville in Cambodia, where neutral ships unloaded supplies in safety, and ran via Phnom Penh to extensive base sanctuaries just across the border from South Vietnam. During 1962–1965 there was a third supply line consisting of small cargo vessels disguised as fishing trawlers that carried weapons and ammunition covertly from North Vietnamese ports to secret landing points along the South Vietnamese coast, but the U.S. Navy’s Operation MARKET TIME effectively choked off that supply line in early 1965. North Vietnam’s most important geographic feature became its common border with China. The 1949 Communist victory in China enabled the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to provide logistical assistance to the Viet Minh. Although China and Vietnam were traditional rivals, the PRC’s opposition to the West, particularly to the United States, prompted it to supply first the Viet Minh and later the North Vietnamese with all manner of war matériel. The Soviet Union, motivated in part by the desire to offset Chinese influence, followed suit. French soldiers were well trained, experienced, and led by battle-seasoned veterans. The condition of their equipment, however, was parlous at best. U.S. delivery of equipment, especially military vehicles, was often slow, and French maintenance techniques were inadequate. Poor French maintenance procedures became a constant theme in U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) reports from September 1950 on. U.S. observers were especially critical of French aircraft technicians for habitually ignoring safety precautions, for a perpetual lack of appreciation for preventive maintenance, and for drinking on the job. The French logistics system was similarly chaotic. Staffers seldom knew what they had received or sent forward because there was no effective stock control system. Furthermore, because most deliveries in Vietnam had to be made by armed convoy, either by water or by road, stocks tended to accumulate in forward areas in compensation for the hazardous and intermittent resupply cycle. Under such conditions, MAAG concluded in 1951 that no amount of American logistical support would greatly reduce the difficulties experienced by the French in maintaining their forces at high operational levels. Also contributing to French logistical problems was the enormously long line of communications—9,000 to 11,000 miles— that stretched across the Pacific from Haiphong and Saigon to the United States. To help alleviate the delays that such lengthy transport entailed, MAAG advisers suggested to the French that they manufacture simple articles for themselves in Vietnam. Native workers could easily produce many items, including small-arms ammunition, webbing equipment, tinned rations, cartridge clips, tire tubes, and camouflage netting, at a lower cost than American imports. The French, however, rejected the idea of a local military equipment industry. They feared that it would forfeit their control over the distribution of military materials, permit at least some to fall into enemy hands, and weaken the dependence of the indigenous population on France.

Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong 677 Between October 1951 and February 1952 the United States delivered more than 130,000 tons of military equipment to French forces in Indochina. The shipments included 53 million rounds of ammunition, 8,000 vehicles, 650 combat vehicles, 200 aircraft, 3,500 radio sets, and 14,000 automatic weapons. By early 1953 another 137,000 tons of American military equipment reached the French, including 900 armored fighting vehicles, 15,000 other vehicles, 99,000 small-arms and automatic weapons, and about 900 radios. During this period the French Air Force also took delivery of 160 Grumman F-6F Hellcat and Grumman F-8F Bearcat fighters, 41 Martin B-26 Marauder light bombers, and 28 Douglas C-47 Dakota transport planes. The latter increased the all-important French air transport fleet available to support the 1954 defense of Dien Bien Phu to a maximum of 75 to 100 aircraft, of which no more than an estimated 56 to 75 were serviceable at any one time. Events proved these air assets totally inadequate. The French Air Force was able to deliver no more than 120 tons on average of the calculated 200 tons of supplies needed per day by the doomed garrison at Dien Bien Phu. In the end, logistics decided the battle. At the start of their conflict against the French, Viet Minh units at all levels possessed a hodgepodge of captured French or Japanese equipment, supplemented by American supplies parachuted in by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. The Viet Minh, short of all classes of supplies, had only a handful of trucks with no means to maintain them. Unlike the French, the Viet Minh at once set up cottage industry factories to help fill their needs. These produced by hand simple items such as rifle ammunition, mines, grenades, light machine guns, and eventually some 120-millimeter (mm) mortars. Heavy equipment, including trucks and large-caliber guns and ammunition, remained beyond their capabilities. Had the Chinese not provided resources, the Indochina War might have ended differently. From late 1949 the PRC supplied the bulk of the Viet Minh’s equipment and ammunition but only as far as the border. Distribution farther south was up to the Vietnamese. The Viet Minh solved the distribution problem with their system of human porters, the supply of which, if not inexhaustible, was large enough to meet their needs. Later when the Viet Minh had a number of trucks, porters still contributed greatly to the defeat of the French, especially in the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Later they supplied VC and PAVN units that fought the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and U.S. forces. There were disadvantages to the porter system. Food was a problem. Large numbers of porters seeking sustenance might betray their presence to the enemy or antagonize villagers, whose goodwill, or at least passivity, was essential. Thus, porters carried their own rations; on long trips, as much as 90 percent of their loads would be their own food. It has been estimated that 40,000 porters were required to supply one 10,000-man Viet Minh division in the field (4 porters to 1 soldier). It has also been calculated

that it took about one month to stock the logistic base for one attacking Viet Minh division. A time-consuming process that could not respond to unexpected changes at short notice, this supply cycle was responsible for the typical attack-lull-attack-lull pattern of Viet Minh and later VC and PAVN attacks. Nevertheless, the porter system worked and to an extent that was never fully understood by the more conventionally minded French and Americans. The one commodity absolutely indispensable to the Viet Minh was rice. Not only was it the main food staple of their soldiers and porters, it was also the currency in which they were paid. Goods and services provided by local communities were also reimbursed in rice. It was their source of strength and the key ingredient around which many of their operations revolved. It was also their Achilles’ heel. Perhaps the closest the French ever came to winning the war was their occupation and near pacification of the Red River Delta in late 1949 and early 1950. The move denied the Viet Minh reinforcements, taxes, and, most importantly, rice. As a result Viet Minh supplies were halved, and their forces dwindled; some units faced virtual starvation. But by the end of 1950 the French had lost or abandoned all their posts separating Vietnam’s northern border from the PRC. In so doing they opened the way for Chinese assistance and yielded to their enemy an invaluable logistical prize. The Viet Minh gained quantities of food, clothing, medical supplies, and ammunition as well as enough equipment to outfit a complete division. The Chinese connection provided other items that proved essential to eventual Viet Minh victory: large amounts of artillery, heavy mortars, antiaircraft guns, and some 600 trucks, most with Chinese drivers. Reequipped and resupplied, Viet Minh main-force units grew to the offensive equivalent of eight or nine divisions. In addition, irregular forces tied down about 100,000 of the 175,000 French troops in Indochina, leaving them with the equivalent of only three divisions for mobile operations. The Viet Minh also greatly enhanced their logistical capabilities during this period. They improved roads from their main base areas and expanded their porter force into hundreds of thousands of people. By the early part of 1953 the Viet Minh logistics system, although lacking the flexibility conferred by airpower, had actually become more flexible and better suited to the terrain than that of the French. Whereas French logistics were largely road- or riverbound and thus highly vulnerable to attack, the Viet Minh porter system could operate unimpeded and largely undetected. The Viet Minh supply system at Dien Bien Phu was comprised of about 1,000 trucks, all of 2.5-ton capacity, and 260,000 porters. Trucks transported heavier items: artillery, most of the ammunition, and larger spare parts. The porters mostly carried rice, an estimated 76 percent of which was hauled overland for distances up to 400 miles from Thanh Hoa Province. The line of communication to Dien Bien Phu, which crossed nearly 100 small and large streams and negotiated numerous steep gradients, ran from crossing points on the Vietnamese-Chinese border to the forward base at Tuan Giao. To support trucks, the route needed to

678

Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong

be completely rebuilt. This effort employed some 10,000 coolies, two main-force engineer regiments, one infantry regiment, and 7,000 army recruits. Once completed, the route supplied a force of 49,000 combat troops and some 40,000 to 50,000 logistical troops deployed along its length. In the end the Viet Minh emerged victorious at Dien Bien Phu because they were able to supply their forces, whereas the French were not. The 11 years following the 1954 Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords saw the withdrawal of the French from Indochina, the establishment of separate and rival governments in both North and South Vietnam, and the deployment of American forces in support of South Vietnam. During this time North Vietnam undertook a complete restructuring of its logistical system. The North Vietnamese successfully replaced their army’s mixture of French, Japanese, Chinese, and U.S. weapons and equipment with more standardized types, simplifying the supply of spares and ammunition. They increased their numbers of trucks and native drivers, and they rebuilt and improved their roads, railways, and ports, chiefly Haiphong, Hon Gai, and Ben Thuy. The Communist forces were not, however, as successful in restructuring their battlefield support system. The great mobility and airpower of their new adversary, the United States, precluded a conventional logistics system. Although the North Vietnamese had little trouble stockpiling supplies in protected areas, moving them forward quickly enough and in amounts sufficient to support major battles without disruption from the air remained beyond their ability. The same problem impaired attempts to rapidly regroup or switch directions of emphasis. Therefore, attacks were followed by pauses during which stocks were either redirected or rebuilt. This logistical weakness largely accounted for the spasmodic pattern of VC and PAVN offensives that prevailed until the final stages of the war. In South Vietnam the new government was attempting to equip and train the ARVN. This task, initially envisioned as a joint French-U.S. venture, ran into immediate difficulty. French bitterness triggered by their defeat coupled with their resentment of the Americans prompted a conflict over the disposition of military equipment previously supplied to the French Army. The terms of the contract stipulated that all equipment would revert to U.S. control when the French left. Determined to keep the best material for their own use, the French instead took it, along with most of the spares. From the moment of its formation, the rudimentary ARVN logistical system was overwhelmed with huge quantities of inferior and unserviceable equipment. The ARVN was thus disorganized, ill-supplied, and poorly equipped and was unprepared to meet the growing attacks on its country by the VC, the successors of the Viet Minh. By early 1961 with the prospect of an imminent South Vietnamese collapse and the complete loss of an estimated $500 million investment, President John F. Kennedy committed U.S. helicopter units in support of the faltering ARVN.

Initially the introduction of helicopters befuddled the VC, who had little experience with them. Although their use reflected the most primitive of airmobile operations, employed only as battle taxis with no heavy-lift or offensive capacities, helicopters contributed to a resurgence of ARVN fortunes. The VC soon learned that helicopters were highly vulnerable to ground fire, adjusted their tactics accordingly, and reversed the trend. By mid-June 1965 the VC appeared once again on the verge of victory. With American prestige again at stake, U.S. ground troops were introduced in large numbers. By the end of 1965 there were 184,300 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam, the first wave of a commitment that would ultimately reach more than half a million men. Even the traditionally lavish American logistic system was swamped by such a huge and sudden upsurge in manpower. Vietnam presented the United States with logistics contingencies drastically different from those of World War II or the Korean War. With no front or rear lines in the normal military sense—the conventional differentiation between combat and communication zones being nonexistent—no secure areas existed for the establishment of logistical installations. With few fixed-terrain objectives and most operations mounted from isolated base camps, there were no linear axes along which supplies could flow. The troop buildup was also unbalanced. Anxious to bolster the sagging ARVN, the initial proportions of combat troops to logistics personnel were abnormally high. As a consequence, transport, storage, and distribution arrangements were overwhelmed, and supplies accumulated chaotically. Supplies streamed into Vietnam faster than they could be inventoried or stored and in most cases came in far greater quantity than needed. In September 1968 the surplus was estimated at more than 2 million tons. For example, the authorized stock of electronic repair parts alone at one point numbered more than 50,000 items; later analysis showed that only 5,000 of these were actually necessary. The same situation existed across the board. Consequently, huge backlog snarls—the most infamous being the so-called Saigon “fish market”—accumulated across the country. At the height of the buildup, deep-draft ships waited up to 20 days for a berth to unload at any of the 10 ports used by U.S. forces in Vietnam. Because of the sheer volume of supplies, there are no recorded instances of U.S. operations being constrained by insufficient logistical support. Despite a high cost in waste and inefficiency, at no time did American strategy hinge on logistical feasibility. Indeed, supplies were lavish. Soldiers at some fire-support bases enjoyed such rations as fresh roast beef, ice cream, and eggs to order on an almost routine basis. This was made possible by the lift ability of the helicopter and tactical transport aircraft, most notably the U.S. Army DeHavilland C-7A Caribou and the U.S. Air Force Chase/Fairchild C-123 Provider and Lockheed C-130 Hercules. During the war these aircraft lifted only slightly less tonnage to troops in the field than all

Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong 679 U.S. helicopters combined. By 1966 scarcely a site existed that was not within 25 miles of an airstrip capable of handling C-130s. Operations once logistically impossible for the French became almost commonplace for the Americans. Roads and railroads also played vital logistical roles. In 1968, for example, road transport delivered nearly 10 times the supply tonnage as helicopters. American efforts to repair the heavily damaged Vietnamese railway system proved successful enough to enable the movement of hundreds of thousands of tons of rock and gravel to road, airfield, and port construction and improvement sites. U.S. logistics were not without problems. The worst of these, at least early on, was ammunition supply. From April to July 1965, ammunition delivery methods created a troublesome situation. Ammunition, like most other commodities, was supplied in push packages. Containing a mixture of ammunition types based on predetermined expenditure rates, these were pushed forward to meet anticipated demands (calculated largely on World War II and Korean War usage rates). The assortment often proved inappropriate for the peculiar demands confronted in Vietnam. Shortages inevitably arose as expenditure exceeded supply of the most-used types, while sites were inundated with huge quantities of the less crucial items. Stocks also accumulated when anticipated consumers were diverted from predesignated disembarkation points. Only with the establishment of Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam, in July 1965 did order finally take root. One of the most impressive examples of U.S. logistical resource application came in the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh. Whereas the French had failed under similar circumstances at Dien Bien Phu, U.S. forces at Khe Sanh were never seriously endangered, thanks to enhanced techniques of air resupply. In addition to normal supply by parachute, fixed-wing transports, and helicopters, supplies were delivered by the Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) and the Ground Proximity Extraction System (GPES). A LAPES run involved a C-130 flying with tailgate down only five feet over the runway. At the desired time a drogue parachute extracted roller-mounted cargo pallets from the aircraft, allowing the supplies to skid to a stop on the runway. A GPES run involved the use of a long hook attached to the cargo that caught an arrester wire, similar to that on aircraft carriers, on the runway. Deliveries made in this manner ultimately became so sophisticated that loads containing 30 dozen eggs were successfully made without a single egg being cracked. Fifty-two LAPES and 15 GPES deliveries arrived during the siege. Altogether, 17,091 tons of supplies reached U.S. forces at Khe Sanh: 8,120 by paradrop, LAPES, and GPES; 4,310 by aircraft landing at the strip; and 4,661 by helicopter. Additionally, helicopters delivered supplies directly to hill outposts around Khe Sanh using a close-cooperation air technique called the Super-Gaggle. A typical mission involved 12 Boeing CH-46 Sea knight helicopters, each underslung with 4,000 pounds of supplies; 12 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk ground attack jets for flak suppression; 4 Bell UH-1E Iroquois helicopter gunships flying

shotgun behind the CH-46s; and 1 TA-4 for overhead coordination. So successful were Super-Gaggle missions that despite their colorful description as “flying madhouses,” only two CH-46 helicopters were shot down during the siege. The Vietnamization program, initiated after the 1968 Tet Offensive, sought to enable the ARVN to take over from the Americans the actual fighting of the war. This effort encountered immediate logistic difficulties. Although there was no shortage of military equipment with which to supply the ARVN, the Vietnamese possessed neither sufficient training for its use nor the expertise necessary to store, maintain, or repair it. Complex equipment required a sophisticated logistical system, something that the ARVN never attained. In fact, ARVN training standards never evolved substantially from mid-1950s’ levels. ARVN armored forces were typical. Although supplied by the United States with the most advanced equipment, armored units suffered a lack of fuel, few spare parts, and a minimal forwardrepair capability that seriously impaired fighting effectiveness. Serviceable vehicles were used to tow damaged pieces out of action, reducing the number available for fighting and often damaging the towing vehicle. The situation soon went from bad to worse. Having followed the American example of lavish consumption, the ARVN encountered enormous problems when it was faced with deep cutbacks in U.S. military assistance. The ARVN saw its training reduced to practically nothing, its use of helicopters and transport aircraft cut by up to 70 percent, its aircraft grounded, and its vehicles cannibalized for spare parts. Depleted fuel stocks could not be replenished. Ammunition supplies were also reduced; even hand grenades were rationed. Boots and clothing supplies also ran short. All manner of medical supplies dwindled, and on the verge of malaria season there was no insect repellent. The effects of these logistical shortfalls on ARVN morale was devastating. Ammunition shortages inevitably contributed to more casualties. Less fuel meant that casualty evacuation grew haphazard at best, including on Honda motorbikes or strings of fuel-less ambulances towed by trucks or, in some cases, by sampans. Without bandages, medicines, antibiotics, or intravenous fluids, hospitals could not provide adequate care even for those soldiers who reached facilities. When inflation destroyed military pay, desertions grew to a staggering 15,000 to 20,000 per month. Seeking to support their families, some soldiers sold their equipment, others turned to graft, and still more avoided their duties in order to moonlight. In short, as the supply situation deteriorated, defeatism and corruption spread through all levels of the disintegrating ARVN. Meanwhile the PAVN, supplied with massive amounts of Russian T-34 and T-54 tanks, surface-to-air missiles, and 130-mm artillery pieces, underwent a much more successful transition. One by one, units were recalled from South Vietnam, reequipped, retrained, and returned to their former positions. By the spring of

680

Long Binh

1972 the PAVN was able to deploy a conventional army of 120,000 men in 14 divisions and 26 independent regiments, a force equivalent of 20 divisions with masses of tanks and artillery. PAVN logistical systems, however, remained inflexible and incapable of supporting an attack by the whole of PAVN forces on a single front, especially in the face of American airpower. Consequently, despite substantial territorial gains, the objectives of the 1972 Easter Offensive were not achieved. In 1973 and 1974 the PAVN leaders, realizing that supplies had long been their Achilles’ heel, took the steps necessary to improve their logistical system to support a large mobile conventional army. Not only was the Ho Chi Minh Trail widened and given a hard surface, but a new all-weather road, running down the east side of the Annamite Mountain chain from Khe Sanh to Loc Ninh, was constructed. An oil pipeline also ran down the trail. Altogether, PAVN crews built 12,000 miles of new roads in areas they controlled in South Vietnam as well as a fuel pipeline from North Vietnam to Loc Ninh. They also installed a military telephone system involving nearly 12,500 miles of telephone lines and built or expanded huge supply depots, complete with hospitals, training centers, repair facilities, and airfields. On December 26, 1974, PAVN forces mounted their final offensive against South Vietnam. With a force equal to 18 fully equipped divisions organized into five army corps, supported by engineers, artillery, tanks, flak units, and even a new rudimentary tactical air force, they swept all opposition before them and took Saigon on April 30, 1975. In the end the PAVN logistic system, laboriously built and adapted over years, proved the key to their success. EDWARD C. PAGE See also Airpower, Role in War; France, Air Force, 1946–1954; France, Army, 1946–1954; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Indochina War; Transportation Group 559; United States Army; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vo Nguyen Giap References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Heiser, Joseph M., Jr. A Soldier Supporting Soldiers. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1991. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. Thompson, Julian. The Lifeblood of War: Logistics in Armed Conflict. London: Brassey’s, 1991.

Long Binh Principal U.S. Army base in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In 1967 the U.S. Army established a headquarters and combat support complex in South Vietnam at Long Binh, 20 miles

north of Saigon near the Bien Hoa Air Base. Eventually the base covered more than 25 square miles and was the largest base in South Vietnam, capable of housing 50,000 men at a cost of more than $100 million. Enhanced by both paved roads and a rail line, Long Binh became the center for command, administration, logistics, and medical support for troops operating in South Vietnam’s southern provinces. The II Field Force had its headquarters there. By the end of the war, Long Binh contained major surgical hospitals, numerous restaurants, several movie theaters, 12 Olympicsized swimming pools, a like number of tennis courts, 2 bowling alleys, and a variety of other establishments. Post exchanges, also known as PXs, offered many amenities enjoyed in the United States. The 18th Engineer Brigade also constructed six cargo barge unloading points on the Saigon River near the Long Binh Depot. Vast amounts of war supplies, from ammunition to petroleum products and Zippo lighters, flowed through the redistribution facilities at Long Binh. A large number of military and civilian personnel and associated equipment were required for these support facilities. The base also served as a replacement depot and transit base for personnel arriving in or departing from Vietnam. In addition, Long Binh contained the U.S. Army prison for Vietnam. Known by troops as LBJ (for Long Binh Jail), the facility had a reputation for uncompromising discipline and harsh living conditions. On August 29, 1968, hundreds of prisoners there rioted, and military police ruthlessly crushed the insurrection. Long Binh epitomized the dichotomy of the war in Vietnam. Freshly showered support troops lounged in air-conditioned barracks while combat troops fought and died in the steamy jungles and rice paddies. Throughout the war, the Viet Cong (VC) targeted Long Binh for rocket and mortar attacks, as they did all U.S. bases. As part of the Communist 1968 Tet Offensive, a VC regiment attacked the base but was repelled with heavy losses during a counterattack by the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. VC sappers, however, did manage to penetrate the ammo dump at Long Binh and blow up several pallets of ammunition. In 1975 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces destroyed the base during the Ho Chi Minh Campaign. STANLEY S. MCGOWEN See also United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Dunn, Lieutenant General Carroll H. Vietnam Studies: Base Development in South Vietnam, 1965–1970. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1972. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols

Long Chieng Main military base of the anti-Communist Hmong irregular forces in Laos, located in a valley in the southwestern corner of Xieng Khouang Province. Long Chieng was off-limits to the press because of sensitivity on the part of the U.S. embassy in Vientiane to the presence of Americans on the ground supporting the Hmong troops and their T-28 aircraft as well as other Americans flying in light aircraft as forward air controllers. Late in the Vietnam War, however, journalists managed to visit Long Chieng, incurring the wrath of Hmong commander General Vang Pao. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Laos; Vang Pao References Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Savada, Andrea Matles, ed. Laos: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995.

Long-Range Electronic Navigation Navigation system that uses two or more pairs of ground-based transmitting stations to allow the crew of an aircraft (or ship) to find their position. Long-range Electronic Navigation (LORAN) was developed by the United States during World War II and was based on the British GEE Radio Navigation System. The U.S.developed system had a range of up to three times as far as the GEE system and thus became the standard for such navigation applications. The master unit of each pair of ground-transmitting stations transmits a series of pulses, each repeated by the slave station located several hundred miles away. Because the period between the signals of the two stations is fixed and known, the length of time between the reception of each signal can be used to determine how much closer the aircraft is to one station than to the other. This time difference is determined either by computer or by plotting the signal on an oscilloscope. A second pair of stations allows the crew to triangulate to derive its precise position. The system operates at ranges up to several thousand miles, but accuracy deteriorates at longer distances. Under ideal conditions, LORAN systems can be accurate to within 100 yards. The Vietnam War was the first conflict in which fighter-bomber aircraft attempted to strike with precision under adverse weather conditions and at night. The advent of electronic navigation aids such as LORAN and Tactical Air Control and Navigation (TACAN) systems made these attempts possible. LORAN was the more useful system because its signals were impossible to corrupt and because, unlike TACAN, it allowed the aircraft to remain electronically “quiet.” This radio silence made the incoming aircraft more difficult to track and defend against, improving survivability.

681

LORAN-guided strikes were less accurate than visual navigation and bombing, however. Employed extensively during Operation LINEBACKER II (December 1972) against storage facilities and power transformers, such strikes proved only marginally effective. LORAN does have some limitations. Its signals can be affected by certain adverse weather conditions and the ionospeheric effects that occur around sunup and sundown. Magnetic storms as well as strong sunspots can also interfere with the system’s functions. LORAN systems remain in use, but they are being quickly rendered obsolete by far more sophisticated navigational devices, especially Global Navigation Satellite Systems, which rely on the highly accurate and fast Global Positioning System (GPS). Indeed, in 2009 the U.S. Office of Management and Budget identified the current LORAN system as outdated and recommended that its support be discontinued, resulting in a savings of some $40 million per year. MATTHEW A. CRUMP AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Electronic Intelligence; LINEBACKER II, Operation References Glister, Herman L. The Air War in Southeast Asia: Case Studies of Selected Campaigns. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1993. Pierce, J. A., et al., eds. LORAN: Long Range Navigation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory Series. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948. Williams, J. E. D. From Sails to Satellites: The Origin and Development of Navigational Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs) were a tactical innovation developed by U.S. forces and their allies. LRRP teams were a response to the type of war being fought in Vietnam—in which front lines were nonexistent and enemy locations were unknown—and to the rugged terrain, most of which was mountainous jungle that provided easy concealment of staging and base areas and supply routes. The first LRRP teams consisted of special reconnaissance units organized by the U.S. Army Special Forces as part of Operation LEAPING LENA. Detachment B-52 was organized under this program in May 1964 and eventually grew to include 93 Special Forces soldiers and more than 1,200 personnel from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Detachment B-52 was initially responsible for training South Vietnamese Special Forces as well as the South Vietnamese belonging to the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) in long-range reconnaissance patrolling and intelligence gathering. In June 1964 Operation LEAPING LENA was transferred to U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), and became Project Delta, with its own LRRP and intelligence-gathering mission. Organized into three parts—a reconnaissance component, a reaction

682

Lon Nol

Members of a Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) team exit a Boeing CH-46 Chinook helicopter, January 1967. (National Archives)

force, and a command section—Project Delta consisted of 600 personnel. The typical reconnaissance element contained eight patrol teams of 4 Vietnamese or ethnic members and 16 reconnaissance teams of 2 Special Forces soldiers and 4 indigenous personnel. The reaction force was usually a battalion equivalent. For Project Delta, this force was an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Ranger battalion, while other units used Montagnards. The reaction force was organized into 12 reconnaissance teams, the mission of which was to collect intelligence on Communist troop movements, assess bomb damage, coordinate artillery and air strikes, and conduct special operations. Project Delta also had 12 so-called Roadrunner teams that conducted reconnaissance along trail networks. Based at Nha Trang, Project Delta was under the control of MACV and was used throughout South Vietnam. In September 1966 Project Delta received the additional duty of training LRRP teams being organized by other U.S. Army units. In August 1966 an additional Special Forces LRRP unit, Detachment B-50 (Project Omega), was formed at Ban Me Thuot in the II Corps Tactical Zone. The detachment consisted of 127 Special Forces soldiers and 894 ethnic troops. Similar in organization to Project Delta, it was placed under the control of I Field Force Vietnam. At the same time a third unit, Detachment B-56 (Project Sigma), was formed at Ho Ngoc Tao, near Saigon, and was under the control of II Field Force Vietnam. In November 1967 Omega and Sigma were taken over by the MACV Special Operations Group. The Special Forces had other highly classified intelligence collection units such as Detachment B-57 (Project Gamma), which

conducted LRRP missions into Cambodia. Another highly classified unit was MACV’s Studies and Observation Group, which included U.S. Army Special Forces, U.S. Navy SEALs (Sea Air Land teams), and U.S. Marine Corps reconnaissance personnel who conducted cross-border patrols and other tasks. The early success of the LRRP concept prompted MACV commander General William C. Westmoreland in 1966 to order all divisions and separate brigades to form their own LRRP units on a priority basis, even while formal Department of the Army approval was still pending. The shortage of trained soldiers, however, prevented this order from being immediately carried out. The 196th Infantry Brigade, for example, arrived in Vietnam in August 1966 but did not form LRRP teams until January 1967. As a result, many LRRP teams were raised informally before specially trained men became available. By the time of the first American troop withdrawals in 1969, most units had created LRRP teams. LRRPs raised outside of the Special Forces generally consisted of a platoon organized by a division’s cavalry squadron, which had always had reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering missions. Beginning in 1967 several separate LRRP companies were organized, including the only U.S. Army National Guard rifle company to serve in Vietnam, Indiana’s Company D, 151st Infantry. Later converted to Companies C through I and K through P, 75th Infantry (Ranger), these soldiers were assigned to U.S. Army divisions and separate infantry brigades as LRRPs. Allied contingents created their own LRRP units. The Australians, for example, deployed a Special Air Service squadron to South Vietnam in April 1966 to perform LRRP functions in Phuoc Tuy Province in the III Corps Tactical Zone. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Australia; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Montagnards; Project Delta; Project Omega; Project Sigma; Studies and Observation Group; United States Special Forces; Westmoreland, William Childs References Keely, Francis J. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973. Stanton, Shelby L. Rangers at War: Combat Recon in Vietnam. New York: Orion, 1992. Stanton, Shelby L. U.S. Army and Allied Ground Forces in Vietnam Order of Battle. Washington, DC: U.S. News Books, 1981.

Lon Nol Birth Date: November 13, 1913 Death Date: November 17, 1985 Cambodian Army officer; prime minister (1966–1967, 1969– 1972); and after the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, president of the short-lived Khmer Republic (1972–1975) prior to the takeover by the Khmer Rouge. Born in Prey Veng Province,

Lon Nol

683

General Lon Nol, the president of Cambodia’s new Salvation Government, addresses a rally in Phnom Penh, April 11, 1970. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Cambodia, on November 13, 1913, Lon Nol was the grandson of a Khmer Krom (ethnic Cambodian resident of Vietnam) official from Tay Ninh and the son of a district chief in the Cambodian civil service. Lon Nol was educated at the Lycée Chasseloup Laubat in Saigon from 1928 to 1934. Starting as a magistrate, he rose through the ranks to become a deputy governor in 1945. He held important posts, notably in the armed forces, throughout the Sihanouk period. Lon Nol was sufficiently popular with the Cambodian elite that at a National Congress convoked by Sihanouk in August 1969 Lon Nol received the highest number of votes (115) among 10 possible candidates to head a “national salvation” government to deal with mounting economic and foreign problems. Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak received the second-highest number of votes (99). These were the two men who were to emerge within months as Cambodia’s leaders. However, they were extraordinarily reluctant leaders. Both declined the offer by the Cambodian National Assembly to form the new government, and it was only on Sihanouk’s virtual order that Lon Nol finally agreed to become prime minister. Lon Nol has often been accused of plotting Sihanouk’s overthrow, but during most of the crucial period preceding the National Assembly’s vote of no confidence on Sihanouk, Lon Nol was not even in Cambodia. From October 30, 1969, to February 18, 1970, he was undergoing medical treatment in France, having left

Sirik Matak in charge in Phnom Penh. Whatever ambitions Lon Nol may have harbored at that point, his actions were hardly those of a coup plotter. Lon Nol met with Sihanouk when the latter arrived in Europe on one of his regular annual foreign tours at the beginning of January 1970 and reportedly persuaded the prince to sanction tougher measures against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong (VC) in their operations inside Cambodia, notably denying them the requisitioning of rice and other supplies and the use of base camps opposite the border of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to support offensives against the Saigon government. In February 1970 the small Cambodian Army began artillery bombardments against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and VC positions on Cambodian soil, and in one of his first moves on returning to Phnom Penh, Lon Nol called in all outstanding 500-riel notes, thereby creating chaos with the Communist Vietnamese rice-purchasing operations. On March 8, 1970, the first of a series of anti-Vietnamese demonstrations occurred in Svay Rieng, a province containing large North Vietnamese base areas. Four days later Lon Nol sent Sihanouk a telegram through the Cambodian embassy in Paris demanding that Cambodia’s military forces be increased to 100,000 men. Sihanouk was outraged by publication of the message and

684

LORRAINE, Operation

shouted threats of execution against his ministers, which were reported back to Phnom Penh, so frightening Lon Nol that he decided to join with Sirik Matak in ousting Sihanouk. However, on the night before the decisive vote in the National Assembly, Lon Nol reportedly had to be persuaded at gunpoint by Sirik Matak to sign a document authorizing the ouster. The next day, March 18, after a debate in which Sihanouk’s conduct was criticized by all speakers, Sihanouk was voted out. Cheng Heng, chairman of the National Assembly, became head of state pending election of a new head of state under the constitution. Lon Nol and Sirik Matak remained as prime minister and deputy prime minister, respectively. The deputies’ anger against Sihanouk had been further stoked by news of an abortive attempt by the head of the national police, Colonel Oum Manorine, a half brother of Sihanouk’s wife, Monique, to arrest Lon Nol. Faced with the determination of PAVN and VC forces to hang on to their valuable Cambodian sanctuaries and sources of supply in addition to the growing threat posed by an indigenous Khmer Communist movement headed by Pol Pot, whose forces increasingly took over the fighting from the Vietnamese, the government in Phnom Penh blundered from one failure to another. Its rapid loss of control of most of the provinces was not helped by massive military maneuvers along the main roads, and Phnom Penh itself became a beleaguered city crowded with refugees. The country’s economy, already seriously strained, collapsed. A pogrom against Vietnamese residents resulted in many thousands of civilian deaths. The Chinese merchant class fled. Some foreign journalists disappeared a few miles outside the capital, and it was later discovered that they had been executed by the xenophobic guerrillas. In this crisis Lon Nol showed a definite and surprising lack of leadership. Despite the fact that in March 1972 he announced that he was taking over from Cheng Heng as head of state in a new Khmer Republic to be approved by popular referendum, Lon Nol relied increasingly on mystical solutions. Always a superstitious man, he called the Vietnamese thmil, the Khmer word for the evil spirits that lurked in the forests. He consulted astrologers with increasing frequency. Resisting suggestions that he step down to pave the way for a negotiated armistice with Sihanouk in Beijing, he stayed on doggedly. But Lon Nol faced real health problems, and a few weeks before the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh in 1975 he departed for Hawaii to receive medical treatment. He then moved to California and died there in Fullerton on November 17, 1985. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Cambodia; Khmer Rouge; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom References Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Hamel, Bernard. Sihanouk et le Drame Cambodgien. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1993.

Kirk, Donald. Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. New York: Praeger, 1971.

LORRAINE,

Operation

Start Date: October 1952 End Date: November 1952 French military operation mounted in some haste against Viet Minh base areas in order to compel Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap to return divisions to their defense and abandon his campaign to conquer the Thai Highlands. Giap, aware of the limitations of French heavy equipment in the earlier battles around the Red River Delta, had decided to attack across the top of the Indochinese peninsula. This would force the French to fight at long range in difficult terrain, and Giap reasoned that the French would find it difficult, if not impossible, to bring their heavy equipment to bear against his forces there. French military commander in Indochina General Raoul Salan committed more than 30,000 men to Operation LORRAINE. The largest French operation of the Indochina War, LORRAINE involved four motorized or armored regimental combat teams, three airborne battalions, five commando formations, two tank-destroyer squadrons, two naval assault divisions (Dinassauts), and assorted support groups. Operation LORRAINE began on October 29, 1952, and started out well. The French penetrated about 100 miles and took Phu Doan and Phu Yen Binh, two important Viet Minh supply centers west of Hanoi, capturing large amounts of arms, ammunition, and equipment (including Soviet-built trucks). The French never did reach the vital Viet Minh depots at Yen Bai, however. The operation bogged down on its long and precarious supply lines and was soon in reverse. On November 14 Salan halted LORRAINE, and the French began their withdrawal. Now fully alerted, the Viet Minh attacked retreating French units. Their 36th Regiment ambushed French Mobile Group 12 and Mobile Group 4 at Chan Muong. By December 1 the French had returned to their defensive positions along the so-called De Lattre Line, and Giap’s forces were still on the Laos border. Operation LORRAINE failed because Giap refused to abandon his strategy of leaving small units to fend for themselves, even if it meant sacrificing his 36th and 176th Infantry regiments. He was certain that such French operations would sooner or later come to an end. In fact, the larger the operation, the more likely it would be of short duration, for its component units, drafted just for the operation at hand, would soon be required elsewhere. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also CASTOR, Operation; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dinassauts; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis; Vo Nguyen Giap

Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth

685

References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992.

Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth Birth Date: January 26, 1929 Death Date: March 14, 1980 Attorney, academic, liberal activist, and U.S. congressman who was best known for leading the challenge to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s renomination in 1968. Born on January 16, 1929, in Newark, New Jersey, Allard Kenneth Lowenstein graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1949 and from Yale University Law School in 1954. Perpetually active in liberal causes, he criticized South African apartheid, participated in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and actively opposed the Vietnam War. Lowenstein taught at Stanford University, North Carolina State University, and City College of New York. He also served as special assistant to U.S. senator Frank Porter Graham and in 1959 served on the staff of Senator Hubert H. Humphrey as a foreign policy assistant. The following year Lowenstein was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Convinced that President Johnson would not de-escalate in Vietnam, Lowenstein and Curtis Gans organized what some called the “Dump Johnson” movement to replace Johnson as the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate. They enticed Senator Eugene McCarthy to run and helped mobilize younger campaign workers, who propelled McCarthy to a shocking near defeat of Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. This showing convinced Senator Robert Kennedy to enter the Democratic race and helped persuade Johnson to withdraw. Lowenstein was an official delegate to the raucous 1968 Democratic National Convention in 1968. That same year Lowenstein won election to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York. However, he served only one term, which ended in January 1971. He lost subsequent congressional campaigns in 1972, 1974, 1976, and 1978. He also served as national chair of the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) during 1971–1973. As head of the ADA he organized a “Dump Nixon” campaign. Although Nixon went on to win reelection in 1972, Lowenstein’s efforts to torpedo Nixon’s reelection bid reportedly resulted in his being placed on the president’s infamous “Enemies List.” In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed Lowenstein to lead the American delegation to the United Nations (UN) Commission

Democratic congressman from New York Allard Lowenstein was an outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and a leader in the movement to oppose President Lyndon Johnson’s renomination in 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

on Human Rights. From August 1978 he was the alternate U.S. representative for Special Political Affairs at the UN with the rank of ambassador. Lowenstein was shot to death in his New York City office by Dennis Sweeney, a former student, on March 14, 1980. Sweeney, who was mentally ill, had come to believe that Lowenstein was plotting to kill him. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Elections, U.S., 1968; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Chafe, William H. Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Cummings, Richard. The Pied Piper: Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream. New York: Grove, 1985. Harris, David. Dreams Die Hard. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982.

686

Luce, Henry Robinson

Luce, Henry Robinson Birth Date: April 3, 1898 Death Date: February 28, 1967 U.S. publishing magnate, influential opinion maker, and prominent internationalist. Born on April 3, 1898, in Dengzhou (Tengchow), Shandong (Shantung) Province, China, the son of a Presbyterian missionary, Henry Robinson Luce enrolled at the elite Hotchkiss Preparatory School in Connecticut, graduated from Yale University in 1920, and studied at Oxford during 1920– 1921. A brilliant student, Luce edited Yale’s newspaper with fellow publishing enthusiast Briton Hadden. In 1923 Hadden and Luce launched Time magazine, which quickly became a major success. When Hadden died in 1928, Luce became head of the burgeoning publishing empire. Luce married playwright and future Republican politician Clare Booth in 1935. The next year he brought out Life, the first successful photojournalism magazine. Keenly attuned to popular trends, in 1954 Luce launched Sports Illustrated, appealing to Americans’ love of entertainment sports. Luce believed that Americans knew too little about the outside world, so he emphasized international news coverage in many of his magazines. Luce’s pro-American, procapitalist reading of global events strongly influenced the American public’s percep-

tions of the larger world. In the 1920s and early 1930s Luce was attracted to fascism; his magazines published admiring portrayals of Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Spain’s Francisco Franco. Later, however, Luce opposed the Axis powers in World War II. In an influential February 1941 editorial in Life magazine titled “The American Century,” he called for U.S. entry into World War II and the need to accept global responsibilities. Luce’s strong anticommunism, devotion to the Republican Party, and youthful experiences in China shaped his support for Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) and the Nationalist cause. Jiang appeared on more Time magazine covers than any other world leader. Like the so-called China Lobby, Luce refused to recognize the 1949 success of the Chinese Revolution, and his enormous influence helped preclude any alternative U.S. policy toward China for a generation. In the 1950s and early 1960s Luce promoted President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as America’s new democratic champion in Asia. Luce and his publications backed both the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Luce died on February 28, 1967, in Phoenix, Arizona. MICHAEL E. DONOGHUE See also China, People’s Republic of; Containment Policy; Jiang Jieshi; Mao Zedong; Ngo Dinh Diem References Baughman, James L. Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Herzstein, Robert Edwin. Henry R. Luce: A Political Portrait of the Man Who Created the American Century. New York: Scribner, 1994.

Luc Luong Dac Biet See Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces

Lu Han Birth Date: ca. 1895 Death Date: 1974

Henry R. Luce (1898–1967) was a publishing magnate. He helped found Time magazine, published Life, and founded Sports Illustrated. Luce emphasized international news coverage in many of his magazines and helped shape American perceptions of the world. (Library of Congress)

General commanding Chinese troops who in 1945 occupied northern Vietnam. A member of the ethnic Lolo minority, Lu Han was born in China either in 1895 or 1896 and was considered the key lieutenant of Long Van, governor of the Chinese province of Yunnan. In August 1945 Lu commanded Chinese armed forces that accepted the Japanese surrender in northern Indochina. Lu arrived in Hanoi on September 14, 1945. At a news conference the next day at Don Thuy, Hanoi, Lu announced that China was sending 200,000 men to enter Vietnam by Lang Son, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Ha Giang, and Mong Cay and that they would be stationed throughout the region north of the 16th Parallel. He stated that the Chinese mission was to disarm the Japa-

Ly Bon

687

nese and not to interfere in the internal affairs of Vietnam. But in fact the Chinese brought with them Nguyen Hai Than, an exiled Vietnamese and leader of the Vietnam National Party (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang) with the plan of installing a government led by Than to replace that of Ho Chi Minh. In October 1945 Lu was appointed governor of Yunnan but remained commander of Chinese Armed Forces in northern Indochina. He left Hanoi in 1946 and surrendered to the Chinese Communist forces in 1949. Little is known about his activities or whereabouts after that time. Lu died in 1974, presumably in China. NGO NGOC TRUNG

during his imprisonment, Quyen committed suicide to make it easier for the revolutionary troops to withdraw. NGO NGOC TRUNG

See also China, People’s Republic of; Ho Chi Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: 547

References Hsu, Immanuel C. Y. The Rise of Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Luong Ngoc Quyen Birth Date: 1890 Death Date: August 31, 1917 Prominent Vietnamese nationalist and leader of an uprising against the French in 1917. Born in 1890 at Nhi Khue village, Thuong Tin District, Ha Dong Province, a suburb of Hanoi, Luong Ngoc Quyen (also known as Luong Lap Nham) was the son of Luong Van Can, a famous patriotic scholar who founded Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, the first public school established by Vietnamese in Hanoi. In 1905 Quyen went to Japan, where he was introduced to Phan Boi Chau and enrolled in the Chan Vo Military Academy. Quyen, his younger brother Luong Nghi Khanh, and friends Nguyen Dien and Nguyen Thuc Canh were the first four Vietnamese students to study in Japan. Quyen also attended military training schools in Canton and Peking (Beijing), China. In December 1915 British police in Hong Kong arrested Quyen and handed him over to French authorities. Returned to Hanoi, he was then tried and sentenced to life in prison. Held in Thai Nguyen Prison, he was brutally tortured there. His staunch patriotism, however, led to the recruitment of numerous Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial administration, including Trinh Van Can (also known as Doi Can). On the night of August 31, 1917, an uprising occurred in Thai Nguyen Province led by Doi Can. Some 300 soldiers participated, and Quyen was released and became adviser and deputy commander. The rebels managed to control the province for one week until French reinforcements arrived from Hanoi and forced them to retreat into the jungle. Handicapped by the torture he endured

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Phan Boi Chau Reference Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955.

Ly Bon

Ly Bon (also known as Ly Bi) was a military official of Chinese ancestry in Duc Province who in 541 CE led a sizable rebellion against Chinese rule. Duc Province was located at the mouth of the Ca River. The rebellion followed the introduction of higher taxes by Xiao Zi (Hsiao Tzu), the Chinese governor of Giao Chi (northern Tonkin). Bon joined another Chinese official, Tinh Thieu, to lead the revolt and also secured the support of Trieu Tuc, the leader of Chu-dien between the Day and Han rivers. Bon probably moved north from Duc into Ai. Tuc’s adherence to the revolt opened Chu-dien, allowing Bon’s forces to advance into the Red River Delta to Bi. Recognizing the hopelessness of their position, the Chinese withdrew. Reportedly, Hsiao Tzu was forced to bribe his way to freedom. The Chinese response was swift. Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty ordered Sun Qiong (Sun Ch’iung) of Gao (Kao) and Lu Zixiong (Lu Tzu-hsiung) of Xin (Hsin), governors of the two provinces west of Guangdong (Canton), to subdue the revolt. With the rainy season about to begin and with it the heightened possibility of malaria, the two governors requested a postponement. With this denied, their army moved against the rebels. The army reached Hepu (Ho-p’u), but the reported cost was 60–70 percent of its numbers dead. It is not clear whether the casualties were from disease, rebel military action, or a combination of the two. What remained of the Chinese forces now withdrew. Qiong and Zixiong were then made scapegoats and were falsely accused of being in league with the rebels. Summoned to Guang (Kuang), the two were executed. In 543 the king of Lin-i invaded Duc, but it is not clear whether this was at the instigation of Liang dynasty officials. Bon dispatched a Bi official and general, Pham Tu, against the Lin-i army. Defeated, the Lin-i then withdrew. At the beginning of 544, Bon proclaimed himself the emperor of Nam Viet. He called his new state Van Xuan (“Ten Thousand Springs”). He took the reigning name of Thieu-duc (“Heavenly Virtue”). Bon’s base of operations was probably Gia Ninh at the head of the Red River Delta where the river is joined by its two principal tributaries, but his territory reportedly included virtually the entire Red River Delta area from Lang Son to the border with

688

Lynd, Staughton

Lin Yi (the Champa kingdom). He built a palace called Van Tho (“Ten Thousand Life Spans”). Bon organized his court along traditional Chinese lines. He may have provided support to the Buddhist religion, and it is believed that he erected a temple to the memory of Trieu Au (Lady Trieu), leader of the 248 CE Vietnamese uprising against Chinese rule. Bon’s chief preoccupations were to keep peace at home and prevent foreign invasion, including attacks by the mountain tribes known as the Lao. In 545 another Chinese army invaded, this one led by Chen Baxian (Ch’en Pa-hsien) that most likely came by sea. Baxian defeated Bon in the lower Red River Delta, and Bon withdrew to near present-day Hanoi, where he was again defeated. He then withdrew to his citadel at Gia Ninh, which Baxian besieged and captured early in 546. Bon escaped into the nearby mountains, where he rallied what remained of his army. Winning the support of some of the Lao, by autumn he had put together an army of some 20,000 men on the shores of Dien Triet Lake and began the construction of boats to cross the lake and attack the Chinese. The Chinese attacked first, caught Bon by surprise, and defeated him in the Battle of Dien Triet Lake of 546. Bon escaped into the mountains, but he was killed the next year by the Lao, who sent his head sent to the Chinese to collect the bounty placed on it. Resistance continued against the Chinese for a time under Bon’s elder brother Ly Thien Bao, who reportedly raised as many as 20,000 men and again secured control of Bac. Bao then marched on Ai, but Baxian returned and defeated him and drove him back into the mountains. Despite strong Tang rule, Vietnamese revolts against the Chinese continued to occur sporadically thereafter. Baxian subsequently took power in China, becoming Emperor Wu, founder of the Chen dynasty that ruled over parts of China roughly south of the Huai River from 557 to 589. SPENCER C. TUCKER

Staughton Lynd was born on November 22, 1929, in Philadelphia to the noted sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd, authors of the classic sociological study Middletown. In 1951 Staughton Lynd graduated from Harvard University and married Alice Niles. Inducted into the U.S. Army in 1953 as a noncombatant conscientious objector, Lynd later received a discharge for his leftist politics at Harvard. He earned a PhD in history from Columbia University in 1962 and, while teaching at Atlanta’s Spelman College in the early 1960s, became active in the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, Lynd directed the Freedom Schools during the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 before moving to a position at Yale University. An early participant in the Vietnam antiwar movement, Lynd chaired the April 1965 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) march in Washington and spoke that spring at a teach-in in Berkeley, California. In August 1965 he helped organize the Assembly of Unrepresented People, which dealt with Vietnam and domestic social issues, and he was among the founders of the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam. His greatest notoriety came when he traveled to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in December 1965 with fellow activists Tom Hayden and Herbert Aptheker to hear North Vietnamese terms for peace and encourage a negotiated settlement of the war. The trip violated federal law and temporarily resulted in the cancellation of Lynd’s passport, although the courts restored it on appeal.

See also Dien Triet Lake, Battle of; Trieu Au; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Lynd, Staughton Birth Date: November 22, 1929 American attorney, author, historian, teacher, radical Quaker pacifist, and New Left intellectual who operated at the center of antiwar activism throughout most of the Vietnam War era.

Longtime American civil rights activist and pacifist Staughton Lynd here poses with his cancelled passport after he defied a ban on travel to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in January 1966. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Lynd, Staughton Lynd’s radicalism revealed itself in his stance for nonexclusion of Marxists in coalition activities and his endorsement of nonviolent civil disobedience. He also preferred attacking the system from without rather than through electoral politics, which he believed diverted the movement away from fundamental change. Lynd’s continued antiwar protests included partial income tax refusal, vigorous support for draft resistance, and sponsorship of the 1967 Spring Mobilization. He rejected, however, an offer to sit with the Bertrand Russell International War Crimes Tribunal in 1967 because Lynd believed that the tribunal accepted an ideological double standard regarding violence. His political activities seriously damaged his academic career. Yale denied him tenure in 1968, and other colleges refused him positions despite support from their history faculties. Disillusioned with the militant drift of the younger New Left, by 1971 Lynd became increasingly involved with economic issues and organizing steelworkers. He and his wife moved to Chicago and undertook community organizing in the inner city. With his academic career limited, he graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1976 and pursued labor law, most notably with the steel industry of northeastern Ohio. Lynd has written several books

689

and numerous articles on both scholarly and political subjects. His latest book, Stepping Stones: Memoir of a Life Together was released in 2009 and is a memoir that covers both his life and that of his wife Alice. Lynd still maintains his law license in Ohio, and he and his wife are still activists in the Youngstown, Ohio, area. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Selective Service; Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam References Finn, James. Protest: Pacifism and Politics. New York: Random House, 1967. Hayden, Tom. Reunion: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1988. Lynd, Staughton. Stepping Stones: Memoir of a Life Together. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. Lyttle, Bradford. The Chicago Anti-Vietnam War Movement. Chicago: Midwest Pacifist Center, 1988. Moritz, Charles, ed. Current Biography Yearbook. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1983. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

This page intentionally left blank

M MacArthur, Douglas Birth Date: January 26, 1880 Death Date: April 5, 1964 U.S. Army general. Born on January 26, 1880, at Little Rock Barracks, Arkansas, the son of U.S. Army lieutenant general Arthur MacArthur, Douglas MacArthur graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1903. He then served in the Philippines and Mexico (where he won the Medal of Honor). In World War I he helped organize the 42nd Division (“Rainbow”) and was its first chief of staff. Later he commanded the division in battle. After the war he was superintendent of West Point (1919–1922), commander of the Philippines Department (1928–1930), and chief of staff of the U.S. Army (1930–1935). In 1936 the Philippines government appointed him field marshal to reorganize its military; he retired from the U.S. Army in 1937. With war imminent, MacArthur was recalled to active U.S. service as a lieutenant general and named commander of U.S. forces in the Far East. He has been roundly criticized for his role in the 1941 loss of the Philippines, but for a variety of reasons he was retained and was made supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwestern Pacific. MacArthur convinced President Franklin Roosevelt of the need to retake the Philippines, and MacArthur’s handling of that campaign was highly praised. Promoted to the rank of general of the army, after the war MacArthur was military governor and virtual dictator of Japan. He also commanded the U.S. Far Eastern Command. After the June 25, 1950, invasion of the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), MacArthur became supreme commander of United Nations (UN) forces in Korea. He may have

actually encouraged the North Korean invasion of South Korea by specifically excluding Korea from the U.S. defense perimeter, but he responded energetically to the invasion, and his plan for an amphibious landing at Inchon worked out just as planned in September 1950 and helped bring about the collapse of North Korean forces. MacArthur’s subsequent strategic dispositions afterward were unsound, however, and he completely underestimated the intent and scale of the Chinese military intervention. In October 1950 during a meeting with President Harry S. Truman on Wake Island, MacArthur virtually guaranteed that the Chinese would not intervene in the war and that if they did they would be annihilated. Ignoring warning probes by the Chinese into North Korea in October 1950, MacArthur was caught completely off guard by the massive Chinese intervention that came in late November. Believing that there was “no substitute for victory,” the general clashed with the concept of limited war now advocated by President Harry S. Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), who thought that primary U.S. attention should reside in Europe and the threat posed there by the Soviet Union. In late March 1951 after a series of moves and statements that were at odds with the administration’s directives, MacArthur communicated critical views regarding the conduct of the war directly to members of Congress. President Truman dismissed him on April 11. MacArthur returned to a hero’s welcome and then retired. A bid for a presidential nomination collapsed because of his imperious personality, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the 1952 Republican presidential nominee and in November was elected president. MacArthur strongly advocated U.S. policies that would lead to military defeat of the Chinese armies in Korea. When he learned of the July 1953 armistice there, he said that it was the “death

692

MACARTHUR, Operation

General Douglas MacArthur addresses a crowd of some 50,000 people at Soldier Field, Chicago, in April 1951, after his relief from command by President Harry Truman. Although a staunch anti-Communist, shortly before his death in 1964, MacArthur warned President Lyndon B. Johnson not to commit U.S. ground forces to Vietnam. (National Archives)

warrant” for French Indochina. He frequently expressed the view that the United States should avoid becoming involved in a nonnuclear land war in Asia. He reportedly told President John F. Kennedy that there was no end of Asian manpower; even if the United States sent 1 million men there, they would still be outnumbered on every side. MacArthur is also reported as having told Kennedy that solving U.S. domestic problems should have a higher priority than the war in Vietnam. Shortly before his death, MacArthur also warned President Lyndon B. Johnson not to commit U.S. ground forces to Vietnam or anywhere else on the Asian mainland. It is thus indeed ironic that MacArthur was regarded as a prophet by those who argued for an unremitting anti-Communist Asian crusade. MacArthur died at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., on April 5, 1964. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Korean War; Truman, Harry S. References James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur, Vol. 3, Triumph and Disaster, 1945–1964. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

Manchester, William. American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964. London: Arrow Books, 1978. Schaller, Michael. Douglas MacArthur: Far Eastern General. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

MACARTHUR,

Operation

Start Date: October 13, 1967 End Date: January 31, 1969 Military operation beginning on October 13, 1967, by the U.S. 4th Infantry Division in the western Central Highlands. In its 1967 phase, it became commonly known as the Battle of Dak To. When Operation GREELEY ended on October 12, 1967, only a single 4th Infantry Division battalion remained in Kontum Province until a reinforced People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) division again threatened the Dak To Special Forces camp, hoping to draw in allied troops and destroy an American brigade. Acting Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Creighton Abrams (General William Westmoreland was in Washington) countered by deploying 16 maneuver battalions, including the 4th Infantry Division, the 173rd Airborne,

MACARTHUR, Operation

the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Brigade, six Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) battalions, an aviation battalion, artillery batteries, and logistical units. Completely undetected, PAVN forces under the command of 1st Division Commander Nguyen Huu An, who had commanded PAVN forces in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, had spent months establishing well-fortified positions on the peaks and ridgelines overlooking Dak To. During November 3–4, companies of the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry (3-12 Infantry), and 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry (3-8 Infantry), successfully cleared out PAVN positions on hills south and southwest of Dak To, but on November 6 Task Force Black of the 173rd Airborne’s 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry (4-503 Infantry) took heavy casualties while attempting to establish a firebase on Hill 823 south of Ban Het. Though reinforced by companies of the 4-503 Infantry and the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry (1-503 Infantry), the American paratroopers were caught in a deadly U-shaped ambush on November 11 by the PAVN 66th Regiment. The jungle canopy made artillery and tactical air support ineffective. A lone helicopter took 35 hits while its crew attempted to drop a pallet of ammunition, only to see it fall outside the perimeter. By the time another company from the 4-503 Infantry landed in a prepared landing zone (LZ) north of the site and linked up with the stranded task force, U.S. losses were 20 killed, 154 wounded, and 2 missing. The PAVN lost at least 117 soldiers. Beginning on November 14, five ARVN battalions fought the PAVN 24th Regiment at Hill 1416 northeast of Dak To for four days before taking the hill, killing 247 PAVN soldiers. On November 15 PAVN mortar fire hit the Dak To airfield, touching off the ammunition dump and destroying two Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo planes but causing only light personnel casualties. As more allied troops poured in, the PAVN 32nd and 66th regiments withdrew to entrenched positions to the southwest. The 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry (3-12 Infantry), engaged the 32nd Regiment on Hill 1338 for two days, taking the summit after furious fighting. Meanwhile, the PAVN 174th Regiment occupied Hill 875, some 10 miles west of Dak To near the Cambodian border. On November 19, 173nd Airborne Brigade commander Brigadier General Leo H. Schweiter ordered the 2-503 Infantry to assault Hill 875. This would be the climax of the Battle of Dak To. Following artillery and air strikes, Companies C and D started up the northern slope but were stopped by automatic weapons and grenade fire coming from an intact system of interconnected bunkers. Waves of PAVN soldiers counterattacked and enveloped the Americans, virtually annihilating two platoons. In reserve 650 feet back, Company A was decimated by fire from the rear. With dozens already dead and hundreds wounded, the shattered battalion established an emergency perimeter. PAVN gunners shot down six helicopters, but one managed to drop pallets of ammunition inside the shrinking perimeter. Still, the battalion was left without food or water for 50 hours.

693

Compounding the tragedy, an errant U.S. bomb fell inside the perimeter, instantly killing 42 men, including several officers, and horribly wounding 45 more. On November 20 companies of the 4-503 Infantry moved up the hill but did not reach the survivors’ perimeter until evening. At daybreak they cut an LZ from the jungle, and helicopters extracted the wounded. On November 22 helicopters brought in food and removed the dead, and following a seven-hour air and artillery barrage, the 4-503 Infantry resumed the attack up Hill 875. The advance reduced to a crawl as PAVN bunkers remained nearly impregnable and the defenders countered with mortar, rifle, and grenade fire. Despite dozens of casualties, the battalion captured two trench lines before digging in 250 feet from the crest. More air strikes turned the top of Hill 875 into a wasteland, and on November 23, Thanksgiving Day, the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1-12 Infantry joined the remaining troops of the 4-503 Infantry for a final attack. These reached the summit by noon, but the battered PAVN regiments already had decamped, leaving behind their dead and weapons, to descend the western slope into their Cambodian sanctuary. The battle for Hill 875 was over and essentially so was the Battle of Dak To. While the PAVN body count on Hill 875 was more than 300, the 2-503 Infantry lost 87 killed, more than 200 wounded, and 3 missing; the 4-503 Infantry lost 28 dead, nearly 200 wounded, and 4 missing. Throughout November, U.S. forces fired more than 170,000 artillery rounds into the mountains surrounding Dak To and flew more than 2,000 tactical air strikes and 300 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress sorties. At least 40 U.S. helicopters were lost. MACV reported PAVN losses as 1,644 dead, their costliest battle since the Ia Drang Valley campaign. The debate over whether the fight for Hill 875 was worth it continues. The cost of the Battle of Dak To was staggering: at least 73 ARVN lives in addition to the official count of 376 Americans killed and 1,441 wounded. Actual U.S. battle deaths probably exceeded 700, but this number was reported only in the context of the larger Operation MACARTHUR. The 173rd Airborne Brigade received a Presidential Unit Citation but was so decimated that it was never again deployed as a complete combat unit. Although shocked by the extent of U.S. casualties, General Westmoreland proclaimed that the Battle of Dak To signaled “the beginning of a great defeat for the enemy.” General Vo Nguyen Giap, defense minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), probably thought otherwise. Despite their heroism, U.S. forces, especially on Hill 875, were completely outmaneuvered by the PAVN troops who chose the time and place for the decisive engagement. They lured U.S. forces into the most rugged terrain in Vietnam, where the relative strengths of the opposing forces favored them. Although it is true that only the PAVN 24th Regiment would take part in the coming 1968 Tet Offensive, the other three PAVN regiments were not, as MACV claimed, “virtually destroyed.” However, in his postwar memoirs PAVN 1st Division commander Nguyen Huu An conceded that his division had been severely weakened by the losses it suffered during this

694

Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

battle and that these losses significantly affected its performance during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The 4th Infantry Division and assorted military units of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) continued to pursue the elusive Communist troops in Kontum and Pleiku, but there were no memorable battles throughout 1968. MACARTHUR became an undefined border-watch operation to inhibit PAVN infiltration. At the formal end of Operation MACARTHUR on January 31, 1969, MACV claimed a total of 5,731 PAVN/Viet Cong (VC) casualties. JOHN D. ROOT See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Body Count; Casualties; Dak To, Battle of; Fratricide; GREELEY, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Army; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Maitland, Terrence, and Peter McInerney. A Contagion of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Murphy, Edward F. Dak To: The 173rd Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, June–November 1967. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Nguyen Huu An and Nguyen Tu Duong. Chien Truong Moi [New Battlefields]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2002. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam The forerunner of the modern machine gun was the 1862 Gatling gun, a multibarreled weapon operated and fired by means of a hand-cranked mechanism. In 1883 the American Hiram Maxim invented the first true machine gun, a single-barrel weapon that used the recoil of each round to operate the action and fire the next round. The machine gun raised the rate of infantry firepower to unprecedented levels. By World War I the machine gun, known

as “the devil’s paintbrush,” had become the dominant weapon in ground combat. Modern machine guns are classified as heavy, medium, or light. Heavy machine guns are designed to be fired from an aircraft or a ground vehicle from either a fixed or flexible mount. Light machine guns are designed to be carried by infantry. Most are fired from a bipod or a light tripod but can be fired from the hip by a standing soldier in an emergency situation. Medium machine guns are usually vehicle-mounted, but they can be used by infantry on the ground if necessary. Almost all machine guns are fed by either a fabric or a disintegrating metal link belt that holds the bullets. Some light machine guns (mostly East European designs) are fed from a drum. All machine guns are classified as crew-served weapons (requiring more than one soldier to operate and service the weapon). The dominant tactical feature of the machine gun is its high rate of fire. The maximum rate at which a machine gun can fire is called the cyclic rate of fire. In actual combat operations, however, machine guns cannot fire at their cyclic rate for extended periods because of heat buildup and wear. The barrel is the part of the machine gun that heats up the fastest, and most machine guns are designed with easily changeable barrels and issued with at least one spare. The rate at which a machine gun can fire for extended periods is called the sustained rate of fire, which is much lower than the cyclic rate. The most effective machine gunners discipline themselves to fire their weapons in a rapid series of three- to sixround bursts. Almost all the machine guns employed during the Vietnam War were of either American or Soviet design. Although the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) used any weapons available, most of their machine guns were either Soviet-made or Chinese-manufactured from Soviet designs. The Communists also used weapons captured from the French during the Indochina War and U.S. weapons taken from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) or from the Americans. Two of the most widely used Soviet designs were the 7.62-millimeter (mm) Goryunov SG-43 and the heavy 12.7-mm Degtyarev DShK. With the proper

Machine Guns Used during the Vietnam War Model Degtyarev Degtyarev Goryunov Kalashnikov Browning Browning Browning M-60 M-134 M-61

Country of Production

Caliber

Length (inches)

Weight (pounds)

Feed

Cyclic Rate of Fire (rounds per minute)

Muzzle Velocity (feet per second)

Soviet Union Soviet Union Soviet Union Soviet Union United States United States United States United States United States United States

7.62-mm 12.7-mm 7.62-mm 7.62-mm .30in .30in .50in 7.62-mm 7.62-mm 20-mm

50.8 62.6 44.1 41 41 53 65.1 43.75 31.5 73.8

20.5 78.5 30.25 10.5 31 32.5 84 23 67 264

Drum Belt Belt Drum Belt Belt Belt Belt Belt Belt

550 550 600 600 550 500 450 600 6,000 6,600

2,760 2,825 2,440 2,400 2,800 2,800 2,930 2,800 2,850 3,450

Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 695

An American soldier readies his M-60 machine gun in preparation for an assault during the Vietnam War. The M-60 was generally operated by a crew of two to three men: a gunner, assistant gunner, and ammunition bearer. (U.S. Army Center of Military History)

mount the DShK was an effective antiaircraft gun, especially against helicopters. During the early years of the war, ARVN units were equipped with older-model but still highly effective U.S. machine guns. Their primary vehicle-mounted machine gun was the Browning M-1919A4, which had been an American mainstay in World War II. The Browning M-1919A6 was the infantry version of the same gun, equipped with a bipod on the front of the barrel and a shoulder stock that permitted the gun to be fired from the prone position. Both of these weapons fired the .30-06 bullet, the same round fired by the M-1 rifle, also issued to the ARVN in large numbers. In U.S. service, both the M1919A4 and M1919A6 were replaced during the early 1960s by the M60 machine gun. This truly outstanding weapon was modeled closely after the World War II German MG-42 machine gun. Instead of the traditional American .30-06 round, the M-60 fired the 7.62-mm North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standard round. The M-14 rifle also fired the 7.62-mm NATO standard, but most American troops in Vietnam carried the M16 rifle, which fired the much smaller 5.56-mm

round. Thus, for the first time in the 20th century, American units did not have rifles and machine guns that fired the same ammunition. The M-60 was used in every conceivable role for a machine gun. It was mounted on trucks, jeeps, armored personnel carriers (APCs), and other vehicles; on tripods inside fortifications; and on aircraft and boats. A version designated the M-60D was fitted with a rear trigger mechanism and handles (called spade grips) for use by helicopter door gunners. The M-60 saw by far its widest use on the ground with the infantry. An infantry machine-gun section officially consisted of three soldiers: the gunner, the assistant gunner, and the ammunition carrier. In practice, all members of a patrol carried extra machine-gun ammunition, which was passed up to the gun crew when needed. This accounts for the ubiquitous photographs of American infantrymen with belts of machine-gun ammunition draped around their bodies. That was the easiest way to carry the heavy load and left the soldier’s hands free to use his own weapon.

696

Madman Strategy

The standard American heavy machine gun was one of the oldest weapons in the inventory. The basic model of the Browning .50-caliber M-2 was introduced in 1921 and slightly modified in 1933. It was and still is the best heavy machine gun ever designed. During World War II the M-2 was used in a wide variety of versions. In its lighter-barreled variant, it was used on almost all American aircraft. In Vietnam the heavy-barrel version, designated the M-2(HB), was mounted on larger trucks, tanks, APCs, and occasionally tripods on the ground. The gun delivered withering firepower in the form of a massive half-inch–diameter bullet. The M-2 was highly prized by the VC, who thought nothing of sacrificing many of their own troops in an attempt to capture one troop. The M-2 tended to be a little cranky at times, and a well-trained gunner was needed to operate it effectively. M-2 gunners tended to specialize in their job. The troops loved the guns, which they called the “Mod Deuce” or “Ma Deuce.” Both the M-60 and the M-2 were expected to remain in the U.S. military inventory well into the 21st century. During the Vietnam War, modern technology resurrected the Gatling gun, which had been obsolete for almost 100 years. This time, instead of a hand crank the drive mechanism operated by an electric motor. These modern Gatling guns had tremendous rates of fire, but they generally were too large and bulky for general infantry use. They did, however, make ideal aircraft-mounted weapons. The M-61 Vulcan fired a massive 20-mm round at the cyclic rate of 6,600 rounds per minute. Vulcans were initially designed for air force fighter aircraft. In the mid-1960s they were mounted on old World War II–era Douglas C-47 Skytrain/Dakota transports and rigged to fire sideways, out the cargo door. The result was the Douglas AC-47 Spooky, also known as “Puff the Magic Dragon.” The M-134 minigun was a scaled-down version of the Vulcan, firing as many as 6,000 7.62-mm rounds per minute. The much lighter minigun was designed for helicopters and became one of the primary weapons of the helicopter gunship. Both the Vulcanfiring AC-47 and the minigun-firing Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopter were feared and respected by VC and PAVN troops. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Armored Personnel Carriers; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Rifles References Hobart, F. W. A. Pictorial History of the Machinegun. New York: Drake, 1972. Hogg, Ian V. The Complete Machinegun, 1885 to the Present. New York: Exeter, 1979. Smith, W. H. B., and Edward C. Ezell. Small Arms of the World. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992. Willbanks, James H. Machine Guns: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Madman Strategy President Richard Nixon’s plan to bluff leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) into ending the Vietnam War. Nixon had been vice president under President Dwight Eisenhower and now sought to employ the same tactic that Eisenhower used in 1953 during the Korean War. Shortly after he had become president, Eisenhower had let it be known that if the Korean stalemate continued, he would seek to win the war militarily, even with nuclear weapons. An armistice was concluded three months later. Just what actual impact this had on bringing the war to an end is unclear, however. Nixon called this the “Madman Theory.” According to his aide H. R. “Bob” Haldeman in The Ends of Power, the president told him that “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button’—and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.” This approach did not work with Hanoi, and ultimately Nixon fell back on and intensified the same failed Johnson policies, especially the use of airpower. As Henry Kissinger noted later in White House Years, “unfortunately, alternatives to bombing the North were hard to come by.” SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Haldeman, H. R., with Joseph DiMona. The Ends of Power. New York: Times Books, 1978. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

Mailer, Norman Birth Date: January 31, 1923 Death Date: November 10, 2007 Influential American author, novelist, playwright, and political activist. Norman Mailer became well known for his narrative nonfiction, sometimes referred to as the New Journalism. Among the practitioners of this style were such luminaries as Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, and Joan Didion. Born in Long Branch, New Jersey, on January 31, 1923, Mailer graduated from Harvard University in 1943. He was drafted into the military and served in the Pacific theater during World War II. Following publication of The Naked and the Dead (1948), a novel about his wartime experiences, Mailer struggled as a writer. A cofounder of the Village Voice, Mailer became increasingly radicalized against totalitarianism and America’s technocratic society.

Malaysia

697

“Mailer, Norman.” In Reference Guide to American Literature, 3rd ed., 558–560. Detroit: St. James, 1994. Wenke, Joseph. Mailer’s America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1987.

Malaysia

American author, novelist, playwright, and political activist Norman Mailer is best known for his novel The Naked and the Dead, relating his experiences in the Pacific during World War II. Mailer wrote several novels critical of the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Invited by Jerry Rubin to the Vietnam Day Protest in Berkeley, California, on May 2, 1965, Mailer spoke against President Lyndon Johnson’s policies. Mailer developed his antiwar ideas in two novels. Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967) allegorically insinuates, through a hipster narrator, that America’s use of technology is cowardly. The Armies of the Night (1968) recounts Mailer’s personal experiences at the antiwar march against the Pentagon in October 1967. Employing the methods of New Journalism, Mailer demonstrated the power of subjective histories in understanding wartime experiences. Mailer, a prolific writer, authored numerous other narratives on contemporary American society including Some Honorable Men (1976), essays on politics, and Harlot’s Ghost (1991), a novel about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Beginning in the 1980s his views became somewhat less radical. He remained a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party. In 2003 he criticized the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq both in speeches and in written form. Mailer’s private life was scarred by not-infrequent bouts with drug abuse and alcoholism, and in the early 1960s he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for a short time after stabbing his wife at a party, which nearly resulted in her death. Mailer died in New York City on November 10, 2007. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Central Intelligence Agency; Greene, Graham; Literature and the Vietnam War; Rubin, Jerry References Lennon, J. Michael, and Donna P. Norman Mailer: Works and Days. Westport, MA: Sligo, 2000. Louvre, Alf. “The Reluctant Historians: Sontag, Mailer, and American Culture Critics in the 1960’s.” Prose Studies (May 1986): 47–61.

Southeast Asian nation formed in 1963 as an independent Asian federation of former British possessions. Malaysia is located on the Malay Peninsula but also includes the northern portion of Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah). Covering 127,316 square miles, Malaysia is bordered by Thailand to the north, the South China Sea to the south and east, and the Strait of Malacca to the west. The nation’s 1968 population was 10.409 million. Malaysia’s government is a parliamentary-style constitutional monarchy. During the first 25 years of Malaysia’s existence, Malaysians experienced several secessionist movements; in 1965 Singapore, which is largely Chinese in ethnic makeup, broke away and formed its own republic. Race riots among Malaysia’s population also occurred with frequency; those in 1969 were particularly destructive. Nevertheless, in 1965 Malaysia secured an elected seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, and in 1967 the nation cofounded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), signs that the country was coming into its own. Malaysia’s significance to the Vietnam War lies both in its role as a model of a successful counterinsurgency and in its later aid to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In 1946 in what was then Malaya, which was still a British protectorate, an insurrection began. The large ethnic Chinese minority played a major role in this Communist uprising, which gained inspiration from the increasing success of Mao Zedong in China. The Malayan Communist Party also may have been the first foreign Communist party to send military assistance to the Communist insurgents in Vietnam. In early 1947 the Malayan Communist Party shipped 150 tons of weapons, ammunition, and military gear by sea to the fledgling Viet Minh movement in southern Vietnam. Supplied with equipment by the Indonesian Army, the Malaysian Communist guerrillas numbered at their peak some 14,500. The British sent some 40,000 troops to control the situation and received military equipment and economic support from the United States. The British and the Malaysian government largely subdued the rebels by 1963, using both direct military measures and social programs such as the establishment of new fortified villages for the Chinese peasants. The latter program formed the model for the unsuccessful South Vietnamese Strategic Hamlet Program. The British experience in Malaysia seemed to prove that counterinsurgency operations were winnable. Those who used this argument in defense of intervention in Vietnam frequently overlooked vital differences in the two countries, including the relative populations and level of outside support for the Communists.

698

MALHEUR I and II, Operations

Malaysia also contributed to the anti-Communist effort in Vietnam, training more than 3,000 South Vietnamese military and police officers between 1961 and 1966 and providing matériel support. In 1966 Malaysian deputy premier Tun Razak offered to send combat troops, but this was not accepted. In 1967 Malaysia sent a team of experts to Vietnam to confer on matters of village pacification and psychological warfare, but the South Vietnamese government largely disregarded its advice. MATTHEW A. CRUMP See also Strategic Hamlet Program; Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker References Gould, James W. The United States and Malaysia. The American Foreign Policy Library Series. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

MALHEUR I

and II, Operations

Start Date: May 11, 1967 End Date: August 2, 1967 A series of search-and-destroy operations conducted by U.S. Army forces during a three-month period between May 11 and August 2, 1967, in the Duc Pho District of Quang Ngai Province. In the spring of 1967 increased Communist activity in the five northernmost provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) prompted the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), to shift north two U.S. Army units, totaling some 7,500 men, to assist U.S. Marine Corps and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces already in the area. These reinforcements consisted of 3,000 men of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, who began moving north into Quang Ngai Province from neighboring Binh Dinh Province on April 8, and the 4,500 troops of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade that was moved from its Tay Ninh Province base north of Saigon to Chu Lai in Quang Tin Province. On April 22, 1967, MACV announced the creation of the 15,000man Task Force Oregon in the five-province area that would include the troops sent already, plus a provisional headquarters, division support troops borrowed from other units, the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, and the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division. General William Westmoreland’s chief of staff, Major General William B. Rosson, commanded the task force, which was ordered to provide security along the coast, open Highway 1, and relieve Communist pressure in northern Binh Dinh, Quang Ngai, and southern Quang Tin provinces. As Task Force Oregon deployed, it permitted the marines to move units north to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divided the Democratic Republic

of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam and eased the efforts of the 1st Cavalry Division in its ongoing operations in Binh Dinh Province. On May 11, five U.S. Army battalions of Task Force Oregon began Operation MALHEUR I in the area immediately north of what had been the U.S. Marine Corps DeSoto tactical area of responsibility in the I Corps Tactical Zone near Duc Pho, south of Quang Ngai City. Many hamlets in this area were heavily fortified with bunkers, air raid tunnels, communications trenches, booby traps, and punji pits. Physical destruction was enormous in this densely populated coastal region, and Communist forces would often allow patrolling U.S. troops to enter a village before opening fire. In the ensuing firefights, U.S. forces would call in massive naval gunfire, artillery, and tactical air support, often destroying many of the houses next to the spider holes and fortified bunkers they were seeking to reduce. During MALHEUR I, for example, paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division fought at least 18 separate major firefights and uncovered large food and ammunition caches. By the end of May troops participating in Operation MALHEUR I, largely through a series of helicopter air assaults and search-anddestroy operations, announced that they had killed 392 Communist troops and captured 64 while clearing significant sections of Highway 1 from northern Quang Ngai Province to southern Quang Nam Province. Light fighting, consisting of ambushes and intense patrolling, continued through July 1967. Operation MALHEUR II immediately followed the close of MALHEUR I, and the troops of Task Force Oregon again experienced almost daily contact. Under continued heavy pressure from American mechanized and helicopter units and from naval gunfire and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber strikes, Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops in Quang Ngai Province were forced to disperse into the jungle-covered mountains farther inland. Both MALHEUR operations concentrated first upon eliminating regular Communist formations in order to reduce the pressure upon the local populace. Once this was accomplished, the emphasis of the campaign shifted to eliminating VC infrastructure. During the operations, the Communists found it increasingly difficult to operate among the people in the countryside. Task Force Oregon distributed more than 23 million leaflets to the population of the Duc Pho District, which, like the rest of the province, had been under Communist domination for decades. Such appeals had little effect, however, because many villagers were VC members, while others helped them either by choice or out of fear for themselves or their families. Because allied forces were not sufficiently numerous to leave detachments in the villages they searched, the VC would often return only hours after the Americans had departed. At the end of the MALHEUR operations on August 2, 1967, Task Force Oregon reported 869 VC and PAVN soldiers killed at a cost of 81 American dead, a kill ratio of 10.73 to 1. The force also reported the evacuation of 8,885 villagers and the burning of their houses

Manila Conference to deny the use of these facilities to VC troops in the area and to discourage the peasants from returning. The extensive use of artillery and air strikes with high explosives and napalm helped keep down American casualties but also resulted in large-scale destruction and the deaths of villagers and refugees. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, more than 6,400 civilian casualties were admitted to Quang Ngai hospitals in 1967, half of whom were women and children. The operations of Task Force Oregon in Quang Ngai Province destroyed or drove away Communist main-force units, although in the process the American forces contributed materially to the depopulation and destruction of large portions of the province. The operations concluded without having fully eradicated the VC 2nd Regiment or the PAVN 2nd Division, both known to be operating in the area. According to U.S. intelligence reports, the VC were soon moving freely again in broad daylight, were continuing to disrupt travel on Highway 1, and were still ready to fight. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Air Mobility; Booby Traps; Search and Destroy; Task Force Oregon; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Agency for International Development; United States Army; United

699

States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984. Westmoreland, General William C. Report on the War in Vietnam, Section II, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 1964–June 1968. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

Manila Conference Start Date: October 24, 1966 End Date: October 25, 1966 Meeting attended by representatives of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), and the Philippines to discuss the Vietnam War. The conference, which took

Leaders at the Manila Conference, October 24, 1966. The meeting, held in the Philippine capital, included representatives of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Philippines. It was called to discuss the Vietnam War. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

700

Mansfield, Michael Joseph

place in the Philippine capital of Manila during October 24–25, 1966, has been viewed as a response to several international efforts by the United Nations (UN) as well as by both Communist and nonaligned nations over the previous two years to gain a settlement of the growing conflict in Southeast Asia. The Lyndon B. Johnson administration was also involved in secret talks to deescalate the conflict. UN secretary-general U Thant wanted to reconvene the Geneva Conference in 1964, and the leaders of France, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the Soviet Union all called for its reconvening in Laos. The Johnson administration had rejected this, however. One group of researchers argue that on nine occasions calls to formulate a political settlement through negotiations of one form or another were not only rejected but were also thwarted by Washington through military escalations. This may be a moot point, however, since recently released Vietnamese Communist Party documents indicate that during the 1965–1966 period, the North Vietnamese government was not ready to enter into negotiations with the United States. In press communiqués following the conference, South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky promised economic and political reforms to create “a truly representative government.” President Johnson responded enthusiastically to this pledge and stated that the war would be settled either through negotiations or on the battlefield. U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), head General William Westmoreland added that the South Vietnamese were bearing the brunt of the fighting and helping to secure victory. The Manila Conference was one of several attempts to publicly offer a program for a negotiated settlement of the war in terms impossible for the North Vietnamese government to accept. Following that line of reasoning, the entire affair was staged largely for U.S. and South Vietnamese public and political consumption. PAUL R. CAMACHO

Mansfield, Michael Joseph Birth Date: March 16, 1903 Death Date: October 5, 2001 Educator, historian, U.S. congressman (1943–1953), U.S. senator (1953–1977), and critic of the Vietnam War. Michael Joseph (Mike) Mansfield was born in New York City on March 16, 1903, and grew up in Great Falls, Montana. After service in the armed forces during 1918–1922, he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana in 1933 and a master’s degree from the same institution in 1934. From 1933 to 1942 he was professor of Latin American and Far Eastern history at the University of Montana. First elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1942, where he built his reputation as a hardworking honest broker and liberal Democrat, Mansfield was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952. There he established a liberal voting record and became majority leader in 1961, a position he held until 1977. Mansfield was the longest-serving majority leader in Senate history.

See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nguyen Cao Ky; U Thant; Westmoreland, William Childs References Frankel, Max. “Ky Tells 6 Allies at Manila Talks Civil Rule Is Near.” New York Times, October 25, 1966. Frankel, Max. “Manila Talks End.” New York Times, October 26, 1966. (See same issue for text of the communiqué and declarations.) Kahin, George McTurnan, and John W. Lewis. The United States in Vietnam. New York: Dial, 1966. Kraslow, David, and Stuart H. Loory. The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Pham Thi Vinh, ed. Van Kien Dang Toan Tap, Tap 24, 1965 [Collected Party Documents, Vol. 24, 1965]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2003. Schurmann, Franz, P. D. Scott, and R. Zelnik. The Politics of Escalation in Vietnam. New York: Fawcett, 1966.

Democratic senator from Montana Mike Mansfield is widely considered to be one of the most influential congressmen of the 20th century. The longest-serving majority leader in U.S. history, he became an outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (Library of Congress)

Mao Zedong

701

Although initially supportive of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam policies, Mansfield became disillusioned and counseled against deployment of ground troops in 1965. In 1966 he went to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) on a fact-finding mission and, upon his return, privately tried to persuade Johnson that a military solution to the conflict was impossible. Rebuffed by Johnson, Mansfield openly criticized the war. Mansfield’s criticism continued during President Richard M. Nixon’s first term in office, when Mansfield supported the CooperChurch and Hatfield-McGovern Amendments. In 1971 Mansfield introduced his own “end-the-war” amendment, which called for the withdrawal of all American military forces within nine months subject to the release of all prisoners of war. Although it passed the Senate, the amendment was defeated by the House of Representatives. Mansfield retired from the Senate after the 1976 election. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed him ambassador to Japan, a post he held until 1988. In 1989 Mansfield received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his long service to his country. He later became senior adviser on East Asian affairs at Goldman Sachs & Co., New York. Mansfield died at the age of 98 in Washington, D.C., on October 5, 2001. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Church Amendment; Hatfield, Mark Odom; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McGovern, George Stanley; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States Congress and the Vietnam War References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Oberdorfer, Don. Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2003. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Valeo, Francis R. Mike Mansfield, Majority Leader: A Different Kind of Senate, 1961–1977. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999.

Mao Zedong Birth Date: December 26, 1893 Death Date: September 9, 1976 Chinese political and military leader. Born on December 26, 1893, to a prosperous peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) graduated from the Fourth Teacher’s Training School in Changhs, Hunan. He studied Marxism under Li

Mao Zedong led the Communists to victory in the Chinese Civil War after World War II, orchestrated China’s intervention in the Korean War, and supplied assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during the Indochina and Vietnam wars. Domestically, his policies included the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, both of which claimed the lives of millions of Chinese. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Dazhao at Beijing University, and in July 1921 in Shanghai he was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao became a labor organizer, and in the mid-1920s he and other Chinese Communists cooperated with the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) party of President Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen). Mao held several posts in the GMD, including secretary of its propaganda department in 1925. After Sun’s death in 1925, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), head of the Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy, won control of the GMD. Jiang soon began to eliminate rival political groupings and purge Communists from GMD positions. He also launched the Northern Expedition of 1925–1927 against assorted warlords. In 1927 he turned against the Communists who had escaped his purge, established a base in Jiangxi (Kiangsi) Province, and suppressed several Communist insurrections, including the Autumn Harvest Uprising of peasants and guerrillas led by Mao. Joined by renegade GMD army officers Zhu De (Chu Teh) and Lin Biao (Lin Piao) and their troops, Mao founded the Jiangxi Soviet Republic in the province’s southeast, becoming its chairman in October 1931.

702

Mao Zedong

Along with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, Mao was considered one of the three main theorists of Marxism. Mao’s most important contribution was in explaining how to tap the discontented peasant masses in China to bring about a Communist revolution there. Mao’s philosophy was in sharp contrast to that of both Marx and Lenin, who had emphasized the primary role of the industrial working classes, the proletariat, in bringing about such a revolution. Mao had to develop an ancillary strategy, because China was not industrialized and had virtually no industrial working-class upon which to draw support. His greatest revolutionary contribution was to synthesize a Communist-led guerrilla military force with agrarian revolution. Mao and Zhu had an army of 200,000 by 1933. The Communists launched several uprisings in major Chinese cities, a threat to the authority of Jiang, who took Beijing (Peking), unifying all China south of the Great Wall and heading a new GMD government in 1928. Jiang mounted annual campaigns against the Communist Soviet. This ranked higher in his priorities than opposing the establishment by Japan of a puppet government in China’s northeastern region of Manchuria in 1932. When GMD forces encircled the Jiangxi Soviet in 1934, Mao and Zhu broke out, leading more than 100,000 followers on the epic Long March of 6,000 miles to Yenan (Yan’an) in northern Shaanxi (Shensi), during which heavy fighting and harsh conditions reduced their numbers to 7,000 and Mao was forced to abandon two of his own children. He was then elected CCP chairman in 1935. In the Sian (Xi’an) Incident in Shaanxi of December 1936, northern Manchurian warlord Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsüehliang) rejected Jiang’s orders to attack the Communists and urged all Chinese to join forces against the Japanese. Zhang kidnapped Jiang, forcing him to agree to a united anti-Japanese front with the Communists. With the Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident, also known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, in July 1937, full-scale war began between Chinese and Japanese troops. GMD forces retreated to Chongqing (Chungking) in the southwestern province of Sichuan (Szechwan) in 1938. From their Yenan base, Mao and the Communists effectively controlled northwestern China, while the GMD controlled the southwest. Mao’s Red Army, rechristened the Eighth Route Army, participated in fighting against Japanese troops, as did Communist guerrilla forces. Meanwhile, in 1945 the CCP adopted a constitution accepting Mao’s teachings as its official ideology. The Communist-Nationalist front had largely broken down in early 1941 after Nationalist units defeated the Communist New Fourth Army near the Changjiang (Yangzi River) Valley. From then until the end of the war, the Communists concentrated their energies on establishing guerrilla bases and peasant support behind Japanese lines, efforts that also helped to ensure them of ultimate postwar control of these areas. Mao also became famous, along with General Zhu De, for successfully leading the Communists’ guerrilla army against much larger and better-armed opponents. Mao’s strategic principles were largely based on China’s traditional

military texts, such as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and were codified during 1944 in the following saying: “Enemy advances, we retreat; enemy halts, we harass; enemy tires, we attack; enemy retreats, we pursue.” When World War II ended in August 1945, incoming Soviet troops facilitated Chinese Communist moves to take control of much of Manchuria. Fighting resumed between GMD and Communist forces in early 1946, and American attempts to negotiate a truce foundered on both sides’ deep-rooted antagonism. Civil war continued until January 1949, and Mao proclaimed the new People’s Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949. Mao made several attempts to foster friendly relations with the United States during the late 1940s. When these failed, he allied China more closely with the Soviet Union. The PRC also provided substantial arms, equipment, and base areas for training to the Viet Minh in its fight against the French during the Indochina War. Given the long Sino-Vietnamese border, the ability of France to halt this flow of assistance became impossible. Until his death Mao remained China’s supreme leader, dominating the country’s politics. He was responsible for the decision that launched Chinese forces against United Nations (UN) forces in Korea in October 1950. Some historians, such as Maurice Meisner, have tried to show that Mao did not initially support the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in its struggle to conquer the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and reunite Vietnam. But according to a 1994 account written by Li Zhisui, Mao’s private physician, during August 1964 Mao heard that the United States intended to send additional troops to South Vietnam. Li Zhisui claimed that in response Mao secretly ordered Chinese troops to wear Vietnamese uniforms and fight alongside the Viet Cong (VC). There is no evidence to support this claim, but China did provide arms, money, and technical support to North Vietnam, and during 1966–1969 hundreds of thousands of Chinese air defense troops and combat engineers served in North Vietnam, where they helped to defend against American air attacks north of Hanoi. Soon after the PRC engaged in a series of bitter border disputes with the Soviet Union during 1969, however, Mao turned to the United States as a means of balancing Beijing’s worsening relations with Moscow. In February 1972 Mao met with U.S. president Richard M. Nixon, and the two nations signed the Shanghai Communiqué, a document that not only opened diplomatic relations between China and the United States but also helped lead to the end of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1973 Washington and North Vietnam arranged a cease-fire, and the last American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. Domestically, Mao Zedong’s policies were almost uniformly disastrous. In February 1958 he initiated the Great Leap Forward, calling on China to catch up to Great Britain industrially in just 15 years. Instead, overly rapid industrialization and the uncontrolled growth of the commune system in agriculture led to a 20 percent drop in China’s gross national product between 1958 and 1961.

March on the Pentagon The Great Leap Forward had to be abandoned. To offset criticism, in May 1966 Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution. This movement lasted until October 1976, the month after Mao’s death in Beijing on September 9. In addition to contributing to the general stagnation of the Chinese economy, the Cultural Revolution purged tens of millions of Chinese and led to the deaths of a great many of them in corrective labor camps. In 1981 the Central Committee of the CCP officially denounced the so-called Cult of Mao when it determined that he had been personally responsible for initiating and leading the Cultural Revolution. BRUCE ELLEMAN AND PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also China, People’s Republic of; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Zhou Enlai References Chang Jung and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf, 2005. Chen Jian. Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Li Zhisui, Dr. The Private Life of Chairman Mao. New York: Random House, 1994. Meisner, Maurice. Mao’s China: A History of the People’s Republic. New York: Free Press, 1977.

703

Short, Philip. Mao: A Life. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Spence, Jonathan D. Mao Zedong. New York: Viking, 1999. Terrill, Ross. Mao: A Biography. Rev. and expanded ed. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

March on the Pentagon Event Date: October 21, 1967 Among the most significant national antiwar demonstrations, the March on the Pentagon of October 21, 1967, represented for many a shift from protest to resistance. The Student Mobilization Committee and the National Mobilization Committee cosponsored the demonstration in Washington, D.C., and project director Jerry Rubin focused on the Pentagon as a symbol of American militarism. Federal officials attacked the event with misleading accusations of Communist domination, and the government mobilized thousands of troops for its protection. The event began with a rally at the Lincoln Memorial that drew perhaps 100,000 people, followed by a march to the Pentagon across the Arlington Memorial Bridge by about 35,000 people.

Antiwar protesters, including a large contingent of veterans, in a march on the Pentagon in October 1967 in condemnation of the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

704

MARIGOLD, Operation

Although most participants acted peacefully and legally, several hundred sat down near the Pentagon and awaited arrest. Protesters often appealed to the troops to join them. As the crowd dwindled over the next 24 hours, taunts by radicals and clubbings by federal marshals punctuated the confrontation. Officials made 647 arrests, and hospitals treated 47 injured people. Government and media reactions were overwhelmingly unsympathetic. The apparent ineffectiveness of peaceful and legal protests made civil disobedience and more confrontational tactics increasingly attractive options within the antiwar movement. MITCHELL K. HALL

noi’s refusal to participate. Administration officials insisted that North Vietnam did not want to negotiate seriously. Vietnamese histories are vague about North Vietnam’s response to MARIGOLD. While North Vietnamese leaders were clearly willing to meet with a U.S. representative, it appears that they intended to demand, as they did during the initial stage of the 1968 Paris peace talks, the unconditional cessation of all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam before they would begin substantive discussions. In the final analysis, Lewandowski’s inept diplomacy and American skepticism thwarted the possibility of substantial results. PAUL S. DAUM AND JOSEPH RATNER

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Rubin, Jerry

See also International Commission for Supervision and Control; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Paris Negotiations; Poland; Read, Benjamin Huger; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps

References Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Mailer, Norman. Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History. New York: New American Library, 1968. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

March to the South See Nam Tien

MARIGOLD,

Operation

References Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. Rev. and updated edition. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Kraslow, David, and Stuart H. Loory. The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu. Tiep Xuc Bi Mat Viet Nam-Hoa Ky Truoc Hoi Nghi Pa-ri [Secret U.S.-Vietnamese Contacts before the Paris Conference]. Hanoi: International Relations Institute, 1990. Radvanyi, Janos. Delusion and Reality: Gambits, Hoaxes, and Diplomatic One-Upmanship in Vietnam. South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1978. Radvanyi, Janos, ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.

Start Date: June 1966 End Date: December 1966 Code name for a peace initiative centered around U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and Polish representative on the International Control Commission Janusz Lewandowski, with Italian ambassador to South Vietnam Giovanni D’Orlandi acting as go-between. Lewandowski’s claim to have a “very specific peace offer” from Hanoi led to secret talks and a proposed meeting between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in December 1966 in Warsaw. Historian George Herring notes that with Operation MARIGOLD, Moscow made its first effort in the “diplomacy of peacemaking.” But the Soviet and Polish roles were unclear. Furthermore, Lewandowski proved enigmatic; his unorthodox diplomatic approach led to misunderstanding. The U.S. government thought that the “Ten Points”—Lewandowski’s draft of U.S. views—misrepresented its de-escalation bargaining position. MARIGOLD remains controversial. President Lyndon Johnson’s critics emphasize that his administration failed to take advantage of South Vietnam’s desire for direct talks and that the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam that December was the reason behind Ha-

Marine Combined Action Platoons U.S. Marine Corps pacification initiative. The tactical area of responsibility assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam lay in the northernmost portion of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), designated as the I Corps Tactical Zone. More than most U.S. military forces, the marines took countryside pacification seriously. Marine officers realized that they had to gain the confidence of villagers if they were to deny the Viet Cong (VC) local support and bases of operations. Called at various times by such names as internal defense and development, rural reconstruction, stability operations, revolutionary development, internal security, nation building, and neutralization operations, pacification was not “the other war,” as General William Westmoreland and many others thought of it. It was the supporter of military combat operations and at least as important. Based on earlier experiences in the Caribbean and in Central America, III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF) formed combined action platoons (CAPs) in the autumn of 1965 as a means of support for South Vietnam’s Revolutionary Development Program.

MARKET TIME, Operation

Administered by the G-5 Civil Affairs section based in Da Nang, III MAF fielded four battalions of CAPs between October 1967 and July 1970. Each consisted of one marine rifle squad and one navy corpsman plus one platoon of South Vietnamese Regional Force/ Popular Force (RF/PF) soldiers. These men were assigned to a particular village, often one that was home to the RF/PF members of the unit, and made it their base of operations for extended periods. Marines got to know villagers as individuals, helped in civic and health projects, and taught locals the arts of booby-trapping, entrapment, ambush, and self-defense. As Jean Sauvageot, a U.S. Army officer who spent several years in Vietnamese pacification projects, noted in a personal interview, “There was absolutely no comparison between CAP and what most Army units were doing. For example, if CAP killed 15 enemy soldiers, they usually had 15 weapons to show for it. At the same time Army units were killing 15 or 5 or 50 enemies and might not have a single weapon to show when the firing stopped, not one! In other words, they were killing noncombatants and claiming them as dead enemy soldiers.” In 1970 the program changed to combined action groups, using a marine company and an RF/PF battalion. The last such unit was withdrawn in the spring of 1971. CECIL B. CURREY See also Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Pacification; Territorial Forces; United States Marine Corps References Cincinnatus [Cecil B. Currey]. Self-Destruction: The Disintegration and Decay of the United States Army during the Vietnam Era. New York: Norton, 1981. Corson, William. The Betrayal. New York: Norton, 1968. Peterson, Michael E. The Combined Action Platoons: The U.S. Marines’ Other War in Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1989.

MARKET TIME,

Operation

Start Date: 1965 End Date: 1972 Long-term allied naval operation to conduct surveillance of the 1,200-mile coastline of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and halt seaborne infiltration of supplies to Communist forces. Initially the U.S. Seventh Fleet had charge of the American operation, which was designated the Vietnam Patrol Force, or Task Force 71. Weeks later naval leaders code-named the operation MARKET TIME. On July 31, 1965, operational command transferred from the Seventh Fleet to the Naval Advisory Group, and the Vietnam Patrol Force became the Coastal Surveillance Force, or Task Force 115. On April 1, 1966, the newly created Naval Forces, Vietnam (NAVFORV), assumed command of Operation MARKET TIME. In order to ensure the success of the Coastal Surveillance Force, NAVFORV created a three-pronged patrol system consisting of

705

outer and inner ship barriers and an air barrier, which comprised the farthest outer barrier. Using Dixie Station (located in the South China Sea, southeast of Cam Ranh Bay) for Task Force 77 strikes against Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam, propeller-driven Douglas A-1 Skyraiders operated for a short time in 1965 but soon were replaced by Lockheed P-3 Orions. Other aircraft of Operation MARKET TIME included Lockheed P-2 Neptunes and Martin P-5 Marlins. The P-2s and P-3s operated from several bases, including Cam Ranh Bay, Tan Son Nhut, U-Tapao in Thailand, and Sangley Point in the Philippines. The P-5s, before their withdrawal in 1967, operated out of Sangley Point and had seaplane tenders at Cam Ranh Bay, Poulo Condore, and the Cham Islands. Air surveillance duties included identifying suspicious vessels, photographing them, and then reporting them to one of five Coastal Surveillance Centers located along the South Vietnamese coastline to disseminate and pass on information to other aircraft and surface ships for further investigation. The outer ship barrier operated within 40 miles of the South Vietnamese coast, stretching from the 17th Parallel to the Cambodian border in the Gulf of Thailand. Ships included high-endurance Coast Guard cutters, destroyer escorts, radar picket escort ships, ocean and coastal minesweepers, and patrol gunboats. Their mission was the interdiction of seaborne supplies carried by trawlertype vessels. Throughout the history of the operation, MARKET TIME forces neutralized more than 50 infiltrating vessels. The inner ship barrier operated in the shallow waters along the South Vietnamese coastline, where Communists, using wooden junks to transport men and supplies, could easily intermingle with thousands of innocent junks and sampans. Thus, the South Vietnamese government authorized American MARKET TIME forces to stop, search, and seize any vessel involved in fishing or trade within a 12-mile limit. U.S. naval leaders realized that the South Vietnamese Junk Force needed to be phased into the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) in order to investigate junk traffic sailing close to shore. In July 1965 the Junk Force integrated into the VNN. Yet U.S. Navy leaders believed that without American supervision, the Junk Force would be ineffective. To augment the junks, the U.S. Navy adopted the fast patrol craft, or Swift Boats, originally used by oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico to transport crews to and from offshore rigs. Additional duties of MARKET TIME forces included fire support for ground troops. And in 1968, elements of Task Force 115 became MARKET TIME Raiders, which operated with the newly created Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS) forces to conduct river raiding operations. As the American withdrawal began, under Vietnamization MARKET TIME forces slowly shifted matériel to the VNN, while U.S. sailors transferred to other duties. Postwar Vietnamese histories attest to the effectiveness of the U.S. Navy’s Operation MARKET TIME. During the two-year period from the end of 1962 to the end of 1964, North Vietnamese vessels disguised as fishing boats delivered more than 4,000 tons of

706

Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood

Launched in March 1965, Operation MARKET TIME consisted of U.S.–South Vietnamese coastal patrols charged with ending North Vietnamese infiltration of the South by water. Crews of the patrol craft performed routine inspections of the papers and cargo of civilian vessels. (Klebe, Gene, Operation Market Time, 1965, Naval Historical Center)

weapons and ammunition to Communist forces in South Vietnam, while during the next seven years, from early 1965 to early 1972, less than 500 tons of supplies successfully made it through MARKET TIME’s maritime gauntlet. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Dixie Station; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; SEALORDS; Sea Power, Role in War; United States Coast Guard; United States Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Navy References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. Vietnamese People’s Navy Political Department. 35 Nam Duong Ho Chi Minh Tren Bien va Thanh Lap Lu Doan 125 Hai Quan [The 35th Anniversary of the Ho Chi Minh Trail at Sea and of the Formation of

the 125th Naval Brigade]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Wunderlin, Clarence E., Jr. “Paradox of Power: Infiltration, Coastal Surveillance, and the United States Navy in Vietnam, 1965–1968.” Journal of Military History 53 (July 1989): 275–290.

Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Birth Date: July 18, 1900 Death Date: December 17, 1977 U.S. Army reserve officer and one of the most influential, albeit controversial, military historians of the 20th century. Born on July 18, 1900, in Catskill, New York, Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall spent his entire military career as a reservist, first receiving his commission from the ranks during World War I at age 17. For the next 60 years he pursued parallel careers as a reserve officer, a journalist, and a writer. S. L. A. Marshall (known universally as “Slam”) covered most of the world’s major wars during that period. He was a military columnist for the Detroit News for many years.

Martin, Graham A. During World War II Marshall was chief historian of the U.S.European theater of operations. He recruited many of the historians and initiated the work that led to the widely respected series U.S. Army in World War II. Marshall emphasized conducting direct interviews with participants of combat actions as soon as possible after the event. As a result of these interviews, in 1947 he wrote Men against Fire, a penetrating analysis of the American infantryman and small-unit cohesion and effectiveness. He pointed out many problems with U.S. combat performance and offered recommendations to correct them. The U.S. Army later adopted many of his recommendations. Marshall also served as an army historian in the Korean War (1950–1953). He wrote numerous newspaper articles on that conflict and gathered a mountain of material that he would later use to write several well-received books on the Korean War. Pork Chop Hill, published in 1956, was turned into a Hollywood film by the same name and starred Gregory Peck. During the Vietnam War, as a retired brigadier general Marshall made several tours to the war zone under U.S. Army sponsorship. Together with Colonel David H. Hackworth, Marshall wrote Vietnam Primer, which the army published as DA Pamphlet 525–2. More than 2 million copies of the lessons-learned manual were printed. Marshall also wrote five other books on Vietnam War battles. Marshall worked hard to cultivate his image as the nation’s preeminent combat historian, and he rarely failed to present the army in the best possible light. That in turn opened many doors to him, which he exploited for interviews and data gathering. Marshall also clearly relished his close associations with the great and near-great commanders of his day. In recent years, some historians have criticized Marshall’s work by exposing flaws and inconsistencies in his data. A disillusioned Hackworth referred to him as “the Howard Cosell of combat” and “the Army’s top apologist.” Marshall nonetheless had a profound impact on the U.S. Army. Many veterans of infantry combat continue to agree that regardless of the flaws in Marshall’s data or data-collection methods, his conclusions in Men against Fire were correct. Marshall died in San Antonio, Texas, on December 17, 1977. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Hackworth, David Haskell; Literature and the Vietnam War; Media and the Vietnam War References Marshall, S. L. A. Battles in the Monsoon: Campaigning in the Central Highlands, South Vietnam, Summer, 1966. New York: William Morrow, 1967. Marshall, S. L. A. Bird: The Christmastide Battle. New York: Cowles, 1968. Marshall, S. L. A. Bringing Up the Rear: A Memoir. San Raphael, CA: Presidio, 1979. Marshall, S. L. A. Men against Fire. New York: William Morrow, 1947. Marshall, S. L. A. Vietnam: Three Battles. New York: Da Capo, 1982.

707

Williams, Frederick D. SLAM: The Influence of S. L. A. Marshall on the United States Army. Fort Monroe, VA: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1990.

Martin, Graham A. Birth Date: September 12, 1912 Death Date: March 13, 1990 U.S. diplomat and ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), 1973–1975. Born at Mars Hill, North Carolina, on September 12, 1912, Graham A. Martin graduated from Wake Forest University in 1932. The following year he joined the National Recovery Administration as an aide to W. Averell Harriman. Martin spent the next few years in a variety of governmental positions, and during World War II he was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps. In 1947 Martin joined the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service officer. Assigned to the Paris mission, he held numerous posts, including assistant chief. After eight years in Paris he joined the Air War College in 1955 and two years later became a special assistant to Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs C. Douglas Dillon. In 1963 Martin was named ambassador to Thailand, where he fostered strong military ties with the United States and served as a U.S. representative to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). In 1969 he became ambassador to Italy and as such allegedly attempted to manipulate that nation’s national elections. A staunch anti-Communist, Martin was selected in 1973 to replace Ellsworth Bunker as ambassador to South Vietnam. Martin was ill-suited for the tenuous situation he inherited. His wife’s son had been killed during the war, and injuries that Martin received in an automobile accident left him incapable of travel around the country. Furthermore, Martin’s no-nonsense personality rendered problematic his relationship with South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu, who required constant nurturing. Martin also drastically underestimated the seriousness of the situation in Vietnam and ignored the rampant corruption within Thieu’s government and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) that had eroded local support. Martin believed until the end that Saigon would be held. Despite drastic cuts in U.S. aid and the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam, he remained confident that Saigon could withstand the spring 1975 offensive by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and the Viet Cong (VC). So convinced was he in this belief that he refused to order rescue operations until it was almost too late. Finally as Communist forces prepared to overrun Saigon, Martin ordered an emergency evacuation.

708

MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation

On April 29, 1975, Option IV (Operation FREQUENT WIND), the largest helicopter extraction in history, went into effect. Over an 18-hour span, some 1,400 Americans and 5,600 Vietnamese were airlifted to U.S. warships in the South China Sea. Thousands of others had to be left behind. Martin, carrying the embassy flag, led his wife to the embassy’s roof, where they boarded a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter, leaving behind his personal belongings that he had refused to remove earlier. On returning to the United States, Martin served as special assistant to Henry Kissinger and in 1976 became ambassador-atlarge for the Pacific region. After retiring from the Foreign Service, Martin returned to North Carolina. He died in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on March 13, 1990. DAVID COFFEY See also Bunker, Ellsworth; EAGLE PULL, Operation; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Harriman, William Averell; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nguyen Van Thieu References Engelmann, Larry. Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977.

MASHER/WHITE WING,

Operation

Start Date: January 24, 1966 End Date: March 6, 1966 The first major search-and-destroy operation of the Vietnam War. Operation MASHER/WHITE WING, also known as the Bong Son Campaign, entailed a 42-day sweep over 2,000 square miles of forested mountains and rugged valleys in northern Binh Dinh Province in the II Corps Tactical Zone. The operation was conducted by 20,000 soldiers of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 22nd Division and Airborne Brigade, and the 1st Regiment of the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) Army Capitol Division. The operation was renamed WHITE WING on February 4

Members of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division take cover in the hills near An Thi, along the central coast of South Vietnam, after day-long fighting in Operation MASHER, January 29, 1966. MASHER was the first allied search-and-destroy mission of the Vietnam War. It was renamed WHITE WING shortly after it began out of concern over adverse public reaction to the name “Masher.” (AP/Wide World Photos)

MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation

because of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s concern over public reaction to the name “MASHER.” This operation was also the first major campaign to cross corps boundaries. During the same period, the 3rd Marine Division conducted Operation DOUBLE EAGLE in the I Corps Tactical Zone and entered Binh Dinh Province to join the 1st Cavalry. The American sweeps were supported by two ARVN operations, THAN PHONG II and LIEN KET 22. Operation MASHER/WHITE WING opened when four battalions of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, began helicopter assaults eight miles north of Bong Son against the 8,000 soldiers of the Communist 3rd “Yellow Star” Division, made up of the Viet Cong (VC) 2nd Regiment and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 12th and 22nd regiments. Contact was established early, and major firefights occurred on January 28 and 29 at Phung Du and An Thoi. Employing massive air support, the Americans forced the Communists to retreat north into the ARVN Airborne Brigade’s tactical area of responsibility. The 3rd Brigade reported killing more than 600 VC and PAVN troops while in turn suffering 75 killed and 240 wounded. After being reinforced by the 2nd Brigade, on February 6 the 3rd Brigade moved into the An Lao Valley to destroy any remaining Communist forces and to link up with the marines. The 1st Brigade meanwhile conducted a series of actions south of Bong Son on Highway 1, while the 2nd Brigade drove a Communist battalion from the Cay Giep Mountains into a blocking force of the ARVN 22nd Division. Most of the VC and PAVN units had already fled the area, however, having been severely mauled in the actions on the coast. The operation ended on March 6, 1966, as the 1st Cavalry Division completed its full circle of airmobile assaults around Bong Son to arrive back in the Cay Giep Mountains. In six weeks the division claimed nearly 1,350 VC and PAVN soldiers killed. The operation was aided by Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes coupled with 1,126 fighter-bomber sorties that delivered 750 tons of bombs and 146 tons of napalm and by artillery that fired more than 141,000 rounds. Officially the operation was said to have returned 140,000 people to government control and to have ended the threat to Bong Son, Quang Ngai, and Qui Nhon. Yet critics charged that the lavish use of firepower caused a major increase in refugees without providing additional security. Only limited pacification efforts were undertaken, and because the Communists soon returned, the 1st Cavalry had to launch Operation THAYER/IRVING in the same area later in the year. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Air Mobility; DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation; IRVING, Operation; Search and Destroy; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army

709

References Carland, John M. The United States Army in Vietnam: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 1966. Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2000. Hymoff, Edward. The First Air Cavalry Division: Vietnam. New York: M. M. Lads, 1967. Westmoreland, General William C. Report on the War in Vietnam, Section II, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 1964–June 1968. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER,

Operation

Start Date: March 1, 1969 End Date: May 8, 1969 Assault by the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) into the A Shau Valley. On March 1, 1969, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) began operations in response to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), intelligence reports of increased People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) logistical activity in the A Shau Valley. The division’s first objective was to build two fire-support bases (FSBs) at the southern edge of the valley. This was soon accomplished, but bad weather prevented aviation and infantry units from conducting airmobile operations until later that day. On their initial sweep that day, soldiers of a rifle company of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry, encountered immediate resistance. In anticipation of a major engagement, the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade immediately airlifted an additional four infantry battalions into the area. Although there was little contact with Viet Cong (VC) or PAVN forces because they immediately broke contact, the so-called Screaming Eagles began to uncover massive amounts of supplies. Throughout April 1969 the units of the 101st Airborne Division destroyed numerous caches of weapons, ammunition, equipment, and food. On May 1 the 1st Battalion discovered a major PAVN supply base that contained trucks, signal equipment, and foodstuffs as well as a complete field hospital and a heavy-machine repair facility. On May 8 the operation concluded. MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER did not produce any major battles, but it did disrupt the Communist logistics system. In response to the PAVN buildup, MACV launched a more ambitious operation, APACHE SNOW, in the A Shau Valley. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Air Mobility; APACHE SNOW, Operation; Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

710 Mayaguez Incident

Men of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division in the A Shau Valley on March 23, 1969, take part in Operation MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER. The operation was mounted in response to reports of increased People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) logistical activity there. The operation did not produce any major battles, but it did disrupt the Communist Ho Chi Minh Trail logistics system. (Bettmann/Corbis) Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Mayaguez Incident Start Date: May 12, 1975 End Date: May 15, 1975 Confrontation resulting from the capture of a U.S. merchant vessel, the Mayaguez, by Cambodian Khmer Rouge forces. On May 12, 1975, some two weeks after the abandonment of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, the Cambodian Khmer Rouge fired upon the Mayaguez steaming in the Gulf of Siam. Arguing that the ship, which was en route to Thailand, had entered Cambodian territorial waters, armed Khmer Rouge boarded it and took the crew prisoner. When President Gerald R. Ford was notified of the capture, intelligence sources reported that the ship was being taken to Kompong Som, a port on the Cambodian mainland. The whereabouts of the crew was unclear. Negotiating with the Khmer Rouge was never seriously considered as an option. Ford refused to accede to another hostage situation such as the one that the nation had faced in the 1968 seizure of the Pueblo by the Democratic People’s Republic

of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). Advisers to the president also suggested that this was an opportunity for his administration to retrieve its sagging public opinion ratings by showing strength in a crisis. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, “Let’s look ferocious.” As a result, Ford decided to use force to retrieve the crew. Late in the afternoon of May 12, the Mayaguez weighed anchor and appeared to be headed for the Cambodian city of Kompong Som. Unsure whether or not the crew was still aboard the ship, Ford nevertheless ordered Thai-based F-4 fighters to intercept the ship and fire across its bow. This forced the vessel to alter course to the island of Koh Tang, just off the shore of Cambodia. Even after the ship halted its progress, intelligence reports could not confirm whether or not the crew of the Mayaguez had been transferred to Koh Tang. Early the next day, May 13, Ford gave the order that any ship leaving Koh Tang was to be stopped “in order to prevent the Americans from being taken to the mainland.” Late that evening the Cambodians tried to sail away from the island, but American fire stopped them. The attempted Cambodian escape from Koh Tang seems to have convinced Ford that the crew of the Mayaguez was being held there. At 10:40 a.m. on May 13 Ford ordered the U.S. military to develop a three-pronged plan of action to consist of a helicopter assault on the Mayaguez to secure control of the ship, an amphibious invasion of Koh Tang to retrieve the crew, and a series of air

May Day Tribe strikes on Kompong Som so that Koh Tang could not be reinforced. During preparations for the assault on the ship, 18 air police and 5 crewmen died in an aircraft crash in Thailand. Throughout the next day, May 14, U.S. troops began to move into position. The main assault force numbered some 175 marines. At 7:09 p.m. U.S. Marines landed on Koh Tang. Informed by intelligence reports that they would encounter no more than 20 Cambodians and their families, the marines were surprised to find between 150 and 200 dug-in Khmer Rouge troops. In the first hour, 15 marines died and eight helicopters were shot down. Cambodian resistance continued for almost an hour before the American command, still not in possession of the crew of the Mayaguez, declared the mission a success. At approximately 9:00 p.m. the first air strike was conducted against Kompong Som. Ten minutes later the destroyer Holt pulled alongside the Mayaguez, but the American crew was not aboard. With the entire mission in danger of failure, the Ford administration decided to send a message directly to the Cambodian government. At 9:24 p.m. Press Secretary Ron Nessen read a statement indicating that the United States would cease its military operation if and when the crew was completely and unconditionally released. One hour later a U.S. Navy reconnaissance pilot saw 30 Caucasians waving from the bow of a fishing boat. It was the crew of the Mayaguez. The men were quickly retrieved by the destroyer Wilson. The bombing of Kompong Som continued until midnight. However, it would have gone on longer had a fourth strike, ordered by Ford, not been countermanded. According to Ford in his memoirs, it was Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who had been opposed to using force to retrieve the Mayaguez, who countermanded the order. The cost of retrieving the crew of the Mayaguez was 40 Americans dead and 50 wounded in addition to the equipment losses. JOHN ROBERT GREENE See also Cambodia; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Khmer Rouge; Schlesinger, James Rodney References Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. Guilmartin, John F. A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Lamb, Christopher Jon. Belief Systems and Decision Making in the Mayaguez Crisis. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1988.

May Day Tribe Radical anti–Vietnam War protesters. Led by Rennard Condon (Rennie) Davis, this group was composed largely of members from the Youth International Party (also known as Yippies). The May Day Tribe staged an attempted shutdown of Washington, D.C., and the federal government for three days beginning on May

711

On May 12, 1975, Cambodian forces seized the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez. Trying to secure the release of the crew, U.S. forces attacked Koh Tang Island in the Gulf of Siam, suffering significant casualties in the process. The members of the crew were released, however. Here they disembark at Singapore on May 18, 1975. (AP/Wide World Photos)

3, 1971. Davis, one of the so-called Chicago Eight, proposed the idea of a massive nonviolent act of civil disobedience at a National Student Association (NSA) conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in early 1971. He called for blocking roads, bridges, and federal buildings, saying that “unless the government of the United States stops the war in Vietnam, we will stop the government of the United States.” Although his proposal was not endorsed by the NSA, Davis carried his ideas to college campuses, where he gathered supporters. Davis and his group came to be known as the May Day Tribe. Supported by the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ), the May Day Tribe presented the government with an ultimatum: adopt the People’s Peace Treaty or the May Day Tribe would try to immobilize the capital city. The Richard Nixon administration was determined to prevent any dislocations in Washington and thus prepared for virtually any eventuality. The protests, although unsuccessful in their aim of shutting down the city, are remembered as having led to more than 12,000 arrests, the largest number from any type of demonstration in U.S.

712

MAYFLOWER, Operation

history. On May 3 alone 7,000 people were arrested; the rest were controlled by a massive conglomeration of peacekeeping forces, including several thousand federal troops. Those arrested were held in the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium and were detained for up to 48 hours. On May 5 the remaining demonstrators heard speeches from congressional members opposed to the war, including New York representatives Bella Abzug and Charles Rangel. This gathering resulted in more arrests, effectively ending the May Day Tribe protests. JOHN M. BARCUS See also Abzug, Bella; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Davis, Rennard Cordon; Students for a Democratic Society; Youth International Party References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

MAYFLOWER,

Operation

Start Date: May 12, 1965 End Date: May 18, 1965 The first of several diplomatic initiatives, code-named after flowers, to end the war in Vietnam via bombing halts. Operation MAYFLOWER was the first deliberate bombing pause by the United States since the start of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the sustained aerial campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) that began in March 1965. As with most of the diplomatic efforts toward peace in the Vietnam War, MAYFLOWER ended in failure. In the months before Operation MAYFLOWER, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration was under increasing pressure from domestic and international critics to halt the bombing campaign. Moreover, the North Vietnamese government repeatedly called for an end to the bombing as a precursor to any negotiated peace. The White House developed a peace initiative centered on a limited bombing pause. Washington hoped that the pause would defuse criticism, expose the fallacy of posturing by the North Vietnamese government, and set the stage for a resumption of even larger air strikes. Operation MAYFLOWER proceeded in secrecy. U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Foy Kohler tried to deliver a communiqué to the North Vietnamese ambassador in Moscow. The document announced that the United States would suspend air attacks against North Vietnam starting on May 12. The cessation of air strikes

would then continue into the following week. The communiqué noted that if armed action against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) also declined, devolution of the war could occur in the future. However, both the North Vietnamese ambassador and the Soviet foreign minister rebuffed Kohler, and the document delivered to the Vietnamese embassy was returned, apparently unopened. On May 15 Radio Hanoi characterized the bombing halt as “a trick.” After additional attempts to deliver the Washington communiqué through other channels met with failure, President Johnson ordered a resumption of bombing missions on May 18. Although the North Vietnamese government then responded somewhat belatedly through the French, this initiative also faltered. Despite the actual and perceived failure of Operation MAYFLOWER, it ultimately allowed the Johnson administration to temporarily deflect criticism of its policies in Vietnam by pointing out the North Vietnamese government’s refusal to negotiate. Operation MAYFLOWER also served as a cover and a justification for the subsequent escalation of ROLLING THUNDER. JOHN G. TERINO JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Goodman, Allan E. The Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1986. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Herring, George C, ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

McCain, John Sidney, Jr. Birth Date: January 17, 1911 Death Date: March 22, 1981 U.S. Navy admiral and commander in chief, Pacific Command, during July 1968–September 1972. Born on January 17, 1911, at Council Bluffs, Iowa, John Sidney McCain Jr. graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1931 and was a submariner during World War II. His father, John Sidney McCain Sr., was a career navy man and a four-star admiral. In the 1950s the junior McCain held a variety of positions, including director of Navy Undersea Warfare Research and Development, director of Progress Analysis in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and chief legislative liaison for the secretary of the U.S. Navy. McCain was promoted to rear admiral in November 1958 and to vice admiral in 1963. As commander of the entire Amphibious Force, McCain led the April 1965 intervention in the Dominican Republic as commander of

McCain, John Sidney, III Task Force 124. Advanced to full admiral in May 1967, he became commander in chief of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, and in July 1968 he became commander in chief, Pacific Command. As commander in chief of the Pacific Command, Admiral McCain officially commanded all U.S. forces in the Pacific, including those in Vietnam. An inveterate Cold War warrior, he believed that the Vietnamese conflict was a prologue to further Communist expansion in Asia. He also believed that China was the major longterm threat and that Vietnam was only one piece of the puzzle. McCain was a vigorous supporter of President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization program and a vocal advocate of renewed bombardment in 1972. Admiral McCain saw communism as a spreading “disease.” He was known as the “Red Arrow Man” because he used maps that showed big red arrows (and claws) thrusting menacingly from Indochina toward Malaysia and Thailand. His briefings were replete with references to “Reds,” “Commies,” and “Chicoms”; he clearly was a fervent believer in the domino theory. McCain’s strong anticommunism helped complicate command and control of U.S. forces in Vietnam. As overall commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, McCain not only had an impact on the disposition of local units, but his headquarters acted as a superfluous command layer between Washington and General Creighton Abrams, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). McCain saw this as necessary, but U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force commanders accused the U.S. Navy (and the U.S. Air Force) of “fighting its own war,” such as conducting “strategic” air strikes independent of the war effort in South Vietnam. McCain was neither directly responsible for making policy nor always for implementing it, yet at the same time he exercised a measure of control and influence that affected the outcome of the war. This was particularly true in 1972 when he successfully advocated the mining of ports in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the resumption of strategic air attacks to bring Hanoi back to the negotiating table. McCain retired from the navy in 1972 and became president of the U.S. Strategic Institute. He died on March 22, 1981, of a heart attack in a military aircraft over the Atlantic while returning to the United States from Europe. His son, U.S. Navy aviator Lieutenant Commander John S. McCain III, was shot down over Vietnam, held captive by the North Vietnamese for six years, and became a U.S. senator from Arizona in 1987. In 2008 McCain III ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency on the Republican ticket. JOEL E. HIGLEY See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Domino Theory; McCain, John Sidney, III; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Navy References McCain, John, with Mark Salter. Faith of My Fathers. New York: Random House, 1999. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978.

713

Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. A Study of Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam, Vol. 6, The Conduct of the War. McLean, VA: BDM Corp., 1980.

McCain, John Sidney, III Birth Date: August 29, 1936 U.S. Navy pilot, prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War (1967–1973), U.S. congressman (1983–1987), U.S. senator (1987– present), advocate of normalized U.S. relations with Vietnam, and Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone, John Sidney McCain III was descended from a long line of U.S. Navy admirals. His father, Admiral John S. McCain Jr., was commander in chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), from 1968 to 1972; his grandfather, John S. McCain Sr., was also a four-star admiral who served in both World War I and World War II. The younger McCain was something of a rebel and graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1958. His devil-may-care attitude and leadership skills made him a highly effective pilot, however. McCain soon became proficient in ground-attack aircraft. Posted to the aircraft carrier Forrestal, he narrowly escaped death during a fire aboard the ship in July 1967. On October 26, 1967, Lieutenant Commander McCain was piloting a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk when he was shot down and crashed in Western Lake in the middle of Hanoi in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The Vietnamese made the site and plane into a military shrine, which McCain visited on his return to Hanoi in 1992. With two broken arms, a broken leg, a broken shoulder, and a deep wound in his foot, McCain was probably the most seriously injured pilot to enter the Hoa Lo Prison (also known as the “Hanoi Hilton”). “The crown prince,” as the Vietnamese guards called McCain because of his father’s high position, was a tough and highly respected POW who, despite his serious condition, refused the opportunity to be sent home in June 1968. Despite the horrendous conditions with which he had to deal— including periodic torture, beatings, and solitary confinement for more than two years—McCain helped motivate his fellow POWs to persevere. He also steadfastly refused to cooperate with his captors and resisted their efforts to coerce information from him. His improperly treated wounds and the torture he endured left him unable to raise either of his arms above his head. Released at the end of the war on March 14, 1973, McCain retired from the navy. In 1980 he divorced his first wife and married Cindy Lou Hensley, the daughter of a wealthy beer distributor. For a time he worked in the family business, but he seemed destined for political office. In 1982 he was elected to the House of

714

McCain, John Sidney, III

John S. McCain III during an interview on April 24, 1973, shortly after his release by the North Vietnamese. McCain, the son and grandson of navy admirals, was a navy pilot during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Commander McCain was shot down over Hanoi and held prisoner for five-and-a-half years. He retired from the navy after his release and went on to become a United States senator and the Republican Party nominee for president in 2008. (Library of Congress)

Representatives from Arizona’s 1st District, and in 1986 he was elected a U.S. senator as a Republican, taking office in January 1987. McCain had a generally distinguished record in the Senate and on several occasions was on the short list as a vice presidential nominee. He naturally gravitated toward foreign, military, and national security matters. The only blight on his record was his involvement in the mid-1980s in a scandal involving Charles Keating and the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which had bilked depositors and investors out of millions of dollars. Although McCain had been involved with Keating without knowing of his nefarious dealings, McCain nonetheless admitted that he had used poor judgment in accepting contributions and other perks from him. McCain traveled to Vietnam after he reached Congress, including a visit to his former prison in Hanoi. The first visit was in 1985; the second one came in 1992 as part of his work on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. McCain met with some of his former captors in 1992 during what was an emotion-filled visit. McCain, along with other committee members, concluded in 1993 that there were no known POWs or troops missing in action (MIA) still residing in Vietnam. McCain was vilified at the time by some who strongly believed that Americans were indeed still being held by the Vietnamese.

Following his second visit, McCain became a strong supporter of normalized relations with Vietnam and an end to economic sanctions, which was realized beginning in 1995. In 2000 McCain again returned to Vietnam, this time with his young son, showing him the prison in which he had been held for almost seven years. In 2000 McCain ran for the Republican presidential primary, ultimately losing to George W. Bush in a fairly close contest. McCain’s allure was that he was not an ideologue and was not afraid to go against his own party. McCain generally backed the Bush administration’s War on Terror after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks but parted company with Bush on several issues, including the use of torture against enemy combatants, tax cuts for the wealthy, gun legislation, and climate change. McCain backed the Iraq War from the beginning but by 2004 had begun to question the prosecution of that conflict. He openly challenged Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to put more boots on the ground to deal with the mounting Iraqi insurgency. McCain repeatedly urged the Bush administration to prosecute the Iraq War with more zeal and greater commitment, so it is no surprise that he strongly backed the troop surge strategy implemented in 2007.

McCarthy, Eugene Joseph In 2008 McCain sought and gained the Republican presidential nomination. From the start, however, he was hobbled by his relatively close association with President Bush, who by then was wildly unpopular; his own stance toward the Iraq War; and a failing U.S. economy. McCain’s campaign began strongly but fell victim to repeated verbal and strategic gaffes. He seemed to bounce aimlessly from one issue to another while his opponent, Senator Barack Obama, ran a highly disciplined on-message campaign that successfully portrayed McCain as Bush redux. McCain’s choice of the unknown and inexperienced Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, was also thought to have doomed his candidacy. In the end, McCain lost by a large margin in both the popular vote and the electoral vote, but he opted to remain in the Senate as one of its most senior and most seasoned members. JOE P. DUNN AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire; Hoa Lo Prison; McCain, John Sidney, Jr.; Prisoners of War, Allied; United States Navy; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. McCain, John, with Mark Salter. Faith of My Fathers. New York: Random House, 1999. McCain, John, with Mark Salter. Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2002. Rowan, Stephan A. They Wouldn’t Let Us Die: The Prisoners of War Tell Their Story. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 1973. Timberg, Robert. The Nightingale’s Song. New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster, 1996.

McCarthy, Eugene Joseph Birth Date: March 29, 1916 Death Date: December 10, 2005 U.S. senator, Democratic candidate for president in 1968, and leading critic of American involvement in Vietnam. Convinced that many Americans shared his frustration over Vietnam, McCarthy attempted to merge the antiwar movement with politics, and his early success helped bring down President Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. Born in Watkins, Minnesota, on March 29, 1916, Eugene McCarthy graduated from St. John’s University (Minnesota) in 1935 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 1939. He worked as a high school teacher and college professor at St. John’s University and the College of St. Thomas (Minnesota) and was a civilian technical assistant in the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division for a time during World War II. In 1948 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958.

715

A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, McCarthy voted for the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but he considered it a vote for a holding action rather than a vote for an open-ended war. In McCarthy’s view, the Vietnam War escalated in 1966 into a war of conquest. His opposition began to be evident in that year. He believed that the Johnson administration was moving from a policy of nation building in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to an effort to save all of Southeast Asia from communism. McCarthy was also disturbed by the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). On November 30, 1967, McCarthy announced his bid for the 1968 presidential nomination as a candidate committed to bringing about a negotiated settlement of the war. He believed that the American people should be given the “opportunity to make an intellectual and moral determination on the war in Vietnam.” Large numbers of idealistic antiwar students flocked to his campaign, as they had to his earlier speaking engagements on major college campuses. McCarthy’s surprisingly strong showing in the March 12, 1968, New Hampshire Democratic primary (although later shown to be primarily an anti-Johnson vote rather than a vote for McCarthy’s program per se) prompted Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.) to join the presidential race. By month’s end, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. At the same time, Johnson announced a partial bombing halt and authorized presidential emissary W. Averell Harriman to open negotiations with North Vietnam. Kennedy’s campaign soon eclipsed that of McCarthy, although McCarthy remained in the race. Kennedy’s assassination in June 1968 again changed the dynamics of the presidential race. At the violence-marred August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Hubert Humphrey received the nomination, ending McCarthy’s idealistic antiwar political crusade. In 1969 McCarthy resigned from the Foreign Relations Committee, and he left the Senate on completion of his second term in 1970. After his retirement from the Senate, his involvement in politics consisted primarily of writing and making speeches. He also worked in the publishing industry and authored a syndicated newspaper column for a number of years. In 1976 and again in 1988 he made unsuccessful bids for the presidency as an independent candidate. McCarthy died on December 10, 2005, in Washington, D.C. JAMES E. SOUTHERLAND See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Elections, U.S., 1968; Harriman, William Averell; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Knowland, William Fife; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution References Eisele, Albert. Almost to the Presidency: A Biography of Two American Politicians. Blue Earth, MN: Piper, 1972. Herzog, Arthur. McCarthy for President. New York: Viking, 1969. McCarthy, Eugene. The Year of the People. New York: Doubleday, 1969. White, Theodore H. The Making of the President, 1968. New York: Atheneum, 1969.

716

McCloy, John Jay

McCloy, John Jay Birth Date: March 31, 1895 Death Date: March 11, 1989 U.S. assistant secretary of war (1941–1945), president of the World Bank (1946–1948), U.S. high commissioner for Germany (1949–1952), and prominent adviser to U.S. presidents. Born in Philadelphia on March 31, 1895, John Jay McCloy earned an undergraduate degree from Amherst College and a law degree from Harvard University in 1921. He then entered private law practice before becoming assistant secretary of war in 1941. In 1946 McCloy assumed the presidency of the World Bank and then served as U.S. high commissioner for Germany from 1949 to 1952. As high commissioner he actively participated in transforming the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from an occupied nation to a sovereign state closely allied with the West. McCloy later advised presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy on disarmament issues. From 1953 to 1960 McCloy served as president of the Chase Manhattan Bank. He then returned to the practice of law. In 1963 President Lyndon B. Johnson asked McCloy to serve on the Warren Commission investigating the November 1963 assassination of Kennedy.

With his Ivy League education and years of government service, McCloy typified the Washington Establishment figure; in fact, the journalist Richard Rovere termed him the “chairman” of the Establishment. McCloy was one of the so-called Wise Men who counseled President Johnson on Vietnam policy. Although McCloy did not attend the meeting of senior advisers that counseled Johnson in March 1968 to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam, by that time McCloy was clearly dissatisfied with existing policy regarding Vietnam, and his views were made known to the president. McCloy later served as chairman of the influential Council on Foreign Relations and remained a valuable adviser to presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. McCloy died on March 11, 1989, in Stamford, Connecticut. MARK BARRINGER See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Wise Men References Bird, Kai. The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. McCloy, John J. The Challenge to American Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953.

McCone, John Alex Birth Date: January 4, 1902 Death Date: February 14, 1991

John J. McCloy was one of the “Wise Men” who advised President Lyndon Johnson. McCloy made known his opposition to the president’s Vietnam policies. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

Industrialist and director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during 1961–1965. Born in San Francisco, California, on January 4, 1902, John Alex McCone graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1922. A successful businessman who advanced from riveter to vice president of the Consolidated Steel Corporation in the 1920s, McCone had considerable management experience. He went on to make a fortune in the steel and shipbuilding industries during World War II under the banner of the Bechtel-McCone engineering firm. In 1947 President Harry S. Truman appointed McCone to the Air Policy Commission. The following year McCone was named a special deputy to Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. In 1950 McCone became undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force and in that position urged President Truman to begin a program of building guided missiles, which was not immediately done. In 1951 McCone returned to private business but continued to serve Washington in special missions. In 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed McCone head of the Atomic Energy Commission. On September 27, 1961, several months after the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, President John F. Kennedy appointed McCone, a conservative Republican, to head the CIA, succeeding Allen Dulles. McCone had virtually no intelligence experience, and

McConnell, John Paul journalist David Halberstam believed that Kennedy was motivated to make the appointment because of a perceived need for Establishment acceptance of his administration. Kennedy believed that he needed protection from attack by the political Right, which McCone’s appointment would provide. In any case, McCone inherited an agency in considerable turmoil. McCone proceeded to restore CIA credibility. He immediately convened a study group to identify the duties of the director and submit suggestions about reorganization of the agency. Previously, the CIA had been an association of three directorates desperately in need of centralized planning and organization to achieve unity. The endeavor under McCone, the third reorganization study undertaken by the agency in an eight-year period, took two years to complete. The reorganization substantially improved scientific and technological research and development capabilities, added a cost-analysis system, and created a position of comptroller. In addition, President Kennedy publicly strengthened the agency by announcing that the director would be charged with developing policies and coordinating procedures at all levels across the intelligence community. The announcement came less than a month after the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board recommended dismantling the CIA. Kennedy’s stance strengthened McCone’s immediate position but fueled resentment among other agencies and White House and cabinet figures, such as Secretary of State Robert McNamara. Furthermore, McCone’s aggressive and confident style irked many of his peers. His access to the president waned after he successfully predicted and gave warning about the Soviet attempt to place nuclear missiles in Cuba because he bragged too loudly for too long. Although McCone was considered a hard-line massive retaliation advocate who could help the president deflect pressure from the political Right, he was apparently not one to take political and military risks lightly. McCone argued against the coup to oust Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), in November 1963. In spite of opposition, McCone remained CIA director after President Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination. However, McCone may have initiated his own demise under President Lyndon B. Johnson by criticizing escalation of the war in Vietnam. Early on McCone noted that Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing of North Vietnam, was not working and that escalation would fail because it could not change the odds. McCone believed that Hanoi would match any U.S. escalation. In 1965 he left the CIA, apparently convinced that President Johnson did not hold the agency in the same esteem as did his predecessor. After retiring from the CIA, McCone served on the boards of several major corporations, including ITT. He died on February 14, 1991, in Pebble Beach, California. PAUL R. CAMACHO See also Central Intelligence Agency; Dulles, Allen Welsh; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation

717

References Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Hersh, Burton. The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA. New York: Scribner, 1992. Kirkpatrick, Lyman D., Jr. The Real CIA. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA. New York: Knopf, 1979.

McConnell, John Paul Birth Date: February 7, 1908 Death Date: November 21, 1986 U.S. Air Force general and air force chief of staff during 1965– 1969. Born in Booneville, Arkansas, on February 7, 1908, John Paul McConnell graduated from Henderson Brown College in Arkadelphia in 1927. He then attended the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, graduating in 1932. Following flight training, McConnell earned his wings in 1933. He served four years in a pursuit squadron, being promoted to first lieutenant in 1935. During 1939–1942 when he was assigned to staff and training duties at Maxwell Field, Alabama, he rose rapidly in rank, achieving captain in 1939, major in 1941, and lieutenant colonel in 1942. He served briefly with the office of the chief of the Army Air Force and became deputy chief of staff and then was chief of staff at the Army Air Force technical training center in North Carolina during 1942–1943. He became a colonel in December 1942. The next year he moved to Texas as deputy chief of staff for the Army Air Force Training Command.

U.S. Air Force general John Paul McConnell was chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force during 1965–1969 and advocated full-scale unrestricted bombing of North Vietnam. (Department of Defense)

718

McGarr, Lionel Charles

In 1943 and 1944 McConnell served as chief of staff of the Tenth Air Force Training Command in Karachi, India, before becoming deputy commander of the Third Tactical Air Force in India. With his promotion to brigadier general in August 1944, McConnell became senior air staff officer of the Southeast Asia Air Command in Sri Lanka until June 1945. He then spent two years as senior air adviser to the Chinese government and commander of the Air Division, Nanking Headquarters Command. McConnell returned to the United States in 1947 to serve as chief of the Reserve and National Guard Division, and in 1948 he was appointed chief of the U.S. Air Force Civilian Components Group. He was promoted to major general in 1950 and then commanded the 3rd Air Division and later the Third Air Force. In 1953 McConnell became director of plans at Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters in Nebraska, where he served for four years, before commanding SAC’s Second Air Force during 1957–1961. He achieved the rank of lieutenant general in 1959. McConnell then returned to SAC headquarters as vice commander. With his promotion to four-star rank in 1962, McConnell became deputy commander of the U.S. European Command (1962–1964). In 1964 McConnell was made vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. The next year he succeeded General Curtis LeMay as U.S. Air Force chief of staff, a position that McConnell held until his retirement in 1969. As chief of staff during the Vietnam War, he advocated full-scale unrestricted bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He believed in the ability of the U.S. Air Force to destroy through strategic bombing both the willingness and capability of North Vietnam to continue the war. Following his retirement, McConnell worked with the Civil Air Patrol in the 1970s. He died in Bethesda, Maryland, on November 21, 1986. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also United States Air Force References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

McGarr, Lionel Charles Birth Date: March 5, 1904 Death Date: November 3, 1988 U.S. Army officer. Born in Yuma, Arizona, on March 5, 1904, Lionel Charles McGarr graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1928. He was commissioned in the infantry, and his early postings were with the 25th Infantry and the 21st Infantry in Hawaii. He graduated from the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and then returned to Hawaii, serving as an

instructor with the National Guard until it was activated in 1940. He was reassigned to headquarters in Hawaii but returned to the mainland in mid-1941 to join the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington. After the United States entered World War II, McGarr saw action in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and southern France. By the end of the war McGarr had participated in four major amphibious assaults and had been wounded on five occasions. Promoted to colonel in 1945, he became chief of staff of the 3rd Infantry Division, a post he held until returning to the United States in 1946. McGarr was then assigned to Fort Myer, Virginia, and he graduated from the National War College in June 1947. He was then assigned to the Intelligence Division of the U.S. Army staff. McGarr held several commands over the next few years in the United States and abroad, but the beginning of the Korean War (1950–1953) led to his assignment in Korea. Advanced to brigadier general, McGarr served as assistant division commander of the 2nd Infantry Division. He then took command of the United Nations Command (UNC) prison camp system in Korea, presiding over 13 island and mainland camps that housed some 120,000 North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war. Following the war, McGarr held a variety of commands and was promoted to major general. He served as the commanding general in the Panama Canal Zone in 1954 before returning to the United States to command the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Promoted to lieutenant general in 1960, McGarr served as chief of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam. McGarr was responsible for the U.S. effort in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to advise and train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to deal with the Communist insurgency. In contrast to his predecessor, Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams, McGarr saw counterinsurgency as a different type of warfare. When he had headed the Command and General Staff College, McGarr had called for studies on counterinsurgency warfare, and he now ordered the preparation of a study titled “Tactics and Techniques of CounterInsurgency Operations.” McGarr’s recommendations called for the clear, rational ARVN chain of command structure (urged by all American officials since 1957); improvements in intelligence gathering; transferring the Civil Guard to the Ministry of Defense; heightened border surveillance; increases in civic action programs; and an increase in ARVN strength by 20,000 men, to include ranger companies. McGarr strongly supported the increase in troop strength, believing that the Communist insurgency had reached the point where this was mandatory even if it had to come at the expense of social and political reforms. He also urged the dispatch to South Vietnam of U.S. helicopters and the personnel to man and maintain them. McGarr retired from the army in 1962. He settled in Lafayette, California, where he died on November 3, 1988. JEFFREY B. COOK

McGovern, George Stanley

719

See also Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Williams, Samuel Tankersley

from public life in 1981. McGee died in Bethesda, Maryland, on April 9, 1992. DAVID COFFEY

References ”Lionel Charles McGarr.” Assembly: Association of Graduates, United States Military Academy, May 1990, 131–132. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

See also Domino Theory; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Stennis, John Cornelius; United States Congress and the Vietnam War

McGee, Gale William Birth Date: March 17, 1915 Death Date: April 9, 1992 Academic, Democratic politician, and U.S. senator (1958–1977). Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on March 17, 1915, Gale William McGee devoted much of his early life to education. He attended Nebraska State Teachers College before earning a BA in history at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University), an MA in history from the University of Notre Dame, and in 1946 a PhD from the University of Chicago. McGee taught at numerous universities until 1946, when he secured a professorship at the University of Wyoming, a position he held for the next 12 years. McGee’s first exposure to national politics came in 1955 when he joined U.S. senator Joseph O’Mahoney’s staff as a legislative aide. In 1958, running as a Democrat in his first bid for public office, McGee won election to the U.S. Senate from his adopted state of Wyoming. His campaign benefited from high-profile appearances by the powerful senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, a political debt that McGee would repay when Johnson became president. Long before U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia was a matter of public debate, McGee established himself as an ardent Cold War warrior. A firm devotee of the domino theory, he viewed a U.S. stand in Vietnam as essential to the promotion of democracy worldwide. He frequently drew upon his previous experience, evoking historical lessons in articulate speeches on the Senate floor. McGee staunchly supported U.S. efforts in Southeast Asia. As congressional and public criticism mounted, he continued to back military approaches to the Vietnam conflict. Although something of an independent, McGee was one of President Johnson’s chief congressional allies, remaining loyal despite major defections by many previous Johnson supporters. McGee’s Senate career included important membership on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Appropriations Committee and the chairmanship of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee. He also authored a book, The Responsibilities of World Power, published in 1968. In 1976 he lost his bid for reelection to Republican Malcolm Wallop. Thereafter McGee served as ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) until his retirement

References Dallek, Robert. Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. McGee, Gale W. The Responsibilities of World Power. Washington, DC: National Press, 1968. Mooney, Louise, ed. The Annual Obituary 1992. Detroit: St. James, 1993.

McGovern, George Stanley Birth Date: July 19, 1922 Democratic politician, U.S. congressman (1957–1961), U.S. senator (1963–1981), and Democratic Party presidential candidate (1972). Born on July 19, 1922, in Avon, South Dakota, George Stanley McGovern grew up in Mitchell and there entered Dakota Wesleyan University in 1940. In 1942 he joined the Army Air Force as an air cadet. Then, as a B-24 pilot, he flew more than 30 combat missions in the European theater of operations, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters. Discharged in 1945 as a first lieutenant, McGovern returned to Dakota Wesleyan and was graduated with a BA in 1946. He received an MA from Northwestern University in 1949 and taught history and political science at Dakota Wesleyan. In 1953 he received a PhD in history from Northwestern University. Also that year, he resigned his teaching position to become executive secretary of the South Dakota Democratic Party and led that party’s revitalization in the state. In 1956 McGovern ran successfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. He quickly established himself as a liberal, supporting federal assistance for agriculture and education and medical care for the elderly. He also backed labor reform. After an unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 1960, he was selected by President John F. Kennedy to head the Food for Peace program, an initiative to use U.S. food surpluses to fight world hunger. McGovern resigned that position in 1962 to seek South Dakota’s other senatorial seat. By a slim margin of less than 600 votes, McGovern won election to the U.S. Senate. In the Senate, McGovern supported Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. McGovern also backed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and called for reductions in military spending. He long criticized Cold War policies and anti-Communist obsessions, including what he considered a misguided preoccupation with Fidel Castro and Cuba. McGovern also warned against U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia

720

McNamara, Robert Strange

U.S. senator George McGovern secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 1972. A decorated bomber pilot in World War II and opponent of the Vietnam War, McGovern was overwhelmingly defeated by President Richard Nixon in the general election. (Library of Congress)

and considered the achievement of world peace the greatest challenge to be confronted. Although he supported Johnson’s call for military force to protect the independence of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, McGovern soon became a leader in the congressional opposition to U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Following a 1965 visit to South Vietnam, McGovern pressed for a political rather than military approach to a situation that he viewed as civil war. He maintained that U.S. anti-Communist fervor resulted in support for corrupt and ineffective dictatorships. He called for improved relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and staunchly opposed offensive operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Briefly a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, McGovern continued to oppose the war effort during Richard M. Nixon’s presidency. In 1970 McGovern introduced with Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) the Hatfield-McGovern Amendment that called for the removal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia by the end of 1971 and an end to all funding for the Vietnam War. The amendment did not pass. In 1972 McGovern secured the Democratic Party presidential nomination largely on the strength of his antiwar position. Despite his efforts to embrace mainstream antiwar sentiments and avoid

radical elements, McGovern’s candidacy was hampered by the very stigma that he sought to avoid. The Nixon campaign capitalized on this to cast McGovern as an out-of-touch leftist radical and draw moderate Democrats to its camp. McGovern’s criticism of Nixon’s prosecution of the war and White House corruption (the emerging Watergate Scandal) largely was ignored. McGovern’s campaign was further damaged by vice presidential running mate Thomas Eagleton’s admission that he had been treated for mental illness. McGovern’s second choice for vice president, Sargent Shriver, brought little to the ticket. Finally, McGovern’s controversial platform, including amnesty for draft resistors, the decriminalization of abortion, and drastic cuts in defense spending, proved too liberal even for many Democrats. Nixon won the November election by one of the largest margins in American history. McGovern continued in the Senate and won reelection in 1974 but as a well-established liberal lost his seat in the conservative resurgence led by Ronald Reagan in 1980. McGovern remained active in Democratic Party politics and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. He has written numerous books and articles, including Against Want: America’s Food for Peace Program, Agricultural Thought in the Twentieth Century and Grassroots: The Autobiography of George S. McGovern. He has also been actively involved in worldwide antihunger and antipoverty campaigns and speaks widely throughout the United States. McGovern lives in Washington, D.C. DAVID COFFEY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Church, Frank Forrester; Elections, U.S., 1968; Elections, U.S., 1972; Hatfield, Mark Odom; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, Edward Moore; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States Congress and the Vietnam War; Watergate Scandal References Anson, Robert S. McGovern: A Biography. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Marano, Richard Michael. Vote Your Conscience: The Last Campaign of George McGovern. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. McGovern, George. Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern. New York: Random House, 1978. Watson, Robert P., ed. George McGovern: A Political Life, a Political Legacy. Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2004. Who’s Who in American Politics, 1995–1996. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker, 1995.

McNamara, Robert Strange Birth Date: June 9, 1916 Death Date: July 6, 2009 Businessman, auto executive, secretary of defense (1961–1968), and president of the World Bank (1968–1982). Born on June 9, 1916, in San Francisco, Robert Strange McNamara studied

McNamara, Robert Strange economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He next earned a master’s degree in business administration at Harvard University and then soon joined the faculty. During World War II he was a U.S. Army Air Force statistical control officer. Following the war he went to work for the Ford Motor Company, where he rose to president in 1960 at the age of 44. A few weeks later, President John F. Kennedy appointed him secretary of defense. McNamara came to the job determined to take control of the Pentagon bureaucracy. Among his early initiatives were the installation of a programming-planning-budgeting system, the introduction of systems analysis into the department’s decision-making process, and the revitalization of conventional forces, neglected under the prior administration’s defense policy based on massive retaliation. The Kennedy administration’s new approach became known as flexible response. McNamara also evinced a continuing concern for the control of nuclear weapons, a subject that continued high on his personal agenda even after he had left his Pentagon post. McNamara embraced the fiasco that became the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, but in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he favored the moderate position of a naval quarantine around Cuba, advice that President Kennedy followed. Within a year of heading the Pentagon, McNamara had also gone on record as supporting the recommendations of General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow that the United States should commit itself to preventing the fall of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to communism, although he later wrote that within days he realized that “the complexity of the situation and the uncertainties of our ability to deal with it by military means became apparent” and that supporting further American involvement “had been a bad idea.” During successive levels of increasing U.S. commitment, including the deployment of increasingly more ground combat forces to Vietnam, McNamara supported meeting the field commander’s requirements, at the same time insisting on a “graduated response” to “aggression” by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), particularly with regard to the air war against North Vietnam. By the end of 1965, however, McNamara had begun to doubt the possibility of achieving a military solution in Vietnam, a view he expressed to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Nevertheless, a month later McNamara recommended adding 200,000 men to forces in Vietnam and expanding air operations. At the same time, he suggested that the odds were even that the result would be “a military standoff at a much higher level.” In the autumn of that same year, McNamara advised Johnson that he saw no palatable way to end the war quickly, and by May 1967 McNamara had advised the president in writing that the United States should alter its objectives in Vietnam and the means to achieve them. McNamara refused to support General William Westmoreland’s most recent request for 200,000 more troops and argued instead that his approach “could lead to a major national disaster.” But then in July 1967, back from a trip to Vietnam, McNamara told the president that there was not a stalemate in the war,

721

As secretary of defense during 1961–1968, Robert S. McNamara was one of the chief architects of U.S. policy in Vietnam under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He began to have doubts about the war only late in his tenure but did not voice them publicly, much to the anger of many. McNamara spent his retirement writing about the lessons to be learned from the conflict. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

and indeed, according to Tom Johnson’s notes of the meeting, “he felt that if we follow the same program we will win the war and end the fighting.” Faced with this pervasive inconsistency on the part of his war minister, Johnson soon decided to replace him. Later McNamara would recall the “loose assumptions, unasked questions, and thin analyses underlying our military strategy in Vietnam” and admit that he “misunderstood the nature of the conflict.” In their book The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age, Charles J. Hitch, who had been McNamara’s comptroller in the Defense Department, and Roland N. McKean observed that “there are excellent reasons for making most decisions at lower levels. Officials on the spot have far better technical information; they can act more quickly; giving them authority will utilize and develop the reservoir of ingenuity and initiative in the whole organization.” McNamara meanwhile brought an unprecedented degree of centralization to the management of the Defense Department, even though, as Hitch and McKean also observed, “if large numbers of detailed decisions are attempted at a high level . . . the higher

722

McNamara Line

levels will become swamped in detail, decisions will be delayed, the organization will become muscle-bound, and the higher levels will have neither time nor energy for their essential functions of policymaking.” The accuracy of this analysis became clear when McNamara, in his book In Retrospect, offered the observation that he was just too busy to deal with the Vietnam War, that “an orderly, rational approach was precluded by the ‘crowding out’ which resulted from the fact that Vietnam was but one of a multitude of problems we confronted.” Under McNamara, there were huge gaps between the rhetoric and the reality. As late as 1971, for example, more than three years after McNamara had left the Pentagon, Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith argued in How Much Is Enough? that one of the strengths of McNamara’s regime was that he “insisted on integrating and balancing the nation’s foreign policy, military strategy, force requirements, and defense budget.” Instead, he had so ineptly managed the requirements of the war in Vietnam and competing commitments elsewhere that the U.S. Army in Europe was virtually destroyed to make up for Vietnam War shortfalls, while reserve forces were similarly ravaged. By the time McNamara was through, wrote General Bruce Palmer Jr. in The 25-Year War, “the proud, combat-ready Seventh Army ceased to be a field army and became a large training and replacement depot for Vietnam.” The result was that it “became singularly unready, incapable of fulfilling its NATO mission.” McNamara left office at the end of February 1968, in the midst of the debate over Vietnam policy precipitated by the Tet Offensive, to become president of the World Bank, a post he held until 1982. His 1995 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam reignited Vietnam War passions but did little to rebuild his reputation. McNamara died in Washington, D.C., on July 6, 2009. LEWIS SORLEY See also Bundy, McGeorge; Bundy, William Putnam; Clifford, Clark McAdams; Gelb, Leslie Howard; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara Line; Project 100,000; RAND Corporation; Read, Benjamin Huger; Rostow, Walt Whitman; San Antonio Formula; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Taylor-McNamara Report; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Joint Chiefs of Staff; Westmoreland, William Childs; Wise Men References Enthoven, Alain C., and K. Wayne Smith. How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961–69. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Hitch, Charles J. Decision Making for Defense. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Palmer, Gregory. The McNamara Strategy and the Vietnam War: Program Budgeting in the Pentagon, 1960–1968. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978. Shapley, Deborah. Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.

McNamara Line On September 7, 1967, U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara announced plans for the construction of an electronic anti-infiltration barrier below the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Vietnam. The principal purpose of the so-called McNamara Line was to alert U.S. forces when People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces crossed the barrier. Allied air and artillery strikes would then be brought to bear to curb infiltration from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). By early 1965 it became clear to the Americans that the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was at the point of collapse. The U.S. response was to increase troop levels in South Vietnam and to initiate Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the sustained bombing of North Vietnam. By mid-1966 it became evident that these strategies were not working as hoped. U.S. troop increases were matched by enhanced PAVN infiltration into South Vietnam. U.S. military leaders wanted to sharply step up the air war and mobilize reserve forces. They urged President Lyndon Johnson to consider invading Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam to force Hanoi to cease its support for the war in South Vietnam. Secretary McNamara believed that such a widening of the war would only result in a continuation of the present stalemate at higher levels and might trigger intervention by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as in the Korean War. In 1966 Harvard professor Roger Fisher presented a plan for dealing with infiltration down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and across the DMZ. Fisher’s proposal was to install a high-technology barrier. In April 1966 McNamara turned the Fisher proposal over to the Jason Division, a group of scientists formed in 1959 by the Institute for Defense Analyses and known as Jasons. Fisher’s proposal would have depended on technology in the form of mines, pits, barbed wire, and other physical devices. The task for the Jasons was to develop a plan for the installation of a barrier laden with state-of-the-art electronic devices. The Jasons reported that the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam had no measurable effect on Hanoi’s ability to support military operations in South Vietnam. Their report went further, claiming that an expanded air campaign in the future would not prohibit PAVN forces from infiltrating into South Vietnam at the then-current rate or even an increased rate. The Jasons proposed an infiltration barrier of two components: an antipersonnel barrier, staffed by troops across the southern side of the DMZ from the South China Sea to Laos, and an antivehicular barrier, primarily an aerial operation, emplaced in and over the Laotian panhandle to interdict traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There were certain features common to both barriers, including the employment of new technology such as remote sensors (button bomblets, which were tiny mines that made noise when stepped on, thereby alerting the acoustic sensors) and Gravel mines (small cloth-covered squares designed to wound legs and feet when stepped on).

McNamara Line The purpose of these sensors was to facilitate the acquisition of targets for U.S. aircraft. The target-acquisition sensors would be monitored by aircraft that would relay data to a central computer site in Thailand, which would then guide attack aircraft to their targets. Requirements for both barriers included 240 million Gravel mines, 300 million button bomblets, 120,000 Sadeye cluster bombs, 19,200 acoustic sensors, 68 patrol planes, and 50 aircraft to drop the mines. The estimated total cost for these components was $800 million per year.

The Barrier in Vietnam The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), modified the original Jason proposal for an antipersonnel barrier. In its final form the MACV plan called for a linear barrier consisting of a stretch of cleared ground 650 to 1,100 yards wide containing barbed wire, minefields, sensors, and watchtowers backed by a series of manned strong points. Behind these points would be a series of artillery bases to provide an interlocking pattern of artillery fire. This part of the system would begin at the coast of South Vietnam below the DMZ and continue westward for about 18.5 miles. From this point to the Laotian border, the barrier would be less comprehensive. Infiltration routes would be marked and blocked by minefields and barbed-wire obstacles. Artillery bases would provide fire support and sites for the deployment of reaction forces to seek out and destroy PAVN infiltrators. Construction of the barrier began in the summer of 1967. The McNamara Line was originally given the code name Project Practice Nine; later it was renamed Project Dye Marker. U.S. marines and U.S. Navy Seabees quickly ran into difficulty in their efforts to construct Dye Marker. In September 1967 the PAVN launched Phase I of their General Offensive, General Uprising. In the I Corps Tactical Zone, Phase I began with heavy attacks on marine positions along the DMZ. Phase II of the offensive took place during the Tet Offensive in 1968. By January, when the McNamara Line should have been operational, it became clear that the North Vietnamese were massing around the marine base at Khe Sanh in the northwestern corner of the I Corps Tactical Zone. These circumstances led General William Westmoreland to give top priority to the defense of Khe Sanh. All sensors and related equipment slated to be installed along the DMZ were instead given to the defenders of Khe Sanh. Aircraft dropped seismic and acoustic sensors on likely approaches. Almost immediately the sensors began indicating PAVN activity. The siege at Khe Sanh ended in April, and sensors that had been deployed in its defense were highly praised. But the fighting at Khe Sanh effectively stopped further construction on the McNamara Line. The defenders at Khe Sanh did not face their enemy across a broad front; rather, they were almost surrounded by them. The fighting there showed that sensor technology worked in 360-degree applications. There was no compelling evidence that the barrier technique would work in a linear application, as envisioned by the McNa-

723

mara plan. Commanders familiar with the success of sensor technology at Khe Sanh desired to implement the concept in a variety of operations throughout South Vietnam.

The Antivehicular Barrier in Laos The Ho Chi Minh Trail supply line was a series of trails, roads, and waterways that began in North Vietnam and entered Laos through various mountain passes. Continuing south through the Laotian panhandle, the trail penetrated South Vietnam in Military Regions I and II. Other branches of the trail continued south into Cambodia and then entered South Vietnam in Military Region III. At its greatest extent, the Ho Chi Minh Trail traversed approximately 12,700 miles. The flow of matériel on the Ho Chi Minh Trail was primarily by truck convoy. This could be reduced by either the destruction of the vehicles or destruction of the trail itself. To destroy the trucks, the United States deployed aircraft gunships equipped with nightviewing devices. These devices could detect people, cooking fires, recently stopped vehicles, or foxholes inhabited by troops. Another sensor contained a cathode-ray tube that reacted to ignition systems found in vehicles. Targets acquired by these devices would be destroyed by aerial cannon capable of firing up to 6,000 rounds per minute. Other improvements in the methods of weapons delivery included automation of the release process. Computers could carry out calculations to direct the aircraft’s approach run as well as the automatic release of munitions at the appropriate time. The munitions themselves were modified to increase accuracy. Laser-guided bombs were conventional bombs fitted with a laser-guidance unit. The target was illuminated by shining a beam of laser light on it, allowing the bomb to follow the beam to its target. In addition to devices that would locate targets from the air, a variety of ground sensors were developed and deployed on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Dropped from aircraft, these sensors either landed on the ground or hung from foliage. Battery-operated sensors that were located and tampered with would self-destruct. Some sensors detected motion or sound, while others were sensitive to metallic objects or to chemicals emanating from the bodies of mammals. Data produced by these sensors were transmitted via radio to receivers located at ground stations or aboard orbiting aircraft. From these stations the data was relayed to a central processing base in Thailand. The Infiltration Surveillance Center (ISC) was the heart of this antivehicular system, which was code-named Project Igloo White. After the data was sorted by computer it was passed to analysts, who would send their assessments to the strike aircraft and direct them to their targets. ISC computers contained extensive mapping of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were used to predict the expected path and speed of truck convoys by sensor readout. Aircraft were guided to a particular point, and munitions were automatically released at a time that would coincide with the arrival of the truck

724

McNaughton, John Theodore

convoy in the kill zone. This interdiction system had all-weather capability and required no ground forces. Project Igloo White was in operation from 1968 until the end of 1972. U.S. Air Force figures claimed that the bombing campaign destroyed a great number of trucks: 5,500 in 1968, 6,000 in 1969, 12,000 in 1970, and 12,000 in 1971, the last full year of Igloo White’s operation. Such figures were invariably greater than Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) figures for all of North Vietnam and Laos, however. Official Vietnamese figures list approximately 800 trucks destroyed in 1968, 1,300 in 1969, 1,800 in 1970, and 2,800 in 1971 (Vietnamese records are based on a slightly different time frame, so exact figures for the calendar year are not available). Still, the U.S. Air Force estimated that in 1971 only 20 percent of the supplies entering the Ho Chi Minh Trail system made it to their destination. Vietnamese records indicate losses of 13.7 percent of the total quantity of supplies shipped down the trail in 1971. Igloo White operations began shutting down in December 1972. The last U.S. bombing raid on the Ho Chi Minh Trail was a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strike in April 1973. The antipersonnel barrier across the DMZ was never constructed as planned. Much of the proposed barrier was within range of PAVN artillery situated just north of the DMZ, and the entire area was the object of frequent PAVN probes. U.S. military forces were never of sufficient strength to adequately construct and run the barrier while fighting at the same time. Had the barrier been built in the early years of U.S. involvement, it would have faced much less opposition. Until the North Vietnamese escalated the fighting to high levels in the mid-1960s, however, the perceived need for a barrier was insufficient to order its construction. Had an effective barrier been constructed, the PAVN would undoubtedly have chosen to go around it. PAVN units being sent to Military Regions II, III, and IV clearly would have had an easier time outflanking the barrier via the Ho Chi Minh Trail than fighting their way through hundreds of thousands of U.S. and ARVN soldiers located in the I Corps Tactical Zone. Such fighting as did occur in the I Corps Tactical Zone was usually initiated by the enemy for the purpose of tying up American and South Vietnamese military assets. Unlike the antipersonnel barrier, the antivehicular barrier across the Laotian panhandle was a thorough implementation of the Jason plan. The antivehicular barrier was successful in destroying a great quantity of military supplies. Undoubtedly many PAVN soldiers were killed as well; more than 1 million tons of bombs were dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail by the United States and its allies between 1965 and 1971. But the trail network was too extensive to be shut down by any amount of bombing. The PAVN was largely successful in controlling the level of fighting during the war. When supplies were inadequate to support military activity at high levels, Hanoi reduced operations until sufficient matériel became available. Between 1966 and 1971 the Ho Chi Minh Trail was used to infiltrate some 630,000 troops, 100,000 tons of food, 400,000 weap-

ons, and 50,000 tons of ammunition into South Vietnam (postwar Vietnamese Communist statistics give the total troop infiltration during the same period as approximately 550,000 men and the total amount of supplies delivered during the same period as almost 180,000 tons). The harder the United States tried to interdict the trail, the more sophisticated it became. In the early days most infiltration on the trail was by human porters walking on narrow paths. By 1972 the trail contained paved roads capable of handling armored vehicles and a petroleum pipeline. PETER W. BRUSH See also Airpower, Role in War; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Demilitarized Zone; Ho Chi Minh Trail; McNamara, Robert Strange; Mine Warfare, Land; Precision-Guided Munitions; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Dickson, Paul. The Electronic Battlefield. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Van Tai Quan Su Chien Luoc Tren Duong Ho Chi Minh Trong Khang Chien Chong My [Strategic Military Transportation on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Resistance War against the Americans]. Hanoi: People’s Army of Vietnam, General Department of Rear Services, 1988. Prados, John, and Ray W. Stubbe. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

McNaughton, John Theodore Birth Date: November 21, 1921 Death Date: July 19, 1967 Attorney, newspaper editor, teacher, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (1961–1962), general counsel to the Department of Defense (1962–1964), and assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (1964–1967). John Theodore McNaughton was born in Bicknell, Indiana, on November 21, 1921. He graduated from Depauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in 1942. Upon graduation he served in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant during World War II. Returning to civilian life after the war, in 1948 McNaughton graduated from the Harvard University School of Law. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he earned a LittB degree. He then had a varied career as a newspaper editor, lawyer, and Harvard Law School professor. In 1961 McNaughton became assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He had studied bargaining and escalation theories of war, and this approach to war as a logical business between rational adversaries was reflected in memoranda that he drafted for his superior, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Historians have differed as to McNaughton’s exact posture on Vietnam and precisely when he turned against American intervention. To liberal friends and colleagues who opposed American actions in

McPherson, Harry Cummings Vietnam, McNaughton often presented himself as a closet dove who personally sympathized with their viewpoint. Yet after the passage of the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, he was a strong supporter of forceful U.S. action against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In 1964 and 1965 he drafted many of the memoranda, later presented to President Lyndon B. Johnson by McNamara, that argued most strongly in favor of committing substantial U.S. forces to support the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). McNaughton was a major architect of the strategy of limited air war, which resulted in ROLLING THUNDER bombings of 1965, and argued that even if the United States ultimately had to abandon South Vietnam, it should not do so before demonstrating its resolve. He also recommended the commitment of combat units and the construction of air bases in South Vietnam. McNaughton’s memoranda to McNamara at this time made it clear that he viewed the situation in Vietnam primarily as a test of U.S. international credibility and that he was not much concerned about the Vietnamese per se. Even in July 1965 McNaughton was skeptical as to whether the United States would be able to win the war in the sense of preserving South Vietnam as an independent country, and he made these doubts plain to McNamara. They were not, however, aired elsewhere, and McNaughton believed that the effort should still be made. By 1966 McNaughton had more serious reservations as to the wisdom of American intervention in Vietnam. Privately he now suggested to McNamara that the United States extricate itself from the war and negotiate a compromise peace, perhaps facilitating this by bombing the dikes in North Vietnam and thus starving the population. In the summer of 1966 McNaughton helped to draft the Jason Study, which argued that far from destroying North Vietnamese morale and will to resist, American intervention and air raids had inflicted little damage on the North Vietnamese economy but had reinforced nationalistic determination and encouraged increased infiltration into South Vietnam. By 1967 McNaughton and his staff in the International Security Affairs section of the Pentagon were among the strongest advocates of a U.S. withdrawal. Alarmed by growing public sentiment against the war, McNaughton, in conversations with McNamara that summer, warned that Vietnam “could cause the worst split in our people in more than a century.” In public both men still supported administration policy and claimed that the war could still be won, but ultimately McNaughton’s arguments seem to have influenced McNamara, who by 1967 also privately urged that the U.S. government had made a mistake and should change course. In 1967 President Johnson appointed McNaughton secretary of the U.S. Navy, effective August 1. Before he could assume the post, however, McNaughton died in a commercial air crash on July 19, 1967, near Hendersonville, North Carolina. The accident was caused when the Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727 in which McNaughton was a passenger collided in midair with a private aircraft. The crash killed all aboard both planes, including McNaughton’s wife and son. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

725

See also Clifford, Clark McAdams; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; McPherson, Harry Cummings; RAND Corporation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Warnke, Paul Culliton References Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986.

McPherson, Harry Cummings Birth Date: August 22, 1929 Deputy secretary of the U.S. Army (1963), assistant secretary of state (1964), and special assistant to the president (1965–1969). Harry Cummings McPherson, born in Tyler, Texas, on August 22, 1929, was a 1949 graduate of the University of the South and received a law degree from the University of Texas in 1956. He worked for Senate Democrats from 1956 to 1963, when he was appointed deputy secretary of the U.S. Army. His close relationship to President Lyndon B. Johnson won him an appointment as assistant secretary of state in 1964 and as a special assistant to the president in 1965. As a White House aide and speech writer, McPherson was a witness to many decisions concerning Vietnam. The 1968 Tet Offensive convinced him that the Vietnam War was futile. Working with Secretary of State Clark Clifford, McPherson attempted to change Johnson’s mind concerning de-escalation. McPherson later related that the president had become greatly shaken by the media reports, although the official intelligence reports offered by Walt Rostow directly refuted the media. The chance to take a new tack came at the end of March 1968 when Johnson told McPherson and others that he wanted a speech that made a peace pronouncement, not Churchillian prose. McPherson was the first of Johnson’s aides to realize that the president intended to announce at the end of that speech that he would not seek reelection in 1968. Following the election, McPherson entered private law practice in Washington, D.C. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Clifford, Clark McAdams; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; McNaughton, John Theodore; Media and the Vietnam War; Rostow, Walt Whitman References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

726

Meaney, George

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Who’s Who in America, 1980–1981. Chicago: Marquis.

Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Meaney, George Birth Date: August 8, 1894 Death Date: January 10, 1980 Labor leader, political activist, ardent anti-Communist, and president of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) from 1955 to 1979. Born in New York City on August 8, 1894, George Meaney apprenticed as a plumber, joined the local United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, and worked as a plumber for a number of years in the New York City area. Beginning in 1920 he held several administrative positions within his local union before becoming secretary and treasurer of the AFL in 1939. In this post he was second only to William Greene, who was the president. Ferociously anti-Communist, Meaney helped purge the AFL of radicals and leftist member unions including the United Electrical Workers, which was expelled from the AFL. Meaney was elected president of the AFL in 1952 upon Greene’s death and was heavily involved in labor and industrial mobilization efforts during the Korean War (1950–1953). During 1954–1955 Meaney directed the merger of the AFL and the CIO. That same year the members elected him president of the new confederation, a position he held until 1979. Meaney supported Lyndon B. Johnson’s domestic policies and the Vietnam War. When Johnson became president in 1963, he contacted Meaney and solicited his cooperation and advice regarding labor and domestic issues. With the concurrence of the Johnson administration, Meaney sent labor consultants to Vietnam, where they established the Confederation of Vietnamese Trade Unions. When the war became unpopular and threatened economic and social destabilization, Meaney continued to support Johnson despite criticism from other labor leaders. Meaney disapproved of President Richard M. Nixon but defended his administration’s efforts in Southeast Asia. Meaney also publicly supported the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, explaining that Nixon, as commander in chief, had a responsibility to pursue any means necessary to end the war. During the Watergate Scandal, however, Meaney advocated Nixon’s impeachment. In 1979 Meaney retired as president of the AFL-CIO. He died on January 10, 1980, in Washington, D.C. DEAN BRUMLEY See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Watergate Scandal References Goulden, Joseph C. Meaney. New York: Atheneum, 1972.

Medevac The term “medevac,” an acronym combining the words “medical” and “evacuation,” refers to the movement of casualties from the battlefield to more secure locations for immediate medical attention. Although evacuation from the battlefield for medical attention had been practiced for some time, the frontless nature of the guerrilla war in Vietnam called for exploitation of a Korean War innovation: casualty evacuation via helicopter. The U.S. Army experimented with aeromedical evacuation from the introduction of crewed flight, but this did not come into its own until the 1950–1953 Korean War. Korea’s rugged mountainous terrain and poor road network made overland movement extremely difficult. By war’s end, medical evacuation helicopters had evacuated 17,700 casualties, and nonmedical helicopters supplemented that number with many more. Although the Korean War made the potential of helicopter medical evacuation obvious, the Vietnam War proved its worth. Vietnam added dense jungle, tropical heat, and a frontless battlefield to the problems that medical evacuation faced in Korea. Although general-use helicopters provided aeromedical evacuation prior to and after their arrival, U.S. Army Medical Department air ambulance units were introduced into Vietnam in April 1962. Expanding with the surge of American ground troops, they remained in Vietnam until total U.S. troop withdrawal in 1973. Nicknamed dustoff missions, air ambulance evacuations lifted between 850,000 and 900,000 allied military and Vietnamese civilian casualties during their period of service. With their crews landing virtually almost anywhere without consideration of the dangers, medevacs provided rapid response and reduced time from injury to treatment; this helped reduce the rate of deaths as a percentage of hits from 29.3 percent in World War II and 26.3 percent in Korea to 19 percent in Vietnam. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Attrition; Casualties; Dustoff; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Kelly, Charles L.; Medicine, Military; Medics and Corpsmen References Dorland, Peter, and James Nanney. Dustoff: Army Aeromedical Evacuation in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982. Neel, Spurgeon. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965– 1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1973.

Media and the Vietnam War

727

After a firefight, two soldiers of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade wait for a helicopter to evacuate them and a dead companion. (National Archives)

Media and the Vietnam War For some veterans of the Vietnam War, the word “media” was a pejorative term that even today evokes feelings of anger and hostility. For those military people, the print and broadcast journalists were as much the “enemy” as the Communist forces. In Paper Soldiers, Clarence R. Wyatt has written that the U.S. government successfully manipulated the media to its own ends during the war, concluding that “The press was more a paper soldier than an antiwar, antigovernment crusader.” How did the fourth estate, which enjoyed a reputation of faithful support and discretion during World War II, arrive at such an unenviable position? As with most strongly held views, the truth lies somewhere between the stereotypical extremes: journalists who see military officers obstructing truth by unwarranted restrictions in the name of operational security and officers who see journalists tilting at personal windmills seeking fame at the expense of the military mission. On the one hand, the patriotism of most U.S. journalists covering the Vietnam War was every bit as intense as that of their predecessors, but, on the other hand, some viewed their constituency as international, not parochially national.

Accountability was to the parent news agency, not necessarily a national government. For example, in Live from the Battlefield, Peter Arnett related a story about newsmen being “pushed around” by U.S. military policemen in 1966. The reporters were trying to cover the Buddhist demonstrations and were ordered off the street by the military police. Arnett identified himself as a New Zealander, and another reporter, Eddie Adams, said, “You have no right to order American newsmen off the streets, you have no jurisdiction over us.” Adams was technically correct, but the implication of not being accountable to government authority in a war zone was present in his assertion as well, and that was a new twist. For many military professionals, who had been taught not to reveal intentions to the enemy by careless statements to the press, journalists were to be tolerated, not embraced. They were an obstacle to smooth military operations, not an adjunct. They were independent of military jurisdiction but depended on the military for the transportation to get to the sites of their stories. However, those military commanders who made the effort to gain the confidence of journalists usually received an important payoff in terms of reciprocated trust. Those journalists who looked exclusively for the story that featured only mistakes, casualties, and the aura of

728

Media and the Vietnam War

disaster often missed the human drama that was being played out every day in the jungle by ordinary soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. Genuinely important news stories from the battlefield received the most accurate reporting when journalists and military commanders cooperated, even when the story was not completely favorable to the military. Press coverage of the Vietnam War was carried out within an often fragile alliance between the military establishment and the journalists. Some components of the alliance worked more smoothly than others. “Court journalism” was produced by the Stars and Stripes, Armed Forces Radio and Television Network, and a host of military unit publications designed mostly to inform troops and to bolster morale, although the soldiers who worked in those ranks would claim that their freedom of expression was not constrained. In juxtaposition to those producing official news were the television and radio network reporters and the newspaper and news magazine specialists sent to the war zone to get the story before the competition. These on-the-scene journalists often had superior modes of communication with their offices in the United States and around the world so that a combat action on some remote battlefield in War Zone C in Vietnam in the morning could be on the evening news that night in the United States, even with the lag imposed by 12 or 13 hours of time zones and the International Date Line. Vietnam was America’s first “living room war,” as one writer aptly put it. The down side of this nearly instantaneous reporting was that the thoughtful, deliberate process of review and editing that used to take place in the newspaper offices prior to publication often took place in minutes or hours in the television newsroom so that the story did not lose its freshness or urgency in getting to the viewers. Television and news magazine journalism was a business with a bottom line and keen competition. As a partial result, as viewers were sitting down to dinner they often saw young soldiers lying in pools of blood on distant battlefields. The local rules imposed by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), discouraged close-ups of wounded or dead soldiers and interviews with wounded troops without the attending medical officer’s permission. There were very few violations, according to Barry Zorthian, the U.S. Mission spokesman in Vietnam, and those few offending journalists who violated the rules quickly lost their credentials. Major General William E. DePuy, General William Westmoreland’s operations officer at MACV and later commander of the 1st Infantry Division, wrote in Changing an Army that journalists “who worked with the combat troops were fine. I liked them, and I thought they were fair enough, and very brave, and as good as combat reporters have ever been.” If there was a problem in interpreting the news, he said, it lay with “the editors back in the United States,” who seemed to have a social agenda that romanticized the Vietnamese freedom fighters. In Vietnam War Almanac, Colonel Harry Summers agrees that the correspondents in Vietnam, “by and large, accurately reported what they saw,” but the

Members of the press question Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander U.S. general William Westmoreland and U.S. ambassador Maxwell Taylor (speaking into the microphone). Unlike the military, which often sought to “sugar coat” events, most members of the press sought to take an independent stance. For many veterans of the Vietnam War, however, print and broadcast journalists were seen in an adversarial light. (National Archives)

“editors and producers . . . were not always able to keep their own political agendas and their awareness of shifts in American public opinion out of the editing process.” Censorship of the media was considered and discussed by government officials in 1965, but it was never imposed in Vietnam, probably because of the enormous impracticalities. Peter Arnett captured the essence of the journalist at war in his book Live from the Battlefield. Commenting on the booklet he was given by Malcolm Browne, the bureau chief, upon arrival at the Saigon bureau in 1962, Arnett read the advice, which stated in part that “Figures on casualties and reports of military engagements are especially subject to distortion. In covering a military engagement you must make every effort to count the bodies yourself before accepting any tabulation of results.” The guide also named “certain officials . . . and their relative credibility indices” as sources not to be accepted at face value. Journalists in Vietnam were managed, not controlled, by public affairs officers (PAOs) at MACV headquarters and major combat units. The job of the PAO was to respond to the journalists’ requests for information and to facilitate the movement of journalists to the sites of stories they wanted to cover. At peak strength there were some 500 accredited news people in the war zone, representing more than 130 organizations. Only about one-third worked as reporters. The remainder were hangers-on or support personnel.

Medicine, Military The process of covering the war was understood differently by the military command and the major media organizations. General Westmoreland, who in 1982 sued CBS Television over its documentary The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, explained in an interview in December 1994: We had intelligence that the Viet Cong . . . were going to mount a major attack to the south [during Tet 1968]. Now intelligence was good and it turned out to be quite accurate. I redeployed troops and I put out appropriate orders for everybody to be on the alert. But I made a mistake; I should have called a press conference and made known to the world that we knew this attack was coming. . . . But it would have been unprecedented because the commander on the battlefield . . . wants to protect that information. He does not want the enemy to know what he knows. . . . In retrospect, if I had to do it over again I would do just that, because it was that [perception of] surprise that did the psychological damage. Information officers naturally wanted to influence the news product in a positive way, that is, one favorable to the allied war effort. Unfortunately, hyperbole and unrestrained optimism during information briefings at MACV headquarters early in the war tended to jaundice even the most receptive journalist. There was an abundance of information available to the reporters that seemed to be in direct contradiction to what they were hearing in their official briefings. In this regard William M. Hammond noted in the U.S. Army publication Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968: Most of the public affairs problems that confronted the United States in South Vietnam stemmed from the contradictions implicit in Lyndon Johnson’s strategy for the war. . . . As the war progressed, information officers found themselves caught between the president’s efforts to bolster support and their own judgment that the military should remain above politics. Other players in the information sweepstakes were the members of the U.S. embassy in Saigon; members of other U.S. agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); and representatives of other foreign governments, including the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). News coverage of the Vietnam War was a collision of technology and ethics on the modern battlefield. Competitive reporters, young novices and old hands alike, knew that like General Nathan Bedford Forrest of the American Civil War, “getting there first with the most” was an essential element of success. Whether operational security of the armed forces engaged in combat—which always was measured in terms of missions accomplished and casualties incurred—was ever compromised by the lack of censorship and control of the media remains an open question deserving of further study. Some of that thoughtful examination has begun because of the different approaches taken to military-media relations in the post–Vietnam War era. The press

729

pool concept was used in the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991 with less than universal acceptance by all concerned. Nonetheless, the presence of the world’s media on future modern battlefields, equipped with the most sophisticated communications gear, is certain. It is in the best interests of the military and the media to learn better methods of cooperation in attaining what sometimes are diverging objectives. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Arnett, Peter; Art and the Vietnam War; Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam; Burchett, Wilfred; Cronkite, Walter Leland; Five O’Clock Follies; Halberstam, David; Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office; Luce, Henry Robinson; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Moyers, Billy Don; Order of Battle Dispute; Vietnam Information Group; Westmoreland, William Childs References Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battle Field: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002. Moeller, Susan D. Shooting War: Photography and the American Experience of Combat. New York: Basic Books, 1989. Summers, Harry G., Jr. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1996. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Trotta, Liz. Fighting for Air: In the Trenches with Television News. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991. Wyatt, Clarence R. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Medical Evacuation See Medevac

Medicine, Military Medical advances during the Vietnam War were the culmination of a century of progress in treating trauma and controlling infectious diseases. Additionally, the nature of the conflict engendered a unique spectrum of psychiatric, medical, and traumatic problems. Mortality rates among the soldiers in wars since the mid-19th century have generally declined: 15 percent in the Mexican-American War (United States only), 20 percent in the Crimean War (all participants), 14 percent in the American Civil War (Union only), 8 percent in World War I (United States only), 4.5 percent in World War II (United States only), and 2.5 percent in the Korean War (United States only). In Vietnam, the mortality rate among U.S.

730

Medicine, Military

Prevalence of Amputation during the Vietnam War as Compared to Other U.S. Conflicts Conflict World War I World War II Korean War Vietnam War

Total Number of Amputations

Ratio of Amputations to Total Wounded

2,610 7,489 1,477 5,283

1 to 78.2 1 to 89.7 1 to 69.9 1 to 29.0

military personnel from all causes was 2.7 percent. Because a higher proportion of soldiers in the latter conflict were hospitalized, the slight rise in mortality actually represents an improvement in overall survival. The 20th century was one of dramatic advances in battlefield medicine and surgery. Effective debridement of wounds and the use of intravenous fluids and whole blood to resuscitate wounded soldiers became standards of practice during World War I. During World War II penicillin and sulfa drugs became available, and techniques were developed for management of some thoracic and vascular injuries. Better vascular surgery and more liberal use of whole blood accounted for most of the improved survival in the Korean War. Helicopter evacuation, more rapid resuscitation, and

readily available specialty surgery characterized military medicine in Vietnam. In 1965 the U.S. Army had a single 100-bed hospital at Nha Trang. At the war’s peak in 1968, the U.S. Department of Defense operated 5,283 beds at 19 fixed sites and MUSTs (medical unit self-contained, transportable). Because there was no clearly defined front, medical facilities were geographically dispersed throughout the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and tended to remain in the same locations rather than follow troop movements, as in previous wars. By June 1969 the Army Medical Corps in Vietnam comprised 16,000 physicians, 15,000 nurses, and 19,000 other officers. The military medical system was divided into five echelons. The first echelon began with the aidman, usually called a medic, who initiated emergency care and evacuation from the battlefield. He was responsible for arresting hemorrhage, securing an airway, dressing wounds, splinting fractures, relieving pain, and positioning the patient safely for transport. The physician at the battlefield aid station began more definitive resuscitation, including starting an intravenous line (by cut-down, if necessary), doing thoracentesis or tracheostomy, beginning positive pressure ventilation, ligating small bleeding vessels, and starting either salt solutions, plasma expanders (dextran, albumin, or Plasmanate), or uncrossmatched whole blood.

A U.S. Army medic searches the sky for a medevac helicopter to evacuate a wounded soldier, June 1967. Medical advances during the Vietnam War included progress in treating medical, psychiatric, and traumatic problems, as well as improvements in evacuation and operative care, which led to fewer and shorter hospitalizations and improved chances of survival. (National Archives)

Medicine, Military

731

U.S. Army medical personnel treat incoming wounded at the 2nd Surgical Hospital, Lai Khe, South Vietnam. (Army Nurse Corps)

The second echelon was the division clearing station, which had a larger staff of physicians, a better supply of whole blood, and oxygen. Antibiotics were begun, and tetanus antitoxin was given at this level. The third echelon was the mobile surgical or evacuation hospital. Here major hemorrhage could be controlled and patency of difficult airways ensured. Whole blood and bicarbonate to correct acid-base imbalance were used. A major difference in resuscitative practices between the Vietnam War and earlier conflicts was the more liberal use of either uncross-matched or type-specific whole blood. The fourth echelon was the general hospitals located in Okinawa and Japan. These had facilities for specialty medical and surgical services and psychiatric treatment. Okinawa was 1,800

miles from Vietnam, and the first fully equipped hospital was 2,700 miles away in Japan. Soldiers who were expected to return to duty in Southeast Asia were treated at one of these facilities or in the Philippines. The fifth echelon comprised military and Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals in the United States. The nearest of these was at Travis Air Force Base, California (7,800 miles from Vietnam), although a significant number of casualties went on to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C. (9,000 miles from Vietnam). Soldiers who were not expected to return to duty in Vietnam were transferred to these facilities. Besides active duty facilities, the VA hospitals were a major resource for reconstructive and rehabilitative services. Between 1965 and 1969, 11,584 patients were transferred into the VA system.

732

Medicine, Military

Vietnam’s climate favored development of a variety of tropical diseases, and the 12-month rotation schedule ensured a constant supply of nonimmune military targets for such diseases. Realizing this threat, military physicians instituted preventive measures (vaccination and prophylaxis) from the beginning of the war. Consequently, whereas disease had accounted for 90 percent of hospitalizations in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II, it accounted for only approximately 70 percent of hospitalizations of active duty personnel in Vietnam. Although the diseaseto-injury admission rate for Vietnam was 4 to 1, it was 25 percent lower than that in Korea and half that of the European theater of operations after D day. Major disease problems were malaria, viral hepatitis, infectious diarrhea, fungal and other diseases of the skin, and venereal disease (usually gonorrhea or other urethritis-related diseases). Less common problems included melioidosis, dengue, scrub typhus, murine typhus, and leptospirosis. Although plague and rabies were endemic to Vietnam, they never appeared in American military personnel. Because of its severity and its high incidence of resistance to standard drug therapy, falciparum malaria—the most common type in Vietnam—was a major medical problem compounded by the soldiers’ reluctance to take necessary prophylactic medications. A second problem (which received publicity out of proportion to its clinical import) was drug-resistant gonococcus. Parasitic disease as a cause of discharge from military service was five times as common in the Pacific theater during World War II as during the Vietnam War. In fact, cancer was almost twice as common a cause of medical discharge as infectious disease in the latter conflict. The World War I term “shell shock” became war neurosis, which after Vietnam became post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD was characterized by nightmares, flashbacks, excessive startle response, hyperalertness, sleep disorders, and detachment from one’s surroundings and stayed with the patient long after the return to civilian life. World War II’s 10 percent psychiatric casualty rate dropped to 4 percent in Korea and was only 1 percent in Vietnam. During World War II, 33.1 percent of medical discharges were for psychiatric reasons. During the Korean War this dropped to 23.9 percent, and during the Vietnam War it was 13.7 percent. This surprisingly low rate was initially attributed to modern methods of combat psychiatry but in retrospect may have been factitious, as a number of veterans developed incapacitating psychiatric illnesses after discharge from the service. Although only 70,000 workdays were lost to psychiatric illness in 1965, that number rose to an impressive 175,510 by 1970, making PTSD the second-worst disease in terms of lost work. Drug abuse was widespread in Vietnam. In one study, 23 percent of soldiers interviewed said that they had used marijuana, 10 percent admitted amphetamine use, 7 percent used LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), and 1.6 percent used heroin. In addition, there were disturbingly widespread reports of violence against both

Vietnamese civilians and American officers as well as acts of disobedience, ranging from refusal to take antimalarial pills to frank insubordination during combat. In spite of the higher hospitalization rates for medical diseases, the majority of deaths in the Vietnam War were battle related. In the European theater of operations between June 1944 and May 1945, the battle death rate was 51.9 per 1,000 average troop strength. In Korea it was 43.2 per 1,000, and in Vietnam between July 1965 and June 1969 it was 21.9 per 1,000. The ratio of wounded to killed in action was 3.1 to 1 during World War II to, 4 to 1 during the Korean War, and 5.6 to 1 during the Vietnam War. Although some of this might be due to a change in types of weapons, much of the improvement can be credited to better battlefield medicine and surgery. Partial support for this statement can be found in the fact that mortality after arrival at a hospital was 4.5 percent during World War II and 2.5 percent during the Vietnam War in spite of improvements in transport that brought many more severely wounded but still living soldiers to the hospitals. Indeed, improved evacuation of the wounded was a hallmark of military medicine in Vietnam. Lack of roads, difficult jungle terrain (some helicopters were equipped with spring-loaded penetrators to make holes in the forest canopy), and the strategic situation made helicopter evacuation uniquely suited to Southeast Asian warfare. At its height of activity, the Army Medical Corps operated 116 air ambulances, each capable of carrying six to nine litters. During World War II the average time to treatment had been 10.5 hours, during the Korean War it was 6.3 hours, and during the Vietnam War it was 2.8 hours, with many patients being hospitalized within 20 minutes of injury. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, helicopter ambulances evacuated an average of 8,000 casualties a month. A second hallmark of Vietnam War military medicine was an abundance of well-trained surgical specialists. American residency programs were producing large numbers of surgeons capable of complex procedures that had not been available in previous wars. Vascular surgery typifies this improvement. During World War II, only 81 attempts were made to repair major blood vessels. That number rose to 300 in Korea, but the procedure had become standard in Vietnam, where several thousand such repairs were done. Survival in patients burned over less than 60 percent of their bodies improved dramatically. The number of amputations during the Vietnam War was less than half that of World War II or the Korean War. Part of the improved surgical results during the Vietnam War can be attributed to a difference in ordnance in that war compared with ordnance in previous conflicts. Unsophisticated weapons and the more common use of mines resulted in more extremity wounds than in previous wars, and the environment made the wounds more likely to be contaminated. The type of wound changed as the war evolved. Whereas 42.7 percent of wounds were from small arms in 1966, that number had decreased to 17 percent by 1970. In 1966, 42.6 percent of the wounds were from mines and booby

Medics and Corpsmen traps, a number that had increased to 80 percent by 1970. Artillery and mortar injuries accounted for 75 percent of casualties during World War II and the Korean War but were never that common in Vietnam. Injuries from purposely contaminated punji sticks were unique to the Southeast Asian war. Medical and surgical improvements also decreased morbidity during the Vietnam War. Average duration of treatment was 129 days during World War II, 93 days during the Korean War, and 65 days during the Vietnam War. Of the 194,716 wounded during the Vietnam War, 31 percent (61,269) were treated and released. Of those hospitalized for injury, 75.3 percent returned to duty in some capacity, although only 42 percent returned to duty in Vietnam. Only 3.3 percent of those injured in battle died. Of nonbattlerelated hospitalizations, 77.8 percent returned to duty, and only .3 percent died. In all, improvements in evacuation and medical, perioperative, and intraoperative care led to fewer and shorter hospitalizations and improved survival in Vietnam War soldiers as compared with survival of soldiers of earlier conflicts. JACK MCCALLUM See also Booby Traps; Casualties; Drugs and Drug Use; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Medevac; Medics and Corpsmen References Drapanas, Theodore, and Martin Litwin. “Trauma: Management of the Acutely Injured Patient.” In Textbook of Surgery: The Biological Basis of Modern Surgical Practice, edited by David Sabiston, 351–397. Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders, 1973. United States Veterans Administration, Department of Medicine and Surgery. The Vietnam Veteran in Contemporary Society: Collected Materials Pertaining to Young Veterans. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972. Heaton, Leonard, Carl Hughes, Harold Rosegay, George Fisher, and Robert E. Feighny. “Military Surgical Practices of the United States Army in Viet Nam.” Current Problems in Surgery 3(1) (November 1966): 3–59. McCallum, Jack E. Military Medicine: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Mullins, William S., ed. A Decade of Progress: The United States Army Medical Department, 1959–1969. Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, 1971. Neel, Spurgeon. Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965– 1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1973. Sonnenberg, Stephen M., Arthur S. Blank Jr., and John A. Talbott, eds. The Trauma of War: Stress and Recovery in Vietnam Veterans. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1985.

Medics and Corpsmen Medics and corpsmen have been designated as noncombatants by the military and by the rules of war in international law. In the Vietnam War, however, medics frequently carried weapons to protect their wounded and themselves, and this invalidated their noncombatant status and Geneva Convention protection. In many

733

cases, conscientious objectors (COs) lost their status when they chose to carry a gun. By 1969, 90 percent of U.S. Army medics serving in Vietnam were draftees. The U.S. Navy, which provided corpsmen for the U.S. Marine Corps, did not have draftees, but at least 33 percent of its recruits were motivated by the draft to join the military. In both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy, medics and corpsmen had to meet required test standards. These tests were normally administered during basic training. In some cases recruits requested and received a medical military occupational specialty (MOS), but in most cases recruits were handed their medical MOS according to army or navy needs. In the army, the MOS for combat medics was 91A10 for those of rank E-4 and below. In the navy, the MOS for corpsmen was HM or HN; a digit placed after the initials indicated rank. Combat corpsmen also ranked E-4 and below. Medics and corpsmen differed from the average draftees. They usually had some college background and were considered to be highly motivated. Army medics were trained at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in a 10week, 480-hour course. Recruits were instructed in communicable diseases, sterilization, anatomy, physiology, and emergency treatment. Medics receiving orders for Vietnam were given 14 hours of battle preparedness training outside the classroom. Basic naval medical training classes for enlisted personnel were held at Hospital Corps schools at San Diego, California, and Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Illinois. The navy’s basic medical course lasted four months and comprised human biology, pharmacology, and basic patient care, with practical experience in hospital wards. At the end of the basic course, some students took specialized training work. Others were sent to the Fleet Marine Force (FMF), which usually meant Vietnam. Those in the U.S. Marine Corps received four to five weeks of battlefield training at either Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, or Camp Pendleton, California, where they went on forced marches with full packs, fired weapons, and navigated cross-country without a compass. They also received additional training in managing battlefield casualties, triage (deciding who should receive treatment and in what order and which of the wounded were less likely to survive even if treated), and direct patient care. Combat medics and corpsmen, once in Vietnam, were normally assigned to infantry units. Under ideal conditions, each line platoon had two medics or corpsmen assigned to it. Because of the heavy casualty rate among medics and corpsmen, however, most units were understaffed. Most FMF corpsmen spent their tour of duty in the I Corps Tactical Zone, the northernmost provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the U.S. Marine Corps area of operation. Army medics were sent wherever infantry units operated in Vietnam. The highest death rates for Americans occurred in the northern provinces of the I Corps Tactical Zone, the northern II Corps Tactical Zone, and Tay Ninh and Binh Duong provinces in the III Corps Tactical Zone. U.S. search-and-destroy tactics in Vietnam normally were centered on platoons, and line medics and corpsmen accompanied

734

Medics and Corpsmen

A medic treats an American soldier wounded during fighting at Hue in February 1968. Medics, who provided psychological and emotional support as well as medical aid, were widely respected by the troops and were a vital element of the U.S. military effort in Vietnam. (National Archives)

these missions. While on patrol, medics and corpsmen carried out many of the same responsibilities as the infantry. Their basic responsibility was to care for the wounded; however, medics also stood perimeter guard and participated in firefights. Mines and booby traps accounted for 65 percent of wounds and 36 percent of fatalities sustained by Americans in Vietnam. Small arms accounted for 16 percent of wounds and 51 percent of the fatalities sustained. Because of the threat of shock, treatment during the first few minutes after injury was most critical to the survival of the wounded. Medics and corpsmen contributed to the fact that the mortality rate for wounded (1–2.5 percent) was less than in any prior American war. Medical kits used in the field contained various battlefield dressings as well as splints, tape, tweezers, safety pins, plastic airways, aspirin, intravenous fluids, and morphine. When a man was injured, medics evaluated the wound and began treatment. If there were multiple casualties, corpsmen had to triage their patients. The corpsmen also arranged for evacuation and determined who should be evacuated first. Medics provided psychological and emotional as well as medical support and were widely respected by the troops. The U.S. Army assigned combat medics to seven-month rotations, with the remainder of their tour in rear areas and noncombat

assignments. This policy was based on studies of the psychological effect of combat on the medics. Time between patrols was normally spent at a base camp. Corpsmen performed sick call or were involved with the Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP), providing medical care to the rural populations at nearby villages or hamlets. MEDCAP was a part of the pacification program. Medics and corpsmen also managed base sanitation and water purification. During the Vietnam War, medics were among the most respected soldiers on the battlefield. Of 238 Medals of Honor awarded in the war, 12 went to U.S. Army medics, and 4 went to U.S. Navy corpsmen. An estimated 1,300 medics and 690 corpsmen died in the war. Army medics were recognized with the Combat Medical Badge (CMB), an award equal in prestige to the Combat Infantry Badge. Only two U.S. Army medics, Sergeant First Class Wayne Slagel and Master Sergeant Henry Jenkins, received the CMB with two stars, recognizing their service as combat medics in three wars: World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. PIA C. HEYN See also Casualties; Conscientious Objectors; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Medevac; Medicine, Military

Mekong Delta References Heyn, Pia Christine. “The Role of Army Combat Medics in the Viet Nam War, 1965–1971.” Master’s thesis, Georgia State University, 1994. McCallum, Jack E. Military Medicine: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Mullins, William S., ed. A Decade of Progress: The United States Army Medical Department, 1959–1969. Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, 1971.

Medina, Ernest Lou Birth Date: August 27, 1936 U.S. Army captain and a principal figure in the My Lai Massacre of March 16, 1968. Born in Springer, New Mexico, on August 27, 1936, to a Mexican American family, Ernest Lou Medina was raised by his grandparents in Colorado after the death of his mother when he was only a few months old. Medina worked odd jobs to help supplement his grandparents’ income. When he was just 16 years old he lied about his age and enlisted in the National Guard, where he served until 1956. That same year he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private. By the time he was 21 years old he had advanced to the rank of staff sergeant. In 1964 Medina graduated from Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia, fourth in his class of 200, and was commissioned a second lieutenant. His superiors praised him as a “tough, able soldier.” He subsequently taught at the OCS for two years. In 1966 Medina was promoted to captain and given command of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division, which in the autumn of 1967 was activated in Vietnam. Medina won both the Bronze Star and the Silver Star for valor while serving in Vietnam. He commanded Charlie Company during the March 16, 1968, action, later known as the My Lai Massacre. Subsequently Medina was court-martialed and charged with murder, manslaughter, and assault. On September 22, 1971, he was acquitted, the result of flawed instructions by the military judge to the court-martial. The prosecution originally wanted to charge Medina with commanding a homicide but, uncertain of evidence on this charge, went instead to involuntary manslaughter, or the failure to exercise sufficient control over men engaged in a homicide. The military judge instructed the jury that to convict Medina on this charge it would have to be convinced that he had actual knowledge of the events as well as wrongfully refused to act, and the jury believed that this was not sufficiently proven. Had the jury been instructed instead on the general guidelines of proper command responsibility, it might have convicted him. Medina was also acquitted on the charge of aggravated assault stemming from his interrogation of a suspected Viet Cong (VC). Although Medina admitted hitting the prisoner and firing pistol shots into a tree about eight inches from the suspect’s head to get

735

him to talk, the jury found that there was no explicit written prohibition of such interrogation methods. On October 15, 1971, Medina resigned his commission, explaining that “I cannot wear the uniform with the same pride I had before.” After leaving the service Medina moved to Michigan, where he worked in a helicopter-manufacturing company. His defense attorney, the famed F. Lee Bailey, reportedly owned a stake in the company. Later Medina acknowledged that he had been aware of what was happening at My Lai but had not been entirely candid about the affair in an attempt to spare the army, his country, and his family further disgrace. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Atrocities during the Vietnam War; Calley, William Laws, Jr.; My Lai Massacre; Peers Inquiry References Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Penguin, 1992. Goldstein, Joseph, Burke Marshall, and Jack Schwartz. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of the Law? New York: Free Press, 1976. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta drains more than 15,000 square miles of land in far southern Vietnam. The delta’s principal river, the Mekong, flows down from China through Laos and Cambodia into Vietnam and then enters the South China Sea, forming the Mekong Delta south and southwest of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in southern Vietnam. The tropical climate of the Mekong Delta region features a monsoon season from July to October and a dry season beginning in November. The landscape of the Mekong Delta is flat with narrow dikes to trap water for rice paddies. The canal banks of the delta are lined with strands of bamboo and water palms that stand 20 feet high. During the Vietnam War, vegetation of this nature provided excellent cover for Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas to prey on U.S. military vehicles traveling the roads from My Tho to Saigon. Because of its dense population and its rich rice harvests, the Mekong Delta was of great strategic importance during both the French and the American involvement in Vietnam. As a result, the delta saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. From 1962 to 1966, the VC maintained control of most of the northern half of the delta. Pacification efforts after the 1968 Tet Offensive widened the area of control by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), although the VC continued a strong presence.

736

Mekong River

The VC benefited from the presence of some 2,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regulars in Mekong Delta provinces such as Long An and An Xuyen. Many urban targets of the 1968 Tet Offensive were in the delta. During the 1972 Easter Offensive, efforts by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in the southern half of South Vietnam concentrated on capturing Route 13, a main road down from the Cambodian border to Saigon. However, during the 1972 offensive the Communists also made a significant effort to recapture portions of the Mekong Delta, most of which had been taken and secured by South Vietnamese forces following the 1968 Tet Offensive. By 1974 the VC controlled some 500 of the strategic hamlets in the delta, and the region saw much fighting during the Ho Chi Minh Offensive in 1975. JUSTIN MARKS See also Easter Offensive; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnam, Climate of

References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Ho De, Tran Hanh, and Ho Ban. Chien Dich Tien Cong Tong Hop Quan Khu 8 (Dong Bang Song Cuu Long) Nam 1972 [Combined Offensive Campaign in Military Region 8 (Mekong Delta) 1972]. Hau Giang, Vietnam: Military History Institute, 1987. Jamieson, Neil R. Understanding Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Mekong River Some 2,700 miles in length, the Mekong River is Asia’s 7th-longest river and the world’s 12th-longest river. Originating at the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong River runs south through Yunnan Province in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The river forms much of the boundary between Thailand and Laos, bisects Cambodia, and then exits through southern Vietnam into the South China Sea.

Vietnamese fisherman at dusk on the Mekong River in South Vietnam. (Pcruciatti/Dreamstime.com)

Mekong River Project Although it is known in English as the Mekong, the river is called by other names in other languages. Seasonal rainfall extremes and rapids and waterfalls preclude navigation on much of the river. Fishing is a major industry, with the river home to at least 1,200 different species. Some fish are quite large; for example, river carp can grow to upwards of five feet in length and weigh as much as 150 pounds. As with many other rivers, overfishing, dams, and efforts at flood control have all led to a sharp decline in production. Because of the difficulty of navigation, the river has tended to divide rather than unify the peoples of the region. Early on, Europeans explored the Mekong in the hopes that it would be navigable and provide a new trade route to western China. Portuguese Antônio da Faria, who in 1535 was the first to establish a permanent European settlement in Vietnam, may have been the first European to explore a portion of the Mekong. During 1641–1642 Dutchman Gerrit van Wuysthoff led an expedition up the Mekong and reached as far as Vientiane, Laos. France took control of Cochin China in 1861, and five years later a French expedition proposed by the young Lieutenant Marie Joseph François Garnier set out under Captain Doudart de Legree, with Garnier second-in-command. The expedition lasted into 1868. Legree died in the course of the enterprise, and Garnier took command. He made the first detailed survey of the river, supported by astronomical observations. But Garnier also showed that the river was not navigable for its full course into China. The expedition nonetheless garnered Garnier the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, presented in 1870. Two major bridges across the Mekong connect Laos and Thailand. Three other bridges are located only in Laos, while Cambodia has a bridge over the Mekong near Kompong Cham. Today there are some eight dams on the river producing hydroelectric power. The construction of dams and the destruction of the river rapids remain very controversial, primarily for the threats they pose to the environment and to populations living along the river. Pollution is a major concern. China has some dozen dams under construction on the upper Mekong. Today Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam all belong to the Mekong River Commission, which has accused the PRC (the PRC and Myanmar are not members) of blatant disregard of the needs of those people who depend on the Mekong downriver. Chinese dams have substantially impacted the fishing industry and the river flow. Cambodia, which greatly depends on the river, is perhaps the most threatened of the states along the Mekong by the Chinese engineering projects. SPENCER C. TUCKER

Mekong River Project

See also Mekong Delta; Mekong River Project

See also Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Mekong Delta

References Fredenburg, Peter, and Bob Hill. Sharing Rice for Peace and Prosperity in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Victoria: Sid Harta Publishers, 2006. Osborne, Milton. The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.

References Jamieson, Neil R. Understanding Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Ortiz, Elizabeth. “The Mekong Project of Vietnam.” Far Eastern Economic Review 25 (November 6, 1958): 596–597.

737

Project initiated in 1957 by the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Asia and the Ear East (ECAFE). Known officially as the Mekong River Basin Development Project, its goal was to develop the irrigation, navigational, and hydroelectric potentials of the Mekong River. Based on the successful Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States and the Snowy River Project in Australia, the Mekong River Project was larger in its scope than these and was expected to take 20 years to complete. In 1957 ECAFE issued a report titled “Development of Water Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin” that was centered around the potential benefits to the 17 million people living along the Mekong River. The report also dealt with upgrading their standard of living as well as increasing the prosperity of the nations in the area. In response to this report, four of the six nations included in the Mekong basin area—Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam)—formed a committee headquartered in Bangkok to coordinate investigations of the lower Mekong basin. Burma (present-day Myanmar) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) rejected participation in the project. The committee then set a five-year goal to achieve the necessary development information needed for the project. One of the many problems that the committee faced was the simple fact that no human-made structure crossed the river in its entire 2,625-mile length. Basic hydrological information, vital to dam building, was also virtually nonexistent. There was no accurate profile of the river. Maps and aerial and boat surveys were all lacking. The South Vietnamese government in particular was concerned that excessive damming, irrigation, and flood control might reduce the river level to the point where the sea would flow into the river mouth and contaminate the rich agricultural lands in the Mekong Delta. Most of these concerns were eventually put to rest. Funding was another problem that had to be addressed. Project planners hoped that during the five-year assessment by the fournation committee, other nations would help fund the project. This goal was fulfilled, and by 1970, 26 nations outside the Mekong basin area as well as some UN agencies and private organizations (such as the World Bank and the Ford Foundation) had supplied funds or technical assistance for the project. Three multipurpose dams (the Pa Mong, Sambor, and Tonle Sap dams) were to be built. The Mekong basin could furnish more than 40 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. After the Vietnam War the project continued, with virtually the same participating countries. GEORGE J. GABERA

738

Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham

Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham Birth Date: January 15, 1920 U.S. State Department official and director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Laos Mission. Born in Calvert, Maryland, on January 15, 1920, Joseph Abraham Mendenhall received a BA from the University of Delaware in 1940 and attended Harvard University Law School and the University of Pennsylvania before entering the U.S. Army in 1941. Commissioned a lieutenant in the Army Air Forces the following year, he later served with the War Department’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Honorably discharged as a captain in 1946, he joined the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service officer. Mendenhall served as vice-consul at Istanbul, Turkey, from 1946 to 1949. He spent the next two years as assistant chief of the Marshall Plan mission in Iceland before transferring to the embassy at Bern, Switzerland, in 1952. Assigned to the Office of Southeast Asian Affairs in 1955, he began a lengthy association with that region. He served as economic officer for Burma and Thailand before becoming officer-in-charge for Vietnamese Affairs. In 1959 he became political counselor for the U.S. embassy in Saigon. Returning to the United States in 1962, Mendenhall studied at the National War College and became deputy director of the Office of Far Eastern Regional Affairs. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy dispatched Mendenhall and U.S. Marine Corps general Victor Krulak on a whirlwind fact-finding mission to Vietnam. Arriving in Saigon on September 8, the two officials, who wanted little to do with each other, separated immediately to conduct individual appraisals. Krulak spent most of the 36-hour visit speaking with U.S. military and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) officers at isolated installations, while Mendenhall concentrated on urban areas, where he interviewed both South Vietnamese and American civilians. Mendenhall’s previous experience in Vietnam enabled him to speak with people he knew and valued for their objectivity. Mendenhall and Krulak spoke little on their return trip and apparently kept their individual findings to themselves. On September 10 the two men presented their findings at the White House. Addressing the president and his national security advisers, Krulak reported that the war against the Viet Cong (VC) was being waged effectively despite political unrest in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). He maintained that the war would be won if U.S. military and social programs were continued. Mendenhall presented a starkly contrasting view. He suggested that the Ngo Dinh Diem regime was dangerously close to collapse and that an important segment of the population seemed more interested in ousting Diem than in defeating the VC. He also pointed out the possibility of a major religious war between the Catholics and Buddhists. Mendenhall concluded that the war could not be won under the present circumstances. At the very least, Diem’s unpopular brother Nhu and his even more unpopular wife had

to be removed from influence before real progress was possible. Krulak’s and Mendenhall’s reports differed to such an extent that President Kennedy reportedly asked the two men if they had visited the same country. In January 1964 Mendenhall became director of the State Department’s Vietnam Working Group and then in July became director of the Office of Far Eastern Regional Affairs. In 1965 he was named director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Laos, then the second-largest USAID mission in the world. In 1968 he returned to Washington as deputy director of the USAID Vietnam Bureau, of which he later became head. He resumed his Foreign Service duties in 1970 as inspector of embassies and consular posts, concentrating on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In 1972, Mendenhall was named ambassador to Madagascar, a post he held until his retirement in 1975. After living in Italy for 17 years, he returned to the United States in 1992. DAVID COFFEY See also Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Krulak, Victor H.; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Taylor-McNamara Report; United States Agency for International Development References Newman, John M. JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power. New York: Warner Books, 1992. Rust, William J., et al. Kennedy in Vietnam: American Vietnam Policy, 1960–1963. New York: Scribner, 1985.

Mendès-France, Pierre Birth Date: January 11, 1907 Death Date: October 18, 1982 French politician and premier (1954–1955). Born in Paris on January 11, 1907, Pierre Mendès-France was the only son of a moderately prosperous Jewish clothing manufacturer. A brilliant student, Mendès-France obtained a diploma from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques and a doctorate from the Faculty of Law. He was admitted to the bar at age 21 and was then the youngest lawyer in France. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a radical Socialist in 1932, Mendès-France was the youngest member of the National Assembly. He served as undersecretary for finance in Prime Minister Léon Blum’s second government. On the outbreak of World War II, Mendès-France became a lieutenant in the French Air Force. He flew as a pilot first in Syria and then in France. Briefly imprisoned by the Vichy government after the defeat of France by Germany, he escaped to London to join the Free French. He was serving as a captain in a bomber squadron in November 1943 when Charles de Gaulle appointed him minister of finance in the Free French government at Algiers. As minister for national economy in de Gaulle’s provisional government at the end of the war, Mendès-France argued for cur-

MENU, Operation

rency reforms and an austerity program. De Gaulle rejected both, and Mendès-France resigned. He later became executive director for France in the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Washington, D.C., and then French administrator to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and representative to the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Council. Over the next two decades he also often found himself in opposition to government policies. Playing a Cassandra-like role in the National Assembly, Mendès-France hammered on the dangers of drift (immobilisme) and failure to deal with the Fourth Republic’s problems. He was critical of France’s failure to move toward independence for the protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia and of the war in Indochina, of which he said that France had “nothing to win but everything to lose.” After the May 1954 French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the government headed by Joseph Laniel fell. Mendès-France assumed the premiership on June 17. His goal was to reinvigorate and modernize the French economy, but he was forced to spend most of his premiership concentrating on foreign affairs. On June 20 Mendès-France electrified the National Assembly with a star-

739

tling proposal to end the war in Indochina within 30 days or resign as premier. The Geneva Conference was already in session, but he won his gamble on the last day of the deadline (but only because the clocks had been stopped on July 20; the agreement was actually signed on July 21). With the war terminated, Mendès-France set in motion events that led in 1956 to independence for Morocco and Tunisia. Also controversial was his failure to fight for the European Defense Community (EDC), which the Chamber of Deputies defeated while he was premier. When he attempted to bring about reform on the domestic front, Mendès-France ran into a wall of opposition. Hated by many as a Jew, a reformer, an opponent of the EDC, and as “the gravedigger of the French Empire,” Mendès-France was overthrown by the Chamber of Deputies on February 5, 1955. After his fall the Radical Party split, and Mendès-France lost his post as party leader. Although brief, the Mendès-France premiership was one of the notable episodes in the history of the Fourth Republic. Its failure disillusioned many young reformers and helped pave the way for the 1958 return to power of de Gaulle. Mendès-France remained in the Chamber of Deputies until defeated for reelection in 1958. Reelected in 1967, he was defeated the next year in the Gaullist landslide. Mendès-France died in Paris on October 18, 1982. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also De Gaulle, Charles; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; European Defense Community; Faure, Edgar; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Indochina War; Laniel, Joseph References Fauvet, Jacques. La Quatrième République. Paris: Fayard, 1959. Lacouture, Jean. Pierre Mendès-France. Translated by George Holoch. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984. Matthews, Ronald. The Death of the Fourth Republic. New York: Praeger, 1954. Mendès-France, Pierre, and Gabriel Ardant. Economics and Action. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955. Werth, Alexander. The Strange History of Mendès-France and the Great Struggle over French North Africa. London: Barrie Books, 1957.

MENU,

Operation

Start Date: March 18, 1969 End Date: May 26, 1970

Pierre Mendès-France was a French socialist who became prime minister in June 1954, immediately following France’s defeat in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. A staunch critic of his nation’s colonial policies, he extricated France from Indochina in the Geneva Accords that July. (Library of Congress)

Code name for the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia. Operation MENU had three objectives. Tactically, its first objective was the destruction of supplies and the disruption of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) base camps in the border area between Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The U.S. intelligence community believed, correctly as postwar Communist sources have revealed, that the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), thought to

740

MENU, Operation

be a massive Communist headquarters, was also located in that region. Its destruction was the second objective. At the strategic level, U.S. president Richard M. Nixon’s plan for disengagement would have been imperiled had the Communists launched another attack on the scale of the 1968 Tet Offensive before Vietnamization and the withdrawal of American troops were complete, or nearly so. Thus, the third objective was to prevent such an attack. Bombing in the border region was nothing new, even in 1969. The boundary between South Vietnam and Cambodia was ambiguous and ill-defined. But since Cambodia had declared its neutrality, bombing targets inside that country was inappropriate if not illegal. From 1965 on, whenever bombs were dropped on base areas or supply caches in extreme western South Vietnam, the mission reports always indicated that the bombs fell on Vietnam’s side of the border. Between October 1967 and March 1969, the buildup of PAVN forces and supplies in the border region increased as Hanoi stepped up the infiltration of troops down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Supplies were brought by ship into the harbor at Sihanoukville and hauled over Friendship Highway, a road built with U.S. foreign aid funds, to the sanctuaries along the border. The first Boeing B-52 Stratofortress missions into Cambodia were flown on March 18, 1969. The target was Base Area 353, a network of supply caches and staging points just west of the border. The Pentagon assigned the code name BREAKFAST to this mission. Additional missions to other base areas were code-named SUPPER, LUNCH, DESSERT, and SNACK. The series was dubbed Operation MENU. Only a handful of people knew the truth about the bombing. The president, White House chief of staff Brigadier General Alexander Haig, National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger, key members of Congress, and a select few military and civilian defense officials were among those who knew that the targets were actually in Cambodia. As for the aircrews actually flying the B-52s, only the pilots and navigators, not the rest of the crew members, were informed that their targets were actually in Cambodia. Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Dr. Robert Seamans and U.S. Air Force chief of staff General John D. Ryan were not advised. U.S. Air Force colonel Ray B. Sitton, who had a background in the Strategic Air Command (SAC), worked out a system that used Arc Light (B-52) strikes in South Vietnam as a cover for the secret bombing. Radar bomb navigators in the B-52s controlled the heading input for the plane in the final moments before the bombs were dropped. The rest of the flight crew would be unaware of the change in heading. Because the actual targets in Cambodia were, at most, only a few miles from the targets originally briefed to the aircrews, the crew members would not know the difference. After the routine mission briefings, radar navigators were told that when they neared their drop points, new sets of coordinates would be secretly forwarded to them by U.S. Air Force radar operators inside South Vietnam. The bombs would be dropped on the new coordinates rather than the designated targets. Poststrike reports would indicate that the original targets had been struck. A top-

secret back-channel communications network that was used to pass sensitive intelligence information would then transmit the actual target information to the handful of civilian and military officials cleared for MENU bombing intelligence. The secrecy began unraveling just before the bombing came to an end. On May 2, 1970, the New York Times ran a brief article on the bombing. By that time, 3,630 B-52 sorties had dropped close to 100,000 tons of bombs inside Cambodia. The need for secrecy passed after General Lon Nol deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk on March 18, 1970. Two days later, a Cambodian commander asked South Vietnamese spotter planes and artillery to help repulse a VC attack on his outpost. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) operations inside Cambodia began in earnest a week later. On April 29, U.S. aircraft supported 6,000 ARVN troops when they launched an attack into the Parrot’s Beak area of Cambodia. Covert MENU bombing continued until May 26, 1970. After that, until a congressionally mandated end to all U.S. air strikes took effect on August 15, 1973, bombing in Cambodia, although still classified, was no longer covert. Even after May, missions into the base areas struck during the secret bombing were still referred to as “MENU Bombing” by SAC, but the veil of deception was lifted. The covert passing of coordinates to radar bomb navigators stopped, as did the double reporting. The extent of the secret bombing of Cambodia was revealed by retired U.S. Air Force major Hal Knight Jr., a former Combat Skyspot radar site operator, in a January 1973 letter to Senator William Proxmire. As a result of this letter, in July and August 1973 the Senate Armed Services Committee held hearings on the MENU bombing. By exposing the extent of the secrecy, the hearings further damaged the credibility of the Nixon administration, already under increasing pressure from unfolding revelations that became the Watergate Scandal. Between March 1969 and August 1973, some 500,000 tons of bombs fell on Cambodia. The MENU bombing accounted for about 100,000 tons of bombs. The extent to which the bombing disrupted Communist military operations can only be speculated. Undoubtedly supply caches were hit and some base camps were destroyed, but COSVN’s operations were never seriously disrupted. On the other hand, Vietnamization continued, and the withdrawal of American ground forces was nearly complete before North Vietnam launched its Easter Offensive on March 31, 1972. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Arc Light Missions; Cambodia; Central Office for South Vietnam; Easter Offensive; Fishhook; Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr.; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Proxmire, Edward William References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977.

Midway Island Conference

741

Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Nalty, Bernard C. Air War over South Vietnam, 1968–1975. Washington DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000. Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

it in fact remained corrupt, inefficient, and unable to support itself. Ultimately the MSU Advisory Group failed in its efforts to build a self-sustaining government in South Vietnam. JOHN E. GRENIER

Meos

References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

See Hmongs

See also American Friends of Vietnam; Fishel, Wesley Robert; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Territorial Forces; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965

Michigan State University Advisory Group A team of American public administration experts, sociologists, and other academics who, under U.S. government sponsorship, went to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1955 to help organize South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s newly installed government. Led by Professor Wesley Fishel, a charter member of the American Friends of Vietnam, the Michigan State University (MSU) Advisory Group guided the South Vietnamese government in developing prototypes for both the Popular Forces, which were to challenge the Viet Cong (VC) in the countryside, and the 50,000-man Civil Guard, which would perform provincial defense. However, President Ngo Dinh Diem, with the support of the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), resisted the MSU Advisory Group’s suggestion for a lightly armed Civil Guard to defend the countryside. He preferred a force trained for smallscale military operations rather than police duties. Ultimately Diem rejected the MSU Advisory Group plan and used the Civil Guard as a dumping ground for incompetent military officers. The result was a regional defense force armed with .38-caliber revolvers, old shotguns, and bolt-action rifles and assigned the impossible task of defending the countryside against better-armed VC guerrillas. Meanwhile, public administration experts from the MSU Advisory Group had similar difficulties in developing an honest and efficient civil service in South Vietnam. Although Dr. Fishel defended Diem’s authoritarian rule as necessary given Vietnam’s lack of experience with democratic government, other members of the MSU Advisory Group became increasingly critical of the South Vietnamese leader. When members of the group returned to the United States in 1962 and published articles critical of Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, Diem annulled the contract between the South Vietnamese government and the MSU advisers. In providing academic and administrative assistance to Diem’s government, both the U.S. government and the MSU Advisory Group hoped to stabilize South Vietnam politically. Unfortunately, they did not succeed. Although Diem’s regime superficially appeared to be a well-organized and well-administered government,

Midway Island Conference Event Date: June 8, 1969 First meeting between Nguyen Van Thieu, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and U.S. president Richard M. Nixon that occurred on Midway Island on June 8, 1969. Having found President Lyndon Johnson difficult and fearing American betrayal in the war with the Communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Viet Cong (VC), Thieu hoped for more assistance from the incoming U.S. president Nixon. Nixon had decided on the course of Vietnamization of the war and hoped to reduce protests at home. In addition, he talked of strengthening armed forces in the South Vietnamese armed forces so that they could better defend themselves. Nixon wanted to forge a political solution with North Vietnam, one that would allow him to withdraw most American troops while leaving the military solution to the South Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese government had resisted a similar plan proposed by Johnson, fearing defeat if left to fend for themselves. Thieu, however, believed that the historically anti-Communist Nixon would never abandon the South Vietnamese and had thrown his support behind him in the 1968 U.S. presidential election. Thieu looked forward to meeting with Nixon and had requested that the meeting take place in Honolulu, Hawaii. Nixon, however, wishing to avoid antiwar demonstrations, chose instead Midway Island, a lonely, desolate refueling stop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The meeting took place on June 8, 1969, but arrangements for the meeting hit several snags. Nixon wanted Thieu to arrive first, but Thieu refused, believing that Nixon, as host, should be at Midway awaiting him. Although presidential press secretary Ronald Ziegler assured Thieu’s aides that Nixon would land first, Thieu arrived and discovered that Nixon’s plane was still 15 minutes from the island. In this Nixon sought to demonstrate that the United States would not be dictated to by its ally. In the meeting room Thieu was angered to discover that the chair reserved for Nixon was a taller, higher-backed one. Thieu

742

Midway Island Conference

U.S. president Richard Nixon and Republic of Vietnam president Nguyen Van Thieu say goodbye on June 8, 1969, following their Midway Island meeting to discuss the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

proceeded into the dining room to grab an identical chair and place it directly opposite that of the U.S. president. Also, while Thieu had hoped to meet with Nixon alone, the U.S. president insisted on having National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger remain with him, so Thieu kept his special assistant for foreign affairs Nguyen Phu Duc in the room as well. Thieu had anticipated that Nixon would propose beginning U.S. withdrawals, so Thieu preempted him by suggesting a redeployment of American and South Vietnamese forces. Nixon agreed but stated that he needed time to develop his strategy. Thieu sought to buy time and avoid agreeing to a total U.S. withdrawal; he apparently hoped for a Korean War–type solution in Vietnam with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) occupied by American troops separating North and South Vietnam. Nixon sought Thieu’s acquiescence to begin secret talks with the government of the North Vietnam concerning American and North Vietnamese troop withdrawals. Nixon suggested private bilateral talks between the United States and North Vietnam, and

Thieu agreed but with the provision that he be kept informed of any discussion of political issues. Thieu apparently believed that these talks were to set the stage for a conference between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, while Nixon wanted Thieu’s approval for the United States to act on behalf of the South Vietnamese government in negotiations with North Vietnam. After their private talks Nixon and Thieu held a short press conference, with each answering questions from White House correspondents traveling with Nixon. The questions and answers were all in English, which annoyed Thieu. Nixon believed that the meeting had been a success. Elated that U.S. troops would immediately begin withdrawing from Vietnam, he hoped that this would gain him favor with the antiwar protesters at home and provide time to negotiate a complete American withdrawal on U.S. terms. Thieu, on the other hand, believed that he had been promised continued American support and that he would have a staunch anti-Communist ally. He liked Nixon and believed him to be forthright. Although angered and annoyed by

Military Airlift Command what he saw as slights at the conference, Thieu attributed these to Kissinger rather than to Nixon. Although Thieu feared American betrayal and a unilateral withdrawal of troops, he remained confident in his ally. Nixon and Kissinger, however, had already decided that the United States would withdraw from Vietnam, with or without South Vietnamese consent. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon. 3 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 1989, 1991. Keefer, Edward, and Carolyn Yee, eds. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. 6, Vietnam, January 1969–July 1970. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006. Nguyen Tien Hung and Jerrold L. Schechter. The Palace File. New York: Harper and Row, 1986.

Mien Tong See Thieu Tri

Military Airlift Command U.S. Air Force command conducting tactical (intratheater) and strategic (intertheater) air movements. The Military Airlift Command (MAC), which was established in 1966, combined the assets from the existing Military Air Transport Service (MATS) and incorporated the airlift components then assigned to Strategic Air Command (SAC) and Tactical Air Command (TAC). MAC was given the mission of operating the entire spectrum of airlift and airdrop missions, deployment and redeployment operations, operation of a single-passenger and reservation system for intercontinental travel, and aerial port management. In addition, MAC was tasked with air weather operations, aeromedical evacuation, and aerospace search and rescue. The secretary of the Air Force and the MAC commander were responsible for interfacing with all government agencies on matters pertaining to airlift. MAC’s charter included a combat role with the inclusion of search and rescue and all-inclusive airlift missions. Prior to 1966, search-and-rescue and tactical airlift missions were assigned to the TAC. During the initial buildup in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), MATS was the primary air movement agency. It committed virtually all of its aircraft and crews to the Southeast Asian deployment. The mission in South Vietnam forced MATS to augment regular U.S. Air Force squadrons with selected Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units. In addition, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units undertook missions previously flown by regular U.S. Air Force units so that these additional squadrons would be available for the buildup in Southeast Asia. Because U.S.

743

president Lyndon Johnson had not declared a national emergency, federal law prohibited the activation of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. MATS also contracted with several commercial airlines for passenger service to South Vietnam, most notably Pan American and World Airways. These civilian flight crews faced the same risks as their military counterparts in traveling to airports in the major cities of South Vietnam. With MAC’s establishment in 1966, the new command acquired additional and new aircraft, thereby expanding the airlift mission to South Vietnam. In 1965 the average monthly traffic was approximately 34,000 passengers and 10,000 tons of cargo. In 1967 the average monthly traffic increased to 66,000 passengers and 43,000 tons of cargo. MAC operated all aerial ports, established forward weather stations, and supervised all tactical airlift missions within South Vietnam, including search-and-rescue operations throughout the Southeast Asian theater of operations. As the U.S. presence expanded to countries such as Thailand, MAC elements colocated with its TAC and SAC counterparts. Additionally, MAC flew all aeromedical evacuations out of South Vietnam to hospitals located in Japan, the Philippines, and the continental United States. MAC also participated in several strategic combat deployments of entire troop units from the United States directly to South Vietnam. Between December 23, 1965, and January 23, 1966, MATS/ MAC ferried the entire 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, from its home station in Hawaii to Pleiku in South Vietnam. Operation BLUE LIGHT included approximately 90 aircraft transporting 3,000 soldiers and 5,000 tons of cargo. Only hours after their arrival, soldiers of the “Tropic Lightning” division engaged in combat. In November 1967 during Operation EAGLE THRUST, MAC airlifted almost the entire 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, directly to Bien Hoa in South Vietnam. In the arena of tactical airlifts, MAC flew virtually all intratheater missions. These ranged from airborne operations involving both U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces to regularly scheduled cargo and resupply operations throughout South Vietnam. During Operation JUNCTION CITY, MAC pilots flew all transport aircraft involved in the only major U.S. airborne operation of the Vietnam War, dropping a battalion of the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade. MAC was the controlling air agency during the Khe Sanh airlift as well as the major command that directed all search-and-rescue operations throughout Southeast Asia. MAC HH-3E helicopters, specially modified to a gunship configuration, transported U.S. Army Special Forces troops on the abortive Son Tay Raid in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). To accomplish its many missions, MAC flew a variety of aircraft. From 1963 to 1964 the primary aircraft assigned to MATS/MAC for strategic lift were the Douglas C-124 Globemaster, the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster (military version of the Boeing 707), and the Boeing C-135 Stratolifter. During 1964–1965 the U.S. Air Force acquired the jet-powered Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, significantly increasing MAC’s ability to conduct long-distance airlifts in reduced time. The

744

Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam

C-141 served as the backbone of MAC’s intertheater forces throughout the remainder of the conflict. In 1969 the giant Lockheed C-5A Galaxy entered service and the next year made its maiden flight to South Vietnam. The C-5A increased the average cargo capacity by 600 percent and proved itself able to withstand the rigors of service in Southeast Asia. This aircraft was responsible for providing most of the tonnage delivered during Operation ENHANCE PLUS. The aircraft assigned the missions of tactical airlift were the Chase/Fairchild C-123 Provider, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain “Gooneybird,” the De Havilland Canada C-7 Caribou, and the work-horse of the conflict, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. For search-and-rescue missions MAC used helicopters, which had the ability to land in small spaces or hover while downed pilots were extracted from jungle locations using cables and winches. The Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”), the Kaman HH-43 Masher, and the Sikorsky HH-3E “Jolly Green Giant” were the most common types of aircraft employed. Aeromedical evacuations required specially configured Douglas C-133 Cargomaster aircraft. MAC refueled strike aircraft during operations and transports during longdistance flights. The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and the Lockheed KC-130 Hercules were tanker versions of the cargo aircraft. The Vietnam War revolutionized the doctrine of airlift. The principal emphasis in airlift doctrine changed from a purely logistical role to an all-inclusive combat support function. MAC’s intertheater lift changed from propeller-driven aircraft to jets, allowing the United States to rapidly project power throughout the world. MAC also gave a theater commander the means to sustain ground forces engaged in prolonged combat. In the post–Vietnam War era, MAC became a specified command directly under the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and became the sole proponent of airlift operations within the U.S. military. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; BLUE LIGHT, Operation; ENHANCE PLUS, Operation; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Medevac; Search-andRescue Operations; Son Tay Raid References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Smith, Jay H. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime: An Illustrated History of the Military Airlift Command, 1941–1991. Scott Air Force Base, IL: Headquarters, Military Airlift Command, Office of History, 1991.

Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam Organization formed to channel U.S. military assistance against Communist forces in Indochina. The U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, was initially established

in September 1950 as MAAG, Indochina. In March 1950 President Harry S. Truman approved National Security Council (NSC) Memorandum 64 (NSC-64), which proclaimed French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) as a key area of Southeast Asia and suggested that its fall to the Communists would place the rest of the region in serious jeopardy. But while NSC-64 argued for U.S. support against Communist aggression, it did not answer the question of to whom the support should go, the French or their Vietnamese subjects/allies. Hesitant to appear to support colonialism, the United States favored providing aid directly to the Vietnamese chief of state, former emperor Bao Dai. Despite their need, the French threatened to reject any direct aid to Vietnam and initially opposed even the presence of a U.S. advisory group. While Washington policy makers debated what to do, in July 1950 a joint Defense Department–State Department survey team was dispatched to Saigon to determine the long-term nature and objectives of the aid program and the best organization for implementing it. Meanwhile, the Korean War had broken out in June, significantly raising U.S. stakes throughout East Asia. Focusing on the urgent French need for more supplies and equipment, the military members of the team recommended the establishment of an American military assistance advisory group. The French initially balked, but the United States argued that the military advisory group would be necessary to ensure proper requisitioning, procurement, and receipt of supplies and equipment. Based on that recommendation, MAAG, Indochina, consisting of inspection teams with the mission to observe the distribution and use by the French and Vietnamese of American-supplied equipment, but with no training or advisory role, was established in September. From the arrival of MAAG, Indochina, through May 1954 and the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the United States encouraged the creation of an independent, indigenous Vietnamese army with a U.S. role in its development and training. The French parried the American pressure for this by developing indigenous Vietnamese units commanded and led by French officers and sergeants, but they steadfastly rejected any American role in training the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) until the spring of 1954, when their military position became more precarious. As the fall of Dien Bien Phu approached, the French agreed to allow Americans to participate in training and advising Vietnamese units. At the beginning of June 1954, they formally requested that the United States join France in organizing and training the VNA. Concerned that the French now intended to draw the United States into the war, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recommended that America not assume the mission of training the VNA until a stable Vietnamese government formally requested that help. On the other hand, the State Department reasoned that one of the ways to strengthen and stabilize that government would be to reorganize and train its army. The NSC and President Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed with the State Department, and on August 12, 1954, NSC-5429/1 was approved, providing U.S. assistance in creating indigenous military

Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam

745

A U.S. Army member of the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) plans a mission with an Army of the Republic of Vietnam captain in the early 1960s. (U.S. Army)

forces for internal security in Vietnam, and the MAAG increased its personnel by 90 spaces. However, NSC-5429/1 said nothing about training the VNA, and on October 22, 1954, the State Department, with JCS acquiescence, directed the American mission in Saigon to develop and implement a military training program. By June 1955 with the withdrawal of French forces, the experiment of creating and training an army in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) became an entirely American task. Under the direction and tutelage of the American MAAG, the new 150,000-man Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) gradually took shape. Although thousands of Vietnamese had served with the French, very few had any leadership or staff experience or had received any technical training. Despite the guerrilla-style war that had characterized the French experience and renewed insurgency initiated by the Viet Cong (VC) in 1956, American officials misread this activity and believed it to be a diversion for a conventional attack across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Thus, the new army’s mission and training centered on repelling a more conventional Korean War– style invasion from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam).

Prior to 1960, American advisers were primarily involved in training and high-level staff work. In 1960 they began advising ground combat units at regimental level in the field. In 1961 advisers were at the battalion level, and by 1964 they were with the paramilitary forces. Gradually American advisers became involved in combat, but by then MAAG, Vietnam, had been replaced by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Korean War; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; O’Daniel, John Wilson; Truman, Harry S.; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamese National Army; Williams, Samuel Tankersley References Cao Van Vien, General, et al. The U.S. Advisor. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Collins, Brigadier General James Lawton, Jr. The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1975. Eckhardt, George S. Command and Control, 1950–1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974.

746

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam U.S. joint service headquarters that coordinated all American military activities in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was subordinate to the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) in Hawaii, but the MACV commander worked closely with the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in the Pentagon. The MACV area of responsibility was limited to operations within the territory of South Vietnam, while the USPACOM commander controlled sea operations beyond

the territorial waters and air operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Between 1960 and 1964, the size of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) grew from 150,000 to 250,000 men in an effort to meet the American and Vietnamese prescription to counter the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency. U.S. personnel support also grew during this period from just over 500 advisers in 1960 to more than 23,000 in 1964. This consisted not only of advisers but also units providing aviation, signal, medical, engineer, and intelligence support. MACV was established on February 6, 1962, in response to the expanding U.S. advisory and support activities in order to control all U.S. Army support units in Vietnam in addition to the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) program. In May 1964 MAAG missions and functions were integrated into those of the MACV staff, the MAAG was disestablished, and the advisory effort ceased to have a separate command and support organization.

Chief of Staff of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Brigadier General Stan McClellan (right, foreground) meets with Viet Cong negotiators in February 1973 to discuss the pending release of prisoners by both sides. MACV was the U.S. joint-service headquarters that coordinated all American military activities in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. (Department of Defense)

Military Decorations

U.S. Troop Commitment and Casualties during the Vietnam War by Branch of Service U.S. Army Serving in Southeast Asia Serving in South Vietnam Hostile Deaths Non-Hostile Deaths Wounded

U.S. Navy

2,276,000 229,000 1,736,000 174,000 30,963 1,631 7,261 935 96,802 4,178

U.S. U.S. Air Force Marines 385,000 293,000 1,745 841 931

513,000 391,000 13,095 1,749 51,392

MACV also worked closely with the South Vietnamese government and RVNAF Joint General Staff (JGS) on overall military plans and operations. Although a combined command and staff arrangement was suggested to the JGS, the South Vietnamese rejected it because of their political sensitivity to the charge advanced by Communist propaganda that they were puppets of the United States. Instead, the Free World Military Assistance Council, composed of the chief of the JGS, the senior Korean officer in Vietnam, and the commander of MACV provided operational guidance to, not control of, Free World Forces through the annual Combined Campaign Plan. First published at the end of 1965, the Combined Campaign Plan was not a true operational plan; rather, it broke the operational effort down geographically and assigned no tasks or goals. Coordination of combat operations without the benefit of an integrated command at the top was provided through joint agreements between local Free World commanders and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) ground commanders. While ARVN corps commanders retained overall responsibility for military actions in each corps tactical zone (CTZ), also known as military regions, American and other Free World force commanders accepted responsibility for tactical areas of responsibility, arbitrary geographical areas in which American and Free World units conducted combat operations. In addition to U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV)—which was primarily an administrative and logistics headquarters—Naval Forces, Vietnam, and the Seventh Air Force operational ground commands that were subordinate to MACV included the 5th Special Forces Group, the III Marine Amphibious Force, I Field Force, II Field Force, and IV Corps Advisory Group. The latter four controlled American combat units as well as field advisory teams within their areas of responsibility that coincided with the ARVN CTZs (initially, no American combat units operated in the IV Corps area, only advisory teams). The commanders of these four American operational commands, as with their MACV superior, were the senior advisers to the respective ARVN CTZ commander. Each of the four MACV commanders, General Paul D. Harkins (February 1962–June 1964), General William C. Westmoreland (June 1964–June 1968), General Creighton W. Abrams Jr. (June 1968–June 1972), and General Frederick C. Weyand (June 1972– March 1973), in addition to commanding all U.S. forces in South

747

Vietnam, was also senior adviser to the JGS. He also commanded the MACV army component, USARV. As MACV commander between 1965 and 1968, General Westmoreland oversaw the buildup of American forces to more than 550,000 men. Likewise, it was General Abrams as commander of MACV who was the primary overseer of Vietnamization between 1969 and 1972. The bulk of U.S. combat operations took place under the command of these two men. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Free World Assistance Program; Harkins, Paul Donal; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Military Regions; Westmoreland, William Childs; Weyand, Frederick Carlton References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Eckhardt, George S. Command and Control, 1950–1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Military Decorations The first medal awarded for military service in Vietnam was the French Tonkin Medal, which covered the period 1883 to 1895. From then until World War II, participation in the various military operations in the area was recognized with the Colonial Medal and a silver clasp identifying the campaign. These included Cochinchine, Haut-Mekong, and Tonkin. For service during World War II, French soldiers and colonial troops received the 1939 to 1945 Commemorative Medal with the Extreme-Orient bar. For the period 1945 to 1954, the French awarded the Indochina Medal, with a ribbon almost identical to that of the old Tonkin Medal. The Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) had a wide array of military decorations and medals, some of which were derived from previous French colonial awards. Partially following the British system, some South Vietnamese awards were specifically reserved for officers, while others were reserved for noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and enlisted soldiers. Also following European (but not British) practice, most South Vietnamese awards could be earned for either battlefield heroism or for exceptional service. South Vietnam’s highest decoration was the National Order of the Republic of Vietnam. It had five classes and was patterned very closely after the French colonial Order of the Green Dragon of Annam. Both orders were strongly influenced by the French Légion

748

Military Decorations

Table 1. Relative Precedence of American Military Decorations during the Vietnam War 1. Navy Medal of Honor (1861) Army Medal of Honor (1862) Air Force Medal of Honor (1960) 2. Distinguished Service Cross (1918) Navy Cross (1919) Air Force Cross (1960) 3. Defense Distinguished Service Medal (1970) 4. Army Distinguished Service Medal (1918) Navy Distinguished Service Medal (1918) Coast Guard Distinguished Service Medal (1949) Air Force Distinguished Service Medal (1960) 5. Silver Star (1918) 6. Legion of Merit (1942) 7. Distinguished Flying Cross (1926) 8. Soldier’s Medal (1926) Navy and Marine Corps Medal (1942) Airman’s Medal (1960) Coast Guard Medal (1961) 9. Bronze Star (1942) 10. Meritorious Service Medal (1969) 11. Air Medal (1942) 12. Joint Service Commendation Medal (1963) 13. Navy Commendation Medal (1944) Army Commendation Medal (1945) Coast Guard Commendation Medal (1951) Air Force Commendation Medal (1958) 14. Purple Heart (1932)* *

Note: After the Vietnam War, the precedence of the Purple Heart was elevated to just beneath the Bronze Star.

d’Honneur. South Vietnam’s second-highest decoration was the Military Merit Medal. Like its French counterpart, the Médaille Militaire, the Military Merit Medal was awarded only to enlisted men and NCOs. The Army, Navy, and Air Force Distinguished Service Orders were for officers only, while the Army, Navy, and Air Force Meritorious Service Medals were for NCOs and enlisted men. The Gallantry Cross, patterned after the French Croix de Guerre, was one of the most significant of South Vietnamese decorations and was something of an exception in the South Vietnamese system. The Gallantry Cross could be awarded to officers, enlisted men, whole units, and even civilians and only for acts of combat valor. It was awarded at four levels, indicated by a device affixed to the ribbon: at the brigade and regimental level, a bronze star; at the divisional level, a silver star; at the corps level, a gold star; and at the national level, a bronze palm. The Armed Forces Honor Medal, awarded in two classes, was a special decoration for those individuals making significant contributions to the training, organization, and development of the armed forces. Other significant decorations (also in two classes each) were the Staff Service Medal, the Technical Service Medal, the Training Service Medal, and the Civil Actions Medal. The South Vietnamese also awarded a Campaign Medal with separate scroll clasps to indicate participation in either the Indochina War or the Vietnam War. As in virtually all Western armies, most South Vietnamese military decorations were worn over the left breast.

For many years, very little was known about the military decoration systems of either the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). A recently translated but undated document issued by the Institute of Orders in Hanoi, titled Orders and Decorations, describes the military awards of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) as well as those NLF awards authorized for wear by PAVN soldiers who served in Viet Cong (VC) units. The DRV/NLF (after 1975, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam [SRV]) military awards system was strongly influenced by the system of the old Soviet Union, with a sharp distinction between orders and decorations. For the most part, orders are suspended from Soviet-style pentagonal ribbons, and decorations are suspended from short Soviet-style “hero ribbons.” Orders are worn over the left breast, and most but not all decorations are worn over the right breast. Most orders are awarded in classes, indicated by the number of gold stars attached to the suspension ribbon. Most decorations come in only one class, but there are exceptions to this rule as well. The highest DRV/NLF award was the Gold Star Order, the equivalent of the Hero of the Soviet Union that the Gold Star Order closely resembles. Although the Gold Star is an order, it is suspended from a hero-style ribbon, as with its Soviet counterpart. The Gold Star Order has only one class and has been awarded only 16 times. Known recipients include Ho Chi Minh, Ton Duc Thang, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksei Kosygin. The Ho Chi Minh Order, which also has only one class, appears to be the SRV’s equivalent of the Soviet Union’s Order of Lenin. The Ho Chi Minh Order has been awarded only 144 times. The Independence Order, which has three classes, has been awarded to 538 individuals. The highest North Vietnamese decoration was the People’s Armed Forces Hero. Its NLF equivalent was the Liberation Armed Forces Hero. Unlike other decorations, these two are worn on the left breast, above all other orders, and on the same level with the Gold Star Order. Many NLF orders and decorations are the equivalents of similar North Vietnamese awards. Its Exploit Order is the equivalent of the North Vietnamese Military Exploit Order, and the Soldier of Liberation Order is the equivalent of the Soldier of Glory Order. A number of NLF decorations used during the war itself are now apparently considered obsolete and are not authorized for wear on PAVN uniforms. Among these are the series of NLF Hero decorations, which included Heroes Who Destroy Americans, Heroes Determined for Victory, Heroes Who Destroy Mechanized Equipment, Heroes Who Destroy Communications, Heroes Who Destroy Aircraft, and Valiant Soldier Assault. Instead of Western-style campaign medals, North Vietnam and the NLF mostly issued commemorative campaign badges for participation in key battles. PAVN fighter pilots who scored air-to-air kills also received a special Ho Chi Minh Badge, worn on the left breast. Campaign badges are known to exist for the 1954 Battle of

Military Decorations Dien Bien Phu, the 1968 Tet Offensive, the 1972 Spring (Easter) Offensive, the 1975 Spring Offensive, and the Ho Chi Minh Campaign that led to the final fall of Saigon in 1975. Perhaps the most unusual of these badges is the one for the fighting that resulted from Operation JUNCTION CITY. The badge reads “Chien Thang” (Victory) and “U.S. Junction City.” The basic system of U.S. military decorations came into being during World War I. Until that time the only U.S. decoration was the Medal of Honor, first established during the American Civil War. With the establishment of additional decorations in 1918, Congress created the concept of the Pyramid of Honor. For the first time in American history degrees of service to the nation were acknowledged, each worthy of its own level of recognition. At the apex of the Pyramid of Honor is the Medal of Honor (often erroneously called the Congressional Medal of Honor). The highest American military award for battlefield heroism, the Medal of Honor is awarded by the president in the name of Congress to those members of the U.S. Armed Forces who distinguish themselves by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their lives above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in combat against an armed enemy of the United States. American troops sometimes irreverently referred to it as the “Big Sticker” or the “Blue Max,” a reference to the old imperial German Pour le Mérite and the Medal of Honor’s blue ribbon. During the Vietnam War the Medal of Honor was awarded to 155 soldiers, 57 marines, 15 sailors, 12 airmen, and to the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War era. Unlike many European systems of decorations, both officers and enlisted men are eligible for all American military awards. Some awards, such as the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Silver Star, are only for combat heroism. Others, such as the Distinguished Service Medal, are only for exceptional service. Some American decorations, such as the Bronze Star and the Army, Navy, and Air Force Commendation Medals, can be awarded for either service or valor. Awards made for valor are indicated by a bronze “V” device attached to the medal’s ribbon. Most American heroism decorations are for combat actions only. An exception is the Soldier’s Medal, which is the highest award for noncombat heroism. The Distinguished Flying Cross is awarded for heroism in flight during either combat or noncombat situations. The Bronze Star is awarded for either heroic or meritorious action. Technically the Bronze Star can be awarded for noncombat service, but in practice it is almost always awarded for wartime service. The Meritorious Service Medal, established in 1969, is supposed to be the peacetime equivalent of the Bronze Star. The Purple Heart, established by George Washington in 1782, was America’s first standing military decoration. It lapsed after the Revolutionary War but was reestablished in 1932 as a decoration for wounds received in combat. The Legion of Merit is unique in the American system because it exists in four classes. Originally established in 1942 as a decoration for high-ranking foreigners, the lowest class (Legionnaire) also is awarded to Americans.

749

Table 2. Campaigns Authorized for Wearing of the Star Device on the U.S. Vietnam Service Medal 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Vietnam Advisory (March 16, 1962–March 7, 1965) Vietnam Defense (March 8, 1965–December 24, 1965) Vietnam Counteroffensive (December 25, 1965–June 30, 1966) Vietnam Counteroffensive Phase II (July 1, 1966–May 31, 1967) Vietnam Counteroffensive Phase III (June 1, 1967–January 29, 1968) Tet Counteroffensive (January 30, 1968–April 1, 1968) Vietnam Counteroffensive Phase IV (April 2, 1968–June 30, 1968) Vietnam Counteroffensive Phase V (July 1, 1968–November 1, 1968) Vietnam Counteroffensive Phase VI (November 2, 1968–February 22, 1969) Tet 69 Counteroffensive (February 23, 1969–June 8, 1969) Vietnam Summer–Fall (June 9, 1969–October 31, 1969) Vietnam Winter–Spring (November 1, 1969–April 30, 1970) Sanctuary Counteroffensive (May 1, 1970–June 30, 1970) Vietnam Counteroffensive Phase VII (July 1, 1970–June 30, 1971) Consolidation I (July 1, 1971–November 30, 1971) Consolidation II (December 1, 1971–March 29, 1972) Vietnam Cease-Fire (March 30, 1972–January 28, 1973)

Some levels of the Pyramid of Honor have more than one decoration because each branch of the service has its own unique award. Thus, there are specific U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force designs for the Medal of Honor. At the next level down the decorations even have slightly different names, but the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, and Air Force Cross are all equivalent. Some decorations, including the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Air Medal, and Purple Heart, are awarded by all branches of the service. Awards such as the Defense Distinguished Service Medal and the Joint Services Commendation Medal are awarded by the Defense Department to members of all services. In some countries such as the former Soviet Union, soldiers wear multiple medals or ribbons for subsequent awards of the same decoration. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force designate subsequent awards by affixing a bronze oak leaf cluster to the medal’s ribbon. The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps use a small bronze star device. Fifth subsequent awards are indicated by a silver oak leaf cluster (U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force) or a silver star device (U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps). Although not a military decoration in the strictest sense, one of the most highly prized American military awards is the Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB). A silver rifle on a blue bar backed by a silver oak wreath, the CIB was first authorized in World War II to distinguish U.S. Army infantrymen actively engaged in ground combat. During the Vietnam War, eligibility for the award was extended to Special Forces troops and to noninfantrymen assigned as advisers to ARVN infantry units. Second and third awards of the CIB are indicated by one or two stars at the open top of the oak wreath. An individual can earn only one CIB per war; thus, soldiers in Vietnam with two stars on their CIBs were infantry veterans of World War II and the Korean War as well. Very few CIBs with two stars have ever been awarded. An equally prestigious award is the

750

Military Decorations

Table 3. Relative Precedence of Military Decorations of the Republic of Vietnam 1. National Order of Vietnam (1950) a. First Class, Grand Cross b. Second Class, Grand Officer c. Third Class, Commander d. Fourth Class, Officer e. Fifth Class, Knight 2. Military Merit Medal (1950) 3. Army Distinguished Service Order (1964) Air Force Distinguished Service Order (1964) Navy Distinguished Service Order (1964) 4. Army Meritorious Service Medal (1964) Air Force Meritorious Service Medal (1964) Navy Meritorious Service Medal (1964) 5. Special Service Medal (1964) 6. Gallantry Cross (1950) Air Gallantry Cross (1964) Navy Gallantry Cross (1964) 7. Hazardous Service Medal (1964) 8. Life Saving Medal (1964) 9. Loyalty Medal (1964) 10. Wound Medal (1953) 11. Armed Forces Honor Medal (1953) 12. Leadership Medal (1964) 13. Staff Service Medal (1964) 14. Technical Service Medal (1964) 15. Training Service Medal (1964) 16. Civil Actions Medal (1964)

Combat Field Medic Badge (CFMB), which distinguishes medics who directly supported U.S. Army infantry units. Both the CIB and the CFMB are worn on the left breast above the decorations, service medals, and all other qualification badges. In 1969 the secretary of the U.S. Navy authorized the creation of a Combat Action Ribbon for all U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard (when operating under U.S. Navy control) personnel who actively participate in ground or surface combat. The key difference between the Combat Action Ribbon and the CIB is that all navy and marine personnel who come under fire are eligible for the Combat Action Ribbon, while only army infantrymen who participate in infantry combat are eligible for the CIB. Given the nature of the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in 2005 the U.S. army authorized the Combat Action Badge for soldiers who were personally present and actively engaging with or were engaged by the enemy in a combat zone while serving in a unit that was not authorized to award the CIB. Among the American military services, the U.S. Army has a unique way of recognizing overseas service in a combat zone. Every U.S. Army soldier wears the patch of his current unit of assignment on his left shoulder (the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps do not use unit shoulder patches). A soldier who serves overseas in a combat zone with a unit is entitled to wear that unit’s patch permanently on his right shoulder. Often erroneously called a “combat patch,” its proper designation is Overseas Service Patch. Well into the 1990s, U.S. Army soldiers could still be seen wearing

patches on the right shoulder from Vietnam War service. In many cases, the units indicated no longer existed. All American military personnel who served during the Vietnam War period (January 1, 1961–August 14, 1974) received the National Defense Service Medal. Those who actually served in Vietnam or its contiguous airspace or waters between July 4, 1965, and March 28, 1973, received the Vietnam Service Medal. American troops who served in Vietnam between July 1, 1958, and July 4, 1965, originally were authorized the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal but later were allowed to exchange those medals for the Vietnam Service Medal. As in previous wars, participation in each specific campaign entitled the soldier to wear a small bronze star device on the medal’s ribbon. Every fifth campaign was indicated with a small silver star device. Seventeen campaigns were conducted between March 15, 1962, and January 28, 1973. In 1967 the U.S. State Department authorized the Civilian Service in Vietnam Medal for all U.S. government civilian employees who served in Vietnam after January 1, 1962. Although a civilian award, it is authorized to be worn on U.S. military uniforms. In 1967 the U.S. Maritime Administration authorized the Merchant Marine Vietnam Service Medal for crew members who served aboard ships flying the American flag in Vietnamese waters. In September 1983 the U.S. Congress established the Commemorative Medal for Families of American Personnel Missing in Southeast Asia. A nonmilitary award, it is suspended from a neck ribbon identical in color and design to the Vietnam Service Medal. In 1986 Congress authorized the creation of the Prisoner of War Medal for all American servicemen held captive by an enemy force after April 5, 1917, thus making award of the medal retroactive to World War I. The United States also recognizes entire units with military decorations. The Presidential Unit Citation is the equivalent of a Distinguished Service Cross for a unit; the Valorous Unit Citation is the unit equivalent of a Silver Star. If an individual is a member of the unit at the time the award is won, he is entitled to wear the unit award permanently on his uniform. An individual joining a

Table 4. Relative Precedence of Military Decorations of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Gold Star Order (1947) Ho Chi Minh Order (1947) Independence Order (1947) People’s Armed Forces Hero (1952) Military Exploit Order (1947) Resistance Order (1948) Resistance Decoration (1948) Combatant Order (1947) Soldier of Glory Order (1961) Soldier of Glory Decoration (1961) Victory Order (1958) Victory Decoration (1958) Liberation Army Order (1958) Liberation Army Decoration (1958) Fatherland Commemorative Decoration (1946)

Military Regions

Table 5. Relative Precedence of National Liberation Front Military Decorations Recognized by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Liberation Armed Forces Hero (1963) Liberation Exploit Order (1963) Liberation War Exploit Order (1963) Brass Fortress Order (1963) Fatherland Order (1963) Liberation Order (1965) Liberation Decoration (1965) Resolution for Victory Order (1965) Resolution for Victory Decoration (1965) Soldier of Liberation Order (1966) Soldier of Liberation Decoration (1966)

decorated unit at a later time can wear the unit award only while assigned to the unit. Most (but not all) U.S. unit awards are easily identifiable by the gold frame around the ribbon. Members of the U.S. Army wear unit awards over their right pockets. Members of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Marine Corps wear unit awards over their left pockets, integrated with their individual awards. During service in Vietnam, many Americans (especially advisers to the ARVN) were awarded various South Vietnamese decorations. The most common were the Gallantry Cross, the Armed Forces Honor Medal, the Staff Service Medal, the Technical Service Medal, and the Civil Actions Medal. The Gallantry Cross and the Civil Actions Medal also were awarded to many U.S. units, whose personnel wore them in the gold frame indicating unit awards. The Australian and New Zealand Service Medal Vietnam was awarded to Australian and New Zealand soldiers who served at least 30 days in Vietnam between May 29, 1964, and January 27, 1973. The medal also was awarded to a very small handful of British officers who served in Vietnam while seconded to those units. For service in Vietnam between December 24, 1962, and May 28, 1964, members of the Australian Army Training Team were awarded the Commonwealth’s Campaign Service Medal with South Vietnam clasp. In 1992 the Australian government established the Vietnam Logistics and Support Medal for military and naval personnel who had supported operations in Vietnam but did not qualify for the Service Medal Vietnam. While serving in Vietnam four Australian soldiers earned the Victoria Cross, the British Commonwealth’s highest decoration for combat valor. Other allied countries with military units in Vietnam also awarded service medals for that war. These medals include the Republic of Korea’s Vietnam Participation Medal, the Kingdom of Thailand’s Vietnam Combat Service Medal, the Republic of the Philippines’ Republic of Vietnam Service Medal, and the Republic of China’s (Taiwan) Memorial Medal of Honor of the Republic of China Military Assistance Group to the Republic of Vietnam. All allied soldiers serving in Vietnam were awarded the South Vietnamese government’s Vietnam Campaign Medal in addition to

751

campaign or service medals of their own nations. The ribbon has seven alternating green and white vertical stripes. Mounted on the ribbon is a small silver scroll clasp with what are supposed to be the dates of the Vietnam War. Medals awarded to the Americans had the date “1960–73,” while those awarded to ARVN bear a scroll dated “1960–____.” DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Uniforms References Emering, Edward. Orders, Decorations and Badges of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1997. Kerrigan, Evans. American Medals and Decorations. London: Apple, 1990. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Medal of Honor Recipients, 1863–1978. 96th Cong. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979. Sylvester, John, and Frank Foster. The Decorations and Medals of the Republic of Vietnam. Fountain Inn, SC: MOA Press, 1995.

Military Regions Name given by the U.S. military to geographical and operational divisions of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that coincided exactly with the four Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) corps tactical zones (CTZs). Before 1954, the State of Vietnam was divided into four military regions (MRs): MR I, former Cochin China; MR II, Central Vietnam; MR III, former Tonkin; and MR IV, the Central Highlands. In 1961 each Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) corps took responsibility for a former MR, called a corps tactical zone. These were numbered I to IV: CTZ I, five provinces from Quang Tri to Quang Ngai; CTZ II, the Central Highlands and five provinces south of Quang Ngai; CTZ III, 11 provinces north of the Mekong; and CTZ IV, the remainder of the Mekong Delta. Each infantry division took charge of an area within a CTZ, known as a division tactical area (DTA). Each DTA had several sectors and the provincial military headquarters. In the American phase of the war the DTAs were done away with, and the CTZs became MRs until the Communist victory of April 1975. There was no single combined headquarters to provide for unified operations within the four MRs. Although the United States suggested a combined command and staff arrangement to the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff (JGS), the latter rejected it for political reasons. Instead, operational guidance was provided through an annual Combined Campaign Plan, produced by the Free World Military Assistance Council comprised of the chief of the JGS, the senior RVNAF officer in Vietnam, and the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV).

752

Military Regions

Military Revolutionary Council The Combined Campaign Plan was not a true operational plan. It assigned no tasks or goals; rather, it broke the operational effort down geographically. Coordination of combat operations without the benefit of an integrated command at the top was provided through joint agreements between local Free World Military Force commanders and ARVN ground commanders. While ARVN corps commanders retained overall responsibility for military actions in each CTZ, American and other Free World force commanders accepted responsibility for tactical areas of responsibility (TAORs). These TAORs, like the larger MRs/CTZs, were arbitrary geographical areas in which American and Free World units conducted combat operations. U.S. operational ground force commands subordinate to MACV that controlled American combat units as well as field advisory teams within each MR (actually no American combat units operated in the IV MR/CTZ area, only advisory teams and special forces units) included, from north to south, the III Marine Amphibious Force, I Field Force, II Field Force, and IV Corps Advisory Group. All corps operated with equivalent command levels and with lieutenant generals commanding. As with their MACV superior, commanders of these four operational American commands were the senior advisers to the respective RVNAF CTZ commander. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Free World Assistance Program; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Eckhardt, George S. Command and Control, 1950–1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Military Revolutionary Council A group of senior generals who dominated political affairs in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) behind the scenes from early November 1963 to mid-December 1964. After the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963, a 12-member military junta, the Military Revolutionary Council, took power, with General Duong Van Minh as chief of state. The new regime was no more responsive to the people of South Vietnam than Diem had been, however, and had the added disadvantage of political instability. Members of the Military Revolutionary Council soon fell to quarreling among themselves. Minh had boasted that the collec-

753

tive leadership would ensure that no one else would have Diem’s power. But nominal leader Minh showed no inclination to govern and preferred to play tennis, tend to his orchids, and pursue an interest in exotic birds. On January 30, 1964, another coup took place, this time against Minh, led by Major General Nguyen Khanh. U.S. officials, caught by surprise, hailed Khanh because he promised to rule with a strong hand. Although he was shrewd and energetic, Khanh showed no more aptitude for governing than had Minh, and Khanh’s own history of changing sides hardly engendered trust. Khanh purged some generals, although he allowed Minh to remain on as titular head of state. Militant Buddhists were again active. To increase their influence, the heads of different Buddhist sects formed a political alliance. Many South Vietnamese officers also turned against Khanh for his attempt to try several rival generals on trumped-up charges. Khanh persuaded Dai Viet leader and Catholic physician Dr. Nguyen Ton Hoan to return from exile in Paris and serve as premier. When it was clear that the Dai Viet was hopelessly splintered, Khanh named himself as premier, with Hoan as his deputy. Hoan then began to conspire with Buddhists and other opposition groups against Khanh. Political instability in South Vietnam was now rampant, and that year there were seven changes of government. By the summer of 1964 Khanh was in serious difficulty. He announced a national emergency, imposed censorship and other controls, and hastily put together a new constitution, promoting himself to the presidency and dismissing former figurehead and chief of state Duong Van Minh. In August students took to the Saigon streets and were soon joined by Buddhists. U.S. ambassador Maxwell Taylor urged Khanh not to yield to minority pressure. On August 25 Khanh quit, and the Military Revolutionary Council met to choose a new head of state. After lengthy political maneuvering, a triumvirate emerged of generals Khanh, Minh, and Tran Thien Khiem. Khanh retained the premiership but left the capital as chaos took hold there. Order was restored after two days of rioting. Khanh meanwhile named economist Nguyen Xuan Oanh to be prime minister in his absence. Turbulence continued, and the government was threatened by dissident army units in the Mekong Delta and militant Buddhists from Hue. In November 1964 new riots in Saigon protested Khanh’s rule, and Taylor urged Khanh to leave the country. By this time a faction of younger military officers had come to the fore. Known as the Young Turks, they were headed by Nguyen Cao Ky, one of the younger officers in the coup against Diem. Ky had been promoted to major general and was given charge of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force). The group also included Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) major general Nguyen Van Thieu. Disillusioned by the ineffective national government, in mid-December 1964 the Young Turks overthrew the Military Revolutionary Council. SPENCER C. TUCKER

754

Military Sealift Command

See also Duong Van Minh; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Tran Thien Khiem; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

Military Sealift Command U.S. Navy command responsible for logistical support to the U.S. military effort in Vietnam. The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), designated in September 1970, and its predecessor, the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), supported U.S. forces throughout the conflict in Southeast Asia. Beginning in Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM from August 1954 to May 1955, 39 MSTS transports carried many of the 292,000 Vietnamese who migrated by sea from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). During the early 1960s, MSTS ships Core (T-AKV 13) and Card (T-AKV 40) transported U.S. Army helicopter units to South Vietnam. From 1965 to 1973 the MSTS maintained the massive military buildup in Indochina, delivering more than 40,000 U.S. and allied troops, 99 percent of the ammunition and fuel, and 95 percent of

the supplies, vehicles, and construction materials dispatched to the combat theater. At the height of the war, the MSTS operated a fleet of 527 reactivated World War II ships and chartered vessels, managed by offices in the United States, Japan, and South Vietnam. Many types of ships sailed in the MSTS fleet, including aircraft ferries, a helicopter repair ship, standard cargo hulls, ships that carried cargo stowed in easily handled containers, roll-on/roll-off ships that could swiftly load and unload vehicles, tankers able to hold between 30,000 and 190,000 barrels of fuel, troop transports, tank landing ships, tugs, and barges. The navy’s sea-lift effort ensured that the 500,000-strong U.S. contingent in South Vietnam was well supplied and armed. In March and April 1975 when North Vietnam launched its major conventional offensive against South Vietnam, the U.S. Navy called on MSC to evacuate friendly Vietnamese troops and civilians from the northern and central regions of the country. On March 27 a fleet of 10 cargo/transport ships, 5 tugs, and 6 barges began rescuing an increasingly desperate horde of soldiers and civilians from Da Nang and other ports to the south. Crowding, the lack of sufficient food, and displeasure that isolated Phu Quoc island instead of Vung Tau had been selected as the disembarkation point led some armed passengers to threaten the American crews. As a result, the navy deployed 50-man U.S. Marine Corps security detachments to the ships. By April 10, the MSC had transported to Phu Quoc 130,000 American and Vietnamese refugees. At the end of April 1975, Saigon gave way in the face of a powerful People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army)

Vietnamese refugees cover every available space on the deck and superstructure of the Military Sealift Command’s SS Pioneer Contender, en route to Phu Quoc Island. (Naval Historical Center)

Mine Warfare, Land offensive. With the defeat of South Vietnam now virtually certain, President Gerald R. Ford ordered Operation FREQUENT WIND, the final evacuation of Saigon. Anticipating such an order, during the month the MSC had filled its ships with food, water, and medicine and stationed U.S. Marine Corps security detachments on board. In concert with the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which began lifting refugees by helicopter from Saigon to the offshore flotilla, the MSC took on board a growing flood of refugees. Between April 29 and May 2 when the operation ceased, MSC ships had embarked more than 50,000 evacuees. The MSC ships, the Seventh Fleet contingent, and a flotilla of 26 Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) ships, after embarking an additional 30,000 evacuees and their families, then set sail for the Philippines. EDWARD J. MAROLDA See also Ford, Gerald Rudolph; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; United States Navy References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994.

755

Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Mine Warfare, Land The art of mining was deftly practiced by Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces. Mines, along with rockets and mortars, substituted for the Communists’ lack of artillery resources and were well integrated into basic tactical perspectives. Both trip-wire/pressure-contact and command-detonated mines were employed. In unison, they provided the basis of devastating ambushes unmatched by U.S. artillery barrages. American mining centered on area denial and was based on dropping tens of millions of antipersonnel mines (XM48 “Button Bomblets,” BLU43 “Short Dragontooth,” BLU44 “Long Dragontooth,” and XM41E1 “Gravel” mines) from aircraft deep behind Communist lines. Mines were effectively employed by Communist forces against both military personnel and armored vehicles. Antipersonnel mines were made from such items as pipes, cement, artillery and

Members of the Viet Cong construct antipersonnel mines. These homemade mines utilized pipes, cartridge cases, and artillery and mortar shells. Such mines inflicted significant numbers of casualties during the Vietnam War. (U.S. Army Center of Military History)

756

Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations

mortar shells, and cartridge cases. While ground-placed mines were predominately used by the VC, the U.S. Claymore (M-18 series) was standard issue to U.S. and Army of the Republic Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces. This mine sprayed steel fragments in a fan-shaped pattern 2 yards in height and some 55 yards in width (with a 95 percent casualty probability) and was both command- and trip-wire detonated. American casualties resulting from antipersonnel mines were significant. Reportedly, 22.8 percent of marines wounded in action during the period from July 1965 through December 1966 were from mines and booby traps. The lethality of these homemade devices was low, however, because of their makeshift nature and the emphasis placed on using larger mines in an antitank role. Antitank and anti–armored personnel carrier (anti-APC) mines represented a considerable danger in Vietnam. Because they were more lightly armored, APCs (of which the U.S. Army M-113 was the standard type) were extremely vulnerable to large mines constructed from such items as TNT demolition blocks, explosivefilled five-gallon cans, and modified large-caliber mortar shells as well as conventional Soviet and Chinese antitank mines deployed in far smaller numbers. Antitank mines were sometimes placed in random patterns for nuisance purposes. Mine placement could also be where armored vehicles would be channeled onto road networks because of dense vegetation and wet terrain obstacles. Favorite VC tactics were to place mines in the seemingly safe road tracks of an armored fighting vehicle that had passed by earlier and in likely night laager positions. The effectiveness of these tactics is apparent, considering that an estimated 70 percent of American armor losses in Vietnam were attributed to mines. Earlier comparable French losses were calculated at 85 percent. Another form of mining, antihelicopter mining, had its origins in this war. The Communists mined likely landing zones during Operation JUNCTION CITY with an assortment of command-detonated artillery rounds, TNT, and directional DH10 devices (much like Claymore mines). Unexploded mines, bombs, and other ordnance continue to be a major problem in Vietnam today. A July 2009 report by the Ministry of Defense of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam estimated that 116.3 million acres of land in the country remain to be cleared and that a third of the acreage in six central Vietnamese provinces remains contaminated by mines and other unexploded ordnance. Since the end of the war through mid-2009, more than 42,000 people have been killed by leftover explosives. ROBERT J. BUNKER See also Armored Personnel Carriers; Armored Warfare; Booby Traps; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations References Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984.

Smith, Herbert L. Landmine and Countermine Warfare: Vietnam, 1964–1969, Vol. 9. Washington, DC: Engineer Agency for Resource Inventories, 1972. Stolfi, Russel H. Mine and Countermine Warfare in Recent History. Report No. 1582. Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratories, 1972. U.S. Marine Corps. Vietcong Mine Warfare. Quantico, VA: Department of the Navy, 1966.

Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations The Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) employed thousands of mines against U.S. and allied naval forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) throughout the conflict in Vietnam, much as they had against the French during the Indochina War. Between 1959 and 1964 VC mines, often homemade devices, took an increasing toll of naval vessels and civilian craft on the many rivers and canals of South Vietnam. This threat affected commercial traffic on some of the country’s primary waterways. As U.S. naval forces deployed to South Vietnam in the mid1960s, moving into the watery environment of the Mekong Delta west and south of Saigon, they took steps to counter the mine threat. The danger was especially acute on the waterways near Saigon, South Vietnam’s most important port. VC closure of the Long Tao River, which followed a meandering 45-mile course through the Rung Sat swamp on its way to the capital, would have put an enormous strain on allied logistic resources in the southern regions of South Vietnam. As a result, on May 20, 1966, the U.S. Navy established Mine Squadron 11, Detachment Alpha (Mine Division 112 after May 1968), at Nha Be. The minesweeping detachment operated 12 or 13 57-foot fiberglass-hulled minesweeping boats (MSBs). The MSBs fought with machine guns and grenade launchers and carried surface radars and minesweeping gear for clearing explosives from the rivers. The navy also set up 3-boat sections at Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay. Detachment Alpha’s strength increased in July 1967, when the first of 6 mechanized landing craft, minesweeping (LCM[M]), reached Nha Be. Despite the presence on the Long Tao of Mine Squadron 11 and other river warfare forces, in the second half of 1966 and in early 1967 the enemy mounted a serious effort to interdict the waterway. The VC employed mines, 122-millimeter rockets, rocketpropelled grenades, recoilless rifles, machine guns, and small arms against American and South Vietnamese naval forces and merchant ships. In August 1966 VC mines severely damaged the SS Baton Rouge Victory as well as a Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVNN, South Vietnamese Navy) vessel and the MSB 54. That November the VC sank the MSB 54. In February 1967 Communist direct-fire weapons and mines destroyed the MSB 45 and heavily damaged the MSB 49.

Minh Mang By the spring of 1967, allied naval units moved in force into the Rung Sat area, refined their mine countermeasures tactics, and brought better weapons and equipment into play against the VC sappers. Vietnamese Regional Forces, U.S. Army 9th Infantry Division troops, and Navy SEAL (sea, air, land) commandos, working with helicopter, river patrol boat, MSB, and LCM(M) units, scoured the shorelines. During the next year, Communist guerrillas periodically ambushed ships on the Long Tao, but the fast and devastating reaction by allied forces kept casualties and damage to vessels relatively light. Often the minesweeping force swept up mines before they could do damage, while river patrol boat and SEAL patrols disrupted enemy attack plans. The upshot was that the VC were unable to cut or even seriously slow logistic traffic on the Long Tao, even when their comrades were fighting for their lives in Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive. During 1968 and 1969 the U.S. Navy deployed strong mine countermeasures forces to the Cua Viet River, just south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and defeated the PAVN’s attempt to cut that vital waterway. EDWARD J. MAROLDA See also Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; SEAL Teams; United States Navy References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Minh Mang Birth Date: 1791 Death Date: January 20, 1841 Second emperor (r. 1820–1841) of the Nguyen dynasty. Minh Mang’s real name was Nguyen Phuoc Dom (Dam); Minh Mang (or Minh Menh) was his ruling name. He is also known as Thanh To Nhan Hoang De and Vua Thanh To. Minh Mang was born in 1791; he became crown prince in 1816 and emperor in 1820 after the death of his father, Gia Long (r. 1802–1820). As a ruler, Minh Mang was intelligent, dedicated, hardworking, and deeply influenced by Confucianism. Under him the administration of all of Vietnam was reorganized to make it both centralized and sophisticated. He eliminated the two positions of tong tran Bac Thanh (governor-general of the north) and tong tran Gia Dinh Thanh (governor-general of Gia Dinh). The country was divided into 31 tinh (provinces), the governors of which reported directly to the emperor and the court. At the capital of Hue, Minh Mang established the Noi Cac Vien (Grand Secretariat) and the Co

757

Mat Vien (Privy Council). The rest of the bureaucracy was also reorganized with the creation of a nine-rank mandarin corps. It was also under Minh Mang that the Vietnamese empire was greatly enlarged to cover most of the territories of Cambodia and Laos. To provide able people for the new government system, Minh Mang paid special attention to education and reorganized the Quoc Tu Giam (National College). Civil service examinations were held regularly, not only at the regional (thi huong) level but also at the capital (thi hoi) and in the palace (thi dinh) to select the doctors (tien si) and the doctors of subordinate list (pho bang). For the education of the common people, Minh Mang wrote the Huan Dich Thap Dieu (Ten Moral Maxims), later translated into Chu Nom by Emperor Tu Duc. Minh Mang also wrote seven collections of poems. Minh Mang’s concern for the moral and cultural protection of Vietnamese society led to the prohibition of Christianity and the persecution of Christians, which included missionaries. He rejected all French proposals for permanent diplomatic relations but was receptive to commerce as regulated by Vietnamese laws. He was also receptive to but did not admire Western technology. It was also under Minh Mang’s reign that the United States for the first time officially attempted to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Vietnam. President Andrew Jackson sent Edmund Roberts as his envoy to the Minh Mang court as early as 1832. However, differences in diplomatic customs that could not be reconciled led Roberts to leave Vietnam without seeing the emperor. During Minh Mang’s reign the forces of Western imperialism became stronger, although he tried valiantly to keep them at bay. This pressure increased under his son and successor, Thieu Tri. Minh Mang died on January 20, 1841. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Nguyen Phuc Anh; Thieu Tri; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Le Huu Muc. Huan Dich Thap Dieu: Thanh Du Cua Vua Thanh To, Dien Nghia Cua Vua Duc Tong [Ten Moral Maxims: Imperial Teachings by Emperor Thanh To and Translation into Nom by Emperor Tu Duc]. Saigon: Phu Quoc Vu Khanh Dac Trach Van Hoa, 1971. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Quoc Su Quan. Quoc Trieu Chanh Bien Toat Yeu [A Summary of the History of Our Current Dynasty]. Saigon: Nhom Nghien Cuu Su Dia, 1971. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971. Woodside, Alexander B. Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Nguyen and Ch’ing Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971.

758

Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam

Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam During the Operation ROLLING THUNDER bombing campaign (1965– 1968), the U.S. Navy’s carrier air squadrons released thousands of mines along the key Communist supply routes in the panhandle area of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The object of the operation was to make difficult, if not prohibitive, all vehicular and other movement around ferry crossing sites, railway and highway bridges, storage areas, truck parks, and fuel dumps. Carrier attack aircraft also seeded inland waterways and roads used by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) to transport munitions into Laos and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The weapons used were Mark 36 Destructors, which contained 500 pounds of explosives and detonated when trucks, tanks, or other metal objects disturbed their magnetic fields. Neither the U.S. Navy’s mining effort nor the overall bombing campaign stopped the flow of munitions to the fighting front, but they forced the Communists to devote scarce resources to the defense of their supply lines. Another mining effort known as Operation POCKET MONEY, which the navy carried out during 1972 and early 1973, had an even greater impact on the war. Early on the morning of May 8, 1972, the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) launched three U.S. Marine Corps Grumman A-6 Intruders and six U.S. Navy Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair attack planes toward the coast of North Vietnam. Shortly afterward, the naval aircraft laid strings of 36 1,000-pound Mark 52 mines in the water approaches to the port of Haiphong, through which most of North Vietnam’s imported war matériel and all of its fuel supply passed. During succeeding months, other carrier aircraft dropped thousands of mines and 500-pound Mark 36 Destructors in the seaways of North Vietnam’s secondary ports and reseeded the Haiphong approaches. For the remainder of 1972, 27 Soviet and People’s Republic of China (PRC) merchant ships chose to remain immobile in Haiphong rather than risk a transit of the mined waters. The mining campaign, along with U.S. air attacks on North Vietnamese supply lines ashore, helped shorten the PAVN Easter Offensive in South Vietnam. Eventually the mining operation and the LINEBACKER bombing campaign induced the North Vietnamese to negotiate an end to the war. On January 27, 1973, American and North Vietnamese officials signed a protocol to the Paris agreement that called for the United States to neutralize the mines that the U.S. Navy had dropped in North Vietnam’s coastal and inland waterways. On January 28 following months of preparation, Rear Admiral Brian McCauley’s Mine Countermeasures Force (Task Force 78) of the Seventh Fleet deployed from Subic Bay in the Philippines to Haiphong. To coordinate actions, on February 5 the commander of Task Force 78 met in the city with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Hoang Huu Thai. Operation END SWEEP began the next day when the ocean minesweepers Engage (MSO-433), Force (MSO-445), Fortify (MSO-

The U.S. Navy ocean minesweepers (front to back) Force, Engage, Impervious, and Fortify depart Subic Bay in the Philippines to participate in Operation END SWEEP in Vietnam, February 1973. (U.S. Navy)

446), and Impervious (MSO-449) swept waters off the coast near Haiphong. The guided missile frigate USS Worden (DLG-18) and the destroyer USS Epperson (DD-719) stood by to prevent any interference with the effort. Later that month, the amphibious ships New Orleans (LPH-11), Dubuque (LPD-8), Odgen (LPD-5), Cleveland (LPD-7), and Inchon (LPH-12) joined the task force. On board the newly arriving ships were 31 Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters from the U.S. Navy’s Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 12 and from the U.S. Marine Corps helicopter squadrons HMM-165 and HMH-463. The Sea Stallions towed minesweeping sleds and other devices. During the six months of Operation END SWEEP, 10 ocean minesweepers, 9 amphibious ships, 6 fleet tugs, 3 salvage ships, and 19 destroyer types operated in Task Force 78. The helicopters swept the main shipping channel to Haiphong on February 27 and the ports of Hon Gai and Cam Pha on March 17. In early April, Task Force 78 deployed to the formerly mined waters the MSS-2, a decommissioned landing ship tank filled with buffer material and crewed by volunteers. The ship carried out eight passages of the Haiphong channel to make sure no mines remained active in the vital waterway. Elsewhere in North Vietnam, U.S. Navy technical personnel prepared 50 North Vietnamese sailors to conduct their own minesweeping operations. While this was taking place, a number of U.S. Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft delivered minesweeping gear to Cat Bi airfield outside the city. Until April 17, the U.S. Navy task force continued its mission.

Mini–Tet Offensive Then because Washington believed that Hanoi had failed to carry out its obligations under the Paris agreement, it ordered a suspension of minesweeping operations. END SWEEP resumed on June 18 after U.S. leaders were persuaded that the North Vietnamese would once again act in good faith. Shortly afterward, Admiral McCauley notified the North Vietnamese that the ports of Haiphong, Hon Gai, and Cam Pha were free from the threat of American-laid mines. Next, Task Force 78 concentrated on the coastal areas off Vinh. Finally, on July 18, 1973, McCauley led his flotilla out to sea, officially ending Operation END SWEEP. EDWARD J. MAROLDA See also Aircraft Carriers; Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations; United States Navy References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Marolda, Edward J. Operation End Sweep: A History of Minesweeping Operations in North Vietnam. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1993. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Mini–Tet Offensive Event Date: May 1968 A large-scale Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) military offensive against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) launched during May 1968. Mini-Tet was the second offensive in a multiphased campaign of four offensives in late January 1968, May 1968, August 1968, and February 1969. Mini-Tet consisted of two major surges of widespread coordinated attacks commencing on May 5 and May 25. The primary target of the offensive was the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, although scattered attacks were conducted across the country, particularly in the far northern coastal region. The objectives of the offensive, directed by PAVN General Vo Nguyen Giap, defense minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), were to maintain constant pressure on Saigon, inflict casualties on the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces, and pursue a talk-fight strategy to influence the commencement of the Paris peace talks. U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) commanders received warning prior to the first surge, thanks to widespread and insecure dissemination of Communist attack plans prior to the offensive. VC and PAVN forces launched attacks during May 1–3 to screen units assembling west of Saigon. Moving at night through unpopulated jungles and swamps, many attacking units approached to within five miles of

759

Saigon before being intercepted during May 3–5 as they moved into their final assembly areas near the city. As a preparatory signal for the offensive, a taxi filled with explosives detonated in front of the Saigon Television and Radio compound one day before Mini-Tet began. The first surge began on May 5, when VC and PAVN units carried out widespread attacks in and around Saigon. An attempt to capture the two major bridges east of Saigon failed. Between May 6 and 10, heavy contact occurred west of Saigon as VC and PAVN units arriving from that direction seized portions of the city before eventually being defeated by infantry, armor, artillery, and air attacks. During May 7–13 fighting raged on the southern side of Saigon and then dropped off. By May 15, most attackers had withdrawn. A wave of rocket attacks on Saigon commenced on Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, May 19, and continued through June 21. During this first surge, widespread Communist shelling and limited ground probes were also launched in northern South Vietnam, threatening Hue, Quang Tri, Dong Ha, and Khe Sanh. On May 10 near the Laotian border, attacking PAVN regiments forced the abandonment of a patrol base at Ngok Tavak. Two days later the nearby Special Forces camp at Kham Duc was evacuated after experiencing massive ground assaults. Elsewhere attacks generally consisted of harassing small-arms fire and small-unit probes, although a significant number of attacks peaked in the Mekong Delta region during May 5–11. The second surge of Mini-Tet was presaged by the destruction of two bridges on Highway 4 in the Mekong Delta on May 24. Attacks occurred the next day and achieved some tactical surprise in Saigon. Some small units managed to enter the city from the south and east, but these were soon isolated by the defenders. Fighting continued for several days on the southern edge of the city in the vicinity of the “Y” Bridge over the Kinh Doi Canal. Elsewhere in the city, primarily in the ethnic Chinese suburb of Cholon, small bands, typically consisting of four or five VC or PAVN soldiers, spread out and dug in. These soldiers conducted holding actions against South Vietnamese police and army units and occasionally launched fierce assaults. Communist attempts to infiltrate Saigon ceased around May 29. Major fighting in Mini-Tet continued until the end of the month and was followed by urban mopping-up operations against pockets of PAVN and VC soldiers for several weeks. On June 2 a rocket fired by a U.S. helicopter accidentally struck an ARVN command post in Cholon, killing and wounding 10 senior officers, supporters of Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky. Supporters of President Nguyen Van Thieu replaced them, thus contributing to Nguyen Cao Ky’s political eclipse. Communist rocket attacks against Saigon reached a high point when 102 rockets pounded the city throughout June, killing 58 civilians and four Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) personnel. Other rocket attacks around Saigon targeted Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Bien Hoa, and Cu Chi.

760

Missing in Action, Allied

Elsewhere in South Vietnam the second surge generally saw light contact consisting of shelling and small-scale assaults, although serious attacks were launched against Fire Support Base 29 near Ben Het and the South Vietnamese National Military Academy at Dalat. Mini-Tet claimed some 30,000 VC and PAVN soldiers killed. More than 2,000 U.S. and thousands of RVNAF personnel were also slain. Countrywide, VC and PAVN forces had launched 433 shelling attacks consisting of 10,369 mortar rounds and rockets. These represented a significant increase over the original Tet Offensive, when infantry attacks were more prevalent. In Saigon, U.S. and ARVN firepower was largely responsible for damaging or destroying nearly 20,000 homes, leaving 130,000 civilians in need of assistance. When the offensive ended in mid-June, most VC and PAVN units withdrew to their base areas or to sanctuaries in Cambodia to reequip and reorganize. Postwar Vietnamese historical assessments and internal PAVN studies of the second wave of the 1968 offensive are almost unanimous in concluding that Mini-Tet was a mistake. As one Vietnamese military history puts it, “After the first wave of the 1968 Tet Offensive [January 31 through February 1968], we decided to mount a second round of attacks against the cities, even though our opportunity had now disappeared. This left our rural areas exposed and undefended. After the first wave of the Tet Offensive was over, we should have turned our attention back to the rural countryside. . . . If we had done so, our successes would have been greater and our losses would have been less.” GLENN E. HELM See also Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle References Cosmas, Graham A. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2007. Hoang Ngoc Lung, Colonel. The General Offensives of 1968–69. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Nguyen Van Minh, ed. Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc, 1954–1975, Tap V, Tong Tien Cong va Noi Day Nam 1968 [History of the Resistance War against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954–1975, Vol. 5, The 1968 General Offensive and Uprisings]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2001. Nolan, Keith. House to House: Playing the Enemy’s Game in Saigon, May 1968. St. Paul, MN: Zenith, 2006. Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1993. Tap Chi Lich Su Quan Su, So Dac Biet 20 Nam Tet Mau Than [Military History Magazine, Special Issue Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive], Issue 2, 1988. Willbanks, James H. The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Missing in Action, Allied Term applied to military personnel whose fate remains unclear. The term “missing in action” (MIA) is sometimes known in the United States as the term “prisoner of war/missing in action” (POW/MIA). There are no reliable figures of how many Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers are missing—some estimates are as high as 330,000 for both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam)—and the number of missing from other allied nations is minuscule. The term has thus normally been applied to approximately 2,500 missing Americans, the exact number and fate of whom has long been the source of major political disputes. Under the Paris Peace Accords signed in January 1973, the North Vietnamese government and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) agreed to return all U.S. POWs and, under Article 8b, to make every effort to provide information on the fate of MIAs. Following the agreement, the North Vietnamese returned 591 Americans POWs, and President Richard M. Nixon announced on March 29, 1973, that “All our American POWs are on their way home.” Questions were immediately raised, however, about why the number of POWs was so low, but various executive and congressional studies concluded that there was no credible evidence that any of the missing Americans were still alive. In 1977 under President Jimmy Carter, the Pentagon declared that more than 1,000 of this number were to be reclassified from MIA to killed in action/body not recovered (KIA/BNR), that is, definitely dead, while the rest should be presumed dead. Only U.S. Air Force colonel Charles Shelton was now listed, apparently simply to keep the issue active, as a possible POW. Under pressure from, among other organizations, the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, in 1979 Congress changed the status of soldiers considered KIA/BNR back to POW/MIA. This action both restored higher benefits to family members (some of whom offered to return the money so as not to cloud the issue) and kept the hopes of loved ones alive. After 1982 President Ronald Reagan repeatedly stated that he believed that some Americans might still be held against their will in Indochina. Under his direction, a black-andwhite POW/MIA flag designed by the National League has flown at the White House one day per year as the only other flag ever hoisted there. By 1990 a law required the POW/MIA flag to be flown on at least one municipal building in every Massachusetts community, and all 50 states had an officially recognized National POW/MIA Recognition Day. Similarly, in the 1992 presidential campaign independent candidate Ross Perot not only stated his belief that Americans were still alive but also made clear that he had funded previous efforts to retrieve them. Yet another congressional committee was then founded under the direction of Vietnam War veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Senator John F.

Missing in Action, Allied

761

Americans Unaccounted for in Southeast Asia Service U.S. Army U.S. Navy U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Air Force U.S. Coast Guard American civilians Total

Country of Loss North Vietnam

South Vietnam

Laos

Cambodia

China

Total

9 274 23 217 0 1 524

479 90 195 160 1 20 945

101 28 16 254 0 12 411

28 1 8 18 0 5 60

0 8 0 0 0 0 8

617 401 242 649 1 3 1,948

Kerry of Massachusetts, and the U.S. Postal Service issued a POW/ MIA stamp. Meanwhile, a number of popular movies showed live Americans being rescued. The belief that there were live American POWs in Vietnam was partly fueled by Bobby Garwood, an American marine POW and alleged Communist collaborator with the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) who returned to the United States in 1978. He claimed to have seen up to 70 Americans held against their will. Additional evidence included reports that the Vietnamese had held thousands of French soldiers against their will after the 1954 Geneva agreement, reports by literally thousands of Vietnamese of “live sightings,” photos or dog tags (military identification tags) of alleged POWs, and allegedly genuine documents from the former Soviet Union that suggested that American airmen had been sent to the Soviet Union. Behind evidence of this sort lay deep suspicions of the credibility of both the U.S. and Indochinese governments. On the American side, the fact that President Richard Nixon was inquiring about the fate of certain so-called discrepancy cases (Americans known to have been captured alive but not returned) when he stated publicly that all U.S. POWs were returning home suggested that he had not been completely candid. Subsequent anger over the allegedly confused and insensitive handling of this issue added to the problem. By the 1990s the POW/MIA issue had for many become part of a larger criticism of the federal government. Those who believed that the POW/MIA issue was not being properly handled were further angered by the fact that hardliners within the Vietnamese government had initially linked the fulfillment of their obligations under Article 8a of the Paris Peace Accords to the U.S. promise (under Article 25) to provide reconstruction aid. Ironically, even after the Vietnamese government recognized that the POW/MIA issue was humanitarian rather than political and agreed in 1987 to let a U.S. mission headed by retired U.S. general John Vessey work in Vietnam on the issue, the Vietnamese tendency to produce information that they once claimed not to have only fueled the worst suspicions of its critics. In Cambodia, neither the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, still in effective control of parts of the country, nor its generally ineffective successors were much help. Similarly, neither the Laotian nor Vietnamese governments have been willing to pursue the fate of

the relatively large number of Americans lost in Laos. Compounding the problem is the suspicion held by many that the exact location of where some of the Americans were lost may have been altered because they were on illegal missions. Here again, deep distrust inflamed an already highly emotional issue. Countering all of this were the arguments of those who believe that at least in recent years both governments have done all they could to resolve an inherently tragic issue. Supporters of this position point out that roughly 80,000 U.S. citizens are still listed as missing from World War II, and about 8,000, or three times the relative percentage of the armed forces who served, are still unaccounted for from the Korean War. They point to the continued fighting and grave difficulties that the North Vietnamese and the NLF had after 1973 and conclude that it was extremely difficult for the Vietnamese to tackle the MIA question during the initial years when bodies might most likely have been recovered, and they see no reason why Vietnam could possibly want to hold Americans captive for so long. Some critics even charged that the POW/MIA issue has been kept alive for unsavory reasons. In their view, too many Southeast Asians reported sightings and manufacture photos or dog tags to make money, and too many POW/MIA advocates did so out of anger at having lost the war, the wish to avoid paying reconstruction costs, and/or simply to advance their own fortunes. In the view of these critics, an alliance of the noble, the gullible, and the unsavory had for too long kept alive the sad hopes of the families of the missing. In an effort to address the POW/MIA issue, the U.S. government opened the Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI), the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world, located on the Hawaiian island of Oahu to assist in searching for, recovering, and identifying Americans still missing in Southeast Asia. In 1992 this effort was expanded with the establishment of Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA), which was formed to work in concert with the CILHI to achieve the fullest possible accounting of Americans missing as a result of the Vietnam War. The JTF-FA maintained three permanent overseas attachments (in Bangkok, Hanoi, and Vientiane, Laos) to assist with command and control, logistics, and in-country support during investigation and recovery operations.

762

Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist

By 1995, President Bill Clinton believed that sufficient progress had been made, particularly on the so-called discrepancy cases (the 100 to 300 Americans reportedly seen alive), to justify the diplomatic recognition of Vietnam. Yet the sad search continued, as did the mistrust by conservatives of both the U.S. and Vietnamese governments. As late as September 1996, U.S. officials listed 2,143 Americans still missing in action in Southeast Asia. More than 1,600 of the total were in Vietnam. In 2003 the Department of Defense determined that POW/MIA accounting efforts would be best served by combining the JTF-FA and the CILHI to form the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), which was activated on October 1 of that year. JPAC remains the Defense Department’s operational agency for worldwide investigations, recoveries, and identification of Americans still missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. To date, more than 1,500 individuals have been identified and returned to their families for burial. PETER K. FROST See also Casualties; Clinton, William Jefferson; Garwood, Robert Russell; Kerry, John Forbes; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Peace Accords; Perot, Henry Ross; Prisoners of War, Allied; Vessey, John William, Jr. References Groom, Winston, and Duncan Spencer. Conversations with the Enemy: The Story of Pfc. Robert Garwood. New York: Putnam, 1983. Jensen-Stevenson, Monika, and William Stevenson. Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam. New York: Dutton, 1990. Keating, Susan Katz. Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW/MIA Myth in America. New York: Random House, 1994. McConnell, Malcolm. Inside the Hanoi Secret Archives: Solving the MIA Mystery. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Swift, Earl. Where They Lay: Searching for America’s Lost Soldiers. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. U.S. Senate. Report of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, 103 Cong., 1st Sess., January 13, 1993. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist After the Vietnam War, America’s attention centered on its own military personnel missing in action (MIA). This is understandable, but most Americans were not much interested in or even aware of the much larger number of Communist MIAs in the war. Many Vietnamese families had only red-bordered Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) government certificates that proclaimed their loved one as a “Vietnamese martyr in the struggle against America.” According to the SRV government, more than 300,000 Vietnamese are missing and presumed dead from the Vietnam War. The largest number of these—more than three-quarters of the total—are from the central or north-central provinces of Vietnam.

The figure includes Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) presumed dead as well as tens of thousands of Vietnamese who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). In talks to normalize relations between the SRV and the United States in the 1990s, Hanoi officials never did make a major issue of Vietnamese MIAs, but they did point out in subtle ways that at least 150 times as many Vietnamese are missing than are Americans. Also, very few northerners killed in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) have been returned to northern Vietnam for reburial. In a country in which ancestor worship dominates the spiritual life, many people believe that it is essential that remains be located and properly buried. Vietnamese endeavoring to locate remains of their loved ones have virtually no leads, apart from the terse government announcement that they received announcing a relative’s death in the war. These provided no information on where a body might be buried, and on many occasions years passed before a surviving relative was notified. Soldiers killed in battle were usually hastily buried in unmarked graves, and no identifiable remains exist of many who died in Boeing B-52 Superfortress strikes. Even if bodies are recovered, problems of identification are far more daunting because the SRV does not have the technological means to identify them. Dental records, a key in recognizing individual Americans who died in the war, are usually not available for Vietnamese, few of whom ever had the luxury of a dental X-ray. Vietnam’s military cemeteries contain many empty graves with markers that include no death date. No effective government assistance is available to locate MIAs. Those Vietnamese who embark on this quest must do it almost entirely on their own. The Vietnamese military does have an active remains recovery program, but this program seems to be centered primarily on recovering the remains of Vietnamese “volunteer” soldiers killed in Laos and Cambodia. The Vietnamese military has no central personnel registry that can assist in locating missing loved ones, and because of Vietnamese wartime secrecy regulations and the confusion and vagaries of war, many Vietnamese families do not even know the unit in which their family member was serving when he or she disappeared. Some U.S. help has come forward. In September 1996 representatives of the American Vietnam Veterans’ Association handed over to Hanoi information on mass graves in which 600 Vietnamese servicemen were believed buried. To that point the association had provided information on the burial sites of an estimated 6,000 Vietnamese. Prisoners of war (POWs) were another matter. After 1954, those who fought as Viet Cong (VC) against the South Vietnamese government were considered to be Communist rebels, and those who were captured were incarcerated in many prisons known as Communist rebel camps. These were under the control of the ARVN and were run by the ARVN Military Police. VC political operatives were kept in regular prisons, known as Trung Tam Cai Huan (correctional centers). These were controlled by the Ministry of the Interior.

Mitchell, John Newton From 1961, the Communist rebel camps were renamed prisoners of war camps. There were four such camps, one in each military region. The largest camp was on Phu Quoc Island. Others were located at Tam Hiep, Can Tho, and Da Nang. After initial interrogation, all Communist POWs came under South Vietnamese rather than U.S. jurisdiction. Just prior to the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, more than 40,000 Communist prisoners were being held. In 1960 there were about 126 prison camps of all kinds. The most infamous was the correctional center at Con Son (Poulo Condore Island). This prison had been notorious since the French built it and detained thousands of Vietnamese political prisoners there. Before 1975 Communists who were not members of the VC armed forces, and thus not protected by the Geneva Convention, were sent to Con Son after sentencing. Also sent there were non-Communist opponents of the South Vietnamese government. Except for some POWs guilty of murder in POW camps, no PAVN POWs were held at Con Son. Conditions in most of the civilian prisons were rather harsh compared with conditions in Western jails. In the early 1970s Con Son became notorious for its so-called tiger cages, where prisoners who violated regulations would be held incommunicado. GARY KERLEY, NGUYEN CONG LUAN, AND SPENCER C. TUCKER

763

Controversy filled Mitchell’s tenure in the position. He advocated prosecution of antiwar demonstrators and labeled them Communists. Fearing further erosion of support for the Vietnam War, Mitchell unsuccessfully sought to stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, first with a simple request and then with a restraining order. He also approved the conspiracy indictment of Daniel Ellsberg, who had surreptitiously revealed the existence of the documents. Beginning in 1972, the political fortunes of Mitchell began to wane. He resigned his cabinet position in February to head the Committee to Re-elect the President; the actual acronym for the organization was “CRP,” but the organization was later nicknamed with the acronym “CREEP.” On March 1, 1974, he faced indictment—and eventual conviction—for his role in the Watergate Scandal and cover-up. The charges against Mitchell included conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Secret White House tapes included Mitchell’s voice in the spring of 1972 plotting the break-in at the office of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Evidence also showed that Mitchell had met with Nixon at least three times in an attempt to cover up White House involvement in the burglary. Mitchell spent 19 months in prison,

See also Casualties; Missing in Action, Allied; Poulo Condore; Prisoners of War, Allied; Tiger Cages; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Gerassi, John. North Vietnam: A Documentary. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1968. Vu Thu Hien. Dem Giua Ban Ngay. Westminster, CA: Van Nghe, 1997.

Mitchell, John Newton Birth Date: September 15, 1913 Death Date: November 9, 1988 Lawyer, U.S. attorney general (1969–1972), and central figure in the Watergate Scandal that forced President Richard M. Nixon from office. Born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 15, 1913, John Newton Mitchell attended law school at Fordham University, graduating in 1938. During World War II he served in the Pacific as a patrol torpedo (PT) boat squadron commander. After the war he practiced law and became an expert in public finance. Except for his World War II service, he worked continuously as an attorney in New York City from 1938 to 1968, earning high marks as a municipal bond lawyer. In 1967 the law firm for which Mitchell worked merged with the one that employed Nixon; the consolidation led to a lasting political relationship between the two men. In 1968 after much urging on Nixon’s part, Mitchell managed Nixon’s successful 1968 presidential campaign. The following year the president appointed Mitchell attorney general of the United States.

John Mitchell was U.S. attorney general during 1969–1972 and the first to hold that office who was ever convicted of illegal activities and imprisoned—a result of his involvement in the Watergate Scandal. (AP/Wide World Photos)

764

Mobile Guerrilla Forces

becoming the first U.S. attorney general to serve a prison term. He lived in relative obscurity thereafter and died in Washington, D.C., on November 9, 1988. DEAN BRUMLEY See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Huston Plan; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pentagon Papers and Trial; United States Department of Justice; Watergate Scandal References Haldeman, H. R. The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House. New York: Putnam, 1994. Harris, Richard. Justice: The Crisis of Law, Order, and Freedom in America. New York: Dutton, 1970. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Schoenebaum, Eleanora W. Political Profiles: The Nixon/Ford Years. New York: Facts on File, 1979. Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971.

Mobile Guerrilla Forces Counterinsurgency force in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). With active U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, U.S. Army Special Forces experimented with using indigenous troops in various capacities. Vietnamese recruits were trained for a variety of military tasks that focused on reconnaissance and camp defense as part of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG). In the autumn of 1966 Special Forces commanders began experimenting with deploying indigenous troops on extended offensive combat operations. The result was the Mobile Guerrilla Forces (MGF), company-sized units trained and led by a Special Forces detachment. Envisioned by Colonel Francis J. Kelly, then commanding the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), these units were to deploy on intensive combat operations for up to 60 days. Following approximately five weeks of training in offensive tactics and surveillance, Vietnamese volunteers were normally deployed by helicopter to attack remote Viet Cong (VC) outposts and supply routes. These missions were normally labeled Operation BLACKJACK, a named derived from Colonel Kelly’s radio call sign. First deployed in November 1966 as Task Force 777, MGF units immediately proved to be an excellent counterinsurgency asset. By January 1967 these operations were experiencing tactical successes and becoming more widespread throughout South Vietnam. Despite their success, MGF units faced many problems. In the first place, they were not true guerrilla forces. Although the soldiers were themselves indigenous troops, they were seldom natives of the region where they operated. This lack of firsthand intelligence hampered effectiveness. Also, resupply of the MGF units was such a problem that deployments seldom lasted longer than two weeks. Another limitation of these units was the rudimentary training

given to the soldiers. Although MGF units were given more training than regular CIDG soldiers, the MGF units had neither the tactical proficiency nor the unit cohesion needed for extended field operations. Nevertheless, MGF units were a successful experiment for the Special Forces. Not only did these units greatly aid intelligence gathering, they also proved adept at search-and-destroy and other offensive operations in remote sections of South Vietnam. In May 1968 the MGF was merged with the Mobile Strike Force (“Mike Force”) to form Mobile Strike Force Commands. The decision to form these new units was based to some degree on the tactical success of the MGF. RICHARD D. STARNES See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Mobile Strike

Force Commands; Search and Destroy; United States Special Forces References Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Mobile Riverine Force Joint U.S. Army–U.S. Navy force created in mid-1966 for searchand-destroy operations in the Mekong Delta. In early 1967 this operation was designated Task Force 117, or the Mekong Delta Mobile Riverine Force (MRF). The concept for the MRF developed from a close study of the French experiences with Dinassauts (integrated French tactical units comprised of naval and army forces for riverine warfare during the Indochina War). Similar to the French operation, the MRF required a ground element to deploy from the naval component. Because U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland had deployed the U.S. Marines to the I Corps Tactical Zone (I CTZ) in 1965, the MRF relied on a specially trained U.S. Army force that consisted of the 2nd Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division. The MRF’s naval arm, River Assault Flotilla 1, consisted of troop-carrying and support boats divided into four river squadrons. The key boats were 26 armored troop carriers (ATCs), or converted mechanized landing craft (LCM-6s), which had a variety of armament and could carry 40 combat troops. Specially converted ATCs served as the Brown Water (Riverine) Fleet’s refuelers, landing pads for helicopters, and medical aid stations. The River Assault Squadrons’ flagships were two commandand-control boats, also converted LCM-6s, that had radar and radio equipment to keep in contact with all of the boats and served as headquarters for the ground and naval force commanders. A

Mobile Strike Force Commands

765

With the tall buildings of Saigon in the distance, vessels of the U.S. Navy Mobile Riverine Force transport troops down the Saigon River in the Rung Sat Special Zone, an area in which the Viet Cong were especially active. (AP/Wide World Photos)

spoon-bowed LCM-6 conversion, the monitor, became the battleship of the Brown Water Fleet. Each squadron had five of these heavily armed units at their disposal. A modified monitor, dubbed a “Zippo,” mounted two flamethrowers forward. All of the aforementioned boats were equipped with a wide assortment of weapons, and all carried upgraded armor as well as standoff armor to predetonate incoming rockets. The destroyer/minesweeper of the fleet was the assault support patrol boat. Each squadron had 16 of these boats, which were mission-designed and built for the MRF. From its inception, the MRF had bases ashore as well as those afloat. The MRF’s principal land base was Dong Tam, located northwest of My Tho. The afloat element consisted of the mobile riverine base (MRB), which could move anywhere on large waterways throughout the delta. The MRB included one barracks barge, two barracks ships, two tugs, one landing craft repair ship, two landing ship tanks, and one salvage craft. A different type of base, the mobile support base, built on four pontoons, included a helicopter landing pad, crews quarters, and a mess area. When the commander of Naval Forces, Vietnam, launched Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS) in 1968, elements of the MRF contributed to the campaign. Also in

1968 Vietnamization began, and by August 1969 Task Force 117 was disestablished. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also Dinassauts; Mekong Delta; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; SEALORDS; United States Navy; Westmoreland, William Childs References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Mobile Strike Force Commands Indigenous Vietnamese forces employed by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in counterinsurgency operations. From the beginning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, indigenous forces played a role in attempts to defeat Communist insurgents. Organized, trained, and usually led by U.S. Army Special Forces

766

Moffat, Abbot Low

advisers, native irregulars began as village defenders tasked with local security missions. As time passed the Special Forces organized indigenous battalions capable of projecting combat power throughout Vietnam in many different ways. By 1968 brigade-sized elements known as Mobile Strike Force Commands were activated, first in Pleiku and later in each Corps Tactical Zone (CTZ). To understand the significance of the Mobile Strike Force Commands, the evolution of indigenous forces must first be considered. Success with strike forces in the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program led Special Forces advisers to use highly trained native troops in offensive operations. In October 1964 the Eagle Flight platoon was formed at Pleiku. The platoon consisted of highly trained Rhadé troops and was used for reconnaissance and limited combat operations. By June 1965 the success of Eagle Flight led U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), to authorize the creation of similar units in each CTZ. Known as Mobile Strike Forces, these company-sized units were used for reconnaissance and camp defense missions. They also had success against both Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces. The Mobile Strike Forces were normally deployed by helicopter and were designed to be airborne, a goal never fully achieved. They received the appellation “Mike Forces” because the letter “M” (for Mobile) is expressed as “Mike” in the military phonetic alphabet. Mobile Guerrilla Forces were another stage in this evolutionary process. Originated as Operation BLACKJACK, company-sized units were inserted into VC areas for combat operations lasting up to two weeks. This successful offensive use of indigenous forces led to the May 26, 1968, merger of Mike Forces and Mobile Guerrilla Forces. The new units were known as Mobile Strike Force Commands. With the creation of the Mobile Strike Force Commands, the use of U.S.-led indigenous troops reached its most significant level. Not only were the Mobile Strike Force Commands now of brigade strength, but they were often deployed in joint offensive operations with regular U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces. Beyond this use, the new formations gave Special Forces advisers an important capability for attacking VC strongholds without relying on support from sometimes reluctant U.S. commanders. Disbanded on December 31, 1970, these effective forces played an important role in subsequent combat operations in South Vietnam. RICHARD D. STARNES See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Military Assis-

tance Command, Vietnam; Mobile Guerrilla Forces; United States Special Forces References Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Moffat, Abbot Low Birth Date: May 12, 1901 Death Date: April 17, 1996 New York politician and midlevel diplomat. Abbot Low Moffatt was born on May 12, 1901, in New York City. He attended the elite Groton preparatory school and received a BA degree from Harvard University in 1923; he later earned a law degree from Columbia University. As a young man he traveled extensively, including a 25-day junket through Indochina on an ox-drawn cart. In 1929 at age 28, he entered politics when he was elected to the New York State Assembly as a Republican. He stayed in the Assembly for many years, amassing a considerable amount of power during a time in which the legislature in New York wielded much influence. He remained in state politics until 1943 and changed his affiliation to the Democratic Party in the 1950s at the urging of his wife. In 1943 Moffat decided to pursue a career in the U.S. foreign service, where he became an expert on Asia. In 1946 he met personally with Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. The cables that Moffat sent to Washington after his meeting portrayed Ho as first and foremost a dedicated nationalist whose message of self-determination and economic betterment for the Vietnamese people resonated deeply with his supporters. In Moffat’s transmissions to Washington, he presciently warned against U.S. involvement in the growing civil and anticolonial war in Indochina. Indeed, he warned his superiors at the State Department to be leery of hard-line policies against nationalist movements in Asia. Moffat believed that the U.S. fixation on anticommunism was obscuring its true interests in Southeast Asia. Despite his warnings, U.S. policy makers adhered to hard-line containment policies. Moffat was especially critical of French colonial policy toward Indochina. Years after leaving the foreign service, he lamented that he was “bitterly disappointed” with U.S. policy in the region. In 1962 Moffatt retired from government service and moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he was quite active in civic and political happenings. He died in Highstown, New Jersey, on April 17, 1996. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Containment Policy; Ho Chi Minh References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Duiker, William J. U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich

767

Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Birth Date: March 9, 1890 Death Date: November 8, 1986 Soviet diplomat and foreign minister of the Soviet Union (1939– 1949 and 1953–1956). Born Vyacheslav Skriabin on March 9, 1890, in Kukarka, Viatsk Province, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov made his reputation as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s right-hand man during the 1920s and 1930s. Molotov attended the Polytechnic Institute in St. Petersburg and joined the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party in 1905, at which time he changed his name to Molotov, which means “hammer.” After taking part in the abortive 1905 Revolution, in 1909 he was arrested and sentenced to two years in internal exile. After he was released he went to St. Petersburg and became a staffer for Pravda, the official Bolshevik newspaper. He also became a close friend and confidant to Stalin. Arrested and detained several more times, Molotov escaped from prison and was at large during the successful November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Thereafter he held a series of important posts and oversaw the new Soviet Union’s nationalization policies. By 1926 he was a full member of the Politburo, and in 1930 he became Soviet premier. Molotov was doggedly loyal to Stalin and played a major role in the political purges of the 1930s. Appointed foreign minister in mid-1939, Molotov quickly gained international recognition for concluding the German-Soviet Pact in August of that year, an essential prelude to the German invasion of Poland that began World War II. After the Germans reneged on the pact and attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Molotov played a key role in assembling the wartime alliance among the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Despite being removed from his official post by Stalin in 1948 and possibly being marked for inclusion in the Doctor’s Plot purge of 1952–1953, Molotov remained a staunch defender of Stalinism. In the immediate postwar years Molotov was a driving force behind the Soviet Union’s systematic takeover of Eastern Europe. He also took a tough stance toward the West. His hard-ball tactics and tenaciousness earned him the nicknames “Stonebottom” and “Old Iron Pants” in many Western capitals. Indeed, his famous clash with President Harry S. Truman in 1945 helped set the stage for the coming Cold War. Although the Soviet Union paid scant attention to Indochina before 1950, Molotov played a central role in the 1954 Geneva Conference. Having initiated the conference with his offer to broker a cease-fire in February 1954, the Soviet foreign minister served as cochair with British foreign secretary Anthony Eden. Despite his hardline reputation, Molotov engineered several key compromises that found their way into the final agreement. Under Soviet influence, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) agreed to the exclusion of the Cambodian and Laotian resistance movements from the conference while also accepting a two-year delay in holding elections in Vietnam. The tactic of pressing concessions on North Vietnamese representatives at Geneva, however, led to accusations

Vyacheslav M. Molotov (1890–1986) was a loyal supporter of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Molotov was foreign minister of the Soviet Union during 1939–1949. This photograph was taken around 1955. (Library of Congress)

that Molotov had deceived the Viet Minh and made a personal deal with French premier Pierre Mendès-France to keep France from joining the European Defense Community (EDC). However, there is little indication that the Soviets took seriously the concessions made at Geneva. In any case, Molotov privately told Western diplomats that there would never be free elections in Vietnam. In 1956 Molotov was removed as Soviet foreign minister for his continued adherence to hard-line policies. The next year he was expelled from the Politburo and exiled. Once considered second only to Stalin, Molotov served as Soviet ambassador to the Mongolian People’s Republic (1957–1960) and as the Soviet representative to the International Atomic Energy Commission (1960–1961). In 1962 he was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He continually petitioned for reinstatement, and in 1984 his membership was retroactively restored, making him its longest-standing member. Molotov died in Moscow on November 8, 1986, exactly 69 years after standing next to Lenin when the Bolshevik seizure of power was proclaimed there. TIMOTHY C. DOWLING See also Eden, Sir Robert Anthony; European Defense Community; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Mendès-France, Pierre; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

768

Momyer, William Wallace

References Bromage, Bernard. Molotov: The Story of an Era. London: Peter Owen, 1961. Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Paris: YMCA Press, 1980. Conquest, Robert. Stalin: Breaker of Nations. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 2000. Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968.

Momyer, William Wallace Birth Date: September 23, 1916 U.S. Air Force general. William Wallace “Spike” Momyer was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on September 23, 1916. After graduating from the University of Washington in 1937, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. During World War II while commanding the 33rd Fighter Group in Tunisia, Momyer shot down eight Axis aircraft, four of them on one mission. He remained in the U.S. Air Force after the war and served in a variety of assignments in the Tactical Air Command before graduating from the Air War College in 1950. Promoted to brigadier general in December 1955, that same year Momyer established the 314th Air Division in Korea and had charge of all U.S. Air Force units there. Later he commanded two North American F-100D Super Sabre fighter-bomber wings in the United States before assignments as director of Operational Requirements and then as assistant deputy chief of staff, Programs and Requirements, at U.S. Air Force Headquarters. He was promoted to major general in September 1959 and to lieutenant general in August 1964, when he became commander of the Air Training Command. Promoted to full general (four-star) rank in December 1967, Momyer became commander of the Seventh Air Force and deputy commander for air operations in the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). As such, he was responsible for Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the prolonged bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), as well as the massive air effort in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Momyer always believed that airpower could have done more if political restraints had been lifted, but he also maintained that the air force did all that it was asked to do. In 1968 General Momyer assumed command of the Tactical Air Command, a position he held until his retirement in 1973. Throughout his career, he was known as a no-nonsense commander and an ardent advocate of airpower. His book Airpower in Three Wars (1978) provides a detailed description of the application of tactical and strategic airpower in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; United States Air Force

References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1988. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Montagnards Indigenous peoples of the Vietnamese Central Highlands. Known to both the French and the Americans as Montagnards (mountain people or mountaineers), these peoples have referred to themselves in recent years as Dega (from the Rhadé) or Ana Chu (from the Jarai). According to Gerald C. Hickey, their principal ethnographer, both terms mean “Sons of the Mountains.” The Montagnards were often referred to as moi (“savages”) by the Vietnamese but officially became “highland compatriots,” “Dong Bao Thuong,” or “Sac Toc Thieu So” to the people of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and “Dan Toc It Nguoi” to the people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), all in attempts to win the allegiance of the Montagnards. The Montagnard population numbered perhaps 1 million people just prior to the 1968 Tet Offensive. Traditionally organized into perhaps 30 distinct tribal groupings, the largest were the Jarai, located in the Pleiku–Cheo Reo area; the Rhadé, in the Ban Me Thuot area; and the Bahnar, in the Kontum–An Khe area. Other distinct groupings include the Chru, Roglai, Bru, Pacoh, Katu, Rengao, Sedang, Halang, Jeh, Monom, Cua, Hre, Stieng, Mnong, Koho, Chil, Sre, Lat, Maa, Nop, Tring, and Chrau, many of whom are referred to by other names or similar names with different spellings. Many of these groups are also divided into subgroups, often identified by outsiders as distinct groups in themselves. The subsistence base of the highlanders has traditionally been dry rice farming in swidden cultivation plots commonly known as slash-burn agriculture, but in some areas wet rice or paddy cultivation has been practiced. Hunting and gathering have supplemented the diet. Traditional settlements were in villages that varied in size, depending upon the particular tribe, from 5 to 50 to perhaps 100 longhouses. These longhouses were usually shared by extended families organized along kinship lines with unilineal (patrilineal and matrilineal) and bilateral descent patterns. A prominent feature of most villages is the men’s house, with a distinct high and steeply sloped roof decorated with symbolic carvings and located in the village center. Animistic spirits reflect the intense attachment of the Montagnards to the land. The Montagnards have lived in the Central Highlands as a distinct cultural grouping at least since the Kingdom of Champa. Their physical separation from the Vietnamese, who settled primarily in

Montagnards the coastal lowlands and river valleys where they practiced wet rice cultivation, enabled the Montagnards to retain their distinct cultural identity. Until the more recent events of the colonial era when first the French and then the Americans, along with their Vietnamese allies, encroached upon the Central Highlands and disrupted their traditional cultural patterns, the Montagnards existed in relative independence. In response to these threats, politically active highlanders envisioned an area comprising the Central Highlands of Vietnam and the eastern mountains of Laos and Cambodia as an independent homeland, Ana Chu Chiang. The development of a common ethnic identity among the 30odd tribal groups was spurred by French colonial practices of land appropriations, labor corvées, and head taxes. During 1937–1938 when the Python God movement appeared, taking the Python God as the symbol of traditional Jarai beliefs, it had the aim of freeing the Central Highlands of French and Vietnamese outsiders. On May 27, 1946, in return for Montagnard support in the struggle against the Viet Minh, French Indochina high commissioner Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu issued an ordinance that declared that the Central Highland provinces of Darlac, Haut Donnai, Lang Bian, Pleiku, and Kontum would be formed into a Special Administrative Circumscription, with its administrative center at Ban Me Thuot. On June 1, 1946, d’Argenlieu proclaimed the area as the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina. By July 25, 1950, a Special Administrative Division, referred to as the Crown Domain of the Southern Highlander Country, was created under the direct authority of Emperor Bao Dai. By 1954 the Geneva Accords, the departure of the French, and the division of Vietnam brought the Montagnards under the authority of the South Vietnamese government, which classified them as ethnic minorities. Thus, the Montagnards saw their dreams of a homeland shattered at a conference where they had no representation. South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s land development program to resettle Vietnamese refugees from densely populated areas along the coast of central Vietnam resulted in the forced resettlement of Montagnard villages and the confiscation of tribal lands. In opposition to these policies, the highlanders formed Le Front pour la Liberation des Montagnards in 1955, which evolved into Bajaraka (a consolidation of Bahnar, Jarai, Rhadé, and Koho) in 1958, with a Rhadé, Y Bham Enuol, as president. The Bajaraka made a formal request to the Vietnamese government for highland autonomy. By 1964 the Bajaraka had evolved into Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for Oppressed Races), the ethnonationalistic movement of Montagnard, Khmer Krom, and Cham. With uprisings at Special Forces camps around Ban Me Thuot during September 1964, FULRO attempted to reclaim Montagnard lands taken by the Vietnamese. In response, the Saigon government created the Ministry for Development of Ethnic Minorities, with Paul Nur, a Bahnar, as minister, to implement social and economic programs and improve Montagnard conditions. By 1971 Nay Luett (Jarai), Touneh Han Tho (Chru), and Pierre-Marie

769

A U.S. Army medical specialist examines a child in a Montagnard village in 1963. The impact of the war on the Montagnards, an ethnic group from the highlands distinct from the Vietnamese, was catastrophic. Thousands of villagers were killed, and the designation of much of their territory as free fire zones destroyed the fabric of their culture by forcing the resettlement of traditional villages. (National Archives)

K’Briuh (Sre) had assumed leadership roles within the ministry, but with the 1972 Easter Offensive by the Communists, programs collapsed, and the Montagnards could only struggle to survive on their own. During the Vietnam War, Montagnards were recruited by both sides but became known to Americans primarily through the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) that operated out of Special Forces camps. The CIDG originated with David Nuttle of the International Volunteer Service. Working with the Rhadé in the Ban Me Thuot area, he became concerned about their protection from the Viet Cong (VC). Nuttle’s idea of a village defense program was developed by Gilbert Layton of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) into a project combining self-defense capabilities with social and economic programs to gain the allegiance of the highland peoples. The Special Forces would implement the project. In February 1962 the Rhadé village of Buon Enao, five miles east of Ban Me Thuot, became the first fortified village in the village defense program under a Special Forces detachment. Within 18 months some 27 CIDG camps with 40,000 militia and 11,000 strike force troops operated across the Central Highlands. The Montagnards saw this service as an opportunity to arm themselves

770

Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr.

in defense of their mountain homelands against Vietnamese encroachment. In addition to American Special Forces detachments, Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces) were also assigned to the camps. At the same time, given the historical enmity between the two peoples, the Vietnamese became alarmed at the Montagnards’ military capacity. FULRO uprisings during 1964–1965 exacerbated the tensions and resulted in the elimination of the village defense program by disbanding the militia. The CIDG strike force, now under the military chain of command in lieu of CIA control, was concentrated in some 25 camps along the Laotian and Cambodian borders, where the mission was to seal the border and infiltrate the Ho Chi Minh Trail. From CIDG camps, Montagnard strikers, with their American counterparts and the LLDB, operated on familiar highland terrain, patrolling the border area and into Cambodia and Laos. With Vietnamization during the latter years of American involvement, however, the U.S. Fifth Special Forces Group relinquished operations to the LLDB, and the CIDG units were integrated into South Vietnamese Ranger battalions or were disbanded. The war proved catastrophic to the highland peoples. The high casualty rates among Montagnard strikers were devastating, and modern technological warfare, from long-range artillery to Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and fighter-bombing runs, killed thousands of villagers. The creation of free-fire zones destroyed the very fabric of Montagnard culture by forcing resettlement of traditional villages. Gerald C. Hickey estimated that by the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, approximately one-third of the 1 million Montagnards were casualties, while some 85 percent of their villages were forcibly evacuated or abandoned. More than 200,000 Montagnards had died, approximately one-fifth of their entire population. The Montagnards charge that the expropriation of traditional Montagnard lands to resettle Vietnamese in new highland economic zones and the resettlement of Montagnard villagers to integrate them into the government is but a continuation of the policies begun before the war by Ngo Dinh Diem and continued after the war by the Communist government. Even after the American military withdrawal in 1973 and the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Montagnards continued to resist Vietnamese domination. Formed around 1974, the Dega Highlands Provisional Government, with its military arm, the Dega Highlands Liberation Front, held out against superior Vietnamese forces for 10 years before ending their struggle in 1984. Many of the fighters returned to the Central Highlands, but the leaders of the movement, some 200 men who formed the core of resistance against the Vietnamese, fled to the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border in 1985. There they were found in Site 2 South by three Americans, Don Scott, Pappy Hicks, and Jim Morris, who arranged for their passage to the United States. Armed resistance against the Vietnamese in the Central Highlands continued at least through 1993, when another 400 Montagnards were found in Cambodia and demobilized prior to their resettlement in the United States. Under the leadership of Ksor Kok, executive director of the Montagnard Founda-

tion, they continue to represent the Montagnard peoples in their struggle for cultural survival. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Ban Me Thuot, Battle of; Bao Dai; Central Highlands; Central Intelligence Agency; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Cochin China; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Enuol, Y Bham; Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées; Hickey, Gerald Cannon; Mobile Strike Force Commands; Ngo Dinh Diem; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Condominas, George. We Have Eaten the Forest: The Story of a Montagnard Village in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Translated by Adrienne Foulke. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Free in the Forest: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954–1976. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival among Vietnam’s Highland Peoples during the Vietnam War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Lebar, Frank C., Gerald C. Hickey, and John Musgrave. Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1964. Rubin, Jonathan. The Barking Deer. New York: George Braziller, 1974. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Montini, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria See Paul VI, Pope

Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr. Birth Date: February 13, 1922 U.S. Army officer and author. Harold (Hal) Gregory Moore Jr. was born in Bardstown, Kentucky, on February 13, 1922. Early in life he decided to pursue a career in the military, but he was unable to secure an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. In 1940 Moore moved with his family to Washington, D.C., where he finished high school and then completed two years of study at George Washington University. In 1942 in order to meet the urgent need for officers during World War II, Congress doubled the size of the West Point Corps of Cadets, and Moore secured admission to the U.S. Military Academy. He graduated in 1945. Moore was commissioned in the infantry and served with the 187th Regimental Combat Team (Airborne) in Japan until 1948. He then served with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. With the beginning of the Korean War in June 1950,

Moorer, Thomas Hinman Moore, now a captain, was assigned to the 7th Infantry Division and commanded a rifle company in Korea. Following 14 months in Korea, Moore, promoted to major in 1953, was assigned to West Point as an instructor of infantry tactics in 1954. He subsequently studied at the Armed Forces Staff College and at the Naval War College and earned a master’s degree in international relations from George Washington University. Assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1964, Lieutenant Colonel Moore assumed command of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). A new concept in air mobility, the entire division could be moved by its helicopters, although it would take several lifts to accomplish this. Moore trained his men for 14 months and then led his battalion with the remainder of the 1st Cavalry Division to Vietnam. The division established itself at An Khe in the Central Highlands. With intelligence indicating a buildup of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces near the Plei Mei Special Forces Camp, U.S. general William Westmoreland, head of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), decided to employ the 1st Cavalry Division to seek out and destroy the PAVN forces. On November 1, 1965, another battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division made contact with PAVN forces, and on November 14 Moore’s battalion was committed to join the search for PAVN forces. As it worked out, Moore’s understrength battalion was inserted into Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray on the Chu Pong Massif, in the midst of a PAVN regiment. Desperate fighting ensued, with Moore able to save his unit because of superb leadership, his thorough training of his men, and U.S. air support. His leadership in the battle for LZ X-Ray earned him the Distinguished Service Cross. Moore advanced steadily through the officer ranks. He subsequently commanded a brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division; commanded the 7th Infantry Division in Korea and then at Fort Ord, California; and served as the U.S. Army deputy chief of staff for personnel. Moore retired from the military in 1977 as a lieutenant general. In 1992 Moore published with Joseph Galloway, a correspondent who took part in the battle, We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young. This highly acclaimed book treats the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. The book was made into a popular movie of the same title starring Mel Gibson as Moore in 2002. In 2008 Moore and Galloway published a follow-on book titled We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam. JEFFERY B. COOK See also Ia Drang, Battle of References Galloway, Joseph L. “Fatal Victory.” U.S. News and World Report, October 29, 1990, 32. Hesenauer, Heike. “A Commander Remembers.” Soldiers 57 (March 2002): 36–37. Hesenauer, Heike. “We Were Soldiers. . . .” Soldiers 57 (March 2002): 26–35.

771

Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam. New York: Harper, 2008. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1992.

Moore, Robert Brevard Birth Date: October 21, 1909 U.S. Navy rear admiral. Born on October 21, 1909, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Robert Brevard Moore graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1932. Four years later he completed flight training and served as a naval aviator and flight instructor. During World War II Moore saw action first with the Atlantic Fleet and then in the Pacific theater. After the war he held a variety of assignments, most of them administrative posts. In 1955 Moore took command of the escort carrier USS Siboney, and in 1956 he took command of the fleet carrier USS Saratoga. After further assignments ashore, in 1961 Moore commanded the Iceland Defense Force. In June 1963 he assumed command of Carrier Division 5, then deployed in the western Pacific with his flag in the Constellation. Following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Moore directed the retaliatory air strikes on August 5, 1964, against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from the carriers Constellation and Ticonderoga in Operation PIERCE ARROW. Two months later Moore assumed command of naval air operations at San Diego. He retired from the navy in March 1967. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also DeSoto Missions; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Operation Plan 34A; PIERCE ARROW, Operation References Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Moorer, Thomas Hinman Birth Date: February 9, 1912 Death Date: February 5, 2004 U.S. Navy admiral who commanded or directed U.S. military forces during much of the Vietnam War. Born on February 9, 1912, in Mount Willing, Alabama, Thomas Hinman Moorer was a 1933 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. A gruff straight-talking combat veteran of World War II, he first exerted influence on U.S. actions in Southeast Asia during October 1962– March 1965, when he served as Commander of the Seventh Fleet and then as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Moorer was a strong advocate of using U.S. naval and airpower to dissuade the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North

772

Moorer, Thomas Hinman

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas H. Moorer listens intently during a briefing at U.S. Navy River Patrol Force headquarters in Binh Thuy in the Republic of Vietnam, August 1969. (Naval Historical Center)

Vietnam) from its support of insurgents in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Laos. In 1964 his aircraft carriers sent reconnaissance and escort planes over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. The admiral also called for extension of the DeSoto Patrol maritime reconnaissance program to include the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam and the use of the resulting intelligence in support of Washington’s covert Operation Plan 34A. On August 2, 1964, when North Vietnamese torpedo boats unsuccessfully attacked the U.S. Navy DeSoto patrol destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731), Moorer responded by immediately ordering the Maddox and another destroyer, USS Turner Joy (DD-950), to resume the operation in international waters along North Vietnam’s coastline. Convinced that Communist naval vessels carried out a second attack on the night of August 4, Moorer helped persuade Washington to launch retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam the following day. Before departing the theater for another command in March 1965, Moorer strongly endorsed the use of American warships to stop Communist seaborne infiltration, the deployment of U.S. ma-

rines to Da Nang, and the start of systematic bombing operations in Laos and North Vietnam. He was an early critic of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s efforts to micromanage the U.S. Navy–U.S. Air Force bombing campaign from Washington. In 1967 Moorer again assumed a leading role in the Vietnam War when President Lyndon Johnson appointed him chief of naval operations. Between July 1970 and July 1974 Moorer assumed even greater responsibility as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Although unable to persuade President Richard Nixon to slow the pace of the U.S. military withdrawal from Southeast Asia, Moorer did convince the president to resume the bombing of North Vietnam and to mine its ports in the spring of 1972, actions that helped cause Hanoi to agree to cease hostilities in Southeast Asia. Moorer retired in 1974 but remained critical of U.S. conduct of the Vietnam War, stating his belief that the United States should have invaded North Vietnam. In 1974 Admiral Moorer became briefly involved in the Watergate Scandal when his role in a military spying operation targeted

Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam against Henry Kissinger was disclosed. A navy yeoman detailed to Kissinger’s office was discovered to have secretly supplied to Moorer and the JCS top-secret information on Kissinger and Nixon’s Vietnam strategy and other sensitive subjects. While both Moorer and Kissinger tried to downplay the significance of this incident, Moorer’s “military spy ring” later became the subject of conspiracy theories about the Watergate Scandal. In his retirement, Moorer remained active in military and national security affairs, testified before Congress several times, and sat on the boards of several corporations, including that of Texaco and CACI International. He died on February 5, 2004, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. EDWARD J. MAROLDA See also DeSoto Missions; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; LINEBACKER II, Operation; McNamara, Robert Strange; Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Operation Plan 34A; United States Navy References Colodny, Len, and Robert Gettlin. Silent Coup: The Removal of a President. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam Event Date: October 15, 1969 The largest nationwide protest against American involvement in the Vietnam War. The origins of the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam can be traced to a presentation by Jerome Grossman at a meeting of the Massachusetts Political Action for Peace (MassPax) on April 20, 1969. Grossman, the chairman of MassPax, called for a nationwide general strike in October if the war had not ended by then. Each succeeding month the strike would be extended by one day. Grossman found only limited interest at the meeting in something as radical as a general strike. David Hawk, an antiwar activist, and Sam Brown, a friend and fellow veteran of the Eugene McCarthy presidential campaign in 1968, liked Grossman’s idea, but they suggested changing the term “strike” to “moratorium.” MassPax put $25,000 behind the idea, and on June 30 Hawk and Brown opened an eighth-floor moratorium office in Washington, D.C. The target date for the moratorium was October 15. The goal was to bring together and express a

773

broad, moderate, and majority position against the war. The initial campaign was planned as a massive house-to-house canvass by college students. Each month, the campaign would escalate. Working with Hawk and Brown were Marge Sklencar, a former student leader, and David Mixner, on leave from Senator George McGovern’s commission for the reform of the Democratic Party. The moratorium originally aimed at organizing some 300 college campuses, but the idea caught on and spread beyond colleges and universities. In part this was because of the efforts of the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a successor organization to the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam that had been left isolated and ineffective by the events of 1968 and early 1969 (both organizations were referred to as “the Mobe”). Word was also spread by an editorial in the New Republic. The day itself was an overwhelming success. Many people who had not protested before participated in the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. The largest turnout was in Boston, where 100,000 people gathered to hear Senator McGovern. The Boston Globe headline read “POLITICAL WOODSTOCK ON THE COMMON.” A great variety of events took place: silent vigils, readings of the names of those killed in the war, candlelight processions, church services, teach-ins, marches, discussions, rallies, and other events. Millions participated, with very little violence. Millions of other Americans considered the participants to be traitors, however. In November a follow-up to the moratorium was organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam group hesitated to associate itself with the Mobe’s plans until President Richard Nixon’s “Silent Majority” speech on November 3, 1969. The moratorium group was also led to participate by plans for the March against Death, which began at 6:00 p.m. on November 13, 1969. The march, congenial to the style of the moratorium, involved some 45,000 participants, each with a placard bearing the name of a soldier who had died in Vietnam. The 45,000 marched past the White House, calling out the names of the dead for two nights and into Saturday morning, November 15, 1969. On November 15 perhaps as many as 750,000 people converged on the Washington Monument for an antiwar rally. Although the speeches were not that memorable, the music was. Using a sound system by William Hanley similar to the one used at Woodstock, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and Peter, Paul, and Mary as well as four different touring casts of the musical Hair kept the rally going. A rally in San Francisco that same day drew perhaps as many as 250,000 people. The events of October and November were a high point for the antiwar movement. Hundreds of thousands who had not demonstrated before took part. It was not possible to sustain the momentum, however. The Mobe ran into serious difficulties at a meeting of the coordinating committee in December, but the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam had already far exceeded expectations. Both played a part in the events of 1970 but were overwhelmed by

774

Mordant, Eugène

Peace activists organize at their headquarters in preparation for the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. Held on October 15, 1969, the rally at the Washington Monument was the largest nationwide protest to date against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (Library of Congress)

the massive and basically spontaneous reactions to the invasion of Cambodia that spring. MICHAEL RICHARDS See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr.; Kent State University Shootings; McGovern, George Stanley References Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Morgan, Edward P. The 60s Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

Mordant, Eugène Birth Date: 1885 Death Date: Unknown French Army general and commander of French forces in Indochina (1941–1944). General Eugène Mordant retired in June 1944, and that July he met in Hanoi with Gaullist agent François de Langlade, who had been parachuted into Tonkin by a

British aircraft from Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). Mordant had secretly switched his allegiance from the collaborationist Vichy government to General Charles de Gaulle and the Free French in October 1943. De Gaulle had charged Mordant with organizing a Free French movement in Indochina and in August appointed him delegate general of the French government for Indochina and vice president of the secret Indochinese Council. In effect Mordant, nominally responsible to Vichy sympathizer Admiral Jean Decoux, became de facto head of the French government in Indochina. It proved to be an unfortunate choice for the French. In late January 1945 de Gaulle and General Alphonse Juin, French Army chief of staff, sent Mordant a sobering report to the effect that no Allied intervention in Indochina would occur for at least six months yet ordering him to resist any Japanese attack. In the event of the latter, French forces were to regroup in mountain redoubts to the interior, chiefly the Tonkin highlands. No thought was given as to how they would be supplied with food and ammunition. Fearful of alerting the Japanese, Mordant was reluctant to begin preparations. When Lieutenant General Gabriel Sabattier, French Army commander in Tonkin, sought permission to begin establishing caches in the mountains for future action, Mordant refused him both porters and pack animals. On March 8 Sabattier, alarmed by reports of Japanese movements, placed his troops on armed-exercise status. The next day

Morse, Wayne Lyman Mordant canceled the order. On the following day Japanese forces under Lieutenant General Tsuchihashi Yuitsu carried out a coup in which they captured most of the French military and administration in Indochina, although Sabattier and some 6,000 of his men escaped, 5,000 of whom made it to refuge in China. The Japanese imprisoned Mordant in Hanoi; he was released from there by the Chinese at the end of the war. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Decoux, Jean; De Gaulle, Charles; Sabattier, Gabriel; Tsuchihashi Yuitsu References Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. De Folin, Jacques. Indochine, 1940–1955: La fin d’un rève. Paris: Perrin, 1993. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Mordant, Eugène. Au Service de la France en Indochine, 1941–1945. Saigon: IFOM, 1950. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Morrison, Norman Birth Date: December 29, 1933 Death Date: November 2, 1965 Peace activist and Vietnam War protester who doused himself with kerosene, set himself on fire, and committed suicide on November 2, 1965, to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Norman Morrison was born on December 29, 1933, in Erie, Pennsylvania. He attended the College of Wooster, majoring in religion, and graduated with a BA degree in 1956 before turning to Quakerism. In 1959 he received a bachelor of divinity degree from the Pittsburgh Presbyterian Seminary. In 1962 Morrison moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he served as the executive secretary of the Stony Run Meeting, a Quaker organization. In the early 1960s he became involved in various antiwar activities. The day Morrison died, he had read an article in a popular antiwar paper, I. F. Stone’s Weekly, titled “A Priest Tells How Our Bombers Razed His Church and Killed His People.” The article recounted the bombing of a village near Saigon by U.S. aircraft. The essay included an account of a French priest wounded in the bombing and the suffering that ensued. Morrison included this article in a letter mailed to his wife before his ultimate act of protest. In the letter, Morrison stated that he felt that he “must act for the children of the priest’s village.” On November 2, 1965, Morrison, the father of three, drove to the Pentagon with his nearly one-year-old daughter, Emily. Morrison’s decision to kill himself by self-immolation may well have been inspired by the actions of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, who set himself afire in Saigon on June 16, 1963, or Alice Herz, who

775

attempted self-immolation in Detroit on March 16, 1965, to protest the war. Herz died from massive burns 10 days later. At approximately 5:20 p.m., Morrison walked to a point about 50 yards from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s third-floor office, doused his body with kerosene, struck a match, and was instantly engulfed. Pentagon workers scurried to grab Morrison’s child before she could be injured. Morrison was taken by a military ambulance to nearby Fort Meyer Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival. The headline of the Washington Post on November 3, 1965, read “Man Burns Self to Death at Pentagon, Baby in His Arms Saved from the Fire before Hundreds.” This was one of eight acts of immolation that occurred in the United States during the Vietnam War. McNamara later wrote about the event in his book In Retrospect (1995) and stated that “Morrison’s death was a tragedy not only for his family but also for me and the country. It was an outcry against the killing that was destroying the lives of so many Vietnamese and American youth.” On May 9, 1967, a vigil was held to honor Morrison as part of a Pentagon camp-in protest. Morrison’s act of sacrifice received much attention in Vietnam, especially in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Indeed, there is a street named for him near Hanoi, a postage stamp displaying his image was issued, and several well-known Vietnamese poems are dedicated to his memory. BRIAN GURIAN See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Herz, Alice; McNamara, Robert Strange; Thich Quang Duc References Appy, Christian G. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Viking, 2003. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Morse, Wayne Lyman Birth Date: October 20, 1900 Death Date: July 22, 1974 Attorney, teacher, U.S. senator (1945–1969), and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Wayne Lyman Morse was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 20, 1900. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1923 with a BA degree and the next year earned an MA degree from the same institution. In 1928 Morse graduated from the University of Minnesota–Minneapolis with a law degree; he also began to teach there. In 1929 Morse joined the law faculty at the University of Oregon, where he later became dean of the college of law. In 1932 he received a doctorate in law from Columbia University.

776

Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

During World War II Morse held several positions with the U.S. Department of Labor, and during 1943–1944 he was a member of the National War Labor Board. Morse was first elected to represent Oregon in the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 1944. Gaining a reputation as a maverick who did not shy away from confronting his party’s leadership, he resigned from the Republican Party in 1952 and remained an independent until 1955, when he became a Democrat, principally at the urging of then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. While an independent in 1953, Morse staged the longest one-person filibuster in U.S. Senate history (22 hours, 26 minutes). In 1960 Morse ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination. Even after Morse had switched political parties, however, he proved no more malleable to the Democratic leadership. Indeed, he was one of the earliest opponents of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. In August 1964 Morse and Senator Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska) cast the only two votes against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Morse denounced both the launching of air strikes against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the deployment of U.S. ground troops to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Morse believed that the conflict in Vietnam was a civil war that did not warrant American involvement, especially because the Saigon regime was despotic and corrupt. In February 1966 he condemned the Lyndon Johnson administration for pursuing an illegal war, as Congress had not formally declared war. In March 1966 the Senate defeated Morse’s proposal to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Morse was defeated for reelection in 1968. In 1972 he mounted an unsuccessful campaign to regain his Senate seat. In 1974 he ran again for his old Senate seat but became ill and died in Eugene, Oregon, on July 22, 1974. ROBERT G. MANGRUM AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

or barrel, the base plate, the supporting bipod, and the sight. They are smaller, lighter, and easier to move than artillery. Mortars used by allied troops in Vietnam varied in size from the 4.2-inch mortar, which had a maximum range of about 3.5 miles and was usually mounted on vehicles or emplaced at firebases, to the smaller troop-carried 81-millimeter (mm) and 60-mm mortars at the battalion and company levels, respectively. Commonly used mortar ammunition included high explosive (either impact or proximity fused) for use against troops and light material; white phosphorus (“willy pete”) for screening, signaling, and incendiary action; illumination; and tactical gas rounds. Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces used primarily Soviet- and Chinesesupplied 82-mm and 120-mm mortars. The 120-mm mortar was very heavy; consequently, the most commonly used mortar in Communist service was the 82-mm, which was lighter than the 122-mm and would also fire U.S.-made 81-mm rounds. The effective range of the 82-mm mortar was approximately 1.8 miles. PAVN and VC soldiers were very capable mortar operators who were repeatedly able to place accurate fire and displace quickly before effective counterbattery fire could be brought to bear. They did this by hanging several rounds in the air toward a target and then quickly disassembling and moving the mortars before allied radar could be used to spot their mortar positions by tracking the trajectory of the projectiles. Communist forces often used their mortars in place of artillery, almost always preceding any ground attack with a mortar barrage. JAMES H. WILLBANKS

See also Gruening, Ernest Henry; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines References Austin, Anthony. The President’s War: The Story of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and How the Nation Was Trapped in Vietnam. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1971. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Wilkins, Lee. Wayne Morse: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985.

Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Portable muzzle-loaded smooth- or rifle-bored infantry weapons used to fire shells at low velocities, short ranges, and high-angle trajectories. Mortars consist primarily of four main parts: a tube

A U.S. Marine Corps 81-mm mortar crew near Vandegrift Combat Base on Route 9 near Khe Sanh in far northwestern South Vietnam. (National Archives)

Mortuary Affairs Operations See also Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Grenade Launchers; Hand Grenades; Rockets and Rocket Launchers References Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Scales, Robert H., Jr. Firepower in Limited War. 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995.

Mortuary Affairs Operations The provision of services relating to deceased military personnel including the recovery, collection, evacuation, escort, and temporary interment of remains and the inventory, safeguard, and evacuation of personal effects of deceased personnel. The Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army has had charge of deceased military personnel since the American Civil War (1861–1865), during which Quartermaster officers interred the dead in marked graves and kept a record of the burials. After reorganization in 1912, the Quartermaster Department became the Quartermaster Corps, a full-fledged branch of the service (as it is today). Specialized troops now replaced the role of caring for the dead previously undertaken by civilians. Mortuary Affairs (which is also known as Graves Registration) has come to include not only the search and recovery of remains but also responding to any mass fatality situation. As such, army Mortuary Affairs specialists have deployed around the world to assist with the care of deceased military personnel. The army’s Mortuary Affairs specialists are trained at the Quartermaster School at Fort Lee, Virginia. The 54th and 111th Quartermaster companies, the U.S. Army’s only active Mortuary Affairs units, deploy from Fort Lee when activated. During the Vietnam War, significant improvements were made in the army’s protocols concerning care for its dead. The nature of the conflict, especially the use of high-mobility small-unit tactics, lessened the number of unaccounted-for dead. In addition, better communications and transportation to and from the battlefield (particularly the use of helicopters) facilitated the rapid recovery of remains. During January 1961–July 1965 in the early years of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Air Force provided mortuary services. By 1963 the death rate among American forces had increased to the point that full-time staffing of the mortuary became necessary. In addition, the U.S. Air Force expanded the mortuary facility to accommodate the increase in workload. In early 1965 the need for qualified graves registration (GRREG) soldiers in Vietnam was recognized. In the meantime, military activity continued to increase, thereby escalating the number of deceased personnel. The increase necessitated another expansion of the mortuary facility and the addition of more staff; several army

777

GRREG personnel and an embalmer from the United States were then assigned to the facility. By mid-1965 the military leadership in Vietnam recognized the need for a single comprehensive service responsible for mortuary operations. Consequently, the U.S. Air Force transferred mortuary responsibility in Vietnam to the U.S. Army. The preponderance of deaths among U.S. forces in Vietnam came from U.S. Army, not U.S. Air Force, losses, and therefore it made practical sense that the army should assume responsibility for all mortuary operations in Vietnam and Thailand. On July 1, 1966, the U.S. Air Force transferred operational control of the mortuary at Tan Son Nhut Air Base to the U.S. Army. As the war in Vietnam progressed and the number of fatalities continued to rise, the deficiencies of the mortuary at Tan Son Nhut became apparent. Thus, a second mortuary opened at Da Nang Air Base on June 20, 1967, to process all remains recovered in the I Corps Tactical Zone. The Tet Offensive of 1968 made evident the need to again expand mortuary operations in Vietnam. During February 1968, for example, the mortuaries processed 3,000 remains, more than any comparable period during the conflict. With both mortuary facilities overstretched, the army constructed a new 20-table facility in Tan Son Nhut, allowing the storage and processing of additional remains. This mortuary became operational in August 1968. Toward the end of the war as the U.S. withdrawal began in the northern provinces of Vietnam in early 1972, it became necessary to deactivate the Da Nang mortuary. In February 1972 the Da Nang mortuary closed, with operational responsibility and personnel transferred to the Tan Son Nhut facility. In early 1973 decreased activity by the Viet Cong (VC) in the Saigon area created a similar situation for the Tan Son Nhut mortuary, and it too became inactive. Henceforth the U.S. military worked with government officials of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) until that government fell in 1975. Ultimately the remains of 96 percent of U.S. military personnel who fell in Vietnam were recovered. This compares to a 78 percent recovery rate for both World War II and the Korean War. The 4 percent not accounted for translates to about 2,300 soldiers. KIRSTY ANNE MONTGOMERY See also Casualties; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Hockey, Jenny, Jeanne Katz, and Neil Smalls, eds. Grief, Mourning and Death Ritual. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 2001. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Mortuary Affairs in Joint Operations. Washington, DC: August 28, 1996. U.S. Army Field Manual 4-20.64: Mortuary Affairs Operations. Washington DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, January 2007. U.S. Army Field Manual 10-1: Quartermaster Principles. “Mortuary Affairs,” chap. 18. Washington DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, August 11, 1994.

778

Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon

Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Start Date: May 22, 1972 End Date: May 30, 1972 Summit meeting between U.S. president Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during May 22–30, 1972, marking a historic turning point in U.S.-Soviet relations with the first presidential visit to the Soviet Union since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nixon’s nine-day summit meeting with Brezhnev solidified the superpower détente, under way since the late 1960s. Among the numerous agreements signed during the summit, the most important were the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM Treaty) and the accompanying Interim Agreement on Certain Measures with Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Weapons (Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement, SALT I Interim Agreement). These agreements completed the first stages of the larger SALT discussions. Crucial to understanding the nature of the Moscow summit is the international situation in which it occurred. In the early 1970s, relations between America and the Soviet Union had improved dramatically because of the relaxation of tensions in Europe in the aftermath of the Soviet suppression of the 1968 Prague uprising in Czechoslovakia. In the spirit of détente, the Nixon administration embarked on a policy of multilateral disarmament agreements, such as the 1971 signing of the Seabed Treaty. Détente ultimately served not only U.S. interests but also Soviet security interests. Despite relaxed tensions in Europe, Asian events might have had a damaging effect on U.S.-Soviet relations. The Vietnam War and the 1971 India-Pakistan War were certainly additional irritants. To the Soviets, however, détente outweighed these concerns, and a secret trip to Moscow by Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, in April 1972 finalized the summit plans. At the same time that the Americans were engaging the Soviets in détente they were also opening relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). By engaging both Communist nations simultaneously, the Nixon administration hoped to play one power against the other and additionally hoped that the Soviets and Chinese would pressure the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War. In addition to the fruitful Moscow discussions and daily signatures of agreements between the conferees, Nixon made trips to Leningrad and Kiev and gave a live radio-television address to the Soviet people. His address highlighted the shared historical struggles of the two nations and reiterated their mutual responsibilities as global superpowers. During the summit Nixon and Brezhnev discussed the status of the international community and a plethora of bilateral issues in hopes of continuing and furthering détente, despite the differing ideologies of the two superpowers. The two leaders agreed that smaller third-party states, including Vietnam, should not interfere with maintaining détente. Bilateral negotiations included the limitation of strategic armaments; commercial and economic agreements; cooperation

in health issues; environmental cooperation; scientific, educational, and cultural cooperation and exchanges; and cooperation in space exploration. The results of these negotiations provided the necessary framework for a joint space venture in 1975, large U.S. grain sales to the Soviets, and, most importantly, the SALT agreements. The majority of the summit concentrated on the SALT agreements. The Nixon administration had inherited a legacy of outdated doctrines pertaining to U.S. nuclear strategy. The antiquated policy of maintaining nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union was no longer practical because the Soviets had already achieved nuclear parity. Thus, through détente it was now possible to conduct negotiations limiting the growth of the superpower nuclear arsenals. In a first step toward the realization of SALT, on May 26 Nixon and Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement. The ABM Treaty limited the deployment of antiballistic missiles for each nation to two sites. The SALT Interim Agreement froze the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles possessed by each country. In a move to reaffirm both American and Soviet commitments to détente, the two powers signed the Basic Principles of Mutual Relations between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This document contained 12 principles and served to encapsulate the spirit of the Moscow summit and the evolving superpower détente. Some of the more important principles included the notion of peaceful coexistence and the promise of future summit meetings. By engaging the Soviets through détente, the Nixon administration also hoped to keep Soviet involvement in Vietnam to a minimum and to gain a potential upper hand in peace negotiations with North Vietnam. JONATHAN H. L’HOMMEDIEU See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Détente; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Loth,Wilfried. Overcoming the Cold War: A History of Détente, 1950– 1991. Translated by Robert F. Hogg. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Stebbins, Richard B., and Elaine P. Adams, eds. American Foreign Relations, 1972: A Documentary Record. New York: New York University Press, 1976. Stevenson, Richard William. The Rise and Fall of Détente: Relaxations of Tensions in US-Soviet Relations, 1953–1984. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Moyers, Billy Don Birth Date: June 5, 1934 Journalist, ordained minister, deputy director of the Peace Corps (1962–1963), presidential aide/adviser, and press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson (1965–1966). Born on June 5, 1934, at Hugo, Oklahoma, Billy Don (Bill) Moyers grew up in Marshall,

Moyers, Billy Don

779

Bill Moyers was presidential press secretary during 1965–1966. He is shown here with President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 24, 1965. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

Texas. While attending the University of Texas, in 1954 he worked in Washington for Lyndon Johnson’s Senate campaign. Moyers graduated in 1956 and began working as a news editor for a Texas radio station owned by Lady Bird Johnson. In 1959 Moyers earned a divinity degree and worked as a minister in Texas. He then rejoined Lyndon Johnson’s staff, serving as executive assistant in charge of scheduling personal appearances, writing speeches, and coordinating Johnson’s 1960 vice presidential campaign. In 1961 Moyers became associate director for public affairs at the Peace Corps and then in 1962 became its deputy director. Immediately after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Moyers served as a liaison for Kennedy administration officials and helped write President Johnson’s speeches. As one of Johnson’s chief domestic advisers, Moyers helped draft and oversee the Great Society legislation. He served as the de facto White House chief of staff beginning in October 1964 and encouraged Johnson to seek peaceful solutions in Southeast Asia. Moyers also managed the president’s 1964 television advertising campaign.

Becoming press secretary in July 1965, Moyers worked hard to mend Johnson’s relations with the press corps. He also hoped to influence Johnson’s foreign policy by becoming national security adviser but was denied the post. Believing that the president had become too engrossed with the Vietnam War and was turning away from his domestic reforms, Moyers resigned in December 1966. As editor of Newsday, Moyers defended the peace marches and antiwar demonstrations of the late 1960s. He resigned that editorship in 1970 and since 1972 has been a successful television correspondent and commentator. He has been the host of several news-journal programs, particularly on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and has narrated or collaborated on myriad other television programs. From 1976 to 1980 he was the editor and chief correspondent for CBS Reports. In recent years Moyers has become a vocal critic of the rightwing Republican Party and has alleged that U.S. journalists had done a poor job reporting on and investigating the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War. Moyers has authored or edited numerous books. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD

780

Mu Gia Pass

See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Media and the Vietnam War

Muller, Robert

References Moyers, Bill D. Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country. New York: Harper’s Magazine Press, 1971. Moyers, Bill D. Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times. New York: Anchor, 2005.

Influential Vietnam War veteran and peace advocate. Born in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, on July 29, 1945, Robert (Bobby) Muller received his undergraduate degree from Hofstra University and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps upon graduation in 1968. In September 1968 he went to Vietnam, where he served as a combat officer commanding a marine infantry platoon. In April 1969 while he was leading an assault near the demilitarized zone (DMZ), a bullet ripped through his chest and severed his spinal cord. He was quickly transported by helicopter to the hospital ship Repose, and this action ultimately saved his life. Paralyzed from the chest down, Muller endured many months of rehabilitation at the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in the Bronx, New York. While undergoing rehabilitation he saw firsthand the problems of inadequate care faced by numerous Vietnam War veterans. He then became a leader in the antiwar movement and an advocate for the fair treatment of all Vietnam War veterans. He soon founded a local chapter of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Nassau County, New York. Muller’s primary thrust became fighting for the rights of all veterans, regardless of their views on the war. In the early 1970s he attended law school at Hofstra and graduated with honors in 1974. That same year he appeared in the antiwar documentary film Hearts and Minds in which he discussed his life growing up on Long Island, his experiences in Vietnam, and his role in the antiwar movement. In 1978 while serving as legal counsel for the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, he founded Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), which subsequently was renamed Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) two years later and is now known as Veterans for America (VFA). As president of this organization during 1978–1987, Muller witnessed the passage of landmark legislation granting veterans compensation for Vietnam War–related injuries, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and exposure to Agent Orange. His organization’s challenge to VA policies led to a major transformation in the way in which the U.S. government treats veterans. In 1981 Muller led the first delegation of American veterans to return to Vietnam since the end of the war. The trip of reconciliation ultimately paved the way for the lifting of the economic embargo against Vietnam by the United States and the normalization of relations between the two nations in the 1990s. Muller spent much of the 1980s traveling throughout the United States raising money for his organization, speaking about his experiences in Vietnam, and meeting with former veterans. In 1984 Muller traveled to Cambodia, where he saw the chilling effects of genocide. This experience led him to work for land-mine victims throughout the world. With the VFA he cofounded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Mu Gia Pass The most important of three mountain passes through the rugged Truong Son Mountains (Chaîne Annamitique, or Annamite Cordillera) along the southern border between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Laos. The mountain range stretches for some 700 miles, from slightly south of the Red River Delta down to about 60 miles north of Saigon (presentday Ho Chi Minh City). During the Vietnam War the Mu Gia Pass (Deo Mu Gia), a key artery of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was used by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) primarily to move war matériel, typically during the dry season (November–April), in support of its struggle to defeat the forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After passing through the North Vietnamese city of Vinh, vehicles and personnel traveled in a south-southwesterly direction along Route 15 and then through the Mu Gia Pass on Route 12 into Laos before typically continuing southward on routes 23 and 911 toward Tchepone (Muang Xepon) and then east or southeast into South Vietnam. As the war progressed the road surface was improved, and petroleum pipelines were installed through the pass that were defended by hundreds of antiaircraft guns and, later, by surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and jet fighters. U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force air strikes, which included B-52 bombers and AC-130 gunships and were supported by electronic sensors and groundroad watch teams, took a huge toll on forces transiting the pass, but they were never able to entirely choke off the southbound traffic. GLENN E. HELM See also Ho Chi Minh Trail; Truong Son Mountains References Nalty, Bernard C. The War against Trucks: Aerial Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1968–1972. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, U.S. Air Force, 2005. Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999. Van Staaveren, Jacob. Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1960–1968: The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1993.

Mullender, Philippe See Devillers, Philippe

Birth Date: July 29, 1945

Murphy, Robert Daniel Continuing to promote world peace and to assist innocent civilian victims in war-ravaged countries, Muller has been involved in other campaigns and programs, such as the Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign and the Information Management and Mine Action Programs. Presently his work with the VFA focuses on ensuring that military members and their families who have served in the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War receive the best-quality care for postcombat psychological and neurological needs. He is also active in Operation Truth, an organization critical of the Iraq War. Muller continues to advance public discourse on the causes and consequences of war and the quality treatment for all veterans. CHARLES FRANCIS HOWLETT See also United States Veterans Administration; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Veterans of America References Behrens, David. “Vietnam War Deep Wounds.” In Long Island: Our Story, 357–358. Melville, NY: Newsday, 1998. Howlett, Charles F. “Long Island Confronts the Vietnam War: A Review of the Anti-war Movement,” Parts 1 and 2. Long Island Historical Journal 7 (Spring 1995): 144–165; 8 (Fall 1995): 56–75. Hunt, Andrew. The Turning: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. New York: New York University Press, 1999. MacPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984.

Munich Analogy A historical analogy suggesting that appeasement of aggressor or expansionist nations will only encourage further aggressive behavior. This analogy was widely used during the Cold War and compared attitudes toward the expansion of communism to the 1930s policy of appeasement championed by the British and French toward the expansion of Nazi Germany. British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, the chief architect of appeasement, believed that war could be averted by acquiescing to the more reasonable territorial demands being made by German leader Adolf Hitler. The culmination of this policy came in the September 1938 Munich Conference during which Chamberlain and French premier Édouard Daladier ceded German-speaking portions of Czechoslovakia to Germany. This policy failed to check Hitler’s desire for territorial aggrandizement, however, and led to his seizure of the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months later. Germany’s seizure of Czechoslovakia greatly benefited the German war machine, as the Germans made good use of Czechoslovak aircraft, artillery, and tanks as well as Czechoslovak industry. Indeed, this greatly aided the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, which sparked World War II. Cold War politicians often used the Munich analogy to justify military actions and tough stances against aggressors. For example, the Harry S. Truman administration used the analogy to justify the 1947 Truman Doctrine and the 1950 decision to enter

781

the Korean War. Many political leaders believed that such actions were necessary to prevent a third world war. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy used the lessons of 1930s appeasement to suggest that firm pressure had to be applied against the Soviets for their emplacement of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. The Munich analogy also dominated the thinking of American policy makers toward Vietnam. Leading U.S. policy makers remembered events preceding World War II and resolved not to repeat these mistakes in Indochina. They believed that the Communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), if given the opportunity to take over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), would continue to widen its influence throughout Indochina. This led to the mistaken conclusion that Ho Chi Minh was a bully who would back down if confronted with military force. The combination of this analogy, the principle of containment, and the domino theory formed the foundation of U.S. policy toward Vietnam and also served as a justification to escalate the Vietnam War beginning in 1965. Unfortunately, the analogy seemed to suggest that Germany in the 1930s was akin to North Vietnam in the 1960s, which was entirely without merit. In the run-up to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush seemed to resurrect the Munich analogy when he compared Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to Hitler. ERIC W. OSBORNE AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Containment Policy; Domino Theory References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Khong, Yuen Foong. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991.

Muoi Cuc See Nguyen Van Linh

Murphy, Robert Daniel Birth Date: October 28, 1894 Death Date: January 9, 1978 Diplomat, undersecretary of state for political affairs (1953–1959), and a member of the so-called Wise Men. Robert Daniel Murphy was among the most distinguished of American 20th-century career diplomats whose State Department career spanned 42 years, from 1917 to 1959. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,

782

Music and the Vietnam War

on October 28, 1894, and was educated at Marquette University and George Washington University. Until 1952 when Murphy was appointed as the first postwar U.S. ambassador to Japan, he was almost exclusively concerned with European affairs, serving in France and Germany between the wars and as U.S. envoy to the French military leadership in North Africa in the early 1940s. Attached to General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s staff from 1943 onward, in 1944 Murphy became political adviser on German affairs and until 1949 was the chief diplomatic adviser to the U.S. High Commission in Germany. From 1949 to 1952 he served as ambassador to Belgium. A Cold War warrior, Murphy by the late 1940s was deeply suspicious of the Soviet Union and other Communist states. Priding himself on his strong military connections and emphasizing the importance of force, strength, and power in international relations, he generally advocated taking an extremely hard line toward American opponents. Murphy believed that U.S. policy in both the 1948 Berlin Crisis and in the Korean War (1950–1953) was insufficiently firm and that the United States should have insisted upon land access to Berlin in the first instance and gone for all-out victory in the second, regardless of the consequences. Returning to the State Department in 1953 to work under John Foster Dulles, first as assistant secretary of state for United Nations (UN) affairs and later that year as deputy undersecretary of state, a position he held until he retired in 1959, Murphy enjoyed a congenial relationship with both the secretary and with President Eisenhower, his old wartime associate. In this capacity Murphy fully supported the American decisions of the mid-1950s to resist the spread of communism in Indochina by supporting non-Communist regimes in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Cambodia, and Laos. After he retired Murphy became one of the group of senior advisers known as the Wise Men whom Lyndon B. Johnson from time to time consulted on Vietnam issues. Predictably, given his previous attitudes on the importance of demonstrating military might, Murphy firmly supported the gradual expansion of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam, believing that any other course would signal U.S. weakness and lack of resolve. In early 1968 after the Tet Offensive, Johnson requested that the Wise Men undertake a major reassessment of U.S. policy toward Vietnam. While the group as a whole argued that the war could not be won and recommended that the United States seek a negotiated peace, advice that Johnson accepted, Murphy strongly dissented from its recommendations, arguing that the United States should not abandon its commitment to the war but instead should press the war to a successful conclusion whatever the cost. In 1969 he advised incoming president Richard M. Nixon on his major diplomatic appointments and in 1976 served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. On January 9, 1978, Murphy died of heart failure at his home in New York City. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Dulles, John Foster; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Wise Men

References Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1989. Brands, H. W. Cold Warriors: Eisenhower’s Generation and American Foreign Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Murphy, Robert D. Diplomat among Warriors. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Schandler, Herbert Y. The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Music and the Vietnam War The Vietnam conflict has been called “America’s first rock-androll war” because of the predominance of rock music that permeated the American experience there. As draft quotas were raised and deferment and exemption loopholes closed, an overwhelming number of military personnel belonged to one generation. The average age of combat soldiers was 19, and according to some figures 90 percent were under 23 years of age. Many of these young conscripts did not want to be in Vietnam, and no one wanted to be alienated from his own generation back home. Therefore, many GIs imported their tastes in music into the war zone. Rock music was the most popular genre, and beads and peace symbols were worn with and on many uniforms. Among the military branches, there was not much deviation in musical preference. There was a great rift between officers and enlisted men, however. According to an interview in Rolling Stone, most enlisted men preferred hard rock or psychedelic music, 30 percent enjoyed rhythm and blues, 10 percent enjoyed country, 5 percent enjoyed classical, and 10 percent enjoyed folk. The men often complained that Armed Forces Radio Vietnam broadcasts were geared to officers, with light classical music scattered among what the soldiers called “lame,” “teenybopperish,” “polka party,” or “bubble-gum” music. One soldier, who spoke anonymously in Rolling Stone, called Armed Forces Radio “the world’s shittiest, small-town midwest old-woman right-wing plastic useless propagandizing bummer unturned-on controlled low-fidelity non-stereo.” Some of the constraints on the type of music allowed on the airwaves came from the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), which prohibited from being played, among other songs, the Animals’ rock hit “We Gotta Get Outa This Place.” Most of the radio programs were prerecorded in Los Angeles and included Top 40 hits. Because radio in the war zone did not reflect the preferences of most soldiers, a key status symbol among GIs was the tape recorder. Cassette tapes, either brought from home or purchased on leave, were the most popular medium for music in Vietnam. The tape players were small, battery operated, and highly portable and were therefore easily carried into the field. The rhythms, raw energy, and screaming guitars of rock music mirrored the confusion of war and firefights, and because music

Music and the Vietnam War

Jimi Hendrix was acclaimed for his work with the electric guitar. Though his superb, highly amplified guitar playing was often upstaged by theatrics, his brief, explosive career was a quest to expand the horizons of music and sound. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

helps define a generation, music helped define the Vietnam War. Snatches from lyrics of popular songs were used in the context of the war. “Rock-and-roll” substituted for “lock and load,” referring to the procedure for readying the M-16 for firing or for switching the weapon from semiautomatic to automatic fire. Songs were written alluding to Vietnam, or those connections were assumed. “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, a former “Screaming Eagles” paratrooper, had references to the purple smoke used at landing zones. Phrases from the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” such as “Coming to take you away, dying to take you away,” had special meaning for marines at Khe Sanh. Popular among the enlisted men were Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, and other Asian bands that could imitate British and American rock groups and their hits with uncanny accuracy, even though band members could not speak English. These groups played in enlisted men’s clubs and civilian bars in Vietnam. Some of the more popular songs performed were “Simon Says,” “Black Is Black,” “Unchained Melody,” “Gloria,” “San Francisco (Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” “Sky Pilot,” and “Hey Jude.” According to writer Michael Herr, “sounds were as precious as water.” Some GIs even tried to form

783

bands, but the effort often proved futile because of troop movements and a general distrust of rock music by the officers. The 1960s generation’s catchphrase “sex, drugs, and rock-androll” was also nurtured in Vietnam, partly because of the black market and prostitution that inevitably spring up on the outskirts of war and groups of soldiers. Psychedelic rock music praised the virtues of drug use and being stoned. The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was perceived as a thinly disguised paean to LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). Music has always provided needed relief during wartime, but in World War II and the Korean War there was generally not the separation in musical preference between enlisted men and officers that occurred during the Vietnam War. World War II was different from the Vietnam War in that the 1940s witnessed a unified mission of fighting fascism and Nazism. In the later stages of the Vietnam War there was no such unity of purpose. This was the first war in which the GIs listened to antiwar and protest songs while fighting in the conflict. In previous wars the music had always been supportive. To be sure, however, the gap between music tastes among enlisted men and officers was much the same as the socalled generation gap that had developed between the youth generation and their elders on the home front during the 1960s. As rock and roll progressed and became both a symbol and an outlet for the younger generation in the United States, there developed marked differences in musical tastes between the generations. In general, those in their mid-twenties and up preferred mellower pop music that had predominated during the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. Those in their teens and early twenties, however, tended to listen to rock and roll. In the late 1980s Claude Michel-Schönberg’s and Alain Boubil’s musical Miss Saigon created a new musical venue for the Vietnam War, one with the added bonus of nearly two decades of distance between itself and the conflict. Premiering in London in September 1989, the musical ran continuously for 10 years at Theater Royal, Drury Lane. In New York the show opened in 1991 and ran until 2001 (4,092 performances). Miss Saigon is Broadway’s 10th-longest–running musical. Based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, the show follows the tragedies of a Vietnamese woman abandoned by her American GI lover and is set in Saigon in the 1970s, at the end of the Vietnam War. A highlight of the show is a re-creation of the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in April 1975. The music is at once poignant, uplifting, and contemporary. CHARLES N. FASANARO See also Baez, Joan Chandos; Drugs and Drug Use; Dylan, Bob; Media and the Vietnam War; Selective Service References Herr, Michael. Dispatches. New York: Knopf, 1977. Romanowski, Patricia, and Holly George-Warren. The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. New York: Fireside, 1995. Whitburn, Joel, ed. Billboard Book to Top 40 Hits. New York: WatsonGuptill, 2004.

784

Muste, Abraham Johannes

Muste, Abraham Johannes Birth Date: January 8, 1885 Death Date: February 11, 1967 Quaker minister, union organizer, radical, pacifist, and antiwar activist. Abraham Johannes Muste was born in Zierikzee, the Netherlands, on January 8, 1885. At the age of six he moved with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he spent much of his youth. From 1909 to 1914 he was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1914 he joined the Congregational Church, and from 1918 to 1926 he was a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). He was a dedicated pacifist during World War I. As a Quaker minister, he also became involved in union organizing. During the 1920s and 1930s Muste largely eschewed religion and became more radicalized as he continued to agitate for the labor agenda. He actually conferred with Leon Trotsky in Norway in 1936 but had a sudden change of heart upon his return to the United States that same year. Muste now rejected radical Marxism and dedicated his efforts to nonviolent pacifism, mainly through the peace organization Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). In 1940 he became executive secretary of FOR, a position he who would hold for the remainder of his life. During World War II Muste was outspoken in his criticism of the war, arguing that waging war against the Axis powers only encouraged them to resort to even more brutality. He also actively promoted conscientious objection and draft evasion as a way to register personal contempt for warfare. Muste and FOR pioneered the concept of peaceful passive resistance, which would soon be taken up by Mohandas Gandhi in India and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement that began in the mid-1950s. As the Cold War settled in during the late 1940s, Muste became even more dedicated to peace, arguing that the horror of modern warfare and atomic weapons necessitated a step back from the precipice and demanded the implementation of worldwide disarmament. Muste soon became involved in the War Resisters’ League and had made opposition to the nuclear arms race one of his signature causes. Muste vociferously opposed the Korean War, once again imploring Americans not to support the war effort and to resist the draft, much as he had during World War II. As a show of his distaste for what he termed U.S. militarism, he refused to pay federal income taxes from 1948 to 1952 because he believed that the taxes would be used for military purposes. In 1960 he was compelled to pay his back taxes, with interest and penalties, under threat of imprisonment. He paid the taxes unwillingly. By the 1950s Muste had come to be admired by many for his dedication to pacifism and his intellectual prowess that linked nonviolent civil disobedience with modern religion and theology. During the 1960s Muste became one of the first individuals to speak out against the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. He attended numerous antiwar demonstrations and was a major presence in

New York’s antiwar organization Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee. Despite his advanced age, in 1966 Muste was chosen to head up the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, a nationwide movement that planned mass antiwar demonstrations for April 1967. Muste’s unique background as a one-time political radical, labor organizer, minister, and peace activist allowed him to act as a highly effective mediator among the competing antiwar factions. In April 1966 he traveled to Saigon to advance the peace agenda, and in January 1967 he went to Hanoi. The following month on February 11, 1967, Muste died of a heart attack in New York City. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam References Hentoff, Nat. Peace Agitator: The Story of A. J. Muste. New York: Macmillan, 1963. Robinson, Jo Ann. Abraham Went Out: A Biography of A. J. Muste. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.

My Lai Massacre Event Date: March 16, 1968 Most notorious U.S. military atrocity of the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1968, between 347 and 504 Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division. Equally infamous was the cover-up of the incident perpetrated by the brigade and division staffs. My Lai 4 was a cluster of hamlets, part of Son My village of Son Tinh District in the coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai Province, I Corps Tactical Zone, in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The broad range in numbers of civilian deaths was the result of varying reports on the massacre, including the testimony of participants and observers. The high figure of 504 is that of the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In some instances, reports included the related massacre in the nearby hamlet of My Khe 4 by Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry. Because of false reporting and the subsequent cover-up, actual casualty figures are difficult to substantiate. While the Americal Division’s primary operation was the yearlong WHEELER/WALLOWA (November 1967–November 1968), numerous side operations were also conducted. The operation in the hamlets of Son My village, nicknamed “Pinkville” by the division’s soldiers because of the concentration of Communist sympathizers and Viet Cong (VC) activity in the area, was one of those side operations. It was to be a classic search-and-destroy sweep intended to snare some of the estimated 250 VC operat-

My Lai Massacre

785

Former residents of My Lai who were killed by U.S. soldiers. During the most notorious publicly acknowledged military atrocity of the Vietnam War, between 200 and 500 Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. soldiers at My Lai on March 16, 1968. A cover-up kept the massacre a secret for a year, after which 14 soldiers were charged with the crime. Only one, Lieutenant William L. Calley, was found guilty and sentenced to prison, and he served little more than a year. (Ronald S. Haeberle/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

ing in the area as part of the VC 48th Local Force Battalion. Prior to the operation, sweeps such as this were characterized by only lightly scattered direct VC contact but a high rate of friendly losses to snipers, mines, and booby-trap incidents. The My Lai operation was no different. Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, was organized as part of an ad hoc battalion known as Task Force Barker (named for its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker Jr.), reinforcing the 11th Infantry Brigade. The Americal Division was itself initially an ad hoc organization of separate infantry brigades put together during the U.S. military buildup and, by many accounts, suffered from poor training and weak leadership. Major General Samuel H. Koster commanded the division. Some elements of the 11th Infantry Brigade, commanded at the time by Colonel Oran K. Henderson, have been described as little more than “organized bands of thugs” and had been ordained the “Butcher Brigade” by its soldiers in the field. The airmobile assault into My Lai was timed to arrive shortly after the local women had departed for market. The soldiers had been briefed to expect an engagement with elements of the VC 48th Local Force Battalion, one of the most successful units in

the area. Instead they found only women, children, and mostly old men still cooking breakfast. The soldiers of Charlie Company, commanded by Captain Ernest Medina, ran wild, particularly the men of the 1st Platoon, commanded by 1st Lieutenant William Laws Calley Jr. They indiscriminately shot people as they ran from their huts and then systematically rounded up survivors, allegedly led them to a nearby ditch, and executed them. More villagers were killed as huts and bunkers were destroyed by fire and explosives as the unit continued its sweep of the hamlet. The killing was brought to a halt some time later when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an aero-scout pilot supporting the operation, landed his helicopter between the Americans and some fleeing Vietnamese and confronted the soldiers. The massacre was brought to light a year later, thanks to the efforts of former soldier Ronald Ridenhour who had served in the 11th Infantry Brigade in Vietnam and had learned of the events by talking to members of Charlie Company, who had participated in it. On his return to the United States, in March 1969 (a full year after the event) Ridenhour sent letters detailing it to President Richard M. Nixon, officials in the Defense Department and the State Department, and members of Congress. Most of those

786

My Lai Massacre

who received the letter chose to ignore it, with the exception of Congressman Morris Udall (D-Ariz.). Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh interviewed Calley and broke the story on November 12, 1969. Within a week Time, Life, and Newsweek magazines all covered the story. The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper also published photographs of the villagers killed at My Lai. The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division and an army board of inquiry, headed by Lieutenant General William Peers, then investigated the incident. Although the findings and recommendations of the board of inquiry did not attempt to ascribe causes for the massacre, many others have cited the frustrations of soldiers too long faced with unanswerable losses of comrades to snipers, mines, and booby traps; the lack of experience of junior leaders and poor leadership from the division commander on down the ranks; and the confusion of the war’s measurement of success by the statistical yardstick of body count, which became objectives in place of the occupation of the enemy’s terrain. The Peers Inquiry report produced a list of 30 persons, mostly officers (including Koster), who knew of the atrocities; however, only 14 were charged with crimes. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-martial except for the most junior officer, Lieutenant Calley, whose platoon allegedly killed some 200 innocents. Calley was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment. The sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and then later reduced to 10 years by the secretary of the U.S. Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a “scapegoat,” Calley was paroled by Pres-

ident Nixon in November 1974 after he had served about a third of his 10-year sentence. On March 6, 1998, the army belatedly recognized Thompson, his former gunner Lawrence Colburn, and his crew chief Glenn Andreatta (who was killed in April 1968) with the Soldier’s Medal for Gallantry. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Atrocities during the Vietnam War; Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr.; Body Count; Calley, William Laws, Jr.; “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report; Hersh, Seymour Myron; Medina, Ernest Lou; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Peers Inquiry; Ridenhour, Ronald; WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation References Angers, Trent. The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story. Lafayette, LA: Acadian House Publishing, 1999. Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Penguin, 1992. Goldstein, Joseph, Burke Marshall, and Jack Schwartz. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of the Law? New York: Free Press, 1976. Hersh, Seymour M. Cover-Up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. New York: Random House, 1972. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970. Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979.

N Nam Dong, Battle of Event Date: July 6, 1964 Battle at the Nam Dong Special Forces camp near the border of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with Laos and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The 12 Americans, 1 Australian, and 311 South Vietnamese soldiers at the camp were there to provide security and improve living conditions for about 5,000 Vietnamese civilians in the area. Captain Roger Donlon commanded a U.S. Army Special Forces “A” Detachment that advised Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Special Forces and Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) companies in the camp. At 2:26 a.m. on July 6, 1964, the camp was subjected to an intense mortar barrage followed by a ground attack by 800 to 900 Viet Cong (VC) soldiers. All camp buildings and most radios were soon destroyed. The defenders were able to send a quick message that they were under attack, but it was not until 4:00 a.m. that air support reached them. By dawn the fighting was over. In the battle, the defenders suffered 55 killed (including 2 Americans and 1 Australian) and 65 wounded. Sixty-two VC bodies were found in and around the camp. On December 5, 1964, for his actions in the Battle of Nam Dong, Captain Donlon was awarded the first Medal of Honor since the Korean War (1950–1953). RICHARD L. KIPER See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Donlon, Roger H. C., with Warren Rogers. Outpost of Freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.

Kelly, Francis J. The Green Berets in Vietnam, 1961–71. New York: Brassey’s, 1991.

Nam Tien Even as the Vietnamese were seeking to maintain their independence, they were actively engaged in expanding the territory of Dai Viet. “Resisting the North” (Bac cu) and “Conquering the South” (Nam chinh) became major themes of Vietnamese history, as did the development of an original culture and civilization. When Vietnam secured its independence from China in the mid-10th century, its southern boundaries did not extend past Deo Ngang (Ngang Pass). Nam Tien (March to the South) was a constant for much of Vietnamese history, much as Manifest Destiny has been in American history. Nam Tien came at the expense of the Cham and the Khmer peoples, however. The Indianized Kingdom of Champa had been founded in 192 CE. Its capital of Indrapura was located near present-day Hoi An on the central Vietnamese coast at about 16 degrees latitude. Champa flourished as a seaborne trading state supported by powerful battle fleets. One Cham raid even reached up the Mekong River to cross the Great Lake (Tonlé Sap) of Cambodia and capture and sack the city of Angkor in 1177. As with their European contemporaries the Norsemen, the Chams were essentially raiders who lived off plunder but failed to build up their economic base at home by agricultural settlement. As a result, they fell prey to slow but steady encroachments by Vietnamese settlers, who were often invited by the Chams to settle vacant agricultural lands. Once the Vietnamese had settled a particular area, however, the Vietnamese

788

Nam Viet

state undertook to protect its citizens there. Thus, bit by bit the Vietnamese whittled away at the Cham state. In 1069 after a successful military campaign, King Ly Thai Tong seized the Cham capital and took the Cham king prisoner, relocating him to Dai Viet. The Cham king was able to secure his freedom only by ceding the Cham provinces of Dia Ly, Ma Linh, and Bo Chinh. These became the Vietnamese provinces of Quang Binh and Quang Tri. In the early 14th century two more Cham districts, the O and the Ri, were given to Dai Viet in exchange for Vietnamese princess Huyen Tran’s hand in marriage. In the 15th century the Chams had to give up all their territory north of the present-day province of Quang Nam. These 14th- and 15th-century additions became the future Tha Thien Province, with its imperial capital of Hue. Finally in 1471 the Vietnamese took the second Cham capital of Vijaya. This proved critical, because once the Vietnamese had secured a permanent foothold south of Hai Van Pass, the remaining Cham country was quickly subdued. In the 17th century the remnants of the old Kingdom of Champa were definitively absorbed, although a petty Cham king retained nominal independence in the Phan Rang region until 1822. The Vietnamese Nam Tien did not end with the elimination of Champa. In 1481 the government created the Don Dien agricultural settlements. The Dai Viet government granted lands to Vietnamese settlers, who were usually ex-soldiers, on the condition that they defend it. It did not matter to the Vietnamese that these grants were usually in territory belonging to the crumbling Khmer empire. Repeated border incidents led to Vietnamese armed intervention and additional territorial acquisitions. This process brought the Vietnamese into the Mekong Delta. By 1658 the Vietnamese had taken all of southern Vietnam north of the future Saigon (then known as the sleepy fishing village of Prey Kor). Saigon itself fell to the Vietnamese in 1672. The lower plain of the future Cochin China came under virtual Vietnamese control in the last decades of the 18th century, and Vietnam had expanded to the full extent of its present-day shoreline. In 1945 the Viet Minh used the term “Nam Tien” to describe their dispatch of military forces from northern Vietnam to central and southern Vietnam to aid in the conflict against returning French forces who were fighting to wrest control of Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh’s new government. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Chams and the Kingdom of Champa References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet Nams. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1964. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Nam Viet Vietnamese kingdom. In 207 BCE, Chinese general Zhao Tuo (Chao To; Trieu Da in Vietnamese), who had broken with the Qin dynasty emperor, defeated King An Duong Vuong and conquered the Kingdom of Au Lac. Zhao Tuo killed all Chinese loyal to the emperor and divided the conquered territory into two prefectures: Giao-chi and Cuu-chan. The newly conquered territory and his previously held territory of Guangdong and Guangxi in presentday southern China formed the new kingdom of Nam Viet (Nanyue or Nan Yue, for southern country of the Viet or Yue). For the first time, the Vietnamese people were part of a kingdom that included southern China. Its capital was Phien Ngu (later Canton and today Guangzhou) and included not only part of southern China but all of later Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and part of Annam (central Vietnam). Meanwhile, the Han dynasty was unifying China, a task that it accomplished in the third century BCE. In the second century BCE the Han pushed south. Zhao Tuo and his successors ruled Nam Viet until 111 BCE, when the Han sent an expeditionary corps into the kingdom and added it to their empire. For the next thousand years except for a few brief but glorious rebellions, present-day northern Vietnam was a Chinese province. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Au Lac, Kingdom of; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

NANTUCKET BEACH, Operation See BOLD MARINER, Operation

Napalm One of the U.S. military’s primary incendiary weapons during the Vietnam War; its use also attracted public protest as a weapon of terror. The napalm compound is gasoline thickened to a gel-like consistency and named for two of its original thickening agents, aluminum naphthenate and aluminum palmitate, although the ingredients changed over time. Harvard professor Louis Fieser directed the research that developed this petroleum gel, applying for a patent on November 1, 1943. Its advantages over unthickened fuel included longer burning time of up to several minutes and more effective spreading, which increased the probability of igniting targeted materials. The U.S. military first used napalm toward the end of World War II in bombs

Napalm

789

In this Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph taken by Nick Ut, terrified children run from South Vietnamese soldiers after an aerial napalm attack on June 8, 1972. The girl in the center, nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. An allied pilot intending to attack suspected Viet Cong hiding places had mistakenly bombed South Vietnamese troops and civilians. (AP/Wide World Photos)

and flamethrowers. Napalm bombs required igniting, generally by a high-explosive rod such as TNT surrounded by white phosphorus. Napalm-B, the napalm used during the Vietnam War, retained the name, although the composition changed. Made up of 50 percent polystyrene thickener, 25 percent benzene, and 25 percent gasoline, it was a thick, sticky liquid that was developed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, by the Dow Chemical Company. NapalmB burns at a higher temperature, about 850 degrees Centigrade (1,562 degrees Fahrenheit) and burns up to 15 minutes, two to three times longer than ordinary napalm. Napalm-B also doubled the coverage area to 218 yards long by 36 yards wide, making possible much greater destruction to targets. The jellied mixture sticks to virtually everything it touches and is almost impossible to remove. These characteristics led the U.S. Air Force to adopt napalm-B as its main incendiary weapon in 1966. During the Vietnam War, napalm bombs constituted roughly 10 percent, or nearly 400,000 tons, of all fighter-bomber muni-

tions. Individual bombs typically weighed between 250 and 750 pounds. Humans caught in the open by napalm attacks have little defense. Death occurs not only by burning but also from asphyxiation caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Only those on the perimeter of the strike zone usually survive, although many suffer severe burns from heat that is hot enough to melt their flesh. The brutal effects of napalm led many antiwar activists to protest its use in Vietnam. Dow Chemical Company was the nation’s major napalm manufacturer during the war years. The company faced a boycott of consumer products and an organized effort to persuade shareholders to sell their stock as well as pickets and demonstrations at Dow offices and against campus recruiters. The protests affected Dow’s image and profits, and in 1969, whether deliberately or not, Dow lost the government contract for napalm to another company. The production and use of napalm, however, continued for the war’s duration. MITCHELL K. HALL

790

Napoleon III

See also Airpower, Role in War; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Bombs, Gravity; International War Crimes Tribunal References Dreyfus, Gilbert. “Napalm and Its Effects on Human Beings.” In Against the Crime of Silence, edited by John Duffett, 374–381. Flanders, NJ: O’Hare Books, 1968. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Incendiary Weapons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975. United Nations. Napalm and Other Incendiary Weapons and All Aspects of Their Possible Use: Report of the Secretary-General. New York: United Nations, 1973.

Napoleon III Birth Date: April 20, 1808 Death Date: January 9, 1873 President of the Second French Republic (1849–1852) and emperor of France (1852–1870). Born in Paris on April 20, 1808, and raised in Switzerland, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte’s younger brother Louis, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte made unsuccessful attempts to seize power in France in 1836 and 1840. Following the second attempt, he was tried and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. In 1846 he escaped from the Fortress of Ham and fled to Britain. He returned to France following the 1848 June Days and was elected to the Constituent Assembly. In December 1849 he was elected president, largely on the magic of his name and a national vote. He seized complete power in a coup on December 2, 1851, and was crowned emperor as Napoleon III on December 2, 1852. Until the early 1860s Napoleon III’s rule was decidedly authoritarian, but he certainly had the best interests of the French in mind when he began a series of sweeping social and administrative reforms aimed at modernizing France’s economy and governmental bureaucracy. In the 1860s Napoleon, responding to liberal pressures, moved away from autocratic rule while continuing to press for internal modernization and a meritocratic society. He also began to liberalize the French political process. Napoleon used the Crimean War (1854–1856) to secure French influence in Europe and to build an alliance with Great Britain. When that war ended he was determined to maintain cooperation with the British. This entailed supporting British endeavors in China, where French troops often fought alongside British soldiers. But Napoleon also sought to secure territorial gains for France. As early as 1853 the French Foreign Office had urged the acquisition of a port in Indochina. French missionaries, who were being persecuted by Emperor Tu Duc, appealed to Napoleon, and in 1857 he ordered the French China squadron to intervene there in hopes of obtaining a Vietnamese port in the fashion of Hong Kong and establishing a protectorate over Cochin China.

On August 31, 1857, French admiral Rigault de Genouilly’s squadron of 14 vessels and 3,000 men, including troops sent by Spain from Manila, appeared off Tourane (present-day Da Nang). The troops soon took the Tourane forts and the port, inaugurating the first phase of the French conquest of Indochina. Within a few months, however, the French were forced from Tourane. De Genouilly shifted operations southward to the fishing village of Saigon, which fell to the French on February 17, 1859. In 1861 Tu Duc agreed to cede to France three of the eastern provinces of Cochin China, allow the free practice of Catholic worship in the dominions, and accept a French protectorate. The remainder of Cochin China was taken from Annam during 1866–1867. In the end, it was Napoleon’s foreign policies that ultimately led to his downfall. He became ensnared in the political intrigues of Italy, which was then divided into rival nation-states, and in an ill-conceived attempt to install a French-controlled monarchy in Mexico under Austrian Archduke Maximilian. Napoleon’s seeming willingness to embrace the Confederate cause during the American Civil War had also rankled Washington. Napoleon was also outwitted by Prussian minister president Otto von Bismarck in the diplomacy of Central Europe, even fomenting war between

Napoleon III, the nephew of the great emperor Napoleon I, came to power as president of the Second Republic in 1849. In 1852, he seized power in a coup d’état and became emperor, ruling until 1870. It was during his reign that the French first established themselves in Indochina, but his expansive foreign policies were in large part responsible for his downfall. (Library of Congress)

National Assembly Law 10/59 Austria and Prussia in 1866, which ended in the triumph of Prussia and a dramatic shift in the European balance of power. In ill health, Napoleon again allowed himself to be outmaneuvered diplomatically by Bismarck, leading to war between France and Prussia for which Napoleon’s nation was woefully unprepared. Proceeding with his army in the field, Napoleon was among those taken prisoner by the Germans following their victory in the Battle of Sedan of September 1, 1870. Napoleon was roundly condemned by his countrymen for the disastrous defeat in the FrancoPrussian War, and his government was overthrown, to be replaced by a republic. Napoleon III went into unlamented exile and died at Chislehurst in England on January 9, 1873. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Annam; Cochin China; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Rigault de Genouilly, Charles; Tu Duc; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Bury, J. P. T. Napoleon III and the Second Empire. London: English Universities Press, 1964. MacMillan, James F. Napoleon III. London: Longman, 1991. Smith, W. H. C. Napoleon III. New York: St. Martin’s, 1972.

Na San, Battle of Start Date: November 1953 End Date: December 1953 French military operation in late 1952 that foreshadowed the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Commander of French forces in Indochina General Raoul Salan believed that at the conclusion of the rainy season in August 1952, Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap intended to resume the offensive in the mountains of northwestern Vietnam. Hoping to forestall that, Salan established a base deep inside Viet Minh–held territory in the mountain-ringed Na San Valley. He planned this to be the meeting point for garrisons from the scattered French border posts and as a base to protect Laos and the Thai Highlands. The French planned to construct an airstrip at Na San, less than 50 minutes by air from Hanoi. Salan hoped to tempt Giap into frontal assaults at the base, attacks that Salan planned to smash with artillery and airpower. Colonel Jean Giles, a tough one-eyed paratroop officer, commanded French forces at Na San. The first phase of the operation went well. Most of the scattered French garrisons were extracted to Na San, and both the airfield and base fortifications were constructed in record time. On November 30 and December 1, 1952, the Viet Minh 308th and 312th divisions attacked the French garrison but were repulsed. On December 2 the Viet Minh attackers withdrew after suffering between 500 and 1,000 dead. On the surface, the battle

791

seemed to be a great success for the French. Little noticed at the time was the loss to the Viet Minh on November 30 of the small French post and airfield at Dien Bien Phu, then held by a Laotian infantry unit. After putting a deception plan into effect, the French evacuated Na San by air without incident on August 11, 1953. They also removed about 1,500 Thai peasants and local officials who had cooperated with them. The Na San operation should have demonstrated convincingly to French commanders the great difficulty of supplying a distant garrison with an inadequate airlift capacity. The French occupation of Na San also was little obstacle to Viet Minh military operations in the area, which simply flowed through the jungle around the French base. Giap later remarked that the Battle of Na San taught him that a fortified enemy camp supplied by air could be taken only by bringing the landing strip under heavy artillery fire. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; LORRAINE, Operation; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis; Vo Nguyen Giap References Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

National Assembly Law 10/59 Repressive legislation aimed at the Communists and enacted by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in October 1959. National Assembly Law 10/59 was in response to Hanoi’s March 1959 decision to increase support for the insurgency in South Vietnam. South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s response to the insurgency was increased military raids, acceleration of the relocation program, and anti-Communist legislative measures. Beginning in February 1959, a series of articles were published in Diem’s mouthpiece, the Cach Mang Quoc Gia (National Revolution) daily. These outlined a new program of intensified repression by means of an organized Viet Cong (VC) watch system and concentrated military and police raids on villages based on secret informers’ reports. As a part of Diem’s Cach Mang Quoc Gia plan, the South Vietnamese National Assembly passed Law 10/59 on May 6, 1959. This legislation legalized courts-martial and executions of individuals convicted of working with the VC, the name arbitrarily given at that time to anyone who opposed the regime.

792

National Bank of Vietnam

The government set up special courts to be run by military personnel only. Proceedings could take place without any preliminary inquiry. A summons was served 24 hours before the court sat if the accused “commits or intends to commit crimes with the aim of sabotage, or of infringing upon the security of the State, or of injuring the life or the property of the people.” Trials lacked any formalities, with the courts preferring a straight-out denunciation, a quick verdict, and immediate execution. There were only two types of punishment: death or life imprisonment. In theory, there was an appeal to President Diem against the death sentence; there was none against life imprisonment. About half of those condemned to death were actually executed, many of these on the spot by mobile guillotines. Apart from arming, financing, and advising these anti-Communist operations, the U.S. government provided specialized help by training Diem police agents in the United States and sending a special mission to Saigon to reorganize police methods, especially to improve the system of dossiers and control lists. Diem ultimately closed this system down after some of the specialists returned to the United States and wrote anti-Diem articles. In October 1959 the National Assembly passed another law ordering not only VC and former Viet Minh to be executed but also their friends, relatives, and “associates.” Both laws reflected the determination of Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu to forcefully handle the Communist threat. The National Assembly itself was not a decision-making legislative body but instead was a rubber stamp for the Diem regime. These repressive measures were counterproductive. They helped provoke popular uprisings in Quang Ngai Province in August 1959 and another in Ban Tre in January 1960. Although Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops suppressed these uprisings, loyalty to the Saigon government was never successfully restored in the countryside. Although Law 10/59 imposed brutal measures, it must be understood against the backdrop of brutal and rampant Communist terrorist activities in the remote areas between 1957 and 1959. These included blowing up bridges, schools, and dispensaries and assassinating unarmed village committee members, antimalaria spray teams, and even military dependents. At the time there was no effective legislation to cope with this situation. After Diem’s November 1963 assassination, however, Law 10/59 was quietly done away with. ZSOLT J. VARGA

Scigliano, Robert G. South Vietnam: Nation under Stress. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. Wintle, Justin. The Vietnam Wars. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991.

See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

See also Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

References Burchett, Wilfred G. The Furtive War: The United States in Vietnam and Laos. New York: International Publishers, 1963. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Moss, George. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994.

References Dacy, Douglas C. The Fiscal System of Wartime Vietnam. Arlington, VA: Institute for Defense Analysis, 1969. Davies, S. Gethyn. Central Banking in South and East Asia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960. Emery, Robert F. The Financial Institutions of Southeast Asia. New York: Praeger, 1970.

National Bank of Vietnam Name of the state banks of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The National Bank of Vietnam was established on December 31, 1954, by Republic Ordinance Number 48 and superseded the Bank of Indochina that had served the states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. After the 1954 division of Vietnam, the National Bank became the official state bank of North Vietnam. After 1960 all foreign currency and business profits were deposited in the National Bank, and within five years 95 percent of North Vietnam’s economy was state owned. In South Vietnam in 1955, President Ngo Dinh Diem created another National Bank of Vietnam and named his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu as chairman. To receive U.S. imports, local merchants contributed national currency called piasters into the bank’s counterpart fund. Under the Commercial Import Program, $1.9 billion in economic aid was directed to South Vietnam by 1964. Although the aid appeared to be extensive, the imports were largely luxury goods for the Saigon upper class and did little to assist the South Vietnamese economy as a whole. In 1975 after the fall of Saigon, the North Vietnamese bank assumed control of South Vietnam’s economy by requiring residents to exchange their piasters for dong at a rate of 500 to 1. In an attempt to squelch the capitalists, every household was given a form to declare the amount of old money in its possession. Despite garnering some money for the government treasury and creating a certain amount of socioeconomic leveling, the currency exchange scheme affected most of the population in southern Vietnam by causing distrust and loss of confidence in the central government, its banking system, and the value of its currency. Partly as a result of this distrust, the new currency steadily lost value and was reluctantly floated by the National Bank of Vietnam in 1989. By destroying the economic power of the moneyed class, the Communist government left no avenue for the huge amounts of governmentissued money to make its way back to the central banks, which added to the already spiraling postwar inflation. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL

National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord Honey, P. J. Communism in North Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962. Lansdale, Edward Geary. In the Midst of Wars: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. Ngo Vinh Hai. “Postwar Vietnam: Political Economy.” In Coming to Terms: Indochina, the United States, and the War, edited by Douglas Allen and Ngo Vinh Long, 65–88. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991. Taylor, Milton C. “South Vietnam: Lavish Aid, Limited Progress.” Pacific Affairs 34 (1961): 242–256.

National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam The first effort to build a national coalition of organizations in the United States opposed to the Vietnam War. Organized in Washington, D.C., from discussions at the August 1965 Assembly of Unrepresented People, the original purpose of the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC) was to help coordinate the October 15–16, 1965, International Days of Protest announced by Berkeley’s Vietnam Day Committee. Delegates selected Frank Emspak as coordinator and set up offices in Madison, Wisconsin. The NCC lacked any decision-making authority for its 33 affiliated organizations but provided a central location for receiving and distributing information about antiwar activities. Initiative for the demonstrations remained primarily with local groups. The NCC generated broad support, although some liberal groups such as the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) opposed close cooperation with radicals and rejected formal affiliation. The October protests attracted roughly 100,000 participants in 80 cities and several nations. The first NCC convention, held during November 25–29, 1965, in Washington, drew more than 1,500 delegates from about 100 antiwar and civil rights organizations. Efforts to develop an ongoing antiwar program failed as the meeting degenerated into factional disputes, largely between the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The Communists favored a multiissue organization and electoral activity, while the SWP demanded immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and proposed a separate organization of independent committees against the war. For the majority of delegates, inexperienced in leftist ideological struggles, the conference proved demoralizing. Indeed, the spectacle pushed some activists out of the movement, while others’ doubts about cooperation with Marxists were reaffirmed. The conference’s only accomplishment was to set a date for demonstrations in the spring. An NCC standing committee meeting during January 8–9, 1966, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, brought no resolution. Divided over whether to call for immediate withdrawal or a negotiated settlement, the Milwaukee meeting proved to be the NCC’s last. The organization continued as a clearinghouse and formally sponsored the Second International Days of Protest of March 25–26, 1966, but

793

local groups again carried the burden of planning and conducting antiwar demonstrations. The results exceeded the previous effort, attracting more than 100,000 demonstrators in perhaps 100 cities and several foreign countries. With the organization in disarray, NCC leadership resisted planning summer demonstrations. Activists dissatisfied with this hesitation bypassed the NCC staff. A series of antiwar conferences in Cleveland during 1966 produced a temporary coalition to organize protests, the November 5–8 Mobilization Committee, that was in turn succeeded by the Spring Mobilization Committee. The NCC continued to operate but forfeited its leadership role in the antiwar movement. Within months the NCC declined as a national body and functioned as a local Wisconsin organization that remained active within the larger coalition. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord Organization established to implement political provisions of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Paris Peace Accords went into effect at midnight Greenwich mean time (GMT) on January 27, 1973. On the political side, the South Vietnamese people were to decide their future through “genuinely free and democratic elections under international supervision.” These elections were to be organized by the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC), composed of representatives of the South Vietnamese government; the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), the Communists; and the neutralists. The NCNRC was to operate on the basis of unanimity, which in effect gave each party a veto. The NCNRC was to promote observance of the agreement and the democratic liberties that it guaranteed as well as national reconciliation and concord. The country was to be reunified step by step by mutual agreement. In the meantime the demilitarized zone (DMZ) was to be reestablished as in 1954, and relations between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam were to be normalized. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu had proclaimed before the Paris Peace Accords a national policy known as the

794

National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam

“Four Nos”: no negotiating, no Communist activity in South Vietnam, no coalition, and no surrender of territory. Thieu objected to the tripartite NCNRC structure because he saw the neutralists as favoring the Communists and the NCNRC as a stalking horse for a coalition government. He also feared that he would be maneuvered into a position in which the South Vietnamese government would be seen as blocking a peaceful solution. In fact little came of the NCNRC, as Thieu and the Communists opted to renew the war. Both sides strengthened and resupplied their forces and conducted sporadic attacks on the other. On January 6, 1975, Communist forces overran Phuoc Binh, the capital city of Phuoc Long Province, 60 miles north of Saigon. The Communists launched the attack in part to test the reaction of the U.S. government, and much to their relief, Washington did not intervene. Leftist opposition circles continued to demand the adoption of the NCNRC up until President Thieu’s government collapsed in April 1975, but it was on the battlefield that the Vietnam War was decided. HO DIEU ANH AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Nguyen Van Thieu; Paris Peace Accords References Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Porter, D. Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.

National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) was formed on December 20, 1960. The establishment of the NLF was a standard Communist tactic designed to broaden the base of the revolutionary struggle by providing a vehicle that could attract non-Communist elements opposed to the pro-American Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), had used a similar tactic during the war against the French when he formed his ostensibly broadbased Viet Minh front organization. In addition, the formation of the NLF was also aimed at concealing North Vietnam’s involvement in the struggle in South Vietnam. The origins of the NLF and the extent of its dependence on Hanoi have long been a source of vigorous debate among Western scholars and U.S. government officials, but recently declassified Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) documents and a flood of Vietnamese histories and memoirs have shed new light on the NLF’s origins. According to this new information, the formation

of a broad-based front movement had been an integral part of the Communist strategy for South Vietnam ever since early 1959, when the VCP Central Committee in Hanoi passed Resolution 15 authorizing the use of armed force in South Vietnam. However, the Communists in South Vietnam had to first assemble a group of prominent and nominally non-Communist South Vietnamese figures to head such a front. This task initially proved difficult, especially since Nguyen Huu Tho, the man chosen to lead the front, was then being held under house arrest by the South Vietnamese government. In late 1961 he finally escaped to the jungle to join the NLF. According to newly declassified VCP documents, the failed November 1960 coup attempt against South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem caused the Communist leadership to expedite the formation of the NLF. The VCP leaders in Hanoi decided to exploit this opportunity by announcing the formation of the NLF in December 1960, just one month after the coup attempt, to make it appear that the NLF had been formed as a result of widespread non-Communist South Vietnamese political opposition to President Diem’s regime. The newly declassified VCP documents also reveal that the NLF manifesto, announced at the time of the NLF’s formation, was in fact written and approved in Hanoi. All of this does not mean that there were no tensions or disagreements between the northern and southern wings of the VCP or between the non-Communist and Communist elements of the NLF. One of the most significant of these seems to have been the reluctance of some southern Communist leaders to agree to Hanoi’s 1964 decision to shift from the small-unit protracted guerrilla war strategy that they had followed during the early years of the conflict to a big-unit conventional warfare strategy. However, this reluctance was quickly overcome as North Vietnamese General Nguyen Chi Thanh and other senior Communist officers from North Vietnam arrived in South Vietnam to take over direction of the war effort. It also should be noted that for all the claims that the NLF’s armed forces constituted an independent southern army separate from the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) command structure, when they were first formed every one of the so-called NLF divisions was in fact commanded by a PAVN officer who was a native of northern Vietnam, not southern Vietnam. Over the years the NLF became increasingly identified, both in South Vietnam and internationally, with the North Vietnamese regime. For this reason, at Hanoi’s direction a second and outwardly more independent front group was formed in 1968, the National Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces. The formation of the new front somewhat diluted the NLF’s ostensible leadership role, and that role was further diluted in 1969 with the formation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam. A PRG delegation quickly replaced the NLF delegation as the representative of the South Vietnamese revolution in the peace talks in Paris. In spite of these changes, the NLF continued to serve as the primary umbrella front organization for the Communist effort in South Vietnam right up to the end of the war. When Communist

National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam

795

A prisoner, suspected of being a Viet Cong, awaits interrogation. Provincial Reconnaissance Units assigned to conduct “special missions” killed and captured many Viet Cong political operatives and intelligence agents during the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

military forces overran the last South Vietnamese defense lines on April 30, 1975, and then captured the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace in Saigon and tore down the South Vietnamese national flag, the victory flag that they raised in its place was the NLF flag, half-red and half-blue with a large yellow star in its center. Just one year later in 1976 when South Vietnam was officially merged with North Vietnam to form the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), the NLF was dissolved and merged with North Vietnam’s own front organization, the Vietnamese Fatherland Front. Few of the senior NLF figureheads went on to attain positions of power in the newly unified Vietnamese government and the VCP, although NLF chairman Nguyen Huu Tho was given the ceremonial post of vice president of the SRV. MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Chanh Thi; Nguyen Chi Thanh; Nguyen Huu Tho; Paris Negotiations; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam; United Front References Brigham, Robert K. Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Dao Trong Cang, ed. Van Kien Dang Toan Tap, Tap 29, 1968 [Collected Party Documents, Vol. 29, 1968]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2004. Ha Huu Khieu, ed. Dai Tuong Nguyen Chi Thanh, nha chinh tri quan su loi lac [General Nguyen Chi Thanh, an Outstanding Military and Political Figure]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1997. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. Tran Bach Dang, ed. Chung Mot Bong Co (Ve Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam Viet Nam) [Under One Flag (The National Liberation Front for South Vietnam)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1993. Trinh Muu, ed. Van Kien Dang Toan Tap, Tap 37, 1976 [Collected Party Documents, Vol. 37, 1976]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House 2004. Trinh Nhu, ed. Van Kien Dang Toan Tap, Tap 21, 1960 [Collected Party Documents, Vol. 21, 1960]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2002. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

796

National Leadership Council

National Hard Hats of America See Hardhats

References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

National Leadership Council Governing political body in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) established in June 1965. Following the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963, South Vietnam underwent a period of chronic political instability. On February 17, 1965, a new civilian government was installed in Saigon with Phan Huy Quat as premier. The military was still strongly represented, however, with three generals holding ministerial positions. The civilian government maintained an uneasy relationship with younger Army of the Republic of Vietnam (Army, South Vietnamese Army) generals known as the Young Turks, and a series of threatened or attempted coups imperiled political stability. On June 9, 1965, Premier Phan Huy Quat turned to the Armed Forces Council to settle a dispute with Head of State Phan Khac Suu and was told to resign. After Quat stepped aside, on June 12 a triumvirate of Young Turks—generals Nguyen Cao Ky, Nguyen Van Thieu, and Nguyen Huu Co—announced the formation of a National Leadership Council to rule South Vietnam. The youngest and least experienced government to date, the National Leadership Council was subsequently expanded to include 10 members. This body was in effect an inner circle of the 50-member Armed Forces Council, which much to U.S. ambassador Maxwell Taylor’s chagrin then elected Ky as chairman of the Central Executive Committee, or premier, charged with conducting the day-to-day government operations. Nguyen Van Thieu occupied the relatively powerless position of chairman of the National Leadership Council (chief of state). Ky recalled in his memoirs that Thieu, who was senior to him and the army chief of staff, at that time declined the top post. Nonetheless, the two men were soon locked in a bitter rivalry for power. This was the ninth South Vietnamese government in less than two years, but it proved to be the most durable since that of Diem. In September 1966 South Vietnam elected a Constituent Assembly, which had as its task the drafting of a new constitution. This document came into effect in April 1967. On September 3 presidential and senatorial elections were held under the auspices of the new constitution. Thieu and Ky were nominated by the Armed Forces Council to run for the presidency on the same slate, with Ky forced to yield the top spot to Thieu on the grounds of military seniority. This slate won only 34.8 percent of the votes but was sufficient for victory, as the remainder of the votes were split among 10 other slates. The new government, still militarily dominated, then assumed power. HO DIEU ANH AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Phan Huy Quat; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport

National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia Organization founded in 1969 to help identify and repatriate Vietnam prisoners of war (POWs). In response to growing concerns over the issue of U.S. POWs held by the Communists during the Vietnam War, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration maintained that the humane treatment and eventual release of POWs would be best achieved by not condemning or confronting publicly the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) regarding its POW policies. The Richard M. Nixon administration, which took office in January 1969, changed that approach and initiated the Go Public Campaign in the spring of 1969. The goals of the Go Public Campaign were to obtain a complete list of POWs in captivity, effect the release of infirm POWs, institute third-party inspections of prison camps, and force compliance by North Vietnam with the Geneva Conventions regarding POW treatment. The Nixon administration also encouraged individual citizens and private organizations to promote the objectives of the campaign. In the wake of the Go Public Campaign, several organizations were founded to bring the plight of POWs to the forefront. The largest of the family-led POW organizations was the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (NLOF). The group, comprised primarily of the wives of POWs, was formed in June 1969 and incorporated in May 1970 and opened a national headquarters in Washington, D.C., in June 1970. Local branches in military communities such as Norfolk– Virginia Beach and San Diego, California, were key to the NLOF’s work. Original leaders of the NLOF included Sybil Stockdale, whose husband U.S. Navy officer James B. Stockdale was being held captive in North Vietnam. She was the first chair of the board of directors. Iris R. Powers was the first full-time national coordinator. Louise Mulligan and Jane Denton were active members, as were Doris Day, Anne Purcell, Carol O. North (who succeeded Stockdale as chair), Maureen Dunn, Phyllis Galanti, and Valerie Kushner. At the international level, NLOF representatives met with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris on several occasions. Texas billionaire businessman and U.S. Naval Academy graduate H. Ross Perot sponsored one of the largest NLOF visits to Paris. In December 1969, 58 wives and 94 children of Vietnam War POWs boarded a Perot-chartered aircraft dubbed “The Spirit of Christmas” for Paris. Only 3 wives were allowed to meet with the 4-member North

National Security Action Memorandum Number 328 Vietnamese delegation, however, and the meeting produced no concessions. Members of the NLOF also testified before the U.S. Congress on several occasions. Other NLOF activities involved petition drives, presentations to various civic groups, letter-writing campaigns, and POW bracelet sales. With the release of the POWs during Operation HOMECOMING (February–March 1973), the primary goal of the NLOF changed to one that focused on a full accounting of all servicemen listed as missing in action (MIA) in Southeast Asia. After the war, the membership changed as well. Most family members of returning POWs left the organization, and a number of members of Voices in Vital America (VIVA) joined the NLOF. Founded in 1967 as Victory in Vietnam Association, this California-based organization gained notoriety for the creation of POW/MIA wrist bracelets, which included a serviceman’s name, rank, and date of loss. In the summer of 1976 Carol Bates, formerly of VIVA, became the executive director of the NLOF. The reconstituted NLOF began a lobbying campaign to oppose U.S. adherence to Article 21 of the Paris Peace Accords, which required U.S. funding for reconstruction efforts in Vietnam, until a full accounting of MIAs could be completed. Following the completion of Operation HOMECOMING, the NLOF embraced and advanced the argument that POWs were still being held in Southeast Asia and that the U.S. government was not attempting to secure their release. Several factors contributed to this. The Department of Defense had released on more than one occasion conflicting reports regarding the numbers, albeit by small margins, of Americans classified at one time as POWs, MIAs, or killed in action in Indochina. The case of U.S. Marine Corps private first class Robert Garwood aided conspiracy theorists. Garwood was captured by the Communist Viet Cong (VC) in September 1965 but was not released with other U.S. POWs in 1973. He was not repatriated until March 1979, when he returned to the United States to face a courtmartial. During his trial he denied an earlier report that he had made to a foreign journalist that he had seen other live American POWs in Vietnam. One of Garwood’s defense attorneys was former NLOF attorney Dermot Foley. In the early 1980s through a variety of efforts, including those of President Ronald Reagan and the Republican National Committee, the NLOF became the principal liaison between the Department of Defense and MIA activists. In 1993 a U.S. Senate select committee, which included former Vietnam POW and U.S. senator John S. McCain III, stated that “there is no proof that U.S. POWs survive, but neither is there proof that all of those who did not return have died. There is evidence, moreover, that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number, after Operation HOMECOMING.” The committee concluded that there were no surviving POWs in Vietnam as of 1993. In 2008 the Pentagon and the NLOF listed more than 1,700 Americans as unaccounted for and missing from the Vietnam War. GLENN M. ROBINS

797

See also HOMECOMING, Operation; McCain, John Sidney, III; Prisoners of War,

Allied; Stockdale, Sybil Bailey References Davis, Vernon. The Long Road Home: U.S. Prisoner of War Policy and Planning in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Historical Office, Secretary of Defense, 2000. Franklin, H. Bruce. M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America: How and Why Belief in Live POWs Has Possessed a Nation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. U.S. Senate. Report of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, 103 Cong., 1st Sess., January 13, 1993. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

National Party of Greater Vietnam See Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang

National Security Action Memorandum Number 328 Memorandum generated by the National Security Council directing the first major U.S. escalation in the Vietnam War via the deployment of large numbers of ground troops to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Memorandum Number 328 was signed by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy on April 6, 1965, and was in reference to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s April 1 decision to increase American participation in the Vietnam War; it was sent to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of State Robert McNamara, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Raborn. Bundy, who had first become national security adviser under President John F. Kennedy in 1961, was an early proponent of aggressive action against Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Just two months earlier he had suggested U.S. bombing strikes against select targets in North Vietnam. Bundy later came to regret his hawkish views on the war, and he was among the first of Kennedy’s and Johnson’s advisers to publicly distance himself from the escalatory spiral in the conflict. The memorandum first stated Johnson’s approval of a 41step program of nonmilitary actions to be taken in Vietnam that were designed to bolster South Vietnam while punishing North Vietnam. Second, the memo stated the president’s authorization to pursue as many as 12 covert actions to be taken against North Vietnam, as recommended by the CIA. Third, the memo directed the secretary of defense to deploy 18,000–20,000 additional U.S. ground troops to South Vietnam, to include two additional marine battalions and a marine air squadron. Fourth, the memo made clear that Johnson was authorizing all U.S. Marine Corps battalions in Vietnam to employ force in the struggle against the Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regulars.

798

Native Americans in the U.S. Military

Memorandum Number 328 marked the beginning of a long series of escalations in the Vietnam War by nearly doubling the number of American troops and military advisers on the ground. The remainder of 1965 saw large and steady increases in ground forces in Vietnam so that by year’s end there were some 180,000 U.S. troops there. By 1968 the Johnson administration had deployed more than 500,000 troops to fight in the conflict. On the evening of April 7, 1965, Johnson gave a televised address from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore announcing his administration’s determination to increase American involvement in Vietnam, although he did not mention specific numbers of troops to be deployed. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Bundy, McGeorge; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech References Hunt, Michael H. Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945–1968. New York: Hill and Wang, 1996. VanDeMark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Native Americans in the U.S. Military As in previous 20th-century conflicts, Native Americans who served during the Vietnam War compiled an enviable record of bravery and courage, continuing a warrior tradition deeply entrenched in their cultures. In the midst of a war that became deeply unpopular in mainstream America, thousands of Native Americans volunteered for military service at a much higher percentage than whites or African Americans (some studies suggest that 80–90 percent volunteered). In numerous cases the volunteers had parents, grandparents, and other family members who had served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Once in the military, Native Americans were much more likely to serve, either as volunteers or by assignment, in active combat. In part because of their perceived or assumed skills in scouting and tracking, many ended up in Special Forces or Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPS) units. Others worked in Laos and Vietnam with the Hmongs and Montagnards, Indochina’s tribal peoples. Native American veterans often reported a special affinity with the Montagnards, Vietnam’s indigenous people. Native American veterans often volunteered to serve multiple tours; it was not uncommon for some to reenlist for two or more combat tours. Native Americans who saw combat in Vietnam were, like their predecessors in prior wars, often placed in situations where their bravery was put to the test. Some, such as Cherokee serviceman Billy Walkabout, were highly decorated, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross. Sergeant Pascal Poola, a Kiowa who also served in World War II and the Korean War and was wounded in those wars as well as in Vietnam War, earned many medals but

earned the last of his five Bronze Star Medals in an action that cost him his life. Poola was mortally wounded as he pulled his fellow soldiers to safety. Like many Vietnam War veterans, Native Americans faced numerous problems adjusting to life when they returned from the war. These problems included substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at levels higher than the general Vietnam War veteran population. This can be partly explained by the fact that so many Native Americans had seen combat and repeated tours during the war. In the case of Native American veterans, they returned to America at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was having a major impact on many Native American communities. For example, the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied the village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973 to protest against the tribal government on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The confrontation between AIM and local law enforcement and U.S. military forces became known as Wounded Knee II. Two AIM leaders, Carter Camp and Stan Holder, both Vietnam War veterans, directed construction of fortified bunkers and blockades to defend the village. Other Native American veterans became active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). In the years since the war, many Native Americans have joined the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), and Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). Vietnam War veterans are regularly honored at powwows and celebrations and participate in tribal ceremonies across the United States. The Vietnam Veterans Intertribe Association represents the interests of many Native American veterans. By war’s end more than 85,000 Native Americans had seen Vietnam War–era service in the U.S. military, with perhaps as many as 90 percent of them volunteers. More than half that number served in combat. More than 42,000 served in Indochina alone, and 226 died there. These figures indicate that Native Americans had the highest per capita service rate of any ethnic group in the United States. STEVE POTTS See also Civil Rights Movement; Hmongs; Montagnards; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Veterans of America References Carroll, Al. Medicine Bags & Dog Tags: American Indian Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Holm, Tom. Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. “The National Survey of Indian Vietnam Veterans.” American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research 6(1) (1994): 18–28. Robinson, Gary, and Phil Lucas. From Warriors to Soldiers: The History of Native American Service in the United States Military. New York: iUniverse, 2008. St. Pierre, Mark. Of Uncommon Birth: Dakota Sons in Vietnam. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

Naval Gunfire Support

799

Private First Class Joseph Big Medicine Jr., a Cheyenne Indian, writes a letter to his family. He is a member of the 1st Marine Regiment on a search-anddestroy mission near the marine base at An Hoa, South Vietnam, July 21, 1969. (National Archives)

Naval Gunfire Support Naval bombardment during the Vietnam War can be divided between the SEA DRAGON interdiction and harassment operations directed against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from 1966 to 1968 and gunnery support for friendly troops in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In the latter role, U.S. warships fired their first missions in 1965 and would continue to do so until the end of active U.S. naval operations in 1972. With its 1,200-mile coastline, South Vietnam offered the U.S. Navy an ideal theater for its gunships. Cruisers, frigates, and destroyers could cover one-third of the land area of I Corps Tactical Zone and large portions of II and III Corps Tactical Zones. Planning for naval gunfire support began at a joint U.S. Navy– U.S. Air Force conference in Saigon during May 3–5, 1965. The Seventh Fleet tasked its gunfire-support ships with delivering two types of artillery fire: unobserved saturation bombardment of preselected areas and call fire controlled by ground or aerial spotters.

Targets included Communist forces opposing amphibious landings and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) artillery batteries that fired across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The first U.S. naval bombardment occurred in mid-May 1965, when the 8-inch gun cruiser Canberra and 5 destroyers fired at Viet Cong (VC) assembly areas, caches, and troops on the move. Operation STARLITE in August 1965 clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of naval gunfire support. By the spring of 1966 escorts, rocket landing ships, and the inshore fire-support ship Carronade had joined the effort and were joined in 1968 by the battleship New Jersey for one tour. Ammunition expenditure increased from 90,000 rounds for all of 1965 to 40,000 rounds monthly by late 1966. In 1967 the ships fired half a million projectiles. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, 22 gunships—2 cruisers, 18 destroyers, and 2 rocket ships—were in action at once, firing more than 100,000 rounds monthly and providing key support in the defeat of Communist forces at Hue.

800

Navarre, Henri Eugène

This aspect of the war was not totally one-sided. On occasion the gunships came to close quarters with Communist forces. For example, the destroyer Ozbourn was damaged by mortar fire when steaming only two miles offshore. Additionally, the large number of gunfire-support missions wore on equipment and thus necessitated regunning, which was usually accomplished at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Some of the newer pieces of ordnance also proved liable to malfunction, with the first such instance occurring in May 1965 with an in-bore 5-inch gun explosion on the destroyer Somers. By 1969 seven additional ships suffered such accidents, some of which killed crewmen. From its high point in the spring of 1968, the gunfire-support mission decreased as the war wound down. By 1971 an average of only 3 ships patrolled the gunline. Ordnance expenditures fell from 454,000 rounds in 1969 to 114,000 in 1971. A last surge of activity came during the 1972 PAVN Easter Offensive, when as many as 20 warships fired against PAVN forces in Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces and were a key force in staving off attacks on Hue. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also New Jersey, USS; SEA DRAGON, Operation; STARLITE, Operation; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Muir, Malcolm, Jr. Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1996. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982.

Navarre, Henri Eugène Birth Date: July 31, 1898 Death Date: June 21, 1983 French Army general and commander of French forces in Indochina (1953–1954), chiefly remembered as the architect of the 1954 Dien Bien Phu debacle. Henri Eugène Navarre was born on July 31, 1898, at Villefranche de Rouergue in Aveyron; his father was a Greek scholar and dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Toulouse. In 1916 during World War I, Navarre enlisted in the army to secure admittance to the French military academy of Saint-Cyr the next year. He was commissioned a second lieutenant of Hussars in November 1918. Following the war, Navarre served in Syria, Morocco, and Germany. His years in Germany (1922–1926) led to him being regarded as a specialist in that country’s affairs. Study at the Cavalry School at Saumur fostered Navarre’s conviction that the future of

warfare rested on mechanized forces, and he transferred to the armored branch. He fought in the Rif War in Morocco during 1925– 1926, for which he was awarded the Legion of Honor. From 1928 to 1930 he attended the École Supérieure de Guerre. From 1936 to 1939 he headed the German Section of the Deuxième Bureau (army intelligence). Promoted to major in October 1939, he became an intelligence officer on the staff of General Maxime Weygand. In 1940 Navarre helped organize military intelligence in occupied France, and until 1942 he headed army intelligence in North Africa. He then commanded a heavy cavalry regiment. In November 1942 Navarre was recalled to France, where he became active in organizing Resistance intelligence operations. In late 1944 he joined Allied forces invading southern France and was promoted to colonel. In 1945 he commanded a regiment of Moroccan Spahis that helped capture Colmar and Karlsruhe. Navarre’s war record and knowledge of Germany led to his appointment as chief of staff to the French military commander in Germany. Advanced to brigadier general in October 1945, he then became inspector general of French occupation forces in occupied Germany. In 1948 he commanded a division in Algeria, and after study at the Institute of Advanced Studies for the National Defense, in 1950 he was promoted to major general and returned to Germany for two years to command the 5th Armored Division. Promoted to lieutenant general in April 1952, he served as chief of staff to Marshal Alphonse Juin, commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Central European forces. On May 8, 1953, the René Mayer government named Navarre to replace General Raoul Salan as commander of French Union forces in Indochina with the task of finding an honorable way out of the war. Navarre did not receive the post of commissioner general, which the Paris government thought should go to a civilian to negotiate a peace settlement. Navarre, who made his decisions in isolation, soon changed the French tactics from largely static defense to fluid offensive operations. Determined to take the war to the Viet Minh, he ended up hastening the French military defeat. Navarre withdrew forces from various defensive positions to create a large mobile strike force. In July, Navarre flew to Paris to present French leaders with his plans to step up the war. These included negotiations with the Indochinese states that would grant them greater independence but secure their support for a wider war. He also proposed the deployment of an additional 20,000 French troops and 108 native Indochinese battalions. Navarre stated that if he received the requested reinforcements, if independence was granted to the Indochinese states, and if China did not step up aid to the Viet Minh, the war could be ended in 18 months. He later claimed that he never thought he could win the war and only hoped to restore the military situation in a coup nul (“draw”). Navarre’s decision to send significant military resources to occupy the remote outpost of Dien Bien Phu, as the key element of Operation CASTOR, was prompted by his desire to secure a blocking position on the main Viet Minh invasion route into Laos. He also

Navarre Plan

801

General Henri Navarre, pictured here in 1953 when he was named commander of French forces in Indochina. Navarre was the architect of the strategy that led to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. (Bettmann/Corbis)

hoped to draw limited Viet Minh resources into a pitched battle, where they might be destroyed. His plan rested on the assumption that the French would enjoy absolute superiority in airpower and artillery. However, Dien Bien Phu was too far removed from French air bases in Hanoi and Haiphong, and in any case French air assets were insufficient. Navarre was also guilty of seriously underestimating his enemy. Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap took up the challenge and committed all available resources in hopes of administering a resounding defeat. The fact that Dien Bien Phu is in a valley made its French defenders vulnerable targets for heavy artillery, which Viet Minh porters dragged over the mountains to the battlefield, something that Navarre had thought impossible. An embittered Navarre retired from the army in 1956 to run a brick factory and write his memoirs (Agonie de Indochine) free from military censorship. Although he took responsibility for Dien Bien Phu, he blamed the politicians, who he said “entangled France in the Geneva Conference,” for the ultimate French defeat in Indochina. Navarre died in Paris on June 21, 1983. SPENCER C. TUCKER

See also CASTOR, Operation; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Indochina War; Navarre Plan; Salan, Raoul Albin Louis; Vo Nguyen Giap References Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Navarre, General Henri. Agonie de l’Indochine, 1953–1954. Paris: Plon, 1956. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

Navarre Plan Plan developed by French commander in Indochina Lieutenant General Henri Navarre to find an honorable way for France out of the Indochina War. Following his May 1953 appointment to command in Indochina, Navarre and his deputy, Major General

802

Neutrality

René Cogny, developed what became known as the Navarre Plan. Navarre, who made his decisions in isolation, changed French tactics from what had been a largely static defense to fluid offensive operations and withdrew forces from various defensive positions in order to create a mobile strike force. In July he flew to Paris to present French leaders his plans to step up the war. The Navarre Plan included negotiations with the Indochina states that would grant them greater independence in exchange for their support for a wider war. He also proposed deploying an additional 20,000 French troops and raising 108 native Indochinese battalions. Navarre was quoted as telling the Paris press that if he received the requested reinforcements, if the Indochinese states were granted independence, and if China did not increase its aid to the Viet Minh, the war could be ended in 18 months. Navarre later claimed that he did not think he could win the war but only hoped to restore the military situation and secure a coup nul (“draw”). The U.S. government supported the Navarre Plan in 1953 with nearly $400 million in assistance. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles described the plan to a Senate committee as designed to “break the organized body of Communist aggression by the end of the 1955 fighting season.” Navarre’s decision to send significant military resources to occupy the remote outpost of Dien Bien Phu as the key element of Operation CASTOR was prompted by his desire to secure a blocking position on the main Viet Minh invasion route into Laos. CASTOR led to the most important battle of the war and hastened the French defeat in Indochina. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also CASTOR, Operation; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dulles, John Foster; Indochina War; Navarre, Henri Eugène References Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Navarre, General Henri. Agonie de l’Indochine, 1953–1954. Paris: Plon, 1956. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004.

Neutrality Under international law, regimes declaring themselves neutral in wartime are required to live up to that pledge. The 1907 Hague Convention states that “A neutral country has the obligation not to allow its territory to be used by a belligerent. If the neutral country is unwilling or unable to prevent this, the other belligerent has the right to take appropriate counteraction.”

During the Vietnam War, this neutrality-belligerency issue involved both Laos and Cambodia. Beginning in 1959, their neutral status was compromised as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) began covertly using their territories for supply routes into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Ho Chi Minh Trail supply route evolved from a network of footpaths through eastern Laos and Cambodia to a major supply artery, moving personnel and arms from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. By the early to mid-1960s, Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops were using Laotian and Cambodian territories as rest, resupply, and retraining sanctuaries. As early as 1964, the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the North Vietnamese headquarters directing operations in South Vietnam, was located in Cambodia. The fragile governments of Laos and Cambodia were unable to prevent these violations of their neutrality. Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s Cambodian government, however, actively violated its own proclaimed neutrality when in 1966 it authorized and supported the establishment of a North Vietnamese covert maritime supply route through Cambodia. The Cambodian government secretly allowed foreign ships carrying weapons and ammunition intended for Vietnamese Communist forces to dock at the main Cambodian port of Sihanoukville (present-day Kompong Som). After being loaded onto trucks at the port, the supplies were then transported under Cambodian Army escort to Vietnamese Communist base areas along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border for delivery. Postwar Vietnamese records reveal that from 1966 through 1969 North Vietnam shipped more than 21,000 tons of weapons and ammunition through the port of Sihanoukville to its forces fighting in South Vietnam. Although covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations directed at aiding anti-Communist forces in Laos dated back to the early 1950s, covert responses by the U.S. military began with the introduction of Special Forces teams into Laos in 1959. These teams of advisers trained Hmongs to attack Vietnamese moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but political sensitivities over the neutral status of Laos led to their withdrawal in 1962. Thereafter, unannounced U.S. bombing and artillery attacks began targeting Laotian portions of the trail in 1963 and Cambodian positions by 1966. Reflecting Cambodia’s growing importance to the North Vietnamese war effort in South Vietnam, some 3,600 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombing missions were flown over Cambodia from March 1969 through May 1970. The watershed of this activity came on April 28, 1970, when U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops invaded Cambodia. Militarily, the short-term impact of this operation was mixed at best. Valuable North Vietnamese intelligence documents were captured, as were large stocks of military equipment and other supplies. Because many North Vietnamese units and headquarters and logistics elements had withdrawn from the area prior to the invasion, however, North Vietnamese person-

NEVADA EAGLE, Operation

nel losses were relatively small. Their forces lived to fight another day, and their equipment loss was easily resupplied by the Chinese and the Soviets. The long-term military impact was somewhat more significant, as much of the ground fighting after 1970 involved battles between the PAVN and the ARVN battles in Cambodia. Thus, the military scope of ground operations widened considerably. On the other hand, the political fallout of this operation was both immediate and substantial. When President Richard M. Nixon revealed the Cambodian Incursion to the nation in a televised address on April 30, 1970, domestic opposition to the war exploded over this invasion of a “neutral” country. Inside the Nixon administration, Interior Secretary Walter Hickel publicly denounced the invasion, as did 200 State Department employees in a public petition. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, longtime bastions of elite support in the eastern United States of U.S. foreign policy, published editorials condemning this expansion of the war. Antiwar demonstrations resulted in the deaths of four students at Kent State University and two at Jackson State University and briefly shut down more than 400 college campuses. Nearly 100,000 students marched on the nation’s capital. Reacting to this public outrage, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment prohibiting U.S. operations in Cambodia after July 1, 1970. Ironically, Laotian and Cambodian neutrality had long been a myth. However, the public reaction to the Cambodian Incursion dramatically increased pressures within the Nixon administration to find a negotiated peace in Vietnam and also fostered congressional attempts to legislate an end to U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia by prohibiting the expenditure of public funds for such purposes. In short, the violation of Cambodia’s “neutrality” by U.S. forces helped speed the termination of the American phase of the Vietnam War. RALPH G. CARTER See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Central Office for South Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Kent State University Shootings; Laos; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Ambrose, Stephen E. Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938. 6th rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Lomperis, Timothy J. The War Everyone Lost—and Won: America’s Intervention in Viet Nam’s Twin Struggles. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1993. Spanier, John, and Steven W. Hook. American Foreign Policy since World War II. 13th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995. Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press 1995. Tran Van Quang, ed. Tong Ket Cuoc Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc: Thang Loi va Bai Hoc (Luu Hanh Noi Bo) [Review of the Resistance War against the Americans to Save the Nation: Victories and Lessons (Internal Distribution Only)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1995.

NEVADA EAGLE,

803

Operation

Start Date: May 17, 1968 End Date: February 28, 1969 Military operation involving the U.S. 101st Airmobile Division (Airmobile) conducted during counteroffensive in response to the 1968 Tet Offensive. On May 17, 1968, the 101st launched NEVADA EAGLE as part of the overall allied counteroffensive. The operation was one of many battalion-sized forays designed to smash Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces throughout South Vietnam. Except for some sharp engagements during airmobile sweeps in the mountains of Thua Thien Province, NEVADA EAGLE made little contact with Communist units in the field. The 101st Airborne Division’s primary mission became keeping open major road networks that protected rice harvest in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The division aggressively engaged in combat and ambush patrols, road-clearing sweeps, and small operations to try to bring VC/PAVN units into open battle. Communist forces refused, however, to be drawn into a major conflict and used mines and booby traps to inflict a number of U.S. casualties. NEVADA EAGLE revealed an alarming trend: the PAVN ability to entice U.S. helicopter pilots into ambushes. The PAVN used small groups of personnel to present an obvious target; then, as the helicopters came in low to engage, Communist troops would open fire with carefully concealed machine guns. U.S. forces responded with increased use of artillery fire in support of their aviation assets. The one major engagement of Operation NEVADA EAGLE occurred on May 21, 1968. While most of the 101st Airborne Division’s combat elements were dispersed on sweeps, a PAVN battalion struck the division base camp near Hue. The PAVN troops managed to break through the outer perimeter, pushing the defending 1st Brigade back to its final defensive bunkers. Helicopter gunships and artillery, employed in direct-fire mode, used beehive rounds to break up the attack. By dawn on May 22 what remained of the PAVN battalion broke contact and retreated. Operation NEVADA EAGLE was officially terminated on February 28, 1969. Total U.S. casualties for NEVADA EAGLE were 175 killed and 1,161 wounded. The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), gave VC/PAVN losses as 3,299 killed and 853 taken prisoner. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Air Mobility; Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Search and Destroy; United States Army References Hoang Ngoc Lung, Colonel. The General Offensives of 1968–69. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

804 New Jersey, USS

New Jersey, USS The only U.S. battleship to serve in the Vietnam War, USS New Jersey was the second of the four-ship Iowa-class ships. The New Jersey was commissioned at Philadelphia in May 1943. With minor variations, all four Iowa-class ships had a 45,000-ton design standard but displaced about 48,000 tons standard and 57,500 tons fully loaded. These ships measured 887 feet 7 inches in length overall with a maximum beam of 108 feet 2 inches and draft of 38 feet. Their main armament was three 16-inch 50-caliber guns in each of three turrets. They also had 20 5-inch–gun dual turrets. The Iowas-class ships had a top speed of 33 knots and crews of 1,921 officers and sailors, although they could accommodate more. In January 1944 the New Jersey (BB-62) joined the Fifth Fleet in the Pacific for the assault on the Marshall Islands. The ship also served alternatively as the flagship of the Third Fleet. The New Jersey participated in the Marianas invasion, the Battle of Philippine Sea, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and the invasions of Iowa Jima and the Ryukyus. Following an overhaul, the ship again became the Fifth Fleet flagship. After additional service in the Far East and the Atlantic, the New Jersey was decommissioned in June 1948. Recommissioned in November 1950 for the Korean War, the New Jersey served two tours in Korean waters, in 1951 and 1953.

Then after service in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and European waters, it was again decommissioned in August 1957. The battleship New Jersey was brought back into service in April 1968 for Vietnam War service to augment the few cruisers operating in Southeast Asian waters. A Pacific Fleet gunfire-support review in May 1967 concluded that certain key targets in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) such as the Thanh Hoa Bridge and the Song Giang–Kien Giang logistic bottleneck would be vulnerable to the battleship’s 16-inch guns that fired shells weighing up to 2,700 pounds over 22 miles. Other important advantages included the battleship’s superior endurance and resistance to damage. The principal objection to returning the New Jersey to service was the cost of supporting a one-of-a-kind ship. At the direction of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the New Jersey, originally commissioned in 1943, underwent an austere modernization costing $21.5 million, about as much as the price of four jet fighters. Arriving in Vietnamese waters on September 29, 1968, the battleship found many of the most lucrative targets in North Vietnam removed from its reach by President Lyndon Johnson’s order forbidding SEA DRAGON operations above the 19th Parallel. After November 1, when SEA DRAGON was cancelled altogether, the New Jersey engaged in gunfire-support missions south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), where its performance

The 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey (BB-62) fire on coastal targets in Vietnam. The New Jersey was the only U.S. battleship to serve in the Vietnam War. (U.S. Naval Institute)

Ngo Dinh Can earned accolades from hard-pressed troops ashore and won for the ship the Navy Unit Commendation “for exceptionally meritorious service.” Leaving the gun line on March 31, 1969, the New Jersey returned to the United States for upkeep. Although originally scheduled for a second tour, the ship was again deactivated and decommissioned in December 1969, when the Richard M. Nixon administration scaled down America’s participation in the war. The New Jersey was again placed in service in the early 1980s during the defense buildup by the Ronald Reagan administration and saw action during the deployment of U.S. marines as peacekeeping forces during the Lebanese Civil War. The ship underwent modernization at this time and was outfitted to carry missiles. In 2001 it became a floating museum in Camden, New Jersey. The New Jersey earned 15 battle stars for its service in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also McNamara, Robert Strange; Naval Gunfire Support; SEA DRAGON, Operation; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Muir, Malcolm, Jr. The Iowa Class Battleships: Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, & Wisconsin. Poole, Dorset, UK: Blandford, 1987. Stillwell, Paul. Battleship New Jersey: An Illustrated History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Sumrall, Robert F. Iowa Class Battleships: Their Design, Weapons & Equipment. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988.

New Zealand English-speaking nation in the southern Pacific Ocean located about 1,000 miles to the southeast of Australia. New Zealand, which encompasses an area of 104,454 square miles and had a 1968 population of 2.759 million people, was a close partner with the United States and other Western democracies throughout the Cold War. New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with close ties to Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth II has been its recognized monarch since 1953. Its form of government is parliamentary, with a prime minister as head of government. From 1960 to 1972 New Zealand’s government was led by Prime Minister Keith Holyoake of the New Zealand National Party, a center-right conservative political group. New Zealand was among the first governments to send troops to the Korean War (1950–1953) and it also dispatched troops to the 1948–1960 Malayan Emergency. In the early 1960s New Zealand sent troops to Borneo during Indonesia’s konfrontasi policy, which lasted until late 1965. New Zealand sent both military and nonmilitary assistance to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). New Zealand’s rationale for the aid was that the decline of British power made New Zealand’s security dependent upon the United States and

805

that communism in Southeast Asia threatened New Zealand’s vital interests. New Zealanders in Vietnam served with Australian forces. A New Zealand civic action contingent arrived in 1964 and was replaced with an artillery battery the following year that supported the Australian task force in Phuoc Tuy Province. In May 1967 a New Zealand rifle company was transferred from Malaysia to Vietnam. Later that year additional infantry, reconnaissance, and engineer troops were dispatched and integrated with the Australians to form an Australian–New Zealand battalion. New Zealand’s peak troop strength was 543 men in January 1969, and its financial aid to South Vietnam was $350,000 annually. Nonmilitary assistance included health teams to support refugee camps, vocational experts, surgical personnel, and funding for universities in Hue and Saigon. As domestic opposition to the war in Vietnam grew in the United States, the same occurred in New Zealand. In 1970, concomitant with the American policy of Vietnamization, New Zealand proposed replacing one rifle company with a 25-man army training team. Prime Minister Holyoake, in tandem with the Australian government, announced that his nation’s combat troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of 1971. In all, some 3,900 New Zealanders served in Vietnam during 1962–1971. Thirty-eight were killed in the war. PETER W. BRUSH See also Australia; Civic Action; Free World Assistance Program; Order of Battle Dispute; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization References Denoon, Donald, et al. History of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. McGibbon, Ian. Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Ngo Dinh Can Birth Date: ca. 1911 Death Date: May 9, 1964 Younger brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and proconsul of northern South Vietnam. Born in Vietnam probably in 1911, Ngo Dinh Can was poorly educated and the only one of the Ngo brothers without a Western-style education. He never traveled abroad or even very far from his home and spent most of his time living as a recluse in Hue with his widowed mother. Because of his family relationship with Diem and the trust given to him by his brother, Can came to be, in effect, the warlord of central Vietnam from Phan Thiet Province north to the 17th Parallel.

806

Ngo Dinh Diem

Although he held no official position within the South Vietnamese government, Can exercised significant, almost untrammeled power, ruling his area as if it were a feudal satrapy. He had both his own army and secret police and used them to fight the Viet Cong (VC), terrify opponents, and enforce his will. As a result, although he personally lived simply enough, he became a very rich man. Among his other enterprises, he sought out lucrative American aid contracts. There were even rumors that he also headed a smuggling ring that shipped rice to Hanoi and distributed opium across Asia. Undeterred by stories of the corruption, Diem referred to Can in matters relating to Can’s area of control. Sometimes at odds with Diem’s policies, Can nevertheless was a staunch supporter of his brother’s regime. Following the 1963 assassination of his brothers, Diem and Nhu, Can was himself seized by the new administration. Brought to trial, he was executed in Saigon on May 9, 1964. CECIL B. CURREY See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Khoi; Ngo Dinh Luyen; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Ngo Dinh Thuc References Baritz, Loren. Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did. New York: Morrow, 1985. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Ngo Dinh Diem Birth Date: January 3, 1901 Death Date: November 2, 1963 President of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from October 1955 to November 1963. Ngo Dinh Diem was born in Quang Binh Province on January 3, 1901. His father, Ngo Dinh Kha, an official in the imperial court at Hue, rose to the rank of counselor to Emperor Thanh Thai. Seventeenth-century Portuguese missionaries converted the Ngo Dinh clan to Catholicism. When the French deposed the emperor in 1907, Ngo Dinh Kha protested by refusing to sign the French-supported court resolution against Thanh Thai and returned to his village of Phu Cam to teach and farm. Ngo Dinh Diem was one of nine children and the third of six sons. He attended his father’s private school and French Catholic schools in Hue. As a teenager he considered becoming a priest like his older brother Ngo Dinh Thuc, who later became archbishop of Hue. Instead, Diem entered the School of Law and Public Administration in Hanoi, graduating four years later at the top of his class. His first assignment was to the bureaucracy in Annam. At age 25 he became a provincial governor. Diem was very popular, personally riding on horseback throughout the province to carry out land reforms and ensure jus-

tice for even the poorest peasants. In 1929 he uncovered a Communist-led uprising and crushed it. This event deeply affected Diem, who now became an ardent anti-Communist. In 1932 the 18-year-old Bao Dai returned from France to take the throne as emperor. Early in 1933 upon French advice, he appointed Diem as interior minister and chief of the newly formed Commission for Administrative Reforms. Diem soon discovered that the positions were powerless. After only three months he resigned, and French authorities stripped him of his decorations and rank and threatened to arrest him. For the next 10 years Diem lived in seclusion in Hue with his mother and younger brother, Ngo Dinh Can. Diem met regularly with nationalist comrades even though the French closely watched him. French authorities even dismissed his older brother, Ngo Dinh Khoi, as governor of Quang Nam Province. In early 1942, not long after the Japanese took over in Vietnam, Diem tried to persuade them to grant independence. Instead, the Japanese operated through the Vichy French colonial bureaucracy. In September 1945 with the Japanese surrender and fearing that Bao Dai’s puppet government might side with the powerful Viet Minh forces of Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap, Diem set out for Hanoi to convince the emperor otherwise. On the way Diem was kidnapped by Viet Minh agents and taken to a remote village near the Chinese border, where he contracted malaria. When he recovered, he discovered that the Viet Minh had shot and killed his brother Ngo Dinh Khoi. After six months Diem was taken to Hanoi, where he met Ho Chi Minh, who asked him to join the Communists. Diem refused even though he expected that this would cost him his life. Instead, Ho released him. Communist leaders later realized that this had been a mistake and sentenced Diem to death in absentia. Over the next four years Diem traveled in Vietnam trying to gain political support. An attempt on his life in 1950 convinced him to leave the country. In 1950 Diem went to the Vatican and had an audience with Pope Pius XII. The next year Diem traveled to the United States, where he spent two years at Maryknoll seminaries in New Jersey and New York as a novice, performing menial jobs and meditating. While in the United States he met prominent individuals such as Francis Cardinal Spellman, U.S. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, and Senator John F. Kennedy. Diem effectively argued his case, declaring that he opposed both the French and Communists and represented the only real nationalist course. As a result of his devout Catholicism he and Spellman became close friends, and the cardinal soon became Diem’s greatest American promoter. In May 1953, frustrated by the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration’s support of the French, Diem went to a Benedictine monastery in Belgium. From there he regularly traveled to Paris, where he met with the large community of Vietnamese exiles, including his youngest brother, Ngo Dinh Luyen, a prominent engineer. Through Luyen, Diem finally began to gain supporters and real political power.

Ngo Dinh Diem In 1954 delegates at the Geneva Conference settled the first Indochina War, restoring Indochina as three nations: Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th Parallel, with national elections set for 1956. At this time Bao Dai was in Cannes, France, fearful that his future as emperor was in jeopardy. Diem needed Bao Dai to legitimate his rise to power, and Bao Dai needed the support of Diem’s powerful allies, including his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu who had set up the influential Front for National Salvation in Saigon as an alternative to Ho Chi Minh. Because of Diem’s time in the United States and meetings with American leaders, Bao Dai believed that the U.S. government backed Diem. On June 18, 1954, Bao Dai summoned Diem to his chateau in Cannes and appointed him prime minister. With growing American support, Diem returned to Saigon on June 26 and then on July 7 officially formed his new government, technically for all of Vietnam. Fearing that the Communists would overrun this fledgling Asian “domino,” President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles began sending aid to the new regime. Unfortunately, Diem’s power base was largely limited to minority Catholics, rich and powerful Vietnamese, and foreigners. But his earlier trip to the United States meant that Diem was the only non-Communist Vietnamese whom U.S. officials knew. Washington dispatched Colonel Edward Lansdale, the successful architect of the Philippine antiCommunist counterinsurgency, to council Diem. After the 1954 Geneva Accords, the United States pressured France to withdraw all its remaining forces from Vietnam, the last leaving on April 28, 1956. In early 1955 Diem moved to consolidate his power. Employing five loyal army battalions, Diem moved against his opponents, culminating the action on May 6, 1955, when his forces defeated those of the Binh Xuyen in Saigon. Diem also moved against the political cadres of the Viet Minh, allowed in South Vietnam by the Geneva Convention. In 1955 he ignored an effort by Bao Dai (then in France) to remove him from office; instead, Diem called an October election for the people to choose between them. Clearly Diem would have won any honest election, but he ignored appeals of U.S. officials for such and managed the results so that the announced vote in his favor was 98.2 percent. On October 26, 1955, using the referendum as justification, Diem proclaimed the new government of South Vietnam with himself as president. Washington, prompted by Lansdale, officially recognized him in this position and withdrew its support for Bao Dai. During Eisenhower’s last six years as U.S. president, material aid from Washington to South Vietnam totaled $1.8 billion. In an effort to bolster Diem’s image, Eisenhower arranged state visits to South Vietnam by Dulles in 1955 and Vice President Richard Nixon in 1956. In 1957 Diem traveled to the United States and spoke to a joint session of Congress. By 1960 the situation in South Vietnam had deteriorated. The Viet Minh had resumed guerrilla activities, and in spite of massive U.S. aid to fight communism, Diem used 8 of every 10 aid dollars for internal security. Worse, he estranged himself from the peas-

807

When the Geneva Accords temporarily divided Vietnam in two in 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem, a fiercely anti-Communist Catholic in a traditionally Buddhist nation, became prime minister of South Vietnam. Although Lyndon Johnson had private reservations about Diem, he publicly called him the “Winston Churchill of Southeast Asia.” Diem was president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) from October 1955 until his assassination in November 1963. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

ants. Little was done to carry out land reform, and by 1961, 75 percent of the land in South Vietnam was owned by 15 percent of the population. Diem also isolated himself in Saigon, choosing to rely only on his family members for advice and making loyalty to him rather than ability the test for appointments to political office or military command. When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, he reexamined U.S. policy in Vietnam and demanded that Diem institute domestic reforms. But seeing no alternative to Diem, Kennedy also sent 400 Special Operations military advisers to Vietnam to bolster America’s sagging ally. He also dispatched Vice President Lyndon Johnson to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission. Although Johnson had private reservations, he publicly called Diem the “Winston Churchill of Southeast Asia.” Less than a week after Johnson returned, Kennedy agreed to increase the size of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) from 170,000 to 270,000 men. ARVN forces as a rule did not perform well, and by October 1963 U.S. forces in Vietnam had increased to 16,732 men. Concurrently, despite constant pleading by Lansdale, Diem’s oppression of the Buddhist majority and his political opponents

808

Ngo Dinh Diem

Presidents of the Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975 Name

Party or Association

Start Date

End Date

Ngo Dinh Diem Duong Van Minh Nguyen Khanh Duong Van Minh Nguyen Khanh Provisional Leadership Committee Duong Van Minh Phan Khac Suu Nguyen Van Thieu Tran Van Huong Duong Van Minh

Can Lao Military junta Military junta Military junta Military junta Military junta Military junta Appointed by military junta Military junta (National Social Democratic Front after 1968) National Social Democratic Front Appointed by National Assembly

October 26, 1955 November 2, 1963 January 30, 1964 February 8, 1964 March 16, 1964 August 27, 1964 September 8, 1964 October 26, 1964 June 14, 1965 April 21, 1975 April 28, 1975

November 2, 1963 January 30, 1964 February 8, 1964 March 16, 1964 August 27, 1964 September 8, 1964 October 26, 1964 June 14, 1965 April 21, 1975 April 28, 1975 April 30, 1975

grew. To U.S. officials, it seemed that internal opposition to Diem rivaled opposition to the Communists. Diem threw hundreds of political adversaries, real or imagined, into hellish prison camps. Hundreds were tortured and assassinated. His family and friends (mostly Catholics) held all the senior government positions. Most influential were his brother Nhu and his wife, Madame Nhu. Diem himself was celibate. His oldest brother, Archbishop Thuc, controlled Catholic property in South Vietnam that included 370,000 acres of nontaxable farmland exempt from redistribution. Nhu was particularly embarrassing. He set up the Personalist Labor Party, which used totalitarian techniques such as self-criticism sessions, storm troops, and mass rallies. He was also the leading advocate of the Agroville and Strategic Hamlet programs that forcibly resettled whole villages into armed compounds to “protect” them from the Viet Cong (VC). The rampant corruption in the program soon alienated the majority of peasants from the regime. Madame Nhu used her position as state host to enrich herself and influence her brother-in-law to violent acts against the Buddhist majority. She also undertook morality campaigns, persuading Diem to outlaw divorce, dancing, beauty contests, gambling, fortune-telling, boxing, kung fu, cockfighting, prostitution, contraception, and adultery. The harsh punishments that accompanied these excessive rules eventually antagonized large sections of the South Vietnamese population. In the summer of 1963 Buddhist protests and rallies became more frequent and intense. On June 11 the elderly Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burned himself alive. By November, six more monks had followed suit. Madame Nhu exacerbated the crisis by calling these self-immolations “barbecues.” In late August 1963 Henry Cabot Lodge replaced Frederick Nolting as U.S. ambassador. On August 24 Lodge reported to Washington that an influential faction of South Vietnamese generals wanted to overthrow Diem. With the president and most senior officials out of Washington, Acting Secretary of State George Ball, Acting Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatrick, and General Maxwell Taylor formulated a reply. After a phone consultation with Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, they cabled Lodge and informed him that while they wanted to afford Diem a reasonable time to remove the Nhus, the United States was “prepared to ac-

cept the obvious implications that we can no longer support Diem . . . [and] to tell the appropriate military commanders we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown of the central government mechanism.” Lodge immediately met with senior U.S. officials in Vietnam and then cabled Washington that Diem would never replace Nhu and that to ask him to do so would only alert Nhu and lead to a bloodbath, because Nhu had loyal troops in Saigon. Lodge recommended going straight to the generals, bypassing Diem, and leaving it up to them if they wanted to keep Diem. Ball and Roger Hilsman agreed. Kennedy later affirmed their instructions. On August 25 Lodge immediately called another meeting. He decided to distance the United States from the proposed coup and expressed support for the generals through lower-ranking Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, specifically Lieutenant Colonel Lucien Conein, the former World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agent who had a long-standing friendship with many of the conspiring generals. By September 1963 most U.S. administration officials began to have second thoughts, especially General Taylor. At his urging, Kennedy called a meeting of the National Security Council. It was hopelessly divided, with the State Department favoring the coup and Taylor, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and especially Johnson vehemently opposed. Kennedy, although coy about the matter, never acted to prevent the coup or to restrain Lodge. On October 2 Kennedy suspended economic subsidies for South Vietnamese commercial imports, froze loans for Saigon waterworks and electrical power plant projects, and cut off financial support of Nhu’s Vietnamese Special Forces units. Just over an hour after midnight on November 1, 1963 (All Soul’s Day for Catholics), the generals, led by major generals Duong Van “Big” Minh, military governor of Saigon Ton That Dinh, and Tran Van Don, began their coup. Upon learning of the coup, Diem phoned Lodge to ask “what is the attitude of the U.S.?” Lodge feigned ignorance and replied, “I do not feel well enough informed to be able to tell you.” He assured Diem that he would do anything possible to guarantee Diem’s personal safety. Diem and Nhu fled the presidential palace through a tunnel and took refuge in Cho Lon, the Chinese section of Saigon. At about 6:00 a.m. the next morning, the two men agreed to sur-

Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of render. The generals leading the coup guaranteed them safe passage out of the country. While negotiations for their flight dragged on, they were discovered by troops commanded by a longtime foe. The brothers were ordered into the rear of an armored personnel carrier and shot to death. Nhu’s body was repeatedly stabbed. Madame Nhu was in Los Angeles, California, at the time. Washington never did find a viable alternative to Ngo Dinh Diem. Certainly no subsequent leader of South Vietnam had his air of legitimacy. As a result, U.S. leaders, who had seen Diem as an alternative to Ho Chi Minh and an agent to stop the spread of communism, soon found themselves taking direct control of the war in Vietnam. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Bao Dai; Caravelle Group; Conein, Lucien Emile; Dulles, John Foster; Duong Van Minh; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Faure, Edgar; Fishel, Wesley Robert; Heath, Donald Read; Hilsman, Roger; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lansdale, Edward Geary; National Assembly Law 10/59; National Bank of Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Can; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Khoi; Ngo Dinh Luyen; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Ngo Dinh Thuc; Richardson, John Hammond; Spellman, Francis Joseph; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Taylor-McNamara Report; Ton That Dinh; Tran Van Don; Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff; Vietnam, Republic of, National Police; Vietnamization References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. U.S. Involvement in the Overthrow of Diem, 1963. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972. Warner, Denis. The Last Confucian. London: Angus and Robertson, 1964.

Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of Event Date: November 1, 1963 Ever since the Great Migration of 1954 in Vietnam when northern refugees flooded to the south, the Ngo Dinh Diem government tended to favor the newly arrived Roman Catholics over the predominately Buddhist population of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Catholics received lands, business favors, military and government jobs, and other special rewards even though they were a distinct minority. Over the years, egged on by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, Diem’s predilection toward the Catholic citizens increased. On May 8, 1963, Buddhists gathered in Hue to honor the 2,527th birthday of Buddha. The deputy province chief, a Catholic, prohibited the Buddhists from displaying their flag. This was in accordance with a Diem decree requiring that flags of religions, associations, and other countries be displayed

809

outside only in company with the national flag. When the protesters gathered at the radio station, a concussion hand grenade thrown by a Regional Force soldier to break up the crowd killed several people and wounded others. Diem blamed the situation, as he often did, on the Communists. The Buddhists speedily organized, coordinating strikes and protests and making certain that the American news media were kept fully informed of developments. The Buddhists met with U.S. officials and urged the United States to get rid of Diem or at least force reforms from him. U.S. ambassador Frederick Nolting urged Diem to act more responsibly, but the president refused to modify his stance. Then on June 11, 1963, 60-year-old Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, went to one of Saigon’s busy intersections and committed self-immolation as a protest against Diem and his policies. Other self-immolations by Buddhists followed, and unrest grew. In August, Nolting was replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge. Members of Diem’s own military—generals Tran Van Don, Le Van Kim, Duong Van Minh, and others—began questioning whether he should be allowed to continue in office. Diem had long favored loyalty to him over ability in the appointment of general officers, and there were myriad problems in the prosecution of the war against the Viet Cong (VC). Dissident generals began meeting secretly with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Lucien Conein, supposedly serving as an adviser to South Vietnam’s Ministry of the Interior but in reality the conduit between the generals and Ambassador Lodge. The generals wanted assurance that American aid would continue if they were to overthrow Diem. On August 21 the Diem government mounted another raid on the Buddhists, this time in Saigon, arresting hundreds and beating and clubbing others as they ran. More voices in the John F. Kennedy administration began calling for Diem to be replaced; others, just as strident, claimed that doing so would only help the Communists. Lodge supported a coup. General Paul Harkins, head of the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) in Vietnam, demurred and informed General Tran Van Don that any coup would be a grave mistake. Don then told Conein that he was postponing the coup despite Conein’s insistence that the MAAG chief did not speak for the U.S. government. President Kennedy waffled regarding a possible coup, torn by these conflicting crosscurrents. Ngo Dinh Nhu, aware of the plotting against his brother, considered an accommodation with Hanoi as a means of blackmailing U.S. support for his brother’s government. Unwilling to give up on the struggle in Vietnam, Kennedy sent Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor to Saigon on a fact-finding mission. Their report did little to ease the president’s mind. CIA station chief in Saigon John Richardson told Lodge that he doubted that General Minh could conduct a successful coup. Lodge then dismissed Richardson and informed Kennedy that the plotters were now ready to act. Conein told General Tran Van Don that America would not stand in the way. On October 29 during a meeting of the National Security Council, General Taylor spoke out strongly on behalf of Diem.

810

Ngo Dinh Khoi

At the last minute President Kennedy sought a way to postpone any coup. He cabled Lodge to order the generals to postpone any action. Lodge never delivered the message. The coup went ahead as scheduled, culminating on November 1 when rebels seized the radio station and police headquarters and besieged the presidential palace. Diem telephoned Lodge asking for help. It was not forthcoming. Diem and Nhu secretly left the palace early in the evening and sought refuge in Cho Lon at St. Francis Xavier Church. Early the next morning Diem telephoned General Duong Van Minh and asked for negotiations. The plotters had already informed Lodge that Diem’s life would be spared if he and Nhu agreed to go into exile. Although Nhu would never be allowed to return, Diem might be invited back one day to serve in some figurehead capacity. By now Minh had changed his mind and rejected Diem’s telephoned plea. Then Diem called General Tran Van Don, offered to surrender, and revealed his hiding place. The two brothers were arrested by General Mai Huu Xuan, who arrived at the church with an M-113 armored personnel carrier (APC) and four jeeps full of soldiers. Among his entourage were Major Duong Hiuu Nghia and Captain Nguyen Van Nhung, General Minh’s bodyguard. The captors ordered Diem and Nhu into the APC. Nghia and Nhung drove them away. On the road back to Saigon they stopped near a railroad crossing and murdered their prisoners, spraying them with bullets and stabbing them. The Diem regime had ended. CECIL B. CURREY See also Conein, Lucien Emile; Duong Van Minh; Harkins, Paul Donal; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McCone, John Alex; Military Revolutionary Council; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.; Richardson, John Hammond; Thich Quang Duc; Tran Van Don References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. U.S. Involvement in the Overthrow of Diem, 1963. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972.

Ngo Dinh Khoi Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: August 1945 Eldest brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and prominent figure in the government of Annam. Born into a mandarin family in central Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Khoi attended the Imperial Court School in Hue. In 1910 he was assigned to the Ministry of Defense as a protégé of Minister Nguyen Huu Bai. In 1916 Khoi was promoted to chief of staff of the Regency Council.

In 1917 Khoi was appointed chief of Phu Cat District, Binh Dinh Province, and then chief of Tuy An in Phu Yen Province. In the same year Nguyen Huu Bai was promoted head of the cabinet as minister of administration. Khoi’s political advancement was rapid. He became presiding judge of Phu Yen in 1919, financial chief of Binh Dinh in 1920, chief of Quang Ngai Province in 1926, governor of Quang Nam Province in 1930, and governor in charge of the provinces south of central Vietnam in 1933. During the early 1940s Khoi reportedly had some personal disagreements with Pham Quynh, a famous scholar and high mandarin, and retired from the administration in 1943. In August 1945 the Communists killed Khoi as part of their plan to remove all potential rivals for power. His death was a principal factor in causing Ngo Dinh Diem to reject Ho Chi Minh’s offer of a cabinet post in the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in 1945. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ho Chi Minh; Ngo Dinh Can; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Luyen; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Thuc References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Ngo Dinh Luyen Birth Date: 1914 Death Date: 1990 Youngest brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem and prominent political figure in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Born in 1914 in Hue, from 1923 to 1926 Ngo Dinh Luyen attended Pellerin School at Hue and then from 1926 to 1931 attended the College of Seine et Marne. He continued his studies in mathematics at College Stanista from 1931 to 1933, and from 1933 to 1936 he studied at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures de Paris. Returning to Vietnam, from 1937 to 1938 Luyen worked at the Land Survey Service of Binh Dinh and Quang Ngai provinces. In 1939 he was a land surveyor in Cambodia and later at the Hoi An Land Survey Service. In 1942 he became deputy chief of the Central Land Survey Directorate and the next year moved to the Land Survey Service of Phan Thiet Province, remaining there until 1955. After his brother Diem became president of South Vietnam, Luyen held the important post of South Vietnamese ambassador to the United Kingdom (1955–1963). Luyen was said to be the most liberal person in Diem’s immediate family. During the early days of his administration, Diem considered Luyen his most trusted adviser, but Luyen was supplanted by his very conservative brother Ngo Dinh Nhu.

Ngo Dinh Nhu Following his brother’s November 1963 overthrow and assassination, Luyen went into exile in Great Britain. He visited the United States a few times after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 and met with Vietnamese émigré friends. He was the only family member who attended the 1984 funeral of Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc in Missouri. Luyen died in London in 1990. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Thuc; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Warner, Denis. The Last Confucian. London: Angus and Robertson, 1964.

Ngo Dinh Nhu Birth Date: October 7, 1910 Death Date: November 2, 1963 Younger brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and chief of South Vietnam’s internal police, security, and intelligence apparatus from 1955 to 1963. Ngo Dinh Nhu was born on October 7, 1910, into the prominent Catholic Ngo family near Hue in central Vietnam. He was educated at the École des Chartes, a school for archivists in Paris. He then worked in the National Library in Hanoi until he was removed from his post as punishment for his brother’s nationalist activities. A capable organizer, Nhu organized the Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), a party based on the obscure French philosophy of personalism, conceived in the 1930s by Emmanuel Mounier. Copying Communist organizations and using the Can Lao Party as a basis, Nhu organized a system of covert political, security, and labor groups structured in fiveman cells that reported on opponents of the regime and allowed the Diem brothers to maintain their power rather than establish democracy or build national unity. The party never held a convention and never voiced a public stand on any issue, and its controlling body never met as a group. Nhu’s appearance on the Vietnamese nationalist political scene occurred in Saigon in September 1953, when he organized demonstrations against the French and Communists and masterminded the early phases of the revolution in the south against Emperor Bao Dai. It was Nhu’s aim, during a national congress organized as a demonstration of anti–Viet Minh and anti-French sentiment, to support a new government headed by his brother Diem. To accomplish this, Nhu formed the National Union for Independence and Peace and enlisted the support of the leadership of the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Binh Xuyen. This too-open effort to oust Bao Dai

811

came before the time was judicious and resulted in failure. A recently declassified U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) study reveals that these early political activities brought Nhu to the attention of the CIA, which initiated a relationship with him as early as 1951. The French defeat in the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu made the anti–Viet Minh nationalists, and even Bao Dai, realize that their future depended upon a break with the French and the formation of a new government not subject to any French control. In Saigon, Nhu formed another coalition called the Front for National Salvation, comprised of the political-religious sects, the organized Catholics, the Dai Viet, and other nationalist groups. These “Front” groups, some that Nhu and his brother would soon move to destroy, now called for Diem to head a new regime to fight communism. Many did so believing that the task would destroy anyone who tried, a fate that they wished on Ngo Dinh Diem. On June 16, 1954, Bao Dai invited Diem, the most prominent nationalist to oppose the French “Bao Dai experiment,” to form a new government as prime minister. For the new government to survive, it was necessary to gain control of the army, take control of the police from the Binh Xuyen, and consolidate areas controlled by the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao sects into the national administration. With the assistance of the United States, the army was brought into line in late 1954. However, in the spring of 1955 when the Binh Xuyen and the sects refused to cooperate, Diem took the only road open to him. Nhu believed that the only path to power was through intrigue, and with Nhu’s able assistance Diem maneuvered to divide the sects from the Binh Xuyen and then from each other and then use the army to crush each one separately. In the midst of this struggle to consolidate power, Nhu allegedly hatched the final scheme to oust Bao Dai. On April 30, 1955, a group of some 200 people, representing 18 political parties, gathered at the Saigon town hall. Constituting itself as the “General Assembly of Democratic and Revolutionary Forces of the Nation,” the gathering, after the symbolic act of throwing Bao Dai’s picture out a window, called for the emperor’s abdication and the formation of a new government under Ngo Dinh Diem. On July 7, 1955, Diem announced that a national referendum would be held on October 23 to decide the future form of Vietnam’s government. As his brother’s chief political adviser and head of all of the national secret service organizations, Nhu used his secret police to control the election, and on October 26, 1955, Diem was declared president of the new Republic of Vietnam. Throughout his brother’s reign, Nhu used his Can Lao party and secret service apparatus to keep the family in power. As head of the secret police, he created 13 intelligence units and even commanded the Vietnamese Special Forces, his own personal army. Nhu helped administer the Khu Tru Mat farm communities known as Agrovilles and recommended and administered the later Strategic Hamlet Program, both designed to isolate the rural population from the Communists. Both were poorly administered, hampered by corruption, and easily subverted by the Viet Cong (VC).

812

Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame

Viewing internal dissent as just as dangerous as the Communists and with his control of secret police forces, Nhu thwarted several attempts to depose his brother. However, the intrigue, corruption, and brutality of the regime caught up with Nhu in 1963, when he used his forces to suppress Buddhist demonstrations against the Diem government. Because of the brutal nature of the suppression and inflammatory statements by him and his wife, Madame Nhu, the United States demanded Nhu’s removal. When Diem refused, U.S. officials notified plotting Vietnamese generals that Washington would not oppose a coup. The coup began on November 1, 1963, and the next day Nhu and Diem were both assassinated. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang; Cao Dai; Collins, Joseph Lawton; Conein, Lucien Emile; Duong Van Minh; Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; National Assembly Law 10/59; National Bank of Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Richardson, John Hammond; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Taylor-McNamara Report; Thich Quang Duc; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; Vietnam, Republic of, National Police References Ahern, Thomas L. CIA and the House of Ngo: Covert Action in South Vietnam, 1954–1963. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2000. Boetcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow. Boston: Little Brown, 1985. Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Collins, General J. Lawton. Lightning Joe: An Autobiography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Birth Date: 1924 Death Date: April 24, 2011 Wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu and sister-in-law of Ngo Dinh Diem. Tran Le Xuan (“Beautiful Spring”) was born in 1924 in Hanoi, the second of three children. Although Vietnamese, her family was thoroughly Gallicized and had amassed a fortune while in service to the French colonial administration. Her father, Tran Van Chuong, had earned a law degree in Paris before returning to Vietnam to practice law and marry a member of the imperial family. Madame Chuong, a renowned beauty, entertained the French and Francophile Vietnamese lavishly in the family’s Hanoi villa. Le Xuan dropped out of the prestigious French high school in Hanoi, the Lycée Albert Sarraut. A mediocre student, she was fluent in French but never learned to write her native Vietnamese. Le Xuan married Nhu, 14 years her senior, in 1943. When the French dismissed Nhu from his job in the National Library because

of his brother Diem’s nationalist activities, the couple moved to Da Lat. There she gave birth to their four children while he edited a newspaper and dabbled in politics. Upon Ngo Dinh Diem’s ascendancy to the presidency in 1955, the Nhus moved into the presidential palace in Saigon. Because Diem never married, Madame Nhu acted as official host and became, in effect, the first lady of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and was an outspoken and powerful force in her own right. In addition to the couple’s formal and official roles in the Diem government, Madame Nhu’s father was appointed ambassador to the United States, and her mother became an observer at the United Nations (UN). Also, two of Madame Nhu’s uncles were cabinet ministers. As official host for her bachelor brother-in-law, Madame Nhu quickly adopted an imperious manner and began to display the insensitivity and uncaring attitude toward anyone or anything outside the ruling family clique that earned her the sobriquet the “Dragon Lady.” It was not long into the Diem regime before U.S. ambassador General J. Lawton Collins encouraged Diem to get rid of her because she was a “troublemaker.” Diem, however, opted to keep the family together. Remembering this attempt to send her away caused Madame Nhu to heap reproach upon the United States during the following years, often claiming that Americans were aiding Vietnamese factions attempting to topple the Diem regime. Overlooking her own family’s decadence and her brother-inlaw’s brutal, inept, and corrupt administration as well as being impervious to the suffering of the Vietnamese people, Madame Nhu issued decrees backed by the force of law. Her edicts abolished divorce and banned abortions, contraceptives, prostitution, dancing, beauty contests, fortune-telling, and boxing matches. She made adultery a crime. Fancying herself a feminist, she lectured on women’s issues and even formed her own paramilitary force, the Women’s Solidarity Movement. Madame Nhu often embarrassed and infuriated her brother-in-law with provocative remarks, but he tolerated her out of family fidelity. As the Diem regime faced increasing dissent from within and doubt from without, Madame Nhu contributed to its decay with her vitriolic remarks. When Buddhist protests brought Nhu’s brutal repressions and led to several Buddhist self-immolations, Madame Nhu accused the United States of manipulating the Buddhists. She later referred to these events as Buddhist “barbecues,” and her husband followed suit by declaring that “if the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I will be glad to supply the gasoline.” These statements helped to turn American public opinion and the John F. Kennedy administration against the Diem regime, and even Madame Nhu’s father and mother resigned their posts in response. When Diem refused to get rid of the Nhus and their negative impact on his regime, this paved the way for the November 1963 coup that cost Diem and Nhu their lives. At that time Madame Nhu was on a propaganda tour that took her to Belgrade, Rome, Paris, and the United States. When Diem and Madame Nhu’s husband were assassinated on November 2,

Ngo Dinh Thuc 1963, she was in Los Angeles. With the death of her husband and his benefactor, Madame Nhu withdrew into exile in Rome. She died there on April 24, 2011. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Collins, Joseph Lawton; Conein, Lucien Emile; Duong Van Minh; Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Thich Quang Duc; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese References Boetcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow. Boston: Little Brown, 1985. Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Ngo Dinh Thuc Birth Date: October 6, 1897 Death Date: December 13, 1984 Roman Catholic archbishop and older brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Ngo Dinh Thuc was an important bridge between Diem and the American political circle that supported him. Born into a traditional Catholic family in Hue on October 6, 1897, Thuc became a priest in 1929 and also pursued theological and ecclesiastical studies in Rome. In 1938 he was named bishop of the Vinh Long Diocese in the Mekong Delta. In October 1945 French police arrested Thuc at Bien Hoa while he was on his way to northern Vietnam to attend the induction of Bishop Le Huu Tu. Thuc admitted that he had encouraged some young people to join the Thanh Nien Tien Phong (Pioneer Youth League), a Communist youth organization in Vinh Long, but he feared increased Communist influence. Thuc wanted a truly independent Vietnamese state. In 1950 in Saigon, Thuc met Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, Catholic chaplain of the U.S. Armed Forces. In June 1950 Thuc applied for a visa to stop in the United States on his way to Rome. Traveling with Thuc were his younger brother Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Viet Canh. In August 1950 Thuc and Diem stopped in Tokyo, Japan, where they met Prince Cuong De to discuss the establishment of an antiCommunist Vietnamese government. Thuc and Diem arrived in the United States in September and met with Cardinal Spellman and William S. B. Lacy, head of Philippines and Southeast Asia affairs in the Department of State. Thuc raised the issue of building a Vietnam centered on Catholics. This idea would later be supported by the U.S. Department of State. On October 15, 1950, Thuc and Diem left for Europe, and Thuc returned to Vietnam at the end of that year. Diem stayed for a

813

while in Paris but returned to the United States in January 1951. In mid-1954 Emperor Bao Dai named Diem premier, so he returned to Vietnam that July to assume the post. During the first years of Diem’s government, Thuc’s diocese became a training base for the cadre of the Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party) headed by Ngo Dinh Nhu, another younger brother of Thuc. In 1961 Thuc became archbishop of Hue, where in 1963 he intervened to forbid display of the Buddhist flag during the celebration of Buddha’s birthday. This unfortunate incident began a chain of events that led to the November 1, 1963, coup d’état that overthrew Diem; both Diem and Nhu died in the coup. Archbishop Thuc survived the coup, having been recalled to Rome in September 1963. He was living in France when he was excommunicated for investing priests without permission from Rome. In 1983 he moved to a monastery in Missouri. Thuc died of cancer on December 13, 1984, in Carthage, Missouri. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Bao Dai; Buddhism in Vietnam; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Spellman, Francis Joseph References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Ngo Dinh Thuc, Roman Catholic archbishop of Hue and brother of Republic of Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem, during a press conference in January 1962. (Bettmann/Corbis)

814

Ngo Quang Truong

Ngo Quang Truong Birth Date: December 19, 1929 Death Date: January 22, 2007 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general who commanded, successively, the ARVN 1st Division, IV Corps, and I Corps. Ngo Quang Truong was born on December 19, 1929, in the South Vietnamese delta province of Kien Hoa. After graduating from My Tho College, he attended the reserve officer school at Thu Duc, from which he was commissioned into the ARVN in 1954. He worked his way up through battalion and regimental command in the Airborne Division and in June 1966 took command of the ARVN 1st Division. His American adviser wrote to General Harold K. Johnson that Truong was “dedicated, humble, imaginative and tactically sound.” That assessment was validated when Truong and his division played a key role in the most difficult and protracted fighting of the 1968 Tet Offensive in the battle for Hue. Truong’s division was well regarded by American commanders in Vietnam. General Creighton Abrams reported that “the 1st ARVN Division does better in the jungle than we do. They’re really better than any of the enemy they’re dealing with up there—NVA [North Vietnamese Army or People’s Army of Vietnam, PAVN] or VC [Viet Cong].” Early in 1971, the austere and capable Truong took command of IV Corps in the Mekong Delta. There he was so successful that he voluntarily offered up forces for redeployment to other more threatened regions of the country. When the PAVN 1972 Easter Offensive erupted and initially made serious inroads in I Corps, Truong was assigned command of I Corps. With characteristic directness, he began by issuing an order, broadcast throughout the region, that all military deserters who had not returned to their units within 24 hours would be shot on sight. Truong then went on television himself and promised that he would hold Hue and repulse the Communist thrust. Truong’s arrival had a remarkable effect on the I Corps staff. General Frederick Kroesen recalled that “Sober grimaces, frowns, gloom gave way to smiles, enthusiasm and a rebirth of hope. General Truong was back, all would be well, and the assembled soldiers were immediately ready to serve him in whatever capacity he asked.” Truong organized and fought a stubborn defense, halting further PAVN advances. He then successfully counterattacked with three divisions against six PAVN divisions to retake Quang Tri City. Once again, Truong had given evidence that he was, as General Bruce Palmer Jr. styled him in The 25-Year War, “probably the best field commander in South Vietnam.” Truong remained in command of I Corps until it was overrun by Communist forces during the 1975 Communist offensive. “General Truong had fought a tremendous fight against insuperable odds,” wrote Palmer. “This fine soldier deserved a better fate.” Subsequent to the final collapse of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), General Truong made his way to the United

States, where he lived after 1975. He died on January 22, 2007, in Falls Church, Virginia. LEWIS SORLEY See also Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Hoang Ngoc Lung, Colonel. The General Offensives of 1968–69. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Jones, James. Viet Journal. New York: Delacorte, 1973. Warner, Denis. Certain Victory: How Hanoi Won the War. Kansas City, MO: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978.

Ngo Quyen Birth Date: 898 Death Date: 944 Vietnamese national hero whose victory over the Southern Han (Nam Han in Vietnamese) on the Bach Dang River in 938 CE marked the end of 1,000 years of Chinese domination. Born in 898 to a noble family in Duong Lam (Son Tay), Ngo Quyen was the sonin-law of Duong Dien Nghe (Duong Dinh Nghe), who defeated the Nam Han army of Ly Tien, Ly Khac Chinh, and Tran Bao in 931 and regained autonomy for Giao Chau. In 937 when Duong Dien Nghe was assassinated by Kieu Cong Tien, Ngo Quyen was the governor of Ai Chau (Thanh Hoa). To secure revenge, Ngo Quyen moved back to Tong Binh, the capital. Kieu Cong Tien called on the Nam Han (southern Chinese empire) for support, and a Chinese army led by Prince Hoang Thao was sent to Giao Chau. In 938 on the Bach Dang River, using the tactic of planting iron-tipped poles under the water, Ngo Quyen won a famous victory that ended the long period of Chinese rule and opened a new era in Vietnamese history. After the victory Ngo Quyen declared himself king and moved the capital to Co Loa, the ancient capital of the Thuc, a Vietnamese independent dynasty that ruled the country long before the Chinese invasion (257–207 BCE). The selection of Co Loa as capital was to show Ngo Quyen’s willingness to build a new nation completely independent from China. Ngo Quyen died in 944 at the age of 47. The dynasty he founded did not last long, however. After being usurped for five years by Duong Tam Kha, Ngo Quyen’s brother-in-law, the throne was regained by the hero’s two sons, Ngo Xuong Van and Ngo Xuong Ngap. These younger kings, however, were unable to control the situation. In 965 Ngo Xuong Van was killed in a battle against a local lord, and the newly independent country fell into the hands of 12 local lords and was reunified only in 968 by Dinh Bo Linh. PHAM CAO DUONG

Nguyen Cao Ky See also Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viet-Nam des origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Pham Cao Duong. Lich Su Dan Toc Viet Nam, Quyen I, Thoi K Lap Quoc [History of the Vietnamese People, Vol. I, The Making of the Nation]. Fountain Valley, CA: Truyen Thong Viet, 1987. Phan Huy Le, Tran Quoc Vuong, Ha Van Tan, and Luong Minh. Lich Su Viet Nam, Tap I [History of Vietnam, Vol. 1]. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Dai Hoc Va Giao Duc Chuyen Nghiep, 1991. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

815

killed by the French on his way to northern Vietnam to attend a conference. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ho Chi Minh; Indochina War; Viet Minh References Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Nguyen Buu Dao Ngo Thi Trinh

See Khai Dinh

See Hanoi Hannah

Nguyen Cao Ky Nguyen Ai Quoc

Birth Date: September 8, 1930

See Ho Chi Minh

Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) air vice marshal, premier of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1965–1967, and vice president during 1967–1971. Born September 8, 1930, in Son Tay, 25 miles northwest of Hanoi, Nguyen Cao Ky was the only son of a conservative schoolteacher father. Ky attended local primary school in Son Tay and high school in Hanoi. He was about to enter college when in 1951 he was drafted into the Vietnamese National Army (VNA). After six months of officer training, he was commissioned an infantry lieutenant. Ky commanded a platoon at a Red River Delta outpost but within a few weeks volunteered for pilot training. He spent a year training in Morocco, two years in France learning to fly Douglas C-47 Skytrains, and six months in Algeria for bombing and strafing training. In 1954 he graduated as a fully qualified pilot and returned to Vietnam. By the time Ky arrived in Vietnam, the Indochina War was over. He then flew from Haiphong to southern Vietnam and settled there. Promotion was rapid in the infant VNAF. Ky flew C-47s, and in 1959, as a major, he took command of the VNAF 43rd Air Transport Group. In 1960 he assumed command at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside of Saigon. That same year Ky began working with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Saigon William Colby, flying agents into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), an operation that Ky publicly disclosed to the world in July 1964. He was involved in the November 1963 coup that led to the overthrow and assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem; Ky played the key role in securing VNAF support and was immediately promoted to full colonel afterward. Ten days after the coup, new chief of state General Duong Van Minh promoted Ky to brigadier general and

Nguyen Binh Birth Date: 1906 Death Date: September 29, 1951 Viet Minh lieutenant general. Born in 1906 at Ban Yen Nhan, My Van District, Hai Hung Province, Nguyen Binh (his real name was Nguyen Phuong Thao) joined the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnam National Party) and participated in the abortive 1930 uprising of the party. Arrested by French authorities, Binh was sentenced to five years’ exile on Poulo Condore (Con Son) penal island. In early 1936 Binh was freed and returned to his hometown to continue his revolutionary activities. At the beginning of 1945 he moved to Haiphong to prepare for an uprising against the French. In June 1945 after attacking military posts at Bi Cho and Mao Khe, Binh attempted to establish the Dong Trieu Resistance Zone under his command. In July 1945 his forces occupied Quang Yen, the capital of Quang Ninh Province. On August 23, 1945, Binh led his troops to Hanoi to participate in the Communist revolution. In October 1945 Ho Chi Minh named Binh a member of the Southern Region Military Committee and commander of the southern front. Binh apparently contributed to the unification of factions in southern Vietnam against the French, and in November 1947 he was promoted to lieutenant general. He was best known for his commando attack on the French ammunition depot at Thi Nghe, Saigon. Tradition has it that he warned the French beforehand. On September 29, 1951, Binh was ambushed and

816

Nguyen Cao Ky

Nguyen Cao Ky served as the Republic of Vietnam’s air force air vice marshal, premier from 1965 to 1967, and vice president from 1967 to 1971. (Corbis)

named him commander of the VNAF, and Ky held this post until June 1965. Members of the Military Revolutionary Council that had carried out the coup against Diem soon fell to quarreling among themselves. In January 1964 Ky supported Major General Nguyen Khanh in another coup, this time against General Minh. That year saw seven changes of government. Khanh promoted Ky to major general and then named him air vice marshal. By this time Ky was the leader in a faction of young officers known as the Young Turks that included Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) major general Nguyen Van Thieu. Disillusioned by the ineffective national government, in mid-December 1964 they overthrew the Military Revolutionary Council of older officers. In late January 1965 the new Armed Forces Council decided that Premier Tran Van Huong would have to be replaced. Khanh, who replaced him as premier, was in turn ousted in February in a coup led by General Lam Van Phat. Ky was not involved in this coup, but his threat to bomb headquarters toppled Phat. Phan Huy Quat then became premier, with Phan Khac Suu as chief of state.

On February 8, 1965, the flamboyant Ky led a flight of VNAF planes in Operation FLAMING DART I, the reprisal air strike ordered by President Lyndon B. Johnson against the Dong Hoi military barracks north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). In June 1965 the new South Vietnamese government collapsed, and on June 12 a triumvirate of generals Nguyen Cao Ky, Nguyen Van Thieu, and Nguyen Huu Co announced the formation of a National Leadership Council to rule South Vietnam. It was subsequently expanded to include 10 members. This body was an inner circle of the 50-member Armed Forces Council, which then elected Ky as chief executive of the council, or premier, charged with conducting the day-to-day government operations. Nguyen Van Thieu occupied the relatively powerless position of chief of state. It was the ninth government in less than two years. When U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge asked him about his program, Ky replied with the words “social justice.” He took steps to strengthen the armed forces but also instituted needed land reforms, programs for the construction of schools and hospitals, and price controls. In addition, his government launched a campaign to remove corrupt officials. But Ky also instituted a number of unpopular repressive actions against civilians, including a ban on newspapers. The new government was soon embroiled in controversy with the Buddhists. A problem developed regarding ARVN I Corps commander General Nguyen Chanh Thi. Ky and others in the government believed that Thi was too powerful and posed a threat to the government. In early March 1966 the government had secured Thi’s agreement to resign and go into exile in the United States. Buddhist leaders seized on this and began demonstrations. On March 14 Da Nang workers began a two-day general strike that seriously affected American activities. Buddhist students in Hue also began protests. Thi took advantage of this and refused to relinquish command of I Corps. He also attended rallies in Hue and Da Nang to address supporters. Thi’s removal was soon no longer the central issue, as Buddhist leaders sought a complete change of government. The Buddhists took control of radio stations in Hue and Da Nang, and it was evident that there was growing sympathy for the movement among the civil service and many ARVN units. On April 3 Ky announced that “Da Nang is in Communist hands,” but it is by no means clear what role, if any, the Communists played in events. Ky tried to control the situation by appointing General Ton That Dinh as the new commander of I Corps on April 10, but Dinh could not assert his authority with Thi still in Hue. After a significant military operation to suppress the Buddhists and rebel ARVN units, Thi accepted his dismissal on May 24 and, following a “reconciliation” with Ky, went into exile in the United States. In June Ky’s troops, supported by U.S. forces, crushed opposition in Hue. Ky’s popularity and political clout were enhanced in February 1966 as a result of a two-day conference with President Lyndon Johnson in Hawaii. The two men agreed on social and economic

Nguyen Chanh Thi reforms and on the need for national elections. In May 1966 a government decree set up a committee to draft election laws and procedures. In October 117 delegates met in Saigon to begin drafting a constitution, which was completed in March 1967. The constitution provided for a president with wide powers and a premier and cabinet responsible to a two-chamber house. Local elections were held in May 1967, and elections for the lower house were held in October. Tensions were high between Ky and Thieu. At first the two men got along fairly well, but then both openly vied for control of the government. In his memoir Twenty Years and Twenty Days (1976), Ky was sharply critical of Thieu, who “wanted power and glory but . . . did not want to have to do the dirty work.” Ky also accused Thieu of corruption and involvement in heroin trafficking. Although the more senior Thieu had stepped aside in 1965 to allow Ky to take the premier’s post (Ky claimed that Thieu had said at the time that he “did not want the responsibility”), Thieu’s determination to challenge Ky for the highest office in the September 3, 1967, elections led the Armed Forces Council to force Ky and Thieu onto a joint ticket, giving the presidential nomination to Thieu and the vice presidential nomination to Ky simply on the basis of seniority. The Thieu-Ky ticket won the election with 34.8 percent of the vote against 10 other slates. Following the election Ky’s influence was gradually eclipsed by Thieu’s consolidation of power, although Ky tried to suppress Thieu’s followers in the military. In 1971 Thieu engineered an election law to disqualify his major opponents, Ky and Duong Van Minh. Although the South Vietnamese Supreme Court said that Ky, who had charged Thieu’s government with corruption, could run, he chose not to do so. Thieu’s election made one-person rule a reality and did serious injury to the image of the South Vietnamese government. In his memoirs Ky was sharply critical of Thieu’s handling of the 1975 Communist Ho Chi Minh Offensive and his abandonment of the Central Highlands. As Ky put it, “Thieu’s strategic error turned a tactical withdrawal into a rout and the eventual disintegration of our entire armed forces.” In early April 1975 Ky led a well-publicized demonstration during which he and several hundred other officers promised never to leave Vietnam. On April 29, however, Ky commandeered a helicopter and flew it to the aircraft carrier Midway. Ky went to the United States, where he opened a liquor store in Los Angeles. In 1985 he filed for bankruptcy; his liabilities included the loan to buy the liquor store and a $20,000 gambling debt. In 2004 Ky made headlines as the first senior-ranking former South Vietnamese official to travel to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War. Some in the Vietnamese American community decried the visit as akin to collaborating with the enemy. Nevertheless, Ky made another trip to Vietnam in 2005, this time with his third wife. SPENCER C. TUCKER

817

See also Da Nang; Duong Van Minh; Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; FLAMING DART I and II, Operations; Honolulu Conference; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Manila Conference; Military Revolutionary Council; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tran Van Huong; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976. Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Nguyen Chan See Tran Van Tra

Nguyen Chanh Thi Birth Date: February 23, 1923 Death Date: June 23, 2007 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and commander of I Corps whose removal sparked countrywide Buddhist protests. Born in Hue on February 23, 1923, Nguyen Chanh Thi was a devout Buddhist. In 1955 he helped Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), defeat the Binh Xuyen gangsters. Thi rose to the rank of colonel and commanded ARVN paratroopers. Resenting Diem’s favoritism toward the Catholics, Thi participated in the November 1960 coup attempt against Diem. Thi claimed that he did not want a neutralist government but instead wanted to change the corrupt and incompetent nature of the existing central government. The coup failed after Diem stalled for time by promising to reform his administration while secretly bringing in reinforcements. Immediately after the coup collapse, Thi fled to Cambodia. Following Diem’s November 1963 assassination, Thi returned to South Vietnam and received command of I Corps, which had the cities of Hue and Da Nang in its area of responsibility. As corps commander, he exercised significant control over the region. Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and others in the government believed that Thi was too powerful and posed a threat to the government. Ky had heard rumors in March 1966 that some of the older generals were trying to form an alliance with Thi because of his strong Buddhist support, which included Thich Tri Quang, militant leader of the Central Vietnamese Buddhist movement. On March 4, 1966, Ky confronted Thi about this and then on March 10 convinced the National Leadership Council in Saigon to dismiss Thi from I Corps command.

818

Nguyen Chanh Thi

Republic of Vietnam general Nguyen Chanh Thi commanded I Corps in northern South Vietnam. His removal in 1966 sparked Buddhist protests. Thi is shown here during a press conference in Saigon on September 14, 1964. From left to right: Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh; General Thi (then deputy commander of I Corps), and General Pham Van Dong. (Bettmann/Corbis)

At first Thi appeared to accept the decision and to be willing to depart for exile in the United States. On March 11 the Armed Forces Council confirmed the decision to remove Thi from command, but it was then clear that some form of protest by the Buddhists would occur in Da Nang and Saigon. On March 14 workers in Da Nang went on a two-day general strike that affected American activities. Buddhist students in Hue had also initiated protests. Thi sought to use the situation to his own advantage; he now refused to relinquish command of I Corps and leave for the United States. On March 17 and 18 he spoke to his supporters in rallies in Hue and Da Nang. Buddhist leaders also took advantage of the situation to try to bring about a change of government. They seized control of radio stations in Hue and Da Nang. With support for the movement growing among civil servants and the ARVN, on April 3 Ky announced that “Da Nang is in Communist hands.” The Communist role in events is unclear, but the Communists certainly sought to take advantage of the situation to try to turn public opinion against the Americans. Postwar Communist histories state that the Communists were not behind the initial Buddhist protests but that their organizers had worked to “incite the masses to rise up to take control of the cities” after the protests began.

On April 10 Ky appointed General Ton That Dinh as commander of I Corps, but Dinh was unable to take command with Thi still in Hue. After a government-mounted operation to suppress the Buddhists and the rebel ARVN units, on May 24 Thi agreed to step down. Following a reconciliation with Ky at Chu Lai on May 27, Thi left for exile in the United States and settled in Washington, D.C. Rumors of General Thi’s alleged Communist connections were further fueled when in 1970 South Vietnamese police arrested Bui Van Sac, General Thi’s “butler” and confidant who was caring for Thi’s home in Saigon during Thi’s exile in the United States, on charges of being a Communist spy. Statements made by famed Communist spy Pham Xuan An after the war appear to confirm that Sac was indeed working for the Communists. In 1972 Thi attempted to return to South Vietnam, but ARVN troops surrounded his plane on the tarmac and refused to let him disembark. After a stand-off of several hours Thi’s plane took off, and Thi never again returned to Vietnam. Back in the United States, he lived for a time in Arkansas and then in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He worked a series of odd jobs and lectured to college students and Vietnamese expatriates, who held him in high esteem. Thi died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 2007. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS

Nguyen Co Thach See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Thich Tri Quang; Ton That Dinh References Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Harrison, James P. The Endless War: Vietnam’s Struggle for Independence. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Nguyen Van Minh, ed. Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My Cuu Nuoc, 1954– 1975, Tap IV, Cuoc Dung Dau Lich Su [History of the Resistance War against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954–1975, Vol. 4, A Historic Confrontation]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1999. Pham Van Lieu. Tra Ta Song Nui: Hoi Ky, Tap I [Give Us Our Country Back: A Memoir, Vol. 1]. Houston, TX: Van Hoa Publishers, 2002. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Nguyen Chi Thanh Birth Date: January 1, 1914 Death Date: July 6, 1967 Senior general in the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and director of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) during 1965–1967. Born on January 1, 1914, at Nghiem Pho village, Thua Thien Province, Nguyen Chi Thanh joined the Communist Party in 1937 and quickly rose through its ranks. French authorities arrested him in 1938 and again in 1939. During the early 1940s Thanh worked closely with the Youth Union. After the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in 1945, Thanh was given a series of party posts, including a seat in the secretariat of the important Thua Thien Province Central Committee and membership in the national Central Committee. In 1950 he became a member of the Military Central Committee and director of the PAVN General Political Department, a move that paved his way for a leadership position with the PAVN. Following the Communist victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Thanh spent a good deal of time traveling in the Communist world, one of the few PAVN leaders to do so. Trips to Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) highlighted his considerable political and diplomatic talents. In 1960 Thanh was elected to the Politburo of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and from 1961 to 1964 he supervised North Vietnam’s effort to improve agricultural production. However, Thanh was first a warrior and second a politician. In 1964 General Thanh was sent to lead the Communist insurgency in the

819

Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as the head of the Party’s Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). During the Vietnam War, he advocated a battlefield victory at all costs. When some in Hanoi suggested adopting a pragmatic approach more in line with Moscow’s thinking in the early 1960s, Thanh openly rebelled. He strongly opposed the protracted war strategy advocated by some party leaders. His leadership of COSVN was extremely controversial, and many scholars have suggested that Thanh’s view of military matters made him a candidate for conflict with General Vo Nguyen Giap. The circumstances surrounding Thanh’s death are in some dispute. His official obituary states that he died of a heart attack in Hanoi on July 6, 1967. Postwar Communist publications state that Thanh’s heart attack was brought on by stress and overindulgence during a round of farewell parties in Hanoi prior to his departure to return to the battlefield in South Vietnam. However, rumors circulated during the war that Thanh died during a U.S. bombing raid. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Central Office for South Vietnam; Le Duan; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vo Nguyen Giap References Duiker, William J. “Waging Revolutionary War: The Evolution of Hanoi’s Strategy in the South, 1959–1965.” In The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives, edited by Jayne S. Werner and Luu Doan Huynh, 24–36. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993. Ha Huu Khieu, ed. Dai Tuong Nguyen Chi Thanh, nha chinh tri quan su loi lac [General Nguyen Chi Thanh, an Outstanding Military and Political Figure]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1997. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Lockhart, Greg. Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People’s Army of Vietnam. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1989. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Thies, Wallace J. When Governments Collide: Coercion and Diplomacy in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964–1968. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Nguyen Cong See Do Muoi

Nguyen Co Thach Birth Date: 1923 Death Date: April 10, 1998 Vietnamese revolutionary, ambassador from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to India during

820

Nguyen Duy Trinh

1956–1960, head of the North Vietnamese delegation to the 1962 Geneva Conference, and minister of foreign affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) during 1975–1991. Born on August 15, 1923, Nguyen Co Thach was educated in Hanoi and Moscow. He joined the Communist Party in the early 1950s and quickly rose through the North Vietnamese diplomatic corps, serving as North Vietnam’s ambassador to India from 1956 to 1960 and as head of the North Vietnamese delegation to the 1962 Geneva Conference. In 1966 he chaired the Vietnamese delegation to the Conference to Investigate U.S. War Crimes. During the American phase of the Vietnam War, Thach was best remembered for his role in what became known as the “Ronning Missions,” secret peace initiatives spearheaded by retired Canadian diplomat Chester A. Ronning. In March 1966 Ronning spent five days in Hanoi meeting with Thach, Nguyen Duy Trinh, and Pham Van Dong. Ronning believed that he had been party to a major change in North Vietnamese policy when Dong assured him that if the United States stopped the bombings, the North Vietnamese government was prepared to enter into talks. The Lyndon B. Johnson administration flatly rejected this proposal brought back by Ronning, instead calling for a reciprocal de-escalation in return for a bombing halt. Thach and Ronning met again in June 1966, but ultimately their talks produced little results. Thach played a pivotal role in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, and in 1975 he became minister of foreign affairs. In 1976 he became a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Central Committee and was elected as an alternative member to the Political Bureau in 1981. During the 1986 Sixth Party Congress, Thach was instrumental in moving the party toward economic reform (doi moi), advocating a more international outlook. Working closely with U.S. presidential emissary John W. Vessey Jr., Thach also supervised the return of the remains of U.S. servicemen killed in action. Thach had hoped to improve relations with the United States during the 1980s, but Vietnam’s involvement in Cambodia largely blocked this. In 1991 there was a period of backlash against doi moi and what some party leaders called “too much cooperation with Western capitalist countries.” Some of Thach’s colleagues believed that he was too intellectual and too liberal in his outlook. Many Vietnamese policy makers also feared the repercussions of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a fellow Communist nation. As a result, Thach was removed from the Political Bureau and the Foreign Ministry at the Seventh Party Congress that June. Thereafter, Hanoi moved to improve relations with China. Thach died on April 10, 1998, in Hanoi. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Doi Moi; Missing in Action, Allied; Paris Negotiations; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.

Marr, David G., and Christine White, eds. Postwar Vietnam: Dilemmas in Socialist Development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Studies Program, 1988. Nguyen Van Canh. Vietnam under Communism, 1975–1982. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1983. Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. Thayer, Carlyle A. “Political Reform in Viet Nam: Doi Moi and the Emergence of Civil Society.” In The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems, edited by Robert F. Miller, 110–129. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992.

Nguyen Duy Trinh Birth Date: July 15, 1910 Death Date: April 20, 1985 Member of the Lao Dong (Communist Party of Vietnam) Central Committee and foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during 1965–1975. Nguyen Duy Trinh was born in the village of Nghi Loc, Nghe An Province, in central Vietnam on July 15, 1910. After years of resistance work in the New Vietnam Revolutionary Party, he was arrested in 1928 for his revolutionary activities in Saigon. When the French released him in 1930, Trinh joined the Indochinese Communist Party and was active in the Nghe Tinh Soviet Movement between 1930 and 1931. The following year the French arrested him again, and he remained in a colonial prison until 1945. In 1951 Trinh was selected as a member of the Lao Dong Central Committee. After the 1954 victory over the French, he became secretary of the Lao Dong’s Central Committee, one of the most powerful positions within the party. In 1960 Trinh became the deputy prime minister of North Vietnam, a post he held until the end of the Vietnam War. From 1965 to 1975 Trinh gained international recognition as North Vietnam’s minister of foreign affairs. He participated in North Vietnam’s secret contacts with the United States through third parties before the Paris peace talks began and played a key role in the Aspen and Pennsylvania peace initiatives. He also supervised the first secret contact in Paris between North Vietnamese delegate Mai Van Bo and American Edmund Gullion, known in the West as XYZ. Trinh is perhaps best known for his statement of December 29, 1967, in which he declared that serious peace talks “will begin” when the United States stopped bombing North Vietnam unconditionally. Earlier in the year he had announced that substantive talks “could begin” if the United States called a bombing halt. The December statement was portrayed as a dramatic shift in Hanoi’s negotiating stance, and some suggested that this compromise would lead to a quick settlement. In the end Trinh’s comment produced little, and the war continued with few prospects for peace. As the war dragged on, Trinh’s role in the peace talks diminished. He remained an active deputy prime minister, and after the fall of Saigon in 1975 he became of member of the Lao Dong’s Politi-

Nguyen Dynasty

Nguyen Duy Trinh, foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), signs the Paris Peace Agreement to end the Vietnam War, January 17, 1973. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

cal Bureau. Also in 1975 the second generation of Communist Party leaders began to succeed the first, and Nguyen Co Thach replaced the elderly Trinh as foreign minister. Trinh died on April 20, 1985. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Lao Dong Party; Nguyen Co Thach; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords References Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Huynh Kim Khanh. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. Thies, Wallace J. When Governments Collide: Coercion and Diplomacy in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964–1968. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Nguyen Dynasty Ruling family in Vietnam from 1802 to 1945. In the 17th century, Vietnam was divided in two. The Trinh lords ruled the north, while the Nguyen lords came to control the south from their fortress city

821

of Phu Xuan (present-day Hue). Each family hated the other, but both ruled in the name of the powerless Le kings at Thang Long (present-day Hanoi). The Trinh tried to conquer the south, but their armies were unable to penetrate walls that the Nguyen constructed near the 17th Parallel. By 1700 the Nguyen had extended their influence in the south to include parts of Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. In 1771, however, Nguyen power came under attack in the Tay Son Rebellion. The Tay Son were on the verge of overthrowing the Nguyen altogether when in 1775 a Trinh army moved south and took Phu Xuan. The Tay Son managed to avoid being crushed between their enemies by reaching accommodation with the Trinh until the latter tired of their southern involvement and withdrew into the north. In 1776 the Tay Son attacked the Nguyen stronghold in Gia Dinh Province and took Sai Con (later Saigon and present-day Ho Chi Minh City). Only one Nguyen prince, Nguyen Phuc Anh, managed to escape; he and some supporters fled into the swamps of the western Mekong Delta. In 1783 Tay Son troops led by the youngest Tay Son brother, Nguyen Hue, again defeated Nguyen Anh, forcing him into refuge on the island of Phu Quoc. Nguyen Anh then called in the Siamese, and in 1784 a Siamese army invaded the western Mekong Delta. In 1785 Nguyen Hue defeated the invaders, and the remainder of Nguyen Anh’s family fled to Siam. Nguyen Hue succeeded in establishing his control over northern Vietnam and then the whole country by defeating the Trinh, the Le, and an intervening Chinese army. He then ruled the country as Emperor Quang Trung. He died in 1792, however, before he had a chance to establish his dynasty. Nguyen Anh had not given up. He made friends with French missionary Pigneau de Béhaine, who supported his cause and secured military assistance in the form of French mercenary troops from India. With Western advisers and weaponry, Nguyen Anh launched a military campaign to establish his rule over all of Vietnam, something he accomplished in 1802. Nguyen Anh then founded the Nguyen dynasty. He took the dynastic name Gia Long (Gia from “Gia Dinh,” the customary name for Saigon, and Long from “Thang Long”). Gia Long moved the capital from Hanoi in the north to Hue in the central part of the country. He died in 1820 and was followed by Minh Mang (r. 1820–1841), Thieu Tri (r. 1841–1847), Tu Duc (r. 1847–1883), Duc Du’c (r. July 1883), Hiep Hoa (r. August– November 1883), Kien Phuc (r. 1883–1884), Ham Nghi (r. 1884– 1888), Dong Khanh (r. 1885–1888), Thanh Thai (r. 1889–1907), Duy Tan (r. 1907–1916), Khai Dinh (r. 1916–1925), and Bao Dai (r. 1925–1945). Gia Long’s successors lacked his understanding of Western strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps they would have been unable to resist Western military technology in any case, but it was under them that the French conquered the country and established their authority. The Nguyen dynasty lasted in Vietnam until the 1945 abdication of Bao Dai. SPENCER C. TUCKER

822

Nguyen Hai Than

See also Bao Dai; Duy Tan; Ham Nghi; Minh Mang; Nguyen Hue; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Tay Son Rebellion; Thieu Tri; Tu Duc References Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire de Viet Nam des Origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Nguyen Hai Than Birth Date: 1869 Death Date: 1951 Nationalist Vietnamese leader who opposed Ho Chi Minh. Born in 1869 in Dai Tu village, Thuong Tin District, Ha Dong Province, Nguyen Hai Than (real name Nguyen Van Thang or Vu Hai Thu) in 1891 earned the degree of Tu Tai in the mandarin examinations. Sometime around 1905 he went to China in Phan Boi Chau’s Exodus to the East movement that encouraged Vietnamese to study abroad. In China, Than graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy. Years later he became a close friend of Sun Yixian (Sun Yatsen) and was highly respected by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). For a time Than taught at Whampoa. In 1942 Than helped found the Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi (VNCMDMH) with help from Chinese general Chang Fa Kwei. When the latter imprisoned Ho, Vietnamese nationalist leaders in southern China, who thought of Ho as a compatriot rather than a Communist, urged Than to intercede with Jiang for Ho’s freedom, which he did, obtaining Ho’s release. Ho then became a member of the VNCMDMH, of which Than was chairman. Ho’s new Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (VNDLDMH, or Viet Minh) party joined the umbrella VNCMDMH organization. Within the VNCMDMH, Ho was assigned the task of observing the situation in Vietnam and determining the right time for the league to attempt a general uprising in which all member parties were to participate. After pledging full allegiance to the league, Ho returned to Vietnam. But in August 1945 Ho’s Viet Minh seized power in Hanoi. Although the other league-affiliated nationalist parties, especially the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party), were more powerful than the Viet Minh, they were not prepared for the imminent defeat of the Japanese. Aware of the Viet Minh betrayal, the nationalist parties held an emergency meeting on August 18, 1945, in Hanoi to decide whether they should try to drive the Viet Minh from power. The majority concluded that because the Viet Minh were fighting for independence, a civil war should be avoided. Too late, Than returned to Hanoi. The nationalist parties formed a front, with the major element in it the VNQDD. Than became the front’s leader. Although supported by Jiang, Than did not get full assistance from commander of Chinese forces in north-

ern Vietnam General Lu Han, undoubtedly a consequence of Ho’s having bought Lu off with gold contributed by the people in the so-called Gold Week. Meanwhile, Ho maneuvered skillfully to marginalize Than and minimize nationalist influence, essential because the nationalist forces were more powerful than the Viet Minh. Ho practiced every stratagem to fool Than and finally went to see him at VNCMDMH headquarters to secure an agreement. They spent an entire day in discussions, with Ho warning Than that if he refused a coalition and civil war broke out, the Vietnamese people and history would condemn him. That was what Than most feared, and so he finally agreed to accept the vice presidency and place his supporters in cabinet posts, including foreign affairs, treasury, public health, and agriculture. Ho also offered 70 of 350 parliamentary seats to parties allied with Than. Of this number, the VNQDD received 50 seats, and the others shared the remaining 20. This meant that the two sides agreed to rig the January 6, 1946, elections. After the preliminary agreement with the French on March 6, 1946, the nationalist forces were routed by an all-out surprise Viet Minh offensive (ironically during the Great Solidarity Campaign). In many places in northern Vietnam, French forces also attacked nationalist strongholds. Than soon left Vietnam for China. Subsequently he was blamed for the failure to overthrow the Viet Minh when this was still possible. He stayed on in China after the defeat of the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) party in 1949 and died in Nanning, southern China, in 1951. Although Than was a virtuous leader of unquestioned morality, he was not a talented politician, especially when faced with the likes of Ho Chi Minh. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also August Revolution; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ho Chi Minh; HoSainteny Agreement; Jiang Jieshi References Dommen, Arthur J. The Indochinese Experience of the French and Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Hoang Van Dao. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Saigon: Published by the author, 1970; reprinted in the United States. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Nguyen Ha Phan Birth Date: February 2, 1933 Prominent leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Nguyen Ha Phan was born on February 2, 1933, in Chau Hoa village, Giong Trom District, Ben Tre Province. His background is obscure except that he was educated in northern Vietnam. Phan was an alternate member

Nguyen Hue

823

of the Central Committee at the December 1986 VCP Sixth Congress. Elevated to full member at the VCP Seventh Congress, he became head of the Department of Economics. In June 1991, he became secretary of the VCP Central Committee’s Secretariat and in January 1994 was promoted to the political bureau of the VCP Central Committee. Phan was also active in the government. In 1981 he was chairman of the Hau Giang Province People’s Committee. He was also a deputy to the National Assembly from that province and a member of that body’s Economics, Planning, and Budget Committee. After the division of Hau Giang Province into two provinces, he was elected as a deputy to the National Assembly from Can Tho Province, and in July 1992 he became deputy chairman of the National Assembly. Regarded as one of the likely candidates to replace Vo Van Kiet as premier, Phan in April 1996 was suddenly removed both from the Politburo and the National Assembly, apparently over his opposition to a more open economy. He was the highestlevel party official expelled in more than a decade. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Nguyen Hue Birth Date: 1752 Death Date: March or April 1792 Also known as Vua Quang Trung (King Quang Trung) or Quang Trung Hoang De (Emperor Quang Trung), Nguyen Hue was probably the most important military strategist and national hero in Vietnamese history. With 100,000 men, he successfully defeated a Chinese army of 200,000 in January 1789. Nguyen Hue was born in 1752, the youngest and most capable of the three brothers from the village of Tay Son in Binh Dinh Province (the others were Nguyen Nhac and Nguyen Lu). The three brothers revolted against the Nguyen lords in southern Vietnam in the early 1770s. After 15 years they defeated both the Nguyen in the south and the Trinh in the north, and to a certain extent, reunified the country after 150 years of division. Thanks to this success, King Hien Tong of the Le regained power. After the death of Hien Tong, his grandson Chieu Thong was unable to maintain order. This situation led Nguyen Hue to move back to the capital at Thang Long (present-day Hanoi). Le Chieu Thong then fled to China and asked for Qing dynasty assistance in regaining his throne. Sun Shiyi, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces bordering Vietnam, recommended military intervention, which would provide Chinese emperor Can Long (Kien Lung) with an excellent opportunity to reconquer his

Men perform a dragon dance during a ceremony marking the 221st anniversary of the victory of King Quang Trung’s troops over the Chinese who had invaded Vietnam, Hanoi, February 18, 2010. (AFP/Getty Images)

country’s former colony. To accomplish this, in 1788 the emperor placed Sun Shiyi at the head of a Chinese army of 200,000 men. Being no match for the huge Chinese army, Ngo Van So, the Tay Son general, decided to abandon Thang Long and move farther southward to await Nguyen Hue’s orders. It was at this time that Nguyen Hue decided to proclaim himself king, now known as Quang Trung, and prepared to move north. He left Phu Xuan (Hue) on the 22nd day of the 11th month of the Mau Than Year (December 22, 1788) and arrived in Nghe An on December 26. There he recruited more men for his army. Before continuing his march he ordered the army to celebrate Tet ahead of time. Following a series of battles, including those at Phu Xuyen, Ha Hoi, and Ngoc Hoi, the Tay Son troops won a decisive victory at Khuong Thuong. Sam Nghi Dong, the Chinese commander, hanged himself at Dong Da Hill. Sun Shiyi and his lieutenants fled. On the 5th day of Tet, Quang Trung entered the capital. His campaign had lasted 40 days, with 35 of them in preparation and only

824

Nguyen Huu An

5 days in battle. Nguyen Hue’s victory at Dong Da on the 5th day of Tet Ky Dau became a national holiday in the official calendar of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) before 1975. The holiday is still celebrated by Vietnamese throughout the world. Quang Trung’s lightning victory over the Chinese was not his only military achievement. In 1784 Nguyen Phuc Anh called in the Siamese to help him against the Tay Son, and a Siamese force of between 20,000 and 50,000 men with 300 ships invaded the western Mekong Delta area. On January 19, 1785, in another important military victory in Vietnamese history, Quang Trung lured the Siamese into an ambush on the My Tho River in the Rach Gam–Xoai Mut area of Dinh Tuong Province and defeated them. According to Vietnamese sources, only 2,000 Siamese escaped. The remaining Nguyen family members then fled to Siam. The battle halted Siamese expansion into southern Vietnam. In addition to these two great military victories, Quang Trung did much domestically for Vietnam. He showed himself willing to work with capable individuals regardless of their past loyalties. This helped attract the best men to his service. He reorganized the army and carried out fiscal reforms. He also redistributed unused lands, mainly to the peasants; promoted the crafts and trade; and pushed for reforms in education, stating that in building a country nothing was more important than educating the people. Quang Trung also believed in the importance of studying history; he had his own tutors lecture to him on Vietnamese history and culture six times a month. He wanted to open trade with the countries of the West, and Western missionaries in Vietnam at the time noted the safe conditions in which they were able to carry out their religious activities with more freedom than before. Quang Trung was the first Vietnamese leader to stress the importance of science, insisting that it be added to requirements for the mandarinate examinations. He also introduced a Vietnamese currency and insisted that Chu Nom, the demotic writing system combining Chinese characters with Vietnamese, be used exclusively, rather than Chinese, in court documents. Unfortunately, Quang Trung’s reign was short; he was not to have the 10 years he believed necessary. He died of an unknown illness in March or April 1792. Many Vietnamese hold that had he lived a decade longer, their history would have developed quite differently. His son, Quang Toan, ascended the throne, but he was then only 10 years old. Within a decade Nguyen Anh, the surviving Nguyen lord, came to power and proclaimed himself king as Gia Long, establishing the Nguyen dynasty. PHAM CAO DUONG AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive; Nguyen Dynasty; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Hoa Bang. Quang Trung Nguyen Hue: Anh Hùng Dan Toc (1788–1792). [Quang Trung Nguyen Hue, Our National Hero]. Saigon: Bon Phuong Tai Ban, 1950.

Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971.

Nguyen Hue Campaign See Easter Offensive

Nguyen Huu An Birth Date: 1926 Death Date: 1995 Perhaps the People’s Army of Vietnam’s (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) finest combat commander and the commander of PAVN forces in two of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. Nguyen Huu An was born in Ninh Binh Province in northern Vietnam in 1926. He joined the Viet Minh armed forces in 1945 and rose rapidly through the ranks as an infantry leader. He commanded a regiment of the 316th Division during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. After commanding troops during the 1961–1962 PAVN intervention in Laos, he was given command of the PAVN 325th Division. In late 1964 An led the three regiments of the 325th Division down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Central Highlands of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), where he was appointed deputy commander of the Central Highlands (B3) Front. In November 1965 he was the frontline commander of the PAVN forces that fought the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. In the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young, starring Mel Gibson, Vietnamese actor Don Duong played the role of An. As commander of the PAVN 1st Division from 1966 to 1968, An commanded numerous offensives against U.S. forces in the Central Highlands, culminating in the Battle of Dak To in November 1967. After returning to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in 1968, An was given command of the famed PAVN 308th Division. He commanded it during the battle against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) incursion into Laos (Operation LAM SON 719) in early 1971. After serving as deputy commander of a PAVN offensive in the Plain of Jars in Laos in early 1972, in the summer of 1972 An reassumed command of the 308th Division and led it in a desperate battle against the ARVN counteroffensive to retake Quang Tri Province. Following the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, An was sent to the Soviet Union for advanced combined arms military training. Upon his return he became commander of PAVN’s new II Corps

Nguyen Huu Tho

825

and led it in the March 1975 offensive that captured Hue and Da Nang. During the April 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign the II Corps captured the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace in Saigon and accepted the surrender of President Duong Van Minh. In December 1979 An, still commanding II Corps, led his troops in an attack across southeastern Cambodia that captured the key Cambodian seaport of Kompong Som (Sihanoukville). As deputy commander of Military Region II during 1984–1987, An directed PAVN troops in vicious border fighting against Chinese forces in Ha Giang Province on Vietnam’s northern border. An retired from the PAVN in 1991 with the rank of colonel general. He died in 1995. MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Dak To, Battle of; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue and Da Nang, Fall of; Ia Drang, Battle of; LAM SON 719, Operation; MACARTHUR, Operation; Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr. References Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Nguyen Huu An and Nguyen Tu Duong. Chien Truong Moi [New Battlefields]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2002.

Nguyen Huu Co Birth Date: February 23, 1923 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and in 1966 defense minister for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Nguyen Huu Co was born on February 23, 1923, in My Tho in southern Vietnam. Co’s first public appearance came during the coup that overthrew South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963. As one of General Ton That Dinh’s deputies, Co, then a colonel, was in charge of preventing Diem loyalists in the Mekong Delta from getting to Saigon to rescue the Ngo brothers, a task that Co successfully fulfilled. After the coup Co was promoted to lieutenant general, and in 1965 he became chief of the ARVN Joint General Staff. In 1966 he became deputy prime minister and minister of defense. In this turbulent period in South Vietnamese politics, with five governments in three months, there was little that Co could do in his position. Reportedly he was more interested in making money in real estate than he was in national affairs. Following the 1975 Communist victory, Co stayed in Vietnam and was sent to a prison (reeducation) camp along with many other ARVN officers. When he was released in 1990, he chose to remain in Vietnam instead of immigrating to the United States. In March 2005 General Co and two other former senior South Vietnamese officers participated in a press conference held to commemorate

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) general Nguyen Huu Co became chief of the ARVN Joint General Staff in 1965 and the next year was deputy prime minister and minister of defense. He is shown here at a press conference in 1965. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

the 30th anniversary of the Communist victory in South Vietnam. During the press conference Co told foreign reporters that he had decided not to immigrate to the United States following his release from prison after U.S. officials told him that only he and his wife, not the rest of his extended family, would be accepted for resettlement in the United States. HO DIEU ANH See also Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ton That Dinh; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Who’s Who in Vietnam. Saigon: Vietnam Press Agency, 1974.

Nguyen Huu Tho Birth Date: July 10, 1910 Death Date: December 24, 1996 Southern Vietnamese Communist revolutionary and first president of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam

826

Nguyen Huu Tri

(National Liberation Front [NLF]). Born on July 10, 1910, in Cholon, Nguyen Huu Tho attended law school in France and worked as a lawyer in Saigon during the 1940s. In 1949 he helped organize a successful anti-French protest in Saigon and caught the attention of colonial officials. In 1950 the French arrested Tho and deported him to Lai Chau in northwestern Vietnam, where he remained until the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1954. Tho returned to Saigon in 1954 and resumed his resistance activities. He founded the Saigon–Choo Lon Peace Movement and was elected as its vice president in 1955. Although Tho never officially joined the Communist Party, Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), claimed that Tho was a party member and had him arrested. Tho served several years in South Vietnamese jails before Diem placed him under house arrest in Phu Yen in central Vietnam. At the organizational meeting of the NLF on December 20, 1960, Tho was the delegates’ choice as the NLF’s first president. During a commando raid, South Vietnamese revolutionaries liberated Tho and brought him to NLF headquarters in Tay Ninh Province. From 1961 through 1968 Tho served as the president of the Presidium of the NLF’s Central Committee. He insisted in his public statements that the NLF was independent and autonomous from the Communists in Hanoi and that the NLF had come into being in response to South Vietnamese demands. From 1962 to 1968 he was the international spokesperson for the NLF, granting interviews to hundreds of reporters worldwide. In 1969 Huynh Tan Phat replaced Tho as the titular head of the revolutionary movement in South Vietnam when Phat was named as the president of the newly formed Provisional Revolutionary Government. Tho continued as chairman of the NLF’s Central Committee and in 1976 was named to the purely ceremonial position of acting vice president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Tho’s powerlessness after the fall of Saigon became symbolic of the difficulties and tensions between northern and southern Communists after the war. In 1980–1981 he was acting president of the SRV, and throughout much of the 1980s he was also a member of the Council of State. Tho died in Ho Chi Minh City on December 24, 1996. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Huynh Tan Phat; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Thi Binh; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam; Tran Buu Kiem; Truong Nhu Tang; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Kahin, George McTurnan, and John W. Lewis. The United States in Vietnam. New York: Dial, 1966. Personalities of the South Vietnam Liberation Movement. New York: Commission for Foreign Relations of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, 1965. Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Nguyen Huu Tri Birth Date: ca. 1903 Death Date: 1954 Leader of the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (National Party of Greater Vietnam) and nationalist governor of northern Vietnam for the State of Vietnam during much of the Indochina War. The date and place of Nguyen Huu Tri’s birth are uncertain; he may have been born in 1903. When the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang announced its support for former emperor Bao Dai’s government in June 1949, Tri was appointed chief magistrate of northern Vietnam. Initially he presided only over the municipalities, as the countryside was controlled by the Viet Minh. The nationalist cause was hurt when in 1951 French general Jean de Lattre de Tassigny ordered Tri removed from office. Subsequently reappointed governor, Tri was considered by the American Special and Economic Technical Mission (Mutual Security Agency) in northern Vietnam as the most competent of the Vietnamese administrators. He pressed the French for real independence and organized the Dong Quan pacification project south of Hanoi. Tri worked closely with the Americans and the French to create other pacification centers in order to protect the population from Viet Minh infiltration in the Red River Delta. He was disappointed by the success of Viet Minh terror and by the scant support received from the French. The pacification centers that Tri organized with U.S. funding became mostly refugee centers to accommodate the tens of thousands of Vietnamese fleeing Viet Minh–controlled areas. Tri was called to Saigon by the government in mid-1954 and died there under mysterious circumstances. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang; Dong Quan Pacification Project; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. James P. Hendrick Papers. Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO.

Nguyen Khac Xung See Le Thanh Nghi

Nguyen Khoa Nam

Nguyen Khanh Birth Date: November 8, 1927 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general whose political ambitions led him through two coups, eventually to become premier of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) for a brief period in 1965. Born on November 8, 1927, in Tra Vinh in southern Vietnam, Nguyen Khanh lived with his father, who was a wealthy landowner, and was raised by his father’s lover, a popular Vietnamese singer and actor. Khanh left his Saigon school at age 16 in 1943 to join the Viet Minh effort against the Japanese and French. Expelled by the Viet Minh for poor discipline, he joined the French, who trained him to be an officer in the Vietnamese National Army (VNA). Khanh supported President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954 and successfully defended the presidential palace during the attempted coup of November 1960. But as the commander of II Corps, Khanh was a key player in the November 1963 coup against Diem. In a move essential to the coup’s success, principal plotters generals Tran Van Don, Duong Van Minh, and Le Van Kim secured the support of Khanh and I Corps commander General Do Cao Tri. In the months following the coup, the new government leaders failed to capitalize on their initial popularity by not asserting the leadership that the nation and the situation demanded. Before General Minh could begin a reform program, generals Khanh, Do Mau, and Tran Thien Khiem carried out a bloodless coup on January 31, 1965, on the pretext that others in the new government were preparing to institute a neutralist program. Khanh asked Minh to remain as chief of state while Khanh became premier and chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council. The Americans were impressed with Khanh’s promises, which called for urban and rural development as well as the renewal of the Strategic Hamlet Program under the new name of New Rural Life Hamlets. Khanh also vowed to institute a civilian government with a constitution. The South Vietnamese were less impressed with their new premier, however. One of the many reasons for Khanh’s unpopularity was that he had ousted the popular General Minh. Intellectuals did not like Khanh’s common background (his mother had run a bar in Da Lat) and found that when they asked for an all-civilian cabinet, Khanh declared that the army alone could lead the country. Many were demoralized by the purge that he instituted as well as the rapid turnover of chiefs at the provincial and district levels. Most South Vietnamese Buddhist organizations and sects joined together in the United Buddhist Association (UBA). Khanh, himself a Buddhist, tried to appease the UBA by recognizing it and donating land for a national pagoda. He also removed the favored legal status of Catholics and endorsed the use of a Buddhist chaplain corps for the armed forces. Despite these moves, Buddhists still complained of repression, and many military commanders were not happy with the new chaplains. The Viet Cong (VC) took advantage of these disruptions by increasing their activities.

827

Thinking that this was an opportune moment to begin a dictatorship, Khanh declared a national emergency and instituted a new constitution, the Vung Tau Charter, giving the president nearly absolute powers. The Military Revolutionary Council then elected Khanh president. Protests broke out in Saigon, Da Nang, and Hue as Communists infiltrated many demonstrations to aggravate the religious tension. Khanh then withdrew the charter and resigned. The Military Revolutionary Council elected a triumvirate of Khanh, Minh, and Khiem as an interim government to restore some order. Khanh remained commander in chief of the new government but was ousted in February 1965 by generals Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu. Khanh then was given an at-large ambassadorial post, with the understanding that he would leave the country. He lived in France for a number of years and was engaged in private business after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1977 Khanh and his family immigrated to the United States, where he has lived ever since. He held a number of positions with private companies and has lectured extensively at colleges and universities, both military and civilian. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Do Cao Tri; Duong Van Minh; Le Van Kim; Military Revolutionary Council; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Tran Thien Khiem; Tran Van Don; Viet Minh; Vietnamese National Army References Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Nguyen Khoa Nam Birth Date: September 23, 1927 Death Date: April 30, 1975 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) major general. Born in Da Nang, Quang Nam Province, on September 23, 1927, Nguyen Khoa Nam graduated from high school in 1946 and later graduated from the College of Administration in Hue. Drafted into the army, he graduated from the Thu Duc Reserve Officers School in 1953.

828

Nguyen Luong Bang

After October 1953 Nam held a succession of airborne posts. He graduated from the Parachutists Training Center in Pau, France, in 1953; was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1962; and attended the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1963. Nam assumed command of the 5th Airborne Battalion in 1965 and the 3rd Airborne Brigade in 1968. In September 1969 he was promoted to brigadier general and command of the 7th Infantry Division. He was promoted to major general in November 1972, and after November 1974 he commanded IV Corps. After the fall of Saigon, General Nam committed suicide on the night of April 30, 1975, near Saigon after bidding goodbye to his staff and talking by telephone with General Le Van Hung, who also committed suicide. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Le Van Hung References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Ha Mai Viet. Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Pham Phong Dinh. Chien Su Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Combat History of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Self-published, 2001. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998.

was arrested several times by the French authorities and twice escaped from prison, first from Hoa Lo, Hanoi, in 1932 and then from Son La in 1943. In 1941 Bang was president of the Viet Minh and head of the Financial Department of the Viet Minh. In October 1943 he became an alternate member of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee in charge of financial affairs and military recruiting. In 1945 he was elected a full member of the ICP Central Committee. After the August 1945 revolution, Bang held important party and state posts and was a member of the ICP Central Committee and vice president of North Vietnam (1969). In 1976 he became vice president of the SRV, a post he held until his death in Hanoi on July 20, 1979. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ho Chi Minh; Lao Dong Party; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Nguyen Manh Cam Nguyen Kim Thanh See To Huu

Nguyen Luong Bang Birth Date: April 2, 1904 Death Date: July 20, 1979 Prominent leader in the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on April 2, 1904, in Doan Lam village, Thanh Mien District, Hai Duong Province, to a poor scholar’s family, Nguyen Luong Bang spent his youth as a maritime worker. In 1925 he met Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) in Guangzhouwan (Kwang-Chou-Wan), China, and became active in revolutionary activities. Later Bang joined the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association), predecessor of the ICP, and attended political training classes taught by Nguyen Ai Quoc at Kwang Chou. Bang was assigned to work in the labor movement in Hai Phong and later in Saigon. In 1928 Bang was sent to take part in revolutionary activities abroad and became a member of the ICP. During 1930–1943 he

Birth Date: September 15, 1929 Leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and minister of foreign affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on September 15, 1929, at Hung Dung village, Hung Nguyen District, Nghe An Province, and a graduate of Hanoi’s College of Foreign Languages, Nguyen Manh Cam joined the anti-French struggle in 1945 in his hometown area and the Indochinese Communist Party in 1946. From 1947 he was assigned various tasks in Interzone IV. On the state level, in 1952 Cam joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and was assigned to various departments of the ministry, such as the Soviet Union and East Europe departments, the Office of the Foreign Ministry, the Department of General Services, and the department involved in monitoring the Paris peace talks and Paris Agreement Implementation. Cam was in the Soviet Union as a junior embassy official from 1952 to 1956. A Soviet specialist who studied Russian in China and the Soviet Union, Cam returned to his Moscow station during 1962–1966, when he was embassy first secretary. From 1973 to 1977 he served concurrently as the North Vietnamese ambassador to Hungary, Austria, and Iran. In 1977 he was appointed ambassador concurrently to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany), Switzerland, and Iran.

Nguyen Ngoc Loan In 1981 Cam returned to Vietnam and became vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. In December 1986 he became an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee before returning to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1987 as ambassador to Moscow. In June 1991 he was made a full member of VCP Central Committee. Cam became minister of foreign affairs in August 1991, a post he apparently accepted with reluctance. He was elected as a National Assembly deputy from Nghe An Province in July 1992 and then a member of Vietnam’s National Defense and Security Council. In January 1994 he was rewarded with a Politburo post. A career diplomat with a reputation for integrity, Cam is credited with normalizing relations with the United States in July 1995. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

829

Nguyen Ngoc Loan Birth Date: 1931 Death Date: July 14, 1998 Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) brigadier general and director of National Police (1966– 1968). Born in 1931 in Hue, 1 of 11 children of a prosperous mechanical engineer, Nguyen Ngoc Loan graduated near the top of his class at the University of Hue and became a VNAF pilot. He advanced rapidly and became commander of the Light Observation Group and then assistant commander of the Tactical Operations Center. An old classmate and close friend of Nguyen Cao Ky, Loan served as deputy commander of the VNAF in the aftermath of the November 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. In June 1965 when Ky became premier of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), he appointed Loan director of the Military Security Service. A few months later Loan became director of the Central Intelligence Organization and then in April 1966 became the director of the National Police. Not even under Diem had one man directed so many police and intelligence agencies.

Nguyen Ngoc Loan (left), Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) brigadier general and director of the National Police from 1966–1968, is best known for his execution of a member of the Viet Cong during the 1968 Tet Offensive. This well-known photograph, which earned numerous awards, undermined Loan’s career and gave an unfavorable image of the Republic of Vietnam government. (AP/Wide World Photos)

830

Nguyen Ngoc Tho

U.S. officials were pleased to see Loan take control of the police and intelligence services and improve stability in South Vietnam, particularly in Saigon. A U.S. embassy official favorably reported that from October 1966 to January 1968 not a single terrorist incident or National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) meeting was recorded in districts 7, 8, or 9 of Saigon, whereas before that period daytime meetings were occurring in the same areas, and there were more than 40 terrorist incidents a month. Loan had always been known for his ability to deal by extralegal means with political rivals; he once marched armed guards into the National Assembly to break a legislative logjam. But Loan received international attention when on February 1 during the 1968 Tet Offensive he shot a Viet Cong (VC) suspect in the head with a revolver on a Saigon street. The slain man was reportedly a member of a death squad that had killed the family of one of Loan’s deputy commanders. AP photographer Eddie Adams recorded the event, and his photograph undermined Loan’s career and presented an unfavorable image abroad of the South Vietnamese government. In Twenty Years and Twenty Days, Ky bitterly remarked that Loan’s act was wrongly taken as a war crime and that it was simply “an isolated incident of the cruelty of war.” Nonetheless, the execution drew immediate rebukes from U.S. officials. Adams later expressed regret over the way his photo adversely affected Loan. On May 5, 1968, Loan was severely wounded while leading an attack on a VC hideout in a suburb north of Saigon. He was forced to resign his posts to undergo surgery and extended hospitalization, first in Australia and then in the United States, where he was denounced in Congress. General Loan was removed from influence in a purge of Ky loyalists, replaced by supporters of President Nguyen Van Thieu. On June 6 General Tran Van Hai, a Thieu follower, became director of the National Police, and Loan soon disappeared from the political arena. On his return to Saigon he seemed changed and devoted his time to working with orphans. When Saigon fell in 1975, American officials ignored Loan’s appeal for assistance, but he managed to escape in a South Vietnamese plane. He then traveled to the United States and settled in northern Virginia, where he opened a pizzeria. He operated it until 1991, when publicity about his past led to a sharp decline in business. Loan died of cancer at his home in Burke, Virginia, on July 14, 1998. HO DIEU ANH AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Adams, Edward; Media and the Vietnam War; Nguyen Cao Ky; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.

Nguyen Ngoc Tho Birth Date: May 26, 1908 Death Date: Unknown Vice president (1956–1963) and prime minister of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from November 1963 to January 1964. Nguyen Ngoc Tho was born on May 26, 1908, in Long Xuyen Province in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam, a member of a wealthy landowning family that had held provincial administrative positions during the period of French colonial rule. In 1949 the French established the State of Vietnam. Working with the French, in 1953 Tho served as its interior minister. As such, he had charge of the police. During this period the police were heavily involved in tracking down Communists and their sympathizers in Vietnam as well as members of criminal gangs. Following the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam in 1955, Tho briefly served as its first ambassador to Japan (1955– 1956). In May 1956 South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem recalled Tho to South Vietnam and tasked him with crushing the Hoa Hao religious sect, which was active in the Mekong Delta. Tho worked closely with the local army commander, General Duong Van Minh, to track down Hoa Hao leader Ba Cut, who was eventually captured and executed. In mid-1956 Tho took over the post of secretary of state for the national economy, gaining a reputation as a relatively competent economist. In November 1956 he became vice president. However, Tho had little real power, as President Diem controlled the country through his extensive family and political appointees. Tho took charge of the land reform program introduced in 1957, which was largely a failure. Tho, although loyal to the Roman Catholic Diem, was a devout Buddhist, and differences between the two men surfaced during the Buddhist Crisis of June 1963, when Buddhist monks began burning themselves to death in public as a protest against the Diem regime. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the crisis when several monks at Hue had been killed, it was Tho who presided over the superficial inquiry that blamed their deaths on the Viet Cong (VC), and he initially supported the crackdown. Later, however, he expressed to American officials his displeasure with Diem. Duong Van Minh and other army conspirators overthrew Diem on November 1, 1963. The military junta appointed Tho prime minister on November 4, and he was invested with the position of minister of finance and the economy several days later. The 12 generals constituting the Military Revolutionary Council held real power; Tho was little more than a figurehead. He had a particularly hard task in attempting to remove Diem loyalists from the military. Tho fell victim to yet another coup on January 29, 1964, when General Nguyen Khanh seized power. Tho then retired from politics, apparently benefiting from substantial wealth secured during his time in office. Nothing is known of Tho thereafter. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD

Nguyen Phuc Anh

831

New Republic of Vietnam prime minister Nguyen Ngoc Tho (right) with Major General Duong Van Minh (left) at a news conference in Saigon on November 6, 1963, following the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem. (AP/Wide World Photos) See also Ba Cut; Buddhism in Vietnam; Duong Van Minh; Hoa Hao; Military Revolutionary Council; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Khanh References Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Shaplen, Robert. The Lost Revolution: Vietnam, 1945–1965. London: André Deutsch, 1965.

Nguyen Phuc Anh Birth Date: February 8, 1762 Death Date: 1820 Vietnamese emperor during 1802–1820. Nguyen Phuc Anh (Gia Long) was born on February 8, 1762, in Phu Xuan (present-day Hue). In 1527 Mac Dang Dung, a notable at the court of the later Le dynasty (1428–1788), began a revolt against the ruling emperor and proclaimed himself founding emperor of a new royal family, the Mac. The Macs were never able to establish themselves as the single legitimate rulers possessing the Mandate of Heaven. The Le family resisted their usurpation and in 1591, with the help of

a powerful clan, the Trinh lords, captured Thang Long (presentday Hanoi) and the reigning Mac emperor and drove the remainder of the Mac family into exile. This did not mean the return of Le authority, however, for that family was now dependent on the Trinh lords, who became the primary court faction. Their political manipulations determined the rise and fall of puppet Le emperors, and only the most pliant remained on the throne. Trinh influence continued at the Le court until the dynasty was at last overthrown in 1788. Even after restoration of Le power, that weak dynasty was unable to affirm its control over all of the land. The Le dynasty also faced a rival family in southern Vietnam. These were the Nguyens, known as Nguyen lords. Although they ruled in the name of the Le dynasty, in actuality they were independent of its authority, ruling repressively from their seat of power in the city of Phu Xuan (Hue). Unrest and competition among the Le, Trinh, and Nguyen families weakened government authority throughout Vietnam. Rural dissatisfaction in southern Vietnam throughout the 1760s brought forth a rebellion in 1771, when three brothers from the village of Tay Son began a struggle to depose the Nguyens. This they accomplished in 1785 with broad-based support from many segments of the population. The Tay Son rebels then turned to northern Vietnam and attacked and defeated the Trinh lords there, seizing Hanoi in 1786.

832

Nguyen Sinh Sac

When the Le emperor called on China for help, the Tay Son rebels defeated its armies and forced the reigning Le to flee into exile in Beijing. Thereupon a new dynasty came into being when, in 1788, Nguyen Hue, leader of the Tay Sons, declared himself Emperor Quang Trung. From the rise of the Mac dynasty in 1527 to the overthrow of the Trinh lords and the Le family in 1788, Vietnam had been saddled with unstable government and was wracked with strife and disorder. Nguyen Phuc Anh, pretender to the throne, was one of the few surviving members of the Nguyen family that had ruled in southern Vietnam since the 16th century. He had been forced to flee into the marshes and swamps of the Mekong Delta when Gia Dinh (Saigon), the only important territory left under the Nguyen lords, fell to the Tay Son in 1778. From the delta he proclaimed himself emperor but was again defeated by the Tay Son in 1783. He then fled to Phu Quoc, an island in the Gulf of Siam, where he continued his struggle. Nguyen Anh was dedicated to his goal of prevailing over the Tay Son dynasty, but the outlook was bleak. Then he met French missionary Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine, later bishop of Adran in India, who strongly supported Nguyen Anh’s cause. Pigneau de Béhaine arranged for Nguyen Anh’s son, Nguyen Canh, to visit France in 1787 to seek help from the government. In return for financial support and the use of French naval craft and troops to defeat his rivals, the Nguyens agreed to the Treaty of Versailles with King Louis XVI. This granted France commercial and missionary rights, the city of Da Nang (renamed Tourane by the French), and the island of Con Son (renamed Poulo Condore by the French), a small dot of land in the South China Sea about 50 miles from the southern coast that the French later turned into a prison colony for Vietnamese political activists. The promised French governmental help failed to materialize. Consequently, France did not achieve control of Tourane or Poulo Condore until a new treaty was made with Tu Duc in June 1862. In any case, Pigneau de Béhaine was able to raise the armed forces necessary for Nguyen Anh to overcome his enemies. Nguyen Anh then launched a campaign against those who resisted his rule. After years of struggle, by 1802 the Tay Son were either dead or in exile. Nguyen Anh then founded the Nguyen dynasty (1802–1945), which lasted until the abdication of Bao Dai in 1945. Nguyen Anh took the dynastic name Gia Long (Gia from the customary name for Saigon, Gia Dinh; Long from Thang Long, the ancient name of Hanoi) and, after an official investiture by China, declared himself emperor, thus uniting the land for the first time in centuries. Gia Long transferred the capital from Thang Long to Hue and changed the name of his nation from Dai Viet to Vietnam. Enamored of Vietnam’s giant neighbor to the north, the new emperor promulgated his Gia Long Penal Code, based on the one used by the Chinese Qing dynasty. This new system of law took less note of local and village customs and strengthened the hand of the emperor. He replaced Chu Nom, the written form of Vietnamese then in use, with Chinese as the official written language and insisted upon an orthodox interpretation of Confucianism. He or-

dered the construction of public granaries, developed an effective postal service, gathered in Cambodia (Kampuchea) as a client state, and spent government funds repairing the Old Mandarin Road. Gia Long allowed a measure of toleration toward French missionary activity, but he resisted any increase in French commercial growth. Gia Long died in Hue in 1820 and was succeeded by his son, Chi Dam, who assumed the dynastic name of Minh Mang. CECIL B. CURREY See also Minh Mang; Nguyen Dynasty; Nguyen Hue; Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Duiker, William J., ed. Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1989. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988.

Nguyen Phuoc Dom See Minh Mang

Nguyen Phuong Thao See Nguyen Binh

Nguyen Sinh Cung See Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Sinh Sac Birth Date: 1863 Death Date: November 1929 Vietnamese government official under French colonial rule, nationalist, and the father of Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. Nguyen Sinh Sac was born the son of a farmer sometime in 1863 near Vinh, capital of Nghe An Province, in northern Vietnam. Much of his early life was taken up with helping the family on their small holding. From boyhood he wanted to become a scholar, and when he was 15 years old he began studying the Confucian classics. When he was 20 he married Hoang Thi Loan, the daughter of his teacher. They would have three children, including Ho Chi Minh. It was not until 1891 that Sac was able to travel to Vinh to sit for the civil service exam. He failed on his first attempt but retook it three years later, passing it and then moving to Hue where, in 1898, on his second attempt he passed the senior examination and

Nguyen Thai Hoc became a teacher in a nearby village. Two years later he was promoted and made a clerk for the provincial examinations for Thanh Hoa Province in northern Vietnam. By this time the French had effectively taken over the administration for Vietnam. Sac viewed this as a national humiliation. Initially he had hoped to be a moderating influence on the colonial authorities, holding a position at the Ministry of Rites in Hue. In May 1906 he finally decided that he would accept a position as a district mandarin and magistrate. It was at this point that he took his two surviving sons to the Quoc Hoc School in Hue. In January 1910 Sac became the center of a local cause célèbre. That month he had sentenced a wealthy local farmer to 100 strokes of the cane for a misdemeanor. It was an attempt to show that not even those with connections or money were above the law. However, the farmer died from the caning, and his friends complained to the higher authorities. Sac was dismissed. Sac then moved to Saigon. There he taught for a while and held a variety of jobs, including as an overseer of a rubber plantation and as an itinerant traditional doctor. It was a somewhat aimless existence, but he continued to harbor resentment against the French, with his children becoming active in the resistance to the French. The French meanwhile believed that Sac was using his travels as a doctor to liaise among various nationalist groups. Sac died in November 1929 and was buried at Cao Lanh in the Mekong Delta. By that time his youngest son, Ho Chi Minh, was the leader of the clandestine Communist movement in Vietnam, founding the Indochinese Communist Party the following year. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Ho Chi Minh References Brocheux, Pierre. Ho Chi Minh: From Revolutionary to Icon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Duiker, William J. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion, 2000. Quinn-Judge, Sophie. Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years, 1919–1941. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Nguyen Thai Hoc Birth Date: 1902 Death Date: June 17, 1930 Vietnamese nationalist and leader of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party). Born in 1902 into a middle-class farmer’s family in Tho Tang village, Vinh Tuong District, Vinh Yen Province, Nguyen Thai Hoc in 1921 was admitted into the new Teachers School in Hanoi. The attitude of the French instructors and their Vietnamese underlings toward their Vietnamese students made Hoc a nationalist. He was expelled at the end of his third year after quarreling with an instructor over what he considered to be her improper treatment of his classmates. Later he enrolled in

833

the School of Commerce before devoting all his attention to revolution. His close friends described him as a man of simple tastes who was calm, intelligent, decisive, and brave. The mid-1925s saw many events that heightened Vietnamese patriotism. Among these were the failed June 18, 1924, attempt by Pham Hong Thai to assassinate French Indochina governor-general Martial Henri Merlin in Hong Kong and the public reaction when Phan Boi Chau was kidnapped in Shanghai and returned to Vietnam. Nguyen Thai Hoc made use of the Nam Dong Publishing House, founded by friends in 1925, that published books promoting Vietnamese patriotism. The publishing house became so popular that the colonial government closed it down and confiscated its publications. Hoc wrote to French governor-general Alexandre Varenne proposing political, economic, and social reforms but received no response. Hoc was already on the colonial government’s blacklist. As his name became known among nationalist activists, several anticolonialist groups urged Hoc to found a revolutionary organization. On December 25, 1927, 36 representatives from 14 provinces in northern Vietnam (Tonkin) met secretly in Hanoi and established the VNQDD. The party’s name reflected the influence of Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen) and the 1911 Chinese Revolution and the fact that a party of that same name had been organized by respected nationalist activist Phan Boi Chau in 1923 but had been inactive since Chau’s arrest in Shanghai in 1925. The VNQDD was the first well-organized Vietnamese revolutionary party to advocate armed revolt to achieve independence. Drawing the bulk of its members from the middle class, it was also the largest such party. Not long after Hoc was elected chairman in late 1927, Chau became VNQDD honorary chairman. The French soon launched a large-scale campaign to eradicate the VNQDD. Rather than see the party destroyed, Hoc and his staff resolved to act even if their attempt was not successful. As Hoc put it, “If we do not succeed, we still do the right thing.” The party leadership approved Hoc’s call for an uprising, and during February 10–15, 1930, the VNQDD struck major French military bases around Hanoi, although communication failures prevented these from being simultaneous. Collectively these are known in Vietnamese history as the Yen Bay (or Yen Bai) Uprising. The French soon put down the uprising. Hundreds of VNQDD members were killed or subsequently executed, and thousands of others ended up in prisons. Hoc refused his comrades’ appeals that he flee to China and was arrested on February 20, 1930. On March 23, 1930, Hoc and 82 party members whom the French thought were the most dangerous were tried in a special court (Commission Criminelle). They included a woman, Nguyen Thi Bac, elder sister of Hoc’s fiancee Nguyen Thi Giang. The next morning Hoc and 38 comrades were sentenced to death; the others received prison terms. In early June 1930 the president of France approved 27 death sentences, including that of Hoc. Before Hoc’s execution, his family was allowed to see him for the last time during which time he begged his mother’s forgiveness for not fulfilling his filial obligation. Early on June 17, 1930, Hoc and 18

834

Nguyen Thi Binh

comrades were moved to Yen Bai, and that same morning all were guillotined. Reportedly all met their deaths bravely. One of those executed, Pho Duc Chinh, asked the headsman to let him lie on his back so that he could see the blade fall. Reportedly each shouted “Long live Viet Nam” before the blade fell. Hoc was the last to die. Hoc had been romantically linked with Nguyen Thi Giang. She assisted him as a liaison officer, conveying his orders when he frequently changed his whereabouts. One of the first female members of the VNQDD, she opened the way for many hundreds to follow. The women helped distribute weapons, ran propaganda, and collected intelligence. On the day of Hoc’s death, Giang was part of the crowd watching the executions. That afternoon she went to Hoc’s home village to visit his mother and pay her regards, and then she committed suicide with a pistol. Hoc was the eldest child in his family and left a sister and three brothers. One of the brothers joined the VNQDD and was later sentenced to death by the French. Another brother was killed by French soldiers in a raid on his village in November 1947 when he refused to surrender. Although Hoc and his comrades had not won the decisive victory they sought for their country and people, their revolutionary activity and uprising boosted Vietnamese nationalism. NGUYEN CONG LUAN

See also Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang References Cao The Dung. Viet Nam Huyet Le Su. New Orleans: Dong Huong, 1996. Hoang Van Dao. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Saigon: Published by the author, 1970; reprinted in the United States. Pham Kim Vinh. The Vietnamese Culture. Solana Beach, CA: PM Enterprises, 1994.

Nguyen Thi Binh Birth Date: 1927 Southern Vietnamese Communist revolutionary who served as a diplomat for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and as foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG). Born in Saigon in 1927, Nguyen Thi Binh (birth name Nguyen Thi Chau Sa) was the grandniece of one of Vietnam’s most famous patriots, Phan Chu Trinh. During the 1950s Madame Binh was one leader of a Saigon rebellion of students and intellectuals known as the Tran Van On Movement. The French arrested Binh in 1951, and she remained in jail until the signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords.

Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, deputy head of the National Liberation Front delegation to the Paris peace talks, waves to a crowd gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square on April 7, 1969. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Nguyen Thi Dinh After her release from prison, Binh joined several resistance groups in Saigon and was elected to the NLF’s Central Committee in 1962. From 1962 until 1969 she served in the NLF’s diplomatic corps, accepting assignments to Africa and Europe. She led the NLF delegation to the Third Congress of the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization in 1963, and in 1965 she headed the NLF’s legation in Algiers. Throughout the mid-1960s Binh toured the world, offering interviews to hundreds of reporters. For many in the West, Madame Binh became the symbol of the NLF and its most important spokesperson. Once the Paris peace talks opened in 1968, Binh assumed the role of chief negotiator for the NLF, although official recognition of the NLF was one of the major stumbling blocks to successful talks. In 1969 the PRG appointed her as its foreign minister, sending her to Paris as its official representative. As a negotiator, Binh was steadfast in her determination to exact a settlement that diminished Nguyen Van Thieu’s monopoly on political power in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and that coupled the freedom of South Vietnamese political prisoners with the release of American prisoners of war. During the autumn 1972 negotiations, Madame Binh criticized the Le Duc Tho–Henry Kissinger accord because it did not deal adequately with the prisoner-of-war issue. Eventually Madame Binh signed the final accord on behalf of the PRG. After the Vietnam War, Binh served in a variety of governmental positions in Hanoi, and in 1992 she assumed the vice presidency of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Huu Tho; Nguyen Van Thieu; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam; Tran Buu Kiem References Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. Porter, Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Tran Van Giau and Le Van Chat. The South Vietnam Liberation National Front. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.

Nguyen Thi Dinh Birth Date: 1920 Death Date: August 26, 1992 Military leader of the Armed Forces for the Liberation of South Vietnam and leader of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) Women’s Union during the Vietnam War. Nguyen Thi Dinh was born in 1920 in Ben Tre Province in southern Vietnam into a poor family of 10 children. Influenced by her older brother who was involved

835

in revolutionary activities against the French in the early 1930s, Madame Dinh began her participation in the movement as a liaison when she was 16 years old and also helped with propaganda work. In 1938 she married a member of the Ben Tre Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party and gave birth to her first child in 1939. That same year the French authorities arrested her husband and exiled him. Dinh herself was arrested and exiled in Ba Ra in southern Vietnam in 1940. Released in 1943 because of a heart ailment, Dinh joined the Viet Minh movement in 1944, the same year that her husband died in prison. After participating in the 1945 uprising in Ben Tre, the next year she was elected to the Executive Committee of the Ben Tre Women’s Union and was sent to northern Vietnam in a delegation of southern revolutionaries to visit Ho Chi Minh and request assistance in waging war against the French in southern Vietnam. Dinh was in charge of the first shipload of weapons and financial assistance sent to southern Vietnam in November 1946. She continued Viet Minh activities, charged with mobilization, and remarried. After the 1954 Geneva Accords she chose to stay in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) instead of joining her son by her first marriage in moving to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). After 1954 Dinh took charge of rebuilding the revolutionary movement and coordinating Viet Minh cadres remaining in Ben Tre. Later she had charge of disrupting the Ngo Dinh Diem government’s Agroville Campaign in Chau Thanh and Mo Cay. In early 1960 Dinh was elected secretary of the Ben Tre Province Party Committee. She was also a leading organizer of the Dong Khoi (Simultaneous Insurrection) in Ben Tre Province. The Dong Khoi was a Communist-organized popular uprising in many rural areas of South Vietnam during late 1959–early 1960 designed to seize power from Diem administration officials at the village level. Dinh’s actions during the Dong Khoi in Ben Tre Province resulted in her being credited with being the founder of the so-called Long-Haired Army (Doi Quan Toc Dai), a term that the southern insurgents used to describe female cadres and sympathizers who conducted mass protest demonstrations against the Diem government and tried to persuade Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers to desert. These actions were part of the Communist political struggle that was conducted in parallel with military operations. Dinh became one of the founders of the NLF and helped build its armed forces. She was later appointed general and vice commander in chief of the Armed Forces for the Liberation of South Vietnam and was also a member of the NLF Central Committee and chair of the Women’s Union for the Liberation of South Vietnam. When the People’s Revolutionary Party, the southern branch of the Lao Dong Party, was formed in 1962, she became a member of its Central Committee. She continued to hold these leadership positions throughout the Vietnam War. After 1975 Dinh continued as a member of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party, but she was active only

836

Nguyen Thi Minh Khai

Madame Nguyen Thi Dinh, spokesperson for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, listens as combatants tell of shooting down an American plane over Hanoi on February 17, 1966. (Getty Images)

in the women’s movement, holding the post of vice chair of the Women’s Union of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. From May 1982 she was its chair. In 1991 she was elected vice chair of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam State Council. Dinh died in Ho Chi Minh City on August 26, 1992. Her body lay in state in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) after her death, a high honor that demonstrated the respect she had garnered throughout her long career. HO DIEU ANH See also Agroville Program; Lao Dong Party; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party; Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese References Eisen, Arlene. Women and Revolution in Vietnam. London: Zed Books, 1984. Nguyen Thi Dinh. Khong Con Con Duong Nao Khac [No Other Way]. Edited by Tran Huong Nam. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Phu Nu, 1968.

Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Birth Date: 1910 Death Date: March 1941 Prominent female revolutionary and activist in the Indochinese Communist Party who fought against French colonial rule in

Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Minh Khai was born in Nghe An Province sometime in 1910, although her father, Nguyen Van Binh, was originally from Tonkin. Khai had learned how to speak French and became a railway clerk in Nghe An Province in north-central Vietnam. Khai attended primary school in Vinh, the provincial capital of Nghe An, and then at age 14 enrolled in the town’s high school, where she met Tran Phu, an activist who interested her in agitating against French colonial rule. Forced to flee her home in 1929 to avoid being arrested by the French, in the early 1930s Khai joined the Indochinese Communist Party, which had been unified by Ho Chi Minh, and began recruiting women in Vinh and Ben Thuy to join the Communist cause. She then became Ho Chi Minh’s assistant in Hong Kong. Khai was regarded as bright and attractive, and some writers believe that she married Ho Chi Minh during this time. Her younger sister, Nguyen Thi Quang Khai, became the first wife of another leading Communist, Vo Nguyen Giap. Certainly Ho Chi Minh had lost interest in his Chinese wife Tuyet Minh at the time, and so it is quite conceivable that the marriage took place. In 1931 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai was arrested in Hong Kong by the British police. She claimed to be a Chinese citizen called Tran Thai Lan. The British eventually believed her story and handed her over to Chinese authorities, who held her in prison in Guangzhou (Canton) for several months before releasing her. Using the

Nguyen Van Binh code name “Van,” she then traveled to Moscow, where in 1935 she attended the Seventh Congress of the Communist International. Perhaps having secured a divorce from Ho Chi Minh if she had married him, at this time she married Le Hong Phong, another leading Vietnamese Communist. In February 1935 Khai completed her studies at the Stalin School in Moscow and returned to Hong Kong, where she continued to work for the Communists. She then went to Saigon, where she was secretary of the Saigon Party Committee. She was also heavily involved in the struggle against the French. In July 1940 she was arrested by the French authorities, who found incriminating documents in her house. In March 1941 she and several other Communists were found guilty in a military court convened in Saigon and were sentenced to death. All were executed soon thereafter by firing squad in Saigon. Her husband Le Hong Phong died in prison 18 months later. Khai has been championed as one of the great heroines of the Vietnamese Revolution. One of the main streets in Saigon, Rue Hong Tap Tu (formerly Rue Chasseloup Laubat), was renamed in her honor. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Ho Chi Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Brocheux, Pierre. Ho Chi Minh: From Revolutionary to Icon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Duiker, William J. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion, 2000. Quinn-Judge, Sophie. Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years, 1919–1941. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Nguyen Tuong Tam Birth Date: 1905 Death Date: July 7, 1963 Leader of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party) and a highly regarded writer. Born into the family of a poor mandarin in Cam Giang District, Hai Duong Province, in 1905, Nguyen Tuong Tam graduated from high school at age 16. In 1930 he traveled to France to attend university and graduated with a degree in physics and chemistry. In the mid-1930s Tam founded the Tu Luc Van Doan (SelfReliance Literary Group) of a dozen modern writers. They advocated cultural reforms, focusing primarily on a literary movement to promote a new style of writing. The writers also advocated social reforms, including new housing in slum areas. The Tu Luc Van Doan published journals, such as the Phong Hoa Weekly and the Ngay Nay Weekly, and a series of novels. Using humorous stories, caricatures, and theme novels, the group radically changed Vietnamese literature. Their novels were best-sellers

837

at the time. Indirectly the group also promoted patriotism among Vietnamese youths, although some critics saw this as a kind of romanticism. In the early 1940s Nhat Linh (a pen name) participated in revolutionary activities, such as organizing the Dai Viet Dan Chinh. He then fled to China, where he was arrested on the orders of Chang Fa Kwei at the same time as Ho Chi Minh. Nhat Linh’s party later merged with the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang and the VNQDD into one party. Returning to Vietnam in 1945, Nhat Linh became minister of foreign affairs in the first coalition government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He was not present at the meeting that approved the March 6, 1946, preliminary HoSainteny Agreement, but he led the North Vietnamese delegation that negotiated with the French at Da Lat in April 1946. He was to have been chief negotiator in talks with the French in Paris, but he left Vietnam before his scheduled departure for France, reportedly to avoid imminent danger from Viet Minh groups assigned to assassinate prominent non-Communists. Nhat Linh lived in Hong Kong until 1950, when he returned to Vietnam, settling in the south and steadfastly avoiding politics. In 1958 he tried unsuccessfully to revive his literary movement. The Ngo Dinh Diem government accused Nhat Linh of being involved in the 1960 attempted coup d’état and ordered his arrest. Nhat Linh committed suicide on July 7, 1963, before his trial in Saigon could begin. Although he was unsuccessful in politics, he is considered the greatest writer of modern Vietnam. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Vietnamese Culture; Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang References Cao The Dung. Viet Nam Huyet Le Su. New Orleans: Dong Huong, 1996. Hoang Van Dao. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Saigon: Published by the author, 1970; reprinted in the United States. Pham Kim Vinh. The Vietnamese Culture. Solana Beach, CA: PM Enterprises, 1994.

Nguyen Van Binh Birth Date: September 1, 1910 Death Date: July 1, 1991 Catholic archbishop of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) from November 24, 1960, until his death in 1991. Nguyen Van Binh was born in Saigon on September 1, 1910. He graduated from the Saigon Seminary in 1922 and continued his studies in Rome in 1932. He was ordained a priest in Rome in March 1937 and became a bishop in November 1955. Archbishop Binh was also the president of the Vietnam Episcopal Council.

838

Nguyen Van Cu

Nguyen Van Cu Birth Date: 1934

Roman Catholic archbishop of Saigon Nguyen Van Binh, 1964. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Despite the aggressive role played by Catholics in the earlier period of the Vietnam War, Binh was considered a moderate religious leader. After 1975 his noninterventionist stance helped keep the Catholic Church at relative peace with the new government. Indeed, in a 1977 Church Synod in Rome, Binh stated that he and other Vietnamese bishops were willing to work with the existing government of Vietnam, appearing to eschew political entanglements. While Pope Paul VI agreed that Binh’s position was a correct one, more conservative bishops disagreed, believing that Binh was capitulating to a repressive, corrupt, and atheistic regime. Binh countered that the Church for too long had been involved in imperial exploits in Vietnam and that it was not his place to engage in political intrigues. Binh died in Ho Chi Minh City on July 1, 1991, at which time the government permitted the Catholic Church in Vietnam to hold memorial services for the archbishop that lasted several days. HO DIEU ANH See also Catholicism in Vietnam; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Huon Phan Phat. History of the Catholic Church in Vietnam. San Francisco: Vietnamese Redemptionist Mission, 2000. Who’s Who in Vietnam. Saigon: Vietnam Press Agency, 1974.

Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) pilot who bombed the presidential palace on February 27, 1962. Born in 1934, Nguyen Van Cu was the second son of Nguyen Van Loc, a leader of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party) and an opponent of President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Cu volunteered for the VNAF in 1955, attending several training courses at Bartow Air Force Base, Alabama, and Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, during 1955–1957. He was an instructor in the VNAF Training Center in Nha Trang and then a fighter pilot of the 514th Fighter Squadron at Bien Hoa Air Base. The revolutionary council of Cu’s father wanted to assassinate Diem. They settled on a plan whereby Cu and Pham Phu Quoc, another pilot recruited by Cu from his same squadron, would shoot down Diem’s VNAF Douglas C-47 Dakota aircraft. Because of problems in carrying this out, the planners decided that the two pilots would attack the Doc Lap (Independence) Palace on the morning of February 27, 1962. That same day the two pilots were ordered on a combat mission from Bien Hoa to Go Cong, south of Saigon. When they were over the presidential palace, dense clouds blanketed Saigon. As a result, they had to bring their two Douglas AD-6 Skyraider aircraft below the safe altitude to drop bombs. They did strafe the palace with rockets, and one of their 500-pound bombs penetrated a room in which Diem was located. The bomb failed to detonate because the low altitude did not allow sufficient time for its arming, however. The only casualty was a Nhu family servant, who was wounded. Quoc’s plane was damaged by ground fire in the attack. Forced to land in Nha Be near Saigon, he was arrested and imprisoned but was released after Diem’s death the next year. Quoc then returned to duty with the VNAF. In late 1964 while returning from an air raid over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), his plane was hit by North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire, and he was killed. Cu’s plane was also damaged in the raid, but he was able to fly it to Phnom Penh, where he worked as a language teacher until his return to Vietnam after Diem’s overthrow. In 1967 Cu resigned from the VNAF upon his election to the South Vietnamese House of Representatives. In June 1975 following the Communist victory, Cu was arrested and sent to a reeducation camp. Released in 1985, he settled in the United States in 1991. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Ngo Dinh Diem

Nguyen Van Cao See Van Cao

Reference Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Nguyen Van Linh

Nguyen Van Cuc See Nguyen Van Linh

Nguyen Van Hieu Birth Date: June 23, 1929 Death Date: April 8, 1975 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) major general. Nguyen Van Hieu was born in Tientsin (Tianjin), China, on June 23, 1929. Brought up in Shanghai and Hong Kong, he was a son of veteran revolutionary Nguyen Van Huong. Hieu graduated from the Da Lat Military Academy in 1951. He rose steadily through the ranks and before his death had been chief of staff of II Corps (1964), twice commander of the 22nd Infantry Division (1964 and 1966), and commander of the 5th Infantry Division (1970). Hieu was regarded as one of the most incorruptible ARVN generals. That reputation brought him the post of inspector general of the army under Vice President Tran Van Huong, who promoted an anticorruption program that failed despite their enthusiastic efforts. Hieu was in this post during 1972–1973. In 1974 he became deputy commander of III Corps at Bien Hoa. On April 8, 1975, Hieu died by a pistol shot at Bien Hoa. Official reports held that his death had occurred while he was cleaning his pistol, but there were rumors that he had been murdered or had committed suicide. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Tran Van Huong References Collins, Brigadier General James Lawton, Jr. The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1975. Pham Phong Dinh. Chien Su Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Combat History of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Self-published, 2001. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998.

Nguyen Van Hinh Birth Date: September 20, 1915 Death Date: June 26, 2004 General in the State of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and the French Air Force. Born on September 20, 1915, in Vung Tau in southern Vietnam, the son of Premier Nguyen Van Tam, Nguyen Van Hinh became a naturalized French citizen in 1929. He attended the prestigious Lycée Chasseloup

839

Laubat in Saigon and later the Lycée Saint Louis in Paris, France. He graduated from the French Air Force School and in 1938 became an officer in the French Air Force. In July 1948 as a lieutenant, he was military aide to Premier Nguyen Van Xuan. In 1950 Hinh was promoted to major and became a pilot. He was then assigned as chief of staff to Emperor Bao Dai. In 1949 following the Elysée Agreements, Hinh volunteered and became the first air force officer of the State of Vietnam’s Armed Forces. In 1952 Hinh was promoted to major general, and that March he became chief of staff of the State of Vietnam’s Armed Forces. In 1954 during the confrontation between Premier Ngo Dinh Diem and the southern religious sects, Hinh at first opposed Diem but later asked Emperor Bao Dai to reconcile with Diem; however, Bao Dai refused. On October 26, 1954, Hinh attempted a coup d’état against Premier Diem. The U.S. government warned Hinh that it would halt military assistance, and the coup collapsed. On November 20, 1954, Hinh left Vietnam for France to be replaced as chief of the General Staff by General Nguyen Van Vy. Hinh’s subsequent effort to return to power failed. After 1954 he rejoined the French Air Force and, as a general, eventually became deputy commander of the French Air Force. Hinh retired at the end of 1969 and started a small air cargo company in which Bao Dai also invested. He died in the Paris suburb of Suresnes on June 26, 2004. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Bao Dai; Elysée Agreement; Ngo Dinh Diem References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Harrison, James P. The Endless War: Vietnam’s Struggle for Independence. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.

Nguyen Van Linh Birth Date: July 1, 1915 Death Date: April 27, 1998 Prominent leader in the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) from 1986 to 1991. Nguyen Van Linh was born Nguyen Van Cuc on July 1, 1915, in Hai Hung Province, near Hanoi. As a teenager he joined a student group associated with the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party). In 1929 he joined the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association). In 1939 he became a member of the Saigon City Party Standing Committee and in 1946 was named its secretary. In 1947 he became a member of the Southern Region Party Committee. Despite being born in northern Vietnam, Linh successfully developed broad connections in southern Vietnam. He grew up in

840

Nguyen Van Thieu with the Vietnamese economy exhibiting serious signs of deterioration, Linh was again elected to the Politburo. In December 1986 he was named secretary-general of the VCP. Linh is credited with being the leader who initiated the VCP-led renovation in Vietnam beginning in 1986. As such, he moved to liberalize Vietnam’s economy and actively sought foreign investments. In 1989 he withdrew Vietnamese troops from Cambodia, ending a 10-year occupation. However, as the Communist bloc collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Linh was hesitant to push for more reforms, and he was adamant that the party retain political control. At the 1991 VCP Seventh Congress, Linh retired on grounds of poor health but remained an adviser to the VCP. In 1996 at a party congress he denounced the very economic prescriptions that he had early championed. He also charged foreign investors with exploitation and harboring desires to overthrow socialism in Vietnam. He blamed foreign investors, including Americans, for the widening gap between rich and poor in Vietnam. Linh died on April 27, 1998, in Ho Chi Minh City. NGO NGOC TRUNG AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Central Office for South Vietnam; Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Doyle, Edward, Samuel Lipsman, and Terrence Maitland. The North: The Communist Struggle for Vietnam. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1986. Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996.

Nguyen Van Linh was secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1986 to 1991. He is shown here in 1987. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Nguyen Van Muoi the southwestern region of southern Vietnam and spent most of his youth in prison in what were known as “revolution schools.” In the early 1950s French intelligence identified Linh, known by the aliases of Nguyen Van Muoi and Muoi Cuc, as secretary of the Special Zone of Saigon. In September 1960 Linh was secretly elected a member of the Lao Dong (Communist Party) Central Committee. In 1961 he became secretary of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). Later during the Vietnam War he was in charge of mass mobilizations in the Saigon–Gia Dinh Special Zone. Between 1972 and 1973 he was secretary of the Saigon City Party Committee. After the April 1975 Communist takeover of Saigon, Linh again was briefly secretary of the City Party Committee. In December 1976 Linh was elected to the Politburo of the VCP Central Committee and served as secretary of the Secretariat. Six years later he was dropped from the Politburo and returned to Saigon as secretary of the Party City Committee. His demotion was mainly the result of disagreements with the party hierarchy over economic policies, especially in southern Vietnam. In June 1985

See Nguyen Van Linh

Nguyen Van Thang See Nguyen Hai Than

Nguyen Van Thieu Birth Date: April 5, 1923 Death Date: September 29, 2001 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from 1967 to 1975. Born near Phan Rang on April 5, 1923, Nguyen Van Thieu joined the Viet Minh in 1945 but became disillusioned with their ruthless disregard for life. He then fought for the State of Vietnam side aligned with the French,

Nguyen Van Thieu entering the National Military Academy and graduating from there in 1949. He also attended infantry school in France and the staff college in Hanoi (1952). As a battalion commander in 1954, he drove the Viet Minh out of his native village. In 1955 he commanded the Military Academy in Da Lat in South Vietnam. In 1957 Colonel Thieu graduated from the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1962 he joined the secret Can Lao Party organized by Ngo Dinh Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. After commanding the ARVN’s 1st Infantry Division for two years, Thieu assumed command of the 5th Infantry Division in 1963, leading one of his regiments against the presidential bodyguard in the coup that brought down Diem in November 1963. Promoted to major general, Thieu commanded IV Corps. While serving on the Armed Forces Council in 1964, Thieu cooperated with the coup by Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, who led a faction of the generals referred to as the Young Turks against General Nguyen Khanh. Thieu served as deputy premier in the short-lived government of Dr. Phan Huy Quat until June 12, 1965, when Thieu became chief of state in Prime Minister Ky’s new government. Together Ky and Thieu in 1966 made plans to strengthen the armed forces, met with President Lyndon B. Johnson in Honolulu and Manila, successfully quashed a coup attempt by General Nguyen Chanh Thi, gained Buddhist support, and promised a constitution. Despite their temporary cooperation, the two leaders became bitter political rivals. Although Thieu had declined the premier’s post in 1965, his determination to challenge Ky for the highest office in the 1967 elections led the Armed Forces Council to force Ky and Thieu onto a joint ticket, giving the presidential nomination to Thieu and the vice presidential nomination to Ky purely on the basis of military seniority. The Thieu-Ky ticket won the election with 34.8 percent of the vote against 10 other tickets. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Thieu had gone to his wife’s home in the Mekong Delta town of My Tho. Thus, it was Ky who handled the counterattack in the capital. As a result the Americans pressed Thieu to give more responsibility to Ky, which led to renewed bickering between them. Thieu took advantage of the Tet Offensive to push through a general mobilization, which doubled the size of the armed forces. Fighting charges of widespread official corruption, Thieu launched an anticorruption campaign that led to the replacement of four province chiefs, two corps commanders, and others, but the prospect of negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Paris made him more reluctant to broaden the base of his government. His initial refusal to attend the Paris peace talks when they began was an attempt to ensure direct negotiations between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and also an effort to help Republican Party nominee Richard Nixon in his race for the presidency against Democratic Party contender Hubert Humphrey, who had threatened Thieu with an aid cutoff if he did not implement significant reform.

841

President Thieu distributed land to some 50,000 families and by 1968 had secured legislation that froze rents and forbade landlords from evicting tenants. He also began the restoration of elected village chiefs so that, by 1969, 95 percent of villages under South Vietnamese control had elected chiefs and councils. Village chiefs were given a role in national defense and control over Popular Forces and police; they also received some government financial support. In 1969 after the United States initiated the Vietnamization program to turn over combat responsibilities to the ARVN and gradually withdraw U.S. troops, Thieu was faced with the challenge of replacing the departing American units. In 1970 he mobilized large numbers of high school and college students for the war effort, but this resulted in considerable opposition, which in turn led to government arrests and trials. On March 26, 1971, Thieu presented land to 20,000 people in an impressive ceremony following the passage of the Land-toTiller Act, which reduced tenancy to only 7 percent. With the U.S. Congress considering measures to end American involvement in Vietnam, in 1971 Thieu engineered an election law to disqualify his major opponents, Ky and General Duong Van Minh. Although the Vietnamese Supreme Court said that Ky, who had charged Thieu’s

Army of the Republic of Vietnam general Nguyen Van Thieu, shown here abroad after the war, was president of his country from 1967 to 1975. (AP/Wide World Photos)

842

Nguyen Van Thieu

government with corruption, could run, he chose not to do so. Thieu’s election made one-person rule a reality and did serious damage to his government’s image. During February–March 1971 Operation LAM SON 719, an ARVN attempt at a preemptive strike into Laos to disrupt the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) buildup for a major invasion of South Vietnam, Thieu disappointed General Creighton Abrams, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), by withdrawing his forces prematurely. The ARVN did not perform well and paid a heavy price in casualties in this operation, especially among junior officers. However, PAVN units suffered heavy losses to U.S. airpower in this operation and also in the subsequent 1972 spring conventional invasion of South Vietnam, which Thieu’s forces defeated with the assistance of U.S. airpower. As a result of the Paris peace talks, U.S. national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger brought a draft agreement to Saigon in October 1971. President Thieu refused to sign, insisting on 26 changes and accusing the United States of betraying the South Vietnamese government. His chief objection was that the agreement did not require North Vietnamese troops to withdraw from South Vietnam. Kissinger was furious with Thieu for torpedoing the agreement and urged President Nixon to proceed alone, but following the LINEBACKER II bombing campaign against North Vietnam in December 1972, Kissinger secured a new agreement with North Vietnam: the Paris Peace Accords of January 23, 1973. There was little substantive difference between the new agreement and the previous October draft agreement, and the new agreement allowed approximately 145,000 PAVN troops to remain in South Vietnam. Thieu, whose government was the beneficiary of a massive last-minute airlift of U.S. military supplies (Operation ENHANCE PLUS), was threatened with a total cutoff of U.S. aid if he refused to sign, and he finally acquiesced to heavy U.S. pressure to sign the agreement. General Tran Van Tra, a key PAVN commander in South Vietnam, wrote in Concluding the Thirty Year War that it was ironic that after the cease-fire there was “not a day on which the guns fell silent” on South Vietnamese battlefields, and yet he conceded that “the puppet administration” had become “stronger politically, militarily and economically.” He also pointed out that PAVN and National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) units were in disarray from their 1972 Easter Offensive as well as from fighting in Laos and Cambodia. This permitted Thieu’s forces to recapture some areas, to abolish hamlet and village elections in an effort to keep them in government hands, and to bar neutralist protest activities against the government. The latter was a violation of Article 11 of the Paris Peace Accords, but the Communists were violating Article 20 with regard to the neutrality of Laos and Cambodia and during the first year of the agreement sent more than 100,000 troops down from North Vietnam to build up their base areas from Quang Tri Province southward to the Mekong Delta.

To no one’s surprise, the Third Indochina War was under way as soon as the dry season came in January 1974. While Thieu’s forces drove the PAVN back in some areas, even pursuing them into Svay Rieng, the Parrot’s Beak region of Cambodia, the ARVN steadily lost ground in other areas, particularly the Central Highlands. This proved to be the last ARVN offensive. By the summer, the ARVN was losing 500 men a week to the rejuvenated PAVN and NLF forces and also had been forced to impose rigid supply controls because of severe shortages. Thieu was shocked when the Watergate Scandal forced President Nixon to resign in August 1974. This called into question the promises that the United States would respond militarily if the South Vietnamese government was threatened. Nixon had convinced Congress to authorize $1 billion in military aid to South Vietnam for the 1974–1975 fiscal year, but Congress appropriated only $700 million. After deductions for administrative costs, shipping, and other expenses, less than $500 million remained to purchase weapons, equipment, and fuel. Ammunition was now rationed, 224 aircraft and 21 riverine units were placed in storage, and only 55 percent of available transport could be fueled. Saigon was in turmoil, and the People’s Anti-Corruption Movement led by a Catholic priest developed into a massive antigovernment crusade. The problem was real, but Thieu tried to sidestep it and place all blame on the Communists. When PAVN forces unleashed their offensive in the Central Highlands and the Gerald R. Ford administration did not respond in accordance with the terms of the Paris Peace Accords, Thieu made the fateful surprise decision to abandon the northern half of the country. To make matters worse, the government made no public announcement and had no plan for its effective execution. Government supporters in Military Regions I and II believed that they had been abandoned, first by the Americans and then by their own government and army. Although the ARVN put up a good fight at Xuan Loc it lost the battle, and four PAVN corps converged on the capital of Saigon. On April 21, 1975, President Thieu resigned in a tearful address to the nation. He took no responsibility for the debacle and blamed the United States. Five days later he left Vietnam, flying to Taiwan and then on to Great Britain. He later settled in the United States in Foxboro, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He died there on September 29, 2001. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang; Easter Offensive; ENHANCE PLUS, Operation; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; LAM SON 719, Operation; Military Revolutionary Council; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff References Berman, Larry. No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 2001.

Nguyen Van Xuan Bui Diem, with David Chanoff. In the Jaws of History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Bunker, Ellsworth. The Bunker Papers: Reports to the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973. 3 vols. Edited by Douglas Pike. Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 1990. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

843

References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

Nguyen Van Xuan Nguyen Van Toan Birth Date: October 6, 1932 Death Date: October 19, 2005 General in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and one of its most competent commanders. Born on October 6, 1932, in Lai The village, Phu Vang District, Thua Thien Province, in central Vietnam, Nguyen Van Toan graduated from high school at Hue in 1950. He attended the National Military Academy in Da Lat and then pursued studies in France from 1951 to 1955. From 1956 to 1957 Toan was trained at the Joint Armor School at Saumur, France. He also received training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in 1958 before being assigned to ARVN headquarters. Promoted to major, he then attended the U.S. Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1962. Toan returned to Vietnam as a lieutenant colonel and was named commander of the Armor School of the Republic of Vietnam, a post he held until 1964. He participated in the November 1963 military coup that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem. In November 1964 Toan became commander of the 4th Armor Squadron, a post he held until May 1966. He was then promoted to colonel. In June 1966 he commanded the ARVN 1st Infantry Division. From January 1967 to May 1972 he commanded the 2nd Infantry Division. Toan was promoted to brigadier general in July 1969 and to major general in July 1971. While serving as the 2nd Division commander, he was the subject of persistent rumors of corruption, including trafficking in cinnamon grown and sold by the Viet Cong (VC). In May 1972 Toan assumed command of Military Region II. He was forced to give up this post in 1974, again because of allegations of corruption. In March 1975 he was named commander of Military Region III, but he arrived too late to save the situation there. In mid-April 1975 he and his troops succeeded in stopping the Communist advance in Long Khanh Province in what was the last significant battle of the Vietnam War. After the April 1975 Communist victory, Toan left Vietnam and lived in the United States. He died in Whittier, California, on October 19, 2005. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Vietnam, Republic of, Army

Birth Date: 1892 Death Date: 1989 French Army officer and general and premier of the State of Vietnam. Born in 1892 at Truong Tho, Gia Dinh Province, the son of Nguyen Van Cua, owner and publisher of the well-known newspaper Luc Tinh Tan Van, Nguyen Van Xuan became a naturalized French citizen. A graduate of the École Polytechnique, he married a Frenchwoman and enlisted in the French Army. He fought in World War I, including service in the Battle of Verdun. He remained in the military and from 1939 to 1940 worked as chief of the Troisième Bureau (operations) at the Military Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Colonies. In 1944 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of artillery. In the spring of 1945 Xuan refused to become minister of war in the Japanese-sponsored Vietnamese government and was imprisoned by the Japanese in Hanoi. He also refused after the August 1945 revolution to join Ho Chi Minh’s Provisional

Premier of the State of Vietnam and French Army officer Nguyen Van Xuan in 1948. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

844

Nguyen Viet Thanh

Revolutionary Government. Xuan then escaped to southern Vietnam, perhaps assisted by disaffected Japanese officers. In March 1946 Xuan was promoted to full colonel in the French Army. An advocate of an autonomous separate republic in southern Vietnam, on June 1, 1946, Xuan was named vice premier of the Republic of Cochin China by the French. In December 1946 he left Vietnam for France but returned to Saigon in September 1947 to announce the establishment of a provisional government for a separate republic in southern Vietnam and replaced Le Van Hoach as premier. In December 1947 Xuan accompanied Chief of State Bao Dai to meet French high commissioner for Indochina Émile Bollaert at Ha Long Bay. On May 23, 1948, Xuan became premier of the Provisional Government of Vietnam. He also kept the post of minister of defense. In those capacities, on June 5, 1948, Xuan signed the Ha Long Bay Agreement with Bollaert that mandated an independent State of Vietnam and the return of Bao Dai. On June 20, 1949, Xuan’s government collapsed, but he was promoted to lieutenant general and became vice premier and minister of defense in the next government until January 1950. On September 17, 1954, after the French withdrawal from Vietnam, Xuan was again named vice premier, but he resigned a week later. After 1955 Xuan spent most of the rest of his life in France, where he died in 1989. NGO NGOC TRUNG

Thanh was quite popular with the people in Military Region IV, and in the early 1980s when rumors spread that Thanh had become a deity after his death, some Vietnamese secretly bought small portraits of the general to worship on their family altars. NGUYEN CONG LUAN

See also Bao Dai; Bollaert, Émile; France, Army, 1946–1954

NIAGARA,

Reference Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Nguyen Viet Thanh Birth Date: 1931 Death Date: May 1970 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) lieutenant general. Nguyen Viet Thanh was born in 1931 in Da Lat and graduated from the Da Lat Military Academy around 1952. Before 1954 he commanded the 16th Battalion and then the 707th Light Infantry Battalion of the Army of the State of Vietnam in the Bui Chu area of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He then commanded the Long An sector, the 121st Infantry Regiment, an infantry division, and finally IV Corps at Can Tho. Thanh was a devout Buddhist and one of the most incorruptible ARVN generals. During the 1968 Tet Offensive he and his family were captured by the Viet Cong (VC), who hoped to compel Thanh to surrender. The plan did not work, and they were released without harm. Thanh was killed in May 1970 when the helicopter in which he was supervising a battle accidentally collided with another aircraft.

See also Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Ha Mai Viet. Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Pham Phong Dinh. Thien Hung Ca Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Heroic Saga of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Self-published, 2004. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998.

Nhat Linh See Nguyen Tuong Tam

Operation

Start Date: January 1968 End Date: March 1968 Massive U.S. airpower and artillery effort directed at People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) concentrations in the area of the Khe Sanh plateau in western Quang Tri Province in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). By late January 1968, U.S. intelligence detected the presence of 20,000 or more PAVN soldiers in the vicinity of the Khe Sanh base in far northwestern South Vietnam close to Laos and the demilitarized zone (DMZ). U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland planned to allow PAVN units to surround the U.S. marines at Khe Sanh in order to produce lucrative targets for American firepower. Westmoreland chose the name Operation NIAGARA for the coordination of firepower at Khe Sanh, as the operation evoked an appropriate image of cascading shells and bombs. NIAGARA I was an intelligence-gathering effort to pinpoint targets; NIAGARA II was the engagement of these by aircraft and artillery. Intelligence concerning target selection was generated by a variety of means, including remote sensors, ground and aerial observers, photo reconnaissance, crater analyses, infrared imagery, and analysis of intercepted communications. U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army Special Forces reconnaissance patrols, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel, and the MACV Studies and Observation Group (SOG) all provided input. During the night of February 3–4, 1968, sensor arrays indicated the presence of up to 2,000 PAVN troops in the vicinity of U.S.

Nitze, Paul Henry Marine Corps hill outposts near Khe Sanh. This information was used to plot and execute artillery fire against PAVN troop concentrations. PAVN units were devastated, and the intended attack was broken up in what was one of the earliest examples in warfare of a ground attack thwarted on the basis of sensor data. Khe Sanh had top-priority claim on all U.S. air assets in Southeast Asia. General Westmoreland personally planned Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes launched from Guam, Thailand, and Okinawa. Meanwhile, the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force provided fighter-bombers from bases within South Vietnam, and U.S. Navy aviators flew sorties from aircraft carriers in the South China Sea. South Vietnamese and U.S. Army aviation also provided aerial support. Usually there were fighter-bombers overhead at Khe Sanh around the clock. Such aircraft flew 16,769 sorties and delivered 31,238 tons of ordnance in defense of Khe Sanh. B-52s in Arc Light strikes attacked targets such as troop concentrations, supply areas, and bunker complexes. On average, every 90 minutes one three-plane cell of B-52s conducted bombing runs on locations around Khe Sanh. In some instances PAVN soldiers were found after an Arc Light strike wandering around in a daze with blood streaming from their noses and mouths. To catch these survivors aboveground, artillerymen at Khe Sanh often placed artillery fire into the Arc Light target area a few minutes after the departure of the heavy bombers. Arc Light attacks delivered a total of 59,542 tons of munitions during the siege. Westmoreland maintained that ordnance delivered by the B-52s is what defeated the PAVN at Khe Sanh. Nearly 100,000 tons of munitions at an estimated cost of $1 billion were expended by U.S. forces. Photo reconnaissance and direct observation credited NIAGARA with having caused 4,705 secondary explosions, 1,288 PAVN deaths, and the destruction of 1,061 structures and damage to another 158 structures; 891 bunkers were claimed destroyed, with another 99 damaged. Total PAVN casualties were estimated at 10,000. While postwar PAVN accounts give much lower figures for their losses, they do acknowledge that the air strikes caused tremendous problems both tactically and logistically. According to these accounts, a massive B-52 strike on the headquarters of the Khe Sanh campaign on January 31, 1968, the day Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive throughout South Vietnam, devastated the headquarters area and resulted in the loss of all communications with both superior and subordinate elements at a particularly critical time. The campaign commander, General Tran Quy Hai, escaped the air strike relatively unscathed but was forced to move to an alternate headquarters location. Communications with subordinate units were not restored for several days, which the Vietnamese admit had a serious adverse effect on the conduct of the campaign. PETER W. BRUSH See also Airpower, Role in War; Arc Light Missions; Artillery Fire Doctrine; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Studies

845

and Observation Group; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Ho De, Tran Hanh, and Hung Dat, eds. Chien Dich Tien Cong Duong So 9—Khe Sanh, Xuan He 1968 [The Spring–Summer 1968 Route 9–Khe Sanh Offensive Campaign]. Hanoi: Military History Institute, 1987. Nalty, Bernard C. Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, U.S. Air Force, 1973.

Nitze, Paul Henry Birth Date: June 16, 1907 Death Date: October 19, 2004 Director of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (PPS) during 1950–1953, U.S. assistant secretary of defense during 1961–1963, secretary of the U.S. Navy during 1963–1967, and deputy secretary of defense during 1967–1969. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on June 16, 1907, Paul Henry Nitze graduated from Harvard University in 1928 and joined the Wall Street investment banking firm of Dillon, Read & Company. He entered government service in 1940 and immediately set about drafting the Selective Service Act. In 1942 he became head of the Metals and Materials Branch of the Board of Economic Warfare. By the end of World

Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, Nitze recommended strengthening the Army of the Republic of Vietnam while withdrawing American forces. (National Archives)

846

Nixon, Richard Milhous

War II he was the vice chairman of the Strategic Bombing Survey. As a Cold War bureaucrat, Nitze helped conceptualize the 1947 Marshall Plan and took part in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Perhaps Nitze’s greatest single contribution to U.S. military and national security policy came in 1950, at which time he was head of the State Department’s PPS. As such, he played a key role in drafting National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68). A classified review of U.S. national security policy and international military commitments, NSC-68 called for a massive conventional and nuclear rearmament effort to counteract Soviet military might in Europe and Asia. After the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1959, NSC-68 became the basic blueprint for American defense planning into the early 1970s. Nitze left the State Department in 1953 and returned to private business. In 1957 he helped formulate the Gaither Report amid U.S. consternation regarding the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth. Nitze, who disagreed with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s New Look defense policy that relied heavily on massive retaliation, nevertheless warned of a missile gap between the two superpowers, which proved to be illusory. In December 1960 Nitze was appointed assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs by President John F. Kennedy. Nitze served as secretary of the U.S. Navy from 1963 to 1967. In April 1967 he and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara proposed that the United States cease bombing above the 20th Parallel in order to begin truce negotiations, but President Lyndon B. Johnson rejected this. In June 1967 Nitze was appointed deputy secretary of defense and two months later joined McNamara in formulating the so-called San Antonio Formula, a conciliatory proposal modifying the Johnson administration’s previous demand for the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) de-escalation before peace negotiations could begin. The proposal was rejected by Hanoi in October. Nitze was a member of an ad hoc study group formed to review the request for an additional 200,000 troops following the 1968 Tet Offensive. He warned that any increase in American troops could lead to a direct confrontation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and could jeopardize American commitments worldwide. He recommended instead a strengthening of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) while withdrawing American forces. Although the study group rejected his warning, on March 31, 1968, Johnson announced de-escalation. Nitze resigned from the Defense Department in January 1969. He served until 1974 as a member of the U.S. delegation in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) negotiations. In 1981 he was head of the delegation negotiating the reduction of intermediate-range nuclear forces with the Soviets. In 1984 he was named arms control adviser to Secretary of State George Shultz. In 1987 Nitze was the chief negotiator for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Until 1989 he continued to serve the Ronald

Reagan administration as a special adviser on arms control issues. Nitze died in Washington, D.C., on October 19, 2004. ROBERT G. MANGRUM AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Containment Policy; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange References Callahan, David. Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze and the Cold War. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Nitze, Paul, with Ann Smith and Steven L. Rearden. From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision; A Memoir. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1989.

Nixon, Richard Milhous Birth Date: January 9, 1913 Death Date: April 22, 1994 U.S. congressman (1947–1950), U.S. senator (1950–1952), vice president (1953–1961), and 37th president of the United States (1969–1974). Born in Yorba Linda, California, on January 9, 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon attended Whittier College and Duke University Law School. He served in the Pacific during World War II as a U.S. Navy lieutenant (junior grade) and in 1946 won the first of two terms in the House of Representatives. A Republican, in Congress Nixon concentrated zealously on the issue of anticommunism and won election to the Senate in 1950 in a race that was tinged with heavy-handed anti-Communist smear tactics. In 1952 Dwight Eisenhower chose Nixon as his vice presidential running mate. The successful campaign was marred only by Nixon’s need to publicly defend himself against charges of profiting from a secret fund of monies raised by his California friends. Nixon took office in January 1953. In October 1953 Nixon visited French Indochina as part of his first overseas trip as vice president. He visited Saigon, Hanoi, Vientiane, and Phnom Penh, coming away convinced that the French troubles in the region stemmed from France’s failure to win the hearts and minds of the Indochinese peoples. Nixon was privately concerned that the Eisenhower administration was not doing enough to prevent the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Nixon was one of the earliest supporters of a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), with the United States at its head. When in April 1954 the French found themselves trapped at Dien Bien Phu, Nixon argued strongly that the United States should intervene militarily. At a National Security Council meeting, Nixon spoke in favor of a proposal put forth by Admiral Arthur Radford, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), to bomb

Nixon, Richard Milhous and destroy Viet Minh positions with three small tactical atomic bombs. Code-named Operation VULTURE, the plan was rejected by Eisenhower. Continuing to argue the point, Nixon suggested that the United States send more technicians and supplies to Vietnam, and he told an audience of newspaper reporters that the executive branch “has to take the politically unpopular position” of stopping the Communists and said that “I personally would support such a decision.” Despite Nixon’s vigor, Eisenhower refused to intervene. The situation only cemented in Nixon’s mind the need to halt what he viewed to be Communist aggression in the region, a belief made even more secure in June 1956 when he met with President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and came away with the feeling that despite Diem’s excesses, the South Vietnamese leader was capable of establishing order in his nation. After his devastating loss to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election and a subsequent failure in California’s 1962 gubernatorial race, Nixon appeared to be finished politically. But in 1968 he emerged as the unlikely Republican candidate for president. The war in Vietnam held the potential for being the major issue in the 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon had nothing to gain from meeting the issue head-on, and he refused to do so. Concentrating his efforts on denouncing President Lyndon B. Johnson’s record on law and order, Nixon was reported to have a secret plan to end the war, a plan that he later admitted to an interviewer never existed. The tactic worked; even Johnson’s decision to stop the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) less than a week before the election could not turn the tide against Nixon. The entirety of the Nixon presidency must be seen through the prism of Vietnam; this is unquestionably how he saw it. On many occasions Nixon wrote or stated that ending the Vietnam War was his “first priority”; détente with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union would follow. Yet he did not seriously entertain an escalation of the conventional war in 1969. Indeed, faced with mounting domestic opposition to the war, Nixon accelerated the policy of turning over more of the war to the South Vietnamese (the policy of Vietnamization) that had begun at the end of the Johnson administration. To protect withdrawals of American troops and buy time for Vietnamization, Nixon authorized a widening of the war into Cambodia and Laos. He hoped thereby to force the North Vietnamese to entertain serious negotiations. Nixon’s plan was immediately put to the test in February 1969 when Hanoi launched its spring offensive. General Creighton Abrams asked Nixon, as he had asked Johnson many times before, to bomb North Vietnamese supply lines in Cambodia. Unlike Johnson, Nixon supported the plan from the start. Nixon viewed Southeast Asia as he had visited it as vice president not as four separate countries but instead as one theater of war. He had come to believe that the key to winning the war was in the destruction of the North Vietnamese supply lines that ran through Laos and Cambodia, the Ho Chi Minh and Sihanouk trails.

847

Richard M. Nixon realized his dream of becoming president of the United States in 1969. Although he brought to an end American involvement in Vietnam in 1973, he also expanded the war to Cambodia. Nixon was a strong proponent of opening relations with the People’s Republic of China and of détente with the Soviet Union. He was forced to resign the office of president in August 1974 as a result of the Watergate Scandal. (National Archives)

Nixon gave the approval for Operation MENU, a plan for bombing suspected Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. To skirt what would be certain worldwide condemnation for bombing a technically neutral nation, Nixon ordered that the bombings be kept secret. The MENU bombings succeeded only in driving the North Vietnamese deeper into Cambodia and fomenting wider antiwar protests at home. The bombings also began the chain of abuses of power known collectively as the Watergate Scandal that involved Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordering the tapping of the phones of several White House aides in an effort to find out who leaked the story about the bombing to the New York Times. Nixon combined the secret bombings with attempts to show the world that American commitment to the war was winding down. In June he ordered an immediate withdrawal of 25,000 troops from Vietnam. The next month he let it be known that once the American withdrawal was complete, he did not expect

848

Nixon, Richard Milhous

Results of the 1968 U.S. Presidential Election Popular Vote Candidate Richard Milhous Nixon Hubert Horatio Humphrey George Corley Wallace Other candidates

Party Republican Democratic American Independent Various

to recommit troops to the region any time soon. This was part of what became known as the Nixon Doctrine: unless directly attacked, the United States should not commit its troops to the defense of a Third World country. Hoping that these moves would show his good faith, Nixon secretly gave the North Vietnamese a November 1 deadline to show some significant steps toward peace. However, Nixon’s moves did not satisfy the antiwar movement at home. The large-scale demonstrations known as the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, which took place on October 15 and November 15, 1969, were a huge success. As a result, Nixon was forced to let his deadline go by unchallenged. In an effort to regain the initiative, on November 2 Nixon spoke directly to his supporters in the middle class—those whom he dubbed the “great, silent majority of my fellow Americans”—and begged them to help him control dissent in the nation, asking that they recognize that “North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.” By the end of the year Nixon had promised a further withdrawal of 50,000 troops by April 15, 1970. However, Nixon’s response to events threatened to widen the scope of the war just as his withdrawals were becoming significant. He argued that it was the advent of the North Vietnamese attack on Cambodia, begun in the wake of the overthrow of the Norodom Sihanouk government on March 11, 1970, that convinced him that he must take further military action there. Other observers note the failure of the MENU bombings as the cause. Either way, the March 26 decision to send American troops into Cambodia to search out and destroy Communist sanctuaries along the border was consistent with Nixon’s desire to support his withdrawals by cutting off North Vietnam’s western route of supplies. This decision was the most fateful of Nixon’s presidency. Nixon had tried to soften the blow by announcing on April 20 the withdrawal of 150,000 more American troops before the end of 1971. However, his April 30 announcement of what had become known as the Cambodian Incursion led to a firestorm of protest on college campuses, culminating in the deaths of student protesters and others not involved in the demonstrations at Kent State University and Jackson State University. The Cambodian Incursion proved little except that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) was not yet ready to fight on its own.

Electoral Votes

Number

Percentage

301 191 46 0

31,783,783 31,271,839 9,901,118 268,892

43.4% 42.7% 13.5% 0.4%

In an attempt to rectify that situation as well as take one more step toward cutting the supply lines to the west, in January 1971 Nixon sanctioned an offensive into Laos (Operation LAM SON 719) using only ARVN troops on the ground. The initiative began on February 8, but within six weeks ARVN troops were forced to withdraw, leaving the Ho Chi Minh Trail virtually intact. The Laotian fiasco only stiffened Nixon’s resolve and may have contributed to the harshness of his response to the June 13, 1971, release of the Pentagon Papers in the New York Times. Yet despite the criticism that followed in the press, Nixon would not be rushed. Convinced that his February 1972 rapprochement with China would frighten their North Vietnamese clients back to the peace table, Nixon continued to withdraw troops and wait. For the fourth straight year, however, Hanoi did not bow to Nixon’s tactics. The North Vietnamese government spurned Nixon’s request for further talks and on Good Friday, March 30, 1972, launched what was to that point the largest offensive of the war. Furious, Nixon ordered the resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam. On April 1 he authorized bombing within 25 miles north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and two weeks later he expanded the bombing zone up to the 20th Parallel. The bombing campaign against North Vietnam continued to expand and was officially dubbed Operation LINEBACKER the following month. On May 8 Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor, telling the American people that the only way to stop the war was to “keep the weapons of war out of the hands of the international outlaws of North Vietnam.” Nixon had become certain that only a massive show of force would convince North Vietnam to negotiate. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho resumed their peace talks within a month of the start of the renewed bombing of North Vietnam; by late autumn the talks were in earnest. It was soon clear that the only party who would not agree to a truce was South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu. In an effort to gain his support, Nixon sent secret correspondence to Thieu promising that if the North Vietnamese broke the truce, the United States would recommit troops to South Vietnam. But when North Vietnam balked at changes in a document already agreed to, Nixon had finally had enough. At Camp David he told JCS chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer that “I don’t want any more of this crap about the fact that we couldn’t hit this target or that one. This is your chance to use military power effectively to win the war, and if you don’t, I’ll consider you responsible.”

Nixon, Richard Milhous On December 17 Nixon ordered renewed saturation bombing of North Vietnam. Operation LINEBACKER II, also known as the Christmas Bombings, dropped some 36,000 tons of bombs in an 11-day period, concentrating on the Hanoi-Haiphong area. On December 26 Hanoi sent signals about wanting to resume negotiations. On January 9, 1973, in Paris, Secretary of State William Rogers initialed the peace agreement. Nixon understood that the peace agreement was a particularly weak one, writing later that the only way he had been able to get North Vietnam to buy into the deal was to allow them to keep a military presence in South Vietnam. As a result, Nixon never believed that the truce meant that the United States was to stop sending monies and supplies to South Vietnam, which he continued to do until the June 30, 1973, Cooper-Church Amendment precluded him from doing so. Nevertheless, Nixon’s memoranda make it clear that he fully expected to uphold his secret pledge to Thieu and to push Congress to recommit troops when North Vietnam violated the peace. However, the November 7, 1973, passage of the War Powers Act would have precluded Nixon from doing this. Meanwhile, Nixon’s foreign policies were quite successful visà-vis the Chinese and Soviets. He had managed to open relations with China, which had been on ice for nearly a quarter of a century. He also engaged the Kremlin in détente, which included improved relations with the Soviet Union, increased educational and cultural exchanges and, most critically, arms limitation agreements (the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT I, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty). On the home front, Nixon battled escalating inflation, stagnating growth, and rising unemployment, all made significantly worse during 1973–1974 when Arab nations instituted an oil embargo against the United States and other Western nations for their support of Israel in the October 1973 Yom Kippur (Ramadan) War. Meanwhile, the fallout from the Watergate Scandal began to engulf the White House and Nixon himself, who had been complicit in the cover-up of the affair. After a debilitating fight with Congress and the courts, which sought unfettered access to Nixon’s tapes that would prove his undoing, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. He is the only U.S. president to have resigned his office. Nixon later said that he believed that his policies had won what could have been a lasting peace had Congress not weakened his hand or that of his successor, Gerald R. Ford, in terms of enforcing that settlement. In a 1985 defense of his Vietnam policies titled No More Vietnams, Nixon argued that “when we signed the Paris peace agreements in 1973, we had won the war. We then proceeded to lose the peace. . . . In the end, Vietnam was lost on the political front in the United States, not on the battlefront in Southeast Asia.” Nixon was also convinced that his numerous escalations of the war, far from being a useless waste of life, shortened that conflict. He would later tell a British audience that his only regret about expanding the war into Cambodia was not having done it sooner. Most contemporary observers believe that Nixon relegated domestic policies to a secondary role, concentrating instead on the

849

war and his other foreign policy initiatives. This is only partially true. For example, Nixon and his staff developed innovative proposals for welfare reform and for new financial relationships between state and local governments. However, these initiatives were defeated by a Congress that had become increasingly alienated from his administration largely because of Nixon’s heavy-handed conduct of the war. It was in foreign affairs that Nixon made his greatest mark, again largely because of the war in Vietnam. The success of Nixon’s overtures to China and the Soviet Union was based largely upon his success in playing each of these nations against the other as well as against North Vietnam. Nixon called this “linkage diplomacy.” As a condition of doing business, Nixon required that both China and the Soviet Union lessen their overt commitment to North Vietnam. Although both states continued to publicly support Ho Chi Minh, the amount of military and financial aid they gave to North Vietnam decreased dramatically after 1972. Following his resignation, there were many reports that Nixon would reenter the political arena, but he preferred to play the role of elder statesman, writing eight books between 1978 and 1994. His No More Vietnams (1985) was a thoughtful defense of his administration’s policies as well as an acerbic critique of Congress’s refusal to fund the requests of the Ford administration for further aid to South Vietnam in 1975. Nixon’s successors in the White House kept him informed on major foreign policy initiatives. Ronald Reagan and George Bush even solicited his advice on a number of issues. Nixon died in New York City on April 22, 1994, following a stroke. JOHN ROBERT GREENE See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Amnesty; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Cambodian Incursion; Cooper-Church Amendment; Easter Offensive; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Fishhook; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Kent State University Shootings; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; LAM SON 719, Operation; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Madman Strategy; MENU, Operation; Midway Island Conference; Mitchell, John Newton; Moorer, Thomas Hinman; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon Doctrine; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Parrot’s Beak; Pentagon Papers and Trial; Radford, Arthur William; Rogers, William Pierce; United States Department of Justice; Vietnamization; VULTURE, Operation; War Powers Act; Washington Special Actions Group; Watergate Scandal References Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon. 3 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 1989, 1991. Greene, John Robert. The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Litwak, Robert S. Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969–1976. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Nixon, Richard. No More Vietnams. New York: Avon Books, 1985. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

850

Nixon Doctrine

Nixon Doctrine Foreign policy precept enunciated by U.S. president Richard M. Nixon on November 3, 1969. In July 1969 Nixon began his first foreign trip as president with a stop in Guam. Speaking to the press at the island’s Naval Air Station, he promised that “we will keep our treaty commitments” to Asian nations but cautioned that “as far as the problems of internal security [and] military defense, except for the threat of a major power involving nuclear weapons, the United States . . . has a right to expect that this problem will be increasingly handled by . . . the Asian nations themselves.” In an address to the nation on November 3, 1969, Nixon expanded on his earlier remarks, calling for the United States to honor its current treaty negotiations and to provide a nuclear umbrella for its key allies. The United States would continue to provide military and economic aid to other nations battling Communist aggression but with the understanding that those nations themselves would provide the manpower with which to do battle. In essence, Nixon put most of the developing world on notice that Americans would no longer bear the primary responsibility of fighting Communist forces. Many interpreted Nixon’s pronouncement, which the press quickly dubbed the “Nixon Doctrine,” as meaning that Nixon planned to abandon Vietnam once American troops had withdrawn. Nixon later argued in his Memoirs that such interpretations were false and that the doctrine was meant to be a platform that would allow the United States to “play a responsible role” in helping non-Communist nations win and defend their independence. Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger were fully aware that the American populace was highly unlikely to support costly brush-fire wars such as those fought in Korea and Vietnam. They also realized that the United States was in a period of relative economic decline, which made open-ended military commitments around the world unwise if not dangerous. The Nixon Doctrine also seemed to acknowledge that the formerly bipolar era, in which the Soviets and Americans predominated, had given way to a more multipolar world in which strict policies of Communist containment were no longer as important. Clearly the Nixon Doctrine came from the realization that U.S. power had its limits. Elsewhere in the world, the Nixon Doctrine intended to employ regional strong men, supported by Washington, to maintain stability and peace. Such was the case with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and Anwar Sadat in the Middle East, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, and Mobuto Sese Seko in Zaire. Critics of the Nixon Doctrine pointed out that such a policy meant U.S. support for despots and dictators and was merely an effort to maintain American hegemony on the cheap. The limits of the Nixon Doctrine became apparent when the shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979 and when Marcos was ousted in 1986. In Iran, the pro-U.S. shah was replaced with a rabidly antiU.S. fundamentalist Islamic regime. President Ronald Reagan essentially abandoned the Nixon Doctrine in 1983 when he deployed U.S. troops to Lebanon and Grenada. JOHN ROBERT GREENE AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

See also Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; Vietnamization References Greene, John Robert. The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Litwak, Robert S. Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969–1976. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978.

Noel, Chris Birth Date: July 2, 1941 Actress, entertainer, and radio celebrity during the Vietnam War on Armed Forces Network (AFN) radio, dubbed the “Voice of Vietnam.” Chris (Christine) Noel was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 2, 1941. A strikingly beautiful girl, she was a high school cheerleader, and after graduation from high school she became a model. Her natural beauty and blonde hair soon landed her jobs in Hollywood, and by 1963 at the age of 22 she appeared in her first feature film, Soldier in the Rain, which starred iconic actor Steve McQueen and equally iconic funny man Jackie Gleason. After that Noel appeared in several other movies, mostly second rate, including one with singer-actor Elvis Presley (Happy Girl, 1965). In addition to her big-screen work, Noel also had numerous guest spots on popular television shows of the early and mid1960s. After appearing in a Bob Hope special, she became focused on U.S. soldiers serving in the Vietnam War, deciding to dedicate her talents to entertaining them on radio. In late 1965 Noel auditioned for the AFN and was granted her own radio show, A Date with Chris, that would be broadcast to U.S. military personnel in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from early 1966 to early 1971. Having already attained minor pin-up status, she was a natural, and her voice became as recognizable as her scantily clad images on publicity posters. During her stint on AFN radio, she made frequent trips to the front, often broadcasting remotely in areas considered to be dangerous for civilians. This served to further endear her to American GIs, many of whom listened to her show faithfully each time it was broadcast. Twice during her travels the helicopter in which she was a passenger was shot down by enemy fire. The stress of the radio show combined with the tension of frequent on-site broadcasts began to take a toll on Noel, however. This was compounded by her husband’s suicide in 1969. He was a former Special Forces officer plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The two had met in South Vietnam. She left AFN radio in the winter of 1971 and returned stateside. The 1970s and 1980s were difficult decades for her, as she coped with her own PTSD and numerous career detours. She had guest spots on a few

Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.

American actress and model Chris Noel, 1960. In 1965, she became a veterans’ rights advocate and disc jockey for the Armed Forces Network in Vietnam and was the GIs’ favorite radio personality. (Getty Images)

television programs but was never able to revive her screen career. In 1985 she costarred in Cease Fire, a film that dealt with Vietnam veterans’ postwar difficulties, and in 1987 she wrote a memoir, Matter of Survival. In 1993 she founded a veterans’ halfway house in Florida, and she has since opened two others in Florida. Noel remains active in various veterans’ causes. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder References Appy, Christian G. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Viking, 2003. Noel, Chris. Matter of Survival: Hollywood Actress Working for the Pentagon. Boston: Branden Publishing, 1987.

Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr. Birth Date: August 24, 1911 Death Date: December 14, 1989 U.S. diplomat and ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1961–1963. Born in Richmond, Virginia,

851

on August 24, 1911, Frederick Earnest Nolting Jr. received a BA from the University of Virginia in 1933, an MA from Harvard University in 1941, and a PhD from the University of Virginia in 1942. During World War II he saw service in the U.S. Navy. Nolting, a conservative Democrat, joined the U.S. State Department in 1946. He later worked as an assistant to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, held several postings in Europe, and worked closely with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1961 President John F. Kennedy posted the forthright and polite yet somewhat naive Nolting, who had no knowledge or firsthand experience with Asia, to South Vietnam. The appointment of Nolting to succeed Elbridge Durbrow in Saigon signaled a tactical shift in U.S. policy. Dealings with South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem changed from candid exchanges to cordial relations. Backed by General Paul D. Harkins, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), the gracious Nolting, who disliked controversy, supported the Diem regime completely. He applauded the Strategic Hamlet Program and upheld the South Vietnamese government’s account of the Battle of Ap Bac (1963) in a bitter clash with resident correspondents. Calling them green and impractical, he chided reporters for failure to stand behind an ally as he did and for their disinclination to assume that the Communists were suffering reversals in the countryside, as the Diem regime claimed. Ambassador Nolting identified with the South Vietnamese upper class rather than the society at large. Moreover, he believed that political reforms were less significant than effective operations and consequently criticized the country’s dissenters for their unwillingness to make common cause with the regime. Opposed to an enlarged U.S. military involvement, he perceived the central issue facing American policy makers as political in nature. Instead of coercion, he advocated placing faith in Diem’s ability to secure the nation against the Viet Cong (VC). When Buddhists demonstrated in 1963, the State Department ordered Nolting to press President Diem to reconcile with the dissidents. But Nolting declined and then departed Saigon for a European vacation in the midst of a developing crisis. In his absence William Truehart, an embassy representative, subverted Nolting’s conciliatory approach and cautioned Diem that he risked forfeiting American assistance if he continued to suppress the Buddhists. A series of heated White House meetings followed in which the recently returned Nolting participated. Kennedy reproved Nolting for his absence and chastised him for faulty intelligence. The president then dispatched the ambassador back to his post with instructions to win Diem’s cooperation. Nolting still remained hesitant to pressure Diem, and the crisis intensified. The Kennedy administration, by now highly dissatisfied with Nolting’s performance and reporting, decided to replace him with Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Nolting, preoccupied with family concerns and a desire to enter international banking, was ready to resign and return to the United States by the summer of 1963.

852

Nong Duc Manh

After he left government service, he worked for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. In 1970 he joined the faculty of the University of Virginia. Nolting’s memoir, From Trust to Tragedy, published in 1988, is highly critical of the Kennedy administration while praising Diem. Nolting died in Charlottesville, Virginia, on December 14, 1989. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Durbrow, Elbridge; Harkins, Paul Donal; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Nolting, Frederick. From Trust to Tragedy: The Political Memoirs of Frederick Nolting, Kennedy’s Ambassador to Diem’s Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1988.

Nong Duc Manh Birth Date: September 11, 1940 Prominent leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and secretary-general of the VCP since 2001. Born on September 11, 1940, in Bac Thai Province, Nong Duc Manh is of the Tay ethnic minority. He became a Lao Dong (Communist Party) member in 1963. Beginning as a forestry worker, he went to the Soviet Union and graduated from the Institute of Forest Technology in Leningrad. After returning to Vietnam, he graduated from the Lao Dong Nguyen Ai Quoc Advanced School. Manh was director of the Phu Luong Forestry Farm in Bac Thai Province and vice chairman and chairman of the People’s Committee of Bac Thai Province and secretary of its Party Committee. In 1986 at the Sixth Congress of the VCP, Manh was elected alternate member of the Central Committee. In March 1989 he became a full member, and that September he was appointed head of the Commission for Nationalities of the VCP Central Committee. In 1989 he was chosen in a by-election to the Eighth National As-

Nong Duc Manh, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, speaks during a meeting in Sydney, Australia, on September 9, 2009. (AFP/Getty Images)

Novosel, Michael, Sr. sembly and was appointed vice chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the National Assembly. In June 1991 during the VCP Seventh Congress, Manh was reelected to the VCP Central Committee and appointed to the Politburo. In July 1992 he was elected deputy to the Ninth National Assembly, and that September he was elected chairman of the National Assembly. Manh is a protégé of former VCP secretarygeneral Nguyen Van Linh. In 2001 Manh became chairman of the VCP, making him the most powerful man in the SRV. After Manh became head of the VCP, rumors began to surface that he was Ho Chi Minh’s son; Manh has never overtly denied rumors. As VCP secretary-general, Manh has championed economic reforms, including moves to adopt segments of a market-oriented system. He has generally welcomed foreign investment and has stated that he hopes to transform Vietnam into an industrialized nation by 2020. Manh has also worked to strengthen ties to the West. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ho Chi Minh; Lao Dong Party; Nguyen Van Linh; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference Ngyuen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Novosel, Michael, Sr. Birth Date: September 3, 1922 Death Date: April 2, 2006 U.S. Army Medevac helicopter pilot who received the Medal of Honor for actions on October 2, 1969, near the border between Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Born in Etna, Pennsylvania, on September 3, 1922, Michael Novosel joined the U.S. Army as an enlisted man in 1941, just months before the United States entered World War II. He “grew” a quarter inch to meet the aviator height requirement, passed flight school, and was commissioned in December 1942 in the Army Air Forces. Early in the war he was an instructor and then in the last months of the war became a B-29 pilot, flying missions over Japan. Novosel stayed in the Army Air Forces after the war, becoming a squadron commander as a 24-year-old captain. Returning home at war’s end, Novosel married his high school sweetheart and became an operational test pilot at Eglin Air Force Base. With the newly created U.S. Air Force having too many officers, Novosel left the service. He opened a restaurant, rejoined the Air Force Reserve during the Korean War (1950–1953), and became a pilot for Southern Airways. He retired from the Air Force Reserves in 1953. Ten years later President John F. Kennedy’s assassination motivated Novosel to again enter military service. Turned down by the

853

U.S. Air Force, at age 42 he volunteered with the U.S. Army as a warrant officer in June 1964. Drawing on his civilian helicopter training, he became a UH-1 (“Huey”) helicopter pilot. Novosel expected to become an instructor but was assigned to Fort Bragg, flew for Special Forces units, and was deployed to the Dominican Republic in 1965. Novosel’s first assignment to Vietnam in 1966 occurred 21 years after his last combat experience, and his assignment to a Medevac unit was by happenstance; he had never heard of the term “dustoff.” As the only instrument-qualified pilot in the 283rd Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance), he flew many of the night missions and often in thunderstorms. In his first Vietnam tour he flew about 600 hours, receiving three Distinguished Flying Crosses. Back home in 1968 he was planning to leave the army and return to airline flying but was diagnosed with glaucoma. Federal Aviation Administration rules would have prohibited him from flying as an airline pilot, but the U.S. Army was willing to keep him on, so he remained in the service. During 1969–1970 Novosel was again in Vietnam, this time with the 82nd Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) flying in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam. With six helicopters, the 82nd Medical Detachment supported all riverine elements and most South Vietnamese military forces, covering thousands of square miles. At 4:00 p.m. on October 2, 1969, after already flying 7 hours that day, Novosel received a message that South Vietnamese troops were cut off and pinned down by heavy Communist ground fire, and there was an unknown number of wounded who needed to be evacuated. Novosel flew through choppy weather and rain to the area, parallel to the Cambodian border. Quickly evaluating the situation, he was told that he was on his own with no covering fire (fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships turned up just before dark). His helicopter took hits on his first two runs in, and the fire was too intense to land. Novosel flew ovals while his crew grabbed wounded South Vietnamese troops. For the entire 2.5hour mission, Novosel flew by instinct and experience. Leaving the wounded at a Special Forces base camp, he repeatedly refueled so that he could fly until dark. On his last run, a Viet Cong (VC) jumped up and emptied a magazine into the cockpit. Bullets hit each side of the pilot’s seat, chest high, but only fragments hit Novosel. For his heroic efforts in helping to save the lives of 29 soldiers, Novosel was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1971. Later in his tour Novosel’s son, Michael Jr., was also assigned as a pilot to the 82nd Medical Detachment. During one week in late 1969, each rescued the other. Overall, in his two Vietnam tours the elder Novosel flew 2,038 hours in 2,543 missions and rescued 5,589 wounded. After holding a number of posts, his final assignment was at Fort Rucker as senior tactical adviser and counseling officer for pilot training. In his lengthy career, Novosel also received the Distinguished Flying Cross (with two oak leaf clusters), the Bronze Star, Air Medal (with 60 oak leaf clusters), the Purple Heart, and five service or campaign medals. When Novosel retired from the

854

Nui Ba Den

army in 1985, he was the last World War II pilot still on active military flight status. He published a book on his experiences in 1999 and died in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2006. SANDERS MARBLE See also Dustoff; Medevac; Medicine, Military References Novosel, Michael J. Dustoff: The Memoir of an Army Aviator. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1999. Reece, Beth. “Father and Son at War.” Soldiers Magazine 58(11) (November 2003): 16–17.

Nui Ba Den Prominent natural landmark in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that played a significant role in the Vietnam War. Nui Ba Den (“Black Virgin Mountain”) is located in Tay Ninh

Province adjacent to Highway 22, just north of Gau Da Ha, and some 60 miles from Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). Sitting in an area about six miles northwest of Tay Ninh City dominated by flatland and rice paddies, the conical-shaped mountain, which is volcanic in origin and rises to 3,169 feet in height, is visible for many miles. The mountain, which derived its name from a legend in which a young woman died while in search of her lover on its slopes, is the site of several temples. In May 1964 the U.S. Special Forces 3rd Mobile Strike Force captured the summit. The U.S. Army subsequently established a radio relay station on its peak that acted as a key node in American military communications in the area, serving almost every unit operating in the III Corps Tactical Zone. Later, radar equipment, visual observers, and eventually searchlights for night illumination of the surrounding area were added. Communist forces occupied positions on the mountain slopes. Several attempts were made to clear them, but for the most part the area between the crest and the mountain base belonged to the Viet Cong (VC).

A “Huey” helicopter lifts off and away from the crest of Nui Ba Den, Black Virgin Mountain, near Tay Ninh City after dropping off supplies for the U.S. Special Forces team there, 1964. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Nurses, U.S. Because of the importance of this site to allied land and air navigation and communications, the VC tried on several occasions to overrun the installation on top of the mountain. When U.S. forces withdrew from the installation in late 1972, it was occupied by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Communist forces overran the Nui Ba Den installation on January 6, 1975. Today the mountain is the site of an aerial tramway and is a popular tourist attraction. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Viet Cong Infrastructure References Kelley, Michael P. Where We Were in Vietnam: A Comprehensive Guide to the Firebases, Military Installations and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War, 1945–75. Central Point, OR: Hellgate, 2002. Wiest, Andrew, ed. Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006.

Nuon Chea Birth Date: July 7, 1927 Cambodian Communist leader who became known as “Brother Number Two” in the Workers’ Party of Kampuchea and was later charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nuon Chea was born Lau Ben Kon on July 7, 1927, at Battambang in northwestern Cambodia; his parents were Sino-Khmers (of Chinese and Khmer ancestry). The family had royal connections, and his mother cooked for the royal family during their state visits to Battambang. During World War II Thailand annexed this region of Cambodia, and as a result Nuon Chea attended secondary school in Bangkok and then proceeded to Thammasat University, during which time he joined the Communist Party of Thailand. After World War II France forced Thailand to return Battambang to Cambodia, and in 1948 Nuon Chea joined the Indochinese Communist Party. In 1951 when it split, he joined the Cambodian branch, the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party. In 1954 Nuon Chea returned to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. Cambodia meanwhile secured its independence from France. It was at this point that Nuon Chea developed a close friendship with Saloth Sar, later better known as Pol Pot. During the next 13 years Nuon Chea remained in the Cambodian capital secretly running the network of the Cambodian Communists, by now known as the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer) by the country’s ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. In 1967 when peasants in northwestern Cambodia rebelled, the Cambodian government reacted harshly toward those accused of supporting the peasants or having pro-Communist sympathies. Nuon Chea then fled to the jungle and worked with Saloth Sar, who was in charge of the party’s internal apparatus. When the Communists took control of Cambodia in April 1975, Nuon Chea, still retaining a very low profile outside the Commu-

855

nist Party, continued running it under Pol Pot (Saloth Sar having taken this new name after the war). Nuon Chea occasionally served as acting prime minister of Cambodia, then known as Democratic Kampuchea, but never granted interviews and worked very closely with Pol Pot. In December 1978 the Socialist Republic of Vietnam invaded the country and quickly defeated the Khmer Rouge forces. The Workers’ Party of Kampuchea, as the Cambodian Communist Party was officially known, was formally dissolved in 1981, but Nuon Chea remained an important figure in the Communist movement, which continued to organize resistance against the Vietnamese. He organized and led study sessions for cadres in Communist bases on the Thai-Cambodian border, and in December 1998, realizing that the Khmer Rouge had been defeated, he surrendered to the new Cambodian Royal Government. Going into quiet retirement in the town of Pailin near the Thai border, he gave interviews to the press during which he flatly rejected the idea of being put on trial for war crimes and genocide perpetrated by Pol Pot’s government. Nevertheless, Nuon Chea was arrested on September 19, 2007, and was later arraigned before the Cambodia Tribunal in charge of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He remains in confinement. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Cambodia; Khmer Rouge; Pol Pot References Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge. 3rd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Short, Philip. Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare. New York: Holt, 2004.

Nurses, U.S. U.S. military nurses arrived in Vietnam early in the conflict. In March 1962, 13 U.S. Army nurses arrived at the Eighth Field Hospital, Nha Trang. The first members of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps were stationed in Saigon at the same time. U.S. Air Force nurses soon followed, and the number of military nurses serving in Vietnam rose steadily after 1966 to a peak of 900 in January 1969. This coincided with the number of troops deployed, which was at its highest number of 543,400 in April 1969. Nurses served as flight nurses, in hospitals throughout Vietnam, and on board the hospital ships Repose and Sanctuary. The work of nurses closely paralleled that of physicians and medical corpsmen. Most patients were either wounded in battle or sick with infectious diseases. Care of those infected with tropical diseases was primarily supportive, providing liquids, medications for relief of symptoms, nourishment, and rest. Nurses were often infected themselves, and most days lost from work were related to tropical diseases. Nurses received wounded personnel in the field in hospitals of varied sizes and equipped with varied resources. The wounded

856

Nurses, U.S. milieu, and the traditional role of nurses in providing neutral, unconditional support was made much more difficult. Additionally, many nurses encountered the same psychological trauma as the soldiers for whom they cared. Nurses served aboard fixed-wing evacuation flights, transporting patients, most often to Okinawa or Japan, for further treatment or rehabilitation. These nurses were trained in trauma and critical care and worked with significantly more independence than did nurses prior to the war. The Vietnam War brought at least three changes in the nursing profession. First, nurses developed practice specialties, much as physicians had already begun to do. Nurses were particularly successful in the specialties of trauma and critical care and anesthesia. Second, the war afforded many opportunities for nurses to practice more independently and with greater professional autonomy. Nurses, physicians, and patients were able to observe the benefit of increased flexibility and effectiveness in nurses’ activities. Third, in 1966 men were authorized by Congress to join the three nurses’ corps. Men ultimately made up about one-fourth of the nurse corps and were most commonly found in anesthesia and surgical specialties. Men were a valuable addition to the nurse corps;

A U.S. Navy nurse provides a comforting touch and kind word to a wounded man on board the hospital ship Repose off Vietnam, 1967. (Naval Historical Center)

men had been stabilized by a medic or corpsman and then transported, most often by helicopter, to 1 of 19 medical facilities. Although physicians were responsible for the triage of wounded men, nurses often shared this task and were sometimes delegated triage decisions because physicians were needed to begin treatment or surgery. For those whose wounds were so severe that treatment was futile, nurses focused on pain relief and psychological support. Some nurses reported that comforting the dying soldier was an essential task so that the soldier and his family would know that he had not died alone. Most wounded had suffered either small-arms injuries or explosive injuries from mines or booby traps. Small-arms fire typically caused severe tissue damage, interfered with blood supply to the wound, and often resulted in multiple wounds. Explosive devices caused large and contaminated wounds. After surgery had been performed on the wounded, nurses were primarily concerned with prevention of infection, relief of pain, tissue regeneration, and psychological support. The role of nurses was significantly challenged by the soldiers in Vietnam and conflicts in American culture during the 1960s and 1970s. Not only was the war unpopular, but the country was also struggling with civil rights issues and the women’s movement. Alcohol and drug abuse complicated an already complex social

A nurse tends a patient just out of surgery in the intensive care ward of the hospital ship Repose (AH-16), October 1967. The Repose was off the Vietnamese coast a few miles south of the 17th Parallel. (National Archives)

Nurses, U.S. however, many soldiers found that female nurses were an important factor in morale. This same phenomenon has been reported in other American wars and is probably related to the socialization of women as comforters. Several studies and biographies of nurses who served in Vietnam reveal experiences of a more personal nature. First, women there were socially isolated, restricted to the hospital, the barracks, and occasionally the officers’ club. Second, many nurses were frustrated by their inability to see a patient through his recovery. The excellent transport and treatment systems were key factors in the low mortality rate, but these denied the nurses and physicians the ability to see progress and recovery. Third, nurses, like soldiers, experienced difficulty in readjusting to life at home after their Vietnam experience. One nurse was killed in the Vietnam War: First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was killed by hostile action while on duty at the 312th Evacuation Hospital, Chu Lai, on June 8, 1969. The contribution of nurses to the American military effort during the war was recognized in 1993 with the dedication of a statue, sculpted by Glenna

857

Goodacre, that was placed near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The statue depicts three women assisting a fallen soldier. RHONDA KEEN-PAYNE See also Casualties; Medevac; Medicine, Military; Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. References Donahue, M. Patricia. Nursing: The Finest Art. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1985. Kalisch, Phillip A., and Beatrice Kalisch. The Advance of American Nursing. 3rd ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994. Kalisch, Phillip A., and Beatrice Kalisch. “Nurses under Fire: The World War II Experience of Nurses on Bataan and Corregidor.” Nursing Research 25(2) (November–December 1976): 401–429. Kirkpatrick, Sandra. “Battle Casualty.” American Journal of Nursing 68(5) (July 1968): 998–1005. Norman, Elizabeth M. “A Study of Female Military Nurses in Vietnam during the War Years 1965–1973.” Journal of Nursing History 2 (November 1986): 43–60. Smith, Winnie. American Daughter Gone to War. New York: William Morrow, 1992.

This page intentionally left blank

O Oakland Army Base Major transportation and cargo hub for the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In June 1941 just six months after the United States entered World War II, the government began construction of the Oakland Sub-Port of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, located seven miles directly across from San Francisco on former marshlands at the eastern base of the newly completed Oakland–San Francisco Bay Bridge. The 425acre project, at a total cost of $35 million, included warehouses, wharves, piers, and other maritime facilities. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and more than 35 million tons of military cargo passed through the base during World War II and the Korean War. The base was formally named the Oakland Army Terminal in 1955 but was again renamed the Oakland Army Base in 1966, under the authority of the U.S. Military Ocean Terminal Bay Area. During the Vietnam War era, more than 70 percent (37 million tons) of the Department of Defense’s cargo headed for Vietnam moved through the base. From 1965 onward, protestors from the nearby University of California campus at Berkeley identified the base as a target for protests, some of which became violent and briefly slowed the functions of the facility. In June 1995 the U.S. Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended that Oakland Army Base be closed, due in part to the large cost foreseen in converting the base into a port for container ships. The Oakland Army Base was formally closed on September 30, 1999. RANDAL SCOTT BEEMAN See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; United States Army References Allen, Annalee. Selections from the Oakland Tribune Archives. Mt. Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.

Lotchin, Roger. Fortress California, 1910–1960: From Warfare to Welfare. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Oberg, Jean-Christophe Birth Date: 1935 Death Date: 1992 Swedish diplomat and Swedish ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from 1972 to 1974 who was sharply critical of American military policy during the Vietnam War. Jean-Christophe Oberg was born in Rouen, France, in 1935; his father, a Swede, was an official with the Swedish embassy in Paris. Oberg’s mother was French. He lived in France until he was 16, at which time his family relocated to Sweden. In 1954 Oberg received his baccalaureate degree. He then earned a law degree from Sweden’s Uppsala University. An ardent Social Democrat, Oberg then entered the Swedish Foreign Service. His first foreign posting came in 1962 when he was sent to Jakarta, Indonesia. Among his subsequent diplomatic postings were stints in Washington, D.C., and Bangkok. In 1970 he was sent to North Vietnam to establish a Swedish embassy in Hanoi. He was chargé d’affaires until 1972, at which point he acted as the ambassador to North Vietnam to 1974. During the Vietnam War, Swedish-American relations were rather rocky, as Sweden remained among the nonaligned nations during the Cold War and was both suspicious and critical of U.S. policy in Vietnam. Indeed, Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, a Social Democrat, had repeatedly spoken out against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

860

O’Daniel, John Wilson

At the same time, Sweden was also providing refuge for American draft dodgers looking to avoid serving in Vietnam, which had further taxed relations between Washington and Stockholm. During Operation LINEBACKER I (May–October 1972), Oberg supported Hanoi’s contention that the United States was purposefully and methodically destroying dikes and dams in the Red River Valley in an effort to flood rice paddies and disrupt food production in North Vietnam. Washington vehemently denied such charges. During the 1972 Christmas Bombings (Operation LINEBACKER II), which threatened the Swedish embassy in Hanoi, Palme pointedly compared the American bombing effort to the Holocaust. Oberg, a close friend and political ally of Palme, concurred. Oberg’s statements about LINEBACKER I combined with Palme’s incendiary speech concerning LINEBACKER II helped precipitate a diplomatic impasse between the United States and Sweden. The Richard M. Nixon administration was so angered by the remarks made by both Palme and Oberg that it withheld the U.S. ambassador from Stockholm until 1974. Oberg reportedly received U.S. actress Jane Fonda as an official visitor when she traveled to Hanoi, which further outraged the Nixon administration. Oberg compounded the situation by seeming to agree with some of Fonda’s statements. On the other hand, Oberg sometimes acted as go-between during negotiations between Hanoi and Washington. Oberg returned to Stockholm in 1974 and subsequently held ambassadorial posts in Thailand, Algiers, and Poland. Stationed in Warsaw from 1987 to 1991, he helped facilitate Poland’s transformation to democracy by acting as a go-between for the Polish Communist government and the Solidarity movement. Well after he had left Vietnam, however, Oberg continued to criticize U.S. foreign policy. In the 1980s he stated publicly that the Ronald W. Reagan administration’s policies in Central America were counterproductive and that the United States was making the same mistakes it had committed in Vietnam. Oberg died in 1992. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

Wilson “Iron Mike” O’Daniel, while still a student at the University of Delaware, enlisted as a private in the National Guard and saw service on the Mexican border. After graduating from college he was commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry. During World War I he served in France, where he was wounded and earned the Distinguished Service Cross. Promoted to colonel in December 1941, O’Daniel became assistant chief of staff for operations in the Third Army. In September 1942 he assumed command of the 168th Infantry Regiment and led it in the fighting in North Africa. He was promoted to brigadier general that November. In June 1943 he was named deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and saw combat with the division in Sicily and in Italy. In February 1944 O’Daniel assumed command of the division, then on the Anzio beachhead. He took part in the liberation of Rome, where he received promotion to major general. In August 1944 O’Daniel’s division took part in the landings in southern France and then drove up the Rhone Valley to Strasbourg. His division then crossed the Rhine and took part in the capture of Nuremberg. In July 1945 McDaniel assumed command of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the next year was named

See also Fonda, Jane Seymour; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation References Hahnimäki, Jussi. Scandinavia and the United States: An Insecure Friendship. New York: Twayne, 1997. Lundestad, Geir. America, Scandinavia, and the Cold War. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1982.

O’Daniel, John Wilson Birth Date: February 15, 1894 Death Date: March 27, 1975 U.S. Army general and commander of the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Indochina, from March 1954 to October 1955. Born in Newark, Delaware, on February 15, 1894, John

U.S. Army lieutenant general John “Iron-Mike” O’Daniel commanded the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Indochina, during March 1954–October 1955. (Corbis)

Office of Strategic Services commanding general of Fort Benning. From 1948 to 1950 he was the U.S. military attaché in Moscow. O’Daniel was never known for his tact, and after that assignment he wrote a magazine article in which he said that Moscow impressed him “as a vast slum.” In response, the Soviets accused him of being a spy and a liar. In July 1951 O’Daniel assumed command of I Corps in Korea and then in December was advanced to lieutenant general. His involvement with Vietnam began when he was assigned to Hawaii as commanding general of U.S. Army forces in the Pacific in September 1952. In June 1953 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) sent him to Vietnam to assess French requirements for military aid. O’Daniel came back with an optimistic report and support for the Navarre Plan. During his second visit to Vietnam in November 1953, O’Daniel convinced French general Henri Navarre to accept four American officers on his staff and to permit a small increase in the size of the MAAG, then under the command of Major General Thomas Trapnell. O’Daniel reported to the JCS what he believed to be “real military progress” and maintained that “prospects for victory are increasingly encouraging.” U.S. Army chief of staff General Matthew B. Ridgway, however, thought that O’Daniel’s report was overly optimistic. In February 1954 O’Daniel visited the French position at Dien Bien Phu. Although he generally accepted what he was told in the briefings, several aspects of the French position disturbed him. French bunkers did not appear very strong, and O’Daniel was bothered by the fact that the French had failed to secure the surrounding high ground. In a memo to the JCS he noted that “A force with two or three battalions of medium artillery could make the area untenable.” The French initially objected to O’Daniel being named to replace General Trapnell as MAAG chief. They insisted that O’Daniel be demoted to major general so that he would not be equal in rank to Navarre. O’Daniel was willing to accept a temporary reduction, but Ridgway objected strongly. O’Daniel finally assumed command of MAAG on March 31, just weeks before Dien Bien Phu fell. When O’Daniel assumed command of MAAG, its primary mission was to provide equipment support. O’Daniel pushed for authority to reorganize and train the Vietnamese army. He believed that a loose interpretation of MAAG’s responsibility to perform “end use checks of American equipment” could be stretched to cover training. Ridgway, however, gave strict instructions that he was to “make no commitments whatsoever in regard to training.” In August 1954 the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) requested assistance from the United States in evacuating from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) those Vietnamese who did not wish to remain under Communist control. O’Daniel established the Evacuation Staff Group, headquartered in Saigon. On August 16 U.S. Navy Task Force 90, consisting of 28 ships under the command of Rear Admiral Lorenzo S. Sabin, began evacuating French and Vietnamese from Haiphong. In November 1954 the internal political situation in Saigon became very unstable. Rumors were rife that South Vietnamese

861

chief of staff General Nguyen Van Hinh was about to stage a coup against the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Because of the delicacy of the situation, U.S. ambassador Donald Heath ordered all U.S. personnel to avoid contact with Hinh. On November 12, however, O’Daniel became convinced that Hinh was only hours away from launching the coup. Unable to contact Heath, O’Daniel visited Hinh at his home and impressed upon him the negative U.S. reaction that such a course of action would trigger. O’Daniel came away from the meeting convinced that he had derailed the coup, but Heath was furious because his orders had been disobeyed. On February 12, 1955, O’Daniel finally received authority to reorganize and train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Under the terms of the Collins-Ely Agreement, all American and French advisory training personnel, 68 American and 209 French officers, came under O’Daniel’s command by March. When O’Daniel left MAAG in October 1955, training advisers totaled 142 U.S. and 58 French officers. O’Daniel tried to convince President Diem to allow a sizable French combat force to remain in South Vietnam, but Diem believed that the French could not be relied upon and should leave as soon as possible. O’Daniel’s advisory effort focused on preparing the South Vietnamese to resist a conventional attack from North Vietnam. He believed that an army so equipped and organized would also be capable of performing an internal security role. After he retired from the U.S. Army in 1955, O’Daniel founded the American Friends of Vietnam, a very effective organization that lobbied for American support of the Diem government. O’Daniel died in San Diego, California, on March 27, 1975. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also American Friends of Vietnam; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Navarre Plan; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Van Hinh; Ridgway, Matthew Bunker Reference Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Office of Strategic Services U.S. intelligence-gathering organization and predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that assisted the Vietnamese in their fight against the Japanese in World War II. In August 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Office of the Coordinator of Information, headed by 58-year-old William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan. In May 1942 Donovan’s group was renamed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). As was their practice worldwide during World War II, OSS operatives in Indochina sought contact with any group fighting the Axis. Their earliest contact in Vietnam was the worldly

862

Olds, Robin

Canadian-born Cal-Texaco executive Lawrence Gordon, who had lived in Haiphong until 1940. In 1941 Cal-Texaco persuaded Gordon to return to Indochina to oversee its interests. Concurrently, chief of British Security Sir William Stephenson (later known as “Intrepid”) gave him a cover and made him a captain in the British Secret Service. On his way to Vietnam, Gordon met OSS agents in China who arranged to finance his operations. Throughout 1941 and 1942, he traveled across Vietnam pretending to be a freelance oil agent. Gordon established a vast network of spies, most of them Vietnamese and former CalTexaco workers. In 1942 Gordon was joined by two Americans somehow living freely in southern Vietnam: former Cal-Texaco employee Harry V. Bernard and Boston-born Chinese American Frank “Frankie” Tan. By 1943 the group, known as the GBT (the initials of the men’s last names), had established radio-listening posts all over Indochina and was providing vital information to, among others, U.S. general Claire Chennault’s Fourteenth Army Air Force in China. Concurrently, the OSS sought to undermine the Japanese by supporting nationalist guerrillas in Indochina. In Vietnam, the OSS soon established ties with Viet Minh forces led by Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. The OSS provided the Viet Minh with small arms, communications equipment, and medical supplies. Eventually the OSS provided instructors to train the Viet Minh for warfare against the Japanese. U.S. personnel, one of whom probably saved Ho’s life during a serious illness, did not conceal their admiration for the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh, for its part, provided intelligence on the Japanese and helped rescue downed Allied pilots. Throughout the war and immediately afterward, OSS agents advocated in their reports to Washington that the United States support Vietnamese independence from France. After all, President Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter emphasized self-determination for all peoples. Even though it is clear that many high administration officials saw these reports and that Donovan leaned in this direction, it is still not clear what Roosevelt intended. In any case, after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, President Harry S. Truman was clearly less sympathetic. In March 1945 the previously docile French in Vietnam, led by General Marcel Alessandri, planned a revolt against Japanese occupation. The Japanese struck first and arrested most of the French. This Japanese victory greatly harmed GBT/OSS efforts and left the Viet Minh as the only viable anti-Japanese force in Indochina. At war’s end Ho, accompanied by OSS agents, entered Hanoi on August 19, 1945. When puppet emperor Bao Dai abdicated on August 25, Ho’s “pro-U.S.” forces seemed to have won an important victory. On September 2, 1945, Hanoi awoke to a festive day. Nearly half a million people were present to celebrate Vietnamese Independence Day. Peter Dewey and Archimedes Patti led the OSS contingent in Hanoi. At the July–August 1945 Potsdam Conference, however, Allied leaders thwarted Viet Minh hopes when it was decided that the

Nationalist Chinese would occupy northern Vietnam, while the British would occupy southern Vietnam. During this occupation the Chinese tolerated Ho’s government in the north, but the British soon returned control of the south to the French. During this period the cordial OSS–Viet Minh relationship continued, but the accidental Viet Minh killing of Lieutenant Colonel Albert P. Dewey in Saigon on September 26, 1945, foretold the tragic future of U.S.-Vietnamese relations. Ho was reportedly shaken by the death of an American at Viet Minh hands while he was seeking U.S. support. In effect, Dewey became the first American serviceman to die at the hands of Ho’s soldiers. On October 1, 1945, President Truman disbanded Donovan’s 12,600-member organization, replacing it in early 1946 with the Central Intelligence Group and in 1947 with the CIA. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Central Intelligence Agency; Dewey, Albert Peter; Donovan, William Joseph; Ho Chi Minh; Patti, Archimedes L. A.; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano; Truman, Harry S.; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Boetcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow. Boston: Little Brown, 1985. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, Ralph Harris. OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Olds, Robin Birth Date: July 14, 1922 Death Date: June 14, 2007 U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing (1966–1967). Born on July 14, 1922, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Robin Olds was the son of U.S. Army Air Force major general Robert Olds. Robin Olds graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1943. He became a career U.S. Air Force officer and a triple ace, having shot down a total of 17 enemy aircraft during World War II and the Vietnam War. He began his combat career flying a Lockheed P-38 Lightning and was credited with 107 combat missions, including 24.5 victories, 13 aircraft shot down, and 11.5 aircraft destroyed on the ground. During the Vietnam War he flew a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and, using air-to-air missiles, shot down 2 MiG-17 and 2 MiG-21 aircraft over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). As commander of the U.S. 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, from September 1966 until December 1967, Colonel Olds devised and led Operation BOLO in which U.S. Air Force jets downed seven MiG-21s over North Vietnam on January 2, 1967. Vietnamese sources, which admit to the

Olongapo, Philippines

863

Vietnam (1955–1977)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1993.

Olongapo, Philippines

U.S. Air Force colonel Robin Olds, commander of the U.S. 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, receives a welcome after his 100th and final combat mission. Olds became a triple ace, credited with having shot down a total of 17 enemy aircraft during World War II and the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

loss of five MiG-21s that day, indicate that one of the Vietnamese pilots shot down in Operation BOLO, Nguyen Van Coc, went on to become North Vietnam’s top-scoring ace. In two wars, Olds flew 259 missions and was neither shot down nor wounded. Promoted to brigadier general in June 1968, he served as commandant of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy before retiring from the air force in June 1973 as a brigadier general. Olds frequently chafed under military regulations and was a lifelong proponent of tactical airpower and well-trained pilots. He did not subscribe to the U.S. Air Force doctrine of deterrence through nuclear weapons alone. After retirement he lectured, wrote an autobiography, and became an avid skier. Olds died in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, on June 14, 2007. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; BOLO, Operation; United States Air Force References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Hanak, Walter, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Aces and Aerial Victories, 1965–1973. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1976. Ta Hong, Vu Ngoc, and Nguyen Quoc Dung. Lich Su Khong Quan Nhan Dan Viet Nam (1955–1977) [History of the People’s Air Force of

A small strip of land in the Philippine Islands acquired by the U.S. Navy on December 10, 1899. Once home to the Spanish Naval Arsenal, Olongapo Island and the surrounding Subic Bay Naval Base grew substantially during the 1950s as the United States grew increasingly concerned about the rise of communism in Southeast Asia following the French defeat in Indochina in 1954. An island by virtue of the Spanish-built canal that separates it from Luzon, Olongapo was connected to the mainland by a bridge to Olongapo City, which had been located on the island before World War II and was reestablished opposite it in early 1946. By 1964, Subic Bay Naval Base boasted a 141-bed hospital and a shipyard that could handle the U.S. Navy’s largest warships. However, by 1965 the demands of supporting the Vietnam War began to exceed the shipyard’s and base’s capacity, driving the navy to initiate a $63 million base expansion program that increased base storage and shipyard capacity, increased pier space, and added more housing for military dependents. Subic Bay and Olongapo Island became the largest U.S. Navy installation in the Pacific by the mid-1960s. Despite this, the navy had to deploy three floating dry docks and three tenders (repair ships) to meet requirements while placing the shipyard’s workforce on 12-hour shifts. The Navy Supply Depot was expanded, handling more fuel than any two other naval bases in the world. Although better known for the wild nightclubs frequented by sailors in nearby Olongapo City, Subic Bay served a vital function during the Vietnam War and was a key naval repair and logistics facility throughout the Cold War. The Vietnam War placed a heavy burden on the facility. In 1964 an average of 98 ships per month docked at Subic Bay. By 1967 that number had increased to an average of 215 per month. In 1967 alone, nearly 4.225 million sailors and naval personnel had visited or rotated through Subic Bay and Olongapo. By 1968 the base’s permanent U.S. population was 4,300, but an average of 15,000 Filipinos also frequented the base as civilian workers. During the 1975 evacuation of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Subic Bay became temporary home to thousands of air- and boat-lifted refugees. Olongapo and Subic Bay continued as a U.S. naval base until 1991, when the eruption of nearby Mount Pinatubo buried all of the area in several feet of mud and ash. After extensive cleanup operations, Washington and Manila were unable to agree on the future of the Subic Bay facility, so on November 24, 1992, the U.S. flag was lowered for the final time, and the area reverted to the control of the Philippine government. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER

864

Operation Plan 34A

See also Philippines; United States Navy References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Sherwood, John D. Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Open Arms Program See Chieu Hoi Program

Operation Plan 34A U.S.-backed covert harassment and intelligence-gathering efforts conducted along the coastline of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Three days before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy gave his approval to a new covert action program in Vietnam known as Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34A. Activities conducted under this code name included minor raids by mercenaries and South Vietnamese commandos at various locations along the northern coastline of North Vietnam. The commandos penetrated Communist territory, usually at night, and blew up defensive positions and supply dumps, attacked coastal radar transmitters, and kidnapped individuals marked by intelligence as worthy of interrogation in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Covert U.S. naval operations mounted by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps were not new. Known as DeSoto missions, they consisted of electronic intelligence (ELINT) activities and had been conducted since the 1950s against the Soviet Union, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). OPLAN 34A consisted of covert intelligence missions. ELINT vessels surveyed northern coastal radar and other electronic installations above the 17th Parallel, monitored transmissions, determined radio and radar frequencies used, and pinpointed locations of transmission units. The first DeSoto mission against North Vietnam came in 1962. In 1964 the destroyer USS Maddox began conducting electronic surveillance along the northern coast. DeSoto missions had the additional duty of searching for ships bringing supplies south to Viet Cong (VC) units and countering seaborne resupply efforts by the North Vietnamese Group 759. Another responsibility was to record navigational information for use by OPLAN 34A commando teams landing along the long coastline of North Vietnam. Those teams regularly traveled to North Vietnam from their base at Da

Nang using special American-built boats, called “Swifts,” sometimes captained by Norwegian skippers. Ironically, these boats were found to be too slow and were phased out and replaced with Norwegian-built craft called “Nasties,” captained by Americans. These craft were armed with twin .50-caliber machine guns on the deckhouse and a combined .50-caliber and 81-millimeter mortar aft. The crew consisted of an officer and five enlisted men. Occasionally American patrol torpedo (PT) boats, stripped of their torpedo tubes, were also used. During the night of July 30–31, 1964, an OPLAN 34A group conducted raids against two small islands, Hon Ngu near Vinh and about three miles offshore and Hon Me about eight miles offshore. The strike force was unable to land any commandos but did fire on island installations before returning to base. The Maddox, 120 miles away, monitored resulting radar and radio transmissions. The Maddox later moved no closer than five miles off Hon Me on August 2, when the small Vietnam People’s Navy (VPN, North Vietnamese Navy) reacted with a PT boat attack against the Maddox. On August 4 there was possibly a second strike against the Maddox and a sister ship, the destroyer C. Turner Joy. In both cases the destroyers were supported by planes from the carrier Ticonderoga, sent to the mouth of the Gulf of Tonkin in the spring of 1964. These incidents, growing out of OPLAN 34A and DeSoto missions, became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and led on August 10 to the passage of the congressional Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, called by Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. CECIL B. CURREY See also DeSoto Missions; Electronic Intelligence; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Morse, Wayne Lyman; Quach Tom; Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos References Marolda, Edward J., and G. Wesley Pryce III. A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asia Conflict, 1950–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1984. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Preston, Anthony. “The Naval War in Vietnam.” In The Vietnam War: An Almanac, edited by John S. Bowman, 427–428. New York: World Almanac Publications, 1985.

Order of Battle Dispute Event Date: 1967 In 1965 the United States sent ground troops into Vietnam without having adequate intelligence on the forces that U.S. troops were to fight. When the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), began to issue monthly order of battle reports on Communist

Order of Battle Dispute organization and strength in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the figures were at first very incomplete. As intelligence improved during 1966, the figures for Communist regular combat units came to be reasonably accurate. Order of battle reports, however, contained figures for three other types of Communist personnel: “Combat support” or “administrative services,” those people handling supply, transport, medical care, and other support functions; “political cadres” or “political infrastructure,” local administrators, tax collectors, police, and other political operatives in the areas of South Vietnam that were partially or wholly under Communist control; and “irregulars,” a variety of guerrilla and militia organizations of which the two having the least capability for conventional military combat—the “selfdefense” militia in Communist-controlled villages and the “secret self-defense” militia in government-controlled villages—would eventually become the subject of particular controversy. Most Communist personnel in South Vietnam fell into these three categories, but no serious study of their numbers had been made before 1966. Bureaucratic inertia dictated that for lack of anything better, officers responsible for the order of battle reports repeated each month the unfounded estimate in the previous month’s report. By early 1967 U.S. intelligence officers, mostly in military intelligence in Vietnam but to some extent also at Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in the United States, had compiled enough information to make realistic estimates possible for all categories. This created a major problem. The new estimates, especially for the administrative services and irregulars, were far higher than the old ones. Public support for the war was already shaky in the United States, and for the official estimate of total Communist personnel in South Vietnam to dramatically increase, perhaps even double, could have had serious repercussions. There followed a series of acrimonious conferences at which the CIA argued for comparatively high estimates, while MACV intelligence argued for much lower estimates. In September 1967 an agreement was worked out under which the definitions used in compiling the estimates were drastically changed. U.S. intelligence simply stopped estimating the number of people in the self-defense and secret self-defense militia. Estimates for the Communist political infrastructure continued to be compiled but were no longer treated as part of the military order of battle. Having dropped these categories, MACV accepted higher estimates of some others (although not as high as CIA estimates) without any increase in the overall total. The 1968 Tet Offensive came a few months later. Debate continues between those who say that the course of combat during the offensive proved that MACV estimates had been valid and those who say that the offensive proved that MACV had been grossly underestimating Communist strength. Samuel Adams, a CIA analyst of order of battle issues, was one of the CIA negotiators at the conferences of 1967. He believed that

865

the estimates agreed upon at the September conference had been grossly dishonest, incomplete and inaccurate to an extent that caused dangerous complacency as the Tet Offensive approached. After retiring from the CIA, Adams made his view public in a May 1975 article in Harper’s magazine titled “Vietnam Cover-Up: Playing War with Numbers.” The story reached television with a January 23, 1982, CBS documentary, The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception. The documentary argued that the intelligence figures had been deliberately falsified and that MACV commander General William Westmoreland bore part of the blame. After the televised special program aired, General Westmoreland filed a libel suit for $120 million against CBS, several CBS employees, and Adams. The trial began in October 1984. Westmoreland at first seemed to be doing well, demonstrating significant misconduct by CBS. But after the defense case began in January 1985, CBS presented considerable evidence for the central thesis of its program: that military intelligence officers under Westmoreland’s command had routinely reported fewer Communist personnel of all types—not just militia but even regular combat troops—than were actually present in South Vietnam. Several such officers testified as witnesses for CBS. Colonel Gains Hawkins, the man immediately responsible for MACV’s overall estimates, testified that under pressure from his superiors he had ordered his own subordinates to lower their estimates in mid-1967. He was not aware of any evidence justifying lower estimates; he said that the evidence suggested that the estimates were already too low. On the witness stand he described the estimates that MACV had presented to other intelligence agencies in August 1967 as “crap.” For the most part, General Westmoreland had not been directly involved; his immediate subordinates had passed down the chain of command what they believed to be his wishes without necessarily consulting him in detail. General Phillip Davidson, chief of intelligence for MACV, had issued a directive in August 1967 that CBS introduced in evidence at the trial: In view of General Westmoreland’s conversations, all of which you have heard, I am sure that this headquarters will not accept a figure in excess of the current strength figure carried by the press. Let me make it clear that this is my view of General Westmoreland’s sentiments. I have not discussed this directly with him but I am 100 percent sure of his reaction. CBS was able to present two witnesses, however: General Joseph McChristian (Davidson’s predecessor as chief of MACV intelligence) and Colonel Hawkins. In May 1967 they had presented directly to Westmoreland more accurate figures that they wanted to substitute for the underestimates in the order of battle. On February 18, 1985, Westmoreland withdrew his lawsuit in return for a carefully worded statement in which CBS did not retract or apologize for anything in the broadcast but said that it “never intended to assert, and does not believe, that General

866 Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard Westmoreland was unpatriotic or disloyal in performing his duties as he saw them.” EDWIN E. MOISE See also Adams, Samuel A.; Central Intelligence Agency; Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr.; Media and the Vietnam War; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Westmoreland, William Childs References Adams, Sam. War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth, 1994. Brewin, Bob, and Sydney Shaw. Vietnam on Trial: Westmoreland vs. CBS. New York: Atheneum, 1987. Moise, Edwin. “Why Westmoreland Gave Up.” Pacific Affairs 58(4) (Winter 1985–1986): 663–673.

Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard Event Date: October 26, 1966 Catastrophic fire aboard USS Oriskany (CV-34), an Essex-class U.S. aircraft carrier conducting air operations against the Democratic

Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin on October 26, 1966. At 7:27 a.m. the Oriskany’s skipper, Captain John Iarrobino, was informed of a fire in the forward hangar deck. The carrier typically experienced regular small electrical fires that were easily and quickly dealt with. This fire in the hangar deck, however, was not a small one and required more than three hours to extinguish, at great cost in lives and damage. The fire started in Hangar Bay 1 directly beneath the flight deck in a locker used to store six-foot-long magnesium parachute flares employed in battlefield illumination. Each flare could produce 2 million candle powers of light. The morning strike missions had been cancelled because of poor weather over the targets, so crewmen were removing flares and weapons from the strike aircraft. A flare ignited while it was being transferred to the storage locker. Instead of throwing the flare over the side, a seamen threw it into the locker with other flares. Burning at 4,000 degrees, the flare almost immediately set off the other flares stored there. As crewmen worked desperately to remove bombs from the vicinity, fire-fighting crews moved in to try to put out the blaze. Thick smoke from the fire rapidly filled the forward compartments of the ship where officers and pilots were quartered. Fuel bunkers

Smoke pours from hangar bay 1 of the U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany during the fire on that ship in the Tonkin Gulf that killed 44 members of its crew on October 26, 1966. (Naval Historical Center)

Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard and ammunition magazines were also in the vicinity of the fire; if the fire reached them, the ship could be lost. In a valiant effort, crew members dumped over the side of the ship more than 300 bombs of 500 to 2,000 pounds each, moved aircraft away from the scene, and worked to rescue pilots. Nonetheless, two helicopters were destroyed, four attack aircraft were severely damaged, and nine other aircraft sustained various amounts of damage. The forward catapults were also warped by the heat of the fire and were rendered unusable. The forward elevator was put out of commission, and electrical circuits on the ship were damaged. Three hours and seven minutes after the fire began it was finally extinguished. The fire and smoke claimed the lives of 44 members of the Oriskany crew, including 25 pilots and the air wing commander, all of whom were trapped in the smoke-filled compartments forward of the hangar deck. The fire injured 144 others aboard the carrier. Once the Oriskany was secured it made its way to the U.S. naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines for emergency repairs. On October 28 the dead and injured were transferred from the Oriskany to be returned to the United States by air. A week after arriving in Subic Bay, the Oriskany returned to the United States for repairs, ar-

867

riving in San Diego on November 16. Repairs to the ship were completed at the San Francisco Bay Naval Shipyard on March 23, 1967. Investigation revealed that the flare that had initially caught fire had functioned as designed and had ignited because of human error. Subsequent tests showed that 1 in 1,000 of the flares would go off if jarred. Five Oriskany crew members were subsequently court-martialed for their roles in the incident, but all were acquitted. One consequence of the fire was that the U.S. Navy redesigned the flare in question so that it could not go off if jarred. The ship returned to Yankee Station, where it commenced combat operations on July 14, 1967. On July 26 its crew assisted the aircraft carrier Forrestal (CV-59) when it too suffered a serious fire. STEVEN FRED MARIN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire; Yankee Station References Foster, Wynn F. Fire on the Hangar Deck: Ordeal on the Oriskany. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002. Grant, Zalin. Over the Beach: The Air War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1986.

This page intentionally left blank

P Pacification An array of programs that sought to bring security, economic development, and local self-government to the rural regions of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Throughout the Vietnam War pacification, or “the other war,” played an essential role in the conduct of the struggle. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, South Vietnamese leaders sought to preserve it as a sovereign non-Communist nation. They relied on various pacification plans to extend rule into the countryside, gain political loyalty, and defeat a Communist insurgency. After 1954 the United States became increasingly involved in supporting South Vietnam, providing economic and military aid, training its police and local security forces, and supporting the many efforts at pacification. The management and focus of pacification changed during the course of the war, but the underlying philosophy and purpose remained constant. The prerequisite of pacification was security. To provide local security, the government raised paramilitary forces, the Civil Guard and Self Defense Corps, that in 1964 became the Regional Forces and Popular Forces (RF/PF). In addition, the militia, the People’s Self-Defense Force, and police forces had a security role. Revolutionary development cadre teams lived in the villages, training local citizens and working on self-help projects. The goal was to make secure the villages where people lived, but in some cases nearby fighting or operational requirements forced peasants from their homes into camps in secure areas. During the 1960s to counter the political propaganda and terrorism of the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI), the Communists’ covert command and control organization in South Vietnam, the Saigon government under the Phoenix Program used its police forces to identify and arrest members of the VCI. Under the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) program,

the government used psychological and economic inducements to encourage the Viet Cong (VC) to defect. The objective of pacification was not just to stem the VC insurgency; it also sought to improve the lives of the people in the countryside. Saigon instituted land reform, provided assistance to refugees and attempted to resettle them, sent out cadres to teach and organize villagers, set up schools and infirmaries, organized local elections, and provided funds for local development projects. Although pacification programs were conducted by the South Vietnamese government, Americans played an indispensable role as financiers and advisers at all levels of government. South Vietnam depended on American financial aid and military assistance for its existence as an independent nation. Much of the history of pacification concerns U.S. efforts to push its ally to carry out mutually agreed-upon plans. Despite the disparity between the two nations in size and resources, American attempts to influence the South Vietnamese produced frustrating results; frequent disappointments offset the occasional successes. Measuring meaningful change or progress in the countryside was difficult. The Americans devised a number of nationwide statistical indices, based on standardized questions, to track such things as the expenditure of funds and the distribution of weapons. But in a war for political support and popular loyalty, tools such as the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES), a monthly report on pacification compiled by U.S. district advisers, proved more useful for managing programs and resources than for assessing change or gauging popular loyalty in a convincing way. Shortly after taking power, South Vietnamese premier and then president Ngo Dinh Diem had consolidated his rule by first suppressing his non-Communist political rivals, the Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, and Binh Xuyen sects. He then turned his attention to eliminating

870

Pacification

A U.S. Navy hospital corpsman, a member of a U.S. Agency for International Development military health team, inoculates a flood refugee against cholera at a refugee center in Chau Doc Province, South Vietnam, in 1966. Civic action programs, like this medical assistance unit, were one component of the nation-building effort known as pacification. (National Archives)

Communist political operatives in South Vietnam. These efforts bore fruit during 1955–1959. Although Diem instituted limited land reform in 1956, his harsh tactics in suppressing his opposition, continued corruption, and concentration on the urban areas at the expense of the countryside alienated many South Vietnamese, making them amenable to future VC propaganda. To many, Diem’s policies seemed designed to benefit wealthy landowners, and this gave the Communists an issue with which to gain popular support. In 1959 the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Hanoi decided to take active steps to topple Diem. In 1960 the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), or the VC, came into being. It was designed to merge the efforts of Diem’s Communist and non-Communist opponents inside the South Vietnamese government and to win political support overseas. The NLF recruited and operated within South Vietnam, but direction and leadership

largely came from Hanoi. The NLF was a revolutionary organization, combining political indoctrination with military action, tight organization, and coercion to build their movement. Its strategy skillfully blended intimidation and reform and used political and military means to gain control. Under Mao Zedong’s theory of revolutionary warfare, the VC sought to destroy the government’s presence in the countryside, isolating the cities from the people. Without a base of popular support, the government would eventually fall. Primary VC targets were local officials, political leaders, and teachers: Saigon’s links with the villages. Assassination, kidnapping, or intimidation of these people effectively ended the government’s presence in many areas. Diem recognized this threat and mounted several projects to counter it. The most ambitious of these was the Strategic Hamlet Program of 1962, which sought to put villagers in fortified hamlets and protect them from VC raids and political organizers. The plan was seriously flawed in execution. The government built too

Pacification many hamlets too quickly, uprooting many villagers from their ancestral homes and herding them into inadequate and hastily built hamlets that offered few amenities and no real protection. Relocating people instead of bringing security to their native villages proved a major defect. Although the Communists now admit that the program caused them considerable problems, it did not stop the growth of the VC or the erosion of government control in the countryside, and the program was plagued by official corruption. Dissatisfied with Diem’s leadership and worried about his prosecution of the war, the South Vietnamese armed forces with U.S. acquiescence overthrew him in November 1963. This only worsened matters. Ongoing pacification programs, including the Strategic Hamlets, essentially stopped. Nor did the follow-on efforts that began after Diem’s overthrow, Operations HOP TAC and CHIEN THANG, prove effective. The coup also produced political instability in Saigon and turmoil in the provinces, as officials carrying out pacification plans were replaced when the government in Saigon changed, which it frequently did. In the absence of political stability and emboldened by signs of Saigon’s collapse, Hanoi began to send conventional army units into South Vietnam in late 1964 to administer the coup de grâce. Pacification was on its death bed. In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to send in U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army troops in large deployments. U.S. commander in Vietnam General William Westmoreland and his operations officer, General William DePuy, concluded in February 1965 that pacification was irrelevant at that point. They saw no reason for using the troop assets to prop up a moribund program. In their view the VC had won the political war, and U.S. forces, with their peerless firepower and mobility, were needed to avert military defeat and to wear down their foe in set-piece battles. Attrition became the strategy, and to accomplish it Westmoreland wanted more troops. President Johnson was unwilling to override the judgment of his military leaders. He agreed to send the requested soldiers from the active forces but decided not to call up the reserves in an effort to limit the political costs of the war. At the same time Johnson was conscious that the political war, or pacification, could not be long ignored and began in 1965 to ponder how to revive it. Prompted by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and his assistant, Chester Cooper, Johnson first tried to improve American management of pacification by empowering two successive ambassadors, Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge, to act as proconsuls. As head of the country team, the ambassador was expected to unify and integrate the various programs run by separate American agencies: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), and the U.S. Armed Forces that supported Vietnamese pacification efforts. Throughout 1965 the president resisted suggestions that he appoint a Vietnam czar to manage the so-called other war (pacification) in Washington. He had no stomach for disrupting normal bureaucratic arrangements in the midst of war.

871

That reluctance began to soften after Johnson conferred in Honolulu early in February 1966 with South Vietnamese leaders Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky. This conference put the spotlight on pacification. The president sought to energize his own officials in Washington and Saigon as well as the South Vietnamese leadership and to make clear that the “other war” was equal in importance to the war being fought by American and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces. Around the time of the Honolulu conference, the pacification program began to show signs of new life under the dynamic but temperamental General Nguyen Duc Thang, minister of revolutionary development, and the return of political stability in Saigon in 1966 under Thieu and Ky. After the conference Johnson made two significant appointments. He chose Ambassador William Porter, Lodge’s deputy, to pull together the American effort in Saigon to support pacification. To improve military cooperation, Porter was later given a military assistant, Brigadier General Willis Crittenberger. To enhance management and improve the support of pacification in Washington, Johnson appointed Robert Komer (who then worked for Bundy) as his special presidential assistant for pacification. Johnson granted Komer authority to deal directly with the secretaries of state and defense, the director of central intelligence, the administrator of USAID, and most significantly the president himself. Porter and Komer worked closely together, but their efforts were a study in contrasts. Porter became bogged down with administrative chores that Ambassador Lodge insisted he continue to perform. Lodge was reluctant to let Porter take steps that would centralize U.S. management of pacification support or diminish the autonomy of separate U.S. agencies and their programs. Armed with Johnson’s mandate, Komer ran roughshod over Washington bureaucrats, cajoling, threatening, and invoking the president’s name to improve the management of pacification support and earning the nickname “Blowtorch” for his pains. By the summer of 1966 Komer became convinced that a single manager was needed to run the array of American pacification programs in Vietnam and that the military, with its abundant manpower, effective logistics system, and unique capabilities such as road building, needed to be involved in pacification support and should perhaps even be in charge. Komer bluntly told Porter, who adamantly opposed military control, that “The civil side is a mess. Compared to our military operations, it’s still farcical.” Johnson was unwilling in the autumn of 1966 to strip responsibility for pacification support from the embassy, so he gave Porter and Lodge, as the civilian leaders in Vietnam, one last chance to manage pacification support and show results. The agency that emerged, the Office of Civilian Operations, was hampered by Lodge’s continued insistence that Porter devote his time to running the embassy, in spite of the president’s admonitions. Convinced that the military would have to be involved, Komer lobbied for the unification of civilian and military support of pacification under General Westmoreland. In May 1967 Johnson finally agreed,

872

Pacification

appointing Komer as Westmoreland’s deputy for pacification, with the rank of ambassador. Komer established a new organization called Civil Operations and Revolutionary (later changed to Rural) Development Support, or CORDS, to put under a single manager most American civilian and military programs that supported pacification. CORDS was a unique amalgamation of military and civilian personnel. The organization also assumed control of some CIA and USAID programs and appointed military advisers to districts and provinces, which gave CORDS access to military support. CORDS was designed to prevent military domination of pacification, a sensitive point for U.S. civilian agencies. Komer regularly met with the U.S. ambassador, South Vietnamese leaders and cabinet officials, and Westmoreland and his military staff principals and unit commanders. As a staff principal in Westmoreland’s headquarters, Komer could raise issues with the American commander and had access to military logistics, supplies, manpower, and engineering support. Komer took immediate steps to unify pacification and establish CORDS. He greatly increased the number of American advisers to the South Vietnamese RF/PF and sought better training and equipment for them, believing that the neglected paramilitary forces offered the best opportunity to achieve sustained local security, a key factor absent from earlier pacification efforts. The other critical step was to gain Westmoreland’s approval for a new program, named Phoenix, to attack the VCI. Over the U.S. military’s objections, Westmoreland gave CORDS and not his intelligence chief, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), J-2, responsibility for gathering intelligence on the VCI. Phoenix attempted to mesh the collection efforts of South Vietnamese and U.S. civilian and military intelligence agencies. The goal was to obtain timely and accurate information from all sources and make it available to regular and special police so they could arrest members of the VCI in a timely manner. Getting the South Vietnamese to agree to this program, enact it into law, and actually set it up took many frustrating months. Westmoreland approved the concept in July 1967; it became operational a year later. For the first six months of its existence, CORDS worked to unify existing programs, add staff, bring on board additional advisers, and get new efforts such as Phoenix in gear. The 1968 Communist Tet Offensive occurred before CORDS had demonstrated any visible results. At the same time, getting the ministries of the government of the newly elected President Thieu to act decisively proved to be difficult. Without a doubt, the Tet Offensive set pacification back but also had the effect of energizing it. The first comprehensive integrated pacification plan, the Accelerated Pacification Campaign, from November 1, 1968, to January 31, 1969, materialized from apparent defeat. The Tet Offensive evoked wildly disparate assessments in Saigon and Washington. In Saigon, American and South Vietnamese officials viewed the Communist military effort as a failure: VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) losses

were high, the anticipated popular uprising failed to occur, and no significant military objectives, except the city of Hue, were held for long. Washington viewed the offensive as a political and psychological defeat because the Communists had unexpectedly launched an all-out national offensive that hit many cities, and a small raiding party briefly and suicidally entered the U.S. embassy’s grounds. To Komer, the spent offensive offered an opportunity to demonstrate that pacification could indeed make the visible gains that had eluded earlier plans. By March 1968 Komer was convinced that the failed Communist offensive had left a vacuum in the countryside. Severely weakened by losses, the VC, in his view, would be unable to challenge the expansion of the pacification program into contested or Communist-controlled areas. Moreover, increasing the population under South Vietnamese government control would also help U.S. and South Vietnamese negotiators at the Paris peace talks, scheduled to begin in the autumn of 1968. Komer overcame significant resistance from CORDS and the American command. They were reluctant to embark on the ambitious plan to improve security in 1,000 contested and Communistcontrolled hamlets in 90 days. General Creighton Abrams, who had replaced Westmoreland as the commander of American forces in Vietnam, agreed that the VC would be unable to resist, and in September he approved the concept of a special pacification offensive. It took a concerted effort by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, Komer, and his deputy, William Colby, to persuade President Thieu and his generals that they had more than enough Revolutionary Development cadre teams and RF/PF units to carry out the Accelerated Pacification Campaign offensive. The Accelerated Pacification Campaign set targets for all major pacification programs, ranging from the number of VC to be arrested to the number of defectors, and committed the South Vietnamese ministries and armed forces to carry it out. Critical to the campaign was Abrams’s commitment to have U.S. military units support the campaign. During the campaign nearly half of all U.S. ground operations were launched in support of the campaign. The Accelerated Pacification Campaign enjoyed mixed success. On the one hand, most statistical goals were reached or exceeded, and the Americans were generally pleased with South Vietnamese performance. The VC offered little overt armed resistance to the expansion, giving credence to the view that they were a depleted military force. Communist cadres seemed to concentrate on solidifying political control of their villages to hold on to what was already theirs. On the other hand, Komer’s overriding purpose for the campaign was not achieved. The offensive failed to persuade the American press or the government in Washington that the war was being won and that pacification had made real, lasting progress. After the Accelerated Pacification Campaign, civilian agencies in Washington argued that the recent gains in pacification were fragile and reversible should the Communists choose to contest them more vigorously.

Pacification The Accelerated Pacification Campaign initiated a period of gains and improvements in pacification that lasted until the 1972 Easter Offensive. The percentage of the population living in government-controlled hamlets rose from 42 percent in 1967 to 80 percent in 1972, according to HES data. The number of RF/PF troops increased from 300,000 in 1967 to 520,000 at the end of 1972, and they were better armed and trained. The number of South Vietnamese police went from 74,000 to 121,000 over the same period. The VCI lost strength and prominence. The VCI shrank from an estimated 85,000 in August 1967 to 56,000 in February 1972, and the ranks of VC guerrilla units dropped from 77,000 in January 1968 to 25,000 in May 1972. To replenish these losses, Hanoi filled many guerrilla units with soldiers from its army, outsiders in South Vietnam’s villages. Many key VC leaders and cadre, who were largely native southerners, had been killed or captured or had defected. Their replacements were generally of lower caliber. The Accelerated Pacification Campaign brought unprecedented success to the pacification program and gave the South Vietnamese government the chance, beginning at the end of 1968, to consolidate control over the countryside and build a national political community. In November 1968 Colby took over CORDS after Komer was named ambassador to Turkey. Colby assumed control of an established, functioning organization. Thanks to improvements in the RF/PF under Komer and heavy VC losses during the 1968 Tet Offensive, Colby could afford to be less concerned with local security than his predecessor had been. Although the RF/PF, police, and Chieu Hoi and Phoenix programs continued as high-priority items, Colby oriented CORDS toward rural economic development and political programs, taking advantage of improved security. In his view, the South Vietnamese government needed to develop the political and social resources to sustain itself over the long term, a position that accorded well with President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnamization policy. The three “selfs” summarized his approach to pacification: “self-defense, self-government, and self-development.” Colby also benefited from extensive military support for pacification under General Abrams. The Accelerated Pacification Campaign had established a precedent for meshing pacification plans and military operations, and Abrams preached the importance of pacification over attrition to his commanders, trying to change their attitudes toward the “other war.” Results were mixed. Some operations, such as WASHINGTON GREEN in Binh Dinh Province in 1968 and 1969, were models of cooperation between U.S. and ARVN units and between American pacification advisers and local governmental officials. WASHINGTON GREEN was designed and carried out specifically to improve security and gain the political loyalty of villagers. Other operations, such as RUSSELL BEACH in Quang Ngai Province in 1969, proved as inimical to provincial pacification plans as Operation CEDAR FALLS had in 1966, when

873

Westmoreland was in command. Both operations saw the involuntary removal of villagers from their homes into hastily prepared and inadequate refugee camps so that commanders could maximize the use of firepower. Both caused emotional and physical harm to the persons displaced; neither resulted in the long-term improvement of security. A basic problem for pacification was assessing progress in a political war without front lines. The war was fought village by village and district by district. The HES attempted to measure the percentage of people living in areas under government control, clearly a different yardstick than persons committed to the government. By its nature the so-called war for hearts and minds had few objective measures, and some that seemed objective, such as the numbers of RF/PF and militia under arms, were not as critical as the subjective evaluations of their combat ability and willingness to fight. American advisers experienced frequent frustration with the performance of both Vietnamese forces in fighting the VC and government officials in carrying out pacification programs honestly and effectively. As for Communist losses, there were doubts here also. Clearly the VC and the VCI were weaker in 1972 than in 1967, and programs such as Phoenix and Chieu Hoi definitely weakened the insurgency. But Phoenix proved so controversial that it is moot whether its overall impact was positive or negative. The Communist leadership’s commitment to replace losses and continue the war was unshaken. Historians and participants disagree over the accomplishments of pacification. The evidence is inconclusive. The war ended with a conventional military offensive, an indication to some that pacification had succeeded and forced the Communists to take up a big-unit war in 1972 and 1975. Yet the VC, although weakened, remained formidable in difficult provinces such as Hau Nghia and Binh Dinh and were found throughout South Vietnam. They could have continued the insurgency. Pacification was hard to judge in isolation because its gains depended to a significant extent on allied military support and occurred after the VC suffered heavy losses in the 1968 Tet Offensive. To what degree pacification would have flourished against a stronger foe cannot be determined in retrospect. In any event, the program did not realize its potential until after the Tet Offensive, too late to affect the growing public and media perception in America that the war was stalemated. The critical element in pacification was the Vietnamese parties. The Communists were determined to conquer South Vietnam and unify the country, and they adjusted their strategy and tactics several times during the war to attain that end. They would not give up. Some historians have argued that if a substantial and coordinated civil military pacification program had been launched in 1965, the war could have been won. That interpretation fails to acknowledge how moribund pacification then was and also underestimates the enormously difficult task of transforming

874

Palme, Olof

South Vietnam into a viable nation-state, an outcome that would have taken so long that it would probably have exhausted U.S. support. RICHARD A. HUNT See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Bundy, McGeorge; Bunker, Ellsworth; Chieu Hoi Program; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Colby, William Egan; Hamlet Evaluation System; Honolulu Conference; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Komer, Robert W.; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Mao Zedong; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Phoenix Program; Porter, William James; Refugees and Boat People; Strategic Hamlet Program; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Territorial Forces; United States Agency for International Development; Vietnamization References Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1990. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Moyar, Mark. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1999. Thayer, Thomas. How to Analyze a War without Fronts. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. Swedish premier Olof Palme, a strong critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam. (Getty Images)

Palme, Olof Birth Date: January 30, 1927 Death Date: February 28, 1986 Swedish premier (1969–1976, 1982–1986), internationally known peace and disarmament advocate, and sharp critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Born on January 30, 1927, Sven Olof Joachim Palme attended private schools before receiving an undergraduate degree in politics and economics at Kenyon College (Ohio) in 1948 and a law degree from the University of Stockholm in 1951. A Social Democrat, Palme worked for Swedish prime minister Tage Erlander as his personal aide and was then elected to Parliament in 1958. In 1963 Palme entered government service as a minister without portfolio. In 1965 he became minister of communication, and two years later he became minister of education, a post he held until being elected prime minister in October 1969. Palme was often controversial especially in the area of foreign affairs, in which he demonstrated much interest. He fervently protected Sweden’s neutral status in the Cold War and often championed the plight of countries in the developing world. In general, however, his actual foreign policies were far less incendiary than his rhetoric. Palme angered Americans in 1968 when he joined the ambassador to the Soviet Union from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in a Stockholm demonstration against

U.S. Vietnam policy. Palme also angered Americans when he compared Richard M. Nixon to Adolf Hitler and the December 1972 Christmas Bombings (Operation LINEBACKER II) to the Nazi-inspired Holocaust of World War II. Further annoying to Washington was the Palme government’s policy of permitting U.S. draft resisters and military deserters to take up residence in Sweden. Indeed, the Nixon administration was so exasperated with Palme that it withdrew the U.S. ambassador to Sweden from 1972 to 1974. Palme left office in 1976 but returned to power in 1982 and won reelection in 1985. During his second tenure in office he worked hard on disarmament issues and was a proponent of global common security as a way to reduce Cold War tensions. He was assassinated in the street in Stockholm on February 28, 1986. The man accused of gunning down Palme was later acquitted because of lack of evidence, and to this day his assassin remains unknown. This has fueled myriad conspiracy theories. CLAYTON D. LAURIE AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Oberg, Jean-Christophe

References Fredriksson, Gunnar. Olof Palme. Stockholm: Swedish Institute, 1996. Mosey, Chris. Cruel Awakening: Sweden and the Killing of Olof Palme. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Palme, Olof. Socialism, Peace, and Solidarity: Selected Speeches of Olof Palme. Edited by Enuga Sreenivasulu. New Dehli: Vikas, 1990.

Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea

Palmer, Bruce, Jr. Birth Date: April 13, 1913 Death Date: October 10, 2000 U.S. Army general and Vietnam War author. Born in Austin, Texas, on April 13, 1913, Bruce Palmer Jr. graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1936, and was a classmate of General William Westmoreland. During World War II Palmer was the chief of staff of the 6th Infantry Division in the Southwest Pacific; from 1946 to 1956 he commanded the 63rd Infantry Regiment in Korea. He was promoted to brigadier general in August 1959, to major general in May 1962, and to lieutenant general in July 1964. In May 1965 Palmer commanded Task Force 120 and U.S. Land Forces during the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic. From 1965 to 1967 he commanded the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From March to July 1967 Palmer commanded II Field Force, the largest U.S. Army combat command in Vietnam. During his tenure as commander, II Field Force executed Operations JUNCTION CITY and MANHATTAN, the two largest operations of the war to that time. From July 1967 to June 1968 Palmer was the deputy commander of U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV). Although General Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was also “dual hatted” as USARV commander, the USARV deputy commander actually ran the USARV’S daily operations. Promoted to full general in August 1968, Palmer was vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army from that date to June 1972. When General Creighton Abrams was selected to succeed Westmoreland as chief of staff, his confirmation was delayed by Senate hearings investigating allegations that U.S. commanders in Vietnam had exceeded their authority by conducting unauthorized air strikes in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). During that interim period until October 1972, Palmer served as the acting chief of staff. Palmer retired from the army in September 1974, his last assignment being commander of the U.S. Army Readiness Command. Palmer wrote one of the most important books about Vietnam, The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam, published in 1984. In it he provides a penetrating analysis of the U.S. military decision-making process during the formative years of the war. He also provides a thorough critique of the disjointed operational chain of command for the war. Although the MACV commander controlled military operations within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command controlled the offensive air war over North Vietnam, while Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes remained under the control of the Strategic Air Command. Palmer points out that one of the major flaws of the U.S. strategy was in placing too much faith in the air war. Although the air interdiction program was the most effective element of that aspect of the war, it too was weakened by the lack of supporting ground operations. In assessing what military strategy might have worked,

875

Palmer suggests that defeating the insurgent threat in South Vietnam should have been the primary responsibility of the South Vietnamese. According to Palmer, U.S. ground forces should have prevented People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regular forces and supplies from moving into South Vietnam by massing in the northern part of the country and cutting lines of communications within Laos. In an August 1995 interview in the Wall Street Journal, Bui Tin, a former colonel on the PAVN General Staff, agreed that those very actions would have cost the Communists the war. In discussing the larger lessons of the war, Palmer emphasizes that the employment of military force is an art rather than an exact science. He concludes that “It is supremely important that our national leaders, civilian and military, have a fundamental understanding of the capabilities and limitations of military power. Vietnam demonstrated how the lack of such understanding can lead to disastrous failure.” Palmer does not imply that all the fault for the failure in Vietnam lay with the nation’s political leadership. He also states that “One body of opinion believes that things would have turned out differently had the military not ‘had their hands tied.’ I have much difficulty with this thesis because I feel that our top-level military leaders must share the onus of failure.” Palmer died on October 10, 2000, in Alexandria, Virginia. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Bell, William G. Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff: 1775–1983. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Young, Stephen. “How North Vietnam Won the War.” Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1995.

Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Two island groups in the South China Sea; their Vietnamese names are Quan Dao Hoang Sa (Paracel Archipelago) and Quan Dao Truong Sa (Spratly Archipelago). The Paracels, which the Chinese call Xisha, are located about 170 nautical miles from Da Nang and from the Chinese island of Hainan, between 15°45' and 17°05' north latitude and 111°00' and 113°00' east longitude. This archipelago comprises about 15 to 30 islands, depending on the way they are counted. The Spratlys, which the Chinese call Nansha and the Filipinos call Kalayaan, are about 250 nautical miles from Cam Ranh Bay, between 6°50' and 12°00' north latitude and 111°30' and 117°20' east longitude. This archipelago is made up of about 100 large and

876

Paris Negotiations

small islands and covers an area of 61,775 square miles; the center of the archipelago is approximately midway between Vietnam and the Philippines. Several nations of Southeast Asia, China, and Taiwan currently dispute the sovereignty of these islands. After two decades of occupation by troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), in 1974 the Paracels were seized by force by People’s Republic of China (PRC) troops. The Spratlys have been claimed not only by Vietnam, the PRC, and Taiwan but also by the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. During an armed clash between Vietnam and the PRC in 1988 in which Vietnam lost two naval vessels and almost 100 men, PRC forces seized control of several small reefs in the Spratlys. Reasons given for the disputes over these islands were, among others, the strategic position of both the Paracels and Spratlys and possible nearby offshore oil deposits. From the Paracels a naval power could control navigation in the northern part of the South China Sea, and from the Spratlys a naval power could follow all ship traffic within Southeast Asia between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. In these disputes, Vietnam and China claim all the islands. China bases its argument on the rights of discovery, while Vietnam emphasizes its continuous occupation since the 17th century. The Philippines and Malaysia emphasize the Spratlys’ proximity to their own territory. PHAM CAO DUONG See also China, People’s Republic of; China, Republic of; Philippines References Chi-kin Lo. China’s Policy toward Territorial Disputes. New York: Routledge, 1989. The Hoang Sa and Truong Sa Archipelagoes (Paracels and Spratlys). Hanoi: Vietnam Courrier, 1981. Lafont, Pierre-Bernard, ed. Les Frontières du Vietnam: Histoire des Frontières de la Peninsule Indochinoise. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989. Vo Long Te. Les Archipels de Hoang-Sa et de Truong-Sa selon les Anciens Ouvrages de l’Histoire et de Géographie. Saigon: Ministère de la Culture, de l’Education et de la Jeunesse, 1974.

Paris Negotiations Start Date: 1968 End Date: 1973 As with the Vietnam War, the peace negotiations were long, painful, and frustrating. From the first meeting to the last, the talks lasted 4 years, 8 months, and 17 days, during which more than 20,000 Americans and perhaps three-quarters of a million Vietnamese on both sides were killed. The stage was set for the talks when President Lyndon B. Johnson announced on March 31, 1968, that the United States would stop bombing north of the 20th Parallel in the Democratic Republic

of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and would seek to open negotiations. Four days later Hanoi agreed to send a representative to meet with U.S. officials, although only to discuss an unconditional halt to the rest of the bombing. After several weeks of haggling about the site of the meeting, both sides agreed on Paris. On May 10 in a conference hall on Avenue Kleber, U.S. and North Vietnamese negotiators faced each other for the first time. Three days later the talks formally opened. W. Averell Harriman headed the U.S. delegation, and veteran diplomat Xuan Thuy represented North Vietnam. During the next five months the North Vietnamese continued to insist that nothing else could be negotiated until all air strikes on its territory had stopped. President Johnson hesitated but finally, on the last day of October 1968, announced the halt, although U.S. negotiators refused to call it unconditional, as the North Vietnamese demanded. The next hurdle was widening the talks to include the two parties of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). North Vietnam and its ally, the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), refused to accept South Vietnam as a legitimate participant. Just as adamantly, the South Vietnamese government refused to recognize the NLF. To get around the impasse, Harriman and his deputy Cyrus Vance proposed that instead of officially identifying the four parties, negotiators would simply refer to “our side” and “your side.” Through this diplomatic fiction, NLF representatives could join the North Vietnamese team but without having to be acknowledged by Saigon’s delegates; similarly, South Vietnamese negotiators could sit with their American allies without having to be acknowledged by the North Vietnamese–NLF side. Hanoi agreed, but South Vietnames president Nguyen Van Thieu balked, delaying the first session until January 16, 1969, four days before Richard M. Nixon’s inauguration as president. Nixon named Henry Cabot Lodge to replace Harriman as the chief U.S. negotiator. Lodge resigned in November and was replaced the following year by David K. E. Bruce. Meanwhile, in June 1969 the NLF proclaimed the establishment of a new Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam, giving its delegation the same governmental status as the other three participants. The start of negotiations brought a flurry of hope that the war might be settled quickly. Instead the talks fell into a dreary ritual of weekly sessions during which both sides recited long-standing positions again and again, without ever coming close to agreement. The Nixon administration meanwhile shifted its negotiating effort from the official talks into a new secret channel. On August 4, 1969, Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, held the first secret meeting with Xuan Thuy in Paris. Le Duc Tho, one of Hanoi’s senior leaders, took over as the North Vietnamese negotiator in subsequent sessions.

Paris Peace Accords For more than three years while the United States offered various plans for a cease-fire followed by troop withdrawals and negotiations for a political settlement, the North Vietnamese insisted in both the official and secret talks that the only way to end the war was for the United States to dissolve the Saigon government, disband its army, and install a new coalition that would then negotiate for a truce. Hanoi’s position began to soften in the summer of 1972 in the aftermath of that year’s Easter Offensive. Then on October 8, 1972, Tho handed Kissinger a draft treaty, agreeing for the first time that the Thieu regime could remain in existence and negotiate with the PRG, after a cease-fire, for a permanent political settlement. “We have done it!” Kissinger exulted. Over the next 10 days he and Tho reached agreement on a final draft. But when Kissinger went to Vietnam to secure Thieu’s signature, the South Vietnamese president balked, objecting most vehemently to the fact that the draft treaty did not require North Vietnamese troops to leave South Vietnam. Thieu also objected to the proposed National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, which was to oversee political negotiations and elections for a new South Vietnamese government. Although Kissinger urged the president to proceed without Thieu, Nixon refused to abandon him. Talks resumed in November, but North Vietnam rejected concessions to an agreement already reached and broke off the talks in mid-December. The North Vietnamese government also published the agreed-upon peace terms. When the North Vietnamese refused Nixon’s demand to return to the peace table, he unleashed U.S. airpower against North Vietnam. The resulting 11-day U.S. air assault, code-named LINEBACKER II and widely known as the Christmas Bombings, led Hanoi to send Tho back to the Paris talks. On January 23, 1973, Kissinger and Tho initialed a treaty that except for some minor changes was essentially the same as their October draft. The formal signing was set for January 27, bringing the negotiations to a conclusion at last. This time Thieu was forced to agree. Nixon promised a sizable transfer of weaponry but also pledged to Thieu that if North Vietnam was to break the terms of the cease-fire, the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam. ARNOLD R. ISAACS See also Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este; Harriman, William Averell; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Le Duc Tho; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Peace Accords; Xuan Thuy References Dillard, Walter Scott. Sixty Days to Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam 1973. Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1982. Goodman, Allan E. The Lost Peace: America’s Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1978. Kissinger, Henry A. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

877

Paris Peace Accords Event Date: January 17, 1973 The “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, ended direct U.S. military involvement in the conflict but failed to end the war itself. The signing ceremony revealed the hostility that still existed between the warring sides. The foreign ministers of the two South Vietnamese opponents, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG, Communists), would not even put their signatures on the same copy of the document but instead signed on separate pages, while representatives of the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) signed yet a third copy. The agreement opened by declaring that “the United States and all other countries respect the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Vietnam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam.” This was meaningful because it reflected the position that the Communist side had argued for years: that Vietnam was one country, not two, and thus their revolution was not “foreign aggression,” as Saigon and the United States had maintained but instead was a legitimate struggle to regain national independence and unity. The agreement’s other provisions called for the following: • A cease-fire, to take effect on January 27 at midnight, Greenwich mean time (8:00 a.m. the next day, Saigon time). Following the cease-fire, Vietnamese forces would remain in place; resupply of weapons, munitions, and war matériel would be permitted but only to replace items destroyed or used up during the truce. • Withdrawal of all U.S. and other foreign troops within 60 days, with the release of all U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) “carried out simultaneously” with the troop withdrawal. The signers also promised to assist in accounting for missing personnel and to help find, identify, and repatriate the remains of those who had died. • Negotiations between South Vietnamese parties for a settlement that would “end hatred and enmity” and allow the South Vietnamese people to freely decide their political future. A National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, with members representing both South Vietnamese sides and a neutral “third force,” would oversee the negotiations and organize elections for a new government. Following a settlement in South Vietnam, reunification of the two Vietnams was to be “carried out step by step through peaceful means.” Other clauses covered such matters as establishing an international observer force and respect for the neutrality of Laos and Cambodia. The withdrawal of U.S. forces was completed as promised. Some 23,000 American troops, the last of a force that had once

878

Paris Peace Accords

U.S. representative Henry Kissinger (left, foreground) and North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho (background, second from right) initial the cease-fire agreement in Paris in January 1973. The Paris Peace Accords ended U.S. military involvement in the conflict, but the war between North and South Vietnam continued. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

numbered more than 500,000 men, left during the 60 days following the truce. On the final day the U.S. command issued its last general order: “Headquarters Military Assistance Command Vietnam is inactivated this date and its mission and functions reassigned.” At 6:00 p.m. the last troops boarded a U.S. Air Force transport and flew out of the country. Only the truce observers, a detachment of U.S. Marine Corps embassy guards, a small team of missing in action (MIA) negotiators, and 50 military personnel assigned to the Defense Attaché Office now remained in South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government meanwhile released 591 American POWs. Although the POW issue remained contentious for many years afterward, the Hanoi leadership never wavered from its insistence that it had turned over all the POWs in its hands at the time of the agreement. Aside from ending U.S. military involvement, the agreement achieved none of its other objectives. No political settlement was reached, the national reconciliation council was never created, and no election was held. Nor did the fighting stop or even slow down.

Only the United States, among the four signatories, observed the cease-fire. For the Vietnamese, the war continued as before. The failure of the truce was ordained even before it was supposed to take effect. The agreement called for a “cease-fire in place” but made no provision for establishing, even in rough terms, where the forces of each side belonged. Consequently, there was an irresistible temptation for both sides to try to seize as much territory as possible in the final hours. The Communist side, which was not tied down, as was Saigon’s army, by the need to keep large forces deployed to protect major towns and communications routes, struck more aggressively. In the 36 hours before the cease-fire was to begin, Communist forces penetrated more than 400 towns and villages and cut every major highway in the country. Although not technically violating the agreement, the attacks drastically altered the true battle lines that the truce was intended to preserve. Had South Vietnamese troops actually frozen in place at the cease-fire hour, South Vietnam’s enemy would have been left occupying hundreds of positions that were normally under Saigon’s control. There was no possibility that President Nguyen

Parrot’s Beak Van Thieu and his generals would accept that situation, and they did not. Thieu ordered his forces to keep fighting, even if offensive operations continued after the cease-fire hour. In about two weeks South Vietnamese troops recaptured most of the territory seized in fighting before the cease-fire. Had they paused at that point with more or less normal battle lines reestablished, the cease-fire might have taken hold. Instead, they remained on the offensive. As fighting continued, both sides took the position that military operations, including attacks anywhere in the enemy’s zone, were justified by the other side’s prior violations of the cease-fire. Because there had never been any agreement on where either side’s forces belonged in the first place (in fact, neither ever conceded that its enemy had a right to any territory at all), there was no way to restore the lines that were supposed to have been frozen by the truce. Instead there was only an endless chain of retaliations in which over time even the idea of peace gradually disappeared. Casualties told the story: 51,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed in 1973 and 1974, the highest two-year toll of the entire war. Two years after it was signed, the agreement was all but forgotten “like a dictionary,” said one member of the international observer force, “for a language that nobody speaks.” ARNOLD R. ISAACS See also National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord; Nguyen Van Thieu; Paris Negotiations References Dillard, Walter Scott. Sixty Days to Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam 1973. Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1982. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Porter, D. Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.

Parrot’s Beak Area of Cambodia at the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that projects into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) above the Mekong Delta, abutting southern Tay Ninh and western Hau Nghia provinces and only some 30 miles from Saigon. Highway 1 ran through this densely populated and fertile area from Saigon to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. As in the Fishhook area to the north, Communist forces maintained semipermanent installations in the Parrot’s Beak from which they infiltrated into the southern III Corps and northern IV Corps Tactical Zones. Although Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces had frequently exercised the right of hot pursuit into Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia, American forces

879

were not permitted to do so. Beginning in March 1969, however, President Richard M. Nixon authorized secret Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombing missions, known as Operation MENU, to deter Communist infiltration. By early 1970, allied forces had driven main-force Communist units across the border into Cambodia, where they regrouped and expanded their support bases. Communist Base Areas 367 and 706 were located in the Parrot’s Beak, and these became the primary objectives of the third phase of the Cambodian Incursion, ordered by President Nixon to begin on May 1, 1970. This phase of the Cambodian Incursion was conducted entirely by ARVN III and IV Corps ground forces; the American 9th Infantry Division provided only artillery and logistical support. Not bound by the 30-mile penetration limit imposed on American forces, ARVN units rapidly moved deep inside Cambodia, uncovering caches of thousands of weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition. ARVN forces successfully engaged both People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Khmer Rouge forces, up to positions north and south of Phnom Penh. The ARVN penetration into and through the Parrot’s Beak was the first real test of Nixon’s Vietnamization policy and was termed a great success. But the operation was complicated by the fact that at the same time ARVN forces were engaging PAVN forces, they found themselves protecting and evacuating thousands of indigenous Vietnamese, as the indigenous Vietnamese were being massacred by General Lon Nol’s Cambodian forces. On at least two occasions, ARVN troops came to the rescue of Cambodian units besieged by retreating PAVN forces. Although ARVN forces remained inside Cambodia for a time and acquitted themselves well, Lon Nol’s army was powerless to impede the reoccupation of the Parrot’s Beak by Communist military units. By the end of 1971 despite daily B-52 bombings, Communist bases were again fully operational; they served as the springboard for massive infiltrations and were an area of heavy fighting during the 1972 Easter Offensive. During 1977–1979 the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime launched many cross-border attacks from the Parrot’s Beak into Vietnam, and large areas of the Parrot’s Beak were devastated by several massive Vietnamese retaliatory attacks. JOHN D. ROOT See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Easter Offensive; Fishhook; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Vietnamization References Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War after the War. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Coleman, J. D. Incursion. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Shaw, John M. The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and America’s Vietnam War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

880

PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation

PASSAGE TO FREEDOM,

Operation

Start Date: 1954 End Date: 1955 The July 1954 Geneva Accords that ended the Indochina War of 1946–1954 provided for the temporary division of Vietnam along the 17th Parallel. National elections to reunify the country were to occur in 1956. In the meantime, Vietnamese both north and south were allowed 300 days in which to relocate within the country. While about 140,000 elected to relocate in the north, 667,245 left the north and settled in the south. The vast bulk of these came from the Red River Delta area, where there was a large number of Catholics. The U.S. government saw a considerable propaganda advantage to be gained in assisting the flight of people from Communist rule and committed units of the U.S. Navy to what became known as Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM. U.S. and French propaganda heightened the exodus, suggesting that the Communist government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) would persecute the Catholics for their religious beliefs. At the same time, Communist propaganda claimed that Vietnamese who went aboard the American ships would be murdered at sea. The U.S. evacuation was carried out by the men and ships of Task Force 90, Amphibious Group One, directed by Rear Admiral Lorenzo S. Sabin. The refugees gathered at the port of Haiphong and then finally on the Do Son Peninsula, from there to be transported to ports in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), including Saigon. Known in South Vietnam as Operation EXODUS, this infusion of a large number of South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem’s coreligionist Roman Catholics was of immense assistance to him in helping to stabilize his government in the tumultuous early years of the South Vietnamese government. The 300-day Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM was actually part of a wider effort by France and the United states to evacuate French military and civilian personnel as well as Vietnamese. The French evacuated nearly as many Vietnamese civilians: 172,783 by air and 101,239 by sea; the American sea lift evacuated 292,002 people, while another 41,328 Vietnamese civilians were self-evacuated. This is a total of 607,352 civilians who came south. A total of 58,893 Vietnamese military personnel were also moved south: 6,187 by the French by air, 37,838 by French ships, and 14,868 by U.S. ships. In addition, the evacuation brought off 95,517 French military personnel (2,978 in U.S. ships) and 38,024 French civilians (all by means of French aircraft or ships). The last U.S. ship left the tip of the Do Son Peninsula on May 16, 1955. By that date the total number of the Vietnamese and French civilians and military personnel transported stood at 799,786. U.S. assistance extended well beyond the mere passage of the refugees to the south and included activities by the United States Overseas Mission (USOM) ashore in North Vietnam as well as emergency food, medical care, clothing, and shelter at reception

Refugees board a U.S. Navy ship during Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM in 1954. Fearful of Viet Minh persecution, some 667,000 Vietnamese took advantage of the provision in the 1954 Geneva Accords that allowed 300 days for Vietnamese to move either north or south of the 17th Parallel. Only about 140,000 moved north. (Naval Historical Center)

centers in South Vietnam. U.S. government and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) also assisted in resettlement of the refugees. The U.S. press lauded American participation—particularly the activities of U.S. Navy doctor Thomas Dooley, who was later decorated by Diem for his work among the refugees—as evidence of U.S. dedication to “freedom-loving people” seeking to “escape Communist tyranny.” Although this is by no means proven, some have asserted that this large U.S. humanitarian sea lift established a “moral obligation” on the part of the United States to ensure that the refugees could live in a democratic society, that it deepened America’s commitment to nation building in South Vietnam, and that it helped bring about the subsequent massive U.S. commitment there. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ngo Dinh Diem; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Operation Passage to Freedom: The United States Navy in Vietnam, 1954–1955. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2007.

Pathet Lao Hooper, Edwin B., Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, Vol. 1, The Setting of the Stage to 1959. Washington, DC: U.S. Navy, Naval History Division, 1976. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Pathet Lao Front group for Communist forces in Laos. The name Pathet Lao means “Land of the Lao” and was applied for the first time to the clandestine resistance government formed by Prince Souphanouvong in August 1950 to fight against the French. The early history of the Pathet Lao paralleled in almost every respect that of the front group formed by Ho Chi Minh in 1941, the Viet Minh, which was also controlled by a small core of Communist leaders. Just as the Viet Minh front was formed in a secure base area over the border in China, the Pathet Lao front was formed at a meeting inside the border in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Although the Pathet Lao’s program was designed to appeal to non-Communist nationalists with its slogans “Peace, independence, neutrality and prosperity,” the Pathet Lao

881

never achieved the same degree of popularity among the Laotians as the Viet Minh did in Vietnam, probably because they were so evidently dependent on the Vietnamese Communists. Nevertheless, the Pathet Lao, with aid and support from the North Vietnamese government, waged a long civil war and ultimately managed to seize control of the Laotian government in 1975. In December 1975 the group did away with the 600-year-old monarchy and proclaimed the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR). All other political entities were banned, and thousands of former government officials and other non-Communists were sent to “seminar” camps, a euphemism for internment camps, where many perished. That same month the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), the Communist political front for the Pathet Lao, was formed. Since the mid-1970s Laos has been governed exclusively by the LDRP, which has exercised almost complete control over Laotian affairs. Beginning in the 1980s in an attempt to overcome lagging economic performance and grinding poverty, the party enacted limited reforms designed to modernize the Laotian economy. As late as the late 1990s the LPRP had only about 70,000 members in a nation with more than 6 million people. Laos remains an orthodox Socialist nation today, with an economy heavily dependent upon its Socialist neighbors of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). ARTHUR J. DOMMEN AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

Communist Pathet Lao troops during a military exercise in Laos, 1959. (Library of Congress)

882

Patti, Archimedes L. A.

See also Laos; Souphanouvong; United Front; Viet Minh References Zasloff, Joseph J., and MacAlister Brown. Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930–1985. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986. Zasloff, Joseph J., and Leonard Unger, eds. Laos: Beyond the Revolution. London: Macmillan, 1991.

Patti, Archimedes L. A. Birth Date: July 21, 1913 Death Date: April 23, 1998 U.S. Army officer serving in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who formed a friendship with Ho Chi Minh in 1945 and witnessed the assumption of power by the Viet Minh in Hanoi. Archimedes L. A. Patti was born in New York City on July 21, 1913, and was educated in the United States and Italy. He entered the U.S. Army in 1936 and worked with the British intelligence services during 1942–1944. Captain Patti’s Indochina experience began on April 13, 1945, when he arrived at the OSS headquarters at Kunming in southern China. The head of the Secret Intelligence Branch ordered Patti to investigate the establishment in Indochina of a network using independence-minded Vietnamese to provide intelligence on Japanese troop strengths and movements. This assignment led to Patti’s acquaintance with Ho Chi Minh, who offered the services of the Viet Minh in return for arms and funds from the OSS. Following the Japanese surrender, Patti headed a group of OSS officers who flew into Hanoi on August 22, 1945, becoming the first Allied representatives in that city. Ostensibly their mission was to locate and arrange for the repatriation of Allied prisoners of war. Patti remained in Hanoi, seeing Ho and his military commander Vo Nguyen Giap on numerous occasions, until October 1. In a book that Patti wrote in 1980 about his experiences, he emphasized Ho’s aspirations for independence and played down his Communist background. Patti left the U.S. Army in 1957 but continued his work in national security affairs and crisis management until 1971. He died in Winter Park, Florida, on April 23, 1998, after a long illness. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Dewey, Albert Peter; Ho Chi Minh; Office of Strategic Services; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Charlton, Michael, and Anthony Moncrieff. Many Reasons Why: The American Involvement in Vietnam. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Patton, George Smith, IV Birth Date: December 24, 1923 Death Date: June 27, 2004 U.S. Army officer who served three tours of duty in Vietnam as both a staff officer and as a field commander, including command of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. George Smith Patton IV, the son of famed World War II general George S. Patton, was born on December 24, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts. A 1946 graduate of the United States Military Academy, West Point, the younger Patton originally trained as an infantry officer but soon transferred to the armor branch. He served in West Germany during the period of the 1948 Berlin Airlift. There he became a career-long protégé of future commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), and chief of staff of the U.S. Army General Creighton W. Abrams Jr., himself a protégé of Patton’s father. In 1953 as part of a tour of duty during the Korean War, Patton took command of A Company, 140th Tank Battalion, 40th Infantry Division, under the operational control of a Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) division. In Korea, Patton went on to earn both a Silver Star and the notice of senior officers. After returning from Korea, Patton taught for two years at West Point as a member of the Department of Tactics and later was part of a teacher exchange with the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Patton also studied at the Armed Forces Staff College. Patton, who like his father spoke fluent French, was also a frequent contributor to military journals. Patton served three tours of duty in Vietnam. In his first tour of duty (April 1962–April 1963) he was assigned as a staff officer at the MACV Special Operations as a liaison to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). There he assisted in the transition of the numerically small Special Forces detachments from CIA funding and control to MACV control. During this period Special Forces detachments grew from roughly 5 to more than 40 detachments. After returning from his first tour of duty in Vietnam and completing the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Patton assumed command of the 2nd Medium Tank Battalion, 81st Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division, at Fort Hood, Texas. In 1965 he was assigned to the Pentagon in the U.S. Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, the Vietnam Desk of the Far East Pacific Division. This was a key staff position, especially because the Vietnam buildup was then under way. Patton then spent three months in Vietnam as a member of the Mechanized Armor Combat Operations in Vietnam Study Group collecting data on the use of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and air cavalry in-country. During Patton’s third tour of duty in Vietnam (January 1968– January 1969) he commanded a brigade-sized unit in combat. During his first six months he was assigned as the deputy assistant chief of staff for operations and plans at Headquarters, U.S. Army–Vietnam. Following promotion to full colonel in April 1968, Patton assumed command of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment

Paul VI, Pope (“Blackhorse”). He was a very active commander who saw as his primary mission taking the fight to the enemy. He made frequent use of helicopters for command and control, was shot down on three separate occasions, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Distinguished Service Crosses. During this time Patton received praise for his drive, leadership, and tenacity. However, he received considerable negative press at home over Christmas cards sent out in 1968 showing piled bodies of Vietnamese Communist soldiers inscribed with the words “From Colonel and Mrs. George S. Patton III—Peace on Earth.” Following his Vietnam service Patton was promoted to brigadier general in June 1970 and to major general in 1975 when he assumed command of the 2nd Armored Division, the same unit that his father had commanded in North Africa in World War II. Patton retired from military service in 1980 to a farm near Boston, Massachusetts. He authored numerous articles and books. Plagued by poor health in his later years, Patton died on June 27, 2004, in Hamilton, Massachusetts. SCOTT R. DIMARCO See also Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Special Forces References Axelrod, Alan. Patton: A Bibliography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Patton, Robert H. The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family. New York: Crown, 1994. Sobel, Brian M. The Fighting Pattons. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

PAUL REVERE I–IV,

Operations

Start Date: May 10, 1966 End Date: December 30, 1966 A series of allied screening operations along the Cambodian border in Pleiku Province from May 10 to December 30, 1966. Throughout 1966 no single allied force operated primarily in Pleiku Province, but special task forces were formed. Buoyed by the 1st Cavalry Division’s victory in the Ia Drang Valley the previous autumn, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland favored making the western Central Highlands an area of American concentration, hoping for more main-force battles with the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) to develop. In March and April the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division joined with the newly arrived 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division to conduct two operations in the Chu Pong area that killed more than 500 PAVN soldiers. The mission of PAUL REVERE I/THAN PHONG (May 10–July 30), led by Brigadier General Glenn Walker of the 25th Infantry Division, was to counter a possible offensive of the PAVN 1st Division against the Special Forces border camps. Joining the task force

883

were a battalion of the 2nd Brigade and Troop B, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, from the 1st Cavalry Division; two Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) battalions; and six artillery batteries. For the most part, the relatively small task force sparred with PAVN units over a large area from the Chu Pong Massif to Duc Co and from the Cambodian border to Plei Me. But U.S. forces did engage in heavy fighting at Chu Pong, killing more than 200 PAVN soldiers while taking only light casualties. PAUL REVERE II (August 1–25) was a larger operation, again in the Chu Pong War Zone. When patrolling units of the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division began to take casualties, the 2nd and 3rd brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division were airlifted from An Khe in just 12 hours, followed by the insertion of two ARVN and ROKA battalions. For nearly three weeks the 1st Cavalry Division’s Major General John Norton led 14 battalions against 2 PAVN regiments in a battle that S. L. A. Marshall called “the whopper of the summer,” which resulted in 861 PAVN soldiers killed, 202 captured, and the seizure of more than 300 weapons. PAUL REVERE III in September was uneventful, but PAUL REVERE IV (October 18–December 30) was a major search-and-destroy operation along the Cambodian border conducted primarily by the newly arrived 4th Infantry Division, augmented by elements of the 25th Infantry Division and by the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, barely rested after concluding Operation IRVING in Binh Dinh Province. The operation centered on the Chu Pong–Ia Drang area, and although U.S. forces suffered heavy casualties in ambushes, a PAVN regiment left 977 known dead on the battlefields. JOHN D. ROOT See also Air Mobility; Free World Assistance Program; Ia Drang, Battle of; IRVING, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Search and Destroy; United States Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Hymoff, Edward. The First Air Cavalry Division: Vietnam. New York: M. M. Lads, 1967. Marshall, S. L. A. Battles in the Monsoon: Campaigning in the Central Highlands, South Vietnam, Summer, 1966. New York: William Morrow, 1967. Westmoreland, General William C. Report on the War in Vietnam, Section II, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 1964– June 1968. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

Paul VI, Pope Birth Date: September 26, 1897 Death Date: August 6, 1978 Roman Catholic prelate and pope. Pope Paul VI was born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini on September 26, 1897, in Concesio, Italy, to a well-to-do family of local nobility. Ordained in May 1920, he pursued studies at the Gregorian University and the

884

Paul VI, Pope

University of Rome. He worked briefly for the papal secretariat in Warsaw, Poland, in 1922. Montini became involved with the Catholic student movement between 1924 and 1933, taught diplomatic history at the papal academy for diplomats, and joined the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1923, where he would remain for 32 years. Montini advanced steadily in the Church hierarchy during his career. In 1931 he was made a domestic prelate to the Holy See and then in 1937 was elevated to assist Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was then serving as secretary of state. By 1944 Montini was charged with overseeing internal Church affairs. In 1952 he declined promotion to cardinal and instead was made archbishop of Milan, an assignment that was perceived as a sign of papal disfavor because of the social problems associated with that diocese. Montini nevertheless threw himself entirely into assisting the troubled diocese, oftentimes mediating disputes between employers and employees and holding many discussions concerning Christian unity. In 1958 Pope John XXIII named him cardinal. Montini was now charged with assisting the pope with preparations for the Second Vatican Council. After John XXIII’s death, at the papal conclave of June 1963 Montini was elected pope on the fifth balloting. He chose the name Paul VI. As pope, Paul VI promised to continue the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Canon law was revised during his reign, and he instituted procedural reforms in which lay persons, both men

and women, were allowed admittance as auditors for the first time. During the recesses of the multiyear multisession Second Vatican Council, Paul VI traveled widely, including in 1964 an unprecedented trip to Israel, where he met with Patriarch Athenagoras I of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1965 a joint declaration between Paul VI and Athenagoras I was read aloud and deplored anathemas issued in 1054 that had resulted in the schism of the same year. Paul VI also pushed for boarder ecumenism and improved the Vatican’s ties to Soviet-bloc nations. Paul VI’s pontificate has often been characterized as a turbulent time for the Church, and he is given much credit for avoiding serious rifts within its far-flung community. His more controversial pronouncements include the encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), which condemned artificial methods of birth control. His Matrimonia Mixta (1970), however, permitted a slight relaxation in regulations for mixed marriages. Humanae Vitae received much international criticism because a 1963 papal commission had concluded that contraception was permissible in certain circumstances. Paul VI also reaffirmed the controversial notion of papal infallibility and supported the continuation of celibate nonmarried priests. Many Church observers began to perceive a shadow over the papacy after 1968 amid ongoing Church controversies, international terrorism, and wars abroad. Paul VI continued to pray for

Pope Paul VI receives U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson at the Vatican, December 23, 1967. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

Pearson, Lester Bowles

885

peace as the Vietnam War continued to intensify. It was during this time of turmoil that the pope continued to travel widely and solidify his image as the “pilgrim pope.” In 1970 while traveling in Southeast Asia, where he spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War, he was nearly assassinated in Manila. Paul VI proclaimed St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) and St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) doctors of the church, the first women to hold the title, and canonized 40 16th- and 17th-century English and Welsh martyrs. He also set the retirement age for priests and bishops at 75 and stated that cardinals aged 80 and over should not participate in curial business. Moreover, the College of Cardinals was increased in size from 80 to 138. After suffering a heart attack, Paul VI died in Rome on August 6, 1978, after a mass was held at his bedside. JAMIE BRYAN PRICE See also Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. References Hebblewaite, Peter. Paul VI. London: HarperCollins, 1993. Wyne, Wilton. Keepers of the Keys: John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II; Three Who Changed the Church. New York: Random House, 1998.

Pearson, Lester Bowles Birth Date: April 23, 1897 Death Date: December 27, 1972 Canadian prime minister (1963–1968). Born on April 23, 1897, in Toronto, Ontario, Lester Bowles Pearson was the son of a Methodist minister. Pearson attended the University of Toronto, from which he received a BA degree in 1919, and Oxford University in England, where he earned both BA and MA degrees. Following the war, he returned to the University of Toronto as a lecturer in history. Pearson’s career in the diplomatic service eventually took him to Washington, D.C., where he served as Canadian ambassador to the United States from January 1945 to September 1946. In 1945 he played a pivotal advisory role in the Canadian delegation at the San Francisco Conference, which established the United Nations (UN). The highlight of Pearson’s political career came in 1957, when he became the first Canadian to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation efforts during the 1956 Suez Crisis. In 1958 Pearson became the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party. He took office as prime minister in 1963, his tenure coinciding with the period of U.S. escalation in the Vietnam War. Pearson’s relationship with President Lyndon B. Johnson was permanently and negatively altered as a result of an April 1965 convocation address at Temple University in Philadelphia in which Pearson suggested that the United States should cease its bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The remark incensed President Johnson and, despite Pearson’s

Lester B. Pearson was Canadian prime minister during 1963–1968. His call for the end of U.S. bombing of North Vietnam led to a deterioration in U.S.-Canadian relations. Pearson is shown here speaking at a meeting in Toronto, September 27, 1965. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

subsequent apology, created a rift between the two that never completely disappeared. U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk characterized U.S.-Canadian relations in 1967 as “deteriorated.” Pearson was succeeded as prime minister in 1968 by Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Pearson’s government, although characterized by scandal among certain members of the cabinet, succeeded in passing numerous domestic reforms, including universal health care (known unofficially as the Canadian Medicare program). In 1969 Pearson accepted one final diplomatic assignment when he agreed to lead a World Bank commission on international development. He died of cancer in Ottawa, Ontario, on December 27, 1972. WES WATTERS See also Canada; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Rusk, David Dean References Bothwell, Robert, Ian Drummond, and John English. Canada since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. English, John. The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson. Toronto: Vintage Books, 1992. Pearson, Lester B. Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1972.

886

Peers, William R.

Peers, William R. Birth Date: June 16, 1914 Death Date: April 6, 1984 U.S. Army general and chairman of the 1969–1970 commission, known as the Peers Inquiry, appointed to investigate the cover-up of the My Lai Massacre. Born on June 16, 1914, in Stuart, Iowa, William R. Peers graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1937 and was commissioned into the U.S. Army through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). During World War II he rose to the rank of colonel and commanded Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Detachment 101, a famed guerrilla unit that operated along the India-Burma border. Cigar smoking and craggy faced, Peers combined intellectual toughness and rock-ribbed integrity with his soldierly skills. In 1967 he took command of the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, where he again demonstrated that he was a tough and determined combat leader. Then, promoted to lieutenant general, he commanded I Field Force, Vietnam. Subsequently Peers was given the difficult and thankless task of conducting an inquiry into the My Lai Massacre cover-up. He set about the task with uncompromising intensity, eventually putting together an exhaustive account that fixed responsibility at several levels. General Peers served a final tour of duty as deputy commanding general of the Eighth Army in Korea before retiring in 1973.

U.S. Army lieutenant general William R. Peers, photographed here as a brigadier general, headed the investigation into the March 16, 1968, My Lai Massacre and coverup. (U.S. Army)

Dissatisfied with the army’s failure to call to account those who had been responsible for My Lai and the cover-up, he then wrote a hard-hitting book titled The My Lai Inquiry in which he stated those concerns explicitly: “The failure to bring to justice those who participated in the tragedy or were negligent in following it up . . . casts grave doubts upon the efficacy of American justice—military and civilian alike.” Peers died in California at the Presidio of San Francisco on April 6, 1984. LEWIS SORLEY See also Atrocities during the Vietnam War; My Lai Massacre; Peers Inquiry References Hilsman, Roger. American Guerrilla. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1990. Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979. Peers, William R., and Dean Brelis. Behind the Burma Road: The Story of America’s Most Successful Guerrilla Force. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963. U.S. Department of the Army. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of Law? The Peers Commission Report. New York: Free Press, 1976.

Peers Inquiry Start Date: 1969 End Date: 1970 On March 16, 1968, in a hamlet called My Lai, American soldiers from the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division deliberately murdered as many as 504 innocent South Vietnamese, including women and children. Members of the division’s chain of command thereafter sought to conceal what had taken place. Not until more than a year later did information of the atrocity leak out as the result of a soldier’s letter to a number of government officials, prompting appointment of a commission of inquiry. Lieutenant General William R. Peers headed the investigation. He was given that task by General William Westmoreland, U.S. commander in Vietnam when the My Lai Massacre took place but army chief of staff when it was revealed. In his book A Soldier Reports, Westmoreland notes that he chose Peers because he “had a reputation throughout the Army for objectivity and fairness.” Eventually a number of officers and men were charged with murder and other crimes, and more than a dozen officers were charged with suppression of information relating to the incident. Of those brought to trial by court-martial, only Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr. was convicted. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, although, because of subsequent actions ordered by President Richard M. Nixon, Calley actually served less than five years, much of it in what amounted to house arrest. Major General Samuel W. Koster, who had played a part in the cover-up, was demoted one grade and relieved of his assignment as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was the highest-ranking officer to have received punishment for the My

PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, Operation

Lai incident. All others charged were acquitted or absolved administratively. Lieutenant General Jonathan O. Seaman made a determination that there was insufficient evidence to bring to trial any of the senior officers except Colonel Oran K. Henderson (who was court-martialed and acquitted). Thus, virtually all of those who perpetrated the atrocity and its cover-up escaped serious punishment. General Peers later wrote in his book The My Lai Inquiry that “I found the dismissal of charges, particularly those without benefit of an Article 32 investigation, most difficult to understand. I was especially disturbed by General Seaman’s dismissal of charges against the senior officers, particularly in General Koster’s case.” Peers’s summary judgment on the matter was uncompromising: “Thus the failures of leadership that characterized nearly every aspect of the My Lai incident had their counterpart at the highest level during the attempt to prosecute those responsible.” President Richard M. Nixon’s involvement in the aftermath of My Lai was pervasive and malignant. Peers wrote that General Westmoreland had revealed to him that in contemplating an investigation of My Lai “he had encountered considerable resistance from within the Department of Defense, which he strongly suspected had originated in the White House.” Westmoreland met with General Alexander Haig, then assigned to the White House staff, and told him that if the obstruction did not cease he would go directly to the president. The Peers Inquiry, which then proceeded, uncovered devastating and conclusive evidence of what had taken place, going beyond the individuals involved with My Lai and its cover-up to indict the current state of leadership within the U.S. Army. “In analyzing the entire episode,” wrote General Peers, “we found that the principal breakdown was in leadership. Failures occurred at every level within the chain of command, from individual noncommissioned officer squad leaders to the command group of the division. It was an illegal operation in violation of military regulations and of human rights, starting with the planning, continuing through the brutal, destructive acts of many of the men who were involved, and culminating in aborted efforts to investigate and, finally, the suppression of the truth.” It did not stop there, Peers wrote: “The failure to bring to justice those who participated in the tragedy or were negligent in following it up . . . casts grave doubts upon the efficacy of American justice—military and civilian alike.” In transmitting the Peers Inquiry report, General Peers added a cover letter that led General Westmoreland to institute a study on military professionalism, conducted at the Army War College, that documented beyond question the validity of General Peers’s wider concerns about the health of army leadership. “A scenario that was repeatedly described in seminar sessions and narrative responses,” said the 1970 report, “includes an ambitious, transitory commander—marginally skilled in the complexities of his duties—engulfed in producing statistical results, fearful of personal failure, too busy to talk with or listen to his subordinates, and determined to submit acceptably optimistic reports which reflect faultless comple-

887

tion of a variety of tasks at the expense of the sweat and frustration of his subordinates.” There was much rebuilding to be done. LEWIS SORLEY See also Atrocities during the Vietnam War; Calley, William Laws, Jr.; Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr.; Koster, Samuel William, Sr.; My Lai Massacre; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Peers, William R.; Westmoreland, William Childs References Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979. U.S. Department of the Army. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of Law? The Peers Commission Report. New York: Free Press, 1976.

PEGASUS–LAM SON

207A, Operation

Start Date: April 1, 1968 End Date: April 15, 1968 Joint military operation conducted from April 1 to 15, 1968, to lift the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) siege of the U.S. Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh. In January 1968 two PAVN divisions surrounded the 26th Marine Regiment and an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Ranger battalion at Khe Sanh, just north of Route 9 near the Laotian border. Attention came to be riveted on Khe Sanh for fear that it might become another Dien Bien Phu. Major General John J. Tolson’s U.S. 1st Cavalry Division redeployed northward from the II Corps Tactical Zone to the I Corps Tactical Zone in January, and General William Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), ordered Tolson on March 10 to prepare plans to relieve Khe Sanh. Code-named PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, the operation was to start on April 1. In addition to the 1st Cavalry, Tolson had two battalions of the 1st Marine Regiment, an ARVN Airborne task force, an ARVN Ranger battalion at Khe Sanh, and operational control of the 26th Marine Regiment in Khe Sanh. In all, Tolson commanded about 30,000 troops. The operation required construction of a forward base just north of Ca Lu near Route 9. A joint force of U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps engineers and U.S. Navy Seabees completed the base in 11 days. Called landing zone (LZ) Stud, it included a 500-yardlong landing strip, ammunition bunkers, refueling points, and a communications and operations center. Lacking intelligence on PAVN forces, Tolson sent Lieutenant Colonel Richard W. Diller’s 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1-9 Cavalry), to find PAVN strong points, destroy antiaircraft guns, and locate LZs. Under cover of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps fighters, Diller conducted reconnaissance by fire for six days before the attack. He developed more than 600 tactical air sorties and 12 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress missions. The resulting air bombardment of PAVN positions was so effective that not a single aircraft was lost to antiaircraft or artillery fire.

888

PENNSYLVANIA, Operation

Medics treat wounded Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) airborne troops as they wait to be evacuated from atop Hill 552 during Operation PEGASUS in April 1968. This joint U.S.ARVN operation was designed to lift the Communist siege of Khe Sanh. (Bettmann/Corbis)

On March 31 the marines attacked north toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to confuse PAVN forces. Then, on April 1 Colonel Stanley S. Hughes’s 1st Marine Regiment attacked westward afoot on Route 9, with the 11th Marine Engineer Battalion improving the road as they advanced. This was the beginning of PEGASUS– LAM SON 207A. That afternoon, Colonel Hubert S. Campbell’s 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division air assaulted two LZs halfway to Khe Sanh. Quickly converting the LZs to firebases, the 3rd Brigade cleared parts of Route 9 ahead of the marines. By this time one of the PAVN divisions (the 325th) at Khe Sanh had been withdrawn to be sent to the Central Highlands, leaving only one PAVN division (the 304th), supported by a number of artillery and antiaircraft battalions and two tank companies, to hold the siege ring around Khe Sanh. On April 2 the 3rd Brigade air assaulted a battalion farther west, and two companies of the 1st Marines air assaulted westward to keep up the momentum of attack. The next day Colonel Joseph C. McDonough’s 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division air assaulted into LZs southeast of Khe Sanh, leapfrogging the 3rd Brigade. On

April 4 Colonel David E. Lownds’s 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh took Hill 471 overlooking the base, while the 2nd Brigade attacked an old French fort south of Khe Sanh. Both efforts met heavy PAVN resistance. On April 5 Colonel John E. Stannard’s 1st Brigade air assaulted south of Khe Sanh, where it repulsed a sharp PAVN attack. The next day the 3rd Brigade met stubborn resistance as it advanced westward along the highway. The ARVN Airborne task force assaulted to an LZ north and east of Khe Sanh to block escape routes to Laos; fighting there was sporadic. On April 8 the 1st Cavalry Division linked up with Khe Sanh, and on April 11 the 1st Marine Regiment opened Route 9. Tolson planned other attacks in the area but on April 10 was ordered to disengage to attack into the A Shau Valley. General Tolson had conducted an aggressive, fast-moving operation that demoralized PAVN troops and relieved Khe Sanh. It was the first full-division air cavalry raid in history. MACV claimed for Operation PEGASUS a PAVN body count of 1,394, with the 1st Cavalry Division accounting for 638 of these. Tolson’s forces recovered 209 crew-served and 557 individual weapons. A 1st Cavalry Division helicopter also knocked out a PT-76 tank. Marine casualties were 51 killed and 459 wounded. The 1st Cavalry Division lost 41 killed, 207 wounded, and 5 missing. The ARVN Airborne battalions lost 33 killed and 187 wounded. In all, PEGASUS had been supported by 45 B-52 and 1,625 tactical air sorties. While giving no specific figures for losses during Operation PEGASUS, postwar Vietnamese histories admit that PAVN strength had been seriously depleted by the time the operation had ended. JOHN L. BELL JR. See also Air Mobility; Khe Sanh, Battle of; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Nguyen Quy Toan and Pham Quang Dinh. Su Doan 304, Tap Hai [304th Division, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990. Prados, John, and Ray W. Stubbe. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

PENNSYLVANIA,

Operation

Start Date: June 1967 End Date: October 1967 Diplomatic attempt to end the Vietnam War. In June 1967 Harvard University professor Henry A. Kissinger was in Paris attending a Pugwash meeting, an international conference of scientists

Pentagon Papers and Trial and intellectuals. There he met Raymond Aubrac and Herbert Marcovich, two participants who knew of his trips to Vietnam as a consultant to U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Aubrac was a Socialist and an official in the World Health Organization (WHO) who was personally acquainted with Ho Chi Minh. Ho had stayed at Aubrac’s house in Paris in 1946 and was the godfather of Aubrac’s daughter. Aubrac wanted to travel with French biologist Herbert Marcovich to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and to appeal personally to Ho for an end to the war and to explore conditions for peace. Kissinger passed along this information to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Assistant Secretary of State McGeorge Bundy. McNamara discussed the matter with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and President Lyndon Johnson. They were skeptical regarding its possibilities, but McNamara persuaded them to let him proceed. He then encouraged Kissinger to set up the unofficial visit, which was given the code name Operation PENNSYLVANIA. On July 21, 1967, Aubrac and Marcovich arrived in Hanoi. Kissinger stayed in Paris to serve as an intermediary between them and President Johnson. Aubrac and Marcovich were granted a courtesy visit with Ho, who was ill, and then had substantive discussions with Premier Pham Van Dong, who insisted on an “unconditional” halt in the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam (Operation ROLLING THUNDER) as a prelude to official negotiations. He said that the air offensive could end without public announcement because the North Vietnamese government did not desire to publicly humiliate the United States. Dong appeared willing to keep this channel open and told the two that in the future they could communicate with him through North Vietnamese consul General Mai Van Bo in Paris. Aubrac and Marcovich left Hanoi on July 26 and met with Kissinger in Paris on their return. On August 8 McNamara obtained approval from Johnson and Rusk of Dong’s terms with the condition that any halt in the bombing lead directly to negotiations and that the North Vietnamese government not take advantage of the situation to strengthen its forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). On August 17 Kissinger had a series of meetings with the two intermediaries, who pressed the United States for some means to show that Washington was sincere about a bombing halt. On August 19 Johnson agreed to a halt in the bombing within a 10-mile radius of Hanoi from August 24 to September 4 to ensure the safety of the two when they returned to Hanoi and to validate Kissinger’s role as intermediary. Unfortunately, bad weather beforehand had led to an increased U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force target list, and on August 20 when the weather cleared, the United States flew more than 200 sorties, more than any other previous day of the war. Aubrac and Marcovich never made it to Hanoi. On August 21 Hanoi officials canceled their visa applications, claiming that it was unsafe for them to visit the North Vietnamese capital. As McNamara noted in his memoirs, “Once again, we had failed miserably to coordinate our diplomatic and military actions.” There were subsequent efforts to reestablish the channel, but heavy U.S.

889

bombing continued. Although Johnson publicly endorsed this socalled no-advantage formula in a September 29, 1967, speech in San Antonio, Texas, on October 20 North Vietnam broke off the Aubrac and Marcovich channel when Bo announced that there was no reason to talk again. The bombing did not stop for another year. Postwar Vietnamese accounts of Operation PENNSYLVANIA indicate that the Vietnamese viewed the Aubrac-Marcovich channel as part of the North Vietnamese government’s talk-fight strategy approved by the Party Central Committee Resolution in January 1967. This resolution had set the unconditional cessation of U.S. bombing of North Vietnam as the fundamental condition that had to be met before any formal talks with the United States could begin. According to these accounts, North Vietnam was never willing to accept the American no-advantage formula proposed in Operation PENNSYLVANIA and in President Johnson’s San Antonio Formula. KEVIN ARCENEAUX AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bundy, McGeorge; Ho Chi Minh; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Pham Van Dong; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu. Tiep Xuc Bi Mat Viet Nam-Hoa Ky Truoc Hoi Nghi Pa-ri [Secret U.S.-Vietnamese Contacts before the Paris Conference]. Hanoi: International Relations Institute, 1990. Mai Van Bo. Tan Cong Ngoai Giao Va Tiep Xuc Bi Mat (Hoi Ky) [Diplomatic Offensives and Secret Contacts (A Memoir)]. Ho Chi Minh City: Ho Chi Minh City Publishing House, 1985. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Tran Tinh, ed. Van Kien Dang Toan Tap, Tap 28, 1967 [Collected Party Documents, Vol. 28, 1967]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2003.

Pentagon, March on the See March on the Pentagon

Pentagon Papers and Trial Event Date: 1971 The Pentagon Papers encompassed a formerly top-secret U.S. Defense Department study of the course of American Vietnam policy. The trial resulted from the unauthorized publication of the study in 1971. By 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was questioning the course of the Vietnam War, and he created a task force within the Defense Department to investigate the history of U.S. policy in Vietnam. The task force conducted no

890

Pentagon Papers and Trial

interviews; its work was based on written materials, mostly files from the Defense Department, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and to some extent the White House. The end product was a history accompanied by the original texts of many of the documents on which it had been based. Formally titled United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, it is commonly referred to as the Pentagon Papers. The narrative and documents totaled well over 7,000 pages arranged in 47 volumes. There were only 15 copies: 7 for distribution within the Department of Defense and 8 elsewhere. Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, an economist and researcher with the RAND Corporation (a renowned think tank that had been given 2 of the 15 copies), was one of the study’s authors. After the project was completed, he examined the entire manuscript carefully. He had already developed doubts about U.S. Vietnam policy; reading the Pentagon Papers convinced him that the American involvement there had been fundamentally immoral and should be ended immediately. Ellsberg believed that the evidence that had led to his beliefs about the war should be made available to Congress and the public, and late in 1969 he began photocopying large sections of the Pentagon Papers. After failing to persuade several U.S. senators to make the material public, in March 1971 he delivered it to reporter Neil Sheehan of the New York Times. Sheehan and others at the New York Times, working in extreme secrecy, produced a series of articles intended for publication on 10 consecutive days. Each daily installment was made up of a long article plus the original text of some of the most important supporting documents. The articles were not abridged versions of the corresponding sections of the narrative that had been written by persons within the Department of Defense; they were written by reporters of the New York Times, using information from both the narrative and the documents in the Defense Department version. The first installment was published on Sunday, June 13, 1971. On June 14 U.S. attorney general John Mitchell informed the New York Times that “publication of this information is directly prohibited by the provisions of the Espionage Law.” He asked that the newspaper cease publication immediately and return the documents to the Department of Defense. The New York Times refused. On June 15 the Justice Department sought an injunction forbidding the publication of further installments. Judge Murray I. Gurfein of the Southern District of New York issued a restraining order preventing publication for four days to allow time for the case to be argued. This was the first occasion that a U.S. court had restrained a newspaper in advance from publishing a specific article. Ellsberg immediately gave a substantial portion of the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post, which began publishing articles based on this material on June 18. The Justice Department filed suit against the Washington Post the same day. The Justice Department had obtained the initial restraining order without first proving to Judge Gurfein’s satisfaction that

such restraint was either necessary or legal. All of the courts that became involved in the case agreed that such an order could not remain in effect for the length of time usually required for the U.S. court system to decide a matter of such importance. The district courts in New York and Washington, D.C., took only a few days to hand down decisions in favor of the newspapers, citing principles of freedom of the press and a lack of evidence that publication of the Pentagon Papers posed a serious danger to the nation. The government appealed, and both cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24. Four justices voted to reject the government’s appeal without a hearing and to allow the newspapers to proceed with publication forthwith. The majority, however, voted to combine the two cases and hear them on June 26. The two newspapers had refused, as a matter of principle, to reveal what information they intended to publish or even what portions of the Pentagon Papers that Ellsberg had given them. The four volumes of the original study dealing with efforts made through various intermediaries to negotiate an end to the war, the disclosure of which, the government warned, might impede future negotiations, had never been given to either newspaper because Ellsberg shared the government’s view of that risk. Of the material that Ellsberg did furnish, the New York Times exercised some restraint in its disclosure, avoiding the publication of information about which the newspaper believed there might be legitimate national security concerns. The Washington Post exercised greater restraint, avoiding the publication of texts from any of the source documents in the Pentagon Papers. Had the newspapers been less secretive, court proceedings might have centered on the articles scheduled for publication rather than on the whole text of the Pentagon Papers, and the argument that publication would imperil national security might have been strengthened. On June 26 the Supreme Court heard arguments. By that time, the Justice Department had shifted the legal basis of its case from the Espionage Act to the inherent powers of the presidency. Solicitor General Erwin Griswold argued that the president’s responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy and his role as commander in chief of the armed forces required that he have the ability to forbid the publication of military secrets. On June 30 the Supreme Court found for the newspapers in a vote of 6 to 3. Justices Hugo Black, William J. Brennan, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart, and Raymond White were able to agree on a very short statement, the core of which was that given the constitutional protection of freedom of the press, a request by the government for prior restraint of publication “carries a heavy burden of showing justification,” and the government had not met that burden. Each of the six justices, however, wrote a separate concurring opinion. Black and Douglas each joined in the others’ opinions, and Stewart and White did likewise. No common thread unites all six concurring opinions. Important elements found in various aspects of them included assertions that Congress had passed no law,

Pentagon Papers and Trial

891

Daniel Ellsberg, who helped compile the Defense Department’s record of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and was at the center of the Pentagon Papers scandal, testifies before a House panel investigating the leak in July 1971. (AP/Wide World Photos)

and indeed had repeatedly rejected proposed laws, under which the government could enjoin publication of government secrets by the press; that the government had failed to prove that publication of the Pentagon Papers would cause such dire harm as to justify making an exception to the general principles of the First Amendment; and that the government’s claims for the inherent powers of the presidency could not be accepted. Those who dissented—Chief Justice Warren Burger and justices Harry Blackmun and John Marshall Harlan—were more nearly in agreement with one another. In the realm of foreign affairs, they were willing to grant the executive branch almost unfettered authority to decide which government secrets the press should be forbidden to publish. They did not claim that the government had proved that publication of the Pentagon Papers would cause such dire harm to the nation as would justify an exception to the First Amendment; they did not believe that the government should have been required to provide such proof. They argued that only the executive branch was qualified to decide whether publication threatened the national security and that the

courts should enforce the judgment of the executive branch on the press without asking for any detailed explanation of the basis for that judgment. The Supreme Court had rejected prior restraint of publication in this case. The key to the outcome had rested with Stewart and White, the two justices who had not been willing to find for the newspapers on June 25 without a hearing but who did find for them on June 30. They suggested that the government protect its secrets through the deterrent effect of criminal prosecution rather than prior restraint of publication. The Justice Department did not attempt criminal action against the newspapers but did indict Ellsberg for conspiracy, theft of government property, and violation of the Espionage Act. The trial of Ellsberg and an alleged coconspirator, Anthony Russo, began on January 3, 1973, in Los Angeles. Its verdict might have clarified some of the issues that had been left unresolved by the 1971 decision, but on May 11 the judge dismissed the charges, citing a pattern of government misconduct including the fact that White House “plumbers,” a team selected to plug information

892

People’s Self-Defense Forces

leaks, in search of evidence against Ellsberg had burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. These same so-called plumbers would later be involved in other illegal activities, including the break-in at the Watergate Complex in June 1972 that would set in motion the Watergate Scandal, which would force President Richard Nixon to resign in August 1974. Thus, in a significant sense the Watergate Scandal had as its origins the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers. Before the end of 1971, two sets of selections from the Pentagon Papers that were much more complete than any newspaper could have published appeared in book form, one published by the U.S. Government Printing Office after formal declassification and the other released by Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and published by Beacon Press. Between them, these publications contained essentially all of the narrative history except for the sections dealing with negotiations to end the war; those sections were published only in 1983. Many of the source documents that had been appendices to the original Pentagon Papers were included in various versions published in 1971, but many others remained unreleased. EDWIN E. MOISE See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Gelb, Leslie Howard; Gravel, Maurice Robert; McNamara, Robert Strange; Media and the Vietnam War; Mitchell, John Newton; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Russo, Anthony J., Jr.; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Watergate Scandal References Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. 5 vols. Boston: Beacon, 1971–1972. Schrag, Peter. Test of Loyalty: Daniel Ellsberg and the Rituals of Secret Government. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974. Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971. Ungar, Sanford J. The Papers & the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers. 1972; reprint, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. United States Department of Defense. United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense. 12 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.

People’s Army of Vietnam See Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

Tet Offensive that began in January 1968. The law required all male citizens ages 16 to 17 and 39 to 50 to participate in the PSDF program with the exception of those who volunteered to serve in the military and those in the draft-age range (18–38) who were exempted from service for reasons other than poor health. In addition, those over the age of 50, disabled veterans, women, and teenagers under the age of 16 were also encouraged to volunteer for the PSDF in a supporting role. Similar organizations that had existed before 1968 such as Combat Youth, Rural Combatants, and Civil Defense were disbanded, and their membership was shifted to the PSDF. The PSDF existed at every level of national undertaking except the military domain. PSDF committees were chaired, in descending order, by the premier city mayors or province chiefs, and district, village, and hamlet chiefs or their urban counterparts. The PSDF structure had two components: combat and support. The foundation of the combat PSDF was the 11-man team made up of a team leader, a deputy, and 3 3-man cells. Three such teams formed a section of 35 men under a section leader and a deputy. If an area had more than one section, two or three sections could be joined into a group. This was the largest combat unit and was led by a group leader and a deputy. All team, section, and group leaders and deputies were elected by PSDF members on the basis of leadership qualifications. Support elements were all volunteers. They were also organized into teams, sections, and groups but were separated into different categories—elders, women, and teenagers—as dictated by traditional Vietnamese culture. To ensure that the PSDF could perform its role effectively, a relatively comprehensive training program was devised. Team and section leaders were to undergo a four-week formal training course at national training centers. The PSDF employed guerrilla tactics and eschewed also fixed defense positions, but members were to move to alert positions at night in three-man cells. PSDF members rarely confronted Communist forces directly unless they were small and easily destroyed. When confronted by superior force, PSDF members were to hide their weapons and act as ordinary civilians. By 1972 the PSDF combat component had more than 1 million members; about half of them were armed with individual weapons. Most had received at least some combat training. The PSDF support component was even larger, with 2.5 million members. PSDF achievements were not uniform and varied from one locality to another. By and large, where the program was well executed, a noticeable improvement in local security followed. GEORGE J. GABERA See also Territorial Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

People’s Self-Defense Forces The government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) officially created the People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF) in the General Mobilization Law of June 1968, the result of the

References Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Ngo Quang Truong. Territorial Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981.

PERSHING, Operation

Perot, Henry Ross Birth Date: June 27, 1930 American businessman and politician. Born on June 27, 1930, in Texarkana, Texas, Henry Ross Perot (known universally as H. Ross Perot) learned the art of business and the importance of relationships from his father, a local cotton broker. At age 19, Perot received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, from which he graduated in 1953. After his mandatory fouryear period of service in the U.S. Navy, Perot and his wife Margot settled in Dallas, Texas. In 1962 Perot formed the Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS) to do computing and data processing. One of his largest customers was the federal government, which awarded the EDS extremely lucrative contracts. By 1968 Perot was a multimillionaire. When he sold the EDS to General Motors in 1984, the sales price was a staggering $2.4 billion. In 1988 Perot established the Perot Systems Corporation, an information technology company with which he continues to be involved. In 1969 National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger sought Perot’s assistance in convincing the government of the Demo-

893

cratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to improve conditions for U.S. prisoners of war (POWs). In response, Perot formed United We Stand to collect money and buy newspaper advertisements. The committee sought to use the ads to pressure Hanoi into improving conditions for the Americans held captive in North Vietnam. A week before Christmas in 1969, Perot announced that United We Stand would deliver Christmas dinner to the POWs, but North Vietnamese authorities refused to cooperate. Perot, however, remained committed to the POW issue. Well into the 1980s he continued to press the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) to release all American POWs, believing that some still remained in Southeast Asia. Perot later worked with the Vietnamese government in the early 1990s as efforts were under way to restore relations between it and the U.S. government. In 1978 Perot sent retired Special Forces colonel Arthur Simons and a clandestine team to free two EDS officials from an Iranian prison. Beginning in the early 1980s, Perot became involved in Republican politics in the state of Texas. In 1992 and 1996 he made unsuccessful runs for the U.S. presidency as a third-party candidate. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Prisoners of War, Allied; Simons, Arthur David References Mason, Todd. Perot: An Unauthorized Biography. Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1990. Posner, Gerald. Citizen Perot: His Life and Times. New York: Random House, 1996.

PERSHING,

Operation

Start Date: February 12, 1967 End Date: January 19, 1968

Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot at a Columbus, Ohio, news conference on January 7, 1970, where he explained his efforts to get food and medical supplies to American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. In 1992 and 1996 Perot ran unsuccessfully for the presidency as a third-party candidate. (AP/Wide World Photos)

U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, Republic of Korea Army (ROKA), and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) operation during 1967 and 1968 in Binh Dinh Province. Operation PERSHING was the largest continuous operation of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) since arriving in Vietnam and involved all three of its brigades as well as the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, the ROKA Capitol Division, and the ARVN 22nd Division. They embarked on an effort to pacify the longtime Communist stronghold of Binh Dinh Province, held by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 3rd Division (“Yellow Star”). Commanded by Major General John Tolson, Operation PERSHING had as its primary mission to conduct cordon-and-search operations with ROKA and ARVN forces to defeat the PAVN 3rd Division, root out the entrenched Viet Cong (VC) infrastructure, and help establish Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam)

894

Peterson, Douglas Brian ING had become a holding operation, with only one full brigade re-

A U.S. Army infantryman searches a destroyed Viet Cong supply cave during a combat assault mission associated with Operation PERSHING in 1967. PERSHING was the largest continuous operation of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to that time in the war. (National Archives)

government control. Tolson concluded that the more than 900 cordon-and-search operations conducted by the division rendered 50 percent of VC cadre ineffective. Throughout PERSHING, the 1st Cavalry Division’s three brigades continuously swept the coastal areas and reconnoitered the valleys in pursuit of VC regulars and the PAVN 3rd Division. The 1st Cavalry Division’s complement of 450 helicopters brought a new dimension to air mobility, as armed reconnaissance troops of the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, would spot and engage Communist forces, followed by the rapid insertion of infantry battalions. With 88 helicopters and 770 personnel, the 1st Squadron inflicted substantial casualties on the Communist forces. When the Communists withdrew from remote areas such as the An Lao Valley, 1st Cavalry Division units forcibly removed the inhabitants, turning over nearly 100,000 refugees to South Vietnamese authorities by August 1967. U.S. Air Force planes then smothered the depopulated areas with crop-destroying Agent Orange, ruining their usefulness as havens for VC labor and recruits. March saw victories over large PAVN forces north of Bong Son at Tam Quan and at Dam Tra-O Lake to the south. Until September, the entire division operated throughout Binh Dinh except for a brief foray in April by the 2nd Brigade into southern Quang Ngai Province and a June airlift of two battalions of the 3rd Brigade to support U.S. forces engaged at Dak To. But on October 1 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland ordered the 3rd Brigade to Quang Nam Province in the I Corps Tactical Zone, where it would remain until January. On November 1 the 1st Brigade was airlifted to Dak To, where it remained for a month. By December, PERSH-

maining in Binh Dinh. The last major battle of PERSHING occurred in December, when the PAVN 22nd Regiment descended from the hills and established entrenched positions near the seaside resort of Tam Quan. During December 6–20 the 1st Brigade and the 1st Battalion of the 50th Infantry (Mechanized) and troops of the ARVN 22nd Division killed 647 PAVN troops. American casualties in the battle were 58 dead and 250 wounded. Tolson noted that the battle ensured that the Bong Son Plain “was the least affected of any part of South Vietnam during Tet.” In all, PERSHING claimed a reported 5,715 PAVN and 3,367 VC killed, with another 2,323 PAVN and 2,123 VC captured. The 1st Cavalry Division suffered 852 killed, 22 missing, and 4,119 wounded. PERSHING ended on January 19, 1968. Before rejoining the division in the I Corps Tactical Zone in late February, the 1st Brigade inflicted 614 more PAVN/VC casualties in Operation PERSHING II. MACV proclaimed Binh Dinh province to be “relatively secure,” but as Neil Sheehan noted in A Bright Shining Lie, the PAVN 3rd Division was “the real phoenix of Binh Dinh” and would soon return in force. JOHN D. ROOT See also Air Mobility; Dak To, Battle of; IRVING, Operation; MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation; United States Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: The 1st Cav in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Peterson, Douglas Brian Birth Date: June 26, 1935 Vietnam prisoner of war (POW), U.S. congressman during 1991– 1997, and during 1997–2001 the first U.S. ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on June 26, 1935, in Omaha, Nebraska, Douglas Brian “Pete” Peterson joined the U.S. Air Force in 1954 a year after graduating from high school and rose to the rank of colonel. A fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, Peterson in 1966 was shot down near Hanoi and was held prisoner in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for six and a half years. Freed following the war, he obtained a BS degree from the University of Arizona in 1976 and retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1980. He went on to serve in varying capacities with private companies and taught at Florida State University during 1984–1990.

Pham Duy In 1990 Peterson, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida. His only previous political activity was on the Jackson County Democratic Executive Committee. In 1991 Peterson opposed giving President George H. W. Bush authority to use force against Iraq. Peterson said then that “I vowed when I sat in Hanoi that I would never commit troops to battle without the support of the American people.” Peterson served three terms in the House of Representatives, retiring in January 1997. Following normalization of relations between the United States and the SRV, President Bill Clinton nominated Peterson to be the first U.S. ambassador to the SRV. His record of valor and endurance made it difficult for Republicans to block full normalization of relations and an exchange of ambassadors with the SRV. After hearings in February and March 1997, on April 10 the Senate confirmed Peterson, who had announced during the hearings that his top priority as ambassador would be efforts to account for Americans missing in action (MIA). Peterson began his ambassadorial duties in May 1997. SRV premier Vo Van Kiet said that Peterson’s arrival in Hanoi affirmed that both countries were interested in closing the past in order to look to the future. Among Peterson’s chief tasks was to work toward a trade pact and most-favored nation status for the SRV. He left the post in July 2001 after the George W. Bush administration took office. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bush, George Herbert Walker; Clinton, William Jefferson; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present References Duncan, Phillip D., and Christine C. Lawrence, eds. Congressional Quarterly’s Politics in America: The 104th Congress. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995. The 1995–1996 Official Congressional Directory, 104th Congress. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997.

895

Cao Dai religious sect leader Pope Pham Cong Tac (center) with his counselor and cardinal. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

anese and formed a Cao Daist army to resist the French. During the Indochina War, the Cao Daist forces joined in a loose alliance with the French against the Viet Minh. In 1946 Tac returned from exile. The 1954 French defeat at Dien Bien Phu paved the way for the partition of Vietnam. Tac was not successful in his efforts to organize a general election to reunify the country. In 1956 he took refuge in Cambodia, where he died in 1959. HUM DAC BUI See also Cao Dai; Phan Boi Chau

Pham Cong Tac Birth Date: June 21, 1890 Death Date: 1959 Leader of the Cao Dai religious sect. Pham Cong Tac was born on June 21, 1890, in Long An in southern Vietnam. As a 17-year-old student at the Saigon Chasseloup Laubat High School, he took part, along with Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh, in a movement to gain independence for Vietnam. Reportedly, in 1925 during a séance of spiritualism with friends, a spirit revealed himself as God under the name of Cao Dai and instructed Pham Cong Tac and his friends to establish a new religion, Cao Daism. In 1941 the French deported Tac to Madagascar. During Tac’s absence, Cao Dai leader Tran Quang Vinh cooperated with the Jap-

References Hoi Thanh Cao Dai. Tieu Su Duc Ho Phap Pham Cong Tac. Tay Ninh, Vietnam: Toa Thanh Tay Ninh, 1992. Wallace, Anthony. Religion: An Anthropological Review. New York: Random House, 1966.

Pham Duy Birth Date: October 5, 1921 Well-known musician whose songs are closely associated with the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. Born on October 5, 1921, in Hanoi into the family of Pham Duy Ton, a renowned writer of the 1920s, Pham Duy’s real name is Pham Duy Can.

896

Pham Hung

Pham Duy attended both the School of Fine Arts and the School of Applied Sciences, but music became his self-taught career. From 1943 to 1945 he traveled with a itinerant theatrical troupe. On the outbreak of the Indochina War, Pham Duy supported the Viet Minh against the French as a cultural cadre. Although he had lived in southern Vietnam near Saigon in 1945, he soon moved to northern Vietnam, where his patriotic songs enjoyed great success. His work and that of other musicians such as Le Thuong, Van Cao, and Luu Huu Phuoc were important in the fight against the French. In 1950 the Lao Dong Party instituted a new cultural policy and instructed Pham Duy to publicly renounce his most beloved songs and follow the Socialist cultural style. This led him in 1951 to leave the Viet Minh–controlled area and return to Hanoi. The same year he moved with his family to Saigon, where he published his songs and hosted several radio musical programs. His wife, Thai Hang, and her sister Thai Thanh and brother Hoai Bac founded the famous Thang Long Chorus. Thai Thanh was one of the most important Vietnamese vocalists and helped to popularize Pham Duy’s songs. Between 1954 and 1956 Pham Duy studied at the Institut de Musicologie in Paris. On his return to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), he continued to compose songs. These included folk and love songs as well as many of a patriotic and antiCommunist nature. He also traveled in the United States, where he gave performances on American campuses and met with American musicians and singers. Pham Duy has composed more than 500 songs and has written Vietnamese lyrics for some 360 songs from other countries. Because of his anti-Communist stance, the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) banned all of his music in 1950, a prohibition continued by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Pham Duy and his family moved to the United States, where he continued his musical career. Beginning in the late 1990s, he returned to Vietnam several times. In 2005 he announced that he and his son, Duy Quang, a singer, would return to Vietnam to live permanently. Pham Duy’s return to his home country generated much interest, and the Vietnamese government has since lifted or eased the restrictions placed on his songs and music. His return has not been without controversy, however. Many Vietnamese expatriates have criticized Pham Duy for being hypocritical and seeming to now condone Vietnam’s Communist government. Some musicians and artists within Vietnam have condemned him for being a traitor. NGUYEN CONG LUAN

Pham Duy. Musics of Vietnam. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975.

Pham Hung Birth Date: June 11, 1912 Death Date: March 18, 1988

See also Music and the Vietnam War; Vietnamese Culture

Prominent official of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born Pham Van Thien on June 11, 1912, in Long Ho village, Chau Thanh District, Vinh Long Province, Pham Hung in 1928 became involved in activities of the Communist Youth League in southern Vietnam. In 1930 he joined the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and worked in My Tho Province. In 1931 French authorities arrested Hung and sentenced him to death. The sentence was later remitted to life in prison, and Hung was exiled to Con Dao prison. Released after the August 1945 revolution, he was selected as acting secretary of the Southern Region Party Committee. At the 1951 VCP Second Congress, Hung became a member of the VCP Central Committee. From 1952 he held many important leadership posts in the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) and the Southeastern Region Administrative Resistance Committee. After the 1954 Geneva Accords he became head of the military delegation from North Vietnam in the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) in Saigon. During the Vietnam War, Hung was sent to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to replace Nguyen Chi Thanh as the head of COSVN following Nguyen Chi Thanh’s death in 1967, a position that Hung held until the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. Hung also served as political commissar for Communist military forces in southern Vietnam. During the 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign, Hung was political commissar of the campaign headquarters. From 1956 to 1988 Hung was a member of the VCP Central Committee and the Politburo. He also served continuously as a deputy from the Second National Assembly through the Seventh National Assembly. Within the government of the SRV, Hung held a number of important posts, including minister of the interior and vice chairman of the Council of Ministers. In 1987 he became chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier). Hung died on March 18, 1988, in Ho Chi Minh City. He had been the most powerful leader sent from North Vietnam to direct the war in South Vietnam, but he helped forge the orthodox policies later blamed for economic failure. NGO NGOC TRUNG

References Pham Duy. Hoi Ky [Memoirs]. Midway City, CA: PDC Musical Productions, 1991.

See also Central Office for South Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

Pham Ngoc Thao

897

Reference Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Pham Ngoc Thao Birth Date: 1922 Death Date: 1965 Viet Cong (VC) mole within the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Pham Ngoc Thao was born in 1922 to a prominent Roman Catholic family in the Mekong Delta. He joined the Viet Minh after World War II and served for a time as the chief of Viet Minh military intelligence in South Vietnam. Several members of his family also joined the Viet Minh, and one of Thao’s brothers later became an ambassador for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), as did one of his brothers-in-law. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, Thao was reportedly instructed to remain in South Vietnam rather than regroup to North Vietnam with the rest of the Viet Minh forces in South Vietnam. Using his Catholic connections, he turned himself in to Bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc as a rallier. Thao was introduced to President Ngo Dinh Diem by the bishop and was given a commission in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) as a captain. Thao worked as a VC agent during his time in the ARVN. By 1963 he had been promoted to colonel and was in charge of the Strategic Hamlet Program. He tricked the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S. military personnel, and even journalists such as Stanley Karnow into believing that he was loyal to the South Vietnamese government. Thao’s role as a VC agent was not revealed until after the war. Thao’s forces played a key role in seizing strategic installations during the November 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1964 Thao was sent to the United States by General Nguyen Khanh to serve as press attaché to South Vietnamese ambassador to the United States Tran Thien Khiem. Thao resurfaced in South Vietnam in 1965 when he was involved in another coup attempt that February to force out General Khanh. Although the coup plotters managed to capture most key points in Saigon, their coup attempt was not successful. Thao managed to escape in the confusion. Thao was captured by ARVN forces in mid-1965 and died shortly after his capture, probably of wounds suffered during his arrest. Many political observers assumed that General Nguyen Van Thieu had ordered Thao’s execution. Thao’s mission as a VC operative seems to have been to create division within ARVN, thereby weakening the government and crippling South Vietnamese military effectiveness. After 1975, Vietnam’s new Communist government publicly announced that Thao had been a Communist intelligence agent

Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao was a Communist mole within the Republic of Vietnam armed forces who provided much useful information to the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War until his arrest and death in 1965. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

and proclaimed him as a revolutionary martyr. There is still some dispute about whether or not Thao truly was a Communist spy. CHARLOTTE A. POWER AND NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Strategic Hamlet Program References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Nguyen Quoc Thang and Nguyen Ba The. Tu Dien Nhan Vat Lich Su Viet Nam [Dictionary of Vietnamese Historical Figures]. Hanoi: Cultural Publishing House, 1999. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hai. Tran Quoc Huong: Nguoi Thay Cua Nhung Nha Tinh Bao Huyen Thoai [Tran Quoc Huong: The Spy-Master of Legendary Intelligence Agents]. Hanoi: People’s Public Security Publishing House, 2002. Post, Ken. Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Viet Nam. 5 vols. Brookfield, VT: Darmouth, 1989–1994. Tran Bach Dang, ed. Chung Mot Bong Co (Ve Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam Viet Nam) [Under One Flag (The National Liberation Front for South Vietnam)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1993.

898

Pham The Duyet

Pham The Duyet Birth Date: 1936 Prominent Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) government official. Pham The Duyet was born in Vietnam in 1936. Very little information is available about his activities during the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. He was first identified as a prominent national leader in 1982 when he was an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee and vice chairman of the Vietnam Confederation of Trade Unions. A new member of the VCP Politburo in 1991, Duyet was seen as a representative for the workers thanks to his extensive activities in the Vietnamese Confederation of Trade Unions. In 1983 Duyet was also named a member of the Central Committee of Vietnam’s Fatherland Front, an umbrella organization embracing activities to motivate people outside the party. In 1986 Duyet was elected a full member of the VCP Central Committee and a member of its Secretariat and was also named acting chairman of the Vietnam Confederation of Trade Unions. In late 1988 Duyet was promoted to the powerful post of secretary of the VCP Committee of Hanoi City and in 1991 was appointed to the Politburo. Duyet is credited with opening up the Hanoi administration to younger and more liberal and dynamic leaders, which has led to a surge of development in the capital. NGO NGOC TRUNG

structed Dong and Giap to go to Yenan and learn military techniques and politics. This was soon interrupted by the defeat of the French by Germany, whereupon Ho instructed Dong and Giap and other Vietnamese Communists in China to return to Vietnam and set up an organization to fight for independence. They soon formed the Viet Minh and organized camps in the mountains along the Vietnamese-Chinese border. From this base the Viet Minh conducted training and propaganda as well as minor ambushes and assassinations. The French and Japanese saw the Viet Minh as only a minor annoyance. Dong played a leading role in the Viet Minh’s fight against the French during the Indochina War (1946–1954). He also headed the Viet Minh delegation to the 1954 Geneva Conference. Dong initially took a hard line by demanding that the Vietnamese be allowed to settle their own differences. When the French rejected this demand, the conference ground to a halt. From this point on Zhou Enlai who headed the People’s Republic of China (PRC) delegation, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and French premier Pierre Mendès-France took over the negotiations. Dong’s role declined to that of accepting or denying proposals.

See also Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Pham Van Dong Birth Date: March 1, 1906 Death Date: April 29, 2000 One of the three most influential leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and, until the late 1980s, its most public figure. Born in Quang Ngai Province on March 1, 1906, to an educated mandarin family, Pham Van Dong attended the Lycée Nationale in Hue, where his classmates included Vo Nguyen Giap and Ngo Dinh Diem. During Dong’s student years he was actively involved in Vietnamese nationalist organizations, leading to his belief that the French should be expelled from Vietnam. In 1930 French authorities arrested him for sedition. He then served eight years on the prison island of Poulo Condore, where he kept up his morale by studying languages, literature, and science. After the French government outlawed the Indochinese Communist Party on September 26, 1939, its Central Committee ordered Dong and Giap to China, there to be trained in guerrilla warfare. In June 1940 in Kuming they met Ho Chi Minh. Ho in-

Pham Van Dong, Vietnamese diplomat and bureaucrat, served as prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) after independence from the French in 1954 and headed the government of a reunified Vietnam from 1976 to 1987. A close associate of Ho Chi Minh, he was one of the founders of the Viet Minh in 1941. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Pham Van Phu Dong sought during the Geneva Conference to maintain the momentum gained by the Viet Minh on the battlefield, but he was largely unsuccessful. He wanted the demarcation line drawn at the 13th Parallel and also wanted a six-month cease-fire. Dong came away from the conference believing that Zhou had sold out the Viet Minh, as the division was moved to the 17th Parallel and the ceasefire was set at two years. As a result, the Viet Minh ended up with less than they had won on the battlefield. Dong served as the prime minister of North Vietnam and after Vietnam’s unification of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) for 36 years, from 1950 to 1986. Throughout the period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, he maintained a consistent attitude toward the American presence and negotiations, refusing any discussions until the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam ended. He also required that any settlement include the creation of a neutral coalition government in Saigon with Viet Cong (VC) representatives. Dong’s negative attitude toward negotiations with the Americans had everything to do with his experience with the French and the failure of the Geneva Accords. After the death of Ho on September 2, 1969, Dong became the most public figure in North Vietnam. He skillfully used the American press to encourage antiwar protestors in the United States by issuing statements that the Vietnamese appreciated their support. In other statements he claimed that the Vietnamese believed that the only viable alternative for President Richard Nixon was the honorable exit they were offering to him. Dong played a key role in the secret peace negotiations in Paris between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho that began in February 1970. Dong’s influence was evident in Tho’s initial demands for nothing less than a simultaneous armistice and a coalition government, to include the removal of President Nguyen Van Thieu. Negotiations were deadlocked until August 1972, when Dong came to believe that temporary compromise on the matter of Thieu would allow for a settlement. On August 1 Tho no longer demanded that military and political issues be resolved at one time. He also hinted that the North Vietnamese government would no longer require Thieu’s withdrawal. The resolution of final problems in the talks was delayed when Dong, in an October 18 interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave, made reference to the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord as a “coalition of transition.” This again raised the specter of a coalition government and temporarily halted the agreement until things could be worked out. The final agreement was signed on January 27, 1973. Dong continued in office after the capitulation of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) on April 30, 1975. He remained as chairman of the Council of Ministers of the SRV and as a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Politburo until a series of economic setbacks and a VCP struggle for power following the death of VCP secretary-general Le Duan forced Dong’s resignation in December 1986. He then became adviser for the Central Committee of the VCP, although without actual power, until 1997. As such,

899

Dong consistently pushed the VCP to rid itself of corruption. Many North Vietnamese regarded Dong as one of their few incorruptible leaders although never, despite his many years as prime minister, a skillful administrator. He died in Hanoi on April 29, 2000. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Le Duc Tho; Mendès-France, Pierre; Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap; Zhou Enlai References Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Pham Van Phu Birth Date: 1928 Death Date: April 30, 1975 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) major general and corps commander. Born in 1928 in Ha Dong, northern Vietnam, Pham Van Phu graduated from the Da Lat Military Academy. In 1954 he was a company officer in the 5th Parachutist Battalion of the Army of the State of Vietnam, fighting alongside the French at Dien Bien Phu. He was captured when Dien Bien Phu fell and spent several months in a Viet Minh prison camp as a prisoner of war. The hardships he endured during this imprisonment damaged Phu’s health for the rest of his life. In the ARVN, Phu commanded the Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces) and later the 44th Special Zone in the Mekong Delta. In 1970 he was appointed as the commander of the 1st Infantry Division in I Corps and led it during the desperate battles of Operation LAM SON 719 in 1971 and the Easter Offensive in 1972. After serving as commander of the Quang Trung Training Center, he took over as commander of II Corps in late 1974. During the March 1975 Communist offensive in the Central Highlands, General Phu’s forces suffered disastrous losses during a hasty and poorly organized retreat from the Central Highlands to the coast that had been ordered by President Nguyen Van Thieu in March 1975. As a result of these losses, President Thieu placed Phu under house arrest in Saigon. When Communist forces captured Saigon and he was faced with the prospect of again being sent to a Communist prison camp, General Phu committed suicide on April 30, 1975. NGUYEN CONG LUAN

900

Pham Xuan An

See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; LAM SON 719, Operation; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Ha Mai Viet. Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Pham Phong Dinh. Chien Su Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Combat History of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Self-published, 2001. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998.

Pham Van Thien See Pham Hung

Pham Xuan An Birth Date: September 27, 1927 Death Date: September 20, 2006 Western news reporter and spy for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Pham Xuan An was born near Saigon on September 27, 1927, and in 1945 joined the Viet Minh. After helping to lead anti-French student protests in Saigon, in 1951 An was recruited as an agent of the newly formed Viet Minh strategic intelligence service, then called the Nha Lien Lac (“Liaison Directorate”). In 1953 An was inducted into membership in the Communist Party. In 1954 he joined the new Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). His superiors in the ARVN assigned him to work in the army’s psychological warfare department, where his English-language capabilities soon brought him into contact with officers of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hanoi then selected An for a special mission. He was to go to the United States, under the aegis of a scholarship from the U.S. government–funded Asia Foundation, to study journalism and familiarize himself with the American people and their culture. During the period 1957–1959 An attended Fullerton College in California. He also interned at the Sacramento Bee newspaper and traveled around the United States. After his foray in the United States, An returned to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After working for a time in a low-level position in one of South Vietnam’s intelligence organizations, An went to work for the Reuters News Agency in 1961. During the Vietnam War he worked as a stringer and then reporter for several important news organizations including Time magazine, where he worked from 1965 to 1975. He had extremely good connections in high-level Vietnamese and American circles in Saigon, was friendly with virtually every journalist who covered the war,

and was the source for some of the most crucial reporting of the conflict. An’s language and networking skills as well as his U.S. military–issued press credentials proved invaluable to the Communist cause. Over the ensuing years An became closely acquainted with a wide range of influential people, including journalists David Halberstam, Morley Safer, and Neil Sheehan; CIA officers Lucien Conein, Edward Lansdale, and William Colby; South Vietnamese ambassador Bui Diem; General Duong Van Minh; and Ngo Dinh Diem’s intelligence chief Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen. An’s innumerable contacts, including close contacts inside South Vietnam’s Central Intelligence Organization, provided him with both classified and unclassified information that he passed to his handlers. An provided intelligence that contributed to the defeat of South Vietnamese forces at the Battle of Ap Bac in January 1963, and he helped plan the targets for the 1968 Tet Offensive. In 1975 as Ban Me Thuot fell to North Vietnamese forces, An helped persuade the North Vietnamese leadership, who believed that final victory was at least a year away, that the time was ripe for the final push and that the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) should march on Saigon. When the war was over, An abandoned his double life and was given the rank of colonel in the PAVN military intelligence service. Ironically, however, it appears that he was never completely trusted by his superiors in the postwar years because of his close ties to the Americans during the war. Eventually promoted to the rank of major general, An died in Ho Chi Minh City on September 20, 2006. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Bui Diem; Central Intelligence Agency; Colby, William Egan; Conein, Lucien Emile; Duong Van Minh; Halberstam, David; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Media and the Vietnam War; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Hoang Hai Van and Tan Tu. Pham Xuan An: A General of the Secret Service. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2003. Safer, Morley. Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1990.

Phan Boi Chau Birth Date: December 26, 1867 Death Date: October 29, 1940 Vietnamese scholar and anti-French activist. Phan Boi Chau was born in Sa Nam village, Nam Dan District, in coastal Nghe An Province on December 26, 1867. His father was a poor but highly educated scholar, and through him Phan studied the Chinese classic

Phan Chu Trinh texts. A nationalist from an early age, Phan as a teenager drafted an appeal to drive out the French. He supported Emperor Ham Nghi’s revolt against the French in 1885 and endorsed the Phong Trao Can Vuong (Support the King) edict. The French crushed the revolt, and with his father now in poor health and unable to provide for the family, Phan put aside the nationalist cause to earn a living, which he accomplished through teaching and writing. Unsuccessful at first with the regional mandarinate examinations, Phan studied Vietnamese reformist literature in Hue. Returning to Nghe An, he passed the mandarinate examinations with the highest possible marks in 1900. Upon his father’s death, Phan became a devoted activist against the French. Phan recognized early the need for Western political principles as a defense against imperialism. Joining the Duy Tan Hoi (Reformation Society), he perused the writings of the Chinese SelfStrengthening Movement such as Liang Chi Chao yet disapproved of their opposition to the use of force and their goal of effecting change from within. Phan instead favored violent means to oust the French, along with the use of covert links with high Nguyen dynasty officials and assistance from other nations such as Japan or China. By 1903 Phan selected Prince Cuong De, a direct descendant of Emperor Gia Long’s eldest son, Canh, as his nominee to assume the throne and wrote Luu Cau Huyet Le Tan Thu (Ryukyu’s Letter in Bitter Tears), a lament about losing sovereignty to a foreign power. The Duy Tan Hoi dispatched Phan to Japan to seek foreign aid. There he conferred with exiled Chinese and prominent Japanese. Phan believed that Japan would play a decisive role in the anticolonial struggle. He penned Viet Nam Vong Quoc Su (History of the Loss of Vietnam), a complaint about the weak Nguyen dynasty leadership and an urgent call for a nationwide resistance. Phan organized the Dong Du (Exodus to the East), an organization designed to send young Vietnamese to study in Japan. Phan advocated a reformed Vietnamese monarchy modeled along Japanese Meiji lines. His conviction that the Japanese would support Vietnam’s national aims was not shared by compatriot Phan Chu Trinh, who also traveled to Japan, yet rejected Japanese assistance. Once Tokyo dismantled the Dong Du in 1908, Phan Boi Chau went to Siam (present-day Thailand) and, with other Asian revolutionaries, established the East-Asian League. He hoped that the organization would evolve as a firm association of Eastern peoples opposed to European colonialism. When the Chinese Revolution of 1911 occurred, Phan and Cuong De hastened to Guangzhou (Canton). Phan came under the spell of Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen), leader of the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalists) and discarded the idea of a reformed monarchy for Vietnam. Phan dissolved the Duy Tan Hoi and created the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi (Vietnam Restoration Society), with the goal of setting up a Vietnamese democratic republic. Forming an exile regime, he installed Cuong De as chief executive and himself as vice president. Phan’s exiled underground inspired resistance in Vietnam between 1907 and 1918. He managed to smuggle in weapons

901

and planned assassinations. In 1925, however, the French captured Phan in Shanghai, tried him, and sentenced him to life in prison. Reports circulated among Vietnamese nationalists that Ho Chi Minh and his associate Lam Duc Thu had sold information on Phan’s whereabouts to the French secret service. In late 1945 Lam publicly disclosed this and was subsequently shot to death in front of his home by the Viet Minh. Prince Cuong De, however, confirmed the account. Eventually paroled, Phan lived in restrictive retirement until his death on October 29, 1940, in Hue. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Cuong De; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Phan Chu Trinh References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Cuong De. Cuoc Doi Cach Mang Cuong De. Saigon: Trang Liet, 1957. Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Hoang Van Chi. From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History of North Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1964. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

Phan Chu Trinh Birth Date: August 8, 1872 Death Date: March 26, 1926 Vietnamese scholar and nationalist. Born in Tay Loc in Quang Nam Province in central Vietnam on August 8, 1872, Phan Chu Trinh (also known as Phan Chau Trinh) was the son of a wealthy landowner who took part in Emperor Ham Nghi’s revolt against French rule in 1885. Phan was just 13 years old, but he joined in the fight against the French. Upon hearing of his father’s murder by his Phong Trao Can Vuong (Support the King) associates on the belief that he was a traitor, Phan broke with the resistance. Developing a lasting repugnance to violence, he took up the study of the Chinese classics. In 1901 he passed the regional and metropolitan mandarinate examinations, and in 1903 he was appointed to the Board of Rites at Hue. In 1905 Phan, who was critical of the traditional monarchy, resigned his bureaucratic post. Influenced by Chinese reformers such as Liang Chi Chao, Phan came to identify with Western political models and called for the creation of a republic to replace the monarchy. He also advocated eliminating the mandarin examination system and creating modern schools and businesses. In the spring of 1906 Phan traveled to Hong Kong and then on to Guangdong (Kwangtung), where he met with fellow Vietnamese nationalist Phan Boi Chau. The two then traveled to Japan, where they met with Vietnamese expatriates and supported the

902

Phan Dinh Phung

educational efforts of the Duy Tan Hoi (Reformation Society). However, Phan Chu Trinh opposed its endorsement of constitutional monarchy and reliance on Japan to evict the French from Indochina. Instead, he favored collaboration with the French, hoping to win reforms through peaceful means. Returning to Vietnam by August 1906, Phan began an open correspondence with French governor-general Paul Beau. While Phan credited the colonial regime with providing benefits to the populace, he was sharply critical of its support for a corrupt traditional mandarinate. Willing to postpone independence, he urged Beau to promote economic betterment, individual freedoms, unfettered education, and industrial development. Phan promised Vietnamese cooperation in a joint endeavor toward a modernized Vietnam. Phan helped to establish the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc (Free School of the Eastern City) in Hanoi to encourage progressive change and oppose revolution. As the school’s most admired lecturer, he used the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc to encourage modern ideas in Vietnam. Around this time Phan wrote Tinh Quoc Hon Ca (A Ballad to Awaken the National Soul), an original poem publicizing his significant reforms. In 1908 Phan was arrested on the occasion of a series of peasant tax uprisings in Annam with which he was involved. Tried and sentenced to death, he was confined to Con Dao Island (known to the French as Poulo Condor). Pardoned and freed in 1911, he traveled to France and publicly defended tax protestors and reproached the colonial regime. In Paris during World War I Phan was jailed in Santé Prison but was released by August 1915. Working in a photographer’s studio to support himself, Phan collaborated with other Vietnamese nationalists in France on “The Group of Vietnamese Patriots.” Phan and Ho Chi Minh composed an eight-point draft document calling for Vietnamese independence that was submitted to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Three years later Phan penned That Dieu Thu (Seven Point Letter), a document accusing Emperor Khai Dinh of crimes against the Vietnamese people. Phan returned to Vietnam in 1925 and published two speeches, one censuring the monarchy and the other considering the possible Vietnamese assimilation of European values. When Phan died on March 26, 1926, in Saigon, mourners turned out for a seven-day funeral that became a national event. RODNEY J. ROSS

Phan Dinh Khai

See also Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ho Chi Minh; Phan Boi Chau

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ton That Thuyet; Tu Duc

References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

See Le Duc Tho

Phan Dinh Phung Birth Date: 1847 Death Date: December 1895 Vietnamese nationalist and the most prominent Confucian scholar of the anti–French royalist movement in Vietnam in the late 19th century. Born in 1847 in Dong Thai village, La Son District, Ha Tinh Province, Phan Dinh Phung passed the triennial competitive mandarinate civil service examination in 1877 with the highest honors and won the title of dinh nguyen (“first laureate”). After serving as head of the district of Yen Khanh in Ninh Binh, he was recalled to the capital and assigned as ngu su (“grand censor”) in the Do Sat Vien (Censoriate). When Emperor Tu Duc died in 1883 and Emperor Duc Duc was dethroned that same year by the powerful regents Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet, Phung protested and was dismissed. In 1884 he was reinstalled as tham bien son phong (a mandarin in charge of a mountainous area) in Ha Tinh. In 1885 after Hue fell to the French and Emperor Ham Nghi left the capital to head the Phong Trao Can Vuong (Support the King) movement, Phung responded to the emperor’s appeal. With the support of the people from his native village, especially Confucian scholars and former mandarins, Phung raised an army and chose as his headquarters Mount Vu Quang, a strategic point that dominates Ha Tinh Citadel on the road linking Vietnam with Laos and Thailand. From Vu Quang his forces could operate not only in Ha Tinh but also in other provinces, including Quang Binh, Thanh Hoa, and Nghe An. His men were well trained and effectively organized, and one of his lieutenants, Cao Thang, was able to produce 300 rifles patterned after the French model of 1874. During a 10-year period Phung caused serious problems for the French. To force him to surrender, the French excavated his ancestors’ tombs and arrested his family members. The French also launched several attacks against Phung’s base in 1895, which were successful. The rebels abandoned Vu Quang, and Phung died shortly thereafter of dysentery in December 1895. PHAM CAO DUONG

References Dao Trinh Nhat. Phan Dinh Phung. Saigon: Tan Viet, 1950. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Vietnam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970.

Phan Huy Quat

Phan Huy Quat Birth Date: July 1, 1909 Death Date: 1979 Prominent politician, foreign minister, and premier in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Phan Huy Quat was born on July 1, 1909, in Ha Tinh Province in central Vietnam. His brotherin-law, Dr. Dang Van Sung, was a prominent leader of the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (National Party of Greater Vietnam). Quat left the Lycée Pellerin in Hue to continue his studies at Lycée du Protectorat in Hanoi. He then studied at the Medical School in Hanoi, graduating in 1936. He practiced medicine in Hanoi while at the same time engaging in the import-export business. In 1940 Quat was drafted into the army, where he held the rank of lieutenant in the medical corps. During the early 1940s he founded a new political party, Tan Viet Nam (New Vietnam). After the August 1945 revolution Quat was named chairman of the Administrative Committee of Central Vietnam, but he refused to accept the post. Quat returned to Hanoi in 1946 and remained there until his appointment on July 1, 1949, as minister of education in the government of the State of Vietnam. From 1950 to 1954 he was minister of

903

defense in the three consecutive governments of premiers Nguyen Phan Long, Nguyen Van Tam, and Buu Loc. The next premier, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused in 1954 to give Quat a ministerial post despite the recommendation of U.S. ambassador Donald Heath. Quat joined the so-called Caravelle Opposition Group composed of 18 prominent South Vietnamese politicians who in a news conference on April 26, 1960, at the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon signed a petition calling on Diem to carry out political reforms. After the abortive November 11, 1960, coup against Diem, Quat was imprisoned. He was released in July 1963 after being acquitted by a military court. Quat returned to the political scene as minister of foreign affairs in the government of Premier General Nguyen Khanh in 1964. In February 1965 the Armed Forces Council named Quat premier. A few months after being appointed, Quat had a falling out with Chief of State Phan Khac Suu, and under Catholic pressure Quat resigned the premiership in June 1965. He was the last civilian South Vietnamese premier. Quat continued to be active in the international arena and was president of the Asian Section of the World Anti-Communist Alliance until the Communist victory of April 1975. Imprisoned by the Communists after the war, Quat died in Saigon’s central prison in 1979. NGO NGOC TRUNG

Phan Huy Quat (left), prominent Republic of Vietnam politician, foreign minister, and premier, meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson on June 4, 1964. (Bettmann/Corbis)

904

Phan Khac Suu

See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Khanh; Phan Khac Suu; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

Phan Khac Suu Birth Date: January 9, 1905 Death Date: ca. 1972 Prominent politician in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and South Vietnamese president during 1964–1965. Born on January 9, 1905, in My Thuan village, Can Tho, in the heart of the Mekong Delta, Phan Khac Suu studied in France for six years. In 1929 he graduated as an agricultural engineer from the Colonial Agriculture Institute at Nogent, Paris. He returned to Vietnam in 1930 and was appointed chief of Economic and Technical Information, a division of the Department of Agriculture in the colonial French administration. In February 1941 the French authorities arrested Suu along with other prominent Vietnamese for forming a new political party, known as the United National Party for Vietnamese Revolution. According to French police records, this party, founded in October 1940, followed the ideas of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Sentenced to eight years of imprisonment to be followed by eight years of banishment, Suu was kept on Con Son (Poulo Condore) penal island from 1941 to 1945. After his release he stayed in the guerrilla-controlled Mekong Delta, returning to Saigon in 1948. On the return of Ngo Dinh Diem to Vietnam in 1954, Suu became his minister of agriculture but soon resigned after Diem ignored his advice and oppressed the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects. In 1959 Suu was elected to the National Assembly but was arrested after the abortive coup of November 11, 1960. In July 1963 a military court condemned him to eight years of solitary confinement. Once again he returned to Con Son penal island but was freed after the November 1, 1963, overthrow of Diem. In September 1964 Suu was named chairman of the High National Council, the consulting and legislative body set up by the new Armed Forces Council headed by General Nguyen Khanh. On October 24, 1964, Suu was elected by the High National Council as chief of state of South Vietnam. Suu named Tran Van Huong as premier, but Huong’s government was overthrown after only three months. The Armed Forces Council kept Suu as chief of state and in February 1964 named Phan Huy Quat the new premier. Suu and Quat soon were at political loggerheads over the nomination of several cabinet members, and Quat resigned under Catholic pressure in June 1965.

On June 13, 1965, the Armed Forces Council decided to abolish the High National Council to form a new war government headed by President Nguyen Van Thieu and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, and Suu was dismissed. In 1966 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and served as its chairman until the next election in 1967. He ran for the presidency in 1967 but finished third behind General Thieu and Truong Dinh Dzu and retired from politics. Suu died in Saigon, probably in 1972. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Cao Dai; Hoa Hao; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Phan Huy Quat; Truong Dinh Dzu References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

Phan Quang Dan Birth Date: November 6, 1918 Staunch Vietnamese anti-Communist, anticolonialist, and critic of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. Born at Vinh, Nghe An Province, on November 6, 1918, Phan Quang Dan studied medicine and received his MD degree from Hanoi Medical School in 1945. He subsequently studied at both the University of Paris (1949) and Harvard University (1954). Dan established the League of Food Collectors to save starving Vietnamese in the famine at the end of World War II but refused offers by Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), of a cabinet post in 1945. Dan then followed Emperor Bao Dai to China and served as his adviser. In 1948 Dan became Bao Dai’s minister of information but broke with him in 1949. In 1949 Dan formed his own political group, the Republican Party, and then went abroad to study at Harvard. He arranged an unsuccessful international forum to engage the Communists in negotiations following the 1954 Geneva Agreement. Returning to Vietnam in September 1955, Dan soon ran afoul of Ngo Dinh Diem, premier of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), who the next month became president. Perhaps the most prominent critic of the Diem regime, Phan headed a coalition of opposition groups who opposed Diem’s plans for the election of a Constituent Assembly. Dan was briefly arrested before the 1956 elections. He accused the Diem regime of dictatorial methods and was removed from his post with the Medical School in Saigon. Dan won election to the National Assembly in August 1959, defeating a Diem loyalist by a margin of six to one, but he was arrested and charged with electoral fraud as he left his medical

Phan Van Khai clinic to take up his seat in the National Assembly. During the November 11, 1960, coup attempt against Diem, Dan agreed to act as the spokesman for the coup leaders. He was again arrested and was tortured and sentenced to eight years of hard labor at Poulo Condore. Dan was released after the overthrow of Diem in November 1963. Elected a deputy to the 1966 Constituent Assembly, Dan ran for the presidency of South Vietnam, with Phan Khac Suu on his ticket, but failed to win the elections of September 3, 1967. Dan joined the South Vietnamese government as minister of foreign affairs in 1969 and later served as a deputy prime minister for social welfare and refugees. He played a prominent role in efforts to resettle hundreds of thousands of war victims and refugees. After the defeat of the South Vietnamese government in the spring of 1975, Dan resettled in the United States. He worked at the East End Family Health Center on St. Thomas Island before retiring to Florida in late 1987 to devote himself to the struggle for freedom and democracy in Vietnam. LONG BA NGUYEN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bao Dai; Ngo Dinh Diem; Phan Khac Suu; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

905

References Fontaine, Ray. The Dawn of Free Vietnam. Brownsville, TX: Pan American Business Services, 1992. Phan, Quang Dan. “From the Homeland to Overseas . . .” Viet Marketing and Business Report 16 (October/November/December 1994): 3–4. Scigliano, Robert G. South Vietnam: Nation under Stress. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.

Phan Van Hoa See Vo Van Kiet

Phan Van Khai Birth Date: December 25, 1933 Prominent leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and premier of the SRV from September 1997 to 2006. Born on December 25, 1933, in Saigon, Phan Van Khai fought against the French in the southern part of Vietnam during the Indochina War. After the 1954 Geneva

Phan Van Khai, prime minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from September 1997 to June 2006. (AFP/Getty Images)

906

Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix

Accords, he regrouped to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and was involved in rural work. From 1960 to 1965 he studied at the National Economics University in the Soviet Union. From 1965 to 1972 Khai was with the State Planning Commission in Hanoi, and from 1973 to 1975 he worked on the Reunification Committee of the national government. During the course of the next several years he served on the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee and was vice chairman of the city’s Planning Committee. From 1979 he was a standing member of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, vice chairman of the People’s Committee, and chairman of the city’s Planning Committee. In 1985 he became deputy secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee and chairman of the city’s People’s Committee. From 1989 to 1991 he was chairman of the State Planning Commission. In March 1982 at the Fifth Party Congress, Khai became an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee. In 1984 he was elected a full member of the VCP Central Committee, a position that was reconfirmed by the 1986 VCP Sixth Congress. In June 1991 at the VCP Seventh Congress, he was elected to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. In August 1991 at the ninth session of the Eighth National Assembly, Khai became vice chairman, or vice premier, of the Council of Ministers of the SRV. At the first session of the Ninth National Assembly he was elected first vice president of that body. Foreign observers credit the Soviet-trained Khai with the success of the SRV’s economic renovation program. An economist by profession, Khai was considered a technocrat rather than a dynamic leader. Although he was perceived to be lacking a political base and ambition, on September 19, 1997, the VCP Central Committee selected Khai to be chairman of the Councils of Ministers, or premier, replacing Vo Van Kiet. The rubber-stamp parliament then elected Khai to the post, a mere formality, on September 25. He was reelected in 2002 but resigned the post on June 24, 2006. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix Birth Date: February 7, 1837 Death Date: September 11, 1902 French administrator and diplomat and an expert on the Vietnamese language and Vietnamese legal procedures who was considered generally sympathetic to the Vietnamese. Born in Brussels, Belgium, on February 7, 1837, Paul-Louis-Félix Philastre

graduated from the French naval school in 1857 and signed on to the Avalanche, bound for China. He arrived in Cochin China in 1861, and in 1863 he was named to the post of inspector of indigenous affairs at My Tho in the Mekong Delta. He was appointed chief of native law in 1868. Taken ill, he returned to France, where he commanded an artillery regiment in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). In 1873 Philastre returned to Saigon. Under pressure from Paris to resolve the Garnier-Dupuis Affair in Tonkin, governor-general in Cochin China Admiral Marie-Jules Dupré commissioned Philastre as his ambassador to the court at Hue. In concert with Emperor Tu Duc, Philastre disavowed Francis Garnier’s actions in Tonkin and ordered the evacuation of all French garrisons there. Philastre made the preliminary arrangements for the treaty of protectorate signed at Hue on March 15, 1874, which is sometimes referred to as the Philastre Treaty. After a year’s service in neighboring Cambodia, Philastre returned to Hue and served as French chargé d’affaires from 1877 to 1879. He returned to France in 1880 and taught mathematics in Cannes and Nice from 1882 to 1894. He also translated into French the Vietnamese legal code and its commentaries; his work was published as Le Code annamite (The Annamite Code) in two volumes in Paris in 1876. Philastre died on September 11, 1902, in France. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Dupuis, Jean; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Garnier, Marie Joseph François; Tu Duc References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Whitfield, Danny J. Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1976.

Philippines Southeast Asian nation. The Republic of the Philippines, with a 1968 population of 36.424 million people, encompasses 186,000 square miles. An archipelago of 7,108 islands (with more than 90 percent of the national population on just 10 of the islands), the Philippines is located between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea. The country is situated south of Taiwan, north of Indonesia and eastern Malaysia, and about 750 miles east of Vietnam. An American possession since 1898, the Philippines was granted independence in 1946. A democratic republic, the Philippines adopted a constitution very similar to that of the United States. The Philippines has a bicameral legislature and a president who serves simultaneously as head of state, head of government, and commander in chief of the armed forces. Despite its democratic ideals, since 1946 the Philippines has sometimes come under dictatorial rule, most directly under Presi-

Philippines

907

Allied Strength in Vietnam, 1964–1972 Year

Australia

South Korea

New Zealand

Philippines

Thailand

1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

200 1,560 4,530 6,820 7,660 7,670 6,800 2,000 130

200 20,620 25,570 47,830 50,000 48,870 48,540 45,700 36,790

30 120 160 530 520 550 440 100 50

20 70 2,060 2,020 1,580 190 70 50 50

— 20 240 2,220 6,000 11,570 11,570 6,000 40

dent Ferdinand Marcos, who governed the country from 1965 to 1986. Over the course of many years the Philippine government has been faced with several native insurgencies, including one involving the Communist Party of the Philippines (until 1957) and one involving the Islamic Moros on Mindanao, which is ongoing. Because the Philippines share the same latitude with Vietnam, the climate and geography of the countries are quite similar. Indeed, numerous movies about the Vietnam War have been filmed in the Philippines. The Philippines assisted the United States in the Vietnam War. After the 1949 Communist victory in China, U.S. strategists feared that the loss of Southeast Asia to communism would irretrievably harm America’s defense of East Asia, undermining the security of offshore islands from Japan to the Philippines. The Philippine archipelago, located a mere 750 miles across the South China Sea from Indochina, seemed especially vulnerable should indeed dominoes began to fall. U.S. officials also perceived the Philippine experience as a prototype for U.S. Vietnam policy. Through 1953 and 1954 American operatives in Manila supported Ramón Magsaysay for secretary of defense and later assisted his successful campaign for the presidency while aiding his efforts to suppress the strong Communistdirected peasant-rooted rebellion, the Hukbalahap. Believing that comparable outcomes were attainable in Indochina, Washington sent Colonel Edward G. Lansdale, who had assisted Magsaysay, to Vietnam in 1954 to implement the psychological warfare techniques he had sharpened in the Philippines. Lansdale promoted Ngo Dinh Diem as the “Vietnamese Magsaysay.” Filipino foreign policy followed that of Washington. U.S. military bases in the Philippine Islands had been used to supply the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and would have been employed to launch the proposed Operation VULTURE, a massive U.S. air strike to aid the French defenders that never materialized. The U.S. call for united action envisioned Philippine cooperation, and Manila hosted the conference creating the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The Philippines became a member and by 1955 extended diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After the 1954 Geneva Accords, Manila dispatched assistance to the Saigon regime. Operation BROTHERHOOD, made public owing

to its benevolent task, assigned Filipino medical personnel to the South Vietnamese countryside and obtained nearly all of its funding from nonpublic Philippine associations. Filipino military veterans employed to execute covert missions in Indochina staffed the Freedom Company of the Philippines, established in 1955 and controlled by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Freedom Company carried out a range of activities, encompassing unconventional military actions north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), authorship of the South Vietnamese constitution, and training for President Ngo Dinh Diem’s executive guard. Operation BROTHERHOOD was phased out early in the ensuing decade, but the Freedom Company maintained operations to the end of the 1960s. Once the CIA removed its backing at the beginning of that period, the Freedom Company became known as the Eastern Construction Company. In 1964 the Philippine government joined the Free World Assistance Program, also known as the Many Flags, and, along with South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan), pledged assistance to South Vietnam. Ostensibly to secure assistance for the Saigon government and to demonstrate regional backing for President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam commitment, the effort was intended to create the impression that the war was an allied effort. The program began with the goal of seeking noncombat assistance, yet it soon sought the use of Free World soldiers in a military role. A dispute between the Philippines and the United States soon occurred over the nature of Philippine aid. Manila offered a civicaction detail of nonmilitary engineers and medical units, while Washington preferred military teams conducting unconventional warfare instruction. In 1965 as the military situation deteriorated, the United States urged President Diosdado Macapagal to win approval for assistance from the Philippine Congress. Despite opposition, the Philippine legislature authorized the Philippine Contingent (PHILCON I), composed of two military surgical groups and a psychological operations team, but stipulated that the amount of assistance would depend on the extent of Washington’s economic support for the Philippines. After much wrangling over funding, newly elected president Ferdinand Marcos endorsed the deployment of the Philippine Civil Action group (PHILCAG), a 2,300-man engineering group,

908

Phnom Penh

financed mainly by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Personally opposed to the employment of combat troops, Marcos won the Philippine Congress’s sanction to fund PHILCAG for 12 months, and by September 1966 the unit began debarking in South Vietnam. Secret economic concessions by President Johnson smoothed the procurement of PHILCAG. Yet by 1967 antipathy to PHILCAG in the Philippines led to a reduction in the size of the unit. Before its return home in 1969, nine Filipinos in PHILCAG had died in action. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Free World Assistance Program; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Order of Battle Dispute; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; United States Agency for International Development; VULTURE, Operation References Blackburn, Robert M. Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson’s “More Flags”: The Hiring of Korean, Filipino and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Phnom Penh Capital city of Cambodia. Phnom Penh is located at the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers in south-central Cambodia. In the late 1960s Phnom Penh had a population of some 600,000 people, comprising approximately 10 percent of Cambodia’s total population. The 2008 population is estimated at 1.011 million people. As the seat of government and the largest population center in Cambodia, Phnom Penh represented the key to power during the country’s brutal civil war from 1970 to 1975. Phnom Penh is believed to have been the site of human habitation since the late 14th century. As the boundaries of the Cambodian kingdom moved eastward in the 15th century, the traditional capital at Angkor was abandoned, probably sometime in the 1440s. Phnom Penh became the dominant urban center of Cambodia as it controlled river-borne trade to and from Laos and the Mekong Delta. However, Phnom Penh was not always the royal capital of the country, as Cambodian kings often shifted their capitals. Because Cambodia remained an overwhelmingly rural country, the population of Phnom Penh probably never exceeded 25,000 people as late as the 1850s. In 1863 King Norodom accepted a French protectorate over Cambodia to escape domination by Siam. Phnom Penh was then made the administrative capital of Cambodia by the French in 1865. French colonial authorities expanded the city, laying out distinctive wide streets and an architecture that combined French and Cambodian styles. By the mid-1930s the population of Phnom Penh had grown to about 100,000. In 1953 Cambodia gained independence from France, and the capital city continued to grow.

On March 18, 1970, a military coup overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who had led Cambodia since 1953. Sihanouk had proven unable to expel Communist forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from eastern Cambodia, where they had established sanctuaries, or base areas, to carry on the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The proAmerican leader of the coup, General Lon Nol, ordered the Cambodian Army into action against the Vietnamese Communists and a small indigenous Cambodian Communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge. On April 30, 1970, American and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia with the objective of destroying Communist sanctuaries there. American forces withdrew at the end of June. The Cambodian Civil War that followed saw the rapid growth of the Khmer Rouge. Led by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge quickly gained control of large areas of the countryside and reduced government control to major population centers and connecting transportation corridors. Phnom Penh came under Khmer Rouge artillery bombardments early on, and a raid by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) sappers (commandos) on Phnom Penh’s airport in January 1971 practically wiped out the tiny Cambodian Air Force. The city was also soon flooded by refugees fleeing from the fighting in the countryside, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, and American air strikes. By February 1973, Khmer Rouge forces had penetrated the outlying suburbs of Phnom Penh. The Americans extended assistance to Lon Nol’s regime to keep it from falling and carried out massive B-52 bombing raids around the capital. Khmer Rouge forces were forced to retreat, and Lon Nol’s regime was given a temporary reprieve. When the U.S. bombing campaign ended on August 15, 1973, at the insistence of the U.S. Congress, more than 500,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge suffered heavily from the American B-52 attacks. The Americans estimated that the 1973 bombings alone killed 16,000 Khmer Rouge troops, or half their frontline strength. Another Khmer Rouge offensive aimed at Phnom Penh in the early months of 1974 also failed, although the noose around the city was considerably tightened. The capital remained under sustained Khmer Rouge artillery fire. The final attack on Phnom Penh began on January 1, 1975. By that time, all overland transportation routes to the capital had been severed. The population of the city, now numbering more than 2 million people, relied on convoys up the Mekong River and American airlifts for food, transportation, and fuel. The Khmer Rouge massed 30,000 troops for the final assault on the city, backed up by 105-millimeter (mm) howitzers and Chinese-manufactured 107-mm rockets. The Khmer Rouge also used Chinese floating mines to cut off the Mekong River convoys, which were supplying 90 percent of goods reaching the city. The final Mekong convoy reached Phnom Penh on January 26, 1975. The airport, the last link to the outside world, now came under intense Khmer Rouge artillery and rocket fire. Meanwhile, Khmer Rouge infantry closed in on Phnom Penh from three directions. Foreign embassies began evacuations in March 1975.

Phoenix Program On April 1, 1975, Lon Nol resigned and went into exile in Hawaii. U.S. ambassador John Gunther Dean and remaining members of his staff were evacuated from Phnom Penh on April 10. Khmer Rouge troops entered the city on April 17, ending a war that probably claimed half a million Cambodian lives. Within days the Khmer Rouge evacuated the civilian population from Phnom Penh, ostensibly out of fear of American retaliatory bombing and to feed the population. The evacuation of Phnom Penh, however, marked the beginning of the Cambodian genocide during which the Khmer Rouge leadership proceeded to murder millions of Cambodians. Phnom Penh remained under the heel of the Khmer Rouge until they were driven from the city and power by the Vietnamese in 1979. During 1979–1989 in the period of Vietnamese occupation, Phnom Penh slowly returned to life. However, full economic recovery was inhibited by an international trade embargo in protest of the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. Following the withdrawal of the Vietnamese in 1989, Phnom Penh served as the headquarters of the United Nations (UN) Transitional Authority in Cambodia, which brokered a peace agreement among Cambodia’s competing political factions. In 1996 Phnom Penh witnessed a brief but intense outburst of street fighting when Prime Minister Hun Sen purged some of his rivals. In recent years foreign tourism to Phnom Penh and Cambodia has increased, with the ancient ruins at Angkor Wat and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh serving as primary attractions. Today Phnom Penh is home to just over 1 million Cambodians, many of whom are living in conditions of desperate poverty. PAUL WILLIAM DOERR See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Lon Nol; Pol Pot; Sihanouk, Norodom References Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Deac, Wilfred P. Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970–1975. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. Short, Philip. Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare. New York: Holt, 2004.

Phoenix Program Start Date: 1968 End Date: 1972 Program to identify and eliminate the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI) in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The VCI represented the political and administrative arm of the insurgency in South Vietnam and logistically supported Viet Cong (VC) operations, recruited new members, and directed terrorist activities against allied forces. Initially the South Vietnamese intelligence apparatus and elimination forces proved inadequate at gathering intelligence. In May 1967 Robert Komer, whom President Lyndon Johnson chose to

909

oversee pacification efforts in South Vietnam, arrived in Vietnam to head U.S. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). This organization combined U.S. and Vietnamese civilian and military intelligence and pacification programs and was placed within the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), chain of command. Supervised by CORDS and financially supported by and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a new program, Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX), began building district intelligence and operations coordinating centers (DIOCCs) to collect, disseminate, and forward information to field units. Additional centers were also built at the province level. In early 1968 questions were raised regarding whether the CIA had violated the sovereignty of South Vietnam. To justify the legality of ICEX, William Colby, chief of the CIA’s Far East Division, sought and obtained a decree signed by President Nguyen Van Thieu formally establishing Phuong Hoang (Phoenix), a name chosen because of its symbolic meaning, to assume ICEX operations. The ICEX became the deadliest weapon against the VCI. With renewed fervor, American and South Vietnamese personnel began collecting and analyzing data while concurrently arresting and neutralizing targeted individuals. The DIOCCs circulated to every district and province in South Vietnam blacklists of known VCI operatives so that Phoenix forces could arrest and interrogate these individuals. The blacklists consisted of four rankings from A to D, with “A” being the most wanted. District and province intelligence centers distributed these lists to Phoenix field forces, which would then apprehend or neutralize the individuals. These forces included Vietnamese units such as the National Police, the National Police Field Force, Provincial Reconnaissance Units, and U.S. Navy Sea Air Land teams (SEALs). If not neutralized (killed) by these units, the targeted individual was transported to a provincial interrogation center (PIC). After PIC personnel, consisting of CIA advisers and their Vietnamese counterparts, gathered sufficient intelligence, they sent the information up the chain of command for analysis by DIOCC and CORDS officials. With the advent of Vietnamization and the withdrawal of American personnel, the Phoenix Program suffered. Also, public pressure generated by news reports led to congressional interest in the program. Reporters described Phoenix as nothing more than an assassination program. This culminated in Phoenix being one of the programs to come under congressional investigation, and in 1971 William Colby, then deputy to the MACV commander for CORDS (and future director of the CIA), appeared before a House Committee to explain it. Another factor in the program’s demise was the 1972 Easter Offensive. This People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) invasion of South Vietnam forced the South Vietnamese government to focus its military strength against conventional rather than unconventional forces. Thus, in the spring of 1972 the National Police assumed responsibility for Phoenix, and by December 1972 the United States ended its role in the program.

910

Phoumi Nosavan

Despite the media’s negative reports, top-ranking CIA officials as well as leaders of the VC and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) agree that the Phoenix Program was a success. According to available sources, from 1968 to 1972 captured VC numbered around 34,000; of these 22,000 rallied to the South Vietnamese government, while those killed numbered some 26,000. Proof of Phuong Hoang’s success could be seen in Quang Tri Province during the 1972 Easter Offensive. For the first time there were front lines, behind which civilians and troops could move freely at night. Most bridges in rear areas did not have to be guarded as they had been in the past. And when Communist forces took northern Quang Tri Province, they were unable to find trustworthy sympathizers at the village level. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also Central Intelligence Agency; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Colby, William Egan; Counterinsurgency Warfare; Komer, Robert W.; Pacification; Psychological Warfare Operations; Territorial Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1990. Colby, William, with James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. DeForest, Orrin, and David Chanoff. Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Herrington, Stuart A. Silence Was a Weapon: The Vietnam War in the Villages; A Personal Perspective. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982.

Phoumi Nosavan Birth Date: January 27, 1920 Death Date: November 3, 1985 Laotian general and political leader. Phoumi Nosavan was born on January 27, 1920, in Savannakhet, Laos. His mother was from Mukdaharn—across the Mekong River in Thailand—and he was a distant cousin of Thai marshal Sarit Thanarat. Phoumi took part in the nationalist movement as one of the leaders of the Lao Pen Lao and played a role in liberating Savannakhet from the Japanese at the end of World War II. He joined the Lao Issara independent government and, with the return of the French, accompanied its leaders into exile (1946–1949). After a short-lived flirtation with the Viet Minh during the Indochina War, Phoumi joined the Royal Lao Army as a lieutenant in 1950. He rose rapidly through staff appointments, becoming chief of staff in 1955. He was the commander of Military Region V in 1956 and went to France to study at the École de Guerre in 1957.

General Phoumi Nosavan, then the key figure in the Laotian right-wing government in Vientiane, gives an address during a Laotian Army Day celebration in 1961. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Returning to Laos, Phoumi captured the attention of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was one of the prime movers behind the Committee for the Defense of National Interests. As a colonel, he joined the government of Phoui Sananikone in January 1959 as vice minister of defense. Phoumi was involved in the unsuccessful effort to remove Phoui from power in December 1959 and in that month was promoted to brigadier general. In the succeeding government Phoumi was made defense minister and organized his own political party, the Paxa Sangkhom. After the fraudulent elections of April 25, 1960, he was once again defense minister in the government of Tiao Somsanith. When Captain Kong Le overthrew the government in a coup d’état on August 9, 1960, and seized control of Vientiane, Phoumi flew from Luang Prabang to Ubon and then to Bangkok, where his appeal to Marshal Sarit to help him restore the pro-Western Somsanith government won him promises of aid. Phoumi was also backed by the CIA and the U.S. Defense Department, which ordered that aid be furnished to him at his base at Savannakhet.

PIERCE ARROW, Operation

After an unsuccessful attempt to patch things up with new prime minister Prince Souvanna Phouma, Phoumi formed the Counter– Coup d’état Committee (later renamed the Revolutionary Committee) under the nominal leadership of Prince Boun Oum. With backing from Thailand and the United States (clandestine because the United States still recognized the legal government in Vientiane), forces loyal to Phoumi attacked and captured Vientiane in December 1960, forcing Prince Souvanna Phouma to flee to Cambodia. The initial hopes that the United States had placed in Phoumi to defeat the Communists in Laos were soon dashed, as it became apparent that his troops controlled little of Laos outside the major towns. Eventually Phoumi and Prince Boun Oum became the leaders of the rightist faction in a tripartite agreement, brokered with international help, for a coalition government with the Neutralists and the Pathet Lao. Phoumi became deputy premier in this government, which took office in June 1962. Phoumi continued his support for Prince Souvanna Phouma until February 1965, when Phoumi was caught in a rightist coup plot, apparently of others’ making, and fled to Thailand. He was convicted in absentia by a commission of the National Assembly of numerous crimes, including corruption. In spite of several attempts to restore his reputation in Laos and personal appeals to Prince Souvanna Phouma, Phoumi never returned to Laos and died in a comfortable exile in Bangkok, Thailand, on November 3, 1985. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Kong Le; Laos; Souvanna Phouma References Cordell, Helen, comp. Laos. World Bibliographical Series, Vol. 133. Santa Barbara, SC: ABC-CLIO, 1991. Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1971.

Phou Pha Thi See Lima Site 85

PHU DUNG, Operation See SHINING BRASS, Operation

PIERCE ARROW,

Operation

Event Date: August 1964 U.S. Navy air strikes launched against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin

911

Incident. When news was received in Washington that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin on the night of August 4, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson quickly ordered retaliatory air strikes, code-named PIERCE ARROW. The targets were North Vietnamese naval vessels at a number of locations along the North Vietnamese coast and a petroleum storage facility at Vinh. Sixty-four sorties were flown from the aircraft carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation. U.S. military planners would have preferred a dawn attack, and President Johnson was determined that it be made early enough so that he could announce it before too much of the American public had retired for the night. However, there were long delays. The Ticonderoga was short of strike aircraft, and more were flying in from the Philippines. The Constellation, proceeding west from Hong Kong at top speed, was not yet in position. When Johnson went on radio and television to announce the air strikes, it was 10:37 a.m. in North Vietnam and 11:37 p.m. in Washington. At this point, only four of the Ticonderoga’s aircraft and none from the Constellation were in the air. No bombs fell for another 90 minutes. According to a postwar memoir by a senior North Vietnamese Air Defense Command officer, right after President Johnson made his televised announcement the North Vietnamese General Staff ordered the Air Defense Command Headquarters to place all air defense units on full battle alert. However, the Air Defense Command had just lowered the national air defense alert level, and the General Staff’s message arrived after all of the command’s senior officers had gone home to take their usual lunchtime siesta. The Air Defense Command duty officer, afraid to countermand the original order reducing the alert level on his own authority, wasted precious minutes trying to find a senior officer to make the decision for him. By the time the alert was finally sent out, the American air attacks had already begun. The petroleum storage facility at Vinh, important to the supply systems supporting Communist forces both in Laos and in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), was the priority target and was destroyed. Of the naval ships attacked, most were Chinese-made Swatow-class coastal patrol vessels. The air strikes sank at least one but probably not more than three. A few torpedo boats and one submarine chaser were also attacked; none of these seem to have been sunk, although they suffered damage and personnel casualties. Two U.S. aircraft were shot down, both from the Constellation. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Everett Alvarez, attacking vessels in the harbor at Hon Gai, was forced to bail out of his McDonnell Douglas A-4C Skyhawk. Captured, he remained a prisoner until 1973. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Richard Sather, attacking Swatow boats off the mouth of the Ma River, was killed when his Douglas A-1H Skyraider crashed into the sea. Each side claimed victory, exaggerating its success in the action. The United States claimed eight vessels sunk, while North Vietnam claimed eight aircraft shot down. The American public

912

Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre

A painting showing U.S. Navy commander James B. Stockdale leading the first American air strike on North Vietnam, an attack on the oil facilities at Vinh on August 5, 1964, known as Operation PIERCE ARROW. (R.G. Smith, Navy Art Collection)

approved of the air strikes overwhelmingly, so much so that public opinion polls showed a dramatic improvement in ratings of the president’s overall handling of the situation in Southeast Asia. EDWIN E. MOISE See also Aircraft Carriers; Alvarez, Everett, Jr.; DeSoto Missions; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Operation Plan 34A References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Nguyen Xuan Mau and The Ky. Bao Ve Bau Troi: Hoi Ky [Defending the Skies: A Memoir]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1982.

Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre

of Adran, was born on November 2, 1741, at Origny-SainteBenoite (Aisne). In 1765 he left for Pondichéry and from there was ordered in 1767 to Ha Tien Province in southern Vietnam to head a Catholic seminary. During the wars between the Tay Son brothers and the Nguyen forces in southern Vietnam, Pigneau befriended and spirited to safety on an island in the Gulf of Siam the 16-year-old nephew of the Nguyen lords, Nguyen Phuc Anh, the future Emperor Gia Long. From this incident on, Pigneau devoted his life to the restoration of the Nguyens to power. Partly through Pigneau’s tireless lobbying on behalf of Nguyen Phuc Anh and his raising of troops from among French Navy deserters, this aim was finally accomplished in 1802. Pigneau was not to live to see it; he died of dysentery on October 9, 1799. He was buried on December 16, 1799, in Gia Dinh in the presence of the crown prince, all court mandarins, the king’s bodyguard of 12,000 men, and 40,000 mourners. Nguyen Phuc Anh composed a funeral oration, which was read aloud. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN

Birth Date: November 2, 1741 Death Date: October 9, 1799

See also Nguyen Dynasty; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Tay Son Rebellion; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest

French Catholic bishop who became an adviser to Emperor Gia Long and probably did as much as any single Frenchman to involve France in Vietnam. Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine, the bishop

References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958.

Pignon, Léon Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Whitfield, Danny J. Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1976.

Pignon, Léon Birth Date: April 19, 1908 Death Date: April 4, 1976 French high commissioner in Indochina (1948–1950). Born on April 19, 1908, in Angoulême, France, Léon Pignon studied at the École Coloniale before joining the French Ministry for the Colonies in 1932. His many assignments included a stint in Tonkin prior to the outbreak of World War II. Returning to France in 1938, he was imprisoned by the Germans and held until 1942. Following the war he returned to foreign service, performing in numerous capacities including commissioner for foreign affairs, commissioner of the republic in Cambodia, and assistant to High Commissioner for Indochina Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu.

913

A strong proponent of the French Empire, Pignon succeeded d’Argenlieu as high commissioner in 1948. Pignon refused to negotiate with the Viet Minh but did work with Emperor Bao Dai to enhance the facade of Vietnamese independence. The Elysée Agreement, containing an outline for a unified Vietnam but one in which France maintained control of its defense, diplomacy, and finance, was completed in March 1949. Pignon’s short tenure as high commissioner ended the following year. Pignon continued to serve France, first as a delegate to the United Nations (UN) Trusteeship Council and then as director of political affairs for the Ministry of French Overseas Territories. He died in Paris on April 4, 1976. DAVID COFFEY See also Bao Dai; Bollaert, Émile; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Elysée Agreement References International Who’s Who, 1976–1977. London: Europa Publications, 1977. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

French high commissioner in Indochina Léon Pignon (seated on the left) with Emperor Bao Dai (second from left) and other officials of the State of Vietnam at Da Lat in southern Vietnam on April 28, 1949. (AP/Wide World Photos)

914

PIRANHA, Operation

PIRAZ Warships

North Vietnam) and aircraft carriers at Yankee Station. The surface warships soon assumed other duties, such as vectoring U.S. aircraft against North Vietnamese MiGs. In the first successful performance of that mission, the destroyer Joseph Strauss in June 1965 controlled two McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms to an interception of two MiG-17s, thus contributing to the initial American aerial victories of the conflict. Formalized in July 1966, the patrols were dubbed PIRAZ for “Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone.” In addition to early-warning and fighter-control duties, PIRAZ ships were to provide a precise navigational reference point for U.S. aircraft, track all planes flying over the Gulf of Tonkin and eastern areas of North Vietnam, keep U.S. aircraft from crossing into People’s Republic of China (PRC) airspace, and direct search-and-rescue helicopters to downed aircrews. Because these multiple missions frequently involved tracking hundreds of aircraft simultaneously, the vessels assigned to PIRAZ were inevitably the most modern surface warships, especially those equipped with the new computerized Naval Tactical Data System and with antiaircraft missile batteries for self-defense. As an index of the complex tasks involved, the nuclear-powered cruiser USS Long Beach kept track of about 30,000 U.S. aircraft sorties during a four-month tour in 1967 and followed more than 400 North Vietnamese aircraft flights in the spring of 1968. Several times PIRAZ warships fired missiles at North Vietnamese fighter aircraft. On May 23, 1968, the Long Beach downed a MiG with a Talos missile at a range of 65 miles, the first instance in which a ship had hit a hostile plane with a guided missile. In September the nuclear cruiser destroyed a second MiG at a similar distance. On at least one occasion North Vietnamese aircraft directly challenged a PIRAZ warship. In July 1972 five MiGs attacked the frigate Biddle, which proceeded to shoot down two of the attackers while suffering no damage itself. PIRAZ warships enjoyed even greater successes by controlling U.S. interception of North Vietnamese planes. For instance, in just one week during October 1972, the nuclear frigate USS Truxtun directed U.S. fighters to six air-to-air victories. The top-scoring ship in this field was the cruiser Chicago, whose radar man Master Chief Petty Officer Larry Nowell received the U.S. Navy’s Distinguished Service Medal in August 1972 for vectoring U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force fighters to 12 successful interceptions. It was in the performance of more mundane duties, however, that the PIRAZ warships made their greatest contribution. They also validated the U.S. Navy’s newest electronic and missile systems. In so doing, they helped demonstrate the capabilities of the surface warship in a navy dominated by carrier aviation. MALCOLM MUIR JR.

U.S. destroyers, frigates, and cruisers operating in the Gulf of Tonkin to provide support for allied aircraft. To give early warning of air attack, U.S. Navy surface combatants first took up station in April 1965 between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV,

See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Yankee Station

PIRANHA,

Operation

Start Date: September 7, 1965 End Date: September 10, 1965 Allied military operation during September 7–10, 1965, on the Batangan Peninsula along the coast of southern Quang Ngai Province, about 15 miles south of Chu Lai. Operation PIRANHA followed on the conclusion of Operation STARLITE, a weeklong battle in August notable for being the first major U.S. ground operation in the Vietnam War. During STARLITE, battalions from the III Marine Amphibious Force engaged the Viet Cong (VC) 1st Regiment on the Batangan Peninsula in the first regimental-size U.S. ground operation since the Korean War (1950–1953). STARLITE involved both amphibious landings and helicopter-borne assaults, and in just one week the marines claimed 964 VC killed and possibly diverted an attack on the new U.S. base at Chu Lai. Operation PIRANHA targeted another VC buildup, possibly by remnants of the battered VC 1st Regiment, a few miles farther south on the Batangan Peninsula. The coast there also was reported to be a place of entry for the seaborne infiltration of supplies. PIRANHA differed significantly from STARLITE in that a relatively small number of marines coordinated with several battalions of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 2nd Division and a battalion of Vietnamese marines. The results of PIRANHA were less spectacular than STARLITE, but U.S. Marine Corps forces still counted 183 VC killed in action, 66 of them in a single cave blown up by U.S. Marine Corps engineers when the VC refused to surrender. Marine casualties in PIRANHA were extremely light, with only 2 killed and 14 wounded. South Vietnamese forces claimed an additional 66 VC killed for only 5 killed and 33 wounded. Both STARLITE and PIRANHA may have disabused the VC of any illusion that they could defeat U.S. marines in a stand-up battle, but Quang Ngai Province remained a Communist sanctuary well into 1968. JOHN D. ROOT See also STARLITE, Operation; United States Marine Corps References Simmons, Brigadier General Edwin H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1965–66.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 35–68. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Pistols References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Muir, Malcolm, Jr. Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1996.

Pistols During the Indochina War, French forces used quantities of both domestic and foreign pistols. Based primarily on a Browning design, the French M-1935A and M-1935S pistols were chambered for the 7.65-millimeter (mm) long cartridge. Both pistols were recoil-operated semiautomatic weapons attaining a muzzle velocity of 1,132 feet per second and were fed by eight-round detachable box magazines. The M-1935A was 7.6 inches long and weighed 1.62 pounds. The M-1935S was 7.4 inches in length and weighed 1.75 pounds.

915

French forces also used large numbers of German 9-mm P-38s Walthers and P-08 Lugers as well as American .45-caliber M-1911 and M-1911A1 Colts. Experience with these weapons spurred designers at the Saint Étienne Arsenal to develop a new French service pistol. The resulting 9-mm M-1950 was essentially a modification of the U.S. .45-caliber Colt M-1911A1 chambered for the German 9-mm parabellum cartridge. The M-1950 was 7.6 inches long and weighed 1.8 pounds. It operated with a nine-round detachable box magazine and produced a muzzle velocity of 1,156 feet per second. During the Vietnam War, the standard sidearm issued to U.S. forces was the .45-caliber M-1911A1. Designed by John Browning and originally designated the M-1911 after its year of adoption, the pistol was first manufactured by Colt’s Patent Firearms Company of Hartford, Connecticut. In 1926 the M-1911 was slightly modified and redesignated the M-1911A1. More than 2.4 million .45-caliber M-1911 and M-1911A1s were produced for the U.S. government by various manufacturers.

Medic private first class Andrew J. Brown draws his pistol while protecting a wounded U.S. paratrooper from sniper fire in the jungle near Thuong Lang, about 10 miles northeast of Bien Hoa, June 24, 1965. (AP/Wide World Photos)

916

Plain of Jars

The .45-caliber M-1911A1 was a recoil-operated semiautomatic firing a .45-caliber ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) rimless cartridge that achieved a muzzle velocity of 830 feet per second. The pistol was 8.62 inches long and weighed 2.43 pounds. It fired from a seven-round detachable box magazine. The U.S. government also purchased a variety of commercial pistols for special-purpose use, and individual personnel at times carried privately purchased or captured sidearms. Secondary military-issued pistols included the .32- and .380-caliber Colt semiautomatic pistol and the .38-caliber Colt Detective Special Revolver, the Colt Police Positive Revolver, the Colt Special Official Police, the Colt Combat Masterpiece, the Smith & Wesson Model 10, and the Smith & Wesson Military and Police revolvers. During the Indochina War and the Vietnam War, Viet Minh, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), and Viet Cong (VC) forces utilized a wide variety of sidearms. The quality of these weapons ranged from primitive homemade zip guns to captured World War II Japanese and well-made French and American pistols. Large numbers of weapons were also imported from other Communist countries. Produced by both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the most commonly used sidearm was the Soviet-designed Tokarev TT Model 1933 semiautomatic pistol, designated the Type 51 by the Chinese and the K-54 by the PAVN. Modified at the Tula arsenal by Fedor V. Tokarev from a ColtBrowning design, the TT Model 1933/Type 51 was chambered for a bottlenecked 7.62-mm cartridge. Fed by an eight-round in-line detachable box magazine, the TT Model 1933/Type 51 was 7.68 inches long, weighed 1.88 pounds, and achieved a muzzle velocity of 1,378 feet per second. JEFF KINARD See also Grenade Launchers; Hand Grenades; Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Rifles; Rockets and Rocket Launchers References Chant, Christopher, ed. How Weapons Work. London: Marshall Cavendish, 1976. Kinard, Jeff. Pistols: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Rosa, Joseph G., and Robin May. An Illustrated History of Guns and Small Arms. London: Peerage Books, 1984. Smith, W. H. B., and Edward C. Ezell. Small Arms of the World. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992.

Plain of Jars Rolling plain in Xieng Khouang Province of northern Laos near the border of Vietnam famed for a large number of stone urns or jars, the origin of which remains a mystery. The Plain of Jars is a major archaeological site. It is crossed from east to west by Route 7, the road coming from northern Vietnam to join the south-north

The Plain of Jars, Phone Savan, Laos. (Luciano Mortula/Dreamstime.com)

road from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, Route 13, at the Sala Phou Khoun Road junction. There is an airfield, originally built by the French, at Phone Savan. Other major towns are Khang Khay on the east, Xieng Khouang on the south, and Muong Soui on the west. These towns were largely destroyed between 1963 and 1973 during the Vietnam War. Because the Plain of Jars was one of the key strategic locations in all of Laos, both sides conducted numerous large-scale offensives to gain control of it, and the Plain of Jars changed hands a number of times during the course of the war. The plain was very heavily bombed by U.S. aircraft, and unexploded ordnance continues to kill people in the area. An ordnance-defusing team, supported by international aid from foreign governments, including the United States, and nongovernmental organizations, has worked to correct the situation. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Airpower, Role in War; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Laos References Dutt, Ashok J., ed. Southeast Asia: Realm of Contrasts. 3rd rev. ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. SarDesai, D. R. Southeast Asia: Past and Present. 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.

Pleiku

Plain of Reeds Location, primarily in Kien Phong and Kien Tuong provinces about 40 miles west of Saigon, that was a stronghold for Communist guerrilla operations throughout the Vietnam War. The area is approximately 5,020 square miles in size. Formed by a depression in the Mekong Delta, the Plain of Reeds consists largely of harsh, sparsely populated marshland. Its principal crop is rice, harvested annually; often the area is below water. Because few of the peasants owned their own land, they lived in oppressive economic conditions, and the Viet Minh manipulated the local population against the French, who called the area Plaine des Joncs. Similarly, the Viet Cong (VC) controlled the population against American and South Vietnamese forces. Although no large American units were deployed against the small-scale guerrilla maneuvers, two significant battles took place there, one during January 1–8, 1966, and another on July 29, 1969. Also in 1969 the U.S. Navy conducted Operation BARRIER REEF, successfully inhibiting the ability of Communist forces to traverse the plain en route to heavily populated areas farther south. Additionally, the plain was a staging area for the 1970 incursions into Cambodia against guerrilla sanctuaries and resupply routes. The final major battles in the area occurred in 1972 during the Easter Offensive. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Cambodian Incursion; Easter Offensive; Mekong Delta References Andradé, Dale. Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America’s Last Vietnam Battle. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995. Coleman, J. D. Incursion. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Pleiku City in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and an early symbol of the U.S. military presence in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Pleiku’s current population is about 187,000 people. The city was strategically important during the Vietnam War because it sat astride a major logistics supply line along Highway 19, which ran west from the coast into the interior. Situated in Montagnard country, Pleiku housed the headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) II Corps, whose major task was opposing interdiction from Laos and Cambodia. Early on a nearby airstrip and the Camp Holloway barracks for American military advisers signified the U.S. commitment to bolstering the beleaguered Saigon regime. On February 7, 1965, Viet Cong (VC) attackers killed 9 Americans at Pleiku, wounded more than 120, and destroyed 16 helicopters, with only minimal casualties for the attackers. The guerrillas

917

had obtained a detailed layout of the thinly guarded facilities at Pleiku. Already in South Vietnam to appraise the war effort, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy urged the White House to begin bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in accordance with a preexisting plan that he believed needed only a single act of provocation, such as the VC attack on Pleiku, to implement. Bundy is reported to have said that “Pleikus are like streetcars,” meaning that one knew that something like this was bound to come along. He hoped that the raid on Pleiku might initiate a new phase of the conflict by providing an excuse to punish the Hanoi regime. Operation FLAMING DART commenced shortly thereafter, with the bombing of Dong Hoi above the 17th Parallel that separated North and South Vietnam. These sorties heralded the onset of a much broader air campaign, Operation ROLLING THUNDER, that unleashed three years of continuous bombing. Soviet prime minister Aleksei Kosygin was in Hanoi, hoping to convince the North Vietnamese leadership to accept a compromise for the political future of Vietnam. His mission failed, however, and the U.S. retaliation dovetailed nicely with Hanoi’s renewed pleas for Soviet weaponry. Kosygin was furious that the United States had attacked North Vietnam while he was in Hanoi, and significant numbers of Soviet surface-to-air missiles soon began to arrive in North Vietnam. There is speculation, which North Vietnamese officials have denied, that Hanoi timed the assault to occur during Kosygin’s visit, anticipating the U.S. reaction and Kosygin’s response. U.S. aircraft operating out of Pleiku during the war included Cessna O-1 Birddogs (air control and forward observation), Douglas A-1 Skyraider attack bombers, Douglas C-47 Skytrain transports, EC-47s (C-47s modified for electronic warfare missions), Cessna A-37 Dragonflys (close air support), and Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) multipurpose helicopters. All four of the U.S. armed services deployed units to Pleiku, where they worked in conjunction with the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force). The Pleiku air base, ARVN II Corps Headquarters, and Pleiku City ultimately fell to People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces in mid-March 1975. An ARVN withdrawal from the Central Highlands ordered by President Nguyen Van Thieu after PAVN forces captured Ban Me Thuot City, south of Pleiku, degenerated into a panicked retreat to the seacoast and resulted in the loss of the bulk of the ARVN forces that had been stationed at Pleiku. JEFFREY D. BASS See also Bundy, McGeorge; Central Highlands; FLAMING DART I and II, Operations; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Montagnards; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Coleman, J. D. Pleiku: The Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988.

918

Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich

Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977.

Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich Birth Date: February 18, 1903 Death Date: January 23, 1983 Soviet Communist Party leader and chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union during 1965–1977. Born on February 18, 1903, at Karlovka in the Ukraine, Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny was 14 years old when the Bolsheviks seized power in the November 1917 Revolution. He trained as an engineer at the Technological Institute of the Food Industry in Kiev, graduating in 1931 and then working in engineering positions in the sugar industry. In 1939 Podgorny was appointed deputy people’s commissar of the Ukrainian food industry and the following year was promoted to deputy commissar of the food-processing industry for the entire Soviet Union. Becoming a full member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1950, he was first secretary of the Kharkov regional party committee until 1953 and was the first secretary of the Ukraine Communist Party Committee during 1957–1963. In 1956 Podgorny had been elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and in 1960 he was elected to the Presidium (Politburo). From 1963 to 1965 Podgorny was the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. At this point he became involved in his first power struggle with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the wake of Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster. Brezhnev became the first secretary, while Podgorny became the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (succeeding Anastas Mikoyan), making Podgorny nominal chief of state for the Soviet Union. As chief of state, it was Podgorny’s role to welcome foreign heads of state when they visited Moscow, and it was in that capacity that he greeted Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia on March 13, 1970. At the time Sihanouk was in a very difficult political position, caught between the Vietnamese Communists’ use of parts of eastern Cambodia as a sanctuary and logistics base and the U.S. bombing of the area during Operation MENU. Sihanouk planned to visit both Moscow and then Beijing in an effort to convince Soviet and Chinese leaders to apply pressure on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to prevent Cambodia from being dragged deeper into the Vietnam War. Two days before the visit anti-Vietnamese demonstrations had occurred in Cambodia, reportedly with Sihanouk’s acquiescence, but these had rapidly escalated into riots, and the North Vietnamese embassy was sacked. Podgorny urged Sihanouk to return to Cambodia immediately, offering use of his private jet, but the prince declined. On March 18 as Sihanouk was leaving Moscow, Soviet leader Aleksei Kosygin informed Sihanouk that he had been deposed by Defense Minister Lon Nol.

In October 1971 Podgorny led a Soviet delegation to Hanoi, where he pledged resolute Soviet support for North Vietnam. Podgorny informed the North Vietnamese leadership that U.S. president Richard Nixon was going to visit the Soviet Union the following year and that the Soviet Union hoped that the Paris peace talks might lead to some form of cease-fire. This information surprised the North Vietnamese, who suspected that their position might be undercut by their allies, as had been the case in 1954. In May 1974 Podgorny again visited Hanoi, where he tried to pressure the North Vietnamese government into meaningful negotiations at Paris but again assured the North Vietnamese leaders of continued Soviet support. This visit impacted the North Vietnamese leadership’s decision to launch offensive operations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in January 1975, which ended with a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) victory in the war in April 1975. On May 24, 1977, during another power struggle with Brezhnev, Podgorny, who opposed Brezhnev serving both as first secretary and chairman of the Politburo, was removed from the Politburo. Brezhnev then assumed Podgorny’s position as well. Podgorny remained in retirement in Moscow until his death on January 12, 1983. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich; Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Lon Nol; MENU, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Sihanouk, Norodom; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Gaiduk, Ilya V. The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. Longmire, R. A. Soviet Relations with South-East Asia: An Historical Survey. London: Keegan Paul International, 1989. Nogee, Joseph L., and Robert H. Donaldson. Soviet Foreign Policy since World War II. Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1981. Norodom Sihanouk, Prince, and Wilfred Burchett. My War with the C.I.A. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1973.

Poland Central European nation and a member, along with Canada and India, of the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) established by the 1954 Geneva Accords. The Polish People’s Republic (now the Republic of Poland) was a Communist state and a member of the Warsaw Pact during the Vietnam War. Covering 121,196 square miles and with a 1968 population of 32.035 million people, Poland is bordered to the north by the Baltic Sea, to the northeast by Russian and Lithuania, to the south by the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and to the west by Germany. From 1947 to 1989 the country remained under one-party rule controlled by the Communist Party. Poland joined other Warsaw Pact members in providing support, including military assistance, to the Democratic Republic of

Pol Pot Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during the Vietnam conflict. Polish diplomat Janusz Lewandowski secured an opening for negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam (Operation MARIGOLD) in June 1966, which was torpedoed by U.S. bombings near Hanoi. A second attempt to host negotiations in November 1966 also failed because of refusal by the United States to halt its bombing of North Vietnam. Poland, along with Canada and India, was a member of the ICSC established under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Agreement on Indochina to monitor the implementation of the agreement. Poland consistently sided with North Vietnam (frequently with the support of India) in investigations of reported violations of the Geneva Agreement. The International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), established by the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973, replaced the old ICSC. The ICCS consisted of representatives from Hungary, Poland, Indonesia, and Canada. After a short time Canada withdrew and was replaced by Iran. The ICCS was disbanded on April 30, 1975. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also International Commission for Supervision and Control; MARIGOLD, Operation References Biskupski, M. B. The History of Poland. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Polgar, Thomas Birth Date: July 24, 1922 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Thomas Polgar was born in southern Hungary on July 24, 1922, to Jewish parents, who fled to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi oppression in Europe. Polgar earned a BA degree from the Gaines School in New York City in 1942 and became a naturalized citizen in 1943. He was subsequently drafted into the U.S. Army and, because of his fluency in several languages, trained to be a counterintelligence agent in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to the CIA. Later he parachuted behind German lines with a false Nazi Party ID card and operated as an intelligence agent in Berlin during the closing days of World War II. Following World War II, Polgar remained with the OSS and with its subsequent incarnations, the Strategic Services Unit, the Central Intelligence Group, and, finally, the CIA. He became a principal figure in the CIA in West Germany, where he served until 1954. He was assigned to the American embassy in Vienna from 1961 to 1970. In 1970 Polgar became the CIA’s station chief in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There his successful handling of an airliner hijacking resulted in his assignment to the station chief’s job in Saigon.

919

Polgar first arrived in Southeast Asia in 1971 for an area orientation in Laos and Vietnam before assuming his new job in January 1972. He was among the last Americans to be lifted by helicopter off the embassy rooftop on the morning of April 30, 1975, as Saigon fell to People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops. Much to Polgar’s consternation, on his return to Washington top officials at the State Department and at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, ordered those who were in Saigon during the final days not to make their views known, as though the debacle had never happened. Polgar maintains that he knew about plans by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) months in advance of the final offensive that toppled Saigon, but he asserts that Washington refused to accept human-resource reporting without corroborating evidence from radio or electronic intercepts, thereby willfully blinding itself to the reality of the situation until it was too late. Frank Snepp in his memoir Decent Interval contradicts Polgar’s version, asserting that Polgar himself contributed to the official failure to recognize the gravity of the situation when the North Vietnamese began their final offensive. Polgar became chief of the CIA’s Mexico City station in 1976. He retired from the CIA in 1981 and has since worked as a writer for the Miami Herald, as an investigator of the Congressional Committee looking into the Iran-Contra Affair, and as a consultant to the Department of Defense. Polgar is now fully retired and lives in Florida. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Central Intelligence Agency; Office of Strategic Services References Engelmann, Larry. Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Miller, Nathan. Spying for America: The Hidden History of U.S. Intelligence. New York: Dell, 1990. Murphy, David E., Sergei A. Kondrashev, and George Bailey. Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977. Sullivan, John F. Of Spies and Lies: A CIA Lie Detector Remembers Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.

Pol Pot Birth Date: May 25, 1928 Death Date: April 15, 1998 Cambodian Communist revolutionary leader who gained international infamy as the architect of genocidal policies against his own people. Born Saloth Sar of ethnic Khmer parents in the village of Prek Sbau near the provincial capital of Kompong Thom on May 25, 1928, in 1976 he adopted the revolutionary name Pol Pot by which he is now known.

920

Pol Pot

Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge. In July 1997, Pol Pot became the centerpiece in a show trial in western Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge leadership and was sentenced to life under house arrest. (AP/Wide World Photos)

His reclusive nature as well as his concealment and falsification of details of his life have created confusion surrounding his birth and early years. Although it has been widely reported that Sar was born into a peasant family in the depths of poverty, his biographer David Chandler has pointed out that Sar’s father was a prosperous farmer who owned land, cattle, and a house. Sar’s family also had connections with the royal palace in Phnom Penh. His cousin Meak and his sister Saroeun, both members of the royal ballet, became consorts of Prince Sisowath Monivong. Meak bore Monivong a son shortly before he became king in 1927, and during his reign she held a desirable position in charge of the women of the palace and, after his death, served until the early 1970s as a senior teacher with the ballet. Saroeun returned to Kompong Thom after Monivong’s death. In addition, Sar’s older brother Loth Suong worked as a clerk at the palace from the late 1920s until 1975. In the mid-1930s Sar and an older brother went to live with Meak and Suong in Phnom Penh. Never known to have mentioned his palace connections or these years, Sar instead stressed his rural origins, more in keeping with the image that he wished to project. After arriving in Phnom Penh, Sar spent several months at a Buddhist monastery, where he studied Buddhism and became literate in the Khmer language. After five years (1942–1947) at the College Norodom Sihanouk, Sar studied carpentry at the École Technique. In 1949 he continued his education at the École Fran-

çaise de Radio-Electricité in Paris, where he joined the French Communist Party, probably in 1952. In 1953 upon his return to Cambodia, Sar joined the antiFrench, Vietnamese-dominated underground movement and the Communist Party. During the next decade he taught history and geography in a private school and emerged as a well-known left-wing journalist. In 1960 Cambodia’s secret Communist Party elected him to its Central Committee and named him secretarygeneral in 1963, a post to which he was reelected in 1971 and 1976. Distrusting Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s 1963 invitation to join in forming a new government, Sar—now a full-time militant known as Brother Secretary or Brother Number One—fled into the jungles and organized the Khmer Rouge, a Communist guerrilla army. In March 1970 General Lon Nol seized power in Cambodia. After visiting the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1969 and 1970, Sar became military commander of the Cambodian Communist component of the National Front, the Sihanouk-led government in exile that sought to overthrow Lon Nol’s pro-U.S. regime. The ensuing five-year civil war gave Sar not only an opportunity to increase his military power but the chance to devote attention to political matters and organizational development. These contributed greatly to the Khmer Rouge seizure of Phnom Penh on April 16, 1975. From 1976 to 1978 Sar, now going by the name Pol Pot, was the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea (the new name of Cambodia). He envisioned an agricultural utopia populated by the new Cambodian collectivist man. Declaring the “Year Zero,” he emptied the city of Phnom Penh and turned the country into one vast concentration camp, with the population serving as rural forced labor. Khmer Rouge actions obliterated the middle class, with its intellectuals and professionals. As many as 2 million Cambodians died, some 25 percent of the population. One source quotes Pol Pot in 1977 as saying that “Although a million lives have been wasted, our party does not feel sorry.” In December 1978 following border fighting between the Khmer Rouge and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), troops of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) invaded Cambodia. The PAVN forces defeated the Khmer Rouge and created the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. In 1979 Pol Pot received sanctuary in Thailand, and the Khmer Rouge used that country as the base for its insurgency, first against the Vietnamese-installed government in Phnom Penh and later to attempt to sabotage a peace plan and an election brokered by the United Nations (UN). Pol Pot’s power stemmed in part from the mystery surrounding him. He gave his last public interview in 1980, and the last available photograph dates from the same year. In September 1985 the Khmer Rouge faction of the Kampuchean coalition government announced that Pol Pot was relinquishing command of the rebel army that had battled the Vietnamese since 1978. This had long been sought by Western nations supporting the rebel alliance and

POPEYE, Operation

by the SRV as a first step toward ending the six-year civil war, but it left unclear Pol Pot’s real status. In the years that followed, Pol Pot’s travels, his exact role in the Khmer Rouge, and even whether he remained alive were the stuff of much speculation in the West. Then in late July 1997 he at last surfaced, the centerpiece in a show trial in western Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge leadership. Found guilty, he was sentenced to life under house arrest. His trial was probably the result of the murder the month before of Khmer Rouge leader Son Sen and his family on Pol Pot’s orders. Fearing for their own lives, the remaining leaders arrested Pol Pot and held him. He spent his last months in a threeroom wooden shack near the Thai border in the Dangrek Mountains region. Pol Pot died in his sleep on April 15, 1998, reportedly of a heart attack. However, no autopsy was conducted, and there were suspicions he might have been murdered by some of his lieutenants who feared increasing pressure on the part of Washington for his trial and their possible implication in his misdeeds. PAUL S. DAUM AND JOSEPH RATNER See also Cambodia; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Heng Samrin; Hun Sen; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Sihanouk, Norodom References Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Chandler, David P. Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992. Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Short, Philip. Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare. New York: Holt, 2004.

POPEYE,

Operation

Start Date: 1967 End Date: 1972 A cloud-seeding project undertaken by the U.S. military in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Cambodia, and Laos from 1967 until 1972. Operation POPEYE was also known as Project Popeye, Operation COMPATRIOT, and Operation INTERMEDIARY. Operation POPEYE sought to extend the monsoon season over North Vietnam by seeding clouds with silver iodide. Increased rainfall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) believed, would saturate the soil, soften road surfaces, cause landslides and floods, and wash out river crossings. The goal of the operation was to increase rainfall by an additional 30 to 45 days each monsoon season in different areas, disrupting North Vietnamese communication and supply lines and hampering the movement of North Vietnamese troops. Operation POPEYE was a classified operation, but investigative reporter Jack Anderson published a story in 1971 based on a leaked secret memo from 1967. In the memo, the JCS had written to President Lyndon B. Johnson recommending the goals of weather mod-

921

ification for military use. That same year, lawmakers in the United States emphasized weather and climate modification as a new and dangerous type of warfare. Through the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans and International Environment, U.S. senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) requested weather modification and warfare information from the Department of Defense. In 1972 Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird denied Anderson’s allegations and refused to provide the materials requested by the Senate subcommittee. In 1974 Laird, now a special adviser to President Richard M. Nixon, informed senators that the U.S. military had in fact undertaken weather modification missions in Vietnam. The secret letter was produced, and on March 24, 1974, the rainmaking operation was fully disclosed to the Senate in a top-secret hearing. The information was made public by transcript in May. According to the Pentagon, the cost of the project had been $21.6 million. A total of 2,602 missions were flown from Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base. In the course of the missions, U.S. C-130 aircraft dropped more than 47,000 cloud-seeding units. Military officials had early on declared Operation POPEYE a failure. Critics questioned the logic of continuing an unsuccessful operation, and they identified cloud seeding as a contributing cause of devastating 1971 floods in much of North Vietnam. Congressional leaders also attacked the cost of the operation. Finally, both U.S. policy makers and the greater public, especially members of the growing environmental movement, questioned the ethics of employing environmental warfare. Under pressure from the Senate, the Nixon administration authorized a National Security Council study on international law and environmental warfare. On July 3, 1974, the United States and the Soviet Union publicly denounced the harmful effects of environmental warfare. Subsequent efforts to enact legislation outlawing all kinds of environmental warfare, although backed by many environmental organizations, for the most part failed because the Gerald R. Ford administration held that weather modification was a potentially useful weapon. Weather modification for military ends is now prohibited by international law, but scientists and policy makers still discuss the usefulness of cloud seeding to weaken hurricanes and for other humanitarian purposes. CHRISTOPHER R. W. DIETRICH See also Laird, Melvin Robert; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Bates, Charles C., and John F. Fuller. America’s Weather Warriors, 1814–1985. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1986. Cotton, William R., and Roger A. Pielke. Human Impacts on Weather and Climate. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Shapley, Deborah. “Weather Warfare: Pentagon Concedes 7-Year Vietnam Effort.” Science 7 (June 1974): 1059–1061. United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Oceans and International Environment. Weather Modification: Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session, January 25 and March 20, 1974. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974.

922

Porter, William James

Porter, William James Birth Date: September 1, 1914 Death Date: March 15, 1988 American diplomat and chief negotiator for the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks (1971–1973). Born in Great Britain on September 1, 1914, Porter entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1936 as a private secretary to the U.S. legation in Budapest, Hungary. An expert on the Middle East, Porter held a variety of posts as a political officer, adviser, and ambassador in such locations as Lebanon, Cyprus, Algeria, Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Morocco. In 1965 at the request of ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge, Porter became deputy ambassador to South Vietnam. Lodge relieved Porter of routine duties and gave him full charge of community building, the so-called pacification program designed to win the loyalty of the South Vietnamese people. Porter had charge of all nonmilitary aspects of the U.S. effort in South Vietnam, and although he had reservations about his role and believed that Lodge did not give full support to his ideas, Porter pulled together a number of agencies that previously overlapped and duplicated functions. Porter’s Office of Civil Operations (OCO) trained and installed agricultural and educational workers and community organizers.

Such efforts at pacification and rural development won the praise of Henry Kissinger and convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson that the South Vietnamese government was on the right course. However, after 18 months under Porter’s control, the program fell short of Washington’s expectations, and it was reassigned to military control. Porter’s next major assignment and his most significant role in the Vietnam War period came with his September 1971 appointment by President Richard M. Nixon to replace David K. E. Bruce as chief U.S. delegate at the Paris peace talks, which had begun in May 1968. Porter’s dynamic unconventional style bolstered the 19-member U.S. delegation and moved the talks forward. Porter took the offensive, unnerving the other side by adopting their own tactics. He postponed meetings, lectured opposing delegates, and was unwilling to let the other side use the negotiations as a stage for propaganda. Complementing Kissinger’s efforts in the secret talks with Le Duc Tho, the delegate from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Porter is credited with breaking the deadlocked negotiations and opening the way for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, an agreed-upon cease-fire, and the return of U.S. prisoners of war. Following his Vietnam War service, Porter was reassigned as ambassador to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and

William J. Porter, the chief U.S. delegate to the Paris peace talks, shown here in 1971. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder then in 1973 became undersecretary of state for political affairs. He continued to play an influential role in U.S. Southeast Asia policy, including the restructuring and streamlining of the Foreign Service officer corps. In 1974 President Nixon named Porter ambassador to Canada. His last post was as ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1975 to 1977. Porter died of cancer on March 15, 1988, in Fall River, Massachusetts. GARY KERLEY See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pacification; Paris Negotiations References Current Biography Yearbook, 1974. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1975. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. 5 vols. Boston: Beacon, 1971–1972.

Port Huron Statement Founding manifesto of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), completed on June 15, 1962, at Port Huron, Michigan. Considered one of the elemental documents of the New Left, the Port Huron Statement was authored primarily by Tom Hayden, who at the time was a student at the University of Michigan. He would go on to become a major figure in the New Left and the anti–Vietnam War movement. SDS and the Port Huron Statement grew out of the dissatisfaction experienced by many college students with the state of American universities at the time, the political culture of the United States, and the attempt of the older generation to impose its values and mores on the younger generation. Those who adhered to the Port Huron platform sought an end to paternalistic policies on college campuses, the introduction of new curricula, and a more direct and participatory democracy. Many were disillusioned by the liberalism of the old order (the so-called Old Left) and sought to create a new postwar liberalism, eventually dubbed the New Left. In fact, the statement embraced a number of causes, including desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement, the abolition of nuclear weapons, economic and social inequality, and poverty eradication. SDS also sought to decentralize decision making in the United States by granting more autonomy to cities, towns, and states and by making the democratic process more meaningful and representative of the people. Although the organization did not embrace Communist or Socialist prescriptions, many of its adherents did view these in a positive light. Historians looking at SDS with the benefit of perspective have also noted that for all its talk about equality and participatory democracy, SDS in many

923

ways was a sexist organization in which women were generally not allowed to hold positions of leadership. Many have viewed the Port Huron Statement as a direct rebuttal of the 1960 Sharon Statement, promulgated by the conservative organization Young Americans for Freedom. That statement had been drafted at conservative scion William F. Buckley’s home in Sharon, Connecticut. These two manifestos came to represent the ideological struggle between conservatism and the liberalism of the New Left throughout the 1960s and beyond. As the Vietnam War progressed and became ever more unpopular, SDS spent more and more of its time and resources on antiwar campaigns. In 1968 Hayden was arrested as one of the Chicago Eight for having incited riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. By the early 1970s SDS had splintered apart, the victim of its own excesses and a rising tide of conservatism. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Students for a Democratic Society References Barber, David. A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008. Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Term developed to describe and treat stress reactions in Vietnam War veterans. The term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has since been used for diagnosis and treatment of sufferers of other traumas, such as natural disaster, hostage and prisoner of war (POW) experiences, violent crime, and other emotionally traumatic experiences. As defined in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition (DSM-IV), five conditions are necessary for the diagnosis of PTSD: 1. The existence of a traumatic experience “outside the normal range of human experience.” This experience may have involved undergoing or witnessing the imminent threat of death, violent physical injury, or systematic physical abuse and must have resulted at the time in intense fear, helplessness, or horror. 2. Persistent reexperiencing of the stressor event. The individual is subject to vivid and uncontrollable memories and/or recurrent dreams of the event and may lose track of his or her current surroundings entirely, in what has come to be called a flashback. There may be intense psychological or physiological reactions to external or internal cues that remind the individual of the event. 3. Persistent avoidance of thoughts, people, places, and other aspects associated with the traumatic event, along

924

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

On a rainy Veterans Day in Washington, D.C., a veteran breaks down as he and others pay their respects at the Vietnam War Memorial to those Americans who died in the Vietnam War. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

with a numbing of emotional responses and/or feelings of detachment from other people. There may also be partial amnesia about the past event and/or an inability to project a normal life for the future. Three indicators in this category are required. 4. Increased arousal, including at least two of the following: sleep problems, outbursts of anger, difficulty in concentrating, hypervigilance, and an exaggerated startle response. 5. A duration of the condition for at least one month. The condition may occur immediately after the traumatic event or, in the case of delayed stress, may not manifest itself for months or even years after the event. According to the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), commissioned by Congress in 1983 and published in 1990, approximately 15.2 percent of Vietnam War veterans have suffered from PTSD. These figures on the whole agree with previous studies conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Centers for Disease Control and are surprisingly low when compared with statistics gathered for other wars; estimates for World War II, for example, exceed 30 percent. However, it is difficult to make accurate comparisons because the definition

of the disorder has changed since previous wars and because most previous statistics were gathered from reported cases during and shortly after the war, whereas statistics for Vietnam War veterans are for the most part based on surveys of veterans after combat— sometimes years later—and extrapolated for the remainder of the veteran population. In previous wars, stress reactions to combat had variously been known as shell shock or combat fatigue, among other names, and in the first edition of the DSM had been described under the categories of stress disorders. But in the second edition of the DSM, published in 1968, all references to stress disorders were removed, and there remained no official diagnosis or treatment for the reactions observed in combat troops or returned veterans. Instead, after 1968 individuals exhibiting psychological problems were diagnosed as having an “inability to adjust to adult life,” schizophrenia, alcoholism, or borderline personality disorder. Of the Vietnam War veterans reporting or exhibiting stress problems during and after the war, between 62 percent and 77 percent were diagnosed in the last three categories. Stress disorders were not returned to the DSM until the third edition in 1980, although some psychologists and psychiatrists had begun using the term “Vietnam War Syndrome” as early as 1969. In December 1970 psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who had been active in the antiwar movement, began a series of experimental rap groups with members of the New York chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). These rap groups were a form of group therapy in which veterans talked through their experiences during and after the war. In 1973 Lifton described both the rap groups and his conclusions drawn from them in what was to become one of the most influential books about Vietnam War veterans, Home from the War. It is important to note, however, that in this book, which was to become the basis for diagnosis and treatment of PTSD throughout the helping professions, Lifton acknowledged that he had used a nonrepresentative sample of veterans (i.e., disaffected veterans in an activist organization) and that his goal was primarily to train a group of vocal advocates against the war. By the end of the Vietnam War, the original rap group participants had in fact begun giving public talks about the causes and symptomatology of stress reactions in veterans, and hundreds of rap groups modeled on the ones in New York had been established around the country. They had also joined the lobbying efforts by veterans’ groups for better systems of counseling for veterans. In 1972 Lifton and his colleague Chaim Shatan, with the help of the National Council of Churches, sponsored the First National Conference on the Emotional Needs of Vietnam-Era Veterans in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference was attended by Veterans Administration (VA) officials, who were introduced there to Lifton’s work and his conclusions and recommendations for the counseling systems that would later be put into place within the VA. In fact, when Congress approved funding for such counseling systems in 1979, the models used were the assumptions and methods established by the original rap groups.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder The most important part of the new counseling system was the establishment of Veteran Outreach Centers, or what have now come to be called Vet Centers, places outside normal VA facilities where veterans could talk to other veterans in an atmosphere less official than that of a major medical facility and where other services could be provided along with psychological counseling, such as job training and benefits counseling. As early as 1977 VA director Max Cleland called in Shad Meshad, who had instituted just such a system of storefront counseling centers already in use by the Brentwood VA center in Los Angeles, to help establish these new centers. The Vet Centers, although still under the general jurisdiction of the VA, were given a separate administrative identity under a new reporting chain to the Readjustment Counseling Services division. As counseling began in these new facilities and within the already existing VA medical centers, there was still no officially recognized definition of the disorders being treated. However, in 1976 Lifton and his colleagues, as part of a task force for the American Psychiatric Association, had begun work on such a definition, and in 1980 their definition was published in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III). Although slightly modified and clarified in the two subsequent versions of the DSM (an interim edition, DSM-III-R, was published in 1987), the definition today remains essentially the same as the one first established not only in the 1980 official publication but also in Lifton’s original work in the early 1970s. By 1996 there were more than 200 Vet Centers throughout the United States as well as counseling and other psychiatric services available in VA medical centers around the country. Services in the Vet Centers have been extended to veterans of later wars and may soon be made available to World War II and Korean War veterans. Development of the definitions and treatment of PTSD, however, has gone far beyond the original intent of dealing with Vietnam War veterans’ problems. The treatment of trauma-related stress symptoms in general has developed into a major field of psychological research with its own research institutes, journals, and on-line databases, both inside and outside the VA, and has even entered the realm of popular self-help books, one such book (Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery) having appeared on the New York Times best-seller list in 1992. Lifton’s Home from the War has been reissued several times, and the subject of PTSD became a staple of Vietnam War fiction, film, memoir, and even literary criticism. PTSD became almost synonymous with the Vietnam War experience. However, as previously noted, only 15.2 percent of Vietnam War veterans were estimated to have suffered from PTSD; as stated above, this is an estimate based on a survey sample, not a tabulation of reported cases. Furthermore, a disturbing number of reported cases were found to be based on erroneous reporting of the supposed traumatic event or reported symptoms. In addition, in the development of diagnostic instruments and treatment methods, it was found that assumptions originally made about Vietnam

925

Estimated Percentage of Vietnam Veterans Who Have Experienced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Male Female

PTSD

Partial PTSD

30.9% 26.9%

22.5% 21.2%

War veterans have had to be modified not only for other types of trauma such as rape, natural disaster, and childhood abuse but also for treatment of women, even women veterans. It is possible that the developmental history of PTSD definitions and treatment has led to these discrepancies. The diagnostic and treatment research, as noted, was originally done with a nonrepresentative sample of veterans and a presupposed outcome. Furthermore, statistical data on recovery rates and numbers of cases were not collected until the definitions had been established, five years after the end of the war. Meanwhile, cases that might have been reported have been diagnosed under other categories of disorder and treated accordingly. PTSD is a serious condition affecting a statistically small but numerically important segment of the veteran population. Work now in progress through the National Center for PTSD as well as other organizations and private research efforts will no doubt clarify and update original work done in the field so as to be of use not only to veterans but also to other sufferers from stress reactions in the future. The issue of PTSD has once again become a major mental health concern especially for the VA, with soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq after 2001 reporting not infrequent problems with the syndrome. PHOEBE S. SPINRAD See also Cleland, Joseph Maxwell; Film and the Vietnam Experience; Lifton, Robert Jay; Literature and the Vietnam War; United States Veterans Administration; Vietnam Veterans Against the War References American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994. Brende, Joel Osler, and Erwin Randolph Parson. Vietnam Veterans: The Road to Recovery. New York: Plenum, 1985. Camp, Norman M., Robert H. Stretch, and William C. Marshall. Stress, Strain, and Vietnam: An Annotated Bibliography of Psychiatric and Social Sciences Literature. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Figley, Charles R., and Seymour Leventman, eds. Strangers at Home: Vietnam Veterans since the War. New York: Praeger, 1980. Hendin, Herbert, and Ann Pollinger Haas. Wounds of War: The Psychological Aftermath of Combat in Vietnam. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Herman, Judith Lewis. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1992. Kulka, Richard A., et al., eds. National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study: Tables of Findings and Technical Appendices. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990.

926

Potsdam Conference

Kulka, Richard A., et al., eds. Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation: Report of Findings of the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990. Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans, Neither Victims nor Executioners. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. Scott, Wilbur J. The Politics of Readjustment: Vietnam Veterans since the War. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993. Solomon, Zahava. Combat Stress Reaction: The Enduring Toll of War. New York: Plenum, 1993. Sonnenberg, Stephen M., Arthur S. Blank Jr., and John A. Talbott, eds. The Trauma of War: Stress and Recovery in Vietnam Veterans. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1985.

Potsdam Conference Start Date: July 16, 1945 End Date: August 2, 1945 The final meeting of Allied leaders in World War II. The “Big Three” of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and U.S. president Harry S. Truman met at the Potsdam Conference between July 16 and August 1, 1945. The code name for the meeting, Terminal, is apt, for the conference signaled the end of World War II and the wartime Allied alliance. Gathering in Potsdam’s Cecilienhof Palace just southwest of Berlin, the Allied leaders were poised to address many of the same issues confronted previously at Tehran in 1943 and at Yalta in February 1945. Questions over Germany, conflicts over Eastern Europe (especially Poland), and disputes over other territorial claims all remained to be resolved. As the war neared its end, suspicions came to the fore. Most of these issues were not resolved at the Potsdam Conference, however, and remained intractable Cold War issues. Although there was extensive discussion of reparations from Germany and agreement on percentages, there was no agreement on a final amount. The Allies did agree on the “three Ds” of democratization, denazification, and demilitarization; German industrial production was to be limited to a level no higher than the average for Europe as a whole. No peace treaty was signed between the Allies and Germany, so temporary arrangements sanctioned by Potsdam became permanent. East Prussia was divided according to agreements at the Tehran Conference. The Soviet Union annexed Königsberg (renamed Kaliningrad), Memel (Klaipeda), and northern East Prussia, while the remainder of East Prussia went to Poland. The “orderly and humane” transfer of the German population from this region, agreed to at Potsdam, did not occur. Perhaps 16 million Germans were displaced from their homelands in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, and more than 2 million may have lost their lives in the forced repatriations and exodus that followed. During the conference the United States successfully tested the world’s first atomic weapon in the New Mexico desert. Atomic

bombs would soon be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in a bid to force the Japanese to surrender and end the war in the Pacific. Those in attendance at the conference reported that President Truman seemed buoyed by the news of the atomic test and that he conducted himself in a more self-assured manner for the remainder of the summit. Several aspects of the conference affected French Indochina. First, the French were not represented at Potsdam, despite Charles de Gaulle’s petitions. Second, a minor item of the agenda involved procedures for the Japanese surrender in Vietnam. The British were to receive the surrender south of the 16th Parallel, while the Chinese Nationalists would take the Japanese surrender in northern Vietnam. This scheme had profound implications. In southern Vietnam, British commander General Douglas Gracey, a paternalistic officer with long colonial service, violated Lord Mountbatten’s orders to avoid Vietnam’s internal problems by affirming that “civil and military control by the French is only a question of weeks.” In northern Vietnam while Chinese forces plundered and pillaged, Ho Chi Minh was nonetheless able to proclaim the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). BRENDA J. TAYLOR AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Gracey, Douglas David; Jiang Jieshi; Truman, Harry S.; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 References Gormly, James L. From Potsdam to the Cold War. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1990. Miscamble, Wilson D. From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Poulo Condore One of 14 islands in the Con Son island group located in the South China Sea approximately 75 miles southeast of Vietnam’s Ca Mau Peninsula and 156 miles south of Vung Tau. The island of Poulo Condore is integral to the history of Vietnam’s relations with the West. In the early 18th century, first the British and then the French explored the possibility of using the island as the headquarters for their trade in East Asia. In 1787 the cession of Poulo Condore to France was part of the price that the French hoped to extract from Nguyen Phuc Anh (later Nguyen emperor Gia Long) for the assistance they proposed to offer him in defeating the Tay Son Rebellion. The island was eventually ceded to France by Nguyen emperor Tu Duc in 1862 as part of the spoils of a war that marked the beginning of the French conquest of Vietnam. The French soon converted Poulo Condore into a prison, where they incarcerated Vietnamese who opposed French colonial administration. The most well-known feature of the prison complex was its so-called tiger cages. These were cells approximately five feet square and nine feet high, roofed with metal bars that served

Powell, Colin Luther as overhead walkways for guards. Three or more prisoners were forced to spend their days and nights shackled to the cell floor, fed on little more and often less than unsalted rice and water. Thus immobilized, prisoners often experienced permanent paralysis or disfigurement, while malnutrition frequently led to tuberculosis and death. This means of confinement often served to harden the spirit of defiance among the prisoners who survived it, among whom were some of the leading lights of the Vietnamese revolution: Phan Chu Trinh, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, and Pham Van Dong. After the expulsion of the French in 1954, the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) employed the renamed Con Son Correctional Facility to house Communists who were not members of the Viet Cong (VC) armed forces and thus not protected by the Geneva Convention. Also sent there were nonCommunist opponents of the South Vietnamese government. Except for some prisoners of war (POWs) guilty of murder in POW camps, no People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) POWs were held at Con Son. Conditions of incarceration on the island were harsh, and the Red Cross ultimately documented ill treatment there and judged it to be in violation of the Geneva Convention. Vietnamese and U.S. leaders, however, continually denied the existence of any “relics” of French penal administration and maintained that nothing was being done on Con Son island that deprived prisoners of “physical necessities and human dignity.” A U.S. adviser went so far as to insist that the facility, which had grown into the largest prison in the free world, was as salubrious as “a Boy Scout recreational camp.” These officials thereby constructed a public relations time bomb that exploded with devastating effect in the wake of the joint U.S.–South Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia in the spring of 1970. Eager to demonstrate that South Vietnam was worthy of such continued U.S. support and sacrifice, President Richard M. Nixon encouraged the dispatch of a 10-member congressional investigatory team that he hoped would return with a glowing report of progress toward political stability and democracy. This delegation sought to measure that progress by visiting Vietnamese prisons and by speaking with the students who were at the forefront of opposition to the administration of President Nguyen Van Thieu. Upon hearing from Cau Loi Nguyen, a student recently released from detention on Con Son, that many student leaders were in the island’s tiger cages, congressional aide (and later Iowa senator) Tom Harkin, Don Luce of the World Council of Churches, and congressmen Augustus Hawkins and William Anderson visited the island and returned with evidence of political repression so embarrassing to the credibility of the Vietnamese and U.S. governments that it ultimately helped convince Congress to begin to curtail further assistance to South Vietnam. Thus, Con Son island, which figured in the introduction of direct Western political influence in Vietnam, also played a role in its eclipse. The site of the prison complex has been preserved as a monument to the Vietnamese independence movement. A full-

927

scale replica of a tiger cage is on display at the War Crimes Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. MARC J. GILBERT See also Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Le Duan; Le Duc Tho; Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Pham Van Dong; Phan Chu Trinh References Brown, Holmes, and Don Luce. Hostages of War: Saigon’s Political Prisoners. Washington, DC: Indochina Mobile Education Project, 1973. Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Ciabatari, Jane. “Senator Harkin Returns to the Tiger Cages of Con Son.” Parade, October 8, 1995, 19. Leslie, Jacques. The Mark: A War Correspondent’s Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995.

Powell, Colin Luther Birth Date: April 5, 1937 U.S. Army officer; national security adviser during 1987–1989; first African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), during 1989–1993; and secretary of state (2001–2005). Born on April 5, 1937, to an immigrant Jamaican family in the Harlem section of New York City, Colin Luther Powell graduated in 1958 from the City College of New York with a degree in geology and received a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commission as an infantry second lieutenant. Powell was profoundly influenced in his military thinking by his experiences during the Vietnam War. His first tour of duty in Vietnam came in 1962 and 1963, when he was assigned as an adviser to an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) infantry battalion near the Laotian border. During that tour he was wounded when he stepped into a punji pit in a rice paddy, impaling his foot on one of the sharpened stakes. In 1968 Powell returned to Vietnam. During this second tour he was again injured, this time in a helicopter crash; later he was decorated for helping to rescue other troops from the burning wreck. During Powell’s second tour he served as an assistant operations officer in the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division, widely known as the “Hard Luck Division” of the war. In that position Powell became involved with the My Lai Massacre investigation. Although the massacre occurred several months before Powell returned to Vietnam, he was assigned the responsibility of drafting the 23rd Infantry Division’s first official response to rumors circulating through military units in the country. Powell reported that the rumors were unfounded. Investigators later came to consider Powell’s report as part of the cover-up, but he staunchly maintained that he knew nothing about the massacre until much later when word of it became public in November 1969.

928

Powell, Colin Luther Once a decision for military action has been made, halfmeasures and confused objectives extract a severe price in the form of a protracted conflict which can cause needless waste of human lives and material resources, a divided nation at home, and defeat. Therefore, one of the essential elements of our national military strategy is . . . the concept of applying decisive force to overwhelm our adversaries and thereby terminate conflicts swiftly with a minimum loss of life.

U.S. Army major general Colin L. Powell in 1984. Powell served two tours in Vietnam and the experience greatly impacted his military thinking. Powell went on to become a full (four-star) general and the first African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993). He later became the first African American secretary of state (2001– 2005). (Department of Defense)

In 1972 Powell was selected as a White House Fellow. From there he went on to a string of high-profile jobs, including senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, commanding general of V Corps in Germany, assistant to National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci, and national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan. In October 1989 Powell became chairman of the JCS. As JCS chairman, Powell was responsible for overseeing the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the beginnings of the post–Cold War military drawdown. He was also responsible for crafting America’s military strategy. As with many of the officers of his generation, he had seen firsthand the failure of the gradual squeeze strategy in the application of military power and of using military forces to attempt to send political signals. As a result, he championed the concept of decisive military force. What has become known as the Powell Doctrine was clearly stated in the January 1992 edition of the National Military Strategy of the United States, issued under his signature. Reflecting almost exactly what was not done in Vietnam—and ironically also not done later in Iraq and Afghanistan—it states:

Powell retired from the army in September 1993. During his tenure as JCS chairman he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush and again by President Bill Clinton. In 1995 Powell briefly considered but declined a run for the presidency on the Republican ticket. Beginning in 2001, Powell served as secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. From the start, however, Powell played a subservient role to neoconservatives such as Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. After the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, Powell, who did not count himself among the hard-core neoconservatives, found himself in the unenviable position of rallying international support for the Global War on Terror. Not long after the September 11 attacks, Powell was tasked with building support for an invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein from power and to rid Iraq of alleged weapons of mass destruction. Powell believed that it would have been better to contain Saddam instead of driving him out by force, but he acquiesced in Bush’s decision to employ military force in Iraq. The Bush administration essentially ignored the Powell Doctrine by employing a force against Iraq in 2003 that was not nearly as large, diverse, or unified as the 1991 Persian Gulf War coalition and that indeed proved inadequate to the task at hand. After the invasion of Iraq, Powell was given the difficult task of drumming up international support for the reconstruction of Iraq, a task made far more vexing when a long search found no weapons of mass destruction, the destruction of which had been given as the principal reason for the war. As the Iraq War began to go badly and a major Iraqi insurgency tested U.S. and coalition forces, Powell seemed to have become even more peripheral to U.S. policy. Thus, several days after Bush’s reelection in 2004, Powell declared his intention to resign his post; he left office in 2005 and was replaced by Rice. Powell later joined the venture capital firm of Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers and began an extended speaking tour. In the summer of 2007 Powell revealed that he had repeatedly tried to persuade George W. Bush not to invade Iraq. Powell also stated that he thought that Iraq had descended into a civil war, the outcome of which could not be determined by the United States alone. In 2007 Powell contributed to Republican senator John McCain’s presidential bid and reportedly advised the senator on both

PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations

military and foreign-policy matters. Despite his earlier support for McCain, Powell created a political whirlwind when he publicly endorsed Illinois Democratic senator Barack Obama for president in October 2008. The endorsement provided a sizable boost to Obama, who went on to win the November 2008 presidential election. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also My Lai Massacre References Adler, Bill. The Generals: The New American Heroes. New York: Avon Books, 1991. Barry, John. “The Very Model of a Political General: On Duty with Powell, from Vietnam to the Gulf.” Newsweek, September 11, 1995, 25–26. DeYoung, Karen. Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell. New York: Knopf, 2006. Powell, Colin. My American Journey: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1995. Roth, David. Sacred Honor: A Biography of Colin Powell. San Francisco: Harper, 1993.

PRAIRIE FIRE, Operation See SHINING BRASS, Operation

PRAIRIE I,

Operation

Start Date: August 3, 1966 End Date: January 31, 1967 Code name for the combat operations of the U.S. 3rd Marine Division in the Con Thien and Gio Linh regions of the I Corps Tactical Zone in 1966 and early 1967. Operation PRAIRIE I involved some 11,000 marines and 11 maneuver battalions during its entirety. The marine assignment was to stop the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 324B Division from crossing the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and invading Quang Tri Province. Operation PRAIRIE I, which followed Operation HASTINGS, was launched on August 3, 1966, and continued until January 31, 1967. In driving PAVN troops back across the Ben Hai River, the marines succeeded in preventing the PAVN from establishing a major operating base in northern Quang Tri Province. In Operation PRAIRIE I, PAVN casualties were given as 1,397 killed in action and 27 taken prisoner. The marines sustained casualties of 239 dead and 1,214 wounded. PAVN units were able to regroup and later in 1967 crossed back into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also HASTINGS, Operation; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

929

References Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

PRAIRIE II–IV,

Operations

Start Date: February 1, 1967 End Date: May 31, 1967 In 1967 there was heavy fighting in the area immediately south of the so-called demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Quang Tri, the northernmost province of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces significantly escalated the fighting, employing for the first time in the war flamethrowers, heavy artillery, and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). Immediately after the end of Operation PRAIRIE (August 3, 1966– January 31, 1967), the marines commenced a second stage. Known as Operation PRAIRIE II, it began on February 1, 1967, and involved five U.S. Marine Corps battalions operating from bases along Route 9 from Khe Sanh near the border with Laos in westernmost Quang Tri to Dong Ha on the coast. On March 8 PAVN forces fired 485 rocket and mortar rounds at Camp Carroll. PRAIRIE II ended on March 18. Marine losses numbered 93 killed and 483 wounded, with one-third of the dead and two-thirds of the wounded the result of mortar fire. PAVN losses were put at 694 killed and 20 taken prisoner. On March 20 Major General Bruno A. Hochmuth took command of the 3rd Marine Division. He immediately initiated Operation PRAIRIE III as PAVN forces fired 1,000 shells into Gio Linh and Con Thien. On March 30 PAVN troops attacked Marine Company I of the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, near Cam Lo. Helicopter gunships assisted in the defense of the marine positions, but three PAVN assaults resulted in 16 marines killed and another 47 wounded. The marines killed 67 PAVN soldiers. In support of PRAIRIE III, a marine Special Landing Force battalion came ashore near Gio Linh in Operation BEACON HILL during March 20–April 1. Marine losses in BEACON HILL were 29 killed and 230 wounded, but the marines killed 334 Communist troops. PRAIRIE III came to an end on April 19. The marines had killed 252 Communist troops but at a cost to themselves of 56 dead and 530 wounded. PRAIRIE IV began the next day, April 20, and ended on May 31. The operation involved four marine battalions occupying the “Leatherneck Square” formed by the marine combat bases of Con

930

Precision-Guided Munitions

Thien, Gio Linh, Dong Ha, and Cam Lo. During April 27–28 the Communists fired some 850 artillery rounds and 300 mortar shells at Gio Linh. Dong Ha also was the recipient of 50 140-millimeter (mm) PAVN rockets. On May 8 two PAVN battalions aided by a sapper detachment attacked two marine companies at Con Thien (the “Hill of Angels,” spelled “Con Tien” in Vietnamese), less than two miles from the DMZ. Supported by artillery fire from Gio Linh, the marines repelled the attack at a cost of 44 killed and 110 wounded. The assaulting PAVN troops lost 197 killed and 8 taken prisoner. Following the battle at Con Thien, PAVN forces continued their artillery assault on Leatherneck Square. During the entirety of May, they fired some 4,200 artillery, rocket, and mortar rounds against the marine positions. On May 10 a Communist SAM launched from north of the Ben Hai River claimed a Douglas A-4E Skyhawk. It was the first aircraft brought down by a SAM over South Vietnam. During the night of May 17–18 PAVN forces fired 300 artillery rounds and 150 140-mm rockets at Dong Ha, killing 11 marines and wounding another 190. On February 24 in defense of the marines, for the first time in the war U.S. artillery fired into the DMZ to silence PAVN antiaircraft positions there. On that date U.S. 175-mm guns fired 63 rounds into the DMZ. Then on May 18 U.S. forces commenced Operation HICKORY, a sweep-and-clear operation along Route 9 in preparation for the laying of a bulldozed barrier that would include mines and sensors and stretch across the entirety of northern South Vietnam and into Laos. This was known as Practice Nine, but it was more commonly called the McNamara Line. The last major action of PRAIRIE IV occurred during May 28–31 when the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, assaulted and captured Hill 174 from PAVN forces four miles south of Con Thien. The marines lost 10 killed and 99 wounded and found only 20 PAVN bodies in the Communist bunkers. In all in PRAIRIE IV, the marines killed 505 Communist troops and recovered 150 weapons, at a cost to themselves of 164 killed and 1,240 wounded. PRAIRIE I–IV claimed a total of 525 marines killed and another 3,167 wounded. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also HICKORY II, Operation; Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur; McNamara Line; PRAIRIE I, Operation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Viet-

nam; United States Marine Corps References Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984.

Precision-Guided Munitions A class of guided munitions dropped by aircraft. The origins of precision-guided munitions (also known as smart bombs) can be traced back to World War II with the development of the German Fritz X and Hs-293 visually guided bombs and U.S. Azon and Razon radio-guided bombs. Essentially, a smart bomb allows for precision accuracy in the engagement of a target. In war, such precision targeting has major advantages. Aircraft can fly less vulnerable attack profiles, fewer sorties and munitions are required to destroy a target, and logistical demands are reduced. As a result, both human and economic costs are lowered in the attainment of a military objective. During the Vietnam War, a number of factors further stimulated the need for such precision-guided munitions. Supplies were infiltrated from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) at night in order to evade detection, public moral concerns meant that vital military targets in or near population centers required destruction without harming innocent civilians, and many North Vietnamese targets were protected by the highly effective and highly concentrated antiaircraft defenses around Hanoi and Haiphong. Two types of smart bombs were developed for use in this war: the laser-guided bomb (LGB) and the electro-optical guided bomb (EOGB). The LGB program was the product of the U.S. Army’s Missile Command (MiCom) in the early 1960s and was based on the concept of using a pulsed laser beam to spot or illuminate a target such as a tank, the reflected light source of which could then be homed in by a seeker system attached to a missile. Although abandoned by the U.S. Army, the program was resurrected by the U.S. Air Force Detachment 5 research group in 1965. Prototype testing for the “Paveway” bomb began in the summer of 1966. It was based on laser seeker/guidance kits attached to M-117 (750-pound) and Mk-84 (2,000-pound) general purpose bombs. The cheaper yet higher-risk design won out and was field-tested in Vietnam in May 1968. Computer simulations in the early 1970s estimated that target kill was improved by a factor of 200 when laser guidance was added to the manually released 2,000-pound bomb. The GBU-2 “Pave Storm” variant was a cluster bomb that released 1,800 BLU-63 fragmentation bomblets. The EOGB program was led by the U.S. Navy and was vastly smaller than the LGB program. The EOGB program was based around a specially built bomb known as the “Walleye” (AGM62) fitted with a nose camera that the pilot aimed at the target. After release, the bomb’s internal computer system took it to the aim point. This 850-pound bomb was first used over North Vietnam in 1967. In 1972 the larger 2,000-pound Walleye II version was introduced. It was later modified with a data link that allowed an aircrew to correct the aim point or manually take the bomb to the target once it had been released. The U.S. Air Force also produced an EOGB based on a modified Mk-84. This was called

Prisoners of War, Allied the homing bomb system (HOBOS) and was first used in combat in February 1969. Smart bombs allowed much flexibility in the use of airpower tactics. The designator for a LGB could either be in the aircraft dropping the bomb or in a second combat aircraft outside the range of enemy threats. The advantage of having a second aircraft designate a target was that this allowed the first aircraft to exit the target area immediately and head for safety. Bridges, sections of roads, hardened targets, and even artillery guns, tanks, and truck convoys were attacked with these munitions. Toward the end of the war, the Walleye II could be dropped up to 32 miles away from a designated target, toward which it would then glide. Such targets had to be very large and provide sufficient contrast to allow for seeker lock-on. During the Vietnam War the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy dropped 26,690 smart bombs. LGBs represented 94 percent of this total, with the Mk-84 LGB representing 84 percent of that total or 79 percent of all precision-guided munitions used. Although these numbers may seem impressive, they represent less than 1 percent of all bombs of more than 500 pounds dropped by U.S. forces. Still, smart bombs had an influence on target destruction far out of proportion to their limited numbers. Their average circular error probability (CEP) was 30 feet, while conventional bombs (also known as dumb bombs) had an average CEP of 420 feet. Smart bombs were used with devastating effect in Operation LINEBACKER II during the Christmas Bombings of North Vietnam in 1972. ROBERT J. BUNKER See also Bombs, Gravity; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation References Blackwelder, Donald I. The Long Road to Desert Storm and Beyond: The Development of Precision Guided Bombs. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1993. Deleon, Peter. The Laser-Guided Bomb: Case History of a Development. R-13121-PR. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1974. Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984.

Prisoners of War, Allied In accordance with the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, a total of 565 American military and 26 civilian prisoners of war (POWs) were released by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in February and March 1973, and 2 military persons and 2 civilians held in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were freed at the same time. The civilians included contract pilots; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), State Department, and Voice of America personnel; agricultural specialists; missionaries; and other nonmilitary personnel. Six foreign nationals—2 Canadians, 2 South Koreans, and 2 Filipinos—also departed.

931

At various points during the Vietnam War, Hanoi had turned over a total of 12 POWs to visiting peace delegations, and early in the war the Viet Cong (VC) released a few prisoners. A small number of Americans escaped from the VC control or from Communist forces in Laos. Although many pilots shot down over hostile territory evaded capture until being rescued, no one actually brought into the prison system successfully escaped from North Vietnam. Only a few civilians captured after the 1973 cease-fire agreement and convicted U.S. Marine Corps defector Robert Garwood came home after the 1973 release. Estimates of POWs who died in captivity vary. The North Vietnamese listed 55 deaths. One American source cited 54 military and at least 13 American and foreign civilians; another source gives the number as 72 Americans. For POWs so injured and mistreated, the casualty rate was amazingly low in the North Vietnamese camps. The returned POWs cited 8 known deaths of military personnel in the Hanoi system: 2 considered outright murder, 3 from a combination of brutality and neglect, and 3 from appallingly substandard medical care. The largest number of deaths of military personnel and civilians occurred in the jungle camps in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Justifiably proud of their communication network, command structure, and memory bank, which attempted to register every individual in the system, the POWs recorded at least 766 verified captives at one point or another. But accountability for those outside the North Vietnamese prison system was less certain. Of the hundreds who disappeared in Laos, only 10 came home in 1973, and no one knows the fate of the many captives of local VC units. At the time of release, more than 2,500 men were still listed as missing in action (MIA). Many of those most likely died when shot down, but their deaths were not confirmed. Others known to be alive on the ground and even in the prison system mysteriously disappeared. All but 71 of the military personnel who returned in early 1973 were officers, primarily U.S. Air Force or U.S. Navy aviators shot down during combat missions. With the exception of a handful of U.S. Air Force personnel, the enlisted men consisted of army and marine personnel captured in South Vietnam. The fliers had received survival and captivity training; for the most part those captured in South Vietnam had not. The first pilot captured by the North Vietnamese was U.S. Navy lieutenant (junior grade) Everett Alvarez, shot down on August 5, 1964, in the first bombing raid on North Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. But the longest-held POW was U.S. Army Special Forces captain Floyd James Thompson, whose light reconnaissance plane was shot down by small-arms fire on March 26, 1964. He spent five years in solitary confinement, three with the VC in South Vietnam and two more after being moved to North Vietnam. Thompson suffered a broken back in the crash, numerous illnesses, and a heart attack during his almost nine years of captivity, becoming the longest-held American POW in history. Most of the POWs were aviators shot down during the ROLLING THUNDER bombing campaign of North Vietnam from February

932

Prisoners of War, Allied

North Vietnamese military officers examine the peace symbol necklace of an American prisoner of war (POW) just prior to his release in 1973. A provision of the Paris Peace Accords signed on January 27, 1973, provided for the release of all American POWs within 60 days of its signing. (Department of Defense)

1965 through November 1968; the year 1967 produced the most captives. The Tet Offensive in the first half of 1968 generated the most captives on the ground; almost half the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps POWs were captured in that year. Eighteen of the 26 civilian POWs released in 1973 were captured during a one-week period, the first week of February 1968. With the end of ROLLING THUNDER, the number of captives dropped off dramatically from late 1968 through early 1972, virtually all of them taken in South Vietnam or in Laos. The LINEBACKER I bombings led to an upsurge of captives in the spring of 1972, and during LINEBACKER II 44 aviators were shot down in December 1972 alone. Only 1 pilot was added in 1973, captured on January 27, the day that the peace accords were signed. The 131 POWs captured in 1972 and 1973 experienced a short and very different captivity from those held in the earlier years. Among the military POWs, one commentator surveying the 356 aviators held in 1970 recorded that the average flier was approximately 32 years old, a U.S. Air Force captain or U.S. Navy lieutenant, and married with two children. The POWs were for the most part career officers, skilled pilots of high-performance aircraft, highly disciplined, intensely competitive, and college graduates. American POWs were held in 11 different prisons in North Vietnam, 4 in Hanoi, 6 others within 50 miles of the city (more

or less up and down the Red River), and 1 on the Chinese border. The most famous of these was North Vietnam’s main penitentiary, Hoa Lo Prison in downtown Hanoi, which the POWs dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton.” They gave the other prisons names as well: Briar Patch, Faith, Hope (Son Tay), Skidrow, D-1, Rockpile, Plantation, the Zoo, Alcatraz, and Dogpatch. From the first captive on, a test of wills existed between the Hanoi camp authority and the American military personnel over the U.S. Code of Conduct, which had been adopted in 1955 in response to the allegedly disgraceful performance of some American POWs during the Korean War. The Vietnam War POWs were determined to maintain a record of honor that would reflect well upon themselves personally, the U.S. military, and the nation. The camp authority employed every means at its disposal, including isolation, torture, and psychological abuse, to break POW discipline. Senior commanders such as U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel Robinson Risner, U.S. Navy commander James Stockdale, U.S. Navy lieutenant commander Jeremiah Denton, and many others emerged as the leaders in the POW resistance campaign. And tough resisters such as George Day, George Coker, John Dramesi, George McKnight, and Lance Sijan, to name but a few, played significant roles in the effort. Stockdale, Day, and Sijan (the latter posthumously) received the Medal of Honor for their heroism and

Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam 933 leadership as POWs. U.S. Army captain Rocque Versace, who was executed in captivity as a prisoner of the VC in South Vietnam, also received the Medal of Honor. The POW experience broke down roughly into several periods. From 1965 through 1969 POWs were isolated, kept in stocks, bounced from one camp to another, malnourished, and brutally tortured to break their morale, discipline, and commitment to the U.S. Code of Conduct. Following the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969 the torture ended, and conditions improved in the camps. After the Son Tay Raid in November 1970, the North Vietnamese closed the outlying camps and consolidated all of the POWs in Hanoi. Compound living began in what the prisoners called Camp Unity. In February 1971 U.S. Air Force colonel John Flynn, the highest-ranking POW, who had spent most of his captivity isolated from the others, assumed command and organized the military community into the 4th Allied POW Wing. A few Thais and South Vietnamese POWs, who had distinguished themselves in working with the Americans, were included in the wing. From this point on, the greatest attention was given to how the POWs would return home. Amnesty was tendered to those who had cooperated with the enemy if they would now adhere to the Code of Conduct. All but a few accepted the offer. During the final two years the POWs’ story was collected, shaped, and honed. With the end of the war, the POWs returned home in Operation HOMECOMING to great fanfare as the only heroes of a frustrating war. Much to the dismay of senior POW officers, the Defense Department decided that POWs who had collaborated would not be prosecuted. Only Robert Garwood, when he returned to the United States in 1979, faced court-martial. Although many divorces resulted from their captivity, the Vietnam War POWs adjusted relatively well. Ten years later only about 30 had been treated for psychological or mental problems, although 2 had committed suicide and 3 died of other causes. Almost half were still in the military. The POW story is recorded in the more than 50 individual and collective participant narratives. JOE P. DUNN See also Alvarez, Everett, Jr.; Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr.; Garwood, Robert Russell; Hoa Lo Prison; HOMECOMING, Operation; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; McCain, John Sidney, III; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Son Tay Raid; Stockdale, James Bond References Doyle, Robert C. Voices from Captivity: Interpreting the American POW Narrative. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994. Dunn, Joe P. “The Vietnam War and the POWs/MIAs.” In Teaching the Vietnam War: Resources and Assessments, 68–93. Los Angeles: Center for the Study of Armament and Disarmament, California State University–Los Angeles, 1990. Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976.

Philpott, Tom. Glory Denied: The Saga of Jim Thompson, America’s Longest-Held Prisoner of War. New York: Norton, 2001. Rowan, Stephan A. They Wouldn’t Let Us Die: The Prisoners of War Tell Their Story. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 1973.

Prisoners of War, Communist See Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist

Program for the Pacification and LongTerm Development of South Vietnam In March 1966 the U.S. Army staff in Washington, D.C., produced a report titled “A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam,” or PROVN for short. The study originated nearly a year before as the result of a luncheon meeting between U.S. Army chief of staff General Harold K. Johnson and Vietnam specialist Bernard Fall in April 1965. To his chagrin, Johnson discovered that many of the facts that his staff had given him about Vietnam were incorrect. Already concerned about the worsening situation in Southeast Asia—the United States had just begun sending ground combat troops into Vietnam—Johnson returned from the meeting determined not only to get the facts straight but also to formulate proposals for winning the conflict in Vietnam. In June he formed a small team of talented midlevel officers and assigned them the task of developing “new sources of action to be taken in South Vietnam by the United States and its allies, which will, in conjunction with current actions, lead in due time to successful accomplishment of US aims and objectives.” Assembling in July, the team went to work and produced the PROVN report the following spring. PROVN indicted the U.S. government for failing to create a unified and well-coordinated program for eliminating the insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and argued that pacification—establishing control over and winning the support of the population—was the essence of the problem and that all actions ultimately had to serve it. The report criticized certain aspects of the way in which the war was being fought, urged that military operations focus on securing the population from guerrilla intimidation, and pressed the United States to play a more direct role in overseeing South Vietnamese internal affairs. Finally, PROVN called for the United States to overhaul its administrative machinery in South Vietnam by placing all of its pacification efforts under a single manager. Some commentators have regarded PROVN as an unusually candid and enlightened document. In fact, little of what PROVN had to say was new. Most of the shortcomings that it identified, the principles that it formulated, and the solutions that it proposed could be found in prior reports, in national policy statements, and

934

Project Agile

in U.S. Army doctrine as written in field manuals, taught in U.S. Army schools, and implemented by commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam General William C. Westmoreland. Recognizing the threat posed by the enemy’s powerful combat units, PROVN embraced Westmoreland’s strategy of attrition and his decision to focus most of the U.S. Army’s energies against the Communist main-force units. The report likewise relegated primary responsibility for pacification and population security to the South Vietnamese. Shortcomings notwithstanding, PROVN concluded that “few changes in U.S. doctrine are needed.” PROVN’s most radical suggestions pertained to political and diplomatic rather than strictly military matters. First, the authors suggested that the United States move beyond persuasion to employ coercion or unilateral action to compel the South Vietnamese government to take actions that U.S. advisers had long sought but that the Vietnamese had resisted. Second, PROVN recommended that the United States aim not just to reform but also to revolutionize Vietnamese sociopolitical life. This recommendation was tempered by disagreement among the authors as to exactly how deeply the United States should meddle in Vietnamese internal affairs. Finally, PROVN joined Westmoreland and many other commentators in criticizing the disjointed manner in which the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments were managing the war. With regard to the United States, PROVN suggested that all civil and military programs related to pacification be placed under a single civilian official responsible to the ambassador. Despite having reservations about some of the specifics, Westmoreland argued that these details “should not detract from the overall value of PROVN.” Rather, he informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) that the study offered an “excellent overall approach in developing organization, concepts, and policies to defeat Communist insurgency in South Vietnam,” and he recommended that the Defense Department forward the document to the White House’s National Security Council, where the many high policy and interagency questions could be hammered out. In the end the U.S. government undertook few of the specific actions recommended in PROVN. The fact that PROVN did not become the blueprint that its authors had hoped should not obscure the report’s significance. It accurately cataloged the many problems that had bedeviled the war effort and provided additional grist for those who already believed that the U.S. government needed to better integrate the political and military aspects of its activities in Vietnam. PROVN was thus part of the general movement—long supported by the U.S. military but generally opposed by the civilian bureaucracies—toward achieving such an integration. Eventually in 1967 President Johnson dictated the integration not by following PROVN’s recommendation but rather by placing the execution of most civil programs involved with pacification under military control in the guise of an office of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development (CORDS). Thereafter coordination improved, and both General Creighton W. Abrams, who succeeded Westmoreland as military commander

in Vietnam, and Robert W. Komer, the first head of CORDS, expressed their gratitude for the study and implemented some of its ideas. PROVN’s emphasis on a holistic approach to counterinsurgency mirrored U.S. Army doctrine and the policies that the U.S. government had long espoused. The close integration of military operations, both large and small, and political actions was indeed of vital importance, as it is in most counterinsurgency situations. The primary obstacles to achieving greater integration stemmed not from difficulties in conceptualization but instead from bureaucratic parochialism and the political and military realities on the ground. Over time, coordination of the politico-military effort became smoother and the pacification situation improved, thanks in large part to the battlefield defeats that the enemy’s main forces suffered in 1968 and 1969. The sociopolitical revolution that PROVN’s authors espoused, on the other hand, never occurred. Whether victory could have been achieved had such a revolution taken place is doubtful. As important as was pacification, PROVN’s belief that the outcome of the war would be determined in the villages of South Vietnam and in the hearts of their inhabitants proved incorrect. In Vietnam, large-scale military operations were responsible both for laying the groundwork that made progress in pacification possible (as PROVN admitted) and for determining the final outcome in 1975. As PROVN had recognized, the allies’ first task was to eliminate the enemy’s main-force threat. The ultimate failure to achieve this goal, thanks largely to the presence of external sanctuaries and the triumph of the will of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) over that of America, ultimately doomed South Vietnam. ANDREW J. BIRTLE See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Fall, Bernard B.; Johnson, Harold Keith; Pacification; Westmoreland, William Childs References Birtle, Andrew J. “PROVN, Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal.” Journal of Military History 72 (October 2008): 1213–1247. Cosmas, Graham A. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2006.

Project Agile Start Date: 1961 End Date: 1974 During the 1960s, the U.S. Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was charged with studying remote, limited warfare, including unconventional asymmetric-type guerrilla and counterinsurgency combat. The objective of the agency’s thirdlargest project, code-named Project Agile, was to provide support

Project Delta to countries fighting leftist insurgencies, particularly in Southeast Asia, through research and development of specialized tactics and weaponry. At its peak, Project Agile accounted for approximately 10 percent of the ARPA budget, or $30 million. The research lasted from 1961 to 1974, when the project was shut down. Numerous subprojects comprised Project Agile, each focused on a specific topic. These included weaponry, equipment, and supplies, involving light- and heavy-caliber armaments, varied weapon systems, and rations; remote-area logistics and mobility, involving air, land, and amphibious transport; communications, surveillance, and target-acquisition systems, including radio attenuation, spectral photography, and radar systems; herbicidal and psychological warfare; and technical planning emphasizing casualty and tactical studies. Working directly with military personnel in the field, ARPA representatives elicited immediate feedback and assessment on the effectiveness of the various projects. Successful in several research areas, two Project Agile programs stand out from the rest. The one with the greatest impact saw the development of the Armalite AR-15, a promising lightweight assault rifle later renamed the M-16 and manufactured by Colt. In 1962 the ARPA issued 1,000 AR-15s for field tests in Southeast Asia, despite earlier rejection by the U.S. Army in favor of the heavier-caliber M-14. Given conflicting reports from the army and the ARPA on the weapon’s lethality, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara eventually reversed the army’s decision in favor of a modified version of the AR-15, the XM-16E1. In 1967 following five years of testing and limited field use, the U.S. Army designated the revised M-16A1 rifle as its standard infantry weapon. The project’s most infamous development was also its most controversial: Agent Orange, one of many color-coded defoliants comprising the so-called Rainbow Herbicides program. Building upon earlier herbicidal warfare studies, efforts intensified to find an effective means for eliminating natural cover used by enemy forces and improving visibility for ground and air units in forward operational zones. The research became a further priority as the conflict in Vietnam escalated, given the thick jungle and underbrush in which U.S. combat forces would mainly operate. Following successful field tests in 1961, the United States sprayed an estimated 20 million–22 million gallons of the herbicide across South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971, making it the most widely used defoliant of the war. However, its use was discontinued when a known impurity, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, was shown to pose health risks. By 1974 Project Agile had closed down. During its tenure a new era of military thinking had been introduced, beyond the conventional-style warfare of previous generations. With combat zones and front lines less obvious particularly among the jungles and deltas of Vietnam, the need arose for the means and methods to quickly adapt and respond in an effective, limited fashion. From armaments to preparation, Project Agile was an essential component to research and development toward that objective. STEPHEN R. SAGARRA

935

See also BOLO, Operation; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Counterinsurgency Warfare; Defoliation; DeSoto Missions; Herbicides; Operation Plan 34A; Phoenix Program; RANCH HAND, Operation; Rifles; Strategic Hamlet Program References Dietchman, Seymour J. The Best-Laid Schemes: A Tale of Social Research and Bureaucracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976. Girling, John L. S. America and the Third World: Revolution and Intervention. New York: Routledge, 1980. Griffiths, Philip Jones. Agent Orange: “Collateral Damage” in Viet Nam. London: Trolley, 2004. Long, Duncan. Complete AR-15/M16 Sourcebook: What Every Shooter Needs to Know. Boulder, CO: Paladin, 2002. Reed, Sidney G., Richard H. Van Atta, and Seymour J. Dietchman. DARPA Technical Accomplishments, Vol. 1, An Historical Review of Selected DARPA Projects. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1990. Richard J. Barber Associates. The Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1958–1974. Springfield, VA: National Technical Information Service, 1975. Van Atta, Richard H., Seymour J. Dietchman, and Sidney G. Reed. DARPA Technical Accomplishments, Vol. 3, An Overall Perspective and Assessment of the Technical Accomplishments of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1958–1990. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1991.

Project Delta Start Date: 1964 End Date: 1971 Long-range reconnaissance and intelligence-collection missions within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The forerunner to Project Delta was Operation LEAPING LENA, authorized by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to begin on May 15, 1964. In June during Operation SWITCHBACK, control of LEAPING LENA was transferred from the U.S. mission in Saigon to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). In October, LEAPING LENA was redesignated as Project Delta. Under Project Delta, U.S. Army Special Forces “A” detachments trained the Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and the Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces) for combined reconnaissance operations. Initially there were six teams of two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and eight LLDB each. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 91st Ranger Battalion was the reaction force. Missions had to be approved by both MACV and the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff. Once employed, Delta teams were often placed under the operational control of the division requesting the reconnaissance mission. The teams operated throughout South Vietnam. In June 1965 Detachment B-52 was created to provide a command and control headquarters for the project. B-52 fell under the

936

Project Omega

command of the 5th Special Forces Group. Project Delta eventually expanded to include 93 U.S. Special Forces soldiers, 121 LLDB troops, 187 CIDG troops, an ARVN Ranger Battalion of 836 men, a security company of 105 Nung tribesmen, a 36-man mortar platoon, and a 36-man bomb damage assessment platoon. The U.S. Special Forces, LLDB, and CIDG composed the reconnaissance and roadrunner teams within the project. The organization of Project Delta varied over time and was never formalized by official documents. Reconnaissance teams generally consisted of 8 to 12 men: 2 to 4 U.S. Special Forces and 6 to 8 LLDB troops. These teams normally were inserted at dusk or at night by helicopter or by foot for a duration of five days into areas where there was little allied activity. The teams’ missions would be to collect intelligence, direct air or artillery strikes, lead a reaction force to a target, or capture prisoners. Roadrunner teams were comprised entirely of LLDB and CIDG troops. These four-man teams posed as People’s Army of North Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) or Viet Cong (VC) soldiers and openly traveled known PAVN and VC routes. In September 1965 Delta began a program to train its own replacements in patrolling techniques, and on September 15, 1966, Detachment B-52 opened the MACV Recondo School to train army personnel in reconnaissance techniques. Project Delta was deactivated on July 31, 1970. In the course of its operations, it identified more than 70 PAVN units, located numerous infiltration routes, captured many valuable documents and prisoners, and inflicted extensive personnel losses upon the PAVN and VC troops. RICHARD L. KIPER See also Montagnards; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Project Dye Marker See McNamara Line

Project Igloo White See McNamara Line

Project Omega Start Date: August 1966 End Date: November 1, 1967 Designation for U.S. Special Forces operation headquartered at Ban Me Thuot to fill a growing need for military intelligence. Established in August 1966, comprised of personnel from the 5th Special Forces Group, and controlled by Detachment B-50 on orders from I Field Force, the Project Omega unit was committed to combat on September 11 and created to supplement Project Delta. Omega supplied corps-level special reconnaissance and long-range patrol capabilities, mainly in the Central Highlands of the II Corps Tactical Zone. Omega operated within the framework of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program. Assuming that well-trained and dependable ethnic minorities would be most successful in this type of mission, Omega recruited indigenous troops from the Montagnards and Chinese Nungs. Organizationally a smaller version of Delta, Omega consisted of a reconnaissance element and a reaction force (a combined total of about 600 men). A modified B Team served as an advisory command. Reconnaissance responsibilities were divided. Eight reconnaissance teams with six members each (two Special Forces and four indigenous personnel) carried out patrols in specified reconnaissance zones to gather intelligence and conduct terrain analysis. Four roadrunner teams of four scouts each (all indigenous personnel), dressed in Communist uniforms and equipped with appropriate weapons and documents, operated for extended periods in Communist-controlled territory. The scouts were well paid and received extra privileges, but they often did not survive their high-risk missions. The reaction force provided a reinforcing component of a battalion of three Mobile Strike Force Command (“Mike Force”) companies, each with 25 Special Forces members and 150 highly trained airborne-qualified CIDG soldiers. Only later did Special Forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) participate. Spending an average of 60 percent of their time in the field, these units gathered information, helped extract compromised teams, and called in air strikes. During the first nine months of its operation, Omega claimed 191 Communist troops killed in action. One of the most important contributions of the Special Forces to the war effort, Omega yielded valuable intelligence and negatively affected its enemy’s morale. On November 1, 1967, the assets of Detachment B-50 were transferred to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG). PAUL S. DAUM AND TREVOR CURRAN See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Mobile Strike Force Commands; Montagnards; Project Delta; Project Siigma; United States Special Forces

PROJECT NINE, Operation See McNamara Line

References Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.

Project 100,000 Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years; A History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Special Forces at War: An Illustrated History; Southeast Asia, 1957–1975. Charlottesville, VA: Howell, 1990.

Project 100,000 U.S. Great Society program designed to extend the social and economic benefits of military service to disadvantaged or underqualified Americans. Officials in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, in an effort to attack poverty and its detrimental effect on the American family, hoped that by easing military admission standards, underprivileged young men could gain valuable skills, discipline, and useful benefits that would enhance employment opportunities and help stabilize families. In 1964 the Presidential Task Force on Manpower Conservation, headed by Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, issued a report titled “One Third of a Nation: A Report on Young Men Found Unqualified for Military Service,” which indicated that approximately 600,000 men failed the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) each year. In response to this finding, the Johnson administration directed the Selective Service System to channel disqualified men into government-backed training and referral programs. This effort failed, as fewer than 4 percent of the 134,000 participants referred (only 2,200) secured jobs, and of these only 189 received any viable training. In March 1965 a second Moynihan report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” found that a major factor in the deterioration of the African American family was the absence or weakness of father figures stemming from a legacy of subjugation and present-day discrimination. The report sparked a particularly intense debate among the White House, leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, and social scientists. President Johnson’s June 1965 speech at Howard University reflected a shift in the federal approach to civil rights from action on segregation and legal protection to an attack on social and economic ills, such as substandard housing, employment, and education. African Americans represented 11 percent of the population but only 8.5 percent of the military in 1964. The government rationale was that blacks should be proportionately represented in the U.S. military. Furthermore, military experience would benefit the African American family insofar as it could inculcate responsible behavior among young black males. In short, military experience would produce stronger father figures who would return as veterans, use their benefits, and be more productive in their respective communities. Special attention would now be given to blacks and other underprivileged Americans who failed the initial military entrance test and would normally not be eligible to join the armed forces.

937

Announced in August 1966, Project 100,000 sought to, as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara termed it, “rehabilitate” the nation’s “subterranean poor” by extending the benefits of military service to those previously excluded because of mental or physical inaptitude. The goal was to bring 100,000 of these previously ineligible men into the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps each year by relaxing entrance requirements. Between 1966 and 1972 (when the program was terminated), the U.S. military accepted some 350,000 Project 100,000 men. The majority of these reflected the administration’s focus: a high percentage came from broken homes or low-income families, most were high school dropouts, many had low IQs or read at a gradeschool level, 41 percent were black, and the majority, black and white, were from the South. Despite its altruistic facade, Project 100,000 had practical as well as political implications for the U.S. effort in Vietnam by adding badly needed bodies to America’s manpower pool. More than half of the Project 100,000 men went to Vietnam, and most of these received combat-related assignments (one report indicates that Project 100,000 men died at almost twice the rate of nonproject combat troops, although this is disputed). Many African American leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, saw this as evidence of institutional racism, citing disproportionately high casualties among black soldiers. Also, the expanded manpower pool helped Johnson to avoid calling up the Reserves—something he repeatedly refused to consider—as the demand for more troops in Vietnam intensified. Critics of the program cited increased disciplinary problems and poor military performance among the Project 100,000 and other relaxed-standards inductees. For example, they were more likely to be absent without leave (AWOL), and because they received no special training, many failed to meet the demands of the job. These soldiers were also more likely to receive courts-martial or less-than-honorable discharges. But many special-standards inductees performed well, and some combat commanders preferred them to more educated troops in the field. As a social engineering program, Project 100,000 largely failed. Few of the men received training or developed skills that would benefit them in civilian life, as the project’s advocates had envisioned. Many, especially those with less-than-honorable discharges, came away from the experience worse off than before. With decreased force demands after 1969, Project 100,000 quotas dropped accordingly. The program was terminated in 1973 with the advent of an all-volunteer military. Although the military maintained some special-standards recruitment for several years, the number inducted represented only a tiny percentage of the total force. PAUL R. CAMACHO AND DAVID COFFEY See also African Americans in the U.S. Military; Conscientious Objectors; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Selective Service

938

Project Sigma

References Baskir Lawrence M., and William A. Strauss. Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: 1978. Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Hsiao, Lisa. “Project 100,000: The Great Society’s Answer to Military Manpower Needs in Vietnam.” Vietnam Generation—A White Man’s War: Race Issues and Vietnam 1(2) (Spring 1989): 14–37. Moynihan, Daniel P. Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on Poverty. New York: Free Press, 1970. Rainwater, Lee, and W. L. Yancey. The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967. Starr, Paul. The Discarded Army: Veterans after Vietnam. New York: Charterhouse, 1973.

consisting of 150 highly trained airborne-qualified CIDG personnel, led by 25 SF officers and men. Mike Force companies were employed to exploit small contacts, to aid in the extraction of compromised teams, and to perform reconnaissance-in-force missions. Project Sigma forces also participated in raids on prisoner of war (POW) camps in conjunction with mobile strike forces, but none of these missions were successful in recovering any American or allied POWs. Project Sigma was located at Camp Ho Ngoc Tao near Thu Duc along Highway 1 between Saigon and Long Binh. Sigma forces were first sent into combat during Operation GOLF on September 11, 1966. Project Sigma performed 15 operations in War Zones C and D before its assets were transferred to MACV’s Studies and Observation Group (SOG) on November 1, 1967. JAMES H. WILLBANKS

Project Sigma

See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Mobile Guerrilla Forces; Mobile Strike Force Commands; Project Delta; Project Omega; Studies and Observation Group; United States Special Forces

Start Date: August 11, 1966 End Date: November 1, 1967 U.S. military long-range reconnaissance initiative during August 11, 1966–November 1, 1967. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland launched Project Delta (Special Forces Detachment B-52) in October 1964 to conduct secret long-range reconnaissance into Viet Cong (VC) sanctuaries. Encouraged by its success, in August 1966 Westmoreland organized Project Omega (Detachment B-50) and Project Sigma (Detachment B-56). Whereas Project Delta operated countrywide under the direction of the MACV commander, Omega and Sigma were created to give the commanders of I and II Field Forces, Vietnam, a long-range reconnaissance capability to use in remote areas of their corps tactical zones (CTZs). Omega and Sigma were similarly organized. Each consisted of approximately 900 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops and 125 U.S. Special Forces (SF) personnel. Each included a reconnaissance element, a reaction force, and an advisory command element, organized as a modified B detachment. The reconnaissance element was composed of eight roadrunner teams and eight reconnaissance teams. The roadrunner teams, made up of four indigenous personnel each, conducted longdistance reconnaissance over trail networks by infiltrating VCheld territory, using members dressed in regional People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army)/VC uniforms and armed with appropriate weapons and carrying proper paperwork. The reconnaissance teams, composed of two U.S. Special Forces personnel and four indigenous members, conducted saturation patrols throughout specified reconnaissance zones, gathering detailed intelligence on PAVN/VC movements, routes, and installations, and generated detailed terrain analysis. Backing up the reconnaissance elements were three Mobile Strike Force Command (“Mike Force”) reaction companies, each

References Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years; A History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

Protective Reaction Strikes Designation for 1970 air strikes conducted to suppress air defenses by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) that targeted U.S. reconnaissance flights. Although all American offensive bombing operations against North Vietnam were informally suspended by October 31, 1968, the U.S. government insisted that there was an understanding between itself and the North Vietnamese government that U.S. reconnaissance flights would continue. North Vietnam, publicly at least, denied that there was any such understanding. When these flights were fired on, Washington authorized U.S. Seventh Air Force commander General John D. Lavelle and his predecessors to retaliate against North Vietnamese air defense installations south of the 19th Parallel. The rules of engagement eventually stipulated that as soon as North Vietnamese radar guidance systems locked on American aircraft, escorts would attack the sites. In April 1970 Protective Reaction Strikes expanded to target surface-to-air missile (SAM) and antiaircraft installations protecting the Ho Chi Minh Trail south of the 20th Parallel as well as Communist infiltration across the

PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation

demilitarized zone (DMZ). More than 1,100 Protective Reaction Strike sorties were flown in 1970. In the autumn of 1972 U.S. Air Force general Lavelle was called before the House and Senate Armed Forces Committee to answer charges that between November 1971 and March 1972 he had launched 28 Protective Reaction Strike missions involving 147 sorties in violation of existing guidelines. Because of these violations Lavelle, who had assumed command of Seventh Air Force in July 1971, had been relieved of his command by the U.S. Air Force in March 1972 and was asked to retire quietly to avoid further publicity. Although Lavelle defended his actions by intimating that he had been “encouraged” by higher authorities to do so, the congressional hearings failed to vindicate him, and he was retired at a reduced rank (major general instead of four-star general). EDWARD C. PAGE See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Lavelle, John Daniel References Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000.

PROUD DEEP ALPHA,

Operation

Start Date: December 26, 1971 End Date: December 30, 1971 U.S. Air Force operation against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during December 26–30, 1971. In late 1971 U.S. president Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnamization policy intensified as large numbers of U.S. forces were withdrawn from the fighting and as arms were transferred to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). At the same time, U.S. air strike aircraft declined from a high of 737 in 1968 to 277 by late 1971. This also reduced U.S. Air Force personnel from 54,434 to 28,791 airmen. As air operations decreased, however, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infiltration from North Vietnam into South Vietnam increased. Coincidentally, U.S. reconnaissance flights revealed that North Vietnam was stockpiling weapons along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). In November 1971 negotiations in Paris with North Vietnam also stalled. Now fearing a North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam, Nixon approved a five-day bombing campaign code-named Operation PROUD DEEP ALPHA. Planned and directed by Seventh Air Force commander General John D. Lavelle, it was the largest air campaign against North Vietnam since the end of Operation ROLLING THUNDER in November 1968.

939

During December 26–30, 1971, U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers and fighter aircraft as well as U.S. Navy aircraft from the carrier USS Constellation launched 1,025 preplanned sorties against North Vietnam. Concentrated in Route Package I just south of the 20th Parallel, the campaign had two main goals. The first was tactical and focused on the destruction of increasingly effective antiaircraft artillery (AAA) batteries and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites that threatened U.S. aircraft. The second objective was strategic and sought to destroy enough enemy supplies and troops to discourage North Vietnam from launching a major offensive. The operation was timed for a week in which U.S. college students were home for the holidays, reducing the likelihood of campus protests. U.S. aircraft attacked SAM sites, road construction along the DMZ, and petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) storage facilities. Because the sorties were flown in southern North Vietnam, Hanoi continued its troop and supply buildup in northern South Vietnam, and the missions had little effect on its preparations for an invasion. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy lost five aircraft and seven airmen during the operation. Operation PROUD DEEP ALPHA and the other air raids of late 1971 and early 1972 brought into question the validity of the existing U.S. aerial rules of engagement (ROEs). When Lavelle took command of the Seventh Air Force on August 1, 1971, he believed that U.S. airmen were saddled with an ROE that was too restrictive and that only allowed them to shoot if they were fired upon. Worse, the ROEs kept changing, and they were hard to follow because they arrived in a series of disjointed directives. Lavelle, concerned for the safety of his crews, often suspended the ROEs for a “limited duration.” Just prior to PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird met privately with Lavelle and told him to “make a liberal interpretation of the rules of engagement in the field and not bother those in Washington for their interpretation.” Following a conference of senior U.S. officials in Honolulu in January 1972, it seemed that these new more flexible rules had been approved at the highest levels. Lavelle instructed pilots that all missions over North Vietnam were considered to be “under fire and that operations reports should reflect this.” In reality, they were making preemptive strikes. This change soon leaked to the press, and by March 1972 there was a full-blown controversy because Nixon, concerned about reelection, wanted the public to believe that he was making every effort to end American involvement. To save South Vietnam, Nixon ultimately had to redeploy nearly 600 aircraft. Between May and October 1972 air strikes against myriad targets in North Vietnam during Operation LINEBACKER I and the effectiveness of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers saved South Vietnam, at least for the time being. WILLIAM P. HEAD

940

Provincial Reconnaissance Units

See also Bombing Halts and Restrictions; Laird, Melvin Robert; Lavelle, John Daniel; LINEBACKER I, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Route Packages; Vietnamization References Futrell, Robert Frank. Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1961–1984. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1989. Morroco, John. Rain of Fire: The Air War, 1969–1973. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1986. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Provincial Reconnaissance Units Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs; Don Vi Tham Sat Tinh in Vietnamese) were small but potent paramilitary units funded and advised by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The stated mission of the PRUs was to “neutralize” (meaning to capture or kill) the important Viet Cong (VC) political cadres who formed the heart of the insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The PRUs grew out of an experimental program begun in 1964 in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta by the Kien Hoa Province chief Colonel Tran Ngoc Chau and his CIA adviser as part of a desperate attempt to reverse the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the South Vietnamese countryside. The PRUs were originally called Counter-Terror (CT) teams. The CT experiment in Kien Hoa proved successful, and the CIA decided to implement the program nationwide. In 1966 the CT name was dropped, and the blander PRU name was adopted in part in an effort to avoid possible adverse publicity. Each of South Vietnam’s 44 provinces had its own small (platoon to company in size) PRU unit that was under the direct command of the province chief. All funding, training, and equipment of the PRUs were provided by the CIA, which also provided military advisory leadership to the teams. PRU personnel were recruited from various sources, including even some deserters from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and men with criminal records. Many of the best PRU team members were former VC who had deserted or changed sides after they had been taken prisoner. The CIA’s PRU advisers were also a mixed group. Some were civilian CIA paramilitary specialists, while others were active-duty U.S. military personnel (U.S. Army Special Forces troops, Navy SEALS, and U.S. Marine Corps troops) detailed to support the CIA’s PRU program. Serving as a PRU adviser could be a very dangerous assignment. A number of PRU advisers were killed during the course of the war, and one, U.S. Special Forces sergeant Drew Dix, was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading his PRU team in a desperate battle during the height of the 1968 Tet Offensive in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon. Civilian PRU adviser Felix Rodri-

guez, a courageous Cuban American CIA paramilitary officer who advised PRUs in Vietnam in the early 1970s, later became famous during the Iran-Contra Scandal of the 1980s. While American PRU advisers played a key role in directing the operations of the teams, actual command of the units was in the hands of the local South Vietnamese province chief. Some province chiefs were content to allow the American CIA advisers to direct and lead the teams as the advisers saw fit, while others insisted on using their PRU team as a conventional military unit or as a local security force for their own personal protection. In addition, PRU teams frequently supported U.S. military combat units that were operating in their province. In 1967 the PRUs were incorporated into the new Phoenix Program, a joint U.S.–South Vietnamese intelligence and security operation aimed at destroying the VC local infrastructure that constituted the core of the Communist guerrilla warfare strategy. It was while operating under the Phoenix Program that the PRUs gained their greatest fame and their greatest notoriety. In spite of their small numbers (there was never more than a total of 4,000–5,000 PRU members nationwide), the PRUs gained a reputation as perhaps the most effective force involved in the attack on the VC infrastructure. However, PRUs were also called “mercenaries” and “assassins” by critics, and the program became the subject of much controversy and criticism in the American press. Following the incorporation of the PRUs into the Phoenix Program, an effort was begun to formally integrate the PRUs, which had always been an irregular force with no formal legal status, into the South Vietnamese government’s command structure and to eventually terminate the CIA’s role in funding and directing the PRU program. Because the primary PRU mission was to capture VC civilian political cadres for interrogation for intelligence purposes, it was decided that the PRUs would best fit within the South Vietnamese National Police. However, considerable problems were experienced in trying to incorporate the PRUs into the National Police, and it was not until July 1972 that the CIA’s financial and advisory support for the PRUs finally ended. The PRUs became the D-7 Department of the South Vietnamese National Police’s Special Branch and remained a part of the Police Special Branch until the collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975. MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II See also Central Intelligence Agency; Phoenix Program; Vietnam, Republic of, National Police References Ahern, Thomas L. Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009. Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1990. Moyar, Mark. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam

Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam Communist alternative or rival to the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Meeting between June 6 and 8, 1969, representatives of the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces (ANDPF) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) met and established the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam. Huynh Tan Phat was its first president; he and other PRG leaders had earlier been active in the NLF. The PRG’s first minister of justice was Truong Nhu Tang, who in his memoir provides a list of the PRG leadership. Tang stated that most PRG cabinet ministries were located within the so-called Iron Triangle of South Vietnam. The PRG’s proposed capital site was An Loc. The PRG’s major responsibilities included foreign policy. Its best-known spokesperson was Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, foreign minister and earlier head of the NLF delegation at the Paris peace talks. In 1969 the PRG received diplomatic recognition from Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Mongolia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Syria, and the Soviet Union.

941

General Tran Van Tra headed the PRG delegation on the FourPower Joint Military Commission responsible for supervision of the 1973 cease-fire and for implementation of prisoner exchanges. He was also the major PRG representative present at Doc Lap Palace when Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. In that role, Tran Van Tra served on the Military Management Committee immediately in charge of the city. However, General Tran Van Tra was a member of the PRG in name only. He was in fact a general officer in the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), headquartered in Hanoi. Despite its aspirations of playing a significant role in a reunited Vietnam, the PRG was quickly integrated into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Madame Nguyen Thi Binh became minister of education for the SRV, but she was one of only a few PRG leaders to receive an important SRV position. ERNEST C. BOLT JR. See also Huynh Tan Phat; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Nguyen Thi Binh; Tran Van Tra; Truong Nhu Tang References Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

A press conference by spokesmen of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG). In the background is the PRG flag with portraits of Ho Chi Minh (center); Nguyen Huu Tho, chairman of the National Liberation Front (left); and Huynh Tan Phat, president of the PRG (right). (Bettmann/Corbis)

942

Proxmire, Edward William

Tran Van Tra. Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre, Vol. 5, Concluding the 30-Years War. [in Vietnamese]. Ho Chi Minh City: Van Nghe, 1982. Translated in Southeast Asia Report 1247(82783) (February 2, 1983). Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Proxmire, Edward William Birth Date: November 11, 1915 Death Date: December 15, 2005 U.S. senator (1957–1989). Born on November 11, 1915, in Lake Forest, Illinois, Edward William Proxmire (known as William by most) graduated from Yale University in 1938 and two years later received an MBA from Harvard University. He enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army at the outbreak of World War II and rose through the noncommissioned ranks to master sergeant. Serving in counterintelligence, in 1946 he was commissioned a lieutenant. In 1948 he earned a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard. In 1950 he won election to the Wisconsin State Assembly and served one term.

Thereafter Proxmire ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1952, 1954, and 1956. Surprisingly, following the death of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1957, Proxmire, a liberal Democrat, won election to fill the controversial and conservative Republican senator’s vacant seat. Proxmire made an instant impression in the Senate, but the impression was mostly negative. A maverick, he butted heads with top Washington power brokers such as senators Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy. Proxmire opposed excessive military spending and the growing military-industrial complex that, he maintained, threatened social, educational, and civil rights programs. However, he supported the initial U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia and remained hawkish well into the Johnson administration. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, Proxmire joined increasingly persistent legislative efforts to end the Vietnam War and signed the HatfieldMcGovern Amendment. Later he opposed construction of the B-1 bomber and the C-5A jumbo cargo plane. A social liberal, Proxmire became increasingly conservative on fiscal issues. Although he favored space exploration, he opposed the costly space shuttle program. He also spoke out against privilege, perks, frivolous government spending, and the federal bailouts of Lockheed Corporation and New York City. He sponsored the Consumer Credit Protection Act and, in 1976, rose to the chairmanship of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Senator Proxmire retired in 1989 but maintained an office in Washington for many years. He was the author of several books and articles, including Uncle Sam: The Last of the Big Time Spenders (1972). After a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Proxmire died in Sykesville, Maryland, on December 15, 2005. DAVID COFFEY See also Church, Frank Forrester; Hatfield, Mark Odom; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; McGee, Gale William; McGovern, George Stanley References Current Biography Yearbook, 1978. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1978. Proxmire, William. Uncle Sam: The Last of the Big Time Spenders. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Who’s Who in American Politics, 1996. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker, 1995.

Psychological Warfare Operations

Senator William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin shown here in 1967, initially supported the Vietnam War but became critical of U.S. involvement following the 1968 Communist Tet Offensive. (AP/Wide World Photos)

The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was well aware from an early date of the importance of psychological operations (PSYOPS) in Vietnam. Throughout the war, the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Organization (JUSPAO), a joint services and combined allied organization, was responsible for supervising, coordinating, and evaluating all U.S. PSYOPS in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN,

Psychological Warfare Operations South Vietnam), Laos, and Cambodia and for providing PSYOPS support to South Vietnamese programs. MACV commander General William Westmoreland and his successor General Creighton Abrams remained strong supporters of PSYOPS, as were many of their staff. It is simply another myth of the Vietnam War that the United States, stubbornly fixated on a World War II–style conventional conflict, was unaware of the “other war.” JUSPAO’s mixture of military and civilian personnel was well suited to the dual nature of this war and testified to the American military’s early awareness, as a concept at least, that winning the hearts and minds of the people was fully as important a PSYOPS target as the armed conflict. In fact, JUSPAO’s stated first mission priority was to bolster the image of the South Vietnamese government. JUSPAO’s second priority was the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) defector program, established by the South Vietnamese government in 1963. The program was directed toward and was most successful with the indigenous Viet Cong (VC). Allied surrender appeals in Vietnam were usually closely tied to Chieu Hoi. The North Vietnamese, of course, could hardly be expected to rally in significant numbers to the South Vietnamese government and remain separated from their families. In addition to its combat PSYOPS, the U.S. effort enlightened civilians about South Vietnamese government programs and provided information services that would normally come under the rubric of nation building. This effort was in turn supported by JUSPAO and other military and civilian agencies in-country. In this war there were basically four military PSYOPS targets: the VC guerrillas in South Vietnam, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regulars, the civilian population of South Vietnam, and civilians of North Vietnam. PSYOPS directed toward each target were quite distinct. On December 1, 1967, the 4th Psychological Operations Group (POG) was activated, with its headquarters in Saigon but with its four battalions (the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th) operating in direct support of U.S. and allied forces in each of the four corps tactical zones (CTZs). In the field PSYOPS was initially conducted by four PSYOPS companies, one in each of the major CTZs. Finally, 13 HA (command and control), 13 HB (loudspeaker) and 33 HE (audiovisual) three-man teams were deployed by the 4th POG’s battalions to units and areas in the field. The HA teams provided command and control to the HB and HE teams and supported pacification and stability operations as well. The HE teams were ideal for one-on-one PSYOPS, as they gave medical civilian assistance (MEDCAP), distributed leaflets and posters, showed movies (revolutionary development, public safety, South Vietnamese image, and Disney films), carried out public opinion polls, reported local attitudes and opinions, and gathered information on Communist weapons and food caches as well as intelligence on the local VC infrastructure. Usually, each allied division had one attached HE team. The 4th POG’s battalions also provided direct PSYOPS support to U.S. Army combat divisions, brigades, and regiments and also trained the Army of the Republic of Vietnam

943

(ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to assume the duties of the 4th POG when Vietnamization had been completed. Each battalion was under the operational control of the senior U.S. commander in each CTZ. The 4th POG was under the command of MACV, although JUSPAO continued to provide support to military PSYOPS activities in the field. By the time the 4th POG was activated, the U.S. military adviser team in each South Vietnamese province included a PSYOPS officer, usually a lieutenant or captain. At the regional and corps levels the advisory staff included military and civilian PSYOPS officers, although at the district level the U.S. military adviser rarely had any PSYOPS assets. In addition, in February 1968 the 4th POG established mobile advisory teams, each consisting of a PSYOPS-trained officer and noncommissioned officer (NCO), to establish unit PSYOPS programs or to evaluate existing programs. Team personnel acted as PSYOPS advisers to units that lacked their own PSYOPS capability. Adding to their labors in the field, leaflet distributors and loudspeaker teams often worked with civic action groups and the defector Kit Carson Scouts. As might be expected, this insurgency conflict saw considerable overlapping of missions but also an intelligent sharing of resources. For example, JUSPAO would receive prisoners of war who had defected as a result of MACV operations and use them for their own PSYOPS. A useful means of improving PSYOPS coordination between the U.S. Army and the ARVN was the Combined PSYOPS Center (CPOC), established at each CTZ in 1969. The CPOCs pooled, collated, evaluated, and distributed PSYOPS intelligence and planned combined operations. Each CPOC differed to some degree in its functions and team composition, but each was headed by a Vietnamese with an American as his deputy. Civilian PSYOPS could often be mounted on a quick ad hoc basis. When a local defense guard was injured by a booby trap while working in a rice field outside Phuong Tho village in December 1970, the PSYOPS liaison team attached to the 1st Cavalry Division quickly exploited the incident. A tape was made informing the local people of the man’s injuries and pointing out that the victim could just as easily have been an innocent villager or a child and that through the villagers’ payment of taxes the VC was able to purchase such weapons of indiscriminate warfare. The most intensive civilian PSYOPS of the war was that conducted by U.S. Army Special Forces among the indigenous Montagnard tribes of the Central Highlands. Special Forces worked through the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), originally established by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and welded them into an effective field force that both protected the villages and engaged in offensive operations. Army PSYOPS in Vietnam utilized practically all of the themes of previous U.S. psywars, including the surrender pass, “Happy POW,” “Allied Might,” nostalgia, good soldier–bad leaders, and other reliable methods. The nostalgia theme seemed to enjoy great success. The 1st Infantry Division’s G-5 broadcast a family appeal designed to make insurgents think of home and family. Another

944

Psychological Warfare Operations

typical leaflet, addressed to the VC, depicted a lissome Vietnamese beauty amid a traditional rural landscape and carried this plaintive message from her husband: “Take a husband, my love. . . . Don’t delay for the fires here in the South burn fiercely. My arms are torn from my body and with my life’s blood I write this last plea.” A new theme was the offer of money for defectors or for weapons. One such leaflet promised as much as the equivalent of US$20,000 for any Communist infantry company that defected with its commander, political officer, platoon leader, and at least 80 percent of its men. Another listed a price scale for weapons turned in by defectors. As in other U.S. wars, the surrender pass gained such credibility that the defector needed reassurance that he was not required to carry such a leaflet to receive good treatment. Another typical leaflet warned: Members of the NVA [North Vietnamese Army], gunships and artillery will hit your positions. . . . The darkness of the jungle will no longer hide you. Our electronic devices will detect and locate your positions at any time, day or night. . . . Gunships, artillery, and air strikes will continuously hit your positions if you choose to remain in this area. Some leaflets simply showed, in full color, a plentifully stocked marketplace in a South Vietnamese city. JUSPAO also brought back the bomber leaflet of World War II in the Pacific. This time the bomber was the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, and the target was troops in the field. The message: This weapon is deadly, and there is nothing you can do about it except give up. JUSPAO personnel undoubtedly enjoyed composing the “disillusioning” leaflet carrying photos of Communist China’s Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) at their historic meetings with President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. The reaction, particularly among the selfless, indoctrinated cadres, to the widely disseminated spectacle of this “Imperialist,” this “Mad Bomber,” cordially conferring with the “Elder Brothers” of the anti-imperialist forces must have indeed been sobering (“Who are you fighting now?” “THIS IS WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW, BUT IT IS GOOD FOR YOU TO KNOW”). To emphasize the point, JUSPAO several months later disseminated another leaflet, this time showing Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev amiably proposing a toast to the same accursed Nixon. Many of these themes, of course, could overlap. A surrender pass might emphasize nostalgia, a nostalgia leaflet could point out the terrible killing power of the allies, or a “gory” leaflet might paint a contrast with the good life in South Vietnam. In fact, most leaflets used one or more themes. All but a few specialized U.S. PSYOPS leaflets in Vietnam were written by Vietnamese nationals, although JUSPAO or other U.S. authorities often suggested the themes. U.S. loudspeaker operators had to adopt new approaches to deal with a situation in which civilians and insurgents were seemingly inextricably intertwined. The new messages often concentrated upon the burdens heaped by the VC on the people: “You had to work very hard to get rice and money. If you report to the ARVN and Allied forces when the VC come to collect taxes, the

RVN troops and Allied forces will come to chase the VC cadre from your area.” Loudspeaker teams brought their messages close-in, but they also suffered the only PSYOPS battlefield fatalities of the war, with 11 killed in action. The 4th POG disseminated a number of apparently effective news journals for both civilians and Communist troops. Among these were a daily two-page news summary titled Tin Chien Truong (“News from the Front”) and Canh Hoa, a single-page news update distributed during field operations. The dissemination of U.S. and allied PSYOPS showed considerable technical improvement. With new lightweight presses, photocopiers, and the Polaroid camera, PSYOPS troopers could produce, in many cases, almost complete PSYOPS in the field. Creative psywarriors could copy captured VC self-criticism diaries, with their depressing sentiments in the subject’s verifiable handwriting; perhaps attach a photo of the author; and run off thousands of copies for dropping over the diarist’s comrades within a matter of hours. The U.S. Air Force developed improved side-mounted speakers on its own psywar-converted venerable Douglas C-47 Skytrain/ Dakota transport aircraft, and the helicopter finally made accurate leaflet dissemination possible. By all accounts, most of the contested areas of South Vietnam had been well papered long before the end of hostilities. Tactical radio also finally came into its own in this war. The 4th POG operated a 50,000-watt radio station at Pleiku in the II CTZ that targeted Communist troops within a 200-mile radius. Audiovisual teams informed and entertained civilian audiences with propaganda and Hollywood efforts. Allied PSYOPS also employed television for the first time in the field beginning in 1966. The novel medium attracted large crowds that sometimes included the VC, who occasionally shot up the sets. U.S. PSYOPS in Vietnam had its deficiencies, of course. Soldiers served their one-year tour of duty in Vietnam and then rotated back to the States at the time when they were beginning to understand how things worked in-country. Many PSYOPS personnel remained deficient in language qualifications, and fewer than 40 percent were PSYOPS or U.S. Army school trained. Conventional tactical unit commanders often remained unaware of the mission or value of PSYOPS. Some commanders even pressed PSYOPS tactical units into showing movies to their troops. Combat officers seconded to PSYOPS units often expressed reservations about their assignments and believed, with considerable justification, that this was anything but a career-enhancing move. The very nature of PSYOPS complicates any evaluation of its success. A study circa late 1968 of 337 Hoi Chanh Vien and Chieu Hoi returnees throughout the I CTZ claimed that no fewer than 90 percent were “influenced by what [they] read.” A full 96 percent said that they had seen PSYOPS leaflets, and 91 percent said that they had heard aerial broadcasts. Yet such reports may on occasion be exercises in self-promotion. It is much more difficult to dismiss convincingly the no fewer than 200,000 defectors who came over to the allied side or the numerous captured documents inveighing against the “deceits” and “tricks” of allied PSYOPS. The U.S.

Public Opinion and the War, U.S. PSYOPS effort in Vietnam can be termed a substantial, albeit temporary, success. STANLEY SANDLER See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Chieu Hoi Program; Civic Action; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Kit Carson Scouts; Montagnards; Pacification; Westmoreland, William Childs References Chandler, Robert W. War of Ideas: U.S. Propaganda Campaign in Vietnam. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1981. Sandler, Stanley. “Cease Resistance: It’s Good for You”: A History of U.S. Army Combat Psychological Operations. Fort Bragg, NC: U.S. Army Special Operations Command, n.d.

Public Opinion and the War, U.S. Public opinion represents the collective pattern of American public views toward the Vietnam War, essentially during the period 1965–1975. American public opinion on the war was always sharply divided. The war’s length, the domestic divisions that it generated, its high casualties, and the lack of well-defined war aims and clear progress all served to undermine public support for U.S. involvement. The causes of this erosion of support for the war remain a somewhat controversial issue. Many who believe that the United States could (or should) have won the war blame government officials and especially President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration (1963–1969) for failing to mobilize public sentiment behind the war effort. Other observers argue that had the United States invested a sound strategy in Vietnam, public support would have followed. Still others, mainly in the antiwar movement, maintain that the war was unwinnable from the start and that the growth of public opposition to it was inevitable. In any case, the Vietnam War serves as an example of how wars that go wrong can galvanize the public in ways that policy makers cannot anticipate or predict. American public reaction during the early stages of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was governed by the Cold War consensus of the 1950s and early 1960s, which supported the containment of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). When the first direct American involvement in Vietnam occurred in 1955, in the form of efforts to prop up the fledgling government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) under President Ngo Dinh Diem, few U.S. citizens were even aware of U.S. actions in Vietnam. As the American presence in South Vietnam steadily grew between 1955 and 1964, public awareness of the U.S. role in the conflict evolved very slowly. Indeed, even on the eve of direct American entry into the war in late 1964 and early 1965, with thousands of American military advisers participating in combat, most Americans were content to follow the Johnson administration’s lead on the war, if they were paying attention to the conflict at all. In a Gallup Poll published in April 1965, only 17 percent favored

945

withdrawal from Vietnam. Similarly, a Saturday Evening Post poll published late in 1965 showed that 65 percent of those polled believed that the United States must stay in Vietnam even if the war went on for four or five years. Americans at this stage of the conflict who did hold an opinion tended to subscribe to the domino theory, which held that the Communist Viet Cong (VC) insurgents were part of a wider Communist offensive and that an American withdrawal and the fall of South Vietnam would lead to the fall of neighboring states to communism. This, they believed, would have disastrous global consequences for the United States. After an initial surge of virtually unanimous support for the war during 1964–1965, public opinion began to shift away from unquestioning acceptance of the Johnson administration’s war policies. Mounting casualties and a lack of visible progress in Vietnam fueled public frustration and unease. Support for Johnson’s policies eroded steadily throughout 1966 and 1967. A Harris Poll taken in February 1966 showed that public approval of President Johnson’s handling of the war had dropped sharply from 66 percent at the beginning of the year to 49 percent in late February. At this time, most Americans favored some type of escalation in the form of intensified bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or incursions into neighboring Cambodia and Laos to cut off supplies to the VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units fighting in South Vietnam. In November 1966, an election year poll by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center showed 36 percent favoring escalation, with only 10 percent favoring withdrawal. Similarly, a year later, in November 1967, a Gallup Poll showed 55 percent as favoring escalation and, again, only 10 percent favoring withdrawal. Although a growing number of Americans in the 1966–1967 period viewed U.S. intervention in Vietnam as a mistake, very few were willing to consider withdrawal without an acceptable negotiated settlement or a clear-cut military victory. For a long period, from the autumn of 1964 until early 1968 just prior to the January Tet Offensive, support for withdrawal never rose above 20 percent of Americans questioned in the continuing Gallup or Harris polls. However, the Communist attacks of the 1968 Tet Offensive drove President Johnson’s approval ratings down significantly. Public approval of his overall performance fell from 48 percent to 36 percent, and approval on his handling of Vietnam fell from 40 percent to 26 percent. Even after the Tet Offensive, support for staying the course in Vietnam, albeit with a different strategy, remained reasonably strong. Many political analysts at the time saw the large number of votes in the early 1968 Democratic primaries for antiwar presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy as expressions of frustration with President Johnson’s policies rather than as a sign of an uptick in public support for an imminent withdrawal. In November 1968, the Survey Research Center election year poll showed that only 19 percent favored withdrawal, while 34 percent favored escalating the war. It was not until after the November 1968 presidential election that public preference for outright withdrawal began to exceed 20 percent. Although a majority of Americans now opposed the

946

Public Opinion and the War, U.S.

Support for the Vietnam War in Relation to the Number of Battle Deaths (Based on National AIPO Poll) Date August 1965 March 1966 May 1966 September 1966 November 1966 February 1967 May 1967 July 1967 October 1967 December 1967 February 1968 March 1968 April 1968 August 1968 October 1968 February 1969 September 1969 January 1970 March 1970 April 1970 May 1970 January 1971 May 1971

Number of U.S. Deaths

% of Americans Polled Supporting the War

166 2,415 3,191 4,976 5,798 7,419 10,341 11,939 13,999 15,695 19,107 20,658 22,061 27,280 28,860 32,234 38,581 40,112 40,921 41,479 42,213 44,409 44,980

61 59 49 48 51 52 50 48 44 46 42 41 40 35 37 39 32 33 32 34 36 31 28

war, there was little unity on how to extricate the United States from Vietnam. President Richard M. Nixon sought to mobilize public sentiment behind a negotiated settlement acceptable to the United States. Shortly after taking office in January 1969, he moved to slow the growth of support for immediate withdrawal by announcing plans for a gradual reduction of American troops and a policy of Vietnamization, or turning responsibility for the war back to the South Vietnamese. He also ordered American commanders in Vietnam to reduce ground operations, resulting in lower casualties. In a November 1969 speech, Nixon appealed to what he termed the “silent majority” of Americans to support his administration in seeking a “peace with honor.” This approach worked for a time. In April 1970 a Gallup Poll found that 48 percent of Americans approved Nixon’s handling of the war, while only 41 percent disapproved. Due largely to its own policies, the Nixon administration was unable to maintain or build on this level of support. Public feeling swung sharply against Nixon’s policies following the invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970, and the violent domestic reaction to the incursion that culminated in the shooting deaths of four Kent State University students by Ohio National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970. In the ensuing months, a Harris Poll reported that the percentage of Americans who thought that troop withdrawals were going too slowly went from 26 percent in late 1969 to 34 percent in May 1970, 45 percent in May 1971, and 53 percent by November 1970. This indicated a very serious erosion in support for the war. Nevertheless, Nixon and his advisers were able to stymie public pressure to end the war abruptly by continuing to reduce U.S. troop levels and holding down the number of American casualties.

Draft calls were also reduced drastically even before the Nixon administration ended Selective Service completely in January 1973. For the most part, public opinion in the United States continued to favor “peace with honor” as long as American troops were not involved in combat. Public reaction to the massive American air and naval intervention to halt North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive in March 1972, at a time when the last American combat troops were being withdrawn, was mixed, but there was hardly the outcry that had greeted the Cambodian Incursion two years before. A Gallup Poll published in May showed 73 percent of Americans as favoring withdrawal provided that North Vietnam agree to return all American prisoners of war (POWs). The November 1972 presidential election campaign reflected the eclipse of the Vietnam War as a central issue for the American public. Because Nixon had ended the draft and withdrawn most combat troops from South Vietnam, most Americans believed that the war was nearly over. McGovern, the Democratic candidate, had gained his party’s nomination on an antiwar platform, but his passion for ending the war did not connect with the majority of the voters. Nixon won the contest with 60 percent of the vote and carried all but one state in the electoral college. The breakdown in negotiations with Hanoi shortly after the election and the subsequent 1972 Operation LINEBACKER II, also known as the Christmas Bombings, caused a sharp drop in Nixon’s approval ratings and considerable congressional and international outrage. Nixon’s approval ratings at the end of December 1972 dropped to 39 percent. The end of the bombings and the return of North Vietnamese officials to negotiations in January 1973 followed by the settlement that same month that ended American involvement in the war and brought the return of America’s POWs kept the damage to Nixon’s standing with the public to a minimum. During the next two years the Vietnam War was increasingly eclipsed in the public’s mind by the growing Watergate Scandal, which would bring down the Nixon presidency in August 1974, and increasing economic difficulties. By June 1974, less than two months before Nixon’s forced resignation, the Vietnam War had virtually disappeared as an issue of concern in the United States. Americans scarcely took note of the continuing fighting between Communist Vietnamese forces and the forces of South Vietnam. The victorious Communist spring 1975 offensive and South Vietnam’s final collapse on April 29, 1975, were greeted with public indifference. By then amid the wake of the Watergate Scandal, spiraling inflation, and a sagging economy, most Americans were focused on other issues. Few seemed genuinely concerned when South Vietnam ceased to exist, and the only war-related issue that registered in public opinion polls was concern that all of America’s POWs be returned home. As South Vietnam collapsed in April 1975, Gallup reported that more than three of every four Americans polled opposed sending any military aid, and a majority went so far as to oppose any resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in the United States. Public opinion in the United States toward the Vietnam War followed the same patterns seen in earlier U.S. conflicts (the Mexican War of 1846–1848, the Philippine-American War of 1899- 1902, and

Pueblo Incident the Korean War of 1950–1953 being the best examples) in which the political leadership had taken the country to war without a strong public consensus or without a clear goal or strategy. The U.S. adventure in Vietnam serves as an example of public unwillingness to support government policy in a setting in which American vital interests are not clear, where resources are mismanaged, and where Americans are unduly affected by casualties, economic dislocation, and class conflict. More than three decades later the United States faced a similar situation regarding the Iraq War (2003–2010) because policy makers had apparently ignored the lessons of Vietnam. WALTER F. BELL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Containment Policy; Domino Theory; Elections, U.S., 1968; Elections, U.S., 1972; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kent State University Shootings; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Selective Service; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Vietnamization; Watergate Scandal References Alsop, Stewart. “What the People Really Think.” Saturday Evening Post 238(21) (October 23, 1965): 27–31. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Levy, David W. The Debate over Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Lunch, William L., and Peter W. Sperlich. “American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam.” Western Political Quarterly 32(1) (March 1979): 21–44. Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Pueblo Incident Event Date: January 23, 1968 Diplomatic and military confrontation between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) and the United States. On January 23, 1968, four North Korean naval vessels seized USS Pueblo (SGRT-21), touching off a major confrontation with the United States. In early 1968 North Korea’s hostility toward the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and the United States led North Korea to take what can only be labeled as a reckless gamble. On January 21, 1968, a squad of 31 North Korean commandos penetrated the demilitarized zone along the 38th Parallel and reached the northern edge of Seoul with the acknowledged mission of assassinating South Korean president Park Chung Hee. When they were within a mile of the Blue House (the South Korean presidential mansion), they were detected by South Korean police. A gun battle ensued, and all but three of the commandos were killed. One was taken prisoner. Only two days after this assassination attempt, on January 23 the North Koreans seized the Pueblo. Captained by Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, the Pueblo was an American intelligence-gathering ship operating off the eastern coast of North Korea. Built by the U.S. Army in 1944 as a general-

947

purpose supply vessel, it had been transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1966. Converted and commissioned in 1967 ostensibly as an auxiliary general environmental research (AGER) ship, the Pueblo’s real mission was actually to gather intelligence. Essentially a small cargo vessel (850 tons and 177 feet in length), the ship was slow (12.5 knots) and very lightly armed with two .50-caliber machine guns. It was equipped with the most sophisticated modern intelligence devices, and 27 members of its 82-man crew were cryptographic and intelligence personnel. When the North Koreans captured the Pueblo it was in international waters, unescorted and unprotected, supposedly conducting oceanographic research but actually involved in gathering electronic intelligence on North Korea. Pyongyang claimed that the ship had entered North Korean territorial waters in Wonsan Bay. Washington insisted that the Pueblo had been at least 13 miles beyond the 12-mile limit imposed by North Korea. During the actual seizure of the ship—the first U.S. warship to be surrendered to a foreign power since the War of 1812—one crewman was killed and several others, including Bucher, were wounded. The ship was then taken into Wonsan Harbor under its own power. The North Koreans treated the ship’s crew brutally, and on January 26 Japanese television aired a film made by the North Koreans in which Bucher and his crew signed a joint appeal to U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson to apologize to the North Korean government for the intrusion of the Pueblo. Meanwhile, North Korean radio broadcast Bucher’s alleged confession, which stated that his ship had deliberately intruded into North Korea’s territorial waters. The seizure of the Pueblo, without a shot being fired in its defense, caused great controversy in the United States. Bucher was both condemned and praised, but clearly the responsibility for the ship’s capture extended far up the chain of command. The ship was inadequately protected, and it received no support from any other source when attacked. Certainly capture of the ship’s sophisticated listening devices and cryptographic equipment was a great windfall for the Communist intelligence services. On January 24 U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk described the seizure as “an act of war.” The next day President Johnson called up a number of U.S. Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and U.S. Navy Reserve units, a total of 14,787 personnel, and declared that American forces in and around South Korea would be strengthened. He also ordered the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to take up a position off the North Korean coast. In the days and weeks to come, the task force would include 3 cruisers, 5 carriers in addition to the Enterprise, 18 destroyers, and the Banner (AGER-1), the Pueblo’s sister ship. When the Tet Offensive began in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) only one week after the North Korean capture of the Pueblo, there was speculation that the North Korean action may have been intended to divert American attention and American forces away from Vietnam in order to support the Tet Offensive attacks, but no evidence has yet surfaced to support this hypothesis. In the end the United States undertook no hostile action against North Korea, and President Johnson announced that the U.S. government would seek “a prompt and a peaceful solution to

948 Pueblo Incident

Members of the crew of USS Pueblo following their release by the North Koreans after almost a year in captivity. (Naval Historical Center)

the problem.” Already facing an untenable situation in Vietnam, Washington did not wish to settle the Pueblo case by military force. Perhaps aware of this, Pyongyang defiantly declared that it was prepared to meet any eventuality and would deal any American attacks an “exterminating blow.” Taking a hint from a statement over Radio Pyongyang that the Pueblo case could be solved by direct negotiation, Washington initiated secret talks with the North Korean government at the truce village of Panmunjom in February 1968. By March 4 the United States and North Korea had met 10 times at Panmunjom. The North Koreans insisted that the United States must admit to and apologize for the supposed intrusion. Meanwhile, Radio Pyongyang reported on February 12 that Captain Bucher made a “second confession,” and on March 4 Johnson received a letter purported to be from Pueblo crewmen asking Washington to admit that the vessel had violated North Korean waters. From March 22 to April 2 the North Korean government circulated a series of letters allegedly written by the prisoners and warned that a refusal to apologize could cost lives. Then on September 13 Japanese newspapers reported a news conference in Pyongyang at which the Pueblo crewmen allegedly said that they had been ordered to intrude into the three-mile limit of North Korea’s territorial waters. Ten months of negotiations finally led to the December 22, 1968, release of Commander Bucher and 81 Pueblo crew members

after the United States issued a statement of apology on December 21 acknowledging that the Pueblo “had illegally intruded into [North Korean] territorial waters.” Washington also pledged that no U.S. ships would intrude into the territorial waters of North Korea in the future. Although U.S. chief negotiator Major General Gilbert H. Woodward read a statement inserted into the record disavowing the confession before signing the statement prepared by North Koreans, the North Korean government claimed a great moral as well as diplomatic victory. The North Koreans never returned the Pueblo. During 1966–1969 the North Korean government, emboldened by America’s preoccupation with Vietnam, tested U.S. resolve to defend South Korea by waging what many historians consider a second Korean conflict. During that period in Korea, U.S. casualties numbered 82 killed and 114 wounded. Also, 85 Americans were taken prisoner, including the 82 from the Pueblo. After 1969 when it became clear to the North Koreans that the United States was determined to remain firm in South Korea, the hostile actions diminished. Nevertheless, the Pueblo incident represented a clear blow to U.S. international prestige and was an indictment of the naval chain of command, which had permitted a poorly armed ship with little support to undertake a potentially dangerous operation. JINWUNG KIM

Punji Stake See also Electronic Intelligence; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of; Korea, Republic of; Korean War; United States Navy References Armbrister, Trevor. A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair. New York: Coward-McCann, 1970. Bucher, Lloyd M. Bucher: My Story. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970. Hooper, Edwin B., et al. “The Pueblo Incident.” Naval History 2(4) (Fall 1988): 53–59. Nahm, Andrew C. “The United States and North Korea since 1945.” In Korean-American Relations, 1866–1997, edited by Yur-bok Lee and Wayne Patterson, 99–142 . Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.

949

wounds caused continual pain. He and his wife had only recently separated when on May 11, 1994, he died at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife said of him, “To the list of names of victims of the Vietnam War, add the name of Lewis Puller.” SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Literature and the Vietnam War Reference Puller, Lewis B., Jr. Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller, Jr. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991.

Punji Stake Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr. Birth Date: August 18, 1945 Death Date: May 11, 1994 U.S. Marine Corps officer, Vietnam War hero, and prizewinning author. Lewis Burwell Puller was born at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on August 18, 1945, the son of U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant general Lewis Burwell (“Chesty”) Puller Sr. In 1967 Puller Jr. graduated from the College of William and Mary. In 1968 Second Lieutenant Puller had been in Vietnam for only three months when he was horribly wounded. His body was nearly cut in half when he triggered a booby-trapped howitzer shell. Puller was heavily disfigured and lost both of his legs just below his hips and most of both hands. He later wrote that “I had no idea that the pink mist that engulfed me had been caused by the vaporization of most of my right and left legs.” He was awarded the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Somehow Puller willed himself to live, although he said that “the psychological and emotional wounds never healed.” He returned to William and Mary to earn a law degree. In 1971 he had turned against the war, although he could not bring himself to return his medals: “They had cost me too dearly,” he wrote, “and although I now saw clearly that the war in which they had been earned was a wasted cause, the medals still represented the dignity and caliber of my service and of those with whom I had served.” In 1978 Puller ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat from Virginia and, beginning in 1979, worked as a senior lawyer at the Defense Department. At the time of his death in 1994, he was on leave of absence as writer-in-residence at George Mason University. In 1991 Puller published Fortunate Son. Written in tribute to his father, one of the most decorated marines in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps, the book chronicles his own fight against depression and alcoholism. The storied writer William Styron, in a review for the New York Times, called it “a dark and corrosive autobiography.” The book won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Although Puller called his book “an affirmation of life—there are second chances,” he never quite healed. He continued to battle the debilitating effects of depression and alcoholism, and his war

The punji stake was a simple and highly effective antipersonnel device employed by Communist forces during the Vietnam War. The contemporary version of the ancient caltrop or triboli, the punji stake was a sharpened stake, usually of bamboo, deployed as a booby trap singly or in groups and located in rice paddies or in camouflaged holes to pierce the flesh of an individual falling on the stakes. Often the stakes were smeared with excrement so as to

U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Don Burchell makes his way through a deadly trap of sharpened sticks placed in a drained canal by the Viet Cong in 1965. Punji stakes, made from sharpened sticks of bamboo, were often coated with excrement to cause infection. Booby traps like these were an integral part of the war waged by the Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam forces. (Bettmann/Corbis)

950

Punji Stake

create infections. Punji stakes were placed in locations in which enemy troops might travel. Similar to these were large spiked balls suspended by vines in the jungle, released to crash into and wound or kill individuals tripping them. SPENCER C. TUCKER

See also Booby Traps Reference Doleman, Edgar C. Tools of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984.

Index

1st Air Cavalry Division (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), xliii, 30, 50, 158, 160, 254, 276, 283 (image), 312, 349, 370, 461, 474, 517, 519, 527, 528 (image), 593, 771, 893, 1239, 1245, 1324, 1325 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment (ARVN), 160 1st Infantry Division (ARVN), 2, 306, 307, 448, 814 1st Infantry Division (PAVN), 254, 390–391 1st Infantry Division (U.S. [“Big Red One”]), 78, 81, 245, 248, 1029, 1324, 1325 1st Infantry Regiment (VC), 462 1st Marine Field Artillery Group (U.S.), 73 2nd Armored Brigade (U.S.), 160 2nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 312 2nd Infantry Division (PAVN), 1340 2nd Infantry Division (VC), 462 3rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 325 3rd Infantry Regiment (ARVN), 448 3rd Marine Division (U.S.), 290, 306, 485, 591–592 3rd Sapper Battalion (PAVN), 291 4th Air Cavalry Division (U.S.), 180 4th Infantry Division (U.S.), 160, 254, 388, 427, 1324 4th Marine Division (U.S. [“Magnificent Bastards”]), 306, 485 5th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 529 5th Infantry Division (ARVN), 51, 150, 1324 5th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 1, 51 5th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 292, 466 5th Marine Regiment (U.S.), xliv (image) 5th Ranger Group (ARVN), 357 6th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 291 7th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 406, 527, 528

7th Infantry Division (ARVN), 57, 58, 981 7th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51 9th Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 9th Infantry Division (ROK [“White Horse”]), 163, 602 (image) 9th Infantry Division (U.S.), 348, 467, 981, 983–984 9th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51, 80–81, 107, 342 9th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 57, 139, 448, 485 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (U.S. [“Blackhorse”]), 78, 370 12th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 14th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rangers”]), 470 (image) 16th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 1 18th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 21st Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 21st Marine Regiment (U.S. [“Gimlets”]), 306 22nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 312, 1326 23rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 608 23rd Infantry Division (U.S. [“Americal Division”]), 119–120, 785, 1340 24th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 163, 254, 427, 466 25th Infantry Division (U.S. [“Tropic Lightning”]), 78, 81, 208, 249, 370, 457, 1324 26th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Blue Spaders”]), 180 26th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 485 29th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 57, 448 31st Marine Amphibious Unit (U.S.), 48 31st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 32nd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 33rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 528 39th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 348

I-1

42nd Regiment (ARVN), 427, 466 52nd Ranger Battalion (U.S.), 308 57th Medical Detachment (U.S.), 320, 564 66th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 82nd Airborne Division (U.S.), 29, 467 82nd Medical Detachment (U.S.), 853 90th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 140 101st Airborne Division (U.S. [“Screaming Eagles”]), 15, 50, 57, 276, 292, 349, 448, 464, 474, 546, 803, 1340 101st Aviation Group (U.S.), 292 101st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 81 173rd Airborne Brigade (U.S. [“Sky Soldiers”]), 15, 50, 180, 245, 248, 254, 427, 428, 693, 1325 (image), 1326 174th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254, 428 187th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rakassans”]), 57 196th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 81, 292, 306 199th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 357, 1162 237th Infantry Regiment (VC), 81 271st Infantry Regiment (VC), 107 272nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 81, 107, 341, 342 304B Infantry Division (PAVN), 163, 517, 977 320th Infantry Division (PAVN), 306 320th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 324B Infantry Division (PAVN), 235, 462, 463, 517, 977 325th Infantry Division (PAVN), 77, 235 325C Infantry Division (PAVN), 517, 579, 1244 327th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 502nd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 503rd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 254, 255 506th Infantry Battalion (VC), 348 675B Artillery Regiment (PAVN), 291

I-2

Index

762nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 763rd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 803rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 235 812th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 I Corps (ARVN), 517, 520, 814 I Corps (U.S.), 50, 311 II Corps (ARVN), 161 II Field Force, 875 III Corps (ARVN), 158, 161 III Corps (U.S.), 51 III Marine Amphibious Force (U.S. [MAF]), 31, 312, 704 LXX Corps (PAVN), 617 ABILENE, Operation, 1–2 Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr., 2–3, 2 (image), 51, 133, 347, 548, 576, 599, 616, 625, 692–693, 814, 847, 872, 875, 934, 970, 1062, 1174, 1175, 1176–1177, 1176–1177, 1188, 1203 (image), 1212, 1215, 1345 (image) analysis of the enemy systems used in the Vietnam War, 3 as commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 3 as overseer of Vietnamization, 747 Abzug, Bella, 4, 187, 712 Accelerated Pacification Campaign, 872–873 Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program, 407 Acheson, Dean Gooderham, 4–6, 5 (image), 566, 603, 1143, 1168 “defense perimeter” in Asia established by, 5 memorandum of, 1404Doc. press release urging aid for Indochina, 1410Doc. report to the National Security Council, 1416–1417Doc. telegram to Abbot L. Moffat, 1390–1391Doc. telegram to the consulate in France, 1403–1404Doc. telegram to the consulate in Hanoi, 1404Doc. telegram to the embassy in France, 1402–1403Doc. telegram to the embassy in the United Kingdom, 1407–1408Doc. telegram to the legation in Saigon, 1415–1416Doc. telegram to Walter Robertson, 1378–1379Doc. telegrams to David Bruce, 1409–1410Doc., 1412–1413Doc. ACTIV. See Army Team Concept in Vietnam Adams, Eddie, 6–7, 6 (image), 727 Adams, Samuel A., 7–8, 865 Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee (AHMBC), 8

Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), 934 Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (AARS), 1032 African Americans, in the U.S. military, 8–10, 9 (image), 69 effects of the civil rights movement on, 212 Agent Orange. See Defoliation; Herbicides Agnew, Spiro Theodore, 10–11, 11 (image), 45, 338, 457, 464, 465 criticism of the media, 1622–1624Doc. resignation of the vice presidency by, 11, 377 Agricultural reform tribunals, 11–12 Agroville Program, 12, 808, 811, 1061 Aiken, George David, 12–13, 13 (image) Air America, 13–14 Airborne operations, 14–16 Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 16–24, 17 (image), 19 (image), 23 (image), 579 allied bombers, 16–18 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, 16, 24, 32, 48, 59–60, 60 (image), 79, 97, 108, 125, 142–143, 158, 292, 312, 325, 340, 370, 376, 462, 466, 503, 527, 578, 582, 592, 625, 646, 659 (image), 661, 662, 693, 698, 709, 724, 740, 770, 802, 845, 879, 887, 944, 952, 958, 1001, 1018, 1021, 1034, 1036, 1049, 1053, 1068, 1130, 1154, 1184 Douglas A-1 Skyraider, 16, 17 (image), 24, 27, 77, 300, 372, 578, 838, 911, 917, 1080, 1265, 1356 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, 16, 24, 27, 35, 41, 300, 339, 372, 379, 679, 713, 911, 930, 1066, 1124, 1205, 1265 Douglas AD-6 Skyraider, 838, 1264 Douglas B-26 Invader, 16, 24, 105, 342, 383, 644 Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer, 17, 24–25, 31 (image) Grumman A-6 Intruder, 24, 25, 300, 340, 659, 1206 Martin B-57/RB-57 Canberra, 18, 25, 27, 35, 105, 990 (image) Vought A-7 Corsair II, 18, 25, 27, 35, 300, 659, 758, 1032 allied fighters and fighter-bombers, 18–20 McDonnell Douglas Phantom F4, xliii (image), 18, 19 (image), 27, 28, 35, 121, 226, 233, 300, 339, 379, 1040, 1051, 1079, 1085, 1086, 1119, 1205, 1206, 1248, 1341, 1342 allied trainers, transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and defoliators, 20–23 Democratic Republic of Vietnam aircraft, 23–24 See also Tactical Air Command Aircraft carriers, 25–27, 26 (image) length of individual tours/cruises, 26–27

reconnaissance tasks of, 27 Air defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 27–29, 28 (image) antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 28, 52–53 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image) Air Ground Aid Service (AGAS), 270 AirLand Battle doctrine, 1062 Air mobility, 29–30, 29 (image) Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company (ANGLICO), 30–31 Airpower, role of in the Vietnam War, 31–32, 33 (map), 34 air operations over Cambodia, 34 amount/tonnage of bombs dropped during the war, 31–32 focus of air operations in South Vietnam, 32 Air War Study Group Report (Cornell University), 36–37 ALA MOANA, Operation, 37 Albert, Carl, 280 Albright, Madeleine K., 1181 Alcatraz Gang, 1066 Alessandri, Marcel, 37–38, 172, 1009 Alexander, Jerome, 1031 (image) Ali, Muhammad, 38, 39 (image), 111, 231 (image) Allen, James, 238 Allied strength in Vietnam, 1964–1972 (table) Alpha Strike, 39–40 Alsop, Joseph Wright, V, 40 Alvarez, Everett, Jr., 41, 41 (image), 931 Amerasians, 41–43, 42 (image) American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 45, 46 American Friends of Vietnam (AFV), 43–44, 861 American Indian Movement (AIM), 798 American Red Cross, 44–45, 45 (image) Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO) program of, 44–45 American Society of Friends (Quakers), 53 Amin, Jamil Abdullah al-. See Brown, Hubert Gerald Amnesty, 45–46 Amphibious Objective Area (AOA), 47 Amphibious warfare, 46–48, 47 (image) amphibious task force of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, 47 brown water versus blue water operations, 47 deployment of the Special Landing Force (SLF), 47 during the period of Vietnamization, 48 marine landings, 47 Andersen, Christopher, 375 Andersen Air Force Base, 48–49 Anderson, Jack, 921 Anderson, William, 927, 1118 Andreotta, Glenn, 786, 1116 Andropov, Yuri, 423 Angell, Joseph, 189

Index Angkor Wat, 49–50, 49 (image), 150–151 ANGLICO. See Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company An Khe, 50 An Loc, Battle of, 50–51 casualties of, 51 Annam, 51–52 Antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 52–53, 1248 Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems Treaty (ABM Treaty) (1972), 778 Anti-Party Affair, 638, 639, 1043 Anti-Rightist campaign, 1043 Antiwar movement, in the United States, 53–55, 54 (image), 610 bombing of North Vietnam as the catalyst for, 53–54 common denominators among college campuses, 571 spread of beyond college campuses, 54 See also Baltimore Four; Camden 28; Catonsville Nine; Chicago Eight; Fort Hood Three; Jackson State College, shootings at; Kent State University shootings; March on the Pentagon; May Day Tribe; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) Antiwar protests, non-U.S., 55–57, 56 (image) APACHE SNOW, Operation, 57, 709 Ap Bac, Battle of, 57–59, 58 (image), 1035, 1261 casualties of, 57 (table) Ap Bia Mountain, Battle of. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Appeasement policy, 781 Approval ratings, of U.S. presidents during U.S. involvement in Indochina, 569 (table) Appy, Christian, 313 Aptheker, Herbert, 688 Arc Light missions, 59–61, 60 (image), 1069, 1186 ARDMORE, Operation, 579 Armored personnel carriers (APCs), 61–63, 61 (image) characteristics of, 62–63 (table) Armored warfare, 63–64, 63 (image) antitank attack methods, 63–64 lack of armor in North Vietnamese forces, 64 Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV), 64–65 Army of the Republic of Vietnam. See Vietnam, Republic of, Army Arnett, Peter, 65–66, 66 (image), 727, 728, 1078 Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius, 66–67 Arnold, Henry, 960 Art, and the Vietnam War, 67–70, 69 (image) African American artists’ response to the Vietnam War, 69–70

Artillery, 70–73, 72 (image) antipersonnel “Beehive” rounds, 72–73 high-explosive antitank (HEAT) ammunition, 72 improved conventional munitions (ICM), 73 number of U.S. Army artillery battalions in Vietnam, 73 specific People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) artillery, 71–72, 1251 (table) specific U.S. artillery, 71 (table) use of by the Viet Cong, 71 See also Antiaircraft artillery (AAA) Artillery fire doctrine, 73–76, 75 (image) chain of command for artillery, 74 direct support (DS) and general support (GS) operations, 73–74 and the effectiveness of firebases, 75–76 and fire direction centers (FDCs), 74 specific doctrines for artillery maneuvers, 74–75 Artists and Writers Protest (AWP) group, 67 Aschenbrenner, Michael, 70 A Shau Valley, 76–77, 1239 A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 77 Ashley, Eugene, Jr., 625 Asselin, Pierre, 490 Assimilation versus association, 77–78 Athenagoras I, Patriarch, 884 Atlantic Charter, 1167–1168 ATLAS WEDGE, Operation, 78–79 casualties of, 79 Atrocities, 79–80, 79 (image) committed by U.S. armed forces, 55, 79–80, 149–150, 481, 521 committed by the Viet Cong (VC), 79, 80, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) committed by Republic of Korea (ROK) allied forces, 80 See also Torture ATTLEBORO, Operation, 80–81 casualties of, 81 Attrition, 82 Aubrac, Raymond, 889, 1016–1017 August Revolution, 82–83, 1010 Au Lac, kingdom of, 83 Ault Report, 1124 Australia, 83–86, 85 (image), 395 casualties suffered by in the Vietnam War, 85, 86 deployment of ground troops to Vietnam, 84 military advisors provided to Vietnam, 83 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operations in Vietnam, 84 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) operations in Vietnam, 84–85, 1321 See also CRIMP, Operation Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), 83 Australian Special Air Services (SAS), 15

I-3

“Awesome foursome,” 961 B-52 raids. See Arc Light missions BABYLIFT, Operation, 87–88, 87 (image)

Bach Dang River, Battle of, 88–89 Ba Cut, 89, 830 Baez, Joan Chandos, 55, 89–90, 90 (image) Baker, Carroll, 1166 (image) Baker, Ella, 1072 Ball, George Wildman, 54, 90–91, 91 (image), 218, 345, 551, 562, 569, 808, 1201, 1345, 1345 (image) memorandum to President Johnson, 1549–1551Doc. telegram to President Johnson and Dean Rusk, 1506–1508Doc. Ball, Roland, 583 Baltimore Four, 91–92 Ban Karai Pass, 92–93 Ban Me Thuot, Battle of, 93–94, 93 (image) Bao Dai, xli, 94–95, 94 (image), 140, 330, 654, 655, 806, 807, 811, 839, 913 (image), 1010, 1258, 1272, 1286, 1287 abdication message of, 1376–1377Doc. Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr., 95–96 BARREL ROLL, Operation, 26, 32, 96–97, 503, 1119 sorties involved in and total ordnance dropped, 97 (table) BARRIER REEF, Operation, 917, 1026 Barrow, Robert, 290–291 Basic Principles of Mutual Relations (1972), 778 Bassford, Christopher, 1077 Batcheller, Gordon, 516 Bates, Carol, 797 Ba Trieu. See Trieu Au Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961), 568 Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul, 78, 98 BEAU CHARGER, Operation, 47 BEAVER TRACK, Operation, 47, 485 Beckwith, Charles Alvin, 98–100, 99 (image) role of in the formation of Delta Force, 99 Bennett, John, 218 Benson Report (1969), 969 Ben Suc, 100–101, 100 (image) Ben Tre, Battle of, 101–102, 101 (image) BENTRE, Operation, 388 Berger, Samuel David, 102 Berlin Wall, 568 Bernard, Harry V., 270, 862 Bernhardt, Michael, 971 Berrigan, Daniel, 102–104, 103 (image), 178, 179, 217 Berrigan, Philip, 91–92, 103, 104, 178, 179 Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 537 Betts, Richard K., 491 Bidault, Georges, 104–105, 105 (image), 375, 651–652, 1307 Bien Hoa Air Base, 105–106, 106 (image) Bigeard, Marcel, 174, 295–296 Big Medicine, Joseph, Jr., 799 (image)

I-4

Index

BIG PATCH, Operation, 1325

Binh Gia, Battle of, 106–108, 107 (image) casualties of, 107 BINH TAY I–IV, Operations, 108–109, 157, 160–161 Binh Xuyen, 109, 169, 314, 654, 1010 Bird, William H., 109, 156 Bird & Sons, 109, 156–157, 236 Blackburn, Donald D., 1052 Black Flags, 110–111, 110 (image) BLACKJACK, Operation, 564, 764 Black Muslims, 111–112, 112 (image) Black Panthers, 112–113, 242, 361, 1024–1025 Black Power movement, 212, 591 Black Virgin Mountain. See Nui Ba Den Blair, John D., IV, 77 Blaizot, Roger, 114, 172, 532, 1242 Blassie, Michael Joseph, 114–115, 115 (image) BLU-82/B bomb, 115–116, 1239–1240 Bluechel, Herbert J., 290 BLUE LIGHT, Operation, 116 BLUE MARTIN, Operation, 47 Blum, Léon, 116–117, 117 (image) Boat people. See Refugees and boat people Body armor, 118 Body count, 118–119, 119 (image) Boettcher, Thomas, 313 BOLD MARINER, Operation, 119–121, 120 (image), 1030 Bollaert, Émile, 121 BOLO, Operation, 121–122, 862–863 Bombing, of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, restrictions on, 122, 123 (map), 124–125 Bombs BLU-82 (“Daisy Cutter”) bombs, 115–116, 619, 1239–1240 gravity (cluster bombs), 125 Bon Son Campaign. See MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation Booby traps, 125–127, 126 (image) hand grenades used in, 452 Border Campaign. See LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Boston Five, 1060 Bowles, Chester Bliss, 127–128, 127 (image) Bradley, Mark, 490 Bradley, Omar Nelson, 128–129, 128 (image), 606, 1345 Brady, Patrick Henry, 129, 564 Braestrup, Peter, 1100 Brandt, Willy, 286, 418 BRAVO I–II, Operations, 129–130, 649, 1123 Brechignac, Jean, 174 Breezy Cove, 1026 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich, 130–132, 131 (image), 286–287, 287 (image), 609, 918 the Brezhnev Doctrine, 131, 423 domestic policy of, 131 relationship with North Vietnam, 131 relationship with the West, 131–132

See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Brigham, Robert, 490 BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation, 132, 1028 Brindley, Thomas, 580–581 Brodie, Bernard, 960, 1029 BROTHERHOOD, Operation, 907, 1012 Brown, Andrew J., 915 (image) Brown, Earl, 656 Brown, George Scratchley, 132–133 Brown, Hank, 134 Brown, Harold, 196 Brown, H. Rap, 1072 Brown, Hubert Gerald, 133–134, 133 (image) Brown, James, 958–959 Brown, Malcolm, 58 Brown, Rayford, 560 (image) Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr., 134–135, 773 Brown, Winthrop, 631 Browne, Malcolm Wilde, 135 Browne, Michael W., 1246 Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este, 135–136, 135 (image) telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420–1421Doc. Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz, 136–137, 137 (image), 1226 Bucher, Lloyd M., 947 BUCKSKIN, Operation, 245 Buddhism, 137–139, 138 (image) Buddhist protests in Vietnam, 138 introduction of into Vietnam from China, 137 Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia, 151 Buddle, Reggie L., 1299 BUFFALO, Operation, 139–140, 485 Bui Diem, 140–141 Bui Phat, 141 Bui Tin, 141–142, 142 (image), 875 Bui Van Sac, 818 BULLET SHOT, Operation, 142–143 Bundy, McGeorge, 143–144, 143 (image), 372, 797, 871, 917, 1345, 1345 (image) cablegrams to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499–1501Doc. memorandum to President Johnson, 1514–1515Doc. Bundy, William Putnam, 144–145, 1095 memorandum to Dean Rusk, 1571–1572Doc. Bunker, Ellsworth, 145–146, 145 (image), 302, 347, 496 (image), 576, 599, 872, 1175 Burchell, Don, 949 (image) Burchett, Wilfred, 146, 1145 Burkett, Bernard Gary, 146–147, 1298, 1299 Bush, George Herbert Walker, 147–148, 147 (image), 187, 220, 305, 464, 781, 1280 education of, 147 political career of, 148 service of in World War II, 147 Bush, George W., 148, 595, 715, 1181, 1209– 1210, 1299, 1319–1320

BUTTERCUP, Operation, 1129

Byrne, William Matthew, 341, 1007 Byrnes, James F., note to French ambassador Henri Bonnet, 1382–1383Doc. Byroade, Henry, aide-mémoire to North Vietnamese consul Vu Huu Binh, 1569Doc. CALCAV. See Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Calley, William Laws, Jr., 149–150, 150 (image), 608, 785, 786, 886, 971, 1116, 1190 Cambodia, xlv, 49, 128, 150–154, 153 (image), 155, 325, 352, 414, 1246, 1274, 1278 air operations over, 34 bombing of, 151, 370, 594, 740, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 history of, 150–151 neutral status of, 802, 1018 North Vietnamese headquarters in, 557 political stability in, 154 political turmoil and civil war in, 152–154 population of, 1964–1964, 585 (table) Theravada Buddhism in, 151 See also Angkor Wat; Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of; Cambodian airlift; Cambodian Incursion; Hot pursuit policy; Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of, 152–153, 154–156, 200 background of, 154–155 Cambodian airlift, 156–157 Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 158 (image), 159 (map), 160–161, 803, 848, 1176 first phase of, 157–158 number and types of troops involved in, 157–158 second phase of, 158, 160 third phase of, 879 Camden 28, 161–162 Cam Lo, 162 CAMPAIGN 275, 93 Camp, Carter, 798 Camp Carroll, 162–163 Campbell, Roger, 581 Cam Ranh Bay, 163–164, 164 (image), 1279 Canada, 164–165, 165 (image) Canines. See K-9 Corps Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), 165–167, 803, 811, 967 Cao Bang, 167–168 Cao Dai, 168–170, 169 (image), 314, 654, 1089, 1096 Cao Van Vien, 170–171 Caravelle Group, 171, 903 CARBANADO, Operation, 270 Carmichael, Stokley, 1072 Carpentier, Marcel, 167, 171–172, 532, 545, 642, 643, 998, 1242, 1286

Index Carter, James Earl, Jr., 46, 136, 137, 172–173, 173 (image), 284, 287, 338 (image), 339, 378, 411, 547, 1278, 1318 Case, Clifford Philip, 173–174 Case-Church Amendment (1973), 174 Casey, Aloysius, 635 Casey, Patrick, 635 CASTOR, Operation, 15, 174–175, 800–801, 802 Casualties, of the Vietnam War, 175–176, 175 (table) Australian, 176 French, 175 Republic of Korea (ROK), 176 Republic of Vietnam (RVN), 175 U.S., 175 Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 176 Catholicism, 176–178, 177 (image) Catonsville Nine, 178–179 Catroux, Georges, 179–180 Cau Nguyen Loi, 1119 (image) CEDAR FALLS, Operation, 81, 100, 101, 180–181, 181 (map), 539, 555, 873 casualties of, 180 target of, 180 Cédile, Jean, 181 Center for Constitutional Rights, 613 Central Highlands, 182, 184, 1015, 1239, 1264 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 43, 182– 184, 186, 190, 223–224, 229, 244, 319, 412, 459, 507, 717, 1050, 1126–1127, 1328 Border Surveillance program of, 244 cablegram on the CIA channel to Henry Cabot Lodge concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc. intelligence memorandum concerning bombing damage to North Vietnam, 1589–1590Doc. See also Air America Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), 157, 160, 184–185, 1245, 1323 cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to, 1606Doc. Directive 02/73, 1649–1650Doc. Directive 03/CT 73, 1654–1656Doc. Directive (un-numbered), 1606–1607Doc. Resolution No. 9, 1614–1615Doc. summary of Directive No. 1/CT71, 1627–1629Doc. Chamberlain, Neville, 781 Chams, 185–186, 186 (image), 199 Chandler, David, 920 CHAOS, Operation, 186–187 Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr., 187–188, 188 (image) Chappelle, Georgette Meyer, 188–189 Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph, 189 Charton, Pierre, 643 CHECO Project, 189 Chemical warfare. See Defoliation; Herbicides; RANCH HAND, Operation

Cheney, Dick, 187 Chen Geng, 1332 Cheng Heng, 684 Chennault, Anna, 190–191, 190 (image), 192 Chennault, Claire Lee, 191–192, 191 (image), 1009 Chen Yun, 196 Chernenko, Konstantin, 423 Chiang Kai-shek. See Jiang Jieshi Chicago Eight, 192–193, 193 (image), 506, 613, 1329 Chieu Hoi Program, 193–194, 596, 869, 943 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 156, 172, 194–199, 195 (image), 197 (image), 204, 234, 293, 1241, 1332 domestic policies of, 195 economic development in, 198 formation of after the Chinese Civil War, 195 National People’s Congresses (NPCs) of, 196–197 relations with the Soviet Union, 195, 423 relations with the United States, 195, 196 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 status of following the Korean War, 607 Tiananmen Square uprising in, 197–198 See also China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam; Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward; Hundred Flowers campaign China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam, 199–201, 200 (image), 201 (image) amount of foreign aid to North Vietnam, 199 military aid to North Vietnam, 324 post–Vietnam War policy, 200–201, 204 provision of war materiel to the Viet Minh and North Vietnamese, 676 support of the Viet Minh, 293, 532–533, 547–548 China, Republic of, 201–202, 548 China Lobby, 597 Chinese, in Vietnam, 202–204, 203 (image) attacks on the Chinese community, 202 control of South Vietnam’s commerce by the Chinese, 203 expulsion of the Chinese from Vietnam, 204 organization of the Chinese in Vietnam, 202 response of the Chinese to Vietnamese decrees and demands, 203 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 195, 196, 197 Chin Vinh. See Tran Do Chomsky, Avram Noam, 204–205, 205 (image) Chou En-lai. See Zhou Enlai Christmas Bombings. See LINEBACKER II, Operation Church, Frank Forrester, 173, 174, 205–206, 238–239, 464, 1196 Churchill, Winston, 995, 1143 Chu Van Tan, 206 CIDG. See Civilian Irregular Defense Group

I-5

Civic action, 206–209, 207 (image) combined action platoon (CAP) mission, 208 Helping Hand program, 208 Marine Corps civic action programs, 207–208 medical civic action programs (MEDCAPS), 207 Civil Air Transport (CAT), 13 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), 209, 223, 244, 564, 769, 1084, 1213, 1214 Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), 120, 208, 209–210, 223, 357, 433, 509, 872, 873, 909, 934, 1183–1184, 1272 Civil Rights Act (1964), 591 Civil rights movement, 210–212, 211 (image), 607 and the Black Power movement, 212 effect of on African American soldiers in Vietnam, 212 and voter registration of African Americans, 212 (table) Clarey, Bernard Ambrose, 212–213 Clark, Joseph S., 1196 Clark, Mark, 113 Clark, William Ramsey, 213–214, 213 (image), 1198 Clark Air Force Base, 215 Clausewitz, Carl von, 990, 1077 Clay, Cassius. See Ali, Muhammad Claymore Mines. See Armored warfare; Firesupport bases; Mine warfare, land Clear and hold operations, 215 Cleaver, Eldridge, 113 Cleland, Joseph Maxwell, 215–216, 215 (image), 925, 1216 Clemenceau, Georges, 216–217, 216 (image) Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), 217–218, 217 (image) Clifford, Clark McAdams, 218–219, 218 (image), 510, 551, 1209, 1318 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 220 Clinton, William Jefferson, 148, 219–221, 344, 616, 762 lifting of the trade embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1674–1675Doc. normalization of relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1675–1676Doc. Cluster bombs. See Bombs, gravity (cluster bombs) Coalition for a Democratic Majority, 996 Coastal surveillance force. See MARKET TIME, Operation Cochin China, 51–52, 95, 155, 181, 221, 343, 375, 398, 400, 401, 408, 416, 1241 Co Chi tunnels, 245, 248–249 Coffin, William Sloane, 218, 221–222, 222 (image)

I-6

Index

Cogny, René, 222–223, 295, 802 COINTELPRO, 1025 Colburn, Lawrence, 786, 1116 Colby, William Egan, 223–224, 223 (image), 319, 599, 615, 815, 872, 873, 909, 970, 1095, 1175, 1176 Collins, Arthur, 456 Collins, Joseph Lawton, 224–225, 225 (image), 314, 812, 1169 Collins-Ely Agreement, 861 Colvin, John, 1245 Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC), 967–968 Combat Operations Research Center (CORC), 967–968 Combined action platoons. See Marine combined action platoons COMMANDO FLASH, Operation, 225–226 COMMANDO HUNT, Operation, 34, 60, 226–227, 505, 617, 1063, 1185–1186 Committee on the Present Danger, 996 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 1244 Concerned Officers Movement (COM), 227–228 CONCORDIA, Operation, 306 “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report (COWIN Report), 228 Conein, Lucien Emile, 129, 228–229, 674, 808, 809, 970, 1012, 1133 Confucianism, 229–230, 230 (image) Conscientious objectors (COs), 230–232, 231 (image) Conscription. See Selective Service Con Son Island Prison, 232–233, 233 (image), 763 CONSTANT GUARD, Operation, 233–234 Containment policy, 234–235, 566, 569, 781, 945, 1143, 1199 militarization of following the Korean War, 607 Contemporary Historical Examination of Combat Operations. See CHECO Project Con Thien, siege of, 235–236, 236 (image) casualties of, 236 See also BUFFALO, Operation Continental Air Services (CAS), 236–237 Cooper, Chester Lawrence, 237, 871 Cooper, John Sherman, 237–238, 239 (image), 464, 1196 Cooper-Brooke Amendment (1972), 238–239 Cooper-Church Amendment (1970), 239, 617, 849, 1196–1197 CORDS. See Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support CORONADO I–XI, Operations, 983 Corps tactical zones (CTZs), 240–241, 240 (image), 241 (map) Corsi, Jerome E., 1084 Cosell, Howard, 39 (image) COSVN. See Central Office for South Vietnam

Counterculture(s), 241–243, 242 (image) components of, 242 sociological definition of, 241 Counterinsurgency warfare, 243–245 CIA involvement in, 244 U.S. experience with, 243–244 Cousins, Norman, 53 COWIN Report. See “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report Cranston, Alan, 610 CRIMP, Operation, 245–246 Crittenberger, Willis, 871 CROCKETT, Operation, 579 Croizat, Victor, 1270 Croly, Herbert, 663 Cronauer, Adrian, 246 Cronkite, Walter Leland, 246–247, 247 (image), 1100 criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam, 1601–1602Doc. Cuba, 155 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 568 Cubi Point Naval Air Station, 247–248, 248 (image) Cultural Revolution, 197, 703, 1043 Cunningham, Randall Harold, 249–250, 250 (image), 1124 Cuong De, 250–251 Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr., 48, 251–252, 251 (image), 592, 1203 (image) Dabney, William, 580–581 Da Faria, Antônio, 253 Daisy Cutter. See BLU-82/B bomb Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang, 253–254 Dak To, Battle of, 254–256, 254 (image), 255 (map), 465–466, 692–693, 1239 casualties of, 254, 255, 693 Da Lat, 256 Da Lat Military Academy, 1269 Daley, Richard Joseph, 256–257, 257 (image) Da Nang, 257–258, 258 (image), 345, 345 (image) See also Hue and Da Nang, fall of Dang Con San Viet Nam. See Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party), 1244 Dang Si, 1113 Dang Xuan Khu. See Truong Chinh DANIEL BOONE, Operation, 259 Dao Duy Tung, 259 Daoism. See Taoism D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry, 95, 259–260, 276, 375, 401, 532, 769, 1168, 1241 Darst, David, 178 Date of Estimated Return from Overseas. See DEROS Dau Tranh strategy, 260–262, 261 (image) Davidson, Carl, 1073 Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr., 262

Davis, Angela, 113 Davis, Raymond Gilbert, 262–263, 290 Davis, Rennard Cordon, 192, 263–264, 263 (image), 711 Davison, Michael S., 158 Day, George Everett, 265–266, 932–933, 1126 Dean, Arthur, 1345 Dean, John Gunther, 265–266, 265 (image) Débes, Pierre-Louis, 266 ultimatum to the Haiphong Administrative Committee, 1389–1390Doc. De Castries, Christian Marie, 266–268, 267 (image) See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dechaux, Jean, 174 DECKHOUSE I, Operation, 47 DECKHOUSE V, Operation, 268–269, 268 (image) Decoux, Jean, 269–270, 392 Deer Mission, 270 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), 270–272, 271 (image) Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS), 272 DEFIANT STAND, Operation, 272–273 Defoliation, 273–275, 274 (image), 1239 amount of herbicides used in, 273 (table), 480 (table) initial results of, 273 long-term effects of, 273–274 See also RANCH HAND, Operation Deforest, Orrin, 1127 De Gaulle, Charles, 105, 269, 275–276, 275 (image), 637, 774, 995, 1014, 1129 DELAWARE-LAM SON 216, Operation, 276–277 casualties of, 277 Dellinger, David, 192, 277–278, 277 (image), 1060 Dellums, Ron V., 1197 DeLoach, Cartha, 511 Delta Force, 99 Demilitarized zone (DMZ), 278–279, 278 (image), 279 (map), 306, 325 establishment of, 413–414 Democratic National Convention (1968 [Chicago]), 55, 113, 134, 178, 218, 264, 278, 279–281, 280 (image) See also Chicago Eight Deng Xiaoping, 196, 198, 1046 Denney, Stephen, 964 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr., 281, 495 Deo Mu Gia. See Mu Gia Pass DePuy, William Eugene, 1, 281–282, 282 (image), 555, 728 view of pacification, 871 See also Search and destroy De Rhodes, Alexandre, 283 DEROS (Date of Estimated Return from Overseas), 283–284, 283 (image) DESERT SHIELD, Operation, 270–271 DESERT STORM, Operation, 270–271

Index Desertion, 284–285 of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 284–285 of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC), 285 of U.S. military personnel, 284 DeSoto missions, 285–286, 864 Détente, 286–288, 287 (image), 778 De Tham, 288 Devillers, Philippe, 288–289 Dewey, Albert Peter, 289–290, 289 (image), 310, 862 Dewey, Thomas, 315, 988 DEWEY CANYON I, Operation, 290–292, 291 (image), 617, 1294 casualties of, 291 success of, 292 DEWEY CANYON II, Operation, 292–293, 1294 casualties of, 292 Dewey Canyon III, 657 Diem, overthrow of. See Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Dien Bien Phu, Battle of, 15, 76, 140, 174, 234, 267, 293–296, 294 (image), 295 (map), 342, 535, 675, 1169, 1250 artillery of the French forces, 295 artillery of the Viet Minh, 294–295 casualties of, 295, 296 effects of the French defeat, 296 French rescue plans for (Operation ALBATROSS and Operation CONDOR), 296 See also VULTURE, Operation Dien Triet Lake, Battle of, 296–297 Dikes, on the Red River Delta, 297–298 Diller, Richard W., 276, 887 Dillon, C. Douglas, 329, 1345 telegram to John Foster Dulles, 1433Doc. Dinassauts, 298–299, 764 Dith Pran, 299–300, 299 (image) Dix, Drew, 940 Dixie Station, 300 Doan Khue, 300–301 Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich, 301, 301 (image) Do Cao Tri, 158, 302–303, 302 (image), 827 Dogs. See K-9 Corps Doi Moi, 303, 820, 1278–1279 Domino theory, 303–305, 304 (image), 569, 781, 945 Do Muoi, 305–306 Don Dien, 306 Dong Ap Bia. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Dong Da, Battle of. See Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Dong Ha, Battle of, 306–307 casualties of, 307 (table) Dong Quan Pacification Project, 307–308 Dong Xoai, Battle of, 308–309, 308 (image) Don Khoi, 835 Donlon, Roger Hugh C., 309 Donnell, John, 1078

Donovan, Jack, 1341 Donovan, James, 1036 Donovan, William Joseph, 182, 309–310, 310 (image), 861, 862 Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III, 310–311, 880 Do Quang Thang, 311 D’Orlandi, Giovanni, 704 Doubek, Bob, 1295, 1296 DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation, 47, 311–312, 312 (image), 709 Doumer, Paul, 78, 312–313 Dow Chemical Company, 789 Draft, military. See Selective Service Driscoll, William, 250 (image), 1124 Drugs and drug use, 313–314 Duc Thanh Tran. See Tran Huang Dao Duc Tong Anh Hoang De. See Tu Duc Dulles, Allen Welsh, 183, 314–315, 314 (image), 1011 Dulles, John Foster, 183, 315–316, 315 (image), 329, 330, 412, 597, 802, 807, 957, 1011, 1055, 1056, 1169, 1199, 1307 minutes of meeting with Eisenhower, 1437–1439Doc. telegram to the embassy in Saigon, 1452–1453Doc. telegrams to C. Douglas Dillon, 1423Doc., 1423–1424Doc., 1426–1427Doc., 1436– 1437Doc., 1439–1440Doc. Dumb bombs. See Bombs, gravity “Dump Johnson” movement, 685 Duong Hiuu Nghia, 318 Duong Quynh Hoa, 316–317 Duong Thanh Nhat, 318 Duong Van Duc, 317 Duong Van Minh, 129, 317–318, 317 (image), 331, 458, 653, 675, 753, 808, 809, 827, 830, 831 (image), 1134, 1135, 1261, 1263, 1264 Dupré, Marie-Jules, 110 Dupuis, Jean, 110, 318–319 Durbrow, Elbridge, 319–320 assessment of the Diem regime, 1462Doc. telegrams to Christian Herter, 1473– 1475Doc., 1481Doc. Dustoff, 320 Dutton, Frederick, 1195 Duy Tan, 320–321, 321 (image) Dylan, Bob, 55, 89, 90 (image), 321–322 EAGLE CLAW, Operation, 554

EAGLE PULL, Operation, 48, 323 Easter Offensive, xlv, 31, 51, 60, 142, 162, 163, 182, 226, 233, 258, 278, 323–325, 324 (image), 346, 348, 393, 498, 599, 652, 672, 680, 736, 749, 758, 769, 814, 842, 843, 909, 910, 917, 946, 952, 1024, 1029, 1080, 1096, 1140, 1175, 1176, 1186, 1205, 1246, 1251, 1270, 1300, 1304, 1310, 1327, 1364 role of aircraft in, 1069, 1184–1185, 1300 See also Kontum, Battle for

I-7

East Meets West (EMW) Foundation, 1182 Eberhardt, David, 92 Eden, Robert Anthony, 327–328, 327 (image), 767 Edwards, Mel, 67 Egan, David, 1116 Eisenhower, Dwight D., xli, 43, 166, 172, 224, 244, 296, 316, 328–329, 328 (image), 342, 409, 568, 607, 692, 696, 807, 847, 957, 1055, 1056, 1164, 1169, 1169, 1199–1200, 1202, 1259 (image) approval ratings for, 569 (table) belief in the “domino theory,” 304, 305 conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1463Doc. domestic policies of, 328 international policies of, 328–329 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1450–1451Doc. minutes of meeting with Dulles, 1437–1439Doc. news conference notes, 1437Doc. policies of in Southeast Asia, 329 Electronic intelligence (ELINT), 339–340, 864 “Eleven Day War.” See LINEBACKER II, Operation Elleman, Bruce, 1046 Ellis, Randolph, 1151 Ellsberg, Daniel, 7, 340–341, 341 (image), 489–490, 594, 763, 891 (image), 960, 1006, 1035. See also Pentagon Papers and trial EL PASO II, Operation, 341–342 casualties of, 342 Ély, Paul Henri Romuald, 342–343, 532, 957, 1014 Elysée Agreement (1949), 343, 545, 913, 1402Doc. Emerson, Gloria, 662 Emspak, Frank, 793 Enclave strategy, 345–346, 345 (image) END SWEEP, Operation. See Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam ENHANCE, Operation, 346, 1265 ENHANCE PLUS, Operation, 346–348, 347 (image), 842 ENTERPRISE, Operation, 348–349, 348 (image) Enthoven, Alain C., 349, 722 Enuol, Y Bham, 349–350 Erhard, Ludwig, 417 Erskine, Graves B., 172, 545 European Defense Community (EDC), 354– 355, 413 Ewell, Julian Johnson, 355 EXODUS, Operation, 880 FAIRFAX, Operation, 357–358

Fall, Bernard, 294, 358, 358 (image), 643, 933, 1244 Fancy, Henry F., 655, 656 FARM GATE, Operation, 358–359, 959, 1184 Fatherland Front, 898 Faure, Edgar, 359–360, 360 (image)

I-8

Index

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 190, 360–361, 1327, 1329 Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 361–362 and Project Daily Death Toll (DDT), 362 Felt, Harry Donald, 362–363 Fernandez, Richard, 218, 363–364 Ferry, Jules, 78, 364 Fieser, Louis, 788 Film, and the Vietnam experience, 364–368, 366 (image) background of, 364–365 colonial period, 365 combat films, 365–367 comedies, 367 films concerning soldiers returning home, 367–368 films concerning the war’s aftermath, 368 Fire-support bases (FSBs), 290, 369 First National Conference on the Emotional Needs of Vietnam-Era Veterans, 657 Fishel, Wesley Robert, 370, 741 Fisher, Roger, 722 Fishhook, 370–371 FitzGerald, Frances, 433–434 Five O’Clock Follies, 371–372, 371 (image), 553, 554, 1099 FLAMING DART I–II, Operations, 26, 372, 816, 917, 990 Flexible response, 373 Flynn, John, 933 Fonda, Jane Seymour, 373–375, 374 (image), 860, 1293 broadcast of from Hanoi, 1640–1641Doc. Fontainebleau Conference, 375 Food for Peace program, 719 Forces Armées Nationale Khmères (FANK [Khmer National Armed Forces]), 50, 152, 157, 158, 161, 376–377, 585 Ford, Gerald R., 46, 284, 287, 338, 377–378, 377 (image), 1021, 1197, 1319 and the Mayaguez incident, 378, 710–711 pardoning of Nixon by, 378 Forrestal, James, 577 Forrestal, Michael Vincent, 378–379, 1095 Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of, 379 Fortas, Abraham, 379–380, 380 (image), 1345 Fort Hood Three, 380–381 Forward air controllers, 381 Fosdick, Raymond B., memorandum to Philip Jessup, 1405–1406Doc. “Four Nos” policy, 793–794 Four-Party Joint Military Commission, 381– 382, 382 (image) Fragging, 382–383 France, 15, 1168 involvement of in Southeast Asia, 243, 500 military logistics used in Vietnam, 676–677 nineteenth-century military intervention in Vietnam, 641–642 and Vietnam (1954–present), 389–390, 390 (image), 1240–1242

See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; FrancoThai War (1940–1941); Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946); Indochina War (1946–1954) France, Air Force of, 383–384 France, Army of (1946–1954), 384–387, 385 (image) armor of, 384, 386 French Expeditionary Force in Vietnam, 386 (table) infantry weapons of, 385 initial strategy of in Indochina, 386 makeup of in Vietnam, 384 tactics used by to combat guerilla warfare, 386 France, Navy of, 387–389 lack of a coordinated strategy in Indochina, 388 and riverine warfare, 387–388 FRANCIS MARION, Operation, 390–391, 1015 Franco, Francisco, 1058 Franco-Thai War (1940–1941), 391–392 Franco–Viet Minh Convention, excerpts from, 1382Doc. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi, 1386–1387Doc. Fraser, Michael Allan, 1299 Fratricide, 392–393 Freedom Company, 907 FREEDOM DEAL, Operation, 1048 FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation, 393–394 Freedom Rides, 1072 Freedom Summer, 1072 FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation, 393, 394 Free fire zones, 394–395, 395 (image) Free Khmer. See Khmer Serai Free Speech Movement (FSM), 53 Free World Assistance Program, 395–396, 602, 907 Free World Military Assistance Council, 747 French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), 1272 French Foreign Legion, 396, 396 (image), 397 (map), 398 French Indochina, 398, 399 (map), 400–402, 400 (image) missionaries in, 398, 400 nineteenth-century emperors of, 398 FREQUENT WIND, Operation, 27, 48, 402, 708, 755, 965, 1030, 1051 Friendly Fire. See Fratricide Froines, John, 192 Front for National Salvation, 811 Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO [United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races]), 403 Fulbright, J. William, 235, 238, 403–404, 404 (image), 508, 551, 1195, 1196 Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, 1657Doc. Fuller, J. F. C., 1077 Gabriel, Richard A., 1188

GADSEN, Operation, 556 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 405 Gallieni, Jiseph, 78 Galloway, Joseph Lee, 406, 771 GAME WARDEN, Operation, 406–408, 407 (image), 1030, 1091 Garcia, Rupert, 70 Garnier, Marie Joseph Francis, 110, 408 Garwood, Robert Russell, 408–409, 409 (image), 761, 797, 931, 933 Gavin, James Maurice, 29, 409–410, 1030–1031 Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth, 410 GBT intelligence network, 270, 862 Gelb, Leslie Howard, 410–411, 411 (image), 491 Geneva Accords (1954), 411–412, 880, 898, 1050, 1165, 1169, 1271, 1272 Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962), 631, 1245 Geneva Convention (1949), 414–415, 1125 Geneva Convention and Geneva Accords (1954), 165, 330, 343, 412–414, 413 (image), 597, 767 final declaration of, 1445–1446Doc. response of the United States to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. Genovese, Eugene Dominick, 415–416 Germany, Federal Republic of (FRG [West Germany]), 417–418 Gia Long. See Nguyen Phuc Anh GIANT SLINGSHOT, Operation, 1025–1026, 1364 Giles, Jean, 174, 791 Gilpatric Task Force Report, 1481–1482Doc. Gilpatrick, Roswell, 808 Ginsberg, Allen, 418–419, 418 (image) Global positioning system (GPS), 681 Godley, George McMurtrie, 419–420 Goff, Dave, 1298–1299 Goldberg, Arthur Joseph, 420, 1345, 1345 (image) Goldman, Eric Frederick, 420–421 Goldwater, Barry, 53, 332–333, 421–422, 421 (image) Golub, Leon, 68–69 Goodacre, Glenna, 857 Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson, 422–423 Go Public Campaign, 796, 1067–1068 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich, 196, 423– 424, 423 (image), 1158, 1160, 1181, 1279 Gordon, Lawrence, 270, 862 Gracey, Douglas David, 424, 1164, 1240 Gradualism, xliii Graham, James C., 8 Gras, Yves, 643 Gravel, Maurice Robert, 424–425 Gravel, Mike, 892 Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr., 425–426 Graves Registration. See Mortuary Affairs operations Great Leap Forward, 198, 702–703, 1043–1044

Index Great National Solidarity Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Great Society Program, 426–427, 549 impact of the Vietnam War on, 550–551 GREELEY, Operation, 427–428 Greenblatt, Robert, 1060 Greene, David M., 1030 Greene, Graham, 428–429, 428 (image) Greene, Wallace Martin, 429 Gregory, Dick, 1358 Grenade launchers, 429–431, 430 (image) Grew, Joseph telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, 1373Doc. telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, 1374Doc. Griffin, R. Allen, telegram to Richard Bissell, Jr., 1417–1418Doc. Griswold, Erwin, 890 Gromyko, Andrei, 1225 Groom, John F., 1119 Grossman, Jerome, 773 Groupement Mobile 100, destruction of, 431–432 Gruening, Ernest Henry, 432, 550, 776, 1171, 1195 Guam, 432–433 Guam Conference (1967), 433–434, 434 (image) Guizot, François, 435 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, xlii, 26, 286, 435–436, 864, 1171, 1195 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964), 144, 436– 437, 437 (image), 530, 550, 562, 864, 996, 1171, 1195 text of, 1512Doc. Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist), 199, 201, 202, 388 Gurfein, Murray I., 890 Habaib, Philip Charles, 439–440 Hackworth, David Haskell, 75, 440–441, 440 (image), 466, 707, 1077 Hague Convention (1907), 802, 1018 Hai Ba Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr., 180, 441–442, 441 (image), 740 Hainan Island, 442–443 Haiphong, 443–444 shelling of, 444–445 Halberstam, David, 58, 445–446, 445 (image), 611, 717, 1035, 1094 Haldeman, H. R., 696 Halperin, Morton H., 446–447 Hamburger Hill, Battle of, 447–448, 447 (image), 448 (map), 1239 Hamilton, Steve, 460 Hamlet Evaluation System (HES), 223, 449, 869 Hammond, William M., 729 Ham Nghi, 449–450 Hampton, Fred, 113

Hand grenades, 450–452 chemical grenades, 451 concussion grenades, 451 fragmentation grenades, 450 hand grenades used in booby traps, 452 incendiary grenades, 451 smoke grenades, 451 sources of grenades used by Communist forces, 450–451 Hanh Lang Truong Son. See Truong Son Corridor Hanoi, 452–453, 452 (image) bombing of, xlv, 453 industry and commerce of, 452–453 population of during the Vietnam War, 452 Hanoi, Battle of, 453–454 Hanoi Hannah, 455 Hanoi Hilton. See Hoa Lo Prison Hanoi March, 977 Harassment and interdiction fires (H&I fires), 455–457, 456 (image) debate concerning the effectiveness of, 456, 457 and the use of remote sensors, 456–457 Hardhats (National Hard Hats of America), 457 HARDNOSE, Operation, 984 Harkin, Thomas, 927, 1118, 1119 (image) Harkins, Paul Donal, 363, 458–459, 458 (image), 569, 674, 809, 851, 1035, 1070, 1095 Harriman, William Averell, 459–460, 459 (image), 562, 631, 876, 1076, 1225 Harris, David, 460 Hart, Frederick, 70, 658, 1296 Hart, Gary, 134 Hartke, Vance Rupert, 460–461 HARVEST MOON, Operation, 461–462, 461 (image) HASTINGS, Operation, 462–463, 463 (image) Hatfield, Mark Odom, 464, 464–465, 720, 1197 Hatfield-McGovern Amendment (1970), 464–465, 720 Hawk, David, 773 Hawkins, Augustus, 927, 1118 Hawkins, Gains, 865 HAWTHORNE, Operation, 465–466, 465 (image) Hay, John H., Jr., 673 Hayden, Thomas, 192, 264, 373, 374, 466–467, 688, 923, 1072 Healy, Michael D., 467–469 Heath, Donald Read, 468, 861 telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420Doc. Heath, Edward, 1165 Hedrick, Wally, 67 Heinl, Robert D., Jr., analysis of the decline of U.S. armed forces, 1632–1635Doc. Helicopters, xlii, xliii, 14, 15, 46, 30, 50, 58, 70, 73, 74, 77, 84, 100, 106 (image), 108, 115, 158, 180, 245, 268, 273, 276, 277, 290, 291, 292, 347 (image), 383, 402, 445, 468–473, 470 (image), 471 (image), 472 (image), 474 (image), 520, 556, 564, 569, 577, 578, 598, 607, 617, 625, 676,

I-9

678–679, 693, 695, 711, 732, 743, 744, 758, 764, 771, 777, 853, 867, 883, 894, 917, 977, 987, 1016, 1030, 1032, 1080, 1107, 1108, 1116, 1118, 1119, 1171, 1177, 1180 (image), 1194, 1205, 1215, 1238, 1249, 1265, 1326, 1340 Democratic Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 473 U.S. and Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 469–473 AH-1 Cobra, 36, 1051 Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”), 30, 64, 84, 105, 346, 347 (image), 407, 462, 470 (image), 618, 1091, 1265, 1289 (image) Boeing CH-47 Chinook, 1, 65, 105, 346 CH-21 Shawnee, 58 (image), 64 Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw, 30, 77, 473, 1074 See also Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War, 473–476, 474 (image), 1265 ambulance helicopters, 732 combat and fire support, 473–474 evacuation of casualties (medevac), 32, 308, 320, 323, 473, 475, 564, 592, 726–727, 727 (image) Ground Proximity Extraction System (GPES) run, 679 Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) run, 679 rescue, 472 (image), 914, 1052–1053, 1215 supply missions, 473, 475, 678–679 total number of helicopter losses in the Vietnam War, 476 total number of helicopter missions in the Vietnam War, 475–476 transport, 180, 475 U.S. Marine Corps helicopter missions, 474–475 See also Air mobility; Landing zone Heller, Lennie, 460 Helms, Jesse, 134 Helms, Richard McGarrah, 14, 476–477, 477 (image) Henderson, Oran K., 477–478, 608, 887 Hendricks, Jon, 68 Hendrix, Jimi, 783 (image) Heng Samrin, 155, 156, 478–479, 478 (image), 561, 586 Hennessy, John J., 977 Herbert, Anthony B., 479, 1126 Herbicides, 479–480, 1239, 1325 Agent Blue, 480 Agent Green, 479, 480 Agent Orange, 480, 1216, 1240 Agent Pink, 479 Agent Purple, 479 Agent White, 480 dioxin content of, 479–480 types of herbicides used in Vietnam, 273 (table), 480 (table)

I-10

Index

Herman, Judith, 925 Herr, Michael, 783 Herring, George, 704 Hersh, Seymour Myron, 481–482, 481 (image), 786 Hershey, Lewis Blaine, 482–483, 1033 Herz, Alice, 483–484, 775 Heschel, Abraham, 217 Hess, Gary, 489, 490 Hickel, Walter, 803 Hickey, Gerald Cannon, 484, 768, 770, 1078 HICKORY-BELT TIGHT-BEAU CHARGER-LAM SON 54, Operation, 484–485 HICKORY II, Operation, 485–486 High National Council (HNC), 486–487 Hilsman, Roger, 244, 487–488, 487 (image), 808, 1070, 1095 “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam,” 1491–1492Doc. Hilsman-Forrestal Report, 488 Hispanics, in the U.S. military, 488–489 Historiography, of the Vietnam War, 489–491 on history and memory, 491 new historical methodologies, 490–491 on the origins of the Vietnam War, 490 orthodox, revisionist, and neo-orthodox views, 489–490 Hitch, Charles J., 721–722 Hmongs, 491–493, 492 (image) Hoa, 1045 Hoa Binh, Battle of, 493 Hoa Hao, 314, 494, 654 Hoa Lo Prison (the “Hanoi Hilton”), 494–496, 495 (image) deplorable conditions at, 495 improved conditions at after the death of Ho Chi Minh, 496 torture used at, 495 Hoang Cam, 555, 556 Hoang Duc Nha, 496, 496 (image) Hoang Hao Tham. See De Tham HOANG HOA THAM, Operation, 497–498, 634 Hoang Thuy Nam, 537 Hoang Van Hoan, 498 Hoang Van Thai, 498–499 Hoang Xuan Lam, 517, 618, 619, 1220 Ho Chi Minh, xli, xlii, 11, 140, 151, 166, 199, 200 (image), 234, 270, 310, 375, 401, 499–501, 499 (image), 531, 537, 577, 621, 628, 794, 806, 822, 898, 1158, 1168, 1240, 1241–1242, 1241 (image), 1244, 1302 account of meeting with Paul Mus, 1394Doc. answers to the U.S. press regarding U.S. intervention in Indochina, 1411–1412Doc. appeal made on the occasion of the founding of the Communist Party, 1367Doc. death of, 496, 500–501, 1246 declaration of the policy of the Provisional Coalition Government, 1381–1382Doc.

as a diplomat, 500 final statement of, 1615–1616Doc. and the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party, 499 as leader of the Lao Dong, 500 letter from abroad, 1368–1369Doc. letter to compatriots in Nam Bo, 1383Doc. letter to James F. Byrnes, 1379–1380Doc. letter to Léon Archimbaud, 1366Doc. letter to President Johnson, 1581–1582Doc. letter to President Truman, 1379Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. proclamation to the people after negotiations with France, 1387–1389Doc. replies to an interviewer on Japanese TV, 1573–1574Doc. reply to a foreign correspondent, 1427Doc. reply to Georges Bidault, 1384Doc. report to the National Assembly, 1427–1429Doc. report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1442–1443Doc. speech concerning the resistance war in South Vietnam, 1380–1381Doc. speech at the Tours Congress, 1365–1366Doc. talk to a cadres’ meeting concerning draft law, 1472–1473Doc. talk to officers preparing for military campaign, 1421–1422Doc. telegram to Léon Blum, 1392Doc. as a war leader, 500 Ho Chi Minh Campaign, 501–502, 641 Ho Chi Minh City. See Saigon Ho Chi Minh Trail, xli, 225, 226, 377, 412, 502–503, 503 (image), 504 (map), 505, 617, 631, 676, 723–724, 802, 1018, 1063, 1119, 1133, 1245, 1250, 1252, 1324 bombing of, 32, 34, 503, 505, 802, 1018 building of, 502–503 electronic barrier across (the “McNamara Line”), 503, 505 improvements to, 680 in Laos, 505 length of, 503 transport of supplies on, 503 Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur, 505–506, 573, 592 Hoffman, Abbie, 192, 263 (image), 506–507, 506 (image), 1000, 1358–1359, 1359 (image) Hoffman, Julius Jennings, 113, 192, 613, 1000, 1025 Hogan, John, 178 Holbrooke, Richard, 1278 Holder, Stan, 798 Hollingsworth, James F., 51, 1086 Holm, Jeanne, 1346 Holt, Harold, 1056 (image) Holyoake, Keith Jacka, 1056 (image) HOMECOMING, Operation, 507–508, 797, 933, 1177

Hong Nham. See Tu Duc Honolulu Conference (1966), 508–509, 509 (image) Hooper, Joe Ronnie, 509–510 Hoopes, Townsend, 510 Hoover, J. Edgar, 361, 510–512, 511 (image), 1198 calls for the ouster of, 511–512 criticism of, 511 domestic counterintelligence programs of, 511 and the expansion of the role of law enforcement in the United States, 511 Hope, Leslie Townes, 512–513, 512 (image) HOP TAC, Operation, 513–514, 675 Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946), 514, 637, 1013 Hot pursuit policy, 514–515 Hourglass spraying system, 515 Ho Viet Thang, 621 Hue, 515–516 Hue, Battle of, 516–517, 517 (image), 518 (map), 519 atrocities committed by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) casualties of, 516 (table) initial Communist attack, 516–517 U.S. air assaults on Communist positions, 517 Hue and Da Nang, fall of, 519–521, 520 (image) Hughes, Thomas, 345 Humanitarian Operation Program, 522 Humphrey, Hubert H., 279, 280, 334–335, 522–524, 523 (image), 571, 1345 Humphrey, Ronald, 1202 Hundred Flowers campaign, 197, 1043 Hung Dao Vuong. See Tran Hung Dao Hun Sen, 153–154, 156, 524–525, 586, 587, 1039 Hurley, Patrick, 195 Hussein, Saddam, 148 Huston, Tom, 1198 Huston Plan, 511, 525, 1198 Huynh Cong Ut. See Ut, Nick Huynh Phu So, 525 Huynh Tan Phat, 526, 941, 941 (image) Huynh Van Cao, 130, 526 Ia Drang, Battle of, xliii, 50, 527–529, 528 (image), 529 (map), 1173, 1239 casualties of, 529, 1173 Imperial presidency, 529–530 India, 530–531 Indochina, geography of, 416–417 Indochina War (1946–1954), xli, 531–535, 533 (image), 534 (map), 621, 675, 978 changes in French commanders during, 532 Chinese support for the Viet Minh during, 532–533 U.S. policy concerning, 533 as the war of the “elephant and tiger,” 531

Index See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Indochinese Communist Party. See Lao Dong Party Indonesia, 535–536 Initial Defense Satellite Communication System. See Defense Satellite Communications System Institute for Defense Analysis, 1099 Intelligence, electronic. See Electronic intelligence (ELINT) Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX), 909 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 780 International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), 919 International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC), 165, 530, 536–537, 919, 1244 International Control Commission (ICC), 165, 411–412, 414 International Rescue Committee (IRC), 537 International Volunteer Service (IVS), 1183 International War Crimes Tribunal, 537–538, 538 (image) Iran-Contra Affair, 962 IRON HAND, Operation. See Wild Weasels Iron Triangle, 180, 539 IRVING, Operation, 539–540 IVORY COAST, Operation, 1052–1053 Jackson, Henry M., 339 Jackson, Joe M., 578 Jackson State College, shootings at, 541, 572 JACKSTAY, Operation, 542, 542 (image) Jacobs, Seth, 490 Jacobson, George D., 543 James, Daniel, Jr., 543–544, 544 (image) Japan, 544–545, 1167 impact of on the Vietnam conflict, 544 as the most important Asian ally of the United States, 545 Jason Study, 725 Jaubert, François, 388 Jaunissement, 545, 634 Javits, Jacob Koppel, 546, 546 (image), 1064 JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation, 546–547 casualties of, 547 Jenkins, Henry, 734 Jiang Jieshi, 547–548, 547 (image), 701, 702, 1163 Jiang Qing, 198 Jiang Zemin, 196 Johns, Jasper, 68 Johnson, Claudia Alta, 427 (image) Johnson, Harold Keith, 1, 548, 933, 1172, 1174 Johnson, James, 380–381 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, xlii–xliii, 43, 53, 54, 124, 124 (image), 144, 145, 165, 173–174, 186, 219, 235, 242, 244, 247, 277, 279, 286, 304 (image), 329, 346, 372, 395, 427

(image), 460, 483, 505, 509 (image), 515, 523, 549–552, 549 (image), 562, 660, 700, 779 (image), 798, 807, 816–817, 846, 884 (image), 889, 903 (image), 1056 (image), 1078, 1143, 1170, 1171, 1172, 1195–1196, 1201, 1261, 1339, 1345, 1345 (image) address in San Antonio, Texas, 1590–1591Doc. announcement of bombing halt over North Vietnam, 1607–1609Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) authorization of the DeSoto missions by, 285 belief in the domino theory, 305, 550 message to Congress (1964), 1511–1512Doc. message to Maxwell Taylor, 1548–1549Doc. news conference excerpts (1968), 1592–1593Doc. “Peace without Conquest” address at Johns Hopkins University, 1525–1528Doc. and the presidential election of 1964, 332– 333, 550 (table), 552 and the presidential election of 1968, 333– 334, 551, 571 response to the Pueblo incident, 947–948 revival of pacification, 871 telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1506Doc. television address, 1603–1606Doc. visit to Cam Ranh Bay, 163 See also Great Society Program; Guam Conference (1967); Honolulu Conference (1967); Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech; San Antonio Formula; United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech, 552–553 as the “Mekong Delta Speech,” 552 Johnson, Robert, 345 Johnson, Ural Alexis, 412–413, 553 Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), 762 Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA), 761 Joint U.S. Public Affairs Organization (JUSPAO), 553–554, 942–945 Jones, David Charles, 554–555, 554 (image) Jones, Kim, 70 Joseph, Cliff, 69 Juin, Alphonse, 774 JUNCTION CITY, Operation, 15, 81, 157, 555–557, 555 (image) casualties of, 556 Phase I, 556 Phase II, 556 Phase III, 556 primary objective of, 555 K-9 Corps, 559–561, 559 (table), 560 (image) the ARVN dog program, 559

I-11

medical histories of the dogs (Howard Hayes’ epidemiological research), 560–561 tributes to the dogs that served, 561 the U.S. Air Force dog program, 559–560, 560 the U.S. Army dog program, 560 the U.S. Marine Corps dog program, 560 the U.S. Navy dog program, 560 Kalergis, H., 456 Kampuchea. See Cambodia Kampuchean National Front, 561–562 Karman, Theodore von, 960 Karnow, Stanley, 1010, 1094 Kattenburg, Paul, 562 Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville, 562–563, 563 (image), 1198 Kaufmann, William, 960 Kegler, Maynard, 311 Kelly, Charles L., 563–564 Kelly, Francis J., 564–565, 764 Kennan, George Frost, 234, 551, 565–566, 565 (image), 1199 Long Telegram of February 22, 1946, 566 “X article” of, 566 See also Containment policy Kennedy, Edward Moore, 279, 566–567 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, xlii, 9, 53, 144, 183, 235, 242, 244, 276, 311, 319, 329, 359, 361, 405, 459, 549, 567–570, 567 (image), 591, 631, 717, 781, 807, 808, 809–810, 851, 864, 1020, 1200–1201, 1202–1203, 1213, 1261 aid to the Republic of Vietnam under his administration, 83 anti-Communist sentiments of, 567–568 approval ratings for, 569 (table) assassination of, 144, 247, 315, 570 belief in the domino theory, 305 health problems of, 568 New Frontier agenda of, 568 policies regarding Vietnam, 569–570, 1170–1171 remarks on the situation in Vietnam, 1495–1496Doc. support for counterinsurgency, 647 See also Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961); Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962) Kennedy, Joseph P., 567, 1058 Kennedy, Robert Francis, 54, 334, 334 (image), 335, 459, 551, 567, 570–571, 685, 715, 1020 assassination of, 279, 523, 571 as legal counsel to Senate committees in the 1950s, 570 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1490Doc. and the presidential election of 1968, 571 public opposition of to the Vietnam War, 1595–1597Doc. as U.S. attorney general, 570–571

I-12

Index

Kent State University shootings, 55, 571–573, 572 (image), 594, 610 KENTUCKY, Operation, 573 casualties of, 573 Kep Airfield, 573 Kerr, Clark, 53 Kerrey, Joseph Robert, 573–574, 951 Kerry, John Forbes, 134, 265, 574–576, 575 (image), 760–761, 951, 1083–1084, 1197 antiwar activities of, 574, 1630–1632Doc. and the presidential election of 2004, 575–576 Kerwin, Walter T., Jr., 576–577 Key West Agreement (1948), 577 Khai Dinh, 577–578 Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, fall of, 578–579 Khe Sanh, Battle of, xliii, 72 (image), 576, 579– 583, 580 (image), 581 (map), 1103, 1339 and air resupply, 679 board replica of Khe Sanh at the White House, 581–582, 1103 casualties of, 582 as a Communist ruse, 582 See also Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Khieu Samphan, 583–584, 583 (image), 586, 587 Khmer Kampuchea Krom, 584–585, 584 (image) Khmer National Armed Forces. See Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Khmer Republic, 49 Khmer Rouge, 50, 151, 152–153, 154, 378, 585–587, 586 (image), 855, 908–909, 920, 1039, 1247 as the peap prey (“forest army”), 586 See also Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of Khmers. See Cambodia; Southeast Asia, ethnology of Khmer Serai, 587–588, 1038 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich, 243, 411, 568, 588–589, 588 (image), 631, 1043–1044, 1159, 1165, 1245 developments leading to the downfall of, 589 See also Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) Kien An Airfield, 589 Kienholz, Ed, 68 Kiesinger, Kurt, 417 KILLER, Operation, 972 Kim Il Sung, 600, 603, 604 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 9, 54, 113, 210–211, 218, 361, 511, 590–591, 590 (image), 937, 1060, 1072 antiwar stance of, 591 assassination of, 10, 257, 591, 955 “I Have a Dream” speech, 591 sermon against the Vietnam War, 1582–1589Doc.

KINGFISHER, Operation, 591–593

casualties of, 592 KINGPIN, Operation. See Son Tay Raid Kinnard, Douglas, 118, 119 Kinnard, Harry William Osborn, 29, 593 Kirk, Donald, 332 Kissinger, Henry Alfred, 161, 286, 340, 347, 378, 496 (image), 593–596, 594 (image), 616, 660, 696, 710, 740, 743, 773, 778, 842, 847, 850, 878 (image), 888–889, 989, 1016–1017, 1175, 1178, 1179, 1186, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1247, 1292, 1327 news conference excerpt, 1643–1644Doc. request for emergency aid for South Vietnam, 1660–1662Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973); Watergate Scandal Kit Carson Scouts, 596 Knight, Hal, Jr., 740 Knowland, William Fife, 596–597, 597 (image) Kohler, Foy, 712 Koh Tang, 597–598 Komer, Robert W., 143, 144, 223, 244, 433, 576, 598–599, 598 (image), 871–873, 909, 934 Kong Le, 599, 630, 631, 1057 Kontum, Battle for, 599–600 casualties of, 600 Kopechne, Mary Jo, 567 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (DPRK), 600–601 as an ally of North Vietnam, 600–601 See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of (ROK), xliii, 80, 163, 395, 601–603, 602 (image). See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of, Army (ROKA), 540, 600, 601, 602, 603, 605, 606, 882, 883, 893 Korean War (1950–1953), 195, 304, 355, 530, 533, 600, 601, 603–608, 604 (image), 1168–1169, 1199 aeromedical evacuations during, 726 casualties of, 607 effect of on U.S. foreign policymakers, 607 the Inchon landing, 605 lack of U.S. forces’ preparedness for, 605 results of, 607 Koshiro Iwai, 545 Koster, Samuel William, Sr., 608–609, 785, 786, 886–887, 1340 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich, 286, 609–610, 609 (image), 917, 1078, 1245, 1343 joint statement of with Pham Van Dong, 1515–1516Doc. Kovic, Ronald, 610–611, 650 Kraft, Joseph, 611 Krassner, Paul, 1000, 1358 Krepinevich, Andre, 490 Kroesen, Frederick, 814 Krulak, Victor H., 207, 244, 611–612, 612 (image), 738, 1095

disagreement with Westmoreland’s strategy and tactics, 612 Ksor Kok, 770 Kuby, Ron, 613 Ku Klux Klan, 361 Kulikov, Viktor, 1247 Kunstler, William Moses, 178, 192, 612–613 Ky Ngoai Hau Cuong De. See Cuong De Lacy, William S. B., 813 Ladd, Jonathan, 625 Lair, James W., 13 Laird, Melvin Robert, 157, 227, 615–616, 616 (image), 921, 939, 989, 1203 (image) Lake, William Anthony Kirsop, 616–617 Lamb, Al, 1341 LAM SON 719, Operation, 48, 226, 505, 617–619, 618 (map), 842, 848, 989, 1018, 1176, 1294 casualties of, 619 objectives of, 617 as a test of Vietnamization, 617 Landing zone (LZ), 619–621, 620 (image), 620 (map) hot LZ, 619 Land reform, Vietnam, 621–622 Diem’s land reform law, 621, 769 Ho’s land reform policy, 628 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam land reform program, 621–622 Thieu’s land reform law, 622, 841–842 of the Viet Minh, 621 Lane, Mark, 1293 Lane, Sharon, 857 Lang Bac, Battle of, 622–623 La Ngoc Chau, 527 Lang Son, 623–624, 623 (image) Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 624–625 casualties of, 625 Laniel, Joseph, 626, 626 (image) Lansdale, Edward Geary, 183, 229, 310, 319, 626–627, 807, 907, 996, 1010, 1012, 1031 Lao Dong Party (Indochinese Communist Party Politburo [ICP]), 500, 502, 628, 1240, 1244, 1348 phase two of the Politburo Conference, 1659–1660Doc. Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW, 1662–1664Doc. secret cable no. 17-NB to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1478–1479Doc. secret cable no. 160 to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1475–1476Doc. Lao Issara, 630 Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), 632–633 major issues between the party and the United States, 633

Index Laos, xlii–xliii, 14, 96, 110, 161, 174, 223, 414, 492, 536, 537, 568–569, 629–633, 629 (image), 631 (image), 632 (image), 1246 bombing of, 505, 631 neutral status of, 802, 1018 Latham, Michael, 490 Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de, 172, 222, 225 (image), 386, 493, 532, 545, 633–635, 634 (image), 1286–1287 Lau Ben Kon. See Nuon Chea Lavelle, John Daniel, 635, 938–939, 939 Lavelle Case, 635 Layton, Gilbert, 769 LÉA, Operation, 636 League of Wives of American Prisoners of War, 1067 LEAPING LENA, Operation, 681, 935 Le Chieu Thong, 453, 454 Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe, 276, 384, 531–532, 636–637, 636 (image), 1163 (image) Le Duan, 628, 637–638, 637 (image), 1162, 1244, 1247, 1250, 1303 “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” (The Path of Revolution in the South), 1459–1462Doc. letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam, 1553–1567Doc. “Letters to the South,” 1519–1522Doc. speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1569–1571Doc. speech in Hanoi celebrating victory, 1665–1668Doc. Le Duc Anh, 638–639 Le Duc Tho, 595, 639–641, 640 (image), 878 (image), 1186, 1278, 1279 Cable No. 119, 1637–1640Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973) Le dynasty, 641 Lefèbvre, Dominique, 641–642 Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for Oppressed Races), 769, 770 LE HONG PHONG I, Operation, 642 LE HONG PHONG II, Operation, 642–643 casualties of, 643 Le Kha Phieu, 643–644, 644 (image) Le Loi, 644–645, 1123 LeMay, Curtis Emerson, 645–646, 645 (image), 960, 1068 Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis, 646–647, 647 (image) Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie, 647–648 leng Sary, 586, 587 Le Nguyen Khang, 648 Le Nguyen Vy, 648–649 Lenin, Vladimir, 702, 1286 (image) Lenin Polemics, 1044 Le Quang Trieu, 318, 649 Le Quang Tung, 130, 318, 649, 649 (image), 967

Le Quang Vinh. See Ba Cut Leroy, Catherine, 649–650 Le Thai To. See Le Loi Le Thanh Nghi, 650–651 Le Thanh Tong, 651 Letourneau, Jean, 651–652 Le Trong Tan, 652–653, 1130 Le Van Giac. See Le Duc Anh Le Van Hung, 653, 828 Le Van Kim, 129, 653–654, 809, 827, 1134, 1137 Le Van Nhuan. See Le Duan Le Van Vien, 654–655, 654 (image) Levy, Howard Brett, 655–656, 656 (image) Lewandowski, Janusz, 550, 704, 919 Lewis, Tom, 92, 178, 179 Lewy, Guenter, 490 LEXINGTON III, Operation, 656–657 Le Xuan Phoi, 528 Le Xuan Tau, 625 Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, 490 LIEN KET 22, Operation, 709 Lifton, Robert Jay, 657, 924, 925, 1293, 1294 Lightfoot, George, 1031 (image) Lima Site 85, 657–658 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 568, 589 Lin, Maya Ying, 658, 1296 Lin Biao, 197 LINEBACKER I, Operation, xlv, 31, 32, 60, 325, 659–660, 659 (image), 848, 860, 939, 1069, 1111, 1176, 1186 as the classic air interdiction campaign, 659, 660, 661 operational objectives of, 659 reasons for its success, 660 strategic objectives of, 660 LINEBACKER II, Operation, xlv, 32, 48, 60, 297, 340, 347, 595, 640, 660–663, 849, 860, 877, 1069, 1177, 1186 casualties of, 662 psychological effect of on Hanoi’s leaders, 662 use of LORAN in, 681 Li Peng, 196 Lippmann, Walter, 234, 663–664, 663 (image) Literature and the Vietnam War, 664–672 drama, 669–671 novels, 664–667 poetry, 667–669 prose narrative, 671–672 short stories, 667 Li Zhisui, 702 L’Obervateur, 583 Loc Ninh, military operations near, 672–674, 673 (image) Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 129, 459, 570, 674– 675, 674 (image), 704, 808, 809, 871, 970, 1095, 1261, 1345 cablegram to on the CIA channel concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc.

I-13

cablegram to McGeorge Bundy, 1499–1500Doc. cablegram to from John McCone, 1499Doc. phone conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1502Doc. telegram to Nicholas Katzenbach, 1577Doc. telegrams to Dean Rusk, 1574–1577Doc. Lodge Bill, 1213 Logistics, allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Vietcong, 675–680 French military logistics, 676–677 physical characteristics of Vietnam affecting military logistics, 676 Viet Minh military logistics, 677–678 Long Binh, 680 Long Chieng, 681 Long-Haired Army (Doi Quan Toc Dai), 835 Long March, 702 Long-range electronic navigation (LORAN), 681 limitations of, 681 Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs), 681–682, 682 (image) Lon Nol, xlv, 49–50, 151–152, 156, 157, 158, 161, 265 (image), 376, 682–684, 683 (image), 908, 1048 defeat of by the Khmer Rouge, 155, 909 LORRAINE, Operation, 684–685, 1242 Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth, 333–334, 685, 685 (image) assassination of, 685 Lowndes, David, 580, 581, 582, 583, 625 Lucas, Andre C., 977 Luce, Don, 927, 1118 Luce, Henry Robinson, 686, 686 (image) Luc Luong Dac Biet. See Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident, 702 Lu Han, 686–687 Luong Ngoc Quyen, 687 Lutyens, Edwin, 658 Lyautey, Hubert Gonzalve, 1085 Lyautey, Louis, 78 Ly Bon, 687–688 Lynd, Staughton, 688–689, 688 (image) Ly Quy Chung, 332 MacArthur, Douglas, 604–606, 691–692, 692 (image) MacArthur, Douglas, II, memorandum, 1424–1425Doc. MACARTHUR, Operation, 692–694. See also Dak To, Battle of casualties of, 693 Machine guns, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 694–696, 694 (table), 695 (image) classifications of (heavy, medium, and light), 694 as crew-served weapons, 694 dominant tactical feature of (rate of fire), 694

I-14

Index

Madman Strategy, 696 Magsaysay, Ramón, 627, 907 Mai Chi Tho, 1279 Mai Huu Xuan, 129, 318 Mailer, Norman, 696–697, 697 (image) Mai Van Bo, 889 Malaysia, 697–698 Malcolm X, 111, 591, 1025 Malenkov, Georgy, 588 MALHEUR I and II, Operations, 698–699 casualties of, 698–699 Maneli, Mieczyslaw, 537 Manila Conference, 699–700, 699 (image) Manor, Leroy J., 1052–1053 Mansfield, Michael Joseph, 238, 700–701, 701 (image), 1195, 1196 report to President Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 1492–1493Doc. Many Flags Program. See Free World Assistance Program Mao Zedong, 195, 195 (image), 196, 199, 287, 547, 604, 605, 701–703, 701 (image), 870, 1043–1044, 1199 contribution to Marxism, 702 See also Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward March against Death, 773 March on the Pentagon, 703–704, 703 (image) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1072 March to the South. See Nam Tien Marco Polo Bridge Incident. See Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident Marcos, Ferdinand, 907, 907–908, 1056 (image) Marcovich, Herbert, 889, 1016–1017 Maricourt, Alain D. de, 643 MARIGOLD, Operation, 550, 704 Marine combined action platoons (CAPs), 704–705 MARKET TIME, Operation, 676, 705–706, 706 (image), 981, 1029, 1081, 1091, 1207, 1364 patrol system of, 705 Marshall, George C., 195, 968 telegram to the Consul General of Saigon, 1397–1398Doc. telegrams to Jefferson Caffery, 1393– 1394Doc., 1395–1396Doc. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood, 706–707, 1105 Martin, Graham A., 378, 707–708, 1178, 1179 Marx, Karl, 702 Marxism, 702 MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation 67, 708–709, 708 (image) casualties of, 709 Massachusetts Political Action for Peace (MassPax), 773 MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation, 709–710, 710 (image) Masson, René, 174

Mast, Charles, 969 Mayaguez incident, 378, 597, 710–711, 711 (image), 1206, 1319 casualties of, 711 May Day Trive, 711–712 MAYFLOWER, Operation, 712 McCain, John Sidney, Jr., 712–713 McCain, John Sidney, Sr., 712, 713 McCain, John Sidney, III, 264, 495, 379, 713– 715, 714 (image), 797, 1084, 1127, 1128, 1128 (image), 1128–1129 McCarthy, Eugene, 54, 55, 339, 523, 551, 571, 685, 715 McCarthy, Joseph, 597, 1058 McCarthy, Mary, 977 McCauley, Brian, 759 McChristian, Joseph, 865 McClellan, Stan, 371 (image) McCloy, John Jay, 716, 716 (image), 1345 McClure, Robert A., 1213 McCone, John Alex, 183, 716–717 cablegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499Doc. McConnell, John Paul, 717–718, 718 (image), 1030 McCoy, Alfred, 1126 McDade, Robert, 527–528 McGarr, Lionel Charles, 718–719, 1070 McGee, Gale William, 719 McGovern, George Stanley, 54, 336–337, 405, 465–466, 719–720, 720 (image), 1195, 1196, 1197 McKean, Roland N., 721–722 McMahon, Robert, 491 McNamara, Robert Strange, 29, 39, 124, 219, 503, 505, 551, 562, 563, 599, 720–722, 721 (image), 725, 772, 775, 809, 846, 889, 937, 960, 981, 997, 1017, 1034, 1084, 1093–1094, 1170, 1172, 1188, 1200, 1202, 1203, 1262, 1318, 1345 memoranda to President Johnson, 1504–1506Doc., 1547–1548Doc., 1551– 1553Doc., 1567–1568Doc. memorandum to President Kennedy, 1486–1489Doc. memorandum of with Dean Rusk and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc. recommendation of for troop escalation in Vietnam, 1512–1514Doc. report of the McNamara-Taylor mission to South Vietnam, 1496–1498Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. See also McNamara Line; Taylor-McNamara Report McNamara Line, 485, 503, 722–724 the antivehicular barrier in Laos, 723–724 the barrier in Vietnam, 723 and the Jasons, 722 McNaughton, John Theodore, 724–725, 960 McPherson, Harry Cummings, 725–726 Meaney, George, 726 Medevac, 564, 726, 727 (image), 732

Media and the Vietnam War, 727–729, 728 (image) “court journalism,” 728 oversight of by public affairs officers (PAOs), 728 rules imposed on by the MACV, 728 Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP), 734 Medical evacuation. See Medevac Medicine, military, 729–733, 730 (image), 730 (table), 731 (image) division of the military medical system (five echelons), 730–731 drug abuse in Vietnam, 732 major disease problems in Vietnam, 732 psychiatric illnesses, 732 surgical specialists in Vietnam, 732–733 twentieth-century advances in battlefield medicine and surgery, 730 See also Medevac Medics and corpsmen, 733–735, 734 (image) casualty rates among, 733 required test standards for, 733 training classes for, 733 Medina, Ernest Lou, 149, 608, 735, 785 Meisner, Maurice, 702 Mekong Delta, 416, 417 (image), 735–736, 981 Mekong River, 735, 735–736, 736 (image) Mekong River Project, 737 Melby, John F., telegram to Dean Rusk, 1412Doc. Melville, Marjorie Bradford, 178 Melville, Thomas, 178 Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham, 612, 738, 1095 Mendès-France, Pierre, 535, 738–739, 739 (image) Mengel, James L., 92 MENU, Operation, 739–741, 847, 879, 1048, 1197 objectives of, 739–740 Meos. See Hmongs Meshad, Shad, 925 Michigan State University Advisory Group, 741 Midway Island Conference (1969), 741–743, 742 (image) Mien Tong. See Thieu Tri Mildren, Frank T., 455 Military Airlift Command (MAC), 743–744 Military Air Transport Service (MATS), 743 Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, xlii, 319, 329, 458, 676, 744–746, 745 (image), 861, 1169, 1187, 1270 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), xlii, 2, 3, 47, 80, 120, 133, 157, 244, 291, 347, 363, 395, 422, 433, 509, 569, 746–747, 746 (image), 981, 1171, 1187, 1213, 1214, 1270, 1272, 1335, 1340 See also Five O’Clock Follies; Order of battle dispute (1967) Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV SOG), 15, 132, 579, 984–985, 1214

Index Military decorations, 747–751, 748 (table), 749 (table), 750 (tables), 751 (table) French, 747 North Vietnamese and NLF, 748–749 South Vietnamese, 747–748 U.S., 749–751 Military regions, 751–753, 752 (image) Military Revolutionary Council, 753–754 Military Sealift Command (MSC), 754–755, 754 (image) Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), 754 Miller, Henry L., 372 Milloy, Albert E., 1 Mine warfare, land, 755–756, 755 (image) Mine warfare, naval, Communist forces and allied countermining operations, 756–757 Minh Mang, 757 Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam, 758–759, 758 (image) Mini-Tet Offensive, 759–760, 1121 casualties of, 760 Mische, George, 178 Missiles air-to-air missiles, 34–35 air-to-ground missiles, 35–36 guidance systems for air-to-air missiles, 35 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image), 340, 780, 1079–1080, 1248, 1251, 1341–1342 Missing in action, allied (MIAs), 760–762, 761 (table), 1180, 1302 Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist, 762–763 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1072 Mitchell, John Newton, 763–764, 763 (image), 890, 1198 “Mobe, the,” 773 Mobile Guerrilla Forces, 564, 764 Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), 764–765, 765 (image), 981–984 Mobile Strike Force Commands, 765–766 Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), 277 Moffat, Albert Low, 766, 1168 memorandum to John Carter Vincent, 1384–1386Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich, 767–768, 767 (image) Momyer, William Wallace, 579, 582, 768, 961, 1049 Mondale, Walter, 338 (image), 339 MONGOOSE, Operation, 627 Montagnards, 15, 110, 182, 184, 209, 244, 256, 349–350, 351, 352 (image), 403, 768–770, 769 (image), 943, 1183 tribal groupings of, 768 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 590

Montini, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria. See Paul VI, Pope Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr., 406, 527, 770–771, 1173 Moore, Robert Brevard, 771 Moorer, Thomas Hinman, 771–774, 772 (image), 985, 1034, 1203 (image), 1203, 1274 (image) message to Captain John Herrick, 1510–1511Doc. order to all subordinate units, 1509–1510Doc. Mora, Dennis, 380–81 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, 773–774, 774 (image), 848 Mordant, Eugène, 774–775, 1009 Morgan, Charles, Jr., 656 Morrill Act (1862), 968 Morrison, Norman, 775 Morse, Wayne Lyman, 550, 775–776, 864, 1195 Mortality rates among soldiers, from the midnineteenth century, 729–730 Mortars, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 776–777, 776 (image) Mortuary Affairs operations, 777 Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon, 778 Mountbatten, Louis, 1163 Mournier, Emmanuel, 166, 811 Moyers, Billy Don, 778–780, 779 (image) Moylan, Mary, 178 Mudd, Roger, 610 Mu Gia Pass, 780 Muhammad, Elijah, 111 Mullender, Philippe. See Devillers, Philippe Muller, Robert, 780–781 Munich analogy, 781 Muoi Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Murphy, Robert Daniel, 781–782, 1345 Mus, Paul, account of meeting with Ho Chi Minh, 1394Doc. Music and the Vietnam War, 782–783 Muskie, Edmund S., 279, 336–337 Muste, Abraham Johannes, 361, 784, 1060 My Lai Massacre, 55, 149–150, 481, 521, 608, 784–786, 785 (image), 886, 970–971, 1092, 1115–1116. See also Peers Inquiry Nakahara Mitsunobu, 545 Nam Dong, Battle of, 787 casualties of, 787 Nam Dong Publishing House, 833 Nam Tien, 787–788 Nam Viet, 788 NANTUCKET BEACH, Operation. See BOLD MARINER, Operation Napalm, 788–790, 789 (image) Napoleon III, 790–791, 790 (image) Na San, Battle of, 791 casualties of, 791 Nasser, Abdel Gamal, 316

I-15

National Assembly Law 10/59, 791–792 National Bank of Vietnam, 792–793 National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC), 793 National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC), 793–794 National Defense Act (1916), 968 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), xli, 178, 261, 794–795, 795 (image), 870, 1162, 1261, 1323, 1348 manifesto of, 1479–1481Doc. See also Viet Cong National Hard Hats of America. See Hardhats National Intelligence Estimate (1954), 1447–1448Doc. National Intelligence Estimate (1956), 1457Doc., 1458–1459Doc. National Leadership Council (NLC), 796, 816, 1270 National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (NLOF), 796–797 National Mobilization Committee (NMC), 192 National Party of Greater Vietnam. See Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang National Security Act (1947), 577, 1202 National Security Council (NSC), 182 draft statement and study on U.S. policy toward all-Vietnam elections (NSC 5519), 1454–1456Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 52, 1213 National Security Action Memorandum Number 57, 1084 National Security Action Memorandum Number 80, 1484Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 111, 1489–1490Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 328, 797–798, 1523–1524Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 64 (NCS-64), 744, 1406–1407Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 5429/1 (NSC-5429/1), 744–745, 1202 National Security Council Memorandum 5429/2 (NSC-5429/2), 1448–1450Doc. National Security Council Planning Board Report (No. 1074-A), 1434–1436Doc. National Security Council Report 50 (NSC-50), 314 National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), 5, 846 National Security Council Report 124/2 (NSC124/2), 304 National Security Council Staff Study (Annex to NSC 48/4), 1418–1420Doc. National Security Study Memorandum 1 (NSSM-1), 594, 1609–1612Doc. National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), 924

I-16

Index

Native Americans in the U.S. military, 798, 799 (image) Naval gunfire support, 799–800 Navarre, Henri Eugène, 174, 267, 293, 386, 532, 534, 535, 626, 652, 800–801, 801 (image), 861, 1242, 1303 See also Navarre Plan Navarre Plan, 652, 801–802 Nedzi, Lucien N., 1197 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 536 Nelson, Deborah, 1126 Nessen, Ron, 711 Neuhaus, Richard, 217 Neutrality, 802–803 NEUTRALIZE, Operation, 235 NEVADA EAGLE, Operation, 803 casualties of, 803 New Jersey, USS, 804–805, 804 (image) New Journalism, 696 NEW LIFE, Operation, 48 New Look policy, 846, 972 New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 773 Newton, Huey P., 112, 113, 1024 New Zealand, 395, 805 Ngo Dinh Can, 805–806, 1123 Ngo Dinh Diem, xli, 12, 43, 109, 130, 137, 140, 177, 224–225, 314, 316, 319, 330, 370, 414, 458, 488, 500, 537, 569, 569–570, 621, 627, 653, 654–655, 674–675, 791– 792, 806–809, 807 (image), 811, 812, 813, 817, 826, 847, 861, 869–870, 1010, 1012, 1070, 1095, 1123, 1169–1171, 1199, 1258–1262, 1259 (image), 1272 assassination of, 139, 144, 318, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 attacks against the Chinese community in Vietnam, 202 conversation with Eisenhower, 1463Doc. rejection of the MSU Advisory Group’s advice, 741 reliance on Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang, 165–166 See also Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of, 129–130, 317– 318, 809–810, 1201 Ngo Dinh Khoi, 806, 810 Ngo Dinh Luyen, 806, 810–811 Ngo Dinh Nhu, xlii, 12, 129, 130, 166, 318, 319, 488, 569–570, 601–602, 627, 674–675, 792, 807, 808, 809, 811–812, 1070, 1079 (image), 1133 assassination of, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame, 808, 809, 812–813 Ngo Dinh Thuc, 138, 166, 806, 808, 813, 813 (image) Ngo Quang Troung, 2, 516, 519, 814 Ngo Quyen, 814–815 Ngo Thi Trinh. See Hanoi Hannah Nguyen Ai Quoc. See Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Binh, 815 Nguyen Buu Dao. See Khai Dinh Nguyen Cao Ky, 139, 144, 330–331, 331 (image), 331–332, 433, 508, 700, 753, 796, 815–817, 816 (image), 817, 827, 830, 841, 1056 (image), 1262, 1263–1264 Nguyen Chan. See Tran Van Tra Nguyen Chanh Thi, 139, 675, 816, 817–819, 818 (image), 1263 Nguyen Chi Thanh, 794, 819, 1102, 1303 article concerning the Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1493–1494Doc. Nguyen Cong. See Do Muoi Nguyen Co Thach, 819–820, 964 Nguyen Duc Thang, 871 Nguyen Duy Trinh, 820–821, 821 (image) report to Party Central Committee on the new talk-fight strategy, 1577–1581Doc. Nguyen dynasty, 821 Nguyen Hai Than, 687, 822 Nguyen Ha Phan, 822–823 Nguyen Hue, 453–454, 823–824, 823 (image) Nguyen Hue Campaign. See Easter Offensive Nguyen Huu An, 528, 693, 693–694, 824–825 Nguyen Huu Co, 130, 796, 825, 825 (image) Nguyen Huu Tho, 794, 795, 825–826, 941 (image) Nguyen Huu Tri, 826 Nguyen Khac Xung. See Le Thanh Nghi Nguyen Khanh, 139, 318, 513, 648, 653, 675, 753, 818 (image), 827, 1094, 1135, 1261–1262 Nguyen Khoa Nam, 653, 827–828 Nguyen Kim Thanh. See To Huu Nguyen Luong Bang, 828, 1130 Nguyen Manh Cam, 828–829 Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 829–830, 829 (image), 1108, 1272 Nguyen Ngoc Tho, 830–831, 831 (image) Nguyen Phuc Anh, 831–832 Nguyen Phuoc Dom. See Minh Mang Nguyen Phuong Thao. See Nguyen Binh Nguyen Sinh Cung. See Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Sinh Sac, 832–833 Nguyen Thai Hoc, 833–834 Nguyen Thanh Linh, 245 Nguyen Thi Binh, 834–835, 834 (image), 941, 1129 Nguyen Thi Dinh, 835–836, 836 (image) Nguyen Thi Giang, 834 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, 836–837 Nguyen Ton Hoan, 753 Nguyen Trai, 644 Nguyen Tuong Tam, 837 Nguyen Van, 516 Nguyen Van Binh, 837–838, 838 (image) Nguyen Van Cao. See Van Cao Nguyen Van Coc, 863 Nguyen Van Cu, 838 Nguyen Van Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Hieu, 839

Nguyen Van Hinh, 839, 861 Nguyen Van Linh, 839–840, 840 (image), 1278 Nguyen Van Muoi. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Nhung, 318, 649, 1262 Nguyen Van Thang. See Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Van Thieu, xlii, xlvi, 11, 94, 144, 146, 157, 292, 324, 330–331, 331 (image), 501, 508, 509 (image), 519, 595, 599, 618, 619, 640, 793–794, 796, 817, 827, 840–843, 841 (image), 848, 1056 (image), 1186, 1246, 1263 address to the National Assembly of South Vietnam, 1612Doc. See also Midway Island Conference Nguyen Van Toan, 843 Nguyen Van Vinh, 502 Nguyen Van Vy, 129 Nguyen Van Xuan, 843–844, 843 (image) Nguyen Viet Thanh, 844 Nguyen Xuan Oanh, 1262 Nhan Van Giai Pham, 1224 Nhat Linh. See Nguyen Tuong Tam NIAGARA, Operation, 844–845 casualties of, 845 Nicholas, Fayard, 512 (image) Nicholas, Harold, 512 (image) Nickerson, Herman, Jr., 596 Nitze, Paul Henry, 845–846, 845 (image) Nixon, Richard M., xliv–xlv, 45, 55, 150, 157, 174, 225–226, 239, 297, 325, 326, 338, 380, 418, 464, 483, 523, 553. 571, 615, 617, 619, 640, 660, 660–661, 760, 761, 772, 842, 846–849, 847 (image), 927, 939, 946, 957, 986, 988–989, 1090, 1169, 1196–1197, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1316 (image) address to the nation, 1640Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) and the bombing of Cambodia, 151, 370, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 and détente, 286–287 foreign policies developed with Kissinger, 593–595 involvement in the aftermath of My Lai, 887 letter to Pham Van Dong, 1653–1654Doc. letters to Nguyen Van Thieu, 1647–1649Doc. news conference excerpt, 1656Doc. and the opening of China, 200, 595 pardon of by Ford, 378 and the presidential election of 1968, 334– 335, 551 and the presidential election of 1972, 336– 337, 336 (image) resignation of, 361, 849 secret authorization of more aggressive bombing of North Vietnam, 635 “Silent Majority” speech, 773, 848, 946 speech on Cambodia, 1625–1627Doc. speech on Vietnamization, 1617–1622Doc.

Index success of in foreign affairs (“linkage diplomacy”), 849 televised interview with, 1629–1630Doc. television address, 1612–1614Doc. See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Madman Strategy; Midway Island Conference; Nixon Doctrine; Vietnamization; Watergate Scandal Nixon Doctrine, 848, 850, 1175, 1292 Noel, Chris, 850–851, 850 (image) Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr., 569, 809, 851–852, 1261 Nong Duc Manh, 852–853, 852 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 5, 23, 104, 172, 214, 220, 234, 276, 315, 319, 355, 413 Novosel, Michael, Jr., 853 Novosel, Michael, Sr., 853–854 Nui Ba Den, 555, 854–855, 854 (image), 1096 Nuon Chea, 855 Nur, Paul, 769 Nurses, U.S., 855–857, 856 (images) Nuttle, David, 769 Oakland Army Base, 859 Obama, Barack, 715 Oberdorfer, Don, 521 Oberg, Jean-Christophe, 859–860 O’Brien, David, 1217 O’Daniel, John Wilson, 860–861, 860 (image) report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1425–1426Doc. Office of Civilian Operations (OCO), 871, 922 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 182, 183, 223, 229, 289, 309–310, 861–862 See also Deer Mission Ohly, John, memorandum to Dean Acheson, 1413–1414Doc. Oldenburg, Claes, 68 Olds, Robin, 862–863, 863 (image) Olongapo, Philippines, 863–864 O’Neill, John, 1084 Open Arms Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34A, 550, 864 Orderly Departure Plan, 1181 Order of battle dispute (1967), 864–866 Oriskany, USS, fire aboard, 26 (image), 866– 867, 866 (image) O’Sullivan, James L., telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Otis, Glenn K., 1107 Pacification, 869–874, 870 (image), 933, 1176. See also Accelerated Pacification Campaign; Phoenix Program Page, Michael, 70 Palme, Olof, 859, 860, 874, 874 (image) Palmer, Bruce, Jr., 81, 303, 603, 674, 722, 814, 875, 1335 Palmer, Dave Richard, 1031

Paracel and Spratley Islands, South China Sea, 875–876 Paris peace negotiations, 551, 639–641, 876–877 document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Vietnam concerning the negotiations, 1642–1643Doc. Paris Peace Accords (1973), 760, 793, 842, 877–879, 878 (image), 1165, 1177 failure of, 878–879 text of, 1650–1652Doc. Park Chung Hee, 1056 (image) Parks, Rosa, 211, 211 (image) Parrot’s Beak, 879, 1026 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) (1963), 1044 PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation, 310, 754, 880– 881, 880 (image), 1012, 1170, 1242 Pathet Lao, 411, 412, 630, 631, 632, 881–882, 881 (image), 1054, 1057, 1162, 1250 Patti, Archimedes L. A., 882 Patton, George Smith, IV, 882–883 PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations, 883, 1015 casualties of, 883 Paul VI, Pope, 838, 883–885, 884 (image), 1959 Peace Corps, 311 Pearson, Lester B., 164, 165, 885, 885 (image) Peers, William R., 118, 608, 786, 886, 886 (image). See also Peers Inquiry Peers Inquiry, 886–887 PEGASUS-LAM SON 207A, Operation, 582, 887–888, 888 (image), 1022 casualties of, 888 Pell, Claiborne, 921 Peng Phongsavan, 1232 (image) PENNSYLVANIA, Operation, 888–889 Pentagon, March on the. See March on the Pentagon Pentagon Papers and trial, 340–341, 341 (image), 889–892, 891 (image), 960, 1006–1007, 1035, 1173, 1174 People’s Anti-Corruption Movement, 842 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). See Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF), 892, 1348 (image) Perot, Henry Ross, 760, 796, 893, 893 (image) PERSHING, Operation, 893–894, 894 (image) casualties of, 894 Peterson, Douglas Brian, 220, 894–895, 1181 Pham Cong Tac, 895, 895 (image) Pham Duy, 895–896 Pham Hong Thai, 833 Pham Hung, 896–897 Pham Ngoc Thao, 129, 897, 897 (image) Pham Phu Quoc, 838 Pham Quynh, 810 Pham The Duyet, 898 Pham Thi Yen, 1129 Pham Van Dinh, 163

I-17

Pham Van Dong, 638, 818 (image), 820, 889, 898–899, 898 (image), 964, 1278 joint statement of with Aleksei Kosygin, 1515–1516Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly, 1528–1547Doc. speech delivered on National Day, 1668–1674Doc. Pham Van Phu, 93, 94, 899–900 Pham Van Thien. See Pham Hung Pham Xuan An, 617, 818, 900, 1133 Phan Boi Chau, 499, 833, 900–901 Phan Chu Trinh, 901–902 Phan Dinh Khai. See Le Duc Tho Phan Dinh Phung, 902 Phan Huy Quat, 140, 796, 903–904, 903 (image) Phan Khac Suu, 904 Phan Quang Dan, 904–905 Phan Van Hoa. See Vo Van Kiet Phan Van Khai, 905–906, 905 (image) Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix, 906 Philippine Civil Action Group (PHILCAG), 907–908 Philippines, 906–908 Phnom Penh, 908–909 Pho Duc Chinh, 834 Phoenix Program, 184, 869, 872, 873, 909–910, 940, 1126, 1176 demise of, 909 success of, 910 Phong Trao Cach Mang Quoc Gia (National Revolutionary Movement), 166 Phoumi Nosavan, 910–911, 910 (image) Phoumi Vongvichit, 1232 (image) Phou Pha Thi. See Lima Site 85 PHU DUNG, Operation. See SHINING BRASS, Operation Pickett, Clarence, 53 PIERCE ARROW, Operation, 26, 911–912, 912 (image) Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre, 912–913 Pignon, Léon, 913, 913 (image) Pike, Douglas, 1158 PIRANHA, Operation, 914 casualties of, 914 PIRAZ warships, 914–915 Pistols, 915–916, 915 (image) French, 915 U.S., 915–916 Vietnamese, 916 Plain of Jars, 916, 916 (image) Plain of Reeds, 917 Platt, Jonas, 1220 Pleiku, 917–918 POCKET MONEY, Operation, 758 Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich, 918 Podhoretz, Norman, 490 Poland, 918–919

I-18

Index

Polgar, Thomas, 919 Pol Pot, 154, 155, 156, 561, 585, 587, 855, 919–921, 920 (image), 1039 trial of, 587, 921 Poola, Pascal, 798 POPEYE, Operation, 921 Porter, Melvin, 189 Porter, William James, 144, 340, 871, 922–923, 922 (image) Port Huron Statement, 53, 923, 1072–1073 Potsdam Conference (1945), 862, 926 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 923– 926, 924 (image), 925 (table) Poulo Condore, 926–927 Powell, Colin Luther, 927–929, 928 (image), 1292. See also Powell Doctrine Powell Doctrine, 928, 1292 PRAIRIE I, Operation, 929 casualties of, 929 PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations, 929–930 casualties of, 929, 930 PRAIRIE FIRE, Operation, 163, 503, 985 Precision-guided munitions, 930–931 electro-optical guided bomb (EOGB) program, 930–931 laser-guided bomb (LGB) program, 930, 931 President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 572 President’s Special Committee, report on Southeast Asia, 1434Doc. Prisoners of war (POWs), 141 repatriation of following the Korean War, 607 See also Four-Party Joint Military Commission; HOMECOMING, Operation; Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist; Prisoners of war, allied Prisoners of war, allied, 931–933, 932 (image), 1302 Prisoners of war, Communist. See Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist Program for the Pacification and LongTerm Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), 548, 598, 933–934, 1174, 1175 Programs Evaluation Office (PEO), 1341 Project 100,000, 937–938 Project Agile, 934–935 development of Agent Orange, 935 development of the Armalite AR-15, 935 Project Delta, 681–682, 935–936, 938 Project Dye Marker. See McNamara Line Project Gamma, 682 Project Igloo White, 723–724 Project Illinois City, 485 Project Muscle Shoals, 503 Project Nine, 485, 503 Project Omega, 682, 936–937, 938 Project Practice Nine. See McNamara Line Project Sigma, 682, 938 Protective Reaction Strikes, 938–939 PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation, 226, 939–940

Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), 184, 940 Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), 941–942, 941 (image) Proxmire, Edward William, 942, 942 (image) Psychological warfare operations (PSYOPS), 942–945 deficiencies of, 944 media used in, 944 military targets of, 943 themes of, 943–944 Public opinion and the war, U.S., 945–947, 946 (table) Pueblo incident, 601, 710, 947–949, 948 (image), 1209, 1212 Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr., 949 Punji stake, 949–950, 949 (image) Python God movement, 769 Qiao Shi, 196 Quach Tom, 951 Quadrillage/ratissage, 951 Quakers. See American Society of Friends (Quakers) Qualye, Daniel, 1209–1210 Quan Ngai, 952 Quang Tri, Battle of, 952–953, 953 (image) casualties of, 953 Quang Trung. See Nguyen Hue Qui Nhon, 953–954 Quoc Ngu, 954 Racial violence within the U.S. military, 955– 956, 956 (image) Radcliffe, Henry, 139 Radford, Arthur William, 329, 846–847, 957, 957 (image), 1093 Radio direction finding (RDF), 958 ground installations of, 958 mobile capabilities of, 958 signals intelligence activities, 958 Ranariddh, Norodom, 153, 586, 1039 RANCH HAND, Operation, 226, 958–960, 959 (image), 1239 RAND Corporation, 960–961 RANDOLPH GLEN, Operation, 1108–1109 Rangel, Charles, 712 Rangoon Initiative, 1221 Raven Forward Air Controllers, 961 Read, Benjamin Huger, 961–962 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 137, 760, 850, 962– 963, 962 (image), 1180, 1319 Red River Delta, 963 Red River Fighter Pilots Association, 963–964 Reed, Charles airgram to Dean Acheson, 1396–1397Doc. telegram to James F. Byrnes, 1392–1393Doc. telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Reeducation camps, 964–965

Refugees and boat people, 965–966, 965 (image) Regional forces. See Territorial forces Reinhardt, George Frederick, 166, 966–967 Reissner, Robert, 495 Rejo, Pete, 1151 Republican Youth, 967 Research and development field units, 967– 968. See also Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC); Combat Operations Research Center (CORC) Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), 968–969 Reston, James, 611 Revers, Georges, 969. See also Revers Report (1949) Revers Report (1949), 969 Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center. See Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party. See Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party) Rheault, Robert B., 969–970, 1190 Rhee, Syngman, 601, 603 Richardson, John Hammond, 970 cablegram to CIA director concerning the situation in South Vietnam, 1498Doc. Ridenhour, Ronald L., 150, 785–786, 970–971 Ridgway, Matthew Bunker, 329, 409, 606, 861, 971–972, 971 (image), 1307, 1345 Rifles, 972–976, 973 (image), 974 (image) AK-47, 975–976 Australian, 975 classification of, 972–973 French, 975 New Zealand, 975 U.S., 973–975 Vietnamese, 975 Rigault de Genouilly, Charles, 976 Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for, 976–977 casualties of, 977 Ripley, John, 307 Risner, James Robinson, 977–978 River Assault Flotilla 1, 981–982 River assault groups, 978 Riverine craft, 978–981, 979 (image), 980 (image) armored troop carrier (ATC), 979–980 assault patrol boat (ASPB), 979 command-and-communication boat (CCB), 979–980 fast patrol craft (PCF), 979 France Outre Mere (FOM), 980 patrol air cushion vehicle (PACV), 980 river patrol boat (PBT), 978, 979 river patrol craft (PBC), 980 Riverine warfare, 981–984, 982 (image) RIVER RAIDER I, Operation, 983

Index River Rats. See Red River Fighter Pilots Association Rivers, Lucius Mendel, 984 Road Watch Teams (RWTs), 984–985 Roberts, Elvy, 158 Robinson, James W., 1 Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil, 985 Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich, 334, 338, 986, 986 (image) Rockets and rocket launchers, 986–988 Chinese, 987, 988 Soviet, 987, 988 U.S., 987, 988 Vietnamese, 987 Rodgers, William, 157 Rodriguez, Felix, 940 Rogers, William Pierce, 553, 849, 988–989 ROLLING THUNDER, Operation, 26, 32, 34, 122, 123 (map), 124, 503, 550, 552, 573, 712, 722, 758, 768, 889, 917, 989–994, 990 (image), 992 (map), 1069, 1150, 1172, 1184–1185, 1248, 1341–1342 casualties of, 989 failure of, 993, 1184 objectives of, 991, 1184 phases of, 991, 993 targets of, 991 Rome Plow, 1239 Romney, George Wilcken, 334, 994 Romney, Mitt, 994 Ronning, Chester A., 820 “Ronning Missions,” 820 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 234, 309, 861, 994–995, 995 (image), 1009, 1168 memorandum to Cordell Hull, 1369Doc. Rosenquist, James, 68 Rosson, William B., 698, 1092, 1340 Rostow, Eugene Victor, 995–996, 1070 Rostow, Walt Whitman, 143, 219, 563, 569, 721, 725, 996–998, 997 (image), 1093, 1170. See also Taylor-Rostow Report ROTC Vitalization Act (1964), 968 Rousselot, Robert E., 236 Route Coloniale 4, Battles for, 998 Route packages, 998–999 Rovere, Richard, 716 Rowe, James Nicholas, 999–1000, 999 (image), 1126, 1155 Rowny, Edward L., 64 Roy, Jules, 626 Rubin, Jerry, 192, 263 (image), 703, 1000, 1000 (image), 1358–1359 Rudd, Mark, 1218 Rules of Engagement (ROE), 1001–1003 purposes of, 1001 Rung Sat, 1028 Rusk, David Dean, 219, 319, 412, 562, 563, 569, 885, 889, 1003–1004, 1004 (image), 1200, 1345 (image) memorandum of with McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc.

memorandum to President Kennedy, 1487–1489Doc. telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1581Doc. telegram to Maxwell Taylor, 1516Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. Rusk-Thanat Agreement (1962), 1004–1005 Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr., 1005–1006, 1006 (image), 1209 Russell Amendment, 1209 RUSSELL BEACH, Operation, 873 Russell Tribunal. See International War Crimes Tribunal Russo, Anthony J., Jr., 891, 1006–1007, 1007 (image) Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 401, 544 Ryan, John D., 1203 (image) Sabattier, Gabriel, 774–775, 1009–1010 SAFESIDE, Operation, 560

Sagan, Ginette, 964 Saigon, 501, 1010–1011, 1011 (image) Saigon Circle. See Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Saigon Military Mission (SMM), 1011–1012 Sainteny, Jean, 1012–1013, 1168, 1241 Salan, Raoul Albin Louis, 386, 514, 532, 684, 791, 1013–1014, 1013 (image), 1242 Salisbury, Harrison Evans, 1014–1015, 1015 (image) Saloth Sar. See Pol Pot Samas, David, 380–381 SAM HOUSTON, Operation, 391, 1015–1016 casualties of, 1016 Samphan, Khieu, 155 Sams, Kenneth, 189 San Antonio Formula, 846, 1016–1017 Sanctuaries, 1017–1018 Sarraut, Albert, 1018–1019, 1019 (image) Saul, Peter, 67, 69 Sauvageot, Jean, 705 Savage, Paul L., 1188 Savang Vatthana, 632 Savio, Mario, 53 Schell, Jonathan, 952 Schemmer, Benjamin, 495 Schening, Richard, 139 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr., 489, 529, 1019– 1020, 1020 (image) Schlesinger, James Rodney, 224, 711, 960, 1020–1021 Schmidt, Helmut, 286, 418 Schumaker, Bob, 494 Schuman, Robert, 652 Schungel, Daniel F., 625 Schweiter, Leo H., 693 SCOTLAND, Operation, 582, 1021–1022 casualties of, 1022 Scranton Commission. See President’s Commission on Campus Unrest Scruggs, Jan Craig, 1022–1023, 1295, 1296 Seabees, 1023

I-19

Seaborn, J. Blair, 537 notes of on meeting with Pham Van Dong, 1508–1509Doc. SEA DRAGON, Operation, 85, 799, 804, 1023– 1024, 1024 (image), 1030, 1207 Sea Float, 1026 Seale, Bobby, 112, 113, 192, 264, 1024–1025 SEALORDS operations, 984, 1025–1027, 1026 (image), 1091 SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) teams, 574, 1027–1028 Seaman, Jonathan O., 81, 357, 555, 608, 887, 1028–1029 Sea power, role in war, 1029–1030 Search and destroy, 1030–1031, 1031 (image) Search-and-rescue operations, 1031–1032 SEARCH TURN, Operation, 1025 Secret Army Organization, 1014 Seeger, Daniel Andrew, 1218 Seeger v. United States (1965), 1333, 1334 Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor. See SLAM Selective Service, 242, 482–483, 1032–1032, 1033 (image), 1033 (table) Selective Training and Service Act (1940), 1033 Shanghai Communiqué (1972), 702 Sharon Statement, 923 Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr., 122, 286, 300, 991, 998–999, 1034–1035 Shatan, Chaim, 924 Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney, 58, 67, 341, 890, 894, 1035–1036 SHENANDOAH II, Operation, 673 Shields, Marvin G., 1023 SHINING BRASS, Operation, 503, 1036 Shinseki, Eric, 1216 Shoup, David Monroe, 1036–1037, 1037 (image) Shulimson, Jack, 582 Shultz, George, 964 Sian (Xi’an) Incident, 702 Sigma I and II, 1037 Sihamoni, Norodom, 154 Sihanouk, Norodom, xlv, 151, 152, 157, 561, 585, 631, 683–684, 908, 918, 1037–1039, 1038 (image), 1048, 1129 Sihanouk Trail, 676 Sijan, Lance Peter, 932–933, 1039–1040 Simons, Arthur David, 893, 1040–1041, 1052–1053 Sinn, Jerry, 1151 Sino-French War (1884–1885), 1041–1043, 1042 (image) Sino-Soviet split, 1043–1044 Sino-Vietnamese War (1979), 1044–1048, 1045 (image), 1047 (map) casualties of, 1046 causes of, 1044–1046 Sisowath Sirik Matak, 683–684, 1048–1049 Sit-ins. See Teach-ins and sit-ins Sitton, Ray B., 740

I-20

Index

Six, Robert, 236 Six-Day War (1967), 550 Skriabin, Vyacheslav. See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Slagel, Wayne, 734 SLAM, 579, 1049 Slater, Albert, 139 Sletten, David, 1121 (image) Smart bombs. See Precision-guided munitions Smith, Hedrik, 1035 Smith, K. Wayne, 722 Smith, Walter Bedell, 319, 412, 597, 1049– 1050, 1050 (image) declaration to the Geneva Conference, 1447Doc. telegrams to John Foster Dulles, 1440– 1442Doc., 1143–1445Doc. Snepp, Frank Warren, III, 919, 1050–1051, 1127 SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation, 1051– 1052, 1051 (image) casualties of, 1052 Song Be, Battle of, 1052 casualties of, 1052 Son Sen, 587 Son Tay Raid, 132, 1052–1053 Song Thang Incident, 1053–1054 Souphanouvong, 1054–1055, 1055 (image) Southeast Asia, ethnology of, 350–352, 351 (image), 352 (image), 353 (map), 354, 354 (image) ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, 350, 351 ethnic groups within Vietnam, 350–351 highland tribal groups in Vietnam, 351 the Tais people of Vietnam and Thailand, 352, 354, 354 (image) Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy. See SEALORDS Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 195, 234, 329, 411, 601, 1005, 1055–1057, 1056 (image), 1169, 1200 protocol to the SEATO Treaty, 1450Doc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 590–591 Souvanna Phouma, 631, 632, 1057–1058 Soviet Union. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Soviet-Vietnam Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (1978), 610, 638 Soyster, Harry, 1128 Special Forces. See United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Special Landing Force (SLF), 462, 485 Special National Intelligence Estimate 10-3/65, 1517–1518Doc. Special Technical and Economic Mission (STEM), 307 SPEEDY EXPRESS, Operation, 355 Spellman, Francis Joseph, 806, 813, 1058–1059 Spero, Nancy, 68

Spock, Benjamin McLane, 53, 1059–1060, 1059 (image), 1198 Spratly Islands. See Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, 784, 1060 Spring Offensive. See Easter Offensive Staley, Eugene, 569, 1061 Stalin, Joseph, 355, 588, 604, 605, 1043, 1158–1159 Stannard, John E., 276–277 STARLITE, Operation, 50, 799, 914, 1061, 1062 (image), 1204 casualties of, 1061 Starry, Donn Albert, 1062–1063, 1174 STEEL TIGER, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119 Stennis, John Cornelius, 1063–1065, 1064 (image) Stephenson, William, 862 Steve Canyon program, 961 Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II, 1019, 1020, 1065– 1066, 1065 (image), 1221 Stevenson, Charles, 1076 Stilwell, Richard Giles, 1066 Stilwell, Joseph W., 564 Stockdale, James Bond, 495, 796, 932–933, 1066–1067, 1067 (image), 1126 Stockdale, Sybil Bailey, 796, 1067–1068 Stolen Valor Act (2006), 1299 Stone, I. F., 433, 611 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 142, 1068– 1069, 1184 Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT I Interim Agreement) (1972), 778 Strategic Hamlet Program, 244, 513, 697, 808, 811, 870–871, 952, 1061, 1070–1071, 1071 (image), 1171 failure of, 1071 See also SUNRISE, Operation Stratton, Samuel, 608 Struggle Movement, 675 Stubbe, Ray W., 582 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 133, 1072 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 53, 192, 242, 373, 923, 1072–1074, 1073 (image) See also Weathermen Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG), 1074, 1215 Subic Bay Naval Base, 863 Submachine guns, 1074–1076, 1075 (image) Chinese, 1076 French, 1076 Soviet, 1076 Swedish, 1076 U.S., 1075–1076 Vietnamese, 1076 Sullivan, William Healy, 1076–1077, 1095 Summers, Harry G., Jr., 490, 728, 1077–1078 SUNFLOWER, Operation, 1078

SUNRISE, Operation, 1078–1079, 1079 (image) Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). See Missiles, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training, 999–1000, 1080–1081 Sutherland, Donald, 373, 1293 Sutherland, James, 292 Suvero, Mark di, 67 Sweeney, Dennis, 460 Swift boats, 1081–1083, 1082 (image) Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 575, 1083–1084 SWITCHBACK, Operation, 1084, 1214 Symington, Stuart, 1076

Tache d’huile, 1085 Tactical Air Command (TAC), 1085–1086 Tactical air control and navigation (TACAN), 681 Taft, Robert, 46 Taiwan. See China, Republic of Tallman, Richard Joseph, 1086 Tam Dao Mountains. See Thud Ridge Ta Mok, 587 Tam Vu. See Tran Van Giau Tan, Frank, 270, 862 Ta Ngoc Phach. See Tran Do Tanks, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 63, 1087–1088, 11087 (image), 1252 Tan Son Nhut, 1088–1089 Taoism, 1089–1090 Tarpley, Thomas, 292 Tarr, Curtis W., 1090–1091, 1090 (image) Task Force 116, 1091 Task Force 117. See Mobile Riverine Force Task Force 194. See SEALORDS Task Force Oregon, 698, 699, 1092 Taussig, Charles, memorandum of conversation with Franklin Roosevelt, 1369–1370Doc. Taylor, Maxwell Davenport, 244, 345, 405, 550, 553, 569, 607, 721, 728 (image), 753, 796, 808, 809, 997, 1092–1094, 1093 (image), 1170, 1202, 1203, 1213, 1345 cable to President Kennedy, 1484–1486Doc. telegram to Dean Rusk, 1522–1523Doc. See also Taylor-McNamara Report; TaylorRostow Report Taylor, Rufus, 7–8 Taylor, Telford, 656 Taylor-McNamara Report, 1094–1095 text of, 1496–1498Doc. Taylor-Rostow Report, 1095–1096 Tay Ninh, 1096–1097 Tay Son Rebellion, 1097 Teach-ins and sit-ins, 1072, 1098–1099, 1098 (image) Television and the Vietnam War, 1099–1100, 1100 (image) reporting of the Battle of Khe Sanh, 1099–1100

Index reporting of the Tet Offensive, 1100 Territorial forces, 1101–1102 Tet Offensive, xliii–xliv, xliv (image), 2, 6, 7, 32, 40, 55, 65, 70, 76, 81, 101, 101 (image), 102, 105, 106, 124, 145, 163, 170, 182, 194, 202, 203, 203 (image), 219, 251, 254, 258, 259, 313, 316, 317, 333, 349, 380, 486, 498, 500, 509, 519, 521, 551, 554, 576, 582, 638, 643, 665, 680, 722, 732, 735, 749, 757, 760, 841, 844, 845, 865, 873, 932, 940, 945, 947, 955, 959, 993, 1010–1011, 1023, 1083, 1089, 1092, 1096, 1100, 1117, 1121, 1130, 1138, 1140, 1155, 1162, 1173–1174, 1196, 1204, 1212, 1238, 1245–1246, 1252, 1265, 1270, 1272, 1300, 1303, 1304, 1336, 1337, 1339, 1240 assessment of by Saigon and Washington, 872 casualties of, 317, 1104 Communist Party evaluation of, 1601–1603Doc. failure of, 1010, 1304, 1336 participation of women in, 1348 political impact of, 106, 144, 145 terror tactics used by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 80 See also Ben Tre, Battle of; Hue, Battle of; Khe Sahn, Battle of; Tet Offensive, overall strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Tet Offensive, overall strategy, 1102–1103, 1103 (image), 1104 (image) Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle, 1105– 1108, 1106 (map) TEXAS, Operation, 1108 casualties of, 1108 TEXAS STAR, Operation, 976, 1108–1109 casualties of, 1109 Thai Khac Chuyen, 970 Thailand, xliii, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 48, 59, 70, 96, 110, 150, 156, 223, 234, 269, 305, 343, 352, 395, 1109–1111, 1110 (image) See also Franco-Thai War (1940–1941) Thai Thanh, 896 Thanh Hoa Bridge, 1111 Thanh Nien, 628 Thanh Nien Cong Hoa. See Republican Youth THAN PHONG II, Operation, 709 Thanh Phong Massacre, 574 Thanh Thai, 1111–1112 Thanh To Nhan Hoang De. See Minh Mang THAYER/IRVING, Operation, 709 Thich Quang Duc, 483, 775, 808, 809, 1112– 1113, 1112 (image) Thich Tri Quang, 138, 674, 817, 1113 Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, 658 Thieu Tri, 1114 Third Indochina War, 1247 Thomas, Allison Kent, 1114

Thomas, Norman Mattoon, 1114–1115, 1115 (image) Thompson, Floyd James, 931 Thompson, Hugh, Jr., 785, 786, 1115–1117, 1116 (image) Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker, 12, 1061, 1070, 1117 Thud Ridge, 1117 THUNDERHEAD, Operation, 1118 Tianjin, Treaty of (1885), 1118 Tiger cages, 1118–1119, 1119 (image) TIGER HOUND, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119–1120 Tilford, Earl H., Jr., 505 Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), 1120–1121 TOAN THANG, Operation, 1121–1122, 1121 (image) casualties of, 1121 TOAN THANG 3, Operation, 78 TOAN THANG 42, Operation, 157, 158 TOAN THANG 43–46, Operations, 160 Toche, Jean, 68 To Huu, 1122 Tolson, John J., 276, 887–888, 893–894 Ton Duc Thang, 1122 Tonkin, 1122–1123 Ton That Dinh, 129, 130, 649, 808, 1123–1124, 1261, 1263 Ton That Thuyet, 1124 Top Gun School, 1124–1125 Torture, 495, 1125–1129, 1127 (image),1128 (image) Total Force Concept, 1212 Tourison, Sedgwick, 951 Tran Buu Kiem, 1129–1130, 1129 (image) Tran Do, 1105–1106, 1130–1131 Tran dynasty, 1131–1132 Tran Hieu, 1164 Tran Hung Dao, 1132 TRAN HUNG DAO, Operation. See SEALORDS Tran Kim Tuyen, 967, 1133 Tran Le Xuan. See Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Tran Ngoc Chau, 940 Tran Quoc Tuan. See Tran Hung Dao Tran Quy Hai, 845 Transportation Group 559, 1133–1134 Tran Thien Khiem, 318, 827, 1133, 1134–1135, 1134 (image) Tran Trong Kim, 140 Tran Van Chuong, 1135–1136, 1136 (image) Tran Van Dac, 1105 Tran Van Do, 1136–1137 Tran Van Don, 129, 130, 331, 649, 653, 808, 809, 827, 1123, 1134, 1137, 1137 (image), 1261 Tran Van Giau, 1137–1138 Tran Van Hai, 1138 Tran Van Huong, 139, 501, 839, 1138–1139, 1139 (image), 1262, 1264 Tran Van Lam, 1139–1140, 1140 (image) Tran Van Tra, 842, 941, 1140–1141, 1141 (image)

I-21

Treaty of Independence of the State of Vietnam, 1439Doc. Trieu Au, 1141 Trieu Da, 1141–1142 Trieu Thi Trinh. See Trieu Au Trieu Vu Vuong. See Trieu Da Trinh lords, 1142 Trinh Van Can, 687 Trinité, Louis de la. See D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Trudeau, Pierre Elliot, 165 Truehart, William, 851 Truman, Harry S., 5, 182, 304, 314, 316, 328, 530, 603, 604, 606, 691, 744, 781, 862, 1020, 1143–1144, 1143 (image), 1168, 1199 statement announcing military aid to Indochina, 1410–1411Doc. telegram to Jiang Jieshi, 1376Doc. U.S. State Department memoranda to, 1370–1371Doc., 1371–1373Doc. Trung Nu Vuong. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Queens. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, 1144 Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam. See Central Office for South Vietnam Truong, David H. D., 1198 Truong Chinh, 621, 628, 638, 1144–1146, 1244, 1278 Truong Dinh Dzu, 1146–1147, 1146 (image) Truong Nhu Tang, 941, 1147 Truong Son Corridor, 1147–1148 Truong Son Mountains, 1148 Truong Van Nghia. See De Tham Truscott, Lucian K., 576 Tsuchihashi, Yuitsu, 1148–1149 TUCSON, Operation, 556 Tu Duc, 1149–1150, 1149 (image) Tuesday Lunch Group, 1150 Tully, Robert, 527 Tu Luc Van Doan (Self-Reliance Literary Group), 837 Tunnel rats, 1151, 1151 (image) Tunnels, 1151–1152. See also Tunnel rats Tun Razak, 698 Turner, Ted, 374 Turse, Nick, 1126 Tu Ve, 1152 Tuyen Quang, siege of, 1152–1153 casualties of, 1153 Twining, Nathan Farragut, 1153–1154, 1154 (image) Two Ladies Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Udall, Morris, 786 U Minh Forest, 1155 Underwater demolition teams (UDTs), 1027–1028 Ung Lich. See Ham Nghi

I-22

Index

Uniforms, 1155–1158, 1157 (image) French expeditionary forces, 1155–1156 Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, 1156 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, 1157–1158 Viet Minh, People’s Army of Vietnam, and Viet Cong, 1156 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 195, 234, 243, 1158–1160, 1291 military and economic aid sent to North Vietnam by, 199, 324, 344, 676, 1159– 1160, 1244 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 See also Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) UNION I and II, Operations, 1160–1161, 1161 (image) casualties of, 1161 UNIONTOWN, Operation, 1162 United Buddhist Association (UBA), 827 United front strategy, 1162–1163 United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam wars, 1163–1165, 1163 (image) United Nations (UN), 315. See also United Nations and the Vietnam War United Nations and the Vietnam War, 1165–1166 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 966 United Services Organization (USO), 1166, 1166 (image) Family Support Fund, 1166 Operation Enduring Care, 1166 United States, 1291 message to the North Vietnamese government on the pause in bombing, 1549Doc. military logistics used in Vietnam, 678–679 national elections (1964), 332–333 national elections (1968), 333–335, 334 (image), 848 (table) national elections (1972), 336–337, 336 (image), 337 (table), 346 national elections (1976), 338–339, 338 (image) praise of for the Elysée Agreements, 1402Doc. relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), 195, 196 response of to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. trade embargo of against North Vietnam, 343–345, 344 (table). See also United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War; United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975;

United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975–present United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War, 325–327 deficit spending during the war, 326 (table) effects on macroeconomic theory, 326 impacts of increased budget deficits, 325–326 and inflation, 326 United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954, 1167–1169, 1167 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954– 1965, 1169–1172, 1171 (image) U.S. Army manpower in Vietnam, 1170 (table) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965– 1968, 1172–1175, 1172 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969– 1973, 1175–1177, 1175 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973– 1975, 1177–1179, 1178 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975– present, 1179–1181, 1180 (image) United States, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 1954–present, 1181–1182 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 1182–1184 United States Air Force (USAF), 121–122, 142–143, 156, 226, 300, 780, 1184–1186, 1185 (image) U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), 270 U.S. Seventh Air Force, 92 See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Andersen Air Force Base; FARM GATE, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Wild Weasels United States Army, 1187–1190, 1187 (image), 1238 army units in Vietnam, 1214 (table) casualties during the Vietnam War, 1190 corps tactical zones in South Vietnam, 1189 (map) deaths by Vietnam province, 1097 (table) office corps of, 1188 organization of a typical infantry division, 1188 (table) position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A, 1432Doc. replacement system of, 1188 See also K-9 Corps United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade (USARVIS), 1190–1191 United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (USACILHI), 761, 1191–1192, 1191 (image) United States Army Special Services, 1191–1193 United States Coast Guard, 1193–1194, 1194 (image), 1275

United States Congress and the Vietnam War, 1195–1198 United States Department of Justice, 1198–1199 United States Department of State aide-mémoire to the North Vietnamese government, 1572–1573Doc. and formation of U.S. policy toward Vietnam, 1199–1201, 1201 (image) memorandum of meeting of August 31, 1963, 1494–1495Doc. paper on military aid for Indochina, 1408–1409Doc. paper on U.S. post–World War II policy concerning Asia, 1374–1376Doc. policy statement on Indochina, 1400–1402Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. White paper on Vietnam, 1518–1519Doc. United States Information Agency (USIA), 1201–1202 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 259, 297, 359, 372, 422, 551, 576, 691, 1202– 1204, 1203 (image), 1269, 1292, 1339 memorandum 46-64, 1502–1504Doc. memorandum of with Rusk and McNamara, 1482–1484Doc. memorandum to Charles E. Wilson, 1430–1432Doc. memorandum to George C. Marshall, 1414–1415Doc. See also Key West Agreement (1948) United States Marine Corps (USMC), 207–208, 300, 1204–1205, 1205 (image), 1238, 1263 casualties during the Vietnam War, 1205 use of helicopters by, 474–475 See also JACKSTAY, Operation; Special Landing Force (SLF) United States Merchant Marine, 1205–1206 United States Navy, 780, 1206–1208, 1207 (image), 1275, 1321 (image) adverse effects of the Vietnam War on, 1208 Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC), 270 lack of preparedness for the Vietnam War, 1206 U.S. Seventh Fleet, 268, 268 (image) warships of, 1322–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) See also DeSoto Missions; Dixie Station; Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of; GAME WARDEN, Operation; Guam; JACKSTAY, Operation; Naval gunfire support; Riverine craft; Riverine warfare; YANKEE TEAM, Operation United States Navy Fighter Weapons School. See Top Gun School United States Navy River Patrol Force. See Task Force 116 United States Reserve Components, 1208–1212

Index calling up of reservists, 1209 categories of reservists, 1209 organization, training, and structure of, 1208–1209 reservists serving in the Vietnam War Air Force Reserve, 1210 Air National Guard, 1210 Army National Guard, 1210–1211 Army Reserve, 1211 Navy Reserve, 1211 See also United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize, 1211–1212 United States Special Forces (USSF), 1212– 1216, 1213 (image) United States Special Operations Forces (SOF), 579 United States Veterans Administration (VA), 1216 United States v. O’Brien (1968), 1217 United States v. Seeger (1965), 1217–1218 United We Stand, 893 University of Wisconsin bombing, 1218–1219 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 236 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (1960), 545 U.S. v. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (1972), 1198 U Thant, 700, 1165, 1221, 1221 (image) Ut, Nick, 1219–1220, 1219 (image) UTAH, Operation, 1220 casualties of, 1220 Valluy, Jean-Étienne, 532, 1223, 1241, 1242 telegram to Pierre-Louis Debès, 1389Doc. Van Ba. See Ho Chi Minh VAN BUREN, Operation, 1223–1224 casualties of, 1224 Van Cao, 1224 Vance, Cyrus, 64, 876, 1224–1226, 1225 (image), 1345 Vance incident, 66–67 Van Devanter, Lynda, 1294 Van Es, Hubert, 1226–1227, 1226 (image) Van Fleet, James A., 606, 972 Vang Pao, 96, 632, 965, 1227 Van Lang, 1228 Vann, John Paul, 65, 467, 600, 1035, 1228– 1229, 1228 (image) Van Tien Dung, 93, 94, 1229–1230, 1229 (image), 1252 Vaught, James B., 276 Versace, Humbert Rocque, 933, 1126, 1230–1231 Vessey, John W., Jr., 73, 761, 820, 1180, 1231– 1232, 1231 (image), 1278 Veteran Outreach Centers (Vet Centers), 657, 925 Veterans for America (VFA), 780, 781

Vientiane Agreement, 1232–1233, 1232 (image) Vientiane Protocol, 1233–1234 Viet Cong (VC), xli, xliv, 15, 75, 77, 78, 141, 157, 163, 169, 171, 183, 184, 215, 244, 319, 372, 394, 537, 638, 795 (image), 1238, 1240, 1245, 1265, 1323 atrocities committed by, 79, 80, 519, 521– 522, 521 (image) effect of the Tet Offensive on, 1104, 1304 infrastructure of, 1234–1235, 1234 (image) military logistics used in Vietnam, 678 use of tunnels by, 245, 248–249 See also Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Viet Cong Military Region IV, 100, 180 Viet Minh, xli, 140, 174, 199, 243, 289, 298, 307, 310, 386, 412, 493, 497, 500, 536, 544–545, 822, 898, 1162, 1199, 1235, 1236 (map), 1237, 1240, 1244, 1250, 1287, 1332 Chinese support of, 293, 532–533, 1199 contributions of Japanese deserters to, 545 creation of, 628 impact of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on, 547 land reform of, 621 military logistics used in Vietnam, 677–678 OSS support of, 862, 1167 river warfare of, 387 See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Vietnam, climate of, 1237–1238, 1237 (image) impact of climate and terrain on the Vietnam War, 1238–1240 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam), 35, 43, 52, 238, 378, 401, 422, 495, 500, 501, 536, 537 bombing of, 122, 123 (map), 124, 325, 1246 declaration of independence, 1377–1378Doc. peace proposal of, 1635–1636Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/TW, 1624–1625Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/TW, 1658–1659Doc. Soviet and Chinese military support for, 324 statement of, 1644–1647Doc. U.S. trade embargo against, 343–345, 344 (table) See also Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]); Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]) Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]), 1240–1242, 1241 (image) national call to arms in, 1242 negotiations with the French, 1241–1242 surrender of the French in, 1242 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]), 1243–1247, 1243 (image), 1245 (image)

I-23

acceptance of the Geneva Accords by, 1245 declaration on normalizing relations between northern and southern zones, 1451–1452Doc. emigration from, 1244 goals of, 1244–1245 people’s courts in, 1244 and reunification, 1244, 1250 role of the peasantry in land reform, 1243–1244 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force (Vietnam People’s Air Force [VPAF]), 1247–1249, 1248 (image) air defense system of, 1248 effects of U.S. bombing on, 1248–1249 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Armed Forces (Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces [RVNAF]), 1269, 1270 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army (People’s Army of Vietnam [PAVN]), xlii, xliv, xlv, xlvi, 7, 14, 30, 49–50, 51, 77, 78–79, 93, 142, 157, 163, 169, 201 (image), 208, 215, 225, 226, 244, 290, 291, 390–391, 1239, 1240, 1245, 1247, 1249–1253, 1265 artillery used by, 71–72, 1251 (table) defense of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by, 505 in eastern Cambodia, 155 equipment of, 1252 initial lack of organization in, 1249 logistics of, 1251–1252 military logistics used in Vietnam, 679–680 number of personnel in, 1250, 1252 origin of, 167 reunification of Vietnam as driving force behind its strategy, 1250 support of the Pathet Lao by, 411, 412 tanks as prime targets of, 63 use of tanks by, 1252 victories of over the French, 1249–1250 and wartime atrocities, 79–80 women in, 1348–1349 See also Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Navy (Vietnam People’s Navy [VPN]), 1321 Vietnam, geography of, 416–417 Vietnam, history of (prehistory to 938 CE), 1252–1254 Chinese domination of, 1253–1254 prehistory, 1253 under the Thuc and the Trieu, 1253 Vietnam, history of (938 CE through the French conquest), 1254–1255, 1255 (image), 1256 (map), 1257–1258, 1257 (image) cultural development during, 1255, 1257 French conquest during, 1257–1258 and the Nam Tien (March to the South), 1257 Vietnamese dynasties, 1254–1255

I-24

Index

Vietnam, Republic of (RVN, South Vietnam), xli, 43, 64, 173, 324, 500, 501, 536, 1238, 1258–1264, 1259 (image), 1260 (image), 1264 (image) aid to under the Kennedy administration, 83 declaration of concerning reunification, 1458Doc. document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks, 1642–1643Doc. Law 10/59 of, 1472Doc. national assembly and constitution of, 1260, 1263 national elections in, 329–332, 331 (image) 1955 election, 330 1967 election, 330–331 1971 election, 331–332 opposition to Diem within, 1260–1261, 1262 opposition to the Paris peace agreements, 1264 peace proposal of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1636–1637Doc. prime ministers of, 1955–1975, 1135 (table) protests by students and Buddhist monks in, 1262 statement of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1641–1642Doc. Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force, 1264–1266, 1269 expansion of, 1265 types of U.S. planes used in, 1264–1265 Vietnam, Republic of, Army (Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN]), xli, xlv, 2, 15, 51, 57, 58, 64, 100, 101, 180, 208, 226, 240 (image), 278, 292, 319, 347, 422, 1261, 1266–1268, 1267 (image), 1268 (image) and the Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 160–161 corruption in, 1266–1267 fighting against the Binh Xuyen, 169 lack of leadership in, 1268 military logistics used in Vietnam, 678, 679 military strength of (1955–1972), 1266 (table) number of personnel in, 1268 organization of, 1268 pacification efforts of, 1246 U.S. training of, 1267 women in, 1348–1349 See also Enclave strategy; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff (JGS), 1269–1270 Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps (RVNMC), 1270–1271, 1271 (image) Vietnam, Republic of, National Police, 1271–1273 National Police Field Force (NPFF), 1272

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy (VNN), 1273– 1275, 1274 (image), 1321–1322 and the Cambodian Incursion, 1274 deficiencies of, 1273–1274 patrol of the coastal zones by, 1273 River Force of, 1273 Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center, 1275 Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces, 244, 1276 Vietnam, Socialist Republic of (SRV), 204, 1276–1282, 1277 (image), 1279 (image), 1281 (image), 1286 Doi Moi reform program in, 303, 820, 1278–1279 economic growth in after 2000, 1281–1282 economy of, 1277 farm collectivization in, 1277 liberalization in, 1280 lifting of the trade embargo against, 1674–1675Doc. outside investment in, 1280–1281 PAVN influence in, 1280 political struggles in, 1279–1280 population of, 1281 post–Vietnam War problems faced by, 1276 power of the Communist Party in, 1276–1277 relations with Cambodia, 1278 relations with China, 1278 relations with the United States, 1280, 1675–1676Doc. Vietnam Independence League. See Viet Minh Vietnam Information Group (VIG), 1287–1288 Vietnam Magazine, 1289–1290 Vietnam Nationalist Party. See Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party) Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party), 833, 1290–1291 admission of women to, 1347 Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association. See Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Syndrome, 1291–1292 Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, 1292–1293 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), 610, 657, 1293–1295, 1294 (image) Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), 1297–1298 statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1630–1632Doc. Vietnam Veterans Intertribe Association, 798 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 658, 1022, 1295– 1297, 1296 (image) Vietnam War (1961–1975), xliii (image), xlvi (image), 675 as “America’s first rock-and-roll war,” 782 casualties of, 175–176, 175 (table), 1247 cost of, xlii, 426 (table)

economic indicators during, 1314 (table) effect of on the U.S. economy, 325–327 escalation of, xliii goals of, xliii as the “Helicopter War,” 30 as “Johnson’s War,” 551 as a “living room war,” 728 number of U.S. deaths in, xlii opposition to in the United States, 551 overview of, xli–xlvi as the “television” war, 242, 1099 War Zone C, 555 See also Historiography, of the Vietnam War; Women, in the Vietnam War Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, 1126 Vietnam War frauds and fakes, 1298–1299 Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), 1276– 1277, 1282–1283 Vietnamese culture, 1283–1286, 1285 (image), 1286 (image) effects of war on, 1285 fine arts of, 1284–1285 influence of Chinese culture on, 1283–1284 literature of, 1284 music of, 1284 under Communism, 1285–1286 Vietnamese National Army, 1286–1287 Vietnamese Workers’ Party Third National Congress on missions and policies, 1476–1478Doc. Vietnamization, xlv, 48, 163, 170, 224, 594, 615, 616, 679, 847, 1074, 1175, 1246, 1265, 1288–1289, 1289 (image). See also Jaunissement Vilers, Le Myre de, 79 Vinh, 1299–1300 Vinh San. See Duy Tan Vinh Yen, Battle of, 497 Vo Bam, 1133 Vo Chi Cong, 1300 Vogt, John W., Jr., 1301, 1301 (image) Voices in Vital America (VIVA), 797, 1301–1302 Vo Nguyen Giap, xli, xlv, 51, 81, 167, 175, 324– 325, 386, 497, 514, 556–557, 579, 582, 618, 634, 638, 642–643, 684, 693, 759, 791, 801, 998, 1046, 1102, 1105, 1249, 1252, 1279, 1302–1304, 1303 (image) initial actions of against the French in Vietnam, 1240–1241, 1242, 1303 issuance of a national call to arms by, 1303 as leader of the military campaign against the Republic of Vietnam, 1303–1304 opposition to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, 1304 “People’s War, People’s Army,” 1463–1472Doc. report on the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 1429–1430Doc. revamping of the Viet Minh’s intelligence organization, 636

Index See also Dau Tranh strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Indochina War Voting Rights Act (1965), 591 Vo Tran Chi, 1304 Vo Van Ba, 1304–1305 Vo Van Kiet, 1278, 1305–1306, 1305 (image) Vua Duc Tong. See Tu Duc Vua Thanh To. See Minh Mang Vu Hai Thu. See Nguyen Hai Than Vu Hong Khanh, 1307–1307 VULTURE, Operation, 847, 907, 957, 1169, 1307–1308 Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong spy case, 1308 Vung Tau, 1308–1309, 1309 (image) Vung Tau Charter, 827 Vu Oanh, 1309–1310 Vu Quoc Thuc, 1310 Vu Thu Hien, 639 Vu Van Giai, 1310–1311 Vu Van Giang. See Vu Hong Khanh Wage and price controls, 1313–1314, 1314 (table) Waldron, Adelbert F., III, 1314–1315 Walkabout, Billy, 798 Walker, Walton, 605, 606 Wallace, George C., 335, 339, 646, 1315–1316, 1315 (image) Walt, Lewis William, 207, 1316–1317, 1316 (image) Ware, Keith Lincoln, 1106, 1317 Warner, John, 250 (image) Warnke, Paul Culliton, 1317–1319, 1318 (image) War Powers Act (1973), 546, 849, 1064, 1178, 1197, 1319–1320 text of, 1657–1658Doc. War Resisters League, 1320–1321 Warships, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1321–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) Wars of national liberation, 1323–1324 War Zones C and D, 1324–1326, 1325 (image) WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation, 873, 1326–1327 Washington Special Actions Group, 1327 Wasiak, Joseph E., 276 Watergate Scandal, 187, 530, 595, 763, 772–773, 847, 849, 892, 1020, 1203, 1327–1329, 1328 (image)

Weathermen, 1218–1219, 1329–1330, 1330 (image) Webb, James Henry, Jr., 1330–1331, 1331 (image) Wei Guoqing, 1331–1332 Weiner, David, 973 (image) Weiner, Lee, 192 Weinglass, Leonard, 192 Weiss, Cora, 1333 Welsh v. United States (1970), 1218, 1333– 1335, 1334 (image) Westmoreland, William C., xliii, 81, 118, 180, 215, 235, 236, 244, 300, 302, 346, 406, 458, 461, 462, 509 (image), 513, 517, 550, 555, 576, 578, 579–580, 596, 599, 608– 609, 625, 693, 700, 723, 728 (image), 771, 844, 845, 872, 887, 934, 1078, 1092, 1204, 1209, 1318, 1335–1337, 1336 (image) accusations against concerning enemy casualty figures, 1336–1337 and the buildup of U.S. troops in Vietnam, 219, 510, 550, 551, 747, 991, 1094, 1105, 1173–1174 difficulties with ROKA forces in Vietnam, 602 lawsuit against CBS, 865–866 National Press Club address, 1591–1592Doc. on the operations in War Zones C and D, 1325–1326 and the Peers Inquiry, 886, 887 reaction to the Tet Offensive, 1136 service of in Korea, 1335 on SLAM, 1049 strategies and tactics employed by, 598, 1335–1336 view of the media, 729, 1100 view of pacification, 871 See also Honolulu Conference (1967); Khe Sanh, Battle of; Search and destroy Weyand, Frederick Carlton, 347, 1103, 1105, 1106, 1177, 1337–1338 Whalen, Charles W., Jr., 1197 Wheeler, Earle Gilmore, 118, 1105, 1174, 1338–1339, 1338 (image), 1345 (image) report on the situation in Vietnam, 1597–1599Doc. Wheeler, Jack, 1295, 1296 WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation, 784, 1340–1341, 1341 (image) White Star Mobile Training Teams, 1341 Whitley, Glenna, 1298 Wickwire, Peter, 139

I-25

Wiener, Sam, 69 Wild Weasels, 1341–1342 Wilk, David, 1299 Williams, Charles Q., 308 Williams, Samuel Tankersley, 319, 1342–1343 Willoughby, Frank C., 624 Wilson, Charles E., 409 Wilson, George C., 1 Wilson, James Harold, 1078, 1164, 1343–1344, 1343 (image) Wilson, Thomas Woodrow, 1344 Wilson, Woodrow, 315, 401, 663 Winter Soldier Investigation, 574, 657, 1083 Wise Men, 551, 716, 782, 972, 1225, 1344– 1346, 1345 (image) Women, in the Vietnam War U.S. women, 1346–1347, 1346 (image) Vietnamese women, 1347–1349, 1348 (image) Women Strike for Peace, 1349 Women’s Liberation Association (WLA), 1348 Women’s Solidarity League, 967 Woodring, Willard, 139 Woods, Robert, 1151 Woodstock, 1349–1350, 1350 (image) Woodward, Gilbert H., 948 Wyatt, Clarence R., 727 Xa Loi Pagoda Raid, 1351–1352 Xuan Loc, Battle of, 1352 Xuan Thuy, 876, 1352–1353, 1353 (image) XYZ, 820 Yankee Station, 1355 YANKEE TEAM, Operation, 1356–1357, 1356

(image) Yellowing. See Jaunissement YELLOWSTONE, Operation, 1357 Yen Bay (or Yen Bai) Mutiny, 833, 1358 Young, Samuel, 1072 Young Americans for Freedom, 923 Young Turks, 753, 796, 816, 841, 1138, 1262 Youth International Party (Yippies), 192, 506, 1000, 1358–1360, 1359 (image) Zhang Xueliang, 702 Zhou Enlai, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200 (image), 412, 595, 1361–1362, 1362 (image) Zhu De, 196, 702 Zorthian, Barry, 553, 728, 1362–1363 Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr., 250 (image), 956, 956 (image), 1025, 1203 (image), 1363–1364, 1363 (image)

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR Second Edition

This page intentionally left blank

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR A Political, Social, and Military History, Second Edition

VOLUME III: Q–Z

Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Editor Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Associate Editor

Merle L. Pribbenow II Dr. James H. Willbanks, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (retired) Dr. David T. Zabecki, Major General, Army of the United States (retired) Assistant Editors

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history / Spencer C. Tucker, editor. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-960-3 (hard back : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-85109-961-0 (e-book) 1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Encyclopedias. I. Tucker, Spencer, 1937– DS557.7.E53 2011 959.704’3—dc22 2011007604 ISBN: 978-1-85109-960-3 EISBN: 978-1-85109-961-0 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

To all those who fought in the Indochina and Vietnam Wars

About the Editor

Spencer C. Tucker, PhD, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was a Fulbright scholar in France. He was a U.S. Army captain and an intelligence analyst in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and then taught for 30 years at Texas Christian University before returning to his alma mater for 6 years as the holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History. He retired from teaching in 2003. He is now Senior Fellow of Military History at ABC-CLIO. Dr. Tucker has written or edited 38 books, including ABC-CLIO’s award-winning The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as the comprehensive A Global Chronology of Conflict.

E DITORIAL A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Col. Walter J. Boyne

Dr. Carol Reardon

U.S. Air Force (Ret.)

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. David Coffey Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Shawn Livingston, MLIS Director of Information Service University of Kentucky Libraries

Capt. Carl O. Schuster

Dr. Michael R. Nichols

U.S. Navy (Ret.) Adjunct Professor Hawaii Pacific University

Department of Social Sciences Tarrant County College

Sandra Wittman Library Services Oakton Community College

Nguyen Cong Luan Independent Scholar

Cartographer Internal Mapping Associates

ABC-CLIO M ILITARY H ISTORY A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Dr. David Coffey

Dr. Carol Reardon

Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Don Hickey

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts

Professor of History Department of History Wayne State College (Nebraska)

Associate Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Dr. James Matray Professor and Chair Department of History California State University, Chico

Dr. James H. Wi llbanks Director, Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth

Dr. Jack McCallum Adjunct Professor Department of History and Geography Texas Christian University

Dr. Steven E. Woodworth Professor of History Department of History Texas Christian University

Dr. Justin D. Murphy Director, Academy of Freedom; Brand Professor of History Department of History, Political Science, and Geography Howard Payne University

Dr. Jim Piecuch Associate Professor of History Department of History Kennesaw State University

Dr. David T. Zabecki Major General Army of the United States, Retired Honory Senior Research Fellow in War Studies University of Birmingham, England

Contents Volume I: A–G List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv Foreword xxvii Preface xxxi General Maps xxxiii Overview of the Vietnam War Entries 1 Index I-1

Volume III: Q–Z List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 951 Index I-1 xli

Volume IV: Documents List of Documents xi Introduction—xvii Documents 1365 Appendix A: Unit Designations 1679 Appendix B: Military Ranks 1683 Appendix C: Order of Battle 1691 Chronology 1731 Glossary 1765 Selected Bibliography 1779 List of Editors and Contributors 1789 Categorical Index 1795 Index I-1

Volume II: H–P List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 439 Index I-1

ix

This page intentionally left blank

List of Entries

VOLUME I

Amerasians American Friends of Vietnam American Red Cross Amnesty Amphibious Warfare Andersen Air Force Base Angkor Wat An Khe An Loc, Battle of Annam Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Antiwar Movement, U.S. Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. APACHE SNOW, Operation Ap Bac, Battle of Arc Light Missions Armored Personnel Carriers Armored Warfare Army Concept Team in Vietnam Arnett, Peter Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius Art and the Vietnam War Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Artillery Fire Doctrine A Shau Valley A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for Assimilation versus Association Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam ATLAS WEDGE, Operation Atrocities during the Vietnam War ATTLEBORO, Operation

ABILENE, Operation

Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr. Abzug, Bella Acheson, Dean Gooderham Adams, Edward Adams, Samuel A. Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee African Americans in the U.S. Military Agnew, Spiro Theodore Agricultural Reform Tribunals Agroville Program Aiken, George David Air America Airborne Operations Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Aircraft, Bombers Aircraft Carriers Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Air Mobility Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company Airpower, Role in War Air-to-Air Missiles Air-to-Ground Missiles Air War Study Group Report, Cornell University ALA MOANA, Operation Alessandri, Marcel Ali, Muhammad Alpha Strike Alsop, Joseph Wright, V Alvarez, Everett, Jr. xi

xii

List of Entries

Attrition August Revolution Au Lac, Kingdom of Australia BABYLIFT, Operation Bach Dang River, Battle of Ba Cut Baez, Joan Chandos Ball, George Wildman Baltimore Four Ban Karai Pass Ban Me Thuot, Battle of Bao Dai Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr. BARREL ROLL, Operation Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul Beckwith, Charles Alvin Ben Suc Ben Tre, Battle of Berger, Samuel David Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, Philip Bidault, Georges Bien Hoa Air Base Binh Gia, Battle of BINH TAY I–IV, Operations Binh Xuyen Bird & Sons Black Flags Black Muslims Black Panthers Blaizot, Roger Blassie, Michael Joseph BLU-82/B Bomb BLUE LIGHT, Operation Blum, Léon Body Armor Body Count BOLD MARINER, Operation Bollaert, Émile BOLO, Operation Bombing Halts and Restrictions Bombs, Gravity Booby Traps Bowles, Chester Bliss Bradley, Omar Nelson Brady, Patrick Henry BRAVO I and II, Operations Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation Brown, George Scratchley

Brown, Hubert Gerald Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr. Browne, Malcolm Wilde Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz Buddhism in Vietnam BUFFALO, Operation Bui Diem Bui Phat Bui Tin BULLET SHOT, Operation Bundy, McGeorge Bundy, William Putnam Bunker, Ellsworth Burchett, Wilfred Burkett, Bernard Gary Bush, George Herbert Walker Calley, William Laws, Jr. Cambodia Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of Cambodian Airlift Cambodian Incursion Camden 28 Cam Lo Camp Carroll Cam Ranh Bay Canada Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang Cao Bang Cao Dai Cao Van Vien Caravelle Group Carpentier, Marcel Carter, James Earl, Jr. Case, Clifford Philip Case-Church Amendment CASTOR, Operation Casualties Catholicism in Vietnam Catonsville Nine Catroux, Georges CEDAR FALLS, Operation Cédile, Jean Central Highlands Central Intelligence Agency Central Office for South Vietnam Chams and the Kingdom of Champa CHAOS, Operation Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr. Chappelle, Georgette Meyer Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph

List of Entries CHECO Project Chennault, Anna Chennault, Claire Lee Chicago Eight Chieu Hoi Program China, People’s Republic of China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam China, Republic of Chinese in Vietnam Chomsky, Avram Noam Church, Frank Forrester Chu Van Tan Civic Action Civilian Irregular Defense Group Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support Civil Rights Movement Clarey, Bernard Ambrose Clark, William Ramsey Clark Air Force Base Clear and Hold Cleland, Joseph Maxwell Clemenceau, Georges Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Clifford, Clark McAdams Clinton, William Jefferson Cochin China Coffin, William Sloane, Jr. Cogny, René Colby, William Egan Collins, Joseph Lawton COMMANDO FLASH, Operation COMMANDO HUNT, Operation Concerned Officers Movement “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report Conein, Lucien Emile Confucianism Conscientious Objectors Con Son Island Prison CONSTANT GUARD, Operation Containment Policy Con Thien, Siege of Continental Air Services Cooper, Chester Lawrence Cooper, John Sherman Cooper-Brooke Amendment Cooper-Church Amendment Corps Tactical Zones Counterculture Counterinsurgency Warfare CRIMP, Operation Cronauer, Adrian Cronkite, Walter Leland

Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines Cu Chi Tunnels Cunningham, Randall Harold Cuong De Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr. Da Faria, Antônio Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang Dak To, Battle of Da Lat Daley, Richard Joseph Da Nang DANIEL BOONE, Operation Dao Duy Tung D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Dau Tranh Strategy Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr. Davis, Raymond Gilbert Davis, Rennard Cordon Day, George Everett Dean, John Gunther Dèbes, Pierre-Louis De Castries, Christian Marie DECKHOUSE V, Operation Decoux, Jean Deer Mission Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Defense Satellite Communications System DEFIANT STAND, Operation Defoliation De Gaulle, Charles DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation Dellinger, David Demilitarized Zone Democratic National Convention of 1968 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr. DePuy, William Eugene De Rhodes, Alexandre DEROS Desertion, U.S. and Communist DeSoto Missions Détente De Tham Devillers, Philippe Dewey, Albert Peter DEWEY CANYON I, Operation DEWEY CANYON II, Operation Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dien Triet Lake, Battle of Dikes, Red River Delta Dinassauts Dith Pran

xiii

xiv

List of Entries

Dixie Station Doan Khue Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich Do Cao Tri Doi Moi Domino Theory Do Muoi Don Dien Dong Ha, Battle of Dong Quan Pacification Project Dong Xoai, Battle of Donlon, Roger Hugh C. Donovan, William Joseph Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III Do Quang Thang DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation Doumer, Paul Drugs and Drug Use Dulles, Allen Welsh Dulles, John Foster Duong Quynh Hoa Duong Van Duc Duong Van Minh Dupuis, Jean Durbrow, Elbridge Dustoff Duy Tan Dylan, Bob EAGLE PULL, Operation

Easter Offensive Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War Eden, Sir Robert Anthony Eisenhower, Dwight David Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971 Elections, U.S., 1964 Elections, U.S., 1968 Elections, U.S., 1972 Elections, U.S., 1976 Electronic Intelligence Ellsberg, Daniel EL PASO II, Operation Ély, Paul Henri Romuald Elysée Agreement Embargo, U.S. Trade Enclave Strategy ENHANCE, Operation ENHANCE PLUS, Operation ENTERPRISE, Operation Enthoven, Alain Enuol, Y Bham Ethnology of Southeast Asia

European Defense Community Ewell, Julian Johnson FAIRFAX, Operation

Fall, Bernard B. FARM GATE, Operation Faure, Edgar Federal Bureau of Investigation Fellowship of Reconciliation Felt, Harry Donald Fernandez, Richard Ferry, Jules Film and the Vietnam Experience Fire-Support Bases Fishel, Wesley Robert Fishhook Five O’Clock Follies FLAMING DART I and II, Operations Flexible Response Fonda, Jane Seymour Fontainebleau Conference Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Ford, Gerald Rudolph Forrestal, Michael Vincent Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire Fortas, Abraham Fort Hood Three Forward Air Controllers Four-Party Joint Military Commission Fragging France, Air Force, 1946–1954 France, Army, 1946–1954 France, Navy, 1946–1954 France and Vietnam, 1954–Present FRANCIS MARION, Operation Franco-Thai War Fratricide FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation Free Fire Zones Free World Assistance Program French Foreign Legion in Indochina French Indochina, 1860s–1946 FREQUENT WIND, Operation Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées Fulbright, James William Galbraith, John Kenneth Galloway, Joseph Lee GAME WARDEN, Operation Garnier, Marie Joseph François Garwood, Robert Russell

List of Entries Gavin, James Maurice Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth Gelb, Leslie Howard Geneva Accords of 1962 Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954 Geneva Convention of 1949 Genovese, Eugene Dominick Geography of Indochina and Vietnam Germany, Federal Republic of Ginsberg, Allen Godley, George McMurtrie Goldberg, Arthur Joseph Goldman, Eric Frederick Goldwater, Barry Morris Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gracey, Douglas David Gravel, Maurice Robert Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr. Great Society Program GREELEY, Operation Greene, Graham Greene, Wallace Martin Grenade Launchers Groupement Mobile 100, Destruction of Gruening, Ernest Henry Guam Guam Conference Guizot, François Gulf of Tonkin Incident Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

VOLUME II Habib, Philip Charles Hackworth, David Haskell Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. Hainan Island Haiphong Haiphong, Shelling of Halberstam, David Halperin, Morton H. Hamburger Hill, Battle of Hamlet Evaluation System Ham Nghi Hand Grenades Hanoi Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Hanoi Hannah Harassment and Interdiction Fires Hardhats Harkins, Paul Donal Harriman, William Averell

Harris, David Hartke, Vance Rupert HARVEST MOON, Operation HASTINGS, Operation Hatfield, Mark Odom Hatfield-McGovern Amendment HAWTHORNE, Operation Hayden, Thomas Emmett Healy, Michael D. Heath, Donald Read Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam Helms, Richard McGarrah Henderson, Oran K. Heng Samrin Herbert, Anthony Herbicides Hersh, Seymour Myron Hershey, Lewis Blaine Herz, Alice Hickey, Gerald Cannon HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON 54, Operation HICKORY II, Operation High National Council Hilsman, Roger Hilsman-Forrestal Report Hispanics in the U.S. Military Historiography, Vietnam War Hmongs Hoa Binh, Battle of Hoa Hao Hoa Lo Prison Hoang Duc Nha HOANG HOA THAM, Operation Hoang Van Hoan Hoang Van Thai Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh Campaign Ho Chi Minh Trail Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur Hoffman, Abbie HOMECOMING, Operation Honolulu Conference Hooper, Joe Ronnie Hoopes, Townsend Hoover, John Edgar Hope, Leslie Townes HOP TAC, Operation Ho-Sainteny Agreement Hot Pursuit Policy Hourglass Spraying System Hue

xv

xvi

List of Entries

Hue, Battle of Hue and Da Nang, Fall of Hue Massacre Humanitarian Operation Program Humphrey, Hubert Horatio Hun Sen Huston Plan Huynh Phu So Huynh Tan Phat Huynh Van Cao Ia Drang, Battle of Imperial Presidency India Indochina War Indonesia International Commission for Supervision and Control International Rescue Committee International War Crimes Tribunal Iron Triangle IRVING, Operation Jackson State College Shootings JACKSTAY, Operation Jacobson, George D. James, Daniel, Jr. Japan Jaunissement Javits, Jacob Koppel JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation Jiang Jieshi Johnson, Harold Keith Johnson, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech Johnson, Ural Alexis Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office Jones, David Charles JUNCTION CITY, Operation K-9 Corps Kampuchean National Front Kattenburg, Paul Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville Kelly, Charles L. Kelly, Francis J. Kennan, George Frost Kennedy, Edward Moore Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Robert Francis Kent State University Shootings KENTUCKY, Operation Kep Airfield

Kerrey, Joseph Robert Kerry, John Forbes Kerwin, Walter T., Jr. Key West Agreement Khai Dinh Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, Fall of Khe Sanh, Battle of Khieu Samphan Khmer Kampuchea Krom Khmer Rouge Khmer Serai Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Kien An Airfield King, Martin Luther, Jr. KINGFISHER, Operation Kinnard, Harry William Osborn Kissinger, Henry Alfred Kit Carson Scouts Knowland, William Fife Koh Tang Komer, Robert W. Kong Le Kontum, Battle for Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korean War Koster, Samuel William, Sr. Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich Kovic, Ronald Kraft, Joseph Krulak, Victor H. Kunstler, William Moses Laird, Melvin Robert Lake, William Anthony Kirsop LAM SON 719, Operation Landing Zone Land Reform, Vietnam Lang Bac, Battle of Lang Son Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Laniel, Joseph Lansdale, Edward Geary Lao Dong Party Laos Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de Lavelle, John Daniel LÉA, Operation Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe Le Duan Le Duc Anh Le Duc Tho

List of Entries Le Dynasty Lefèbvre, Dominique LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Le Kha Phieu Le Loi LeMay, Curtis Emerson Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie Le Nguyen Khang Le Nguyen Vy Le Quang Tung Leroy, Catherine Le Thanh Nghi Le Thanh Tong Letourneau, Jean Le Trong Tan Le Van Hung Le Van Kim Le Van Vien Levy, Howard Brett LEXINGTON III, Operation Lifton, Robert Jay Lima Site 85 Lin, Maya Ying LINEBACKER I, Operation LINEBACKER II, Operation Lippmann, Walter Literature and the Vietnam War Loc Ninh, Military Operations near Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong Long Binh Long Chieng Long-Range Electronic Navigation Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols Lon Nol LORRAINE, Operation Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth Luce, Henry Robinson Lu Han Luong Ngoc Quyen Ly Bon Lynd, Staughton MacArthur, Douglas MACARTHUR, Operation Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Madman Strategy Mailer, Norman Malaysia MALHEUR I and II, Operations Manila Conference

xvii

Mansfield, Michael Joseph Mao Zedong March on the Pentagon MARIGOLD, Operation Marine Combined Action Platoons MARKET TIME, Operation Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Martin, Graham A. MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation Mayaguez Incident May Day Tribe MAYFLOWER, Operation McCain, John Sidney, Jr. McCain, John Sidney, III McCarthy, Eugene Joseph McCloy, John Jay McCone, John Alex McConnell, John Paul McGarr, Lionel Charles McGee, Gale William McGovern, George Stanley McNamara, Robert Strange McNamara Line McNaughton, John Theodore McPherson, Harry Cummings Meaney, George Medevac Media and the Vietnam War Medicine, Military Medics and Corpsmen Medina, Ernest Lou Mekong Delta Mekong River Mekong River Project Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham Mendès-France, Pierre MENU, Operation Michigan State University Advisory Group Midway Island Conference Military Airlift Command Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Military Decorations Military Regions Military Revolutionary Council Military Sealift Command Mine Warfare, Land Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations Minh Mang Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam

xviii

List of Entries

Mini–Tet Offensive Missing in Action, Allied Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist Mitchell, John Newton Mobile Guerrilla Forces Mobile Riverine Force Mobile Strike Force Commands Moffat, Abbot Low Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Momyer, William Wallace Montagnards Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr. Moore, Robert Brevard Moorer, Thomas Hinman Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam Mordant, Eugène Morrison, Norman Morse, Wayne Lyman Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Mortuary Affairs Operations Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Moyers, Billy Don Mu Gia Pass Muller, Robert Munich Analogy Murphy, Robert Daniel Music and the Vietnam War Muste, Abraham Johannes My Lai Massacre Nam Dong, Battle of Nam Tien Nam Viet Napalm Napoleon III Na San, Battle of National Assembly Law 10/59 National Bank of Vietnam National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam National Leadership Council National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia National Security Action Memorandum Number 328 Native Americans in the U.S. Military Naval Gunfire Support Navarre, Henri Eugène Navarre Plan Neutrality

NEVADA EAGLE, Operation

New Jersey, USS New Zealand Ngo Dinh Can Ngo Dinh Diem Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Khoi Ngo Dinh Luyen Ngo Dinh Nhu Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Ngo Dinh Thuc Ngo Quang Truong Ngo Quyen Nguyen Binh Nguyen Cao Ky Nguyen Chanh Thi Nguyen Chi Thanh Nguyen Co Thach Nguyen Duy Trinh Nguyen Dynasty Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Ha Phan Nguyen Hue Nguyen Huu An Nguyen Huu Co Nguyen Huu Tho Nguyen Huu Tri Nguyen Khanh Nguyen Khoa Nam Nguyen Luong Bang Nguyen Manh Cam Nguyen Ngoc Loan Nguyen Ngoc Tho Nguyen Phuc Anh Nguyen Sinh Sac Nguyen Thai Hoc Nguyen Thi Binh Nguyen Thi Dinh Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Nguyen Tuong Tam Nguyen Van Binh Nguyen Van Cu Nguyen Van Hieu Nguyen Van Hinh Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Thieu Nguyen Van Toan Nguyen Van Xuan Nguyen Viet Thanh NIAGARA, Operation Nitze, Paul Henry

List of Entries Nixon, Richard Milhous Nixon Doctrine Noel, Chris Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr. Nong Duc Manh Novosel, Michael, Sr. Nui Ba Den Nuon Chea Nurses, U.S. Oakland Army Base Oberg, Jean-Christophe O’Daniel, John Wilson Office of Strategic Services Olds, Robin Olongapo, Philippines Operation Plan 34A Order of Battle Dispute Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard Pacification Palme, Olof Palmer, Bruce, Jr. Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Paris Negotiations Paris Peace Accords Parrot’s Beak PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation Pathet Lao Patti, Archimedes L. A. Patton, George Smith, IV PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations Paul VI, Pope Pearson, Lester Bowles Peers, William R. Peers Inquiry PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, Operation PENNSYLVANIA, Operation Pentagon Papers and Trial People’s Self-Defense Forces Perot, Henry Ross PERSHING, Operation Peterson, Douglas Brian Pham Cong Tac Pham Duy Pham Hung Pham Ngoc Thao Pham The Duyet Pham Van Dong Pham Van Phu Pham Xuan An

Phan Boi Chau Phan Chu Trinh Phan Dinh Phung Phan Huy Quat Phan Khac Suu Phan Quang Dan Phan Van Khai Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix Philippines Phnom Penh Phoenix Program Phoumi Nosavan PIERCE ARROW, Operation Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre Pignon, Léon PIRANHA, Operation PIRAZ Warships Pistols Plain of Jars Plain of Reeds Pleiku Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich Poland Polgar, Thomas Pol Pot POPEYE, Operation Porter, William James Port Huron Statement Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Potsdam Conference Poulo Condore Powell, Colin Luther PRAIRIE I, Operation PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations Precision-Guided Munitions Prisoners of War, Allied Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam Project Agile Project Delta Project Omega Project 100,000 Project Sigma Protective Reaction Strikes PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation Provincial Reconnaissance Units Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam Proxmire, Edward William Psychological Warfare Operations Public Opinion and the War, U.S. Pueblo Incident

xix

xx

List of Entries

Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr. Punji Stake

VOLUME III Quach Tom Quadrillage/Ratissage Quang Ngai Quang Tri, Battle of Qui Nhon Quoc Ngu Racial Violence within the U.S. Military Radford, Arthur William Radio Direction Finding RANCH HAND, Operation RAND Corporation Raven Forward Air Controllers Read, Benjamin Huger Reagan, Ronald Wilson Red River Delta Red River Fighter Pilots Association Reeducation Camps Refugees and Boat People Reinhardt, George Frederick Republican Youth Research and Development Field Units Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Revers Report Rheault, Robert B. Richardson, John Hammond Ridenhour, Ronald Ridgway, Matthew Bunker Rifles Rigault de Genouilly, Charles Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for Risner, James Robinson River Assault Groups Riverine Craft Riverine Warfare Rivers, Lucius Mendel Road Watch Teams Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich Rockets and Rocket Launchers Rogers, William Pierce ROLLING THUNDER, Operation Romney, George Wilcken Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Rostow, Eugene Victor Rostow, Walt Whitman Route Coloniale 4, Battles for Route Packages

Rowe, James Nicholas Rubin, Jerry Rules of Engagement Rusk, David Dean Rusk-Thanat Agreement Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr. Russo, Anthony J., Jr. Sabattier, Gabriel Saigon Saigon Military Mission Sainteny, Jean Salan, Raoul Albin Louis Salisbury, Harrison Evans SAM HOUSTON, Operation San Antonio Formula Sanctuaries Sarraut, Albert Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. Schlesinger, James Rodney SCOTLAND, Operation Scruggs, Jan Craig Seabees SEA DRAGON, Operation Seale, Bobby SEALORDS SEAL Teams Seaman, Jonathan O. Sea Power, Role in War Search and Destroy Search-and-Rescue Operations Selective Service Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney SHINING BRASS, Operation Shoup, David Monroe Sigma I and II Sihanouk, Norodom Sijan, Lance Peter Simons, Arthur David Sino-French War Sino-Soviet Split Sino-Vietnamese War Sisowath Sirik Matak SLAM Smith, Walter Bedell Snepp, Frank Warren, III SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation Song Be, Battle of Son Tay Raid Son Thang Incident Souphanouvong

List of Entries Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Souvanna Phouma Spellman, Francis Joseph Spock, Benjamin McLane Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam Staley, Eugene STARLITE, Operation Starry, Donn Albert STEEL TIGER, Operation Stennis, John Cornelius Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II Stilwell, Richard Giles Stockdale, James Bond Stockdale, Sybil Bailey Strategic Air Command Strategic Hamlet Program Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Students for a Democratic Society Studies and Observation Group Submachine Guns Sullivan, William Healy Summers, Harry G., Jr. SUNFLOWER, Operation SUNRISE, Operation Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training Swift Boats Swift Boat Veterans for Truth SWITCHBACK, Operation Tache D’Huile Tactical Air Command Tallman, Richard Joseph Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Tan Son Nhut Taoism Tarr, Curtis W. Task Force 116 Task Force Oregon Taylor, Maxwell Davenport Taylor-McNamara Report Taylor-Rostow Mission Tay Ninh Tay Son Rebellion Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins Television and the Vietnam War Territorial Forces Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle TEXAS, Operation TEXAS STAR, Operation Thailand

Thanh Hoa Bridge Thanh Thai Thich Quang Duc Thich Tri Quang Thieu Tri Thomas, Allison Kent Thomas, Norman Mattoon Thompson, Hugh, Jr. Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thud Ridge THUNDERHEAD, Operation Tianjin, Treaty of Tiger Cages TIGER HOUND, Operation Tinker v. Des Moines TOAN THANG, Operation To Huu Ton Duc Thang Tonkin Ton That Dinh Ton That Thuyet Top Gun School Torture Tran Buu Kiem Tran Do Tran Dynasty Tran Hung Dao Tran Kim Tuyen Transportation Group 559 Tran Thien Khiem Tran Van Chuong Tran Van Do Tran Van Don Tran Van Giau Tran Van Hai Tran Van Huong Tran Van Lam Tran Van Tra Trieu Au Trieu Da Trinh Lords Truman, Harry S. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Truong Chinh Truong Dinh Dzu Truong Nhu Tang Truong Son Corridor Truong Son Mountains Tsuchihashi Yuitsu Tu Duc Tuesday Lunch Group Tunnel Rats

xxi

xxii

List of Entries

Tunnels Tu Ve Tuyen Quang, Siege of Twining, Nathan Farragut U Minh Forest Uniforms Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UNION I and II, Operations UNIONTOWN, Operation United Front United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars United Nations and the Vietnam War United Services Organization United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present United States, Nongovernmental Organizations, 1954–Present United States Agency for International Development United States Air Force United States Army United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii United States Army Special Services United States Coast Guard United States Congress and the Vietnam War United States Department of Justice United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam United States Information Agency United States Joint Chiefs of Staff United States Marine Corps United States Merchant Marine United States Navy United States Reserve Components United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Special Forces United States Veterans Administration United States v. O’Brien United States v. Seeger University of Wisconsin Bombing Ut, Nick UTAH, Operation U Thant Valluy, Jean-Étienne VAN BUREN, Operation Van Cao Vance, Cyrus Roberts

Van Es, Hubert Vang Pao Van Lang Vann, John Paul Van Tien Dung Versace, Humbert Rocque Vessey, John William, Jr. Vientiane Agreement Vientiane Protocol Viet Cong Infrastructure Viet Minh Vietnam, Climate of Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force Vietnam, Republic of, Army Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos Vietnam, Republic of, Da Lat Military Academy Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps Vietnam, Republic of, National Police Vietnam, Republic of, Navy Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Vietnamese Communist Party Vietnamese Culture Vietnamese National Army Vietnam Information Group Vietnamization Vietnam Magazine Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang Vietnam Syndrome Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Memorial Vietnam Veterans of America Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes Vinh Vo Chi Cong Vogt, John W., Jr. Voices in Vital America Vo Nguyen Giap Vo Tran Chi Vo Van Ba

List of Entries Vo Van Kiet Vu Hong Khanh VULTURE, Operation Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong Spy Case Vung Tau Vu Oanh Vu Quoc Thuc Vu Van Giai Wage and Price Controls Waldron, Adelbert F., III Wallace, George Corley, Jr. Walt, Lewis William Ware, Keith Lincoln Warnke, Paul Culliton War Powers Act War Resisters League Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Wars of National Liberation War Zone C and War Zone D WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation Washington Special Actions Group Watergate Scandal Weathermen Webb, James Henry, Jr. Wei Guoqing Weiss, Cora Welsh v. United States

Westmoreland, William Childs Weyand, Frederick Carlton Wheeler, Earle Gilmore WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation White Star Mobile Training Teams Wild Weasels Williams, Samuel Tankersley Wilson, James Harold Wilson, Thomas Woodrow Wise Men Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Women Strike for Peace Woodstock Xa Loi Pagoda Raid Xuan Loc, Battle of Xuan Thuy Yankee Station YANKEE TEAM, Operation YELLOWSTONE, Operation Yen Bai Mutiny Youth International Party Zhou Enlai Zorthian, Barry Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr.

xxiii

This page intentionally left blank

List of Maps

General Maps Map Key: xxix French Indochina, 1954: xxx Provinces of North Vietnam: xxxi Provinces of South Vietnam: xxxii Cease-Fire Areas of Control, January 1973: xxxiii Collapse of South Vietnam, March–April 1975: xxxiv

Demilitarized Zone: 279 Ethnology of Vietnam: 353 Expansion of Imperial Vietnam: 1256 French Conquest of Indochina, 1858–1893: 399 French Reoccupation of Indochina, September 1945–August 1946: 397 Indochina War: Situation in 1953: 1236 Indochina War in Northern Vietnam, 1946–1954: 534 Infiltration Routes: 504 Operation CEDAR FALLS, January 8–26, 1967: 181 Operation LAM SON 719, February 8–March 24, 1971: 618 Operation ROLLING THUNDER: Bombing Restrictions: 123 Operation ROLLING THUNDER, March 2, 1965–October 31, 1968: 992 Siege of Khe Sanh, January–April 1968: 581 South Vietnam: 752 Tet Offensive: Battle for Saigon, January–February 1968: 1106 III Corps Tactical Zone in South Vietnam: 241 Vietnamese Invasion of Cambodia and Sino-Vietnamese War, 1978–1979: 1047

Entry Maps Air War in Southeast Asia: 33 Ambush at LZ Albany, November 17, 1965: 620 Battle of Dak To, November 1967: 255 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, March 13–May 7, 1954: 295 Battle of Hamburger Hill, May 11–20, 1969: 448 Battle of Hue, January 31–February 25, 1968: 518 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, October 19–November 26, 1965: 529 Cambodian Incursion, April 29–July 22, 1970: 159 Corps Tactical Zones in South Vietnam: 1189

xxv

This page intentionally left blank

General Maps

This page intentionally left blank

Map Key X

Generic Troops

Brigade III

Cavalry

Regiment II

Forces/Troops/Infantry

Battalion I

Armored

Company

Armored Cavalry

Fortification/Redoubts

Mechanized

Fort/Station/Military Base

Air Assault

Battery/Artillery

International Boundary

Palisade

Major Roads

City

Minefields/Landmines

State Capital

Battle Site

Capital (of country)

Railroad

Bridge/Pass

Army Group

Hills

Army

Military Camp

Corps

Swamp

Division

Surrender

XXXXX

XXXX

XXX

XX

xxix

xxx

General Maps

General Maps

xxxi

xxxii

General Maps

General Maps

xxxiii

xxxiv

General Maps

Q Quach Tom Birth Date: 1932 Death Date: August 26, 1997 Vietnamese commando who parachuted into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in a joint operation sponsored by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the U.S. Military Command, Vietnam (MACV). An ethnic Hmong born in Hoa Binh Province in 1932, Quach Tom served with the French during the Indochina War. In 1965 he was recruited into a South Vietnamese commando unit; the following year as a sergeant he was deputy commander of a team that was dropped into North Vietnam to disrupt infiltration into South Vietnam. North Vietnamese authorities had been informed in advance of the parachute drop, and Quach was the only member of his unit not immediately captured. In fact, he managed to avoid capture for nearly three months, longer than any other commando sent into North Vietnam by U.S. authorities. In 1996 declassified documents revealed that the U.S. government had lied to the “widows” of commandos sent into North Vietnam by declaring all of them dead. Quach’s wife was so notified and was paid a $50 gratuity. Sedgwick Tourison, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, has identified some 360 surviving commandos. Quach survived almost 19 years of harsh imprisonment, including torture and near starvation. Released following the end of the Vietnam War, he lived in Vietnam in poverty. Quach arrived in the United States in 1996. His lawyer, John C. Mattes, sued in federal court on behalf of the commandos and lobbied both Congress and President Bill Clinton for compensatory legislation. Such legislation was introduced by senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Bob

Kerrey (D-Neb.) to provide $20 million to the commandos, about $40,000 each. The legislation was passed into law, but there was further delay when Mattes demanded 23 percent of the total settlement rather than the 10 percent allowed under the law. The resulting court case further delayed the payments to the commandos. The outcome came too late for Quach Tom. He died in Chamblee, Georgia, on August 26, 1997. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Central Intelligence Agency; Hmongs; Kerry, John Forbes; Operation Plan 34A; Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos Reference Tourison, Sedgwick D. Project Alpha: Washington’s Secret Military Operations in North Vietnam. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.

Quadrillage/Ratissage Key elements in the tache d’huile (“oil slick”) pacification method pursued by French forces during the Indochina War. The technique involved splitting up the territory to be pacified into grids or squares. Once this gridding (quadrillage) had been accomplished, a raking (ratissage) of each square was then performed by pacification forces familiar with the area. If carried out on a regular basis by a sufficient number of troops the method could be successful, but French forces in Indochina never had the numbers of men necessary to carry it out. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Tache D’Huile

952

Quang Ngai

Reference Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967.

References Anderson, David L., ed. Facing My Lai: Moving beyond the Massacre. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Penguin, 1992.

Quang Ngai Province located on the south-central coast of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (formerly the Republic of Vietnam [RVN, South Vietnam] until 1975) with a population in 2008 of some 1.26 million people. Quang Ngai, situated south of Da Nang and Hue, was a relatively underdeveloped area during the Vietnam War. The provincial capital, also called Quang Ngai, is situated astride the Tra Khuc River and has long been the center of rebellions, including the Tay Son Rebellion in the late 18th century. During French colonial rule there were numerous disturbances in the province. In the Indochina War, Quang Ngai was a Viet Minh stronghold. The province gained fame as the location of the first successful Vietnamese Communist uprising in 1945 (the Ba To Insurrection on March 11, 1945), which took place more than four months before Ho Chi Minh’s government seized power in Hanoi. A number of prominent Vietnamese Communist figures, including Prime Minister Pham Van Dong of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Communist lieutenant general Tran Van Tra, were natives of Quang Ngai Province. Because of the Communists’ strength in Quang Ngai, in 1962 when the Strategic Hamlet Program was introduced, many fortified hamlets were established in the province in an effort to erode the influence of the Viet Cong (VC). The Strategic Hamlet Program failed, and the VC continued to build up their support in Quang Ngai’s local communities, most of which resented their forced relocation. Attacks on South Vietnamese officials and later U.S. soldiers in the region led to bitter fighting and reprisal attacks. When U.S. ground troops began arriving in South Vietnam in 1965, one of the first large American base camps was built at Chu Lai in Quang Ngai Province, and the first major battle involving U.S. ground troops was also fought in Quang Ngai (Operation STARLITE on the Batangan peninsula). Most of the bridges and much of the provincial infrastructure of Quang Ngai were destroyed in the fighting. American journalist Jonathan Schell has estimated that some 70 percent of the villages around the provincial capital were destroyed. The My Lai hamlet complex, where hundreds of Vietnamese civilians were massacred by U.S. soldiers on March 16, 1968, is located in Quang Ngai Province northeast of the provincial capital and is the site of tourist excursions. Others are drawn to visit the province for its splendid beaches and Cham temples. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also My Lai Massacre; Pham Van Dong; STARLITE, Operation; Strategic Hamlet Program; Tran Van Tra; Viet Cong Infrastructure; Viet Minh

Quang Tri, Battle of Start Date: March 30, 1972 End Date: September 15, 1972 One of the opening battles of the three-pronged 1972 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) Easter Offensive. In preparation for the battle, Hanoi had moved longrange 130-millimeter (mm) field guns and 152-mm howitzers to positions just north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). On March 30, 1972, under supporting fire from heavy artillery, the PAVN launched a coordinated ground attack spearheaded by almost 200 armored vehicles, primarily T-54 and PT-76 tanks, across the DMZ and down from the west through Khe Sanh. Four PAVN divisions moved into Quang Tri Province in Military Region I. The newly formed Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 3rd Division, charged with defending Quang Tri, was overwhelmed by the PAVN onslaught, and many units fled in panic. The situation for the ARVN was exacerbated by friction between its troops and Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) marines also operating in the area. Thus, the continuity of the South Vietnamese defensive effort in Quang Tri Province was fatally weakened from the beginning. In addition to these problems, cloud cover during the first two weeks of April inhibited U.S. close air support; when the weather cleared in mid-April, however, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes were heavy. Undaunted, PAVN forces crossed the Cam Lo–Cua Viet River barrier and attacked Quang Tri City from three directions, while heavy artillery struck hard at ARVN forces south of the city. On April 27 cloud cover returned, and the PAVN 304th Division increased the intensity of its attack. Thousands of South Vietnamese refugees flooded Highway 1, streaming south toward Hue. The PAVN targeted the road, indiscriminately shelling the capital city and the road south. So many civilians were killed by PAVN direct and indirect fire on a .3-mile stretch of Highway 1 at Truong Phuoc Bridge, 10 miles south of Quang Tri, that it became known to most Vietnamese as Doan Duong Kinh Hoang (“Road of Horrors”). Dong Ha fell on April 28, and on May 1 PAVN forces took Quang Tri City, with the rest of the province falling under its control two days later. The PAVN offensive then stalled and degenerated into a stalemate. Toward the end of the summer South Vietnamese forces, buoyed by massive U.S. Boeing B-52 Stratofortress air support and somewhat rejuvenated by new senior leadership, launched a counteroffensive. After weeks of intense house-to-house fighting,

Qui Nhon

953

U.S. marines run for cover after setting a demolition charge in a building during the 1972 Battle of Quang Tri. (National Archives)

on September 15 ARVN forces recaptured Quang Tri City. The next day the South Vietnamese flag was raised over its citadel. The fighting and bombing had almost completely obliterated the city. South Vietnamese forces had suffered 977 killed and 4,370 wounded, but the North Vietnamese attackers had been stopped and pushed back. PAVN casualties were set at 8,135 killed. This action and the ARVN victories at Kontum and An Loc effectively foiled the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive of 1972. Casualties for the whole of Quang Tri Province in the offensive were some 10,000 killed in action for PAVN forces, while the ARVN lost 2,000 killed and 9,000 wounded. JAMES H. WILLBANKS

Ngo Quang Truong. The Easter Offensive of 1972. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

See also An Loc, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamization; Vo Nguyen Giap

Qui Nhon

References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Military Science Institute. Chien Dich Tien Cong Quang Tri, 1972 (Mat) [Quang Tri Offensive Campaign, 1972 (Secret)]. Hanoi: Military Science Institute, 1976.

Quang Trung See Nguyen Hue

Coastal city in central Vietnam (Socialist Republic of Vietnam), south of Da Nang, in what was until 1975 the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Qui Nhon, with a population in 2008 of some 245,000 people, is the capital of Binh Dinh Province. The region was occupied as early as medieval times by the Cham people. It was also the location in the 1770s and 1780s of the Tay Son Rebellion. Because of its strategic location astride the main road connecting Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) with Da Nang and Hue, many U.S., South Vietnamese, and South Korea soldiers were deployed at Qui Nhon to prevent the Vietnamese Communists from capturing the city, and it became an important U.S.

954 Quoc Ngu base and supply center. The U.S. Air Force also built an air base south of the city. One of the first U.S. air strikes against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), in February 1965, was launched in retaliation for a Viet Cong (VC) terrorist bombing in Qui Nhon that killed 23 American servicemen. Many refugees from neighboring areas moved to Qui Nhon for safety, and soon there was a shantytown around it. Dominating Qui Nhon is the Long Khanh Pagoda (originally founded in about 1700), which was damaged in fighting during the Indochina War but was restored in 1957. In 1963 Buddhist monks from Qui Nhon were involved in protests against the government of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. Subsequent South Vietnamese governments supported the pagoda, with a new bell being cast in 1970. After the departure of U.S. and South Korean soldiers in the early 1970s, the city suffered some economic decline, although it has now become a popular tourist destination because of its affordable accommodations and its beaches. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Buddhism in Vietnam; FLAMING DART I and II, Operations; Ngo Dinh Diem References Halberstadt, Hans. War Stories of the Green Berets. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1994. Sympson, Kenneth P. Images from the Otherland: Memoir of a United States Marine Corps Artillery Officer in Vietnam. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995.

Quoc Ngu A writing system for Vietnamese based on the Roman alphabet. Literally translated as “national language,” quoc ngu was created

in the 17th century by Catholic missionaries from Portugal, Spain, Italy, and France to translate prayer books and catechisms. The most important role in this process has been attributed to Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit priest, who published his Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum in Rome in 1651. Until the middle of the 19th century, quoc ngu was used only by Catholic missionaries and their followers. It began to be taught in schools in Cochin China (southern Vietnam) when this part of the country became a French colony. The colonial administration used quoc ngu as a means to eliminate the political and cultural influence of Vietnamese Confucian scholars. The first newspaper published in quoc ngu was the Gia Dinh Ba, and its first writers were Truong Vinh Ky and Huynh Tinh Cua. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, Confucian scholars in the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc school used quoc ngu as an instrument to spread new ideas and knowledge of Western science among the population. However, only when the traditional triennial examinations were abolished between 1915 and 1918 did quoc ngu become established as the national writing system for the Vietnamese language, replacing Chinese characters. PHAM CAO DUONG See also De Rhodes, Alexandre; French Indochina, 1860s–1946 References Nguyen Dinh Hoa. Language in Vietnamese Society: Some Articles by Nguyen Dinh Hoa. Carbondale, IL: Asia Books, 1980. Nguyen Khac Kham. “Vietnamese National Language and Modern Vietnamese Literature.” East Asian Cultural Studies [Tokyo] 15(1–4) (1976): 177–194. Nguyen The Anh. “Introduction à la connaissance de la peninsule indochinoise: Le Viet Nam.” In Tuyen Tap Ngon Ngu Van Tu [Viet Nam, Essays on Vietnamese Language and Writing], edited by Ha Mai Phuong, 120–141. Campbell, CA: Dong Viet, 1993.

R Racial Violence within the U.S. Military Racial violence was a major problem in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. In the early years of American involvement in Vietnam, incidents of racial violence were sporadic and usually involved clashes between individuals or small groups. The nature of racial violence began to change, however, after the January 1968 Tet Offensive and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April 1968. By then, all of the essentials needed to trigger racial violence in the armed forces were in place. One of the main triggers was the rapid expansion of the armed forces to more than 500,000 troops in Vietnam. The draft was the primary vehicle for raising manpower, meaning that many of the men serving during the war were reluctant conscripts rather than volunteers. Many had come from racially exclusive backgrounds and had experienced little interaction with members of other ethnic or racial groups. There was also a widespread but essentially false belief in the African American community that the draft was racist and that blacks were being drafted and sent to Vietnam in disproportionate numbers to whites and other groups. The Vietnam War also occurred during the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement, and some inductees were militants or black separatists already convinced that the military was inherently racist. In addition, once inducted many minorities experienced institutional and personal racism in assignments, in promotions, and in the military justice system. The rotation policy, based on yearlong tours of duty in Vietnam, was another contributing factor to racial unrest in the military. Because the norm was to rotate individuals (and not whole units) in and out of Vietnam, the cohesion of units and familiarity and trust among members of a unit were destroyed. The nature of

military installations also complicated the problem. Many, such as Camp Lejeune in North Carolina or the expansive compound at Long Binh in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), were overcrowded, with a large percentage of military population composed of transients or men on temporary assignment. The problem was further compounded by the rapid turnover of officers at the unit level. Because the Pentagon wanted officers to be broadly trained and exposed to a variety of challenges, the standard combat officer command tour was six months before the officer was transferred to a staff assignment. Two developments in particular seem to have been the watershed for racial violence: the general disintegration of morale, especially after the Tet Offensive, and the assassination of Dr. King, which fueled feelings of alienation and discontent already present among African Americans in the armed forces. The first major cases of racial violence during the war occurred after these two events in the summer of 1968 at two military prisons in South Vietnam: the U.S. Army’s Long Binh Stockade and the U.S. Navy Brig at Da Nang. Major problems throughout the U.S. military establishment began in 1969, first with a racial gang fight at Camp Lejeune during July 20–21, 1969. This was followed by similar incidents at Millington Naval Air Station in Memphis, Tennessee, and Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station in Hawaii as well as fights and riots at installations in Okinawa, Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany), and South Vietnam. No service was immune to racially motivated violence, but major problems did not erupt in the U.S. Navy until quite late in the war. In October 1972 hundreds of sailors brawled on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, followed a few days later by

956

Racial Violence within the U.S. Military

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr. (left center) listens to sailors of the Seventh Fleet discuss racial tensions, which mirrored those in American society as a whole. (Naval Historical Center)

racial violence on the oiler Hassayampa. There was similar unrest on the carrier Constellation in November 1972. The violence usually took one of two forms: a rumble or gang fight between large numbers of individuals on both sides or, more commonly, fights between individuals or small groups headhunting and ambushing individuals of another race. Most of the racial violence occurred during off-duty hours and usually at places of entertainment such as bars and noncommissioned officers’ clubs on military bases. The most immediate and common catalysts of racial violence were alcohol, music, women, and the use of racial pejoratives. Despite such animosity, the majority of service personnel of all races worked well together, and incidents of racial violence during working hours were uncommon. They were virtually unheard of in combat units in the field, where the need to work together to stay alive against a common enemy helped forge the bonds of trust and unit cohesion lacking in noncombat formations. The military reacted to the outbreak of racial violence by attempting to identify and eliminate the militants and troublemakers while acceding to the demands of black military personnel for legitimate reforms, such as the programs instituted by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, chief of naval operations, during the latter stages of the Vietnam War. During 1970–1972 the U.S. Navy put in place

more than 200 new race-related programs and expanded and reconfirmed its commitment to existing ones. All were designed to lessen racial tensions, educate personnel on issues of race, and foster mutual respect and camaraderie. The end of the draft and the Vietnam War in 1973 combined with the implementation of reforms and the expulsion of militants led to a decline in racial unrest within the ranks, but problems continued to plague the military to varying degrees for several years after the war. JAMES EDWARD WESTHEIDER See also Civil Rights Movement; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr. References Binkin, Martin, Mark J. Eitelberg, et al. Blacks in the Military. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1982. Foner, Jack D. Blacks and the Military in American History. New York: Praeger, 1973. Graham, Herman, III. The Brothers’ Vietnam War: Black Power, Manhood, and the Military Experience. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Westheider, James. The African-American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Westheider, James. Fighting on Two Fronts: African-Americans and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

Radford, Arthur William

957

Radford, Arthur William Birth Date: February 27, 1896 Death Date: August 17, 1973 U.S. Navy admiral and chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1953–1957. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on February 27, 1896, Arthur William Radford graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1916. He served on transatlantic convoy duty during World War I and thereafter encouraged the development of naval airpower. Rising through the ranks to captain in January 1942 and to rear admiral that July, Radford saw extensive service in the Pacific theater during World War II, where he commanded aircraft carriers against Japanese forces in various island campaigns. After the war he was promoted to vice admiral in January 1946 and was appointed deputy chief of naval operations for air, responsible for managing naval aviation. In January 1948 he was promoted to admiral and appointed vice chief of naval operations. In May 1949 he took command of the Pacific Fleet, leading it during the Korean War. He was one of the principal members of the so-called Revolt of the Admirals that protested the Harry S. Truman administration’s naval policies. In June 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Radford chairman of the JCS. He was reappointed to that position in August 1955 and retired in August 1957. Radford believed that Indochina was extremely significant strategically. Predicting ominous results if France was defeated there, he urged the JCS to employ American air strikes in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Confident of victory, Radford thought that France had gained the upper hand against the Viet Minh. When in March French chief of staff General Paul Ély asked for U.S. military intervention to boost France’s bargaining position at the Geneva Conference, Radford favored implementing Operation VULTURE, a proposed U.S. bombing mission against Viet Minh siege positions around Dien Bien Phu. Despite Admiral Radford’s enthusiasm for air raids, President Eisenhower refused to contemplate bombing in the absence of endorsements from Congress and the allies, particularly Britain. Supported by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Radford tried to garner congressional sanction for the chief executive’s discretionary use of air strikes. However, a number of prominent legislators turned down the plea because the United Kingdom had declined participation in the effort to save the French. During discussions about possible American involvement in Indochina, Radford advanced some unique notions. Besides his recommendation for the employment of tactical nuclear weapons at Dien Bien Phu, he suggested that the United States assist in forming an “International Volunteer Air Corps.” For political reasons, General Ély rejected Radford’s idea to increase the number of U.S. advisers available to train Vietnamese forces and showed only slight concern when Radford urged the use of psychological and unconventional methods.

Admiral Arthur W. Radford was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during 1949–1953. During 1953–1957, Radford was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Corbis)

Two years later Radford offered the National Security Council a modified strategy to defeat an aggressor in Southeast Asia. He argued that the United States should contain the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) with airpower. The U.S. Army would play only a restricted role; ground forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) would bear primary responsibility for stopping the invader. Army strategists expressed dissatisfaction with Radford’s concepts. Radford retired from the U.S. Navy in August 1957. He died on August 17, 1973, at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington, D.C. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Ély, Paul Henri Romuald; Twining, Nathan Farragut; VULTURE, Operation References Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention in Vietnam. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Short, Anthony. The Origins of the Vietnam War. London: Longman, 1989. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

958

Radio Direction Finding

Radio Direction Finding The study of radio signal origins, targets, frequency of communications, and extent of command nets. Radio direction finding (RDF) and associated signals intelligence activities were utilized by the major antagonists in Indochina at least as early as the beginning of World War II. RDF provides essential information about command structure and unit deployment. Two of the most important signals intelligence activities are to locate enemy headquarters and track troop movements. During the Indochina War, Viet Minh communications, including RDF data gathered by an American facility in Manila, were exchanged for signals intelligence from French intercept stations in Vietnam and Laos. Subsequently, during the Vietnam War the Army Security Agency, the Air Force Security Service, and the Naval Security Group were deployed in the Indochina region under the operational control of the National Security Agency (NSA), which had responsibility for the centralized coordination, direction, and performance of American signals intelligence. Ground installations included Phu Bai, Da Nang, Pleiku, Tan Son Nhut, Con Son Island, and Cam Ranh Bay in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam); Nakhon Phanom and Udorn in Thailand; bases in the Philippines; and the cooperating British facility at Little Sai Wan in Hong Kong. Phu Bai, equipped and technically assisted by Taiwan, had previously been the only similar installation within South Vietnam. Mobile capabilities included U.S. Navy ships and aircraft, U.S. Army aircraft as well as teams at division and separate brigade level, U.S. Marine Corps elements, and U.S. Air Force aircraft such as the Douglas EC-47 Skytrain/Dakota, Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star, and Lockheed EC-130 Commando Solo. Allied RDF depended on obtaining two or more readings, from different locations, of the direction of a Communist transmitter. A line of position (LOP) would be plotted for each reading. After several LOPs were obtained on a transmitter, the lines would converge on a common point (or fix), indicating the physical location of the transmitter. Techniques used by the Communists in attempts to thwart RDF included using mobile transmitters carried by vehicles, transmitting in extremely short bursts, repeatedly changing frequency and power output, and ceasing transmission upon the approach of allied aircraft. The limitations of RDF were demonstrated when U.S. intelligence analysts were misled into thinking that a Communist division was deployed along the Cambodian border when in fact it had approached Bien Hoa to participate in the Tet Offensive. To deceive allied intelligence, the division’s transmitters had been left at a border site. Throughout the Vietnam War there were numerous incidents of swift reaction to RDF information, enabling ground forces, artillery, tactical aircraft, and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers to attack Communist forces, often precluding or disrupting operations. Eventually airborne RDF, by which a single aircraft could rapidly obtain a fix on a transmitter, became the most important single source of intelligence for allied ground commanders in Indochina.

Notable instances of RDF successes include the 1967 Battle of Dak To and the 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh. With the assistance of RDF, every company and battalion of the two People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) divisions besieging Khe Sanh were located. During the Tet Offensive, RDF was particularly useful at Ban Me Thuot and Nha Trang. In the Mekong Delta as other sources of information dried up during Tet, the Mobile Riverine Force became almost completely dependent on RDF for intelligence. GLENN E. HELM See also Dak To, Battle of; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle References Bergen, John D. Military Communications: A Test for Technology. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1986. Fulghum, David, and Terrence Maitland. South Vietnam on Trial, Mid-1970 to 1972. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. LeGro, William E. “The Enemy’s Jungle Cover Was No Match for the Finding Capabilities of the Army’s Radio Research Units.” Vietnam 3 (June 1990): 12–20. “U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir.” Ramparts (August 1972): 35–50.

RANCH HAND,

Operation

Start Date: January 12, 1962 End Date: January 7, 1971 Code name for U.S. missions during the Vietnam War involving the aerial spraying of herbicides. RANCH HAND operations evolved from two primary objectives: to deny Communist forces the use of thick jungle cover through defoliation and to deny them access to food crops in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In 1961 in the face of increasing pressure from the Viet Cong (VC), South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem intensified his requests for U.S. assistance. On November 30, 1961, President John F. Kennedy approved the use of herbicides in Vietnam. Political and other events leading to that decision signaled its importance. While the agricultural use of herbicides in the United States was climbing, with annual spraying occurring on more than 53 million acres, the use by the military had steadily declined for a decade despite the fact that the small Special Aerial Spray Flight (SASF) was upgrading its aircraft from the Douglas C-47 to the Chase Fairchild C-123 Provider. After an extremely effective defoliation experiment at Camp Drum, New York, in 1959 and following a visit to Vietnam by Vice President Lyndon Johnson in May 1961, a joint U.S.–South Vietnamese counterinsurgency center was established. Its principal task was to evaluate the use of herbicides against guerrilla food sources and the thick jungle foliage that shielded VC activities. Dr. James Brown, deputy chief of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Warfare Center, supervised the tests.

RANCH HAND, Operation

In Operation RANCH HAND, the U.S. Air Force sprayed large quantities of herbicides, including Agent Orange, to clear foliage in Vietnam during 1962–1971. The objective of defoliation was to deny Communists a natural environment in which to hide and access to local food crops. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Difficulties abounded. Little was known about the multitude of vegetation found in South Vietnam, and the only airplane available for testing was the old C-47, although some tests included other delivery systems such as the Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw helicopter and a ground-based turbine sprayer. However, the success of these tests led Brown to recommend, through General Maxwell Taylor and Walt W. Rostow, that the SASF from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, be deployed to Vietnam. Expecting President Kennedy’s approval, on November 28, 1961, six C-123s, under Operation FARM GATE and equipped with newly installed MC-1 spray tanks capable of holding 1,000 gallons of herbicide, departed their home station on the first leg of a deployment to South Vietnam. Following a month’s delay in the Philippines, on January 7, 1962, three C-123s arrived at Tan Son Nhut Airport outside Saigon; their crews expected to remain there on temporary duty (TDY) status for less than 90 days. They began operational missions on January 12. Initially their assignment was to clear foliage along a major roadway north of Saigon; later, mangrove forests near the coast and rice-growing areas in the Mekong Delta were added as approved targets. Although the aircrews were using Agent Purple and Agent Blue (military code names for specific herbicides), the results were somewhat less successful than expected. As a result of further testing in Florida, the number of nozzles on each wing boom was decreased from 42 to 35. This was done to increase the droplet size

959

of the herbicide to between 300 and 350 micrometers, which was expected to minimize drift. Another concern was the extremely dangerous mission profile. To ensure accurate delivery of the herbicide, the aircrews needed to fly very low, about 150 feet above the ground, in a straight and level flight path and at a relatively slow airspeed of about 130 miles per hour. In this environment the aircraft were vulnerable to everything from small-arms fire to antiaircraft artillery, especially after 1963. Although tactics changed somewhat throughout the war, the basic herbicide delivery parameters kept the crews constantly at risk. In the early years of the war the small detachment, still composed primarily of TDY aircrews, gradually expanded its operations. Defoliation missions for the three aircraft increased from 60 in 1962 to 107 in 1963 and then to 273 in 1964. Significantly, the difficulty of the aerial tactics increased as operations were expanded from the relatively flat areas surrounding lines of communication in the south to the rugged topography of the mountain passes in the more northern provinces. In October 1964 following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, tactics were further complicated. Previously crop-destruction missions were flown by South Vietnamese helicopter pilots. On October 3 RANCH HAND aircrews, initially with South Vietnamese observers, flew against crop targets in War Zone D north of Saigon. Because crops were planted in tightly defined areas, such as in valleys or small openings in the jungle, delivery tactics in these controlled target areas necessitated the use of more dangerous maneuvering and even dive-bombing approaches to the target box. With this range of tactics and the addition of a fourth aircraft in December 1964, the unit had established its value in the war effort. As a prologue to future growth, 1965 was an important year. To meet the need for more experienced aircrews, TDY personnel were replaced with aircrews assigned for a full year’s rotation. In November three additional aircraft (by then known as the UC-123B) were added to the inventory. Furthermore, while Agent Blue continued to be used against crops, the less costly and more effective Agent Orange was added for jungle-defoliation missions. Finally, 1965 saw a detachment of aircraft deployed to Da Nang Air Base for operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This pattern of exponential growth continued. In 1966 the unit had 14 authorized aircraft, and in 1968 the number was 25; in 1969, 33 of the improved C-123K model aircraft were authorized. With this growth came, in October 1966, a change in name from the 309th Spray Flight to the 12th Air Commando Squadron. Nearly concurrently, the unit moved to Bien Hoa Air Base to increase the logistical efficiency of the operations. With the expansion to squadron status, RANCH HAND aircrews assumed a number of collateral duties, including flying airlift missions during the 1968 Tet Offensive and flying classified missions in Laos and Thailand. Still, the squadron’s primary workload increased. In 1965 RANCH HAND aircrews flew only 897 missions covering 253 square miles of jungle; in 1968, the squadron’s busiest

960

RAND Corporation

year, 5,745 herbicide sorties were flown in addition to 4,000 collateral sorties. The contraction of RANCH HAND operations occurred quickly. In 1969 the results of a five-year study at the National Cancer Institute reached the Department of Defense and confirmed a series of earlier preliminary studies indicating that serious health problems might occur with exposure to herbicides. Public disapproval also erupted when the Cambodian government made an unsubstantiated claim that 170,000 acres of its land had been intentionally sprayed with herbicides. These concerns along with a drastic decrease in funding from a requested $27 million to $3 million under Vietnamization caused a rapid decline in the number of operational sorties flown. In mid-1970 the 12th Air Commando Squadron was reduced to eight aircraft, reassigned to Phan Rang Air Base as a flight unit, and restricted from using Agent Orange, replacing that herbicide with the less effective Agent White. On January 7, 1971, after nine years of operations, RANCH HAND aircrews flew the last three herbicide missions of the war. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Bien Hoa Air Base; Defoliation; FARM GATE, Operation; Herbicides References Buckingham, William. “Operation Ranch Hand.” Air University Review 34 (1983): 42–53. Cecil, Paul F. Herbicidal Warfare: The Ranch Hand Project in Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1986. Wolfe, William. “Health Status of Air Force Veterans Occupationally Exposed to Herbicides in Vietnam.” JAMA 264 (October 10, 1990): 1824–1832.

RAND Corporation U.S. nonprofit think tank initially formed to develop various war scenarios for the U.S. armed forces. The RAND Corporation began as an outgrowth of both British and American operational research groups in World War II. These groups had been composed of scientists from all fields who examined data, theorized about the facts, and predicted future operations. Fearing that these organizations would fade with the end of the war, General Henry “Hap” Arnold sought support for the creation of a permanent U.S. government agency. Finally in March 1946 Theodore Von Karman, head of the Army Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, officially started Air Force Project RAND (an acronym for “research and development”). Major General Curtis LeMay, deputy chief of air staff for research and development, had charge of oversight and guidance for the program. A nonprofit organization, the RAND Corporation was made up of a body of thinkers: physicists, political strategists, economists, and mathematicians. The charter read as follows: “Project RAND is

a continuing program of scientific study and research on the broad subject of air warfare with the object of recommending to the Air Force preferred methods, techniques, and instrumentalities for this purpose.” Initially analysts solely attempted to impose a rational order on the concept of nuclear war. In areas of tactics, RAND officials broke the military sides down into mathematical odds based on the reasonable options available to both sides. RAND analysts wrote essays on where to attack, why armies attacked, and the best weapons to use in a given situation. Their essays and pamphlets influenced an entire generation of military and political leaders. In the 1960s RAND devotees moved into positions of considerable influence with the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy and the appointment of Secretary of State Robert S. McNamara. Many RAND ideas became national policy during the Vietnam War. McNamara’s approach to American involvement in Vietnam in early 1965 stemmed from RAND strategist William Kaufmann’s concepts of limited war. Kaufmann advocated not victory but instead stalemate in which no larger power would be drawn into the war, and the United States could thus convince the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) that the costs of fighting were higher for the Vietnamese than for the Americans. He called for “discreet” methods of destruction rather than the use of nuclear weapons. Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton was a student of RAND policy maker Thomas Schilling. McNaughton advocated the gradual increase of troop strengths and adherence to the limited war concept. The Vietnam conflict disillusioned many intellectuals within RAND, especially Bernard Brodie, one of its founders. Brodie came to the realization that Communist leaders were not irrational barbarians but instead shared many of the same concerns over nuclear weapons expressed by U.S. leaders. Brodie moved away from the idea of providing options for the use of nuclear weapons. He believed that no options existed and that the best option for the United States and the world was a policy of not using or threatening to use weapons of mass destruction. The war also disillusioned Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, a researcher with RAND and one of the authors of a lengthy (47-volume) study of how the United States came to be involved in Vietnam, United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, commonly referred to as “The Pentagon Papers.” Ellsberg made copies of portions of the study available to the press, which resulted in a storm of controversy and helped give birth to the Watergate Scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency. Still, throughout the 1970s and 1980s RAND continued to author strategies for nuclear war, and RAND alumni such as James Schlesinger remained key figures in the government. RAND remains very much involved in defense and national security issues to the present day. The RAND Corporation employs some 1,600 people and has three principal U.S. offices: Santa Monica, California (its headquarters); Washington, D.C. (actually located across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia); and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (near Carnegie Mellon University and the University of

Read, Benjamin Huger Pittsburgh). A fourth office is located in Boston, Massachusetts, and other smaller offices are located elsewhere. RAND publishes The RAND Journal of Economics. To date, 32 recipients of the Nobel Prize, mostly in economics and physics, have been affiliated with RAND at some point in their careers. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; LeMay, Curtis Emerson; McNamara, Robert Strange; McNaughton, John Theodore; Pentagon Papers and Trial; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Schlesinger, James Rodney; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. FitzGerald, Frances. The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. Kaplan, Fred. “Scientists at War: The Birth of the RAND Corporation.” American Heritage (June/July 1983): 49–64.

Raven Forward Air Controllers American airmen controlling air strikes in Laos. The Raven Forward Air Controller program began during the winter of 1965– 1966 with the assignment of U.S. Air Force enlisted personnel who had been trained as forward air guides by the Air Commandos. Using the radio call sign “Butterfly,” they directed attacks by the Royal Lao Air Force and the U.S. Air Force in northern Laos while flying in Air America and Continental Air Services aircraft. In October 1966 with growing numbers of U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers employed in Laos, General William E. Momyer, commander of the Seventh Air Force, inaugurated what was known as the Steve Canyon program to replace the enlisted forward air guides. Under this program, officers who had spent six months in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as forward air controllers were eligible to volunteer for a six-month tour in Laos. Assigned to the U.S. embassy in Vientiane and wearing civilian clothes, they would use the radio call sign “Raven” to direct air strikes in support of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)– led guerrilla forces in northern Laos, or Military Region II. Later they would perform the same task in southern Laos as the war expanded into that part of the country in the late 1960s. The Ravens, free from usual military restraints, sometimes irritated their more traditional superiors. Although they were frequently accused of immature personal behavior, no one doubted their skill or courage. Flying at low levels over the battlefields of Laos, these volunteer airmen played a vital role in bringing airpower to bear against the Communist Pathet Lao and their allies in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The cost proved high. Between 1966 and 1973 more than 30 Ravens lost their lives in the little-noticed but frequently vicious sideshow to the main conflict in Vietnam. WILLIAM M. LEARY

961

See also Air America; Central Intelligence Agency; Continental Air Services; Laos; Momyer, William Wallace; Pathet Lao References Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Robbins, Christopher. The Ravens. New York: Crown, 1987.

Read, Benjamin Huger Birth Date: September 14, 1925 Death Date: March 18, 1993 Attorney and U.S. State Department official (1963–1965). Born on September 14, 1925, in Philadelphia, Benjamin Huger Read was reared in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and received a BA degree from Williams College in 1949. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1952 and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar the same year. He then worked in various legal capacities, including that of public defender in Philadelphia until 1958, at which time he departed for Washington, D.C., as a legislative aide to Senator Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania, for whom Read worked for five years. In 1963 Read became executive secretary to U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk. Rusk, along with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, belonged to a group known around Washington as the “awesome foursome” because of their “Tuesday lunches” with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House. As a result of his association with Rusk, Read had access to the top foreign policy group around the president. Read worked diligently to keep Secretary Rusk, who had virtually no personal staff, apprised of continuing developments in the State Department regarding Vietnam. To ensure secrecy, Read at one point reduced access to the file for Operation MARIGOLD (a 1966 secret peace initiative) to only six people. Read worked with Vice President Hubert Humphrey in his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign and left the State Department in 1969 to become director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1973 Read became the founding president of the German Marshall Fund, which the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) established in appreciation for the Marshall Plan. Read later served as undersecretary of state for management in the Jimmy Carter administration and aided in efforts to secure the release of the U.S. embassy hostages in Iran. At the time of his death in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 1993, Read was president of Ecofund ’92, a group associated with the 1992 Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro. WES WATTERS See also Bundy, McGeorge; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; MARIGOLD, Operation; McNamara, Robert Strange; Rusk, David Dean

962

Reagan, Ronald Wilson

References Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. Rev. and updated edition. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Herring, George C, ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Schoenbaum, Thomas J. Waging Peace and War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Reagan, Ronald Wilson Birth Date: February 11, 1911 Death Date: June 5, 2004 Actor, governor of California (1967–1975), and president of the United States (1981–1989). Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 11, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932. After working as a radio sports announcer, he won a Hollywood contract with Warner Brothers in 1937 and ultimately appeared in 53 films, most of which were B movies. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army reserves in 1937, Reagan served on active duty during 1942–1945 and rose to captain. Most of his active duty was with the 1st Motion Picture Unit that produced training films for the Army Air Forces. He also served as president of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1940s and early 1950s, an experience that involved him in the anti-Communist crusade of the period. By the mid-1950s Reagan, heretofore a staunch Democrat, had become enamored with the political Right. By the early 1960s he was a rising star in the Republican Party’s conservative wing. Reagan was never involved in the Vietnam War or even visited Vietnam. Even so, Vietnam was central to his career and to his agenda as politician and president. A staunch anti-Communist, Reagan strongly supported U.S. intervention in Vietnam. During his 1966 California gubernatorial campaign he propelled himself into office by strongly assailing student antiwar protestors on the campuses of the University of California, particularly those at Berkeley. In his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns between 1966 and 1980 Reagan reaffirmed his continuing suspicion of the Soviet Union and his belief that U.S. intervention in Vietnam was justified both morally and strategically. As president he saw it as part of his mission of national regeneration to eradicate the effects of the Vietnam trauma upon the United States and restore his country’s pride and self-confidence. He also continued the policy of nonrecognition of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Ironically, in practice Reagan was extremely cautious in committing U.S. military forces in action abroad, and his concern with avoiding long and politically damaging foreign military entanglements was symptomatic of the continuing legacy of the Vietnam War for American politicians. However, throughout the 1980s his administration actively opposed left-wing movements in Central America with an ideo-

logical determination similar to that directed toward Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s. Reagan also engaged the United States in a major arms buildup so that his administration could confront the Soviets from a position of strength. After the mid-1980s Reagan, who had earlier eschewed détente with the Soviets and refused to be bound by arms limitation agreements, began working closely with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. By the time Reagan left office he had eased Cold Wars tensions markedly and engaged the Soviet Union in a succession of arms reduction treaties. Domestically Reagan’s presidency enjoyed mixed success. While he certainly restored Americans’ confidence in their nation and government, his economic policies resulted in huge budget deficits and a widening gap between rich and poor. His administration also abolished or cut back numerous social programs, which only exacerbated the gap between rich and poor. Reagan was also hurt politically by the Iran-Contra Affair, which had involved members of his administration illicitly selling U.S. arms to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, in direct violation of a congressional directive that no government money be used to fund the Contras. In 1989 following the end of his second term as president, Reagan retired from public life. Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease,

Ronald Reagan was president of the United States during 1981–1989. A staunch conservative and anti-Communist, while he was governor of California Reagan had strongly and vocally supported U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (Library of Congress)

Red River Fighter Pilots Association he remained in virtual seclusion until his death in Los Angeles on June 5, 2004. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Bush, George Herbert Walker; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Cannon, Lou. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Dallek, Robert. Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Johnson, Haynes. Sleepwalking through History: America in the Reagan Years. New York: Norton, 1991. Reagan, Ronald. My Early Life; or, Where’s the Rest of Me. New York: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1981. Reagan, Ronald. Ronald Reagan: An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Red River Delta The geographical heartland of northern Vietnam. The Red River Delta, an alluvial accumulation at the mouth of the Red River in northern Vietnam, extends from 50 miles north of Hanoi southeastward to the Gulf of Tonkin. Narrower and more shallow than the Mekong Delta 800 miles to the extreme south, the flat and fertile Red River Delta is encircled by bordering highlands and plateaus and houses a concentrated population of rice farmers. The Red River Delta is of late geological origin, formed by silt carried along by the Black and Clear rivers that empty their deposits into the Red River 30 miles north of Hanoi. Consequently, the Red River Delta is steadily expanding farther and farther into the ocean at an annual rate of 200 feet per year. The Black and Clear rivers likewise channel into the Red River, as a rule, about 141,000 cubic feet of surging water each second, which saturates the delta region from Viet Tri to the shoreline. In arid years, however, the rate can drop under 24,600 cubic feet, meaning that the waters of the Red River cannot reach all of the parched farmlands along its path. When rainfalls exceed normal, the Red River ascends to perilous levels. Since China’s reign over Tonkin, hydraulic controls have been used to check, route, and garner the overflow by construction of dikes, canals, and dams. By 1968 two high earthen dikes had been erected along each side of the river that funneled the Red River down the delta and regulated its raging waters. Spreading over some 15,000 miles, the entire dike system aids transportation with a line of roadways atop the dikes. Despite the vulnerability of the dikes to air attack, during the Vietnam War the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) did not officially recommend their targeting except for the destruction of levees around Nam Dinh in 1972. During the war Tonkin’s Red River Delta experienced continuous food shortages, which were partially offset by imports, mainly from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union. Rice surpluses shipped north from the Mekong Delta as well as

963

the use by Tonkinese farmers of intensive agricultural techniques such as night soil, irrigation, and planting a second crop have contributed to meeting the food needs of a growing Vietnamese population. The Red River Delta offers Indochina the best opportunity for industrialization. With proximate mineral abundance in the Annamite Cordillera and the northern mountains as well as climatic variety encouraging industrial staples such as cotton and sugarcane, the Hanoi regime’s goal of creating economic well-being through industrial development could be attained, aided by the port of Haiphong’s access to the Gulf of Tonkin and its road and rail connections. The delta area already has a number of established secondary industries such as cement, paper, textiles, and chemicals. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Dikes, Red River Delta; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Mekong Delta; Tonkin References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Dutt, Ashok K., ed. Southeast Asia: Realm of Contrasts. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. Fisher, Charles A. Southeast Asia: A Social, Economic and Political Geography. New York: Dutton, 1966.

Red River Fighter Pilots Association An organization first conceptualized in 1967 by U.S. fighter pilots in Vietnam as a means by which to share information and common experiences and to aid in the investigation of missing-inaction (MIA) and prisoner-of-war (POW) issues. The Red River Fighter Pilots Association, also known simply as the River Rats, also includes members who piloted other aircraft in Vietnam. The first official meeting of the organization can be traced back to May 1967, when a group of active-duty fighter, bomber, and tanker pilots convened at Korat Thai Air Base in Korat, Thailand, to engage in a dialogue on aerial tactics, which was actually a followup meeting to a more formal symposium that had been held at Ubon, Thailand, in the early winter of 1967. At the May meeting an officer hung a banner proclaiming “Welcome, Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association,” giving name to the organization that continues more than 40 years later. In the summer of 1967 another gathering was held that was proclaimed the second reunion of the group; here the members formally adopted the sobriquet “River Rats” and selected the organization’s emblem. Several other reunions were held during succeeding months at air bases around Southeast Asia, and over the course of time the organization decided to focus on MIA/POW issues as its chief call to service. In the spring of 1969 the group was formally chartered, and it held its first meeting in the United States at Wichita, Kansas,

964

Reeducation Camps

in the late summer of 1969. Here the idea of a Freedom Bell, to be rung when POWs returned home, was fully conceptualized. The bell became an integral part of ceremonies for returning POWs. Since the early 1970s the River Rats have focused primarily on MIA/POW issues, creating awareness of the sacrifices they made and the problems they faced once they had returned home. The group has also created scholarships and offered financial support to families and children of MIAs and POWs. The aid has gone largely to children and families of U.S. airmen lost or taken prisoner in Southeast Asia. Later the River Rats expanded the focus of their organization to include children and families of airmen lost in later conflicts, including the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran in 1980, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the organization’s Web site, by 2004 the Red River Valley Pilots Association had dispersed more than 900 scholarship grants, worth more than $1.5 million, to children and survivors of aircrew members killed or taken prisoner. The organization for many years remained at the forefront of the MIA/POW question. The group continues to hold an annual reunion convention in the United States each year. Part of its mission continues to be the provisioning of a forum in which former and active-duty airmen and airwomen may discuss technological advancements and tactical concepts of airpower and exchange information and experiences. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Prisoners of War, Allied; United States Air Force References Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976.

Reeducation Camps Camps established in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos following the victories of Communist forces there to detain dissidents, enemies of the state, and criminals. The camps were based on the dozen so-called production camps established in northern Vietnam after 1947. Many more were added after 1954, and all were renamed “reeducation camps.” The most notorious of these were Ly Ba Su, named for its camp chief, and Cong Troi (“Gate to Heaven”). After the Communist victory in April 1975, many more such camps were built in southern Vietnam, a number of them located at former U.S. and Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) military bases. These camps held officials of the defeated South Vietnamese government, former Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers, former schoolteachers, and employees of the U.S. military. Figures vary on the numbers of prisoners held, but Ginette Sagan and Stephen Denney estimated

that more than 1 million Vietnamese were kept in more than 150 camps, subcamps, and prisons. Sagan and Denny claim that some 500,000 prisoners were released within the first three months, that 200,000 remained in the camps between two and four years, that some 240,000 spent at least five years, and that in 1983 some 60,000 people remained. This coincides closely with figures released in 1980 by the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) when it informed Amnesty International that 1 million Vietnamese were held for “short reeducation courses,” and about 40,000 were detained for longer purposes. In addition to political prisoners detained after April 30, 1975, reeducation camps also kept common lawbreakers. These individuals had been sentenced by courts or incarcerated without trial by decision of district Public Security chiefs under authority of Resolution 49 to three-year terms, which could be renewed without limit. Conditions in the camps varied widely. Although the systematic brutality of such camps in the early Soviet Union was not the pattern in Vietnam, there were occasional beatings, acts of torture, and even executions. Medical care also varied widely, and hard physical labor was interposed with political “study” (indoctrination) sessions. Each camp had an incommunicado ward of dark cells. Here inmates violating camp regulations were put in stocks for periods ranging from 1 week to 14 months (the longest time known). One of the instructions for the camp guards, who freely shared the instruction with the prisoners, was the following: “We [Public Security personnel] must exploit prisoner labor to the fullest extent for the benefit of our socialist society . . . as the Soviet Union has done.” Beatings and torture were freely meted out to prisoners incarcerated for criminal offenses, even for stealing a bit of food. Political prisoners were treated somewhat better, although any escape attempt would bring torture and even death, apparently under orders from higher authorities. The SRV freed many of the political inmates in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Beginning in 1982, the SRV on several occasions publicly offered to permit camp inmates to depart from the country. Such an offer was made by Premier Pham Van Dong in May 1984. In arguing for a favorable U.S. response, that September Secretary of State George Shultz estimated that there were about 10,000 inmates of Hanoi’s reeducation camps who would leave the country if permitted to do so. In September 1987 Hanoi announced that it was releasing 6,685 prisoners, among them several hundred military and civilian personnel of the former South Vietnamese government, including 2 ministers, 18 administrative officials, 9 ARVN generals, 248 officers of field rank, and 117 junior officers. In June 1989 Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach claimed that only about 120 people remained interned. In 1990 the U.S. State Department handled arrangements to bring some 2,000 Vietnamese who had been in the camps to the United States. Early that year a U.S. government spokesman said

Refugees and Boat People

965

that about 100,000 former camp inmates were among the 600,000 Vietnamese who had applied to immigrate to the United States. The situation in Laos was far worse. Tens of thousands may have perished in reeducation camps there. Among those executed in so-called seminar camps, as the Laotian reeducation camps were known, were government officials, army officers, and members of the Lao royal family, including King Savang Vatthana, the queen, and their eldest son. Hmong general Vang Pao put the toll there at more than 46,000 people. SPENCER C. TUCKER AND NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Laos; Refugees and Boat People; Vang Pao; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Doan Van Toai. The Vietnam Gulag. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Nguyen Long. After Saigon Fell. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Sagan, Ginette, and Stephen Denney. Violations of Human Rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Palo Alto, CA: Aurora Foundation, 1983.

Refugees and Boat People Fleeing their homeland on crowded fishing boats, makeshift vessels, and even totally unseaworthy craft, Vietnamese refugees by the hundreds and thousands, known as “boat people,” became an ever-visible reminder of the Vietnam War and its bitter legacy. In the spring of 1975, more than 60,000 people took to the South China Sea during the death throes of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in desperate efforts to reach ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. This first wave of boat people, rescued under U.S. Operation FREQUENT WIND, consisted of prominent political and military figures and those whose U.S. or Saigon connections marked them for Communist retribution. The group also included a number of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, professors, and journalists. After the great exodus of April 1975, only 377 boat people made their way during the next eight months to first-asylum countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. These locations were intended as only temporary sanctuaries but in some cases became permanent homes. The number of refugees jumped dramatically the following year, when an estimated 5,619 people departed Vietnam. In 1977 the total number of boat people rose to 21,276. Estimates held that one-third of the refugees died at sea from bad weather or starvation and suffered rape, pillage, and murder at the hands of pirates. Many who escaped were former South Vietnamese soldiers, fishermen, farmers, and businessmen, including those who had fled the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in 1954 and were now again fleeing communism.

A Vietnamese refugee, his belongings secured in a bag held by his teeth, climbs a cargo net to the deck of USS White Plains in the South China Sea, July 1979. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, thousands fled Vietnam in an effort to emigrate abroad, chiefly to the United States. (National Archives)

Although changes in the reunited Vietnam came gradually at first with the post–April 1975 nationalization of major industries, in June 1977 the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee, during the Fourth Party Congress, announced the complete transformation of southern Vietnam to socialism. Confiscation of private businesses and properties, freezing of assets, currency changes, collectivization of farmland, and forced removals to New Economic Zones (NEZs) all took a heavy toll on many ethnic Chinese, or Hoa as the Vietnamese called them. Another change after the reunification of Vietnam—perhaps less tangible than the others but possibly causing the greatest distress—was the process of indoctrination and reeducation in labor camps. The loss of personal freedom and fear for one’s life served as powerful incentives to leave the country. To avoid what they saw as a bleak future in Vietnam, many Hoa, who for generations prospered in commerce and dominated the private business sector in banking and trading in South Vietnam, now opted to leave. Victims of a class war and viewed with suspicion by the government for suspected loyalty to China, many ethnic Chinese were encouraged to leave by the Public Security Bureau (the political police) after paying bribes and a departure fee of five taels ($1,500) per adult. Trafficking in refugees became, from 1977 to 1979, a thriving enterprise for the Hanoi government.

966

Reinhardt, George Frederick

Vietnam’s war with China in 1979 also sparked a major migration of ethnic Chinese in northern Vietnam to China and a mass exodus of Hoa from Saigon. Of 1.7 million ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, the majority of the 1.4 million who lived in south Vietnam left. This created a huge vacuum in Vietnam’s already weakened economy. Encouragement of the Hoa to leave did not extend to those who were not ethnic Chinese. Ethnic Vietnamese who were caught or suspected of trying to escape were severely punished. It was not until 1979, when the exodus of boat people reached alarming proportions, that the world community became interested in their plight. An international crisis was precipitated when Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines— the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries—as well as Hong Kong announced that they were no longer capable of absorbing additional refugees into the already overcrowded camps, where most waited for the resettlement process. The estimate of boat people in 1979 stood at roughly 100,000, with some 10,000 to 15,000 arriving each month. In July 1979 ASEAN countries issued statements that they would no longer accept refugees unless the West guaranteed resettlement there. In response, United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kurt Waldheim convened a conference in Geneva to address the problem. This meeting, attended by representatives of 65 countries, resulted in both monetary aid to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and pledges for the resettlement of 260,000 refugees (including a U.S. pledge to double its admission rate from 7,000 to 14,000 Indochinese per month). The UNHCR also exacted a promise from Hanoi to stem the flow of illegal departures and to establish a program of orderly departure. By 1980 and 1981 the flow of refugees leaving Vietnam fell drastically, temporarily alleviating the crisis. In 1979 another refugee problem took on urgency. Border disputes between Vietnam and Cambodia that year led 150,000 Cambodian Khmers to cross the Thai border into UNHCR camps. By early 1980 there were an additional 500,000 to 700,000 refugees on the border. Even in 1995 after the resettlement of nearly 480,000 Vietnamese to the United States and 210,000 to other countries around the world since 1975, the boat people still constituted the bulk of refugees in Southeast Asia, some 46,000 as of January 31, 1995. Southeast Asian governments, with UNHCR cooperation, announced their intentions to close the camps, which safeguarded more than 840,000 Vietnamese who fled their homeland after 1975. A lucky few would receive offers to resettle in the West; most would be compelled to return to Vietnam. The possibility of violence over forced repatriation of the remaining refugees was a source of concern for the UNHCR. In many of the camps, stranded boat people said that they would rather die than return to Vietnam. In January 1996 the UNHCR announced that there were 39,000 Vietnamese remaining in the camps. The UN also announced that it would stop paying for the refugee camps and would close them all by July, a sign of its determination to end a lingering problem.

By the end of the 1990s nearly all refugee camps had been closed, and the number of refugees seeking asylum elsewhere dwindled to a mere trickle. In 2002, 2,500 Vietnamese refugees were granted the right of residency in Hong Kong; in 2005, the 200 remaining unsettled refugees, located in the Philippines, were granted asylum in the United States, Canada, and Norway. This was the last major movement of refugees. THOMAS T. PHU See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Chinese in Vietnam; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; International Rescue Committee; SinoVietnamese War; United Nations and the Vietnam War References Dalglish, Carol. Refugees from Vietnam. London: Macmillan, 1989. Dougan, Clark, and David Fulghum. The Fall of the South. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Shenon, Philip. “Boat People Prefer Death to Homeland.” New York Times, March 16, 1995. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Resettlement Section: Statistics Concerning Indochinese in East and South East Asia. Geneva: United Nations, 1995. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Indochinese Refugees. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981.

Regional Forces See Territorial Forces

Reinhardt, George Frederick Birth Date: October 21, 1911 Death Date: February 22, 1971 U.S. diplomat and ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1955–1957. Born on October 21, 1911, in Berkeley, California, George Frederick Reinhardt earned a BA degree from the University of California in 1933 and a master’s degree from Cornell University in 1935. He attended the Cesare Alfien Institute of Diplomacy in Florence, Italy, before becoming a U.S. Foreign Service officer in 1937. After holding minor posts in Austria, Latvia, Estonia, and the Soviet Union, Reinhardt served with the U.S. military during World War II, most notably as a staff adviser to General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the European theater of operations. In 1945 Reinhardt became first secretary and consul general in Moscow, gaining valuable early exposure to Cold War dynamics. Returning to the United States in 1948, he spent the next seven years in various capacities within the State Department. In 1955 President Dwight Eisenhower named Reinhardt ambassador to the fledgling South Vietnam. Reinhardt’s chief objec-

Research and Development Field Units tive, despite strong misgivings voiced by his predecessor, J. Lawton Collins, was to solidify the relationship between the United States and South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Although Reinhardt was the top U.S. official in Vietnam, he exercised little personal control over the U.S. mission. Still, by the end of his tenure in 1957 he had fulfilled his government’s wishes: the United States was firmly committed to South Vietnam. Reinhardt served briefly as ambassador to the United Arab Republic and minister to Yemen before becoming ambassador to Italy in 1961. He retired in 1968 to join the Stanford Research Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. Reinhardt died in Geneva on February 22, 1971. DAVID COFFEY See also Collins, Joseph Lawton; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954 References Findling, John E. Dictionary of American Diplomatic History. 2nd ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1989. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Republican Youth A sociopolitical paramilitary organization made up of South Vietnamese youth formed in the early 1960s by Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), to act as an organized progovernment force throughout the country. Thanh Nien Cong Hoa (Republican Youth) acted as the government’s eyes and ears on the streets and in the villages, providing intelligence to Diem’s regime and cultivating the population’s allegiance to the government. The Republican Youth also defended the Diem regime at the local level. By 1963 at its height, the Republican Youth had nearly 1 million members. The Republican Youth’s chief members were recruited by Colonel Le Quang Tung, commander of the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Special Forces, and Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen, Diem’s chief of intelligence and head of the South Vietnamese secret police. The initial recruits enlisted others until multiple chapters existed around the country. By 1963 there were 43 chapters. The largest chapter, with 6,000 members, was in Saigon. In conjunction with Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu’s Women’s Solidarity League, made up of young women aged 12 to 25, the Diem regime now had a fairly effective force to use as needed to carry out progovernment demonstrations anywhere in the country, to gather intelligence against Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops operating in South Vietnam, to carry out raids against alleged Communist sympathizers or enemies of the government, or simply to provide the public appearance of widespread support from the youths of the nation.

967

Participation in the Republican Youth and similar organizations was usually mandatory for youths over the age of 15. The members were expected to participate in all Republican Youth functions, such as progovernment rallies, talent contests, village cleanups, sporting events, and the construction and maintenance of the fixed defenses of villages. Usually a member not participating in these events regularly or participating without enthusiasm was viewed as antigovernment. The Republican Youth was closely tied with the Personalist Labor Party, or Can Lao, Diem’s political movement based on his philosophy of personalism that directed its members to serve in the best interests of the country and government with strength and benevolence. Local members of the Can Lao, especially its leaders, were also often members of the Republican Youth. The November 1, 1963, coup that removed Diem from power and resulted in his assassination virtually spelled the end of the Republican Youth. Other youth organizations would supersede it in subsequent South Vietnamese governments, but none seemed as important as the Republican Youth. RICHARD B. VERRONE See also Le Quang Tung; Ngo Dinh Diem; Tran Kim Tuyen; Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese References FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Scigliano, Robert G. South Vietnam: Nation under Stress. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. Trullinger, James Walker. Village at War: An Account of Revolution in Vietnam. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Research and Development Field Units U.S.-sponsored research and development (R&D) initiatives in Southeast Asia. In 1961 the U.S. Defense Department Advanced Research Projects Agency established two R&D field units in Southeast Asia: the Combat Operations Research Center (CORC) in Saigon and the Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC) in Bangkok, Thailand. Both were joint and combined operations. They included personnel from all U.S. forces and all forces from the host country as well as British and Australian military personnel. CORC was located at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), headquarters. CDTC was housed at the Thai Ministry of Defense. Both units had several missions, but the primary mission of each was to conduct counterinsurgency-related R&D for U.S. forces. In addition, each unit was to conduct R&D to enhance the capabilities of the host nation’s forces, the results of which did not have to be suitable for U.S. use. Although the bulk of the work of both units consisted of testing equipment developed in R&D laboratories in the United States, both also initiated projects of their own. CORC was intended primarily to conduct testing that required a combat environment. Early projects included the first in-country

968

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

tests of the Colt AR-15 rifle, an evaluation of personnel-detection radar, and tests of the Canadian-built Caribou cargo aircraft, which had excellent short-field capabilities and was thought to be useful for delivering supplies to remote outposts. The primary purpose of the CDTC was to conduct testing that required the Southeast Asian environment but that did not require, or could not be conducted in, a combat environment. Early projects included measurement of radio propagation characteristics at the geomagnetic latitude of Thailand and Vietnam; tests of personnel detection devices, such as the AN/GSS-9 break-wire detector and a seismic intrusion detector; tests of a portable loudspeaker unit for propaganda purposes; and tests of U.S. military vehicles in paddy fields and rain forests. Not all CDTC activities involved hardware testing. One project involved an anthropological study of northeastern Thailand near Laos to evaluate the potential for growth of an insurgency in that area. Locally initiated projects at the CDTC included one for the Thai Army to develop a water buffalo–drawn sled to provide troops with mobility in mudflats, a magnetic detector device for rapidly inspecting sampans for concealed weapons as they floated along a canal, and an “electronic ear” to aid sentries in listening for movement of infiltrators. Because the initial focus of the R&D field units was counterinsurgency, they became less and less relevant to U.S. forces as the war escalated to conventional levels but continued to operate until 1971. The CDTC in particular added to the military capabilities of the host nation. JOSEPH P. MARTINO See also Counterinsurgency Warfare; Thailand References Blaufarb, Douglas S. The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance 1950 to Present. New York: Free Press, 1977. McClintock, Michael. Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counter-Terrorism, 1940–1990. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps A principal source of U.S. military officers for the Vietnam War, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) is a commissioning program for the armed services based at the college/university level. The ROTC was deeply rooted in the concept of the citizen soldier. Officers produced by civilian universities were seen as a counterbalance to military elitism in service academy graduates and as a means to bring a wide diversity of skills to the military. The ROTC built on the long-standing American tradition of distrust of both military elites and standing armies. Prior to the Morrill Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1862 during the American Civil War, only a few institutions of higher learning had required military instruction. The University of Georgia claims

to have offered military instruction as early as 1807. In 1819 the Literary, Scientific and Military Academy (now Norwich University) was established in Connecticut and later relocated to Northfield, Vermont. The University of Virginia offered military training for its students in 1820. Established in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1821, Bullock School for Boys later became Pennsylvania Military College. The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) was established in 1839 in Lexington, Virginia, and the Military College of South Carolina, widely known as The Citadel, was established in Charleston in 1842. The Morrill Act, proposed by Congressman John Morrill, established land-grant colleges. Under the terms of the act, 30,000 acres would be sold in each state to provide capital for formation of public land-grant colleges. The institutions were free to develop curricula as they chose, with the proviso that instruction in military tactics as well as agriculture and engineering also be offered. A prime incentive for the Morrill Act was a 1861 report stating that the Union Army would require at least 20,000 officers annually. The 20th century brought major expansion in reserve officer and enlisted personnel training programs. The large armies fighting in Europe in World War I beginning in 1914 and troubles along the Mexican border led to realization among U.S. leaders of the need to expand the pool of trained military personnel who would be available. There was also a realization that such programs needed to emphasize professionalism. Included in the National Defense Act of June 1916 was a provision creating the modern U.S. Army ROTC. The act also established the Organized Reserve Corps, which would include ROTC graduates and other reserve officers during peacetime. The first ROTC units appeared that autumn at some 46 schools and registered a combined enrollment of about 40,000 students. The units were formed too late, however, to have significant impact on American involvement during 1917–1918 in World War I. By 1940, despite significant isolationist and antimilitary sentiments, ROTC programs had produced some 100,000 reserve officers. During August 1940–December 1941, 80,000 Organized Reserve Corps officers, the vast majority of them ROTC graduates, joined the rapidly expanding U.S. military on active duty and formed the nucleus of the army officer corps that would fight World War II. U.S. Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall, himself a graduate of VMI, credited ROTC officers with making a crucial difference in the war and stated that the conflict would undoubtedly have gone on longer without the program. In 1964 before the United States made a major commitment of land forces to the Vietnam War, the ROTC Vitalization Act represented a comprehensive effort to update and increase the attractiveness of ROTC programs nationwide. Major components of the legislation included a two-year training option, an increase in scholarship assistance and monthly stipends, a reduction in total student time commitment, and the facilitation of cross-enrollment for students from institutions that did not offer military training programs. The Vietnam War era brought significant opposition on college campuses to the ROTC, not only because of the war itself. Some college presidents at elite universities, such as Kingman Brew-

Rheault, Robert B. ster at Yale, questioned the value of vocational or highly practical educational programs in an age of rapidly expanding knowledge and research. Many students also ridiculed the program and those who enrolled in it. Opposition to the Vietnam War led to attacks on ROTC buildings that included arson and bombings. ROTC facilities were often the epicenter of student antiwar sit-ins and protest marches. Some institutions did away with their ROTC programs, often with considerable publicity. A number of academic institutions issued formal reports to bolster anti-ROTC sentiments, and there was a substantial movement to reform military curricula. In 1967 the Army Advisory Panel on ROTC devoted almost its entire conference to this subject. The Department of Defense was generally flexible regarding curricular changes during the turbulent Vietnam War years. The 1969 Benson Report, produced by a committee appointed by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, reflected this effort. Headed by George Benson, president of the Claremont Colleges, the committee advocated more academic involvement in ROTC programs while allowing the ROTC to continue its traditional uniforms and drill. The return of U.S. forces from Vietnam and the end of the military draft in 1973 reduced pressures on ROTC programs nationwide, and by the 1980s the ROTC once more saw its prestige and enrollments on the rise. Among the four major pre–American Civil War private military colleges, however, Pennsylvania Military College fell victim to the antimilitarism of the Vietnam War era. In 1972 it disbanded its Corps of Cadets and transformed itself into Weidner College, a purely civilian institution. ARTHUR I. CYR See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Kent State University Shootings References Heineman, Kenneth J. Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era. New York: New York University Press, 1993. Neiberg, Michael S. Making Citizen Soldiers: ROTC and the Ideology of Military Service. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

969

parties, the best organized of which would have difficulty in rallying twenty-five adherents.” Revers recommended strictly respecting the agreements with Bao Dai that created a Vietnamese national army and doing away with a large number of civil servants, who seemed determined to hold on to their prerogatives regardless of the cost. These criticisms were seen as an attack on Léon Pignon, French high commissioner in Indochina. Viet Minh radio began broadcasting extracts of the report in August 1949. This fact, however, was hushed up in Paris until September 18, when police officers called to end a fight on a bus between a French veteran recently returned from Indochina and two Vietnamese found several sections of the Revers Report in a briefcase in the possession of one of the latter. An investigation revealed that Revers had imprudently and unofficially given a copy of his report to a fellow officer, General Charles Mast, whom some suspected of being Revers’s candidate to replace Pignon in Saigon. Mast had passed along sections of the report to various Vietnamese from whom it had been conveyed to the Viet Minh. The story was first reported in December by Time magazine and became known as the “affair of the generals.” The scandal and its political ramifications rocked French politics for months afterward. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Blaizot, Roger; Indochina War; Pignon, Léon References Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954.

Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center See Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center

Revers Report Secret French report on policy and military strategy in Indochina that became famous when its contents were leaked. The report was the work of French chief of staff General Georges Revers, picked by Premier Henri Queuille to head a fact-finding mission to Indochina in May 1949. The Revers Report recommended consolidating French military resources, including the evacuation of Cao Bang, in order to concentrate on defense of the vital Red River Delta area. Revers also sharply criticized the Bao Dai government for its corruption and other deficiencies and blamed French policy for leaving Bao Dai so few of the attributes of independence that he could only set up “a government composed of twenty representatives of phantom

Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party See Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang

Rheault, Robert B. Birth Date: October 31, 1925 U.S. Army officer and commander of 5th Special Forces Group in 1969. Robert B. Rheault was born on October 31, 1925, in Massachusetts. Graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point,

970

Richardson, John Hammond

in 1946, he was commissioned in the infantry and eventually qualified for Special Forces. In May 1969 Colonel Rheault was assigned to Vietnam to command the 5th Special Forces Group. Soon thereafter Thai Khac Chuyen, a Vietnamese employed to gather cross-border intelligence, came under suspicion as being a double agent. With Rheault’s knowledge and approval, members of his command murdered Chuyen. When a sergeant who was involved in the murder talked about the matter with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), things began to unravel. General Creighton Abrams, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), initiated an investigation. Rheault maintained that there was no truth to rumors that Chuyen had been killed, insisting that he was instead on a special mission. When officers of Rheault’s command confessed the murder to U.S. Army criminal investigators, Rheault was exposed as a liar. Abrams relieved him of command, and soon thereafter courtmartial charges were brought against Rheault and others. The defendants were able to generate sufficient political pressure to cause President Richard Nixon to have the charges against them dismissed. Colonel Rheault was then offered another assignment but elected to retire instead. “I approved it,” he later said of the murder in an oral history interview. “I take responsibility for it.” But he continued to argue that what he had done was proper and appropriate. LEWIS SORLEY

Richardson had served in Greece and the Philippines prior to his 1963 posting to Saigon. There he developed a close relationship with Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Nevertheless, Richardson and CIA official William Colby laid the groundwork for the coup against Diem during the summer of 1963. In his reports to Washington Richardson expressed doubt that the South Vietnamese government could survive under Diem and argued for covert U.S. assistance in carrying out the coup. As a result of his close ties to Nhu, Richardson was mistrusted by the South Vietnamese generals conspiring against Diem, so CIA officer Lucien Conein acted as the go-between. Reporting the situation in August, Richardson noted that the Ngo family was determined to hold out but that the conspiracy would succeed. But experiencing second thoughts about the coup, Richardson changed his instructions to Conein. When Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge discovered this, he ordered Conein to report directly to him about discussions with the conspirators. Richardson’s changing position coupled with his still-close ties with the Diem regime led Lodge to request Richardson’s recall. Richardson departed Saigon on October 5, 1963. During his intelligence career Richardson also served as CIA station chief in Vienna in 1947 and as director of the CIA’s Southeast Asia Bureau at the Washington, D.C., headquarters. He died on June 1, 1998, at his home in Zapopan, Mexico. ROBERT G. MANGRUM

See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Atrocities during the Vietnam War; Nixon, Richard Milhous; United States Special Forces

See also Conein, Lucien Emile; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu

References Rheault, Colonel Robert B. Oral History Interviews. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army Military History Institute, 1987, 1988. Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years; A History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

References Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: Scribner, 1985.

Richardson, John Hammond Birth Date: 1913 Death Date: June 1, 1998 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer and station chief in Saigon (1962–1963). John Hammond Richardson was born in Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar), in 1913, where his engineer father was employed on a project. Richardson was raised in Whittier, California, and earned BA and MA degrees at the University of California at Berkeley. He also studied at the Sorbonne and the University of Chicago. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps, where he cultivated a keen interest in intelligence work.

Ridenhour, Ronald Birth Date: April 6, 1946 Death Date: May 10, 1998 U.S. soldier who served with the 11th Infantry Brigade during the Vietnam War and who played a key role in opening the investigation into the 1968 My Lai Massacre. Ronald Ridenhour was born on April 6, 1946, in Oakland, California, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He enrolled at Phoenix Junior College, but when his course load fell below the minimum required for an educational deferment, in March 1967 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was subsequently posted to Vietnam. There he served with the 11th Infantry Brigade as a helicopter gunner. During his tour of service he heard secondhand stories about the My Lai Massacre

Ridgway, Matthew Bunker of March 16, 1968, when U.S. soldiers had killed several hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians, including women and children. Shocked at the news, Ridenhour decided to investigate. Concerned that his superiors might discover what he was doing, he very carefully collected information in secret. Meeting with some of the participants in the massacre and other soldiers, including eyewitnesses, Ridenhour soon discovered that the stories were true. Just before he departed Vietnam at the end of his tour, he made contact with Michael Bernhardt, who had been a participant in the My Lai Massacre and promised to testify openly about the events should Ridenhour succeed in convincing the U.S. government to open an investigation. When Ridenhour returned to the United States in March 1969, he sent letters to some 30 members of Congress and to Pentagon officials. These letters eventually triggered an investigation by the army into the incident, ultimately leading to the court-martial of the unit commander, Lieutenant William L. Calley. Ridenhour graduated from Claremont Men’s College in 1972 and went on to become an investigative journalist. In 1987 he won the George Polk Award for exposing a tax scandal in New Orleans. A stringer for People magazine, he also coproduced an NBC news program on militias. Ridenhour died on May 10, 1998, at Metairie, Louisiana, from a sudden heart attack. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Calley, William Laws, Jr.; My Lai Massacre

971

officers fluent in Spanish, he served in several high-level postings in Latin America during the 1920s. In the 1930s he was selected to attend the Infantry School, the Command and General Staff School, and the Army War College. He became a protégé of General George C. Marshall, who secured Ridgway’s promotion to brigadier general at the beginning of World War II. Ridgway had a distinguished record in the war, commanding first the 82nd Airborne Division and then the XVIII Airborne Corps in hard fighting in Sicily and Italy and during the Normandy Invasion and the campaign into Germany. Ridgway was promoted to lieutenant general in June 1945. From 1946 to 1948 he was U.S. representative to the UN Military Staff Committee, and during 1948–1949 he headed the Caribbean Defense Command. In August 1949 he became army deputy chief of staff for administration. When U.S. Eighth Army commander Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker was killed in a jeep accident in Korea on December 23, 1950, Ridgway was named to replace him. It was a very difficult period for the U.S. forces and the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea. Chinese forces had pushed UNC troops back below the 38th Parallel, and morale in the Eighth Army was at a nadir. Ridgway quickly brought his legendary motivational skills to bear. He ordered the supply services to provide better and more food, served hot; secured warmer clothing for the winter; and improved the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASHs). He also removed incompetent or defeatist officers, and he improved reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering capacities. Although Ridgway was forced to

References Anderson, David L., ed. Facing My Lai: Moving beyond the Massacre. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Penguin, 1992. Oliver, Kendrick. The My Lai Massacre in American History and Memory. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.

Ridgway, Matthew Bunker Birth Date: March 3, 1895 Death Date: July 26, 1993 U.S. Army general; commander of the U.S. Eighth Army during the Korean War (1950); commander in chief of United Nations (UN) forces in Korea (1950–1952); supreme allied commander, Europe (1952–1953); and army chief of staff (1953–1955). Matthew Bunker Ridgway was born at Fort Monroe, Virginia, on March 3, 1895. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1917. During World War I he was stationed on the Mexican border. A capable linguist, Ridgway returned to West Point in 1918 to teach Romance languages. As one of only a handful of regular army

General Matthew Bunker Ridgway distinguished himself in Europe in World War II. Taking command of the Eighth U.S. Army in Korea in December 1950, he restored its morale. In April 1951, following the relief of General Douglas MacArthur, Ridgway assumed command of all United Nations Command (UNC) forces in Korea. (Library of Congress)

972

Rifles

withdraw his forces from Seoul in early January 1951 in the face of a Communist Chinese offensive, he restored his troops’ fighting spirit and, in February, launched a major offensive, Operation KILLER. In it Eighth Army retook Seoul and drove the Chinese back above the 38th Parallel, where the battle lines began to stabilize. When President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his command on April 11, 1951, Ridgway was promoted to full general (four-star) rank and was appointed to all of MacArthur’s former positions as UNC commanding general, commander in chief of U.S. armed forces in the Far East, and supreme commander of the Allied occupation forces in Japan. From Tokyo, Ridgway oversaw the war for the next 13 months. Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet, new commander of the Eighth Army, proposed driving the Communists far back into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). Ridgway believed that it would be a mistake to push deep into enemy territory, however. He wanted to concentrate on punishing Communist forces along the 38th Parallel and employing airpower to strike the Communists’ supply lines. Some of the worst fighting of the war occurred over the next two years. On May 12, 1952, Ridgway replaced General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Allied powers in Europe. In October 1953 Ridgway became U.S. Army chief of staff. During the 1954 Dien Bien Phu crisis he counseled caution and did not favor direct American support of the French. Indeed, he warned that U.S. intervention would inevitably lead to a direct and lengthy military involvement in Indochina. Reportedly, Ridgway influenced Eisenhower’s decision not to involve U.S. military forces at Dien Bien Phu. Disagreeing with the Eisenhower administration over its emphasis on nuclear weapons (the New Look defense policy, or massive retaliation) at the expense of conventional forces, Ridgway retired from active duty in June 1955. During the 1960s Ridgway advocated limiting U.S. involvement in Vietnam but was a strong supporter of flexible response as an antidote to massive retaliation. In 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson named Ridgway to the Senior Advisory Group, known as the Wise Men, that recommended U.S. extrication from the Vietnam War. Ridgway himself met privately with Johnson and advised against deeper U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1976 Ridgway was a founding board member of the Committee on the Present Danger, which urged greater military preparedness to counter what was believed to be an increasing Soviet threat. Ridgway died on July 26, 1993, at Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania. JOE P. DUNN See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Flexible Response; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Korean War; MacArthur, Douglas; Radford, Arthur William; Truman, Harry S.; Wise Men References Appleman, Roy. Ridgway Duels for Korea. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1990.

Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Ridgway, Matthew B. The Korean War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Soffer, Jonathan M. General Matthew B. Ridgway: From Progressivism to Reaganism, 1895–1993. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998.

Rifles Vietnam was typical of all modern wars, with the vast majority of the combatants on all sides carrying rifles into combat. Officers, section leaders, and certain crews operating in restricted spaces, as in tanks and aircraft, frequently carried pistols, carbines, or submachine guns instead of rifles. A rifle is a shoulder-fired weapon that is the soldier’s primary firearm. Although a soldier may be assigned to a crew-served weapon, such as an artillery piece, or may serve in a support role, such as a truck driver or a cook, the rifle remains his basic weapon for self-defense, position defense, and general security duties. For the infantry soldier, his survival and success on the battlefield depend on his skill with his rifle. Modern military shoulder arms can be classified by their operating systems. Each of the three basic systems produces certain tactical effects on the battlefield, and rifles with all three operating systems were used in Vietnam. Bolt-action rifles, which started to appear at the end of the 19th century, require the shooter to manually work the bolt to extract and eject the spent cartridge casing after each round is fired and then chamber the next round prior to firing. Semiautomatic rifles use part of the energy from the round being fired to power the extraction, ejection, feeding, and chambering process. Once the cycle is complete, the shooter must pull the trigger again to restart the cycle. Semiautomatic rifles are fed from either detachable box magazines or from a magazine system internal to the rifle that is reloaded from a clip. Automatic-firing rifles continue the feeding, chambering, firing, and extraction cycle as long as the shooter holds the trigger back or until the magazine runs out of ammunition. Bolt-action rifles have the lowest rate of fire but are generally very accurate at greater ranges. Semiautomatic and automatic rifles produce higher volumes of fire, but the resulting ammunition consumption rates produce other problems. The carbine is a more compact version of a standard rifle, usually with a shorter barrel and sometimes chambered for a smaller caliber. Carbines were first developed in the 19th century for cavalry and mounted troops, and during World War II and the Korean War they often were used by American forces as substitutes for pistols. Automatic rifles are generally heavier than standard infantry battle rifles and have a much higher rate of fire. During World War II and the Korean War some armies used light machine guns at the infantry squad level, while other armies used automatic rifles.

Rifles In the years following 1945, most of the world’s major armies moved away from the standard battle rifle that characterized both world wars, widely adopting lighter and more rapidly firing shoulder weapons that came to be classified as assault rifles. The higher rates of fire of the assault rifles also eliminated the need for automatic rifles. Battle rifles and automatic rifles, however, were still used extensively in the Vietnam War, especially in the earlier years of the war. The United States ended World War II with the world’s best battle rifle, the .30-caliber semiautomatic M-1 Garand. Introduced in 1936, the Garand weighed 9.5 pounds and had a maximum rate of fire of 30 to 50 rounds a minute at a maximum effective range of 500 yards. The Garand fired the same .30-06-caliber round as the World War I–era M-1903 Springfield bolt action rifle. For heavier firepower in World War II and the Korean War an American infantry squad was equipped with an M-1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). Firing the same .30-06 cartridge as the Garand from a 20-round detachable box magazine, the BAR had a cyclic rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute and a maximum effective range of 656 yards. A tiring weapon to carry, the BAR weighed 19.5 pounds. The U.S. Army fielded two carbines during World War II. The semiautomatic M-1 carbine weighed only 5.5 pounds and fired the .30-caliber carbine round, similar to the cartridge fired by the lever-action civilian Winchester rifles. The M-1 carbine’s rate of fire was 40 to 70 rounds per minute, but its maximum effective range was only 328 yards. The M-2 carbine was identical to the M-1 in every respect except that it was capable of both semiautomatic and full-automatic fire. In automatic mode the cyclic rate of fire was 750 rounds per minute. With a few significant exceptions, U.S. ground troops who served in Vietnam did not routinely carry the M-1 Rifle, the BAR, or the M-1 or M-2 carbines. All four weapons were used by French forces in the late 1940s and early 1950s and by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and South Korean troops through the end of the war. The Viet Cong (VC), indigenous Communist forces, also captured and used all four weapons. Both the M-1 Garand and limited numbers of the M-1903A3 Springfield were included in the armories of many U.S. Navy ships during the Vietnam War. In the early 1950s efforts to improve the M-1 rifle resulted in the M-14 rifle. Unlike the M-1, the M-14 was capable of both semiautomatic and full-automatic fire and was fed by a more efficient 20round detachable box magazine, a distinct improvement over the M-1’s internal magazine system that had to be reloaded from an 8-round clip. The M-14 was also chambered for what became the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standard rifle round, the 7.62 ÷ 51-millimeter (mm). Essentially the same round as the commercial .308 Winchester, the bullet was the same diameter as that of the M-1’s .30-06 Springfield round, but the overall cartridge was 12 mm shorter.

973

Sergeant David Weiner, a still photographer with the U.S. Marine Corps photography laboratory at Phu Bai, prepares to go into the field with a company in the 3rd Division. Weiner is carrying an M-14, an earlier rifle that many considered superior to the Vietnam-era M-16. (National Archives)

The M-14 was adopted in 1957 and first issued to units in the field in 1959. It weighed 11.5 pounds and had a cyclic rate of fire in full-automatic mode of 700 to 750 rounds per minute and a maximum effective range of 500 yards with iron sights and 875 yards with optical sights. The M-14’s automatic fire capability also eliminated the need for the BAR in the infantry squad. Typically, two soldiers in a standard infantry squad were designated as automatic riflemen. The M-14A1 version they carried had a bipod and straight-line stock with a full pistol grip and a forward-folding handgrip to facilitate control of the weapon during automatic fire. The M-14 was the standard American infantry rifle only until January 1968, when it was replaced by the M-16. The M-14 remained in service until March 1970 for U.S. forces in Europe and on U.S. Navy ships for years after that. Several sniper rifle versions of the M-14 continue in service to the present. Immediately following World War II, the U.S. Army’s Operations Research Office conducted an extensive analysis of the existing combat after-action reports from both world wars and reached the conclusion that the trend in mobile warfare was for engagements that took place at shorter ranges and were initiated as surprise meeting engagements. Under such conditions, the volume of fire rather than accurate aimed fire was more important in determining the outcome. This led to the conclusion that the average soldier should be armed with an automatic-firing weapon. But the increased rate of ammunition consumption also meant additional

974

Rifles

weight for the already overloaded foot soldier to carry. That problem could be partially offset by decreasing the weight of the weapon as well as the size of the ammunition. Several other major armies, especially the Germans in the last years of World War II and the Soviets immediately after the war, reached the same conclusion. The result was the development of the assault rifle. The M-16 rifle evolved through a series of innovative designs first introduced in the mid-1950s by armament designer Eugene Stoner and the ArmaLite Cooperation. Using milled aluminum, fiberglass, and emerging composite materials, Stoner’s designs were significantly lighter than all other military weapons in service. Designed in 1957, Stoner’s AR-15 weighed just 5.5 pounds and fired a 5.56 ÷ 45-mm cartridge. The barrel length was 20 inches. In 1959 ArmaLite sold the rights to the AR-15 to Colt Industries. In 1960 U.S. Air Force general Curtis LeMay ordered 8,500 AR15s as a defense weapon for Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases. In U.S. Air Force service it was designated the M-16. Although there were still strong advocates for the M-14 in the U.S. Army, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara pushed for large-scale consolidations of all Pentagon procurement programs, including the adoption of a single standard weapon for all of the armed services. In November 1963 the U.S. Army also ordered 85,000 AR-15s but insisted on the addition of an external bolt assist, thought necessary to physically ram the bolt into the battery in the event that it failed to lock into the chamber because of fouling or corrosion. While the U.S. Air Force version, without the external bolt assist, remained designated the M-16, the U.S. Army version was designated the XM16E1. In February 1968 it was standardized as the M-16A1. The M-16A1 was arguably the worst rifle ever carried by American soldiers. Touted by Colt as a self-cleaning design requiring little maintenance, it originally was issued without adequate numbers of cleaning kits. Furthermore, the U.S. Army made some modifications to the propellant used in the 5.56-mm ammunition without sufficient field testing. After a rash of reports of the M-16 jamming and failing to fire in combat, the ammunition problem was corrected, adequate cleaning supplies reached the field, and the rifle itself received a chrome-plated chamber—and later fully chromed bores—that better withstood the still corrosive effects of the ammunition. Since the Vietnam War the United States has introduced a number of improved versions. The M-16A2, M-16A3, and M-16A4 all have a heavier barrel than the Vietnam War–era M-16A1. The carbine version of the M-16 first appeared in Vietnam in 1966 as the XM-177E1. A modification of the M-16A1, it had a 10inch barrel and a telescoping butt stock and weighed 5.2 pounds. The XM-177E2, introduced in 1968, had an 11.5-inch barrel and weighed 5.35 pounds. The current U.S. standard M-4, adopted in 1994, is the carbine version of the M-16A4 rifle and has a 14.5inch barrel. The U.S. military fielded a number of different sniper rifles in Vietnam. During the earliest days of U.S. involvement, U.S. Marine Corps snipers used several different older sniper rifles from previ-

A U.S. soldier, a member of the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, readies his rifle as he peers cautiously into a tunnel during an ambush patrol against the Viet Cong on the outskirts of Cu Chi. Combat experiences in Vietnam spurred a rapid evolution of U.S. infantry rifles. As U.S. involvement in Vietnam escalated, the American military adopted the M-16 (pictured here) as its standard infantry firearm. (National Archives)

ous wars, including the M-1903A4 sniper version of the bolt-action Springfield, mounting a 2.2x telescopic sight; the Model 1941, a special U.S. Marine Corps modification of the standard infantry M-1903A1 Springfield mounting a more powerful 8x scope; and the MC-52, a special U.S. Marine Corps modification of the M-1C sniper version of the Garand rifle. All of these older weapons had maximum effective ranges out to 1,038 yards. By early 1966 most marine snipers were using military versions of two different bolt-action commercial rifles, either the Winchester Model 70 or the Remington Model 700. The Model 700 was chambered for 7.62 ÷ 51-mm, while earlier versions of the Model 70 were chambered for .30-06 caliber and later versions for 7.62 ÷ 51-mm. Later in 1966 the marine M-40 sniper rifle was standardized based on the Remington Model 700. Weighing 14.5 pounds and mounting a 3x to 9x telescopic sight, the M-40 has a maximum effective range of 1,093 yards. The U.S. Army meanwhile focused on the M-14 for its sniper rifle. Introduced in 1969, the M-21 sniper rifle is based on the National Match grade M-14, converted by the Rock Island Arsenal. Mounting a 3x to 9x telescopic sight, the M-21 has a maximum

Rifles effective range of 754 yards when fired from a bipod or a supported position. Australian and New Zealand forces in Vietnam were armed primarily with the semiautomatic L1A1 self-loading rifle. The L1A1 was a British- and Australian-manufactured version of the Belgian Fabrique Nationale FAL rifle. The British Commonwealth versions were based on blueprints with converted English measurements rather than the original metric measurements. Parts were therefore not interchangeable between the L1A1 and the FAL, although the two weapons looked identical. Both were chambered for the 7.62 ÷ 51-mm standard NATO round. The L1A1 weighed 9.1 pounds and had a maximum effective range of 656 yards. The full-automatic version of the L1A1 was the L2A1 automatic rifle. With its heavier barrel, the L2A1 weighed 12.3 pounds and had a cyclic rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute. Free French forces during the final years of World War II had been equipped largely with American weapons, and therefore the French units that entered Vietnam in the late 1940s were armed with the M-1 Garand rifle and the M-1 and M-2 carbines. The newly arriving units joined French units that had remained in Indochina under Vichy control during the war. Those units had been armed largely with the bolt-action Manufacture d’armes de Saint-Étienne MAS-1936 rifle, which weighed 8.3 pounds and fired a 7.5-mm round to a maximum effective range of 546 yards. As the French tried to reassert control over their empire in Indochina, they also initially made wide use of the huge stocks of German weapons that had been captured at the end of the war. Introduced into German service in 1935, the reliable and sturdy Mauser Kar-98k bolt-action carbine weighed 8.6 pounds and fired a 7.92-mm round to a maximum effective range of 492 yards. An experienced rifleman could manage a sustained rate of fire of 20 rounds per minute. In the early 1950s French units started to receive the newly designed semiautomatic MAS-1949 rifle. Weighing 10.4 pounds, the MAS-1949 fired a standard French 7.5-mm round to a maximum effective range of 437 yards. The standard French squad automatic rifle was the Chatellerault M-1924/29. Similar to the American BAR, the M-1924/29 fired the standard French 7.5-mm round to a maximum effective range of 874 yards. It weighed 24.5 pounds, including its bipod, and its cyclic rate of fire was 550 rounds per minute. The Chatellerault’s distinctive features were its 25-round top-feeding box magazine and its double trigger system, one for semiautomatic fire and one for automatic fire. Throughout both phases of the Vietnam War the Viet Minh and then the VC and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) made extensive use of captured weapons. Virtually every weapon used by the French, the Americans, or the ARVN was used at some point by the Communist forces. During the earliest years the Viet Minh used any hodgepodge of ancient firearms they could get their hands on.

975

One of the Viet Minh’s first sources of rifles was the disarmed occupation forces of defeated Japan. The most widely available Japanese rifle was the bolt-action Ariskana Type 38. Introduced into Japanese service in 1905, the Type 38 weighed 8.7 pounds and had a maximum effective range of 437 yards, but its small 6.5-mm round had limited stopping power. Smaller numbers of the Japanese Type 99 rifle were also used in Vietnam. The bolt-action Type 99 fired the more substantial 7.7-mm round. Early support for the Viet Minh from the Soviet Union included captured stocks of the German Kar-98k, with which the French were also arming their own native Vietnamese units. Soviet weapons used by the Viet Minh and later the VC included various models of the Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifles and carbines. All were chambered for the Russian 7.62 ÷ 54-mm round, a distinctively rimmed cartridge. The M-1891/30 rifle was the standard Soviet infantry weapon of World War II. It weighed 8.8 pounds and had a maximum effective range of 546 yards. The M-1938 carbine weighed 7.5 pounds, but the M-1944 carbine weighed 9 pounds. Widely used by the VC, the Mosin-Nagant M-1944 and its Chinese variant, the Type 53 carbine, had a distinctive permanently mounted folding cruciform-spike bayonet, making them among the most recognizable weapons of the Vietnam War. The standard semiautomatic rifle used by Communist forces was the Russian SKS carbine. The SKS functioned somewhat like the American M-1 Garand in that it fed from an internal magazine, reloaded by a 10-round stripper clip. Introduced in 1945, the SKS fired the 7.62 ÷ 39-mm round (which is not compatible with the 7.62 ÷ 51-mm NATO round). The weapon weighed 8.8 pounds and had a maximum effective range of 437 yards. The Communist forces also carried the Chinese version of the SKS, the Type 56 carbine. Perhaps no other weapon is so strongly identified with the Vietnam War as the Soviet-designed AK-47. At the time the AK-47 was arguably the world’s finest assault rifle. It remains so today, superior to the M-16 in many respects. First designed in 1944 by Mikhail Kalashnikov while he was recovering from war wounds, the AK-47 was derived from the hard lessons of combat that the Soviets learned at the hands of the Germans. The AK-47 combined characteristics of both the rifle and the submachine gun, most significantly the high rate of fire of the latter. The result became known in the West as an assault rifle. With a design based heavily on the German World War II Sturmgewehr 44 (which translates to “Assault Rifle 44”), the AK-47 was standardized in 1947 and adopted for general issue by the Soviet Army in 1949. Chambered for the 7.62 ÷ 39-mm round, the basic version of the AK-47 weighed 9.5 pounds and had a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute and a maximum effective range of 437 yards. All of the AK-series weapons are known for their rugged reliability, ease of maintenance, and moderate accuracy. They almost never jam. Early versions of the AK-47 went through a number of design variations, starting with a stamped receiver, then switching

976

Rigault de Genouilly, Charles

to a heavier milled receiver, and finally reverting to the stamped receiver. The final variant appeared in 1959 and was standardized as the AK-M, which was simpler than the original version and weighed only 6.8 pounds. The AK-47 was quickly adopted and manufactured under license by many other countries, including China, Iraq, Egypt, and most of the Warsaw Pact nations. PAVN units started to receive the AK-47 in the late 1950s and the AK-M in the 1960s. Most AK-47s used in Vietnam were actually the Chinese variant, the Type 56 assault rifle (not to be confused with the semiautomatic Chinese Type 56 carbine). More than 55 armies worldwide have issued the AK-47 to their troops. More than 11 major AK-47 variants exist, including models with fixed stocks of wood or polymers and the more popular folding-stock models for paratroopers. More than 100 million copies of all versions have been manufactured over the years. One of the more unusual weapons of the Vietnam War was the Chinese Type 63 assault rifle. Sometimes referred to as the Type 68, the Type 63 was a strange hybrid of the AK-47 and the SKS and fired the same ammunition. Weighing 7.7 pounds, the Type 63 was similar in appearance to the SKS, but its mechanism was based on the AK-47. The Type 63 rifle could be fired in either automatic or semiautomatic mode, and its cyclic rate of fire was about 700 rounds per minute. PAVN units started receiving the Type 63 in the 1970s. Throughout most of the war PAVN snipers primarily used either the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant M-1891/30 or the semiautomatic SKS, both fitted with various types of telescopic sights. There is conflicting evidence that prior to 1975 PAVN snipers also used the Soviet Dragunov SVD-63 sniper rifle or its Chinese Type 79 variant. Most of the indicators suggest, however, that these weapons were used by the PAVN for the first time in Cambodia between 1979 and 1989. The SVD-63 is semiautomatic and fires the longer-range 7.62 ÷ 54mm cartridge from a 10-round detachable box magazine. Fitted with a 4x scope, the 10.1-pound SVD-63 has a maximum effective range of 874 yards. DAVID T. ZABECKI

Rigault de Genouilly, Charles Birth Date: April 12, 1807 Death Date: May 4, 1873 French Navy admiral and commander in chief of French forces in Indochina from February to November 1859. Charles Rigault de Genouilly was born at Rochefort (Charente-Maritime) on April 12, 1807. He entered the École Polytechnique in November 1825. Having opted for the naval service, he joined the French Navy in November 1827. Rigault de Genouilly first served in the Mediterranean and took part in the expedition against Algiers in 1830. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1834, to lieutenant commander in July 1847, and to captain in July 1848. Much of his service at sea was in the Orient, and he ordered the bombardment of Da Nang (then Tourane) in Vietnam in April 1847. In 1858 Rigault de Genouilly was promoted to vice admiral. As commander of a French squadron, he occupied Da Nang that September. In February 1859 in concert with a Spanish force, he sailed up the Saigon River and captured the port of Saigon. Returning to Da Nang in April 1859, Rigault de Genouilly found his troops decimated by disease and harassed by Vietnamese attacks. Despairing of being unable to prevail, Rigault de Genouilly asked to be relieved of his command. He returned to France and became a senator in 1860. He was made a full admiral in January 1864. Rigault de Genouilly died in Paris on May 4, 1873. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Taillemite, Étienne, Dictionnaire des marines français. Paris: Tallandier, 2002. Whitfield, Danny J. Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1976.

See also Grenade Launchers; Rockets and Rocket Launchers; Submachine Guns References Bishop, Chris, and Ian Drury, eds. Combat Guns: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Firearms. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1987. Hogg, Ian V. Jane’s Infantry Weapons, 1991–92. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group, 1991. Poyer, Joe. The AK-47 and AK-74 Kalashnikov Rifles and Their Variants. Tustin, CA: North Cape Publications, 2006. Robinson, Anthony, Anthony Preston, and Ian V. Hogg. Weapons of the Vietnam War. New York: Gallery Books, 1983. Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965–73. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2005. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong Fighter. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. Smith, W. H. B., and Edward C. Ezell. Small Arms of the World. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992.

Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for Start Date: July 1, 1970 End Date: July 23, 1970 In order to support Operation TEXAS STAR (April 1–September 5, 1970) conducted by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 1st Infantry Division near the A Shau Valley, a string of fire support-bases (FSB) was established. One of these was named Ripcord, located in Thua Thien Province in the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), some 25 miles west of the city of Hue and near the A Shau Valley. After an initial insertion on March 12 and a failed attempt to make the hill into a firebase, on April 1 troopers

Risner, James Robinson of the 101st Airborne Division abandoned the hill. After 10 days of firefights, however, on April 10 the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Andre C. Lucas, secured the hill without opposition and proceeded to establish an FSB there. As with most of the other FSBs in mountainous terrain, Ripcord depended on helicopters for resupply. Following seven weeks of relative calm, beginning on July 1 FSB Ripcord came under heavy attack by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Reinforcements of the 101st Airborne Division were brought in to assist in the defense. In what proved to be the costliest U.S. battle of the war in 1970, ultimately four battalions held their own against rocket, mortar, and ground attacks by up to eight regiments of the PAVN 324B Division, with the 304B Division in reserve. On July 18, however, a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed and ignited the main ammunition dump. Two days later, with the defenders having estimated PAVN strength at as many as 11,000 men, Major General John J. Hennessy, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, ordered the firebase evacuated. This was accomplished by helicopters under heavy PAVN antiaircraft fire. Once the personnel had been removed, Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses obliterated the area. Three Medals of Honor and five Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded for this action, including a posthumous Medal of Honor for Colonel Lucas, the initial Ripcord commander. U.S. losses in the battle were 61 dead, 345 wounded, and 1 missing. Eight aircraft were also lost to Communist antiaircraft fire. PAVN losses were given as 422 killed and 6 taken prisoner. The Battle for Fire-Support Base Ripcord was the last multibattalion action for U.S. and PAVN forces in the war. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also A Shau Valley; Fire-Support Bases; TEXAS STAR, Operation References Harrison, Benjamin L. Hell on a Hill Top: America’s Last Major Battle in Vietnam. New York: iUniverse, 2004. Marshall, Tom. The Price of Exit. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. Nolan, Keith W. Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege, Vietnam 1970. Novato, CA: Presidio, 2000.

Risner, James Robinson Birth Date: January 16, 1925 U.S. Air Force officer who spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). James Robinson (Robbie) Risner was born on January 16, 1925, in Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, but grew up in Oklahoma. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was stationed in Panama. After the war he joined the Oklahoma Air National Guard.

977

During the Korean War (1950–1953), Risner served as a flight commander in the 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Wing. Piloting the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, Risner compiled an impressive record in Korea. He became the 20th Korean War pilot to earn ace status, shooting down eight Communist MiG-15s while flying 109 missions. In 1957 Risner flew the 30th anniversary commemoration of Charles Lindberg’s nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, establishing a short-lived world speed record during the flight. Ordered to Vietnam in 1965, Risner assumed command of the U.S. Air Force’s 67th Tactical Fighter Squadron. The squadron conducted a number of raids against North Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa Bridge in the spring of 1965. On April 3, 1965, during one of these raids Risner’s F-105 Thunderchief was shot down, but he was quickly rescued. These events became part of a celebrated Time magazine article on April 23, 1965. Risner even returned temporarily to the United States to receive the Air Force Cross for his action. On September 16, 1965, Lieutenant Colonel Risner was again shot down and this time taken captive by the North Vietnamese. He spent 2,706 days in captivity and was not released until 1973. As one of the most senior-ranking officers of American captives in North Vietnam, Risner formulated policies for inter-POW communication and resistance, and for this he often drew special attention. On October 24, 1965, camp officials at the so-called Hanoi Hilton prison conducted a room search and discovered a written list of orders issued by Risner, which included his signature. As punishment, Risner spent 32 straight days in leg stocks. On July 6, 1966, Risner was one of the 52 POWs forced to participate in the infamous Hanoi March, which saw the North Vietnamese parade their captives through the streets of Hanoi in front of taunting and oftentimes belligerent crowds. Risner did not receive his first roommate until March 6, 1967. He spent roughly four and a half of his seven and a half years of captivity in solitary confinement. Risner considered the forced meetings with foreign delegations and peace activists to be among the most humiliating aspects of captivity. Once he was compelled to meet with a group from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) for the purpose of apologizing for his actions as a pilot during the Korean War. On another occasion Risner met with American writer and Vietnam War opponent Mary McCarthy, an encounter he judged fruitless in terms of improving POW conditions and that led to a postrelease disagreement between the two. A deeply religious man, Risner identified four essentials to coping with and enduring the captivity experience: opposition to communism, duty to country, the support of the American people, and faith in God. During his military career, Risner received two Air Force Crosses, one of only a few officers to be so honored; he was also awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and two Silver Stars. After his release he returned to the United States. Promoted to brigadier general in May 1974, he retired in 1976. Since then, Risner has written and spoken extensively about his POW experience, including a 1973 book titled The Passing of the Night. He was executive director of the Texans’ War on Drugs for a time and also served

978

River Assault Groups

in the Ronald W. Reagan administration as a U.S. delegate to the 40th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. There is a nine-foot-tall statue of Risner at the United States Air Force Academy in honor of his courage and leadership. GLENN M. ROBINS See also Prisoners of War, Allied References Howren, Jamie, and Taylor Baldwin Kiland. Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005. Risner, Robinson. The Passing of the Night: My Seven Years as a Prisoner of the North Vietnamese. New York: Random House, 1973. Rochester, Stuart I., and Frederick Kiley. Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973. Washington, DC: Historical Office Secretary of Defense, 1998.

River Assault Groups Combined U.S. Army–U.S. Navy forces operating chiefly in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. The mission of river assault groups was to patrol and control the primary communications routes in the Mekong Delta area and to prevent the resupply and movement of Viet Cong (VC) forces in the area. Riverine warfare was certainly not a new concept for the U.S. military. Indeed, American military forces had conducted operations on inland waterways as early as the Revolutionary War and used river warfare frequently over the ensuing decades. Operations by the Union Army and the Union Navy on the great western rivers during the American Civil War had been particularly successful, and during the Philippine-American War U.S. forces successfully employed riverine warfare to subdue rebel forces. In Vietnam, the French had used combined mobile river warfare forces in the Indochina War (1946–1954) in the Mekong Delta and the Red River Delta. As American involvement in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) deepened in the early 1960s, U.S. planners began to look for ways to interdict the flow of supplies to Communist VC forces in the Mekong Delta. In this, they looked to prior American and French experiences for ideas. Generally, all French river assault flotillas had a naval commando force or a light infantry company attached to it. The Americans thus used the same basic organization for their own river assault groups. In establishing a riverine force in the Mekong Delta area, American planners had to address the problem of rugged terrain and inhospitable climate. Mobility would be difficult in an area with poor overland communications, shallow waters, and pervasive mud. Copying the French approach, the Americans decided to employ small landing craft as their primary assault vehicles. The workhorse of the American river flotilla was the river patrol boat (official designation Patrol Boat, River [PBR]). Driven by hydrojets, PBRs were capable of speeds of at least 30 knots and had a low profile to make them difficult targets. In addition, they

could maneuver easily in shallow waters to wait in ambush or to offload troops. The river assault group concept provided for widely varied types of tactical operations. The force would remain in a VC base area as long as operations could be profitably conducted, usually four to six weeks. Ground operations normally extended over four to five days, after which troops would be allowed two or three days of rest during which time they could both dry out and repair their equipment. Area commanders believed that river forces could mount four operations a month. The infantry elements involved in river assault operations in the Mekong area came from battalions of the 47th and 60th Infantry regiments of the 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, based at Dong Tam near the Rung Sat swamps. The naval elements came from Task Force 116, Navy Assault Flotilla 1, the naval command responsible for preventing the flow of supplies and men to the Communist forces in the Mekong area. Between late 1966 and August 1969, the river assault groups of the Mobile Riverine Warfare force engaged in reconnaissance, blocking, and pursuit operations throughout the Mekong Delta area, concentrating in the northern delta area near the Cambodian border and the Ca Mau Peninsula near the southernmost point of South Vietnam. With the implementation of Vietnamization in 1969, the river assault groups became less active. The U.S. Army– U.S. Navy Mobile Riverine Force was deactivated on August 25, 1969, and its infantry elements were withdrawn from Vietnam. The river assault groups and the Mobile Riverine Warfare force achieved impressive results during their three years of operations. However, the force never had sufficient resources to close off all of the myriad routes that the Communists could use to bring supplies into South Vietnam from neighboring Cambodia. WALTER F. BELL See also Cambodia; Mekong Delta; Mekong River; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; United States Navy; Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War; Vietnamization References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Fulton, William B. Riverine Operations, 1966–1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973. Wunderlin, Clarence E., Jr. “Paradox of Power: Infiltration, Coastal Surveillance, and the United States Navy in Vietnam, 1965–1968.” Journal of Military History 53 (July 1989): 275–290.

Riverine Craft Throughout the Indochina War and the Vietnam War, navies played vital roles in seaborne and coastal operations. During the Vietnam War, perhaps the most important role played by the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) and the U.S. Navy was in the use of naval craft to conduct riverine

Riverine Craft (brown-water) operations along the inland waterways of Vietnam. All riverine craft involved had one common prerequisite, shallow draft, without which no boat could navigate the rivers and especially the canals during the dry season. To implement Operation GAME WARDEN and the Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS), the U.S. Navy’s riverine force, the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), required small heavily armed shallow-draft boats. The river patrol boat (PBR) fit these requirements and became the workhorse of the River Patrol Force. The PBR was adapted from a 1965 design by Willis Slane, founder of the Hatteras Yacht Company, and appeared in two versions: the MK-I and the MK-II. Built by United Boatbuilders, the MK-I consisted of a 31-foot fiberglass hull with two diesel-powered water jets instead of propellers. The MK-I had a beam of 10 feet 10 inches and displaced 14,500 pounds with a draft of 2 feet 2 inches; however, when operating at high speeds up to 30 knots or on “the step” (when planing), the PBR had only a 9-inch draft. Approximately 160 MK-Is were built in 1966. The MK-IIs, built in 1967, had only three design modifications from the MK-I. The length was increased to 31 feet 11 inches, and the beam was increased to 11 feet 2 inches. Displacement also increased to 16,000 pounds; however, this had minimal effect on the boat’s speed and draft. Both versions of the PBR contained the same weaponry. The main armament consisted of twin .50-caliber machine guns mounted in a turret forward and a single .50-caliber machine gun aft. In addition, several starboard and port mounts existed for M60 machine guns, and a 40-millimeter (mm) automatic grenade launcher was also on board. Although naval designers placed small amounts of ceramic armor at weapons stations and the coxswain’s flat, firepower and speed were this small boat’s advantages. The fast patrol craft (PCF), although not initially selected for riverine operations, proved valuable along the larger rivers during SEALORDS, which enabled the shallower-draft PBRs to move onto smaller waterways. The U.S. Navy adapted the PCF, or Swift Boat, from the Sewart Seacraft Company vessel used by oil companies to transport crews to and from offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. From 1965 to 1967 the navy ordered the construction of two Swift Boat versions, the MK-I and the MK-II. The MK-I was about 50 feet in length, had a beam of 13 feet 1 inch, and displaced 19 tons yet had a draft of only 3 feet 6 inches. This diesel-powered dualpropeller–driven boat could make 25 knots. About 104 MK-Is were built between 1965 and 1966. The MK-II, of which only 8 were constructed, had only three modifications. The length was increased to 51 feet 4 inches, the beam was increased to 13 feet 7 inches, and the displacement was increased to 19.5 tons. Armament consisted of a .50-caliber machine gun mounted atop an 81-mm mortar aft and twin .50-caliber machine guns mounted in a turret on top of the pilot house. The only craft designed keel-up for use in Vietnam was the assault patrol boat (ASPB). The ASPB, the MRF’s destroyer and minesweeper, was about 50 feet long, had a beam of 15 feet 3 inches, and displaced 28 tons. Equipped with diesel engines, the ASPB could

979

A river patrol boat navigates inland waterways in Vietnam in an offensive against Viet Cong forces. Riverine craft were specially designed to enable them to operate in shallow rivers and canals. (National Archives)

make 15 knots. The U.S. Navy had more than 30 of these boats built and shipped to Vietnam by late 1967. Armament included a 20-mm cannon mounted in a turret forward, an 81-mm mortar aft, and one .50-caliber machine gun amidships and another aft. The bulk of the MRF’s brown-water fleet consisted of conversions of the World War II LCM-6, or mechanized landing craft. The three predominant versions of the LCM-6 included the monitor, the armored troop carrier (ATC), and the command-and-communications boat (CCB). All of the conversions had two propellers powered by diesel engines that gave them a top speed of six knots. Additionally, although each conversion displaced different tonnage, they all drew 3 feet to 3 feet 5 inches of water. The monitor was 60 feet long, had a beam of 17 feet 6 inches, and displaced 75 tons. This craft had an 81-mm mortar in a pit amidships and two .50-caliber and M60 machine guns along with one 20-mm cannon after. A turret forward housed a 40-mm cannon and a .50-caliber machine gun. A modified monitor, dubbed a “Zippo,” mounted two flamethrowers forward.

980

Riverine Craft

Monitor M-92-2 of the Riverine Assault Force Flotilla 1 engages Communist forces ashore in the Mekong Delta region with its 40-mm cannon, October 6, 1967. (U.S. Navy)

The ATCs were 56 feet long and had a beam of 17 feet 6 inches. Each ATC displaced 66 tons and could carry 40 troops. Armament included one 20-mm cannon, two .50-caliber machine guns, and either four .30-caliber or four M60 machine guns. The CCBs maintained the same specifications of the monitor except for the mortar pit amidships. Instead, the CCBs had radar and radio equipment. Other LCM-6 conversions included helipad craft and tankers for the brown-water fleet. All of the conversions had standoff armor to predetonate incoming rockets. The patrol air cushion vehicle (PACV) was an experimental craft adopted for naval purposes. This strange contraption for Vietnam resembled hover ferries used to cross the English Channel. The PACV had a length of 39 feet and a beam of 22 feet 9 inches and displaced 15,680 pounds. When airborne the PACV had a hullborne clearance of 4 feet. Installed with a gas turbine engine that operated both the air screw and the lift fan, the PACV could easily reach 70 knots. For armament the PACV had two .50-caliber machine guns above the pilot house. Until Vietnamization was instituted in the early 1970s, the most common boats in the VNN’s river fleet or River Assault Groups (RAGs) included the Services Techniques des Construction et Armes Navales/France Outre Mere (FOM), personnel landing craft vehicles (LCVPs), LCM-6s or LCM-8 conversions such as monitors, and river patrol craft (RPC). The FOMs remained from French involvement in Vietnam and, following French withdrawal, became part of the VNN.

The FOM was 36 feet long and could make 10 knots. Its armament included one .50-caliber machine gun forward and three .30-caliber machine guns dispersed amidships and aft. The converted LCVP was 35 feet 9 inches in length and had a beam of 10 feet 6 inches. Displacing 26,600 pounds, the LCVP could make 9 knots and drew only 3 feet 5 inches of water. Each LCVP would have a variety of weapons, such as .30-caliber and .50-caliber machine guns. In an attempt to replace the FOMs, 34 RPCs were built in 1965. They had a length of 35 feet 10 inches and a beam of 10 feet 10 inches. The RPC’S two diesel-driven propellers enabled the boat to navigate at 14 knots with a displacement of 26,000 pounds, drawing only 3 feet 6 inches of water. Each RPC had either one set of twin .30-caliber and a set of .50-caliber machine guns or two sets of twin .30-caliber machine guns. Although the VNN and the U.S. Navy used and experimented with other craft, these represent the primary craft used by the two navies. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also GAME WARDEN, Operation; MARKET TIME, Operation; Mekong Delta; Mobile

Riverine Force; Riverine Warfare; SEALORDS; United States Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Navy References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988.

Riverine Warfare Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. U.S. Naval History Division. Riverine Warfare: Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972.

Riverine Warfare Riverine warfare characterized the contest for control of the inland waterways of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Mekong Delta was the geostrategic center of South Vietnam. With an area of 15,450 square miles and nearly 8 million inhabitants, the Mekong Delta constituted almost one-fourth of the country’s territory and held about half of its population. Even more importantly, the delta was the agricultural production center of the entire region, the rice bowl of Southeast Asia. The Mekong Delta is a flat alluvial plain created by the Mekong River and its many tributaries. Only one hard-surfaced road, Highway 4, traversed the delta south of Saigon. On the other hand, the region had some 1,500 miles of navigable natural waterways, interconnected by another 2,500 miles of human-made canals of varying width, depth, and condition. It was a perfect area for riverborne operations. Although virtually no People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units operated in the Mekong Delta, it was a major Viet Cong (VC) stronghold. In mid-1966 the area held an estimated 28 VC battalions and 69 separate companies, totaling some 82,500 troops. Almost one-third of all VC actions against South Vietnam took place in the delta, and the VC controlled an estimated 24.6 percent of the region’s population. As part of their overall strategy, the VC attempted to cut off the flow of rice from the delta. The Mekong Delta constituted the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s (ARVN’s) IV Corps Tactical Zone. Three ARVN divisions— the 7th, 9th, and 21st—were based there. The Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) also operated 6 river assault groups and 11 coastal groups in the waters in and adjacent to the delta. The South Vietnamese river assault groups were patterned directly after the Dinassauts, operated by the French in the Indochina War. The American military first entered the Mekong Delta in 1957 when U.S. Navy advisers replaced their French counterparts. By 1966 no American ground units were yet in the delta, but the U.S. Army’s 13th Combat Aviation Brigade provided support to the ARVN. The U.S. Navy had two task forces operating in Mekong Delta waters. Task Force (TF) 115, under Operation MARKET TIME, patrolled the coastal areas to prevent VC infiltration and resupply from the sea. In Operation GAME WARDEN, TF 116, also known as the River Patrol Force, worked the rivers. Operating with a U.S. Navy helicopter attack squadron, SEAL teams, and a minesweeping divi-

981

sion, the River Patrol Force conducted reconnaissance patrols, salvage operations, day and night ambushes, and hit-and-run raids. The concept of a joint U.S. Army–U.S. Navy riverine force for the Mekong Delta emerged from a March 1966 study by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), titled Delta Mobile Afloat Force Concept and Requirements. The missions of the joint riverine force were to secure U.S. base areas and lines of communication, conduct offensive operations against VC forces in the area, isolate the most heavily populated and key food-producing areas from the VC, interdict VC supply routes, and provide reserve and reaction forces for ARVN units operating in the IV Corps Tactical Zone. One of the principal reasons behind the concept of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), as it came to be designated, was the lack of a suitable land base area for a large U.S. ground force in the densely populated Mekong Delta. The MACV plan called for the establishment of a relatively small land base, created by dredging. It would house units of the force’s support structure and equipment that the force would not need while afloat. In June 1966 General William Westmoreland personally selected a site near My Tho for the new base, which was christened Dong Tam. The planners believed that at least a brigade-sized unit was needed in the Mekong Delta. The original concept called for a force consisting of two river assault groups (later called river assault squadrons), supported by five self-propelled barracks ships. The plan was approved by the Department of Defense on July 5, 1966, but at the same time Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided to cut the number of barracks ships from five to two. As a result of McNamara’s decision, the authorized force had afloat berthing space for only one of a brigade’s three maneuver battalions. The U.S. Navy created space for another battalion by providing a towed barracks barge. The force, however, could still maintain only two battalions afloat. As a result, the brigade habitually operated with only two battalions, while the third battalion secured the land base at Dong Tam. The U.S. Army element of the MRF was the 2nd Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division. Under its first commander, Colonel William B. Fulton, the 2nd Brigade consisted of the 3rd and 4th battalions, 47th Infantry; the 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry; and the 3rd Battalion, 39th Artillery, a towed 105-millimeter (mm) unit. The 9th Infantry Division was activated specifically for the Vietnam War at Fort Riley, Kansas, on February 1, 1966. Its lead elements arrived in Vietnam on December 16, 1966. Initially the division’s 1st and 3rd brigades operated from Bearcat, just south of Saigon and north of the Mekong Delta, in the III Corps Tactical Zone. The 2nd Brigade operated from Dong Tam. The U.S. Navy component of the MRF was River Assault Flotilla 1, also known as the Riverine Assault Force and TF 117. Initially under the command of Captain Wade C. Wells, TF 117 consisted of the 9th and 11th River Assault squadrons, which were further organized into river assault divisions. A river assault squadron could carry a battalion, and a river assault division could carry a company. By the time the MRF was disbanded, TF 117 had grown

982

Riverine Warfare

A flamethrower is directed against a shore target from a U.S. Navy patrol boat. The struggle to control the inland waterways of South Vietnam was a key strategic challenge of the war. (Department of Defense)

to four river assault squadrons, with the addition of the 13th and the 15th River Assault squadrons. A 400-man river assault squadron was a powerful flotilla. It consisted of up to 3 command-and-communications boats, 5 monitors, 26 armored troop carriers (ATCs), 16 assault support patrol boats, and 1 refueler plus a supporting underwater demolition team, an explosive ordnance detachment, and a riverine survey team. During the life of the MRF, many local innovations improved the equipment and operating procedures. Perhaps the most important was the mounting of artillery on barges, which greatly increased the mobility—and therefore the operational range—of

the brigade’s artillery battalion. Each barge carried two 105-mm howitzers, their crews, and basic loads of ammunition. Field artillery requires stationary firing platforms and fixed aiming points, which meant that the barges had to be beached along a river or canal bank in order to fire effectively. This did, however, allow for direct support fire to ground units once they were landed. Other important innovations included the building of helicopter landing platforms on the ATCs and the use of helicopter landing barges. The MRF was not a true joint task force with a single commander. According to MACV Planning Directive 12–66 of December 10, 1966, army units of the force came under the commanding general of II Field Force, who exercised operational control through

Riverine Warfare the designated subordinated headquarters, in this case the 9th Infantry Division. Navy units of the force came directly under the operational control of the commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Vietnam. The document stipulated coordination between the army and navy units involved, with the navy providing close support to the army. Although in U.S. practice the doctrinal concept of close support implies that the supported force directs operations, the determination of mission and area of operation of the MRF was a constant source of friction between the army and navy component commanders. In practice, the target and area of operations usually was selected by the commander of the 2nd Brigade or a higher-echelon army commander. The 2nd Brigade and TF 117 commanders then agreed on the general timing and task organization of the mission. At that point a joint planning staff developed the scheme of maneuver in the target area. From there they worked backwards to work out the details of the assault or landing, the water movement, and the loading phases. Then the final operations plan was briefed to the two commanders, usually aboard the MRF’s flagship, the landing ship Benewah. The operations of the MRF consisted of coordinated airmobile, ground, and waterborne attacks, supported by air and naval forces. Once the force made contact with the VC, commanders quickly moved to cut off possible escape routes by moving units into blocking positions on the VC flanks and rear. After artillery fire, helicopter gunship fire, and tactical air strikes were directed into the VC positions, ground troops then swept the area. During the MRF’s first year of operations, these tactics proved very effective. The VC often were disoriented and caught by surprise. Prior to the arrival of the MRF in the Mekong Delta, the VC had anticipated attacks primarily coming from the land and air. Their defenses therefore almost always faced away from the water. Over time the VC learned to deal with the new situation. While under way, the principal security threats to the MRF came from command-detonated mines in the waterway and ambushes along the shore, with heavy fire from recoilless rifles and B-40 rockets. While the MRF was anchored, the most critical threats were from floating mines, swimmer saboteurs, and suicide attack boats. The MRF developed security measures to deal with all of these. During operations, all troop movements were controlled and coordinated from the joint tactical operations center on the flagship. The army element of the staff normally was supervised by the brigade executive officer. The brigade commander operated with his forward command group from a firebase. During daylight hours they were usually aloft in a command-and-control helicopter. Battalion command posts were divided into forward and rear tactical operations centers. The battalion commander operated from the forward command post aboard the command ship of the river assault squadron. The battalion rear command posts were controlled by the executive officers and located aboard ship at the mobile riverine floating base. Operating in a riverine environment presented special challenges. Saltwater in the lower reaches of the Mekong Delta caused

983

maintenance problems, often corroding weapons (especially the steel links of belted machine-gun ammunition). Operations had to be planned around such constraints as tides, water depth, water obstructions, bridge clearances, and the suitability of river and canal banks for landing sites. Wet and marshy terrain also caused immersion foot, dermatophytosis, and other foot problems. These diseases increased at high rates whenever the troops operated on land for more than two continuous days. Soldiers in the Mekong Delta almost never wore socks. Once a soldier got into the water, which was unavoidable, wet socks inside his boots would keep his feet wet that much longer after he got out of the water. It was simply impossible to carry enough dry socks and impractical to stop to change socks every time feet got wet. The main body of the 2nd Brigade arrived in Vietnam on January 31, 1967. On February 15 the VC attacked an oceangoing freighter on the Long Tao, the main shipping channel between Vung Tau on the coast and Saigon. In reaction to this attack, the 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry, was ordered to conduct operations in the Rung Sat Special Zone, a tangled area of mangrove swamp at the northeastern corner of the Mekong Delta. The resulting operation, RIVER RAIDER I, was the first joint operation between U.S. Army and U.S. Navy units that would later form the MRF. The operation lasted from February 16 to March 20, with army units supported by River Assault Division 91 of River Assault Squadron 9. The 2nd Brigade’s headquarters became operational at Dong Tam on March 10. A month later the first of the river assault divisions moved to Dong Tam and began operations with the 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry. The MRF became fully operational on June 1, 1967. Between then and March 1968, the MRF conducted a series of wide-ranging riverine and combined airmobile and riverine operations designated CORONADO I–XI. The navy component of the MRF continued to grow. By the autumn of 1968 it reached its full strength of four river assault squadrons, including 184 river assault craft, 4 barracks ships, 2 barracks barges, 3 repair ships, 2 support ships, and 2 resupply ships as well as various other craft. About the same time, the MRF was reorganized into two Mobile Riverine Groups (MRGs). MRG Alpha had five river assault divisions, and MRG Bravo had three. In mid-1968 the 9th Infantry Division underwent a major change in its mission. On July 25 the division headquarters relocated from Bearcat to Dong Tam, and the other two brigades also moved into the Mekong Delta. For the first time an entire U.S. infantry division was in the delta. As part of this shift, the 2nd Brigade’s mission changed to an almost exclusive focus on the pacification of Kien Hoa Province. The 2nd Brigade finally received its third maneuver battalion afloat, but the newly restricted area of operations greatly reduced the mobility advantages demonstrated during the widerranging operations of the MRF’s first year. MRG Alpha continued to support the 2nd Brigade in Kien Hoa Province, while MRG Bravo carried out operations in the southern delta with units of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th battalions of the Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps.

984

Rivers, Lucius Mendel

In November 1968 MRG Bravo initiated the first of the SEALORDS (Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy) operations, designed to keep Communist forces away from the rivers and canals in western Long An and Kien Tuong provinces. On February 1, 1969, the 25 river assault craft of River Assault Division 91 were turned over to the VNN. The 9th Infantry Division meanwhile was informed that it was to be the first division withdrawn from Vietnam, with the 2nd Brigade to be the first unit deactivated. As part of the Vietnamization process, TF 117 started turning over the rest of its boats to the VNN. On August 25, 1969, the MRF, and with it River Flotilla 1 and the 2nd Brigade, 9th Division, were deactivated. On both tactical and operational levels the MRF was one of the success stories of the Vietnam War. While it operated, the MRF effectively wrested control of the northern Mekong Delta from the VC and opened Highway 4 for the first time since 1965, which in turn freed the flow of agricultural products from the delta for both export and domestic use. One intriguing question remains about the composition of the MRF. By doctrine, the U.S. Marine Corps is organized and trained for amphibious warfare missions. It seems odd then that U.S. Marine Corps units in Vietnam were deployed in the mountainous north of the country and that a brigade of a newly raised U.S. Army division was assigned the amphibious mission that is supposed to be the U.S. Marine Corps’ raison d’être. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Dinassauts; GAME WARDEN, Operation; MARKET TIME, Operation; McNamara, Robert Strange; Mobile Riverine Force; Riverine Craft; SEALORDS; SEAL Teams References Croizat, Victor. The Brown Water Navy: The River and Coastal War in Indochina and Vietnam, 1940–1972. Dorset, UK: Blandford, 1984. Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Fulton, William B. Riverine Operations, 1966–1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973. Sheppard, Don. “Riverine”: A Brown Water Sailor in the Delta, 1967. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992.

River Rats See Red River Fighter Pilots Association

Rivers, Lucius Mendel Birth Date: September 28, 1905 Death Date: December 28, 1970 Attorney, U.S. congressman (1941–1970), and staunch supporter of American involvement in Vietnam. Born in Gumville, South Carolina, on September 28, 1905, Lucius Mendel Rivers attended

the College of Charleston for three years and the University of South Carolina for two years, where he studied law. He did not earn a degree from either institution, but he passed the state bar exam in 1932. Rivers practiced law in Charleston and entered politics in 1933, when he began serving in the South Carolina House of Representatives. In 1936 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In 1940 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, taking his seat in January 1941. He was reelected to the House 15 consecutive times. Over the years Rivers became one of the staunchest advocates of the U.S. military establishment and of escalating military procurements. As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he had significant influence on military legislation and appropriations. In return for his unswerving support, various administrations rewarded him with an enormous number of military installations for his district encompassing Charleston, South Carolina. Rivers’s views on the Vietnam War were hawkish and remained so throughout his life. His only serious criticism of the war was that it had not been fought with sufficient vigor. After the 1968 Tet Offensive he went so far as to recommend the use of nuclear weapons against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Rivers also supported the military in opposing civilian systems analysts often favored by the Department of Defense. He conducted hearings in support of an ultimately unsuccessful proposal to abolish the Office of Systems Analysis, a creation of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Rivers died in Birmingham, Alabama, on December 28, 1970. ERIC JARVIS See also Goldwater, Barry Morris; McGee, Gale William; McNamara, Robert Strange; Stennis, John Cornelius; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle References Baritz, Loren. Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did. New York: Morrow, 1985. Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Hopkins, George W. “From Naval Pauper to Naval Power: The Development of Charleston’s Metropolitan-Military Complex.” In The Martial Metropolis: U.S. Cities in War and Peace, edited by Roger W. Lotchin, 1–34. New York: Praeger, 1984.

Road Watch Teams Teams sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that monitored traffic by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos began in 1962 in Operation HARDNOSE. Road Watch Teams (RWTs) sponsored by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV),

Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil Studies and Observations Group (SOG) in Saigon and eventually controlled jointly by it and the CIA in Laos began in 1966. Because of the prohibition against U.S. military personnel conducting ground combat operations in central and northern Laos, participants in the RWT program were indigenous Laotians. Teams were composed of 6 to 12 men each. Individual teams were sometimes inserted overland, but the usual procedure was by helicopter. Each team was assigned a Royal Laotian Army officer or sergeant to identify team members. The teams were not to engage in combat and had as their primary mission surveillance of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Their operational area ran from the southern boundary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the northern Cambodian border. U.S.-led reconnaissance teams from SOG’s Operation 35 (Ground Studies Group) were the exception to the ban on American combat forces in Laos. By presidential order they were authorized to reconnoiter in Laos up to 12.5 miles from the border with the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation 35’s cross-border zone of operations in Laos was code-named PRAIRIE FIRE and ran from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) south to the northern Cambodian border. RWTs and Operation 35 teams were purposely kept separated. RWTs operated deeper, beyond limitations set for Operation 35 in Laos. RWT members reported enemy activity via short-burst coded radio transmissions to U.S. aircraft flying around-the-clock designated orbits over Laos. The U.S. Air Force utilized this information to conduct bombing missions against enemy truck convoys. RWTs also assessed damage from these strikes and aided propaganda leaflet drops over Laos. The RWT project was a model of cooperation among the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Special Forces, and the CIA. HARVE SAAL AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Central Intelligence Agency; Laos; STEEL TIGER, Operation; TIGER HOUND, Operation; United States Special Forces References Conboy, Kenneth J., and James Morrison. Shadow War: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos. Boulder, CO: Paladin, 1995. Holm, Richard L. The American Agent: My Life in the CIA. London: St. Ermin’s, 2003. Saal, Harve. MACV, Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 4 vols. Milwaukee, WI: Jones Techno-Comm, 1990. Secord, Richard, with Jay Wurts. Honored and Betrayed: Irangate, Covert Affairs, and the Secret War in Laos. New York: Wiley, 1992.

Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil Birth Date: October 2, 1924 Death Date: May 8, 1972 U.S. Navy officer and the only U.S. naval flag officer killed in the Vietnam War. Rembrandt Cecil Robinson was born in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1924, the son of a navy veteran. He

985

attended Pennsylvania State University for a time before enlisting in the U.S. Naval Reserve in June 1943. He was subsequently appointed a midshipman and attended the Naval Reserve Midshipman Program; he was commissioned an officer in 1944 and joined the regular navy that same year. During World War II he saw action at Okinawa and Iwo Jima in the Pacific theater and assisted in the rescue of Chinese refugees during the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s. He served in a variety of land- and sea-based assignments while rising steadily in rank and responsibility. Robinson saw action during the 1950–1953 Korean War, for which he won a Bronze Star. He then held a series of posts in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; and Norfolk, Virginia. In January 1957 he became assistant head of the Command Policy Section, Strategic Plans Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. In 1964 he finally completed his undergraduate education, which he had cut short because of World War II, when he earned a BA degree from George Washington University. From August 1964 to August 1968 Robinson was executive assistant and aide to the commander in chief, Pacific. In September 1968 Captain Robinson took command of Destroyer Squadron 31, with which he served in the waters off Vietnam. In March 1969 he went to Washington, D.C., where he distinguished himself on the Chairman’s Staff Group, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). On September 1, 1970, he was advanced to rear admiral, making him one of the navy’s youngest flag officers. While working for JCS chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer, Robinson reportedly played a leading role in the so-called Pentagon spy ring that clandestinely reported to Admiral Moorer on the Nixon White House and on National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger’s secret diplomatic activities. In July 1971 Robinson was dispatched to Vietnam again, this time as commander of Cruiser-Destroyer Flotilla 11 and Cruiser Destroyer Group Vietnam, Seventh Fleet (CTF 75), although he did not arrive until the late winter of 1972. On May 8, 1972, as Robinson’s helicopter was about to land on his flagship, USS Providence (CLG-6), a guided missile light cruiser, the aircraft crashed into the Gulf of Tonkin. Robinson was killed in the accident along with two other officers. Four other passengers survived and were rescued by the crew of the Providence. Robinson had been in the process of supervising a cruiser-destroyer attack on the Haiphong area in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The helicopter had not come under fire, and a mechanical failure remains the likeliest cause of the crash. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Moorer, Thomas Hinman; United States Navy References Love, Robert W., Jr. History of the U.S. Navy, Vol. 2, 1942–1991. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1992. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986.

986

Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich

Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich Birth Date: July 8, 1908 Death Date: January 27, 1979 Governor of New York (1959–1973) and vice president of the United States (1974–1977). Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1908, in Bar Harbor, Maine. He majored in economics at Dartmouth College and graduated from there in 1930. One of the heirs to the vast Standard Oil fortune of John D. Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller was determined to win distinction in the political arena, where his ultimate ambition, never attained, was to become president of the United States. A liberal Republican, he was successively coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs during 1940–1944; assistant secretary of state for American Republics’ Affairs during 1944–1945; chairman of the International Development Advisory Board (Point Four Program) during 1950–1951; undersecretary of Health, Education, and Welfare during 1953– 1954; and special assistant to the president during 1954–1955. In 1958 Rockefeller was elected to the first of four successive terms as governor of New York. Throughout the 1960s Rockefeller was a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. A firm anti-Communist and leader of the internationalist wing of the Republican Party, Rockefeller believed implicitly in the prevailing Cold War ortho-

doxy and was originally a strong supporter of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam. In the 1964 presidential campaign he attacked President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policies as insufficiently firm and assertive. Rockefeller was fully supportive of the military escalation from 1965 to 1967. During the 1968 presidential campaign Rockefeller announced that he would not attack Johnson’s prosecution of the war, with which he sympathized. Rockefeller did advance a program for peace, a rather impractical proposal that envisaged the supervision of Vietnam by a neutral international peacekeeping force, and free elections to decide whether or not North Vietnam and South Vietnam should be reunited. At the 1968 Republican National Convention both Rockefeller and Richard Nixon supported and won a platform plank favoring peace negotiations. This was over the opposition of Ronald Reagan’s followers, who urged a more aggressive prosecution of the war. After Nixon’s election, Rockefeller loyally supported his policies toward Vietnam. In the turmoil that followed Nixon’s 1974 resignation because of the Watergate Scandal, President Gerald R. Ford selected Rockefeller as his vice president, a move that angered the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Rockefeller took office on December 19, 1974. He did not run with Ford in the 1976 election, however, and retired from politics in January 1977. Rockefeller died of a heart attack on January 27, 1979, in New York City. PRISCILLA ROBERTS See also Elections, U.S., 1968; Elections, U.S., 1976; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Watergate Scandal References Dietz, Terry. Republicans and Vietnam, 1961–1968. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Persico, Joseph. The Imperial Rockefeller. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. Reich, Cary. The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

Rockets and Rocket Launchers

Nelson Rockefeller was vice president of the United States during 1974– 1977. Despite his excellent record of public service, he never achieved what he most desired—the Republican nomination for president. (Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library)

A military rocket is a weapon that combines both a warhead and a source of propulsion in a single projectile. Unlike a conventional artillery round, which is fired with a charge separate from the projectile, the propellant in most rockets continues to burn after launch, producing additional thrust. Like a conventional artillery round, however, a rocket only goes where it is pointed, subject to external environmental influences during the course of its flight. Rockets that have guidance systems and can be controlled after launch are classified as missiles. Although rockets can use either solid or liquid propellant, most modern military rockets use only solid propellant. Rocket weapons appeared sometime after the discovery of gunpowder in about the 9th century. The earliest recorded uses of

Rockets and Rocket Launchers military rockets by the Chinese date from the 13th century. During the Vietnam War, as in World War II, rockets were used as field artillery, as aircraft weapons, as shore-bombardment weapons, and as shoulder-fired infantry weapons. Most of the shoulder-fired systems throughout the Vietnam War were designed as antitank weapons, although they frequently were used against bunkers and other hardened point targets. All shoulder-fired rocket launchers are essentially tubes, open on both ends. As the rocket launches from the front of the tube, the propulsion back-blast leaves the rear of the tube. As a result, the shoulder-fired rocket launcher is a recoilless weapon, but the backblast makes it dangerous and difficult to fire from confined spaces. The U.S. M-20 rocket launcher was used by U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps units early in the war and by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces much later. Designated the “Super Bazooka,” the M-20 was an improved and up-gunned version of the M-9A1 bazooka of World War II. The M-9A1 fired a 2.36-inch rocket, whereas the M-20 fired the more substantial 3.5-inch rocket. The M-20 weighed 14.3 pounds, was 60 inches long, and had a two-man crew (gunner and loader). The rate of fire was 6 rounds per minute. Each platoon had two M-20s in its Weapons Squad. The 3.5-inch rocket weighed 8.8 pounds and had a high-explosive antitank (HEAT) warhead capable of penetrating 125-millimeters (mm) of armor. Equipped with a simple optical sight, the M-20’s maximum effective range was 382 yards. By early 1967 the M-20 had been replaced in most army units by the M-67 90-mm recoilless rifle, which was not a rocket launcher. About the same time that the M-20 was phased out, the U.S. Army introduced the M-72 light antitank weapon (LAW). The M-72 was a single-shot self-contained rocket and launcher. As issued, it weighed only 5.2 pounds and was 24.8 inches long. In its carrying configuration the launcher consisted of two tubes, one telescoped inside the other. When expanded to firing configuration, the LAW was 34.7 inches long. The rocket weighed 2.2 pounds, and its HEAT warhead was capable of penetrating 300-mm of armor. Equipped with a nonoptical graduated reticle sight engraved on a piece of clear plastic, the LAW had a maximum effective range of 355 yards. Unlike the M-20, the LAW was fired by a single gunner, who often carried several rounds. Nor was the LAW confined to just the Weapons Squad. Any number of soldiers in a platoon could be assigned to carry a LAW. Although designed to be disposable, it was vitally important not to discard the used launcher on the battlefield. The Viet Cong (VC) sought to recover any spent launchers and later use them against allied forces in any number of ingenious ways. During the Korean War the Chinese reverse-engineered captured American M-20 rocket launchers and issued their own version as the Type 51 rocket launcher, firing a rocket with a 90-mm warhead. During the Battle of Dien Bien Phu the Viet Minh used the Type 51 against French tanks. Type 51s were captured in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as late as 1964. The primary shoulder-fired rocket of the VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) was the Soviet-

987

designed Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomyot (RPG). Although the English version of the acronym is usually understood to mean “rocket-propelled grenade,” the Soviet RPG was a rocket launcher rather than a grenade launcher. The first RPG was designed in the late 1940s, directly copied from the German Panzerfaust of World War II. Unlike the LAW, the RPG is reloadable. The warhead of an RPG rocket is much larger than the diameter of the launcher’s tube. When loaded, the rocket’s main body fits inside the launcher tube, while the large warhead protrudes from the muzzle end of the launcher. The RPG’s resulting shape is one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable of any modern weapon. The RPG is a two-man (gunner and loader) weapon. Only marginally effective against the M-48 tank, the RPGs were very effective against the M-113 armored personnel carrier and especially against helicopters as they were coming into or going out of landing zones. A screen made of chain-link fence proved to be the most effective means of defeating the RPG by creating a standoff distance from the point of detonation. When the rocket warhead hit the fence, the fuse of its HEAT warhead triggered too far away from the surface of the target for the shaped-charge jet to form properly, thus dissipating much of the effect. Introduced into Soviet service in 1947, the RPG-2 was 25.6 inches long with a 40-mm launch tube. Loaded, the entire system weighed 10.3 pounds. The 4.1 pound rocket had an 82-mm warhead and could penetrate 180-mm of armor. Equipped only with an open sight, the RPG-2 had a maximum effective range of 164 yards. An experienced gunner could fire three to four rounds per minute. The PAVN and the VC used both the Soviet version and the Chinese Type 56 version. The designation by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for the rocket was the B-40. In the late 1960s the PAVN introduced a rocket with a 100mm warhead, designated the B-50. The improved RPG-7 entered Soviet service in 1962 and started appearing in Vietnam in 1967 along with its Chinese version, the Type 69. The RPG-7 is 38.4 inches long and weighs 22.3 pounds loaded. The launch tube is 40-mm. The rocket weighs 5 pounds, has an 85-mm warhead, and can penetrate 330-mm of armor. Equipped with a fairly sophisticated telescopic sight, the RPG-7 has a maximum effective range of 328 yards for moving targets and 546 yards for stationary targets. The PAVN designation for the rocket was B-41. During World War II the United States used several models of field artillery rockets. By the time of the Vietnam War the field artillery rocket had disappeared from the American arsenal, only to return well after the war in the form of the multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS). The PAVN and the VC, however, made extensive use of various rockets, starting out with improvised versions and then progressing to Soviet and Chinese models. Most often the launchers were crude field expedients, sometimes tubes fastened to wooden planks and propped up with bamboo bipods. All of these weapons were wildly inaccurate and mostly produced only psychological effect. But on the rare occasions where they actually hit something, they could do significant damage.

988

Rogers, William Pierce

The Chinese Type 63 and Model 102A3 rockets were similar. The 102A3 was 33.6 inches long and 102-mm in diameter and weighed 37 pounds. The warhead weighed 2.76 pounds. The 102A3 had a maximum range of 3.1 miles. The Type 63 had a little better range, at 5.1 miles. It was 33 inches long, weighed 41.6 pounds, and was 107-mm in diameter. The Type 63 warhead weighed 2.86 pounds. Soviet rockets started to appear in Vietnam in early 1967. The most significant was the 9M22M, one of the Katyusha class of 122-mm rockets. With a range of 6.8 miles, the 9M22M was often fired from launching tubes that had been disassembled from the Soviet truck-mounted BM-14 multiple rocket launcher, the direct descendant of the “Stalin Organ” of World War II. The 9M22M was 75.4 inches long and weighed 101 pounds, 14.5 pounds of which comprised the warhead. At 140-mm the Soviet M14-OF rocket was larger in diameter, but it was only 42.8 inches long and weighed 87 pounds, including the 8.1-pound warhead. The range of the M14OF was 6.5 miles. The Mk-40 2.75-inch folding fin aircraft rocket (FFAR) was the primary American air-to-ground helicopter rocket of the Vietnam War. It was developed from the Mk-4 FFAR, which was introduced in the late 1940s as an air-to-air weapon. The Mk-40 was 4 feet long, weighed 18.5 pounds, and had a maximum effective range of 2.1 miles. Its various warheads included high-explosive (HE), HEAT, smoke, white phosphorus, and antipersonnel (fléchette). The HE warhead weighed 6 pounds. Early versions of the UH-1B and UH-1C gunships were armed with the XM-3 Aircraft Armament Subsystem, which consisted of two 24-tube launchers stacked in a rectangular configuration, one launcher pod mounted on either side of the aircraft. Later gunships, including the AH-1 Cobra, mounted either the seven-tube M-158 rocket launcher or the 19-tube M-159 rocket launcher. Like their shoulder-fired counterparts, all helicopter-mounted rocket launchers are essentially tubes open at both ends and thus are effectively recoilless. The M-158 or M-159 generally was used in combination with various machine guns or automatic 40-mm grenade launchers. The U.S. Navy in Vietnam used two different types of vessels to fire surface-to-surface rockets against shore targets. The LSM(R) (landing ship medium, rocket) was a World War II–era landing craft refitted with updated rocket launchers. The IFS (inshore firesupport ship), such as USS Carronade, was purpose-built after the war to support shore operations. In addition to various gun systems, both the IFS and the LSM(R) were each armed with eight automatic twin-tube continuous-loading rocket launchers, which fired a family of 5-inch spin-stabilized rockets. The LSM(R)s mounted the Mk-102 rocket launcher, which had a sustained rate of fire of 30 rounds per minute, giving the entire vessel a rate of fire of 240 rounds per minute. The Carronade mounted the more modern Mk-105 rocket launcher, which had a rate of fire of 48 rounds per minute, resulting in 384 rounds per minute for the entire ship.

The Mk-7 rocket had a range of 6.2 miles and carried a warhead with 2.8 pounds of TNT filler. The Mk-10 rocket had a range of 3.1 miles and 9.6 pounds of TNT in its warhead. The Mk-12 rocket had a range of only 1.5 miles but had 12 pounds of TNT in its warhead. All of the rockets were 29.5 inches long and weighed 52 pounds. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Grenade Launchers; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Baud, Jacques F. Warsaw Pact Weapons Handbook. Boulder CO: Paladin, 1989. Dunstan, Simon. Vietnam Choppers: Helicopters in Battle 1950–1975. Rev. ed. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2003. Emering, Edward J. Weapons and Field Gear of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1998. Hogg, Ian V. Jane’s Infantry Weapons, 1991–92. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group, 1991. Ott, David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Robinson, Anthony, Anthony Preston, and Ian V. Hogg. Weapons of the Vietnam War. New York: Gallery Books, 1983. Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965–73. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2005. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong Fighter. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. NavPers 10797-A: Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, Vol. 1, Naval Ordnance. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957.

Rogers, William Pierce Birth Date: June 23, 1913 Death Date: January 2, 2001 U.S. attorney general (1958–1961) and U.S. secretary of state (1969–1973). William Pierce Rogers was born in Norfolk, New York, on June 23, 1913. He graduated from Colgate University in 1934 and three years later earned a law degree at Cornell University. A New York lawyer of impeccable establishment credentials, he had a long record of public service beginning with stints as assistant district attorney in New York County (1938–1942 and 1946–1947), where he served under Thomas E. Dewey; as counsel to the U.S. Senate War Investigating Committee (1947); and as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Investigations Sub-Committee of the Executive Expenditures Committee (1947–1948). At this time Rogers first met the young congressman Richard M. Nixon, with whom he worked on the Alger Hiss case. During the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration Rogers was appointed assistant attorney general (1953–1958), eventually winning promotion to attorney general (1958–1961). Unlike most prominent New York lawyers, Rogers was a personal friend of Nixon, whom he assisted when the latter set up a legal practice in New York after his defeat in the 1962 California

ROLLING THUNDER, Operation

gubernatorial election. In 1968 Nixon, newly elected as president, rewarded Rogers by appointing him secretary of state. Rogers had no background in foreign policy, and his appointment reflected Nixon’s desire to keep control of foreign policy in his own hands. Rogers was no match for the dominating, driven, and intellectually brilliant national security advisor Henry Kissinger under whose direction the National Security Council within a few weeks wrested from the State Department the crucial power to set the agenda for U.S. foreign policy discussions. Throughout his term as secretary of state Rogers remained a marginal figure, entirely overshadowed by the able, flamboyant, and publicity-hungry Kissinger. Nixon said of his two subordinates that “Henry thinks Bill isn’t very deep, and Bill thinks Henry is power-crazy.” Nixon and Kissinger often kept Rogers in ignorance of major foreign policy initiatives, including arms control, secret negotiations to end the Vietnam War, and the opening of relations with China (of which Rogers first learned through newspaper accounts of Kissinger’s 1971 trip to Beijing). On Vietnam and Indochina, Rogers normally favored caution, conciliation, and negotiation over the generally more militant instincts of Nixon and Kissinger. In February 1969 Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird persuaded Nixon to defer resumption of U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), although in March, over Rogers’s objections, the president finally authorized a secret bombing campaign against Vietnamese Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. In November when Nixon delivered a major speech on Vietnam, Rogers unsuccessfully urged him to stress negotiations rather than the military threat to Vietnam. Rogers opposed the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in April 1970, preferring to continue the existing policy of minor cross-border raids by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces. He also spoke against Operation LAM SON 719, the February 1971 ARVN attack on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos, an operation that ended in an inglorious military rout. In the spring of 1972 Rogers was dubious as to the utility of the U.S. mining of Haiphong Harbor and the bombing of Hanoi, measures that were implemented against his advice as so often was the case. In an unusual twist, Kissinger briefed Rogers in full on the final version of the Paris Peace Accords, which were signed in January 1973 and of which Rogers became a strong supporter. Equally unusual was that Kissinger stayed at home out of the limelight while Rogers went to Paris to sign the accords. In September 1973 Nixon asked for Rogers’s resignation and replaced him with his great rival and bureaucratic nemesis, Kissinger, who for a time served as both national security adviser and secretary of state. Rogers returned to the practice of law in New York City, taking little further interest in foreign affairs. In the aftermath of the January 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, Rogers chaired the committee that investigated the tragedy. Rogers died in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 2, 2001. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

989

See also Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Laird, Melvin Robert; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Peace Accords References Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon. 3 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 1989, 1991. Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

ROLLING THUNDER,

Operation

Start Date: March 2, 1965 End Date: October 31, 1968 Prolonged U.S. bombing campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Operation ROLLING THUNDER became the longest bombing campaign ever conducted by the U.S. Air Force (USAF). The bombing cost North Vietnam more than half its bridges, virtually all of its large petroleum-storage facilities, and nearly two-thirds of its power-generating plants. ROLLING THUNDER also killed an estimated 52,000 North Vietnamese citizens. North Vietnamese air defenses cost the United States nearly 1,000 aircraft, hundreds of prisoners of war (POWs), and hundreds of airmen killed or missing in action. Although the USAF, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps flew almost 1 million sorties (one plane, one mission) to drop nearly 750,000 tons of bombs, ROLLING THUNDER failed to achieve its major political and military objectives. In the overwhelming judgment of history, ROLLING THUNDER stands as the classic example of airpower failure. Preparations for an extended bombing campaign against North Vietnam began in early 1964. Over the course of the year, competing plans emerged. The USAF, led by chief of staff General Curtis E. LeMay, advocated an all-out assault wrapped around 94 targets. The USAF’s air campaign was designed to bomb North Vietnam “back to the Stone Age” by destroying its industrial base and warmaking capability. The U.S. State Department advocated an escalating campaign that would increase in intensity with the number of targets, expanding over time until the Hanoi regime stopped supporting the Viet Cong (VC) and agreed to allow the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to develop as an independent nonCommunist state. The U.S. Navy, because its planes did not have the range to strike targets deep inside North Vietnam, proposed an interdiction campaign south of 20 degrees north latitude, concentrating on roads, bridges, and railroads in the southern panhandle. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers turned to airpower in 1965 out of frustration. The war was going poorly in South Vietnam. The political situation in South Vietnam remained unstable, and VC guerrillas, with growing support from the North Vietnamese government, seemed very close to achieving victory. Based on their perceptions of the accomplishments of airpower in World War II and in the Korean War, USAF and U.S. Navy

990

ROLLING THUNDER, Operation

As part of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, a U.S. Air Force Martin B-57 Canberra bomber attacks a suspected military position in North Vietnam on March 17, 1967. The longest bombing campaign ever conducted by the U.S. Air Force, Operation ROLLING THUNDER lasted from March 1965 to October 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

airpower advocates promised what airpower enthusiasts have always promised: quick victory at an acceptable cost by striking at an enemy’s vital centers. They argued that by holding hostage the small industrial base of North Vietnam, Hanoi would be faced with the choice of either abandoning its efforts inside South Vietnam or risking economic ruin. In the early 19th century, Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote that “The first, supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.” The war in Vietnam was not World War II or the Korean War, a fact that seemingly escaped airpower leaders. Furthermore, President Johnson’s objectives were both limited and negative. The limited objective was to secure the right of South Vietnam to exist as a free and independent state. North Vietnam did not have to be destroyed to achieve this objective and instead only had to be persuaded to desist from supporting the insurgents.

The negative objective was to avoid military action that might risk Chinese or Soviet intervention. Such limited and negative objectives were not readily amenable to what airpower—at least theoretically—can deliver: decisive victory through vigorous offensive action. Although airpower had never been decisive in warfare, the USAF was structured and equipped to deliver that kind of victory in total nuclear war with the Soviets. The USAF, and to a lesser extent the U.S. Navy, were not structured, equipped, or doctrinally inclined to engage in limited warfare. Unfortunately, their leaders probably did not realize that they did not know how to fight this kind of war. Following two retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam in February 1965 (Operations FLAMING DART I and II), on March 2, 1965, the first ROLLING THUNDER mission took place when 100 USAF and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) sorties struck the Xom Bang ammunition depot 35 miles north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Twelve days passed before the second ROLLING THUNDER missions were flown, when USAF and

ROLLING THUNDER, Operation

U.S. Navy planes struck an ammunition dump 100 miles southeast of Hanoi. ROLLING THUNDER was under way, and before it ended three years and nine months later, nearly 900 American planes would be shot down trying to accomplish its three objectives. The first objective was strategic persuasion. Emanating from deterrence theory, the concept behind strategic persuasion was to employ airpower in ever-intensifying degrees in an effort to persuade North Vietnam to stop supporting the VC and enter negotiations to end the war. When ROLLING THUNDER began, strategic persuasion was its primary objective. Military planners and civilian officials alike seemed convinced that when faced with vigorous demonstrations of American power, Hanoi would back down. By July, no one in Hanoi had blinked. But in Saigon, General William C. Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), had asked Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to pass along his request for 44 combat maneuver battalions to take the war to the VC. This was the beginning of a massive buildup of ground forces, and ROLLING THUNDER switched from strategic persuasion to interdiction. For the next three years and five months, ROLLING THUNDER was primarily an effort at reducing the flow of troops and supplies moving from North Vietnam to the battlefields of South Vietnam. The third objective was to boost the morale of South Vietnamese political and military elites by demonstrating U.S. resolve. After the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem in the military coup of November 1963, the political situation in Saigon had been unsettled. A large portion of the ARVN spent a disproportionate amount of time on coup alert, either protecting a given regime or preparing to overthrow it. Meanwhile, the VC were growing stronger in the countryside. The air war against North Vietnam was meant as a demonstration of U.S. resolve to stay the course. Targets in ROLLING THUNDER included ammunition depots and storage areas; highways and railroads; bridges and marshaling yards; warehouses; facilities for storage of petroleum, oil, and lubricant, or POL (North Vietnam had no refineries); airfields; army barracks; and power-generating plants. North Vietnam possessed three important industrial works: the Thai Nguyen Steel Works, an ammunition plant, and a cement factory. They were all eventually destroyed. The target list grew from the original 94 devised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in 1964 to nearly 400 targets by late 1967. ROLLING THUNDER went through five phases. In Phase One, from March through June 1965, a variety of targets, including ammunition depots, radar sites, and barracks, were struck as Washington tried to convince North Vietnamese leaders of the seriousness of its intentions. Hanoi responded by increasing its support for the VC, who had begun attacking American air bases in South Vietnam. When U.S. troops began arriving in substantial numbers to protect those bases, the focus of ROLLING THUNDER switched from strategic persuasion to interdiction. Although the bombing retained the objective of persuading North Vietnam to withdraw its support from the VC and negotiate an end to the conflict, after July 1965 ROLLING THUNDER remained basically an interdiction campaign.

991

During Phase Two from July 1965 to the end of June 1966, despite several bombing halts to accommodate bad weather and to allow for unsuccessful diplomatic efforts aimed at starting negotiations, the bombing focused on roads, bridges, and railroads. There were two kinds of targets: numbered and unnumbered. The former included such targets as the Ham Rong (Dragon Jaw) Bridge in Thanh Hoa Province and the Thai Nguyen Steel Works, which had designated target numbers. Those targets were difficult to strike, not only because they were well defended but also because the targeting process for attacking a numbered target was cumbersome and time consuming. Clearance procedures that extended from Saigon through Honolulu to the Pentagon, the State Department, and into the White House were not unusual. More than 75 percent of the interdiction effort in 1965 and 1966 concentrated on trucks, railroad rolling stock, locomotives, and boats moving along the rivers and down the coast of North Vietnam. In 1965 and 1966 according to Pentagon estimates, attacks on these fleeting targets accounted for a claimed 4,600 trucks destroyed and another 4,600 damaged. Some 4,700 boats were reportedly sunk and 8,700 damaged, while 800 railroad cars and 16 locomotives were claimed destroyed and another 800 railroad cars damaged. The attacks were costly. In the first 20 months of ROLLING THUNDER, more than 300 planes were shot down, and the General Accounting Office estimated that it cost the United States $6.60 to inflict $1.00 worth of damage in North Vietnam. The price for bombing North Vietnam was going to go up. Meanwhile, between 150,000 and 200,000 North Vietnamese were pressed into various forms of active and passive antiaircraft defenses, ranging from managing air raid shelters to manning antiaircraft guns or firing away at planes with rifles and submachine guns. Another 500,000 North Vietnamese worked at repairing roads, railroad beds, and bridges. Accordingly, the flow of troops and supplies moving from north to south doubled during the first year of ROLLING THUNDER. In January 1966 U.S. Pacific commander in chief Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp told the JCS that the destruction of North Vietnam’s POL facilities would make it difficult for them to support the war in South Vietnam. The VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units in South Vietnam were likely to “wither on the vine.” At the end of June 1966, Phase Three of ROLLING THUNDER got under way. The concerted attack on North Vietnam’s POL facilities lasted through the summer and into early autumn. In that time, estimates were that 70 percent of North Vietnam’s POL storage capacity had been destroyed. The remaining 30 percent had been dispersed, that is, put into caches of 100 or more 55-gallon drums and placed in the middle of villages near pagodas, churches, schools, or dikes, areas that U.S. bombers were not likely to strike. Despite the bombing of petroleum-storage facilities, the movement of troops and supplies continued, and the ground war inside South Vietnam intensified. Phase Four began in October 1966 with a shift to industrial targets and electric power–generating capabilities. Targets in and around Hanoi, previously kept off limits for fear of inflicting

992

ROLLING THUNDER, Operation

ROLLING THUNDER, Operation

collateral damage on nonmilitary structures and causing civilian casualties, were struck. The Thai Nguyen Steel Works, North Vietnam’s only cement plant, power-generating plants, and transformers were bombed. After May 1967, sporadic attacks on what remained of the industrial infrastructure, the transportation system, and the fleeting targets continued. But one thing was becoming increasingly evident: the bombing was not having the desired effect. Meanwhile, by mid-1967 more than 600 aircraft had been shot down, and in the United States the antiwar movement increasingly focused on the bombing as a cruel and unusual technology unleashed on a peaceful and peace-loving people. The 1968 Tet Offensive, which began in late January and lasted through February and into March, ushered in the final phase of ROLLING THUNDER. On March 31 President Johnson, in an effort to get peace negotiations started, limited the bombing of North Vietnam to areas in the southern panhandle below 19 degrees north latitude. Seven months later on October 31, 1968, to boost the prospects for the Democratic Party’s nominee for the presidency in the November elections, Johnson ended ROLLING THUNDER. For the most part, ROLLING THUNDER was over. Escorted reconnaissance flights were flown, and from time to time attacks on North Vietnam were undertaken. Officially these were called ROLLING THUNDER missions, but they were rare, sometimes covert, and always militarily inconsequential. During ROLLING THUNDER more than 643,000 tons of bombs fell on North Vietnam. The bombing destroyed 65 percent of North Vietnam’s POL storage capacity and an estimated 60 percent of its power-generating capability. At one time or another, half of its major bridges were down. Nearly 10,000 trucks, 2,000 railroad cars, and 20 locomotives were destroyed. Of the 990 USAF, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps aircraft lost over North Vietnam during the war, most were shot down flying ROLLING THUNDER missions. USAF pilots flying Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs, the primary fighter-bombers involved in ROLLING THUNDER, stood a 50 percent chance of surviving a one-year tour. In some squadrons, attrition rates reached 75 percent. Although the bombing intensified in 1967, its effect was not apparent on the battlefields of South Vietnam. According to MACV’s own estimates, the flow of troops and supplies moving from North Vietnam into South Vietnam doubled each year of ROLLING THUNDER. North Vietnam responded to the bombing of its roads, bridges, and railroads by building redundancy into its transportation system so that by 1968 it was capable of handling three times as much traffic through the panhandle as it could in 1965. Other than perhaps boosting the morale of a few ARVN generals and South Vietnamese politicians, ROLLING THUNDER failed to achieve its objectives. Its primary failure was one of strategy. Conventional airpower employed against North Vietnam had very little impact on the unconventional war in South Vietnam. Although after 1965 increasing numbers of PAVN troops were entering the war in South Vietnam, until 1968 the conflict was basically an unconventional and guerrilla war. Airpower leaders, especially USAF

993

generals, blinded by their perceptions of airpower gained in World War II and the Korean War, were unable to devise a strategy appropriate to the Vietnam War. At best, their concept of guerrilla war was the kind of partisan warfare carried out by Tito in Yugoslavia during World War II. They had little or no understanding of people’s war as articulated by Mao Zedong or Ho Chi Minh. There are three more specific reasons for the failure of ROLLING THUNDER. First, North Vietnam was a preindustrial agricultural country. It was not vulnerable to the kind of bombing that played a role in defeating industrial powers such as Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. North Vietnam had no war-making industries. Its primitive economy could not be held hostage to an emerging industrial base. Besides, its leadership held that reunification was more important than industrialization. Second, for all its sound and fury, the potential effectiveness of the bombing was hampered by politically conceived constraints. Although airpower enthusiasts in the USAF and the U.S. Navy make too much of this point, there is something to it. President Johnson exercised far more control than was prudent or necessary, partly out of fear of prompting Chinese or Soviet intervention and partly out of his inherent distrust of generals. Third, the North Vietnamese were a very determined foe. Hanoi remained constant in its war aims, which were both total and limited. Against South Vietnam, Hanoi had the total war aim of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government and reunifying the country under a single Communist system. As an expedient, Hanoi might be willing to delay realization of that objective, but despite setbacks on the battlefield in 1965, in 1968, and again in 1972, the North Vietnamese leadership remained true to that total objective until final victory in 1975. The destruction of three factories, half their bridges, and 60 percent of their power-generating capability failed to dissuade them. Against the United States, war aims of the North Vietnamese leadership were limited. Hanoi had only to compel the United States to withdraw both its troops from South Vietnam and its support for the South Vietnamese government. To accomplish this, the North Vietnamese leadership had to make the war more costly for the Americans than it was worth. The defeat inflicted on the U.S. air components during ROLLING THUNDER helped realize that objective. In July 1969 under the rubric of Vietnamization, the withdrawal of American forces began. By 1972 the return of American POWs was a primary U.S. war objective. Most of those POWs were airmen shot down during ROLLING THUNDER. In retrospect, ROLLING THUNDER has become the classic example of an airpower failure. The USAF generals and U.S. Navy admirals who planned and executed ROLLING THUNDER were victims of their own historical experiences. Most were former bomber pilots who believed too much in the efficacy of strategic bombing. They had neither the training, the experience, nor the inclination for fighting an unconventional war against a preindustrial agrarian foe. In the minds of airpower leaders, the very concept of limited war was an oxymoron. Furthermore, USAF doctrine and most of its equipment were not suited to the kind of war that developed in Vietnam.

994

Romney, George Wilcken

But most of all, the failure of ROLLING THUNDER was a result of the inability of airpower leaders, especially those in the USAF, to devise a strategy appropriate to the war at hand. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Bombs, Gravity; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; LeMay, Curtis Emerson; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; McCone, John Alex; McNamara, Robert Strange; Momyer, William Wallace; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Precision-Guided Munitions; RAND Corporation; Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr.; Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force; Yankee Station References Cable, Larry. Unholy Grail: The U.S. and the Wars in Vietnam, 1965–68. London: Routledge, 1991. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Per Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Thompson, James Clay. Rolling Thunder: Understanding Policy and Program Failure. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Romney, George Wilcken Birth Date: July 8, 1907 Death Date: July 26, 1995 Businessman, auto executive, governor of Michigan (1963–1969), candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, and cabinet member under President Richard Nixon (1969–1973). Born on July 8, 1907, to Mormon missionaries in Chihuahua, Mexico, George Wilcken Romney was raised in both Utah and Idaho. He attended several colleges but never graduated. He also served as a Mormon missionary to Scotland and England for two years in the late 1920s. Romney then went to Washington as a speechwriter for Massachusetts Democratic senator David T. Walsh. In 1930 Romney became a lobbyist for Alcoa, Inc. In 1939 he moved to Detroit, where he oversaw the American Automobile Manufacturers Association. He also participated in government mobilization efforts in the auto industry during World War II. In 1954, having joined the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation six years earlier, he became president of American Motors, the product of a merger between Nash-Kelvinator and the Hudson Motor Company, and held that post until 1962. In 1962 Romney ran for governor of Michigan against Democratic incumbent John B. Swainson. Winning by 78,000 votes, in

January 1963 Romney became the first Republican governor of Michigan in 14 years. He was reelected in both 1964 and 1966. A liberal Republican, Romney supported civil rights initiatives as well as government social programs. He also opposed the war in Vietnam. Romney was immensely popular in Michigan but seemed stiff in national politics. In 1967 he was the first to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Initially the front-runner in early campaigning in New Hampshire, Romney in the following weeks was ridiculed for a statement in which he said that he had originally supported the Vietnam War because he had been “brainwashed” by generals and diplomats during a 1965 visit there. Romney stepped down as governor when his term expired in January 1969. Appointed housing secretary by President Richard Nixon in 1969, Romney found himself increasingly frustrated because he remained outside the president’s inner circle, which prevented Romney from beginning any meaningful domestic reforms. He vacated the post in January 1973 after Nixon’s reelection and retired from public life. In 1979 Romney began service as chairman of the National Center for Citizen Involvement. He emerged politically in 1994 to campaign for his son, Mitt, who ran unsuccessfully against Senator Edward M. Kennedy for a Senate seat in Massachusetts. Mitt Romney went on to serve as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. George Romney died at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on July 26, 1995. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Nixon, Richard Milhous Reference Hess, Stephen, and David Broder. The Republican Establishment: The Future of the GOP. New York: Harper and Row, 1967.

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Birth Date: January 30, 1882 Death Date: April 12, 1945 Democratic Party politician, governor of New York (1929–1933), and president of the United States (1933–1945). Born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was educated at Groton, Harvard University, and Columbia Law School. After two terms as a New York state senator, he served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy in President Woodrow Wilson’s administration (1913–1920) and was a two-term governor of New York (1929–1933). Elected president during the nadir of the Great Depression, Roosevelt put the full weight of the government behind the recovery effort. With his New Deal program, he and the Democratically dominated Congress passed a flurry of legislation designed to spark an

Rostow, Eugene Victor

One of the greatest of U.S. presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt held office from March 1933 until his death in April 1945. Roosevelt guided the nation through World War II. He was a strong opponent of French colonial rule. (Library of Congress)

economic recovery and to better regulate the business and financial sectors. Despite his Herculean efforts, however, significant economic growth was not restored until the government began spending massive amounts of money during World War II. By the late 1930s Roosevelt had turned more to the foreign policy dilemmas of the period, and he was among a relatively few number of Americans willing to confront fascist and militaristic regimes in Europe and Asia. As early as November 1941 Roosevelt had made public pronouncements concerning the territorial integrity of Indochina and had proposed a multilateral nonaggression pact with Japan concerning the Pacific region. The Japanese attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, nullified Roosevelt’s overtures. In the early years of World War II, President Roosevelt and other government officials regularly supported the self-determination of all peoples, prodding European leadership to establish timetables for colonial independence. As the war progressed, questions concerning the resolution of French Indochina persisted. In a January 1944 memo to Secretary of State Cordell Hull the president reiterated his stance, proposing the establishment of a trusteeship whereby developed nations would prepare native elites for eventual self-government. Although it was a compromise to Roosevelt’s goal of colonial independence, the trusteeship seemed to offer the best hope for the stability of indigenous societies while they moved toward independence. Roosevelt especially condemned the French administration of Indochina, stating that “the people are worse off than they were at the beginning. . . . France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indochina are entitled to something better than that.”

995

The president coupled his humanitarian concern for the Indochinese with his genuine belief that the colonial system would jeopardize postwar peace by interfering with trade and sowing discord between the Great Powers. In February 1945 he declared at a press conference that China’s Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin supported his plans for an Indochinese trusteeship. Within a few months, however, Roosevelt reversed his stance, promising to not interfere with colonial rule. Several factors contributed to this policy shift. America’s most important ally, British prime minister Winston Churchill, had clearly stated his opposition to tampering with European colonial possessions, and Free French leader Charles de Gaulle no less resolutely contested U.S. interference in French colonialism. The Roosevelt administration recognized that insistence on colonial self-rule could create excessive strains between the Allies and imperil cooperation in Western Europe, the most vital arena of U.S. foreign policy. Additionally, defense planners argued that postwar national security would require the United States to maintain control over several former Japanese-controlled islands. Imposition of trusteeships could easily be applied to the United States as well as to the European colonial powers. Roosevelt, although still favoring independence, thus reluctantly acceded to the return of Indochina to France. Roosevelt died in office on April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia, less than a month before World War II in Europe had ended, depriving the postwar world of his calm confidence and depriving those who favored Indochinese self-determination of an influential proponent. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also De Gaulle, Charles; Jiang Jieshi; Potsdam Conference; Truman, Harry S.; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 References Anderson, David L., ed. Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Dallek, Robert. F.D.R. and American Diplomacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Williams, William Appleman, Thomas McCormick, Lloyd Gardner, and Walter LaFaber, eds. America in Vietnam: A Documentary History. New York: Norton, 1989.

Rostow, Eugene Victor Birth Date: August 25, 1913 Death Date: November 25, 2002 Attorney, legal scholar, author, and U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs (1966–1969). The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Eugene Victor Rostow was born on August 25, 1913, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Yale University, earning an AB in 1933 and an LLD there in 1937. In 1938 he became an instructor

996

Rostow, Walt Whitman

at Yale. Throughout his career Rostow combined teaching with government service and extensive writing. From 1955 to 1965 he served as dean of the Yale Law School. Rostow believed that the United States was the only nation with the capability and the resolve to maintain geopolitical stability in the chaotic years following World War II. He became convinced that the United States, having accepted the role of peacekeeper, could expect that the Soviet Union and China would periodically test American resolve and that the 1950–1953 Korean War had justified that conclusion. Rostow envisioned the United States as maintaining a policy of containing communism while simultaneously avoiding armed confrontation. This, he believed, was the primary U.S. role in Vietnam. Rostow worked extensively within the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Rostow urged Johnson to appoint a panel to determine responsibility for Kennedy’s death. Rostow’s suggestion led to the establishment of the Warren Commission. He also served as an adviser during arms control talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. Later he became undersecretary of state in charge of political affairs. Rostow believed that the Vietnam War was a morass that Johnson had inherited. Two presidents—Dwight D. Eisenhower and Kennedy—had made a commitment to protect the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and in 1961 Kennedy had expanded the obligation by increasing political, economic, and military aid to the region. Rostow believed that Johnson was obligated to fulfill U.S. responsibilities in Vietnam, as established by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) treaty, the United Nations (UN) Charter, and the policies of former presidents backed by Congress. Rostow strongly supported Johnson’s Vietnam policies and believed that the president’s position of restraint in the use of force, coupled with maximum diplomatic effort, represented the best approach in dealing with the Vietnam situation. Rostow maintained that the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a constitutional mandate similar to a declaration of war. With its passage there was little doubt in his mind that Johnson had the full weight of the nation behind his policies. Rostow thought that critics would have vilified the administration had it not acted following the resolution’s passage. Rostow admitted that the United States made mistakes in Vietnam that negatively affected foreign policy decisions for many years after the war. Errors notwithstanding, he remained convinced that the United States helped establish a strong economic infrastructure in Southeast Asia. Rostow left government service in 1969, returning to Yale University to teach. Beginning in the mid1970s he became increasingly concerned with the Soviet Union’s expansionist policies, leading him to become an active member in the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, an organization that wedded liberal ideology with strong anticommunism, and the Committee on the Present Danger, which dedicated itself to stiffening U.S. foreign policies around the world. From 1981 to 1984 he headed

the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, making him the highest-ranking Democrat in the Ronald W. Reagan administration. Rostow died on November 25, 2002, in Alexandria, Virginia. DEAN BRUMLEY See also Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Johnson, Lyndon Baines References Goulden, Steven L. Political Profiles: The Johnson Years. New York: Facts on File, 1976. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Rostow, Eugene V. Law, Power, and the Pursuit of Peace. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968. Rostow, Eugene V. Toward Managed Peace: The National Security Interests of the United States, 1759 to the Present. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.

Rostow, Walt Whitman Birth Date: October 7, 1916 Death Date: February 13, 2003 Chairman of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Council (1961–1966) and special assistant to the president for national security affairs (1966–1969). Walt Whitman Rostow was born in New York City on October 7, 1916. An economist, he studied at Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where he was one of the analysts on the Strategic Bombing Survey. Following the war Rostow worked briefly in the State Department and then became an assistant to the assistant secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe before returning to the academic world in 1950. For the next 10 years he taught economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was also an associate of the institute’s Center for International Studies, which was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Rostow’s academic work centered on the possibility of providing an alternative to Marxist models and historical theories of economic development. During the election campaign of 1960 Rostow was an informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Senator John F. Kennedy, with whom he had been close since 1958. Initially Rostow was appointed deputy to McGeorge Bundy, the special assistant to the president for national security affairs. In early February 1961 Rostow passed on to Kennedy and enthusiastically endorsed a report by Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale that suggested that a serious crisis was impending in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and recommended a major expansion of U.S. programs in that country. Rostow argued that the options of bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or occupying its southern regions be considered, an outlook that made

Rostow, Walt Whitman him one of the strongest hawks in the administration, a stance that he would retain throughout the Vietnam War era. In October 1961 Rostow and General Maxwell D. Taylor undertook a mission to Vietnam to assess the situation there and the merits of potential U.S. courses of action. Their report recommended that the United States change its existing advisory role to one of “limited partnership” with the South Vietnamese government. The report also advocated increased American economic aid and military advisory support to the country. A secret annex suggested that 8,000 American combat troops be deployed there. All except the last of these recommendations were implemented. In late 1961 Rostow was appointed a State Department counselor and chairman of the department’s Policy Planning Council. He continued to be one of the administration’s strongest advocates of an assertive U.S. policy in Vietnam, constantly urging increased military pressure against North Vietnam. By late 1964 he believed that escalating U.S. military measures, including the commitment of American ground forces, a naval blockade, and the bombing of North Vietnam, would convince Hanoi that victory over South Vietnam was impossible. When these measures were implemented in 1965 Rostow urged their expansion and continued to do so after his March 1966 ap-

997

pointment as special assistant to the president for national security affairs. In the Lyndon Johnson administration’s final years, Rostow’s confidence in an eventual favorable outcome of the war remained unshaken, even in light of mounting public protests and the inconclusive progress of the war. In 1967 he called for the extension of the U.S. bombing program and opposed an unconditional bombing halt, although in late 1967 he did endorse proposals by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to try to reduce U.S. casualties and shift more of the burden of fighting to the South Vietnamese. In an increasingly divided and demoralized administration Rostow remained a committed hawk, opposed to the post–Tet Offensive decision of March 1968 to open negotiations with North Vietnam. Following his resignation in January 1969, Rostow joined the University of Texas at Austin as a professor of economics and history. In his voluminous writings since then he always defended U.S. policy in Vietnam, arguing that U.S. involvement in the war gave other Southeast Asian nations the breathing space they required to develop strong economies and become staunch regional anti-Communist bastions. Rostow died on February 13, 2003, in Austin, Texas. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

Walt Rostow was undersecretary of state for political affairs from 1966 to 1969 and a strong supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam policies. (Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

998

Route Coloniale 4, Battles for

See also Bundy, McGeorge; Bundy, William Putnam; Clifford, Clark McAdams; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; Rusk, David Dean; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Rostow, Walt W. The Diffusion of Power, 1957–1972: An Essay in Recent History. New York: Macmillan, 1972.

ROTC See Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

Route Coloniale 4, Battles for Start Date: September 6, 1950 End Date: October 18, 1950 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) offensive that defeated French forces along part of the Tonkin (northern Vietnam) border with China in the late summer and early autumn of 1950. French Coloniale Route 4 (RC-4) ran parallel to the Chinese border for nearly 100 miles from northwest to southeast, connecting isolated French military positions at Cao Bang, Nam Nang, Dong Khe, That Khe, and Lang Son. The narrow dirt road passed through dense forest dominated by limestone peaks. In June 1950 thousands of PAVN troops crossed into China, where they were reorganized, trained, and reequipped to support PAVN general Vo Nguyen Giap’s plan to capture RC-4. On September 16 Giap’s offensive, which the Vietnamese refer to as the Border Campaign, began as his troops overran the French defenders at Dong Khe with artillery, mortars, and human-wave assaults. On the same day General Marcel Carpentier, the French commander in Indochina, ordered the evacuation of the French garrisons on RC-4, beginning with Cao Bang in the far west. Also on September 16, a French relief force of nearly 3,000 men, commanded by Colonel Marcel Le Page, departed from Lang Son moving northwest on RC-4. The column was repeatedly ambushed as it slowly advanced on Communist-controlled Dong Khe, where it unsuccessfully fought to reopen RC-4. The column was then ordered on October 2 to move through the jungle on foot, bypassing Dong Khe, and continue its advance to Nam Nang to assist the withdrawing Cao Bang garrison. PAVN forces soon surrounded the column and shattered it. Meanwhile, the Cao Bang garrison, commanded by French Colonel Pierre Charton, began withdrawing to the southeast along RC-4 on October 3. Unfortunately, he disobeyed orders and at-

tempted to bring out his vehicles and equipment. His force of 1,600 men, accompanied by native partisans and civilians, moved to Nam Nang, where they received news that Le Page’s force was threatened with destruction by the PAVN. Charton’s force then destroyed their vehicles and entered the jungle on foot in an effort to join up with Le Page. On October 7 remnants of Le Page’s column fought through PAVN lines and reached Charton’s force. The combined French force was then crushed by PAVN artillery and human-wave attacks. Few French troops escaped. Within days, French forces abandoned That Khe and headed for Lang Son. Battered by PAVN troops, the column disintegrated. The French, who need not have done so, precipitously destroyed supplies and evacuated Lang Son, the last remaining French position on RC-4, on the night of October 17–18. When fighting along RC-4 ended, 6,000 French troops, more than 450 trucks, and 3 armored platoons were lost, along with sufficient equipment to arm an entire PAVN division. In response to the disaster, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny replaced General Carpentier as the French commander in chief in Indochina. General Giap had clearly seized the initiative, access to supplies from China were now readily available, and victorious PAVN divisions could now advance south toward Hanoi, the capital of French Indochina, and the Red River Delta. In effect the Indochina War was lost for the French at this point. GLENN E. HELM See also Cao Bang; Carpentier, Marcel; Indochina War; Lang Son; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; Vo Nguyen Giap References Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. Dang Van Viet. Highway 4: The Border Campaign (1947–1950). Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1990. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Route Packages Geographical boundaries in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) designating areas of operations for U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft during the Vietnam War. Coordination between the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy became necessary during the early months of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, which began on March 2, 1965, for each service jealously demanded dominance in the air campaign over North Vietnam. In response to the ongoing debates, Admiral Ulysses Simpson Grant Sharp Jr., commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command, unilaterally

Rowe, James Nicholas established six geographically based bombing areas within North Vietnam on December 10, 1965. These areas were referred to as route packages, and each was assigned to a specific service for a two-week period, after which it would switch to the other service. Initially the U.S. Navy flew against targets in Route Package I, stretching northward from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to an area north of Mu Gia Pass, and Route Package III, stretching from a point south of Vinh and to an irregular line southwest of Thanh Hoa. The U.S. Air Force initially flew against targets in Route Package II (between Route Packages I and III), Route Package IV (running from Route Package III to a straight east-west line located north of Nam Dinh), and Route Package V (the northwestern corner of North Vietnam). Targets in Route Package VI (the northeastern corner of North Vietnam and the most heavily defended route package) were allocated to the two services on a case-by-case basis. Route Package VI was later divided into two separate sectors along a rail line that ran northeast from Hanoi to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The eastern sector of Route Package VI, which included the coast along the Gulf of Tonkin, became known as Route Package VIB, and the interior sector northwest of Hanoi became Route Package VIA. TERRY M. MAYS See also Airborne Operations; Demilitarized Zone; Hanoi; Mu Gia Pass; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr.; Thanh Hoa Bridge; United States Air Force; United States Navy; Vinh

999

Knowing that Communist forces had a standing policy of summarily executing all captured Special Forces soldiers, Rowe hid his identity. He attempted to escape at least three times and earned the nickname “Mr. Trouble” from his captors. He was a prisoner of war (POW) in the Mekong Delta for more than five years, spending most of his time in a cramped bamboo cage. During that time two of his fellow captives died, including Captain Humbert Versace who was later awarded the Medal of Honor. The VC eventually learned Rowe’s true identity. On December 31, 1968, as he was being led to his execution, Rowe struck his guard and made a break for a clearing. Waving a mosquito net over his head, he managed to attract the attention of a U.S. helicopter crew. The aircraft almost fired on the black pajama–clad figure, but then the crew spotted Rowe’s red beard. They landed and picked him up. Rowe had been a first lieutenant when he was captured, but over the five-year period he was routinely promoted to captain and then to major. He also received the Silver Star for his actions while a POW. After returning from Vietnam, he wrote a book about his experiences. In 1974 he left the active U.S. Army and went into the Reserves. In 1981 he returned to active duty and became a leading figure in the U.S. Army’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training program, designed to teach soldiers how to avoid and deal with capture. SERE is a requirement for all Special Forces

References Grant, Zalin. Over the Beach: The Air War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1986. Staaveren, Jacob Van. Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965–1966. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000.

Rowe, James Nicholas Birth Date: February 8, 1938 Death Date: April 21, 1989 U.S. Army officer and five-year captive of the Viet Cong (VC). Born in McAllen, Texas, on February 8, 1938, James Nicholas “Nick” Rowe was six years old when his older brother died just three months short of graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. Sixteen years later Rowe himself graduated from West Point and was commissioned in the field artillery. In July 1963 he went to Vietnam as a member of Special Forces Detachment A-23. Less than four months later on October 29, he was captured by the VC while on patrol with South Vietnamese irregular forces near Tan Phu in the Mekong Delta.

U.S. Army major James N. Rowe, who escaped the Viet Cong in late December 1968 after five years in captivity, shown here during a press conference at Travis Air Force Base, California, on January 3, 1969. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1000

Rubin, Jerry

personnel, and the basic course has been adapted for all branches of the U.S. armed service. In 1985 Rowe assumed command of the 1st Special Warfare Training Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After that assignment he was promoted to colonel and sent to the Philippines as a military adviser to the Corazon Aquino government, which was fighting a Communist insurgency led by the New People’s Army (NPA), the military wing of the Philippine Communist Party. His background, however, made him a high-profile figure and a lucrative target. On April 21, 1989, Rowe’s car was ambushed as he was being driven to work at the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group headquarters in Manila. Two hooded gunmen poured more than 20 bullets into his car, hitting Rowe once in the head. He died on the way to the hospital. Several days later the NPA claimed responsibility for the deed. Two men were eventually tried and convicted of Rowe’s assassination. They remained in prison until 1995, when they were released as part of a wider government amnesty program. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Prisoners of War, Allied; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training; United States Special Forces; Versace, Humbert Rocque References Miles, Donna. “A Real Hero: Colonel Nick Rowe Assassinated in the Philippines.” Soldiers (June 1989): 24–25. Rowe, James N. Five Years to Freedom: The True Story of a Vietnam POW. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.

Rubin, Jerry Birth Date: July 14, 1938 Death Date: November 28, 1994 Leading antiwar figure and social activist. Born on July 14, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jerry Rubin received a BA from the University of Cincinnati in 1961 and was active in the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964. In 1965 he helped organize a teach-in at Berkeley involving 12,000 students. As a leader of the Vietnam Day Committee, he was recognized as a skilled organizer with a flair for attracting media attention. In August 1965 the committee staged well-publicized attempts to stop troop trains in the San Francisco area. Rubin believed that the antiwar movement was a generational conflict between young and old and famously advised followers “not to trust anyone over thirty.” In 1967 he moved to New York City, where he met Abbie Hoffman and organized a huge march on the Pentagon that October. In January 1968 Rubin, Hoffman, and Paul Krassner formed the Youth International Party, or Yippies, which staged demonstrations in Chicago to coincide with the August 1968 Democratic National Convention. Rubin was one of

Jerry Rubin, leader of the Youth International Party (Yippies), shown here during a news conference on September 9, 1968, in Chicago. (AP/ Wide World Photos)

the so-called Chicago Eight tried in 1969 on charges of conspiracy and intent to riot. Although found not guilty of conspiracy, he was found guilty of inciting a riot. The judge in the case, Julius Hoffman, had also charged Rubin and others with numerous counts of contempt of court. In 1972 an appeals court overturned Rubin’s conviction. In the late 1970s Rubin turned to spiritualism and self-help and self-improvement programs before becoming a Wall Street securities analyst. By 1991 he was an independent marketer of health food drinks in Los Angeles. He died in Los Angeles, California, on November 28, 1994, from injuries received when he was struck by a car two weeks earlier while jaywalking. CLAYTON D. LAURIE See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Hoffman, Abbie; March on the Pentagon; Youth International Party References Rubin, Jerry. Do It! Scenarios of the Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. Rubin, Jerry. Growing (Up) at 37. New York: Evans, 1976.

Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement According to the Department of Defense Dictionary, Joint Publication 1-02, Rules of Engagement (ROE) are “directives issued by competent military authority which delineate the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces will initiate and/ or continue combat engagement with other forces encountered.” ROEs often have two primary purposes. The first is to limit the destruction of property and the injury and death of noncombatants. The second, particularly important in a conflict such as the Vietnam War without front lines or often a clearly identifiable enemy, is to prevent casualties from friendly fire. For the ground and air war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the competent military authority was the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), with supplementation by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). But for the air war in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the military authority was ultimately the president of the United States and his secretary of defense through the JCS. In a conventional conflict in which lines of contact between enemy and friendly forces are generally well defined, destruction of property is considered a necessary evil of war, and injury inflicted on noncombatants is difficult to control or prevent. In a conflict such as the war in Vietnam involving insurgency and counterinsurgency, with no clearly defined front lines and the resulting prosecution of the war among the civilian population, whose support is actively sought by the insurgents, ROEs were necessary to prevent losses and retain the support of the populace. The ROEs imposed by the JCS in South Vietnam were primarily designed to keep the war limited and to prevent international incidents in border areas and in the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The JCS also prescribed ROEs for Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strikes in South Vietnam, such as requiring that targets for such strikes must be at least .6 of a mile from any area inhabited by noncombatants. The problem, of course, was the difficulty in identifying who were truly noncombatants and who were guerrillas. The air war over North Vietnam was executed in stages and was completely controlled from Washington by the White House and the Pentagon. President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara spent long hours examining maps of North Vietnam, planning raids, and searching for just the right pressure points to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table. Washington dictated not only the strategy of the air war but also, sometimes at least, the tactics, including types and numbers of bombs to be dropped, flight patterns, formation size, attack approaches, and times of attack. Most missions were directed at lines of communication: roads, bridges, and railroads. Nonmilitary facilities were generally not targeted except for power plants and other installations that indirectly affected North Vietnam’s ability to support the war. However, the extended bombing campaign caused considerable damage to civilian structures and the deaths

1001

of many noncombatants because of proximity to military targets and because pilots flying through intense antiaircraft fire could not always drop their bombs with precision. In South Vietnam there were three types of operations employed in the conduct of the war: search and destroy, clearing, and securing. Search and destroy, the primary tactic of U.S. forces, meant taking the war to the Communists by searching them out and then bringing massive firepower to bear. The objective of clearing operations, usually done by regular forces of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), was to drive large enemy forces out of populated areas so that pacification could take place. Securing operations were conducted primarily by ARVN Regional and Popular Forces or police to protect pacification teams and eliminate local guerrilla units. In an effort to protect the South Vietnamese civilian population and their property, the commander of MACV issued more than 40 ROE directives. These contained explicit guidance on the proper treatment of civilians and their property as well as on the discriminating use of firepower. ARVN forces, however, were not specifically bound to comply with these ROE directives, although efforts were made at every level by American advisers to gain their compliance. Search-and-destroy tactics meant the substitution of firepower for maneuver to minimize friendly casualties. Although MACV maintained that its forces closely followed very restrictive ROEs, massive firepower employed on a relatively random basis often alienated the civilian population and provided the Communists with an excellent source of propaganda. With emphasis on achieving body counts associated with the strategy of attrition, there was strong incentive for commanders to circumvent the ROEs. In addition, the fact that ROEs were often misunderstood or received socalled creative application, while sanctions against violators were virtually nonexistent, created an environment in which allegations of war crimes may have been well founded, as in the case of the 1968 My Lai Massacre. Two uses of firepower to prosecute the war that have received considerable criticism in relation to ROEs were harassment and interdiction (H&I) fires and free-fire zones. H&I fires were unobserved fires placed on likely Communist positions or routes of movement, usually selected by map or aerial reconnaissance. Although proponents and critics were equally vocal in their support or denigration of this practice, there is little statistical information to support one stand or the other. What is certain is that a large quantity of firepower was expended on these types of missions, and the likelihood of injuring or killing unsuspecting noncombatants was just as high as for Communist forces. The term “free-fire zone” connotes the indiscriminate use of firepower and often provoked an emotional reaction from Americans. However, free-fire zones were established only in uninhabited areas or areas totally under Communist control, and permission had to be obtained from Vietnamese province and

1002

Rules of Engagement

district chiefs before an area could be designated a free-fire zone. Although these areas were generally free of noncombatants and their property, thereby avoiding property destruction, there was no guarantee that noncombatants would not inadvertently wander into designated free-fire zones and become subject to attack. Likewise, this so-called unrestrictive fire-control measure may have on occasion increased the likelihood of two uncoordinated friendly elements placing one another under fire, believing that the other was an enemy force. Detailed below are some ROE directives used in the Vietnam War: MACV Rules of Engagement 1. UNINHABITED AREAS. a. Fire may be directed against VC [Viet Cong]/NVA [North Vietnamese Army] forces in contact in accordance with normal artillery procedures. b. Unobserved fire may be directed at targets and target areas, other than VC/NVA forces in contact, only after approval by Province Chief, District Chief, Sector Commander, or Subsector Commander and U.S./ FWMAF [Free World Military Assistance Forces] Military Commander, as appropriate, has been granted. c. Observed fire may be directed against targets of opportunity which are clearly identified as hostile without obtaining Province Chief, District Chief, Sector Commander, or Subsector Commander and U.S./ FWMAF Military Commander’s approval. d. Approval by Province Chief, District Chief, Sector Commander, or Subsector Commander and U.S./ FWMAF Military Commander, as appropriate, is required, before directing fire on targets of opportunity not clearly identified as hostile. 2. VILLAGES AND HAMLETS. a. Fire missions directed against known or suspected VC/NVA targets in villages and hamlets occupied by noncombatants will be conducted as follows: (1.) All such fire missions will be controlled by an observer and will be executed only after approval is obtained from the Province Chief or District Chief, as appropriate. The decision to conduct such fire missions will also be approved by the attacking force battalion or task force commander, or higher. (2.) Villages and hamlets not associated with maneuver of ground forces will not be fired upon without warning by leaflets and/or speaker system or by other appropriate means, even though fire is received from them. (3.) Villages and hamlets may be attacked without prior warning if the attack is in conjunction with a

ground operation involving maneuver of ground forces through the area, and if in the judgment of the ground commander, his mission would be jeopardized by such warning. b. The use of incendiary type ammunition will be avoided unless absolutely necessary in the accomplishment of the commander’s mission or for preservation of the force. 3. URBAN AREAS. a. Fire missions directed against known or suspected VC/NVA targets in urban areas must preclude unnecessary destruction of civilian property and must by nature require greater restrictions than the rules of engagement for less populated areas. b. When time is of the essence and supporting weapons must be employed to accomplish the mission or to reduce friendly casualties, fire missions will be conducted as follows: (1.) All fire missions will be controlled by an observer and will be executed only after GVN [Government of Vietnam]/RVNAF [Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces]/U.S. approval. The decision to conduct the fire mission in urban areas will be retained at corps/field force or NAVFORV [Naval Forces, Vietnam] level. Approval must be obtained from both the corps commander and the U.S. field force level commander. This approval is required for the employment of any U.S. supporting weapons in urban areas to include U.S. weapons in support of RVNAF. (2.) Prior to firing in urban areas, leaflets and loudspeakers and other appropriate means will be utilized to warn and to secure the cooperation and support of the civilian populace even though fire is received from these areas. (3.) Supporting weapons will be used only on positively located enemy targets. When time permits, damage to buildings will be minimized. (4.) The use of incendiary type munitions will be avoided unless destruction of the area is unavoidable and then only when friendly survival is at stake. (5.) Riot control agents will be employed to the maximum extent possible. CS [riot control] agents can be effectively employed in urban area operations to flush enemy personnel from buildings and fortified positions, thus increasing the enemy’s vulnerability to allied firepower while reducing the likelihood of destroying civilian property. Commanders must plan ahead and be prepared to use CS agents whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Rusk, David Dean 4. THE ABOVE STATED PROCEDURES WILL NOT BE VIOLATED OR DEVIATED FROM EXCEPT, WHEN IN THE OPINION OF THE RESPONSIBLE COMMANDER, THE SITUATION DEMANDS SUCH IMMEDIATE ACTION THAT THESE PROCEDURES CANNOT BE FOLLOWED. SUCH SITUATIONS INCLUDE PRESERVATION OF THE FORCE OR THE RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENSE. 5. RVN [Republic of Vietnam]/CAMBODIAN BORDER AREAS. a. Fire missions within 2000 meters of the RVN/ Cambodian border will be observed, except under circumstances where fires are in defense of friendly forces and observation of such fires is not possible. These requirements are in addition to applicable control procedures stated elsewhere in this directive. b. Fire missions with intended target areas more than 2000 meters from the RVN/Cambodian border may be unobserved, subject to applicable control procedures stated elsewhere in this directive. c. Fire missions will not be conducted when dispersion could result in fire being placed on or over the RVN/ Cambodian border. d. Commanders will review and comply with the provisions of MACV Rules of Engagement— Cambodian when planning for operations near the Cambodian/RVN border. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Airpower, Role in War; Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Artillery Fire Doctrine; Atrocities during the Vietnam War; Attrition; Body Count; Fratricide; Free Fire Zones; Harassment and Interdiction Fires; My Lai Massacre References Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Ott, David E. Field Artillery, 1954–1973. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Rusk, David Dean Birth Date: February 9, 1909 Death Date: December 20, 1994 Diplomat and U.S. secretary of state (1961–1969). David Dean Rusk was born in rural Cherokee County, Georgia, on February 9,

1003

1909. He worked his way through Davidson College in North Carolina, graduating in 1931. That same year he entered Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a BS in 1934 and an MA the following year. Returning to the United States, he taught at Mills College in Oakland, California, and attended the University of California Law School. In 1940 he entered the Army Reserve as a captain. On active duty in Washington, D.C., he worked in military intelligence. In 1943 he was transferred to the Far East and served in China and Burma, where he became deputy chief of staff to General Joseph Stilwell. Discharged in 1946 with the rank of colonel, Rusk joined the State Department in 1947. In the State Department, Rusk held a variety of important posts and worked on such issues as the establishment of the 1947 Marshall Plan, the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. In 1950 he became assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs and as such was heavily involved in the formulation of Korean War policy. He strongly supported the policy of containment in Asia and encouraged the decision to remove General Douglas MacArthur from the United Nations Command (UNC) in April 1951. In 1952 Rusk left the State Department to assume the presidency of the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1960 President-elect John F. Kennedy chose Rusk as his secretary of state over such notables as Chester Bowles and Adlai Stevenson, who then became Rusk’s subordinates. Upon assuming office Rusk immediately confronted myriad international problems, the most serious being Communist threats in Cuba, Southeast Asia, and Berlin. A staunch anti-Communist, he largely worked behind the scenes in the Kennedy administration, offering advice only when it was solicited. Rusk urged moderation during the Berlin Crises and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he believed that Communist aggression had to be met with determination and feared that China would intervene in Vietnam, as it had in Korea. He had little faith in Ngo Dinh Diem and urged a stronger American commitment in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Along with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Rusk usually deferred to the Pentagon position on Southeast Asia. When Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Rusk continued as secretary of state. Under Johnson, Rusk took a much more active role. He quickly became one of Johnson’s most trusted advisers. As antiwar sentiment intensified, many of Johnson’s advisers, including secretaries of defense Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, began to mirror the public’s exasperation. Rusk steadfastly supported Johnson’s position, however. Rusk backed Pentagon calls for larger troop commitments to Southeast Asia and the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He urged Johnson to stay the course, despite mounting pressure to end U.S. involvement in the war. Rusk did not, as is often suggested, oppose negotiations with Hanoi. He constantly warned against the appearance of weakness in the face of Communist aggression but

1004

Rusk-Thanat Agreement

Dean Rusk was secretary of state in the administrations of presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and a strong supporter of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library)

in 1967 suggested that Johnson pursue negotiations. Rusk left office in 1969 when the Republican administration of Richard Nixon took office. Throughout his career Rusk displayed marked ability and an intense loyalty to his superiors. Although admirable, his loyalty proved damaging; with the exception of Johnson, no other political figure became more closely associated with America’s failure in Vietnam than Rusk. He was also an outsider. A southerner among Ivy League easterners, he never fell in with the so-called Wise Men. Rusk also found himself an outcast. Shunned by more prestigious academic institutions after he left the State Department, he eventually accepted a position at the University of Georgia, where he taught international law until his retirement in 1984. His memoir, As I Saw It, was published in 1990 to much less hoopla than McNamara’s subsequent effort. Rusk died at his home in Athens, Georgia, on December 20, 1994. DAVID COFFEY

Rusk-Thanat Agreement

See also Bowles, Chester Bliss; Bundy, McGeorge; Bundy, William Putnam; Clifford, Clark McAdams; Containment Policy; Halberstam, David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; MacArthur, Douglas;

Security agreement proclaimed in a joint declaration by the governments of the United States and Thailand and named for U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk and Thai minister of foreign affairs Thanat Khoman. Under the terms of the Rusk-Thanat Agreement,

McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem; Pearson, Lester Bowles; Read, Benjamin Huger; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II; Truman, Harry S.; Wise Men References Current Biography Yearbook, 1961. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1961. Current Biography Yearbook, 1995. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1995. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Rusk, Dean. As I Saw It. Edited by Daniel S. Papp. New York: Norton, 1990.

Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr. the United States pledged that in the event of aggression against Thailand, the United States would assist Thailand unilaterally and without prior agreement or consultation with fellow Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) members. This deal ensured the continuation and eventual expansion of the close military relationship between the two nations that first developed in the early 1950s and continued until the mid-1970s. During the early part of the Cold War, the military government of Thailand was driven by fears of Chinese Communist expansion into Southeast Asia. Following the entry of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the Korean War (1950–1953) in late 1950, Thailand actively sought closer relations with the United States as a bulwark against Chinese aggression. The defeat of the French at the hands of the Viet Minh in the Indochina War in 1954 further aroused Thai and U.S. fears of Communist expansion in the region and led that September to the creation of SEATO. Also known as the Manila Pact, SEATO was a collective security agreement among Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. The SEATO signatories pledged to provide mutual aid to resist subversion or an armed attack against any of their members. However, many Thai leaders were skeptical of SEATO’s effectiveness, and rising tensions in neighboring Laos in the early 1960s led officials in Bangkok to call for a unilateral security guarantee from the United States. In response, the U.S. State Department publicly issued a joint communiqué during a visit to Washington by Thai foreign affairs minister Thanat on March 6, 1962. The Rusk-Thanat Agreement reaffirmed America’s commitment to maintaining the independence and territorial integrity of Thailand, which the agreement claimed was vital to U.S. national interest and world peace. Although not a formal treaty, the statement reiterated Washington’s firm resolve to assist Thailand in resisting Communist aggression. Furthermore, the United States assured Bangkok that in the event of hostilities, the United States would support Thailand without prior discussion with the other Manila Pact members. This agreement opened the door to American military presence in Thailand during the Vietnam War. In March 1964 Bangkok allowed the United States to utilize Thai air bases for launching air strikes against Viet Cong (VC) sanctuaries and supply routes in Laos and eventually lifted all restrictions on U.S. combat sorties originating in Thailand after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident five months later. Between December 1965 and November 1968, nearly 80 percent of all ordnance dropped on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Laos originated from U.S. aircraft based in Thailand. The United States finally ended its military relationship with Thailand following the removal of all American troops from the country in July 1976 and the dissolution of SEATO in 1977. CHRISTOS G. FRENTZOS

1005

See also Rusk, David Dean; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Thailand References Capie, David H., and Paul M Evans. The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002. Kislenko, Arne. “The Vietnam War, Thailand, and the United States.” In Trans-Pacific Relations: America, Europe and Asia in the Twentieth Century, edited by Richard J. Jensen, Jon Thares Davidann, and Yoneyuki Sugita, 217–245. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003. LePoer, Barbara Leitch, ed. Thailand: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, U.S. Government Printing Office for the Library of Congress, 1987.

Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr. Birth Date: November 12, 1897 Death Date: January 21, 1971 Democratic Party politician and one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate during the years of the Vietnam War. Born in Winder, Georgia, on November 12, 1897, Richard Brevard Russell Jr. received a law degree from the University of Georgia in 1918 and was admitted to the bar the following year. He practiced law in Winder and then was elected as a Democrat to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1921. In 1931, at age 39, Russell became the youngest governor in Georgia history. Two years later he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, a seat he held for the next 38 years. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969, he was highly influential during the Vietnam War era. Russell was confronted with a difficult problem concerning the Vietnam War. On the one hand, he believed that American involvement in the war had been a mistake from the beginning and that Southeast Asia presented no security threat to the United States. On the other hand, mindful of the need to be loyally supportive of the president as well as the soldiers in the field, Russell never joined the growing antiwar faction in the Senate. Indeed, he was openly critical of the peace movement and its public protests. This paradoxical stance caused Russell much frustration, exacerbated by White House failure to heed his opinions about the war. In spite of grave misgivings, Russell supported the government’s war policies to the end of his life. He died in office in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 1971. ERIC JARVIS See also Fulbright, James William; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McGee, Gale William; Proxmire, Edward William; Stennis, John Cornelius; United States Congress and the Vietnam War References Fite, Gilbert C. Richard B. Russell Jr., Senator from Georgia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

1006

Russo, Anthony J., Jr.

Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia chaired the powerful Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969. Russell believed that the United States had no vital interests in Vietnam but loyally supported U.S. policy there. He is shown here on October 14, 1968. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library) Gibbons, William C. The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. 4 vols. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986–1995. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972.

Russell Tribunal See International War Crimes Tribunal

Russo, Anthony J., Jr. Birth Date: October 14, 1936 Death Date: August 6, 2008 RAND Corporation researcher and indicted codefendant in the Pentagon Papers trial (1972–1973). Born on October 14, 1936, in Suffolk, Virginia, Anthony J. (Tony) Russo Jr. received a BS from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1960 and an MS from Princeton University in 1963. He also attended Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, from which he received a master’s degree in 1964. That year he joined the

RAND Corporation. Russo worked in Vietnam for two years (from February 1966 to January 1968), analyzing crop-destruction programs and interviewing Viet Cong (VC) prisoners in the RANDconducted study “Viet Cong Morale and Motivation.” During this period Russo became highly disillusioned with U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. Terminated by RAND in July 1968, Russo was allowed a six-month grace period to complete his work. He was, by this time, a devoted antiwar crusader and a fledgling member of the counterculture. After leaving RAND, he engaged in social and civil rights work in the Los Angeles area. Russo had met Daniel Ellsberg in Vietnam, but the two did not become close friends until 1968, when they worked together at RAND’s Santa Monica, California, headquarters. When Ellsberg decided to copy the volumes of sensitive documents that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, he called Russo for help. Ellsberg wrote of Russo later, “I knew that he was the one person with the combination of guts and passionate concern about the war who would take the risk of helping me.” Russo secured the use of a Xerox machine belonging to an advertising agency owned by his friend Linda Sinay. Russo then assisted in the photocopying of some 7,000 pages of Vietnam-related material. Only days after the first installments of the Pentagon Papers appeared in the New York Times in June 1971, the Federal Bureau of

Russo, Anthony J., Jr.

1007

Anthony J. Russo Jr. leaves a Los Angeles federal courthouse on October 1, 1971, after the court released him from jail on his promise to appear later before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of the so-called Pentagon Papers. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Investigation (FBI) questioned Russo. He refused to cooperate. On June 23 he was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles, but he declined to testify on the grounds that he might incriminate himself. Granted full immunity, he again refused to cooperate in the case against Ellsberg by offering secret testimony; Russo preferred to go public. Cited for contempt, he was jailed on August 16. He later claimed that during his 47-day imprisonment he had been chained, tortured, and held in solitary confinement. On October 1 a federal judge ordered Russo’s release and further ruled that he be given a transcript of any grand jury testimony he provided. Pending appeal, U.S. assistant attorney David Nissen would not supply a copy of confidential testimony, and Russo again refused to testify. On December 29, 1971, the grand jury returned a new 15count criminal indictment, charging Ellsberg and Russo with conspiracy, theft, and misuse of government property, and espionage. The Pentagon Papers trial began in Los Angeles on July 10, 1972. The trial that began as a test of First Amendment rights quickly became a lesson in the abuse of governmental power. The unfold-

ing Watergate Scandal brought new revelations into play. On May 11, 1973, citing governmental misconduct, federal judge William Matthew Byrne declared a mistrial and dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo. Russo remained a staunch antiwar campaigner and worked zealously for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. Russo eventually pursued a career in social work. He was also active in antinuclear protests and in opposition to the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He died in Suffolk, Virginia, on August 6, 2008. DAVID COFFEY See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Pentagon Papers and Trial; Watergate Scandal References Schrag, Peter. Test of Loyalty: Daniel Ellsberg and the Rituals of Secret Government. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974. Ungar, Sanford J. The Papers & the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers. 1972; reprint, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

This page intentionally left blank

S Sabattier, Gabriel Birth Date: August 2, 1892 Death Date: May 22, 1966 French Army lieutenant general, commander of French forces in Tonkin in 1945, and delegate general of Indochina. Born in Paris on August 2, 1892, Gabriel Sabattier entered the French military academy at Saint-Cyr in 1913. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1915 and to captain in 1916. Sabattier was sent to Morocco in 1928; six years later he became French military attaché to China as a lieutenant colonel. In November 1940 he went to Indochina with the rank of colonel, and in 1941 he commanded French troops in the short war with Thailand. The next year he was commander of French troops in southern Vietnam as a brigadier general. In 1944 Sabattier became commander of the Tonkin Division. He sought permission from the French Army commander in Indochina, Lieutenant General Eugène Mordant, to begin preparations to wage guerrilla warfare in the event of a Japanese attack, including the establishment of mountain supply caches. Fearful of provoking the Japanese, Mordant refused. Sabattier became alarmed by reports that the Japanese might be intending something, and on the morning of March 8, 1945, he ordered his troops placed on armed-exercise status. Anxious not to alarm the Japanese, Mordant canceled Sabattier’s alert the next morning, but some units either did not get the word or disobeyed the order. Later that day the Japanese carried out their wellplanned coup. The Japanese failed on March 9 to attack Sabattier’s two forces positioned just to the west and northwest of Hanoi. This enabled some 6,000 men to evacuate their camps. In their retreat westward,

the French hoped for assistance from the U.S. Air Force. General Claire Chennault, commander of the Fourteenth Air Force, was in favor of such action, but a pessimistic President Franklin Roosevelt opposed it despite pleas from Paris. Major General Marcel Alessandri commanded the 2nd Tonkin Brigade. On March 11, 1945, he decided to disarm his Indochinese riflemen and leave them behind to fend for themselves. Most were staunchly loyal to the French, and the action wounded them deeply. Later the Viet Minh used this incident as an example of French perfidy. In late March, Paris granted Sabattier full civil and military powers as part of his title as delegate general. Sabattier installed himself in the Dien Bien Phu area and busied himself with political activities, turning over military matters to Alessandri. Sabattier and Alessandri hoped the Japanese would be content to control the populous delta regions, allowing French forces that escaped the initial coup to remain in the Tonkin highlands until the end of the war. But the Japanese were determined to get rid of the French altogether. Their military actions made a French retreat to Yunnan the only viable course of action. The French had to destroy their artillery and vehicles at river crossings because of lack of adequate ferries and rafts, and the Japanese blocked the two most important border exits at Lao Cai and Ha Giang. In all, some 5,000 French troops completed the 600-mile-long anabasis to southern China, where they were accorded a chilly reception. Sabattier continued as the senior French military representative there for some three months. But on August 15, 1945, in a fateful decision, French Republic provisional president Charles de Gaulle replaced Sabattier, naming Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu as high commissioner for Indochina and instructing

1010

Saigon

him “to restore French sovereignty in the Indochina Union.” Sabattier returned to France at the end of 1945. He died in Paris on May 22, 1966. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Alessandri, Marcel; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Franco-Thai War; Mordant, Eugène; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano References Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Sabattier, Gabriel. Le Destin de l’Indochine: Souvenirs et documents, 1941–1951. Paris: Plon, 1952.

Saigon Located in the Mekong Delta on the Saigon River, 37 miles from the South China Sea, Saigon is Vietnam’s largest city. Known as Ho Chi Minh City since 1975, it is still called Saigon by many Vietnamese. Originally named Prey Nokor—a major port for the Khmer (Cambodian) empire in the 16th century—it was conquered by the Vietnamese and renamed Gia Dinh. The French renamed the city Saigon in 1862 and made it the capital of their colony of Cochin China. Between 1954 and 1975 Saigon was the capital of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Throughout the 20th century, Saigon was also Vietnam’s richest and most powerful and violent city, dominated by gangs, corruption, and a brisk trade in weapons, narcotics, and prostitutes. Saigon witnessed almost endless revolution and war and ultimately became a casualty of the violence and chaos that descended on Vietnam after World War II. Under French rule, Saigon was known as “Paris of the Orient,” a beautiful city with a unique mix of both Eastern and Western cultures. Years of war, however, changed that. Although it escaped World War II and Japanese occupation without much damage, Saigon could not escape the violent nationalism, revolution, and conflict of the postwar era. The city was one of the centers of the so-called August Revolution in 1945, when the nationalist Viet Minh and their charismatic leader Ho Chi Minh maneuvered to take control from the defeated Japanese. A few weeks later Saigon witnessed dramatic violence between French and Vietnamese residents as French forces occupied the city while France reestablished its colonies in Indochina. In 1950 Saigon became the capital of the puppet regime of Emperor Bao Dai, positioned by France to challenge Ho’s growing popularity. Following the French defeat in the Indochina War (1946–1954) and the partition of the country, Saigon became the capital of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) under Ngo Dinh Diem. However, much of the city was controlled by vari-

ous paramilitary groups, many of which ran extensive criminal networks. In 1955 Diem ordered the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to take action against such groups, especially the Binh Xuyen syndicate with its 40,000-strong militia. Often referred to as “the River Pirates,” the Binh Xuyen dominated the drug trade. The syndicate had worked out agreements with French authorities and Bao Dai to control parts of Saigon, especially the primarily ethnic Chinese district known as Cholon. The French had hoped that such groups would help control the city and keep the more dangerous and ideologically motivated movements down. However, Diem saw the Binh Xuyen as a serious rival. Thus, between March and May 1955 his forces clashed with the gang throughout Saigon, killing an estimated 500 people and leaving some 20,000 homeless. Whole neighborhoods were destroyed by mortars, artillery, and heavy gunfire. Diem then turned on other groups in the city, including the Cao Dai religious sect and the Hoa Hao Buddhist reform movement. American advisers in South Vietnam also tried to control Saigon. Colonel Edward Lansdale managed U.S. intelligence operations in South Vietnam between 1954 and 1957, primarily aimed at legitimizing Diem’s authority. Through backroom diplomacy, intimidation, and a host of covert operations, Lansdale continued the battle against Saigon’s many warring factions. His success, however, was limited. Diem was kept in power, but neither he nor his American allies could totally control the city. In 1963 Saigon was also the stage for a dramatic symbol of opposition to Diem when on June 11 a Buddhist monk immolated himself in a busy street to protest the government. A few months later in November 1963 Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who headed the secret police, were murdered in Saigon during a military coup with American complicity. Throughout the 1960s the streets of Saigon witnessed repeated guerrilla attacks against South Vietnamese and American forces. The city swelled with U.S. military personnel as the Vietnam War (1965–1973) progressed. With almost 500,000 U.S. forces in Vietnam by 1968, Saigon was teeming with prostitutes, drug addicts, corrupt officials, beggars, orphans, and Americans with money. It was, as journalist Stanley Karnow noted, a black-market city in the largest sense of the word. Despite assertions in Washington that the war in Vietnam could be won, the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and its backers in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) proved otherwise. In January 1968 during celebrations for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, or Tet, the NLF and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) launched coordinated attacks throughout South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive ultimately failed to achieve its military objectives, but in terms of public opinion, particularly in the United States, it was an enormous success for the Communists. Major towns and cities in South Vietnam were rocked by NLF attacks, undermining claims that the government

Saigon Military Mission

1011

Bird’s-eye view of Ho Chi Minh City, 2009. Formerly known as Saigon, it is the largest city of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (Mingwei/Dreamstime.com)

in Saigon was in control. The most dramatic moments came when the U.S. embassy in Saigon was attacked by NLF guerrillas, some of whom made it into the complex and battled with American soldiers. The image of America’s legation under siege seriously comprised notions in Washington that the war was still winnable. As the war escalated and American resolve weakened, Saigon became, as Stanley Karnow aptly put it, a “city for sale—obsessed by greed, oblivious to its impending doom.” That doom came on April 30, 1975. After U.S. forces began their withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973, Saigon’s fate was sealed. In less than two years, faster than most in Washington expected, the South Vietnamese government disintegrated and surrendered to the NLF and the PAVN. Amid the panic came the infamous frantic evacuation of Americans from Saigon by helicopter as their embassy was overrun by desperate South Vietnamese fleeing the Communist advance. Renamed Ho Chi Minh City under Communist rule, today Saigon is a vibrant city of 8 million people. Once again it is the center of power in Vietnam, the main linchpin in the country’s economic reconstruction and reintegration with the world community. ARNE KISLENKO See also Bao Dai; Cao Dai; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ho Chi Minh; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Viet

Cong Infrastructure; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Butler, David. The Fall of Saigon: Scenes from the Sudden End of a Long War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. McCoy, Alfred W. The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1991. Sheehan, Neil. After the War Was Over: Hanoi and Saigon. New York: Random House, 1992.

Saigon Circle See Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle

Saigon Military Mission Effort by Allen Dulles, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to accomplish two tasks simultaneously: to weaken the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and to support and strengthen former emperor Bao Dai’s State of

1012

Sainteny, Jean

Vietnam non-Communist government south of the 17th Parallel. Organized in the summer of 1954 shortly after the Geneva Conference, the Saigon Military Mission (SMM) was headed by U.S. Air Force colonel (later major general) Edward Lansdale, who for some time had been assigned to the CIA. Lansdale’s orders called for him to serve in Saigon as assistant air attaché on embassy duty, but his real mission was to assist in the birth of a government in southern Vietnam that was capable of successfully competing with and opposing Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnamese government. Lansdale had an unlimited budget and complete operational freedom. He was authorized to put together a small team to help him. Those he selected included many CIA operatives, some on loan from active or reserve military units and some career agents. Lansdale was in place, although without his team members, before Ngo Dinh Diem, Bao Dai’s newly appointed prime minister, arrived in Saigon on June 26, 1954. The two met at Independence (Doc Lap) Palace and within three weeks were fast friends, largely due to Lansdale’s sympathetic and receptive manner behind which he couched his advice. He urged Diem to become more a “man of the people” to create a loyal bureaucracy and to implement a number of social, economic, and political reforms, including building schools, repairing roads, and teaching personal and public hygiene, all suggesting to rural inhabitants benefits that might be theirs if they supported the Saigon government. Lansdale also counseled Diem to establish service clubs after the model of Rotary International and helped Filipinos set up Operation BROTHERHOOD and the Freedom Company in Vietnam. Lansdale also persuaded Diem to take advantage of the provision of the Geneva Accords that, during the first 300 days, allowed civilians living in either zone to remove to the other. Supported by the Seventh Fleet and an American airline base in Taiwan (Civil Air Transport, a CIA front organization), some 1.5 million people ultimately came south (Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, also known as the Great Migration), while perhaps only 90,000 resettled in North Vietnam. It was a coup for Diem and for Lansdale. Using the Great Migration as a cover, Lansdale sent part of his team, under the leadership of Lucien Conein, into North Vietnam to carry out acts of sabotage. Conein and the northern team recruited and trained two groups of Vietnamese who would serve as stay-behind agents: the Hoa and Binh teams. Conein and the others buried caches of weapons and attempted unsuccessfully to close the port of Haiphong, to contaminate northern petroleum supplies, and to sabotage rail and bus transportation before they were called back south at the end of the population exchange. Most of their efforts were ultimately futile. Northern officials quickly rolled up the Hoa and Binh teams and located the arms caches. The SMM had better luck in the south. There the SMM foiled an attempted assassination of Diem by his army chief of staff, set up a Palace Guard under the leadership of Filipino Napoleon Valeriano, and contacted various leaders of the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai sect

armies, bribing many of them to give up their independence for commissions in what became the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). SMM members recall going to meetings with such men, carrying suitcases crammed with CIAsupplied bribe money. Many sect generals and their men became part of the ARVN, strengthening the hand of Diem. Cao Dai general Nguyen Thanh Phuong demanded and received $3.6 million for his loyalty in addition to monthly payments for his troops. General Tran Van Soai, a Hoa Hao warlord, cost $3 million. This additional manpower gave Diem the courage to stand up to the Binh Xuyen sect in fighting that began on April 26, 1955. By May 9 Binh Xuyen troops had been driven from Saigon into southern swamps. Yet perhaps the most successful action of the SMM was its support of Diem when he called for a nationwide election in 1955 to determine whether the country should remain under the leadership of Bao Dai or become an independent republic with him as its president. Lansdale counseled restraint. He told Diem that there should be no stuffing of ballot boxes and that voting should be fair. Diem ignored the advice. The polls opened on October 23, 1955. Diem won the election, receiving 98 percent of the overall vote and in Saigon 605,025 votes, one-third more than the total number of 450,000 registered voters. Diem garnered 5.7 million votes; Bao Dai received only 63,000. Lansdale left Vietnam soon afterward. The work of the SMM had ended. CECIL B. CURREY See also Bao Dai; Binh Xuyen; Cao Dai; Conein, Lucien Emile; Dulles, Allen Welsh; Dulles, John Foster; Hoa Hao; Lansdale, Edward Geary; Ngo Dinh Diem; PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Prados, John. Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through Iranscam. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

Sainteny, Jean Birth Date: May 29, 1907 Death Date: February 25, 1978 French diplomat and key figure in negotiations with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh at the end of World War II. Jean Sainteny was born in Vesinet (Seine-et-Oise), France, on May 29, 1907. From 1929 to 1940 he pursued a banking career, first in Indochina (1929–1931) and then in Paris. A Resistance hero during World War II, he was a key figure in Marie-Madeleine Fourcade’s Alliance network. In March 1944 Sainteny carried to Britain plans of German coastal defenses that were vital in Allied planning for the June 1944 Normandy Invasion.

Salan, Raoul Albin Louis After the liberation Sainteny held a series of key diplomatic posts in Southeast Asia. In 1945 General Charles de Gaulle named him head of the French military mission to China. On October 3, 1945, Sainteny was appointed commissioner for Tonkin and north Annamern, a post he held until December 1, 1947. Sainteny and Ho Chi Minh negotiated what became known as the Ho-Sainteny Agreements of March 3, 1946. These provided for French recognition of the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) within the Indochina federation and the French Union, the return of 15,000 French troops into northern Vietnam (but with a phased five-year withdrawal), and a plebiscite for southern Vietnam to determine if it wished to join the North Vietnamese government. Had these agreements been fully implemented, there would have been no Indochina War. In June 1946 Sainteny returned to France with Ho to take part in negotiations at the Fontainebleau Conference, which were torpedoed while he was away by the actions of the French proconsul in Indochina, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu. From 1954 to 1958 Sainteny was the senior French representative (delegate) to North Vietnam. He left North Vietnam in 1957 “on temporary leave,” his mission of protecting French property a failure. After de Gaulle’s return to power in 1958, Sainteny was elected to the National Assembly on the Gaullist ticket. From 1959 to 1962 Sainteny was commissioner general for tourism, and from 1962 to 1966 he was minister for war veterans and war victims under Premier Georges Pompidou. Sainteny was a director of Air France from 1967 to 1972 and an officer in many other organizations. Sainteny made several trips to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, providing useful information on North Vietnamese policies. He died in Paris on February 25, 1978. His memoir, Histoire d’une Paix Manquée: Indochine 1945–1947 (1953), leaves no doubt that a policy of open negotiation with the Viet Minh would have prevented all the unhappy events that followed. SPENCER C. TUCKER

1013

Albin Louis Salan was born in Roquecourbe near Toulouse on June 10, 1899, the son of a physician. He went to war at age 18 in 1917 and earned the Croix de Guerre and, in subsequent years, 85 other decorations, including the American Distinguished Service Cross during World War II. Salan later graduated from the French military academy at Saint-Cyr and served in the colonial infantry in Algeria, Morocco, and the Middle East. In 1924 Salan began his first tour in Indochina. At the beginning of World War II he commanded a battalion of Senegalese troops in Africa. At first loyal to the collaborationist Vichy government, in 1943 he changed sides and campaigned with General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s forces in southern France. At the end of the war Salan took part in peace negotiations that secured the Chinese withdrawal from northern Vietnam, and in April 1946 as commander of French troops in Tonkin he signed the accords establishing the size and location of French and Vietnamese garrisons within the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In 1948 Salan commanded all French troops in the Far East.

See also D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; De Gaulle, Charles; Fontainebleau Conference; Ho Chi Minh; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Indochina War References Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Fourcade, Marie-Madeleine. Noah’s Ark: A Memoir of Struggle and Resistance. New York: Dutton, 1974. Sainteny, Jean. Histoire d’une Paix Manquée: Indochine, 1945–1947. Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953.

Salan, Raoul Albin Louis Birth Date: June 10, 1899 Death Date: July 3, 1984 French Army general, commander of French forces in Indochina (1952–1953), and once France’s most decorated soldier. Raoul

French general Raoul Salan, shown here in Algeria in 1958, commanded French forces in Indochina during 1952–1953, when he pursued a largely defensive strategy against the Viet Minh. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1014

Salisbury, Harrison Evans

In 1952 de Lattre, then French high commissioner for Indochina, appointed Salan field commander of French military forces. Salan succeeded de Lattre as commander in chief on the latter’s death in January 1952. As military commander, Salan followed largely defensive tactics against the Viet Minh. The inability of French forces to halt a Viet Minh invasion of Laos in April 1953—a seemingly easy task—led to Salan’s replacement by General Henri Navarre. Following the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Salan returned to Indochina with General Paul Ély on a fact-finding mission that recommended an evacuation of all French troops from North Vietnam and French concentration in the area south of the 16th Parallel. Salan was politicized by the French defeat in Indochina. In November 1954 a rebellion against French rule broke out in Algeria, and in December 1956 Salan was named commander of French forces there. Nicknamed the “Mandarin” or the “Chinaman” for his cunning, Oriental impassivity, and Asian experiences, Salan was distrusted by many of his fellow officers and was an unpopular command choice. In 1957 he was the target of a right-wing assassination attempt. Salan supported General Charles de Gaulle’s return to power following the May 1958 right-wing settler uprising in Algiers and the end of the French Fourth Republic. In December 1958 de Gaulle, who shared in the general distrust of Salan, removed him from command. Salan retired in Algeria in 1959 and eventually joined other generals, colonial troops, and European settlers in plotting to keep Algeria French. Exiled to Spain in 1960, he was active in forming the Secret Army Organization, which employed terrorism in metropolitan France. In April 1961 Salan and three other generals led a coup in Algiers and held power there for four days. De Gaulle managed to hold the loyalty of the bulk of the army, Algiers fell to loyalist forces, and Salan went into hiding. In July 1961 Salan was sentenced in absentia to death for treason. Captured in Algiers in April 1962, he was sentenced to life in prison and stripped of military honors. President de Gaulle pardoned him in June 1968, and in 1982 President François Mitterand restored him to the rank of full general and reinstated his pension. Salan spent his last years writing about his experiences in Indochina and Algeria. He died in Paris on July 3, 1984. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also France, Army, 1946–1954; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; LORRAINE, Operation; Na San, Battle of; Navarre, Henri Eugène References The International Who’s Who, 1983–1984. 47th ed. London: Europa Publications, 1983. Salan, General Raoul. Indochine Rouge: Le Message d’Ho Chi Minh. Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1975. Salan, General Raoul. Le Sens d’un Engagement, 1899–1946. Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1970. Salan, General Raoul. Mémoires: Fin d’un Empire, “Le Viet-Minh Mon Adversaire,” October 1946–October 1954. Paris: Presses de la Citê, 1954.

Salisbury, Harrison Evans Birth Date: November 14, 1908 Death Date: July 15, 1993 New York Times editor and correspondent (1949–1973) and perhaps the first mainstream American journalist opposed to the Vietnam War. Harrison Evans Salisbury was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 14, 1908. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in 1930 and then joined the United Press (UP) as a correspondent, a position he held until 1948. In 1949 he became the first regular Moscow correspondent for the New York Times. Salisbury quickly developed an interest and expertise in Soviet and Far East affairs that would place him among America’s most distinguished journalists. In 1955 he won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He also produced a number of books inspired by or related to his Soviet experience, including American in Russia, Moscow Journal, and The Nine Hundred Days: The Siege of Leningrad. Salisbury played a controversial role in the reporting of the Vietnam War. In December 1966 he was the first American newsman to be admitted to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). For several weeks he sent back controversial dispatches that asserted that the heavy U.S. bombing campaign was not having the anticipated incapacitating effects upon North Vietnam’s economy but that it was killing thousands of innocent civilians. He also emphasized that despite the bombing, North Vietnamese morale remained high. President Lyndon Johnson and Pentagon officials, together with some journalists, strongly criticized Salisbury as a Communist mouthpiece and, among other things, for “lending aid and comfort to the enemy.” But others applauded his reporting as an exercise in honesty and courage, presenting unpalatable but necessary facts to the American public. Salisbury’s reporting initiated a greater willingness on the part of other well-established newspapers to challenge official administration accounts of the progress of the Vietnam War. His articles failed, however, to win Pulitzer recognition. Despite substantial support from editors and correspondents, the decision to award Salisbury the coveted prize was overruled. He was, however, awarded the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 1966. Salisbury continued to travel and write extensively. In his later years he developed considerable expertise on China and produced several books, including To Peking and Beyond, China: 100 Years of Revolution and The Long March: The Untold Story. In 1970 when the New York Times created its Op-Ed Page, it was Salisbury who supervised and fine-tuned that operation, which went on to become a staple of the newspaper. He had charge of the Op-Ed Page until his retirement in 1973. Salisbury died suddenly of a heart attack on July 15, 1993, in Providence, Rhode Island. PRISCILLA ROBERTS

SAM HOUSTON, Operation

1015

Harrison E. Salisbury of The New York Times addresses a gathering at the Overseas Press Club in New York City on January 31, 1969. Salisbury had recently returned from Vietnam. He was one of the first influential U.S. journalists to oppose the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos) See also Burchett, Wilfred; Fall, Bernard B.; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Media and the Vietnam War References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Salisbury, Harrison. Behind the Lines: Hanoi, December 23, 1966– January 7, 1967. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. Salisbury, Harrison. A Journey for Our Times: A Memoir. New York: Harper and Row, 1983. Salisbury, Harrison. A Time of Change: A Reporter’s Tale of Our Time. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. Salisbury, Harrison. Without Fear or Favor: The New York Times and Its Times. New York: Harper and Row, 1980.

Saloth Sar See Pol Pot

SAM HOUSTON,

Operation

Start Date: January 1, 1967 End Date: April 5, 1967 One of a series of U.S. Army operations mounted in 1966 and 1967 in the Central Highlands of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) near the Cambodian border. Operation SAM HOUSTON was immediately preceded by Operation PAUL REVERE IV and followed by Operation FRANCIS MARION. As with these other missions, Operation SAM HOUSTON aimed at monitoring and disrupting People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) operations in the area, reducing the flow of men and supplies from Cambodia, and preventing large-scale PAVN attacks against the large American support bases, especially Camp Holloway near Pleiku, that were vital for maintaining an American presence in the western Central Highlands.

1016

San Antonio Formula

Concentrated in the border areas of the Plei Trap and Plei Duc valleys in Pleiku and Kontum provinces, Operation SAM HOUSTON involved most of the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, under the command of Major General William R. Peers, and elements from the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division. The participants were obliged to function in a chain of steep valleys and thick jungle that stretched along this section of the Vietnamese-Cambodian frontier, some of the most difficult terrain in South Vietnam. Preliminaries to SAM HOUSTON began on New Year’s Day 1967 when helicopters landed two battalions from the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade into Kontum Province near the Cambodian border. The first phase involved searching for tunnels that reportedly honeycombed the area and establishing artillery fire–support bases. Initially, the only resistance consisted of scattered mortaring, land mines, and booby traps and occasional sniper fire. Operation SAM HOUSTON began in earnest in mid-February with a series of small aggressive search-and-destroy sweeps concentrated west of the Nam Sathay River in southwestern Kontum Province. The operation involved the insertion by helicopter of elements of the 2nd Brigade into the Plei Trap area near the Cambodian border. The object of this mission and those that followed was to force the PAVN into contact on terms favorable to the Americans. As in earlier operations, the Americans concentrated on establishing small operational areas supported by artillery fire–support bases from which company- or battalion-sized units would patrol. The infantry stayed out on these missions for days at a time, stretching their supplies so as to minimize the need for resupply by helicopter as PAVN units tracked helicopters to locate the units they were supplying. From mid-February through the end of March, the 4th Infantry Division reported nine significant company- or largersized contacts and a number of smaller squad- and platoon-level contacts with the enemy. Significantly, however, the PAVN and the VC initiated most of these actions. By this time, the Communist command had developed tactics to deal with the Americans’ search-and-destroy approach. The Communists would locate the firebases and keep them under close surveillance. When U.S. rifle companies went on patrol, the Communist ground units would track them through the use of trail watchers, small reconnaissance patrols, or observation of supply helicopters. They would then report these movements back to their local superiors, and when the Communist commanders saw an opportunity (always where terrain or weather would render it difficult for the Americans to call in artillery and air support), they would ambush the American unit before it could call in supporting fire. PAVN/ VC ambushing forces would attempt to surround the entire U.S. unit and then fragment it through use of mortars and sniper fire. The Americans, with their advanced communications, were usually able to respond to large-scale ambushes with artillery and air support. Snipers were met with small-arms fire and M-79 grenade launchers. A February 16, 1967, engagement was typical of Operation SAM HOUSTON. PAVN forces ambushed a platoon from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry, in the Plei Trap Valley east of the Nam Sathay. Dense

jungle and the intense noise from the fighting kept the platoon leader from calling in artillery. The parent company eventually broke through enemy sniper and mortar fire and extricated the trapped platoon. PAVN forces then withdrew, having inflicted numerous casualties. This action was the last of a series of fierce skirmishes that the 2nd Brigade fought in a four-day period, all initiated by the Communists. This pattern persisted throughout the operation. Operation SAM HOUSTON officially ended on April 5. The American command claimed success, with 733 confirmed Communist casualties to 169 U.S. dead. The actual accomplishments are unclear, however. The campaign forced four PAVN regiments to withdraw from the Plei Trap–Plei Duc sector, frustrating Communist plans for more ambitious operations during the summer of 1967, but the Communist units eventually filtered back in. It was also clear that Communist forces still controlled the pace of operations. The mounting of Operation SAM HOUSTON reflected the ongoing quest for a workable strategy to offset the constraints of distance, tough terrain, a restricted international boundary, and an elusive enemy that could engage or avoid contact when it pleased. WALTER F. BELL See also Cambodia; CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Fire-Support Bases; FRANCIS MARION, Operation; PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations; Peers, William R.; Search and Destroy References Adjutant General’s Office (U.A. Army). Operation SAM HOUSTON Conducted by the 4th Infantry Division: Combat After Action Report. Washington, DC: Adjutant General’s Office, 1967. MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1998. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

San Antonio Formula President Lyndon Johnson’s proposed formula for peace talks between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the United States. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Channel, two private French intermediaries, Dr. Herbert Marcovich and Raymond Aubrac, approached Dr. Henry Kissinger, then a Harvard University professor and private citizen who was attending a meeting in Paris, and offered to establish contact with Hanoi to explore possible conditions for peace. Aubrac was well acquainted with North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, who had stayed in Aubrac’s home in Paris when he was in France in 1946. Kissinger passed along this information to U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk, and the Johnson administration decided to utilize the Frenchmen’s services to present a U.S. formula to begin talks. The United States proposed to halt the bombing of North Vietnam in return for a pledge from Hanoi to enter into substantive peace talks and without insisting on Hanoi’s de-escalation of its military

Sanctuaries effort in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The message did, however, warn against any North Vietnamese effort to “take advantage” of the situation. The two Frenchmen traveled to Hanoi on July 21, 1967, and there met with Ho and North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong. Aubrac and Marcovich departed Hanoi on July 26 and returned to Paris, where they immediately shared the North Vietnamese response with Kissinger, who relayed it to Washington. The North Vietnamese leaders rejected the U.S. offer, which they deemed “insulting” and characterized as still imposing conditions. President Lyndon Johnson then made the offer public in the course of a speech in San Antonio, Texas, on September 29. The proposal became known as the San Antonio Formula. U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara recommended the deletion of the offensive language in question, but debate over this continued within the administration. President Johnson renewed the offer again on March 31, 1968, following the January Tet Offensive and his own decision not to seek reelection. Although Hanoi never responded positively to the San Antonio Formula, it did ultimately serve as the basis for future negotiations. MARY L. KELLEY AND SPENCER C. TUCKER

1017

See also Ho Chi Minh; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; McNamara, Robert Strange References Clifford, Clark, with David Holbrooke. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1991. Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. Rev. and updated edition. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Sanctuaries Places of refuge or protection. In the Vietnam War context, sanctuaries were places where the Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) soldiers could be safe from attack. Although places such as the U Minh Forest and the Iron Triangle were sometimes referred to as sanctuaries, Communist forces there were not safe from attack, and thus they were not true sanctuaries. In theory, Cambodia and Laos became sanctuaries during the war because their so-called neutrality was

Part of the U.S. strategy in Vietnam in the early 1970s was to target Communist logistical support and supply networks. These medical supplies were part of a huge cache captured in Cambodia during the invasion of that country by Army of the Republic of Vietnam and U.S. forces authorized by President Richard Nixon. (National Archives)

1018

Sarraut, Albert

used by VC and PAVN forces to gain some protection from attack throughout the war. Cambodia and Laos, both former protectorates under the French Indochina Union, had declared their neutrality soon after gaining independence. Laos had become a constitutional monarchy in 1949, and in 1962 a conference at Geneva officially proclaimed that country’s neutrality. On the other hand, Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk declared his country’s neutrality soon after the French withdrew in 1954 and tried to preserve that throughout the war. Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson publicly declared that the United States would honor both countries’ proclaimed neutrality. The 1907 Hague Convention states that “A neutral country has the obligation not to allow its territory to be used by a belligerent. If the neutral country is unwilling or unable to prevent this, the other belligerent has the right to take appropriate counteraction.” As early as May 1959, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) formed a military unit in Laos to funnel arms and supplies to Communist guerrillas there and began construction of an infiltration route through the Laotian panhandle and eastern Cambodia to transport soldiers and supplies into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, this avenue was used and even expanded throughout the war. Also, by the mid1960s rest, resupply, and training bases had been established across the South Vietnamese border in Cambodia for VC and PAVN troops, and war supplies were being landed at the port of Sihanoukville and brought overland to these sanctuaries with the approval and active assistance of the Cambodian government. In response, in 1963 the United States began the first of several bombing campaigns against the Ho Chi Minh Trail that would continue until 1974. In addition, limited U.S. artillery and air attacks were directed across the border into Cambodia beginning in 1966 in response to Communist fire from those sanctuaries. In March 1969 with tacit approval from Prince Sihanouk, secret Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombing raids hit PAVN base areas inside Cambodia, and in April 1970 U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces, with the approval of President Richard Nixon, conducted an incursion into Cambodia to destroy Communist bases. Likewise, a U.S.-supported ARVN raid (without U.S. ground troops) against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, Operation LAM SON 719, was conducted in February 1971. Because of violations of neutrality, what had begun as sanctuaries became extensions of the battlefield. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also BARREL ROLL, Operation; Cambodia; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Iron Triangle; LAM SON 719, Operation; Laos; MENU, Operation; Sihanouk, Norodom; STEEL TIGER, Operation; TIGER HOUND, Operation; White Star Mobile Training Teams

References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988.

Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Sarraut, Albert Birth Date: July 28, 1872 Death Date: November 26, 1962 French politician, premier (1933 and 1936), and governorgeneral of Indochina (1911–1914 and 1917–1919). Albert Sarraut was born in Bordeaux, France, on July 28, 1872. Trained in the law, he was a deputy from the Aude to the National Assembly from 1902 to 1924 and senator from 1926 to 1940. Sarraut fought in World War I as a lieutenant and won the Médaille Militaire at Verdun in 1916. Sarraut’s greatest contribution to France was in colonial affairs. He was governor-general of Indochina from November 1911 to January 1914, when severe illness forced his return to France, and again from January 1917 to May 1919. As governor-general he represented the best in French liberal republican ideals and helped shift French policy from assimilation to association. Sarraut worked to improve administration by a policy of fewer but better-trained civil servants, restoring examinations for appointment, and opening more posts to natives, but his efforts to stiffen language requirements met considerable resistance and had little success. Sarraut also carried out judicial reform. He insisted on uniformity throughout the French Union and worked to revise legal codes to ensure justice for the natives and to end torture and corporal punishment. He worked to improve medicine and promoted the building of hospitals and clinics. Sarraut also sought to raise the standard of living through attention to public works and by improving education. He opened more secondary schools to natives and discouraged sending Vietnamese to study in France. Virginia Thompson, in French Indo-China, called him the first governor-general “to win native devotion” and “the most popular man France ever sent to the colony.” From 1920 to 1940 Sarraut was almost continuously a minister of state. From 1920 to 1924 and from 1932 to 1933 he was minister of colonies. As leader of the Radical Party, Sarraut was briefly premier in 1933 and again in 1936 (during the German remilitarization of the Rhineland, when he sought but failed to secure punitive action against Germany). From 1947 to 1958 Sarraut was on the High Council of the French Union. He died in Paris on November 26, 1962. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946

Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr.

1019

Albert Sarraut was a French politician, premier, and governor-general of Indochina during 1911–1914 and 1917–1919. In the latter position, Sarraut worked to improve public works and education and was perhaps the most popular colonial administrator among the Vietnamese that France ever sent to Indochina. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) References Bernstein, S. Histoire du parti radical. 2 vols. Paris: Presses de la Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1980–1982. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Hutton, Patrick H., ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870–1940, Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Sarraut, Albert. Grandeur et servitude coloniales. Paris: Editions du Sagittaire, 1931. Sarraut, Albert. La Mise en valeur des colonies françaises. Paris: Payot, 1923. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968.

Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. Birth Date: October 15, 1917 Death Date: February 28, 2007 Prominent American historian, author, commentator, and special assistant to the president (1961–1964). Born on October 15,

1917, in Columbus, Ohio, Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. was the son of Arthur Meier Schlesinger Sr., an influential social historian at the Ohio State University and, later, Harvard University. The younger Schlesinger earned a degree in history from Harvard University in 1938. In 1940 he commenced a three-year fellowship at Harvard. During World War II Schlesinger worked for the Office of War Information, and during 1943–1945 he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor agency to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His book The Age of Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1946, and Schlesinger, who did not have an advanced degree, became a tenured associate professor of history at Harvard; he was made a full professor in 1954. Schlesinger sought to downplay class conflict in American history and instead focused on the great programs that improved life in America; he also emphasized the examination of heroism. Schlesinger served as the key speech writer for Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson’s unsuccessful 1952 presidential bid, and in 1956

1020

Schlesinger, James Rodney

As a historian and prize-winning author, adviser to two presidents, and one of the founders of Americans for Democratic Action, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1917–2007) was a leading spokesperson for 20th-century liberalism. (AP/Wide World Photos)

when Stevenson ran once more, Schlesinger served on his campaign staff. During the late 1950s Schlesinger became friendly with Robert F. Kennedy and Senator John F. Kennedy. In 1960 when Senator Kennedy announced his presidential run, Schlesinger became an early and active supporter. After Kennedy secured the Democratic nomination, Schlesinger served as an occasional speech writer and adviser to the campaign. In 1961 after Kennedy won the general election, Schlesinger joined the new president’s circle of advisers as a special assistant. After the president’s death in November 1963 Schlesinger published A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, which became a best-seller and won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. Critics, however, pointed out that the work was highly laudatory of Kennedy and his brief administration and did not delve into the mistakes and failures that were also part of the Kennedy legacy. Soon after President Lyndon Johnson took office, Schlesinger left the White House staff in January 1964 to pursue his teaching, research, and writing interests. In 1966 Schlesinger joined the faculty of the City University of New York (CUNY) and began to examine the Vietnam conflict. At first Schlesinger opposed an American withdrawal from Vietnam for fear of Chinese encroachment, but gradually dismayed by the increasing American involvement, he pushed for de-escalation and negotiation. Schlesinger refused to blame the problems in Vietnam on any specific U.S. policy or individual. He lambasted revision-

ist policy analysts who blamed a deliberately aggressive American foreign policy for the problems in Vietnam and elsewhere. He believed that in setting foreign policy, moral considerations should not exceed national interests. Alarmed by the growing power of the presidency, Schlesinger published The Imperial Presidency (1973), which studied the gradual assumption of ever-greater powers by the executive branch since the founding of the republic, mainly through the conduct of an independent foreign policy and war making. This book, which was well received, came out in the midst of the Watergate Scandal that would bring down President Richard M. Nixon. Watergate proved to be the perfect foil for Schlesinger’s arguments, as it epitomized executive power run amok. Reviewers generally praised the work, as it critically assessed both Republican and Democratic presidents. Schlesinger gave special attention to the Harry S. Truman presidency, which had greatly expanded executive prerogatives in order to wage the Korean War without a congressional mandate or war declaration. In 1978 Schlesinger published Robert Kennedy and His Times after Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, personally asked that he write the biography. Although Schlesinger retired from the CUNY faculty in 1994, he maintained a busy writing and professional agenda until his death on February 28, 2007, in New York City. Schlesinger’s impact on the history profession was perhaps not as great as that of his father. While the younger Schlesinger enjoyed wide popular appeal, a number of historians questioned his ability to remain above politics and to maintain an appropriate historical perspective. Some also argued that he broke no new theoretical or analytical ground. In his later years Schlesinger dismissed the concept of multiculturalism and drew great fire when he compared Afro-centrism to the Ku Klux Klan. This too alienated many in his profession. In the end, Schlesinger was an old-fashioned ardent liberal who deplored communism. His was the liberalism of the 1930s–1950s, which was eclipsed in the late 1960s by the New Left. Schlesinger was the author of more than 20 books and countless essays, editorials, and articles. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Fall, Bernard B.; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; Salisbury, Harrison Evans; Watergate Scandal References Anderson, Patrick. The President’s Men. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968. Depoe, Stephen. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and the Ideological History of American Liberalism. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1994.

Schlesinger, James Rodney Birth Date: February 15, 1929 Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during January–June 1973, secretary of defense during June 1973–November

SCOTLAND, Operation

1975, and secretary of energy during August 1977–August 1979. Born on February 15, 1929, in New York City, James Rodney Schlesinger earned a BA (1950), an MA, and then a PhD (1956) at Harvard University. He began his career as a college professor of economics at the University of Virginia (1955–1963) and then became the director of Strategic Studies at the RAND Corporation, where he worked until 1969. Schlesinger then served in several positions during the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford administrations, including stints as CIA director from January to June 1973 and as secretary of defense from June 1973 to November 1975, although he was largely ignored in Vietnam-related policy making. A measured opponent of détente with the Soviet Union, Schlesinger clashed with Congress when he argued against proposed cuts in allocations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). President Ford disliked the often imperious Schlesinger but retained him in his cabinet to appease conservative Republicans. Schlesinger continued his criticism of détente, often grumbling at Ford’s attempts to continue arms talks with the Soviets. In terms of Vietnam, Schlesinger was one of the more moderate voices among Ford’s national security advisers. Schlesinger argued in favor of Ford’s plan to grant limited amnesty to Vietnam War– era draft evaders. Ford ultimately ignored Schlesinger’s counsel on Vietnam, widening the rift between the two men. Ford even suspected that Schlesinger had defied a presidential order during the May 1975 Mayaguez Incident and that he had refused to order a fourth air strike on the Cambodian mainland. On November 2, 1975, Ford replaced Schlesinger with former White House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld. Schlesinger went on to serve as President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of energy and then reentered academic life. Schlesinger later became a senior adviser for Lehman Brothers in Washington, D.C. In June 2002 President George W. Bush appointed Schlesinger to the Homeland Security Advisory Council; he was also a member of the Defense Policy Board during Bush’s second term in office. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed Schlesinger a member of the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board in 2006. In June 2008 Secretary of State Robert Gates named Schlesinger head of a special board to oversee the control of U.S. nuclear weapons that was prompted by the 2007 accidental fly-over of the United States by a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber armed with nuclear bombs. JOHN ROBERT GREENE See also Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Central Intelligence Agency; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Mayaguez Incident; Nixon, Richard Milhous; RAND Corporation References Ford, Gerald R. A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford. New York: Harper and Row, 1979. Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

SCOTLAND,

1021

Operation

Start Date: November 1, 1967 End Date: March 30, 1968 U.S. Marine Corps operation in Quang Tri Province. Succeeding Operation ARDMORE, Operation SCOTLAND began in western Quang Tri Province on November 1, 1967. Initially the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines (3/26 Marines), encamped at the Khe Sanh Combat Base, with the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines (1/26 Marines), positioned on strategic hills west and north. In January 1968 the 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines (2/26 Marines), reinforced Khe Sanh, as it appeared that three People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) divisions were massing in the area. After several quiet weeks, on January 20 a company of the 1/26 Marines, joined by a reaction force from the 3/26 Marines, engaged a PAVN battalion entrenched between Hill 881 South and Hill 881 North. The marines killed 103 PAVN soldiers while losing 7 dead and 35 wounded. The second Battle of Khe Sanh had begun. On January 21 PAVN forces failed to take Hill 861, losing 47 killed in the process but overrunning the village of Khe Sanh and showering artillery shells and rockets on the area, blowing up a large ammunition dump. The previous day’s action had deterred a simultaneous attack on Hill 881 South. The marines had thwarted a PAVN plan to use both hills as firebases. The 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, was flown into Khe Sanh on January 22. On January 27 the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 37th Ranger Battalion joined the four marine infantry battalions and one marine artillery battalion in and around Khe Sanh, with a total of 46 artillery pieces, 5 90-millimeter (mm) tank guns, and 92 106-mm recoilless rifles. Despite the widely reported dangers and miseries experienced by its defenders, Khe Sanh Combat Base itself never was seriously threatened by PAVN ground forces. Less well known but perhaps more significant militarily is the valor displayed by the marines on the outlying hills and listening posts. Two companies occupied Hill 881 South, perhaps the most isolated marine firebase in Vietnam, while three companies and a reinforced platoon occupied Hills 861, 861A, 558, and 950. From these outposts overlooking the Khe Sanh plateau, the marines directed artillery and air strikes on PAVN units. PAVN forces held Hill 881 North, from which they launched some 5,000 122-mm rockets at Khe Sanh. From Hill 881 South, marines could observe these launches and alert the base; thus, they became a target themselves and were shelled heavily, losing 40 killed and 150 wounded, proportionally greater casualties than at Khe Sanh proper. On the night of February 5 a battalion of the PAVN 325C Division assaulted a marine company on the west slope of Hill 861A, breaching the perimeter but leaving 109 dead after hand-to-hand fighting. Marine casualties were 7 killed and 35 wounded. The next day a regiment of the PAVN 304th Division overran Lang Vei Special Forces camp southwest of Khe Sanh. But the worst day for the 26th Marines was February 25, when a PAVN company ambushed the 3rd Platoon, Company B, 1/26 Marines, patrolling south of the base and also decimated a relief platoon. Company B lost almost

1022

Scruggs, Jan Craig

two-thirds of its men, including every marine in the so-called Doomed Patrol whose bodies were not recovered until two weeks later. By mid-March, PAVN units began their exit from the Khe Sanh area, although the shelling continued. On March 24 a patrol from Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9 Marines), killed 31 PAVN soldiers in fighting northwest of the base. In the last encounter, on March 30, Company B, 1/26 Marines, attacked an entrenched PAVN battalion south of the base, killing 34 while losing 5. Operation SCOTLAND officially ended on that day, with the 26th Marines counting more than 1,600 PAVN dead (excluding thousands killed by bombing). Casualties in the 26th Marines officially numbered 205 killed and 1,668 wounded. John Prados and Ray Stubbe, however, have identified by name 353 marines killed between January 20 and March 31 alone. Operation PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A (April 1–15), conducted by a combined U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and ARVN force, effected the relief of Khe Sanh as the PAVN withdrawal continued. The operation accounted for 1,304 PAVN dead, while U.S. forces sustained 92 killed (51 marines) and 667 wounded; the ARVN lost 33 men and 206 wounded. Meanwhile, troops from the 3/26 Marines moved from Hill 881 South to attack PAVN forces still entrenched around Hill 881 North, killing more than 200 while losing 6 men. The day PEGASUS ended, the marines launched Operation SCOTLAND II, which lasted until February 28, 1969. Initially the 3/26 Marines swept the valley floor west from Khe Sanh toward Hill 881 South and found themselves stepping over hundreds of skeletal remains. The 1/9 Marines endured intense fighting against PAVN bunker complexes near Hill 689, losing 9 dead, 53 wounded, and 32 missing in action. Ironically, the 3/26 Marines took more casualties leaving Khe Sanh than during the siege itself, with 301 killed and more than 1,500 wounded by July 11. The Khe Sanh base was abandoned by June 27, even though at least 10 PAVN battalions remained in western Quang Tri. Now employing mobile tactics, by the end of SCOTLAND II the marines had killed more than 3,000 PAVN soldiers and captured 64 while suffering 435 dead and 2,395 wounded. JOHN D. ROOT See also Khe Sanh, Battle of; Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for; PEGASUS– LAM SON 207A, Operation References Prados, John, and Ray W. Stubbe. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Shore, Moyers S., II. The Battle for Khe Sanh (1969). Washington, DC: U.S. Marine Corps, 1977.

Scruggs, Jan Craig Birth Date: 1950 Vietnam War veteran and founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Jan Craig Scruggs was born in Washington, D.C., in 1950, the son of a truck driver and a waitress. He grew

up in nearby Bowie, Maryland, and after graduating from high school in 1968 served as a corporal in the U.S. Army’s 199th Light Infantry Brigade from 1969 to 1970. During that time he served in Vietnam, where he was wounded and received the Purple Heart. While recuperating from his wounds, he vowed that if he made it back home he would dedicate himself to the Vietnam War veterans with whom he had served. Upon returning home, Scruggs earned BS and MS degrees in counseling from American University in Washington, D.C., and then earned his law degree from the University of Maryland in Baltimore. He developed the idea of creating a national war memorial while doing graduate work in psychology involving Vietnam War veterans. In May 1977 after facing opposition and skepticism, Scruggs, using $2,800 of his own money, launched the Vietnam War Memorial project himself. He founded and served as president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, a nonprofit organization that he set up to build the memorial. Over time and with the help of many Vietnam War veterans, their families, and other interested citizens and organizations, Scruggs raised $8.4 million. Scruggs persuaded Congress to provide a prominent location on federal property in Washington, D.C., for the memorial, and a site was eventually chosen on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial. The memorial, known to many as “The Wall,” was completed in two years, and on November 13, 1983, was dedicated before a crowd of 150,000 people during a weeklong national salute to Vietnam War veterans. The story of the building of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, To Heal a Nation, was made into an NBC Movie of the Week in May 1988, with actor Eric Roberts playing Scruggs. During 1997–1998 Scruggs spearheaded the Fifteenth Anniversary Commemoration of the dedication of the Memorial, a yearlong series of educational programs and initiatives to help inform Americans about the sacrifices of Vietnam veterans. Today Scruggs is an attorney in Washington, D.C. A sought-after motivational speaker, he has written numerous books and articles on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Vietnam War veterans as part of an educational mission for U.S. high school students. He now heads a $75 million campaign to build an educational center near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Scruggs is a member of the Selective Service Appeals Board, a board member of the National Veterans Legal Services Project, and a special assistant to the chairman of the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. GARY KERLEY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Veterans Memorial References Scruggs, Jan C. Writing on the Wall: Reflections on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. McLean, VA: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 1994. Scruggs, Jan C. Why Vietnam Still Matters: The War and the Wall. McLean, VA: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 1996.

SEA DRAGON, Operation

Scruggs, Jan C., and Joel L. Swerdlow. “Foreword.” In Edward Clinton Ezell, Reflections on the Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 9–10. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1987. Scruggs, Jan C., and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

Seabees U.S. Navy construction battalions, their name being derived from the pronunciation of the initial letters of the term “construction battalion.” Seabee involvement in Vietnam began on January 25, 1963, when two 13-man Seabee Technical Assistance Teams (STATs) entered the country in support of U.S. Army Special Forces. The Seabees built Special Forces camps, performed civic action tasks, and completed projects in support of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG). Seabee teams remained active in Vietnam to the end of U.S. involvement, their numbers peaking at 17 teams there by 1969. The first full Naval Mobile Construction Battalion arrived in Vietnam on May 7, 1965, to build an airfield for the marines at Chu Lai. In June 1965, U.S. Navy construction mechanic third class Marvin G. Shields became the first Seabee to earn the Medal of Honor. His team, STAT 1104, had been performing construction at a camp at Dong Xoai when a battalion-sized Viet Cong (VC) force attacked. Shields gave his life defending the camp and helping wounded comrades. From 1965 to 1969 the Seabee commitment in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) rapidly increased, necessitating first the transfer of Atlantic Fleet battalions to the Pacific through a change of home port and then deployment of Atlantic Fleet battalions directly to Vietnam and the reestablishment of nine additional battalions. In May 1968, 2 reserve battalions were called to active duty, bringing to 21 the number of battalions rotating to Vietnam at one time or another. In addition, 2 Amphibious Construction battalions lent support to the Vietnam War effort, and 2 Construction Battalion Maintenance units were active. Seabee battalions in Vietnam were under the immediate control of two Naval Construction regiments. Together they formed the 3rd Naval Construction Brigade, which provided overall control of Seabee units operating in Vietnam. Seabees were also assigned to such non-Seabee units as the naval support activities at Da Nang and Saigon. During the war, the total Seabee community grew from 9,400 men in mid-1965 to more than 26,000 in 1969. Seabee accomplishments in Vietnam were impressive. Seabees built critically needed roads, airfields, cantonments, warehouses, hospitals, bunkers, and other facilities. The mobile search-anddestroy strategy adopted by the U.S. military during the first years of the war shaped the Seabees’ mission. In addition to the many Seabee teams active at remote locations, construction battalions built large coastal strongholds in the I Corps Tactical Zone. Seabees were especially active at Da Nang, Phu Bai, Chu Lai, and Dong Ha.

1023

In 1966 Seabees entered Quang Tri Province and built a hilltop fort of concrete bunkers at Lang Vei, which overlooked a feeder line of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1967 Seabees built the 2,040-foot-long Liberty Bridge across the Thu Bon River, 80 miles southwest of Da Nang. During the bitter struggle of the 1968 Tet Offensive, Seabees built and fought in direct support of the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army. At Hue, Seabees repaired badly needed bridges. When sniper fire drove them under cover, they organized their own combat teams and silenced the snipers. In addition to supporting combat forces, Seabees completed innumerable civic action projects while in Vietnam, including the construction of schools, hospitals, housing, and wells. By the end of 1968 most major base construction was complete, and the Seabees began to pull out. The last battalion left Vietnam in November 1971. The three Seabee teams still there finished their tasks and were gone by the end of 1972. VINCENT A. TRANSANO See also Civic Action; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Hue, Battle of; Search and Destroy; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy References Naval Facilities Engineering Command Archives, NAVFAC Historical Program Office, Naval Construction Battalion Center, Port Hueneme, CA. “Naval Facilities Engineering Command History, 1965–1974,” Vol. 2. Report Symbol OPNAV 5750-1. Washington, DC: NAVFAC Historian’s Office, unpublished, compiled in 1975. Tregaskis, Richard. Southeast Asia: Building the Bases. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975.

SEA DRAGON,

Operation

Start Date: October 25, 1966 End Date: October 31, 1968 Two-year-long U.S. Navy campaign designed to cut the southward flow of munitions and to bombard positions of military significance in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The first U.S. surface ship foray into waters north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Operation SEA DRAGON occurred on October 25, 1966, when the destroyers USS Mansfield and Hanson commenced patrols to counter Communist waterborne logistics movements from North Vietnam into Quang Tri Province. Although this initial sweep was unproductive, by February 1967 SEA DRAGON ships had extended their raids 230 miles above the DMZ to the 20th Parallel. The ships involved in SEA DRAGON were usually the older gunships of the Seventh Fleet. At the height of the campaign in May 1967, 2 cruisers and 12 destroyers were assigned to SEA DRAGON missions. Normal tactics called for surface-action groups to make

1024

Seale, Bobby

Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) shore batteries fire on the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer Lynde McCormick during an Operation SEA DRAGON mission off North Vietnam in 1967. This campaign during 1966–1968 sought to cut the movement of munitions south by sea and to shell positions of military significance. (U.S. Navy)

high-speed dashes from 20 miles offshore to logistics choke points such as the mouths of the Song Giang and Kien Giang rivers. Targeted were radar stations, coastal guns, and supply craft, although truck columns, boat-repair facilities, bridges, and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites were occasional victims. The U.S. ships also detected and analyzed Communist radar transmissions. Results of these strikes were frequently gratifying. For instance, in May 1967 SEA DRAGON raiders damaged or destroyed 160 of the 420 waterborne logistics craft that had been detected. After one year of this effort, Seventh Fleet headquarters calculated that SEA DRAGON warships had sunk or damaged 2,000 logistics craft and had drastically stemmed the flow of supplies from North Vietnam to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The U.S. effort did not go unchallenged, and the North Vietnamese increased their shore batteries in both numbers and caliber. Mobile and difficult to locate, these guns often subjected SEA DRAGON ships to heavy fire. During the summer of 1967, North Vietnamese batteries engaged U.S. warships between 10 and 15 times monthly. For example, on August 2, 1967, the heavy cruiser St. Paul was bracketed by nearly 100 shell bursts, which inflicted minor structural damage on the ship. On October 18 as many as 12 shore batteries fired more than 200 rounds at the heavy cruiser USS Newport News and the Australian destroyer HMAS Perth, both of which were steaming near Sam Son. The Perth took a direct hit, which disabled its Tartar missile system. Overall, 29 SEA DRAGON ships were damaged, 5 sailors were killed, and 26 were wounded. With President Lyndon Johnson’s bombing halt of April 1968, U.S. forces were restricted to waters from the DMZ 150 miles north to the 19th Parallel, a one-third reduction in the operating area. The SEA DRAGON campaign ended altogether on October 31, 1968, when U.S. units withdrew south of the DMZ, but Seventh Fleet cruisers, frigates, and destroyers ranged north one last time from April to September 1972 to fire more than 110,000 rounds in retaliation for the Easter Offensive. MALCOLM MUIR JR.

See also Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Australia; Naval Gunfire Support; Sea Power, Role in War; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Muir, Malcolm, Jr. Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1996. Uhlig, Frank, Jr., ed. Vietnam: The Naval Story. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986.

Seale, Bobby Birth Date: October 22, 1936 Radical political activist, antiwar protester, and cofounder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (also known as the Black Panthers), which advocated black power and black opposition to the Vietnam War. Born in Dallas, Texas, on October 22, 1936, Robert George “Bobby” Seale served three years with the U.S. Air Force before enrolling at Merritt College in Oakland, California. While attending college he met Huey P. Newton, and in 1966 the two men formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense after reading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) pamphlet “How the People in Lowndes County Had Armed Themselves.” Seale served as the chairman and minister of information, and Newton became defense minister. The party had grown out of their anger about living conditions and police mistreatment of African Americans in Oakland. Seale subsequently wrote a 10-point party platform demanding political freedom; exemption from military service; black control of black communities; full employment; better housing, education, and community health; and an end to police brutality. This

SEALORDS program reflected much of the rhetoric of the late Malcolm X, who had declared that African Americans formed a “colony within the mother country” and called for armed self-defense. Seale also wrote for and edited the Black Panther newspaper and authored a history of the Black Panthers titled Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (1970). Clad in black leather jackets and berets and carrying weapons, the Black Panthers became the most visible of black radical groups. This visibility also attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which launched a large-scale counterinsurgency effort (COINTELPRO), a domestic counterintelligence program, to create dissension and undermine the Black Panthers. Seale, one of the FBI’s key targets, was arrested and put on trial as one of the Chicago Eight for his part in protest activities at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Seale’s case attracted nationwide attention when Judge Julius Hoffman ordered Seale bound and gagged in the courtroom when he attempted to act in his own defense. Seale’s case was separated from the other defendants, and he was sentenced to 48 months in prison for 16 acts of contempt. He was then charged with killing a Black Panther informant in New Haven, Connecticut. The contempt charges were dismissed, and the murder trial ended in a hung jury. Internal dissension caused by COINTELPRO, power struggles, and violent clashes with police and other black nationalist groups led to the demise of the Black Panthers by the early 1970s. Seale, however, remained active and ran for mayor of Oakland in 1973, narrowly losing a close election to the incumbent. In 1968 Seale published his autobiography, A Lonely Rage. Seale, a gifted orator, continued to lecture on African American issues across the country. He also served as a minority recruiter and consultant for Temple University in Philadelphia, where he resides. In the 1980s Seale attracted attention with the publication of his Barbeque with Bobby celebrity cookbook. He also served as a spokesman for the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Black Panthers; Chicago Eight; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee References Austin, Curtis J. Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2006. Joseph, Peniel E. Waiting ’til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. New York: Henry Holt, 2006. O’Reilly, Kenneth. “Racial Matters”: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972. New York: Free Press, 1989. Seale, Bobby. A Lonely Rage: The Autobiography of Bobby Seale. New York: Times Books, 1968. Seale, Bobby. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. New York: Random House, 1970.

1025

SEALORDS U.S. combined-force interdiction, harassment, and pacification effort in the Mekong Delta of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In October 1968 newly appointed Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of Naval Forces, Vietnam (NAVFORV), established the Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS), or Task Force 194, to operate along the canals and less-traveled rivers and waterways of the Mekong Delta to interdict Viet Cong (VC) infiltration routes from Cambodia; to harass Communist forces; and, with the assistance of ground and air forces, to pacify the delta. This idea emerged when Zumwalt realized that water barriers or blockades could be placed in and around the delta and along the Cambodian border. To create this program, Zumwalt combined all NAVFORV assets: Task Force 115, the Coastal Surveillance Force; Task Force 116, the River Patrol Force; and Task Force 117, the Mobile Riverine Force. Zumwalt believed that these forces together could project an offensive deep into the Mekong Delta and along less frequently traveled but still vital waterways of the IV Corps Tactical Zone (CTZ). In early October prior to the inception of SEALORDS, the Coastal Surveillance Force expanded its mission to include river incursions into the III and IV CTZs. These initial forays into territory previously dominated by the VC destroyed numerous structures, sampans, and tax-collection stations. Such operations proved the practicality of transiting the waterways and caught the insurgents off guard. Thus on October 18, 1968, when SEALORDS became official, the tempo of these transits increased. Because river incursions had already proved valuable, Zumwalt wanted to establish a patrol barrier on the Vinh Te Canal bordering Cambodia. But first he had to test the validity of his barrier concept. The admiral suggested that the new riverine commander Captain Robert S. Salzer establish a blockade along the canal in the center of the western part of the Mekong Delta. If this worked, then it would be feasible to move the barrier up to the Vinh Te Canal. Salzer immediately drew up the plan for the operation, subsequently code-named SEARCH TURN. After approval by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Creighton W. Abrams, the initial assault began on November 1, 1968. Four days later NAVFORV established an interdiction barrier that consisted of a 24-hour riverboat patrol. SEARCH TURN’s area of operations (AO) encompassed the Rach Gia–Long Xuyen Canal from the Bassac River to the Rach Soi Canal and then southwest on the latter canal to the Gulf of Thailand. The success of Operation SEARCH TURN, combined with transits of the Rach Gang Than River and the Vinh Te Canal, contributed to the establishment of Operation TRAN HUNG DAO along the Cambodian border on November 21, 1968. On December 6 SEALORDS expanded with a new barrier, Operation GIANT SLINGSHOT. This operation was so named because the AO encompassed the east and west branches of the Vam Co River— Vam Co Tay (west) and Vam Co Dong (east)—that flowed along

1026

SEALORDS

American and Vietnamese river patrol force sailors fire at Communist forces concealed in thick vegetation ashore during a SEALORDS operation. (Naval Historical Center)

converging routes on either side of the Parrot’s Beak and joined near the town of Ben Luc, forming what looked like a giant slingshot. The Parrot’s Beak, a beak-shaped extension of Cambodian territory, extended southeastward toward Saigon, some 30 miles distant. From their base camps in nearby Cambodia, Communists forces had but a short trip to the South Vietnamese capital, and thus the largest amount of infiltrations had occurred here. Before the inception of GIANT SLINGSHOT, friendly movement on these rivers did not exist. Admiral Zumwalt thus sought to stop infiltration and make these rivers accessible to the local inhabitants. The AO extended from the confluence of the Vam Co River northeastward along the Vam Co Dong to an area five miles southwest of Tay Ninh, the capital of Tay Ninh Province. The AO also extended from the Nha Be River west along the Vam Co Tay to Moc Hoa, the capital of Kien Tuong Province. In the final months of 1968, an idea emerged for a fourth barrier. The concept was to connect Operation TRAN HUNG DAO in the west to GIANT SLINGSHOT in the east. This new operation, BARRIER REEF, also known as the Border Interdiction Campaign, began on January 2, 1969. The AO was located in the Plain of Reeds, a vast open area that during the rainy months became a huge shallow lake. The AO extended from the GIANT SLINGSHOT area on the Vam Co Tay along the Lagrange Canal from Tuyen Nhun to Ap Bac and

westward along the Ong Lon Canal to the upper Mekong River at An Long. The Lagrange–Ong Lon Canal bisected many secondary canals leading from the Cambodian border toward the populous portion of the Mekong Delta east-southeast of the Plain of Reeds, including the city of My Tho. In addition to these operations, on June 27, 1969, Zumwalt established Sea Float, a mobile advance tactical support base (MATSB) composed of 11 Ammi pontoon barges heavily armed with mortars, rockets, and machine guns and capable of operating a wide range of river craft and of providing living quarters for boat crews while floating in midstream on the Cua Lon River in An Xuyen Province on the Ca Mau Peninsula. Then in September 1969 Zumwalt activated Breezy Cove, an advance tactical support base containing similar defensive measures as the MATSB, also located in An Xuyen on the riverbank of the Ong Doc. Despite the offensive nature of SEALORDS, Zumwalt had created the barrier plans with one overarching goal: to enable the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) to take over as American forces withdrew. Known as ACTOV (Accelerated Turnover to Vietnamese), the U.S. Navy’s Vietnamization program began in the autumn of 1968, and by April 1971 all SEALORDS operations had been turned over to the VNN. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT

SEAL Teams See also GAME WARDEN, Operation; Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; MARKET TIME, Operation; Mekong Delta; Mekong River; Mobile Riverine Force; Parrot’s Beak; Plain of Reeds; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; United States Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Navy; Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr.

References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

SEAL Teams U.S. Navy special operations force. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy, believing that the United States needed unconventional warfare capability to combat Communist-inspired “Wars of National Liberation,” personally encouraged the U.S. Army to expand its Special Forces and authorized them to wear the distinctive green beret. The other two services quickly followed suit. The U.S. Air Force formed Air Commando squadrons, and the U.S. Navy established Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) teams. The naval unconventional warfare specialists evolved from the underwater demolition teams (UDTs), or frogmen, employed in World War II and the Korean War. They were trained to operate underwater and on land and were parachute qualified, hence the acronym “SEAL.” Their missions consisted of intelligence gathering, raids, ambushes, prisoner captures, and disruption of enemy rear-area operations. In addition, they projected U.S. military power by training forces friendly to the United States in a fashion similar to that of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. Each of the two SEAL teams consisted of approximately 200 officers and men; one team was permanently stationed on the East Coast and the other on the West Coast of the United States. The training program was grueling. Once selected, a candidate had to complete the 25-week Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) course and the U.S. Army’s 3-week Airborne School. After finishing the formal school courses, a candidate was posted to an operational UDT or SEAL team for six months’ probation. If an individual failed to meet unit standards, he was returned to the fleet. SEAL personnel continually enhanced their combat skills by attending such courses as advanced diving or Army Ranger School. Individuals were also selected to attend foreign special warfare schools, such as Britain’s Royal Marine Commando Course or Special Air Service Selection and Training. All SEALs received training in the use of a variety of small arms as well as in handto-hand combat, patrolling, land and water navigation, and other specialized skills.

1027

The major doctrinal difference between the UDTs and SEALs was that UDT missions primarily stopped at the water’s edge, whereas SEALs conducted missions inland up to a distance of 20 miles. SEALs could infiltrate hostile shores using a variety of methods: disembarking from submerged submarines and swimming to the beach or using different types of small boats to gain access to land. These included river patrol boats, fast patrol craft, mechanized landing craft, light SEAL support craft, SEAL team assault boats, and medium SEAL support craft. These vessels ranged in size from 20 to 36 feet in length and carried different types of armaments, providing a wide variety of mobility and fire support for assault and reconnaissance missions. In addition, three submarines—the Grayback, Perch, and Tunny—were reconfigured to carry UDT/SEAL teams on covert missions and remained dedicated to supporting naval unconventional warfare operations. In the Vietnam War, SEALs were allotted two air squadrons: one of Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter gunships (“Seawolves”) and one of North American Rockwell OV-10 Broncos (“Black Ponies”). The OV-10 was a dual-propeller– driven light aircraft that carried a wide array of ordnance. It could respond quickly to calls for assistance and had the capability of loitering over target areas for extended periods. These two squadrons operated primarily in the Mekong Delta. From 1962 until 1964, SEALs trained Biet Hai naval commandos, unconventional force of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that conducted patrol and other operations using armed and upgraded civilian junks, and the regular naval UDTs, the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDNN). American UDT personnel also conducted hydrographic surveys along the South Vietnamese coast and made covert incursions into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to collect intelligence and carry out coastal mapping. In 1963 SEALs supported numerous raids into North Vietnam by LDNN forces. The object of these raids was to destroy coastal rail lines, power plants, and harbor facilities. Personnel assigned to either SEAL Team 1 or SEAL Team 2 regularly served in Vietnam as part of fleet deployment rotations. Neither team was permanently stationed in South Vietnam but regularly assigned personnel for tours of duty there. Twenty separate SEAL detachments of varying strengths were established in South Vietnam under the commander of Naval Forces, Vietnam (NAVFORV). In early 1964, several SEAL detachments were assigned to the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Studies and Observations Group (SOG). MACV-SOG was responsible for all covert operations conducted in South Vietnam and included all branches of the U.S. military, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and South Vietnam’s special warfare forces. Operations into North Vietnam continued, as did numerous missions throughout the Mekong Delta to capture Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) personnel, weapons, and documents.

1028

Seaman, Jonathan O.

In 1965 MACV, acting jointly with NAVFORV, ordered the SEALs into a specific area of operations, the Rung Sat Special Zone. Located seven miles south of Saigon, the Rung Sat was a thick mangrove swamp crisscrossed by rivers, all emptying into the South China Sea. It was one of the most difficult areas in Vietnam in which to conduct military operations. Further hampering allied efforts to patrol the area, the Rung Sat was habitat to numerous varieties of poisonous snakes, crocodiles, and venomous insects. South China Sea predators such as sharks and poisonous sea snakes inhabited the area’s saltwater inlets. This area was a VC stronghold and presented a direct threat to Saigon. SEAL operations in the Rung Sat Special Zone consisted of hunter-killer teams of three to seven men each that targeted VC land concentrations and small boat traffic on the waterways and canals. SEALs patrolled specific areas using small boats or swam and waded through thick mud to establish ambushes. SEALs assaulted VC-controlled villages and other substantial targets using small craft that carried machine guns and mortars and provided increased firepower. SEALs also targeted the Communist infrastructure by killing or capturing VC leaders whenever possible. Throughout the course of the war, SEAL patrols and VC units engaged in a constant deadly game of ambush and counterambush in the Rung Sat. By mid-1966 SEAL operations were so effective that the Rung Sat Special Zone was no longer a VC safe haven. In 1967 MACV-SOG ordered an increase in SEAL operations throughout the Mekong Delta. SEALs also provided intelligence to and scouted for the combined U.S. Army–U.S. Navy Mobile Riverine Force. The Mobile Riverine Force consisted of the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division supported by U.S. Navy small boats. These consisted of armored fire-support ships (dubbed “monitors” because of their resemblance to American Civil War ironclads), landing craft, supply craft, and fire-support barges. This force was tasked with conducting conventional operations in the Mekong Delta. From 1968 to 1970, SEAL and UDT personnel continued to engage in covert operations along the entire South Vietnamese coast as well as conventional operations within their designated operational areas. UDT personnel kept the shipping channels clear of mines and explosives and helped facilitate navigation by removing wrecked ships or deepening the waterways by clearing natural obstacles. SEALs in advisory duty, working with U.S. Army Special Forces, assisted and trained the ARVN’s Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs). The PRUs recruited personnel from Vietnamese Chieu Hoi centers, and some from prisons and jails, to perform counterterrorist missions within South Vietnam. The American advisers tried to exert great control and discipline over these rather unsavory characters to ensure that they functioned as soldiers and not bandits. Despite the 1970 Washington announcement of Vietnamization, the pace of SEAL/UDT operations continued unabated. SEALs played a key role in Operation BRIGHT LIGHT (1970–1972), the attempted rescue of prisoners of war (POWs) held by the VC in

the Mekong Delta. In this operation, SEALs acted in conjunction with raids mounted by the ARVN and U.S. Army Special Forces against suspected VC POW camps. Despite success, including the recovery of numerous ARVN POWs, not one American POW was found during BRIGHT LIGHT. In many instances the allied raiders found empty camps, termed “empty holes,” or large caches of weapons and equipment, but the failure to rescue American POWs in South Vietnamese locations continually frustrated MACV planners. Raid after raid demonstrated the allied command’s failure to use intelligence in a timely manner, despite possessing special operations forces capable of rapid response. During 1970–1972 in the waning years of the Vietnam War, SEALs and UDTs were continuously involved in advising and training the LDNN and accompanying them on forays into North Vietnam. Covert coastal mapping and hydrographic surveys also continued. The last SEAL platoons were withdrawn from South Vietnam in 1972. From their inception and deployment to South Vietnam, U.S. Navy SEALs established an enviable combat record. Their unique personnel selection and unsparing training program produced successful combat results with very low casualties. During the Vietnam War, 49 naval special warfare personnel died in action and none were captured. In 1973 the UDTs were disbanded and their missions absorbed by SEAL teams. SEAL units continue to give the U.S. Navy an unconventional warfare option. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Mobile Riverine Force; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; United States Navy; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Bosiljevac, T. L. SEALs: UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam. New York: Ballantine, 1990. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Thompson, Leroy. U.S. Elite Forces–Vietnam. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/ Signal Publications, 1985.

Seaman, Jonathan O. Birth Date: December 11, 1911 Death Date: February 18, 1989 U.S. Army general and commander of Field Force II in Vietnam. Born in Manila in the Philippine Islands on December 11, 1911, Jonathan (“Jack”) O. Seaman, the son of an army officer, graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1934 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the field artillery. During 1935–1938 he was a White House aide. He then returned to teach at West Point and, in 1939 as a captain, served with the 4th Field Artillery at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Sea Power, Role in War During World War II as a major, Seaman commanded a battalion of the 4th Field Artillery. He served in both the European and Pacific theaters. During 1953–1954 as a colonel, he commanded the 30th Field Artillery in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). Promoted to major general, Seaman assumed command of the 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”) at Fort Riley, Kansas, in February 1964. He took the division to Vietnam in July 1965. It was the first U.S. Army division to conduct combat operations in the Vietnam War. Seaman commanded his division in Operations HUMP, BUCKMASTER I, BUCKMASTER II, MARAUDER, CRIMP II, and ROLLING STONE. On March 15, 1966, he handed over command of the division to Major General William E. DePuy. Promoted to lieutenant general, Seaman assumed command of the 100,000-man U.S. II Field Force, consisting of three divisions, including the 1st Infantry Division, and several separate brigades. He led it until March 24, 1967. In this position, he directed Operations ATTLEBORO, CEDAR FALLS, and JUNCTION CITY. Each was the largest of the war to that point in time. On his return to the United States in the spring of 1967, Seaman commanded the First Army at Fort Meade, Maryland. It was in this capacity that he made the controversial decision to dismiss charges brought against Major General Samuel W. Koster and 13 other officers of either covering up or failing to investigate the My Lai Massacre of March 16, 1968. Seaman retired from the army in 1971 to Beaufort, South Carolina. He died in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 18, 1989. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; CEDAR FALLS, Operation; “Conduct of the War in

Vietnam” Report; CRIMP, Operation; DePuy, William Eugene; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Koster, Samuel William, Sr.; My Lai Massacre References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. “Lt. General Jonathan Seaman, 74, Dies.” Washington Post, February 26, 1989. Rogers, Bernard W. Cedar Falls Junction City: A Turning Point. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Sea Power, Role in War Sea power is useful only in how it ultimately affects events on land, but historically this influence has often been powerful, sometimes even decisive. One noted analyst, Bernard Brodie, writing in the 1960s dissected the many advantages to be derived by a state from naval dominance: sea power protects the movement over water of one’s own military forces and their supplies, guards friendly shipping from enemy attacks, prevents an enemy from using the sea to transport its own forces, exerts military and economic pressure on

1029

an enemy by preventing it from maintaining trade, and bombards land targets. During the conflict in Southeast Asia, the United States exercised every one of these advantages and yet could not achieve its desired results. Unlike the great struggles for the sea in the two world wars, the United States and its allies enjoyed from the beginning of the Vietnam War unquestioned—and essentially unchallenged—supremacy on the broad oceans. Thus, there was no clash approaching the scope of the Battle of Jutland or the Battle of Leyte Gulf fought in the South China Sea. Nevertheless, this supremacy did not garner the expected fruits, an anomaly due partly to the nature of the struggle but also partly to the unreadiness of the United States to exploit its advantages at sea. American sea power, configured during the 1950s for nuclear war, was unready to rapidly move U.S. military forces and supplies 7,000 miles to the theater of action. Lacking adequate sea lift in 1965, the United States was forced to use the time-consuming practice of chartering foreign merchantmen to transport the equipment and supplies badly needed in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The buildup of American forces took years. Given the nature of the war, time was a luxury that American leaders could not afford to waste. Better executed was the American task of protecting shipping from enemy attacks. Whereas the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) had only a small navy composed of coastal craft, U.S. Navy vessels were at hazard only in port or in rivers, where individual ships might be struck by Communist saboteurs or mines. Following certain widely publicized Viet Cong (VC) successes early in the war, the U.S. Navy instituted Operation STABLE DOOR, an effective long-term venture to secure South Vietnamese ports. The U.S. Navy was also largely able to prevent the North Vietnamese from transporting their military forces and supplies southward by sea. Beginning in March 1965, the U.S. Navy’s MARKET TIME patrols of airplanes, destroyers, and small craft augmented by U.S. Coast Guard cutters were so effective at reducing the flow of Communist supplies down the coast that the North Vietnamese were forced to rely much more heavily on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to open the Sihanouk Trail to the Mekong Delta. The United States was less successful in using sea power to prevent North Vietnam from maintaining trade with its Communistbloc supporters. The Lyndon Johnson administration, wary of intervention by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the Soviet Union, made no effort to close the principal North Vietnamese port of Haiphong. When the Richard Nixon administration finally ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor in retaliation for the North Vietnamese 1972 Easter Offensive, the move proved one of the most effective ploys of the war. No ships entered the port for more than 300 days. Thus, North Vietnam’s imports, especially of critical munitions, were slashed by 85 percent. As for the last of Brodie’s advantages conferred by sea power, the U.S. Navy made ample use of its ability to bombard shore

1030

Search and Destroy

targets. With a 1,500-mile coastline and averaging only 80 miles in width, Vietnam was especially suited for such operations. Operating off South Vietnam, allied warships lent direct fire support to friendly troops. From 1966 to 1968 and again in 1972, U.S. gunships in Operation SEA DRAGON shelled targets above the DMZ. Of course, naval aircraft flying from carriers on-station in the Gulf of Tonkin also delivered a great weight of explosives against North Vietnamese targets. Political limitations hobbled these air and surface strikes, making them far less militarily effective than they might have been. Sea power exerted pressure in another time-honored fashion: force projection through amphibious assaults and riverine operations. However, here too the potential advantages were neglected or exploited halfheartedly. Landings by U.S. and South Korean marines failed to achieve important results, usually because of security leaks. For instance, Operation BOLD MARINER in January 1969, the largest amphibious action of the war, resulted in the capture of only one VC sapper company. In the Mekong Delta, the U.S. Navy conducted riverine (brownwater) patrols, code-named Operation GAME WARDEN, beginning in March 1966. However, the hastily improvised river patrol boats were too few in number, and their Jacuzzi water-jet pumps were prone to fouling, while their truck engines made such noise as to render surprise almost impossible. Moreover, the top officers in the U.S. Navy, such as the aviator chiefs of naval operations, were most interested in the carrier war. Not until after the 1968 Tet Offensive did the patrol craft reach the minimum number (250 boats) deemed necessary for successful large-scale operations. By that point the tide of the war had turned. In somewhat similar fashion, the Mobile Riverine Force, designed to carry specially trained soldiers to attack VC bastions in the Mekong Delta, was handicapped by a lack of speedy troop carriers and the substitution of the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division for marines (assigned to the I Corps Tactical Zone in North Vietnam). With the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975, allied sea power was harnessed one last time, in this case to rescue friendly military personnel and civilians fleeing the final Communist offensive. In Operation FREQUENT WIND, in April U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force helicopters based on Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers evacuated thousands of Americans and allied civilian and military personnel from Saigon. Immediately after the helicopter evacuation, Seventh Fleet warships plucked from the South China Sea tens of thousands of refugees (boat people). If the war in Southeast Asia demonstrated some of the capabilities of sea power, the struggle also showed some of its inherent limitations in such a conflict. But if sea power in the end could not bring decisive weight to bear, it nonetheless helped for a decade to stymie the North Vietnamese effort to conquer South Vietnam. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also BOLD MARINER, Operation; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; GAME WARDEN, Opera-

tion; MARKET TIME, Operation; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; SEA

DRAGON, Operation; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Hagan, Kenneth J. This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power. New York: Free Press, 1991. Hooper, Edwin B. United States Naval Power in a Changing World. New York: Praeger, 1988. Uhlig, Frank, Jr., ed. Vietnam: The Naval Story. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986.

Search and Destroy U.S. military tactical procedure of attrition used in Vietnam between 1965 and 1968. Developed by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland and his deputy chief of staff for operations (G-3) Brigadier General William DePuy, search and destroy emerged not from the conclusions of study committees, think-tank reports, or tactical doctrine developed at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. As with many U.S. tactics, the development of search and destroy depended on military capabilities at the given time. It was an ad hoc approach that grew out of discussions between Westmoreland and DePuy. Charles MacDonald, spokesman at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, revealed that Westmoreland turned to his trusted associate and said, “Bill, what should we call this?” DePuy responded, “How about search-and-destroy?” Although Westmoreland would later deny that search and destroy was even a specific tactical procedure, it was certainly the dominant approach followed by American fighting units of all sizes in Vietnam. Search and destroy relied on the assumption that American firepower and technology were so superior and could cause such severe casualties that neither the Viet Cong (VC) nor the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) would be able to withstand the punishment that U.S. forces could visit upon them. Search and destroy was to be an aggressive military tool. Ground forces, transported by U.S. Army aviation helicopter units and supported by artillery, would locate enemy forces and destroy them and, on occasion, their base areas. The tactic emphasized attacking the Communist forces rather than acquiring territory. Troopers struck into areas of supposed Communist strength to find, fix, and finish their enemy. Mission accomplished, they withdrew to their home base until ordered out on the next such operation. Westmoreland believed that the Communists, unable to stand against such forays, would seek peace. Not everyone agreed with this approach. U.S. Air Force chief of staff General John P. McConnell and U.S. Marine Corps commandant General David M. Greene opposed it. U.S. Army general James Gavin called for U.S. military aid to Vietnam to be restricted to sending forces to certain enclaves, providing those locations with protection, and freeing troops of the Army of the Republic

Search-and-Rescue Operations

U.S. Army private first class Jerome Alexander and specialist fourth class George Lightfoot, Company B, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 196th Light Brigade, fire at a suspected Viet Cong position during a searchand-destroy mission some six miles west of the city of Tay Ninh. The dominant approach followed by American fighting units, search-anddestroy operations emphasized attacking Communist forces rather than acquiring and holding territory. (National Archives)

of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to carry the brunt of the fight. Major General Edward Lansdale argued that the main American commitment should be directed toward countrywide pacification and counterinsurgency rather than employing combat maneuver battalions. Westmoreland wanted no static defensive posture, was unwilling to confine his command to a defensive role, and rejected the enclave strategy. An early indication of his desire to expand in-country operations came in June 1965 when he ordered the 173rd Airborne Brigade deployed to Phuoc Long Province north of Saigon to be ready to intervene in support of ARVN forces in the Battle of Dong Xoai; the 173rd Airborne Brigade had only arrived in Vietnam on May 7. On June 26 the Pentagon gave Westmoreland authority to assign U.S. troops to field action. Two days later on June 28, 3,000 soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade moved into a VC stronghold, War Zone D, 20 miles northwest of Saigon. Perhaps Westmoreland believed that he had no choice. Previous military preparation had equipped and prepared the army only to fight in Europe to contain a Soviet strike through the Hof Corridor or the Fulda Gap in Germany on its way to the Rhine. Suddenly faced with Vietnam, planners sent military forces intact

1031

to Southeast Asia. Surely they could easily handle a fight with irregular guerrilla forces. Westmoreland has been soundly criticized for adopting this tactic of attrition. It grew from his own experience in World War II and the Korean War and the erroneous assumption that American soldiers and firepower could inflict devastating losses on Communist forces in Vietnam while keeping U.S. casualties to an acceptable level. Westmoreland’s hopes were doomed by wartime reality. The level of attrition that he was able to bring to bear on the Communists was neutralized by the fact that more than 200,000 North Vietnamese males, replacements for PAVN losses in battle, reached draft age every year. Westmoreland’s army never came close to inflicting that many casualties in any 12-month period. A bigger problem with Westmoreland’s tactics was the fact that the Communists rather than U.S. forces generally initiated hostilities. The Communists chose locations for battle that were favorable to them and often ended combat when they saw fit, leaving the site of an attack along safe avenues of retreat. Lieutenant General Dave Richard Palmer roundly criticized Westmoreland’s war of attrition as an indication of his failure to conceive of an alternative, as irrefutable proof of the absence of any strategy, and as an approach demonstrating that the U.S. Army was strategically bankrupt in Vietnam. Others also criticized the strategy, but Westmoreland stubbornly relied on search and destroy throughout his tenure as commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Following the 1968 Tet Offensive, however, MACV public affairs officers did not often use the term “search and destroy,” replacing it with the phrase “reconnaissance in force.” An observer would have been hard-pressed, however, to note any actual change in American approaches to locating Communist forces. CECIL B. CURREY See also Attrition; Ben Suc; Casualties; Clear and Hold; DePuy, William Eugene; Dong Xoai, Battle of; Gavin, James Maurice; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Palmer, Dave Richard. Readings in Current Military History. West Point, NY: Department of Military Art and Engineering, U.S. Military Academy, 1969. Shaplen, Robert. The Road from War: Vietnam, 1965–1970. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

Search-and-Rescue Operations The location and rescue of downed aircrew. From April 1962 until April 1975, a total of 2,254 U.S. Air Force aircraft were destroyed in combat or other operations in Southeast Asia. In all, 8,588 U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft were lost in the Vietnam War. Thousands of aircrew were killed, reported missing in action, or taken

1032

Selective Service

prisoner. The U.S. Air Force’s Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (ARRS) played a key role in minimizing these losses. On April 1, 1962, Detachment 3, Pacific Air Rescue Center (Det 3, PARC), was established at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon. This detachment possessed no rescue aircraft and was only able to coordinate operations that relied on U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) helicopters and search aircraft. The first air force search-and-rescue (SAR) helicopters, Kaman HH-43Bs, arrived at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, in June 1964. With a combat radius of less than 100 miles, these choppers were virtually useless for aircrew recovery. A real rescue capability did not exist until a year later when the first modified Sikorsky CH-3C/Es (Jolly Green Giants) arrived at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. These were soon replaced with air-refuelable Sikorsky HH-3Es (Jolly Green Giants) that could reach any point in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The even larger Sikorsky HH-53s (Sea Stallions), introduced in late 1967, gave rescue forces a formidable aircrew recovery capability. Additionally, the introduction of helicopters with more powerful engines and better hovering characteristics, armor, and the jungle-penetrator survivor-extraction system made it possible for rescue forces to use the inhospitable jungle, karst formations, and mountains to their advantage. When a fighter-bomber received battle damage over North Vietnam, the pilot tried to keep his crippled aircraft aloft until it reached either the Gulf of Tonkin or, if traveling west, one of several designated jungle regions known as Selected Area for Evasion (SAFE) areas. Although technological advances helped the ARRS overcome some of the problems of geography and terrain, North Vietnam air defenses remained troublesome throughout the war. With help from the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), North Vietnam built what was believed to be the world’s third-best air defense system (after that of the Soviet Union and, perhaps, Israel). The North Vietnamese air defense system included SA-2 surface-toair missiles (SAMs), Soviet MiG interceptors, and at least 2,000 antiaircraft guns ranging in caliber from 14.5-millimeter (mm) heavy machine guns to 23-mm, 37-mm, 57-mm, 85-mm, and 100-mm guns, many with radar control. From 1965 to 1972, these weapons claimed 35 rescue aircraft. An additional 10 rescue aircraft suffered noncombat operational losses, and 71 rescue men perished. Tactics and improved equipment helped to overcome expanding North Vietnamese defenses. The greatest innovation was the search-and-rescue task force (SARTAF), which included a control aircraft, two to four fighter-bomber escorts, and at least two rescue helicopters. The types of aircraft in the SARTAF changed as better airframes became available. Tactics evolved, with flexibility as the primary principle. The airborne mission control airplane was the nerve center of the SARTAF. Originally, Grumman HU-16 Albatross amphibians performed this role. In 1965 these were replaced by four-engine

Douglas HC-54 Rescuemasters, which, the following year, were replaced by Lockheed HC-130P Hercules four-engine turboprops with the call sign “Crown” and later “King.” Douglas A-1 Skyraiders, hefty propeller-driven attack aircraft designed in World War II for the U.S. Navy and produced in the 1940s and early 1950s, excelled in rescue escort missions. In 1972 when all U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy A-1s were turned over to the VNAF, Ling-TemcoVought A-7 Corsair II single-engine jets proved to be a poor replacement. The helicopters evolved from HH-43s to the HH-3s to the HH53s, some of which, by 1971, had a limited nighttime recovery capability. The Kaman HH-43s (Huskies) were designed to suppress aircraft fires and pick up crews in the vicinity of bases, but the HH43Fs were modified to perform limited long-range aircrew recovery. The HH-3 and HH-53 could, with refueling from Crown/King HC-130Ps, remain aloft up to 18 hours. These choppers almost always flew in pairs, with the low bird making the actual pickup, while the high bird was available as a backup should the low bird be shot down. Aircrew recovery was a bright spot in the long air war. Some 3,883 lives were credited to the ARRS. Of these, 2,807 were U.S. military: 926 army, 680 navy, and 1,201 air force. Rescue forces also saved 555 allied military men, 476 civilians, and 45 other people, including a Viet Cong (VC) who had his leg blown off in a minefield and an East German sailor who was flown from a freighter off the coast of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to Da Nang, where he underwent an emergency appendectomy. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; EAGLE PULL, Operation; Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Medevac; Son Tay Raid References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1980.

Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor See SLAM

Selective Service U.S. process of selecting men for service in the armed forces, also known as conscription and most popularly known as the draft. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision in 1965 to rely on the draft rather than the reserves to provide the manpower for the

Selective Service escalating war in Vietnam certainly shaped the nature of the conflict. The result was a young man’s war: 19 years of age became the most common in the field as compared to 26 years of age in World War II. At the height of the conflict, more than 60 percent of Vietnam deaths were draftees, and 19- and 20-year-olds suffered the greatest number of casualties. Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act in 1940, and the draft in various forms was periodically extended—in the Vietnam era specifically in 1963, 1967, and 1972—until its demise in 1973. In the advisory years of the early 1960s, Vietnam War participants were primarily volunteers, mostly career noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and officers. But the rapid troop buildup, beginning in the spring of 1965 and continuing over the next four years, brought the draft to center stage. From 1964 to 1973 approximately 26.8 million male baby boomers reached draft age and became the largest manpower pool in American history. More than 15.4 million, or 57 percent, were deferred, exempted, or disqualified from military service; another 2 percent committed draft violations. More than 8.7 million men and women served in the military services during the Vietnam War era (1964–1975); 2.7 million served in Vietnam. Although the years in comparison are not exactly synonymous, it is still clear that less than 10 percent of America’s males went to Vietnam. Vietnam was the experience of the generation, but few actually participated directly. This contrasts with the World War II generation, in which virtually all able-bodied men and a large number of women entered the armed services. Throughout the Korean War years and for several years after, roughly 70 percent of draft-age males served in the military. At the heart of the Selective Service System were the nearly 4,000 local draft boards across the nation in the 1960s. Staffed by unpaid volunteers who met once a month, most draft boards rubberstamped the recommendations of the full-time civil service clerks. The composition of the boards was predominantly middle-class white men in their fifties and sixties, usually World War I or World War II veterans. A 1966 study of 16,638 draft board members from across the nation found that 70 percent were white-collar and 9 percent were blue-collar workers; only 1.3 percent were African American. Until 1967, women were not allowed to serve on the boards. Each month the government issued every board its quota of manpower to produce, and the demands grew dramatically as the war progressed. The numerous deferments and exceptions available helped to determine who would be called to meet the quotas. General Lewis B. Hershey, head of the Selective Service, was proud

A follower of Muhammad Ali burns his draft card in front of the induction station in Houston, Texas, April 28, 1967, after the heavyweight prizefighter refused to be inducted into the army. (AP/Wide World Photos)

of how the deferment system channeled young men into areas, such as teaching, science, engineering, or other technical fields, important to the national interest. Local boards had great discretion over which deferments were “in the national interest.” For instance, agricultural deferments were paramount in some areas; milk tank truck drivers and cheese makers were even deferred in some rural Wisconsin counties. Discrimination and favoritism were the norm for precious slots in the National Guard and the reserves, virtual safe havens from Vietnam. In 1968 only 1 percent of Army National Guardsmen were African American. Slots often were made available for the sons of prominent individuals in the community. This and the inequities and corruption in gaining physical disqualification from the draft as well as the class-bias deferment system all contributed to the war’s unpopularity. Some reforms came in the draft extension bill in 1967. Ending graduate school and teaching deferments helped raise the

Prevalence of the Draft during the Vietnam War as Compared to Other U.S. Conflicts Conflict World War I World War II Korean War Vietnam War

1033

Classified as Draftable

Examined by a Draft Board

Rejected for Service

Inducted into Service

24,234,000 36,677,000 9,123,000 75,717,000

3,764,000 17,955,000 3,685,000 8,611,000

803,000 6,420,000 1,189,000 3,880,000

2,820,000 10,022,000 1,560,000 1,759,000

1034

Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr.

percentage of college-educated personnel in the U.S. forces in Vietnam from 6 percent in 1966 to 10 percent in 1970. A national lottery implemented at the beginning of 1970 was much fairer, but as the manpower numbers were winding down, it had marginal effect on who served in Vietnam. The day after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, President Richard M. Nixon’s executive order ended the draft and inaugurated the all-volunteer military, which exists to the present. Selective Service registration of all males reaching age 18 continues, however. JOE P. DUNN See also African Americans in the U.S. Military; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Conscientious Objectors; Desertion, U.S. and Communist; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Project 100,000 References Appy, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers & Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Baskir, Lawrence M., and William A. Strauss. Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: 1978. Flynn, George Q. The Draft, 1940–1973. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Flynn, George Q. Lewis B. Hershey: Mr. Selective Service. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Gerhardt, James M. The Draft and Public Policy. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1971.

Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. Birth Date: April 2, 1906 Death Date: December 12, 2001 U.S. Navy admiral and commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command, during 1964–1968. Born in Chinook, Montana, on April 2, 1906, Ulysses Simpson Grant Sharp’s grandmother was the sister-in-law of American Civil War general and U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant. In 1927 Sharp graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, and was commissioned an ensign. Between 1927 and 1942 he served on a number of ships at sea and in Washington, D.C. In 1942 Sharp assumed command of a destroyer-minesweeper in the Atlantic and the next year commanded a destroyer in the Pacific. In late 1944 he was in the United States in staff and command posts. After a year at the Naval War College, in 1950 he assumed command of a destroyer squadron operating near the Korean coast. Just prior to the Inchon Landing (September 15, 1950), he was attached to the invasion planning staff. In 1951 Sharp became an operations officer on the Second Fleet (Atlantic) commander’s staff and soon became chief of staff, a post he held until late 1953. He then commanded a destroyer, followed by two years as deputy chief of staff for plans and operations for the Pacific Fleet and one year as commander of Cruiser Division 3.

Between 1957 and 1959 Sharp was assistant director and later director of the Strategic Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. He next served as commander of the CruiserDestroyer Force in the U.S. Pacific Fleet and briefly as First Fleet commander. From 1960 to 1963 Sharp served as deputy chief of naval operations (plans and policy) and was deeply involved in the planning of naval operations during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In September 1963 Sharp became commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and in June 1964 commander in chief of the Pacific Command, the largest U.S. unified command. The Pacific Command consisted of more than 940,000 U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force personnel; 7,500 aircraft; and 560 ships. As commander, Sharp was responsible for the defense of an area of 85 million square miles, extending across the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and from the Aleutian Islands to the Antarctic. Sharp also held such associated posts as U.S. military adviser to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and U.S. military representative to the Philippine-U.S. Mutual Defense Board and the Australia– New Zealand–United States Council (ANZUS). Sharp oversaw air strikes against torpedo boat bases in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) following the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Subsequently the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) placed him in overall supervision of military actions in Vietnam. As commander of the Pacific Command, Admiral Sharp had overall military responsibility for the air operations of ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing of North Vietnam that began in early 1965, even though ultimate authority lay with President Lyndon Johnson. Sharp’s view of operational objectives often differed sharply from those of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the JCS, especially chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas H. Moorer. McNamara and President Johnson believed that limited bombing could be used to force a diplomatic solution. Sharp, Moorer, and most service leaders balked at such an idea. Admiral Sharp was as convinced as U.S. Air Force generals that strategic bombing against North Vietnam would have been successful. He chafed under what he saw as “absurd” restrictions on strategic airpower. In August 1968 Sharp retired as commander of the Pacific Command and also from active duty. He then served as a consultant to the president of Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical Company and as a director of the San Diego Gas & Electric Company. He wrote an article titled “We Could Have Won in Vietnam Long Ago” that was published in Reader’s Digest (May 1969) and a book titled Strategic Direction of the Armed Forces (1977). In 1978 Sharp wrote Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. In this book he declared that if beginning in 1965 the United States had undertaken massive and constant Boeing B-52 Stratofortress LINEBACKER-style raids against North Vietnam, America could have won the war without fear of Soviet or Chinese intervention. In 1971 Montana State University awarded Sharp an honorary doctorate. He died in San Diego, California, on December 12, 2001. WILLIAM P. HEAD

Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Moorer, Thomas Hinman; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Sharp, Ulysses S. Grant. Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1978. Sharp, Ulysses S. Grant, and W. C. Westmoreland. Report on the War in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney Birth Date: October 27, 1936 Acclaimed newspaper journalist and among the first and finest correspondents of the Vietnam War. Born on October 27, 1936, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Cornelius Mahoney (Neil) Sheehan graduated from Harvard University in 1958 and served three years with the U.S. Army in Korea and Japan. He then joined United Press International (UPI) in Tokyo and was sent to Saigon in April 1962. Sheehan did not question the correctness of the Vietnam conflict or U.S. involvement but soon learned to suspect the false optimism of senior military officials such as Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Paul Harkins and to listen to field advisers such as Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann, who admitted mistakes. Sheehan first angered U.S. officials with his reporting of the January 1963 Battle of Ap Bac in which far more numerous Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces experienced a stunning defeat by allowing a surrounded Viet Cong (VC) battalion to escape practically unscathed. Vann called the Battle of Ap Bac “a miserable damn performance,” but Harkins proclaimed it a victory, announcing 101 VC killed (only 3 bodies were found) while significantly understating ARVN casualties and material losses. Washington accepted Harkins’s characterization of the battle and assailed the press, especially Sheehan, for misrepresenting it. The government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) began to harass American correspondents after they reported that the May 1963 Buddhist Crisis might bring down the government. When Ngo Dinh Nhu’s security troops raided Buddhist pagodas in August 1963 Sheehan had to smuggle the true story out, while the U.S. embassy endorsed Nhu’s version of events. That September both he and fellow journalist David Halberstam revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was backing dissident generals in a planned coup against Ngo Dinh Diem, but Sheehan’s editors killed his story and recalled him to Tokyo, causing him to miss the story of the coup and the assassinations of Diem and his brother Nhu in November 1963.

1035

In January 1964 Sheehan rebutted Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge’s report of significant progress in the Mekong Delta, concluding that the war there was “a long way toward being lost.” Sheehan then left Vietnam to join the staff of the New York Times. Returning to Vietnam in 1965 to what was becoming an American war, Sheehan was among the first to dispatch firsthand accounts of the bloody fighting in the Ia Drang Valley. When he left again in 1966, still neither dove nor hawk, he had concluded that not only would General William Westmoreland’s strategy of attrition not destroy the enemy’s will to fight but that it was certain to cost thousands of civilian and American lives. Sheehan continued to cover the war from Washington but would not return to Vietnam until 1972. Following the 1968 Tet Offensive, that March he and fellow journalist Hedrick Smith revealed Westmoreland’s request for 206,000 more troops. Sheehan’s notoriety increased with a lengthy March 1971 article in the New York Times Book Review that questioned whether American leaders had committed war crimes in Vietnam. But his biggest story came soon thereafter, when Daniel Ellsberg gave him a copy of a secret 46-volume history of America’s involvement in Vietnam commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. Sheehan led a team in editing the documents, published as The Pentagon Papers. Excerpts appeared in June 1968 issues of the New York Times and the Washington Post. In 1972 Sheehan began an extended leave from the New York Times to write one of the most ambitious books about the war, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988). Vann had left the U.S. Army in 1963 but returned to Vietnam to serve as a high-ranking civilian adviser until his 1972 death in a helicopter crash. At Vann’s funeral Sheehan recognized that “We were burying the whole era of . . . boundless self-confidence that led us to Vietnam” and that Vann’s career could serve as a metaphor for America’s involvement. Even Vann had lost the sense of reality because he could not admit defeat. More than biography, Sheehan’s book is a virtual history of the American phase of the Vietnam War, a penetrating analysis of how intelligent men had behaved stupidly and brought upon the United States and the people of Southeast Asia an enormous tragedy. The book earned Sheehan a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. A Bright Shining Lie was not Sheehan’s last word on Vietnam. His three post-1975 visits to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam are recounted in After the War Was Over (1995). Sheehan currently resides in Washington, D.C., and continues to report on prominent issues. JOHN D. ROOT See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Ellsberg, Daniel; Halberstam, David; Harkins, Paul Donal; Ia Drang, Battle of; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Media and the Vietnam War; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Pentagon Papers and Trial; Vann, John Paul; Westmoreland, William Childs

1036

SHINING BRASS, Operation

References Prochnau, William. Once upon a Distant War: David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Peter Arnett—Young War Correspondents and Their Early Vietnam Battles. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Sheehan, Neil. After the War Was Over: Hanoi and Saigon. New York: Random House, 1992. Toczek, David M. The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007. Wyatt, Clarence R. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

SHINING BRASS,

Operation

campaigns in Southeast Asia. SHINING BRASS was renamed PRAIRIE FIRE in 1968 and finally PHU DUNG in April 1971. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Laos; Montagnards; Studies and Observation Group; United States Special Forces References Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Plaster, John. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years; A History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Start Date: September 1, 1965 End Date: 1968 U.S. Special Forces cross-border operations into Laos to locate and disrupt People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation SHINING BRASS began on September 1, 1965, and was carried out by 12-man teams that normally included 3 Americans and 9 Montagnard civilians under the control of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG). The command and control center was in Da Nang at Marble Mountain; forward operating bases were usually located in Special Forces Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) camps along the border with Laos. The primary mission during the early days of SHINING BRASS was the location of targets for aerial bombing, but at times when they had no other choice, the teams had to fight. Later their operations were expanded to include placing antipersonnel devices, engaging PAVN or Pathet Lao personnel in open combat, assessing Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomb damage, and controlling air strikes. Eventually there were three American-led battalions of South Vietnamese used as a reaction force to carry out larger missions in Laos. The authorized areas for operations were specified strips of Laos along the border that stretched 12.5 miles into the country. Initially SOG commanders were not allowed to lift reconnaissance teams in by helicopter, although they were authorized to extricate them by air if necessary. As the Laotian border consisted of some of the most rugged terrain in Southeast Asia, daily movements of reconnaissance teams were severely limited. Because of the difficulty of movement, helicopter infiltration was ultimately authorized and soon became the norm. Reconnaissance teams were able to direct air strikes on known targets through a rather elaborate procedure that included securing permission on a target-by-target basis from the U.S. ambassador to Laos. SHINING BRASS became one of the largest and most important Special Forces strategic reconnaissance and interdiction

Shoup, David Monroe Birth Date: December 30, 1904 Death Date: January 13, 1983 U.S. officer and commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps during 1960–1963. Born on December 30, 1904, in Battle Ground, Indiana, David Monroe Shoup graduated from DePauw University in 1926. He received his U.S. Marine Corps commission that same year and was posted to a number of sea- and land-based duties. As a colonel in World War II, Shoup earned the Medal of Honor for actions in November 1943 while commanding a marine regiment on Betio, a bitterly contested island of the Tarawa Atoll. In October 1944 he returned to the United States, where he was responsible for logistics at Marine Corps Headquarters. Shoup was promoted to brigadier general in April 1953 and to major general in September 1955. In November 1959 he became a lieutenant general and chief of staff of the U.S. Marine Corps. In August 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Shoup as the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. Upon assuming this post in January 1960, Shoup was promoted to full (four-star) general. General Shoup believed strongly that the military should serve the national interest, as defined by its civilian leaders. He refused to participate in what he referred to as the “hate-the-Communists” movement. Shoup would fight the Communists if required by circumstances, but he said that he did not find it necessary to hate them. He opposed the massive military buildup in Southeast Asia, and after his retirement in 1964 he continued his crusade against the Vietnam War. In the April 1969 edition of Atlantic Monthly, Shoup collaborated with James Donovan, returned U.S. Marine Corp colonel, in a widely reviewed article that held that anticommunism provided the perfect climate and foundation to nurture a “new American militarism” in the defense establishment. By 1971 Shoup had publicly endorsed Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).

Sihanouk, Norodom

1037

Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) deteriorated, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) staged a war game, code-named Sigma I. The outcome confirmed some of the worst fears that a military victory over the Viet Cong (VC) in South Vietnam would require more than 500,000 American combat troops. In September 1964 the JCS conducted another war game of the situation in South Vietnam. Code-named Sigma II, this simulation was conducted to assess the potential impact of a major air offensive against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The players, who included National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Defense Department aide John McNaughton, JCS chairman General Earle Wheeler, and U.S. Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay, formed two teams, one representing the United States and the other North Vietnam. The results of this game were no more encouraging than those of Sigma I; the war game report concluded that “industrial and military bombing” of North Vietnam “would not quickly cause cessation of the insurgency in South Vietnam.” Indeed, it seemed from the results of Sigma II at least that the United States had little chance of preventing a VC victory. Despite these findings, political and diplomatic events during the next eight months pushed the United States ever closer to military intervention on a large scale. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Bundy, McGeorge; LeMay, Curtis Emerson; McNaughton, John Theodore; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore General David M. Shoup was commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps during 1960–1963. He opposed the U.S. military buildup in Vietnam and in retirement continued his opposition to the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Shoup died on January 13, 1983, in Alexandria, Virginia, following a long illness. WILL E. FAHEY JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954– 1965; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam Veterans Against the War References Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991. Moskin, J. Robert. The U.S. Marine Corps Story. Rev. ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. Shoup, General David M. “The New American Militarism.” Atlantic Monthly, April 1969, 51–56.

Sigma I and II Start Date: 1963 End Date: 1964 U.S. military assessment operations, or war games, conducted in 1963 and 1964. In 1963 as the political and military situation in the

References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Sihanouk, Norodom Birth Date: October 31, 1922 The leading figure of modern Cambodia, at various times prince, king (1941–1955, 1993–2004), prime minister (1955–1960), head of state (1960–1993), palace prisoner, and guerrilla figurehead who throughout tried in vain to keep his country out of the Vietnam War. Born in Phnom Penh on October 31, 1922, the son of Prince Norodom Suramarit and Princess Sisowath Kossamak of a line going back to the emperors of Angkor, Norodom Sihanouk was educated at the École François Baudoin in Phnom Penh and the Lycée Chasseloup Laubat in Saigon, where he excelled at music, literature, and drama. When King Monivong, his maternal grandfather, died on April 23, 1941, the French, who then exercised a protectorate over Cambodia, picked Sihanouk to succeed him in preference to Monivong’s son, Prince Sisowath Monireth. In the first of many gestures designed to show his independent will, Sihanouk expressed his support for the Japanese when they

1038

Sihanouk, Norodom

Norodom Sihanouk was the leading figure of modern Cambodia, at various times prince and king. He sought, without success, to preserve his country’s neutrality during the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

temporarily interned the French administration in Indochina on March 9, 1945, and proclaimed the end of the French protectorate. Sihanouk assumed the additional position of prime minister, but his power was overshadowed by an ambitious politician, Son Ngoc Thanh, whom the Japanese imposed as foreign minister. Sihanouk was obliged to accept the return of the French following Japan’s surrender in August 1945 but distanced himself from a modus vivendi signed in January 1946 by his uncle, Prince Monireth. Cambodian elections held under a French-inspired constitution in 1946 and 1947 resulted in big wins for the Democratic Party, the only one with a grassroots organization. Sihanouk viewed this as a challenge by rivals, and within five years, motivated by an unshakable belief that he knew what was best for Cambodia, he managed to eliminate the Democrats and secure a firm grip on Cambodia’s political evolution that he was not to give up until 1970. In 1953 Sihanouk embarked upon what he called a “royal crusade for independence” involving exchanges with Paris, travels abroad (including to the United States, where he was unimpressed by his reception by the Dwight Eisenhower administration), and even a wellpublicized period of exile that ended finally in an agreement that consecrated Cambodia’s juridical independence on November 9, 1953. Sihanouk also formed a liaison at this time with a métis beauty contestant, Monique Izzi, who later became his wife and queen.

The instrument of Sihanouk’s political power in a Cambodia whose independence and sovereignty had been reinforced by the favorable armistice terms negotiated by the Cambodian delegation at the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina was the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (People’s Socialist Community). Sihanouk’s founding of the Sangkum Reaster Niyum followed by a month his dramatic announcement on March 2, 1955, that he was abdicating the throne. Persuading his father to succeed him, Sihanouk took the title “Samdech Upayuvareach” (the prince who has been king). Also in April he attended the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, which increased his feeling of self-importance and convinced him that Cambodia’s foreign policy should henceforth be nonaligned. For his own diversion he played the saxophone, produced films with pseudohistorical themes, and fathered countless children. But Sihanouk’s efforts to keep Cambodia at peace proved only temporarily successful. First he experienced increasing difficulties with his two powerful neighbors, Thailand and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Their pro-Western regimes gave sanctuary to armed dissidents, who under the name of Khmer Serei (Free Khmer or Free Cambodians) broadcast anti-Sihanouk propaganda to Cambodia. A more serious threat to Sihanouk’s control, however, was the growing use of Cambodia’s eastern border provinces by Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese forces fighting the Saigon government. Such use of Cambodian territory was carefully camouflaged by Hanoi and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), which went to great lengths to maintain correct relations with Sihanouk’s government, supporting its stands on foreign affairs, for example, in their radio broadcasts. When his father died in 1960, Sihanouk chose to leave the throne vacant and took the title “head of state” as a way of letting people know who was in charge. By the mid-1960s he was again having difficulties controlling Cambodia’s destiny. The situation on the border was now marked by repeated bombings of Cambodian villages by South Vietnamese and U.S. planes. In late 1963 Sihanouk ended the small U.S. economic and military aid programs in Cambodia, and in April 1965 he severed diplomatic relations entirely. Trying to counterbalance the influence of Hanoi, whose demands on Cambodia now included the furnishing of rice and other goods for its soldiers, Sihanouk steered ever closer to China. But here too there was no salvation in sight, as the Cultural Revolution absorbed China’s attention, and his old friend Zhou Enlai had little influence left. Moreover, Sihanouk suspected China of being involved in the only insurgency within Cambodia’s borders, an agrarian-based movement that instigated a popular uprising against the army in the western region of Samlaut in 1967 and whose leaders Sihanouk habitually derided as “Khmer Rouge.” In 1969 Sihanouk renewed diplomatic relations with the United States and named a national salvation government headed by General Lon Nol to try to deal with the mounting insecurity in the countryside and to reverse his previous Socialist economic policies, which were unpopular with the emerging middle class. The situation continued to deteriorate, and at the beginning of March

Sijan, Lance Peter 1970 demonstrations took place in Phnom Penh against the VC and North Vietnamese presence in Cambodia. On March 18, taking advantage of Sihanouk’s absence abroad, the National Assembly unanimously voted to depose him as head of state. Sihanouk arrived in Beijing hours later and issued a call for armed resistance to the leaders in Phnom Penh. It was the decisive moment in his career. Assured of the support of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Sihanouk refused to accept the Phnom Penh decision and proceeded to establish a broad political front and a military command, even though this meant accepting the preponderant influence of the Khmer Rouge, the only Cambodian group with the organization and the means to wage a guerrilla war against the Phnom Penh government and its U.S. backers. Sihanouk continued to reside in Beijing, with the exception of one hurried visit to guerrilla bases in Cambodia in 1973, until after the Khmer Rouge capture of Phnom Penh in April 1975. Sihanouk was returned to the royal palace in Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge as their virtual prisoner. In the egalitarian society they were trying to create by radical policies, they had no use for someone who represented in their eyes both the feudalism and the nexus of connections to Western democracies of the past. They used him only as a tool to preserve their seat at the United Nations (UN). Sihanouk has written movingly of his detestation for the Khmer Rouge. The leader of the Khmer Rouge was Pol Pot, who was responsible for the execution of several of Sihanouk’s children and the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians. Khmer Rouge xenophobia extended to the newly reunified Vietnam, and Sihanouk’s cozy relations with Hanoi also became a thing of the past. A Chinese plane spirited Sihanouk to safety just before invading Vietnamese troops entered Phnom Penh in early January 1979. But he was once more an exile and was far from his beloved Kampuchea, as it was now known. He divided his time between China and North Korea, where his great friend Kim Il Sung ruled unopposed. Once again Sihanouk assumed the role of figurehead leader of a resistance movement, this time a coalition of two small non-Communist groups and the Khmer Rouge, who were still supported by China, in a drawn-out struggle against the Vietnameseinstalled People’s Republic of Kampuchea president Heng Samrin and Prime Minister Hun Sen. Once again Sihanouk ensured that Cambodia’s UN seat was preserved for his side. This situation was to last for a decade, until the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and an internationally brokered peace agreement under UN peacekeeping safeguards allowed Sihanouk to return in triumph to the refurbished royal palace in Phnom Penh in November 1991. Expressing annoyance at UN interference in Cambodia’s affairs, Sihanouk immediately declared that the policies of Hun Sen’s government had been correct and likened them to those of the Sangkum instead of presiding impartially over a four-sided Supreme National Council, as called for in the peace plan. In an astute move, he adopted the title “Samdech Euv” (Father Prince) and embraced Hun Sen as his adopted son. Elections to the National Assembly in May 1993 gave

1039

Sihanouk’s followers, who had capitalized on his popularity in the countryside, a majority; however, they were forced to share power with the former Phnom Penh government in a two-sided arrangement in which his son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, became first prime minister. Sihanouk, never forgiving those who had deposed him, declared himself to have been retroactively head of state since March 18, 1970. No one in Phnom Penh dared contest his right to be head of state. A new constitution tailored to the requirements of the situation made him king once more, although Sihanouk himself modestly proclaimed that he would reign but not rule in a parliamentary democracy in which he would remain above politics. Sihanouk was once again at center stage. The only factors that detracted from his triumph were his poor health and the Khmer Rouge. Cancer of the bone marrow forced him to spend months at a time in Beijing undergoing radiation treatment by Chinese doctors. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge, having boycotted the elections, renewed their insurgency while avoiding criticizing Sihanouk. With the future thus mortgaged and with a successor to the throne still undecided, Sihanouk could still feel some uncertainty about whether he would go down in history as his country’s benefactor or as a publicity-hungry manipulator willing to deal with anyone and everyone as circumstances dictated. On July 5, 1997, Second Premier Hun Sen seized power in Cambodia and ousted First Premier Ranariddh, Sihanouk’s son, who then fled abroad. In the coup a number of prominent Ranariddh supporters were also slain. After trying without success to mediate a solution, in October 1997 Sihanouk left Cambodia, saying that he did not know when and if he would ever return. He retained the throne, however, until October 7, 2004, when he abdicated in favor of his son Nordom Sihamoni, who was crowned king on October 29. Sihanouk continues to divide his time between Beijing and Pyongyang, but his health remains perilous. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Cambodia; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; China, People’s Republic of; Heng Samrin; Hun Sen; Khieu Samphan; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; Pol Pot; Zhou Enlai References Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Hamel, Bernard. Sihanouk et le Drame Cambodgien. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1993. Osborne, Milton. Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.

Sijan, Lance Peter Birth Date: April 13, 1942 Death Date: January 22, 1968 U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot and the only U.S. Air Force Academy graduate to earn the Medal of Honor for his actions

1040

Simons, Arthur David

during the Vietnam War. Born on April 13, 1942, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Peter Lance Sijan grew up in Milwaukee and entered the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1961. After graduating in 1965, he was trained to fly the F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber. On July 1, 1967, First Lieutenant Sijan was assigned to the 480th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing operating out of Da Nang Air Base in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). On November 9, 1967, during a mission against the Ban Loboy ford located along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, Sijan was the backseat pilot in Lieutenant Colonel John William Armstrong’s F-4C. Evidently shrapnel from a premature bomb detonation during the attack destroyed their plane. Sijan was able to bail out of the aircraft but suffered severe injuries, including a broken leg, that restricted his mobility. Search-and-rescue units initiated a rescue attempt involving more than 100 aircraft, yet difficulties in pinpointing Sijan’s exact position, his inability to move quickly, and heavy hostile fire prevented his rescue. Sijan was then listed as missing in action. During the next 45 days he successfully evaded capture. Upon being caught, he temporarily escaped after overpowering a guard but was quickly recaptured. Although Sijan was now a prisoner of war (POW) in Vinh in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the North Vietnamese government did not inform the U.S. government of his capture. He was placed under the care of two other U.S. Air Force officers, Captain Guy Gruters and Major Robert Craner, while the three men were being transferred to Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” by American POWs. Throughout his interrogation sessions, which included torture, Sijan refused to provide any information that was not required by the Geneva Convention or the U.S. military Code of Conduct. Furthermore, despite suffering severely from illness and injuries suffered during the bailout and inflicted by his captors, he continually plotted to escape from his captivity. Sijan died on January 22, 1968, in Hanoi, North Vietnam, probably from the effects of his injuries. Still classified as missing in action by the military, he was promoted to captain on June 13, 1968. News of his death as well as of his heroic conduct while a POW did not surface until after the repatriation of American POWs in 1973. Sijan’s remains were returned, identified, and reinterred in 1974 in Milwaukee. Craner nominated Sijan for the Medal of Honor posthumously, and on March 4, 1976, President Gerald R. Ford presented the medal to Sijan’s parents. In addition to service and campaign medals, Sijan’s other decorations included the Air Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Prisoner of War Medal. WYNDHAM E. WHYNOT See also Geneva Convention of 1949; Hoa Lo Prison; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Prisoners of War, Allied References Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

McConnell, Malcolm. Into the Mouth of the Cat: The Story of Lance Sijan: Hero of Vietnam. New York: Norton, 2004.

Simons, Arthur David Birth Date: June 28, 1918 Death Date: May 21, 1979 U.S. Army Special Forces officer and strike force commander of the 1970 Son Tay Raid. Born in New York City on June 28, 1918, Arthur David “Bull” Simons moved to Missouri as a youth and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1941 with a degree in journalism and a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commission. He originally was assigned to the field artillery, commanding a 75-millimeter pack howitzer battery in New Guinea during World War II. Later in the war he commanded a Ranger company in the invasion of the Philippines. Simons also served in Korea and in the 1950s joined the Special Forces. In 1960 he led a 107-man team, code-named Project White Star, that organized a clandestine army in Laos. His team eventually recruited and organized 12 battalions of volunteer Meo tribesmen. Simons went to Southeast Asia four times, always in unconventional operations. On the night of November 20, 1970, Colonel Simons, at the age of 52, led a 56-man strike team into Son Tay Prison, 23 miles from Hanoi. When the men got there they discovered that the American prisoners of war (POWs) had been moved weeks earlier. Simons’s team nonetheless got in and out without sustaining a single casualty and inflicted many enemy casualties in the process. At the time some people considered the Son Tay Raid a dismal failure. For the American POWs, however, it was a much-needed psychological boost, proof that they had not been abandoned by their country. After the raid the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) reacted by consolidating the widely scattered POWs, many of whom had been held in virtual solitary confinement for more than five years. Subsequently they were together and could give each other support. Simons received the Distinguished Service Cross from President Richard M. Nixon. In 1971 Simons retired from the army after being passed over for promotion to brigadier general. Secretary of the Army Melvin R. Laird personally intervened with General William C. Westmoreland, then chief of staff of the army. Westmoreland explained to Laird that it was impossible for him to overrule the promotion board. Simons had been a fine colonel and an outstanding combat commander, but he was not, after all, a graduate of the War College. Laird tried three times, and even President Nixon sought to get Simons promoted, but the army bureaucracy would not yield. Although Simons retired from the army, his combat days were not over. In early 1979 he led a commando raid to free two American engineers held captive for ransom by the Iranian government.

Sino-French War The raid was organized and financed by the employer of the two engineers, H. Ross Perot, chairman of Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Simons’s team accomplished its mission by inciting a mob attack on the prison where the Americans were held. Some 11,000 Iranian citizens, also held in the prison, were freed in the process. Simons never accepted any payment for leading the raid in Iran. A month after he returned from Iran he suffered a heart attack and died in Red Bay, Florida, on May 21, 1979. Within the army Simons was considered a soldier’s soldier, a warrior rather than a uniformed bureaucrat. Despite his hard-core image, he was a careful and methodical planner of operations who prided himself on his ability to bring his troops out alive. Simons was fond of saying that “Soldiers are entitled to leadership from men who can ‘smart their way out of it.’ I don’t want people to get their ass shot off for nothing. That’s what leaders are for, to not let that happen.” DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Laird, Melvin Robert; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Prisoners of War, Allied; Son Tay Raid; United States Special Forces; Westmoreland, William Childs References Gargus, John. The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Schemmer, Benjamin F. The Raid. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. Schemmer, Benjamin F. “Requiem for a Warrior: Colonel Arthur D. ‘Bull’ Simons.” Armed Forces Journal International (November 1979): 44–46.

Sino-French War Start Date: August 1884 End Date: April 1885 Brief war between France and China during August 1884–April 1885 that grew out of the Black Flag (Tonkin) Wars of 1882–1885. French gains in Tonkin in northern Vietnam alarmed China, for Vietnam was still its tributary state, and the Chinese were concerned about the increasing French presence along their southwestern border. When Nguyen dynasty emperor Tu Duc appealed to China for assistance, the Chinese responded by sending troops to assist the Black Flags (Chinese pirates) already fighting the French. In December 1883 some 600 French troops captured the Black Flag base of Son Tay, whereupon the Chinese reinforced Bac Ninh, presumed to be the next French target. On March 12, 1884, however, they abandoned Bac Ninh to the French after only minimal resistance. Two months later the Chinese agreed to withdraw entirely from Tonkin. Fighting should have ended at this point, but in June 1884 the French sent troops to occupy Lang Son, the closest major Tonkinese town to the Chinese frontier. At Bac Le, 30 miles short of their goal, the French encountered Chinese troops. Accounts differ over

1041

the cause of the clash, but fighting broke out, and the French were repulsed at a cost of 22 dead and 60 wounded. French premier Jules Ferry was determined to secure Tonkin, and the French made their major military effort in Tonkin, where in the spring of 1884 they had 9,000 men. By the summer of 1885 this force had grown to 40,000 men. Under aggressive generals Louis-Alexandre Brière de l’Isle and François de Négrier the French spent most of the spring and summer of 1884 clearing the Red River Delta. In relatively easy fighting they managed to push deep into the northwestern highlands. The Black Flags and Chinese regulars enjoyed the advantage of superior numbers and, for the most part, better infantry weapons. They had Remington, Spencer, Martini-Henry, and Winchester repeating rifles, whereas the French carried only the single-shot 1874 model Gras rifle. Both the Black Flags and the Chinese preferred to fight defensively, and they built strong forts, although these tended to be badly sited. While courageous and well disciplined, the Chinese were often badly led. They had artillery but seldom used it, and they were very poor marksmen, preferring not to fire their rifles from the shoulder in aimed fire. In the end, French offensive tactics usually carried the day. Led by aggressive officers, the French employed both light artillery or dynamite to blast holes in their enemies’ bamboo palisades and, although usually outnumbered by four or even five to one, their bayonet charges usually routed the defenders. But because the French lacked sufficient manpower to surround the fortresses, most of the defenders escaped to fight again. Both sides gave little quarter. The Chinese dug up French corpses to cut off the heads and place them on lances or flag poles. This practice led the French to kill their prisoners. Nonetheless the French won a series of relatively easy victories, which led to a false sense of confidence, underestimation of their enemy, and overextension of resources. In the early autumn of 1884 Chinese regulars from Yunnan joined the Black Flags, led by Liu Yongfu (Liu Yung-fu), in surrounding the French garrison town of Tuyen Quang on the Clear River northwest of Hanoi. The siege of that place is one of the glorious chapters in the history of the French Foreign Legion. Although vastly outnumbered, the French held out from November 24, 1884, until they were relieved on March 3, 1885. On February 13, 1885, 12 French battalions totaling some 9,000 men took the city of Lang Son in far northeastern Tonkin, and on February 23 they forced the Chinese from Dong Dang, 10 miles to the north, to the Chinese border. The Chinese fled across the border. General Brière de l’Isle then marched south again to relieve Tuyen Quang. Departing Lang Son on February 16, he defeated a Chinese force at Hoa Mac in what turned out to be the bloodiest battle for the French in Tonkin since their 1883 invasion. His men then relieved Tuyen Quang on March 3. A series of French reversals followed. In late March the Chinese, seemingly on the brink of defeat a month earlier, went on the offensive. Convinced that the French were going to invade Quangxi, they struck in force. On March 29 the Chinese retook Lang Son

1042

Sino-French War

The bombardment of Suzhou (Fuzhou) on August 23, 1884. An undeclared conflict between the Qing dynasty and France, the Sino-French War of 1884–1885 signaled the end of Qing claims to suzerainty in Indochina and dealt a sharp blow to Qing self-strengthening efforts. (Roger-Viollet)

and then began to organize thousands of Vietnamese volunteers. Already the Tonkin campaign of 1884–1885 was one of the more controversial episodes in the history of the Third Republic, and Premier Ferry’s opponents used the defeat at Lang Son to drive him from office. Georges Clemenceau, himself premier during a most difficult military test for France, accused Ferry of “treason” for bogging France down in Vietnam. An armistice was declared in April 1885 before Chinese forces could capitalize on their success at Lang Son. This was largely as a consequence of French naval operations against China proper. In 1884 at the start of fighting, Paris had ordered Admiral Amédée Anatole Courbet to threaten the Chinese naval base at Fuzhou (Foochow) and to occupy the coal-mining port of Keelung in Taiwan (Formosa). In October 1884 Courbet dispatched to Keelung the ironclad La Galissonière, the cruiser Villars, and a gunboat. The French bombarded the port and sent troops ashore, but this force was soon reembarked. Courbet then moved against Fuzhou on the Min River. Passage to the base was protected by two strongly fortified narrows, and Courbet was unable to use his two armored cruisers because of their draft. Flying his flag in the cruiser Volta, Courbet had 5 unarmored cruisers, 3 gunboats, and 2 small torpedo craft. Chinese defenses included shore batteries and 11 ships (2 of them cruisers) as well as junks and fire ships, but the Chinese warships were vastly inferior to the French warships, the most powerful of which were

ironclads. On the afternoon of August 23 Courbet sent in the torpedo boats No. 45 and No. 46 against the Chinese flagship cruiser Yangwu and the other cruiser. The Yangwu was sunk by a spar torpedo from No. 46. The battle then became general, and within an hour all the Chinese ships were either sunk or on fire and drifting. Courbet estimated Chinese casualties at 2,000–3,000 men and put his own “cruel losses” at 10 dead and 48 wounded. After blowing up the docks and shelling the arsenal, the French steamed for the open sea. In three days they methodically destroyed the Chinese barrier forts. Courbet then took his squadron to Keelung to avenge the earlier repulse there. At Keelung the French sank a Chinese frigate and sent ashore only 1,800 men. They occupied the port and a neighboring harbor, but even with reinforcements their numbers were completely inadequate. In early February 1885 Courbet sent part of his squadron from Keelung to confront an effort by the Chinese Nanyang Fleet (Southern Seas Fleet) to break the naval blockade of Taiwan. On February 11 near Shipu Bay, the French ships encountered the relatively modern Chinese cruisers Kaiji, Nanchen, and Nanrui, accompanied by the frigate Yuyuan and the composite sloop Dengching. The Chinese ships fled on spotting the French, but the French succeeded in trapping the Yuyuan and the Dengching in Shipu Bay. There on the night of February 14 the French destroyed both Chinese ships in a torpedo boat attack. On March 1 Courbet located the three cruisers, which had taken refuge with four other Chinese warships in Zhenhai Bay,

Sino-Soviet Split near Ningbo. Courbet settled for a blockade of the entrance of the bay, but on March 1 there was a brief exchange of fire between the French cruiser Nielly and the Chinese shore batteries that the Chinese claimed as a major victory. With the Chinese unable to break the French naval interdiction of the seaborne rice trade between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, however, they decided to seek peace. On June 9, 1885, France and China signed the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin). It had tremendous consequences for Vietnam, for under its terms China renounced its suzerainty over Vietnam and recognized the French protectorate. Both Chinese regular troops and Black Flags retired behind the Chinese border. In 1887 Paris formed its conquests into French Indochina. Laos was added in 1893 after the Siamese had been bluffed into withdrawing their outposts on the left bank of the Mekong and the French had offered protection to the king of Luang Prabang. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Black Flags; Clemenceau, Georges; Ferry, Jules; Tianjin, Treaty of; Tonkin; Tuyen Quang, Siege of References Dupuis, Jean. Les Origines de la Question du Tonkin. Paris: Challamel, 1886. Jenkins, E. F. A History of the French Navy: From Its Beginnings to the Present Day. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973. McAleavy, Henry. Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese Intervention. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Sino-Soviet Split Start Date: 1956 End Date: 1966 The collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance marked the transformation of the Cold War world from bipolarity to multipolarity. Superficially an ideological partnership between the world’s two largest Communist countries, the Sino-Soviet alliance began on February 14, 1950, with the conclusion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. From its inception, the seemingly monolithic union was fraught with constantly shifting expectations about its precise place in the Socialist world, subjected to American attempts to split it, and afflicted by the progressively ideological radicalism of People’s Republic of China (PRC) chairman Mao Zedong. Although Sino-Soviet disagreements over Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 de-Stalinization campaign remained hidden for a time, the advanced state of the alliance’s disintegration became known to the outside world by the early 1960s. Because Mao exploited ideological conflict for domestic purposes, the final breakdown of the Sino-Soviet partnership in mid-1966 coincided with the beginning of the Cultural

1043

Revolution (1966–1976), launched both to purge the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of alleged ideological revisionists and to create a Communist utopia. Viewing any alliance with a great power solely as a temporary means to help restore past Chinese glory and power, the Chinese Communists by the late 1940s had decided to ally with the Soviet Union. Surprised by Mao’s request in late 1949 for an economic and military alliance, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin first hesitated but then agreed, for utilitarian reasons, to conclude a treaty of friendship and alliance that provided the Soviet Union access to railroads, warm-water ports, and important raw materials deposits in Manchuria and Xinjiang in exchange for Soviet military and economic aid. Stalin’s limited support of the PRC during the Korean War (1950–1953), however, revealed the limits of the military aspects of the alliance. After Stalin’s death in 1953, the end of the Korean War, and Khrushchev’s ascendancy to power, the focus of the Sino-Soviet relationship gradually shifted toward assistance in economic development and improved party relations. Khrushchev’s “secret speech” of February 25, 1956, charging Stalin with arbitrary and criminal rule, undermined Mao’s growing personality cult in China but strengthened his hand in his relations with the Soviet leaders. After increasing his influence in the Socialist world through diplomatic mediation during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Mao concluded that although he considered Khrushchev’s criticism of Stalin unfair and imbalanced, it had nevertheless revealed the need to preempt internal dissent in China in order to prevent a crisis similar to the Hungarian Revolution. The PRC’s Hundred Flowers campaign in the spring of 1957 was designed to allow party members and intellectuals to vent their pent-up frustrations in a highly controlled framework but threatened within only a few weeks to undermine the Chinese Communist regime. While Beijing launched the Anti-Rightist campaign in the summer of 1957 to stamp out internal dissent, Khrushchev survived the so-called Anti-Party Incident, which the remaining Stalinists in the party leadership staged with the goal of reversing de-Stalinization. Both events proved to be crucial for the further development of the Sino-Soviet relationship because they put the PRC and the Soviet Union on two conflicting political, ideological, and economic paths. As modest liberalization continued in the Soviet Union in 1958, Mao, following the Anti-Rightist campaign, radicalized the domestic political discourse in the run-up to the disastrous Great Leap Forward, which was supposed to propel the PRC into full-fledged communism. These internal changes led to a more aggressive and anti-American foreign policy before and during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (August–September 1958). Mao’s willingness, stated to Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko in early September, to trigger a nuclear war over a series of small disputed islands in the Taiwan Strait placed the first significant strains on the Sino-Soviet relationship. Faced with widespread famine as a result of the misguided economic policies of the Great Leap Forward, the CCP leadership un-

1044

Sino-Vietnamese War

dertook internal discussions in mid-1959 about economic reforms aimed at averting further disaster. Fearing challenges to his leadership, Mao was able both to purge his opponents within the party and to relaunch the unreformed Great Leap Forward in late 1959 in an effort to save his vision of a Communist utopia. The economic catastrophe resulting from the Great Leap Forward, however, shocked the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Mao’s radical anti-American stance also clashed with Khrushchev’s rapprochement policies. The unexpected April 1960 Chinese publication of the so-called Lenin Polemics—three articles released on the occasion of Vladimir I. Lenin’s 90th birthday that promoted ideologically radical positions diametrically opposed to Soviet viewpoints—revealed the brewing Sino-Soviet tensions to the world. After ideological clashes between the Soviet and CCP delegations during the Third Romanian Party Congress in late June 1960, the Soviet Union decided to punish the PRC by withdrawing all of its advisers from the PRC in July 1960. Although the Great Leap Forward had caused the complete collapse of China’s economy and had brought Sino-Soviet trade to a virtual standstill, Beijing used the withdrawal to blame Moscow for its economic problems. Until the mid-1960s, the PRC shifted much of its foreign trade away from the Soviet Union and toward Japan and Western Europe. Because of China’s pressing economic problems and the failure of Khrushchev’s rapprochement with U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower after the May 1960 U-2 Crisis, however, both sides realized the necessity of an ideological truce, which they formally reached at the Moscow Conference of the world’s Communist parties in late 1960. Shunted aside from domestic decision making because of his close association with the failed Great Leap Forward, Mao used the 1961 Soviet-Albanian conflict as a tool to rebuild his political fortunes at home. Subsequent anti-Soviet propaganda in the PRC triggered conflicts between Soviet citizens and ethnic Central Asians living in Xinjiang on the one side and the local Chinese administration on the other. The mass flight of 67,000 people to Soviet Kyrgyzstan in the late spring of 1962 caused Beijing to abrogate its consular treaty with Moscow on the basis of alleged Soviet subversive activities in western China. Mao used these developments to restore his standing in the CCP leadership and to push for more anti-Soviet policies in the second half of 1962. Khrushchev’s nuclear provocation and sudden retreat under U.S. pressure during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis provided Mao with an unexpected opportunity to attack the Soviet leadership publicly for ideological inconsistency and political unreliability. The United States had been intent on splitting the Sino-Soviet alliance since 1950, but only in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis was it able to use the U.S.-Soviet-British agreement on the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) to deepen the Sino-Soviet rift. Aware of the problems between Beijing and Moscow, Washington played on Soviet fears about China’s nuclear weapons program and Khrushchev’s dissatisfaction with Mao’s ideological warfare. Despite the fact that the PTBT did not infringe on China’s nuclear

program, the signing of the treaty by almost all countries of the world within five months isolated the PRC internationally. The period from mid-1963 to mid-1966 witnessed the final collapse of Sino-Soviet relations. Convinced that the Sino-Soviet pact had fulfilled its usefulness, Mao fanned and exploited ideological conflict and territorial disputes with his Soviet comrades for domestic purposes. Because the launching of the Cultural Revolution required a prior break with what Mao termed Soviet “revisionists, traitors of Marxism-Leninism, and fascists,” he eventually broke party relations in early 1966 with his refusal to send a delegation to the Twenty-Third Soviet Party Congress. Simultaneously, his radical ideological stances precluded the invocation of Sino-Soviet treaty obligations in support of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during the Vietnam War (1964–1973). This helped assuage, to some extent, American fears that their escalating war effort in Vietnam would trigger a joint Sino-Soviet intervention. By the mid-1960s the military alliance between Beijing and Moscow factually ceased to exist, although the treaty did not officially expire until February 14, 1980. Until the rapprochement initiated by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, for nearly 25 years Sino-Soviet relations consisted only of low-level cultural relations and limited trade links. LORENZ M. LÜTHI See also China, People’s Republic of; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Mao Zedong; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Dittmer, Lowell. Sino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications, 1945–1990. Seattle: Washington University Press, 1992. Hunt, Michael H. The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Lüthi, Lorenz M. “The Sino-Soviet Split, 1956–1966.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 2003. Robinson, Thomas W., and David Shambaugh, eds. Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice. Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1998. Westad, Odd Arne, ed. Brothers in Arms: The Rise and the Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1953. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998.

Sino-Vietnamese War Start Date: February 17, 1979 End Date: March 5, 1979 Sometimes referred to as the Third Vietnam War, this 18-day war fought between two former allies, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), seemed to many a strange event indeed. To critics of American involvement in Vietnam, it was proof of the historical animosity between the two powers and the fact that self-interest is more important than ideology in relations between states. The causes of the war were border disputes between the two states, Vietnam’s treatment of its

Sino-Vietnamese War

1045

A People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) soldier guards a Chinese tank crewman captured in Vietnam during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Chinese minority, China’s determination to punish Vietnam for its invasion of Cambodia, and China’s desire to weaken ties between Vietnam and the Soviet Union. There had been border disputes between the two states for some time, as the common frontier between China and Vietnam had been demarcated in colonial times by the French. Although the actual territory in dispute was quite small, beginning in 1974 border incidents had multiplied. According to Vietnamese authorities there were 21,175 such incidents in 1978, and negotiations over the disputed territory, begun in 1977, had broken off in 1978. More important economically were quarrels between the two states over the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, both of which were spurred on by the possibility of oil deposits. The second major cause of the war was Vietnam’s treatment of its Chinese minority, known as the Hoa. In the late 1970s some 1.5 million Hoa lived in Vietnam, many of whom had been there for generations. The largest concentration of Hoa, some 1.2 million, lived in Cho Lon (the Chinese section of Saigon), a former market

grown into a bustling commercial center. Many Hoa, who were an important economic element of the country, refused to become Vietnamese citizens. In March 1978 the Vietnamese government abolished private trading, although it allowed many of the Chinese merchants to continue their enterprises after that date because they were essential to the economy of the country. Once the government established its own state-run shops, however, those in private enterprises were ordered to register for productive work. This would have meant the removal of the Chinese into the countryside for agricultural work, which was part of the government plan to reduce population in Saigon. Faced with this prospect, some 170,000 Chinese fled overland into China. Many more attempted to escape by sea to Hong Kong and other points. This latter exodus was prompted in part by provocateurs, either persons working for the government in an effort to rid the country of a minority population or Chinese gangsters prompted by greed. They informed the Chinese community that war with China was inevitable. These “agents” extracted money

1046

Sino-Vietnamese War

from the Chinese in return for providing escape by sea. Although there had been a steady flow of refugees from Vietnam after 1975, by 1978 it had become a flood and had reached crisis proportions from the opposition of Southeast Asian countries to take in the large numbers arriving on their shores; many, of course, perished on the seas in their flimsy craft or were set upon by pirates. The loss of these individuals was certainly a serious blow to the Vietnamese economy. China protested, canceled aid to Vietnam, and withdrew some 5,000 to 8,000 technical advisers. Beijing accused Hanoi of deliberately expelling its Chinese minority. The exodus slackened off after July 1979 when Hanoi announced that it would take major steps to prevent illegal departures, but it was nonetheless a serious cause of friction between the Chinese and Vietnamese governments. The third major cause of the war was disagreement between China and Vietnam over the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Beijing regarded Kampuchea as being within its sphere of influence, and in early February 1979 Chinese vice premier and chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army) Deng Xiaoping said that “Vietnam must be punished severely, and China is considering taking appropriate counteraction.” Chinese leaders also hoped that military action by China against Vietnam would relieve pressure on the Khmer Rouge, which China was supporting militarily. A fourth cause of the conflict has been suggested by historian Bruce Elleman. He believes that the Chinese leadership used the brief war as a means to expose as a fraud Soviet assurances of military support for Vietnam. Whatever the reasons for the war, China appeared to enjoy tremendous advantages over its opponent. China had a population of nearly 1 billion people and a regular army of 3.6 million. But the 1979 war with Vietnam revealed Chinese weakness rather than military prowess. With the exception of a month-long clash with India in 1962, the PLA had not fought a major conflict since the Korean War of 1950–1953. The PLA was basically an infantry army, sadly deficient in many respects and commanded by old men. For its war with Vietnam, China massed 18 divisions totaling 180,000 men; 8 divisions made up the initial invading force. Eventually the Chinese had 600,000 men available for deployment. Vietnam seemed at a serious military disadvantage. Its entire military establishment was only approximately 615,000 men, centered on 25 infantry divisions plus a number of independent regiments and specialized units. It was a modern army that was relatively well equipped, well disciplined, and hardened in war. Unfortunately, it was also widely dispersed. Two of its divisions were stationed in Laos, and at least 18 divisions were in Kampuchea. This left in Vietnam itself only 5 trained regular army divisions, 3 of which protected Hanoi (the Vietnamese had several other divisions stationed on the border, but these were newly formed and poorly trained). Guarding the border with China were some 70,000 wellarmed members of the Border Security Force; lightly armed militia units were also available. The Vietnamese had emplaced obstacles

and minefields along the border and had covered possible invasion approaches by artillery and mortars. On February 17, 1979, Chinese forces led by General Xu Shiyou attacked simultaneously at some 43 points along the border. This was both to spread the Vietnamese defenders and to probe for weak spots. The main attacks were along the half dozen traditional invasion routes to Hanoi. The Chinese offensive consisted of heavy artillery barrages followed by human-wave infantry attacks. The Chinese hoped to secure the key mountain passes as quickly as possible. Meeting intense Vietnamese opposition, the Chinese nonetheless accomplished this within several days, with the railheads of Dang Da and Lao Cai falling on February 17 and 19, respectively. After penetrating to an average depth of only about five miles, the Chinese then halted their advance for two days to replenish ammunition and bring in additional troops; soon there were some 200,000 Chinese troops inside Vietnam. Cao Bang and Ha Giang both fell on February 22; by that date the Chinese controlled all the frontier passes. On February 23 the Chinese resumed their advance, and also on that day the Vietnamese made two small counterattacks into Chinese territory, both of which had only limited success. The Chinese hoped to force Vietnamese defense minister Vo Nguyen Giap into redeploying units from Kampuchea and Laos, but Giap refused to panic, choosing instead to wait and see where the major Chinese thrust would develop. As Vietnamese frontier towns continued to fall, Giap was forced to act. On March 3 he moved the 308th Division and the other two divisions of Vietnam’s elite I Corps forward to form a second defense line to the rear during the battle for the key railhead city of Lang Son. He also moved a second division north from Da Nang to support Vietnamese forces fighting around Mong Cai on the coast, and he ordered a corps (three divisions) recalled from Kampuchea, although the lead elements of the division did not arrive in Tonkin until March 11. Had the war lasted longer, Giap would have been forced to shift other divisions from Kampuchea. It was not until March 5, however, that Giap ordered a general mobilization. By the beginning of March the Chinese advance had bogged down. On average the Chinese had advanced about 20 miles into Vietnam. Then on March 5, Beijing abruptly announced that it had accomplished its ends and was withdrawing its forces. The Chinese carried out scorched-earth policies, destroying what they could not carry away with them. The Vietnamese simply watched the Chinese depart. By March 15 the Chinese had withdrawn from Vietnam. Total casualties on both sides were some 45,000; after the war the Chinese exchanged 1,636 Vietnamese prisoners for 238 Chinese prisoners. The war exposed many Chinese weaknesses, especially in communications (for which they had relied largely on bugles and whistles), transport, and weaponry. One remarkable aspect of the war was that neither side committed its air force. China had about 1,000 planes in southern China that it could have used, but none were sent over Vietnam. The Vietnamese had in all approximately

Sino-Vietnamese War

1047

1048

Sisowath Sirik Matak

485 combat aircraft but for unknown reasons used none of them in defense of their territory. Beginning on February 22 the Soviet Union had initiated an airlift of supplies to Vietnam and over the next year doubled its military advisers (there were about 3,000 serving in Vietnam at the start of the war) and increased naval units in Vietnamese waters (in May 1979 the first Soviet submarines arrived at Cam Ranh Bay, where the Soviets had been given naval facilities). Despite these Soviet moves, one long-term effect of the war was that it exposed the weakness of Soviet-Vietnamese ties, effectively ending the military pact between the Soviet Union and Vietnam. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Cambodia; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; China, People’s Republic of; Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea; Refugees and Boat People; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Elleman, Bruce. “Sino-Soviet Relations and the February 1979 SinoVietnamese Conflict.” Paper presented at After the Cold War: Reassessing Vietnam, Symposium at the Center for the Study of the Vietnam Conflict, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, April 1996. Hoang Anh Thu and Vu Trong Hoan. Su Doan 320B [The 320B Division]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1990. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954–1980. Rev. ed. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981. O’Dowd, Edward C. Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War: The Last Maoist War. New York: Routledge, 2007. Pham Gia Duc, ed. Lich Su Quan Doan 2, 1974–1994 [History of 2nd Corps, 1974–1994]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1994. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Sisowath Sirik Matak Birth Date: January 22, 1914 Death Date: April 21, 1975 Member of the Cambodian royal family and ardent critic of Norodom Sihanouk’s policies favoring the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak was born on January 22, 1914, in Phnom Penh. He was a contender for the Cambodian throne in 1941, but the French decided on his cousin Norodom Sihanouk instead. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords, Sirik Matak served as the minister of national defense from January to October 1955 and chief of staff of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces through August 1955. He then held the post of minister of defense concurrently with the position of minister of internal security from January to September 1956 and was minister of information and tourism from July 1957. He held a variety of governmental posts in the 1960s, including first deputy prime minister, and he supervised the Ministry of the Interior, the Order

Ministry, the Security Ministry, the Education Ministry, and Ministry of Religious Affairs from August 1969 to July 1970. It was in this capacity that Sirik Matak and General Lon Nol, who was serving as president, prime minister, and minister of national defense, overthrew Sihanouk on March 18, 1970. Sihanouk had informally allied Cambodia with North Vietnam even as he professed Cambodian neutrality in the Vietnam War. Under heavy pressure from the North Vietnamese, Sihanouk had established a quid pro quo with the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong (VC) allies, allowing them access to a three-mile zone along the border with the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). There they established a series of sophisticated base camps and safe havens from which they launched attacks into South Vietnam. They also established a supply route through Cambodia from the port of Sihanoukville to their base camps on the border. Sirik Matak was particularly critical of Sihanouk’s policies and became one of the leading advocates for an anti-Communist, anti–North Vietnamese foreign policy. Sirik Matak also favored a hard-line approach toward the growing Communist insurgency in Cambodia led by the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer), who received assistance from the North Vietnamese and profited from the inability of the Phnom Penh government to establish internal security and economic prosperity. When President Richard Nixon entered the White House on January 20, 1969, Sirik Matak and Lon Nol found a willing ally in their anti-Communist crusade and conspired to oust Sihanouk from power while he was abroad. On March 18, 1970, Sirik Matak and Lon Nol orchestrated a coup d’état, affirmed by the Cambodia National Assembly in a secret vote. The transfer of power eased the progression of the U.S. Vietnamization program by allowing for the 60-day Cambodia Incursion in 1970 that disrupted North Vietnam’s timetable for its offensive against Saigon. The coup d’état also allowed the secret U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia, Operation MENU, to become public and intensify into Operation FREEDOM DEAL. Still, the coup had the unintended result of strengthening the Khmer Rouge and sealing the fate of the Cambodian people to a period of genocide after April 1975. Sirik Matak continued in the government and was briefly prime minister from May 6, 1971, to March 18, 1972. He remained in the country after Lon Nol resigned as president on April 1, 1975, just days before the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh. Unlike Lon Nol, whose name headed the Khmer Rouge death list and fled abroad, Sirik Matak, whose name was purportedly left off the list, refused to accept U.S. asylum. Remaining in Cambodia, he did not live long thereafter. Sirik Matak was arrested and executed by the Khmer Rouge on April 21, 1975, in Phnom Penh. RONALD B. FRANKUM JR. See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; Khmer Rouge; Lon Nol; MENU, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Sihanouk, Norodom

Smith, Walter Bedell References Ablin, David A., and Marlowe Hood, eds. The Cambodian Agony. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990. Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.

Sit-Ins See Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins

1049

See also Con Thien, Siege of; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Momyer, William Wallace; Westmoreland, William Childs References Coan, James P. Con Thien: The Hill of Angels. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Maitland, Terrence, and Peter McInerney. A Contagion of War. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Morrocco, John, et al., eds. Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941– 1968. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Skriabin, Vyacheslav See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich

Smart Bombs See Precision-Guided Munitions

SLAM Military acronym for Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor. In September 1967, stung by the media’s negative portrayal of the siege of Con Thien as another Dien Bien Phu, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland introduced the SLAM concept to Operation NEUTRALIZE. Devised by General William M. Momyer, commander of the U.S. Seventh Air Force, the concept involved close coordination of the entire spectrum of allied fire support to break the siege. Naval gunfire, tactical air support, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber strikes, artillery, and other ground weapons were combined in a devastating concentration of firepower. Beginning on September 11, SLAM elements pounded known and suspected Communist positions in an area roughly the size of Manhattan for 49 days. Momyer personally coordinated the strikes from a combined intelligence center in Saigon. Of 820 B-52 sorties in September, 790 were SLAM missions. Altogether, more than 3,100 U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps air sorties resulted in the delivery of almost 40,000 tons of bombs on targets around Con Thien, turning the surrounding area into a moonscape of water-filled craters. By early October the siege of Con Thien was lifted. The success of SLAM convinced Westmoreland that massed firepower alone could thwart future sieges of isolated posts. That success, he later wrote in his memoir A Soldier Reports, was “a demonstration that was destined to contribute to my confidence” during the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh four months later. After Con Thien, Westmoreland criticized the media for its pessimism and also criticized his counterpart Vo Nguyen Giap for foolishly providing such a target-rich environment for SLAM attacks. “If comparable in any way to Dien Bien Phu,” Westmoreland concluded, “it was a Dien Bien Phu in reverse.” EDWARD C. PAGE

Smith, Walter Bedell Birth Date: October 5, 1895 Death Date: August 9, 1961 U.S. Army officer, diplomat, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during 1950–1953, and undersecretary of state during 1953–1954. Walter Bedell (nicknamed “Beetle”) Smith was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on October 5, 1895. He joined the Indiana National Guard in 1911, was commissioned in 1917, and served in combat in France during World War I. Smith remained in the U.S. Army after the war and subsequently rose steadily through the ranks. A gifted staff officer, he quickly won the respect of George C. Marshall, future U.S. Army chief of staff. In February 1942 Smith was promoted to brigadier general and became the U.S. secretary to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Following heavy lobbying from European theater commander Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Marshall reluctantly ordered Smith to Europe in September 1942 to assume the role of Eisenhower’s chief of staff; Smith was promoted to major general that November. This began an association that would last until the end of the war. Smith was one of the principal strategic planners of the war in Europe. As Eisenhower’s deputy, Smith signed the instruments of surrender with both Italy (September 3, 1943) and Germany (May 7, 1945). In January 1946 Smith returned to Washington to be chief of the Operations and Planning Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). In March, President Harry S. Truman appointed Smith ambassador to the Soviet Union. His experiences in Moscow convinced him of Soviet expansionist intentions and the need for firm counteractions to check them. On the other hand, he believed that the Kremlin did not seek a war with the West and would back down in the face of U.S. military strength and resolve. He remained in

1050

Snepp, Frank Warren, III attempted to convince the British to join the United States in an intervention for the same purpose. The British refused, and Smith remained in Europe to lead the U.S. delegation to the 1954 Geneva Conference, where he played an important role in the ending of the first Indochina War. Smith presented a plan to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov for an immediate armistice followed by a plebiscite. Smith articulated U.S. resolve to support any antiCommunist government in southern Vietnam. At the end of the negotiations Secretary of State John Foster Dulles instructed Smith not to sign the Geneva Accords. Ironically, Smith’s ideas served as a framework for the final settlement. In addition, Smith declared U.S. support for the security of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Smith resigned his State Department post in late 1954. He was embittered never to receive either the fifth star or the appointment as chief of staff of the army that he believed he deserved. He then entered private business. In 1958, however, Dulles called Smith out of retirement to act as special adviser on disarmament issues. He was an unabashed supporter of the expansion of U.S. nuclear weapons programs and had already subscribed to the doctrine of massive retaliation. Smith died in Washington, D.C., on August 9, 1961. RICHARD D. STARNES See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dulles, John Foster; Eden, Sir Robert Anthony; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Knowland, William Fife; Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich; Truman, Harry S.

U.S. general Walter Bedell Smith rendered important service after World War II as ambassador to the Soviet Union (1946–1949), director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1950–1953), and undersecretary of state (1953–1954), when he led the U.S. delegation at the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina. (Library of Congress)

that post until 1949, when he briefly commanded First Army. In 1950 Smith published a book, My Three Years in Moscow. In late June 1950 President Harry S. Truman appointed Smith director of the CIA. During his three-year tenure at the CIA he reorganized and reformed the agency, vastly improving the type and quality of intelligence it provided. He also helped redeem the agency after its abject failures during the Korean War, when the CIA had not foreseen the attack by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) on the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) in June 1950 and had failed to properly gauge Chinese intentions to intervene in the war in the autumn of 1950. Smith was promoted to full (four-star) general in July 1951. In February 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith undersecretary of state. Much of his efforts while at the State Department were devoted to resolving problems in Indochina. At a National Security Council meeting in January 1954 Smith argued for American intervention to relieve the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. He did not advocate the deployment of ground troops at this time but fully supported the use of air assets. In May he

References Billings-Yun, Melanie. Decision against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Cable, James. The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986. Crosswell, D. K. R. The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith. New York: Greenwood, 1991. Montague, Ludwell Lee. General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.

Snepp, Frank Warren, III Birth Date: May 3, 1943 Journalist and principal analyst of political affairs in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Frank Warren Snepp III was born on May 3, 1943, in Kinston, North Carolina. He graduated from Columbia College and then spent two years at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs. In 1968 he joined the CIA, becoming an analyst at the U.S. embassy in Saigon from 1969 to 1971. He then returned to Saigon in October 1972. Snepp was critical of the rule of President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam).

SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation

When Saigon fell at the end of April 1975, Snepp was one of the last to leave the U.S. embassy during the final evacuation, codenamed Operation FREQUENT WIND, that saw 1,373 U.S. citizens and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-party nationals evacuated in the 24hour period during April 29–30, 1975. As with many other U.S. personnel who served in South Vietnam, Snepp was disappointed with the hastily delayed U.S. evacuation that had left behind so many loyal U.S. allies. In 1977 he wrote an account of the fall of South Vietnam titled Decent Interval. The CIA demanded that Snepp submit his draft manuscript to the agency for censorship and clearance prior to publication, as was required by regulations for former agency employees, but Snepp claimed that his rights under the First Amendment were being violated. Snepp and his publisher, Random House, published the book without submitting it to the agency for prior review, and the CIA sued him for breach of contract. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) supported Snepp, but the CIA won the court case, which required that Snepp turn over all his book royalties to the CIA. Among other things, Decent Interval indicted the Gerald Ford administration for its botched handling of the evacuation. Snepp had left the CIA in 1976 before the book was published and became a freelance journalist. By the late 1980s he was teaching journalism and law at California State University, Long Beach. In 1999 he wrote a second book, Irreparable Harm, that detailed his battle to get his first book published and excoriated the CIA for trampling on his rights and those of many Americans. He now works for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, and in 2006 he won a Peabody Award for his investigative report titled “Burning Questions.” JUSTIN J. CORFIELD

1051

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), then decided to launch a follow-on operation to destroy the Communist forces and gain control of the valley, which had long been a Communist stronghold. While the 1st Cavalry Division would continue its operations, the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) would move into the A Shau and block retreating People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces. The U.S. units and two ARVN battalions would then force the PAVN forces into a decisive engagement. SOMERSET PLAIN began on August 4, 1968, as the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry guided in the initial assault elements from the 101st Airborne Division. The allied airmobile forces faced intense antiaircraft fire. Seven helicopters, including 6 Bell AH-1 Cobra gunships, were brought down by ground fire, and 11 other helicopters were damaged. PAVN forces also brought down 1 U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber. Once the 101st Airborne Division secured its landing zones, it proceeded to link up with ARVN and 1st Cavalry Division units. PAVN forces broke contact and refused to be committed to a major action against the allies. The operation became a series of patrols with minimal fighting. The major combat units of the 101st Airborne Division withdrew from the A Shau while their reconnaissance teams emplaced mines and booby traps and set out sensors.

See also Central Intelligence Agency; FREQUENT WIND, Operation References Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977. Snepp, Frank. Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle over Free Speech. New York: Random House, 1999. Theoharis, Athan, ed., with Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted, and John Prados. The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.

SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON

246, Operation

Start Date: August 4, 1968 End Date: August 20, 1968

Joint U.S. Army–Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) military operation in the A Shau Valley. Operation SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246 occurred after the successful April–May 1968 joint U.S. 1st Cavalry Division–ARVN Operation DELAWARE in which U.S. and ARVN forces captured large amounts of war matériel and supplies in the A Shau Valley. The U.S.

Members of E Company of the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry, of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) cross a river near Hill 608 in the A Shau Valley during Operation SOMERSET PLAIN in August 1968. (Getty Images)

1052

Song Be, Battle of

On August 19 helicopters lifted out the remaining 101st Airborne Division personnel as SOMERSET PLAIN terminated. For PAVN losses of 93 killed by the 101st Airborne Division and 88 killed by the ARVN, the 101st Airborne Division had sustained 19 killed, 103 wounded, and 2 missing (including 7 killed and 54 wounded in a mistaken strafing by a U.S. Air Force North American F-100 Super Sabre). ARVN losses were 15 killed, 57 wounded, and 2 missing. The allies had also sustained significant losses in aviation assets and did not have the satisfaction of uncovering a single major Communist arms cache. JULIUS A. MENZOFF

until they disappeared into the jungle. The ARVN lost 13 killed, while PAVN forces suffered 134 dead and lost 37 individual and 20 crew-served weapons. GLENN E. HELM See also Con Thien, Siege of; Dak To, Battle of; Loc Ninh, Military Operations near; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; War Zone C and War Zone D

See also Air Mobility; DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; United States Army; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army

References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.

References Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Tolson, John J. Airmobility, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973.

Son Tay Raid Start Date: November 20, 1970 End Date: November 21, 1970

Song Be, Battle of Event Date: October 27, 1967 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) attack on the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) base at Song Be. During the Vietnam War, the area around the village of Song Be was one of five allied-controlled enclaves in Communist-dominated Phuoc Long Province, located near the Cambodian border less than 75 miles north of Saigon. The jungle-covered province was a major route of passage for Communist troops and supplies moving from Cambodian sanctuaries to War Zone D, a Communist base area centered to the southeast of the province. During the autumn of 1967 in order to draw allied forces to the peripheries of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and practice mass assaults prior to the 1968 Tet Offensive, PAVN and Viet Cong (VC) forces initiated a series of battles. The first was at Con Thien, the second was at Song Be, and there were subsequent lighter attacks on Loc Ninh and Dak To. Just after midnight on the morning of October 27, the PAVN 88th Regiment attacked the headquarters of the ARVN 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, located two and a half miles south of Song Be. The assault opened with nearly 200 rounds of mortar and recoilless rifle fire striking the small ARVN installation, defended by 200 men. PAVN troops from at least two of the three battalions of the 88th Regiment then attacked with 4-to-1 superiority in three waves, each of which reached the outpost perimeter before being driven off. As the PAVN attacks finally ceased at dawn, 50 ARVN soldiers aggressively pursued the withdrawing Communist troops

Raid against a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) prison camp believed to hold U.S. prisoners of war (POWs). Planning for the Son Tay Raid began on June 5, 1970, when U.S. Air Force (USAF) brigadier general Donald D. Blackburn, a special operations expert, undertook a study to determine the feasibility of rescuing up to 50 POWs from Son Tay Prison, located about 25 miles north of Hanoi. Meanwhile, a heavy rainy season forced the Son Tay River from its banks and fouled the well at the prison. On July 14 the Son Tay POWs were moved to another compound. Some guards and other North Vietnamese military personnel remained at the prison, however. On August 8 Blackburn formed a task group to plan and carry out the raid. Brigadier General Leroy J. Manor, commander of the USAF’s Special Operations Force (SOF) at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, was the overall mission commander. U.S. Army colonel Arthur D. “Bull” Simons was the commander of the strike force. During the course of the next three weeks, they assembled a planning team to work out the details of Operation IVORY COAST, a code name chosen to confuse anyone who might hear it. Training for the raid began on August 20 at Eglin’s range, an area of swamps, brush, and rivers the size of Rhode Island. The plan called for U.S. Army Rangers to be flown to Son Tay by one Sikorsky HH-3 and four Sikorsky HH-53 Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (ARRS) “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters. The choppers would be supported by five SOF Douglas A-1E Skyraiders and two SOF Lockheed MC-130E “Combat Talons.” According to the plan, the HH-3 was to crash-land inside the compound. Rangers would pour out of that helicopter to neutralize any opposition, while other Rangers, landed outside the walls, would break in to complete the rescue operation.

Son Thang Incident Training was completed by mid-November, and the force assembled at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. With a typhoon developing over the Gulf of Tonkin, General Manor decided to launch at the first possible opportunity, the first dark night with little or no moonlight. This was November 20, 1970. At 4:00 p.m. that day the raiders learned of their destination. By 11:30 p.m., the task force was airborne and headed for North Vietnam. Meanwhile, a USAF and U.S. Navy air armada descended on North Vietnam. Navy Grumman A-6 Intruders flew toward Haiphong at low altitude to simulate a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress attack. Other U.S. Navy jets dashed inland to confuse North Vietnamese radar operators. U.S. Air Force McDonnell Donald RF-4 Phantom reconnaissance jets flew low over Hanoi setting off flares, while USAF and U.S. Navy F-4 Phantoms circled on MiG combat air patrol. North Vietnamese defenses were completely befuddled. Some radar operators reported B-52 attacks. One even announced that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hanoi. Over Son Tay, the two C-130s dropped pallets of napalm as reference points. In a moment of confusion, three rescue helicopters attacked a North Vietnamese sapper school, located a quarter of a mile from the Son Tay Prison. After blasting the watchtowers with their Gatling-like miniguns, two of the helicopters pulled away, but one landed about 50 SOF troops led by Colonel Simons. They burst into the school, where a huge firefight erupted. It took about two minutes to realize that a mistake had been made and another three minutes to get the helicopter back and the SOF troops out. The American strike force took no casualties and left scores of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops dead or bewildered and so confused that they could not interfere with operations going on nearby. Within six minutes of hitting the ground at the wrong compound, the American troops were back on the ground and battering their way into Son Tay Prison. Meanwhile, the HH-3E had crash-landed inside the walls at Son Tay, and SOF troops were already killing the guards and searching for prisoners. To their great disappointment, no prisoners were found. Twenty-seven minutes after the raid began, the helicopters were airborne and headed back to Thailand. The only American casualty was a USAF flight mechanic who broke his ankle when the HH-53 in which he was riding performed a sharp downward turn to avoid an air-to-air missile fired by a pursuing Soviet-made MiG fighter. One USAF Republic F-105F Wild Weasel was shot down, but its two-man crew was rescued by a pair of Jolly Green Giant helicopters. The raid succeeded tactically; had American POWs been present, they would have been rescued. On another level, Hanoi was sent the message that the United States was far from beaten. A substantial force, inserted only a few miles from the North Vietnamese capital, had wreaked considerable havoc before successfully withdrawing. Finally, to make any further such efforts more difficult, Hanoi ordered all POWs moved to several central prison complexes. This afforded the prisoners more contact with each other, which boosted morale. EARL H. TILFORD JR.

1053

See also Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Helicopters, Employment of, in Vietnam; Prisoners of War, Allied; Search-andRescue Operations; Simons, Arthur David References David, Heather. Operation Rescue. New York: Pinnacle Books, 1970. Gargus, John. The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Schemmer, Benjamin F. The Raid. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1980.

Son Thang Incident Event Date: February 19, 1970 Small hamlet located in the southern I Corps Tactical Zone in the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that was the site of a war crime perpetrated by U.S. marines on the night of February 19, 1970. The incident at Son Thang resulted in the shooting deaths of 16 Vietnamese civilians, all of whom were women and young children. Five marines were charged with the murders, and four of the five underwent controversial courtsmartial for their role in the massacre. Sometimes referred to as the Marine Corps’s My Lai, in reference to the 1968 massacre of Vietnamese noncombatants by members of the U.S. Army’s 23rd Infantry Division (Americal), the killings at Son Thang were an example of the extreme pressure under which U.S. servicemen fought and the ambiguous application of standard rules of engagement in a war zone. On the night of February 19, 1970, a small squad, or “killer team,” of marines from B Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, embarked on a patrol through the Son Thang area to seek out Communist forces in the region and to engage them in battle if possible. The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, had been involved in heavy fighting in the days and weeks prior to this patrol, and team members were told by B Company’s commanding officer, First Lieutenant Ronald Ambort, to engage and kill all enemy personnel they encountered and secure a measure of revenge for their recent battle losses. Although team leader Lance Corporal Randall D. Herrod had experienced much combat during his time in-country, the rest of the team members were quite inexperienced. Lance Corporal Michael Krichten, Private First Class Thomas Boyd, Private Michael Schwarz, and Private First Class Samuel Green made up the remainder of the combat patrol team. The Son Thang area was known to be very friendly to Communist forces, and its inhabitants routinely provided support for local Viet Cong (VC) units. As a result the marines of the killer team expected to engage enemy forces, and they were predisposed to strike if they encountered anything that they deemed out of

1054

Souphanouvong

the ordinary. In addition to this, the marines of B Company were considered to have been especially aggressive in their efforts against the VC and prominently displayed the words “Get Some” on a large sign outside their patrol base at the time the Son Thang Massacre took place. The “Get Some” message was interpreted as killing as many enemy forces as possible. In an environment in which enemy body counts measured a unit’s success, the killer team moved into Son Thang. The team encountered three small huts in the area and at each ordered its inhabitants to assemble outside. Once the noncombatants were assembled, team leader Herrod ordered the marines to open fire upon the civilians, killing four Vietnamese women at the first hut. The team then moved on to the second hut and in a similar fashion killed six civilians, five of whom were children under the age of 13. The team then proceeded to the third hut, killing a Vietnamese mother and five small children. Upon returning to the base camp after the incident, the killer team falsified its report to Ambort, claiming to have been attacked by VC guerrillas and to have killed six of them. Suspicion over the incident arose almost immediately, and the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, quickly moved to investigate. Eventually enough evidence was gathered to hold separate general courtsmartial for each of the team members, who were charged with violating Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 118 (murder). Krichten provided testimony for the prosecution in each case in return for receiving immunity on all charges. The court-martial found Schwarz guilty on 12 of 16 counts of premeditated murder and sentenced him to life at hard labor. Boyd, who chose to be tried without a jury, was found not guilty of all charges by Lieutenant Colonel Paul A. St. Amour, presiding judge. Private First Class Green, the only African American member of the team, was found guilty of 15 counts of unpremeditated murder and was sentenced to five years at hard labor. Lance Corporal Herrod was found not guilty of all 16 counts of premeditated murder. Lieutenant Ambort was not tried before a court-martial but received a relatively lenient nonjudicial punishment. Shortly thereafter Major General Charles F. Widdecke, commanding general, 1st Marine Division, reduced Schwarz’s and Green’s sentences, and both served less than one year of their original sentence. KELLY E. CRAGER See also Atrocities during the Vietnam War; My Lai Massacre; United States Marine Corps References Herrod, Randy. Blue’s Bastards: A True Story of Valor under Fire. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1991. Solis, Gary D. Marines and Military Law in Vietnam: Trial by Fire. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1989. Solis, Gary D. Son Thang: An American War Crime. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Timberg, Robert. The Nightingale’s Song. New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Souphanouvong Birth Date: July 13, 1909 Death Date: January 9, 1995 Laotian prince, Communist leader, and the first president of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (1975–1991). Prince Souphanouvong was born in Luang Prabang on July 13, 1909, the son of viceroy Prince Bounkhong and Mom Khamouane. Souphanouvong studied in Hanoi and Paris, becoming an ingénieur des ponts et chaussées (civil engineer). He returned to Indochina in 1936 and was assigned by the Indochina civil service to Vietnam. At the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945, Souphanouvong was in Vinh. From there he traveled to Hanoi where he met Ho Chi Minh, who had just proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Ho sent Souphanouvong to Savannakhet with a Vietnamese escort to rally anti-French forces there, both Lao and Vietnamese. He arrived in Vientiane on October 30, 1945, and was made foreign minister of the Laotian independent government and commander in chief of its fledgling armed forces. During the French reoccupation of Thakhek in central Laos in March 1946, Souphanouvong was badly wounded when French aircraft strafed his sampan. He remained in Thailand with the other members of the government in exile but split with this government in 1949 and made his way to North Vietnam, where he joined Ho. In August 1950 Souphanouvong presided over the formation of a resistance government, the Pathet Lao, that was allied with the Viet Minh. But the 1954 Geneva Conference did not recognize this rival government. Souphanouvong joined short-lived coalition governments led by his half brother Prince Souvanna Phouma in 1957 and 1962. A popular figure, Souphanouvong was elected to the National Assembly by a wide margin in the 1958 elections. He was imprisoned with other Pathet Lao leaders by a rightist government in Vientiane in 1959 but escaped in May 1960. Although a member of the Politburo of the Communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, Souphanouvong was mainly a figurehead leader of the Pathet Lao and its legalized political party, the Neo Lao Hak Sat. During the war years he remained in hiding at the Pathet Lao base area of Sam Neua Province or in North Vietnam. He returned to Vientiane in 1974 to assume the chairmanship of the National Political Consultative Council, a quasi-legislative body set up by the Vientiane Agreement of 1973. When the Communists dissolved the third coalition government and seized power in December 1975, Souphanouvong was elected by a people’s congress to be the president of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. In 1986 after suffering a stroke, he was forced to hand over effective power to an acting president and retired to his home, where he received visiting delegations from other Socialist nations but played no other role in the conduct of state affairs. He was replaced as president in

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

1055

Prince Souphanouvong led the Communists in the struggle to control Laos. After the Communists took power in that country, he was the first president of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (1975–1991). (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

1991 by Kaysone Phomvihan and died in Vientiane on January 9, 1995. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Laos; Pathet Lao; Souvanna Phouma; Vientiane Agreement References Savada, Andrea Matles, ed. Laos: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995. Zasloff, Joseph J., and MacAlister Brown. Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930–1985. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986.

Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy See SEALORDS

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization U.S.-sponsored collective security arrangement for Southeast Asia established on September 8, 1954, and comprising eight nations: the United States, Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan. Initiated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and forged by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was created by the Pact of Manila of September 8, 1954. As a consequence of the failure earlier that year to create a united front during the Dien Bien Phu crisis and of the Chinese Communist threat after the Geneva Conference, which resulted in the French withdrawal from Indochina, Eisenhower and his National Security Council agreed that an alliance was essential to bind together the imperiled countries of Southeast Asia. With French assent and the domino theory in mind, Eisenhower directed Dulles to negotiate an accord to contain any Communist aggression against the free territories of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia or against Southeast Asia in general.

1056

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

Leaders of the nations of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) pose during the Manila Conference, October 24, 1966. From left to right are South Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Cao Ky, Australian prime minister Harold Holt, South Korean president Park Chung Hee, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, New Zealand prime minister Keith Jacka Holyoake, South Vietnamese lieutenant general Nguyen Van Thieu, Thai prime minister Thanom Kittikachorn, and U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson. (National Archives)

Meeting in September at Manila, representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and New Zealand conferred with delegates from the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan. President Eisenhower desired Asian cooperation to dodge accusations of forming an exclusively Occidental alliance, yet major neutral nations such as Indonesia and India declined participation. The signatories established a loose defensive arrangement for the mutual protection of the Southeast Asian region. SEATO had no standing military force of its own. Despite U.S. attempts to make SEATO representative of the region, critics rightly pointed out that Indonesia, Burma, and Malaya, all of which at the time were battling Communist insurgencies, were not included in the pact, which diluted its effectiveness. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s inclusion in the alliance alienated India, which drove that nation further away from the Western bloc. SEATO contained a protocol that thwarted the 1954 Geneva Accord’s provisions designed to neutralize the new Indochinese states by naming Laos, Cambodia, and southern Vietnam as lands that if endangered could menace the tranquility and safety of the treaty’s signers. Dulles insisted that the attached clause was necessary, despite its questionable legality, so that a blanket of security

could be thrown around the region. Although France opposed full membership by its former colonies, Paris and Saigon approved of the protocol’s safeguard for a limited time over the military regroupment zone below the 17th Parallel. But Cambodia’s Norodom Sihanouk rejected the provision, and international accords affecting Laos in 1962 excluded that country. Ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1955, SEATO differed from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in that it failed to establish an effective multilateral defense system. Without permanent standing armed forces, members were to merely confer in case of aggression against a signatory or protocol state, and no combined military reply to an attack was required by the terms of the treaty. In fact, no treaty obligation compelled the United States to quell internal disorder or oppose an invasion. SEATO clearly fell short of gaining general support throughout the area because so few regional nations became members. The Eisenhower administration relied on SEATO, regardless of its shortcomings, to discourage potential Communist aggressors and to provide a diplomatic facade behind which the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) emerged with a recognizable political boundary south of the 17th Parallel.

Souvanna Phouma SEATO nevertheless proved its usefulness, at least for the United States, in the following decade. The protocol cover for Indochinese countries provided legitimacy for U.S. involvement in South Vietnam in order to restrain the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). After Vietnamization, which precipitated U.S. troop withdrawals from South Vietnam, SEATO slowly collapsed. In November 1973 Pakistan left the alliance, and France followed suit in June 1974. In September 1975 after the fall of Saigon, the remaining members agreed to disband the pact. SEATO formally dissolved in February 1977. RODNEY J. ROSS See also Dulles, John Foster; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military and America’s Intervention in Vietnam. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Busczynski, Leszek. SEATO: Failure of an Alliance Strategy. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983. Hess, Gary R. Vietnam and the United States. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Moss, George. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994.

Souvanna Phouma Birth Date: October 7, 1901 Death Date: January 11, 1984 Laotian prince, parliamentarian, and statesman who played a major role in his country’s independence movement and became the leader of the Neutralist faction in three successive coalition governments. Souvanna Phouma was born in Luang Prabang, Laos, on October 7, 1901, the son of Prince Bounkhong, viceroy of the Kingdom of Luang Prabang, and Princess Thongsi. Souvanna was educated at the Lycée Albert Sarraut in Hanoi and received degrees in architectural engineering from the University of Paris and in electrical engineering from the University of Grenoble. Souvanna entered the Public Works Service in 1931 at Vientiane. In 1940 he was chief of the Architectural Office at Luang Prabang. In 1945 he became chief of the Public Works subdivision at Vientiane and was made director of Public Works for Laos when the Japanese took over from the French in Indochina on March 9, 1945. When Souvanna’s half brother, the viceroy Prince Phetsarath, formed an independent government after the Japanese surrender, Souvanna was a minister, as was another half brother, Prince Souphanouvong. After the French reoccupied Laos in 1946, the three brothers and other ministers fled across the Mekong River to Thailand and spent the next three years in exile in Bangkok, returning only when the French gave greater independence to Laos.

1057

Souvanna became prime minister for the first time on November 21, 1951, after his Progressive Party won 16 out of 35 seats in the elections to the National Assembly that year. His government, having presided over Laos’s participation in the 1954 Geneva Conference that ended the Indochina War, lasted until October 20, 1954. Souvanna became prime minister again on March 21, 1956, on a platform of reintegrating the pro-Communist Pathet Lao rebel faction, which his foreign minister at Geneva had promised to do by means of internal negotiations. Although the Pathet Lao were under the titular leadership of Prince Souphanouvong, the negotiations between the government and the Pathet Lao proved to be a long-drawn-out process that brought Souvanna into conflict with U.S. policy, which opposed a prospective coalition with the Pathet Lao. But Souvanna persisted in his efforts, claiming that Souphanouvong was not a Communist and that a neutral Laos had the support of neighboring China, with which he was on good terms, although China was not represented in Vientiane. His relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), on the other hand, remained tense because of the Hanoi government’s continued armed support of the Pathet Lao. Finally in November 1957 negotiations resulted in signed agreements under which the Pathet Lao restored to the authority of the royal government the provinces of Sam Neua and Phong Saly and promised to integrate its soldiers into the royal army and to participate in elections as a legalized political party. A coalition government with Souvanna as prime minister was then constituted. But after the Pathet Lao’s political party, the Neo Lao Hak Sat, won a stunning electoral victory in partial elections to the National Assembly in May 1958, Souvanna faced a cabinet crisis and was compelled to resign on July 23, 1958. He then went to France as ambassador. Returning to Laos, Souvanna was reelected to the National Assembly in 1960 and was subsequently elected its chairman. Kong Le, the royal army captain who staged a coup in August of that year, turned to Souvanna to form a government in the wake of the previous cabinet’s resignation, and the prince became prime minister once more on August 16. Following charges of pressure on the National Assembly, Souvanna resigned at the end of August and was then called upon by the king to form a new cabinet that was to include certain rightist ministers. However, the deal fell through, and the rightists went into rebellion against him, with covert U.S. support, from their base at Savannakhet in southern Laos. In December 1960 the rightists attacked Kong Le’s troops that defended Vientiane, and Souvanna fled to safety in Phnom Penh, where he continued to maintain that he was the legal prime minister. His government was no longer recognized by the United States and its allies, notably Thailand, and he set up his headquarters at Khang Khay on the Plain of Jars. After sporadic heavy fighting between the rightist army, supported by U.S. advisers, and Kong Le’s neutralist army, now allied with the Pathet Lao and North Vietnam and supplied by a Soviet airlift, a cease-fire was negotiated at Ban Namone on May 3, 1961. A 14-nation conference convened in

1058

Spellman, Francis Joseph

Geneva the following month to deal with the Laos crisis and, after lengthy deliberations, gave support to a coalition government with Souvanna as prime minister. The second coalition soon fell apart under the pressure of renewed hostilities in the kingdom involving People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops and U.S.-supported Hmong irregulars, but Souvanna remained in office throughout the war years, recognized by all foreign powers (including North Vietnam, which maintained an embassy in Vientiane) and eventually reconciled with the United States. A fresh round of negotiations beginning in October 1972 resulted in a new agreement, signed on February 21, 1973, and a bilateral coalition, the third. The Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese maintained pressure and on December 2, 1975, proclaimed the dissolution of the coalition and the advent of a people’s republic in which the hitherto clandestine Laotian Communist party, the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, held exclusive power. Souvanna Phouma, who had suffered a heart attack in July 1974, resigned and was named adviser to the government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, an honorary post that he held until his death in Vientiane on January 11, 1984, at the age of 82. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Kong Le; Laos; Pathet Lao; Phoumi Nosavan; Plain of Jars; Souphanouvong References Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1971. Zasloff, Joseph J., and Leonard Unger, eds. Laos: Beyond the Revolution. London: Macmillan, 1991.

Soviet Union See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Special Forces See United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces

Spellman, Francis Joseph Birth Date: May 4, 1889 Death Date: December 2, 1967 Roman Catholic priest, archbishop of New York, cardinal, apostolic vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces (1939–1967), and ardent anti-Communist. Francis Joseph Spellman was born on May 4,

1889, to a middle-class Irish American family in Whitman, Massachusetts. Destined early for the priesthood, he was educated at Fordham College in New York (graduated in 1911) and the North American College in Rome. The anti-Americanism of the Vatican during his student years troubled him, and he forcefully challenged the assumption that the United States was godless and materialistic. After his 1916 ordination, Spellman rose quickly in the Church hierarchy. From 1925 to 1932 he served as secretariat of state in the Roman Curia, where he became a close friend of Eugenio Pacelli, who would become Pope Pius XII. With the affluent, generous American Church behind him, Spellman further consolidated his influence in Rome, and titles and appointments followed quickly. Designated archbishop of New York in 1939, he became the ranking Catholic prelate in America. Spellman remained in that post until his death in 1967. In February 1946 he became a cardinal. Although small of stature, Spellman had enormous energy and ambition. When he was not establishing schools and operating orphanages, he published numerous essays and sermons. In his spare time he wrote a sentimental novel, The Foundling, that celebrated Catholic novelist Flannery O’Connor recommended because its proceeds went to charity and because it otherwise made “a good doorstop.” Spellman also soon emerged as a political power. His control of the Catholic Legion of Decency meant that he could shut down a Broadway play or launch a boycott against a motion picture that either challenged the faith or was deemed too sensual. Still, he was friendly with Jewish moguls in Hollywood, who liked to be photographed with him, and he made common cause with former ambassador Joseph Kennedy in the struggle against communism in the 1950s, even though Spellman refused to endorse Kennedy’s son John for the American presidency. Spellman’s heated conflicts with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and with Bishop Fulton Sheen, the most popular preacher in his church, were much publicized. Spellman’s critics could be vituperative, and some accused him of deviousness and even moral turpitude. Following World War II, Spellman became convinced that international communism posed a mortal threat to his cherished Roman Catholic Church and the United States. He thus supported Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s ill-conceived witch-hunt against communism and approved the regimes of rightist dictators such as Spain’s Francisco Franco. After the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) was invaded by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) on June 25, 1950, the cardinal mobilized his archdiocese into action by urging his flock to support U.S. troops in any way possible and to pray for a quick American victory. Accepting the domino theory of Communist expansion in Asia, Spellman was in total support of South Korea. Beginning in 1951, Spellman traveled to South Korea at Christmas and administered to the troops there. The following year he

Spock, Benjamin McLane again went to South Korea for Christmas, engaging in a whirlwind tour of military hospitals, meeting hundreds of chaplains from many faiths, and performing open-air masses for the troops while artillery thundered in the distance. Spellman’s Christmas visits to foreign-based troops became a tradition, even into the Vietnam War era. Nearing the end of his life when he had to be assisted up the steps of his airplane, the enfeebled cardinal still insisted on making the trips. As early as 1954, Spellman publicly advocated the use of American troops in Vietnam to stave off a French defeat and Communist victory there. Later when Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic, became the leader of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Spellman rallied support for him and his regime in the United States by helping to create a pro-Diem lobbying group in Washington, D.C. Spellman also exhorted Catholic relief agencies to provide more aid to the South Vietnamese. Even after Diem’s assassination in November 1963, the cardinal remained a hawkish proponent of escalation, believing that to lose South Vietnam to communism would be tantamount to surrendering to the enemy. Not surprisingly, he became a favorite target of antiwar protesters. With the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, Spellman’s influence in the Vatican waned, and he did not support the reforms of Vatican II. His continued support for American involvement in Vietnam brought him into conflict with Vatican officials, especially Pope Paul VI, who had called for an end to the conflict. By the time Spellman died at age 78 on December 2, 1967, in New York City, the predominant influence of Irish Americans in the American Catholic Church seemed to be on the wane, and Spellman’s own hawkishness had seriously diminished his stature. ALLENE S. PHY-OLSEN

1059

was a staunch supporter of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Spock did residency training first in pediatrics and then in psychiatry. Between 1944 and 1946 Lieutenant Commander Spock practiced psychiatry in the U.S. Naval Reserve and wrote The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), which would become the world’s second–best-selling book after the Bible. Immersed in his medical practice after the war, Spock uncritically accepted American policies. In 1960 he campaigned for John F. Kennedy, appearing on television with Jacqueline Kennedy to garner the “mother’s vote.” In 1962 in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Spock first became politically active in a peace organization by joining the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, often referred to as SANE. Spock supported President Lyndon B. Johnson’s candidacy in 1964, accepting his campaign promises for peace. Frustrated by President Johnson’s failure to bring peace to Vietnam, Spock began to speak out against the war and to urge

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Catholicism in Vietnam; Domino Theory; Ngo Dinh Diem References Cannon, Robert I. The Cardinal Spellman Story. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962. Cooney, John. The American Pope: The Life and Times of Francis Cardinal Spellman. New York: Dell, 1984.

Spock, Benjamin McLane Birth Date: May 2, 1903 Death Date: March 15, 1998 Pediatrician, psychiatrist, noted writer, and social and antiwar activist. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 2, 1903, Benjamin McLane Spock received his BA from Yale University in 1924 and an MD from Columbia University in 1930. He cast his first presidential vote for Republican Calvin Coolidge but by the 1930s

Benjamin Spock became a household name and influenced two generations of parents who reared the children of the Baby Boom with his best-selling book Baby and Child Care. In the 1960s, Spock became a prominent figure in the anti–Vietnam War movement. (Bettmann/Corbis)

1060

Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam

draft resistance, using his already-established celebrity to lend gravitas to the antiwar movement. On January 5, 1968, he was indicted with four others for conspiring to counsel, aid, and abet violations of the Selective Service Act and hinder administration of the draft. All but one of the so-called Boston Five were found guilty, fined, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of Spock and one other defendant, declaring that “vigorous criticism of the draft and of the Vietnam war is free speech protected by the First Amendment, even though its effect is to interfere with the war effort.” The remaining two were ordered retried based on an error in the judge’s charge to the jury. In 1972 Spock ran for the presidency as the candidate of the Pacifist People’s Party. He also wrote two books around this time, Decent and Undecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970) and Raising Children in a Difficult Time (1974). In his later years Spock continued in the medical field and periodically spoke out against social and foreign policy positions that he deemed antithetical to U.S. values or world peace. Spock died at his home in La Jolla, California, on March 15, 1998. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Selective Service; Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam; United States Department of Justice References Maier, Thomas. Doctor Spock: An American Life. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998. Mitford, Jessica. The Trial of Dr. Spock. New York: Knopf, 1969.

Spratly Islands See Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea

Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam Event Date: April 15, 1967 First of the mass demonstrations in the United States against the war sponsored by national coalitions. A conference of liberal and leftist antiwar activists held in Cleveland, Ohio, on November 26, 1966, formed the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and set April 15, 1967, as the date to hold major demonstrations in New York and San Francisco. Previous antiwar actions had been either locally organized and dispersed around the country or had been smaller rallies sponsored by individual groups. Organizers hoped that by focusing on only two sites they could draw impressive crowds that would effectively pressure the Lyndon Johnson administration to alter its policy.

The leadership of the Spring Mobe, as the coalition was known, which included veteran activists A. J. Muste (until his death in mid-February), Dave Dellinger, and Robert Greenblatt, brought in James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to direct the planning. The coalition also continued the precedent of a nonexclusion policy that invited cooperation regardless of political ideology, a stance that led some of the more conservative groups to withhold their formal endorsements. Still, the events received broad support. The Spring Mobilization revealed the breadth of antiwar public opinion. On April 15 the New York crowd reached perhaps 200,000 people who marched from Central Park to the United Nations (UN) building. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., joining an antiwar coalition event for the first time, served as keynote speaker. The rally also featured Dr. Benjamin Spock, Pete Seeger, and Stokely Carmichael, among others. The demonstration attracted people from a wide variety of political views, professions, racial and ethnic groups, ages, religions, and lifestyles, many of whom were protesting for the first time. Participants faced taunts and thrown objects from unsympathetic onlookers. Preceding the New York march, nearly 150 people held a collective draft card burning in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, organized by Cornell University’s We Won’t Go group. In San Francisco, 50,000 people rallied in Kezar Stadium to hear such speakers as Coretta Scott King, Julian Bond, and Robert Scheer. The turnout was the city’s most impressive to date. The Spring Mobilization was the largest demonstration in the nation’s history to that point and clearly revealed the degree of political opposition to the government’s Vietnam policy. Far more than a radical fringe, the antiwar movement was representative of the American mainstream. This impressive challenge drew more attacks from the White House and Congress, whose members inaccurately criticized antiwar forces as being Communist-dominated and accused the protesters of providing encouragement to the enemy in continuing the war. Frustrated but undaunted, the movement continued to grow and demonstrate its disapproval. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Dellinger, David; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Muste, Abraham Johannes; Spock, Benjamin McLane References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American Movement against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad, 1978. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Spring Offensive See Easter Offensive

STARLITE, Operation

Staley, Eugene Birth Date: July 3, 1906 Death Date: January 31, 1989 International economist who led a fact-finding mission to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1961. Born in Friend, Nebraska, on July 3, 1906, Eugene Staley received a BA from Hastings College in 1925 and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1928. He began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1931 and subsequently held a variety of posts, including professor of international economic relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, before joining the Stanford Research Institute as senior international economist in 1950. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy called upon Staley to visit South Vietnam and make recommendations for bolstering President Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime and for the U.S. role in accomplishing this. Staley’s team spent most of June and July evaluating the situation. Findings ranged beyond economics to social and political reform, troop strengths, and the structured isolation of rural peasants from the Viet Cong (VC). Reporting to Kennedy in August, Staley stressed the need for a self-sustaining Vietnamese economy. He insisted that without meaningful and continued social and political reform, military action could not render desirable results. The most lasting of Staley’s unexpectedly military-oriented recommendations, however, centered on the protection of the civilian population. To this end, he advocated substantial increases in Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces, the Civil Guard, and local militias. He also advised that better arms and equipment be issued at the local level. Finally, he called for the construction of a network of strategic hamlets. The strategic hamlet idea was not original. In 1959 the Diem regime launched the Agroville Program, a proposed network of protected communities designed to isolate the rural population from the VC. The program proved a disaster. Only a small fraction of the 80 proposed communities were ever completed. Two years later Sir Robert Thompson, a counterinsurgency expert with the British Advisory Mission in Saigon, advanced the strategic hamlet idea, providing as a positive example his experience against Communist insurgents in Malaya. Diem balked at Thompson’s advice until Staley’s suggestion (meaning U.S. funding and assistance) induced speedy acceptance. The plan appeared conceptually sound but in reality was poorly suited for South Vietnam. Begun with high expectations in 1962, the strategic hamlet program was fraught with corruption from the start. The United States abandoned the effort within a year. Staley remained a prominent international economist. His writings and research activities largely focused on weighty economic issues, namely the betterment of underdeveloped nations. Staley died in Palo Alto, California, on January 31, 1989. DAVID COFFEY

1061

See also Agroville Program; Ngo Dinh Diem; Strategic Hamlet Program; Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker References Asprey, Robert B. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. New York: William Morrow, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967.

STARLITE,

Operation

Start Date: August 18, 1965 End Date: August 24, 1965 U.S. Marine Corps operation aimed at eliminating the 2,000man Viet Cong (VC) 1st Regiment. Operation STARLITE, the first major battle between U.S. forces and the VC, began on August 18, 1965, near the Van Tuong Peninsula in Quang Ngai Province. U.S. Marine Corps planners designed a three-pronged attack in what would be the first U.S. regimental-sized operation since the Korean War. STARLITE called for elements of the newly arrived 7th Marines at Chu Lai to move south and block any VC escape north, while units of the 4th Marines were dropped by helicopter into three landing zones, named Red, White, and Blue, west and southwest of the hamlets of Nam Yen and An Cuong. These marines would then drive the VC northeastward toward the sea. Finally, elements of the 3rd Marines would land on the beach due east of these hamlets, with amphibian and armored support, and drive west and north. Despite stiff resistance from VC forces, STARLITE succeeded in pushing the insurgents to the coast. Close air support, tanks, and naval gunfire were critical to the operation’s outcome. STARLITE terminated on August 24. The VC sustained 573 confirmed dead with another 115 additional estimated dead. The U.S. Marine Corps lost 51 killed and 203 wounded. A large number of the Communist casualties were inflicted by air strikes and ground artillery and ships at sea. Howitzers at Chu Lai had fired more than 3,000 rounds in support of the operation, and naval gunfire added another 1,562 rounds. The U.S. ships also sank seven sampans carrying fleeing Communist troops. R. BLAKE DUNNAVENT See also Air Mobility; Amphibious Warfare; Armored Warfare; Naval Gunfire Support; PIRANHA, Operation; Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; United States Marine Corps References Shulimson, Jack, and Charles M. Johnson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

1062

Starry, Donn Albert

Viet Cong prisoners captured during Operation STARLITE await transfer by helicopter to a prisoner-of-war camp in August 1965. This marine search-anddestroy operation south of Chu Lai resulted in 599 Viet Cong casualties. (National Archives)

Starry, Donn Albert Birth Date: May 31, 1925 U.S. Army general and one of the most significant reformers of the army following the Vietnam War. Born on May 31, 1925, in New York City, Donn Albert Starry served as an enlisted soldier during World War II and entered the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, from the ranks. Graduating in 1948, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in armor. When he reported to Germany for his first assignment as a platoon leader, his battalion commander was Creighton Abrams, a highly successful tank battalion commander in World War II. An innovative and dynamic military thinker himself, Abrams was a significant influence on Starry. Starry served two tours in Vietnam. During his second tour he commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment as a colonel, leading it during the 1970 Cambodia Incursion (Operation TOAN THANG 43). Following the war he commanded the Armor School

at Fort Knox, Kentucky, as a major general. There he wrote the influential monograph Mounted Combat in Vietnam, part of a series of official U.S. Army studies. He then commanded V Corps in Germany as a lieutenant general. In 1977 Starry was promoted to full general and succeeded General William E. DePuy as the second commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). With the possible exception of DePuy, Starry was the most influential commander of TRADOC. Seizing upon the deep internal debate and controversy surrounding the 1976 edition of FM 100-5 Operations and DePuy’s concept of active defense, Starry presided over and personally directed the development of the AirLand Battle doctrine and the long-overdue recognition by the U.S. military of the operational level of war. Based heavily on classic German concepts of rapidly moving war fighting, AirLand Battle became the doctrine with which the U.S. Army fought both the Persian Gulf War (1991) and the Iraq War (2003–2010). While he was

Stennis, John Cornelius TRADOC commander, Starry also introduced the concept of sergeants’ business, which became a critical tool in rebuilding the noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps that had been decimated by the Vietnam War. Starry retired from the army in 1983. His last assignment was commanding general of the U.S. Army Readiness Command. He is one of a handful of key officers who in the decade following the Vietnam War rebuilt the U.S. Army into a genuine threat to the Soviet Army and the Warsaw Pact. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Cambodian Incursion; DePuy, William Eugene References Herbert, Paul H. Deciding What Has to Be Done: General William E. DePuy and the 1976 Edition of FM 100-5, Operations. Leavenworth Paper No. 16. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1988. Romjue, John L. From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army Doctrine, 1973–1982. Fort Monroe, VA: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Historical Office, 1984. Starry, Donn A. Mounted Combat in Vietnam. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1978. Starry, Donn A., and George F. Hofmann, eds. From Camp Colt to Desert Storm: The History of the U.S. Armored Forces. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

STEEL TIGER,

Operation

Start Date: April 3, 1965 End Date: December 11, 1968 U.S. air interdiction campaign over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, particularly in the northern panhandle of Laos. Operation STEEL TIGER represented yet another unsuccessful use of limited airpower in the Vietnam War. Although air planners hoped that STEEL TIGER would complement the larger ROLLING THUNDER campaign, the political dangers of bombing Laos haunted the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Concern over possible Chinese or Soviet intervention coupled with the potential wrath of the world community that had guaranteed Laotian neutrality in 1962 drove Washington to restrict U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force target lists. In fact, civilians in Washington selected the targets. This information was then sent on to air planners in Saigon for implementation. The U.S. Air Force commenced Operation STEEL TIGER on April 3, 1965, using Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs, Lockheed AC-130 Spectre gunships, and numerous other aircraft stationed in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Thailand, while the U.S. Navy flew strike missions from aircraft carriers stationed in the South China Sea. As with most limited uses of airpower, STEEL TIGER did not stop the flow from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) of men and materials to South Vietnam. The Ho Chi

1063

Minh Trail was an elaborate network of intertwined truck tracks and footpaths through deep jungle terrain. Visibility from the air was poor, and damage assessments were largely inaccurate. If U.S. airmen bombed a critical choke point, the North Vietnamese either repaired it quickly or transferred the movement of supplies to bicycles. During the monsoon season most of the traffic on the trail was by foot, which complicated air operations even further. The development of target lists in Washington led to an additional problem: the command and control of air operations over the Laotian panhandle became hopelessly muddled. Although the U.S. Navy played a large role in STEEL TIGER, both U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force planners were loath to compromise their autonomy by fully cooperating with each other. Navy pilots less than affectionately referred to STEEL TIGER missions as “truck busting.” Although many trucks were destroyed along the trail, a simple cost-benefit analysis showed that the insurgents in South Vietnam, while receiving fewer supplies than before, were still getting enough to prosecute the war. On December 11, 1968, STEEL TIGER merged with Operation TIGER HOUND, which had focused on interdicting Communist supply routes in the southern Laotian panhandle. The newly christened Operation COMMANDO HUNT was intended to interdict supplies from North Vietnam all along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. LINCOLN HILL See also Airpower, Role in War; BARREL ROLL, Operation; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Laos; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; TIGER HOUND, Operation References Berent, Mark. Steel Tiger. New York: Putnam, 1990. Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Gurney, Gene. Vietnam: The War in the Air. New York: Crown, 1985.

Stennis, John Cornelius Birth Date: August 3, 1901 Death Date: April 23, 1995 Influential U.S. senator (1947–1989) who enthusiastically supported U.S. war policies in Vietnam. John Cornelius Stennis was born in Kemper County, Mississippi, on August 3, 1901. He graduated from Mississippi State University in 1923 and the University of Virginia Law School in 1928. Admitted to the bar that same year, Stennis began practicing law in De Kalb, Mississippi. From 1928 to 1932 Stennis served in the Mississippi House of Representatives, and from 1932 to 1937 he was a prosecuting attorney. He then served as a circuit court judge from 1937 to 1947. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1947, Stennis was a conserva-

1064

Stennis, John Cornelius

Senator John Stennis (D-Miss.) was the powerful chairman of the Armed Services Commitee from 1969 to 1981 and a strong supporter of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He is shown here in his Washington office on May 9, 1975. (AP/Wide World Photos)

tive Democrat who opposed social welfare programs and racial integration. He strongly opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He did support military appropriations, however. Although wary of American entanglements overseas and skeptical about the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Stennis supported President Lyndon Johnson’s policies, believing that once committed the United States could not retreat. A member of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, Stennis became its chair in 1969. He favored the maximum use of American airpower against both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and Viet Cong (VC) positions in South Vietnam. Increasingly concerned that the war was draining the armed forces’ stockpile of weapons and supplies, he began to express a fear that the war might establish a precedent for American entry into future wars without congressional approval. Although he supported President Richard M. Nixon’s Southeast Asia policies, Stennis was chagrined by the Watergate Scandal

and worked to limit presidential war-making power. In 1971 he and Republican senator Jacob Javits cosponsored the War Powers Act, which was passed in 1973. In 1988 Stennis was defeated for reelection. On his retirement from the Senate, Stennis returned to Mississippi, where he died in Jackson on April 23, 1995. His long service on the Senate Armed Services Committee prompted the U.S. Navy in December 1995 to name a new carrier the John C. Stennis (CVN74) in his honor. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Fulbright, James William; Humphrey, Hubert Horatio; Javits, Jacob Koppel; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McGee, Gale William; Proxmire, Edward William; United States Congress and the Vietnam War; War Powers Act References Congressional Quarterly. Congress and the Nation, Vol. 7, 1985–1988. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1990.

Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II

1065

Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Down, Michael Scott. “Advice and Consent: John Stennis and the Vietnam War, 1954–1973.” Journal of Mississippi History 55 (May 1993): 87–114. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Who’s Who in America, 1984–1985. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1984.

Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II Birth Date: February 5, 1900 Death Date: July 14, 1965 U.S. Democratic Party politician, governor of Illinois during 1949–1953, Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, and ambassador to the United Nations (UN) during 1961–1965. Born on February 5, 1900, in Los Angeles, California, Adlai Ewing Stevenson II attended the exclusive Choate School in Wallingham, Connecticut, during 1916–1917. He entered Princeton University the next year and graduated in 1922. Despite less than impressive grades, he managed to gain admission to Harvard Law School but flunked out after his second year. After moving to Chicago and trying to develop a career in journalism, Stevenson finished law school at Northwestern University in 1926 and subsequently was admitted to the Illinois bar. Stevenson then practiced law in Chicago, and from 1933 to 1935 he served as special U.S. government counsel. During World War II he was special assistant to the secretary of the U.S. Navy. After the war Stevenson held a variety of posts within the State Department and the War Department, acquiring a reputation for expertise in foreign affairs for his work as a member of the U.S. delegation to the 1945 UN Conference in San Francisco. In 1948 Stevenson was elected governor of Illinois on the Democratic ticket; he took office in January 1949. As governor, he instituted economic reforms, reorganized the state government’s administration, attacked corruption, and vetoed a loyalty oath bill. He was twice the Democratic nominee for president (1952 and 1956) but was defeated both times by Dwight D. Eisenhower. A Cold War liberal, Stevenson favored anticommunism, internationalism, and containment. He hoped to become President John F. Kennedy’s secretary of state, but Dean Rusk got the job instead. In December 1960 Kennedy announced his intention to appoint Stevenson ambassador to the UN. Stevenson served in that post under presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 until his death in 1965. Regarded with suspicion and mistrust by Kennedy loyalists, who thought him weak and indecisive, Stevenson never enjoyed close rapport with the president. Stevenson visited Vietnam in April 1953 during the Indochina War. He observed strong support among the people for insurgent leader Ho Chi Minh but never grasped the reasons why. To counter

Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in the elections of 1952 and 1956. Stevenson served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN) during the Kennedy administration and is best known for his role in the UN Security Council meetings regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Library of Congress)

Ho, Stevenson advocated land reform, national independence, and free elections. He also believed in the domino theory and worried that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, the rest of Southeast Asia would soon follow. Such views shaped his later responses. Stevenson may have had private misgivings about military escalation, but if so he kept them to himself. In 1964 he supported President Johnson’s campaign against Republican hawk Senator Barry Goldwater. Later Stevenson went on record in favor of applying the containment doctrine in Southeast Asia. Specifically, he wanted to restrict Chinese Communist expansion there primarily by political and economic means and hoped to enlist Japanese and Indian assistance in the endeavor. In the autumn of 1964 when UN secretary-general U Thant pressed for face-to-face negotiations between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the United States, Stevenson supported the idea but elicited no enthusiasm from Rusk or Johnson. A controversy developed over Stevenson’s real views soon after his death. In November 1965 CBS newsman Eric Severeid reported his impression that Stevenson was ready to resign in a protest over Vietnam. During a previous encounter in June 1965 with the writer Paul Goodman, an antiwar advocate, Stevenson denied any intention of leaving the Johnson administration, stating “That’s not the way the game is played.” Later he composed but never sent a letter to Goodman, couched in standard Cold War rhetoric, in

1066

Stilwell, Richard Giles

which Stevenson endorsed the Johnson administration policy of containing Chinese Communist aggression by standing strong in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Subsequently, Stevenson remained outwardly a Cold War warrior. Whatever his private doubts, he publicly supported the defense of South Vietnam against “Communist aggression.” On July 14, 1965, Stevenson died suddenly of a heart attack in London. MARK T. GILDERHUS

See also Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; United States Army

See also Containment Policy; Domino Theory; Goldwater, Barry Morris; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Rusk, David Dean; U Thant

Stockdale, James Bond

References Broadwater, Jeff. Adlai Stevenson and American Politics: The Odyssey of a Cold War Liberal. New York: Twayne, 1994. Martin, John Bartlow. Adlai Stevenson and the World. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978. Martin, John Bartlow. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977. Walton, Richard J. The Remnants of Power: The Last Tragic Years of Adlai Stevenson. New York: Coward-McCann, 1968.

U.S. Navy vice admiral and highest-ranking U.S. Navy prisoner of war (POW) in Vietnam. Born on December 23, 1923, in Abingdon, Illinois, James Bond Stockdale graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1947. After three years of sea duty, he was selected for flight training, earning his wings in 1950. In 1962 he earned a master’s degree in international relations from Stanford University. Stockdale commanded Fighter Squadron VF-51 that flew cover for U.S. ships during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964, and he was carrier air group commander on the aircraft carrier Oriskany when his Douglas A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) on September 9, 1965. During his long captivity, Stockdale kept secret his belief that no North Vietnamese attack had occurred on August 4, 1964. After Stockdale ejected from his doomed aircraft, he broke a bone in his back and upon landing badly dislocated his knee, which was never treated. As a result, for the remainder of his life he was in constant pain and walked with a pronounced limp. He was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, known by many as the “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was held for the next seven years. Stockdale was tortured repeatedly during his imprisonment, left in solitary confinement for four years, and was badly malnourished. Stockdale became the leader of the so-called Alcatraz Gang, the POW’s Hall of Fame for hard-line resisters, and he authored the standard orders on adhering to the U.S. Code of Conduct while imprisoned. While Stockdale acted as the intellectual and political leader of the POWs, his wife Sybil founded the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. Stockdale was a constant inspiration to his fellow POWs and never resigned himself to cooperate with the enemy. In 1969 when the North Vietnamese planned to march American POWs through the streets of Hanoi as a propaganda ploy, Stockdale slashed his own head with a homemade scalpel and badly beat himself with a stool, knowing that his captors would not display prisoners who appeared physically ill-treated. Some time after that when Stockdale discovered that some POWs had died while being tortured, he slashed his wrists in protest. The North Vietnamese were apparently so impressed by Stockdale’s courage and fortitude that they

Stilwell, Richard Giles Birth Date: February 24, 1917 Death Date: December 25, 1991 U.S. Army general and chief of staff, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), during 1963–1965. Born in Buffalo, New York, on February 24, 1917, Richard Giles Stilwell graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1938 and entered the army as a second lieutenant. During World War II he participated in the Normandy landings, and during the Korean War he commanded the 15th Infantry. As Stilwell progressed steadily through the ranks, he established himself as a leading military thinker. In the first of two tours in Vietnam, he served as chief of operations during 1961–1963 and then chief of staff of MACV during 1963– 1965. In 1965 he became chief of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group, Thailand, but in 1967 he returned to the United States to command the 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas. In 1968 Stilwell began a second tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as commander of XXIV Corps. In 1972 he assumed command of Sixth Army at San Francisco, California. The following year he was promoted to full (four-star) general and commanded the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea. He retired from the army in 1976, but in 1981 he joined the Ronald Reagan administration as deputy undersecretary of defense for policy formulation, a post that Stilwell held until 1985. Thereafter he operated a consulting firm in Arlington, Virginia, where he died on December 25, 1991. DAVID COFFEY

Reference Who Was Who in America with World Notables, 1989–1993. Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 1993.

Birth Date: December 23, 1923 Death Date: July 5, 2005

Stockdale, Sybil Bailey

1067

Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Stockdale, James B. A Vietnam Experience: Ten Years of Reflection. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1984. Stockdale, Jim, and Sybil Stockdale. In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice during the Vietnam Years. Rev. and updated ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990.

Stockdale, Sybil Bailey Birth Date: November 25, 1924

U.S. Navy vice admiral James Stockdale, shown here in 1976. As a naval aviator, Commander Stockdale was shot down in 1965 and was the highest ranking U.S. prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. Released in 1973 and awarded the Medal of Honor in 1976, Stockdale ran unsuccessfully for vice president on H. Ross Perot’s independent ticket in 1992. (AP/Wide World Photos)

virtually ceased torturing POWs thereafter. General POW treatment also improved. Following his return from Vietnam in February 1973, Stockdale was named president of the Naval War College. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1976. After retirement from the U.S. Navy as a vice admiral in 1978, he served as president of the Citadel from 1979 to 1981. He was then a Hoover Institution Fellow and authored numerous books on a variety of topics. Although a sought-after speaker, Stockdale was extremely self-effacing and believed that what he did as a POW amounted to nothing more than patriotism, determination, and perseverance. In 1992 Stockdale ran unsuccessfully for vice president on H. Ross Perot’s independent ticket. After battling Alzheimer’s disease, Stockdale died on July 5, 2005, in Coronado, California. JOE P. DUNN AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Hoa Lo Prison; McCain, John Sidney, III; National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia; Perot, Henry Ross; Prisoners of War, Allied; Stockdale, Sybil Bailey References Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Fight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Vietnam War prisoner of war (POW) advocate and wife of Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, who spent almost eight years in captivity in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from 1965 to 1973. Sybil Bailey was born on November 25, 1924, in New Haven, Connecticut. As the daughter of a successful dairy farmer, she was able to complete the last two years of her high school education at a private girls’ day school in New Haven. In the autumn of 1942 she enrolled at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In January 1946 she graduated with a degree in religion. After college she taught medieval history and modern dance at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, Virginia. In the spring of 1946 she met U.S. Naval Academy midshipman James Bond Stockdale, whom she married in June 1947. As a navy wife, Sybil Stockdale followed her husband to his various naval assignments. Before her husband completed his master’s degree in international relations at Stanford University, she earned a master’s degree in education there in June 1959. By 1962 the Stockdales had four young sons. On September 9, 1965, Stockdale’s husband, U.S. Navy pilot Commander James Stockdale, was shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner, although he was initially listed as missing. On April 15, 1966, she received two letters from her husband, and she soon after began working with Naval Intelligence. She began sending letters using a cryptographic code that allowed Stockdale to reply with information on POW treatment and the identity of his fellow captives. Nevertheless, Stockdale grew increasingly displeased with the Pentagon’s lack of initiative in securing the release of Vietnam POWs. After two years of frustration with the U.S. government’s handling of the issue, in October 1967 Stockdale, along with several San Diego–area POW wives, formed the League of Wives of American Prisoners of War. Karen Butler, Jenny Connell, and Sandy Denison aided her in this endeavor. Several other POW advocacy groups formed during this time, and all continued to pressure the U.S. government for a change in its POW policy. This pressure compelled newly elected president Richard M. Nixon to implement the so-called Go Public Campaign in the spring of 1969, which sought to better publicize the plight of

1068

Strategic Air Command

POWs and pressure the North Vietnamese to deal with the issue in a more straightforward manner. In June 1969 Stockdale became chair of the board of directors for the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (NLOF). In October 1969 she personally met with North Vietnamese officials in Paris. The meeting raised awareness on the POW issue, but the North Vietnamese government rejected all requests for detailed information on those being held in captivity. In early 1971 Stockdale met with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and warned him that the NLOF would publicly and vociferously oppose any peace agreement that did not include the immediate release of all POWs. By 1972 Stockdale had stepped down from her leadership position with the NLOF, but she remained active in the organization. Following the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, Commander Stockdale returned home in February 1973. For her efforts on behalf of the Vietnam POWs, in the summer of 1979 Sybil Stockdale became the first wife of an active duty naval officer to receive the U.S. Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award. She wrote several books after her husband’s ordeal had ended, including one coauthored with him titled In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice during the Vietnam War. It first appeared in Reader’s Digest in 1985 and was a moving portrait of the pain that the Stockdales had endured during James Stockdale’s years in captivity. Her husband died in 2005, but Sybil Stockdale maintains a busy schedule. In May 2008 at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, she christened the Stockdale, a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke–class destroyer. GLENN M. ROBINS See also National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia; Prisoners of War, Allied; Stockdale, James Bond References Davis, Vernon. The Long Road Home: U.S. Prisoner of War Policy and Planning in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Historical Office Secretary of Defense, 2000. Stockdale, Jim, and Sybil Stockdale. In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice during the Vietnam Years. Rev. and updated ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990.

Strategic Air Command Principal U.S. air command for U.S. nuclear deterrence that also conducted conventional B-52 bombing missions during the Vietnam War. The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was organized in 1946 but remained quiescent until Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay took command in October 1948. LeMay was determined to develop SAC into a “cocked weapon” capable of delivering some 80 percent of the U.S. strategic nuclear weapons in a strike “telescoping mass and time.” Defense budget constraints in the late 1940s led to increased emphasis upon nuclear air deterrence at

the expense of conventional weaponry, which elevated the importance of LeMay’s command. In December 1948 the U.S. Air Force endorsed LeMay’s position that SAC offensive posture and deterrence operations should be given the highest service priority. In August 1950 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) specified targeting categories and priorities for nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union. The first priority was designated as the “destruction of known targets affecting the Soviet capability to deliver atomic bombs.” The second priority was assigned to targets affecting the operational capability of Soviet ground forces in Western Europe. The third priority involved strikes against Soviet liquid fuel, electric power, and atomic energy sectors. These categories were designated Bravo, Romeo, and Delta, for blunting, retardation, and the disruption/destruction of Soviet war-making capacity, respectively. With some expansion of the industrial targets category, these furnished the basis for U.S. nuclear targeting during the 1950s and most of the 1960s. In U.S. defense terminology, strategic nuclear systems referred to weaponry targeted against the Soviet Union’s military infrastructure and intended to deter an attack on the United States or to retaliate if one occurred. Tactical weapons, or theater nuclear weapons, were those that could theoretically be committed against enemy forces on the battlefield in a given theater of war, such as Central Europe. SAC concentrated exclusively on the delivery of strategic weapons. At the beginning of the Dwight Eisenhower administration in 1953, most observers concluded that the Soviet Union could not challenge U.S. superiority in nuclear weaponry for at least five years, let alone match the advantage that the United States had in delivery systems. By 1953 the SAC complement of more than 330 Boeing B-47 Stratojet bombers could strike Soviet targets from a network of overseas U.S. bases. Moreover, the prototype of the intercontinental-range eight-engine Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber had already been built. In 1955 SAC took delivery of the first operational B-52s. These became the workhorse of SAC. Beginning in the early 1960s, B-52s armed with nuclear weapons were put on airborne alert, with some planes aloft at all times, ready to strike targets in the Soviet Union at a moment’s notice. These alerts were terminated in 1968, however. Issues concerning the vulnerability of nuclear weapons delivery systems came to the fore by the middle of the 1950s. Effective deterrence by then required more than the deployment of large numbers of weapons systems. These systems would have to withstand initial strikes while retaining sufficient offensive capability and destructive power to inflict substantial damage upon an aggressor in retaliation. A RAND Corporation study concluded that overseas SAC air bases would become vulnerable to Soviet aircraft strikes and recommended positioning most SAC facilities in the United States, dispersing such facilities, and developing new alert and warning procedures. Another RAND study called attention to the growing Soviet missile threat, underscoring that measures

Strategic Air Command designed to protect U.S. strategic forces against bomber attacks would not necessarily shield forces from missile strikes. Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles posed a substantially greater potential threat to B-47 forces deployed overseas than did Soviet bombers. Soviet deployment of long-range ballistic missiles also potentially endangered the survivability of the B-52 forces located in the United States. By the early 1960s, significant Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities made SAC forces increasingly vulnerable worldwide. This in turn led the United States to include numerous medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile forces as the backbone of SAC’s deterrent policy. In 1959 SAC numbered 262,600 personnel and 3,207 (all-jet) aircraft but just 25 missiles. By 1962 the supersonic Convair B-58 Hustler bomber had been deployed, phasing out the old B-47s, while Titan II and Minuteman I ICBMs were deployed, greatly enhancing America’s nuclear deterrent. In 1962 SAC reached its apex in terms of personnel, with 282,000 personnel. A number of SAC B-52 bombers took part in the Vietnam War. In that war, B-52s delivered conventional ordnance and were initially employed only in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), often in direct support of ground operations. It was thus a strange set of circumstances whereby tactical aircraft bore the brunt of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), while the B-52 strategic bombers were employed over South Vietnam and in southern Laos, often in the former case in direct support of troops on the ground. B-52s could deliver substantial amounts of conventional munitions onto targets. Not designed for area bombing but rather to deliver nuclear warheads against the Soviet Union, the B-52s were modified for Vietnam service and the delivery of conventional ordnance. B-52Fs could carry up to 51 750-pound bombs, and a flight of three planes could thus deliver approximately 114,750 pounds of munitions. B-52Ds modified in the Big Belly program could carry up to 108 750-pound bombs. The number of B-52s deployed to Southeast Asia and Guam varied, but at times more than 200 were operational in those places. The B-52 first flew in the skies over Vietnam in June 1965. SAC operations in South Vietnam, known as Arc Light missions, were based in Guam. Arc Light was intended to disrupt and destroy major control centers, supply storage facilities, logistic systems, and lines of communication and to support field operations, as in the case of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley and the Battle of Khe Sanh in which the B-52s dropped 60,000 tons of bombs. Arc Light operations continued until 1973, and B-52s flew 126,615 Arc Light sorties during the conflict. Flying directly from Guam, the B-52s also operated against the Ho Chi Minh Trail network, used by North Vietnam to infiltrate supplies and men into South Vietnam. In 1967 the B-52s began flying missions out of U-Tapao Royal Thai Air Base.

1069

SAC B-52s played a major role during the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive in 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon ordered them to conduct strikes deep within North Vietnam in Operation LINEBACKER. In December 1972 after the failure to secure a peace agreement, Nixon ordered Operation LINEBACKER II, the heavy bombing of North Vietnam including the Hanoi and Haiphong areas. During LINEBACKER II, B-52s flew 729 sorties, and support aircraft flew more than 1,000 sorties. Of the 33 B-52s lost in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, 15 went down in LINEBACKER II. Many believe that LINEBACKER II brought the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table in Paris. The conventional role of the B-52s in Vietnam substantially degraded SAC’s strategic mission, however, and its ballistic missile forces (along with submarine-based missiles) were forced to take up the slack. Following the Vietnam War, SAC grew considerably but in weaponry rather than personnel. By the early 1980s, SAC’s deterrent arsenal included 1,000 Minuteman II and III ICBMs and 54 Titan II ICBMs. SAC aircraft included, in addition to the B-52, the Boeing/ Rockwell International B-1 Lander and General Dynamics FB-111 Switchblade/Aardvark bombers, short-range attack missiles, a large tanker force using Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers and McDonnellDouglas KC-10 Extenders, and the Lockheed U-2 and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. Designed originally as a high-altitude strike aircraft, the B-52 became a low-level penetrator. Improved avionics allowed B-52s to fly at 400 knots (460 miles per hour) 200 feet above ground level to avoid radar detection. SAC was inactivated on June 1, 1992, shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At the time of SAC’s inactivation, it numbered approximately 110,000 personnel. Its mission was absorbed by the newly established U.S. Strategic Command, which includes all four branches of U.S. military service, and SAC’s aircraft and units were allocated to the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command and the Air Mobility Command. DAVID M. KEITHLY See also Aircraft, Bombers; Arc Light Missions; Bombing Halts and Restrictions; Bombs, Gravity; Ia Drang, Battle of; Khe Sanh, Battle of; LeMay, Curtis Emerson; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Precision-Guided Munitions; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; United States Air Force References Coard, Edna. U.S. Air Power: Key to Deterrence. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1976. Dorr, Robert F. Air War Hanoi. London: Blandford, 1988. Gregory, Barry. The Vietnam War: Air War, North Vietnam. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1988. Haley, P. Edward, David M. Keithly, and Jack Merrit, eds. Nuclear Strategy, Arms Control, and the Future. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. Lloyd, Alwyn T. A Cold War Legacy: A Tribute to the Strategic Air Command 1946–1992. Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 2000. Wiest, Andrew, ed. Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006.

1070

Strategic Hamlet Program

Strategic Hamlet Program Start Date: 1961 End Date: 1964 The most ambitious and well-known effort by President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to pacify the countryside and neutralize the Viet Cong (VC) insurgents. The Strategic Hamlet Program sought to provide security and a better life for the rural populace by settling them in protected hamlets, where government cadres could carry out economic and political programs. Following in the wake of a similar effort, the Agroville Campaign, the Strategic Hamlet Program was inaugurated in 1961 and officially ended early in 1964, but it began to wane even before Diem was overthrown in November 1963. The concept of the Strategic Hamlet Program derived from British counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson’s experiences in quashing the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. Between 1961 and 1965 Thompson served as head of the British Advisory Mission and advised the Diem government on counterinsurgency or pacification programs. Thompson’s notion was to organize villagers to provide for their own defense. In Malaya the failure of the Chinese insurgents, who were ethnically different from the villagers, to penetrate the population meant that little more was required than to organize a home guard, a local security force supported by local police. The government could then relocate the Chinese squatters. The situation in Vietnam was more complex, however. The VC were well established in all areas of the country and were of the same ethnicity as the villagers. Therefore, the insurgents were not easily identified and segregated from the rest of the people. Thompson’s notion was to bring security to where the people already lived. Relocation was to be minimal. Thompson estimated at the start of the program that only 5 percent of the hamlets, those in VC-controlled areas, would have to be moved to new sites. The strategic hamlets were intended to physically and politically isolate the insurgents from the people, their recruiting base. American civilians, notably Roger Hilsman and Walt Rostow in the State Department as well as embassy personnel in Saigon, favored the program, but American military leaders criticized the concept of strategic hamlets, believing that it tied military forces into a defensive posture. Lieutenant General Lionel McGarr, head of the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), thought that this role was more appropriate for police than for regular forces. He urged military clearing operations instead of tying down forces in static positions. Diem undertook the Strategic Hamlet Program on his own without first informing the Americans, merely presenting them with a fait accompli. But Diem had his own reasons for embarking on the program. He saw it as a way to secure assistance from the United States while managing the program himself. Aware of the danger of being perceived by the Vietnamese as an American puppet, he wanted to control the program in order to fend off critics,

retain independence, and resist Washington’s pressure for political reforms. Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, who carried out the program, significantly changed Thompson’s original concept. Thompson proposed surrounding existing hamlets with security forces, but Diem and Nhu decided that security should begin within the hamlets and embarked on an ambitious plan to build fortified hamlets, which in practice involved relocating villagers. Nhu established three goals. First, the government would link the people in fortified hamlets in a communications network, allowing them to summon local defense and reaction forces in case of emergency. Second, the program would unite the people and bind them to the government. Third, the government would work to improve living standards. Nhu wanted half of South Vietnam’s 14,000 hamlets to be completed by early 1963 and another 5,000 completed by early 1964. The remainder would be swept along by example. To meet these ambitious quotas, Nhu exerted severe pressure on province chiefs, despite their lack of authority over local officials. Nhu’s plans led to overexpansion, creating far more hamlets than Saigon’s forces could protect or its cadres could administer. Under pressure from Saigon to show results, province officials often appeased Nhu with meaningless data. In 1962 the government designated 2,600 settlements in the I, II, and III Corps tactical zones as “completed,” but American officials ruefully concluded that the definition of “completed” varied greatly from hamlet to hamlet in terms of quality of defenses and percentage of the population under government control. Pressure to meet unrealistic goals encouraged a focus on the superficial aspects of the program, such as erecting fences, that often sufficed to officially reclassify an existing settlement as a strategic hamlet. The program imposed onerous burdens on the people, such as controls on their movement and demands for guard duty. According to the U.S. embassy, most villagers viewed the program as a security measure, not as an element of revolution. In May 1963 General Paul Harkins, head of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), criticized the program’s execution as superficial because it left Communist-controlled hamlets and salients in government areas. He urged Diem to expand the program more logically to consolidate his hold on the countryside. The Communists initially limited their opposition to disseminating propaganda that compared the strategic hamlets to prisons and inserting agents to collect taxes, recruit, and stir up resentment toward the government. By the summer of 1963 they shifted tactics, directly attacking hamlets and severing links between them and nearby reaction forces. The hamlets were vulnerable because there were too many that were poorly built and weakly defended. The Communists’ new approach bore results, and the number of government-run strategic hamlets drastically fell. By July 1964, for example, only 30 of the 219 strategic hamlets in Long An Province remained under government control. After the Strategic Hamlet Program had ended, Thompson criticized its implementation on three grounds. First, using the

Strategic Hamlet Program

1071

Women and children of the Da Ban strategic hamlet in the Republic of Vietnam pose for a military photographer in 1963. The Strategic Hamlet Program was designed to provide security for the rural populace in South Vietnam by settling them in protected villages where the government could carry out political and economic programs. (National Archives)

Can Lao Party, Nhu attempted to control the program from the top down instead of winning political and popular support at the bottom. Second, by emphasizing the Republican Youth, he created divisions between the youths and the village elders, the traditional leaders. Third, Nhu failed to understand the extent of VC penetration and was unprepared to take the harsh measures necessary to eliminate it within the hamlets. Faulty execution compromised a promising pacification program. Not only did the Strategic Hamlet Program fail to halt the insurgency, but it manifested the arbitrary and repressive aspect of Diem’s rule. The program was also plagued by corruption. The inadequacy of the Strategic Hamlet Program served as a metaphor for the regime’s failure to stem the insurgency, to gain and hold the support of the people, and to win the confidence of the John F. Kennedy administration, which acquiesced in Diem’s overthrow. The failure of the Strategic Hamlet Program had a larger significance: pacification would be supplanted as a strategy for fighting the war. Two successor pacification efforts in 1964, the Chien Thang Program and Operation HOP TAC, were also poorly executed and failed to reverse Saigon’s declining fortunes in the

countryside. In late 1964 the emboldened Communists began to infiltrate conventional People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units into South Vietnam to administer the coup de grâce. It was a situation beyond the scope of pacification to remedy, forcing Washington to intervene with a bombing campaign and ground troops. RICHARD A. HUNT See also Agroville Program; Harkins, Paul Donal; Hilsman, Roger; Malaysia; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Pacification; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Staley, Eugene; Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker References Colby, William, with James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Osborne, Milton. Strategic Hamlets in Vietnam. Data Paper 55. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, April 1965. Thompson, Sir Robert. Defeating Communist Insurgency. New York: Praeger, 1966.

1072

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Youth-oriented civil rights organization founded in April 1960 in Raleigh, North Carolina, by Ella Baker. In early 1960 a group of African American college students organized a series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in the southern states. The first of the desegregation protests began on February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina, and soon spread throughout the South. In April, African American college students, led by Ella Baker, organized a series of meetings at Shaw University in Raleigh to fight racism and segregation with legal and nonviolent means. This group would soon take the name Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the second half of the 1960s, the SNCC was also involved in the anti–Vietnam War movement. In 1961 along with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the SNCC organized Freedom Rides, a series of student protests against segregation on buses and public transportation. The SNCC also organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963), which protested against the John F. Kennedy administration’s lack of civil rights reforms; the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, a drive to register black voters; and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1964). The goal of this latter organization was to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an integrated party, to win seats at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. The SNCC suffered several setbacks. The Freedom Summer failed in large measure because of white authorities who actively prevented black voters from registering. Furthermore, the national Democratic Party was not convinced that the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party should hold seats at the 1964 convention. Instead, the SNCC was offered a compromise of two nonvoting seats for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party next to the regular Mississippi delegates. The SNCC refused this offer at the Democratic National Convention. After the 1964 failure in Mississippi and at the Democratic National Convention, the SNCC became disenchanted with the federal government and with the SNCC’s tactics of nonviolence. After the tumultuous Watts Riots in Los Angeles in 1965, some SNCC members broke away from the liberal civil rights fighters and turned toward violence or militancy. One-time SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael called for asserting Black Power through violent means. In 1967 he joined the Black Panther Party, advocating violence to achieve social justice. Carmichael resigned as chairman of the SNCC in 1968 and was replaced by H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), who also supported violence as a means to achieve the organization’s goals. The distance between the SNCC and the mainstream Civil Rights Movement was now vast. Soon the SNCC expelled all of its white members, volunteers, and supporters. Brown also changed the name of the organization to the Student National Coordinating Committee, deleting the word “nonviolent.” Prior to the 1965 escalation of the Vietnam War, which marked a steady crescendo of escalations, the SNCC had not generally com-

mented on U.S. foreign policy. However, the Vietnam War became an issue for the SNCC in 1966 when both southern and northern members pressed for SNCC involvement in the nascent antiwar movement. This move toward the antiwar movement was abetted in part by U.S. draft policies and deferments that ensured that a disproportionate number of African Americans would be drafted and would serve in Vietnam. And as early as 1965, the civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had characterized the war as a cruel hoax perpetrated on the nation’s poor. The 1966 murder of Samuel Young, an SNCC worker and a Tuskegee Institute student who was also a Vietnam War veteran, served as a catalyst for the SNCC to release an official opinion on the Vietnam War. Young had been murdered by a white gas station attendant for using the whites-only restroom. The SNCC now identified with the cause of Vietnamese people, poor nonwhites oppressed and savaged by the U.S. government. SNCC leaders likened the U.S. bombings of Vietnamese civilians to the failure of the U.S. government to bring to justice the murderers of black citizens. The burning of Vietnamese villages resembled the destruction of African American culture. With these comparisons in mind, in its official statement the SNCC condemned the Vietnam War, calling the intentions of the U.S. government deceptive. By the end of the 1960s, however, the SNCC’s influence had badly eroded, and by the early 1970s the SNCC had disappeared from the scene. ANNA RULSKA See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Civil Rights Movement; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Selective Service References Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Carmichael, Stokely, and Michael Thelwell. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner, 2003. Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn. A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

Students for a Democratic Society A leading organization in the campus-based antiwar movement of the 1960s. When the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) first appeared in January 1960 on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the principal goals of the organization were to support the Civil Rights Movement and politically organize the urban poor. Tom Hayden, a University of Michigan student, served as the organization’s first secretary and worked hard to popularize its ideas. The SDS grew in size and notoriety after June 1962 when it issued the Port Huron Statement, which called for “true democracy” in the United States, an end to racial discrimination, an end to the arms race, and an end to corporate greed and corruption. The statement also energized student

Students for a Democratic Society

1073

A scuffle occurs on the Princeton University campus on April 23, 1969, when members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) attempt to prevent access to a Defense Department building there. (AP/Wide World Photos)

activists to increase their involvement with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and to embrace civil disobedience as a means by which to achieve a true participatory democracy. The involvement of the SDS with traditional politics was shortlived, however. The limited progress of the Civil Rights Movement and America’s increasing involvement in Vietnam soon radicalized Hayden and his colleagues. By 1964 and especially after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the SDS began to organize more and more campus demonstrations, including teach-ins, to protest the Vietnam War. SDS members circulated “We Won’t Go” petitions among young men of draft age and developed a militant (and sophisticated) draftresistance program to serve their needs. As a result of these activities, SDS membership grew rapidly. During 1965–1966 the number of SDS chapters at U.S. colleges and universities doubled from 124 to 250, with an actual overall membership of some 31,000 people. Toward the end of the 1960s, dissension began to overtake the organization. Those who saw America’s involvement in Vietnam

beginning to wind down wanted to shift the organization’s focus to domestic and cultural issues. Others continued to advocate the importance of politics but in a more violent and revolutionary vein. Antiwar demonstrations soon became more unruly. During the Stop the Draft week of October 1967, for example, SDS leader Carl Davidson demanded that protesters burn down government draft centers. Still worse was the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where SDS members and their sympathizers fought with and were battered by riot police in the streets. At its peak the SDS had approximately 400 chapters, but Vietnamization, a growing revulsion toward student violence, and the fragmentation of the New Left into different political arenas, such as women’s liberation and Black Power, led to the demise of the SDS. The organization’s impact was significant, however. Although the SDS did not change U.S. foreign policy, it did help block or scale back the number of military options that presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were initially prepared to use. As a result,

1074

Studies and Observation Group

Vietnamization became the only viable option that the Nixon administration had left to extricate itself from a political and military dead end. By 1972 the SDS virtually ceased to exist as an effective, coherent advocacy group. TRACY R. SZCZEPANIAK See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; May Day Tribe; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins; Weathermen References Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Miller, James. Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. O’Neill, William L. Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s. New York: Times Books, 1971. Viorst, Milton. Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Studies and Observation Group U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), subordinate command primarily concerned with covert operations and intelligence gathering. In 1964 MACV organized the Studies and Observation Group (commonly known as MACV-SOG). Supposedly created to evaluate the success of the military adviser program, this mission was actually a cover for highly classified clandestine operations conducted throughout Southeast Asia. MACV-SOG was activated in January 1964 as a MACV subordinate command (and not a Special Forces unit) under the direction of the special assistant for counterinsurgency and special activities (SACSA) in the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) at the Pentagon. MACV-SOG was a joint-service (U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps) command that by 1966 included more than 2,000 U.S. personnel, most of whom were U.S. Army Special Forces, and 8,000 indigenous personnel, including troops from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Montagnard troops. U.S. forces assigned to MACV-SOG also included personnel from the U.S. Air Force 90th Special Operations Wing, Navy SEALs, and Marine Force Recon. MACV-SOG’s area of responsibility included Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and South Vietnam as well as the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, and Hainan Island. MACV-SOG was divided into a number of different groups. The Psychological Studies Group, operating out of Hue and Tay Ninh, made false radio broadcasts from powerful transmitters. The Air Studies Group, complete with Bell UH-1F “Green Hornet” and Sikorsky H-34 Seahorse/Choctaw helicopters, a C-130 squadron, and a Chase Fairchild C-123 Provider squadron, specialized in dropping and recovering special intelligence groups into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. The Maritime Studies Group

concentrated its efforts on commando raids along the North Vietnamese coast and the Mekong Delta. The Ground Studies Group carried out the greatest number of missions, including ambushes and raids, monitoring the location of American prisoners of war, assassinations, kidnappings, rescue of airmen downed in Communist-controlled territory, long-range reconnaissance patrols, training and dispatching agents into North Vietnam to run resistant movement operations, and harassment and booby-trapping of infiltration routes and ammunition supply facilities. In 1967 MACV-SOG reorganized its ground strike elements into three field commands: Command and Control Central (CCC), located in Kontum; Command and Control North (CCN), located in Da Nang; and Command and Control South (CCS), located in Ban Me Thuot. The CCC was responsible for classified unconventional warfare operations throughout the triborder region of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The CCN was responsible for special unconventional warfare missions into Laos and North Vietnam. The CCS was responsible for clandestine unconventional warfare operations inside Viet Cong (VC)–dominated areas of South Vietnam and throughout Cambodia. These organizations included Spike Recon Teams (each composed of 3 U.S. Special Forces and 8 indigenous personnel), Hatchet Forces (composed of 5 U.S. Special Forces and 30 indigenous personnel), and SLAM (seek, locate, annihilate, monitor) companies. In March 1971 MACV-SOG’s CCN, CCC, and CCS field commands were redesignated as Task Force Advisory Elements 1, 2, and 3, respectively, and were charged with advising the South Vietnamese Strategic Technical Directorate Liaison Service, but this change had little impact on the actual activities of the former MACV-SOG commands. Over the years, MACV-SOG personnel were awarded six Medals of Honor. MACV-SOG was inactivated on April 30, 1972. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Montagnards; Project Delta; Project Omega; SEAL Teams; Sigma I and II; United States Special Forces References Plaster, John. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years; A History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983.

Submachine Guns Submachine guns were used extensively by all of the major combatants in both phases of the Vietnam War. A submachine gun is a unique class of automatic-firing small arm that is distinctly different from either an automatic rifle or an assault rifle.

Submachine Guns A submachine gun has two defining characteristics: it fires pistol ammunition and operates on the principle of blowback rather than the recoil or gas operation systems of all other automatic weapons. During blowback operation the weapon’s bolt does not lock prior to firing or unlock after firing. Thus, a greater percentage of the energy from each round fired is used to move the bolt to the rear and cycle the weapon’s action. This combined with pistol ammunition, which is significantly less powerful than rifle ammunition, means that submachine guns have limited effective ranges, although their rates of fire are high. Submachine guns evolved from experiments during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that fit shoulder stocks to semiautomatic pistols, which were converted to full-automatic fire. Fully automatic pistols today are classified as machine pistols. Such weapons were used in Vietnam on a very limited basis, but their tactical role was not significant. The American Thompson was one of the first weapons officially designated a submachine gun. Introduced in 1921, the earliest versions were complicated mechanisms with closely machined toler-

1075

ances. The iconic symbol of the Depression-era gangster films, the first military version of the Thompson was the M-1928. A simplified version was introduced in 1942 as the M-1 submachine gun, and an even simpler version was introduced shortly thereafter as the M-1A1. Virtually all of the Thompsons used in Vietnam were either the M-1 or the M-1A1, which weighed 10.1 pounds, had a cyclic rate of fire of 700 rounds per minute, and fired a .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) cartridge from a 20- or a 30-round detachable box magazine. The Thompson’s maximum effective range was only about 218 yards. Although only limited numbers were used by U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force units in Vietnam, Thompsons were used by the French and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), and captured Thompsons were highly prized by the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong (VC). The M-3 submachine gun entered U.S. service in 1943. Made with a stamped steel receiver and having only a few machined parts, the M-3 cost a mere $20 to produce during World War II. It was nicknamed the “Grease Gun” because of its striking similarity

Members of the Republic of Vietnam’s self-defense forces train with American-made Thompson submachine guns at an outpost in the Mekong River Delta, January 29, 1963. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1076

Sullivan, William Healy

in appearance to that standard auto mechanic’s tool. The M-3 was a dangerous weapon to carry because it fired from an open-bolt position and was prone to going off if dropped. The weapon’s heavy steel bolt with a fixed firing pin head machined into its face contributed a significant percentage to the M-3’s 8-pound total weight. The initial version of the M-3 had an external cocking lever on the weapon’s left side. Unnecessarily complicated and prone to breaking, the cocking lever was eliminated from the M-3A1 version. To cock the M-3A1, the gunner simply opened the bolt dust cover and moved the bolt back to the cocked position with his finger. The M-3A1 fired the same .45 ACP ammunition as the Thompson from a 30-round detachable box magazine. The cyclic rate of fire was only 450 rounds per minute, and the maximum effective range was only 164 yards. Many ARVN units carried the M-3A1, but it was also standard issue on many U.S. Army armored vehicles throughout the war and for quite a few years after. The Swedish K submachine gun, also known as the Carl Gustav M/45, was used by U.S. Navy SEALs in Vietnam. It weighed 7.4 pounds and fired the 9 ÷ 19-mm parabellum round. The cyclic rate of fire was 600 rounds per minute, and the maximum effective range was 218 yards. In 1966 the Swedish government blocked export of the Swedish K to the United States to protest the Vietnam War. To fill the gap, Smith & Wesson produced the M-76 submachine gun, which was almost an exact clone. Only limited numbers of the M-76 actually made it to Vietnam. The two primary French submachine guns were the MAS-39 and the MAT-49. Both weapons had a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute and a maximum effective range of only 109 yards. The MAS-39 weighed 6.3 pounds and fired the 7.65 ÷ 17-mm round. The MAT-49 weighed 7.7 pounds and fired the 9 ÷ 19-mm parabellum round. The Viet Minh converted many of their captured MAT-49s to the 7.62 ÷ 25-mm Tokarev pistol round, which was available in large quantities from China. The converted MAT-49s had a somewhat longer barrel and a cyclic rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute. The submachine gun most widely used by Communist forces was the World War II–era Soviet PPsh-41 and its Chinese variant, the Type 50. The PPsh-41 weighed 8 pounds and fired the 7.62 ÷ 25-mm Tokarev pistol round. The cyclic rate of fire was 900 rounds per minute, and the maximum effective range was 273 yards. The PPsh-41 fed from either a somewhat unreliable 71-round drum magazine or a far more reliable 35-round box magazine. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) also converted the PPsh41 and Type 50 to a version designated the K-50M, with a cut-back barrel cooling jacket and sights adapted from the French MAT-49. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Rifles References Bishop, Chris, and Ian Drury, eds. Combat Guns: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Firearms. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1987.

Hogg, Ian V. Jane’s Infantry Weapons, 1991–92. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group, 1991. Poyer, Joe. The AK-47 and AK-74 Kalashnikov Rifles and Their Variants. Tustin, CA: North Cape Publications, 2006. Robinson, Anthony, Anthony Preston, and Ian V. Hogg. Weapons of the Vietnam War. New York: Gallery Books, 1983. Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965–73. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2005. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong Fighter. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. Smith, W. H. B., and Edward C. Ezell. Small Arms of the World. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992.

Sullivan, William Healy Birth Date: October 12, 1922 American diplomat and ambassador to Laos (1964–1969). Born on October 12, 1922, in Cranston, Rhode Island, William Healy Sullivan graduated from Brown University in 1943 and spent more than two years in the U.S. Navy as an officer on minesweepers and destroyers in the Atlantic and Pacific during World War II. After the war he entered the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, earning a master’s degree in Latin American studies. Sullivan joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1947. He went on to serve in a variety of positions in Washington and abroad, including postings to Bangkok, Calcutta, Tokyo, and The Hague. In 1961 Sullivan came to the attention of W. Averell Harriman, who had been charged by President John F. Kennedy with negotiating an end to the Laos crisis. Over the objections of more senior foreign service officers, Harriman designated the junior Sullivan as deputy U.S. representative to the Geneva Conference on Laos. Working closely together, Harriman and Sullivan successfully concluded the Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos, signed on July 23, 1962. The relationship between the two men continued after the Geneva Conference, with Sullivan serving as special assistant to Undersecretary of State Harriman working on Southeast Asian affairs. In December 1964 Sullivan arrived in Laos as U.S. ambassador. Over the next four years he was responsible for the conduct of military operations against an increasingly aggressive Communist threat. “The secret war in Laos,” author Charles Stevenson has emphasized, “was William Sullivan’s war.” The ambassador insisted on an efficient, closely controlled country team. Sullivan imposed two conditions on his subordinates. First, the thin fiction of the Geneva Accords had to be maintained to avoid possible embarrassment to the Lao and Soviet governments; military operations therefore had to be carried out in relative secrecy, largely by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–led Hmong tribesmen. Second, no regular U.S. ground troops were to become involved, although American airpower would be necessary. In general, Sullivan successfully carried out this policy. Sullivan enjoyed a role that Missouri senator Stuart Symington once described as “a military proconsul.” Sullivan ran the war with

Summers, Harry G., Jr. a firm hand, occasionally clashing with U.S. military authorities in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). He usually won these bureaucratic battles, as he had the confidence of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Sullivan’s informative and often witty cables were appreciated by Johnson and his national security adviser, Walt Rostow. Sullivan left Laos in March 1969 just as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) introduced major new forces into the country and expanded the war. As deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, he helped to formulate the proposals that the United States would put forward at the Paris peace talks on Vietnam. Sullivan then acted as chief deputy to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger in Paris and played an important role in negotiating the agreement that was signed on January 27, 1973. Sullivan served as ambassador to the Philippines from 1973 to 1977. His last assignment was as ambassador to Iran from 1977 to 1979. When the administration of President Jimmy Carter rejected Sullivan’s advice that the United States accept the fundamentalist revolution in Iran and try to steer it in a more moderate direction, Sullivan resigned from the Foreign Service. He subsequently authored several books, including Mission to Iran (1981), which detailed his harrowing experiences as ambassador during the Iranian Revolution, and Obbligato, 1939–1979: Notes on a Foreign Service Career (1984). WILLIAM M. LEARY See also Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Harriman, William Averell; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Laos; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Taylor-McNamara Report References Castle, Timothy N. At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U.S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955–1975. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Stevenson, Charles A. The End of Nowhere: American Policy towards Laos since 1954. Boston: Beacon, 1972. Sullivan, William H. Obbligato, 1939–1979: Notes on a Foreign Service Career. New York: Norton, 1984.

Summers, Harry G., Jr. Birth Date: May 6, 1932 Death Date: November 14, 1999 U.S. Army officer, author, and analyst of U.S. policy regarding Vietnam. Born in Covington, Kentucky, on May 6, 1932, Harry G. Summers Jr. lied about his age and enlisted in the army when he was only 15 years old. During the Korean War he served as an infantry squad leader, earning the Silver Star. While still an enlisted man, he earned a college degree at the University of Maryland, and in 1957 he received a direct commission as a second lieutenant of infantry.

1077

Summers served in Vietnam from February 1966 to June 1967. He was an assistant operations officer for II Field Force and then operations officer of the 1st Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry, after which he was again an assistant operations officer at II Field Force. He was wounded twice. After his Vietnam tour he attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, where Colin Powell was one of his classmates. Summers returned to Vietnam in July 1974 as chief of the Negotiations Division of the Four Party Joint Military Commission. In that capacity he flew to Hanoi to negotiate with members of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) General Staff. When PAVN forces overran Saigon, Summers was evacuated in one of the last helicopters to leave the American embassy on April 30, 1975. In 1979 Summers joined the faculty of the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. While there he wrote On Strategy, a brilliant and scholarly book that was the first and perhaps most influential analysis of America’s failure in Vietnam. After retiring from the army as a colonel in 1985, Summers became a widely noted military commentator and writer and the founding editor of Vietnam magazine. Summers’s writings, and On Strategy in particular, have had a profound impact on American military thinking. In the continuing debate over the U.S. performance on Southeast Asian battlefields, Summers was a leading voice on the side that maintains that U.S. forces never lost a battle. Retired Colonel David Hackworth, a leading voice in the opposite camp, maintains that American tactics failed dismally. Tactical performance, however, is only a peripheral piece of Summers’s broader, more significant argument. On Strategy focuses primarily on the strategic level of war. The book analyzes U.S. conduct of the war within the framework of classic Clausewitzian theory and the time-tested principles of war first articulated by British major general J. F. C. Fuller in the 1920s. Summers points out that America had no clearly defined goal and no strategic objective in Vietnam. He also shows that the lack of internal political support for the war violated Clausewitz’s concept of the “Remarkable Trinity,” which requires a unity of purpose among the government, the military, and the people before any nation’s war effort can succeed. According to Christopher Bassford, Summers’s arguments were tremendously influential both inside and outside the military. They underlie many important statements of American national policy, most significantly the 1984 Weinburger Doctrine. Many of the ideas in the U.S. Army’s 1993 capstone manual of war-fighting doctrine, FM 100-5 Operations, are paraphrased directly from On Strategy. Summers also influenced the trend among U.S. Senior Service Colleges (War Colleges) to add to their curriculum the systematic study of Clausewitz’s writings. In the 1990s Summers wrote a syndicated newspaper column on national security affairs for the Los Angeles Times. He was also a sought-after speaker and lecturer. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War he provided television commentary on the war, often as

1078

SUNFLOWER, Operation

events were unfolding on screen. Summers died on November 14, 1999, in Washington, D.C. DAVID T. ZABECKI

await changes in the military situation that forced the parties from their intransigent positions. PAUL S. DAUM AND B. J. ROGERS

See also Four-Party Joint Military Commission; Hackworth, David Haskell; Powell, Colin Luther

See also Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; MARIGOLD, Operation

References Bassford, Christopher. Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press 1995.

SUNFLOWER,

Operation

Start Date: January 5, 1967 End Date: February 15, 1967 Unsuccessful peace initiative following the failure of Operation MARIGOLD. Operation SUNFLOWER consisted of a direct U.S. approach to Hanoi through the embassy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Moscow and a parallel attempt in London by British prime minister Harold Wilson, working with Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin. Lingering questions about MARIGOLD probably motivated both the United States and North Vietnam. These included whether the North Vietnamese had been serious about negotiating and whether the United States had been willing to use Janusz Lewandowski’s “Ten Points” (his draft of the U.S. bargaining position) as the basis for a settlement. In Moscow, the U.S. and North Vietnamese representatives essentially restated previous positions: Washington insisted on mutual de-escalation according to Phase A and Phase B (in Phase A, the United States stops the bombing; in Phase B, both sides deescalate after an adequate time) and Hanoi demanded an unconditional halt to U.S. acts of war on North Vietnam as a precondition for talks. This impasse killed the Moscow channel. On February 15 North Vietnam terminated contact. While Wilson pursued his peace overture with Kosygin, the U.S. position on the sequence of de-escalatory moves hardened. This was complicated by a letter from President Lyndon Johnson to Ho Chi Minh. Although Wilson’s impropriety in presenting a U.S. offer without permission contributed to the problems, U.S. bungling doomed this channel, strained American-British relations, and confused the Soviet Union and North Vietnam. SUNFLOWER, during which both North Vietnam and the United States perceived the other as becoming more rigid in its negotiating stance, stands as a diplomatic debacle. Certainly MARIGOLD and SUNFLOWER together add up to a tragedy of errors, but even perfect diplomacy could not have surmounted the fact that the two sides held irreconcilable positions. Diplomatic success would have to

References Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. Rev. and updated edition. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Kraslow, David, and Stuart H. Loory. The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Radvanyi, Janos. Delusion and Reality: Gambits, Hoaxes, and Diplomatic One-Upmanship in Vietnam. South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1978.

SUNRISE,

Operation

Start Date: March 22, 1962 End Date: August 1963 Early allied pacification effort in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation SUNRISE was a pilot project in the Strategic Hamlet Program. SUNRISE called for troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to establish hamlets in one of the least secure areas in South Vietnam: an inhospitable area of scrub, jungle, and rubber plantations located north of Saigon in Ben Cat District, Binh Duong Province, in War Zone D. The plan was the brainchild of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and its cost was underwritten by the U.S. government. In November 1962 U.S. correspondent Peter Arnett reported that only 4 of the planned 14 hamlets called for in the operation had been constructed; that Ben Tuong, the largest of the hamlets in the operation, “was falling apart”; and that the “experimental hamlets had in fact become expensive internment camps.” General William Westmoreland noted in August 1963 that “the showplace strategic hamlet of Ben Tuong—the first-built of all strategic hamlets in Operation Sunrise—was overrun by the Viet Cong.” It was nonetheless “a mecca for visiting congressmen and journalists, proof that American money was being spent wisely and well.” Stanley Karnow wrote that John Donnell and Gerald Hickey, two Vietnamese-speaking RAND Corporation researchers whom he knew in Vietnam, concluded that the Ben Cat test was being bungled. Operation SUNRISE failed in its attempt at forced relocation of the peasants into strategic hamlets, and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) once again took control of the area. The operation ended in August 1963. PAUL S. DAUM AND B. J. ROGERS

Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam 1079

Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and closest adviser to Republic of Vietnam (RVN) president Ngo Dinh Diem, reviews government troops during the opening of the Cu Chi strategic hamlet on April 1, 1962. This fortified village was built as part of Operation SUNRISE, a pilot program to regroup and provide security for the rural population. (AP/Wide World Photos)

See also Arnett, Peter; Hickey, Gerald Cannon; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Strategic Hamlet Program; Westmoreland, William Childs References Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battle Field: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Westmoreland, General William C. Report on the War in Vietnam, Section II, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 1964– June 1968. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam A chief component in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) air defense system. On July 24, 1965, a Soviet-built radar-guided surface-to-air missile (SAM) exploded northwest of

Hanoi amid a flight of four U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4C Phantom II aircraft. Code-named the SA-2 Guideline by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and known to the Soviets as the S-75, this missile ushered in a new era in air combat. SA-2 missiles carried a high-explosive warhead of approximately 300 pounds. The missile could reach speeds up to Mach 3.5 but not until it was well past 25,000 feet in altitude. Unlike antiaircraft artillery (AAA) fire, the SA-2’s electronic guidance system could compensate for the target aircraft’s maneuvers. The SA-2’s introduction also denied U.S. aircraft the ability to operate at medium or high altitudes in the vicinity of SA-2 batteries. The Americans would have to introduce new technologies and tactics before they could regain these preferred operating altitudes. During the course of the Vietnam War, North Vietnam had two types of SAMs in its inventory; the SA-2 and SA-7 were the most potent. The SA-2 was a significant weapon, although it shot down relatively few aircraft. Of the approximately 9,000 missiles fired between 1965 and 1972, fewer than 2 percent reached their targets. Nevertheless, the SA-2 triggered the creation of a permanent

1080

Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training

electronic combat doctrine in American military aviation. This took time, however, and until late 1966 American formations in the vicinity of active SA-2 battalions would have to perform evasive maneuvers and sometimes jettison their bombs in order to escape missile launches. Even if aircraft pressed on with their bomb runs, bombing accuracy was often hindered by SA-2 activity. Without appropriate radar-detection equipment, American aviators were rarely aware that an SA-2 had targeted them until a missile was on the way. They would then evade the missile by diving to low altitudes (where the SA-2 was less effective), but this maneuver brought the aircraft into the range of lethal AAA fire. North Vietnamese missile sites were usually carved out of the countryside and were designed to allow for the quick setup of an SA-2’s radar vans, service vehicles, and missile launchers. A typical site was arranged in a Star of David pattern. The lines of the sixpointed star were roads and pathways for vehicles, and there was a missile launcher at each of the star’s points. Electric and communications cables were laid out ahead of time to allow for fast connections. Most important, the sites were quickly and expertly hidden. Until the advent of the U.S. Air Force’s Wild Weasel–equipped aircraft, it was virtually impossible to pinpoint the location of an active SA-2 site until its missiles roared off the launch rails. The SA-2 was durable, and its large knobs and controls made it easy to operate under difficult conditions. It required little training to fire, especially when compared to similar Western systems. Each crewman in the firing battery had a highly specialized function, and only the battery commander could make decisions for the crew based on orders from higher authorities. Initially, Soviet technicians manned the sites with their North Vietnamese trainees (the latter assumed more and more responsibilities as the conflict progressed). The SA-2 required a high degree of crew skill to engage fighters, for there was an appreciable delay before the missile would respond to a command to change course. Nevertheless, the North Vietnamese quickly proved themselves masters of hit-and-run missile attacks from camouflaged sites. The shuttling of missile battalions between these prepared sites amounted to a deadly shell game, especially during Operation ROLLING THUNDER (1965–1968). What made the shell game deadly was that SA-2 battalions often remained in a dispersed status, hidden in the countryside, until ready to resume firing. The battalions required about three hours to cease operations and displace and four to six hours to emplace and initiate operations. Following the U.S. bombing halt of 1968, SA-2 battalions, heretofore seen only in North Vietnam, began deploying along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. SA-2s were also deployed with ground units in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the 1972 Easter Offensive, which also saw the first appearance of the small shoulder-fired SA-7 Grail (NATO designation) infrared-guided missile. The SA-7 was a heat-seeking tail-chase weapon. Like the SA-2, the Grail could be outmaneuvered by jet fighter aircraft if the latter had enough warning, but this missile proved to be the bane of

low-flying aircraft such as U.S. Army helicopters and the U.S. Air Force Cessna O-2 Skymaster, the North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider, and even the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly. When possible, slow-maneuvering aircraft operated above 10,000 feet to fly above the range of this missile or resorted to using decoy flares. Thus, by 1972 North Vietnam’s SAM system was one of the most sophisticated and formidable in the world. Through 1968 alone, it was partially responsible for the downing of 922 fixedwing aircraft over North Vietnam. The system also forced the United States to respond by developing an equally sophisticated method of aerial attack. This method, which included new aircraft, early precision-guided munitions, and substantial improvements in electronic warfare, did slow the rate of U.S. losses, but it never completely overcame the threat posed by North Vietnamese SAMs. PATRICK K. BARKER See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; BARREL ROLL, Operation; Easter Offensive; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Rockets and Rocket Launchers; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John, et al., eds. Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Nordeen, Lon O. Air Warfare in the Missile Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.

Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training A program developed by the U.S. military to help prepare personnel for potential capture by enemy forces. Consisting of a highly rigorous program that puts trainees through extreme hardship, the purpose of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training is to acquaint trainees with various types of circumstances that they could potentially face if captured and to give them the skills necessary to survive such circumstances without suffering mental or physical breakdown and potentially compromising U.S. military efforts. Central to this training is teaching the skills necessary to adhere to the U.S. Military Code of Conduct. The U.S. Air Force established schools for survival training shortly after World War II. These schools focused primarily on survival in the harsh Arctic climate, reflecting the Cold War focus on conflict with the Soviet Union through air combat and bombing under the assumption that both sides would strike at the other by crossing the Arctic Circle. These schools paid little attention to preparing students for capture, however, explaining that if captured they should provide only their name, rank, service number, and date of birth.

Swift Boats Following the Korean War, the U.S. military sought to provide survival and resistance training to those personnel who faced a high risk of capture by enemy forces. The American prisoner of war (POW) experience in Korea showed that captured servicemen were quite unprepared for the circumstances and hardships they faced in captivity. Without the benefit of training or knowledge of enemy practices, American POWs had been left to their own devices to deal with the extreme hardships they faced. Partly as a result of this, about 40 percent of the 7,000 American POWs in Korea perished in captivity. There is also evidence that American POWs were tortured during the Korean War, leading to a breakdown in individual morale and prompting some POWs to sign false confessions; a few even decided to stay in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) rather than being repatriated at the war’s end. To help remedy these problems and to help servicemen avoid capture, the U.S. Air Force created the first modern training program in 1961. Oriented to provide extensive training in survival, evasion, resistance, and escape, the U.S. Air Force program applied the lessons of the American POW experience in Korea and provided a much more realistic environment in which to acquire and practice the skills necessary to survive. The U.S. Navy opened its first SERE schools in 1962 and provided training for desert survival as well as cold weather survival. The U.S. Army developed its own survival school in 1963, and the U.S. Marine Corps later opened a survival school but eventually merged its survival training program with that of the U.S. Navy. SERE programs consist of both academic and experiential training. During the first week of training, students review survival and evasion skills in a classroom setting. Next, students move into a period of field training in which they practice the skills studied in the classroom phase. Students are required to locate potable water and to find various forms of food in the wild as well as practice navigation skills. This phase also introduces students to the rigors of life in the wilderness, forcing them to deal with hunger, fatigue, and uncertainty. Students are also required to make their way through “hostile” territory to find a common “safe” site. Eventually all students are captured by mock enemy forces and are placed in POW camps. During the POW phase students are forced to deal with the extreme conditions of the camps, including physical and psychological punishment. Highly trained SERE instructors interrogate students, placing them in extremely stressful situations to simulate the environment of captivity. Students become acquainted with interrogation techniques and learn to the best of their ability to resist supplying valuable information to their interrogators. Students also endure stressors such as sleep and light deprivation as well as a host of other such stressors. During the Vietnam War thousands of American service personnel underwent SERE training. Those considered to be at high risk of capture, especially pilots, flight crews, special operations forces, and naval riverine personnel, spent weeks at their respective survival schools prior to their assignment to Vietnam. Follow-

1081

ing the repatriation of POWs from Vietnam and the revelations of extreme interrogation techniques and torture practiced by Vietnamese Communist captors, SERE schools further refined their programs to reflect these experiences. SERE training is somewhat controversial in the United States because of the extreme circumstances and treatment meted out during the training and the lasting effects that this can have on students. KELLY E. CRAGER See also Prisoners of War, Allied; Torture References “Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces of the United States.” Executive Order 10631, August 17, 1955. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955. Coffee, Gerald. Beyond Survival: Building on the Hard Times. New York: Putnam, 1990. Doran, Anthony P., Gary Hoyt, and Charles A. Morgan III. “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Training: Preparing Military Members for the Demands of Captivity.” In Military Psychology: Clinical and Operational Applications, edited by Carrie H. Kennedy and Eric A. Zillmer, 241–261. New York: Guilford, 2006.

Swift Boats The U.S. Navy’s fast patrol craft (PCF), or Swift Boat, was a successful compromise between the need for specialized naval craft and existing civilian commercial vehicles. PCF boats patrolled the coastal waters of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) performing interdiction of Communist shipping and supporting allied ground units, primarily in the Mekong Delta region. PCFs also operated in conjunction with U.S. destroyers and minelayers and U.S. Coast Guard cutters, all assigned to Task Force 115 as part of Operation MARKET TIME. During 1965–1972 Operation MARKET TIME was the joint U.S.South Vietnamese program to choke off seaborne infiltration by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). South Vietnam possessed more than 1,200 miles of coastline, including the mouth of Southeast Asia’s primary river system, the Mekong. During the early stages of the U.S. advisory effort (1960–1964) it became apparent that the blue-water navy would have to adapt to perform coastal and river surveillance of the large and bustling river traffic that accounted for a major share of South Vietnam’s economic stability. The forces assigned to MARKET TIME included a screen of destroyers, minesweepers, and air patrols to patrol sea-lanes; Coast Guard cutters; and an ad hoc collection of shallow-draft vessels belonging to the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) to deal with the coastal and inland waterways. The most famous of these were the South Vietnamese “Junk Force” that had U.S. naval officers and noncommissioned officers assigned to it in an advisory role. In 1965 the controlling American headquarters for

1082

Swift Boats

A U.S. Navy Patrol Craft Fast (PCF), commonly known as a “swift boat.” These highly effective and versatile vessels served along the coast in Operation MARKET TIME and far upriver in the Mekong Delta region. (Naval Historical Center)

the coastal war was transferred from the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Naval Advisory Group in the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). The MARKET TIME units were reorganized into three task forces (TFs): TF 115 (coastal surveillance), TF 116 (river patrol), and TF 117 (a Mobile Riverine Force consisting of specialized navy transport and fire-support vessels and the ground element, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division). The U.S. Navy possessed no vessels in service to operate along coastal areas and in rivers in an unconventional warfare capacity. The VNN possessed patrol torpedo (PT) boats that were of U.S. World War II vintage or newer Swedish-built patrol boats of the PT design used for unconventional operations off North Vietnam but none in sufficient numbers to conduct surveillance operations along the South Vietnamese coast. In 1965 the Naval Advisory Group published a staff study that detailed the type of boat needed for a counterinsurgency environment. Among the listings of armament, communications, radar, and range requirements, the study specified that the boat be reliable and sturdy and have a nonwood

hull. The navy turned to the civilian shipbuilding industry and found a boat that fit the general specifications of the staff study prepared by the Naval Advisory Group. In mid-1965 naval representatives met with Stewart Seacraft. This firm built a steel-hulled 50-foot boat used as a water taxi to ferry personnel and equipment to oil-drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Navy opened bidding, and Stewart was selected to construct these boats to naval specifications. The boat as delivered to the U.S. Navy was designated “Patrol Craft Fast,” or “Swifties.” The other mainstay of the river fleet, another commercial design operating in even shallower draft river waters, was designated the “Patrol Boat River.” The PCF, with a hull and keel fashioned chiefly from aluminum, was armed with twin .50-caliber machine guns above the pilothouse and a combination .50-caliber machine gun/81-millimeter mortar amidships on the rear deck. In order to facilitate the mission of surveillance and checking civilian water traffic, the boat was equipped with a variety of small arms for the crew

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth members, including M-16 rifles, .45-caliber pistols, .38-caliber revolvers, 45.-caliber Thompson submachine guns, and 12-gauge shotguns. The first four Swift Boats were delivered in 40 days after the contract was let. Two of the craft were stationed at the Coronado, California, naval base, where the Swift Boat crews were trained and doctrine for coastal operations was written and tested. The other two boats were deployed to Vietnam after refitting and testing at the U.S. Naval base at Subic Bay, Philippines. The boats had a 13-foot beam and a draft of approximately 5 feet. They were propelled by two 480-horsepower diesel engines. The boat had a cruising/top speed of 20–25 knots. Maximum range was 750 nautical miles at 10 knots. The normal crew complement was one officer and five crewmen. The initial order of 20 Mark I boats was followed by orders for 38 and then 50 boats modified by experience in Vietnam. These became the Mark II and Mark III boats and were different from the original versions in that they were slightly larger and longer and contained built-in mess and sleeping quarters, which were local modifications to original boats. The civilian boat was not designed to carry personnel for extended stays. The PCFs were most effective in the stop-and-search role. Between 1966 and 1967 Swift Boats and their crews accounted for a large number of the 700,000 boardings and searches conducted in South Vietnamese coastal waters. The boat’s speed made it ideal as a rapid-response unit supporting ground forces engaged in combat. The PCF’s massive firepower provided the deciding factor in many ground engagements. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, PCFs intercepted two North Vietnamese trawlers attempting emergency resupply of forces from Vietnamese waters, sinking one and forcing another aground. Because of MARKET GARDEN’s success, the North Vietnamese attempts to utilize seaborne infiltration tapered off in favor of the more successful land routes such as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. During 1966–1969 the North Vietnamese sent ships to the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville to deliver cargoes for transshipment to Viet Cong (VC) sanctuaries along the South Vietnamese–Cambodian border. When U.S. involvement in Vietnam ended in 1973, the existing Swift Boats were either transferred to the VNN or sold and given away to various nations as part of military aid packages. The PCF was an example of the successful marriage of naval need combined with off-the-shelf or existing civilian designs. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also GAME WARDEN, Operation; MARKET TIME, Operation; United States Navy;

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy References Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Marolda, Edward. The U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War: An Illustrated History. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2002.

1083

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Political group formed in 2004 in opposition to the presidential campaign of Democratic U.S. senator John F. Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran who had served on swift boats during the conflict. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) was composed chiefly of swift boat veterans and former Vietnam prisoners of war (POWs). When first conceived, its sole purpose was to prevent Kerry from being elected president. Although it publicized itself as nonpartisan, numerous high-level SBVT members were Republicans or otherwise had close ties to the Republican Party. Among those who made sizable contributions to the organization was Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens. Only some 250 of the more than 3,500 sailors who had served on swift boats during the war became members of SBVT, and most of those had never served with Kerry. Several of the veterans who joined the group had earlier praised Kerry’s performance during the war, including 16 naval officers who had served with Kerry in Coastal Division 11. Only 1 person who had actually served on Kerry’s boat joined the group, although he did not have a high profile within the organization. All of the other surviving members of Kerry’s crew enthusiastically supported his candidacy. Among other things, the SBVT charged that Kerry was unfit to serve as president because he had knowingly misrepresented the wartime conduct of other Vietnam veterans and had either withheld or distorted facts relating to his own conduct during the war. Many of the charges against Kerry were based on Kerry’s actions after he returned from the war, including his involvement in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that was highly critical of the war, and connection to an incident in which he and other veterans threw down their war medals on the steps of the Capitol building with media cameras recording the action. Kerry received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Heart medals during his Vietnam tour, but the circumstances surrounding the actions for which he received the awards have generated controversy. For example, his highest award, the Silver Star, was for Kerry’s action in leaving his boat and shooting a Viet Cong (VC) guerrilla who had already been wounded by American automatic weapons fire and may have been helpless. The killing of an enemy who is already wounded and down is considered a war crime under most circumstances. Additionally, at least one of his Purple Heart medals has been questioned for the highly irregular manner in which the award recommendation was processed (it was largely handled by Kerry himself). Since Kerry presented himself as a Vietnam War hero, the SBVT challenged this representation, raising troubling questions. Perhaps Kerry’s most incendiary postwar activity was his involvement in the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation. This was an effort spearheaded by Kerry to publicize testimony of some 100 veterans who claimed to have participated in or witnessed war crimes. When SBVT went public in May 2004, its allegations against Kerry created few waves, and the media largely ignored it. That

1084

SWITCHBACK, Operation

all changed, however, when the group produced television ads that began airing on August 5, 2004. These showcased numerous veterans asserting that Kerry was unreliable, dishonest, unfit to be president, and had needlessly besmirched the reputations of thousands of Vietnam veterans. Interspersed with the interviews were photos of Kerry throwing down his medals and in uniform. A second ad began running on August 24. It showed clips from Kerry’s Senate testimony in 1969 and excerpts from the Winter Soldier Investigation. That ad was followed by two more equally damning commercials that ran into early September. In August, John O’Neill (SBVT founder) and Jerome E. Corsi published a book titled Unfit for Command, published by Regnery Press and featuring a prominent photo of Kerry on the front cover. The book reiterated the main selling points of the group’s allegations. Many were aghast at the ad campaign, and Republican senator John S. McCain III strongly rebuked the first ad, saying that it was “very, very wrong.” Although McCain challenged President George W. Bush to condemn the ads, neither the president nor the Bush presidential campaign did so. Instead, they merely insisted that they did not endorse the SBVT group and did not question Kerry’s patriotism or service in the war. For Kerry’s part, his campaign made the fatal mistake of not immediately and strongly countering the attacks, and by the time his campaign did so it was too late, for the damage had already been done. While it is simplistic to say that the television ads alone caused Kerry’s defeat in the November 2004 elections, they certainly did not help his chances and managed to plant much doubt in the minds of voters concerning his veracity as a politician and his ability to lead the nation during a time of war. SBVT changed its name to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth but disbanded and ceased operations on May 31, 2008. In the meantime, the term “swift boating” entered the American political lexicon as a term describing particularly negative campaign ads. The swift boat controversy clearly showcased the divisive nature of American politics and demonstrated the continuing role of the Vietnam War in contemporary U.S. political discourse. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Kerry, John Forbes; McCain, John Sidney, III; Swift Boats References John F. Kennedy School of Government. Campaign for President: The Managers Look at 2004. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Kranish, Michael, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton. John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. Sabato, Larry J. Divided States of America: The Slash and Burn Politics of the 2004 Presidential Election. New York: Longman, 2005.

SWITCHBACK,

Operation

Start Date: November 1962 End Date: July 1963 A U.S. government effort to shift control of paramilitary efforts in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the U.S. military. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum 57, which directed that paramilitary activities that had begun under CIA control would be handed over to the military if they grew too large. On July 23, 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided that some of the CIA programs in Vietnam had indeed grown sufficiently large that this policy should be applied to them. The largest of these programs, the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG), was transferred under Operation SWITCHBACK to U.S. Special Forces by July 1963. The CIDG program was designed to protect South Vietnam’s western border in the Central Highlands by training and directing local self-defense units of Montagnard tribesmen, who conducted border surveillance and defended against Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infiltration and attacks. The CIA’s program, begun in June 1962 to put small teams called Trailwatchers along the borders of South Vietnam to check on infiltration of Communist forces across the borders, was transferred to the U.S. Special Forces in October 1963 and combined with the CIDG program in November. The CIA handover to the Special Forces control of covert operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) did not occur until the Special Operations Group (SOG), later renamed Studies and Observation Group, was formed in January 1964. SOG ran covert cross-border combat operations into North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Prior to the establishment of SOG, the CIA had run covert operations with the support and cooperation of the military. Under Operation SWITCHBACK, the relationship was reversed. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Central Intelligence Agency; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Montagnards; Road Watch Teams; Studies and Observation Group; United States Special Forces; Viet Cong Infrastructure References Conboy, Kenneth, and Andrade, Dale. Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Plaster, John. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

T Tache D’Huile French term meaning “oil slick” or “oil spot” and applied to the pacification technique of first securing key population centers and then expanding outward from them, much as an oil slick spreads on water. This process of tache d’huile, pioneered by Marshal Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (1854–1934) in Morocco, worked well in flat, open areas where there were only a few watering holes, but it was not well suited to Vietnam’s heavily forested and rugged terrain. Nonetheless, the French attempted to utilize the method throughout the Indochina War, first securing the population centers and then attempting to expand their control into the countryside. In Vietnam tache d’huile never had a chance of success because French forces were insufficient for the task. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Quadrillage/Ratissage Reference Maurois, André. Lyautey. New York: D. Appleton, 1931.

Tactical Air Command The U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Command (TAC) was established on March 21, 1946, and headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. TAC’s primary missions were to secure and maintain air superiority over the battlefield and over enemy territory, to provide close air support to friendly ground troops in contact with the enemy, and to carry out air interdiction operations against enemy ground lines of communication. TAC assets consisted of fighters, light and medium bombers, troop carrier and reconnaissance

aircraft, and tactical missiles. During its existence, TAC deployed personnel and aircraft to South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. TAC’s largest deployment of the Cold War was to Southeast Asia to assist U.S. and allied ground forces during the Vietnam War. With the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration placing major reliance on nuclear weaponry and the heavy long-range bombers operated by the Strategic Air Command (SAC), some critics questioned the relevance of TAC. This impelled TAC to incorporate tactical nuclear weapons into its arsenal, which had the practical effect of reducing its budgets but also de-emphasizing TAC’s traditional missions. These weaknesses became evident during the Vietnam War. In 1964 TAC assumed responsibility for the U.S. Air Force special forces, first known as the Air Commando and then as Special Operations units. Following the escalation of the Vietnam War after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964, TAC deployed squadrons to bases in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and Thailand. TAC aircraft supporting the war effort were also based in Okinawa and the Philippines. In December 1964 TAC sent a squadron of Fairchild C-123 Provider transport aircraft from the 464th Troop Carrier Wing to Than Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam to begin a regular air transport cargo system with Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. Ultimately TAC provided eight squadrons of C123s for duty in Southeast Asia. The most controversial use of the C-123 in the war was in Operation RANCH HAND, the U.S. Air Force herbicide-spraying campaign to reduce foliage in South Vietnam. TAC fighter and reconnaissance aircraft deployed to Southeast Asia included the North American F-100 Super Sabre, the McDonnell RF-101 Voodoo, the Republic F-105 Thunderchief, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 (RF-4) Phantom, the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark and EF-111A Raven, and the Douglas EB/RB-66

1086

Tallman, Richard Joseph

Destroyer reconnaissance aircraft. The F-100, the world’s first fighter aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight, was developed as an air-superiority fighter. It served in Vietnam primarily as a ground attack, Wild Weasel, reconnaissance, and fast forward air control aircraft. Originally developed as a penetration aircraft, the F-101 Voodoo became the reconnaissance RF-101 and flew the majority of U.S. Air Force reconnaissance missions in Vietnam until replaced by the RF-4C Phantom. The F-105, known as the “Thud,” carried the brunt of the bombing missions against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Operation ROLLING THUNDER. The Thud provided highly effective service in both fighter-bomber and Wild Weasel roles. On most bombing missions over North Vietnam, F-105s were accompanied by McDonnell Douglas F-4 (RF-4) Phantom aircraft. The F-4 and F-105 were the principal TAC aircraft of the Vietnam War. The highly successful Phantom served in a wide variety of roles in Southeast Asia, including as an air-superiority fighter, a fighter-bomber, a reconnaissance aircraft, a fast forward air control aircraft, and a Wild Weasel aircraft. TAC also provided airborne early warning and control in the form of both the Lockheed EC-121 Super Constellation and the Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer reconnaissance aircraft. Other TAC aircraft of the Vietnam War included the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and the Cessna O-2A and O-2B Skymaster tactical control aircraft. TAC aircraft remained in Southeast Asia until 1975. TAC was inactivated on June 1, 1992, and its units and equipment were transferred to the Air Combat Command. STEPHANIE LYNN TROMBLEY AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Strategic Air Command; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; United States Air Force; Wild Weasels References Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force, 1947–1997. New York: St. Martin’s, 2002. Broughton, Jack. Going Downtown: The War against Hanoi and Washington. New York: Pocket Books, 1990. Hannah, Craig C. Striving for Air Superiority: The Tactical Air Command in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002.

Pennsylvania, Richard Joseph Tallman graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1949. He served in the Korean War and was on his third tour in Vietnam when he was killed. In 1968 he commanded the 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry, of the 101st Airborne Division. On June 18, 1971, he assumed command of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. On July 1, 1972, Tallman was promoted to brigadier general and assumed duties as deputy senior adviser, 3rd Regional Assistance Command (TRAC), in Long Binh. Since March 30, 1972, the forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), along with their U.S. advisers, had been fighting against a massive invasion by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in what came to be known as the Easter or Spring Offensive. One of the main battles during this invasion was fought at An Loc in Binh Long Province. This engagement had begun in early April and lasted until the third week in July. South Vietnamese troops had held out against overwhelming odds. Tallman and the TRAC senior adviser, Major General James F. Hollingsworth, were responsible for directing the advisory teams in An Loc and throughout the rest of Military Region III. On July 9, 1972, as the Battle of An Loc still raged, Tallman, accompanied by 3 of his key staff officers, landed in the city of An Loc to confer with U.S. advisers there and to observe the progress of South Vietnamese operations. They were met by 2 advisers. As their helicopter lifted off to depart, several artillery rounds hit the helipad. The second round landed in the middle of the general’s party, killing 3 Americans instantly and wounding the general and the 2 advisers. They were evacuated by helicopter to the army hospital in Saigon, but Tallman, mortally wounded, died on the operating table that same day. He was the last of 11 general and flag officers to die in the Vietnam War: 6 in action, 3 in aircraft accidents, and 2 by illness. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also An Loc, Battle of; Easter Offensive References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Willbanks, James H. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Taiwan See China, Republic of

Tam Dao Mountains Tallman, Richard Joseph

See Thud Ridge

Birth Date: March 28, 1925 Death Date: July 9, 1972 U.S. Army officer and the last American general officer killed in the Vietnam War. Born on March 28, 1925, in Honesdale,

Tam Vu See Tran Van Giau

Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Ta Ngoc Phach See Tran Do

Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Allied forces in Vietnam deployed an assortment of armored fighting vehicles: light tanks, tank destroyers, and medium tanks. The vast majority of these were of U.S. manufacture. Allied light tanks included the M-24, the M-41, and the M-551. The lightly armored M-24 Chaffee tank with its 75-millimeter (mm) main gun was the mainstay U.S. light tank after World War II until 1953. The M-24 Chaffee saw extensive service with French and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) armor forces. Some were flown in to Dien Bien Phu and served in the siege there in 1954. The M-24 had very limited crosscountry ability. Replaced in ARVN units by the M-41A3 in 1965, it

1087

was for the most part relegated to static pillbox positions at installations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The M-41A3 Walker Bulldog, which replaced the Chaffee, mounted a 76-mm main gun, weighed 25.9 tons, and was operated by a crew of four. The M-42 Duster variant had twin 40-mm antiaircraft guns mounted on an M-41 chassis and was used by U.S. Army forces for ground convoy and perimeter defense missions. The M-551 Sheridan was designated an armored reconnaissance airborne assault vehicle and was deployed in U.S. Army armored cavalry squadrons beginning in January 1969. Because of its light aluminum hull, the Sheridan weighed only 15.7 tons. This vehicle had a crew of four and mounted an unusual 152-mm gun capable of firing both antitank guided missiles and high-explosive antitank (HEAT) rounds that were effective against both vehicular and personnel targets. The Sheridan was unpopular with its crews because of its vulnerability to mines and rocket-propelled grenades, lack of jungle-busting ability, and the problem surrounding its special combustible cartridge cases that were apt to cause a catastrophic secondary explosion if the tank hit a mine.

A flamethrowing tank of the U.S. 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division. The M-67A1 (nicknamed the “Zippo”) was the M-48 variant employed in Vietnam. It had an effective range of 100 to 150 yards. (National Archives)

1088

Tan Son Nhut

The M-50A1 Ontos was a lightly armored tank destroyer fielded by U.S. Marine Corps antitank battalions. The Greek term ontos means “the thing” and aptly describes its appearance, resulting from its six 106-mm recoilless rifles mounted three on each side of the vehicle’s hull. Problems with the Ontos included its touchy fireby-wire system, which resulted in more than one instance of fratricide, and its great vulnerability to mines. As a result, the Ontos ended up being relegated to static perimeter defense. The LVTP-5A1 (land vehicle tracked, personnel) amphibian tractor (commonly referred to as an amtrac) was employed by the U.S. Marine Corps in its amphibious tractor battalions. The marines, lacking armored personnel carriers, initially tried to use the LVTP-5A1 in the same role, but its vulnerability to mines quickly ended the practice. The M-48A3 Patton was the mainstay of U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps tank battalions in Vietnam. Originally introduced in 1953, the M-48A3 mounted a 90-mm main gun, weighed 47 tons, and had a crew of four. Its xenon searchlight had both infrared and white light capability for nighttime illumination. The M-48A3 was initially deployed in Vietnam with the first contingent of marines in 1965. Some 370 M-48A3s were in Vietnam by 1969 at the peak of U.S. involvement. A flamethrower variant of this tank projected a napalm jet 328 to 492 feet. Other variants included a vehicle with an attached 20-ton expendable mine roller and an engineer tank with a 2-ton dozer blade. ARVN forces were supplied with Pattons beginning in September 1971 as part of the Vietnamization process. Some confusion exists over the employment of the M-60 main battle tank in Vietnam. Although the M-60 was never used in Vietnam, two vehicles based on its chassis were. The first was the M-728 combat engineer vehicle, which mounted a 165-mm demolition gun. The other was the armored vehicle–launched bridge, commonly known as the “scissors bridge.” The only non-U.S. tanks used by allied forces in the Vietnam War were 26 British Centurion 5 tanks deployed by Australian forces in 1968. The Centurion 5 mounted an 84-mm gun. The Centurions operated mostly near Vung Tau. Communist forces in Vietnam deployed Soviet and Chinesevariant self-propelled guns, amphibious tanks, and main battle tanks. Elements of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) armored force, established in October 1959, appeared in South Vietnam on less than half a dozen occasions prior to the end of 1973. After that period as American forces were withdrawn, the PAVN’s use of armor in South Vietnam became more common and played a dominant role in the final 1975 offensive. Unlike American self-propelled guns that were designed as indirect-fire artillery, World War II–vintage Soviet vehicles such as the SU-76 and SU-122 were principally used as assault guns by PAVN forces. The SU-76 weighed 11 tons and had a crew of four. It was based on the obsolete T-70 chassis, mounted a 76-mm gun, and was lightly armored. The more common SU-122 was based on the T-34 chassis, mounted a 122-mm gun, and was more heavily armored. The SU-122 had a crew of five and weighed almost 31 tons.

The PT-76 amphibious tank, first manufactured in 1952, was widely used by the PAVN because of its versatility. The PT-76 mounted a 76-mm gun and weighed 13.8 tons. The Chinese T-62 variant of this vehicle mounted an 85-mm gun and weighed 17.7 tons. About 400 of these vehicles were supplied to the PAVN, but they suffered from extremely thin armor that made them highly vulnerable to tank guns. The Soviet T-34/76, a renowned World War II main battle tank, was also supplied to the PAVN. The T-34/76 weighed 26.3 tons, carried a 76-mm gun, and had a crew of four. The T-34 and its T-34/85 upgrade, which mounted an 85-mm gun, were relatively well armored but were no match for the newer American M-48. For this reason the T-34 and T-34/85 were rarely seen in South Vietnam and were used primarily in combat in Laos, including during Operation LAM SON 719 in 1971, as well as for training purposes. They were superseded by the Soviet T-54 (Chinese T-59). This tank mounted a 100-mm gun, weighed 35.7 tons, and had a crew of four. About 600 of these tanks were in use by the PAVN armored force and saw considerable service in South Vietnam later in the war. ROBERT J. BUNKER See also Armored Personnel Carriers; Armored Warfare; Grenade Launchers; Mine Warfare, Land; Rockets and Rocket Launchers References Arnold, James R. The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War: Armor. New York: Bantam Books, 1987. Dunstan, Simon. Vietnam Tracks: Armor in Battle, 1945–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982. Pimlott, J. C. “Armour in Vietnam.” In Armoured Warfare, edited by J. P. Harris and F. H. Toase, 145–161. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990. Rosser-Owen, David. Vietnam Weapons Handbook. Wellingborough, Northants, UK: Patrick Stephens, 1986. Starry, Donn A. Armored Combat in Vietnam. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980.

Tan Son Nhut Major Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) and U.S. Air Force (USAF) base and headquarters for the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Tan Son Nhut (also known as Tan Son Nhat) was a major air operations command center and logistics base located near Saigon. In October 1961 the first U.S. air control unit was established there, and later in October the first U.S. Air Force tactical reconnaissance missions were flown out of Tan Son Nhut. MACV’s army air operations section was colocated at Tan Son Nhut with the joint U.S. Air Force–VNAF air operations center in August 1964. In 1967 the base became the MACV headquarters. Handling 70,000 sorties per month by 1969, Tan Son Nhut became the busiest airfield in the world. Because of its operational and logistical importance, Tan Son Nhut was the target of numer-

Taoism ous Communist military assaults. The most serious of these occurred during the 1968 Tet Offensive. During the early morning hours of January 31, four infantry battalions supported by a sapper battalion assaulted the base. The attacking force penetrated 650 yards into the base and wreaked considerable havoc until it was repulsed in the early afternoon. Tan Son Nhut fell to People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces on April 30, 1975, during the 1975 Communist offensive by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Tan Son Nhut suffered substantial damage during the final attack on the air base, which included an air strike carried out by North Vietnamese pilots flying five captured A-37 aircraft and heavy artillery and rocket barrages. More than 300 130-millimeter (mm) artillery rounds and 400 122-mm rockets were fired into Tan Son Nhut on April 29, the day before the final attack began. After the war, Tan Son Nhut was rebuilt and currently serves as a major air terminus for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). TIMOTHY G. GRAMMER See also Airpower, Role in War; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Air Force; Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Cinna, Ronald J., ed. Vietnam: A Country Study. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989. Heiser, Joseph M. Vietnam Studies: Logistic Support. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Pham Gia Duc, ed. Lich Su Quan Doan 2, 1974–1994 [History of 2nd Corps, 1974–1994]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1994.

Taoism Eastern religion based upon philosophical and psychological constructs as well as religious teachings and concepts. Taoism (sometimes referred to as Daoism) originated in China and then spread to other parts of Asia. It emphasizes the so-called three jewels of compassion, moderation, and humility. As such, Taoism is as much a way of living as it is a religion in the traditional Western sense. Taoism’s ethics and teaching concentrate on the maintenance of individuals’ health, longevity, immortality, wu wei (meaning without action, or knowing when to act and when not to act), and spontaneity. A deep reverence toward nature and ancestors’ spirits is also part of Taoist thought. Taoism’s best-known symbol is the yin and yang, meaning the unity of opposites. Unlike Western religions, Taoism is highly decentralized and lacks a religious hierarchy in the traditional sense of Christianity.

1089

Some Taoist scholars have attempted to divide Taoism into three broad categories: philosophical, religious, and folk. Philosophical Taoism is based predominately on the texts of Tao Te Ching and Zhuanghzi. Religious Taoism reflects the various religious movements in China, especially since the last years of the Han dynasty. Folk Taoism (which some consider not to be Taoist at all) is based on the myriad Chinese folk religious observances and traditions. Because Taoism has never been unified, it has been influenced by numerous sects and schools of thought over the years. In the end, much of it revolved around the quest for harmony with oneself and one’s surroundings and a search for immortality. Because Taoists believe that human beings are a microcosm of the wider universe, the search for knowledge and enduring truth must be the central focus of a person’s life. By reaching toward these objectives, an individual becomes one with nature and eventually one with the universe, which leads to immortality. The focus on compassion and humility instills in Taoist believers a deep respect for human life and nature, making conflict and war both aberrant and unacceptable. The origins of Taoism may reach as far back as prehistoric China. Not until the completion of the Tao Te Ching text in the third or fourth century BCE did the corpus of Taoism begin to coalesce into a coherent set of ethics and philosophy. In the second century CE, the Chinese imperial government recognized Laozi, an ancient Chinese philosopher, as a divine being. Laozi played a central role in the rise of Taoism. While Taoism became an accepted religion within China, it was challenged by the rise of Buddhism and Confucianism, which would attract more adherents as time went on. Because China was the great mainland Asia power for many centuries, Taoism was spread to other regions in Asia. It became established in Malaysia, Singapore, and various Chinese diaspora communities within Asia as well as in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. In places such as Vietnam, Taoist adherents were never very numerous, but many of the teachings and traditions of Taoism worked their way into that country’s cultural manifestations, including literature and folk observances. Taoism has certainly been influenced by both Buddhism and Confucianism over the centuries. Taoism is believed to have been introduced in Vietnam between 206 BCE and 220 CE. It soon became one of three main religions in Vietnam, along with Buddhism and Confucianism. In modern times, Taoism’s greatest influence in Vietnam was its role in the formation of the Cao Dai religion, which was formally established in southern Vietnam in 1926. Although Cao Dai differs in many ways from Taoism (for example, Cao Dai is monotheistic, while Taoism does not conceptualize a single divine figure), Cao Dai borrowed heavily from Taoism’s philosophical and ethical constructs. Today, Taoism’s official religious organization in Vietnam is scant; however, many of the traditions and cultural expressions of the Vietnamese are clear reflections of Taoist thought. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Cao Dai; Confucianism

1090

Tarr, Curtis W.

References Coogan, Michael D., Vasudha Narayanan, and Malcolm D. Eckel. Eastern Religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Wildish, Paul. Principles of Taoism. London: Thorsons Publishers, 2000.

Tarr, Curtis W. Birth Date: 1924 Businessman, educator, and director of the Selective Service System (1970–1973). Curtis W. Tarr was born in Stockton, California, in 1924. He entered Stanford University in 1942, where his education was interrupted by military service in World War II. After the war he completed his BA in economics at Stanford in 1948 and continued at Harvard University, where he earned an MBA in 1950. That same year he became a research assistant and an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Business. In 1952 Tarr became vice president of the Sierra Tractor and Equipment Company in Chico, California. During 1954–1955 he was a staff member for the Second Hoover Commission, and in 1962 he completed his PhD in American history at Stanford. Tarr

then became director of Stanford’s summer session and assistant dean in its School of Humanities and Sciences. In 1963 Tarr became the 12th president of Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. Under his leadership the college was consolidated with Milwaukee-Downer College in 1964 to form Lawrence University. From 1967 to 1969 Tarr was also chairman of the Governor’s Task Force on Local Government Finance and Organization for Wisconsin. Tarr served six years as Lawrence University’s president, departing in June 1969 to become assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs. On March 12, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon nominated Tarr to succeed Lieutenant General Lewis Hershey as director of the Selective Service. At the time Nixon had ordered U.S. forces into Cambodia, and he saw the draft as a public relations problem, not to mention a challenge to his popularity. He chose the civilian Tarr for his youth and college experience and assigned him with the tasks of ending draft protests by stopping most student deferments and instituting a lottery system to determine military eligibility. Tarr was appalled by the conditions that he discovered at Selective Service headquarters. As director during the transition from the draft to the all-volunteer army in 1972, Tarr phased out the lottery system in December 1972 when Nixon ended all draft calls.

Selective Service director Curtis W. Tarr spins a plexiglass drum at the beginning of the fourth annual draft lottery in Washington, February 2, 1972. Inside the drum are capsules containing birthdates and orders of assignments for men born in 1953. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Task Force 116 In his final report as director to Nixon in April 1972, Tarr listed among his accomplishments improved management techniques, the recasting of draft regulations, the improvement of the flow of information between local draft boards and draftees, and consistency in how the draft and the lottery were administered. In 1973 Tarr became vice president of John Deere and Company in Moline, Illinois. After that he returned to academia and served in a variety of leadership positions. GARY KERLEY See also Cambodian Incursion; Hershey, Lewis Blaine; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Selective Service References Flynn, George Q. The Draft, 1940–1973. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Tarr, Curtis W. By the Numbers: The Reform of the Selective Service System, 1970–1972. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1981. Tarr, Curtis W. Private Soldier: Life in the Army from 1943 to 1946. 2nd ed. New York: Carlton, 1980.

Task Force 116 The U.S. Navy established Task Force 116, the U.S. Navy River Patrol Force, on December 18, 1965, to interdict Communist supply lines along the water routes within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After the initial success of Operation MARKET TIME, which involved the interdiction of sea supply lines between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and South Vietnam, Hanoi changed tactics and began moving supplies down the developing Ho Chi Minh Trail and through the port of Sihanoukville in Cambodia to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (VC) base camps along the Cambodian–South Vietnamese border. These developments compelled the United States to adopt a new tactic for interdiction along the numerous waterways in the Mekong Delta and the southern region of South Vietnam. Task Force 116 faced a difficult challenge in the Mekong Delta, with its 3,000 nautical miles of waterways, rivers, and canals that were sometimes very isolated and surrounded by dense vegetation. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and the VC had been using these water routes to transport personnel and materials with relative ease until the creation of Task Force 116 and Operation GAME WARDEN, whose main objective was inspecting Vietnamese watercraft for illegal weapons and supplies, ambushing the VC, and providing fire support for allied troops engaged in operations in the Mekong Delta. To effectively patrol the inland water routes, the U.S. Navy employed the Patrol Boat, Riverine (PBR), a lightweight and fast fiberglass-hulled boat manned by four sailors and equipped with surface radar, .50-caliber machine guns, and a M-60 machine

1091

gun or grenade launcher. The PBRs used in South Vietnam were either 31 or 32 feet long, depending upon the model, and were designed to operate in shallow waters. After modification to include altering the engines to prevent clogging, reinforcement of the gunwales, and refinement of search procedures, the PBRs performed admirably. In addition to the PBRs, which were initially divided into five divisions of two 10-boat sections, Task Force 116 utilized landing ship docks (LSDs) and landing ship tanks (LSTs) as support ships and also utilized patrol air cushion vehicles. These latter had the initial effect of terrifying the enemy but soon proved to be impractical because of their noise and the maintenance requirements. An additional element of Task Force 116 that proved critical to its success was the utilization of airpower in coordination with the naval presence. Until August 1966 the U.S. Army had supplied UH-1B helicopters to Task Force 116, after which time the U.S. Navy’s Helicopter Support Squadron 1 began to replace the army’s contribution. The U.S. Navy also used Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 3 to support Task Force 116 operations at the coastal port of Vung Tau in April 1967 and then in September 1968 inserted the Seawolf squadron of UH-1B helicopters to support the PBR divisions. Also supporting Task Force 116 operations was the Light Attack Squadron 4, known as the “Black Ponies,” that flew OV-10A fixed-winged aircraft. This air component to the water patrol craft allowed the U.S. Navy to dominate the waterways in the southern part of South Vietnam. Task Force 116 was also responsible for logistical support for U.S. Navy Special Operations Forces (SEAL) teams that were inserted into contested areas to conduct ambushes, reconnaissance, recovery, and intelligence operations. Task Force 116 operations continued, albeit on a smaller scale, under the direction of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt’s Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS), which began in October 1968 and remained active until the U.S. Navy finished its part in the Vietnamization process by handing over the last of its vessels in April 1971. RONALD B. FRANKUM JR. See also GAME WARDEN, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; MARKET TIME, Operation;

Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; SEALORDS; United States Navy; Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr. References Christopher, Ralph. Duty Honor Sacrifice: Brown Water Sailors and Army River Raiders. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994.

Task Force 117 See Mobile Riverine Force

1092

Task Force Oregon

Task Force 194 See SEALORDS

Task Force Oregon A provisional divisional-sized U.S. Army unit organized and deployed to Quang Ngai Province and the southern part of Quang Tin Province in 1967. In February 1967 General William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), established a planning committee to organize a U.S. Army task force to send to the I Corps Tactical Zone. This planning group, headed by Major General William B. Rosson, organized a multibrigade force composed of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade; the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; and the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (later redesignated the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division). On April 20, 1967, Task Force Oregon became operational when soldiers from the 196th Brigade landed at the Chu Lai airstrip and commenced search operations around the base camp. By May the 3rd Brigade, 4th Division, was involved in operations in southern Quang Ngai Province. The 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, had also arrived at Duc Pho and began operations in the jungle west of there. Early operations conducted by Task Force Oregon included Operations MALHEUR I, MALHEUR II, HOOD RIVER, BENTON, and COOK. On September 11, 1967, the task force commenced Operation WHEELER against elements of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 2nd Division in the area northwest of Chu Lai. On September 22, 1967, Brigadier General Samuel W. Koster took command of the task force, replacing Major General Richard T. Knowles. On September 25 Task Force Oregon became the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division, composed of the 196th, 198th, and the 11th Light Infantry brigades. The latter two organizations, however, were still undergoing training in the United States. On October 26, 1967, a change of colors ceremony was held, and the Americal Division became the seventh U.S. Army division deployed to Vietnam. Koster received his second star during the same ceremony. Meanwhile, on October 22 the 198th Light Infantry Brigade arrived in Vietnam from Fort Hood, Texas, and deployed to Duc Pho, where it received combat training from soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry, who were already battle-tested. The 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, officially became part of the Americal Division on January 10, 1968. The 11th Infantry Brigade joined the Americal Division on December 20, 1967. The Americal Division became infamous when one of the companies of the 11th Infantry Brigade (C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry) perpetrated the March 16, 1968, My Lai Massacre in which as many as 500 Vietnamese civilians were murdered. Although the incident occurred during the Tet Offensive, there was a cover-up within the division, and the incident did not become pub-

lic knowledge until 1969. The division was further embarrassed in March 1971 when another company, part of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, suffered heavy casualties when overrun by Vietnamese sapper units in the Battle of FSB (Fire-Support Base) Mary Ann. In November 1971 the 198th and 11th brigades were withdrawn from Vietnam, and the division was inactivated. The 196th Brigade was reconstituted as a separate brigade and remained in Vietnam until June 29, 1972, the last major combat unit to be withdrawn. Its 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry, was the last battalion to depart Vietnam, which occurred on August 23, 1972. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Hersh, Seymour Myron; Koster, Samuel William, Sr.; MALHEUR I and II, Operations; Medina, Ernest Lou; My Lai Massacre; Peers Inquiry; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation References Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970. Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979. Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1993. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

Taylor, Maxwell Davenport Birth Date: August 26, 1901 Death Date: April 19, 1987 U.S. Army general, military representative of the president during 1961–1962, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1962–1964, ambassador to Vietnam during 1964–1965, and presidential consultant on Vietnam during 1965–1968. Born in Keytesville, Missouri, on August 26, 1901, Maxwell Davenport Taylor graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1922. Commissioned in the engineers, in 1926 he transferred to the field artillery. A talented linguist, he taught French and Spanish for five years at West Point; graduated from the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935; and then was assigned to Tokyo as an assistant military attaché to learn Japanese. In late 1937 he was briefly assistant military attaché in Beijing. During 1939–1940 Taylor attended the Army War College. He was then assigned to the staff of U.S. Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In July 1942 Taylor became chief of staff of the 82nd Airborne Division as a colonel, and in December he was promoted to brigadier general as the divisional artillery commander. During World War II Taylor joined the division in Sicily after the Allied invasion, and on September 7, 1943, he volunteered for

Taylor, Maxwell Davenport

U.S. Army general Maxwell D. Taylor was critical of what he believed was American over reliance on nuclear weapons and advocated a flexible response for fighting guerrilla wars. Taylor was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1962–1964) and U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (1964–1965), when he advocated an enhanced counterinsurgency program and the bombing of North Vietnam. (National Archives)

a clandestine mission behind enemy lines to Rome to determine if an airborne operation there was feasible. Meeting with Italian officials, he decided that the Germans had secured the facilities that would be needed for the airborne operation to succeed. On his recommendation, the mission was cancelled. Taylor was then senior representative on the commission that convinced the new Italian government to declare war on Germany. Taylor returned to the 82nd Airborne Division. In March 1944 in the United Kingdom, he took command of the 101st Airborne Division. Promoted to major general in March 1944, he jumped with the division behind Utah Beach during the Normandy Invasion. Rotated back to Britain after more than a month of combat, Taylor and his division next participated in Operation MARKETGARDEN in September. Taylor was wounded and was out of action for two weeks. He was in Washington on temporary assignment when the Battle of the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) began. The divisional artillery commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, was the acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division when it was sent to defend Bastogne. Taylor reached Bastogne with the relieving 4th Armored Division and resumed command. The

1093

division then mopped up pockets of resistance in the Ruhr before resuming the advance east. In September 1945 Taylor became superintendent of West Point, where he initiated necessary curriculum changes. Between 1949 and 1951 he headed the Berlin Command. In 1951 he was promoted to lieutenant general and became U.S. Army deputy chief of staff for operations and training. In February 1953 Taylor, as a full general, took command of the Eighth Army in Korea at a time when an armistice was imminent. He then served as commanding general, Army Forces Far East, in 1954 and commander in chief, Far East Command, in 1955. Taylor was U.S. Army chief of staff from 1955 to 1959. Taking issue with the doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation supported by JCS chairman Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Taylor favored a larger military capable of flexible response. When Radford’s view prevailed and the 1960 budget called for 55,000 fewer men than he had advocated, Taylor resigned in July 1959. Taylor then wrote The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), urging a reappraisal of military policy. He advocated a buildup of conventional forces and the doctrine of flexible response. Taylor had been warning for years that brush-fire wars, not nuclear conflicts, presented the greatest military challenge to the United States. In April 1961 President John F. Kennedy called on Taylor to study the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. In July he took on the newly established post of military representative of the president. Serving as Kennedy’s chief military adviser, Taylor also had the responsibility of apprising the president on the adequacy of U.S. intelligence operations. The position made him the president’s senior military representative at home and abroad. In October 1961 Kennedy sent Taylor and Walt Rostow on a factfinding mission to Vietnam. Taylor recognized a “double crisis of confidence” there: doubts about American determination to hold Southeast Asia and doubts that the methods of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), could defeat the Communists. Taylor advocated sending additional military aid and advisers while at the same time urging South Vietnamese reforms. He strongly recommended the commitment of 8,000 U.S. ground combat troops under the cover of a flood-control team to overcome Diem’s sensitivity on the issue of foreign combat troops. Taylor also wanted intensive training of local self-defense forces and a large increase in helicopters, fighter-bombers, reconnaissance aircraft, and support personnel. Kennedy approved the recommendations, with the exception of sending ground combat troops. This report, flawed by its de-emphasis of political problems and underestimation of the Communists, marked the zenith of Taylor’s influence. In October 1962 in an unprecedented move, Kennedy recalled Taylor from retirement to serve in the nation’s highest military position, chairman of the JCS. Taylor and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were in general agreement on strategy and shared similar management styles that favored clear-cut decisions and emphasis on detail. The two made three trips to Vietnam together. Perhaps the most important came in September 1963, when they

1094

Taylor-McNamara Report

noted great military progress and expressed confidence that it would continue. Two of their conclusions remain disturbing. The first, that “the security of South Vietnam remains vital to United States security,” inhibited discussion of disengagement. The second, advocacy of a training program for the Vietnamese that would allow the United States to withdraw the bulk of its personnel by the end of 1965, showed stunning naïveté about Vietnamese political and military potential. Taylor was critical of the November 1963 coup against Diem, faulting the State Department and the CIA. In January 1964 Taylor informed McNamara that the JCS favored the elimination of many military restrictions and sought “bolder actions.” Taylor advocated both an intensified counterinsurgency program and selected air and naval strikes against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He saw bombing as a deterrent to Hanoi’s “aggression,” a morale-booster in South Vietnam, and a means to bring North Vietnam to the negotiating table. He continued to stress this two-part program in years to come. Taylor undertook his most controversial role in July 1964 when he succeeded Henry Cabot Lodge as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. When Taylor arrived in Saigon he was seemingly in a powerful position, in control of American military forces. He and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland began to Americanize the war. Taylor had little patience for the political complexities of South Vietnam, and he could not understand its leaders. By December, relations between the ambassador and Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh became so strained that Taylor demanded that Khanh resign, while Khanh threatened to ask Washington for Taylor’s recall. In early 1965 Taylor foresaw the probability of a U.S. troop commitment, which, according to journalist Stanley Karnow, “rattled him.” Taylor now embraced the notion that the United States should avoid Asian land wars and told President Lyndon Johnson that the Vietnamese lacked motivation rather than manpower. In February, Westmoreland requested two marine battalions to protect the air base at Da Nang. Taylor differed with Westmoreland over the introduction of U.S. combat troops and in March returned to Washington to voice his objections to what he saw as a first installment in an inevitably increasing American commitment. Taylor believed that a major U.S. commitment would take too much of the burden from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and encourage it to let the United States fight the war. Taylor did not oppose the introduction of U.S. troops per se, but he did advocate their restrained use. He supported an enclave strategy that would secure major cities, towns, and U.S. military bases, mainly along the coast, by aggressive patrolling rather than Westmoreland’s search-and-destroy strategy. Taylor also opposed the immediate dispatch of additional U.S. troops. During the April 1965 Honolulu Conference, Taylor had a brief argument on the troop issue with McNamara and Westmoreland. This conference saw a major shift in U.S. policy from counterinsurgency to large-scale ground war. It also represented a first

step from Taylor’s enclave strategy to Westmoreland’s big-unit search-and-destroy strategy. Taylor’s defeat on this issue ended the fiction of an all-powerful ambassador and was, according to journalist David Halberstam, the “last time that Max Taylor was a major player, his farewell in fact.” Returning to Washington in July 1965, Taylor was haunted by a sense of failure. Johnson thought that Taylor’s intransigence had created unnecessary friction with South Vietnamese leaders, some of whom saw Taylor as too outspoken—more soldier than statesman—to function as a diplomat. He nonetheless retained an important advisory role and joined the group of Johnson’s senior policy consultants known as the Wise Men. Taylor’s memoir, Swords and Ploughshares (1972), received mixed reviews. As late as 1973 he still hoped for an acceptable outcome to the war. Taylor, one of the major American military figures of the 20th century, died in Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1987. PAUL S. DAUM AND ELIZABETH W. DAUM See also Central Intelligence Agency; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Enclave Strategy; Flexible Response; Honolulu Conference; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Khanh; Radford, Arthur William; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Rusk, David Dean; Search and Destroy; Taylor-McNamara Report; United States Joint Chiefs of Staff; Westmoreland, William Childs; Wise Men References Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam. Rev. and updated edition. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kinnard, Douglas. The Certain Triumph: Maxwell Taylor and the American Experience in Vietnam. New York: Brassey’s, 1991. Taylor, John M. General Maxwell Taylor: The Sword and the Pen. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Taylor, General Maxwell D. Responsibility and Response. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. Taylor, General Maxwell D. Swords and Plowshares. New York: Norton, 1972. Taylor, General Maxwell D. The Uncertain Trumpet. New York: Harper, 1960. Tran Van Don. Our Endless War: Inside Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1978. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994.

Taylor-McNamara Report Report dated October 2, 1963, on the U.S. government fact-finding mission to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in

Taylor-Rostow Mission September 1963. The John F. Kennedy administration was eager to see immediate results after its 1961 commitment of U.S. military advisers and increased financial support to South Vietnam. Despite this, Viet Cong (VC) forces still controlled much of the South Vietnamese countryside and enjoyed widespread popular support. On January 2, 1963, VC forces defeated a much larger wellequipped and American-advised Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) force in the Battle of Ap Bac. This prompted President Kennedy to send Roger Hilsman and Michael Forrestal to Saigon in February 1963 to study the situation. Their report was relatively optimistic but noted that progress was slower than had been hoped and that increased U.S. air attacks against Communist bases might alienate the population in the countryside. Less promising was the deteriorating relationship between South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and the Kennedy administration. Diem refused increased American military and political participation in the war but simultaneously welcomed material and financial assistance. Washington was deeply concerned about the growing opposition to Diem’s regime among the South Vietnamese people and about Diem’s refusal to implement serious internal reforms. Beginning in May 1963 a series of Buddhist demonstrations and self-immolations showed the widespread opposition to Diem, his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu’s wife. Diem’s government cracked down on the Buddhist dissenters, which only further fueled antigovernment opposition. Therefore, Kennedy sent a new fact-finding mission to South Vietnam on September 10, 1963, that was led by U.S. Marine Corps general Victor Krulak and State Department official Joseph Mendenhall. Krulak presented an optimistic view on the progress of the war, while Mendenhall stressed what he saw as military failure and popular Vietnamese discontent. Their conflicting reports caused even greater confusion in Washington. Another mission to South Vietnam was dispatched in late September 1963 and led by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General Maxwell Taylor and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. The group included William Bundy of the Defense Department, William Colby of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), White House adviser Michael Forrestal, and diplomat William Sullivan. Its major goals were to evaluate the progress of the war, recommend courses of action, and assess the prospects of a coup d’état. (Plans for an attempt to overthrow Diem had been in progress since May.) The eight-day visit during September 24–October 1 resulted in different opinions. Taylor was convinced by U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Paul Harkins’s optimistic evaluation of the war and thought that some 1,000 U.S. advisers might be withdrawn by the end of the year if the war continued to go well. Most of the civilian members of the mission were not as optimistic and agreed with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge’s warning about Diem’s political fragility. They were

1095

even more convinced of this after a meeting with Diem in Saigon when he rejected McNamara’s concerns over South Vietnamese political unrest. The mission returned to Washington on October 2. Its subsequent report, called the Taylor-McNamara Report, reflected their own mixed opinions. They expressed optimism about the war’s progress yet warned that the Ngo brothers’ policies could endanger the American mission in South Vietnam. The report concluded that the political scene in South Vietnam was precarious and that Diem’s heavy-handed policies posed a serious potential threat to the military situation in Vietnam. The mission nevertheless believed that there was only a slight chance of a military coup and did not recommend that the United States support such a coup “at this time.” The report also recommended selective economic and psychological measures that would convince Diem to change his course of policy but would not endanger the progress of the war. These measures included a major reduction in U.S. economic and military aid to South Vietnam and the recall of John Richardson, the pro-Diem chief of the CIA station in Saigon. In spite of the intentions of the Kennedy administration, these measures did not change President Diem’s domestic policy. They did, however, signal U.S. dissatisfaction with Diem’s regime and helped encourage the November 1, 1963, coup against him. ZSOLT J. VARGA See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Bundy, William Putnam; Colby, William Egan; Forrestal, Michael Vincent; Harkins, Paul Donal; Hilsman, Roger; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Krulak, Victor H.; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Sullivan, William Healy; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Moss, George. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. Ruskin, Marcus G., and Bernard B. Fall. The Vietnam Reader: Articles and Documents on American Foreign Policy and the Viet-Nam Crisis. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: Scribner, 1985. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Taylor-Rostow Mission Start Date: October 18, 1961 End Date: October 25, 1961 U.S. fact-finding mission to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In response to a letter from South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, on October 13, 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked his special military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor to make a fact-finding trip to Saigon. The mission was headed by Taylor but also included Walt Rostow, deputy special assistant to

1096

Tay Ninh

the president for national security affairs. The mission was in Vietnam during October 18–25, 1961. In his memoirs Swords and Plowshares, General Taylor recalled that he arrived in Saigon on the very day that President Diem had declared a state of emergency following a National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) attack on a provincial capital near Saigon. A serious flood in the Mekong Delta region and increasing NLF violence had also upset matters. Taylor was bothered by what he believed was the poor quality of U.S. political reporting. He was dismayed by the unpopularity of President Diem yet remained convinced that there was no one better qualified to run the country than this man of “stubborn courage and basic integrity.” Rostow apparently agreed. Accordingly, the official Taylor-Rostow Report to President Kennedy on November 3, 1961, supported the domino theory claim that the troubles in Vietnam were part of a Communist plan to control all of Southeast Asia. The situation was considered serious, but the report concluded that the threat of bombing could help keep the Communists at bay. The report recommended that the United States express its willingness to help defend South Vietnam by upgrading the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), and by improving various intelligence and aid projects. The report’s most controversial suggestion was that U.S. military forces be sent to the Mekong Delta region in the guise of flood control. These units were to fight only if fired upon, but their main purpose was clearly to improve the low morale of South Vietnam’s military. In subsequent meetings, President Kennedy did not accept the troop proposal but did agree to change MAAG to MACV and to increase both economic aid and the number of U.S. military advisers. These measures were largely implemented in December 1961 after a reluctant Diem signed a letter promising to try to broaden the base of his domestic support. The Taylor-Rostow Mission marked a significant escalation of U.S. support for South Vietnam. Following closely upon similar recommendations from Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the mission both reinforced the domino theory and argued for a far stronger U.S. commitment in Vietnam. After this point, it would be very hard for the United States to withdraw aid without a serious loss of prestige. PETER K. FROST See also Domino Theory; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Hilsman, Roger. To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Taylor, General Maxwell D. Swords and Plowshares. New York: Norton, 1972.

Tay Ninh A province and a provincial capital in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) located approximately 50 miles northwest of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). The province was bordered on the north and west by Cambodia and on the east and south by Binh Long, Binh Duong, and Hau Nghia provinces. Tay Ninh included 28 villages in four districts. The provincial capital, Tay Ninh City, was located about 55 miles by road from the capital city of Saigon. Much of the province is flat and floods readily during the rainy season from May to December. Rising up from the agricultural lowlands is Nui Ba Den (“Black Virgin Mountain”), the summit of which is often wreathed in clouds. To the north of the mountain is dense forest. Tay Ninh Province is dominated by adherents of the Cao Dai religion, whose holy city, Thanh Dia, is located near Tay Ninh. The religion combines elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Among the saints of the religion are Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tze, Jesus Christ, Moses, Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, and Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen). Thanh Dia, situated just a few miles from the center of Tay Ninh City, is home to the Cao Dai Holy See (seat), a huge pagoda-like structure built between 1933 and 1955. Tay Ninh City contains the Cao Dai Cathedral, a major attraction for tourists. Originally a part of Cambodia, Tay Ninh was annexed by Vietnam in the early 1700s. During the Indochina War the province was a stronghold of Viet Minh and Cao Dai armed resistance to French colonial rule. During the subsequent Vietnam War the region to the north of Nui Ba Den was dominated by the Communists. In May 1964 the summit of Nui Ba Den was captured, and a U.S. outpost was established on the mountaintop. The outpost had to be resupplied by helicopter because the slopes of the mountain, riddled with caves, remained occupied by the Viet Cong (VC). War Zone C was located in the province. Noted military operations in the vicinity included Operations JUNCTION CITY, ATTLEBORO, and YELLOWSTONE. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Communist forces failed in an attempt to capture Tay Ninh City and the Cao Dai holy city. The 1972 Easter Offensive saw attacks by forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) on the province in an unsuccessful attempt to draw attention away from a massive assault planned on nearby Binh Long Province. On January 6, 1975, the battered remnants of a South Vietnamese Regional Forces company evacuated Nui Ba Den, precipitating the temporary flight of 25,000 civilians from Tay Ninh City toward Saigon.

Tay Son Rebellion

U.S. Army Deaths by Vietnam Province Location

Deaths

Location

Deaths

An Giang An Xuyen Ba Xuyen Bac Lieu Bien Hoa Binh Dinh Binh Duong Binh Long Binh Thuan Binh Thuy Chua Doc Chuong Thien Con Son Island Darlac Dinh Tuong Gia Dinh Go Cong Hua Nghia Khanh Hoa Kien Giang Kien Hoa Kien Phong Kien Tuong Kontum

17 33 56 14 1,147 2,211 2,742 909 300 176 1 30 1 163 794 1,064 40 1,424 275 77 416 65 140 1,641

Lam Dong Long An Long Khanh Ninh Thuan Offshore Phong Dinh Phu Bon Phu Quoc Island Phu Yen Phuoc Long Phuoc Tuy Pleiku Quang Du Quang Nam Quang Ngai Quang Tin Quang Tri Sa Dec Tay Ninh Thua Thien Tuyen Duc Unknown Vinh Binh Vinh Long

143 1,002 558 97 53 146 24 1 282 679 204 1,015 171 971 2,342 2,068 1,683 25 2,648 2,893 76 6,904 49 142

A determined South Vietnamese attempt to recapture the mountaintop in mid-January 1975 failed. As South Vietnam collapsed in April 1975, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 25th Division valiantly defended Tay Ninh as part of the outer defensive perimeter of Saigon. GLENN E. HELM See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; Cao Dai; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Saigon; Tet

Offensive, Overall Strategy; Viet Cong Infrastructure; War Zone C and War Zone D; YELLOWSTONE, Operation References Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1998. Werner, Jayne Susan. “The Cao Dai: The Politics of a Vietnamese Syncretic Religious Movement.” PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1976.

Tay Son Rebellion Start Date: 1771 End Date: 1789 General uprising in Vietnam led by three brothers from Tay Son (Binh Dinh Province) that ended in the capture of Gia Dinh (including present-day Ho Chi Minh City) and Thang Long (present-day

1097

Hanoi) and the weakening of the Nguyen lords in south Vietnam and the Trinh lords and the Le dynasty in northern Vietnam. The rebellion began as a peasant protest against the corrupt rule of the Nguyen lords. In 1771 the oldest of the three brothers, Nguyen Nhac (Ho Nhac by birth), began to attack the Nguyen lords and eventually, with the help of his brothers Nguyen Lu (or Ho Lu) and Nguyen Hue (or Ho Hue), captured all of southern Vietnam. The Tay Son, as the rebels were known, then attacked the Trinh, the rulers in Thang Long. The Tay Son then returned south, where Nguyen Nhac declared himself “King of the Center,” headquartered in Quy Nhon. Nguyen Hue became “King of the North,” stationed in Thuan Hoa, and Nguyen Lu was made “King of the South,” operating out of Gia Dinh. After successfully defeating the Nguyen and Trinh lords, the Tay Son brothers entered into an uneasy alliance with the Le emperors. Emperor Le Chieu Thong, realizing that he was too weak to withstand the Tay Son movement, called upon the Chinese to rescue his dynasty. The Chinese sent 200,000 troops to Vietnam and encountered immediate resistance from Nguyen Hue. On the fifth day of the Tet holiday in 1789, the Tay Son rebels attacked the Chinese near Thang Long in what became known as the Battle of Dong Da. The outcome was an overwhelming victory for the Tay Son and repulsion of the Chinese invaders. The victory over the Chinese propelled the three brothers to national power, and they then set out on an ambitious course to redistribute land and wealth to the peasants. Unfortunately, all three brothers died in the early 1790s before their program could be completed. Within a decade, the surviving Nguyen lord, Nguyen Anh, came to power and under the name Gia Long reestablished the dominance of the Nguyen dynasty. The Tay Son Rebellion is important for several reasons, among them the introduction of Chu Nom (a Vietnamese modification of the Chinese writing system) as the official Vietnamese written language and the mass mobilization of the peasant class. The Battle of Dong Da is still celebrated in Vietnam as one of the country’s greatest military achievements. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive; Le Dynasty; Nguyen Dynasty; Nguyen Phuc Anh; Trinh Lords; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viet Nam: Des origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Truong Buu Lam. Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution: Popular Movements in Vietnamese History. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984. Viet Chung. “Recent Findings on the Tay Son Insurgency.” Vietnamese Studies 81 (1985): 30–62. Whitfield, Danny J. Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1976.

1098

Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins

Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins Antiwar protest activities designed to bring attention to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and to register dissatisfaction with that effort. Both the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War ushered in new ways to protest U.S. government policies during the 1960s. In particular, teach-ins and sit-ins afforded Americans the opportunity to express their discontent peacefully. Although teach-ins provided a forum for denouncing the Vietnam War, sit-ins were associated with both the Civil Rights Movement and antiwar protests. Indeed, the first well-orchestrated sit-ins occurred in February 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, where mostly young African American college students staged a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Woolworth’s department store. These sit-ins, which soon spread to other lunch counters throughout the South, helped give birth to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The SNCC was formed in the spring of 1960 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Teach-ins, modeled after the sit-ins staged by civil rights advocates, were first used in response to America’s growing in-

volvement in Vietnam. Many were sponsored and encouraged by the youth organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In February 1965 the United States began what would become a three-year bombing campaign (Operation ROLLING THUNDER) against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). A number of University of Michigan faculty members wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson to protest this escalation of what had heretofore been a limited brush-fire war. When Johnson subsequently sent 3,000 marines to Da Nang in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), on March 10, 1965, the Michigan faculty group organized a teach-in. On March 24 more than 3,000 students and faculty members participated in the official first teach-in. They used the forum to question the Vietnam War and argued against it until dawn. Within six weeks of the Michigan forum, virtually all major universities (and several smaller ones) had held their own teach-ins. The movement culminated on May 15, 1965, with a National Teach-In in which more than 100 colleges and universities held antiwar forums on their own campuses.

Baton-swinging Madison riot police beat back an angry throng of students on the University of Wisconsin campus protesting the Dow Chemical Company’s manufacture of napalm for the Vietnam War, October 19, 1967. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Television and the Vietnam War Sit-ins, as a peaceful form of protest, did not gain notoriety until the late 1960s, when college administration buildings and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) detachments throughout the United States became targets of antiwar sit-ins. The most notorious sit-in occurred during the week of April 23–30, 1968, when between 700 and 1,000 students took over five buildings at Columbia University in New York City. A key goal of the sit-in was to pressure the school administration to break its ties with the Institute for Defense Analysis, a group of universities (sponsored by the Pentagon) that advised the Johnson administration on military matters. Overall, teach-ins and sit-ins raised questions and public awareness about the Johnson administration and its policies. The teach-ins and sit-ins fueled the antiwar movement, put the administration on the defensive, and provided people with a generally nonviolent (and respectable) way to express their opposition to the war. Neither teach-ins nor sit-ins, however, stopped the Vietnam War. Still, their effects were far from negligible. However, things soon deteriorated. As the United States continued to escalate the conflict, some war opponents abandoned teach-ins and sit-ins for more violent forms of protest. TRACY R. SZCZEPANIAK See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Civil Rights Movement; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Students for a Democratic Society References Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Miller, James. Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. O’Neill, William L. Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s. New York: Times Books, 1971. Viorst, Milton. Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Television and the Vietnam War The Vietnam War became known as America’s first television war because it was the first war for which television was a primary means of providing information to the American public. At the time there were only a few channels available for viewing. This permitted the three major television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) to control nearly all of the televised war coverage. For much of the conflict, at least from 1964 through 1973, reports were broadcast in two- or three-minute segments on nightly news telecasts of the three major U.S. television networks. Even the final storming of Saigon and the evacuation of the last Americans from the embassy roof in 1975 were watched by millions of Americans sitting in their living rooms. Television viewers were eyewitnesses to the war, and this helped to shape their opinions of it.

1099

Television coverage of the war has both its critics and its defenders. Critics claim that television producers attempted to make their coverage visually dramatic, using short sound bites aimed at viewers’ emotions rather than their intellect, which resulted in distorted views of events. More severe critics charged that reporters with a decidedly liberal bias provided coverage that was not only distorted but was also intentionally inaccurate and bordered on propaganda. Extremes of this view suggest that television helped decide the war’s outcome. One problem with television coverage of the war was that it was limited to available video footage. The U.S. military permitted almost all coverage (press accreditation cards directed “full cooperation and assistance” without censorship from U.S. units), and U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) successes and mistakes were equally available and were aired based on the reporter’s or producer’s judgment. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) controlled access to information and events and limited coverage to footage provided by the state or foreign correspondents deemed acceptable to the North Vietnamese government. This produced propaganda footage that only showed the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) in a favorable light. Defenders of Vietnam War television coverage present it as essentially accurate and evenhanded. They agree that it was not perfect. Although mistakes were made and some inaccuracies were reported, they argue that the print media was equally prone to making mistakes. Supporters claim that sources of inaccuracies were often military or White House representatives: military and embassy public affairs officers who conducted daily press briefings, unceremoniously nicknamed the “Five O’Clock Follies.” Optimistic, often glowing reports of progress presented at these briefings did not always coincide with information being reported from the field. Of course, television also played a major role in the antiwar protest movement of the late 1960s. Indeed, protesters and protest organizations frequently planned their events to ensure maximum television coverage. This coverage was a two-edged sword, however. On the one hand, it helped educate Americans on the reasons and nature of the antiwar movement. On the other hand, some have argued that television coverage only emboldened protesters and gave them more importance than they deserved. Two related events that came to signify the controversy surrounding the media in general and television reporting in particular were the 1968 siege at Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive, both of which were allied tactical and operational victories. Television and print media reporting of the Battle of Khe Sanh emphasized the parallels with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu that brought about the French withdrawal from Indochina in 1954. Although there were some similarities, the comparison was inaccurate and obscured the actual events and outcome. In fairness, however, whether influenced by media coverage or reaching their own conclusions, several government officials also were guilty of the inaccurate comparison. Not the least of these was President Lyndon

1100

Television and the Vietnam War

A CBS camera crew interviews American soldiers in Tay Ninh, South Vietnam, in 1967. The Vietnam War was known as America’s first “television war” because it was the first war for which television was a primary means of providing information to the American public and because of its prominence in the evening televised news. (Tim Page/Corbis)

Johnson, who required the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to attest in writing that Khe Sanh would not go the way of Dien Bien Phu. Television reporting of the 1968 Tet Offensive has borne the brunt of criticism aimed at television coverage of the war. Critics claim that coverage focused on the sensational to the point of being inaccurate. General William Westmoreland believed that this played a large role in turning the American public against the war, transforming the failed Communist offensive into a psychological victory. In his book Big Story, journalist Peter Braestrup supported the charge. However, in the face of continually optimistic forecasts of victory expressed by the military and the Johnson administration, there is little wonder that televised reporting of the Tet attacks, which fell hard upon American and South Vietnamese strongholds, caused journalists such as veteran TV anchorman Walter Cronkite and those who trusted his interpretation to view the war as a no-win situation. Discounting the debate that still sometimes flares over the media’s role in the Vietnam War, one positive result of television reporting is the extensive video archives amassed primarily by the major networks. These have been helpful in producing numerous documentaries about the war, many of which are available on videotape, enabling individuals to study the war at home. ARTHUR T. FRAME

See also Cronkite, Walter Leland; Five O’Clock Follies; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Media and the Vietnam War; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Westmoreland, William Childs References Arlen, Michael. Living-Room War. 1969; reprint, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997. Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Herr, Michael. Dispatches. New York: Knopf, 1977. Lewinski, Jorge. The Camera at War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. Vietnam: A Television History. Videotape produced by WGBH-TV, Boston. New York: Sony, 1983. Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. Videotape produced by Michael Mclear. Los Angeles: Embassy Home Entertainment, 1987.

Terrain of Vietnam See Vietnam, Climate and Terrain of, Impact on the Vietnam War

Territorial Forces

Territorial Forces Military units in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) similar in status to the U.S. National Guard or traditional militia. The Territorial Forces comprised the Regional Forces and the Popular Forces, popularly known as “Ruff-Puffs.” Territorial Forces constituted about one-half of South Vietnam’s military strength during the 1960s and 1970s, and even though they were always poorly supplied and supported, they were the closest thing to a grassroots rural security system ever developed in South Vietnam. The Regional Forces traced their roots to the 68,000-man Civil Guard created in April 1955 from the remnants of the Vietnamese National Army, French Union Forces, and other auxiliary units of the Indochina War. In 1964 the Civil Guard was renamed the Regional Forces and was integrated into the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) under control of the Joint General Staff. Regional Forces had as their original mission the manning of some 9,000 fixed outposts scattered throughout South Vietnam, half of which were in the Mekong Delta. After 1955 the duties expanded to include fighting the Viet Cong (VC), providing support to the militia as a provincial quick-reaction force, and guarding the nation’s infrastructure by protecting communications and transportation systems and government installations. The basic Regional Forces unit consisted of a rifle company that could be augmented as required by river boat companies, mechanized platoons, heavy-weapons platoons, reconnaissance units, and administration and logistical support companies. Regional Forces typically operated in company-sized units, but they were capable of multicompany operations. In 1967 there were 888 Regional Force companies, but the number increased to 1,119 in 1968 and to 1,810 by 1973. The Regional Forces went through several configurations during their history, evolving from separate companies to company groups, battalions, and finally mobile groups. In 1969, for example, the first mobile units were created. These grew in number to 31 mobile battalions and 232 mobile companies by the end of 1970. By late 1974 plans were made to establish 27 Regional Forces mobile groups, similar in makeup to the French Groupement Mobiles of the Indochina War. Only 7 such mobile groups were operational by the time of the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975. At the latest stage of their development, the Regional Forces consisted of 312,000 personnel. The Popular Forces traced their origins to the 48,000-man Self-Defense Corps created by the Ministry of the Interior in 1956. They were part-time volunteer village militia whose basic unit of organization was the team. This varied in strength depending on the size and population of the province or district but generally consisted of from 4 to 10 men per 1,000 inhabitants. Popular Force teams were later increased in size to 30-man platoons. These teams were essentially infantry units, and their equipment and mode of subsistence were more austere than those of the Regional Forces. Popular Forces teams, whose members held regular jobs in the community, performed security duties and protected their home

1101

villages, hamlets, and districts from VC attack. Inherently close to the population, they manned local outposts and watchtowers, conducted night patrols and reconnaissance missions, laid ambushes, and searched houses for arms caches. The Popular Forces were integrated into the RVNAF in 1964 and were placed under the control of the Joint General Staff. Below this level the Popular Forces were administered by the Central SelfDefense Corps Directorate in Saigon, which controlled offices at the province and district level, and commissioners in the villages. Unlike the Regional Forces, Popular Forces did not have a formal rank structure beyond team and squad leader designations, but all members received a monthly salary. Popular Forces totaled 220,800 members in 8,100 platoons in 1973. Between 1961 and 1965 the Territorial Forces were under the authority of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) corps and division commanders who often used them as auxiliaries on search-and-destroy operations, for which they were ill-suited because of their inadequate training and often poor equipment. This resulted in large losses, depressed morale, and numerous desertions. Although the Territorial Forces could theoretically call on the ARVN in times of crisis, the regular military routinely failed to provide the Territorial Forces with the level of tactical or logistical support they needed. The ARVN always viewed such groups as second-rate units, and most officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) sought to avoid service with them. To many South Vietnamese, however, the Territorial Forces were an alternative to the ARVN and often served as a haven for deserters and draft evaders. Yet in 1965 when Regional Forces troops began to receive pay and reenlistment bonuses similar to those of ARVN soldiers and after June 1968 when a General Mobilization Law made every male citizen ages 18 to 38 liable for service in either ARVN or the Territorial Forces, recruitment levels in the latter were boosted to record levels. From 1965 to 1969 when the United States dominated the ground war, the ARVN filled most local security needs with only limited assistance from the Territorial Forces. Thus, the Territorial Forces received scant support from either the ARVN or its allies. Yet when U.S. forces began to withdraw and the ARVN began to take on more of the fighting and greater emphasis was placed on rural security, pacification, and Vietnamization, Regional Forces and Popular Forces took on a new importance. For the first time they were deployed outside their home areas to serve with ARVN formations. As a result, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), sought changes in the Territorial Forces to improve their capabilities. MACV now recognized that the war could not be won without providing security in the hamlets, a role that Regional Forces and Popular Forces could perform if adequately supported. Territorial Forces were to provide real and lasting security for the countryside by keeping Communist insurgents away from the people, while the police eliminated the VC infrastructure. In the meantime, the ARVN would combat Communist main-force units even as U.S. forces departed.

1102

Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy

MACV had started the push to create more Regional Forces and Popular Forces units in 1967 as being a cheaper and ultimately more efficient and successful alternative to ARVN divisions. South Vietnamese leaders resisted this move. Anticipating the ultimate withdrawal of American forces, they believed that the heavier and better-equipped ARVN divisions would be far more successful against the VC and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) than the lightly equipped and poorly trained Territorial Forces. Yet with the start of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program in 1967, the number of men in Territorial Forces units increased from 300,000 in 1967 to more than 530,000 by 1971. Major improvements were also made in training. Starting in 1967, MACV created more than 350 mobile advisory teams (MATs) that consisted of U.S. Army personnel, who trained and advised the Territorial Forces on small-unit tactics and pacification techniques while actually living among them for months at a time. The Americans also built and helped staff 12 provincial training centers throughout South Vietnam that operated until 1972. Equipping the Territorial Forces was a major undertaking, as most units carried a wide variety of weapons, most of World War II vintage. After 1969, however, Territorial Forces received larger quantities of M16 rifles, M60 machine guns, light antitank weapons, M79 grenade launchers, and modern radio sets. But the Territorial Forces remained dependent on the ARVN for their ground and air transport, heavy firepower, and artillery support. The improved Territorial Forces took on an increased combat role at a much higher cost between 1968 and 1972 as U.S. units withdrew and the ARVN assumed the primary responsibility for the war. During this period the ARVN lost almost 37,000 soldiers killed in action compared to Regional Forces and Popular Forces losses of more than 69,300 personnel. Because of their size, exposure in the countryside, and lighter equipment, the Territorial Forces were often subject to a higher rate of attack by Communist units than were regular ARVN formations, and except for 1968 it was always more dangerous to serve in a Regional Forces or Popular Forces unit than in the ARVN. Still charged primarily with local defense tasks after the American withdrawal and still too lightly armed and equipped to withstand massive and sustained attacks from regular PAVN units supported by tanks and artillery, the Territorial Forces were overwhelmed and largely destroyed during the final Communist offensive in 1975. Overall, Regional Forces and Popular Forces performed well while surmounting many obstacles and handicaps. In most areas in which they operated, they markedly improved rural security efforts. Even though they received less than 20 percent of the total South Vietnamese defense budget and lacked organic firepower, they accounted for roughly 30 percent of the Communist combat deaths inflicted by RVNAF troops, depending on the year, and represented only 2–4 percent of the total cost of the war. CLAYTON D. LAURIE

See also Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Strategic Hamlet Program; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Donovan, David. Once a Warrior King: Memories of an Officer in Vietnam. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Ngo Quang Truong. Territorial Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985. Tran Dinh Tho. Pacification. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980.

Tet, Mini See Mini–Tet Offensive

Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy Start Date: January 30, 1968 End Date: March 31, 1968 Decisive turning point of the Vietnam War. On July 6, 1967, the top leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) gathered in Hanoi for the state funeral of Senior General Nguyen Chi Thanh, who had been the Communist military commander in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Politburo. After the funeral, members of the Politburo met to consider plans to bring the Vietnam War to a speedy and successful conclusion. Militarily, the war had not been going well for the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), who were unable to compete with U.S. military firepower and mobility. Thanh had been in favor of scaling back operations in South Vietnam and conducting an even more protracted war to wear the Americans down. Defense minister General Vo Nguyen Giap apparently supported this strategy, but the North Vietnamese leadership was determined to try to end the war in one master stroke. In essence, they sought to repeat the triumph over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The plan has been attributed to Giap, but information has surfaced that indicates that he did not take part in drafting the plan and was in fact in Eastern Europe for “medical treatment” during the time the plan was drafted and implemented. The plan borrowed from Chinese Communist doctrine and was based on the concept of the general offensive. Accompanying the general offensive, in something of a one-two punch, would be the general uprising during which the people of

Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy South Vietnam would rally to the Communist cause and overthrow the Saigon government. The general uprising was a distinctly Vietnamese element of revolutionary dogma. The success of the plan depended on three key assumptions: the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) would not fight and would in fact collapse under the impact of the General Offensive, the people of South Vietnam would follow through with the general uprising, and American will to continue would crack in the face of the overwhelming shock. The general offensive was set for Tet 1968, the beginning of the Lunar New Year and the most important holiday in the Vietnamese year. The plans, however, were a tightly held secret, and the exact timing and objectives of the attack were withheld from field commanders until the last possible moment. The Communist military buildup and staging for the Tet Offensive were a masterpiece of deception. Beginning in the autumn of 1967, VC and PAVN forces mounted a series of bloody but seemingly pointless battles in the border regions and the northern part of South Vietnam near the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The battles at Loc Ninh and Dak To were part of the Communist peripheral campaign, designed to draw U.S. combat units out of the urban areas and toward the borders. The operations also were designed to give Communist forces experience in larger-scale conventional attack formations. In January 1968 several PAVN divisions began to converge on the isolated U.S. Marine Corps outpost at Khe Sanh in the northern I Corps Tactical Zone, near the DMZ. Khe Sanh was a classic deception, and the North Vietnamese depended on the Americans misreading history and seeing another Dien Bien Phu in the making, although they were not averse to taking the base there if this proved feasible. From January 21, 1968, until the point at which the countrywide attacks erupted during Tet, the attention of most of the U.S. military and the national command structure was riveted on Khe Sanh. The battle became an obsession for President Lyndon Johnson, who had a scale terrain model of the U.S. Marine Corps base built for the White House Situation Room. Meanwhile, the Communists used the Christmas 1967 ceasefire to move their forces into position, while senior commanders gathered reconnaissance on their assigned objectives. In November 1967 troops of the 101st Airborne Division had captured a Communist document calling for the general offensive/general uprising, but U.S. intelligence analysts dismissed it as mere propaganda. Such a bold stroke seemed too fantastic, because U.S. intelligence did not believe that the Communists had the capability to attempt it. One senior U.S. commander was not thrown off by the peripheral campaign. Lieutenant General Frederick C. Weyand, commander of U.S. II Field Force headquartered in Long Binh some 15 miles east of Saigon, did not like the pattern of increased Communist radio traffic around the capital, combined with a strangely low number of contacts made by his units in the border regions. On January 10, 1968, Weyand convinced General William Westmore-

1103

land to let him pull more U.S. combat battalions back in around Saigon. As a result, there were 27 battalions (instead of the planned 14) in the Saigon area when the attack came. Weyand’s foresight would be critical for the allies. The countrywide Communist attacks were set to commence on January 31, but the secrecy of their buildup cost them in terms of coordination. At 12:15 on the morning of January 30 Da Nang, Pleiku, Nha Trang, and nine other cities in central South Vietnam came under attack. Commanders in VC Region 5 had started 24 hours too early. This was apparently because they were following the lunar calendar in effect in South Vietnam rather than a new lunar calendar proclaimed by the North Vietnamese leadership for all of Vietnam. As a result of this premature attack, the Tet holiday cease-fire was canceled, ARVN troops were called back to their units, and U.S. forces went on alert and moved to blocking positions in key areas. Communist forces had largely lost the element of surprise. At 1:30 a.m. on January 31 the Presidential Palace in Saigon came under attack. By 3:40 a.m. the city of Hue was under attack, and the Tet Offensive was in full swing. Before the day was over, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals were under attack. With the exception of Khe Sanh, the ancient capital of Hue, and the area around Saigon, the fighting was over in a few days. Hue was retaken on February 25, and the Cholon area of Saigon was finally

Heavy black smoke rises from fires in Saigon during the Tet Offensive in early 1968. The heaviest fighting in Saigon occurred in the Cholon District. (National Archives)

1104

Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy

Refugees flee Tet Offensive attacks in 1968. By the end of the offensive, the Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam forces had absorbed immense casualties and had failed to achieve any of their principal objectives, yet in many ways the offensive marked an important turning point in the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

cleared on March 7. By March 20, PAVN units around Khe Sanh began to melt away in the face of overwhelming American firepower. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a tactical disaster for the Communists. By the end of March 1968 they had not achieved a single one of their objectives. More than 58,000 VC and PAVN troops died in the offensive, with the Americans suffering 3,895 dead and the ARVN suffering 4,954 dead. Non-U.S. allies lost 214 killed. More than 14,300 South Vietnamese civilians also died. Communist forces had achieved significant surprise both in the timing and scale of their offensive, but they were unable to exploit it; they had violated the principle of mass. By attacking everywhere, they had superior strength nowhere. Across the country the attack had been launched piecemeal and was repulsed piecemeal. The North Vietnamese leadership had also been wrong in two of its three key assumptions. The people of South Vietnam did not rally to the Communist cause, and the general uprising never took place even in Hue, where Communist forces held the city for the longest

time. Nor did the ARVN fold. This required significant stiffening in certain areas, but on the whole the ARVN fought and fought well. The biggest loser in the Tet Offensive was the VC. Although a large portion of the PAVN conducted the feint at Khe Sanh, VC guerrilla forces had led the major attacks in the south and suffered the heaviest casualties. The guerrilla infrastructure developed over so many years was wiped out. After Tet 1968, the war was run entirely by North Vietnam. The VC were never again a significant force on the battlefield. When Saigon fell in 1975, it was to four PAVN corps. The North Vietnamese leadership had been absolutely correct in their third major assumption, however. Their primary enemy did not have the will. With one hand the United States delivered the Communists a crushing tactical defeat and then with the other hand proceeded to give them a strategic victory. Thus, the Tet Offensive is one of the most paradoxical of history’s decisive battles. The Americans and the South Vietnamese government and military had been caught by surprise by both the timing and the

Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle intensity of the Communist offensive but had still won overwhelmingly. Communist forces, and especially the VC, were badly hurt. As a follow-up, U.S. military planners immediately began to formulate plans to finish off the Communist forces in South Vietnam. Westmoreland and Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) chairman General Earle Wheeler were preparing to request an additional 206,000 troops to finish the job when a disgruntled staff member in the Johnson White House leaked the plan to the press. The story broke in the New York Times on March 10, 1968. With the fresh images of the besieged U.S. embassy in Saigon still in their minds, the press and the public immediately concluded that the extra troops were needed to recover from a massive defeat. The Tet Offensive was the psychological turning point of the war. U.S. military historian Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall probably summed up the Tet Offensive best: “a potential major victory turned into a disastrous defeat through mistaken estimates, loss of nerve, and a tidal wave of defeatism.” Two decades after the war while reviewing the results of the 1968 Tet Offensive in light of history, senior PAVN generals who had participated in the Tet Offensive concluded that there had in fact been no general uprising at Tet 1968 and that rather than calling the 1968 Tet attack a “general offensive–general uprising,” the offensive could be more accurately described as a “strategic raid.” DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Bui Tin; Dak To, Battle of; Hue, Battle of; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Loc Ninh, Military Operations near; Nguyen Chi Thanh; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vo Nguyen Giap; Westmoreland, William Childs; Weyand, Frederick Carlton; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Tap Chi Lich Su Quan Su: So Dac Biet 20 Nam Tet Mau Than [Military History Magazine: 20th Anniversary of the 1968 Tet Offensive Special Issue], Issue 2, 1988. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Pribbenow, Merle L. “General Vo Nguyen Giap and the Mysterious Evolution of the Plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies (Summer 2008): 1–33. Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 1981. Willbanks, James H. The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Young, Stephen. “How North Vietnam Won the War.” Interview with former Colonel Bui Tin. Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1995. Zabecki, David T. “Battle for Saigon.” Vietnam (Summer 1989): 19–25.

1105

Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Start Date: January 31, 1968 End Date: March 31, 1968 The primary Communist objectives during the 1968 Tet Offensive were the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) capital of Saigon and the major U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) bases in nearby Long Binh and Bien Hoa. The vital strategic area, which roughly formed a 29-mile zone around the capital, was called the “Saigon Circle.” As a gesture of confidence in the ARVN, the U.S. command on December 15, 1967, turned over sole responsibility for the defense of Saigon to the South Vietnamese military. The main task of securing the capital fell to the ARVN 5th Ranger Group, supported by the 2nd Battalion, U.S. 13th Artillery, the only U.S. combat unit remaining inside the city. Thirty-nine maneuver battalions of the U.S. II Field Force (an organization basically equivalent to a corps) meanwhile were earmarked for operations against Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) base camps near the Cambodian border. These operations were a direct response to the peripheral campaign of PAVN general Vo Nguyen Giap, who was attempting to draw U.S. forces away from the major cities prior to launching the Tet Offensive. Giap’s deception plan almost worked. If the American border campaign had continued on schedule, there would have been only 14 U.S. and Free World combat battalions inside the Saigon Circle when the Tet attacks were launched on January 31, 1968. But the commander of II Field Force, Lieutenant General Frederick C. Weyand, did not like the operational patterns that were emerging. His units on the Cambodian border were making too few contacts, while at the same time Communist radio traffic around Saigon was increasing. On January 10, 1968, Weyand took his concerns to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William C. Westmoreland. As a result of that meeting, Westmoreland allowed Weyand to pull more of his battalions in toward the capital. When the Communist attacks were finally launched, there were 27 combat battalions back inside the Saigon Circle. Weyand’s keen analysis of the situation and subsequent action turned the battle before it even started. One of the primary indicators of the importance that the Communists placed on the Saigon Circle objective was reflected in the command structure for the attacks. The entire operation was under the command of Lieutenant General Tran Van Tra, the second highest-ranking PAVN general in South Vietnam. Just prior to Christmas 1967, Tra shifted his headquarters from the “Fishhook” area of Cambodia to the outskirts of Saigon. This, in part, accounted for the increased communications traffic noted by Weyand. Tra’s new headquarters was colocated with that of Colonel Tran Van Dac, chief VC political officer for the area. They were joined by Major General Tran Do, a North Vietnamese officer

1106

Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle

serving as deputy political commissar of the South Vietnamese Liberation Army. In all, the Communists had a force equivalent of 35 battalions organized into one PAVN and two VC divisions. The combined Communist command had eight major objectives for the Saigon Circle, which they believed would cripple the Saigon government and trigger the anticipated general uprising. In Saigon itself, VC and PAVN forces were to seize and neutralize all the key government command, control, and communications centers; take the artillery and tank depots at Go Vap; neutralize Tan Son Nhut Air Base and the MACV center there; seize Cholon, the ethnic Chinese district of Saigon; and destroy the Newport Bridge linking Saigon to Long Binh and Bien Hoa on Highway 1. In Long Binh the primary objective was the massive U.S. logistics depot and U.S. II Field Force headquarters. In Bien Hoa the targets were the U.S. air base and ARVN III Corps headquarters. In addition, supporting forces on the outer edges of the Saigon Circle were to block any attempts by the U.S. 25th Infantry Division to reinforce Saigon from Cu Chi along Highway 1 and prevent the U.S. 1st Infantry Division from reinforcing from Lai Khe along Highway 13. Because of secrecy in the planning and buildup for the attacks, Communist forces suffered coordination problems. On January 30 one day before the countrywide attacks were scheduled to begin, VC Region 5 commanders launched attacks against Da Nang and 11 other cities in the north of the country. As a result, the Tet holiday cease-fire was canceled, and U.S. and ARVN units were moved into alert positions.

The official start of the Tet Offensive came at 1:30 a.m. on the morning of January 31 when a 14-man platoon from the VC’s C-10 Sapper Battalion attacked the Saigon Presidential Palace. Forty-five minutes later a 19-man platoon from the same battalion attacked the U.S. embassy. Two American military police (MPs), Specialist 4 Charles L. Daniel and Private First Class William Selbast, were killed in the initial assault but not before they managed to sound the alarm and kill the VC platoon leader and his assistant. Although the attacks spread throughout the city, General Weyand coordinated the American response from his command post at Long Binh. As the morning wore on, his most pressing headache was, ironically, the most militarily insignificant: the U.S. embassy. VC sappers never did enter the embassy building, but it took until well into the morning to clear them out of the courtyard. The American media meanwhile flashed images around the world of the seat of U.S. power in Vietnam under siege. The result was a psychological impact far out of proportion to its actual importance. As the fighting progressed, Weyand sent his deputy commander, Major General Keith Ware, into the city to form Task Force Ware and assume command of all U.S. forces inside the city proper. A few blocks north of the city another platoon of the ubiquitous C-10 Sapper Battalion attacked the National Radio Station. The platoon was accompanied by a PAVN specialist who carried prerecorded tapes announcing the general offensive and the general uprising. The Communist troops seized the radio station with little

Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle difficulty, but they were prevented from making their broadcast when the link to the remote transmission tower was severed at the last minute on a prearranged signal from the station’s technicians. The ARVN depot complex at Go Vap on the northern edge of the city was the objective of the VC 101st Regiment. The plan called for the Communist troops to overrun the depot, capture the artillery and tanks stored there, and use those weapons for the continued assault on Tan Son Nhut Air Base, about a mile to the west. The VC were accompanied by PAVN specialist troops to help them in the use of the weapons. The Communists succeeded in capturing the depot, only to discover that the tanks had been moved elsewhere the week before. They did manage to capture 12 105-millimeter artillery pieces, but the withdrawing ARVN troops had the presence of mind to take the guns’ firing locks with them. The VC had the big guns, but they were useless. Thus, a key element of the attack on Tan Son Nhut faltered. During the evening of January 30 a large VC force had infiltrated into the Vinatexco textile factory across Highway 1 on the west side of Tan Son Nhut. At about 3:20 a.m. the next day three VC battalions stormed across the road and attacked the western end of the air base. In less than an hour Communist forces were on the runway, and the fighting became hand to hand. With its main headquarters under threat, MACV sent a call for help to the 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi, about 20 miles to the northwest of Saigon. The 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, was already on alert for a possible relief mission to Tan Son Nhut. Squadron commander Lieutenant Colonel Glenn K. Otis immediately sent his Troop C down the road. Suspecting VC ambushes, however, Otis flew ahead of the troop in his command and control helicopter, spotting the ambush sites, attacking them from the air, and leading his troops around them. Troop C, vastly outnumbered, crashed into the rear of the Communist attack at about 6:00 a.m. Troop C was mauled in the process, but the momentum of the VC attack was halted temporarily. Otis flew back to Cu Chi and then led his Troop B back down the same road. When they arrived at Tan Son Nhut, Otis deployed them at a 90-degree angle to Troop C, fixing the VC in an “L” shape. Otis then brought in his air cavalry troop and attack helicopters to finish off the VC. Otis and three of his soldiers were later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, also won a Presidential Unit Citation. Years later, Otis ended his military career as a four-star general and commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe. Thirteen miles to the east of Saigon, the VC 5th Division simultaneously attacked the Long Binh–Bien Hoa complex. The 5th Division were opposed primarily by the U.S. 9th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, a mechanized unit commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John B. Tower. Company A was sent to relieve the attack on the large prisoner-of-war compound between the two cities, and Company B was sent to reinforce the besieged garrison at Long Binh. Just as Company B arrived at 6:30 a.m., VC sappers managed to blow up part of the huge Long Binh ammunition stor-

1107

age dump. The massive explosion could be heard and seen for miles around, but miraculously few allied casualties resulted. Company C meanwhile was sent into Bien Hoa City to relieve the attack on the ARVN III Corps headquarters compound. Company C had to fight its way through the middle of the VC 275th Regiment astride Highway 1 and through the flank of the VC 274th Regiment that was attacking the U.S. air base at Bien Hoa. At 5:45 a.m. Company C plowed into the rear of the VC 238th Battalion inside the city. Dismounting from their armored personnel carriers, the soldiers engaged in city fighting more typical of World War II than of the Vietnam War. By that evening, the city was secure. While Company C was fighting to clear the city, Troop A of the 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, was sent to relieve the attack on Bien Hoa Air Base. Troop A had to fight its way down Highway 1 and through Company C’s fight inside the city. Once it reached the air base, Troop A linked up with the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, which had been brought in at dawn by helicopter. Together they fought all day to eject Communist forces from the air base. Later that day the air base was relieved by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, which had conducted a forced march from its base at Xuan Loc. At the end of the day Troop A’s lone tank had taken 19 hits and lost two crews, but it was still in action. Both Troop A and the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Infantry Regiment earned Valorous Unit Citations for their actions on January 31. Most of the fighting inside the Saigon Circle was concluded in a matter of days except in Cholon, the teeming ethnic Chinese district of Saigon. Initially the area was attacked by the local-force VC 5th and 6th Battalions, but as the fighting elsewhere petered out, most Communist survivors filtered into Cholon. The key to Cholon was the Phu Tho Racetrack, the hub of most of the key streets. By holding it, the VC could deny its use to the Americans as a helicopter landing zone. The local-force VC 6th Battalion had little trouble taking the racetrack, and from there it fanned out to consolidate control of the district. Communist political officers worked the streets to drum up support for the general uprising, while others served arrest and execution warrants for the district’s leaders. A month-long reign of terror in Cholon had begun. Early on January 31 General Weyand ordered units of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade into Cholon to reinforce the ARVN Rangers there. Company A, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry, reached Cholon at about 8:00 a.m. Six blocks from the racetrack, they were ambushed and had to continue fighting their way house to house. By 1:00 p.m. they were within two blocks of the racetrack. Their initial attack on the track was repulsed by a well-dug-in VC defense. The Americans tried again at 2:30 p.m., this time with helicopter gunship support. Once the racetrack fell, the Americans consolidated the position and brought in reinforcements that night by air. The next day, U.S. troops fanned out from the racetrack and started the long and torturous process of retaking Cholon. By February 3 the South Vietnamese had five ranger, five marine, and five airborne battalions inside Saigon. The Americans had committed

1108

TEXAS, Operation

seven infantry, one MP, and six artillery battalions. On February 5 the ARVN 5th Ranger Group started a final push to clear Cholon. For political and prestige reasons the South Vietnamese asked the Americans to pull back and let the ARVN finish the job. Five days later the South Vietnamese asked the Americans to come back in. Most of Cholon was finally cleared by March 7, but sporadic fighting continued to erupt in Saigon for the remainder of the month. In one of those final aftershocks, on March 31 Saigon police chief Major General Nguyen Ngoc Loan was caught on film summarily executing a suspected VC prisoner on a city street. The image became one of the most famous of the Vietnam War and produced reactions of horror and outrage throughout the world. It was unfortunately only one of many such incidents on both sides during the two months of fighting. A few weeks later Colonel Dac, VC chief political officer for Saigon, defected. The Tet Offensive was over. The VC and PAVN forces had failed to achieve any of their eight principal objectives, and they had suffered a large number of casualties in the process. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Hue, Battle of; Nguyen Ngoc Loan; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tran Do; Tran Van Tra; Vo Nguyen Giap; Ware, Keith Lincoln; Westmoreland, William Childs; Weyand, Frederick Carlton References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Hoang Ngoc Lung, Colonel. The General Offensives of 1968–69. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Zabecki, David T. “Battle for Saigon.” Vietnam (Summer 1989): 19–25.

TEXAS,

Operation

Start Date: March 20, 1966 End Date: March 25, 1966 Combined U.S. Marine and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) reaction force to relieve a besieged the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Regional Forces camp at An Hoa, approximately 15 miles south of Chu Lai in Quang Ngai Province. Operation TEXAS, known to the ARVN as Operation LIEN KET 28, resulted from a March 19, 1966, attack by an element of the Viet Cong (VC) 1st Regiment on the An Hoa base, which was garrisoned by a single Regional Forces company. U.S. Marine Corps helicopters flew in ARVN reinforcements and evacuated the wounded, but it appeared that An Hoa could not be held. At dawn on March 20 the 3rd Battalion of the 7th Marines and the ARVN 5th Airborne

Battalion were flown to within a mile of the fort and immediately went into battle, forcing the VC to withdraw. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, was then airlifted from Chu Lai to a position four miles to the south of An Hoa to intercept the retreating VC regiment. The tactic worked, and the marines and ARVN troops successfully trapped the VC force between them and annihilated it in two more days of fierce fighting. In just four days the marines accounted for 405 known VC dead, and the ARVN claimed an additional 218, for a total of 623. The marines sustained losses of 99 killed and 212 wounded. ARVN casualties are unknown. Vietnamese Communist histories reveal that both the VC 1st Regiment and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 21st Regiment took part in this battle. JOHN D. ROOT See also Territorial Forces; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Ngo Quy Nhon, Pham Hong Nhan, and Tran Thuc. Su Doan 2, Tap 1 [2nd Division, Vol. 1]. Da Nang: Da Nang Publishing House, 1989. Simmons, Brigadier General Edwin H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1965–66.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 35–68. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

TEXAS STAR,

Operation

Start Date: April 1, 1970 End Date: September 5, 1970 Military operation in I Corps Tactical Zone conducted by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) in cooperation with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 1st Infantry Division. One brigade of the 101st Airborne Division assumed responsibility for pacification support and development programs; the other two brigades carried out offensive sweeps through the western part of Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces in the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Operation TEXAS STAR clearly reflected U.S. military priorities for 1970: Vietnamization of the war, reduction of U.S. casualties, meeting the timetable of withdrawal of U.S. forces, and U.S. combat operations only if intended to “stimulate a negotiated settlement.” Operation TEXAS STAR utilized lessons learned in Operation RANDOLPH GLEN (December 7, 1969–March 31, 1970), developed in coordination with the ARVN 1st Infantry Division and Vietnamese provincial officials to meet the objectives of both an integrated pacification/development plan and an autonomous Vietnamese military capable of self-defense. Emphasis on these two goals had led, however, to a reduction in allied offensive capability that enabled People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army)

Thailand forces time to upgrade their own capabilities and return to areas abandoned in 1969. PAVN proximity to population centers threatened the pacification effort along the coastal plains, and by April 1970 PAVN forces in Thua Thien Province outnumbered those during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Operation TEXAS STAR was an effort to regain the initiative of the 1969 A Shau Valley campaigns lost during RANDOLPH GLEN’s pacification efforts. Using a network of fire-support bases (FSBs), active patrolling, and aerial reconnaissance, TEXAS STAR attempted to halt PAVN infiltration. The five-month operation included action at the Arsenal, Bastogne, Gladiator, Granite, Henderson, Kathryn, Los Banos, Maureen, Mink, O’Reilly, Ripcord, Sarge, and Tomahawk FSBs. At FSB Maureen on the night of May 7, Private First Class Kenneth M. Kays, a medic with Company D, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, earned the Medal of Honor. In the fighting the division’s Ranger reconnaissance teams suffered heavy losses, including on May 11 an entire six-man team from Lima Company, 75th Infantry (Rangers). The 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, within the 101st’s Airborne Division’s tactical area of responsibility played a major role in supplying aerial reconnaissance and surveillance but paid a high price in casualties and lost aircraft. On July 8 the largest action of the year saw troopers of the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, engage PAVN forces on the move near Khe Sanh. An intense daylong battle resulted in 139 PAVN killed and 4 captured. The battle of FSB Ripcord was the costliest of the year. After an exploratory insertion on March 12 and a failed attempt to make the hill into a firebase, on April 1 the 101st “Screaming Eagles” moved off the hill to a more secure area. After 10 days of firefights, on April 10 the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Andre C. Lucas (posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor), secured the hill without opposition. After a relatively quiet seven weeks during which a PAVN division code-named F-4 (actually the newly reconstituted PAVN 324B Division) moved into the area, on July 1 the siege of FSB Ripcord began. During July 1–23 the firebase came under assault from rockets and 120-millimeter mortars. Two factors influenced acting division commander Brigadier General Sidney Berry to disengage. On July 18 a U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down and crashed into the main U.S. artillery ammunition dump; this destroyed the heart of Ripcord’s defenses. Two days later Captain Charles Hawkins, commanding Company A, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, reported that the opposing PAVN forces were between 9,000 and 11,000 men. On the morning of July 23, having suffered heavy losses, the 300 remaining defenders of Ripcord executed a fighting withdrawal. American losses at Ripcord totaled 112 killed, 698 wounded, and 1 missing in action (of these casualties, 61 killed, 345 wounded, and 1 missing in action were during the July siege). U.S. sources claimed for Operation TEXAS STAR a total of 4,138 PAVN and Viet Cong (VC) killed in action and 49 taken prisoner. U.S. losses were 380 dead, 1,978 wounded, and 7 missing. PAUL S. DAUM AND FRANCIS RYAN

1109

See also Air Mobility; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Pacification; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; United States Army; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnamization References Harrison, Benjamin L. Hell on a Hill Top: America’s Last Major Battle in Vietnam. New York: iUniverse, 2004. Kamps, Charles T., Jr. The History of the Vietnam War. New York: Exeter Books, 1987. Linderer, Gary. “The 101st Airborne Division: The Vietnam Experience.” In 101st Airborne Division: Screaming Eagles, edited by Robert J. Martin, 44–63. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1995. Sigler, David Burns. Vietnam Battle Chronology: U.S. Army and Marine Corps Combat Operations, 1965–1973. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

Thailand Southeast Asian nation and close ally of the United States during the Vietnam War. Thailand encompasses 198,455 square miles and is bordered by Burma (Myanmar) to the north and west, Laos to the northeast, Cambodia due east, and Malaysia and the Gulf of Thailand to the south. Thailand had a 1968 population of 35.028 million people. In recent times Thailand has had a long-enduring constitutional monarchy presided over by King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The form of government is parliamentary, although the government has frequently been dominated by the military. A bastion of anticommunism, Thailand enjoyed a relatively prosperous and stable economy, and during the early years of the Cold War it was a focal point for U.S. diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Indeed, Thailand served as the headquarters for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), formed in 1954 with support and participation by the United States. Thailand provided both military bases and combat forces to assist the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Although the Thais had traditionally maintained a policy of nonintervention in Southeast Asia and had gotten along with the Vietnamese, they became suspicious of Communist intentions. Fearing the fall of Cambodia and Laos to guerrillas, the Thais wanted above all to preserve their own independence while taking a more active role in regional defense matters. Accordingly, the Thai government responded to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s call for “Free World Military Forces” and joined 40 other nations in sending forces or other support to South Vietnam. Thai support to Johnson’s “Many Flags” campaign took the form of combat troops, which by 1969 totaled nearly 12,000 men in South Vietnam. The first Thai contribution to the Vietnam War effort came in September 1964, when a 16-man Royal Thai Air Force contingent arrived in South Vietnam to assist in flying and maintaining some of the cargo aircraft operated by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force

1110

Thailand

Thai partisans help prepare a joint Thai-Vietnamese-French operation against the invading Communist-led Viet Minh in 1954. During the Vietnam War, Thailand was a close U.S. ally, providing military bases and combat forces to assist the Republic of Vietnam. (National Archives)

(VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force). The Royal Thai Military Assistance Group was established in Saigon in February 1966. Later in 1966 the Thai government announced that it was considering sending combat troops to aid the South Vietnamese against the Communists. Public support for this idea was overwhelmingly positive; 5,000 men volunteered almost immediately, including some 20 Buddhist monks and the prime minister’s son. In January 1967 the Thai government officially announced that it would send a reinforced combat battalion to South Vietnam. In September 1967 the first elements of the Royal Thai Volunteer Regiment (“Queen’s Cobras”) arrived in Vietnam and moved to Bear Cat (near Bien Hoa), where it was colocated with the U.S. 9th Infantry Division. The Queen’s Cobras began combat operations almost immediately, launching Operation NARASUAN in October 1967. The Thai soldiers quickly proved themselves to be a well-trained and resourceful force. In addition to participating in combat operations, Thai units were also active in civic-action projects in their area of operations, building schools and roads and treating the civilian population with their medical units. Even as the Queen’s Cobras were conducting combat operations, the Thai government began to consider increasing its commitment to South Vietnam. Discussions between the Thai government and the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

(MACV), led Thailand to increase its troop strength in South Vietnam to an entire division. In July 1968 the Queen’s Cobras were replaced by the Royal Thai Army Expeditionary Division (“Black Panthers”), which arrived incrementally and eventually included two brigades of infantry, three battalions of 105-millimeter field artillery, and an armored cavalry unit. The Black Panthers were joined by 48 U.S. Army advisers to assist in their operations. The area of operations assigned to the Thai force in the III Corps Tactical Zone was characterized by a low level of action because the land was used by the Communist forces as a source of food and clothing; thus, offensive actions were not as significant in the Thai area of operations as they were in other areas. Nevertheless, Thai forces fought very effectively, primarily conducting search-and-clear operations supported by their own artillery firing from two Thai firebases. They also conducted extensive psychological warfare operations and continued their civic-action projects. In August 1970 the Black Panthers division was redesignated the Royal Thai Army Volunteer Force, a title it retained throughout the rest of its time in South Vietnam. In addition to the ground forces, the Royal Thai Air Force contributed Douglas C-47 Skytrain/Dakota and Chase Fairchild C-123 Provider cargo aircraft to what they called their Victory Flight. In 1971 as part of the general drawdown of forces in Vietnam, Royal Thai forces were gradually withdrawn; the last Thai troops left Vietnam in April 1972. During the course of its commitment to South Vietnam, Thailand provided more military support than any other country except the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). Thailand made a major contribution to the air war with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) when it permitted the U.S. Air Force access to air bases in eastern Thailand. The U.S. Air Force operated from Thailand with the 8th, 355th, 366th, and 388th Tactical Fighter Wings and the 307th Strategic Wing. Strategic bombing operations over both North and South Vietnam often originated in Thailand. In addition to the U.S. Air Force, the United States also stationed the 46th Special Forces Company in Thailand. This unit was tasked with assisting Thai forces in resisting Communist terrorist guerrilla activity along Thailand’s northeastern Laotian border and in the south on the Malay Peninsula. Several U.S. servicemen were killed during the 1967–1973 in the antiguerrilla campaign. Guerrilla forces also conducted a number of raids on U.S. Air Force bases, notably at Udorn and U-Tapao, causing U.S. casualties. The bodies of these guerrilla sappers almost invariably turned out to be North Vietnamese. A recently published Vietnamese history reveals that the sapper raids against U.S. air bases in Thailand were carried out by the elite North Vietnamese Sapper-Commando Group 1, based in Laos and aided by former ethnic Vietnamese residents of Thailand who had repatriated to North Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 1960s and who had been reinfiltrated into Thailand as agents to provide intelligence support for the sapper attacks. Other U.S. forces in Thailand included the U.S. Army 9th Logistical Command, the

Thanh Thai 44th Engineer Group and 40th Military Police (Battle) at Korat, the 29th Signal Group at Bangkok, and the U.S. Marine Corps Marine Air Group 15 at Nam Phong in 1972. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Civic Action; Free World Assistance Program; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Korea, Republic of; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Order of Battle Dispute References Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Nguyen Ngoc Lien, ed. Lich Su Doan Dac Cong Biet Dong 1 (1968–2008) [History of Sapper-Commando Group 1 (1968–2008)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2008. Randolph, R. Sean. The United States and Thailand: Alliance Dynamics, 1950–1985. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley, 1986. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Wyatt, David K. Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982.

Thanh Hoa Bridge Bridge spanning the Ma River (Song Ma) three miles north of Thanh Hoa, capital of Thanh Hoa Province, in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Thanh Hoa is some 82 miles south of Hanoi. Destruction of the bridge became an obsession for U.S. planners despite the unpopularity of such missions for the pilots involved. The Thanh Hoa Bridge was known to the Vietnamese as the Ham Rong (Dragon’s Jaw). It was built between 1957 and 1964 and was a metal structure 540 feet long, 56 feet wide, and 500 feet high. The bridge rested on heavy concrete abutments at either end of the structure, and in the center was an additional concrete abutment. The Thanh Hoa Bridge became one of the most challenging targets for American bombing missions during the Vietnam War and endured numerous bombing raids before it was finally destroyed in 1972. The bridge was strategically important because it carried both rail and vehicular traffic, much of this including munitions and supplies destined for passage down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Communist forces fighting in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). As an important choke point in the North Vietnamese southbound supply system, the bridge was heavily defended. On April 3, 1965, Lieutenant Colonel Robinson “Robbie” Risner led the first strike against the bridge, scoring several direct hits with AGM-12 Bullpup missiles. However, none caused serious damage to the structure. In March 1967 the U.S. Navy attacked the bridge with new AGM-62 Walleye missiles but also failed to knock it out. Between 1968 and 1972 the United States suspended Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing of North Vietnam. But on April 27,

1111

1972, during Operation LINEBACKER I following the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) invasion of South Vietnam, 12 F-4 Phantoms, 8 of which carried the new Paveway I laserguided bomb, attacked the Thanh Hoa Bridge. These new bombs dislodged the bridge from its western abutment, dropping half of the span in the river. A second attack on May 13 rendered the bridge completely unusable, and a final attack on October 6 destroyed it. The United States admitted to the loss of 11 aircraft during the various attacks against the bridge, but North Vietnamese air defenses covering a 75-square-mile area around the bridge claimed to have shot down 104 American pilots in the area. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy expended 873 sorties and hundreds of bombs and missiles against the bridge before it was finally destroyed. Its destruction proved the effectiveness of precision-guided munitions, opening the way to a new era of aerial warfare. ROBERT B. KANE See also Air-to-Ground Missiles; LINEBACKER I, Operation; Risner, James Robinson; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; United States Air Force; United States Navy References Gurney, Gene. Vietnam: The War in the Air. New York: Crown, 1985. Lavalle, A. J. C., ed. The Tale of Two Bridges and the Battle for the Skies over North Vietnam. Monographs 1 and 2. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Staff, 2001. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000.

Thanh Nien Cong Hoa See Republican Youth

Thanh Thai Birth Date: March 17, 1879 Death Date: March 24, 1954 Tenth emperor (r. 1889–1907) of the Nguyen dynasty. Thanh Thai, born on March 17, 1879, was the son of Emperor Duc Duc, who reigned for just three days (July 20–23, 1883). The French placed Thanh Thai on the throne after the death of Emperor Dong Khanh, who reigned from 1885 to 1889. Thanh Thai was intelligent, open-minded, and deeply influenced by the reform movement. However, it was during his reign that the French forced the Hue court to eliminate the position of kinh luoc bac ky (“viceroy of Tonkin”), with its functions being taken over by the French resident superior. The French also eliminated the Co Mat Vien (Secret Council), the highest council of the imperial court, and replaced it with the Council of Ministers headed by the French resident in Hue.

1112

Thich Quang Duc

These events profoundly affected Thanh Thai and made him openly anti-French. On July 30, 1905, he attempted to flee to China with the intention of joining Cuong De’s Dong Du movement. The French intercepted him at Thanh Hoa and declared him insane. Whether feigned or real, his behavior became more bizarre, and on September 3, 1907, after reaching an agreement with the Vietnamese court, the French forced him to abdicate. They replaced him with his son, Vinh San, who became Emperor Duy Tan. From 1907 to 1915 Thanh Thai was kept under house detainment in Vung Tau (Cap Saint-Jacques); he was then sent into exile on the island of Réunion. He returned to Vietnam in 1947 and died on March 24, 1954, in Saigon. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Duy Tan; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Nguyen Dynasty References Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Hoang Trong Thuoc. Ho So Vua Duy Tan (Than The Va Su Nghiep) [The Emperor Duy Tan File (Personal and Career)]. San Francisco: Nha Xuat Ban Mo Lang, 1993.

Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Vietnam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970.

Thanh To Nhan Hoang De See Minh Mang

Thich Quang Duc Birth Date: 1897 Death Date: June 11, 1963 Buddhist monk whose act of self-immolation in front of invited media was the subject of Malcolm Browne’s photograph, a graven image of the Vietnam experience. Thich (“Venerable”) Quang

Thich Quang Duc was a Buddhist monk whose act of self-immolation in front of invited media in 1963 was the subject of Malcolm Browne’s famous photograph. His death as a martyr produced worldwide indignation, widespread antigovernment protests in Vietnam, and a realization within the Kennedy administration that the Republic of Vietnam government was a major part of the Vietnam problem. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Thich Tri Quang Duc, born in 1897 in Hoi Khanh, Khanh Hoa Province, became a Buddhist at age 7, a monk at age 15, and later the most venerable bonze at Thien Mu, Vietnam’s most famous pagoda, located near Hue. After May 1963 anti-Buddhist actions carried out by President Ngo Dinh Diem’s minority Catholic government in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the Buddhists decided to respond. On June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc arrived by automobile at Saigon’s intersection of Phan Dinh Phung and Le Van Duyet streets. Approximately 700 monks and nuns surrounded him, chanted, burned incense, prayed, and blocked traffic. Doused with gasoline by one of his disciples and then ignited, Thich Quang Duc died without crying out or moving. His death as a martyr protesting the actions of President Diem’s government produced worldwide indignation, widespread antigovernment protests within Vietnam, and a growing realization within the John F. Kennedy administration that Diem was himself part of the Vietnam problem. Buddhists, who claimed that the venerable’s heart did not burn, removed it to Saigon’s Xa Loi Pagoda, where there is a special altar at which to pray, honor the man, and commemorate the event. Although eventually some 30 monks and nuns burned themselves, Thich Quang Duc’s act, as the first, remained the most shocking and served as the catalyst for the impending demise of Diem and his regime. PAUL S. DAUM AND TREVOR CURRAN See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Media and the Vietnam War; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu References Esper, George, and the Associated Press. The Eyewitness History of the Vietnam War, 1961–1975. New York: Ballantine Books, 1983. Halberstam, David. “Diem Asks Peace in Religious Crisis.” New York Times, June 12, 1963. Prados, John. “We Are Spiritual in the Material World: The Rise of Buddhist Activism in South Vietnam.” VVA Veteran 15(2) (February 1995): 1, 23–24, 40–41.

Thich Tri Quang Birth Date: November 1922 Buddhist monk and opponent of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. Thich Tri Quang was born in Quang Binh Province in November 1922 to a family of well-to-do farmers. The French believed that Quang was a Viet Minh sympathizer and kept him under surveillance until 1953, although they did allow him to teach and edit a journal. At the time of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Quang was in Hue. Quang was a patriot but was not sympathetic to the Communists. In 1955 his parents and brother were arrested as landlords during land reform operations in the northern province of Quang

1113

Binh. This prompted Quang to become the president of the Buddhist Association for Central Vietnam. Buddhist monks such as Quang believed that if the United States left Vietnam and Diem’s regime was ended, peace talks could be held, and the country could be reunited. The core of conflict in 1963 was that while the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) officially professed religious freedom, incidents of local discrimination and repression against Buddhists and other religious groups had created doubts. By 1963 the Buddhists in South Vietnam organized and developed political actions in response to Diem’s repression. On May 8, 1963, a confrontation occurred between Buddhists, who had gathered in Hue to celebrate the 2,527th birthday of Buddha, and Catholics. Quang was scheduled to give a speech, but Major Dang Si, a Catholic, refused to allow it to be broadcast. Si ordered his officers to throw a concussion grenade at the crowd to disperse them, and a woman and eight children died. In the weeks that followed, Buddhist protests escalated, and the government often resorted to brutal means to quell the unrest. Nevertheless, Quang and the monks kept up the pressure until Diem was overthrown on November 1, 1963. Pursued by Diem’s secret police, Quang fled to the U.S. embassy, where Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge granted him refuge. Quang stayed hidden there until after Diem was overthrown. In 1964 Thich Tri Quang again mobilized Buddhists during the tenuous rule of General Nguyen Khanh. After 1964 the Buddhists were relatively quiet until 1966. It has recently been revealed that for a short time during this period the CIA paid Quang’s Buddhist faction a small financial subsidy. In 1966 Nguyen Cao Ky fired I Corps commander General Nguyen Chanh Thi, a close friend of Quang. This time the United States was determined to stand behind Ky, and General Thi was exiled to the United States. Quang went on a hunger strike in protest, but the power of the Buddhists was broken. Quang was arrested and transferred to a Saigon hospital. In 1975 when the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) took control of South Vietnam, Quang was placed under house arrest. Eventually released, he has since lived in self-imposed obscurity. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Catholicism in Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Chanh Thi References Ahern, Thomas L., Jr. CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998; declassified 2009. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Langguth, A. J. Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. Post, Ken. Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Viet Nam. 5 vols. Brookfield, VT: Darmouth, 1989–1994.

1114

Thieu Tri

Thieu Tri Birth Date: June 6, 1807 Death Date: November 8, 1847 Third emperor (r. 1841–1847) of the Nguyen dynasty. Born Mien Tong on June 6, 1807, Thieu Tri was his ruling name. Thieu Tri ascended the throne in 1841. This well-educated gentle poet and emperor maintained all the works and policies of his father, Emperor Minh Mang (r. 1820–1841), including the entrenchment of Confucianism. Thieu Tri was somewhat less severe toward Catholics, however, at least during the early part of his reign. Hoping to maintain the isolationist policies that his father had nurtured, Thieu Tri tried, without success, to rid Vietnam of Catholic missionaries, whom he did not trust. As a result, in 1843 the French government sent forces to Vietnam to protect its interests in the region and to halt repression of missionary activities. Thieu Tri’s short reign was marked by the French bombardment of Da Nang in 1847 and the Vietnamese abandonment of Tran Tay Thanh (Cambodia). After the French bombardment, Thieu Tri called for the elimination of all missionaries in Vietnam, but he did not live to see his order fulfilled. Thieu Tri died on November 8, 1847. He was also the author of three collections of poems in Chinese characters. French pressure on Vietnam increased under Thieu Tri’s successor, Tu Duc, the last emperor of an independent Vietnam. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Minh Mang; Nguyen Dynasty; Tu Duc; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Quoc Su Quan. Quoc Trieu Chanh Bien Toat Yeu [A Summary of the History of Our Current Dynasty]. Saigon: Nhom Nghien Cuu Su Dia, 1971. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971.

Sent to Alabama to train new recruits, Thomas became involved in intelligence work and was assigned to look for trainees of foreign backgrounds who might be subversive risks. He then volunteered for an initiative recruiting French-speaking members of the military. He had studied the language for two years in school. At his interview in Washington, D.C., he was asked only one question: “Quel âge avez vous?” In this way he was recruited by the OSS. While awaiting overseas assignment, Thomas took a Berlitz course in French. Later in London he lived with a French-speaking family. Sent to France, he was assigned to the small OSS detachment at General George Patton’s Third Army headquarters, where Thomas worked with the French Resistance interviewing and debriefing various agents. He may have been the first to learn, while talking with the agent code-named Gallois, of Adolf Hitler’s plans to burn Paris before the city could be liberated. When OSS work in Europe was largely completed, Thomas was sent to China. He arrived in Kunming on April 1, 1945. By then a major, Thomas headed the small Deer Team unit sent into northern Tonkin to train Viet Minh soldiers. On July 16, 1945, Thomas and his men parachuted from a cargo plane near the village of Kim Lung (present-day Tan Trao). In the weeks that followed Thomas worked with Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and other Viet Minh leaders to carry out his assignment. Thomas and his men arrived in Hanoi on September 9 and spent the next week wandering the city, buying souvenirs, and saying goodbye to friends. The evening before his departure for Kunming, he attended a private dinner with Ho and Giap and asked Ho if he was a Communist. “Yes,” Ho replied, “but we can still be friends, can’t we?” Thomas arrived back in Michigan before the end of September 1945 and returned to the practice of law, ultimately becoming a partner in the firm of Hubbard, Fox, Thomas, White, and Bengston. Thomas died on May 7, 2005, in East Lansing, Michigan. CECIL B. CURREY See also Conein, Lucien Emile; Deer Mission; Dewey, Albert Peter; Ho Chi Minh; Office of Strategic Services; Patti, Archimedes L. A.; Vo Nguyen Giap References Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Smith, Ralph Harris. OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Thomas, Allison Kent Birth Date: September 21, 1914 Death Date: May 7, 2005 U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer sent to work with the Viet Minh at the end of World War II. Born on September 21, 1914, Allison Kent Thomas grew up in Lansing, Michigan, and attended Michigan State University before receiving his LLB from the University of Michigan Law School in 1939. His newly established legal practice ended when he was drafted in June 1941. He graduated from Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1942.

Thomas, Norman Mattoon Birth Date: November 20, 1884 Death Date: December 19, 1968 Noted Socialist, ordained minister, and pacifist who helped shape much of the U.S. isolationist and pacifistic sentiments in the 20th century. Norman Mattoon Thomas was born on November 20, 1884, in Marion, Ohio, where he lived until enrolling at Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1905. He then studied

Thompson, Hugh, Jr.

Leader of the Socialist Party from the 1920s to the 1960s, Norman Thomas ran six times unsuccessfully for the presidency of the United States but was an important critic of American society and politics. (Corbis)

1115

in all its forms and railed against Soviet-style communism. Thus, despite his Socialist beliefs, he was firmly anti-Soviet, even though he did not agree with the militaristic implementation of containment that followed World War II. Thomas also believed that America’s involvement in World War II was a mistake, at least prior to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Indeed, in 1940 he cofounded the America First Committee, which was dedicated to maintaining American isolationism and keeping the United States out of World War II. The committee became the largest and most vocal pacifist organization in the nation but was dissolved within days of the Pearl Harbor attack. Thomas backed the war effort after that, although he derided some of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies, including the decision to permit big business to control much of the war’s military production. After World War II Thomas kept up his high profile in the peace movement and spoke out against postwar rearmament and the American involvement in the Korean War. He also spoke out loudly and often against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and spearheaded some of the earliest organized antiwar protests of the conflict. He worked tirelessly for world disarmament during the 1950s and 1960s and was particularly vocal in his denunciation of the nuclear arms race. Although he resigned as head of the Socialist Party in 1955, he nevertheless remained its chief spokesman until his health began to fail in the late 1960s. He wrote numerous books during his life dealing with socialism, pacifism, disarmament, and civil liberties. Thomas died in New York City on December 19, 1968. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.

at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1911. He served as an assistant pastor and then as pastor of several Presbyterian churches in New York City. While in New York, Thomas was greatly influenced by the Social Gospel movement. Demoralized by what he saw as an intolerably high rate of poverty and discouraged by American militarism, he joined the Socialist Party of America. Thomas spoke out against American involvement in World War I and in 1918 founded and edited the World Tomorrow, a publication dedicated to pacifism and Socialist ideals. In 1920 he cofounded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with such leftist luminaries as Upton Sinclair and Jane Addams. Thomas now turned toward politics and ran unsuccessfully as the Socialist Party candidate for governorship of New York in 1924. He sought the office again in 1938, and he also ran for mayor of New York City in 1925 and again in 1929. In 1926 when longtime Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs died, Thomas took up the leadership role of the party in the United States. He also ran in six presidential elections (1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1948) as the Socialist Party candidate, but he was unsuccessful in each. Although Thomas was a sharp and consistent critic of American-style capitalism and lambasted both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party with equal vigor, he also denounced fascism

References Johnpoll, Bernard K. Pacifist’s Progress: Norman Thomas and the Decline of American Socialism. San Antonio, TX: Quadrangle, 1970. Swanberg, W. A. Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist. New York: Scribner, 1976.

Thompson, Hugh, Jr. Birth Date: April 15, 1943 Death Date: January 6, 2006 U.S. Army helicopter pilot who halted the killings at My Lai, saving many Vietnamese lives. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 15, 1943, Hugh Thompson Jr. joined the U.S. Navy in 1961 and served until 1964 as a heavy equipment operator. In 1966 after two years as a civilian, Thompson joined the U.S. Army and trained as a helicopter pilot. Sent to Vietnam in 1967, on May 16, 1968, Chief Warrant Officer Thompson was piloting a Hiller OH-23 Raven helicopter over My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets making up Son My village, of the Son Tinh District in the coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai Province in the northern region of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South

1116

Thompson, Hugh, Jr.

U.S. Army chief warrant officer Hugh Thompson, shown here in 1969. In 1998, the army belatedly recognized Thompson with the Soldier’s Medal for his role in saving the lives of Vietnamese civilians during the 1968 My Lai Massacre. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Vietnam). Thompson was flying in support of Task Force Barker of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal), which was conducting a sweep of the area. In the helicopter with Thompson were his crew chief Glenn Andreotta and door gunner Lawrence Colburn. Spotting dead water buffalo and bodies strewn over the ground in My Lai, Thompson twice landed his helicopter. Determining that a massacre of civilians was in progress, on the second touchdown Thompson landed between a bunker where a group of wounded Vietnamese were threatened by U.S. troops. Ordering his two crewmen to fire their machine gun on any U.S. soldiers who opened up on the civilians, Thompson left the helicopter and informed the troops on the ground that his men would kill any who interfered. Thompson then managed by hand signals to persuade the Vietnamese to come to safety. Thompson radioed for two other helicopters to serve in a medevac role to carry the 11 civilians to safety. Once this had been accomplished and as Thompson’s own helicopter took off, Andreotta spotted movement among bodies in a nearby irrigation ditch, and Thompson again landed. Andreotta then pulled a young boy to safety, and he too was evacuated in Thompson’s own helicopter. Thompson’s radio reports of what was occurring led to a ceasefire at My Lai and the saving of additional lives. Appalled by what he had seen, Thompson also reported the incident on his return to base and threatened never to fly again. He completed his tour,

however, retained on dangerous missions that some believe to have been punishment for his action during the massacre. He was subsequently shot down five times, breaking his back in the last crash landing. Following his recovery, he trained other helicopter pilots at Fort Rucker, Alabama. When revelations of the My Lai Massacre became public, Thompson testified before Congress and a military inquiry. Lieutenant William L. Calley, the platoon leader of the unit involved in the massacre, was the only individual to be convicted in the massacre. Thompson retired from the military in 1983. He then worked as a veterans’ assistance counselor supervisor in the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs. In the climate of the times of the Vietnam War, many Americans perceived Thompson as a traitor, and he received numerous death threats. Finally after a long letter-writing campaign by Professor David Egan of Clemson University, who considered Thompson a true American hero, on March 6, 1998, the army belatedly recognized Thompson, Colburn (who left the service after his Vietnam tour), and Andreotta (who was killed in combat in April 1968) for their actions. In a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., all three received the Soldier’s Medal for Gallantry, the army’s highest award for bravery not involving enemy contact. Thompson and Colburn returned to My Lai in 1998 and met with many of the villagers whose lives they had saved. Thomp-

Thud Ridge son continued to speak out on military ethics, including talks at the service academies. He died of cancer in Alexandria, Louisiana, on January 6, 2006. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Calley, William Laws, Jr.; My Lai Massacre References Angers, Trent. The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story. Lafayette, LA: Acadian House Publishing, 1999. Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Penguin, 1992. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970.

1117

to enforce the accords was the ultimate cause of defeat. Thompson died on May 16, 1992, in Winsford, England. GEORGE M. BROOKE III See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nixon, Richard Milhous; RAND Corporation; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Thompson, Sir Robert. Defeating Communist Insurgency. New York: Praeger, 1966. Thompson, Sir Robert. Make for the Hills: Memories of Far Eastern Wars. London: Leo Cooper, 1981. Thompson, Sir Robert. No Exit from Vietnam. New York: McKay, 1968.

Thud Ridge Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker Birth Date: April 12, 1916 Death Date: May 16, 1992 British counterinsurgency expert. Born on April 12, 1916, in Charlwood, England, Robert Grainger Ker Thompson was educated at Marlborough and Sidney Sussex College, from which he graduated in 1938. Later that same year he was posted as a Malayan Civil Service (MCS) cadet. During 1942–1944 he served as Royal Air Force liaison officer with General Orde Wingate’s Chindits, rising to wing commander. In 1946 Thompson returned to the MCS as assistant commissioner of labor in Perak. During the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) he was closely involved with the successful effort to defeat the insurgents and advanced up the MCS ranks, becoming permanent secretary for defense in 1959. In September 1961 Thompson, now retired from the MCS, went to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as head of a small British Advisory Mission (BRIAM) to President Ngo Dinh Diem. Thompson established cordial relations with the Americans but was unable to convince the Vietnamese to adopt the approach that had worked in Malaya, and BRIAM was subsequently dissolved in 1965. Later that year he was hired as a consultant by the RAND Corporation and wrote Defeating Communist Insurgency, which compared Malaya and Vietnam and established principles for defeating similar insurgencies. Thompson severely criticized the Lyndon Johnson administration’s Vietnam War strategy adopted in 1966 as a failure to understand the nature of the war. In No Exit from Vietnam (1968), Thompson explained how the Americans’ flawed policy had led to the January 1968 Tet Offensive. In 1969 he was hired as an independent observer by President Richard Nixon, whose new strategy for Vietnam was more attuned to Thompson’s ideas. Thompson remained an observer until the collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975, but his disillusionment with the 1973 Paris Peace Accords led him to conclude that the lack of American will

A 4,000-foot-high ridge (called the Tam Dao Mountains by the Vietnamese) that runs northwest to southeast in northern Vietnam. During the Vietnam War this terrain feature, located less than 30 miles north-northwest of Hanoi in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and paralleling the Red River, served as a mask for U.S. aircraft to help them avoid North Vietnamese radar-controlled surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites when flying in Route Package VI. American pilots named this land feature “Thud Ridge” after the Republic F-105 Thunderchief (nicknamed the “Thud”) fighter-bombers flown against targets in North Vietnam. The planes would often approach the Hanoi area from Thailand and drop down alongside the ridge in an attempt to avoid North Vietnamese air defenses. The U.S. aircraft could follow the ridge to the Hanoi area or fly over it to hit targets, including major transportation routes to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) northeast of the North Vietnamese capital. Thud Ridge played a key role during Operation ROLLING THUNDER and Operations LINEBACKER I and LINEBACKER II. The nickname for the ridge also acknowledged the fact that many U.S. aircraft were shot down in the vicinity by North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire, fighter interceptors, and SAMs. Many pilots purposefully ejected from damaged aircraft over the ridge in order to provide themselves a greater opportunity for rescue, because they were more likely to face quick capture when ejecting over the more populated lowlands. TERRY M. MAYS See also Hanoi; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Route Packages References Staaveren, Jacob Van. Gradual Failure: The Air War over North Vietnam, 1965–1966. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002. Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000.

1118

THUNDERHEAD, Operation

THUNDERHEAD,

Operation

Start Date: May 29, 1972 End Date: June 19, 1972 Secret search-and-rescue mission conducted by the United States in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). U.S. Navy intelligence had received information of a possible escape attempt by two to five prisoners from a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp near Hanoi. As a result, during May 29–June 19, 1972, numerous sorties were flown under the direction of U.S. Navy lieutenant commander Edwin Towers to search for the presumed escaped POWs in enemy territory. Primary surveillance was performed by Navy SEAL teams and Sikorsky HH-3A Sea King helicopters at a cost of one man killed. The mission was labeled a failure because the POWs had not been located or extracted. The fate of the POWs remained unknown for a year. When released in 1973, they stated that they had spent several months planning an escape attempt. However, increased prison security stemming from the breakdown in negotiations between Washington and Hanoi led to the attempt being called off. This increased security also prevented notifying American authorities that the escape attempt had been aborted. RAJESH H. CHAUHAN See also Prisoners of War, Allied; SEAL Teams References Gropman, Alan L. Airpower and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005. Lavalle, A. J. C. Airpower and the 1972 Spring Invasion. U.S. Air Force Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Vol. 2, Monograph 3. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1985. Towers, Edwin L. Hope for Freedom: Operation Thunderhead. La Jolla, CA: Lane and Associates, 1981.

Tianjin, Treaty of Treaty ending the Sino-French War of 1884–1885. Following the French naval victory at Fouzhou (Foochow) in August 1884 and subsequent naval operations that cut off the seaborne rice trade from Taiwan (then known as Formosa) to the Chinese mainland, the Chinese were prepared to make peace. France also suffered a major defeat on land at Langson on February 13, 1885, that brought the fall of Premier Jules Ferry’s government and made the French side amenable to a peace settlement, which nonetheless secured the major French war aims. On June 9, 1885, the French and the Qing court concluded the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin). The treaty is an important milestone in Vietnamese history, for under it China renounced its long suzerainty over Vietnam and recognized the French protectorate over Tonkin and Annam. Both Chinese regulars and the Black Flags

were to retire behind the Chinese border. The treaty also permitted French traders in southern China, granted the French favored status over the other European powers in Yunnan, and permitted the French to build a railroad line from Hanoi to Kunming. In 1887 Paris formed its conquests into French Indochina. Laos was added in 1893 after the Siamese had been bluffed into withdrawing their outposts on the left bank of the Mekong and the French had offered protection to the king of Luang Prabang. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Black Flags; Ferry, Jules; Sino-French War References Dupuis, Jean. Les Origines de la Question du Tonkin. Paris: Challamel, 1886. Jenkins, E. F. A History of the French Navy: From Its Beginnings to the Present Day. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973. McAleavy, Henry. Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese Intervention. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Tiger Cages Term for confinement cells at the prison run by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) on Con Son island (Poulo Condore) that held prisoners of war and political opponents. Built by the French, the so-called tiger cages have been described by some as subsurface cement cells approximately 6 feet by 10 feet in size and topped by bars, with ceilings so low that inmates could barely stand. But according to descriptions by visiting U.S. officials, the cells were entirely aboveground and were located in two covered windowless buildings with bars forming the ceiling and a catwalk on top, measuring 6 feet 3 inches by 10 feet 6 inches by 10 feet. Such facilities were pictured in a 1970 Life magazine article. In any case, Saigon claimed that all Con Son prisoners were humanely treated and were confined only temporarily in the tiger cages. But in July 1970 U.S. congressmen William Anderson (D-Tenn.) and Augustus Hawkins (D-Calif.), staff aide and future U.S. senator Thomas Harkin, and Don Luce of the World Council of Churches inspected the prison and reported numerous “paralyzed” tiger cage victims who had been denied adequate food, water, and exercise. These individuals were covered with bruises, abrasions, and cuts, and some appeared mutilated, a sign of abuse and/or torture. Subsequently the International Red Cross cited the South Vietnamese government for violations of the Geneva Convention. In 1974 antiwar protesters maintained a “Tiger Cage vigil” at the U.S. Capitol, demanding that the South Vietnamese government release its prisoners. The South Vietnamese government never responded. After the victory by the Democratic Republic

TIGER HOUND, Operation

U.S. senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) listens to Cau Nguyen Loi describe what it was like to be shackled and beaten along with other political prisoners inside a “tiger cage” on Con Son Island, South Vietnam. Harkin visited the island prison in July 1970 as part of a congressional delegation that helped expose the existence of the cages. (AFP/Getty Images)

of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) the following year, the North Vietnamese closed Con Son. MARY L. KELLEY See also Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist; Poulo Condore References Brown, Holmes, and Don Luce. Hostages of War: Saigon’s Political Prisoners. Washington, DC: Indochina Mobile Education Project, 1973. Ciabatari, Jane. “Senator Harkin Returns to the Tiger Cages of Con Son.” Parade, October 8, 1995, 19. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Nguyen Tien Hung and Jerrold L. Schechter. The Palace File. New York: Harper and Row, 1986.

TIGER HOUND,

Operation

Start Date: December 5, 1965 End Date: April 1, 1973 Allied air operation in the panhandle region of Laos designed to reduce Communist infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1965 allied leaders estimated that the Communists were using the Ho Chi Minh Trail to bring 4,500 troops and 300 tons of supplies per month into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Planned by U.S. Air Force colonel John F. Groom, Operation TIGER

1119

HOUND began on December 5, 1965, and focused on infiltration routes in Military Regions I and II in the area from Tchepone near the 17th Parallel south to Cambodia. The operation augmented air operations in the northern panhandle designated STEEL TIGER (Mu Gia Pass to the 17th Parallel), which began in April. Unlike Operation BARREL ROLL in northern Laos, these operations were not constrained by strict rules of engagement (the need to have U.S. embassy or Laotian government permission to attack potential targets). The panhandle was seen as an extension of the South Vietnamese battlefield and was thus under the control of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland. In TIGER HOUND, the allies employed Douglas C-47 Dakotas and later Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft as airborne battlefield command and control centers, Cessna O-1 Birdogs and Douglas A-1E Skyraiders as well as (Laotian) North American T-28 Trojans and Grumman OV-1 Mohawks with side-looking and infrared radar for forward air control, McDonnell RF-101 Voodoos and McDonnell Douglas RF-4C Phantom IIs for target detection, Chase Fairchild UC-123 Provoders to defoliate the jungle, and Martin B-57 Canberras, North American F-100 Super Sabres, Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs, Douglas AC-47 Spooky gunships, C-130 flare ships, marine and navy jets, and army gunship helicopters as the primary strike aircraft for day and night attacks. The primary targets in TIGER HOUND were trucks, storage and bivouac areas, bridges, buildings, and antiaircraft artillery (AAA) sites. The secondary mission was to cut roads and create traffic choke areas. TIGER HOUND pilots were also to supply frequent detailed photos of infiltration targets to General Westmoreland’s headquarters. Unlike BARREL ROLL, which was to support Royal Lao Government forces and Hmong irregulars under General Vang Pao, TIGER HOUND and STEEL TIGER focused on interdiction of Communist ground forces and support for Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and American longrange armed reconnaissance units. By December 31, 1965, U.S. pilots had flown 425 sorties, 51 of them at night. In the first half of 1966 TIGER HOUND gained momentum, and by May Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses had flown more than 400 saturation bombing sorties against bridges, roads, and encampments, destroying an estimated 3,000 structures, 1,400 trucks, dozens of bridges, and 200 antiaircraft positions. Despite these impressive numbers, infiltration continued, and U.S. Air Force commanders decided that they needed a longloitering aircraft. In June they deployed eight modified World War II Douglas B-26 Invaders. They also used AC-47s, Fairchild AC-119 Shadow/Stinger “truck killers,” and AC-130 gunships with flare capability for night raids. The Americans also set up in Nakhon Phanom an MSQ-77 Skyport radar with a 200-mile range to improve bombing results. Despite this effort, the Communists increased the number of AAA sites, later including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and by the summer of 1966, 22 TIGER HOUND and STEEL TIGER planes had been shot down.

1120 Tinker v. Des Moines By this time, TIGER HOUND and STEEL TIGER operations had been blended into Seventh Air Force duties and placed under the TIGER HOUND task force. Overall operational responsibility was delegated to the Seventh Air Force commander. After a summer monsoon lull, full operations resumed between October 1966 and April 1967. U.S. pilots flew more than 2,000 sorties per month. By the end of 1967 B-52 operations had also increased, totaling 1,718 (compared to 617 sorties in 1966). By late 1967 most TIGER HOUND strike aircraft had been equipped with Starlight scopes to increase target detection at night. In 1967 a large number of TIGER HOUND raids were carried out at night, often by B-57 bombers in night camouflage. In November and December 1967 the allies placed a line of seismic and acoustic sensors along infiltration roads and trails. The sensors transmitted troop and truck movements to high-flying Lockheed EC-121 Warning Stars. In turn, they sent the raw data to the Air Force Infiltration Surveillance Center in Nakhon Phanom, built and run by Task Force Alpha and commanded by Brigadier General William P. McBride. After President Lyndon Johnson halted the air war in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) on March 31, 1968, Operation TIGER HOUND was reduced to a less intense routine until it ended, along with all allied air operations in Laos, in April 1973. From 1965 to 1972, allied planes dropped more than 1.1 million tons of bombs on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the southern Laotian panhandle. Despite its impressive numbers, TIGER HOUND failed to stop Communist infiltration. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; BARREL ROLL, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Laos; Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong; STEEL TIGER, Operation References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Morrocco, John. Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985. Morrocco, John, et al., eds. Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1988. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

Tinker v. Des Moines Noted 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case involving three high school students from Des Moines, Iowa, whose symbolic protest against the Vietnam War resulted in expanded First Amendment protections for expressive speech in public education. During the

autumn semester of 1965, school administrators in the city of Des Moines learned of plans by some students to stage a protest against the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to school. The protest was scheduled to take place just prior to the Christmas holidays. School administrators were concerned because they had just learned that a recent graduate had been killed in Vietnam while serving in the U.S. Army. Fifteen-year-old John Tinker, his sister Mary Beth, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, age 16, met at the Eckhardt home to plan a silent “witness of armbands,” which was to occur from December 16, 1965, to January 1, 1966. The Tinker and Eckhardt families were members of pacifist organizations in Iowa and were deeply opposed to the war in Vietnam. On December 16, 1965, the Tinker children wore black armbands to school without incident. The next day Eckhardt did the same. Fearing that a disruption might take place, the school principal suspended the three students along with two other student protestors. The Tinker and Eckhardt families immediately filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court. The federal judge dismissed the parents’ complaint on the grounds that the regulation was within the school board’s power, despite the absence of any finding of substantial interference with school conduct. The parents, backed by peace organizations, appealed the decision. They argued that the symbolic protest did not disturb school discipline and should thus be protected under the First Amendment. One of the arguments made was that school officials had not banned other political symbols and insignias. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was divided four to four, with one abstention, and the lower court decision was upheld. The case finally made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Peace groups and civil libertarian organizations helped pay for the expensive appeals process. The argument was presented to the High Court on November 12, 1968. The Tinkers, as petitioners, were represented by Dan L. Johnston, who argued that the symbolic expression against the war in no way caused any disruption in the classroom. On February 24, 1969, in a 7 to 2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision on the issue of free speech rights for public school students. Justice Abe Fortas presented the majority opinion, noting that students and teachers should not be forced to shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. Despite Justice Hugo Black’s dissenting opinion that the Court should not usurp the school authority’s power when it comes to enforcing disciplinary regulations, the Tinker decision made a defining ruling when distinguishing between pure speech and those acts constituting symbolic speech. The Supreme Court decision permitted the wearing of black armbands to protest the Vietnam War by noting that when symbolic speech is by nature peaceful, then it is regulated by the rules pertaining to pure speech. Only when such acts materially or substantially interfere with the rights of others, the Court ruled, would some form of regulation be permitted. The Tinker ruling protected

TOAN THANG, Operation

1121

the rights of students in public schools to carry out symbolic protests against the Vietnam War as long as they did not cause a disruption in the classroom. Since the 1969 decision, Tinker has been cited numerous times in which free speech has been questioned in the classroom. CHARLES FRANCIS HOWLETT See also Antiwar Movement, U.S. References Friedenberg, E. “The High School as a Focus of ‘Student Unrest.’” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 395 (May 1971): 117–126. Hentoff, Nat. The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America. New York: Dell, 1980. Nahmod, Sheldon H. “‘Beyond Tinker’: The High School as an Educational Public Forum.” Harvard Civil Rights Law Review 5 (1970): 278–300. Van Geel, Tyll. The Courts and American Education Law. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987.

TOAN THANG,

Operation

Start Date: April 8, 1968 End Date: May 31, 1968 First of a succession of allied military operations with the same code name that took place in the vicinity of Saigon. On April 8, 1968, allied military forces commenced 11 separate operations in the Capital Military District of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), combined these actions into Operation TOAN THANG (TOTAL VICTORY), which became the central focus of allied attentions from 1968 until U.S. armed forces withdrew from South Vietnam. The operation was motivated by the 1968 Tet Offensive and was designed to stop Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) attacks on Saigon. TOAN THANG initially included almost 80 U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) combat battalions but later included more than 100 allied battalions. U.S. units committed to the operation included the 3rd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division; the 1st Infantry Division; the 25th Infantry Division; and the 199th Infantry Brigade (Separate). Allied units included all ARVN forces assigned to the Capital Military District as well as the 1st Australian Task Force. On May 3, 1968, Washington and Hanoi announced that peace talks would soon begin in Paris, and MACV and ARVN commanders sought to strengthen the defenses around the South Vietnamese capital in anticipation of renewed VC/PAVN attacks. Such precautions were indeed warranted, because on May 4 the VC launched another major operation against Saigon. Known as Mini-Tet, it lasted until the end of the month. Attacks were concentrated on the

Private First Class David Sletten, a medic in the U.S. 25th Infantry Division, paddles a three-man assault boat down a canal during Operation TOAN THANG (TOTAL VICTORY) near Saigon, Spring 1968. (National Archives)

Saigon–Bien Hoa highway bridge that linked these two vital South Vietnamese cities. South Vietnamese marines, however, repulsed the attacks and held the bridge. On May 6 the U.S. 25th Infantry Division (“Tropic Lightning”) counterattacked and decisively defeated VC units near Tan Son Nhut Airport. Despite allied precautions, the well-equipped local-force VC 267th Battalion infiltrated Saigon and occupied several key locations. The ARVN 38th Ranger Battalion engaged the intruders and eventually triumphed, despite heavy losses. The ARVN battalion was then dispatched to the VC-occupied Binh Tien Bridge and after two days of grueling combat secured the span. The most serious threat came as two VC battalions captured the Y-Bridge linking downtown Saigon with the Nha Be District. Additionally, the VC further fortified several built-up areas around the bridge. The U.S. 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry (Mechanized), and the 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry (Mechanized), 9th Infantry Division, were sent to secure this vital artery. It took six days of hard fighting for the Americans, employing all available weapons, to destroy the VC units and retake the bridge and the surrounding area in what was the most costly action fought by American troops during this offensive. Casualty totals reflect the intensity of the Communist offensive. TOAN THANG’s initial phase ended on May 31, 1968, with a final VC/PAVN toll of 7,645 killed. U.S. losses were 188 killed, 2,044 wounded, and 1 missing. Mini-Tet, however, continued into June as the ARVN 5th Ranger Group worked to clear VC incursions into the Cho Lon section of Saigon. JULIUS A. MENZOFF

1122

To Huu

See also Khe Sanh, Battle of; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army

Ton Duc Thang

References Hoang Ngoc Lung, Colonel. The General Offensives of 1968–69. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Prominent official in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on August 20, 1888, in My Hoa Hung village, Dinh Thanh canton, Long Xuyen Province, Ton Duc Thang in 1906 went to Saigon and received vocational training at the Technique School there. He later worked at the Ba Son shipyard. In 1913 he went to France by ship and worked at Toulon. At the end of 1919 the French government deported him because of his support for the 1917 Russian Bolshevik Revolution. Thang returned to Vietnam and worked in Saigon. From 1920 to 1925 he was a member of a secret labor union at the Ba Son shipyard. In 1927 Thang joined the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association), predecessor of the VCP, and was named a member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Region Party Committee. At the end of 1928 he was arrested on a murder charge and was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor and exiled to Con Dao island. He was freed on September 23, 1945. In October 1945 Thang took part in activities of the Southern Region Party Committee and was elected deputy to the National Assembly of North Vietnam. In April 1946 he was a member of the North Vietnamese delegation to France. At the 1951 VCP Second Congress, Thang was elected to the party’s Central Committee. He also became chairman of Mat Tran Lien Viet (Lien Viet Front) and head of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly. In July 1960 Thang became vice president of North Vietnam. He became president after the September 2, 1969, death of Ho Chi Minh. In 1976 on the reunification of Vietnam as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), Thang became its president and continued in that capacity until his death on March 30, 1980, in Hanoi. Thang is remembered as a veteran of the early days of the VCP and a lifelong friend of Ho Chi Minh. NGO NGOC TRUNG

To Huu Birth Date: 1920 Death Date: December 9, 2002 Prominent Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) official and well-known poet. Born Nguyen Kim Thanh in 1920 in Phu Lai, Thua Thien Province, To Huu joined the Doan Thanh Nien Dan Chu (Democratic Youth League) in 1936. In 1938 he joined the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). Arrested by French authorities in 1939, Huu served time in Thua Thien, Lao Bao, and Qui Nhon prisons. He escaped in 1942 and then in 1945 led the uprising against the French at Hue. In August 1945 he became a regional information chief for the Viet Minh. Following the defeat of the French in 1954, Huu was appointed minister of culture in the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In 1956 he joined the VCP Central Committee. Huu built his career in the party’s propaganda apparatus, and although he was widely unappreciated as a poet, his works appeared in textbooks in the Vietnamese educational system. Huu was notorious for paeans dedicated to the Soviet Union. He was also involved in the VCP’s education and scientific committees. In December 1976 Huu became an alternate member of the VCP Politburo in charge of cultural affairs and ideology. He was also vice chairman of the Council of Ministers in charge of economics. In September 1985 Huu instigated a currency reform that he had modified on his own initiative, but the reform was a great failure. In June 1986 after the economic collapse of the SRV, Huu was dropped from the post of vice premier, and at the December 1986 party congress he was ousted from the Politburo and disappeared from the Vietnamese political scene. Huu died in Hanoi on December 9, 2002. NGO NGOC TRUNG

Birth Date: August 20, 1888 Death Date: March 30, 1980

See also Ho Chi Minh; Lao Dong Party; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party

Tonkin

Reference Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Northernmost of the three former French colonies that make up present-day Vietnam. Tonkin, the region surrounding the Red River and bordering on China’s southern provinces of Yunnan

Ton That Dinh and Guangxi, received its name during the reign of Vietnamese emperor Le Loi, who defeated and expelled the Chinese in 1427 after a 20-year occupation and established the longest-lasting dynasty in Vietnamese history. Le Loi established his imperial capital at the present site of Hanoi and called it Dong Kinh, from which the name “Tonkin” was derived. Tonkin historically was known for its abundant rice cultivation. After France had asserted control over the entirety of Vietnam in the second half of the 19th century, the French colonial administration created three administrative districts: Cochin China in the south, Annam in central Vietnam, and Tonkin in the north. After August 1883, Tonkin and Annam were ruled together by titular Vietnamese emperors under a French-imposed protectorate. In Hue the emperor and his mandarins continued to rule, observed by the French resident superior who answered to the French governor-general in Hanoi. Cochin China was administered as an outright French colony. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Annam; Cochin China; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Le Dynasty; Le Loi; Minh Mang; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Tonkin Gulf See Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Ton That Dinh Birth Date: November 20, 1926 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and key figure in the November 1963 coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Born on November 20, 1926, in Hue, Ton That Dinh attended the French Armor School at Samur and later became the protégé of Ngo Dinh Can, warlord of central Vietnam and brother of Diem. Dinh’s courage had impressed Can, but more important for Dinh was his ambition and vanity. His closeness to the Ngo family and the trust that Diem placed in him led to his appointment in 1961 as the youngest ARVN general. Dinh converted to Roman Catholicism in the early 1960s and became an active member of the Personalist Labor Party under Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. As one of the architects of the November 1, 1963, coup against Diem, General Tran Van Don established early in the planning that

1123

General Dinh’s adherence would secure the coup’s success. Dinh’s support was vital because he controlled ARVN forces surrounding Saigon. Don, using Dinh’s vanity to his advantage, treated Dinh to women and food for several nights and then paid a fortune-teller to predict that Dinh would be elevated to prominence. This prompted Dinh to ask Diem to name him as minister of the interior. Diem refused and scolded the young general for making such a proposal. Taking advantage of this disappointment, Don convinced Dinh to join the coup plotters. Still, the conspirators did not entirely trust Dinh and assigned men to kill him if he changed his mind. Knowing that a coup was in the works, Nhu confronted Dinh about a suspicious assignment given to Colonel Nguyen Huu Co. Dinh’s angry response was that he would kill “the little traitor.” This convinced Nhu of his sincerity. Nhu then proceeded to let Dinh know that he knew about the conspiracy and revealed his own plans for a preemptive coup, Operations BRAVO I and BRAVO II. General Dinh was assigned a pivotal role: to march into Saigon against a staged uprising. Dinh immediately revealed the plans to Don and the other generals. On October 29, 1963, Dinh ordered Colonel Le Quang Tung and his Special Forces out of Saigon in accordance with Nhu’s plans. In a key maneuver, Dinh also convinced the regime that he could conduct BRAVO II more effectively if he had control over all of the forces in the region, including troops under the command of Diem loyalist General Huynh Van Cao. Still believing that Dinh was on their side, Diem and Nhu allowed the general to deploy troops throughout Saigon near key government installations such as the radio station, the presidential palace, and police headquarters. When the coup began on the morning of November 1, Diem repeatedly attempted to call Dinh but could not get an answer. In a final test of loyalty for Dinh by the conspiring generals, Dinh was allowed to speak with Diem while many of the plotters listened to his words. Dinh won their confidence when he proceeded to shout obscenities at Diem, telling him that he was finished. Following the coup, on November 4 Prime Minister Nguyen Ngoc Tho appointed Dinh minister of the interior. A few months later on January 29, 1964, during a coup led by General Nguyen Khanh, Dinh was placed under arrest with several other figures for allegedly plotting to negotiate a peace settlement with Hanoi. With the rise of General Nguyen Cao Ky, Dinh again took command of an ARVN corps. On April 10, 1966, during the Buddhist uprising, Ky appointed Dinh as I Corps commander to replace the rebellious general Nguyen Chanh Thi. Dinh, however, lost favor when he expressed his resentment at Ky’s tactics in crushing the Buddhist movement. In the summer of 1966 Dinh lost command of his corps. He was elected to the Senate in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1967 and served there until April 1975, when he left Vietnam. He settled in Virginia. In 1998 Dinh expressed remorse for his role in the overthrow and subsequent assassination of Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu but maintained that he had been opposed to their repressive policies toward

1124

Ton That Thuyet

religion in South Vietnam, which he believed had weakened the government and played into the hands of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also BRAVO I and II, Operations; Huynh Van Cao; Le Quang Tung; Ngo Dinh Can; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Chanh Thi; Nguyen Huu Co; Nguyen Khanh; Tran Van Don References Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Ton That Thuyet Birth Date: 1835 Death Date: 1913 Influential Vietnamese mandarin, member of the Board of Regents, and leader of the Phong Trao Can Vuong (Support the King) movement of the mid-1880s who was responsible for a military attack against the French in Hue in 1985. Born in 1835 in Hue, Ton That Thuyet began his career as a military officer. After several years of service in the royal army throughout the country, he was called back to Hue to become minister of the armed forces and then member of the Board of Regents in 1883 following the death of Emperor Tu Duc. Strongly patriotic and anti-French, Thuyet removed pacifists who accepted French domination, retrained the army, consolidated fortifications around the capital, and established a military base at Tan So, Quang Tri Province, in anticipation of a war against the French. He also sent emissaries to neighboring countries to seek support. Confronted by the arrogant and incompetent General Roussel de Courcy, commander of French forces in Tonkin (northern Vietnam), when he arrived at Hue, Thuyet ordered the Vietnamese Army to attack the French at Mang Ca fort near the capital on the evening of July 5, 1885. This attack failed, and Thuyet fled to Tan So, taking with him the young emperor Ham Nghi. From Tan So and on behalf of Ham Nghi, Thuyet issued an appeal to mandarins, scholars, and the Vietnamese people asking them to support the monarch in his fight against the French. There was a wide response to this, beginning an anti-French movement known as the Phong Trao Can Vuong. In 1886 Thuyet went to China to seek assistance from the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty. He died there in 1913. PHAM CAO DUONG

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ham Nghi; Tu Duc References Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Viet Nam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970.

Top Gun School Flight school that trains U.S. naval pilots. Established on May 3, 1969, at Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego, California, the Top Gun School is officially known as the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School. The program was initiated in response to the so-called Ault Report, the findings of a U.S. Navy study group that found that naval air-to-air combat skills and tactics had fallen to substandard levels during the Vietnam War. Although initially poorly funded and equipped, the Top Gun School’s mission was to provide advanced graduate-level training to the U.S. Navy’s fleet fighter pilots, with special emphasis on aerial combat and maneuvering, and to ensure that American fighter pilots could effectively engage enemy aircraft, particularly the Soviet-designed Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 Fresco (North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] designation) and MiG-21 Fishbed, which were especially nimble and fast jet fighters. Fighter aircraft employed by the Top Gun School in the Vietnam War era were the Northrop T-38 Talon and Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, both of which approximated the flight maneuverability of the MiG-17 and MiG-21, the standard aircraft of the Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force). Instructors flew T-38s and A-4s, while students usually operated McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms, the standard naval air superiority fighter. Also used were Grumman A-6 Intruders and occasionally Convair F-106 Delta Dart aircraft. Instruction included aerial maneuvering and tactical flying, and pilots were essentially trained to engage in dogfights. Close-quarter tactical flying was also included in the curriculum, with special emphasis on the use of machine guns. By the close of the Vietnam War in 1973, kill ratios had risen dramatically, from 3.7:1 in 1969 to as high as 13:1, indicating the success of the Top Gun School. Among the most celebrated graduates of the program during the Vietnam War were Randall “Duke” Cunningham and Willie Driscoll, the first U.S. aces of the conflict. The U.S. Air Force could not match this performance, but after the war it created its own specialized flight school, which approximated the navy’s curriculum. The Top Gun School remains a fixture of naval aviation to the present day and has inspired other navies around the world to replicate its approach. Indeed, Canada, India, and Pakistan have

Torture all created advanced flight programs for their naval aviators that mimic the curriculum of the Top Gun School. JAMIE BRYAN PRICE See also Cunningham, Randall Harold; United States Navy References Hall, George. Top Gun: The Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1991. Cunningham, Randy, and Jeffrey L. Ethell. Fox Two: The Story of America’s First Ace in Vietnam. New York: Warner Books, 1989.

Torture The practice of torture is at least as old as warfare itself, but its use has been proscribed by international law only in relatively recent times. The Oxford English Dictionary defines torture as “the infliction of severe pain as a punishment or a forcible means of persuasion.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “anguish of body or mind” or “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.” Unfortunately, the precise meaning of what exactly constitutes severe pain, intense pain, or anguish of mind is open to a wide range of interpretations. The relevant international conventions that were in force at the time of the Vietnam War were the Third and Fourth Geneva conventions of 1949, which were revisions of the Geneva Convention of 1929. Both 1949 conventions specifically prohibited torture, but their language was still not absolutely clear about what acts did and did not constitute torture. The Third Geneva Convention (Convention III) addressed the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). The Fourth Geneva Convention (Convention IV) addressed the protection of civilians under military occupation or otherwise in the hands of an enemy during time of war. Both conventions were in force during the French and American phases of the Vietnam War, and France and the United States were original signatories to both. The Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) signed the convention in 1957. Most of the relevant articles from both conventions were cited verbatim in U.S. Army Field Manual FM 27-10: The Law of Land Warfare, dated July 1956. Article 2 of Convention III stated that the convention applied “to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if a state of war is not recognized by one of them.” Article 2 also stated that “Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations.” Article 2 of Convention IV contained similar language. The prohibited treatment of POWs under Convention III’s Article 3 included “(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture,” and “(c)

1125

outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” Although mutilation is clear enough in Article 3, cruel treatment and torture remain vague. Article 17 clarified the issue somewhat by stating that “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” Convention IV’s Article 32 made the issue a little more clear by stating that a person protected by the convention “shall not have anything done to them of such a character as to cause physical suffering. . . . This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, [and] corporal punishments . . . but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.” That specific language prohibiting any form of corporal punishment and also including the actions of “civilian agents” closed many but not all of the loopholes concerning what exactly constitutes torture. Unfortunately, the torture of POWs has a long record in American military history. During America’s Indian Wars through the late 19th century, torture of POWs was all too frequently practiced by both sides. During the American Civil War POWs were treated brutally in such places as the South’s Andersonville Prison and the North’s Rock Island Prison, although such treatment may have fallen short of modern concepts of systematic torture. American troops were using a form of what today is called waterboarding on captive Filipino insurgents as early as 1900. As the result of one of many of the torture incidents that emerged in the Philippines, a military judge advocate by the name of Captain Edwin Glenn was court-martialed for his direct role in supervising the water torture of a Filipino POW. The court-martial board acquitted Glenn, but the judge advocate general of the U.S. Army, Major General George B. Davis, registered a fiercely dissenting legal opinion of the verdict. In a memo to the secretary of war, Davis wrote that “No modern state, which is a party to international law, can sanction, either expressly or by a silence which imports consent, a resort to torture with a view to obtain confessions, as an incident to its military operations.” With only isolated exceptions, American treatment of POWs during World War I and World War II generally met or exceeded all the requirements of international law at the time. Despite the monstrous nature of the regime of Nazi Germany’s Third Reich and its crimes against Jews and other targeted groups, American POWs in German custody generally were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The major exception was American soldiers who also were Jews. American POWs in Japanese hands fared far worse. Torture, starvation, and summary execution were all too common. American POWs during the Korean War were also treated brutally, but the torture rose to a new level of sophistication as the Communists introduced a program of psychological conditioning and ideological indoctrination that came to be called brainwashing.

1126

Torture

As America became increasingly involved in Vietnam in the latter half of the 1950s, there was some confusion about the Geneva Convention status of captured Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas. Advancing an argument that eerily foreshadowed the “illegal combatants” argument of the George W. Bush administration in the early 2000s, the Saigon government initially insisted that the VC were little more than common criminals rather than enemy soldiers. Accordingly, VC soldiers were imprisoned, tried, and executed under what passed for due process of law in South Vietnam in the early 1960s. But as the American involvement in the war grew, U.S. advisers were captured. The staff judge advocates at the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), headquarters quickly realized that if American GIs were going to have any chance whatsoever of surviving their captivity, the Saigon government had to be convinced to change its policy and begin giving captured VC troops status as POWs and treatment in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Unfortunately, the United States never received anything nearing reciprocity from the VC and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Throughout the war the VC used torture as a basic tool in their campaign of terror. South Vietnamese village chiefs and other key civilians and their families were routinely tortured as a way to cow the rest of the population. South Vietnamese soldiers captured by the VC were routinely executed on the spot. American soldiers captured by the VC, such as Lieutenant James N. Rowe, were confined for years in small “tiger cages” in deep jungle bases and fed a starvation diet. Some POWs, such as Medal of Honor recipient Captain Humbert Roque Versace, were executed by the VC while in captivity. Others died of maltreatment. Those thought to have any intelligence or propaganda value were slowly moved north until they could be turned over to the North Vietnamese. The greater majority of American POWs held in North Vietnam were pilots and aircrew who had been shot down over or near North Vietnam. The brutal and systematic torture to which Medal of Honor recipients Colonel George Day and Rear Admiral James Bond Stockdale and other pilots were subjected has been well documented, although to this day the government in Hanoi officially denies that it tortured American POWs. During the Vietnam War and the years immediately following, reports of American use of torture were generally dismissed as being the actions of a few “bad apples” or lone actors rather than officially sanctioned policy of the U.S. military or government. The most widely known case involved allegations made by Lieutenant Colonel Anthony B. Herbert, a battalion commander in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. According to Herbert, interrogators of the brigade’s 172nd Military Intelligence Detachment routinely beat POWs and resorted to torture techniques, including electric shock and the simulated drowning procedure. Army investigators later confirmed multiple cases of torture inflicted by the interrogators of the 172nd Military Intelligence Detachment. Only a small handful of relatively minor disciplinary actions resulted, however. In recent years declassified documents have produced a significant body of evidence indicating a wider than previously acknowl-

edged use of torture by the American side in Vietnam. Working on reported cases of POW abuse and other war crimes, Pentagon investigators in the 1970s compiled sets of classified files that totaled some 9,000 pages. Routinely declassified in 1994 in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, the record group that became known as the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group was transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration. In 2002 government officials restricted the records from public access, citing personal information in the files that was protected by the Privacy Act. Before the records were restricted, however, journalists Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson managed to examine most of the files. The reports in the War Crimes Working Group files document 500 unsubstantiated and 320 confirmed atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers. Of the confirmed cases, 141 involve torture or brutal treatment of POWs or civilian detainees. Of the 203 American soldiers who were referred for disciplinary processing as a result of the investigations, only 14 actually received prison sentences, and almost all of those were relatively light. Many critics have been quick to condemn the American military for turning a blind eye to war crimes. Still other critics maintain that the War Crimes Working Group files are solid evidence of a widespread policy of torturing prisoners and other intentional violations of the Geneva Conventions. Three hundred twenty atrocities are 320 too many, but a more balanced analysis of this issue immediately raises the question of whether that number over a period of more than 10 years during which several million American soldiers served in Vietnam really rises to the level of clear and compelling evidence of a widespread policy of condoning and even encouraging war crimes. And since all of this information comes from investigations initiated and conducted by American military authorities, equally valid questions would be how many similar investigations were conducted by VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) authorities, and where are those records. A far more difficult and controversial side of the torture question concerns the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, especially under the Phoenix Program. According to history professor Alfred McCoy in his 2006 book Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, the CIA by 1967 was “operating forty interrogation centers in South Vietnam that killed more than twenty thousand suspects and tortured thousands more.” McCoy argues forcefully that the United States in Vietnam and especially the CIA did make widespread use of torture in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. A key flaw in McCoy’s argument is that the “forty interrogation centers” he cites were not CIA facilities at all but instead were provincial interrogation centers (PICs) run by the South Vietnamese government. Under the PIC program, the CIA provided funds to the South Vietnamese police to build and operate interrogation centers in each province. The CIA provided the money, and an agency adviser worked with the police in each center in trying to pursue leads, collect intelligence, and write up intelligence reports.

Torture

1127

Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division and a Vietnamese interpreter attached to the American unit lay a towel over a Viet Cong prisoner’s face and then pour water on it to simulate drowning in an effort to extract information. The prisoner was flushed from a spider hole during Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA in 1968. (Bettmann/Corbis)

The South Vietnamese police were completely in charge of the PICs. The CIA adviser could provide advice and criticism, but he could not give the police orders about how the PIC should be run. This line of reasoning seems to fly in the face of the widely held belief that the South Vietnamese were completely subservient pawns who never did anything on their own without American orders. But most people who actually served in Vietnam and worked with the South Vietnamese at any level know that this is anything but the case. Both Orrin Deforest in his book Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of Intelligence in American Intelligence in Vietnam and Frank Snepp in Decent Interval complain that the CIA did not do enough to rein in the South Vietnamese abuses in the interrogation centers, but neither severe critic of the CIA claims that the use of torture was ever officially or even implicitly advocated, condoned, or sanctioned by the CIA. As Snepp noted in Decent Interval, when he complained about South Vietnamese use of physical brutality against a prisoner, he was told by his CIA superior that “we can’t rock the boat. The Viets would just lock us out of the Interrogation Center if we did. We’ll just have to overlook this one and go on.” In the years after Vietnam the issue of state-sponsored torture by America continued to come up from time to time, especially in connection with various clandestine operations carried out in Cen-

tral and South America. But following the terrorist attacks against America on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent so-called Global War on Terror, the question of torture rose to a higher than ever level of immediacy and public awareness, especially with the exposure of the abuses by American interrogators at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, the Guantánamo detention facility in Cuba, and the CIA’s Extraordinary Rendition program. The debate in America reached its peak during the 2008 presidential campaign, calling into question the fundamental morality and human decency of the operational methods authorized by the administration of President George W. Bush. What added a personal dimension to the debate was the fact that one of the two major party candidates, Republican senator John S. McCain III of Arizona, was once himself a victim of torture as a POW in the hands of the North Vietnamese. Former U.S. Navy pilot McCain knew from firsthand experience what it is like to be a POW and to endure prolonged brutal torture in violation of every basic standard of decent human behavior, not to mention every established norm of international law. Many arguments were advanced during the debate to support the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, a euphemism for torture that only a government bureaucrat in a safe and comfortable office could have conjured up. One such argument

1128

Torture

U.S. Navy lieutenant commander John S. McCain III is rescued from Hanoi’s Truc Bach Lake after his plane was downed by antiaircraft fire on October 26, 1967. McCain said that upon capture he was beaten by an angry mob and bayoneted in the groin. Later he underwent extensive torture at Hanoi’s Hoa Lo (“Hanoi Hilton”) prison. (AFP/Getty Images)

ran that the Global War on Terror enemies who confronted the United States were little more than barbarians who had launched a devastating surprise attack against America and did not adhere to even the basic rules of civilized human behavior. They therefore did not deserve civilized treatment. But if there was any justification to that argument at all, the United States certainly could have applied it to the soldiers who served the monstrous Nazi and Japanese regimes. But that did not happen for the most part, and America and the rest of the world were far better for it once World War II was over. Besides, as McCain so correctly pointed out, the issue was not about the enemy but instead about America and what made it different from the enemy. The issue was about American values and standards. Once the United States compromised those values, it would find itself on the slippery slope of being just the same as what Americans thought their enemy was. Where was the line? At what point did the compromises to America’s most cherished ideals as a nation start to corrupt its institutions and corrode them from within? What happened to the German Army during the Third Reich provides a stark example of how the cancer of incremental compromise can rot and slowly eat away at a great institution from within. In the debate over torture, the final argument to justify its use is often advanced under the concept of military necessity. In other words, harsh and even brutal interrogation of detainees is justifiable if it produces intelligence that would save American lives. But that begs an even more fundamental question: Do such methods actually work? Many self-appointed experts in the

George W. Bush administration staunchly defended the efficacy of the enhanced methods. Unfortunately, all too many of those people had no real-world intelligence experience or had ever spent a single day of their lives in uniform. Nor did most of them have sons or daughters serving on the front lines in harm’s way. Although the director of the CIA at the time endorsed the effectiveness and lawfulness of the more aggressive interrogation techniques, a great many other senior intelligence officials, including at least one former CIA director, were equally adamant that they did not work. Admittedly, the harsh techniques produce answers, often fast answers. But just how good is the information? A person being tortured will simply say anything he or she thinks the tormenters want to hear in order to stop the pain. Whether that information is accurate or relevant is something almost impossible to determine at the time and in the long run almost always turns out to be bogus. Experience shows again and again that slow, methodical, long-term rapport-building interrogation tactics always produce better results. Speaking at a news briefing in March 2008, retired lieutenant general Harry “Ed” Soyster, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency who was severely wounded in Vietnam as a field artillery officer, stated flatly that people who support harsh interrogation methods do not understand the craft of intelligence and simply do not know what they are talking about. “If they think these methods work, they’re woefully misinformed. Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. And it damages our credibility around the world.” Nonetheless, some self-appointed experts continued to insist that torture produced valid and actionable intelligence. During the 2008 presidential campaign one of the many demagogues on American talk radio insisted that torture worked, as proved conclusively by McCain’s own admission that under relentless and brutal interrogation he finally broke and divulged to the North Vietnamese more than his name, rank, service number, and date of birth, as specified by the U.S. Armed Forces Code of Conduct. But what kind of information did McCain provide? He eventually signed a confession written by his captives in the stilted comic-opera language of Communist rhetoric, admitting to “black crimes” and other vague generalities. And as McCain stated in his book, “Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.” Pressed for more useful information, McCain gave the North Vietnamese more phony information. “Once I was instructed to draw a diagram of an aircraft carrier. I decided to comply with the order, but took considerable artistic license in the process. I drew a picture of a ship’s deck with a large swimming pool on the fantail,

Tran Buu Kiem

1129

the captain’s quarters in a chain locker, and various other imagined embellishments.” The key point is that every human being has a breaking point, whether he or she is the chief operational planner for Al Qaeda, a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, a future candidate for president of the United States, or just some poor foot soldier who was unlucky enough to get captured. But subjecting even that lowly foot soldier to enough torture will yield amazing pieces of information, all of them exactly what the torturer wants. That, however, seems to be one of the key lessons of Vietnam that was not fully learned. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Herbert, Anthony; McCain, John Sidney, III; Phoenix Program References McCain, John, with Mark Salter. Faith of My Fathers. New York: Random House, 1999. McCoy, Alfred. A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2006. Stone, James A., David P. Shoemaker, and Nicholas R. Dotti. Interrogation: World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq. Washington, DC: National Defense Intelligence College Press, 2008.

Tran Buu Kiem Birth Date: 1921 Southern Vietnamese revolutionary and foreign relations specialist for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). Born in 1921 in Can Tho, Tran Buu Kiem attended the school of law at Hanoi University and was active in the August Revolution (1945). From 1946 to 1949 he served as the secretary-general of the Administrative and Resistance Committee for the Nam Bo region (southern Vietnam) and as the president of the South Vietnam Students’ Union for Liberation. In 1962 he joined the NLF and was elected to its Central Committee. From 1963 until late in 1964, Kiem served as the NLF’s secretary-general. In 1964 he replaced Nguyen Van Hieu as the NLF’s chairman of the Commission for Foreign Relations and resigned his position as secretary-general. As chief diplomat, Kiem promoted the NLF’s neutralization plan to nonaligned nations and Western Europe. He called for the creation of a coalition government in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with a neutral foreign policy. Kiem and the NLF’s international strategists understood that the United States would reject such a plan but realized its propaganda value. True to predictions, policy makers in Washington quickly condemned such a scheme, claiming that it was tantamount to surrendering to the Communists. Other world leaders, such as President Charles de Gaulle of France and Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, disagreed and urged the Lyndon B. Johnson administration to consider neutralization as a possible solution to the Southeast Asian crisis. It now seems clear that Kiem’s success hampered the ability

Tran Buu Kiem was the chief diplomat of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NFLSV), the Communist front organization in South Vietnam. He is shown here during the Paris peace talks in 1968. (Getty Images)

of the United States to build a coalition of supportive or at least sympathetic allies. In February 1967 the U.S. government attempted to open up a secret channel to the NLF by releasing Kiem’s wife, Pham Thi Yen, who had been imprisoned by the South Vietnamese government and would carry a message from the U.S. government to her husband. This effort resulted in the secret BUTTERCUP prisoner exchange operation between the U.S. and the NLF during late 1967–early 1968. When the peace talks opened in Paris in 1968, Kiem joined Madame Nguyen Thi Binh as the NLF’s representatives. According to some Vietnamese sources, while in Paris Kiem had a confrontation with a senior-level official and was called home to undergo self-criticism. Kiem later returned to Paris under the aegis of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam, but it was clear that he had lost considerable power and prestige. In 1974 he accepted the position of PRG minister to the president’s office, and later he was a member of the new National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). By 1977 Kiem’s political activity was confined to membership in the Fatherland Front. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM

1130

Tran Do

See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Nguyen Thi Binh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam References Foreign Relations Commission. Personalities of the South Vietnam Liberation Movement. Tran Phu: South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, 1965. Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Personalities of the South Vietnam Liberation Movement. New York: Commission for Foreign Relations of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, 1965. Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. Seig, Kent, ed. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. 5, Vietnam 1967. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Tran Do Birth Date: 1923 Death Date: August 9, 2002 Commander of Viet Cong (VC) forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), prominent Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) official, and later a vocal dissident of the Vietnamese government. Born in 1923 in Thai Binh Province in the Red River Delta, Tran Do’s real name was Ta Ngoc Phach. Do joined the Revolutionary Youth Movement at age 18 and later joined the VCP. Soon arrested by the French authorities, Do was held in Hoa Lo Prison, later known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” He was then sent to the notorious Son La Prison, located in a remote mountainous area northeast of Hanoi near the Laos border. There Do met and was trained by Nguyen Luong Bang, a Communist leader who later became vice president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the reunited Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Do escaped from Son La Prison in 1944. Once he was free, Do rejoined the VCP and worked in a special task force to protect party leaders in 1945. In 1946 he joined the army and then in 1952 became the political commissar of the 312th Division, commanded by General Le Trong Tan who later was chief of staff of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Do and Le Trong Tan led the 312th Division during its participation in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Following the 1954 Geneva Agreement, Do served as political commissar of the Right Bank Military Region in North Vietnam. In 1958 he was promoted to major general in the PAVN. He was one of the high-ranking officers to be elected an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee in September 1960.

Do was sent south at the beginning of the Vietnam War. In 1963 he was identified as a member of the Military Committee and as head of the Political Department of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the office through which Hanoi controlled and directed all military and political activities under the name of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and its military arm, the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). Do was one of five deputy commanders of the PLAF during the war. Do is believed to have been one of North Vietnam’s principal field commanders in South Vietnam in charge of political affairs in a triumvirate that included generals Nguyen Chi Thanh and Tran Van Tra. Do wrote a number of important articles and drafted COSVN directives under the pseudonym of Chin Vinh. During his years in South Vietnam he lived with his fellow soldiers in jungle camps and underground bunkers, constantly confusing and evading American forces. Although many South Vietnamese resented the leadership of North Vietnamese in South Vietnam, Do was a capable leader who prevented factionalism from disrupting the VC war effort. Do also helped plan and execute the Tet Offensive in January 1968. Although the attacks resulted in tens of thousands of casualties for the VC and the North Vietnamese, he admitted later that the results worked in their favor. He stated that “In all honesty, we didn’t achieve our main objective. . . . As for making an impact in the United States, it had not been our intention—but it turned out to be a fortunate result.” During the Tet Offensive there were rumors of Do’s death, but intelligence sources confirmed that he had been only slightly wounded in a February 1968 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strike. In December 1976 Do was elected a member of the VCP Central Committee and a deputy of the National Assembly. In the 1980s he was named chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee of Cultural and Educational Affairs. Do was also once identified as vice minister of culture and information. In 1987 he was elected vice chairman of the National Assembly and vice chairman of the State Council (equivalent to vice president) of the SRV. Reportedly, Do’s demands for reform in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism in Eastern Europe led in 1991 to his removal from all party and government posts. He was thereafter kept under close surveillance, especially because he had written several petitions for political reforms and democracy in Vietnam. In several writings he warned that the Vietnamese government must reform or face extinction. In June 2001 Do was briefly detained by government officials in an attempt to stop the general’s criticisms of the regime. In the process, government authorities confiscated the memoirs he had been writing. Do subsequently sought to have his manuscript returned, but ill health cut short his efforts. Do died on August 9, 2002, in Hanoi. In 2007, much to the surprise of outside observers, a biography of Tran Do based on his memoirs was published by the official People’s Army Publishing House. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS AND NGO NGOC TRUNG

Tran Dynasty See also Central Office for South Vietnam; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Hoa Lo Prison; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Nguyen Chi Thanh; Nguyen Luong Bang; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Tran Van Tra; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991. Vo Ba Cuong. Chuyen Tuong Do [The Story of General Do]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2007.

Tran Dynasty Under the 12 rulers of the Tran dynasty, in the 13th and 14th centuries the Kingdom of Dai Viet made striking advances in many areas, and Vietnam became the most advanced, prosperous, and powerful of the Indochinese kingdoms. The Tran, however, are best remembered for the successful defense of Dai Viet against the Mongols and the Chams. In 1225 the powerful court official Tran Thu Do forced the last of the Ly kings, Ly Hue Tong (r. 1211–1225), to become a Buddhist monk. Tran Thu Do then arranged for the former king’s young daughter, Princess Chieu Thanh, to rule as Ly Chieu Hoang (“King” Chieu Hoang). Tran Thu Do placed members of his family in key positions and arranged for his nephew, Tran Chan, to become the consort of Ly Chieu Hoang. Six months later the two were married, and the king-princess abdicated so that Tran Chan became king. Only eight years old when he became king, he took the throne name of Tran Thai Tong and was king during 1225–1258. Tran Thu Do appointed himself grand chancellor and was de facto ruler, eliminating all those he thought might be a threat to the family, including forcing the former Ly king to commit suicide. Some Ly princes escaped to Korea, however. Tran rule was little changed from that of the Ly. The Tran continued the Ly system of building a stable state bureaucracy. Among Tran dynasty accomplishments were improved public administration; land reform; a rise in the status of Nom, the written script for the Vietnamese language; encouragement of the study of Chinese literature; and establishment of a military academy to train army officers. The Tran also adopted a dynastic system whereby a king would in older age yield the throne to his crown prince yet hold the title “August Higher Emperor” and serve as mentor to the new emperor.

1131

Under the Tran dynasty the Kingdom of Dai Viet now faced its most serious threat to date, from the Mongols in China. Even before they had defeated the last ruler of the Song dynasty in southern China, the Mongols invaded Dai Viet in 1257 and sacked Thang Long (present-day Hanoi). The weather, tropical diseases, and Vietnamese resistance combined to force a Mongol withdrawal. The Mongol threat was even more dire under Kublai Khan, who vigorously pursued an expansionary policy and, in order to secure the maritime spice trade, sought to control the east coast of Indochina. In 1282 he sent armies against the Kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam and Cambodia. In order to secure his hold, however, he would have to take the Kingdom of Dai Viet, centered in the Red River Valley. In 1284 Kublai Khan sent a vast force reported to number half a million men under his son Toghan to the border of Dai Viet. Toghan demanded passage of his army across Dai Viet territory, ostensibly to attack Champa. When King Tran Nham Tong (r. 1279–1293) refused, Toghan invaded. The Vietnamese had built up an army of 200,000 men led by a commander of genius, Tran Quoc Toan, more popularly known as Tran Hung Dao. He rejected all calls for surrender and appealed to the troops, who as a sign of their resolve reportedly had “Death to the Mongols” tattooed on their arms. The Mongols took Langson on the northern frontier and then captured Van Kiep. Responding to the tattoos, after the capture of Van Kiep Toghan ordered a general massacre of its population. In their advance the Mongols employed their artillery with good effect. Taking the capital of Thang Long without resistance, they massacred its entire population. Meanwhile one of the Mongol generals, Sogetu, sent by sea to subdue Champa, failed in his design and moved north to combine his forces with that of Toghan. Together their force took Nghe An. The situation was now desperate, with a number of Vietnamese nobles defecting to the invaders. The tide finally turned, with the Vietnamese avoiding Mongol strength in pitched battles and sieges and essentially going over to guerrilla warfare, taking advantage of their knowledge of the swamps and rivers to strike the Mongols at vulnerable locations and seize supplies. The Viets liberated their capital of Thang Long, and Tran Hung Dao succeeded in encircling Toghan and isolating him from the remainder of his forces. Sogetu was killed in battle. In Bac Giang, Toghan’s Mongols were ravaged by the effects of the summer heat and cholera. Toghan decided to withdraw but fell into an ambush set by Tan Hung Dao at Van Kiep. Toghan escaped with a small number of his men. Returning to Peking (Beijing), he discovered his father Kublai Khan preparing to attack Japan. But the defeat in the south had to be avenged, and the invasion of Japan was postponed in favor of another invasion of Dai Viet. In 1587 the Mongols invaded with 300,000 men and 500 junks. Again the Vietnamese had to abandon Thang Long. At Van Don, however, the Viets captured a large logistics convoy and captured much of the Mongol leadership. Deprived of his supplies, in 1588

1132

Tran Hung Dao

Toghan ordered a withdrawal back to the Bach Dang River, where Tran Hung Dao had ordered metal-tipped stakes placed in the bed of the river, replicating the actions of Ngo Quyen 300 years earlier. Again the Vietnamese lured the invader’s ships with a small fleet of their own, and at low tide the Mongol ships were impaled on the stakes. The Vietnamese then used fire arrows to destroy many of the Mongol vessels. A bloody battle ensued, and although Toghan escaped, the vast majority of his men did not. The Viets achieved a total victory. Recognizing the weakness of his kingdom vis-à-vis China, however, King Tran Nhan Tong sent a delegation to Kublai Khan, acknowledged Mongol supremacy, and agreed to return all captured Mongol prisoners. Not one to accept defeat, Kublai Khan was preparing a new invasion of Dai Viet when he died in 1294. His successor abandoned the project. The 14th century saw wars between Dai Viet and the Kingdom of Champa to the south, caused by the Viets’ own program of southern expansionism known as Nam Tien (“March to the South”). In the course of these wars, a Cham army led by King Che Bong Nga defeated and killed Tran King Tran Due Tong (r. 1372– 1377) in battle and even laid siege to the Dai Viet capital of Thang Long in 1377 and again in 1383. After the death of the capable Che Bong Nga, the Viets resumed their southern march and acquired two Champa provinces in the area of present-day Hue through the tactic of sending a Viet princess to marry a Cham king. The last of the Tran rulers were ineffective, and there were a number of insurrections led by members of the feudal landlord class. In the same way as it itself had come to power, the Tran dynasty was in turn overthrown by one of its own court officials, Le Qui Ly, who forced the last Tran king to abdicate and assumed the throne himself in 1400. Threatened by his reforms, some of the nobles appealed to the Ming rulers in China. Using reinstatement of the Tran dynasty as an excuse, the Ming reasserted Chinese control in 1407 and established the Later Tran dynasty (1407–1413). SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Nam Tien; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.

Tran, Tran Hung Dao was born in 1228. He is credited with having twice defeated Mongol armies in the second half of the 13th century. Tran Hung Dao’s first victory took place in 1285, two years after a large army of as many as 500,000 Mongols led by Toghan (Thoat Hoan), a son of Kublai Khan (Hot Tat Liet), invaded and occupied a major part of the country, including Thang Long (present-day Hanoi), the capital. Two years later, in 1287, Toghan returned with 200,000 men. At first the Mongols were successful in regaining control of the northern part of the country, and the Tran army had to withdraw to Thanh Hoa in the south. After a series of victories at Ham Tu (Hung Yen Province) and Chuong Duong, the Tran recaptured the capital and then crushed the Mongols in a battle at the Bach Dang River. Toghan reportedly escaped to China by hiding himself in a bronze tube. Tran Hung Dao has been considered the most important hero in Vietnamese history. In addition to his great military achievement, his famous answer to King Tran Nhan Tong is familiar to every Vietnamese. When the king asked whether it would be a good idea to surrender to prevent the people’s suffering, Tran Hung Dao replied, “Your Majesty, if you want to surrender, please have my head cut off first.” His Hich Tuong Si (Proclamation to Generals and Officers) is regarded as a classic work in Vietnamese 13th-century literature, as is his Binh Thu Yeu Luoc (Essentials of Military Art). Following Tran Hung Dao’s death in 1300, temples were built in his honor at Kiep Bac and in many other places throughout the country, where he has been honored and even worshiped as a saint and where he is respectfully referred to as Duc Thanh Tran. Before 1975 the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) selected him as its patron saint. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Tran Dynasty; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Ha Van Tan and Pham Thi Tam. Cuoc Khang Chien Chong Xam Luoc Nguyen Mong The Ky XIII [The Resistance War against the Mongol Invasion in the 13th Century]. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1972. Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viet-Nam des origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971.

Tran Hung Dao Birth Date: 1228 Death Date: 1300 Vietnamese prince and general of the Tran dynasty (1225–1400). Also known as Hung Dao Vuong, Tran Quoc Tuan, or Duc Thanh

TRAN HUNG DAO, See SEALORDS

Operation

Transportation Group 559

Tran Kim Tuyen Birth Date: ca. Late 1910s Death Date: July 23, 1995 Head of the Office of Political and Social Studies in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and one of many individuals to plot against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Born in the late 1910s, Tran Kim Tuyen attended medical school and practiced medicine in Hanoi. A staunch Catholic, he helped Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu find refuge when he was hunted by the Communists. In 1954 Tuyen fled to South Vietnam as part of the relocation provided for in the Geneva Accords. Ngo Dinh Nhu then appointed him to direct the secret police. Tuyen also headed the Office of Political and Social Studies (most commonly known by its French acronym, SEPES), an organization assisted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that kept track of dissenters. He also organized an infiltration network into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Although Tuyen was physically unimposing, he was one of the most-feared figures in South Vietnam. In the late 1950s Tuyen came to believe that the Diem government was too weak and corrupt to survive and might provide a pretext for a future Communist takeover. In early 1963 after Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Van Dong’s coup attempt failed, Tuyen decided to plan his own coup. He quietly consulted with leading military and civilian officials as well as several senior officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Among those he consulted were young air force pilot Nguyen Cao Ky and Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, a clandestine Communist agent. Tuyen also filled his faction with disgruntled junior officers and many dissidents whom he had blacklisted. Hoping to begin their coup before other conspirators could act, Tuyen and Thao planned a quick movement against Diem. CIA officer Lucien Conein learned of their plans and informed General Tran Thien Khiem, ARVN chief of staff. Khiem prevented the coup, and Nhu exiled Tuyen to Egypt as consul general. Tuyen traveled no farther than Hong Kong, where he continued to work against Diem. Tuyen returned to South Vietnam following Diem’s overthrow on November 1, 1963, but played no important political role thereafter. Tuyen was a close friend and confidant of famed Communist spy Pham Xuan An, who helped Tuyen and his wife flee from South Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon on April 29, 1975. Tuyen ran a hostel in Cambridge, England, until his death on July 23, 1995. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Conein, Lucien Emile; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Cao Ky; Pham Ngoc Thao; Pham Xuan An; Tran Thien Khiem References Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

1133

Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Tran Le Xuan See Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame

Tran Quoc Tuan See Tran Hung Dao

Transportation Group 559 Organization responsible for opening the supply network through Laos to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In May 1959 General Von Nguyen Giap, a reluctant convert to aggressive action in South Vietnam, ordered General Vo Bam to begin work on a secret project to move war supplies into South Vietnam through eastern Laos. Bam subsequently formed the 559th Transportation Group (the unit designation came from the fact that the group was formed in the fifth month of 1959). Group 759, organized that July, was responsible for making arrangements to send supplies to South Vietnam by sea. While the sea route played a vital role, especially during the early years of the Vietnam War, land resupply was by far the most important means of support from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for the insurgency in South Vietnam. Colonel Vo Bam’s Group 559 did its work well and soon opened a modest track to South Vietnam. Vastly expanded and made more sophisticated over the years, this communications network, which became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was vital to Hanoi’s military victory. As the trail grew in size and importance, in 1965 Colonel Vo Bam was replaced as Group 559 commander by Major General Phan Trong Tue. In 1967 General Dong Si Nguyen took over command of Group 559 and commanded the group until the Vietnam War ended in 1975. During that period Group 559 grew from a strength of 33,000 in 1967 to 100,000 men by the end of the war. In addition to supplying Communist forces in South Vietnam, Group 559 also supplied Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist forces) in central and southern Laos and, from 1970 on, Khmer Rouge forces fighting in Cambodia.

1134

Tran Thien Khiem

Postwar Vietnamese histories record that more than 20,000 Group 559 personnel were killed and more than 14,000 trucks and other types of motorized vehicles were destroyed along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the course of the Vietnam War. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Ho Chi Minh Trail; Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong; Order of Battle Dispute; Vo Nguyen Giap References Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Lich Su Bo Doi Truong Son Duong Ho Chi Minh [History of the Annamite Mountain Troops of the Ho Chi Minh Trail]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1994. Nguyen Viet Phuong. Van Tai Quan Su Chien Luoc Tren Duong Ho Chi Minh Trong Khang Chien Chong My [Strategic Military Transportation on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Resistance War against the Americans]. Hanoi: People’s Army of Vietnam, General Department of Rear Services, 1988. Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999.

Tran Thien Khiem Birth Date: December 15, 1925 Leading military and political figure in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and one of the key figures in the November 1, 1963, coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Born on December 15, 1925, in Saigon, Tran Thien Khiem graduated from Da Lat Military Academy in 1947, joined the Army of the State of Vietnam, and quickly advanced in rank. In November 1960 as commanding general of the 21st Infantry Division, Khiem directed loyal troops who saved Diem from an attempted revolt during which Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) paratroopers surrounded the presidential palace. This led Diem to appoint Khiem as army chief of staff and also led to his rise as one of the most powerful figures in South Vietnamese politics. In early 1963 Khiem halted another coup attempt, this one headed by Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen and Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao. Later in 1963 Khiem became involved in the coup plot led by generals Tran Van Don, Le Van Kim, and Duong Van Minh that resulted in the assassination of Diem on November 1, 1963. Af-

Lieutenant General Tran Thien Khiem was chief of staff of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and one of the leading figures in the November 1963 coup d’état that overthrew South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Tran Van Chuong

1135

Prime Ministers of the Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975 Name Nguyen Ngoc Tho Nguyen Khanh Nguyen Xuan Oanh Nguyen Khanh Tran Van Huong Nguyen Xuan Oanh Phan Huy Quat Nguyen Cao Ky Nguyen Van Loc Tran Van Huong Tran Thien Khiem Nguyen Ba Can Vu Van Mau

Party or Association Appointed by military junta Military junta Appointed by military junta Military junta Appointed by military junta Appointed by military junta Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang Military junta Military junta National Social Democratic Front National Social Democratic Front Dan Chu Forces of National Reconciliation

terward Khiem became military commander of the Saigon region, but he did not feel properly recompensed. He joined with other disgruntled officers and General Nguyen Khanh in their conspiracy against the military junta. After this coup of January 30, 1964, Khiem became minister of defense. Following Khanh’s August 1964 resignation, Khiem sought to head the government. Unable to decide on any one figure, the Armed Forces Council compromised by creating a triumvirate of Khiem, Khanh, and Minh to rule until a permanent government could be formed. But in October 1964 Khanh exiled both Minh and Khiem. Also that month Khiem became ambassador to the United States, and from November 1965 to May 1968 he was ambassador to the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan). Khiem returned to Saigon in May 1968 to become minister of the interior; he served as deputy prime minister for five months in 1969. Later that same year he became prime minister, a post he held until 1975. While acting in this political capacity, Khiem was alleged to have become involved in significant trade in narcotics. The money that he allegedly received from the sale of heroin was used to fund his political machines. However, these rumors of narcotics trafficking have never been substantiated. In April 1975 as Communist forces moved into Saigon, Khiem escaped from South Vietnam. He eventually settled in the United States. MICHAEL R. NICHOLS See also Duong Van Minh; Le Van Kim; Military Revolutionary Council; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Nguyen Khanh; Pham Ngoc Thao; Tran Kim Tuyen; Tran Van Don References Bain, Chester A. Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Fishel, Wesley R., ed. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict. Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1968. FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.

Start Date

End Date

November 4, 1963 February 8, 1964 August 29, 1964 September 3, 1964 November 4, 1964 January 28, 1965 February 16, 1965 June 19, 1965 October 31, 1967 May 28, 1968 September 1, 1969 April 4, 1975 April 28, 1975

January 30, 1964 August 29, 1964 September 3, 1964 November 4, 1964 January 28, 1965 February 15, 1965 June 8, 1965 October 31, 1967 May 17, 1968 September 1, 1969 April 4, 1975 April 24, 1975 April 30, 1975

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Tran Van Chuong Birth Date: June 2, 1898 Death Date: July 24, 1986 Official in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and ambassador to the United States during 1954–1963. Born on June 2, 1898, in Phu Ly in northern Vietnam, Tran Van Chuong was from a prominent Vietnamese family. His father was Tran Van Thong, governor of Hai Duong, and his mother was Bui Thi Lan, sister of Bui Quang Chieu who in 1923 founded the Constitutional Party. Chuong was the older brother of Tran Van Do, later foreign minister of the State of Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1912 Choung married into another prominent Vietnamese family. His wife, Than Thi Nam Tran, was the daughter of Than Trong Hue, a high official of the royal court and by marriage a relative of the royal family. In 1913 Chuong went abroad to study in Algeria and France. He obtained his doctorate of law in France in 1922 and returned to Vietnam following graduation, although he became a naturalized French citizen in 1924. From 1925 to 1933 he practiced law in southern Vietnam. He continued to practice law in northern and central Vietnam from 1933 to 1945. Beginning in the 1930s, Chuong became involved in politics. In 1938 he became vice chairman of the High Council of Economic and Financial Affairs of Indochina. From 1941 to 1943 he was a member of the High Council of Indochina. Chuong remained in close contact with Japanese officials during the Japanese occupation. After the March 9, 1945, coup d’état,

1136

Tran Van Do References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Tran Van Do Birth Date: November 15, 1904 Death Date: December 20, 1990

Tran Van Chuong was the Republic of Vietnam ambassador to the United States during 1954–1963. (Bettmann/Corbis)

he became minister of foreign affairs and then vice premier in Tran Trong Kim’s Japanese-installed government. The Viet Minh arrested Chuong on December 21, 1946, but later released him. He then fled to Phat Diem, a Catholic stronghold in northern Vietnam, and remained there until his return to Hanoi in July 1947. French authorities put Chuong under house arrest at Hon Gai City in Quang Ninh Province before allowing him to live in Da Lat in the Central Highlands. In 1949 the French allowed Chuong to go to France, where he lived until becoming a cabinet minister in the first government of Ngo Dinh Diem in July 1954. Chuong was then ambassador to the United States until he resigned in August 1963 to protest oppression of the Buddhist movement by the South Vietnamese government. Chuong eventually settled in the United States. Chuong and his wife died on July 24, 1986, in Washington D.C., killed by their only son, Tran Van Khiem. Khiem was later found mentally unfit to stand trial and was remanded to a psychiatric facility. Chuong was the father of two daughters, one of whom was Tran Thi Le Xuan who became better known as Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, wife of the younger brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame

Prominent political leader in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and first foreign minister in the Ngo Dinh Diem government (1954–1955). Born on November 15, 1904, in Phu Ly, northern Vietnam, into a prominent family, Tran Van Do was the younger brother of Tran Van Chuong, father of the future Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu. Do later married a daughter of Luu Van Lang, a prominent southerner. Do studied at Lycée Albert Sarraut in Hanoi and then at the University of Hanoi School of Medicine. From 1928 Do studied in France, where he graduated as a doctor of medicine in 1931. He then returned to Vietnam and practiced medicine, first in Saigon and then in Go Cong Province. He also wrote for the newspaper Dong Nai. During the Japanese occupation he was for a brief time in 1945 director of the Health Department of the Southern Region. Do also participated in social relief activities after August 1945. In 1949 Do founded a newspaper, Tinh Than, to support Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1951 Do refused to become minister of health in Tran Van Huu’s administration despite the advice of U.S. ambassador Donald Heath. In July 1951 Do joined the Army of the State of Vietnam with the rank of major and was appointed deputy commander of the Military Medical Corps. Promoted to lieutenant colonel the next year, he commanded the Military Medical Corps. In 1953 Do joined the Cong Nong Chanh Dang (Political Party of Workers and Peasants), predecessor of Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), which included core members of the Esprit Group formed by Ngo Dinh Nhu to support his brother, Ngo Dinh Diem. Promoted to full colonel, Do continued to serve as a military medical doctor until July 1954, when he became minister of foreign affairs in the first government of Ngo Dinh Diem. In this capacity Do was the representative of the State of Vietnam at the 1954 Geneva Conference. In 1955 Do, accused of supporting the Binh Xuyen, was ousted from the Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang ruling party. He was one of 18 prominent leaders who held a news conference at the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon on April 26, 1960, calling on President Diem to carry out political reforms. Do served as a vice premier in the 1965 Phan Huy Quat government and as minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of Premier Nguyen Van Loc from 1967 to 1968.

Tran Van Giau

1137

After the collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975, Do took refuge in Paris, where he died on December 20, 1990. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also BRAVO I and II, Operations; Heath, Donald Read; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Phan Huy Quat References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Smith, R. B. An International History of the Vietnam War. 3 vols. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983–1991.

Tran Van Don Birth Date: 1917 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general and one of the key participants in the November 1, 1963, overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Tran Van Don was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1917 while his father was there attending medical school. Don became an officer in the French Army during World War II, after which he returned to Vietnam and rose through the ranks of the French-sponsored Vietnamese forces. Don initially supported President Diem, but corruption and other shortcomings within the government turned Don against the regime. In July 1963 Don began discussing with other disillusioned army leaders the possibility of a coup. Don, the ARVN chief of staff, and his deputy, General Le Van Kim, met with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) representatives on August 23, 1963. Don and Kim made it clear that the John F. Kennedy administration must realize that Diem, his brother Nhu, and Nhu’s wife should be removed, an act that they were prepared to undertake if supported by Washington. This message was passed on to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who forwarded the information to Washington. Don and other generals proposed to Diem that he declare martial law to strengthen the military in its fight against the Viet Cong (VC). Their real purpose was to strengthen their own position for a coup. Self-immolations by Buddhist monks beginning in June 1963 were a problem for Diem, and he agreed to declare martial law in the hopes that he could use it to crack down on the Buddhists, with the army taking the blame. This action, however, forced the Kennedy administration to take a stand against Diem. Following the November 1, 1963, coup, Don continued to serve in the army until he was forced to retire in 1965. Two years later he was elected to the Senate and remained an influential figure in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The day before the fall of Saigon in April 1975, Don managed to escape out to ships of

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) general Tran Van Don. As ARVN chief of staff, Don was one of the key participants in the 1963 coup that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem. (Bettmann/Corbis)

the U.S. Seventh Fleet aboard an Air America helicopter and was eventually resettled in the United States. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Conein, Lucien Emile; Le Van Kim; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Post, Ken. Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Viet Nam. 5 vols. Brookfield, VT: Darmouth, 1989–1994.

Tran Van Giau Birth Date: 1911 Vietnamese Communist intellectual and propagandist and considered by many to be the leading Stalinist within the Vietnamese revolutionary movement. Tran Van Giau was born in 1911 at

1138

Tran Van Hai

Ta Nam in southern Vietnam. He founded several southern front organizations for the Vietnamese Communist Party and oversaw the successful merger between the National United Front and the Viet Minh in 1945. In 1946 Giau and several other Stalinists were made to go through kiem thao (self-criticism) for their excesses in Saigon following the August Revolution (1945). Giau lost much of his political power but became a very influential historian of the modern revolution, publishing several important books on the subject. He often wrote under the pseudonym Tam Vu, as he did in his most important essay, “People’s War against Special War,” in which he outlined the village- and districtlevel struggles that undermined the will to fight within the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). As of the late 1990s, he was living in Ho Chi Minh City. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Huynh Kim Khanh. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Marr, David G. Vietnam: World Bibliographical Series. Oxford, UK: Clio, 1992. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. Tam Vu (Tran Van Giau). “People’s War against Special War.” Vietnamese Studies 11 (1967): 44–71.

Tran Van Hai Birth Date: 1925 Death Date: April 30, 1975 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) brigadier general. Born in Phong Dinh Province (Can Tho) in 1925, Tran Van Hai graduated from the Da Lat Military Academy in 1951. He was widely known as incorruptible, outspoken, and a brave officer. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, Hai commanded the Ranger Branch Command and supervised the raid to clear the Communist forces that had infiltrated into the Cholon business district of Saigon. He was then assigned to the post of national police chief. In 1970 Hai commanded Special Tactical Area 44. He then took command of the 7th Infantry Division at Dong Tam, near My Tho. At midnight on April 30, 1975, after Communist forces captured Saigon, Brigadier General Hai committed suicide at the 7th Division headquarters at Dong Tam. NGUYEN CONG LUAN

See also Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Pham Phong Dinh. Chien Su Quan Luc Viet Nam Cong Hoa [The Combat History of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam]. Winnipeg: Self-published, 2001. Truong Dong. Doi Chien Binh [The Warrior’s Life]. Westminster, CA: Tu Quynh, 1998.

Tran Van Huong Birth Date: December 1, 1903 Death Date: 1982 Politician and government official in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Born on December 1, 1903, at Vinh Long in the Mekong Delta area of South Vietnam, Tran Van Huong was educated at Harvard University. He was a schoolteacher before he joined the Viet Minh resistance movement against the French. Huong served as mayor of Saigon in 1954 and again in 1964. Huong became South Vietnamese prime minister in a civilian government orchestrated by General Nguyen Khanh. Huong, whose reputation was based on his opposition to Ngo Dinh Diem, was in his early sixties when Khanh appointed him prime minister on October 1, 1964. Khanh seems to have chosen Huong because he was part of the old guard. During Huong’s first three months as prime minister, Buddhists and other political factions staged protest demonstrations. Huong did not rely on either the Buddhists or the Catholics when making political appointments and instead drove both into opposition and delivered himself to the military council, the strongest faction that did not want a civilian government. The younger officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), commonly referred to as Young Turks, wanted the old guard forcibly retired. Although Huong was part of this group, he was left alone when on December 20, 1964, the other leaders were rounded up and held at Kontum. Huong retained his post until January 27, 1965, when the military deposed him and returned Khanh to power. In May 1969 President Nguyen Van Thieu appointed Huong prime minister again; he held the post until August. In 1971 Huong became vice president of South Vietnam and remained in that position until April 21, 1975, when Thieu resigned. By this time Huong was 72 years old and feeble. He attempted to negotiate a settlement of war, and on April 28 he transferred authority to General Duong Van Minh on the eve of the victory by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Huong chose to stay in Vietnam when people were fleeing the country before the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. He was widely respected by Vietnamese because he was both outspoken and incorruptible. Partly for that

Tran Van Lam

1139

The resignation of Republic of Vietnam president Tran Van Huong as seen live on television during the fall of Saigon, April 15, 1975. (Getty Images)

reason the Communist leadership left him alone, even though he adamantly refused to meet with them to the time of his death in 1982. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Duong Van Minh; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Viet Minh References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Moss, George. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. Post, Ken. Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Viet Nam. 5 vols. Brookfield, VT: Darmouth, 1989–1994.

Tran Van Lam Birth Date: July 30, 1913 Death Date: February 6, 2001 Prominent political figure in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and foreign minister during 1969–1973. Born on

July 30, 1913, in Saigon, Tran Van Lam studied at Petrus Ky High School in Saigon from 1927 to 1934. In 1935 he went to Hanoi to pursue higher education at the School of Medicine and Pharmacy, from which he received a degree in pharmacy in 1939. A prominent Catholic, in 1952 Lam became a member of the Saigon City Supervisory Council. A year later he was appointed president of the Third District Administrative Council. In 1954 he became southern commissioner of the State of Vietnam government. In 1956 he was elected a deputy to and served as the president of the National Constituent Assembly. Lam continued as president of the first South Vietnamese National Assembly from 1957 to 1958 and was the leader of the majority block in the National Assembly from 1959 to 1961, when he was chosen a judge of the Supreme Court and of the Constitutional Court. From 1961 to 1963 he was the South Vietnamese ambassador to Australia. In 1967 he was elected to the South Vietnamese Senate, one of two houses in the National Assembly. In September 1969 Lam became minister of foreign affairs. Lam was one of the four signatories of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords that ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Reelected to the Senate in 1973, he was elected its president, serving in that post

1140

Tran Van Tra

Republic of Vietnam foreign minister Tran Van Lam at a press conference before the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement on January 17, 1973. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

until the Communist takeover in April 1975, when he moved to Australia. He remained a prominent commentator on Vietnamese affairs for many years before his death in Canberra on February 6, 2001. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Paris Peace Accords; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 Reference Nguyen Kao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

Tran Van Tra Birth Date: 1918 Death Date: April 20, 1996 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general; chairman, Military Affairs Committee of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) during 1964–1976; and minister of defense, Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam during 1969–1976. Tran Van Tra, whose true name was Nguyen Chan, was born to middle-class parents in 1918 in Quang Ngai, a coastal province in south-central Vietnam. He received an elementary education and later became a railroad worker, but he quit his job to join the Viet Minh resistance during World War

II. He quickly became a senior officer in south Vietnam, rising to command a military region in the Saigon area. In 1954 Tra regrouped to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Agreement. There he became deputy chief of the General Staff of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), serving directly under Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap. Tra spent the next nine years in North Vietnam and studied in the Soviet Union and China. He also became an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong (Communist) Party. In 1963 Tra was sent back to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to take command of all Communist military forces there. In 1964 General Tra became commander of the South Vietnamese Liberation Army and deputy secretary of the COSVN Party Military Affairs Committee. When General Hoang Van Thai arrived at COSVN headquarters in 1967 to take over as the Communist military commander in South Vietnam, Tra became his deputy. In this capacity Tra commanded the Viet Cong (VC) attack on Saigon during the Tet Offensive in 1968 and the 1972 Easter Offensive attacks in Binh Long Province, northwest of Saigon. From 1969 to 1976 Tra also served as minister of defense of the PRG. In March 1973 after serving in Saigon for two months as chief of the PRG military delegation to the Four Party Joint Military Commission established under the terms of the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, Tra returned to Hanoi briefly to discuss future military plans with the party and army leadership in Hanoi. Tra then returned to COSVN Headquarters as the commander of the South Vietnamese Liberation Army and commander of the B2 Front. Despite disagreements with the PAVN high command over tactics, in December 1974 Tra’s forces launched the first phase of the final Communist offensive of the war, resulting in the capture of Phuoc Long Province in early January 1975. Supported by fresh supplies of troops and equipment from North Vietnam, the next phase of the offensive began in early March 1975 throughout South Vietnam. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces quickly crumbled in the face of these massive attacks. In spite of last-minute efforts by South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu to request U.S. aid, ARVN forces were in full retreat by early April. On April 7, 1975, Le Duc Tho arrived at the battlefront to assist Tra and General Van Tien Dung, chief of the PAVN General Staff, in planning the final attack on Saigon. On April 21 President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned. The final attack against Saigon began on April 26. Four days later, on April 30, as PAVN armored columns rolled into Saigon, the new South Vietnamese president, General Duong Van Minh, surrendered. Le Duc Tho and General Tra arrived in Saigon the following day. From May 1975 to January 1976, Tra served as head of the Military Management Committee that governed Saigon (later Ho Chi Minh City). From 1976 to 1978 Tra served as commander of Military Region VII. In 1976 he was elected to full membership in the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

Trieu Da

1141

Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987. Tran Van Tra. Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre, Vol. 5, Concluding the 30-Years War [in Vietnamese]. Ho Chi Minh City: Van Nghe, 1982. Translated in Southeast Asia Report 1247(82783) (February 2, 1983).

Trieu Au Birth Date: 225 Death Date: 248

General Tran Van Tra of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). He was chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the Central Office for South Vietnam (1964–1976) and minister of defense in the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (1969–1976). Tra is shown here on March 17, 1973. (Bettmann/Corbis)

In 1982 Tra published his controversial memoir, History of the Bulwark B2 Theatre. His candor led to the banning of the book in Vietnam. Even though the Vietnamese government rescinded the ban in the late 1980s and allowed Tra to participate in various conferences reappraising the Communist role in the Vietnam War, he is said to have lived under something resembling house arrest during this period. Tra, one of the grand old men of the revolution, was allowed to meet visiting dignitaries and veterans groups from the United States in controlled settings. After a long illness, Tra died in Saigon on April 20, 1996. WILLIAM P. HEAD AND MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II See also Central Office for South Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Le Duan; Le Duc Tho; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnamese Communist Party; Vo Nguyen Giap References Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.

Leader of the revolt against Chinese rule in 248 in Cuu Chan, in present-day Thanh Hoa Province. Trieu Au, also known as Ba Trieu (Lady Trieu) and Trieu Thi Trinh, is considered one of the most important heroines in Vietnamese history, second only to the Trung Sisters (Hai Ba Trung), Trung Trac and Trung Nhi. Trieu Au is also famous for her statement “I want to ride a strong wind, push away the fierce wave with the sole of my foot, kill the whale in the South China Sea, and sweep across the country to save our people from hell, rather than following in the steps of common people by bending my back to serve men as one of their concubines.” Together with her brother, Trieu Quoc Dat, she led a revolt in 248 against the Wu. In battle Trieu Au wore golden armor, sat on the head of an elephant, and fought bravely. After six months of warfare her small army was defeated, and Trieu Au committed suicide at the age of 23. To show respect to the heroine, King Ly Nam De (r. 544–548) ordered the raising of a temple in her honor. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Trung Trac and Trung Nhi; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Pham Cao Duong. Lich Su Dan Toc Viet Nam, Quyen I, Thoi K Lap Quoc [History of the Vietnamese People, Vol. I, The Making of the Nation]. Fountain Valley, CA: Truyen Thong Viet, 1987. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Trieu Da Birth Date: 258 BCE Death Date: 137 BCE Chinese general who founded the Trieu dynasty (207–111 BCE) and the Nam Viet (Nan Yueh) kingdom that covered the Chinese provinces of Guangdong (Kwangtung) and Guangxi (Kwang-si)

1142

Trinh Lords

and the northern part of present-day Vietnam. Born in northern China in 258 BCE, Trieu Da (Zhao Tuo in Chinese; also known as Trieu Vu Vuong) began his career as an officer in the army of Emperor Qin Shi, founder of the Qin dynasty. When the Chinese failed to pacify southern China because of the resistance of the local Viet (Yueh), Trieu Da was sent to the south in 214 BCE as a lieutenant to the governor of the district of Nan Hai in present-day Guangdong Province. This assignment provided opportunities for Trieu Da to build up his own power. In 207 BCE Trieu Da attacked the Kingdom of Au Lac of An Duong Vuong Thuc Phan in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam and incorporated it into his Nan Hai District that same year. When Emporer Qin Shi died and the Qin Empire disintegrated, Da proclaimed himself king of Nam Viet and chose for a capital the city of Phien Ngung (present-day Guangzhou). He reportedly died in 137 BCE. To most Vietnamese, Trieu Da is considered to be a Viet king because he was the founder of a southern kingdom carved within the former territory of the Viet, with the Viet as the main population, completely separated from the Qin in the north. Later he replaced the Thuc of the Vietnamese kingdom of Au Lac and continued to defend the interests of the Viet against Empress Lü Zhi’s policy of not selling iron tools and female animals to Nam Viet in 196 BCE. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Au Lac, Kingdom of; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viet-Nam des origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Pham Cao Duong. Lich Su Dan Toc Viet Nam, Quyen I, Thoi K Lap Quoc [History of the Vietnamese People, Vol. I, The Making of the Nation]. Fountain Valley, CA: Truyen Thong Viet, 1987. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

had fallen victim to the perpetual struggle for land and status among the families of Vietnam’s imperial bureaucrats and feudal landlords. Two of these families, the closely related Nguyen and Trinh families, overthrew a third, the Mac family, which managed to supplant the Le dynasty with its own imperial mandate from 1527 to 1592. After the defeat of the Mac dynasty, the Trinh restored the Le dynasty, but only as puppet rulers, and strove to consolidate and expand their northern lands and influence at the expense of their onetime allies, the Nguyen lords. During the struggle with the Mac family, the Nguyen family had developed its own power base in southern Vietnam and by that war’s end were masters of all of Vietnam below the 17th Parallel. For the next 184 years, the Trinh intermittently fought to bring the Nguyen-held lands under their authority, but Nguyen fortifications built astride the narrow coastal plain and the resources provided by the Nguyen conquest of the Mekong Delta enabled them to withstand Trinh assaults. The Trinh succeeded in introducing some administrative and military reforms and in 1711 issued an edict intended to check the greed of provincial mandarins and landlords. The Trinh were, however, unable to halt the continuing efforts of landowners, court notables, and mandarins to seek landed wealth at the expense of the peasantry. As a result, the regime was repeatedly menaced by peasant insurgencies and eventually fell prey to the populist Tay Son Rebellion. Between 1786 and 1789 Tay Son armies defeated the Trinh, their nominal Le overlords, and even a Chinese army, but the Tay Son leaders did not govern long enough to eradicate the lust for power and economic self-interest that plagued Vietnam’s traditional ruling elites. These traits persisted with fateful results for Vietnam’s stability during the dynasty subsequently established by the Trinh’s old rivals, the Nguyen, who had managed to survive, if only barely, the challenge of the Tay Son Rebellion. MARC J. GILBERT See also Le Dynasty; Nguyen Dynasty; Tay Son Rebellion

Trieu Thi Trinh See Trieu Au

Trieu Vu Vuong See Trieu Da

Trinh Lords Rulers of northern Vietnam (Tonkin) from 1592 to 1786. By the beginning of the 16th century, the later Le dynasty (1428–1788)

References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971. Truong Buu Lam. Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution: Popular Movements in Vietnamese History. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Trinité, Louis de la See D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry

Truman, Harry S.

1143

Truman, Harry S. Birth Date: May 8, 1884 Death Date: December 26, 1972 Democratic Party politician, U.S. senator (1935–1945), vice president (1945), and president of the United States (1945–1953). Truman was largely responsible for initiating U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Born in Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884, Harry S. Truman served in the U.S. Army in World War I as an artillery captain. He remained in the Officers Reserve Corps after the war, finally retiring from the Army Reserve as a colonel in 1952. In 1923 Truman entered politics under the tutelage of the Kansas City Pendergast Democratic political machine and served as a county judge until 1935. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1934 and served until sworn in as vice president in 1945. He served as vice president from January 20 to April 12, 1945, and became president upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In July 1945 Truman met at Potsdam with British prime minister Winston Churchill (replaced during the conference by Clement Atlee) and Joseph Stalin to negotiate the map of Europe and discuss the end of the war in the Pacific. Truman and Churchill made a far-reaching determination concerning Southeast Asia. The Allied chiefs of staff divided French Indochina along the 16th Parallel for operational purposes, with Japanese forces to surrender to the Chinese north of that line and to the British to the south. Although Roosevelt had favored independence, postwar leaders made no provisions for Indochinese self-determination, and Truman ignored the question, as the threat of communism in Europe began to eclipse all other concerns. In 1946 Truman, reacting to the Communist threat in Greece and Turkey, enjoined Congress to aid in preserving democracy, stating that “The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.” Truman and U.S. policy makers articulated, through the 1947 Truman Doctrine and the 1947 Marshall Plan, American diplomat George F. Kennan’s Containment Doctrine. This policy sought to contain Soviet hegemony and encroachment virtually anywhere in the world. Containment dominated foreign relations throughout the Cold War and was quickly extended to Southeast Asia. Believing French collaboration to be crucial in European reconstruction, in March 1950 Undersecretary of State Dean G. Acheson convinced Truman to allocate $15 million of a pending military aid bill for Western Europe to assist the French in defeating the Viet Minh. On June 28, 1950, three days after hostilities broke out in Korea and four weeks before Truman signed the aid bill, eight C-47 cargo aircraft transported to Vietnam the first of this aid, which by 1954 grew to a total of $3 billion. Truman’s decision to assist the French in Indochina was motivated by several events: the 1949 Soviet detonation of their first atomic bomb, the Communist victory in China in October 1949, and Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s ensuing attacks on the adminis-

President Harry S. Truman commenced U.S. involvement in Vietnam by extending military assistance to the French in the Indochina War as part of the U.S. strategy to defeat Communist expansion. (Harry S. Truman Presidential Library)

tration for supposed softness on communism. Of course, the Communist attack in Korea and the subsequent Chinese intervention in the war in late 1950 solidified in Truman’s mind the need to resist Communist aggression elsewhere in Asia, lest places such as Indochina also come under attack. Subsequent administrations escalated U.S. participation in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson, believing that he had inherited from presidents Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy a pledge to protect Southeast Asia from communism, later uttered these words within hours of his presidential oath following Kennedy’s assassination: “I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” During the war President Johnson visited Truman several times seeking a public endorsement of his policies, but Truman refused to make a public statement. Privately he was disenchanted with Johnson’s leadership and believed the war to be a mistake. Truman died in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 26, 1972. BRENDA J. TAYLOR See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Containment Policy; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennan, George Frost; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954

1144

Trung Trac and Trung Nhi

References Anderson, David L., ed. Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Williams, William Appleman, Thomas McCormick, Lloyd Gardner, and Walter LaFaber, eds. America in Vietnam: A Documentary History. New York: Norton, 1989.

Trung Nu Vuong See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi

Trung Queens See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi

Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: 43 CE Sisters and Vietnamese heroines, also known as Hai Ba Trung (the Two Ladies Trung) or Trung Vuong or Trung Nu Vuong (the Trung Queens), who led the first uprising of Vietnamese against Chinese rule in 40 CE. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, who was the younger of the two sisters, were daughters of the Lac tuong (“lord”) of Me Linh in present-day Vinh Phu Province. They led a revolt after To Dinh, the greedy and inept prefect of Giao Chi, killed Trung Trac’s husband, Thi Sach, lord of Chu Dien. This triggered a general revolt against the unpopular Han Chinese regime. Angered by the Han’s assimilation policy and the seizing of land and power from the local nobility in favor of Han immigrants who had just moved to Vietnam following Wang Mang’s usurpation of the Han throne (9–23 CE), the uprising quickly spread throughout the Chinese colonies, from Cuu Chan (present-day Thanh Hoa) to Hop Pho (in present-day Guangdong Province, China). Chinese governors and colonial forces retreated to China proper, and Trung Trac and Trung Nhi proclaimed themselves queens, choosing Me Linh as the capital. After two years of intensive preparation, Han emperor Quangwu dispatched a Chinese army commanded by Ma Yuan (Ma Vien), its most famous general at the time. The queens were defeated at the Battle of Lang Bac. According to Vietnamese tradition, the two sisters refused to surrender and committed suicide in 43 CE by leaping into the Hat River. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi are considered by many Vietnamese to be the most important and most revered heroines in Vietnam’s history. Temples were erected in their honor, and the anniversary

of their deaths has become Vietnamese Women’s Day. Ceremonies are organized annually in their honor on the sixth day of the second month of the lunar calendar. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Trieu Au; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese References Bui Quang Tung. “Cuoc Khoi Nghia Hai Ba Trung Duoi Mat Su Gia” [The Two Trung Ladies’ Uprising in Historians’ Eyes]. Dai Hoc [publication of Hue University] 10 (July 1959): 1–16. Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Pham Cao Duong. Lich Su Dan Toc Viet Nam, Quyen I, Thoi K Lap Quoc [History of the Vietnamese People, Vol. I, The Making of the Nation]. Fountain Valley, CA: Truyen Thong Viet, 1987. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam See Central Office for South Vietnam

Truong Chinh Birth Date: February 9, 1907 Death Date: September 30, 1988 Secretary-general of the Indochinese Communist Party (1941– 1956), official of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party (1986). Born in Tonkin’s Nam Dinh Province on February 9, 1907, Dang Xuan Khu was the son of an activist teacher who soon recruited his son to the anti-French nationalist movement. Expelled from his provincial school for political agitation, Khu went to Hanoi in 1928 to finish his secondary education at Lycée Albert Sarraut, later studying at the Hanoi College of Commerce. He then taught for a time. He joined Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi, or Thanh Nien (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association), and wrote articles for several underground Communist publications. He was one of the founders, in 1930, of the Indochinese Communist Party (Dang Cong San Duong) and was quickly valued for his propagandistic skills. Seized by French authorities in 1931, Khu was convicted of subversion and consigned to Son La Prison. Upon his release in 1936 he worked enthusiastically on Communist Party activities. As a cover in late 1936 Khu began work for a Hanoi newspaper, Le Travail (Work), living under the pseudonym of “Qua Ninh.” Greatly impressed with Mao Zedong’s activities in China, Khu had already adopted the alias Truong Chinh (“Long March”). In 1938 Truong

Truong Chinh Chinh, as Qua Ninh, in collaboration with Vo Nguyen Giap, who wrote under the name Van Dinh, published The Peasant Problem, 1937–1938, arguing that a Communist revolution could be both peasant-based and proletarian-based. Leftist journalist Wilfred Burchett described the book as a masterly analysis and a profound study that formed the basis for the Communist Party and later Viet Minh policies toward the peasantry. When French authorities banned the Communist Party in 1939, Truong Chinh fled to safety in China. In 1940 he became head of the Indochinese Communist Party’s propaganda department and in May 1941 began work as the party’s secretary-general. When Ho Chi Minh in 1941 organized the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or Viet Minh (Vietnam Independence League), a consortium of several different nationalist parties under Communist leadership, Truong Chinh became a leading member, successfully helping to portray it as nothing more than an anti-French and anti-Japanese resistance movement dedicated to the overthrow of foreign dominance in Vietnam. In 1945 he played a leading part in the August Revolution and helped draft North Vietnam’s constitution. The next year he became a member of North Vietnam’s first National Assembly. Truong Chinh served as director of Viet Minh propaganda and oversaw intelligence and counterintelligence activities during the Indochina War (1946–1954). In 1946 he published The August Revolution, and the next year he published The Resistance Will Win. He was largely responsible for the new name Lao Dong (“Workers’ Party”) adopted by North Vietnamese Communists in 1951. Within a short time Truong Chinh was named secretarygeneral of the new party and by 1953 was second only to Ho Chi Minh in the northern hierarchy. In his writings and speeches in the early 1950s, Truong Chinh dictated a strict new party cultural line that imposed severe restrictions on writing, music, and poetry. All had to promote party policies. A longtime friend and comrade of Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh became suspicious of Giap’s meteoric rise in the party hierarchy and his control of military forces. After a bitter struggle, Truong Chinh succeeded in having the army placed under the control of political commissars. In 1950 he ordered the execution of Tran Chi Chau, Giap’s chief of logistical services, and accused Giap of “lack of judgment in his selection of responsible personnel” and of stumbling into “useless massacres [of soldiers in combat], which had no other purpose than to promote personal interests.” Although they would vote together on later issues, the two were never again close. During this period Truong Chinh fell onto hard times. Ho Chi Minh named him vice chairman of the Land Reform Committee in 1954, and Truong Chinh implemented a draconian program of agrarian reform that included large-scale dispossession and numerous executions of “landlords,” many of whom were no more than landless peasants guilty only of being disliked by neighbors

1145

who accused them of being “counterrevolutionaries.” Truong Chinh demonstrated his zeal for land reform by denouncing his own father. His attempts to impose total collectivization of agriculture based on the Communist pattern greatly diminished production and threatened famine. Although Giap voiced the actual charges, it was Ho Chi Minh who dismissed Truong Chinh from his positions as land reform vice chairman and as secretary-general of the Lao Dong Party. He was forced to make an official statement admitting “serious mistakes” and “left-wing deviationism” (being more orthodox than the party line required). Despite this, he retained his number three position within the Politburo and remained influential within the party leadership. Truong Chinh’s eclipse did not last long. By 1958 he was one of four vice premiers of North Vietnam and the same year became chairman of the National Scientific Research Commission. He left those offices two years later to become chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, a job he held for some time. In April 1961 he became a member of the Presidium of the Fatherland Front and in August 1964 served as a member of the National Assembly delegation to Indonesia. Truong Chinh’s influence waned by 1968, as he urged a “socialist construction” of North Vietnam while some others (notably Le Duan, who served as first secretary) wanted North Vietnam to concentrate on winning the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Truong Chinh insisted that “military action can only succeed when politics are correct,” adding that “politics cannot be fulfilled without the success of military action.” Le Duan and his faction won the argument, thus paving the way for the 1968 Tet Offensive. Absent from view in Hanoi from March to April 1969, Truong Chinh was probably in East Germany seeking medical treatment. After the 1975 Communist victory in South Vietnam, Truong Chinh again rose in influence. In 1986 following the death of Le Duan, Truong Chinh served as interim secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party from July until December 1986, when, probably as a result of the severe economic problems facing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the 6th National Party Congress elected a new party secretary-general. However, Truong Chinh continued to serve as an adviser to the Politburo until his accidental death on September 30, 1988, in Hanoi. A dour and private man most comfortable working behind the scenes, Truong Chinh was primarily devoted to theory and party doctrine and of all of his comrades was probably the most knowledgeable about Communist ideology. CECIL B. CURREY See also Burchett, Wilfred; Ho Chi Minh; Lao Dong Party; Le Duan; Mao Zedong; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party; Vo Nguyen Giap

1146

Truong Dinh Dzu

References Who’s Who in North Vietnam. Washington, DC: Office of External Research, U.S. Department of State, 1972. Who’s Who in the Socialist Countries. New York: Saur, 1978.

Truong Dinh Dzu Birth Date: November 10, 1917 Death Date: Mid-1980s Prominent politician in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of South Vietnam. Born on November 10, 1917, into a poor family from Qui Nhon in central Vietnam, Truong Dinh Dzu became a prominent lawyer. In 1961 he declared his intention to run for the South Vietnamese presidency against incumbent President Ngo Dinh Diem but was pressured into withdrawing when accused of illegal fund transfers out of the country. In 1967 Dzu again ran for the presidency. His slogan “Negotiation Now” called for negotiations with the Communists to end the war. He won 17.2 percent of the vote, finishing behind the winning

ticket of Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky, who garnered 35 percent. Four days after the election Dzu and two other candidates, Phan Khac Suu and Hoang Co Binh, held a news conference in front of the National Assembly building, charging fraud on the part of the military ticket to rig the elections. Military leaders accused Dzu of being a pseudopacifist and of illegally opening a San Francisco bank account. In February 1967 Dzu and other prominent leftists, such as Au Truong Thanh, Tran Thuc Linh, and Ho Thong Minh, were put under police surveillance. Dzu was brought before a Special Military Court and on July 26, 1968, was sentenced to five years of hard labor. Thanks to public pressure in South Vietnam and from abroad, Dzu was released that December. After the April 1975 Communist victory he was sentenced to reeducation as a result of the new Communist regime’s suspicions of his contacts with senior American officials and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers during the war. Dzu reportedly died in the mid-1980s. In 1978 his son, David Truong Dinh Hung, a student living in Washington, D.C., was arrested and convicted of espionage on behalf of the Vietnamese Communist regime. NGO NGOC TRUNG

Truong Dinh Dzu, a Republic of Vietnam politician and unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of his country, at a press conference in Saigon in 1967. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Truong Son Corridor See also Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Van Thieu References Bunker, Ellsworth. The Bunker Papers: Reports to the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973. 3 vols. Edited by Douglas Pike. Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 1990. Krall, Yung. A Thousand Tears Falling: The True Story of a Vietnamese Family Torn Apart by War, Communism, and the CIA. Atlanta: Longstreet, 1995. Tran Quoc Hoan, Minister of Interior. “Speech to the Third ‘Investigation of Political Targets’ Conference [Hoi Nghi Suu Tam Doi Tuong Chinh Tri Lan Thu 3], 23 September–01 October 1977.” Hanoi: Ministry of Interior, 1977. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

Truong Nhu Tang Birth Date: 1923 Southern Vietnamese revolutionary and founding member of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and minister of justice in the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) during 1969–1975. Born in Saigon in 1923, Truong Nhu Tang received his education in pharmaceutical studies at the Grall Hospital and the University of Hanoi. In 1945 he earned his master’s degree in political science in Paris. During the last days of the Indochina War, he served in the national navy. After the war he accepted the position of chief comptroller for the Industry and Commerce Bank of Vietnam. From this vantage point, Tang was an unlikely revolutionary. However, in 1956 he joined several other prominent individuals in Saigon to oppose the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). These contacts led Tang to the group of revolutionaries who founded the NLF on December 20, 1960. Despite his clandestine revolutionary activities, Tang continued to hold important positions in Saigon, including director general of the National Sugar Company. During the early 1960s his secret activities were disclosed, and he spent a significant amount of time in a Saigon prison. He then traded in his professional life for one of a full-time revolutionary in the jungles of Tay Ninh Province. Tang was a dedicated revolutionary throughout the Vietnam War, but he became disillusioned after the war as he saw the southern revolutionaries pushed aside by their northern compatriots. He was especially bitter about the composition of the postwar national government in Hanoi, believing that too many important southern revolutionaries had been discarded. Although Tang maintained that he never was a Communist, the Lao Dong Party did reward him with a ministry post after the fall

1147

of Saigon. By 1976, however, he was already making plans for his escape from Vietnam. He fled the country in 1977 and now lives in self-imposed exile in Paris. Tang is perhaps best known in the West for his 1985 book A Viet Cong Memoir. This highly controversial book retraces his life from his birth to his role in the modern Vietnamese revolution. There is considerable debate among scholars as to whether Tang, an avowed non-Communist, is representative of the NLF’s membership and leadership. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Nguyen Huu Tho; Nguyen Thi Binh; Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam References Dellinger, David. Vietnam Revisited: Covert Action to Invasion to Reconstruction. Boston: South End, 1986. Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. Thayer, Carlyle A. War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954–60. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1989. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Truong Son Corridor A Vietnamese term that is synonymous with the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Truong Son Corridor (Hanh Lang Truong Son) extended some 600 miles from north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to Tay Ninh Province. The corridor ran along both sides of the Truong Son Mountains (the Vietnamese term for the Annamite Cordillera; “Truong Son” means the “Long Mountains”) in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia down to the lowlands of the Mekong Delta. Essentially the corridor was a series of mountain paths, roads, and passes along the length of the Truong Son Mountains. Historically the corridor had been used by traders to transport goods back and forth from the predominantly Sinicized civilizations to the east of the mountains and the largely Hinduized kingdoms to the west of them. During the Vietnam War control of the Truong Son Corridor was important, and South Vietnamese and U.S. armed forces sought to secure control to prevent its use by the Communists as an infiltration route. This led to the politicization and then the arming of the Montagnard peoples living in the area. The strategic importance of the corridor was clearly shown in 1975 when People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces were able to take the cities of Ban Me Thuot and then Pleiku, leading to the rapid collapse of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the Vietnamese

1148

Truong Son Mountains

Communists built the massive Truong Son War Martyr Cemetery at the northern end of the Truong Son Corridor, the site of some 10,000 graves. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD

References Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999. Wiest, Andrew, ed. Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006.

See also Ho Chi Minh Trail; Truong Son Mountains References Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999. Stevens, Richard L. Mission on the Ho Chi Minh Trail: Nature, Myth and War in Vietnam. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

Truong Van Nghia See De Tham

Tsuchihashi Yuitsu Birth Date: 1891 Death Date: 1975

Truong Son Mountains Located on the western border of central Vietnam, the Truong Son Mountains used to be known as the Annamite Cordillera (or Chaîne Annamitique by the French). The mountain range stretches for some 700 miles, from slightly south of the Red River Delta down to about 60 miles north of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City). Historically it has been the western border of the Vietnamese people, preventing their settling in neighboring Laos and Cambodia. The highest peak in the Truong Son Mountains is about 8,000 feet above sea level. During the Vietnam War the Truong Son Mountains were important strategically, as the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the United States were eager to control them. The mountain chain was critical because the Vietnamese Communists began using a series of mountain passes to create the Ho Chi Minh Trail, by which war matériel was transported from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) into South Vietnam. As a result, South Vietnamese and U.S. forces sought the help of the Montagnards (the mountain tribal peoples), many of whom fought the Communists throughout the war. This led to the bombing of some parts of the mountain chain, the building of fortifications in other parts, and skirmishes throughout, especially in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. Today even with increased tourism to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, few people visit the Truong Son Mountains, which still remain quite isolated. They are, however, a refuge for many rare animals, such as the Annamite rabbit and the saola, an animal similar to a small antelope. Indochinese tigers also inhabit the mountain range. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Ho Chi Minh Trail

Japanese Army lieutenant general and commander of Japanese forces in Indochina during the critical period between December 1944 and the end of World War II. Born in 1891 and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army in 1912, Tsuchihashi Yuitsu graduated from the Japanese Military Staff College in 1920. Promoted to colonel in 1935 and fluent in French, during 1937–1939 he served concurrently as military attaché to France and Belgium. In early 1939 Tsuchihashi went to Hanoi to meet with French governor-general Jules Brevié concerning the interdiction of American supplies for the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) government of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) in China that were routed through Indochina. The French refused, and the next year the Japanese sent occupation troops into Indochina. Tsuchihashi was chief of staff of the Japanese Twenty-first Army in 1939 and then head of the 2nd Bureau of the General Staff. In October 1940 he was appointed vice chief of staff of the China Expeditionary Army, and in 1941 he was promoted to lieutenant general and assumed command of the 48th Division, which he led in the Philippines and Dutch East Indies campaigns. In November 1944 he assumed command of the Japanese Indochina Garrison Army, which in December 1944 became the Japanese Thirty-eighth Army, with Tsuchihashi still in command. Tokyo worried that the United States would soon mount an amphibious assault on Vietnam from the Philippines and thought it best to neutralize the French first before having to deal with an American invasion. Well aware that the French were planning an attempt to wrest control, in March 1945 Tsuchihashi carried out a preemptive coup against the French administration and military forces in Indochina. With the unconditional surrender of Japan, Tsuchihashi surrendered his own forces north of the 16th Parallel to the Chinese at Hanoi on September 28, 1945. Tsuchihashi died in 1975. SPENCER C. TUCKER

Tu Duc

1149

See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Japan; Mordant, Eugène; Sabattier, Gabriel References Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Tu Duc Birth Date: September 22, 1829 Death Date: July 9, 1883 Fourth ruler (r. 1847–1883) of the Nguyen dynasty, and the last emperor of an independent Vietnam. Hong Nham, the second son of Emperor Thieu Tri (r. 1840–1847) and Empress Tu Du, was born on September 22, 1829, in Hue and became emperor in 1847. His ruling name was Tu Duc; he is also known as Duc Tong Anh Hoang De and Vua Duc Tong. Intelligent, dedicated, and very hardworking despite poor health, this gentle scholar, poet, and monarch could have been a great emperor in Vietnamese history were it not for the French invasion of the country. In the year of Tu Duc’s ascension to the throne, French warships shelled Da Nang. Eleven years later, in 1858, using as an excuse the persecution of Catholics, the French and their Spanish allies attacked and occupied Da Nang. Bien Hoa, Gia Dinh, and Dinh Tuong, the three eastern provinces of southern Vietnam, were lost to the French in the Treaty of 1862. Then came the loss of Vinh Long, An Giang, and Ha Tien, the three western provinces, in 1867. The rest of the country became a French protectorate in 1884. At the same time, Tu Duc had to face several uprisings in the north, some of which were led by Catholic followers. Tu Duc is well known in Vietnamese history for his many efforts in culture and education. Under him the Nha Si Khoa and the Cat Si Khoa were added to the traditional and regular civil service examinations. He also created two cultural institutions, the Tap Hien Vien and the Khai Kinh Dien, to bring mandarins and scholars together to discuss with him literature, poetry, and state business. He was receptive to new ideas brought to him by the great reformer Nguyen Truong To, who was sent to France in the late 1860s and early 1870s to study means of modernizing Vietnam. Unfortunately this was too late, and the plan was not supported by the conservative mandarins, who dominated the court at this time. Tu Duc promoted the use of Chu Nom (a writing system for Vietnamese that used Chinese characters with alterations) and was the author of nine collections of poetry and other writings in both Chinese characters and Chu Nom. Under his order the most

Emperor Tu Duc ascended the throne of the Nguyen dynasty during a difficult period in Vietnamese history, with Vietnam facing increasing European interference and mounting internal unrest after 1850. Tu Duc’s conservatism and his policy of isolationism ultimately failed to protect his country from French conquest. (Harlingue-Viollet)

comprehensive work on Vietnamese history was written by several scholars at the Quoc Su Quan, the national historical institute. Tu Duc died in Hue on July 9, 1883, just before the Hue court was to sign the Treaty of Quy Mui (August 25, 1883) accepting a French protectorate over the rest of Vietnam. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Ham Nghi; Minh Mang; Nguyen Dynasty; Thieu Tri; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest References Chapuis, Oscar. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Le Huu Muc. Huan Dich Thap Dieu: Thanh Du Cua Vua Thanh To, Dien Nghia Cua Vua Duc Tong [Ten Moral Maxims: Imperial Teachings by Emperor Thanh To and Translation into Nom by Emperor Tu Duc]. Saigon: Phu Quoc Vu Khanh Dac Trach Van Hoa, 1971. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955.

1150

Tuesday Lunch Group

Nguyen Huyen Anh. Viet Nam Danh Nhan Tu Dien [Dictionary of Vietnamese Great Men and Women]. Houston, TX: Zieleks, 1990. Quoc Su Quan. Quoc Trieu Chanh Bien Toat Yeu [A Summary of the History of Our Current Dynasty]. Saigon: Nhom Nghien Cuu Su Dia, 1971. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971.

Tuesday Lunch Group A group of trusted senior advisers who met with President Lyndon B. Johnson, usually in the Rose Garden, every Tuesday for lunch to discuss foreign policy, most of which centered around the Vietnam War. Johnson began the meetings on February 4, 1965, and continued them until he left office in late January 1969. The initial group consisted of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and White House foreign affairs adviser McGeorge Bundy. The group eventually included U.S. Army general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Earle Wheeler, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Richard Helms, and Press Secretary Bill Moyers (later replaced by George Christian). Johnson kept the sessions informal in order to encourage an open and frank exchange of ideas and opinions. Ultimately Johnson added to the group Deputy Press Secretary Tom Johnson, who kept a record of the key discussion topics. These notes allowed the president to refresh his memory later. Once the notes from the previous lunch meeting had been typed they went to President Johnson, and he often took them to his private quarters, where he compared them with intelligence reports gleaned from other sources. Some, such as Rusk and McNamara, believed that the meetings were invaluable. Others, however, believed the gatherings to be chaotic and disorganized. Critics have argued that the Tuesday Lunch Group became a substitute for National Security Council (NSC) meetings, which became little more than a rubber stamp for previously reached decisions. They also charge that the sessions were designed to shift planning away from the military and to obtain consensus among as many experts as possible who supported the president’s policy, which was to resist both complete withdrawal from Vietnam and full-scale war. Thus, they argue that the president only received advice he wanted to hear. Others believe that the group was never intended to be a decision-making body but that it evolved into one because the lunches often substituted for formal NSC meetings. Even though the NSC met frequently, Johnson preferred to discuss issues of national security with the Tuesday Lunch Group first. These informal meetings increased in frequency as he faced heightened political pressure over his war policies. Senior military officers hated the process because they were often excluded from the discussions, and their input was thus not factored into policy. The only military representative in the group

was General Wheeler, and he was not included until late 1967. For the military, the most frustrating aspect of the meetings was the methodology of selecting aerial targets, especially for Operation ROLLING THUNDER, which began on March 2, 1965, and lasted until November 1, 1968. Needing flexibility to attack the enemy’s fluid positions in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos as well as the high-value industrial and military sites around Hanoi during Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy brass chafed at the rules of engagement, which often meant that they attacked the same targets based on old intelligence and from the same directions at the same altitude. Not only did this allow the North Vietnamese to move their assets, but it also endangered U.S. airmen because it made their attacks predictable and easy to counter with increasingly sophisticated antiaircraft weapon systems. Throughout its existence, the group’s policies ran counter to the basic U.S. Air Force doctrine of keeping actual planning and execution of air operations at the lowest practical command level in order to achieve maximum flexibility and responsiveness. Instead, the group picked targets and often dictated timing for the air strikes as well as the tactics to be employed. Target decisions were relayed from Johnson through Secretary McNamara to the JCS, which then issued strike directives to the commander in chief of the Pacific theater. The Pacific theater commander then divided up the fixed targets and armed reconnaissance routes among the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force). The rules of engagement called for minimal civilian casualties, even if that meant increased danger to the aircrews. To airmen, the tactical involvement of the Tuesday Lunch Group seemed like centralized control run amok. WILLIAM P. HEAD See also Helms, Richard McGarrah; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Moyers, Billy Don; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Rusk, David Dean; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore References Barrett, David M. “Doing ‘Tuesday Lunch’ at Lyndon Johnson’s White House: New Archival Evidence on Vietnam Decision making.” PS: Political Science and Politics 24(4) (December 1991): 676–679. Barrett, David M. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam Papers: A Documentary Collection. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. Dallek, Robert. Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961– 1973. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Humphrey, David C. “Tuesday Lunch at the Johnson White House: A Preliminary Assessment.” Diplomatic History 8(1) (January 1984): 81–102. McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Tunnels

1151

Tunnel Rats Soldiers who fought the Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) in their underground tunnels and bunkers. Only the U.S. Army 1st and 25th Infantry divisions maintained formal units of these men, who were known as tunnel rats, and the 1st Infantry Division devoted the most effort to their development and training. Even so, the units were small. The 1st Infantry Division only had two detachments, each led by a lieutenant, and the numbers never exceeded 13 men at any one time. Lieutenant Randolph Ellis and Lieutenant Jerry Sinn, two longserving team commanders, formalized the teams and gave them the discipline and procedural guidelines commonly found in elite units such as the British Special Air Service (SAS) and the American Special Forces. Robert Woods, the first team sergeant, served for three years and contributed as much as anyone to the specific skills and tactics used by the teams. Each of the 1st Infantry Division teams also had a radio telephone operator and a medic as well as two former VC who acted as advisers and translators. A tunnel rat’s basic equipment was a .38-caliber revolver, a flashlight, and a knife. Standard procedure required 3 men in the tunnels at a time. The biggest success for tunnel rats during the Vietnam War came between August 9 and 11, 1968, in support of the 11th Armored Cavalry and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 5th Division. The team led by Sergeant Woods killed 3 VC soldiers in an underground firefight and forced 153 more out of a tunnel and into captivity. Outside of the 1st Infantry Division, most tunnel rats were usually ill-trained volunteers. Still, they occasionally scored notable successes. In the II Corps Tactical Zone in the Central Highlands, Mike Neil found a hospital 60 feet inside a hill. Paul Boehn located a classroom and a mess hall. This author found an armory and a hospital with an electrocardiogram in Cambodia. Moreover, many of the reports of weapons captured during the war in all of the military regions were the result of explorations by tunnel rats. Surprisingly, most of the tunnel rats survived. Some, such as Sergeant Woods of the 1st Infantry Division and Sergeant Pete Rejo in the 25th Infantry Division, survived through their aggressiveness and skill. Woods had the dubious distinction of being on a VC bounty list. All 1st Infantry Division tunnel rats were wounded at least once. Wounds or the approach of the end of their tours in Vietnam forced the retirement of all the tunnel rats both inside and outside the 1st Infantry Division. JAMES T. GILLAM See also CEDAR FALLS, Operation; Cu Chi Tunnels; Iron Triangle; Tunnels; United

States Army References Browne, Malcolm W. The New Face of War. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.

Tunnel rats, like the soldier being pulled out here, fought the Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam in their underground tunnels and bunkers. The work was extraordinarily difficult and dangerous. A tunnel rat’s basic equipment was a .38-caliber revolver, a flashlight, and a knife. (National Archives) Burchett, Wilfred G. Vietnam: The Inside Story of the Guerrilla War. New York: International Publishers, 1965. Ebert, James R. A Life in a Year: The American Infantryman in Vietnam 1965–1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Mangold, Tom, and John Penycate. The Tunnels of Cu Chi. New York: Random House, 1985.

Tunnels Tunnel complexes played a key role in Communist military strategy during the Vietnam War. Underground bunkers and tunnels enabled the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) to survive against a vastly better-armed opposition force. While the conditions in the matrix of tunnels were at best difficult, they provided a comparatively livable and survivable location to rest, recuperate, and rearm in order to fight again. The tunnels varied in type and construction technique from the most basic deep bunkers to complex multileveled facilities that included surgical rooms and operations centers. They also served as a symbol of Communist tenacity and endurance. The tunnels were dug at a minimum of 4 feet, with some as deep as 40 feet, and were 2.5–3.9 feet wide and 2.6–4.9 feet high (depending on the soil type). The tunnels were almost always constructed with sharp angles, air vents, blast doors, and water traps

1152

Tu Ve

for gas or explosives. They were also easily repaired. The tunnels were often in total darkness and were cramped, hot, and humid. Stagnant air, booby traps, animals and insects (some poisonous), and even gas and water traps were standard fare. While the most famous tunnel complex was clearly that at Cu Chi northwest of Saigon, numerous others existed and flourished in close proximity to opposing forces. These complexes included those in the Iron Triangle, Song Be Province, Khe Sanh, Binh Long Province, Bien Hoa Province, Coto Mountain, Rach Gia Province, Ben Suc (Binh Duong Province), and Vinh Moc (north of the Ben Hai River). The overall effectiveness of countertunnel operations was mixed. The primary objectives were to gather intelligence—capture documents and personnel—and to destroy the enemy’s ability to wage war. Many methods were used, including flooding the tunnels with water and blowing them up with explosives. Among antitunnel weapons were Mighty Mites. These were man-portable commercial pesticide blowers that weighed about 25 pounds empty and were used to pump either 25 pounds of CS powder (tear gas) or 3 gallons of pesticide into enemy tunnels. They could be brought in by helicopter. One of the more difficult tasks in conducting countertunnel operations was finding men willing to go underground and take the fight to the enemy. Usually infantry and engineer units were tasked with clearing discovered tunnels and entrances. Besides the difficulty of finding men small enough to fit into these very tight tunnels, the fear of the unknown was ever present. Called “ferrets” by the Australians and New Zealanders and “tunnel rats” by the Americans, even the Communist forces agreed that the men who infiltrated the tunnels were a special breed: courageous, smart, and oftentimes lucky. Tunnel rats often dropped a hand grenade or tear gas grenade into a tunnel opening before entering, although oftentimes this did little good. Many times this simply alerted the tunnel occupants, enabling them to escape undetected. The tunnel rats usually entered the tunnels armed with only a knife, a flashlight (which had to be turned off most of the time to avoid giving the enemy a visible target to shoot at), and a pistol. The work of clearing and exploring the tunnel complexes was extremely dangerous and nerve racking. SCOTT R. DIMARCO See also Cu Chi Tunnels; Tunnel Rats References Mangold, Tom, and John Penycate. The Tunnels of Cu Chi. New York: Random House, 1985. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong and NVA Tunnels and Fortifications of the Vietnam War. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Tu Ve Vietnamese self-defense (militia) force made up of young citizens in cities to fight against the French at the beginning of the Indochina War (1946–1954). The Tu Ve was also called Tu Ve Thanh (city self-defense force) or Tu Ve Chien Dau (self-defense combat force). The Tu Ve were neither Communists nor members of the Vietnam Independence League (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or Viet Minh). During the fighting in Hanoi between December 19, 1946, and February 17, 1947, the Tu Ve fought bravely despite being poorly armed and trained. The 60 days that they were able to contain the French in the capital bought the time necessary for the Ve Quoc Doan (National Guard), Vietnam’s regular army, to withdraw safely to mountainous areas and follow the bao toan chu luc (“preservation of its main force”) strategy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Part of the Hanoi Tu Ve force later formed two regiments, the Trung Doan Thu Do (the Capital Regiment) and the Trung Doan Thang Long (the Thang Long Regiment). Both of these became famous in the history of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). The Capital Regiment became the 102nd Regiment of the famed 308th Division, and the Thang Long Regiment became the 48th Regiment of the 320th Division. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Indochina War; Viet Minh References Ban Nghien Cuu Lich Su Quan Doi [Army Historical Research Section]. Lich Su Quan Doi Nhan Dan Viet Nam, Tap I [History of the People’s Army of Vietnam]. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1977. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Nguyen Khac Vien. The Long Resistance, 1858–1975. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1975.

Tuyen Quang, Siege of Start Date: November 24, 1884 End Date: March 3, 1885 Important battle fought during the Black Flag War (Tonkin War) of 1882–1885 and the Sino-French War of 1884–1885. In the long lore of the French Foreign Legion, only the 1863 Battle of Camerone in Mexico ranks above the siege of Tuyen Quang. Tuyen Quang is located on the Clear River in northern Vietnam, about 65 miles northwest of the city of Hanoi. In 1884 it was the westernmost French military post in Tonkin. Tuyen Quang was of dubious military importance, but its political importance was potentially

Twining, Nathan Farragut immense, and the Chinese regulars and Black Flag pirates who invested it in December 1884 probably saw in it an opportunity to inflict a great psychological defeat on the French. Virtually indefensible, the town was dominated by wooded hills; its square citadel on the banks of the Clear River was barely 300 yards on a side. In the early autumn of 1884 Chinese regulars from Yunnan reinforced Liu Yongfu (Liu Yung-fu) and his Black Flags. Liu Yongfu then positioned much of his force around Tuyen Quang. In November, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Duchesne led some 700 legionnaires and marines, supported by gunboats, up the Clear River to Tuyen Quang. Forced to fight their way through a Chinese position, they made it to the town safely. The boats departed on November 23, leaving behind a garrison of 13 officers and 619 men under the command of Major Marc Edmond Dominé. Nearly two-thirds of the garrison was legionnaires, the remainder being tirailleurs tonkinois (Tonkin riflemen, meaning locally recruited Vietnamese soldiers). The Chinese then closed in, surrounding Tuyen Quang on November 24. On January 16, 1885, the Chinese began digging siege lines around the town. These were completed four days later. On the night of January 26–27 the Chinese launched a massive assault but were beaten back, losing perhaps 100 soldiers. The attackers then opted for more conventional siege tactics of snaking trenches toward the French lines. During the day they built fascines—bundles of sticks used to shore up parapets—and sniped at the French. At night they advanced their saps forward while keeping up an intermittent fire. On February 3 a Vietnamese soldier was able to escape from Tuyen Quang to take word of the situation back to the French authorities at Hanoi. Five days later the Chinese, having received artillery, employed it for the first time; soon they also began firing heavy mortars. On February 12 the Chinese detonated a large mine beneath the French lines and attempted to exploit the breach, only to be beaten back. A French sortie the next day destroyed some of the Chinese advance works, but on February 22 the Chinese again detonated a series of mines under the French lines. The next day the Chinese launched another unsuccessful assault. On February 25 the process was repeated: a mine explosion followed by an infantry assault. By March 1 the French had only 180 working rifles to defend a perimeter of 1,200 yards. That day the French heard firing in the distance and assumed it to be a relief force, but they were too exhausted to break out. The next day, March 2, the Chinese fire increased, causing the garrison to fear that it would be overwhelmed before relief could arrive. But on March 3 the French awoke to find the Chinese gone. The reason was soon apparent: General LouisAlexandre Brière de l’Isle, French commander in Tonkin, had arrived with a relief column from Lang Son. After leaving Lang Son on February 16, the relief column defeated a Chinese force at Hoa Mac in what turned out to be the bloodiest battle for the French in Tonkin since their 1883 invasion. At Tuyen Quang the battlefield was littered with abandoned weapons and rotting corpses. The French had suffered 50 dead

1153

and 224 wounded. The Chinese and Black Flag besieging force, estimated by the French to number as many as 12,000 men, had lost an estimated 1,000 dead and 2,000 wounded. The trials of the French Foreign Legion in Indochina were only beginning, however. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Black Flags; Ferry, Jules; Sino-French War References Dupuis, Jean. Les Origines de la Question du Tonkin. Paris: Challamel, 1886. McAleavy, Henry. Black Flags in Vietnam: The Story of a Chinese Intervention. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Twining, Nathan Farragut Birth Date: October 11, 1897 Death Date: March 29, 1982 U.S. Air Force general, U.S. Air Force chief of staff during 1953– 1957, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1957– 1960. Born on October 11, 1897, in Monroe, Wisconsin, Nathan Farragut Twining joined the Oregon National Guard and served on the U.S.-Mexican border before entering the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1917. He completed the shortened wartime course there in November 1918 and was commissioned an infantry lieutenant. After attending flight school, in 1926 he formally transferred to the Army Air Corps. In 1937 Twining graduated from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School. During World War II he rose steadily in rank and responsibilities, commanding in succession the Thirteenth Air Force in the Pacific as a major general during 1942–1943, the Fifteenth Air Force in the Mediterranean and Italy during 1943–1945, and then as a lieutenant general the Twentieth Air Force in the Pacific in August 1945, where he commanded the final bombing operations against Japan. After the war Twining commanded the Air Matériel Command (1945–1947) and then the Alaskan Command (1947–1950) of the new U.S. Air Force. Twining was next deputy chief of staff for personnel of the U.S. Air Force in May 1950. Promoted to full (fourstar) general, he became the U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff in October. In June 1953 he became the U.S. Air Force chief of staff. Twining supported President Dwight Eisenhower’s contention that the threat of “massive retaliation” would eliminate “brushfire” wars. In 1954 during the Indochina War, Twining advocated the use of atomic weapons at Dien Bien Phu, believing that this would lift the siege and strengthen deterrence, but he opposed the use of covert U.S. military advisers. He believed that the Viet

1154

Twining, Nathan Farragut Minh’s lack of sophisticated air defense capability would make U.S. airpower virtually invulnerable over Indochina. During the 1954–1955 Quemoy and Matsu Crisis when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) shelled and threatened to invade the offshore islands, Twining urged an American commitment to defend them. As chief of staff, he was an advocate of U.S. Air Force expansion, including development of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber and a robust ballistic missile program. Twining’s hawkish stance led President Eisenhower to appoint him chairman of the JCS in August 1957 upon the expiration of Admiral Arthur Radford’s term. Twining retired from the military in September 1960. In 1966 he wrote Neither Liberty nor Safety, in which he discussed the change in the world’s strategic balance since World War II. He opposed the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as dangerous to nuclear deterrence. Twining died on March 29, 1982, at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. STEPHEN R. MAYNARD See also Eisenhower, Dwight David; Radford, Arthur William; VULTURE, Operation References Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Mrozek, Donald J. “Nathan F. Twining: New Dimensions, a New Look.” In Makers of the Modern Air Force, edited by John L. Frisbee, 257–280. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1989. Twining, Nathan F. Neither Liberty nor Safety: A Hard Look at U.S. Military Policy and Strategy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.

U.S. Air Force general Nathan F. Twining was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during 1957–1960 and supported the use of nuclear weapons to aid the French in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. (Library of Congress)

Two Ladies Trung See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi

U U Minh Forest A densely forested swampy area covering some 1,550 square miles located in the southwestern portion of the Mekong Delta and situated astride the border between the An Xuyen (now called Ca Mau) and Kien Giang provinces in the former Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The U Minh Forest is comprised mainly of jungle growth and peat swamps and is both hot and very humid. Traditionally a safe haven for smugglers, pirates, and bandits, the foreboding area was a secure Communist sanctuary (known as Base Area 483) since at least the early 1950s during the Indochina War. Virtually all inland waterways in the vicinity were controlled by the Viet Cong (VC) prior to the January 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. During the early years of the war (1962–1965), weapons and ammunition were transported down from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) aboard disguised fishing trawlers that unloaded at covert landing points on nearby Ca Mau Peninsula. Later on, supplies and equipment found their way into the U Minh Forest via waterways from Cambodia to Phu Quoc Island and then to Kien Giang Province and into the forest itself. Personnel generally infiltrated the region by land. VC units operating in the area included the main-force 309th Battalion and the local-force U Minh 2nd Battalion and U Minh 10th Battalion. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 21st Division was responsible for patrolling the area. In late 1968 U.S. forces began conducting offensive operations in the forest after a massive fire that burned down many of the trees. In December 1968 a remarkable escape from VC captivity occurred in the forest when U.S. Army Special Forces first lieutenant Nicholas Rowe, taken prisoner in 1963, escaped from his captors and fled to freedom there.

During the years following the 1968 Tet Offensive, VC forces in the U Minh Forest came under heavy pressure, resulting in the loss of all but a small portion of the U Minh base area to ARVN forces. The VC gradually began to regain control of the U Minh Forest in 1972 following the withdrawal of most U.S. forces and after ARVN’s attention was diverted by the Communist 1972 Easter Offensive. GLENN E. HELM See also Mekong Delta; Mekong River; Viet Cong Infrastructure References Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Sorley, Lewis, ed. Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968–1972. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2004. Truong Minh Hoach, chief editor. Quan Khu 9: 30 Nam Khang Chien (1945–1975) [Military Region 9: 30 Years of Resistance War (1945–1975)]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996.

Ung Lich See Ham Nghi

Uniforms French Expeditionary Forces Uniforms and equipment used by the French Army represented a mix of French, British, and American items. French uniforms of

1156

Uniforms

the period were a combination of standard-issue service dress and field uniforms that reflected the tropical climate of Southeast Asia. The service dress was a khaki uniform with the standard insignia of the French armed forces. This uniform was modified for the heat and humidity of Indochina by adding a shorts and knee-sock ensemble. Headgear consisted of either the peaked cap, the side cap, the kepi, or the beret. A safari or bush jacket and trousers were also issued as a service or walking-out uniform. Field uniforms of the French forces were initially British or American World War II dress. The items most utilized during the period were American green herringbone twill trousers and heavy canvas twill camouflage shirts. Later, uniforms of French design and manufacture consisted of loose-fitting multipocketed shirts and trousers in either green or a camouflage pattern. Camouflage uniforms gained in popularity among airborne and commando units. By the end of the conflict, multipatterned uniforms became a distinctive designator for all special forces–type units and the Foreign Legion. The American M-1 steel helmet was universally issued to the Expeditionary Force, as were canvas webbing and belts for field service. The French also distributed a broad-brimmed floppy bush hat that was preferred by the troops in the field to the helmet or any other type of soft cap. French forces also used a canvas and rubber boot designed for service in the humid tropical climate of Indochina.

Viet Minh, People’s Army of Vietnam, and Viet Cong The Viet Minh and later the Viet Cong (VC) were essentially peasant armies, and this was reflected in their uniforms. The Viet Minh wore various military-styled clothing. Shirts had shoulder loops. Headgear usually consisted of a pith hat marked with a simple yellow star on red. Footgear worn by most Vietnamese Communist soldiers from 1947 to 1975 was the well-known rubber-tire sandal, named binh tri thien for the area where they were first made: Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien provinces. When meeting the public, Ho Chi Minh often wore this kind of footgear, which Americans referred to as Ho Chi Minh sandals or simply “Ho-Chis.” After the October 1949 Communist victory in China, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) began to send weapons and supplies to Ho Chi Minh’s forces, and the Viet Minh began to be uniformed similarly to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army). The uniform consisted of a four-pocket jacket and loose-fitting trousers in a mustard brown color. In the later stages of the FrancoVietnamese conflict, uniforms were gray-green. The Viet Minh adopted the Chinese-style “Mao” soft cap or used captured French bush hats. As uniforms became more standard to the Viet Minh, a fiber and cloth sun or pith helmet became the official headgear. This was not a helmet in the true sense, as it offered no ballistic protection. In rare instances, specialized units such as antiaircraft units wore Soviet-style steel helmets. Footgear consisted of copies of standard Chinese boots or sandals. The dress uniform of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) remained essentially a Chinese style with

a system of collar tabs and epaulets for rank and unit identification. The PAVN added a peaked or service cap for officers and the sun helmet with national identification markings for other ranks. The ensemble was completed by a leather belt with a metal belt buckle denoting the insignia of the PAVN and either boots or shoes of a sneakerlike appearance. For field service, PAVN soldiers wore a green loose-fitting cotton two-pocket button shirt and trousers of the same color. Soldiers used a system of webbing to carry personal equipment and ammunition. To hide their involvement during the early stages of the Vietnam War, many North Vietnamese units were dressed similarly to the VC. The VC wore mostly civilian clothing during the war. By the early 1960s the VC standardized uniform consisted of a black loose-fitting shirt and trousers. This was common peasant garb in Vietnam, referred to by Americans as “black pajamas.” In jungle workshops the VC manufactured soft khaki-brimmed bush hats and web gear to supply their regular or main-force units. These were similar to those of the PAVN and other Communist-bloc nations. The VC also depended heavily on the capture of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) clothing and equipment. Shoes were usually locally made sandals (Ho-Chis). In some U.S. training centers, typical VC were depicted as wearing black pajamas and conic hats. The VC did not wear the latter, which would hinder movement and combat activities, but this mistaken notion probably led to the deaths of many peasants.

Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Troops of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) were uniformed similarly to those of the United States, as the Americans supplied and trained those forces. In the initial stages of the war, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) dress and service uniform was a modified American khaki dress uniform with service cap (or beret, if part of a special unit) and black oxford shoes. For field service the ARVN used the standard U.S.-style green utility, or fatigue, uniform consisting of a two-button pocket shirt and trousers with national rank and insignia. American helmets, webbing, and black leather boots completed the field uniform. The ARVN also used either the U.S. Army or U.S. Marine Corps soft caps (known as the baseball or engineer hat, respectively). RVNAF special units (army rangers, airborne troops, special forces, and marines) often wore locally fabricated camouflage field uniforms and berets (red for airborne, brown for rangers, green for marines, and black for armor troops) to denote their elite status. Montagnards, who were auxiliaries to the ARVN as members of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), generally wore black pajama-style or camouflage uniforms provided by U.S. Army Special Forces. After 1973, most ARVN soldiers wore field dress similar to that of the U.S. Army at the time: loose coats with four pockets and loose trousers with six pockets.

Uniforms

1157

The hat, beads, and medallions worn by this soldier were common in the fragmented U.S. Army of 1971. All were violations in uniform codes that would have been punished in 1965. (National Archives)

U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps U.S. forces in Southeast Asia arrived in an advisory role that expanded as regular U.S. combat forces were committed to the war. The U.S. Army service dress (Class B) consisted of a khaki short-sleeved shirt, trousers, and either service or overseas cap with appropriate rank and insignia. Black shoes or “low-quarters” and a black web belt with metal buckle completed the uniform; however, airborne-qualified personnel were authorized to wear their black jump boots with the service uniform. The service uniform was worn as a duty uniform by those assigned to headquarters and support offices or for arriving and departing Vietnam. U.S. Army Special Forces wore the distinctive green beret with either the Class B or field uniform. The American fatigue or field uniform consisted of green shirt and trousers (OG-107) with boots, helmet, and web gear. The official-issue soft cap was the baseball-style hat, which was universally despised by American soldiers. Earlier in the war the distinctive “Ridgway cap” was the standard headgear with the field uniform, but its high and rigid crown made too easily identifiable a target in the brush. Rank and insignia were worn on the shirt and hat.

The climate of Vietnam quickly proved the complete unsuitability of field uniforms designed for temperate or cold weather. In 1966 the United States began to issue a field uniform designed for operations in tropical climates. So-called jungle fatigues consisted of a jacket-shirt with four large slanted pockets and sixpocketed loose-fitting trousers. This uniform became standard throughout the balance of the Vietnam War and was issued universally to all branches of the service, including naval personnel engaged in ground operations. The jacket-shirt design initially had epaulets, but these were removed, and the buttons were covered in later versions of the jacket. American special units required camouflaged uniforms for jungle operations. U.S. research and development produced several camouflage patterns considered consistent with operations in Southeast Asia. The two most suitable were the green and black “tiger stripes,” preferred by U.S. Army Special Forces and Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) teams, and the “leaf” pattern, used by long-range reconnaissance patrol personnel and rangers. In 1967 the U.S. Marine Corps began to issue leaf-patterned jungle fatigues to all marines in Vietnam, but the complete change did not take place until after the U.S. withdrawal.

1158

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

One of the items most popular with the soldiers but hated by the command structure for its “unmilitary” appearance was the “hat, hot weather,” or “boonie,” a narrow-brimmed soft hat designed to offer protection from the sun, humidity, and rain. This was issued between 1967 and 1968 for field service only in Vietnam and was universally loved by most American soldiers in field units. In 1970 General Creighton Abrams restricted the boonie to reconnaissance units and required that the baseball cap again be standard issue for all army personnel in Southeast Asia. However, soldiers continued to wear the boonie until the end of American involvement, despite the official prohibition. The U.S. Marine Corps continued to issue its own distinctive eight-pointed soft cap throughout the conflict. American technology developed another innovation for Southeast Asia, the jungle boot. It likewise came to signify U.S. presence in Vietnam. The black leather combat or jump boot proved unsuitable in Vietnam, and in 1966 the soldiers were issued a canvas web and rubber field boot with a steel plate sole to offer a modicum of protection against mines and booby traps. Later versions of the boot did not have the inner steel plate. This popular jungle boot was worn by allied forces during the conflict. The boonie hat, the jungle boot, and the M-16 rifle identified the U.S. ground soldier during the Vietnam War. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Military Decorations; Montagnards; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; United States Army; United States Marine Corps; United States Navy; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces References Bonds, Ray, ed. The Vietnam War: The Illustrated History of the Conflict in Southeast Asia. New York: Salamander, 1999. Katcher, Philip. Armies of the Vietnam War, 1962–1975. London: Osprey, 1980. Russell, Lee E. Armies of the Vietnam War (2). Oxford, UK: Osprey, 1983.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Large ethnically diverse Eurasian nation officially founded in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. A Communist nation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, Soviet Union) was composed of 15 constituent or union republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia, Tadzhikstan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan). Many of the republics became independent nations in the early 1990s. The Soviet Union’s landmass of 8.65 million square miles made it about 2.5 times as large as the United States. The successor state to the Soviet Union is now the Russian Federation, covering approximately 6.5 million square miles. The

Soviet Union bordered 12 nations (6 in Europe and 6 in Asia). Its 1968 population was 128.9 million. The Soviet Union was born out of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which began during World War I. A civil war ensued that was largely settled by 1922 with the ascension of the Bolsheviks, who sought to impose a Marxist political-economic system in Russia. Almost immediately tensions arose between the new Soviet government and the democratic capitalist regimes of the West. The United States would not establish diplomatic relations with Moscow until 1933, and relations between the two countries remained aloof until 1941, when the countries formed an uneasy alliance against the Axis powers in World War II. Tensions surfaced anew toward the end of the war, and by the mid-1940s mutual distrust provided the foundation for the Cold War, which would not recede until the late 1980s. Although the Soviet Union had incurred horrific destruction during World War II, it nevertheless emerged from the conflict as the most significant world power besides the United States, another factor in the development of the Cold War. By the mid1950s the Soviet Union, with its significant industrial output, large standing army well-equipped with modern weapons, and a potent nuclear arsenal, posed a significant challenge to the United States and the West. The history of relations between the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) until well into the decisive 1960s has been characterized by Douglas Pike in Vietnam and the Soviet Union as “nominal and cursory, having neither much intercourse and emotional attachment for either party.” Then during the Vietnam War and for a decade afterward until the mid-1980s, relations were very close. The Soviet Union fully supported the North Vietnamese war effort militarily, economically, and diplomatically. While Mikhail Gorbachev was in power from 1985 to 1991, however, relations between the Soviet Union and the DRV/Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) steadily deteriorated until there was little discourse between the two on any front. The Bolshevik Revolution was profoundly meaningful for Vietnamese revolutionaries, although early Bolshevik leaders had little knowledge of Southeast Asia. Ho Chi Minh attended the fifth Comintern Congress in Moscow in 1924, which denounced Western imperialism and colonialism, including French control of Indochina. He also visited Moscow frequently between 1924 and 1941. Although there existed extensive sentimental and psychological ties, there were few specific political and diplomatic connections. Ho considered the Comintern of limited usefulness. The Joseph Stalin years (1929–1953) were ones of complete indifference on the part of the Soviet Union. Stalin regarded anticolonial activity as sometimes useful but always undependable, believing that something would invariably go wrong. Furthermore, throughout the whole period he and his government were preoccupied with internal Soviet and European problems, namely the survival of Stalin, his system, and the Soviet Union. Vietnam was hardly a concern. During World War II Ho received no Soviet as-

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics sistance in his struggle against the Japanese, and Soviet reaction to Ho’s declaration of independence in August 1945 was guarded. In fact, the Soviet Union did not recognize the North Vietnamese government until January 1950, 13 days after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had done so. Because the Soviet Union sought good relations with France, political support for the Viet Minh throughout the Indochina War (1946–1954) remained restrained. In addition, Stalin never trusted Ho, regarding him as too independent. Yet behind the scenes the Soviet Union funneled large and increasing amounts of military aid to the Viet Minh through the PRC that amounted to some $1 billion. That aid was an important factor in the Viet Minh’s victory against the French. Vietnam’s Communist leaders hoped that this benign neglect by the Soviet Union would change after Stalin’s death in March 1953. After Stalin’s death, the new Soviet leaders wanted to relax tensions with the West. As part of this new foreign policy, Moscow supported an international peace conference in Geneva in 1954 to settle the Indochina War. During the conference the Soviet delegation, led by Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, forced the Viet Minh to compromise by accepting terms less favorable than its military achievements might otherwise have dictated, which may have had something to do with French rejection of the European Defense Community (EDC). Consequently, after the Geneva Conference relations were cool between the North Vietnamese government and the Soviet Union. When Nikita Khrushchev achieved complete power by 1956, North Vietnamese leaders held great hopes. Khrushchev shifted Soviet interests from European to a global scope that included Asia. He saw potential advantages in Vietnam and in its renewed war and stepped up military and economic aid, thus deepening relations. Soviet economic aid propelled rapid economic development in North Vietnam. Yet as the war intensified, Khrushchev became more cautious. Originally his goal was to oust the West from Asia, but the increasing Sino-Soviet dispute complicated efforts. Khrushchev feared that a quick and total victory by the Communists in Vietnam would only help China and precipitate an unnecessary confrontation with the United States. By the end of his rule in 1964 Khrushchev had completely soured on Vietnam, regarding the war as too risky and the North Vietnamese leaders as crafty and manipulative. All that prevented a total Soviet disengagement was the coup that ousted Khrushchev in October 1964. The Vietnam War was the central event in Vietnamese-Soviet relations. The conflict dictated day-to-day events and locked the two in an association. Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin’s visit to Hanoi in February 1965 initiated fuller and closer relations. Soviet and Vietnamese leaders signed economic and military treaties in which the Soviet Union pledged full support for the North Vietnamese war effort. The Soviets and the North Vietnamese leadership planned military strategy and entered into discussions to determine North Vietnam’s needs to implement such a strategy. The Soviet Union would supply North Vietnam with all the neces-

1159

sary war matériel, including air defenses for North Vietnam and offensive weapons to be employed in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The Soviet Union also conducted a propaganda war against the United States in world forums, such as the United Nations (UN), and at times threatened to send Soviet and East European “volunteers” to Vietnam. The Soviet Union hoped to use the war to seek an ideological advantage over China, as the dispute between the two Communist powers became increasingly bitter. Yet it became clear that the Soviet Union would not directly intervene in the war, and its policies remained ambiguous and cautious. But as the war intensified so did Soviet aid, until it amounted to some 80 percent of all supplies reaching North Vietnam. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, the Soviets believed for the first time that a total victory was possible. Yet as the war continued, the Soviet spirit waned; its leaders and people became increasingly weary of the war. They believed that little more was to be gained from a war that was proving very expensive for the Soviet Union. Therefore, the Soviets fully endorsed the peace talks that began in Paris in 1968. When the talks deadlocked in 1972, the Soviet Union pressured North Vietnam to accept a compromise settlement with South Vietnam and the United States in January 1973. The success of the 1975 Communist military offensive came as a great surprise to both the North Vietnamese and the Soviet leadership, however. The Vietnam War proved a great propaganda victory for the Soviet Union, which supported North Vietnam fully and yet avoided a confrontation with the United States. The war served Soviet interests well by keeping the United States fully occupied in an area not of crucial importance to the Soviet Union. Historians are in disagreement, however, regarding Soviet influence over North Vietnamese decision making during the war. Economic relations between the two countries were largely a one-way street. The Soviet Union poured billions of rubles into Vietnam, but few rubles returned to the Soviet Union. A formal economic treaty was first signed in 1955 and was then renewed yearly. Economic aid consisted of food, oil, and other basic necessities; the expansion and modernization of industries and farming; services such as sending Soviet economic and military advisers to Vietnam and the sending of Vietnamese to the Soviet Union for education and training; and, of course, military aid. During the war years (1965–1975), military aid—weapons, aircraft, rockets, air defenses, munitions, food, and fuel—was central. While the number of Soviet military advisers stationed in North Vietnam was fairly small throughout the war (only a few thousand in any given year), these advisers played a vital role in training Vietnamese personnel in the use of advanced weapons such as surface-to-air-missiles (SAMs), radar-controlled antiaircraft guns, and MiG fighters and in repairing and maintaining these sophisticated pieces of equipment. The Vietnamese have acknowledged that a Soviet missile crew guided the first SA-2 missile to shoot down a U.S. aircraft over North Vietnam (an F-4 downed on July

1160

UNION I and II, Operations

24, 1965) and that Soviet artillery advisers trained the Vietnamese gun crews who fired the long-range 122-millimeter artillery pieces that pummeled the U.S. base during the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh. While the number of Soviet military personnel killed in action during the Vietnam War was small (less than two dozen), as late as August 19, 1972, a Soviet SAM expert was killed during a U.S. air attack on a Vietnamese SA-2 missile unit near Kep Airfield in North Vietnam. Economic aid was entirely geared to the war effort. By the 1970s Soviet aid was huge and diverse, amounting to some $1 billion or more each year. It would have been impossible for North Vietnam to have continued the war without this aid. After the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, governmental ineptness led to the near collapse of the economies of both northern and southern Vietnam. The Soviet Union had to send the SRV basic food and oil supplies. Immediately after the war ended, a more intimate relationship than ever before developed. This was in part the result of a precipitous decline in relations between China and Vietnam. Wars with China and Cambodia proved costly between 1978 and 1979 and drove Vietnam into near total dependency on the Soviet Union. In November 1979 the Soviet Union signed a friendship pact with the SRV in return for which the SRV obtained naval and air bases. Ironically, many of these were former U.S. bases in southern Vietnam. The Soviet presence was everywhere. By the mid-1980s the relationship had become very close, to the point that Vietnam was considered a Soviet client state. After the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Soviet-Vietnamese relations steadily declined. Gorbachev enacted major changes in Soviet foreign policy, moving away from militarily and ideologically oriented policies to those based on economics. Furthermore, he achieved a rapprochement with China. Those changes greatly reduced the value of Vietnam to the Soviet Union. In Soviet eyes, Vietnam became just another poor country that drained crucial economic resources. Vietnam, in turn, criticized Gorbachev’s wide-ranging political and economic reforms. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and then in the Soviet Union itself two years later profoundly shocked Vietnamese leaders. Vietnam now faded from the attention of Russia’s new leaders, who now had no ideological affinity toward the country. Economic and military aid completely stopped. Because of Russia’s major economic crisis, which did not abate until after the new millennium, trade itself greatly declined and would be conducted only on a basis of full equality and in hard currency. A few Russian entrepreneurs found Vietnam an attractive place to buy cheap consumer goods to sell in Russia, but criminal behavior of some Vietnamese workers and students in Russia caused problems. The two nations continue to have an ambivalent relationship, and it appears unlikely that Moscow will rekindle the ardor of its former relationship with Hanoi. Indeed, Russia’s principal strategic and

economic interests seem more oriented toward Central and Western Europe and the Middle East. MICHAEL SHARE See also Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Blagov, Sergei. “Missile Ambushes: Soviet Air Defense Aid.” Vietnam, August 2001. Donaldson, Robert, ed. The Soviet Union and the Third World: Successes and Failures. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Gaiduk, Ilya V. The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. Longmire, R. A. Soviet Relations with South-East Asia: An Historical Survey. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. Lowe, Norman. Mastering Twentieth-Century Russian History. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave, 2002. MacKenzie, David. From Messianism to Collapse: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1994. Missile Branch. Lich Su Bo Doi Ten Lua Phong Khong, 1965–2005 [History of Air Defense Missile Troops, 1965–2005]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2005. Nguyen Khac Tinh, Tran Quang Hau, Phung Luan, and Bui Thanh Hung. Phao Binh Nhan Dan Viet Nam: Nhung Chang Duong Chien Dau, Tap II [People’s Artillery of Vietnam: Combat History, Vol. 2]. Hanoi: Artillery Command, 1986. Pike, Douglas. Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987.

UNION I

and II, Operations

Start Date: April 21, 1967 End Date: June 5, 1967 Successive U.S. Marine Corps operations in Quang Nam and Quang Tin provinces in the southern I Corps Tactical Zone, areas long dominated by the Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), in which Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces were unable to establish outposts beyond the district capitals. Until 1967 the U.S. Marine Corps lacked assets to control the Phuoc Ha–Que Son Valley. On April 20, 1967, while moving along a ridgeline outside of Thang Binh, a company of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, was hit by concentrated automatic weapons and grenade fire from the PAVN 3rd Regiment. Operation UNION I began the next morning with the insertion of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, and the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. The ARVN 1st Ranger Group also partici-

UNION I and II, Operations

1161

A blindfolded Viet Cong (VC) prisoner is interrogated by U.S. marines during Operation UNION II on May 27, 1967. Operations UNION I and II attempted to destroy the VC strongholds in the northern provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Tin and saw the bloodiest marine engagements to that point in the war. (Bettmann/Corbis)

pated. Heavy fighting ensued in the Phuoc Ha–Que Son Valley and lasted until April 25, when PAVN forces began to withdraw. As contact diminished, only units of the 5th Marines remained in the area. On May 10 these marines successfully assaulted PAVN mortar emplacements on Hill 110, but Communist forces mauled several marine companies coming to assist. For the next five days the 5th Marines continuously assaulted entrenched PAVN positions on the valley floor. Supported by air strikes and artillery fire, they finally overran the PAVN defenses, and the operation officially ended on May 17. Over the 27 days of the operation, the marines counted 865 PAVN dead and claimed another 777 probable battle deaths. They also took 173 prisoners. Marine casualties were 110 killed and 473 wounded. Launched nine days later, Operation UNION II was designed to entrap the PAVN 3rd and 21st regiments, spotted in a valley in northern Quang Tin Province. On May 26 two battalions of the 5th Marines and the ARVN 6th Regiment were inserted. For two days the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, battled units of the PAVN 3rd Regiment 20 miles northwest of Tam Ky, killing 171. Marine casualties were 37 killed and 66 wounded. On June 2 the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, supported by artillery fire and 138 air strikes, overran

entrenched hillside positions of the PAVN 21st Regiment north of Thien Phuoc. In bunker-to-bunker fighting, the marines killed 540 PAVN soldiers while suffering 73 killed and 139 wounded. The operation ended on June 5. Operations UNION I and II, brief as they were, were the bloodiest marine engagements to date. The two operations produced a total of 1,566 PAVN dead, 196 PAVN captured, and 184 weapons seized. Marine losses for both operations totaled 220 killed and 714 wounded. For action in UNION I and II, the 5th Marine Regiment received the Presidential Unit Citation. JOHN D. ROOT See also United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Simmons, Brigadier General Edwin H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1967.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, 2nd ed., edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 69–98. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

1162

UNIONTOWN, Operation

UNIONTOWN,

Operation

Start Date: December 17, 1967 End Date: March 18, 1968 U.S. Army 199th Infantry Brigade (Light) operation in War Zone D. In 1966 the U.S. Army was hurriedly raising units to meet the demands created by the conflict in Southeast Asia. The 199th Infantry Brigade (Light) was formed by combining the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry, and the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry; both units were based at Fort Benning, Georgia, the U.S. Army’s Infantry Center. The light infantry brigade concept called for a rapidly deployable force with minimal heavy equipment and fire-support assets. The brigade was to be mixed in task forces with aviation, transportation, logistical, and artillery support from existing forces in Vietnam. U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), and later U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), were designated as the controlling headquarters for the 199th Infantry Brigade. The 199th Infantry Brigade remained under severe pressure to meet the army’s deployment schedule, which required it to be in-theater by November 1967. Despite late November shortages in personnel and equipment, the brigade moved by air and sea to arrive at the port of Vung Tau in early December and then moved to its permanent base camp at Long Binh, which would remain home to the brigade for the duration of its Vietnam service. On December 17, 1967, the brigade’s 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry regiment conducted its first airmobile combat assault. Operation UNIONTOWN took place in War Zone D near Saigon, as the 199th Infantry Brigade, supported by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (“Black Horse”), engaged Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces. Operation UNIONTOWN, conducted around Bien Hoa Air Base and the Long Binh complex, continued through the Tet Offensive until March 18. Communist casualties in the operation were reported as 922 dead. The 199th Infantry Brigade continued to be used as a quickreaction force in the Saigon area during the conflict. MACV assigned the 199th Infantry Brigade to cooperate with Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) forces to provide security for the greater Saigon area. During the Tet Offensive, the 199th Infantry Brigade fought insurgents in the capital before being relieved by the ARVN 5th Ranger Group. Other elements of the brigade conducted the defense at Long Binh. As the Tet Offensive continued, the brigade moved to positions near Bien Hoa. Meanwhile, the 1st Infantry Division had split War Zone C and War Zone D and opened Route 13 between Saigon and Quan Loi, and the “Redcatchers” of the 199th Infantry Brigade supported 1st Infantry operations in that area. The 199th Infantry Brigade was later sent to join the 196th Light Infantry Brigade (Separate) to help form the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal). The brigade served through the remainder of the war in Quang Ngai Province. JULIUS A. MENZOFF

See also Air Mobility; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

United Front Groups, factions, or organizations united to achieve a political objective. The principal organizational strategy used by the Vietnamese Communists to win power, the united front is a powerful weapon in the hands of a small but highly dedicated and disciplined party that relies on mobilizing sentiment to achieve political aims, sometimes through the use of revolutionary violence. Patterned on Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin’s use of the Soviets in 1917, the first notable example of the united front in Indochina was the Viet Minh, organized by Ho Chi Minh while he was still in China in 1941. The Viet Minh served to mobilize Vietnamese nationalists in the war against the French, although its Communist domination became increasingly more apparent as the war continued. Similarly, the Communist-dominated National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) established in December 1960, and the Pathet Lao in Laos included among their membership many non-Communist nationalist groups. As Le Duan, who is generally credited with being the driving force of the united front strategy following Ho’s death in 1969, explained in a 1970 newspaper article, “The Front is an organization in which contradictions could be reconciled. The Front includes many different classes that united on the basis of a common and fixed program of action. . . . Being the leader of the revolution and possessing a political line that adequately represents the nation’s common interests, our Party [the Communist Party of Vietnam] is naturally recognized as the leader of the Front. Revolutionary and national interests require that we permanently strengthen and consolidate the Party’s leading role in the Front, firmly maintain the Party’s political line and its independent organs, and oppose every tendency to minimize the Party’s role and to dissolve the Party in the Front.” ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Ho Chi Minh; Le Duan; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Pathet Lao; Viet Minh References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars Le Duan. “Under the Glorious Party Banner, for Independence, Freedom, and Socialism, Let Us Advance and Achieve New Victories.” Nhan Dan [Hanoi] (February 14, 1970); translated in JUSPAO (Saigon), Viet Nam Documents and Research Notes No. 77 (April 1970), p. 14.

United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars The United Kingdom is an island nation located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe and encompasses 94,526 square miles. Although the United Kingdom is a single state, it is composed of four entities: England, Wales, and Scotland (which make up Great Britain) and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom also has numerous overseas possessions. With a 1968 population of 55.214 million people, the United Kingdom is a constitutional parliamentary monarchy. The monarch is the head of state, while the prime minister is head of government. Queen Elizabeth II has

1163

reigned as Great Britain’s monarch since 1952. The nation’s two main political parties are the Labour Party (a left-center party) and the Conservative Party (a right-center party). Great Britain played a modest yet important role in the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. During World War II, British commander in the Far East Lord Louis Mountbatten reached an informal agreement with Chinese leader Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek) whereby the Nationalist Chinese and the Americans would be responsible for supporting resistance movements and intelligence operations in Indochina north of the 16th Parallel (Laos and northern Vietnam), while the British would do the same south of that line (Cambodia and southern Vietnam). This informal agreement and American antipathy toward the French formed the basis for British operations in Indochina both during and immediately after World War II. British support to the French first came in August 1940, when the local British consul in Hanoi offered an informal agreement to the French colonial governor on an exchange of intelligence

An official ceremony in Saigon in 1946, marking the departure of British troops from Indochina. French general Jacques-Philippe Leclerc reads a farewell message from the British Gurkha troops. (Getty Images)

1164

United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars

about Japanese forces in the area. The British also tried to enlist American assistance for the French in resisting Japanese pressure for bases within Indochina. Failing in that, British intelligence established links with anti-Vichy elements within the colony’s French garrison. These operations escalated after the December 1941 Japanese invasion of Malaya, but the British were inhibited by two factors: the great distances involved and Japan’s breaking of the French diplomatic code. This latter development made the Japanese Kempetai Hai seem almost omnipotent, especially after the Viet Minh began cooperating with Japanese occupation authorities in mid-1942. Despite these difficulties, the Anglo-French resistance was able to provide better intelligence to Allied authorities. It was also able to rescue more Allied pilots than the Viet Minh rescued, which enjoyed more support from the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) station in China. Often at odds with their American allies, the British worked to sustain the French colonial structure and prevent the growth of a Marxist-dominated resistance movement. However, a number of the Vietnamese intelligence agents trained by the British and parachuted into Vietnam during the war joined the Viet Minh as soon as they arrived back in Vietnam. In 1947 one of these British agents, Tran Hieu, became the first director of the new Viet Minh military espionage organization, the Cuc Tinh Bao (Intelligence Department). In accordance with arrangements reached at the July–August 1945 Potsdam Conference, Britain dispatched troops to restore Allied authority in southern Indochina. Arriving in Saigon on September 12, 1945, the British were lightly armed in anticipation of assuming only a minor security role. Major General Sir Douglas Gracey commanded the troops, which were drawn from his 20th Indian Division. Gracey initially limited himself to restoring order in Saigon, releasing French officials and Allied prisoners of war (POWs), disarming and repatriating Japanese troops, and reestablishing essential services. However, increasing Viet Minh attacks against French citizens, along with seizures of Allied property, led him to attempt to constrain their activities. Lacking sufficient troops to maintain order, Gracey employed recently released French POWs to augment his forces. Their poor discipline, combined with French resentment against the Viet Minh, whom the Japanese had used to guard their POW camps, led to French excesses. On September 23 these culminated in open conflict as Gracey attempted to bring the last remaining civil facilities under Anglo-French control. Facing expanded combat with limited forces and American denial of additional French troops, Gracey resorted to employing Japanese troops. Neither Mountbatten nor London wanted British forces involved in the Indochina fighting. Gracey tried to arrange negotiations between the French and their opponents, but the Viet Minh did not adhere to the agreements they made. The arrival of 1,500 French troops in early October should have alleviated some of Gracey’s concerns but, in fact, reinforced French stubbornness and Vietnamese insecurity.

In October 1945 the Viet Minh began offensive operations against the British garrison. Most of the early fighting was centered around Saigon, with the city’s river and road approaches coming under Viet Minh attack. The remainder of the 20th Indian Division, supported by Royal Air Force contingents, arrived between October 17 and 20. This enabled Gracey to conduct local counterattacks and strengthen his more isolated garrisons. On October 20 he decided to extend assistance to French naval forces. Gracey used his reinforcements and Japanese troops to expand his control into the lower Mekong Delta and over coastal ports, from which he intended to evacuate the Japanese troops. This operation took nearly six weeks and involved a combined force of 20,000 British, 2,100 French, and nearly 5,000 Japanese soldiers. As the towns were secured, the Japanese troops were replaced by French or local Vietnamese troops. The British turned over Saigon to the French on January 1, 1946, and the last British troops were withdrawn on February 7. British policy makers also played a key role in the latter stages of the Indochina War when, during the 1954 siege of Dien Bien Phu, they rejected U.S. efforts to secure a multinational military intervention to save the French. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made this a condition of U.S. military intervention. Unlike the United States, British leaders did not believe in military intervention in Vietnam, and Britain did not provide any material support for the U.S. effort during the conflict; however, some British officers did serve unofficially with Australian forces in southern Vietnam. London maintained contact and trade with both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the war and attempted to use its good offices to facilitate communications between the two major antagonists and a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Britain’s caution in Southeast Asia was related to the Communist insurgency in Malaya, Indonesian threats to Brunei and Malaya, and the maintenance of its links with Singapore and the rest of the region. The Labour Party came to power in Britain in 1964. Although both the Labour and Conservative Parties supported U.S. bombing of North Vietnam following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, privately newly elected prime minister Harold Wilson sought both an end to the bombing and a negotiated end to the war, and he informed President Lyndon Johnson of this. Wilson was constrained from criticizing U.S. policy publicly both by the long-standing close relationship between the two countries and because of Washington’s role in supporting the pound sterling. Criticism of U.S. policy was, however, particularly evident among university student groups in Great Britain. Although several British peace initiatives in 1965 failed, London did endeavor in early 1966 to act as intermediary in establishing talks between Washington and Moscow concerning Vietnam. A halt of U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, in return for which the North Vietnamese government would stop infiltrating men into

United Nations and the Vietnam War South Vietnam, collapsed when U.S. military leaders insisted that North Vietnamese provide proof rather than promises. When Soviet premier Andrei Kosygin submitted this demand to North Vietnamese officials, they rejected it. In 1970 the Labour Party lost the national elections to the Conservatives, and Edward Heath replaced Wilson. The Conservatives took a more sympathetic position toward U.S. involvement in Vietnam, a stance eased by the U.S. policy of Vietnamization. London gave full support to that policy, but it also supported the Richard M. Nixon administration’s continued bombing of North Vietnam and its decision to mine North Vietnamese ports. Heath also refused to condemn the U.S. military incursion into Cambodia. London chose instead to call for a new Geneva Conference to discuss a peace settlement in Indochina. The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 ended the Vietnam War as a point of tension between Britain and the United States. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Dinassauts; Eisenhower, Dwight David; France, Navy, 1946–1954; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Gracey, Douglas David; Indochina War; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; Nixon, Richard Milhous; SUNFLOWER, Operation; Vietnamization References Alan, Louis. The End of the War in Asia. London: Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1976. Dunn, Peter M. The First Vietnam War. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985. Irving, R. E. M. The First Indochina War. London: Croom Helm, 1975. Maclean, Donald. British Foreign Policy: The Years since Suez, 1956– 1968. New York: Stein and Day, 1970. “Thu Truong Dau Tien Cua Co Quan Tinh Bao Chien Luoc” [The First Head of Our Strategic Intelligence Agency]. Quan Doi Nhan Dan [People’s Army newspaper], March 13, 2009. Wilson, Harold K. A Personal Record: The Labour Government, 1964–1970. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1971.

United Nations and the Vietnam War The United Nations (UN) played only a negligible role in the Vietnam War for a number of reasons. One reason resulted from the structure of the UN itself. Each member of the UN Security Council has the power to veto resolutions, and it takes just a single veto to derail a resolution. Both the United States, which supported the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and the Soviet Union, which openly supported the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), used the veto to block resolutions that they perceived to be critical of their Southeast Asian policies. Another obstacle against a meaningful UN role was that North Vietnam and South Vietnam were not member states of the UN. The Soviet Union had proposed admitting the two nations in 1957, but the United States rejected the idea. American diplomats were unwilling to recognize the partition of Vietnam with a Communist regime in North Vietnam.

1165

UN secretary-general U Thant of Burma believed that the solution to the Vietnam problem lay outside the UN mandate. Many representatives of the UN agreed with his interpretation, among them France, which championed the principle of nonintervention. Indeed, the UN’s central role in the costly and unresolved Korean War (1950–1953) made the organization extremely reluctant to become involved in another proxy war between the superpowers. The 1954 Geneva Accords that ended the Indochina War also weakened the ability of the UN to intervene in Vietnam. These agreements called for national elections in Vietnam in 1956 but made no provision for UN participation or supervision. This rendered unlikely any debate concerning Vietnam in the UN General Assembly. Despite these obstacles, U Thant attempted in 1964, 1968, and 1970 to negotiate a settlement of the Vietnam War. He used his outstanding credentials as a neutralist and the power of his position to try to broker a peace agreement. His 1964 initiative came closest to success. With the tacit approval of President Lyndon B. Johnson, U Thant made arrangements for talks to take place in Rangoon, Burma. The Soviet Union acted as intermediary to transmit the offer to Hanoi. The timing seemed fortuitous because it coincided with an attempt by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to convince the North Vietnamese to negotiate. The North Vietnamese leadership listened to Khrushchev’s suggestion because the Soviet Union was its major supplier of armaments, especially surface-to-air missiles. However, hopes for a negotiated settlement were soon dashed. Khrushchev’s fall from power in October 1964 brought a hardened policy against negotiations and in favor of increased assistance to Hanoi. But the change in Soviet leadership was not the only problem. Washington had already rejected U Thant’s suggestions that September concerning a basis for a peace settlement. U Thant’s two other attempts at negotiation made no headway because of a hardening of positions on both sides resulting from the escalation of the war. Although the UN failed to play an active role in the Vietnam War, it enjoyed success in other issues that stemmed from the conflict. U Thant made some progress in limiting the use of defoliants such as Agent Orange, for example. The UN also brokered a ban on biological weapons in April 1972, in part the result of a storm of international criticism over their use during the war. The UN also accomplished much in easing the suffering of many Vietnamese displaced by the war. This included protection of thousands of Vietnamese refugees (the so-called boat people) who fled following the 1975 collapse of the South Vietnamese government. The UN also supervised the emigration of Amerasian children from Vietnam to the United States. ERIC W. OSBORNE See also Amerasians; Defoliation; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Refugees and Boat People; U Thant

1166

United Services Organization

References Boyd, Andrew. Fifteen Men on a Powder Keg: A History of the U.N. Security Council. New York: Stein and Day, 1971. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991.

United Services Organization Large privately funded nonprofit organization that provides entertainment and other nonmilitary amenities to American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. Although best known to Americans for its broadcasting of Bob Hope’s United Services Organization (USO) shows for American troops in Vietnam, the USO story began with its efforts to entertain American troops during World War II. The USO was founded in 1941 early in World War II through the joint efforts of the Salvation Army, the YMCA, the YWCA, and several other groups. USO centers on military bases sponsor numerous social events for soldiers and provide a welcoming environment for individual soldiers seeking a respite from military duties. Certainly best known for its work during World War II, by 1944 the USO had

more than 3,000 centers around the globe. During that war, the USO provided celebrity entertainment involving more than 7,000 performers in more than 420,000 performances. The entertainers most closely identified with USO shows for the troops were the singing group the Andrews Sisters and comedian Hope. With the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, a smaller and reorganized USO eventually opened 24 centers in Korea and Japan, and the USO again sponsored many entertainment events for the troops. Once more Hope was a staple of USO shows. During the Vietnam War, the USO opened its first center in Saigon in September 1963. In 1965 the USO began to expand its services throughout the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). At the height of the war in the late 1960s, the USO was operating 18 centers in South Vietnam and seven in Thailand. U.S. entertainers performed more than 5,000 USO shows in Vietnam during the war. The best attended and most remembered of these shows were the eight consecutive Hope-led Christmas shows initially performed for the troops and later rebroadcast on American network television. The first Christmas show was performed in December 1964. With the final withdrawal of American troops in 1972, USO activities in Vietnam ceased as of June 1972. Entertaining the troops continued to be a USO priority, and the USO was active during the 1991 Persian Gulf War as well as Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM. In 2006 the USO organized 56 celebrity entertainment tours to 25 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. USO celebrity entertainment shows continue to be effective morale boosters and are an important part of USO efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Increasing use of the Internet and e-mail in the United States during the late 1990s mandated that USO centers provide e-mail access to soldiers serving in the Middle East. Other current but less well known USO activities continue to operate out of the approximately 130 USO centers around the world. Among these, Operation Enduring Care helps meet the recovery needs of injured service members and their families through the operation of lounge areas in hospitals and medical facilities. Operation Enduring Care also provides support for funeral escorts, mortuary personnel, and honor guards serving fallen troops. In addition, the USO solicits contributions to provide care packages and phone cards to servicemen abroad. Newer initiatives include welcome centers for returning troops at major airports; the operation of mobile canteens bringing refreshments, books, and other leisure items to remote military stations in the Middle East; and the creation of the Family Support Fund to aid military families suffering hardships from deployment of a service member. GAYLE AVANT See also Hope, Leslie Townes

Actress Carroll Baker throws open her arms to the men of the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga in the South China Sea in December 1965. Baker was a member of the Bob Hope USO troupe performing before U.S. servicemen in the Vietnam War. (National Archives)

References Bloomfield, Gary L. Duty, Honor, Applause: America’s Entertainers in World War II. New York: Globe Pequot, 2004. Dell, Diana J. A Saigon Party. New York: iUniverse, 2000.

United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954

United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 American missionaries and entrepreneurs in the 19th and 20th centuries saw Asia as fertile ground for trade and for Christianizing and Westernizing the inhabitants of that continent, with each goal complementing the others. The center of that Asian activity was mainland China, and the United States was concerned by gains there registered by the European powers and Japan. When the French moved into Indochina in the mid-19th century, the U.S. government began to take special notice of that area, but contact was limited largely to an occasional warship. In 1845 Captain John Percival of the U.S. frigate Constitution helped secure the release of Catholic priest and missionary Dominique Lefèbvre, who had been imprisoned by the Vietnamese government. President Woodrow Wilson’s call for the “self-determination of peoples” struck a responsive chord in Asia, including Vietnam, but it was soon clear that these words were to be applied only to Europeans and not to Asians or Africans. It is thus ironic that

1167

the United States first chose to confront Japanese expansionism in Vietnam, for in July 1941 Japan established bases in southern Indochina. Japan then had the largest number of strategic bombers in the world and also had aircrews hardened in the fighting in China since 1937. The Japanese move into southern Indochina thus posed a threat to the entire region, not only to Siam, Malaya, and the Netherlands East Indies but also to the Philippines. The Japanese action brought a joint U.S., United Kingdom, and Netherlands economic embargo, and it was this action that brought the Japanese to the decision to attack Pearl Harbor in December 1941. During World War II the United States provided assistance to the Viet Minh through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The Viet Minh helped rescue downed American pilots and provided intelligence information on the Japanese. Many OSS agents, including Captain Archimedes Patti, did not conceal their admiration for the Viet Minh and assured its leaders that the United States would stand on their side against French colonialism. Furthermore, the Atlantic Charter provided encouragement to Communist and

Two Japanese ships under attack by U.S. Navy carrier-based planes near the entrance to Qui Nhon Harbor in Japanese-occupied French Indochina in January 1945 during World War II. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1168

United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954

nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh in its support for the right of national self-determination. Ho’s nationalist front organization, the Viet Minh, which he had organized to fight both the Japanese and the French, had provided assistance to the Americans in the waning months of the war, furnishing intelligence and helping to rescue downed Allied airmen. By 1945, however, a growing fear of Soviet activity worldwide prompted the United States to support French colonialism in Southeast Asia. President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed colonialism and French colonial rule. He believed that France had performed poorly as a colonial power and should not be allowed to reclaim Indochina. His successor Harry Truman, now more concerned about the spread of communism than colonialism, made the initial commitment to the French presence in Vietnam almost immediately at the war’s end. In August 1945 the Truman administration ordered 12 U.S. merchant ships, originally assigned to carry U.S. servicemen home from war, to transport French combat troops to Saigon. The French government was determined to reestablish French control over Indochina, its richest colony. Although Ho had received U.S. support from the OSS, he was a Communist, and the anti-Communist ethos that had pervaded the United States since 1917 made it virtually impossible for that generation’s leaders to ally themselves too closely with any Communist, Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia notwithstanding. In a clear bid for U.S. support at the end of the war, Ho employed the words of U.S. president Thomas Jefferson in proclaiming Vietnam’s independence on September 2, 1945. Ho hoped for eventual support from the United States and Great Britain. At that time, British forces that had occupied southern Indochina were releasing French prisoners of war, and just over one month later the United States publicly declared that it would not oppose the reestablishment of French control in Vietnam. Ho made several direct appeals to Washington thereafter, always praising the United States as a champion of the rights of small nations and noting Viet Minh support for the Allied war effort against Japan, but such appeals went unanswered. Without support from either the United States or Britain, Ho was forced to seek a temporary arrangement with France. Although criticized by many of his own supporters, on March 6, 1946, he concluded an agreement with Jean Sainteny in which the French recognized Ho’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), promised a plebiscite in southern Vietnam, and were allowed to reintroduce some troops into North Vietnam in return for a pledge to withdraw them by 1952. The situation was complicated when French high commissioner for Indochina Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu subsequently torpedoed the Ho-Sainteny Agreement by arbitrarily creating the Republic of Cochin China. Ho meanwhile had traveled to France in the hope that he could finalize what was at best an ambiguous arrangement. The discussions at Fontainbleau accomplished little. The talks were subsequently canceled, and Ho returned home. Pressure for war was building on both sides, and fighting began in December 1946.

For policy makers in the U.S. State Department in the winter of 1946, Vietnam presented yet another in a long list of problems requiring attention. In December of that year Albert Low Moffat, head of the State Department’s division on Southeast Asia, traveled to Hanoi to assess the situation. After careful observation, he concluded that Ho was first and foremost a Vietnamese nationalist, determined to win independence for his people. He added that Ho might be viewed less as a tool of international communism and more as an Asian Tito. Other officials in Vietnam agreed with Moffat’s assessment of the Viet Minh leader. The people of Vietnam would, they argued, reject any other proposed head of state. Unfortunately for U.S. policy, the Truman administration was more inclined to listen to those in the State Department who were developing European policy. They believed that the United States had to support the French in Indochina in order to secure their crucial backing for America’s strategy in Europe. From the outset, the U.S. position on Vietnam was hostage to its European policy. With Germany disarmed, France was the only major European continental power in Europe that might assist in containing a Soviet invasion. Before the end of 1946, the United States had sent $160 million in aid to France to assist its effort in Vietnam. Economic assistance under the European Recovery Act, also known as the Marshall Plan, also helped offset French spending on the war in Indochina. Debate continued through 1949 on how the United States should view Ho, especially in comparison to Emperor Bao Dai, a puppet of the French. In a May 1949 memorandum, Secretary of State Acheson noted the following: “Question whether Ho as much nationalist as Commie is irrelevant. All Stalinists in colonial areas are nationalists. With achievement national aims . . . their objective necessarily becomes subordination . . . to Commie purposes.” The Communist victory in China in October 1949 combined with Soviet recognition of Ho’s regime solidified Washington’s belief that Ho was permanently assimilated into the worldwide Communist movement. After 1949 the U.S. commitment to France was never in serious doubt, although the Korean War, which began in 1950, strengthened the commitment exponentially. In addition to aiding the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), the Truman administration also dispatched the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait to protect Jiang Jieshi’s rump government on Taiwan (then known as Formosa), engaged the United States in a massive rearmament program, and reinforced the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with U.S. troops stationed in Western Europe. Many U.S. policy makers were convinced that the Korean War represented a Communist conspiracy, emanating from the Kremlin, that would attempt to overrun much of East Asia and perhaps Europe as well. At the same time that the Truman administration committed U.S. forces to Korea, the administration for the first time sent U.S. military aid directly to Indochina to assist the French. Such aid continued to grow throughout the Indochina War, as both the French and the Americans saw Korea and Indochina as interdependent fronts in the war against communism, especially with the entry on

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the Korean War in late October 1950. In September 1950 the U.S. government established the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) in Vietnam to help train the State of Vietnam Army, fighting alongside the French against the Viet Minh. The French generally ignored MAAG and rejected proffered U.S. suggestions on strategy. Despite this, Washington continued to pour in aid. Indeed, U.S. aid to Indochina rose from $100 million in 1950 to $300 million in 1952. By 1954 U.S. aid had reached $1 billion, representing 80 percent of the French effort there. Total U.S. assistance in the course of the war came to $3 billion. No one seriously questioned what might happen should France fail in Indochina. After President Truman left office in January 1953, the situation for the French continued to deteriorate in Indochina. New U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, although unhappy with the French refusal to heed American advice, adopted the previous administration’s position completely. The French military effort meanwhile continued to deteriorate, and opposition to the war was growing among the population in France. For that reason, Paris began to talk about a negotiated settlement after the Korean Armistice in July 1953. The United States, while still involved in fighting in Korea, had actively opposed negotiations with the Viet Minh and assured Paris of material aid, short of combat troops or nuclear weapons. The French were thus understandably furious when the United States agreed to an armistice in Korea in July 1953. In the spring of 1954 Viet Minh forces laid siege to a major outpost established by the French in northwestern Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu. As that situation deteriorated, Washington seriously considered military intervention. Among those arguing for such a course was Vice President Richard Nixon. A plan for U.S. military intervention, code-named Operation VULTURE, was never implemented, in large part because of British opposition. London, believing that the battle was too far gone and placing hopes in the conference at Geneva, refused to participate. The May 1954 fall of Dien Bien Phu enabled the French politicians to shift the blame to the military and conclude peace in the Geneva Accords. The accords recognized the independence of North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; established a temporary dividing line in Vietnam at the 17th Parallel; and promised national elections and the reunification of Vietnam in two years’ time. The promised elections were never held, and the war resumed. However, by that time the Americans had taken over from the French. FRANCIS H. THOMPSON AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Central Intelligence Agency; Containment Policy; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Fontainebleau Conference; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Indochina War; Korean War; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Office of Strategic

1169

Services; Patti, Archimedes L. A.; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano; Sainteny, Jean; Truman, Harry S.; Viet Minh; VULTURE, Operation References Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Williams, William Appleman, Thomas McCormick, Lloyd Gardner, and Walter LaFaber, eds. America in Vietnam: A Documentary History. New York: Norton, 1989. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 With the French capitulation at Geneva in 1954, the United States, by its own decision, assumed responsibility for southern Vietnam. Long frustrated with the French for both their political handling of Indochina and for what was perceived as their weak military performance against the Viet Minh, the United States sought to play the decisive hand in the future of the area. At first President Dwight Eisenhower attempted to work with the French and other Western allies to contain communism in Southeast Asia. He and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles engineered the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954, which under a separate protocol gave Laos, Cambodia, and southern Vietnam a special protected status. Eisenhower also sent General J. Lawton Collins to attempt to continue a U.S.-French joint effort in the region. In the spring of 1955 Eisenhower abandoned the allied approach and moved in a unilateral direction as the United States dedicated itself to building a strong Vietnamese nation in the south under the leadership of the enigmatic Ngo Dinh Diem. Eisenhower tried to persuade the French to support the Diem option, but they hated the aristocratic nationalist almost as much as Diem distrusted them. The French maintained a military presence in southern Vietnam by continuing to train its military establishment, but the United States assumed this role in early 1956, and France was squeezed out within a few months. The United States began to structure the armed forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) into a carbon copy of its own military and prepared the country to fight a midintensity conventional war against an invasion from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Only the slightest attention was given to counterinsurgency. Diem faced an almost impossible task in a war-ravaged country, “a political jungle of warlords, sects, bandits, partisan troops and secret societies,” as one commentator described it. First, he had to deal with the influx of about 900,000 refugees, mostly Catholics, into the predominantly Buddhist South Vietnam. Such regroupment was possible under the Geneva Accords, pending the general election called for under the accords that was to take place

1170

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965

U.S. Army Manpower in Vietnam Year

Strength

1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

800 2,100 7,900 10,100 14,700 116,800 239,400 319,500 359,800 338,300 254,800 141,200 16,100

in the reunification of Vietnam in 1956; indeed, the United States actively encouraged this considerable migration as a propaganda ploy and provided the shipping to move the refugees in Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM. These refugees, mostly Catholics from the Red River Delta region, provided a secure base of support for Diem’s regime. A far smaller number of Vietnamese, including Viet Minh fighters, transferred to North Vietnam. Viet Minh political cadres remained, however, to prepare for the anticipated 1956 elections. Later they were the vanguard of renewed fighting when the promised elections were not held. Diem also had to deal with other contenders for power in the spring of 1955, including the religious sects (the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao), the Saigon gangsters (the Binh Xuyen), and several factions in the military. All challenged Diem’s regime. In the midst of Diem’s multiple crises Washington stood by him, and amazingly he overcame the challenges, solidified his position in the country, and strengthened his relationship with his U.S. benefactors. After winning a test of wills with head of state Emperor Bao Dai, Diem established the Republic of Vietnam early in 1955, with himself as president. Seizing on the momentum of his victories, he announced that the Geneva-mandated reunification elections in 1956 would not be held. Although South Vietnam was not the citadel of democracy that the United States proclaimed and Diem not the model leader, the United States cast its lot with him. Insurrection against Diem resurfaced in 1957. The origins were primarily indigenous, with little direction from North Vietnam. However, the U.S. military mission continued to concentrate on building the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) along conventional lines to repel an external aggressor. Diem, however, focused on the internal threat and employed counterinsurgency military measures. These forces were poorly trained and equipped, and the social programs component was halfhearted, with little aid to the countryside. U.S. economic assistance was generous, in excess of $250 million per year through the Eisenhower years, 80 percent of which went to the military. The result was an economically dependent South Vietnamese client-state. As U.S. involvement increased, the

first American military casualties occurred in July 1959, when two U.S. advisers were killed in a terrorist attack at Bien Hoa Air Base. The nature of the U.S. advisory role changed in the early 1960s. In December 1960 Hanoi announced the birth of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). U.S. president John F. Kennedy feared that Indochina was a prime theater for Soviet-sponsored “wars of national liberation,” and he prepared to meet this global challenge. Influenced by his reading of The Uncertain Trumpet (1960) by former U.S. Army chief of staff General Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy extended Taylor’s proposal for a more “flexible military response” to include lowintensity warfare and assigned this counterinsurgency role to the U.S. Army Special Forces. The regular military was not enthusiastic about counterinsurgency and did little more than pay it lip service. Although the primary area of concern in Indochina during the first months of the Kennedy administration was Laos, by the spring of 1961 the focus began to shift to Vietnam. Kennedy authorized the expansion of the RVNAF from 150,000 to 200,000 men and sent more U.S. advisers: civilian specialists in government, economic affairs, and technical areas as well as military personnel, including Green Berets. With the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) considering combat troops, Kennedy dispatched advisers Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow to South Vietnam in October 1961 to report on the situation. Their pessimistic report called for more assistance of all kinds, including a task force that would include combat troops. Vice President Lyndon Johnson on an earlier trip had broached the subject with Diem, who did not want U.S. troops. Diem believed that the presence of American forces would provide the Viet Cong (VC) with a significant propaganda issue, and he was concerned about the impact of greater American involvement on his non-Communist opposition in South Vietnam. But most importantly, he feared that American combat troops would lead to the United States assuming control of the war and ultimately the country. Diem wanted unlimited American aid with no interference in internal politics or the conduct of the war. Kennedy stepped up assistance but rejected the idea of combat troops. He remarked that the first group of troops would engender requests for more: “It’s like taking a drink. The effect wears off, and you have to take another.” At the same time that he refused to authorize combat troops, Kennedy also rejected a negotiated settlement in Vietnam similar to one he was seeking in Laos. Thus, Kennedy opted for a midposition between fighting and negotiating, a commitment of aid and advisers that he recognized from the beginning might prove unsuccessful. But for the most part Kennedy was optimistic. Like his secretary of defense Robert McNamara and others of his “best and brightest” advisers (to employ journalist David Halberstam’s characterization), Kennedy viewed Vietnam predominantly as a military problem that had to be “managed” successfully. This sanguine approach characterized American policy in 1962.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 The upgrading of the Military Advisory and Assistance Group (MAAG) to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), in February 1962 was both symbolic and substantive. The number of advisers rose from 3,200 in December 1961 to 9,000 by the end of 1962. The increased American presence with helicopters, new weapons, civic action programs, and expanded training had a short-term positive impact on the war, but this advantage largely eroded by the end of the year. American optimism and cultural hubris did not. Despite talk about winning hearts and minds, U.S. leaders never persuaded South Vietnamese president Diem to undertake the reforms needed to win support for his government or to address seriously the corruption that engulfed the country. The high-profile Strategic Hamlet Program ultimately failed, as Diem misused it primarily to bring the rural countryside under his personal control. He resented American “interference” and increasingly came to fear the escalating American presence as much as his internal enemies. His concerns were not totally unwarranted. As American journalists began to attack Diem and the Vietnam policy of the United States, the buoyancy of 1962 quickly waned. Increasingly Kennedy became frustrated by Diem and his pernicious brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Diem’s heavy-handed and inept handling of the Buddhist uprising in the spring and summer of 1963 weakened American support for his regime. Despite the official rhetoric, disenchantment with the capacity and willingness of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) to fight grew. With his advisers greatly divided over what to do about Diem, Kennedy was wavering and indecisive through the autumn, finally tacitly acquiescing to a coup effort by South Vietnamese generals against Diem in November 1963. However, Kennedy personally was shocked by Diem’s murder during the coup. When Kennedy was assassinated three weeks later, Lyndon Johnson inherited a growing political and military quagmire. Johnson retained the Kennedy team to run the war, and he continued the same basic policies. After an extensive policy review in March 1964, the president concluded that “the only reasonable alternative” was “to do more of the same and do it more efficiently.” Johnson expanded the number of advisers (from 16,300 when he took office to 23,300 by the end of 1964), and he increased assistance by $50 million. He hoped to keep Vietnam on the back burner at least through the 1964 presidential election, and he proceeded cautiously. However, at the same time he authorized secret plans for possible military action against North Vietnam. Through intermediaries, the Johnson administration warned Hanoi that the United States was prepared to inflict heavy punishment on North Vietnam if its government continued to support the insurgency in South Vietnam. But the North Vietnamese government responded by mobilizing its own forces for war, expanding the Ho Chi Minh Trail network, and preparing to infiltrate regular People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units into South Vietnam. Meanwhile, political intrigue and instability dominated the South Vietnamese government and the ARVN. The war against

1171

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) paratroopers jump from U.S. Air Force Fairchild C-123 Provider transports during Operation PHI HOA II, a tactical air-ground envelopment strike during March 1963 against the Viet Cong in Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam. (National Archives)

the guerrillas was being lost. The VC controlled more than 40 percent of the territory and more than 50 percent of the population. In many areas, the VC were so entrenched that only massive military force would dislodge them. On August 2, 1964, the budding crises between the United States and North Vietnam intensified with a North Vietnamese attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer Maddox, which was engaged in electronic intelligence gathering in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. The United States prepared for a possible military retaliation. The Johnson administration believed that two nights later another North Vietnamese attack occurred against the Maddox and another U.S. destroyer, the Turner Joy, although PAVN general Vo Nguyen Giap assured McNamara in November 1995 that no such attack took place. In any case the Johnson administration opted for force, launching air strikes against North Vietnamese naval installations. Johnson also seized the moment to secure from Congress the Southeast Asian Resolution, better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, that authorized the president to employ military power against North Vietnam. Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, one of only two senators to vote against the resolution, correctly labeled it a “predated declaration of war.” After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Johnson reverted to a cautious strategy. During the autumn presidential campaign against Vietnam War hawk Barry Goldwater, Johnson emphasized that he did not wish to widen the war or “send American boys to do what Asian boys should do.” He did not respond to terrorist attacks that took American lives in South Vietnam in November

1172

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968

and December, but the administration was preparing a retaliatory bombing program against North Vietnam to be unleashed at the proper moment. In early 1965 all the pieces began to fall in place. In response to another provocation, Johnson ordered a retaliatory bombing in early February. Individual reprisal attacks soon transformed into Operation ROLLING THUNDER, a sustained bombing campaign, and in reaction to the desperate military situation in South Vietnam, American ground troops followed in March. In July, Johnson authorized independent American combat operations and began the massive American troop buildup. The advisory days were over. This was now America’s war in Vietnam. JOE P. DUNN See also Central Intelligence Agency; Collins, Joseph Lawton; Fishel, Wesley Robert; Gruening, Ernest Henry; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Halberstam, David; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lansdale, Edward Geary; McNamara, Robert Strange; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Rostow, Walt Whitman; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport References Anderson, David L. Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953–1961. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Duiker, William J. U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968 In 1965 the United States made the fateful decision to commit major ground combat forces to the war in Vietnam, thus deepening an involvement that to that point had consisted primarily of logistical, financial, and advisory support to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). At the end of 1964 about 23,500 Americans had been serving in Vietnam. By the close of 1968 that number had grown to 525,000. Commencement of this buildup was precipitated by the February 1965 Viet Cong (VC) attacks on American installations near Pleiku in the Central Highlands. Retaliatory air strikes by the United States, deployment into Vietnam of additional air assets, and a consequent need to protect the growing complement of aircraft and airfields added to the necessity for an increased U.S. troop presence. To that end, in early March 1965

President Lyndon Johnson authorized the deployment of some 3,500 U.S. marines to the area around Da Nang, followed in April by the assignment of the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade to Bien Hoa and Vung Tau. Also in early March 1965, President Johnson sent U.S. Army chief of staff General Harold K. Johnson on a mission to Vietnam. On his return to Washington, General Johnson submitted to the president a report containing 21 recommendations, including an intensified air war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the deployment of many more ground forces to Vietnam. Most of these proposals were approved, and in mid-June Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced additional deployments, to a level of 75,000 men. In closing his report, General Johnson had raised the question of how much more the United States would have to contribute. In the margin, Secretary McNamara wrote a blank check: “Policy is: Anything that will strengthen the position of the GVN [government of Vietnam] will be sent.” Meanwhile, General Johnson set in motion within the army staff a study of how the war was being conducted that would have an enormous, but much delayed, impact on American involvement. Reports through the late spring of 1965 indicated that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) could not survive without extensive additional assistance. On July 28 President Johnson announced to Americans that he was sending 50,000 more troops and that draft calls would be increased. “Additional forces will be needed later,” he added, “and they will be sent as requested.” Significantly, the president did not approve calling up reserve forces. The U.S. command in Vietnam quickly submitted requests for even more forces, and the buildup of American troops moved into high gear. Shortly after the series of retaliatory air strikes against targets in North Vietnam were conducted in early February 1965, President Johnson authorized a continuing air campaign against North Vietnam that became known as Operation ROLLING THUNDER. Commencing in early March 1965, this bombing continued unabated, except for certain suspensions and restrictions, until October 31, 1968. It was in the conduct of the air war, however, that the greatest controversy arose over the administration’s “graduated response” approach. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) as well as the field command sought to apply massive force in the shortest possible time. Instead, frustrating impediments to this strategy were imposed by the civilian hierarchy. Even though the scope and magnitude of the air war continued to increase, albeit punctuated by numerous pauses of varying duration, the incremental approach permitted the Communists to make adjustments and to put in place a continuously improving air defense system. After leaving office, Johnson reportedly told President Richard Nixon that all the pauses had been useless and that he regretted having ordered them. That notwithstanding, in March 1968 Johnson scaled back the bombing of North Vietnam to below the 20th Parallel only, and in November of that year he terminated it altogether.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968

A young private waits on the beach during the marine landing at Da Nang, South Vietnam, on August 3, 1965. As one of the driving forces behind the Twenty-sixth Amendment that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia reasoned that if 18-year-olds were mature enough to fight and die in Vietnam, they were mature enough to vote. (National Archives)

In June 1964 General William Westmoreland had taken command of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). This was a crucial appointment, for it was Westmoreland who devised the strategy of attrition and search-and-destroy tactics that characterized the ground war through the end of his tenure. The measure of merit under this approach became the body count; the defining objective and the so-called crossover point became the point at which enemy soldiers were being killed at a greater rate than they could be replaced by infiltration from North Vietnam or by in-country recruitment in South Vietnam. “Accompanying the strategy,” stated the Pentagon Papers, “was a subtle change of emphasis—instead of simply denying the enemy victory and convincing him that he could not win, the thrust became defeating the enemy in the South.” But that was not all: “Written all over the search and destroy strategy was total loss of confidence in the RVNAF [Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces] and a concomitant willingness on the part of the U.S. to take over the war effort.”

1173

Seeking to achieve this elusive goal, General Westmoreland made repeated requests for additional troops. In February 1966, only months after the first major increases, he came in with requirements that would raise the troop ceiling to 429,000. In 1967 he was back with further requests for major troop augmentation, beyond the 470,000 that by that point had been authorized. This time he presented two alternatives, one described as a “minimum essential” add-on of 80,500 troops and the other an “optimum” of some 200,000 additional, which would have brought the total authorized to 670,000. Washington approved neither of these packages; only a scaled-down addition to a new total of 525,000 was authorized. Tolerance for additional commitments was running out. With these forces, Westmoreland mounted large multibattalion operations aimed at bringing Communist main-force units to battle. The first of these engagements took place in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, when elements of the newly deployed 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) took on some 2,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops from three different regiments. In We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young, Lieutenant General Harold Moore, whose battalion had been in the thick of it, called the battle “one month of maneuver, attack, retreat, bait, trap, ambush, and bloody butchery.” When it was over, the Americans had inflicted an estimated 3,561 deaths on the Communists, losing 305 of their own in the process. “What that said to two officers who had learned their trade in the meat-grinder campaigns in World War II,” wrote Moore of Westmoreland and his operations officer, Major General William DePuy, “was that they could bleed the enemy to death over the long haul with a strategy of attrition.” The American military establishment in South Vietnam grew larger and more pervasive with each passing year. An elaborate system of base camps was developed, ports and airfields were built or improved, and massive logistical support was provided. Naval and air force elements grew proportionately, with naval gunfire as well as air elements contributing to the massive firepower at MACV disposal. Meanwhile, the essence of Communist control over the populace, the VC infrastructure in the hamlets and villages, continued essentially undisturbed as pacification in the countryside and improvement of South Vietnamese forces were largely ignored. One positive development was that in May 1967 American support for pacification was pulled together under MACV control. During 1967 General Westmoreland made three trips to the United States. Addressing various audiences, including the National Press Club, he said that “We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view. I have never been more encouraged,” he said in November, only two short months before the Communist 1968 Tet Offensive changed everything. A massive Communist offensive that took place all across South Vietnam, the Tet Offensive was supposed to bring a widespread uprising of the population in support of the Communists and against South Vietnamese government and the Americans. It did not, and indeed it brought massive Communist casualties that virtually

1174

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968

wiped out the VC. The ARVN had fought well. Nonetheless, the Tet Offensive had been widely covered in the U.S. media and had come on the heels of Westmoreland’s optimistic pronouncements. Disillusionment now took hold as much of American public opinion turned against the war. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, General Earle G. Wheeler made a trip to Vietnam. Wheeler brought back a request from Westmoreland, which Wheeler had helped fashion, for the deployment of some 206,000 additional American troops. News of this soon leaked out and was received as another bombshell. Westmoreland had correctly described the Tet Offensive as a battlefield victory for allied forces, one that had cost the Communists severe losses. Now this request for hundreds of thousands more troops seemed to undermine the credibility of that claim, just as the fact of the Tet Offensive itself had undermined Westmoreland’s optimistic forecasts of the preceding year. Largely ignored was Westmoreland’s position that these troops would enable him to take the offensive and achieve victory. Westmoreland’s request precipitated a comprehensive review of American policy on Vietnam. The result was a series of dramatic changes. The troop request was denied, the high-water mark of American commitment to the war was reached and passed, and Westmoreland was soon replaced as U.S. commander in Vietnam, elevated to the post of chief of staff of the army. Westmoreland was not happy with the outcome of his tenure in command. Recalling bitterly “the prideful creatures in the bureaucratic jungles of Washington and Saigon,” in his memoirs he summed up the experience in these terms: “As American commander in Vietnam, I underwent many frustrations, endured much interference, lived with countless irritations, swallowed many disappointments, bore considerable criticism.” Meanwhile, the RAND study of the war, the Pentagon Papers, offered another summation of the situation: “At this writing, the U.S. has reached the end of the time frame estimated by General Westmoreland in 1965 to be required to defeat the enemy. It has committed 107 battalions of its own forces and a grand total of 525,000 men. The strategy remains search and destroy, but victory is not yet in sight.” On July 3, 1968, General Creighton Abrams formally assumed command of MACV. Abrams had, however, been de facto commander since shortly after the Tet Offensive. The successive increments of troop increases requested by Westmoreland, even though many of them had been scaled back, had brought the troop ceiling to 549,500 by the time Abrams took command. Actual deployments never exceeded 543,400, however, and on Abrams’s watch there were no requests for more troops. Abrams understood the war and the dominant influence of the domestic support base, and he knew that he would have to work within the limits of that fragile and waning support. For a number of years, public, congressional, and, to some extent, even media backing had been strong, but that had been squandered as year after year went by with no discernible progress in bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

After the 1968 Tet Offensive, the Johnson administration changed its policy for the war from seeking military victory brought about largely by American forces to capping U.S. involvement and shifting the main burden to larger and more capable South Vietnamese forces. In that context, Abrams changed the tactics from search and destroy to clear and hold, the measure of merit from body count to population security, and the philosophy to conducting “one war” in which pacification, improvement, and modernization of the South Vietnamese armed forces and the conduct of military operations were integrated and of equal importance. “The tactics changed instantly when General Abrams took over,” recalled General Donn Starry. “We need to be more flexible tactically inside South Vietnam,” Abrams had told President Johnson earlier in the year, and during the remainder of 1968 Abrams set about arranging just that. Two early priorities were closing down the static defense of Khe Sanh, getting those forces into a more mobile role, and doing something about protecting Saigon from the frequent rocket and mortar attacks that had plagued it for years. Soon Abrams had a planning element working on the combined campaign plan for the coming year, one that incorporated the essentials of the study that General Harold K. Johnson had commissioned in the spring of 1965. Known as the Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), the study maintained that the way the war was being prosecuted under Westmoreland was not working, indeed could not work, and that a radical redirection of effort was required to achieve success. When the study was first introduced in March 1966, it not surprisingly had been rejected by Westmoreland and the MACV staff. And it had not found many advocates elsewhere. Now it had one very important sponsor, Abrams himself. “The critical actions are those that occur at the village, district, and provincial levels,” the study maintained. “This is where the war must be fought; this is where the war and the object which lies beyond it must be won.” That object was the security and loyalty of the South Vietnamese people, the single-minded pursuit of which was to be the focus of the final years of American involvement in Vietnam. LEWIS SORLEY See also Attrition; Body Count; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Search and Destroy; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Reserve Components; Westmoreland, William Childs; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 With the advent of a new administration in Washington in January 1969 came formalization of the drastically changed approach to the war in Vietnam initiated by the predecessor government following the 1968 Tet Offensive. Vietnamization, the process of progressively turning the primary burden of fighting the war back over to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as American forces disengaged, became the dominant theme. Withdrawal of successive increments of U.S. ground forces, euphemistically termed redeployments, began in August 1969 when 25,000 were brought home. Three key criteria had been established to guide the pace and magnitude of these withdrawals: improvement of South Vietnam’s armed forces, enemy activity, and progress in the Paris peace negotiations. Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and later also secretary of state, observed in the White House Years, however, that the withdrawals took on a life of their own and continued at a steady rate regardless of other developments. “The last elements of flexibility were lost,” Kissinger wrote, “when the Defense Department began to plan its budget on the basis of anticipated troop reductions; henceforth to interrupt withdrawals would produce a financial shortfall affecting the procurement of new weapons.” In April 1970 President Richard Nixon announced that 150,000 U.S. troops would be brought out in three increments over the coming year and in April 1971 that an additional 100,000 would come out by the end of November of that year. By the time the Communists launched the 1972 Easter Offensive, U.S. forces were down to only 69,000 men, including just one combat brigade. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General Creighton Abrams, a U.S. Army officer by then bereft of army forces, fought his last battle with air and naval elements. During these years a superb team of top leaders was directing American affairs in Vietnam. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker headed the country team, Abrams led the military establishment, and William Colby (who held ambassadorial rank) directed the American aspects of pacification. Stressing “one war,” the harmonization of all elements of the program, these leaders were in a race to make the South Vietnamese self-sufficient before the withdrawal of U.S. forces was completed. If that eventuality had not been clear enough when the first withdrawal increment of 25,000 was announced at Midway in June 1969, it certainly became so the fol-

1175

lowing month at Guam when the president enunciated what came to be known as the Nixon Doctrine. Its essence was, as its architect recalled in RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, that henceforth the United States “would furnish only the matériel and the military and economic assistance to those nations willing to accept the responsibility of supplying the manpower to defend themselves.” The revised tactics specified by Abrams involved American combat units in thousands of small patrols by day and ambushes by night. Early in his tenure, Abrams also issued an order specifying that there would be no bombing or use of heavy artillery against inhabited areas without his personal approval. The Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN) study had pointed out that it made no difference to the peasant whether destruction was caused by enemy or friendly combat actions; it was just as devastating no matter the source. “My problem is colored blue,” observed Abrams, referring to how friendly forces are usually depicted on military maps, as he set about trying to curb the indiscriminate use of massive American firepower. Abrams told his commanders that “We’ve got to go

Three-year-old Cassandra Peithman stands in the rain, watching U.S. troops returning from Vietnam as they march in Seattle, Washington, on July 10, 1969. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1176

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973

beyond smashing up the enemy’s main-force units. We have to do that selectively, but the way to get off the treadmill is to get after his infrastructure and guerrillas.” Much of that infrastructure was in the villages, where Viet Cong (VC) functionaries collected taxes, organized carrying parties, distributed propaganda, provided guides for military units, procured food and medicine, and often imposed their will on the populace through terrorism and intimidation. Under Ambassador Colby, MACV support for pacification, including the Phoenix Program that targeted the VC infrastructure, sought to not only root out this influence but simultaneously to strengthen the mechanisms of the South Vietnamese government at every level as remaining American units fought to buy time for Vietnamization and pacification to develop and prosper. Abrams had perceived that the Communists, rather than being served by a logistical tail as was common in warfare, were forced to push out in front of planned operations a logistical nose of caches, prepared positions, and the like that were essential to their battlefield success. Finding and seizing these caches and positions became a primary objective, one that preempted many planned Communist attacks. But the really big caches were in base areas across the border in Laos and Cambodia. In the spring of 1970 President Nixon authorized U.S. forces to do something about those sanctuaries. Launching attacks coordinated with simultaneous South Vietnamese thrusts, at the end of April American forces drove into Cambodia on a 60-day rampage that captured thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition, supplies of every description, and piles of documents. The latter included bills of lading and other proof that the Communists had indeed, as MACV had been maintaining for years but the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had consistently denied, been using the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville as a major route for bringing in supplies, arms, and munitions. A major benefit of the Cambodian Incursion was choking off that lifeline. The operation was also assessed as having bought up to a year’s additional time for Vietnamization to progress as well as providing increased security for the dwindling American forces still in the theater. In his book No More Vietnams, Richard Nixon called it “the most successful military operation of the entire Vietnam War.” In late January 1971 there followed another attempt to sweep enemy sanctuaries and interfere with logistical operations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Known as Operation LAM SON 719, this consisted of a large-scale raid by South Vietnamese forces into southern Laos. U.S. forces had by this time been prohibited by statute from engaging in ground operations in Laos or Cambodia, so they played a supporting, albeit critically important, role in the operation. American engineers upgraded Route 9 to the Laotian border near Khe Sanh, American artillery fired into Laos from positions near the border, massive American logistical support was provided to the South Vietnamese, and U.S. aviation of every description supported a multidivision thrust toward Communist base areas around Tchepone.

Again much matériel was captured or destroyed, and the Communists took horrifying casualties in resisting the incursion, but the results were mixed. Because of congressional restrictions, South Vietnamese units had been operating for the first time without their American advisers. This proved particularly disadvantageous when it came to calling for the various kinds of assistance, from artillery to medevac to close air support. Meanwhile the Communists, relieved of any necessity to leave forces to defend the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) by the perception that U.S. policy foreclosed ground intervention there, were able to concentrate virtually their entire military establishment in the path of the invading forces. An unprecedented density of antiaircraft weaponry proved particularly effective. The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces), still inexperienced in the conduct of multidivision operations, struggled with significant problems of command and control, and when token elements reached Tchepone, the operation was terminated earlier than had been planned. Nevertheless, severe losses had been imposed on the Communists, and additional time was gained for Vietnamization to proceed. As the American pullout continued, it also became clear that LAM SON 719 was the last major action in which U.S. ground elements would take part. One measure of the effectiveness of the cross-border operations into Cambodia and Laos was that it took the Communists until the spring of 1972 to gear up for another major offensive. When it came, however, it provided a severe test of the expanded and improved RVNAF, now left with only air, naval, and logistical support from the Americans. In what came to be known as the Easter Offensive, at the end of March People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces struck in force at three key locations: along the demilitarized zone (DMZ), north of Saigon around An Loc, and in the Central Highlands at Kontum. These attacks triggered major retaliatory strikes by U.S. air and naval forces, including renewed bombing of Hanoi and Hai Phong in North Vietnam for the first time since the halt ordered by President Lyndon Johnson in November 1968 (Operation LINEBACKER I). Large numbers of additional ships and aircraft were dispatched to the theater of war, and Haiphong and North Vietnam’s other major ports were mined, an action often urged by military leaders but never before authorized by civilian authorities. The South Vietnamese fought well, and Abrams noted in a report to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird that they had made great progress over the past year in “integrating their various elements of air, armor, artillery and infantry. This has been outstanding.” American support had been important, indeed crucially important, especially at An Loc, where Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses saved the day. But Abrams made sure everybody understood that no amount of American support would have mattered had the South Vietnamese not been up to the challenge. In late June 1972 Abrams departed Vietnam after five years of service there and headed home to be army chief of staff. He was

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 succeeded as MACV commander by General Fred Weyand, his deputy for the past two years and a man with vast experience in the war. Weyand had commanded the 25th Infantry Division in combat in Vietnam and then II Field Force at the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive. After duty as a principal on the Army Staff in the Pentagon, he went to Paris as Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) representative on the U.S. negotiating team and then finally returned to Vietnam. Now he had inherited the difficult and thankless task of closing down the American expeditionary force. Apparent progress in the Paris peace talks had hit a snag in the late autumn of 1972, and although Secretary of State Kissinger had reported virtually on the eve of the U.S. presidential election that “peace is at hand,” that prospect faded away. Ever-narrowing U.S. expectations and aspirations for the war now focused on getting back American prisoners of war. On December 18, 1972, President Nixon unleashed the most concentrated bombing campaign of the war on North Vietnam (Operation LINEBACKER II). The onslaught continued until December 31, when the North Vietnamese agreed to resumption of the peace talks. Agreement was then swiftly reached, and on January 23, 1973, the truce document was initialed by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. At that point, the United States was virtually out of the war. Left behind in South Vietnam were a small Defense Attaché Office and the U.S. embassy. Also left behind were the North Vietnamese forces with whom the South Vietnamese had been struggling for these many years. The peace agreement, fatally flawed, provided for a cease-fire. The Americans went home, but Communist forces remained largely where they were: in position to fight on. When American troop withdrawals began, commanders on the ground had expected that a substantial residual force would remain in Vietnam, one that would continue to work with the South Vietnamese much as had American forces in Korea following the Korean War. Eventually it became clear that this was not going to be the case. The reality was that a series of increasingly difficult hurdles was set for the South Vietnamese: first to become capable of defeating the Viet Cong insurgency, then to defeat both the Viet Cong and the PAVN, then to do this without help from U.S. ground forces, then to do it without help from U.S. air or naval forces, and finally to do it without even American financial or logistical assistance. They accomplished all but the last, when Congress slashed financial aid to a former ally while North Vietnam’s backers stayed the course. LEWIS SORLEY See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Arc Light Missions; BINH TAY I–IV, Operations; Bunker, Ellsworth; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Clear and Hold; Colby, William Egan; Easter Offensive; Hamburger Hill, Battle of; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Laird, Melvin Robert; LAM SON 719, Operation; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pacification; Paris Peace Accords; Vietnamization; Weyand, Frederick Carlton

1177

References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Kissinger, Henry A. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 U.S. involvement in Vietnam steadily diminished between the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 and the collapse of the Saigon government in 1975. This period is often cynically referred to as the “decent interval,” but the greatest significance of American policy during this period may well be the surprisingly little amount of controversy that it generated. The Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973, by representatives of the United States, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), called for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of all U.S. military forces within 60 days, the return of all captured personnel, efforts to locate missing persons on both sides, and the beginning of talks aimed at achieving “national conciliation and concord.” After some delays and threats by the United States not to withdraw after all, issues surrounding the return of American prisoners of war (POWs) were resolved, and 591 captured U.S. personnel were returned under Operation HOMECOMING in March 1973. After stating firmly on March 29 that “All our American POWs are on their way home,” President Richard Nixon announced that the last American forces were also returning. U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia did not cease, however. Immediately after the Paris agreement, a number of U.S. bases were signed over to South Vietnam, enough planes and helicopters were brought in to give the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) the fourth-largest air force in the world, and several thousand U.S. civilians, most of them former U.S. servicemen, were hired by the U.S. embassy’s Defense Attaché Office to work with and assist the RVNAF. President Nixon also ordered occasional reconnaissance flights over North Vietnam so that he could match his secret promise to supply $4.75 billion in reconstruction aid to North Vietnam with threats to drop the aid and resume bombing if the cease-fire failed to hold. The U.S. Air Force dropped 250,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia in the first six months of 1973; this was more tonnage than had been dropped on Japan in World War II. Heavy bombing also took place in Laos.

1178

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975

Meanwhile, President Nixon began to experience political trouble at home on a number of issues, including the emerging Watergate Scandal. The decline in his political power combined with an increasing war weariness among Americans to undercut his military efforts in Southeast Asia. Despite intense lobbying by the Nixon administration, Congress cut the amount of aid authorized for Vietnam from $2.3 billion in fiscal year 1973 (July 1, 1972–June 30, 1973) to $1 billion in fiscal year 1974. The dramatic increase in the price of oil following the Arab oil embargo and resulting inflation further eroded the buying power of this appropriation. By 1974 the United States was no longer able to replace RVNAF equipment at the level permitted by the Paris Peace Accords, and operations by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) had to be cut by as much as 50 percent. The Nixon administration faced even more difficulties in its own air war. Deeply upset by the disclosure of illegal bombings in Cambodia, on May 10, 1973, a rebellious and heavily Democratic Congress cut off all funding for further U.S. air operations in the theater. By late June, Congress went beyond that to pass a law forbidding further military operations of any sort in Southeast Asia. President Nixon’s angry veto was overridden after negotiations extended the final deadline to August 15, 1973. By November 6, 1973, Congress overrode another Nixon veto, and the War Powers

Act became law. This required the president to inform Congress within 48 hours of the dispatch of U.S. troops to another country and said that the troops must be withdrawn within 60 days unless Congress explicitly authorized their presence. In August 1974 after the Watergate Scandal forced President Nixon to resign from office and Gerald Ford assumed the presidency, American interest in Vietnam declined even further. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger still talked of preserving American credibility in the region and lobbied hard for continued aid, but a generally hostile Congress cut appropriations to only $700 million for fiscal year 1975. Even charges that Americans might still be held against their will in Vietnam were largely discounted by a war-weary public. Ambassador Graham Martin and other embassy officials in Saigon were thus faced with the difficult task of trying to counter the demoralizing effects of U.S. aid cuts on a government that the Americans themselves had once played a crucial role in maintaining but now regarded as too feeble and corrupt to be worth trying to save. The decline in American interest in Vietnam became clear to the North Vietnamese and PRG forces when the United States did not respond to the January 7, 1975, capture of the provincial capital of Phuoc Binh and the rest of Phuoc Long Province. North Vietnamese military leaders now felt that they could push into

Vietnamese scale the wall of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, trying to get to the helicopter pickup zone in the last days of the Vietnam War, April 29, 1975. (AP/Wide World Photos)

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present the Central Highlands. When a disastrous retreat destroyed key elements in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), North Vietnamese forces continued on toward the main South Vietnamese cities. The final phase of the war had begun. During this period the U.S. Congress rejected administration requests for additional aid and refused to discuss having U.S. troops reenter the war. As Kissinger sadly stated on April 17, 1975, “The Vietnam debate has run its course.” The Saigon government surrendered on April 30, 1975, a mere 55 days after the final Communist offensive began. The speed of that offensive combined with Ambassador Martin’s determination to keep up morale meant that many Vietnamese who should have been evacuated by the Americans were left behind. As television screens in America displayed dramatic images of Americans being evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, Communist forces quickly solidified their power in Cambodia and Laos as well. Fortunately for the United States, Kissinger’s remark about the finality of debate over the U.S. involvement in Vietnam signaled not only the cessation of all military efforts but also a lack of scapegoating over who was to blame for the tragedy. Unlike the earlier angry charges that the Democrats had “lost” China in 1949 and, to a lesser extent, Korea in 1953, Americans this time around did not engage in a great debate over responsibility for the defeat. The sacrifices of the U.S. military, the clear incompetence and corruption of the Saigon forces, and the scope of the effort, not just by the relatively liberal Democratic president Lyndon Johnson but also by the deeply conservative Republican president Richard Nixon, combined to give Americans a more realistic sense of their power to implement policy. PETER K. FROST See also Ford, Gerald Rudolph; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; HOMECOMING, Operation; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Martin, Graham A.; Missing in Action, Allied; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Peace Accords; Prisoners of War, Allied; Television and the Vietnam War; War Powers Act; Watergate Scandal References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present After the victory of the forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in April 1975, the United States carried out a punitive foreign policy toward the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam

1179

(SRV). Washington not only refused to normalize relations with the newly reunited state but also actively sought to isolate Vietnam politically, economically, and diplomatically. SRV leaders expected the United States to fulfill the pledge made by President Richard M. Nixon to North Vietnamese premier Pham Von Dong on February 1, 1973, of some $3.3 billion dollars in U.S. reconstruction aid. Instead, the trade embargo that had applied to North Vietnam under the Trading with the Enemy Act was now extended to all of Vietnam. The United States also pressured other nations, most importantly Japan, to adhere to the embargo. Furthermore, the United States blocked credits and loans from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank, and some $150 million in Vietnamese assets in the United States were frozen. The United States vetoed all of Vietnam’s requests to join the United Nations (UN), which would have given Vietnam international legitimacy. The Gerald R. Ford administration adopted this policy to punish the SRV for a war that America lost. In 1977 the Jimmy Carter administration cautiously sought to move away from this punitive policy. Washington appeared receptive to establishing diplomatic relations with Vietnam provided that Vietnam give a “proper accounting” of the fate of some 2,500 Americans missing in action (MIA). Between the spring of 1977 and the autumn of 1978, a series of preliminary talks between the two countries came close to a tentative agreement. Washington even dropped its veto of Vietnamese membership in the UN. However, the talks fell apart over Vietnamese demands for billions of dollars in war reparations. Washington flatly rejected this, contending that Vietnam itself completely violated the Paris accords by invading South Vietnam in 1975. Carter declared that aid would follow the normalization of relations but could not be linked to either normalization or to the MIA issue. Negotiations temporarily broke down. In 1978 Vietnam dropped its demands for war reparations as a precondition for recognition. However, by then Washington was far less enthusiastic about normalizing relations with Vietnam. Congress and the American public were decidedly not interested. The Carter administration became concerned over Vietnamese troop buildups along their Cambodian border, a heightened Soviet influence in the region, and a growing exodus of Vietnamese refugees. Most importantly, the Carter administration was moving toward establishing full relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Because of worsening relations between Vietnam and China that would culminate in a full-scale border war in 1979, the administration believed that normalizing relations with Vietnam could jeopardize good relations with China. Once the United States established full relations with China in 1978, Vietnam was ignored. Then in November 1978 Vietnam signed a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union, putting Vietnam solidly in the Soviet camp when the Cold War heated up again in the late 1970s. Vietnam’s invasion and subsequent occupation of Cambodia, the unresolved issue of MIAs, and other problems led to little progress between the SRV

1180

United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present

During April 29–30, 1975, as the city of Saigon fell to Communist forces, U.S. helicopters evacuated the remaining Americans and some Vietnamese from the city during Operation FREQUENT WIND. (UPI-Bettmann/Corbis)

and the United States in normalizing diplomatic relations or in ending the crippling trade embargo that was costing Vietnam billions of dollars in potential loans and credits. The MIA issue was the most stubborn and sensitive question dividing the two states. American television and cinema exploited the issue by conveying the impression that Americans were still imprisoned in Vietnam, which was bolstered by polls and by congressional sentiment. Some 1,750 Americans were listed as MIAs in Vietnam, and nearly 2,400 were listed as MIAs in all of Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Defense considered virtually all MIAs legally dead, their bodies simply impossible to find in the inaccessible jungles, mountains, and seas. MIAs were not unique to the Vietnam War. World War II and the Korean War, for example, had 80,000 and 8,000 MIAs, respectively, still unaccounted for, a far higher percentage than for the Vietnam War. Despite numerous reports of sightings by refugees and international aid organization representatives, none have ever been confirmed. American veterans even conducted forays into Laos searching for MIAs, again without any success. When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in January 1981, he promised to deal forthrightly with the MIA question. His tough position that Vietnam be held accountable for all MIAs was strongly supported by several nongovernmental groups, most significantly the National League of POW/MIA Families. In a speech

before the group’s national meeting in 1988, Reagan declared that Americans still felt “great pain” over the issue, and the lack of progress poisoned any prospects for normalization. Seeking to break the stalemate in the mid-1980s, Vietnam made concessions. In July 1985 Vietnam for the first time permitted an American inspection team to visit a potential MIA burial site. Additional searches were made during 1985, and remains of more than 30 airmen who had been shot down were returned to the United States. In 1987 and again in 1989 former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General John Vessey visited Vietnam on behalf of the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations to discuss the issue. Vietnam pledged full cooperation. Between 1985 and 1990 the remains of nearly 200 American servicemen were returned. Possible leads, no matter how small, were thoroughly investigated. Vietnam provided Americans access to war records, archives, and even Vietnamese cemeteries. In 1991 the United States opened an office in Hanoi to coordinate efforts in its search for MIAs. By 1995, 35 different searches had been conducted. Besides the MIA question, misunderstandings on other issues also divided the two states. First, the United States declared that any negotiations for normalization could not occur until all Vietnamese troops had withdrawn from Cambodia. Washington considered Vietnam’s occupation as part of a growing Soviet assertiveness in the world. Under strong pressure from Soviet leader

United States, Nongovernmental Organizations, 1954–Present Mikhail Gorbachev, who was seeking rapprochement with China and an end to a very costly stalemate, Vietnam agreed to withdraw all its forces by September 1989. In return, China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc agreed to cut its support for the Khmer Rouge guerrilla fighters and end Vietnam’s international isolation. Second, the Orderly Departure Program, carried out under the auspices of the UN, was designed to promote an orderly resettlement in the West, mainly the United States, of Vietnamese political refugees who might otherwise try to flee by sea. After years of stalling by Vietnam, the program started functioning properly at the end of the 1980s. Furthermore, virtually all of the estimated 35,000 Amerasians (children of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers) and their families were resettled in the United States. In 1990 an agreement was also signed that allowed tens of thousands of officials and officers of the former South Vietnamese government and army to immigrate to the United States. Thus, once-serious problems were resolved one by one to mutual satisfaction. Significant progress toward normalized U.S.-Vietnamese relations occurred after 1990. The Bill Clinton administration moved cautiously, albeit steadily, toward a full normalization of economic and political ties. Most significantly, the American trade embargo was finally lifted in February 1994. That action allowed American trade and investment. The United States dropped its veto on credits and loans to Vietnam from international lending associations. Yet some trade restrictions still hindered American companies from taking a greater role in developing what many consider to be Southeast Asia’s “next dragon.” Humanitarian aid as well as cultural and educational exchanges, both governmental and private, increased. American tourism also skyrocketed as veterans and Vietnamese Americans returned to visit friends and relatives. In January 1995 American and Vietnamese officials signed an agreement exchanging liaison offices in their respective capitals. Finally, despite opposition from the MIA lobby and Republican Party conservatives, in July 1995 President Clinton extended full diplomatic ties to Vietnam. On August 6, 1995, U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher looked on as the American flag was raised over the U.S. embassy in Hanoi. In the final step toward establishing full diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam, President Clinton nominated Representative Douglas “Pete” Peterson (D-Fla.), a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, as the first U.S. envoy to Vietnam. The Senate confirmed Peterson in April 1997, and he took up his duties in Hanoi in May. In June, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright visited Hanoi and met with Vietnamese leaders. She also traveled to Ho Chi Minh City, the first U.S. secretary of state to do so since the Vietnam War, and laid the cornerstone for a new American consulate there. Since 1997, trade ties between Vietnam and the United States have grown rapidly. By 2006 the United States was the single largest importer of Vietnamese products, accounting for 18.8 percent of all Vietnamese exports; Japan and China were the second- and

1181

third-largest importers, accounting for 13.2 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively. Facilitating U.S.-Vietnamese trade was the landmark July 13, 2000, Bilateral Trade Agreement, negotiated between the U.S. and Vietnamese governments. This has helped fuel the transformation of Vietnam’s economy from an import-based system to a manufacturing-based export economy. The agreement also helped direct U.S. private investment to Vietnam. In 2006 Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization, which was backed by the United States and many other Western nations. A number of bilateral summits between U.S. and Vietnamese leaders have broadened relations between the two countries, and in November 2006 President George W. Bush visited Hanoi, a landmark event. In 2007 Vietnam’s president visited Washington, and the following year Vietnam’s prime minister visited the United States. The two nations have also held an annual summit on human rights and have engaged in a bilateral counternarcotics agreement, a civil aviation agreement, and a textile agreement. In January 2007 the U.S. Congress approved Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Vietnam. In the autumn of 2008 U.S. and Vietnamese leaders met to discuss regional security issues. Despite the enormous progress made in U.S.-Vietnamese relations, Washington continues to press Hanoi on its human rights record, especially when it comes to the suppression of political dissent in Vietnam. However, in 2006 Washington determined that Vietnam was no longer a serious violator of religious freedom. The two nations continue to work cooperatively in the areas of regional defense, nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, and international law enforcement. MICHAEL SHARE See also Bush, George Herbert Walker; Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Clinton, William Jefferson; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Khmer Rouge; Missing in Action, Allied; Peterson, Douglas Brian; Prisoners of War, Allied; Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References SarDesai, D. R. Vietnam: The Struggle for National Identity. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Williams, Michael. Vietnam at the Crossroads. London: Pinter, 1992. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

United States, Nongovernmental Organizations, 1954–Present American nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played a significant role in U.S. involvement in Vietnam, providing emergency relief and economic development assistance during years of attempted nation building and escalated military conflict. Even after the U.S. government severed ties with Vietnam in 1975, some

1182

United States Agency for International Development

NGOs orchestrated refugee evacuations, organized reconciliation movements, and channeled the only American aid available to the Vietnamese people. Although some NGOs provided assistance to refugees during the Indochina War, more followed with substantial aid programs after the 1954 Geneva Accords. Groups such as CARE, Catholic Relief Services, the International Rescue Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, and the Church World Service entered the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with the humanitarian goal of helping people escape political and military upheaval. They also hoped to save South Vietnam from Communist revolution and stabilize a new nation with democratic and capitalist institutions. Encouraged by the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee for Voluntary Foreign Aid, these agencies assisted U.S., French, and South Vietnamese government efforts to evacuate nearly 1 million refugees, mostly Catholic, fleeing the Communist-controlled Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Between 1954 and 1964, American NGOs provided millions of dollars to resettle refugees and helped develop economic projects in villages and cities and build houses, hospitals, schools, cultural centers, and orphanages in South Vietnam. Private agencies worked closely with U.S. and Saigon officials, who encouraged their projects by granting funds, authorizing programs, advising personnel, and providing transportation and security. The majority of food distributed by NGOs was made available by the U.S. government through Public Law 480, or the Food for Peace program. As the Communist insurgency intensified, NGOs’ connections and dependence on the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments politicized and compromised their humanitarian aims. NGO activity increased dramatically after 1964, as American military intervention heightened the need for humanitarian assistance. By 1970, 33 American NGOs operated in South Vietnam, with 374 expatriate staff and programs in excess of $27 million. The war divided NGOs into conflicting camps. Some agencies supported U.S. policy and continued to depend on government funding and security. A few even distributed food from the Food for Peace program to Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops and assisted minority populations in providing intelligence information. Other NGOs refused government funds and tried to distance themselves from U.S. actions. The Mennonite Central Committee and the American Friends Service Committee offered aid to people on both sides of the conflict and openly criticized U.S. policy. In 1971 International Voluntary Services, a major recipient of government resources, was expelled from South Vietnam for its condemnation of American military actions. Once the United States pulled out of Vietnam and ended diplomatic relations in 1975, most NGOs followed and concentrated their efforts on relocating thousands of refugees (the so-called boat people) fleeing the Communist regime. Indeed, until the United States established diplomatic relations with the Social Republic of Vietnam (SRV), NGOs found that operating within Vietnam was quite difficult. Private agencies that pushed for reconstruction aid

and reconciliation found it difficult to circumvent the U.S. government policy of isolating Vietnam by withholding economic aid and humanitarian assistance. Once the political climate improved with the Cambodian peace agreement in 1991 and the U.S. government’s decision to establish full diplomatic ties with Hanoi in 1995, Washington altered its stance and allowed some funds to be channeled through private agencies for disaster relief, agricultural needs, and health programs. NGOs continue to play a pivotal role in promoting improved relations with Vietnam and in encouraging the U.S. government to allow more aid programs to reconstruct and develop the region. NGOs such as the Ford Foundation and the East Meets West (EMW) Foundation have been at the forefront of activity in Vietnam since 2000. In 2008 the EMW established a pilot program to work with the private sector in Vietnam in an effort to deal with issues of climate change. The program will help the poorest of Vietnam’s residents deal with the problems and challenges associated with global warming and climate change. DELIA PERGANDE See also American Friends of Vietnam; Refugees and Boat People References Meinertz, Midge Austin, ed. Witness in Anguish. New York: Vietnam Christian Service, 1975. Minear, Larry. “Private Aid and Public Policy: A Case Study.” Indochina Issues (June 1988): 1–8. Rawlings, Stuart. The IVS Experience from Algeria to Vietnam. Washington, DC: International Voluntary Services, 1992. Spencer, Dao, ed. Directory of U.S. NGOs Vietnam Programs. New York: U.S. NGO Forum on Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, 1992.

United States Agency for International Development Agency responsible for administering the economic aid program of the United States to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). With the 1954 Geneva Accords and the temporary establishment of two separate Vietnams, the economic assistance program of the U.S. government to the South Vietnamese came under the administration of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which evolved out of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA). USAID administered the economic assistance program through its field agency in South Vietnam, the United States Operation Mission (USOM). USAID provided not only American economic support to the government of Ngo Dinh Diem but also the economic foundation for the survival of the new South Vietnamese government. Between 1955 and 1960 U.S. economic aid averaged from $220 million to $270 million a year, or more than 20 percent of the gross national product of South Vietnam. During this period USAID

United States Agency for International Development provided economic assistance through a variety of programs that addressed education, agriculture, public health, public safety, local government, public works, industrial development, land reform, and refugee resettlement. USAID monies were used for the construction of schoolhouses and universities, the establishment of health centers and hospitals, the purchase of agricultural technology, and the construction of highways, hydroelectric facilities, and industrial centers. Public safety projects included support for the development of a national police force and local security forces. USAID monies were also funneled into local governments, assisting in the 1956 election of a Constituent Assembly to draft a national constitution and in the election of local representatives to the South Vietnamese National Assembly. USAID assistance also provided the support necessary to cope with the immediate crisis involving the resettlement of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Following the 1954 Geneva Accords that established a temporary partition of the country pending national elections in 1956, perhaps 1 million refugees fled to South Vietnam from North Vietnam. Many of these were Catholics who provided the principal political base for South Vietnamese prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem in his anti-Communist crusade. USAID provided the economic assistance to resettle these refugees and, in the process, promoted a land reform campaign to gain their loyalty to the Diem government. USAID assistance also provided support for the construction of houses, mechanical equipment to farm the land, and daily subsistence needs. The largest USAID resettlement project involved land reclamation at Cai San in Kien Giang Province along the Gulf of Thailand extending back into An Giang Province. Some 100,000 refugees cleared and drained nearly 200,000 acres of swampland and dug 12.5 miles of irrigation canals for rice cultivation over a five-year period. This became the showpiece for Diem’s refugee resettlement program. Instead of outright ownership of the land they had reclaimed, the refugees were asked to sign tenancy contracts for lands to be purchased in installments from the government. This, however, led to peasant resentment rather than allegiance to the government. The mismanagement of the Cai San land reform project showed that projects supported by USAID economic assistance and implemented by the South Vietnamese government were often inconsistent with U.S. political objectives. The land development program was a USOM idea to resettle refugees in Land Development Centers (LDCs) on supposedly abandoned lands in the Mekong Delta and in undeveloped lands in the Central Highlands, with the same purpose of gaining peasant allegiance to the government. USAID monies provided assistance for the program. The highlander resettlement program, begun in 1955 as part of the land development program, resettled Montagnards into defensible areas and made Montagnard lands available to Vietnamese refugees. This in turn alienated many Montagnards and promoted the development of the ethnonationalist Montagnard movement.

1183

During the early years of American involvement, USAID worked primarily through Vietnamese government channels in Saigon to advance economic and political objectives. Although USAID personnel made inspection trips to rural areas outside Saigon, they relied primarily on Vietnamese government officials to implement the projects supported through USAID economic assistance. Because USAID officials primarily worked and lived in Saigon, they often failed to properly supervise USAID projects in the field. American monies and assistance were thus often wasted or were used for purposes other than those originally intended. In this regard the economic and political objectives that directed those projects were often subverted by the Vietnamese government bureaucracy and Vietnamese political officials. By the early 1960s USAID had formed the internal Office of Rural Affairs and began to expand its efforts outside of Saigon by sending civilian advisers to more rural areas. USAID advisers began to move into rural provinces and to take a more active and independent role in economic assistance programs. USAID continued to fund engineering projects, such as road and bridge construction; industrial and agricultural production; public health projects, including the drilling of wells and the establishment of health centers; and education projects such as the construction of schools. USAID monies provided equipment for development and construction, supplies such as cement and tin for roofs, and seeds for agricultural production. The intent was to improve the standard of living for the civilian population and thereby attract their support for the Saigon government. One of the more notable programs funded by USAID was the International Volunteer Service (IVS). Founded as a private nonprofit organization in 1953, the IVS served as a model for the Peace Corps and first came to South Vietnam in 1957. In Vietnam the IVS was funded primarily by USAID, but monies also came from the South Vietnamese government during the early years and from private agencies as well. In contrast to most USAID officials, IVS workers were required to study Vietnamese and received instruction in Vietnamese culture. They signed up for a two-year tour in Vietnam, with assignments at the village level ranging from developing agriculture to teaching English. The IVS saw its function as humanitarian and as divorced from USAID political objectives. Don Luce served as IVS director from 1961 to 1967 but resigned to protest U.S. political and military policies that affected IVS work at the village level. The IVS resisted USAID pressure to become more politically involved, and the Saigon government stopped approving its projects in 1971. By mid-1965 USAID economic support for pacification programs reached approximately $500 million per year to build support for the Saigon government. At the same time, however, the war escalated, and long-term development programs often took a backseat to more immediate security concerns and pacification efforts. After 1967, USAID economic assistance was channeled through Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), established under the Military Assistance Command,

1184

United States Air Force

Vietnam (MACV), to organize all civilian aid programs involved in the pacification effort under the military chain of command. DAVID M. BERMAN See also Civic Action; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Land Reform, Vietnam; Marine Combined Action Platoons; Michigan State University Advisory Group; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Montagnards; Pacification; Strategic Hamlet Program References Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Luce, Don, and John Sommer. Viet Nam: The Unheard Voices. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Wiesner, Louis A. Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

United States Air Force When the United States entered the Vietnam War, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) dominated the defense establishment. The USAF had won its separate service status in 1947 based on the theory that strategic bombing—the destruction of an enemy’s industrial war-making capabilities—was a potentially decisive element in warfare. In 1961 the Strategic Air Command (SAC) dominated the USAF, and its budget was greater than that for the entire U.S. Army. In November 1961 President John F. Kennedy ordered the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) under the code name Operation FARM GATE. The air commandos of FARM GATE had three missions. Their overt assignment was to train pilots for the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force). Their covert mission was to fly close air support missions in response to the needs of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). Their hidden agenda was to keep the U.S. Army from taking over the close air support function with its newly developed helicopter gunships. The air commandos managed to train several squadrons of VNAF pilots and performed well in close air support of ARVN and U.S. Army Special Forces units scattered about the countryside. But the indigenous Viet Cong (VC) and increasing numbers of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops were still gaining the upper hand against the ARVN. By 1964, the situation was grim. Beginning in March 1964, USAF leaders called for bombing campaigns against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). After a series of retaliation raids against North Vietnam beginning with the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered Operation ROLLING

THUNDER, a bombing campaign directed against North Vietnam that

began on March 2, 1965. ROLLING THUNDER had three objectives. The first was strategic persuasion: airpower used in ever-intensifying degrees to persuade North Vietnam to end its support for the insurgency in South Vietnam and negotiate an end to the war. Although strategic persuasion remained an objective throughout ROLLING THUNDER, after the massive deployment of U.S. ground forces to South Vietnam began in July 1965, the focus of ROLLING THUNDER switched to interdiction of roads and railroads, primarily in the panhandle of North Vietnam. A continuous but relatively minor objective was to boost the morale of South Vietnamese military and political elites. ROLLING THUNDER became the longest bombing campaign ever conducted by the USAF. The operation lasted for three years and nine months, from March 2, 1965, to October 31, 1968. During that time, the USAF, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps flew more than 700,000 sorties over North Vietnam, with the USAF flying nearly 500,000 of those sorties. North Vietnamese air defenses claimed more than 700 aircraft. In some USAF Republic F-105 Thunderchief units in 1966 and 1967, attrition rates ran between 50 and 75 percent for a one-year tour. During ROLLING THUNDER, 600,000 tons of bombs fell on North Vietnam. ROLLING THUNDER’s ultimate failure came as a result of an inappropriate strategy that dictated a conventional air war against North Vietnam to affect what was basically an unconventional war in South Vietnam. The bombing failed to accomplish its two primary objectives: strategic persuasion and interdiction. North Vietnam was a preindustrial and largely agricultural country with virtually no military industries. Destroying its three small factories (a cement plant, a gunpowder factory, and a steel mill) had no impact on the war in South Vietnam or on Hanoi’s ability to prosecute that war. Furthermore, according to U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), figures, infiltration actually increased, as the flow of troops and supplies moving into South Vietnam doubled each year of ROLLING THUNDER. Amid growing public dissatisfaction with the war, in March 1968 President Johnson limited ROLLING THUNDER strikes to the southern panhandle of North Vietnam. He ended the campaign one week before the 1968 presidential elections, many believed in an attempt to bolster the prospects of Democratic Party presidential candidate Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. If that had indeed been Johnson’s intention it came too late, because Humphrey narrowly lost to Republican Richard Nixon. Throughout the Vietnam War, most USAF air action focused on South Vietnam, where from 1962 until January 23, 1972, some 4 million tons of bombs fell, making it the most-bombed country in the history of aerial warfare. Much of this bomb tonnage was dropped by Boeing B-52 Stratofortress Arc Light missions directed against suspected VC and PAVN encampments and troop concentrations. Airpower played a key role in keeping PAVN forces at bay during the siege of Khe Sanh in 1967 and 1968. During the Easter Offensive of 1972, B-52s and tactical aircraft

United States Air Force

1185

A U.S. Air Force Republic F-105 Thunderchief refuels at a flying gas station while on a bombing mission in January 1966. The refueling aircraft is a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker. (National Archives)

pounded PAVN units as they tried to break through fierce resistance by ARVN ground units throughout South Vietnam, especially at Kontum and An Loc. Undoubtedly thousands of American and allied soldiers owe their lives to the USAF’s quick response to calls for close air support. Critics, however, ask why airpower was not more effective despite the scope of the effort. Did the tremendous capability that the USAF had for moving troops and supplies around South Vietnam actually prolong the war by enabling the U.S. Army to continue to fight a war that it really did not know how to fight? Was airpower counterproductive, given the fact that images of napalm exploding over South Vietnamese villages seemed to support the more extravagant claims of the antiwar movement that a cruel technology was being unleashed on peaceful peasants? Meanwhile, when ROLLING THUNDER ended on October 31, 1968, the bombing did not stop and instead only shifted across the Annamite Mountains to focus on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Operation COMMANDO HUNT, a pure interdiction campaign, officially began

on November 15, 1968. Before COMMANDO HUNT ended in late April 1972, nearly 3 million tons of bombs had fallen on Laos, most of that on infiltration corridors, mountain passes, and supply caches along the trail. Propeller-driven side-firing gunships, of which the Lockheed AC-130 Specter was premier, became the key to the truck war portion of COMMANDO HUNT. At night, gunships roamed up and down the Ho Chi Minh Trail blasting trucks with their computer-aimed 40-millimeter (mm) cannon and, later in the war, 105-mm howitzers. During what has become the classic example of industrial-age aerial warfare, a managerial ethos took control of COMMANDO HUNT operations, with success determined by statistical compilations that included estimates of how many trucks had been destroyed or damaged. The total number of trucks estimated destroyed rose from 9,012 in 1969 to a high of 12,368 in 1970. Because U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) figures indicate that there were only 6,000 trucks in all of North Vietnam and Laos combined, these figures remain highly suspect.

1186

United States Air Force

Undoubtedly COMMANDO HUNT efforts did result in some constriction along the supply arteries into South Vietnam, but the extent of damage inflicted is difficult to estimate. During this period, the nature of the war changed from a guerrilla insurgency to a conventional war with some unconventional aspects, meaning that by 1971 it took far more resources to supply PAVN forces fighting in South Vietnam than it did to support VC guerrilla units five years earlier. The changed nature of the war became evident when North Vietnam launched its massive Easter Offensive on March 30, 1972. PAVN divisions poured out of South Vietnam’s Central Highlands and Cambodia (after traveling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail during COMMANDO HUNT operations), while others crossed the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separated North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The United States responded with Operation LINEBACKER, later dubbed LINEBACKER I, a massive air campaign in which the USAF played a key role. LINEBACKER I began on May 9, 1972, with the aerial mining of Hai Phong Harbor. Meanwhile, USAF, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps squadrons began pounding infiltration routes not only in the southern panhandle but also on the highways and railroads leading from Hanoi to the Chinese border. LINEBACKER I was the first air campaign in which precision-guided munitions, laser and electrooptically guided bombs, were used as part of a coherent strategy. By the time LINEBACKER I ended on October 23, 1972, 155,548 tons of bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam, and the PAVN offensive had been halted. LINEBACKER I was the most effective employment of airpower during the Vietnam War, and the operation succeeded because the nature of the war had changed. LINEBACKER I was conventional airpower used on North Vietnam to stop a conventional invasion. LINEBACKER I was a classic aerial interdiction campaign but one with a strategic dimension in that the operation finally compelled Hanoi’s leaders to negotiate seriously. As a result, the United States and North Vietnam reached an agreement on terms for a cease-fire in late October. At this point, the South Vietnamese leadership, who had been excluded from meaningful roles in the peace negotiations, objected. President Nguyen Van Thieu saw this agreement as a sellout of his country and demanded substantive changes before he would sign it. The chief U.S. negotiator, National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger, and Hanoi’s top negotiator, Le Duc Tho, resumed talks in November, but the talks quickly stalemated. To break this stalemate, President Richard M. Nixon ordered LINEBACKER II. Initially intended as a 3-day bombing campaign aimed at forcing North Vietnam to return to the negotiation table, LINEBACKER II began on December 18, 1972. It continued for 11 days and featured 739 B-52 sorties against targets in and around Hanoi, Hai Phong, and other major North Vietnamese cities. The USAF, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps added 2,000 fighter-bomber sorties. In total, B-52s dropped 15,000 tons of bombs, while the fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons. North Vietnamese defenses brought down 15 B-52s, 9 fighter-bombers, 1 U.S. Navy re-

connaissance jet, and 1 USAF Sikorsky HH-53 “Jolly Green Giant” rescue helicopter. On December 26 USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms used radar bombing techniques to destroy the surfaceto-air missile (SAM) assembly area in downtown Hanoi. That night after specially equipped IRON HAND flights blasted 30 SAM sites around the country, 120 B-52s struck 10 targets within a 15-minute period. North Vietnam was virtually helpless, and its leadership asked if peace talks could resume. President Nixon agreed, but the bombing continued until Hanoi and Washington established an agenda for the talks. On December 29 LINEBACKER II came to an end. The USAF’s role in the Vietnam War is controversial. Airpower enthusiasts point to LINEBACKER II as vindication of strategic bombing doctrine. Critics answer that the nature of the war had changed so that in 1972 North Vietnam was susceptible to that kind of attack, but this would not have been the case had similar attacks been undertaken earlier, as claimed by USAF leaders such as General Curtis E. LeMay. From 1962 though August 1973 when the U.S. Congress mandated an end to the bombing of Cambodia, nearly 8 million tons of bombs fell on Southeast Asia. About half (4 million tons) fell on South Vietnam, much of it in B-52 Arc Light missions directed against suspected VC and PAVN camps in the countryside. This made South Vietnam the most-bombed country in the history of aerial warfare, a dubious distinction for an ally. For its part, the USAF lost 2,257 aircraft to hostile action or accidents during the Vietnam War. The majority of aircraft were shot down by light antiaircraft fire, mostly over South Vietnam. Losses over North Vietnam came to 990 aircraft, about 700 of which were USAF planes, and 2,800 airmen perished. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Arc Light Missions; COMMANDO HUNT, Operation; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; LeMay, Curtis Emerson; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Order of Battle Dispute; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Littauer, Raphael, and Norman Thomas Uphoff. The Air War in Indochina. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Michel, Marshall L., III. Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965–1972. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1988. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993.

United States Army

United States Army As in all of America’s wars, the vast majority of the troops who fought in Vietnam were U.S. Army soldiers. U.S. Army involvement in Vietnam began with the formation of the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina (MAAG, Indochina), on September 17, 1950. In 1955 MAAG, Indochina, was redesignated MAAG, Vietnam. The primary MAAG mission was to provide service support, combat arms training, and field advisers to the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces). Although the MAAG was a joint command, the majority of its personnel as well as its commander came from the U.S. Army. With the expansion of the American role in Vietnam, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was formed on February 8, 1962. MAAG continued in existence for two more years, but MACV eventually took over all advisory functions. As with MAAG, MACV was a joint command, but the vast majority of its personnel and its commander were from the U.S. Army. MACV became the principal U.S. command in Vietnam. Under it came the U.S. Army Vietnam (USARV), the U.S. Seventh Air Force, the III Marine Amphibious Force, and U.S. Navy units inside Vietnam. Advisers to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) came from the Field Advisory Element of MACV, which at its height in 1968 provided 9,430 advisers. The USARV was established in Vietnam on July 20, 1965. Its primary mission was to control all U.S. Army logistical and administrative units in Vietnam. The commanding general of MACV was also the commander of the USARV. In day-to-day operations, however, the deputy commander of the USARV actually ran things. Operations of U.S. Army combat units were controlled by corps-level headquarters, commanded by a lieutenant general (except in the IV Corps Tactical Zone). Corps are flexible organizations to which divisions and other units can be assigned as needed for specific operations. Throughout the course of the war, many divisions were assigned to more than one corps at different times. Because the ARVN was organized into four corps on a regional basis, the American corps were called field forces to avoid confusion. I Field Force controlled operations in the north of the country, while II Field Force controlled operations in the south. In 1968 a third corps was formed and was actually called a corps. XXIV Corps, which initially came under the operational control of the III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF), controlled U.S. Army units near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and in the extreme north of the country. In March 1970 the command relationship reversed, with III MAF subordinate to XXIV Corps. The division, commanded by a major general, is normally the largest tactical unit in the U.S. Army. At the height of the war, 7 of the U.S. Army’s 19 divisions were in Vietnam, 6 were in the United States, 4 were in Germany, and 2 were in South Korea. A Vietnam War–era division was a fixed unit, normally consisting of 10 or 11 infantry battalions, 4 artillery battalions, an armored cavalry squadron, an aviation battalion, and various support battalions.

1187

Between the division headquarters and the battalions, each division had three brigades, intermediate-level headquarters commanded by a colonel. A brigade controlled three to five maneuver battalions. Brigades were not fixed organizations, and battalions were attached and detached from them as needed for specific operations. The battalion, commanded by a lieutenant colonel, is the basic tactical unit in the U.S. Army. The structure of the infantry battalions underwent several changes during the war, and the battalions in Vietnam eventually were organized much differently than similar units in Germany or in the United States. By 1968 the standard light infantry battalion in Vietnam had four rifle companies, a combat support company, and a headquarters and headquarters company. The combat support company provided the battalion reconnaissance section and the heavy (4.2-inch) mortar platoon. The headquarters company provided battalion administration, maintenance, and supply functions. Typical infantry battalion strength was 43 officers, 2 warrant officers, and 875 enlisted soldiers. More than any other 20th-century American war, Vietnam was a company commander’s war: a war of small unit actions. The infantry rifle company, commanded by a captain, consisted of a

Members of Company B, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Infantry Brigade, carry a wounded comrade from the field during a firefight in the Lhu Duc District, South Vietnam, October 14, 1967. (National Archives)

1188

United States Army

Organization of a Typical Infantry Division Component Divisional headquarters company Brigade headquarters company Divisional artillery headquarters company Infantry battalion Armored cavalry squadron 105mm artillery battalion (direct support) 155mm artillery battalion (general support) Aviation battalion Medical battalion Signal battalion Engineer battalion Maintenance battalion Supply & transport battalion Military police company Officers Warrant officers Enlisted

Number 1 3 1 10 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1,330 26 20,700

Notes: A brigade headquarters normally controlled 3 to 5 battalions. The divisional artillery headquarters controlled the division’s 3 direct support battalions and 1 general support battalion, plus any other non-divisional battalions designated to reinforce the division for a specific operation. Some divisions had more than 10 infantry battalions. The infantry battalions of the 1st Cavalry Division were called “cavalry” battalions but were airmobile infantry units. Some divisions also had tank battalions. The 1st Cavalry Division, 23rd Infantry Division, and 101st Airborne Divisions had much larger aviation groups, each consisting of 3 battalions.

company headquarters, three rifle platoons, and a mortar platoon. The rifle platoon, led by a lieutenant, had three rifle squads and a weapons squad. The rifle squad was led by a staff sergeant and was divided into two fire teams, each led by a sergeant. The weapons squad had two M-60 machine guns and one 90-millimeter (mm) recoilless rifle. The mortar platoon had three 81-mm mortars. A rifle squad had 10 soldiers, a rifle platoon had 1 officer and 41 soldiers, and a rifle company had 6 officers and 158 enlisted soldiers. The U.S. Army also had several separate brigades and regiments that operated independently from the divisions. In some special cases, divisional brigades were detached to operate separately. Separate brigades were augmented with support elements to make them semi–self-sufficient. Rather than being commanded by a colonel, these separate brigades often were commanded by a brigadier general. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment was also a brigade-sized separate unit that operated directly under the control of a field forces headquarters. There has been much criticism of the U.S. Army’s field performance and poor morale and the lack of professionalism among its officer corps. Much of that criticism is accurate and justified, but some of it is overstated. The mentality of careerism and ticketpunching among the officer corps has been well documented in Crisis in Command, by Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage. Although the typical infantry, artillery, or armor enlisted man spent his entire 12-month tour of duty assigned to a combat unit, the average officer spent only 6 months with such a unit. The original purpose of this policy was to give as many officers as possible the opportunity for combat experience. The effect, however, was that

the enlisted men came to believe that their officers were not being subjected to the same risks as they were, and this led to a loss in confidence in the officer corps. Armies—all armies at all times—can never be anything more than reflections of the societies from which they are drawn. The careerism and ticket-punching mentality of the Vietnam War–era officer corps was adopted from American business and government. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, former president of Ford Motor Company, was himself a driving force in pushing the military to be more similar to big business. But the bottom line in business is measured clearly in terms of dollars and cents. Military operations are impossible to measure in those terms. Hence, the businesslike fixation with quantification of results led during the Vietnam War to ghoulish practices such as body counts. The U.S. Army’s replacement system was another source of severe problems. Unlike previous wars in which American soldiers went into combat with their units for the duration, soldiers in Vietnam served only 12 months. This meant that there was constant turnover within units, which made it impossible for leaders to develop the cohesion, teamwork, and personal bonding so necessary for a unit to survive and succeed in combat. The individual replacement system was made possible by America’s tremendous transportation capabilities and was far easier to manage than rotating entire units in and out of the combat zone. Therefore, at the managerial level the U.S. Army chose administrative expedience over combat effectiveness. The individual soldiers, however, paid the price. Among all the wars in America’s history, the Vietnam War was unique in that the Army Reserve and the National Guard were not mobilized. In all previous wars, a large portion (often the majority) of the force was comprised of National Guardsmen and Reservists. In World War II, for example, Reservists and Guardsmen accounted for 29 percent of all U.S. Army officers, 62 percent of the battalion commanders, and 84 percent of the company commanders. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, there was a small-scale call-up, and eventually 7,040 Guardsmen and 3,500 Reservists did serve in Vietnam, some 3 percent of the force there. The reason for the lack of large-scale involvement of Reservists was the Lyndon Johnson administration’s reluctance to send too strong a signal to both the American people and to the world at large. This lack of a strong signal, however, served to convince the American people that the involvement in Vietnam was not something that affected the country’s vital interests. General Creighton Abrams recognized this only too well. When he became chief of staff of the U.S. Army in 1972, he purposely reconfigured the army’s force structure in such a way that any future large-scale deployments of the army would be impossible without mobilizing its reserve components. This is exactly what happened during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Bosnia peacekeeping mission beginning in 1996, and the later wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although the typical soldier on the ground often had no idea why he was in Vietnam, morale was generally good during the

United States Army

1189

1190

United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade

early part of the war. This changed when more of the American public began to oppose the war in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Opposing the war was one thing, but many Americans, most particularly many in the antiwar movement, committed the terrible error of focusing their anger and frustration on the soldiers fighting the war. As word of the disgraceful treatment of returning soldiers filtered back to the battlefield, the soldiers in the jungles and rice paddies came to believe that they had been betrayed by the very people who had sent them to Vietnam in the first place. From that point on morale fell apart and, with it, discipline and combat effectiveness. Between 1961 and 1975, a total of 30,868 U.S. Army soldiers died in Vietnam as the result of hostile action; 7,193 died from other causes. A total of 201,536 U.S. Army soldiers were wounded in action. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; African Americans in the U.S. military; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Casualties; Herbert, Anthony; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Order of Battle Dispute; Selective Service; United States Air Force; United States Navy; United States Special Forces; Westmoreland, William Childs References Gabriel, Richard A., and Paul L. Savage. Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Hackworth, Colonel David H., and Julie Sherman. About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade Infamous U.S. military correctional facility in Vietnam. Rarely called it by its official name, the U.S. Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade (USARVIS) was located in a headquarters and logistical complex on the outskirts of Long Binh in Bien Hoa Province. Most soldiers knew it as Long Binh Jail, or LBJ. Early in its involvement in Vietnam, the United States established a military prison at a former tennis court at Pershing Field near Saigon. Soldiers called it “the stockade.” It was moved to Long Binh in the summer of 1966, a change necessitated by the huge American troop buildup

and the consequent need to house the increasing number of military offenders. Long Binh was a good location. Newly arrived GIs were processed at Long Binh, where they saw firsthand what would happen to them if they broke the rules (and many did). Offenders were sent to LBJ from all four U.S. Army corps tactical zones (CTZs). Few officers or senior noncommissioned officers (NCOs) were confined within its perimeter of cyclone fence and concertina wire, but there were exceptions. One was Lieutenant William Calley, who had been involved in the My Lai Massacre and stayed there for some weeks prior to his transshipment back to the United States. Others included Colonel Robert B. Rheault, commander of the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group, and six of his officers, charged with the premeditated murder of a suspected double agent. LBJ absorbed those who went absent without official leave (AWOL) and those who refused orders. The complex housed those convicted of drug abuse, combat refusal, and fragging (the intentional precipitation of friendly fire casualties). Men convicted of war crimes passed through its gates, and incorrigible discipline busters inevitably ended up at LBJ after their courtsmartial. Rapists, thieves, black marketeers, and murderers all came to know LBJ well. Periods of incarceration at LBJ were bad time and did not count toward the fulfillment of one’s 365-day tour or one’s overall term of enlistment. The memory of time spent in the stockade became an indelible part of some men’s lives, and even hardened NCOs spoke of LBJ in the early days in hushed tones. The simple threat of being sent there was sufficient to keep many GIs obedient to orders; they would rather face the enemy than serve time at LBJ. Initially the Military Police Corps assigned to LBJ as guards and other personnel were those who had little or no professional training as confinement facility specialists. Size, weight, and toughness seemed to be primary qualifications for a job there. Guards demanded unthinking obedience at all times and imposed their own rigid and exacting disciplinary standards. Infractions of rules brought about special confinement in “the box,” a metal conex container that stood in the open absorbing the blazing rays of the tropical sun, or other punishments such as filling endless sandbags, guard-administered baths at midnight in the shower facility during which some inmates nearly drowned, or surreptitious beatings. For the first two years of LBJ’s existence at Long Binh, official treatment of prisoners regularly exceeded normally allowable limits. That was the era in which the legend of Long Binh Jail was formed. Then on August 29, 1968, prisoners seized the stockade compound and set out on a rampage of destruction. They fired the buildings, tore down what would not burn, and beat any guard within reach. The commander of LBJ, Lieutenant Colonel Vern Johnson, never recovered from the beating he received and was medically retired from the service. Commanders thereafter oversaw the reconstruction of LBJ into a gleaming modern correctional institute. Guards underwent appropriate training in a new military occupational specialty (MOS)

United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii 1191 and became correctional facility specialists. Social services were upgraded. Punishments became less arbitrary and more rational. The kitchen at LBJ became famous for the quality of its food, attracting many officers who came there for meals from units all over Long Binh. As the U.S. Army’s pullout began, LBJ’s population dwindled. In 1972 the army closed the facility, transferring the few remaining prisoners and guards to the original stockade area at Pershing Field in Saigon. USARVIS’s existence terminated on March 29, 1973, as the last combat troops departed from Vietnam. CECIL B. CURREY See also Atrocities during the Vietnam War; Calley, William Laws, Jr.; Desertion, U.S. and Communist; Long Binh; Rheault, Robert B. Reference Currey, Cecil B. Long Binh Jail: An Oral History of Vietnam’s Notorious U.S. Military Prison. New York: Brassey’s, 1999.

United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army established two mortuaries in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). One was on the east coast in northern South Vietnam at Da Nang, and the second one was located at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base just outside of the city of Saigon. When U.S. forces departed these mortuaries were closed, and a facility was established at Camp Samae San, Thailand, on January 23, 1973, as the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Samae San, Thailand. Its assigned mission was to search for, recover, and identify the remains of U.S. servicemen who had been lost in the war. In 1976 as a consequence of troop-reduction agreements between the governments of Thailand and the United States, the laboratory moved to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, and was redesignated the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (USACILHI).

Military pallbearers pass an honor guard with remains believed to be those of American servicemen killed in action in the Vietnam War, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, February 14, 2003. On this occasion, six sets of remains were flown to Hawaii for identification at the army’s Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam. The remains were found in Salavan Province, Laos, at the crash sites of an F-4 fighter shot down in 1969 and a helicopter downed in 1972. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1192

United States Army Special Services

The USACILHI is now responsible for identifying the remains of military personnel killed in military conflicts from World War II to the present. Much of the work, of course, is performed onsite at locations in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and other locations where remains of missing U.S. servicemen are discovered. The USACILHI’s civilian and military personnel include recovery teams of 10 to 14 individuals each that consist of forensic anthropologists, photographers, interpreters, explosive ordnance disposal experts, radio operators, and other support staff. The USACILHI’s work consists of conducting archaeological, anthropological, and odontological investigations that may last anywhere from 35 to 60 days and include the extensive documentation of the research that is being performed. Anthropologists examine recovered skeletal remains to produce a personal biological profile, including the individual’s sex, race, age, and height. The anthropologists also examine remains for trauma caused at or near the time of death, pathological conditions of bones such as arthritis, and material evidence including uniforms, personal effects, and identification tags. Since the mid-1990s, considerable use has been made of various kind of DNA records to achieve positive identification of missing service personnel. USACILHI personnel work closely with the families of missing personnel and with government officials in the countries where the investigations are conducted. During the personnel identification process, the USACILHI may consult with or request assistance from agencies such as the Tripler Army Medical Center, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Smithsonian Institution, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and leading civilian forensic scientists. A thorough review process is conducted, and the relevant armed services branch secretary is responsible for returning remains to the family for final disposal. Approximately 40 percent of all USACILHI materials consist of Vietnam War remains, and about 10 missions are conducted in Southeast Asia annually for Vietnam War cases. The remains of approximately 74 prisoners of war (POWs) or soldiers missing in action (MIA) are identified each year. An estimated 1,800 Vietnam War personnel were still listed as MIA as of 2007. The USACILHI is now part of the military’s Joint Prisoner of War Missing in Action Account Command. ALBERT T. CHAPMAN See also Casualties; Missing in Action, Allied References Belcher, William, and Patricia Gaffney-Ansel. “A Long Road Home.” Archaeology 55(6) (November–December 2002): 42–47. Leney, Mark D. “Sampling Skeletal Remains for Ancient DNA (aDNA): A Measure of Success.” Historical Archaeology 40(3) (2006): 31–49. Swift, Earl. Where They Lay: Searching for America’s Lost Soldiers. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. United States Army. United States Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii. Honolulu: United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, 1992.

U.S. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, Investigations Subcommittee. Activities of the Central Identification Laboratory. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987.

United States Army Special Services Organization providing recreational activities for military personnel. The U.S. Army Special Services program in Vietnam began on July 1, 1966, when responsibility for providing diversified comprehensive recreational activities for U.S. and allied military forces was transferred from the U.S. Navy to the U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), with operational responsibility assigned to the 1st Logistical Command. General William Westmoreland considered recreational facilities critical for both maintaining troop morale and providing on-base diversions so that American soldiers would not overwhelm the Vietnamese economy. Special Services facilities helped to fulfill this need. The Special Services program consisted of arts and crafts, entertainment, library, rest and recuperation (R&R), recreation (sports and motion pictures), and service facilities. Military personnel assumed responsibility for R&R and recreation, but civilian volunteers, both women and men, supervised and staffed the remaining branches. Initially, the USARV supplied only the organizational structure and technical and supervisory administrative personnel. Individual units provided all other administrative and logistical support, including the assignment of full-time military personnel and local national employees to each facility. In March 1970, however, Special Services was reorganized and centralized as the USARV Special Services Agency (Provisional). At that time, 31 craft shops and photography laboratories, 6 entertainment offices, 23 service clubs, and 39 libraries, most housed in permanent structures, were in operation. Civilian librarians also administered 250 field library units, arranging the distribution of 190,000 magazine subscriptions and 350,000 paperback books. Recreation specialists directed a variety of leisure activities, coordinated United Service Organizations (USO) tours of commercial entertainers and celebrities, and produced and acted in small theater productions. They created the Command Military Touring Shows, sending military personnel to entertain soldiers in areas that commercial shows could not visit for security reasons. The majority of Special Services programs and services were located in base camps and command areas, inaccessible to fighting units but well placed to provide diversionary activities for support personnel and field units rotating into the base camps that General Westmoreland wanted isolated from the local economy. However, the Command Military Touring Shows and the field distribution of expendable reading materials did provide recreational support to the soldier in the field, as did the R&R program. Although the exact number is unknown, between 200 and 300 civilians, about 75 percent of them women, served with Special

United States Coast Guard Services in Vietnam between 1966 and 1972. Two recreation specialists assigned to service clubs died of nonhostile causes. Dorothy Phillips died in a 1967 plane crash near Qui Nhon, and Rosalyn Muskat died in a 1968 jeep accident at Bien Hoa. ANN L. KELSEY See also American Red Cross; Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. References “General Historical Records.” National Archives Branch Depository, Records of the United States Army, Vietnam (USARV), RG 472. Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam, Special Services Agency (Provisional), Entertainment Branch, College Park, MD. “General Records.” National Archives Branch Depository, Records of the United States Army, Vietnam (USARV), RG 472. Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam, Office of the Civilian Personnel Director, Office of the Director, College Park, MD. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976.

United States Coast Guard On April 29, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized deployment of U.S. Coast Guard cutters to Vietnam to assist the U.S. Navy in preventing arms and supplies from being smuggled to Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas. Coast Guard Squadron One, with 17 82-foot Pointclass steel-hulled patrol boats (WPBs, the U.S. Coast Guard designation for “patrol craft, large”) and 250 men, was established on May 27, 1965. The cutters were operated by crews of 2 officers and 9 enlisted men. Each ship was armed with five .50-caliber machine guns and a trigger-fired flat-trajectory 81-millimeter mortar. The twin-screwed cutter, powered by diesel engines, had a speed of 17 knots. WPBs were radar equipped, displaced 70 tons, and were shallow-draft (6.5 feet) vessels for working close to shore. The squadron, divided into two divisions, arrived in Vietnam in July 1965. Division 11, based at Phu Quoc island in the Gulf of Thailand, patrolled the Cambodian border and the gulf coast of Vietnam. Division 12 was based at Da Nang and patrolled the 17th Parallel and the coastline south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). A third division of nine cutters was sent to Vietnam on February 22, 1966. Division 13, stationed at Cat Lo, patrolled the rivers and coastal area of the Mekong Delta region south of Saigon. Cutter crewmen boarded and searched hundreds of thousands of junks and sampans, deterring coastal smuggling of arms and ammunition. WPBs were under way on patrol 70 percent of the time and in all weather. Cutters are credited with engaging and destroying most of the interdicted steel-hulled supply trawlers belonging to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Patrol boats supported Special Forces and U.S. Marine Corps amphibious operations and routinely provided close-in fire support and illumination with their mortars for outposts under attack and troop operations ashore.

1193

As the Vietnam conflict escalated, U.S. Navy secretary Paul Nitze requested that the Coast Guard “assist the Department of the Navy by assigning five high endurance cutters to augment Market Time forces.” Coast Guard Squadron Three, consisting of five 311foot Coast Guard high-endurance cutters (HECs), was commissioned at Pearl Harbor on April 24, 1967. Headquartered at Subic Bay in the Philippines, the squadron kept three cutters on patrol continuously during Operation MARKET TIME. Cutters interdicted and destroyed North Vietnamese supply trawlers, provided naval gunfire support, engaged in medical and civil action programs, and supported patrol boat operations. When U.S. Navy destroyers were withdrawn from MARKET TIME on June 30, 1969, Coast Guard HECs continued to maintain the outer barrier. During Squadron Three’s deployments, high-endurance cutters spent 75 percent of their time under way, 20 percent in upkeep, and 5 percent on port visits. From April 1967 to January 1972, 4,500 officers and men and 30 ships participated in deployments with Squadron Three. Cutters retained their white paint schemes during deployments. On February 20, 1966, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), made an urgent request for the assistance of Coast Guard Explosive Loading Detachments (ELDs). The increasing volume of ammunition arriving in Vietnam was handled by inexperienced Vietnamese stevedores who lacked equipment and the skills to safely unload explosives. Two eight-man detachments arrived on June 5, 1966, and were assigned to the U.S. Army’s 1st Logistical Command (1st Log). The detachments supervised Vietnamese stevedores unloading ammunition at Nha Be and U.S. Army operations at Cam Ranh Bay. By teaching the Vietnamese more efficient procedures and introducing better equipment, operations were made safer, and unloading times were cut in half. In August 1968 the U.S. Navy requested a Coast Guard ELD for Da Nang. After a near-disastrous ammunition accident, in March 1968 an ELD was assigned to the U.S. Army at Qui Nhon. During the entire Vietnam conflict, there was never a major explosive incident due to accident or hostile action at any port where Coast Guard ELDs were assigned. On July 20, 1966, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland requested the assistance of a Coast Guard Port Security and Waterways Detail (PS&WD). The PS&WD inspected U.S. Army port facilities, trained U.S. Army boat crews, and advised 1st Log’s commanding general on port security. On December 3, 1966, a Coast Guard marine inspector was assigned to Saigon to assist the U.S. Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service in resolving problems aboard the 300 merchant ships supporting U.S. forces. On July 1, 1968, the position was expanded to a Merchant Marine detail and attached to the U.S. embassy in Saigon. A Coast Guard Aids to Navigation detail, working out of Saigon, deployed buoy tenders, positioned and maintained buoys, and fixed aids at ports and along the coast to support U.S. military operations.

1194

United States Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard cutters Point Slocum and Point League flank a 125-foot trawler that had fired on them and that they had chased down off South Vietnam, some 80 miles south of Saigon, on June 20, 1966. It turned out to be a People’s Republic of China ship transporting 250 tons of munitions for the Viet Cong. The coast guard provided important assistance to the overall U.S. military effort during the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

On April 3, 1968, Coast Guard helicopter pilots began flying rescue missions with the Sikorsky HH-3E and HH-53C helicopters of the U.S. Air Force’s 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron stationed at Da Nang. The mission of the pilots flying those “Jolly Green Giants,” as the helicopters were known, was to rescue U.S. pilots downed behind enemy lines in North Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The exchange pilot program continued until 1973, and Coast Guard aviators were highly decorated for their daring rescues under fire. On December 14, 1965, the Defense Department requested that the Coast Guard build an electronic navigation system that would provide precision guidance for U.S. Air Force aircraft operating in North and South Vietnam. The system had to be in operation in eight months. On August 8, 1966, Operation TIGHT REIGN’s LORANC chain went on air as scheduled. Electronic signals that were beamed from 625-foot-high transmitting towers at two stations in Thailand and one station in Vietnam were monitored by another station in Thailand. To provide better coverage of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Coast Guard built a second transmitting station in Vietnam at Tan My in 1969. Just 42 miles below the DMZ, the Tan My LORAN Station became the northernmost U.S. installation in Vietnam during the withdrawal.

After U.S. forces withdrew in 1973, the LORAN chain continued to operate but with Coast Guardsmen replaced by civilian technicians at the two stations in Vietnam. The crew of the Con Son island LORAN station destroyed electronic equipment before being evacuated by helicopter on April 29, 1975, the day before Saigon fell. Eight thousand Coast Guardsmen served in Vietnam from 1964 to 1973, 3,500 with units in-country. Seven Coast Guardsmen were killed in action. ALEX LARZELERE See also MARKET TIME, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Sea

Power, Role in War; Search-and-Rescue Operations; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Kaplan, Hyman R. Coast Guard in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Coast Guard, Public Information Division, 1971. Larzelere, Alex. The Coast Guard at War: Vietnam, 1965–1975. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. Tulich, Eugene N. The United States Coast Guard in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict. Washington, DC: U.S. Coast Guard, Public Affairs Division, 1986.

United States Congress and the Vietnam War

United States Congress and the Vietnam War The Vietnam War served as a focal point for American intervention in Southeast Asia to stem the tide of communism within the context of the Cold War. The U.S. Congress, also operating within the parameters of the Cold War, generally followed presidential initiatives in U.S. foreign affairs. However, the Vietnam War sparked an evolving nine-year-long contentious debate within Congress, particularly in the Senate, and between members of Congress and the administrations of presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford. This debate was not only marked by multiple shifts in congressional support of the war but also highlighted the tensions between congressional and presidential war-making powers. Johnson’s assumption of the presidency after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, prompted the new president to shore up congressional and public support for his administration. In the realm of foreign policy and national security, Johnson persuaded many of the key Vietnam policy makers in Kennedy’s administration to remain on board. As a result, many of Kennedy’s policies related to Vietnam remained unexamined, and the U.S. role in Vietnam continued. Johnson confirmed this stance by asserting to a joint session of Congress on November 27, 1963, that the U.S. commitment to the government and the people of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) would remain unchanged and that the war in the region had to be won. The looming 1964 presidential election and his focus on his Great Society initiatives also encouraged Johnson to stay the course in Vietnam. Meanwhile, congressional support in 1964 continued to back Johnson’s approach to the Vietnam dilemma except for the loud dissenting voice of Senator Wayne L. Morse (D-Ore.), who disagreed with even an advisory role in Southeast Asia. Senate Republicans and conservative Democrats fervently supported the president’s efforts, as they would generally do throughout his administration. However, other congressional voices, particularly within the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, began to quietly caution Johnson of the dangers underlying U.S. policy toward Vietnam. Senator Michael (Mike) J. Mansfield (D-Mont.) advised the president to inform the public of the long-term risks associated with staying the course in Vietnam. The committee’s chairman, Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), opposed American withdrawal from Vietnam but also called for a reexamination of Cold War assumptions anchoring U.S. foreign policy. Other senators, including George S. McGovern (D-S.Dak.), expressed concerns as well but were reluctant to force the issue in light of an election year. Assistant Secretary of State Frederick Dutton’s June 1964 memorandum to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy summarizing congressional attitudes toward Vietnam confirmed the ambiguity, warning of the Senate’s cautionary support of Johnson. Conditions worsened in Vietnam in the first half of 1964, with increasing control in South Vietnam by the Viet Cong (VC) and desertions from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South

1195

Vietnamese Army). Johnson’s response was to augment advisory forces and aid to South Vietnam, all with congressional approval, and to focus attention on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) itself with American naval patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin and the implementation of OPLAN 34A raids along North Vietnam’s coast by South Vietnamese forces. The latter triggered a North Vietnamese attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer Maddox by North Vietnamese patrol boats on August 1, 1964, and another presumed attack on the Maddox and another destroyer, the Turner Joy, on the stormy night of August 3–4. Johnson used the occasion to retaliate with air strikes against the North Vietnamese and to push the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress on August 7, with a vote of 98 to 2 in the Senate (with Morse and Senator Ernest Gruening [D-Ala.] predictably dissenting) and a vote of 416 to 0 in the House of Representatives. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution focused strictly on the facts of the first and alleged second North Vietnamese attacks and granted the president the support of Congress in taking all necessary steps at the president’s discretion to repel armed attacks against the United States and provide assistance, including armed support, to members of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty. The measure further provided expiration of the resolution dependent upon the president’s determination of the security situation in the region as dictated by United Nations (UN) actions or via a concurrent resolution of Congress, whichever came first. Ultimately Johnson used the resolution as a carte blanche to escalate the war in Vietnam dramatically, beginning in 1965. Although the resolution attracted nearly unanimous support, the debate in the Senate exposed concerns over U.S. involvement in a regional land war and the impact of the situation on U.S.-Soviet relations, which had been warming after passage of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, as well as the danger of Chinese intervention, which had occurred during the Korean War (1950–1953) with disastrous complications. These concerns were eerily reminiscent of congressional attitudes expressed in Dutton’s June memorandum prior to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Election year worries over a potential Barry M. Goldwater Republican administration and fears of an aggressive Goldwater Vietnam policy also colored the response from Democrats and stifled any open criticism of Johnson. Johnson’s decision to escalate American involvement in Vietnam after his 1964 election victory and into 1965 with continued bombing raids and additional ground troops prompted a new debate in Congress. The debate began in February 1965 with a series of speeches on Vietnam by senators, both pro and con, that appeared in Walter Lippmann’s highly influential column in the Washington Post. These speeches and responses, reflecting yet again senatorial concerns embodied in Dutton’s memorandum but also lacking an integrated alternative proposal, signaled that Johnson’s Vietnam policy in Southeast Asia was rapidly becoming a major issue. Even so, subsequent to Johnson’s decision in April to shift from defensive to offensive operations in the region with the insertion of counterinsurgency troops, a $700 million

1196

United States Congress and the Vietnam War

appropriations bill to support U.S. military needs in Vietnam for fiscal year 1966 was approved by the Senate (88 to 3) and the House (408 to 7) in May 1965. Congress, in spite of growing opposition to Johnson’s policies, continued to approve appropriations throughout the Johnson administration so as to negate any public perception of an unwillingness to support the troops. At the same time, Congress was reluctant to call for a unilateral withdrawal. In late July 1965 Mansfield sent Johnson a memorandum supported by a bipartisan group of senators, including Fulbright. Although not fully unanimous on all points, the senators offered avenues of negotiations for Vietnam, including possible roles for France and the UN. The memorandum pointedly stressed the need for détente with the Soviet Union and the relative unimportance of Vietnam to U.S. interests. Johnson’s response on July 28 was to deploy the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to Vietnam and raise the monthly draft quota. The stakes were raised further in February 1966 with televised hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Vietnam. The hearings generated heightened public interest in the war and increased the credibility of the war’s congressional critics but also enraged Johnson, who continued to hold fast to his policy of supporting the South Vietnamese government. More importantly, the hearings galvanized Johnson’s critics and transformed the Senate’s customary private criticism to a more aggressive approach. Nevertheless, the lack of a focused conclusion as to what to do next in Vietnam and the variability in public opinion failed to provide congressional critics with immediate leverage to change policy. Indeed, the fiscal year 1967 supplemental authorization for Vietnam amounted to $12.2 billion, on top of the $10.3 billion in regular appropriations. The Clark-Mansfield amendment to the authorization, proposed by senators Mansfield and Joseph S. Clark (D-Pa.), specified a pledge by Congress of all necessary support of the troops in the field and was passed by a vote of 72 to 19 in the Senate. However, this was coupled with congressional support of the Geneva Accords of 1954 and 1962, implying support of a negotiated settlement through unification efforts, and thus signaled to the administration the notion of compromising with Congress. The situation began to change in 1967. The coupling of increased anxiety over stresses within the U.S. economy and heightened weekly casualty rates in Southeast Asia caused problems for Democratic senators across the board and further attenuated support for the administration. Their sentiment of the situation was not improved with images of antiwar demonstrations flashing on television screens. The conservative war hawks in both parties were ineffective in rebutting the slide of support because of their own views of Vietnam as a minor issue compared to the larger and more important concerns over a breakdown in civil discipline and the expansion of liberal policies at home. Nonetheless, overall congressional concern over a Communist victory in Southeast Asia still prevailed and checked a complete fracture with the president. The fiscal year 1968 defense appropriations of $22 billion reflected this concern. The proposed cuts of 10 percent by Morse, cushioned

by leeway given to the secretary of defense for specific cuts, only garnered the support of Gruening, Fulbright, Clark, and Stephen M. Young (D-Ohio). A more limited version of 5 percent cuts subsequently proposed by Morse only picked up the vote of Philip A. Hart (D-Mich.) and failed to pass. The television images of the Tet Offensive in January 1968, however, and subsequent Senate hearings in March on the events leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as well as a grilling of Secretary of State Dean Rusk three weeks later spurred a significant shift in support. Fulbright, the quiet persuader in previous dialogues with the president, now openly decried the costs of the war, both human and monetary, as well as the damage done to America’s reputation abroad cast against a political backdrop of troubling domestic issues. Concerned with the widening gulf between the Senate and his policies, Johnson addressed the nation on television on March 31, 1968, espousing his plan to de-escalate certain military operations in Vietnam, seek negotiations for a peaceful resolution, and prevail upon the South Vietnamese government to share more of the fighting and announcing his intention not to run for a second term in the 1968 election. As Nixon assumed the presidency and responsibility for war policy from Johnson in January 1969, the new president faced a Congress favoring disengagement in Southeast Asia but still reluctant to pave the way for a Communist victory in the region. The problem was how to accomplish both goals. Funding for the war mirrored this tension, with congressional approval of fiscal year 1969 defense appropriations amounting to $25.5 billion in regular appropriations and $1.3 billion in supplemental funds. Nevertheless, Nixon also encountered a more assertive Congress, battle-tested by its struggles with the Johnson administration. This assertiveness was exhibited in several congressional bellwether events throughout the Nixon presidency. Although 1969 witnessed expanded efforts to equip and supply the ARVN as a precursor for American disengagement, otherwise known as Vietnamization, the disclosure of Nixon’s secret decision to send raids into neighboring Laos to disrupt North Vietnamese supply routes sparked Senate outrage, particularly from McGovern and Fulbright. These raids contravened the intent of a December 1969 congressional directive sponsored by senators Mansfield, Frank F. Church (D-Idaho), and John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.), to shut the door on using American troops in Laos and Thailand. The president’s April 1970 announcement that he had sent troops into Cambodia to destroy North Vietnamese military forces in that country prompted the Senate to consider the Cooper-Church Amendment to the Foreign Military Sales Act. The amendment proposed U.S. withdrawal from Cambodia by June 30 and prohibited military funding in that country after July 1. In the context of violent antiwar protests in May, a watered-down version was finally passed on June 30 after a vote of 58 to 37 in the Senate. However, troop withdrawals the same day in accordance with Nixon’s planned timetable, along with tabling of the amendment in the House by a vote of 237 to 153, essentially rendered the impact

United States Congress and the Vietnam War of the amendment moot. The passed amendment was followed by a bipartisan amendment proposed by McGovern and Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) to halt all funds for the war after December 1970 and withdraw all troops by June 30, 1971. The amendment suffered defeat by a vote of 55 to 39 in the Senate. Even if the amendment had passed, a more prowar House and a Nixon veto would have defeated it. However, the antiwar lobby in the Senate was encouraged by a substantial one-third support. McGovern and Hatfield were reinvigorated the following year, with polls indicating the president’s approval rating on Vietnam hovering near 31 percent and the public’s desire for a timetable for final troop withdrawals reaching 72 percent, despite Nixon’s existing gradual but small troop withdrawals. The polls reflected a tumultuous spring of 1971 in the halls of Congress. Spurred by the public revealing of the My Lai Massacre, Ron V. Dellums, a Socialist Party representative from northern California’s 9th District, created an exhibit of images detailing alleged American war crimes in Vietnam and subsequently called for formal congressional hearings on the subject. The House refused, but Dellums pursued informal hearings of his own in April 1971. The hearings attracted considerable media scrutiny, although much of the evidence and testimony proved sketchy. In the Senate, Fulbright presided over 22 Foreign Relations Committee hearing sessions in April and May to debate legislative proposals for an end to the war. John F. Kerry, a young Vietnam War veteran and national coordinator of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, testified before the committee and included accounts rendered by fellow war veterans of war crimes and atrocities committed by both American and enemy troops. McGovern and Hatfield followed the hearings in June with their proposed new amendment to the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, prohibiting funding of U.S. military operations in Indochina after December 31, 1972. With a vote of 55 to 42, the amendment gained only 3 additional votes from the previous year’s similar amendment. McGovern and Hatfield’s amendment was accompanied by a House rejection vote of 255 to 158 on an amendment proposed by representatives Lucien N. Nedzi (D-Mich.) and Charles W. Whalen Jr. (R-Ohio) to forbid military appropriations in Southeast Asia after the end of the 1971 calendar year. The reluctance of the Senate to tip the balance to fully seize the reins of its constitutional war policy powers vis-à-vis the president was reinforced in 1972 by Henry A. Kissinger’s secret talks with the North Vietnamese and Nixon’s visits to China and the Soviet Union that same year. Nixon’s autumn 1972 election victory and his January 1973 announcement of an armistice agreement among the combatants in South Vietnam again temporarily checked his critics. However, revelations of the administration’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia (Operation MENU) against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) base areas there and the North Vietnamese–backed Khmer Rouge, occurring amid the throes of the Watergate Scandal and domestic jitters over rising oil prices, weakened the president and finally tipped the balance.

1197

Congress swiftly responded by forcing Nixon to end the bombing by August 15, 1973, and prohibited funding of combat operations in the region through supplemental appropriation acts enacted on July 1. Adoption of these restricted funding acts by a vote of 72 to 14 in the Senate and 278 to 124 in the House on one act and a vote of 73 to 16 in the Senate and 266 to 75 in the House on the other act showed how far the pendulum had swung. Furthermore, Congress passed the War Powers Act on November 7, 1973, checking presidential war-making powers, although the act tellingly failed to apply it to the now-dwindling American military presence in Vietnam. Congress also took a more effective and immediate step beyond its previous restricted funding acts by assuming control of military funding through passage of a vetobusting $21.3 billion defense appropriations bill in the autumn of 1973 with a key provision requiring congressional approval prior to U.S. military assistance extended in Southeast Asia. The measure resoundingly passed with voice votes in both houses. President Ford, Nixon’s successor after his August 1974 resignation as a consequence of the Watergate Scandal, now had to deal with a Congress willing to flex its muscle. For fiscal year 1975, Nixon had requested $1.45 billion in aid to South Vietnam. Congress authorized less than half that ($700 million) for the South Vietnamese government as long as it existed as an entity. Ford subsequently requested a supplemental authorization of $300 million in January 1975 and an additional aid package of $700 million in April, for a total of $1.7 billion for the fiscal year to prop up the tottering South Vietnamese government. Congress rejected both supplemental requests outright. More than $145 billion had been poured into Southeast Asia since the beginning of American involvement in the 1950s, and Congress was finally weary of tossing more money into the morass. The fall of Saigon at the end of April 1975 stopped the authorized $700 million in aid to the South Vietnamese government and effectively ended America’s involvement there. After the war ended, Congress seemed far more attuned to presidential uses of military power abroad, and presidents in turn seemed more cognizant of congressional powers vis-à-vis armed conflict. MARK F. LEEP See also Case, Clifford Philip; Case-Church Amendment; Church, Frank Forrester; Cooper, John Sherman; Cooper-Brooke Amendment; Cooper-Church Amendment; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Fulbright, James William; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Hatfield, Mark Odom; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Lippmann, Walter; Mansfield, Michael Joseph; McGovern, George Stanley; MENU, Operation; Morse, Wayne Lyman; Nixon, Richard Milhous; War Powers Act References Belasco, Amy, Lynn J. Cunningham, Hannah Fischer, and Larry A. Niksch. Congressional Restrictions on U.S. Military Operations in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, and Kosovo: Funding and Non-Funding Approaches. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 16, 2007.

1198

United States Department of Justice

Daggett, Stephen. Military Operations: Precedents for Funding Contingency Operations in Regular or in Supplemental Appropriations Bills. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June 13, 2006. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Stone, Gary. Elites for Peace: The Senate and the Vietnam War, 1964– 1968. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007.

United States Department of Justice U.S. government executive department founded in 1870 to enforce federal law, represent the government in federal cases, determine jurisdiction, and ensure governmental compliance under federal law. Branches of the Department of Justice included the Civil Rights Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Justice Department is headed by the attorney general of the United States. Between 1965 and 1973, the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations encountered growing domestic opposition to the war in Vietnam. Presidents Johnson and Nixon believed that Communists were responsible for the antiwar movement, that protests threatened domestic order and stability, and that demonstrators were a source of support for the Vietnamese Communists. Both administrations used the Department of Justice and its investigatory branch, the FBI, to infiltrate, subvert, and monitor protest groups. The Johnson administration gathered intelligence and sought possible legal actions against domestic critics of the war. In 1965, U.S. attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach pledged to initiate a nationwide investigation of antiwar organizations and suggested federal indictments for draft resistance and sedition. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ordered his agency to link antiwar leaders to Communists, and soon FBI agents secretly infiltrated antiwar and leftist organizations. The FBI also reinitiated counterintelligence programs, covert programs directed against dissident domestic groups. Katzenbach’s successor Ramsey Clark refused, however, to support legislation outlawing draft resistance, nor did he cancel large protest marches on Washington. Johnson and the Justice Department, however, increased legal pressure on the antiwar movement. The FBI interrogated protest leaders and recruited university officials to report on student protesters, and the Justice Department briefly ended draft deferments for college students who protested the war in Vietnam. The Johnson administration also prepared a list of federal statutes violated by protesters that included aiding deserters, advocating insurrection by mail, damaging government property, impeding the protection of the president, and sabotaging U.S. military facilities. On January 5, 1968, the Justice Department indicted several prominent antiwar leaders, including the pediatrician Dr. Benja-

min Spock, for conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet young men to violate draft laws. A hesitant Clark prosecuted Spock and four others, but all were eventually acquitted or the charges against them were dropped. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, took a more confrontational approach to the antiwar movement to appease right-wing politicians who believed that Johnson had been reluctant to prosecute protesters for treason. Mitchell’s actions also reflected Nixon’s belief that demonstrators were allied with Communists. In 1969 Mitchell ordered the Justice Department to increase electronic surveillance operations by relaxing restrictions on federal wiretapping. Nixon also urged Hoover to wiretap the phones of journalists who questioned Vietnam policy. Mitchell tried to justify the questionable wiretapping before the U.S. Supreme Court by arguing that the president needed wide latitude in conducting national security. In 1972 the Supreme Court rejected his arguments in U.S. v. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Nixon also enlisted the help of presidential aide Tom Huston to study new investigation techniques. The subsequent but aborted Huston Plan of 1970 proposed far-reaching (and often illegal) activities including wiretaps, burglaries, opening mail, and infiltration. The Huston Plan called for the creation of an interagency domestic intelligence apparatus under White House control that combined elements of the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other agencies, which too was illegal. Although Nixon approved the plan, Hoover refused to go along. This willingness on the part of the White House to circumvent or break existing laws, however, foreshadowed the events that contributed to the Watergate Scandal, which forced Nixon to resign in disgrace in August 1974. In 1977 the Justice Department under President Jimmy Carter sought and obtained Carter’s signature authorizing a warrantless wiretap and a “black bag job” (an action that led directly to the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978). This warrantless wiretap was sought in connection with a joint FBI-CIA investigation (the kind envisaged under the Huston plan) that resulted in the indictment and conviction of a leading antiwar activist, David Truong Dinh Hung, for espionage for passing classified U.S. government documents to the Vietnamese Communist intelligence service. Thus, while Nixon and Johnson certainly went too far, perhaps their paranoid belief that the antiwar movement was allied with the Communists was not totally unjustified. MARK A. ESPOSITO See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Clark, William Ramsey; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Hoover, John Edgar; Huston Plan; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville; Mitchell, John Newton; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Spock, Benjamin McLane; Watergate Scandal References Elliff, John T. Crime, Dissent, and the Attorney General: The Justice Department in the 1960s. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1971.

United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam 1199 Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. New York: Knopf, 1990. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam The highest-level foreign policy body of the U.S. government, the State Department took an active role in formulating U.S. policies toward Vietnam from 1945 to 1975. The role of the State Department in the formulation and implementation of policy toward Vietnam can best be understood by the steadfast commitment of most American foreign policy advisers to the doctrine of Communist containment as well as organizational factors. Containment, a policy articulated by State Department official George F. Kennan in 1946, held that the United States should resist Communist expansionist policies around the world with steady, persistent pressure. Second, institutional factors, organizational culture, and interorganizational relations all played a sizable role in decision making and the influence of the State Department on major foreign policy decisions. In 1945 with the defeat of Japan when the Communistdominated nationalist Viet Minh came to power in northern Vietnam, the State Department was of two minds. President Harry S. Truman opposed French rule in Indochina, and Asian analysts at the State Department supported this position by calling for U.S. government recognition of the recently proclaimed Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), headed by veteran Communist Ho Chi Minh. They argued that the days of colonialism in Asia were numbered and that the United States should encourage independence from French rule in the region. They pointed out that the Viet Minh had widespread popular support throughout Vietnam, that Vietnam and China had been traditional regional rivals, and that Ho had sought ties with and the support of the United States as a means of offsetting Chinese influence. Those who formed European policy at the State Department thought otherwise. They pointed to growing tensions with and the serious military threat posed by the Soviet Union. They noted that France was the only major Western continental military power capable of assisting the United States in containing what were widely perceived to be Soviet expansionary policies. They argued that in order to win French support against the Soviet Union, the United States would have to support French policy in Indochina. With President Truman focused on developments in Europe, the Europeanists won the argument. The U.S. position on the Indochina War (1946–1954), while at first largely ambivalent, grew to active support with the steady escalation of Cold War tensions that followed the February 1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949.

In 1949 the United States also found itself paying the consequences of its support of Jiang Jieshi’s Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) government during the Chinese Civil War. Following the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949, PRC leader Mao Zedong extended military assistance to the Viet Minh actively fighting the French in the Indochina War. The long frontier between China and Vietnam meant that the Viet Minh could now easily receive military supplies from China (much of it in the form of U.S. equipment captured from the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War). The PRC also undertook the establishment in its territory of training camps for the Viet Minh. The Chinese thus helped turn a largely guerrilla army into a modern military force capable of waging conventional warfare. PRC support of the Viet Minh was the final straw for Washington. On February 7, 1950, the U.S. government recognized the French-backed State of Vietnam, the French government having allegedly granted independence to Vietnam in 1949. In May, Washington agreed to immediately furnish $20 million to $30 million in direct aid, with more the next fiscal year. The United States also funded the war indirectly, because Marshall Plan aid to France freed up other French resources for Indochina. The Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950, solidified the Truman administration’s position toward Indochina. Containing the spread of communism took priority over anticolonialism. Both Washington and Paris came to see Korea and Vietnam as mutually dependent theaters in a common Western struggle against communism until the armistice in Korea in July 1953. The United States also changed its policy of providing only indirect aid to the war in Indochina. On June 27, 1950, President Truman announced the extension for the first time of direct shipment of U.S. military aid to the French in Indochina. During the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961), Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an ardent anti-Communist committed to the global containment of communism, was even more committed to preventing Ho and the Communists from dominating all of Vietnam. In 1954 a conference opened at Geneva to discuss Asian affairs, and while the conference was in session the French suffered a disastrous military defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The State Department maintained a position of nonaccession toward the 1954 Geneva Accords that subsequently ended the Indochina War. Dulles made only a brief appearance, and the United States maintained only observers at Geneva and did not sign the accords (even though the U.S. government initially announced that it would abide by them). In short, U.S. policy was to work to prevent the loss of any territory worldwide to Communist control. Nonaccession enabled Dulles to act outside the restrictions of the Geneva Accords, including subsequent U.S. support for President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in his refusal to permit the elections in 1956 to occur in all Vietnam, which presumably would reunite the country, as had been specified in the accords.

1200

United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam

President Richard Nixon in discussion with Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was the principal architect of U.S. foreign policy during the administrations of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, serving as national security adviser during the first Nixon administration and secretary of state from 1972 until the end of the Ford administration. (National Archives)

The United States also took the lead in the formation in September 1954 of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). Its signatories extended the alliance’s collective security guarantees to Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam, thus providing—in U.S. eyes at least—a justification for subsequent intervention in the region. In 1955 the State Department created the U.S. Operations Mission as an appendage of the U.S. embassy in Saigon as a conduit for advice and financial aid to South Vietnam. The following year, State Department officials acceded in President Eisenhower’s position that given the Communist experience elsewhere, the Communists could not be trusted to abide by the democratic process. While undoubtedly true, this was a clear circumvention of the Geneva Accords. U.S. aid now flowed in increasing quantities to the Diem government. Diem’s repressive regime did little to accede to U.S. diplomatic pressure for reform, despite the initial position of the State

Department that U.S. aid was to be predicated upon the formation of a legitimate stable government in South Vietnam. Under the John F. Kennedy administration (1961–1963), U.S. aid and assistance to South Vietnam grew, with the introduction of both U.S. military advisory personnel and helicopter units. Much of Kennedy’s attention was drawn to Laos, however, where the failure of the Communist leaders to live up to peace agreements they had signed very much influenced his policies toward Vietnam. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, a prominent member of Kennedy’s inner circle, followed a Cold War outlook on policies regarding Vietnam and subsequently trumpeted the theme that the war was caused by aggression from North Vietnam rather than being fueled by conditions within South Vietnam itself. Rusk generally supported the hawkish position on the war advocated by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Compromise recommendations by certain State Department officials advising Kennedy to delay a

United States Information Agency decision on troop commitments while still publicly naming South Vietnam a vital U.S. interest were largely ignored. The State Department played a crucial role in the November 1963 coup that ousted Diem. With the South Vietnamese president intransigent, opposing reform, and repressing opposition to his rule, State Department officials responsible for Southeast Asia policy approved the effort by South Vietnamese generals to topple Diem. The result of Diem’s overthrow and death was more chaos and political instability. Seemingly, the United States could not win the war with Diem or without him. State Department marginalization increased during the Lyndon Johnson administration (1963–1968), under which the Vietnam War was fully Americanized. Johnson demanded consensus and discouraged debate. One notable exception to this was Undersecretary of State George Ball, who was often encouraged to present a dissenting opinion although cloaked as a devil’s advocate position to preserve the appearance of accord. In general, cautious voices emanating from the State Department were not valued by Johnson, who, remembering the reaction in the United States to the Communist victory in China, was fearful of the political consequences for himself and the Democratic Party of anything less than a total victory in Vietnam. Republican Richard Nixon, who was president during 1968–1974, further marginalized the State Department, which he regarded with great disdain. Indeed, Nixon acted as his own secretary of state. He actively diminished the role of traditional diplomatic channels, relying instead on military action and covert methods. Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser (and later secretary of state), conducted the nation’s foreign policy themselves, often in great secrecy and with little regard for the experts at the State Department. Under Kissinger, the National Security Council was a rival to the State Department, even asserting control over communications to posts abroad and foreign governments. Nixon’s secretary of state, William P. Rogers, was the most marginalized and least effective secretary of state in a generation. Nixon and Kissinger, no less than Johnson, sought to end the Vietnam War through a military victory over the Communists. It was not to be, and it was Kissinger, not Rogers, who took an active role in the negotiations that led to the January 1973 peace treaty and extraction of U.S. forces from Vietnam. After Nixon’s August 1974 resignation following the Watergate Scandal, Kissinger remained as President Gerald R. Ford’s secretary of state and attempted, without success, to maintain a flow of U.S. assistance to the South Vietnamese government following the departure of American troops. Clearly, in regard to the Vietnam War the experts at the State Department who were most expert in the region were largely ignored in the formation of policy and as the Vietnam War wore on were increasingly marginalized. The key roles in the formation of policy were taken by a succession of presidents, certain of their key advisers, and the Department of Defense. STEPHANIE LYNN TROMBLEY AND SPENCER C. TUCKER

1201

See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Ball, George Wildman; Containment Policy; Dulles, John Foster; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; McNamara, Robert Strange; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Rogers, William Pierce; Rusk, David Dean References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Hunt, Michael H. Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945–1968. New York: Hill and Wang, 1996. Logevall, Fredrik. Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

United States Information Agency U.S. government agency created in 1953 and charged with understanding, informing, and influencing foreign populations in promoting the national interest and broadening the dialogue among Americans, their institutions, and their counterparts abroad. In short, the agency was engaged in public diplomacy outside the United States. In the United States the agency was known as the United States Information Agency (USIA). Abroad, offices for this agency were known as the United States Information Service (USIS). Serving as the central public information office for U.S. embassies, USIA employees made presentations and provided educational materials to local groups in foreign nations. The USIS in some countries maintained a small library of U.S.-published materials for use by citizens. In most countries, this was called the Ben Franklin Library. Also, in some nations the USIS maintained information kiosks containing American materials at local universities. Aimed at other components of the embassy, the USIS oversaw the Fulbright Program, which administers exchanges of American students and professors with host countries. The USIA also supervised the operation of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Radio Martí. These taxpayer-funded radio stations explained and defended U.S. foreign policy and American culture to the world, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Cuba, respectively. The Vietnam War challenged the leadership and staff of the USIA. As the war became more and more unpopular particularly in Northern Europe, staffers found it increasingly difficult to explain and defend the American presence in Vietnam. Vietnam War protestors sometimes demonstrated in front of U.S. embassies and Ben Franklin Library facilities. The USIA came to have a special role in Vietnam. In the early years of the war, the U.S. Army operated radio stations and printed materials seeking to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. In 1965 these activities were transferred to a U.S. public

1202

United States Joint Chiefs of Staff

affairs unit that coordinated U.S. Army and USIA activities in the country. In an effort to communicate with the Vietnamese, the USIA hired talented storytellers who each day would compose stories to be told in Vietnamese guesthouses, churches, and other gathering places describing the issues of the Vietnam conflict and reporting on the progress being made in the war effort. After 1970, however, the joint U.S. Army–USIA effort could no longer disguise the ineffectiveness of the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) or counter the simplistic nationalist appeal of Ho Chi Minh. In 1978 USIA employee Ronald Humphrey, who had worked for USIA in South Vietnam during the war, was arrested and convicted for passing classified U.S. government documents to the Vietnamese Communist intelligence service. In 1999 the USIA was integrated into the Department of State’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and dropped its familiar name. In Washington, most USIA activities are supervised by the Office of International Information Programs (IIP). Oversight of the Fulbright Program is exercised by the Office of Educational and Cultural Affairs (OECA). The USIA, the IIP, and the OECA plus the Office of Public Affairs answer to the undersecretary of public diplomacy and public affairs. Also in 1999, oversight of U.S. government–run radio stations broadcasting to foreign locales was transferred to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. With increasingly easy access to the Internet by both Americans and foreigners, the IIP now plays a larger role in preparing Web and print publications explaining U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives. The International Programs Office (IPO) seeks to engage international audiences on issues of foreign policy, society, and values to help create an environment receptive to U.S. national interests. The IPO also provides information outreach support to American embassies and consulates in more than 140 countries worldwide and has gained many more responsibilities since the inception of the War on Terror in 2001 and the ensuing Iraq War (2003–2010). GAYLE AVANT See also American Friends of Vietnam; Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. References Deibel, Terry L. Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Dizard, Wilson P., Jr. Inventing Public Diplomacy. Arlington, VA: ADSTDACOR Publishers, 2004.

United States Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. military body established early in 1942 during World War II as a counterpart to the British Chiefs of Staff Committee. The arrangement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was formalized and codified by the 1947 National Security Act that established the Department of Defense out of the former War and Navy Departments and also established the U.S. Air Force as a separate service.

The JCS, headed by a chairman, is a corporate body consisting of the chiefs of staff of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, the chief of naval operations, and the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. As required by the 1947 National Security Act, as amended, the corporate body of the JCS has the responsibility and duty to advise the U.S. national command authorities (the president and the secretary of defense) and National Security Council (NSC) and give strategic guidance to joint commanders in war. Because each member of the JCS, excluding the chairman, is the chief of his particular service, service interests and interservice competition for scarce resources can influence each chief’s recommendations. In addition, the personality and style of every president and secretary of defense affect the level of impact that the advice of the JCS provides. In the early stages of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the JCS, fearing that the French would draw the United States into deeper involvement, recommended that the military not assume the mission to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) until a stable Vietnamese government formally requested that help. On the other hand, the State Department argued that one of the ways to strengthen and stabilize that government would be to reorganize and train its army. President Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed with the State Department, and under NSC Resolution 5429/1, approved U.S. assistance in creating indigenous military forces for internal security in Vietnam. Upon assuming the presidency in January 1961, John F. Kennedy partially dismantled the formal NSC organization in favor of a more ad hoc collegial style of decision making that diminished access to the president by the JCS in national security decisions. Despite his failure to consult with the JCS until after the decision to launch the disastrous April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, Kennedy blamed the body for poor military advice. Along with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his quantitative analysis “whiz kids” at the Defense Department, Kennedy discounted the JCS’s reliance on military experience and saw it as an impediment to his national security efforts. Until he could maneuver the current chiefs and chairman out of office and replace them with men of his own choosing, Kennedy appointed retired General Maxwell D. Taylor to the concocted position of military representative to the president. Taylor, who had retired four years earlier, was eventually recalled and appointed JCS chairman; his overwhelming influence on the national command authorities made any opposition to his views by the other chiefs futile. Taylor’s belief in reduced reliance on massive nuclear retaliation in favor of a stronger conventional response influenced Kennedy and McNamara to put their faith in the concept of flexible response, particularly in combating Sovietsupported wars of national liberation. After Cold War confrontations with the Soviets in Berlin and Cuba and the compromise settlement of a crisis in Laos, Vietnam became the Kennedy administration’s test case for limited war concepts under flexible response. By the summer of 1963 more than 16,000 U.S. military

United States Joint Chiefs of Staff

1203

Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 1973. From left to right they are General Creighton W. Abrams, U.S. Army; Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, U.S. Navy; Laird; General John D. Ryan, U.S. Air Force; Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, U.S. Navy; and General Robert Cushman, U.S. Marine Corps. (Department of Defense)

advisers were in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and Kennedy had replaced the chairman of the JCS as well as both the U.S. Army chief of staff and the chief of naval operations with younger men more amenable to his style and outlook by selecting junior generals over senior candidates who were less likely to compromise. But while the old and new members did not see eye to eye over the concept of fighting limited wars, they were united in their opposition to a coup against South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem as disruptive to the U.S. effort in Vietnam. Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination bequeathed to his successor, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, an advisory circle that effectively excluded the advice of the JCS. Johnson’s own distrust of the military and his consensus-seeking style, along with the tendency of McNamara and JCS chairman Taylor to bypass the chiefs’ views, played into the president’s dislike of divergent opinions on the subject of Vietnam and his priority toward domestic issues. The JCS did not agree with the administration’s proposed strategy of measured, graduated pressure against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and instead preferred a hard, decisive blow to North Vietnam and hot pursuit of Communist forces into neutral sanctuaries. The chiefs did not have direct access to the president to express their views, nor were their views ever conveyed to the president by either McNamara or Taylor.

Stymied in their attempts to provide the advice necessary to establish a strategic alternative to graduated pressure, the JCS began to focus on ways that the war could be prosecuted. The members of the JCS became accomplices in the failure to establish a clear objective in Vietnam, hoping that escalation by degrees would eventually lead to achieving maximum force and a decisive blow. Rather than resigning in protest over what they believed to be a failing policy, they stayed on in mistaken loyalty to their commander in chief and the belief that they were needed to protect the interests of their individual services. The JCS also tended to play a secondary role in the Richard M. Nixon administration beginning in January 1969. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, preferred to keep decision making tightly held in the West Wing, which often excluded the State Department, the JCS, and even the Pentagon from high-level decisions. The JCS became so frustrated with being kept in the dark that JCS chairman Thomas Moorer initiated a covert program to spy on Nixon’s White House, using several military personnel assigned to work with Nixon’s NSC. This spy program became a source of some embarrassment to the JCS when its existence became known to the public during the course of the Watergate Scandal. ARTHUR T. FRAME

1204

United States Marine Corps

See also Bundy, McGeorge; Collins, Joseph Lawton; Counterinsurgency Warfare; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Flexible Response; Greene, Wallace Martin; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Hilsman, Roger; Hot Pursuit Policy; Johnson, Harold Keith; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; LeMay, Curtis Emerson; Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Moorer, Thomas Hinman; Radford, Arthur William; Ridgway, Matthew Bunker; Shoup, David Monroe; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Taylor-McNamara Report; United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

United States Marine Corps U.S. Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War began in April 1962 when marine helicopter units deployed to the Mekong Delta to lift Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) units into battle. On March 8, 1965, two battalions of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (9th MEB), the first U.S. ground troops in Vietnam, arrived by sea and air at Da Nang. As a steady stream of marine ground and aviation units poured into Vietnam, the 9th MEB became the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF), and the marines’ mission expanded from the defense of the Da Nang Air Base to meeting the Communist threat throughout the five northernmost provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In May another marine base with a jet-capable airstrip was established 55 miles south of Da Nang at Chu Lai. Unlike the U.S. Army, whose leaders believed that the primary threat to South Vietnam was the presence of large units of Communist forces, the U.S. Marine Corps preferred to place its emphasis on pacification. Effective pacification required eradication of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) political and military infrastructure in the thousands of hamlets and villages in Vietnam. The U.S. Marine Corps devised a program of civic action platoons. Each merged a squad of marines with one of Vietnamese militia to provide defense at the hamlet level. Civic action proved successful on a limited scale, but pacification was never given as much emphasis by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), as large-unit search-and-destroy operations.

In August 1965 the U.S. Marine Corps launched Operation STARLITE, a regimental-sized attack against a large Viet Cong (VC) force

located south of Chu Lai. The first major U.S. ground action of the war, STARLITE proved to be a large battle. Further U.S. Marine Corps operations between 1965 and 1966 were predominantly against small VC units in the southern I Corps Tactical Zone. In July, MACV obtained evidence that a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) division had crossed the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and taken up positions in Quang Tri Province. This threat forced the U.S. Marine Corps to downplay its pacification program, deploy northward, and construct a series of combat bases parallel to and south of the DMZ. During the second half of 1966 and into 1967, the marines fought a series of bloody battles with well-equipped PAVN regulars in such places as the Rockpile, Con Thien, Gio Linh, Khe Sanh, and Cam Lo. The marines constructed large bases at Phu Bai and Dong Ha to support these operations. By 1967 the U.S. Marine Corps found itself fighting two wars. In the southern I Corps Tactical Zone, the 1st Marine Division fought a counterinsurgency war against the VC, while to the north the 3rd Marine Division waged a more conventional war against the PAVN. By the midsummer of 1967 total marine casualties in Vietnam exceeded those for the Korean War. Despite the best efforts of the marines, the large bases of Dong Ha, Da Nang, Chu Lai, and Phu Bai continued to be regular targets for Communist rocket attacks. In late 1967 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland ordered U.S. Army units into the southern I Corps Tactical Zone, allowing the deployment of more marine units farther north. January 1968 saw major PAVN attacks against marines at Khe Sanh and, at the end of the month, in the Tet Offensive throughout the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In the latter, ground attacks were launched against all five provincial capitals in the I Corps Tactical Zone, and the important city of Hue was temporarily captured by a combined PAVN-VC force. Heavy fighting continued into the spring. To meet this threat, General Westmoreland increased the number of U.S. Army units in what had initially been a U.S. Marine Corps area. Fighting in the northern areas of South Vietnam tapered off in late 1968. In the area around Da Nang, the marines launched an accelerated pacification plan designed to take back what had been lost in the Tet Offensive. As 1969 began, the 3rd Marine Division adopted U.S. Army–style high-mobility operations that de-emphasized reliance on fixed positions. Pacification yielded successes. By mid-1969 the withdrawal of ground and aviation units from Vietnam had begun. U.S. Marine Corps positions in northern South Vietnam became the responsibility of the U.S. Army and the Army of the ARVN. The 1st Marine Division continued operations around Da Nang, where earlier fighting had occurred: Arizona Territory (20 miles southwest of Da Nang), Dodge City (6 to 12 miles south of Da Nang), Go Noi Island, and the Que Son Valley. By Oc-

United States Merchant Marine

1205

See also Amphibious Warfare; Civic Action; Clear and Hold; Da Nang; Hue, Battle of; Marine Combined Action Platoons; Order of Battle Dispute; Pacification; STARLITE, Operation; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps; Westmoreland, William Childs References Moskin, J. Robert. The U.S. Marine Corps Story. Rev. ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. Simmons, Edwin H., ed. The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography. 2nd ed. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1985. Simmons, Edwin H., ed. The United States Marines. New York: Viking, 1976.

United States Merchant Marine

Marines move along a rice paddy dike during a search-and-destroy mission in 1965. (National Archives)

tober 1969 as a part of President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization policy, the 3rd Marine Division had left Vietnam. In March 1970 the U.S. Army XXIV Corps replaced III MAF as the senior U.S. headquarters in the I Corps Tactical Zone. The U.S. Marine Corps area of responsibility shrank to what it had been in the beginning, essentially Quang Nam Province with its capital at Da Nang. U.S. Marine Corps combat bases were either razed or turned over to U.S. Army or ARVN forces. During the 1971 invasion of Laos, U.S. Marine Corps participation was limited to transportation and engineering support. In April 1971 the III MAF headquarters transferred to Okinawa. At the time of the 1972 PAVN Easter Offensive, only a few hundred marines remained in Vietnam. U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom and A-4 Skyhawk jets provided tactical air support for South Vietnamese armed forces. Other marines performed duties as air and naval gunfire spotters and advisers to Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps (RVNMC, South Vietnamese Marine Corps). No U.S. Marine Corps ground combat troops went ashore, although U.S. Marine Corps helicopters based on aircraft carriers off the coast flew several combat assault missions carrying RVNMC troops into battle in the fight to recapture the capital of Quang Tri Province. The Vietnam War was the longest war and in many ways the largest war in U.S. Marine Corps history. By 1972 a total of 12,926 marines had been killed and another 88,542 wounded in Vietnam. This was a larger number of casualties than the U.S. Marine Corps had suffered in World War II (74,913). Approximately 800,000 marines served in the U.S. Marine Corps during 1965–1972, the years of major U.S. Marine Corps involvement in Vietnam. PETER W. BRUSH

Active involvement of the U.S. Merchant Marine in the Indochina conflict almost precedes that of the U.S. military. Possessing the world’s largest merchant marine after World War II enabled the United States to move aid goods, military supplies, other material, and people in mass quantities as required. Most military aid, equipment, and supplies were transported in U.S.-flag merchant ships under charter to or leased by the Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS). It was the delivery of military aid to French forces that brought the U.S. Merchant Marine into the Vietnam War. In February 1951 the MSTS ship Windham Bay was attacked by Viet Minh operatives while delivering aircraft to French Forces at Saigon in February 1951. Although the Windham Bay was not damaged and did not suffer casualties in the attack, many observers consider the incident to be the first Communist Vietnamese attack on an American unit. Later, U.S.-flag MSTS merchant ships were involved in the evacuation of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) following the temporary partition of Vietnam called for by the 1954 Geneva Accords, transporting more than 300,000 refugees and 200,000 tons of cargo that year. In a harbinger of future events, the Geneva Accords and the temporary peace that the agreement brought sharply reduced the level of U.S. aid and material flowing into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). This changed after 1962. As U.S. involvement in South Vietnam expanded, U.S. Merchant Marine activities grew apace. The massive force expansion that followed the Gulf of Tonkin Incident placed exceptional demands on the MSTS, forcing it to restore 100 World War II–era Victory ships from mothballs in the National Defense Reserve Fleet and assign them to private companies to haul troops, ammunition, and supplies to Vietnam. Although the first ships activated from the Reserve Fleet were Victory ships, most of those returned to service were the older Liberty ships. The majority of the military units initially deployed to Vietnam went by sea, and by 1965 there were more than 300 U.S.-flag merchant ships under contract supplying U.S. and allied forces there.

1206

United States Navy

As many as 75 U.S.-flag merchant ships and 3,000 merchant seamen were present in South Vietnamese ports on any given day of 1965. The numbers and volume of cargo grew as the war escalated. The advent of jet transport aircraft alleviated some of the demand for merchant shipping space. By 1968 military personnel deploying to Vietnam went by air, as did many high-priority and immediate-response supplies and equipment. Still, the war’s logistics effort still required the reactivation of an additional 427 World War II–era Reserve Fleet ships. The distances involved (more than 7,000 nautical miles from America’s nearest West Coast ports) and the size of the forces present (almost 1.65 million troops if support to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN, South Vietnamese Army] and the U.S. force elements involved in the Philippines and Taiwan are included) made for a massive and complex logistics effort. For example, U.S. Air Force units involved in the war received an average total of 2 million tons of supplies annually by sea, of which 40 percent was delivered directly to South Vietnam. The U.S. Army’s maritime-delivered supply requirements exceeded 19 million tons a year between 1968 and 1971. The risks were considered so great that MSTS ships’ crews were given naval ratings in case of capture even though they were civilians. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s efforts to save money by chartering foreign flag ships faltered when several foreign crews refused to sail into Vietnamese waters. American merchant seamen faced the dangers and delivered what the military required. The Vietnam War also saw the U.S. Merchant Marine begin the transition from predominantly using bulk carriers to using containers ships and the first roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ships. More than 95 percent of the war’s logistics support was delivered by sea, and the U.S. Merchant Marine’s involvement did not end with the U.S. withdrawal. MSTS ships were delivering supplies to South Vietnam right up to the evacuation of the American embassy and were a major component of the U.S. evacuation effort as the Saigon regime collapsed. The U.S. Merchant Marine was even involved in what many consider the war’s final military combat operation, when the Khmer Rouge seized the U.S.-flag merchant ship Mayaguez off Koh Tanh Island on May 12, 1975. The ship was recaptured and its crew rescued by a daring but costly U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operation four days later. Although none of the 39-man crew of the Mayaguez were casualties in that operation, the incident highlights the risks that U.S. merchant seaman shared with their military counterparts in that war. Eighty-one U.S. merchant ships were attacked by Communist forces during the war, one was sunk by enemy action, at least four were heavily damaged, and some 56 merchant seamen were killed or became missing in action during the war. As in America’s earlier and later wars, the U.S. Merchant Marine served a critical role in the Vietnam War from the very beginning to the end. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER

See also FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of

1954; Logistics, Allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Viet Cong; Mayaguez Incident; McNamara, Robert Strange; PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation References Larzelere, Alex. The Coast Guard at War: Vietnam, 1965–1975. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Polmar, Norman, et al. Chronology of the Cold War at Sea, 1945–1991. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

United States Navy The U.S. Navy played an important role during the entire course of fighting in Indochina. From supplying the French with ships and aircraft to evacuating the last refugees in 1975, the U.S. Navy undertook, usually with success, a multitude of missions, many of them novel or unanticipated. This record is all the more impressive in that the U.S. Navy of the early 1960s was not especially well prepared for a conflict such as that in Vietnam. For more than a decade the service had been largely oriented in doctrine and force structure to nuclear war. Time-honored techniques such as shore bombardment and amphibious assault were neglected, and conventional pieces of ordnance such as shipboard guns and iron bombs were in short supply. Some of the navy’s newest surface warships had been commissioned with only missiles aboard. The navy’s most modern fighter, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, was armed only with long-range missiles designed to shoot down Soviet bombers attacking American carriers. Naval intelligence was focused largely on the support of nuclear operations. Fleet-support ships were mostly World War II veterans with outdated equipment and slow transit speeds. Following the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the commitment of the Seventh Fleet to a widening war, the U.S. Navy scrambled to redress these deficiencies. Cruisers and destroyers updated their gunnery skills with frequent exercises. Several gun cruisers and the battleship USS New Jersey won stays from the mothball fleet or were returned to service. Existing attack aircraft were modified to carry conventional munitions, and 250- and 500pound bombs were produced on an emergency basis. A hurried program of base expansion at Subic Bay provided essential repair and replenishment support to a much larger fighting force. Aside from renewing prior capabilities, the U.S. Navy added to its arsenal. New planes just entering service, such as the North American RA-5C Vigilante and the Grumman A-6 Intruder, provided the fleet with enhanced reconnaissance and strike capabilities. Strike aircraft acquired Shrike missiles to enable them to hit

United States Navy

1207

USS Washtenaw County (MSS-2, formerly LST-1166) in Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam, in a final demonstration that the channel is safe for shipping at the completion of U.S. minesweeping operations, June 20, 1973. (Naval Historical Center)

back at North Vietnamese antiaircraft radars. The service life of shipboard artillery pieces was significantly extended by the addition of so-called Swedish additive (titanium dioxide and paraffin wax) to ammunition charges. During the next decade of conflict, the U.S. Navy performed a host of missions. Most in the public eye were the Seventh Fleet carrier operations directed against Communist forces in both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) but also on occasion in Laos and Cambodia. Less dramatically, surface warships gave fire support to friendly troops ashore and, in Operation SEA DRAGON, mounted harassment and interdiction raids along the North Vietnamese coastline. Another principal mission of the U.S. Navy was to stop maritime infiltration from North Vietnam. U.S. Navy MARKET TIME patrols, begun in 1965, established a three-tiered shield of long-range aircraft, medium-sized surface ships, and fast patrol craft (or Swift Boats). Ashore, the U.S. Navy’s small Saigon advisory group expanded prominently in May 1965 with the establishment of Naval Forces, Vietnam, command. To carry the war to enemy forces operating in the Mekong Delta, the navy improvised a brown-water fleet of fiberglass patrol boats, shallow-draft landing craft, and fire-support

monitors. This effort hampered Communist forces all the way to the Cambodian border. SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) teams and navy helicopter units searched out opposing troops far from the sea; river convoys resupplied U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps soldiers. On several occasions, the navy put marines ashore in amphibious assaults. Additionally, U.S. naval personnel served throughout the war as advisers to their South Vietnamese counterparts, engaged in civic action, and implemented naval aspects of the Vietnamization policy. From 1964 to 1973, 2.636 million sailors and marines served in the Southeast Asian operational theater (this includes all ship crews and air wings who served in the combat area, which for the U.S. Navy extended 300 nautical miles off the Vietnamese coast). Fourteen navy men earned the Medal of Honor; 2,551 U.S. naval personnel lost their lives (excluding marines). In the last stages of the Vietnam War, naval forces provided aerial support and naval bombardment to counter the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive and to prosecute the subsequent LINEBACKER campaign. Aerial mining of North Vietnamese harbors proved especially effective in forcing the Communists to resume negotiations. With the collapse of the South Vietnamese government in 1975, the U.S. Navy extricated American and friendly personnel from South Vietnam.

1208

United States Reserve Components

These successes aside, the U.S. Navy was, in the end, hurt severely by the Vietnam War. Apart from the decline in popular support and the racial unrest that it shared with the other U.S. military services, the navy found it difficult to pay for costly operations in Southeast Asia during a 10-year period in which defense appropriations declined markedly. As the Soviet Navy grew in size and capability during the same decade, the U.S. Navy faced the wholesale obsolescence of its many World War II–era ships. To keep its principal sea-control arm—its aviation component—at strength, the navy cut back on its forces tailored for other missions; even so, aircraft in the U.S. Navy inventory dropped from 10,598 in 1964 to 7,681 in 1973. Especially hurt were the navy’s antisubmarine elements as the specialized antisubmarine carriers went to the scrap yards. New construction was deferred, with funding going into other operations. For the 1967 and 1968 fiscal years, the nuclearpowered frigates California and South Carolina were the only two major surface combatants authorized by Congress. Overall, the U.S. navy’s record was creditable. Certainly the Vietnam War proved the need for a navy with multiple capabilities. Guns, denounced as antediluvian in a missile navy, demonstrated their virtues in reliability, economy, and continuous availability in all types of weather. The aircraft carrier, under severe criticism as outdated or irrelevant with the loss of its nuclear strike mission to submarines, showed its versatility once again. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also DeSoto Missions; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; GAME WARDEN, Operation; Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; MARKET TIME, Operation; Mobile Riverine Force; New Jersey, USS; Operation Plan 34A; Order of Battle Dispute; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; SEA DRAGON, Operation; SEAL Teams; Sea Power, Role in War; United States Coast Guard; United States Marine Corps; Seabees; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Yankee Station References Hooper, Edwin B., Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, Vol. 1, The Setting of the Stage to 1959. Washington, DC: U.S. Navy, Naval History Division, 1976. Love, Robert W., Jr. History of the U.S. Navy, Vol. 2, 1942–1991. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1992. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Muir, Malcolm, Jr. Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1996.

United States Navy Fighter Weapons School See Top Gun School

United States Navy River Patrol Force See Task Force 116

United States Reserve Components The reserve components of the U.S. military constitute America’s primary immediate reservoir of trained military manpower and units in time of war or other national emergencies. Throughout all of America’s wars, from the 17th- and 18th-century pre–American Revolution colonial wars up to the early-21st-century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reservists have constituted a significant percentage, and in many cases the majority, of the total force committed to those conflicts. The Vietnam War was the sole exception, with only a small handful of reserve units called up. Organized and equipped as closely as possible in the same manner as the active duty forces, American reservists since World War II generally train for a minimum of one weekend per month and two weeks of annual training per year. That basic time requirement, however, can be very misleading. All reservists must undergo the same initial entry training as the personnel of the active components. The professional advancement and promotion requirements for reservists are the same as for their active duty counterparts, requiring all reservists to devote considerable periods of time throughout their careers to formal military schooling. Many reservists have significant periods of active duty time to their credit, and some reservists actually spend much of their military careers alternating between the active and reserve components. There are seven different reserve components: a reserve force for each of the five armed services plus National Guard components for both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. The structure and organization of the reserve components are complex, deeply rooted in the American concept of the citizen soldier, and the product of more than 350 years of evolution. The National Guard of the United States traces its origins to 1636 and the organization of the first colonial militia units. The traditional American suspicion of large standing armies resulted in the formalization in the U.S. Constitution of the state militia system. Under the Militia Act of 1903 the various state militias were collectively designated the National Guard of the United States, as the federal government imposed more standardization in organization, training, and structure and also provided increased funding support to the states. Initially the militia was solely a land force to augment the army, but as the Army Air Corps evolved during the 20th century, so did National Guard aviation units. When the U.S. Air Force became a separate military service in 1947, the Air National Guard also became a separate reserve component aligned with it. The units of both the U.S. Army and the Air National Guards are organized on a state basis. The governor of each state is the commander in chief of the National Guard units in her or his state unless National Guard units are specifically called into federal service during periods of war or other national emergency. Even

United States Reserve Components when the National Guard is under state control, however, the U.S. Department of Defense through a system called Federal Recognition establishes uniform standards for individual and unit training and for professional development and promotion qualifications. When under state control, National Guard units provide each state’s governor with a ready response force for natural disasters and civil disturbances. National Guard units and personnel operating under state control are not subject to the constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and therefore are not restricted from augmenting civilian law enforcement. Several times during the Vietnam War period the governors of various states called up their National Guard units under state rather than federal authority in response to civil disturbances. The shootings at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, occurred while the Ohio Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion of the 145th Infantry and 2nd Squadron of the 107th Armored Cavalry were in a state call-up status, operating under the authority of the state governor. In 1908 the U.S. Army Reserve was established as a purely federal force, completely separate from the National Guard. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps also established reserve forces in 1915 and 1916, respectively. The Air Force Reserve, separate from the Air National Guard, was established in 1948. The U.S. Coast Guard Reserve was established in 1939. Although the Coast Guard is one of the five armed services, it is not part of the Department of Defense, but it does come under the operational control of the U.S. Navy in time of war. The Coast Guard today is part of the Department of Homeland Security, but during the Vietnam War it was part of the Department of the Treasury. Regardless of component, all American reservists are assigned to one of three categories: the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve, and the Retired Reserve. The most immediately available pool of mobilization assets is the Ready Reserve, which is further divided into the Selected Reserve and the Individual Ready Reserve. The Selected Reserve is further divided into two subgroups, the larger consisting of National Guardsmen and Reservists organized into units that train on a regular basis. Individual Mobilization Augmentees are a much smaller pool of Selected Reservists who are fully trained and slotted to occupy key positions in active duty units upon mobilization and train periodically with those units. During the Vietnam War period Individual Mobilization Augmentees were called Mobilization Designees. The Individual Ready Reserve is a manpower pool of reservists who previously served on active duty and, having a remaining service obligation, are still subject to recall. Unlike Individual Mobilization Augmentees, members of the Individual Ready Reserve do not undergo periodic training, and their qualifications erode significantly within a couple of years after their last release from active duty. The members of the Standby Reserve still maintain their military affiliation, but the period since their last active service has been so long that they would require significant retraining upon mobilization. The members of the Retired Reserve are those reservists and Guardsmen on the retired list who, during periods

1209

of extreme national emergency, could be recalled if their specific skills and qualifications are required. Reserve units and individual reservists are called up for federal active duty under one of three possible mechanisms. Full Mobilization requires a congressional declaration of war or national emergency. All categories of reservists are subject to recall for the duration of the emergency. Partial Mobilization also requires a congressional declaration of emergency, but only the Ready Reserve is subject to call-up for a period not to exceed two years. A Presidential Reserve Call-up does not require a congressional declaration, but the president is required to notify the Congress. Only a limited number of Selected Reservists and Individual Ready Reservists are subject to Presidential Reserve Call-up, usually for a limited period. All reservists and National Guardsmen called up during the Vietnam War were activated under this third procedure, which was specifically authorized by an amendment introduced by Senator Richard B. Russell (D-Ga.) to the Fiscal Year 1967 Department of Defense Appropriations Act (Public Law 89-687), passed on October 15, 1966. Also known as the Russell Amendment, the act gave President Lyndon Johnson the authority until June 30, 1968, to “order to active duty any unit of the Ready Reserve of an armed force for a period not to exceed twenty-four months.” Although most military leaders early on supported some form of activation of the reserve components to meet the demands of the expanding requirements of the armed forces, Johnson initially resisted the move and chose instead to expand the size of the active components. Two events in early 1968, however, forced Johnson to activate a very limited number of reserve and National Guard units through a Presidential Reserve Call-up. On January 23, 1968, forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) seized the U.S. Navy intelligence-collection ship Pueblo operating in international waters off the North Korean coast. Two days later Johnson, acting under the authority of the Russell Amendment, announced the call-up of 28 units of the Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and Naval Reserve, totaling 14,787 reservists. Although the action was a direct response to the events in Korea, some of those mobilized eventually served in Southeast Asia. When the Communists in Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive on January 31, General William Westmoreland, who had been one of the few senior military leaders to oppose mobilization of the reserve components, changed his position. On April 11, 1968, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford announced a second round of call-ups totaling 24,500 reservists and Guardsmen, including 1,028 navy reservists. The reporting date of the second call-up was May 13. As the war progressed, far too many Americans had come to regard the reserve components as a safe haven, a way to fulfill the required service obligation without having to go to Vietnam. Competition for available slots in National Guard and reserve units became intense and subject to outside political pressures. In the years following the war, Daniel Quayle (vice president under George H. W. Bush) and George W. Bush (president during 2001–2009) were

1210

United States Reserve Components

repeatedly criticized for sitting out the war safely in National Guard units. Bush and Quayle were certainly not alone. Given the widespread attitude that had developed about the reserve components, even the limited call-ups of January and May 1968 came as something of a shock. Some reservists resisted the call-up and appealed to their congressional representatives for support. One of the most high-profile cases was that of Headquarters Company, 513th Maintenance Battalion. On May 27, 88 enlisted soldiers of the unit sent a letter to Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts complaining that the 513th Maintenance Battalion was not ready for activation, much less for deployment to Vietnam. The army responded that the 513th Maintenance Battalion was the most ready of six such units in the Army Reserve. When 16 members of the unit later filed suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore claiming that they had not received all their required training, Senator Edward Kennedy asked the U.S. Army to postpone the deployment and conduct a full investigation. Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor turned down Kennedy’s request. All the legal challenges eventually failed. The U.S. Supreme Court, voting eight to one, finally rejected the plea from the soldiers of the 513th Maintenance Battalion and five other Army Reserve units that they could only be called up following a congressional declaration of national emergency. In addition to the official call-ups, a significant number of reservists served in the Vietnam War as members of active units, operated for short periods in the war zone in an Annual Training (AT) status, or served voluntarily under the special status of either Active Duty for Training (ADT) or Active Duty for Special Work (ADSW). Others volunteered to serve for periods of active duty in active units. Of the seven reserve components, neither the Coast Guard Reserve nor the Marine Corps Reserve activated units or individuals for Vietnam. Individual Marine Corps and Coast Guard reservists did volunteer for active duty during the war, and some served in-theater. Many, if not the majority, of the junior officers who served in Vietnam in active duty units were technically reservists. Graduates of Officer Candidate Schools and most Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) graduates received reserve rather than regular appointments upon commissioning. Only the graduates of the service academies and the very top ROTC graduates received regular commissions. Many of those reserve officers left active duty at the conclusion of their initial service obligation period, but some remained on active duty and eventually attained regular commissions.

January 1965 to 1975. Following the seizure of the Pueblo, two military airlift wings, five military airlift groups, and a rescue and recovery squadron were called up on January 25. The second callup on May 13 included elements of a tactical airlift group, a medical evacuation squadron, and a medical service squadron. Some of the mobilized units remained in the United States, some deployed to Korea, and some deployed to Southeast Asia. The units that served in Southeast Asia as either complete units or elements included the 349th Military Airlift Wing, the 941st Military Airlift Group, the 930th Tactical Airlift Group, the 305th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, the 34th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, and the 71st Tactical Airlift Squadron. The latter, redesignated the 71st Special Operations Squadron and flying AC-119 Stinger gunships, was the first Air Force Reserve unit to engage in combat since the Korean War.

Air Force Reserve

Army National Guard

Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units were directly supporting operations in Southeast Asia as early as 1965. Often flying voluntarily in the status of AT, ADT, or ADSW—meaning that they technically were not on active duty—Air Force Reserve crews assigned to the Military Air Transport Service flew supply and medical evacuation missions to and from Vietnam between

During the second call-up on May 13, 12,234 Army National Guardsmen in 20 units from 13 states were mobilized. Eight of those units deployed to Vietnam. The 650th Medical Detachment (Alabama) was the first to reach the theater. By the time the last Army National Guardsman returned to the United States on December 12, 1969, more than 9,000 had served in the war zone.

Air National Guard Like their Air Force Reserve counterparts, units and flight crews of the Air National Guard by August 1965 were flying medical evacuation and other support missions to Vietnam under the various training and inactive duty orders. The Air National Guard units mobilized during the January 25 call-up included eight tactical fighter squadrons and a tactical reconnaissance wing. The May 13 call-up included two more tactical fighter squadrons and a medical evacuation unit. A total of 10,676 Air National Guardsmen were mobilized under both call-ups. In May and June four of the mobilized fighter squadrons deployed to Vietnam. The 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron (Colorado), 174th Tactical Fighter Squadron (Iowa), 188th Tactical Fighter Squadron (New Mexico), and 138th Tactical Fighter Squadron (New York) were all equipped with the F-100C fighter. Additionally, 85 percent of the personnel assigned to the 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron were Air National Guard volunteers, although the 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron was officially a regular U.S. Air Force unit. Including the 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron aircrews, Air National Guard pilots flew some 30,000 combat sorties in Vietnam before all the mobilized units returned to the United States in April 1969. Two of the other mobilized Air National Guard squadrons also deployed to Korea. From July to December 1970, two EC-121 Super Constellations from the 193rd Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron (Pennsylvania) operated from Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base. Not officially called up, the flight crews and support personnel rotated in and out of Korat on 30- to 60-day training orders.

United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize 1211 The only ground maneuver unit from the reserve components to serve in Vietnam was Company D (Long-Range Patrol), 151st Infantry (Indiana). Arriving in-theater in December 1968, Company D operated in the II Field Force tactical area of operations. Company D was also the last Army National Guard unit to leave Vietnam. During D Company’s tour of duty, its soldiers received an impressive 510 awards for valor and meritorious service. Two D Company soldiers were killed in action, and more than 100 were wounded in action. Other Army National Guard units in Vietnam included the 2nd Battalion, 197th Field Artillery (New Hampshire); the 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery (Kentucky); the 116th Engineer Battalion (Indiana); the 131st Engineer Company (Vermont); the 107th Signal Company (Rhode Island); and the 126th Supply and Service Company (Illinois).

Army Reserve Forty-two Army Reserve units were mobilized under the May 13 call-up. Thirty-five of those units deployed to Vietnam, including the 513th Maintenance Battalion. All were medical, logistical, engineer, and administrative units. The only Army Reserve maneuver unit mobilized was the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Infantry. The direct descendent of the famous Nisei unit of World War II, the 100th Infantry Battalion remained in Hawaii as part of the strategic reserve in the Pacific region. Many of the mobilized Army Reserve units had recently undergone reorganization, and very few were at full strength. At the time of mobilization the 42 units totaled 5,869 reservists. The primary source of fillers for the vacancies came from the Reserve Enlistment Program 1963 (REP-63), whose members were assigned to the Individual Ready Reserve and still had a military obligation. Some 1,692 REP-63 soldiers were called up and assigned to fill vacancies in the mobilized Army Reserve units. Another 1,060 were called up and assigned to active U.S. Army units, bringing the total of mobilized army reservists to about 8,620. In addition, more than 1,800 active U.S. Army troops were assigned to fill critical vacancies in the mobilized units. Army Reserve units that received the Meritorious Unit Citation for service in Vietnam included the 336th Ordnance Battalion, the 259th Quartermaster Battalion, the 312th Evacuation Hospital, the 237th Maintenance Company, the 377th Light Maintenance Company, the 172nd Transportation Company, the 319th Transportation Company, the 357th Transportation Company, the 737th Transportation Company, and the 378th Medical Detachment.

Navy Reserve As early as 1966, Navy Reserve aircrews assigned to Fleet Logistics Support Squadron VR-772 based at Los Alamitos, California, started conducting missions to Vietnam while on AT orders. Flying Douglas C-118 Liftmasters on the 15,000-mile round trips, VR-772 and other Navy Reserve crews carried out some 1,250 such missions during the course of the war. Navy Reserve fighter pilots

also flew direct combat missions during the war. For example, of the 69 pilots and aircrew from the aircraft carrier Coral Sea (CVA43) who were shot down between 1965 and 1972, 7 were listed as Navy Reserve officers. Most more than likely were recently commissioned officers serving on active duty, but some Navy Reserve pilots and crewmen did fly combat missions while on AT or other training orders. Among them was bombardier and navigator John Lehman, who served as secretary of the U.S. Navy in the Ronald Reagan administration and later served on the 9/11 Commission. The January 26 call-up following the Pueblo Incident included six Navy Reserve fighter squadrons, none of which deployed outside of the United States. The May 13 call-up included two of the U.S. Navy’s 18 reserve Mobile Construction Battalions. MCB-12 and MCB-22 each served seven-month tours in Vietnam, returning to the United States in July and August 1969. Seabee reservists, however, had first served in Vietnam in May 1965. Some 200 of the Seabees assigned to the active duty MCB-10 were volunteer reservists, accounting for more than 25 percent of the battalion’s assigned strength. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize References Cantwell, Gerald T. Citizen Airmen: A History of the Air Force Reserve, 1946–1994. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994. Crossland, Richard B., and James T. Currie. Twice the Citizen: A History of the United States Army Reserve, 1908–1995. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of the Army Reserve, 1997. Doubler, Michael. The National Guard and Reserve: A Reference Handbook. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Gordon, Debra M. 2006 Reserve Forces Almanac. Washington, DC: Uniformed Services Almanac, 2006. Gross, Charles J. Prelude to Total Force: The Air National Guard 1943–1969. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1985. Kreh, William R. Citizen Sailors: The U.S. Naval Reserve in War and Peace. New York: David McKay, 1969. Listman, John W., and Michael D. Doubler. The National Guard: An Illustrated History of America’s Citizen Soldiers. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2003. Public Affairs Unit 4-1. The Marine Corps Reserve: A History. Washington, DC: Division of Reserve, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1966. Shipman, Richard, Anthony Turpin, and George Hall. Wings at the Ready: 75 Years of the Naval Air Reserve. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991.

United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize President Lyndon B. Johnson’s July 1965 decision not to call up reserve forces for service during the Vietnam War was one of the most important, fateful, and unfortunate decisions of the entire war. This decision, which was motivated chiefly by political

1212

United States Special Forces

considerations, forced the U.S. armed services, and particularly the U.S. Army, to support rapid and massive expansion without recourse to the assets in manpower, knowledge, experience, and leadership represented by the U.S. National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve. The decision rendered those elements havens for draft evaders, resulting in humiliation and frustration among dedicated longtime professionals within the reserve forces. In addition, reserve force units were stripped of essential equipment to support new formations being organized to go to Vietnam in their place, so that when—much later and in small numbers—some reserve force units were called up, they were less ready and represented themselves less well than they could have done at the outset. The military establishment had expected Johnson to approve the employment of the reserves. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had recommended it. Among senior military leaders, only General William Westmoreland was opposed. All contingency plans for operations as extensive as the deployments then being ordered for Vietnam were based on the availability of reserve forces. Then, at the very last moment, President Johnson drew back. Large formations were being sent to Vietnam, he told the American people; more would be required later, and they would also be sent. But reserve forces would take no part in this. Instead, draft calls would be increased to provide the needed additional manpower. For the U.S. Army, this meant growing from about 965,000 in early 1965 to more than 1.527 million by mid-1968. The increases, as General Creighton Abrams later ruefully observed, consisted “entirely of privates and second lieutenants.” As the war went on year after year and the army grew ever larger to meet insatiable demands, levels of experience and maturity in the force continued to drop, particularly among junior officers and noncommissioned officers. Further dilution resulted from the prospect of repetitive tours in Vietnam for those in the regular army. Many, especially those among the junior leadership, came under heavy family pressure and resigned rather than go through yet another separation at risk. There was a parallel development in terms of increasing problems of poor discipline, racial strife, and drug abuse in the armed forces. The conclusion seems inescapable that there was a causal relationship between the two trend lines. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) made repeated appeals to the president and Secretary McNamara on the need to call up reserve forces. Each time they were rebuffed. It was not until early 1968, when the force of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) seized the U.S. electronic surveillance ship Pueblo in international waters off the North Korean coast and the sense of crisis caused by this action was then strongly reinforced by the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, that a small number of units from the reserve forces were brought to active duty under the mechanism of a Presidential Reserve Call-up. In May 1968 a small number of additional units were called up, and a few of these units were eventually deployed to Vietnam, usually after extended periods of postmobilization training. Deployments were in some cases delayed by individual and class-action

lawsuits challenging the legality of the call-ups. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the mobilization was legal, ending these suits. All those mobilized had been returned to inactive status by December 1969. A subsequent assessment by the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute concluded that insofar as the U.S. Army was concerned, “mobilization for the Vietnam War occurred far too late to be of any political significance, and was far too small to be of any military significance.” Recognizing that mobilization of the reserve components was the best way to ensure that the American people would clearly either support or reject any future American military commitment, General Creighton Abrams, when he became chief of staff of the army, restructured the force in such a way that it would be impossible in the future to commit the army to combat without also mobilizing the reserve components. Eventually called the Total Force Concept, the policy was adopted throughout the Department of Defense. The American experience in the 1991 Persian Gulf War is largely seen as having validated what has also been called the Abrams Doctrine. Every major American military commitment since then—Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan—has included substantial numbers of reservists. LEWIS SORLEY See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; McNamara, Robert Strange; Pueblo Incident; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Army; United States Reserve Components References National Guard Association of the United States. The Abrams Doctrine: Then, Now and in the Future; A National Guard Association Symposium: Report and Transcript. Washington, DC: National Guard Association, 1994. Sorley, Lewis. “Creighton Abrams and Active-Reserve Integration in Wartime.” Parameters (Summer 1991): 35–50. Stuckey, Colonel John D., and Colonel Joseph H. Pistorius. Mobilization of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve: Historical Perspective and the Vietnam War. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 15, 1984.

United States Special Forces All four U.S. military services’ elite units or Special Operations Forces (SOFs) participated in counterinsurgency operations during the Vietnam War. This tradition extended back some three centuries. Although Rogers’ Rangers of the French and Indian War (1754–1763) are better known, American colonists first formed special units of woodsmen in 1676 to counter Wampanoag Indian chief Metacomet’s use of ambushes and hit-and-run raids against the conventionally employed Puritan militia sent to destroy him. The U.S. Army was the first service to establish a permanent unconventional warfare (UW) unit, the U.S. Special Forces (USSF), at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 20, 1952.

United States Special Forces The Korean War experience led the U.S. Army’s chief of psychological warfare, Brigadier General Robert A. McClure, to suggest formation of specially trained units to conduct UW operations behind enemy lines. Congress agreed, passing Public Law 597 of June 30, 1952, known as the Lodge Bill, to fund recruiting of Special Forces volunteers. Training stressed infiltration and landnavigation techniques and the use of parachutes and small boats. Specialized training included sabotage, intelligence gathering, communications, medicine, and weaponry. Both President John F. Kennedy and his senior military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor were strong advocates of an enhanced Special Forces capability. Their advocacy of unconventional warfare units drove all the services to develop such forces. Kennedy’s National Security Action Memorandum No. 52 of May 11, 1961, directed Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to examine “increasing the counter-guerrilla resources” of the United States. In his budget message to Congress of that year Kennedy announced his intention to expand the military’s capability to conduct unconventional warfare. The U.S. Army activated the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, on September 21, 1961. Its mission was to train personnel in counterinsurgency methods to be employed in Vietnam. The other services followed. The U.S. Navy formed two Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) teams from Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) volunteers in January 1962, while the U.S. Air Force activated the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base in April 1961. Equipped primarily with World War II– era aircraft, its primary missions were training allied pilots and aircrews in countries under threat, covert support to UW forces and operations, and combat search and rescue of downed aircrews. Personnel of the army’s 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa first arrived in Vietnam in the summer of 1957. There they trained 58 Vietnamese soldiers in special forces techniques at a training center in Nha Trang, later designated the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Recondo School. These Vietnamese formed the nucleus of the Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces). The USSF mission expanded in 1960 to include training 60 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) Ranger companies. For this, 30 instructors from the 7th Special Forces Group deployed to Vietnam. The U.S. Navy’s training of South Vietnamese UDT teams (Lien Doan Nguoi Nhai [LDNN]) began that summer as well. In early 1961 this arrangement was changed when four men from the 1st Special Forces Group and five other soldiers replaced the 7th Special Forces instructors as a Mobile Training Team (MTT). Such teams rotated from Okinawa during the next two years to train the ARVN Rangers. These teams operated under the control of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Combined Studies Group (CSG). Also in 1961, the USSF began training Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, and this became the basis of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG). The purpose was to reestablish government control over remote areas and to provide forces ca-

1213

A member of the U.S. Army Special Forces jumps from a Piasecki H-21 “Flying Banana” helicopter near Tacanh, north of Kontum, South Vietnam, January 4, 1963. (AP/Wide World Photos)

pable of combating the Communist insurgents. By August, about 10,000 Rhade tribesmen had been organized into village defense and mobile strike forces (Mike Forces). This program relied on fortified outposts, and by 1965 more than 80 CIDG camps had been established. During 1961 the CIA used one Special Forces team to train Vietnamese Special Forces to conduct reconnaissance and harassment operations in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). On May 1, 1962, the CSG was attached to MACV headquarters. In addition to training local inhabitants to defend themselves, gather intelligence, and conduct small-unit offensive operations, the USSF was deeply involved in civic action programs to encourage civilians to identify more closely with the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and to improve the living conditions of the people. This was done through such efforts as digging wells, building schools, and providing medical care. The other services’ SOFs followed. The U.S. Air Force’s 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron deployed its Detachment 1 to Bien Hoa Air Base in November 1961. In addition to training South Vietnamese pilots and conducting mapping missions, the squadron’s members flew some of the first U.S. combat missions in Vietnam. They also prepared plans and identified requirements for supporting army Special Forces’ operations. In January 1962 U.S. Navy UDT teams initiated overt and covert hydrographic survey operations along the South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese

1214

United States Special Forces

U.S. Army Units in Vietnam Unit Type Divisions Infantry battalions Tank battalions/Cavalry squadrons Direct support artillery battalions General support artillery battalions Combat engineer battalions Construction engineer battalions Signal battalions Aviation companies/Air cavalry troops Special Forces detachments

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

0 2 0 1 0 0 2 1 16 76

3 32 3 15 8 10 6 9 62 93

5 57 9 28 18 16 14 26 90 98

7 79 11 34 23 19 15 26 127 88

7 81 12 33 26 20 14 28 142 79

5 61 10 20 25 14 14 23 135 60

2 28 5 9 16 7 13 16 100 7

0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 40 1

Notes: Under divisions, figures for battalions and companies are totals, including divisional and non-divisional units. Direct support artillery battalions were almost always divisional units, armed with 105mm howitzers. General support artillery battalions included divisional and non-divisional units armed with 155mm howitzers and nondivisional units armed with 175mm guns and 8-inch howitzers. Figures for Special Forces include A, B, and C detachments.

coasts and up South Vietnam’s rivers, completing the mission by January 27. Two months later the first SEAL instructors arrived incountry as MTT 10-62 to train South Vietnamese naval personnel in clandestine maritime operations. The six-month course graduated 62 South Vietnamese frogmen by October. The U.S. Navy also trained and provided equipment to South Vietnamese commando units to carry out raids on the North Vietnamese coast. In July 1962 Secretary McNamara directed the transfer of CIA paramilitary operations to MACV, placing Special Forces units under army control and emphasizing offensive operations rather than pacification. Code-named Operation PARASOL-SWITCHBACK, the transfer was complete by July 1, 1963, bringing all Special Forces operations in Vietnam under MACV control. By November, 24 Special Forces detachments operated in Vietnam on temporary duty in six-month tours. In September, MACV established Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Forces Vietnam, Provisional (USASFV[P]). In February 1963 the headquarters occupied semipermanent facilities at Nha Trang Air Base. Operation SWITCHBACK was completed as scheduled. By that time, the Special Forces had trained 52,636 villagers, 10,904 reactionforce soldiers, 515 medical personnel, 3,803 scouts, and 946 trail watchers; 879 villages had also been secured. Total USSF personnel in Vietnam had risen to 646. MACV decided to consolidate its unconventional warfare operations under the cover name Studies and Observation Group (SOG). Established in January 1964, it was a joint command that drew upon all the services’ SOFs for offensive action. SOG directed Special Forces reconnaissance and direct-action missions against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia and commando raids against North Vietnamese coastal roads, bridges, and military facilities. The commando raids were conducted by SEAL-trained South Vietnamese naval units. U.S. Marine Corps reconnaissance (Marine Recon) teams arrived with the deployment of the first U.S. Marine Corps combat units in March 1963. Operating in small four-man units, Marine Recon teams primarily conducted reconnaissance missions either in advance of U.S. Marine Corps operations or to provide warn-

ing of approaching Communist units. Marine Recon teams also located enemy forces for targeting by artillery and air strikes. The navy also deployed three UDT detachments to Da Nang that year. They conducted prelanding beach reconnaissance and obstacle removal for all amphibious assaults during the war. They also operated extensively in areas controlled by the Viet Cong (VC) doing hydrographic surveys of key rivers and coastal areas and plotting bottom contour, beach gradient, and depth changes as well as plotting and removing newly planted obstacles and mines as required. The USSF were frustrated in their efforts to improve the quality of the LLDB primarily because of incompetent Vietnamese leadership and mistrust of the Saigon government. Part of the concept of the CIDG and border camps was that once an area was deemed secure, the camps would be turned over to ARVN or LLDB control, and the defenders would become part of the ARVN. Traditional Vietnamese disregard of ethnic minorities, who often composed CIDG forces, and the incompetence of ARVN officers many times led to the abandonment of camps or to the unwillingness of the CIDG to fight for the government. The CIDG soldiers often showed themselves more loyal to their USSF advisers than to the Saigon regime. On November 1, 1963, along with the CIDG program, the CIA relinquished its surveillance responsibilities along the Laotian and Cambodian borders to the USASFV(P) headquarters. By June 1964, 18 border camps had been established, and the U.S. Air Force introduced AC-47 Spooky (also known as “Puff the Magic Dragon”) gunships for the specific purpose of defending base camps against infantry assault. As the Special Forces mission shifted from training indigenous forces to monitoring infiltration routes into South Vietnam, these camps became increasingly tempting targets for the North Vietnamese. In July 1964 a VC force attacked the camp at Nam Dong. For this battle, USSF camp commander Captain Roger Donlon received the first Medal of Honor awarded since the Korean War. Programs to increase the number of indigenous minorities participating in the CIDG effort and to expand CIDG operations, along with greater emphasis on observation along the borders, soon outstripped USSF resources available in Vietnam. On October

United States Special Forces 1, 1964, the 5th Special Forces Group officially arrived in Vietnam. Many Special Forces detachments, however, were understaffed. Replacements often had little to no Special Forces experience, and shortages of personnel with communications and medical skills became critical. Duty tours for USSF teams in Vietnam increased from six months to one year. This resulted in troop replacements on an individual basis rather than a detachment basis, which had a detrimental effect on detachment operations. The USSF reached its highest strength in Vietnam on September 30, 1968, with 3,542 assigned personnel. Other activities in which USSF troops were involved included acting as guides for U.S. units to orient them to a particular area. From 1964 to 1966 the USSF trained and fielded three long-range reconnaissance projects: Delta, Sigma, and Omega. All had USSF leadership with indigenous battalions as reaction forces. In September 1966 MACV commander General William C. Westmoreland directed the 5th Special Forces Group to establish the MACV Recondo School to train U.S. and allied personnel from major combat units in long-range reconnaissance techniques. Despite having a permanent headquarters in Vietnam, the USSF was unable to prevent MACV from employing Special Forces and CIDG troops as regular infantry in offensive operations against the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) or the VC. Although results of such operations were often disastrous, the CIDG was usually successful in defending camps against Communist attacks. By 1967 increased use of night operations, extensive training, and missions based on effective intelligence resulted in more effective operations being conducted by Special Forces units, such as Detachment B-36, also designated Project Rapid Fire. In November 1967 following the September 3 transfer of the Sigma and Omega projects to MACV-SOG, Detachment B-36 became the 3rd Mobile Strike Force Command for the III Corps Tactical Zone. Interestingly, MACV-SOG often was supervised by the president of the United States. Under MACV-SOG direction, combined USSF and indigenous teams conducted operations into North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to gather intelligence about PAVN activities along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Often useful and productive, these operations and the Phoenix Program drew experienced USSF personnel from other potentially more constructive counterinsurgency missions. The 5th Special Forces was particularly hard hit by the diversion of its personnel. The first SEAL combat units deployed to Vietnam in February 1966 and were assigned to MACV-SOG. By April, SEAL Team 1 was fully operational at its base in Nha Be. Operating primarily in the Mekong Delta, SEALs ambushed VC units, conducted “agent snatches,” and carried out hit-and-run raids against Communist facilities. U.S. Air Force commando strength also grew significantly in 1966, reaching a total of 10,000 people, 550 aircraft, and 19 squadrons. In July 1968 U.S. Air Force SOFs were designated the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Force and became the equivalent of

1215

a numbered air force. U.S. Air Force SOF-flown gunships were increasingly important to the war effort by 1968. The slow speed, infrared sensors, and long loiter times of their AC-47s and after 1969 their AC-119s and AC-130s enabled them to detect and destroy Communist truck convoys on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and massed infantry movements in and around American units. U.S. Air Force SOFs also conducted counterfeit money and leaflet drops over North Vietnam and dropped supplies to CIAcontrolled asset agents inside North Vietnam. Perhaps more importantly, U.S. Air Force commandos using HH-3 and HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopters rescued dozens of U.S. and allied pilots and aircrew shot down over Laos and North Vietnam, often extracting them under fire. U.S. Air Force commando units based in Thailand also provided extensive support to the so-called secret U.S. war in Laos by providing training support and U.S. Air Force forward air controllers to support operations by Royal Lao Army and CIA-supported indigenous paramilitary forces and by using their large helicopters to transport CIA paramilitary forces conducting operations during the latter years of the war. However, the best-known operation in which the U.S. Air Force commandos participated was the Son Tay Raid of November 20–21, 1970. Although no American prisoners of war were rescued, the ability of the United States to deliver a commando unit undetected within 40 miles of Hanoi shocked the North Vietnamese leadership and led them to consolidate their prisoners in one location. On August 27, 1969, General Creighton Abrams, who succeeded Westmoreland as MACV commander, ordered the phaseout of the CIDG program, with the camps and CIDG soldiers to be transferred to ARVN control. A total of 38 light infantry battalions, comprised primarily of ethnic minorities, joined the ARVN under this program. On March 1, 1971, the 5th Special Forces Group ceased all operations in South Vietnam and departed for the United States. The first SEAL and U.S. Air Force SOF detachments began to depart the country. Some U.S. SOF personnel remained in Vietnam as instructors with the Special Mission Advisory Group (SMAG). These instructors readied Vietnamese sailors, soldiers, and airmen to assume MACV-SOG’s unconventional warfare role as the Special Mission Service (SMS). As SMAG was inactivated on April 1, 1972, USSF instructors became advisers to the SMS and the graduated SMAG students. Teams from the 1st Special Forces Group continued to train ARVN and Cambodian soldiers until February 22, 1973, when the 1st Special Forces Group ceased operations in South Vietnam. The combined USSF-Vietnamese organization Strategic Technical Directorate operated under the auspices of the closed MACV-SOG until May 12, 1973, when it was disbanded. RICHARD L. KIPER, HARVE SAAL, CARL OTIS SCHUSTER, AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Counterinsurgency Warfare; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam;

1216

United States Veterans Administration

Montagnards; Order of Battle Dispute; Phoenix Program; Project Delta; Project Omega; Road Watch Teams; SEAL Teams; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces; Westmoreland, William Childs References Bohrer, David. America’s Special Forces, Weapons, Missions. St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing, 2002. Bosiljevac, T. L. SEALs: UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam. New York: Ballantine, 1990. Chinners, Philip D. Any Time, Any Place: Fifty Years of the USAF Commando and Special Operations Forces, 1944–1994. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994. Donahue, James C. Mobile Guerrilla Force: With the Special Forces in War Zone D. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Kelly, Francis John. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Orr, Kelly. Brave Men, Dark Waters. New York: Pocket Books, 1992. Plaster, John. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Saal, Harve. MACV, Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 4 vols. Milwaukee, WI: Jones Techno-Comm, 1990. Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years; A History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Southworth, Samuel A., and Stephen Tanner. U.S. Special Forces: A Guide to America’s Special Operations Units. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2002. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Sutherland, Ian D. W. 1952/1982: Special Forces of the United States Army. San Jose, CA: R. James Bender, 1990.

United States Veterans Administration U.S. government agency established in 1930 and designed to administer benefits and health care to U.S. service veterans. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan elevated the agency to cabinet-level status and renamed it the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The current and former agency is commonly referred to as the Veterans Administration (VA). Low-cost health care for veterans is the best-known VA benefit. The VA is the largest direct health care delivery system in the United States. The VA also provides disability compensation to those injured during service or wartime, home loans, life insurance, vocational rehabilitation and retraining, and survivor and burial benefits. Since World War II, the VA has typically been the second largest government agency after the Department of Defense. The VA currently employs 230,000 people. To administer its benefits, the VA has three components: the Veterans Health Administration, the Veterans Benefits Administration, and the National Cemetery Administration. The VA offers a single-payer government-sponsored health care system for military veterans. Benefits are dispensed in numerous VA hospitals located throughout the United States. Cur-

rently, Vietnam War veterans represent the single largest group of veterans using VA services, but this is expected to shift as veterans from later wars enter the system. Health problems stemming from the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War continue to be a major concern for this agency. Agent Orange is the commonly used name for a defoliant widely used by the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam. The defoliant was sprayed in jungle areas used by the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Exposure to Agent Orange related to higher rates of certain cancers and skin diseases. It is also claimed that Agent Orange was the primary cause of certain birth defects in the children of servicemen who had been exposed to this chemical. After an initially slow response, the VA is now providing disability payments to servicemen linked to diseases caused by Agent Orange. About 91 percent of all VA employees provide medical care, and the agency expended about $86 billion in 2007. Of this amount, 45 percent went to pay for cash benefits to veterans, while 44 percent funded medical care and research. Approximately 10 percent of the VA budget funds other lesser-known benefits, while fewer than 5 percent of VA personnel administer these programs. They include the VA housing loan program, veterans’ insurance benefits, educational benefits, and the veterans’ burial/national cemetery program. The VA housing loan program offers federal loan guarantees to eligible veterans seeking to buy a home. Regarding insurance programs, the VA administers free life insurance to more than 1 million veterans and offers subsidized life insurance to disabled veterans. The VA also oversaw the very successful GI Bill program, which allowed many World War II veterans to attend college. The VA still administers the more limited Montgomery GI Bill and has been assigned responsibility for a more generous education benefit for troops activated in support of the Global War on Terror. Two severely wounded Vietnam War veterans later became VA secretaries: Joseph Maxwell “Max” Cleland, a U.S. Army captain in the war who served as VA secretary during 1977–1981, and Eric Shinseki, who assumed office in January 2009 after retiring as a full general from the U.S. Army. GAYLE AVANT See also Defoliation; Cleland, Joseph Maxwell; Herbicides; Reagan, Ronald Wilson References Linedecker, Clifford. Kerry: Agent Orange and an American Family. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982. The President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors. Serve, Support and Simplify. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007. Reed, David. Your Guide to VA Loans. New York: AMACOM, 2008. Wilcox, Fred A. Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange. New York: Random House, 1983.

United States v. Seeger

United States v. O’Brien A 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision during the Vietnam War in which David O’Brien’s conviction for burning his draft card on the steps of a South Boston courthouse was upheld. On the morning of March 31, 1966, O’Brien and three other activists of the Boston Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA) burned their draft cards. The incident took place on the steps of the South Boston District Courthouse. O’Brien, a Boston University student, had been active in the university’s Students for Peace organization and was a member of the War Resisters League. On April 15, 1966, a grand jury in a U.S. District Court in Boston brought indictments against O’Brien, John Phillips, David Benson, and David Reed. The four men were charged with violating section 462(b) of the 1948 Universal Military Training Service Act, a law prohibiting the destruction of a draft card. At his one-day trial on June 1, 1966, O’Brien read a letter that he had previously sent to his local draft board proclaiming that he had severed his ties to the Selective Service System on moral grounds. O’Brien’s opposition to military service was based on his pacifist beliefs rather than his specific opposition to the Vietnam War. At his trial he acknowledged that he could have applied for conscientious objector status but that such an exemption had generally been reserved for those who could demonstrate a religious basis for their pacifism. O’Brien could not do so, nor was he willing to fulfill a two-year service position in a noncombatant capacity. O’Brien was found guilty and was sentenced to federal prison for a period of two to five years. Following two months in prison, O’Brien secured bail as his case went through the appeals process. His court conviction was overturned by Boston’s First Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that the law prohibiting the destruction of draft cards violated the First Amendment. O’Brien’s act was interpreted as symbolic speech. The appellate court, however, ruled that while O’Brien’s free speech rights should be upheld, he could still be convicted for failing to carry his draft card. The case then proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 27, 1968, the Supreme Court ruled seven to one against O’Brien. Justice William O. Douglas was the lone dissenter. The Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing the majority opinion, noted that the draft card burning did constitute symbolic speech as protected under the First Amendment. But the Court noted that the Selective Service System had a substantial interest in administering a system for raising an army and that O’Brien’s actions undermined that effort. From a legal standpoint, the Court also noted that when speech and nonspeech elements are combined, the government can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms. The O’Brien case redefined the clear and present danger application by establishing a four-part test to determine that government regulation is sufficiently justified: (1) if it is within the constitutional power of the government, (2) if it furthers an impor-

1217

tant or substantial governmental interest, (3) if the governmental interest is unrelated to free expression, and (4) if the incidental restriction on free speech freedoms is no greater than is essential to furthering that interest. Although O’Brien did lose his appeal, the judge who heard his resentencing conviction permitted him to work in a hospital rather than serve time in jail. United States v. O’Brien is a significant case related to draft resisters and the Vietnam War. But by redefining the clear and present danger thesis, the Supreme Court established a stricter definition that limited the right of the government to regulate expressive conduct. But the Court also permitted First Amendment limitations when such actions interfered with the right of government agencies to carry out their responsibilities. CHARLES FRANCIS HOWLETT See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Conscientious Objectors; Selective Service References Barron, Jerome A., and C. Thomas Dienes. First Amendment Law. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1993. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Gunther, Gerald. Constitutional Law. 11th ed. Mineola, NY: Foundation Press, 1985. Howlett, Charles F. “Case Law Historiography in American Peace History.” Peace & Change 22 (January 1997): 49–75.

United States v. Seeger U.S. Supreme Court case decided on March 8, 1965, that reinterpreted the Selective Service Act of 1948 and its military training and service exemption clause for religious conscientious objectors. Section 6(j) of the statute provided that an individual had only to object to war in any form based on “religious training and belief” in order to meet exemption requirements. Congress defined this phrase in section 6(j) as “an individual’s belief in relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation, but that does not include essentially political, sociological or philosophical views or a merely personal code.” The Supreme Court examined the language of the statute by agreeing to hear the case of United States v. Seeger, a consolidation of three conscientious objector cases addressing the same issue. All three men involved in the cases had been convicted under the statute for failing to register for induction into military service. Although the beliefs among them differed significantly, each one claimed a broad religious belief absent of a traditional concept of God. The Court heard the case during a time of rising conscientious objector claims and rising opposition to the draft. Furthermore, unlike previous exemption claimants since World War I, an increasing number of conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War period claimed exemption on arguably nonreligious grounds.

1218

University of Wisconsin Bombing

Daniel Andrew Seeger, for example, refused to acknowledge a belief or disbelief in a Supreme Being but argued that this did not necessarily mean a lack of faith. Developed through extensive research and reflection, Seeger’s belief centered on goodness and virtue and “a religious faith in a purely ethical creed,” which grounded his opposition to war. In addition, the courts of appeal that had previously heard the three cases reached varying results. This required clarification via a Supreme Court decision. Thus, the Court was presented with a constitutional question as to whether or not the language of the section 6(j) exemption clause violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by favoring conscientious objectors with a belief in a traditional God over those who held no such belief in a traditional God. Writing on behalf of a unanimous Supreme Court, Justice Tom C. Clark skirted the First Amendment issue entirely. Instead, he focused on the Supreme Being language added by Congress in 1948 to help clarify what “religious training and belief” meant in section 6(j). Straining to expand Congress’s narrow definition, Clark asserted that the use of the phrase “Supreme Being” indicated Congress’s intent to accept notions broader than a traditional belief in a personal God. Otherwise, the word “God” would have been added. According to the Court, the phrase thus encompassed all religions while excluding views essentially political, sociological, or philosophical at their core. The next step was to then determine whether a conscientious objector believed in a Supreme Being as interpreted by the Court in order to fall under the exemption. To do so, the objector’s sincerity in his belief and how meaningful that belief was to him as compared to one who held a traditional religious belief in God required testing. If sincere and comparable in meaningfulness as determined by a draft board or court in a particular instance, then the objector’s belief passed the test. Using this broad test, the Court found that all three conscientious objectors in United States v. Seeger met the conditions of sincerity and meaningfulness in their beliefs, thus warranting exemption from military training and service. The Court’s Seeger decision effectively rendered section 6(j)’s reference to belief in a Supreme Being meaningless and provided for an increase in nontraditional religious exemption claims as the Vietnam War intensified. In response to the Court’s broad interpretation of section 6(j), Congress amended the statute in 1967 by striking the “Supreme Being” language. Yet section 6(j) was scrutinized by the Court again in Welsh v. United States (1970) when it was asked to broaden the exemption even further to include atheistic conscientious objectors. The Court did so by expanding the Seeger sincerity test to cover a claimant’s atheistic views. The contentiousness of the Court’s Seeger ruling abated a few years later with the end of the Vietnam War and the draft. However, that type of contentiousness will likely emerge once again if the United States should ever return to a wartime draft system. MARK F. LEEP See also Conscientious Objectors; Welsh v. United States

References Greenwalt, Kent. Religion and the Constitution, Vol. 1, Free Exercise and Fairness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Lindenbaum, Matthew. “Religious Conscientious Objection and the Establishment Clause in the Rehnquist Court: Seeger, Welsh, Gillette, and §6(j) Revisited.” Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems 36 (2003): 237–263. Miller, Robert T., and Ronald B. Flowers. Toward Benevolent Neutrality: Church, State, and the Supreme Court. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 1996.

University of Wisconsin Bombing Event Date: August 24, 1970 Bombing on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on August 24, 1970. As New Left protest groups, led by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), began to disintegrate in 1969, a few radicals sought to attract attention. The most radical of these groups was the Weathermen. In October 1969 most of the New Left antiwar groups had agreed to a moratorium on further action. After the May 1970 violence at Kent State University left four people dead, many students and the SDS ceased their antiwar protests. A few protesters, however, turned to violence. Led by Mark Rudd, the Weathermen, a small radical group of students, turned to bombings and guerrilla warfare. Following a bizarre open convention at Flint, Michigan, on Christmas Day 1969 at which they openly advocated violence, the Weathermen went underground and operated in small affinity groups and revolutionary cells. Soon bombs set by the Weathermen began going off around the country. On February 21, 1970, Weathermen firebombed the Manhattan home of Judge John Murtagh, who was presiding over a trial of a group of Black Panthers. On March 6, 1970, a townhouse in Greenwich Village exploded, killing three Weathermen who had been assembling a bomb when it detonated prematurely. Other Weathermen cells bombed the New York City police headquarters in June 1970. Weathermen bombs also exploded in Chicago, California, and Long Island, but none resulted in deaths. That changed on August 24, 1970, when a Weathermen bomb exploded in Sterling Hall on the main University of Wisconsin campus at Madison. Known as Army Math, the building was the home of the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC). The purpose of the bombers was to strike a blow at the “government war machine.” The bomb destroyed the work of 5 professors and the doctoral work of 24 graduate students. It also caused $6 million in damage, injured 3 people, and killed Robert Fussnach, a 33-year-old graduate student. His death shocked and angered many radicals. The bombing was carried out by Madison residents Karl and Dwight Armstrong and University of Wisconsin students David Fine and Leo Burt. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Ut, Nick

1219

immediately launched an extensive manhunt, and between 1972 and 1976 all the bombers except Burt were caught. In 1973 Karl Armstrong was sentenced to 23 years in prison (later reduced to 10 years); Dwight Armstrong and Fine received 7-year sentences. Burt remains at large. On September 29, 2007, he was featured on the Fox Television show America’s Most Wanted as the “Ghost of Wisconsin.” Although terrorist bombings continued for the next several years after the University of Wisconsin bombing, the number of Weathermen attacks dropped dramatically. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Black Panthers; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Kent State University Shootings; Students for a Democratic Society; Weathermen References Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Jacobs, Harold, ed. Weathermen. Berkeley, CA: Ramparts, 1970. Unger, Irwin. The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959–1972. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1974.

Ut, Nick Birth Date: March 29, 1951 Award-winning photographer for the Associated Press (AP). His picture of a young naked girl fleeing her village after a napalm attack during the Vietnam War earned him the 1973 Pulitzer Prize and focused public attention on the brutal fact that civilians suffer perhaps the most in wartime. Nick Ut was born Huynh Cong Ut in Long An in southern Vietnam on March 29, 1951. He began taking pictures of the war in 1965 at age 14. The AP soon hired him as a darkroom technician, a job in which he mixed chemicals and developed other photographers’ pictures. He gradually worked his way up the ranks and was trained by veteran AP photographers Horst Faas and Henri Huet. By 1967 Ut, armed with a Leica camera and a Nikon camera, was in the field taking photos. His pictures testified not only to his skill but also to his courage to go into the most dangerous spots and capture the most revealing pictures. He was wounded several times but quickly returned to work. Ut took his most famous photograph on June 8, 1972, in the village of Trang Bang, about 25 miles outside of Saigon. People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces were closing in on Saigon and had severed Route 1, South Vietnam’s most important highway. Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops were ordered to reopen the road, and Ut went along to record this. He was on the outskirts of Trang Bang when the South Vietnamese commander called in air strikes to clear out the PAVN forces. Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) planes quickly arrived

Associated Press photographer Nick Ut visits Phan Thi Kim Phuc in 1973. As a nine-year-old, Phuc became the subject of a Pulitzer Prize– winning photo by Ut as she fled in pain from a misdirected napalm attack against her village by South Vietnamese planes in 1972. Ut came to the girl’s aid and transported her to a hospital. (AP/Wide World Photos)

over the village and began their attacks, which included bombing, strafing, and the use of napalm. There was no return fire from the village, which indicated that the PAVN troops had fled. The planes completed their mission and departed. It was then that Ut and other photographers heard the screams and wails of villagers as they ran from Trang Bang. One group of survivors caught Ut’s attention; several children had been caught in the attack and had been seriously burned. One of the children, a young girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc, had ripped off her clothes to escape the flames. She and the others ran out of the village and into Ut’s range finder, and the picture became instant history. After Ut took his photo, he poured water out of his canteen in an attempt to ease the girl’s pain. He later drove her to a nearby hospital for medical assistance. The photo that Ut took of Phuc became famous the moment it hit the newsstands. Not only did he win the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1973, but he also received awards from World Press Photo, Sigma Delta Chi, the George Polk Memorial award, the Overseas Press Club, and the Associated Press Managing Editors. His picture also became a powerful tool for the U.S. antiwar effort.

1220

UTAH, Operation

Both Ut and Phuc survived the Vietnam War. After numerous operations, Phuc was allowed to return home and eventually moved to Canada, where she lives with her husband and two children. Ut immigrated to the United States at war’s end, became an American citizen, and continued working for the AP. In 1993 he helped to open AP’s Hanoi’s bureau. Ut continues to work for the AP to this day and lives in the Los Angeles area. JOHN MORELLO See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Media and the Vietnam War; Napalm References Castronova, Frank V., ed. Almanac of Famous People, 6th ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. Fischer, Heinz Dietrich, and Erika J. Fischer. Press Photography Awards, 1942–1998: From Joe Rosenthal and Horst Faas to Moneta Sleet and Stan Grossfeld. The Pulitzer Prize Archive, Vol. 14. Munich, Germany: K. G. Saur, 2000. Howe, Peter. Shooting under Fire: The World of the War Photographer. New York: Artisan, 2002. Moyes, Norman. American Combat Photography: From the Civil War to the Gulf War. New York: Michael Friedman Publishing Group, 2001. Pyle, Richard, and Horst Faas. Lost over Laos: A True Story of Tragedy, Mystery, and Friendship. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003.

UTAH,

Operation

Start Date: March 4, 1966 End Date: March 7, 1966 Combined U.S. Marine Corps and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) assault northwest of Quang Ngai City in I Corps against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) main-force units. The ARVN knew this as Operation LIEN KET 26. Planning for the operation began on the evening of March 3, 1966, when Brigadier General Jonas Platt, commanding Task Force Delta, learned that the PAVN 36th (also called the 21st) Regiment had taken up a position seven miles northwest of the city. He sent Colonel Oscar Peatross, who commanded the 7th Marines, to meet with Brigadier General Hoang Xuan Lam, commanding general of the ARVN 2nd Division at Quang Ngai City. The two agreed on a combined operation using one ARVN and one marine battalion. On the morning of March 4, Marine Air Group (4th MAG) 36, commanded by Colonel William Johnson, airlifted the 1st Airborne Battalion of the ARVN 2nd Division, followed by Companies F, G, and H of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, commanded by Colonel Leon Utter, from Chu Lai to southwest of the hamlet of Chau Nhai, about 9 miles northwest of Quang Ngai City. Despite meeting heavy PAVN resistance at the landing zones, the landing was completed. Paddies, hamlets, Hills 97 and 85 to the southwest, and Hill 50 to the northeast stood out as major features. Hill 50 presented the strongest opposition, and extensive fighting occurred at Chau Nhai

southwest of that hill. Artillery saturation of PAVN strongholds produced the largest fire mission to date in the Chu Lai area (1,900 rounds in two hours). To encircle the PAVN forces, generals Platt and Lam expanded the operation with additional U.S. marine units (by order of insertion): 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Young; 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, commanded by Colonel Paul “P. X.” Kelley; 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, commanded by Colonel James Kelley; a company from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines; and ARVN reinforcements (the 37th Ranger Battalion, 2nd Division Strike Company, and an armored personnel carrier troop and, from Saigon, the 5th Airborne Battalion). By midday on March 5, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, with support from the ARVN 1st Airborne Battalion, took Hill 50 after three and a half hours of combat. Most of the action had ended by early morning on March 6. Near An Tuyet, however, Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (commanded by Captain Robert Prewitt) came under attack. A dangerous helicopter mission resupplied them with ammunition, and Company B successfully repelled an attack by two PAVN companies. Ordered to relieve the beleaguered command, Company B, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, discovered that the main PAVN force had withdrawn. Fighting in the northern area of Operation UTAH was unexpectedly light. On March 6 three marine battalions (2nd Battalion, 7th Marines; 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines; and 1st Battalion, 7th Marines) discovered abandoned defensive complexes, including caves and tunnels with weapons, supplies, and documents. On March 7 the operation came to an end when the marines destroyed the PAVN fortifications on Hill 50. In this short hard fight the marines sustained casualties of 98 dead and 278 wounded; ARVN forces lost 30 killed and 120 wounded. In his official U.S. Marine Corps history, Edward Simmons lists PAVN killed at 586 (the marines credited with 358 and the ARVN with 228), while Shelby Stanton states that there were 632 known enemy casualties. PAUL S. DAUM AND TREVOR CURRAN See also United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982. Simmons, Edward H. “Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1965– 1966.” In The Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, 2nd ed., edited by Peter L. Hilgartner, 35–68. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

U Thant

1221

U Thant Birth Date: January 22, 1909 Death Date: November 25, 1974 Burmese politician and secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) during 1961–1971. Born in Panataw, Burma, on January 22, 1909, U Thant trained as an educator. He studied history at University College, Rangoon (present-day Yangon). Thant was his only name. “U” is an honorific in Burmese, roughly equating to “Mister,” and he was known in the West as U Thant. Burmese referred to him as Panataw U Thant, adding his hometown. From 1947 to 1957 Thant served as Burma’s press director, director of national broadcasting, secretary to the Ministry of Information, secretary of projects in the prime minister’s office, and executive director to Burma’s Economic and Social Board. In 1957 he became Burma’s permanent UN ambassador. He was principally responsible for brokering an end to the war in Algeria. After the death of UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjøld in September 1961, Thant, who was considered a neutralist, was unanimously elected as acting secretary-general by the UN General Assembly. On November 30, 1962, he became the permanent secretary-general. Thant favored quiet, reserved diplomacy and was more receptive than his predecessor to superpower initiatives. Nevertheless, when the situation warranted, Thant was capable of taking bold, forceful action. In late 1961 and again in late 1962 he sent UN forces into Katanga, thereby helping to reunify the Congo. Perhaps his most notable successes were his decision to send UN peacekeeping forces to Cyprus in 1964 and his role in negotiating a cease-fire in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War. Thant’s most questionable decision came in 1967 when he acceded to the Egyptian government’s request to remove UN observer forces from the Sinai. This paved the way for the June 1967 Six-Day War, which greatly embarrassed Thant and diminished the UN’s role in the Middle East. Immediately following the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Thant spoke directly with President Lyndon B. Johnson and offered to arrange a meeting of low-level diplomats from all warring sides. Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), was interested, but Johnson, preoccupied with that autumn’s presidential election, was not. The idea, however, intrigued Adlai Stevenson, U.S. ambassador to the UN. In January 1965 he suggested to Thant that together they make preliminary plans for talks that would take place in Burma. Thant quickly agreed, and over several weeks the two diplomats tried to sell the Johnson administration on their plan, which became known as the Rangoon Initiative. But on January 30 the Johnson administration officially rejected the proposal. Thant tried another tack, suggesting another Geneva peace conference, despite Johnson’s July 1964 statement that he would never agree to a second meeting. When Johnson again refused, a furious Thant called a news conference and made public Washington’s obstruction of his

Burmese politician U Thant served as secretary-general of the United Nations during 1961–1971, when he labored without success to bring an end to the Vietnam War. (Corel)

peace efforts. Caught off guard, the Johnson administration denied that such initiatives had ever been undertaken. That summer Stevenson and Thant approached Britain and France, hoping that those governments would take the lead in the search for a negotiated peace. It was not to be. Stevenson died in London in July while on a trip designed to advance these initiatives, and the plan perished with him. Thant retired as secretary-general on December 31, 1971. He died in New York City on November 25, 1974. His memoirs were published posthumously. JOHN ROBERT GREENE AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Ho Chi Minh; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II; United Nations and the Vietnam War References Firestone, Bernard J. The United Nations under U Thant, 1961–1971. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2001. Kraslow, David, and Stuart H. Loory. The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. U Thant. View from the UN: The Memoirs of U Thant. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978.

This page intentionally left blank

V Valluy, Jean-Étienne Birth Date: May 15, 1899 Death Date: January 4, 1970 French Army general and commander in chief in Indochina from the end of 1946 to February 1948. Born on May 15, 1899, at Rivede-Gier (Loire), Jean-Étienne Valluy entered the French military academy of Saint-Cyr in 1917. Upon graduation he chose service with colonial troops and served in the Middle East and Morocco. He was promoted to captain in 1929. Valluy was posted in China from 1937 to 1939. Between 1940 and 1941 he was a prisoner of war in Germany. In 1941 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and from 1941 to 1943 he served in French West Africa. Promoted to brigadier general in September 1944, Valluy served as chief of staff of the French First Army and fought with it in France and Germany and commanded the 9th Division d’Infanterie Coloniale. In November 1945 he left for Indochina with his division as part of General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc’s expeditionary corps. Valluy soon found himself at the cutting edge of French efforts first to conciliate the Viet Minh and then to confront them with a show of force. It was on his orders that Colonel Pierre-Louis Dèbes gave the ultimatum to the Viet Minh to evacuate Haiphong and then bombarded the Vietnamese quarter. On succeeding Leclerc as commander in chief, Valluy demonstrated a high degree of military ability with the relatively few forces placed at his disposal. By the end of 1947 the French military position in Tonkin was as favorable as it was ever to be during the Indochina War (1946–1954). Regarded as one of the most intelligent generals to serve in Indochina, with a good grasp of the political nature of the war, Valluy was nevertheless opposed to what he considered Émile Bollaert’s premature offer of negotiations with the Viet Minh.

Following his return to France in February 1948, Valluy was called upon to participate in several high-level missions to Indochina. He died in Paris on January 4, 1970. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Bollaert, Émile; Dèbes, Pierre-Louis; France, Army, 1946–1954; Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe; Viet Minh References Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Valette, Jacques. La Guerre d’Indochine, 1945–1954. Paris: Armand Colin, 1994.

Van Ba See Ho Chi Minh

VAN BUREN,

Operation

Start Date: January 19, 1966 End Date: February 21, 1966 The first major combined operations action of the Vietnam War. Operation VAN BUREN involved the 1st Brigade of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, the 2nd Marine Corps Brigade of the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), and the Army of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 47th Regiment. The operation took place along the central coast of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South

1224

Van Cao

Vietnam) in Phu Yen Province and was mounted in an effort to destroy the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 95th Regiment known to be operating there as well as to protect the rice harvest in the Tuy Hoa Valley about 50 miles north of Nha Trang. Operation VAN BUREN began on January 19, 1966, and on February 7 two companies and a reconnaissance platoon of the 101st Airborne Division charged the entrenched PAVN 5th Battalion, 95th Regiment, at the village of My Canh 2. The engagement cost the paratroopers 26 killed in action and 28 wounded for 66 PAVN dead. The Koreans claimed that during VAN BUREN one of their platoons killed some 400 Communist soldiers for only 2 of their own. The allies secured more than 100 weapons and destroyed several arms caches. They also claimed that the operation resulted in 679 Communist dead for U.S. losses of 55 killed and 221 wounded. Total Korean and ARVN casualties are not known. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Korea, Republic of Reference Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995.

Van Cao Birth Date: November 11, 1923 Death Date: July 10, 1995 Acclaimed Vietnamese musician and composer of the national anthem of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born on November 11, 1923, in Haiphong to a poor working family, Nguyen Van Cao became a gifted artist, well known as Van Cao. Famous in Vietnam in many fields but best known as a composer, he was also a poet, painter, and stage decorator. He wrote his first song, “Buon Tan Thu” (“Feeling Blue in Late Fall”), at age 16; it is still a favorite among Vietnamese. Other romantic favorites are “Thien Thai” (“Paradise”), “Lang Toi” (“My Village”), and “Truong Chi” (the name of a male character in a well-known Vietnamese folktale). Van Cao joined the Viet Minh as a commando and composed a number of songs. He wrote “Tien Quan Ca” (“Marching Forward”) in November 1944; it soon became the song of the Viet Minh and was sung in front of the Hanoi Opera House on August 17, 1945, when the red flag with yellow star that became Vietnam’s national flag was introduced. Ho Chi Minh himself chose “Marching Forward” as the national anthem. The song’s lyrics read in part: “Our flag, red with the blood of victory, bears the spirit of our country. . . . The path to glory passes over the bodies of our foes.” In the 1970s there was some discussion about changing the national anthem, but popular support led to its retention. This was reconfirmed in 1993.

Although Van Cao continued as a member of the Communist Party, in the 1960s he fell into disgrace after he joined Nhan Van Giai Pham, an opposition group that included many famous writers and poets. It had emerged in 1957 when Ho Chi Minh followed China’s “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” and allowed limited freedom of expression. Van Cao stopped composing until late 1975, when he produced “Mua Xuan Dau Tien” (“The First Spring”). Supposedly praising the Communist April 1975 victory, it was more of a lamentation and was not welcomed by the authorities. It was his last musical work. In the early 1980s the Vietnamese Communist Party held a competition for a new national anthem, solely because the party leadership disliked Van Cao. The idea of a new national anthem was dropped after almost all party favorites among composers convinced the party leaders that none of the entries was comparable to Van Cao’s anthem. Van Cao’s talents were again recognized during doi moi in the 1990s, and at age 70 he was awarded the coveted Medal of Independence. After a long illness, he died on July 10, 1995. Loved and admired by generations of Vietnamese, Van Cao was accorded a large funeral. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Ho Chi Minh; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present Reference “Author of Anthem Is Dead.” New York Times, July 14, 1995.

Vance, Cyrus Roberts Birth Date: March 27, 1917 Death Date: January 12, 2002 U.S. attorney, Department of Defense official, secretary of the U.S. Army (1962–1964), deputy secretary of defense (1964–1967), negotiator at the Paris peace talks (1968), and secretary of state (1977–1980). Born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, on March 27, 1917, Cyrus Roberts Vance moved to New York City at an early age and was educated at Kent School and Yale University, from which he received an undergraduate degree in 1939 and a law degree in 1942. He was admitted to the bar in 1942 and after World War II served as a civil case lawyer. During the war he was a destroyer gunnery officer in the Pacific. As assistant counsel to Lyndon B. Johnson’s Senate Preparedness Investigative Subcommittee in the 1950s, Vance contributed to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Vance supported the John F. Kennedy–Johnson ticket in 1960 and joined the Kennedy administration as general counsel to the secretary of defense in 1961. As counsel, Vance handled two difficult assignments: obtaining the release of the Bay of Pigs prison-

Vance, Cyrus Roberts

1225

U.S. secretary of state Cyrus Vance (left) welcomes Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko to the United States in September 1977. As secretary of the army during 1962–1964 in the Kennedy administration, Vance helped oversee the beginning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. As secretary of state from 1977 until 1980, he championed détente with the Soviet Union. (Department of Defense)

ers in Cuba and supervising a reorganization of the Department of Defense. This reorganization strengthened the authority of the secretary and improved strategic planning and logistics. In 1962 Vance was appointed secretary of the U.S. Army. Supporting new uses of aviation to improve the army’s mobility, he helped create the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) that proved the air assault concept. Renamed the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), this unit went to Vietnam in 1965. Vance also organized the Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV) to experiment with ways to improve counterinsurgency warfare capabilities. Appointed deputy secretary of defense in 1964, Vance concurred with the decision to bomb the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and with Operation ROLLING THUNDER in 1965. One of Vance’s responsibilities after August 1964 was approving covert raids against North Vietnam. By 1966 Vance doubted the effectiveness of the expanded air war, and in 1967 he became disenchanted with the whole war effort. He also acted as a troubleshooter in Panama in 1964 and in the Dominican Republic in 1965. Additionally, he helped mediate an end to the civil war in Cyprus in 1967. A back ailment prompted his resignation that same year. President Johnson recalled Vance as an informal adviser in March 1968. Vance was one of the so-called Wise Men who rec-

ommended that the president halt the bombing of North Vietnam and seek a negotiated settlement to the war. One of Vance’s most trying assignments was serving with W. Averell Harriman as deputy negotiator at the Paris Peace Conference in 1968. Harriman and Vance were unable to get substantive talks started while bombing continued. President Johnson would not stop the bombing unless the North Vietnamese government guaranteed that it would not seek military advantage. Hanoi would give no guarantees or talk about substantive issues until the bombing stopped. Without success, Vance explored different formulas for a bombing halt. Finally, in November 1968 President Johnson declared a bombing halt after the North Vietnamese government tacitly agreed not to use the halt to advantage or to block participation by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in the conference. At this point, the South Vietnamese government balked at having representatives of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) present, and the United States had to pressure South Vietnam not to disrupt the conference. When Vance resigned in early 1969, the conference was on the verge of substantive discussions. In 1976 Vance served as a foreign policy expert for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign and then served as secretary of state under President Carter from 1977 to 1980. As secretary of state,

1226

Van Es, Hubert

Vance shied away from Richard Nixon–Henry Kissinger Cold War diplomacy and sought to find new ways to engage U.S. allies and adversaries in a world order that had now moved beyond U.S.Soviet bipolarity. Nevertheless, Vance remained committed to détente and arms control, a position that placed him at loggerheads with Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was rabidly anti-Soviet. In 1979 Vance played a central role in the negotiation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT II) with the Soviets, and he presided over negotiations that returned the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal to the Panamanian government. He also helped broker a peace deal between Egypt and Israel, resulting in the Camp David Accords of 1978, and oversaw the full normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1978. After the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which wrecked détente and derailed SALT II, Vance lost clout to Brzezinski, especially when Carter began to favor Brzezinski’s hard-line approach toward the Soviet Union. Vance had also favored opening relations with Vietnam, but that effort was stymied in late 1978 after the Soviets signed a treaty of friendship with the Vietnamese. This became even more difficult to achieve because of a huge outflow of refugees (boat people), many of whom sought refuge in the United States. When the 1979 Iranian Revolution began, Vance favored some level of accommodation with the new regime. His viewpoint was in the majority in the West Wing. After Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in November 1979 and took Americans hostage, Vance wanted to engage the Iranian government in quiet, behindthe-scenes diplomacy to gain their freedom. Brzezinski vociferously objected to passive diplomacy, however, and pushed Carter to stage a dramatic rescue mission in April 1980. Angered that his advice had not been sought or followed, Vance resigned in protest on April 21. Three days later the rescue mission ended in a dismal failure, with the loss of eight military personnel. Vance returned to the practice of law and in 1983 published his memoirs. He continued thereafter as a respected negotiator and adviser on international affairs. During the 1990s he engaged in several successful diplomatic missions for the United Nations (UN). Vance died in New York City on January 12, 2002. JOHN L. BELL JR. AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

Vance, USS See Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius

Van Es, Hubert Birth Date: July 5, 1941 Death Date: May 15, 2009 Vietnam War photographer who shot one of the best-known images of the war. Hubert “Hugh” Van Es was born in Hilversum, the Netherlands, on July 6, 1941. He decided to become a photographer after seeing the work of well-known Magnum photographic cooperative war photographer Robert Capa. Arriving in Hong Kong as a freelancer in 1967, Van Es secured a position with the South China Morning Post. He went to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) the next year as a sound man for the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). During 1969–1972 he worked with the Associated Press (AP) photo staff in Saigon, and during 1972–1975 he was employed by United Press International (UPI). Known for his willingness to take risks to get a photograph, Van Es took a number of memorable photographs of the war, including those of the Battle of Hamburger Hill. He is best known, however, for an image taken on April 29, 1975, as he was preparing to leave

See also Army Concept Team in Vietnam; Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Harriman, William Averell; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Wise Men References Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. McLellan, David S. Cyrus Vance, Vol. 20, The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. Edited by Robert H. Ferrell. Totawa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985. Vance, Cyrus. Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Dutch photographer Hugh Van Es with a U.S. soldier near Quan Loi, South Vietnam, in 1970. Van Es’s photo of the 1975 fall of Saigon became one of the most enduring images of the Vietnam War. (AFP/Getty Images)

Vang Pao Saigon to become a freelancer again. He had remained in the city as long as was possible following its occupation by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops and on that day took photographs of Vietnamese burning documents so they could not be associated with the United States. That afternoon Van Es was developing photographs when a colleague told him that there was a helicopter on a nearby roof. Van Es grabbed his camera and a telephoto lens and, looking out, could see 20 to 30 people crowded on a ladder up to the roof of an apartment building several hundred yards away trying to board a single Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopter. After several minutes the helicopter took off with 12–14 people on board. The remaining Vietnamese waited on the rooftop for hours, hoping for the arrival of another helicopter, but none appeared. The photograph, however, became one of the war’s iconic images. For years afterward the building was incorrectly identified as the U.S. embassy, although Van Es had never indicated it as such. He never received royalties from the photograph, which belonged to UPI. The rights have been sold twice since and now belong to Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft. Van Es moved to Hong Kong after the end of the Vietnam War. He subsequently covered the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Van Es died in Hong Kong of a brain aneurism on May 15, 2009. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Media and the Vietnam War Reference Bradsher, Keith. “Hubert Van Es, 67, War Photographer.” New York Times, May 16, 2009.

Vang Pao Birth Date: 1931 Death Date: January 6, 2011 Military leader of the anti-Communist Hmongs who rose through the ranks from simple soldier to general and confounded some of Hanoi’s best strategists in the war in Laos. Vang Pao was born at Nong Het, Laos, in 1931. As a teenager he was a guide and a courier for the French against the Japanese, and in 1947 he was recruited by the French as a soldier in their irregular forces in Laos. In March 1948 he was promoted to corporal and was sent to the noncommissioned officers’ school at Luang Prabang, where he graduated first in his class. In January 1949 he was promoted to chief corporal and sent to the National Gendarmerie school, where he again graduated first in his class and was promoted to sergeant major. He received two further promotions, attaining the rank of adjutant in October 1950. Vang Pao distinguished himself in the war of ambushes and small, sharp engagements against the Viet Minh that centered on the Plain of Jars. He also understood the vital importance of having the civilian

1227

population on his side. He applied for officers’ candidate school and graduated as the only Hmong and the 7th in his class of 56 in March 1952. Three months after his graduation he was a second lieutenant in the 14th Infantry Company of the Royal Laotian Army stationed at Muong Hiem, near the border of Luang Prabang and Sam Neua provinces. By the time of the 1954 Viet Minh siege of Dien Bien Phu, Vang Pao had risen to first lieutenant and had command of his own irregular unit. In December 1954 he was promoted to captain. When the Vietnam War escalated in January 1961, Vang Pao was a lieutenant colonel. As the senior officer in the region, he made appeals to American and Thai officers for weapons to arm 7,000 of his Hmong followers. An arrangement was worked out to the mutual satisfaction of the two sides. Thereafter Vang Pao led his well-armed Hmong irregulars, sometimes called the Armée Clandestine (Secret Army), in fighting against the Communist Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese. Vang Pao respected the North Vietnamese as soldiers but thought that they lacked his troops’ ability to improvise. He observed that People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) commanders always followed the same routine when they were planning an attack, and he found that he could throw off their plans by moving his mobile units around immediately beforehand, sometimes inducing his adversaries to call off the attack. Vang Pao rose to the command of Military Region II and was a major general when the 1973 cease-fire intervened. After the Communist takeover in 1975, Vang Pao was evacuated to Thailand in a small U.S. plane and eventually settled in the United States, where he became a citizen and remained active in the affairs of the Hmong exile community. In 2007 Vang Pao was arrested by the U.S. government along with nine other conspirators, mostly Laotian expatriates living in California. They were charged with conspiring to overthrow the Laotian government, a violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act. The government alleged that Vang Pao and others had arranged for weapons to be smuggled into Thailand that were to be used in an attempt to topple the Communist Laotian regime. Vang Pao was briefly incarcerated in a California prison before being released on a $1.5 million bond in July 2007. His many supporters in the United States, including Hmongs living in California and Minnesota, sought to have the charges dismissed, but prosecutors steadfastly refused to do so until September 2009, when federal authorities dropped all charges against him “based on the totality of the evidence in the case.” Vang Pao died in Fresno, California, on January 6, 2011. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Hmongs; Laos; Long Chieng; Pathet Lao; Plain of Jars References Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Quincy, Keith. Hmong: History of a People. Cheney, WA: Eastern Washington University Press, 1988.

1228

Van Lang

Van Lang The first Vietnamese kingdom, allegedly established by Hung Vuong. Much of the earliest period in Vietnamese history is shrouded in legend, and it is unclear whether the country known as Van Lang actually existed. Legend has it that this kingdom was quite large and encompassed part of southern China inhabited by the Nanyue (Nan Yueh, or Southern Yue) as well as northern Vietnam, including the Red River Delta. The word “Viet” is in fact derived from the Vietnamese pronunciation of “Yue,” the Chinese term to designate the barbarian peoples living south of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River). The term “Nam Viet” (Vietnam) is Vietnamese for “Southern Yue.” The rulers of Van Lang (probably for the name of a bird that was a tribal totem) were allegedly descended from the legendary Lac Long Quan, the Lac Dragon Lord, who came from the sea, civilized the people, and taught them to cultivate rice and to wear clothing. Hung Vuong (meaning “Hero King”) was the first of his sons and used a magical spell to unite all of the tribes under his rule. Lac Long Quan then returned to the sea but promised to return if he was needed. Hung Vuong ruled from Phong Chau in Vinh Yen Province. He also established a two-tiered aristocracy of civilian Lac Hau and military Lac Tuong. Van Lang is alleged to have been established in 2879 BCE and to have lasted until 258 BCE; it had 18 rulers, all

of whom were named Hung Vuong and who ruled an average of 145 years each. The last of the Hung kings was overthrown by Thuc Phan, the ruler of a neighboring kingdom. He invaded and conquered Van Lang in 258 BCE, adding it to his own territory of Nam Cuong to establish the Kingdom of Au Lac (258–207 BCE). SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Au Lac, Kingdom of; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE References Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.

Vann, John Paul Birth Date: July 2, 1924 Death Date: July 9, 1972 U.S. Army officer and critic of military strategy; U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official. John Paul Vann was born on July 2, 1924, in Norfolk, Virginia. He was drafted into the

John Paul Vann, head of Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) in III Corps Tactical Zone, during a tour of the Leloi hamlet in March 1968. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Van Tien Dung army in 1943 during World War II and trained as a navigator. Vann remained in the service after the war, and when the Army Air Forces became an independent service in 1947 as the U.S. Air Force, Vann transferred to the U.S. Army. After fighting in Korea, he received a degree from Rutgers University in 1955, graduated from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in 1958, and earned an MBA from Syracuse University in 1959. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1961. Vann served his first tour of duty in Vietnam during March 1962–April 1963. Part of his duties included advising an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) infantry division in the Mekong Delta. What he saw in Vietnam dismayed him, particularly in the Battle of Ap Bac (January 1962). Despite what President John F. Kennedy was being told by his military advisers, Vann believed that the war was being lost but that it could be won if the right tactics and military might were applied. When his reports were ignored, he leaked information to journalists covering the fighting in Vietnam. He was then reassigned to the Pentagon, where his words still fell on deaf ears. After 20 years in the army, Vann retired on July 31, 1963, and began to speak out publicly on the war. He returned to Vietnam in March 1965 as a civilian working for USAID. He was so successful that in 1966 he was made chief of the civilian pacification program for the provinces surrounding Saigon. In 1967 he denounced General William Westmoreland’s strategy and warned that the Communists were still a threat; the Tet Offensive of 1968 seemed to support Vann’s point of view. Because Vann’s critique was aimed at trying to improve the war effort, he was promoted in May 1971 to senior adviser for the Central Highlands and, as a civilian, was given command over U.S. military forces and the civilians in the pacification program. As the senior adviser, Vann had significant influence on the operations of the ARVN units in the area. His position was equivalent to that of a U.S. Army major general, but he was still a civilian. In effect, he was the third most-powerful American in Vietnam. After successfully directing the defense against a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) offensive, Vann died in a helicopter crash in the Central Highlands on July 9, 1972. Vann was a complex and compelling figure. Dedicated to winning the war, he nonetheless openly criticized the American strategy. He condemned indiscriminate bombing of the countryside as cruel and morally wrong. Vann believed America to be the greatest power on earth, a position that it was destined to hold forever and that it should use to bring peace and prosperity to the world. There was much wrong about the war in Vietnam but not the war itself, and he could not accept an American defeat. Indeed, he seemed to embody the American dilemma in Vietnam. Vann was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was also the only civilian to receive the Distinguished Service Cross during the Vietnam War. LAURA MATYSEK WOOD

1229

See also Ap Bac, Battle of; Order of Battle Dispute; Pacification; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; United States Agency for International Development References Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.

Van Tien Dung Birth Date: May 1, 1917 Death Date: March 17, 2002 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general, army commander in chief during 1974–1980, and defense minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) during 1980– 1986. Van Tien Dung was born on May 1, 1917, in Ha Dong Province near Hanoi. He was of peasant ancestry and as a boy worked in a French textile factory. In the 1930s he joined the Indochinese Communist Party and fought against the French occupation of Vietnam. After 1940 he fought the Japanese.

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) general Van Tien Dung commanded the forces that captured Saigon in April 1975, ending the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1230

Versace, Humbert Rocque

Dung became a protégé of General Vo Nguyen Giap, who moved him up through the ranks of the military. After Dung commanded the 320th Division fighting in the Red River Delta, in late 1953 Giap appointed him as chief of the General Staff, a position that Dung held continuously for 24 years, from the 1954 victory over French forces at Dien Bien Phu until 1978. In 1969 Dung was elected as an alternate member of the Politburo. Throughout the 1960s he remained second-in-command of the army to Giap, who used Dung as an example of true Communist ideals at work: a peasant who had worked hard and risen through the ranks. In March 1964 Dung wrote a series of articles in the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan defending party domination of the army. Colonel General Dung argued that “the absolute and total leadership of the Party is the decisive factor for our army to maintain its proletarian class character and to fulfill successfully all revolutionary tasks.” Dung completely embraced the party line and ideals. There were rumors that during this period Dung’s loyalty to the party hierarchy sometimes brought him into conflict with General Giap. In the early 1970s Dung became a member of the Politburo of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In March 1973 he oversaw the infiltration of large numbers of PAVN troops into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). PAVN and Viet Cong (VC) units set up a headquarters in Loc Ninh, 75 miles north of Saigon; moved battalions of labor troops through the jungles; positioned armored vehicles; began construction on an oil pipeline; and laid out a radio grid to communicate with Hanoi. Dung described these efforts as “strong ropes inching gradually, day by day, around the neck, arms, and legs of a demon, awaiting the order to jerk tight and bring the creature’s life to an end.” General Dung waited for the right moment to strike, seeking to avoid a prolonged street fight for Saigon. It would not serve his government’s purposes if that city was reduced to rubble. Dung was content to wait while continuing the military buildup and conducting small-scale attacks. Another consideration was concern about the willingness of China and the Soviet Union to replenish military stocks. The right moment came on March 1, 1975, when Dung unleashed his forces in the Central Highlands. By late March thousands of refugees were fleeing into Da Nang from Hue. Da Nang, South Vietnam’s second-largest city, fell to Dung’s forces on March 30. Dung then shifted his offensive to the south to take Saigon before the May rains. The last major military engagement, at Xuan Loc 35 miles northeast of Saigon, lasted two weeks. Once the PAVN captured Xuan Loc and finished massing their forces in a ring completely surrounding Saigon, they headed straight for the South Vietnamese capital, finally rolling into the city on April 29. Dung had completed his task of liberating Saigon before May 1. His book Our Great Spring Victory describes the final military campaign and the collapse of the South Vietnamese government.

Dung went on to lead the invasion of Cambodia in 1979 and also directed the Sino-Vietnamese clash in 1979. Dung replaced Giap as minister of national defense in February 1980. During a party and government shakeup that included strong criticism of Dung from inside the Vietnamese Army itself, he was dismissed from this position and was dropped from the Politburo in 1986. Thereafter he faded into obscurity. He died in Hanoi on March 17, 2002. CHARLOTTE A. POWER See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Lao Dong Party; Sino-Vietnamese War; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vo Nguyen Giap References Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Post, Ken. Revolution, Socialism and Nationalism in Viet Nam. 5 vols. Brookfield, VT: Darmouth, 1989–1994.

Versace, Humbert Rocque Birth Date: July 2, 1937 Death Date: September 26, 1965 U.S. Army officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor and the first member of the army to be recognized with it for valorous conduct in the face of the enemy as a prisoner of war. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, of Puerto Rican descent on July 2, 1937, Humbert Rocque “Rocky” Versace, the son of an army colonel and an authoress, graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1959 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. Following completion of Ranger and Airborne School, he served in the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) as a tank platoon leader in the 1st Cavalry Division during 1960–1961. Volunteering for duty in Vietnam, Versace attended both the U.S. Army Intelligence course at Fort Halabird, Maryland, and a Vietnameselanguage course at the Presidio in San Francisco, California. Versace arrived in Vietnam on May 12, 1962, and he extended his tour for six months in May 1963. He was assigned as an intelligence adviser to Detachment A-23, 5th Special Forces Group, in the Mekong Delta. On October 19, 1963, Versace was accompanying a Civilian Irregular Defense (CIDG) assault group on a mission in Thoi Binh District, An Xuyen Province, when it was ambushed by a Viet Cong (VC) main-force battalion. Versace provided covering fire that permitted the CIDG members to withdraw, although he himself was seriously wounded in the back and knee. Captain Versace and two other Americans, Lieutenant James N. Rowe and Sergeant Dan Pitzer, were taken prisoner. Versace made four unsuccessful efforts to escape and resisted all efforts at indoctrination, using his Vietnamese language skills

Vessey, John William, Jr.

1231

to protest violations of the Geneva Convention. His captors gagged him and kept him caged and in leg irons. Finally, they separated him from the other prisoners. He was last heard by them loudly singing “God Bless America.” North Vietnamese radio announced that Versace had been executed on September 26, 1965. His remains have never been recovered, and his headstone at Arlington National Cemetery marks an empty grave. Versace was initially awarded the Silver Star, but efforts on his behalf led to the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush at the White House on July 8, 2002. There is a statue of Versace in Alexandria, Virginia, in a square named in his honor. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Missing in Action, Allied; Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist; Prisoners of War, Allied; Rowe, James Nicholas References Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Rowan, Stephan A. They Wouldn’t Let Us Die: The Prisoners of War Tell Their Story. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 1973. Rowe, James N. Five Years to Freedom: The True Story of a Vietnam POW. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971. Vogel, Steve. “Honoring the Defiant One.” Washington Post, May 27, 2001.

Vessey, John William, Jr. Birth Date: June 29, 1922 Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1982–1985 who served as a field artillery battalion commander in Vietnam. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 29, 1922, John William Vessey Jr. enlisted in the National Guard in 1939. As a battery first sergeant during World War II, he earned a Bronze Star Medal and a battlefield commission at Anzio. After the war Vessey remained in the U.S. Army as an officer, but he did not complete his college degree until he was 41 years old. He served during the 1950–1953 Korean War. In Vietnam as a lieutenant colonel he commanded the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 77th Field Artillery. On March 21, 1967, during Operation JUNCTION CITY all three of Vessey’s batteries occupied Fire Support Base Gold when it came under attack from elements of five battalions under the control of the Viet Cong (VC) 272nd Regiment. Vessey’s gunners fired more than 1,000 rounds of direct fire in defense of the base, including 30 beehive rounds. This was the first large-scale combat use of fléchette-firing antipersonnel rounds. Vessey received the Distinguished Service Cross for the action. In 1970 at age 48 Vessey qualified as an army helicopter pilot. The following year he was promoted to brigadier general.

U.S. Army general John W. Vessey Jr. was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during 1982–1985. He commanded a field artillery battalion during the Vietnam War. (Department of Defense)

In August 1974, now with the rank of major general, he assumed command of the 4th Infantry Division. The following year he was promoted to lieutenant general. In November 1976 he was promoted to full general (four-star) and commanded the Eighth Army in Korea until 1979. From 1979 to 1982 Vessey served as vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army. From 1982 to 1985 he was chairman of the JCS and was the last World War II combat veteran to serve in that capacity. Vessey’s tenure coincided with the deepening of the Cold War and a major U.S. rearmament effort. He supported the placement of new ballistic missiles in Europe and counterinsurgency operations in Central America. Vessey had opposed the deployment of U.S. troops to Lebanon beginning in 1982. His reservations proved prescient when an October 1983 truck bomb destroyed the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. servicemen. President Ronald Reagan promptly withdrew the troops. Vessey oversaw the successful U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983, and he was also partly responsible for the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as “Star Wars,” a program designed to defend against nuclear attack by shooting down or disabling ballistic missiles in flight. Following his retirement in September 1985, Vessey played a prominent role in normalizing relations between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the United States when he served as the

1232

Vientiane Agreement

George H. W. Bush administration’s negotiator with Hanoi on prisoner of war and missing in action issues. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Artillery Fire Doctrine; Bush, George Herbert Walker; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Missing in Action, Allied; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Perry, Mark. Four Stars. New York: Houghton Mifflin–Harcourt, 1989. Webb, Willard J., and Ronald Cole. The Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, DC: Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989.

Vientiane Agreement Cease-fire agreement to end the war in Laos that was signed at Vientiane, Laos, on February 21, 1973, by Pheng Phongsavan, representing the Royal Lao Government, and Phoumi Vongvichit, representing the Lao Patriotic Forces (usually called the Pathet Lao). The agreement resulted from negotiations between the two sides that began on October 17, 1972, and consisted of 14 articles in five chapters.

The principal provisions were: • Implementation of a cease-fire throughout Laos beginning at noon on February 22 (Article 2); • Withdrawal of all foreign military personnel and regular and irregular forces from Laos, the dissolution of all foreign military and paramilitary organizations in Laos, the disbanding of all special forces and the dismantling of their bases within 60 days from the establishment of the Provisional Government of National Union (PGNU) and the National Political Consultative Council (NPCC) (Article 4); • Reciprocal repatriation of all persons, regardless of nationality, who were captured or detained during the war, within 60 days from the establishment of the NPCC (Article 5); • Responsibility to provide information about those reported missing during the war upon completion of repatriation of captured personnel (Article 5); • Establishment by the two sides of the PGNU and the NPCC within 30 days of the signing of the present agreement (Article 6); • Holding of free and democratic general elections for a national assembly and a permanent coalition government

Interior Minister Peng Phongsavan and Pathet Lao leader Phoumi Vongvichit sign the Vientiane Agreement in Vientiane on February 21, 1973. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Vientiane Protocol

•

•

• •

• •

• • •

under procedures to be agreed upon by the two sides (Article 6); The PGNU to be composed of an equal number of representatives of the two sides, plus two agreed intellectuals (Article 7); The NPCC to be composed of an equal number of representatives of the two sides, plus a number of intellectuals to be determined (Article 8); Neutralization of Vientiane and Luang Prabang (Article 9); Temporary maintenance of the zones controlled by each side pending establishment of the national assembly and the permanent coalition government (Article 10A); Promotion of normal relations between the zones of temporary control (Article 10B); Holding of discussions with the United States regarding the latter contributing to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction (Article 10C); Formation of a joint commission to oversee implementation of the agreement (Article 11); Continuation of the work of the International Commission for Supervision and Control (Article 12); Continuation of negotiations between the two sides on the protocol to implement the agreement (Article 13).

The “special forces” mentioned in Article 4 referred to the Hmong irregulars in the north and the Kha irregulars in the south, both of whom had been supported during the war by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Insofar as Article 5 related to U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) and missing in action (MIAs), the Pathet Lao released no POWs captured before the cease-fire (although they did release one captured afterward) and provided no information about MIAs. Resolution of these matters between the United States and Laos had to wait for more than 10 years, when cooperative efforts were begun to search for remains and to collect information on MIAs. At the time of the cease-fire there were more than 300 Americans unaccounted for in Laos. The protocol mentioned in Article 13 was signed on September 14, 1973. The PGNU and the NPCC were finally established on April 5, 1974. Prince Souvanna Phouma was prime minister of the PGNU in Vientiane, and Prince Souphanouvong was chairman of the NPCC, which was based in Luang Prabang. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also International Commission for Supervision and Control; Laos; Missing in Action, Allied; Pathet Lao; Prisoners of War, Allied; Souphanouvong; Souvanna Phouma; Vientiane Protocol References Dommen, Arthur J. Laos: Keystone of Indochina. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. “Text of the Vientiane Agreement of February 21, 1973.” New York Times, February 22, 1973.

1233

Vientiane Protocol Protocol giving effect to the Vientiane Agreement of February 21, 1973. The September 14, 1973, Vientiane Protocol resulted from negotiations between the Royal Lao Government and the Lao Patriotic Forces (Pathet Lao) and consisted of 21 articles, of which the most important follow: Article 1 provided for establishment of the Provisional Government of National Union (PGNU), which was to be headed by a prime minister and two deputy prime ministers and consist of 25 ministers and secretaries of state (deputy ministers). Article 2 allocated the ministerial portfolios in the PGNU. Article 3 committed the PGNU to follow policies of peace, national unity, neutrality, independence, democracy, and prosperity in accordance with the recommendations of the future National Political Consultative Council (NPCC). Article 4 enshrined the principle of unanimity of decision in all important matters while maintaining the responsibility of each side for its own ministries. Article 5 stipulated the structure of the NPCC to consist of 42 members and various commissions. Article 6 provided for decisions in the NPCC by consensus. Article 9 gave the NPCC a major role in organizing general elections. Article 10 provided for mixed police forces in Vientiane and Luang Prabang to maintain security. Article 12 provided for demarcating the cease-fire lines in places where tension existed between the forces of the two sides. Articles 14–16 dealt with the joint commission’s control of troop movements and withdrawal of foreign troops and war matériel. Article 17 stipulated the disbanding of the special forces. Article 18 provided for notifying the joint commission of the numbers and nationalities of captured foreign personnel and the names of those reported to be missing. The joint commission held meetings to work out procedures for the release of prisoners of war and the exchange of information on those missing in action. But because implementation of such actions had been tied under the Vientiane Agreement into the timetable for formation of the PGNU and the NPCC, which was seriously delayed, there was little or no compliance with these provisions before political and military tensions rose once again over such issues as violations of the cease-fire and the king’s role in opening the National Assembly that had been carried over from the previous Royal Lao Government. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Laos; Pathet Lao; Vientiane Agreement

1234

Viet Cong Infrastructure

References Dommen, Arthur J. Laos: Keystone of Indochina. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. “Text of the Vientiane Protocol.” New York Times, September 15, 1973.

Viet Cong Infrastructure The term “Viet Cong infrastructure” (VCI) was coined by American officials during the Vietnam War to refer to the civilian political and administrative apparatus created by the Communist Viet Cong (VC) guerrilla movement in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), commonly known as the VC, established this infrastructure to support its insurgency against the pro-American South Vietnam. The VCI network existed in most of South Vietnam’s rural areas, although its strength varied from region to region. The VCI was strongest in the Mekong Delta, the so-called Iron Tri-

angle located some 30 miles north of Saigon, and on the central Vietnamese coast. The VCI grew rapidly following the outbreak of the southern insurgency in 1959. Its aim was to undermine and destroy the South Vietnamese government through terror (including the assassination of South Vietnamese officials, schoolteachers, etc.) and propaganda and to provide political direction for the VC’s war within the southern villages and hamlets. At the heart of the VCI was the cadre. These were the individuals who collected taxes, engaged in propaganda activities, or directed one of the large number of front organizations operated by the VC. Cadres operated at the village, district, and provincial levels. There were two types of cadre operatives: legal and illegal. Illegals operated in secret outside of South Vietnam’s laws and authority. In liberated areas (those villages or hamlets where the South Vietnamese had no presence), their identities were often widely known. Important cadre members in either liberated or contested areas often used pseudonyms or aliases to conceal themselves from the Saigon authorities and Americans.

A member of the Viet Cong points to a model of Republic of Vietnam defenses at Ben Cau near Tay Ninh during a briefing for an attack on that position in 1964. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Viet Minh Legal cadres operated within a legal framework in contested or South Vietnamese–controlled areas. They concealed their association with the VC and acted as the eyes and ears of the revolution. They also kept watch on Saigon government officials in their areas. The power of legal cadres and the fear with which they were viewed were heightened by the activities of the Security Affairs Section. This section operated networks of informants who monitored the activities of South Vietnamese officials (and also cadre members themselves) and identified villagers who were cooperating with the Saigon government. Security Affairs usually handled the targeting of these cooperating individuals for assassination or other forms of intimidation. In this atmosphere, working with Saigon officials was dangerous. The revolutionary infrastructure grew in strength from 1961 to 1965, and only direct American military intervention saved South Vietnam from collapse. With direct U.S. involvement in the war, American and South Vietnamese policy makers gave greater priority to efforts aimed at destroying the VC insurgency and pacifying the countryside. Pacification efforts centered around the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support Program (CORDS) initiated in 1967. CORDS involved a major effort to win the allegiance of the peasants by inserting South Vietnamese cadres at the village and hamlet levels with American supervision and financial support (in effect copying the VCI) and using them to provide teachers, medical services, and security. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran its own program, the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), made up of South Vietnamese under direct CIA supervision. The PRUs gave particular attention to Communist security operatives who were responsible for terrorizing and assassinating South Vietnamese village officials. The best known of the programs aimed at destroying the VCI was the Phoenix Program. This operation, which was initiated in 1969, integrated PRU and South Vietnamese National Police elements into a single effort under Saigon’s supervision to identify and neutralize—either through arrest, induced defections, or assassination—members of the VCI. The effectiveness of these programs remains a controversial issue. Supporters of CORDS and the Phoenix Program argue that they succeeded in destroying the VCI and that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) had to resort to conventional tactics in its 1975 offensive to destroy South Vietnam. Skeptics counter that operations against the VCI were hampered by widespread corruption and incompetence among the South Vietnamese officials involved, lack of support from a Saigon government unwilling to allow local operatives any independence or initiative, and fear of Communist retribution by villagers as well as their suspicion of South Vietnamese officials and the Americans. The critics point out that although the VCI suffered heavy losses from the 1968 Tet Offensive and throughout 1969, its casualties were more a function of stepped-up U.S. military operations than of the Phoenix Program or of PRU or CORDS operations. Although the VC and the VCI were seriously hurt by the military failure of the 1968 Tet Offensive and were hard-pressed afterward,

1235

they were not destroyed. Saigon was unable to exploit these Communist setbacks and undertake the political, economic, and social reforms needed to win the allegiance of the peasantry. According to South Vietnamese military estimates at the time of South Vietnam’s collapse in 1975, the local VC in the Mekong Delta and the area immediately north of Saigon provided large percentages of both combat and support forces for the final offensive. WALTER F. BELL See also Central Intelligence Agency; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy References Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991. Gates, John M. “People’s War in Vietnam.” Journal of Military History 54(3) (July 1990): 325–344. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.

Viet Minh Communist front organization created to help the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) achieve its overall objectives. The Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, commonly known as the Viet Minh (Vietnam Independence League), was founded at the Eighth Plenum of the ICP in May 1941. The Viet Minh served as the organizational nexus for the development of a broad national program. According to Ho Chi Minh, the front was needed to organize the masses in resistance to French colonial rule and occupying Japanese forces. The purpose of the Viet Minh was tactical, never strategic. Its flexibility allowed the ICP to alter its course quickly for current conditions. Perhaps the most important aspect of the front was its attention to the national question. By downplaying class revolution in favor of national liberation, the ICP attempted to involve all elements of society in the national struggle. Anticolonialism, patriotism, and nationalism were the only prerequisites for joining the national united front. The Viet Minh purposefully made temporary alliances with its enemies in order to achieve its more immediate objectives. The Viet Minh–led August Revolution (1945) is one of the defining moments of modern Vietnamese history. Shortly after the Japanese invasion of 1940, the Viet Minh planned for that inevitable moment of contradiction when the Japanese would turn their guns on the French colonialists. This moment came on March 9, 1945, when Japanese soldiers carried out a relatively bloodless coup against French colonial forces. When Japan surrendered five months later, this left a political void in Indochina. Through their revolutionary training, the Viet Minh were prepared to exploit this situation to its fullest potential and, as a result, marched into Hanoi to proclaim Vietnamese independence. The Viet Minh front also

1236

Viet Minh

Vietnam, Climate of fielded an army headed by Vo Nguyen Giap that seized power during the August Revolution. On September 2, 1945, the political leader and founder of the Viet Minh, Ho Chi Minh, read aloud in Ba Dinh Square an official pronouncement declaring an end to French colonialism, Japanese occupation, and the Nguyen dynasty. Shortly after Ho’s declaration of independence, the ICP announced that it was dissolving, leaving the Viet Minh front as the only official party apparatus. In 1951 the party resurfaced officially with the formation of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party (Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam). At this time, the Viet Minh was itself dissolved. According to revolutionary theory, the broad-based front was to be revised whenever historical circumstances changed drastically. The Communists therefore reconstituted the Viet Minh as the Lien Viet front (Lien Hiep Quoc Dan Viet Nam) during the Indochina War, and shortly after the Geneva Accords the Fatherland Front was born. There is some question as to the actual date of the reconstitution of the Viet Minh front as the Lien Viet front. Some scholars have suggested that the Viet Minh lasted only until the war with France (1941–1946) began. Hoang Van Dao, in Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, gives April 1946 as the date for the reconstitution of the Lien Viet front. Others suggest, however, that it was the Viet Minh that battled the French from 1946 to 1954. In any case, the Viet Minh has popularly been associated with the army that handed the French their humiliating defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu

1237

and that served the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) so faithfully since its 1945 inception. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also August Revolution; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Indochina War; Japan; Lao Dong Party; Nguyen Dynasty; United Front; Vietnamese Communist Party; Vo Nguyen Giap References Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. History of the August Revolution. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1972. Hoang Van Dao. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Saigon: Published by the author, 1970; reprinted in the United States. Huynh Kim Khanh. “The Vietnamese August Revolution Reinterpreted.” Journal of Asian Studies 30(4) (August 1971): 761–782. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Woodside, Alexander B. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.

Vietnam, Climate of Vietnam is entirely located in the tropical zone between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. Although there are variations in

Two Vietnamese women transport firewood they have gathered back to their village. (Dreamstime.com)

1238

Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War

temperature depending on the season and altitude, the primary seasonal changes are marked by variations in rainfall. The rainy season extends from early May to November in the lowlands below Cape Dinhat 11 degrees 20 minutes north (south of Cam Ranh Bay) and the Central Highlands, with annual rainfall averaging approximately 79 inches in lowland regions. Rain occurs in the coastal area in central Vietnam above Cape Dinh from November to April. The typhoon season lasts from July through November, with the most severe storms occurring along the central coast. In northern Vietnam, the rainy season extends from mid-April to mid-October. The city of Hanoi has a mean annual rainfall of 69 inches. In the mountains, annual precipitation sometimes exceeds 160 inches. During the Vietnam War, heavy rains and impenetrable fog frequently forced sharp curtailments of air missions during the long monsoon season. Inclement weather was also responsible for bombing inaccuracies, and many targets had to be bombed repeatedly before they were finally hit. Daily temperatures in northern Vietnam fluctuate considerably in the Red River Delta region. In the dry season, temperatures may vary 45 degrees Fahrenheit during one day. Southern Vietnam is more tropical. Temperatures in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) vary only between 64 and 91 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year. Temperatures in the Central Highlands are somewhat cooler, running from a mean of about 63 degrees Fahrenheit in winter to 68 degrees Fahrenheit in summer. LOUISE MONGELLUZZO See also Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War References Isserman, Maurice. The Vietnam War. New York: Facts on File, 1992. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Marshall, S. L. A. Battles in the Monsoon: Campaigning in the Central Highlands, South Vietnam, Summer, 1966. New York: William Morrow, 1967.

Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War Vietnam’s geography and environment affected almost every aspect of the military operations of both Communist and nonCommunist forces during the Vietnam War. The terrain and climate were among the most difficult ever faced by American troops. Vietnam, which stands at the southeastern corner of continental Asia, is a jumbled collection of heavily forested mountains dominated by towering peaks and deep valleys reaching down through thick jungle to flat coastal plains. Stifling heat and humidity dominate the climate along with the seasonal monsoon rains. The mountains (particularly the Central Highlands of southern Vietnam), jungle, and flat rice paddies of the coast and the Me-

kong Delta influenced the strategy and tactics of both camps, while the climatic extremes of heat and heavy rain affected the physical condition and combat performance of all soldiers. The Communist National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and planners in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) sought to use the mountains and jungle to maximize cover and concealment. On the other hand, the Americans tried to alter Vietnam’s environment to suit the capabilities of their forces through deforestation efforts. The influence of climate and terrain on both sides’ strategy and tactics was a function of their respective traditions and doctrines. In their struggle first against the French (1945–1954) and later the United States and its allies (1961–1975), the Vietnamese Communists were at a disadvantage in firepower and lacked air support. In the Indochina War, the Viet Minh used the mountainous jungle terrain to maximize cover and concealment and minimize the mobility advantage of the largely road-bound French Union Forces. Against the more mobile Americans in the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong (VC) continued to use their superior knowledge of the terrain to avoid combat when necessary and to engage their opponents when they had the advantage. Indeed, in nearly every major engagement between Communist and American forces, particularly in the Central Highlands and the northern provinces along the demilitarized zone (DMZ), climate and terrain influenced the strategy and tactics of both sides. U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps doctrines, tactics, organization, and equipment were not particularly well suited to Vietnam’s geography. The Americans relied on mobility and technology to find the enemy and on the massive application of firepower to wear the opposing forces down through attrition while minimizing their own casualties. Helicopters (used heavily by the U.S. Army and less so by the U.S. Marine Corps) gave the Americans more mobility than the French and allowed rapid deployment of large numbers of troops to remote areas of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), posing a greater threat to Communist base areas. Nevertheless, the heavily forested highlands and jungle valleys were difficult to operate in. There were only a limited number of naturally occurring clearings where helicopters could land, and the Communists, who knew the terrain far better than their enemy, could defend these areas or avoid contact as they pleased. In addition, they often were able to neutralize American control of the air by striking in inclement weather during the monsoon season, when American aircraft could fly only with great difficulty. The Communists used the monsoons to great advantage in operations against the U.S. Marine Corps forces near the DMZ in the autumn and winter of 1967–1968, particularly during the siege of Khe Sanh (January–April 1968) and the attack on Hue during the January 1968 Tet Offensive. The Communists favored mountain valleys and canyons as ambush sites because American jet aircraft had trouble maneuvering between the mountains to drop their bombs. In the first large-scale engagement between the U.S. Army and North Vietnamese regulars, the topography of the area was a criti-

Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War 1239 cal factor in both camps’ approach to the battle. During the Battle of Ia Drang (November 14–18, 1965), the North Vietnamese used the mountainous jungle to conceal the infiltration of their units from Laos and Cambodia and attack isolated South Vietnamese and American Special Forces camps. The U.S. command, in turn, deployed the helicopter-borne 1st Cavalry Division, using helicopter transports for rapid insertion and extraction of troops and helicopter gun ships for close fire support. The U.S. command also established artillery fire-support bases on defensible high ground to maximize its own advantages while minimizing the disadvantages of distance from its base camps and difficult terrain. The Battle of Ia Drang established a pattern in the fighting in the difficult terrain of the Central Highlands that was to persist. Although the battle was a costly tactical setback for the Communists, they retained the strategic initiative and continued to lure the Americans into fighting battles on People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and VC terms. Likewise, U.S. and allied operations involved a continuous search for tactical concepts and techniques to compensate for the constraints of distance and difficult terrain. Operations in the Central Highlands usually followed a pattern of air assaults and the establishment of firebases from which the Americans mounted search-and-destroy sweeps. These missions often entailed days of futile searching in mountainous jungle punctuated by sporadic but fierce battles usually initiated by the Communists. Occasionally these firefights escalated into pitched battles aimed at dislodging the VC and PAVN troops from fortified positions on high ground. Although the U.S. forces had superiority in air and artillery, such engagements (most notably at Hill 862 near Dak To in the autumn of 1967 and Hamburger Hill in the A Shau Valley in the spring of 1969) became grueling infantry assaults from which the Communists could disengage and melt back into their sanctuaries in the mountains or in Cambodia and Laos. For most soldiers and marines in combat units, the bloody hill fights were only one facet of the physically and emotionally draining ground operations. Patrolling in this environment was not only frustrating but was also a physical ordeal that affected both the health and performance of troops. On patrol, American soldiers carried 50–70 pounds of equipment and found tough going, particularly in hills or heavily forested areas. The heat, rain, and insects were nearly as bad as the enemy. Drenched in sweat, the men hacked their way through dense jungle undergrowth in suffocating heat that made breathing nearly impossible. The overhead foliage blocked out almost all of the sunlight, making visibility difficult, while the matting of the vines and bushes retained heat, magnifying it until the men felt that they were moving in an oven. In addition to the sheer physical discomfort, troops had to be aware of danger of injury from ants, wasps, and poisonous snakes. Casualties from heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and snakebite were nearly as frequent as those from combat. The exhausting environmental conditions left tired, unwary GIs vulnerable to enemy mines, booby traps, and ambushes.

Faced with this inhospitable environment where terrain and weather frequently inhibited the Americans’ ability to bring massive firepower to bear on the enemy, the U.S. command frequently sought to alter the environment. One U.S. commander captured the mentality of this approach with the pronouncement that “trees are our enemy.” Measures taken to modify terrain and jungle cover included the spraying of herbicides and bombing. Of these, defoliation through the use of herbicides proved to be the most controversial. Spraying commenced in 1961 as part of Project Agile, commissioned by the John F. Kennedy administration as part of a program to develop counterinsurgency techniques. Even then, the American and South Vietnamese troops used herbicides only when and where they were specifically linked to ground operations, although experiments were conducted to create open areas along South Vietnam’s borders. Operational flights to deliver defoliants began in January 1962 under the code name Operation RANCH HAND and continued sporadically until early 1971. RANCH HAND encountered numerous problems, including policy disputes among government agencies, production and funding shortfalls, shortages of qualified pilots and equipment, diversion of resources to other operations, and scarce protective escort flights. RANCH HAND pilots, whose sardonic unofficial slogan was “Only you can prevent forests,” flew mostly slow, lightly armored C-123s at low altitudes (often as low as 150 feet) and were vulnerable to ground fire. Fearing harm to their troops, many ground commanders banned spraying in their areas of operation. Defoliants were frequently sprayed around U.S. base perimeters and along key roads and highways. The U.S. Navy’s Riverine Forces also conducted spraying operations along riverbanks. The best known of the herbicides used in defoliation was Agent Orange (so-named because of the orange stripe painted on the canisters). Agent Orange was a cheap blend of two older defoliants used by the U.S. Air Force because of low budgeting. In using this agent, the Defense Department ignored warnings from medical experts and environmentalists concerning the health dangers it posed. As it turns out, Agent Orange has been shown to be a carcinogen. Another terrain-altering instrument used by the Americans was the Rome Plow (named for Rome, Georgia, where it was manufactured), a huge 20-ton tractor with an 11-foot wide 2.5-ton shovel capable of uprooting several acres of jungle in minutes. The Rome Plow was used mainly for widening perimeters around base camps and mountaintops where the Americans sought to insert fire-support bases and to construct air strips in remote jungle areas. Powerful enough to tear vegetation out by its roots, the Rome Plow left thousands of acres of soil permanently stripped of its cover, creating major erosion problems. The Americans also used bombing to alter the terrain to eliminate cover and blast helicopter landing zones. Until 1970, the U.S. Air Force used World War II–vintage 10,000-pound M121 bombs to clear vegetation. In March 1970, however, U.S. forces deployed the much larger BLU 82 “Daisy Cutter,” the largest nonnuclear bomb in the American arsenal. Dropped by parachute from cargo

1240

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954

planes, one of these devices could obliterate jungle or forest for a radius of 1,000 yards without leaving a crater, thus widening the choices that U.S. commanders had for the insertion of their forces into enemy territory. In using bombs and defoliants to alter terrain, U.S. military commanders and civilian policy makers were focused on the immediate benefits for American and allied ground forces. Nevertheless, these tactics have had profound long-term health and environmental consequences. In the United States, public attention has been concentrated on the consequences of the use of Agent Orange. Despite efforts by every administration from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to minimize the fallout, several highprofile cases of illness among veterans generated lobbying efforts by veterans’ groups and their families to gain compensation for Agent Orange–related injuries. Public controversy over exposures, associated diseases, genetic effects on the children of exposed veterans, and government liability led to a 1984 settlement of several class-action lawsuits worth $180 million. For postwar Vietnam, the consequences of defoliation have been even more far-reaching. Bombing has left millions of craters that are filled with fetid water, serve as breeding places for mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects, and make the land useless for growing rice and other essential crops. Wholesale destruction of jungle and forest lands has led to the reduction or extinction of numerous bird and other animal species. Because of the loss of vegetation that regulates runoff, forest destruction has also led, particularly in southern Vietnam, to massive flooding during the summer monsoon season. And the embedding of millions of pieces of shrapnel into trees in surviving forests has rendered them virtually useless for logging and poses the threat of injury to loggers. This is all in addition to the thousands of unexploded bombs that injure Vietnamese civilians every year. Despite the hundreds of thousands of acres of blasted jungles and cratered rice paddies, the terrain-altering measures undertaken by American forces did not achieve their purpose. All they did was create a larger killing zone for the VC and the PAVN as well as for the Americans and their allies. The Communists could bring U.S., South Vietnamese, and other Free World Forces soldiers under fire from longer distances. In theory, cleared territory was perfect for helicopter observation and the quick marshaling of planes and artillery. At ground level, however, soldiers had to run out of the barren zone to stay alive. Indeed, altering terrain did nothing to force the Communists to fight on American terms. WALTER F. BELL See also Dak To, Battle of; Defoliation; Demilitarized Zone; Ia Drang, Battle of; Khe Sanh, Battle of; RANCH HAND, Operation; United States Air Force; United States Army References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977.

Buckingham, William A., Jr. Operation RANCH HAND: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1982. Gibson, James William. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986. Griffiths, Philip Jones. “Agent Orange in Vietnam.” Critical Asian Studies 37(1) (2005): 141–160. Isserman, Maurice. The Vietnam War. New York: Facts on File, 1992. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Lanier-Graham, Susan D. The Ecology of War: Environmental Impacts of Weaponry and War. New York: Walker, 1993.

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 By May 1945 the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or Viet Minh (Vietnam Independence League), controlled a free zone in the mountainous region of northern Vietnam. Under the control of Ho Chi Minh and the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), the Viet Minh were ready to grab power when Japan surrendered at the end of World War II. Viet Minh troops then marched into Hanoi and occupied key locations, an event that later came to be known as the August Revolution. On September 2, 1945, in Ba Dinh Square, Ho Chi Minh read his Vietnamese declaration of independence and proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), a new government meant to embrace all three regions of the country: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China. Ho’s hopes were dashed from the beginning. According to the terms of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, British troops under Major General Douglas Gracey arrived south of the 16th Parallel while Chinese soldiers, loosely commanded by General Lu Han, moved into North Vietnam. Both were charged with disarming and repatriating Japanese forces. Gracey did his best to disrupt Viet Minh attempts to govern in his domain, while the Chinese soldiery looted North Vietnam. Simultaneously, Paris sent agents into the region to restore French rule. The Viet Minh even faced natural disasters. A prolonged drought was followed that August by flooding in the Red River Delta region. Then there was a cholera epidemic. In the midst of this chaos, Ho tried to establish his government. Ho had little with which to work: no rice stocks, a bankrupt treasury with only a few disintegrating banknotes and coins, no bureaucracy, no foreign recognition of his nation, and no one experienced in running a nation. Nor was support for the Viet Minh solid even among Vietnamese. Rival parties struggled for their share of power. To quiet them, on November 11, 1945, Ho dissolved the ICP and then on January 6, 1946, held elections for a new National Assembly in which opposition parties were allowed to serve, although without real power. A few months later, with Ho gone to France, acting president Vo Nguyen Giap ordered armed units into action. During July

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954

1241

Ho Chi Minh, president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, shown here signing the guestbook during an official visit to City Hall in Paris, July 4, 1946. (AP/Wide World Photos)

11–13 his units seized property, arrested opponents, and shut down newspapers, while his thugs murdered hundreds who opposed the Communist government. Then a new problem arose. France and China had signed an accord whereby China agreed to remove its troops from Indochina by March 31, 1946. In return France surrendered all of its claims to former concessions in China and received Chinese approval to return French troops to Tonkin. Despite opposition from many of his followers, Ho acquiesced in this development; at least the Chinese would be gone. In negotiations with the French, Ho proposed the formation of an independent Vietnam within the French Union. Paris disagreed, insisting that it must retain Cochin China as a colony, but Paris would recognize Tonkin and Annam as an autonomous state. Ho now offered to accept recognition of Vietnam as a free state and to drop insistence on the word “independent.” He also argued that no more than 15,000 French soldiers should return to North Vietnam. The French delegation led by Jean Sainteny accepted these stipulations, and the two sides signed an accord on March 6, 1946. They opened a conference at Da Lat on April 18, 1946, to work out

details. Little was accomplished. Newly promoted to the rank of full general, Vo Nguyen Giap, as minister of the interior, ordered his armed forces to be ready to fight if necessary and began to plan ways to procure weapons. Ho left Hanoi on May 31, 1946, for four months for a conference at Fontainebleau, France, that began on July 6 and ended on September 10. During this absence French high commissioner for Indochina Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu announced recognition of a Republic of Cochin China, further sundering the third of Vietnam’s three zones from Ho’s influence. Also during Ho’s absence, a series of incidents between Giap’s troops and the French military, now reintroduced into North Vietnam, heightened tensions. French aircraft bombed Viet Minh positions, and French infantry attacked Viet Minh roadblocks. D’Argenlieu gave orders to the French Army to occupy certain northern provinces and to establish puppet governments in the mountains (the Thai-Ky and Nung-Thai republics) to diminish Viet Minh authority. On June 25 French soldiers seized the governor-general’s mansion in Hanoi used by the Viet Minh. General Giap warned top French commander Lieutenant General Jean-Étienne Valluy to stop these

1242

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954

incidents, but they continued. During those troubled times the North Vietnamese government celebrated its first birthday on September 2, 1946. In October 1946 Ho returned home. His months in France had been futile, as the French government had refused meaningful concessions. Eager to consolidate power now that Giap had eliminated so many rivals, Ho directed his National Assembly to approve a new constitution, effective November 8, 1946, that formalized the North Vietnamese government’s status. The assembly then dissolved, not to meet again until 1953, with most nationalist members eliminated. In the summer of 1946 the French insisted on usurping control of the port of Haiphong from the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh refused. On August 29 French troops with tanks and armored vehicles occupied the post office, the police station, and the customshouse and expelled Viet Minh personnel. Both sides exchanged gunfire. The French did not withdraw for nearly two weeks. On November 20 the French seized a Chinese junk suspected of carrying arms for the Viet Minh. In retaliation the Viet Minh captured three French soldiers and barricaded themselves with the captives deep within Haiphong. Another firefight ensued as the French tried to free their comrades. On November 23 the French in Haiphong issued an ultimatum that the Viet Minh evacuate the city and gave two hours for a response. When the Viet Minh refused, the French used tanks, airplanes, artillery, and naval gunfire to shell the city, causing extensive civilian casualties. They also insisted that the Viet Minh surrender control of the Hanoi-Haiphong road. The Viet Minh resisted, and General Giap began to prepare for war. Ho made a fruitless appeal to Paris as Giap continued military preparations. On December 19, 1946, Giap issued a national call to arms, and the next morning Ho broadcast a message asking his people to fight to the end. Giap needed time to move troops, matériel, and factories back into the northern wilderness—the Viet Bac, or “Greenhouse” as Giap called it—where he believed that the Viet Minh would be safe from French attack. His soldiers bought him the time. The last of them did not withdraw from the fighting in Hanoi until February 17, 1947. The Viet Minh government had been reduced to one in exile, controlling an area only some 50 miles in radius situated 80 miles north of Hanoi. However, it was largely secure from the French, whose wheel-bound military could get close to, but not into, the Viet Bac. General Valluy tried, launching Operation LÉA, a combined riverine and air assault, on October 7, 1947. His men closed on Ho’s headquarters so rapidly that Ho and Giap saved themselves only by hiding for some hours in a hole in the ground. With the help of a peasant, Ho escaped safely across French lines. French soldiers failed to identify him but did kill the scholar Nguyen Van To, whom they mistook for Ho. Valluy’s forces made later assaults as well, ultimately claiming to have killed 9,500 Viet Minh during actions in late 1947. Dis-

satisfied with these results, Paris recalled Valluy, replacing him with Lieutenant General Roger C. Blaizot, who accomplished no more than his predecessor. Giap knew that he did not have to win many battles to achieve victory in the war. He only had to make the French quit. A combat lull fell over both sides between 1948 and 1950, but North Vietnam improved its situation in 1949 when Mao Zedong, Communist ruler of the new People’s Republic of China (PRC), gave the North Vietnamese government legal recognition. During that hiatus the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) army grew to about 300,000 men. Blaizot was followed by Lieutenant General Marcel Carpentier, who was replaced by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, who was followed by General Raoul Salan and, finally, General Henri Navarre. None were able to defeat the Viet Minh. In 1950 with Ho’s approval, Giap committed his divisions, which had been trained and reequipped in China, to battle at Dong Khe and Cao Bang, grinding down the French and opening supply routes from China. In 1951 he continued his attacks, at Vinh Yen, Mao Khe, and the Day River, suffering savage setbacks. Trying again in 1952 Giap lost another 9,000 men and then backed away from frontal confrontations for a time and again relied on guerrilla warfare. In late 1952 the French unsuccessfully counterattacked in Operation LORRAINE and other assaults. Despite French efforts, by 1953 the Viet Minh controlled most of rural Vietnam and some of the villages and towns and had extended operations into Laos. General Navarre commanded 84 battalions yet was unable to smash his enemies. He then concocted a plan to force a setpiece battle with the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu. He overestimated his own ability to supply the fortress and underestimated the Viet Minh commitment to take it. Nor did he think it possible that the Viet Minh could mass artillery there. After fighting bravely for 55 days against General Giap’s besieging soldiers, the French surrendered on May 8, 1954. The PAVN had finally defeated the French in North Vietnam. The future of Ho’s nation would now depend on the Great Powers, their representatives already gathering for a meeting at Geneva. CECIL B. CURREY See also August Revolution; D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry; Fontainebleau Conference; France and Vietnam, 1954–Present; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Gracey, Douglas David; Haiphong, Shelling of; Ho Chi Minh; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Indochina War; Lao Dong Party; LÉA, Operation; LORRAINE, Operation; Lu Han; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Sainteny, Jean; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Harrison, James P. The Endless War: Vietnam’s Struggle for Independence. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Vo Nguyen Giap. Unforgettable Months and Years. Translated by Mai Elliott. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975.

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) never deviated from their goal of unifying the whole of Vietnam under Communist rule. The 1954 Geneva Accords provided that Vietnam was one state temporarily divided at the 17th Parallel pending national elections. The final declaration, however, was unsigned, and neither the United States nor the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) accepted its operative terms. The Geneva compromise was a great disappointment to North Vietnamese leaders, who were induced to accept less, for the time being, by their Soviet and Communist Chinese allies in order to prevent the possibility of U.S. entry into the conflict. In the mid-1950s, North Vietnamese leaders retained two goals: the Marxist consolidation of strength (political and economic) in North Vietnam and the “struggle for national reunification.” In a

1243

step toward attaining the first goal and eliminating the dissension and factionalism that characterized Vietnamese culture, North Vietnamese leaders sought to obtain the loyalty of the masses by carrying out so-called land reform, this in spite of the fact that North Vietnam, unlike South Vietnam, consisted almost entirely of small landholders. In December 1953 the North Vietnamese National Assembly called for the confiscation of land and property of the entire landlord class. Although there were landholders who had abused the poor, the Communist Party was not interested in justice as much as it was interested in class warfare. Following the example of other Communist nations, especially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the peasantry was encouraged to denounce and try landholders, with the aim of temporarily redistributing their holdings among landless peasantry. This resulted in execution or death by starvation of up to 100,000 landlords. This so-called land reform work was temporar-

Vietnamese await evacuation from the port of Haiphong in North Vietnam to Saigon in South Vietnam by U.S. Navy ships, August 1954. The 1954 Geneva Accords gave Vietnamese a limited period to relocate either north or south. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1244

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975

ily halted during the 300-day period of free movement provided by the Geneva Accords across the 17th Parallel in an effort to limit emigration south. The Viet Minh blocked the emigration of many people, but more than 600,000 civilians were relocated by the U.S. Navy to South Vietnam in Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM. When the 300 days ended, people’s courts resumed their ideologically driven work, accusing landholders of being American lackeys or imperialists and denouncing as “saboteurs” those who committed suicide. Those who opposed this policy, including party members who refused to participate, were consigned to forced labor camps to study Marxist-Leninist teachings. Many of the condemned landholders had only marginal holdings, and unrest led Ho Chi Minh to admit publicly that cadres had committed errors and excesses. This was followed, as in China, by a campaign to “rectify errors,” which ended the terror and led to the release of thousands of survivors. Some victims were also allowed to take revenge on land-reform cadres. However, this did not prevent a number of peasant revolts, the most serious of which occurred in Ho’s native province of Nghe An on November 2, 1956. Apparently, religious oppression and the party’s plans to collectivize land recently awarded to individual peasant farmers sparked the uprising of Catholics in Cem Truong village, Quynh Luu District. The uprising was crushed by the 325th Division of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army), resulting in the death or deportation of thousands of peasants. Several hundred peasants made it on foot to South Vietnam with the intervention of the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC). Although land reform succeeded in increasing the number of those dependent on the party’s power, it adversely affected crop production, and famine was averted only through Soviet assistance. Economic reconstruction of North Vietnam was essential to continuing the Vietnamese revolution. Politburo member Le Duan noted that “The basic problem is the conversion of small individual production into large-scale socialist production. We must construct almost from scratch the entire material and technical base, economic foundation and superstructure for a socialist nation.” Soviet-bloc aid to North Vietnam was, according to Bernard Fall, comparable to U.S. aid levels for South Vietnam. From 1955 to 1961, grants and loans for economic aid exceeded $1 billion. Despite impressive advances in industrial development, agriculture continued to lag behind that of South Vietnam, which had a smaller population yet produced more rice. Although many peasants resisted collectivization of the land, the process of forming lower-stage agricultural cooperatives was completed by 1962. The other preoccupation of North Vietnamese leadership was reunification. In accordance with the 1954 Geneva Conference agreement, Viet Minh soldiers were regrouped into North Vietnam, but political cadres remained in South Vietnam to prepare for the 1956 elections. But the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem, whose brother had been killed by the Communists and whose regime became increasingly repressive, rebuffed all de-

mands of North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong for national elections. By the summer of 1956 Diem’s “denunciation of Communists” campaign had allegedly eliminated 90 percent of the party’s cells in South Vietnam. After the Geneva Accords, North Vietnam left approximately 3,500 armed guerrillas in South Vietnam in remote locations such as the U Minh Forest of the Mekong Delta, where they received direction from Politburo member Le Duan. But North Vietnam was constrained by the global strategy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), which at its January 1956 Moscow meeting proclaimed a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West. Resistance to this policy was voiced by Truong Chinh, who had attended the CPSU Congress with Le Duc Tho at the Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee in April 1956. As head of the Regional Committee of the South, Le Duan proposed before the plenum the organization of 20 main-force battalions and guerrilla units in friendly villages. His book The Path of Revolution in the South, encouraged a more activist approach, with the party leading the masses. This along with Diem’s campaign in South Vietnam undermined the primacy of political struggle and led the Eleventh Plenum in December 1957 to launch a program of assassination of Diem government supporters, ranging from “wicked landlords” to village officials and teachers. This campaign was officially labeled “extermination of traitors.” Thirty-seven armed companies were organized in South Vietnam by October 1957 on orders from Hanoi. With the insurgency under way, President Diem rebuffed North Vietnamese efforts to arrange trade normalization. Le Duan was recalled to Hanoi as acting first secretary of the party and traveled with Ho Chi Minh to Moscow to seek support for the new approach. In February 1951 Ho had changed the name of the Communist Party to the Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party), popularly known as the Lao Dong (or Workers’ Party), the intention being to mask communism and widen nationalist support throughout Vietnam. In January 1959 the Lao Dong Party’s Fifteenth Plenum decided to authorize the use of armed force to help topple the Diem government. In May 1959 the North Vietnamese government authorized the formation of Group 559, which began work on enlarging the Ho Chi Minh Trail; meanwhile, Group 779 began seaborne infiltration. In September 1960 the Third Congress of the Lao Dong Party named Le Duan as party first secretary. The Third Congress also made it clear that the Vietnamese revolution retained two key goals, namely to continue the Socialist revolution in North Vietnam and to bring about unification. In regard to the first, it is worth noting that in 1960 the North Vietnamese government obtained a longterm loan from the Soviets, which provided for the construction of 43 industrial plants, including 8 thermal power stations. The PRC provided a similar loan to enlarge 29 existing plants, including the Thai Nguyen steel mill complex and a large fertilizer factory in Bac Giang, which also produced explosives for the PAVN. The First Five-Year Plan was initiated in 1961 on the Soviet model, with cen-

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 tral planning and priority given to heavy industry. Steel and coal production, electric-power generation, rolling stock, and other basic industries became the focus. The Soviets also constructed a machine tool plant and a superphosphate factory. The Chinese built roads and plants, Mongolia provided 100,000 breed cattle, and East Germany sent an ocean fishing fleet and supplies to build a hospital. Only about 10 percent of North Vietnam’s trade was with non-Communist nations. Industrial production as a percentage of the gross national product increased from 31.4 percent in 1957 to 53.4 percent by 1964. To facilitate the second task of the revolution and recognizing that its operatives in South Vietnam were on the verge of open guerrilla war, on December 20, 1960, the party created the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) and its military branch. This apparently liberal, nationalist front to overthrow the Diem regime was in fact tightly controlled by the North Vietnamese government through the newly revived Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), but the party’s success in concealing this linkage gave the NLF insurgency worldwide sympathy. Military units in the Western Highlands and the Mekong Delta were consolidated into the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), better known to their enemies as the Viet Cong (VC). The creation of the People’s Revolutionary Party in 1962 (in effect a branch of the Lao Dong Party) was another step toward the takeover of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government accepted the Geneva Accords of 1962, initiated by the John F. Kennedy administration, on Laos but failed to live up to its provisions to reduce its advisers with the Pathet Lao and remove its personnel on way stations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. When the Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee in December 1963 decided to escalate the war effort in South Vietnam, the Communists received crucial support from the PRC, which provided 90,000 rifles and machine guns to the VC in 1962 alone. Following the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the ouster of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev that October, North Vietnamese leaders appealed to the Soviets for more aid while at the same time working to preserve their ties with the Chinese. This was reflected in the February 1965 visit of Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin to Hanoi, which was followed by aid agreements in April and June and a Soviet-bloc conference in Moscow (October 1966) that promised $1 billion in military and financial aid. The Chinese had agreed in July 1965 to provide North Vietnam with $200 million in “national defense and economic supplies.” The North Vietnamese decision to move to big-unit (conventional) war could not have been made without these pacts. In an effort to exploit VC successes, the leadership also decided in 1964 to send regular PAVN troops down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam. Up to this point most of those sent to South Vietnam were native Viet Minh southern veterans who had been regrouped in North Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Accords. By 1964 the trail had been prepared to accommodate

1245

Republic of Vietnam soldiers inspect the extensive damage in Saigon’s Cholon District, the heavily Chinese quarter of the city, following the Communist Mini-Tet Offensive in May 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

greater infiltration, and as a result of Soviet and Chinese assistance, it could now handle trucks and other vehicles. However, the attempt of the PAVN and the VC to cut South Vietnam in two from the Central Highlands to the coast was frustrated by the 1965 entry of U.S. ground troops into the conflict. The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) defeated three PAVN regiments in the Ia Drang Valley late that year. The commitment of 200,000 U.S. troops to South Vietnam led the Twelfth Plenum of the Central Committee in December 1965 to decide upon protracted war. Big-unit war proved costly in the face of a continuing U.S. troop buildup. By 1967, declining volunteers and heavy casualties forced more PAVN and VC units to seek refuge in sanctuaries in “neutral” Laos and Cambodia. When the Fourteenth Plenum of the Central Committee met in January 1968, it finalized plans for a “general offensive, general uprising” (the Tet Offensive) despite the presence of 500,000 U.S. troops. Reportedly, Defense Minister General Vo Nguyen Giap opposed risking so much, but he accepted the decision when the party shifted the brunt of the fighting to VC units. Although the party’s hopes for a general uprising of the South Vietnamese populace proved illusory, the shock of a countrywide offensive was sufficient to persuade the

1246

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975

Lyndon Johnson administration to seek a negotiated end to the conflict, including a halt to bombing above the 20th Parallel. The 1968 Tet Offensive would not have been possible without massive Soviet and Chinese aid. Moscow had begun operating some North Vietnamese air defense missile batteries in July 1965, and until March 1968 the Chinese had up to 170,000 troops in North Vietnam staffing air defenses (three antiaircraft divisions), building the logistic system, and repairing roads and bridges. Chinese reports indicate that they suffered 20,000 casualties in U.S. bombing. The Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force) was forced by the destruction of its airfields to operate out of bases in southern China that were off limits to U.S. aircraft. Nonetheless, according to British consul general in Hanoi John Colvin, the United States had won the air war by the end of 1967 because North Vietnamese ports and rails were out of action. As Phillip B. Davidson notes in Vietnam at War: The History, 1946– 1975, Colvin claimed that by that date North Vietnam “was no longer capable of maintaining itself as an economic unit, nor of mounting aggressive war against its neighbor.” Factories, schools, and hospitals, along with most of the civilians in Hanoi, Haiphong, Nam Dinh, Viet Tri, and Thanh Hoa, were moved outside city limits, leaving the former bustling inner cities nearly empty. This slowed and changed the focus of industrial production as well. The Tet Offensive had also failed to such an extent that the VC never recovered its former strength, and North Vietnamization of its forces became necessary. Seeking an end to all bombing of North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese government agreed to talks in Paris but adopted the tactic of “fighting and talking,” which was designed to exacerbate differences between the United States and the South Vietnam government to intensify antiwar pressures in the United States. Not surprisingly, these talks achieved little. There was an understanding, however, that in return for a complete bombing halt over North Vietnam, the Communists would refrain from attacks on the cities. When the latter was violated by an offensive in February 1969, the Richard Nixon administration initiated the secret bombing of Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia and announced its Vietnamization policy. The North Vietnamese leadership could not protest because it denied having troops in Cambodia, but the bombing of Cambodia prompted them to agree to secret talks in Paris. Ho Chi Minh’s death in September 1969 temporarily resolved the debate in Hanoi in favor of those who wanted a guerrilla war. U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) pacification efforts achieved successes between 1970 and 1971, but intensive efforts to rebuild Communist forces were under way. The U.S. incursion into Cambodia to support the forces of Lon Nol in 1970 and the U.S. encouragement of the ARVN effort to destroy Communist bases and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos (Operation LAM SON 719) probably forced the North Vietnamese to postpone by one year the great offensive approved by the Nineteenth Plenum. By 1971 the Soviet

Union had provided North Vietnam some $3 billion in economic and military assistance, while the PRC had provided an additional $1 billion. Both governments gave additional aid increases for the upcoming offensive. The Nixon administration had arranged summits with both Beijing and Moscow in 1972 to obtain PRC and Soviet cooperation in bringing about a negotiated settlement in Vietnam. Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese government launched an all-out offensive with 14 PAVN divisions in a conventional attack that employed Soviet-supplied tanks and artillery. The Nguyen Hue (or Easter Offensive) was timed to impact the U.S. presidential election and was launched when there were only 6,000 U.S. combat troops in Vietnam. But President Nixon’s decision to dramatically escalate the air war, resume the bombing of North Vietnam, target PAVN forces in South Vietnam, and mine Haiphong Harbor resulted in a crushing PAVN defeat, with losses estimated at 100,000 troops. Under pressure from both the Soviets and the Chinese, Hanoi sought a settlement through the secret Henry Kissinger–Le Duc Tho talks in Paris. The breakthrough came on October 8, 1972, with agreement to an immediate cease-fire in place, followed by a completion of the U.S. troop withdrawal and an exchange of prisoners. But key to the agreement was the concession that North Vietnamese troops did not have to leave territory they occupied inside South Vietnam. This and other substantive problems caused South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu to balk, delaying the final agreement. Hanoi agreed to reopen the negotiations but stalled, hoping that the Nixon administration would be compelled to make further concessions based on congressional deadlines or antiwar pressures. When the North Vietnamese government discontinued the talks on December 13, Nixon ordered the intense LINEBACKER II bombing, which convinced the North Vietnamese government to settle, as its air defenses were devastated and its economy was in ruins. North Vietnamese leaders claimed that the bombing had produced suffering akin to a holocaust. Such claims to the contrary, U.S. newsman Michael W. Browne of the New York Times on visiting Hanoi observed that “the damage caused by American bombing was grossly overstated by North Vietnamese propaganda.” In return for an end to the bombing, however, North Vietnamese leaders agreed to return to the Kissinger–Le Duc Tho talks and ultimately agreed to the cease-fire agreement in January 1973, privately assuring the United States that they would arrange a ceasefire in Laos as well but claiming that they could not do the same in Cambodia. The North Vietnamese government was left in control of about 20 percent of South Vietnam and redeployed troops in Cambodia to their former jungle sanctuaries on the South Vietnamese border. With the removal of U.S. combat troops and advisers, the North Vietnamese government concentrated on rebuilding its own forces. Soviet heavy artillery, air defense missiles, and armored vehicles were moved south during the next two years. A captured COSVN directive describing the post–cease-fire period stated that

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force “This period will be a great opportunity for revolutionary violence, for gaining power in South Vietnam.” The Third Indochina War began almost immediately. The Canadians, representatives on the ICSC, withdrew in frustration since they were being arrested and treated as prisoners by the PLAF. They reported that the most serious violations were North Vietnamese disregard for Lao and Cambodian neutrality and continuing infiltration into South Vietnam. Secretary of State Kissinger visited Hanoi in February 1973 to confront the Communists with a report of more than 200 cease-fire violations, but North Vietnamese leaders wanted only to discuss the money promised them for reconstruction. As Kissinger noted in White House Years, he assured them that they could not “have their aid and eat Indochina too.” Saigon’s effort to regain lost territory and the passage of the Case-Church Amendment that ended funding for U.S. forces in Southeast Asia prompted the Twenty-First Plenum of the Central Committee in October 1973 to approve “strategic raids” on isolated ARVN bases in order to clear their “logistics corridor,” cut key communication with Saigon, regain lost territory, and begin preparation for a culminating offensive to win the war. Critical to PAVN’s success was the movement of troops and matériel down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the construction of an oil pipeline, and a paved highway from Quang Tri in the north through the Central Highlands to Loc Ninh in the south. Also important was the aggressive initiative of theater commander General Tran Van Tra, who persuaded Le Duan to back his plan for attacking Phuoc Long Province despite concerns over the level of war matériels and the U.S. reaction. When the United States did not react to the seizing of Phuoc Long Province in December 1974, the North Vietnamese government, confident that the Gerald Ford administration would not send in airpower, pushed ahead with an all-out invasion of South Vietnam (the Ho Chi Minh Campaign), which they anticipated would take two years to complete. But South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu’s precipitous abandonment of the Central Highlands was the beginning of a rout as PAVN forces, led by General Van Tien Dung and reequipped with modern Soviet tanks and weapons, completed the conquest of South Vietnam ahead of schedule. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. The North Vietnamese government also celebrated the victories of its allies in Cambodia and in Laos, where PAVN divisions were instrumental in the Pathet Lao victory. Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces General Viktor Kulikov had hurried to Hanoi after the capture of Phuoc Long Province to offer an estimated 400 percent increase in military aid to complete the destruction of South Vietnam. Communist Chinese, who had assumed the aid burden for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, also provided critical military aid. During the war years they provided about 500,000 tons of grain per year to help feed the urban population of North Vietnam. During the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War) and the Third Indochina War, the combined losses of North Vietnam

1247

and South Vietnam were at least 1 million troops. North Vietnam suffered heavy bomb damage in 6 industrial cities, and 32 towns required major rebuilding. Another challenge facing Vietnam was trying to feed the 49 million people of the reunified country, especially considering that the Socialist transformation of South Vietnam was made a high priority. CLAUDE R. SASSO See also Agricultural Reform Tribunals; Cambodia; China, People’s Republic of; Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Ho Chi Minh Trail; International Commission for Supervision and Control; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lao Dong Party; Laos; Le Duan; Le Duc Tho; LINEBACKER II, Operation; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnamese Communist Party References Doyle, Edward, Samuel Lipsman, and Terrence Maitland. The North: The Communist Struggle for Vietnam. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1986. Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Kissinger, Henry A. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force The air force of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) air force, known as the Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force), played only a marginal role in the Vietnam War. The VPAF’s first aircraft were two trainers, a De Havilland Tiger Moth and Morane-Saulmier that had been the property of Emperor Bao Dai and were secured in 1945. On March 9, 1949, during the Indochina War, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh ordered the creation of an air arm for the Viet Minh. Men were then subsequently sent to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union for training. The first pilot training schools were established in North Vietnam in 1956, two years after the end of the Indochina War. The VPAF acquired its first combat aircraft, a U.S.-built North American T-28 Trojan trainer that was captured from the Laotian Air Force and utilized as a night fighter. The North Vietnamese claim that the T-28 Trojan shot down a U.S. Fairchild C-123 Provider in February 1964; in fact, the C-123, which was carrying a commando team that was to be parachuted into North Vietnam, was only damaged. At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the VPAF numbered 2,000 men organized as the 929th Air Transport Regiment, equipped with 39 Soviet Ilyushin IL-14 and Antonov AN-2 aircraft. The first air combat regiment was then in training abroad. In January 1959 as evidence of the anticipated growth of the air

1248

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force

Gun camera footage showing U.S. Air Force major Ralph L. Kluster shooting down a Democratic Republic of Vietnam Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 with 20-mm shells from his Republic F-105D Thunderchief over North Vietnam, June 3, 1968. (Bettmann/Corbis)

arm, the Air Force Department was organized in the General Staff. The VPAF took delivery of its first fighter aircraft, the Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-17, in the PRC in February 1964. Only two modern airfields—Gia Lam in Hanoi and Cat Bi near Hai Phong—could sustain prolonged jet operations. By the end of 1965, the VPAF had grown from one to three regiments, two of which were equipped with MiG-17 and MiG-21 interceptor aircraft. These were based at Kep Airfield and at Phuc Yen Airfield near Hanoi. In Operation ROLLING THUNDER (1965–1968), the U.S. air campaign against North Vietnam, 90 percent of U.S. air attacks were against the southern panhandle. The other 10 percent, as one participant noted, were against “the center of hell, with Hanoi as its hub.” The area above the 20th Parallel proved hellish for attackers because it was protected by the most sophisticated integrated air defense network yet seen in war. A significant component of this network was the VPAF, which sporadically worked in concert with antiaircraft artillery (AAA) and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to exact a high price on U.S. aircraft striking North Vietnamese targets. Between 1965 and 1966, the North Vietnamese and their Soviet sponsors began to build what would become a fearsome air defense system. By the end of 1965 North Vietnam had some 75 MiG fighters and 8 IL-28 light bombers. North Vietnamese pilots spent

most of the year training for what would become their sole mission throughout the war of air defense. There were only 10 fighter engagements between U.S. and North Vietnamese pilots during that year, resulting in the loss of 6 VPAF aircraft and 2 U.S. aircraft. The agile MiG-21, which became the primary VPAF interceptor during the war, first arrived in December 1965. Also by the end of the year, North Vietnam established the rudiments of a centralized intercept network that could detect approaching American aircraft from multiple directions. Both developments allowed the VPAF to increase its level of activity in 1966. The first half of 1966 saw VPAF pilots averaging 1 interception a month, but during the last half of the year there was an average of 12 engagements a month. By year’s end, despite the loss of 29 aircraft in air-to-air combat (American losses were 11 aircraft), 70 MiG fighters remained, including 15 MiG-21s. The VPAF’s strength was bolstered at the end of 1966 by the secret arrival of a regiment of pilots from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), who flew combat missions alongside Vietnamese pilots throughout 1967 and 1968. Clearly the VPAF was on the brink of a new level of aggressiveness, proficiency, and tactical maturity that would allow it to make U.S. attacks costly. In 1967 the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom continued to perform the overwhelming number of bombing missions against North Vietnam. What they now encountered was indeed “the center of hell”: 200 SAM sites, 7,000 AAA guns, and approximately 110 MiGs (including 18 MiG21s), all working together under a sophisticated ground-control intercept system. The role of the SAMs and MiGs was to destroy enemy aircraft, force them to jettison their bombs prematurely, or compel them to dive into the lethal range of North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire. The role of ground fire was to force the attacker back up into the SAM-MiG belt to suffer the same fate. Not surprisingly, the dense air defense system worked, although MiG operations were not as important as SAM defenses and AAA fire. U.S. losses grew from 171 aircraft in 1965 to 326 in 1967, the price of causing $1 worth of damage grew from $6.60 to $9.60, and the U.S. success rate in air combat, based on an average of 20 encounters per month in 1967, was a mere 3 to 1 (75 North Vietnamese aircraft vs. 25 U.S. aircraft lost). However, the 3-to-1 ratio did include 15 MiGs destroyed on the ground in attacks against three of North Vietnam’s five principal airfields. The attacks disrupted VPAF activities to the point that by the end of 1967 there were only 10 to 30 serviceable MiG aircraft in North Vietnam, and they operated at irregular intervals. The North Vietnamese moved the rest of their MiGs for retraining and regrouping to air facilities in southern China. There some 100 aircraft remained even after Operation ROLLING THUNDER ended in March 1968. The remaining 50 or so MiGs in North Vietnam then individually challenged U.S. aircraft, still operating below the 20th Parallel, until the complete bombing halt of October 31, 1968. After the bombing halt, the VPAF operated at a reduced tempo until 1972. At that point the VPAF had an estimated 206 MiGs,

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army including 93 MiG-21s and a regiment of Chinese-manufactured MiG-19s. With the reintroduction of U.S. air strikes above the 20th Parallel in Operations LINEBACKER I and II (1972), the VPAF again served as a necessary component of North Vietnam’s still-lethal air defense system. U.S. aircraft reached their objectives without significant interference by North Vietnamese fighters, but 23 U.S. airplanes went down between February and October 1972. Thus, the VPAF remained to the end what it was in the beginning: a limited but effective air defense tool designed to harass and disrupt U.S. air attacks against North Vietnam. The VPAF did take part in the closing days of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) Ho Chi Minh Campaign that ended the Vietnam War in 1975. In the early fighting, PAVN forces had captured a number of Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) aircraft in the Central Highlands and Hue–Da Nang campaigns. VNAF pilot and ground support personnel defectors helped train the VPAF in the use of these aircraft, including the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly and the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter. On April 28, five A-37s under the command of pilot Nguyen Van Luc and guided by Nguyen Thanh Trung (the former VNAF pilot who had bombed Independence Palace in Saigon on April 8) flew from Phan Rang and bombed Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, destroying a number of VNAF aircraft on the flight line. The VPAF expanded after the war, with the creation of four additional regiments. Two new air divisions were created (the 370th and the 372nd) to join the existing 371st Air Division. In May 1977, the VPAF was detached from the Air Defense Force as a separate branch. The VPAF took part in the invasion of Cambodia in 1978, with A-37s flying most of the ground support missions. But a wide variety of aircraft captured from the VNAF, including transports and helicopters, saw service. There was no air activity by either side during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. The VPAF is today a relatively large and well-equipped force, with the bulk of its aircraft of post–Soviet Union Russian manufacture. Although the VPAF still flies the MiG-21 and Sukhoi Su-22 of the Cold War era, the VPAF has received a number of Sukhoi Su-27 SK air superiority fighters and several Sukhoi Su-30 MK2s. PETER R. FABER AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Order of Battle Dispute; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam; United States Air Force References Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Lavalle, A. J. C., ed. The Tale of Two Bridges and the Battle for the Skies over North Vietnam. Monographs 1 and 2. USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Staff, 2001.

1249

Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Sharp, U. S. G. “Report on Air and Naval Campaigns against North Vietnam and Pacific Command-Wide Support of the War, June 1964–July 1968.” In Report on the War in Vietnam, 1–68. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army The military establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), comprising regular and reserve ground forces and small naval and air components. Over a 30-year span, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) evolved from a small insurgent group into one of the world’s largest armed forces. The PAVN’s roots can be traced to the various nationalist military units that battled the French and Japanese during the 1930s and 1940s. The impetus to build an army came with the Viet Minh resistance during World War II. Originally an umbrella organization that included non-Communist elements, by 1944 the Viet Minh was dominated by Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party. On December 22, 1944, the party laid the foundation for what would become the PAVN with the establishment of the first Armed Propaganda Team. Comprising 31 men and 3 women and commanded by Vo Nguyen Giap, this unit became the party’s first full-time formation and served a political as well as military role. Supplied with only a few old weapons, including muzzle-loading flintlocks, the Armed Propaganda Team provided the model for future units. Under Giap’s leadership, the task of army building went forward. Armed Propaganda Teams, various guerrilla bands, and other independent resistance groups were combined in May 1945 to form the Vietnam Liberation Army, with Giap in overall command. Later that year this small force of only a few thousand people spearheaded the August Revolution, after which Ho proclaimed Vietnamese independence and the founding of the DRV. Renamed the Vietnam National Defense Army, the force remained largely a guerrilla army, capable of only small-unit operations as practiced during the struggle against the Japanese. But with the DRV’s formation came an aggressive drive to expand the army. This coincided with the French decision to reassert primacy in Vietnam and the resultant Indochina War (1946–1954). The fledgling North Vietnamese military force was soon designated the People’s Army of Vietnam. Although the army grew steadily during the war, initially it lacked organization, training, and weapons. Forced to rely on captured French and Japanese equipment, the PAVN fought a largely defensive guerrilla war. Victories against the French along the northern border with China allowed the establishment of staging

1250

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

areas and training bases in that country and also opened the door to increased assistance from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Viet Minh prosecuted the war in various phases, building to large-scale conventional warfare. The first PAVN infantry division, formed in 1949, went into action in 1950 and was followed by five more, but throughout the war most of the day-to-day fighting was done by regional or local forces, while the regulars were used sparingly and were withheld for major actions such as the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Local units supplied reconnaissance and logistical support and often bolstered combat formations; regional forces carried out much of the everyday fighting. The acquisition of field artillery (captured French and recently supplied Chinese guns) to augment heavily employed mortars led to the advent of heavy divisions and helped facilitate the shift to conventional warfare and the victory at Dien Bien Phu that prompted the French withdrawal from Vietnam. Throughout the Indochina War, a lack of transport vehicles forced the Viet Minh to rely almost exclusively on thousands of porters to supply forces in the field. At war’s end, the PAVN numbered some 380,000 soldiers, of whom approximately 120,000 were considered regulars. The Viet Minh had been nominally a united front organization, and the PAVN reflected this on a small scale. With victory over the French came a rapid consolidation by the Communists of both political and military organizations. The Communist Party held sway in North Vietnam, as the PAVN’s composition boldly illustrated. An overwhelming majority of PAVN officers were party members, and most of the soldiers had received political indoctrination. The 1954 Geneva Accords that mandated a partition of Vietnam allowed a 300-day regrouping period during which almost 1 million people fled North Vietnam for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Some 80,000 Viet Minh soldiers, mostly regional and local troops who had carried the bulk of the fighting in South Vietnam, returned to North Vietnam. Some 10,000 veterans remained in South Vietnam and would form the core of the future People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). The unification of Vietnam became the Communist Party’s overriding goal. During the period 1954–1956 Le Duan, a Politburo member and an influential member of the party’s Central Military Committee, was assigned to work in South Vietnam to assess the situation and prepare for the task of unification. With South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem refusing to allow the elections promised for 1956 for the reunification of Vietnam as stipulated by the Geneva Accords, Communist political cadres in South Vietnam resumed hostilities. In 1957 Communist guerrillas (soon to be called by Diem the Viet Cong [VC], for Vietnamese Communists) attacked Minh Thanh in Thu Dau Mot Province, signaling the beginning of the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese leaders now focused on the modernization and professionalization of their army. The government mandated compulsory military service and intensified training for all officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs), instituted uniform regu-

lations, and formalized the command structure. In addition, the government established formal ranks and insignia for a force that had operated without these mainstays of Western armies. The influx of war matériel from the PRC and the Soviet Union— namely artillery, T-34 medium tanks, and airplanes—led to the formation of artillery and armor units and a small air force, known as the Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force). The army still lacked adequate transport and remained heavily infantry oriented, however. Unification drove military planning in the late 1950s. The Fifteenth Party Plenum in May 1959 determined that the time was ripe to press the initiative. Acting on Le Duan’s recommendations, the party moved to build an army in South Vietnam based upon the Armed Propaganda Team that could evolve into a conventional force. The 1954 Geneva Accords restricted the PAVN to areas north of the 17th Parallel; therefore, the chief instrument of insurrection in South Vietnam became the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), a nominally indigenous united front organization that opposed the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese government headed by Diem. Although North Vietnam denied any involvement in the southern insurrection, it was clearly involved. The NLF’s military branch—the PLAF, popularly known in South Vietnam as the VC—was comprised largely of South Vietnamese volunteers and carried out most of the fighting against South Vietnamese and U.S. forces prior to 1968. The PLAF contained main-force and guerrilla components and reached a total strength of almost 400,000 before the 1968 Tet Offensive. Although Hanoi initially insisted that the guerrilla war in South Vietnam strive to be largely self-sufficient, it provided vital assistance in the form of experienced leadership, technical support, and supplies. The North Vietnamese government came to completely dominate the effort in South Vietnam through its command apparatus, later known as the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). Additionally, PAVN soldiers who had gone north during the regrouping period were infiltrated to South Vietnam, forming the bulk of PLAF main-force units. After the 1968 Tet Offensive, the VC was decimated, and the PAVN was even more completely in charge. After the war, Hanoi claimed sponsorship of the PLAF, much to the disgust of many PLAF veterans. The most important aspect of the North Vietnamese government’s early involvement was providing trained manpower and logistical support. The 1959 commitment to escalate its involvement in South Vietnam led to the creation of Group 559 to infiltrate troops and supplies southward on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was constantly expanded and improved by PAVN engineers and defended by PAVN infantry and antiaircraft units. Group 759 (which later became the 125th Naval Brigade) was charged with supplying southern forces by water, while Group 959 was developed to support the Pathet Lao in Laos. These efforts, especially that of Group 559, contributed enormously to the Communist victory.

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

1251

North Vietnamese Artillery Used during the Vietnam War Model M-116 pack howitzer* ZIS-3 towed gun D-44 towed divisional gun M101A1 towed howitzer* M1944 towed gun M1938 towed howitzer D-14 towed gun A-19 towed corps gun M-46 towed gun M1937 towed gun/howitzer

Caliber 75-mm 76.2-mm 85-mm 105-mm 100-mm 122-mm 122-mm 122-mm 130-mm 152-mm

Weight (pounds)

Projectile Weight (pounds)

Time to Emplace (minutes)

Range (meters)

Maximum Rate of Fire (rounds per minute)

1,440 2,460 3,804 4,980 7,628 5,510 11,000 15,664 18,590 17,300

15 13.6 21 33 35 48.6 56.2 54.8 73.7 96

5 2 2 3 2 2 5 4 4 10

8,800 13,000 15,650 11,000 21,000 11,800 21,900 20,800 27,490 17,300

20 25 20 30 10 6 7 6 6 4

*Note: U.S.-made weapons

Until 1965, the PLAF conducted a usually low-level people’s war, employing its guerrilla forces against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and its Regional and Popular forces. Political action was equally important to the southern effort, and NLF and Communist Party cadres worked to exploit local dissatisfaction with the Saigon government. The PAVN sent a few small (battalion-sized or less) regular army units (not composed of southern regroupees) south to fight in 1963 and early 1964 and then in late 1964 sent four full regular army regiments south to fight, but with the commitment of U.S. combat troops in the summer of 1965, the North Vietnamese government found it increasingly necessary to augment PLAF formations. The first PAVN regular army units initially operated in the Central Highlands and south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to keep U.S. and ARVN forces from concentrating against PLAF activities in the more heavily populated areas farther south and along the coast. This was especially the case prior to the 1968 Tet Offensive, as entire PAVN divisions moved south through the DMZ in a diversionary effort to draw U.S. and ARVN attention from the targeted areas in South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive was a military disaster that destroyed the fighting effectiveness of the PLAF local force and guerrilla units, who bore the brunt of the fighting in and around the cities and took devastating losses. Thereafter, PAVN regulars assumed the leading combat role and took on an increasingly conventional profile, with a large influx of tanks, artillery, and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The regular PAVN divisions, which conducted the 1972 Spring (Easter) Offensive in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops, were beaten back by the ARVN with the aid of substantial U.S. air support. After almost three years of preparation that included massive troop and equipment buildups, the PAVN unleashed its final offensive—the 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign directed by General Van Tien Dung—that overpowered ARVN defenders and culminated in the fall of Saigon. The PAVN was also responsible for the defense of North Vietnam. PAVN regional and local forces augmented by as many as 2 million civilian militia stood guard against ground attack and staffed coastal defenses. The PAVN, with substantial technical as-

sistance from the PRC and the Soviet Union, operated what became one of the world’s heaviest air defense systems, including tightly arrayed radar-guided SAM and antiaircraft gun sites. The small PAVN navy operated a few dozen small craft—mostly patrol and torpedo boats—and devoted itself to coastal defense. Its most notable Vietnam War participation came during the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF, North Vietnamese Air Force) grew steadily during the conflict, thanks to the influx of Soviet warplanes, but never assumed more than a limited defensive posture against the U.S. Air Force. PAVN tactics were dictated by its various stages of engagement and ranged from guerrilla to big-unit conventional warfare. Death Volunteer units attracted much attention. These pressed the closein battle against French strong points, especially at Dien Bien Phu, but against the Americans, all troops pressed in close. Such hugging tactics were intended to place PAVN troops too close for U.S. forces to risk using artillery for fear of killing their own personnel. These tactics achieved mixed success against U.S. forces but proved eminently effective against all but the most elite ARVN troops. Training and combat cohesion were critical elements of PAVN success. PAVN conscripts were highly motivated and received nearly four months of basic training before reporting to their units for specific training requirements. More importantly, in contrast to their counterparts in South Vietnam, PAVN NCOs and technical personnel received extensive military and political motivational training as well as technical instruction. The result was an army of conscripts led by a technically competent and highly motivated noncommissioned officer corps. The officer corps received even more intensive training. All activities, social and military, were centered around the unit. The result was a tightly knit, intensely cohesive force. Additionally, all PAVN units contained both military and political leaders of equal stature. Military and political objectives were inseparable. Logistics were key to PAVN success. Its units were weaponsintensive formations with few logistics and support personnel. Thus, supplies were husbanded carefully, dispersed in hidden caches around likely operating areas, and stockpiled near the objective well in advance of an offensive. When necessary, local labor

1252

Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army

was recruited or conscripted to haul supplies to new locations or units in the field. For example, tens of thousands of porters were recruited to transport supplies and heavy weapons used at Dien Bien Phu. Likewise, the deployment of regular forces to South Vietnam was preceded by logistics preparations along the deployment route. The construction of barracks and rest facilities along the Ho Chi Minh Trail began in 1965, each base being about one day’s march apart. The PAVN ultimately constructed two fuel pipelines along the trail before it dispatched tanks to South Vietnam. Storage areas were built underground in staging areas within PAVN sanctuaries inside Cambodia and South Vietnam’s A Shau Valley, from which supplies were then transported to caches deeper in South Vietnam. Sea and river transport was used whenever possible. During the period 1966–1969, Communist-flag merchant ships also carried supplies to Cambodia’s Sihanoukville (Kompong Som) for transport into South Vietnam. In fact, this was the most common delivery means for heavier materials prior to 1970. Cambodia’s entry into the war in 1972 cut this supply route, however. Supplies were also smuggled through Vietnam’s coastal waters until 1975, although U.S. and South Vietnamese interdiction efforts proved increasingly successful. By 1973, the bulk of PAVN supplies entered South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Equipment was initially a PAVN weakness. Regular divisions were equipped with a homogenous array of weapons after 1951. Originally the small arms were of Japanese origin, but French small arms predominated in the regular infantry until 1960. Artillery and mortars initially came from surrendered French and Japanese stocks, but beginning in the early 1960s they were gradually replaced by Soviet and Communist Chinese weapons. By 1965 PAVN divisions contained artillery regiments equipped with Soviet 122-millimeter (mm) guns and howitzers in addition to a wide range of mortars (60-mm to 160-mm) and rocket launcher systems (107-mm to 140-mm). Small arms were standardized around Communist-bloc models as numbers became available. The 7.62-mm SKS carbine and the excellent AK-47 assault rifle were the standard infantry weapons, while the Soviet RPD light machine gun or its Chinese version provided the squad’s automatic fire–support element. Every platoon had Soviet-produced rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPG2s and RPG-7s) after 1965. These supplemented the battalion’s 57-mm and 75-mm recoilless rifles. Soviet and American heavy machine guns (12.7-mm and .50-caliber, respectively) could also be found in the battalion’s heavy weapons company, but mortars were the primary heavy support weapon below division level. Tanks were introduced in the 1950s. Captured French and Japanese models were discarded after 1954 and were replaced in limited quantities by Chinese and Soviet light and medium tanks. The PT-76 was the first tank that the PAVN deployed southward. This tank was relatively easy to infiltrate into South Vietnam because its light weight and amphibious capabilities enabled it to cross rivers and use all but the most primitive roads. The heavier and more powerful T-54 medium tank was not deployed until after

the Ho Chi Minh Trail was improved in 1968. Organized into independent battalions, tanks were deployed against key objectives and astride critical lines of communications. The movement of its armored units signified PAVN intentions after 1970. Because North Vietnam did not produce its own tanks, these almost irreplaceable weapons were husbanded even more carefully than were supplies and were held in reserve for decisive battles. During the 1972 Spring Offensive, the PAVN used T54s for the first time (initially at Dong Ha and then during the attacks on Quang Tri, Kontum, and An Loc). But PAVN commanders seemed not to grasp the importance of combined armor-infantry tactics. Several times tanks moved forward to attack without any infantry support and were destroyed easily by ARVN M72s. Heavy losses in the failed 1972 Spring Offensive put a temporary halt to offensive operations until more tanks could be acquired. The PAVN employed nearly 400 medium tanks in the vanguard of the final offensive that conquered Saigon in 1975. That drive marked the PAVN’s successful transition to a highly trained mechanized infantry force equal to all but the world’s very best conventional armies. The PAVN was General Giap’s creation. Its tactics, strategy, and organizational structure all emanated from his genius. His protégés and assistants served him well, even if not perfectly. General Nguyen Chi Thanh ably commanded the PLAF and the war effort in South Vietnam from 1965 until his death in 1967. However, he and General Giap grossly overestimated the South Vietnamese people’s desire for revolution, and his forces suffered accordingly. The 1968 Tet Offensive was a major military disaster, but it paid unexpected political dividends, as the offensive was perceived by many Americans as a serious setback, a view that was stoked by the U.S. media. Giap and his generals learned from their mistakes. They modified their tactics to minimize their exposure to U.S. firepower. Few can fault General Van Tien Dung’s 1975 drive on Saigon. More significantly, PAVN military strategy was integrated with that of North Vietnamese political leaders and diplomats. Thus, North Vietnam’s military and diplomatic activities were mutually supporting, something that its opponents never achieved during either the Indochina War or the Vietnam War. The PAVN could also rely on the excellent Communist support system that provided food, labor, and military intelligence. At war’s end in 1975, the PAVN numbered nearly 1 million troops despite losses announced in April 1995 at 1.1 million Communist fighters killed between 1954 and 1975, a figure that includes both VC guerrillas in South Vietnam and PAVN personnel. By this time PLAF formations had either been disbanded or absorbed by the PAVN. But the fighting was far from over. In 1978 the PAVN invaded Cambodia and occupied the country until 1989. In response to this, PRC forces attacked into northern Vietnam in the Sino-Vietnamese War of early 1979 but withdrew after intense resistance from PAVN regular and regional forces. By the mid-1980s the PAVN was the world’s third-largest standing army, trailing only the PRC and the Soviet Union. Severe

Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE economic conditions and the loss of Soviet aid in the early 1990s prompted dramatic force reductions, but the PAVN (now known as the Vietnam People’s Army [VPA]) remains a formidable armed force. As of 2005, Vietnam’s military spending was about 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or approximately $4 billion. Vietnamese ground forces were estimated to number about 415,000 active-duty personnel in 2008. That figure did not include militia and local self-defense forces, which may number 3 million–4 million part-time personnel. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER AND DAVID COFFEY See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Central Office for South Vietnam; Dau Tranh Strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Indochina War; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Le Duan; Mini–Tet Offensive; Nguyen Chi Thanh; Order of Battle Dispute; Sino-Vietnamese War; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Van Tien Dung; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force; Vo Nguyen Giap References Lanning, Michael Lee, and Dan Cragg. Inside the VC and the NVA: The Real Story of Vietnam’s Armed Forces. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992. Miller, David. “Giap’s Army.” War Monthly 28 (July 1976): 26–33. Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Terzani, Tiziano. Giai Phong: The Fall and Liberation of Saigon. New York: St. Martin’s, 1976. Vo Nguyen Giap. “Big Victory, Great Task.” North Viet-Nam’s Minister of Defense Assesses the Course of the War. New York: Praeger, 1968.

1253

controversy in Vietnamese history. Based on references found in Chinese sources and information gleaned from recent archaeological discoveries, many scholars have tried to prove that the Hung Vuong did in fact exist. Nonetheless, every year Vietnamese in Vietnam and throughout the world celebrate on the tenth day of the third month of the lunar calendar the anniversary of King Hung. Beginning with discoveries by the French in the 1920s and 1930s of Stone Age sites in Hoa Binh and Bac Son in northern Vietnam and that of a Bronze Age site in Dong Son, Thanh Hoa Province, archaeological research has made important progress. In the 1960s and 1980s Vietnamese archaeologists excavated several new sites, such as Tan Van in Lang Son Province, Nui (Mount) Do in Thanh Hoa, Quynh Van in Nghe An, and Phung Nguyen in Phu Tho. These discoveries prove that Vietnam has been continuously inhabited by humankind since a very early time in its history. In Vietnam, an original civilization different from that of China widely developed. The most important features of this civilization were a wet rice cultivation using tidewater movement, a matrilineal organization of society, the worship of ancestors and of the god of the soil, the building of shrines in high places, and a cosmological dualism in which are opposed the mountain and the sea, the winged race and the aquatic race, and the men of the heights and those of the coasts. This Austro-Asiatic civilization, as it is known to archaeologists, corresponds to the Dongsonian civilization. To many scholars it is the Hung Vuong era.

The Thuc (258–207 BCE) and the Trieu (207–111 BCE)

Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE Legends and Prehistory Vietnamese consider the founder of their nation to be Hung Vuong, or King Hung, of the Hong Bang dynasty (2879–258 BCE). The country was then called Van Lang, and the capital was located at Phong Chau in present-day Vinh Phu Province, where a temple dedicated to Hung Vuong was later erected. According to legend, this kingdom was very large. It occupied a great part of southern China, northern Vietnam, and part of central Vietnam and covered approximately those areas occupied by the Bach Viet (One Hundred Yuehs), non-Chinese people living in southern China south of the Yangtze River. Hung Vuong and his 18 successors, who bore the same title of Hung Vuong, divided their kingdom into 15 bo (“districts”) and administered them through the lac hau (“civil chieftains”), lac tuong (“military chieftains”), and the bo chinh (“subaltern officials”). The throne was hereditary and also probably were the titles lac hau and lac tuong. Rice fields were called lac dien (“lac fields”), and people who lived on them were called lac dan (“lac people”). Whether Hung Vuong, the Hong Bang dynasty, and the Van Lang kingdom really existed or are simply legendary is still a

In 258 BCE Van Lang was invaded by a neighbor king, Thuc Phan, and annexed to his territory. A new kingdom, Au Lac, was formed, and Thuc Phan became An Duong Vuong. Co Loa, not far from Hanoi, was chosen as the new capital. Here a citadel in spiral form was built that later became the most ancient and important historical vestige of ancient Vietnam. In 207 BCE An Duong Vuong was defeated by Trieu Da (Chaoto), a former general of the Qin (Ch’in). Au Lac was combined with Trieu Da’s territory to make a new kingdom, Nam Viet (Nan Yueh). Phien Ngung (Canton) became its capital. Trieu Da and his successors ruled ancient Vietnam until 111 BCE, when Nam Viet was invaded by the Han to become a Chinese colony. During this time the country was divided into two quan (“districts”): Giao Chi and Cuu Chan. Each was headed by a legate and enjoyed an indirect and loose control from Canton.

Chinese Domination (111 BCE–938 CE) During the first 100 years of their domination, the Chinese brought almost no change to their southern colony. The two Trieu legates in Giao Chi and Cuu Chan submitted without resistance and were confirmed in office. The lac hau and the lac tuong were allowed to keep their territories and lead their own people. No rebellion was recorded. At the beginning of the first century CE, however, the

1254

Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest

Chinese governors changed their policies. Through the effort of two governors, Tich Quang (Si Kuang) and Nham Dien (Jen Yen), Vietnamese culture was Sinicized, and lands were seized to give to new Chinese immigrants at the expense of local nobles. This new policy reached its climax under To Dinh (Su Ting) and led to the important uprising of Trung Trac and her sister Trung Nhi. In 39 CE Hai Ba Trung (the Two Ladies Trung) spread their rebellion over 65 fiefs, covering all the territories from Cuu Chan to Hop Pho (Kwang Tung). To Dinh fled to Canton. The reaction of the Han court was slow. But after two years of careful preparation, in 42 CE a large Chinese army, raised from several provinces in southern China and commanded by the old and famous general Ma Vien (Ma Yuan), moved south to counterattack. The Ladies Trung were defeated at a bloody battle at Lang Bac in the spring of 43. They chose suicide by leaping into the Hat River. After the failure of Hai Ba Trung, the Han tightened their control over both Giao Chi and Cuu Chan. Ancient Vietnam was no longer administered as a protectorate; it became a Chinese province and was strictly controlled. Rebellions also occurred more often and provided Vietnam with a longer list of national heroes, among them Madame Trieu in 248, Ly Bon (Ly Nam De) during 544–548, Trieu Quang Phuc (Trieu Viet Vuong) during 549–571, Ly Tu Tien and Dinh Kien in 687, Mai Thuc Loan (Mai Hac De) in 722, Phùng Hung during 766–791, and Duong Thanh in 819. These rebellions finally ended with the great victory of Ngo Quyen over the Chinese on the Bach Dang River in 938. This important battle opened a new era in Vietnamese history. The country was again independent after more than 1,000 years of Chinese rule. The 10 centuries of Chinese domination nonetheless greatly affected Vietnam and its people. Under Chinese influence the country slowly separated from other nations of Southeast Asia to become a part of East Asia. Vietnam’s territory was smaller than that of the legendary Van Lang; however, its boundaries were much better defined, and both lowlands and highlands were more systematically administered. A Vietnamese people emerged of ancient local elements and new localized immigrants from the north. Chinese characters were officially used in writing, and Chinese traditions and customs were widespread. Confucianism, Taoism, and Mahayana Buddhism were introduced and served as the base for Vietnamese intellectual and spiritual life in the following centuries, even to the present. The Vietnamese and their culture were not completely Sinicized, however. The combination of local and northern elements was slowly realized throughout the entire 10 centuries. What was first foreign took root and became local. Ancient Vietnam was the southern nation (Nuoc Nam or Nam Quoc) facing China as the northern nation (Bac Quoc) in the coming millennium. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Ly Bon; Ngo Quyen; Trung Trac and Trung Nhi; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest

References Coedès, Georges. The Making of South East Asia. Translated by H. M. Wright. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Higham, Charles. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viet Nam des Origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Pham Cao Duong. Lich Su Dan Toc Viet Nam, Quyen I, Thoi K Lap Quoc [History of the Vietnamese People, Vol. I, The Making of the Nation]. Fountain Valley, CA: Truyen Thong Viet, 1987. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971. Uy Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi Viet Nam. Lich Su Viet Nam, Tap I [History of Vietnam, Vol. 1]. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1971. Van Tan, Nguyen Linh, Le Van Lan, Nguyen Dong Chi, and Hoang Hung. Thoi Dai Hùng Vuong: Lich Su, Kinh Te, Chinh Tri, Van Hoa, Xa Hoi [The Hùng Vuong Era: History, Economy, Politics, Society]. Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Khoa Hoc Xa, Hoi, 1976. Vien Khao Co Hoc and Uy Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi Viet Nam. Nhung Phat Hien Moi Ve Khao Co Hoc Nam 1984 [New Archaeological Discoveries in 1984]. Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, 1985.

Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest The victory of Ngo Quyen over the Southern Han on the Bach Dang River in 938 CE opened a new era in Vietnamese history, marking an end to 1,000 years of Chinese domination (111 BCE–938 CE) and the beginning of the grand period of national independence. During the next nine centuries (938–1884), the Vietnamese successfully built a new country, a southern nation (Nam Quoc or Nuoc Nam) facing China as a northern nation (Bac Quoc). Several tentative Chinese efforts to regain the control of their former colony failed except for a 20-year period (1407–1427) under the Ming dynasty. However, the imprint of Chinese civilization on Vietnam persisted and proved to be of a permanent nature. At the same time, in their Nam Tien (March to the South), the Vietnamese expanded their territory at the expense of the Cham and Khmer nations from south of Deo Ngang (Ngang Pass) in the panhandle of northern Vietnam to the southernmost point of the Ca Mau Peninsula, jutting into the Gulf of Thailand. “Resisting the North” (Bac cu) and “conquering the South” (Nam chinh) became major themes of Vietnamese history, as did the development of an original Vietnamese culture and civilization.

Vietnamese Dynasties In 939 Ngo Quyen declared himself king. He chose Co Loa, the ancient capital of the Thuc before the invasion of Trieu Da, for the new capital. Many Vietnamese historians view this decision as the most significant action by this national hero. It showed his determination to put the Chinese domination behind and opened a new period of independence for his country. Ngo Quyen’s

Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest 1255

The Temple of Literature in Hanoi, today a major tourist attraction. (Nstanev/Dreamstime.com)

dynasty did not last long, however. He died in 944, and his children were unable to maintain order. Ancient Vietnam soon faced serious troubles, especially in 965. Vietnamese historians refer to these years as the Period of the Twelve Lords (Muoi Hai Su Quan). This period lasted until 968, when Dinh Bo Linh reunified the kingdom. The Dinh dynasty was able to gain recognition by the Chinese. Dinh Bo Linh declared himself emperor and took the royal name Dinh Tien Hoang. He named the country Dai Co Viet and systematically organized his court and the administration of the country. The dynasty that he founded lasted only 12 years; he was assassinated in 980. His commanding general, Le Hoan (Le Dai Hanh), managed to replace him and founded the Early Le dynasty (980– 1009). Le Hoan defeated the Sung invasion, preserving national independence. He also launched a victorious expedition against Champa in the south in 982. With the liberation of the country from the Chinese by Ngo Quyen, the preservation of national unity by Dinh Bo Linh, and the consolidation of national independence and security from foreign invasion or infiltration under Le Hoan, the Ngo, the Dinh, and the Tien Le laid a solid foundation for an independent Vietnam that future dynasties would develop to create a great southern nation before it was conquered by the French in the second half of the 19th century.

The following Vietnamese dynasties succeeded the Tien Le: the Ly dynasty (1010–1225), the Tran dynasty (1225–1400), the Ho dynasty (1400–1407), the Later Tran dynasty (1407–1413) and the Ming (Chinese) Domination (1407–1428), the later Le dynasty (1428–1788), the Mac dynasty (1527–1592), the Nguyen Tay Son (1788–1802), and the Nguyen dynasty (1802–1945).

The Preservation of Independence and Cultural Development The Sung invasion of Dai Co Viet in 980 was not the only Chinese effort to regain control of their former southern colony. The Chinese tried several times to reconquer Dai Viet (the name given to the country by the Ly), and each time they were defeated. Vietnamese efforts to preserve their independence from China added more names to their list of heroes, among them Ly Thuong Kiet and Ton Dan of the 11th century; Tran Hung Dao, Tran Quang Khai, Tran Khanh Du, and Pham Ngu Lao of the 13th century; Le Loi (Le Thai To), Nguyen Trai, and many others of the 15th century; and Quang Trung (Nguyen Hue) of the late 18th century. In fighting Chinese domination and invasion, the Vietnamese used the rich experience they had learned from their enemy. Despite its independent spirit, the Vietnamese monarchy under the Ly, Tran, Le, and Nguyen never thought of giving up the methods of government inherited from the Chinese empire. Instead, the

1256

Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest

Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest 1257 Vietnamese monarchy modeled its institutions after the examples in China, particularly in the use of Confucianism as the major influence in the education of the country’s elite and in the organization of competitive examinations to recruit mandarins for the state government and administration. The Van Mieu, or Temple of Literature, was built in 1070 in the capital of Thang Long (present-day Hanoi), and the first examination was organized in 1075. Chinese characters were always used as the country’s official writing system at the expense of Chu Nom (the written form of the Vietnamese language, using derivatives of Chinese characters) until the early 20th century. Buddhism and Taoism had a role equal to Confucianism under the Ly and at the beginning of the Tran, but gradually these lost their primary importance in state life. This evolution is reflected in Vietnamese poetry and literature.

Princess Huyen Tran in marriage. Those districts became Thua Thien Province. In the 15th century the Chams had to give up all of their territory north of the present province of Quang Nam; in 1471 the Vietnamese took their capital of Vijaya. This loss was vital, because once the Vietnamese had secured a permanent foothold south of Hai Van Pass, the remaining Cham country was quickly subdued. In the 17th century the remnants of this old and Indianized kingdom were definitively absorbed, although a petty Cham king still retained nominal independence in the region of Phan Rang until 1822. But the Nam Tien of the Vietnamese did not end there. The elimination of Champa brought them into direct contact and conflict with the Khmers in the Mekong Delta. This part of the lower plain of future Cochin China came under virtual Vietnamese control in the last decades of the 18th century.

Nam Tien (March to the South) At the time Vietnam became independent from China in the tenth century, its southern border did not pass the Deo Ngang (the Ngang Pass in the panhandle of central Vietnam). Nam Tien (March to the South), or the effort to expand the national territory farther to the south, was another constant in Vietnamese history before the coming of the French. This was accomplished at the expense first of the Chams and later of the Khmers. In 1069 after a successful military campaign, Ly Thanh Tong seized the Cham capital and imprisoned the Cham king, whose liberation was exchanged for the cession of the three Cham districts of Dia Ly, Ma Ling, and Bo Chinh, which later became Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces. In the early 14th century two more Cham districts, the O and the Ri, were given to Dai Viet in exchange for

French Conquest The main reason often cited for the French intervention and conquest of Vietnam was to protect the persecuted Catholic missionaries and their Vietnamese followers. The French action, however, was also to gain a “balcony” over the Pacific Ocean and was carried out at the same time as the Anglo-French intervention in China to open up trading ports in East Asia. The French conquest of Vietnam began with an attack on Da Nang in 1858, followed later by attacks in the south. Gia Dinh Province fell in 1859, Dinh Tuong Province fell in 1861, and Bien Hoa Province fell in 1862. These three eastern provinces in the south became a French colony following the Treaty of 1862. Then the three western provinces in the south, Vinh Long, An Giang, and

Painting of the capture of Saigon by the forces under French vice admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly, February 17, 1859. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

1258

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

Ha Tien, were colonized from 1867 to 1875. The rest of the country became a French protectorate in 1884, following two French attacks on northern Vietnam in the early 1870s and 1880s and the signing of treaties in 1883 and 1884. PHAM CAO DUONG See also Confucianism; French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Le Dynasty; Le Loi; Ngo Quyen; Nguyen Dynasty; Nguyen Hue; Tran Dynasty; Trinh Lords References Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Chesneaux, Jean. Contribution à L’Histoire de la Nation Vietnamienne. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1955. Le Thanh Khoi. Le Viet-Nam: Histoire et civilisation. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1955. Nguyen The Anh. Viet Nam Duoi Thoi Phap Do Ho [Vietnam under French Domination]. Saigon: Lua Thieng, 1970. Phan Khoang. Viet Nam Phap Thuoc Su, 1862–1945 [The History of Vietnam under French Rule, 1862–1945]. Saigon: Phu Quoc Vu Khanh Dac Trach Van Hoa, 1971. Tran Trong Kim. Viet Nam Su Luoc [Outline of Vietnamese History]. Saigon: Bo Giao Duc, 1971.

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 The 1954 Geneva Conference ending the Indochina War temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th Parallel, pending elections to be held in 1956. The Viet Minh armed forces regrouped in the north where Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) held sway. Some political cadres remained in southern Vietnam, however, to prepare for the planned elections. The State of Vietnam, headed by Emperor Bao Dai and established in 1949, dominated the south. The Geneva Accords also granted Vietnamese the right to move north or south, and more than 600,000 civilians, most of them Catholics from the Red River Delta area, took advantage of this opportunity to relocate in southern Vietnam. The United States provided substantial support, including ships, in Operation PASSAGE TO FREEDOM. Many Catholics moved south, and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) separated the two. Bao Dai, then living in France, called on nationalist and Catholic leader Ngo Dinh Diem to head a government. Bao Dai needed Diem’s support and that of his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who had set up the influential Front for National Salvation in Saigon as an alternative to the Viet Minh. Another factor influencing Bao Dai was his belief that Washington backed Diem. On June 18, 1954, Bao Dai appointed Diem as prime minister. Diem returned to Saigon on June 26 and then on July 7 officially formed his new government, which technically embraced all Vietnam. The United States backed Diem and supplied increasing amounts of aid to his government, the power base of which was quite narrow: Catholics, the landed gentry, and fervent anti-

Communist nationalists. Many of the rich and powerful and Francophiles opposed him. This soon included most of the nationalist parties and religious sects. Many observers believed that Diem would not last long in power, but he proved to be an adroit political manipulator. Certainly a key in this was that Washington channeled all aid directly to his government. This U.S. decision, effective in October 1954, undercut remaining French authority in southern Vietnam. At the same time, Washington pressured Paris to withdraw its remaining forces, and the last left the country in April 1956. American officers meanwhile arrived to train the south Vietnamese armed forces. This angered army commander General Nguyen Van Hinh, a naturalized Frenchman, and led to a test of wills between him and Diem. When Diem ordered Hinh to leave the country, Hinh refused to go, and for a time there was talk of a coup. This ended when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent General J. Lawton Collins to southern Vietnam as special ambassador. Lawton informed Saigon officials that Washington would deal only with Diem. Hinh then went into exile in France. Internationally the United States supported Diem by taking the lead in the September 1954 creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which extended protection to southern Vietnam. President Eisenhower sent high-ranking U.S. officials to Vietnam, including both Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Vice President Richard Nixon. In May 1957 Diem traveled to the United States and spoke to a joint session of Congress. Meanwhile, Diem moved quickly to consolidate power in southern Vietnam. By this time, a number of opposition groups were carrying out armed resistance to the government, including the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao religious sects and the Dai Viet Party. In 1955, using army units loyal to him and monetary bribes from Washington, Diem defeated the Binh Xuyen–Saigon-based gangsters who had their own well-organized militia. He also moved against the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, which also had armed support. In 1955 Diem defied an effort by Bao Dai to remove him from office. Diem turned the tables by calling for a referendum in which the people would choose between them. Diem would easily have won any honest contest, but he ignored appeals of U.S. officials and falsified the results so that the announced vote was 98.2 percent in his favor. On October 26, 1955, using the results of the referendum as justification, Diem proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), with himself as president. Washington recognized him in this position, and its aid was vital in his growing strength. From 1955 to 1966 Washington provided economic assistance totaling almost $2 billion, not including military equipment. Such aid enabled Diem to reject talks with Hanoi over the elections called for by the Geneva Accords, which the Viet Minh, confident of electoral victory, so ardently sought. Diem spent the vast bulk of Washington’s aid on the military. Perhaps three-quarters of U.S. assistance went into the military

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

1259

U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower and Republic of Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem during welcoming ceremonies for Diem on his arrival at Washington National Airport in 1957. (National Archives)

budget and the remainder into the bureaucracy and transportation. Only modest amounts were set aside for education, health, housing, and community development. Also, most nonmilitary aid stayed in the cities, which held only a minority of the population. U.S. financial assistance freed Diem from the necessity of carrying out economic reforms or income taxes that would have brought real reform and benefits to the impoverished classes in the cities or in the countryside. Diem was out of touch with the peasants in the countryside, and little was done to carry out much-needed land reform. In 1961, 75 percent of the land was owned by 15 percent of the population; by 1962, although slightly more than 1 million acres of land had been transferred to the peasants, this was less than a quarter of the acreage eligible for expropriation and purchase. Between 1955 and 1960, less than 2 percent of Washington’s aid to Saigon went for agrarian reform. In 1956 Diem launched his To Cong (“Denunciation of Communists”) campaign to locate arms caches in South Vietnam as well as to arrest hundreds of those in Viet Minh political cadres

who had remained in South Vietnam to prepare for the planned national elections, a violation of the Geneva Accords. But in part this campaign was retaliation for North Vietnamese policies regarding landowners and opposition leaders. Diem also imprisoned many non-Communist patriots, and he estranged South Vietnam’s ethnic minorities. His effort to impose Vietnamese culture on the Montagnards reversed long-standing French policy. The Montagnards also suffered heavily because of Diem’s efforts to relocate rural populations into government-controlled areas in the unsuccessful Strategic Hamlet Program. This led dissident Montagnards to form the ethnonationalistic movement Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for Oppressed Races). Diem refused to enter into economic talks with North Vietnam or to hold the elections called for in the Geneva Accords. He announced that his government was not a party to the agreements and was thus not bound by them, and the U.S. government supported Diem in that stand. Both Washington and Saigon claimed that no elections could be held until there was a democratic

1260

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

Rebel soldiers surround the presidential palace in Saigon on November 11, 1960, during an unsuccessful effort to oust from power Republic of Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was able to stall for time and bring in loyal troops. (AP/Wide World Photos)

government in Hanoi, although this had not been a part of the 1954 agreements. On March 4, 1956, the South Vietnamese elected a 123-member national legislative assembly. A new constitution, heavily weighted toward control by the executive, came into effect on October 26, 1956. The country was divided into 41 provinces, which were subdivided into districts and villages. These apparent reforms were largely a sham, as Diem increasingly subjected South Vietnam to authoritarian rule. He completely dominated the National Assembly. The government was also highly centralized. The central administration appointed officials, even those at the local level. Diem oversaw administrative appointees, and most province chiefs were military officers loyal to him. The Catholic Diem installed Catholics in key positions; many of them were Catholics from central Vietnam and northerners who had recently come south. Other posts went to his supporters and

his friends. Political loyalty rather than ability was the test for positions of leadership in both the government and the military. The aloof and arrogant Diem proved an adroit practitioner of the divide-and-rule concept. Rarely did he reach out for advice beyond his immediate family circle (perhaps his closest adviser was his older brother, Bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc). Diem also delegated authority to his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who controlled the secret police and was the organizer of the Personalist Labor Party (Can Lao Party). By 1960 opposition within South Vietnam against Diem was growing, even in the cities that had benefited most under his regime. In April 1960, 18 prominent South Vietnamese issued a manifesto protesting governmental abuses. They were promptly arrested. During November 11–12, 1960, there was a failed coup when paratroop units surrounded the presidential palace and demanded that Diem purge his administration of certain individu-

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 als, including his brother Nhu. Although Diem outmaneuvered the protesters, time was clearly running out for his regime. On February 27, 1962, there was another coup attempt when two Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) pilots tried to kill Diem and his brother Nhu by bombing and strafing the presidential palace. Dozens of Diem’s political opponents disappeared, and thousands more languished in prison camps. Meanwhile, in December 1960 the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) was officially established with Hanoi’s blessing. The NLF was completely dominated by the North Vietnamese Lao Dong Party (the renamed Communist Party) Central Committee. Washington was now having second thoughts about Diem. When President John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, he demanded that Diem institute domestic reforms. There seemed to be no alternative to Diem’s rule, however, and Kennedy expanded the U.S. Special Forces presence in that country. In May 1961 Kennedy sent Vice President Lyndon Johnson to South Vietnam on a fact-finding mission. Although Johnson had private reservations concerning Diem, he publicly hailed him as the “Winston Churchill of Southeast Asia.” Less than a week after Johnson’s return to Washington, Kennedy agreed to increase the size of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) from 170,000 to 270,000 men. These troops tended to be poorly trained in guerrilla warfare, indifferently led, and inadequately supported. With the ARVN generally performing poorly in the field, in 1962 Washington dramatically increased the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam. Only belatedly did U.S. officials seek to address problems through a counterinsurgency program. In 1961 Diem, with strong U.S. backing, began the Strategic Hamlet Program. Run by Nhu, it forcibly resettled peasants into new fenced and armed compounds, supposedly to provide health and education advantages as well as protection from the Viet Cong (VC). Riddled with corruption, the program was a vast and expensive failure and soon alienated much of the peasantry from the regime. Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, who acted as the first lady of the state (Diem was celibate), embarked on her own bizarre puritanical campaign that outlawed divorce, dancing, beauty contests, boxing, gambling, fortune telling, prostitution, adultery, and even certain music. The harsh punishments for violations of these new rules further antagonized elements of the population. In January 1963 the ARVN suffered a stinging military defeat in the Battle of Ap Bac. That summer Buddhist protests and rallies became more frequent and intense. In Hue on May 8, Buddha’s 2,527th birthday, thousands demonstrated against a ban imposed on flying their multicolored flag. Riot police killed nine demonstrators, and this led to Buddhist demonstrations throughout the country. In June, elderly Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burned himself alive in protest. By November, six more monks had emulated Thich Quang Duc. Madame Nhu exacerbated the crisis by referring to these self-immolations as “barbecues.”

1261

Many Americans now came to believe that Diem should be ousted. Nhu was particularly embarrassing to Washington. He was responsible for the August 1963 raids on Buddhist pagodas that damaged many of them and led to the arrest of more than 1,400 Buddhists. In August, Henry Cabot Lodge replaced Frederick Nolting as U.S. ambassador to Saigon. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had already reported that an influential faction of South Vietnamese generals wanted to overthrow Diem. Lodge gave this report new credence. Washington was initially opposed to a coup, preferring that Diem purge his entourage, especially the Nhus. However, it was clear that to insist on this would alert Nhu and probably result in a bloodbath, since Nhu had troops loyal to him in the capital. At the end of August, Washington assured the generals of its support, and President Kennedy, in the course of a television interview, publicly criticized Diem. Following some of the worst government outrages against the Buddhists, on October 2 Washington suspended economic subsidies for South Vietnamese commercial imports, froze loans for developmental projects, and cut off financial support of Nhu’s 2,000-man Vietnamese Special Forces. This action was a clear signal to the dissidents. Shortly after midnight on November 1, 1963, generals Duong Van Minh, Ton That Dinh, and Tran Van Don began a takeover of power. In the coup, both Diem and Nhu, whom Washington assumed would be given safe passage out of the country, were murdered. Diem’s death began a period of great political instability in the South Vietnamese government. Washington never could find a worthy successor to him. No subsequent leader of South Vietnam had his air of legitimacy or as much respect from the general public; and economically and socially, except for the confusion at the beginning of his rule, life had never been better for the South Vietnamese than under Diem. He was a fervent patriot who strongly defended morality and social order. He was also greatly interested in improving the economy and did succeed in reforming the bureaucracy. U.S. leaders, who had seen in Diem a nationalist alternative to Ho Chi Minh and a means to stop Communist expansion, soon found themselves taking direct control of the war in Vietnam. The United States, which could not win the war with Diem, also could not win the war without him. Diem was followed by a military junta led by General Duong Van Minh as chief of state. The new regime was no more responsive to the people of South Vietnam and indeed brought political instability. Members of the new 12-member Military Revolutionary Council fell to quarreling among themselves. Minh had boasted that the collective leadership would ensure that no one else would have Diem’s power. But Minh, the nominal leader, showed no inclination to govern, preferring to play tennis, tend to his orchids, and pursue an interest in exotic birds. On January 30, 1964, there was another coup, this time against Minh, led by 37-year-old major general Nguyen Khanh. U.S. officials, caught by surprise, promptly hailed Khanh as the new

1262

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975

leader because he promised to rule with a strong hand. However, although shrewd and energetic, Khanh showed no more aptitude for governing than had Minh. Khanh’s own history of changing sides hardly engendered trust. Khanh purged some generals, although he allowed Minh to remain on as titular head of state. Khanh’s aides also arranged the execution of Major Nguyen Van Nhung, who had worked for Minh and was one of those responsible for the murder of Diem. Militant Buddhists, alarmed that Khanh’s victory might lead to a return to power of Catholics and those faithful to Diem, were again active. To increase their influence, the heads of various Buddhist sects agreed to form a political alliance. Many ARVN officers also turned against Khanh for his attempt to try rival generals Tran Van Don and Le Vao Kim on fabricated charges. Khanh sought to resurrect the Dai Viet Quoc Gia Lien Minh nationalist party and manipulate it to his advantage. He persuaded Dai Viet leader and Catholic physician Dr. Nguyen Ton Hoan to return from exile in Paris to serve as premier. Khanh hoped to play the Dai Viet against other parties. When it was clear that the Dai Viet was hopelessly splintered, Khanh named himself as premier, with Hoan as his deputy. Hoan then began to conspire with the Buddhists and other opposition groups against Khanh. Political instability in South Vietnam was now rampant, and that year there were seven changes of government. As South Vietnamese governments rose and fell, nothing alarmed the Americans as much as the possibility that one of them might enter into accommodation with the Communists. Hanoi meanwhile followed the political instability in South Vietnam with keen interest. At the end of 1963 the North Vietnamese leadership decided that the time was ripe to sharply escalate its support for the war in South Vietnam. In a major shift in policy requiring considerable economic sacrifices, the North Vietnamese leadership decided to send native northerners south to fight, to introduce the latest models of Communist small arms, and to authorize direct attacks against Americans in South Vietnam. The war was escalating. In March 1964 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visited South Vietnam and vowed U.S. support for Khanh. McNamara barnstormed the country, describing Khanh in memorized Vietnamese as the country’s “best possible leader.” On his return to the United States, McNamara publicly pronounced improvement in South Vietnam, but privately he told President Johnson that conditions had deteriorated since his last visit there and that 40 percent of the countryside was now under VC control or influence. Washington agreed to furnish Khanh with additional aid. But although more than $2 million a day was arriving in the country, little of it went to public works projects or reached the peasants. Khanh, despite promises to McNamara to put the country on “a war footing,” steadfastly refused to do so, fearful of antagonizing wealthy and middle-class city dwellers, whose sons would be inducted into the army. In August 1964 came the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, with the U.S. Congress giving President Johnson special powers to wage war in Southeast Asia.

By the summer of 1964 Khanh was in serious difficulty and pleading for major action against North Vietnam as a distraction from his domestic political difficulties. U.S. air strikes following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident seem to have energized him. He announced a state of emergency and imposed censorship and other controls. He also hastily put together a new constitution for South Vietnam, promoting himself to the presidency and dismissing former figurehead chief of state Duong Van Minh. Saigon responded with protests. In August, students took to the streets and were soon joined by Buddhists, who complained that too many Diem supporters were in key positions. Khanh met with Buddhist leaders but revealed his real strength by telling them that he would discuss their complaints with U.S. ambassador Maxwell Taylor. Taylor in turn urged Khanh not to yield to minority pressure. On August 25 when thousands of demonstrators gathered outside his office to demand his resignation, Khanh bravely appeared before them and announced that he did not plan to establish a dictatorship. That afternoon, however, he quit, and the Military Revolutionary Council met to choose a new head of state. After lengthy political maneuvering, a triumvirate emerged of generals Khanh, Minh, and Tran Thien Khiem. Khanh retained the premiership but flew off to Da Lat as chaos took over in the capital. Order was restored only after two days of rioting. Khanh meanwhile named Harvard University–educated economist Nguyen Xuan Oanh to be prime minister in his absence. Turbulence continued, as the government was threatened by dissident army units in the Mekong Delta, and Buddhist demands had grown to include a veto over government decisions. In November there were new riots in Saigon protesting Khanh’s rule, and Ambassador Taylor urged him to leave the country. By this time, a faction of younger military officers had come to the fore. Known as the Young Turks, they were headed by Nguyen Cao Ky (one of the younger officers in the coup against Diem), who had been promoted to major general and given charge of the VNAF. The faction also included ARVN major general Nguyen Van Thieu. Disillusioned by the ineffective national government, in mid-December 1964 the Young Turks overthrew the Military Revolutionary Council of older officers. In late January 1965 a new Armed Forces Council decided that Premier Tran Van Huong should be ousted. Khanh replaced him as premier, but in February General Lam Van Phat ousted Khanh. On February 17 Dr. Phan Huy Quat became premier, with Phan Khac Suu as chief of state. Quat, a physician with considerable governmental experience, appointed a broadly representative cabinet. The Armed Forces Council also announced the formation of a 20-member National Legislative Council. That same month after Communist attacks that specifically targeted U.S. military personnel, President Johnson authorized retaliatory bombings of North Vietnam. Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the sustained bombing of North Vietnam, began on February 24. On June 11, 1965, the South Vietnamese government collapsed, and the Armed Forces Council chose a military government with

Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 Ky as premier and Nguyen Van Thieu in the relatively powerless position of chief of state. It was the ninth government in less than two years. Ky took steps to strengthen the armed forces. He also instituted needed land reforms, programs for the construction of schools and hospitals, and price controls. His government also launched a much-touted campaign to remove corrupt officials. At the same time, however, Ky instituted a number of unpopular repressive actions, including a ban on newspapers. In March 1965 U.S. Marine Corps battalions—the first U.S. combat troops—had arrived in South Vietnam to defend the Da Nang Air Base. U.S. Army divisions soon followed. By the end of 1965 there were nearly 200,000 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam. The new government was soon embroiled in controversy with the Buddhists and powerful ARVN I Corps commander General Nguyen Chanh Thi, a member of the 10-member National Leadership Council; the other 9 members sought to remove him from his post. In March 1966 workers in Da Nang began a general strike, and Buddhist students in Hue also began protests. Soon Thi’s removal was no longer the central issue as Buddhist leaders pushed for a complete change of government. With it evident that there was growing sympathy for the movement among the civil service and many ARVN units in central Vietnam, in early April Ky announced that the Communists had “taken over” in Da Nang. In fact, it is unclear what role if any they played. The Communists themselves state that they were initially taken by surprise by the protests but that after the protests began they urged their supporters to support the movement. On April 10 Ky appointed General Ton That Dinh as the new commander of I Corps, but Dinh could not assert his authority with Thi still in Hue. After a significant military operation to suppress the Buddhists and rebel ARVN units, Thi accepted his dismissal on May 24 and went into exile in the United States. Tensions also eased with Buddhist leaders when Ky agreed to dissolve the junta and hold elections for an assembly with constituent powers. In June, supported by U.S. forces, Ky’s troops ended opposition in Hue. Ky’s popularity and political clout had also been enhanced by a February 1966 meeting with President Johnson in Hawaii. The two delegations agreed on the need for social and economic reforms in South Vietnam and national elections. In May a government decree set up a committee to draft election laws and procedures. In September 1966 a 117-member constituent assembly was elected. It met in Saigon the next month to begin drafting a constitution, which was completed in March 1967. The new constitution provided for a president who had wide powers and a premier and cabinet responsible to a bicameral legislature (the new upper house was commonly referred to as the Senate) with strengthened authority. The judiciary was also to be coequal to the executive and legislative branches. The president would serve a four-year term and could stand for reelection once. The president still had wide powers, including command of the armed forces and the ability to

1263

promulgate laws and initiate legislation. The two-house legislature was to be chosen by universal suffrage and secret ballot. Local elections were held in May 1967, and elections for the Lower House were held in October. The constitution allowed for political parties but specifically forbade those promoting communism “in any form.” Unfortunately, the complex electoral law involved the use of 10-member lists, and voters in 1967 had to choose from 48 such slates, a process that favored well-organized voting blocs. Tensions were high between Ky and Thieu. At first the two men got along fairly well, but then both openly vied for control of the government. Ky was later sharply critical of Thieu, who he said “wanted power and glory but not to have to do the dirty work.” Although the more senior Thieu had stepped aside in 1965 to allow Ky to take the premier’s post, his determination to challenge Ky for the highest office in the September 3, 1967, elections led the Armed Forces Council to force the two men onto a joint ticket, giving the presidential nomination to Thieu and the vice presidential nomination to Ky simply on the basis of military seniority. The Thieu-Ky ticket won the election with only 34.8 percent of the vote; the remaining vote was split among 10 other slates. Thieu gradually consolidated power. As with his predecessors, he ruled in authoritarian fashion. He was, however, more responsive to the Buddhists, Montagnards, and peasants. He arranged for distribution of land to some 50,000 families, and by 1968 he had secured passage of laws that froze rents and forbade landowners from evicting tenants. Thieu also restored local elections. By 1969, 95 percent of villages under South Vietnamese control had elected chiefs and councils. Village chiefs also received control over the local Popular Forces and some central government financial support. After the United States began the withdrawal of its forces in 1969, Thieu was faced with the challenge of replacing U.S. military units. In 1970 he mobilized many high school and college students for the war effort. This brought considerable opposition, which in turn led to arrests and trials. Increases in the numbers of draftees and in taxes produced a surge of support for the Communists. On March 26, 1971, Thieu presented land to 20,000 people in an impressive ceremony in accordance with passage of the Landto-Tiller Act, which turned over land to those who worked it. This reduced tenancy to only 7 percent. The government also took responsibility for compensating former landowners for the confiscated land. In 1971 Thieu pushed through a new election law that had the practical effect of disqualifying his major opponents, Ky and Duong Van Minh. The law required that candidates obtain the support of at least 40 National Assembly members or 100 provincial or municipal councilors. Opposition groups argued that the purpose of the new law was to exclude them from political power. The Senate rejected the law, but it was reinstated by the Lower House, the result of bribery and intimidation. Although the South Vietnamese Supreme Court ruled that Ky, who had charged Thieu’s government with corruption, might run,

1264

Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force Thieu’s response to this was at best poor, and his precipitous abandonment of the Central Highlands was a disaster. Ky later charged that Thieu turned a tactical withdrawal into a rout that led to the eventual disintegration of the entire South Vietnamese military. ARVN resistance now collapsed, and with Communist forces closing in the capital, on April 25 Thieu departed the country for Taiwan. Three days later Vice President Tran Van Huong transferred authority as chief of state to General Duong Van Minh. On April 30 Communist forces captured Saigon. Minh formally surrendered to Colonel Bui Tin, the highest officer of the Communist forces. The Communists occupied Independence Palace, South Vietnam’s “White House,” and the RVN came to an end. SPENCER C. TUCKER

Crew members of a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) tank pose outside the presidential palace in Saigon on April 30, 1975, marking the end of the Vietnam War. (AP/Wide World Photos)

he chose not to do so. Duong Van Minh, the other chief candidate, also dropped out. Thieu’s reelection in October 1971 made oneman rule a reality and did serious injury to the South Vietnamese government’s image abroad. In October 1972 Thieu announced his opposition to the agreement negotiated in Paris by North Vietnam and the United States and torpedoed it. Following massive bombing of North Vietnam, in January 1973 Hanoi and Washington then concluded a new agreement, which was this time imposed on Saigon. The last American combat troops left South Vietnam at the end of March. Vietnamization imposed severe hardships on South Vietnam. Although the United States turned over massive amounts of equipment to South Vietnam, the U.S. Congress curtailed funding. This severely reduced the ability of South Vietnamese forces to fight the hightechnology war for which they had been trained. In January 1974 Thieu announced the renewal of the war. In August 1974 Richard Nixon, under increasing pressure over the Watergate Scandal and his handling of the war, resigned the presidency, and the South Vietnam government lost its most ardent supporter. In January 1975 the Communists began a major offensive in the Central Highlands. Years of warfare and corruption and the loss of U.S. support all had sapped the will of the South Vietnamese to resist.

See also Bao Dai; Binh Xuyen; Cao Dai; Caravelle Group; Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang; Dulles, John Foster; Duong Van Minh; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées; Gulf of Tonkin Incident; Hoa Hao; Honolulu Conference; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Revolutionary Council; National Assembly Law 10/59; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Chanh Thi; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Hinh; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr.; PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; Phan Khac Suu; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Strategic Hamlet Program; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Territorial Forces; Thich Quang Duc; Ton That Dinh; Tran Thien Khiem; Tran Van Don; Tran Van Huong; United States Special Forces References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force Despite its own efforts and the support of its sponsors, the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) of 1955–1975 did not fully live up to expectations. Prior to 1964, the VNAF was a small and neglected organization. It received its first consignment of American-built aircraft from France in the summer of 1955. The released items included 28 Vought F-8F Bearcat fighter-bombers, 35 Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft, and 60 Cessna L-19 Bird Dog reconnaissance aircraft. Three years later the United States replaced the already obsolete F-8F with a combat version of the propeller-driven North American T-28 Trojan trainer. The American Douglas AD-6 Skyraider fighter-bomber subsequently complemented the T-28, and by

Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force the end of 1962 the VNAF had one squadron each of AD-6s and T-28A/Bs, three L-19 liaison squadrons of 15 aircraft each, and a number of C-47s. These aircraft performed tactical infantry support missions that included airlift operations, artillery spotting, close air support (CAS), interdiction, medical evacuation, and reconnaissance. There were multiple reasons why the VNAF performed poorly prior to 1964. First, there were fewer than a dozen fully qualified flight leaders in the VNAF, and most were unmotivated and unreliable. They showed, for example, an obvious distaste for night combat, all-weather operations, and deployments away from the comforts of home. Second, the Vietnamese had an unresponsive command and control system. Before a pilot could attack a ground target, he had to secure permission from the province chief, regional commander, Joint General Staff, and perhaps even President Ngo Dinh Diem himself. As a result, the government’s fear of civilian casualties made real-time tactical air support against fast-moving guerrilla units almost impossible. Third, ground commanders did not appreciate the value of airpower, even in unconventional warfare. They seldom asked the VNAF to protect ground convoys, escort helicopter assault operations, or fly more CAS and interdiction missions on their behalf. Finally, logistics and maintenance support remained a chronic problem. In mid-1962 available aircraft averaged, for example, 7 AD-6s, 11 T-28s, and 11 L-19s. There were therefore too many missions for the number of aircraft available, and whether the relatively untrained VNAF pilots, flying only in daylight (and with broken instruments), had any idea of how to combat their foe remained an open question. With the upsurge of Viet Cong (VC) activity in 1963 and 1964 and the introduction of People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regulars into combat in 1965, the United States helped expand the VNAF, which grew both in size and in responsibilities. In 1964 the VNAF had 8,400 men and 190 aircraft. The VNAF also had 248 helicopters and 140 aircraft on loan from the United States, although there were restrictions on their use. During the same year, the durable Douglas A-1 Skyhawk replaced the increasingly ineffectual T-28. By 1965 the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) had 150 A-1s, which quickly became the backbone of the VNAF. The air arm continued to grow. By 1968 it had 16,000 men, 398 aircraft (including the jet-powered Cessna A-37 Dragonfly), and its first squadron of compact Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter jets. With increased size came more responsibilities. Although the United States and South Vietnam first conducted joint air operations in December 1961, they became a formal requirement in Operation ROLLING THUNDER between 1965 and 1968. In February 1965 Washington and Saigon agreed to conduct a limited bombing campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), beginning with inconsequential targets below the 19th Parallel. The motive was simple. President Lyndon Johnson’s administration hoped that a limited air campaign would

1265

convince North Vietnam to stop aiding and abetting the guerrilla campaigns in Laos and South Vietnam. The campaign began on March 2, 1965, when 104 American aircraft attacked North Vietnamese targets, while 19 South Vietnamese fighter-bombers struck the naval facilities at Quan Khe. This initial strike began a limited (but significant) contribution by the VNAF to Operation FLAMING DART. The VNAF provided a minimum of three strike/reconnaissance missions for each of the on-again, off-again periods of the campaign. The contribution would have been larger if not for the growing number of missions required in South Vietnam. By mid1968 the VNAF was responsible for 25 percent of all combat sorties flown within its borders. Thus, from 1964 to 1968 the role of the VNAF did grow, but the organization still had problems. Although the VNAF had 550 pilots by 1967, finding qualified English-speaking recruits remained a problem. Second, high accident rates only aggravated existing repair and maintenance problems, particularly because the VNAF relied on the army for most of its supplies. Third, the command and control system had been simplified, but now VNAF units responded only to orders from VNAF Headquarters in Saigon. Finally, because U.S. units had their own equipment to replenish, the Vietnamese remained woefully short of new and improved helicopters and aircraft. In 1968, for example, the VNAF received only eight new Bell UH-1H Iroquois (“Huey”) helicopters from the United States. As a result of all of these problems, the performance of VNAF units was irregular during the climactic 1968 Tet Offensive. Vietnamization dominated the last phase of the Vietnam War, and with it came Operation ENHANCE, a crash program by the United States to provide the VNAF with enough resources to fight by itself. From a numerical standpoint, the results were impressive. By the time of the American withdrawal in 1972, the VNAF had a $542.8 million budget, 49,454 personnel, 39 operational squadrons (including 16 fighter/fighter-bomber units), and 27 squadrons either in training or scheduled for activation. Nevertheless, in 1975 when the final North Vietnamese offensive came against South Vietnam, much of the VNAF simply melted away. The reasons for its failure were fourfold. First, even after 20 years the VNAF’s supply system remained chaotic and unreliable. Second, in 1974 and 1975 the U.S. Congress tightened its purse strings. The VNAF now had to scramble for critical spare parts and fuels, supplies of which had only filled the gaps left after the North Vietnamese 1972 Easter Offensive. Third, North Vietnamese units introduced handheld SA-7 surface-to-air missiles in South Vietnam. As a result, CAS, air-mobile, and interdiction missions became more hazardous and significantly less effective. Finally, the United States did build up the VNAF but only with lowperformance short-range aircraft that had no electronic warfare equipment or sophisticated fire-control systems. These aircraft were ideal for low-intensity warfare but not for the largely conventional war that they then faced. PETER R. FABER

1266

Vietnam, Republic of, Army

See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Airpower, Role in War; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Ngo Dinh Diem; Order of Battle Dispute; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; United States Air Force; Vietnamization References Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Futrell, Robert F. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years to 1965. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1981.

Vietnam, Republic of, Army Successor to the French-led Vietnamese National Army (VNA) of the Indochina War (1946–1954), the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) grew from an initial VNA strength of 150,000 in 1950 to nearly 1 million troops at the time of its collapse in 1975. Suffering from corruption, poor leadership, and low morale throughout its existence, the ARVN never fully achieved the mobility and combat cohesion required to counter its better-motivated Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) opponents. As a result, the ARVN suffered defeats in a large number of its engagements against the VC and usually could defeat PAVN units only when supported by massive U.S. firepower. Still, many of the ARVN’s best units were outstanding, proving the military maxim that well-led and well-trained troops will nearly always perform effectively in combat. Unfortunately for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), its army as a whole enjoyed neither effective leadership nor thorough training. The ARVN traced its roots to November 1949, when the French government and Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai signed a formal agreement to establish the VNA to resist the Communistdominated Viet Minh, who were fighting to drive the French from Indochina. Four divisions were to be formed by the end of 1952, but recruitment was slow. Very few Vietnamese recognized Bao Dai’s authority, and most were ambivalent about his government, which they believed was controlled by the French. Another inhibiting factor for the Vietnamese was the degree of French control over

the VNA; most of its early combat formations were led by French officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The French were also reluctant to provide the VNA with modern equipment, instead turning over weapons procured for their own pre–World War II army. Weapons and transportation assets given to the VNA were obsolete and in very poor condition, not a base upon which to build an effective army. The fourth VNA division was not raised until just before the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The French had established a training school system in the interim, so the initial development of a professional NCO corps and technical services had begun. However, the French took the instructors and most of the technicians with them when they left Indochina. Their departure left the State of Vietnam with an army of four indifferently trained divisions and an inexperienced NCO corps led by a very small and generally corrupt cadre of Vietnamese officers. Worse still, the training system was poorly staffed, inadequately funded, and oriented toward the training of officers. Plans to raise three more divisions by 1958 were scrapped. The Americans took over after the French departure. U.S. combat tactics, doctrine, and philosophy were radically different from those of the French. Whereas the French had preferred to await developments and then maneuver to force their enemy to attack, the Americans preached a more aggressive firepower-based approach to war. Material superiority and logistics were the key. The Americans did not alter the French-based training school system but did work hard to model the ARVN after the U.S. Army and, in the process, generously provided both weapons and advisers. The initial training of the troops and NCOs was left as before, and the provision of unit transport was considered a responsibility of the Vietnamese government. The result was an army in which units had effective firepower and were well advised but lacked the mobility and the command and control to employ their equipment effectively. The ARVN’s most debilitating deficiency, however, was the pervasive corruption—much of it due to the promotion system used by President Ngo Dinh Diem’s government—that infected the ARVN leadership and handicapped its logistics structure. The Diem government, which replaced the Bao Dai regime in 1955, ruled Vietnam by a combination of oppression and patronage. This extended to the army, where senior leadership positions were awarded on the basis of social position and loyalty to the regime rather than on

South Vietnamese Military Strength, 1955–1972 Year

Army

Air Force

Navy

Marine Corps

Regional Forces

Popular Forces

1955 1960 1964 1967 1968 1969 1970 1972

170,000 136,000 220,000 303,000 380,000 416,000 416,000 410,000

3,500 4,600 11,000 16,000 19,000 36,000 46,000 50,000

2,200 4,300 12,000 16,000 19,000 30,000 40,000 42,000

1,500 2,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 11,000 13,000 14,000

54,000 49,000 96,000 151,000 220,000 190,000 207,000 284,000

48,000 48,000 168,000 149,000 173,000 214,000 246,000 248,000

Vietnam, Republic of, Army

1267

Army of the Republic of Vietnam commandos patrol the marshy terrain of the Mekong Delta during combat operations against Viet Cong guerrillas in 1961. (National Archives)

integrity and ability. This resulted in a force comprised of more than 60 percent Buddhists (as were most Vietnamese) led by a senior officer corps that was largely Catholic (as was Diem). This had its most serious impact on the logistics and technical services, where senior officers operated their units to their own personal financial benefit. These officers achieved and retained their positions not by providing efficient support to units in the field but rather by sharing their bounty with their superiors and sponsors. Combat leaders also practiced a form of corruption based on overreporting the strength of their units and pocketing the surplus pay. Many units, especially in the Popular Forces, were therefore much smaller than their establishment. Finally, ARVN soldiers were very poorly paid and had to buy their own rations. Given that a private’s pay in 1964 barely paid for a mouth’s worth of rice, it is no wonder that small-scale pilferage and looting were endemic. The United States began correcting these problems in 1964, but despite much progress under the Vietnamization program, corruption was never eliminated.

The ARVN’s last 10 years were marked by an intensive U.S. training program concentrated on junior officers and NCOs. Units that performed well in operations received newer equipment and training. Helicopters were provided to decrease dependence on roads. Logistics and technical service units also received greater training and emphasis. Unfortunately, this had two negative effects. The first was that it exacerbated divisions within the officer ranks. The junior officers were trained in American tactics and procedures, while senior officers remained welded to French traditions. This resulted in the senior officers not understanding staff plans or intentions. Nor did they comprehend their subordinate units’ requirements or activities. Worse yet, these senior officers tried to run their units from deep in the rear, believing that there was no need to observe the situation at the front. Junior commanders believed that their senior commanders were out of touch with the actual situations on the ground. This distrust and division over operations would have fatal consequences in 1975.

1268

Vietnam, Republic of, Army

The second negative effect was that the ARVN became dependent upon U.S. support. Whereas the French had taught units to repair their equipment and parts themselves, the Americans taught them to identify the defective part and replace it with one acquired from the logistics system. Although faster than before, this tactic also relied totally upon American largesse. As U.S. support ebbed and the U.S. Congress began to turn off the funding spigot, the ARVN had growing inventories of unserviceable equipment that the logistics services could do little to reduce. Many units entered combat with only a portion of their assigned equipment in operating order. This had disastrous effects during the 1975 PAVN offensive. At its peak, the ARVN numbered nearly 1 million troops organized into three echelons. The first and best were the 450,000 troops of the regular army. They were organized in formations of 13 divisions, 7 Ranger groups, and various independent elite battalions and regiments. Nearly 200,000 regulars were also assigned to support units. The ARVN’s second echelon was its Regional Forces. These were assigned to the military region commanders, of which there were four. The third and final echelon was made up of the Popular Forces, which were the ARVN’s least-trained and least-equipped units. In rural areas, they came under the control of village councils and provided security for particular villages. They also provided security for cities, installations, and key provincial facilities. Regional and Popular forces (known to American GIs as the “Ruff-Puffs”) totaled nearly 525,000 troops. The People’s SelfDefense Forces (PSDF) rounded out the South Vietnamese armed forces but were not part of the ARVN. Rather, they were part-time soldiers who defended their villages and towns or augmented the Popular and Regional forces in doing so. In 1975 most Vietnamese and senior American leadership took an optimistic view of the ARVN. It had seemingly stood up well against the PAVN 1972 Easter Offensive. The ARVN’s almost desperate reliance on American airpower in that offensive was overlooked. As PAVN pressure built in the spring of 1975, President Nguyen Van Thieu’s intended strategic realignment of his forces seemed a simple expedient to halt what appeared to be a limited PAVN offensive in the Central Highlands. However, following the French tradition in which they had been trained, neither Thieu nor his staff, corps, and division commanders involved had studied the ground or roads over which the units would move. Thus, as refugees and overloaded military vehicles crammed onto the overloaded road system, units became bunched up. Many officers simply left their units. PAVN forces needed only to press their attack, and ARVN unit cohesion broke down. Only elite Ranger and Airborne units stood their ground, paying a heavy price in the process. Seven regular ARVN divisions melted away. Despite much desperate rallying and troop movements, the situation could not be saved. The ARVN never had the consistent leadership and direction required in an effective combat force. Its best junior NCO and officer leadership was siphoned off into elite units that were used as

Members of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 1st Infantry Division move along a trail near Fire Support Base O’Reilly in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, October 1970. (National Archives)

fire brigades to shore up battered positions or hold key locations and terrain. Thus, regular ARVN units suffered from uneven leadership at the junior officer and NCO levels. This was exacerbated by failings in the senior leadership. Generally, troops were squandered in wasteful tactics or ineffective deployments. Although the ARVN had an abysmal reputation with its opponents and allies, it would be unfair to characterize it as a uniformly poor army. Its units stood alone for two years against a better-equipped, better-trained, and more highly motivated force. The ARVN’s better performances and sacrifices are often overlooked in its overall defeat. CARL OTIS SCHUSTER See also Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Van Thieu; Order of Battle Dispute; Territorial Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces; Vietnamization References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Ngo Quang Truong. The Easter Offensive of 1972. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986.

Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff

Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) military formations that entered the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during 1961–1968 to gather intelligence, conduct sabotage, and disrupt infiltration into South Vietnam. The commando program was run jointly by the South Vietnamese and the U.S. government (first the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and later, from 1964 to 1968, by the U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam’s Studies and Observation Group [MACV-SOG]). From 1961 to 1968 more than 50 commando teams were sent into North Vietnam by sea and by air. North Vietnamese authorities were routinely notified of these activities and were able to immediately capture most of the commandos. Reportedly every member of these teams was either captured or killed or disappeared. The longest evasion was by Quach Tom, who managed to avoid capture for nearly three months. By the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, more than 300 commandos still languished in North Vietnamese prisons. To compound the tragedy for the program’s participants, documents declassified in 1996 revealed that the U.S. government had lied to the families of the commandos by declaring all of them dead and paying their “widows” $50 gratuities. Sedgwick Tourison, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who has written about the commandos, has identified some 360 survivors. John C. Mattes, Quach Tom’s lawyer, sued in federal court on behalf of the commandos and lobbied Congress and President Bill Clinton for legislation to provide compensation. Congressional hearings were held in 1996, and senators John Kerry (DMass.) and Robert (Bob) Kerrey (D-Neb.) sponsored legislation that provided some $20 million to the former commandos, about $40,000 each. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Central Intelligence Agency; Clinton, William Jefferson; Kerrey, Joseph Robert; Kerry, John Forbes; Operation Plan 34A; Quach Tom; Studies and Observation Group References Conboy, Kenneth, and Andrade, Dale. Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Tourison, Sedgwick D. Project Alpha: Washington’s Secret Military Operations in North Vietnam. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.

Vietnam, Republic of, Da Lat Military Academy Military academy in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) first established in December 1948 as the Officers School of Vietnam at Dap Da in Hue after the proclamation of the State of Vietnam. After two classes, in 1950 the school moved to Da Lat with the name of the Combined-Arms Military School.

1269

Under the State of Vietnam, the school graduated 11 classes. After the declaration of the South Vietnamese government by President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1955, the school was re-formed with a new curriculum, beginning with Class 12 in late 1955. The concept of combined arms was to train cadets as platoon leaders but with a general knowledge of all combat arms (artillery, armor, and engineering, including vehicle repair). In 1960 the school was renamed the Military Academy of Vietnam (VNMA), and a new facility was built near the old installation. Its curriculum and military ceremonies combined those of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the French military academy at Saint-Cyr, and the traditions of Vietnam. In 1970 a second-year VNMA cadet became the first Vietnamese cadet accepted to the U.S. Military Academy; several others followed prior to 1975. During the Vietnam War, the VNMA provided ARVN units with excellent officers. Until April 30, 1975, the VNMA graduated 29 classes, totaling more than 6,500 officers. Classes 30 and 31 were still in training when the South Vietnamese government collapsed. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976. Wiest, Andrew. Vietnam’s Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN. New York: New York University Press, 2007.

Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff Senior military body of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces). Much like the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the Joint General Staff (JGS) in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was subordinate to civilian control, answering to the minister of defense. Unlike the JCS, however, the JGS, commanded by the chief of the general staff, exercised operational control over the RVNAF. From its headquarters in Saigon it controlled the JGS reserve forces—the Airborne and Marine divisions—and directed the war effort through the chiefs of staff of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force), and the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) and the four ARVN corps commanders. The Vietnamese National Armed Forces (VNNAF) was officially created on May 11, 1950, slightly more than one year after a Franco-Vietnamese treaty formally recognized the State of Vietnam as an independent nation within the French Union. The Ministry of Defense, although authorized by the treaty, initially assumed the duties of the General Staff when it began functioning in May 1951. The JGS was created a year later (May 1952).

1270

Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps

On October 26, 1955, three days after a national referendum rejected Emperor Bao Dai as Vietnamese chief of state, Ngo Dinh Diem became president of South Vietnam, and the VNNAF became the RVNAF. Under this Vietnamese defense structure, the president of the republic was also minister of defense, assisted by a secretary of state for defense. Therefore, the chief of the General Staff and the corps and division commanders were required to report directly to the president for important matters or at his summons. The president also made all promotion decisions within the armed forces. The U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, recommended a different command structure to improve the authority of the JGS, but President Diem rejected it. After Diem’s assassination in November 1963, the JGS ostensibly remained in existence, but control of the RVNAF and the war effort fell under authority of the Military Revolutionary Council, composed of the ruling military junta. The political chaos that marked the period brought disarray among the military forces and defeat on the battlefield, eventually splintering the military into small centers of power. In mid-1965 with successive governments unable to end the turmoil, political power was turned over to 10 young generals who formed the National Leadership Council (NLC), with Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Thieu, as chairman, becoming chief of state and Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, as deputy chairman, becoming prime minister. Other members of the NLC filled roles as minister of defense and chief of the JGS. During the rule of the NLC and later under the Thieu presidency, the JGS again played the role for which it was created. During this period the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), worked closely with the JGS on overall military plans and operations. The JGS rejected a combined MACV-RVNAF command and staff arrangement because of political sensitivities. Instead, the Free World Military Assistance Council—composed of the chief of the JGS, the senior Korean officer in Vietnam, and the MACV commander—provided operational guidance to, but not control of, Free World forces. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Bao Dai; Cao Van Vien; Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971; Free World Assistance Program; High National Council; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Military Revolutionary Council; National Leadership Council; Ngo Dinh Diem; Nguyen Cao Ky; Nguyen Khanh; Nguyen Van Thieu; United States Joint Chiefs of Staff; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 References Cao Van Vien. Leadership. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 1980. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps The Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps (RVNMC, South Vietnamese Marine Corps) began in the latter period of French control in Indochina. On October 13, 1954, then-premier of the State of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem signed a government decree creating within the naval establishment a corps of marine infantry troops. In 1955 the Vietnamese naval forces passed from French to Vietnamese command. Although French in origin, all further evolution of the RVNMC was in cooperation with the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). In 1954 USMC lieutenant colonel Victor Croizat became the first senior U.S. adviser to the RVNMC. The first Vietnamese marines were formed from colonial-era commandos who had come south when Vietnam was partitioned by the 1954 Geneva Accords. USMC advisory efforts permeated every aspect of RVNMC training, including force expansion, logistics, and field operations. Under U.S. tutelage, the RVNMC increased its size from 1,150 marines when Croizat arrived to a full division of nine infantry battalions, three artillery battalions, and supporting units by 1972 (in early 1975 a fourth RVNMC brigade, with three additional infantry battalions, was formed). During the Vietnam War the RVNMC earned a solid reputation as a fighting force, particularly compared to the regular Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). The RVNMC, along with Ranger and Airborne units, constituted Saigon’s elite national reserve, deployed to exploit battlefield successes and redress emergency situations. The RVNMC fought throughout the national area of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), from anti-infiltration duties in the Mekong Delta to waging conventional war against military forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The RVNMC participated in the recapture of Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive and in the 1970 invasion of Cambodia. During the 1971 invasion of Laos, RVNMC units took on the difficult task of blunting the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) counterattack that had forced regular ARVN units to abandon their firebases on the drive to Tchepone. During the 1972 Easter Offensive, it was the badly outnumbered RVNMC troops who fought most effectively against 45,000 invading PAVN troops reinforced with Soviet tanks, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), antiaircraft weapons, and long-range artillery. Fighting with their USMC advisers after almost all U.S. forces had left Vietnam, RVNMC units were instrumental in defeating this major PAVN drive to break the vital Quang Tri defensive line and capture the important city of Hue. Reflecting their USMC training, the RVNMC staged counterattacks against superior forces, includ-

Vietnam, Republic of, National Police

1271

Republic of Vietnam marines in a CH-21 Shawnee helicopter during the Vietnam War. The Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps earned a solid reputation during the war. (National Archives)

ing their first-ever amphibious assault, launched from U.S. Navy vessels. During this fighting the RVNMC units suffered 20 percent combat casualties. USMC advisers finally left South Vietnam in 1973. In March 1975 the RVNMC was caught up in the collapse of South Vietnamese forces in the northern part of South Vietnam, losing almost half of its personnel and almost all of its equipment in the evacuations of Hue and Da Nang. Reconstituted RVNMC brigades fought PAVN forces north and east of Saigon during the final days before Saigon fell to the Communists. Fewer than 250 RVNMC troops ultimately escaped to the United States after the fall of Saigon. PETER W. BRUSH See also Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Order of Battle Dispute; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Croizat, Victor J. “Vietnamese Naval Forces: Origin of the Species.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1973): 48–58.

Melson, Charles D., and Curtis G. Arnold. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954–1973: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography. Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1985. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

Vietnam, Republic of, National Police An outgrowth of the colonial police established when Indochina was a French colony. The National Police establishment of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) was organized much like the French Metropolitan Police forces, with responsibility for the preservation of social order and the apprehension of criminals. Following the implementation of the 1954 Geneva Accords, the South Vietnamese government created its own police forces and used the French model. It was a national police under the Interior Ministry, with the director general of police subordinate to the minister of the interior, and consisted of a well-trained general police, or gendarmerie, exclusively responsible for the

1272

Vietnam, Republic of, National Police

maintenance of order in the major cities and provincial towns. In urban areas the police were responsible to the mayors or province chiefs and performed general police duties. In addition to the gendarmerie, police forces consisted of criminal police who carried out criminal investigations and, like the French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), a paramilitary force of approximately 15,000 police officers responsible for riot control and maintenance of public order and security during periods of social unrest, provided an immediate reserve of trained men to supplement the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) if required. Unlike the French system, the National Police did not have dual control between the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense. Another difference was that the South Vietnamese gendarmerie was part of the Ministry of Defense. Because of the complex nature of Vietnamese politics, control of the police was often given to the ruler’s most trusted adviser. In 1954 Emperor Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem as prime minister. At the time the National Police was totally controlled by the Binh Xuyen gang, headed by Le Van Vien. He organized several Public Security battalions, efficiently controlling the national highway from Saigon to Vung Tau. But Diem routed the Binh Xuyen and other warlords in 1955. Refusing to honor the Geneva Accords provision for national elections, Diem defeated Bao Dai in southern elections and, supported by the United States, proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam in October 1955, with himself as president. Diem gave control of the National Police to his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Under Nhu, the character of the police changed. He added a secret police to watch dissidents and ordered the secret police to infiltrate labor unions and social organizations and to build a network of informants to report any potential enemies directly to him. His wife, the flamboyant Madame Nhu, in addition to being the de facto first lady of Vietnam, shared with her husband control of the police forces. The secret police were authorized to arrest and interrogate anyone without warrant. Nhu also increased the size of the police force from approximately 20,000 men in 1960 to almost 32,000 in 1963. The Ngo brothers and other wealthy families allegedly engaged in graft and other forms of corruption, while the police protected many criminal enterprises such as prostitution, narcotics, weapons trading, and smuggling. The police essentially ensured social order and practiced selected suppression of criminal activity within South Vietnam. With the renewal of the insurgency in South Vietnam, the National Police soon took on more military roles. As the insurgency grew, the Diem regime used the police and the military to combat not only Communists but also Buddhists and other dissidents. On November 1, 1963, a coup toppled the Diem regime. Both Diem and Nhu were killed. Thereafter the National Police was increasingly employed as a paramilitary force. The National Police was still segregated from the military but performed military roles almost exclusively. Police officers were exempt from military draft or service.

In 1965 the National Police force was expanded to approximately 41,000 personnel. The National Police, as part of the civilian government, was not under the control of the South Vietnamese military establishment. The National Police conducted special intelligence gathering and counterintelligence, often duplicating the military efforts. In addition, the National Police was responsible for protecting South Vietnamese officials and government buildings, again duplicating efforts of the ARVN military police and special forces units. The National Police Field Force (NPFF) consisted of companysized units stationed throughout South Vietnam and was organized and trained as light infantry by the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). These police officers seldom engaged in any law enforcement; most often they were engaged in counterinsurgency operations. They were separate from the Regional Forces/ Popular Forces (RF/PF), which fell loosely under the control of the ARVN or MACV. After 1964 the gendarmerie became part of the criminal investigation section of the Military Police Command. In 1969 as part of a campaign to root out and destroy the Communist infrastructure, the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), originally called Counter-Terror (CT) Teams, were transferred to the National Police. The National Police, in conjunction with Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), were the controlling forces in the Phoenix Program. Police intelligence detachments coordinated with CIA and CORDS officers to gather data on known Viet Cong (VC) and were also tasked with assisting in crime control with U.S. authorities. The National Police officers wore a tan service uniform and peaked cap marked with their insignia. From 1956 until 1965 the police also wore a white dress uniform for formal occasions. For routine police duties they were armed with a .38-caliber revolver, but as the war progressed M1 carbines and later M-16 rifles were added. The NPFF companies were authorized to wear distinctive brown-spotted camouflage uniform dubbed the “leopard” pattern. They were armed as light infantry with M1 rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns, and mortars. The PRUs wore little in the way of standard uniforms but were equipped with a wide variety of small arms. The National Police performed an important role for South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Their duties ranged from political suppression to direct combat with Communist forces. During the 1968 Tet Offensive the National Police fought with great distinction in Saigon, yet its efforts seemed nullified when director of National Police General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a VC prisoner before American television cameras. JULIUS A. MENZOFF See also Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Nguyen Ngoc Loan; Provincial Reconnaissance Units; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy References Becker, Harold K. Police Systems of Europe: A Survey of Selected Police Organizations. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1973. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy The Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) came into existence, fought its battles, and faded into history in a short span of 20 years (1955–1975), but during that time the VNN, with the assistance of American advisers, became one of the world’s largest navies, with 42,000 men and women, 672 amphibious ships and craft, 20 mine warfare vessels, 450 patrol craft, 56 service craft, and 242 junks. The organizational changes to the VNN during those two decades reflected the evolution in the service’s mission and responsibilities. Initially the chief of the General Staff of the Vietnamese armed forces, an army officer, controlled the VNN staff and its chief. With the encouragement of U.S. Navy advisers, the General Staff established the billet of chief of naval operations, which handled the administration, if not the operational control, of the naval service. In the early years the VNN’s combat forces consisted of the Sea Force (renamed Fleet Command in January 1966), River Force, and Marine Corps (made a separate military service in April 1965). Recognizing that the sea was a likely avenue of approach for Communist forces infiltrating from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) or moving along the littoral of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the VNN in April 1960 established the paramilitary Coastal Force and in July 1965 formally integrated it into the navy. The different missions of the VNN’s combat forces determined how they were operationally controlled. The units involved in open sea and coastal patrol missions operated first in five sea zones, then in four naval zones (after October 1963), and finally in four coastal zones (after April 1965). The coastal zones, from the 1st Coastal Zone in northern South Vietnam to the 4th Coastal Zone in the Gulf of Siam, corresponded to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) I, II, III, and IV Corps areas. Coastal Force junks patrolled the offshore waters from 28 bases along the coast. The regional operations of the Coastal Force were directed from coastal surveillance centers set up in Da Nang, Cam Ranh, Vung Tau, and An Thoi. The River Force, organized into river assault groups on the French model of the Dinassaut (naval assault divisions), initially served the army divisions closest to its Mekong Delta naval bases at Saigon, My Tho, Vinh Long, Can Tho, and Long Xuyen. In the

1273

early 1960s the VNN also formed the River Transport Escort Group to protect the vital foodstuffs being convoyed to Saigon and the River Transport Group to move army forces throughout the Mekong Delta. In April 1965 the Joint General Staff established the III and IV Riverine areas to manage River Force operations. The navy was given sole responsibility for handling operations in the Rung Sat Special Zone, a maze of rivers and swamps south of Saigon. During the 1950s and 1960s the United States supplemented the modest force of ships and craft turned over to the VNN by the French with hundreds of naval vessels, including escorts (PCEs), patrol rescue escorts, motor gunboats, large support landing ships (LSSLs), large infantry landing ships (LSILs), tank landing ships, medium landing ships, and minesweeping launches. These vessels improved the ability of the oceangoing force to patrol the 1,200-mile coastline, provided gunfire support for troops ashore, and assisted in carrying out amphibious landings and open-sea operations. The River Force received a fleet of smaller vessels, including specially converted mechanized landing craft (LCM), that served as monitors, command boats, troop transports, minesweeping boats, patrol vessels, and fuel barges. The United States also provided the river sailors with 27 American-built river patrol craft. Unfortunately, these vessels proved to be too noisy, underarmed, and easily slowed by river vegetation. Armed with these combatants, the VNN played an increasing role in the fight for South Vietnam. Along with American naval forces, the Fleet Command and the Coastal Force seized or destroyed thousands of junks, sampans, and other craft ferrying munitions and personnel along the coast. The Coastal Force also carried out many amphibious raids, patrols of shallow inlets and river mouths, and troop lifts. These operations played an important part in the allied campaign to deny the Communists easy access to the coastal regions. For instance, during Operation IRVING in October 1966, ground forces and junk units in the II Coastal Zone cooperated to kill 681 Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas. Even though Communist forces sometimes overran the triangular-shaped fortifications of the Coastal Force, they more often failed to overcome the defenders. In addition to offshore patrol, Fleet Command ships also patrolled the larger Mekong Delta rivers and protected merchant ships moving between the sea and the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. The VNN paid a price for its success on the rivers, however. In one period during 1966, river mines sank an LSSL and damaged an LSIL and a utility landing craft (LCU). Mines also sank several of the command’s minesweeping launches in the Rung Sat during 1966 and 1967. Although the VNN sometimes crowned its operations with victory and its sailors often fought bravely, serious deficiencies plagued the service throughout its existence but especially during the 1960s. Careerism and political activity on the part of many naval officers weakened the war effort. The coup d’état against President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963 and the political troubles of 1965 and 1966, in which the VNN figured prominently,

1274

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy

U.S. Navy chief of naval operations Admiral Thomas Moorer (left center) inspects sailors of the Republic of Vietnam Navy who will take over river patrol operations from the U.S. Navy, September 1969. (Naval Historical Center)

damaged the morale of officers and sailors alike and distracted them from their military mission. The training of sailors, many educationally unprepared in the technical skills essential for the operation of modern complex vessels, weapons, and equipment, was generally inadequate. Low pay and austere living conditions prompted many sailors to desert the colors over the years and frustrated recruitment. The material condition of the VNN raised even more serious concerns. Hull and equipment deterioration in the World War II–era ships and craft was a serious problem, as was the lack of sufficient spare parts, supplies, and fuel. Compounding the problem was the inability of the ship- and boat-repair facilities in South Vietnam to handle the workload generated by the high-intensity operations undertaken from 1967 to 1969. Because of these personnel and material problems, the VNN rarely had 50 percent of its ships and craft in operation for ocean, coastal, or river missions. The VNN’s fortunes rose, albeit temporarily, with Washington’s decision to turn the war effort over to the Vietnamese and withdraw U.S. military forces from Southeast Asia. In early 1969 President Richard Nixon formally adopted as U.S. policy the socalled Vietnamization program. The naval part of that process, termed Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV), in-

volved the phased transfer to Vietnam of the U.S. Navy’s river and coastal combatant fleet. As entire units came under VNN command, control of the various combat operations passed to that naval service as well. Hence, the VNN took on sole responsibility for river assault operations when the joint U.S. Army–U.S. Navy Mobile Riverine Force lowered its colors and transferred 64 riverine assault craft to the VNN in the summer of 1969. The VNN performed well during the allied push into Cambodia in the spring of 1970. On May 9 a combined South Vietnamese– American naval task force, under South Vietnamese command, steamed up the Mekong River and secured control of that key waterway from Communist forces. The combined flotilla stormed Neak Luong, a strategic ferry crossing point on the river. Then the South Vietnamese contingent of river combatants pushed on to Phnom Penh. In July 1970 the U.S. Navy ceased its offensive missions on the I Corps Tactical Zone’s Cua Viet and Perfume rivers and by the end of the year closed its other major operations throughout South Vietnam. During that time, U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, transferred to the VNN a total of 293 river patrol boats and 224 riverine assault craft. The VNN grouped these fighting vessels into riverine assault interdiction divisions, river interdiction divisions, and river patrol groups.

Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center 1275 The same process worked with the offshore patrol operation in 1970 and 1971. As part of the U.S. Navy’s ACTOV program and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Small Craft Assets, Training, and Turnover of Resources program, the United States transferred to the VNN complete control of the coastal and high seas surface patrol operations. The American naval command transferred four U.S. Coast Guard cutters, each equipped with 5-inch guns; the radar escort picket ship Camp (DER-251); the Garrett County (LST-786); and various harbor control craft, mine craft, and logistic support vessels. In the midst of this activity, U.S. and South Vietnamese naval forces managed to sink or turn back all but 1 of the 11 ships from North Vietnam that attempted to infiltrate contraband into South Vietnam during 1971. By August 1972 the VNN took on responsibility for the entire coastal patrol effort when it took possession of the last of 16 American coastal radar installations. In addition to ships and craft, the U.S. Navy, under the Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese, Logistics, program, transferred its many combat and logistic support bases to the VNN. The first change of command occurred in November 1969 at My Tho; the last occurred in April 1972 at the former centers of American naval power in South Vietnam: the bases at Nha Be, Binh Thuy, Cam Ranh Bay, and Da Nang. By 1973 the VNN possessed the material resources to carry on the fight alone. The 42,000-sailor naval service marshaled a force of more than 1,400 ships and craft to meet the Communists on the rivers and canals of South Vietnam and in the South China Sea. The relatively young, dramatically expanded, and still-developing VNN had great potential, but it needed time to mature. The VNN never got that time. Disenchanted with the American venture in Southeast Asia, the U.S. Congress drastically cut financial support for the South Vietnamese armed forces during 1973 and 1974. The VNN was compelled to reduce its overall operations by 50 percent and its river combat and patrol activities by 70 percent. To conserve scarce ammunition and fuel, Saigon laid up more than 600 river and harbor craft and 22 ships. The VC did not target the waterways during this period, although the VNN did lose a major combatant (a PCE) sunk and more than 50 men killed during a battle with the Chinese Navy in the Paracels in January 1974. The respite, however, was short-lived. In little more than a month during the spring of 1975, Communist ground forces seized all of northern and central South Vietnam, bypassing any VNN concentrations. The navy’s ships and sailors soon joined the hurried exodus of troops and civilians from the I and II Corps Tactical zones. With the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, many of the VNN’S ships and craft put to sea and gathered off Con Son island southwest of Vung Tau. The flotilla of 26 navy and other vessels, with 30,000 sailors, their families, and other civilians on board, joined the U.S. Seventh Fleet when it embarked the last of the refugees fleeing South Vietnam and headed for the Philippines. EDWARD J. MAROLDA

See also Dinassauts; MARKET TIME, Operation; Mobile Riverine Force; Order of Battle Dispute; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; Sea Power, Role in War; United States Coast Guard; United States Navy; Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam References Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959– 1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992.

Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Training facility in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) founded in 1966 under the Revolutionary Development (RD) Ministry. In Vietnamese the ministry was called the Xay Dung Nong Thon (Ministry of Rural Construction); senior U.S. officials insisted on calling it the Ministry of Revolutionary Development to signify that it represented an effort to improve and “revolutionize” the lives of the rural population. In spite of tremendous U.S. pressure, the South Vietnamese government, which had a strong aversion to the word “revolutionary,” refused to change the Vietnamese name. As most U.S. aid to South Vietnam went for military assistance, revolutionary development in rural areas took second place. RD operations at the hamlet level were conducted by teams, each with more than 50 members clad in black pajamas and armed with light weapons. They took charge of their own security and had charge of renovating hamlet and village administrative and security infrastructure, training militia, running political indoctrination, and setting up dispensaries and primary schools. To train these cadres, the South Vietnamese government established a large facility near Vung Tau. Supported by direct U.S. assistance and commanded by Colonel Nguyen Be, the center was highly successful. Usually 6,000 to 7,000 students, many of them women, were in training at any one time. Discipline and morale were excellent. In 1970 the facility was renamed the National Cadres Training Center. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Pacification References Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Thayer, Thomas. How to Analyze a War without Fronts. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.

1276

Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces

Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) elite military units. The Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces) came into being at Nha Trang, South Vietnam, in February 1956 under the designation of 1st Observation Battalion/Group (FOG). By 1960 most LLDB troops were involved in counterinsurgency operations within South Vietnam. Their training was conducted in Saigon. A smaller number of LLDB personnel were involved in the FOG program. At Long Thanh they received training in intelligence gathering, sabotage, and psychological operations. The primary duties of the LLDB included recruitment and training of one- to four-member teams sent into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) on intelligence, sabotage, and psychological warfare missions. Although these teams did create some problems for the Hanoi government with minor sabotage, intelligence gathering, and fomenting unrest, Hanoi declared, apparently with justification, that all such agents were captured, tortured and interrogated, and executed. In 1961 the LLDB and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 1st Infantry Division conducted a joint operation against Communist infiltrators in northern Quang Tri Province. That fall LLDB units began Operation EAGLE at Binh Hung with a night parachute assault. In September 1962 the U.S. Army Special Forces arrived in Vietnam. Special Forces personnel took over the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) border surveillance and Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) programs and began working with the LLDB. In 1963 the LLDB established its headquarters at Nha Trang, where it had its own support structures and where the LLDB Command was established. LLDB organizational structure underwent considerable change in the 1960s. The LLDB continued to expand and was given the additional duty of operating with the CIDG. In 1964 the U.S. Army’s 5th Special Forces Group was officially assigned to Vietnam. The LLDB worked very closely with this command, and although the United States funded the CIDG camps, the LLDB assumed ultimate responsibility for them. These camps were commanded by the LLDB, assisted by U.S. Special Forces advisers. From June 24 to July 1, 1964, under Project Delta, LLDB teams made five parachute insertions into Laos to gather intelligence. By 1965 LLDB personnel were working closely with the ARVN in recruiting and training as well as in sending teams into Communist sanctuaries to gather information. In March 1970 with the anticipated gradual withdrawal of U.S. Special Forces personnel from Vietnam and the acknowledged failure of the CIDG program, in part through fraud and corruption, both the ARVN and the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), agreed to convert CIDG camps into ARVN Ranger camps. With the elimination of the CIDG, the LLDB was no longer needed and was disbanded. Some former LLDB personnel were formed into new clandestine units known as the Vietnamese Special Mission Service (SMS), which the Vietnamese called the Nha Ky Thuat (Technical Directorate).

Approximately 5,000 personnel served in the LLDB during the war. After the April 1975 fall of South Vietnam, some former LLDB personnel escaped to the United States, but others served long years in reeducation camps. HARVE SAAL, SPENCER C. TUCKER, AND HIEU DINH VU See also Central Intelligence Agency; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Psychological Warfare Operations; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Kelly, Francis J. The Green Berets in Vietnam, 1961–71. New York: Brassey’s, 1991. Saal, Harve. MACV, Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 4 vols. Milwaukee, WI: Jones Techno-Comm, 1990.

Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present On April 30, 1975, Communist forces captured Saigon, capital of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), officially bringing the Vietnam War to a close. A military administration now took charge of the south. In April 1976 general elections were held for a single National Assembly, which convened in June and the next month declared that the reunified country would be known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), with its capital at Hanoi. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Ton Duc Thang was elected president, and Pham Van Dong became the premier. In December 1976 the Lao Dong Party renamed itself the Dang Cong San Viet Nam (Vietnamese Communist Party, VCP). This occurred during the Fourth Party Congress (the fourth since the 1930 founding of the party and the first since 1960). These meetings, supposed to be held every five years, were rubber-stamp sessions for policies developed by the party Politburo. These policies were then explained by cadres to local units to obtain feedback and create solidarity, and perhaps even slight modification, before the congresses met. The Fourth Party Congress decreed the need to develop socialism throughout Vietnam and stressed the need to speed industrialism, which was seen as the chief means to socialism. Heavy industry received priority in a second five-year plan (1976–1980). In September 1977 Vietnam, sponsored by a record number of nations, was admitted to the United Nations (UN). The Vietnamese government faced staggering problems, including rebuilding the war-ravaged country, knitting the two halves of the country together after decades of division and war, reconciling very different patterns of economic development, and providing for the needs of a burgeoning population that would double in the next 20 years. The VCP retained its monopoly on power; indeed, the constitution guaranteed the VCP as “the only force leading the state and society.” Immediately after the war, the government conducted a

Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

1277

Immigrant farmers from the Mekong Delta dig a field in Ea Soup District in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. More than 1 million ethnic Vietnamese have been moved to the Central Highlands since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, as Communist authorities have cleared the region’s forests to grow commodity crops, particularly coffee. (AFP/Getty Images)

political purge in the south. There were some deaths but nothing like the bloodbath feared and so often predicted by Washington. Thousands of former South Vietnamese government officials and military officers were sent to reeducation camps for varying terms, there to be politically indoctrinated and to undergo varying degrees of physical and mental discomfort, even torture. Efforts were also made to force people out of the cities, especially Ho Chi Minh City, by far the nation’s largest metropolitan area. Its population had swelled in the last years of the war, and the concentration of population in urban areas of the south meant that perhaps a third of the arable land lay idle. So-called new economic areas were created to develop new land and to get other areas back into cultivation. Economically Vietnam, even in the best of times, had been a poor developing nation. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Vietnamese set about quite literally picking up the pieces of war. In addition to the ravages of the war, Vietnam had inherited vast amounts of scrap metal and more than $1 billion in unused U.S. military equipment. The broken machines of war fueled the scrap-metal furnaces of the country for years afterward, and the country exported American military hardware. In another move to gain badly needed foreign currency, the government sent some

200,000 Vietnamese abroad to work in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. These workers had to pay the Vietnamese government 40 percent of their salaries and sent home an estimated $150 million a year. The government introduced farm collectivization in southern Vietnam. This effort, led by Do Muoi, met silent but determined peasant resistance. New regulations governing business practices led to the collapse of light and medium industry in the south. As a consequence, the policy was soon abandoned. Economic unrest, however, helped fuel an exodus of refugees from Vietnam. Floods in northern and central Vietnam in the summer of 1978 helped hasten the collapse of agricultural cooperatives. In 1981 the government introduced the new khoan san pham (“production contract”) system, a contractual arrangement with incentives. Local authorities granted each peasant family land to farm. The peasants paid a fixed rent for the use of the land and were able to sell surplus produce on the private market. During the April 1982 Fifth Party Congress there was much criticism of previous policy “errors.” That September the government issued a new currency at the rate of 1 new note for 10 of the old notes. By the end of that year there was rising criticism of government policy, even within the controlled National Assembly.

1278

Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

Vietnam had no official ties with the United States in these years, although both countries would have benefited economically from such ties if they had been established early on. Such an opportunity came in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter was prepared to normalize relations. In March, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke began talks with Vietnamese officials to explore U.S. recognition, but with Hanoi insisting on reparations that were secretly promised by the Richard Nixon administration, Washington halted negotiations until the summer of 1978, when the Vietnamese government dropped this demand. Talks did not proceed then, however, because of what Washington saw as Hanoi’s callous disregard for the plight of the refugees (the boat people), Vietnamese preparations for an invasion of Cambodia, Vietnam’s conclusion of a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union that November, and a decision by the Carter administration to make normalization of relations with China a priority over Vietnam. Meanwhile, relations deteriorated between Vietnam and Cambodia (Kampuchea). The December 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and subsequent occupation of that country until September 1989 made normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam impossible. Also troubling from Washington’s point of view was Hanoi’s refusal to cooperate on prisoner of war (POW) and missing in action (MIA) matters, which remained a volatile political issue in the United States. It is worth noting, however, that Hanoi never made an issue of resolution of its own MIAs, announced in 1995 to total some 330,000 Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) personnel. The invasion of Cambodia led the United States to strengthen its 1975 trade embargo of Vietnam. This included blocking vital loans from multilateral agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank; forestalling significant international aid; and stifling Vietnam’s domestic economic development. The Cambodian Incursion made Vietnam something of an international pariah. Throughout the second half of the decade of the 1970s, relations between Vietnam and China continued to deteriorate for a variety of reasons, including territorial disputes, the forced exit of many Chinese from Vietnam, the invasion of Cambodia, and SinoSoviet tensions in which Vietnam took the side of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union provided important support for the Vietnamese economy amounting to perhaps $2.25 billion a year (more than half of this in military assistance). Sino-Vietnamese tensions exploded into war when Chinese troops crossed the northern Vietnamese frontier briefly in February 1979. Vietnam decreed a general mobilization. Although Chinese troops soon withdrew from Vietnam and the Vietnamese government was not forced to remove its troops from Cambodia, the cost was high for Vietnam; many of its villages in the border area were destroyed. Vietnam continued to maintain a large military establishment. In the mid-1980s, with 1.2 million people under arms, Vietnam possessed the world’s fourth-largest armed forces. This figure did

not include Public Security personnel, estimated to number more than 1 million people. The military consumed up to a third of the national budget, and a bloated government bureaucracy also consumed revenues. As a result, the economy remained vastly undermechanized. In the mid-1980s there was not a single rice-threshing machine in the country. It appeared to many foreign observers that Vietnam worked more effectively at war than at peace, perhaps because the Vietnamese had little experience with the latter. Vietnam was very much an insular and xenophobic society. In 1985 famine spread in Vietnam, the result of failed farm collectivization and botched currency reform. Inflation was rampant, running between 400 and 600 percent per year by 1985. Economic growth of 2 percent per year was being outstripped by the birthrate, which at 3 percent was one of the highest in the world. Agricultural production, which had risen after the 1981 reforms, fell again. All of this led to striking changes in both policy and leadership announced at the December 1986 Sixth Party Congress. At the Sixth Party Congress, the leadership announced changes based on material incentives, decentralized decision making, and limited free enterprise. Party secretary and hard-liner Le Duan had died in July 1986, and Premier Pham Van Dong, Le Duc Tho, and Truong Chinh all retired. In all, 6 of 13 Politburo members were dropped. Nguyen Van Linh and Vo Van Kiet, two leading proponents of change, came to the fore. Linh, who replaced Truong Chinh as party secretary and the most powerful figure in the state, was credited with overseeing the tentative steps toward a free market economy that had helped the south remain more prosperous than the north. Vo Van Kiet was vice premier and chairman of the state planning commission. Linh’s reform program, known as doi moi (“renovation”), produced progress. The program introduced the profit incentive for farmers, allowing them to market produce privately. Individuals could also set up private businesses. Companies producing for export were granted tax concessions, and foreign-owned firms could operate in the country and repatriate their profits (with a guarantee against being nationalized). But Linh said that there was no need for Vietnam to emulate the example of East European states and allow opposition political parties and free elections. There was, however, some easing of restrictions on the media. Attempts were also made to open Vietnam to the West, including talks in August 1987 on the MIA issue with a U.S. delegation headed by retired U.S. Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) John Vessey Jr. The regime also sought reconciliation with former South Vietnamese officials and groups once considered enemies of the SRV. In September 1987 the SRV announced that it was releasing 6,685 military and political prisoners, including generals and senior officials of the former South Vietnamese government. In 1988 to promote foreign investment, the constitution was amended to remove derogatory references to a number of Western countries. Doi moi registered successes. Inflation was cut dramatically from 300 percent in 1987 to 8.5 percent in 1994. Food production

Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

1279

Vietnamese women pass a Gucci store in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, May 24, 2007. In the two decades after Vietnam began implementing its economic reforms, known as doi moi, the nation’s poverty rate was cut in half. Per capita income has doubled in the last five years. (AP/Wide World Photos)

and consumerism increased. But the reform was uneven, as party bureaucrats and conservatives inhibited its spread. In March 1988 Pham Hung, chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) since the previous July, died at age 75. Vo Van Kiet followed him as acting premier, but in June 1988 Do Muoi, a candidate introduced by the Communist Party Central Committee, was elected premier by the National Assembly. At that time, Muoi was seen as a transitional figure. Economic reforms continued, although they produced uneven results. Most advances came in the cities rather than in the countryside, where 80 percent of the population lived. Vietnam remained a poor country with per capita income of less than $200 a year. In 1989 some 75,000 people fled the country, largely to escape economic poverty. The leadership came to realize that Vietnam had to join the Southeast Asia development race or forever be left behind. Cambodia was the main problem for both the West and in Hanoi’s relations with China. Leaving Cambodia would end Vietnamese diplomatic isolation and lead to Western investment. Driven largely by economic reasons, in July 1988 Vietnam began withdrawing its troops from Cambodia, an operation completed in September 1989. The Vietnamese also reduced their troop strength in Laos. In addition, Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach traveled

to Washington for talks, becoming the highest-ranking Hanoi official to do so. Not unrelated to this, in 1989 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on reform programs that resulted in reduced aid to Vietnam. The Soviets also sharply cut back on their military presence especially at Cam Ranh Bay, which had become the largest Soviet military base outside the Soviet Union. Soviet aid ended altogether in 1991, and the Soviet Union announced that henceforward all trade between the two countries would be in dollars at world market prices. The cutback in Soviet aid was another reason for Vietnam to try to mend its fences with Beijing, and in September 1990 Deputy Prime Minister Vo Nguyen Giap traveled to China for talks. By 1992 the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and its successor state, the Russian Federation, did not view Vietnam as a top priority. At the same time, there were signs of political struggle in Vietnam. Secretary-general Linh announced his plan to retire at the next party congress, and the battle between conservatives and reformers intensified. The conservatives, led by Le Duc Tho (who died in October 1990) and his brother, Interior Minister Mai Chi Tho, used the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe to try to halt any movement toward political pluralism. In 1990 the Vietnamese government, prompted by fears that the upheaval seen in Eastern Europe might infect Vietnam, ordered the arrests of

1280

Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

hundreds of people, most of them in the south and some of them for what the government referred to as too much contact with Westerners. There was also a public campaign against reported efforts of “reactionary forces overseas” to sabotage the state and socialism. The leadership of the Vietnamese government was deeply divided. The Seventh Party Congress was held in June 1991, and the leaders announced that they would continue economic reforms but would stand firm against political changes in the fashion of Eastern Europe. Linh stated that pluralism would create political instability and “difficulties and obstacles for the entire renovation process.” In August 1991 there was a major cabinet shake-up. The Seventh Party Congress elected Do Muoi as secretary-general of the VCP to succeed Linh, and Vo Van Kiet became premier, replacing Do Muoi. Vo Nguyen Giap, who had been removed as minister of defense in 1986 and had been retained only as vice premier in charge of family planning, now lost that post as well. Nguyen Co Thach was removed from the Foreign Ministry, and Mai Chi Tho was removed from the Interior Ministry. Nguyen Manh Cam, Vietnam’s former ambassador to the Soviet Union and member of the 146-person Central Committee, replaced Thach; General Bui Thien Ngo became minister of the interior; and General Doan Khue, army chief of staff, became the new defense minister. At the same time, Vietnam announced its intention to patch up relations with China. Relations with the United States also improved. In February 1991 talks between the George H. W. Bush administration and Vietnam led Hanoi to allow Washington to set up a “temporary” office in the Vietnamese capital to coordinate efforts to locate American Vietnam War MIAs. Relations between the two states continued to improve as Hanoi took steps to account for American MIAs. U.S. businesses that saw themselves losing out as many other nations invested in Vietnam also applied pressure, and in September 1993 President Bill Clinton allowed American firms to compete for development projects in Vietnam that were to be funded by international lending institutions. Then on February 3, 1994, Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam. In 1997 the two countries exchanged ambassadors. Vietnam also agreed to assume debts, now worth about $140 million, incurred by the Saigon government for roads, power stations, and grain shipments before its fall in 1975. Hanoi took this step to help pave the way for mostfavored-nation trading status. The much-delayed Vietnamese Eighth Party Congress took place at the end of June 1996 in Hanoi in a meeting hall that featured giant portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. The delay reflected concerns in the VCP about threats from corruption and what it referred to as “peaceful evolution,” a perceived Western plot to undermine remaining Communist one-party states. In the weeks leading up to the Eighth Party Congress, the 170-person Central Committee of the 2.2 million-member VCP met repeatedly in an effort to resolve some of these issues. At the Eighth Party Congress, the country’s ruling septuagenarian leaders—party secretary-general Do Muoi (age 79), Premier

Vo Van Kiet (age 73), and President Le Duc Anh (age 75)—were reelected to five-year terms, although many expected that this would be probably only for another year or two. Apparently there was some discussion that the top leaders might retire, but the leadership believed that this was not the time to change. Rising stars in the new Politburo were Truong Tan Sang (age 47), the young and liberal former mayor of Ho Chi Minh City, and Nong Duc Manh (age 56), chairman of the National Assembly. Other possibilities were two deputy prime ministers in their fifties, Tran Duc Luong and Phan Van Khai, and the head of the army’s political department, General Le Kha Phieu (age 64). In September 1997 the National Assembly elected Phan Van Khai as premier, replacing Vo Van Kiet. The Russian-trained Khai, an economist and technocrat from southern Vietnam, was perceived as one of the architects of the economic reforms. PAVN influence remained strong. The party congress increased representation of military and internal security forces on the 19-member Politburo from four to six and gave the military three of five positions on a new standing committee charged with conducting day-to-day affairs. This was seen as an effort by the party leadership to protect the country’s political and social structure. From the mid-1980s to 1996, the PAVN shrank by 50 percent to an army of about 550,000 soldiers, a navy of 40,000, an air force of 15,000, and a paramilitary force of 15,000. These figures do not include the Public Security force. The military budget remained high, however, having risen steadily since 1992. In 2005 Vietnam’s military expenditures stood at approximately 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or about $4 billion per year. Full-time combat-ready ground forces stood at about 415,000. The most contentious issue for the party leadership was the pace of liberalization. The leadership wanted continued rapid economic growth, but this had begun to transform Vietnam in ways that made some party leaders uneasy. Still, the leadership decided to continue the delicate balancing act of attracting increased foreign investment and aiming for an annual growth rate of 10 percent per year while continuing to accord primacy to less productive state-run economic enterprises. Foreign investors were made nervous, however, when the party congress called for expansion of party cells within business enterprises, including joint ventures with foreign companies. Even the PAVN was involved in these activities, managing hotels and a travel agency, mining coal, and entering into 49 joint ventures with foreign companies worth up to $.5 billion. Foreign observers believed that the Vietnamese government’s insistence on maintaining centralized control and pouring money into inefficient state-owned enterprises would make it difficult to meet growth targets. The congress did ease restrictions on “social evils,” including foreign advertising. From 1990, when outside investment in Vietnam was negligible, to 1996, foreign companies committed $20 billion in investments, and thousands of foreign enterprises were registered to do business there. U.S. investment in Vietnam rose from just $3.3 million in 1993 to $1.2 billion in 1995, although the United States was

Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present

1281

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2009. (Nigel Spiers/Dreamstime.com)

only the sixth-largest investor, trailing Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea). Inflation was substantially reduced by 1992 and since then economic growth has averaged 7–8 percent per year. With the official currency, the dong, shrinking in value (by 1985 $1 bought 10,000 dong), however, U.S. dollars were the preferred currency. Corruption, red tape, poor infrastructure, and lack of regulations continued to inhibit investment. The main attractions for foreign investment were low wages, untapped natural resources, and the country’s great need to modernize. Although Vietnam, with its population of 86.97 million (2009 estimate, and with well over half the people born after the Vietnam War), making it the world’s 13th most-populous nation, aspires to be one of the Asian “tigers,” problems remain. Per capita income in Vietnam in 1993 was some $250 per year, among the world’s lowest. There is also a growing disparity between rich and poor, with many of the “new rich” being Communist officials and their associates. The central issue for an aging Vietnamese leadership remains whether Vietnam can modernize using the Chinese model, successful thus far, without the VCP relaxing political control. Ironically, the VCP is itself the chief obstacle to reform, as shown by its refusal to privatize state-run industries. The VCP sees its chief enemies as the multiparty system, the dollar’s pervasive influence, the residue of war (would the south rise again?), corruption, poor management, regional autonomy, Buddhist agitation, growing crime and disrespect for authority, and the menace of China.

Making Vietnam a single entity economically has also been difficult, and this remains an unfinished journey. Even in 1996 the north, its soil depleted and forests fast disappearing, trailed the south economically. One of the ironies of the Vietnam War may indeed be that South Vietnam won after all, at least in the adoption of modified capitalism and in its standard of living. Ho Chi Minh City is the economic engine driving the rest of the country. Northern leaders, however, oppose yielding political power. The new millennium has witnessed many more changes, both political and economic, as Vietnam has continued to pursue a modern export-driven economy. Although the VCP still wields unquestioned political power, its orthodox economic ideology began to fade as it embraced Chinese-style market-oriented economic policies. This has helped to attract more foreign investment and has allowed the country to participate in numerous multilateral trade agreements and organizations. Indeed, in 2007 Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In 2008 Vietnam became a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council, a first for Vietnam. In its foreign policy, the Vietnamese government has become fully engaged in regional and international affairs, and as of 2007 Vietnam belonged to 63 international organizations and enjoyed diplomatic relations with 172 nations. Between 2000 and 2005 Vietnam’s annual economic growth rate averaged 7 percent, making it among the world’s fastest-growing economies. At the same time foreign investment increased threefold, while personal savings quadrupled. The fastest-expanding parts of Vietnam’s economy after 2000 have been heavy industry, information technology, and high-tech concerns. Tourism is very

1282

Vietnamese Communist Party

important to the economy, with an estimated 2.3 million tourists, nearly a third of them from China, visiting Vietnam in 2001. Nevertheless, Vietnam remains an impoverished country, with an annual GDP of only $280.2 billion (in 2006). This can be translated into per capita purchasing power of about $3,300 per year. Still, the country’s bottom poverty rate (defined as income below $1 per day) has continued to shrink, and it is now lower than that of India, China, or the Philippines. Inflation has remained relatively mild and was estimated at 7.5 percent in 2006. In 2000 the United States and Vietnam concluded a bilateral trade agreement that has resulted in a quantum leap in the amount of Vietnamese goods exported to the United States. By 2005 the United States was the largest importer of Vietnamese products, representing 18.8 percent of all exported commodities. Vietnam’s other largest importers were, in order of magnitude, Japan, China, Australia, Singapore, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In June 2006 Nguyen Minh Triet, who was born in southern Vietnam, was elected president of Vietnam by the National Assembly. At the same time Nguyen Tan Dung, also from the south, became defense minister. Triet became the first Vietnamese leader to visit the Vatican and meet with the pope, and Triet hosted U.S. president George W. Bush when the latter visited Hanoi in November 2006. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Clinton, William Jefferson; Do Muoi; Embargo, U.S. Trade; Lao Dong Party; Le Duc Anh; Le Duc Tho; Nguyen Van Linh; Nong Duc Manh; Pham Van Dong; Phan Van Khai; Reeducation Camps; SinoVietnamese War; Truong Chinh; Vo Van Kiet References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987. SarDesai, D. R. Vietnam: The Struggle for National Identity. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992. Williams, Michael. Vietnam at the Crossroads. London: Pinter, 1992.

Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi See Viet Minh

Vietnamese Communist Party The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) was an outgrowth of Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association), commonly known as the Thanh Nien, in the late 1920s. Radical youths within the Thanh Nien rejected the reformist policies of other Vietnamese patriotic and nationalistic groups in favor of the new political ideology of communism. In 1928 and 1929 the Thanh Nien was radicalized by

these young Vietnamese, and by 1930 a unified Communist party emerged in Vietnam. Ho’s party separated itself from other anticolonial groups in Vietnam during the 1930s by relying on revolutionary theory. The VCP developed a plan for the seizure of power based on a threephased strategy: organization, agitation, and insurrection. During the first two phases in the 1930s, many members of the VCP, including Pham Van Dong and Le Duc Tho, were arrested and sent to French prisons. These, however, proved to be the breeding ground for young Vietnamese revolutionaries, as many of the VCP’s cadres were politicalized there. Even in the dark days of the 1930s, Ho’s VCP recruited thousands of new cadres from the lower middle class and the peasant class. Lacking an industrial proletariat, the VCP modified traditional Marxist-Leninist teachings to meet Vietnam’s particular needs. The VCP also emphasized the radical nature of its revolution, that is, replacing one existing social system with another. Communist leaders were careful, however, not to deter potential allies. In May 1941 at the VCP’s Eighth Plenum, its leaders founded the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or Viet Minh, a national front organization that served as the organizational nexus of the revolution. The creation of the Viet Minh allowed the VCP to mobilize all anticolonial forces in Vietnam under one banner. To accomplish this task, the Communists emphasized national liberation as the primary goal of the VCP and claimed that social revolution was an expected outcome in the decades to come. This allowed the VCP to expand its base of support and make temporary alliances with non-Communist Vietnamese to defeat the French. In February 1951 Ho changed the name of the VCP to the Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party), popularly known as the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party). His intention was to play down communism and widen nationalist support throughout Vietnam. Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam remained the party name until 1976. After the 1954 military victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu, the Lao Dong turned its attention to reuniting the country under the Socialist banner. According to the 1954 Geneva Accords, the Lao Dong would control Vietnam north of the 17th Parallel, and elections in two years were to reunify the country. The 1954 Geneva Accords, however, were not observed on both Vietnamese sides, and in 1955 non-Communists and the United States established a counterrevolutionary alternative south of the 17th Parallel. From 1954 until 1959 the Lao Dong tried to unify all of Vietnam through political means. In 1959 the Lao Dong leadership accepted the recommendations of Secretary-General Le Duan and adopted armed violence as one of the Lao Dong’s tactics for use in opposing the Americanbacked Saigon regime. The Lao Dong then created the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), another united front, to mobilize all disaffected southerners in opposition to the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. The character and nature of the southern revolution have been the

Vietnamese Culture subject of heated debate. The Lao Dong denied any relationship with the NLF during the war, but Communist histories and declassified internal documents have admitted the total subordination of the NLF to the Lao Dong. From 1960 to 1975 the Lao Dong battled the United States and its allies. In April 1975 the Lao Dong presided over the reunification of the country in the name of socialism, victorious in its efforts begun earlier in the century. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Lao Dong Party; Le Duan; Le Duc Tho; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Pham Van Dong; Viet Minh; Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi References Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Huynh Kim Khanh. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Thayer, Carlyle A. War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954–60. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1989. Woodside, Alexander B. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.

Vietnamese Culture Although there is no consensus about the origins of the Vietnamese people, artifacts from a number of ancient sites in Vietnam indicate that the early ancestors of today’s Vietnamese had both a written language and a developed culture. Vietnamese archaeologists date the beginning of their civilization to the Phung-Nguyen culture of the late third millennium BCE. They regard this as advanced Neolithic or early Bronze Age culture. Phung-Nguyen sites covered tens of thousands of square yards and had thousands of inhabitants. The Phung-Nguyen culture gave way over the next few thousand years to a more hierarchical society centered on small village or family groups, culminating in what Vietnamese archaeologists called the Dong-son civilization from the seventh century BCE to the first century CE. Burial sites of this period of the legendary Hung kings have yielded considerable bronze artifacts. Bronze drums, rectangular stone axes, and bronze axes believed to be patterned after those of stone, all dating from this period, have been recovered from numerous sites in northern Vietnam. Most anthropologists believe that the Viet people lived first in what is today southern China. Pushed out of that area by the Chinese, they moved south and settled in the Red River Delta, mixing there with other Austro-Asian groups including Malaysians and Indonesians pushing northward.

1283

Early Vietnamese peoples had a self-contained sea-oriented culture. They fished and farmed and lived in a hierarchical society based on a system of hereditary privilege, mutual obligation, and personal loyalty, with the people living in villages or small communities under the rule of the Lac lords. Many of the people tattooed their bodies in the belief that this would ward off peril from the sea. Women have traditionally enjoyed relatively high status in Vietnamese history, and this was true at this time as well. Indeed, when the Vietnamese first rose up against Chinese rule, they were led by women. In addition, there were the original aboriginal inhabitants, whom the Vietnamese pushed out of the deltas and into the highlands. The French referred to these people collectively as the Montagnards (“mountain dwellers”). Today there are in Vietnam some 60 different minority ethnic groups with their own languages and cultures. Vietnam extends more than 1,200 miles from north to south, and thus the climate of the country varies widely according to region. Distance and differing climates and living conditions affected dietary habits and outlook, much as Americans of New England and the Deep South differ in their cultures. Despite this diversity, the population of Vietnam is overwhelmingly Vietnamese, and Vietnam is largely a unified country in terms of language, customs, and traditions. The Vietnamese language is in the Mon-Khmer group and reflects contributions from many ethnic groups. The language is semimonosyllable with many disyllabic words and even some trisyllables or, to be more accurate, two-word and three-word compounds. Rich in its six tones, Vietnamese is a singing and musical language. During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule, the Vietnamese adopted many Chinese words, modifying and employing them in Vietnamese patterns. To the end of the 19th century, the Vietnamese people still used Chinese characters for writing but pronounced them their own way. They also employed Chu Nom, a transcription of spoken Vietnamese that used Chinese characters with alterations. In the 17th century Catholic missionaries introduced quoc ngu (“national language”), a romanized transcription of the spoken Vietnamese language. Quoc ngu has been mandatory in Vietnam since the beginning of the 20th century. The colonial administration used quoc ngu to eliminate the political and cultural influence of Vietnamese Confucian scholars, but quoc ngu also greatly facilitated popular education and the training of skilled workers. This was a two-edged sword for the French, for quoc ngu also brought the cultural and education concepts that were to help undermine France’s position in Vietnam. Although China occupied Vietnam for 1,000 years and the Vietnamese are unique among the peoples of Southeast Asia in adopting Chinese cultural patterns, the Vietnamese people retained their own individual sense of nationalism and cultural identity. While they assimilated Chinese culture and philosophy, the Vietnamese also slightly modified them to their own use, and despite the long

1284

Vietnamese Culture

Chinese occupation, the Vietnamese preserved their identity, language, and traditions. Thus, Vietnamese women have traditionally enjoyed higher social status than women in many Asian countries, and while Vietnamese celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year, known in Vietnam as Tet, there are significant differences in it. The Vietnamese effort to maintain a distinct cultural identity, especially regarding China, has been a constant element in their history. Vietnamese military victories over Chinese invaders helped to fuel this sense of Vietnamese nationalism. The Vietnamese adopted Confucianism and Taoism but in moderate and more tolerant forms. Buddhism reached full development in Vietnam during the Ly dynasty (1010–1225). French and Portuguese priests brought Catholicism in the 16th century, and Protestantism arrived in the early 20th century. The Communists opposed both Catholicism, mainly because of its Western orientation and value systems, and Buddhism, because of its spirit of nonviolence and philosophy of cause and effect. Most Vietnamese practice veneration of their ancestors and believe that when a person dies, his or her soul lives on. Dead and living coexist in the world and remain in communication with each other. Many believe that because the souls of the dead can affect the living, descendants must provide for them and remember them on the anniversaries of their birthdays and marriages as well as on holy days. Such days also serve to cement family ties. Ancestral tombs must be properly maintained, and houses contain altars honoring the ancestors. Failure to venerate the departed, it is believed, will cause their souls to wander aimlessly and carry out destructive acts. Thus, the failure to practice ancestor worship could be destructive not only to an individual but also to society. Vietnamese consider it their personal duty to provide for the aged. Older people are held in high esteem, and even verbal criticism of them or the departed is not tolerated. Vietnamese families are patriarchal, and Vietnamese highly regard filial loyalty. Such strong family ties have often led to nepotism, however. For men, the societal ideal is quan tu (kiun tseu in Chinese), a preference for honesty and honor over material possessions. Polygamy was legal in Vietnam during the French period, but marriage to concubines had to be approved by the first wife. A new Family Law, introduced by Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu and passed by the Congress in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in 1959, ended the practice. The Communist regime in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) also banned polygamy. However, polygamy still exists, in part because years of warfare decimated so many males. Vietnam has a rich and varied literature, especially poetry, both in Chinese characters and in Chu Nom. In the 20th century all forms of literature prospered, including novels and poetry in quoc ngu. In the late 1930s a new literary movement, known as the Tu Luc Van Doan (Self-Reliance Literary Group), sought to revolutionize literature and promote positive change in Vietnamese

society. The leader of this movement, Nguyen Tuong Tam (pen name Nhat Linh), later became a leader of the Quoc Dan Dang and, in 1946, the foreign minister of North Vietnam. He is still regarded as Vietnam’s greatest modern writer. Music, mostly songs, is by far the principal form of entertainment in Vietnam. Traditional Vietnamese music on a pentatonic scale is rich in folk songs and musical dramas such as chè co (old musical plays), traditional in North Vietnam for thousands of years. Cai luong (modern musical drama) dates from the early 20th century and is very popular throughout Vietnam, particularly in the south. Some of its instruments come from China, and some are those invented and played by Vietnamese only, such as the dan bau, or monostring. Western-scale diatonic music arrived in Vietnam with the French. At first, Western music drew the interest of only those who were close to the French or had attained a Western education. Songs composed by Vietnamese began appearing in the 1930s. This “new music,” as it was called, developed quickly and came to be regarded as a weapon in the fight for national independence as these songs changed from romantic songs and those praising nature to heroic and patriotic themes. After the proclamation of North Vietnam and with the war against the French, the North Vietnamese government aggressively promoted nationalist and anti-French music. Field cultural shows with songs, poems, and plays helped instill high morale in Viet Minh troops before they went into battle against the French. Some of the most influential musicians in this period were Van Cao, Pham Duy, and Luu Huu Phuoc. During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese government promoted anti-American songs, although in North Vietnam there was always a clandestine interest in South Vietnamese and Western music, carried by radio broadcasts from South Vietnam, Australia, the Voice of America (VOA), and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The VOA, the BBC, and Radio France International still broadcast South Vietnamese pre-1975 music. There was little interest during the period of the State of Vietnam in promoting anti-Communist songs. This came in South Vietnam only after 1955. However, South Vietnamese were not interested in music composed on government order, and the only songs that were popular were those by freelance composers, which included those praising Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) soldiers, and in any case tended to be of higher artistic value. Most music in South Vietnam consisted of love songs. Although the South Vietnamese government employed entertainment groups to serve its combat troops, these groups presented love songs more than heroic and patriotic songs. After the 1975 Communist victory, books and music from South Vietnam flooded North Vietnam. Hanoi then permitted songs from the pre-1975 South Vietnam except for those critical of communism and all songs by Pham Duy. Other fine arts are not as popular. Painting, wood-block printing, carving, and sculpture draw on both ancient China and the modern West. Although some Vietnamese kings left behind fa-

Vietnamese Culture

1285

Vietnamese musicians play traditional music during a Street Arts Festival at Ly Thai To Park in Hanoi, November 3, 2009. (AP/Wide World Photos)

mous architectural constructions, these are not as imposing as those of China. The Vietnamese people have chosen to regard this as a sign that their rulers were not as tyrannical as those in other countries. Some dozen temples, relics of the Cham kingdom and built many hundreds of years before the Vietnamese invasions, do remain and today draw many foreign tourists. The film industry, still in its infancy, has yet to attract a foreign audience. Nearly all Western sports are played in Vietnam, but the national favorite is soccer. Before 1975, South Vietnam won several Asian Games gold medals in soccer, tennis, and table tennis. Education is highly prized in Vietnam. As in China, education was the chief path to positions of influence. Many renowned mandarins were born into poor peasant families but rose to positions of influence by reason of their success in the mandarinate examinations. A noble’s or mandarin’s child could claim no special privilege other than that gained through education and examination. Rice is the staple diet in Vietnam. As with many Asian peoples, Vietnamese also consume a lot of pork fat. Almost all Vietnamese season their food with fish sauce (nuoc mam), which has a 16–18 percent protein content. Probably the two most familiar Vietnam-

ese delicacies for Americans are pho (“noodle soup”) and cha giç (“meat roll”). Traditionally, peasants dressed in a pajama-like garment, black in South Vietnam and deep brown in North Vietnam. City dwellers dress in Western-style clothing. Today only Vietnamese women wear the ao dai (“long dress”). Wars have greatly affected Vietnamese culture, especially after the division of the country following the 1954 Geneva Accords. South Vietnam adopted the worldwide standard 12-grade general education system. The curriculum somewhat overworked students of average ability and below but did produce a large number of professionals such as doctors, engineers, and professors. Artists, poets, and composers had complete creative license, providing they did not propagandize for the Communists. Leftist opinions and antiwar music were not banned. Freedom of press was limited but much less strictly than in many countries at war. Many South Vietnamese easily assimilated Western ways, especially during the Vietnam War. In North Vietnam, education and culture were tightly controlled and subordinated to Communist Party goals. Romantic poetry and music not conforming to Communist teachings were

1286

Vietnamese National Army Since the 1980s, the SRV government has restored many institutions and regulations of the former South Vietnamese government. South Vietnam was defeated militarily and politically but triumphed culturally in that the SRV has surrendered unconditionally to South Vietnamese culture, especially in music and mores. Most Vietnamese living in the West are proud of their culture and have made great efforts to preserve and promote it. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Pham Duy; Quoc Ngu; Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE; Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Pham Duy. Hoi Ky [Memoirs]. Midway City, CA: PDC Musical Productions, 1991. Pham Kim Vinh. The Vietnamese Culture. Solana Beach, CA: PM Enterprises, 1994. Pham Van Son. Viet Su Toan Thu [Vietnamese History Collection]. Saigon: Thu Lam An Thu Quan, 1960; reprint, Glendale, CA: Dainamco, n.d. Vu Ky. Luan Cuong Ve Van Hóa Viet Nam [These on Vietnamese Culture]. Brussels, Belgium: Trung Tam Van Hoa Xa Hoi Viet Nam, 1995.

Schoolchildren hone their soccer skills under the shadow of Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in downtown Hanoi, June 11, 1997. (AP/Wide World Photos)

strictly forbidden. In this period and indeed until the break with Beijing in 1975, most official Vietnamese songs of North Vietnam and later the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) conformed closely to those of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Education in North Vietnam was on a 10-grade system in which students had to attend political indoctrination lessons four hours per week; children of Communist cadres received preferential treatment. A number of customs and traditions were banned. Many believed that the Vietnamese language in North Vietnam deteriorated from improper usage and the influence of Chinese Communist political literature. The land reform campaign in North Vietnam had as one of its principal aims the eradication of traditional social and cultural structures in the countryside. Landholders and village notables were considered enemies of the Socialist revolution because they were the political and cultural leaders. Between 1956 and 1957 the Nhan Van Giai Pham (Humanist Masterpieces) movement arose in opposition to this and included a large number of well-known writers, artists, composers, and poets who had been members of the Viet Minh. The Nhan Van Giai Pham and other dissident movements were crushed on Ho Chi Minh’s order.

Vietnamese National Army French-created indigenous Vietnamese force established to fight the Viet Minh. In the Elysée Agreement of March 8, 1949, France recognized the Associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, complete with its own military, the Vietnamese National Army (VNA), to operate in conjunction with French forces against the Viet Minh. Although Chief of State Bao Dai was the nominal supreme commander of the VNA from 1949 to 1955, in effect it remained under control of the French high command. The VNA met with a mixed reception from French commanders, who for the most part persisted in the practice of recruiting Vietnamese for their own forces. This angered the Bao Dai government and made VNA recruitment more difficult. Typical was the attitude of Marcel Carpentier, French military commander in Indochina during 1949–1950. He welcomed the expanded military support promised by the VNA but wanted it firmly in French hands. U.S. major general Graves B. Erskine reported that Carpentier told him that Vietnamese troops were unreliable, would not make good soldiers, and were not to be trusted on their own. Erskine said that he replied, “General Carpentier, who in hell are you fighting but Vietnamese?” Carpentier steadfastly refused to allow U.S. military aid to be channeled directly to the Vietnamese. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, commanding general and French high commissioner in Indochina during 1950–1951, viewed

Vietnam Information Group things differently. One of his chief policies was le jaunissement (“the yellowing”), the building up and training of wholly Vietnamese units. At the time of his arrival in Indochina, the VNA numbered only 11 battalions and 9 gendarmerie units. De Lattre launched a program to increase this to 25 battalions, 4 armored squadrons, and 8 artillery batteries along with support units. He also saw to it that some of his best officers and men volunteered to serve as cadres. But this effort came too late, and de Lattre left Indochina in December 1951. The goal was a VNA force of 115,000 troops, but in May 1951 it had less than 40,000. In July 1951 the Tran Van Huu government decreed a general mobilization to conscript 60,000 men for two months’ training, something that de Lattre applauded. The small number of officer candidates (1,000) and specialists (600) attracted under this plan was less than a quarter of the number actually needed. Even this modest plan soon encountered difficulties, as fewer than half the number of officer candidates reported for duty at training schools in Thu Duc and Nam Dinh. The government called up only half of the planned number of conscripts, and these did not receive their full training. Less than 10 percent of them were induced to join the VNA. Recruiting for the VNA continued to lag, and in January 1952 the Bao Dai government cut the quota for enlisted specialists from 800 to 500 and the training period for officer candidates from 12 months to only 8 months. Of 1,000 officer candidates projected as required in the mobilization plan, only 690 were in training. The VNA also suffered from a severe lack of trained senior officers and had no general staff, chief of staff, or minister of defense. The VNA suffered chiefly from conflict between the French and the Bao Dai government and a lack of financial support. Bao Dai wanted the new units under his personal control, but the French refused. The French accused the Vietnamese of delaying the recruitment of new units. Yet until the VNA was genuinely independent of French control, it was unlikely to attract many recruits. In May 1953 the Viet Minh showed the VNA’s true situation when, for the second time in less than two years, three companies attacked the training school, Centre d’Instruction Technique No. 3 at Nam Dinh, and captured much of its 600-member student body and all school weapons without incurring any casualties. In 1953 the VNA had two types of battalions: the Bataillon Vietnamien (BVN), armed with French weapons and having a base camp and administrative support elements, and the Tieu Doan Khinh Quan (TDKQ, or Light Infantry Battalion), armed with the U.S. M-1 Garand and M-1 carbine rifles but without significant base and support elements. General Henri Navarre also wanted to increase the size of the VNA, form progressively larger units (first mobile groups and then divisions), and give it operational autonomy and more responsibility. He planned to bring it to 54 battalions before the end of the year and to double that in 1954. In fact, he succeeded in creating 107 new battalions of 95,000 troops, although the VNA was never well trained or well led.

1287

In 1955 the Ngo Dinh Diem government took over the VNA, which then became the nucleus of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). GARY KERLEY AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Bao Dai; Carpentier, Marcel; Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de; Ngo Dinh Diem; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Clayton, Anthony. Three Marshals of France: Leadership after Trauma. London: Brassey’s, 1992. Dong Van Khuyen. The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

Vietnam Independence League See Viet Minh

Vietnam Information Group Public relations vehicle for the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Harassed and criticized by the news media and doves in Congress over his Vietnam policies, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Public Affairs Policy Committee for Vietnam in August 1965. Early in the U.S. involvement in the war, Johnson noted that “the greatest chink in our armor is public opinion.” This new organization, redesignated the Vietnam Information Group (VIG) in 1967, prepared Vietnam-related material from the Johnson administration for public consumption. The VIG released the most optimistic information available concerning U.S. involvement in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The VIG’s principal task was to discredit Johnson administration opponents and win both U.S. and foreign favor. Director Harold Kaplan and his staff monitored public reactions to the war and attempted to deal with problems as soon as they appeared. In an aggressive campaign to mobilize the “silent center” in American politics, Johnson ordered the U.S. embassy and military command in Vietnam to “search urgently for occasions to present sound evidence of progress in Vietnam.” The VIG offered the resulting reams of favorable statistics as proof of U.S. progress in Vietnam. A loosely organized group similar to the VIG continued to prepare position papers and press releases during President Richard Nixon’s administration. Nixon used the term “silent majority” for a slightly more successful appeal in seeking support for his Vietnam

1288

Vietnamization

policies. Indeed, Nixon appealed strongly to the silent majority in both the 1968 and 1972 elections. STANLEY S. MCGOWEN See also Elections, U.S., 1968; Elections, U.S., 1972; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Media and the Vietnam War; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Small, Melvin. Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

Vietnamization ”Vietnamization” is an American term used to describe the process of progressively turning primary responsibility for conduct of the Vietnam War back over to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In his book Lost Victory, Ambassador William Colby, who led American support for pacification during the critical period, defined Vietnamization broadly as the “practical consequences of the Nixon Doctrine, that is, withdrawal of American troops and reinforcement of South Vietnamese forces to withstand the North Vietnamese.” Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird is often credited with coining the term “Vietnamization” in the spring of 1969, although General Creighton Abrams almost a year earlier had told a White House meeting that he was training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) for the purpose of “Vietnamizing” the war. Whatever the program’s origins, Colby’s definition is comprehensive enough to include the many elements essential if Vietnamization were to succeed: improving and modernizing the armed forces, providing pacification of the rural areas, strengthening the political apparatus, delivering essential services to the populace, nurturing a viable economy, and, most important of all, ensuring security for the people. From these goals derived a host of subsidiary tasks: from expanding and improving the police and territorial forces to land reform, from control of inflation to hamlet and village elections, and from rooting out the Viet Cong (VC) infrastructure to increasing the rice harvest. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker noted in a reporting cable that South Vietnam’s plan for community defense and local development had “three overall objectives: self-defense, self-government, and self-development, which explains why the Vietnamese refer to ‘Vietnamization’ as ‘the three selfs.’” George Jacobson, a longtime American official serving in the U.S. embassy, used to tell visitors that opinions varied as to whether security for the people was 10 percent of the pacification process or 90 percent, but everyone agreed that it was the first 10

percent or the first 90 percent. In other words, without security, nothing else could proceed. Perhaps even more important than the regular armed forces, therefore, were the territorial forces and the People’s Self-Defense Force. The latter, sponsored by President Nguyen Van Thieu when all his advisers were cautioning against it, resulted in half a million weapons being issued to ordinary citizens. Neutralizing the VC infrastructure was another crucially important task. The Communist enemy needed guerrilla forces and the cadre in the South Vietnamese hamlets and villages, General Abrams stressed. “If anything,” he said, “they’re more important to him than the caches, or more important to him than the actual strength of his rifle battalions.” Dealing with enemy infrastructure was, in Abrams’s view, the way to get off the treadmill that U.S. forces had been on in Vietnam. Ambassador Bunker agreed. “It seemed to me we started late in training the Vietnamese and that we had a lot to make up,” he said in an oral history interview. “In the beginning, I think we had misjudged the war and thought it would be a short-term proposition, that we could finish it ourselves.” In due course, the remarkable combination of Bunker, Abrams, and Colby was in place, and the “making up” began in earnest. In No More Vietnams, former president Richard Nixon recalled of Vietnamization that “our whole strategy depended on whether this program succeeded.” Thus, “our principal objectives shifted to protecting the South Vietnamese at the village level, reestablishing the local political process, and winning the loyalty of the peasants by involving them in the government and providing them with economic opportunity. General Creighton Abrams had initiated this shift in strategy when he took command of our forces in Vietnam in 1968,” Nixon acknowledged. Of course the Americans could only help, and as Abrams once observed, they could only help so much. The rest was up to the Vietnamese. Ambassador Bunker admired what they were able to achieve in the midst of so much conflict. “I think his posture was remarkably enlightened,” he said of President Thieu. “Considering that the country was at war, I think it was quite remarkable how well the government functioned.” That aspect of Vietnamization was at least equal in importance to progress in building up military forces that could maintain security as American forces progressively withdrew. Among the many indicators of effective government functioning was skillful handling of refugees. Land reform was another. “The record will show that the GVN [Government of Vietnam; i.e., the RVN government] did quite a remarkable job on land distribution, one of their major achievements,” said Bunker. Resurgence of the agricultural sector was yet another. In 1969, for example, South Vietnam had its best rice crop since 1964, an achievement made all the more impressive by the impediments of an ongoing war and labor shortages induced by simultaneous expansion of the armed forces, territorial forces, and police. “It certainly brought prosperity in the Delta and the South,” said Bunker. “I can recall going down there later in my tour and seeing farmers and people riding motorcycles where

Vietnam Magazine

1289

References Bunker, Ellsworth. The Bunker Papers: Reports to the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973. 3 vols. Edited by Douglas Pike. Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 1990. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Colby, William, with James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. Nguyen Duy Hinh. Vietnamization and the Cease-Fire. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1999. Thompson, Robert. No Exit from Vietnam. New York: McKay, 1968. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

Vietnam Magazine

U.S. president Richard Nixon’s policy of Vietnamization, which had begun under President Lyndon Johnson, stressed turning over more of the war to Republic of Vietnam (RVN) forces. Here, RVN Air Force crewmen line up before one of the 62 UH-1 Huey helicopters given them on November 4, 1970, along with command of the Soc Trang airfield. (National Archives)

they used to ride bicycles, and seeing antennae over the houses in the villages, seeing people using tractors where they had used oxen before to plow.” In one of his reporting cables, Ambassador Bunker remarked that “pacification is tough to measure—it’s something that one judges by feel, like politics.” By the time the 1973 Paris peace agreement was signed, he later recalled, that feeling was unmistakable. “The country was quiet,” he said. “One could travel anywhere in Vietnam.” Soon the last American forces had been withdrawn, and the South Vietnamese were left to cope with the continued war as best they might, eventually without major financial or material assistance from their former American allies, much less the swift retribution that had been promised in the event that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) violated the agreement. Thus, the accomplishments of Vietnamization were squandered. LEWIS SORLEY See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Bunker, Ellsworth; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Colby, William Egan; ENHANCE PLUS, Operation; Jacobson, George D.; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pacification

The only popular history periodical devoted exclusively to the Vietnam War. Published bimonthly by the Weider History Group of Leesburg, Virginia, Vietnam magazine was founded in 1988 by Colonel Harry G. Summers Jr., one of the most influential of the early analysts of the Vietnam War. Summers served two tours in Vietnam and was twice wounded there. In April 1975 he was among the very last Americans to leave Saigon, flying out on the last helicopter. Summers edited the magazine until his death in 2000. He was succeeded as editor by David T. Zabecki, who served as an enlisted infantryman in Vietnam during 1967–1968 and who later retired from the U.S. Army as a reserve major general. In 2009 Roger Vance assumed the editorship. Right from its first issue, Vietnam magazine set out to address head-on the many myths, falsities, and stereotypes that had come to surround the Vietnam War and those who served in it. As Summers noted in his premier editorial, “There are literally millions of ‘truths’ about the Vietnam War, for over three million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast Guardsmen have served in the Southeast Asia theater from 1964 to 1975. . . . Each of these truths forms a piece of the Vietnam puzzle.” Initially, Vietnam magazine garnered disapproval in some circles for what critics called its revisionist view of the war. But as the broader understanding of the war has come into clearer focus with the passage of time, the magazine’s balanced yet unflinching approach has earned it widespread respect. The magazine also has been criticized occasionally for not placing more emphasis on Vietnam War veterans’ and missing-in-action issues. Although the magazine has run occasional features on veterans’ issues, Vietnam was intended first and foremost to be a history publication. Its mandate was to analyze, describe, and try to explain the war, not to refight it. The magazine’s primary but not exclusive focus has been on the military operations during the American phase of the Vietnam

1290

Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

War, but the magazine also covers the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong (VC) as well as the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the Republic of Korea (ROK, Korea), Australia, and other allies. Occasional articles also have addressed the period of French involvement in Vietnam, the social and political background of the war from the mid-1950s through 1975, and the ramifications of the war on the home front. Contributors to Vietnam have included journalists, academics, military historians and analysts, and the commanders and the men who served in Vietnam. Many of the magazine’s articles are devoted to first-person accounts of combat operations and service during the war, including personal interviews with the men and commanders, and profiles of the units and the weaponry. The many distinguished contributors to Vietnam magazine have included Professor Bernard B. Fall, in a posthumous unpublished piece contributed by his widow Mrs. Dorothy Fall; war correspondent Joe Galloway; anthropologist Dr. Gerald C. Hickey; Colonel David Hackworth; General Walter T. Kerwin; journalist George McArthur; Senator John S. McCain III; Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore; actress Chris Noel; journalist Don North; photojournalist Tim Page; Professor Douglas Pike; intelligence officer Merle Pribbenow; journalist Neil Sheehan; General Donn A. Starry; North Vietnamese senior general Tran Van Tra; General William C. Westmoreland; and General Frederick C. Weyand. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Fall, Bernard B.; Hackworth, David Haskell; Hickey, Gerald Cannon; McCain, John Sidney, III; Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr.; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Starry, Donn Albert; Summers, Harry G., Jr.; Tran Van Tra; Westmoreland, William Childs; Weyand, Frederick Carlton

Vietnam Nationalist Party See Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang Vietnamese nationalist political party before World War II. The Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnam Nationalist Party, VNQDD), in Chinese the Viet Nam Guomindang, was established on December 27, 1927, in Hanoi by a group of young men led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. This moderate Socialist party, known to most adults in Vietnam as the Viet Quoc and usually referred to as the VNQDD, was the first revolutionary party in Vietnam, preceding by three years the establishment of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). Although the VNQDD bears the same name as the Chinese Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) party, it was not created by the Chinese. The program of Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen) may have in-

spired VNQDD founders to adapt the party name, but it had no direct relation to and did not receive any support from the Chinese GMD until after the failed uprising in February 1930. Some assert that had the VNQDD received even modest military support from the Chinese Nationalists, Vietnamese history might have developed quite differently after the 1930 Yen Bai Uprising. The VNQDD was organized along clandestine lines and was held together with strict discipline. The party’s strength grew quickly. Most adherents were teachers, colonial government employees, and army noncommissioned officers (NCOs). Beginning in 1928, the VNQDD attracted considerable Vietnamese support but also the attention of French colonial authorities after a VNQDD death squad killed several French and Vietnamese officials notorious for their cruelty toward the Vietnamese population. With French authorities about to carry out a large-scale crackdown against the VNQDD, its leadership believed that it had no choice but to carry out uprisings where possible. After this decision, Nguyen Thai Hoc made his well-known remark “If we fail to succeed we will still build a good cause.” At midnight on February 10, 1930, VNQDD company-sized forces launched surprise attacks against French colonial army bases northeast of Hanoi at Yen Bai, Hung Hoa, Lam Thao, and Son Tay as well as grenade attacks in the heart of the capital. On February 12 VNQDD forces attacked French military camps at Dap Cau and Pha Lai, east of Hanoi. The next day they conducted other attacks at Kien An and Vinh Bao. VNQDD forces numbered from 50 to 300 fighters at each location. The greatest VNQDD success came at Yen Bai, where the rebels killed a dozen French officers and NCOs and controlled the town for a day before being expelled by French counterattacks. Although they met fierce resistance, the French soon reoccupied all of their positions. The VNQDD relied mostly on homemade cement and blackpowder grenades, captured rifles, and a few pistols. Although they fought bravely, without effective weapons the VNQDD squads were doomed to defeat. Ineffective communications also meant that word of the attacks did not reach many regional commanders, and surprise was lost. French reprisal raids all over northern Vietnam crushed the VNQDD. Many hundreds of its members were executed. Nguyen Thai Hoc and 12 others were guillotined in Yen Bai on June 17, 1930. Their dauntless behavior and the calmness and dignity with which they faced the guillotine made them nationalist heroes in Vietnam. The following months saw several thousand VNQDD members sentenced to prison terms of from five years to life. Those who escaped arrest fled mainly to China, where they reorganized the party. Along with the VNQDD, many other movements, including the Communists, received limited support from the Chinese government. The defeat of the VNQDD, however, helped aid in the rise of the ICP.

Vietnam Syndrome In August 1945 the Viet Minh, which was dominated by the ICP, seized power in Hanoi and set up a provisional government. This violated an agreement between member parties of the Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi, which included Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi), and the VNQDD. After August 1945 hundreds of VNQDD members in exile returned to Vietnam, but many of them were killed by the Viet Minh when they crossed the border from China. When the main nonCommunist parties moved from China back to Vietnam and their local cells were revived, the Nationalists joined together in the opposition to the Viet Minh. Armed clashes between the Viet Minh and the Nationalists occurred regularly in major cities of northern Vietnam. After the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of March 6, 1946, that allowed French Army units to deploy in key cities, the Nationalists found themselves under attack from the French as well as the Viet Minh. At the end of 1946 when the Indochina War erupted, several thousand VNQDD and other opposition party members were massacred by the Viet Minh in a bloody purge. The survivors fled to China. Others, to escape sure death, fled to French-controlled areas. After the 1954 Geneva Accords, many VNQDD members from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), including those from Viet Minh–controlled areas, gathered in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). They were deeply divided after years of Communist oppression and lack of strong leadership. Although they were fervent anti-Communists, virtually all of the factions found themselves in opposition to the South Vietnamese government. Those VNQDD members who survived the Vietnam War years were again persecuted by the Communist regime after April 30, 1975. Although many former VNQDD members found refuge in the West and have continued to campaign for democracy and human rights in Vietnam, they remain divided politically. The VNQDD still enjoys respect in overseas Vietnamese political communities, and many Vietnamese regard it as the foremost anti-Communist spiritual force. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also French Indochina, 1860s–1946; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Viet Minh References Hoang Van Dao. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Saigon: Published by the author, 1970; reprinted in the United States. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.

Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association See Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi

1291

Vietnam Syndrome A term used to claim that the widespread American opposition to the Vietnam War (1965–1973) resulted in pacifist and isolationist sentiments that restricted the ability of American leaders to engage U.S. forces in future military operations overseas. Following the successful conclusion of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which was won quickly and with few casualties by coalition forces, many U.S. policy makers concluded that the Vietnam Syndrome had been vanquished. Opposition to the Vietnam War took several forms. Initially such opposition emerged among a small minority of pacifists who opposed virtually all wars and a minority who saw the Communistled guerrilla movement as a legitimate national liberation struggle. The antiwar movement later became widespread among college students. Opposition to the war later expanded to include many Americans who had initially supported the war but then turned against it following the widespread casualties, the psychological damage to American troops, and the corrupt and ineffective nature of the regime in Saigon supported by the United States. By 1968, concerns mounted that the war—justified or not—was unlikely to result in a U.S. victory, and polls for the first time showed that a majority of Americans from across the political spectrum were opposed to the conflict. Popular frustration mounted as American combat operations continued for an additional five years. Following the U.S. exit from Vietnam, subsequent polls revealed that while a solid majority of Americans still supported the use of military force if necessary to defend the national security interests of the United States, there was unprecedented skepticism regarding U.S. military operations in the developing world. In this instance, there were questions regarding the actual threat posed by the alleged enemy to U.S. national security, the ability of the United States to prevail in such a conflict, and/or the morality and legality of the intervention. This led Congress to pass new restrictions on presidential war-making authority, including the War Powers Act of 1973, the suspension of funding for U.S. military involvement in Angola’s civil war in 1976, and strict limitations on direct military involvement in El Salvador’s civil war during the 1980s. Since the United States remained committed to “containing” the Soviet Union throughout the nearly half-century-long Cold War (1946–1991), restrictions on the use of force to pursue containment was problematic for Washington policy makers who tended to perceive the success of any left-wing, Marxist, or Communist regime anywhere in the world—whether backed by the Soviet Union or not—as a direct challenge that must be met. Critics of congressional restrictions on the use of military force argued that all traditional elements of national power—economic, political, and military—should be available to the president. Yet the wrenching experience of Vietnam left many in Congress and the American public in general loath to giving presidents a free hand in introducing American troops into any situation that might draw the country into “another Vietnam.”

1292

Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi

An initial response to the Vietnam Syndrome came in the Kissinger and Nixon doctrines. The Kissinger Doctrine, named for Henry A. Kissinger who was at the time serving as both national security adviser and secretary of state, is referred to in the Middle East as the Pillars Policy. The idea was to bolster strong allies in the Middle East, primarily Israel and Iran, and, in a more secondary or indirect fashion, Saudi Arabia. They were to receive aid and military assistance. Some refer instead to the Nixon Doctrine of U.S. president Richard Nixon, by which the United States would help build up the military capabilities of surrogates in the developing world, such as Iran, to enable them to intervene in regional conflicts so as to minimize the potential for American involvement. Both of these policies underwent strain when the shah of Iran’s government fell and with Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was not clear if there was another pillar in the region to promote America’s interests. The Nixon and Kissinger doctrines were gradually replaced by a new one, known as the Weinberger Doctrine, later known as the Powell Doctrine for its chief proponent, General Colin L. Powell, during his 1989–1993 tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The doctrine is associated with Caspar Weinberger, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense during 1981–1987 and whose military aide was Powell. This doctrine reemphasized direct U.S. military intervention but with a number of caveats based on presumed lessons learned from Vietnam: commit U.S. troops only when U.S. or allied vital national interests are at stake and only when supported by the American public and Congress, establish in advance of troop commitment clear political and military objectives, commit troops wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning, use force appropriate to the threat but generally apply overwhelming force to shorten the length of the conflict and minimize American casualties, and use force only as a last resort. Powell generally adopted all of the Weinberger Doctrine principles, although he added the development of an exit strategy to Weinberger’s caveats. The quick and decisive U.S. military victories in Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq all more or less followed the prescriptions of the Weinberger/ Powell Doctrine and proved relatively popular with the American public. Indeed, in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, many claimed that the stunning application of U.S. military power had finally released America from the Vietnam Syndrome. Similarly, while the naval intervention in the Persian Gulf during 1987–1988 (Operation EARNEST WILL) and the air war against Serbia in 1999 were not without controversy, minimal American casualties allowed these military campaigns to move forward without much concern regarding public opinion. By contrast, the 1982–1984 intervention in Lebanon and the 1992–1994 intervention in Somalia—which raised popular concerns about American casualties, the prospects of success, and the nature of the operation—appeared to have rekindled, albeit on a much smaller scale, public criticism over U.S. military intervention

in the developing world. The Bill Clinton administration in particular was loath to put U.S. troops in harm’s way in the wake of public outcry after the Mogadishu fiasco, in which U.S. troops were slain in the Somali capital. Restrictions placed on U.S. troops during Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY, the U.S. intervention in Haiti during 1994–1995, witnessed American troops being largely isolated from the Haitian population in so-called Kevlar Zones (named after the material used to make American helmets and flak jackets) lest American forces sustain any casualties at all. Despite misgivings about waging a war against Afghan tribesmen who had previously defeated Soviet forces with American support, concerns about an overreliance on airpower, and the failure to eliminate the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan beginning in October 2001 (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM) was widely supported as a strategic necessity and a morally and legally justifiable response to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. By contrast, the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq, which began in March 2003 (Operation IRAQI FREEDOM), raised many of the same concerns that 30-plus years earlier had resulted in the Vietnam Syndrome. Indeed, the grim war toll in Iraq raised the specter of a possible Iraq Syndrome that would have a similar impact on U.S. policy in the decades to come. Whether an Iraq Syndrome will impact on the exercise of national power by the new Barack Obama administration remains to be seen. President Obama’s announcement in early 2009 that he would increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan by approximately 17,000 seemed to indicate that at least in the case of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, military force remained an option. STEPHEN ZUNES See also Clinton, William Jefferson; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Nixon Doctrine; Powell, Colin Luther References DeYoung, Karen. Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell. New York: Knopf, 2006. Hess, Gay R. Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Jeffords, Susan. Seeing through the Media: The Persian Gulf War. Camden, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994.

Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnamese anticolonial organization. Known commonly as Thanh Nien (Youth), the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi was founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1925 as a new anticolonial organization that attempted to unite political and social issues. The Thanh Nien advocated a new Vietnamese society dependent upon national liberation and land reform. To accomplish these goals, the Thanh Nien relied almost exclusively on new revolutionary

Vietnam Veterans Against the War theory and the blending of Marxist-Leninist teachings with Vietnamese patriotism. The specific revolutionary strategy of the Thanh Nien consisted of three distinct phases: organization, agitation, and insurrection. This reliance on the theoretical perspective distanced the Thanh Nien from other anticolonial organizations and ensured its success during the brutal French purges. In short, Ho’s revolutionary organization represented the beginnings of Vietnamese communism. Two of the Thanh Nien’s most significant contributions to the resistance movement were its use of the term cach mang (“revolution”) and its acknowledgment of a more stratified anticolonial society. For the Communist leaders, cach mang meant the basic transformation of the political structure and the process of rule, not merely the removal of the right to rule. In this way, the revolutionary process was an ongoing dialectic between the people and the party. For years the party considered all Vietnamese to be anticolonials, and it was only with the development of revolutionary thought within the Thanh Nien that the term “intermediary elements” began to be applied to friends of the most oppressed classes. This thinking helped the Thanh Nien develop the front concept whereby the party could make temporary alliances with non-Communists to achieve the revolution’s overall goals. From 1925 to 1927 the Thanh Nien headquarters was located in Guangzhou (Canton). Here more than 300 Vietnamese revolutionaries received training. The center published several periodicals on various political subjects. Among the most important of these publications were Duong Cach Mang (The Road to Revolution) and the weekly newspaper Thanh Nien. By 1927, however, the Thanh Nien had been caught up in the revolutionary activities in China and fell victim to Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) party anti-Communist sweeps. Thanh Nien activities came to an abrupt halt in 1927, but Vietnamese revolutionaries continued their activities within Vietnam’s own borders until mid-1929. The Thanh Nien movement was an important first step in Vietnam’s modern revolution. Before Thanh Nien’s organization, Vietnamese revolutionaries were still searching for ideas and techniques to liberate Vietnam. After the Thanh Nien, Vietnam’s anticolonialists, led by Ho, embraced a revolutionary movement with a clear ideological base. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Ho Chi Minh; Jiang Jieshi; Lao Dong Party; Tran Van Giau; Viet Minh; Vietnamese Communist Party; Vo Nguyen Giap References Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Huynh Kim Khanh. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Woodside, Alexander B. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.

1293

Vietnam Veterans Against the War U.S. antiwar organization. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was founded in April 1967 by 6 of 20 American veterans who had marched under a banner with that legend in an antiwar demonstration in New York City. By November of that year the VVAW had increased its membership to 40; by the end of 1968 the membership was 300. The VVAW’s main headquarters remained in New York City, but advertising in national magazines allowed the VVAW to broaden its membership, and affiliated chapters were formed in cities across the country. By the time of the organization’s dissolution in 1973, VVAW leaders claimed several thousand members, although it was not clear then and grew even less clear as time passed how many of these reported members really held active membership, how many were government infiltrators, and how many of the participating members had really seen service in Vietnam. The initial goal of VVAW was to add credence to the antiwar movement by giving it the visible presence of veterans themselves, those who had seen firsthand the events and conditions being protested by those who opposed the war. Members participated in many of the major demonstrations throughout 1968, including the protests surrounding the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but in addition they found a new and specialized area of concern in 1969 with the publicizing of the My Lai Massacre in the American press. After this their primary focus was on atrocities committed by U.S. troops in the war and on the psychologically damaging effect that the war itself had on troops. In September 1970 the VVAW staged a lengthy demonstration called Operation RAW (Rapid American Withdrawal) in which 100 participants, not all of them Vietnam War veterans, marched from Morristown, New Jersey, to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The veterans (and perhaps nonveterans as well) were dressed in fatigues and carried combat weapons. Along the way they staged guerrilla theater to represent war atrocities. Although the marchers encountered some hostility along their route, they were greeted enthusiastically by a group of 1,500 people at their termination point at Valley Forge, where speeches were delivered by such figures as entertainers Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and attorney Mark Lane. During 1970 VVAW leaders had been in touch with Robert Jay Lifton, a New York psychiatrist and antiwar activist who had begun speaking publicly in 1969 about the damaging effect of the war on combatants’ psyches and on the inevitability of atrocities in what was, as he put it, the “atrocity-producing” environment of war. In November 1970 VVAW member Jan Crumb of the New York City office approached Lifton about methods of both dealing with veterans’ psychological problems and effectively creating public opposition to the war that had caused these problems. In December 1970 Lifton, fellow psychiatrist Chaim Shatan of New York University, and members of the New York VVAW chapter began a series of rap groups, a form of group therapy in which participants explored their “guilt” and then decided to “animate” it by actively exposing the evil of war. These rap groups were later

1294

Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Vietnam veterans protest President Richard Nixon’s nomination outside the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. (JP Laffont/ Sygma/Corbis)

to become the staple form of Veterans Administration (VA) treatment for war-related stress, particularly in the Veterans Outreach Centers (Vet Centers) established in 1979. An account of the original rap group sessions and their outcome is given in Lifton’s 1973 book Home from the War. In February 1971 VVAW members, especially those participating in the rap groups, staged a media event, the Winter Soldier Investigation, in Detroit. Some 115 VVAW members and associates, including Lifton himself, gave testimony about alleged war crimes that they had participated in and/or witnessed. The main funding sources for this event were Jane Fonda and Mark Lane. Selected speeches of the testifying participants were published in a 1972 report, The Winter Soldier Investigation. Guenter Lewy in his 1978 book America in Vietnam cited evidence that he had found in military records to indicate that many of the participants in the event had not been present at the scenes they claimed to be describing and that some of them had not seen service in Vietnam at all. This remains a hotly debated issue. Continuing their public antiwar activities in 1971, VVAW members and supporters, again led primarily by rap group participants, staged Dewey Canyon III, held in Washington, D.C., in April 1971. The name “Dewey Canyon III” was an allusion to Operations DEWEY CANYON I and DEWEY CANYON II along the Laotian border during

Operation LAM SON 719, the incursion by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) into Laos. The main feature of this event, which included a memorial service at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, was the discarding of medals by an estimated 1,000 veterans on the Capitol steps. As always, a debate arose as to whether all the participating members of the demonstration were genuine veterans and whether all the medals thrown at the Capitol had been officially awarded to the men discarding them. Some men in uniform, upon being interviewed, acknowledged that they were not veterans, and the count of the most prestigious medals discarded, when correlated with those known to be still in their owners’ possession, did not tally with the number issued. Ironically, however, some genuine veterans may have been deliberately excluded from the demonstration. Lynda Van Devanter, a former U.S. Army nurse who served at Pleiku during the war, reported in her memoir Home before Morning (1984) that when she attempted to join the demonstration, she was told not to march with the veterans because she “didn’t look like a vet.” She took this to mean that as a female, she might give the impression, as the march representative phrased it, that “we were swelling the ranks with non-vets.” VVAW demonstrations continued throughout 1971 and 1972, but public demonstrations were not the only means that the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial VVAW found to publicly oppose the war. Throughout the 1970s even after the dissolution of the organization itself, members and former members campaigned relentlessly for treatment of veterans’ psychological disabilities and were instrumental in defining post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a recognized psychological condition, in establishing VA counseling centers, and in staffing the centers as they were developed. In a 1984 interview with Myra MacPherson, former director of the VA Readjustment Counseling Services, Dr. Arthur S. Blank Jr. estimated that 10 percent of current Vet Center team leaders were former VVAW members. Furthermore, among the most prominent writers and editors of popular and professional works on PTSD were former members or associates of the VVAW, including participants in the Winter Soldier Investigation and Dewey Canyon III: Lifton, Shatan, Charles Figley, Arthur Egendorf, Jack Smith, John Kerry, and Shad Meshad, to name just a few. Their reports and interpretations of their experiences in the war and with veterans became the standard view of veterans and the war throughout the helping professions. VVAW influence did not end with demonstrations and counseling services. The VVAW proved to be a powerful voice in public perceptions of the veteran and the war, even as far afield as literary studies. The organization’s poetry anthology, Winning Hearts and Minds (1972), edited by founding members Jan Barry, Larry Rottman, and Basil Paquet, was one of the first collections of poetry written primarily by veterans and became a model of its kind for future writing. The New Soldier (1971), edited by John Kerry, did the same for oral histories of the war. Furthermore, former members of the VVAW went on to found other organizations, both antiwar organizations during the war and veterans’ organizations afterward. The most famous of these veterans’ organizations is Vietnam Veterans of America, founded by former VVAW member Robert O. Muller. Regardless of how many veterans belonged to the VVAW during its six-year existence or how much press coverage it received for any of its given events, it cannot be denied that the organization was and continues to be one of the most influential of its kind in all subsequent references to the war and to those who served. PHOEBE S. SPINRAD See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Fonda, Jane Seymour; Kerry, John Forbes; Lifton, Robert Jay; Literature and the Vietnam War; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Vietnam Veterans of America References Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans, Neither Victims nor Executioners. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. MacPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984. Scott, Wilbur J. The Politics of Readjustment: Vietnam Veterans since the War. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1993.

1295

Van Devanter, Lynda. Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam. New York: Beaufort Books, 1983.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial In the late 1970s the issue of how to remember those who had perished in the Vietnam War began to present itself to the general public. First, a small nondescript plaque was added without ceremony to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Next, Congress became interested in a politically neutral option known as “Vietnam Veterans Week.” From outside the bureaucracy came the more successful idea, the establishment of a memorial in Washington, D.C. Jan Scruggs, disturbed by Michael Cimino’s powerful film The Deer Hunter (1978), became obsessed with constructing “a memorial to all the guys who served in Vietnam.” From this humble dream the Vietnam Veterans Memorial emerged. However, the early history of the memorial was embroiled in controversy. The team that navigated the challenges of the next several years consisted of Scruggs, an enlisted man wounded in 1969; Bob Doubek, a former U.S. Air Force officer; and Jack Wheeler, a West Point graduate who had attended Yale Law School. Incorporated as a nonprofit organization on April 27, 1979, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) fought its first battles in the political arena. With the assistance of senators Charles Mathias (R-Md.), who had earlier opposed the war, and John Warner (RVa.), the bill approving the Vietnam Veterans Memorial passed the Senate on April 30, 1980. Importantly, the site designated for the memorial, Senator Mathias’s idea originally, was on the Washington Mall near the Lincoln Memorial. In signing the bill (Public Law 96-297) authorizing the memorial into law on July 1, 1980, President Jimmy Carter recognized that “We are ready at last to acknowledge . . . the debt which we can never fully repay to those who served.” Although Scruggs had expected spontaneous contributions, when President Carter signed the authorization bill the VVMF had collected only about $250,000. Then in November 1980 VVMF leaders learned that the original target of $2.5 million was naive; they would need $6 million to $10 million to complete the project. A major factor in the turnaround of the fund-raising effort came when the American hostages held in Iran were returned in January 1981. The hero’s welcome exhibited for the hostages activated many citizens to demand that more tangible recognition be given to those who had served their country in Vietnam. Surprisingly, by the end of 1981 the VVMF had more than $8 million dollars. An astounding number of Americans—more than 650,000—contributed less than $10 each to make possible this enormous success. Later, possibly as a result of disagreements over the design of the memorial, some controversy about the expenditures of these monies surfaced, but a General Accounting Office audit found that all $9.3 million received as of May 1984 had been properly budgeted.

1296

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Located in Washington, D.C., and today the capital’s most visited monument, the Vietnam Memorial is inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 American men and women killed or missing in the Vietnam War. As is fitting for a war that was so controversial, the unconventional design of the monument, done by then-21-year-old Yale student Maya Ying Lin, was initally both praised and reviled. (PhotoDisc, Inc.)

The design competition ran smoothly, partly because billionaire H. Ross Perot donated $160,000 to underwrite it. Scruggs’s idea was that the memorial contain the names of all who perished. Wheeler suggested that a landscaped horizontal design be used. Doubek drafted a proposal that the memorial be apolitical, not addressing the war’s causes or conduct. To further the democratic process of the competition and thus to enhance the healing process, the VVMF agreed to an open selection process with eight judges from the disciplines of architecture and landscape art. By the March 1981 deadline, 1,421 entries were submitted. After a week of deliberations, the judges announced their unanimous decision: Maya Ying Lin’s design of a polished V-shaped black wall that would contain the names of all who died in Vietnam. The design was both praised and attacked. Lin, then an undergraduate at Yale University, had seen geometric forms used at the war memorial at Thiepval, France, where the memorial remembered those fallen in the Somme Offensive of World War I, and she had attended the memorial ceremony at Yale when the names

of those graduates killed in Vietnam were added to walls listing those who had died in other wars. Despite these impressive models and praise for her design as “reverential” and a “fitting mark of respect,” critics saw the wall, which was carved into a gentle embankment, as a “degrading ditch” and a “wailing wall for antiwar demonstrators.” Lin, responding to these critics, added short eulogistic words explaining that the list of names memorialized those who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam, but she did not negotiate about keeping the list of names in chronological order, a crucial aspect of the memorial’s powerful effect. Although this accommodation satisfied most critics, some still wanted a more traditional design. James Watt, then secretary of the interior, delayed construction until a compromise could be reached. After much controversy, the memorial’s critics accepted Lin’s design if a representational statue and flag could be added later. In March 1982 just before the deadline if the dedication was to occur on Veterans Day, Watt signed the construction permit. From the start, the most demanding work involved polishing the black granite and inscribing the names. Arriving from Bangalore, India, the stone was separated into 140 different-sized panels in Vermont and then shipped to Memphis, Tennessee. There the process of cutting the names into the panels took place. Because the angles and depth (.015 inch) of the letters had been designed to ensure that the sun would cast no shadows that might obscure or change the appearance of a name, the stonecutters needed to proceed with great care. Despite the enormity of these tasks, construction proceeded on schedule. The Veterans Day dedication in November 1982 marked a historic turning point in America’s search for a healing closure to the divisive Vietnam War. More than 150,000 people attended. At the National Cathedral the salute began on Wednesday, November 10, with a candlelight vigil, a 56-hour nonstop service at which all 58,000 names were read. Emotional reactions outside, when soldiers first encountered the Wall, as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is also known, ran high. One medic felt joy as he found that a buddy he had worked on was not listed; others experienced survivor guilt on seeing the names of dead comrades. The National Salute ended on Saturday with a parade, and after the dedication on Sunday, the crowd dispersed, beginning a practice of leaving flowers, notes, and other memorabilia as tokens of love and loss. Even after the dedication, controversy raged over the items yet to be added. Frederick Hart, a sculptor who placed third in the overall design competition, was chosen to create the statue; earlier he had said that Lin’s design was “contemporary art done in a vacuum” and referred to it as “nihilistic.” For her part, Lin said that the addition of Hart’s realistic sculpture was comparable to “drawing moustaches on other people’s portraits.” However, as issues of placement and size were resolved, Lin came to accept both the flag and the statue well before the 1984 rededication of the double memorial. Experiencing the memorials together brings recognition of the powerful artistic qualities supporting the purposes of reflection

Vietnam Veterans of America and healing. At the flag, the standard patriotic feeling is quietly muted by the inscription’s reference to the war’s trying conditions. The nearby statue of three soldiers emphasizes the melting-pot quality of the war, while its details create a sense of the reality. Importantly, these soldiers are tired heroes, weary but stoic survivors of a difficult war. As one moves to the Wall itself, the viewer experiences what Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz called “a kind of coincidentia oppositorum—an agency that brings . . . opposed meanings together without resolving them.” Forming a wide “V,” the arms of the Wall, each 246 feet long, embrace the visitor. The apex, 10 feet below the highest panels, emits a feeling of almost pastoral quiet. The names, listed in chronological order by soldiers’ dates of death, emphasize both the individual soldier’s story and the significance of time, a crucial aspect for soldiers who spent a clearly delimited period of time in the war zone. Facing the Wall, the viewer sees not only the names but also the reflections of trees and clouds. Viewers feel drawn in, a part of a war that affected so many Americans. From this position of quiet reflection viewers notice that the arms of the Wall open, signifying the soldier’s return to an environment that was still warlike, for the nation was still divided even when the war itself ended. However, looking toward the horizon, the visitor sees along one arm the Washington Monument and along the other the Lincoln Memorial and begins to sense a placement of this war and suffering in the nation’s history. The strength of that experience has caused countless visitors to make one or more pilgrimages to what has become an almost sacred shrine. Often visitors will take a rubbing of an individual soldier’s name, much as one might of a headstone in a cemetery. Many visitors leave memorabilia, and this exchange becomes another example of the interactive nature of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. More than 30,000 items had been collected as of 1995. Ranging from American flags to medals to notes, letters, and poems, these items continue to be cataloged and stored at the Museum and Archaeological Regional Storage Facility in Glenn Dale, Maryland. With an estimated 2.5 million visitors annually, this fast-growing collection has created its own cultural history and is a powerful testimonial to the effects of the war on the nation’s people. Likewise, from the troubled drama of its beginnings the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has inspired a number of other artifacts to augment the originally intended therapeutic process. Scruggs’s coauthored book To Heal a Nation (1985) became, in 1987, a television movie. Laura Palmer’s book Shrapnel in the Heart (1987) reproduced several letters left at the Wall, while Duncan Spencer and Lloyd Wolf’s Facing the Wall (1986) evocatively chronicles in text and color photographs one day’s events at the memorial. Furthermore, a half-size replica of the Wall, known as the Moving Wall, has been shown throughout the United States. On Veterans Day 1993 near the Wall, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project dedicated its own statue. Created by sculptor Glenna Goodacre, the seven-foot statue of three women was de-

1297

signed to balance Hart’s statue. Because 90 percent of the women who served in Vietnam were nurses, the statue emphasizes the nurse’s role by showing three women assisting a fallen soldier. As with the Wall, however, the statue is meant to be inclusive, and it thus memorializes all of the approximately 11,500 American women who served in Vietnam as well as the 8 who died there. Further complementing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the Korean War Veterans Memorial, which was dedicated on July 27, 1995, exactly 43 years after that war ended. On the opposite side of the Reflecting Pool from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, this monument also asks that the viewer prioritize the experiences of the individual soldier while simultaneously considering the historical contexts of the war. Despite its contentious and troubled beginnings, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become a powerful cultural memorial for those touched, either directly or indirectly, by America’s most divisive 20th-century war. Still the subject of much critical discussion, the Wall’s most profound effects are felt by those who experience the therapeutic value of its quiet healing touch. Today the Vietnam Veterans Memorial commemorates the more than 58,000 men and women who gave their lives in the Vietnam War and, by implication, remembers all Americans whose lives were touched by the war. CHARLES J. GASPAR See also Art and the Vietnam War; Casualties; Film and the Vietnam Experience; Lao Dong Party; Literature and the Vietnam War; Perot, Henry Ross; Scruggs, Jan Craig; Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. References Allen, Leslie. “The Wall.” American Heritage (February–March 1995): 92–103. Gaspar, Charles J. “The Search for Closure: Vietnam War Literature and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.” War, Literature, and the Arts (Spring 1989): 19–34. Scruggs, Jan C., and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper and Row, 1985. Sturken, Marita. “The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial.” Representations 35 (1991): 118–142. Wagner-Pacifici, Robin, and Barry Schwartz. “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past.” American Journal of Sociology (September 1991): 376–420.

Vietnam Veterans of America Advocacy group dedicated solely to the needs of Vietnam War veterans and their families, founded in 1978 and the only such organization officially chartered by the U.S. Congress. In the late 1970s it had become apparent to many Vietnam War veterans that neither the U.S. Veterans Administration nor existing groups dedicated to helping veterans were capable of responding to the unique needs of those who had served in Vietnam. Thus, in 1978 a small group of Vietnam veterans founded the Council of Vietnam

1298

Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes

Veterans in Washington, D.C., which would dedicate itself exclusively to Vietnam veterans and their families. By the end of 1979 the group reported $46,506 in total assets. By the midsummer of 1979 the Council of Vietnam Veterans was renamed Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), and the association made a major push to increase its membership and to assert itself in the political area when necessary. But money raising and the membership drive proceeded slowly. Not until 1981 and after did the VVA see its fortunes shift. Many attribute this to the large parades given to the returning Iran hostages that year. This angered many Vietnam War veterans, who wondered why they had received no such welcome when they had returned home from their ordeal in Vietnam. At the same time the public consciousness of Vietnam War veterans began to shift, demonstrating that more Americans were willing to examine their treatment of the veterans of that unpopular conflict. By late 1981 membership was rising steadily, as were contributions. The 1982 dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., also helped the VVA advance its agenda. In 1983 the VVA established Vietnam Veterans of America Legal Services (VVALS) to aid veterans in lobbying the U.S. government for services and benefits. The VVALS has helped thousands of veterans and their families. In 1986 as the VVA’s coffers and political clout grew, Congress issued an official charter for the organization. The VVA helps veterans and their families at the national, state, regional, and local levels. The group funds substance abuse programs at the local level, funds homeless shelters, sponsors youth outreach and sports programs, and has been involved in many disaster relief efforts around the country. The VVA also funds work retraining and placement programs and keeps a constant presence in the halls of Congress by way of lobbying and awareness campaigns designed to advance the agenda of Vietnam War veterans. The Government Affairs Committee is primarily responsible for lobbying Congress. The VVA has also helped fund important studies on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the effects of Agent Orange, and other health problems associated with service in Vietnam. Also, the VVA sponsors educational programs and public outreach programs to eliminate discrimination and negative perceptions of Vietnam War veterans. The VVA now boasts a membership of approximately 50,000 and has 635 chapters in every state of the Union and in U.S. overseas territories. Each state has its own council that coordinates programs and activities at the local level. At the national level, the organization has a board of directors and 24 national officers elected by delegates, who are in turn elected by the membership at large. The organization is now considered one of the principal veterans’ advocacy groups in the nation. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI See also Herbicides; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; United States Veterans Administration; Vietnam Veterans Memorial

References Nicosia, Gerald. Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement. New York: Carroll and Graff, 2004. Vietnam Veterans of America. Vietnam Veterans of America. Nashville: Turner Publishing, 1998.

Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes Persons who have made or continue to make false claims about their participation in the Vietnam War. False allegations about one’s involvement in the war can include lies about military occupational specialties, roles in combat, medals earned in Vietnam, and prisoner of war (POW) status, among other fabrications. Others who never served in the U.S. military at all have lied about serving in the Vietnam War. Military service and war veteran fakes and frauds are not a recent phenomenon. They have been recorded at least as far back as the Peloponnesian Wars. Although wannabe Vietnam War veterans existed since the war began in earnest in the mid1960s, American popular culture, specifically the film industry, has had a significant impact on the fictitious world of frauds. Rambo: First Blood, released in 1982, featured Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a Special Forces Vietnam War veteran who runs from local authorities in the heavily forested Pacific Northwest. Throughout the film, Rambo utilizes his military training and experience from fighting in the jungles of Vietnam to his advantage, ultimately frustrating and bewildering the authorities. After a controversial war in which veterans experienced poor treatment (mental and physical) and a film industry in the late 1970s that portrayed veterans in a negative manner, the Rambo character changed how Americans viewed those who served in Vietnam. At the same time, Rambo: First Blood provided the catalyst for an increase in the number of phony Vietnam veterans who sought admiration from the American public. In 1998 after numerous wannabes had continued to emerge since the war ended in 1973, B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley’s Stolen Valor exposed many bogus Vietnam War veterans. Burkett, a Vietnam War veteran, and Whitley uncovered the stories of many Americans from various backgrounds who have made false claims about military service. Many illegitimate Vietnam War veterans purchased medals in flea markets and catalogs and then immediately displayed the unearned decorations in public. Some fake Vietnam veterans have even convinced family members and congressional representatives about their military service. In the early 1990s, James T. (Jim) Walsh, a congressman from New York, helped decorate Dave Goff with some of the nation’s highest honors, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal. Goff had told Walsh that he had no citations for the medals that he supposedly earned because his missions were top secret, not warranting an official

Vinh written testament. In 1993 Burkett revealed in Reader’s Digest that Goff had served as a clerk in Okinawa during the Vietnam War. Goff eventually admitted his guilt in court, acknowledging that he never served in Vietnam. Some wannabe Vietnam veterans, such as David Wilk of Dallas, Texas, claimed to have received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for valor. The Dallas resident had boasted that he earned the Medal of Honor as a Green Beret during the Vietnam War. Yet Wilk did not enlist until 1972, never served in Vietnam, and by no means earned the Medal of Honor. Fake Vietnam War veterans have also emerged in the academic community. Shelby Stanton, author of numerous books on the Vietnam War, highly exaggerated his role in Southeast Asia. Stanton’s claims, both orally and in his publications, center on dangerous covert operations in the jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. However, Stanton’s service was limited to that of a Special Forces training officer in Thailand. Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, is perhaps the most renowned fake Vietnam War veteran. In 2001 the Boston Globe revealed that Ellis had lied to his students and the public about having served in Vietnam with the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division. Ellis’s record shows that he graduated from William and Mary University’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program in 1965, went to graduate school at Yale University, and then served as a history professor at West Point until 1972. He never set foot in Vietnam. After Ellis’s lies were exposed, Mount Holyoke placed the professor on leave without pay for one year. In 2002 Ellis returned to Mount Holyoke, where he is now the Ford Foundation professor of history. On December 20, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law the Stolen Valor Act, prohibiting the unauthorized sale, production, or personal claim of military medals and decorations. Violation of the Stolen Valor Act can result in a maximum one-year imprisonment and the possibility of a fine and community service. Since the passage of the act, many state governments have identified and prosecuted fake Vietnam War veterans. In 2007 after a Department of Veteran Affairs investigation, Reggie L. Buddle of Puyallup, Washington, pleaded guilty to lying about serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and possessing bogus medals. Before his prosecution, Buddle had led various weddings and funerals as a fake military chaplain in military uniform. Buddle, who never served in the military, was sentenced to two years’ probation and 500 hours of community service tending to graves of actual veterans. In 2008 a California court sentenced fake Vietnam War veteran Michael Allan Fraser to community service and a $500 fine for lying about winning two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars in Southeast Asia. As of November 2008, the Stolen Valor Act had led to the prosecution of 40 individuals in the United States, yet many more fake Vietnam War veterans exist and have yet to be exposed. JOHN SOUTHARD

1299

See also Burkett, Bernard Gary; Film and the Vietnam Experience; Literature and the Vietnam War; Vietnam Veterans of America References Burkett, B. G., and Glenna Whitley. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Dallas, TX: Verity, 1998. Holzer, Henry Mark, and Erika Holzer. Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing, and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2003.

Vinh City located in north-central Vietnam not far from the coast in the Ca River Delta. With a modern population of about 250,000 people, Vinh is approximately 160 miles south of Hanoi and serves as the capital of Nghe An Province. During the Vietnam War, Vinh was located in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). For many years Vinh has been a critical transportation hub and an active port, which has direct access to the sea downriver. Vinh also served as a key spot astride the major route connecting northern and southern Vietnam. Over the centuries, this old city has been known by a number of different names. Not until 1789 was the name “Vinh” fixed, likely a result of European influences then making their way into Indochina. It is thought by many Vietnamese to be the gateway to the south. Officials of the Tay Son dynasty period (ca. 1788–1802) allegedly considered making Vinh the capital of Vietnam. In the late 19th century, by which time the French had colonized Indochina, French officials made Vinh a hub of local industry, and the city became known for its factories and relatively large working class. The city was at the epicenter of several uprisings and rebellions against colonial rule in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A number of Vietnamese revolutionaries hailed from Vinh and its environs including Ho Chi Minh, who was born in a small village about nine miles west of the city. In the 20th century major portions of the city were damaged or destroyed, first during the early 1950s in fighting between the Viet Minh and French forces. During U.S. bombing campaigns in the 1960s and early 1970s, the city was again badly damaged. Because of this, little remains of the original city. In the post–Vietnam War era, the Vietnamese reconstructed much of Vinh but did not adhere to the older style of architecture. Indeed, city planners took many of their cues from Soviet and East German city designs. As a result, modern Vinh has a decidedly urban Communist look to it, with wide streets and row upon row of nondescript concrete apartment buildings. Today, tourists are drawn to Vinh principally because of the Hong Son Temple, a large complex and one of the few temples that was not mandated closed by Vietnamese officials after the war.

1300

Vo Chi Cong

Located not far from Vinh is the Cua Lo beach resort, which is quite popular among residents of Hanoi. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Geography of Indochina and Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh; Tay Son Rebellion; Viet Minh References Buttinger, Joseph. Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1967. Dutt, Ashok J., ed. Southeast Asia: Realm of Contrasts. 3rd rev. ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. SarDesai, D. R. Southeast Asia: Past and Present. 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.

Vinh San See Duy Tan

Vo Chi Cong Birth Date: August 7, 1912 Vietnamese nationalist, Communist political leader, and chairman of the State Council of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam during 1987–1992. Vo Chi Cong was born on August 7, 1912, at Da Nang in central Vietnam. As a young man, possibly even as a teenager, he met nationalist visionary Phan Boi Chau and became involved in the nationalist struggle against French colonial rule. Active in a number of pro-Communist organizations beginning in 1935, Cong joined the Anti-Fascist Democratic Front in 1936. In 1942 he was arrested by French authorities, charged with subversion, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He remained in prison until March 1945. During the First Indochina War, Cong spent a year and a half (1950–1951) directing Viet Minh efforts to organize resistance in northeastern Cambodia and southern Laos, after which he was appointed secretary of the Quang Nam–Da Nang Party committee. When Viet Minh forces regrouped in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in late 1954 under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Agreement, Cong remained behind as a senior member of the Region 5 Party Committee; Region 5 at that time was responsible for the northern half of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In 1959 Cong became the chief of Region 5 when he was appointed secretary of the Region Party Committee, a position he held until mid-1961 when he was sent down to the Tay Ninh area to serve as the deputy party secretary of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), which was the Communist headquarters that controlled all operations, both political and military, in South Vietnam. In 1960 Cong also became a founding member of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam

(National Liberation Front [NLF]) and was elected one of the six vice presidents of the organization at its first congress, held during February 16–March 3, 1962. In March 1963 Cong drafted a report to the NLF’s standing committee on the tasks and activities of the NLF. At the second NLF congress in January 1964 Cong, a dedicated Marxist, explained to the cadre the “acceptable party line” on a variety of issues. In January 1964 Cong was sent back to Region 5 again as Region 5 party secretary with instructions to shake up the Communist effort there, which was in serious disarray. He held this post, along with the concurrent post of political commissar of Region 5, until the end of the war in 1975. In this position he took part in directing the attacks of the 1968 Tet Offensive, the 1972 Easter Offensive, and the final 1975 Spring Offensive in the Region 5 area (from the city of Da Nang south to Cam Ranh Bay). After the reunification of Vietnam, Cong was appointed to the Politburo and served as deputy prime minister from 1976 to 1982, also holding the positions as minister of fisheries during 1976–1977 and minister of agriculture during 1977–1978. From June 18, 1987, to September 22, 1992, he was titular head of state for Vietnam. By the time he occupied this post, many of the old-guard Vietnamese Communist politicians were retiring or had died, including Truong Chinh and Pham Van Dong. This was a particularly difficult time for Vietnam because of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of communism in much of Eastern Europe, which meant that the nation could no longer count on the Soviets or their client states for support. These events helped force the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia, paving the way for normalization of relations with its neighbors and its inclusion in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which occurred in 1995. Cong supported many reform measures introduced during this time period, including the liberalization of the economy and efforts to attract foreign tourists and much-needed foreign investments. He retired from public life on September 22, 1992. Cong currently lives in retirement in Ho Chi Minh City. JUSTIN J. CORFIELD See also Central Office for South Vietnam; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Viet Cong Infrastructure; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present References Elliott, David W. P. The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930–1975. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2006. Kolko. Gabriel. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace. New York: Routledge, 1997. Lau, Teik Soon, and Bilveer Singh. The Soviet Union in the Asia-Pacific Region. Singapore: Heinemann Asia, 1989. Military History Institute. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam (1954–1959). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Vo Chi Cong. Tren Nhung Chang Duong Cach Mang (Hoi Ky) [On the Road of Revolution: A Memoir]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2001.

Voices in Vital America

Vogt, John W., Jr. Birth Date: March 18, 1920 Death Date: April 16, 2010 U.S. Air Force general. Born in Elizabeth, New York, on March 18, 1920, John W. Vogt Jr. enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1941 and was commissioned and received his pilot’s wings in 1942. He also earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from Columbia University. During World War II Vogt was a fighter pilot in the 63rd and 360th Fighter squadrons in Europe. He rose steadily through the ranks, holding a series of command and staff positions. In 1951 he worked as a special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and then served on the planning board of the National Security Council. In 1960 he was assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Air Force Headquarters. Vogt served as deputy assistant director of plans and then held a succession of staff planning positions. In February 1963 he became director of the Policy Planning Staff for the assistant secretary of defense. From 1965 to 1968 Vogt served as deputy for plans and operations, Pacific Air Forces, in Honolulu, Hawaii. In this capacity

1301

he participated in the planning and direction of the air campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In 1972 he was named commander of the Seventh U.S. Air Force in Vietnam and concurrently deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), replacing General John D. Lavelle who was relieved of command for allegedly submitting false reports about bombing missions against North Vietnam. The 1972 Easter bombardment of North Vietnam, a response to North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive (Operation LINEBACKER I), was carried out under his direction. Vogt presided over the pullout of U.S. forces from Vietnam through the remainder of 1972 to March 1973, after which his headquarters was moved to Nakhom Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base. Vogt also oversaw Operation LINEBACKER II, a withering U.S. bombardment of North Vietnam in December 1972 designed to force the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table. In October 1973 he departed Thailand to assume command of Pacific Air Forces in Hawaii and then undertook a tour as commander of the U.S. Air Force in Europe. He retired from active duty as a full (four-star) general on August 31, 1975. Vogt died in Melbourne, Florida, on April 16, 2010. ROBERT G. MANGRUM AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Airpower, Role in War; Lavelle, John Daniel; LINEBACKER I, Operation; LINEBACKER II, Operation; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; United States Air Force References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years; The U.S. Army in Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. Summers, Harry G., Jr. The Vietnam War Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Voices in Vital America

U.S. Air Force general John W. Vogt, commander of Pacific Air Forces during October 1973–June 1974. (Department of Defense)

Los Angeles–based student organization that sought to call public attention to the plight of prisoners of war (POWs) and those reported missing in action (MIA) during the Vietnam War. Ultimately, Voices in Vital American (VIVA) drew attention to its cause by distributing metal bracelets that contained an etching of a POW’s or MIA’s name, rank, branch of service, loss date, and the country in which he was believed to be residing. During the early 1970s the bracelets became something of a sensation, and many Americans wore the bracelets to demonstrate their support and sympathy for POWs and MIAs. Begun by activist Carol Oates in 1969, the organization soon garnered nationwide support, and entertainers Bob Hope and Martha Raye served on VIVA’s board as honorary cochairmen.

1302

Vo Nguyen Giap

In 1969 Oates and other college students met with the wives of three downed pilots who were believed to have been taken captive by Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) troops. During that encounter the idea of a bracelet to serve as a constant reminder of POWs and MIAs was first advanced. The fledgling organization at first lacked the funding to produce a large number of bracelets, but a small engraving shop in Santa Monica, California, agreed to etch 10 metal bracelets, which served as the catalyst for the VIVA bracelet phenomenon. Throughout the remainder of 1969 and into 1970, Oates and her fellow students tried in vain to raise adequate funds to massproduce the bracelets. Finally, the husband of one of VIVA’s advisers agreed to donate sufficient metal to make 1,200 bracelets, and the Santa Monica engraver agreed to etch them. VIVA promised to repay the engraver with a portion of the profits from sales of the bracelets. In the late summer of 1970 VIVA began selling the bracelets, charging $2.50 for nickel-plated bracelets and $3.00 for copperplated bracelets. Sales were brisk, as VIVA first targeted families with POWs and MIAs in Vietnam. In November 1970 the bracelet campaign was officially launched with the help of numerous highprofile entertainers and media personalities. The response was astounding, and within six months VIVA was receiving as many as 12,000 bracelet requests per day. VIVA used part of the proceeds to produce brochures, bumper stickers, T-shirts, radio advertising, and other items to bring even more attention to Vietnam POWs and MIAs. VIVA also donated money to local POW/MIA organizations. Before long VIVA became involved in other programs for POWs and MIAs, but the bracelet program became its best-known effort. The organization was tightly run, with a small administrative staff. Indeed, VIVA strove to keep its total management costs under 20 percent of its income. By the time VIVA was dissolved in 1976, it had sold more than 5 million bracelets; distributed millions of bumper stickers, buttons, banners, and T-shirts; and had taken out hundreds of highprofile advertisements in newspapers all around the country. VIVA made great strides in keeping up awareness for the plight of POWs, MIAs, and their families, and its ubiquitous bracelets could be seen around the wrists of students and adults alike. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Hope, Leslie Townes; Missing in Action, Allied; Prisoners of War, Allied References Doyle, Robert C. Voices from Captivity: Interpreting the American POW Narrative. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Keating, Susan Katz. Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW/MIA Myth in America. New York: Random House, 1994.

Vo Nguyen Giap Birth Date: August 25, 1911 Vietnamese leader of the military struggles from 1944 to 1980 against Japan, France, the United States, Cambodia, and China. Vo Nguyen Giap was born on August 25, 1911, to a townswoman, Nguyen Thi Kien, and her husband, Vo Quang Nghiem, in the tiny village of An Xa along the banks of the Kien Giang River, a subdistrict of Quang Ninh, Le Thuy District, in Quang Binh Province in central Annam just north of the 17th Parallel. Giap was the sixth of eight children, the first three having died in infancy. Giap completed his primary education in local schools and in 1925 moved to Hue to study at the Quoc Hoc, or Lycée Nationale. Regarded by school authorities as an agitator, he was expelled in 1927 and worked for a time as a journalist. He also joined the Tan Viet Cach Menh Dang (Revolutionary Party for a New Vietnam), which soon split into two factions. Giap allied himself with the Communist wing and thereafter lived a double life as a journalist and a secret revolutionary. Giap was caught in a police dragnet at the end of 1930 and was sentenced to serve two years at hard labor at Lao Bao, a French prison in the mountains near Laos. There he met his future wife, 15-year-old Nguyen Thi Quang Thai, daughter of a railroad employee in Vinh. Given an early release, Giap moved to Vinh and stayed at the home of Professor Dang Thai Mai, a former teacher of literature at the Quoc Hoc. There Giap met Mai’s daughter, Dang Bich Ha, then a toddler (she was born in 1929), who called him chu (“uncle”) and would one day became his second wife. After moving to Hanoi, Giap studied at the Lycée Albert Sarraut, graduating in 1934. Thereupon he accepted a job as teacher of history and French at Lycée Thang Long (Rising Dragon). He simultaneously published a newspaper, Hon Tre Tap Moi (Soul of Youth, New Edition), which was shut down by authorities after its fifth issue. Thereupon Giap published Le Travail (Work) and initiated at least 11 other short-lived journals. He also began studies at the School of Law of the University of Hanoi, and in 1938 he received his license en droit with a concentration in political economy. Giap joined the Communist Party in 1937 and sometime before April 1939 married Quang Thai. In early 1940 they had a daughter, Hong Anh (“Red Queen of Flowers”). In April 1940 the party ordered him to flee into southern China. He left behind his wife and daughter, never again to see Quang Thai, who was arrested by the French in May 1941 and tortured to death in Hoa Lo (“The Oven”) Prison in Hanoi. Traveling with Pham Van Dong, Giap reached southern China and there met Nguyen Ai Quoc, now calling himself Ho Chi Minh. Under Ho’s orders, Giap returned to the mountains of northern Tonkin between 1941 and 1945 and, with his cadre, worked among the hill tribes (Nung, Tho, Man Trang, Man Tien, Tay [Tai], Dao, Hmong, and others), converting them to the anti-French cause. One of his followers, Chu Van Tan, became a leader in the first armed re-

Vo Nguyen Giap

General Vo Nguyen Giap was the capable military commander of the Viet Minh against the French during the Indochina War. He also commanded the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) against the Americans during the Vietnam War. (Getty Images)

sistance organization, the Army for National Salvation. Meanwhile, Ho organized a new group, the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnam Independence League), or Viet Minh. Its rivals for power included the Dang Dai Viet, a nationalist middle-class urban group; the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, an older group founded in 1927 by radical intellectuals; and the Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi, founded in 1942 under Chinese sponsorship. Giap’s Viet Minh cadres were most successful in enlisting support among both lowland Vietnamese and hill people. He insisted on such a rigid code of conduct for his agents that tribal women began calling them “men without cocks.” French efforts between 1942 and 1944 to destroy this fledgling movement came to be called the time of the “white terror.” On December 22, 1944, Giap formed 34 men into the Viet Nam Tuyen Truyen Giai Phong Quan (Vietnam Armed Propaganda Liberation Brigade). The first attacks against the French came on December 24 when Giap’s unit struck outposts at Phai Khat and Na Ngan. During a later attack on the town of Thai Nguyen on August 20, 1945, Giap learned that the Japanese had surrendered, and he

1303

marched his men into Hanoi. Between August 19 and 30 Ho’s Viet Minh grabbed power from the Red River to the Mekong Delta. Giap became minister of the interior of the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and was later named to the rank of full general and commander of all Viet Minh military forces. Widely recognized as a master logistician, Giap also became adept at tactics and strategy. He drew his understanding of military science from many sources, including patriotic inspiration from his own country’s past heroes such as Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, Ly Bon and Ngo Quyen, and Tran Hung Dao and Nguyen Hue. Giap also learned from the writings of Sun Tzu, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Vladimir Lenin. Giap knew of Napoleon’s campaigns and assiduously studied the writings of T. E. Lawrence. From all of these as well as his own field experiences, Giap welded together an approach to combat that confounded his enemies. Military incidents with the French in Tonkin, particularly at Haiphong, caused Giap to issue a national call to arms on December 19, 1946. Retreating in the face of French strength, by early 1947 the Viet Minh government and Giap’s army were once again hiding in the remote fastnesses of North Vietnam. During the next years Giap put together an army of nearly 300,000 troops and militia and made a series of attacks against French troops and positions, sometimes sustaining horrific casualties. In 1953 he launched a drive into Laos, having already gained control of most of central and North Vietnam outside the coastal lowlands. French military commander General Henri Navarre, seeking a setpiece battle with Giap’s forces, chose to commit 10,000 troops to an isolated valley in northwestern Vietnam astride Giap’s line of communication to Laos at Dien Bien Phu. Giap secretly brought recently obtained artillery into the surrounding mountains, a development that the French considered impossible. He also massed 50,000 troops and laid siege for 55 days to French strong points in the valley. The French surrendered on May 8, 1954, and then at Geneva gave up further efforts to control Vietnam north of the 17th Parallel. Giap also led the military campaign against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Giap, like Mao, believed that revolutionary warfare against a government passed through three stages: guerrilla warfare, strategic defense, and counteroffensive. Giap was long concerned that the United States might invade North Vietnam and, when he believed his forces strong enough, frequently orchestrated frontal attacks on U.S. positions, as in the Ia Drang Valley (November 1965), at Khe Sanh (January 1968), and in the Tet Offensive (January 1968). Militarily opposed to the latter, he bowed before the greater political influence of Le Duan, General Nguyen Chi Thanh, and their allies in the Politburo. These individuals, all dedicated to the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government, faulted Giap for his reticence to use his units boldly below the 17th Parallel and consistently called for increased military action in South Vietnam.

1304

Vo Tran Chi

The Tet Offensive destroyed the Viet Cong (VC) and forced the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops to carry the burden of the war. Still, Tet was a strategic victory for the Communists even though it was a tactical defeat. Following Ho’s death (September 2, 1969), Giap shared power with Le Duan, who controlled domestic affairs, and Pham Van Dong, who presided over the Foreign Ministry. Giap’s goals were to prolong the war, to inflict setbacks to U.S. president Richard Nixon’s policy of Vietnamization, and to impose continuing casualties on U.S. troops. Not until 1970 did Giap order new offensives, concentrating on the conquest of southern Laos and destabilization of Cambodia’s border region. In 1972 with some dismay because he believed that the time was not yet ripe, Giap planned his Easter Offensive. The Politburo had called for the offensive, assuming that with U.S. forces all but withdrawn, South Vietnam was ripe for attack. Once again Giap’s misgivings were proven correct. Throughout most of South Vietnam, after initial withdrawals, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) held its positions when buttressed with massive American air strikes. Nixon also ordered extensive bombings of North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. The PAVN suffered more than 100,000 casualties. Still, when it was over Giap’s divisions occupied territory never before controlled, and the terms of the January 1973 peace agreement did not require their removal. Ironically, although he retained his post of minister of defense, the Politburo then stripped Giap—who had opposed the entire offensive—of his command of the PAVN and gave it to his chief of staff and longtime disciple, General Van Tien Dung. It was Dung who led the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, the final assault on South Vietnam in 1975. Thereafter Giap’s life consisted of a round of visits to countries, most of which were Communist: Cuba, Algeria, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, China, Yemen, Madagascar, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Guinea, Benin, Congo, and Angola. Appointed to head the Ministry of Science and Technology, Giap opposed the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and played only a supervisory role in it and in the conflict with China that began in 1979. In 1977 Giap retired as minister of defense, lost his position in the party Politburo in 1982, and in August 1991 was forced to give up his remaining post as vice premier in charge of family planning. Now viewed as a “national treasure,” Giap has lived quietly at his villa, appearing on ceremonial occasions but closely watched by his government, which feared that he might lead a military coup against it. CECIL B. CURREY See also Dau Tranh Strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh; Ia Drang, Battle of; Khe Sanh, Battle of; Le Duan; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Nguyen Chi Thanh; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pham Van Dong; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Transportation Group 559; Van Tien Dung; Viet Minh; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Wei Guoqing

References Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977. Vo Nguyen Giap. Dien Bien Phu. 5th ed., revised and supplemented. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 1994. Vo Nguyen Giap. Unforgettable Days. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978. Who’s Who in the Socialist Countries. New York: Saur, 1978.

Vo Tran Chi Birth Date: ca. 1926 Prominent figure in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). Vu Tran Chi was born around 1926. Little is known about his activities during the Vietnam War except that he was a guerrilla leader in the Saigon area. In 1977 Chi was elected secretary of the VCP Committee of the 5th District of Ho Chi Minh City, the main commercial section of the former Saigon. In 1986 he became secretary of the VCP Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, a position he retained through 1996. Chi was promoted to the Politburo in June 1991. A protégé of Premier Vo Van Kiet of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), Chi was regarded as a staunch conservative. Approximately 70 years old in June 1996, he was dropped from the Politburo at the VCP Eighth Congress. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party; Vo Van Kiet Reference Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Vo Van Ba Birth Date: 1923 Death Date: June 8, 1975 The most productive Vietnam War spy of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and/or the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Vo Van Ba was born in 1923 in Long An Province in southern Vietnam. A district-level Communist cadre operating in Tay Ninh Province, Ba was recruited as a spy for South Vietnamese intelligence in the mid-1960s. In 1969 the CIA and the South Vietnamese Police Special Branch turned the case into a joint operation, and Vo Van Ba quickly became the CIA’s top reporting

Vo Van Kiet

1305

source inside the Vietnamese Communist ranks. He continued reporting to the CIA and the South Vietnamese government until the end of the war in April 1975. Ba provided voluminous information on the latest resolutions and directives from the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the Communist headquarters in South Vietnam, as well as on Communist plans and intentions. In April 1975 just before the war ended, the Communists learned of Ba’s espionage activities from a recently captured South Vietnamese prisoner. Ba was arrested by Communist security officers in Tay Ninh on April 30, 1975. He reportedly committed suicide on June 8, 1975, while in prison. MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II See also Central Intelligence Agency References Corn, David. Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Pribbenow, Merle. “The Most Famous Unknown Spies of the Vietnam War.” Presentation delivered to the Vietnam Center Conference at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, October 2006. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977. Sullivan, John F. Of Spies and Lies: A CIA Lie Detector Remembers Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.

Vo Van Kiet Birth Date: November 23, 1922 Death Date: June 11, 2008 Prominent leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Born Phan Van Hoa on November 23, 1922, into a peasant family in Trung Hiep village, Vung Liem District, Vinh Long Province in the Mekong Delta, Vo Van Kiet became a revolutionary in 1938 and joined the Indochinese Communist Party the next year. He was active as a leader in the anti-French youth movement, and from 1941 to 1945 while in Rach Gia he joined the VCP Provincial Committee and participated in an attempt to seize power in the August 1945 armed uprising at Vung Liem. After the uprising Kiet was deputy secretary of the VCP committee of Rach Gia Province. During the early period of the Indochina War he was a political commissar with the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) guerrilla units in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). ln 1950 he was transferred to Bac Lieu Province, where he became provincial VCP secretary. In 1955 Kiet was on the Southern Region Party Committee and was deputy secretary of the Hau Giang Interzone. He then became VCP secretary of the Saigon–Gia Dinh Zone. At the 1960 VCP Third Congress Kiet became an alternate member of the VCP Central Committee. He was also a member of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) VCP committee

Vietnamese prime minister Vo Van Kiet addresses the National Assembly beneath a bust of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, 1996. (AP/Wide World Photos)

and was party secretary for the Saigon–Gia Dinh Zone. In 1970 Kiet became party secretary for Region 9 (the southern half of the Mekong Delta). In 1973 he returned to work at COSVN headquarters, where he remained until Communist forces captured Saigon on April 30, 1975. After the 1975 victory by the PAVN and the Viet Cong (VC), Kiet became secretary of the Special Party Committee of the Military Management Committee and vice chairman of the Military Management Committee of Saigon. Later he became deputy party secretary and chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee. He was elected a deputy to the Sixth National Assembly of the SRV. At the 1976 VCP Fourth Congress, Kiet became a full member of the Central Committee and also was elected as an alternate member of the Politburo, assigned to the position of party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City. At the 1982 VCP Fifth Congress Kiet was elected to the Politburo. At the same time he was also appointed to the posts of deputy prime minister and chairman of the State Planning Committee. At the 1986 VCP Sixth Congress Kiet was elected to full membership on the Politburo. In 1987 he was elected to the eighth National Assembly and was appointed as first deputy prime minister.

1306

Vu Hong Khanh

Following the March 1988 death of Premier Pham Hung, Kiet became acting prime minister. In June, Do Muoi took over from Kiet as prime minister. In June 1991 Kiet took over as chairman of the SRV Council of Ministers, or prime minister of Vietnam, replacing Do Muoi. Kiet retained that position until 1997, when he was replaced by his deputy, Phan Van Khai. Considered energetic and charming, Kiet was regarded as a moderate within the VCP and an advocate of the policy of doi moi (“renovation”) that was adopted by the SRV during the late 1980s. This included the use of material incentives, decentralized decision making, and limited free enterprise, replacing the Soviet-style government-controlled economy. He also favored normalization of relations with the United States. Kiet traveled widely in Asia and Europe seeking both foreign investment and the strengthening of diplomatic relationships. During Kiet’s tenure as prime minister, President Bill Clinton lifted the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam in 1994 and established diplomatic relations with Vietnam the following year. After Kiet stepped down as prime minister he continued to advocate reform, including freedom of the press and dialogue with dissident elements. Kiet died in Singapore on June 11, 2008. NGO NGOC TRUNG See also Pham Hung; Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. “Vo Van Kiet, Reformer and Ex-Premier of Vietnam, Is Dead at 85.” New York Times, June 12, 2008.

Vua Duc Tong See Tu Duc

Vua Thanh To See Minh Mang

Vu Hai Thu See Nguyen Hai Than

Vu Hong Khanh Birth Date: 1898 Death Date: November 14, 1993 Prominent leader of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnam National Party, VNQDD). Born in 1898 in Tho Tang village (as

was Nguyen Thai Hoc), Vinh Tuong District, Vinh Yen Province, Vu Hong Khanh’s real name was Vu Van Giang. A graduate of the Hanoi Teachers School, he was assigned a teaching post in Kien An Province. He was one of the first to join the VNQDD. In the 1930 uprising, Khanh commanded the VNQDD force attacking French colonial bases in Haiphong City and Kien An Province. His force failed to take its objectives and caused only light damage. After the uprising Khanh fled to southern China where, along with Nguyen Hai Than, Nghiem Ke To, and others, he helped reorganize the VNQDD. In the process Khanh encountered difficulties, because despite the support of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek), local Chinese authorities did not always favor the nationalist Vietnamese. In August 1945 right after Ho Chi Minh took over Hanoi, Khanh directed VNQDD militia units in attacks against Japanese troops in Ha Giang Province and other border areas. That September he returned to Hanoi to work with Nguyen Hai Than, chairman of the Viet Nam Cach Mang Dong Minh Hoi (VNCMDMH), a coalition of several nationalist parties. In early 1946 Khanh became vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), of which Vo Nguyen Giap was the chairman. Khanh was a cosignatory of the March 6, 1946, preliminary agreement between Ho Chi Minh and French representative Jean Sainteny. Many of Khanh’s nationalist colleagues were critical of him for this agreement, which they saw as a sellout to the French. When the Viet Minh launched its offensive to eliminate the nationalist opposition, Khanh led VNQDD militia units in the northern border areas against both the Viet Minh and the French. In 1948 he went to southern China, where a year later he convened a congress and founded the Mat Tran Cach Mang Lien Minh (Allied Revolution Front). The government of Jiang Jieshi recognized the Allied Revolution Front as the Vietnamese government-in-exile. After the Chinese Communists defeated the Nationalists, in November 1949 Vu Hong Khanh led three infantry divisions of Vietnamese and Chinese across the border into Vietnam. His troops promptly came under attack by both the Viet Minh and the French Army. Fierce fighting and supply shortages coupled with an appeal from Bao Dai, chief of state of the newly established State of Vietnam, led Khanh to side with the State of Vietnam. In 1952 he became minister of youth in the cabinet of Premier Nguyen Van Tam. Khanh did not hold any government post after 1954, but he remained a VNQDD leader in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In June 1975 following the Communist victory in the war, he was sentenced to prison. Released in 1979, he was kept under house arrest in his home village of Tho Tang until his death there on November 14, 1993. NGUYEN CONG LUAN See also Bao Dai; Ho Chi Minh; Ho-Sainteny Agreement; Nguyen Hai Than; Pham Duy; Sainteny, Jean; Van Cao; Vo Nguyen Giap

VULTURE, Operation

References Cao The Dung. Viet Nam Huyet Le Su. New Orleans: Dong Huong, 1996. Hoang Van Dao. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Saigon: Published by the author, 1970; reprinted in the United States. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Pham Kim Vinh. The Vietnamese Culture. Solana Beach, CA: PM Enterprises, 1994.

VULTURE,

Operation

Start Date: March 1954 End Date: April 1954 Proposed U.S. military intervention in the Indochina War. On March 13, 1954, Viet Minh commanding general Vo Nguyen Giap launched an attack on the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu established in far northwestern Vietnam on the orders of commander in Indochina General Henri Navarre. Ultimately Giap committed to the battle four divisions of 49,500 troops against a total French strength with reinforcements of only 13,000. Both sides recognized the importance of the battle, which took place against the backdrop of an international conference in Geneva, called to discuss Asian affairs. In February 1954 French Army chief of staff General Paul Henri Romuald Ély and Defense Minister René Pleven undertook a factfinding mission to Indochina. Convinced that France could not win the war there without massive military assistance, Ély traveled to Washington to meet with U.S. government officials. Arriving there on March 20, 1954, Ély candidly informed his American counterpart, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, of the probable fall of Dien Bien Phu and the serious consequences this would have for the Indochina War and perhaps for all of Southeast Asia. Radford recommended that the United States consider direct military intervention, most likely in the form of airpower, should the French government so request. This was the origin of Operation VULTURE. Despite opposition from U.S. Army chief of staff General Matthew B. Ridgway, Radford encouraged Ély to believe that the United States would intervene should Paris request it. Afer Ély’s return to Paris, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration did decide to send the French 25 additional B-25 medium bombers. Although the military options varied, the plan revolved around an air strike by between 60 and 100 U.S. Air Force B-50 bombers from the Philippines, supported by several hundred U.S. Navy jet fighters flying off U.S. aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The option of attacking Viet Minh forces in the mountains surrounding Dien Bien Phu was abandoned because of the inadequacy of French radar. Another option called for air strikes against Viet Minh base areas and lines of communication to the Chinese border. Finally, there was discussion of possible air bursts with nuclear weapons. A Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) study committee concluded that three

1307

tactical nuclear bombs would be sufficient to smash the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu. On March 29 U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles delivered a speech to the Overseas Press Club in New York City in which he called for “united action” to meet the Communist threat in Southeast Asia. Several days later during a press conference President Eisenhower seconded Dulles’s call although without promising direct U.S. assistance. Vice President Richard Nixon was among those urging intervention, suggesting that the United States might have to “put American boys in.” On April 3 Dulles and Radford met with congressional leaders to solicit their support should Eisenhower decide that military intervention was necessary. The legislators set three conditions to secure congressional approval: the intervention would have to be multinational effort, including Britain and Commonwealth nations; France would have to promise to accelerate independence for Indochina; and France would promise not to withdraw from the war should the United States become directly involved. On April 4 Navarre cabled Ély to report a deterioration in conditions at Dien Bien Phu and to call for a U.S. air strike. That same night the French government formally requested immediate U.S. intervention. During a press conference on April 7 Eisenhower referred to the possible loss of Indochina to communism as the “falling domino principle,” the first occasion in public that the administration had used the term. Eisenhower again refused to commit the United States to unilateral military action, however. Dulles then flew to London and Paris to meet with his counterparts. British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, while publicly supporting the principle of collective defense, refused any specific commitment. Dulles then flew on to Paris, where the French government sought to bargain with him over the European Defense Community (EDC), which the U.S. government earnestly sought. On April 22 Dulles informed the French that without French approval of the EDC there was no chance of U.S. intervention. Foreign Minister Georges Bidault responded that if Dien Bien Phu surrendered, France would have no interest in the EDC. Bidault said that the only alternatives were Operation VULTURE or an Indochina ceasefire. French premier Joseph Laniel then appealed to the British government for its participation, the precondition for U.S. military intervention. Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the British cabinet into emergency session, but the cabinet decided against involvement. The British believed that the battle was too far gone and that France should seek to resolve the situation diplomatically at the Geneva Conference. Foreign Minister Eden noted prophetically that “I am beginning to think Americans are quite ready to supplant French and see themselves in the role of liberators of Vietnamese patriotism and expulsers or redeemers of Communist insurgency in Indochina. If so they are in for a painful awakening.” On May 7, 1954, Dien Bien Phu surrendered. The next day the French government entered into negotiations at Geneva to extricate France from Vietnam. SPENCER C. TUCKER

1308

Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong Spy Case

See also Bidault, Georges; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Dulles, John Foster; Eden, Sir Robert Anthony; Eisenhower, Dwight David; Ély, Paul Henri Romuald; European Defense Community; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Laniel, Joseph; Navarre, Henri Eugène; Radford, Arthur William; Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Twining, Nathan Farragut; Vo Nguyen Giap References Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention in Vietnam. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Billings-Yun, Melanie. Decision against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Eden, Anthony. Full Circle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate for Change, 1953–1956: The White House Years. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963. Ely, Paul. Mémoires: L’Indochine dans la Tourmente. Paris: Plon, 1964. Gardner, Lloyd C. Approaching Vietnam: From World War II through Dienbienphu. New York: Norton, 1989. Prados, John. The Sky Would Fall: Operation Vulture, the U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954. New York: Dial, 1983. Radford, Arthur W. From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford. Edited by Stephen Jurika Jr. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1980.

Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong Spy Case Event Date: 1969 The largest spy arrest and trial of the Vietnam War. Vu Ngoc Nha was a spy for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) who was sent to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) following the 1954 Geneva Agreement, masquerading as a refugee from North Vietnam. He was able to infiltrate conservative Catholic circles and became a confidant of Catholic leaders in South Vietnam. Nha recruited a large network of subagents. One of Nha’s agents was Huynh Van Trong, who worked as South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu’s special assistant for political affairs. After a joint investigation conducted by the South Vietnamese National Police and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Nha, Trong, and a number of other members of the ring were arrested in 1969. After a public trial that attracted international attention, all were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. In the summer of 1973 Nha, Trong, and the other imprisoned members of the spy ring were released as part of a prisoner exchange with Communist forces under the terms of the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords. After his release, Nha resumed his espionage operations. He reestablished contact with prominent South Vietnamese Catholic leaders who refused to believe that he was actually a Communist spy. Nha returned to Saigon secretly in early 1975 to work with the third-force movement to try to overthrow the South Vietnamese government and was present at the Presidential Palace in Saigon on April 30, 1975, when General Duong

Van Minh surrendered to Communist forces. After the war Nha was promoted to the rank of major general in the intelligence service of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). He died in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in 2002. MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II See also Central Intelligence Agency; Nguyen Van Thieu; Pham Xuan An References Bass, Thomas A. The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An’s Dangerous Game. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. Phan Nhan. “Ong Co Van Huynh Van Trong La Ai” [Who Was Advisor Huynh Van Trong]. Phuong Hoang: Tieng Noi Cua Tong Hoi Canh Sat Quoc Gia Viet Nam Cong Hoa [Phoenix Magazine: The Voice of the Republic of Vietnam’s National Police Association], Tet 2004 Special Issue, California. Shackley, Ted, and Richard Finney. Spymaster: My Life in the CIA. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005.

Vung Tau Located approximately 77 miles to the south-southeast of Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City), Vung Tau, in the province of Phuoc Tuy, was a popular rest and recuperation town that served the military personnel of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and their allies. The Viet Cong (VC) was also active there during the Vietnam War. The seaside city is situated at the end of a 10-mile-long and 3-mile-wide peninsula that serves as a natural harbor. Its present-day name, Vung Tau (meaning a cove or bay where ships can anchor), is derived from the maritime traditions of its location. Vung Tau was first settled by the Vietnamese during the reign of Emperor Gia Long in the early 19th century when he sent soldiers led by three generals to oust Malayan pirates who were using the harbor as a base of operations. For their eventual victory Emperor Ming Mang, Gia Long’s successor, offered the generals the lands they had conquered as payment for their service and allowed them to settle in the area. With its natural bay and picturesque and accommodating coastline, Vung Tau became a significant fishing center. During the French occupation of Indochina, Vung Tau was referred to as Cap (Cape) Saint Jacques and was used by the French to control the mouth of the Saigon River. In the late 19th century it was developed into a resort town for the wealthier French. Its double identity as a resort town and a fishing haven allowed for Vung Tau’s unique history in the 20th century. Vung Tau was a focal point for refugees arriving in the newly constituted South Vietnam from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) after the 1954 Geneva Accords had temporarily divided the country and allowed for a 300-day period of free and unobstructed transport between the two Vietnams. Many of the refugees who fled by sea, via the American naval op-

Vu Oanh

1309

Young Vietnamese women and American GIs at the beach at Vung Tau, the last sea resort unscarred by the Vietnam War, August 7, 1967. (AP/Wide World Photos)

eration PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, arrived in Cap Saint Jacques and settled in Phuoc Tuy. During the Vietnam War the 1st Australian Task Force established its base of operations in Phuoc Tuy Province and was responsible for conducting operations in and around Vung Tau, which was transformed from a resort town to a major rest and recuperation facility for allied soldiers. The pacification program’s Revolutionary Development (RD) cadre training center was also located in the Vung Tau area. Immediately after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, many South Vietnamese fled by sea through Vung Tau, using any boats that were available there. Later Vung Tau was a principal point of departure for the so-called boat people. Vung Tau remained a resort town after the war. The town’s postwar expansion was fueled by the oil industry, as the headquarters for VietSovPetro, a joint-venture company of the Soviet Union–Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), was located in the city. Today Vung Tau is well known for its hotels, restaurants, beautiful beaches, and resort activities and is a vacation destination for both Vietnamese and foreign tourists. Vung Tau can be reached from Ho Chi Minh City in about two hours via the 51A Expressway or in 75 minutes by hydrofoil. RONALD B. FRANKUM JR.

See also PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation; Refugees and Boat People; Viet Cong

Infrastructure; Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center References Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Operation Passage to Freedom: The United States Navy in Vietnam, 1954–1955. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2007. Tran Trung Chinh. The Province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Gioi Publishers, 1994.

Vu Oanh Birth Date: ca. 1929 Prominent official in the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Vu Oanh was probably born in 1929. During the Vietnam War he was the political commissar of a division commanded by General Van Tien Dung, who led the victorious 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign. In 1972 Oanh was deputy chief of the VCP Central Committee Organization Department, one of the most important bodies in charge of personnel matters.

1310

Vu Quoc Thuc

In December 1976 at the VCP Fourth Congress, Oanh was elected as an alternate member, and in 1979 he was named chief of the VCP Central Committee’s Agriculture Department. Three years later he became a full member of the VCP Fifth Central Committee, and in 1985 he was named chairman of the Vietnamese Collective Farmers Federation. In 1986 Oanh was elected as a member of the VCP Central Committee’s Secretariat. In June 1991 during the VCP Seventh Congress he was promoted to the Politburo in charge of mass mobilization. Oanh was apparently the architect of the SRV’s new policy of opening up to the outside world in the wake of political upheaval in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He was a deputy to the National Assembly from Hoa Binh Province as well as chairman of its Economic Committee. Approximately 67 years old, Oanh retired from the Politburo at the VCP Eighth Congress in June 1996. NGO NGOC TRUNG

Vu left Vietnam for France in July 1978 and became a full professor at the University of Paris, where he taught until his retirement in 1988. LONG BA NGUYEN

See also Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present; Vietnamese Communist Party

Vu Van Giai

References Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987.

Vu Quoc Thuc Birth Date: August 5, 1920 Prominent Vietnamese intellectual who participated in politics in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) throughout the Vietnam War era. Born in Nam Dinh Province in northern Vietnam on August 5, 1920, Vu Quoc Thuc attended the University of Hanoi and then the University of Paris, where he received his doctorate in law (1950) and an agrégé certificate in economics (1952). Following World War II, he joined the Viet Minh to fight against the French but then left Vietnam for France to pursue graduate study. Returning to Vietnam, he became minister of education and youth in Prince Buu Loc’s cabinet (1953–1954). After the 1954 Geneva Accords, Vu and several colleagues founded the first national university in Saigon. He continued teaching at its school of law until the April 1975 defeat of the South Vietnamese government. He held various important positions such as governor of the central South Vietnamese bank, adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diem, head of the South Vietnamese PostWar Planning Group, and minister of state in charge of reconstruction and development. Vu’s most important contributions during the Vietnam War were his coauthored joint reports with Eugene Staley (1961) and D. E. Lilienthal (1968) on Vietnam postwar reconstruction and development programs, which were submitted to the presidents of the United States and South Vietnam.

See also Ngo Dinh Diem; Staley, Eugene References Lilienthal, D. E., and Vu Quoc Thuc. The Postwar Development of the Republic of Vietnam: Policies and Programs. New York: Praeger, 1970. Vu Quoc Thuc. L’Economie communaliste du Vietnam. Hanoi: Press Universitaire du Vietnam, 1952. Vu Quoc Thuc. “Le Vietnam vainquer et vaincu.” L’Appel de la Nation 40 (June–July 1995): 12–15.

Birth Date: May 12, 1934 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) general. Born on May 12, 1934, in Duy Tac village, Nam Dinh Province, in northern Vietnam, Vu Van Giai graduated from the National Military Academy in Da Lat in June 1954 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Army of the State of Vietnam (later the Republic of Vietnam [RVN, South Vietnam]). After attending airborne school, Giai was assigned to the 5th Airborne Battalion. He then attended the Intelligence Officer Course at Cay Mai and traveled to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he attended the U.S. Army Infantry School. Giai served in various assignments until 1965, when he became the deputy province chief of Quang Nam Province. The following year he assumed command of the 2nd Regiment of the ARVN 1st Infantry Division. In 1970 he became its assistant commander. In that capacity he helped plan and conduct Operation LAM SON 719, the ARVN invasion of Laos in early 1971. In late 1971 Giai, considered to be one of the best of South Vietnam’s junior general officers, was named commanding general of the newly organized 3rd Infantry Division, stationed in northern Military Region I. The division had been built around the 2nd Regiment of the ARVN 1st Division along with the new 56th and 57th regiments, made up of reluctant transferees from local territorial militia units, draftees, and even prisoners from military jails. Even before being deemed combat ready and still at less than one-third its authorized strength, the new division was given responsibility for the defense of northern Quang Tri Province. At noon on March 30, 1972, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces launched their Spring (Easter) Offensive. The brunt of the northernmost prong of the offensive fell on the new 3rd Division, which reeled under the ferocity of the Communist attack. For the next month Giai, whose forces were reinforced by two marine brigades, four ranger groups, and one armored brigade,

Vu Van Giai attempted to stop the PAVN onslaught, but the ARVN forces eventually fell back in disarray. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu removed I Corps commander Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam, but it was Giai who was forced to shoulder most of the blame for the loss of Quang Tri Province. He was arrested and sent to prison. Brigadier General Frederick Kroesen, the senior U.S. adviser in I Corps at the time, said that he believed that Giai had done “the best he could with what he had” and that “the 3rd ARVN Division did very well for a good period of the time, but . . . just ran out of time.” Giai remained in a South Vietnamese jail until 1975, when he was sent to a reeducation camp by the North Vietnamese victors. He was released in 1987, after which he lived in Ho Chi Minh City until 1993, when he immigrated to the United States. He now lives in Stanton, California. JAMES H. WILLBANKS See also Easter Offensive; LAM SON 719, Operation; Quang Tri, Battle of; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Vietnamization

1311

References Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Fulghum, David, and Terrence Maitland. South Vietnam on Trial, Mid-1970 to 1972. The Vietnam Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Ngo Quang Truong. The Easter Offensive of 1972. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Nolan, Keith William. Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son 719, Vietnam 1971. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Wiest, Andrew. Vietnam’s Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

Vu Van Giang See Vu Hong Khanh

This page intentionally left blank

W Wage and Price Controls U.S. government–imposed controls on wages, retail prices, and rents enacted by the Richard M. Nixon administration on August 15, 1971, in reaction to rising inflation and a flagging economy. The imposition of wage and price controls was a controversial move, as some economists predicted that it would make inflation worse rather than better. They were ultimately proven right. Others decried the move because Nixon had earlier stated his opposition to such controls, arguing that government-imposed ceilings on wages and prices interfered too much in private market mechanisms and gave to the federal government too much power to regulate economic activity. By the summer of 1971 Nixon, who earlier in the year had proclaimed that “We are all Keynesians now,” reversed course, partly because of a deteriorating economy but also out of concern for the following year’s presidential election. The Vietnam War and its attendant costs, coupled with increased social spending beginning in the mid-1960s, had conspired to bring about great economic instability by the early 1970s. The Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s adherence to a fullemployment economy, coupled with high military spending and dramatically increased social spending, badly distorted the U.S. economy by the late 1960s, the first and principal result of which was rising inflation. Nixon essentially continued Johnson’s policies, which included a sizable role for the federal government in regulating economic activity. In a nutshell, the guns-and-butter economic policies pursued by the United States since the mid1960s began to seriously affect the American economy. Keynesianism, attributed to British economist John Maynard Keynes, relied on government spending to prime the pump of the

economy when it was underperforming, as it had during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Keynes did not suggest, however, that profligate government spending should extend into flush times when the economy was thriving, as it was for most of the 1960s. Nor did he necessarily suggest that Keynesian economics should be employed in perpetuity. Nevertheless, many Great Society adherents believed otherwise, choosing instead to continue high government spending so long as the economy grew apace. Eventually, however, guns-and-butter policies combined with easy credit and worsening budget deficits stoked the flames of inflation. And by the early 1970s that inflation was accompanied by rising unemployment and a weak or no-growth economy, resulting in what economists have dubbed “stagflation.” Between 1965 and 1968 government expenditures rose dramatically. Nondefense spending increased by more than 20 percent, from $75 billion to $100 billion per year. During that same period and corresponding with the massive Vietnam War escalations, defense spending ballooned from $50.6 billion to $81.9 billion per year. Because the economy in the mid-1960s was approaching full employment, this greatly increased government spending sparked inflation. To make matters worse, the Federal Reserve, operating along Keynesian lines, sought to keep the economy growing. This disinclined policy makers from raising interest rates, which might have stopped the inflationary pressures. Instead, they continued to expand the money supply, which led almost inevitably to higher prices. The unemployment rate, at just 3.6 percent in 1968, had risen to 5.9 percent by 1971. This forced Nixon’s hand. On August 15, 1971, he took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard, meaning that the currency would now float amid other world currencies. He also announced the

1314

Waldron, Adelbert F., III

Selected Economic Indicators during the Vietnam War Year

Consumer Price Index (1967=100)

Unemployment Rate

Gross Domestic Product (in billions of 1987 $)

Net Exports of Goods and Services

Prime

1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

94.5 97.2 100 104.2 109.8 116.3 121.3 125.3

4.5% 3.8% 3.8% 3.6% 3.5% 4.9% 5.9% 5.6%

$2,470.50 $2,616.20 $2,685.20 $2,796.90 $2,873.00 $2,873.90 $2,955.90 $3,107.10

-$6.4 -$18.0 -$23.7 -$37.5 -$41.5 -$35.2 -$45.9 -$56.5

4.54% 5.63% 5.61% 6.30% 7.96% 7.91% 5.72% 5.25%

imposition of a 90-day freeze on wages, prices, and rents. The controls were supposed to tame inflation by suppressing inflationary expectations. In many ways, Nixon’s controls were more intended to affect consumer psychology than they were to alter economic conditions or supply and demand. Unlike the wage and price controls of the World War II and Korean War eras, which had been imposed in reaction to a bona fide emergency and were meant to stifle demand as much as inflation, Nixon’s controls were not designed to suppress demand; they were mainly designed to halt the inflationary spiral. In the meantime, the administration took few steps to remedy the problems that had caused the inflation in the first place, so controls were of quite limited use. Most of the controls applied only to large labor organizations and large corporations, meaning that sizable numbers of workers and producers were not directly affected by them. The controls were applied in four phases. The first phase (August 15–November 13, 1971) was administered by the Office of Emergency Preparedness and was a select freeze on wages and prices. The second phase (November 14, 1971–January 10, 1973) was administered by the Cost of Living Council and continued the partial freeze. The third phase (January 11–August 12, 1973) was a period of voluntary controls to June 13 and another price freeze from June 14 to August 12. The fourth phase (August 13, 1973– April 30, 1974) combined voluntary measures and decontrol. The Cost of Living Council also administered the last two phases. The controls created a small army of bureaucrats to oversee their imposition and enforcement, including the Office of Wage Stabilization and the Office of Price Stabilization. In the end, the 90-day freeze morphed into a 1,000-day journey into selectively applied controls that seemed only to worsen inflation and provide fodder for Nixon’s critics. When the controls were applied, annual inflation was about 4.5 percent; by April 1974 when most of the controls had been allowed to lapse, inflation was almost 12 percent. While this huge increase was partly a function of the oil embargo enacted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after the October 1973 Yom Kippur (Ramadan) War, the inflation rate had risen dramatically well prior to that conflict. The detractors of wage and price controls were ultimately proven correct: the use of such measures absent a major military or economic crisis often brings more harm than

good. Since then, no presidential administration has resorted to wage and price controls. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War; Great Society Program; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Nixon, Richard Milhous References Rockoff, Hugh. Drastic Measures: A History of Wage and Price Controls in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Sobel, Lester A. Inflation and the Nixon Administration, 1959–1971. New York: Facts on File, 1974.

Waldron, Adelbert F., III Birth Date: March 14, 1933 Death Date: October 18, 1995 U.S. Army staff sergeant and highest-scoring U.S. sniper of the Vietnam War, with 109 confirmed kills. Adelbert F. Waldron III was born in Syracuse, New York, on March 14, 1933. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1953 to 1965. Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1968, he was assigned later that year to the 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. Assigned to Vietnam, there Waldron attended the 9th Infantry Division’s sniper school established by divisional commander Major General Julian J. Ewell. As part of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) that operated with the U.S. Navy, Waldron rode the waters of the Mekong Delta on tango boats and riverine patrol boats. Unlike his better-known U.S. Marine Corps counterparts Carlos Hatchcock (93 confirmed kills), Eric R. England (98 confirmed kills), and Charles Mawhinney (103 confirmed kills), who all used bolt-action rifles, Waldron used the semiautomatic M-21 sniper rifle, an M-14 rifle fitted with an optical scope and accurized by the Rock Island Arsenal. Waldron also operated at night using a starlight scope. On several occasions he made his kills from moving boat platforms, in one celebrated case at a range of more than 984 yards. In addition to being the highest-scoring sniper in U.S. history, Waldron was also the most highly decorated. He received

Wallace, George Corley, Jr.

1315

two Distinguished Service Crosses, the Silver Star, and the Bronze Star Medal. After returning from Vietnam, he served briefly as an instructor for the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. He left the U.S. Army in 1970 and for a while worked as a firearms instructor at a private paramilitary training school operated by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Mitchell WerBell. Waldron died in California on October 18, 1995. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Rifles References Lanning, Michael Lee. Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. Mast, Gregory, and Hans Halberstadt. To Be a Military Sniper. Osceola, WI: Zenith, 2007.

Wallace, George Corley, Jr. Birth Date: August 25, 1919 Death Date: September 13, 1998 Southern populist governor of Alabama (1963–1967, 1971–1979, 1983–1987) and presidential candidate (1968, 1972, 1976). Born on August 25, 1919, to a poor family in Barbour County, Alabama, George Corley Wallace Jr. worked his way through college and law school at the University of Alabama, earning a law degree in 1942. In 1943 he married Lurleen Burns of Tuscaloosa, who succeeded him as governor of Alabama in 1968. During World War II George Wallace served as a flight engineer on Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers and flew 14 combat missions over Japan. After the war and a series of minor political appointments, Wallace was elected circuit judge for a three-county area around Clayton, Alabama. In 1962, capitalizing on his stand to preserve “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” he was elected governor of Alabama by the largest popular vote margin in the state’s history. After gaining national attention with his June 1963 “stand in the school house door,” a symbolic effort to stall the integration of the University of Alabama, Wallace catapulted to the national political scene. Wallace’s populist image combined with warnings about the intrusive power of the federal government over states and individuals alike struck a chord among millions of Americans during the turbulent Vietnam War era. In February 1967 he was quoted as saying that “The Vietnam War is the most important matter facing the American people.” Wallace called for a more vigorous pursuit of military victory by bombing the roads and highways leading from Hanoi to China and mining Haiphong Harbor. He ran for the presidency in 1968 on the American Independent Party ticket; retired U.S. Air Force general Curtis E. LeMay was his running mate. After LeMay refused to rule

Alabamian George Wallace articulated a discontent with Democratic Party liberalism that made him a hero to millions of American voters in the 1960s. Wallace ran for president in 1968 on the American Independent Party ticket in one of the strongest third-party campaigns in U.S. history. Elected for a second term as governor of Alabama in 1969, Wallace was shot while campaigning for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972. (AP/Wide World Photos)

out the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, Wallace sent him on a tour of Vietnam to keep him out of the country until after the election. Wallace lost the 1968 election, but his populist message, with which he targeted southern conservative white voters, many of whom had been lifelong Democrats, set the stage for future campaigns. Indeed, the Republican Party went on to use Wallace’s approach with considerable success. At home Wallace excoriated the antiwar movement and warned that any student at any college or university in Alabama who advocated a victory by the Viet Cong (VC) would be expelled. At a July 1967 press conference he stated that “Some of these professors in some of these colleges . . . who are advocating a victory of the Vietcong . . . should be dragged by their beards before a federal judge and put in the penitentiary.” Both in his political career and in his advocacy of a more vigorous war, Wallace was prescient. Every successful presidential candidate since 1968 has incorporated elements of Wallace’s calls

1316

Walt, Lewis William

for welfare reform, law and order, and trimming of the federal bureaucracy. In 1972 President Richard M. Nixon stepped up the air war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to include attacks on the railroad and highway links to China and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. During his run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972, Wallace was seriously wounded by a would-be assassin. He won several state primaries but ultimately withdrew from the campaign. He was not, however, finished politically. Over the next 15 years he was twice more elected governor of Alabama and made a vigorous final run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1976 before withdrawing and endorsing Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia. Wallace retired from politics in 1987 at the end of his fourth term as governor of Alabama. He lived quietly in retirement in Montgomery, Alabama, where he died on September 13, 1998. EARL H. TILFORD JR. See also Elections, U.S., 1968; LeMay, Curtis Emerson

References Frady, Marshall. Wallace. New York: New American Library, 1972. Lesher, Stephan. George Wallace: American Populist. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994. Wallace, George, C., Jr. Hear Me Out: This Is Where I Stand. Anderson, SC: Droke House, 1968.

Walt, Lewis William Birth Date: February 16, 1913 Death Date: March 26, 1989 U.S. Marine Corps general. Born on February 16, 1913, in Harveyville, Kansas, Lewis William Walt graduated in 1936 from the Colorado School of Mines and was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Serving in China in 1937 and 1938, he was an original member of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion that fought in the Solomons in 1942, and he also fought at Guadalcanal, Cape Glouster, and Peleliu. In Korea he commanded the 5th Marine

Richard Nixon shown here with Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt, the commander of III Marine Amphibious Force, during Nixon’s visit to Da Nang on April 17, 1967. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Warnke, Paul Culliton Regiment (1952–1953). Promoted to brigadier general in 1962, in June 1965 he assumed command of the 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam as a major general while serving concurrently as commander of III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF). When III MAF was elevated to the first corps-level headquarters in U.S. Marine Corps history, Walt was given command and was promoted to lieutenant general in 1966; he had under his control U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. He also served as senior adviser and coordinator of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (Army, South Vietnamese Army) I Corps, supervising the I Corps buildup between 1965 and 1967. Walt insisted on a balance of small-unit patrols, large-unit operations, and a program of pacification that consisted of U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons (CAPs) operating with Vietnamese in the countryside. Walt and the U.S. Marine Corps placed much more emphasis on small-unit operations and pacification than did General William Westmoreland in his strategy of large-unit actions. After returning to the United States, Walt served as assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. He was promoted to full general in June 1969. Walt retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in February 1971. In 1972 he served as director of the U.S. Senate’s investigation on international narcotics traffic. Later he was executive director of the USMC Youth Foundation. In 1976 he published Strange War, Strange Strategy: A General’s Report on Vietnam. Walt died in Gulfport, Mississippi, on March 26, 1989. ROBERT G. MANGRUM See also Marine Combined Action Platoons; United States Marine Corps; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; Westmoreland, William Childs References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Free Press, 1991. Moskin, J. Robert. The U.S. Marine Corps Story. Rev. ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. Walt, Lewis W. Strange War, Strange Strategy: A General’s Report on Vietnam. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1976.

Ware, Keith Lincoln Birth Date: November 23, 1915 Death Date: September 13, 1968 U.S. Army general and commander of the 1st Infantry Division (March–September 1968). Born in Denver, Colorado, on November 23, 1915, Keith Lincoln Ware was inducted into the army in July 1941. He subsequently completed Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in 1942. He participated in the Allied invasion of North Africa, the campaigns in Sicily and Italy, and

1317

the invasion of southern France. In December 1944 near Sigolsheim, France, Lieutenant Colonel Ware led a patrol against four machine-gun positions, killing many defenders. Half of his patrol members, including himself, were wounded, but Ware refused medical attention until the German positions had been captured. For this action he received the Medal of Honor. After World War II, Ware attended army professional schools, served on the U.S. Army staff in Washington, and was an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Promoted to colonel in 1953, he commanded an infantry regiment in Korea (1955–1956) and then attended the National War College. Other assignments included service at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). He was promoted to brigadier general in 1963 while serving with the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas. In September 1964 Ware was appointed deputy chief of information for the army and then chief in February 1966. In July 1966 he was promoted to major general. Ware reported to Vietnam for assignment as deputy commanding general, I Field Force, Vietnam (I FFV), in December 1967. He then served as deputy commanding general of II FFV prior to assuming command of the 1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”). Ware was an inspirational leader whose dream had been to command the division in combat. On September 13, 1968, General Ware was killed in action when his command helicopter was hit by hostile ground fire and crashed in the jungle southeast of Loc Ninh. His command sergeant major, Joseph A. Venable along with six other members of the general staff and the general’s canine companion, King, died with him. Vietnamese sources credit a 12.8-millimeter antiaircraft machinegun crew from the 320th Regiment, 7th Division, of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) with having shot down General Ware’s helicopter. Ware was the fourth general officer killed in Vietnam. His name now honors a scholarship program for the 1st Infantry Division. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Casualties; United States Army References Vu Khac Toan, Nguyen Xuan Quy, Pham Xuan Trong. Su Doan 7: Ky Su [7th Division: Memoirs]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1986. Wheeler, James Scott. The Big Red One: America’s Legendary 1st Infantry Division from World War I to Desert Storm. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.

Warnke, Paul Culliton Birth Date: January 31, 1920 Death Date: October 21, 2001 General counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense, 1966–1967; assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs,

1318

Warnke, Paul Culliton

Former assistant secretary of defense Paul C. Warnke answers questions from members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during hearings on his nomination as director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, February 8, 1977. (AP/Wide World Photos)

1967–1969; and arms control negotiator. Born in Webster, Massachusetts, on January 31, 1920, Paul Culliton Warnke graduated from Yale University in 1941. He served as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. In 1948 he received a law degree from Columbia University and joined a law firm based in Washington, D.C.; in 1957 he became a partner in the firm. Warnke continued to practice law until 1966, when he joined the Defense Department as general counsel, supervising the work of some 4,000 attorneys. In 1967 he was named assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, a post he held until 1969. A staunch opponent of the Vietnam War, Warnke, who was open and candid about his views, helped convince Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara of the hopelessness of the conflict and later exerted considerable influence over McNamara’s successor, Clark Clifford. General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), derisively credited Warnke with moving the once-hawkish Clifford to an antiwar position. When Republican Richard Nixon took office in January 1969, Warnke left the Defense Department and returned to the practice of law as a partner in Clifford’s high-powered law firm. Even after leaving government, Warnke, who remained an influential force on the Democratic National Committee, repeatedly urged Congress to enact legislation that would end the Vietnam War. He was fre-

quently joined by Clifford in these efforts. Warnke was reportedly outraged by the 1970 U.S. bombing of Cambodia. In 1972 Warnke, who by now had earned a reputation as a dove, served as the chief foreign policy and national security adviser to Democratic senator George McGovern’s unsuccessful presidential campaign. Warnke spoke out frequently on national security policies and often published essays, position papers, and articles on issues relating to war, peace, and arms control. His outspokenness likely cost him a cabinet position in the Jimmy Carter administration (1977–1981); Warnke’s name had been mentioned in some circles as a likely secretary of state or defense. Nevertheless, Carter called Warnke back to government service in 1977 and asked him to head the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. As such, Warnke was the chief U.S. negotiator to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). He was pressured to step down in 1978, however, by defense hawks who believed that he had conceded too much to the Soviets. From 1978 to 1981 Warnke then served as special consultant to the secretary of state on arms control. Returning to the private sector, he formed with Clifford a new high-profile law firm in Washington, D.C. Warnke continued to remain active in arms control circles and was on the board of the Arms Control Association from 1980 to 1999, at which time he became director emeritus of the association. His keen grasp of the complex issues involving arms control and his ardent desire

War Powers Act to lessen the likelihood of a nuclear war informed American arms control efforts throughout the late 1980s and beyond. Warnke died on October 21, 2001, in Washington, D.C. DAVID COFFEY AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Cambodia; Carter, James Earl, Jr.; Clifford, Clark McAdams; McGovern, George Stanley; McNamara, Robert Strange; Westmoreland, William Childs References Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Who’s Who in American Politics, 1996. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker, 1995.

War Powers Act U.S. congressional effort to limit the president’s war-making powers and to ensure more legislative control of the nation’s military. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (Public Law 93-148, 93rd Congress, H.J. Resolution S42, November 7, 1973), simply known as the War Powers Act, requires that the president consult with Congress before military forces are sent into combat abroad or to areas where hostilities are likely and that the president also report in writing within 48 hours after troops are deployed. The president must then terminate the use of military force within 60 to 90 days. The deployment can continue for another 60 days and then for another 30 days beyond that if the president certifies to Congress in writing that the safety of the force so requires. Unless Congress authorizes a continuation through a declaration of war, a concurrent resolution, or other appropriate legislation, the deployment cannot be continued beyond 90 days. The War Powers Act was introduced by Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York after the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia. At the time, many believed that the act was a direct result of the American experience in Vietnam. Javits outlined his rationale in his 1973 book Who Makes War: The President versus Congress and stated that the act was an effort to learn from the lessons of Vietnam that had cost the United States so heavily in blood, treasure, and morale. Although the act was passed only months after the final American withdrawal, many scholars claim that it was not just a reaction to that conflict but was also the product of a slow evolutionary debate on the respective war powers of Congress and the president that had been going on for decades. The act was an attempt by the legislative branch to reassert some of the authority over the military that it had lost to the president after 1941. The law, passed by Congress (House, 284 to 135 votes; Senate, 75 to 18 votes) on November 7, 1973, gave more authority to Congress to limit the war-making powers of the chief executive. President Nixon vetoed the bill in the belief that it could imperil the nation in times of crisis. He also argued that it granted Congress authority over troop deployments in violation of Article II of

1319

the Constitution that granted such powers to the president. Other critics maintained that the act placed inflexible restrictions on the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. Supporters of the War Powers Act held that it served as a necessary restraint on the president’s power and inherently compelled communication between the executive and legislative branches in times of emergency. Although many flaws have been found in the act, it has not been amended since passage. In April 1975 President Gerald R. Ford submitted four reports under the War Powers Act that announced the use of the armed forces to evacuate refugees and U.S. nationals from Cambodia and Vietnam. On May 15, 1975, President Ford again reported to Congress that he had ordered U.S. forces to rescue the crew of the Mayaguez and retake the ship, which had been seized by Cambodian Navy patrol boats on May 12. According to the Congressional Research Service, since the passage of the War Powers Act in 1973, U.S. presidents have submitted more than 100 such reports to Congress. On April 24, 1980, following the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran, President Jimmy Carter submitted a report to Congress. Some congressional members objected to Carter’s failure to consult with Congress before executing the operation. Carter, however, claimed that because the mission depended on complete secrecy, consultation was not possible; moreover, the White House argued that a rescue operation did not constitute an act of aggression or force. On September 29, 1983, Congress invoked the War Powers Act to authorize the deployment of U.S. marines to Lebanon for 18 months as part of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission there. Following several years of growing tensions with Libya and skirmishes between both countries, on April 14, 1986, President Ronald W. Reagan ordered air strikes on Libya in relation for its involvement in a terrorist bombing in a West Berlin discotheque that killed two U.S. soldiers. Reagan informed Congress of the attack, but because the operation was short-lived the question of congressional approval was essentially moot. In January 1991 President George H. W. Bush secured congressional authorization to use force to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait per a UN mandate. After the end of the Persian Gulf War on February 28, 1991, the War Powers Act again became a potential issue regarding the situation in the Middle East. President William J. Clinton launched several air attacks against Iraqi targets in an effort to compel Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s compliance with UN resolutions. In 1998 Clinton also ordered cruise missile attacks on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for two deadly bombings involving U.S. embassies, likely carried out by the Al Qaeda terrorist group. Clinton did not invoke the War Powers Act because of the brief and secretive nature of the operations, however. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush secured congressional authorization a week later to use whatever force was necessary against those responsible for the attacks. Based on this

1320

War Resisters League

authorization, in October 2001 the U.S. attacked and invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime that had given terrorist Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda sanctuary. In 2002 the Bush administration sought another congressional approval to wage a potential war against Iraq to compel it to cooperate with UN resolutions, which had called for the disarming of Iraq and the declaration of all weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). On October 16, 2002, Bush signed into law the joint congressional resolution, which enjoyed wide bipartisan support and empowered him to wage war against the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The October 2002 authorization of military force against Iraq obviated presidential compliance with the War Powers Act. Although Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq, the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war and insurgency there called into question not only the effectiveness of the War Powers Act but, more importantly, Congress’s role or lack thereof in foreign policy and decisions involving war. The failure to find any WMDs, the principal reason cited by Bush for the invasion of Iraq, led critics of the war to question not only the president’s responsibility to both Congress and the public but also the role of Congress in declaring war and specifically, as the War Powers Act intended, checking or overseeing the president’s war-making powers. Regardless of which political party holds the White House, tension over the exercise of war powers undoubtedly will continue between the executive and legislative branches of government. Presidents, whether Democratic and Republican, will still seek to implement U.S. foreign policy through the unrestricted use of all elements of national power (economic, political, and military), while Congress, through its legislative powers, will continue to exercise its vital role of providing the necessary checks and balances to ensure that executive branch power does not become unrestricted. CLAYTON D. LAURIE AND STEFAN M. BROOKS See also Cooper-Church Amendment; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; FREQUENT WIND, Operation; Hatfield-McGovern Amendment; Javits, Jacob Koppel; Mayaguez Incident; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Stennis, John Cornelius; United States Congress and the Vietnam War References Fisher, Louis. Presidential War Power. Rev. ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Irons, Peter. War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005. Javits, Jacob K., with Donald Kellerman. Who Makes War: The President versus Congress. New York: William Morrow, 1973. Stern, Gary M., and Morton Halperin, ed. The U.S. Constitution and the Power to Go to War: Historical and Current Perspectives. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Yoo, John. The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

War Resisters League Pacifist organization advocating nonviolence and a support group for conscientious objectors. The War Resisters League (WRL) played an important role in the antidraft and anti–Vietnam War protests of the 1960s and 1970s. The WRL was founded in 1932 by Jessie Wallace Hughan as the American branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), which was founded in England in 1914. Hughan wanted the WRL to unite political, humanitarian, and philosophical war objectors. By February 1937 more than 12,000 Americans had signed the WRL pledge: “War is a crime against humanity. I therefore am determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive for the removal of all causes of war.” In 1945 the WRL had 2,300 active members. Following World War II, the WRL served as a radical action organization, although it refrained from advocating illegal actions such as not registering for the draft. In the late 1940s the WRL became a support group for those advocating civil disobedience and revolution. Although its membership declined in the 1950s and early 1960s, by 1972 with the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and growing opposition to it the WRL had 15,000 members. Headquartered in New York City, the WRL’s office also later housed Daniel Berrigan’s office of the Catholic Peace Fellowship; the Committee for Nonviolent Action; Liberation, a radical magazine edited by David Dellinger and A. J. Muste; and other New York–based radical pacifist groups. By 1963 under the leadership of Dellinger and David McReynolds, who had come to New York in 1956 as a WRL staff member, the WRL focused its protests on the escalating Vietnam War and Selective Service inductions. On May 16, 1964, the WRL cosponsored a demonstration in New York City at which 12 men burned their draft cards. Between 1964 and 1973, membership in the WRL grew from 3,000 to 15,000 people. From 1965 through 1983, the WRL’s Workshop in Nonviolence produced WIN, a widely read movement magazine, and published WRL News. In late 1967 the WRL organized “Stop the Draft Week” and endorsed a number of teach-ins and demonstrations, including the 1971 May Day demonstrations. Because of its growing visibility and antiwar activities, the WRL was the target of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) infiltration and periodic seizures by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Beginning in 1965 McReynolds became the WRL’s primary spokesperson and the liaison between the WRL and other mass mobilization protest movements. He traveled to Vietnam twice during the war and was instrumental in organizing and encouraging antiwar activities. The first major WRL peace demonstration on the Vietnam War issue came on October 9, 1963. In 1964 McReynolds drafted the “Memo on Vietnam,” calling for the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops. That December the WRL cosponsored the first nationwide demonstration against the Vietnam War. As a pacifist, McReynolds stated that the United States “had no right to dictate the history of Vietnam.”

Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam In 1965 the U.S. Congress passed a law making the burning of draft cards illegal, but on November 5 of that year McReynolds and four others burned their draft cards at a rally in Union Square. McReynolds, however, was classified 4-F rather than 1-A and was not arrested. After the Vietnam War, WRL membership again declined. The WRL turned its attention to issues such as U.S. policy in the Middle East and Central America, amnesty for draft resisters, and nuclear disarmament. The WRL denounced the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and protested the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. McReynolds continued to be the spokesperson and principal figure in the WRL. The organization’s records are housed in the depository at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection in Pennsylvania. In more recent years, the WRL has remained committed to peace and nonviolence. Since 2002 it has been active in mobilizing opposition to both the Afghanistan War (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM) and the Iraq War (Operation IRAQI FREEDOM). The organization also publishes a quarterly magazine and several other publications. GARY KERLEY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Berrigan, Daniel; Conscientious Objectors; Dellinger, David; Fellowship of Reconciliation; Muste, Abraham Johannes; Selective Service

1321

Democratic Republic of Vietnam In 1964 the Vietnam People’s Navy (VPN, North Vietnamese Navy) was a coastal force composed of small combatants acquired from the larger Communist powers. Most numerous were the tiny Swatow-class motor gunboats. Displacing 80 tons, these steelhulled vessels were powered by diesel engines, had a top speed of 28 knots, and were armed with four 37-millimeter (mm) cannon and depth charges. Swifter were the 12 P-4 motor torpedo boats with their two torpedo tubes. Although their stepped hull made possible a speed of 42 knots, they had only marginal stability at high speeds. Three of these vessels were involved in the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. During the ensuing Vietnam War, the VPN received reinforcements in 1967 in the form of four P-6 torpedo boats. Against these modest additions must be counted the loss of approximately 33 Swatows and P-4s to air strikes during Operation PIERCE ARROW.

Republic of Vietnam The Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy), as with its foe to the north, was built up from obsolescent small craft donated by its major ally. In 1964 the VNN numbered 44 seagoing vessels and more than 200 lesser craft. The best armed of these warships were 5 escort patrol craft and 12 motor gunboats. As

References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. McReynolds, David. “Pacifists and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement.” In Give Peace a Chance: Explaining the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, edited by Melvin Small and William D. Hoover, 53–70. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992. Wittner, Laurence S. Rebels against War: The American Peace Movement, 1941–1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam Excluding submarines, virtually every type of modern combat vessel, from the largest aircraft carriers to the smallest river patrol boats, was used in the Vietnam War. Warships of several lesser navies took part in the conflict, but all were overshadowed by those of the U.S. Navy.

Australia The Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart of the U.S. Navy Charles F. Adams class provided gunfire support for allied forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam).

The U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVAN65) cruises in the Gulf of Tonkin on May 28, 1966. With Douglas A-4 Skyhawks on its bow, the Enterprise is ready to recover more aircraft on its angled deck. (National Archives)

1322

Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam

fighting accelerated, the United States transferred to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) seven Coast Guard cutters of the Barnegat class and two Edsall-class frigates. By 1972, when Vietnamization had been completed, the VNN numbered about 1,000 vessels of varying types. Twenty-seven of its seagoing vessels carried 18,000 refugees to Subic Bay in the Philippines following the final 1975 Communist offensive.

United States Throughout the conflict, the United States possessed the strongest navy in the world. The backbone of the U.S. Navy was the attack aircraft carrier, the largest type of warship ever constructed. For instance, the Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered carrier, displaced almost 90,000 tons at full load and was armed with an air group of 90 aircraft. Escorting the carriers were the U.S. Navy’s newest surface warships: guided missile cruisers and frigates. Keeping pace with the Enterprise was the cruiser Long Beach. At 16,602 tons, it was equipped with one twin Talos and two twin Terrier missile launchers and a nuclear power plant that drove the ship at 30 knots. While on-station in the Gulf of Tonkin in May 1968, this ship scored the

first hit ever made on an enemy aircraft with guided missiles. In 1972 the cruiser Chicago, an 18,777-ton missile ship converted from a gunship, scored a similar success while providing cover for planes mining Haiphong Harbor. Also operating in the South China Sea were the U.S. Navy’s new frigates, including the nuclear-powered Bainbridge. Usually displacing close to 8,000 tons at full load, these fast ships (with a speed of more than 30 knots) were armed with one or two Terrier missile launchers and often a 5-inch gun. The newest ships of the Belknap class were fitted with the Naval Tactical Data System that allowed them to track hundreds of aircraft simultaneously. On July 19, 1972, one of these vessels, the Biddle, while on-station in the Gulf of Tonkin, engaged five Soviet-designed MiGs and shot down two. Gunnery support duties fell to the U.S. Navy’s senior surface warships, some older than many of their crewmen. In 1964 only a few gun cruisers remained in commission, but beginning in 1965 they supported friendly troops in South Vietnam and, beginning the next year, bombarded North Vietnamese military forces north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Especially valuable in this role were the 8-inch gun cruisers Newport News and St. Paul, the latter

The U.S. Navy Belknap-class guided-missile cruiser Biddle (CG-34) served several tours off Vietnam. On July 19, 1972, it came under attack from North Vietnamese MiG aircraft and shot down two of them. (Department of Defense)

Wars of National Liberation a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. So scarce were major-caliber rifles on the gun line that the U.S. Navy’s first guided missile cruisers, the Boston and Canberra, remained in commission for their two 8-inch forward mounts even when their missile batteries aft were removed. The Cleveland-class missile cruiser conversions were valued more for their 6-inch guns than for their Terrier batteries. These older gunships shot off far more ammunition than they had during World War II; in fact, the Boston fired so many missions during Operation SEA DRAGON that the rifling in its gun barrels was worn virtually smooth. Also reinforcing the bombardment force was the battleship New Jersey, brought out of retirement in 1967. Destroyers, both veterans of World War II and newer ships of the Forrest Sherman and Charles F. Adams classes, also performed in the gunnery role, as did newer destroyer escorts of the Claude Jones, Garcia, and Brooke classes. And as with the cruisers, the destroyer types engaged in lengthy fire missions. The Towers, for instance, fired 3,266 5-inch shells in July 1966 alone. These extensive bombardments revealed defects in ammunition of the new 5-inch 54-caliber gun, with several ships suffering in-bore explosions. Off the coast of Vietnam, the destroyer types also performed planeguard and search-and-rescue duties; radar picket destroyer escorts helped enforce the MARKET TIME patrols. Smaller warships undertook a host of missions off South Vietnam’s coasts and on its rivers. These smaller craft were as varied as U.S. Coast Guard cutters, Asheville-class patrol gunboats, minesweepers, hydrofoils, Swift Boats, and Boston Whalers. Essential to the U.S. Navy’s power projection duty were the fleet’s amphibious ships: assault ships, dock landing ships, infantry landing ships, inshore fire-support ships, tank and infantry landing ships, transport docks, and others. Backing up the fighting forces was an armada of support craft with designations as varied as aircraft ferry, attack transport, ammunition ship, barracks ship, cargo ship, fleet tug, floating crane, floating dry dock, harbor tug, hospital ship, hydrographic survey ship, net layer, oiler, open lighter, provision ship, refrigerator ship, repair ship, salvage ship, seaplane tender, stores ship, tanker, and transport. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also Aircraft Carriers; Australia; MARKET TIME, Operation; New Jersey, USS; PIERCE ARROW, Operation; SEA DRAGON, Operation; United States Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Navy References Friedman, Norman. U.S. Small Combatants. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Gardiner, Robert, ed. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1947– 1982, Part 1, The Western Powers; and Part 2, The Warsaw Pact and Non-Aligned Nations. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983. Jane’s Fighting Ships. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969, 1975. U.S. Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. 8 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959–1981.

1323

Wars of National Liberation Loosely described as revolutionary wars, internal wars, or insurrections. Theoretically, wars of national liberation are organized violence from within a state aimed at overthrowing the government and restructuring the state’s political order and often its economic and social order. To some, the Vietnam War fit this pattern. The U.S. government, however, took the position that the organized violence did not come primarily from within but instead came from external Communist-sponsored aggression and was therefore an invasion by an outside power. The argument could be made that Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s 1961 pronouncement of Soviet sponsorship of wars of national liberation fed the U.S. slide to full involvement in combating the Communist insurgency in Vietnam. The growth of the Soviet nuclear arsenal during the 1950s and 1960s seemed to negate U.S. strategic superiority. With both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) avowing support to limited wars of this type, which the United States interpreted as Communistsupported insurgency, Washington policy makers developed the strategy of flexible response. This called for nuclear deterrence and the maintenance of adequate conventional forces to deter a conventional attack or fight limited wars such as the one in Vietnam. From one point of view, many aspects of the insurgency in Vietnam match the characteristics of a revolutionary war. The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), or Viet Cong (VC), and the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) provided an organized, disciplined leadership. Nationalism and communism provided popular ideologies, which challenged perceived American imperialism that many Vietnamese believed had replaced French colonialism. There was considerable popular support for the insurgency, and the VC provided the military forces necessary to wage the conflict. Washington, however, considered the NLF and COSVN to be directed and controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), supported by its larger Soviet and PRC patrons. Mass support for the insurgency was thought to be based somewhat on Communist and nationalist sympathies but largely forced by VC fear tactics and terrorism. Finally, the military forces necessary to wage the war did not come solely from the population of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) but instead were mainly provided by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regulars, especially after the 1968 Tet Offensive. ARTHUR T. FRAME See also Central Office for South Vietnam; China, People’s Republic of; Counterinsurgency Warfare; Domino Theory; Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Gaddis, John Lewis. Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History. New York: Wiley, 1978.

1324

War Zone C and War Zone D

Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

War Zone C and War Zone D Geographical areas important because of their proximity to Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Saigon was home to about 40 percent of South Vietnam’s population and most of its industry and was the psychological heart of South Vietnam. The terms “War Zone C” and “War Zone D” have disputed origins. General William Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), attributes them to Operation HOP TAC (1964), which defined four zones: A and B just north of Saigon and including its suburbs and then C and D farther north and radiating fanlike from northwest to northeast, all within the III Corps Tactical Zone. Several experts mention the earlier existence of these zones as 1950s French designations, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) classifications prior to U.S. involvement, or American references prior to 1964. General Bruce Palmer Jr. wrote that older bases inside South Vietnam, usually close to major population centers, were often called “war zones.” Vietnamese Communist sources date the origins of these two war zones to the early days of the war against the French (ca. 1946). War Zone C, which the Communists called the Duong Minh Chau War Zone (Chien Khu Duong Minh Chau), is defined by Vietnamese sources as the dense jungle area of northern Tay Ninh and Binh Long provinces situated between the Vam Co Dong River on the west and Route 13 on the east. War Zone D (Chien Khu D) was originally called the Dat Cuoc War Zone. When it was formed in 1946, War Zone D consisted of six villages in Tan Uyen District, Binh Duong Province, but later War Zone D expanded to cover a much larger area in what later became Binh Duong, Bien Hoa, and Phuoc Long provinces. Located northwest of Saigon, War Zone C served as the main PAVN approach from Cambodia to Saigon and included routes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and elaborate, concealed, and even deep underground facilities with command posts, ammunition and supply dumps, and hospitals. Some of these installations were connected by tunnel complexes. Under Communist control since before the 1954 partition of Vietnam, War Zone C later served as the headquarters of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) and therefore was a National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) stronghold and sanctuary. The borders of War Zone C ran from Ben Cat, the northeastern point of the Iron Triangle, due north on the western side of Route 13 to the Cambodian border and then followed the border southwest to Tapang Raboa, from which a west-east arc ran through Tay Ninh City back to Ben Cat. Portions of three provinces fell within

War Zone C: the northern half of Tay Ninh Province, the western half of Binh Long Province, and northwestern Binh Duong Province. The distance from east to west measured about 50 miles; the north-south distance varied from about 30 miles in the west to about 50 miles in the east along Route 13. It should be pointed out, however, that some references include only parts of Tay Ninh Province in a much smaller War Zone C. The varied terrain included land that was flat and potentially marshy (dry in summer, muddy in winter), rolling hills as one progressed toward Cambodia, dense tropical rain forest with massive teak and mahogany trees, and the landmark Nui Ba Den (“Black Virgin Mountain”) 3,235 feet above sea level. War Zone D was located northwest of Saigon. With its terrain of heavy (often triple-canopy) jungle, rain forest, and elephant grasses, War Zone D provided the main access from the central part of the country to Saigon. Like War Zone C, War Zone D also included branches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and tunnel complexes. Part of a PAVN guerrilla force, Unit 250, appeared in War Zone D in October 1957 and within a year had grown to battalion size. In January 1961 the Politburo decision to escalate the war in South Vietnam led to a February 15 meeting in War Zone D to unify all armed units into an integrated command known as the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), more widely known as the Viet Cong (VC). In time the PLAF would name War Zone D “the forbidden zone.” The borders of War Zone D ran due north from Ben Cat on the eastern side of Route 13 parallel to the border of War Zone C to Chon Thanh at the split of Routes 13 and 14 and then northeast and east on Route 14 through Chi Linh and Dong Xoai to Bu Nard. It then ran due east for 10 miles, then due south for 25 miles to Thanh Son, and then due west for 10 miles. After following the Dong Nai River and Route 20 south for a few miles, it went southwest for about 10 miles, crossing Route 20 before heading 20 miles due west along 11 degrees east latitude parallel to Route 1 via Bien Hoa (headquarters of the ARVN III Corps); northwest about 10 miles to Phu Cuong to rejoin Route 13 north, parallel to the Iron Triangle; and then north 12 miles back to Ben Cat. Again, boundaries differ depending on the source. Some place the eastern border of War Zone D as far as the III Corps Tactical Zone–II Corps Tactical Zone line, while others shrink the area to include only an inexact reference to the jungle area north of Bien Hoa. War Zone D included northeastern Binh Duong, northern Bien Hoa, southern Phuoc Long, and northern and western Long Khanh provinces. Distance from east to west measured about 40 miles; north-south distance was about 30 miles. Forces operating within War Zones C and/or War Zone D included the U.S. 1st, 4th, and 25th Infantry divisions as well as the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 1st Cavalry Division, the 196th Infantry Brigade, and the 173rd Airborne Brigade; the ARVN 5th Division; and the PLAF 5th, 7th, and 9th divisions. The 1st Infantry Division’s 1st and 3rd brigades, based at Phuoc Vinh and Lai Khe, respectively, occupied areas vital to PLAF lines of communication. In both War Zone C and War Zone D,

War Zone C and War Zone D

1325

Soldiers of the U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade prepare to engage Communist forces in War Zone C, a stronghold of the National Liberation Front. (U.S. Army Military History Institute)

from its first significant battle near Bau Ban on November 12, 1965, through its last battle at Phu Hoa Dong during September 15–28, 1969, the 1st Infantry Division participated in operations or battles each year. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment carried out joint military operations with the 1st Infantry Division from May 8, 1967, to April 12, 1969. A year later the 11th Armored Cavalry joined the 1st Cavalry Division to conduct Operation MONTANA RAIDER in War Zone C. On May 9, 1970, the 11th Armored Cavalry, under the 1st Cavalry Division, moved from its support position in War Zone C into the Fishhook area of Cambodia. In 1969 the 1st Cavalry Division, in the III Corps Tactical Zone, engaged Communist forces north of the Dong Nai River in War Zone D and took part in a half dozen major battles in War Zone C, including those of the Grant, Carolyn, Jamie, and Ike landing zones and the Becky and Ike fire-support bases. Major U.S. operations in War Zone C, including EL PASO II, ATTLEBORO, JUNCTION CITY, and YELLOWSTONE, saw the long and costly involvement of the 196th Infantry Brigade; the 173rd Airborne Brigade; the 1st, 4th, and 25th Infantry divisions; and various ARVN units.

Herbicide warfare targeted War Zone C and War Zone D heavily: along Route 13, the initial Operation RANCH HAND test site selected by South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1961; Routes 13 and 14 in 1962; Operation BIG PATCH, for chemical crop destruction, in 1964 in War Zone D; Operation SHERWOOD FOREST in Boi Loi Woods in War Zone C in 1965; and Operation PINK ROSE during 1966–1967, with two target areas in War Zone C and one in War Zone D, the third and last effort combining defoliation with incendiaries to produce forest fires. U.S. Army Special Forces had about a dozen active A camps in War Zone C and a half dozen in War Zone D. In War Zone D, BLACKJACK 31 and HARVEST MOON, which included the first mass Special Forces–led Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) combat parachute drop of the Vietnam War, stand out as successful 1967 offensive operations utilizing the concepts of the Mobile Guerrilla Force and the Mobile Strike Force, respectively. Westmoreland stated that operations in War Zone C and War Zone D had “shortcomings but probably saved Saigon from enemy control.” The constant struggles in these zones between PLAF/

1326

WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation

PAVN forces and those of the United States and South Vietnam centered on the control of Saigon, which was crucial to the outcome of the war. PAUL S. DAUM AND FRANCIS RYAN See also ATTLEBORO, Operation; Cambodian Incursion; Central Office for South

Vietnam; Civilian Irregular Defense Group; Corps Tactical Zones; Defoliation; HARVEST MOON, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Iron Triangle; JUNCTION CITY, Operation; Mobile Guerrilla Forces; Mobile Strike Force Commands; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; RANCH HAND, Operation; United States Army; United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army; YELLOWSTONE, Operation References Buckingham, William A., Jr. Operation RANCH HAND: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961–1971. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1982. Haldane, Robert, ed. The First Infantry Division in Vietnam, 1965–1970. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1993. Hatch, Gardner, ed. 11th U.S. Cavalry: Blackhorse. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1990. Martin, Robert, ed. 1st Air Cavalry Division: Memoirs of the First Team, Vietnam, August 1965–December 1969. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1995. Ministry of Defense. Tu Dien Bach Khoa Quan Su Viet Nam [Vietnamese Military History Encyclopedia]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1996. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Rogers, Bernard W. Cedar Falls Junction City: A Turning Point. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1974. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Tran Bach Dang, ed. Chung Mot Bong Co (Ve Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam Viet Nam) [Under One Flag (The National Liberation Front for South Vietnam)]. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 1993. Turley, William S. The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986. Westmoreland, General William C. Report on the War in Vietnam, Section II, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 1964–June 1968. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

WASHINGTON GREEN,

Operation

Start Date: April 15, 1969 End Date: January 1, 1971 U.S. military operation frequently acclaimed as one of the best counterinsurgency operations conducted during the Vietnam War. Conducted in Binh Dinh Province, the 20-month-long Operation WASHINGTON GREEN began on April 15, 1969, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade moved into the four northern districts of Binh Dinh Province.

Operation WASHINGTON GREEN was an extension of the Accelerated Pacification Campaign, also known as General Creighton Abram’s one-war strategy. Lieutenant General Charles Corcoran, First Field Force commander, directed operational planning on the district level to support pacification efforts. The 173rd Airborne Brigade’s mission was stated as a pacification effort designed to provide a secure environment in the populated areas on a 24-hour basis. Toward that end, the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI) within the hamlets was to be rooted out and destroyed. The units of the 173rd Airborne Brigade were to accomplish this through various cordon and search operations, working in conjunction with the 130-man Company N, 75th Rangers; the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 22nd Infantry Division; and local Regional and Popular Forces (RF/PF). Particularly effective were five- or six-men hunter-killer groups, known as Hawk Teams, and the Rangers. The buildup and support of local forces were key goals of the mission, and they were achieved through combined missions, supervised training, and limited material support. The RF/PF’s main task was to man the cleared areas, enabling the Revolutionary Development (RD) cadre to carry out their work to gain support for the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In all, the 173rd Airborne Brigade trained 27 RF companies and 52 PF platoons in counterinsurgency warfare. WASHINGTON GREEN was designed to show a Vietnamese face to the local community, bringing about less reliance on U.S. forces to carry out the war, which was consonant with the program of Vietnamization. The operation provided training and experience for South Vietnamese forces and also aided the South Vietnamese government’s attempts to strengthen its territorial forces and district governments, thereby accruing confidence that they could defend their people and destroy the VC. Although the 173rd Airborne Brigade had an immediate impact on the pacification of these districts, the long-term results of their operation, particularly following their withdrawal, were more ambiguous. Operation WASHINGTON GREEN disrupted the VC’s organization and denied access to more than 300,000 people in the region. The 173rd Airborne Brigade detained more than 5,000 suspected VC, captured large amounts of supplies, and supported the training of the RF/PF to improve security. However, following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the region, the South Vietnamese government and military were not able to continue to hold the cleared areas against the resurgent VC and infiltration by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). U.S. casualties in WASHINGTON GREEN were 142 killed and 1,342 wounded. Communist losses were set at 1,957 PAVN and VC killed. VC sappers, however, inflicted a damaging blow to the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s operations when on November 15, 1970, they infiltrated Camp Radcliff at An Khe and blew up nearly 20 helicopters. DANIEL MARSTON See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Vietnamization

Watergate Scandal References Boylan, Kevin M. “The Red Queen’s Race: The 173rd Airborne Brigade and Pacification in Binh Dinh Province.” PhD dissertation, Temple University, 1994. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.

Washington Special Actions Group Contingency-planning crisis management board established and chaired by President Richard M. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. The Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG) was composed of personnel responsible for national security, including the deputy secretaries of the State Department and the Defense Department, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and the assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security adviser). In the spring of 1969 the WSAG became Kissinger’s vehicle for crisis management. When a People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army)/Pathet Lao offensive threatened the Laotian capital of Vientiane, the WSAG developed measures to support royal Lao forces. The Communist offensive was halted, and the North Vietnamese withdrew beginning on April 1, 1970, after a Lao government counteroffensive supported by Thai volunteers. The WSAG worked on various programs designed to harass North Vietnamese troops in the Cambodian border areas, including the employment of both air attacks and raids by forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). When Prince Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown in March 1970, the United States had to decide whether or not to support the Lon Nol government, which was under attack by Communist forces trying to isolate Phnom Penh by seizing provincial capitals. In this crisis the WSAG, now augmented by the addition of various staff personnel and sending its documents through formal channels, approved the shipment of 3,000 captured Communist weapons from South Vietnam to Lon Nol’s forces, and on April 15, 1970, arranged the transfer of $5 million for the purchase of arms. More important, the WSAG supported President Nixon’s subsequent decision to launch the incursion against Communist sanctuaries in Cambodian border areas, and one of its members, U. Alexis Johnson, prepared a detailed list of tasks for departments to perform. The WSAG met almost daily during the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, supporting Nixon’s decision to mine Haiphong Harbor just before the May 1972 summit between Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. As Washington moved toward the Paris Peace Accords with the North Vietnamese, the WSAG worked on Operation ENHANCE PLUS in an effort to supply South Vietnam with sufficient equipment to defend itself when all U.S. troops were withdrawn. The WSAG thus played a key role in planning, implementing, and advising the chief executive on matters related to the national security during the Nixon presidency. CLAUDE R. SASSO

1327

See also Cambodia; Cambodian Incursion; ENHANCE PLUS, Operation; Johnson, Ural Alexis; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Lon Nol; Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Sihanouk, Norodom References Johnson, U. Alexis, with Jef Olivarius McAllister. The Right Hand of Power. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984. Kalb, Marvin, and Bernard Kalb. Kissinger. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

Watergate Scandal Start Date: 1972 End Date: 1974 Far-reaching political scandal involving the Richard M. Nixon administration that lasted from 1972 to 1974 and led to a constitutional crisis and the resignation of Nixon in August 1974. Nixon was by nature a secretive and untrusting man, and it was this mild paranoia that drove the Watergate Scandal into a colossal political and constitutional crisis. The genesis of Watergate may be traced to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers that occurred beginning in June 1971. The papers revealed highly classified—not to mention embarrassing—policy decisions made vis-à-vis the Vietnam War going back to the 1940s. By 1971 the Vietnam War had become a political nightmare for Nixon and had deeply divided the nation. The Pentagon Papers served only to heighten public distrust and discontent with the war. Nixon was livid at the leaks and vowed action against the man who had released the information, RAND Corporation employee Daniel Ellsberg. In fact, the first illegal break-in encouraged by the Nixon administration occurred in September 1971, when quasigovernment operatives ransacked the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in an attempt to discredit the RAND employee. Meanwhile, the Nixon administration tried unsuccessfully to halt the publication of more sensitive information. Now obsessed with plugging any leaks from within, Nixon’s aides formed an informal committee of secret operatives whose job it was to stop leaks, stonewall Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probes, and retaliate against those who did leak information. The committee was fittingly called the Plumbers. On June 17, 1972, police in Washington, D.C., arrested five men for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex (hence the name of the scandal). While the motive of the break-in is still unclear, one of the burglars, James W. McCord Jr., was on the payroll of the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP). This seemed to implicate White House involvement, although the connection would not be made in full for many months. Officials at the White House meanwhile began to cover their tracks, engaging in an ever-widening cover-up that only bred more illegal activities. When questioned about the Watergate break-in,

1328

Watergate Scandal

Nixon’s press secretary famously dismissed it as a “third-rate burglary” of which the White House had no knowledge, and Americans believed him. Nixon’s secret taping system recorded a discussion on June 23, 1972, between the president and his chief of staff in which Nixon agreed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) should be employed to block the FBI investigation into the Watergate incident. This was clear evidence that the White House was involved in the botched break-in. Nixon went on to win a landslide reelection in November 1972, and Watergate seemed all but forgotten. But the walls were about to close in beginning with the trial of the Watergate burglars in January 1973. The five burglars pled guilty but said nothing. Indeed, CREEP had paid them hush money not to reveal anything that would implicate the president. But McCord, encouraged by the fact that he would receive leniency if he cooperated, recanted his testimony and implicated CREEP in instigating the break-in and in paying hush money to the accused. Nixon continued to deny any involvement in the growing scandal. Congress now clamored for bipartisan hearings on the Watergate Scandal. The hearings began in May 1973 and lasted until August. The nation was riveted by the televised hearings, which revealed one bombshell after another.

Perhaps as much as 85 percent of the American public viewed some or all of the hearings. The first bombshell was the realization that the White House had been directly involved in the scandal, thanks to Nixon lawyer John W. Dean’s testimony. The second was the revelation that Nixon had employed a secret taping system in the Oval Office that recorded virtually all conversations. Nixon’s popularity began to plummet, and there were sporadic calls for his impeachment, even by stalwart Republicans. As soon as the existence of the taped conversations was revealed, Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the U.S. Senate moved to subpoena the tapes. Nixon refused to surrender them, citing executive privilege and “national security concerns.” Neither party agreed with that logic, however, and many Americans now believed that Nixon was either directly involved in the scandal or was trying to cover something up. In October 1973 when Nixon ordered Cox to withdraw his subpoena, the special prosecutor refused. The White House promptly fired him. That in turn led Nixon’s attorney general and his deputy to resign in protest. A new prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, again subpoenaed the tapes. Nixon, now under immense pressure, responded by releasing selectively edited transcripts of the tapes, which pleased no one. Worse yet, one of the tapes that the White House did release to Jaworski had

The Watergate building in Washington, D.C., housed the offices of the Democratic National Committee and was the scene of the June 17, 1972, break-in. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Weathermen an unexplained gap, which White House officials blamed on a “clerical error” committed by Nixon’s personal secretary. In the spring of 1974 Congress continued to insist that it receive all of the contested tape recordings. Nixon stood firm. In July 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Nixon White House had to turn over all of the tapes requested by Congress. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives articles of impeachment were being prepared against the president. Nixon now had no choice but to surrender the tapes, which he knew would condemn him. On July 27, 1974, the House of Representatives passed the first of three impeachment articles against Nixon, citing him for obstruction of justice. On July 29 and 30, respectively, two more articles of impeachment passed, one for abuse of power and the other for contempt of Congress. After being bluntly informed by a congressional delegation from his own party that he would not survive an impeachment trial in Congress, Nixon decided to resign the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald R. Ford. Although the immediate crisis of the Watergate Scandal ended with Nixon’s resignation, the episode had troubling and long-term implications for American politics and government. Many Americans rightly conflated the Watergate Scandal with the Vietnam War. Indeed, just as U.S. policy makers had led the nation into a costly and unpopular war with little public discussion and no meaningful congressional oversight, so too had the Nixon administration engaged in secretive and unsavory activities in the name of “national security.” As a result, Americans’ trust in their politicians and in the political system suffered a major blow. Many also talked with consternation about the unchecked powers of the presidency, which the Nixonian abuses of power so clearly highlighted. Watergate undermined the power of the Republican Party for a time and may indeed have led to the rise of President Jimmy Carter, who won the presidency in 1976 based in large part on his outsider status, personal integrity, and self-effacing manner. In the end, the Watergate Scandal displayed in shocking clarity the results of the so-called imperial presidency and a national security state in which personal freedoms were subordinated to political whim and alleged public safety. For all the dangers and pitfalls of the Watergate Scandal, however, the incident did play an indirect role in helping to end the Vietnam War. While negotiations to end the war had dragged on in the early 1970s, President Nixon had clandestinely pledged U.S. support to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) if the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) broke the peace agreement. This promise helped to convince South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu to sign the 1973 cease-fire. But when North Vietnam did violate the peace agreement, President Gerald R. Ford was unable to make good on Nixon’s promise, as Congress was in no mood to involve the United States in Vietnamese affairs. Thanks in large part to the Watergate Scandal, Congress refused to appropriate sufficient funds to stave off a South Vietnamese defeat, and Ford never seriously contemplated sending troops to South Vietnam in 1975. PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.

1329

See also Ellsberg, Daniel; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Nguyen Van Thieu; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pentagon Papers and Trial; United States Congress and the Vietnam War References Emery, Fred. Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Touchstone, 1994. Hoff, Joan. Nixon Reconsidered. New York: Basic Books, 1994. Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. New York: Knopf, 1990. Summers, Anthony. Arrogance of Power: Nixon and Watergate. London: Orion, 2001. Woodward, Bob. Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.

Weathermen Radical faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), founded in 1969, that advocated violent means to alter American society. In January 1960 student activists organized the SDS to promote civil rights and protest the nuclear arms race. By 1965, however, the group had shifted its primary focus to spearheading opposition to the Vietnam War. SDS protest activities included petition drives, draft-resistance training, and campus protests. These efforts were successful in raising opposition to the war but were not successful in changing U.S. government policy. As a result, the SDS began to radicalize. During the SDS national convention at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in December 1968, SDS delegates split into opposing camps. Some delegates wanted to adopt revolutionary violence as a political tactic, first to end the draft and then to end the war. After the convention, the radical factions began to encourage and engage in violent protests against what would become America’s longest war. The Weathermen (sometimes known as the Weatherman Underground) were one of the most violent of these factions. The name was adapted from a Bob Dylan song. The Weathermen specifically grew out of an SDS national war council held in Austin, Texas, in March 1969. This council resolved to promote “armed struggle” as the only way to transform American society. Members of the Weathermen agreed with the council’s conclusions and in October organized some 600 people to engage in violent protests in Chicago. The protests, designed to occur simultaneously with the trial of the Chicago Eight, became known as the “Days of Rage” and earned the Weathermen sufficient notoriety to catch the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), particularly because of the protests’ reliance on arson and bombings to assault the federal government. During the Chicago riots the Weathermen blew up a statue dedicated to police officers who had been killed during the 1886 Haymarket Riot. After the city of Chicago rebuilt the statue, the Weathermen blew it up a second time in October 1970. Rioters also rampaged through tony sections of the city, including the Gold

1330

Webb, James Henry, Jr.

Members of a radical faction of the antiwar Students for a Democratic Society, calling themselves the “Weathermen,” stormed the streets of Chicago in 1968, breaking windows and attacking police. The militant group’s three-day rampage was dubbed the “Days of Rage.” The group was protesting the trial of the Chicago Eight after the 1968 Democratic National Convention. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Coast, smashing windows and vandalizing cars. The riot resulted in 28 injured policemen, 6 Weathermen shot and injured, and 68 Weathermen arrested. In 1970 the Weathermen also perpetrated violent acts in New York City. The philosophical foundations of the Weathermen were Marxist in nature: militant struggle was the key to striking out against the state and building a revolutionary consciousness among the young, particularly the white working class. The message was antiracist and anti-imperialist; the goal was a radical counterculture that provoked arguments and incited fights within itself and with its opponents. In the end, the Weathermen sought to impose a classless Communist-oriented world order. The group also sought accommodation with the burgeoning black liberation and Black Power movements. The Weathermen thought that perpetual criticism would force America’s youths to continually question the political establishment and reverse the corruption of once-democratic American ideals. The radicals believed that most Americans understood their political message and the reasons that they considered violent tactics necessary. In fact, an overwhelming number of Americans regarded the Weathermen’s activities as criminal and supported efforts by federal law enforcement agencies to end their activities in the early 1970s. The Weathermen faded rapidly after the 1973

Paris Peace Accords ended the Vietnam War, and by 1977 the organization had dissolved entirely. TRACY R. SZCZEPANIAK See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Black Panthers; Chicago Eight; Dylan, Bob; Students for a Democratic Society; University of Wisconsin Bombing References Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Jacobs, Harold, ed. Weathermen. Berkeley, CA: Ramparts, 1970. Miller, James. Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. O’Neill, William L. Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s. New York: Times Books, 1971. Viorst, Milton. Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Webb, James Henry, Jr. Birth Date: February 9, 1946 Decorated Vietnam War veteran, attorney, author, filmmaker, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs (1984–1987), secretary of the U.S. Navy (1987–1988), U.S. senator (2007–), and

Wei Guoqing strong opponent of the George W. Bush administration’s prosecution of the Iraq War. James (Jim) Henry Webb Jr. was born on February 9, 1946, in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the son of a career U.S. Air Force officer. Following graduation from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1968, Webb entered the U.S. Marine Corps and served in the Vietnam War as a platoon leader and company commander with the 5th Marine Regiment, seeing extensive combat and earning a Navy Cross. He was subsequently an instructor in tactics and weapons at the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and served on the military staff of the secretary of the U.S. Navy before leaving the service in 1972. Webb then attended Georgetown University law school, where he received his JD degree in 1975. From 1977 to 1981 he served as counsel to the U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs. Webb also did pro bono legal work for veterans. During this time he wrote his first book, Micronesia and U.S. Pacific Strategy (1975). In 1978 he came to public prominence as an author, in particular for his novel Fields of Fire (1978), a story of ground combat involving U.S. marines in Vietnam. During the Ronald Reagan administration, Webb was the first assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs (1984–1987) and then secretary of the navy from May 1, 1987, to February 23, 1988. A principal concern of the U.S. military resulting from the Vietnam War experience was the desire to achieve more effective integration of the Reserves and the National Guard with the regular

1331

military. Webb’s positions, in particular the first, involved policy planning and implementation in this area, which was quite successful overall. After leaving government service Webb enjoyed a storied career as an author, including five novels and a book about the Scotch Irish experience in the United States; a movie and documentary film producer; and a screenwriter. He produced the storyline and was the executive producer of Rules of Engagement in 2001, a popular legal-military-political drama starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. Webb stayed active on the political scene, writing occasional columns and op-ed pieces, but did not stay wedded to one political party. Indeed, in spite of his service during the Reagan years, he backed numerous Democratic candidates for office and would run as a moderate Democrat in the 2006 senatorial election. In a March 2003 op-ed piece for the New York Times, written just days after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, Webb presciently warned that the United States could well become locked in a deadly guerrilla insurgency there. In 2006 Webb secured Virginia’s Democratic Party senatorial nomination and was elected by a razor-thin margin to the U.S. Senate, succeeding Republican George Allen. In the campaign Webb emphasized his moderate social positions, fiscal conservatism, and opposition to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. In November 2006 he publicly justified the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War but was quick to add that the war strategy was badly flawed. Webb’s victory as a Democrat in a conservative state resulted in notable national attention and public discussion that he might be a candidate for higher office. His victory also helped solidify the Democrats’ sweep of Congress, as they claimed control over both houses in the 2006 elections. As a senator Webb has been actively involved in sponsoring and supporting legislation for veterans’ benefits and has been a continuing critic of the Bush administration’s war and economic policies. ARTHUR I. CYR See also Antiwar Movement, U.S. References Webb, James. Fields of Fire. New York: Prentice Hall, 1978. Woodward, Bob. State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006.

Wei Guoqing Birth Date: 1913 Death Date: June 1989 James Webb, attorney, author, filmmaker, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs (1984–1987), secretary of the navy (1987–1988), and United States senator (2007–). (Department of Defense)

Senior Chinese military officer, political commissar, and government bureaucrat who had special responsibility for China’s relations with the Vietnamese Communist military and government during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Donglan, Guangxi Province, in

1332

Wei Guoqing

1913, Wei Guoqing was a member of the ethnic Zhuang (Chuang) minority group. He joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army) in 1929 and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1931. During 1934–1935 he consolidated his role as a rising military leader in PLA by serving as a regimental commander on the famous Long March, led by Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). Wei’s mentors in the growing PLA hierarchy in the 1930s included senior CCP and military officials such as Deng Xiaoping and Peng Dehaui. By 1945 Wei was a deputy division commander in the PLA’s New Fourth Army. As World War II ended and the brief cease-fire between the Communists and Nationalists disintegrated in 1946, Wei was recalled from a peace-monitoring post in northwestern Jiangsu Province to take command of several columns of forces in the eastern China PLA. In this capacity he was a key figure in the subsequent Communist victory in the Huai-Hai Campaign of late 1948. His successes led to his promotion in 1949 to deputy political commissar of an army group within the PLA’s Third Army. In late 1949 Wei first became involved in the international relations of the new People’s Republic of China (PRC). His interactions with the Vietnamese Communist regime began in early 1950 when, while serving as a deputy political commissar in the Fujian Provincial Military District, he was appointed to head at least one of the Chinese military advisory groups sent to offer arms, logistical support, and tactical advice to the Communist-led Viet Minh military organization. Along with PLA general Chen Geng, Wei is believed to have traveled to Tonkin to the Viet Minh’s key command center in the Viet Bac hinterland for high-level conferences with Vietnamese military and political leaders. During 1950 the PRC organized training camps for both Vietnamese party cadre and regular troops as well as a number of arms supply depots in Guangxi to aid the Viet Minh military challenge to the French administration in Vietnam. According to official Vietnamese histories and memoirs, Wei served as senior Chinese military adviser to General Vo Nguyen Giap and regularly accompanied the Vietnamese high command into battle from the Border Campaign of 1950 through the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. To accommodate his growing activity in the Indochinese-Chinese border area and because of Wei’s identity as a member of the Zhuang minority centered in Guangxi, in 1951 he was named deputy secretary of the CCP’s Provincial Committee for Guangxi Province, the site of most of the training and supply facilities aiding the Viet Minh. Wei has been credited with codeveloping General Vo Nguyen Giap’s strategy of encirclement of the French force at Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Vietnam during 1953–1954. In his memoirs General Giap acknowledges that he regularly consulted with Wei, who was present at Giap’s command post, throughout the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Wei played a key role in the dispatch of Chinese military equipment, including heavy artillery, thus helping to ensure France’s disastrous defeat in May 1954. Wei was then a member of the Chinese delegation led by Premier Zhou Enlai to the 1954 Geneva Conference.

By this time, Wei’s political duties within China had been transferred almost entirely to Guangxi Province. He was also identified during this period as a commander of the elite PLA Public Security Forces, a special detachment that guarded vital border-area installations such as arms supply depots. It is likely that Wei retained government, military, and Public Security responsibilities throughout his tenure in Guangxi, which lasted until 1975. He was frequently present at meetings in Nanning, Guangxi’s capital, when visitors to and from Southeast Asia passed through, including the important mission to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) led by senior general Ye Jianying in late 1961. By the 1960s Wei was Guangxi’s leading government and CCP official. Despite heavy criticism and opposition to his administration during the Cultural Revolution, Wei maintained his posts in the province, even becoming the first political commissar of the Guangxi Military District sometime in 1964. It is likely that his promotions and longevity were associated with his continuing oversight of military assistance to the Vietnamese Communist military effort against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the United States, and their allies in the Vietnam War. During this period, the Chinese Communists are reported to have dispatched more than 200,000 technicians and advisers to North Vietnam, many of whom took up domestic tasks such as road construction. At the close of the Gang of Four period in 1977, Wei was appointed to head the PLA’s General Political Department, thus emerging at the end of the Cultural Revolution as the chief political commissar for the entire PLA. He seems not to have been directly involved in the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, quite probably because of his long-standing record of coordinating Chinese support for the Communist regime in Vietnam. However, he was relieved of many of his military duties in an antibourgeoisie purge during 1982–1983. He remained a vice chairman of the government’s National People’s Congress until his death in Beijing in June 1989. LAURA M. CALKINS See also China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Viet Minh; Vo Nguyen Giap References Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Dien Bien Phu: Diem Hen Lich Su [Dien Bien Phu: A Historic Meeting Place]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Duong Toi Dien Bien Phu [The Road to Dien Bien Phu]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001. Whitson, William W., with Chen-hsia Haung. The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1927–1971. New York: Praeger, 1973. Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Welsh v. United States

Weiss, Cora Birth Date: October 2, 1934 Social worker, peace activist, and advocate for civil rights and women’s rights. Cora Rubin was born in Harlem, New York, on October 2, 1934, to Vera Dourmashkin and Samuel Rubin, a Russian émigré businessman who founded Fabergé Perfumes in 1937 and later formed the Samuel Rubin Foundation, which founded the Institute for Policy Studies in 1963, and is married to New York lawyer Peter Weiss. At the University of Wisconsin in 1952, Cora Weiss organized fellow students against Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch-hunt in the United States. Here she learned valuable lessons about grass-roots organizing that she would employ in subsequent crusades. Weiss studied law and social work but risked expulsion by handing out birth control devices to her classmates. She graduated in 1956 with a BA in anthropology. Weiss then began graduate work at the Hunter College School of Social Work in New York City, specializing in psychiatric social work. Part of her training involved working with returning Korean War veterans at the Louis M. Rabinowitz School of Social Work. In the early 1960s the Weiss family offered civil right workers, primarily Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNNC) members, a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, where they could rest and recuperate from the brutalizing experience of working in the South. Weiss was a founder, along with fellow activists Bella Abzug and Dagmar Wilson, of Women Strike for Peace (WSP). WSP mobilized against the U.S. government’s nuclear testing programs by demanding that magazine and newspaper editors give publicity to the dangers of nuclear war. Most WSP members were married middle-class white women who used consensus methods in their decision making. In 1964 the WSP was the first of the era’s peace groups to approach the Pentagon and demand to speak to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. This resulted in the closing of Pentagon doors to the public, a first. In an integrative effort to involve women of color in the antiwar movement, Weiss and others formed the Jeanette Rankin Brigade in 1969. Named for the first pacifist woman in Congress, the group developed ties with other organizations to march on Washington, D.C., in an attempt to end the war in Vietnam. Weiss had a major role in organizing the largest antiwar demonstration of the decade, which took place on November 16, 1969, in Washington, D.C. Many consider this a turning point in the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement. Weiss also cochaired the Committee of Liaison with Families of Prisoners Detained in Vietnam. As such, she helped orchestrate the exchange of mail between American prisoners of war (POWs) and their families. This helped reveal the names and locations of POWs, which in turn helped in their repatriation. Weiss flew to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) amid heavy U.S. air attacks in 1972 with family members of POWs and returned home with three prisoners of war.

1333

Since then, Weiss has remained committed to the advancement of peace, civil and human rights, and women’s rights in the United States and around the world. For many years she has directed the Samuel Rubin Foundation. Weiss’s work, however, has not been without controversy. Some have labeled her efforts as little more than flimsy fronts for the Communist Party or the extreme Left, while others describe her efforts to locate and release POWs during Vietnam as traitorous because they engaged the enemy and bypassed official government channels. REBECCA TOLLEY-STOKES See also Abzug, Bella; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; McNamara, Robert Strange References DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Weiss, Cora. There’s Hope. New York: Pilgrim, 1981.

Welsh v. United States A U.S. Supreme Court decision on June 15, 1970, in which the Court expanded the various types of beliefs that an individual could claim to receive conscientious objector (CO) status. During the Vietnam War, opposition to the draft was widespread. In a case having direct bearing on Welsh v. United States, a unanimous Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren had ruled in Seeger v. United States (1965) that the test of religious belief is whether it is a sincere and meaningful belief, one that is part of a person’s moral character and is parallel to that normally occupied by God. Daniel Andrew Seeger had been convicted for failing to register for the draft and had appealed his conviction. The draft law defined “religious training and belief” as requiring belief in a Supreme Being and had specifically excluded sociological, political, or philosophical views. Personal moral codes were also not a reason for draft exemption. In Seeger v. United States the Court interpreted the draft law quite broadly in its efforts to define the meaning of religion within the statutes of the Selective Service law. On December 14, 1961, Elliott Ashton Welsh II of California had been classified 1-A for selective service, making him immediately eligible for the draft. On April 10, 1964, he filed the form for CO status but with certain objections. When ordered to report for his induction physical, he refused and filed suit. In 1966 he was convicted in federal court for violating the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 1948. Welsh, aware that the only provision for exemption in the Universal Military Training and Service Act was by reason of “religious training and belief,” had struck the words “my religious training and” from his application for CO status. In his exemption application he claimed that he could not affirm or deny belief in a Supreme Being. He based his application not on any religious beliefs but rather on a belief system that came from

1334 Welsh v. United States

Elliott A. Welsh II talks on the phone with newsmen following the Supreme Court ruling in his favor. The court held that a draftee was entitled to claim conscientious objector status even though his opposition to war was not “religious” in nature. (Bettmann/Corbis)

reading in the fields of history and sociology. He also proclaimed his moral opposition to the Vietnam War. Welsh v. United States took the Seeger v. United States decision one step further in an attempt to interpret the meaning of religion and belief as laid out in the draft act. The U.S. Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit (San Francisco) decided the case on September 23, 1968. The appeals court did take notice that Welsh’s beliefs were equivalent to those of more traditional religious convictions but ruled that those beliefs were not “sufficiently religious” under the current draft law. His conviction was upheld. Welsh then appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the law violated the First Amendment prohibition of establishment of religion and should be set aside based on the earlier ruling in Seeger v. United States. The Welsh v. United States case was finally decided in 1970. Oral arguments were held on January 20, 1970. Welsh was represented by the noted Los Angeles attorney J. B. Tietz, a specialist in Selective Service law. A decision was handed down on June 15. In a 5 to 3 decision, the Court reversed the lower court’s decision and permitted Welsh to be declared a CO despite the obvious fact that he had declared his opposition to war on nonreligious grounds. Justice Black wrote the plurality opinion and was joined by justices William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, and Thurgood Marshall. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote a separate concurring opinion. In the

plurality opinion, the Court argued that an individual’s beliefs must be “deeply held” and not simply based solely on “considerations of policy, pragmatism or expediency.” Justice Harlan also noted that the draft law’s current wording had limited the definition of religion to its theistic sense and had confined it to a formal organized setting of worship. But rather than nullifying the exemptions entirely, Harlan argued that the draft law should protect individuals such as Welsh who have been unconstitutionally excluded from its coverage. During the Vietnam War the Court, in Welsh v. United States, now permitted the depth and conviction of one’s beliefs rather than association with an established religion to determine which views qualify for exemption from military service. The Court, however, did not extend exemptions to those objecting to a particular war. CHARLES FRANCIS HOWLETT See also Conscientious Objectors; United States v. Seeger References Barron, Jerome A., and Dienes C. Thomas. Constitutional Law. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1986. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Dry, Murray. Civil Peace and the Quest for Truth: First Amendment Freedoms. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004.

Westmoreland, William Childs Foley, Michael S. Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Kohn, Stephen M. Jailed for Peace: The History of American Draft Law Violators, 1658–1985. New York: Praeger, 1987.

Westmoreland, William Childs Birth Date: March 26, 1914 Death Date: July 18, 2005 U.S. Army general and commander of American forces in Vietnam from June 1964 to June 1968. William Childs Westmoreland was born in rural Spartanburg County, South Carolina, on March 26, 1914. Military service was traditional on both sides of young Westmoreland’s family. His father, a textile plant manager, had attended the Citadel, and Westmoreland did so for one year before entering the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1932, where he became cadet first captain. Commissioned a lieutenant of field artillery in 1936, Westmoreland served in various posts in the United States. In 1942 he became a major and commanded an artillery battalion in Tunisia and Sicily, distinguishing himself in the February 1943 Battle of Kasserine Pass. He then served with the 9th Infantry Division in France, where he was promoted to colonel and became division chief of staff. He fought with the division in Germany and after the war commanded a regiment in occupation duties. In 1946 after completing parachute training, he commanded the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. From 1947 to 1950 Westmoreland was chief of staff of the 82nd Airborne Division. He then taught at the Army Command and Staff School and the Army War College. In August 1952 Westmoreland assumed command of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team in Korea, and that November he was promoted to brigadier general. For the next several years he served on the General Staff and was promoted to major general in 1956, after which he commanded the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. From 1960 to 1963 he served as superintendent at West Point. Promoted to lieutenant general in 1963, Westmoreland returned to Fort Campbell to command the XVIII Airborne Corps. He was then ordered to Vietnam as deputy commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Westmoreland arrived in Vietnam on January 27, 1964, and in June was named to succeed General Paul D. Harkins as commander of MACV. Westmoreland judged the South Vietnamese to lack a “sense of urgency.” His own approach to command in Vietnam was to be one of action, not of contemplation. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted in his memoirs that “Westy possessed neither Patton’s boastful flamboyance nor LeMay’s stubbornness but shared their determination and patriotism.” In August 1964 Westmoreland was promoted to full general; it was now Westmoreland’s war.

1335

One characteristic that President Lyndon B. Johnson looked for in his new commander in Vietnam was mental agility and flexibility to adapt to unforeseen events. Few would disagree that Westmoreland brought abundant energy and impeccable standards to his command, but some have criticized his choice of tactics and timing. The military strategy of search and destroy seemingly was consistent with the political character of limited war in Vietnam, where the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) were partners in contesting a Communist insurgency that threatened the viability of the South Vietnamese government. Search-and-destroy operations were designed to deny to the Viet Cong (VC) and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) the cover and concealment of their jungle bases and to bring their military units to battle. Allied units would enter jungle sanctuaries, search methodically during the day, and occupy strong night-defensive positions, daring the Communists to attack. MACV’s approach depended on superior intelligence data and sufficient airmobile combat units to reach the decisive location in time to exploit the opportunity. Search-and-destroy operations were predicated on the assumption that combat in Vietnam had moved from insurgency/guerrilla actions to largerunit actions. General Bruce Palmer Jr., who served as commander of II Field Force, Vietnam, and later of U.S. Army, Vietnam, concludes in his book The 25-Year War that the chosen American style of war “was tough, risky business, for our troops, moving into and searching a hostile area, being exposed to enemy ambush, mines, and booby traps.” Moreover, he points out, this approach surrendered the initiative to the Communists, forcing the allies “to react and dance to the enemy’s tune.” Both Palmer and Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. have written that MACV’s assumption that large-unit warfare had supplanted the Communists’ small-unit guerrilla-style hit-and-run tactics after 1965 was invalid. In 1967 Westmoreland believed that the initiative had firmly switched to the allies, noting that the VC and the PAVN had lost control over large areas and populations. It may be that the flaw in the U.S. phase (1965–1973) of the war in Vietnam was a poorly conceived grand strategy. Neil Sheehan in A Bright Shining Lie says that in prosecuting a war of attrition, “The building of the killing machine had become an end in itself.” Grand strategy—the sum of political, economic, military, and other component strategies—is designed to accomplish the purpose of the war. In the most striking way, the chosen military strategy of attrition did not lead directly and resolutely to the political end of the conflict. It is not surprising that General Westmoreland and the MACV staff sought a strategic solution to the growing VC/PAVN capability through the application of U.S. technology and firepower. What is surprising is that they believed that an American-style quick fix could win a protracted war. In many ways, the “other war”—pacification—was the more important stepping stone to an allied victory. American strategists discovered too late that carrying the war to the Communists at the same time as they were attempting to strengthen the South Vietnamese

1336

Westmoreland, William Childs

General William C. Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, shown here during a news conference in 1967. Westmoreland commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam during 1964–1968. Some have questioned the general’s strategy that emphasized large search-anddestroy missions at the expense of counterinsurgency. (AP/Wide World Photos)

toward national self-sufficiency was like pulling on both ends of a rope simultaneously. VC/PAVN forces were fighting the Americans and their allies like a seasoned boxer, willing to go the distance by slipping punches when possible and absorbing them with minimum damage when necessary. But through it all the Communists had their eyes on the objective: to frustrate and damage the Americans’ will to continue the war. General Westmoreland’s warriors had four years in the ring with General Vo Nguyen Giap’s unsophisticated but numerous and dedicated troops. Instead of being weakened by attrition, the VC/PAVN seemed to gain in strength and audacity until they suffered enormous losses in their 1968 Tet Offensive. Explaining that American intelligence had forecast a VC attack, General Westmoreland said that “I made a mistake; I should have called a press conference and made known to the world that we knew this attack was coming.” It was clear that after the Tet Offensive the U.S. government, reflecting the impatience and confusion of the American people, began withdrawing the essential moral support and then the resources necessary for victory. It was not entirely Westmoreland’s fault, only his misfortune to be

the responsible official on the ground in Vietnam. In that regard Harry Summers is probably right that it is unfair to compare General Westmoreland with General Giap because the PAVN commander enjoyed a unity of command that in the American system of war fighting was distributed among many civilian and military authorities. In July 1968 President Johnson recalled Westmoreland from Vietnam and appointed him U.S. Army chief of staff. As his former deputy, General Creighton Abrams, carried on with the gradual handing-off of the war to the unready and sometimes unwilling South Vietnamese, Westmoreland set his professional skills to work on issues such as the all-volunteer force. In July 1972 Westmoreland retired from the army after more than 36 years of service. In 1976 he published his memoirs, A Soldier Reports. In January 1982 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and its journalist Mike Wallace aired a television documentary that accused General Westmoreland and his staff of fudging Communist casualty figures to give the appearance of progress and eventual success in Vietnam. As the general put it in his December 1994 interview, “They accused me of basically lying. . . . If there is any-

Weyand, Frederick Carlton thing that I cherish, it’s character.” Westmoreland brought a libel suit against CBS that resulted in a two-and-a-half-month trial and ended with an out-of-court settlement on February 18, 1985. CBS stood by its documentary but issued a statement that it did not mean to impugn General Westmoreland’s patriotism or loyalty “in performing his duties as he saw them.” Following his retirement, Westmoreland made a brief but unsuccessful foray into politics in search of the Republican nomination for governor of South Carolina. He was a frequent speaker at patriotic events. Westmoreland died on July 18, 2005, in Charleston, South Carolina. JOHN F. VOTAW See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Attrition; “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report; Manila Conference; McNamara, Robert Strange; Media and the Vietnam War; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Order of Battle Dispute; Search and Destroy; Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States Army References Furgurson, Ernest B. Westmoreland: The Inevitable General. Boston: Little, Brown, 1968. Herring, George C. “Westmoreland, William Childs.” In Dictionary of American Military Biography, Vol. 3, edited by Roger Spiller, 1179–1183. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Westmoreland, William C. “Vietnam in Perspective.” In Vietnam: Four American Perspectives, edited by Patrick J. Hearden, 39–57. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1990. Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994.

Weyand, Frederick Carlton Birth Date: September 15, 1916 Death Date: February 10, 2010 U.S. Army general; commander, II Field Force, Vietnam; and last commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Born in Arbuckle, California, on September 15, 1916, Frederick Carlton Weyand graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1939 and received a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commission. In 1940 he was called to active duty and assigned to the 6th Artillery. During World War II he served as an intelligence officer in Burma. After the war he transferred to the infantry. During 1950–1951 in the Korean War (1950–1953) Weyand was a lieutenant colonel and battalion commander in the 7th Infantry Regiment and was also operations officer of the 3rd Infantry Division. During 1952–1953 he was on the faculty of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Serving as military assistant in the

1337

Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management until 1954, Weyand was promoted to colonel in 1955 and was military assistant to the secretary of the army during 1954–1957. Weyand graduated from the Army War College in 1958. Serving as chief of staff for the Communications Zone, U.S. Army, Europe, during 1960–1961, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1960. During 1961–1964 Weyand was deputy chief and then chief of legislative liaison for the Department of the Army. Promoted to major general in November 1962, in 1964 Weyand assumed command of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. He took the division to Vietnam in 1966 and commanded it during Operations CEDAR FALLS and JUNCTION CITY. In March 1967 he became deputy commander of II Field Force and then its commander from July 1967 to August 1968. As commander of II Field Force, Weyand controlled combat operations inside the so-called Saigon Circle during the January 1968 Tet Offensive. In the months leading up to the offensive, Weyand’s maneuver battalions were increasingly sent to outlying border regions in response to increased Viet Cong (VC) attacks in those areas. But Weyand and his civilian political adviser, John Paul Vann, were uncomfortable with the operational patterns they were seeing. Weyand did not like the increase in Communist radio traffic around Saigon, and his units were making too few contacts in the border regions. On January 10, 1968, Weyand visited with General William Westmoreland and convinced the general to let him pull more U.S. combat battalions back in around Saigon. As a result, there were 27 battalions (instead of the planned 14) in the Saigon area when the Tet attacks came. Weyand’s shrewd analysis and subsequent actions unquestionably altered the course of the Tet fighting to the allies’ advantage. During the battle itself Weyand controlled U.S. forces from his command post at Long Binh, some 15 miles east of Saigon. Weyand left Vietnam in 1968 and, as a lieutenant general, served as the U.S. Army’s chief of the Office of Reserve Components until 1969. In 1969 and 1970 he was a military adviser to the Paris peace talks. In April 1970 Weyand returned to Vietnam as deputy commander of MACV. Promoted to full general in October 1970, he succeeded General Creighton Abrams as MACV commander in July 1972. Weyand presided over the U.S. military withdrawal from Vietnam and folded MACV’s flag on March 29, 1973. After Weyand left Vietnam, he served as commanding general, U.S. Army Pacific, later becoming vice chief of staff of the army in 1973 and chief of staff in October 1974. Just before the fall of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), President Gerald Ford sent Weyand to Saigon to assess the situation. Weyand arrived there on March 27, 1975, and delivered the message to President Nguyen Van Thieu that although the U.S. government would support the South Vietnamese government to the best of its ability, America would not fight in Vietnam again. Upon his return to Washington, Weyand reported to no avail that the military situation could not be improved without direct U.S. intervention. As chief of staff of the army, Weyand worked to improve

1338

Wheeler, Earle Gilmore

combat-to-support troop ratios, to achieve a 16-division army, and to enhance unit effectiveness. Weyand retired from the U.S. Army in October 1976. During his 36-year career, he had spent almost 6 years in Vietnam and another 10 in Asia and the Pacific. He was one of America’s most experienced and capable commanders of the Vietnam War. Weyand died on February 10, 2010, in Honolulu, Hawaii. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr.; Ford, Gerald Rudolph; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Nguyen Van Thieu; United States Army; Vann, John Paul; Westmoreland, William Childs References Bell, William G. Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff: 1775–1983. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Zabecki, David T. “Battle for Saigon.” Vietnam (Summer 1989): 19–25.

close to President Lyndon Johnson and had a reputation as a skillful player of the Pentagon war games under the rules of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Nonetheless, as the war progressed Wheeler was increasingly overshadowed by McNamara and his systems analysis “whiz kids.” As chairman, Wheeler worked hard to smooth over dissenting opinions or splits in JCS recommendations. He believed that these opened the door for interference by McNamara and his assistants, resulting in civilians making military decisions that they were not qualified to make. Even though there was a wide difference of opinion within the JCS on the air war strategy, Wheeler convinced all the chiefs to go along with it on the basis that they all agreed that it was at least worth a try. Wheeler’s approach did not work. Unanimity did not produce greater JCS influence, and McNamara increasingly made military decisions to a far greater degree than any of his predecessors. As American involvement in the war grew, the JCS recognized the widening discrepancy between the total force needed to meet worldwide U.S. commitments and the manpower base that the political leadership was willing to support. In August 1965 Wheeler and the JCS proposed an overall strategy for American military operations in Vietnam that centered around three tasks:

Wheeler, Earle Gilmore Birth Date: January 13, 1908 Death Date: December 18, 1975 U.S. Army general, chief of staff during 1962–1964, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during 1964–1970. Born in Washington, D.C., on January 13, 1908, Earle “Bus” Gilmore Wheeler enlisted in the District of Columbia National Guard at age 16 and reached the rank of sergeant before entering the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. He graduated in 1932 and was commissioned in the infantry. Wheeler served with the 15th Infantry in Tianjin, China, from 1937 to 1938. In 1940 Wheeler returned to West Point as a mathematics instructor. During the first half of World War II he trained infantry units in the United States. In December 1944 he went to Europe as chief of staff of the 63rd Infantry Division. Wheeler was selected to lead an assault regiment against Adolf Hitler’s headquarters in the Bavarian Alps, but the war ended just as the operation was to begin. Wheeler was promoted to brigadier general in 1952, to major general in 1955, to lieutenant general in April 1960, and to full general in March 1962. A protégé of General Maxwell Taylor, Wheeler became deputy commander in chief of the U.S. European Command in March 1962. Seven months later he was named chief of staff of the U.S. Army. When Taylor retired as chairman of the JCS in June 1964 to become ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Wheeler succeeded him. Wheeler had good political relations with Congress, particularly with senators John Stennis and Henry Jackson. Wheeler was fairly

U.S. Army general Earle G. Wheeler became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1964 and held that post until 1970. A strong supporter of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, he worked to resolve differences in opinion over the conduct of the war within the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sought without success to get President Lyndon Johnson to call up reserve forces. (Department of Defense)

Wheeler, Earle Gilmore forcing Hanoi to cease and desist in South Vietnam, defeating the Viet Cong (VC) in South Vietnam, and deterring China from intervening. To support the strategy and to rebuild the depleted strategic reserve at home, the JCS urged at least a limited call-up of reserve forces. The JCS continually pressed for the adoption of this overall strategy throughout the war, but its recommendations were never fully accepted. On the other hand, the JCS could clearly see where McNamara’s strategy of piecemeal force and graduated response would lead. Wheeler once commented that “Whatever the political merits of [graduated response], we deprived ourselves of the military effects of early weight of effort and shock, and gave the enemy time to adjust to our slow quantitative and qualitative increase of pressure.” As the American war effort grew, seemingly without end, frustration also grew among the JCS. In the autumn of 1967 the members of the JCS even considered resigning en masse in protest over the reserve mobilization issue. Despite their frustration, however, Wheeler and the other JCS members failed in one of their most important responsibilities. Even though their own strategy recommendations were being ignored, they never once directly advised the president that the ad hoc strategy being pursued was sure to fail. Explaining (but not excusing) this glaring failure, General Bruce Palmer suggested that the JCS was too imbued with the military’s characteristic can-do attitude, and the JCS members did not want to appear disloyal or to be openly challenging civilian authority. The 1968 Tet Offensive and the siege of Khe Sanh brought about the psychological turning point of the war. They also marked a historical low point in the relations between America’s military leaders and their civilian superiors. President Johnson became obsessed with Khe Sanh. Haunted by the specter of the French debacle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, he had a terrain model of the Khe Sanh base constructed for the White House Situation Room. Johnson spent evenings sitting in his bathrobe reading teletype traffic from the field and studying aerial photographs. In one of the most demeaning demands ever placed on military leaders by a U.S. president, Johnson insisted that Wheeler and the JCS sign a formal declaration of their belief in General William Westmoreland’s ability to hold Khe Sanh. In making his demand, the president told Wheeler that “I don’t want any damn Dinbinphoo.” Immediately after the Tet Offensive, Westmoreland remained confident. Wheeler, however, strongly encouraged the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander to request more troops. Wheeler apparently hoped that another large commitment of forces to Vietnam would finally force Johnson to mobilize the reserves. At that point in the war, the members of the JCS were alarmed over America’s worldwide strategic posture. The only combat-ready division outside of Vietnam was the 82nd Airborne Division, and one of its three brigades was on its way to Vietnam. The once-proud Seventh Army in Europe had been reduced to little more than a replacement holding pool. The JCS

1339

believed that the reserve call-up was necessary to restore the military’s global strategic posture. On February 23, 1968, Wheeler flew to Saigon to confer with Westmoreland. Wheeler informed the MACV commander of McNamara’s impending departure. Wheeler also overstated the likelihood that Westmoreland’s long-standing requests to attack Communist sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia would be approved. The two generals developed a request for an additional 206,000 troops. Once back in Washington, however, Wheeler presented the proposal as if Westmoreland were on the verge of defeat unless he was rapidly reinforced. When a member of the White House staff leaked the story to the New York Times, it was presented in just those terms. Unfortunately, Wheeler, who had actually maneuvered Westmoreland into making the request in the first place, did little to set the record straight. From that point on Wheeler’s influence declined even more. Although he continued to attend all high-level White House meetings on Vietnam, his advice was virtually ignored. Oddly enough, Johnson in July 1968 requested and received congressional approval to extend Wheeler’s tenure as JCS chairman for another year. When Richard Nixon became president in 1969, he too requested another one-year extension. Nixon, however, also did not heed the military advice of Wheeler and the JCS. Wheeler retired on July 2, 1970, after an unprecedented six years in office. The stress and frustration of those years led to several heart attacks and ruined his health. Wheeler died in Frederick, Maryland, on December 18, 1975. One positive legacy of the Wheeler years was the lesson of JCS unanimity. Under one of the provisions of the much-heralded 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act, the chairman of the JCS is now required to report all dissenting opinions to the president, and the dissenting service chief is both allowed and obligated to state his views. DAVID T. ZABECKI See also Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Khe Sanh, Battle of; McNamara, Robert Strange; Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Palmer, Bruce, Jr.; Stennis, John Cornelius; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Joint Chiefs of Staff; Westmoreland, William Childs References Bell, William G. Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff: 1775–1983. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Sheehan, Neil, et al. The Pentagon Papers: As Published by the New York Times. New York: Bantam, 1971. Webb, Willard J., and Ronald Cole. The Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, DC: Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989. Wheeler, Earle G. Addresses. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970.

1340

WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation

WHEELER/WALLOWA,

Operation

Start Date: November 11, 1967 End Date: November 11, 1968 Operation carried out by a division-sized U.S. Army task force in Quang Nam and Quang Tin provinces in I Corps from November 1967 until November 1968. Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA followed Task Force Oregon, a multibrigade U.S. Army force deployed in April 1967, to southern I Corps to blunt an offensive by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 2nd Division and to enable units of the 3rd Marine Task Force to relocate to Quang Tri Province. Organized by Major General William Rosson, Task Force Oregon was composed of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, and the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division (later designated the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division). WHEELER/WALLOWA actually began as two separate operations. WHEELER commenced on September 11, 1967, while Wallowa began on October 4, 1967; they were merged on November 11. Shortly after the launching of Operation WHEELER, Brigadier General Samuel W. Koster assumed command, and on September 25 U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), announced that Task Force Oregon would be reconstituted as the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division, consisting of the 196th, 198th,

Helmets, rifles, and jungle boots near Chu Lai constitute a battlefield memorial to members of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division killed in Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA during November 1967–November 1968. (Corbis)

and 11th Light Infantry brigades, and would be headquartered at Chu Lai. The latter two brigades, however, would not arrive in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) until October 22 and December 20, respectively, and only the 198th Brigade would join successor operations to WHEELER early in 1968. Operation WHEELER had barely begun when the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division and two battalions of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, returned to their parent divisions. These units were effectively replaced by the 3rd Brigade and Troop B, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), which on October 4 launched Operation WALLOWA in the northern sector of the Americal Division’s area of operation. WALLOWA claimed 675 PAVN and Viet Cong (VC) killed by November 11, when it was merged with Operation WHEELER as WHEELER/WALLOWA under the command of Koster, now a major general. WHEELER/WALLOWA became the code name for a series of sweeping operations throughout Quang Nam and Quang Tin provinces, from Hoi An south to Tam Ky along Route 1 and west into the Que Son and Hiep Duc Valleys, areas never previously under allied control. Communist strength proved much greater than anticipated, as four independent PAVN battalions reinforced the PAVN 2nd Division. Until mid-January 1968 the 1st Cavalry Division’s highly mobile 3rd Brigade and the 196th Infantry Brigade continuously engaged a determined Communist force, which managed to bring down dozens of helicopters in the Hiep Duc Valley and mount regimental-sized attacks against three firebases in the Que Son Valley. By January 31, 1968, WHEELER/WALLOWA had claimed 1,718 VC and 1,585 PAVN troops killed and more than 600 weapons captured, at a cost of more than 200 American lives. Among the PAVN dead were 2nd Division commander Le Huu Tru, his political commissar, and 2 of his regimental commanders, all of them killed on December 5, 1967, by troops of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. Just days after the 3rd Brigade left to join another 1st Cavalry Division brigade deployed in Quang Tri Province, the PAVN launched the Tet Offensive, during which the most intensive fighting in the WHEELER/WALLOWA area occurred at the provincial capital of Tam Ky. In February and March 1968 the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division also came under operational control of the Americal Division, and in late April the 198th Light Infantry Brigade assumed primary responsibility for the remaining six months of the operation. The 198th Light Infantry Brigade’s 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, distinguished itself in successive battles against the main-force VC 60th and 70th battalions at Lo Giang and Op Banh and in 22 days of consecutive fighting against the entire PAVN 3rd Regiment, 2nd Division. Ending on November 11, 1968, one year after it began, Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA claimed 10,008 VC and PAVN killed and 108 prisoners taken, along with 2,053 weapons captured. U.S. casualties were 682 killed and 3,995 wounded. Nevertheless, WHEELER/ WALLOWA only temporarily halted the threat of the PAVN 2nd Division. Quang Nam and Quang Tin defied pacification as thousands of fresh PAVN and VC replacements appeared during 1969. JOHN D. ROOT

Wild Weasels See also Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; United States Army; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army References Clodfelter, Michael. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. McCoy, J. W. Secrets of the Viet Cong. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992. Ngo Qui Nhon, Pham Hong Nhan, and Tran Thuc. Su Doan 2, Tap 1 [2nd Division, Vol. 1]. Da Nang: Da Nang Publishing House, 1989. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

White Star Mobile Training Teams U.S. Army Special Forces teams in Laos. The U.S. military aid program in Laos from 1955 to 1961 was managed by an office attached to the economic aid mission in Vientiane known as the Programs Evaluation Office (PEO). The PEO provided equipment to the Royal Laotian Armed Forces and trained Laotians in its use and maintenance. PEO personnel wore civilian clothes to avoid violating the 1954 Geneva Agreement’s ban on foreign military advisers (except for a small French military mission) in Laos. In April 1961, however, the PEO was converted into a full-scale Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) by presidential decision, and its members were allowed to wear uniforms. At this time a number of U.S. Army Special Forces teams were sent to Laos under MAAG and were called White Star teams. The July 1962 Geneva Agreement confirmed the neutrality of Laos. As early as June 23 the United States set the tone for compliance with Geneva Protocol provisions regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops by pulling out the White Star teams. Thereafter the number of U.S. military advisers in Laos was steadily reduced, with the last of them gone by the October 7, 1962, deadline. ARTHUR J. DOMMEN See also Laos; United States Special Forces References Castle, Timothy N. At War in the Shadow of Vietnam. U.S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955–1975. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1971.

Wild Weasels Specialized aircraft employed to counter the threat posed to U.S. aircraft by radar-guided SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the U.S. bombing of North

1341

Vietnam. On July 25, 1965, a McDonnell Douglas F-4C Phantom II was shot down by a SAM, and other losses soon followed. North Vietnamese SAM sites were off limits within 10 miles of Hanoi and Haiphong and could not be attacked within 30 miles of these cities unless they were preparing to fire on U.S. aircraft. Attacking aircraft attempting to fly beneath the effective SAM minimal arming range made them vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated antiaircraft and small-arms fire. Evasion was only a weak workaround. Until aircraft could be equipped with their own electronic countermeasures, the solution was specially equipped aircraft charged with seeking out and engaging the SAM sites. Understandably, such missions were among the most dangerous of the air war. U.S. Air Force brigadier general K. C. Dempster came up with the stop solution during a seminar on the problem. The project was known as Weasel or Wild Weasel I. The solution took the form of the APR-25 radar homing and warning system and the IR-133, a panoramic receiver that could analyze signals and determine whether they were from a ground-control intercept radar, an antiaircraft battery, or a SAM site. These enabled the pilot to get a bearing when the SAM radar was turned on. The third element was an APR-26 launch warning receiver to detect the increased power of the SAM guidance system that indicated a SAM launch. The very best pilots and electronic-warfare officers (EWOs) were assigned to the Wild Weasel teams. Training was conducted at Elgin Air Force Base, Florida. The first aircraft selected for the task were four older North American F-100F Super Sabres, armed with 20-millimeter cannon and 2.75-inch rockets. Later they were equipped with AGM45 Shrike missiles tuned to home in on the SAM guidance radars. Each aircraft had a pilot and an EWO. The EWO had the assignment of locating the SAM site so that it could be attacked. On November 21, 1965, five F-100F Wild Weasels of the 6234th Tactical Fighter Wing (Wild Weasel Detachment) of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing aircraft arrived at Korat Air Force Base in Thailand. The Wild Weasel missions were code-named Operation IRON HAND. The Wild Weasels would team up with Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs, the workhorses of the air war over North Vietnam. These four-ship flights would fly some five minutes in advance of the main strike mission and attempt to locate the SAM sites. The tactic was to get the SAM site to activate. The Wild Weasel would attempt to locate and mark the SAM site, and the F-105s would attack it. The main strike mission aircraft would then arrive and drop their bombs. The Wild Weasel motto was “first in, last out.” One Wild Weasel was lost before the first success could be registered. On December 20, 1965, captains John Pitchford and Robert Trier were shot down some 30 miles northeast of Hanoi. Both men ejected from their crippled aircraft. Pitchford was shot by his captors on landing but survived this and seven years as a prisoner of war. Trier was shot and killed by his captors after landing, supposedly because he had resisted capture. The first success for a Wild Weasel came two days later on December 22, when captains Al Lamb and Jack Donovan took out a SAM site during a ROLLING

1342

Williams, Samuel Tankersley

attack on Yen Bai northwest of Hanoi. IRON HAND strikes were costly for the attackers. Seven aircraft struck seven sites, with two aircraft lost and five damaged beyond repair. Later the Wild Weasels were upgraded to newer aircraft, first with the F-105F, then the G model, and finally the F-4 Phantom II. The first F-105G Wild Weasels arrived in-theater at Takhli Air Force Base, Thailand, on July 4, 1966. Thirty-eight days later, all seven F-105G Wild Weasel aircraft had been shot down. The F-105G employed the Shrike missile and later the Standard Arm missile against the SAM site, with the remainder of the aircraft attacking with conventional weapons until the SAM site was destroyed. The U.S. Navy also conducted IRON HAND attacks against SAM sites using A-4 Skyhawks and later A-7 Corsairs equipped with Shrike missiles and bombs, but the navy did not have specially dedicated anti-SAM aircraft such as the U.S. Air Force’s Wild Weasels. Wild Weasel flights were in a sense suicide missions. The aircraft did not employ radar-jamming systems, since the purpose of the aircraft was to encourage a SAM attack. A SAM launch resulted in sufficient smoke that it was usually possible to see the launch site. The Wild Weasel would then dive directly at the site. An abrupt dive or sharp breaking maneuver could enable the aircraft to evade the SAM. Failure to detect the approaching missile, which was far faster, usually resulted in loss of the aircraft, however. Wild Weasels did help reduce overall aircraft loss rates. In 1965, 11 U.S. aircraft were lost to 194 SAMs. By 1972, 49 aircraft were lost to 4,244 SAMs, a decline in the SAM success rate from 5.7 percent to 1.15 percent. After 1966, U.S. aircraft had their own electronic countermeasures, but Wild Weasels continued to be employed. JOHN BARNHILL AND SPENCER C. TUCKER THUNDER

See also ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic

of Vietnam; United States Air Force References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the U.S. Air Force, 1947–1997. New York: St. Martin’s, 2002. Davis, Larry. Wild Weasel: The SAM Suppression Story. Texas: Squadron/ Signal Publications, 1993. Jenkins, Dennis R. F-105 Thunderchief: Workhorse of the Vietnam War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. Levinson, Jeffery. Alpha Strike Vietnam: The Navy’s Air War, 1964 to 1973. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1989.

Williams, Samuel Tankersley Birth Date: July 25, 1896 Death Date: April 25, 1984 U.S. Army general and commander, U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, during 1955–1960. Born in Denton, Texas, on July 25, 1896, Samuel Tankersley Williams

volunteered for the Texas National Guard and served as an enlisted man in the 4th Texas Infantry Regiment during 1916–1917. When the United States entered World War I, Williams, then a sergeant, applied for officers training and was commissioned a second lieutenant in August 1917. He served with the 90th and 3rd divisions in France. Williams remained in the army after the war and during 1939– 1942 was a member of the Infantry Board. He was then a staff officer with the 95th Infantry Division. From August 1943 to August 1944 he was assistant division commander of the 90th Infantry Division. He was promoted to brigadier general in March 1944. He then held several staff assignments. In June 1952 Williams assumed command of the 25th Infantry Division in Korea. He was promoted to major general that September and in June 1953 was assigned as deputy commander of the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army) II Corps. Williams stressed discipline and scorned unfitness and negligence. He received his descriptive name “Hanging Sam” earlier in his career when during a courtmartial of a child rapist he reportedly burst out “I’ve heard enough! Let’s hang the son of a bitch!” Williams was commanding general of XVI Corps in Japan for less than a year from August 1953. In 1954 he assumed command of IX Corps in Korea, and later in 1954 he was concurrently Eighth Army deputy commander. In December 1954 he assumed the position of deputy commander of Fourth Army with station at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was promoted to lieutenant general in September 1955. A month later on October 28, 1955, Williams arrived in Vietnam to replace Lieutenant General John W. “Iron Mike” O’Daniel as commander of MAAG, Indochina. As the senior U.S. Army officer in Vietnam, Williams eliminated “Indochina” from the mission title, renaming it the Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam. Williams had a close relationship with President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and enjoyed the trust of the South Vietnamese government’s top-ranking officers. Williams defended Diem without qualification and attested to the president’s popularity nationwide. Williams’s determination to operate MAAG independent of the U.S. embassy led to difficulties when Ambassador G. Frederick Reinhardt was superseded by Elbridge Durbrow, who exercised greater control. Personality differences between the two men made the clash quite bitter. Under Williams, MAAG prepared for a conventional war. Influenced by their own experiences, Williams and his staff saw a strong similarity between the Korean and Vietnamese situations that caused them to concentrate on the possibility of a conventional attack by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), although Williams tended to dismiss the threat posed by North Vietnam. Williams was critical of the organization of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), and he favored the elimination of territorial regiments and light units and the creation of division-size organizations able to cope with

Wilson, James Harold a cross-border invasion or internal insurgency. His accompanying defensive strategy, Operation Plan 46A, perceived an enemy drive through the Mekong Valley, with the Central Highlands area as the decisive center of operations. Williams was not alarmed by increasing guerrilla activity in South Vietnam. Believing that internal security was not the ARVN’s principal responsibility, he advocated upgrading militia forces. Williams also doubted the value of the Michigan State University Advisory Group police and public administration advisers in assisting the training of local security personnel. Williams preferred instruction by MAAG personnel. At the time of his departure from Vietnam in August 1960, Williams expressed confidence in an early American withdrawal. He retired from the service in August 1960 while in Vietnam and was replaced by General Lionel C. McGarr in September. Williams died at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, on April 25, 1984. RODNEY J. ROSS AND SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Durbrow, Elbridge; Michigan State University Advisory Group; Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Reinhardt, George Frederick; United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 References Arnold, James R. The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military and America’s Intervention in Vietnam. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Meyer, Harold J. Hanging Sam: A Military Biography of General Samuel T. Williams, from Pancho Villa to Vietnam. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1990. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

1343

that created a decimal currency. With a widening trade deficit, the government was forced into increasing austerity measures. Ultimately the pound sterling was devalued to $2.40 to the dollar. Austerity also meant military retrenchment. Labour further reduced the size of the Royal Navy and gave up trying to maintain a sizable military force east of Suez. The government also announced the closure of the great British base at Singapore and its intention to withdraw from the Persian Gulf. Wilson was unable, and possibly unwilling, to influence U.S. policies in Vietnam. Both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party supported U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, but privately Wilson wanted both an end to the bombing and a negotiated end to the war, and he thus informed President Lyndon Johnson. Wilson was constrained from publicly criticizing U.S. policy both by the long-standing special relationship between the two countries and because of Washington’s role in supporting the pound sterling. In 1965 Wilson attempted several Vietnam peace initiatives, all of which failed. In early 1966 he endeavored to act as intermediary in setting up talks between Washington and Moscow regarding Vietnam. A halt in U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, in return for which the North Vietnamese government would stop infiltrating men into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), collapsed when U.S. military leaders insisted that North Vietnam provide proof rather than promises. When Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin submitted this demand to North Vietnamese officials,

Wilson, James Harold Birth Date: March 11, 1916 Death Date: May 24, 1995 British Labour Party politician and prime minister during 1964– 1970 and 1974–1975. Born at Huddersfield, England, on March 11, 1916, James Harold Wilson was educated at Oxford University, where he briefly taught economics. He served as director of economics and statistics for the Ministry of Fuel and Power from 1943 to 1944. The following year he entered Parliament, where he became the Labour Party’s chief spokesman on economic issues and held a variety of secretarial posts. In 1963 Wilson became Labour Party leader following the death of Hugh Gaitskell. Labour won the 1964 parliamentary elections by just 4 seats. In 1966, however, Wilson led the party to a convincing victory when it secured a 97-seat majority. Most of Wilson’s time in power as prime minister during 1964– 1970 was spent trying to keep Britain economically viable. In 1966 the government carried out a consolidation of steel companies into the British Steel Corporation and then in 1967 enacted legislation

British prime minister James Harold Wilson, shown here at a press conference in London on his return from a visit to the United States in 1963. (Getty Images)

1344

Wilson, Thomas Woodrow

they rejected it. In his memoirs, Wilson noted Moscow’s inability to “exert any real pressure on Hanoi in the face of continuing militant Chinese pressure.” In the 1970 British elections, Wilson squandered a huge lead and lost. The Conservatives returned to power, with Edward Heath as prime minister, but Labour won the 1974 elections, and Wilson again became prime minister. He retired unexpectedly in 1976, and James Callaghan took over. In 1983 Wilson was made a life peer. He died in London on May 24, 1995. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also De Gaulle, Charles; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich; SUNFLOWER, Operation; United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars References Donoughue, Bernard. Downing Street Diary: With Harold Wilson in No. 10. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005. Frankel, Joseph. British Foreign Policy, 1945–1973. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Great Britain, Foreign Office. Recent Exchanges Concerning Attempts to Promote a Negotiated Settlement of the Conflict in Viet-Nam. London: HMSO, 1965. Pimlott, Ben. Harold Wilson. London: HarperCollins, 1993. Wilson, Harold K. A Personal Record: The Labour Government, 1964–1970. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1971.

Wilson, Thomas Woodrow Birth Date: December 28, 1856 Death Date: February 3, 1924 U.S. academic, politician, and president of the United States (1913– 1921). Born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia, the son of a Presbyterian minister, Thomas Woodrow Wilson graduated in 1879 from Princeton University, where he studied history and politics. He then studied law at the University of Virginia for a year and passed the Georgia state bar examination in 1882. After practicing law for a short time in Atlanta, in 1886 Wilson obtained a PhD in constitutional and political history under Herbert Baxter Adams at Johns Hopkins University. After holding several teaching positions, in 1890 Wilson joined the faculty at Princeton. In 1902 he became the president of Princeton, where he carried out a number of educational reforms and became nationally known as a leader of Democratic Party progressivism. In 1910 Wilson was elected on the Democratic ticket as governor of New Jersey, beginning his meteoric rise to the presidency. Elected president in 1912 on his New Freedom platform, a set of principles that advocated governmental encouragement of free and competitive markets, Wilson was concerned mainly with domestic affairs, although the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 prompted him to spend more time on foreign policy. Wilson headed the nation during World War I, at first declaring neutral-

ity. By 1917, however, he came under enormous pressure to enter the conflagration. The final straw was Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. In April 1917 the United States officially entered the war but, as Wilson insisted, as an “associated power.” In 1919 Wilson led peace negotiations at Paris following the end of the conflict. In that role he had considerable influence on developments in Southeast Asia. Before the war had ended in January 1918, Wilson advanced his plan for international peace in his Fourteen Points. In addition, in his call for a peacekeeping organization, the League of Nations, he set forth the principle of self-determination of peoples in the redrawing of the map of postwar Europe. Ironically considering the later U.S. role in Vietnam, Wilson’s rhetoric inspired the Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh to submit a statement to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, noting that “all subject peoples are filled with hope by the prospect that an era of right and justice is opening to them.” Ho did not demand independence for the French colony but instead asked for a constitutional government, democratic freedoms, and economic reforms. Although Ho did not gain a personal audience with Wilson, who seemed concerned chiefly with Europe, this became the first step in Ho’s long campaign to gain Indochinese self-determination. The U.S. Senate later rejected Wilson’s internationalism, including the Treaty of Versailles and membership in Wilson’s cherished League of Nations. Much of this failure can be traced to Wilson’s own missteps, which included not utilizing any prominent Republicans in the U.S. delegation to Paris, his insistence on engaging in diplomatic wrangling instead of leaving that to professional and seasoned diplomats, and his absolute unwillingness to make any compromises with domestic opponents to the peace treaty. Wilson suffered a serious stroke in October 1919 and spent the remainder of his presidency in seclusion. He died in Washington, D.C., on February 3, 1924. BRENDA J. TAYLOR AND PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR. See also Ho Chi Minh References Ferrell, Robert H. Woodrow Wilson and World War I: 1917–1921. New York: Harper and Row, 1985. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. MacMillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. New York: Random House, 2002. Thompson, John A. Woodrow Wilson. London: Longman, 2002.

Wise Men Senior advisers to President Lyndon Baines Johnson on Vietnam policy. Hoping to upgrade his foreign affairs credentials, deflect political criticism, and forge ties with America’s foreign policy leadership, Johnson established an informal body of senior

Wise Men

1345

President Lyndon B. Johnson (center, facing away from camera) meets with the group of his advisers known as the “Wise Men,” including (from left to right): Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General Creighton Abrams, General Earle Wheeler, George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy. (National Archives)

advisers that became known as the Wise Men. They met for the first time in July 1965. Some participants, both past and current government officials, had played significant roles in post–World War II policy making, including the establishment of the containment strategy. The group comprised establishment notables such as Dean G. Acheson, George W. Ball, McGeorge Bundy, C. Douglas Dillon, Cyrus Vance, Arthur Dean, John J. McCloy, General Omar Bradley, General Matthew Ridgway, General Maxwell Taylor, Robert Murphy, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Abe Fortas, and Arthur Goldberg. The Wise Men assembled again on November 2, 1965, the day after Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara delivered a personal memorandum to Johnson urging an end to the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the curtailment of U.S. military operations in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). He urged an examination of ground actions aimed at cutting U.S. losses and placing a greater burden on the South Vietnamese. To McNamara’s disappointment, Johnson did not share this memorandum with the Wise Men who, with the notable exception of Ball, urged Johnson to press ahead with his current program, rejecting both de-escalation of the war and a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) proposal for a widened ground war and an intensified bombing campaign.

In the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive, President Johnson, prompted by Acheson, again summoned the Wise Men to the State Department. Briefed on March 25, 1968, the group was shocked to learn the extent of damage that the Communist attacks had done to security and pacification programs in the Vietnamese countryside. Following questions about the killed-to-wounded ratio and the remaining force capacity of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), the gathering was predisposed to admit that the war had taken an unfortunate turn. The next day at the White House, the Wise Men met for the last time. The president, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, General Earle G. Wheeler, Taylor, and Lodge were the only current administration figures present. Acheson stated that he no longer believed that the United States could reach its goal by military methods. Instead, he favored measures to facilitate a U.S. withdrawal. Acheson’s viewpoint, Bundy told a disappointed Johnson, was held by Dean, Vance, Dillon, and Ball. Only Bradley, Taylor, and Murphy thought that the administration should take the counsel of the military leadership. Because a majority had warned against further escalation, recourse to nuclear weapons, or expansion of the war, disengagement became the unquestioned alternative, a decision that Johnson acknowledged only grudgingly. RODNEY J. ROSS

1346

Women in the Vietnam War, U.S.

See also Acheson, Dean Gooderham; Bradley, Omar Nelson; Bundy, McGeorge; Fortas, Abraham; Goldberg, Arthur Joseph; Johnson, Lyndon Baines; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.; McCloy, John Jay; McNamara, Robert Strange; Murphy, Robert Daniel; Ridgway, Matthew Bunker; Taylor, Maxwell Davenport; Vance, Cyrus Roberts; Vietnamization; Wheeler, Earle Gilmore References Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1989. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.

McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. Estimates of the number of U.S. military women serving in Vietnam have varied from as low as 7,000 to as high as 21,000, depending on what the compilers of statistics consider “serving in Vietnam” to mean as well as on compilation methods. Counting only those service members stationed physically in Vietnam and Thailand, Major General Jeanne Holm, in her 1982 book Women in the Military, estimated the total number at 7,500, although her

A U.S. Army nurse changes a patient’s bandage at the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam. (National Archives)

Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese individual service tallies do not seem to add up to this number: nurses and medical specialists, between 5,000 and 6,000; U.S. Army nonmedical personnel, 500; U.S. Air Force, 600 (more than half officers); U.S. Marine Corps, under 36; and U.S. Navy, under 50 (all officers). A small group of U.S. Army and U.S. Navy nurses had been serving in Vietnam and Thailand before 1965, primarily as advisers and trainers of local medical staffs. But after the beginning of active U.S. military engagement, larger numbers were deployed to field medical units in combat areas of Vietnam. U.S. Air Force nurses were added to the complement in medical evacuation units as well as in major hospitals at Cam Ranh Bay and other air force installations in Vietnam and Thailand. Among nonmedical personnel, U.S. military women served in many different support specialties. The most common specialties were administration (including clerical), personnel, intelligence, information, security, supply, transportation, data processing, training, special services, and law enforcement. The first detachment of U.S. Army line women arrived in Saigon in 1967. By midyear approximately 160 enlisted women were stationed in Saigon and Long Binh, and the number would remain approximately constant at that level throughout the war. In the same year the first U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps women arrived. Not until 1969, however, were U.S. Air Force women assigned to Korat and Takhli in Thailand, and it was only in the following year, 1970, that enlisted air force women were assigned to Vietnam itself, at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, although air force officers were already in place in Saigon. In fact, the proportion of female air force officers serving in Southeast Asia, as a percentage of the total officer force, was nearly equal to that of male officers: 7 percent of female officers and 8 percent of male officers. Eight U.S. military women died in the line of duty during the war, and their names are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The last of these female names on the memorial is that of a U.S. Air Force flight nurse who died during Operation BABYLIFT, the evacuation of children from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in April 1975 as forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) began their final drive on Saigon. Significantly for the varying estimates of female force strength, this flight nurse was not physically stationed in Vietnam but instead was assigned to the 57th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Many other women were stationed outside the area normally considered the combat theater and yet participated to varying degrees in war operations either as flight nurses, as medical and line personnel at hospitals receiving casualties in such places as Okinawa and Japan, or as line personnel for units whose male personnel were regularly deployed into the theater. Medical evacuation squadrons, for example, operated out of the Philippines and Guam and as far away as Alaska. Ironically, some female personnel in such units were awarded unit decorations such as the Outstanding Unit Award and the

1347

Presidential Unit Citation for being part of combat units but never received campaign ribbons and were therefore ineligible for official Vietnam War veteran status or even membership in the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In addition to military women, a large number of civilian women served in Vietnam and Thailand as headquarters staff workers as well as employees of U.S. government agencies, civilian charitable and relief organizations, and civilian corporations. Red Cross workers served in units based at 28 locations within Vietnam, and United Services Organization (USO) units maintained almost as many centers in-country, peaking at 17 centers during 1967–1969. In November 1993 the Vietnam Women’s Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., depicting three nurses and a wounded soldier. The statue, honoring all the women who served during the Vietnam War, forms part of a triangle of memorials that incorporates the now-famous Wall and a statue of three male soldiers. PHOEBE S. SPINRAD See also American Red Cross; BABYLIFT, Operation; Medevac; Nurses, U.S.; Vietnam Veterans Memorial References Holm, Major General Jeanne (USAF, Ret.). Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution. Rev. ed. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992. Seeley, Charlotte Palmer, et al., eds. American Women and the U.S. Armed Forces: A Guide to the Records of Military Agencies in the National Archives Relating to American Women. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992. Walker, K., ed. A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of Twenty-Six American Women Who Served in Vietnam. New York: Ballantine, 1985.

Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Vietnamese history is filled with strong women playing heroic roles in times of national crisis. This includes the celebrated sisters Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, who during 39–42 CE led a revolt against the Chinese. The two women are revered in Vietnamese history as the Hai Ba Trung (“Two Trung Ladies” or “Trung Sisters”). There was also Madame Trieu (Ba Trieu), who in 248 also led a popular revolt. The Chinese victory in 42 CE established a family and bureaucratic system based on Confucian ideas and relegated women to a subordinate position. Thus, 20th-century Communist leaders could successfully appeal to women as a potential revolutionary class because laws and customs in Vietnam treated all women as inferior to all men. When the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party) was established in 1927, it admitted a large number of women who shared, along with their male comrades, experiences of torture and other hardships under the French security service. Nguyen Thi Giang and her sister Nguyen Thi Bac inspired

1348

Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese

Young female volunteers of the People’s Self-Defense Force (PSDF) of Kien Dien, a hamlet north of Saigon, patrol the hamlet’s perimeter to discourage Viet Cong infiltration. In addition to compelling service from males in certain age groups, the Republic of Vietnam General Mobilization Law of 1968 encouraged women and teenagers to volunteer for the PSDF. (National Archives)

generations of Vietnamese women to become activists and soldiers in patriotic movements. In 1930 the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) organized the Women’s Union as the party organization responsible for political mobilization, education, and representation of Vietnamese women. The Women’s Union became an important part of the Viet Minh, the united front coalition formed in 1941 to combat the Japanese and French. The Viet Minh constitution for Vietnam supported women’s equality and suffrage. Ha Thi Que, who became a member of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party, formed the first all-woman guerrilla unit in 1945 to fight the French. More commonly, many women participated through community mobilization, intelligence gathering, and transportation of war matériel. After the 1954 partition of Vietnam, the governments of both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) sought the support of women’s groups. Madame Nhu, sister-in-law of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, formed the Women’s Solidarity Movement to oppose public and private immorality (dancing, prostitution, and gambling). Her volunteer Paramilitary Girls provided training in firearms and first aid and moral instruction for women of high school age. As with other groups formed to mobilize popular support by the Diem regime, neither of Madame Nhu’s women’s groups was very effective. Because both the French colonial administration and the South Vietnamese governments

that followed supported the traditional Vietnamese cultural inferiority of women, village women had more incentive to back the revolutionary movement. The so-called long-haired army consisted of women who organized protest demonstrations, rallies, and strikes challenging first the French and then the South Vietnamese government. On January 17, 1960, a series of demonstrations by peasant women began in Ben Tre Province. Led by Madame Nguyen Thi Dinh, the women protested killing and looting by government troops. The women forced the removal of government troops from a large area of Vinh Binh Province and equated Madame Dinh with the Trung Sisters as a leader against invading or occupying foreigners. Women formed a significant portion of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), a coalition of forces dominated by the Communists that opposed the Diem regime. Nguyen Thi Dinh was a general and was second-in-command of the southern insurgents. The women’s “Movement to Drive Out the American Aggressors” set fire to the U.S. library in Saigon, and the same group began a campaign to make life dangerous for GIs on Saigon streets. Women served as spies, gaining access to U.S. military bases as laundresses, peddlers, servants, and secretaries, and they targeted locations for attack. They also participated in the 1968 Tet Offensive. But female fighting forces represented only a small portion of South Vietnamese women who supported the Communist movement. In March 1961 the Women’s Liberation Association (WLA) was formed. Claiming that women possessed the characteristics of good revolutionaries—endurance, patience, and sacrifice—the association portrayed women as “the water buffalo of the revolution.” The WLA conducted extensive letter-writing campaigns urging South Vietnamese soldiers to desert, led village indoctrination sessions, raised and delivered food to guerrilla bands, made spiked foot traps, carried ammunition, and dug roadblocks. In 1965 the WLA claimed a membership of 1.2 million. In addition, the NLF retained the old Viet Minh practice of organizing older women in villages into Foster Mother Associations, whose members served as surrogate mothers to young guerrillas away from home. This Children of the People strategy added another traditional Vietnamese female cultural symbol to that of the heroic female leader, that of the nurturing mother. The pre-1954 Vietnamese National Army (VNA) employed young women in its Women’s Auxiliary Personnel Corps. Its members served in clerical and medical jobs of various army units and agencies. The Women’s Auxiliary Personnel Corps lasted until 1956. Women also staffed the small Social Assistance Service. Both the Women’s Auxiliary Personnel Corps and the Social Assistance Service had hierarchical systems and pay scales similar to that of the military. The Social Assistance Service helped care for soldiers’ dependents with activities such as kindergarten teaching and medical care in clinics and maternity rooms. Women also participated in both the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and the People’s Army

Woodstock of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). The South Vietnamese government established the Women’s Armed Forces Corps in 1964. Its strength increased as the armed forces expanded, although the social assistance branch was a separate service. Its members wore the same uniforms and were under the administrative management of the Center for Training and Management of the Women’s Armed Forces Corps. Other military service women served in many military branches and large units, including a women’s parachutist team. Part of the ARVN, the Women’s Armed Forces Corps had an initial complement of 1,800 women. They served mainly in medical or clerical capacities, and their numbers remained small. Three women, however, reached the rank of full colonel. Although these women were not supposed to fight, many proved their bravery under fire. But the mostly unknown fighting women were the wives of Popular Forces personnel. Many stood by their husbands, supplying them with ammunition, giving them first aid, and even—when the men were killed—using radio to direct and adjust artillery fire to repel Viet Cong (VC) attackers. There were also woman officers in the Police Special Group, known as the Thien Nga (“Swans”). They ran intelligence nets and infiltrated into VC and underground organizations in South Vietnamese–controlled areas. In North Vietnam the Three Responsibilities Movement set defense as a primary task for women, and they responded by forming self-defense teams in factories, schools, and villages. Many women became skilled with antiaircraft weapons and took credit for downing many U.S. aircraft. Although all women in North Vietnam received military training, including hand-to-hand combat, women were not subject to the draft, and few joined the PAVN. Those who did join served primarily in support roles as medics, members of bomb-disposal teams, or supply personnel. A significant percentage of the civilian Thanh Nien Xung Phong (“Assault Youth”) units that worked on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the war were females (some as young as 16 years old) who were members of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Ho Chi Minh Youth Group. Most female members of the PAVN were young women without children. Government propaganda in North Vietnam portrayed women as heroic revolutionaries in the manner of the Trung Sisters as well as honored women’s traditional roles. The willingness of the North Vietnamese government to recognize the contributions of women was one reason for the large number of Vietnamese women actively supporting the revolutionary movement. ELIZABETH URBAN ALEXANDER See also Lao Dong Party; Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame; Nguyen Thi Dinh; Trung Trac and Trung Nhi References Eisen, Arlene. Women and Revolution in Vietnam. London: Zed Books, 1984. Mai Thi Tu. Women in Vietnam. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978. Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966.

1349

Tetreault, Mary Ann. Women and Revolution in Viet Nam. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1991.

Women Strike for Peace U.S. antiwar organization. Women Strike for Peace (WSP), which was among the most active dissenting organizations during the Vietnam War, took a moderate approach and effectively communicated the antiwar message to mainstream Americans. Founded by Dagmar Wilson as a nuclear disarmament group in November 1961, the WSP achieved notoriety in December 1962 when several of its members deflected red-baiting tactics in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Although operating primarily as informal local chapters, beginning in February 1965 the WSP frequently lobbied Washington officials to end the war, sometimes drawing thousands of people for a single effort. The WSP also participated in antiwar coalition activities and by 1967 became increasingly involved in draft counseling. Some of its members visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and helped establish communications between American prisoners of war and their families. Tactically, the WSP appealed primarily to the nurturing role of traditional motherhood in challenging America’s militaristic foreign policy, although especially during the Richard Nixon presidency this was not its sole thrust. Members avoided divisive radical rhetoric and supported amnesty for all war resisters yet refused to criticize soldiers and veterans. The election of WSP legislative chairperson Bella Abzug to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970 marked the WSP’s greatest electoral victory. The organization’s influence faded with the war’s conclusion. MITCHELL K. HALL See also Abzug, Bella; Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Prisoners of War, Allied; Selective Service References Alonso, Harriet Hyman. Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women’s Rights. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993. Swerdlow, Amy. Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Woodstock Start Date: August 15, 1969 End Date: August 18, 1969 Outdoor musical event held in Bethel, New York, during August 15–18, 1969, and a keystone in the Counter-Culture and anti– Vietnam War movements. The Woodstock Music & Art Festival

1350

Woodstock

Attendees at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, held on a 600-acre pasture in the Catskill Mountains in Bethel, New York, in August 1969. The festival was billed as “Three Days of Peace and Music.” (AP/Wide World Photos)

was an embodiment of the hippie slogan “make love, not war,” and for the more than 500,000 people who attended, Woodstock was the biggest antiwar spectacle of the 1960s. The three-day festival, which featured performances by some of rock and roll and folk music’s top artists, was billed as “three days of peace and love.” This was a direct contrast to the destructive imagery of the Vietnam War that network television’s evening news shows were bringing into America’s living rooms. Unfortunately, while reporting on Woodstock that same media diluted the antiwar message of the event, focusing instead on the spectacle of mud, drugs, and naked hippies. Woodstock’s promoters originally wanted to host the festival in the town of Woodstock, New York, but the town had no suit-

able venue for the event. Sam Yasgur convinced his father to allow the event to be held in the family’s alfalfa field some 40 miles southwest in Bethel, New York. The show was originally planned for some 50,000 to be in attendance. When 10 times that number arrived, the generally well-behaved throng quickly overtaxed the area’s infrastructure. Further complicating things was a persistent rain that transformed the field into a soupy quagmire. The top performers present included Arlo Guthrie; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Blood, Sweat, and Tears; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Joan Baez; Santana; Sly and the Family Stone; Janis Joplin; The Grateful Dead; Jefferson Airplane; and The Who. While there were many individual speeches by Vietnam War protesters and although American flags and draft cards were destroyed, acts whose performances involved clear anti–Vietnam War protests included Country Joe and the Fish as well as Jimi Hendrix. Perhaps the most poignant performance of the festival was Hendrix’s instrumental version of the national anthem played, as only he could, with a screaming electric guitar. His use of distortion and unusual guitar techniques allowed him to create acoustic imagery that took the song away from the status quo and symbolically gave it to the Counter-Culture. Broadcasting this seizure of a symbol of American power made those in power quite uncomfortable. Woodstock stood as the moment in which the Counter-Culture, exemplified by its popular music and fashion, came together with the antiwar movement. Vietnam was the lens through which this new collective saw America, and Woodstock was the wheel that ground that lens. Abbie Hoffman, leader of the Youth International Party, called it “the birth of the Woodstock Nation and the death of the American dinosaur.” The difficulty came, however, in translating the music’s call for action into reality. The reality of the matter, unfortunately, became the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings and reflected the activities of the Chicago Eight, who were charged with inciting the massive riots that accompanied the August 1968 Democratic National Convention. B. KEITH MURPHY See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Counterculture; Dylan, Bob; Hoffman, Abbie; Kent State University Shootings; Media and the Vietnam War; Music and the Vietnam War References Bennet, Andy. Remembering Woodstock. London: Ashgate, 2004. Perone, James. Songs of the Vietnam Conflict. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001. Spitz, Bob. Barefoot in Babylon: The Creation of the Woodstock Music Festival, 1969. New York: Norton, 1989.

X Xa Loi Pagoda Raid Event Date: August 21, 1963 The assault against the Xa Loi Pagoda in Saigon on August 21, 1963, served as a catalyst for anti–Ngo Dinh Diem sentiments in the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), particularly among Buddhists. In 1963 lingering tensions between Buddhist leaders in South Vietnam and President Diem, a Catholic, exploded into violence when Diem refused to allow Buddhist leaders to fly the Buddhist flag during celebrations scheduled for Buddha’s birthday. Diem cited a decree passed earlier that allowed only the national flag to be displayed publicly, although he had not objected to the display of the white and gold Catholic flag as part of the Episcopal silver jubilee for Ngo Dinh Thuc, archbishop of Hue and Diem’s older brother. Protests by Buddhists, who used the display of the Catholic flag to highlight Diem’s inconsistency and failure to provide greater Buddhist representation in his government, culminated in a May 7 clash between Buddhist protestors and government forces in Hue, during which there were several casualties. Both sides claimed that the other had started the violence, and neither side appeared willing to concede its position on the issue. The Buddhists continued to call for reforms that Diem believed directly threatened his regime. Failing to achieve results, the Buddhist protests sharply escalated on June 11, with the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc at a busy intersection in Saigon. Believing that the Buddhists now posed a direct threat to the internal security of South Vietnam, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who controlled the secret police, ordered the police to closely monitor Buddhist activities. The Ngo brothers soon learned that the Buddhists had been using the Xa Loi Pagoda in Saigon as a rallying point for what had

become daily protests against the government. In the early hours of August 21, 1963, Nhu ordered Special Forces units to raid the pagoda as well as other pagodas throughout the urban centers in South Vietnam. He justified this as a necessary step for preempting an attempted coup d’état against his brother’s government. The forces, who wore army uniforms under the guise that the action was sanctioned by the military, stormed the pagoda, ransacked it, and arrested some 400 monks and nuns. Among those taken was the 80-year-old patriarch. Two monks, one of them the militant Buddhist leader Thich Tri Quang, escaped to the U.S. embassy and were given refuge there, an action that nearly set off an international incident as forces loyal to Nhu surrounded the U.S. compound and demanded their surrender. With Ambassador Frederick E. Nolting Jr. out of the country and about to be replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the crisis was managed by Deputy Chief of Mission William Trueheart but not before the relationship between the Diem government and the U.S. government had reached an all-time low. International and South Vietnamese reaction to the raids was considerable, and most condemned the actions of both Diem and Nhu. Diem’s post–Xa Loi raid actions also brought condemnation when he declared martial law and ordered police to shoot those who violated curfews. These decrees resulted in the arrest of hundreds of protestors in subsequent demonstrations. The Xa Loi Pagoda raid also served as a further justification for Washington’s belief that a change of leadership was necessary. Less than three months later Diem was overthrown, with tacit U.S. approval. RONALD B. FRANKUM JR. See also Buddhism in Vietnam; Ngo Dinh Diem; Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of; Ngo Dinh Nhu; Thich Quang Duc; Thich Tri Quang

1352

Xuan Loc, Battle of

References Ahern, Thomas L., Jr. CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998; declassified 2009. Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987. Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Xuan Loc, Battle of Start Date: April 9, 1975 End Date: April 23, 1975 The last stand of the military of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during the Ho Chi Minh Campaign carried out by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). The battle took place in April 1975 at the capital of Long Khanh Province, approximately 40 miles northeast of Saigon. Xuan Loc, located on National Route 1 near the junction with National Route 20, was a strategic location protecting the Bien Hoa–Long Binh– Saigon area. During the height of the war Xuan Loc had been the headquarters of the U.S. 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and later it was the forward headquarters of the 199th Infantry Brigade. The American units worked there with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) 18th Infantry Division, considered the worst unit in ARVN. However, after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, General Le Minh Dao converted the 18th Division into the most important unit in the Saigon defense forces. On April 9 the PAVN IV Corps, with three infantry divisions supported by tanks, pushed into Xuan Loc behind a heavy artillery barrage. Brutal fighting for control of the town lasted for days. The PAVN had cut National Route 1, which meant that reinforcements for the 18th Division had to be flown in by helicopter, but men of the 1st Airborne Brigade, released from the direct defense of Saigon, were pinned down as they landed at a rubber plantation east of the city. Under General Dao’s inspired leadership, the ARVN 18th Division and its supporting elements fought courageously against incredible odds. Their performance was probably the best of any ARVN unit during the long war, but without reinforcements their fate was sealed. With additional Communist forces moving in for the kill, on April 21 an evacuation began. President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned on the same day. By April 23 the evacuation was complete, and the Battle of Xuan Loc was over. The 18th Division suffered casualties of 30 percent in the fighting, and its Regional Forces and Popular Forces allies were virtually decimated. During the fighting around Xuan Loc and the evacuation, South Vietnamese air support effectively employed huge 750-pound cluster bombs (CBUs) and 15,000-pound BLU82 “Daisy Cutter” bombs against PAVN troop concentrations. In a final act, a CBU-55B asphyxiation bomb, the most powerful non-

nuclear weapon in the American arsenal, was dropped on Xuan Loc. This bomb, which had never before been employed, ate up the oxygen over a two-acre area and sucked air out of the lungs of its victims. More than 250 North Vietnamese were reportedly killed by the bomb. With the fall of Xuan Loc, however, the PAVN march into Saigon was merely days away. JOE P. DUNN See also BLU-82/B Bomb; Bombs, Gravity; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Nguyen Van Thieu; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; Vietnam, Republic of, Army References Butler, David. The Fall of Saigon: Scenes from the Sudden End of a Long War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Cao Van Vien. The Final Collapse. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982. Dawson, Alan. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Warner, Denis. Certain Victory: How Hanoi Won the War. Kansas City, MO: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978.

Xuan Thuy Birth Date: September 2, 1912 Death Date: June 18, 1985 Vietnamese revolutionary, foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) during 1963–1965, head of Hanoi’s delegation at the Paris peace talks during 1968– 1970, Le Duc Tho’s chief deputy in Paris during 1970–1973, signer of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Born on September 2, 1912, in Ha Dong Province, Xuan Thuy joined the Thanh Nien, or Revolutionary Youth Association, at age 16 and was a founding member of the Indochinese Communist Party. In 1930 the French arrested Thuy and jailed him on the prison island of Poulo Condore. Released in 1935, he was rearrested by the French in 1939. Thuy served six years in prison but was released in time to play a pivotal role in the August Revolution of 1945. Throughout that year he served as editor for an official and important Communist Party newspaper, Cuu Quoc (National Salvation). His writings in Cuu Quoc crystallized the movement and offered a clear theoretical voice to the revolution. Shortly after the creation of the North Vietnam government in 1946, Thuy joined the National Assembly. From this vantage point he exercised considerable influence on North Vietnam’s wartime diplomatic strategies. Thuy rose within the diplomatic corps and by 1963 had become North Vietnam’s foreign minister. Once the Paris peace talks opened in the spring of 1968, Thuy became the key spokesperson for North Vietnam. He insisted on four conditions for peace: a unilateral U.S. withdrawal, recognition of the National Front for the

Xuan Thuy

1353

Xuan Thuy was foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) during 1963–1965. He was chief DRV negotiator at the Paris peace talks during 1968–1970, where he always insisted on a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), dissolution of the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), and reunification of Vietnam. The United States, on the other hand, demanded that North Vietnam end its support of the southern insurrection and withdraw its troops north of the 17th Parallel. In one interesting development, President Richard Nixon had U.S. negotiator Henry Kissinger warn Thuy that refusal to compromise on these key issues would lead to increased air attacks against North Vietnamese targets. Kissinger also initiated secret meetings with Thuy, away from the spotlights in Paris. On August 4, 1969, Kissinger and Thuy met secretly outside of Paris, but the talks broke down after Thuy refused to accept American conditions and Nixon’s ultimatum. The failure of the Kissinger-Thuy secret meeting was symbolic of the difficulties of previous negotiations; neither side was prepared to compromise. Ultimately Nixon resorted to the policy of Vietnamization, initiated by the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, to extricate the United States from Vietnam. In addition, the White House expanded the air war over North Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia in further attempts to force a settlement. In 1970 North Vietnam sent Politburo member Le Duc Tho to Paris to take over for Thuy as the senior North Vietnamese official in the secret talks with Kissinger. Tho’s official position was

described as “adviser” to the North Vietnamese delegation at the Paris peace talks, and Thuy continued to serve as the titular chief of the North Vietnamese delegation in the public peace talks. Thuy served as Tho’s chief deputy in the secret talks until the final Paris Peace Accords was signed in January 1973. After the Vietnam War at the Fourth Party Congress in 1976, Thuy became the secretary of the Central Committee, a position he held for seven years. He died in Hanoi on June 18, 1985. ROBERT K. BRIGHAM See also Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Le Duc Tho; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Paris Negotiations; Paris Peace Accords; Poulo Condore References Herring, George C., ed. The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. Kalb, Marvin, and Bernard Kalb. Kissinger. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Porter, Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Thies, Wallace J. When Governments Collide: Coercion and Diplomacy in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964–1968. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

This page intentionally left blank

Y Yankee Station Fixed point in international waters off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in the South China Sea (17 degrees 30 minutes north, 108 degrees 30 minutes east). Yankee Station was the staging area for the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet Attack Carrier Strike Force (Task Force 77), from which navy pilots conducted strikes against North Vietnam. The carrier force had two primary goals: control of the sea and projection of power ashore. From Yankee Station, strikes were mounted on specific targets such as rail yards or major bridges. From 1965 to 1968 these strikes were part of Operation ROLLING THUNDER. Target times were assigned to both the U.S. Air Force and the Seventh Fleet to facilitate the initial ROLLING THUNDER operation. The strategy became difficult to coordinate, and U.S. planners replaced it by dividing North Vietnam into geographical areas known as route packages. With the new structure, interference between Task Force 77 and the Seventh Air Force was lessened; in addition, assigning responsibility to each service for target development and analysis, intelligence, and data collection in its own area became possible. The geographic point in the Gulf of Tonkin selected as the headquarters of operations for Task Force 77 received the code name Yankee Station. For strike zones in Cambodia, Laos, and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Task Force 77 attacks were flown from the carriers of Dixie Station, established in May 1965 and located 100 miles southeast of Cam Ranh Bay.

Part of the so-called Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, Yankee Station served as a crucial staging area and helped maintain both U.S. air and naval superiority during the Vietnam War. However, three of the four deployed carriers, one at Dixie Station and two at Yankee Station, had to be on-station and ready to launch aircraft at all times, forcing the Seventh Fleet carrier force to spend a grueling and unacceptable 80 percent of the time at sea, with little time for rest and maintenance. J. NATHAN CAMPBELL See also Aircraft Carriers; Airpower, Role in War; Dixie Station; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Route Packages; United States Navy References Marolda, Edward J., and G. Wesley Pryce III. A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asia Conflict, 1950–1975. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1984. Mersky, Peter B., and Norman Polmar. The Naval Air War in Vietnam. Annapolis MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1981. Mumford, Robert E. “Jackstay: New Dimensions in Amphibious Warfare.” In Vietnam: The Naval Story, edited by Frank Uhlig Jr., 344–364. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Polmar, Norman. “Support by Sea for War in the Air.” Aerospace International 3 (July–August 1967): 29–31.

1356

YANKEE TEAM, Operation

The destroyer De Haven (DD-727) provides antiaircraft and antisubmarine protection for the carrier Coral Sea (CV-43) while on Yankee Station, the operational staging area in the Gulf of Tonkin for U.S. Navy air strikes against North Vietnam. (R. G. Smith, Sudden Squall, 1969, Naval Historical Center)

YANKEE TEAM,

Operation

Event Date: May 1964 The first U.S. air operations over Laos. On May 19, 1964, U.S. Air Force McDonnell RF-101 Voodoo aircraft began low- and medium-level reconnaissance flights over southern Laos. This air activity was at the request of Laotian premier Prince Souvanna Phouma and followed a series of attacks by the Communist Pathet Lao and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces against government positions on the Plain of Jars in northern Laos. The flights had a fourfold purpose: to provide intelligence for the Royal Laotian Armed Forces, to include a damage assessment of Royal Laotian Air Force (RLAF) attacks on Pathet Lao and PAVN positions in Laos; to determine the degree of Communist infiltration and assistance to the Pathet Lao; to stiffen the resolve of the Laotian government; and to demonstrate to the region and the world the U.S. determination to halt the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. On May 21 similar flights began over northern Laos, conducted by Seventh Fleet Vought RF-8A Crusader and Douglas RA-3B Skywarrior aircraft. All such air operations were known by the code name YANKEE TEAM.

The U.S. government publicly acknowledged the YANKEE TEAM activity. The State Department said the operation was carried out at the request of the Laotian government because of the failure of the International Control Commission to secure information on the recent fighting in Laos. The information secured in the YANKEE TEAM flights was then passed along to the RLAF so that its North American T-28 Trojan aircraft could carry out the actual air strikes against Communist ground targets. Because the RLAF was short of aircraft, the United States transferred to it additional T-28s from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), which were in the process of being replaced by newer Douglas A-1 Skyraider aircraft. Some 33 T-28s were available by late June, but a pilot shortage led the Thai government to grant secret approval for some Royal Thai Air Force pilots to participate. On May 25 YANKEE TEAM missions were extended indefinitely. When in early June two U.S. Navy aircraft were shot down in northern Laos by antiaircraft fire, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) authorized YANKEE TEAM aircraft to mount retaliatory air strikes. Toward this end, the U.S. Air Force deployed eight North American F-100 Super Sabre aircraft to Da Nang in South Vietnam from Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

YELLOWSTONE, Operation

On June 9 several of these aircraft carried out the first U.S. Air Force jet strikes of the war against antiaircraft sites and other targets in Laos. Following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in early August, Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs were also sent to Korat Air Force Base in Thailand to operate in conjunction with search-and-rescue missions only. Meanwhile, the tempo of air activity over Laos increased. By July 1964 these U.S. air actions were credited with stabilizing the military situation in Laos. On November 18 and 21 two U.S. Air Force YANKEE TEAM aircraft, an F-100 and an RF-101, were shot down by Communist antiaircraft fire. The JCS approved retaliatory flak-suppression strikes along two Laotian infiltration routes, but the Lyndon B. Johnson administration took no action pending a reappraisal of U.S. policy regarding Southeast Asia. Finally on December 2 the administration approved U.S. strikes on Laotian infiltration routes. These were dubbed Operation BARREL ROLL. The first such mission occurred on December 14. Ultimately some 3 million tons of bomb were dropped on Laos, making it the most heavily bombed country in the history of aerial warfare. SPENCER C. TUCKER See also Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; BARREL ROLL, Operation; Ho Chi Minh Trail; Laos; Souvanna Phouma References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Hathorn, Reginald. Here Are the Tigers: The Secret Air War in Laos. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008. Momyer, William W. Airpower in Three Wars: World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978.

Yellowing See Jaunissement

YELLOWSTONE,

Operation

Start Date: December 8, 1967 End Date: February 24, 1968 Military operation in the northwest section of War Zone C. In November 1967 the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), received intelligence that Communist forces were massing on both sides of Vietnam’s Cambodian border. MACV decided to launch offensive operations to seal off the area and prevent the Communists from penetrating into the III Corps Tactical Zone. In Operation YELLOWSTONE, which began on December 8, 1967, the

1357

2nd and 3rd brigades of the 25th Infantry Division (“Tropic Lightning”) were deployed in War Zone C, principally in the northern half of Tay Ninh Province, with orders to locate and destroy Viet Cong (VC) installations. Since their arrival from Hawaii in October 1965, units of the 25th Infantry Division had maintained a continuous presence in the three-province area west and northwest of Saigon, which included Tay Ninh, Binh Duong, and Hau Nghia. During the first month of YELLOWSTONE, several battalions of the 25th Infantry Division initially encountered frequent mortar attacks on their temporary positions, but ground contact with the elusive VC was sporadic. The operation demonstrated, however, that War Zone C was still being used as a major VC and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) logistical base. The most intensive action occurred on the night of January 1, 1968, when units of the VC 271st and 272nd regiments mounted a massive assault on the 3rd Brigade’s principal fire-support base, known as Burt. Following a barrage of machine-gun, recoilless rifle, and rocket-grenade fire, VC soldiers charged the base and blasted their way into the perimeter. The result was a savage battle in which the defenders were forced to fire so-called beehive artillery rounds and call for close-in aerial napalm strikes. Simultaneously, reserves were rushed from other sides of the perimeter. The attack was repelled by dawn. The VC left behind more than 300 dead, but U.S. casualties also were heavy, totaling 29 killed and 159 wounded. Throughout January the 2nd Brigade was involved in continuous heavy fighting along the Cambodian border south of Tay Ninh City. The 1968 Tet Offensive erupted while more than half of the 25th Infantry Division’s maneuver battalions were tied down in YELLOWSTONE and thus unable to provide immediate support to the division’s 1st Brigade and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) units that became heavily engaged in the area between Saigon and Cu Chi. During and after the Tet Offensive, intense small-unit fighting continued throughout Tay Ninh Province, and YELLOWSTONE did not officially end until February 24, 1968. Known Communist casualties during Operation YELLOWSTONE totaled 1,170 killed in action and 182 taken prisoner. U.S. losses were 137 killed and 1,085 wounded. JOHN D. ROOT See also Cambodia; National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam; Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle; Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army; War Zone C and War Zone D References Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

1358

Yen Bai Mutiny

Yen Bai Mutiny Event Date: February 1930 Unsuccessful anti-French uprising led by members of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnam National Party) in February 1930. The VNQDD was founded in December 1927 by the publisher Hoang Pham Tran and the radical Vietnamese patriot Nguyen Thai Hoc, who was elected president of the party the following year. Modeled after the Chinese Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist Party) of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), the VNQDD was a non-Communist secret organization initially composed of middle-class writers, journalists, teachers, students, minor government officials, and political activists. The VNQDD acquired violence-prone adherents from the Viet Nam Dan Quoc (VNDQ, Republican Party) when an accidental explosion in a VNDQ bomb-making facility led to the complete suppression of the VNDQ by French colonial authorities. Many now joined the VNQDD. The rapidly expanding VNQDD established itself along the Chinese border in northern Tonkin and far to the south in the area in and around the city of Saigon in Cochin China. The party’s revolutionary agenda included cultivating a popular base of workers, peasants, and soldiers to engage in strikes, sabotage, and uprisings, including military action, against French colonial officials. An important VNQDD objective was recruiting ethnic Vietnamese soldiers serving in French-controlled units. They were to be used to overthrow the French colonial government and establish an independent Vietnam with a republican form of government. As the VNQDD intensified its recruiting efforts and prepared for an armed uprising, Nguyen Thai Hoc argued against premature armed action that would likely force the French Sûreté (Civil Police) to conduct mass arrests of VNQDD members. Despite Hoc’s concern, in February 1929 VNQDD assassins gunned down Hervé Bazin, the director of the General Office of Indochinese Manpower. This agency recruited Vietnamese to work in appalling conditions on rubber plantations. As Hoc predicted, the Sûreté’s response was swift and brutal, and hundreds of VNQDD members were arrested. During interrogations and torture some of them provided information to the French and consequently became the targets of VNQDD assassination squads, which ineffectually sought to stop the leaking of information about the VNQDD. As arrests of party members continued, Hoc concluded that there had to be a general uprising of the VNQDD against the French within a year or else the VNQDD would be wiped out by the French police. A widespread general uprising was planned for the night of February 9–10, 1930, during Tet, the lunar New Year holiday. Shortly before the scheduled uprising Hoc had ordered the revolt to be delayed, but his message failed to dissuade the conspirators at Yen Bai, in Tonkin. There 40 Vietnamese military personnel in French service, assisted by civilian members of the VNQDD, launched an attack at 1:30 a.m. on February 10. They targeted the

29 French military personnel located at the French garrison at Yen Bai. Five French soldiers were killed, and 3 were badly wounded. The remaining 550 Vietnamese soldiers and local civilians, however, refused to join the revolt. Within eight hours a French-led counterattack had secured the base at Yen Bai and scattered the mutineers. The VNQDD also launched two other nearby attacks, only one of which achieved brief success. Hoc then cancelled the revolt, but additional incidents ensued. He was captured while attempting to flee to China. On February 22, 1930, French governor-general Pierre Pasquier announced that the revolt had been entirely suppressed. The Criminal Commission of Tonkin subsequently prosecuted 547 soldiers and civilians involved in the Yen Bai Mutiny. Eighty defendants were sentenced to death, although some were later pardoned. Hundreds were deported or sentenced to forced labor, many of them for life. Hoc and 12 others, mostly Vietnamese soldiers involved in killing fellow members of the garrison at Yen Bai, were executed by guillotine on June 17, 1930. Before they were beheaded several of them shouted “Long Live Vietnam!” and thus ensured their status as notable martyrs in the cause of Vietnamese independence. The VNQDD, which never recovered from continuing suppression by the French, became a shadow of its former self after 1930. The party’s defeat had the effect of opening the way for the more militant Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) led by Ho Chi Minh. The ICP became the dominant revolutionary organization in the Vietnamese struggle for independence from France. GLENN E. HELM See also France and Vietnam, 1954–Present; Ho Chi Minh; Nguyen Thai Hoc; Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang References Nguyen Phut Tan. A Modern History of Vietnam. Saigon: Khai Trí, 1964. Rettig, Tobias. “French Military Policies in the Aftermath of the Yen Bai Mutiny, 1930: Old Security Dilemmas Return to the Surface.” South East Asia Research 10(3) (November 1 2002): 309–331. Tai, Hue-Tam Ho. Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Zinoman, Peter. The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Yippies See Youth International Party

Youth International Party Antiwar group founded by Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Dick Gregory, and Paul Krassner. The Youth International Party (also known as Yippies) was formed during a 1967 New Year’s Eve party in Hoffman’s New York City apartment. The name “Yippie”

Youth International Party

1359

Abbie Hoffman, one the leaders of the Youth International Party known as the “Yippies,” is arrested by police outside the Cannon Office Building attempting to attend a meeting of the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C., on October 3, 1968. (AP/Wide World Photos)

is credited to Krassner, the editor of an underground newspaper, The Realist. According to Rubin, the Yippies were conceived as a joke to scare Americans over the age of 30, but when the authorities began to take the movement’s outlandish rhetoric and frivolous behavior seriously, so did Rubin. The movement supposedly sought to create a new myth of the dope-taking, freedom-loving, and politically committed activist. Hoffman and Rubin promoted the Yippie movement in the underground press, and its existence was soon noted by the conventional media. At the same time, Hoffman and Rubin began planning a Festival of Life to coincide with the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In preparation, they held their first so-called Yip-in on March 22, 1968, at New York City’s Grand Central Station. The Yip-in was called to celebrate the spring equinox, and more than 6,000 young people attended. Acts of vandalism, the hanging of antiwar and antiestablishment banners, and the chanting of slogans prompted New York policemen to break up the gathering with considerable violence. Rubin and Hoffman were among those injured in what some termed a “police riot.” Rubin predicted that the Chicago festival would be a blending of pot and politics, a cross-fertilization of the hippie and New Left philosophy. Ultimately they hoped to attract 50,000 young people to the city to launch a demonstration that would end the war. Like

other groups, however, they were not given a permit to stay in Lincoln Park because of delays imposed by Mayor Richard J. Daley, who promised that attempts to disrupt the convention would be met with the full power of local, state, and federal agencies. In spite of Yippie predictions, at no time during convention week were there more than 5,000 protestors on the streets out of an estimated 10,000 total demonstrators in the city. Trouble began for the Yippies on Sunday, August 25, 1968, when the police refused to allow a flatbed truck into Lincoln Park for a scheduled rock concert. Tensions rose until police moved against an estimated 1,000 people at midnight, causing scores of injuries. Three days later on August 28, 4,500 Yippies, radical members of the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), and supporters of presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy gathered in Grant Park across from the Hilton Hotel, where the Democratic Party leadership was staying. Within hours, violence erupted as Chicago police again used massive force to break up the gathering. In March 1969 both Hoffman and Rubin were indicted for their activities during the Democratic National Convention and stood trial as members of the so-called Chicago Eight. Convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot and slapped with numerous contempt charges, Hoffman, Rubin, and three others eventually saw their convictions overturned on appeal.

1360

Youth International Party

The Yippies began a gradual decline after 1968, an eclipse furthered by American troop withdrawals from Vietnam that made the antiwar movement increasingly irrelevant. Yippies were present during the 1972 Democratic National Convention at Miami Beach but did not repeat the demonstrations of 1968. Ironically, both Rubin and Hoffman were expelled from the Yippie movement after the 1972 election because of their ages and establishment tendencies. CLAYTON D. LAURIE

See also Antiwar Movement, U.S.; Chicago Eight; Daley, Richard Joseph; Dellinger, David; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Hayden, Thomas Emmett; Hoffman, Abbie; McCarthy, Eugene Joseph; Rubin, Jerry; Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam References Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987. Matusow, Allen J. The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

Z Zhao Tuo See Trieu Da

Zhou Enlai Birth Date: March 5, 1898 Death Date: January 8, 1976 Chinese Communist leader and diplomat who served as premier from 1949 to 1976 and concurrently as foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Born on March 5, 1898, to a scholarly upper-class family in Jiangsu Province, Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) attended private schools in Mukden, Tianjin, and Japan. After participating in the 1919 May Fourth Movement, he was briefly imprisoned for his activities and then went on a work-study program to France in late 1920. It was in Europe where Zhou first met Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. Because Ho was already a mature Marxist when Zhou first began to study Marxism, Zhou later referred to Ho as “my big brother.” During July 1922 while still in France, Zhou joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and helped found an overseas branch of the party among Chinese students studying in Europe. He returned to China in 1924. Zhou was a close colleague of Mao Zedong and from 1927 to 1976 was a member of the CCP’s Politburo. Zhou was undoubtedly the second most important Communist leader next to Mao himself, particularly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. In 1935 Zhou backed Mao’s guerrilla tactics over more conventional military tactics advocated by the Moscowbased Communist International. With Zhou’s support, Mao became chairman of the CCP in 1935.

Zhou became premier of the PRC in 1949, a post he held until his death in 1976. He was also widely regarded as China’s bestknown and most experienced diplomat, and from 1949 to 1958 he also acted as the PRC’s foreign minister. During World War II Zhou was the liaison officer with the Chinese Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) party. In early 1950 he traveled to Moscow with Mao to sign the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty and in 1955 participated in the Bandung Conference of nonaligned nations. Zhou also played a considerable role in the Korean War (1950–1953), during which Chinese forces battled United Nations (UN) forces commanded by the United States. Zhou helped carry out Mao’s decision to intervene in the war in the autumn of 1950 and conducted almost all of the PRC’s wartime diplomacy. It was in fact Zhou who helped engineer a compromise in the spring of 1953 that ultimately led to the Korean War armistice in July 1953. U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson once described Zhou as “the ablest diplomat in the world, not excepting Mr. Churchill.” Zhou was also instrumental in shaping the PRC’s policy of recognizing Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in 1950. In 1954 Zhou attended the Geneva Conference, during which he supported the continued existence of Cambodia and Laos. The PRC did not want Vietnam to control all of Southeast Asia and preferred instead to work with several smaller and weaker states. At the meeting Zhou unexpectedly encountered U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles. When Zhou extended his hand to him, Dulles turned his back and walked away. North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong was furious that Zhou had supported the West against Vietnam. Zhou was quoted later as complaining that he had been “had” at Geneva: “We thought the Americans would support the decision of the conference. But we were wrong.” During November 18–22, 1956, Zhou

1362

Zorthian, Barry Communiqué on February 28, 1972. This document not only opened diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC but also helped lead to the end of the Vietnam War. Zhou was also a masterful administrator who helped keep the vast Chinese bureaucracy functioning, despite periodic upheavals caused by Mao’s frequent and sometimes disastrous policy changes. Finally, Zhou frequently helped mediate disputes among the Communist Party’s leadership. Zhou died in Beijing on January 8, 1976. BRUCE ELLEMAN See also China, People’s Republic of; Dulles, John Foster; Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954; Ho Chi Minh; Kissinger, Henry Alfred; Knowland, William Fife; Mao Zedong; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Pham Van Dong; Sino-Soviet Split; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics References Chai, Winberg. The Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China. New York: Capricorn Books, 1972. Fairbank, John King. The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800–1985. New York: Harper and Row, 1986. Han Suyin. Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Lee, Chae-jin. Zhou Enlai: The Early Years. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. MacFarquhar, Roderick, ed. The Politics of China, 1949–1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Wilson, Dick. Zhou Enlai: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1984.

Zhou Enlai was premier of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 1976 and concurrently its foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. He was certainly the most powerful figure in the PRC next to Mao Zedong. (Henri Bureau/Sygma/Corbis)

Zorthian, Barry

visited North Vietnam and told Ho that the PRC would increase its support. In a joint communiqué issued after this meeting, the PRC promised to expand economic, cultural, and technical exchanges with North Vietnam. Zhou also promised to send Chinese technical experts to North Vietnam. During the early 1960s PRC relations with the Soviet Union worsened precipitously. In 1965 Zhou tried to convene an AfroAsian conference to oppose the Soviet Union. He even undertook an extensive tour of Africa to organize developing countries there. His efforts failed, however, and the PRC’s international diplomacy became increasingly isolated. Faced with renewed border tensions with the Soviet Union, Zhou quietly probed American officials to see whether improving Sino-American relations might be used to offset the Soviet Union. Henry Kissinger later described these Chinese inquiries as an “intricate minuet.” Upon receiving positive signs from Washington, on April 21, 1971, Zhou clandestinely invited Kissinger to visit Beijing. Kissinger’s visit quickly led to President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China in February 1972. As a result of Zhou’s diplomatic skills, the PRC and the United States signed the Shanghai

U.S. diplomat, public affairs officer, U.S. embassy, Saigon; director, Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO), Saigon. Born in Turkey in 1920, Barry Zorthian immigrated to the United States with his Armenian parents in 1923. He received a BA from Yale University in 1941 and an LLB from New York University in 1953. After working for the Voice of America from 1948 to 1961, Zorthian served as station chief in India for the United States Information Agency (USIA) until 1964. From 1965 to 1968 Zorthian was the information czar in Saigon. He was the embassy public affairs officer in Saigon when Ambassador Maxwell Taylor named him to head the newly formed JUSPAO, with responsibility for all psychological warfare operations as well as relations with the news media. Answerable only to the ambassador, Zorthian was able to marshal whatever powers he needed to present the positive side of the Vietnam story. Although the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), preferred a system of press censorship, Zorthian’s view that censorship was neither necessary, acceptable, nor workable prevailed. Zorthian instead established a set of voluntary guidelines, and even as the number of accredited cor-

Birth Date: 1920 Death Date: December 30, 2010

Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr. respondents grew to more than 600 by the time the January 1968 Tet Offensive began, there were few serious violations of security. In addition to initiating the notorious Five O’Clock Follies, the daily briefings given by the MACV Office of Information at the JUSPAO center in downtown Saigon, Zorthian provided weekly backgrounders to selected members of the media. Peter Braestrup recalled that while Zorthian had a tendency to “stroke” reporters, he was careful not to mislead them and resisted the administration’s “all’s well” syndrome. Less shrewdly, says Neil Sheehan, Zorthian believed that MACV commander General William Westmoreland was correct in his assessment of the war, and it was Zorthian who pressed for the autumn 1967 expeditions of Westmoreland, Ellsworth Bunker, and Robert Komer to publicize progress being made in Vietnam. Under Zorthian, civilian and military information operations grew into a large, extremely effective system that provided the American media with what they wanted, especially hard news about military activity. After leaving government service in 1969, Zorthian noted that at the beginning of the U.S. buildup there was no accepted doctrine for dealing with the media and that a government and military accustomed to withholding information was slow to learn that the media provided an opportunity to educate the public. “Without public support,” noted Zorthian, “Vietnam could not continue. And public support was ultimately lost.” He added that communication with the media must be candid and correspond to reality, something too often not done in regard to the Vietnam War. In retrospect, Zorthian believed that the public was well served by the press, which, more often than not, was more accurate than the government in its coverage of Vietnam, “at least up until Tet.” Zorthian’s post–Vietnam War prediction that “the open war is here to stay” was made before the wars in Grenada and Panama and the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. From 1968 to 1975 Zorthian was president of Time-Life Broadcasting, and from 1975 until his retirement in 1980 he served as vice president for Washington affairs for Time Incorporated. Later he joined a public relations and government lobbying firm. Zorthian died in Washington, D.C., on December 30, 2010. JOHN D. ROOT

1363

Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr. Birth Date: November 20, 1920 Death Date: January 2, 2000 U.S. Navy admiral and commander of U.S. riverine warfare units in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) during 1968– 1970. Born on November 20, 1920, in San Francisco, California, Elmo Russell Zumwalt Jr. graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1942. His extensive World War II service included combat off Guadalcanal and the Philippines. Over the next two decades he saw further action during the 1950–1953 Korean War, served shore tours at the Naval College and the National War College, and took command in 1959 of the U.S. Navy’s first ship designed to carry guided missiles, the frigate USS Dewey. By 1964 Zumwalt was senior aide to Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze and shared his chief’s skepticism about the growing U.S. commitment to the war in Southeast Asia. Both men viewed the Soviet armaments buildup as more challenging to America’s vital interests. In 1965 Zumwalt became the youngest rear admiral in the navy’s history. The next year he headed up the newly established Division of Systems Analysis.

See also Bunker, Ellsworth; Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Five O’Clock Follies; Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office; Komer, Robert W.; Media and the Vietnam War; Psychological Warfare Operations; Westmoreland, William Childs References Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988. Wyatt, Clarence R. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Zorthian, Barry. “The Press and the Government.” In Vietnam Reconsidered: Lessons from a War, edited by Harrison Salisbury, 136–139. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

Chief of naval operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, shown here in September 1970. Zumwalt commanded U.S. Navy forces in Vietnam during 1968–1970 and was influential in the decision to employ the defoliant Agent Orange. Zumwalt came to believe that exposure to Agent Orange contributed to the death of his son, also a Vietnam veteran. In retirement, Zumwalt became a leader in encouraging research into the health effects of herbicides in combat. (Naval Historical Center)

1364

Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr.

In September 1968 Zumwalt was detailed to the post of commander of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam and the Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam, a position often viewed as a dead-end job (a brown-water post in a blue-water navy). He was tasked with interdicting Communist waterborne logistics traffic in the Mekong Delta, cooperating with allied ground troops in the area, and turning over the burden of the naval war to the South Vietnamese. Zumwalt moved with vigor to execute all three charges. To cut Communist logistical support, he supplemented the existing Operation MARKET TIME patrols with strikes by small craft (Operation GIANT SLINGSHOT) against supplies coming down the backwaters from Cambodia. To assist allied soldiers, Zumwalt provided shallow-draft landing craft in support of the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division. To execute his command’s role in Vietnamization, he organized a program dubbed ACTOV (Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese), with special emphasis on cooperation between American and South Vietnamese naval personnel. He set a personal example by his close relationship with Commodore Tran Van Chon, head of the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy). Zumwalt was also influential in the decision to use Agent Orange for defoliation efforts in Vietnam. Zumwalt’s performance in this demanding position was so impressive that his Vietnamese tour ended abruptly on April 12, 1970, when he was summoned to Washington to begin a four-year assignment as chief of naval operations. Sworn in on July 1, 1970, Zumwalt became the youngest officer to hold the U.S. Navy’s top job and the rank of full admiral. In his new position Zumwalt perforce turned to larger issues, such as the reform of personnel policies and the U.S. Navy’s fading ability to confront a rapidly expanding Soviet fleet. Still, as chief of naval operations, Zumwalt continued to exert an influence on the Vietnamese struggle, especially during the Easter Offensive of 1972, when he strongly advocated the mining of Haiphong Harbor.

Following the war, Zumwalt became involved as a private citizen in humanitarian concerns related to the Vietnam struggle. For instance, he managed to secure the release from captivity of Tran Van Chon. Most conspicuously, however, Zumwalt served as a spokesman for U.S. servicemen suffering from exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. In 1988 Zumwalt’s son, Elmo III, age 42, died of cancer, which was attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. Elmo III’s son was born with a serious congenital defect, which many also attributed to the effects of Agent Orange. In 1986 after Zumwalt himself was diagnosed with cancer, he and his son cowrote a book about their experience titled My Father, My Son, which was later made into a television movie. Although Elmo III stated that he could not prove positively that his illness and the birth defects in his own son were related to Agent Orange, Admiral Zumwalt was convinced otherwise. Nevertheless, Zumwalt stated that he stood by his decision to use defoliants in the Mekong Delta, which he believed had saved many lives. He deeply regretted, however, the effects that the chemicals had on soldiers and sailors, including his own son. In 1976 Zumwalt ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for a seat in the U.S. Senate, representing Virginia. He died on January 2, 2000, in Durham, North Carolina. MALCOLM MUIR JR. See also Defoliation; Herbicides; MARKET TIME, Operation; Mobile Riverine Force; Nitze, Paul Henry; Riverine Craft; Riverine Warfare; United States Navy; Vietnam, Republic of, Navy; Vietnamization References Friedman, Norman. “Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr.” In The Chiefs of Naval Operations, edited by Robert W. Love Jr. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980. Reynolds, Clark G. Famous American Admirals. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978. Zumwalt, Elmo, Jr. On Watch: A Memoir. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Books, 1976. Zumwalt, Elmo, Jr., and Elmo Zumwalt III, with John Pekkanen. My Father, My Son. New York: Macmillan, 1986.

Index

1st Air Cavalry Division (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), xliii, 30, 50, 158, 160, 254, 276, 283 (image), 312, 349, 370, 461, 474, 517, 519, 527, 528 (image), 593, 771, 893, 1239, 1245, 1324, 1325 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment (ARVN), 160 1st Infantry Division (ARVN), 2, 306, 307, 448, 814 1st Infantry Division (PAVN), 254, 390–391 1st Infantry Division (U.S. [“Big Red One”]), 78, 81, 245, 248, 1029, 1324, 1325 1st Infantry Regiment (VC), 462 1st Marine Field Artillery Group (U.S.), 73 2nd Armored Brigade (U.S.), 160 2nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 312 2nd Infantry Division (PAVN), 1340 2nd Infantry Division (VC), 462 3rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 325 3rd Infantry Regiment (ARVN), 448 3rd Marine Division (U.S.), 290, 306, 485, 591–592 3rd Sapper Battalion (PAVN), 291 4th Air Cavalry Division (U.S.), 180 4th Infantry Division (U.S.), 160, 254, 388, 427, 1324 4th Marine Division (U.S. [“Magnificent Bastards”]), 306, 485 5th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 529 5th Infantry Division (ARVN), 51, 150, 1324 5th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 1, 51 5th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 292, 466 5th Marine Regiment (U.S.), xliv (image) 5th Ranger Group (ARVN), 357 6th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 291 7th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 406, 527, 528

7th Infantry Division (ARVN), 57, 58, 981 7th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51 9th Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 9th Infantry Division (ROK [“White Horse”]), 163, 602 (image) 9th Infantry Division (U.S.), 348, 467, 981, 983–984 9th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51, 80–81, 107, 342 9th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 57, 139, 448, 485 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (U.S. [“Blackhorse”]), 78, 370 12th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 14th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rangers”]), 470 (image) 16th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 1 18th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 21st Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 21st Marine Regiment (U.S. [“Gimlets”]), 306 22nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 312, 1326 23rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 608 23rd Infantry Division (U.S. [“Americal Division”]), 119–120, 785, 1340 24th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 163, 254, 427, 466 25th Infantry Division (U.S. [“Tropic Lightning”]), 78, 81, 208, 249, 370, 457, 1324 26th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Blue Spaders”]), 180 26th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 485 29th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 57, 448 31st Marine Amphibious Unit (U.S.), 48 31st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 32nd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 33rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 528 39th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 348

I-1

42nd Regiment (ARVN), 427, 466 52nd Ranger Battalion (U.S.), 308 57th Medical Detachment (U.S.), 320, 564 66th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 82nd Airborne Division (U.S.), 29, 467 82nd Medical Detachment (U.S.), 853 90th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 140 101st Airborne Division (U.S. [“Screaming Eagles”]), 15, 50, 57, 276, 292, 349, 448, 464, 474, 546, 803, 1340 101st Aviation Group (U.S.), 292 101st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 81 173rd Airborne Brigade (U.S. [“Sky Soldiers”]), 15, 50, 180, 245, 248, 254, 427, 428, 693, 1325 (image), 1326 174th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254, 428 187th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rakassans”]), 57 196th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 81, 292, 306 199th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 357, 1162 237th Infantry Regiment (VC), 81 271st Infantry Regiment (VC), 107 272nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 81, 107, 341, 342 304B Infantry Division (PAVN), 163, 517, 977 320th Infantry Division (PAVN), 306 320th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 324B Infantry Division (PAVN), 235, 462, 463, 517, 977 325th Infantry Division (PAVN), 77, 235 325C Infantry Division (PAVN), 517, 579, 1244 327th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 502nd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 503rd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 254, 255 506th Infantry Battalion (VC), 348 675B Artillery Regiment (PAVN), 291

I-2

Index

762nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 763rd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 803rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 235 812th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 I Corps (ARVN), 517, 520, 814 I Corps (U.S.), 50, 311 II Corps (ARVN), 161 II Field Force, 875 III Corps (ARVN), 158, 161 III Corps (U.S.), 51 III Marine Amphibious Force (U.S. [MAF]), 31, 312, 704 LXX Corps (PAVN), 617 ABILENE, Operation, 1–2 Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr., 2–3, 2 (image), 51, 133, 347, 548, 576, 599, 616, 625, 692–693, 814, 847, 872, 875, 934, 970, 1062, 1174, 1175, 1176–1177, 1176–1177, 1188, 1203 (image), 1212, 1215, 1345 (image) analysis of the enemy systems used in the Vietnam War, 3 as commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 3 as overseer of Vietnamization, 747 Abzug, Bella, 4, 187, 712 Accelerated Pacification Campaign, 872–873 Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program, 407 Acheson, Dean Gooderham, 4–6, 5 (image), 566, 603, 1143, 1168 “defense perimeter” in Asia established by, 5 memorandum of, 1404Doc. press release urging aid for Indochina, 1410Doc. report to the National Security Council, 1416–1417Doc. telegram to Abbot L. Moffat, 1390–1391Doc. telegram to the consulate in France, 1403–1404Doc. telegram to the consulate in Hanoi, 1404Doc. telegram to the embassy in France, 1402–1403Doc. telegram to the embassy in the United Kingdom, 1407–1408Doc. telegram to the legation in Saigon, 1415–1416Doc. telegram to Walter Robertson, 1378–1379Doc. telegrams to David Bruce, 1409–1410Doc., 1412–1413Doc. ACTIV. See Army Team Concept in Vietnam Adams, Eddie, 6–7, 6 (image), 727 Adams, Samuel A., 7–8, 865 Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee (AHMBC), 8

Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), 934 Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (AARS), 1032 African Americans, in the U.S. military, 8–10, 9 (image), 69 effects of the civil rights movement on, 212 Agent Orange. See Defoliation; Herbicides Agnew, Spiro Theodore, 10–11, 11 (image), 45, 338, 457, 464, 465 criticism of the media, 1622–1624Doc. resignation of the vice presidency by, 11, 377 Agricultural reform tribunals, 11–12 Agroville Program, 12, 808, 811, 1061 Aiken, George David, 12–13, 13 (image) Air America, 13–14 Airborne operations, 14–16 Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 16–24, 17 (image), 19 (image), 23 (image), 579 allied bombers, 16–18 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, 16, 24, 32, 48, 59–60, 60 (image), 79, 97, 108, 125, 142–143, 158, 292, 312, 325, 340, 370, 376, 462, 466, 503, 527, 578, 582, 592, 625, 646, 659 (image), 661, 662, 693, 698, 709, 724, 740, 770, 802, 845, 879, 887, 944, 952, 958, 1001, 1018, 1021, 1034, 1036, 1049, 1053, 1068, 1130, 1154, 1184 Douglas A-1 Skyraider, 16, 17 (image), 24, 27, 77, 300, 372, 578, 838, 911, 917, 1080, 1265, 1356 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, 16, 24, 27, 35, 41, 300, 339, 372, 379, 679, 713, 911, 930, 1066, 1124, 1205, 1265 Douglas AD-6 Skyraider, 838, 1264 Douglas B-26 Invader, 16, 24, 105, 342, 383, 644 Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer, 17, 24–25, 31 (image) Grumman A-6 Intruder, 24, 25, 300, 340, 659, 1206 Martin B-57/RB-57 Canberra, 18, 25, 27, 35, 105, 990 (image) Vought A-7 Corsair II, 18, 25, 27, 35, 300, 659, 758, 1032 allied fighters and fighter-bombers, 18–20 McDonnell Douglas Phantom F4, xliii (image), 18, 19 (image), 27, 28, 35, 121, 226, 233, 300, 339, 379, 1040, 1051, 1079, 1085, 1086, 1119, 1205, 1206, 1248, 1341, 1342 allied trainers, transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and defoliators, 20–23 Democratic Republic of Vietnam aircraft, 23–24 See also Tactical Air Command Aircraft carriers, 25–27, 26 (image) length of individual tours/cruises, 26–27

reconnaissance tasks of, 27 Air defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 27–29, 28 (image) antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 28, 52–53 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image) Air Ground Aid Service (AGAS), 270 AirLand Battle doctrine, 1062 Air mobility, 29–30, 29 (image) Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company (ANGLICO), 30–31 Airpower, role of in the Vietnam War, 31–32, 33 (map), 34 air operations over Cambodia, 34 amount/tonnage of bombs dropped during the war, 31–32 focus of air operations in South Vietnam, 32 Air War Study Group Report (Cornell University), 36–37 ALA MOANA, Operation, 37 Albert, Carl, 280 Albright, Madeleine K., 1181 Alcatraz Gang, 1066 Alessandri, Marcel, 37–38, 172, 1009 Alexander, Jerome, 1031 (image) Ali, Muhammad, 38, 39 (image), 111, 231 (image) Allen, James, 238 Allied strength in Vietnam, 1964–1972 (table) Alpha Strike, 39–40 Alsop, Joseph Wright, V, 40 Alvarez, Everett, Jr., 41, 41 (image), 931 Amerasians, 41–43, 42 (image) American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 45, 46 American Friends of Vietnam (AFV), 43–44, 861 American Indian Movement (AIM), 798 American Red Cross, 44–45, 45 (image) Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO) program of, 44–45 American Society of Friends (Quakers), 53 Amin, Jamil Abdullah al-. See Brown, Hubert Gerald Amnesty, 45–46 Amphibious Objective Area (AOA), 47 Amphibious warfare, 46–48, 47 (image) amphibious task force of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, 47 brown water versus blue water operations, 47 deployment of the Special Landing Force (SLF), 47 during the period of Vietnamization, 48 marine landings, 47 Andersen, Christopher, 375 Andersen Air Force Base, 48–49 Anderson, Jack, 921 Anderson, William, 927, 1118 Andreotta, Glenn, 786, 1116 Andropov, Yuri, 423 Angell, Joseph, 189

Index Angkor Wat, 49–50, 49 (image), 150–151 ANGLICO. See Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company An Khe, 50 An Loc, Battle of, 50–51 casualties of, 51 Annam, 51–52 Antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 52–53, 1248 Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems Treaty (ABM Treaty) (1972), 778 Anti-Party Affair, 638, 639, 1043 Anti-Rightist campaign, 1043 Antiwar movement, in the United States, 53–55, 54 (image), 610 bombing of North Vietnam as the catalyst for, 53–54 common denominators among college campuses, 571 spread of beyond college campuses, 54 See also Baltimore Four; Camden 28; Catonsville Nine; Chicago Eight; Fort Hood Three; Jackson State College, shootings at; Kent State University shootings; March on the Pentagon; May Day Tribe; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) Antiwar protests, non-U.S., 55–57, 56 (image) APACHE SNOW, Operation, 57, 709 Ap Bac, Battle of, 57–59, 58 (image), 1035, 1261 casualties of, 57 (table) Ap Bia Mountain, Battle of. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Appeasement policy, 781 Approval ratings, of U.S. presidents during U.S. involvement in Indochina, 569 (table) Appy, Christian, 313 Aptheker, Herbert, 688 Arc Light missions, 59–61, 60 (image), 1069, 1186 ARDMORE, Operation, 579 Armored personnel carriers (APCs), 61–63, 61 (image) characteristics of, 62–63 (table) Armored warfare, 63–64, 63 (image) antitank attack methods, 63–64 lack of armor in North Vietnamese forces, 64 Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV), 64–65 Army of the Republic of Vietnam. See Vietnam, Republic of, Army Arnett, Peter, 65–66, 66 (image), 727, 728, 1078 Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius, 66–67 Arnold, Henry, 960 Art, and the Vietnam War, 67–70, 69 (image) African American artists’ response to the Vietnam War, 69–70

Artillery, 70–73, 72 (image) antipersonnel “Beehive” rounds, 72–73 high-explosive antitank (HEAT) ammunition, 72 improved conventional munitions (ICM), 73 number of U.S. Army artillery battalions in Vietnam, 73 specific People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) artillery, 71–72, 1251 (table) specific U.S. artillery, 71 (table) use of by the Viet Cong, 71 See also Antiaircraft artillery (AAA) Artillery fire doctrine, 73–76, 75 (image) chain of command for artillery, 74 direct support (DS) and general support (GS) operations, 73–74 and the effectiveness of firebases, 75–76 and fire direction centers (FDCs), 74 specific doctrines for artillery maneuvers, 74–75 Artists and Writers Protest (AWP) group, 67 Aschenbrenner, Michael, 70 A Shau Valley, 76–77, 1239 A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 77 Ashley, Eugene, Jr., 625 Asselin, Pierre, 490 Assimilation versus association, 77–78 Athenagoras I, Patriarch, 884 Atlantic Charter, 1167–1168 ATLAS WEDGE, Operation, 78–79 casualties of, 79 Atrocities, 79–80, 79 (image) committed by U.S. armed forces, 55, 79–80, 149–150, 481, 521 committed by the Viet Cong (VC), 79, 80, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) committed by Republic of Korea (ROK) allied forces, 80 See also Torture ATTLEBORO, Operation, 80–81 casualties of, 81 Attrition, 82 Aubrac, Raymond, 889, 1016–1017 August Revolution, 82–83, 1010 Au Lac, kingdom of, 83 Ault Report, 1124 Australia, 83–86, 85 (image), 395 casualties suffered by in the Vietnam War, 85, 86 deployment of ground troops to Vietnam, 84 military advisors provided to Vietnam, 83 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operations in Vietnam, 84 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) operations in Vietnam, 84–85, 1321 See also CRIMP, Operation Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), 83 Australian Special Air Services (SAS), 15

I-3

“Awesome foursome,” 961 B-52 raids. See Arc Light missions BABYLIFT, Operation, 87–88, 87 (image)

Bach Dang River, Battle of, 88–89 Ba Cut, 89, 830 Baez, Joan Chandos, 55, 89–90, 90 (image) Baker, Carroll, 1166 (image) Baker, Ella, 1072 Ball, George Wildman, 54, 90–91, 91 (image), 218, 345, 551, 562, 569, 808, 1201, 1345, 1345 (image) memorandum to President Johnson, 1549–1551Doc. telegram to President Johnson and Dean Rusk, 1506–1508Doc. Ball, Roland, 583 Baltimore Four, 91–92 Ban Karai Pass, 92–93 Ban Me Thuot, Battle of, 93–94, 93 (image) Bao Dai, xli, 94–95, 94 (image), 140, 330, 654, 655, 806, 807, 811, 839, 913 (image), 1010, 1258, 1272, 1286, 1287 abdication message of, 1376–1377Doc. Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr., 95–96 BARREL ROLL, Operation, 26, 32, 96–97, 503, 1119 sorties involved in and total ordnance dropped, 97 (table) BARRIER REEF, Operation, 917, 1026 Barrow, Robert, 290–291 Basic Principles of Mutual Relations (1972), 778 Bassford, Christopher, 1077 Batcheller, Gordon, 516 Bates, Carol, 797 Ba Trieu. See Trieu Au Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961), 568 Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul, 78, 98 BEAU CHARGER, Operation, 47 BEAVER TRACK, Operation, 47, 485 Beckwith, Charles Alvin, 98–100, 99 (image) role of in the formation of Delta Force, 99 Bennett, John, 218 Benson Report (1969), 969 Ben Suc, 100–101, 100 (image) Ben Tre, Battle of, 101–102, 101 (image) BENTRE, Operation, 388 Berger, Samuel David, 102 Berlin Wall, 568 Bernard, Harry V., 270, 862 Bernhardt, Michael, 971 Berrigan, Daniel, 102–104, 103 (image), 178, 179, 217 Berrigan, Philip, 91–92, 103, 104, 178, 179 Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 537 Betts, Richard K., 491 Bidault, Georges, 104–105, 105 (image), 375, 651–652, 1307 Bien Hoa Air Base, 105–106, 106 (image) Bigeard, Marcel, 174, 295–296 Big Medicine, Joseph, Jr., 799 (image)

I-4

Index

BIG PATCH, Operation, 1325

Binh Gia, Battle of, 106–108, 107 (image) casualties of, 107 BINH TAY I–IV, Operations, 108–109, 157, 160–161 Binh Xuyen, 109, 169, 314, 654, 1010 Bird, William H., 109, 156 Bird & Sons, 109, 156–157, 236 Blackburn, Donald D., 1052 Black Flags, 110–111, 110 (image) BLACKJACK, Operation, 564, 764 Black Muslims, 111–112, 112 (image) Black Panthers, 112–113, 242, 361, 1024–1025 Black Power movement, 212, 591 Black Virgin Mountain. See Nui Ba Den Blair, John D., IV, 77 Blaizot, Roger, 114, 172, 532, 1242 Blassie, Michael Joseph, 114–115, 115 (image) BLU-82/B bomb, 115–116, 1239–1240 Bluechel, Herbert J., 290 BLUE LIGHT, Operation, 116 BLUE MARTIN, Operation, 47 Blum, Léon, 116–117, 117 (image) Boat people. See Refugees and boat people Body armor, 118 Body count, 118–119, 119 (image) Boettcher, Thomas, 313 BOLD MARINER, Operation, 119–121, 120 (image), 1030 Bollaert, Émile, 121 BOLO, Operation, 121–122, 862–863 Bombing, of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, restrictions on, 122, 123 (map), 124–125 Bombs BLU-82 (“Daisy Cutter”) bombs, 115–116, 619, 1239–1240 gravity (cluster bombs), 125 Bon Son Campaign. See MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation Booby traps, 125–127, 126 (image) hand grenades used in, 452 Border Campaign. See LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Boston Five, 1060 Bowles, Chester Bliss, 127–128, 127 (image) Bradley, Mark, 490 Bradley, Omar Nelson, 128–129, 128 (image), 606, 1345 Brady, Patrick Henry, 129, 564 Braestrup, Peter, 1100 Brandt, Willy, 286, 418 BRAVO I–II, Operations, 129–130, 649, 1123 Brechignac, Jean, 174 Breezy Cove, 1026 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich, 130–132, 131 (image), 286–287, 287 (image), 609, 918 the Brezhnev Doctrine, 131, 423 domestic policy of, 131 relationship with North Vietnam, 131 relationship with the West, 131–132

See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Brigham, Robert, 490 BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation, 132, 1028 Brindley, Thomas, 580–581 Brodie, Bernard, 960, 1029 BROTHERHOOD, Operation, 907, 1012 Brown, Andrew J., 915 (image) Brown, Earl, 656 Brown, George Scratchley, 132–133 Brown, Hank, 134 Brown, Harold, 196 Brown, H. Rap, 1072 Brown, Hubert Gerald, 133–134, 133 (image) Brown, James, 958–959 Brown, Malcolm, 58 Brown, Rayford, 560 (image) Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr., 134–135, 773 Brown, Winthrop, 631 Browne, Malcolm Wilde, 135 Browne, Michael W., 1246 Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este, 135–136, 135 (image) telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420–1421Doc. Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz, 136–137, 137 (image), 1226 Bucher, Lloyd M., 947 BUCKSKIN, Operation, 245 Buddhism, 137–139, 138 (image) Buddhist protests in Vietnam, 138 introduction of into Vietnam from China, 137 Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia, 151 Buddle, Reggie L., 1299 BUFFALO, Operation, 139–140, 485 Bui Diem, 140–141 Bui Phat, 141 Bui Tin, 141–142, 142 (image), 875 Bui Van Sac, 818 BULLET SHOT, Operation, 142–143 Bundy, McGeorge, 143–144, 143 (image), 372, 797, 871, 917, 1345, 1345 (image) cablegrams to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499–1501Doc. memorandum to President Johnson, 1514–1515Doc. Bundy, William Putnam, 144–145, 1095 memorandum to Dean Rusk, 1571–1572Doc. Bunker, Ellsworth, 145–146, 145 (image), 302, 347, 496 (image), 576, 599, 872, 1175 Burchell, Don, 949 (image) Burchett, Wilfred, 146, 1145 Burkett, Bernard Gary, 146–147, 1298, 1299 Bush, George Herbert Walker, 147–148, 147 (image), 187, 220, 305, 464, 781, 1280 education of, 147 political career of, 148 service of in World War II, 147 Bush, George W., 148, 595, 715, 1181, 1209– 1210, 1299, 1319–1320

BUTTERCUP, Operation, 1129

Byrne, William Matthew, 341, 1007 Byrnes, James F., note to French ambassador Henri Bonnet, 1382–1383Doc. Byroade, Henry, aide-mémoire to North Vietnamese consul Vu Huu Binh, 1569Doc. CALCAV. See Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Calley, William Laws, Jr., 149–150, 150 (image), 608, 785, 786, 886, 971, 1116, 1190 Cambodia, xlv, 49, 128, 150–154, 153 (image), 155, 325, 352, 414, 1246, 1274, 1278 air operations over, 34 bombing of, 151, 370, 594, 740, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 history of, 150–151 neutral status of, 802, 1018 North Vietnamese headquarters in, 557 political stability in, 154 political turmoil and civil war in, 152–154 population of, 1964–1964, 585 (table) Theravada Buddhism in, 151 See also Angkor Wat; Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of; Cambodian airlift; Cambodian Incursion; Hot pursuit policy; Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of, 152–153, 154–156, 200 background of, 154–155 Cambodian airlift, 156–157 Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 158 (image), 159 (map), 160–161, 803, 848, 1176 first phase of, 157–158 number and types of troops involved in, 157–158 second phase of, 158, 160 third phase of, 879 Camden 28, 161–162 Cam Lo, 162 CAMPAIGN 275, 93 Camp, Carter, 798 Camp Carroll, 162–163 Campbell, Roger, 581 Cam Ranh Bay, 163–164, 164 (image), 1279 Canada, 164–165, 165 (image) Canines. See K-9 Corps Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), 165–167, 803, 811, 967 Cao Bang, 167–168 Cao Dai, 168–170, 169 (image), 314, 654, 1089, 1096 Cao Van Vien, 170–171 Caravelle Group, 171, 903 CARBANADO, Operation, 270 Carmichael, Stokley, 1072 Carpentier, Marcel, 167, 171–172, 532, 545, 642, 643, 998, 1242, 1286

Index Carter, James Earl, Jr., 46, 136, 137, 172–173, 173 (image), 284, 287, 338 (image), 339, 378, 411, 547, 1278, 1318 Case, Clifford Philip, 173–174 Case-Church Amendment (1973), 174 Casey, Aloysius, 635 Casey, Patrick, 635 CASTOR, Operation, 15, 174–175, 800–801, 802 Casualties, of the Vietnam War, 175–176, 175 (table) Australian, 176 French, 175 Republic of Korea (ROK), 176 Republic of Vietnam (RVN), 175 U.S., 175 Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 176 Catholicism, 176–178, 177 (image) Catonsville Nine, 178–179 Catroux, Georges, 179–180 Cau Nguyen Loi, 1119 (image) CEDAR FALLS, Operation, 81, 100, 101, 180–181, 181 (map), 539, 555, 873 casualties of, 180 target of, 180 Cédile, Jean, 181 Center for Constitutional Rights, 613 Central Highlands, 182, 184, 1015, 1239, 1264 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 43, 182– 184, 186, 190, 223–224, 229, 244, 319, 412, 459, 507, 717, 1050, 1126–1127, 1328 Border Surveillance program of, 244 cablegram on the CIA channel to Henry Cabot Lodge concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc. intelligence memorandum concerning bombing damage to North Vietnam, 1589–1590Doc. See also Air America Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), 157, 160, 184–185, 1245, 1323 cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to, 1606Doc. Directive 02/73, 1649–1650Doc. Directive 03/CT 73, 1654–1656Doc. Directive (un-numbered), 1606–1607Doc. Resolution No. 9, 1614–1615Doc. summary of Directive No. 1/CT71, 1627–1629Doc. Chamberlain, Neville, 781 Chams, 185–186, 186 (image), 199 Chandler, David, 920 CHAOS, Operation, 186–187 Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr., 187–188, 188 (image) Chappelle, Georgette Meyer, 188–189 Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph, 189 Charton, Pierre, 643 CHECO Project, 189 Chemical warfare. See Defoliation; Herbicides; RANCH HAND, Operation

Cheney, Dick, 187 Chen Geng, 1332 Cheng Heng, 684 Chennault, Anna, 190–191, 190 (image), 192 Chennault, Claire Lee, 191–192, 191 (image), 1009 Chen Yun, 196 Chernenko, Konstantin, 423 Chiang Kai-shek. See Jiang Jieshi Chicago Eight, 192–193, 193 (image), 506, 613, 1329 Chieu Hoi Program, 193–194, 596, 869, 943 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 156, 172, 194–199, 195 (image), 197 (image), 204, 234, 293, 1241, 1332 domestic policies of, 195 economic development in, 198 formation of after the Chinese Civil War, 195 National People’s Congresses (NPCs) of, 196–197 relations with the Soviet Union, 195, 423 relations with the United States, 195, 196 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 status of following the Korean War, 607 Tiananmen Square uprising in, 197–198 See also China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam; Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward; Hundred Flowers campaign China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam, 199–201, 200 (image), 201 (image) amount of foreign aid to North Vietnam, 199 military aid to North Vietnam, 324 post–Vietnam War policy, 200–201, 204 provision of war materiel to the Viet Minh and North Vietnamese, 676 support of the Viet Minh, 293, 532–533, 547–548 China, Republic of, 201–202, 548 China Lobby, 597 Chinese, in Vietnam, 202–204, 203 (image) attacks on the Chinese community, 202 control of South Vietnam’s commerce by the Chinese, 203 expulsion of the Chinese from Vietnam, 204 organization of the Chinese in Vietnam, 202 response of the Chinese to Vietnamese decrees and demands, 203 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 195, 196, 197 Chin Vinh. See Tran Do Chomsky, Avram Noam, 204–205, 205 (image) Chou En-lai. See Zhou Enlai Christmas Bombings. See LINEBACKER II, Operation Church, Frank Forrester, 173, 174, 205–206, 238–239, 464, 1196 Churchill, Winston, 995, 1143 Chu Van Tan, 206 CIDG. See Civilian Irregular Defense Group

I-5

Civic action, 206–209, 207 (image) combined action platoon (CAP) mission, 208 Helping Hand program, 208 Marine Corps civic action programs, 207–208 medical civic action programs (MEDCAPS), 207 Civil Air Transport (CAT), 13 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), 209, 223, 244, 564, 769, 1084, 1213, 1214 Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), 120, 208, 209–210, 223, 357, 433, 509, 872, 873, 909, 934, 1183–1184, 1272 Civil Rights Act (1964), 591 Civil rights movement, 210–212, 211 (image), 607 and the Black Power movement, 212 effect of on African American soldiers in Vietnam, 212 and voter registration of African Americans, 212 (table) Clarey, Bernard Ambrose, 212–213 Clark, Joseph S., 1196 Clark, Mark, 113 Clark, William Ramsey, 213–214, 213 (image), 1198 Clark Air Force Base, 215 Clausewitz, Carl von, 990, 1077 Clay, Cassius. See Ali, Muhammad Claymore Mines. See Armored warfare; Firesupport bases; Mine warfare, land Clear and hold operations, 215 Cleaver, Eldridge, 113 Cleland, Joseph Maxwell, 215–216, 215 (image), 925, 1216 Clemenceau, Georges, 216–217, 216 (image) Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), 217–218, 217 (image) Clifford, Clark McAdams, 218–219, 218 (image), 510, 551, 1209, 1318 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 220 Clinton, William Jefferson, 148, 219–221, 344, 616, 762 lifting of the trade embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1674–1675Doc. normalization of relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1675–1676Doc. Cluster bombs. See Bombs, gravity (cluster bombs) Coalition for a Democratic Majority, 996 Coastal surveillance force. See MARKET TIME, Operation Cochin China, 51–52, 95, 155, 181, 221, 343, 375, 398, 400, 401, 408, 416, 1241 Co Chi tunnels, 245, 248–249 Coffin, William Sloane, 218, 221–222, 222 (image)

I-6

Index

Cogny, René, 222–223, 295, 802 COINTELPRO, 1025 Colburn, Lawrence, 786, 1116 Colby, William Egan, 223–224, 223 (image), 319, 599, 615, 815, 872, 873, 909, 970, 1095, 1175, 1176 Collins, Arthur, 456 Collins, Joseph Lawton, 224–225, 225 (image), 314, 812, 1169 Collins-Ely Agreement, 861 Colvin, John, 1245 Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC), 967–968 Combat Operations Research Center (CORC), 967–968 Combined action platoons. See Marine combined action platoons COMMANDO FLASH, Operation, 225–226 COMMANDO HUNT, Operation, 34, 60, 226–227, 505, 617, 1063, 1185–1186 Committee on the Present Danger, 996 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 1244 Concerned Officers Movement (COM), 227–228 CONCORDIA, Operation, 306 “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report (COWIN Report), 228 Conein, Lucien Emile, 129, 228–229, 674, 808, 809, 970, 1012, 1133 Confucianism, 229–230, 230 (image) Conscientious objectors (COs), 230–232, 231 (image) Conscription. See Selective Service Con Son Island Prison, 232–233, 233 (image), 763 CONSTANT GUARD, Operation, 233–234 Containment policy, 234–235, 566, 569, 781, 945, 1143, 1199 militarization of following the Korean War, 607 Contemporary Historical Examination of Combat Operations. See CHECO Project Con Thien, siege of, 235–236, 236 (image) casualties of, 236 See also BUFFALO, Operation Continental Air Services (CAS), 236–237 Cooper, Chester Lawrence, 237, 871 Cooper, John Sherman, 237–238, 239 (image), 464, 1196 Cooper-Brooke Amendment (1972), 238–239 Cooper-Church Amendment (1970), 239, 617, 849, 1196–1197 CORDS. See Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support CORONADO I–XI, Operations, 983 Corps tactical zones (CTZs), 240–241, 240 (image), 241 (map) Corsi, Jerome E., 1084 Cosell, Howard, 39 (image) COSVN. See Central Office for South Vietnam

Counterculture(s), 241–243, 242 (image) components of, 242 sociological definition of, 241 Counterinsurgency warfare, 243–245 CIA involvement in, 244 U.S. experience with, 243–244 Cousins, Norman, 53 COWIN Report. See “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report Cranston, Alan, 610 CRIMP, Operation, 245–246 Crittenberger, Willis, 871 CROCKETT, Operation, 579 Croizat, Victor, 1270 Croly, Herbert, 663 Cronauer, Adrian, 246 Cronkite, Walter Leland, 246–247, 247 (image), 1100 criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam, 1601–1602Doc. Cuba, 155 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 568 Cubi Point Naval Air Station, 247–248, 248 (image) Cultural Revolution, 197, 703, 1043 Cunningham, Randall Harold, 249–250, 250 (image), 1124 Cuong De, 250–251 Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr., 48, 251–252, 251 (image), 592, 1203 (image) Dabney, William, 580–581 Da Faria, Antônio, 253 Daisy Cutter. See BLU-82/B bomb Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang, 253–254 Dak To, Battle of, 254–256, 254 (image), 255 (map), 465–466, 692–693, 1239 casualties of, 254, 255, 693 Da Lat, 256 Da Lat Military Academy, 1269 Daley, Richard Joseph, 256–257, 257 (image) Da Nang, 257–258, 258 (image), 345, 345 (image) See also Hue and Da Nang, fall of Dang Con San Viet Nam. See Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party), 1244 Dang Si, 1113 Dang Xuan Khu. See Truong Chinh DANIEL BOONE, Operation, 259 Dao Duy Tung, 259 Daoism. See Taoism D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry, 95, 259–260, 276, 375, 401, 532, 769, 1168, 1241 Darst, David, 178 Date of Estimated Return from Overseas. See DEROS Dau Tranh strategy, 260–262, 261 (image) Davidson, Carl, 1073 Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr., 262

Davis, Angela, 113 Davis, Raymond Gilbert, 262–263, 290 Davis, Rennard Cordon, 192, 263–264, 263 (image), 711 Davison, Michael S., 158 Day, George Everett, 265–266, 932–933, 1126 Dean, Arthur, 1345 Dean, John Gunther, 265–266, 265 (image) Débes, Pierre-Louis, 266 ultimatum to the Haiphong Administrative Committee, 1389–1390Doc. De Castries, Christian Marie, 266–268, 267 (image) See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dechaux, Jean, 174 DECKHOUSE I, Operation, 47 DECKHOUSE V, Operation, 268–269, 268 (image) Decoux, Jean, 269–270, 392 Deer Mission, 270 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), 270–272, 271 (image) Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS), 272 DEFIANT STAND, Operation, 272–273 Defoliation, 273–275, 274 (image), 1239 amount of herbicides used in, 273 (table), 480 (table) initial results of, 273 long-term effects of, 273–274 See also RANCH HAND, Operation Deforest, Orrin, 1127 De Gaulle, Charles, 105, 269, 275–276, 275 (image), 637, 774, 995, 1014, 1129 DELAWARE-LAM SON 216, Operation, 276–277 casualties of, 277 Dellinger, David, 192, 277–278, 277 (image), 1060 Dellums, Ron V., 1197 DeLoach, Cartha, 511 Delta Force, 99 Demilitarized zone (DMZ), 278–279, 278 (image), 279 (map), 306, 325 establishment of, 413–414 Democratic National Convention (1968 [Chicago]), 55, 113, 134, 178, 218, 264, 278, 279–281, 280 (image) See also Chicago Eight Deng Xiaoping, 196, 198, 1046 Denney, Stephen, 964 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr., 281, 495 Deo Mu Gia. See Mu Gia Pass DePuy, William Eugene, 1, 281–282, 282 (image), 555, 728 view of pacification, 871 See also Search and destroy De Rhodes, Alexandre, 283 DEROS (Date of Estimated Return from Overseas), 283–284, 283 (image) DESERT SHIELD, Operation, 270–271 DESERT STORM, Operation, 270–271

Index Desertion, 284–285 of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 284–285 of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC), 285 of U.S. military personnel, 284 DeSoto missions, 285–286, 864 Détente, 286–288, 287 (image), 778 De Tham, 288 Devillers, Philippe, 288–289 Dewey, Albert Peter, 289–290, 289 (image), 310, 862 Dewey, Thomas, 315, 988 DEWEY CANYON I, Operation, 290–292, 291 (image), 617, 1294 casualties of, 291 success of, 292 DEWEY CANYON II, Operation, 292–293, 1294 casualties of, 292 Dewey Canyon III, 657 Diem, overthrow of. See Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Dien Bien Phu, Battle of, 15, 76, 140, 174, 234, 267, 293–296, 294 (image), 295 (map), 342, 535, 675, 1169, 1250 artillery of the French forces, 295 artillery of the Viet Minh, 294–295 casualties of, 295, 296 effects of the French defeat, 296 French rescue plans for (Operation ALBATROSS and Operation CONDOR), 296 See also VULTURE, Operation Dien Triet Lake, Battle of, 296–297 Dikes, on the Red River Delta, 297–298 Diller, Richard W., 276, 887 Dillon, C. Douglas, 329, 1345 telegram to John Foster Dulles, 1433Doc. Dinassauts, 298–299, 764 Dith Pran, 299–300, 299 (image) Dix, Drew, 940 Dixie Station, 300 Doan Khue, 300–301 Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich, 301, 301 (image) Do Cao Tri, 158, 302–303, 302 (image), 827 Dogs. See K-9 Corps Doi Moi, 303, 820, 1278–1279 Domino theory, 303–305, 304 (image), 569, 781, 945 Do Muoi, 305–306 Don Dien, 306 Dong Ap Bia. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Dong Da, Battle of. See Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Dong Ha, Battle of, 306–307 casualties of, 307 (table) Dong Quan Pacification Project, 307–308 Dong Xoai, Battle of, 308–309, 308 (image) Don Khoi, 835 Donlon, Roger Hugh C., 309 Donnell, John, 1078

Donovan, Jack, 1341 Donovan, James, 1036 Donovan, William Joseph, 182, 309–310, 310 (image), 861, 862 Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III, 310–311, 880 Do Quang Thang, 311 D’Orlandi, Giovanni, 704 Doubek, Bob, 1295, 1296 DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation, 47, 311–312, 312 (image), 709 Doumer, Paul, 78, 312–313 Dow Chemical Company, 789 Draft, military. See Selective Service Driscoll, William, 250 (image), 1124 Drugs and drug use, 313–314 Duc Thanh Tran. See Tran Huang Dao Duc Tong Anh Hoang De. See Tu Duc Dulles, Allen Welsh, 183, 314–315, 314 (image), 1011 Dulles, John Foster, 183, 315–316, 315 (image), 329, 330, 412, 597, 802, 807, 957, 1011, 1055, 1056, 1169, 1199, 1307 minutes of meeting with Eisenhower, 1437–1439Doc. telegram to the embassy in Saigon, 1452–1453Doc. telegrams to C. Douglas Dillon, 1423Doc., 1423–1424Doc., 1426–1427Doc., 1436– 1437Doc., 1439–1440Doc. Dumb bombs. See Bombs, gravity “Dump Johnson” movement, 685 Duong Hiuu Nghia, 318 Duong Quynh Hoa, 316–317 Duong Thanh Nhat, 318 Duong Van Duc, 317 Duong Van Minh, 129, 317–318, 317 (image), 331, 458, 653, 675, 753, 808, 809, 827, 830, 831 (image), 1134, 1135, 1261, 1263, 1264 Dupré, Marie-Jules, 110 Dupuis, Jean, 110, 318–319 Durbrow, Elbridge, 319–320 assessment of the Diem regime, 1462Doc. telegrams to Christian Herter, 1473– 1475Doc., 1481Doc. Dustoff, 320 Dutton, Frederick, 1195 Duy Tan, 320–321, 321 (image) Dylan, Bob, 55, 89, 90 (image), 321–322 EAGLE CLAW, Operation, 554

EAGLE PULL, Operation, 48, 323 Easter Offensive, xlv, 31, 51, 60, 142, 162, 163, 182, 226, 233, 258, 278, 323–325, 324 (image), 346, 348, 393, 498, 599, 652, 672, 680, 736, 749, 758, 769, 814, 842, 843, 909, 910, 917, 946, 952, 1024, 1029, 1080, 1096, 1140, 1175, 1176, 1186, 1205, 1246, 1251, 1270, 1300, 1304, 1310, 1327, 1364 role of aircraft in, 1069, 1184–1185, 1300 See also Kontum, Battle for

I-7

East Meets West (EMW) Foundation, 1182 Eberhardt, David, 92 Eden, Robert Anthony, 327–328, 327 (image), 767 Edwards, Mel, 67 Egan, David, 1116 Eisenhower, Dwight D., xli, 43, 166, 172, 224, 244, 296, 316, 328–329, 328 (image), 342, 409, 568, 607, 692, 696, 807, 847, 957, 1055, 1056, 1164, 1169, 1169, 1199–1200, 1202, 1259 (image) approval ratings for, 569 (table) belief in the “domino theory,” 304, 305 conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1463Doc. domestic policies of, 328 international policies of, 328–329 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1450–1451Doc. minutes of meeting with Dulles, 1437–1439Doc. news conference notes, 1437Doc. policies of in Southeast Asia, 329 Electronic intelligence (ELINT), 339–340, 864 “Eleven Day War.” See LINEBACKER II, Operation Elleman, Bruce, 1046 Ellis, Randolph, 1151 Ellsberg, Daniel, 7, 340–341, 341 (image), 489–490, 594, 763, 891 (image), 960, 1006, 1035. See also Pentagon Papers and trial EL PASO II, Operation, 341–342 casualties of, 342 Ély, Paul Henri Romuald, 342–343, 532, 957, 1014 Elysée Agreement (1949), 343, 545, 913, 1402Doc. Emerson, Gloria, 662 Emspak, Frank, 793 Enclave strategy, 345–346, 345 (image) END SWEEP, Operation. See Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam ENHANCE, Operation, 346, 1265 ENHANCE PLUS, Operation, 346–348, 347 (image), 842 ENTERPRISE, Operation, 348–349, 348 (image) Enthoven, Alain C., 349, 722 Enuol, Y Bham, 349–350 Erhard, Ludwig, 417 Erskine, Graves B., 172, 545 European Defense Community (EDC), 354– 355, 413 Ewell, Julian Johnson, 355 EXODUS, Operation, 880 FAIRFAX, Operation, 357–358

Fall, Bernard, 294, 358, 358 (image), 643, 933, 1244 Fancy, Henry F., 655, 656 FARM GATE, Operation, 358–359, 959, 1184 Fatherland Front, 898 Faure, Edgar, 359–360, 360 (image)

I-8

Index

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 190, 360–361, 1327, 1329 Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 361–362 and Project Daily Death Toll (DDT), 362 Felt, Harry Donald, 362–363 Fernandez, Richard, 218, 363–364 Ferry, Jules, 78, 364 Fieser, Louis, 788 Film, and the Vietnam experience, 364–368, 366 (image) background of, 364–365 colonial period, 365 combat films, 365–367 comedies, 367 films concerning soldiers returning home, 367–368 films concerning the war’s aftermath, 368 Fire-support bases (FSBs), 290, 369 First National Conference on the Emotional Needs of Vietnam-Era Veterans, 657 Fishel, Wesley Robert, 370, 741 Fisher, Roger, 722 Fishhook, 370–371 FitzGerald, Frances, 433–434 Five O’Clock Follies, 371–372, 371 (image), 553, 554, 1099 FLAMING DART I–II, Operations, 26, 372, 816, 917, 990 Flexible response, 373 Flynn, John, 933 Fonda, Jane Seymour, 373–375, 374 (image), 860, 1293 broadcast of from Hanoi, 1640–1641Doc. Fontainebleau Conference, 375 Food for Peace program, 719 Forces Armées Nationale Khmères (FANK [Khmer National Armed Forces]), 50, 152, 157, 158, 161, 376–377, 585 Ford, Gerald R., 46, 284, 287, 338, 377–378, 377 (image), 1021, 1197, 1319 and the Mayaguez incident, 378, 710–711 pardoning of Nixon by, 378 Forrestal, James, 577 Forrestal, Michael Vincent, 378–379, 1095 Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of, 379 Fortas, Abraham, 379–380, 380 (image), 1345 Fort Hood Three, 380–381 Forward air controllers, 381 Fosdick, Raymond B., memorandum to Philip Jessup, 1405–1406Doc. “Four Nos” policy, 793–794 Four-Party Joint Military Commission, 381– 382, 382 (image) Fragging, 382–383 France, 15, 1168 involvement of in Southeast Asia, 243, 500 military logistics used in Vietnam, 676–677 nineteenth-century military intervention in Vietnam, 641–642 and Vietnam (1954–present), 389–390, 390 (image), 1240–1242

See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; FrancoThai War (1940–1941); Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946); Indochina War (1946–1954) France, Air Force of, 383–384 France, Army of (1946–1954), 384–387, 385 (image) armor of, 384, 386 French Expeditionary Force in Vietnam, 386 (table) infantry weapons of, 385 initial strategy of in Indochina, 386 makeup of in Vietnam, 384 tactics used by to combat guerilla warfare, 386 France, Navy of, 387–389 lack of a coordinated strategy in Indochina, 388 and riverine warfare, 387–388 FRANCIS MARION, Operation, 390–391, 1015 Franco, Francisco, 1058 Franco-Thai War (1940–1941), 391–392 Franco–Viet Minh Convention, excerpts from, 1382Doc. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi, 1386–1387Doc. Fraser, Michael Allan, 1299 Fratricide, 392–393 Freedom Company, 907 FREEDOM DEAL, Operation, 1048 FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation, 393–394 Freedom Rides, 1072 Freedom Summer, 1072 FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation, 393, 394 Free fire zones, 394–395, 395 (image) Free Khmer. See Khmer Serai Free Speech Movement (FSM), 53 Free World Assistance Program, 395–396, 602, 907 Free World Military Assistance Council, 747 French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), 1272 French Foreign Legion, 396, 396 (image), 397 (map), 398 French Indochina, 398, 399 (map), 400–402, 400 (image) missionaries in, 398, 400 nineteenth-century emperors of, 398 FREQUENT WIND, Operation, 27, 48, 402, 708, 755, 965, 1030, 1051 Friendly Fire. See Fratricide Froines, John, 192 Front for National Salvation, 811 Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO [United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races]), 403 Fulbright, J. William, 235, 238, 403–404, 404 (image), 508, 551, 1195, 1196 Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, 1657Doc. Fuller, J. F. C., 1077 Gabriel, Richard A., 1188

GADSEN, Operation, 556 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 405 Gallieni, Jiseph, 78 Galloway, Joseph Lee, 406, 771 GAME WARDEN, Operation, 406–408, 407 (image), 1030, 1091 Garcia, Rupert, 70 Garnier, Marie Joseph Francis, 110, 408 Garwood, Robert Russell, 408–409, 409 (image), 761, 797, 931, 933 Gavin, James Maurice, 29, 409–410, 1030–1031 Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth, 410 GBT intelligence network, 270, 862 Gelb, Leslie Howard, 410–411, 411 (image), 491 Geneva Accords (1954), 411–412, 880, 898, 1050, 1165, 1169, 1271, 1272 Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962), 631, 1245 Geneva Convention (1949), 414–415, 1125 Geneva Convention and Geneva Accords (1954), 165, 330, 343, 412–414, 413 (image), 597, 767 final declaration of, 1445–1446Doc. response of the United States to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. Genovese, Eugene Dominick, 415–416 Germany, Federal Republic of (FRG [West Germany]), 417–418 Gia Long. See Nguyen Phuc Anh GIANT SLINGSHOT, Operation, 1025–1026, 1364 Giles, Jean, 174, 791 Gilpatric Task Force Report, 1481–1482Doc. Gilpatrick, Roswell, 808 Ginsberg, Allen, 418–419, 418 (image) Global positioning system (GPS), 681 Godley, George McMurtrie, 419–420 Goff, Dave, 1298–1299 Goldberg, Arthur Joseph, 420, 1345, 1345 (image) Goldman, Eric Frederick, 420–421 Goldwater, Barry, 53, 332–333, 421–422, 421 (image) Golub, Leon, 68–69 Goodacre, Glenna, 857 Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson, 422–423 Go Public Campaign, 796, 1067–1068 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich, 196, 423– 424, 423 (image), 1158, 1160, 1181, 1279 Gordon, Lawrence, 270, 862 Gracey, Douglas David, 424, 1164, 1240 Gradualism, xliii Graham, James C., 8 Gras, Yves, 643 Gravel, Maurice Robert, 424–425 Gravel, Mike, 892 Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr., 425–426 Graves Registration. See Mortuary Affairs operations Great Leap Forward, 198, 702–703, 1043–1044

Index Great National Solidarity Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Great Society Program, 426–427, 549 impact of the Vietnam War on, 550–551 GREELEY, Operation, 427–428 Greenblatt, Robert, 1060 Greene, David M., 1030 Greene, Graham, 428–429, 428 (image) Greene, Wallace Martin, 429 Gregory, Dick, 1358 Grenade launchers, 429–431, 430 (image) Grew, Joseph telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, 1373Doc. telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, 1374Doc. Griffin, R. Allen, telegram to Richard Bissell, Jr., 1417–1418Doc. Griswold, Erwin, 890 Gromyko, Andrei, 1225 Groom, John F., 1119 Grossman, Jerome, 773 Groupement Mobile 100, destruction of, 431–432 Gruening, Ernest Henry, 432, 550, 776, 1171, 1195 Guam, 432–433 Guam Conference (1967), 433–434, 434 (image) Guizot, François, 435 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, xlii, 26, 286, 435–436, 864, 1171, 1195 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964), 144, 436– 437, 437 (image), 530, 550, 562, 864, 996, 1171, 1195 text of, 1512Doc. Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist), 199, 201, 202, 388 Gurfein, Murray I., 890 Habaib, Philip Charles, 439–440 Hackworth, David Haskell, 75, 440–441, 440 (image), 466, 707, 1077 Hague Convention (1907), 802, 1018 Hai Ba Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr., 180, 441–442, 441 (image), 740 Hainan Island, 442–443 Haiphong, 443–444 shelling of, 444–445 Halberstam, David, 58, 445–446, 445 (image), 611, 717, 1035, 1094 Haldeman, H. R., 696 Halperin, Morton H., 446–447 Hamburger Hill, Battle of, 447–448, 447 (image), 448 (map), 1239 Hamilton, Steve, 460 Hamlet Evaluation System (HES), 223, 449, 869 Hammond, William M., 729 Ham Nghi, 449–450 Hampton, Fred, 113

Hand grenades, 450–452 chemical grenades, 451 concussion grenades, 451 fragmentation grenades, 450 hand grenades used in booby traps, 452 incendiary grenades, 451 smoke grenades, 451 sources of grenades used by Communist forces, 450–451 Hanh Lang Truong Son. See Truong Son Corridor Hanoi, 452–453, 452 (image) bombing of, xlv, 453 industry and commerce of, 452–453 population of during the Vietnam War, 452 Hanoi, Battle of, 453–454 Hanoi Hannah, 455 Hanoi Hilton. See Hoa Lo Prison Hanoi March, 977 Harassment and interdiction fires (H&I fires), 455–457, 456 (image) debate concerning the effectiveness of, 456, 457 and the use of remote sensors, 456–457 Hardhats (National Hard Hats of America), 457 HARDNOSE, Operation, 984 Harkin, Thomas, 927, 1118, 1119 (image) Harkins, Paul Donal, 363, 458–459, 458 (image), 569, 674, 809, 851, 1035, 1070, 1095 Harriman, William Averell, 459–460, 459 (image), 562, 631, 876, 1076, 1225 Harris, David, 460 Hart, Frederick, 70, 658, 1296 Hart, Gary, 134 Hartke, Vance Rupert, 460–461 HARVEST MOON, Operation, 461–462, 461 (image) HASTINGS, Operation, 462–463, 463 (image) Hatfield, Mark Odom, 464, 464–465, 720, 1197 Hatfield-McGovern Amendment (1970), 464–465, 720 Hawk, David, 773 Hawkins, Augustus, 927, 1118 Hawkins, Gains, 865 HAWTHORNE, Operation, 465–466, 465 (image) Hay, John H., Jr., 673 Hayden, Thomas, 192, 264, 373, 374, 466–467, 688, 923, 1072 Healy, Michael D., 467–469 Heath, Donald Read, 468, 861 telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420Doc. Heath, Edward, 1165 Hedrick, Wally, 67 Heinl, Robert D., Jr., analysis of the decline of U.S. armed forces, 1632–1635Doc. Helicopters, xlii, xliii, 14, 15, 46, 30, 50, 58, 70, 73, 74, 77, 84, 100, 106 (image), 108, 115, 158, 180, 245, 268, 273, 276, 277, 290, 291, 292, 347 (image), 383, 402, 445, 468–473, 470 (image), 471 (image), 472 (image), 474 (image), 520, 556, 564, 569, 577, 578, 598, 607, 617, 625, 676,

I-9

678–679, 693, 695, 711, 732, 743, 744, 758, 764, 771, 777, 853, 867, 883, 894, 917, 977, 987, 1016, 1030, 1032, 1080, 1107, 1108, 1116, 1118, 1119, 1171, 1177, 1180 (image), 1194, 1205, 1215, 1238, 1249, 1265, 1326, 1340 Democratic Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 473 U.S. and Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 469–473 AH-1 Cobra, 36, 1051 Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”), 30, 64, 84, 105, 346, 347 (image), 407, 462, 470 (image), 618, 1091, 1265, 1289 (image) Boeing CH-47 Chinook, 1, 65, 105, 346 CH-21 Shawnee, 58 (image), 64 Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw, 30, 77, 473, 1074 See also Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War, 473–476, 474 (image), 1265 ambulance helicopters, 732 combat and fire support, 473–474 evacuation of casualties (medevac), 32, 308, 320, 323, 473, 475, 564, 592, 726–727, 727 (image) Ground Proximity Extraction System (GPES) run, 679 Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) run, 679 rescue, 472 (image), 914, 1052–1053, 1215 supply missions, 473, 475, 678–679 total number of helicopter losses in the Vietnam War, 476 total number of helicopter missions in the Vietnam War, 475–476 transport, 180, 475 U.S. Marine Corps helicopter missions, 474–475 See also Air mobility; Landing zone Heller, Lennie, 460 Helms, Jesse, 134 Helms, Richard McGarrah, 14, 476–477, 477 (image) Henderson, Oran K., 477–478, 608, 887 Hendricks, Jon, 68 Hendrix, Jimi, 783 (image) Heng Samrin, 155, 156, 478–479, 478 (image), 561, 586 Hennessy, John J., 977 Herbert, Anthony B., 479, 1126 Herbicides, 479–480, 1239, 1325 Agent Blue, 480 Agent Green, 479, 480 Agent Orange, 480, 1216, 1240 Agent Pink, 479 Agent Purple, 479 Agent White, 480 dioxin content of, 479–480 types of herbicides used in Vietnam, 273 (table), 480 (table)

I-10

Index

Herman, Judith, 925 Herr, Michael, 783 Herring, George, 704 Hersh, Seymour Myron, 481–482, 481 (image), 786 Hershey, Lewis Blaine, 482–483, 1033 Herz, Alice, 483–484, 775 Heschel, Abraham, 217 Hess, Gary, 489, 490 Hickel, Walter, 803 Hickey, Gerald Cannon, 484, 768, 770, 1078 HICKORY-BELT TIGHT-BEAU CHARGER-LAM SON 54, Operation, 484–485 HICKORY II, Operation, 485–486 High National Council (HNC), 486–487 Hilsman, Roger, 244, 487–488, 487 (image), 808, 1070, 1095 “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam,” 1491–1492Doc. Hilsman-Forrestal Report, 488 Hispanics, in the U.S. military, 488–489 Historiography, of the Vietnam War, 489–491 on history and memory, 491 new historical methodologies, 490–491 on the origins of the Vietnam War, 490 orthodox, revisionist, and neo-orthodox views, 489–490 Hitch, Charles J., 721–722 Hmongs, 491–493, 492 (image) Hoa, 1045 Hoa Binh, Battle of, 493 Hoa Hao, 314, 494, 654 Hoa Lo Prison (the “Hanoi Hilton”), 494–496, 495 (image) deplorable conditions at, 495 improved conditions at after the death of Ho Chi Minh, 496 torture used at, 495 Hoang Cam, 555, 556 Hoang Duc Nha, 496, 496 (image) Hoang Hao Tham. See De Tham HOANG HOA THAM, Operation, 497–498, 634 Hoang Thuy Nam, 537 Hoang Van Hoan, 498 Hoang Van Thai, 498–499 Hoang Xuan Lam, 517, 618, 619, 1220 Ho Chi Minh, xli, xlii, 11, 140, 151, 166, 199, 200 (image), 234, 270, 310, 375, 401, 499–501, 499 (image), 531, 537, 577, 621, 628, 794, 806, 822, 898, 1158, 1168, 1240, 1241–1242, 1241 (image), 1244, 1302 account of meeting with Paul Mus, 1394Doc. answers to the U.S. press regarding U.S. intervention in Indochina, 1411–1412Doc. appeal made on the occasion of the founding of the Communist Party, 1367Doc. death of, 496, 500–501, 1246 declaration of the policy of the Provisional Coalition Government, 1381–1382Doc.

as a diplomat, 500 final statement of, 1615–1616Doc. and the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party, 499 as leader of the Lao Dong, 500 letter from abroad, 1368–1369Doc. letter to compatriots in Nam Bo, 1383Doc. letter to James F. Byrnes, 1379–1380Doc. letter to Léon Archimbaud, 1366Doc. letter to President Johnson, 1581–1582Doc. letter to President Truman, 1379Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. proclamation to the people after negotiations with France, 1387–1389Doc. replies to an interviewer on Japanese TV, 1573–1574Doc. reply to a foreign correspondent, 1427Doc. reply to Georges Bidault, 1384Doc. report to the National Assembly, 1427–1429Doc. report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1442–1443Doc. speech concerning the resistance war in South Vietnam, 1380–1381Doc. speech at the Tours Congress, 1365–1366Doc. talk to a cadres’ meeting concerning draft law, 1472–1473Doc. talk to officers preparing for military campaign, 1421–1422Doc. telegram to Léon Blum, 1392Doc. as a war leader, 500 Ho Chi Minh Campaign, 501–502, 641 Ho Chi Minh City. See Saigon Ho Chi Minh Trail, xli, 225, 226, 377, 412, 502–503, 503 (image), 504 (map), 505, 617, 631, 676, 723–724, 802, 1018, 1063, 1119, 1133, 1245, 1250, 1252, 1324 bombing of, 32, 34, 503, 505, 802, 1018 building of, 502–503 electronic barrier across (the “McNamara Line”), 503, 505 improvements to, 680 in Laos, 505 length of, 503 transport of supplies on, 503 Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur, 505–506, 573, 592 Hoffman, Abbie, 192, 263 (image), 506–507, 506 (image), 1000, 1358–1359, 1359 (image) Hoffman, Julius Jennings, 113, 192, 613, 1000, 1025 Hogan, John, 178 Holbrooke, Richard, 1278 Holder, Stan, 798 Hollingsworth, James F., 51, 1086 Holm, Jeanne, 1346 Holt, Harold, 1056 (image) Holyoake, Keith Jacka, 1056 (image) HOMECOMING, Operation, 507–508, 797, 933, 1177

Hong Nham. See Tu Duc Honolulu Conference (1966), 508–509, 509 (image) Hooper, Joe Ronnie, 509–510 Hoopes, Townsend, 510 Hoover, J. Edgar, 361, 510–512, 511 (image), 1198 calls for the ouster of, 511–512 criticism of, 511 domestic counterintelligence programs of, 511 and the expansion of the role of law enforcement in the United States, 511 Hope, Leslie Townes, 512–513, 512 (image) HOP TAC, Operation, 513–514, 675 Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946), 514, 637, 1013 Hot pursuit policy, 514–515 Hourglass spraying system, 515 Ho Viet Thang, 621 Hue, 515–516 Hue, Battle of, 516–517, 517 (image), 518 (map), 519 atrocities committed by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) casualties of, 516 (table) initial Communist attack, 516–517 U.S. air assaults on Communist positions, 517 Hue and Da Nang, fall of, 519–521, 520 (image) Hughes, Thomas, 345 Humanitarian Operation Program, 522 Humphrey, Hubert H., 279, 280, 334–335, 522–524, 523 (image), 571, 1345 Humphrey, Ronald, 1202 Hundred Flowers campaign, 197, 1043 Hung Dao Vuong. See Tran Hung Dao Hun Sen, 153–154, 156, 524–525, 586, 587, 1039 Hurley, Patrick, 195 Hussein, Saddam, 148 Huston, Tom, 1198 Huston Plan, 511, 525, 1198 Huynh Cong Ut. See Ut, Nick Huynh Phu So, 525 Huynh Tan Phat, 526, 941, 941 (image) Huynh Van Cao, 130, 526 Ia Drang, Battle of, xliii, 50, 527–529, 528 (image), 529 (map), 1173, 1239 casualties of, 529, 1173 Imperial presidency, 529–530 India, 530–531 Indochina, geography of, 416–417 Indochina War (1946–1954), xli, 531–535, 533 (image), 534 (map), 621, 675, 978 changes in French commanders during, 532 Chinese support for the Viet Minh during, 532–533 U.S. policy concerning, 533 as the war of the “elephant and tiger,” 531

Index See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Indochinese Communist Party. See Lao Dong Party Indonesia, 535–536 Initial Defense Satellite Communication System. See Defense Satellite Communications System Institute for Defense Analysis, 1099 Intelligence, electronic. See Electronic intelligence (ELINT) Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX), 909 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 780 International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), 919 International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC), 165, 530, 536–537, 919, 1244 International Control Commission (ICC), 165, 411–412, 414 International Rescue Committee (IRC), 537 International Volunteer Service (IVS), 1183 International War Crimes Tribunal, 537–538, 538 (image) Iran-Contra Affair, 962 IRON HAND, Operation. See Wild Weasels Iron Triangle, 180, 539 IRVING, Operation, 539–540 IVORY COAST, Operation, 1052–1053 Jackson, Henry M., 339 Jackson, Joe M., 578 Jackson State College, shootings at, 541, 572 JACKSTAY, Operation, 542, 542 (image) Jacobs, Seth, 490 Jacobson, George D., 543 James, Daniel, Jr., 543–544, 544 (image) Japan, 544–545, 1167 impact of on the Vietnam conflict, 544 as the most important Asian ally of the United States, 545 Jason Study, 725 Jaubert, François, 388 Jaunissement, 545, 634 Javits, Jacob Koppel, 546, 546 (image), 1064 JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation, 546–547 casualties of, 547 Jenkins, Henry, 734 Jiang Jieshi, 547–548, 547 (image), 701, 702, 1163 Jiang Qing, 198 Jiang Zemin, 196 Johns, Jasper, 68 Johnson, Claudia Alta, 427 (image) Johnson, Harold Keith, 1, 548, 933, 1172, 1174 Johnson, James, 380–381 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, xlii–xliii, 43, 53, 54, 124, 124 (image), 144, 145, 165, 173–174, 186, 219, 235, 242, 244, 247, 277, 279, 286, 304 (image), 329, 346, 372, 395, 427

(image), 460, 483, 505, 509 (image), 515, 523, 549–552, 549 (image), 562, 660, 700, 779 (image), 798, 807, 816–817, 846, 884 (image), 889, 903 (image), 1056 (image), 1078, 1143, 1170, 1171, 1172, 1195–1196, 1201, 1261, 1339, 1345, 1345 (image) address in San Antonio, Texas, 1590–1591Doc. announcement of bombing halt over North Vietnam, 1607–1609Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) authorization of the DeSoto missions by, 285 belief in the domino theory, 305, 550 message to Congress (1964), 1511–1512Doc. message to Maxwell Taylor, 1548–1549Doc. news conference excerpts (1968), 1592–1593Doc. “Peace without Conquest” address at Johns Hopkins University, 1525–1528Doc. and the presidential election of 1964, 332– 333, 550 (table), 552 and the presidential election of 1968, 333– 334, 551, 571 response to the Pueblo incident, 947–948 revival of pacification, 871 telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1506Doc. television address, 1603–1606Doc. visit to Cam Ranh Bay, 163 See also Great Society Program; Guam Conference (1967); Honolulu Conference (1967); Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech; San Antonio Formula; United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech, 552–553 as the “Mekong Delta Speech,” 552 Johnson, Robert, 345 Johnson, Ural Alexis, 412–413, 553 Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), 762 Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA), 761 Joint U.S. Public Affairs Organization (JUSPAO), 553–554, 942–945 Jones, David Charles, 554–555, 554 (image) Jones, Kim, 70 Joseph, Cliff, 69 Juin, Alphonse, 774 JUNCTION CITY, Operation, 15, 81, 157, 555–557, 555 (image) casualties of, 556 Phase I, 556 Phase II, 556 Phase III, 556 primary objective of, 555 K-9 Corps, 559–561, 559 (table), 560 (image) the ARVN dog program, 559

I-11

medical histories of the dogs (Howard Hayes’ epidemiological research), 560–561 tributes to the dogs that served, 561 the U.S. Air Force dog program, 559–560, 560 the U.S. Army dog program, 560 the U.S. Marine Corps dog program, 560 the U.S. Navy dog program, 560 Kalergis, H., 456 Kampuchea. See Cambodia Kampuchean National Front, 561–562 Karman, Theodore von, 960 Karnow, Stanley, 1010, 1094 Kattenburg, Paul, 562 Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville, 562–563, 563 (image), 1198 Kaufmann, William, 960 Kegler, Maynard, 311 Kelly, Charles L., 563–564 Kelly, Francis J., 564–565, 764 Kennan, George Frost, 234, 551, 565–566, 565 (image), 1199 Long Telegram of February 22, 1946, 566 “X article” of, 566 See also Containment policy Kennedy, Edward Moore, 279, 566–567 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, xlii, 9, 53, 144, 183, 235, 242, 244, 276, 311, 319, 329, 359, 361, 405, 459, 549, 567–570, 567 (image), 591, 631, 717, 781, 807, 808, 809–810, 851, 864, 1020, 1200–1201, 1202–1203, 1213, 1261 aid to the Republic of Vietnam under his administration, 83 anti-Communist sentiments of, 567–568 approval ratings for, 569 (table) assassination of, 144, 247, 315, 570 belief in the domino theory, 305 health problems of, 568 New Frontier agenda of, 568 policies regarding Vietnam, 569–570, 1170–1171 remarks on the situation in Vietnam, 1495–1496Doc. support for counterinsurgency, 647 See also Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961); Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962) Kennedy, Joseph P., 567, 1058 Kennedy, Robert Francis, 54, 334, 334 (image), 335, 459, 551, 567, 570–571, 685, 715, 1020 assassination of, 279, 523, 571 as legal counsel to Senate committees in the 1950s, 570 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1490Doc. and the presidential election of 1968, 571 public opposition of to the Vietnam War, 1595–1597Doc. as U.S. attorney general, 570–571

I-12

Index

Kent State University shootings, 55, 571–573, 572 (image), 594, 610 KENTUCKY, Operation, 573 casualties of, 573 Kep Airfield, 573 Kerr, Clark, 53 Kerrey, Joseph Robert, 573–574, 951 Kerry, John Forbes, 134, 265, 574–576, 575 (image), 760–761, 951, 1083–1084, 1197 antiwar activities of, 574, 1630–1632Doc. and the presidential election of 2004, 575–576 Kerwin, Walter T., Jr., 576–577 Key West Agreement (1948), 577 Khai Dinh, 577–578 Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, fall of, 578–579 Khe Sanh, Battle of, xliii, 72 (image), 576, 579– 583, 580 (image), 581 (map), 1103, 1339 and air resupply, 679 board replica of Khe Sanh at the White House, 581–582, 1103 casualties of, 582 as a Communist ruse, 582 See also Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Khieu Samphan, 583–584, 583 (image), 586, 587 Khmer Kampuchea Krom, 584–585, 584 (image) Khmer National Armed Forces. See Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Khmer Republic, 49 Khmer Rouge, 50, 151, 152–153, 154, 378, 585–587, 586 (image), 855, 908–909, 920, 1039, 1247 as the peap prey (“forest army”), 586 See also Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of Khmers. See Cambodia; Southeast Asia, ethnology of Khmer Serai, 587–588, 1038 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich, 243, 411, 568, 588–589, 588 (image), 631, 1043–1044, 1159, 1165, 1245 developments leading to the downfall of, 589 See also Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) Kien An Airfield, 589 Kienholz, Ed, 68 Kiesinger, Kurt, 417 KILLER, Operation, 972 Kim Il Sung, 600, 603, 604 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 9, 54, 113, 210–211, 218, 361, 511, 590–591, 590 (image), 937, 1060, 1072 antiwar stance of, 591 assassination of, 10, 257, 591, 955 “I Have a Dream” speech, 591 sermon against the Vietnam War, 1582–1589Doc.

KINGFISHER, Operation, 591–593

casualties of, 592 KINGPIN, Operation. See Son Tay Raid Kinnard, Douglas, 118, 119 Kinnard, Harry William Osborn, 29, 593 Kirk, Donald, 332 Kissinger, Henry Alfred, 161, 286, 340, 347, 378, 496 (image), 593–596, 594 (image), 616, 660, 696, 710, 740, 743, 773, 778, 842, 847, 850, 878 (image), 888–889, 989, 1016–1017, 1175, 1178, 1179, 1186, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1247, 1292, 1327 news conference excerpt, 1643–1644Doc. request for emergency aid for South Vietnam, 1660–1662Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973); Watergate Scandal Kit Carson Scouts, 596 Knight, Hal, Jr., 740 Knowland, William Fife, 596–597, 597 (image) Kohler, Foy, 712 Koh Tang, 597–598 Komer, Robert W., 143, 144, 223, 244, 433, 576, 598–599, 598 (image), 871–873, 909, 934 Kong Le, 599, 630, 631, 1057 Kontum, Battle for, 599–600 casualties of, 600 Kopechne, Mary Jo, 567 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (DPRK), 600–601 as an ally of North Vietnam, 600–601 See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of (ROK), xliii, 80, 163, 395, 601–603, 602 (image). See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of, Army (ROKA), 540, 600, 601, 602, 603, 605, 606, 882, 883, 893 Korean War (1950–1953), 195, 304, 355, 530, 533, 600, 601, 603–608, 604 (image), 1168–1169, 1199 aeromedical evacuations during, 726 casualties of, 607 effect of on U.S. foreign policymakers, 607 the Inchon landing, 605 lack of U.S. forces’ preparedness for, 605 results of, 607 Koshiro Iwai, 545 Koster, Samuel William, Sr., 608–609, 785, 786, 886–887, 1340 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich, 286, 609–610, 609 (image), 917, 1078, 1245, 1343 joint statement of with Pham Van Dong, 1515–1516Doc. Kovic, Ronald, 610–611, 650 Kraft, Joseph, 611 Krassner, Paul, 1000, 1358 Krepinevich, Andre, 490 Kroesen, Frederick, 814 Krulak, Victor H., 207, 244, 611–612, 612 (image), 738, 1095

disagreement with Westmoreland’s strategy and tactics, 612 Ksor Kok, 770 Kuby, Ron, 613 Ku Klux Klan, 361 Kulikov, Viktor, 1247 Kunstler, William Moses, 178, 192, 612–613 Ky Ngoai Hau Cuong De. See Cuong De Lacy, William S. B., 813 Ladd, Jonathan, 625 Lair, James W., 13 Laird, Melvin Robert, 157, 227, 615–616, 616 (image), 921, 939, 989, 1203 (image) Lake, William Anthony Kirsop, 616–617 Lamb, Al, 1341 LAM SON 719, Operation, 48, 226, 505, 617–619, 618 (map), 842, 848, 989, 1018, 1176, 1294 casualties of, 619 objectives of, 617 as a test of Vietnamization, 617 Landing zone (LZ), 619–621, 620 (image), 620 (map) hot LZ, 619 Land reform, Vietnam, 621–622 Diem’s land reform law, 621, 769 Ho’s land reform policy, 628 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam land reform program, 621–622 Thieu’s land reform law, 622, 841–842 of the Viet Minh, 621 Lane, Mark, 1293 Lane, Sharon, 857 Lang Bac, Battle of, 622–623 La Ngoc Chau, 527 Lang Son, 623–624, 623 (image) Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 624–625 casualties of, 625 Laniel, Joseph, 626, 626 (image) Lansdale, Edward Geary, 183, 229, 310, 319, 626–627, 807, 907, 996, 1010, 1012, 1031 Lao Dong Party (Indochinese Communist Party Politburo [ICP]), 500, 502, 628, 1240, 1244, 1348 phase two of the Politburo Conference, 1659–1660Doc. Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW, 1662–1664Doc. secret cable no. 17-NB to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1478–1479Doc. secret cable no. 160 to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1475–1476Doc. Lao Issara, 630 Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), 632–633 major issues between the party and the United States, 633

Index Laos, xlii–xliii, 14, 96, 110, 161, 174, 223, 414, 492, 536, 537, 568–569, 629–633, 629 (image), 631 (image), 632 (image), 1246 bombing of, 505, 631 neutral status of, 802, 1018 Latham, Michael, 490 Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de, 172, 222, 225 (image), 386, 493, 532, 545, 633–635, 634 (image), 1286–1287 Lau Ben Kon. See Nuon Chea Lavelle, John Daniel, 635, 938–939, 939 Lavelle Case, 635 Layton, Gilbert, 769 LÉA, Operation, 636 League of Wives of American Prisoners of War, 1067 LEAPING LENA, Operation, 681, 935 Le Chieu Thong, 453, 454 Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe, 276, 384, 531–532, 636–637, 636 (image), 1163 (image) Le Duan, 628, 637–638, 637 (image), 1162, 1244, 1247, 1250, 1303 “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” (The Path of Revolution in the South), 1459–1462Doc. letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam, 1553–1567Doc. “Letters to the South,” 1519–1522Doc. speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1569–1571Doc. speech in Hanoi celebrating victory, 1665–1668Doc. Le Duc Anh, 638–639 Le Duc Tho, 595, 639–641, 640 (image), 878 (image), 1186, 1278, 1279 Cable No. 119, 1637–1640Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973) Le dynasty, 641 Lefèbvre, Dominique, 641–642 Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for Oppressed Races), 769, 770 LE HONG PHONG I, Operation, 642 LE HONG PHONG II, Operation, 642–643 casualties of, 643 Le Kha Phieu, 643–644, 644 (image) Le Loi, 644–645, 1123 LeMay, Curtis Emerson, 645–646, 645 (image), 960, 1068 Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis, 646–647, 647 (image) Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie, 647–648 leng Sary, 586, 587 Le Nguyen Khang, 648 Le Nguyen Vy, 648–649 Lenin, Vladimir, 702, 1286 (image) Lenin Polemics, 1044 Le Quang Trieu, 318, 649 Le Quang Tung, 130, 318, 649, 649 (image), 967

Le Quang Vinh. See Ba Cut Leroy, Catherine, 649–650 Le Thai To. See Le Loi Le Thanh Nghi, 650–651 Le Thanh Tong, 651 Letourneau, Jean, 651–652 Le Trong Tan, 652–653, 1130 Le Van Giac. See Le Duc Anh Le Van Hung, 653, 828 Le Van Kim, 129, 653–654, 809, 827, 1134, 1137 Le Van Nhuan. See Le Duan Le Van Vien, 654–655, 654 (image) Levy, Howard Brett, 655–656, 656 (image) Lewandowski, Janusz, 550, 704, 919 Lewis, Tom, 92, 178, 179 Lewy, Guenter, 490 LEXINGTON III, Operation, 656–657 Le Xuan Phoi, 528 Le Xuan Tau, 625 Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, 490 LIEN KET 22, Operation, 709 Lifton, Robert Jay, 657, 924, 925, 1293, 1294 Lightfoot, George, 1031 (image) Lima Site 85, 657–658 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 568, 589 Lin, Maya Ying, 658, 1296 Lin Biao, 197 LINEBACKER I, Operation, xlv, 31, 32, 60, 325, 659–660, 659 (image), 848, 860, 939, 1069, 1111, 1176, 1186 as the classic air interdiction campaign, 659, 660, 661 operational objectives of, 659 reasons for its success, 660 strategic objectives of, 660 LINEBACKER II, Operation, xlv, 32, 48, 60, 297, 340, 347, 595, 640, 660–663, 849, 860, 877, 1069, 1177, 1186 casualties of, 662 psychological effect of on Hanoi’s leaders, 662 use of LORAN in, 681 Li Peng, 196 Lippmann, Walter, 234, 663–664, 663 (image) Literature and the Vietnam War, 664–672 drama, 669–671 novels, 664–667 poetry, 667–669 prose narrative, 671–672 short stories, 667 Li Zhisui, 702 L’Obervateur, 583 Loc Ninh, military operations near, 672–674, 673 (image) Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 129, 459, 570, 674– 675, 674 (image), 704, 808, 809, 871, 970, 1095, 1261, 1345 cablegram to on the CIA channel concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc.

I-13

cablegram to McGeorge Bundy, 1499–1500Doc. cablegram to from John McCone, 1499Doc. phone conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1502Doc. telegram to Nicholas Katzenbach, 1577Doc. telegrams to Dean Rusk, 1574–1577Doc. Lodge Bill, 1213 Logistics, allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Vietcong, 675–680 French military logistics, 676–677 physical characteristics of Vietnam affecting military logistics, 676 Viet Minh military logistics, 677–678 Long Binh, 680 Long Chieng, 681 Long-Haired Army (Doi Quan Toc Dai), 835 Long March, 702 Long-range electronic navigation (LORAN), 681 limitations of, 681 Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs), 681–682, 682 (image) Lon Nol, xlv, 49–50, 151–152, 156, 157, 158, 161, 265 (image), 376, 682–684, 683 (image), 908, 1048 defeat of by the Khmer Rouge, 155, 909 LORRAINE, Operation, 684–685, 1242 Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth, 333–334, 685, 685 (image) assassination of, 685 Lowndes, David, 580, 581, 582, 583, 625 Lucas, Andre C., 977 Luce, Don, 927, 1118 Luce, Henry Robinson, 686, 686 (image) Luc Luong Dac Biet. See Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident, 702 Lu Han, 686–687 Luong Ngoc Quyen, 687 Lutyens, Edwin, 658 Lyautey, Hubert Gonzalve, 1085 Lyautey, Louis, 78 Ly Bon, 687–688 Lynd, Staughton, 688–689, 688 (image) Ly Quy Chung, 332 MacArthur, Douglas, 604–606, 691–692, 692 (image) MacArthur, Douglas, II, memorandum, 1424–1425Doc. MACARTHUR, Operation, 692–694. See also Dak To, Battle of casualties of, 693 Machine guns, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 694–696, 694 (table), 695 (image) classifications of (heavy, medium, and light), 694 as crew-served weapons, 694 dominant tactical feature of (rate of fire), 694

I-14

Index

Madman Strategy, 696 Magsaysay, Ramón, 627, 907 Mai Chi Tho, 1279 Mai Huu Xuan, 129, 318 Mailer, Norman, 696–697, 697 (image) Mai Van Bo, 889 Malaysia, 697–698 Malcolm X, 111, 591, 1025 Malenkov, Georgy, 588 MALHEUR I and II, Operations, 698–699 casualties of, 698–699 Maneli, Mieczyslaw, 537 Manila Conference, 699–700, 699 (image) Manor, Leroy J., 1052–1053 Mansfield, Michael Joseph, 238, 700–701, 701 (image), 1195, 1196 report to President Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 1492–1493Doc. Many Flags Program. See Free World Assistance Program Mao Zedong, 195, 195 (image), 196, 199, 287, 547, 604, 605, 701–703, 701 (image), 870, 1043–1044, 1199 contribution to Marxism, 702 See also Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward March against Death, 773 March on the Pentagon, 703–704, 703 (image) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1072 March to the South. See Nam Tien Marco Polo Bridge Incident. See Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident Marcos, Ferdinand, 907, 907–908, 1056 (image) Marcovich, Herbert, 889, 1016–1017 Maricourt, Alain D. de, 643 MARIGOLD, Operation, 550, 704 Marine combined action platoons (CAPs), 704–705 MARKET TIME, Operation, 676, 705–706, 706 (image), 981, 1029, 1081, 1091, 1207, 1364 patrol system of, 705 Marshall, George C., 195, 968 telegram to the Consul General of Saigon, 1397–1398Doc. telegrams to Jefferson Caffery, 1393– 1394Doc., 1395–1396Doc. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood, 706–707, 1105 Martin, Graham A., 378, 707–708, 1178, 1179 Marx, Karl, 702 Marxism, 702 MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation 67, 708–709, 708 (image) casualties of, 709 Massachusetts Political Action for Peace (MassPax), 773 MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation, 709–710, 710 (image) Masson, René, 174

Mast, Charles, 969 Mayaguez incident, 378, 597, 710–711, 711 (image), 1206, 1319 casualties of, 711 May Day Trive, 711–712 MAYFLOWER, Operation, 712 McCain, John Sidney, Jr., 712–713 McCain, John Sidney, Sr., 712, 713 McCain, John Sidney, III, 264, 495, 379, 713– 715, 714 (image), 797, 1084, 1127, 1128, 1128 (image), 1128–1129 McCarthy, Eugene, 54, 55, 339, 523, 551, 571, 685, 715 McCarthy, Joseph, 597, 1058 McCarthy, Mary, 977 McCauley, Brian, 759 McChristian, Joseph, 865 McClellan, Stan, 371 (image) McCloy, John Jay, 716, 716 (image), 1345 McClure, Robert A., 1213 McCone, John Alex, 183, 716–717 cablegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499Doc. McConnell, John Paul, 717–718, 718 (image), 1030 McCoy, Alfred, 1126 McDade, Robert, 527–528 McGarr, Lionel Charles, 718–719, 1070 McGee, Gale William, 719 McGovern, George Stanley, 54, 336–337, 405, 465–466, 719–720, 720 (image), 1195, 1196, 1197 McKean, Roland N., 721–722 McMahon, Robert, 491 McNamara, Robert Strange, 29, 39, 124, 219, 503, 505, 551, 562, 563, 599, 720–722, 721 (image), 725, 772, 775, 809, 846, 889, 937, 960, 981, 997, 1017, 1034, 1084, 1093–1094, 1170, 1172, 1188, 1200, 1202, 1203, 1262, 1318, 1345 memoranda to President Johnson, 1504–1506Doc., 1547–1548Doc., 1551– 1553Doc., 1567–1568Doc. memorandum to President Kennedy, 1486–1489Doc. memorandum of with Dean Rusk and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc. recommendation of for troop escalation in Vietnam, 1512–1514Doc. report of the McNamara-Taylor mission to South Vietnam, 1496–1498Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. See also McNamara Line; Taylor-McNamara Report McNamara Line, 485, 503, 722–724 the antivehicular barrier in Laos, 723–724 the barrier in Vietnam, 723 and the Jasons, 722 McNaughton, John Theodore, 724–725, 960 McPherson, Harry Cummings, 725–726 Meaney, George, 726 Medevac, 564, 726, 727 (image), 732

Media and the Vietnam War, 727–729, 728 (image) “court journalism,” 728 oversight of by public affairs officers (PAOs), 728 rules imposed on by the MACV, 728 Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP), 734 Medical evacuation. See Medevac Medicine, military, 729–733, 730 (image), 730 (table), 731 (image) division of the military medical system (five echelons), 730–731 drug abuse in Vietnam, 732 major disease problems in Vietnam, 732 psychiatric illnesses, 732 surgical specialists in Vietnam, 732–733 twentieth-century advances in battlefield medicine and surgery, 730 See also Medevac Medics and corpsmen, 733–735, 734 (image) casualty rates among, 733 required test standards for, 733 training classes for, 733 Medina, Ernest Lou, 149, 608, 735, 785 Meisner, Maurice, 702 Mekong Delta, 416, 417 (image), 735–736, 981 Mekong River, 735, 735–736, 736 (image) Mekong River Project, 737 Melby, John F., telegram to Dean Rusk, 1412Doc. Melville, Marjorie Bradford, 178 Melville, Thomas, 178 Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham, 612, 738, 1095 Mendès-France, Pierre, 535, 738–739, 739 (image) Mengel, James L., 92 MENU, Operation, 739–741, 847, 879, 1048, 1197 objectives of, 739–740 Meos. See Hmongs Meshad, Shad, 925 Michigan State University Advisory Group, 741 Midway Island Conference (1969), 741–743, 742 (image) Mien Tong. See Thieu Tri Mildren, Frank T., 455 Military Airlift Command (MAC), 743–744 Military Air Transport Service (MATS), 743 Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, xlii, 319, 329, 458, 676, 744–746, 745 (image), 861, 1169, 1187, 1270 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), xlii, 2, 3, 47, 80, 120, 133, 157, 244, 291, 347, 363, 395, 422, 433, 509, 569, 746–747, 746 (image), 981, 1171, 1187, 1213, 1214, 1270, 1272, 1335, 1340 See also Five O’Clock Follies; Order of battle dispute (1967) Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV SOG), 15, 132, 579, 984–985, 1214

Index Military decorations, 747–751, 748 (table), 749 (table), 750 (tables), 751 (table) French, 747 North Vietnamese and NLF, 748–749 South Vietnamese, 747–748 U.S., 749–751 Military regions, 751–753, 752 (image) Military Revolutionary Council, 753–754 Military Sealift Command (MSC), 754–755, 754 (image) Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), 754 Miller, Henry L., 372 Milloy, Albert E., 1 Mine warfare, land, 755–756, 755 (image) Mine warfare, naval, Communist forces and allied countermining operations, 756–757 Minh Mang, 757 Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam, 758–759, 758 (image) Mini-Tet Offensive, 759–760, 1121 casualties of, 760 Mische, George, 178 Missiles air-to-air missiles, 34–35 air-to-ground missiles, 35–36 guidance systems for air-to-air missiles, 35 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image), 340, 780, 1079–1080, 1248, 1251, 1341–1342 Missing in action, allied (MIAs), 760–762, 761 (table), 1180, 1302 Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist, 762–763 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1072 Mitchell, John Newton, 763–764, 763 (image), 890, 1198 “Mobe, the,” 773 Mobile Guerrilla Forces, 564, 764 Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), 764–765, 765 (image), 981–984 Mobile Strike Force Commands, 765–766 Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), 277 Moffat, Albert Low, 766, 1168 memorandum to John Carter Vincent, 1384–1386Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich, 767–768, 767 (image) Momyer, William Wallace, 579, 582, 768, 961, 1049 Mondale, Walter, 338 (image), 339 MONGOOSE, Operation, 627 Montagnards, 15, 110, 182, 184, 209, 244, 256, 349–350, 351, 352 (image), 403, 768–770, 769 (image), 943, 1183 tribal groupings of, 768 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 590

Montini, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria. See Paul VI, Pope Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr., 406, 527, 770–771, 1173 Moore, Robert Brevard, 771 Moorer, Thomas Hinman, 771–774, 772 (image), 985, 1034, 1203 (image), 1203, 1274 (image) message to Captain John Herrick, 1510–1511Doc. order to all subordinate units, 1509–1510Doc. Mora, Dennis, 380–81 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, 773–774, 774 (image), 848 Mordant, Eugène, 774–775, 1009 Morgan, Charles, Jr., 656 Morrill Act (1862), 968 Morrison, Norman, 775 Morse, Wayne Lyman, 550, 775–776, 864, 1195 Mortality rates among soldiers, from the midnineteenth century, 729–730 Mortars, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 776–777, 776 (image) Mortuary Affairs operations, 777 Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon, 778 Mountbatten, Louis, 1163 Mournier, Emmanuel, 166, 811 Moyers, Billy Don, 778–780, 779 (image) Moylan, Mary, 178 Mudd, Roger, 610 Mu Gia Pass, 780 Muhammad, Elijah, 111 Mullender, Philippe. See Devillers, Philippe Muller, Robert, 780–781 Munich analogy, 781 Muoi Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Murphy, Robert Daniel, 781–782, 1345 Mus, Paul, account of meeting with Ho Chi Minh, 1394Doc. Music and the Vietnam War, 782–783 Muskie, Edmund S., 279, 336–337 Muste, Abraham Johannes, 361, 784, 1060 My Lai Massacre, 55, 149–150, 481, 521, 608, 784–786, 785 (image), 886, 970–971, 1092, 1115–1116. See also Peers Inquiry Nakahara Mitsunobu, 545 Nam Dong, Battle of, 787 casualties of, 787 Nam Dong Publishing House, 833 Nam Tien, 787–788 Nam Viet, 788 NANTUCKET BEACH, Operation. See BOLD MARINER, Operation Napalm, 788–790, 789 (image) Napoleon III, 790–791, 790 (image) Na San, Battle of, 791 casualties of, 791 Nasser, Abdel Gamal, 316

I-15

National Assembly Law 10/59, 791–792 National Bank of Vietnam, 792–793 National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC), 793 National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC), 793–794 National Defense Act (1916), 968 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), xli, 178, 261, 794–795, 795 (image), 870, 1162, 1261, 1323, 1348 manifesto of, 1479–1481Doc. See also Viet Cong National Hard Hats of America. See Hardhats National Intelligence Estimate (1954), 1447–1448Doc. National Intelligence Estimate (1956), 1457Doc., 1458–1459Doc. National Leadership Council (NLC), 796, 816, 1270 National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (NLOF), 796–797 National Mobilization Committee (NMC), 192 National Party of Greater Vietnam. See Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang National Security Act (1947), 577, 1202 National Security Council (NSC), 182 draft statement and study on U.S. policy toward all-Vietnam elections (NSC 5519), 1454–1456Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 52, 1213 National Security Action Memorandum Number 57, 1084 National Security Action Memorandum Number 80, 1484Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 111, 1489–1490Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 328, 797–798, 1523–1524Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 64 (NCS-64), 744, 1406–1407Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 5429/1 (NSC-5429/1), 744–745, 1202 National Security Council Memorandum 5429/2 (NSC-5429/2), 1448–1450Doc. National Security Council Planning Board Report (No. 1074-A), 1434–1436Doc. National Security Council Report 50 (NSC-50), 314 National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), 5, 846 National Security Council Report 124/2 (NSC124/2), 304 National Security Council Staff Study (Annex to NSC 48/4), 1418–1420Doc. National Security Study Memorandum 1 (NSSM-1), 594, 1609–1612Doc. National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), 924

I-16

Index

Native Americans in the U.S. military, 798, 799 (image) Naval gunfire support, 799–800 Navarre, Henri Eugène, 174, 267, 293, 386, 532, 534, 535, 626, 652, 800–801, 801 (image), 861, 1242, 1303 See also Navarre Plan Navarre Plan, 652, 801–802 Nedzi, Lucien N., 1197 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 536 Nelson, Deborah, 1126 Nessen, Ron, 711 Neuhaus, Richard, 217 Neutrality, 802–803 NEUTRALIZE, Operation, 235 NEVADA EAGLE, Operation, 803 casualties of, 803 New Jersey, USS, 804–805, 804 (image) New Journalism, 696 NEW LIFE, Operation, 48 New Look policy, 846, 972 New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 773 Newton, Huey P., 112, 113, 1024 New Zealand, 395, 805 Ngo Dinh Can, 805–806, 1123 Ngo Dinh Diem, xli, 12, 43, 109, 130, 137, 140, 177, 224–225, 314, 316, 319, 330, 370, 414, 458, 488, 500, 537, 569, 569–570, 621, 627, 653, 654–655, 674–675, 791– 792, 806–809, 807 (image), 811, 812, 813, 817, 826, 847, 861, 869–870, 1010, 1012, 1070, 1095, 1123, 1169–1171, 1199, 1258–1262, 1259 (image), 1272 assassination of, 139, 144, 318, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 attacks against the Chinese community in Vietnam, 202 conversation with Eisenhower, 1463Doc. rejection of the MSU Advisory Group’s advice, 741 reliance on Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang, 165–166 See also Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of, 129–130, 317– 318, 809–810, 1201 Ngo Dinh Khoi, 806, 810 Ngo Dinh Luyen, 806, 810–811 Ngo Dinh Nhu, xlii, 12, 129, 130, 166, 318, 319, 488, 569–570, 601–602, 627, 674–675, 792, 807, 808, 809, 811–812, 1070, 1079 (image), 1133 assassination of, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame, 808, 809, 812–813 Ngo Dinh Thuc, 138, 166, 806, 808, 813, 813 (image) Ngo Quang Troung, 2, 516, 519, 814 Ngo Quyen, 814–815 Ngo Thi Trinh. See Hanoi Hannah Nguyen Ai Quoc. See Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Binh, 815 Nguyen Buu Dao. See Khai Dinh Nguyen Cao Ky, 139, 144, 330–331, 331 (image), 331–332, 433, 508, 700, 753, 796, 815–817, 816 (image), 817, 827, 830, 841, 1056 (image), 1262, 1263–1264 Nguyen Chan. See Tran Van Tra Nguyen Chanh Thi, 139, 675, 816, 817–819, 818 (image), 1263 Nguyen Chi Thanh, 794, 819, 1102, 1303 article concerning the Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1493–1494Doc. Nguyen Cong. See Do Muoi Nguyen Co Thach, 819–820, 964 Nguyen Duc Thang, 871 Nguyen Duy Trinh, 820–821, 821 (image) report to Party Central Committee on the new talk-fight strategy, 1577–1581Doc. Nguyen dynasty, 821 Nguyen Hai Than, 687, 822 Nguyen Ha Phan, 822–823 Nguyen Hue, 453–454, 823–824, 823 (image) Nguyen Hue Campaign. See Easter Offensive Nguyen Huu An, 528, 693, 693–694, 824–825 Nguyen Huu Co, 130, 796, 825, 825 (image) Nguyen Huu Tho, 794, 795, 825–826, 941 (image) Nguyen Huu Tri, 826 Nguyen Khac Xung. See Le Thanh Nghi Nguyen Khanh, 139, 318, 513, 648, 653, 675, 753, 818 (image), 827, 1094, 1135, 1261–1262 Nguyen Khoa Nam, 653, 827–828 Nguyen Kim Thanh. See To Huu Nguyen Luong Bang, 828, 1130 Nguyen Manh Cam, 828–829 Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 829–830, 829 (image), 1108, 1272 Nguyen Ngoc Tho, 830–831, 831 (image) Nguyen Phuc Anh, 831–832 Nguyen Phuoc Dom. See Minh Mang Nguyen Phuong Thao. See Nguyen Binh Nguyen Sinh Cung. See Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Sinh Sac, 832–833 Nguyen Thai Hoc, 833–834 Nguyen Thanh Linh, 245 Nguyen Thi Binh, 834–835, 834 (image), 941, 1129 Nguyen Thi Dinh, 835–836, 836 (image) Nguyen Thi Giang, 834 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, 836–837 Nguyen Ton Hoan, 753 Nguyen Trai, 644 Nguyen Tuong Tam, 837 Nguyen Van, 516 Nguyen Van Binh, 837–838, 838 (image) Nguyen Van Cao. See Van Cao Nguyen Van Coc, 863 Nguyen Van Cu, 838 Nguyen Van Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Hieu, 839

Nguyen Van Hinh, 839, 861 Nguyen Van Linh, 839–840, 840 (image), 1278 Nguyen Van Muoi. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Nhung, 318, 649, 1262 Nguyen Van Thang. See Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Van Thieu, xlii, xlvi, 11, 94, 144, 146, 157, 292, 324, 330–331, 331 (image), 501, 508, 509 (image), 519, 595, 599, 618, 619, 640, 793–794, 796, 817, 827, 840–843, 841 (image), 848, 1056 (image), 1186, 1246, 1263 address to the National Assembly of South Vietnam, 1612Doc. See also Midway Island Conference Nguyen Van Toan, 843 Nguyen Van Vinh, 502 Nguyen Van Vy, 129 Nguyen Van Xuan, 843–844, 843 (image) Nguyen Viet Thanh, 844 Nguyen Xuan Oanh, 1262 Nhan Van Giai Pham, 1224 Nhat Linh. See Nguyen Tuong Tam NIAGARA, Operation, 844–845 casualties of, 845 Nicholas, Fayard, 512 (image) Nicholas, Harold, 512 (image) Nickerson, Herman, Jr., 596 Nitze, Paul Henry, 845–846, 845 (image) Nixon, Richard M., xliv–xlv, 45, 55, 150, 157, 174, 225–226, 239, 297, 325, 326, 338, 380, 418, 464, 483, 523, 553. 571, 615, 617, 619, 640, 660, 660–661, 760, 761, 772, 842, 846–849, 847 (image), 927, 939, 946, 957, 986, 988–989, 1090, 1169, 1196–1197, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1316 (image) address to the nation, 1640Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) and the bombing of Cambodia, 151, 370, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 and détente, 286–287 foreign policies developed with Kissinger, 593–595 involvement in the aftermath of My Lai, 887 letter to Pham Van Dong, 1653–1654Doc. letters to Nguyen Van Thieu, 1647–1649Doc. news conference excerpt, 1656Doc. and the opening of China, 200, 595 pardon of by Ford, 378 and the presidential election of 1968, 334– 335, 551 and the presidential election of 1972, 336– 337, 336 (image) resignation of, 361, 849 secret authorization of more aggressive bombing of North Vietnam, 635 “Silent Majority” speech, 773, 848, 946 speech on Cambodia, 1625–1627Doc. speech on Vietnamization, 1617–1622Doc.

Index success of in foreign affairs (“linkage diplomacy”), 849 televised interview with, 1629–1630Doc. television address, 1612–1614Doc. See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Madman Strategy; Midway Island Conference; Nixon Doctrine; Vietnamization; Watergate Scandal Nixon Doctrine, 848, 850, 1175, 1292 Noel, Chris, 850–851, 850 (image) Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr., 569, 809, 851–852, 1261 Nong Duc Manh, 852–853, 852 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 5, 23, 104, 172, 214, 220, 234, 276, 315, 319, 355, 413 Novosel, Michael, Jr., 853 Novosel, Michael, Sr., 853–854 Nui Ba Den, 555, 854–855, 854 (image), 1096 Nuon Chea, 855 Nur, Paul, 769 Nurses, U.S., 855–857, 856 (images) Nuttle, David, 769 Oakland Army Base, 859 Obama, Barack, 715 Oberdorfer, Don, 521 Oberg, Jean-Christophe, 859–860 O’Brien, David, 1217 O’Daniel, John Wilson, 860–861, 860 (image) report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1425–1426Doc. Office of Civilian Operations (OCO), 871, 922 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 182, 183, 223, 229, 289, 309–310, 861–862 See also Deer Mission Ohly, John, memorandum to Dean Acheson, 1413–1414Doc. Oldenburg, Claes, 68 Olds, Robin, 862–863, 863 (image) Olongapo, Philippines, 863–864 O’Neill, John, 1084 Open Arms Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34A, 550, 864 Orderly Departure Plan, 1181 Order of battle dispute (1967), 864–866 Oriskany, USS, fire aboard, 26 (image), 866– 867, 866 (image) O’Sullivan, James L., telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Otis, Glenn K., 1107 Pacification, 869–874, 870 (image), 933, 1176. See also Accelerated Pacification Campaign; Phoenix Program Page, Michael, 70 Palme, Olof, 859, 860, 874, 874 (image) Palmer, Bruce, Jr., 81, 303, 603, 674, 722, 814, 875, 1335 Palmer, Dave Richard, 1031

Paracel and Spratley Islands, South China Sea, 875–876 Paris peace negotiations, 551, 639–641, 876–877 document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Vietnam concerning the negotiations, 1642–1643Doc. Paris Peace Accords (1973), 760, 793, 842, 877–879, 878 (image), 1165, 1177 failure of, 878–879 text of, 1650–1652Doc. Park Chung Hee, 1056 (image) Parks, Rosa, 211, 211 (image) Parrot’s Beak, 879, 1026 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) (1963), 1044 PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation, 310, 754, 880– 881, 880 (image), 1012, 1170, 1242 Pathet Lao, 411, 412, 630, 631, 632, 881–882, 881 (image), 1054, 1057, 1162, 1250 Patti, Archimedes L. A., 882 Patton, George Smith, IV, 882–883 PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations, 883, 1015 casualties of, 883 Paul VI, Pope, 838, 883–885, 884 (image), 1959 Peace Corps, 311 Pearson, Lester B., 164, 165, 885, 885 (image) Peers, William R., 118, 608, 786, 886, 886 (image). See also Peers Inquiry Peers Inquiry, 886–887 PEGASUS-LAM SON 207A, Operation, 582, 887–888, 888 (image), 1022 casualties of, 888 Pell, Claiborne, 921 Peng Phongsavan, 1232 (image) PENNSYLVANIA, Operation, 888–889 Pentagon, March on the. See March on the Pentagon Pentagon Papers and trial, 340–341, 341 (image), 889–892, 891 (image), 960, 1006–1007, 1035, 1173, 1174 People’s Anti-Corruption Movement, 842 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). See Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF), 892, 1348 (image) Perot, Henry Ross, 760, 796, 893, 893 (image) PERSHING, Operation, 893–894, 894 (image) casualties of, 894 Peterson, Douglas Brian, 220, 894–895, 1181 Pham Cong Tac, 895, 895 (image) Pham Duy, 895–896 Pham Hong Thai, 833 Pham Hung, 896–897 Pham Ngoc Thao, 129, 897, 897 (image) Pham Phu Quoc, 838 Pham Quynh, 810 Pham The Duyet, 898 Pham Thi Yen, 1129 Pham Van Dinh, 163

I-17

Pham Van Dong, 638, 818 (image), 820, 889, 898–899, 898 (image), 964, 1278 joint statement of with Aleksei Kosygin, 1515–1516Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly, 1528–1547Doc. speech delivered on National Day, 1668–1674Doc. Pham Van Phu, 93, 94, 899–900 Pham Van Thien. See Pham Hung Pham Xuan An, 617, 818, 900, 1133 Phan Boi Chau, 499, 833, 900–901 Phan Chu Trinh, 901–902 Phan Dinh Khai. See Le Duc Tho Phan Dinh Phung, 902 Phan Huy Quat, 140, 796, 903–904, 903 (image) Phan Khac Suu, 904 Phan Quang Dan, 904–905 Phan Van Hoa. See Vo Van Kiet Phan Van Khai, 905–906, 905 (image) Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix, 906 Philippine Civil Action Group (PHILCAG), 907–908 Philippines, 906–908 Phnom Penh, 908–909 Pho Duc Chinh, 834 Phoenix Program, 184, 869, 872, 873, 909–910, 940, 1126, 1176 demise of, 909 success of, 910 Phong Trao Cach Mang Quoc Gia (National Revolutionary Movement), 166 Phoumi Nosavan, 910–911, 910 (image) Phoumi Vongvichit, 1232 (image) Phou Pha Thi. See Lima Site 85 PHU DUNG, Operation. See SHINING BRASS, Operation Pickett, Clarence, 53 PIERCE ARROW, Operation, 26, 911–912, 912 (image) Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre, 912–913 Pignon, Léon, 913, 913 (image) Pike, Douglas, 1158 PIRANHA, Operation, 914 casualties of, 914 PIRAZ warships, 914–915 Pistols, 915–916, 915 (image) French, 915 U.S., 915–916 Vietnamese, 916 Plain of Jars, 916, 916 (image) Plain of Reeds, 917 Platt, Jonas, 1220 Pleiku, 917–918 POCKET MONEY, Operation, 758 Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich, 918 Podhoretz, Norman, 490 Poland, 918–919

I-18

Index

Polgar, Thomas, 919 Pol Pot, 154, 155, 156, 561, 585, 587, 855, 919–921, 920 (image), 1039 trial of, 587, 921 Poola, Pascal, 798 POPEYE, Operation, 921 Porter, Melvin, 189 Porter, William James, 144, 340, 871, 922–923, 922 (image) Port Huron Statement, 53, 923, 1072–1073 Potsdam Conference (1945), 862, 926 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 923– 926, 924 (image), 925 (table) Poulo Condore, 926–927 Powell, Colin Luther, 927–929, 928 (image), 1292. See also Powell Doctrine Powell Doctrine, 928, 1292 PRAIRIE I, Operation, 929 casualties of, 929 PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations, 929–930 casualties of, 929, 930 PRAIRIE FIRE, Operation, 163, 503, 985 Precision-guided munitions, 930–931 electro-optical guided bomb (EOGB) program, 930–931 laser-guided bomb (LGB) program, 930, 931 President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 572 President’s Special Committee, report on Southeast Asia, 1434Doc. Prisoners of war (POWs), 141 repatriation of following the Korean War, 607 See also Four-Party Joint Military Commission; HOMECOMING, Operation; Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist; Prisoners of war, allied Prisoners of war, allied, 931–933, 932 (image), 1302 Prisoners of war, Communist. See Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist Program for the Pacification and LongTerm Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), 548, 598, 933–934, 1174, 1175 Programs Evaluation Office (PEO), 1341 Project 100,000, 937–938 Project Agile, 934–935 development of Agent Orange, 935 development of the Armalite AR-15, 935 Project Delta, 681–682, 935–936, 938 Project Dye Marker. See McNamara Line Project Gamma, 682 Project Igloo White, 723–724 Project Illinois City, 485 Project Muscle Shoals, 503 Project Nine, 485, 503 Project Omega, 682, 936–937, 938 Project Practice Nine. See McNamara Line Project Sigma, 682, 938 Protective Reaction Strikes, 938–939 PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation, 226, 939–940

Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), 184, 940 Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), 941–942, 941 (image) Proxmire, Edward William, 942, 942 (image) Psychological warfare operations (PSYOPS), 942–945 deficiencies of, 944 media used in, 944 military targets of, 943 themes of, 943–944 Public opinion and the war, U.S., 945–947, 946 (table) Pueblo incident, 601, 710, 947–949, 948 (image), 1209, 1212 Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr., 949 Punji stake, 949–950, 949 (image) Python God movement, 769 Qiao Shi, 196 Quach Tom, 951 Quadrillage/ratissage, 951 Quakers. See American Society of Friends (Quakers) Qualye, Daniel, 1209–1210 Quan Ngai, 952 Quang Tri, Battle of, 952–953, 953 (image) casualties of, 953 Quang Trung. See Nguyen Hue Qui Nhon, 953–954 Quoc Ngu, 954 Racial violence within the U.S. military, 955– 956, 956 (image) Radcliffe, Henry, 139 Radford, Arthur William, 329, 846–847, 957, 957 (image), 1093 Radio direction finding (RDF), 958 ground installations of, 958 mobile capabilities of, 958 signals intelligence activities, 958 Ranariddh, Norodom, 153, 586, 1039 RANCH HAND, Operation, 226, 958–960, 959 (image), 1239 RAND Corporation, 960–961 RANDOLPH GLEN, Operation, 1108–1109 Rangel, Charles, 712 Rangoon Initiative, 1221 Raven Forward Air Controllers, 961 Read, Benjamin Huger, 961–962 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 137, 760, 850, 962– 963, 962 (image), 1180, 1319 Red River Delta, 963 Red River Fighter Pilots Association, 963–964 Reed, Charles airgram to Dean Acheson, 1396–1397Doc. telegram to James F. Byrnes, 1392–1393Doc. telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Reeducation camps, 964–965

Refugees and boat people, 965–966, 965 (image) Regional forces. See Territorial forces Reinhardt, George Frederick, 166, 966–967 Reissner, Robert, 495 Rejo, Pete, 1151 Republican Youth, 967 Research and development field units, 967– 968. See also Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC); Combat Operations Research Center (CORC) Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), 968–969 Reston, James, 611 Revers, Georges, 969. See also Revers Report (1949) Revers Report (1949), 969 Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center. See Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party. See Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party) Rheault, Robert B., 969–970, 1190 Rhee, Syngman, 601, 603 Richardson, John Hammond, 970 cablegram to CIA director concerning the situation in South Vietnam, 1498Doc. Ridenhour, Ronald L., 150, 785–786, 970–971 Ridgway, Matthew Bunker, 329, 409, 606, 861, 971–972, 971 (image), 1307, 1345 Rifles, 972–976, 973 (image), 974 (image) AK-47, 975–976 Australian, 975 classification of, 972–973 French, 975 New Zealand, 975 U.S., 973–975 Vietnamese, 975 Rigault de Genouilly, Charles, 976 Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for, 976–977 casualties of, 977 Ripley, John, 307 Risner, James Robinson, 977–978 River Assault Flotilla 1, 981–982 River assault groups, 978 Riverine craft, 978–981, 979 (image), 980 (image) armored troop carrier (ATC), 979–980 assault patrol boat (ASPB), 979 command-and-communication boat (CCB), 979–980 fast patrol craft (PCF), 979 France Outre Mere (FOM), 980 patrol air cushion vehicle (PACV), 980 river patrol boat (PBT), 978, 979 river patrol craft (PBC), 980 Riverine warfare, 981–984, 982 (image) RIVER RAIDER I, Operation, 983

Index River Rats. See Red River Fighter Pilots Association Rivers, Lucius Mendel, 984 Road Watch Teams (RWTs), 984–985 Roberts, Elvy, 158 Robinson, James W., 1 Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil, 985 Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich, 334, 338, 986, 986 (image) Rockets and rocket launchers, 986–988 Chinese, 987, 988 Soviet, 987, 988 U.S., 987, 988 Vietnamese, 987 Rodgers, William, 157 Rodriguez, Felix, 940 Rogers, William Pierce, 553, 849, 988–989 ROLLING THUNDER, Operation, 26, 32, 34, 122, 123 (map), 124, 503, 550, 552, 573, 712, 722, 758, 768, 889, 917, 989–994, 990 (image), 992 (map), 1069, 1150, 1172, 1184–1185, 1248, 1341–1342 casualties of, 989 failure of, 993, 1184 objectives of, 991, 1184 phases of, 991, 993 targets of, 991 Rome Plow, 1239 Romney, George Wilcken, 334, 994 Romney, Mitt, 994 Ronning, Chester A., 820 “Ronning Missions,” 820 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 234, 309, 861, 994–995, 995 (image), 1009, 1168 memorandum to Cordell Hull, 1369Doc. Rosenquist, James, 68 Rosson, William B., 698, 1092, 1340 Rostow, Eugene Victor, 995–996, 1070 Rostow, Walt Whitman, 143, 219, 563, 569, 721, 725, 996–998, 997 (image), 1093, 1170. See also Taylor-Rostow Report ROTC Vitalization Act (1964), 968 Rousselot, Robert E., 236 Route Coloniale 4, Battles for, 998 Route packages, 998–999 Rovere, Richard, 716 Rowe, James Nicholas, 999–1000, 999 (image), 1126, 1155 Rowny, Edward L., 64 Roy, Jules, 626 Rubin, Jerry, 192, 263 (image), 703, 1000, 1000 (image), 1358–1359 Rudd, Mark, 1218 Rules of Engagement (ROE), 1001–1003 purposes of, 1001 Rung Sat, 1028 Rusk, David Dean, 219, 319, 412, 562, 563, 569, 885, 889, 1003–1004, 1004 (image), 1200, 1345 (image) memorandum of with McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc.

memorandum to President Kennedy, 1487–1489Doc. telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1581Doc. telegram to Maxwell Taylor, 1516Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. Rusk-Thanat Agreement (1962), 1004–1005 Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr., 1005–1006, 1006 (image), 1209 Russell Amendment, 1209 RUSSELL BEACH, Operation, 873 Russell Tribunal. See International War Crimes Tribunal Russo, Anthony J., Jr., 891, 1006–1007, 1007 (image) Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 401, 544 Ryan, John D., 1203 (image) Sabattier, Gabriel, 774–775, 1009–1010 SAFESIDE, Operation, 560

Sagan, Ginette, 964 Saigon, 501, 1010–1011, 1011 (image) Saigon Circle. See Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Saigon Military Mission (SMM), 1011–1012 Sainteny, Jean, 1012–1013, 1168, 1241 Salan, Raoul Albin Louis, 386, 514, 532, 684, 791, 1013–1014, 1013 (image), 1242 Salisbury, Harrison Evans, 1014–1015, 1015 (image) Saloth Sar. See Pol Pot Samas, David, 380–381 SAM HOUSTON, Operation, 391, 1015–1016 casualties of, 1016 Samphan, Khieu, 155 Sams, Kenneth, 189 San Antonio Formula, 846, 1016–1017 Sanctuaries, 1017–1018 Sarraut, Albert, 1018–1019, 1019 (image) Saul, Peter, 67, 69 Sauvageot, Jean, 705 Savage, Paul L., 1188 Savang Vatthana, 632 Savio, Mario, 53 Schell, Jonathan, 952 Schemmer, Benjamin, 495 Schening, Richard, 139 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr., 489, 529, 1019– 1020, 1020 (image) Schlesinger, James Rodney, 224, 711, 960, 1020–1021 Schmidt, Helmut, 286, 418 Schumaker, Bob, 494 Schuman, Robert, 652 Schungel, Daniel F., 625 Schweiter, Leo H., 693 SCOTLAND, Operation, 582, 1021–1022 casualties of, 1022 Scranton Commission. See President’s Commission on Campus Unrest Scruggs, Jan Craig, 1022–1023, 1295, 1296 Seabees, 1023

I-19

Seaborn, J. Blair, 537 notes of on meeting with Pham Van Dong, 1508–1509Doc. SEA DRAGON, Operation, 85, 799, 804, 1023– 1024, 1024 (image), 1030, 1207 Sea Float, 1026 Seale, Bobby, 112, 113, 192, 264, 1024–1025 SEALORDS operations, 984, 1025–1027, 1026 (image), 1091 SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) teams, 574, 1027–1028 Seaman, Jonathan O., 81, 357, 555, 608, 887, 1028–1029 Sea power, role in war, 1029–1030 Search and destroy, 1030–1031, 1031 (image) Search-and-rescue operations, 1031–1032 SEARCH TURN, Operation, 1025 Secret Army Organization, 1014 Seeger, Daniel Andrew, 1218 Seeger v. United States (1965), 1333, 1334 Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor. See SLAM Selective Service, 242, 482–483, 1032–1032, 1033 (image), 1033 (table) Selective Training and Service Act (1940), 1033 Shanghai Communiqué (1972), 702 Sharon Statement, 923 Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr., 122, 286, 300, 991, 998–999, 1034–1035 Shatan, Chaim, 924 Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney, 58, 67, 341, 890, 894, 1035–1036 SHENANDOAH II, Operation, 673 Shields, Marvin G., 1023 SHINING BRASS, Operation, 503, 1036 Shinseki, Eric, 1216 Shoup, David Monroe, 1036–1037, 1037 (image) Shulimson, Jack, 582 Shultz, George, 964 Sian (Xi’an) Incident, 702 Sigma I and II, 1037 Sihamoni, Norodom, 154 Sihanouk, Norodom, xlv, 151, 152, 157, 561, 585, 631, 683–684, 908, 918, 1037–1039, 1038 (image), 1048, 1129 Sihanouk Trail, 676 Sijan, Lance Peter, 932–933, 1039–1040 Simons, Arthur David, 893, 1040–1041, 1052–1053 Sinn, Jerry, 1151 Sino-French War (1884–1885), 1041–1043, 1042 (image) Sino-Soviet split, 1043–1044 Sino-Vietnamese War (1979), 1044–1048, 1045 (image), 1047 (map) casualties of, 1046 causes of, 1044–1046 Sisowath Sirik Matak, 683–684, 1048–1049 Sit-ins. See Teach-ins and sit-ins Sitton, Ray B., 740

I-20

Index

Six, Robert, 236 Six-Day War (1967), 550 Skriabin, Vyacheslav. See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Slagel, Wayne, 734 SLAM, 579, 1049 Slater, Albert, 139 Sletten, David, 1121 (image) Smart bombs. See Precision-guided munitions Smith, Hedrik, 1035 Smith, K. Wayne, 722 Smith, Walter Bedell, 319, 412, 597, 1049– 1050, 1050 (image) declaration to the Geneva Conference, 1447Doc. telegrams to John Foster Dulles, 1440– 1442Doc., 1143–1445Doc. Snepp, Frank Warren, III, 919, 1050–1051, 1127 SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation, 1051– 1052, 1051 (image) casualties of, 1052 Song Be, Battle of, 1052 casualties of, 1052 Son Sen, 587 Son Tay Raid, 132, 1052–1053 Song Thang Incident, 1053–1054 Souphanouvong, 1054–1055, 1055 (image) Southeast Asia, ethnology of, 350–352, 351 (image), 352 (image), 353 (map), 354, 354 (image) ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, 350, 351 ethnic groups within Vietnam, 350–351 highland tribal groups in Vietnam, 351 the Tais people of Vietnam and Thailand, 352, 354, 354 (image) Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy. See SEALORDS Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 195, 234, 329, 411, 601, 1005, 1055–1057, 1056 (image), 1169, 1200 protocol to the SEATO Treaty, 1450Doc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 590–591 Souvanna Phouma, 631, 632, 1057–1058 Soviet Union. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Soviet-Vietnam Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (1978), 610, 638 Soyster, Harry, 1128 Special Forces. See United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Special Landing Force (SLF), 462, 485 Special National Intelligence Estimate 10-3/65, 1517–1518Doc. Special Technical and Economic Mission (STEM), 307 SPEEDY EXPRESS, Operation, 355 Spellman, Francis Joseph, 806, 813, 1058–1059 Spero, Nancy, 68

Spock, Benjamin McLane, 53, 1059–1060, 1059 (image), 1198 Spratly Islands. See Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, 784, 1060 Spring Offensive. See Easter Offensive Staley, Eugene, 569, 1061 Stalin, Joseph, 355, 588, 604, 605, 1043, 1158–1159 Stannard, John E., 276–277 STARLITE, Operation, 50, 799, 914, 1061, 1062 (image), 1204 casualties of, 1061 Starry, Donn Albert, 1062–1063, 1174 STEEL TIGER, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119 Stennis, John Cornelius, 1063–1065, 1064 (image) Stephenson, William, 862 Steve Canyon program, 961 Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II, 1019, 1020, 1065– 1066, 1065 (image), 1221 Stevenson, Charles, 1076 Stilwell, Richard Giles, 1066 Stilwell, Joseph W., 564 Stockdale, James Bond, 495, 796, 932–933, 1066–1067, 1067 (image), 1126 Stockdale, Sybil Bailey, 796, 1067–1068 Stolen Valor Act (2006), 1299 Stone, I. F., 433, 611 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 142, 1068– 1069, 1184 Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT I Interim Agreement) (1972), 778 Strategic Hamlet Program, 244, 513, 697, 808, 811, 870–871, 952, 1061, 1070–1071, 1071 (image), 1171 failure of, 1071 See also SUNRISE, Operation Stratton, Samuel, 608 Struggle Movement, 675 Stubbe, Ray W., 582 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 133, 1072 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 53, 192, 242, 373, 923, 1072–1074, 1073 (image) See also Weathermen Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG), 1074, 1215 Subic Bay Naval Base, 863 Submachine guns, 1074–1076, 1075 (image) Chinese, 1076 French, 1076 Soviet, 1076 Swedish, 1076 U.S., 1075–1076 Vietnamese, 1076 Sullivan, William Healy, 1076–1077, 1095 Summers, Harry G., Jr., 490, 728, 1077–1078 SUNFLOWER, Operation, 1078

SUNRISE, Operation, 1078–1079, 1079 (image) Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). See Missiles, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training, 999–1000, 1080–1081 Sutherland, Donald, 373, 1293 Sutherland, James, 292 Suvero, Mark di, 67 Sweeney, Dennis, 460 Swift boats, 1081–1083, 1082 (image) Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 575, 1083–1084 SWITCHBACK, Operation, 1084, 1214 Symington, Stuart, 1076

Tache d’huile, 1085 Tactical Air Command (TAC), 1085–1086 Tactical air control and navigation (TACAN), 681 Taft, Robert, 46 Taiwan. See China, Republic of Tallman, Richard Joseph, 1086 Tam Dao Mountains. See Thud Ridge Ta Mok, 587 Tam Vu. See Tran Van Giau Tan, Frank, 270, 862 Ta Ngoc Phach. See Tran Do Tanks, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 63, 1087–1088, 11087 (image), 1252 Tan Son Nhut, 1088–1089 Taoism, 1089–1090 Tarpley, Thomas, 292 Tarr, Curtis W., 1090–1091, 1090 (image) Task Force 116, 1091 Task Force 117. See Mobile Riverine Force Task Force 194. See SEALORDS Task Force Oregon, 698, 699, 1092 Taussig, Charles, memorandum of conversation with Franklin Roosevelt, 1369–1370Doc. Taylor, Maxwell Davenport, 244, 345, 405, 550, 553, 569, 607, 721, 728 (image), 753, 796, 808, 809, 997, 1092–1094, 1093 (image), 1170, 1202, 1203, 1213, 1345 cable to President Kennedy, 1484–1486Doc. telegram to Dean Rusk, 1522–1523Doc. See also Taylor-McNamara Report; TaylorRostow Report Taylor, Rufus, 7–8 Taylor, Telford, 656 Taylor-McNamara Report, 1094–1095 text of, 1496–1498Doc. Taylor-Rostow Report, 1095–1096 Tay Ninh, 1096–1097 Tay Son Rebellion, 1097 Teach-ins and sit-ins, 1072, 1098–1099, 1098 (image) Television and the Vietnam War, 1099–1100, 1100 (image) reporting of the Battle of Khe Sanh, 1099–1100

Index reporting of the Tet Offensive, 1100 Territorial forces, 1101–1102 Tet Offensive, xliii–xliv, xliv (image), 2, 6, 7, 32, 40, 55, 65, 70, 76, 81, 101, 101 (image), 102, 105, 106, 124, 145, 163, 170, 182, 194, 202, 203, 203 (image), 219, 251, 254, 258, 259, 313, 316, 317, 333, 349, 380, 486, 498, 500, 509, 519, 521, 551, 554, 576, 582, 638, 643, 665, 680, 722, 732, 735, 749, 757, 760, 841, 844, 845, 865, 873, 932, 940, 945, 947, 955, 959, 993, 1010–1011, 1023, 1083, 1089, 1092, 1096, 1100, 1117, 1121, 1130, 1138, 1140, 1155, 1162, 1173–1174, 1196, 1204, 1212, 1238, 1245–1246, 1252, 1265, 1270, 1272, 1300, 1303, 1304, 1336, 1337, 1339, 1240 assessment of by Saigon and Washington, 872 casualties of, 317, 1104 Communist Party evaluation of, 1601–1603Doc. failure of, 1010, 1304, 1336 participation of women in, 1348 political impact of, 106, 144, 145 terror tactics used by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 80 See also Ben Tre, Battle of; Hue, Battle of; Khe Sahn, Battle of; Tet Offensive, overall strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Tet Offensive, overall strategy, 1102–1103, 1103 (image), 1104 (image) Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle, 1105– 1108, 1106 (map) TEXAS, Operation, 1108 casualties of, 1108 TEXAS STAR, Operation, 976, 1108–1109 casualties of, 1109 Thai Khac Chuyen, 970 Thailand, xliii, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 48, 59, 70, 96, 110, 150, 156, 223, 234, 269, 305, 343, 352, 395, 1109–1111, 1110 (image) See also Franco-Thai War (1940–1941) Thai Thanh, 896 Thanh Hoa Bridge, 1111 Thanh Nien, 628 Thanh Nien Cong Hoa. See Republican Youth THAN PHONG II, Operation, 709 Thanh Phong Massacre, 574 Thanh Thai, 1111–1112 Thanh To Nhan Hoang De. See Minh Mang THAYER/IRVING, Operation, 709 Thich Quang Duc, 483, 775, 808, 809, 1112– 1113, 1112 (image) Thich Tri Quang, 138, 674, 817, 1113 Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, 658 Thieu Tri, 1114 Third Indochina War, 1247 Thomas, Allison Kent, 1114

Thomas, Norman Mattoon, 1114–1115, 1115 (image) Thompson, Floyd James, 931 Thompson, Hugh, Jr., 785, 786, 1115–1117, 1116 (image) Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker, 12, 1061, 1070, 1117 Thud Ridge, 1117 THUNDERHEAD, Operation, 1118 Tianjin, Treaty of (1885), 1118 Tiger cages, 1118–1119, 1119 (image) TIGER HOUND, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119–1120 Tilford, Earl H., Jr., 505 Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), 1120–1121 TOAN THANG, Operation, 1121–1122, 1121 (image) casualties of, 1121 TOAN THANG 3, Operation, 78 TOAN THANG 42, Operation, 157, 158 TOAN THANG 43–46, Operations, 160 Toche, Jean, 68 To Huu, 1122 Tolson, John J., 276, 887–888, 893–894 Ton Duc Thang, 1122 Tonkin, 1122–1123 Ton That Dinh, 129, 130, 649, 808, 1123–1124, 1261, 1263 Ton That Thuyet, 1124 Top Gun School, 1124–1125 Torture, 495, 1125–1129, 1127 (image),1128 (image) Total Force Concept, 1212 Tourison, Sedgwick, 951 Tran Buu Kiem, 1129–1130, 1129 (image) Tran Do, 1105–1106, 1130–1131 Tran dynasty, 1131–1132 Tran Hieu, 1164 Tran Hung Dao, 1132 TRAN HUNG DAO, Operation. See SEALORDS Tran Kim Tuyen, 967, 1133 Tran Le Xuan. See Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Tran Ngoc Chau, 940 Tran Quoc Tuan. See Tran Hung Dao Tran Quy Hai, 845 Transportation Group 559, 1133–1134 Tran Thien Khiem, 318, 827, 1133, 1134–1135, 1134 (image) Tran Trong Kim, 140 Tran Van Chuong, 1135–1136, 1136 (image) Tran Van Dac, 1105 Tran Van Do, 1136–1137 Tran Van Don, 129, 130, 331, 649, 653, 808, 809, 827, 1123, 1134, 1137, 1137 (image), 1261 Tran Van Giau, 1137–1138 Tran Van Hai, 1138 Tran Van Huong, 139, 501, 839, 1138–1139, 1139 (image), 1262, 1264 Tran Van Lam, 1139–1140, 1140 (image) Tran Van Tra, 842, 941, 1140–1141, 1141 (image)

I-21

Treaty of Independence of the State of Vietnam, 1439Doc. Trieu Au, 1141 Trieu Da, 1141–1142 Trieu Thi Trinh. See Trieu Au Trieu Vu Vuong. See Trieu Da Trinh lords, 1142 Trinh Van Can, 687 Trinité, Louis de la. See D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Trudeau, Pierre Elliot, 165 Truehart, William, 851 Truman, Harry S., 5, 182, 304, 314, 316, 328, 530, 603, 604, 606, 691, 744, 781, 862, 1020, 1143–1144, 1143 (image), 1168, 1199 statement announcing military aid to Indochina, 1410–1411Doc. telegram to Jiang Jieshi, 1376Doc. U.S. State Department memoranda to, 1370–1371Doc., 1371–1373Doc. Trung Nu Vuong. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Queens. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, 1144 Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam. See Central Office for South Vietnam Truong, David H. D., 1198 Truong Chinh, 621, 628, 638, 1144–1146, 1244, 1278 Truong Dinh Dzu, 1146–1147, 1146 (image) Truong Nhu Tang, 941, 1147 Truong Son Corridor, 1147–1148 Truong Son Mountains, 1148 Truong Van Nghia. See De Tham Truscott, Lucian K., 576 Tsuchihashi, Yuitsu, 1148–1149 TUCSON, Operation, 556 Tu Duc, 1149–1150, 1149 (image) Tuesday Lunch Group, 1150 Tully, Robert, 527 Tu Luc Van Doan (Self-Reliance Literary Group), 837 Tunnel rats, 1151, 1151 (image) Tunnels, 1151–1152. See also Tunnel rats Tun Razak, 698 Turner, Ted, 374 Turse, Nick, 1126 Tu Ve, 1152 Tuyen Quang, siege of, 1152–1153 casualties of, 1153 Twining, Nathan Farragut, 1153–1154, 1154 (image) Two Ladies Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Udall, Morris, 786 U Minh Forest, 1155 Underwater demolition teams (UDTs), 1027–1028 Ung Lich. See Ham Nghi

I-22

Index

Uniforms, 1155–1158, 1157 (image) French expeditionary forces, 1155–1156 Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, 1156 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, 1157–1158 Viet Minh, People’s Army of Vietnam, and Viet Cong, 1156 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 195, 234, 243, 1158–1160, 1291 military and economic aid sent to North Vietnam by, 199, 324, 344, 676, 1159– 1160, 1244 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 See also Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) UNION I and II, Operations, 1160–1161, 1161 (image) casualties of, 1161 UNIONTOWN, Operation, 1162 United Buddhist Association (UBA), 827 United front strategy, 1162–1163 United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam wars, 1163–1165, 1163 (image) United Nations (UN), 315. See also United Nations and the Vietnam War United Nations and the Vietnam War, 1165–1166 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 966 United Services Organization (USO), 1166, 1166 (image) Family Support Fund, 1166 Operation Enduring Care, 1166 United States, 1291 message to the North Vietnamese government on the pause in bombing, 1549Doc. military logistics used in Vietnam, 678–679 national elections (1964), 332–333 national elections (1968), 333–335, 334 (image), 848 (table) national elections (1972), 336–337, 336 (image), 337 (table), 346 national elections (1976), 338–339, 338 (image) praise of for the Elysée Agreements, 1402Doc. relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), 195, 196 response of to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. trade embargo of against North Vietnam, 343–345, 344 (table). See also United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War; United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975;

United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975–present United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War, 325–327 deficit spending during the war, 326 (table) effects on macroeconomic theory, 326 impacts of increased budget deficits, 325–326 and inflation, 326 United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954, 1167–1169, 1167 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954– 1965, 1169–1172, 1171 (image) U.S. Army manpower in Vietnam, 1170 (table) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965– 1968, 1172–1175, 1172 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969– 1973, 1175–1177, 1175 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973– 1975, 1177–1179, 1178 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975– present, 1179–1181, 1180 (image) United States, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 1954–present, 1181–1182 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 1182–1184 United States Air Force (USAF), 121–122, 142–143, 156, 226, 300, 780, 1184–1186, 1185 (image) U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), 270 U.S. Seventh Air Force, 92 See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Andersen Air Force Base; FARM GATE, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Wild Weasels United States Army, 1187–1190, 1187 (image), 1238 army units in Vietnam, 1214 (table) casualties during the Vietnam War, 1190 corps tactical zones in South Vietnam, 1189 (map) deaths by Vietnam province, 1097 (table) office corps of, 1188 organization of a typical infantry division, 1188 (table) position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A, 1432Doc. replacement system of, 1188 See also K-9 Corps United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade (USARVIS), 1190–1191 United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (USACILHI), 761, 1191–1192, 1191 (image) United States Army Special Services, 1191–1193 United States Coast Guard, 1193–1194, 1194 (image), 1275

United States Congress and the Vietnam War, 1195–1198 United States Department of Justice, 1198–1199 United States Department of State aide-mémoire to the North Vietnamese government, 1572–1573Doc. and formation of U.S. policy toward Vietnam, 1199–1201, 1201 (image) memorandum of meeting of August 31, 1963, 1494–1495Doc. paper on military aid for Indochina, 1408–1409Doc. paper on U.S. post–World War II policy concerning Asia, 1374–1376Doc. policy statement on Indochina, 1400–1402Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. White paper on Vietnam, 1518–1519Doc. United States Information Agency (USIA), 1201–1202 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 259, 297, 359, 372, 422, 551, 576, 691, 1202– 1204, 1203 (image), 1269, 1292, 1339 memorandum 46-64, 1502–1504Doc. memorandum of with Rusk and McNamara, 1482–1484Doc. memorandum to Charles E. Wilson, 1430–1432Doc. memorandum to George C. Marshall, 1414–1415Doc. See also Key West Agreement (1948) United States Marine Corps (USMC), 207–208, 300, 1204–1205, 1205 (image), 1238, 1263 casualties during the Vietnam War, 1205 use of helicopters by, 474–475 See also JACKSTAY, Operation; Special Landing Force (SLF) United States Merchant Marine, 1205–1206 United States Navy, 780, 1206–1208, 1207 (image), 1275, 1321 (image) adverse effects of the Vietnam War on, 1208 Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC), 270 lack of preparedness for the Vietnam War, 1206 U.S. Seventh Fleet, 268, 268 (image) warships of, 1322–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) See also DeSoto Missions; Dixie Station; Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of; GAME WARDEN, Operation; Guam; JACKSTAY, Operation; Naval gunfire support; Riverine craft; Riverine warfare; YANKEE TEAM, Operation United States Navy Fighter Weapons School. See Top Gun School United States Navy River Patrol Force. See Task Force 116 United States Reserve Components, 1208–1212

Index calling up of reservists, 1209 categories of reservists, 1209 organization, training, and structure of, 1208–1209 reservists serving in the Vietnam War Air Force Reserve, 1210 Air National Guard, 1210 Army National Guard, 1210–1211 Army Reserve, 1211 Navy Reserve, 1211 See also United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize, 1211–1212 United States Special Forces (USSF), 1212– 1216, 1213 (image) United States Special Operations Forces (SOF), 579 United States Veterans Administration (VA), 1216 United States v. O’Brien (1968), 1217 United States v. Seeger (1965), 1217–1218 United We Stand, 893 University of Wisconsin bombing, 1218–1219 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 236 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (1960), 545 U.S. v. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (1972), 1198 U Thant, 700, 1165, 1221, 1221 (image) Ut, Nick, 1219–1220, 1219 (image) UTAH, Operation, 1220 casualties of, 1220 Valluy, Jean-Étienne, 532, 1223, 1241, 1242 telegram to Pierre-Louis Debès, 1389Doc. Van Ba. See Ho Chi Minh VAN BUREN, Operation, 1223–1224 casualties of, 1224 Van Cao, 1224 Vance, Cyrus, 64, 876, 1224–1226, 1225 (image), 1345 Vance incident, 66–67 Van Devanter, Lynda, 1294 Van Es, Hubert, 1226–1227, 1226 (image) Van Fleet, James A., 606, 972 Vang Pao, 96, 632, 965, 1227 Van Lang, 1228 Vann, John Paul, 65, 467, 600, 1035, 1228– 1229, 1228 (image) Van Tien Dung, 93, 94, 1229–1230, 1229 (image), 1252 Vaught, James B., 276 Versace, Humbert Rocque, 933, 1126, 1230–1231 Vessey, John W., Jr., 73, 761, 820, 1180, 1231– 1232, 1231 (image), 1278 Veteran Outreach Centers (Vet Centers), 657, 925 Veterans for America (VFA), 780, 781

Vientiane Agreement, 1232–1233, 1232 (image) Vientiane Protocol, 1233–1234 Viet Cong (VC), xli, xliv, 15, 75, 77, 78, 141, 157, 163, 169, 171, 183, 184, 215, 244, 319, 372, 394, 537, 638, 795 (image), 1238, 1240, 1245, 1265, 1323 atrocities committed by, 79, 80, 519, 521– 522, 521 (image) effect of the Tet Offensive on, 1104, 1304 infrastructure of, 1234–1235, 1234 (image) military logistics used in Vietnam, 678 use of tunnels by, 245, 248–249 See also Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Viet Cong Military Region IV, 100, 180 Viet Minh, xli, 140, 174, 199, 243, 289, 298, 307, 310, 386, 412, 493, 497, 500, 536, 544–545, 822, 898, 1162, 1199, 1235, 1236 (map), 1237, 1240, 1244, 1250, 1287, 1332 Chinese support of, 293, 532–533, 1199 contributions of Japanese deserters to, 545 creation of, 628 impact of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on, 547 land reform of, 621 military logistics used in Vietnam, 677–678 OSS support of, 862, 1167 river warfare of, 387 See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Vietnam, climate of, 1237–1238, 1237 (image) impact of climate and terrain on the Vietnam War, 1238–1240 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam), 35, 43, 52, 238, 378, 401, 422, 495, 500, 501, 536, 537 bombing of, 122, 123 (map), 124, 325, 1246 declaration of independence, 1377–1378Doc. peace proposal of, 1635–1636Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/TW, 1624–1625Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/TW, 1658–1659Doc. Soviet and Chinese military support for, 324 statement of, 1644–1647Doc. U.S. trade embargo against, 343–345, 344 (table) See also Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]); Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]) Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]), 1240–1242, 1241 (image) national call to arms in, 1242 negotiations with the French, 1241–1242 surrender of the French in, 1242 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]), 1243–1247, 1243 (image), 1245 (image)

I-23

acceptance of the Geneva Accords by, 1245 declaration on normalizing relations between northern and southern zones, 1451–1452Doc. emigration from, 1244 goals of, 1244–1245 people’s courts in, 1244 and reunification, 1244, 1250 role of the peasantry in land reform, 1243–1244 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force (Vietnam People’s Air Force [VPAF]), 1247–1249, 1248 (image) air defense system of, 1248 effects of U.S. bombing on, 1248–1249 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Armed Forces (Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces [RVNAF]), 1269, 1270 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army (People’s Army of Vietnam [PAVN]), xlii, xliv, xlv, xlvi, 7, 14, 30, 49–50, 51, 77, 78–79, 93, 142, 157, 163, 169, 201 (image), 208, 215, 225, 226, 244, 290, 291, 390–391, 1239, 1240, 1245, 1247, 1249–1253, 1265 artillery used by, 71–72, 1251 (table) defense of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by, 505 in eastern Cambodia, 155 equipment of, 1252 initial lack of organization in, 1249 logistics of, 1251–1252 military logistics used in Vietnam, 679–680 number of personnel in, 1250, 1252 origin of, 167 reunification of Vietnam as driving force behind its strategy, 1250 support of the Pathet Lao by, 411, 412 tanks as prime targets of, 63 use of tanks by, 1252 victories of over the French, 1249–1250 and wartime atrocities, 79–80 women in, 1348–1349 See also Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Navy (Vietnam People’s Navy [VPN]), 1321 Vietnam, geography of, 416–417 Vietnam, history of (prehistory to 938 CE), 1252–1254 Chinese domination of, 1253–1254 prehistory, 1253 under the Thuc and the Trieu, 1253 Vietnam, history of (938 CE through the French conquest), 1254–1255, 1255 (image), 1256 (map), 1257–1258, 1257 (image) cultural development during, 1255, 1257 French conquest during, 1257–1258 and the Nam Tien (March to the South), 1257 Vietnamese dynasties, 1254–1255

I-24

Index

Vietnam, Republic of (RVN, South Vietnam), xli, 43, 64, 173, 324, 500, 501, 536, 1238, 1258–1264, 1259 (image), 1260 (image), 1264 (image) aid to under the Kennedy administration, 83 declaration of concerning reunification, 1458Doc. document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks, 1642–1643Doc. Law 10/59 of, 1472Doc. national assembly and constitution of, 1260, 1263 national elections in, 329–332, 331 (image) 1955 election, 330 1967 election, 330–331 1971 election, 331–332 opposition to Diem within, 1260–1261, 1262 opposition to the Paris peace agreements, 1264 peace proposal of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1636–1637Doc. prime ministers of, 1955–1975, 1135 (table) protests by students and Buddhist monks in, 1262 statement of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1641–1642Doc. Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force, 1264–1266, 1269 expansion of, 1265 types of U.S. planes used in, 1264–1265 Vietnam, Republic of, Army (Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN]), xli, xlv, 2, 15, 51, 57, 58, 64, 100, 101, 180, 208, 226, 240 (image), 278, 292, 319, 347, 422, 1261, 1266–1268, 1267 (image), 1268 (image) and the Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 160–161 corruption in, 1266–1267 fighting against the Binh Xuyen, 169 lack of leadership in, 1268 military logistics used in Vietnam, 678, 679 military strength of (1955–1972), 1266 (table) number of personnel in, 1268 organization of, 1268 pacification efforts of, 1246 U.S. training of, 1267 women in, 1348–1349 See also Enclave strategy; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff (JGS), 1269–1270 Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps (RVNMC), 1270–1271, 1271 (image) Vietnam, Republic of, National Police, 1271–1273 National Police Field Force (NPFF), 1272

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy (VNN), 1273– 1275, 1274 (image), 1321–1322 and the Cambodian Incursion, 1274 deficiencies of, 1273–1274 patrol of the coastal zones by, 1273 River Force of, 1273 Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center, 1275 Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces, 244, 1276 Vietnam, Socialist Republic of (SRV), 204, 1276–1282, 1277 (image), 1279 (image), 1281 (image), 1286 Doi Moi reform program in, 303, 820, 1278–1279 economic growth in after 2000, 1281–1282 economy of, 1277 farm collectivization in, 1277 liberalization in, 1280 lifting of the trade embargo against, 1674–1675Doc. outside investment in, 1280–1281 PAVN influence in, 1280 political struggles in, 1279–1280 population of, 1281 post–Vietnam War problems faced by, 1276 power of the Communist Party in, 1276–1277 relations with Cambodia, 1278 relations with China, 1278 relations with the United States, 1280, 1675–1676Doc. Vietnam Independence League. See Viet Minh Vietnam Information Group (VIG), 1287–1288 Vietnam Magazine, 1289–1290 Vietnam Nationalist Party. See Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party) Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party), 833, 1290–1291 admission of women to, 1347 Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association. See Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Syndrome, 1291–1292 Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, 1292–1293 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), 610, 657, 1293–1295, 1294 (image) Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), 1297–1298 statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1630–1632Doc. Vietnam Veterans Intertribe Association, 798 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 658, 1022, 1295– 1297, 1296 (image) Vietnam War (1961–1975), xliii (image), xlvi (image), 675 as “America’s first rock-and-roll war,” 782 casualties of, 175–176, 175 (table), 1247 cost of, xlii, 426 (table)

economic indicators during, 1314 (table) effect of on the U.S. economy, 325–327 escalation of, xliii goals of, xliii as the “Helicopter War,” 30 as “Johnson’s War,” 551 as a “living room war,” 728 number of U.S. deaths in, xlii opposition to in the United States, 551 overview of, xli–xlvi as the “television” war, 242, 1099 War Zone C, 555 See also Historiography, of the Vietnam War; Women, in the Vietnam War Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, 1126 Vietnam War frauds and fakes, 1298–1299 Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), 1276– 1277, 1282–1283 Vietnamese culture, 1283–1286, 1285 (image), 1286 (image) effects of war on, 1285 fine arts of, 1284–1285 influence of Chinese culture on, 1283–1284 literature of, 1284 music of, 1284 under Communism, 1285–1286 Vietnamese National Army, 1286–1287 Vietnamese Workers’ Party Third National Congress on missions and policies, 1476–1478Doc. Vietnamization, xlv, 48, 163, 170, 224, 594, 615, 616, 679, 847, 1074, 1175, 1246, 1265, 1288–1289, 1289 (image). See also Jaunissement Vilers, Le Myre de, 79 Vinh, 1299–1300 Vinh San. See Duy Tan Vinh Yen, Battle of, 497 Vo Bam, 1133 Vo Chi Cong, 1300 Vogt, John W., Jr., 1301, 1301 (image) Voices in Vital America (VIVA), 797, 1301–1302 Vo Nguyen Giap, xli, xlv, 51, 81, 167, 175, 324– 325, 386, 497, 514, 556–557, 579, 582, 618, 634, 638, 642–643, 684, 693, 759, 791, 801, 998, 1046, 1102, 1105, 1249, 1252, 1279, 1302–1304, 1303 (image) initial actions of against the French in Vietnam, 1240–1241, 1242, 1303 issuance of a national call to arms by, 1303 as leader of the military campaign against the Republic of Vietnam, 1303–1304 opposition to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, 1304 “People’s War, People’s Army,” 1463–1472Doc. report on the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 1429–1430Doc. revamping of the Viet Minh’s intelligence organization, 636

Index See also Dau Tranh strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Indochina War Voting Rights Act (1965), 591 Vo Tran Chi, 1304 Vo Van Ba, 1304–1305 Vo Van Kiet, 1278, 1305–1306, 1305 (image) Vua Duc Tong. See Tu Duc Vua Thanh To. See Minh Mang Vu Hai Thu. See Nguyen Hai Than Vu Hong Khanh, 1307–1307 VULTURE, Operation, 847, 907, 957, 1169, 1307–1308 Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong spy case, 1308 Vung Tau, 1308–1309, 1309 (image) Vung Tau Charter, 827 Vu Oanh, 1309–1310 Vu Quoc Thuc, 1310 Vu Thu Hien, 639 Vu Van Giai, 1310–1311 Vu Van Giang. See Vu Hong Khanh Wage and price controls, 1313–1314, 1314 (table) Waldron, Adelbert F., III, 1314–1315 Walkabout, Billy, 798 Walker, Walton, 605, 606 Wallace, George C., 335, 339, 646, 1315–1316, 1315 (image) Walt, Lewis William, 207, 1316–1317, 1316 (image) Ware, Keith Lincoln, 1106, 1317 Warner, John, 250 (image) Warnke, Paul Culliton, 1317–1319, 1318 (image) War Powers Act (1973), 546, 849, 1064, 1178, 1197, 1319–1320 text of, 1657–1658Doc. War Resisters League, 1320–1321 Warships, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1321–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) Wars of national liberation, 1323–1324 War Zones C and D, 1324–1326, 1325 (image) WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation, 873, 1326–1327 Washington Special Actions Group, 1327 Wasiak, Joseph E., 276 Watergate Scandal, 187, 530, 595, 763, 772–773, 847, 849, 892, 1020, 1203, 1327–1329, 1328 (image)

Weathermen, 1218–1219, 1329–1330, 1330 (image) Webb, James Henry, Jr., 1330–1331, 1331 (image) Wei Guoqing, 1331–1332 Weiner, David, 973 (image) Weiner, Lee, 192 Weinglass, Leonard, 192 Weiss, Cora, 1333 Welsh v. United States (1970), 1218, 1333– 1335, 1334 (image) Westmoreland, William C., xliii, 81, 118, 180, 215, 235, 236, 244, 300, 302, 346, 406, 458, 461, 462, 509 (image), 513, 517, 550, 555, 576, 578, 579–580, 596, 599, 608– 609, 625, 693, 700, 723, 728 (image), 771, 844, 845, 872, 887, 934, 1078, 1092, 1204, 1209, 1318, 1335–1337, 1336 (image) accusations against concerning enemy casualty figures, 1336–1337 and the buildup of U.S. troops in Vietnam, 219, 510, 550, 551, 747, 991, 1094, 1105, 1173–1174 difficulties with ROKA forces in Vietnam, 602 lawsuit against CBS, 865–866 National Press Club address, 1591–1592Doc. on the operations in War Zones C and D, 1325–1326 and the Peers Inquiry, 886, 887 reaction to the Tet Offensive, 1136 service of in Korea, 1335 on SLAM, 1049 strategies and tactics employed by, 598, 1335–1336 view of the media, 729, 1100 view of pacification, 871 See also Honolulu Conference (1967); Khe Sanh, Battle of; Search and destroy Weyand, Frederick Carlton, 347, 1103, 1105, 1106, 1177, 1337–1338 Whalen, Charles W., Jr., 1197 Wheeler, Earle Gilmore, 118, 1105, 1174, 1338–1339, 1338 (image), 1345 (image) report on the situation in Vietnam, 1597–1599Doc. Wheeler, Jack, 1295, 1296 WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation, 784, 1340–1341, 1341 (image) White Star Mobile Training Teams, 1341 Whitley, Glenna, 1298 Wickwire, Peter, 139

I-25

Wiener, Sam, 69 Wild Weasels, 1341–1342 Wilk, David, 1299 Williams, Charles Q., 308 Williams, Samuel Tankersley, 319, 1342–1343 Willoughby, Frank C., 624 Wilson, Charles E., 409 Wilson, George C., 1 Wilson, James Harold, 1078, 1164, 1343–1344, 1343 (image) Wilson, Thomas Woodrow, 1344 Wilson, Woodrow, 315, 401, 663 Winter Soldier Investigation, 574, 657, 1083 Wise Men, 551, 716, 782, 972, 1225, 1344– 1346, 1345 (image) Women, in the Vietnam War U.S. women, 1346–1347, 1346 (image) Vietnamese women, 1347–1349, 1348 (image) Women Strike for Peace, 1349 Women’s Liberation Association (WLA), 1348 Women’s Solidarity League, 967 Woodring, Willard, 139 Woods, Robert, 1151 Woodstock, 1349–1350, 1350 (image) Woodward, Gilbert H., 948 Wyatt, Clarence R., 727 Xa Loi Pagoda Raid, 1351–1352 Xuan Loc, Battle of, 1352 Xuan Thuy, 876, 1352–1353, 1353 (image) XYZ, 820 Yankee Station, 1355 YANKEE TEAM, Operation, 1356–1357, 1356

(image) Yellowing. See Jaunissement YELLOWSTONE, Operation, 1357 Yen Bay (or Yen Bai) Mutiny, 833, 1358 Young, Samuel, 1072 Young Americans for Freedom, 923 Young Turks, 753, 796, 816, 841, 1138, 1262 Youth International Party (Yippies), 192, 506, 1000, 1358–1360, 1359 (image) Zhang Xueliang, 702 Zhou Enlai, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200 (image), 412, 595, 1361–1362, 1362 (image) Zhu De, 196, 702 Zorthian, Barry, 553, 728, 1362–1363 Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr., 250 (image), 956, 956 (image), 1025, 1203 (image), 1363–1364, 1363 (image)

This page intentionally left blank

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR Second Edition

This page intentionally left blank

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

THE VIETNAM WAR A Political, Social, and Military History, Second Edition

VOLUME IV: DOCUMENTS

Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Editor Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Associate Editor

Merle L. Pribbenow II Dr. James H. Willbanks, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (retired) Dr. David T. Zabecki, Major General, Army of the United States (retired) Assistant Editors

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history / Spencer C. Tucker, editor. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-960-3 (hard back : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-85109-961-0 (e-book) 1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Encyclopedias. I. Tucker, Spencer, 1937– DS557.7.E53 2011 959.704’3—dc22 2011007604 ISBN: 978-1-85109-960-3 EISBN: 978-1-85109-961-0 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

To all those who fought in the Indochina and Vietnam Wars

About the Editor

Spencer C. Tucker, PhD, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was a Fulbright scholar in France. He was a U.S. Army captain and an intelligence analyst in the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and then taught for 30 years at Texas Christian University before returning to his alma mater for 6 years as the holder of the John Biggs Chair of Military History. He retired from teaching in 2003. He is now Senior Fellow of Military History at ABC-CLIO. Dr. Tucker has written or edited 38 books, including ABC-CLIO’s award-winning The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict as well as the comprehensive A Global Chronology of Conflict.

E DITORIAL A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Col. Walter J. Boyne

Dr. Carol Reardon

U.S. Air Force (Ret.)

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. David Coffey Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Shawn Livingston, MLIS Director of Information Service University of Kentucky Libraries

Capt. Carl O. Schuster

Dr. Michael R. Nichols

U.S. Navy (Ret.) Adjunct Professor Hawaii Pacific University

Department of Social Sciences Tarrant County College

Sandra Wittman Library Services Oakton Community College

Nguyen Cong Luan Independent Scholar

Cartographer Internal Mapping Associates

ABC-CLIO M ILITARY H ISTORY A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS Dr. David Coffey

Dr. Carol Reardon

Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin

Professor of Military History Department of History Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Don Hickey

Dr. Prisci lla Roberts

Professor of History Department of History Wayne State College (Nebraska)

Associate Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Dr. James Matray Professor and Chair Department of History California State University, Chico

Dr. James H. Wi llbanks Director, Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth

Dr. Jack McCallum Adjunct Professor Department of History and Geography Texas Christian University

Dr. Steven E. Woodworth Professor of History Department of History Texas Christian University

Dr. Justin D. Murphy Director, Academy of Freedom; Brand Professor of History Department of History, Political Science, and Geography Howard Payne University

Dr. Jim Piecuch Associate Professor of History Department of History Kennesaw State University

Dr. David T. Zabecki Major General Army of the United States, Retired Honory Senior Research Fellow in War Studies University of Birmingham, England

Contents Volume I: A–G List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv Foreword xxvii Preface xxxi General Maps xxxiii Overview of the Vietnam War Entries 1 Index I-1

Volume III: Q–Z List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 951 Index I-1 xli

Volume IV: Documents List of Documents xi Introduction—xvii Documents 1365 Appendix A: Unit Designations 1679 Appendix B: Military Ranks 1683 Appendix C: Order of Battle 1691 Chronology 1731 Glossary 1765 Selected Bibliography 1779 List of Editors and Contributors 1789 Categorical Index 1795 Index I-1

Volume II: H–P List of Entries xi List of Maps xxv General Maps xxvii Entries 439 Index I-1

ix

This page intentionally left blank

List of Documents

1. Ho Chi Minh: Speech at the Tours Congress, December 1920 2. Ho Chi Minh: Open Letter to Léon Archimbaud, January 15, 1923 3. Ho Chi Minh: Appeal Made on the Occasion of the Founding of the Communist Party, February 18, 1930 4. Ho Chi Minh: Letter from Abroad, June 6, 1941 5. President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Memorandum to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, January 24, 1944 [Excerpts] 6. Charles Taussig: Memorandum of Conversation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt by the Adviser on Caribbean Affairs, March 15, 1945 [Excerpt] 7. State Department Division of European Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman, April 20, 1945 8. State Department Division of Far East Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman, April 21, 1945 9. Joseph Grew, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery in France, May 9, 1945 10. Joseph Grew, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley in Chungking, China, June 7, 1945 [Excerpt] 11. U.S. State Department: Paper on U.S. Postwar Policy toward Asia and the Pacific, June 22, 1945 [Excerpts] 12. President Harry S. Truman: Telegram to Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi, Transmitted via Ambassador to China Patrick J. Hurley, August 1, 1945 13. Abdication of Emperor Bao Dai of Annam, August 1945 14. Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, September 2, 1945 15. Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Charge Walter Robertson in China, October 5, 1945 16. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to President Harry S. Truman, October 17, 1945

17. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, October 22, 1945 [Excerpts] 18. Ho Chi Minh: Speech on the Resistance War in Southern Vietnam, November 1945 19. Ho Chi Minh: Declaration of the Policy of the Provisional Coalition Government, January 1, 1946 20. Preliminary Franco–Viet Minh Convention, March 6, 1946 [Excerpts] 21. James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State: Note to French Ambassador Henri Bonnet, April 12, 1946 22. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Compatriots in Nam Bo, May 31, 1946 23. Ho Chi Minh: Reply at Luncheon Given by French Premier Georges Bidault, July 2, 1946 24. Abbot L. Moffat, Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs: Memorandum to John Carter Vincent, Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, August 9, 1946 25. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi, September 14, 1946 26. Ho Chi Minh: Proclamation to the People upon His Return from France after Negotiations, October 23, 1946 27. General Jean-Étienne Valluy: Telegram to Colonel PierreLouis Debès, November 22, 1946 28. Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès, French Commander at Haiphong: Ultimatum to Haiphong Administrative Committee, November 22, 1946 29. Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Division Chief Abbot L. Moffat in Saigon, December 5, 1946 30. Abbott L. Moffat: Telegram from Hanoi to the State Department, December 1946 [Excerpt] 31. Ho Chi Minh: Telegram to French Premier Léon Blum, December 15, 1946 xi

xii

List of Documents

32. Consul Charles Reed in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, December 24, 1946 33. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, February 3, 1947 34. Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Account of Ho Chi Minh– Paul Mus Meeting, May 12, 1947 35. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to Jefferson Caffery in Paris, May 13, 1947 36. Charles S. Reed: Airgram to Dean Acheson, June 14, 1947 [Excerpts] 37. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Consul General at Saigon (Later Repeated for Paris), July 17, 1947 38. James L. O’Sullivan, Vice-Consul in Hanoi, and Charles S. Reed in Saigon: Telegrams to George C. Marshall, July 21 and 24, 1947 [Excerpts] 39. Department of State Policy Statement on Indochina, September 27, 1948 [Excerpts] 40. The United States Praises the Elysée Agreements, 1949 41. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in France, February 25, 1949 42. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Consulate General in Saigon, May 10, 1949 43. Dean Acheson: Telegram to the Consulate in Hanoi, May 20, 1949 44. Memorandum of Conversation among Secretary of State Dean Acheson, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, September 17, 1949 [Excerpt] 45. Raymond B. Fosdick, Consultant to the Secretary of State on Far Eastern Policy: Memorandum for Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup, November 4, 1949 46. National Security Council Paper No. 64, 1950 47. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, January 30, 1950 48. Paper on Military Aid for Indochina by a Working Group in the Department of State, February 1, 1950 [Excerpts] 49. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to U.S. Ambassador to France David Bruce, March 4, 1950 50. Dean Acheson: Press Release Urging Aid for Indochina, May 22, 1950 51. President Harry S. Truman: Statement Announcing Direct U.S. Military Aid to Indochina, June 27, 1950 52. Ho Chi Minh: Answers to Questions Put by the Press Regarding U.S. Intervention in Indochina, July 25, 1950 53. John F. Melby, Chairman of the Joint Survey Mission: Telegram to Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, August 7, 1950 [Excerpt] 54. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador to France David Bruce, November 11, 1950

55. John Ohly, Deputy Director of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program: Memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, November 20, 1950 [Excerpts] 56. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum to Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, January 10, 1951 57. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Legation in Saigon, January 30, 1951 58. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Report to the National Security Council on Conversations between President Harry S. Truman and French Premier René Pleven, February 23, 1951 [Excerpt] 59. R. Allen Griffin, Special Far East Representative, Economic Cooperation Administration: Telegram to Richard M. Bissell Jr., Acting Administrator, Economic Cooperation Administration, November 30, 1951 60. National Security Council Staff Study on Objectives, Policies, and Course of Action in Asia (Annex to NSC 48/4), May 17, 1951 [Excerpts] 61. Minister Donald R. Heath in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, December 9, 1951 [Excerpts] 62. Ambassador David Bruce: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, December 26, 1951 [Excerpt] 63. Ho Chi Minh: Talk to Officers Preparing for the Military Campaign in Northwestern Vietnam, September 9, 1952 64. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, March 19, 1953 65. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, March 26, 1953 [Excerpt] 66. Douglas MacArthur II, Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations: Memorandum, April 27, 1953 67. Lieutenant General John W. O’Daniel: Report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the U.S. Joint Military Mission to Indochina, July 14, 1953 [Excerpts] 68. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, September 9, 1953 [Excerpts] 69. Ho Chi Minh: Replies to a Foreign Correspondent, November 26, 1953 70. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the National Assembly, December 1, 1953 [Excerpts] 71. Vo Nguyen Giap: Report to Senior Field Commanders on the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, January 14, 1954 [Excerpt] 72. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum for Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, March 12, 1954 73. U.S. Army Position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A, April 1954 74. C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, April 4, 1954 75. Draft Report by the President’s Special Committee: Southeast Asia, Part II, April 5, 1954 [Excerpt] 76. National Security Council Planning Board Report on NSC Action No. 1074-A, April 5, 1954 [Excerpt]

List of Documents 77. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, April 5, 1954 78. President Dwight Eisenhower’s News Conference, April 7, 1954 79. Minutes of Meeting among President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and Special Assistant to the President Robert Cutler, May 7, 1954 80. Treaty of Independence of the State of Vietnam, June 4, 1954 81. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, June 14, 1954 82. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, June 17, 1954 83. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, June 18, 1954 84. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, July 15, 1954 [Excerpt] 85. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, July 17, 1954 86. Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on Indochina, July 21, 1954 87. U.S. Government Response to the Geneva Declarations, July 21, 1954 88. Walter Bedell Smith: Declaration to the Geneva Conference, July 21, 1954 89. National Intelligence Estimate 63-5-54 on the Post-Geneva Outlook in Indochina, August 3, 1954 [Excerpt] 90. NSC 5492/2, “Review of U.S. Policy in the Far East”, August 20, 1954 [Excerpts] 91. Protocol to the SEATO Treaty, September 8, 1954 92. President Dwight Eisenhower: Letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, October 23, 1954 93. Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Declaration on Normalizing Relations between the Northern and Southern Zones, February 4, 1955 94. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in Saigon, April 6, 1955 [Excerpt] 95. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to Special Representative General J. Lawton Collins in Saigon, April 9, 1955 96. NSC 5519, Draft Statement and National Security Council Staff Study on U.S. Policy on All-Vietnam Elections, May 17, 1955 [Excerpts] 97. Message from Ho Chi Minh and Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, July 19, 1955 98. NIE 63-1-55, “Probable Developments in North Vietnam to July 1956,” July 19, 1955 [Excerpts]

xiii

99. Declaration of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam on Reunification, August 9, 1955 100. NIE 63-56, July 17, 1956 [Excerpt] 101. Le Duan: “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” [The Path of Revolution in the South], 1956 102. Elbridge Durbrow: Assessment of the Ngo Dinh Diem Regime, January 1, 1957 103. Conversation between Presidents Ngo Dinh Diem and Dwight Eisenhower Regarding Additional Aid for the Republic of Vietnam, May 9, 1957 [Excerpts] 104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army,” 1959 105. Republic of Vietnam Law 10/59, May 6, 1959 [Excerpts] 106. Ho Chi Minh: Talk at a Cadres’ Meeting Debating the Draft Law on Marriage and Family, October 1959 [Excerpt] 107. Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Ambassador in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, March 7, 1960 108. Party Central Committee Secret Cable No. 160 to the Cochin China Regional Party Committee, April 28, 1960 109. Resolution of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party’s Third National Congress of Delegates on the Party’s Missions and Policies in This New Era, September 10, 1960 [Excerpt] 110. Politburo Cable No. 17-NB Sent to the Cochin China Region Party Committee and the Interzone 5 Region Party Committee, November 11, 1960 [Excerpts] 111. Manifesto of the National Liberation Front, December 1960 112. Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Ambassador in Saigon: Cablegram to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, December 24, 1960 [Excerpt] 113. Gilpatric Task Force Report, April 27, 1961 [Excerpt] 114. Memorandum of Conversation Involving Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Other Officials, April 29, 1961 [Excerpts] 115. National Security Action Memorandum No. 80, August 29, 1961 116. General Maxwell Taylor: Cable to President John F. Kennedy Recommending Dispatch of U.S. Forces to South Vietnam, November 1, 1961 117. Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy, November 8, 1961 118. Dean Rusk and Robert S. McNamara: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy, November 11, 1961 [Excerpts] 119. McGeorge Bundy, White House Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: National Security Action Memorandum No. 111, November 22, 1961 120. President John F. Kennedy: Letter to President Ngo Dinh Diem, December 14, 1961 121. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman: “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam,” December 3, 1962 [Excerpt]

xiv

List of Documents

122. Mike Mansfield, Senator: Report to President John F. Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, December 18, 1962 [Excerpt] 123. Nguyen Chi Thanh, Lao Dong Political Bureau Member: Article, July 1963 [Excerpt] 124. Memorandum for the Record of U.S. State Department Meeting, August 31, 1963 125. President John F. Kennedy’s Remarks on the Situation in Vietnam, September 2, 1963 126. Report of the McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam, October 2, 1963 [Excerpt] 127. John Richardson, CIA Station Chief: Cablegram to CIA Director John McCone, October 5, 1963 128. White House: Cablegram to U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. on the CIA Channel, October 5, 1963 129. John McCone, CIA Director: Cablegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., October 6, 1963 130. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Cable to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy Discussing Coup Prospects, October 25, 1963 131. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor: Cable to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Expressing Reservations about the Coup, October 30, 1963 132. Phone Conversation between Ngo Dinh Diem and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., November 1, 1963 133. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum 46-64, January 22, 1964 134. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, March 16, 1964 [Excerpts] 135. President Lyndon Johnson: Telegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., March 20, 1964 136. George W. Ball, Undersecretary of State: Telegram to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, June 5, 1964 [Excerpt] 137. Blair Seaborn, Canadian International Control Commission Representative: Notes on Meeting with Pham Van Dong, June 18, 1964 138. Maxwell Taylor, Ambassador: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, July 25, 1964 [Excerpt] 139. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet: Order to All Subordinate Units, August 2, 1964 140. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, August 3, 1964 141. Thomas H. Moorer, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet: Message to Captain John Herrick, August 3, 1964 [Excerpts] 142. President Lyndon Johnson’s Message to Congress, August 5, 1964 [Excerpts] 143. Joint Resolution of Congress H.J. RES 1445: Tonkin Gulf Resolution, August 7, 1964 [Excerpt] 144. Robert S. McNamara Recommends Escalation, July 1, 1965 [Excerpts] 145. McGeorge Bundy: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson, February 7, 1965 [Excerpts]

146. Joint Statement of Soviet Premier Aleksai Kosygin and Pham Van Dong in Hanoi, February 10, 1965 147. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, February 13, 1965 [Excerpt] 148. SNIE 10-3/-65: Communist Reactions to Possible U.S. Courses of Action against North Vietnam, February 18, 1965 [Excerpts] 149. “Aggression from the North”: State Department White Paper on Vietnam, February 27, 1965 [Excerpts] 150. Le Duan: “Letters to the South,” February 1965 [Excerpts] 151. Maxwell Taylor, Ambassador: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, March 18, 1965 152. National Security Action Memorandum No. 328, April 6, 1965 153. President Lyndon Johnson, “Peace without Conquest”: Address at Johns Hopkins University, April 7, 1965 154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly, April 8, 1965 [Excerpts] 155. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, April 21, 1965 [Excerpt] 156. President Lyndon Johnson: Message to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, May 10, 1965 157. Message from the U.S. Government to the North Vietnamese Government on the Bombing Pause, May 11, 1965 158. George Ball, Undersecretary of State: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, July 1, 1965 159. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, July 20, 1965 [Excerpt] 160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam, November 1965 161. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson, November 30, 1965 [Excerpts] 162. Henry Byroade, Ambassador in Rangoon: Aide-Mémoire to North Vietnamese Consul General Vu Huu Binh, December 29, 1965 163. Le Duan, First Secretary: Speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, December 1965 [Excerpts] 164. William Bundy: Memorandum for Secretary of State Dean Rusk, February 3, 1966 [Excerpt] 165. Aide-Mémoire from the U.S. State Department to the North Vietnamese Government, Delivered to North Vietnamese Consul General Vu Huu Binh in Rangoon, February 16, 1966 166. Ho Chi Minh: Replies to an Interview with Japanese NDN TV, April 1966 167. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, June 29, 1966 [Excerpts] 168. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, November 30, 1966 [Excerpt] 169. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Acting Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach, December 9, 1966

List of Documents 170. Nguyen Duy Trinh, Foreign Minister: Report to the Party Central Committee on Initiating a New Talk-Fight Strategy, January 23, 1967 [Excerpts] 171. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., February 10, 1967 [Excerpt] 172. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Lyndon Johnson, February 15, 1967 173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 174. Central Intelligence Agency: Intelligence Memorandum, “Bomb Damage Inflicted on North Vietnam through April 1967”, May 12, 1967 175. President Lyndon Johnson: Address in San Antonio, Texas, September 29, 1967 [Excerpt] 176. General William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam: National Press Club Address, November 21, 1967 [Excerpts] 177. President Lyndon Johnson: News Conference, February 2, 1968 [Excerpts] 178. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Television Interview, February 4, 1968 [Excerpts] 179. Senator Robert F. Kennedy Calls Vietnam an Unwinnable War, February 8, 1968 180. General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Report on the Situation in Vietnam, February 27, 1968 [Excerpts] 181. Walter Cronkite Criticizes U.S. Policy, February 27, 1968 [Excerpts] 182. A Communist Party Evaluation of the 1968 Tet Offensive, March 1968 183. President Lyndon Johnson: Televised Address, March 31, 1968 [Excerpts] 184. Secret Cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to COSVN, April 3, 1968 [Excerpts] 185. COSVN Directive, June 10, 1968 [Excerpt] 186. President Lyndon Johnson: Announcement of U.S. Bombing Halt, October 31, 1968 [Excerpt] 187. National Security Study Memorandum No. 1, January 21, 1969 [Excerpts] 188. Nguyen Van Thieu: Address to the National Assembly, April 7, 1969 189. President Richard Nixon: Televised Address, May 14, 1969 [Excerpt] 190. COSVN Resolution No. 9, July 1969 [Excerpts] 191. Final Statement of Ho Chi Minh, September 9, 1969 192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization, November 3, 1969 193. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew: Criticism of What He Perceives as Biased Television Coverage of the Richard Nixon Administration’s Vietnam Policy, November 13, 1969 [Excerpts]

xv

194. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/TW: Policy toward Captured American Pilots in North Vietnam, November 20, 1969 195. President Richard Nixon: Speech on Cambodia, April 30, 1970 [Excerpts] 196. Summary of COSVN Directive No. 01/CT71, January– February 1971 [Excerpts] 197. President Richard Nixon: Televised Interview, March 22, 1971 [Excerpt] 198. John Kerry: Statement of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 23, 1971 [Excerpts] 199. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr.: Analysis of the Decline of U.S. Armed Forces, June 7, 1971 [Excerpts] 200. Democratic Republic of Vietnam Peace Proposal, June 26, 1971 201. Peace Proposal of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, July 1, 1971 202. Le Duc Tho: Cable No. 119, March 27, 1972 [Excerpts] 203. President Richard Nixon: Address to the Nation, May 8, 1972 [Excerpts] 204. Jane Fonda: Broadcast from Hanoi, August 22, 1972 205. Statement of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, September 11, 1972 [Excerpt] 206. Document by the South Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks, October 24, 1972 207. Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor: News Conference, October 26, 1972 [Excerpt] 208. North Vietnamese Government Statement, October 26, 1972 [Excerpt] 209. President Richard Nixon: Letter to President Nguyen Van Thieu, November 14, 1972 210. President Richard Nixon: Letter to President Nguyen Van Thieu, January 5, 1973 211. COSVN Directive 02/73: Policies Related to the Political Settlement and Cease-Fire, January 19, 1973 [Excerpt] 212. Paris Peace Agreement, January 27, 1973 [Excerpt] 213. President Richard Nixon: Letter to Pham Van Dong, February 1, 1973 [Excerpt] 214. COSVN Directive 03/CT 73, March 1973 [Excerpts] 215. President Richard Nixon: News Conference, March 15, 1973 [Excerpt] 216. Fulbright-Aiken Amendment: Public Law 93-52, Section 108, July 1, 1973 217. War Powers Resolution, November 7, 1973 [Excerpt] 218. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/TW: Richard Nixon’s Resignation of the Presidency of the United States and a Number of Urgent Party Tasks, August 13, 1974 [Excerpts] 219. Conclusion of Phase Two of the Politburo Conference of the Lao Dong, January 8, 1975 [Excerpt] 220. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State: Request for Emergency Aid for the Republic of Vietnam, April 15, 1975

xvi

List of Documents

221. Lao Dong Party Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW: Policy toward Enemy Soldiers Who Are Captured or Surrender in the New Situation, April 18, 1975 [Excerpts] 222. Le Duan: Speech at the Meeting Held in Hanoi to Celebrate Victory, May 15, 1975 223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day, September 2, 1975 [Excerpts]

224. President Bill Clinton Lifts the Trade Embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, February 3, 1994 [Excerpts] 225. President Bill Clinton: Announcement of Normalization of Diplomatic Relations with Vietnam, July 11, 1995

Introduction

The documents in this volume cover a 75-year span, from 1920 through 1995. The introductions seek to place the individual documents in time and place. The documents include the views of national leaders in Vietnam, in France, and in the United States and trace the evolution of their national policies before and after the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. Certain documents discuss military tactics, while others detail the provisions of specific agreements. I am especially pleased to have the assistance of Merle Pribbenow in the documents section. He is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Vietnamese specialist who served in Saigon during 1970–1975. Since his retirement from the CIA, Mr. Pribbenow has worked as an independent researcher and author specializing in the Vietnam War and as a translator of Vietnamese-language source materials. His translation of the official Vietnamese history of the war was published in 2002 under the title Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Mr. Pribbenow has provided translations of 13 Vietnamese docu-

ments and the introductions for them. These fill gaps in policies of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) toward the war. These documents are nos. 109, 110, 111, 151, 161, 164, 171, 185, 195, 203, 219, 220, and 222. Some of the documents in this volume are excerpted rather than reprinted in their entirety. A number of documents have punctuation problems and/or spelling errors or appear fragmented; this is especially true with cables to and from Saigon. A number of the documents treating U.S. policy were made available in the publication of the so-called Pentagon Papers, which traced U.S. involvement in Indochina, and were released under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents provide insight on how government policies evolve. Studying them is a useful exercise in reminding us how our leaders can on occasion totally misread the intentions, determination, and capabilities of another nation. SPENCER C. TUCKER

xvii

This page intentionally left blank

Documents

pitilessly. (I would stress this fact that we have been poisoned with opium, alcohol, etc.) I cannot, in but a few minutes, reveal all the atrocities perpetrated by the predatory capitalists in Indochina. Prisons outnumber schools and are always overcrowded with detainees. Any native suspected of having socialist ideas is arrested and sometimes put to death without trial. So goes justice in Indochina for in there is one law for the Annamese [Vietnamese] and another for the Europeans or those holding European citizenship. The former do not enjoy the same safeguards as the latter. We have neither freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, nor freedom of association. We have no right to emigrate or travel abroad as tourists. We live in utter ignorance because we have no right to study. In Indochina the colonialists do all they can to poison us with opium and besot us with alcohol. Thousands of Vietnamese have been led to a slow death and thousands of others massacred to protect interests that are not theirs.

1. Ho Chi Minh: Speech at the Tours Congress, December 1920 Introduction Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh was in Paris during World War I and was active there in the Vietnamese community in France, which grew dramatically during the war. In 1919 Ho appealed without success to the leaders of the Great Powers at the Paris Peace Conference for the extension of self-determination to the peoples of Indochina. A member of the French Socialist Party, Ho was one of its prominent spokespersons on colonial affairs. In these remarks at the December 1920 French Socialist Party conference at Tours, he stresses the high costs of French rule for the people of Indochina and appeals to the delegates to oppose continued French rule there. Ho was among the majority of delegates at this conference who voted to break off from the Socialists and establish the French Communist Party.

Comrades, such is the treatment inflicted upon more than 20 million Vietnamese, that is more than half the population of France. And yet they are said to be under French protection! The Socialist Party must act effectively in favour of the oppressed natives.

Primary Source Chairman: Comrade Indochinese Delegate, you have the floor.

Jean Longuet: I have spoken in favor of the natives.

Indochinese Delegate [Nguyen Ai Quoc]: Today, instead of contributing, together with you, to world revolution as I should wish, I come here with deep sadness and profound grief, as a Socialist, to protest against the abhorrent crimes committed my native land.

Indochinese Delegate: Right from the beginning of my speech I have imposed the dictatorship of silence. [laughter] The Party must make propaganda for socialism in all colonial countries. We shall see in the Socialist Party’s joining the Third International the promise that from now on it will attach to the colonial questions the importance they deserve. We are very glad to learn that a Standing Delegation has been appointed for North Africa and we

You all have known that French capitalism entered Indochina half a century ago. It conquered our country at bayonet point and in the nature of capitalism. Since then we have not only been oppressed and exploited shamelessly, but also tortured and poisoned 1365

1366

2. Ho Chi Minh: Open Letter to Léon Archimbaud

should be very happy if in the near future the Party sends one of its members to Indochina to study on-the-spot the relevant questions and what should be done about them. A delegate: With Comrade Enver Pasha? Indochinese Delegate: Silence, the Parliamentarians! Chairman: Now all delegates must keep silence, including the non-Parliamentarians! Indochinese Delegate: In the name of the whole of mankind, in the name of all Socialists, both those of the left and those of the right, we say to you: Comrades, save us! Chairman: Through the applause which greeted him, the Indochinese Delegate can realize that the entire Socialist Party sides with him to oppose the crimes of the bourgeois. Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 15–17.

2. Ho Chi Minh: Open Letter to Léon Archimbaud, January 15, 1923 Introduction As a leading spokesperson on colonial affairs for the new French Communist Party, Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, who was still residing in France, wrote to National Assembly deputy Léon Archimbaud. In the letter Ho blasts the Radical Party member for a speech in the Chamber of Deputies in which Archimbaud had glossed over the plight of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and other colonial peoples who had come to France during World War I to work as laborers. Ho also sharply criticizes Archimbaud for his claims that France had carried out a “generous” policy toward the peoples of its colonial empire.

Primary Source Sir, In your speech to the Chamber of Deputies you said that if you had wished to do so, you could have denounced colonial scandals, but you prefer to pass over in silence the crimes and offenses committed by your civilizers in the colonies. This is your right and it concerns only you, your conscience, and your electors. As for us who have suffered and will continue to suffer every day from these “blessings” of colonialism, we do not need you to tell us about them. But when, writing in Le Rappel, you say that the facts pointed out by citizen Boumetont are false or exaggerated, you yourself

“exaggerate”! First, the Minister of Colonies himself was obliged to recognize that a “contemptuous state of mind toward native life” exists. And that he “denied no act of brutality” denounced by Deputy Boisneuf. And then can you deny, M. Archimbaud, that during the last few years, that is to say, following the war for “the rule of law” for which 800,000 natives came to work “voluntarily” or to be killed in France, that your civilizers—with impunity—have robbed, swindled, murdered, or burnt alive Annamese, Tunisians, and Senegalese? You write next that acts of injustice are more numerous in France than in the colonies. Then allow me to tell you, M. Archimbaud, that one should not pretend to give lessons in equality or justice to others when one is unable to apply them at home. This is the most elementary logic, isn’t it? According to you, the doings of your colonial administrators are known, commented upon, and controlled by the Governments General and the Ministry of Colonies. Hence it must be one of two things. Either you are harebrained and have forgotten the Baudoins, the Darles, the Lucases, and so many others making up the galaxy which is the honor and pride of your Colonial Administration, and who, after having committed heinous crimes, receive as punishment only promotions and decorations. Or else you are treating your readers as complete fools. You state that if France has sinned in colonial matters it is rather from an excess of generous sentiment than anything else. Will you tell us, M. Archimbaud, whether it is out of these generous sentiments that the natives are deprived of all rights to write, speak, and travel, etc? Is it out of these same sentiments that the ignoble condition of “native” is imposed on them, that they are robbed of their land only to see it given to the conquerors, and forced thereafter to work as slaves? You yourselves have said that the Tahitian race has been decimated by alcoholism and is disappearing. Is it also from an excess of generosity that you are doing all you can to intoxicate the Annamese with your alcohol and stupefy them with your opium? You speak finally of “duty,” “humanity,” and “civilization”! What is this duty? You showed what it is throughout your speech. It is markets, competition, interests, privileges. Trade and finance are things which express your “humanity.” Taxes, forced labor, excessive exploitation, that is the summing up of your civilization! While you are waiting to receive “one of the finest claims to glory that can be dreamt of,” allow me to tell you, M. Archimbaud, that if Victor Hugo had known that you would write such stuff today in his newspaper, he would never have founded it. Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 18–19.

3. Ho Chi Minh: Appeal Made on the Occasion of the Founding of the Communist Party 1367

3. Ho Chi Minh: Appeal Made on the Occasion of the Founding of the Communist Party, February 18, 1930 Introduction Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh traveled widely in the 1920s. In 1930 he was in the British colony of Hong Kong, where he was a key figure in merging the three Communist parties of Indochina into one organization. By the beginning of World War II, Ho’s Communist Party of Indochina was the most prominent nationalist organization in Vietnam.

Primary Source Workers, peasants, soldiers, youth, and school students! Oppressed and exploited fellow-countrymen! Sisters and brothers! Comrades! Imperialist contradictions were the cause of the 1914–18 World War. After this horrible slaughter, the world was divided into two camps: one is the revolutionary camp which includes the oppressed colonial peoples and the exploited working class throughout the world. Its vanguard is the Soviet Union. The other is the counterrevolutionary camp of international capitalism and imperialism, whose general staff is the League of Nations. That war resulted in untold loss of life and property for the peoples. The French imperialists were the hardest hit. Therefore, in order to restore the capitalist forces in France, the French imperialists have resorted to every perfidious scheme to intensify capitalist exploitation in Indochina. They have built new factories to exploit the workers by paying them starvation wages. They plundered the peasants’ land to establish plantations and drive them to destitution. They have levied new heavy taxes. They have forced our people to buy government bonds. In short, they have driven our people to utter misery. They increased their military forces, firstly to strangle the Vietnamese revolution, secondly to prepare for a new imperialist war in the Pacific aimed at conquering new colonies, thirdly to suppress the Chinese revolution, fourthly to attack the Soviet Union because she helps the oppressed nations and the exploited working class to wage revolution. World War II will break out. When it does, the French imperialists will certainly drive our people to an even more horrible slaughter. If we let them prepare for this war, oppose the Chinese revolution, and attack the Soviet Union, if we allow them to stifle the Vietnamese revolution, it is tantamount to giving them a free hand to wipe our race off the earth and drown our nation in the Pacific. However, the French imperialists’ barbarous oppression and ruthless exploitation have awakened our compatriots, who have all realized that revolution is the only road to survival and that

without it they will die a slow death. This is why the Vietnamese revolutionary movement has grown even stronger with each passing day. The workers refuse to work, the peasants demand land, the students go on strike, the traders stop doing business. Everywhere the masses have risen to oppose the French imperialists. The Vietnamese revolution has made the French imperialists tremble with fear. On the one hand, they use the feudalists and comprador bourgeois to oppress and exploit our people. On the other, they terrorize, arrest, jail, deport, and kill a great number of Vietnamese revolutionaries. If the French imperialists think that they can suppress the Vietnamese revolution by means of terror, they are grossly mistaken. For one thing the Vietnamese revolution is not isolated but enjoys the assistance of the world proletariat in general and that of the French working class in particular. Secondly, it is precisely at the very time when the French imperialists are frenziedly carrying out terrorist acts that the Vietnamese Communists, formerly working separately, have united into a single party, the Indochinese Communist Party, to lead the revolutionary struggle of our entire people. Workers, peasants, soldiers, youth, school students! Oppressed and exploited fellow-countrymen! The Indochinese Communist Party has been founded. It is the party of the working class. It will help the proletariat lead the revolution waged for the sake of all oppressed and exploited people. From now on we must join the Party, help it and follow it in order to implement the following slogans: 1. To overthrow French imperialism and Vietnamese feudalism, and reactionary bourgeoisie. 2. To make Indochina completely independent. 3. To establish a worker-peasant-soldier government. 4. To confiscate the banks and other enterprises belonging to the imperialists and put them under the control of the worker-peasant-soldier government. 5. To confiscate the whole of the plantations and property belonging to the imperialists and the Vietnamese reactionary bourgeoisie and distribute them to the poor peasants. 6. To implement the eight-hour working day. 7. To abolish the forced buying of government bonds, the poll-tax and all unjust taxes hitting the poor. 8. To bring democratic freedoms to the masses. 9. To dispense education to all the people. 10. To realize equality between man and woman. Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 39–41.

1368

4. Ho Chi Minh: Letter from Abroad

4. Ho Chi Minh: Letter from Abroad, June 6, 1941 Introduction In the summer of 1940, German forces invaded and defeated France. The Japanese then took advantage of France’s weakness to secure military bases in Indochina. This action, which brought Japanese bombers within range of the Philippines, caused the United States to tighten the economic screws on Japan, which in turn led to the preemptive Japanese strike at Pearl Harbor. In this letter to the Vietnamese people, Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh, then in China, notes the present military weakness of France and the occupation of Indochina by the Japanese. With the Japanese bogged down in China, Ho believes that it is the ideal time for Vietnamese to unite, rise up, and defeat both the French and Japanese and to reestablish their independence. Such calls for action were premature, for the Japanese retained a firm grip on Indochina.

Primary Source Venerable elders! Patriotic personalities! Intellectuals, peasants, workers, traders and soldiers!

testify to the determination of our compatriots to follow the glorious example of their ancestors and to annihilate the enemy. If we were not successful, it was not because the French bandits were strong, but only because the situation was not yet ripe and our people throughout the country were not yet of one mind. Now, the opportunity has come for our liberation. France itself is unable to help the French colonialists rule over our country. As for the Japanese, on the one hand, bogged down in China, on the other, hampered by the British and American forces, they certainly cannot use all their strength against us. If our entire people are solidly united we can certainly get the better of the best-trained armies of the French and the Japanese. Fellow-countrymen! Rise up! Let us emulate the dauntless spirit of the Chinese people! Rise up without delay! Let us organize the Association for National Salvation to fight the French and the Japanese! Dear fellow-countrymen! A few hundred years ago, in the reign of Tran, when our country faced the great danger of invasion by Yuan armies the elders ardently called on their sons and daughters throughout the country to stand up as one man to kill the enemy. Finally they saved their people and their glorious memory will live forever. Let our elders and patriotic personalities follow the illustrious example set by our forefathers.

Dear fellow-countrymen! Since France was defeated by Germany, its power has completely collapsed. Nevertheless, with regard to our people, the French rulers have become even more ruthless in carrying out their policy of exploitation, repression and massacre. They bleed us white and carry out a barbarous policy of all-out terrorism and massacre. In the foreign field, bowing their heads and bending their knees, they resign themselves to ceding part of our land to Siam and shamelessly surrendering our country to Japan. As a result our people are writhing under a double yoke of oppression. They serve not only as beasts of burden to the French bandits but also as slaves to the Japanese robbers. Alas! What sin have our people committed to be doomed to such a wretched fate? Plunged into such tragic suffering, are we to await death with folded arms? No! Certainly not! The twenty-odd million descendants of the Lac and the Hong are resolved not to let themselves be kept in servitude. For nearly eighty years under the French pirates’ iron heels we have unceasingly and selflessly struggled for national independence and freedom. The heroism of our predecessors, such as Phan Dinh Phung, Hoang Hoa Tham and Luong Ngoc Quyen and the glorious feats of the insurgents of Thai Nguyen, Yen Bai, Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces will live forever in our memory. The recent uprisings in the South and at Do Luong and Bac Son

Notables, soldiers, workers, peasants, traders, civil servants, youth and women who warmly love your country! At present national liberation stands above everything. Let us unite and overthrow the Japanese, the French and their lackeys in order to save our people from their present dire straits. Dear fellow-countrymen! National salvation is the common cause of our entire people. Every Vietnamese must take part in it. He who has money will contribute his money, he who has strength will contribute his strength, he who has talent will contribute his talent. For my part I pledge to follow in your steps and devote all my modest abilities to the service of the country and am ready for the supreme sacrifice. Revolutionary fighters! The hour has struck! Raise aloft the banner of insurrection and lead the people throughout the country to overthrow the Japanese and the French! The sacred call of the Fatherland is resounding in our ears; the ardent blood of our heroic predecessors is seething in our hearts! The fighting spirit of the people is mounting before our eyes! Let us unite and unify our action to overthrow the Japanese and the French.

6. Charles Taussig: Memorandum of Conversation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt The Vietnamese revolution will certainly triumph! The world revolution will certainly triumph! Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 44–46.

5. President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Memorandum to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, January 24, 1944 [Excerpts] Introduction U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt was sharply critical of French imperial rule, not only in North Africa but also in Southeast Asia. No friend of Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle and his pretension that France was still a Great Power, Roosevelt makes clear in this memorandum to Secretary of State Cordell Hull his firm belief that Indochina should become independent at the end of World War II. Roosevelt notes that the leaders of both the Soviet Union and Nationalist China supported this point of view. This should hardly have come as a surprise to the president, however: Chinese leaders hoped to dominate the region, and the Soviet Union wanted to weaken French power. Roosevelt also notes that the British opposed granting independence to the states of Indochina over concern for the effect that this might have on their own Southeast Asian possessions as well as those of the Dutch.

Primary Source I saw Halifax [Lord Halifax, the British ambassador to the United States] last week and told him quite frankly that it was perfectly true that I had, for over a year, expressed the opinion that IndoChina should not go back to France, but that it should be administered by an international trusteeship. . . . As a matter of interest, I am wholeheartedly supported in this view by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and by Marshall Stalin. . . . The only reason they [the British] seem to oppose it is that they fear the effect it would have on their possessions and those of the Dutch. They have never liked the idea of trusteeship because it is, in some instances, aimed at future independence. This is true in the case of Indo-China. Each case must, of course, stand on its own feet, but the case of IndoChina is perfectly clear. France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indo-China are entitled to something better than that. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 7 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 30.

1369

6. Charles Taussig: Memorandum of Conversation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt by the Adviser on Caribbean Affairs, March 15, 1945 [Excerpt] Introduction Anticolonialism was a major tenant of U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt’s foreign policy. In this memorandum, Charles Taussig, Roosevelt’s adviser on Caribbean Affairs, reports on a meeting with the president in which Roosevelt directed that U.S. policy be aimed at helping the “brown people in the East” achieve independence from European colonial rule. Roosevelt also expressed his belief that self-government under France was an unacceptable solution and that Indochina should be entirely removed from its rule and placed under the trusteeship of a postwar international organization (the United Nations [UN]).

Primary Source The Peoples of East Asia The President said he was concerned about the brown people in the East. He said that there are 1,100,000,000 brown people. In many Eastern countries, they are ruled by a handful of whites and they resent it. Our goal must be to help them achieve independence—1,100,000,000 potential enemies are dangerous. He said he included the 450,000,000 Chinese in that. He then added, Churchill doesn’t understand this. Indo-China and New Caledonia The President said he thought we might have some difficulties with France in the matter of colonies. I said that I thought that was quite probable and it was also probable the British would useFrance as a “stalking horse”. I asked the President if he had changed his ideas on French Indo-China as he had expressed them to us at the luncheon with Stanley. He said no he had not changed his ideas; that French Indo-China and New Caledonia should be taken from France and put under a trusteeship. The President hesitated a moment and then said—well if we can get the proper pledge from France to assume for herself the obligations of a trustee, then I would agree to France retaining these colonies with the proviso that independence was the ultimate goal. I asked the President if he would settle for self-government. He said no. I asked him if he would settle for dominion status. He said no—it must be independence. He said that is to be the policy and you can quote me in the State Department.

1370

7. State Department Division of European Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman

Source: Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), 124.

7. State Department Division of European Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman, April 20, 1945 Introduction With the end of World War II in Europe only weeks away and with planning going forward in the Pacific theater for an expected bloody invasion of the Japanese home islands, the European Division of the State Department urged a reexamination of U.S. Indochina policy by new U.S. president Harry S. Truman. The European Division recommended a decided movement away from the policy of Truman’s predecessor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Anxious about U.S. policy toward Indochina, the interim French government headed by Charles de Gaulle had been pressing Washington regarding the dispatch of French troops to the region. Officials in the European Division believed that circumstances had rendered moot the plan to put off the disposition of Indochina to “postwar determination.” In this memorandum the division points out that the de Gaulle government has committed itself to the creation of an Indochinese federation within the new French Union. The authors therefore argue against the policy of the Roosevelt administration that Indochina be granted independence under a trusteeship and instead propose a neutral stance on the issue of the region’s future. The United States should press France to liberalize its governance of Indochina, but at the same time U.S. military aid to the French in Indochina should be limited only to operations aimed at defeating Japan. As it worked out, with the Cold War Washington came to see the Soviet Union as the principal threat and France as the only major continental military power capable of maintaining the peace in Europe. Independence for Indochina thus lost out to a Europe-first strategy.

Primary Source Subject: Suggested Reexamination of American Policy with Respect to Indo-China General Observations 1. The Japanese aggression against the French in Indo-China last month has brought about a marked increase in the number of proposals advanced by the French for the use of French forces and resources in the Pacific.

2. The consequences of these military developments make it clear that our last policy, which held that the disposition of Indo-China was a matter for postwar determination and that the United States should not become involved in military effort for its liberation, is in urgent need for reexamination and clarification. This is particularly so in order that American military and naval authorities may have guidance to enable them to take appropriate action with respect to the French proposals referred to above. 3. The United States Government has publicly taken the position that it recognizes the sovereign jurisdiction of France over French possessions overseas when those possessions are resisting the enemy and had expressed the hope that it will see the reestablishment of the integrity of French territory. In spite of this general assurance, the negative policy so far pursued by this Government with respect to Indo-China has aroused French suspicions concerning our intentions with respect to the future of that territory. This has had and continues to have a harmful effect on American relations with the French Government and people. 4. On April 3, 1945, the Secretary of State with the approval of the President issued a statement of which the following excerpt is pertinent to the present problem: “As to territorial trusteeship, it appeared desirable that the Governments represented at Yalta, in consultation with the Chinese Government and the French Provisional Government, should endeavor to formulate proposals for submission to the San Francisco Conference for a trusteeship structure as a part of the general organization. This trusteeship structure, it was felt, should be defined to permit the placing under it of the territories taken from the enemy in this war, as might be agreed upon at a later date, and also such other territories as might voluntarily be placed under trusteeship.” 5. General de Gaulle and his Government have made it abundantly clear that they expect a proposed Indo-Chinese federation to function within the framework of the “French Union.” There is consequently not the slightest possibility at the present time or in the foreseeable future that France will volunteer to place Indo-China under an international trusteeship, or will consent to any program of international accountability which is not applied to the colonial possessions of other powers. If an effort were made to exert pressure on the French Government, such action would have to be taken by the United States alone for France could rely upon the support of other colonial powers, notably, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Such action would likewise run counter to the established American policy of aiding France to regain her strength in order that she may be better fitted to share responsibility in maintaining the peace of Europe and the world.

8. State Department Division of Far East Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman Recommendations In the light of the above considerations, the following recommendations, which have been communicated to the War and Navy Departments, are submitted for your approval. 1. The Government of the United States should neither oppose the restoration of Indo-China to France, with or without a program of international accountability, nor take any action toward French overseas possessions which it is not prepared to take or suggest with regard to the colonial possessions of our other Allies.

1371

Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 6–8.

8. State Department Division of Far East Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman, April 21, 1945 Introduction

2. The Government of the United States should continue to exert its influence with the French in the direction of having them effect a liberalization of their past policy of limited opportunities for native participation in government and administration, as well as a liberalization of restrictive French economic policies formerly pursued in Indo-China. 3. The French Provisional Government should be informed confidentially that, owing to the need of concentrating all our resources in the Pacific on operations already planned, large-scale military operations aimed directly at the liberation of Indo-China cannot be contemplated at this time. 4. French offers of military and naval assistance in the Pacific should be considered on their merits as bearing upon the objective of defeating Japan, as in the case of British and Dutch proposals. The fact that acceptance of a specific proposal might serve to strengthen French claims for the restoration of Indo-China to France should not be regarded as grounds for rejection. On the contrary, acceptance of French proposals for military assistance in the defeat of Japan should be regarded as desirable in principle, subject always to military requirements in the theater of operations. 5. While avoiding specific commitments with regard to the amount or character of any assistance which the United States may give to the French resistance forces in Indo-China, this Government should continue to afford all possible assistance provided it does not interfere with the requirements of other planned operations. 6. In addition to the aid which we are able to bring from the China theater of operations to the French forces resisting the Japanese in Indo-China, the United States should oppose no obstacle to the implementation of proposals looking toward the despatch of assistance to those forces from the southeast Asia theater of operations, provided such assistance does not constitute a diversion of resources which the Combined Chiefs of Staff consider are needed elsewhere.

In this memorandum, officials in the State Department Division of Far East Affairs move sharply away from former president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan to grant Indochina immediate independence under a trusteeship (the United Nations [UN]) and move close to the views of the State Department’s European Division. The memorandum notes the increasing number of proposals advanced by the interim French government to assist in the defeat of Japanese forces in the Pacific theater and reiterates the belief held by the European Division of the State Department that French cooperation will be essential in maintaining peace in Europe. The memorandum opposes placing restrictions on the restoration of French power in Indochina and urges dropping the insistence on a trusteeship there. Instead, U.S. policy should be directed at ensuring peace and stability in the region. The memorandum, however, calls for specific guarantees from France that it would permit the establishment of a government run by the Indochinese themselves. Prophetically, the memorandum warns that if France fails to adopt policies that have the real interests of the indigenous peoples of the region in mind, the result would be “substantial bloodshed and unrest for many years.”

Primary Source Subject: American Policy with Respect to Indochina General Observations 1. The Japanese aggression against the French in Indochina last month has brought about a marked increase in the number of proposals advanced by the French for the use of French forces and resources in the Pacific. 2. These proposals and recent military developments make it essential that the United States reach a definitive determination regarding its policy towards Indochina rather than, as heretofore considered, the disposition of Indochina a matter of postwar determination. 3. The joint State-War-Navy authorities have reached the decision that all American military efforts must be directed entirely to the major issue of defeating Japan in its homeland and that, for

1372

8. State Department Division of Far East Affairs: Draft Memorandum for President Harry S. Truman

military reasons, American troops should not be used or equipment needed in American operations be utilized for the liberation of Indochina. 4. It is established American policy to aid France to regain her strength in order that she may be better fitted to share responsibility in maintaining the peace of Europe—where her chief interests lie—and of the world. However, in pursuing this policy, the United States must not jeopardize its own increasingly important interests in Southeast Asia. 5. The United States Government has publicly taken the position that it recognizes the sovereign jurisdiction of France over French possessions overseas when those possessions are resisting the enemy, and has expressed the hope that it will see the reestablishment of the integrity of French territory. 6. Until the last few weeks the French administration of Indochina has collaborated with the Japanese in marked distinction to the administrations of colonial areas belonging to our other Allies. 7. President Roosevelt recognized the future increasing importance to the United States of Southeast Asia. He saw the necessity of aiding the 150,000,000 people there to achieve improved social, economic and political standards. He realized that dynamic forces leading toward self-government are growing in Asia; that the United States—as a great democracy—cannot and must not try to retard this development but rather act in harmony with it; and that social, economic or political instability in the area may threaten the peace and stability of the Far East and indeed the world. 8. As his solution of this problem, as it relates to Indochina, President Roosevelt long favored placing Indochina under a trusteeship. However, on April 3 1945, the Secretary of State with the approval of the President issued a statement relative to the plans approved at Yalta which would indicate that Indochina could come under the trusteeship structure only by voluntary action of the French. It is abundantly clear that there is no possibility at the present time or in the foreseeable future that France will volunteer to place Indochina under trusteeship, or consent to any program of international accountability which is not applied to the colonial possessions of other powers. If an effort were made to exert pressure on the French Government, such action would have to be taken by the United States alone for France could rely upon the support of other colonial powers, notably Great Britain and the Netherlands. 9. The prewar French administration in Indochina was the least satisfactory colonial administration in Asia, both as regards the development and interests of the native peoples and as regards

economic relations with other countries. Among the Annamites there is increasing opposition to French rule. The Chinese are giving active support to the independence movement. France will probably encounter serious difficulty in reimposing French control in Indochina. 10. If really liberal policies towards Indochina are not adopted by the French—policies which recognize the paramount interest of the native peoples and guarantee within the foreseeable future a genuine opportunity for true, autonomous self-government— there will be substantial bloodshed and unrest for many years, threatening the economic and social progress and the peace and stability of Southeast Asia. 11. On several occasions in the past few years, French authorities have issued policy statements on the future of Indochina. These show a growing trend toward greater autonomy for the French administration of Indochina, but even the recent statement of March 24 is vague and, when examined with care, indicates little intention of permitting genuine self-rule for the Indochinese. The change in French attitude towards Indochina is believed to have been occasioned by clearer realization of the anti-French sentiment among the Annamites and a belief that American approval of French restoration can be won only by a liberalization of its policies towards Indochina. 12. China is exercised at the economic stranglehold which France formerly exercised through control of the Yunan Railroad and the port of Haiphong, and is particularly perturbed at the danger to its southwest flank first made visible by the surrender of Indochina to the Japanese. 13. It is stated American policy that the cession of territory by Indochina to Thailand in 1941 is not recognized and that this territory must be returned to Indochina. This territory, however, had in earlier years been wrested by the French from Thailand and its inhabitants are culturally akin to the Thai. Similarly, parts of Laos are Thai in character. Whatever the legalistic background may be, the entire border region between Indochina and Thailand will be a source of potential conflict unless a fair and appropriate frontier is determined by an impartial international commission. The Thai Government will accept any frontier so determined. 14. It will be an American victory over Japan which will make possible the liberation of Indochina. We are fighting to assure peace and stability in the Far East, and will, in fact, bear the major responsibility for its maintenance after the war. Encouragement of and assistance to the peoples of Southeast Asia in developing autonomous, democratic self-rule in close, willing association with major Western powers would not only be in harmony with

9. Joseph Grew, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery in France 1373 political trends in that area, but would appear to be the one practical solution which will assure peace and stability in the Far East. If this policy is not followed, the millions who live in that area may well embrace ideologies contrary to our own—or ultimately develop a pan-Asiatic movement against the Western world. It is not unreasonable, therefore, for the United States to insist that the French give adequate assurances as to the implementing of policies in Indochina which we consider essential to assure peace and stability in the Far East. In the light of the above considerations, the following recommendations, which have been communicated to the War and Navy Departments for their comment, are submitted for your approval: 1. The Government of the United States should not seek a trusteeship, international or French, over Indochina, unless it seeks similar trusteeship by the British and Dutch over Burma and the Netherlands Indies, nor should the United States seek international accountability which is not sought for the adjacent colonial areas. It should not oppose restoration of Indochina to France, provided the French give adequate assurances that they will meet the following conditions: a. Development of a democratic national or federal government to be run for and increasingly by the Indochinese themselves with no special privileges for French or other persons who are not inhabitants and citizens of Indochina so that within the forseeable future Indochina may be fully self-governing and autonomous, except in matters of imperial concern in which Indochina should be a partner in the French Union. b. Maintenance of a policy of non-discriminatory treatment and of complete economic and commercial equality. c. Establishment of Haiphong as a free port with tax-free transit facilities between Haiphong and China. d. Acceptance of a frontier between Indochina and Thailand, to be determined by an impartial international commission. e. Acceptance of such international security arrangements, including American or international bases, as may be determined to be necessary for international security, including protection of China’s southwestern flank. 2. For the present, the policy of the United States with respect to the postwar status of Indochina should not be communicated to the Provincial French Government. 3. The French Provisional Government should be informed, confidentially, that owing to the need of concentrating all our resources in the Pacific on operations already planned, American military operations aimed directly at the liberation of Indochina cannot be contemplated until after the defeat of Japan, nor will it be possible

to make any commitments for the furnishing of military equipment or supplies to resistance groups in Indochina or to French military forces in the Asiatic theatres of war. 4. French officers of military and naval assistance in the Pacific should be accepted or rejected by the military authorities solely on their military merits as bearing upon the defeat of Japan, as in the case of British and Dutch proposals. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 13–17.

9. Joseph Grew, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery in France, May 9, 1945 Introduction In this telegram, U.S. acting secretary of state Joseph Grew discusses a meeting of the United Nations (UN) Conference on International Organization at San Francisco involving Secretary of State James Byrnes, French foreign minister Georges Bidault, and French ambassador to the United States Henri Bonnet. Byrnes informs Bidault and Bonnet that the United States will not insist on a trusteeship for Indochina, thus definitively reversing the stance taken by former president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Primary Source [Dated May 8, sent on May 9] The subject of Indo-China came up in a recent conversation I had with Bidault and Bonnet. The latter remarked that although the French Government interprets Mr. Welles’ statement of 1942 concerning the restoration of French sovereignty over the French Empire as including Indo-China, the press continues to imply that a special status will be reserved for this colonial area. It was made quite clear to Bidault that the record is entirely innocent of any official statement of this government questioning, even by implication, French sovereignty over Indo-China. Certain elements of American public opinion, however, condemned French governmental policies and practices in Indo-China. Bidault seemed relieved and has no doubt cabled Paris that he received renewed assurances of our recognition of French sovereignty over that area. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), 307.

1374

10. Joseph Grew, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley in Chungking, China

10. Joseph Grew, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley in Chungking, China, June 7, 1945 [Excerpt] Introduction Providing guidance to U.S. ambassador to China Patrick J. Hurley regarding U.S. policy toward Indochina, acting secretary of state Joseph Grew informs Hurley, who is in Chungking [Chongqing], that the United States will not seek a trusteeship over Indochina unless this has the support of the French government. At the same time, however, Grew states that the United States will insist that France create “increasing measures of self-government” for Indochina.

consent of the French Government. The latter seems unlikely. Nevertheless it is the President’s intention at some appropriate time to ask that the French Government give some positive indication of its intentions in regard to the establishment of civil liberties and increasing measures of self-government in Indochina before formulating further declarations of policy in this respect. . . . Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 30–31.

11. U.S. State Department: Paper on U.S. Postwar Policy toward Asia and the Pacific, June 22, 1945 [Excerpts]

Primary Source

Introduction

The President thanks you for your considered telegram in regard to the problems presented by the reestablishment of French control in Indochina and the British desire to reoccupy Hongkong and fully appreciates the difficulties in which you and General Wedemeyer may be placed on account of the lack of specific directives in respect to both of these problems which have been under careful study both here and in connection with the discussions at San Francisco.

Responding to a request from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson for a position paper on U.S. policy toward Indochina, the U.S. State Department seeks to balance the need to preserve close ties with France in order to secure that government’s postwar cooperation to preserve the peace in Europe with the oft-stated U.S. position that France must grant greater self-government to the peoples of Indochina. This position paper recognizes the likelihood of a violent struggle for independence against the French by Vietnamese nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh but notes that the United States had already recognized French sovereignty over Indochina.

I have also received your message No. 1548 of June 6 and regret that there has been delay in replying to your earlier one owing to the study which has been required of these matters in connection with present developments at the Conference. The President has asked me to say that there has been no basic change in the policy in respect to these two questions and that the present position is as follows:

Primary Source An Estimate of Conditions in Asia and the Pacific at the Close of the War in the Far East and the Objectives and Policies of the United States I. Introduction

The President assumes that you are familiar with the statement made by the Secretary of State on April 3, 1945 with the approval of President Roosevelt in which Mr. Stettinius declared that as a result of the Yalta discussions the “trusteeship structure, it was felt, should be defined to permit the placing under it of such of the territories taken from the enemy in this war, as might be agreed upon at a later date, and also such other territories as might voluntarily be placed under trusteeship”. The position thus publicly announced has been confirmed by the conversations which are now taking place in San Francisco in regard to trusteeships. Throughout these discussions the American delegation has insisted upon the necessity of providing for a progressive measure of self-government for all dependent peoples looking toward their eventual independence or incorporation in some form of federation, according to circumstances and the ability of the peoples to assume these responsibilities. Such decisions would preclude the establishment of a trusteeship in Indochina except with the

[. . .] Aside from the traditional American belief in the right of all peoples to independence, the largest possible measure of political freedom for the countries of Asia consistent with their ability to assume the responsibility thereof is probably necessary in order to achieve the chief objective of the United States in the Far East and the Pacific: continuing peace and security. Another condition on which peace and security depend is cooperation among the peace-minded states of the world. One of the foremost policies of the United States is to maintain the unity of purpose and action of all the United Nations, especially of the leading powers. Two of these leading powers are Great Britain and France, each of which has dependencies in the Far East in which there is an insistent demand for a greater measure

11. U.S. State Department: Paper on U.S. Postwar Policy toward Asia and the Pacific 1375 of self-government than the parent states have yet been willing to grant. A problem for the United States is to harmonize, so far as possible, its policies in regard to the two objectives: increased political freedom for the Far East and the maintenance of the unity of the leading United Nations in meeting this problem. The United States Government may properly continue to state the political principle which it has frequently announced, that dependent peoples should be given the opportunity, if necessary after an adequate period of preparation, to achieve an increased measure of self-government, but it should avoid any course of action which would seriously impair the unity of the major United Nations. The United States, also, may utilize either the force of its example or its influence or both. Its treatment of the Philippines has earned a rich reward for this country in the attitude and conduct of both the Filipinos and the nationals of other Far Eastern states. The American Government influenced the British Government to take parallel action with it in the renunciation of extraterritoriality and other exceptional rights in China. The solution which would best harmonize these two policies of the United States would be a Far East progressively developing into a group of self-governing states—independent or with Dominion status—which would cooperate with each other and with the Western powers on a basis of mutual self-respect and friendship. The interests of the United States and of its European Allies require that the Far East be removed as a source of colonial rivalry and conflict, not only between the Great Powers, but between the Great Powers and the peoples of Asia. [. . .]

fight. It is believed that the French will encounter serious difficulty in overcoming this opposition and in reestablishing French control. What effect the Japanese declarations of independence for Annam, Cambodia, and Luang Prabang will have in the period immediately following the war cannot be estimated at this time, but clearly these declarations will make the French problem more difficult. The French government recognizes that it will have very serious difficulties in reestablishing and maintaining its control in Indochina, and its several statements regarding the future of that country show an increasing trend toward autonomy for the French administration. Even the latest statement, however, shows little intention to give the Indochinese self-government. An increased measure of self-government would seem essential if the Indochinese are to be reconciled to continued French control. 2. Economic Economically, Indochina has so far suffered least of all the countries involved in the war in the Far East. Bombing and fighting before the close of the war will probably, however, have resulted in the destruction of some of its railway system, key bridges, harbor installations, and the more important industrial and power plants. This will probably intensify already existing food shortages in the north and lack of consumer goods throughout the area. Pre-war French policies involved economic exploitation of the colony for France. Indochina had to buy dear in the high, protected market of France and sell cheap in the unprotected markets of other nations. The French realize that this economic policy, which was very detrimental to Indochina, must be changed. They have pledged tariff autonomy and equality of tariff rates for other countries. There is no indication, however, that the French intend to pursue an open-door economic policy.

V. French Indochina B. International Relations A. Estimate of Conditions at the End of the War 1. Political At the end of the war, political conditions in Indochina, and especially in the north, will probably be particularly unstable. The Indochinese independence groups, which may have been working against the Japanese, will quite possibly oppose the restoration of French control. Independence sentiment in the area is believed to be increasingly strong. The Indochinese Independence League, representing some ten different native political groups, is thought to carry substantial influence with between one-quarter and onehalf million persons. The serious 1930 insurrection, in which over 100,000 peasants actively participated, and similar insurrections which took place in the fall of 1940 indicate that the supporters of independence are neither apathetic nor supine and are willing to

French policy toward Indochina will be dominated by the desire to reestablish control in order to reassert her prestige in the world as a great power. This purpose will be augmented by the potent influence of the Banque de l’Indochine and other economic interests. Many French appear to recognize that it may be necessary for them to make further concessions to Indochinese self-government and autonomy primarily to assure native support but also to avoid unfriendly United States opinion. Chief French reliance, however, will continue to be placed upon the United Kingdom, which is almost as anxious as the French to see that no pre-war colonial power suffers diminution of power or prestige. Friction between France and China over Indochina will probably continue. The Chinese government, at least tacitly, is supporting the Independence League and is thought by the French, despite the Generalissimo’s disclaimer of territorial ambitions, to desire to dominate, if not

1376

12. President Harry S. Truman: Telegram to Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi

annex, northern Indochina. French economic policies interfered with all nations trading with China through its access to the sea at Haiphong. China particularly will look for a complete reversal of French policy in this respect.

1. At the Potsdam Conference the Prime Minister of Great Britain and I, in consultation with the Combined Chiefs of Staff, have had under consideration future military operations in SouthEast Asia.

The Thai consider the territory acquired from Indochina in 1941 as theirs by legal and historic right, but they have indicated they will accept any border determined by an Anglo-American commission. The French consider the territory theirs and there will doubtless be border conflict unless a fair settlement is reached which eliminates causes for serious discontent.

2. On the advice of the Combined Chiefs of Staff we have reached the conclusion that for operational purposes it is desirable to include that portion of French Indo-China lying south of 160 north latitude in the Southeast Asia Command. This arrangement would leave in the China Theater that part of Indo-China which covers the flank of projected Chinese operations in China and would at the same time enable Admiral Mountbatten to develop operations in the southern half of Indo-China.

C. United States Policy The United States recognizes French sovereignty over Indochina. It is, however, the general policy of the United States to favor a policy which would allow colonial peoples an opportunity to prepare themselves for increased participation in their own government with eventual self-government as the goal. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), 557–558, 567–568.

12. President Harry S. Truman: Telegram to Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi, Transmitted via Ambassador to China Patrick J. Hurley, August 1, 1945 Introduction At the end of World War II there were perhaps 70,000 Japanese troops in Indochina. During July 16–August 2, 1945, in Potsdam, Germany, the leaders of the Big Three Allied powers held their last summit conference of World War II. There British prime minister Clement Atlee and U.S. president Harry S. Truman agreed to establish a line at the 16th Parallel north latitude for the purposes of the surrender of Japanese forces in Indochina. In March 1945 the Japanese, aware of French plans for a coup d’état to restore their authority, had arrested all French administrators and French Army forces they could find and put them in prison camps. A Japanese surrender would thus create a political vacuum in Vietnam. According to the Potsdam Agreement on Indochina, Chinese forces were to occupy territory north of the 16th Parallel, while British imperial forces would take the Japanese surrender south of it. This decision had profound implications for the course of events in Vietnam.

3. I greatly hope that the above conclusions will recommend themselves to Your Excellency and that, for the purpose of facilitating operations against the common enemy, Your Excellency will feel able to concur in the proposed arrangements. 4. I understand that the Prime Minister of Great Britain is addressing a communication to Your Excellency in a similar sense. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers; The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), 1321.

13. Abdication of Emperor Bao Dai of Annam, August 1945 Introduction The last of the Nguyen dynasty emperors, Bao Dai (1913–1997) was educated in France and crowned emperor in 1926, although the French did not allow him to return to Vietnam until 1932. Initially enthusiastic about his role and attempting to introduce reforms, Bao Dai soon discovered that he was hamstrung by the French authorities and had little power. Disillusioned, he gave himself over to the pursuit of pleasure. Bao Dai cooperated with the Japanese during their occupation in World War II and in March 1945, at their behest, declared independence. Although he tried to govern, the Viet Minh seized power in northern Vietnam. Recognizing the inevitable, Bao Dai abdicated on August 25, becoming First Citizen Vinh Thuy. Elected to the new Viet Minh legislature, he soon became disillusioned with Communist control and departed his homeland for self-imposed exile in France.

Primary Source

Primary Source

The happiness of the people of Vietnam!

Please deliver the following message from me to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi].

The Independence of Vietnam!

14. Vietnamese Declaration of Independence To achieve these ends, we have declared ourself ready for any sacrifice and we desire that our sacrifice be useful to the people.

14. Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, September 2, 1945

Considering that the unity of all our compatriots is at this time our country’s need, we recalled to our people on August 22: “In this decisive hour of our national history, union means life and division means death.”

Introduction

In view of the powerful democratic spirit growing in the north of our kingdom, we feared that conflict between north and south could be inevitable if we were to wait for a National Congress to decide for us, and we know that this conflict, if it occurred, would plunge our people into suffering and would play the game of the invaders. We cannot but have a certain feeling of melancholy upon thinking of our glorious ancestors who fought without respite for 400 years to aggrandise our country from Thuan- hoa to Ha-tien. Despite this, and strong in our convictions, we have decided to abdicate and we transfer power to the democratic Republican Government. Upon leaving our throne, we have only three wishes to express: 1. We request that the new Government take care of the dynastic temples and royal tombs. 2. We request the new Government to deal fraternally with all the parties and groups which have fought for the independence of our country even though they have not closely followed the popular movement; to do this in order to give them the opportunity to participate in the reconstruction of the country, and to demonstrate that the new regime is built upon the absolute union of the entire population. 3. We invite all parties and groups, all classes of society, as well as the royal family, to solidarize in unreserved support of the democratic Government with a view to consolidating the national independence. As for us, during twenty years’ reign, we have known much bitterness. Henceforth, we shall be happy to be a free citizen in an independent country. We shall allow no one to abuse our name or the name of the royal family in order to sow dissent among our compatriots. Long live the independence of Vietnam! Long live our Democratic Republic! Source: Harold R. Isaacs, ed., New Cycle in Asia (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 161–162.

1377

In March 1945 the Japanese arrested French officials and the vast bulk of the French military throughout Indochina. Thus, on August 14 when Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, there was a vacuum in Vietnam into which Nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh Nationalist/Communist organization now moved. On August 16 in Hanoi, Ho declared himself president of the provisional government of a “free Vietnam,” and three days later the Viet Minh seized power in Hanoi. Emperor Bao Dai abdicated on August 25, and on September 2 in Hanoi Ho publicly announced the formation of a “Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam” with its capital at Hanoi. Then, in a clear bid to widen his base at home and win Western support abroad, on November 11 Ho dissolved the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP).

Primary Source “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free. The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.” Those are undeniable truths. Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow-citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice. In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty. They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united. They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots, they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood.

1378

15. Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Charge Walter Robertson in China

They have fettered public opinion, they have practiced obscurantism against our people.

The truth is that we have wrested our independence from the Japanese and not from the French.

To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.

The French have fled, the Japanese have capitulated, Emperor Bao Dai has abdicated. Our people have broken the chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have independence for the Fatherland. Our people at the same time have overthrown the monarchic regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of centuries. In its place has been established the present Democratic Republic.

In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people, and devastated our land. They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of banknotes and the export trade. They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty. They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers. In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese Fascists violated Indochina’s territory to establish new bases in their fight against the Allies, the French imperialists went down on their bended knees and handed over our country to them. Thus, from that date, our people were subjected to the double yoke of the French and the Japanese. Their sufferings and miseries increased. The result was that from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, from Quang Tri Province to the North of Vietnam, more than two million of our fellow-citizens died from starvation. On March 9, the French troops were disarmed by the Japanese. The French colonialists either fled or surrendered showing that not only were they incapable of “protecting” us, but that, in the span of five years, they had twice sold our country to the Japanese. On several occasions before March 9, the Viet Minh League urged the French to ally themselves with it against the Japanese. Instead of agreeing to this proposal, the French colonialists so intensified their terrorist activities against the Viet Minh members that before fleeing they massacred a great number of our political prisoners detained at Yen Bay and Cao Bang. Notwithstanding all this, our fellow citizens have always manifested toward the French a tolerant and humane attitude. Even after the Japanese Putsch of March, 1945, the Viet Minh League helped many Frenchmen to cross the frontier, rescued some of them from Japanese jails, and protected French lives and property. From the autumn of 1940, our country had in fact ceased to be a French colony and had become a Japanese possession. After the Japanese had surrendered to the Allies, our whole people rose to regain our national sovereignty and to found the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government, representing the whole Vietnamese people, declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France; we repeal all the international obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of Viet-Nam, and we abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our Fatherland. The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country. We are convinced that the Allied nations, which at Teheran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Viet-Nam. A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent. For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, solemnly declare to the world that Viet-Nam has the right to be a free and independent country—and in fact it is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty. Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works, Vol. 3 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960–62), 17–21.

15. Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Charge Walter Robertson in China, October 5, 1945 Introduction With the end of World War II, the U.S. government found itself caught between a rock and a hard place regarding the unfolding

17. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes 1379 situation in Indochina. In this first official statement of policy by the Harry S. Truman administration after Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson in October 1945 restates the U.S. position of the previous August that the United States does not dispute French sovereignty over Vietnam but will not assist France’s reestablishment militarily. He also states that the American position will be conditioned by whether the Vietnamese support French sovereignty.

Primary Source US has no thought of opposing the reestablishment of French control in Indochina and no official statement by US Govt has questioned even by implication French sovereignty over Indochina. However, it is not the policy of this Govt to assist the French to reestablish their control over Indochina by force and the willingness of the US to see French control reestablished assumes that French claim to have the support of the population of Indochina is borne out by future events. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 49.

16. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to President Harry S. Truman, October 17, 1945 Introduction New president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) Ho Chi Minh found himself in a difficult position. The North Vietnamese government desperately needed both diplomatic support and capital. With the Soviet Union in no position to provide financial assistance, Ho turned to the United States. Using legalistic arguments, he presented the case to U.S. president Harry S. Truman that North Vietnam rather than France should be represented on the United Nations (UN) Advisory Commission for the Far East. In a clear bid to win Western support as well as to increase his base of support at home, on November 11, 1945, Ho dissolved the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). How sincere Ho, the veteran Communist, was about this has been a matter of considerable debate. Regardless, he never received an answer to his letter of October 17 and subsequent appeals to Truman and other U.S. officials for a meeting with the American president.

Primary Source Establishment of Advisory Commission for the Far East is heartily welcomed by Vietnamese people in principle. Taking into consideration primo the strategical and economical importance of Vietnam secundo the earnest desire which Vietnam deeply feels and has unanimously manifested to cooperate with the other democracies in the establishment and consolidation of world peace and

prosperity we wish to call the attention of the Allied nations on the following points: First absence of Vietnam and presence of France in the Advisory Commission leads to the conclusion that France is to represent the Vietnamese people at the Commission. Such representation is groundless either de jure or defacto. De jure no alliance exists any more between France and Vietnam: Baodai abolished treaties of 1884 and 1863 comma, Baodai voluntarily abdicated to hand over government to Democratic Republican Government, Provisional Government rectorated [sic] abolishment of treaties of 1884 and 1863. De facto since March ninth France having handed over governing rule to Japan has broken all administrative links with Vietnam, since August 18, 1945, Provisional Government has been a de facto independent government in every respect, recent incidents in Saigon instigated by the French roused unanimous disapproval leading to fight for independence. Second France is not entitled because she had ignominiously sold Indo China to Japan and betrayed the Allies. Third Vietnam is qualified by Atlantic Charter and subsequent peace agreement and by her goodwill and her unflinching stand for democracy to be represented at the Advisory Commission. We are convinced that Vietnam at Commission will be able to bring effective contribution to solution of pending problems in Far East whereas her absence would bring forth unstability [sic] and temporary character to solutions otherwise reached. Therefore we express earnest request to take part in Advisory Commission for Far East. We should be very grateful to your excellency and Premier Attlee Premier Stalin Generalissimo Tchang Kai Shek for the conveyance of our desiderata to the United Nations. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), C73–C74.

17. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, October 22, 1945 [Excerpts] Introduction Acting in accordance with the agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference regarding the surrender of Japanese forces in Indochina, the British dispatched to Vietnam south of the 16th Parallel some 5,000 troops of the 20th Indian Division. At the same time, the nationalist Viet Minh hoped to add southern Vietnam to the northern part of the country, now controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). On August 29, 1945, the Viet Minh leader in the south, Tran Van Giau, led

1380

18. Ho Chi Minh: Speech on the Resistance War in Southern Vietnam

an insurrection against French rule in which atrocities were committed against French nationals, including the murders of women and children. On his own initiative, Major General Douglas Gracey, the commander of the 20th Division who detested the Viet Minh, rearmed French soldiers who had been imprisoned by the Japanese. French, British, and Japanese troops then crushed Viet Minh resistance in Saigon. In this letter to U.S. secretary of state James F. Byrnes, North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh calls for immediate United Nations (UN) intervention to halt the violence in southern Vietnam, which he claims has reached the “critical stage,” and makes the case for a united, independent Vietnam.

Primary Source Excellency: The situation in South Vietnam has reached its critical stage, and calls for immediate interference on the part of the United Nations. I wish by the present letter to bring your excellency some more light on the case of Vietnam which has come for the last three weeks into the international limelight. . . . After 80 years of French oppression and unsuccessful though obstinate Vietnamese resistance, we at last saw France defeated in Europe, then her betrayal of the Allies successively on behalf of Germany and of Japan. Though the odds were at that time against the Allies, the Vietnamese, leaving aside all differences in political opinion, united in the Vietminh League and started on a ruthless fight against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Charter was concluded, defining the war aims of the Allies and laying the foundation of peace-work. The noble principles of international justice and equality of status laid down in that charter strongly appealed to the Vietnamese and contributed in making of the Vietminh resistance in the war zone a nation-wide anti-Japanese movement which found a powerful echo in the democratic aspirations of the people. The Atlantic Charter was looked upon as the foundation of future Vietnam. A nation-building program was drafted which was later found in keeping with San Francisco Charter and which has been fully carried out these last years: continuous fight against the Japanese bringing about the recovery of national independence on August 19th, voluntary abdication of Ex-Emperor Baodai, establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, assistance given to the Allied Nations in the disarmament of the Japanese, appointment of a provisional Government whose mission was to carry out the Atlantic and San Francisco Charters and have them carried out by other nations. As a matter of fact, the carrying out of the Atlantic and San Francisco Charters implies the eradication of imperialism and all forms of colonial oppression. This was unfortunately contrary to the interests of some Frenchmen, and France, to whom the colonists have long concealed the truth on Indochina, instead of entering into peaceable negotiations, resorted to an aggressive invasion, with all the means at the command of a modern nation. Moreover, having persuaded the British that the Vietnamese are wishing for

a return of the French rule, they obtained, first from the British command in Southeast Asia, then from London, a tacit recognition of their sovereignty and administrative responsibility as far as South Vietnam is concerned. The British gave to understand that they had agreed to this on the ground that the reestablishment of French administration and, consequently, of Franco-Vietnamese collaboration would help them to speed up the demobilization and the disarmament of the Japanese. But subsequent events will prove the fallacy of the argument. The whole Vietnamese nation rose up as one man against French aggression. The first hours of September 23rd soon developed into real and organized warfare in which losses are heavy on both sides. The bringing in of French important reinforcements on board of the most powerful of their remaining warships will extend the war zone further. As murderous fighting is still going on in Indonesia, and as savage acts on the part of Frenchmen are reported every day, we may expect the flaring up of a general conflagration in the Far-East. As it is, the situation in South Vietnam calls for immediate interference. The establishment of the Consultative Commission for the Far-East has been enthusiastically welcomed here as the first effective step toward an equitable settlement of the pending problems. The people of Vietnam . . . only asks for full independence and for the respect of truth and justice. . . . Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), C80–C81.

18. Ho Chi Minh: Speech on the Resistance War in Southern Vietnam, November 1945 Introduction Acting in accordance with the agreement reached at the earlier Potsdam Conference, the Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) government of China dispatched 150,000–200,000 men into Vietnam to take the surrender of Japanese troops north of the 16th Parallel. The Chinese proceeded to bleed the region of much of its resources, but the new government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was able to buy off the Chinese, specifically General Lu Han and his staff, and in the process secured some weapons. At the same time, the North Vietnamese leaders gave full support to the Viet Minh effort in southern Vietnam to bring it into the fold. Fighting occurred in many places in southern Vietnam between the Viet Minh on the one hand and British, French, and even Japanese troops on the other. In this November 1945 speech, North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh seeks to rally all Vietnamese behind the southern resistance movement.

19. Ho Chi Minh: Declaration of the Policy of the Provisional Coalition Government 1381

Primary Source Compatriots! During the Second World War, the French colonialists twice sold out our country to the Japanese. Thus they betrayed the Allied nations, and helped the Japanese to cause the latter many losses. Meanwhile they also betrayed our people, exposing us to the destruction of bombs and bullets. In this way, the French colonialists withdrew of their own accord from the Allied ranks and tore up the treaties they had earlier compelled us to sign. Notwithstanding the French colonialists’ treachery, our people as a whole are determined to side with the Allies and oppose the invaders. When the Japanese surrendered, our entire people single-mindedly changed our country into a Democratic Republic and elected a provisional Government which is to prepare for a national congress and draw up our draft Constitution.

Compatriots throughout the country! Those in the South will do their utmost to resist the enemy. Those in the Centre and the North will endeavour to help their southern compatriots, and be on the alert. The French colonialists should know that the Vietnamese people do not want bloodshed, that they love peace. But we are determined to sacrifice even millions of combatants, and fight a long-term war of resistance in order to safeguard Viet Nam’s independence and free her children from slavery. We are sure that our war of resistance will be victorious! Let the whole country be determined in the war of resistance! Long live independent Viet Nam! Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works, Vol. 3 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960–62), 48–49.

Not only is our act in line with the Atlantic and San Francisco Charters, etc. solemnly proclaimed by the Allies, but it entirely conforms with the glorious principles upheld by the French people, viz. Freedom, Equality and Fraternity.

19. Ho Chi Minh: Declaration of the Policy of the Provisional Coalition Government, January 1, 1946

It is thus clear that in the past the colonialists betrayed the Allies and our country, and surrendered to the Japanese. At present, in the shadow of the British and Indian troops, and behind the Japanese soldiers, they are attacking the South of our country.

Introduction

They have sabotaged the peace that China, the United States, Britain and Russia won at the cost of scores of millions of lives. They have run counter to the promises concerning democracy and liberty that the Allied powers have proclaimed. They have of their own accord sabotaged their fathers’ principles of liberty and equality. In consequence, it is for a just cause, for justice of the world, and for Viet Nam’s land and people that our compatriots throughout the country have risen to struggle, and are firmly determined to maintain their independence. We do not hate the French people and France. We are energetically fighting slavery, and the ruthless policy of the French colonialists. We are not invading another’s country. We only safeguard our own against the French invaders. Hence we are not alone. The countries which love peace and democracy, and the weaker nations all over the world, all sympathize with us. With the unity of the whole people within the country, and having many sympathizers abroad, we are sure of victory. The French colonialists have behaved lawlessly in the South for almost one and a half months. Our southern compatriots have sacrificed their lives in a most valiant struggle. Public opinion in the great countries: China, the United States, Russia and Britain, has supported our just cause.

Still in the hopes of securing recognition and aid from the United States, the new government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) remained a coalition in name but was in fact controlled by the Communists. Here North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh stresses the coalition nature of the government and enumerates domestic and foreign policy goals. These include friendly relations with all countries (he especially singles out China) and opposition only to those French who seek to reestablish colonial control. Ho pledges to protect the lives and property of those who do not threaten Vietnamese independence.

Primary Source With a view to winning complete independence and bringing about a close cooperation between the various political parties to further strengthen the Government, it is now named the Provisional Coalition Government. At this moment, if the parties unite together, the Government can overcome difficulties. All the Vietnamese people want the Provisional Government to hold office until the election of the National Assembly, which will change it into a definite Government. Meanwhile, the Provisional Coalition Government will discuss the following practical questions: HOME POLICY Political objectives: to carry out satisfactorily the general elections throughout the country; to unify the various administrative organs according to democratic principles.

1382

20. Preliminary Franco–Viet Minh Convention

Economic objectives: to endeavor to develop agriculture; to encourage cultivation and stock-breeding in order to check famine. Military objectives: to unify the various armed forces under the command of the Government. Parties are not allowed to have armies of their own. Cultural objectives: to give aid to various cultural organs. In short, in home policy, the Government must exert itself politically to unify the country, and intensify production in order to cope with famine and foreign invasion. FOREIGN POLICY Objectives: to induce other countries to recognize Viet-Nam’s independence; to have friendly relations with foreign residents of Viet-Nam, particularly the Chinese. With regard to the Frenchmen, we only fight the colonialists. As for those who do not seek to prejudice our independence, we will protect their lives and property. Such is the policy of the Provisional Coalition Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. I hope that the entire people will support it to enable the Government to succeed. Long live independent Viet-Nam! Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 160–161.

20. Preliminary Franco–Viet Minh Convention, March 6, 1946 [Excerpts] Introduction On February 28, 1946, the governments of France and Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) China reached agreement whereby the Chinese would withdraw from Vietnam north of the 16th Parallel in return for yielding certain concessions in China. The Chinese departed in March 1946, and with U.S. and Soviet support for the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) not forthcoming, President Ho Chi Minh had no alternative but to deal with France, which was now steadily augmenting its troop strength in Indochina. The result was the agreement of March 6, 1946, between Ho and French diplomatic representative Jean Sainteny. In it, France recognizes North Vietnam as a “free state” with its own institutions and as “part of the Indo-Chinese Federation of the French Union.” In a key provision, France also agrees to the holding of a referendum in southern Vietnam to see if it wanted to join the North Vietnamese government in a unified state, although no date for the vote is specified. In a supplemental

agreement, France is allowed to introduce 15,000 French and 10,000 Vietnamese troops under unified French command ostensibly to protect French lives and property. The French government promises to withdraw 3,000 of them each year, with all to be gone by the end of 1951 with the possible exception of those guarding bases. France also agrees to train and equip units of the new Vietnamese Army. Had the Ho-Sainteny Agreement been allowed to stand, the Indochina War and the Vietnam War would not have occurred.

Primary Source 1. The French Government recognizes the Vietnamese Republic as a Free State having its own Government, its own Parliament, its own Army, and its own Finances, forming part of the Indochinese Federation and of the French Union. . . . 2. The Vietnamese Government declares itself ready to welcome amicably the French Army when, conforming to international agreements, it relieves the Chinese Troops. . . . 3. The stipulations formulated above will immediately enter into force. Immediately after the exchange of signatures, each of the High Contracting Parties will take all measures necessary to stop hostilities in the field, to maintain the troops in their respective positions, and to create the favorable atmosphere necessary to the immediate opening of friendly and sincere negotiations. These negotiations will deal particularly with: a. diplomatic relations of Viet-nam with Foreign States b. the future law of Indochina c. French interests, economic and cultural in Viet-nam Hanoi, Saigon or Paris may be chosen as the seat of the conference. Signed: Sainteny Signed: Ho-chi Minh and Vu Hong Khanh Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 1. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 18–19.

21. James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State: Note to French Ambassador Henri Bonnet, April 12, 1946 Introduction In this note from U.S. secretary of state James Byrnes to French ambassador Henri Bonnet, Byrnes removes the caveat by Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson in October 1945 that the U.S.

22. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Compatriots in Nam Bo position regarding the restoration of French sovereignty in Indochina would depend on whether the indigenous population supported it. The note also ignores the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of the previous month in which France agreed to recognize Vietnam as a “free state.”

Primary Source The Secretary of State presents his compliments to His Excellency the French Ambassador and has the honor to refer to the Ambassador’s note no. 167 of March 7, 1946, enclosing a copy of the Franco-Chinese Agreement with regard to the relief of Chinese forces in northern Indo-China by French forces and requesting the approval of the Combined Chiefs of Staff thereto. The Secretary of State is pleased to inform the Ambassador that the Combined Chiefs of Staff have no objection to the relief of Chinese troops in northern French Indo-China by French forces, since they consider that such arrangements are a matter for determination by the Governments of France and China. Since the Franco-Chinese agreement completes the reversion of all Indo-China to French control, the Combined Chiefs of Staff consider that the French military commander in Indo-China should act as a medium for the French Government for coordination with the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on matters relating to the repatriation of Japanese from Indo-China, and that the Chinese Supreme Commander and Admiral Mountbatten should be relieved of their duties and responsibilities for disarmament and evacuation of Japanese in Indo-China. Current repatriation schedules envisage the completion of the evacuation of the Japanese from northern Indo-China by April 15. The Combined Chiefs of Staff consider that it is most desirable to have the French commander in Indo-China conform to present schedules. Accordingly, Admiral Mountbatten has been directed to make the necessary arrangements with the French military commander in Indo-China regarding the transfer of his share of the abovementioned responsibility at the earliest possible date. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers and the appropriate Chinese authorities have been informed of the Combined Chiefs of Staff action on this matter.

1383

22. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Compatriots in Nam Bo, May 31, 1946 Introduction Under terms of the Ho-Sainteny Agreement, French troops returned to Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh now led a Vietnamese delegation to France to negotiate implementation of the agreement. Before departing, he addressed a letter to those living in southern Vietnam. In it he pledges to secure the unity of Vietnam and urges them to be generous to those who might oppose unification with North Vietnam. Nothing was accomplished at the Fontainebleau Conference, however, and on June 1 just after Ho’s departure for France, on his own initiative French high commissioner in Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu torpedoed Sainteny’s work by proclaiming in Saigon the establishment of the “Republic of Cochinchina.” With an “independent” Republic of Cochin China there would be no need of a plebiscite in southern Vietnam.

Primary Source Dear fellow-countrymen in Nam Bo, The news of my going to France with a delegation for official negotiation has caused concern to our people, especially in Nam Bo. What does the future hold for Nam Bo? Please, don’t worry. I pledge my word that Ho Chi Minh will never sell his country. You in Nam Bo have been fighting self-sacrificingly for many months now to safeguard the territorial integrity of Viet Nam; for this, our entire people are grateful to you. You in Nam Bo are citizens of Viet Nam. Rivers may dry up, mountains may erode; but this truth can never change. I advise you to unite closely and broadly. The five fingers are of unequal length but they are united in the hand. The millions of our fellow-countrymen are not all alike; but they are descended from the same ancestors. We must therefore be generous and broadminded and admit the fact that the offspring of the Lac and the Hong are all more or less patriotic. With regard to those who have gone astray, we must use friendly persuasion. Only in this way can we achieve unity, and broad unity will bring us a bright future.

It is understood that a memorandum has been addressed directly to the French Military Attaché to the United States informing him of the above and requesting that appropriate instructions be issued to the French military commander in Indo-China.

Through this short message written before my departure, I wish to convey my cordial greetings to all of you, dear fellow-countrymen in Nam Bo.

Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 64–65.

Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 66–67.

1384

23. Ho Chi Minh: Reply at Luncheon Given by French Premier Georges Bidault

23. Ho Chi Minh: Reply at Luncheon Given by French Premier Georges Bidault, July 2, 1946 Introduction In June 1946 Ho Chi Minh, president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), led a delegation to France to discuss implementation of the March 6 Ho-Sainteny Agreement. The French government having fallen, it was weeks before this Fontainebleau Conference could commence, so Ho traveled in France. In these remarks in an official French government luncheon in his honor, he invokes French history, including the ideals enshrined by the French Revolution of 1789, and expresses hopes for a fruitful partnership between the North Vietnamese government and France within the framework of the French Union.

Primary Source The reception given me by the French people and Government has moved me to my innermost heart. Please convey to the French Government and people the sincere thanks of the Vietnamese people for the sympathy and friendliness the French people and Government have expressed to me. Before officially greeting the French Government, I had the opportunity to visit the Basque provinces, a very beautiful region of France. The contact with the Basques taught me many lessons. While maintaining their peculiarities, dialect, and customs, the Basque people continue to be French citizens. Though France has many provinces which differ from each other, it remains unified and indivisible. In the future, the French Union will astonish the world with its solidarity and unity. The French Union that we will establish on a democratic basis can be set up only under a good omen. It is here in Paris, a heroic and generous city which proclaimed the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, a city which has the tradition to champion the equality of other peoples, it is in this very city that I solemnly declare that Viet-Nam will join this humanitarian organization. Paris is the city which discovered the eternal ideals for the 1789 Revolution; it has remained loyal to its ideals in the bloodshed between the democratic and fascist blocs. Paris has made no small contribution to the concord of Viet-Nam and France within the French Union including free and equal nations which cherish the same democratic ideals and are all for freedom. It is here in Paris that Viet-Nam will step forward to the path of independence. I am convinced that it will not be long before independent Viet-Nam plays its worthy role in the Pacific. No doubt many difficulties are awaiting the Fontainebleau Conference which has the responsibility to lay down the foundation for the relations between new France and new Viet-Nam. But sincerity and mutual confidence will level all obstacles. Have we not done away with aggressive imperialism and narrow chauvinism which

are no longer fit for the present world? We are all stimulated by the same spirit. The Confucian philosophy and the Western philosophy alike uphold an ethic principle which is “Do as you would be done by.” I believe that in those conditions, the forthcoming conference will achieve satisfactory results. Mr. Prime Minister, I believe that the sincere and friendly cooperation between our two countries will be a great example for the world to realize that with mutual confidence, free and equal nations can always solve the most difficult problems. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to propose a toast in honor of the Prime Minister and members of the French Government. Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 166–167.

24. Abbot L. Moffat, Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs: Memorandum to John Carter Vincent, Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, August 9, 1946 Introduction In this memorandum, chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs Abbot L. Moffat discusses recent developments in French policy toward Indochina, specifically suspension of the Fontainebleau Conference in France and the French government’s torpedoing of the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of March 1946 to include the establishment of a “Republic of Cochinchina” and the convening of a conference at Dalat on August 1 with representatives of the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, the Republic of Cochin China, and minorities within southern Vietnam. He also notes fighting between “Annamese” and French forces.

Primary Source Recent developments indicate that the French are moving to regain a large measure of their control of Indochina in violation of the spirit of the, March 6 convention. The evidence, as set forth below, suggests that the French are attempting to gain their objective by manoeuvres designed to confine and weaken Viet Nam. In. the event that Viet Nam decides to resist these encroachments, which is by no means unlikely, widespread hostilities may result. The chief opposition to the reestablishment of French rule in Indochina has all along come from the Annamese, who inhabit the three east coastal provinces of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, which once comprised the Kingdom of Annam. The populations of the other two countries of Indochina—Cambodia and Laos—are

24. Abbot L. Moffat, Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs: Memorandum to John Carter Vincent 1385 not in a high state of political development or in any condition seriously to resist French control. A modus vivendi between the French and the Annamese was achieved in the preliminary convention of March 6, 1946, by which the Annamese “Republic of Viet Nam” was recognized as a free state within the Indochinese Federation and the Viet Nam Government declared its readiness to receive the French Army. The convention left for future settlement two crucial problems: the status of Viet Nam in its external relations, and the geographical extent of Viet Nam. On the former point, the provisional agreement stated that “each contracting party will take all necessary measures to create the favorable atmosphere necessary for an immediate opening of amicable and free negotiations. These negotiations will bear particularly upon diplomatic relations between the Viet Nam and foreign states, the future status of Indochina, French economic and cultural interests in Viet Nam.” On the latter point the agreement stated that “with respect to the bringing together of the three (provinces), the French Government pledges itself to ratify the decisions taken by the populations consulted by referendum.” The crux of the present situation lies in the apparent intention of the French to settle both matters to their own advantage and without reference to Viet Nam. The hostility of the Annamese toward the French began to mount to its present intensity when the French on June 1 announced the inauguration of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Cochinchina. Annamese leaders had long emphasized their view that the inclusion of Cochinchina in Viet Nam was a matter of life and death to their country. Cochinchina, it may be mentioned, contains the important mercantile cities of Saigon and Cholon, includes the mouths of the Mekong, and is the richest province in Indochina. Called the Southern Province by the Viet Namese, it is racially indistinct from Tonkin and Annam. Statements by the French that the referendum in Cochinchina (as pledged in the March 6 convention) would still be held failed to reassure Viet Nam leaders, who pointed out that such a referendum could not possibly be fair owing to the suppression by the French of pro–Viet Nam political parties and of all anti-French opinion. SEA’s information tends to substantiate this point of view. Tension between the French and the Amnamese reached its present pitch when the French on August 1 convened a conference at Dalat (in southern Annam) to which the Royal Governments of Cambodia and Laos, the Government of the autonomous Republic of Cochinchina, and the native peoples of southern Annam and high plateau of Indochina (but not Viet Nam, recognized by the French as part of the Indochina Federation and French Union) to send delegates to “study the framework of the French Union”. Subsequently published agenda of the conference indicated that the

salient aspects of the Indochina Federation would also be deliberated. As an immediate result of this conference, the Viet Nam delegation which had been discussing the future relation between France and Viet Nam with the representatives of the French at Fountainebleau since July 6 announced that they were suspending negotiations until the French should have cleared up the “equivocal” situation which had been created. The head of the Viet Nam delegation, who had opened the conference with a violent blast against French policies, charged that the French were now trying to engineer their own statute for the Indochinese Federation and their own settlement of the status of Cochinchina and other areas claimed by Viet Nam. The view of Consul Saigon is not very different. He gave as his opinion that a front against Viet Nam was in the making, that the states participating in the Dalat Conference were at least tacitly recognized as free states by the French, and that France and these free states are now determining the status of the Indochinese federation without reference to Viet Nam. In his view it indicated double-dealing on the part of the French, and he reported that the French Commissioner for Cochinchina had forced the issue by threatening to resign unless his policy is carried out. Nothing has been said at the conference about a referendum. Finally, Consul Saigon added that he had learned that representatives of the southern regions of the Province of Annam (which has always been claimed by Viet Nam) will petition for inclusion of their territories in Cochinchina. In view of the completeness of the agenda of the Dalat Conference, which covers the essential framework of the Indochinese federation, and in view of the deliberate exclusion of Viet Nam from the conference, the conclusion is inescapable that the French are endeavoring to whittle down Viet Nam and to settle the future form of organization of Indochina with those who may be expected to be amenable to French influence. Annamese reaction to French moves has been sharp, and following the suspension of the Fontainebleau negotiations, there were pro-Viet Nam manifestations in Saigon. The ambush of a French supply column near Hanoi by Annamese soldiers, during which the French suffered 52 casualties (one of the worst of many incidents during the past several months), may have been related to the opening of the Dalat Conference. While it is to be doubted that the French will allow the Fontainebleau Conference to break down completely, Embassy Paris quotes Baudet as having stated that French officials are in no hurry to speed up negotiations until the pacification of Indochina, and particularly of Cochinchina, has been completed. In this connection Consul Saigon reports that more troops are arriving in Indochina and that the French military position has grown much stronger. Meanwhile, the Saigon press has been carrying vitriolic attacks against Viet Nam. Since this press is completely controlled by the French, there would appear to be no official objection to this line.

1386

25. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi

In his latest report, Consul Hanoi states that there now exists an imminent danger of an open break between the French and Viet Nam. He adds that a rupture of relations would probably be followed by a period of anarchy and that, although the French could quickly overrun the country, they could not—as they themselves admit—pacify it except through a long and bitter military operation. In conclusion, it is SEA’s view that the Annamese are faced with the choice of a costly submission to the French or of open resistance, and that the French may be preparing to resort to force in order to secure their position throughout Indochina. It may not be advisable for this Government to take official notice of this situation during the Peace Conference, but the Department should be prepared, SEA believes, to express to the French, in view of our interest in peace and orderly development of dependent peoples, our hope that they will abide by the spirit of the March 6 convention. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Vol. 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 52–54.

25. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi, September 14, 1946 Introduction This innocuous document was the result of the Fontainebleau Conference between the Vietnamese delegation headed by President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the French government. While the modus vivendi makes reference to the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of the previous March, pledges both sides to implement a policy of “concord and conciliation,” and sets out a number of key principles to be followed, in reality nothing was accomplished at the Fontainebleau Conference. The draft accord reinforced France’s economic rights in North Vietnam without solving the problem of the French creation of the independent state of Cochin China, in clear violation of the Ho-Sainteny Agreement.

Primary Source The Government of the French Republic and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam have firmly decided to pursue, in a spirit of reciprocal confidence, the policy of concord and collaboration established by the Preliminary Convention of March 6 and outlined during the course of Franco-Viet Nam conferences at Dalat and Fontainebleau. Convinced that this policy alone represents the permanent interests of the two countries and the democratic traditions which they claim as theirs, the two Governments, while referring to the Convention of March 6 which continues in force, consider that the time has come to register new progress in the development of relations between France and Viet Nam, while

awaiting the time when circumstances will permit the conclusion of a complete and definitive agreement. In a spirit of friendship and mutual understanding, the Government of the French Republic and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam have signed a Modus Vivendi providing, within the framework of the limited agreements, provisional solutions of the main issues of immediate interest which arise between France and Viet Nam. So far as the referendum provided for in the Convention of March 6 is concerned, the two Governments reserve the right to fix later its date and form. They are convinced that all the measures contained in the Modus Vivendi will contribute to the establishment, in the near future, of an atmosphere of calm and confidence which will permit the carrying on of definite negotiations in the near future. They believe, therefore, that it is possible to anticipate for the resumption in January 1947 of the work which has just taken place at the Franco-Vietnamese conference in Fontainebleau. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi Article 1—Viet Nam nationals in France and French nationals in Viet Nam shall enjoy the same freedom of establishment as nationals, as well as freedom of speech, freedom to teach, to trade and to circulate in general all the democratic freedoms. Article 2—French property and concerns in Viet Nam shall not be subject to a stricter regime than the one reserved for Vietnamese property and concerns, particularly with respect to taxation and labor legislation. This equality of status shall be granted reciprocally to the property and enterprises of Viet Nam nationals in the territories of the French Union. The status of the French property and concerns in Viet Nam may not be changed except by common agreement between the French Republic and the Republic of Viet Nam. All French property requisitioned by the Government of Viet Nam or of which persons or enterprises have been deprived by the Viet Nam authorities shall be returned to their owners and parties entitled thereto. A mixed commission shall be appointed to fix procedure for such restitution. Article 3—For the purpose of the resumption of the cultural relations which Viet Nam and France are equally desirous of developing, French educational institutions representing different categories shall be able to function freely in Viet Nam and they shall apply official French programs. The institutions in question shall receive, by special agreement, the buildings necessary for their functioning. They shall be open to Vietnamese students. Scientific research, the establishing and functioning of scientific institutions shall be unhindered for French nationals throughout Viet Nam territory. Viet Nam nationals shall enjoy the same privilege in France. The Pasteur Institute shall be secured in its rights and property. A mixed commission shall regulate the conditions under which the “Ecole Francaise d’Extrême Orient” (Far Eastern French School) shall resume its activity.

26. Ho Chi Minh: Proclamation to the People upon His Return from France after Negotiations 1387 Article 4—The Government of the Republic of Viet Nam shall call, first on French nationals, whenever it needs advisers, technicians or experts. The priority granted to French nationals shall cease to be in effect only in cases where it is impossible for France to furnish the required personnel. Article 5—As soon as the present problem of monetary standardization is settled, one and the same currency shall have circulation in the territories under the authority of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and in the other territories of Indochina. The said currency shall be the Indochinese piaster. Article 6—Viet Nam shall form a Customs Union with the other members of the Federation. Therefore, there shall be no customs barrier within the country and the same tariffs shall be applied everywhere for entry into and departure from Indochinese territory. A coordinating customs and foreign trade committee which, moreover, may be the same as the one dealing with currency and exchange shall study the necessary means of application and prepare the organization of the Indochinese customs service. Article 7—A mixed communications coordinating committee shall study the measures which will re-establish and improve communications between Viet Nam and the other countries of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union: land, sea and air transport, postal, telephone, telegraph and radio communications. Article 8—Until such time as the French Government and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam conclude a definitive agreement regulating the question of the diplomatic relations of Viet Nam with foreign countries, a mixed Franco–Viet Nam Commission shall determine the arrangements to be made to ensure the consular representation of Viet Nam in neighboring countries and its relations with foreign consuls. Article 9—Desirous of ensuring as soon as possible, in Cochinchina and in Southern Annam, the restoration of public order as indispensable to the free development of democratic liberties as it is to the resumption of commercial transactions and aware of the fortunate effect that the cessation on the part of both of all acts of hostility or violence will have, the French Government and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam have decided on the following measures: (a) Acts of hostility and violence on the part of both shall cease. (b) Agreements of the French and Viet Nam General Staff shall arrange the conditions of application and supervision of measures decided in common. (c) It is specified that prisoners detained at the present time for political reasons shall be released with the exception of those prosecuted for crimes and offenses against the common law. The same shall apply for prisoners captured

in the course of operations. Viet Nam guarantees that no prosecution shall be initiated and no act of violence tolerated against any person by reason of his attachment or loyalty to France; reciprocally, the French Government guarantees that no prosecution shall be initiated and no act of violence tolerated toward any person because of his attachment to Viet Nam. (d) The enjoyment of the democratic freedoms defined in Article I shall be reciprocally guaranteed. (e) Unfriendly propaganda on both sides shall be terminated. (f) A person of note designated by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and approved by the French Government shall be accredited to the High Commissioner to establish the cooperation indispensable for the carrying out of the present agreements. Article 10—The Government of the French Republic and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam agree to seek in common the conclusion of special agreements concerning all questions requiring them in order to strengthen friendly relations and prepare the way for a general, definitive treaty. Negotiations shall be resumed again for that purpose as soon as possible and in January 1947 at the latest. Article 11—All the provisions of the present Modus Vivendi drawn up in duplicate, shall enter into force on October 30, 1946. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 48–50.

26. Ho Chi Minh: Proclamation to the People upon His Return from France after Negotiations, October 23, 1946 Introduction Fighting was already occurring in Vietnam between French troops and Vietnamese when Ho Chi Minh, president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), returned from France and the fruitless Fontainebleau Conference with French government officials. On his return Ho issued this statement to the people of Vietnam, urging them to eschew violence and to exhibit correct behavior toward the French. Ho stresses that the Vietnamese must attempt to achieve their political aims in a democratic manner.

Primary Source Compatriots throughout the country, I left for France over four months ago. Today I am back home. I am very happy to see the Fatherland and you again. I have the following statements to make:

1388

26. Ho Chi Minh: Proclamation to the People upon His Return from France after Negotiations

On my way to France, during my stay in France, and on my way back from France, the French Government, to show its desire to cooperate with Viet-Nam, received me ceremoniously. Out of sincere friendship for our people, the French people received me fraternally. On your behalf, I have the honor to thank the French Government and people.

than before. We also drew the attention of the world and made it understand the question of Viet-Nam better than before.

In my absence, thanks to the clearsighted leadership of Acting President Huynh, the care and help of the Assembly, the efforts of the Government, and the unity and common effort of the people, many difficult questions were settled and much progress made in constructive work.

We further heightened the position of the Vietnamese youth, women’s, and workers’ organizations because respective international organizations have recognized our organizations as members.

I thank the Government, the National Assembly, and all our compatriots. I think constantly of our compatriots living abroad who have made many sacrifices in the struggle and are always faithful to their Fatherland, notwithstanding the hardships they have endured. Thanks to the understanding of French personalities in the North and Center of Viet-Nam, most of the difficulties arising between the Vietnamese and the Frenchmen have lately been settled. I hope that from now on cooperation between the two peoples will be closer. My thoughts are also with the Chinese and other foreign residents who all bear in mind the sentence, “Brother countries, like passengers on the same boat, must help each other.” At various places, when I met friends of Chinese and Indian nationalities, we were very happy to see each other and to show our friendliness. Now, coming back to Viet-Nam, I witness the same sight. Answering the kind invitation of the French Government, I went to France with the purpose of solving the question of Viet-Nam’s independence and the unification of the North, Center, and South. Due to the present situation in France, these two questions have not yet been settled. We have to wait. But I dare to vouch that sooner or later Viet-Nam is sure to be independent, and its three parts, the North, the Center, and the South, will be unified. What did the Delegation and I do during the months we spent in France? We took Viet-Nam’s flag to France. The French Government and people and foreign residents there looked on our flag with respect. We drew greater attention from the French Government and people and made them understand the question of Viet-Nam better

We caused a great many Frenchmen to become friends of the Vietnamese people and approve of Viet-Nam’s independence and sincere Vietnamese-French cooperation on an equal footing.

The Vietnamese-French Conference has not ended yet. It will resume next May, but the September 14 modus vivendi has, firstly, permitted the Vietnamese and French to carry out their business easily, and secondly, it has paved the way for the next Conference to be conducted in a friendly manner. What have we to do from now until January? 1. The Government and people must be singleminded in their efforts at organization and must work for a closer unity, economic development, national reconstruction, and realization of a new mode of life in all aspects. Men or women, old or young, intellectuals or peasants, producers or traders, everyone must endeavor to work. We must show to the French Government and people and to the world at large that the Vietnamese people are already in possession of all the required conditions to be independent and free, and that the recognition of our freedom and independence is a necessity. 2. The French in France are very friendly toward us. So the Vietnamese in Viet-Nam should also be friendly toward the French people. Toward the French Army we must be correct. Toward the French residents, we must be moderate. Toward the Frenchmen who sincerely want to cooperate with us, we will sincerely cooperate, and that is advantageous to both parties. All this is to show to the world that we are a civilized people, to get a greater number of Frenchmen to support us, and to further strengthen their support so that the provokers who intend to divide us may find themselves with no pretext, and our unity and independence will soon succeed. 3. Compatriots in the South and the southern part of Central VietNam! The North, Center, and South are part and parcel of VietNam. We have the same ancestors, we are of the same family, we are all brothers and sisters. Our country has three parts, which

28. Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès, French Commander at Haiphong: Ultimatum to Haiphong Administrative Committee 1389 are the North, the Center, and the South. They are just like three brothers in the same family. They are just like three regions of France: Normandy, Provence, and Beauce. No one can divide the children of the same family. No one can divide France. Likewise, no one can divide Viet-Nam. During the past year, in waging the Resistance War, our compatriots have seen their property destroyed, have sacrificed their lives, or were imprisoned and exiled. But their patriotism remains unshakable. This iron will will never be forgotten by the entire people, the Fatherland, and the Government.

a peaceful atmosphere, paving the way democratically to reach the unification of our Viet-Nam. Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 168–171.

27. General Jean-Étienne Valluy: Telegram to Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès, November 22, 1946 Introduction

I respectfully bow to the memory of the martyrs, and sympathize with the compatriots who are suffering and making sacrifices. So long as the Fatherland is not yet unified and our compatriots are still suffering, I can neither eat with an appetite, nor sleep in peace. I solemnly promise you that with your determination and that of the entire people, our beloved South will surely come back into the bosom of our Fatherland. The French Government has acknowledged the holding of a referendum by our southern compatriots to decide on the fate of the South. In the September 14 modus vivendi, the French Government agreed to implement the main points concerning the South as follows: 1. Political prisoners and those arrested for taking part in the resistance are to be released. 2. Our southern compatriots are to have freedom of organization, of meeting, of the press, of movement, etc. 3. Both parties are to stop fighting. The French Government will undoubtedly respect its signature and implement the above clauses.

On November 22 fighting broke out between French forces and Vietnamese in the northern port of Haiphong after a French Navy patrol vessel seized a Chinese junk attempting to smuggle contraband. Although the fighting ended that afternoon, French high commissioner for Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, then in Paris reporting to the French government, sought to use the clash to teach the Vietnamese a lesson. Premier Georges Bidault approved such a step, although in so doing he probably did not realize the likelihood of immediate action.

Primary Source It appears clear that we are up against premeditated aggressions carefully staged by the Vietnamese regular army, which no longer seems to obey its government’s orders. Under these circumstances, your commendable attempts at conciliation and division of quarters, as well as the inquiry that I asked you to make are out of season. The moment has come to give a severe lesson to those who have treacherously attacked you. Use all the means at your disposal to make yourself complete master of Haiphong and so bring the Vietnamese army around to a better understanding of the situations. Source: Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1955), 183.

Now, what must our southern compatriots have to do? 1. The Vietnamese army, like the French army, must simultaneously stop fighting. 2. Our compatriots must carry out political actions in a democratic way. 3. Close unity must be realized with no discrimination as to political parties, social classes, and creeds. Unity means strength. Division means weakness. 4. Acts of reprisal are forbidden. Toward those who went astray, our compatriots must display a generous policy. We must let them hear the voice of reason. Everybody loves his country. It is only for petty interests that they forget the great cause. If we use the right words, they will certainly listen to us. Violent actions are absolutely forbidden. This is what you have to do at present to create

28. Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès, French Commander at Haiphong: Ultimatum to Haiphong Administrative Committee, November 22, 1946 Introduction Having secured the approval of French premier Georges Bidault for military action in Vietnam, French high commissioner for Indochina Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, then in France, cabled his deputy in Saigon, General Jean-Étienne Valluy, who in turn ordered General Louis Constant Morlière, French commander in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), to

1390

29. Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Division Chief Abbot L. Moffat in Saigon

employ force. Morlière pointed out that the situation had stabilized and that any imprudent act might lead to general hostilities. Unsatisfied with this reply, Valluy telegraphed directly to Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès, commander of French forces at Haiphong, and ordered him to use force. Debès then issued an ultimatum to the Vietnamese that was couched in terms that they were bound to reject. Following the expiration of the ultimatum, French warships, especially the cruiser Suffren, opened fire on the Vietnamese quarter of the port, largely destroying it. Estimates of the number killed vary widely. French admiral Robert Marie Joseph Battet reported that more than 6,000 Vietnamese perished, with total casualties as high as 20,000. However, in 1981 Vu Quoc Uy, then chairman of the Haiphong Municipal Committee, put the figure at 500–1,000 dead. Regardless of the number of casualties, the incident shattered what little confidence remained in Vietnamese-French relations. Within a month the Indochinese War had begun.

Primary Source By order of the General High Commissioner of the French Republic in IndoChina, I demand: 1. That all Viet Nam military or semi-military forces evacuate: a) the Chinese quarter, that is, the quarter bounded on the north by the Rue de la Mission; on the west, by the Song Tam-Bac; on the south, by the Darse Bonnal; on the east, by the Blvd. Admiral Courbet; b) the quarters to the northeast of the Avenue de Belgique (including that Avenue); c) the villages of Lac-Vien. 2. That all the Vietnamese who were in those quarters and villages, whether or not they have their present domicile there, be disarmed and that no depot of arms or ammunition be set up there. I demand the pure and simple acceptance of these conditions before November 23, at 9 A.M.; failing which, I reserve for myself the right to take any measure which the situation calls for. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 52.

29. Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State: Telegram to Division Chief Abbot L. Moffat in Saigon, December 5, 1946 Introduction Although U.S. acting secretary of state Dean Acheson was concerned about the French government’s decision to employ force

in Indochina, he cabled Abbot L. Moffat, chief of the State Department’s Division of Southeast Asian Affairs, who was then in Saigon. Acheson asks Moffat, when he visits Hanoi, to convey to Ho Chi Minh, president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), the U.S. view that Ho will have to give up the provision in the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of the previous March for a plebiscite in southern Vietnam that would allow it to join the North Vietnamese government. Washington took the position that Ho would have to accept some sort of “compromise” on the status of the Republic of Cochin China, which had been recently created by France. The Cold War with the Soviet Union had already begun to intrude on U.S. Indochina policy, as Acheson asks Moffat if there is not some alternative to Ho’s government, which Washington sees as too dependent on Moscow.

Primary Source Assume you will see Ho in Hanoi and offer following summary our present thinking as guide. Keep in mind Ho’s clear record as agent international communism, absence evidence recantation Moscow affiliations, confused political situation France and support Ho receiving French Communist Party. Least desirable eventuality would be establishment Communist-dominated, Moscow-oriented state Indochina in view DEPT, which most interested INFO strength non-communist elements Vietnam. Report fully, repeating or requesting DEPT repeat Paris. Recent occurrences Tonkin cause deep concern. Consider March 6 accord and modus vivendi as result peaceful negotiation provide basis settlement outstanding questions between France and Vietnam and impose responsibility both sides not prejudice future, particularly forthcoming Fontainebleau Conference, by resort force. Unsettled situation such as pertains certain to offer provocations both sides, but for this reason conciliatory patient attitude especially necessary. Intransigence either side and disposition exploit incidents can only retard economic rehabilitation Indochina and cause indefinite postponement conditions cooperation France and Vietnam which both agree essential. If Ho takes stand non-implementation promise by French of Cochinchina referendum relieves Vietnam responsibility compliance with agreements, you might if you consider advisable raise question whether he believes referendum after such long disorder could produce worthwhile result and whether he considers compromise on status Cochinchina could possibly be reached through negotiation. May say American people have welcomed attainments Indochinese in efforts realize praiseworthy aspiration greater autonomy in framework democratic institutions and it would be regrettable should this interest and sympathy be imperilled by any

30. Abbott L. Moffat: Telegram from Hanoi to the State Department 1391 tendency Vietnam administration force issues by intransigence and violence.

diplomatic relationship between the United States and North Vietnam would first have to be cleared with the French.

May inform Ho Caffery discussing situation French similar frankness. For your INFO, Baudet in DEC 3 conversation stated 1) no question reconquest Indochina as such would be counter French public opinion and probably beyond French military resources, 2) French will continue base policy March 6 accord and modus vivendi and make every effort apply them through negotiation Vietnam, 3) French would resort forceful measures only on restricted scale in case flagrant violation agreements Vietnam, 4) d’Argenlieu’s usefulness impaired by outspoken dislike Vietnam officials and replacement perhaps desirable, 5) French Communists embarrassed in pose as guardian French international interests by barrage telegraphic appeals from Vietnam. Caffery will express gratification this statement French policy with observation implementation such policy should go far obviate any danger that 1) Vietnamese irreconcilables and extremists might be in position make capital of situation 2) Vietnamese might be turned irrevocably against West and toward ideologies and affiliations hostile democracies which could result perpetual foment Indochina with consequences all Southeast Asia.

Primary Source

Avoid impression US Govt making formal intervention this juncture. Publicity any kind would be unfortunate. Paris be guided foregoing. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 85–86.

30. Abbott L. Moffat: Telegram from Hanoi to the State Department, December 1946 [Excerpt] Introduction In this telegram to the State Department from Hanoi, Abbot L. Moffat, chief of the State Department’s Division of Southeast Asian Affairs, reports on his meetings with leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The situation in North Vietnam was then at a critical point: major fighting had occurred in Haiphong, and there was also bloodshed in Hanoi and other places between French and Vietnamese forces. North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh and Deputy Foreign Minister Hoang Minh Giam tried to convince the United States to support North Vietnam. The Vietnamese even went so far as to offer the United States a naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, ironically the site of the large U.S. base during the Vietnam War. But Moffat reports that he informed the North Vietnamese leaders that any

At 5:00 Giam had an official tea for me at the Presidency. Madame Saincanny was there. Morliere, Lami and a few other French. I met some of the other Vietnamese officials, some business men and doctors and admired some rather lovely lacquer pictures which is a Tonkinese specialty. Giam asked if he could talk with me privately and that he had a present for me from Ho Chih Minh and wanted to ask some questions; so I left at 6:00 and went with Jim to the Consulate where Giam joined us presently. There he presented me with an autographed photograph and a piece of “mountain brocade” inscribed to Ho. (The purpose, of course, to show that the hill people also back Ho. The Tonkinese never live above the 25 meter level, occupy the Delta, but not the mountains). Then he started to explain how Vietnam wanted free ports, and the right to trade freely; to get foreign capital where they would; they wanted American capital, commerce; they hoped an American airline would use Hanoi; an American shipline use Haiphong regularly, etc. In short, he kept reiterating they did not always want to be “compressed” by the French. I interrupted finally to explain that under the March 6 Agreement, their status in many respects is unsettled—“subject to further French-Vietnam negotiations”— such as foreign affairs (for which reason we do not recognize and have relations with the Vietnam Government) and finance, etc. (for which reason, until agreement is reached, we assume in such matters French laws still obtain). He demurred on this last—said the customs question was the cause of the Haiphong incident— and passed on. He then stated Vietnam had no navy and had no intention of being war like, but would be glad to cooperate with the US in developing Cam Ranh Bay as a naval base, that it was a very important location between Singapore and Hong Kong and opposite the PI. I replied I knew nothing of the military plans of my Government, but doubted if we would be interested in such a base (Cam Ranh Bay, as you know, is in South Annam and is presently controlled by the French.) I explained that I was sure that the US would want to have trade and commerce with Vietnam; mentioned the proposed route approved by CAB which included Hanoi; but stated before there could be any direct relations, the Vietnamese and French would have to agree on the respective powers of the two governments. Giam also stated the Vietnam desire for an economic federation of Indochina; a customs union and free trade between the three states; and federal collection of customs so that the revenues could be fairly distributed to the states. But, he stated, the Vietnam was strongly opposed to any political power in the federation. I have perhaps given his remarks more coherence than they had. The impression I received was one of extreme naivety. Source: Robert M. Blum, The United States and Vietnam: 1944–1947 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), 42.

1392

31. Ho Chi Minh: Telegram to French Premier Léon Blum

31. Ho Chi Minh: Telegram to French Premier Léon Blum, December 15, 1946 Introduction In a last effort to prevent full-scale war between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), on December 15, 1946, President Ho Chi Minh telegraphed French premier Léon Blum. Ho suggests steps that might be carried out by the Vietnamese and French sides to keep the peace. The French were determined to reassert their control in North Vietnam, however. On December 19 General Louis Constant Morlière, French commander in North Vietnam, demanded the disarmament of the Tu Ve, the Viet Minh militia that had been sniping at French troops in Hanoi. That very night, fear and mistrust—fueled by bloodshed and broken promises—finally bring all-out war.

Primary Source Blum

b) On the French side: 1) Return of the French and Viet Nam troops to the positions held before November 20, 1946 at Haiphong and Langson, and withdrawal of the reinforcements recently sent to Tourane, contrary to the agreements. 2) To cease the so-called mopping-up operations and campaigns of repression in Cochin-China and North Annam. c) On both sides: 1) To start working immediately the agencies contemplated for the application of the ModusVivendi, a part of the Commission at Hanoi, another at Saigon, as the country resort of DALAT offers us no conveniences for work. 2) To put an end to all unfriendly propaganda in French and Viet Nam radio-broadcasts and press. Awaiting the honor of your reply, I beg you to accept the expression of my very high consideration. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 57–58.

Occasion your election Presidency French Government, To show our confidence in you and in people France, To show our sincere desire fraternal cooperation with French people,

32. Consul Charles Reed in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, December 24, 1946

To prove that our only aspiration is independence and territorial integrity of Viet Nam within French Union,

Introduction

To prove our ardent desire to settle peacefully serious incidents which at present steep our country in blood, To prove that we have always been prepared to apply loyally agreements signed by our two Governments, To dispel atmosphere of hostility, reestablish atmosphere of confidence and friendship, and effectively prepare definitive negotiations, I have the honor to make to you the following concrete proposals: a) On the Viet Nam side: 1) To invite the evacuated Viet Nam population to return to the cities. 2) To take all necessary measures to assure the return to the cities of the economic life disturbed by the present state of hostility. 3) To put an end to the measures of self-protection taken by the inhabitants of the cities. 4) To assure the return to normalcy of the Hanoi-Langson thoroughfare.

Charles Reed, the U.S. consul in Saigon, reports to Secretary of State James Byrnes that while the French government officially eschews any intention of taking back its former colonies by force, French high commissioner for Indochina Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu has confirmed that the French will no longer treat with President Ho Chi Minh’s government in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and will in fact seek to detach Annam (central Vietnam) from North Vietnam, adding it to Cochin China (southern Vietnam) as “independent” states within the Indochina Federation.

Primary Source Unprovoked premeditated attack by Vietnam, with atrocities against innocent civilians, at time when French Govt sending representative discuss association accords and plan future French-Vietnam relations, leaves French free hand to deal with situation, especially as Vietnam Govt has fled and effectively no such govt. So said High Commissioner in conversation yesterday prior arrival Moutet. He stated French do not plan exploit situation and there is, first, no intention reconquer FIC and, second, no intention return former colonial system—enough troops will be sent restore order and assure opportunity all persons carry on peaceful pursuits. He admitted many mistakes made in past due

33. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery 1393 those persons reluctant give up prewar life and policy in FIC and said mistakes will be made in future but France holds intention aid honest and meritorious aspirations native peoples (but commented difficult to treat with persons whose aim is destruction as recent events have shown to be aim of Ho and his govt) and France desired chiefly promote their economic interests. French prepared deal with any govt in which can place confidence. He stressed federation plan is only possible solution, giving peoples of FIC measure of autonomy of which they are now capable, but not excluding possibility of larger independence when peoples are capable thereof. He felt majority natives will welcome removal Ho regime which established and maintained by terroristic methods and in no sense democratic—also felt that with fear reprisals removed, Annam would prefer be state, apart from Tonkin confederation, thus being composed of same five states as formed FIC in past. Expressed satisfaction he now had backing French Govt (with certain notable exceptions) and declared his policy vindicated especially his distrust Ho and his associates but made one remark that indicated he might not be here long. He mentioned return General Leclerc, expected here shortly, but I have reason believe High Commissioner not particularly pleased. Factually, situation in north improving and he hoped all under control within 15 days—expressed grave concern fate of French at Vinh from which no news since French surrendered. In comment [by me?] French have one more chance impress natives their desire deal fairly with them and to give them advantages both economic and social withheld in past, and if French fail to take advantage this opportunity and institute repressive high handed measures (policy of force) of past no settlement of situation can be expected foreseeable future and period guerilla warfare will follow. [Apparent garble] however presupposes willingness Vietnam act with reasonableness and doubt whether French will treat with Ho in view of “treacherous” attack on civilians as well as military. Perhaps mediation third party only solution. Please repeat Paris, London. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Vol. 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 78–79.

33. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, February 3, 1947 Introduction In this telegram of February 3, 1947, to U.S. ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery, new secretary of state George C. Marshall

discusses the dilemma facing the United States in the Indochina War. The United States needs the support of France, then the only major Western military power in continental Europe, in resisting Soviet expansionism in Europe. At the same time, Marshall expresses fears that the French do not understand that the days of European imperialism are over. Despite his major doubts about French policy in Indochina, Marshall believes that French rule is preferable to that of the Communists under Ho Chi Minh and that there appears to be no alternative to supporting the French policy of force there.

Primary Source There is reason for increasing concern over situation as it is developing in Indochina and for that reason I feel you might well take early occasion to have frank talk with Ramadier or Bidault or both somewhat along lines conversations you have already had with Blum, but at this time going in fact beyond position you took in those talks. We have only very friendliest feelings toward France and we are anxious in every way we can to support France in her fight to regain her economic, political and military strength and to restore herself as in fact one of major powers of world. In spite any misunderstanding which might have arisen in minds French in regard to our position concerning Indochina they must appreciate that we have fully recognized France’s sovereign position in that area and we do not wish to have it appear that we are in any way endeavoring undermine that position, and French should know it is our desire to be helpful and we stand ready assist any appropriate way we can find solution for Indochinese problem. At same time we cannot shut our eyes to fact that there are two sides this problem and that our reports indicate both a lack French understanding of other side (more in Saigon than in Paris) and continued existence dangerously outmoded colonial outlook and methods in area. Furthermore, there is no escape from fact that trend of times is to effect that colonial empires in XIX Century sense are rapidly becoming thing of past. Action Brit felt in India and Burma and Dutch in Indonesia are outstanding examples this trend, and French themselves took cognizance of it both in new Constitution and in their agreements with Vietnam. On other hand we do not lose sight fact that Ho Chi Minh has direct Communist connections and it should be obvious that we are not interested in seeing colonial empire administrations supplanted by philosophy and political organizations emanating from and controlled by Kremlin. Fact does remain, however, that a situation does exist in Indochina which can no longer be considered, if it ever was considered, to be of a local character. If that situation continues deteriorate some country in direct interest is very likely to bring matter before Security Council under Chapter 11 of Charter. We have no intention taking such action ourselves at this time, but French will surely appreciate that we do have a vital interest in political and economic well being this area. If some country should bring matter before Security Council we would find it difficult to oppose an investigation Indochinese problem unless negotiations between

1394

34. Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Account of Ho Chi Minh–Paul Mus Meeting

parties were going on. It might be added that it would not in our estimation be in France’s long-range interest to use her veto position to keep matter from coming before Council. Frankly we have no solution of problem to suggest. It is basically matter for two parties to work out themselves and from your reports and those from Indochina we are led to feel that both parties have endeavored to keep door open to some sort of settlement. We appreciate fact that Vietnam started present fighting in Indochina on December 19 and that this action has made it more difficult for French to adopt a position of generosity and conciliation. Nevertheless we hope that French will find it possible to be more than generous in trying to find a solution. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 67–68.

34. Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Account of Ho Chi Minh–Paul Mus Meeting, May 12, 1947

This meeting was most cordial for the representative of the High Commissioner is an old acquaintance of President HO and Minister GIAM. When the discussion began on the question of the cessation of hostilities, the representative of M. BOLLAERT proposed the following conditions: 1) The Vietnam Government will abstain from all reprisals against pro-French people upon the cessation of hostilities. 2) The Vietnamese troops will surrender all their arms and munitions to France. 3) The French troops have the right to circulate and occupy freely throughout the territory of Vietnam. Vietnamese troops will assemble in spots designated by the French Army. President HO replied to the first condition: After the last worldwide hostilities, if France took action against Frenchmen who delivered France to Germany, we ought to punish Vietnamese who have decided to deliver our country to a foreign nation. However, we can promise leniency toward these individuals. To the other conditions, President HO replied:

Introduction In order to demonstrate that the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) sought peace and to appeal to those French leaders who sought the same, North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh called for a cease-fire in the fighting. At the same time, Foreign Minister Hoang Minh Giam offered to begin peace talks. In response, in May 1947 French high commissioner for Indochina Émile Bollaert appointed his adviser Paul Mus to travel from Hanoi to meet with Ho in the jungle. Mus, an Asian scholar sympathetic to Vietnamese nationalism, carried a plan drawn up by French military commander in Indochina General Jean-Étienne Valluy and approved by Socialist premier Paul Ramadier that called on the Viet Minh to refrain from hostilities, lay down some arms, permit French troops freedom of movement, and return all prisoners, deserters, and hostages. Ho rejected these terms as tantamount to surrender, and on May 15 Bollaert declared that France would remain in Indochina. This North Vietnamese document is a factual representation of the French terms, although it omits two conditions stated above that were confirmed in Mus’s subsequent book Viet-Nam: Sociologie d’une Guerre, published in 1952: the return of all prisoners held by the Viet Minh as well as all non-Vietnamese serving in their forces.

Primary Source President HO and Minister of Foreign Affairs GIAM met with a representative of High Commissioner BOLLAERT in a place not far from Hanoi.

High Commissioner BOLLAERT is a French democrat and also a patriot. I ask you if High Commissioner BOLLAERT has recognized the act by which the Pétain Government delivered arms and munitions to the German Army, permitted German troops freedom of action in French territory and obliged French troops to assemble in determined positions? Is this an armistice? At this point in the conversation, the representative of M. BOLLAERT said: In these circumstances, we have nothing more to say to you. The diplomatic interview thus ended. President HO then asked the French representative: You certainly know the history of Vietnam Yes, I have made several studies of it. In that case, you recall the feats of our ancestors. TRAN HUNG DAO who fought for five years against the Mongol armies and LE LOI who resisted for ten years against the Chinese armies. Well, at the present time, we can resist five years, ten years and more. Our compatriots are firmly decided to unite and to obey the government’s orders to resist until independence and unification are obtained. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 62.

35. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to Jefferson Caffery in Paris 1395

35. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to Jefferson Caffery in Paris, May 13, 1947

will for indefinite period require French material and technical assistance and enlightened political guidance which can be provided only by nation steeped like France in democratic tradition and confirmed in respect human liberties and worth individual.

Introduction

We are equally convinced, however, such association must be voluntary to be lasting and achieve results, and that protraction present situation Indochina can only destroy basis voluntary cooperation, leave legacy permanent bitterness, and irrevocably alienate Vietnamese from France and those values represented by France and other Western democracies.

In this telegram to U.S. ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery, Secretary of State George C. Marshall expresses concern over the failure of French leaders to carry out meaningful reform in Indochina. Marshall warns that this will only strengthen the hands of the Communists and jeopardize Western interests in the region. He believes that without proper guidance from the West, Vietnam and other states of the region will succumb to Communist or militant nationalist influence. Marshall clearly favors an arrangement in which France will grant independence or autonomy to the states of Indochina while maintaining influence in the region.

Primary Source We becoming increasingly concerned by slow progress toward settlement Indochina dispute. We fully appreciate French are making effort reach satisfactory settlement and hope visit Commissioner Bollaert to Indochina will produce concrete results. The following considerations, however, are submitted for your use any conversations you may have with French authorities at appropriate time this subject. We recognize it might not be desirable make such approach to newly constituted government in first days its reorganization, but nevertheless feel early appropriate opportunity might be found inform French Gov of our concern in this matter. Key our position is our awareness that in respect developments affecting position Western democratic powers in southern Asia, we essentially in same boat as French, also as British and Dutch. We cannot conceive setbacks to long-range interests France which would not also be setbacks our own. Conversely we should regard close association France and members French Union as not only to advantage peoples concerned, but indirectly our own. In our view, southern Asia in critical phase its history with seven new nations in process achieving or struggling independence or autonomy. These nations include quarter inhabitants world and their future course, owing sheer weight populations, resources they command, and strategic location, will be momentous factor world stability. Following relaxation European controls, internal racial, religious, and national differences could plunge new nations into violent discord, or already apparent anti-Western Pan-Asiatic tendencies could become dominant political force, or Communists could capture control. We consider as best safeguard against these eventualities a continued close association between newly-autonomous peoples and powers which have long been responsible their welfare. In particular we recognize Vietnamese

While fully appreciating difficulties French position this conflict, we feel there is danger in any arrangement which might provide Vietnamese opportunity compare unfavorably their own position and that of other peoples southern Asia who have made tremendous strides toward autonomy since war. While we are still ready and willing to do anything we can which might be considered helpful, French will understand we not attempting come forward with any solution our own or intervene in situation. However, they will also understand we inescapably concerned with situation Far East generally, upon which developments Indochina likely have profound effect. Plain fact is that Western democratic system is on defensive in almost all emergent nations southern Asia and, because identified by peoples these nations with what they have considered former denial their rights, is particularly vulnerable to attacks by demagogic leaders political movements of either ultra-nationalist or Communist nature which promise redress and revenge past socalled wrongs and inequalities. Signs development anti-Western Asiatic consciousness already multiplying, of which Inter-Asian Conf an example. Unanimity support for Vietnamese among other Asiatic countries very striking, even leading to moves Burma, India, and Malaya send volunteer forces their assistance. Vietnam cause proving rallying-cry for all anti-Western forces and playing in hands Communists all areas. We fear continuation conflict may jeopardize position all Western democratic powers in southern Asia and lead to very eventualities of which we most apprehensive. We confident French fully aware dangers inherent in situation and therefore venture express renewed hope they will be most generous attempt find early solution which, by recognizing legitimate desires Vietnamese, will restore peace and deprive antidemocratic forces of powerful weapon. For your info, evidence that French Communists are being directed accelerate their agitation French colonies even extent lose much popular support France (Urtel 1719 Apr 25) may be indication Kremlin prepared sacrifice temporary gains with 40

1396

36. Charles S. Reed: Airgram to Dean Acheson

million French to long range colonial strategy with 600 million dependent people, which lends great urgency foregoing views. French position Indochina dispute since Dec 19, which based on Vietnam initiative attack, seems Dept dangerously one-sided in ignoring Debès attack Haiphong Nov 23 and understandable Vietnam contention that stand had be made some point view steady French encroachments after Mar 6 on authority and territory Vietnam (e.g., establishment Cochinchinese Rep, occupation southern Annam and Moi Plateau, and Dalat plan French-dominated Federation to which Vietnam would be subservient). Dept much concerned lest French efforts find “true representatives Vietnam” with whom negotiate result creation impotent puppet Govt along lines Cochinchina regime, or that restoration Baodai may be attempted, implying democracies reduced resort monarchy as weapon against Communism. You may refer these further views if nature your conversations French appears warrant. Saigon and Hanoi should be guided by this tel in any conversations Bollaert. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 95–97.

36. Charles S. Reed: Airgram to Dean Acheson, June 14, 1947 [Excerpts] Introduction In this communication to Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, U.S. consul in Saigon Charles Reed stresses that something has to be done to make French leaders aware that most Vietnamese regard the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), headed by Ho Chi Minh, as their legitimate government and that any French-installed government will be regarded as a puppet regime. At the same time, however, Reed believes that the Vietnamese are incapable of self-government and will require some degree of Western control. He thus favors a compromise between Vietnamese and French interests in Indochina such as a federated solution with three autonomous states, including North Vietnam, within the French Union.

Primary Source SIR: I have the honor to summarize and analyze, as of possible interest to the Department, the chronological development of the situation in Indochina from the arrival at Saigon of Mr. Emile Bollaert, High Commissioner of the Republic in Indochina, on April 1, 1947, to his departure for France on June 11. This period of 70 days was a particularly critical one, as Mr. Bollaert had the unenviable task of endeavoring to counteract the effect of errors of omission and commission popularly attributed to the regime of Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu, former High Commissioner, and of

attempting to find a solution of the complex Indochinese political problem which would be acceptable to both the French and the Annamite peoples. The extent of his success, of course, cannot be measured at this time save in relation to the state of affairs obtaining at the date of his arrival in Indochina, and only time will tell whether or not he has carried back to France a feasible plan for the restoration of peace and security and a workable recommendation for the future status of Annamite Indochina. This then was Mr. Bollaert’s heritage on the French side, a people sharply divided as to the best means of dealing with the situation, as to the concessions to be made, and as to the person or persons whom France should recognize as the representatives of the Annamite peoples; on the Annamite side, a people almost universally distrustful of French intentions, convinced that the French would stop at nothing to deny the fulfilment of native aspirations, and cherishing a hatred and rancor engendered by decades of exploitation by a thoroughly selfish colonial regime. In several respects, however, he was fortunate. The situation could not have been worse—I may say with confidence that the present situation is far worse than when I arrived in February 1946. In his consideration of the thorny problem he could disregard any idea of military reconquest, as France as a whole had neither the will nor the means to embark upon such a vast undertaking, one that would be condemned by the world at large—the French were surely aware that the hard won successes of their military in Tonkin were more apparent than real. And he could count on the Kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos being content to accept French guidance, inspiration and tutelage—the Issarak movements could largely be dismissed as attempts to make dynastic changes rather than revolts against the French position in those countries. Moreover, the High Commissioner had the good fortune to arrive at a time when people were tired of fighting and destruction. What plan if any the High Commissioner has taken back to France is of course not known. Logically, however, any plan likely to succeed will represent a great concession on the part of France and the unquestionable sacrifice of many of her interests. France has already jettisoned the idea of a Federation of the five entities making up the French Indochina of the past, France may well be prepared to throw overboard the Provisional Government of the Republic of Cochinchina, and France appears to be willing to accept a Vietnam Federation so long as both French and native rights are protected and not to be the spoil of an admittedly totalitarian regime. What security France can exact for such protection in the future is difficult to say. France, if Mr. Bollaert’s declaration is to be given credence, will refuse to deal with any one faction. On the other hand Ho Chi Minh has always said he is not fighting the French but only the colonialists, and he has given some indication of willingness to make concessions in his acknowledgement of the right of each of the three Kys to have local autonomy. How far communist-trained Ho Chi Minh is to be trusted is problematic and his concession of

37. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Consul General at Saigon (Later Repeated for Paris) 1397 local autonomy may be merely a blind. Unfortunately, the majority of natives stoutly maintain that Ho Chi Minh is the man, and the only one, who represents them and they will oppose the putting forward of any other candidate as the creation of but another puppet and the erecting of a smoke screen for France’s real intentions. While the natives are tired of fighting and are apprehensive of the destruction and famine that impend for the future there is still a determined nucleus who are prepared to wage a bitter and ruthless warfare if the greater part of their claims is not met. To reconcile these differences will be difficult, but for the future of Indochina, for the stability of Southeast Asia, for the good of the whole Far East, and for the prestige of western democracy, whatever plan is adopted must be put into operation without great loss of time. From a purely practical point of view too great concessions on the part of France might be very disastrous, if such concessions give the natives virtually a free hand. Many observers doubt whether they are capable of running an independent state and point to the fact that the Philippines after 40 odd years of benevolent tutelage, in which the advantages of education and instruction were available to all, are still not a model of good government. How much less chance would the Annamites have of making a success? The majority of these observers opine that without Occidental check or control the result would be chaos—and in that chaos either the Soviet or the Chinese would find their opportunity. The former would be able to establish their ideology in the very heart of teeming Southeast Asia, with millions of people to indoctrinate and to prepare for the ultimate struggle with the western democracies. The latter would be able to realize their age-old desire to dominate if not to take over this part of the Far East, a desire which is even now manifest. To many observers, the Chinese danger is the greater, even if not imminent because of China’s preoccupation with her own political problems. Be that as it may, something must be done to eradicate the distrust and almost contempt of the French for the natives, and to eradicate the distrust and hatred of the natives for the French; something must be done to bring home to the French the fact that times have changed and that the natives have a right to more than a semblance of independence, and to bring home to the natives that the French have a legitimate interest and place in Indochina. Mr. Bollaert must have learned that the above are imperative and that they are the stones in the foundation of peace in Indochina. The High Commissioner has now gathered the necessary data and it is the task of the French Government to supply and apply the answer. While that Government may continue to procrastinate in the hopes of wearing down the native opposition, I believe that that Government will be led to accept a Federated Republic of Vietnam, in which each of the three Kys will have autonomy, freely associated with the French Union. And Ho Chi Minh, if he is really the nationalist and patriot that he claims to be, must accept that his totalitarian government and Tonkin cannot speak for all Annamites.

Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), 106–107.

37. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Consul General at Saigon (Later Repeated for Paris), July 17, 1947 Introduction This telegram from Secretary of State George Marshall to U.S. consul Charles Reed in Saigon indicates that the U.S. government understands that France might be forced to accept a unified Vietnam under the rule of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Marshall seeks to learn the degree of Communist influence within the North Vietnamese coalition government (in fact controlled by the Communists) and whether a united Vietnam under Communist rule will be dominated by Moscow. The telegram reveals that Marshall was considering the possibility that the United States might be able to accept a unified Vietnam under national communism.

Primary Source Request your and Hanoi’s appraisal implications relation US objectives stable Southeast Asia friendly to democratic West in event French should be forced deal present Vietnam Govt and this Govt should eventually emerge as controlling power three Annamese provinces. Refer particularly the following: 1. Whether influence Communists in present coalition Govt and behind-scenes Communists like Dang Xuan Khu and Ha Ba Cang would be sufficient put Vietnam in Soviet camp. 2. Position Ho respect above. Whether your opinion evidence increasing opposition to Ho by militants tends substantiate repeated reports his abandonment Party line and to corroborate reported letter to Chiang Kai Shek in which Ho excused past Communists connections on grounds nowhere else turn, and stated only interest now independence his country. (Impression here Ho publicly attempting walk chalked line between nationalism and Communism effort retain backing both forces.) 3. Whether intellectuals backing Vietnam realize what Communism means as international political force distinct its economic aspects and whether nationalists among them feel they can cope in future with Communist leaders Vietnam. 4. Whether, with removal solidifying effect French pressure, coherent Govt likely be extended over Vietnam representing real

1398

38. James L. O’Sullivan, Vice-Consul in Hanoi, and Charles S. Reed in Saigon: Telegrams to George C. Marshall

interests Annamese and allowing reasonably free political expression or whether coalition would break in factions which would settle differences by terrorism and armed force, resulting chronic disorders or eventual police state under one-party rule. 5. Sensitivity Vietnamese to US opinion and importance this factor future orientation Vietnam Govt. While French Communists exploit every show of US interest developments Indochina to warn of US intervention, Vietnamese apparently welcome this interest. 6. Effect on Laotians and Cambodians should Soviet-oriented Vietnam emerge Dept fully realizes paucity solid info on which base appraisal. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 117–118.

38. James L. O’Sullivan, Vice-Consul in Hanoi, and Charles S. Reed in Saigon: Telegrams to George C. Marshall, July 21 and 24, 1947 [Excerpts] Introduction Responding to Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s telegram of July 17, 1947, consuls James L. Sullivan in Hanoi and Charles Reed in Saigon separately telegraphed the State Department. Each concludes that a unified Vietnam controlled by the Communistdominated government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) will not necessarily be controlled by the Soviet Union and that the United States should be able to play some role there. Both diplomats also conclude that the removal of French authority would lead to considerable political infighting among the Vietnamese political parties, unrest, and the imposition of a single-party police state.

tend to emerge from shadows. Geographic isolation Indochina from Russia and realization by Ho Chi Minh of United States power based in Philippines would be sufficient to prevent him or any government formed here from entering wholeheartedly Soviet camp. 2. Until further information available, am very skeptical regarding apparent opposition of militants to Ho. However, Ho’s very great reluctance to admit that he is Nguyen Ai Quoc or to show any connection whatsoever with Russia is indicative of his realization that he must deal with West. Ho wrote 25 years ago that national revolution must precede Communist revolution in Indochina and it is obvious his first concern is get rid of French here. He is trying to obtain aid wherever he can and will tend be oriented toward source from whence assistance comes. 3. Have impression that intellectuals backing Viet Nam do not realize what is meaning Communism as international force and that they really would not care if it was thoroughly explained to them. They have been driven to Communism by French colonial policy here and they consider that nothing can be any worse. Hate for French blinds them to many things and makes them accept others they do not like. Intellectuals backing Vietnam government hate French so much that any future without French is attractive. 4. Removal French pressure would unquestionably have effect of causing present government in first instance to break into factions which would then for time tend develop into more or less fullblown party movements as those understood in Indochina. There probably then would be demand use armed force to some extent as country has widely distributed arms, has held exactly one general election in last 80 years, has no democratic tradition (outside of villages) which would enable it withstand strain political differences. There unquestionably would be danger police state under one-party rule which danger would have to be combatted by whatever French influence might remain and by United States through propaganda, student exchange, etc.

Reference Department’s telegram 66, July 17. Department’s assumptions do not make clear how much French influence it expects would remain event French are forced deal directly with Ho Chi Minh. But assuming French will deal with Ho only in last extremity and their control would tend become negligible thereafter:

5. Viet Namese people here still regard United States as promised land and earthly paradise. American flag is still best protection available. Viet Namese are exceeding sensitive to United States opinion and unquestionably would accept United States advice and/or advisers and would be more than willing to have United States intervene if such intervention were directed toward satisfaction their political and economic needs.

1. Influence Communists in present government would not be sufficient to put Viet Nam squarely in Soviet camp although there would be pull in that direction. Agreement with French which would satisfy nationalism of Viet Namese people would probably lead to decrease in under-cover activities of characters such as Ha Ba Cang and Dang Xuan Khu and Tongbo members who would

6. Should Soviet oriented Viet Nam emerge, Cambodia and Laos would probably be subjected to considerable pressure to overthrow present regimes there. Independent Viet Nam, whether Soviet oriented or not, and absence of protecting power such as France, could be expected to resume encroachment upon Mekong delta which was interrupted by French occupation in 1860. Viet

Primary Source

38. James L. O’Sullivan, Vice-Consul in Hanoi, and Charles S. Reed in Saigon: Telegrams to George C. Marshall 1399 Namese migration to southern plains has gone on for ten centuries and probably will continue. Independent Viet Nam, not oriented toward Soviet, would probably leave Laos to its own devices. In effect, there are dangers in French dealing with Viet Nam Government. There are dangers equally as great in French dealing with series of puppets in continuing effort to establish, despite all statements to contrary, something which strongly resembles status quo of before war. Problem was and remains primarily nationalist problem in overpopulated area with illiterate populace which has no democratic traditions on national level largely because colonial power gave populace no opportunity express itself politically. With middle-class small, intellectuals who are generally ineffective, and Catholics who are split, best possibility of retaining some stability and preventing development of police state seems to be retention some degree French or international control to act as arbiter between parties. Communist problem here results from fact French have allowed Communist group to seize and monopolize fight for felt necessity of people and Communist problem will remain without hope solution as long as this necessity is not satisfied elsewhere.

is honestly nationalistic, it should welcome such solution but am reasonably sure French, particularly French Communists, will view such suggestion with alarm. Replying ad seriatim. 1. While tendency is toward Soviet camp as result Communist orientation Vietnam leaders, do not believe Vietnam will come out openly on side of Soviets until ground is prepared; present Soviet policy toward Vietnam appears to be one of remote control rather than open support and such policy will probably be pursued until time is ripe for avowal Soviet affiliation; in meantime Ho is straddling the fence and hopes to win support of west on platform dedicated to fulfillment nationalist aspirations. 2. As I have reported, very possible so-called militant opposition to Ho as being too moderate is only a blind; there is no proof he has renounced his Communist training but it is reasonably certain his indoctrination will be soft pedalled until independence is won and the French are out; a wily opportunist, Ho will take any aid coming his way to gain his ends without disclosing ultimate intentions. 3. Most Annamite intellectuals do not realize what communism means except that it symbolized revolution, nor do they care; as their conflict with French is basically revolutionary, they will accept communism or any other ‘is[m]” as a means to the end.

O’Sullivan Have given considerable thought Deptel 122, July 17, and feel if French compelled treat with present Vietnam Govt their position in French Indo China will be definitely weakened, also if this govt emerges as controlling power in three Kys gradual deterioration of ties with democratic West may be expected. Unquestionably aid from western democracies, especially US, will be welcomed at first but query whether this Govt and in fact any native govt not subject to check or control will not develop a definitely oriental orientation and will not become a prey for non-democratic influences. Such a govt without considerable economic and moral support will not be strong enough to resist the impact of a concerted move by either the Communists or the Chinese for both of whom this part of Asia is indeed a happy hunting ground, fertile field for the inculcation of anti-Western sentiment, and expansion. However, it appears improbable that solution situation can be found without treating with present Vietnam Govt but as noted above and hereafter to treat with that Govt alone is a danger but there is equal danger in treating only with puppets. If French cannot reconcile all political elements or if they try to retain any large degree control, denying independence in regard which both present Vietnam Govt and Nationalist Front elements are united, only solution may be neutral intervention to establish a Vietnam state satisfactory to majority Annamites and to exercise control to see the state is run on democratic and equitable lines. If present Vietnam Govt

. . . Pure nationalists among these intellectuals want independence and the future can take care of itself; average Annamite not good Communist prospect but strong leaders of aggressive minority can easily bring about evolution Communist state. 4. Removal French pressure and absence Western democracy control will result in chaos as factional fighting with accompanying terrorism will ensue; great bulk of population not prepared for self-government and destinies of country would be in hands of few, those now strongly suspected of Communist leanings; unless active steps were taken, through economic and political pressure, there would be little possibility preventing and combatting resultant police state. 5. American opinion still highly valued by all Annamites, including present Vietnam Government, and American aid is definitely desired to any other; however, if American advice and action run counter to what they think is full sum their desiderata, US might not be so popular; this difference must be noted—present Vietnam Government welcomes American aid in gaining independence, getting rid of French and helping establish national economy but National Front elements in addition to foregoing want American aid to get rid of present Vietnam Government and Communists; if firmly applied, American pressure can be the strongest influence in the country but there can be no temporizing.

1400

39. Department of State Policy Statement on Indochina

6. Strong Vietnam state whether or not Soviet oriented will bring pressure on Laos and Cambodia and definite political and economic encroachments are to be expected; unless full protection given those countries, they would be forced into orbit Buddhist countries to the west and there would follow indefinite period political readjustment and dispute. While Communist danger exists, it is future one and only when Vietnam Government is firmly established and in position disregard opinion and aid Western democracies will such government align itself with Soviet satellites—events elsewhere may make such alignment only far distant possibility. French overstress this danger. Present dangers are (1) French terms will be such as to prevent any peaceful solution and (2) if Annamites turned loose, only way combatting resultant economic and political chaos will be totalitarian police state, with ruthless suppression opposition. Both alternatives are alarming. Also must not overlook Chinese ambitions in this area which are only inactive because of China’s internal situation. Reed Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 121–126.

39. Department of State Policy Statement on Indochina, September 27, 1948 [Excerpts] Introduction This U.S. State Department policy statement of September 1948 rejects both a French military pacification of Indochina and military withdrawal. The State Department concludes that if the French withdraw from Indochina, chaos will inevitably result. Yet because the United States refused to accept either French conquest or withdrawal, this left the United States prey to French policy with little ability to influence the course of events in Indochina.

Primary Source A. Objectives The immediate objective of US policy in Indochina is to assist in a solution of the present impasse which will be mutually satisfactory to the French and the Vietnamese peoples, which will result in the termination of the present hostilities, and which will be within the framework of US security. Our long-term objectives are: (1) to eliminate so far as possible Communist influence in Indochina and to see installed a selfgoverning nationalist state which will be friendly to the US and

which, commensurate with the capacity of the peoples involved, will be patterned upon our conception of a democratic state as opposed to the totalitarian state which would evolve inevitably from Communist domination; (2) to foster the association of the peoples of Indochina with the western powers, particularly with France with whose customs, language and laws they are familiar, to the end that those peoples will prefer freely to cooperate with the western powers culturally, economically and politically; (3) to raise the standard of living so that the peoples of Indochina will be less receptive to totalitarian influences and will have an incentive to work productively and thus contribute to a better balanced world economy; and (4) to prevent undue Chinese penetration and subsequent influence in Indochina so that the peoples of Indochina will not be hampered in their natural developments by the pressure of an alien people and alien interests. B. Policy Issues To attain our immediate objective, we should continue to press the French to accommodate the basic aspirations of the Vietnamese: (1) unity of Cochinchina, Annam, and Tonkin, (2) complete internal autonomy, and (3) the right to choose freely regarding participation in the French Union. We have recognized French sovereignty over Indochina but have maintained that such recognition does not imply any commitment on our part to assist France to exert its authority over the Indochinese peoples. Since V-J day, the majority people of the area, the Vietnamese, have stubbornly resisted the reestablishment of French authority, a struggle in which we have tried to maintain insofar as possible a position of non-support of either party. While the nationalist movement in Vietnam (Cochinchina, Annam, and Tonkin) is strong, and though the great majority of the Vietnamese are not fundamentally Communist, the most active element in the resistance of the local peoples to the French has been a Communist group headed by Ho Chi Minh. This group has successfully extended its influence to include practically all armed forces now fighting the French, thus in effect capturing control of the nationalist movement. The French on two occasions during 1946 attempted to resolve the problem by negotiation with the government established and dominated by Ho Chi Minh. The general agreements reached were not, however, successfully implemented and widescale fighting subsequently broke out. Since early in 1947, the French have employed about 115,000 troops in Indochina, with little result, since the countryside except in Laos and Cambodia remains under the firm control of the Ho Chi Minh government. A series of French-established puppet governments have tended to enhance the prestige of Ho’s government and to call into question, on the part of the Vietnamese, the sincerity of French intentions to accord an independent status to Vietnam.

39. Department of State Policy Statement on Indochina 1. Political We have regarded these hostilities in a colonial area as detrimental not only to our own long-term interests which require as a minimum a stable Southeast Asia but also detrimental to the interest of France, since the hatred engendered by continuing hostilities may render impossible peaceful collaboration and cooperation of the French and the Vietnamese peoples. This hatred of the Vietnamese people toward the French is keeping alive anti-Western feeling among oriental peoples, to the advantage of the USSR and the detriment of the US. We have not urged the French to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh, even though he probably is now supported by a considerable majority of the Vietnamese people, because of his record as a Communist and the Communist background of many of the influential figures in and about his government. Postwar French governments have never understood, or have chosen to underestimate, the strength of the nationalist movement with which they must deal in Indochina. It remains possible that the nationalist movement can be subverted from Communist control but this will require of nationalists at least the same concessions demanded by Ho Chi Minh. The failure of French governments to deal successfully with the Indochinese question has been due, in large measure, to the overwhelming internal issues facing France and the French Union, and to foreign policy considerations in Europe. These factors have combined with the slim parliamentary majorities of postwar governments in France to militate against the bold moves necessary to divert allegiance of the Vietnamese nationalists to non-Communist leadership. In accord with our policy of regarding with favor the efforts of dependent peoples to attain their legitimate political aspirations, we have been anxious to see the French accord to the Vietnamese the largest possible degree of political and economic independence consistent with legitimate French interests. We have therefore declined to permit the export to the French in Indochina of arms and munitions for the prosecution of the war against the Vietnamese. This policy has been limited in its effect as we have allowed the free export of arms to France, such exports thereby being available for re-shipment to Indochina or for releasing stocks from reserves to be forwarded to Indochina. [. . .] D. Policy Evaluation The objectives of US policy towards Indochina have not been realized. Three years after the termination of war a friendly ally, France, is fighting a desperate and apparently losing struggle in Indochina. The economic drain of this warfare on French recovery,

1401

while difficult to estimate, is unquestionably large. The Communist control in the nationalist movement has been increased during this period. US influence in Indochina and Southeast Asia has suffered as a result. The objectives of US policy can only be attained by such French action as will satisfy the nationalist aspirations of the peoples of Indochina. We have repeatedly pointed out to the French the desirability of their giving such satisfaction and thus terminating the present open conflict. Our greatest difficulty in talking with the French and in stressing what should and what should not be done has been our inability to suggest any practicable solution of the Indochina problem, as we are all too well aware of the unpleasant fact that Communist Ho Chi Minh is the strongest and perhaps the ablest figure in Indochina and that any suggested solution which excludes him is an expedient of uncertain outcome. We are naturally hesitant to press the French too strongly or to become deeply involved so long as we are not in a position to suggest a solution or until we are prepared to accept the onus of intervention. The above considerations are further complicated by the fact that we have an immediate interest in maintaining in power a friendly French Government, to assist in the furtherance of our aims in Europe. This immediate and vital interest has in consequence taken precedence over active steps looking toward the realization of our objectives in Indochina. We are prepared, however, to support the French in every way possible in the establishment of a truly nationalist government in Indochina which, by giving satisfaction to the aspirations of the peoples of Indochina, will serve as a rallying point for the nationalists and will weaken the Communist elements. By such support and by active participation in a peaceful and constructive solution in Indochina we stand to regain influence and prestige. Some solution must be found which will strike a balance between the aspirations of the peoples of Indochina and the interests of the French. Solution by French military reconquest of Indochina is not desirable. Neither would the complete withdrawal of the French from Indochina effect a solution. The first alternative would delay indefinitely the attainment of our objectives, as we would share inevitably in the hatred engendered by an attempted military reconquest and the denial of aspirations for self-government. The second solution would be equally unfortunate as in all likelihood Indochina would then be taken over by the militant Communist group. At best, there might follow a transition period, marked by chaos and terroristic activities, creating a political vacuum into which the Chinese inevitably would be drawn or would push. The absence of stabilization in China will continue to have an important influence upon the objective of a permanent and peaceable solution in Indochina. We have not been particularly successful in our information and education program in orienting the Vietnamese toward the

1402

40. The United States Praises the Elysée Agreements

western democracies and the US. The program has been hampered by the failure of the French to understand that such informational activities as we conduct in Indochina are not inimical to their own long-term interests and by administrative and financial considerations which have prevented the development to the maximum extent of contacts with the Vietnamese. An increased effort should be made to explain democratic institutions, especially American institutions and American policy, to the Indochinese by direct personal contact, by the distribution of information about the US, and the encouraging of educational exchange. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 144–149.

sincere efforts to unite all truly nationalist elements within Vietnam, will form the basis for the progressive realization of the legitimate aspirations of the Vietnamese people. Source: “New Unified State of Vietnam Formed,” Department of State Bulletin 21(524) (1949): 735–736.

41. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in France, February 25, 1949 Introduction

40. The United States Praises the Elysée Agreements, 1949 Introduction U.S. policymakers, who rejected both the restoration of French control by military conquest and a French withdrawal from Indochina that they believed likely to lead to civil war, embraced the so-called Bao Dai experiment. In order to secure additional manpower, gain Vietnamese nationalist support, and quiet critics at home and in the United States, Paris sought the facade of an indigenous Vietnamese regime as a competitor to the Viet Minh. Following several years of negotiations, in March 1949 the French government concluded the Elysée Agreements with former emperor Bao Dai, then living in France. These created the State of Vietnam (SVN), with Bao Dai as its head. Importantly, Paris conceded that Vietnam was indeed one country. With the SVN, Paris sought to cast the war as a conflict between a free Vietnam and the Communists and thus not a colonial war at all. The problem for Vietnamese nationalists, however, was that the SVN never had any power. The French continued to control all of its institutions, and its promised army was late in materializing. There were thus only two choices for Vietnamese: the Viet Minh or the French. In effect the French pushed most nationalists into the Viet Minh camp. The Viet Minh meanwhile wrapped itself in the mantle of nationalism and downplayed communism.

Primary Source The formation of the new unified state of Vietnam and the recent announcement by Bao Dai that the future constitution will be decided by the Vietnamese people are welcome developments which should serve to hasten the reestablishment of peace in that country and the attainment of Vietnam’s rightful place in the family of nations. The United States Government hopes that the agreements of March 8 between President Auriol and Bao Dai, who is making

In this telegram to U.S. ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery, new secretary of state Dean Acheson (he took office in January 1949) reviews the past French record in Indochina and states that the United States cannot support the return of former emperor Bao Dai as head of a new Vietnamese state unless this is accompanied by demonstrated popular support from the Vietnamese people. Acheson points out that even with French arms, without such demonstrated support Bao Dai cannot hope to attract the Vietnamese people away from Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh.

Primary Source Urtel 718, Feb 18. Dept despite reported progress Fr-Bao Dai negots queries whether Fr are really making such concessions as to (1) induce Bao Dai return Indochina (2) give him best opportunity succeed even if he returns there. For months, even though Commie successes China should have induced Fr make outstanding effort, negots have dragged, with Fr unable or unwilling put question status Cochinchina before Fr Assembly. Foregoing connection Dept fully realizes polit difficulties present Fr Govt putting this question before Assembly but Dept equally aware that over past three years Fr have shown no impressively sincere intention or desire make concessions which seem necessary solve Indochina question. Present formula solving status Cochinchina may have virtue but in Dept’s thinking it may be but another device to obtain delay and unless proof is adduced to offset record of past three years Dept is now far from inclined give public approval any arrangements with Bao Dai. This disinclination springs from Dept’s considered belief it would be unwise give public support to any arrangements for Indochina concluded by Fr unless that arrangement embodies means clearly sufficient insure its success or until it achieves substantial measure of success. Thus even though Bao Dai induced return Indochina Dept views failure Fr Govt take decisive action, at very least re status Cochinchina, as seriously weakening possibility ex-Emperor will obtain support any appreciable portion population. Without such support Bao Dai cannot hope, even though

42. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Consulate General in Saigon 1403 supported by Fr arms as he must necessarily be, wean away militant and organized followers of Ho Chi Minh. Dept believes therefore, it should not now be committed in any way to approval Fr action vis-à-vis Bao Dai and must reserve aforementioned public expression until Fr have provided Bao Dai with means to succeed and he has demonstrated ability use successfully such means to obtain support appreciable portion Vietnamese population. This connection, Emb may recall doubts expressed in several Fr quarters re Bao Dai’s capacities and abilities when negots were first undertaken with him two years ago. Accordingly Emb should make clear to FonOff that for these reasons US not prepared give public indication its approval until, in Dept’s opinion, conditions noted above fulfilled. At same time Emb may state while US remains willing reconsider its ECA Indochinese policy such reconsideration must await developments. Sent Paris as 598. Rptd Saigon as 15. Emb should note particularly with respect to first part para 1 that above tel was drafted before receipt embtel 771 Feb. 24, 4 p.m. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Vol. 7, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 8–9.

42. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Consulate General in Saigon, May 10, 1949 Introduction In this telegram to the U.S. consulate in Saigon, Secretary of State Dean Acheson reacts to the signing of the Elysée Agreements of March 1949 and the return to Vietnam of former emperor Bao Dai as head of the new State of Vietnam (SVN). Acheson expresses caution regarding possible U.S. diplomatic recognition of the SVN and suggests that recognition of the new regime by independent Asian governments would go a long way toward dispelling the notion that this was somehow the result of collusion among the French, British, and U.S. governments.

Primary Source Assumption urtel 141 Dept desires success Baodai experiment entirely correct. Since appears be no other alternative to estab Commie pattern Vietnam, Dept considers no effort shld be spared by Fr, other Western powers, and non-Commie Asian nations to assure experiment best chance succeeding.

At proper time and under proper circumstances Dept will be prepared do its part by extending recognition Baodai Govt and by exploring possibility of complying with any request by such Govt for US arms and econ assistance. Must be understood however aid program this nature wld require Congressional approval. Since US cld however scarcely afford backing govt which wld have color and be likely suffer fate of puppet regime, it must first be clear Fr will offer all necessary concessions to make Baodai solution attractive to nationalists. This is step of which Fr themselves must see urgent necessity view possibly short time remaining before Commie successes Chi are felt Indochina. Moreover, Baodai Govt must through own efforts demonstrate capacity organize and conduct affairs wisely so as to ensure maximum opportunity obtaining requisite popular support inasmuch as govt created Indochina analogous Kuomintang wld be foredoomed failure. Assuming essential Fr concessions are forthcoming, best chance success Baodai wld appear lie in persuading Vietnamese nationalists (1) their patriotic aims may be realized promptly through Fr-Baodai agreement (2) Baodai govt will be truly representative even to extent including outstanding non-Commie leaders now supporting Ho and (3) Baodai solution probably only means safeguarding Vietnam from aggressive designs Commie Chi. While attainment these objectives depends initially upon attitude Fr and Baodai circle, Dept believes more will ultimately be required. Best hope might lie in active demonstration of interest in and support of Baodai solution by other non-Commie Asian govts. Appeal such solution to Vietnam nationalists wld presumably be far greater if it appeared sponsored by free Asian nations animated by interest self-determination Asian peoples and their own self-preservation in face immed Commie menace rather than if it had appearance gambit engineered by Fr, US and UK as part strategy of West-East conflict. Dept giving closest consideration to means whereby US might assist attainment these ends. From above, you will see Dept thinking closely parallels your own. Dept agrees when time comes Baodai must certainly be fully warned of danger yielding to any temptation include Commies his govt and this connection again believes other Asian govts cld serve most useful purpose since India, Siam, Philippines, and Indonesians (both Repubs and Federalists) are fully alive growing Commie threat Asia. Re last para urtel 141 “reliability Baodai solution” was error. Deptel 70 shld have read “viability” meaning able live. While Dept continues believe it wld be premature and unwise for you make special point (such as trip Dalat) see Baodai, there no

1404

43. Dean Acheson: Telegram to the Consulate in Hanoi

objection your talking informally with polit personalities close to him with whom you have doubtless already made contact in normal course carrying out your functions. In such talks you might well as suggested urtel 141 take occasion cite examples futility collaboration Commies and grave danger such course.

preservation area from Kremlin control. Moreover, while Vietnam out of reach Soviet army it will doubtless be by no means out of reach Chi Commie hatchet men and armed forces.

Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Vol. 7, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 23–25.

Dept naturally considers only Fr can through concessions to nationalist movement lay basis for solution Indochina problem. As suggested Deptel 83 to Saigon, if nationalists find concessions Mar 8 agreements inadequate, much may depend upon willingness Fr put agreements in most favorable possible context by emphasizing expectations rapid evolution Vietnam beyond status envisaged those agreements. Provided Fr display realistic and generous attitude, most important part remainder immed program—viz, winning support nationalists away from Commie leadership—must devolve upon Baodai and Xuan group seconded by other South Asian govts who stand in most immed danger from Commie conquest Indochina and who by full polit and propaganda support Baodai solution might more that anyone else be able to deprive Ho of talking-points in event he continues demand armed resistance Baodai regardless circumstances (which appears certain in light vitriolic tone current Vietminh broadcasts on Baodai which give no recognition any Fr concessions to nationalist demands). Even with conditions for US support Baodai realized, it futile expect US be able assist effectively this initial task beyond stressing requirements situation in talks South Asian govts and providing materials evidencing realities of Communism through USIS for distribution as you and Congen Saigon consider desirable in conjunction with Baodai efforts arouse compatriots to Commie menace. Experience Chi has shown no amt US mil and econ aid can save govt, even if recognized by all other powers and possessed full opportunity achieve natl aims, unless it can rally support people against Commies by affording representation all important natl groups, manifesting devotion to natl as opposed to personal or party interests, and demonstrating real leadership.

43. Dean Acheson: Telegram to the Consulate in Hanoi, May 20, 1949 Introduction In this telegram to the U.S. consulate in Hanoi, Secretary of State Dean Acheson responds to charges by some pro-French Vietnamese that the U.S. government might not oppose Viet Minh participation in a future Vietnamese government. Acheson states that should the anti-Communists not prevail, Vietnam will surely lose its independence to either the Soviet Union or China. He largely dismisses the notion that a Communist Vietnamese state might also be nationalist and operate independently, and he styles Ho an “outright Commie.” Acheson believes that the best opportunity to prevent the Communists from taking power is an all-out French effort while its military is still in place.

Primary Source Reur informative tel 36: In talks Xuan and reps his govt you may take fol line as representing consensus informed Americans: In light Ho’s known background, no other assumption possible but that he outright Commie so long as (1) he fails unequivocally repudiate Moscow connections and Commie doctrine and (2) remains personally singled out for praise by intenatl Commie press and receives its support. Moreover, US not impressed by nationalist character red flag with yellow stars. Question whether Ho as much nationalist as Commie is irrelevant. All Stalinists in colonial areas are nationalists. With achievement natl aims (i.e., independence) their objective necessarily becomes subordination state to Commie purposes and ruthless extermination not only opposition groups but all elements suspected even slightest deviation. On basis examples eastern Eur it must be assumed such wld be goal Ho and men his stamp if included Baodai Govt. To include them in order achieve reconciliation opposing polit elements and “national unity” wld merely postpone settlement issue whether Vietnam to be independent nation or Commie satellite until circumstances probably even less favorable nationalists than now. It must of course be conceded theoretical possibility exists estab National Communist state on pattern Yugoslavia in any area beyond reach Soviet army. However, US attitude cld take acct such possibility only if every other possible avenue closed to

Fol is for urinfo and such reference as you deem judicious:

Re Viet opinion reported Saigon’s 145 that US abandonment Nationalist China presents unfavorable augury for non-Commie regime Vietnam, there no objection emphasizing to persons with this view that Nationalist China came to present pass through deficiency above qualities and lack will to fight, not because US “wrote it off.” Re Xuan query whether US wld propose Vietnam for membership UN shld Fr renege, you shld avoid discussion this matter, at most if pressed state circumstances at moment will of course determine US action. For urinfo only it unlikely US cld even vote for Vietnam membership UN if as it appears now Fr wld remain in control Vietnam fon relations. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Vol. 7, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 29–30.

45. Raymond B. Fosdick, Consultant to the Secretary of State on Far Eastern Policy 1405

44. Memorandum of Conversation among Secretary of State Dean Acheson, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, September 17, 1949 [Excerpt]

45. Raymond B. Fosdick, Consultant to the Secretary of State on Far Eastern Policy: Memorandum for Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup, November 4, 1949

Introduction

As the United States moved closer to a full embrace of the new State of Vietnam (SVN) headed by Bao Dai, opinion in the State Department was not unanimous. In this memorandum, Raymond B. Fosdick, a consultant to the State Department on Far Eastern policy, presents a very pessimistic view of the new SVN. Fosdick argues that the Elysée Agreements are nothing more than “semi-colonialism.” The Bao Dai regime is “doomed,” and nothing can stop the Vietnamese people in their drive for “complete nationalism.”

In the course of a meeting with French foreign minister Robert Schuman and British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson retreated from the position taken early in the year that the United States should insist on full independence for Vietnam. Acheson commits the U.S. government to trying to win diplomatic recognition from other Asian nations, especially the Philippines and Thailand (Siam) of the French-backed State of Vietnam (SVN), and holds out hope of additional U.S. aid.

Primary Source Mr. Schuman then talked about Indochina. He said the Bao Dai government was not quite complete but it was satisfactory. The government was not yet fully established but it would be and it was the only way for a permanent solution. There is no love lost between the Chinese and the Indochinese. The Indochinese are afraid of China. Some of Ho’s men, if there was a threat of invasion from China, might go over to Bao Dai. If the Southeast Asian countries recognize the Bao Dai government, its prestige would be increased. Perhaps the United Kingdom and the United States could help the French with Southeast Asia. The agreement with the Bao Dai government would be ratified by the French Parliament soon. Siam perhaps could be encouraged to recognize, by a word from the United States or the United Kingdom, the Bao Dai government. Bevin asked when the French Parliament would ratify the agreement. Schuman replied that Parliament meets on October 18 and should ratify it a few weeks after that—perhaps in November. Bevin remarked that France has to ratify the agreement before anyone else can help. The Secretary said that if the French ratify the March 8 Agreement and transfer dealings with Bao Dai to the Foreign Office, we could help with the Philippines and Siam. The Southeast Asian countries should take the first steps, otherwise recognition by the United Kingdom and the United States in advance of other countries would make the Bao Dai government look like a Western “front.” Congress may take up the question of Point Four Program after the Military Assistance Pact. Perhaps we can arrange technical assistance and Export-Import Bank funds. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Vol. 7, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 88–89.

Introduction

Primary Source In his memorandum of November 1 on Indochina, Mr. Yost argues that “a further major advance of communism will be considered as, and will in fact be, a defeat for the United States, whether or not we are directly involved.” He therefore recommends, among other steps, support of the Bao Dai government (after the March 8 agreements are ratified) economic assistance to Bao Dai, etc. It seems to me this point of view fails to take into consideration the possible, and I think the probable consequences of such a decision. In grasping one horn of the dilemma, it ignores the other. My belief is that the Bao Dai regime is doomed. The compromises which the French are so reluctantly making cannot possibly save it. The Indochinese are pressing toward complete nationalism and nothing is going to stop them. They see all too clearly that France is offering them a kind of semi-colonialism; and to think that they will be content to settle for less than Indonesia has gained from the Dutch or India from the British is to underestimate the power of the forces that are sweeping Asia today. What kind of independence is France offering the Indochinese today in the March 8th agreements? (1) The foreign policy of Indochina is to be under the final control of France. (2) French military bases are to be established and the Indochinese Army in time of war is to be under French direction. (3) France is to be in charge of the so-called General Services: (a) Control of immigration (b) Communications (c) Industrial development of Indochina

1406

46. National Security Council Paper No. 64

(4) Customs receipts are to be divided between France and Indochina in accordance with a formula to be agreed upon. (5) Extraterritorial courts for French citizens are to be continued. This shabby business is a mockery of all the professions we have made in the Indonesian case. It probably represents an improvement over the brutal colonialism of earlier years, but it is now too late in the history of the world to try to settle for the price of this cheap substitute. For the United States to support France in this attempt will cost us our standing and prestige in all of Southeast Asia. A lot of that prestige went down the drain with Chiang Kaishek; the rest of it will go down with the Bao Dai regime if we support it. Ambassador Stuart calls our relationship to this regime “shameful” and I am inclined to agree with him. Ev Case argued yesterday that it is too late to do anything else except support Bao Dai. I disagree. It is never too late to change a mistaken policy, particularly when the policy involves the kind of damage that our adherence to the Generalissimo brought us. Why get our fingers burned twice? Ho Chi Minh as an alternative is decidedly unpleasant, but as was pointed out at our meeting with FE [Far Eastern Bureau] yesterday, there may be unpredictable and unseen factors in this situation which in the end will be more favorable to us than now seems probable. The fundamental antipathy of the Indochinese to China is one of the factors. Faced with a dilemma like this the best possible course is to wait for the breaks. Certainly we should not play our cards in such a way that once again, as in China, we seem to be allied with reaction. Whether the French like it or not, independence is coming to Indochina. Why, therefore, do we tie ourselves to the tail of their battered kite?

fighting as “communist aggression against Indochina” and part of a wider Communist plan to seize all of Southeast Asia. The paper also holds that it is “important to United States security interests” to prevent further Communist inroads in Southeast Asia.

Primary Source The Position of the United States with Respect to Indochina The Problem 1. To undertake a determination of all practicable United States measures to protect its security in Indochina and to prevent the expansion of communist aggression in that area. Analysis 2. It is recognized that the threat of communist aggression against Indochina is only one phase of anticipated communist plans to seize all of Southeast Asia. It is understood that Burma is weak internally and could be invaded without strong opposition or even that the Government of Burma could be subverted. However, Indochina is the area most immediately threatened. It is also the only area adjacent to communist China which contains a large European army, which along with native troops is now in armed conflict with the forces of communist aggression. A decision to contain communist expansion at the border of Indochina must be considered as a part of a wider study to prevent communist aggression into other parts of Southeast Asia.

Introduction

3. A large segment of the Indochinese nationalist movement was seized in 1945 by Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese who under various aliases has served as a communist agent for thirty years. He has attracted noncommunist as well as communist elements to his support. In 1946, he attempted, but failed to secure French agreement to his recognition as the head of a government of Vietnam. Since then he has directed a guerrilla army in raids against French installations and lines of communication. French forces which have been attempting to restore law and order found themselves pitted against a determined adversary who manufactures effective arms locally, who received supplies of arms from outside sources, who maintained no capital or permanent headquarters and who was, and is able, to disrupt and harass almost any area within Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina) at will.

By the beginning of 1950 the Cold War was in full bloom. In Asia the Communists had taken power in China, and the Truman administration found itself under attack by Republicans for having “lost” China. In these circumstances, as evidenced by National Security Council Paper No. 64, the Truman administration ignored the nationalist aspects of the struggle in Indochina, saw Ho Chi Minh simply as “a communist agent,” and styled the

4. The United States has, since the Japanese surrender, pointed out to the French Government that the legitimate nationalist aspirations of the people of Indochina must be satisfied, and that a return to the prewar colonial rule is not possible. The Department of State has pointed out to the French Government that it was and is necessary to establish and support governments in Indochina

Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 83–84.

46. National Security Council Paper No. 64, 1950

47. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in the United Kingdom 1407 particularly in Vietnam, under leaders who are capable of attracting to their causes the non-communist nationalist followers who had drifted to the Ho Chi Minh communist movement in the absence of any non-communist nationalist movement around which to plan their aspirations. 5. In an effort to establish stability by political means, where military measures had been unsuccessful, i.e., by attracting noncommunist nationalists, now followers of Ho Chi Minh, to the support of anti-communist nationalist leaders, the French Government entered into agreements with the governments of the Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia to elevate their status from protectorates to that of independent states within the French Union. The State of Vietnam was formed, with similar status, out of the former French protectorates of Tonkin, Annam and the former French Colony of Cochinchina. Each state received an increased degree of autonomy and sovereignty. Further steps towards independence were indicated by the French. The agreements were ratified by the French Government on 2 February 1950. 6. The Governments of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were officially recognized by the United States and the United Kingdom on February 7, 1950. Other Western powers have, or are committed to do likewise. The United States has consistently brought to the attention of non-communist Asian countries the danger of communist aggression which threatens them if communist expansion in Indochina is unchecked. As this danger becomes more evident it is expected to overcome the reluctance that they have had to recognize and support the three new states. We are therefore continuing to press those countries to recognize the new states. On January 18, 1950, the Chinese Communist Government announced its recognition of the Ho Chi Minh movement as the legal Government of Vietnam, while on January 30, 1950, the Soviet Government, while maintaining diplomatic relations with France, similarly announced its recognition.

9. In the present state of affairs, it is doubtful that the combined native Indochinese and French troops can successfully contain Ho’s forces should they be strengthened by either Chinese Communist troops crossing the border, or Communist-supplied arms and material in quantity from outside Indochina strengthening Ho’s forces. Conclusions 10. It is important to United States security interests that all practicable measures be taken to prevent further communist expansion in Southeast Asia. Indochina is a key area of Southeast Asia and is under immediate threat. 11. The neighboring countries of Thailand and Burma could be expected to fall under Communist domination if Indochina were controlled by a Communist-dominated government. The balance of Southeast Asia would then be in grave hazard. 12. Accordingly, the Departments of State and Defense should prepare as a matter of priority a program of all practicable measures designed to protect United States security interests in Indochina. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 1. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 361–362.

47. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, January 30, 1950 Introduction

7. The newly formed States of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia do not as yet have sufficient political stability nor military power to prevent the infiltration into their areas of Ho Chi Minh’s forces. The French Armed Forces, while apparently effectively utilized at the present time, can do little more than to maintain the status quo. Their strength of some 140,000 does, however, represent an army in being and the only military bulwark in that area against the further expansion of communist aggression from either internal or external forces.

In this telegram to U.S. ambassador to Great Britain Lewis W. Douglas, Secretary of State Dean Acheson explains the U.S. decision to extend full de jure recognition of the Bao Dai State of Vietnam (SVN) and seeks to draw British policy into alignment with that of the United States.

8. The presence of Chinese Communist troops along the border of Indochina makes it possible for arms, material and troops to move freely from Communist China to the northern Tonkin area now controlled by Ho Chi Minh. There is already evidence of movement of arms.

As Dept understands it the purpose of according recognition to Bao Dai is to give him stature in the eyes of non-communist nationalists elements in Viet Nam and thus increase his following. This being the case recognition, if accorded by U.K. or ourselves, wld appear most effective if given without any strings attached, i.e.

Primary Source Re Lond’s 479, rptd Paris 137, Jan 27. Fol comments on recognition Viet Nam shld be passed to Brit:

1408

48. Paper on Military Aid for Indochina by a Working Group in the Department of State

the defacto step contemplated by Brit as a bargaining point with the Fr in order obtain further concessions. Dept has come to view that the Fr have for the moment gone as far as they can in according independence. This does not mean of course that either we, the Brit or the Fr shld not continue to view the Mar 8 Agreements as an evolutionary step in the independence of Viet Nam.

I. The Problem Should the United States provide military aid in Indochina and, if so, how much and in what way. II. Assumption

We are of course aware of fact that the UK does not have unanimous support of the commonwealth re recognition and that no formula re Viet Nam cld be found at Colombo acceptable to all participants. We nevertheless believe that a straightforward recognition without the qualification of defacto, or for that matter de jure, wld best serve our and UK interests and this viewpoint shld be pressed upon the commonwealth govts. In this connection, it shld be borne in mind that simultaneous recognition will have to be accorded to Laos and Cambodia, whose govts fulfill the requirements for the “de jure” status. The Mao Tse Tung govt on the other hand appears indeed to be a “de facto” form of govt altho it was simply “recognized” without qualifications. Along the lines above Dept is of opinion that merely to give the UK ConGen in Saigon the “courtesy of rank of minister” is a skittish and timorous approach to problem of according diplomatic recognition to Viet Nam which wld tend in large measure to negate the benefits of such recognition. Dept considering making ConGen Saigon a diplomatic agent accredited to all 3 govts with personal rank of minister if this appears indicated. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 703–704.

48. Paper on Military Aid for Indochina by a Working Group in the Department of State, February 1, 1950 [Excerpts] Introduction A working group involving various divisions within the Department of State was formed to discuss the possibility of U.S. military aid to Indochina. Massive amounts of Marshall Plan aid were already freeing up French resources to fight the war in Indochina. Although unwarranted by the facts on the ground, the working group’s conclusions reflect U.S. government optimism regarding the possibility of a French military victory in Indochina.

Primary Source Military Aid for Indochina

A. There will not be an effective split between the USSR and Communist China within the next three years. B. The USSR will not declare war on any Southeast Asian country within the next three years. C. Communist China will not declare war on any Southeast Asian country within the next three years. D. The USSR will endeavor to bring about the fall of Southeast Asian governments which are opposed to Communism by using all devices short of war, making use of Communist China and indigenous communists in this endeavor. . . . IV. Discussion 8. Ho Chi Minh, a Moscow-trained Communist, controls the Viet Minh movement which is in conflict with the government of Bao Dai for control of Vietnam. Ho actually exercises control of varying degree over more than two-thirds of Vietnam territory and his “government” maintains agents in Thailand, Burma and India. This communist “government” has been recognized by Communist China and the USSR. 9. Most Indochinese, both the supporters of Bao Dai and those of Ho Chi Minh, regard independence from the French as their primary objective. Protection from Chinese Communist imperialism has been considered, up to now, a secondary issue. 10. Unavoidably, the United States is, together with France, committed in Indochina. That is, failure of the French Bao Dai “experiment” would mean the communization of Indochina. It is Bao Dai (or a similar anti-Communist successor) or Ho Chi Minh (or a similar Communist successor); there is no other alternative. The choice confronting the United States is to support the French in Indochina or face the extension of Communism over the remainder of the continental area of Southeast Asia and, possibly, farther westward. We then would be obliged to make staggering investments in those areas and in that part of Southeast Asia remaining outside Communist domination or

49. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to U.S. Ambassador to France David Bruce 1409 withdraw to a much-contracted Pacific line. It would seem a case of “Penny wise, Pound foolish” to deny support to the French in Indochina. 11. The US plans on extending recognition to the newly-created states of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, following French legislative action which is expected in early February 1950. 12. Another approach to the problem is to apply the practical test of probability of success. In the present case we know from the complex circumstances involved that the French are going to make literally every possible effort to prevent the victory of Communism in Indochina. Briefly, then, we would be backing a determined protagonist in this venture. Added to this is the fact that French military leaders such as General Cherrière are soberly confident that, in the absence of an invasion in mass from Red China, they (the French) can be successful in their support of the antiCommunist governments in Indochina. 13. Still another approach to the problem is to recall that the United States has undertaken to provide substantial aid to France in Europe. Failure to support French policy in Indochina would have the effect of contributing toward the defeat of our aims in Europe. V. Conclusions A. Significant developments have taken place in Indochina since the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 was drawn up, these changes warranting a reexamination of the question of military aid. B. The whole of Southeast Asia is in danger of falling under Communist domination. C. The countries and areas of Southeast Asia are not at present in a position to form a regional organization for self-defense nor are they capable of defending themselves against militarily aggressive Communism, without the aid of the great powers. Despite their lack of military strength, however, there is a will on the part of the legal governments of Indochina toward nationalism and a will to resist whatever aims at destroying that nationalism.

VI. Recommendations 1. The United States should furnish military aid in support of the anti-Communist nationalist governments of Indochina, this aid to be tailored to meet deficiencies toward which the United States can make a unique contribution, not including United States troops. 2. This aid should be financed out of funds made available by Section 303 of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 711–715.

49. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to U.S. Ambassador to France David Bruce, March 4, 1950 Introduction Military aid from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the Viet Minh fighting the French in Indochina was the final straw for Washington, and on February 7, 1950, the United States formally recognized Bao Dai’s State of Vietnam (SVN). In May, Washington agreed to provide $20 million to $30 million in direct aid and more the next fiscal year.

Primary Source In connection with possible military assistance to be given to Indochina Dept is interested in knowing your views on Fr plans regarding the manner and extent of participation by Bao Dai in this aid. Bao Dai’s extravagant requests as presented in his memo to Jessup (which we are assuming has not been seen by the Fr) indicate that he may soon raise the question. The granting of arms to Bao Dai raises question about Fr supervision. In order to build up his political position in Vietnam the Dept considers it important that some formula be found to make Bao Dai appear to be the overt recipient of such aid. This may, of course, involve more of a concession than the Fr are prepared to make at this time, but may, from US viewpoint, be necessary. Dept may wish to ask you to discuss with Fr an approach by us to Bao Dai along the fol lines:

D. The French native and colonial troops presently in Indochina are engaged in military operations aimed at denying the expansion southward of Communism from Red China and of destroying its power in Indochina.

1) That his ideas for equipping Vietnamese army, militia, air force and navy, as set forth in his memo to Jessup seem beyond the realm of practical possibility.

E. In the critical areas of Indochina France needs aid in its support of the legally-constituted anti-Communist states.

2) That for long time to come he will have to look primarily to Fr for supplies of arms, training and military assistance in general.

1410

50. Dean Acheson: Press Release Urging Aid for Indochina

3) It is up to him as much as it is to Fr to establish a modus vivendi re this question which will enable him to receive from them adequate support to pacify the country without jeopardizing his own position as the chief of an independent Viet Nam. 4) We are considering making a contribution to the joint FrVietnamese war effort in the area. However, in view of urgency of their joint need for assistance it will, for purely practical reasons, be necessary to extend material assistance to them thru the Fr., but preserving Bao Dai as publicized recipient. 5) Since the appearance of it being a joint Franco-Vietnamese operation is of great importance politically we are likewise suggesting to the Fr that they associate him in their request for an arms program for Indochina. Emb’s comments urgently requested. No action should be taken with Fr on above without further instructions. Rptd Saigon as 122 for info only.

general agreement both as to the urgency of the situation in that area and as to the necessity for remedial action. We have noted the fact that the problem of meeting the threat to the security of Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos which now enjoy independence within the French union is primarily the responsibility of France and the Governments and peoples of Indochina. The United States recognizes that the solution of the Indochina problem depends both upon the restoration of security and upon the development of genuine nationalism and that United States assistance can and should contribute to these major objectives. The United States Government, convinced that neither national independence nor democratic evolution exist[s] in any area dominated by Soviet imperialism, considers the situation to be such as to warrant its according economic aid and military equipment to the associated states of Indochina and to France in order to assist them in restoring stability and permitting these states to pursue their peaceful and democratic development. Source: “Economic and Military Aid Urged for Indochina,” Department of State Bulletin 22(568) (1950): 821.

Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 748–749.

50. Dean Acheson: Press Release Urging Aid for Indochina, May 22, 1950 Introduction In this press release, U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson describes his meeting with French foreign minister Robert Schuman and their exchange of views on Indochina. Glossing over the reality of the situation, which is that the French still retain control, Acheson notes the “independence” of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam within the French Union and announces that the United States is providing both economic and military aid to help bring about the “restoration of security” in order to “pursue their peaceful and democratic development.” As noted earlier, because the State of Vietnam (SVN) was in fact dominated by France, the Vietnamese had only two choices: join the Communists or support the French. In refusing to grant real independence to Vietnam, France continued to drive Vietnamese nationalists to the Communist side.

Primary Source The [French] Foreign Minister [Robert Schuman] and I have just had an exchange of views on the situation in Indochina and are in

51. President Harry S. Truman: Statement Announcing Direct U.S. Military Aid to Indochina, June 27, 1950 Introduction The Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950, solidified the position of President Harry S. Truman’s administration toward Indochina. Containing the spread of communism now completely subsumed anticolonialism. Washington and Paris saw Korea and Vietnam as mutually dependent theaters in a common Western struggle against the spread of communism. On June 27, 1950, in his statement granting U.S. military assistance to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), Truman also announced that the United States was changing its policy of providing only indirect aid to the war in Indochina. On June 30 eight C-47 transport aircraft arrived in Saigon with the first direct shipment of U.S. military equipment. U.S. support for the French effort in Indochina grew steadily. With the establishment of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), U.S. military aid rose from $100 million in 1950 to $300 million in 1952 and to more than $1 billion in 1954, when the United States was financing some 80 percent of the French effort. Overall U.S. military assistance amounted to nearly $3 billion, or nearly 60 percent of the war’s cost.

52. Ho Chi Minh: Answers to Questions Put by the Press Regarding U.S. Intervention in Indochina 1411

Primary Source In Korea the Government forces, which were armed to prevent border raids and to preserve internal security, were attacked by invading forces from North Korea. The Security Council of the United Nations called upon the invading troops to cease hostilities and to withdraw to the 38th parallel. This they have not done, but on the contrary have pressed the attack. The Security Council called upon all members of the United Nations to render every assistance to the United Nations in the execution of this resolution. In these circumstances I have ordered United States air and sea forces to give the Korean Government troops cover and support. The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war. It has defied the orders of the Security Council of the United Nations issued to preserve international peace and security. In these circumstances the occupation of Formosa by Communist forces would be a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area and to United States forces performing their lawful and necessary functions in that area. Accordingly I have ordered the 7th Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa. As a corollary of this action I am calling upon the Chinese Government on Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland. The 7th Fleet will see that this is done. The determination of the future status of Formosa must await the restoration of security in the Pacific, a peace settlement with Japan, or consideration by the United Nations. I have also directed that United States Forces in the Philippines be strengthened and that military assistance to the Philippine Government be accelerated. I have similarly directed acceleration in the furnishing of military assistance to the forces of France and the Associated States in Indochina and the dispatch of a military mission to provide close working relations with those forces. I know that all members of the United Nations will consider carefully the consequences of this latest aggression in Korea in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations. A return to the rule of force in international affairs would have far-reaching effects. The United States will continue to uphold the rule of law. I have instructed Ambassador Austin, as the representative of the United States to the Security Council, to report these steps to the Council. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 492.

52. Ho Chi Minh: Answers to Questions Put by the Press Regarding U.S. Intervention in Indochina, July 25, 1950 Introduction In these remarks, President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) openly denounces assistance by “U.S. imperialists” to the French in Indochina. Ho expresses his complete confidence in an eventual Viet Minh victory over the “French colonialists and the U.S. interventionists.”

Primary Source Question: What is, Mr. President, the present situation of the U.S. imperialists’ interventionist policy in Indochina? Answer: The U.S. imperialists have of late openly interfered in Indochina’s affairs. It is with their money and weapons and their instructions that the French colonialists have been waging war in Viet-Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. However, the U.S. imperialists are intensifying their plot to discard the French colonialists so as to gain complete control over Indochina. That is why they do their utmost to redouble their direct intervention in every field—military, political, and economic. It is also for this reason that the contradictions between them and the French colonialists become sharper and sharper. Question: Mr. President, what influence does this intervention exert on the Indochinese people? Answer: The U.S. imperialists supply their henchmen with armaments to massacre the Indochinese people. They dump their goods in Indochina to prevent the development of local handicrafts. Their pornographic culture contaminates the youth in areas placed under their control. They follow the policy of buying up, deluding, and dividing our people. They drag some bad elements into becoming their tools and use them to invade our country. Question: What shall we do against them? Answer: To gain independence, we, the Indochinese people, must defeat the French colonialists, our number-one enemy. At the same time, we will struggle against the U.S. interventionists. The deeper their interference, the more powerful are our solidarity and our struggle. We will expose their maneuvers before all our people, especially those living in areas under their control. We will expose all those who serve as lackeys for the U.S. imperialists to coerce, deceive, and divide our people. The close solidarity between the peoples of Viet-Nam, Cambodia, and Laos constitutes a force capable of defeating the French

1412

53. John F. Melby, Chairman of the Joint Survey Mission: Telegram to Dean Rusk

colonialists and the U.S. interventionists. The U.S. imperialists failed in China, they will fail in Indochina. We are still laboring under great difficulties but victory will certainly be ours. Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 94–95.

53. John F. Melby, Chairman of the Joint Survey Mission: Telegram to Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, August 7, 1950 [Excerpt] Introduction In this pessimistic report to the Far Eastern Division of the State Department, John F. Melby, who headed a survey team on Indochina, reports that there will be no military solution there. Melby flatly denies that the French have indeed granted independence to the states of the region and notes that nationalism continues to fuel the Viet Minh. He also points out that the complete identification of the United States with France has greatly weakened American influence in the region. The only possible solution is a French pledge to grant genuine independence to the states of Indochina within a specified time period, as with the United States and the Philippines.

Primary Source In summary then there is good reason to believe that proper application of sufficient military force, plus goading the French into a more offensive spirit, can hold the aid [sic: lid?] on the Indochinese kettle for the predictable, if relatively limited, future. It will not however solve the long-range problem. Neither can the French do it on their present promises or without a radical change of heart and approach. If American interests can be served by the shortrange approach then the rest need not concern us. This must be determined with relationship to over-all world situation, prospects, and time factors. If however the longer alley is important, then Franco-Vietnamese behavior in that alley, to borrow from the Churchillian analogy of the gorilla in the jungle, is a matter of the gravest concern. If the latter be the case and the foregoing analysis valid, a satisfactory solution can only be found when the French have been persuaded to sweeter reasonableness and the Vietnamese firmly led by the hand through the growing pains of adolescence. Recent Korean precedent may be suggestive. I could propose

consideration of following: French undertaking for Vietnam independence within specified period of 5, 10, 20, or 30 years with certain special compensations for French such as are found in Philippines-American arrangements. French would undertake to guarantee inviolability Indochina border. Vietnam national army would be rapidly created to assure responsibility internal situation and as this progressed French forces would withdraw to border areas or where unnecessary depart. Civil administration would increasingly be Vietnam responsibility. All such agreements would have UN public guarantee and such supervision as necessary. Assumably [sic] US would as usual pay most of bills. If US can bring its Korean responsibilities within UN framework, there is little solid reason why French cannot do same for Indochina. Ever recognizing that this form is hardly likely to provoke dancing in the streets of Paris, it may well be that this or something similar is only real prospect for salvaging anything and French must be coerced into realizing it and behaving accordingly. If Vietnam has determined on complete independence as all evidence suggests, it probably cannot get it for a long time in face of French opposition, but it can create the kind of uproar which will constitute a continuing drain on French strength and in end benefit only Communists. Coincidentally, American identification with French in such eventuality will further weaken American influence in Asia. Historically no ruling group has ever remained more or less indefinitely in power in face of active or even passive resistance from the governed, or without ruining itself in the process. There is no convincing evidence Nationalism in Indochina proposes to be an exception. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 847–848.

54. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador to France David Bruce, November 11, 1950 Introduction After British ambassador to France Sir Oliver Harvey had urged the French government to grant full independence to the states of Indochina, U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson cabled David Bruce, the ambassador to France. Acheson expresses concern over the impact of such a move on the morale of French troops, making it impossible for them to win the war. Acheson believes that pressure on the French government for such a statement should come only after the military situation is more favorable to the French. (Note: The Paris Conference of 1950 referred to in this cable had brought together representatives of the Indochina states to discuss

55. John Ohly, Deputy Director of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program: Memorandum 1413 the possible future framework of institutions there.) As it worked out, France continued to dominate Indochina affairs down to the end of the war.

Primary Source Dept has followed developments concerning suggestion that UK Amb Paris inform Fr Govt that “they make formal statement of intention release control Indochina without, however, mentioning time limit” with interest (Lond’s tel 2234, Oct 18). We had agreed fully with reasoning behind Harvey’s request that he use discretion as to timing approach to Schuman and that it be delayed at least until end Pau Conference. As matter has and will, undoubtedly, continue to be discussed with Fr by Malcolm McDonald Dept now considering suggestion to Brit Govt that their démarche to Fr through McDonald or Harvey be coordinated not joined with similar one on our part. Do not believe joint démarche advisable as traditional Fr suspicion UK FE might lead them resent Brit action. Joining Brit might thus reduce effectiveness our approach. In forming approach to Fr we do not wish to overlook consideration that morale of troops fighting in Indochina is of prime importance and that, therefore, Fr Govt should not be urged to make any statement concerning further relinquishment Fr controls except under most favorable conditions. Dept would include among factors which might constitute “favorable conditions” (re: Embtel 2436, Nov 3): (1) demonstration renewed Fr mil potential in form absence further deterioration, (2) visible proof of formation National Armies beyond present paper steps which are excellent beginning, (3) further evidence Bao Dai’s intention and ability assume active leadership his govt, still waited. Moreover, Dept agrees that considerations morale troops Indochina and public opinion Fr in face expenditures lives and money will make it necessary that statement be not so extreme as to remove whatever stake for Fr in Indochina is sufficient to assure their continued acceptance of “primary responsibility” to extent of proceeding with present program. Dept eager in this matter, as in others relating to Indochina, to strengthen ties Fr Union and maximize protection Fr economic interests Indochina. Nevertheless Dept is increasingly of conviction that further evolutionary statement is required to consolidate gains which development National Armies, support Franco-Vietnamese mil potential and enhancement Bao Dai Govt’s authority either as result decisions Pau Conference or, possibly, as we hope, through his own revitalization. We are also obviously concerned to see that every means to increase effectiveness of use our own considerable financial and military aid be brought to bear. This would include as a minimum, official declaration by Fr at highest level (Auriol or Schuman) on present and future intentions regarding Indochina,

as they have been stated to us by various high officials including Schuman, Moch and Letourneau, on several recent occasions. Points outlined in Embtel 2436, Nov 3, Para two, are those which we consider should be included. Without attempting suggest actual form we would view something along lines of Letourneau’s statements at Saigon press conference (Saigon 657, Oct 24) and Embassys suggestions in reftel as basic text to build on. Todays Paris press despatches report McDonald will continue discussions re Indochina with Fr officials during coming week. We would welcome invitation Emb officer participate but as approach shld not be joint realize this might be impossible. Emb shld continue exchange views with McDonald and Fr separately, informing former of our thoughts on concurrent Anglo-U.S. approach to Fr and latter of our agreement with Brit views as expressed to Bruce by McDonald. London note and, after consultation Paris, inform ForOff our views and general concurrence theirs as expressed McDonald; sound out possibilities similar approach Fr. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 920–921.

55. John Ohly, Deputy Director of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program: Memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, November 20, 1950 [Excerpts] Introduction With the capture by the Viet Minh of the French Army’s key posts along the border with China in late 1949, France had in effect lost the Indochina War. The Chinese set up base camps across the border for the training of Viet Minh troops, and aid could now flow freely into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). As the war deteriorated for the French, pressure grew for Washington to take decisive action as a full partner of the French. Here John Ohly, the deputy director of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program that was supplying aid to the French, points out that many independent observers believe that the French cannot defeat the Viet Minh. Ohly urges a reassessment of U.S. policy in Indochina before greater involvement there.

Primary Source 1. This memorandum is designed to stress the urgent necessity for an immediate, thorough and realistic re-examination of our policy

1414

56. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum to Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall

with respect to Indochina. From the standpoint of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program, such a re-examination is imperative, because the continuance of the present policy of substantial aid may, without achieving its intended purpose, make impossible the fulfillment of mutual defense objectives elsewhere in the world. Such a re-examination may well lead to a reaffirmation of this policy without significant change, but in my opinion, and in the light of the considerations set forth below, it would be the height of folly to pursue such policy further in the absence of a far more searching analysis than has heretofore been made of its possibilities of success and its global consequences. Even if the need for such an approach was not urgent before (and I believe it was), it has certainly been made so by the direct Chinese Communist intervention in Korea which (1) places large additional operating demands upon the limited materiel resources available for both U.S. requirements and all foreign military assistance programs and (2) indicates that the Kremlin may be prepared to accept the risks inherent in the actual commitment of Chinese troops to assist Ho Chi Minh, a step which would, as subsequently indicated, completely transform the character of the military problem in Indochina. . . . IV. Recommendations

committed even to direct intervention. These situations, unfortunately, have a way of snowballing. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 925–930.

56. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum to Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, January 10, 1951 Introduction Queried by U.S. secretary of defense George C. Marshall regarding the French proposal for tripartite military talks among France, Britain, and the United States on Indochina, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) takes the position that in view of the present situation in the Far East (i.e., the Korean War), the United States should not itself become directly involved militarily in Indochina, even in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Primary Source Subject: Proposed Military Talks Regarding Defense of Indochina.

I strongly recommend that before any further substantial commitments of equipment, prestige or forces are made in Indochina, the kind of assessment suggested in the preceding pages be undertaken. I suggest that this be done by a special task force under the auspices of the National Security Council, because it is so urgent that it cannot and should not be pursued through slower channels. We have reached a point where the United States, because of limitations in resources, can no longer simultaneously pursue all of its objectives in all parts of the world and must realistically face the fact that certain objectives, even though they may be extremely valuable and important ones, may have to be abandoned if others of even greater value and importance are to be attained. The situation is not unlike that which faced the United States in the early days of the last war, when a choice had to be made between pursuing the offensive in either the West or the East and not in both places at once. As an after thought, and by way of additional caveat, I would like to point out that the demands on the U.S. for Indochina are increasing almost daily and that, sometimes imperceptibly, by one step after another, we are gradually increasing our stake in the outcome of the struggle there. We are, moreover, slowly (and not too slowly) getting ourselves into a position where our responsibilities tend to supplant rather than complement those of the French, and where failures are attributed to us as though we were the primary party at fault and in interest. We may be on the road to being a scapegoat, and we are certainly dangerously close to the point of being so deeply committed that we may find ourselves completely

1. This memorandum is in response to your memorandum of 21 December 1950 dealing with the matter of proposed military talks regarding defense of Indochina. 2. In view of the present United States military position in the Far East, the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe the following to be basic: a. The United States should not permit its military forces to become engaged in French Indochina at this time, and b. In the Event of a communist invasion of Indochina, therefore, the United States should under current circumstances limit its support of the French there to an acceleration and expansion of the present military assistance program, together with taking other appropriate action to deny Indochina to communism, short of the actual employment of military forces. In light of the above, and in view of the considerations expressed in their memorandum to you of 8 December 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff feel, from the strictly military point of view, that no additional military staff talks are desirable at this time. 3. On the other hand, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recognize that the political considerations raised in your memorandum of 21 December 1950 may be regarded as overriding. Under such circumstances, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would not interpose further objection to the holding of additional tripartite military staff talks at this time. Any such talks, however, would be restricted in scope

57. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Legation in Saigon 1415 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would not be permitted to deal with matters of strategy affecting United States global policies and plans.

be established. It might include the establishment of a permanent tripartite body for this purpose. 2) As far as IC is concerned three hypotheses shld be considered:

4. In the event of a global war, the major United States measures in support of the French in Indochina would of necessity also be limited to the acceleration and expansion of the present military assistance program as feasible, and, operationally, to matters connected with convoy, routing, and protection of shipping. If the decision is made to hold the proposed additional military talks involving military operational commanders, it would be appropriate, therefore, that the chief United States military representative should be an officer designated by the Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), and that he should be assisted by General Brink. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol. 6, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 347–348.

57. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Legation in Saigon, January 30, 1951 Introduction In this telegram of January 30, 1951, to the U.S. legation in Saigon, Secretary of State Dean Acheson sums up talks held during September 29–30 in Washington between U.S. president Harry S. Truman and French premier René Pleven. Acheson reports that Pleven is wary of a request from French high commissioner and military commander in Indochina General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny for additional French troops, especially given French commitments to the defense of Western Europe. Pleven is said to be resisting suggestions that the French government undertake talks with representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) regarding an end to the war and is instead seeking a tripartite coordination of efforts there by France, Great Britain, and the United States. He also wants a commitment from Truman that the United States would provide substantial additional aid to enlarge the armies of the French-supported associated states of Laos, Cambodia, and the State of Vietnam (SVN) fighting the Viet Minh.

Primary Source The fol is rough summary of Truman-Pleven discussions of yesterday as they pertain to IC: Pleven presented his position as fols: 1) Events in the Far East make it necessary for the Western Powers to coordinate economically, militarily and politically and procedure for permanent consultation between US, Brit and Fr shld

a. The present situation of fighting an internal rebellion which Fr is and has faced for the last five years. With a reinforced VM Fr can only foresee heavier and heavier losses. The only possible daylight in matter lies in the planned development of Viet natl army. Immed question to be faced is whether Gen de Lattre’s demands for reinforcement shld be met or declined in the realization that similar demands may be expected regularly hereafter and cannot be met. The fact that Fr present effort entailed a comparable drain on her contribution to the defense of Western Europe is also pertinent. Amt of US aid to be anticipated is dominant consideration in arriving at decision in matter. Formation of four Vietnamese divisions during 1951 under study. Wld involve a cost of 58 billion francs, 25 billion of which cannot be covered in the contemplated contributions from both Fr and Vietnamese budgets. Particular mention was made of the furnishing of an aircraft carrier. Recommended that this and other technical questions shld be studied by Fr-US mil experts. b. The second possibility is that which wld be created by an overt Chi Commie attack. Before the Fr can make any decision of action to be taken in this eventuality they must ask for further clarification of the US position vis-à-vis aid in both men and material. Fr Govt wld also appreciate info concerning anticipated US aid in the event of a forced evacuation. The Fr invite us to consider the effect of the loss of Tonkin or of all IC on the rest of SEA (polit, econ and mil). A study of this matter might be considered by the group suggested in para one. c. The third possibility is that which wld be created if peace negotiations were undertaken. While Fr observe that it is impossible to calculate if such possibility exists they believe consideration must be given to it “especially in the light of the recent reverses suffered by the VM.” Although detailed minutes are not available fol is a brief summary of our replies to various questions: Although we are not prepared to consider question of tripartite SEA command as suggested by Fr we are prepared under certain specific and limiting conditions to adhere to our agreement to take part in high level tripartite mil conversations as agreed at the Sep FonMin Conf. We are prepared to appoint man from Admiral Radford’s staff to represent us. We assured Fr that our aid program to IC will be carried out as presently planned, barring unforeseen developments. We are prepared to give the Fr more detailed info on the way our aid program works and specific consideration being given to IC in overall picture. We have told the Fr we are not prepared to commit ground

1416

58. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Report to the National Security Council

forces but wld, dependent on circumstances applicable at time, supply logistic support in the event of a forced evacuation. Re the 25 billion franc deficit in sum required for natl armies (Fr state only 33 billion of 58 required can be covered by Fr and Viet budgets combined). The Fr made us a formal request for additional aid of 70 million dollars. We have given them no assurance in that regard and are now engaged in detailed studies at specialists level concerning matter. For your info it is very unlikely that this Govt will engage itself to finance the budgetary deficit of another govt but we hope to devise some other method to assure that necessary funds for the development of the natl armies be forthcoming. Although we did not accede to the Fr request for another aircraft carrier, Gen Marshall informed Pleven that the present restrictions on the use of the Langley wld be removed, thus apparently making Langley available to Fr for use in Far Eastern waters if they so choose. We assured the Fr that the effect of the loss of Tonkin or of all of IC to rest of SEA is constantly under study by this govt. We had no comment concerning third hypothesis. The 58 billion franc figure for the formation of the natl armies is based on armies of 41 battalions. Of this sum it is estimated that the Fr budget cld only make a 15 1/2 billion franc contribution and the Viet one of 17 billion as a maximum (40% of estimated total receipts). The deficit is thus 25 1/2 billion francs or roughly $70 million. Of this sum approximately 2/3 wld be required for payroll and 1/3 for equipment and goods payable in francs and piasters. Eventually natl armies wld consist of four Vietnamese divisions of 34 battalions plus five Cambodian and two Laotian battalions. Fr have stated it will be impossible for them to furnish any equipment for battalions still to be formed and they count on the US for that. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol. 6, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 368–369.

58. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State: Report to the National Security Council on Conversations between President Harry S. Truman and French Premier René Pleven, February 23, 1951 [Excerpt] Introduction In this report to the National Security Council (NSC), U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson sums up the impact on U.S. policy from the meeting concerning Indochina between French premier

René Pleven and U.S. president Harry S. Truman in Washington during January 29–30, 1950. While seeking to provide funds to increase the size of the armies of the associated states of Laos, Cambodia, and the State of Vietnam (SVN) fighting the Viet Minh, the Truman administration remains deeply concerned about direct U.S. military involvement in Indochina. Acheson reports the common sentiment that should the People’s Republic of China (PRC) intervene militarily, France will have little choice but to quit Indochina. The United States would provide whatever assistance it can to a French evacuation, but its extent would be determined by the existing situation in the Far East. While the Chinese could overrun all of Southeast Asia and although such an event would threaten “critical security interests” of the United States, it is not now in overall U.S. “security interests” to commit U.S. troops there.

Primary Source Far East 4a. ‘The President and the Prime Minister found themselves in complete agreement as to the necessity of resisting aggression and assisting the free nations of the Far East in their efforts to maintain their security and assure their independence.’ The U.S. and France should not over-commit themselves militarily in the Far East and thereby endanger the situation in Europe. b. ‘The President and the Prime Minister agreed that continuous contact should be maintained between the interested nations on these problems.’ The Prime Minister’s suggestion to create a U.S., U.K., French consultative body to coordinate the three governments’ Asiatic policies was not accepted by the President, who preferred to rely on existing mechanisms. c. ‘The situation in Korea was discussed and they concurred that every effort must be exerted to bring about an honorable solution there. Until that end can be accomplished, resistance by United Nations forces to aggression must continue. Both France and the United States will support action directed toward deterring aggression and toward preventing the spread of hostilities beyond Korea.’ d. With regard to Indochina, ‘the Prime Minister declared that France was determined to do its utmost to continue’ its efforts to resist ‘the Communist onslaught in order to maintain the security and independence of the Associated States, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos.’ e. It was desirable to build up the native Indochinese forces as rapidly as possible. We held out no hope for the provision of U.S. budgetary assistance for the National Army in Indochina. We cannot become directly involved in local budgetary deficits of other countries.

59. R. Allen Griffin, Special Far East Representative, Economic Cooperation Administration: Telegram 1417 f. ‘The President informed the Prime Minister that United States aid for the French Union forces and for the National Armies of the Associated States will continue, and that the increased quantities of material to be delivered under the program authorized for the current fiscal year will be expedited.’ Additional measures for aid to Indochina included: (1) an indication of our willingness to relax the original restrictions placed on the use by the French of the U.S. aircraft carrier Langley in the Mediterranean in view of our inability to provide another U.S. carrier for service in Indochina; and (2) an agreement to study the possibility of reallocating funds now available in an effort to provide equipment for four Vietnamese divisions. g. The President said that the United States was agreeable to U.S., U.K., French military consultations on Indochinese matters. h. In the event of a Chinese Communist attack on Indochina, the U.S. desires to assist in the evacuation of French forces if such action becomes necessary. The extent of the aid would be limited by other demands on our forces, such as Korea, which exist at the time any request for assistance is made. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol. 6, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 367.

59. R. Allen Griffin, Special Far East Representative, Economic Cooperation Administration: Telegram to Richard M. Bissell Jr., Acting Administrator, Economic Cooperation Administration, November 30, 1951 Introduction Following a visit to Indochina, R. Allen Griffin, formerly the chief of staff of the first U.S. mission to Southeast Asia on economic assistance, provides a pessimistic view of the French-backed government of the State of Vietnam (SVN). Griffin notes that the SVN has no programs to lift the bulk of the Vietnamese population from poverty and calls it “a relic of the past as much as Fr[ench] colonialism.” Despite this very negative assessment, Griffin calls for more U.S. involvement to create a representative Vietnamese government.

Primary Source 613. Dept pass ECA. To Bissell from Griffin. 1. US econ aid program Viet basically on right track for US objectives and should be contd as orig conceived. Those objectives

remain sound and practical if new govt is to be supported in policies necessary to build loyalty and appreciation among population. However, I believe it is necessary for US clearly to realize the greatest impediment to success of US program and attainment objectives is nature of present Huu Govt, its lack of vitality and public leadership, its lack of enthusiasm for progressive progress that wld improve the gen welfare of peasants. 2. We are dealing with able land owners—mandarin type—functionaire govt. Its weakness is not that it is subordinate in many ways to Fr but that it is in no sense the servant of the people. It has no grass roots. It therefore has no appeal whatsoever to the masses. It evokes no popular support because it has no popular program. It has no popular program because nature of its leaders tends to an attitude that this wld be a “concession.” This govt might reluctantly try to mollify public opinion, but it does not consist of men who wld lead public opinion. Therefore though FranceVietnam Armed Forces may cont to win small engagements for ltd objectives, no real progress is being made in winning war, which depends equally on polit solution. 3. It has been perhaps error in judgment in believing essential struggle has been between the constricting polit influence and pressure of Fr—which undoubtedly still exists and patriotic effort of Viets to win increasing degree of independence. Perhaps the essential struggle is one not undertaken—which is to get grass roots ability, conviction and patriotism on behalf of people of Viet into the govt. So-called independence Huu Govt represents means nothing to masses. It simply means a change of functionaires, not a change of social direction, not a drive to advance lot of the people. Revolution will continue and Ho Chi-minh will remain popular hero, so long as “independence” leaders with Fr support are simply native mandarins who are succeeding foreign mandarins. The period of mandarin and functionaire govt in Asia is over. The present type of govt in Viet is a relic of the past as much as Fr colonialism. 4. I believe this predicament is now fully realized by Fr. There is little doubt of fact they know they are fighting war that cannot be won without a polit solution, and the polit solution depends at least as much upon the relationship of Govt of Viet with masses of people of Viet as upon the relationship with Fr on subj of independence. The issue in Viet, in my mind, is more than nationalism and Francophobia. It is old Asian issue that destroyed the Kuomintang in Chi, Communist opportunity to exploit insecurity, and hunger and wretchedness of masses of people to whom their govt has failed to make an effective appeal. The Huu Govt makes no such appeal. Its heart is not in that kind of appeal. If it talked land reform it wld never be believed. It is my opinion that Fr are now fully awake to this predicament. They realize that their interests are not being served by a Viet Govt that not only has no appeal to masses but that has no program and perhaps only

1418

60. National Security Council Staff Study on Objectives, Policies, and Course of Action in Asia (Annex to NSC 48/4)

doubtful sympathy for masses. Such condition will not help the Fr to extricate themselves from the milit burden. Nor will it help US to lessen the load of increasing costs the Fr require us to share. It is my opinion that we shld consider this problem jointly with the Fr, to the end that a govt with some grass roots instincts, intentions and social purpose may result.

Problem

5. It may be pointed out that US is now engaged in massive milit assistance in Indochina and an econ program of great potential social and polit impact. Fr are insisting on an even greater Amer participation in Fr costs of defending this semi-independent state. US has paid for right to exercise stronger voice in determination of policies. Fr failure to achieve satis polit results out of compliant, obedient landowners nonreform Cabinet may now make possible a practical and farsighted program for improving polit situation, which in itself awaits improvement of social outlook Viet Govt, a condition now obvious to Fr. I believe Fr are ready for that. If we fail to secure their collaboration for setting up a govt fitted for its job by something better than obedience to Fr, then one day we will discover that the Fr in disgust and discouragement will abandon their attempt to defend this flank of sea.

2. The long-range national security objectives of the United States with respect to Asia are:

6. I have discussed this outlook with Heath but did not have time to draft cable before leaving Saigon. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 548–550.

60. National Security Council Staff Study on Objectives, Policies, and Course of Action in Asia (Annex to NSC 48/4), May 17, 1951 [Excerpts] Introduction In this National Security Council (NSC) study, the staff outlines the long-range security objectives of the United States. The study concludes that China is the central problem for the United States in Asia. Given its considerable commitments elsewhere, the United States does not have unlimited resources available to meet the Communist threat in Southeast Asia and must constantly evaluate its options. It is not now in the security interests of the United States to commit any of its armed forces in the defense of Southeast Asia, and America cannot guarantee that the region will remain non-Communist.

Primary Source National Security Council Study on Objectives, Policies, and Courses of Action in Asia (Annex to NSC 48/4) [Extract]

1. To determine United States national objectives, policies, and courses of action with respect to Asia. United States Long-Range National Objectives in Asia

a. Development by the nations and peoples of Asia, through self-help and mutual aid, of stable and self-sustaining non-communist governments, oriented toward the United States, acting in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, and having the will and ability to maintain internal security and prevent communist aggression. b. Elimination of the preponderant power and influence of the USSR in Asia or its reduction to such a degree that the Soviet Union will not be capable of threatening from that area the security of the United States or its friends, or the peace, national independence and stability of the Asiatic nations. c. Development of power relationships in Asia which will make it impossible for any nation or alliance to threaten the security of the United States from that area. d. In so far as practicable, securing for the United States and the rest of the free world, and denying to the communist world, the availability through mutually advantageous arrangements, of the material resources of the Asian area. Analysis of the Situation 3. United States objectives, policies, and courses of action in Asia should be designed to contribute toward the global objectives of strengthening the free world vis-a-vis the Soviet orbit, and should be determined with due regard to the relation of United States capabilities and commitments throughout the world. However, in view of the communist resort to armed force in Asia, United States action in that area must be based on the recognition that the most immediate threats to United States security are currently presented in that area. 4. Current Soviet tactics appear to concentrate on bringing the mainland of Eastern Asia and eventually Japan and the other principal off-shore islands in the Western Pacific under Soviet control, primarily through Soviet exploitation of the resources of communist China. The attainment of this objective on the mainland of Eastern Asia would substantially enhance the global position of the USSR at the expense of the United States, by securing the eastern flank of the USSR and permitting the USSR to concentrate its offensive power in other areas, particularly in Europe. Soviet control of the off-shore islands in the Western Pacific, including

60. National Security Council Staff Study on Objectives, Policies, and Course of Action in Asia (Annex to NSC 48/4) 1419 Japan, would present an unacceptable threat to the security of the United States.

Strengthening of Southeast Asia [. . .]

5. Asia is of strategic importance to the United States. a. The strategic significance of Asia arises from its resources, geography, and the political and military force which it could generate. The population of the area is about 1,250,000,000. The demonstrated military capacity of the North Korean and Chinese armies requires a reevaluation of the threat to the free world which the masses of Asia would constitute if they fell under Soviet Communist domination. b. The resources of Asia contribute greatly to United States security by helping to meet its need for critical materials and they would be of great assistance in time of war if they remained available. At least until stockpiling levels are met, this phase of the area’s importance to the United States will continue. Further, the development of events which might lead to the exhaustion of such stockpiles would magnify the importance of this source of supply. The area produces practically all the world’s natural rubber, nearly 5% of the oil, 60% of the tin, the major part of various important tropical products, and strategic materials such as manganese, jute, and atomic materials. Japan’s potential in heavy industry is roughly equal to 50% of the Soviet Union’s present production. Therefore, it is important to U.S. security interests that U.S. military and economic assistance programs be developed in such a manner as to maximize the availabilities of the material resources of the Asian area to the United States and the free world. c. Control by an enemy of the Asiatic mainland would deny to us the use of the most direct sea and air routes between Australia and the Middle East and between the United States and India. Such control would produce disastrous moral and psychological effects in border areas such as the Middle East and a critical effect in Western Europe. 6. The fact of Soviet power and communist aggression in Asia establishes the context within which the policies of the United States must operate. a. The problem of China is the central problem which faces the United States in Asia. A solution to this problem, through a change in the regime in control of mainland China, would facilitate the achievement of United States objectives throughout Asia. Therefore, United States policies and courses of action in Asia should be determined in the light of their effect upon the solution of the central problem, that of China. [. . .]

41. It is important to the United States that the mainland states of Southeast Asia remain under non-communist control and continue to improve their internal conditions. These states are valuable to the free world because of their strategic position, abundant natural resources, including strategic materials in short supply in the United States, and their large population. Moreover, these states, if adequately developed and organized, could serve to protect and contribute to the economic progress and military defense of the Pacific off-shore islands from Japan to New Zealand. Communist control of both China and Southeast Asia would place Japan in a dangerously vulnerable position and therefore seriously affect the entire security position of the United States in the Pacific. The fall of the mainland states would result in changing the status of the offshore island chain from supporting bases to front line positions. Further, it would tend to isolate these base areas from each other, requiring a review of our entire strategic deployment of forces. Communist domination of the area would alleviate considerably the food problem of China and make available to the USSR considerable quantities of strategically important materials. 42. In the absence of overt Chinese Communist aggression in Southeast Asia, the general problems facing the United States in this area are: the real threat of Chinese Communist invasion and subversion, the political instability and weak leadership of the non-communist governments, the low standards of living and underdeveloped resources of the peoples of the area, the prevailing prejudice against colonialism and Western “interference” and the insensitivity to the danger of communist imperialism. Further acts of communist aggression in Southeast Asia can be expected to stimulate resistance on the part of countries which have thus far failed to take a positive stand. 43. Therefore, the general objectives of the United States in Southeast Asia are: (1) to contribute to the will and ability of all countries in the region to resist communism from within and without, and (b) to aid in the political, economic and social advancement of the area. For this purpose, the United States has developed support programs to strengthen the governments’ administrative and military capabilities, to improve living standards, to encourage pro-Western alignments, and to stave off communist intervention. 44. Chinese Communist conquest of Indochina, Thailand and Burma, by military force and internal subversion, would seriously threaten the critical security interests of the United States. However, in the event of overt Chinese aggression, it is not now in the over-all security interests of the United States to commit any United States armed forces to the defense of the mainland states of Southeast Asia. Therefore, the United States cannot guarantee the

1420

61. Minister Donald R. Heath in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson

denial of Southeast Asia to communism. The United States should continue its present support programs to strengthen the will and ability to resist the Chinese Communists, to render Communist military operations as costly as possible, and to gain time for the United States and its allies to build up the defenses of the off-shore chain and weaken communist power at its source.

relations and if there were such persons, doubtful if Fr wld accept them or that they wld be proof against Asiatic neutralism or Viet Minh infiltration. Fr know this which accounts for their quandary about replacement for Huu. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 558.

Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 8 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 438–443.

61. Minister Donald R. Heath in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, December 9, 1951 [Excerpt] Introduction The French policy of refusing to permit a truly independent Vietnamese government meant that there were only two choices for Vietnamese: to support the Viet Minh or to support the French. For growing numbers of Vietnamese, the choice was the former. In this response to the pessimistic telegram from R. Allen Griffin regarding the government of the State of Vietnam (SVN), U.S. minister in Saigon Donald R. Heath notes that there are no Vietnamese of recognized ability willing to serve in the Frenchsponsored government.

Primary Source 1156. Re Singapore tels 618 and 621, Nov 30. 1. As Dept aware, I have for some time been concerned re inadequacies Huu Govt and I welcome Griffin corroborations. I am also pleased register my concurrence with his finding that present STEM [Special Technical and Economic Mission] programs fundamentally sound in this trying situation. 2. I am not sure, however, when Griffin speaks of govt with grass roots he means Cabinet nominated by present methods but including agrarian and popular leaders or whether he has in mind govt clothed with some popular mandate based on development forms of popular consultation. As to former, I doubt that much can be done at this time outside possible Catholic participation and acceptance of post by Tri, even this wld be limited advance since Catholics are minority sometimes suspected of too much western orientation and Tri, in entering govt, wld have to swallow disgrace and suppression his Dai Viet backers, who altho in sense “grass roots” have Asiatic fascistic, exotic, secret society aspects. 3. Fact is that no leaders with “grass roots” support presently known who wld join govt constituted on basis existing Franco-Viet

62. Ambassador David Bruce: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, December 26, 1951 [Excerpt] Introduction After five years of warfare, growing casualty lists, and no victory in sight, French public opinion turned against the war in Indochina. In this telegram, U.S. ambassador to France David Bruce warns Secretary of State Dean Acheson that the situation is rapidly reaching the point where the French will have to undertake a reexamination of their Indochina policy, from which they would undoubtedly ask for the United States to dramatically increase its economic assistance and make certain military commitments. Without these, Bruce warns, there will be an overwhelming French popular demand to quit Indochina.

Primary Source 14. We may soon be presented with a definite either/or situation: Either we increase our present aid to Indochina to a very considerable extent and make certain definite commitments as to what we will do in the event of a Chi invasion, or the Fr will be compelled to re-examine their entire policy in the area. 15. The issue is not entirely or even primarily whether the Fr will continue their effort at the now existing level. The present level will not be high enough if, even without an actual invasion, the Chi further step up their assistance to the VM. The Fr are becoming increasingly sensitive to the possibility of a sitn in which the Fr govt might be confronted either with the necessity for rapid withdrawal or a military disaster. In the circumstances we must decide whether we wish to go much further than we have heretofore in the direction of a multilateral approach to the problem. 16. If we agree in principle to a multilateral approach, it wld seem that we must immed engage in tripartite conversations, not only at the mil but also at the polit level. Amongst other considerations, we might, for instance, wish to reach a tripartite decision as to the accuracy of present Fr estimates of the mil and polit sitn, and the wisdom of existing plans to deal with them. 17. To conclude, I believe that the snowball has started to form, and public sentiment for withdrawal, in the absence of adoption

63. Ho Chi Minh: Talk to Officers Preparing for the Military Campaign in Northwestern Vietnam 1421 of some course of action envisaging either internationalization of Indochina problem or Fr receipt of massive additional aid, will gain steadily and perhaps at accelerated rate. It wld be incorrect to assume that Fr Govt is trying merely to horse trade or bargain with US. It is responding slowly and unwillingly to pressures far stronger than party positions. Consequently, Emb recommends that US re-examine problem in the light of these changing circumstances prior to a final precipitation of these mixed elements in order avoid risk of a sitn threatening the security of all SEA and entailing grave polit and mil repercussions elsewhere. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Vol. 6 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 577–578.

63. Ho Chi Minh: Talk to Officers Preparing for the Military Campaign in Northwestern Vietnam, September 9, 1952 Introduction Thanks in large part to Chinese assistance, by 1952 the Viet Minh had a real army. By the end of that year more than 40,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) enlisted men and 10,000 officers had been trained in bases in China. The Chinese had also turned over to the Viet Minh substantial stocks of arms, including artillery supplied earlier by the United States to Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) China. By mid-1952, the Viet Minh fielded five divisions of well-trained, well-equipped, and highly motivated men. They believed passionately in their cause. In these remarks to military officers, President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) notes that if the army retains its determination, it will surely defeat the French.

Primary Source Yesterday it rained heavily and all the streams were flooded. Arriving at a brook with a strong current and seeing a group of compatriots sitting on the other side waiting for the water to subside, I said to myself, “Shouldn’t I cross the stream at once so as not to keep you waiting.” So a few other comrades and I took off our clothes and, groping our way with sticks, we succeeded in wading across the brook. On seeing my success, the group of compatriots also made up their mind to cross the stream. This is an experience for you, comrades. Whatever we do—big or small—if we are determined we shall be successful and shall imbue other people with the same determination.

Now I speak of the military campaign. The Party Central Committee and the Party General Committee of the Army have carefully weighed the advantages and difficulties of the coming campaign and are determined that this campaign must be carried out successfully. It is not enough that only the Central Committee has determination. You must weigh and clearly see for yourselves the advantages and difficulties in order to be imbued with this determination. It is not enough that the Central Committee and you are determined, we must act in such a way that this determination permeates every soldier. This determination from the Central Committee must reach the rank and file through you. It must become a monolithic bloc from higher to lower ranks and from lower to higher ranks. To have determination does not mean to speak glibly of it, but to have deep confidence. When meeting with advantages we must be determined to develop them and when encountering difficulties we must be determined to overcome them. Everyone in the army must be deeply imbued with determination. In this meeting, the Party General Committee of the Army has disseminated in detail the Central Committee’s resolutions, and you have debated them. The significance and objectives of the military campaign are: to annihilate the enemy’s manpower, to win over the people, and to liberate territory. The main task is to annihilate the enemy’s manpower. You have discussed the advantages and difficulties. When meeting with an advantage, if we are not determined to develop it, it may likely turn into difficulty. When meeting with a difficulty, if we are determined to overcome it, it will become an advantage. In truth, nothing is easy and nothing is difficult. For example, it is easy to break off a branch. But if we are not determined and do it halfheartedly, we may not be able to break it off. It is difficult to carry out the revolution and to wage the Resistance War, but with our determination we will be successful. Determination does not lie in the meeting place and in words, but in work and deeds. We must have determination to promote a valiant fighting style. We must have determination to oppose all negative, wavering, and selfish acts and false reports. We must be determined to fight, to endure hardships and difficulties, to overcome them, and be determined to implement the policies of the Central Committee and the Government. In other words, in our behavior, mind, deeds, and fighting, in everything— big or small—we must be determined to win success. The army is strong when it is well fed. The comrades in the commissariat must have determination to supply the troops with adequate food and weapons.

1422

63. Ho Chi Minh: Talk to Officers Preparing for the Military Campaign in Northwestern Vietnam

On their side, the troops must be determined to lightheartedly endure privations, to strive to give a hand to the commissariat if necessary. Food and weapons are sweat and tears of our compatriots, blood and bones of our troops, so we must value, spare, preserve, and properly use them. War booty is not a gift from the enemy. It is thanks to the sweat and tears of our compatriots and the blood and bones of our troops that we can capture it. Prior to its capture, it belongs to the enemy, after it, it is ours. Therefore, concerning war booty, we distribute to our compatriots what ought to be distributed, hand over to the Government what should be, and what should be used as reward for the troops must be given in an equitable and rational way. Corruption and waste must be absolutely avoided. The Government has issued policies concerning the national minorities; you and the troops must implement them correctly. This is a measure to win over the people, frustrating the enemy’s scheme of “using Vietnamese to harm Vietnamese.” We must so do that each fighter becomes a propagandist. You must behave in such a way that the people welcome you on your arrival and give you willing aid during your stay and miss you on your departure. This would be a great success. You must be aware that only a small part of enemy troops are Europeans and Africans while the majority are puppet troops. A great number of the latter are press-ganged into the army by the French. If you cleverly carry out the work of agitation among the puppet troops, this would be a way to annihilate enemy manpower. Our units are helped by civilians moving with them. You must educate and take good care of the volunteer workers, explain our policies to them, and encourage them to work lightheartedly. A close friendship and solidarity must prevail between the troops and the volunteer workers, so that the latter are unwilling to go home, and like to stay on and help the troops. This is one of the factors for victory. If you fail to do so, we shall meet with many difficulties. It is thanks to good education, correct policies, and strict discipline that the troops are strong. That is why discipline must be strict. There are two points in discipline that call for attention: punishment and reward. Up to now, punishment and reward have been insufficient, and that is a big mistake. There must be units mentioned in dispatches and awarded with medals. After you have proposed someone for a medal, the proposal has immediately to be made public. The Government, the High Command, and I are ready to reward those who

score achievements. On the other hand, those who have wrongly carried out the orders or made false reports must be punished severely. The units must emulate with each other and the cadres between themselves to promote the movement for valiant fighting. We must bear in mind that the revolutionary troops, first of all, the Party members, do not shun difficulties but must overcome them. We must learn the spirit of the Soviet Red Army and of the Chinese Liberation Army: When carrying out some difficult task, the unit which is entrusted with it prides itself on this honor, whereas those which are not appointed feel quite unhappy to find that they have not yet the capacity required. You can learn from this attitude. I am convinced that thanks to the leadership of the Party and the Government you will be able to take it up. Divisional commanders down to group leaders must share joy and hardships with the soldiers, take care of, help, and treat each other like blood brothers. This is a tradition of the Soviet Red Army and of the Chinese Liberation Army that our soldiers must learn as well. To succeed in so doing is tantamount to partially triumphing over the enemy before fighting him. The units must emulate with each other to do as I advise you. Are you determined to emulate with each other? You are determined, so you must by all means score successes in your fighting. I am waiting for news of victory from you. I promise a reward to the troops in the period from September 2 to December 19. It is a small reward but of great value because I have made it myself. There are other rewards beside this one for the units that are the first to perform feats of arms. Heroes are not only the troops who exterminate the enemy and perform feats of arms but also the supply men who strive to serve the troops. In each of you exists heroism in the bud, you must develop it. If you fulfill your task, I shall always be cheerful and in good health. As is known to some of you, on the setting up of our army, our men were equipped with only a few commodities and the few rifles they got were bought in contraband. We obtained great achievements notwithstanding, and the August Revolution was victorious. Now that we have numerous troops, good generals, and everyone has determination, we will certainly be successful. Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 248–252.

65. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France 1423

64. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, March 19, 1953

are to urge Congress to make necessary appropriations for Indochina for FY 54, those Departments must be convinced that necessarily top secret strategic plans for Indochina are sound and can be and will be aggressively and energetically prosecuted.

Introduction

Third, I share concern frequently expressed in French circles regarding adequacy of the financial contribution to prosecution of war derived from residents of the Associated States including French businessmen. While I welcome increased Vietnamese Government contribution recently made, I believe there is ground for thoroughgoing re-examination this problem into which balance of payment and rate of exchange considerations enter and which of course is of interest to us in its bearing upon the need for U.S. aid.

U.S. military aid to the French to fight the war in Indochina increased dramatically. In 1951 military supplies averaged about 6,000 tons a month, but by 1953 military supplies had increased to some 20,000 tons a month. In the spring of 1953, new U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles informed ambassador to France C. Douglas Dillon that the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration believed that it was essential that the French develop a plan that would destroy the Viet Minh regular military forces in Indochina within two years. Dulles stresses to Dillon that such a plan is necessary to secure the requisite financial aid from Congress.

Primary Source Recent Paris working-level discussions added substantially to our factual background on Indochina. Please express to Foreign Minister my appreciation for cooperation all concerned. Also take early opportunity discuss informally on my behalf with Mayer or Bidault forthcoming conversations along following general lines: QTE Secretary Acheson in December 1952 and I last month have discussed with our French colleagues the Indochina situation. On both occasions we received indications French Government was planning to request US GOVT to increase already considerable share of financial burden of the struggle which it is now bearing. I assume that when Mayer, Bidault and Letourneau come to Washington they will furnish further particulars regarding French Government’s plans and resulting requirements. It may be helpful to them in formulating their position to express to them informally some of considerations involved not only in matter of additional aid but also in continuation American assistance at present substantial level. Considerations are: First, Government and people of US are fully aware of importance to free world of war being waged in Indochina by armies of France and Associated States. They appreciate sacrifices which have been and are being made and degree to which Communist plans have been thwarted by magnificent defense carried out in Indochina against Communist aggression. Second, we envisage Indochina situation with real sense of urgency. We believe continued military stalemate will produce most undesirable political consequences in Indochina, France and U.S. Therefore, we heartily agree that considerable increased effort having as its aim liquidation principal regular enemy forces within period of, say, twenty-four months is essential. We obviously do not wish share Franco-Vietnamese responsibility for conduct operations. However, if interested Departments this Government

Fourth, I look forward to opportunity talking with my French colleagues on question of free world policy in Far East as whole and particularly the policies which we should adopt in order to discourage further Chinese Communist aggression. I hope to reach agreement that speedy defeat of Viet Minh forces in Indochina would deter rather than provoke Chinese Communist aggression in Tonkin since it would be a clear indication of our joint determination to meet force with effective force. Fifth, I should appreciate receiving any views which my French friends may care to convey regarding relations between the U.S. and the Associated States of Indochina and particularly regarding participation by latter in discussions of military and economic policy and in reception of U.S. aid. END QUOTE Please handle on strictly oral basis and let me have reaction. The specified points are designed to be exploratory; I would welcome any ideas French may wish to convey on these or other topics prior to our conversations. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 15–16.

65. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, March 26, 1953 [Excerpt] Introduction Here U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles shares the results of a March 26, 1953, meeting among President Dwight D. Eisenhower, French premier René Mayer, and Minister of Overseas France Jean Letourneau. In the course of the talks, Eisenhower had expressed American support for the “valiant French struggle” as part of the overall fight against Communist aggression. While

1424

66. Douglas MacArthur II, Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations: Memorandum

he recognized that this was not simply “another colonial war,” he emphasized that in order for France to receive increased aid for its effort in Indochina, the American people would have to be convinced that the states of Indochina had indeed been granted full independence and that they were in fact fighting to remain free of Communist control. Eisenhower also urged Mayer to emphasize in his public statements the anti-Communist nature of the struggle, as the American people still thought of the war in terms of anticolonialism. Mayer assured Eisenhower that the French fully expected to be able to reduce the Viet Minh’s military forces to a “negligible factor” within two years.

Primary Source Concerning Indochina President expressed full American sympathy for valiant French struggle as part of over-all fight against Communist aggression.

available on volunteer basis. Finally he expressed confidence that local populations supported local governments more vigorously now that Vietminh was clearly recognized as the agent not only of Communism but also of traditional Chinese enemy. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 17–18.

66. Douglas MacArthur II, Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations: Memorandum, April 27, 1953 Introduction

He recognized this struggle not just another colonial war but advised French to make this very clear as many Americans still under misapprehension. President expressed great American interest in French program leading to solution of Indochina problem making clear that he was not talking in terms of a complete victory. However requests for further American assistance could not be considered without full knowledge of French political and military plans permitting US Government to see why its assistance was required and how it would be used. President expressed great interest in measures being taken by French to obtain greatest possible support by local populations through convincing them they were fighting their own war for their own independence. Re Indochina Mayer started by referring to NAC Resolution December 1952 re QTE continuing aid UNQTE from NATO Governments. He said French political and military plans would be communicated to us later during the talks. Meanwhile he stressed his full agreement with President that the task was two-fold: militarily, Associated States Armies had to be developed for victory and for internal pacification. Politically it was necessary to develop popular basis for national governments to protect them from eventual take-over by Vietminh forces. While expressing the greatest interest in Gen Clark’s report following visit to Indochina Mayer was careful to point out differences between Korea and Indochina. Le Tourneau said that details of recent Dalat agreements would be given to us later but that in meanwhile he can say that these will permit presentation of a Franco-Vietnamese plan which should lead within two years to reduction of Vietminh to a negligible factor in Indochina if no material increase in Chinese or Soviet aid in meanwhile. Le Tourneau expressed confidence that popular support for local governments was increasing day by day, pointing to success of January elections in Vietnam, to fact that much more officer material is now available for National Armies and that all enlisted men needed under present financial limitations were

In the spring of 1953, Viet Minh military commander General Vo Nguyen Giap assembled a powerful force to invade Laos, which had an army of only 10,000 men supported by 3,000 French regulars. Giap employed four divisions totaling 40,000 men, assisted by 4,000 Communist Pathet Lao troops. The French were forced to withdraw and abandon their isolated posts, and the Viet Minh overran most of the northern part of the country. With their own airlift capacity sharply limited, the French government appealed to the United States for Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar transport aircraft. The French wanted these to be flown by U.S. military pilots, but the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) approved only the loan of six transport aircraft to be flown by Civil Air Transport (CAT) civilian personnel. CAT was the airline run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and charged with carrying out clandestine air operations in Asia.

Primary Source At a meeting with the President at the White House this afternoon for the purpose of briefing the President on the recent NATO Paris meeting and bilateral talks with the British and the French, the President asked Secretary Dulles what the French views were on the situation in Laos. The Secretary replied that the French were very gravely concerned about the situation there. He said that when he had met with Prime Minister René Mayer last evening just prior to departure from Paris, M. Mayer had stated that the French needed more urgently the loan of some C-119 aircraft to help them get tanks and heavy equipment into Laos to assist in its defense. Having such equipment might mean the difference between holding and losing Laos. M. Mayer had envisaged U.S. Air Force personnel operating the aircraft during the period of the loan. The Secretary said to the President that such a procedure would mean the sending of U.S. personnel on combat missions in

67. Lieutenant General John W. O’Daniel: Report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1425 Indochina. This, obviously, was a decision which would have repercussions and would raise many problems. However, there was an alternative, which would be to loan the French the C-119’s, which he understood the Department of Defense was willing to do, and have civilian pilots fly them. Following his return to Washington this morning, the Secretary had made inquiry and had ascertained that there were pilots in Formosa who were not members of the U.S. armed forces and who might well be able to carry out these missions. This possibility was being explored on an urgent basis to see whether it would not be possible to have the aircraft loaned and the above-mentioned personnel in Formosa operate them. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 38.

67. Lieutenant General John W. O’Daniel: Report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the U.S. Joint Military Mission to Indochina, July 14, 1953 [Excerpts]

b.

c.

d.

Introduction In June 1953 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) sent Lieutenant General John W. O’Daniel, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, to Indochina to assess French requirements for military aid. O’Daniel came back with an optimistic report and support for the so-called Navarre Plan, developed by new French commander in Indochina General Henry Navarre for more aggressive military operations, to include an offensive in Tonkin (northern Vietnam) that would utilize the equivalent of three divisions.

e.

f.

Primary Source 1. The attached Report of the U.S. Joint Military Mission to Indochina is submitted as directed by paragraph 10 of the “Terms of Reference for the Chief of the U.S. Military Mission to Indochina.” 2. In summarizing the subject report I wish to emphasize the following: a. General Navarre, Commander-in-Chief, French Forces, Far East, submitted to me in writing a new aggressive concept for the conduct of operations in Indochina which, in brief, calls for (a) taking the initiative immediately with local offensives, emphasizing guerrilla warfare, (b) initiating an offensive (utilizing the equivalent of three (3) divisions) in Tonkin by 15 September 1953, (c) recovering a maximum number of units from areas not directly involved in the war, (d) reorganizing battalions into regiments and regiments into divisions, with necessary support units and (e) developing the Armies of the Associated States

g.

h.

i.

and giving them greater leadership responsibility in the conduct of operations. General Gambiez, Chief of Staff to General Navarre, presented a discussion of operations to take place during the balance of the current rainy season. These operations include four (4) offensive operations outside the Tonkin perimeter aimed at destroying enemy personnel and existent enemy supply dumps, a clearing operation in North Annam, and an offensive operation in South Annam aimed at linking the Phan Thiet beachhead with Plateau forces and thus permanently severing the principal enemy supply line to Cochin China. These operations are to be followed by a large scale offensive in Tonkin on or about 15 September 1953. General Navarre agreed to establish a French MAAG [Military Assistance Advisory Group] organization to supervise all training of the military forces of the Associated States and to include three (3) U.S. officers. This will provide an excellent opportunity for indirect U.S. participation in the training of indigenous forces and for exercising follow up action on matters already agreed upon with the French and the Associated States. General Navarre agreed to cooperate wholeheartedly in (1) providing the U.S. with increased intelligence and (2) the stationing of one or two military attaches in Hanoi for this purpose. General Navarre agreed to keep the Chief, MAAG, Indochina informed of French plans and stated that he will invite MAAG officers to attend all operations. General Lauzin, Commander-in-Chief, French Air Force, Indochina agreed to (1) the removal of the six (6) C-119’s from Indochina, (2) request C-119’s in the future on a temporary basis only, (3 or 4 days) to support airborne operations requiring the simultaneous drop of forces in excess of two battalions, (3) step-up pilot and mechanic training and (4) organize a Vietnamese National Air Force. Admiral Auboyneau agreed to a reorganization of French Naval Forces to include a Joint Amphibious Command for the purpose of (1) attaining increased amphibious effectiveness and (2) delegating increased responsibility to Vietnamese leaders and units. Once the French became convinced of the soundness of our initial proposals they became increasingly receptive to our subsequent recommendations. As evidence of French sincerity in carrying out actions designed to improve the status of anti-communist military forces in Indochina, General Navarre and other French officers repeatedly invited me to return in a few months “to witness the progress we will have made.”

3. I recommend that the Joint Chiefs of Staff: a. Note the contents of the attached report and take appropriate action where required.

1426

68. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France

b. Propose to the Secretary of Defense that he recommend to the Secretary of State the sending of a small group of qualified experts to Indochina to study the desirability of the U.S. assisting in the development of Associated States small industry capable of producing certain military items or military-support items such as small arms, batteries or recap tires. c. Approve an increase in artillery units in the force basis for Indochina if MAAG and Department of the Army screening indicates such increase is necessary for a balance of forces in the new divisional organization. d. Approve my return to Indochina in 3 or 4 months for a follow-up of the mission’s activities, and e. Insure that the Chief, MAAG, Indochina, receives copies of the approved report for his guidance and that he be instructed to take follow-up action where appropriate. 4. I recommend that the Chiefs of the individual Services approve necessary personnel augmentations of the MAAG, Indochina to allow for three (3) U.S. officers (one from each Service) for attachment to the French Training Command, and that the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army assign two (2) additional U.S. Assistant Army Attaches to be used for collecting combat intelligence in conjunction with the French G-2 in the Hanoi area. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 69–72.

68. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, September 9, 1953 [Excerpts] Introduction Here U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles informs C. Douglas Dillon, ambassador to France, of approval of additional aid for Indochina, contingent on the French furnishing assurances regarding their political and military policies. Dulles calls on Dillon to begin formulating the language that will be required in the response of the French government headed by Premier Joseph Laniel. The response is to include assurance of a continuation of the policy of “perfecting” the independence of the associated states of Indochina.

Primary Source 1. Subject to our receiving necessary assurances from French, NSC today approved additional aid proposed for Indochina based on substance DEPTEL 827, with Presidential approval expected tomorrow. Comments URTELS 939, 940, 941 fully taken into account in presentation to NSC.

2. On most confidential basis you should therefore now informally advise Laniel and Bidault above action and indicate assurances desired are to effect that French Government is determined: a. put promptly into effect program of action set forth its memorandum Sept 1; b. carry this program forward vigorously with object of eliminating regular enemy forces in Indochina; c. continue pursue policy of perfecting independence of Associated States in conformity with July 3 declaration; d. facilitate exchange information with American military authorities and take into account their views in developing and carrying out French military plans Indochina; e. assure that no basic or permanent alteration of plans and programs for NATO forces will be made as result of additional effort Indochina; f. provide appropriate info to US Govt of amount of expenditures for military program set forth in memo of Sept 1. 3. We would expect these assurances be embodied in note which US in reply would acknowledge. US reply would go on to make clear that: a. appropriately established financial requirements for military program as indicated in Sept 1 memo from French Govt, not rpt not to exceed $385 million or its equivalent in Calendar Year 1954, will be met by US Govt . . . ; b. amount of $385 million or its equivalent in francs or piasters is deemed to satisfy in full request made by French memo of Sept 1; c. no further financial assistance may be expected for Calendar Year 1954; d. US Govt retains right to terminate this additional assistance should for any reason French Govt plan as outlined in memo of Sept 1 prove incapable of execution or should other unforeseen circumstances arise which negate the understandings arrived at between the two govts. 4. You should immediately begin informally to work out language with French covering paragraph 2 above. (We will cable soonest new draft of US reply.) It should be made crystal clear to French that final US Govt agreement will be given only when satisfactory language for exchange notes has been obtained. [. . .]

70. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the National Assembly Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 150–151.

69. Ho Chi Minh: Replies to a Foreign Correspondent, November 26, 1953 Introduction In an interview with a correspondent of the Swedish newspaper Expressen, President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) states his readiness to enter into peace talks with France, provided that the French government indicates “sincere respect for the genuine independence of VietNam.” Ho also claims that “the U.S. imperialists” are pushing the French “to continue and expand the aggressive war in Viet-Nam.”

Primary Source Question: The debate in the French National Assembly has proved that a great number of French politicians are for a peaceful settlement of the conflicts in Viet-Nam by direct negotiations with the Vietnamese Government. This desire is spreading among the French people. Do your Government and you welcome it? Answer: The war in Viet-Nam was launched by the French Government. The Vietnamese people are obliged to take up arms and have heroically struggled for nearly eight years against the aggressors, to safeguard our independence and the right to live freely and peacefully. Now, if the French colonialists continue their aggressive war, the Vietnamese people are determined to carry on the patriotic resistance until final victory. However, if the French Government has drawn a lesson from the war they have been waging these last years and want to negotiate an armistice in Viet-Nam and to solve the Viet-Nam problem by peaceful means, the people and Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam are ready to meet this desire. Question: Will a cease fire or an armistice be possible? Answer: A cessation of hostilities is possible, provided that the French Government ends its war of aggression in Viet-Nam. The French Government’s sincere respect for the genuine independence of Viet-Nam must be the basis of the armistice. Question: Would you agree to a neutral country mediating to organize a meeting between you and the representatives of the High Command of the other side? May Sweden be entrusted with this responsibility? Answer: If there are neutral countries which try to speed up a cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam by means of negotiations, they

1427

will be welcomed. However, the negotiation for an armistice is mainly the concern of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the French Government. Question: In your opinion, is there any other way to end the hostilities? Answer: The war in Viet-Nam has brought havoc to the Vietnamese people and at the same time caused countless sufferings to the French people; therefore, the French people are struggling against the war in Viet-Nam. I have constantly showed my sympathy, affection, and respect for the French people and the French peace fighters. Today not only is the independence of Viet-Nam seriously jeopardized, but the independence of France is also gravely threatened. On the one hand, the U.S. imperialists egg on the French colonialists to continue and expand the aggressive war in Viet-Nam, thus weakening them more and more through fighting, in the hope of replacing France in Indochina; on the other, they oblige France to ratify the European defense treaty that is to revive German militarism. Therefore, the struggle of the French people to gain independence, democracy, and peace for France and to end the war in Viet-Nam constitutes one of the important factors to settle the Viet-Nam question by peaceful means. Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 256–257.

70. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the National Assembly, December 1, 1953 [Excerpts] Introduction In December 1953, the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) met for the first time since the beginning of the Indochina War. Although the war retained center stage, the primary action before the National Assembly was the passage of land reform legislation. President Ho Chi Minh states here that the goal is nothing less than “to wipe out the feudal system of land ownership, distribute land to the tillers, liberate the productive forces in the countryside, develop production and push forward the war of resistance.” Land reform was a particularly difficult issue. That it was undertaken at this time in the middle of war with the French would seem to indicate that Ho

1428

70. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the National Assembly

sought to enthuse new fervor for the war from the landless peasantry, the bulk of the population. While Ho was undoubtedly correct that the peasants constituted 90 percent of the population in North Vietnam and yet owned only 30 percent of the arable land, redistributing the land proved difficult and ultimately produced wholesale revolt after actions against relatively small landholdings. In November 1956 the army’s 325th Division had to be called out to crush rebels in Nghe An Province. In all, some 6,000 farmers were deported or executed.

Primary Source Our slogan during the war of resistance is “All for the front, all for victory!” The more the war of resistance develops, the more manpower and wealth it requires. Our peasants have contributed the greatest part of this manpower and wealth to the resistance. We must liberate them from the feudal yoke and foster their strength in order fully to mobilize this huge force for the resistance and win victory. The key victor for the resistance lies in consolidating and enlarging the National United Front, consolidating the worker-peasant alliance and the people’s power, strengthening and developing the Army, consolidating the Party and strengthening its leadership in all respects. Only by mobilizing the masses for land reform can we carry out these tasks in favourable conditions. The enemy actively seeks to use Vietnamese to fight Vietnamese and to feed war with war. They are doing their utmost to deceive, divide and exploit our people. Land reform will exert an influence on our peasant compatriots in the enemy’s rear areas and will encourage them to struggle even more vigorously against him in order to liberate themselves, and to give even more enthusiastic support to the democratic Government of the Resistance; at the same time it will have an impact on the puppet armed forces and cause their disintegration because the absolute majority of the puppet soldiers are peasants in enemy-occupied areas.

Because of it our country has been invaded and our people are backward and poor. During the years of resistance, the Government has decreed the reduction of land rent, the refunding of excess land rent and the temporary distribution of land belonging to the French and the Vietnamese traitors and that of communal land to the peasants in the free areas. But the key problem remains unsolved: the peasant masses have no land or lack land. This affects the forces of the resistance and the production work of the peasants. Only by carrying out land reform, giving land to the tillers, liberating the productive forces in the countryside from the yoke of the feudal landlord class can we do away with poverty and backwardness and strongly mobilize the huge forces of the peasants in order to develop production and push the war of resistance forward to complete victory. The goal set for land reform is to wipe out the feudal system of land ownership, distribute land to the tillers, liberate the productive forces in the countryside, develop production and push forward the war of resistance. The general line and policy is to rely entirely on the landless and poor peasants, closely unite with the middle peasants, enter into alliance with the rich peasants, wipe out feudal exploitation step by step and with discrimination, develop production, and push forward the war of resistance.

The overwhelming majority of our people are peasants.

To meet the requirements of the resistance and the National United Front, which consist in satisfying the land demands of the peasants while consolidating and developing the National United Front in the interests of the resistance and production, in the course of land reform we must apply different kinds of treatment to the landlords according to their individual political attitudes. This means that depending on individual cases we shall order confiscation or requisition with or without compensation, but not wholesale confiscation or wholesale requisition without compensation.

Over these last years, it is thanks to their forces that the war of resistance has been going on successfully. It is also thanks to the peasant forces that it will gain complete victory and our country will be successfully rebuilt.

The guiding principle for land reform is boldly to mobilize the peasants, rely on the masses, correctly follow the mass line, organize, educate and lead the peasants to struggle according to plan, step by step, with good discipline and under close leadership.

Our peasants account for almost 90 per cent of the population but they own only 30 per cent of the arable land; they have to work hard all the year round and suffer poverty all their lives.

The dispersion of land by landlords after the promulgation of the land rent reduction decree (July 14, 1949) is illegal (except for particular cases mentioned in the circular issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on June 1, 1953).

The feudal landlord class accounts for less than 5 per cent of the population but they and the colonialists occupy about 70 per cent of the arable land and live in clover. This situation is most unjust.

The land confiscated or requisitioned with or without compensation is to be definitively allotted to the peasants who have no or not

71. Vo Nguyen Giap: Report to Senior Field Commanders on the Dien Bien Phu Campaign 1429 enough land. These peasants will have the right of ownership over the land thus distributed. The guiding principle for land distribution is to take the village as unit, to allot land in priority to those who have been tilling it, to take into consideration the area, quality and location of the land, so as to give a fair share to everyone; especial consideration must be given to the peasants who have previously tilled the land to be distributed. As for the diehard elements bent on sabotaging land reform, the traitors, reactionaries, and local despots, those among them who are sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment and more will not receive any land. . . . In the military field, our peasant compatriots will joint the resistance even more enthusiastically, hence it will be easier to build up the army and recruit voluntary civilian manpower. Our soldiers, with their minds at peace about their families, will fight even more resolutely. In the political field, political and economic power in the countryside will be in the hands of the peasants, the people’s democratic dictatorship will be truly carried into effect, the worker-peasant alliance will be consolidated, the National United Front will include more than 90 per cent of the people in the countryside and will become prodigiously great and strong. In the economic field, liberated from feudal landlordism, the peasants will enthusiastically carry out production and practise thrift, their purchasing power will increase, industry and commerce will develop and the national economy as a whole will expand.

71. Vo Nguyen Giap: Report to Senior Field Commanders on the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, January 14, 1954 [Excerpt] Introduction Following successful Viet Minh military operations in northern Laos, in November 1953 French military commander in Indochina General Henri Navarre initiated Operation CASTOR, the creation of a blocking position in far northwestern Vietnam astride the Viet Minh Laos invasion route at the then-obscure village of Dien Bien Phu. President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) pushed for a major Viet Minh operation against the French there, hoping to influence the course of talks on Asia scheduled for April 1954 in Geneva. Although Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap was skeptical, he ultimately committed the bulk of his resources to the effort. As both sides soon realized, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the most important military action of the entire Indochina War. Although there was considerable fighting earlier, the siege of the French fortress officially began on March 13, 1954. General Giap here lays out for his senior commanders the goals of the campaign.

Primary Source Two main objectives: 1. To annihilate an important part of enemy forces. 2. To liberate the whole of the Northwest.

Thanks to the development of production, the livelihood of the peasants, workers, soldiers and cadres will be improved more rapidly. In the cultural and social field, the large majority of the people, now having enough food and clothing, will study even harder, in accordance with the saying: “One must have enough to eat before one could practise the good doctrine.” Good customs and habits will develop. The experience drawn from localities where mass mobilization has been launched shows that our compatriots are very fond of study and that there are good opportunities for the intellectuals to serve the people. As said above, land reform is an immense, complex and hard class struggle. It is all the more complex and all the harder because we are conducting a war of resistance. But it is precisely because we want to push the resistance forward to victory that we must be determined to make land reform a success. Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 163–168.

This campaign has a great significance: a) It will be the greatest positional battle in the annals of our army. Hitherto, we have attacked fortified positions only with forces numbering up to one or two regiments; now we are throwing into action several divisions; we have never before coordinated infantry and artillery action on a large scale; we have succeeded only in capturing positions defended by one or two companies, one battalion at most. This time we shall have to coordinate the action of several branches of the army on a large scale and to annihilate an entrenched camp defended by 13 battalions. Our victory will mark a big leap forward in the growth of our army, which will have an enormous influence on the future military situation. b) By annihilating such an important part of enemy forces, by liberating such a wide area, we shall foil the Navarre plan, which is the French and American imperialists’ plan for the extension of

1430

72. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum for Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson

the war, and shall create conditions for destroying enemy forces on all fronts. What does this mean, to foil the Navarre plan? The enemy is seeking to concentrate mobile forces in the delta: we compel him to scatter them in mountain regions where they will be destroyed piecemeal. He is seeking to increase the size of the puppet army and to bring reinforcements from France: we shall annihilate an important part of his forces to aggravate his manpower crisis beyond retrieve. He is seeking to pacify the Northern plans and various theatres of operations in the South: our victory at Dien Bien Phu will make it possible for our forces to intensify their action on those various fronts thus creating conditions for the annihilation of important enemy forces and foiling his plans for pacification. The enemy is seeking to wrest back the initiative; our victory will drive him further to the defensive and will consolidate our offensive situation. c) From the political point of view, this battle will have a very great influence. On the internal plane, it will consolidate our rear, and ensure the success of the land reform. By winning a victory, the People’s Army, which is fighting imperialism by force of arms, will make an effective and glorious complement to the mighty battle being waged in the rear by millions of peasants against feudalism. This battle is taking place at a time when French imperialism is meeting with numerous difficulties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, when the French people’s struggle for an end to the war is increasing and when the struggle of the world’s peoples for the defence of peace and an end to the war in Vietnam has reached unequalled designs and will be an important contribution of our army to the defence of world peace. Source: Vietnamese Studies: Contribution to the History of Dien Bien Phu, Vol. 3 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1965, 50–52.

72. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum for Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, March 12, 1954 Introduction In February 1954 the United States, Britain, and France agreed in the course of their tripartite talks that Indochina would be placed on the agenda at the forthcoming Geneva talks on Asia, scheduled

for April. Realizing that the result might well be the creation of a coalition government in Vietnam, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) here goes on record as recommending that the United States not agree to any settlement that might impair the “future political and territorial integrity of Indochina.” The JCS claimed that if Indochina was “lost to the Communists,” the remainder of Southeast Asia “would inevitably follow” (the so-called domino theory). In this memorandum the JCS urges that the French be encouraged not to abandon their “aggressive prosecution of military operations” until a “satisfactory settlement” could be realized. The JCS also for the first time suggests that the United States might have to take up the military struggle there itself without the French.

Primary Source 1. This memorandum is in response to your memorandum dated 5 March 1954, subject as above. 2. In their consideration of this problem, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have reviewed UNITED STATES OBJECTIVES AND COURSES OF ACTION WITH RESPECT TO SOUTHEAST ASIA (NSC 5405), in the light of developments since that policy was approved on 16 January 1954, and they are of the opinion that, from the military point of view, the statement of policy set forth therein remains entirely valid. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reaffirm their views concerning the strategic importance of Indochina to the security interests of the United States and the Free World in general, as reflected in NSC 5405. They are firmly of the belief that the loss of Indochina to the Communists would constitute a political and military setback of the most serious consequences. 3. With respect to the possible course of action enumerated in paragraph 2 of your memorandum, the Joint Chiefs of Staff submit the following views: a. Maintenance of the status quo. In the absence of a very substantial improvement in the French Union military situation, which could best be accomplished by the aggressive prosecution of military operations, it is highly improbable that Communist agreement could be obtained to a negotiated settlement which would be consistent with basic United States objectives in Southeast Asia. Therefore, continuation of the fighting with the objective of seeking a military victory appears as the only alternative to acceptance of a compromise settlement based upon one or more of the possible other courses of action upon which the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been specifically requested in your memorandum. b. Imposition of a cease-fire. The acceptance of a cease-fire in advance of a satisfactory settlement would, in all probability, lead to a political stalemate attended by a concurrent and irretrievable deterioration of the Franco-Vietnamese military position. (See paragraph 27 of NSC 5405).

72. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum for Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson 1431 c. Establishment of a coalition government. The acceptance of a settlement based upon the establishment of a coalition government in one or more of the Associated States would open the way for the ultimate seizure of control by the Communists under conditions which might preclude timely and effective external assistance in the prevention of such seizure. (See subparagraph 26 b of NSC 5405.) d. Partition of the country. The acceptance of a partitioning of one or more of the Associated States would represent at least a partial victory for the Viet Minh, and would constitute recognition of a Communist territorial expansion achieved through force of arms. Any partition acceptable to the Communists would in all likelihood include the Tonkin Delta area which is acknowledged to be the keystone of the defense of mainland Southeast Asia, since in friendly hands it cuts off the most favorable routes for any massive southward advance towards central and southern Indochina and Thailand. (See paragraph 4 of NSC 5405.) A partitioning involving Vietnam and Laos in the vicinity of the 16th Parallel, as has been suggested (See State cable from London, No. 3802, dated 4 March 1954), would cede to Communist control approximately half of Indochina, its people and its resources, for exploitation in the interests of further Communist aggression; specifically, it would extend the Communist dominated area to the borders of Thailand, thereby enhancing the opportunities for Communist infiltration and eventual subversion of that country. Any cession of Indochinese territory to the Communists would constitute a retrogressive step in the Containment Policy, and would invite similar Communist tactics against other countries of Southeast Asia. e. Self-determination through free elections. Such factors as the prevalence of illiteracy, the lack of suitable educational media, and the absence of adequate communications in the outlying areas would render the holding of a truly representative plebiscite of doubtful feasibility. The Communists, by virtue of their superior capability in the field of propaganda, could readily pervert the issue as being a choice between national independence and French Colonial rule. Furthermore, it would be militarily infeasible to prevent widespread intimidation of voters by Communist partisans. While it is obviously impossible to make a dependable forecast as to the outcome of a free election, current intelligence leads the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the belief that a settlement based upon free elections would be attended by almost certain loss of the Associated States to Communist control.

regarded by Asian peoples as a Communist victory, and would cast widespread doubt on the ability of anti-Communist forces ultimately to stem the tide of Communist control in the Far East. Any such settlement would, in all probability, lead to the loss of Indochina to the Communists and deal a damaging blow to the national will of other countries of the Far East to oppose Communism.

4. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are of the opinion that any negotiated settlement which would involve substantial concessions to the Communists on the part of the Governments of France and the Associated States, such as in c and d above, would be generally

9. If, despite all United States efforts to the contrary, the French Government elects to accept a negotiated settlement which, in the opinion of the United States, would fail to provide reasonably adequate assurance of the future political and territorial integrity of

5. Should Indochina be lost to the Communists, and in the absence of immediate and effective counteraction on the part of the Western Powers which would of necessity be on a much greater scale than that which could be decisive in Indochina, the conquest of the remainder of Southeast Asia would inevitably follow. Thereafter, longer term results involving the gravest threats to fundamental United States security interests in the Far East and even to the stability and security of Europe could be expected to ensue. (See paragraph I of NSC 5405.) 6. Orientation of Japan toward the West is the keystone of United States policy in the Far East. In the judgment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the loss of Southeast Asia to Communism would, through economic and political pressures, drive Japan into an accommodation with the Communist Bloc. The communization of Japan would be the probable ultimate result. 7. The rice, tin, rubber, and oil of Southeast Asia and the industrial capacity of Japan are the essential elements which Red China needs to build a monolithic military structure far more formidable than that of Japan prior to World War II. If this complex of military power is permitted to develop to its full potential, it would ultimately control the entire Western and Southwestern Pacific region and would threaten South Asia and the Middle East. 8. Both the United States and France have invested heavily of their resources toward the winning of the struggle in Indochina. Since 1950 the United States has contributed in excess of 1.6 billion dollars in providing logistic support. France is reported to have expended, during the period 1946–1953, the equivalent of some 4.2 billion dollars. This investment, in addition to the heavy casualties sustained by the French and Vietnamese, will have been fruitless for the anti-Communist cause, and indeed may rebound in part to the immediate benefit of the enemy, if control of a portion of Indochina should now be ceded to the Communists. While the additional commitment of resources required to achieve decisive results in Indochina might be considerable, nevertheless this additional effort would be far less than that which would be required to stem the tide of Communist advance once it had gained momentum in its progress into Southeast Asia.

1432

73. U.S. Army Position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A

Indochina, it is considered that the United States should decline to associate itself with such a settlement, thereby preserving freedom of action to pursue directly with the governments of the Associated States and with other allies (notably the United Kingdom) ways and means of continuing the struggle against the Viet Minh in Indochina without participation of the French. The advantages of so doing would, from the military point of view, outweigh the advantage of maintaining political unity of action with the French in regard to Indochina. 10. It is recommended that the foregoing views be conveyed to the Department of State for consideration in connection with the formulation of a United States position on the Indochina problem for the forthcoming Conference and for any conversation with the governments of the United Kingdom, France, and, if deemed advisable, with the governments of the Associated States preliminary to the conference. In this connection, attention is particularly requested to paragraphs 25 and 26 of NSC 5405; it is considered to be of the utmost importance that the French Government be urged not to abandon the aggressive prosecution of military operations until a satisfactory settlement has been achieved. 11. It is further recommended that, in order to be prepared for possible contingencies which might arise incident to the Geneva Conference, the National Security Council considers now the extent to which the United States would be willing to commit its resources in support of the Associated States in the effort to prevent the loss of Indochina to the Communists either: a. In concert with the French; or b. In the event the French elect to withdraw, in concert with other allies or, if necessary, unilaterally. 12. In order to assure ample opportunity for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to present their views on these matters, it is requested that the Military Services be represented on the Department of Defense working team which, in coordination with the Department of State, will consider all U.S. position papers pertaining to the Geneva discussions on Indochina. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 266–270.

73. U.S. Army Position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A, April 1954 Introduction With the U.S. military now considering the possibility of active military intervention in Indochina, U.S. Army planners present

various options, pointing out that air and naval actions alone could not ensure military victory there.

Primary Source 1. There are important military disadvantages to intervention in Indochina under the assumptions set forth in NSC Action No. 1074-a. 2. A military victory in Indochina cannot be assured by U.S. intervention with air and naval forces alone. 3. The use of atomic weapons in Indochina would not reduce the number of ground forces required to achieve a military victory in Indochina. 4. It is estimated that seven U.S. divisions or their equivalent, with appropriate naval and air support, would be required to win a victory in Indochina if the French withdraw and the Chinese Communists do not intervene. However, U.S. military intervention must take into consideration the capability of the Chinese Communists to intervene. 5. It is estimated that the equivalent of 12 U.S. divisions would be required to win a victory in Indochina if the French withdraw and the Chinese Communists intervene. 6. The equivalent of 7 U.S. divisions would be required to win a victory in Indochina, if the French remain and the Chinese Communists intervene. 7. Requirements for air and naval support for ground force operations are: a. Five hundred fighter-bomber sorties per day exclusive of interdiction and counter-air operations. b. An airlift capability of a one division drop. c. A division amphibious lift. 8. One U.S. airborne regimental combat team can be placed in Indochina in 5 days, one additional division in 24 days, and the remaining divisions in the following 120 days. This could be accomplished partially by reducing U.S. ground strength in the Far East with the remaining units coming from the general reserve in the United States. Consequently, the U.S. ability to meet its NATO commitment would be seriously affected for a considerable period. The time required to place a total of 12 divisions in Indochina would depend upon the industrial and personnel mobilization measures taken by the government. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 332.

74. C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

74. C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, April 4, 1954 Introduction The situation for the French military at Dien Bien Phu was steadily deteriorating as a result of the Viet Minh being able to place artillery and antiaircraft guns in the hills around the fortress, coupled with inadequate French air support. In these circumstances Admiral Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), lent his support to Operation VULTURE, a plan for U.S. military intervention in the form of air strikes against the Viet Minh positions. Heartened by Radford’s support, on April 4, 1954, French premier Joseph Laniel and Foreign Minister Georges Bidault presented to U.S. ambassador C. Douglas Dillon an official request for U.S. carrier aviation intervention. In support of this request they included evidence attesting to the presence of Chinese military personnel in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In this telegram, Dillon presents the French request to Secretary of States John Foster Dulles.

Primary Source URGENT. I was called at 11 o’clock Sunday night and asked to come immediately to Matignon where a restricted Cabinet meeting was in progress. On arrival Bidault received me in Laniel’s office and was joined in a few minutes by Laniel. They said that immediate armed intervention of US carrier aircraft at Dien Bien Phu is now necessary to save the situation. Navarre reports situation there now in state of precarious equilibrium and that both sides are doing best to reinforce—Viet Minh are bringing up last available reinforcements which will way outnumber any reinforcing French can do by parachute drops. Renewal of assault by reinforced Viet Minh probable by middle or end of week. Without help by then fate of Dien Bien Phu will probably be sealed. Ely brought back report from Washington that Radford gave him his personal (repeat personal) assurance that if situation at Dien Bien Phu required US naval air support he would do his best to obtain such help from US Government. Because of this information from Radford as reported by Ely, French Government now asking for US carrier aircraft support at Dien Bien Phu. Navarre feels that a relatively minor US effort could turn the tide but naturally hopes for as much help as possible. French report Chinese intervention in Indochina already fully established as follows:

1433

First. Fourteen technical advisors at Giap headquarters plus numerous others at division level. All under command of Chinese Communist General Ly Chen-hou who is stationed at Giap headquarters. Second. Special telephone lines installed maintained and operated by Chinese personnel. Third. Forty 37 mm. anti-aircraft guns radar-controlled at Dien Bien Phu. These guns operated by Chinese and evidently are from Korea. These AA guns are now shooting through clouds to bring down French aircraft. Fourth. One thousand supply trucks of which 500 have arrived since 1 March, all driven by Chinese army personnel. Fifth. Substantial material help in guns, shells, etc., as is well known. Bidault said that French Chief of Air Staff wishes US be informed that US air intervention at Dien Bien Phu could lead to Chinese Communist air attack on delta airfields. Nevertheless, government was making request for aid. Bidault closed by saying that for good or evil the fate of Southeast Asia now rested on Dien Bien Phu. He said that Geneva would be won or lost depending on outcome at Dien Bien Phu. This was reason for French request for this very serious action on our part. He then emphasized necessity for speed in view of renewed attack which is expected before end of week. He thanked US for prompt action on airlift for French paratroops. He then said that he had received Dulles’ proposal for Southeast Asian coalition, and that he would answer as soon as possible later in week as restricted Cabinet session not competent to make this decision. New Subject. I passed on Norstad’s concern that news of airlift (DEPTEL 3470, April 3) might leak as planes assembled, Pleven was called into room. He expressed extreme concern as any leak would lead to earlier Viet Minh attack. He said at all costs operation must be camouflaged as training exercise until troops have arrived. He is preparing them as rapidly as possible and they will be ready to leave in a week. Bidault and Laniel pressed him to hurry up departure date of troops and he said he would do his utmost.

Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 296–297.

1434

75. Draft Report by the President’s Special Committee: Southeast Asia, Part II

75. Draft Report by the President’s Special Committee: Southeast Asia, Part II, April 5, 1954 [Excerpt] Introduction That the United States was edging toward direct military intervention in Indochina may be seen in the conclusions of this draft report by a presidential special committee formed to discuss the deteriorating French position in Southeast Asia. The report calls for “firm and resolute action” on the part of the United States and concludes that it is “necessary” that Indochina remain in the nonCommunist bloc and that the Viet Minh must be defeated in order to halt the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.

Primary Source IV. Conclusions A. The Special Committee considers that these factors reinforce the necessity of assuring that Indo-China remain in the nonCommunist bloc, and believes that defeat of the Viet Minh in Indo-China is essential if the spread of Communist influence in Southeast Asia is to be halted. B. Regardless of the outcome of military operations in Indo-China and without compromising in any way the overwhelming strategic importance of the Associated States to the Western position in the area, the U.S. should take all affirmative and practical steps, with or without its European allies, to provide tangible evidence of Western strength and determination to defeat Communism; to demonstrate that ultimate victory will be won by the free world; and to secure the affirmative association of Southeast Asian states with these purposes.

(1) It be U.S. policy to accept nothing short of a military victory in Indo-China. (2) It be the U.S. position to obtain French support of this position; and that failing this, the U.S. actively oppose any negotiated settlement in Indo-China at Geneva. (3) It be the U.S. position in event of failure of (2) above to initiate immediate steps with the governments of the Associated States aimed toward the continuation of the war in Indo-China, to include active U.S. participation and without French support should that be necessary. (4) Regardless of whether or not the U.S. is successful in obtaining French support for the active U.S. participation called for in (3) above, every effort should be made to undertake this active participation in concert with other interested nations. B. The Special Committee also considers that all possible political and economic pressure on France must be exerted as the obvious initial course of action to reinforce the French will to continue operations in Indo-China. The Special Committee recognizes that this course of action will jeopardize the existing French Cabinet, may be unpopular among the French public, and may be considered as endangering present U.S. policy with respect to EDC [European Defense Community]. The Committee nevertheless considers that the free world strategic position, not only in Southeast Asia but in Europe and the Middle East as well, is such as to require the most extraordinary efforts to prevent Communist domination of Southeast Asia. The Committee considers that firm and resolute action now in this regard may well be the key to a solution of the entire problem posed by France in the free world community of nations. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 348–350.

C. That for these purposes the Western position in Indo-China must be maintained and improved by a military victory. D. That without compromise to C, above, the U.S. should in all prudence reinforce the remainder of Southeast Asia, including the land areas of Malaya, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

76. National Security Council Planning Board Report on NSC Action No. 1074-A, April 5, 1954 [Excerpt] Introduction

V. Recommended Courses of Action A. The Special Committee wishes to reaffirm the following recommendations which are made in NSC 5405, the Special Committee Report concerning military operations in Indo-China, and the position paper of the Special Committee, concurred in by the Department of Defense, concerning U.S. courses of action and policies with respect to the Geneva Conference:

With the French position at Dien Bien Phu fast deteriorating, this U.S. National Security Council (NSC) Planning Board report presents the first detailed discussion of possible U.S. military intervention against the Viet Minh in Indochina. The report calls on the U.S. government to exert maximum pressure on the French and the associated states of Indochina to continue to wage war to a successful conclusion. In addition, the report considers possible courses of action, including U.S. cooperation with the French,

76. National Security Council Planning Board Report on NSC Action No. 1074-A but notes that French policy in the region—public statements notwithstanding—is regarded as essentially colonialist in character. Should U.S. military intervention occur, this view must be modified.

1435

Issues Involved

of military requirements and allied and hostile reactions, this annex assumes that there will be either: (1) a French and Associated States invitation to the United States to participate militarily; or (2) an Associated States invitation to the United States after a French decision to withdraw, and French willingness to cooperate in phasing out French forces as U.S. forces are phased in. If neither of these assumptions proved valid the feasibility of U.S. intervention would be vitiated. If the French, having decided on withdrawal and a negotiated settlement, should oppose U.S. intervention and should carry the Associated States with them in such opposition, U.S. intervention in Indochina would in effect be precluded. If, after a French decision to withdraw, the Associated States should appeal for U.S. military assistance but the French decided not to cooperate in the phasing in of U.S. forces, a successful U.S. intervention would be very difficult.

2. The answer to this problem involves four issues:

Desirability and Form of U.S. Intervention

Primary Source Problem 1. To analyze the extent to which, and the circumstances and conditions under which, the United States would be willing to commit its resources in support of the effort to prevent the loss of Indochina to the Communists, in concert with the French or in concert with others or, if necessary, unilaterally.

a. Will Indochina be lost to the Communists unless the United States commits combat resources in some form? b. What are the risks, requirements and consequences of alternative forms of U.S. military intervention? c. Should the United States adopt one of these forms of intervention rather than allow Indochina to be lost to the Communists and if so which alternative should it choose? d. When and under what circumstances should this decision be taken and carried into effect? Prospect of Loss of Indochina 3. The first issue turns on whether the French Union can and will prevent the loss of Indochina and what further actions, if any, the United States can take to bolster or assist the French effort. Some of these questions were covered by the Report of the Special Committee of March 17, 1954. Others are matters of continuous intelligence estimates. At the present time there is clearly a possibility that a trend in the direction of the loss of Indochina to Communist control may become irreversible over the next year in the absence of greater U.S. participation. There is not, however, any certainty that the French have as yet reached the point of being willing to accept a settlement which is unacceptable to U.S. interests or to cease their military efforts. Moreover, regardless of the outcome of the fight at Dienbienphu, there is no indication that a military decision in Indochina is imminent. It is clear that the United States should undertake a maximum diplomatic effort to cause the French and Associated States to continue the fight to a successful conclusion. Risks, Requirements, and Consequences of U.S. Intervention 4. The attached Annex addresses itself to the second issue: The risks, requirements and consequences of certain alternative forms of U.S. military intervention. In order to permit analysis

5. The third issue is whether the United States should intervene with combat forces rather than allow Indochina to be lost to the Communists, and which alternative it should select? a. U.S. commitment of combat forces would involve strain on the basic western coalition, increased risk of war with China and of general war, high costs in U.S. manpower and money, and possible adverse domestic political repercussions. Moreover, the United States would be undertaking a commitment which it would have to carry through to victory. In whatever form it might intervene, the U.S. would have to take steps at the outset to guard against the risks inherent in intervention. On the other hand, under the principles laid down in NSC 5405, it is essential to U.S. security that Indochina should not fall under Communist control. b. Of the alternative courses of action described in the Annex, Course A or B has these advantages over Course C. Neither Course A or B depends on the initial use of U.S. ground forces. For this reason alone, they obviously would be much more acceptable to the American public. For the same reason, they would initially create a less serious drain on existing U.S. military forces. But either Course A or B may turn out to be ineffective without the eventual commitment of U.S. ground forces. c. A political obstacle to Course A or Course B lies in the fact that the present French effort is considered by many in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world as essentially colonial or imperialist in character. If the United States joined its combat forces in the Indochina conflict, it would be most important to attempt to counteract or modify the present view of this struggle. This would also be essential in order to mobilize maximum support for the war within Indochina.

1436

77. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France

d. An advantage of Course B over Course A lies in the association of the Asian States in the enterprise which would help to counteract the tendency to view Indochina as a colonial action. There would be advantages in Course B also in that U.S. opinion would be more favorable if the other free nations and the Asian nations were also taking part and bearing their fair share of the burden. e. As between UN and regional support it appears that regional grouping would be preferable to UN action, on the ground that UN support would be far more difficult to get and less likely to remain solid until the desired objective was reached. 6. In order to make feasible any regional grouping, it will be essential for the United States to define more clearly its own objectives with respect to any such action. In particular, it would be important to make perfectly clear that this action is not intended as a first step of action to destroy or overthrow Communist China. If the other members of a potential regional grouping thought that we had such a broad objective, they would doubtless be hesitant to join in it. The Western powers would not want to increase the risks of general war which would, in their opinion, flow from any such broad purpose. The Asian countries would be equally reluctant to engage in any such broad activity. Both groups would doubtless want to make very clear that we object essentially to the expansionist tendencies of Communist China and that, if those ceased, we would not go further in attempting to carry on military activities in the Far East. Furthermore, to attract the participation of Asian States in a regional grouping, the United States would undoubtedly have to undertake lasting commitments for their defense. Timing and Circumstances of Decision to Intervene with U.S. Combat Forces 7. The timing of the disclosure or implementation of any U.S. decision to intervene in Indochina would be of particular importance. a. In the absence of serious military deterioration in Indochina, it is unlikely that France will agree to the arrangements envisaged in Alternatives A, B, or C in light of the hopes widely held in France and elsewhere that an acceptable settlement can be achieved. b. On the other hand, inaction until after exhaustive discussions at Geneva, without any indication of U.S. intentions, would tend to increase the chance of the French government and people settling, or accepting the inevitability of settling, on unacceptable terms. Hints of possible U.S. participation would tend to fortify French firmness, but might also tend to induce the Communists to put forward more acceptable terms. c. On balance, it appears that the United States should now reach a decision whether or not to intervene with combat forces, if that is necessary to save Indochina

from Communist control, and, tentatively, the form and conditions of any such intervention. The timing for communication to the French of such decision, or for its implementation, should be decided in the light of future developments. 8. If the United States should now decide to intervene at some stage, the United States should now take these steps: a. Obtain Congressional approval of intervention. b. Initiate planning of the military and mobilization measures to enable intervention. c. Make publicized U.S. military moves designed to make the necessary U.S. air and naval forces readily available for use on short notice. d. Make maximum diplomatic efforts to make it clear, as rapidly as possible, that no acceptable settlement can be reached in the absence of far greater Communist concessions than are now envisaged. e. Explore with major U.S. allies—notably the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, and with as many Asian nations as possible, such as Thailand and the Philippines, and possibly Nationalist China, the Republic of Korea, and Burma—the formation of a regional grouping. f. Exert maximum diplomatic efforts with France and the Associated States designed to (1) bring about full agreement between them, if possible prior to Geneva, on the future status of the Associated States; (2) prepare them to invite U.S. and if possible group participation in Indochina, if necessary. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 298–305.

77. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, April 5, 1954 Introduction At a White House meeting, leaders of Congress informed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that they could not support U.S. military intervention on the side of the French at Dien Bien Phu unless military intervention was supported by a coalition of nations, the French promised to accelerate real independence for the associated states of Indochina, and the French also promised to continue the war with their ground troops. The next day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower met with Dulles and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Admiral Arthur W. Radford and decided that there would be no U.S. intervention in Indochina unless the three conditions were met.

79. Minutes of Meeting

Primary Source As I personally explained to Ely in presence of Radford, it is not (rpt not) possible for US to commit belligerent acts in Indochina without full political understanding with France and the other countries. In addition, Congressional action would be required. After conference at highest level, I must confirm this position. US is doing everything possible as indicated my 5175 to prepare public, Congressional and Constitutional basis for united action in Indochina. However, such action is impossible except on coalition basis with active British Commonwealth participation. Meanwhile US prepared, as has been demonstrated, to do everything short of belligerency. FYI US cannot and will not be put in position of alone salvaging British Commonwealth interests in Malaya, Australia and New Zealand. This matter now under discussion with UK at highest level. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 359.

78. President Dwight Eisenhower’s News Conference, April 7, 1954 Introduction President Dwight D. Eisenhower first publicly enunciates the “‘falling domino’ principle,” which became one of the chief justifications for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The domino theory held that should Indochina fall to the Communists, the rest of Southeast Asia would inevitably follow.

Primary Source Q. ROBERT RICHARDS, COPLEY PRESS: Mr. President, would you mind commenting on the strategic importance of Indochina to the free world? I think there has been, across the country, some lack of understanding on just what it means to us. THE PRESIDENT: You have, of course, both the specific and the general when you talk about such things. First of all, you have the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs.

1437

Now, with respect to the first one, two of the items from this particular area that the world uses are tin and tungsten. They are very important. There are others, of course, the rubber plantations and so on. Then with respect to more people passing under this domination, Asia, after all, has already lost some 450 million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship, and we simply can’t afford greater losses. But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that not only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are talking really about millions and millions and millions of people. Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many things. It turns the so-called island defensive chain of Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it moves in to threaten Australia and New Zealand. It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in turn, will have only one place in the world to go—that is, toward the Communist areas in order to live. So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), 382–383.

79. Minutes of Meeting among President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and Special Assistant to the President Robert Cutler, May 7, 1954

Then you have the possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world.

Introduction

Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the “falling domino” principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.

On May 7, the very day that the last French troops surrendered to the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and Special Assistant to the President Robert Cutler met to discuss the position of the military members of the National Security Council (NSC) Planning Board that the United States should not support French foreign minister Georges Bidault’s proposal for a cease-fire in Indochina

1438

79. Minutes of Meeting

but instead should propose to France an internationalization of the war, with the United States becoming a partner with France in the war. Eisenhower stated that he would want as a condition of this the formation of an international coalition and an invitation from the associated states of Indochina for its participation.

Primary Source At a meeting in the President’s office this morning with Dulles, three topics were discussed: 1. Whether the President should approve paragraph 1b of the tentative Record of Action of the 5/6/54 NSC Meeting, which covers the proposed answer to the Eden proposal. The Secretary of State thought the text was correct. Wilson and Radford preferred the draft message to Smith for Eden prepared yesterday by MacArthur and Captain Anderson, and cleared by the JCS, which included in the Five Power Staff Agency Thailand and the Philippines. Radford thinks that the Agency (which has hitherto been not disclosed in SEA) has really completed its military planning; that if it is enlarged by top level personnel, its actions will be necessarily open to the world; that therefore some Southeast Asian countries should be included in it, and he fears Eden’s proposal as an intended delaying action. The President approved the text of paragraph 1b, but suggested that Smith’s reply to Eden’s proposal should make clear the following: 1. Five Power Staff Agency, alone or with other nations, is not to the United States a satisfactory substitute for a broad political coalition which will include the Southeast Asian countries which are to be defended. 2. Five Power Staff Agency examination is acceptable to see how these nations can give military aid to the Southeast Asian countries in their cooperative defense effort. 3. The United States will not agree to a “white man’s party” to determine the problems of the Southeast Asian nations. I was instructed to advise Wilson and Radford of the above, and have done so. 2. The President went over the draft of the speech which Dulles is going to make tonight, making quite a few suggestions and changes in text. He thought additionally the speech should include some easy to understand slogans, such as “The US will never start a war,” “The US will not go to war without Congressional authority,” “The US, as always, is trying to organize cooperative efforts to sustain the peace.” 3. With reference to the cease-fire proposal transmitted by Bidault to the French Cabinet, I read the following, as views principally of military members of the Planning Board, expressed in their yesterday afternoon meeting:

1. US should not support the Bidault proposal. 2. Reasons for this position: a. The mere proposal of the cease-fire at the Geneva Conference would destroy the will to fight of French forces and make fencesitters jump to Vietminh side. b. The Communists would evade covertly cease-fire controls. 3. The US should (as a last act to save IndoChina) propose to France that if the following 5 conditions are met, the US will go to Congress for authority to intervene with combat forces: a. grant of genuine freedom for Associated States b. US take major responsibility for training indigenous forces c. US share responsibility for military planning d. French forces to stay in the fight and no requirement of replacement by US forces. (e. Action under UN auspices?) This offer to be made known simultaneously to the other members of the proposed regional grouping (UK, Australia, NZ, Thailand, Associated States, Philippines) in order to enlist their participation. I then summarized possible objections to making the above proposal to the French: a. No French Government is now competent to act in a lasting way. b. There is no indication France wants to “internationalize” the conflict. c. The US proposal would be made without the prior assurance of a regional grouping of SEA States, a precondition of Congress; although this point might be added as another condition to the proposal. d. US would be “bailing out colonial France” in the eyes of the world. e. US cannot undertake alone to save every situation of trouble. I concluded that some PB members felt that it had never been made clear to the French that the US was willing to ask for Congressional authority, if certain fundamental preconditions were met; that these matters had only been hinted at, and that the record of history should be clear as to the US position. Dulles was interested to know the President’s views, because he is talking with Ambassador Bonnet this afternoon. He indicated that he would mention these matters to Bonnet, perhaps making a more broad hint than heretofore. He would not circulate any formal paper to Bonnet, or to anyone else. The President referred to the proposition advanced by Governor Stassen at the April 29 Council Meeting as not having been

81. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France 1439 thoroughly thought out. He said that he had been trying to get France to “internationalize” matters for a long time, and they are not willing to do so. If it were thought advisable at this time to point out to the French the essential preconditions to the US asking for Congressional authority to intervene, then it should also be made clear to the French as an additional precondition that the US would never intervene alone, that there must be an invitation by the indigenous people, and that there must be some kind of regional and collective action. I understand that Dulles will decide the extent to which he cares to follow this line with Ambassador Bonnet. This discussion may afford Dulles guidance in replying to Smith’s request about a US alternative to support the Bidault proposal, but there really was no decision as to the US attitude toward the cease-fire proposal itself. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 436–438.

Article IV: The present treaty, which will enter into force on the date of its signing, abrogates (all) previous acts and provisions contrary to it. The instruments of ratification of the present treaty will be exchanged as of its approval by qualified representatives of France and Vietnam. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 151.

81. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to C. Douglas Dillon, Ambassador to France, June 14, 1954 Introduction

On June 4, 1954, France recognized the full sovereignty of Bao Dai’s State of Vietnam (SVN), the political entity backed by France and the United States as a rival to Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam).

In this telegram to U.S. ambassador to France C. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles discusses the sharp deterioration in the military situation and in French and State of Vietnam (SVN) military morale following the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu. Dulles blames this situation on French and British indecision (President Dwight Eisenhower having made British participation a condition of U.S. military intervention). While still not completely ruling out U.S. military intervention, Dulles claimed that the French did not really want it as much as they want “a card to play” at the Geneva Conference (May 8–July 21, 1954), which was discussing the future of Indochina.

Primary Source

Primary Source

Article I:

It is true that there is less disposition now than two months or one month ago to intervene in Indochina militarily. This is the inevitable result of the steady deterioration in Indochina which makes the problem of intervention and pacification more and more difficult. When united defense was first broached, the strength and morale of French and Vietnam forces were such that it seemed that the situation could be held without any great pouring-in of U.S. ground forces. Now all the evidence is that the morale of the Vietnamese Government, armed forces and civilians has deteriorated gravely; the French are forced to contemplate a fallback which would leave virtually the entire Tonkin Delta population in hostile hands and the Saigon area is faced with political disintegration.

80. Treaty of Independence of the State of Vietnam, June 4, 1954 Introduction

France recognizes Vietnam as a fully independent and sovereign state and invested of all powers recognized by international law. Article II: Vietnam is substituted for France in all laws and obligations resulting from international treaties of conventions contracted by France on behalf of or in the name of the State of Vietnam or all other treaties or conventions concluded by France in the name of French Indochina to the measure in which these acts concerned Vietnam. Article III: France pledges to transfer to the Vietnamese government the powers and public services still guaranteed by [France] on Vietnamese territory.

What has happened has been what was forecast, as for example by my Embassy Paris 4117 TEDUL 78 of May 17. I there pointed out that probably the French did not really want intervention but wanted to have the possibility as a card to play at Geneva. I pointed out that the Geneva game would doubtless be a long

1440

82. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram

game and that it could not be assumed that at the end the present U.S. position regarding intervention would necessarily exist after the Communists had succeeded in dragging out Geneva by winning military successes in Indochina. This telegram of mine will bear rereading. That point of view has been frequently repeated in subsequent cables. I deeply regret any sense of bitterness on Bidault’s part, but I do not see that he is justified in considering unreasonable the adaptation of U.S. views to events and the consequences of prolonged French and U.K. indecision. I do not yet wholly exclude possibility U.S. intervention on terms outlined PARIS 402 TEDUL 54. UK it seems is now more disposed to see movement in this direction but apparently the French are less than ever disposed to internationalizing the war. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 559–560.

82. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, June 17, 1954 Introduction The U.S. government found itself in an awkward position at the Geneva Conference. The United States wanted the French to continue the war and feared a “sellout” to the Communists. In this telegram to U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles, head of the U.S. delegation to the Geneva Conference Walter Bedell Smith passes along a statement from Chinese foreign minister Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) that the delegation from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) had agreed to withdraw Viet Minh “volunteers” from both Laos and Cambodia. This became the basis for the independence of both Laos and Cambodia. Resolving the future status of Vietnam would not be as easy. Smith reports that he expressed “contempt” for the proposal by French high commissioner and military commander in Indochina General Paul Ély that France not seek to retain an enclave in the Red River Delta in North Vietnam. Smith regarded this as little more than a “selling-out” with which the United States could not be associated.

Primary Source Dennis Allen (UK) gave Johnson this morning additional details on conversation with Chou En-lai. Chou stated that in case Cambodia resistance forces were small and all that was necessary was a political settlement by the present royal government with them “which could easily be obtained.” In case of Laos, resistance forces were larger, and it would be necessary recognize this fact by formation of regrouping areas along the border with Vietnam and China. The task in both States was twofold: The removal of foreign forces and dealing with the problem of domestic resistance movements. The military staff should get down to this task. In reply to Eden’s query as to whether it would not (repeat not) be difficult obtain Viet Minh admission Viet Minh forces were in Laos and Cambodia, Chou stated it would “not (repeat not) be difficult” to get Viet Minh to agree to withdrawal their forces from these two states in context with withdrawal all foreign forces. Chou made no (repeat no) direct reply to Eden’s reference to FrenchLaotian treaty on French bases in Laos. Eden expressed personal view that Chou wants settlement, but has some doubt with regard to degree of control he exercises over Viet Minh. In long talk with Bidault this morning Chou substantially repeated what he told Eden yesterday (in conversation with Bidault, Chou referred to Viet Minh forces in Cambodia and Laos as “volunteers”). Bidault had also seen Molotov this morning and reported that both Molotov and Chou are obviously greatly concerned over any break-up Indochina conference in pattern of Korean conference as well as of lowering level conference below level of Foreign Ministers. Bidault said they clearly want to keep the conference going. Bidault and I agree (Eden did not (repeat not) comment) that it was very important we do nothing dispel Chou’s worries over US bases in Laos and Cambodia. I also expressed personal opinion that important Laos and Cambodia move ahead as quickly and as vigorously as possible with appeal to UN. Eden and Bidault agreed, Eden adding that important Vietnam not (repeat not) get mixed up with Laos and Cambodia cases UN. Chauvel showed me handwritten note from Ely, in his political capacity, urging against attempting hold any enclave in delta and recommending straight partition formula. I could not (repeat not) resist expressing contempt for such an easy “selling-out” of last remaining foothold in north and said we could under no (repeat no) circumstances publicly associate ourselves with such a solution. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 574–575.

83. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram 1441

83. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, June 18, 1954 Introduction In this telegram from Walter Bedell Smith, head of the U.S. delegation to the Geneva Conference, to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Smith reports that the U.S. delegation had informed the French that their decision not to retain an enclave in the Red River Delta area of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), which Smith characterized as a “selling-out,” had left the U.S. government no choice but to disassociate itself from the Geneva settlement. He had, however, told the French that the United States would continue to support their efforts to secure the best possible settlement. The French government meanwhile claimed that a partition of Vietnam was preferable to a “leopard spot” alternative of enclaves.

Primary Source Johnson saw Chauvel this morning and discussed with him conference situation in light TEDUL 211. Johnson stated seemed to us that such fundamental questions as composition, voting procedures and authority or international control commission should be dealt with in conference rather than by committee. If conference reached decision on fundamental principles, working out of details could be done by committee of experts of principally interested parties in same pattern as present Franco-Viet Minh military conversations. Chauvel said this would be agreeable except that question of authority, which he termed “relationship between international commission and joint committees” could be dealt with by technical committee, thus implying France not (repeat not) prepared to maintain principle of subordination joint committees to international commission. As French have already circulated proposal contained SECTO 460 through secretariat, it was agreed we would make suggestion along foregoing lines at today’s restricted meeting. Chauvel said they did not (repeat not) yet have any further indication as to what attitude Chinese would take on French proposal entirely clear from conversation with Chauvel that his main interest is in keeping some conference activity of nine going and that if regardless of level representation we prepared continue some conference meetings would probably meet French point of view. Appears French proposal made on assumption that there would be complete recess of conference with departure of Smith and Eden. Chauvel made reference to his conversation with Smith yesterday (DULTE 193—last paragraph), making inquiry as to exactly what

we had in mind. Johnson in reply read to him paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 basic instructions (TOSEC 138) stating that French willingness surrender even minimum enclave in north of Haiphong would so clearly contravene the principles which the US considered essential as to require our public dissociation with such a solution. In reply to Chauvel’s questions, Johnson made it clear we were speaking only of public disassociation from such a settlement. The US had in the past and of course would continue working with and supporting France in every possible way and wherever we could. Chauvel indicated full understanding our position. He said they had come to conclusion that what he termed any “leopard spot” solution was entirely impracticable and unenforceable. From standpoint of future it would be much better to retain a reasonably defensible line in Vietnam behind which there would be no (repeat no) enclaves of Viet Minh and do all possible behind that line to build up effective Vietnamese Government and defense. They had no (repeat no) intention of “any immediate surrender of Haiphong” which in any event must remain under their control for a considerable period for purely military reasons to effect evacuation of French Union Forces from the north. However, if, as appeared likely, choice was giving Viet Minh an enclave in south in exchange for French enclave in Haiphong, they thought it preferable to give up Haiphong. He said no (repeat no) French parliament would approve conditions which the US had laid down for its intervention, and French had no (repeat no) choice but made the best deal they could, obtaining as strong position as possible in south. Chauvel understood fully we would probably not (repeat not) be able to publicly associate ourselves with such a solution, but he hoped that when it came time to put it to the Vietnamese the US would consider it possible very discreetly to let the Vietnamese know that we considered it best that could be obtained under the circumstances and our public disassociation would not (repeat not) operate so as to encourage Vietnamese opposition. Johnson replied he did not (repeat not) see how it would be possible for us to do this, and in any event he would of course have to see what the solution was. Chauvel said that such a solution as partition should come as no (repeat no) surprise to the Vietnamese as Buu Loc had sometime ago indicated to Dejean. There had been conversations between Vietnamese and Viet Minh in which Viet Minh had made it clear that only two alternatives were coalition government or partition. Chauvel said Ngo Dinh and Diem are very unrealistic, unreasonable, and would probably prove to be “difficulte”. Chauvel said the line French had in mind had been made available to US defense representatives at some five-power talks, but was vague about time and place. He referred to it as “line of the chalk cliffs”, which he said was defensible position running from the sea across Vietnam and Laos to the Mekong. Understand this is a line roughly 19 parallel running from vicinity of Dong Hoi to Thakhek. Replying to query, Chauvel said French Union Forces removed from the north would be deployed along that line.

1442

84. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee

Chauvel said all indications were Mendès-France would succeed in forming government next day or two and would probably himself assume Foreign Minister post. Said he had been in touch with Mendès-France and had sent emissary to Paris this morning to brief him on situation in Geneva. Chauvel said was anxious to show complete continuity of French effort here in Geneva and hoped there could be another restricted meeting tomorrow. Chauvel said, “Underground military talks” last night had been completely unproductive, Viet Minh obviously taking strong line in view of French Government situation. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 578–579.

84. Ho Chi Minh: Report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, July 15, 1954 [Excerpt] Introduction Under heavy pressure from the Chinese and the Soviets, the delegation from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to the Geneva Conference accepted the compromise arrangement of an independent Vietnam temporarily partitioned at the 17th Parallel. The North Vietnamese government would control the north, while the Bao Dai–led State of Vietnam (SVN) would hold power in the south. The French would quit the north, and Viet Minh troops would leave the south. National elections were to take place in 1955. Pham Van Dong, who headed the North Vietnamese delegation to Geneva, was furious at this compromise, for it was less than the Viet Minh had won on the battlefield. Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese leadership accepted the compromise because it kept the United States from intervening militarily. As these remarks make clear, Ho counted on developing differences between France and the United States and on the planned elections, ultimately scheduled for July 1956, to bring about national reunification under control of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party (Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam).

Primary Source 2. Home situation The Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao peoples are united and their resistance grows ever more vigorous. Our guerilla forces in South, Central and North Viet Nam, not only have stood firm but have grown ever stronger. From the Border Campaign to the Hoa Binh, Tay Bac and other campaigns, our regular forces have recorded repeated successes. These victories plus the major one at Dien Bien Phu have brought about an important change in the situation. The fiasco of the Navarre plan has led to the collapse of

the Laniel-Bidault cabinet and the shrinking of French-occupied zones. We owe our successes to the correct policy of our Party and Government, the heroism of our armed forces and people, and the support of the fraternal countries and the world’s people. Our successes also belong to the world movement for peace and democracy. Besides military successes, initial ones have also been scored on the anti-feudal front. The former have had a good effect on the mobilization of the masses to implement our land policy and the latter, on our struggle against imperialism. Our successes inspire our people and the peoples of the world and reinforce our diplomatic position at Geneva; they have compelled our enemy to enter into talks with us. Compared with what Bollaert put forward in 1947, France’s attitude at present has noticeably changed. Thus, since the start of the resistance, our posture has grown stronger and the enemy’s weaker. But we should bear in mind that this should be understood in a relative, not absolute, sense. We must guard against subjectiveness and not underrate our enemy. Our successes have awakened the American imperialists. After the Dien Bien Phu campaign, the latter’s intentions and plan for intervention have also undergone changes aimed at protracting and internationalizing the Indochina war, sabotaging the Geneva Conference, and ousting the French by every means, in order to occupy Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, enslave the peoples of these countries and create further tension in the world. Therefore, the US imperialists not only are the enemy of the world’s people but are becoming the main and direct enemy of the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao peoples. These changes in the world and domestic situation have led to the Geneva Conference. This Conference has further exacerbated the contradictions between the imperialist countries, with France willing to negotiate, Britain wavering, and the United States bent on sabotaging the talks. The Americans have grown ever more isolated. II. NEW TASKS The new situation has set new tasks, new guidelines and new tactics. Over nearly nine years of resistance, under the leadership of our Party and Government, our people and army have overcome difficulties, fought heroically, and won glorious victories. Our forces have made headway in all respects. Thanks to the correct policy of our Party and Government, we have recorded good achievements. At present the situation has changed; so have our tasks and consequently so should our policy and slogans. Up to now we have

85. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram 1443 concentrated our efforts on wiping out the forces of the French imperialist aggressors. But now the French are having talks with us while the American imperialists are becoming our main and direct enemy; so our spearhead must be directed at the latter. Until peace is restored, we shall keep fighting the French; but the brunt of our attack and that of the world’s peoples should be focused on the United States. US policy is to expand and internationalize the Indochina war. Ours is to struggle for peace and oppose the US war policy. For some nine years now, our Party has made clear its programme: Complete independence for Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, which must be freed from the French yoke; to refuse to recognize the French Union, drive out all French troops from Indochina, destroy the puppet administration and armed forces, confiscate all properties of the imperialists and the traitors, launch a drive for the reduction of land rents and interest rates as a step towards agrarian reform, bring democracy to the whole nation, and carry our war of resistance through to final victory. This programme has won many successes. It is a correct one. However, in the new situation we cannot maintain the old programme. Our previous motto was “Resistance to the end”. At present, we must put forward a new one: “Peace, Unity, Independence, Democracy”. We must take firm hold of the banner of peace to oppose the US imperialists’ policy of direct interference in, and prolongation and expansion of, the war in Indochina. Our policy must change in consequence: formerly we confiscated the French imperialists’ properties; now, as negotiations are going on, we may, in accordance with the principle of equality and mutual benefit, allow French economic and cultural interests to be preserved in Indochina. Negotiations entail reasonable mutual concessions. Formerly we said we would drive out and wipe out all French aggressive forces; now, in the talks held, we have demanded and the French have accepted, that a date be set for the withdrawal of their troops. In the past, our aim was to wipe out the puppet administration and army with a view to national reunification; now we practise a policy of leniency and seek reunification of the country through nationwide elections. Peace calls for an end to the war; and to end the war one must agree on a cease-fire. A cease-fire requires regrouping zones, that is, enemy troops should be regrouped in a zone with a view to their gradual withdrawal, and ours in another. We must secure a vast area where we would have ample means for building, consolidating and developing our forces so as to exert influence over other regions and thereby advance towards reunification. The setting up of regrouping zones does not mean partition of the country; it is a temporary measure leading to reunification. Owing to the delimitation and exchange of zones, some previously free areas will be temporarily occupied by the enemy; their inhabitants will be dissatisfied; some people might fall prey to discouragement and to enemy deception. We should make it

clear to our compatriots that the trials they are going to endure for the sake of the interests of the whole country, for the sake of our long-range interests, will be a cause for glory and will earn them the gratitude of the whole nation. We should keep everyone free from pessimism and negativism and urge all to continue a vigorous struggle for the complete withdrawal of French forces and for independence. To set up regrouping zones as a step towards peace, to hold nationwide elections to achieve national reunification, such is our policy. The aims of our war of resistance are independence, unity, democracy and peace. The very restoration of peace is aimed at serving the cause of reunification, independence and democracy. The new situation requires a new policy for securing new successes. At any juncture, peace or war, we must firmly hold the initiative, show foresight and be in full readiness. To secure peace is not an easy task: it is a long, hard and complex struggle; with advantageous conditions but also with difficulties. The advantageous conditions: the friendly countries support us, so do the world’s people; our people are full of spirit and confidence in our Party and Government, under whose wise leadership they will certainly unite and struggle in peace as in war. The difficulties: the United States is trying its hardest to sabotage the restoration of peace in Indochina, the partisans of peace in France have not completely freed themselves from American influence. Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings: 1920–1969 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 174–180.

85. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, July 17, 1954 Introduction Walter Bedell Smith, head of the U.S. delegation in Geneva, here informs Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that French premier Pierre Mendès-France, British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov had failed to reach agreement on either the date for Vietnamese national elections or the location of the temporary partition line. Smith outlines the various proposals. As it worked out, the representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam)

1444

85. Walter Bedell Smith, Head of the U.S. Delegation in Geneva and Undersecretary of State: Telegram

compromised on the demarcation line in return for what they assumed would be an election date of 1955.

be one commission or three, composition, voting, execution of commissions’ recommendations, and freedom of movement for inspection teams.

Primary Source Following account of Mendès-France-Eden-Molotov meeting last night is based on report of this meeting to Foreign Office made available to Johnson by Caccia. This telegram expands upon and supersedes preliminary account transmitted in first three paragraphs SECTO 630 (repeated information Paris 76, Saigon 48). At Eden’s suggestion, French enumerated documents before conference: (A) Armistice agreements to be signed by local commandersin-chief. French have prepared drafts for Vietnam and Laos and Cambodians draft for Cambodia. Viet Minh delegation preparing counter draft for Vietnam. (B) Control arrangements. French have circulated papers for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. (C) Political arrangements. After having seen military documents, certain delegations might make unilateral statements. For example, Laos and Cambodia are preparing statements on their willingness to limit their armed forces. Conference as whole would then agree upon common statement taking note of military agreements and unilateral declarations. French have circulated draft of such statement. Soviets have prepared counter draft and French second redraft. French explained that if conference did not (repeat not) have time to agree on all details of armistice, it might approve only parts providing for cessation of hostilities and first stage of regroupment. Remaining aspects of agreements could be covered by statement of general principles for guidance of experts who would work out details after conference had dispersed. It was agreed that British, French, and Soviet experts would meet July 17 to consider various drafts. At Eden’s suggestion, Mendès-France summarized main outstanding problems as (A) demarcation line for Vietnam; (B) elections, and (C) control arrangements. Concerning demarcation line, he said French had proposed line near 18th parallel whereas Viet Minh proposed 16th parallel. On elections in Vietnam, he said question was whether to fix firm date now (repeat now) (Soviets had proposed June 1955) or whether, as French proposed, to settle now (repeat now) only manner in which date would be set. Elections in Laos and Cambodia already provided for in constitutions for August and September 1955, respectively. On control, he said main questions were: Whether there should

Molotov added to outstanding issues: (D) time required for regrouping (French have proposed 380 days and Soviets 6 months); and (E) prevention of importation of new arms and military personnel subject to certain exceptions for Laos and Cambodia, prohibition of foreign military bases, and prohibition of military alliances by three states. Eden added (F) question of regroupment areas for resistance forces in Laos. Discussion then turned to substantive issues: (A) Elections in Vietnam. Molotov said conference should fix date for elections. He conceded more flexible formula might be found than firm date of June 1955 previously proposed by Soviets and suggested agreement merely that elections be held during 1955 with precise date to be fixed by Vietnamese and Viet Minh authorities. Mendès-France argued that it would be prudent to fix date as early as the end of 1955. He suggested two ways of providing necessary flexibility in arrangements: Date for elections might be fixed after completion of regrouping; or exact date might be fixed now (repeat now) and international control commission be given authority to advance date if necessary. Eden supported Mendès-France on need for flexibility and suggested that two parts of Vietnam fix date after completion of regrouping. Mendès-France agreed to consider this suggestion, but Molotov continued to urge elections during 1955. (B) Demarcation line. Molotov argued that in moving from 13th to 16th parallel, Viet Minh had made substantial concession which called for proper response from French. Mendès-France disagreed, arguing that Viet Minh would be giving up much less in Annam than they would be getting in Tonkin. He said that Pham Van Dong had admitted that line on 16th parallel would require special arrangements for Tourane, Hue, on route No. 9 leading into Laos. Mendès-France stated that necessity for such special arrangements showed how unnatural demarcation line at 16th parallel would be. He said that there was no (repeat no) chance of persuading French Government to accept line which excluded either Hue or route No. 9. Eden supported Mendès-France. Molotov suggested that discussion move to question of control arrangements. Mendès-France replied might be better to postpone such discussion. He observed that questions of elections and demarcation line had been discussed together and might be linked

86. Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on Indochina in sense that conceivably one party might yield on one question and another party on other. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 648–650.

86. Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on Indochina, July 21, 1954 Introduction This final agreement of the Geneva Conference (May 8–July 21, 1954) regarding Indochina declared Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam to be independent states. Cambodia and Laos would hold elections in 1955. Vietnam, while recognized as one state, was temporarily divided at the 17th Parallel, with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to control north of that line and the State of Vietnam (SVN) south of it. Internationally supervised elections to unite the two were fixed for July 1956. During the 300-day period it would take for all North Vietnamese armed forces to leave southern Vietnam and for all French Union forces to leave North Vietnam, civilians could also move from one zone to the other if they so chose.

Primary Source 1. The Conference takes note of the agreements ending hostilities in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and organizing international control and the supervision of the execution of the provisions of these agreements. 2. The Conference expresses satisfaction at the end of hostilities in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam; the Conference expresses its conviction that the execution of the provisions set out in the present declaration and in the agreements of the cessation of hostilities will permit Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam henceforth to play their part, in full independence and sovereignty, in the peaceful community of nations.

1445

Vietnam of foreign troops and military personnel as well as of all kinds of arms and munitions. The Conference also takes note of the declarations made by the Governments of Cambodia and Laos of their resolution not to request foreign aid, whether in war material, in personnel, or in instructors except for the purpose of the effective defense of their territory and, in the case of Laos, to the extent defined by the agreements of the cessation of hostilities in Laos. 5. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam to the effect that no military base under the control of a foreign State may be established in the regrouping zones of the two parties, the latter having the obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy. The Conference also takes note of the declarations of the Governments of Cambodia and Laos to the effect that they will not join in any agreement with other States if this agreement includes the obligation to participate in a military alliance not in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations or, in the case of Laos, with the principles of the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Laos or, so long as their security is not threatened, the obligation to establish bases on Cambodian or Laotian territory for the military forces of foreign powers. 6. The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Vietnam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary. The Conference expresses its conviction that the execution of the provisions set out in the present declaration and in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities creates the necessary basis for the achievement in the near future of a political settlement in Vietnam.

3. The Conference takes note of the declarations made by the Governments of Cambodia and Laos of their intention to adopt measures permitting all citizens to take their place in the national community, in particular by participating in the next general elections, which, in conformity with the constitution of each of these countries, shall take place in the course of the year 1955, by secret ballot and in conditions of respect for fundamental freedoms.

7. The Conference declares that, so far as Vietnam is concerned, the settlement of political problems, effected on the basis of respect for the principles of independence, unity, and territorial integrity, shall permit the Vietnamese people to enjoy the fundamental freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions established as a result of free general elections by secret ballot. In order to ensure that sufficient progress in the restoration of peace has been made, and that all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression of the national will, general elections shall be held in July 1956 under the supervision of an international commission composed of representatives of the Member States of the International Supervisory Commission, referred to in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones from July 20, 1955, onward.

4. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam prohibiting the introduction into

8. The provisions of the agreements on the cessation of hostilities intended to ensure the protection of individuals and of property

1446

87. U.S. Government Response to the Geneva Declarations

must be most strictly applied and must, in particular, allow everyone in Vietnam to decide freely in which zone he wishes to live. 9. The competent representative authorities of the North and South zones of Vietnam, as well as the authorities of Laos and Cambodia, must not permit any individual or collective reprisals against persons who had collaborated in any way with one of the parties during the war, or against members of such persons’ families. 10. The Conference takes note of the declaration of the Government of the French Republic to the effect that it is ready to withdraw its troops from the territory of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, at the request of the Governments concerned and within periods which shall be fixed by agreement between the parties except in the cases where, by agreement between the two parties, a certain number of French troops shall remain at specified points and for a specified time. 11. The Conference takes note of the declaration of the French Government to the effect that for the settlement of all the problems connected with the re-establishment and consolidation of peace in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, the French Government will proceed from the principle of respect for the independence and sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. 12. In their relations with Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, each member of the Geneva Conference undertakes to respect the sovereignty, the independence, the unity, and the territorial integrity of the above-mentioned States, and to refrain from any interference in their internal affairs. 13. The members of the Conference agree to consult one another on any question which may be referred to them by the International Supervisory Commission, in order to study such measures as may prove necessary to ensure that the agreements on the cessation of hostilities in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are respected. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 1. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 571–573.

87. U.S. Government Response to the Geneva Declarations, July 21, 1954 Introduction In this official response to the agreements reached at the Geneva Conference (May 8–July 21, 1954) regarding Indochina, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration upheld the principle of

self-determination of peoples and declared that it would not use force or the threat of force in an effort to change the agreements but that it would view any new “aggression” that violated the agreements “with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security.”

Primary Source Declaration The Government of the United States being resolved to devote its efforts to the strengthening of peace in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations takes note of the agreements concluded at Geneva on July 20 and 21, 1954 between (a) the Franco-Laotian Command and the Command of the Peoples Army of Viet-Nam; (b) the Royal Khmer Army Command and the Command of the Peoples Army of Viet-Nam; (c) Franco-Vietnamese Command and the Command of the Peoples Army of Viet-Nam and of paragraphs 1 to 12 inclusive of the declaration presented to the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954 declares with regard to the aforesaid agreements and paragraphs that (i) it will refrain from the threat or the use of force to disturb them, in accordance with Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations dealing with the obligation of members to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force; and (ii) it would view any renewal of the aggression in violation of the aforesaid agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security. In connection with the statement in the declaration concerning free elections in Viet-Nam my Government wishes to make clear its position which it has expressed in a declaration made in Washington on June 29, 1954, as follows: In the case of nations now divided against their will, we shall continue to seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to insure that they are conducted fairly. With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Viet-Nam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in an arrangement which would hinder this. Nothing in its declaration just made is intended to or does indicate any departure from this traditional position. We share the hope that the agreements will permit Cambodia, Laos and Viet-Nam to play their part, in full independence and sovereignty, in the peaceful community of nations, and will enable the peoples of that area to determine their own future. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 1. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 570–571.

89. National Intelligence Estimate 63-5-54 on the Post-Geneva Outlook in Indochina 1447

88. Walter Bedell Smith: Declaration to the Geneva Conference, July 21, 1954 Introduction The U.S. government was in an awkward place regarding the results of the Geneva Conference, finding itself powerless to prevent a settlement that it did not want. In this statement at the Geneva Conference (May 8–July 21, 1954) regarding the agreements on Indochina, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, head of the U.S. delegation, seconds the official announcement that the United States would not seek to undermine the agreements by the use or threat of force but insists that there be United Nations (UN) supervision of the elections scheduled for July 1956 to reunite Vietnam.

Primary Source The Government of the United States being resolved to devote its efforts to the strengthening of peace in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations. Takes note of the Agreements concluded at Geneva on July 20 and 21, 1954 between the (a) Franco-Laotian Command and the Command of the People’s Army of Viet-Nam; (b) The Royal Khmer Army Command and the Command of the People’s Army of VietNam; (c) Franco-Viet-Namese Command and the Command of the People’s Army of Viet-Nam, and of paragraphs 1 to 12 inclusive of the Declaration presented to the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954. Declares with regard to the aforesaid Agreements and paragraphs (i) it will refrain from the threat or the use of force to disturb them, in accordance with Article 2 (4) of the Charter of the United Nations dealing with the obligation of Members to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force; and (ii) it would view any renewal of the aggression in violation of the aforesaid agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security. In connection with this statement in the Declaration concerning free elections in Viet-Nam, my Government wishes to make clear its position which it has expressed in a Declaration made in Washington June 19, 1954, as follows: “In the case of nations now divided against their will, we shall continue to seek to achieve unity through free elections, supervised by the United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly.” With respect to the statement made by the Representative of the State of Viet-Nam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this.

Nothing in its declaration just made is intended to or does indicate any departure from this traditional position. We share the hope that the agreement will permit Cambodia, Laos and Viet-Nam to play their part in full independence and sovereignty, in the peaceful community of nations, and will enable the peoples of that area to determine their own future. Source: “U.S. Declaration on Indochina,” Department of State Bulletin 31(788) (1954): 162–163.

89. National Intelligence Estimate 63-5-54 on the Post-Geneva Outlook in Indochina, August 3, 1954 [Excerpt] Introduction Following the Geneva Conference, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration found itself opposing the popular will in Vietnam. In this first National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) following Geneva, the intelligence community agrees that Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) will undoubtedly increase in popularity among Vietnamese and will “almost certainly” win the elections scheduled for July 1956 to reunite North Vietnam and southern Vietnam. The framers of the NIE believe that the popularity of the State of Vietnam (SVN) in southern Vietnam will be determined entirely by the French and whether they will allow the SVN to be genuinely independent. The NIE concludes that Ngo Dinh Diem, the new premier of the SVN, will have difficulty dealing with the Viet Minh political cadres in southern Vietnam because of provisions in the Geneva Accords that allow them to remain there in order to prepare for the scheduled elections.

Primary Source 23. Outlook in South Vietnam. We believe that the Viet Minh will seek to retain sizeable military and political assets in South Vietnam. Although the agreements provide for the removal to the north of all Viet Minh forces, many of the regular and irregular Viet Minh soldiers now in the south are natives of the area, and large numbers of them will probably cache their arms and remain in South Vietnam. In addition, Viet Minh administrative cadres have been in firm control of several large areas in central and south Vietnam for several years. These cadres will probably remain in place. French and Vietnamese efforts to deal with “stay behind” military and administrative units and personnel will be greatly hampered by armistice provisions guaranteeing the security of pre-armistice dissidents from reprisals. 24. The severe problem of establishing and maintaining security in South Vietnam will probably be increased by certain provisions

1448

90. NSC 5492/2, “Review of U.S. Policy in the Far East”

of the Geneva agreements which prohibit the import of arms and military equipment, except as replacements, and the introduction of additional foreign military personnel, the establishment of new military bases, and military alliances. These provisions limit the development of a Vietnamese national army to such numbers as may be equipped by stocks evacuated from Tonkin, plus stocks now held in Saigon. However, in the last analysis, Vietnamese security will be determined by the degree of French protection and assistance in the development of a national army, the energy with which the Vietnamese themselves attack the problem, and by the will of the non-Communist powers to provide South Vietnam with effective guarantees. 25. In addition to the activities of stay-behind military and administrative groups, the Viet Minh will make a major effort to discredit any South Vietnam administration, and to exacerbate FrenchVietnamese relations, and appeal to the feeling for national unification which will almost certainly continue strong among the South Vietnamese population. The Communist goal will be to cause the collapse of any non-Communist efforts to stabilize the situation in South Vietnam, and thus to leave North Vietnam the only visible foundation on which to re-establish Vietnamese unity. French and anti-Communist Vietnamese efforts to counter the Viet Minh unity appeal and Communist subversive activities will be complicated at the outset by the strong resentment of Vietnamese nationalists over the partitioning of Vietnam and the abandoning of Tonkin to Communist control. It may be difficult to convince many Vietnamese troops, political leaders, and administrative personnel in Tonkin to go south, let alone to assist actively in the development of an effective administration in South Vietnam. 26. Developments in South Vietnam will also depend in large part on French courses of action. Prospects for stability in South Vietnam would be considerably enhanced if the French acted swiftly to insure Vietnam full independence and to encourage strong nationalist leadership. If this were done, anti-French nationalist activity might be lessened. With French military and economic assistance—backed by US aid—the Vietnamese could proceed to develop gradually an effective security force, local government organization, and a long-range program for economic and social reform. Nevertheless, it will be very difficult for the French to furnish the degree of assistance which will be required without at the same time reviving anti-French feeling to the point of endangering the whole effort. 27. On the basis of the evidence we have at this early date, however, we believe that a favorable development of the situation in South Vietnam is unlikely. Unless Mendès-Frances is able to overcome the force of French traditional interests and emotions which have in the past governed the implementation of policy in Indochina, we do not believe there will be the dramatic transformation in

French policy necessary to win the active loyalty and support of the local population for a South Vietnam Government. At the present time, it appears more likely that the situation will deteriorate in South Vietnam and that the withdrawal from Tonkin will involve recriminations, distrust, and possibly violence. There will be delays in the development of effective administration in the south; the French military will probably be forced to retain a large measure of control for reasons of “security”; and efforts by French colonial interests to develop a puppet Cochin-China state will persist. It is even possible that at some point during the next two years the South Vietnam Government could be taken over by elements that would seek unification with the Viet Minh in the North even at the expense of Communist domination. Even “If the scheduled national elections are held in July 1956, and if the Viet Minh does not prejudice its political prospects, the Viet Minh will almost certainly win.” 28. In the interim, Viet Minh propaganda will find ample opportunities to influence Vietnamese attitudes. Within a year, Viet Minh stay-behind units will probably be active politically, and possibly involved in open guerrilla fighting. In these circumstances, the French will probably be able to maintain their “presence” in South Vietnam through mid-1956, but their influence will probably become increasingly restricted to major cities and the perimeters of military installations and bases. The French might be willing to resolve this situation by an arrangement with the Communists which seemed to offer a chance of saving some remnant of the French economic and cultural position in Vietnam. Such an arrangement might include an agreement to hold early elections, even with the virtual certainty of Viet Minh victory. Only if such an arrangement proved impossible, and the situation deteriorated to the point of hopelessness, would the French withdraw completely from the country. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 696–697.

90. NSC 5492/2, “Review of U.S. Policy in the Far East”, August 20, 1954 [Excerpts] Introduction Regarding the recently concluded Geneva Conference as a blow to U.S. prestige and a sellout to the Communists who had provided them an “advance salient” for the future subversion of the non-Communist states of Southeast Asia, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration sought countermeasures. This National Security Council (NSC) review of U.S. Far Eastern policy calls for

90. NSC 5492/2, “Review of U.S. Policy in the Far East” the creation of an Asian counterpart to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe that would shore up the nonCommunist states of the region and the initiation of “covert operations” to subvert Communist rule in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam).

Primary Source

a.

b.

Preface Consequences of the Geneva Conference Communist successes in Indochina, culminating in the agreement reached at the Geneva Conference, have produced the following significant consequences which jeopardize the security interests of the U.S. in the Far East and increase Communist strength there: a. Regardless of the fate of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the Communists have secured possession of an advance salient in Vietnam from which military and nonmilitary pressures can be mounted against adjacent and more remote non-Communist areas. b. The loss of prestige in Asia suffered by the U.S. as a backer of the French and the Bao Dai Government will raise further doubts in Asia concerning U.S. leadership and the ability of the U.S. to check the further expansion of Communism in Asia. Furthermore, U.S. prestige will inescapably be associated with subsequent developments in Southeast Asia. c. By adopting an appearance of moderation at Geneva and taking credit for the cessation of hostilities in Indochina, the Communists will be in a better position to exploit their political strategy of imputing to the United States motives of extremism, belligerency, and opposition to co-existence seeking thereby to alienate the U.S. from its allies. The Communists thus have a basis for sharply accentuating their “peace propaganda” and “peace program” in Asia in an attempt to allay fears of Communist expansionist policy and to establish closer relations with the nations of free Asia. d. The Communists have increased their military and political prestige in Asia and their capacity for expanding Communist influence by exploiting political and economic weakness and instability in the countries of free Asia without resort to armed attack. e. The loss of Southeast Asia would imperil retention of Japan as a key element in the off-shore island chain. Courses of Action I. Communist China 1. Reduce the power of Communist China in Asia even at the risk of, but without deliberately provoking, war:

1449

c.

d.

e.

(1) React with force, if necessary and advantageous, to expansion and subversion recognizable as such, supported and supplied by Communist China. (2) React with immediate, positive, armed force against any belligerent move by Communist China. Increase efforts to develop the political economic and military strength of non-Communist Asian countries, including the progressive development of the military strength of Japan to the point where she can provide for her own national defense, and, in time, contribute to the collective defense of the Far East. Maintain political and economic pressures against Communist China, including the existing embargo and support for Chinese Nationalist harassing actions. Support the Chinese National Government on Formosa as the Government of China and the representative of China in all UN agencies. Create internal division in the Chinese Communist regime and impair Sino-Soviet relations by all feasible overt and covert means.

[. . .] IV. Southeast Asia 7. General. The U.S. must protect its position and restore its prestige in the Far East by a new initiative in Southeast Asia, where the situation must be stabilized as soon as possible to prevent further losses to Communism through (1) creeping expansion and subversion, or (2) overt aggression. 8. Security Treaty. Negotiate a Southeast Asia security treaty with the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, the Philippines, Thailand and, as appropriate, other free South and Southeast Asian countries willing to participate, which would: a. Commit each member to treat an armed attack on the agreed area (including Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam) as dangerous to its own peace, safety and vital interests, and to act promptly to meet the common danger in accordance with its own constitutional processes. b. Provide so far as possible a legal basis to the President to order attack on Communist China in the event it commits such armed aggression which endangers the peace, safety and vital interests of the United States. c. Ensure that, in such event, other nations would be obligated in accordance with the treaty to support such U.S. action. d. Not limit U.S. freedom to use nuclear weapons, or involve a U.S. commitment for local defense or for stationing U.S. forces in Southeast Asia.

1450

91. Protocol to the SEATO Treaty

The U.S. would continue to provide limited military assistance and training missions, wherever possible, to the states of Southeast Asia in order to bolster their will to fight, to stabilize legal governments, and to assist them in controlling subversion. 9. Action in the Event of Local Subversion. If requested by a legitimate local government which requires assistance to defeat local Communist subversion or rebellion not constituting armed attack, the U.S. should view such a situation so gravely that, in addition to giving all possible covert and overt support within Executive Branch authority, the President should at once consider requesting Congressional authority to take appropriate action, which might if necessary and feasible include the use of U.S. military forces either locally or against the external source of such subversion or rebellion (including Communist China if determined to be the source). 10. Indochina: Political and Covert Action. a. Make every possible effort, not openly inconsistent with the U.S. position as to the armistice agreements, to defeat Communist subversion and influence, to maintain and support friendly non-Communist governments in Cambodia and Laos to maintain a friendly nonCommunist South Vietnam, and to prevent a Communist victory through all-Vietnam elections. b. Urge that the French promptly recognize and deal with Cambodia, Laos and free Vietnam as independent sovereign nations. c. Strengthen U.S. representation and deal directly, wherever advantageous to the U.S., with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, and free Vietnam. d. Working through the French only insofar as necessary, assist Cambodia, Laos and free Vietnam to maintain (1) military forces necessary for internal security and (2) economic conditions conducive to the maintenance and strength of non-Communist regimes and comparing favorably with those in adjacent Communist areas. e. Aid emigration from North Vietnam and resettlement of peoples unwilling to remain under Communist rule. f. Exploit available means to make more difficult the control by the Viet Minh of North Vietnam. g. Exploit available means to prevent North Vietnam from becoming permanently incorporated in the Soviet block, using as feasible and desirable consular relations and nonstrategic trade. h. Conduct covert operations on a large and effective scale in support of the foregoing policies. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 731–733, 736–737.

91. Protocol to the SEATO Treaty, September 8, 1954 Introduction The United States took the lead in the creation of a regional collective security alliance, known as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Unlike the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), SEATO had no standing military force, and there was no specific action required in the event of hostile action. SEATO’s members— the United States, France, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand—pledged themselves only to “act to meet the common danger” in the event of aggression against any signatory state. A separate protocol extended the treaty’s security provisions to Laos, Cambodia, and the “free territory under the jurisdiction of the State of Vietnam.”

Primary Source Designation of States and Territory as to Which Provisions of Article IV and Article III are to be Applicable. The Parties to the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty unanimously designate for the purposes of Article IV of the Treaty the States of Cambodia and Laos and the free territory under the jurisdiction of the State of Vietnam. The Parties further agree that the above mentioned states and territory shall be eligible in respect of the economic measures contemplated by Article III. This Protocol shall enter into force simultaneously with the coming into force of the Treaty. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries have signed this Protocol to the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty. Done at Manila, this eighth day of September, 1954. Source: “Protocol to the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty,” Department of State Bulletin 31(795) (1954): 395–396.

92. President Dwight Eisenhower: Letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, October 23, 1954 Introduction Ngo Dinh Diem was premier of the State of Vietnam (SVN). A Catholic in a predominantly Buddhist country, he had powerful support in the United States. Nonetheless, Diem’s hold on power appeared tenuous. Opposing him were other political figures as well as the

93. Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Declaration on Normalizing Relations between the Northern and Southern Zones 1451 Binh Xuyen gangsters in Saigon and religious sects that had been armed by the French. Diem also clashed with army chief of staff General Nguyen Van Hinh, who talked openly about a coup. Critical to Diem’s survival was U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision in October to channel all U.S. aid directly to Diem’s government. This greatly upset the French, for it undercut their remaining authority in southern Vietnam. In November, Eisenhower sent former U.S. Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins to southern Vietnam as special ambassador with authority over all U.S. government agencies in Vietnam. Collins arrived there in early November and stated that Washington would deal only with Diem. At the end of November, Hinh left Vietnam for exile in France.

and effective in performance, that it will be respected at home and abroad and discourage any who might wish to impose a foreign ideology on your free people. Source: “U.S. Aid to Viet-Nam,” Department of State Bulletin 31(303) (1954): 735–736.

Primary Source

93. Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Declaration on Normalizing Relations between the Northern and Southern Zones, February 4, 1955

Dear Mr. President:

Introduction

I have been following with great interest the course of developments in Vietnam, particularly since the conclusion of the conference at Geneva. The implications of the agreement concerning Vietnam have caused grave concern regarding the future of the country temporarily divided by an artificial military grouping, weakened by a long and exhausting war, and faced with enemies without and by their subversive collaborators within. Your recent requests for aid to assist in the formidable project of the movement of several hundred thousand loyal Vietnamese citizens away from areas which are passing under a de facto rule and political ideology which they abhor, are being fulfilled. I am glad that the United States is able to assist in this humanitarian effort. We have been exploring ways and means to permit our aid to Vietnam to be more effective and to make a greater contribution to the welfare and stability of the Government of Vietnam. I am, accordingly, instructing the American Ambassador to Vietnam [Donald R. Heath] to examine with you in your capacity as Chief of Government, how an intelligent program of American aid given directly to your Government can serve to assist Vietnam in its present hour of trial, provided that your Government is prepared to give assurances as to the standards of performance it would be able to maintain in the event such aid were supplied. The purpose of this offer is to assist the Government of Vietnam in developing and maintaining a strong, viable state, capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means. The Government of the United States expects that this aid will be met by performance on the part of the Government of Vietnam in undertaking needed reforms. It hopes that such aid, combined with your own continuing efforts, will contribute effectively toward an independent Vietnam endowed with a strong Government. Such a Government would, I hope, be so responsive to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so enlightened in purpose

With the full support of the U.S. government, Ngo Dinh Diem, premier of the State of Vietnam (SVN), refused to enter into talks called for by the 1954 Geneva Agreements to prepare for the planned July 1956 elections to reunify Vietnam. The government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) stressed that Vietnam was one nation and that the North Vietnamese government was making every effort to normalize relations between the two Vietnamese states, including entering into agreements with southern Vietnam on a wide range of economic, social, and cultural matters.

Primary Source Following the appeal made by President Ho-Chi-Minh on New Year’s Day, the Council of Ministers of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam has, in its session early in February 1955, considered the question of restoring normal relations between North and South Viet-nam on either side of the provisional military demarcation line. The Council holds that: 1—Viet-nam is a unified country from the North to the South. The political, economic, cultural, social and sentimental relations and the solidarity of the Vietnamese people are indivisible. During the eight to nine years of the patriotic war, the Vietnamese people from the North to the South have heroically fought to restore peace and struggled together to build up the Fatherland. That is why, after the implementation of the armistice and pending the general elections to bring about the reunification of the country, the reestablishment of normal relations between the Northern and Southern zones fully conforms to the earnest aspiration of the various strata of the population in the two zones and is indispensable for the restoration of a normal and prosperous life of the Vietnamese people throughout the country; 2—The restoration of normal relations between the two zones is in complete conformity with the spirit of the Geneva Armistice Agreement.

1452

94. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in Saigon

The first sentence of the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam stipulates that the demarcation line, on either side of which the forces of the two parties shall be regrouped after their withdrawal, is only provisional. The Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference clearly mentioned that: “The military demarcation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary”. The restoration of relations between the two zones does not infringe upon the administrative control of each side. On the contrary, it will provide the authorities of both sides with good opportunity for mutual understanding, thereby creating “the necessary basis for the achievement of a political settlement in Viet-nam,” as stipulated in the Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference. Due to the above-mentioned reasons the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam declares that: 1—Responding to the earnest desire of the Vietnamese people and in conformity with the spirit of the Geneva Armistice Agreement, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam is disposed to grant all facilities to the people in the Northern and Southern zones on either side of the provisional military demarcation line in sending mail, moving, carrying out business or enterprises from one zone to the other, and in exchanging cultural, artistic, scientific, technical, sporting and other activities. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam fully encourages and helps the population in the two zones in all economic, cultural and social exchanges advantageous for the restoration of normal life of the people, 2—The Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam hopes that the authorities in South Viet-nam will agree to the restoration of normal relations between the Northern and Southern zones with a view to bringing about solutions favourable for the entire people. Source: Documents Related to the Implementation of the Geneva Agreements Concerning Viet-Nam (Hanoi: Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Press and Information Department, 1956), 33–35.

94. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to the Embassy in Saigon, April 6, 1955 [Excerpt]

Geneva Agreements to reunite the two Vietnamese states. Diem steadfastly refused to enter into the talks that were a necessary prerequisite for the elections. The Dwight D. Eisenhower administration believed that Ho Chi Minh and the Communists would win any free elections. The dilemma for the Eisenhower administration was that while it supported democratic institutions, the Communist regimes had refused to allow free elections once they had come to power. How far the United States was prepared to go on this matter can be seen in this cable from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to the U.S. embassy in Saigon. Dulles suggests that the U.S. approach to the elections should be that of insisting on “safeguards” and that these should be couched in language that the Communist will have to reject.

Primary Source FYI. We have been working on problem of elections in Viet-Nam, in great detail over last several weeks. NSC has asked Department submit policy for consideration by mid-April and we sure that elections will be discussed during proposed U.S-French talks Washington April 20. The British have offered give use their views on elections prior these talks. We feel best solution is for us be in position inform French British our views prior talks and believe it best we can put such forward as support of policy of Free Viet-Nam rather than as unilateral U.S. recommendations. Our proposal is based on Eden’s plan put forward at Berlin-Conference for all German elections and has already been approved by France for use Germany and rejected by the Communists. The basic principle is that Free Viet-Nam will insist to the Viet Minh that unless agreement is first reached by the latter’s acceptance of the safeguards spelled out, that no repeat no further discussions are possible regarding the type of elections, the issues to be voted on or any other factors. After we have Diem’s general acceptance we can proceed inform UK and France of this plan which we think only formula which ensures both satisfactory response to Geneva Agreement and at same time plan which is unassailable in intent but probably unacceptable to Communists because of provisions for strict compliance to ensure genuinely free elections. END FYI.

Introduction

You should speak to Diem privately regarding elections, without showing him formula outlined next telegram. We are not now attempting secure his approval as such to our position but to assure he understands our viewpoint and accepts it to degree we can proceed with French British on broad assumption Free VietNam’s position similar our own.

The U.S. government strongly supported Premier Ngo Dinh Diem of the State of Vietnam (SVN) in his opposition to the free elections, scheduled for July 1956, that were called for by the 1954

Believe best way accomplish this is to remind him of his and foreign ministers conversations with Secretary on this subject and

95. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to Special Representative General J. Lawton Collins in Saigon 1453 to continue that in specific cases of elections in Korea and Germany Free World has stood firm on issue of guarantees of genuine free elections, supervised by body having authority guarantee elements free elections PAREN outlined last paragraph following telegram UNPAREN. In each case Communists have refused accept these safeguards which we think basic and fundamental. We believe unless such guarantees previously agreed upon would be dangerous for Free Viet-Nam be drawn into further discussions of other issues of election. Ask Diem if we can assume our thinking is alike on this point. Since time exceedingly important, hope we can have affirmative answer soonest. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 892–893.

95. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: Telegram to Special Representative General J. Lawton Collins in Saigon, April 9, 1955 Introduction Ngo Dinh Diem, premier of the State of Vietnam (SVN), was busy trying to consolidate his power in southern Vietnam. He found himself confronted by a host of opponents, including the Binh Xuyen gangsters who controlled much of the economic life of Saigon, the religious sects that had been armed by the French, and army chief of staff General Nguyen Van Hinh. The Dwight D. Eisenhower administration decided to send former U.S. Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins to southern Vietnam as special ambassador. He arrived in November 1954, announced that the United States would support only Diem, and soon arranged for Hinh’s departure. Collins then drew up a plan to reform the SVN’s army. The issue of army reform touched off a confrontation with the various opposition groups in southern Vietnam that maintained their own military formations. In March and April 1955, fighting erupted between Vietnamese army units loyal to Diem and the Binh Xuyen. Diem adroitly splintered the opposition, and his liberal use of bribes bought off many of those opposed to his rule. By the end of May, government troops had driven the remaining Binh Xuyen from Saigon. Still, Diem’s struggle with the religious sects such as the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao led Collins to reconsider his support. Collins believed that Diem lacked the ability to govern and called on the State Department to replace him with a coalition government. In this telegram, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informs Collins that Washington is inclined to support Diem.

Primary Source Have this morning discussed situation with highest authority. We are disposed to back whatever your final decision is but before you actually finalize we want to be sure you have weighed all of the factors which concern us here. We feel that what has happened does not reveal anything new about Diem but rather a basic and dangerous misunderstanding as between France and the U.S. We have always known the qualities which Diem possesses and those which he lacks. Nevertheless our two countries agreed to support him in default of anyone possessing better qualifications. The only alternatives now suggested are the same persons who were regarded as unacceptable substitutes some months ago. What has happened is that whereas the United States has been proceeding on the assumption that Diem would be backed as against any who might challenge him assuming that he had the capability, apparently the French have given their support only on the assumption that the Binh Xuyen would also be supported on an autonomous authority and that when they challenged Diem he would not be allowed to use force to assert his authority over it. We can appreciate the reluctance of the French to see force used but if it cannot be used then what is the point of our supporting at great cost the national army which I thought it had been agreed was primarily to be an army for domestic security rather than an army to fight external aggression. U.S. recognizes that the Cao Dai and even the Hoa Hao are genuine sects with cultural religious and political roots which cannot be forcibly torn up without grave consequences which should be avoided but we do not believe that any central government can exist as more than a figurehead if it does not have control over the national police and if this control is farmed out to a gang which exploits its privileges to protect vice on a vastly profitable scale and which exists by virtue of the backing of the self-exiled Bao Dai and the French. We cannot see that replacement of Diem by any persons you mentioned will of itself correct this situation and indeed we have had the impression that Quat was less acceptable to the sects than is Diem. There are two other factors to be borne in mind. One is that it is widely known that Diem has so far existed by reason of U.S support despite French reluctance. If, however, when the showdown comes the French view prevails then that will gravely weaken our influence for the future both in Vietnam and elsewhere. Removal of Diem under these circumstances may well be interpreted in Vietnam and Asia as example of U.S. paying lip service to nationalist cause and then forsaking true nationalist leader when QUOTE colonial interests UNQUOTE put enough pressure on us.

1454

96. NSC 5519, Draft Statement and National Security Council Staff Study on U.S. Policy on All-Vietnam Elections

The French constantly assert that the U.S. has a primary responsibility in this part of the world but it is difficult to have responsibility without authority. In essence, will not the ouster of Diem on the present conditions mean that from now on we will be merely paying the bill and the French will be calling the tune. Any successor of Diem will clearly know where the real authority lies.

would have the advantage in the elections, the National Security Council (NSC) staff urges that the United States not be seen as summarily rejecting the elections because of the adverse impact this will have in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and on world opinion.

The second factor is that there will be very strong opposition in the Congress to supporting the situation in Indochina generally and Vietnam in particular if Diem is replaced under existing circumstances. We do not say that this opposition may not in the last instance be overcome, particularly if you personally can make a case before the Congressional committees but Mansfield who is looked upon with great respect by his colleagues with reference to this matter, is adamantly opposed to abandonment of Diem under present conditions. I wonder whether there is not some intermediate solution between the present extremes now discussed and that Diem can be allowed to regain his damaged prestige by an assertion of authority over the Binh Xuyen and at the same time other elements be brought into the government under conditions which will assure a real delegation of authority.

General Considerations

I feel that as with most Orientals Diem must be highly suspicious of what is going on about him and that this suspicion exaggerates his natural disposition to be secretive and untrustful. If he ever really felt that the French and ourselves were solidly behind him might he not really broaden his government? We must I think have some sympathy for his predicament as he is constantly called QUOTE the Diem experiment UNQUOTE. In conclusion I want to reaffirm the very great confidence which we all have in you and in your judgment. You have done and are doing a wonderful job in the face of tremendous difficulties. Your 4448 has just arrived in Department but is not yet decoded. We will comment on it in subsequent telegram. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 907–909.

Primary Source 1. It is U.S. policy to maintain a friendly non-Communist Free Vietnam; to assist Free Vietnam to maintain (a) military forces necessary for internal security, and (b) economic conditions conducive to the maintenance of the strength of the non-Communist regime; and to prevent a Communist victory through all-Vietnam elections. 2. Free Vietnamese strength is essential to any effective approach to the election problem. If Free Vietnam is to cope adequately with national elections it will have to be strong enough to deter or defeat Vietminh insurrections in its territory, to impose and sustain order in its territory, and, to win a free election limited to its own zone and held under its own auspices and control. Otherwise, the Vietminh can take over through internal insurrections or the Government of Free Vietnam will be so weak that it will find it difficult even to give lip service to the idea of national unification through elections, or to insist on adequate conditions for free elections. 3. U.S. policy toward all-Vietnam elections should be predicated on the assumption that there is a possibility of assisting Free Vietnam to achieve the degree of strength described above. If it becomes clear that Free Vietnam cannot achieve such strength, U.S. policy toward Free Vietnam should be reviewed. 4. U.S. Policy must also protect against a Communist take-over of Free Vietnam, even if the Communists were able to win elections under safeguards in North Vietnam. On the other hand, U.S. policy should be prepared to take advantage of the unlikely possibility that North Vietnam might be freed through elections. Courses of Action

96. NSC 5519, Draft Statement and National Security Council Staff Study on U.S. Policy on All-Vietnam Elections, May 17, 1955 [Excerpts]

5. Continue to encourage the Government of Free Vietnam to proceed with the consultations about elections called for in July 1955 by the Geneva Agreements.

Introduction

6. Provide the Government of Free Vietnam with information and advice about Communist positions and tactics with regard to elections elsewhere, e.g., Greece, Germany, Austria and Korea.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower administration opposed the elections called for by the 1954 Geneva Agreements to reunite the two Vietnams. While admitting that Ho Chi Minh and the Communists

7. Assist the Government of Free Vietnam to make it clear that any failure to secure free elections is the fault of the Communists.

96. NSC 5519, Draft Statement and National Security Council Staff Study on U.S. Policy on All-Vietnam Elections 1455 8. Encourage the Government of Free Vietnam: a. To lay stress on the necessity of compliance with the stipulation of the Geneva Agreements that “all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression of the national will” before all-Vietnam elections can take place. For this purpose the Government of Free Vietnam should insist in the first instance on adequate guarantees of freedom of elections and adequate supervisory powers in a Supervisory Commission. b. To adopt positions with respect to the objectives and details of elections which: (1) will avoid terms which would be likely to result in a Communist take-over of Free Vietnam; and (2) to the degree feasible, will maintain a position generally consistent with that adopted by the Free World in other areas such as Korea and Germany. 9. Seek British and French support for the foregoing courses of action. 10. If pursuit of the above policy should result in a renewal of hostilities by the Communists, the U.S., in the light of the general circumstances then prevailing, should be prepared to oppose any Communist attack with U.S. armed forces, if necessary and feasible—consulting the Congress in advance if the emergency permits—preferably in concert with the Manila Pact allies of the U.S., but if necessary alone. The Problem

a. Free Vietnam has already suffered in its contest with the Communists from the fact that the Communists have been able, largely because of the French position in Vietnam, to pre-empt for themselves identification with the slogan of national independence. Actions by Free Vietnam which were clearly directed towards avoiding elections would be seized on by the Communists to demonstrate that Free Vietnam was opposed to unification. To allow the Communists to pose as the sole champions of national unification would greatly increase the problems of Free Vietnam in securing popular support. b. The over-all United States position in the world would be harmed by U.S. identification with a policy which appeared to be directed towards avoidance of elections. World public opinion, and for that matter domestic U.S. opinion, would have difficulty in understanding why the U.S. should oppose in Vietnam the democratic procedures which the U.S. has advocated for Korea, Austria and Germany. c. It is clear that both the French and the British believe themselves committed as signatories of the Geneva Agreements to a program of encouraging the holding of elections. In addition, the French fear that failure to hold elections would provoke a resumption of hostilities by the Vietminh in which France would be directly and involuntarily involved due to the probable presence of at least large numbers of the French Expeditionary Corps through 1955 and the first half of 1956. [. . .]

Difficulties Involved in Elections Free Vietnam Position in Election Negotiations [. . .] 4. The Communists would hold certain advantages in all Vietnam elections, particularly if such elections were not held under conditions of complete freedom and rigorous supervision: (a) Communist popular appeal derived from long identification with the struggle for independence; (b) the greater organizational capacity of the Communists to influence elections through propaganda, control, and coercion; (c) the continuing difficulties of the Free Vietnam Government in consolidating its political control in its own zone and moving ahead with programs of popular appeal. Problems Involved in Avoiding the Elections 5. Despite these Communist advantages, there are a number of factors which have led the U.S. to encourage Free Vietnam to agree to the preliminary consultations stipulated in the Geneva Agreements in order to determine whether the conditions of free elections and international supervision can be met.

7. It will be advantageous to the U.S. if Free Vietnam, in negotiating on elections with the Communists, adopts a position which: (a) will avoid terms which would be likely to result in a Communist takeover of Free Vietnam; (b) will, to the degree feasible, maintain a position generally consistent with that adopted by the Free World in other areas such as Korea and Germany. 8. In negotiating for conditions of genuine freedom for the holding of elections, Free Vietnam can serve both these objectives by insisting on provisions such as those already supported by the Western Powers at Berlin: Agreement on safeguards to assure conditions of genuine freedom before, after, and during elections; full powers for any Supervisory Commission to act to ensure free elections and to guarantee against prior coercion or subsequent reprisal; adequate guarantees for, among other things, freedom of movement, freedom of presentation of candidates, immunity of candidates, freedom from arbitrary arrest or victimization, freedom of association and political meetings, freedom of expression for all, freedom of press, radio, and free circulation of newspapers,

1456

97. Message from Ho Chi Minh and Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam

secrecy of vote, security of polling stations and ballot boxes. The Communists would find it most difficult to accept such conditions or to allow their implementation if accepted. Accordingly, it would be useful for the Free Vietnamese to center their position on securing agreement to conditions for free elections prior to discussion of the forms and objectives of the elections. 9. If the negotiations extend to the subjects of the forms and objectives of elections it will be more difficult for Free Vietnam to adopt positions which clearly protect the interests of Free Vietnam and at the same time are completely consistent with Free World positions on Germany or Korea. Free Vietnam is probably slightly less populous than North Vietnam (although there has been a substantial refugee movement to the South and there are no firm population statistics), so that representation proportionate to population, which we have insisted on in other areas, would be less advantageous in Vietnam than would be equal representation from the two zones. Limitation of the functions of any elected body solely to drafting of a constitution would be clearly desirable in the case of Vietnam, while in other areas we are considering bodies which may have additional functions. It would be advantageous for the Free Vietnam Government to reserve the power to accept or reject any constitution that might be agreed upon in an elected constituent assembly. Such a position is probably not desirable in the other areas. In general, however, it should be possible to devise positions with regard to the details and objectives of elections which would safeguard the non-Communist position of Free Vietnam without violating important principles on which the U.S. is standing elsewhere. Insistence on limiting the powers of any elected body to drafting a constitution, or insisting on a census prior to agreeing to number of representatives, would not, for example, weaken the U.S. position with respect to either German or Korean elections. Document declassified by the National Security Council, May 11, 1977. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957: Vietnam, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 411–412.

97. Message from Ho Chi Minh and Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, July 19, 1955 Introduction One day before the deadline for the start of talks to discuss the elections to reunite the two Vietnamese states, as specified by the

1954 Geneva Agreements, the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) sent this message to leaders of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) calling on them to name their representatives to the talks. The deadline passed without this occurring.

Primary Source The holding on schedule of the consultative conference by the competent authorities of the North and the South is of great importance, and has a bearing not only on the prospect of the unity of our country but also on the loyal implementation of the Geneva Agreements, and the consolidation of peace in Indo-China and in the world. Following the June 6, 1955 declaration by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam, Sai-gon Radio on July 16, 1955, made known the “position of the Government of the State of Viet-nam on the problem of general elections for the unification of the national territory”. The statement mentioned general elections and reunification but did not touch upon a very important and most realistic issue, that of the meeting of the competent representative authorities of the two zones, of the holding of the consultative conference on the question of general elections and reunification, as provided for by the Geneva Agreements. Moreover there were in the statement things which are untrue and which would not help to create a favourable climate for the convening of the consultative conference. Our compatriots from the South to the North, irrespective of classes, creeds and political affiliations have deeply at heart the reunification of the country, and are looking forward to the early convening of the consultative conference and to its good outcome. All the countries responsible for the guarantee of the implementation of the Geneva Agreements and in general all the peace-loving countries in the world are anxious to see that the consultative conference will be held and yield good results and that the reunification of our country will be achieved. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-nam proposes that you appoint your representatives and that they and ours hold the consultative conference from July 20, 1955 onwards, as provided for by the Geneva Agreements, at a place agreeable to both sides, on the Vietnamese territory, in order to discuss the problem of reunification of our country by means of free general elections all over Viet-nam. Source: Documents Related to the Implementation of the Geneva Agreements Concerning Viet-nam (Hanoi: Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Press and Information Department, 1956), 41–44.

98. NIE 63-1-55, “Probable Developments in North Vietnam to July 1956” 1457

98. NIE 63-1-55, “Probable Developments in North Vietnam to July 1956”, July 19, 1955 [Excerpts] Introduction With the issue of the July 1956 elections holding center stage, this U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) holds that the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) will be willing to hold “neutral” supervision of the elections but not “complex and elaborate safeguards and guarantees.” The NIE does not, however, rule out the possibility of North Vietnam initiating guerrilla activity in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) should the elections not occur.

Primary Source The Problem To analyze the present strengths and weaknesses of North Vietnam and to estimate probable future developments and trends to July 1956. Conclusions 1. The immediate concern of the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam” (DRV) is to consolidate its control in the area north of the 17th Parallel and to gain control of South Vietnam. (Para. 14) 2. We believe that the DRV will experience no great difficulty in maintaining effective control of North Vietnam during the period of this estimate and will probably retain a considerable measure of prestige and general acceptance. However, passive resistance and discontent resulting from harsh control measures and poor economic conditions may increase toward the end of the period. If the situation in the South does not deteriorate, the nationalist appeal of Ho Chi Minh and the DRV will probably be reduced throughout Vietnam. (Para. 23) 3. The DRV is confronted by serious economic problems of which the current rice shortage is the most critical. Its present export potential falls far short of providing sufficient funds to pay for necessary imports. However, the Sino-Soviet Bloc will almost certainly provide sufficient economic and technical assistance to meet minimum requirements for stability and control. With such assistance the DRV will probably make gradual progress in gaining control of the economy and in rehabilitating transportation, irrigation, and industrial facilities. (Paras. 24–30) 4. Since the Geneva Conference, the strength of the DRV regular army has been increased substantially by drawing on regional forces to form new units and by the receipt of new and heavier

military equipment from Communist China. DRV forces are capable of defeating all military forces, including the French, now located in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. (Paras. 31–35) 5. The present DRV tactic with respect to South Vietnam is to pose as the champion of Vietnamese independence and unification, and as the defender of the provisions of the Geneva Agreement. The DRV probably still believes that it could emerge from free nationwide elections with control of all Vietnam. It will attempt to appear reasonable in any negotiations concerning procedures for elections. While the Communists almost certainly would not agree to complex and elaborate safeguards and guarantees, they probably would agree to some form of “neutral” (but not UN) supervision. They would probably estimate that such election controls would work to their advantage in the South and, as manipulated, would not adversely affect their position in the North. (Paras. 44–45) 6. In the meantime, the DRV will continue its efforts, through subversion, intimidation, and propaganda, to weaken the Diem government, and to bring to power in the South men prepared to accept a coalition with the DRV. (Para. 46) 7. The Communists in their propaganda have revealed sensitivity to the implication of the Manila Pact which incorporated Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in its area of protection. We believe that concern for Western, and particularly US reactions, together with general considerations arising from over-all Bloc policy, will prevent the DRV from openly invading the South during the period of this estimate. Similarly, the resumption of widespread guerrilla activities appears unlikely prior to the election deadline, unless the DRV should come to the conclusion that South Vietnam can be won only by force. Such a conclusion would become more likely should the Diem government persist in refusing to enter the election discussions, should election discussions not proceed favorably for the DRV, or should the Diem government succeed, with US assistance, in consolidating its strength to the point of becoming a nationalist alternative to the Ho regime. Moreover, if during the period of this estimate little progress is made towards relaxing tensions, Peiping and Moscow might permit the DRV greater freedom of action. Should the DRV decide to use force short of open invasion, it would probably attempt to undermine the Saigon government by initiating a campaign of sabotage and terror, seeking to [sic] formation of a new government more amenable to demands for a national coalition. These tactics are likely to include the activation of DRV guerrilla units now in South Vietnam and their reinforcement by the infiltration in small units of regulars from the North. (Para. 47) [. . .] Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 994–996.

1458

99. Declaration of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam on Reunification

99. Declaration of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam on Reunification, August 9, 1955 Introduction His position in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) now considerably strengthened, Premier Ngo Dinh Diem in August 1955 summarily rejected the holding of national elections to reunite the two Vietnams as called for by the 1954 Geneva Agreements. With the full support of the U.S. government, Diem declares that while his government supported the principle of national unity, it had not been a party to the Geneva Agreements and thus was not bound by them. He also rejects diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), where “under the rule of the Vietnamese Communists, the citizens do not enjoy democratic freedoms and fundamental human rights.”

the entire people, the Government will see to it that everybody throughout the country may live free from fear, and completely free from all totalitarian oppression. As a champion of justice, of genuine democracy, the Government always holds that the principle of free general election is a peaceful and democratic means only if, first of all, the freedom to live and freedom of vote is sufficiently guaranteed. In this connection, nothing constructive can be contemplated in the present situation in the North where, under the rule of the Vietnamese Communists, the citizens do not enjoy democratic freedoms and fundamental human rights. Source: Documents Related to the Implementation of the Geneva Agreements Concerning Viet-nam (Hanoi: Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Press and Information Department, 1956), 98–99.

Primary Source Republic of Vietnam Statement on Reunification In the last July 1955 broadcast, the Vietnamese national Government has made it clear its position towards the problem of territorial unity. The Government does not consider itself bound in any respect by the Geneva Agreements which it did not sign. Once more, the Government reasserts that in any circumstance, it places national interests above all, being resolved to achieve at all cost the obvious aim it is pursuing and eventually to achieve national unity, peace and freedom. The Viet-Minh leaders have had a note dated July 19 transmitted to the Government, in which they asked for the convening of a consultative conference on general elections. This is just a propaganda move aimed at making the people believe that they are the champions of our territorial unity. Everyone still remembers that last year at Geneva, the Vietnamese Communists boisterously advocated the partition of our territory and asked for an economically self-sufficient area whereas the delegation of the State of Viet-nam proposed an armistice without any partition, not even provisional, with a view to safeguarding the sacred rights of the Vietnamese national and territorial unity, national independence and individual freedom. As the Vietnamese delegation states, the Vietnamese Government then stood for the fulfillment of national aspirations by the means which have been given back to Viet-nam by the French solemn recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Viet-nam, as a legal, independent state. The policy of the Government remains unchanged. Confronted with the partition of the country, which is contrary to the will of

100. NIE 63-56, July 17, 1956 [Excerpt] Introduction In the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Ngo Dinh Diem continued to consolidate his power. Not only was he able to defeat his political rivals, crush the Binh Xuyen gangsters, and neutralize the powerful religious sects, but he also bested Bao Dai. Chief of State Bao Dai, now living in France, named General Nguyen Van Vy, a well-known opponent of Diem, to command the Vietnamese National Army and summoned Diem to France for a meeting. Diem not only refused to go but now called for a referendum in which the people would choose between himself and Bao Dai. Diem would easily have won any honest contest, but he ignored U.S. appeals for such and falsified the results so that the vote was 98 percent in his favor. The announced vote in Saigon was actually a third more than the registered voters in the city. On October 26, 1955, using the results as justification, Diem proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam, with himself as president. In this National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of the situation in Vietnam, the U.S. intelligence community concludes that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) would refrain from the use of force to achieve reunification, even though the date mandated in the Geneva Agreements for the elections to reunify Vietnam has passed without result. This conclusion was based on the presumed lack of Chinese and Soviet support for such a course because of the failure of the international Communist movement to demand that elections be held. Indeed, the U.S. intelligence community assumed that this implied recognition of Ngo Dinh Diem’s Republic of Vietnam as part of the U.S. sphere of influence. (Note: In the document “ICC” refers to the International Control Commission of Canada, India, and Poland, charged by the Geneva Conference with supervising implementation of the 1954 Geneva Agreements,

101. Le Duan: “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” [The Path of Revolution in the South] 1459 while “GVN” refers to the Government of Vietnam, that is, Diem’s Republic of Vietnam.)

Primary Source IV. The Outlook in Vietnam Probable Communist Courses of Action Toward South Vietnam 64. The DRV probably estimates that its chances for securing control of South Vietnam by means short of open attack or large-scale guerrilla action supported from the North will gradually diminish with the passage of time. As indicated by Soviet and Chinese Communist performance in the past several months, the DRV probably cannot expect strong support from the Bloc for the “strict implementation” of the Geneva Agreements. The lack of strong Bloc pressure strengthens international acceptance of the status quo in Vietnam and increases confidence in the future in South Vietnam. Although the DRV may still believe that it could obtain control of all Vietnam through ICC supervised nationwide elections, Vietnamese Communist leaders are probably increasingly doubtful on this point because of their own internal difficulties and the growing nationalist stature of Diem. The DRV probably also believes that its covert assets in South Vietnam will gradually decline if the Diem government is permitted to concentrate on internal security and economic problems free of external harassment. 65. Despite the declining prospects for the “peaceful” take-over of South Vietnam, we believe that the USSR and Communist China will almost certainly continue unwilling to support open DRV military action against South Vietnam during the period of this estimate. They are probably unwilling to risk the chance of US or SEATO intervention which would make it difficult to limit the conflict to Vietnam, and probably believe that overt DRV military action would seriously undercut the worldwide effort of the Bloc to win friends and supporters. Although the DRV retains the capability to launch an independent military action against South Vietnam, the chances of such action in the absence of assured Bloc support appear to be extremely small. 66. The only remaining course of action holding out some promise for the early achievement of Communist control in South Vietnam appears to be the development of large scale guerrilla warfare in the south. In recent weeks a number of reports from sources of untested reliability have indicated that the Communists may have started preparations in both South Vietnam and in the north to begin guerrilla action. DRV allegations of Vietnamese violations of the demilitarized zone along the 17th parallel and Communist claims of US-Diem plans to violate the Armistice could be propaganda cover for the initiation of guerrilla action against the south. 67. However, the possible indications of armed action appear inconsistent with the DRV’s insistence on the continued func-

tioning of the ICC—which is in a position to make at least limited observations of DRV activities. Moreover, guerrilla action in South Vietnam, if it were to be sustained and not to result simply in the identification and gradual elimination of Communist cadres, would require large scale support from the north. This would involve some risk of detection by the ICC and of intervention by the US and possibly SEATO. It would also tend to prejudice current Communist maneuvers elsewhere in Asia. For these reasons, we believe that the DRV will refrain from instituting large scale guerrilla action within South Vietnam during the period of this estimate. Communist capabilities for guerrilla warfare in South Vietnam will exist for some time, however, and the chances of their being employed would probably increase in the event of any substantial deterioration in the domestic situation in South Vietnam—such as might conceivably occur on the death of Diem. The chances of Communist guerrilla warfare would also be increased by deterioration of the international aspects of the situation, such as a withdrawal of the ICC under circumstances which would permit the Communists to place the blame for this event on the GVN. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 1078–1079.

101. Le Duan: “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” [The Path of Revolution in the South], 1956 Introduction Despite the passage of the July 1956 deadline for the elections to reunify Vietnam without them having occurred and with no talks scheduled, the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) continued to hold that reunification could be achieved through the concept of “peaceful political struggle.” In truth the North Vietnamese leadership was not displeased at Ngo Dinh Diem’s consolidation of power in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in which he had crushed dissident groups. In this November 1956 statement of policy, which was probably approved at the party presidium the next month, the party leader in South Vietnam, Le Duan, notes that the Soviet Union’s Communist Party congress of February 1956 had held that revolution could occur peacefully. For the time being, North Vietnam should follow that line both because the sentiment for peace was so strong in South Vietnam and because the Diem regime could easily identify the Viet Minh political cadres who had remained behind there in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreements to prepare for the elections. This statement of peaceful revolutionary progress remained official Lao Dong policy for the next three years.

1460

101. Le Duan: “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” [The Path of Revolution in the South]

Primary Source The situation forces bellicose states such as the U.S. and Britain to recognize that if they adventurously start a world war, they themselves will be the first to be destroyed, and thus the movement to demand peace in those imperialist countries is also developing strongly. Recently, in the U.S Presidential election, the present Republican administration, in order to buy the people’s esteem, put forward the slogan “Peace and Prosperity,” which showed that even the people of an imperialist warlike country like the U.S. want peace. The general situation shows us that the forces of peace and democracy in the world have tipped the balance toward the camp of peace and democracy. Therefore we can conclude that the world at present can maintain long-term peace. On the other hand, however, we can also conclude that as long as the capitalist economy survives, it will always scheme to provoke war, and there will still remain the danger of war. Based on the above the world situation, the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union produced two important judgments: 1. All conflicts in the world at present can be resolved by means of peaceful negotiations. 2. The revolutionary movement in many countries at present can develop peacefully. Naturally in the countries in which the ruling class has a powerful military-police apparatus and is using fascist policies to repress the movement, the revolutionary parties in those countries must look clearly at their concrete situation to have the appropriate methods of struggle. Based on the general situation and that judgment, we conclude that, if all conflicts can be resolved by means of peaceful negotiations, peace can be achieved. Because the interest and aspiration of peaceful reunification of our country are the common interest and aspiration of all the people of the Northern and Southern zones, the people of the two zones did not have any reason to provoke war, nor to prolong the division of the country. On the contrary the people of the two zones are more and more determined to oppose the U.S.-Diem scheme of division and war provocation in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations between the two zones for peaceful unification of the country. The present situation of division is created solely by the arbitrary U.S.-Diem regime, so the fundamental problem is how to smash the U.S.-Diem scheme of division and war-provocation.

As observed above, if they want to oppose the U.S-Diem regime, there is no other path for the people of the South but the path of revolution. What, then, is the line and struggle method of the revolutionary movement in the South? If the world situation can maintain peace due to a change in the relationship of forces in the world in favor of the camp of peace and democracy, the revolutionary movement can develop following a peaceful line, and the revolutionary movement in the South can also develop following a peaceful line. First of all, we must determine what it means for a revolutionary movement to struggle according to a peaceful line. A revolutionary movement struggling according to a peaceful line takes the political forces of the people as the base rather than using people’s armed forces to struggle with the existing government to achieve their revolutionary objective. A revolutionary movement struggling according to a peaceful line is also different from a reformist movement in that a reformist movement relies fundamentally on the law and constitution to struggle, while a revolutionary movement relies on the revolutionary political forces of the masses as the base. And another difference is that a revolutionary movement struggles for revolutionary objectives, while a reformist movement struggles for reformist goals. With an imperialist, feudalist, dictatorial, fascist government like the U.S.-Diem, is it possible for a peaceful political struggle line to achieve its objectives? We must recognize that all accomplishments in every country are due to the people. That is a definite law: it cannot be otherwise. Therefore the line of the revolutionary movement must be in accord with the inclinations and aspirations of the people. Only in that way can a revolutionary movement be mobilized and succeed. The ardent aspiration of the Southern people is to maintain peace and achieve national unification. We must clearly recognize this longing for peace: the revolutionary movement in the South can mobilize and advance to success on the basis of grasping the flag of peace, in harmony with popular feelings. On the contrary, U.S.Diem is using fascist violence to provoke war, contrary to the will of the people and therefore must certainly be defeated. Can the U.S.-Diem regime, by using a clumsy policy of fascist violence, create a strong force to oppose and destroy the revolutionary movement? Definitely not, because the U.S.-Diem regime has no political strength in the country worth mentioning to rely on. On the contrary, nearly all strata of the people oppose them. Therefore the U.S.-Diem government is not a strong government it is only a vile and brutal government. Its vile and brutal character means that it not only has no mass base in the country but is on the way to being isolated internationally. Its cruelty definitely cannot shake the revolutionary movement, and it cannot survive for long.

101. Le Duan: “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” [The Path of Revolution in the South] 1461 The proof is that in the past two years, everywhere in the countryside, the sound of the gunfire of U.S.-Diem repression never ceased; not a day went by when they did not kill patriots, but the revolutionary spirit is still firm, and the revolutionary base of the people still has not been shaken.

that the masses have much capacity for political struggle with the U.S.-Diem. In those struggles, if we grasp more firmly the struggle line and method, the movement can develop further, to the advantage of the revolution. The cruel policy of U.S.-Diem clearly cannot break the movement, or the people’s will to struggle.

Once the entire people have become determined to protect the revolution, there is no cruel force that can shake it. But why has the revolutionary movement not yet developed strongly? This is also due to certain objective and subjective factors. Objectively, we see that, after nine years of waging strong armed struggle, the people’s movement generally speaking now has a temporarily peaceful character that is a factor in the change of the movement for violent forms of struggle to peaceful forms. It has the correct character of rebuilding to advance later.

There are those who think that the U.S.-Diem’s use of violence is now aimed fundamentally at killing the leaders of the revolutionary movement to destroy the Communist Party, and that if the Communist Party is worn away to the point that it doesn’t have the capacity to lead the revolution, the political struggle movement of the masses cannot develop.

With the cruel repression and exploitation of the U.S.-Diem, the people’s revolutionary movement definitely will rise up. The people of the South have known the blood and fire of nine years of resistance war, but the cruelty of the U.S.-Diem cannot extinguish the struggle spirit of the people. On the other hand, subjectively, we must admit that a large number of cadres, those have responsibility for guiding the revolutionary movement, because of the change in the method of struggle and the work situation from public to secret, have not yet firmly grasped the political line of the party, have not yet firmly grasped the method of political struggle, and have not yet followed correctly the mass line, and therefore have greatly reduced the movement’s possibilities for development. At present, therefore, the political struggle movement has not yet developed equally among the people, and a primary reason is that a number of cadres and masses are not yet aware that the strength of political forces of the people can defeat the cruelty, oppression and exploitation of the U.S.-Diem, and therefore they have a halfway attitude and don’t believe in the strength of their political forces. We must admit that any revolutionary movement has times when it falls and times when it rises; any revolutionary movement has times that are favorable for development and times that are unfavorable. The basic thing is that the cadres must see clearly the character of the movement’s development to lead the mass struggle to the correct degree, and find a way for the vast determined masses to participate in the movement. If they are determined to struggle from the bottom to the top, no force can resist the determination of the great masses. In the past two years, the political struggle movement in the countryside and in the cities, either by one form or another, has shown

This judgment is incorrect. Those who lead the revolutionary movement are determined to mingle with the masses, to protect and serve the interest of the masses and to pursue correctly the mass line. Between the masses and communists there is no distinction any more. So how can the U.S.-Diem destroy the leaders of the revolutionary movement, since they cannot destroy the masses? Therefore they cannot annihilate the cadres leading the mass movement. In fact more than twenty years ago, the French imperialists were determined to destroy the Communists to destroy the revolutionary movement for national liberation, but the movement triumphed. It wasn’t the Communist but the French imperialist themselves and their feudal lackeys who were destroyed on our soil. Now twenty years later, U.S.-Diem are determined to destroy the Communists in the South, but the movement is still firm, and Communists are sill determined to fulfill their duty. And the revolutionary movement will definitely advance and destroy the imperialist, feudalist government. U.S.-Diem will be destroyed, just as the French imperialists and their feudal lackeys were destroyed. We believe that the peaceful line is appropriate not only to the general situation in the world but also to the situation within the country, both nation-wide and in the South. We believe that the will for peace and the peace forces of the people throughout the country have smashed the U.S.-Diem schemes of war provocation and division. We believe that the will for peace and Southern people’s democratic and peace forces will defeat the cruel, dictatorial and fascist policy of U.S.-Diem and will advance to smash the imperialist, feudalist U.S.-Diem government. Using love and righteousness to triumph over force is a tradition of the Vietnamese nation. The aspiration for peace is an aspiration of the world’s people in general and in our own country, including the people of the South, so our struggle line cannot be separated from the peaceful line.

1462

102. Elbridge Durbrow: Assessment of the Ngo Dinh Diem Regime

Only the peaceful struggle line can create strong political forces to defeat the scheme of war provocation and the cruel policy of U.S.Diem. We are determined to carry out our line correctly, and later the development of the situation will permit us to do so. Imperialism and feudalism are on the road to disappearance. The victory belongs to our people’s glorious task of unification and independence, to our glorious Communism we must pledge our lives. We shall win. Source: Le Duan, “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” [The Path of Revolution in the South], circa 1956, The Wars for Viet Nam, Vassar College, http://vietnam.vassar.edu/abstracts/index.html.

102. Elbridge Durbrow: Assessment of the Ngo Dinh Diem Regime, January 1, 1957 Introduction Elbridge Durbrow was U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from March 1957 to April 1961. He urged that military aid to South Vietnam be conditioned on Saigon’s progress in political and economic reform. At the same time, U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) chief Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams emphasized building the South Vietnamese armed forces. In this document, Durbrow notes South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s accomplishments in his first two years in power, including bringing “security and stability,” and his pro-West position. At the same time, Durbrow points out Diem’s reluctance to bring about genuine economic and social reform that the ambassador believes necessary for long-term stability in favor of placing priority in the military. Certainly Diem was out of touch with the situation in the countryside, and little was done to carry out much-needed land reform, vital in winning the allegiance of the peasants. Until 1960 less than 2 percent of Washington’s aid to South Vietnam went for agrarian reform. Corruption was also endemic. While Durbrow minimized the guerrilla threat from the Communists and doubted the need for a 150,000-man army for South Vietnam, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration’s policy of giving priority to the military remained unchanged.

Primary Source Certain problems now discernible have given us a warning which, if disregarded, might lead to a deteriorating situation in Viet Nam within a few years. Diem achieved notable successes in the first two years of his regime and remains the only man of stature so far in evidence to

guide this country. He has unified free Viet Nam, brought it relative security and stability, and firmly maintains a pro-West, anticommunist position. In the last year, however, Diem has avoided making decisions required to build the economic and social foundations necessary to secure Viet Nam’s future independence and strength. He has made it clear that he would give first priority to the build-up of his armed forces regardless of the country’s requirements for economic and social development. Events abroad which increase the danger of communist infiltration and subversion, and which threaten Viet Nam with possible isolation in this area have contributed to his concern and to his determination to strengthen his armed forces. Certain characteristics of Diem—his suspiciousness and authoritarianism—have also reduced the Government’s limited administrative capabilities. He assumes responsibility for the smallest details of Government and grants his Ministers little real authority. At the same time, discontent is felt in different segments of the population for varied reasons. The base of the regime’s popular support remains narrow. The regime might overcome such discontent and finally win over the loyalty of a majority of Vietnamese both in the North and South if it could show its ability to give the country stronger protection and create sound economic and social bases for progress. Progress, which is demanded in Viet Nam as throughout Asia, is perhaps the touchstone of the regime’s enduring viability. Yet precisely because Diem is now procrastinating in making decisions affecting fundamental problems of his country’s development, the lag between the people’s expectations and the Government’s ability to show results will grow. We consider it therefore of importance that we bring strong pressure on the President to reach certain decisions basically in the economic and social fields which have been before him for some months but on which he has not acted. He has resented this and may resent it more, but in ours and his long range interests we must do our utmost to cause him to move forward in these fields. The purpose of this evaluation of the present situation in Viet Nam is to examine the elements giving rise to some concern regarding certain developments in Viet Nam, to provide the Department [of State] and interested agencies salient background and to set forth conclusions and recommend certain broad courses of action. We feel that a frank discussion of the solution as we see it may be helpful to all concerned. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957: Vietnam, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 872–873.

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army”

103. Conversation between Presidents Ngo Dinh Diem and Dwight Eisenhower Regarding Additional Aid for the Republic of Vietnam, May 9, 1957 [Excerpts] Introduction On May 9, 1957, President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) visited Washington, D.C., for the first time as head of state and as part of a three-week trip to the United States. The trip had been arranged in part by the Friends of Vietnam, a powerful pro–South Vietnamese lobby that included representatives of both political parties and the Catholic Church. With the Cold War then raging, Diem found himself heralded as the leader of a “free country.” In the course of his conversations with U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, Diem urged continuation of U.S. aid at its present level of $250 million a year, $170 million of which went to the military.

Primary Source After introductory remarks by the President praising President Diem for the excellent achievements he has brought about in the last three years in stabilizing the situation in Viet-Nam, President Eisenhower asked President Diem to outline the principal problems he is facing today. President Diem replied that his country has gone through a very grave and serious crisis and has been able to hold on despite strong pressures from all sides. The principal problem of establishing internal security and building up their defense posture has been achieved to a considerable extent. The principal reason Viet-Nam has been able to hold out against these pressures has been because of the sympathy and encouragement given by the United States despite the fact that for a time even some people in the United States did not think that the Diem government could maintain itself. At the present time Viet-Nam is faced with the possibility of a strong Communist offensive from the Vietminh who have 400 thousand men under arms. Fortunately, however, the Vietminh are faced with serious problems such as high taxes needed to maintain this large force and must have other controls which have caused discontent among the population in the North. Diem feels that Red China is faced with the same problems. They are maintaining a large army which requires heavy taxes and controls over the people, which Diem hopes in the long run will force the Chinese Government to demobilize a considerable portion of their forces and treat the people in a more liberal manner. There is, nevertheless, the possibility that the Vietminh with their large army might

1463

try to attack now while they have a superiority in numbers. The Vietminh during the first year after the Geneva Conference did not think it would be necessary to use armed force to take over the South; they thought the government in the South would crumble and they could take over without difficulty. With internal stability in Free Viet-Nam and the build-up of their own armed forces, they have now the possibility of holding out for a few years more during which time Diem reiterated the strain and drain on the economy of the Vietminh may cause them to demobilize some of their forces and adopt a more liberal attitude toward the population. . . . Diem then reiterated that Viet-Nam has attained stability due primarily to the volume of American aid. He pointed out that the magnitude of American aid permitted the US Government to have a large number of advisers and consultants in Viet-Nam who not only can assist Viet-Nam with its problems but also follow closely developments and the use to which aid is placed. In contrast, the small amounts of aid given to other countries, such as 20/30 million dollars, does not permit the US Government to maintain such close control over developments in other countries as is the case in Viet-Nam. Diem pleaded for the maintenance of the present aid level of 250 million dollars a year of which 170 million dollars is allocated for defense purposes. This aid has permitted Viet-Nam to build up its armed strength and thus play an important role in Southeast Asia. If this aid should be cut both the military and economic progress would have to be reduced. This would cause serious repercussions not only in Viet-Nam but among neighboring countries in Southeast Asia who look on Viet-Nam as an example of the good US aid can bring. Any cut would also bring serious political repercussions in Viet-Nam. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957: Vietnam, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 794–797.

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army”, 1959 [Excerpts] Introduction In the late 1950s after the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) failed to take action and under increasing pressure from the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) under President Ngo Dinh Diem, the Viet Minh political cadres who had remained in South Vietnam after 1954 took matters into their own hands and initiated an insurgency against the Diem regime. By late 1958 they had presented the North Vietnamese government with a fait accompli. In response, at the end of the year North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh dispatched his trusted lieutenant Le Duan to South Vietnam on a

1464

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army”

fact-finding mission. A leader there during the Indochina War, Le Duan was then de facto secretary-general of the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) and second in authority only to Ho. Le Duan returned with the recommendation that North Vietnam assume leadership of the insurgency. In January 1959 the Lao Dong Central Committee agreed to support armed insurrection in South Vietnam, although this was to remain secondary to the “political struggle.”

Primary Source On December 22, 1954, the Viet Nam People’s Army will celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of its founding. I would like, on this occasion to have a few words with you about the struggle and the building up of the revolutionary armed forces in Viet Nam. At the same time I would like to lay emphasis on the fundamental points which bring out the characteristics of the military policy of the vanguard party of the Vietnamese working class and people—the Indochinese Communist Party—now the Viet Nam Workers’ Party. As Marxism-Leninism teaches us: “The history of all societies up till the present day, has been but the history of class struggle.” These struggles can take either the form of political struggle or the form of armed struggle—the armed struggle being only the continuation of the political struggle. In a society which remains divided into classes, we can distinguish two kinds of politics: the politics of the classes and nations of exploiters and oppressors and that of the exploited and oppressed classes and nations. Hence two kinds of wars, of States and armies diametrically opposed to each other, the ones revolutionary, popular and just, and the others counter-revolutionary, anti-popular and unjust. The Russian October Revolution marked a new era in the history of mankind. A state of a new type appeared, that of proletarian dictatorship, that of the liberated Soviet workers and peasants, toiling people and nationalities. An army of a new type came into being—the Red Army, a genuine people’s army placed under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Born in the October uprising, and steeled and tempered in the combats that followed it, the Red Army was to become, in a short time, the most powerful army in the world, always ready to defend the Soviet Motherland, the first State of workers and peasants. In Asia, after World War One, the national democratic revolution of the Chinese people made tremendous progress under the good influence of the Russian Revolution. To free themselves, the Chinese people valiantly rose to wage an armed struggle for many decades. It was in this revolutionary war full of heroism and sacrifices that was born and grew up the Chinese Liberation Army, an army equally of a new type, genuinely popular, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Only fifteen years of age, the Viet Nam People’s Army is a young revolutionary army. It developed in the course of the national

liberation war of the Vietnamese people from which it comes, and is now assuming the glorious task of defending the building of socialism in the North while contributing to make it a strong base for the peaceful reunification of the country. It also constitutes an army of a new type, a truly popular army under the leadership of the working class Party of Viet Nam. In the U.S.S.R. as well as in China and Viet Nam, the revolutionary wars and armies have common fundamental characteristics: their popular and revolutionary nature, and the just cause they serve. The Vietnamese revolutionary war and army however have their own characteristics. Indeed, from the very start, in the Soviet Union, the revolutionary war evolved within the framework of a socialist revolution. Moreover it proceeded in an independent country possessing a fairly important modern industrial economy, which, under the socialist regime, has not ceased to develop further. As for the revolutionary war in China, it remained for a long period within the framework of a national democratic revolution proceeding in a semi-colonial country, an immensely vast country and with a population of more than 600 million people. The revolutionary war in Viet Nam, while advancing as in China towards the objectives of a national democratic revolution, differs for the reason that it took place in a colonial country, in a much smaller country than China in both area and population. Therefore the history of the armed struggle and the building up of the armed forces in Viet Nam is that of a small nation subject to colonial rule and having neither a vast territory nor a large population, which, though lacking a regular army at the beginning had to rise against the aggressive forces of an imperialist power, and triumphed over them in the end, liberating half of the country and enabling it to embark on the socialist path. As for the military policy of the vanguard Party of the Vietnamese working class, it is an application of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of the war of liberation in a colonial country. I Viet Nam is a nation in South-east Asia with a very old history. With its 329,600 square kilometres and 30 million inhabitants and its geographical situation in the Pacific, it has now become one of the outposts of the socialist world. In the course of its thousands of years of history, many a time, the Vietnamese nation victoriously resisted the invasions of the Chinese feudalists. It can be proud of its traditions of undaunted struggle in safeguarding national independence. After its invasion of Viet Nam in the second half of the 19th century, French imperialism made it their colony. Since then, the

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army” struggle against French colonialism never ceased to extend, uprisings succeeded each other in spite of repression, and daily attracting wider and wider strata belonging to all social classes. In 1930, the Indochinese Communist Party was founded. Under its firm and clear-sighted leadership, the movement for national liberation of the Vietnamese people made new progress. After ten years of heroic political struggle, at the dawn of World War Two, the Party advocated the preparation for armed struggle, and for that the launching of a guerilla war and the setting up of a free zone. The anti-Japanese movement for national salvation, in its irresistible upsurge, led to the glorious days of the August Revolution of 1945. Taking advantage of the major events in the international situation at the time—the victory of the Soviet Red Army and Allied forces over Japanese fascism—the Vietnamese people rose up as one man in the victorious insurrection and set up the people’s power. The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam was born, the first people’s democracy in South-east Asia. The political situation in Viet Nam was then particularly difficult and complicated. Chiang Kai-shek’s troops had entered the North, and those of Great Britain the South of the country, to disarm the Japanese who were still in possession of all their armaments in the first days of the capitulation. It was in these conditions that French imperialists, immediately after the founding of the Democratic Republic, unleashed a war of reconquest against Viet Nam hoping to impose their domination on this country. In response to the appeal of the Party and the Government headed by President Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese people rose up as one man for the defence of the Fatherland. A sacred war for national liberation began. All hopes of a peaceful settlement were not lost however. A Preliminary Agreement for the cessation of hostilities was signed in March 1946 between the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and that of France. But the French colonialists saw it only as a delaying scheme. Therefore, immediately after the signing of the Agreement, they shamelessly violated it by successively occupying various regions. In December 1946, the war spread to the whole country. It was to rage for nine years, nine years after the end of World War Two. And it ended with the brilliant victory of the Vietnamese people. Our war of liberation was a people’s war, a just war. It was this essential characteristic that was to determine its laws and to decide its final outcome. At the first gunshots of the imperialist invasion, general Leclerc, the first Commander of the French Expeditionary Corps estimated that the operation for the reoccupation of Viet Nam would be a mere military walk over. When encountering the resistance of the Vietnamese people in the South the French generals considered it as weak and temporary and stuck to their opinion that it would take them ten weeks at the most to occupy and pacify the whole of south

1465

Viet Nam. Why did French colonialists make such an estimation? Because they considered that to meet their aggression, there must be an army. The Vietnamese army had just been created. It was still numerically weak, badly organised, led by inexperienced officers and non-commissioned officers, provided with old and insufficient equipment, a very limited stock of munitions and having neither tanks, airplanes nor artillery. With such an army how could serious resistance be undertaken and the attacks of the powerful and armoured division repelled? All it could do was to use up its stock of munitions before laying down its arms. In fact, the Vietnamese army was then weak in all respects and was destitute of everything. French colonialists were right in this respect. But it was not possible for them to understand a fundamental and decisive fact: this fact was that the Vietnamese army, though very weak materially was a people’s army. This fact is that the war in Viet Nam was not only the opposition of two armies. In provoking hostilities, the aggressive colonialists had alienated a whole nation. And, indeed, the whole Vietnamese nation, the entire Vietnamese people rose against them. Unable to grasp this profound truth, the French generals who believed in an easy victory, went instead to certain defeat. They thought they could easily subdue the Vietnamese people, when, in fact, the latter were going to smash them. Even to this day bourgeois strategists have not yet overcome their surprise at the outcome of the war in Indo-China. How could the Vietnamese nation have defeated an imperialist power such as France which was backed by U.S.? They try to explain this extraordinary fact by the correctness of strategy and tactics, by the forms of combat and the heroism of the Viet Nam People’s Army. Of course all these factors contributed to the happy outcome of the resistance. But if the question is put: “Why were the Vietnamese people able to win?” the most precise and most complete answer must be: “The Vietnamese people won because their war of liberation was a people’s war.” When the Resistance War spread to the whole country, the Indochinese Communist Party emphasized in its instructions that our Resistance War must be the work of the entire people. Therein lies the key to victory. Our Resistance War was a people’s war, because its political aims were to smash the imperialist yoke to win back national independence, to overthrow the feudal landlord class to bring land to the peasants; in other words, to radically solve the two fundamental contradictions of Vietnamese society—contradiction between the nation and imperialism on the one hand, and contradiction between the people, especially between the peasants and the feudal landlord class on the other—and to pave the socialist path for the Vietnamese revolution. Holding firmly to the strategy and tactics of the national democratic revolution, the Party pointed out to the people the aims of the struggle: independence and democracy. It was, however, not

1466

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army”

enough to have objectives entirely in conformity with the fundamental aspirations of the people. It was also necessary to bring everything into play to enlighten the masses of the people, educate and encourage them, organise them in fighting for national salvation. The Party devoted itself entirely to this work, to the regrouping of all the national forces, and to the broadening and strengthening of a national united front, the Viet Minh, and later the Lien Viet which was a magnificent model of the unity of the various strata of the people in the anti-imperialist struggle in a colonial country. In fact, this front united the patriotic forces of all classes and social strata, even progressive landlords; all nationalities in the country— majority as well as minority; patriotic believers of each and every religion. “Unity, the great unity, for victory, the great victory”; this slogan launched by President Ho Chi Minh became a reality, a great reality during the long and hard resistance. We waged a people’s war, and that in the framework of a long since colonised country. Therefore the national factor was of first importance. We had to rally all the forces likely to overthrow the imperialists and their lackeys. On the other hand, this war proceeded in a backward agricultural country where the peasants, making up the great majority of the population, constituted the essential force of the revolution and of the Resistance War. Consequently the relation between the national question and the peasant question had to be clearly defined, with the gradual settlement of the agrarian problem, so as to mobilise the broad peasant masses, one of the essential and decisive factors for victory. Always solicitous about the interests of the peasantry, the Party began by advocating reduction of land rent and interest. Later on, as soon as the stabilisation of the situation allowed it, the Party carried out with great firmness the mobilisation of the masses for land reform in order to bring land to the tillers, thereby to maintain and strengthen the Resistance. During the years of war, various erroneous tendencies appeared. Either we devoted our attention only to the organisation and growth of the armed forces while neglecting the mobilisation and organisation of large strata of the people, or we mobilised the people for the war without heeding seriously their immediate everyday interests; or we thought of satisfying the immediate interests of the people as a whole, without giving due attention to those of the peasants. The Party resolutely fought all these tendencies. To lead the Resistance to victory, we had to look after the strengthening of the army, while giving thought to mobilising and educating the people, broadening and consolidating the National United Front. We had to mobilise the masses for the Resistance while trying to satisfy their immediate interests to improve their living conditions, essentially those of the peasantry. A very broad national united front was indispensable, on the basis of the worker-peasant alliance and under the leadership of the Party. The imperatives of the people’s war in Viet Nam required the adoption of appropriate strategy and tactics, on the basis of the

enemy’s characteristics and of our own, of the concrete conditions of the battlefields and balance of forces facing each other. In other words, the strategy and tactics of a people’s war, in an economically backward, colonial country. First of all, this strategy must be the strategy of a long-term war. It does not mean that all revolutionary wars, all people’s wars must necessarily be long-term wars. If from the outset, the conditions are favourable to the people and the balance of forces turn in favour of the revolution, the revolutionary war can end victoriously in a short time. But the war of liberation of the Vietnamese people started in quite different conditions: We had to deal with a much stronger enemy. It was patent that this balance of forces took away from us the possibility of giving decisive battles from the opening of the hostilities and of checking the aggression from the first landing operations on our soil. In a word, it was impossible for us to defeat the enemy swiftly. It was only by a long and hard resistance that we could wear out the enemy forces little by little while strengthening ours, progressively turn the balance of forces in our favour and finally win victory. We did not have any other way. This strategy and slogan of long term resistance was decided upon by the Indochinese Communist Party from the first days of the war of liberation. It was in this spirit that the Viet Nam People’s Army, after fierce street-combats in the big cities, beat strategical retreats to the countryside on its own initiative in order to maintain its bases and preserve its forces. The long-term revolutionary war must include several different stages: stage of contention, stage of equilibrium and stage of counter-offensive. Practical fighting was, of course, more complicated. There had to be many years of more and more intense and generalised guerilla fighting to realise the equilibrium of forces and develop our war potentiality. When the conjunctures of events at home and abroad allowed it, we went over to counter-offensive first by a series of local operations then by others on a larger scale which were to lead to the decisive victory of Dien Bien Phu. The application of this strategy of long-term resistance required a whole system of education, a whole ideological struggle among the people and Party members, a gigantic effort of organisation in both military and economic fields, extraordinary sacrifices and heroism from the army as well as from the people, at the front as well as in the rear. Sometimes erroneous tendencies appeared, trying either to by-pass the stages to end the war earlier, or to throw important forces into military adventures. The Party rectified them by a stubborn struggle and persevered in the line it had fixed. In the difficult hours, certain hesitations revealed themselves, the Party faced them with vigour and with determination in the struggle and faith in final victory.

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army” The long-term people’s war in Viet Nam also called for appropriate forms of fighting: appropriate to the revolutionary nature of the war as well as to the balance of forces which revealed at that time an overwhelming superiority of the enemy over the still very weak material and technical bases of the People’s Army. The adopted form of fighting was guerilla warfare. It can be said that the war of liberation of the Vietnamese people was a long and vast guerilla war proceeding from simple to complex then to mobile war in the last years of the Resistance. Guerilla war is the war of the broad masses of an economically backward country standing up against a powerfully equipped and well trained army of aggression. Is the enemy strong? One avoids him. Is he weak? One attacks him. To his modern armament one opposes a boundless heroism to vanquish either by harassing or by annihilating the enemy according to circumstances, and by combining military operations with political and economic action; no fixed line of demarcation, the front being wherever the enemy is found. Concentration of troops to realize an overwhelming superiority over the enemy where he is sufficiently exposed in order to destroy his manpower; initiative, suppleness, rapidity, surprise, suddenness in attack and retreat. As long as the strategic balance of forces remains disadvantageous, resolutely to muster troops to obtain absolute superiority in combat in a given place, and at a given time. To exhaust little by little by small victories the enemy forces and at the same time to maintain and increase ours. In these concrete conditions it proves absolutely necessary not to lose sight of the main objective of the fighting that is the destruction of the enemy manpower. Therefore losses must be avoided even at the cost of losing ground. And that for the purpose of recovering, later on, the occupied territories and completely liberating the country. In the war of liberation in Viet Nam, guerilla activities spread to all the regions temporarily occupied by the enemy. Each inhabitant was a soldier, each village a fortress, each Party a cell, each village administrative committee a staff. The people as a whole took part in the armed struggle, fighting according to the principles of guerilla warfare, in small packets, but always in pursuance of the one and same line, and the same instructions, those of the Central Committee of the Party and the Government. At variance with numerous other countries which waged revolutionary wars, Viet Nam, in the first years of its struggle, did not and could not engage in pitched battles. It had to rest content with guerilla warfare. At the cost of thousands of difficulties and countless sacrifices, this guerilla war developed progressively into a form of mobile war that daily increased in scale. While retaining certain characteristics of guerilla war, it involved regular

1467

campaigns with greater attacks on fortified positions. Starting from small operations with the strength of a platoon or a company to annihilate a few men or a group of enemy soldiers, our army went over, later, to more important combats with a battalion or regiment to cut one or several enemy companies to pieces, finally coming to greater campaigns bringing into play many regiments, then many divisions to end at Dien Bien Phu where the French Expeditionary Corps lost 16,000 men of its crack units. It was this process of development that enabled our army to move forward steadily on the road to victory. People’s war, long-term war, guerilla warfare developing step-bystep into mobile warfare, such are the most valuable lessons of the war of liberation in Viet Nam. It was by following that line that the Party led the Resistance to victory. After three thousand days of fighting, difficulties and sacrifices, our people defeated the French imperialists and American interventionists. At present, in the liberated half of our country, sixteen million of our compatriots, by their creative labour, are healing the horrible wounds of war, reconstructing the country and building socialism. In the meantime the struggle is going on to achieve the democratic national revolution throughout the country and to reunify the Fatherland on the basis of independence and democracy. II After this account of the main lines of the war of liberation waged by the Vietnamese people against the French and American imperialists, I shall speak of the Viet Nam People’s Army. Being the armed forces of the Vietnamese people, it was born and grew up in the flames of the war of national liberation. Its embryo was the self-defence units created by the Nghe An Soviets which managed to hold power for a few months in the period of revolutionary upsurge in the years 1930–1931. But the creation of revolutionary armed forces was positively considered only at the outset of World War Two when the preparation for an armed insurrection came to the fore of our attention. Our military and paramilitary formations appeared at the Bac Son uprising and in the revolutionary bases in Cao Bang region. Following the setting up of the first platoon of National Salvation, on December 22, 1944, another platoon-strong unit was created: the Progaganda unit of the Viet Nam Liberation Army. Our war bases organised during illegality were at the time limited to a few districts in the provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Can and Lang Son in the jungle of the North. As for the revolutionary armed forces they still consisted of people’s units of self-defence and a few groups and platoons completely free from production work. Their number increased quickly and there were already several thousands of guerillas at the beginning of 1945, at the coup de force by the Japanese fascists over the French colonialists. At the time of the setting up of the people’s power in the rural regions of six provinces in Viet Bac which were established as

1468

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army”

a free zone, the existing armed organisations merged to form the Viet Nam Liberation Army. During the August insurrection, side by side with the people and the self-defence units, the Liberation Army took part in the conquest of power. By incorporating the paramilitary forces regrouped in the course of the glorious days of August, it saw its strength increase rapidly. With a heterogeneous material wrested from the Japanese and their Bao An troops—rifles alone consisted of sixteen different types including old French patterns and even rifles of the czarist forces taken by the Japanese—this young and poorly equipped army soon had to face the aggression of the French Expeditionary Corps which had modern armaments. Such antiquated equipment required from the Vietnamese army and people complete self-sacrifice and superhuman heroism. Should the enemy attack the regions where our troops were stationed, the latter would give battle. Should he ferret about in the large zones where there were no regular formations, the people would stay his advance with rudimentary weapons: sticks, spears, scimitars, bows, flintlocks. From the first days, there appeared three types of armed forces: paramilitary organisations or guerilla units, regional troops and regular units. These formations were, in the field of organisation, the expression of the general mobilisation of the people in arms. They co-operated closely with one another to annihilate the enemy. Peasants, workers and intellectuals crowded into the ranks of the armed forces of the Revolution. Leading cadres of the Party and the State apparatus became officers from the first moment. The greatest difficulty to be solved was the equipment problem. Throughout Viet Nam there was no factory manufacturing war materials. Throughout nearly a century, possession and use of arms were strictly forbidden by the colonial administration. Importation was impossible, the neighbouring countries being hostile to the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. The sole source of supply could only be the battlefront: to take the material from the enemy to turn it against him. While carrying on the aggression against Viet Nam the French Expeditionary Corps fulfilled another task: it became, unwittingly, the supplier of the Viet Nam People’s Army with French, even U.S. arms. In spite of their enormous efforts, the arms factories set up later on with makeshift means were far from being able to meet all our needs. A great part of our military materials came from war-booty. As I have stressed, the Viet Nam People’s Army could at first bring into combat only small units such as platoons or companies. The regular forces were, at a given time, compelled to split up into companies operating separately to promote the extension of guerilla activities while mobile battalions were maintained for more important actions. After each victorious combat, the people’s armed forces marked a new step forward.

Tempered in combat and stimulated by victories, the guerilla formations created conditions for the growth of the regional troops. And the latter, in their turn, promoted the development of the regular forces. For nine successive years, by following this heroic path bristling with difficulties, our people’s army grew up with a determination to win at all costs. It became an army of hundreds of thousands strong, successively amalgamating into regiments and divisions and directing towards a progressive standardisation in organisation and equipment. This force, ever more politically conscious, and better trained militarily, succeeded in fighting and defeating the five hundred thousand men of the French Expeditionary Corps who were equipped and supplied by the United States. The Vietnamese Army is indeed a national one. In fighting against imperialism and the traitors in its service, it has fought for national independence and the unity of the country. In its ranks are the finest sons of Viet Nam, the most sincere patriots from all revolutionary classes, from all nationalities—majority as well as minority people. It symbolises the irresistible rousing of the national conscience, the union of the entire Vietnamese people in the fight against imperialist aggression to save the country. Our army is a democratic army, because it fights for the people’s democratic interests, and the defence of people’s democratic power. Impregnated with the principles of democracy in its internal political life, it submits to a rigorous discipline, but one freely consented to. Our army is a people’s army, because it defends the fundamental interests of the people, in the first place those of the toiling people, workers and peasants. As regards social composition, it comprises a great majority of picked fighters of peasant and worker origin, and intellectuals faithful to the cause of the Revolution. It is the true army of the people, of toilers, the army of workers and peasants, led by the Party of the working class. Throughout the war of national liberation, its aims of struggle were the very ones followed by the Party and people: independence of the nation, and land to the tillers. Since the return of peace, as a tool of proletarian dictatorship, its mission is to defend the socialist revolution and socialist building in the North, to support the political struggle for the peaceful reunification of the country, and to contribute to the strengthening of peace in Indo-China and South-east Asia. In the first of the ten points of his Oath of Honour, the fighter of the Viet Nam People’s Army swears “To sacrifice himself unreservedly for the Fatherland, fight for the cause of national independence, democracy and socialism, under the leadership of the Viet Nam Workers’ Party and of the Government of the Democratic Republic, to build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic and prosperous Viet Nam and

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army” contribute to the strengthening of peace in South-east Asia and the world.” This is precisely what makes the Viet Nam People’s Army a true child of the people. The people, in return, give it unsparing affection and support. Therein lies the inexhaustible source of its power. The Viet Nam People’s Army has been created by the Party, which ceaselessly trains and educates it. It has always been and will always be under the leadership of the Party which, alone, has made it into a revolutionary army, a true people’s army. Since its creation and in the course of its development, this leadership by the Party has been made concrete on the organisational plan. The army has always had its political commissars. In the units, the military and political chiefs assume their responsibilities under the leadership of the Party Committee at the corresponding echelon.

1469

The Viet Nam People’s Army has always seen to establishing and maintaining good relations with the people. These are based upon the identity of their aims of struggle: in fact, the people and army are together in the fight against the enemy to save the Fatherland, and ensure the full success of the task of liberating the nation and the working class. The people are to the army what water is to fish, as the saying goes. And this saying has a profound significance. Our Army fought on the front; it has also worked to educate the people and helped them to the best of its ability. The Vietnamese fighter has always taken care to observe point 9 of its Oath of Honour: “In contacts with the people, to follow these three recommendations: —To respect the people —To help the people —To defend the people . . . in order to win their confidence and affection and achieve a perfect understanding between the people and the army.”

The People’s Army is the instrument of the Party and of the revolutionary State for the accomplishment, in armed form, of the tasks of the revolution. Profound awareness of the aims of the Party, boundless loyalty to the cause of the nation and the working class, and a spirit of unreserved sacrifice are fundamental questions for the army, and questions of principle. Therefore, the political work in its ranks is of the first importance. It is the soul of the army. In instilling Marxist-Leninist ideology into the army, it aims at raising the army’s political consciousness and ideological level, at strengthening the class position of its cadres and soldiers. During the liberation war, this work imbued the army with the policy of long-drawn-out resistance and the imperative necessity for the people and army to rely on their own strength to overcome difficulties. It instilled into the army the profound significance of mass mobilisation in order to achieve rent reduction and agrarian reform, which had a decisive effect on the morale of the troops. In the new stage entered upon since the restoration of peace, political work centres on the line of socialist revolution in the North and of struggle for the reunification of the country.

Our army has always organised days of help for peasants in production work and in the struggle against flood and drought. It has always observed a correct attitude in its relations with the people. It has never done injury to their property, not even a needle or a bit of thread. During the Resistance, especially in the enemy rear, it brought everything into play to defend ordinary people’s lives and property; in the newly liberated regions, it strictly carried out the orders of the Party and Government, which enabled it to win the unreserved support of the broadest masses, even in the minority peoples’ regions and catholic villages. Since the return of peace, thousands of its officers and men have participated in the great movements for the accomplishment of agrarian reform for agricultural collectivisation and socialist transformation of handicrafts, industry and private trade. It has actively taken part in the economic recovery, and in socialist work days. It has participated in the building of lines of communication, it has built its own barracks and cleared land to found State farms.

But that is not all. Political work still bears upon the correct fulfilment in the army of the programmes of the Party and Government, and the setting up of good relations with the population and between officers and men. It aims at maintaining and strengthening combativeness, uniting true patriotism with proletarian internationalism, developing revolutionary heroism and the great tradition of our army summed up in its slogan: “Resolved to fight, determined to win”. Political work is the work of propaganda among and education of the masses; it is, furthermore, the organisational work of the Party in the army. We have always given particular attention to the strengthening of organisations of the Party in the units. From 35 to 40 per cent of officers and armymen have joined it, among the officers, the percentage even exceeds 90 per cent.

The Viet Nam People’s Army is always concerned to establish and maintain good relations between officers and men as well as between the officers themselves. Originating from the working strata, officers and men also serve the people’s interests and unstintingly devote themselves to the cause of the nation and the working class. Of course every one of them has particular responsibilities which devolve upon him. But relations of comradeship based on political equality and fraternity of class have been established between them. The officer likes his men; he must not only guide them in their work and studies, but take an interest in their life and take into consideration their desires and initiatives. As for the soldier, he must respect his superiors and correctly fulfil all their orders. The officer of the People’s Army must set a good example from all points of view: to show himself to be resolute,

1470

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army”

brave, to ensure discipline and internal democracy, to know how to achieve perfect unity among his men. He must behave like a chief, a leader, vis-à-vis the masses in his unit. The basis of these relations between armymen and officers, like those between officers or between soldiers is solidarity in the fight; and mutual affection of brothers-in-arms, love at the same time pure and sublime, tested and forged in the battle, in the struggle for the defence of the Fatherland and the people. The Viet Nam People’s Army practises a strict discipline, allied to a wide internal democracy. As requires point 2 of its Oath of Honour: “The fighter must rigorously carry out the orders of his superiors and throw himself body and soul into the immediate and strict fulfilment of the tasks entrusted to him”. Can we say that guerilla warfare did not require severe discipline? Of course not. It is true that it asked the commander and leader to allow each unit or each region a certain margin of initiative in order to undertake every positive action that it might think opportune. But a centralised leadership and a unified command at a given degree always proved to be necessary. He who speaks of the army, speaks of strict discipline. Such a discipline is not in contradiction with the internal democracy of our troops. In cells, executive committees of the Party at various levels as well as in plenary meetings of fighting units, the application of principles of democratic centralism is the rule. The facts have proved that the more democracy is respected within the units, the more unity will be strengthened, discipline raised, and orders carried out. The combativeness of the army will thereby be all the greater. The restoration of peace has created in Viet Nam a new situation. The North is entirely liberated, but the South is still under the yoke of American imperialists and the Ngo Dinh Diem clique, their lackeys. North Viet Nam has entered the stage of socialist revolution while the struggle is going on to free the South from colonial and feudal fetters. To safeguard peace and socialist construction, to help in making the North a strong rampart for the peaceful reunification of the country, the problem of forces of national defence should not be neglected. The People’s Army must face the bellicose aims of American imperialists and their lackeys and step by step become a regular and modern army. First of all, it is important to stress that, in the process of its transformation into a regular and modern army, our army always remains a revolutionary army, a people’s army. That is the fundamental characteristic that makes the people’s regular and modern army in the North differ radically from Ngo Dinh Diem’s army, a regular and modern army too, but anti-revolutionary, antipopular and in the hands of the people’s enemies. The People’s Army must necessarily see to the strengthening of the leadership of Party and political work. It must work further to consolidate

the solidarity between officers and men, between the troops and the people, raise the spirit of self-conscious discipline, while maintaining internal democracy. Taking steps to that end, the Party has during the last years, given a prominent place to the activities of its organisations as well as to the political work in the army. Officers, warrant officers and armymen, all of them have followed political courses to improve their understanding of the tasks of socialist revolution and the struggle for national reunification, consolidating their class standpoint and strengthening MarxistLeninist ideology. This is a particularly important question, more especially as the People’s Army has grown up in an agricultural country, and has in its ranks a great majority of toiling peasants and urban petty-bourgeois. Our fighters have gone through a dogged political education and their morale has been forged in the combat. However, the struggle against the influence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology remains necessary. Thanks to the strengthening of ideological work, the army has become an efficacious instrument in the service of proletarian dictatorship, and has been entirely faithful to the cause of socialist revolution and national reunification. The new advances realised by it in the political plan have found their full expression in the movement “with giant strides, let us overfulfil the norms of the programme,” a broad mass movement which is developing among our troops, parallel with the socialist emulation movement among the working people in North Viet Nam. It is essential actively and firmly to continue, on the basis of a constant strengthening of political army. Thanks to the development realised during the last years of the Resistance War, our army, which was made up of infantry-men only, is now an army composed of different arms. If the problem of improvement of equipments and technique is important, that of cadres and soldiers capable of using them is more important. Our army has always been concerned with the training of officers and warrant officers of worker and peasant origin or revolutionary intellectuals tested under fire. It helps them raise their cultural and technical level to become competent officers and warrant officers of a regular and modern army. To raise the fighting power of the army, to bring about a strong centralisation of command and a close cooperation between the different arms, it is indispensable to enforce regulations fitted to a regular army. It is not that nothing has been done in this field during the years of the Resistance War; it is a matter of perfecting the existing regulations. The main thing is not to lose sight of the principle that any new regulation must draw its inspiration from the popular character of the army and the absolute necessity of maintaining the leadership of the Party. Along with the general regulations, the statute of officers has been promulgated; a correct system of wages has taken the place of the former regime of allowances in kind; the question of rewards and decorations has been regularised. All these measures have resulted in the strengthening

104. Vo Nguyen Giap: “People’s War, People’s Army” of discipline and solidarity within the army, and of the sense of responsibility among officers and warrant officers as well as among soldiers. Military training, and political education, are key tasks in the building of the army in peace-time. The question of fighting regulations, and that of tactical concepts and appropriate tactical principles gain a particular importance. The question is to synthesize past experiences, and analyse well the concrete conditions of our army in organization and equipment, consider our economic structure, the terrain of the country—land of forests and jungles, of plains and fields. The question is to assimilate well the modern military science of the armies of the brother countries. Unceasing efforts are indispensable in the training of troops and the development of cadres. For many years, the Viet Nam People’s Army was based on voluntary service: all officers and soldiers voluntarily enlisted for an undetermined period. Its ranks swelled by the affluence of youth always ready to answer the appeal of the Fatherland. Since the return of peace, it has become necessary to replace voluntary service by compulsory military service. This substitution has met with warm response from the population. A great number of volunteers, after demobilisation returned to fields and factories; others are working in units assigned to production work, thus making an active contribution to the building of socialism. Conscription is enforced on the basis of the strengthening and development of the self-defence organisations in the communes, factories and schools. The members of these paramilitary organisations are ready not only to rejoin the permanent army, of which they constitute a particularly important reserve, but also to ensure the security and defence of their localities. The People’s Army was closely linked with the national liberation war, in the fire of which it was born and grew up. At present, its development should neither be disassociated from the building of socialism in the North, nor from the people’s struggle for a reunified independent and democratic Viet Nam. Confident of the people’s affection and support, in these days of peace as during the war, the People’s Army will achieve its tasks: to defend peace and the Fatherland. III . . . As is said above, the history of the national liberation war of the Vietnamese people, that of the Viet Nam People’s Army, is the history of the victory of a weak nation, of a colonised people who rose up against the aggressive forces of an imperialist power. This victory is also that of Marxism-Leninism applied to the armed revolutionary struggle in a colonised country, that of the Party of the working class in the leadership of the revolution that it heads, in the democratic national stage as well as in the socialist one.

1471

The vanguard Party of the Vietnamese working people, headed by President Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the people and the nation, is the organiser and guide that has led the Vietnamese people and their army to victory. In the light of Marxism-Leninism applied to the national democratic revolution in a colonised country, it has made a sound analysis of the contradictions of that society, and stated clearly the fundamental tasks of the revolution. On the question of the national liberation war, it has dialectically analysed the balance of opposing forces and mapped out appropriate strategy and tactics. In the light of Marxism-Leninism, it has created and led a heroic people’s army. It has ceaselessly instilled revolutionary spirit and the true patriotism of the proletariat into the people and their army. The Party has known how to learn from the valuable experiences of the October Revolution which, with the Soviet Red Army, showed the road of liberation not only to the workers of the capitalist countries, but also to colonial people; and those of the Chinese Revolution and Liberation Army which have enriched the theories of the national democratic revolution, of revolutionary war and army in a semi-colonised country. Their wonderful examples have ceaselessly lighted the road of the struggle and successes of the Vietnamese people. In combining the invaluable experiences of the Soviet Union and People’s China with its own, our Party has always taken into account the concrete reality of the revolutionary war in Viet Nam, thus is able in its turn to enrich the theories of revolutionary war and army. At present, on the international plane, the forces of socialist countries, led by the Soviet Union, have become a power previously unknown; the national liberation movement has developed considerably everywhere; the possibilities for achieving lasting peace in the world are greater. However, imperialism is still pursuing its war preparations and seeking to strengthen its military alliance for aggression. While there is a certain relaxation of tension in the international situation, South-east Asia still remains one of the centres of tension in the world. American imperialism is ceaselessly strengthening its military and political hold on the South of our country. It is pursuing the same policy of interference in Laos, aimed at turning it into a colony and military base for a new war of aggression. Profoundly peace-loving, the Vietnamese people and their army support every effort for disarmament, every effort to relax tension and establish a lasting peace. But they must at the same time heighten their vigilance, strengthen their combativeness, increase their potentiality for defence, and contribute to strengthening the fraternal bonds between the peoples and the revolutionary armed forces of the socialist countries. They are determined to fulfil their sacred duties: to defend the work of socialist revolution and the building of socialism in the North, to pursue the struggle for the peaceful reunification of the Fatherland, to be ready to break every imperialist attempt to provoke a war of aggression, and to

1472

105. Republic of Vietnam Law 10/59

contribute to the safeguarding of peace in South-east Asia and throughout the world. Source: Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War People’s Army, 2nd ed. (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1974), 42–74.

105. Republic of Vietnam Law 10/59, May 6, 1959 [Excerpts] Introduction For President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), reform took a backseat to fighting the Communist insurgency, with the result that the insurgency continued to grow. Diem’s response was simply more oppression. In May 1959 the National Assembly passed an internal security measure, known as Law 10/59, that empowered the government to try suspected terrorists by roving tribunals that could impose the death penalty.

Primary Source

(h) Dikes, dams, roads, railways, airfields, seaports, bridges, channels, or works relating to them; (i) Waterways, large or small, and canals. . . . Article 3 Whoever belongs to an organization designed to help to prepare or to perpetuate crimes enumerated in Article I . . . , or takes pledges to do so, will be subject to the sentences provided for. . . . Article 6 Three special military courts are set up and based in Saigon, Ban Me Thuot, and Hue. . . . As the need arises, other special military courts may be set up, by decree. . . . Article 16 The decisions of the special military court are not subject to appeal. . . . Article 20

Article 1 Sentence of death, and confiscation of the whole or part of his property, . . . will be imposed on whoever commits or attempts to commit one of the following crimes with the aim of sabotage, or upon infringing upon the security of the State, or injuring the lives or property of the people: 1. Deliberate murder, food poisoning, or kidnapping. 2. Destruction, or total or partial damaging, of one of the following categories of objects by means of explosives, fire, or other means: (a) Dwelling-houses, whether inhabited or not, churches, pagodas, temples, warehouses, workshops, farms and all outbuildings belonging to private persons; (b) Public buildings, residences, offices, workshops, depots, and, in a more general way, all constructions of any kind belonging to the State, and any other property, movable or unmovable, belonging to, or controlled by the State, or which is under the system of concession, or of public management; (c) All . . . means of transport, all kinds of vehicles; (d) Mines, with machines and equipment; (e) Weapons, military material and equipment, posts, buildings, offices, depots, workshops, and constructions of any kind relating to defense or police work; (f) crops, draft animals and farm equipment. . . ; (g) Installations for telecommunications, postal service, broadcasting, the production and distribution of electricity and water . . . ;

All legal provisions which are contrary to the present law are hereby repealed. . . . Source: Marvin E. Gettleman, ed., Vietnam: History, Documents, and Opinions on a Major World Crisis (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1965), 256–260.

106. Ho Chi Minh: Talk at a Cadres’ Meeting Debating the Draft Law on Marriage and Family, October 1959 [Excerpt] Introduction Women played an important role in the Communist insurgency within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and occupied key leadership positions. Here President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) makes a strong case for the proposed North Vietnamese Law on Marriage and Family. He notes that women make up half of the population of Vietnam, and without their emancipation “only half of socialism is built.”

Primary Source There are people who think that as a bachelor I may not have a perfect knowledge of this question. Though I have no family of my own, yet I have a very big family—the working class throughout

107. Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Ambassador in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter 1473 the world and the Vietnamese people. From that broad family I can judge and imagine the small one.

you must be very careful, because this law exerts great influence on the future of the family, the society, and the nation.

At present, our entire people want socialist construction. What is to be done to build socialism?

Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 336–337.

Production must certainly be increased as much as possible. To increase production there must be much labor power, which can be obtained satisfactorily only by emancipating the women’s labor power. Women make up half of society. If they are not liberated, half of society is not freed. If women are not emancipated only half of socialism is built. It is correct to take a keen interest in the family; many families constitute the society. A good society makes a good family and vice versa. The core of the society is the family. It is precisely to build up socialism that due attention must be paid to this core. “Living in concord, husband and wife may empty the East Sea,” the proverb runs. To enjoy concord in matrimonial life, marriage must be based on genuine love. The law on marriage to be presented to the National Assembly is a revolution, an integral part of the socialist revolution. Therefore, we should adopt the proletarian stand to understand it. It is not correct if our understanding is based on the feudal, bourgeois, or petitbourgeois stand. The law on marriage aims at emancipating women, that is, at freeing half of society. The emancipation of the women must be carried out simultaneously with the extirpation of feudal and bourgeois thinking in men. As for themselves, women should not wait until the directives of the Government and the Party free them but they must rely upon themselves and struggle. The Party must give this law leadership from its preparation to its presentation and execution, because this is a revolution. The leadership by the Party means that all cadres and Party members must apply this law strictly and lead all youth and women’s organizations resolutely and correctly put it into effect. The execution of this law is, on the one hand, favorable, because our people have received the Party education and have made much progress; and on the other, difficult, because of the longstanding and deeply rooted old habits and traditions among the people. That is why everything is not over with the promulgation of this law, but long-term propaganda and education needs to be carried on to obtain good results. I hope that all of you will do your best, be patient, have a thorough knowledge of this law, and carry it out satisfactorily. In particular,

107. Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Ambassador in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, March 7, 1960 Introduction By early 1960, security in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) had sharply deteriorated. In this cable to Washington, U.S. ambassador Elbridge Durbrow notes the growing dissatisfaction with South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. The insurgency in South Vietnam is growing rapidly, fed by government corruption, inattention to the needs of the peasants, and an unwillingness to acknowledge problems. The South Vietnamese leader simply does not understand his culpability. (Note: “GVN” in this document refers to the South Vietnamese government.)

Primary Source Enclosed is a special report prepared by a Country Team study group on the current internal security situation in Viet-Nam. A summary of this report and an analysis of the main factors in VietNam’s current serious internal security problem are given below: Situation. Internal security, which improved greatly since the nip and tuck period from 1954–56 but which nevertheless has been a steady concern of the GVN over the past few years, has again become its No. 1 problem as a result of intensification of Viet Cong guerrilla and terrorist activities, weaknesses apparent in the GVN security forces and the growth of apathy and considerable dissatisfaction among the rural populace. The situation has grown progressively more disturbing since shortly after the National Assembly elections at the end of August 1959, despite the fact that President DIEM was claiming, up to the end of December, that internal security was continuing to improve. The monthly rate of assassinations rose substantially starting in September, and other signs of increasingly aggressive VC tactics such as ambushes of GVN security forces began to appear about the same time. The full impact of the seriousness of the present situation was brought home by a series of VC incidents in late January and February, particularly an attack on an ARVN regimental post near Tay Ninh, other smaller and less dramatic attacks on security posts elsewhere in the southwest and serious VC depredations in Kien Hoa Province.

1474

107. Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Ambassador in Saigon: Telegram to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter

President Diem and other GVN officials are now showing a reassuring awareness of the gravity of the situation. They have not permitted themselves to become panic-stricken, and there is no reason to become alarmist if prompt steps are taken to correct the situation.

insecure areas and a centralized intelligence service has also become more evident. The need for a capable, well-equipped, well-trained, centrally-controlled Civil Guard is even more keenly felt than previously.

VC Intentions and Potential. Indications are growing that the VC are mounting a special campaign aimed at undermining the Diem Government. According to CAS [Controlled American Source, for the Central Intelligence Agency] sources, VC armed cadre strength has increased to about 3,000 in the southwest, double the number in September. VC groups now operate in larger strength, and their tactics have changed from attacks on individuals to rather frequent and daring attacks on GVN security forces. A recent CAS report has indicated a VC intention to press general guerrilla warfare in South Viet-Nam in 1960, and indicates the VC are convinced they can mount a coup d’état this year. President Diem also told me in late February about the capture of a VC document indicating their intention to step up aggressive attacks all over the country, including Saigon, beginning in the second quarter.

Likewise, at the same time, signs of general apathy and considerable dissatisfaction which the VC can play upon have become more evident among the people in rural areas. Fear among the peasants engendered by sustained VC terrorist activities against which the GVN has not succeeded in protecting them is combined with resentment of the GVN because of the methods which are all too often employed by local officials. Coercion rather than suasion are often used by these officials in carrying out the programs decided upon in Saigon. There is a tendency to disregard the desires and feelings of the peasantry by, for instance, taking them away from their harvests to perform community work. The new agroville program requiring large numbers of “volunteer” laborers has accentuated this trend. Improper actions by local officials such as torture, extortion and corruption, many of which have been reported in the press, have also contributed to peasant dissatisfaction. Favoritism and fear of officials and members of the semicovert Can Lao Party have likewise contributed to this situation.

These signs indicate that aggressively worded statements emanating from the DRV in 1959 may accurately reflect DRV intentions. In May 1959 the central committee of the Lao Dong Party passed a resolution stating that the struggle for reunification of Viet-Nam should be carried out by all “appropriate means”. Subsequently in conversations with Western officials, Prime Minister Phan Van DONG made statements to the effect that “We will be in Saigon tomorrow” and “We will drive the Americans into the sea”. It is not completely clear why the DRV has chosen this particular time to mount an intensified guerrilla campaign in South VietNam. Several hypotheses have been put forward. The campaign may be part of general Chicom strategy to increase pressure on non-communist countries all along the southern rim of the Asian communist bloc. Several GVN officials, including President Diem, have said that the present DRV tactics may be related to the forthcoming East-West summit meeting, but they do not seem to be clear as to just what this relationship might be. Diem and others have also expressed the view that the DRV is aiming at disruption of the GVN’s economic, social and security programs, many of which have been making steady progress while others, like the agroville program, threaten to weaken the VC position if carried out successfully. The DRV may also have been embittered by its failure to interfere successfully with the GVN National Assembly elections last August and resolved, as a result of this failure, to intensify activities in the South. GVN Security and Political Weaknesses. At the same time that the DRV guerrilla potential has increased in the South, weaknesses have become more apparent in the GVN security forces. GVN leaders have in recent weeks stressed the need for more anti-guerrilla training of ARVN. The desirability of centralized command in

Diem cannot be completely absolved of blame for this unsatisfactory situation in the rural areas. Considerable evidence has existed that he has not in the past kept himself properly informed of what is going on. Officials have tended to tell him what he wants to hear, largely because of fear of removal if they indicate that mistakes have been made or reply that projects which he is pushing should not be carried out as rapidly as he desires. GVN Counteractions. Developments during the last month or so have, however, awakened Diem and other officials to the gravity of the present internal security and political situation. As already indicated, they are now emphasizing the need for increased antiguerrilla training of the security forces. Diem also has indicated that he is establishing a special commando force with “volunteers” from ARVN, the Civil Guard and reservists who had guerrilla experience during the Indochina war. Diem has also stated that the new commander of the Fifth Military Region (the area of greatest insecurity) has been given full powers over all the security forces in that area, thus recognizing the need for centralized command rather than fragmentation of authority among the province chiefs. Diem has also indicated that he is replacing local officials who are incompetent or have abused their power. He is placing renewed emphasis with these officials on the necessity of winning the confidence of the people and explaining to them the reasons for the government’s programs. He has also indicated that he has ordered a slowdown in the construction of agrovilles, apparently in recognition of the indications that the people were being driven too hard to carry out this new program.

108. Party Central Committee Secret Cable No. 160 to the Cochin China Regional Party Committee 1475 The Embassy’s views on these countermeasures of the GVN as well as on certain other actions which should be taken have been expressed in a separate dispatch. As the situation develops, the Embassy expects to make additional recommendations. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 1254–1257.

108. Party Central Committee Secret Cable No. 160 to the Cochin China Regional Party Committee, April 28, 1960 [Excerpt] Introduction In early 1960 following the adoption of Central Committee Resolution 15 approving the use of “revolutionary violence” in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the Communist leaders in South Vietnam pressed for more aggressive action. However, the Vietnamese Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) Politburo in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was concerned about the possible U.S. military reaction and was caught in the middle of the growing conflict between its two major allies, the Soviet Union and Communist China, neither of which desired a direct military confrontation with the United States in South Vietnam. As a consequence, the Politburo insisted on a slower pace that focused on political “struggle” in South Vietnam and that concealed Communist involvement in the insurrection in South Vietnam behind a supposedly non-Communist front organization that was in the process of being formed. This nascent front organization soon became the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam, usually known as the National Liberation Front (NLF).

Primary Source The Central Committee has received the Party Committee’s February 1960 Resolution reporting on the situation during the last three months of 1959, your 15 March message on the direction of your immediate plans, and the 20 March cable you sent to us. . . . We believe there are a number of fundamental issues that we need to clarify further: 1. The issue of the assessment of the balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves. You comrades have provided a rather meticulous analysis of the balance of forces between the enemy and our side and have provided practical evidence to support your assessment. However, revolutionary leaders in one local area must not rely solely on the direct balance of forces between the two sides in their own local

area. They must also view the balance of forces from the global standpoint and from the standpoint of the particular region of the world as well. The current world situation is basically favorable for the revolution in South Vietnam. That assessment is quite correct. We also must realize, however, that the struggle between the enemy and ourselves throughout the world is now in a tense, back-andforth situation. . . . In general, the plans of the imperialists have not fundamentally changed, and in certain limited areas and locations of the world they continue to create tense situations and to incite war. If we wish to progress toward securing the initiative and driving back the enemy, we need more time. . . . If we want to facilitate the revolution in South Vietnam and to gradually create conditions to allow us to seize the initiative, we need time to let the anti-imperialist movement . . . , and we must work with this movement to weaken and isolate the American imperialists and their allies. . . . South Vietnam and Laos are currently very “sensitive” locations where the imperialists might directly intervene with their own forces. Our recent experience with the situation in Laos has clearly demonstrated this point. The revolutionary movement in South Vietnam, which is led by our party, is different from the revolutionary movements in Iraq and Cuba. Everyone knows that, even though the role of the Communist parties in both countries was of decisive importance, the revolutions in Cuba and Iraq were led, both in form and in substance, by the capitalist class. That fact made it difficult for the imperialists to intervene directly in those countries, because blatant intervention would isolate them in the eyes of the peoples of the world and even in the eyes of the capitalist classes of the world, the classes that provide the support they need in their effort to oppose the communist movement. For that reason, as we lead the effort to advance the cause of the revolutionary movement in South Vietnam, we must weigh the situation very carefully and be very cautious but very determined. This does not mean that we . . . are afraid to launch an armed struggle in South Vietnam. However, our problem is that we must correctly assess the balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves throughout the world and within the Southeast Asian region in order to take action at the proper moment. . . . The course of the revolution in South Vietnam will certainly require the use of revolutionary violence to oppose the counterrevolutionary violence of the U.S. and Diem. However, the question of the revolution in South Vietnam cannot be separated from the complex, back-and-forth struggle that now exists between the two opposing sides around the world and domestically, within our country. If we push the movement forward without first carefully weighing international and domestic conditions, the movement may encounter difficulties and may even regress. . . .

1476

109. Resolution of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party’s Third National Congress of Delegates

Another issue that needs attention is that at present in many locations our armed operations usually are conducted in the name of the Party or under the name of the members of the resistance [implying the old resistance to the French]. . . . At a time when we must still utilize the Geneva Agreement . . . , our armed operations should not be conducted under the name of the Party. . . . You should use whatever name that . . . does not frighten the members of the other classes and strata of the population. For example, . . . “teams defending the rights of the people,” “democratic organizations,” “people’s self-defense teams,” etc. Once the program of the new Front is announced and Front organizations are formed, the Front will provide a more suitable name to appeal to the masses. . . . The Central Committee has weighed the opinions expressed above very carefully. The analysis of the situation, the comparison of the balance of forces, and the weighing of timing presented above does not in any way mean that we are pulling back or that we are afraid of U.S. intervention. . . . On the contrary, it is intended to enable us to resolutely build our forces even stronger and create a powerful and solid posture that will allow us and our movement to advance firmly and secure the conditions needed for certain victory. . . . Document held in the Archives of the Party Central Committee. Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 21, 1960 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 21, 1960] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2002), 288–305. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

109. Resolution of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party’s Third National Congress of Delegates on the Party’s Missions and Policies in This New Era, September 10, 1960 [Excerpt] Introduction In January 1959 the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) agreed to support armed insurrection in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), although the insurrection was to remain secondary to the “political struggle.” This position was confirmed by the party leadership at the May Fifteenth Party Plenum. At the Third Party Congress in September 1960, the party went on public record as supporting the establishment of a United Front and approving a program of violent overthrow of the Ngo Dinh Diem government in South Vietnam. There were now two preeminent tasks: carrying out “socialist revolution” in North Vietnam and “liberating the South.”

Primary Source II After peace was restored and North Vietnam was totally liberated, the Vietnamese revolution shifted into a new era. Under the Party’s leadership, North Vietnam is advancing towards socialism in firm, solid steps. It is strengthening its forces in all respects and is becoming the revolutionary bulwark of our entire nation. At the same time, the American imperialists and the Ngo Dinh Diem clique have installed a dictatorial, war-mongering government in South Vietnam and have turned South Vietnam into a new type of colony and an American imperialist military base. Our entire people’s goal of unifying the nation is now being blocked and sabotaged. In this current period, the Vietnamese revolution has two strategic missions: One, to carry out a socialist revolution in North Vietnam, and Two, to liberate South Vietnam from the yoke of its American imperialist and lackey rulers, to unify our country, and to bring independence and democracy to our entire country. These two strategic missions are intimately related to one another, and the two missions stimulate and drive one another forward. Moving North Vietnam forward into socialism is a necessary mission after our completion of the popular national democratic revolution. Moving North Vietnam forward into socialism and making North Vietnam increasingly powerful in all respects will benefit the revolution to liberate South Vietnam, will benefit the growth of the revolution throughout our country, and will benefit the maintenance and consolidation of peace in Indochina, Southeast Asia, and throughout the world. For that reason, carrying out a socialist revolution in North Vietnam is the most important duty we have for the development of the entire Vietnamese revolutionary movement and for the cause of unifying our nation. The socialist revolution in North Vietnam is being carried out at a time when South Vietnam is being forced to gather together all nationalist and democratic forces and to expand and strengthen national solidarity in order to isolate the American imperialists and their lackeys and advance our cause of fighting to consolidate peace and unify the Fatherland. For that reason, the formula for carrying out the socialist revolution in North Vietnam is: build up North Vietnam while paying attention to South Vietnam. As part of our overall goal of completing the popular national democratic revolution throughout our country and unifying our nation, our compatriots in South Vietnam have the direct responsibility for overthrowing their American imperialist and lackey rulers in order to liberate South Vietnam. The revolutionary struggle of our Southern compatriots will also block the U.S.-Diemist scheme of starting up the war again and it will make a positive contribution to the maintenance of peace in Indochina, Southeast Asia, and throughout the world.

109. Resolution of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party’s Third National Congress of Delegates 1477 Our revolutionary mission in North Vietnam and our revolutionary mission in South Vietnam are two different strategies, each of which is aimed at meeting the specific requirements of each region of the country at a time when our nation is temporarily divided. These two missions are also aimed at resolving the common contradiction of our entire country, which is the contradiction between our people and the American imperialists and their lackeys, and at achieving our common immediate objective, which is the peaceful unification of our Fatherland. The common missions of the Vietnamese revolution at present are: to strengthen the solidarity of our entire population, to struggle resolutely to maintain peace, and to press forward with the socialist revolution in North Vietnam, while at the same time to advance the popular national democratic revolution in South Vietnam, to unify our country on the basis of independence and democracy, to build Vietnam into a single peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, prosperous, and powerful country, to make a practical contribution to the strengthening of the socialist camp, and to preserve peace in Southeast Asia and throughout the world. III 1. In South Vietnam, for the past several years the American imperialists and their lackeys, Ngo Dinh Diem and his cohorts, have feverishly implemented a policy of building up their military forces to prepare for war, and they have savagely and barbarically repressed and terrorized the revolutionary movement of the people of South Vietnam. Their goal has been to destroy our nation’s independence and unity, to destroy the Geneva Agreement, and to destroy peace in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. They have exploited, looted, and impoverished all classes of our population. They have driven the South Vietnamese economy into a state of serious collapse, they have disrupted South Vietnam’s social order, and they have made the lives of our compatriots in the South incredibly miserable and desperate. Living in a country that is in flames, our compatriots in South Vietnam have not buckled under to repression, and they have constantly raised high the banner of nationalism, democracy, and solidarity, and in the process have exhibited a heroic enthusiasm for our cause. Throughout the rural countryside and the cities, throughout the lowlands and the mountainous regions, the struggle movement against the U.S. and Diem demanding national independence, freedom, democracy, the improvement of the people’s lives, and the peaceful unification of our Fatherland continues to spread ever wider among every class of our population. Ever increasing numbers of South Vietnamese soldiers and government officials have recognized the emptiness and injustice of the U.S. and Diem clique. The more that the U.S. and the Diem clique increase their acts of repression and terror against the people, the higher will burn the flames of hatred and patriotism in South Vietnam, broadening and

tightening the solidarity of our people, making our opponents even more isolated, and making the national democratic movement in South Vietnam grow even stronger. 2. The colonialist and semi-feudalist regime in South Vietnam is an obstacle to peace and to the unification of our nation, and it is the source of all the pain, suffering, and hardship of our compatriots in South Vietnam. The basic mission of the South Vietnamese revolution is: to liberate South Vietnam from the yoke of imperialist and feudalist rule, to achieve national independence and implement land to the tillers, and to contribute to the building of a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, prosperous, and strong Vietnam. Currently, the deepest, most profound contradiction in South Vietnam is the contradiction between, on the one side, the South Vietnamese people, consisting of the working class, the peasant class, the petit bourgeois class, the capitalist class, the nationalist capitalist class, and all other patriotic classes and individuals, and on the other side, the American imperialists and their lackeys, who consist of the most reactionary pro-American elements within the landlord and traitorous capitalist classes. The immediate, short-term goals of the South Vietnamese revolution are: to unite the entire population in a resolute struggle against the American imperialist warmongers and aggressors; to overthrow the dictatorial Ngo Dinh Diem clique, the lackeys of the American imperialists; to form a national democratic coalition government in South Vietnam; to implement national independence and the rights to freedom and democracy; to improve the lives of the people; to maintain peace; to unify our nation on the basis of independence and democracy; and to actively contribute to the preservation of peace in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. 3. The revolutionary struggle in South Vietnam will be a longterm, difficult, arduous, and complicated process that will flexibly combine many different forms of struggle, from low-level struggle to intense struggle, and that will be based on building up, strengthening, and expanding the revolutionary forces of the masses. During this process special attention must be paid to the work of organizing and educating the people, and first of all the workers, peasants, and intellectuals. We must make maximum use of the patriotic spirit of all classes of our population, we must ceaselessly expose the evil, vicious plans and actions of the American imperialists and their lackeys, and we must divide them and completely isolate them. In order to ensure that the revolutionary struggle in South Vietnam wins total victory, our compatriots in South Vietnam should strive to build a worker-peasant-soldier alliance and form a broadbased united national front opposed to the U.S. and Diem, a front based on the worker-peasant alliance. This front must unite the different classes, patriotic groups, the majority ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups, patriotic political parties, religions, and everyone who is inclined to oppose the U.S. and Diem. The

1478

110. Politburo Cable No. 17-NB Sent to the Cochin China Region Party Committee

goals of this front will be peace, national independence, freedom, democracy, improvement of the people’s living conditions, and the peaceful unification of the Fatherland. Our front operations must unite all the forces that can possibly be united, win over everyone that we can possibly win over, neutralize those forces that need to be neutralized, and attract the vast majority of the popular masses to join the struggle movement against our common enemy, the U.S. and the Diem clique, in order to liberate South Vietnam and peacefully unify our Fatherland. 4. The revolutionary movement in South Vietnam occupies a very important place in our cause of unifying our nation. In parallel with our effort to build up North Vietnam and advance the North toward socialism, our people also need to strive to preserve and expand the revolutionary forces in South Vietnam in order to create favorable conditions for the peaceful reunification of our nation. Our people’s struggle for the unification of our nation is a just struggle, and we oppose the efforts of the American imperialists and their lackeys to sabotage the Geneva Agreement, which is an international treaty that recognizes the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of our country. Our government and our people are resolved to maintain our policy, which is to peacefully unify our nation and to preserve and respect the Geneva Agreement. We advocate a gradual, step-by-step unification of our country in accordance with the spirit of the Manifesto of Vietnam’s Fatherland Front. However, we must always maintain a high state of vigilance and be prepared to deal with any eventuality. If the American imperialists and their lackeys should recklessly start a war with the aim of invading North Vietnam, then the people of our entire nation will resolutely rise up to defeat them and to achieve national independence and the unification of our Fatherland. . . . Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 21, 1960 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 21, 1960] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2002), 916–921. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

110. Politburo Cable No. 17-NB Sent to the Cochin China Region Party Committee and the Interzone 5 Region Party Committee, November 11, 1960 [Excerpts] Introduction On November 11, 1960, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) paratroopers supported by a number of prominent political figures from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN,

South Vietnam) mounted a coup aimed at overthrowing South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. The Communist leadership in Hanoi decided that this coup attempt gave them an excellent opportunity to announce the formation of their long-planned supposedly non-Communist front movement, which was designed to hide the fact that the Communists were in control of the insurgency in South Vietnam. The Politburo also approved and sent to South Vietnam the “Manifesto of the National Liberation Front” (NLF), which the new NLF was to release publicly. These cables provide clear evidence that contrary to the claims made by the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) throughout the Vietnam War, the NLF was never a truly independent organization.

Primary Source 1. According to reports we have received from the enemy and through news broadcasts by Saigon, British, American, and French radio stations, a coup began at 3:00 in the morning on 11 November 1960. The coup is being conducted by a number of officers in Diem’s army, using airborne units in coordination with police forces and a number of infantry and armored units, all under the command of Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi and other individuals opposed to Diem. . . . As of 8:00 tonight, Diem was still dragging his feet, had still not agreed to negotiate, and was moving additional forces from Military Region 5 and elements from Military Regions 1 and 4 up to counter the main coup forces in Saigon. The situation is still unclear. We need to continue to monitor it closely. No matter what the outcome, this armed clash is beneficial to our side. . . . Several months ago, based on the situation in South Korea and in Laos, the Politburo sent a directive to you to intensify the political struggle aimed at overthrowing the U.S.-Diem regime. This new situation is very favorable for the implementation of those policies. . . . The Politburo is providing the following policy guidelines for you to use, based on your assessment of the actual situation down in your area: Our policy at this time is to exploit the contradictions, disruptions, and confusion in the enemy’s ranks to the maximum in order to incite a large mass struggle movement aimed at overthrowing the entire reactionary clique, . . . at demanding the formation of a broad-based national democratic coalition government . . . and at progressing toward the eventual reunification of the Fatherland. At the same time, we want to use this opportunity to . . . form a broad-based united national front. . . . In order to accomplish these goals, we must publicly issue the program of the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam. . . . Regarding forms of struggle, we must mobilize large mass forces and coordinate the political struggle with the armed struggle. . . . In those areas where conditions permit, you might liberate a number of areas or certain towns and cities, but do not publicly use our Party’s name and do not display our Party flag or our national flag. Instead, you should use the name of the National

111. Manifesto of the National Liberation Front Liberation Front. . . . Depending on the way the situation continues to develop, the Central Committee will send you additional instructions. Document held in the Archives of the Central Committee. Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 21, 1960 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 21, 1960] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2002), 1012–1016. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

111. Manifesto of the National Liberation Front, December 1960 Introduction On December 20, 1960, Hanoi established the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, usually known as the National Liberation Front (NLF). Designed to replicate the Viet Minh as an umbrella nationalist organization that would appeal to all those disaffected with the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), the manifesto was in fact from the beginning dominated by the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) Central Committee and was North Vietnam’s shadow government in South Vietnam.

Primary Source Compatriots in the country and abroad! Over the past hundred years the Vietnamese people repeatedly rose up to fight against foreign aggression for the independence and freedom of their fatherland. In 1945, the people throughout the country surged up in an armed uprising, overthrew the Japanese and French domination and seized power. When the French colonialists invaded our country for the second time, our compatriots, determined not to be enslaved again, shed much blood and laid down many lives to defend their national sovereignty and independence. Their solidarity and heroic struggle during nine years led the resistance war to victory. The 1954 Geneva Agreements restored peace in our country and recognized “the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Viet Nam.” Our compatriots in South Viet Nam would have been able to live in peace, to earn their livelihood in security and to build a decent and happy life. However, the American imperialists, who had in the past helped the French colonialists to massacre our people, have now replaced the French in enslaving the southern part of our country through a disguised colonial regime. They have been using their stooge— the Ngo Dinh Diem administration—in their downright repression and exploitation of our compatriots, in their manoeuvres to

1479

permanently divide our country and to turn its southern part into a military base in preparation for war in Southeast Asia. The aggressors and traitors, working hand in glove with each other, have set up an extremely cruel dictatorial rule. They persecute and massacre democratic and patriotic people, and abolish all human liberties. They ruthlessly exploit the workers, peasants and other labouring people, strangle the local industry and trade, poison the minds of our people with a depraved foreign culture, thus degrading our national culture, traditions and ethics. They feverishly increase their military forces, build military bases, use the army as an instrument for repressing the people and serving the US imperialists’ scheme to prepare an aggressive war. Never, over the past six years, have gun shots massacring our compatriots ceased to resound throughout South Viet Nam. Tens of thousands of patriots here have been murdered and hundreds of thousands thrown into jail. All sections of the people have been living in a stifling atmosphere under the iron heel of the USDiem clique. Countless families have been torn away and scenes of mourning are seen everywhere as a result of unemployment, poverty, exacting taxes, terror, massacre, drafting of manpower and pressganging, usurpation of land, forcible house removal, and herding of the people into “prosperity zones,” “resettlement centres” and other forms of concentration camps. High anger with the present tyrannical regime is boiling among all strata of the people. Undaunted in the face of barbarous persecution, our compatriots are determined to unite and struggle unflaggingly against the US imperialists’ policy of aggression and the dictatorial and nepotic regime of the Ngo Dinh Diem clique. Among workers, peasants and other toiling people, among intellectuals, students and pupils, industrialists and traders, religious sects and national minorities, patriotic activities are gaining in scope and strength, seriously shaking the US-Diem dictatorial regime. The attempted coup d’etat of November 11, 1960 in Saigon in some respects reflected the seething anger among the people and armymen, and the rottenness and decline of the US-Diem regime. However, there were among the leaders of this coup political speculators who, misusing the patriotism of the armymen, preferred negotiation and compromise rather than to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem. Like Ngo Dinh Diem, they persisted in following the proAmerican and traitorous path, and also used the anticommunist signboard to oppose the people. That is why the coup was not supported by the people and large numbers of armymen and, consequently, ended in failure. At present, our people are urgently demanding an end to the cruel dictatorial rule; they are demanding independence and democracy, enough food and clothing, and peaceful reunification of the country.

1480

111. Manifesto of the National Liberation Front

To meet the aspirations of our compatriots, the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation came into being, pledging itself to shoulder the historic task of liberating our people from the present yoke of slavery. The South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation undertakes to unite all sections of the people, all social classes, nationalities, political parties, organizations, religious communities and patriotic personalities, without distinction of their political tendencies in order to struggle for the overthrow of the rule of the US imperialists and their stooges—the Ngo Dinh Diem clique—and for the realization of independence, democracy, peace and neutrality pending the peaceful reunification of the fatherland. The South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation calls on the entire people to unite and heroically rise up as one man to fight along the line of a program of action summarized as follows: 1. To overthrow the disguised colonial regime of the US imperialists and the dictatorial Ngo Dinh Diem administration—lackey of the United States—, and to form a national democratic coalition administration. 2. To bring into being a broad and progressive democracy, promulgate freedom of expression, of the press, of belief, of assembly, of association, of movement and other democratic freedoms. To grant general amnesty to all political detainees, dissolve all concentration camps dubbed “prosperity zones” and “resettlement centres,” abolish the fascist 10-59 law and other antidemocratic laws. 3. To abolish the economic monopoly of the United States and its henchmen, to protect home-made products, encourage home industry and trade, expand agriculture and build an independent and sovereign economy. To provide jobs for the unemployed, increase wages for workers, armymen and office employees. To abolish arbitrary fines and apply an equitable and rational tax system. To help those who have gone South to return to their native places if they so desire, and to provide jobs for those among them who want to remain in the South. 4. To carry out land rent reduction, guarantee the peasants’ right to till present plots of land, redistribute communal land and advance toward land reform. 5. To do away with enslaving and depraved US-style culture, build a national and progressive culture and education. To wipe out illiteracy, open more schools, carry out reforms in the educational and examination system. 6. To abolish the system of American military advisers, eliminate foreign military bases in Viet Nam and build a national army for the defence of the fatherland and the people.

7. To guarantee equality between men and women and among different nationalities, and the right to autonomy of the national minorities; to protect the legitimate interests of foreign residents in Viet Nam; to protect and take care of the interests of Vietnamese living abroad. 8. To carry out a foreign policy of peace and neutrality, to establish diplomatic relations with all countries which respect the independence and sovereignty of Viet Nam. 9. To re-establish normal relations between the two zones, pending the peaceful reunification of the fatherland. 10. To oppose aggressive war; to actively defend world peace. Compatriots! Ours are a heroic people with a tradition of unity and indomitable struggle. We cannot let our country be plunged into darkness and mourning. We are determined to shatter the fetters of slavery, and wrest back independence and freedom. Let us all rise up and unite! Let us close our ranks and fight under the banner of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation to overthrow the rule of the US imperialists and Ngo Dinh Diem—their henchmen. Workers, peasants and other toiling people! The oppression and misery which are now heavily weighing on you must be ended. You have the strength of tens of millions of people. Stand up enthusiastically to save your families and our fatherland. Intellectuals! The dictatorial rulers have stripped us of the most elementary human rights. You are living in humiliation and misery. For our great cause, stand up resolutely! Industrialists and traders! A country under the sway of foreign sharks cannot have an independent and sovereign economy. You should join in the people’s struggle. Compatriots of all national minorities! Compatriots of all religious communities! Unity is life, disunity is death. Smash all US-Diem schemes of division. Side with the entire people in the struggle for independence, freedom and equality among all nationalities. Notables! The interests of the nation are above all else. Support actively the struggle for the overthrow of the cruel aggressors and traitors. Patriotic officers and soldiers! You have arms in your hands. Listen to the sacred call of the fatherland. Be definitely on the side of the people. Your compatriots have faith in your patriotism. Young men and women! You are the future of the nation. You should devote your youthful ardour to serving the fatherland.

113. Gilpatric Task Force Report Compatriots living abroad! Turn your thoughts toward the beloved fatherland, contribute actively to the sacred struggle for national liberation. At present the movement for peace, democracy and national independence is surging up throughout the world. Colonialism is irretrievably disintegrating. The time when the imperialists could plunder and subjugate the people at will is over. This situation is extremely favourable for the struggle to free South Viet Nam from the yoke of the US imperialists and their stooges. Peace-loving and progressive people in the world are supporting us. Justice is on our side, and we have the prodigious strength of the unity of our entire people. We will certainly win! The US imperialist aggressors and the Ngo Dinh Diem traitorous clique will certainly be defeated. The cause of liberation of South Viet Nam will certainly triumph.

1481

units to the scene and reverse the situation. Diem refused to see the need for far-reaching political or social reform. Far from pushing him toward reform, the coup attempt merely intensified his distrust of others and caused him to concentrate more authority in his own hands. In this cable to Washington, Durbrow concludes that Diem is convinced that force is the best means of preserving his regime.

Primary Source On few occasions he let me talk, I urged he adopt reforms soonest since it essential to win further support of the people if Viet Cong menace is to be overcome, but he gave me no indication of reforms he may adopt. Before leaving I again expressed hope that he would accept our suggestion that he announce all liberalizing programs at one time in order to make best impact. Diem replied he would think about this but made no commitment.

Compatriots around the country! Let us write and march forward confidently and valiantly to score brilliant victories for our people and our fatherland! “South Vietnam From the N.F.L. to the Provisional Government.” Source: South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation: Documents (Saigon: Giai Phong Publishing House, 1968), 11–31.

112. Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Ambassador in Saigon: Cablegram to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, December 24, 1960 [Excerpt] Introduction Opposition within the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem continued to mount even in the cities, which had been the chief beneficiaries under his regime. In April 1960, 18 prominent South Vietnamese issued a manifesto protesting governmental abuses. They were promptly arrested. In October 1960 with the security situation deteriorating, U.S. ambassador Elbridge Durbrow received approval from Washington to present to Diem a memorandum urging political and administrative reforms. On November 11–12, 1960, American officials were caught by surprise when three battalions of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) elite paratroop group surrounded the presidential palace in Saigon and demanded reforms, a new government, and more effective prosecution of the war. Diem outmaneuvered them. He agreed to a long list of reforms—including freedom of the press, a coalition government, and new elections—until he could bring loyal army

Comments. We have heard that Nhu, Thuan and others have been running into resistance when urging Diem to adopt worthwhile reforms. I also received impression he very reluctant to adopt reforms and is still basically thinking in terms of force to save the day, hence his insistence several times that we approve force level increase and his action raising Civil Guard ceiling by 10,000. While I still believe it absolutely essential he adopt more liberal programs, it is not certain from his attitude and remarks that he will take effective action in these matters, although I learned later he has agreed to engage the services of a public relations expert suggested by CAS to make a survey GVN foreign public relations needs. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 1350–1351.

113. Gilpatric Task Force Report, April 27, 1961 [Excerpt] Introduction New U.S. president John F. Kennedy requested an appraisal of the security situation in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). An interagency task force, headed by Undersecretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, recommended to Kennedy a modest increase in the number of U.S. military advisers and appropriations sufficient to increase the size of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) by 200,000 men. Overriding these recommendations, however, was the task force’s conclusion that the insurgency in South Vietnam was not so much a response to President Ngo Dinh Diem’s repression as it was part of a Communist “master plan” to seize control of all of Southeast Asia.

1482

114. Memorandum of Conversation

Primary Source After meeting in Hanoi on 13 May 1959, the Central Committee of the North Vietnamese Communist Party publicly announced its intention “to smash” the government of President Diem. Following this decision, the Viet Cong have significantly increased their program of infiltration, subversion, sabotage and assassination designed to achieve this end. At the North Vietnamese Communist Party Congress in September 1960, the earlier declaration of underground war by the Party’s Control Committee was reaffirmed. This action by the Party Congress took place only a month after Kong Le’s coup in Laos. Scarcely two months later there was a Military uprising in Saigon. The turmoil created throughout the area by this rapid succession of events provides an ideal environment for the Communist “master plan” to take over all of Southeast Asia. Since that time, the internal security situation in South Vietnam has become critical. What amounts to a state of active guerrilla warfare now exists throughout the country. The number of Viet Cong hard-core Communists has increased from 4400 in early 1960 to an estimated 12,000 today. The number of violent incidents per month now averages 650. Casualties on both sides totaled more than 4500 during the first three months of this year. Fifty-eight percent of the country is under some degree of Communist control, ranging from harassment and night raids to almost complete administrative jurisdiction in the Communist “secure areas.” The Viet Cong over the past two years have succeeded in stepping up the pace and intensity of their attacks to the point where South Vietnam is nearing the decisive phase in its battle for survival. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the Communists will be able to press on to their strategic goal of establishing a rival “National Liberation Front” government in one of these “secure areas” thereby plunging the nation into open civil war. They have publicly announced that they will “take over the country before the end of 1961. This situation is thus critical, but is not hopeless. The Vietnamese Government, with American aid, has increased its capabilities to fight its attackers, and provides a base upon which the necessary additional effort can be founded to defeat the Communist attack. Should the Communist effort increase, either directly or as a result of a collapse of Laos, additional measures beyond those proposed herein would be necessary. In short, the situation in South Vietnam has reached the point where, at least for the time being, primary emphasis should be placed on providing a solution to the internal security problem. The US Objective: To create a viable and increasingly democratic society in South Vietnam and to prevent Communist domination of the country.

Concept of Operations: To initiate on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological and covert character designed to achieve this objective. In so doing, it is intended to use, and where appropriate extend, expedite or build upon the existing US and Government of Vietnam (GVN) programs already underway in South Vietnam. There is neither the time available nor any sound justification for “starting from scratch.” Rather the need is to focus the US effort in South Vietnam on the immediate internal security problem; to infuse it with a sense of urgency and a dedication to the overall US objective; to achieve, through cooperative interdepartmental support both in the field and in Washington, the operational flexibility needed to apply the available US assets in a manner best calculated to achieve our objective in Vietnam; and, finally, to impress on our friends, the Vietnamese, and on our foes, the Viet Cong, that come what may, the US intends to win this battle. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 43–45.

114. Memorandum of Conversation Involving Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Other Officials, April 29, 1961 [Excerpts] Introduction Throughout much of the John F. Kennedy administration, Laos— not Vietnam—was center stage. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had told Kennedy that Laos was the key to Southeast Asia. By the end of 1960, Washington had already provided the Laotian government with $300 million in assistance, of which 85 percent was military. Civil war in Laos now flared anew. A military coup occurred against the rightist government, and both the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the Soviet Union actively intervened. Key Kennedy administration officials debated an appropriate response. There was general agreement among the conferees that if the United States did not intervene in Laos, the United States would have to fight in Thailand or the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Hardliner secretary of state Dean Rusk urged military intervention in Laos, while U.S. Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay called for a preemptive war with China, which he said would have nuclear weapons in a year or two. In the end, Kennedy decided not to send U.S. troops and instead to put his trust in the Geneva Conference on Laos, which opened in July. In this he was to be disappointed.

114. Memorandum of Conversation

Primary Source [. . .] The Attorney General asked where would be the best place to stand and fight in Southeast Asia, where to draw the line. Mr. McNamara said he thought we would take a stand in Thailand and South Viet-Nam. The Attorney General asked whether we would save any of Laos, but the major question was whether we would stand up and fight. Admiral Burke said that we could hold Tourane, and General Le May observed that we could use our air power back as far as necessary, letting the enemy have all of the countryside but that the PL [Pathet Lao] could be stopped by air power. Mr. McNamara said that we would have to attack the DRV if we gave up Laos. The Secretary suggested that the part of Laos from the 17th Parallel across to the Mekong might be easier to hold than the entire country. General Decker thought that there was no good place to fight in Southeast Asia but we must hold as much as we can of Viet-Nam, Cambodia and Laos. At this point the Secretary said we had missed having government troops who were willing to fight. Mr. Steeves pointed out that we had always argued that we would not give up Laos and that it was on the pleas of our military that we had supported Phoumi; that we had reiterated in the press and to the public what Laos meant to us. If this problem is unsolvable then the problem of Viet-Nam would be unsolvable. If we decided that this was untenable then we were writing the first chapter in the defeat of Southeast Asia. Mr. McNamara said the situation was not as bad five weeks ago as it was now. Admiral Burke pointed out that each time you give ground it is harder to stand next time. If we give up Laos we would have to put US forces into Viet-Nam and Thailand. We would have to throw enough in to win—perhaps the “works”. It would be easier to hold now than later. The thing to do was to land now and hold as much as we can and make clear that we were not going to be pushed out of Southeast Asia. We were fighting for the rest of Asia. Mr. McNamara wondered whether more Viet Cong would necessarily enter South Vietnam if Laos went down the drain. He mentioned that some 12,000 Viet Cong had entered South VietNam under present conditions and that the Communists held the area south of the 17th Parallel to a depth of twenty-five miles with a supposedly friendly government in South Viet-Nam. (Several of those present questioned the accuracy of the figure of 12,000.)

1483

Turning to the question of the morale of the Southeast Asians, the Secretary recalled that the Thai Foreign Minister had told him during the recent SEATO conference that Thailand was like a “golden bell” which had to be protected from outside. The Secretary said he was not sure the Foreign Minister was wrong. He added that he was less worried about escalation than he was about infectious slackness. He said he would not give a cent for what the Persians would think of us if we did not defend Laos. General Decker thought that we should have stood last August and wondered what would happen if we got “licked”. The Secretary suggested that Thai and US troops might be placed together in Vientiane and, if they could not hold, be removed by helicopter. Even if they were defeated they would be defeated together and this would be better than sitting back and doing nothing. General Decker said we cannot win a conventional war in Southeast Asia; if we go in, we should go in to win, and that means bombing Hanoi, China, and maybe even using nuclear bombs. He pointed out that all the advantage we have in heavy equipment would be lost in the difficult terrain of Laos where we would be at the mercy of the guerrillas. The Secretary pointed out that this fact was also true at the time of the Bangkok Resolution but that we had gone ahead with the resolution anyway and had issued statements indicating that we would back up our words with deeds. Mr. McNamara repeated that the situation is now worse than it was five weeks ago. Mr. Steeves pointed out that the same problems existed in South Viet-Nam, but Admiral Burke thought that South Viet-Nam could be more easily controlled. General Decker then suggested that troops be moved into Thailand and South Viet-Nam to see whether such action would not produce a cease-fire. Admiral Burke asked what happens if there is still no cease-fire. General Decker said then we would be ready to go ahead. Mr. Kennedy said we would look sillier than we do now if we got troops in there and then backed down. He reiterated the question whether we are ready to go the distance. The Secretary said that we would want to get the United Nations “mixed up” in this. Mr. Behlen [sic: Bohlen] said he saw no need for a fixation on the possibility of a reaction by the Chinese Communists. He said we had no evidence that they want to face the brink of nuclear war. He said that he was more concerned about the objectives we would seek if we took military action. There followed a discussion about the possibility of restoring the kingdom of Champassak where Boun Oum relinquished the throne and where he is popular. It was thought that Sihanouk would support a partition of Laos. General Decker thought that if a cease-fire could be effected now, it would be possible to secure southern Laos.

1484

115. National Security Action Memorandum No. 80

General Le May did not believe that it would be possible to get a cease-fire without military action. He admitted that he did not know what US policy is in Laos. He knew what the President had said but he also pointed out that the military had been unable to back up the President’s statements. He then enumerated a number of possibilities: 1) do nothing and lose Laos; 2) use B-26’s and slow up the enemy; 3) use more sophisticated bombers and stop supplies and then perhaps Phoumi’s forces could be brought up to where they could fight; 4) implement Plan 5, backing up troops with air. General Le May did not think the Chinese would escalate but believed on the contrary that a cease-fire would then be brought about. He added that he believed we should go to work on China itself and let Chiang take Hainan Island. He thought Chiang had a good air force. . . . Mr. Bowles said he thought the main question to be faced was the fact that we were going to have to fight the Chinese anyway in 2, 3, 5 or 10 years and that it was just a question of where, when and how. He thought that a major war would be difficult to avoid. General Le May said that, in that case, we should fight soon since the Chinese would have nuclear weapons within one or two years. Mr. McNamara said that the situation was worsening by the hour and that if we were going to commit ourselves, then we must do so sooner rather than later. The Secretary then adjourned the meeting saying he would like to consider the matter further. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 63–66.

115. National Security Action Memorandum No. 80, August 29, 1961 Introduction U.S. president John F. Kennedy was not opposed to a neutralist solution for the Kingdom of Laos, now torn by a three-way struggle involving Communists, neutralists, and rightists. A 14-nation conference convened in Geneva in June 1961, and Kennedy worked to get neutralist prince Souvanna Phouma to agree to his proposals for Laos. As the talks wore on, fighting continued in northeastern Laos between the Communist Pathet Lao, supported by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), and Meo tribesmen, supported by the United States. The North Vietnamese government wanted control of eastern Laos for its Ho Chi Minh Trail infiltration network that funneled men and supplies into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), feeding the insurgency there. In this memorandum, President Kennedy approves a modest expansion in military assistance to Laos, including more advisers and the arming of additional Meo.

The failure of the Communists to live up to the subsequent Geneva Agreements concerning neutralization of Laos greatly angered Kennedy and influenced his policies regarding Vietnam.

Primary Source The President approved the following actions: 1. An intensification of the diplomatic effort to achieve agreement to the Paris proposals on the part of Souvanna, especially by direct conversations between Ambassador Harriman and Souvanna, with an emphasis not only upon the interlocking importance of the Paris proposals, but also upon U.S. support of Souvanna in the event that he accepts the Paris plan. 2. Authorization to undertake conversations with SEATO allies both bilaterally and with the SEATO Council, exploring the possibility of an enlargement of the concept of SEATO Plan 5. It must be understood that this exploration was in the nature of contingency planning and did not represent a flat commitment of the United States to participate in such an enlarged enterprise. 3. An immediate increase in mobile training teams in Laos to include advisers down to the level of the company, to a total U.S. strength in this area of 500, together with an attempt to get Thai agreement to supply an equal amount of Thais for the same purpose. 4. An immediate increase of 2,000 in the number of Meos being supported to bring the total to a level of 11,000. 5. Authorization for photo-reconnaissance by Thai or sanitized aircraft over all of Laos. It is assumed that these actions will be carried out under the general direction of the Southeast Asia Task Force under the direction of Deputy Under Secretary Johnson. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 247–248.

116. General Maxwell Taylor: Cable to President John F. Kennedy Recommending Dispatch of U.S. Forces to South Vietnam, November 1, 1961 Introduction In October 1961 U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s chief military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor and Special Assistant for National

116. General Maxwell Taylor: Cable to President John F. Kennedy Recommending Dispatch of U.S. Forces to South Vietnam Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow led a fact-finding trip to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). They saw the situation primarily in military terms and recommended a change in the U.S. role from advisory to “limited partnership” with the South Vietnamese government. In this cable, Taylor urges increased U.S. economic aid and military advisory support to include intensive training of local self-defense forces and a significant increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel. Taylor also recommends deployment to South Vietnam of some 8,000 American combat troops to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) in military operations. To overcome South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s sensitivity regarding foreign troops, these would be called a “flood control team.” As it worked out, Diem was opposed to U.S. troops, and Kennedy limited increased U.S. assistance to advisers and air personnel only.

Primary Source This message is for the purpose of presenting my reasons for recommending the introduction of a U.S. military force into South Vietnam (SVN). I have reached the conclusion that this is an essential action if we are to reverse the present downward trend of events in spite of a full recognition of the following disadvantages: a. The strategic reserve of U.S. forces is presently so weak that we can ill afford any detachment of forces to a peripheral area of the Communist bloc where they will be pinned down for an uncertain duration. b. Although U.S. prestige is already engaged in SVN, it will become more so by the sending of troops. c. If the first contingent is not enough to accomplish the necessary results, it will be difficult to resist the pressure to reinforce. If the ultimate result sought is the closing of the frontiers and the cleanup of the insurgents within SVN, there is no limit to our possible commitment (unless we attack the source in Hanoi). d. The introduction of U.S. forces may increase tensions and risk escalation into a major war in Asia. On the other side of the argument, there can be no action so convincing of U.S. seriousness of purpose and hence so reassuring to the people and Government of SVN and to our other friends and allies in SEA as the introduction of U.S. forces into SVN. The views of indigenous and U.S. officials consulted on our trip were unanimous on this point. I have just seen Saigon original 545 to State and suggest that it be read in connection with this message. The size of the U.S. force introduced need not be great to provide the military presence necessary to produce the desired effect on national morale in SVN and on international opinion. A bare token, however, will not suffice; it must have a significant value.

1485

The kinds of tasks which it might undertake which would have a significant value are suggested in BAGI00005. They are: (a) Provide a U.S. military presence capable of raising national morale and of showing to Southeast Asia the seriousness of the U.S. intent to resist a Communist take-over. (b) Conduct logistical operations in support of military and flood relief operations. (c) Conduct such combat operations as are necessary for selfdefense and for the security of the area in which they are stationed. (d) Provide an emergency reserve to back up the Armed Forces of the GVN [Government of the Republic of Vietnam] in the case of a heightened military crisis. (e) Act as an advance party of such additional forces as may be introduced if CINCPAC [Commander in Chief, Pacific] or SEATO [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization] contingency plans are invoked. It is noteworthy that this force is not proposed to clear the jungles and forests of Viet Cong guerrillas. That should be the primary task of the Armed Forces of Vietnam for which they should be specifically organized, trained, and stiffened with ample U.S. advisors down to combat battalion levels. However, the U.S. troops may be called upon to engage in combat to protect themselves, their working parties, and the area in which they live. As a general reserve, they might be thrown into action (with U.S. agreement) against large, formed guerrilla bands which have abandoned the forests for attacks on major targets. But in general, our forces should not engage in small-scale guerrilla operations in the jungle. As an area for the operations of U.S. troops, SVN is not an excessively difficult or unpleasant place to operate. While the border areas are rugged and heavily forested, the terrain is comparable to parts of Korea where U.S. troops learned to live and work without too much effort. However, these border areas, for reasons stated above, are not the places to engage our forces. In the High Plateau and in the coastal plain where U.S. troops would probably be stationed, these jungle-forest conditions do not exist to any great extent. The most unpleasant feature in the coastal areas would be the heat and, in the Delta, the mud left behind by the flood. The High Plateau offers no particular obstacle to the stationing of U.S. troops. The extent to which the Task Force would engage in flood relief activities in the Delta will depend upon further study of the problem there. As reported in Saigon 537, I see considerable advantages in playing up this aspect of the Task Force mission. I am presently inclined to favor a dual mission, initially help to the flood area and subsequently use in any other area of SVN where its resources can be used effectively to give tangible support in the struggle

1486

117. Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy

against the Viet Cong. However, the possibility of emphasizing the humanitarian mission will wane if we wait long in moving in our forces or in linking our stated purpose with the emergency conditions created by the flood. The risks of backing into a major Asian war by way of SVN are present but are not impressive. NVN is extremely vulnerable to conventional bombing, a weakness which should be exploited diplomatically in convincing Hanoi to lay off SVN. Both the D.R.V. and the Chicoms [Chinese Communists] would face severe logistical difficulties in trying to maintain strong forces in the field in SEA, difficulties which we share but by no means to the same degree. There is no case for fearing a mass onslaught of Communist manpower into SVN and its neighboring states, particularly if our airpower is allowed a free hand against logistical targets. Finally, the starvation conditions in China should discourage Communist leaders there from being militarily venturesome for some time to come. By the foregoing line of reasoning, I have reached the conclusion that the introduction of U.S. military Task Force without delay offers definitely more advantage than it creates risks and difficulties. In fact, I do not believe that our program to save SVN will succeed without it. If the concept is approved, the exact size and composition of the force should be determined by Secretary of Defense in consultation with the JCS, the Chief MAAG [Military Assistance Advisory Group] and CINCPAC. My own feeling is that the initial size should not exceed about 8000, of which a preponderant number would be in logistical-type units. After acquiring experience in operating in SVN, this initial force will require reorganization and adjustment to the local scene. As CINCPAC will point out, any forces committed to SVN will need to be replaced by additional forces to his area from the strategic reserve in the U.S. Also, any troops to SVN are in addition to those which may be required to execute SEATO Plan 5 in Laos. Both facts should be taken into account in current considerations of the FY [fiscal year] 1963 budget which bear upon the permanent increase which should be made in the U.S. military establishment to maintain our strategic position for the long pull. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 337–342.

117. Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy, November 8, 1961 Introduction In this memorandum, U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara comments on the recommendations from military adviser

General Maxwell D. Taylor following the latter’s fact-finding mission to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). McNamara warns President John F. Kennedy that the dispatch of ground troops could be the beginning of a long conflict between the United States on one side and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the other. McNamara, with the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), recommends that the United States not send ground troops unless it “commit[s] itself to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism.”

Primary Source The basic issue framed by the Taylor Report is whether the U.S. shall: a. Commit itself to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism, and b. Support this commitment by necessary immediate military actions and preparations for possible later actions. The Joint Chiefs, Mr. Gilpatric, and I have reached the following conclusions: 1. The fall of South Vietnam to Communism would lead to the fairly rapid extension of Communist control, or complete accommodation to Communism, in the rest of mainland Southeast Asia and in Indonesia. The strategic implications worldwide, particularly in the Orient, would be extremely serious. 2. The chances are against, probably sharply against, preventing that fall by any measures short of the introduction of U.S. forces on a substantial scale. We accept General Taylor’s judgment that the various measures proposed by him short of this are useful but will not in themselves do the job of restoring confidence and setting Diem on the way to winning his fight. 3. The introduction of a U.S. force of the magnitude of an initial 8,000 men in a flood relief context will be of great help to Diem. However, it will not convince the other side (whether the shots are called from Moscow, Peiping or Hanoi) that we mean business. Moreover, it probably will not tip the scales decisively. We would be almost certain to get increasingly mired down in an inconclusive struggle. 4. The other side can be convinced we mean business only if we accompany the initial force introduction by a clear commitment to the full objective stated above, accompanied by a warning through some channel to Hanoi that continued support of the Viet Cong will lead to punitive retaliation against North Vietnam. 5. If we act in this way, the ultimate possible extent of our military commitment must be faced. The struggle may be prolonged and Hanoi and Peiping may intervene overtly. In view of the logistic

118. Dean Rusk and Robert S. McNamara: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy 1487 difficulties faced by the other side, I believe we can assume that the maximum U.S. forces required on the ground in Southeast Asia will not exceed 6 divisions, or about 205,000 men, (CINCPAC Plan 32-59, Phase IV). Our military posture is, or, with the addition of more National Guard or regular Army divisions, can be made, adequate to furnish these forces without serious interference with our present Berlin plans. 6. To accept the stated objective is of course a most serious decision. Military force is not the only element of what must be a most carefully coordinated set of actions. Success will depend on factors many of which are not within our control—notably the conduct of Diem himself and other leaders in the area. Laos will remain a major problem. The domestic political implications of accepting the objective are also grave, although it is our feeling that the country will respond better to a firm initial position than to courses of action that lead us in only gradually, and that in the meantime are sure to involve casualties. The over-all effect on Moscow and Peiping will need careful weighing and may well be mixed; however, permitting South Vietnam to fall can only strengthen and encourage them greatly. 7. In sum: a. We do not believe major units of U.S. forces should be introduced in South Vietnam unless we are willing to make an affirmative decision on the issue stated at the start of this memorandum. b. We are inclined to recommend that we do commit the U.S. to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism and that we support this commitment by the necessary military actions. c. If such a commitment is agreed upon, we support the recommendations of General Taylor as the first steps toward its fulfillment. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 343–344.

Hitler’s demands at Munich in 1938 and saw the war in terms of “aggression” on the part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara also supported increased U.S. military assistance to South Vietnam. Both men pointed out that a Communist victory in South Vietnam would mean an additional 20 million people living under communism. It would also likely be the end of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, would destroy U.S. credibility in the region, and would force the remaining Southeast Asian states to reach accommodation with communism.

Primary Source 1. United States National Interests in South Viet-Nam. The deteriorating situation in South Viet-Nam requires attention to the nature and scope of United States national interests in that country. The loss of South Viet-Nam to Communism would involve the transfer of a nation of 20 million people from the free world to the Communist bloc. The loss of South Viet-Nam would make pointless any further discussion about the importance of Southeast Asia to the free world; we would have to face the near certainty that the remainder of Southeast Asia and Indonesia would move to a complete accommodation with Communism, if not formal incorporation with the Communist bloc. The United States, as a member of SEATO, has commitments with respect to South Viet-Nam under the Protocol to the SEATO Treaty. Additionally, in a formal statement at the conclusion session of the 1954 Geneva Conference, the United States representative stated that the United States “would view any renewal of the aggression . . . with grave concern as seriously threatening international peace and security.” The loss of South Viet-Nam to Communism would not only destroy SEATO but would undermine the credibility of American commitments elsewhere. Further, loss of South Viet-Nam would stimulate bitter domestic controversies in the United States and would be seized upon by extreme elements to divide the country and harass the Administration. . . . 3. The United States’ Objective in South Viet-Nam.

118. Dean Rusk and Robert S. McNamara: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy, November 11, 1961 [Excerpts] Introduction Unlike President John F. Kennedy, who tended to see the fighting in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) more along the lines of a civil war, Secretary of State Dean Rusk was obsessed with the retreat of the Western powers before German dictator Adolf

The United States should commit itself to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South Viet-Nam to Communism. The basic means for accomplishing this objective must be to put the Government of South Viet-Nam into a position to win its own war against the Guerillas. We must insist that that Government itself take the measures necessary for that purpose in exchange for large-scale United States assistance in the military, economic and political fields. At the same time we must recognize that it will probably not be possible for the GVN to win this war as long as the flow of men and supplies from North Viet-Nam continues unchecked and the guerillas enjoy a safe sanctuary in neighboring territory.

1488

118. Dean Rusk and Robert S. McNamara: Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy

We should be prepared to introduce United States combat forces if that should become necessary for success. Dependent upon the circumstances, it may also be necessary for United States forces to strike at the source of the aggression in North Viet-Nam. 4. The Use of United States Forces in South Viet-Nam. The commitment of United States forces to South Viet-Nam involves two different categories: (A) Units of modest size required for the direct support of South Viet-Namese military effort, such as communications, helicopter and other forms of airlift, reconnaissance aircraft, naval patrols, intelligence units, etc., and (B) larger organized units with actual or potential direct military missions. Category (A) should be introduced as speedily as possible. Category (B) units pose a more serious problem in that they are much more significant from the point of view of domestic and international political factors and greatly increase the probabilities of Communist bloc escalation. Further, the employment of United States combat forces (in the absence of Communist bloc escalation) involves a certain dilemma: if there is a strong South Viet-Namese effort, they may not be needed; if there is not such an effort, United States forces could not accomplish their mission in the midst of an apathetic or hostile population. Under present circumstances, therefore, the question of injecting United States and SEATO combat forces should in large part be considered as a contribution to the morale of the South Viet-Namese in their own effort to do the principal job themselves. 5. Probable Extent of the Commitment of United States Forces. If we commit Category (B) forces to South Viet-Nam, the ultimate possible extent of our military commitment in Southeast Asia must be faced. The struggle may be prolonged, and Hanoi and Peiping may overtly intervene. It is the view of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that, in the light of the logistic difficulties faced by the other side, we can assume that the maximum United States forces required on the ground in Southeast Asia would not exceed six divisions, or about 205,000 men (CINCPAC Plan 32/59 PHASE IV). This would be in addition to local forces and such SEATO forces as may be engaged. It is also the view of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that our military posture is, or, with the addition of more National Guard or regular Army divisions, can be made, adequate to furnish these forces and support them in action without serious interference with our present Berlin plans. . . . Recommendations In the light of the foregoing, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense recommend that: 1. We now take the decision to commit ourselves to the objective of preventing the fall of South Viet-Nam to Communism and that, in

doing so, we recognize that the introduction of United States and other SEATO forces may be necessary to achieve this objective. (However, if it is necessary to commit outside forces to achieve the foregoing objective, our decision to introduce United States forces should not be contingent upon unanimous SEATO agreement thereto.) 2. The Department of Defense be prepared with plans for the use of United States forces in South Viet-Nam under one or more of the following purposes: (a) Use of a significant number of United States forces to signify United States determination to defend South VietNam and to boost South Viet-Nam morale. (b) Use of substantial United States forces to assist in suppressing Viet Cong insurgency short of engaging in detailed counter-guerrilla operations but including relevant operations in North Viet-Nam. (c) Use of United States forces to deal with the situation if there is organized Communist military intervention. 3. We immediately undertake the following actions in support of the GVN: . . . (c) Provide the GVN with small craft, including such United States uniformed advisers and operating personnel as may be necessary for quick and effective operations in effecting surveillance and control over coastal waters and inland waterways. . . . (e) Provide such personnel and equipment as may be necessary to improve the military-political intelligence system beginning at the provincial level and extending upward through the Government and the armed forces to the Central Intelligence Organization. (f) Provide such new terms of reference, reorganization and additional personnel for United States military forces as are required for increased United States participation in the direction and control of GVN military operations and to carry out the other increased responsibilities which accrue to MAAG under these recommendations. . . . (i) Provide individual administrators and advisers for insertion into the Governmental machinery of South VietNam in types and numbers to be agreed upon by the two Governments. . . . 5. Very shortly before the arrival in South Viet-Nam of the first increments of United States military personnel and equipment proposed under 3., above, that would exceed the Geneva Accord ceilings, publish the “Jorden report” [by State Department official William J. Jorden and critical of Ngo Dinh Diem] as a United States “white paper,” transmitting it as simultaneously as possible to the Governments of all countries with which we have diplomatic relations, including the Communist states.

119. McGeorge Bundy, White House Special Assistant for National Security Affairs 1489 6. Simultaneous with the publication of the “Jorden report,” release an exchange of letters between Diem and the President. (a) Diem’s letter would include: reference to the DRV violations of Geneva Accords as set forth in the October 24 GVN letter to the ICC [International Control Commission] and other documents; pertinent references to GVN statements with respect to its intent to observe the Geneva Accords; reference to its need for flood relief and rehabilitation; reference to previous United States aid and the compliance hitherto by both countries with the Geneva Accords; reference to the USG statement at the time the Geneva Accords were signed; the necessity of now exceeding some provisions of the Accords in view of the DRV violations thereof; the lack of aggressive intent with respect to the DRV; GVN intent to return to strict compliance with the Geneva Accords as soon as the DRV violations ceased; and request for additional United States assistance in framework foregoing policy. The letter should also set forth in appropriate general terms steps Diem has taken and is taking to reform Governmental structure. (b) The President’s reply would be responsive to Diem’s request for additional assistance and acknowledge and agree to Diem’s statements on the intent promptly to return to strict compliance with the Geneva Accords as soon as DRV violations have ceased. . . . Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 359–366.

119. McGeorge Bundy, White House Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: National Security Action Memorandum No. 111, November 22, 1961 Introduction President John F. Kennedy accepted the recommendations from his military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow with the exception of the introduction of U.S. ground troops, which President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) also opposed as a potential Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communist) propaganda bonanza. Kennedy’s decision meant that U.S. combat aircraft were soon providing direct combat support to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). From the end of 1961 to the end of 1962, the number of American military personnel in South Vietnam nearly quadrupled to 11,300.

Primary Source The President has authorized the Secretary of State to instruct our Ambassador to Viet-Nam to inform President Diem as follows: 1. The U.S. Government is prepared to join the Viet-Nam Government in a sharply increased joint effort to avoid a further deterioration in the situation in South Viet-Nam. 2. This joint effort requires undertakings by both Governments as outlined below: a. On its part the U.S. would immediately undertake the following actions in support of the GVN: (1) Provide increased air lift to the GVN forces, including helicopters, light aviation, and transport aircraft, manned to the extent necessary by United States uniformed personnel and under United States operational control. (2) Provide such additional equipment and United States uniformed personnel as may be necessary for air reconnaissance, photography, instruction in and execution of air-ground support techniques, and for special intelligence. (3) Provide the GVN with small craft, including such United States uniformed advisers and operating personnel as may be necessary for operations in effecting surveillance and control over coastal waters and inland waterways. (4) Provide expedited training and equipping of the civil guard and the self-defense corps with the objective of relieving the regular Army of static missions and freeing it for mobile offensive operations. (5) Provide such personnel and equipment as may be necessary to improve the military-political intelligence system beginning at the provincial level and extending upward through the Government and the armed forces to the Central Intelligence Organization. (6) Provide such new terms of reference, reorganization and additional personnel for United States military forces as are required for increased United States military assistance in the operational collaboration with the GVN and operational direction of U.S. forces and to carry out the other increased responsibilities which accrue to the U.S. military authorities under these recommendations. (7) Provide such increased economic aid as may be required to permit the GVN to pursue a vigorous flood relief and rehabilitation program, to supply material in support of the security efforts, and to give priority to projects in support of this expanded counter-insurgency program. (This could include

1490

120. President John F. Kennedy: Letter to President Ngo Dinh Diem

increases in military pay, a full supply of a wide range of materials such as food, medical supplies, transportation equipment, communications equipment, and any other items where material help could assist the GVN in winning the war against the Viet Cong.) (8) Encourage and support (including financial support) a request by the GVN to the FAO [Food, and Agricultural Organization] or any other appropriate international organization for multilateral assistance in the relief and rehabilitation of the flood area. (9) Provide individual administrators and advisers for the Governmental machinery of South Viet-Nam in types and numbers to be agreed upon by the two Governments. (10) Provide personnel for a joint survey with the GVN of conditions in each of the provinces to assess the social, political, intelligence, and military factors bearing on the prosecution of the counter-insurgency program in order to reach a common estimate of these factors and a common determination of how to deal with them. b. On its part, the GVN would initiate the following actions: (1) Prompt and appropriate legislative and administrative action to put the nation on a wartime footing to mobilize its entire resources. (This would include a decentralization and broadening of the Government so as to realize the full potential of all non-Communist elements in the country willing to contribute to the common struggle.) (2) The vitalization of appropriate Governmental wartime agencies with adequate authority to perform their functions effectively. (3) Overhaul of the military establishment and command structure so as to create an effective military organization for the prosecution of the war and assure a mobile offensive capability for the Army. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 419–421.

120. President John F. Kennedy: Letter to President Ngo Dinh Diem, December 14, 1961 Introduction In this letter to President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), U.S. president John F. Kennedy

expresses sympathy for the suffering of the South Vietnamese people caused by “North Vietnam’s effort to take over your country” and pledges firm U.S. support for South Vietnamese efforts to maintain its independence.

Primary Source Dear Mr. President: I have received your recent letter in which you described so cogently the dangerous conditions caused by North Vietnam’s effort to take over your country. The situation in your embattled country is well known to me and to the American people. We have been deeply disturbed by the assault on your country. Our indignation has mounted as the deliberate savagery of the Communist programs of assassination, kidnapping, and wanton violence became clear. Your letter underlines what our own information has convincingly shown—that the campaign of force and terror now being waged against your people and your Government is supported and directed from outside by the authorities at Hanoi. They have thus violated the provisions of the Geneva Accords designed to ensure peace in Vietnam and to which they bound themselves in 1954. At that time, the United States, although not a party to the Accords, declared that it “would view any renewal of the aggression in violation of the Agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security.” We continue to maintain that view. In accordance with that declaration, and in response to your request, we are prepared to help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its people and to preserve its independence. We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort as well as help relieve the destruction of the floods which you describe. I have already given the orders to get these programs underway. The United States, like the Republic of Vietnam, remains devoted to the cause of peace and our primary purpose is to help your people maintain their independence. If the Communist authorities in North Vietnam will stop their campaign to destroy the Republic of Vietnam, the measures we are taking to assist your defense efforts will no longer be necessary. We shall seek to persuade the Communists to give up their attempts to force and subversion. In any case, we are confident that the Vietnamese people will preserve their independence and gain the peace and prosperity for which they have sought so hard and so long. Source: “President Responds to Request from Viet-Nam for U.S. Aid,” Department of State Bulletin 46(1175) (1962): 13.

121. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman: “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam”

121. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman: “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam”, December 3, 1962 [Excerpt] Introduction Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Roger Hilsman here posits that a deterioration in the military and security situation in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) will greatly enhance the possibility of a coup d’état against South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. Hilsman believes that a coup attempt would most likely be non-Communist in nature and would involve elements of the military. In a prescient reading of the situation, Hilsman notes that the United States would likely have advance knowledge of such a coup and that the coup would be accompanied by a worsening of the pacification effort in the countryside.

Primary Source D. Political Situation The stability of the government during the next year will continue to depend principally on Diem’s handling of the internal security situation. If Diem can demonstrate a continuing improvement in security conditions, he should be able to alleviate concern and boost morale within his bureaucracy and military establishment. However, if the fight against the Viet Cong goes badly, if the Viet Cong launches a series of successful and dramatic military operations, or if South Vietnamese army casualties increase appreciably over a protracted period, the chances of a coup attempt against Diem could increase substantially. Moreover, the possibility of a coup attempt at any time cannot be excluded. Many officials and oppositionists feel that, despite the government’s military victories and improved military capabilities and initiative, the GVN is not winning the war principally because of Diem’s virtual one-man rule and his failure to follow through with the political and economic measures necessary to gain the support of the peasants. It is more difficult now than at any time since the crisis in South Vietnam began in late 1959 to estimate reliably the elements that would be most likely to precipitate a coup attempt, the prospects for the success of a coup attempt, or the effects of such an attempt on internal stability and on the counterinsurgency effort itself. During the past year or so, the Viet Cong presumably has improved its ability to initiate a coup and might attempt to do so. However, the Viet Cong probably would not be able to carry out a successful coup, and the odds that it could gain control of a successful coup, although somewhat better than last year, appear to be less than even.

1491

The coup most likely to succeed would be one with nonCommunist leadership and support, principally involving South Vietnamese military elements and civilian officials and perhaps some oppositionists outside the government. The abortive coup attempt in November 1960 and the palace bombing in February 1962 have undoubtedly demonstrated to coup plotters the necessity for better preparation and broader participation by the military. Any future non-Communist coup group probably would not be as deficient in this respect and its leaders, unlike the leaders of the 1960 coup attempt, can be expected to be better prepared to execute their plan quickly. Although the possibility of a Kong Letype coup, i.e., a coup led by a junior and relatively unknown officer, cannot be completely discounted, it is more likely that the coup leadership would include some middle and top echelon military officials. While their role is by no means certain, a major polarization of the GVN military leadership into coup and anticoup groups does not appear likely. Most of them would probably elect to remain uncommitted at the outset of the coup, as they apparently did in November 1960, and would then give their tacit or active support to whatever side appeared to have the best chance of winning. Under these circumstances, a military coup appears to have a better than even chance of succeeding. Diem’s removal—whether by a military coup, assassination, or death from accidental or natural causes—would probably considerably strengthen the power of the military. The odds appear about even between a government led by a military junta or by Vice President Tho, with the army, in the latter case, playing a major if not the predominant role behind the scenes. On the one hand, the military might conclude that a military-led government would be better able to maintain national unity and internal political cohesion and, more importantly, to conduct a determined and effective campaign against the Viet Cong. On the other hand, they might conclude that Tho, who apparently has been on good terms with some of the present top military leaders, would not disagree with their views on the manner of conducting the fight against the Communists and that his constitutional succession would legalize the change in government and possibly avert a serious power struggle. (Although Diem’s brothers, Nhu and Can, would probably also be removed by a coup, if Diem left the scene for other reasons his brothers might attempt to retain real political power.) In any event, a government led by the military, by Tho, or by any other civilian approved by the military would probably maintain South Vietnam’s pro-US orientation. If there is a serious disruption of government leadership as a result of a military coup or as a result of Diem’s death, any momentum the government’s counterinsurgency efforts had achieved would probably be halted and possibly reversed, at least for a time. Moreover, the confusion and suspicion attending the disruption would provide the Viet Cong guerrillas an opportunity to strengthen their position in the countryside and attack some installations in large

1492

122. Mike Mansfield, Senator: Report to President John F. Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam

force, but they would probably fail if they attempted to seize control of the government. Under most of the foreseeable circumstances involving a coup, the role of the US could be extremely important. Although this is by no means certain, US military and intelligence officials might well have advance notice of an impending coup and might be able to restrain the coup plotters from precipitous action. Even if unable to restrain such action, however, US officials might have greater success in averting widespread fighting and a serious power struggle which would lead to excessive bloodshed and weaken the front against the Viet Cong. The US could also be helpful in achieving agreement among the coup leaders as to who should lead the government in restoring the momentum of the government’s counterinsurgency effort. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 12 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 520–521.

122. Mike Mansfield, Senator: Report to President John F. Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, December 18, 1962 [Excerpt] Introduction Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, initially supported the U.S. effort in Vietnam. Following a factfinding trip to Southeast Asia at the end of 1962, however, Mansfield reports to President John F. Kennedy that the United States is in danger of being drawn into a full-scale war, that it might be seen as playing the role of a “neocolonial” power, and that little thought appears to have been given to the consequences. Mansfield urges Kennedy to undertake a diplomatic effort that will minimize U.S. involvement on the Asian mainland.

Primary Source Even assuming that aid over a prolonged period would be available, the question still remains as to the capacity of the present Saigon government to carry out the task of social engineering. Ngo Dinh Diem remains a dedicated, sincere, hardworking, incorruptible and patriotic leader. But he is older and the problems which confront him are more complex than those which he faced when he pitted his genuine nationalism against, first, the French and Bao Dai and then against the sects with such effectiveness. The energizing role, which he played in the past appears to be passing to other members of his family, particularly Ngo Dinh Nhu. The latter is a person of great energy and intellect who is fascinated by the operations of political power and has

consummate eagerness and ability in organizing and manipulating it. But it is Ngo Dinh Diem, not Ngo Dinh Nhu, who has such popular mandate to exercise power as there is in South Vietnam. In a situation of this kind there is a great danger of the corruption of unbridled power. This has implications far beyond the persistent reports and rumors of fiscal and similar irregularities which are, in any event, undocumented. More important is its effect on the organization of the machinery for carrying out the new concepts. The difficulties in Vietnam are not likely to be overcome by a handful of paid retainers and sycophants. The success of the new approach in Vietnam presupposes a great contribution of initiative and self-sacrifice from a substantial body of Vietnamese with capacities for leadership at all levels. Whether that contribution can be obtained remains to be seen. For in the last analysis it depends upon a diffusion of political power, essentially in a democratic pattern. The trends in the political life of Vietnam have not been until now in that direction despite lip service to the theory of developing democratic and popular institutions “from the bottom up” through the strategic hamlet program. To summarize, our policies and activities are designed to meet an existing set of internal problems in south Vietnam. North Vietnam infiltrates some supplies and cadres into the south; together with the Vietnamese we are trying to shut off this flow. The Vietcong has had the offensive in guerrilla warfare in the countryside; we are attempting to aid the Vietnamese military in putting them on the defensive with the hope of eventually reducing them at least to ineffectiveness. Finally, the Vietnamese peasants have sustained the Vietcong guerrillas out of fear, indifference or blandishment and we are helping the Vietnamese in an effort to win the peasants away by offering them the security and other benefits which may be provided in the strategic hamlets. That, in brief, is the present situation. As noted, there is optimism that success will be achieved quickly. My own view is that the problems can be made to yield to present remedies, provided the problems and their magnitude do not change significantly and provided that the remedies are pursued by both Vietnamese and Americans (and particularly the former) with great vigor and self-dedication. Certainly, if these remedies do not work, it is difficult to conceive of alternatives, with the possible exception of a truly massive commitment of American military personnel and other resources—in short going to war fully ourselves against the guerrillas—and the establishment of some form of neocolonial rule in south Vietnam. That is an alternative which I most emphatically do not recommend. On the contrary, it seems to me most essential that we make crystal clear to the Vietnamese government and to our own people that while we will go to great lengths to help, the primary responsibility rests with the Vietnamese. Our role is and must remain

123. Nguyen Chi Thanh, Lao Dong Political Bureau Member: Article 1493 secondary in present circumstances. It is their country, their future which is most at stake, not ours.

way possible not to deepen our costly involvement on the Asian mainland but to lighten it.

To ignore that reality will not only be immensely costly in terms of American lives and resources but it may also draw us inexorably into some variation of the unenviable position in Vietnam which was formerly occupied by the French. We are not, of course, at that point at this time. But the great increase in American military commitment this year has tended to point us in that general direction and we may well begin to slide rapidly toward it if any of the present remedies begin to falter in practice.

Source: Mike Mansfield, Two Reports on Vietnam and Southeast Asia to the President of the U.S. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), 139–140.

As indicated, our planning appears to be predicated on the assumption that existing internal problems in South Vietnam will remain about the same and can be overcome by greater effort and better techniques. But what if the problems do not remain the same? To all outward appearances, little if any thought has been given in Saigon at least, to the possibilities of a change in the nature of the problems themselves. Nevertheless, they are very real possibilities and the initiative for instituting change rests in enemy hands largely because of the weakness of the Saigon government. The range of possible change includes a step-up in the infiltration of cadres and supplies by land or sea. It includes the use of part or all of the regular armed forces of North Vietnam, reported to be about 300,000 strong, under Vo Nguyen Giap. It includes, in the last analysis, the possibility of a major increase in any of many possible forms of Chinese Communist support for the Vietcong. None of these possibilities may materialize. It would be folly, however, not to recognize their existence and to have as much clarification in advance of what our response to them will be if they do. This sort of anticipatory thinking cannot be undertaken with respect to the situation in Vietnam alone. The problem there can be grasped, it seems to me, only as we have clearly in mind our interests with respect to all of Southeast Asia. If it is essential in our own interests to maintain a quasi-permanent position of power on the Asian mainland as against the Chinese then we must be prepared to continue to pay the present cost in Vietnam indefinitely and to meet any escalation on the other side with at least a commensurate escalation of commitment of our own. This can go very far, indeed, in terms of lives and resources. Yet if it is essential to our interests then we would have no choice. But if on the other hand it is, at best, only desirable rather than essential that a position of power be maintained on the mainland, then other courses are indicated. We would, then, properly view such improvement as may be obtained by the new approach in Vietnam primarily in terms of what it might contribute to strengthening our diplomatic hand in the Southeast Asian region. And we would use that hand as vigorously as possible and in every

123. Nguyen Chi Thanh, Lao Dong Political Bureau Member: Article, July 1963 [Excerpt] Introduction Here Nguyen Chi Thanh, a member of the powerful Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) Political Bureau in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), takes issue with the view of the Soviet Union that armed struggle in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) should be avoided because it might lead to world war. Thanh takes the position that the United States should not be feared and that it can be defeated militarily.

Primary Source Although ultimate conclusions cannot yet be reached insofar as the struggle is still going on in south Viet Nam, we may however put forth the following views: 1. The U.S. imperialists are not invincible. Compared with imperialists of other countries, they are mightier, but compared with the revolutionary forces and the forces of the people of the world, they are not at all strong. If the proletarian revolution and people of the world resolutely struggle against U.S. imperialism, they can surely repel it step by step and narrow down its domain. We do not have any illusions about the United States. We do not underestimate our opponent—the strong and cunning U.S. imperialism. But we are not afraid of the United States. The strategic concept thoroughly pervades the revolutionary line of south Viet Nam and is the fundamental factor determining the success of the revolution. If, on the contrary, one is afraid of the United States and thinks that to offend it would court failure, and that firm opposition to U.S. imperialism would touch off a nuclear war, then the only course left would be to compromise with and surrender to U.S. imperialism. 2. A powerful north Viet Nam will be a decisive factor in the social development of our entire country. But this does not mean that simply because the north is strong, the revolutionary movement in the south will automatically succeed. The powerful north Viet Nam and the revolutionary movement of the south Vietnamese people are mutually complementary and must be closely coordinated; the

1494

124. Memorandum for the Record of U.S. State Department Meeting

building of the north itself cannot replace the resolution of the inherent social contradictions of south Viet Nam. Adhering to this correct view, we have avoided opportunistic mistakes. If, on the contrary, we had feared the United States and had no faith in the success of our struggles against it, we would have called on the people in south Viet Nam to “wait” and “coexist peacefully” with the U.S.Diem clique, and committed an irreparable error. We have correctly handled the relations between north and south Viet Nam. This is a Marxist-Leninist strategic concept which is in conformity with the latest experience in the world developments and those in our own country.

2. Mr. Rusk then asked if we should not pick up Ambassador Lodge’s suggestion in his message of today (Saigon 391) and determine what steps are required to re-gird solidarity in South Vietnam—such as improvement in conditions concerning students and Buddhists and the possible departure of Madame Nhu. He said that we should determine what additional measures are needed to improve the international situation—such as problems affecting Cambodia—and to improve the Vietnamese position wherein U.S. public opinion is concerned. He then said that he is reluctant to start off by saying now that Nhu has to go; that it is unrealistic.

Source: Chi Thanh Nguyen, Who Will Win in South Viet Nam? (Peking: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1963).

3. Mr. McNamara stated that he favored the above proposals of the Secretary of State, with one additional step—that is to establish quickly and firmly our line of communication between Lodge, Harkins and the GVN. He pointed out that at the moment our channels of communication are essentially broken and that they should be reinstituted at all costs.

124. Memorandum for the Record of U.S. State Department Meeting, August 31, 1963 Introduction Dissatisfaction had steadily grown in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), especially among senior commanders of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), with the leadership of President Ngo Dinh Diem. This was caused by Diem’s authoritarian rule, his refusal to listen to the advice of others beyond his own family circle and a few trusted advisers, his appointment of senior officials and army officers on the basis of political loyalty rather than demonstrated ability, his failure to effectively prosecute the war against the Communist insurgents, and rampant corruption. With the U.S. government ambivalent and worried that those planning the coup lacked sufficient strength, the coup planners temporarily suspended their effort, giving pause in Washington and prompting renewed debate among senior U.S. foreign policy officials as to whether the war could indeed be won under Diem’s leadership.

Primary Source 1. Secretary Rusk stated that, in his judgment, we were back to where we were about Wednesday of last week, and this causes him to go back to the original problem and ask what in the situation led us to think well of a coup. Ruling out hatred of the Nhus, he said, there would appear to be three things: a. The things that the Nhus had done or supported, which tended to upset the GVN internally. b. The things that they had done that had an adverse external effect. c. The great pressures of U.S. public opinion.

4. Mr. Rusk added that we must do our best not to permit Diem to decapitate his military command in light of its obviously adverse effect on the prosecution of the war. At this point he asked if anyone present had any doubt in his mind but that the coup was off. 5. Mr. Kattenburg said that he had some remaining doubt; that we have not yet sent the generals a strong enough message; that the VOA statement regarding the withdrawal of aid was most important, but that we repudiated it too soon. He stated further that the group should take note of the fact that General Harkins did not carry out his instructions with respect to communication with the generals. Mr. Rusk interrupted Kattenburg to state that, to the contrary, he believed Harkins’ conduct was exactly correct in light of the initial response which he received from General Khiem (they were referring to Harkins’ report in MACV 1583). 6. Mr. Hilsman commented that, in his view, the generals are not now going to move unless they are pressed by a revolt from below. In this connect Ambassador Nolting warned that in the uncoordinated Vietnamese structure anything can happen, and that while an organized successful coup is out, there might be small flurries by irresponsible dissidents at any time. 7. Mr. Hilsman undertook to present four basic factors which bear directly on the problem confronting the U.S. now. They are, in his view: a. The mood of the people, particularly the middle level officers, noncommissioned officers and middle level bureaucrats, who are most restive. Mr. McNamara interrupted to state that he had seen no evidence of this and General Taylor commented that he had seen none either, but would like to see such evidence as Hilsman

125. President John F. Kennedy’s Remarks on the Situation in Vietnam 1495 could produce. Mr. Kattenburg commented that the middle level officers and bureaucrats are uniformly critical of the government, to which Mr. McNamara commented that if this indeed be the fact we should know about it. b. The second basic factor, as outlined by Hilsman, was what effect will be felt on our programs elsewhere in Asia if we acquiesce to a strong Nhu-dominated government. In this connection, he reported that there is a Korean study now underway on just how much repression the United States will tolerate before pulling out her aid. Mr. McNamara stated that he had not seen this study and would be anxious to have it. c. The third basic factor is Mr. Nhu, his personality and his policy. Hilsman recalled that Nhu has once already launched an effort aimed at withdrawal of our province advisors and stated that he is sure he is in conversation with the French. He gave, as supporting evidence, the content of an intercepted message, which Mr. Bundy asked to see. Ambassador Nolting expressed the opinion that Nhu will not make a deal with Ho Chi Minh on Ho’s terms. d. The fourth point is the matter of U.S. and world opinion, Hilsman stated that this problem was moving to a political and diplomatic plane. Part of the problem, he said, is the press, which concludes incorrectly that we have the ability to change the things in Vietnam of which they are critical. To this Mr. Murrow added that this problem of press condemnation is now worldwide. 8. Mr. Kattenburg stated that as recently as last Thursday it was the belief of Ambassador Lodge that, if we undertake to live with this repressive regime, with its bayonets at every street corner and its transparent negotiations with puppet bonzes, we are going to be thrown out of the country in six months. He stated that at this juncture it would be better for us to make the decision to get out honorably. He went on to say that, having been acquainted with Diem for ten years, he was deeply disappointed in him, saying that he will not separate from his brother. It was Kattenburg’s view that Diem will get very little support from the military and, as time goes on, he will get less and less support and the country will go steadily down hill. 9. General Taylor asked what Kattenburg meant when he said that we would be forced out of Vietnam within six months. Kattenburg replied that in from six months to a year, as the people see we are losing the war, they will gradually go to the other side and we will be obliged to leave. Ambassador Nolting expressed general disagreement with Mr. Kattenburg. He said that the unfavorable activity which motivated Kattenburg’s remarks was confined to the city and, while city support of Diem is doubtless less now, it is not greatly so. He said that it is improper to overlook the fact that we have done a tremendous job toward winning the Vietnam war, working with this same imperfect, annoying government.

10. Mr. Kattenburg added that there is one new factor—the population, which was in high hopes of expelling the Nhus after the VOA announcement regarding cessation of aid; now, under the heel of Nhu’s military repression, they would quickly lose heart. 11. Secretary Rusk commented that Kattenburg’s recital was largely speculative; that it would be far better for us to start on the firm basis of two things—that we will not pull out of Vietnam until the war is won, and that we will not run a coup; Mr. McNamara expressed agreement with this view. 12. Mr. Rusk then said that we should present questions to Lodge which fall within these parameters. He added that he believes we have good proof that we have been winning the war, particularly the contrast between the first six months of 1962 and the first six months of 1963. He then asked the Vice President if he had any contribution to make. 13. The Vice President stated that he agreed with Secretary Rusk’s conclusions completely; that he had great reservations himself with respect to a coup, particularly so because he had never really seen a genuine alternative to Diem. He stated that from both a practical and political viewpoint, it would be a disaster to pull out; that we should stop playing cops and robbers and get back to talking straight to the GVN, and that we should once again go about winning the war. He stated that after our communications with them are genuinely reestablished, it may be necessary for someone to talk rough to them—perhaps General Taylor. He said further that he had been greatly impressed with Ambassador Nolting’s views and agreed with Mr. McNamara’s conclusions. 14. General Taylor raised the question of whether we should change the disposition of the forces which had been set in motion as a result of the crisis. It was agreed that there should be no change in the existing disposition for the time being. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 2. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 741–743.

125. President John F. Kennedy’s Remarks on the Situation in Vietnam, September 2, 1963 Introduction By late 1963, U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s position on the war was ambiguous. He told Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield that he was determined to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam after the 1964 elections but that any announcement of this before

1496

126. Report of the McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam

the election would result in a conservative backlash, possibly costing Kennedy the election. On September 2 in the course of an interview with CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite, President Kennedy declares that the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) is out of touch with the people. He concludes that “In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. . . . But I don’t agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake.” In a news conference on September 12 he listed three objectives of U.S. policy in Vietnam as: win the war, contain the Communists, and bring Americans home. But on November 12 he listed the objectives as being “to bring Americans home, permit the South Vietnamese to maintain themselves as a free and independent country, and permit democratic forces within the country to operate.” There was no mention of winning the war. Kennedy’s last statement on Vietnam, made in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 22, reveals the dilemma that he faced: “Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight.” That same day he was killed in Dallas by an assassin. While there is simply no way of knowing what Kennedy would have done about Vietnam had he lived, his statements about withdrawal were made when the United States was seen as having the upper hand.

Primary Source Mr. Cronkite: Mr. President, the only hot war we’ve got running at the moment is of course the one in Viet-Nam, and we have our difficulties there, quite obviously. The President: I don’t think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don’t think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months, the government has gotten out of touch with the people. The repressions against the Buddhists, we felt, were very unwise. Now all we can do is to make it very clear that we don’t think this is the way to win. It is my hope that this will become increasingly obvious to the government, that they will take steps to try to bring back popular support for this very essential struggle.

Mr. Cronkite: Hasn’t every indication from Saigon been that President Diem has no intention of changing his pattern? The President: If he does not change it, of course, that is his decision. He has been there 10 years and, as I say, he has carried this burden when he has been counted out on a number of occasions. Our best judgment is that he can’t be successful on this basis. We hope that he comes to see that, but in the final analysis it is the people and the government itself who have to win or lose this struggle. All we can do is help, and we are making it very clear, but I don’t agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. I know people don’t like Americans to be engaged in this kind of an effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away. We took all this—made this effort to defend Europe. Now Europe is quite secure. We also have to participate—we may not like it— in the defense of Asia. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 651–652.

126. Report of the McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam, October 2, 1963 [Excerpt] Introduction U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara and presidential military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor returned from a factfinding mission to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with an optimistic view of progress there since the beginning of 1962. At the same time, however, they doubted that South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem had sufficient support in the cities to enable the government to achieve victory and call for specific actions by the U.S. government to force Diem to institute reforms.

Primary Source I. Conclusions and Recommendations A. Conclusions.

Mr. Cronkite: Do you think this government still has time to regain the support of the people?

1. The military campaign has made great progress and continues to progress.

The President: I do. With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can. If it doesn’t make those changes, I would think that the chances of winning it would not be very good.

2. There are serious political tensions in Saigon (and perhaps elsewhere in South Vietnam) where the Diem-Nhu government is becoming increasingly unpopular.

126. Report of the McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam 1497 3. There is no solid evidence of the possibility of a successful coup, although assassination of Diem or Nhu is always a possibility. 4. Although some, and perhaps an increasing number, of GVN military officers are becoming hostile to the government, they are more hostile to the Viet Cong than to the government and at least for the near future they will continue to perform their military duties. 5. Further repressive actions by Diem and Nhu could change the present favorable military trends. On the other hand, a return to more moderate methods of control and administration, unlikely though it may be, would substantially mitigate the political crisis. 6. It is not clear that pressures exerted by the U.S. will move Diem and Nhu toward moderation. Indeed, pressures may increase their obduracy. But unless such pressures are exerted, they are almost certain to continue past patterns of behavior. B. Recommendations. We recommend that: 1. General Harkins review with Diem the military changes necessary to complete the military campaign in the Northern and Central areas (I, II, and III Corps) by the end of 1954 [1964?], and in the Delta (IV Corps) by the end of 1965. This review would consider the need for such changes as: a. A further shift of military emphasis and strength to the Delta (IV Corps). b. An increase in the military tempo in all corps areas, so that all combat troops are in the Field an average of 20 days out of 30 and static missions are ended. c. Emphasis on “clear and hold operations” instead of terrain sweeps which have little permanent value. d. The expansion of personnel in combat units to full authorized strength. e. The training and arming of hamlet militia at an accelerated rate, especially in the Delta. f. A consolidation of the strategic hamlet program, especially in the Delta, and action to insure that future strategic hamlets are not built until they can be protected, and until civic action programs can be introduced. 2. A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time. 3. In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans

to withdraw 1000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963. This action should be explained in low key as an initial step in a longterm program to replace U.S. personnel with trained Vietnamese without impairment of the war effort. 4. The following actions be taken to impress upon Diem our disapproval of his political program. a. Continue to withhold commitment of funds in the commodity import program, but avoid a formal announcement. The potential significance of the withholding of commitments for the 1964 military budget should be brought home to the top military officers in working level contacts between USOM and MACV and the Joint General Staff; up to now we have stated $95 million may be used by the Vietnamese as a planning level for the commodity import program for 1964. Henceforth we could make clear that this is uncertain both because of lack of final appropriation action by the Congress and because of executive policy. b. Suspend approval of the pending AID [Agency for International Development] loans for the Saigon-Cholon Waterworks and Saigon Electric Power Project. We should state clearly that we are doing so as a matter of policy. c. Advise Diem that MAP [Military Assistance Program] and CIA support for designated units, now under Colonel Tung’s control (mostly held in or near the Saigon area for political reasons) will be cut off unless these units are promptly assigned to the full authority of the Joint General Staff and transferred to the field. d. Maintain the present purely “correct” relations with the top GVN, and specifically between the Ambassador and Diem. Contact between General Harkins and Diem and Defense Secretary Thuan on military matters should not, however, be suspended, as this remains an important channel of advice. USOM and USIA should also seek to maintain contacts where these are needed to push forward programs in support of the effort in the field, while taking care not to cut across the basic picture of U.S. disapproval and uncertainty of U.S. aid intentions. We should work with the Diem government but not support it. As we pursue these courses of action, the situation must be closely watched to see what steps Diem is taking to reduce repressive practices and to improve the effectiveness of the military effort. We should set no fixed criteria, but recognize that we would have to decide in 2–4 months whether to move to more drastic action or try to carry on with Diem even if he had not taken significant steps. 5. At this time, no initiative should be taken to encourage actively a change in government. Our policy should be to seek urgently to identify and build contacts with an alternative leadership if and when it appears.

1498

127. John Richardson, CIA Station Chief: Cablegram to CIA Director John McCone

6. The following statement be approved as current U.S. policy toward South Vietnam and constitute the substance of the government position to be presented both in Congressional testimony and in public statements. a. The security of South Vietnam remains vital to United States security. For this reason, we adhere to the overriding objective of denying this country to Communism and of suppressing the Viet Cong insurgency as promptly as possible. (By suppressing the insurgency we mean reducing it to proportions manageable by the national security forces of the GVN, unassisted by the presence of U.S. military forces.) We believe the U.S. part of the task can be completed by the end of 1965, the terminal date which we are taking as the time objective of our counterinsurgency programs. b. The military program in Vietnam has made progress and is sound in principle. c. The political situation in Vietnam remains deeply serious. It has not yet significantly affected the military effort, but could do so at some time in the future. If the result is a GVN ineffective in the conduct of the war, the U.S. will review its attitude toward support for the government. Although we are deeply concerned by repressive practices, effective performance in the conduct of the war should be the determining factor in our relations with the GVN. d. The U.S. has expressed its disapproval of certain actions of the Diem-Nhu regime and will do so again if required. Our policy is to seek to bring about the abandonment of repression because of its effect on the popular will to resist. Our means consist of expressions of disapproval and the withholding of support from GVN activities that are not clearly contributing to the war effort. We will use these means as required to assure an effective military program.

Primary Source 1. [Officially deleted.] 2. I have recommended to Ambassador Lodge that: A. That we proceed with these conversations with Gen. Minh. B. We do not set ourselves irrevocably against the assassination plot, since the other two alternatives mean either a bloodbath in Saigon or a protracted struggle which could rip the army and the country asunder. Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Activities with Respect to Intelligence, Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975): 220.

128. White House: Cablegram to U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. on the CIA Channel, October 5, 1963 Introduction

127. John Richardson, CIA Station Chief: Cablegram to CIA Director John McCone, October 5, 1963

Following government-sponsored attacks by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) against Buddhist opposition to the regime, Washington suspended economic subsidies for South Vietnamese commercial imports, froze loans for developmental projects, and cut off financial support of the 2,000-man South Vietnamese Special Forces responsible for the outrages. This action was a clear signal to dissident generals plotting to overthrow South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. Fearful of a double-cross, the generals involved refused to reveal the timing of their coup attempt. Nonetheless, General Dong Van Minh had approached a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contact in Saigon about a plan to assassinate Diem. Minh requested assurance from the U.S. government that it would not oppose the coup attempt. President John F. Kennedy then cables ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge and instructs him that while he is not to support a coup attempt, he is to maintain contacts with the dissident generals and monitor the situation closely.

Introduction

Primary Source

Here John Richardson, heading the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station in Saigon, informs CIA director John A. McCone that he has recommended to U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge that he not “irrevocably” oppose plans by the South Vietnamese generals to assassinate President Ngo Dinh Diem.

In conjunction with decisions and recommendations in separate EPTEL, President today approved recommendation that no initiative should now be taken to give any active covert encouragement to a coup. There should, however, be urgent covert effort with closest security, under broad guidance of Ambassador to identify and build contacts with possible alternative leadership as and when it

Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 12 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 554–557.

130. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Cable to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy Discussing Coup Prospects 1499 appears. Essential that this effort be totally secure and fully deniable and separated entirely from normal political analysis and reporting and other activities of country team. We repeat that this effort is not repeat not to be aimed at active promotion of coup but only at surveillance and readiness. In order to provide plausibility to denial suggest you and no one else in Embassy issue these instructions orally to Acting Station Chief and hold him responsible to you alone for making appropriate contacts and reporting to you alone. All reports to Washington on this subject should be on this channel. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 2. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 766–767.

129. John McCone, CIA Director: Cablegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., October 6, 1963 Introduction Following a conversation with President John F. Kennedy, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John A. McCone cabled U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge to modify instructions of the day before. McCone tells Lodge that while he is not to give the impression that the United States is actively seeking to overthrow Diem, Lodge should make clear to the generals that the United States will not “thwart a change of government.” The White House also seeks additional information on the coup planning from General Dong Van Minh in order to gauge the possibility of success.

Primary Source 1. Believe CAP 63560 gives general guidance requested, REFTEL. We have following additional general thoughts which have been discussed with President. While we do not wish to stimulate coup, we also do not wish to leave impression that U.S. would thwart a change of government or deny economic and military assistance to a new regime if it appeared capable of increasing effectiveness of military effort, ensuring popular support to win war and improving working relations with U.S. We would like to be informed on what is being contemplated but we should avoid being drawn into reviewing or advising on operational plans or any other act which might tend to identify U.S. too closely with change in government. We would, however, welcome information which would help us assess character of any alternate leadership. 2. With reference to specific problem of General Minh you should seriously consider having contact take position that in present

state his knowledge he is unable present Minh’s case to responsible policy officials with any degree of seriousness. In order to get responsible officials even to consider Minh’s problem, contact would have to have detailed information clearly indicating that Minh’s plans offer a high prospect of success. At present contact sees no such prospect in the information so far provided. 3. You should also consider with Acting Station Chief whether it would be desirable in order to preserve security and deniability in this as well as similar approaches to others whether appropriate arrangements could be made for follow-up contacts by individuals brought in especially from outside Vietnam. As we indicated in CAP 63560 we are most concerned about security problem and we are confining knowledge these sensitive matters in Washington to extremely limited group, high officials in White House, State, Defense and CIA with whom this message cleared. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 2. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 769.

130. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Cable to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy Discussing Coup Prospects, October 25, 1963 Introduction In response to the request from the White House of October 6, 1963, U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge cables Washington with details of discussions between U.S. officials and dissident Republic of Vietnam Army (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) generals planning a coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Lodge believes that this is a serious effort.

Primary Source 1. I appreciate the concern expressed by you in ref. a relative to the Gen. Don/Conein relationship, and also the present lack of firm intelligence on the details of the general’s plot. I hope that ref. b will assist in clearing up some of the doubts relative to general’s plans, and I am hopeful that the detailed plans promised for two days before the coup attempt will clear up any remaining doubts. 2. CAS [Classified American Source, referring to the CIA] has been punctilious in carrying out my instructions. I have personally approved each meeting between Gen. Don and Conein who has carried out my orders in each instance explicitly. While I share your concern about the continued involvement of Conein in this matter, a suitable substitute for Conein as the principal contact is

1500

131. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor: Cable

not presently available. Conein, as you know, is a friend of some eighteen years’ standing with Gen. Don, and General Don has expressed extreme reluctance to deal with anyone else. I do not believe the involvement of another American in close contact with the generals would be productive. We are, however, considering the feasibility of a plan for the introduction of an additional officer as a cut-out between Conein and a designee of Gen. Don for communication purposes only. This officer is completely unwitting of any details of past or present coup activities and will remain so. 3. With reference to Gen Harkins’ comment to Gen. Don which Don reports to have referred to a presidential directive and the proposal for a meeting with me, this may have served the useful purpose of allaying the General’s fears as to our interest. If this were a provocation, the GVN could have assumed and manufactured any variations of the same theme. As a precautionary measure, however, I of course refused to see Gen. Don. As to the lack of information as to General Don’s real backing, and the lack of evidence that any real capabilities for action have been developed, ref. b provides only part of the answer. I feel sure that the reluctance of the generals to provide the U.S. with full details of their plans at this time, is a reflection of their own sense of security and a lack of confidence that in the large American community present in Saigon their plans will not be prematurely revealed. 4. The best evidence available to the Embassy, which I grant you is not as complete as we would like it, is that Gen. Don and the other generals involved with him are seriously attempting to effect a change in the government. I do not believe that this is a provocation by Ngo Dinh Nhu, although we shall continue to assess the planning as well as possible. In the event that the coup aborts, or in the event that Nhu has masterminded a provocation, I believe that our involvement to date through Conein is still within the realm of plausible denial. CAS is perfectly prepared to have me disavow Conein at any time it may serve the national interest. 5. I welcome your reaffirming instructions contained in CAS Washington [cable] 74228. It is vital that we neither thwart a coup nor that we are even in a position where we do not know what is going on. 6. We should not thwart a coup for two reasons. First, it seems at least an even bet that the next government would not bungle and stumble as much as the present one has. Secondly, it is extremely unwise in the long range for us to pour cold water on attempts at a coup, particularly when they are just in their beginning stages. We should remember that this is the only way in which the people in Vietnam can possibly get a change of government. Whenever we thwart attempts at a coup, as we have done in the past, we are incurring very long lasting resentments, we are assuming an undue responsibility for keeping the incumbents in office, and in general are setting ourselves in judgment over the affairs of

Vietnam. Merely to keep in touch with this situation and a policy merely limited to “not thwarting” are courses both of which entail some risks but these are lesser risks than either thwarting all coups while they are stillborn or our not being informed of what is happening. All the above is totally distinct from not wanting U.S. military advisors to be distracted by matters which are not in their domain, with which I heartily agree. But obviously this does not conflict with a policy of not thwarting. In judging proposed coups, we must consider the effect on the war effort. Certainly a succession of fights for control of the Government of Vietnam would interfere with the war effort. It must also be said that the war effort has been interfered with already by the incompetence of the present government and the uproar which this has caused. 7. Gen. Don’s intention to have no religious discrimination in a future government is commendable and I applaud his desire not to be “a vassal” of the U.S. But I do not think his promise of a democratic election is realistic. This country simply is not ready for that procedure. I would add two other requirements. First, that there be no wholesale purges of personnel in the government. Individuals who were particularly reprehensible could be dealt with later by the regular legal process. Then I would be impractical, but I am thinking of a government which might include Tri Quang and which certainly should include men of the stature of Mr. Buu, the labor leader. 8. Copy to Gen. Harkins. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 12 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 590–591.

131. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor: Cable to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Expressing Reservations about the Coup, October 30, 1963 Introduction Washington continued to be of two minds about coup planning by dissident generals to topple President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). While U.S. government officials were deeply frustrated with Diem and his policies, there was great concern over the possible consequence of a failed coup as well as what might follow with success. Here National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy informs U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge that President John F. Kennedy seeks assurances that the balance of forces favors the plotters. Without such, Lodge is to discourage the effort.

131. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor: Cable

Primary Source 1. Your [cables] 2023, 2040, 2041 and 2043 examined with care at highest levels here. You should promptly discuss this reply and associated messages with Harkins whose responsibilities toward any coup are very heavy especially after you leave (see para. 7 below). They give much clearer picture group’s alleged plans and also indicate chances of action with or without our approval now so significant that we should urgently consider our attitude and contingency plans. We note particularly Don’s curiosity your departure and his insistence Conein be available from Wednesday night on, which suggests date might be as early as Thursday. 2. Believe our attitude to coup group can still have decisive effect on its decisions. We believe that what we say to coup group can produce delay of coup and that betrayal of coup plans to Diem is not repeat not our only way of stopping coup. We therefore need urgently your combined assessment with Harkins and CAS (including their separate comments if they desire). We concerned that our line-up of forces in Saigon (being cabled in next message) indicates approximately equal balance of forces, with substantial possibility serious and prolonged fighting or even defeat. Either of these could be serious or even disastrous for U.S. interests, so that we must have assurance balance of forces clearly favorable. 3. With your assessment in hand, we might feel that we should convey message to Don, whether or not he gives 4 or 48 hours notice that would (A) continue explicit hands-off policy, (B) positively encourage coup, or (C) discourage. 4. In any case, believe Conein should find earliest opportunity express to Don that we do not find presently revealed plans give clear prospect of quick results. This conversation should call attention important Saigon units still apparently loyal to Diem and raise serious issue as to what means coup group has to deal with them. 5. From operational standpoint, we also deeply concerned Don only spokesman for group and possibility cannot be discounted he may not be in good faith. We badly need some corroborative evidence whether Minh and others directly and completely involved. In view Don’s claim he doesn’t handle “military planning” could not Conein tell Don that we need better military picture and that Big Minh could communicate this most naturally and easily to [General Richard] Stilwell [Harkins’s chief of staff]? We recognize desirability involving MACV [U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] to minimum, but believe Stilwell far more desirable this purpose than using Conein both ways. 6. Complexity above actions raises question whether you should adhere to present Thursday schedule. Concur you and other U.S.

1501

elements should take no action that could indicate U.S. awareness coup possibility. However, DOD [Department of Defense] is sending berth-equipped military aircraft that will arrive Saigon Thursday and could take you out thereafter as late as Saturday afternoon in time to meet your presently proposed arrival Washington Sunday. You could explain this being done as convenience and that your Washington arrival is same. A further advantage such aircraft is that it would permit your prompt return from any point en route if necessary. To reduce time in transit, you should use this plane, but we recognize delaying your departure may involve greater risk that you personally would appear involved if any action took place. However, advantages your having extra two days in Saigon may outweigh this and we leave timing of flight to your judgment. 7. Whether you leave Thursday or later, believe it essential that prior your departure there be fullest consultation Harkins and CAS and that there be clear arrangements for handling (A) normal activity, (B) continued coup contacts, (C) action in event a coup starts. We assume you will wish Truehart as charge to be head of country team in normal situation, but highest authority desires it clearly understood that after your departure Harkins should participate in supervision of all coup contacts and that in event a coup begins, he become head of country team and direct representative of President, with [William] Truehart [deputy chief of mission] in effect acting as POLAD [political adviser]. On coup contacts we will maintain continuous guidance and will expect equally continuous reporting with prompt account of any important divergences in assessments of Harkins and Smith. 8. If coup should start, question of protecting U.S. nationals at once arises. We can move Marine Battalion into Saigon by air from Okinawa within 24 hours—if available. We are sending instructions to CINCPAC to arrange orderly movement of seaborne Marine Battalion to waters adjacent to South Vietnam in position to close Saigon within approximately 24 hours. 9. We are now examining post-coup contingencies here and request your immediate recommendations on position to be adopted after coup begins, especially with respect to requests for assistance of different sorts from one side or the other also request you forward contingency recommendations for action if coup (A) succeeds, (B) fails, (C) is indecisive. 10. We reiterate burden of proof must be on coup group to show a substantial possibility of quick success; otherwise, we should discourage them from proceeding since a miscalculation could result in jeopardizing U.S. position in Southeast Asia. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 2. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 782–783.

1502

132. Phone Conversation between Ngo Dinh Diem and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

132. Phone Conversation between Ngo Dinh Diem and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., November 1, 1963 Introduction On November 1, 1963, dissident Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) generals launched their coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. The rebels seized the radio station and police headquarters and besieged the presidential palace. Diem then telephoned U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. In the ensuing conversation, Diem informs Lodge of events and inquires about the attitude of the U.S. government. Lodge professes ignorance of what is transpiring and tells Diem that because of the time difference in Washington, it is too early for the U.S. government to take an official position. Lodge professes concern for Diem’s safety and tells him that there is a report that the generals have promised him safe passage abroad if he resigns. Early that same evening, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu secretly left the presidential palace to seek refuge at St. Francis Xavier Church in Cholon. In an attempt to negotiate with the rebels Diem revealed his hiding place, and he and his brother were arrested there the next day and subsequently executed.

Primary Source DIEM: Some Units have made a rebellion and I want to know, what is the attitude of the U.S.? LODGE: I do not feel well enough informed to be able to tell you. I have heard the shootings but with all the facts. Also, it is 4:30 A.M. in Washington and the U.S. Government cannot possibly have a view. DIEM: But you must have some general ideas. After all, I am Chief of State. I have tried to do my duty. I want to do now what duty and good sense require. I believe in duty above all. LODGE: You have certainly done your duty. As I told you only this morning, I admire your courage and your great contribution to your country. No one can take away from you the credit for all you have done. Now I am worried about your physical safety. I have a report that those in charge of the current activity offer you and your brother safe conduct out of the country if you resign. Had you heard this? DIEM: No. [pause] You have my phone number. LODGE: Yes. If I can do anything for your physical safety, please call me. DIEM: I am trying to re-establish order. [hangs up]

Source: The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (New York: Quadrangle, 1971), 238.

133. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum 46-64, January 22, 1964 Introduction The assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) did not bring political stability to South Vietnam, for Washington never could find a worthy successor to him. The United States, which could not win the war with Diem, apparently could not win the war without him either. President John F. Kennedy was himself soon assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded him. In early January 1964, ambassador to South Vietnam General Maxwell Taylor (who had succeeded Henry Cabot Lodge the previous July) recommended covert military action against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In this memorandum to Johnson, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) seeks to make the case for additional resources in Vietnam and “bolder actions which may embody greater risk.” Among these is pressing the new South Vietnamese leadership to turn over direction of the war to the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), General Paul Harkins, whom they also believe should be given full authority over all U.S. programs in South Vietnam. The JCS also calls for the commitment “as necessary” of U.S. military forces against North Vietnam.

Primary Source 1. National Security Action Memorandum No. 273 makes clear the resolve of the President to ensure victory over the externally directed and supported communist insurgency in South Vietnam. In order to achieve that victory, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are of the opinion that the United States must be prepared to put aside many of the self-imposed restrictions which now limit our efforts, and to undertake bolder actions which may embody greater risks. 2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are increasingly mindful that our fortunes in South Vietnam are an accurate barometer of our fortunes in all of Southeast Asia. It is our view that if the US program succeeds in South Vietnam it will go far toward stabilizing the total Southeast Asia situation. Conversely, a loss of South Vietnam to the communists will presage an early erosion of the remainder of our position in that subcontinent. 3. Laos, existing on a most fragile foundation now, would not be able to endure the establishment of a communist—or pseudo

133. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum 46-64 neutralist—state on its eastem flank. Thailand less strong today than a month ago by virtue of the loss of Prime Minister Sarit, would probably be unable to withstand the pressures of infiltration from the north should Laos collapse to the communists in its turn. Cambodia apparently has estimated that our prospects in South Vietnam are not promising and, encouraged by the actions of the French, appears already to be seeking an accommodation with the communists. Should we actually suffer defeat in South Vietnam, there is little reason to believe that Cambodia would maintain even a pretense of neutrality. 4. In a broader sense, the failure of our program in South Vietnam would have heavy influence on the judgments of Burma, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, and the Republic of the Philippines with respect to US durability, resolution, and trustworthiness. Finally, this being the first real test of our determination to defeat the communist wars of national liberation formula, it is not unreasonable to conclude that there would be a corresponding unfavorable effect upon our image in Africa and in Latin America. 5. All of this underscores the pivotal position now occupied in South Vietnam in our world-wide confrontation with the communists and the essentiality that the conflict there be brought to a favorable end as soon as possible. However, it would be unrealistic to believe that a complete suppression of the insurgency can take place in one or even two years. The British effort in Malaya is a recent example of a counterinsurgency effort which required approximately ten years before the bulk of the rural population was brought completely under control of the government, the police were able to maintain order, and the armed forces were able to eliminate the guerrilla strongholds. 6. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are convinced that, in keeping with the guidance in NSAM 273, the United States must make plain to the enemy our determination to see the Vietnam campaign through to a favorable conclusion. To do this, we must prepare for whatever level of activity may be required and, being prepared, must then proceed to take actions as necessary to achieve our purposes surely and promptly. 7. Our considerations, furthermore, cannot be confined entirely to South Vietnam. Our experience in the war thus far leads us to conclude that, in this respect, we are not now giving sufficient attention to the broader area problems of Southeast Asia. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that our position in Cambodia, our attitude toward Laos, our action in Thailand, and our great effort in South Vietnam do not comprise a compatible and integrated US policy for Southeast Asia. US objectives in Southeast Asia cannot be achieved by either economic, political, or military measures alone. All three fields must be integrated into a single, broad US program

1503

for Southeast Asia. The measures recommended in this memorandum are a partial contribution to such a program. 8. Currently we and the South Vietnamese are fighting the war on the enemy’s terms. He has determined the locale, the timing, and the tactics of the battle while our actions are essentially reactive. One reason for this is the fact that we have obliged ourselves to labor under self-imposed restrictions with respect to impeding external aid to the Viet Cong. These restrictions include keeping the war within the boundaries of South Vietnam, avoiding the direct use of US combat forces, and limiting US direction of the campaign to rendering advice to the Government of Vietnam. These restrictions, while they may make our international position more readily defensible, all tend to make the task in Vietnam more complex, time consuming, and in the end, more costly. In addition to complicating our own problem, these self-imposed restrictions may well now be conveying signals of irresolution to our enemies—encouraging them to higher levels of vigor and greater risks. A reversal of attitude and the adoption of a more aggressive program would enhance greatly our ability to control the degree to which escalation will occur. It appears probable that the economic and agricultural disappointments suffered by Communist China, plus the current rift with the Soviets, could cause the communists to think twice about undertaking a largescale military adventure in Southeast Asia. 9. In adverting to actions outside of South Vietnam, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are aware that the focus of the counterinsurgency battle lies in South Vietnam itself, and that the war must certainly be fought and won primarily in the minds of the Vietnamese people. At the same time, the aid now coming to the Viet Cong from outside the country in men, resources, advice, and direction is sufficiently great in the aggregate to be significant—both as help and as encouragement to the Viet Cong. It is our conviction that if support of the insurgency from outside South Vietnam in terms of operational direction, personnel, and material were stopped completely, the character of the war in South Vietnam would be substantially and favorably altered. Because of this conviction, we are wholly in favor of executing the covert actions against North Vietnam which you have recently proposed to the President. We believe, however, that it would be idle to conclude that these efforts will have a decisive effect on the communist determination to support the insurgency; and it is our view that we must therefore be prepared fully to undertake a much higher level of activity, not only for its beneficial tactical effect, but to make plain our resolution, both to our friends and to our enemies. 10. Accordingly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider that the United States must make ready to conduct increasingly bolder actions in Southeast Asia; specifically as to Vietnam to:

1504

134. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson

a. Assign to the US military commander responsibilities for the total US program in Vietnam. b. Induce the Government of Vietnam to turn over to the United States military commander, temporarily, the actual tactical direction of the war. c. Charge the United States military commander with complete responsibility for conduct of the program against North Vietnam. d. Overfly Laos and Cambodia to whatever extent is necessary for acquisition of operational intelligence. e. Induce the Government of Vietnam to conduct overt ground operations in Laos of sufficient scope to impede the flow of personnel and material southward. f. Arm, equip, advise, and support the Government of Vietnam in its conduct of aerial bombing of critical targets in North Vietnam and in mining the sea approaches to that country. g. Advise and support the Government of Vietnam in its conduct of large-scale commando raids against critical targets in North Vietnam. h. Conduct aerial bombing of key North Vietnam targets, using US resources under Vietnamese cover, and with the Vietnamese openingly assuming responsibility for the actions. i. Commit additional US forces, as necessary, in support of the combat action within South Vietnam. j. Commit US forces as necessary in direct actions against North Vietnam. 11. It is our conviction that any or all of the foregoing actions may be required to enhance our position in Southeast Asia. The past few months have disclosed that considerably higher levels of effort are demanded of us if US objectives are to be attained. 12. The governmental reorganization which followed the coup d’état in Saigon should be completed very soon, giving basis for concluding just how strong the Vietnamese Government is going to be and how much of the load they will be able to bear themselves. Additionally, the five-month dry season, which is just now beginning, will afford the Vietnamese an opportunity to exhibit their ability to reverse the unfavorable situation in the critical Mekong Delta. The Joint Chiefs of Staff will follow these important developments closely and will recommend to you progressively the execution of such of the above actions as are considered militarily required, providing, in each case, their detailed assessment of the risks involved. 13. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consider that the strategic importance of Vietnam and of Southeast Asia warrants preparations for the actions above and recommend that the substance of this memorandum be discussed with the Secretary of State.

Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 496–499.

134. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, March 16, 1964 [Excerpts] Introduction On January 30, 1964, another coup occurred in Saigon when General Dong Van Minh was ousted by General Nguyen Thanh. In early March 1964 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visited Saigon and there publicly announced U.S. support for General Nguyen Khanh, the new leader of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). McNamara also pledged “our complete support. . . . We’ll stay for as long as it takes. We shall provide whatever help is required to win the battle against the Communist insurgents.” McNamara returned to Washington with a sobering view of the situation, however. In this report to President Lyndon Johnson, the defense secretary claims that Communist forces now control or have influence over about 40 percent of South Vietnamese territory, that there is widespread indifference among the people as to the outcome of the war, and that another coup is a distinct possibility. McNamara rejects negotiations with the Communists and urges covert military action against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). He also recommends a sharp increase in U.S. military assistance to the South Vietnamese military, which he claims could bring a significant improvement in only six months.

Primary Source III. The Present Situation in South Vietnam The key elements in the present situation are as follows: A. The military tools and concepts of the GVN/US effort are generally sound and adequate. Substantially more can be done in the effective employment of military forces and in the economic and civic action areas. These improvements may require some selective increases in the U.S. presence, but it does not appear likely that major equipment replacement and additions in U.S. personnel are indicated under current policy. B. The U.S. policy of reducing existing personnel where South Vietnamese are in a position to assume the functions is still sound. Its application will not lead to any major reductions in the near future, but adherence to this policy as such has a sound effect in

134. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson 1505 portraying to the U.S. and the world that we continue to regard the war as a conflict the South Vietnamese must win and take ultimate responsibility for. Substantial reductions in the numbers of U.S. military training personnel should be possible before the end of 1965. However, the U.S. should continue to reiterate that it will provide all the assistance and advice required to do the job regardless of how long it takes. C. The situation has unquestionably been growing worse, at least since September: 1. In terms of government control of the countryside, about 40% of the territory is under Viet Cong control or predominant influence. In 22 of the 43 provinces, the Viet Cong control 50% or more of the land area, including 80% of Phuoc Tuy; 90% of Binh Duong; 75% of Hau Nghia; 90% of Long An; 90% of Kien Tuong; 90% of Dinh Tuong; 90% of Kien Hoa; and 85% of An Xuyen. 2. Large groups of the population are now showing signs of apathy and indifference, and there are some signs of frustration within the U.S. contingent: a. The ARVN and paramilitary desertion rates, and particularly the latter, are high and increasing. b. Draft dodging is high while the Viet Cong are recruiting energetically and effectively. c. The morale of the hamlet militia and of the Self Defense Corps, on which the security of the hamlets depends, is poor and falling. 3. In the last 90 days the weakening of the government’s position has been particularly noticeable. For example: a. In Quang Nam province, in the I Corps, the militia in 17 hamlets turned in their weapons. b. In Binh Duong province (III Corps) the hamlet militia were disarmed because of suspected disloyalty. c. In Binh Dinh province, in the II Corps, 75 hamlets were severely damaged by the Viet Cong (in contrast, during the twelve months ending June 30, 1963, attacks on strategic hamlets were few and none was overrun). d. In Quang Ngai province, at the northern edge of the II Corps, there were 413 strategic hamlets under government control a year ago. Of that number, 335 have been damaged to varying degrees or fallen into disrepair, and only 275 remain under government control. e. Security throughout the IV Corps has deteriorated badly. The Viet Cong control virtually all facets of peasant life in the southernmost provinces and the government troops there are reduced to defending the administrative centers. Except in An Giang province (dominated by the Hoa Hao religious sect) armed escort is required for almost all movement in both the southern and northern areas of the IV Corps.

4. The political control structure extending from Saigon down into the hamlets disappeared following the November coup. Of the 41 incumbent province chiefs on November 1, 35 have been replaced (nine provinces had three province chiefs in three months; one province had four). Scores of lesser officials were replaced. Almost all major military commands have changed hands twice since the November coup. The faith of the peasants has been shaken by the disruptions in experienced leadership and the loss of physical security. In many areas, power vacuums have developed causing confusion among the people and a rising rate of rural disorders. 5. North Vietnamese support, always significant, has been increasing: a. Communications between Hanoi and the Viet Cong (see classified annex). b. Since July 1, 1963, the following items of equipment, not previously encountered in South Vietnam, have been captured from the Viet Cong: Chicom 75 mm. recoilless rifles. Chicom heavy machine guns. U.S. .50 caliber heavy machine guns on Chicom mounts. In addition, it is clear that the Viet Cong are using Chinese 90 mm rocket launchers and mortars. c. The Viet Cong are importing large quantities of munitions and chemicals for the production of explosives: Approximately 50,000 pounds of explosive-producing chemicals destined for the Viet Cong have been intercepted in the 12 months ending March 1964. On December 24, five tons of ammunition, of which one and one-half tons were 75 mm recoilless rifle ammunition, was captured at the Dinh Tuong Viet Cong arsenal. Ninety percent was of Chicom manufacture. d. The greatest weakness in the present situation is the uncertain viability of the Khanh government. Khanh himself is a very able man within his experience, but he does not yet have wide political appeal and his control of the Army itself is uncertain (he has the serious problem of the jailed generals). After two coups, as was mentioned above, there has been a sharp drop in morale and organization, and Khanh has not yet been able to build these up satisfactorily. There is a constant threat of assassination or of another coup, which would drop morale and organization nearly to zero. Whether or not French nationals are actively encouraging such a coup, de Gaulle’s position and the continuing pessimism and anti-Americanism of the French community in South Vietnam provide constant fuel to neutralist sentiment and the coup possibility. If

1506

135. President Lyndon Johnson: Telegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. a coup is set underway, the odds of our detecting and preventing it in the tactical sense are not high. e. On the positive side, we have found many reasons for encouragement in the performance of the Khanh government to date. Although its top layer is thin, it is highly responsive to U.S. advice, and with a good grasp of the basic elements of rooting out the Viet Cong. Opposition groups are fragmentary, and Khanh has brought in at least token representation from many key groups hitherto left out. He is keenly aware of the danger of assassination or coup and is taking resourceful steps to minimize these risks. All told, these evidences of energy, comprehension, and decision add up to a sufficiently strong chance of Khanh’s really taking hold in the next few months for us to devote all possible energy and resources to his support.

Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 500–502.

135. President Lyndon Johnson: Telegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., March 20, 1964 Introduction In this telegram of March 20, 1964, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson explains to ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge why military operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) have been delayed. Johnson tells Lodge that the United States anticipates a “showdown” between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that will make it easier for the United States to attack North Vietnam. Johnson agrees with Lodge on the need to bring diplomatic pressure on French president Charles de Gaulle so that he will retract statements calling for the “neutralization” of Vietnam.

Primary Source 1. We have studied your 1776 and I am asking State to have Bill Bundy make sure that you get out latest planning documents on ways of applying pressure and power against the North. I understand that some of this was discussed with you by McNamara mission in Saigon, but as plans are refined it would be helpful to have your detailed comments. As we agreed in our previous messages to each other, judgment is reserved for the present on overt military action in view of the consensus from Saigon conversations of McNamara mission with General Khanh and you on judgment that movement against the North at the present

would be premature. We share General Khanh’s judgment that the immediate and essential task is to strengthen the southern base. For this reason our planning for action against the North is on a contingency basis at present, and immediate problem in this area is to develop the strongest possible military and political base for possible later action. There is additional international reason for avoiding immediate overt action in that we expect a showdown between the Chinese and Soviet Communist parties soon and action against the North will be more practicable after than before a showdown. But if at any time you feel that more immediate action is urgent, I count on you to let me know specifically the reasons for such action, together with your recommendations for its size and shape. 2. On dealing with deGaulle, I continue to think it may be valuable for you to go to Paris after Bohlen has made his first try. (State is sending you draft instruction to Bohlen, which I have not yet reviewed, for your comment.) It ought to be possible to explain in Saigon that your mission is precisely for the purpose of knocking down the idea of neutralization wherever it rears its ugly head, and on this point I think that nothing is more important than to stop neutralist talk wherever we can by whatever means we can. I have made this point myself to Mansfield and Lippmann and I expect to use every public opportunity to restate our position firmly. You may want to convey our concern on this point to General Khanh and get his ideas on the best possible joint program to stop such talk in Saigon, in Washington, and in Paris. I imagine that you have kept General Khanh abreast of our efforts in Paris. After we see the results of the Bohlen approach you might wish to sound him out on Paris visit by you. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 511.

136. George W. Ball, Undersecretary of State: Telegram to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, June 5, 1964 [Excerpt] Introduction U.S. undersecretary of state George W. Ball here reports to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk regarding a meeting with French president Charles de Gaulle. Ball notes the French president as stating that there can be no military solution for the United States in Vietnam and that the only way to avoid a wider war is through a diplomatic solution in the form of an international peace conference that would include France, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), India, Japan, and other nations.

136. George W. Ball, Undersecretary of State: Telegram

Primary Source General De Gaulle said he had listened with great attention to what Mr. Ball had said. There was little surprising in it since he had suspected for some time the difficulties of the situation. The US has taken on itself alone the responsibilities which the French had borne in the past. He said he agreed that South Vietnam was the main problem, with Laos and Cambodia as accessory problems. He referred to our hope that we can bring about a suppression of the insurgency by supplying Vietnam with arms, credits, military advice, etc. I take note, said General De Gaulle, of your hope but I cannot agree with it. I do not believe that you can win in this situation even though you have more aircraft, cannons, and arms of various kinds. The problem was primarily a political and psychological problem. He was not referring merely to General Khanh but to the people. To them the US was a very big foreign power. “I do not mean that all of the Vietnamese are against you but they regard the US as a foreign power and a very powerful foreign power.” The more the US becomes involved in the actual conduct of military operations the more the Vietnamese will turn against us, as will others, in Southeast Asia. He said he understood the immense difficulties which the US faced. The US has the possibility and the means of going to war. We could destroy Hanoi, Canton and even Peking. We could link Chiang Kai-shek on the Chinese Mainland and even American troops if we desired. But what would happen when the war began? What would be its consequences? He could not say. In 1900, at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, it had been very easy. The only problem was that of frightening the Empress. Now continents were involved. War was, of course, a possibility which the US could envisage. General MacArthur had thought it was a good idea. However, he said, the French would never resume war in Asia. He had told this to President Kennedy. The French consider that Southeast Asia is a “rotten” territory in which to fight. Even if the US were involved France would not get into a war in Asia, as an ally or otherwise. If the US did not make war we still appeared to think that by reinforcing the existing situation we could strengthen the Vietnamese and win the current struggle. He did not agree with this. The United States might maintain the struggle in this manner for an extended period of time, but we could not bring the affair to an end. Once we realized this, i.e., that we could not put an end to the situation, we might come to the conclusion that we would have to

1507

make peace. This would mean peace with China and others in the area. He said he noticed that we thought that China was like Russia in 1917—intransigent, warlike, and expansive. He did not know whether this was true or not. Personally he doubted it. He thought it possible that China would see the advantage to itself, at least for a few years, in a passive posture. He did not mean that this would last forever but it might for a few years. China needs rest, it needs help, it needs commerce and technical assistance from other countries. The Russians had been in a different position. Russia had had an intelligentsia, an army, and agriculture. China has none of these things. In any event, the French thought that we should try to see what China was up to. He then asked for Mr. Ball’s comments. Mr. Ball said if we were now to undertake diplomatic efforts with Peking or Hanoi this would threaten the collapse of the existing resistance in South Vietnam. General De Gaulle had said—and he agreed—that the problem was more political and psychological than military. Our task was to help the South Vietnamese create a govt in which the people would have confidence, and to which they would feel allegiance. But if we began, or attempted to begin, negotiations of the type that General De Gaulle was speaking about the result might be a general failure of the will to resist. Either we must increase the Vietnamese will to resist or we must reduce the subversive efforts of the North. To negotiate before either of these objectives was achieved would destroy the only basis on which we can hope to build in the future. Moreover we said [had?] no reason to believe that an agreement made with the Communists would be carried out. We remembered the agreement of 1962 for the neutralization of Laos, and the attitude of Hanoi and Peking toward it. De Gaulle said that if a diplomatic operation were undertaken by the US alone, it would, of course, not succeed. What he had in mind was a vast diplomatic operation which would include the participation of France, India, China, Japan, and other countries. This would provide the Vietnamese people—and he was not speaking of General Khanh—with a sense of support and assurance for the future. He doubted that even Ho Chi Minh could continue to kill South Vietnamese while taking part in a conference. World opinion would make it impossible. He repeated, however, such a diplomatic effort could not be done by the Americans. A large conference had been attempted in 1954 and although the talks had taken a very long time he felt that this in itself was not a bad thing. If a world conference of the type he was thinking of could be put into operation it would change the state of mind of the Vietnamese people and produce a detente. This would

1508

137. Blair Seaborn, Canadian International Control Commission Representative: Notes on Meeting

render it very difficult for Ho Chi Minh to keep on with his activities. If such a diplomatic operation were undertaken a resulting detente would bring about a new political situation. This, however, was not possible under conditions of civil war. Mr. Ball said the situation in South Vietnam presented problems of exceptional difficulty. If we were dealing with conventional warfare—with regular armies drawn up in opposing formations—it would be possible to agree to a cease-fire and police it. But in South Vietnam there were scattered groups of guerrillas. Many only came out at night. It would be extremely difficult to police any cease-fire. Moreover, it was not realistic to assume that the insurgents would be willing to lose momentum and thus would be willing to accept a cease-fire. Ho Chi Minh would probably argue with contrived innocence that he had no connection with what was going on in Vietnam. At the same time he would covertly maintain the subversive action. There was enormous danger that a conference would play into the hands of the Communists who would exploit it covertly and dishonestly. Thereafter it might well be impossible to infuse any vitality into a Vietnamese Govt. We would be reluctant to take such a risk. De Gaulle replied: “All policy involves risks. If it is a policy that does not involve risks there is no choice of policy.” He thought a conference of Europeans, Asians and US would produce a very powerful impact on the Vietnamese people and succeed in changing the whole situation, at least for a certain period of time. The present situation, he said, would not result in anything. France has had experience which proved it. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968: Vietnam, 1964, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), 464–470.

137. Blair Seaborn, Canadian International Control Commission Representative: Notes on Meeting with Pham Van Dong, June 18, 1964 Introduction The International Control Commission (ICC), made up of representatives from Canada, India, and Poland, was the agency charged by the Geneva Conference with supervising implementation of the 1954 Geneva Agreements. Here Canadian ICC representative Blair Seaborn reports on his meeting with Premier Pham Van Dong of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Seaborn spells out North Vietnam’s desire for negotiations to reach a settlement, which must include the participation

of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, usually known as the National Liberation Front (NLF). He reports that Dong has told him that the struggle in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) will continue despite increased U.S. aid to the South Vietnamese government. Dong was also emphatic that the NLF would win the war.

Primary Source President Ho Chi Minh has explained what we mean by a just solution. First it requires an American withdrawal from Indochina. Secondly it means that the affairs of the South must be arranged by the people of the South. It must provide for the participation of the Liberation Front. No other group represents the broad wishes of the people. The programme of the Front is the best one possible. There must be peace and neutrality for South Vietnam, neutrality in the Cambodian manner. Thirdly, a just solution means re-unification of the country. This is a “drame, [as in original document] national, fundamental”. But we want peaceful unification, without military pressures. We want negotiation ‘round a table. There must be sincere satisfaction with the arrangement for it to be viable. We are in no hurry. We are willing to talk but we shall wait till SVN is ready. We are a divided people, without even personal links across the dividing line. The United States must show good will, but it is not easy for the USA to do so. Meanwhile the war intensifies. USA aid may increase in all areas, not only for the SVN army but in terms of USA army personnel as well. I suffer to see the war go on, develop, intensify. Yet our people are determined to struggle. It is impossible, quite impossible (excuse me for saying this) for you Westerners to understand the force of the people’s will to resist and to continue. The struggle of the people exceeds the imagination. It has astonished us too. Since the fall of the Ngo brothers, it has been a “cascade”. The prospect for the USA and its friends in SVN is “sans issu.” Reinforcing the Khanh army doesn’t count. The people have had enough. The SVN mercenaries have sacrificed themselves without honour. The Americans are not lovers, for they commit atrocities. How can the people suffer such exactions and terror? Let me stress, insofar as the internal situation in SVN is concerned, the realistic nature of the Liberation Front’s programme. It is impossible to have a representative government which excludes the Front. The idea of a government of national coalition “fait boule de niege” in the South. The Laos pattern of 1962 should serve as a guide for SVN. To return to Vietnam, it is a question of a “guerre à outrance” which the USA won’t win in any event, or neutrality. He had not (as I had suggested) referred to neutrality as a first step only.

139. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet: Order to All Subordinate Units 1509 Whether SVN would continue neutral would depend upon the people of SVN. He did not prejudge the issue. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, VI.C.I (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 28–29.

138. Maxwell Taylor, Ambassador: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, July 25, 1964 [Excerpt] Introduction In this cable to U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk, ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Maxwell Taylor warns that South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Khanh’s public statements about “marching north” could pose major problems for U.S.–South Vietnamese relations. Rusk suggests joint planning talks as the best way for the United States to get control of the situation. The State Department subsequently approved the idea, while it expressed concerns that Khanh might make these talks public for political purposes.

Primary Source The GVN [Government of Vietnam; South Vietnamese government] public campaign for “Marching North” (reported EMBTEL 201) may take several courses. In the face of U.S. coolness and absence of evidence of real grassroots support outside certain military quarters, it may die down for a while although it is hardly likely to disappear completely. On the other hand, the proponents of a “Quick Solution” may be able to keep it alive indefinitely as an active issue, in which case it is likely to foment an increasing amount of dissatisfaction with the U.S. (assuming that we continue to give it no support) to the serious detriment of our working relations with the GVN and hence of the ultimate chances of success of the in-country pacification program. In such a case, Vietnamese leaders in and out of government, unable to find a vent to their frustration in “Marching North” may seek other panaceas in various forms of negotiation formulas. General Khanh may find in the situation an excuse or a requirement to resign. Finally, this “March North” fever can get out of hand in an act of rashness—one maverick pilot taking off for Hanoi with a load of bombs—which could touch off an extension of hostilities at a time and in a form most disadvantageous to U.S. interests. Faced with these unattractive possibilities, we propose a course of action designed to do several things. We would try to avoid head-on collision with the GVN which unqualified U.S. opposition to the “March North” campaign would

entail. We could do this by expressing a willingness to engage in joint contingency planning for various forms of extended action against GVN [sic]. Such planning would not only provide an outlet for the martial head of steam now dangerously compressed but would force the generals to look at the hard facts of life which lie behind the neon lights of the “March North” slogans. This planning would also gain time badly needed to stabilize this government and could provide a useful basis for military action if adjudged in our interest at some future time. Finally, it would also afford U.S. an opportunity, for the first time, to have a frank discussion with GVN leaders concerning the political objectives which they would envisage as the purposes inherent in military action against the DRV. . . . It would be important, however, in initiating such a line of action that we make a clear record that we are not repeat not assuming any commitment to supplement such plans. . . . Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 512–513.

139. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet: Order to All Subordinate Units, August 2, 1964 Introduction On August 2, 1964, torpedo boats from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) attacked the U.S. destroyer Maddox, which was engaged in an electronic intelligence-collection mission (Operation DE SOTO) in international waters off North Vietnam. There were no casualties. The North Vietnamese reaction was undoubtedly prompted by recent commando raids from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in the vicinity (OPLAN 34A, run out of Saigon). Rather than backing down, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, ordered the DE SOTO operations to continue but with the addition of a second destroyer. Here Moorer asserts the U.S. intention to force the issue of “freedom of the seas” right up to the international three-mile territorial limit.

Primary Source 1. In view Maddox incident, consider it our best interest that we assert right of freedom of the seas and resume Golf of Tonkin patrol earliest. 2. For COMSEVENTHFLT [Commander, Seventh Fleet] UNODIR [unless otherwise directed] conduct patrol with two destroyers, resuming ASAP [as soon as possible]. When ready, proceed to

1510

140. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor

Point Charlie arriving first day, thence patrol northward toward Point Delta during daylight hours. Retire to the east during hours of darkness. On second day proceed to Point Delta thence, patrol south toward Point Charlie retiring to night as before. On third day proceed to Point Lima and patrol toward Point Mike, retiring to east at night. On fourth day proceed to Point Mike and patrol toward Point November, retiring night. On fifth day return to [Point] November and retire to south through Points Oscar and Papa and terminate patrol. CPA [closest point of approach] to North Vietnamese coast 8NM [nautical miles]. CPA to North Vietnamese islands 4NM. Above points as specified.

effort to resist these activities. We have no intention yielding to pressure.

Source: U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2nd. sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 4694.

We would welcome your further comments on Saigon reaction to today’s announcement, as well as your continuing assessment of the political temperature there.

140. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, August 3, 1964 Introduction The commander of the now two-destroyer U.S. Navy intelligencegathering mission (Operation DE SOTO) off the coast of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) coast heard reports that intelligence indicated that the North Vietnamese had assumed the Maddox—attacked by torpedo boats on August 2, 1964—to be part of the secret OPLAN 34A commando raids by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Here U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk informs ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell D. Taylor that the commando raids have “rattled” the North Vietnamese. The telegram also shows that the Lyndon Johnson administration clearly understood, contrary to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s later testimony before Congress, that the North Vietnamese considered the Maddox to be part of the OPLAN 34A operations.

Primary Source We have been very sensitive here to the considerations you raise reftel. We would hope that part of the problem has been met by President’s public statement today, which you have already received. We have asked JCS to insure that you receive copies of the implementing orders to the appropriate commanders through military channels. Suggestions made in B, C and D reftel are currently being considered in context OPLAN 34A. Significant additions have been made to list of targets for marine operations and these will be transmitted to you shortly. We believe that present OPLAN 34A activities are beginning to rattle Hanoi, and MADDOX incident is directly related to their

In your discretion you may pass these thoughts along to Gen. Khanh. You may also reiterate to him, but only if you believe it appropriate, our concern that actions against the North be limited for the present to the OPLAN 34A type. We do not believe that SVN is yet in a position to mount larger actions so long as the security situation in the near vicinity of Saigon remains precarious. We are impressed with the fact that a battalion-sized attack could have occurred within 4 miles of Saigon without any advance warning.

Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968: Vietnam, 1964, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), 603–604.

141. Thomas H. Moorer, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet: Message to Captain John Herrick, August 3, 1964 [Excerpts] Introduction Believing through radio intercepts that another attack on his two destroyers off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) was likely, U.S. Navy patrol commander Captain John Herrick requested permission from Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Thomas H. Moorer to terminate his DE SOTO intelligence-gathering mission. In this telegram Moorer refuses Herrick’s request, suggesting only that Herrick shift his operational area so that it will not be confused with the OPLAN 34A commando operation being conducted by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) but not so far that it would fail to draw North Vietnamese patrol boats away from the South Vietnamese commando operation.

Primary Source 1. Termination of DeSoto patrol after two days of patrol ops [operations] subsequent to Maddox incident does not in my view adequately demonstrate United States resolve to assert our legitimate rights in these international waters. 2. Accordingly, recommend following adjustments in remainder of patrol schedule . . . in order to accommodate COMUSMACV [Commander, United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam] request that patrol ships remain north of LAT [latitude]

142. President Lyndon Johnson’s Message to Congress 19-10 north until [deleted time] to avoid interference with 34-A Ops. 4 August patrol from Point Delta to Charlie remain north of 19-10 North. The above patrol will (a) clearly demonstrate our determination to continue these operations; (b) possibly draw NVN [North Vietnamese Navy] PGMs [patrol boats] to northward away from area of 34-A Ops; (c) eliminate DeSoto patrol interference with 34-A Ops. Source: U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 4694.

1511

These latest actions of the North Vietnamese regime has given a new and grave turn to the already serious situation in southeast Asia. Our commitments in that area are well known to the Congress. They were first made in 1954 by President Eisenhower. They were further defined in the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty approved by the Senate in February 1955. This treaty with its accompanying protocol obligates the United States and other members to act in accordance with their constitutional processes to meet Communist aggression against any of the parties or protocol states. Our policy in southeast Asia has been consistent and unchanged since 1954. I summarized it on June 2 in four simple propositions:

142. President Lyndon Johnson’s Message to Congress, August 5, 1964 [Excerpts] Introduction On the night of August 4, 1964, U.S. Navy captain John Herrick reported a second patrol boat attack by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) on his two destroyers. He subsequently modified this, saying that he could not be certain that an attack had actually occurred. All evidence suggests that there was no second attack and that the false impression was caused by weather-generated anomalies, seagulls, foam on the crests of waves generated by the destroyers in evasive maneuvers, and other natural disturbances. Leaders of the Lyndon Johnson administration had, however, already decided to use the alleged Gulf of Tonkin Incidents to take direct military action against North Vietnam. In this message to Congress, President Johnson announces retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. Known as Operation PIERCE ARROW, these take the form of carrier aviation attacks on North Vietnamese naval vessels at a number of locations along the North Vietnamese coast and a petroleum storage facility at Vinh.

Primary Source Last night I announced to the American people that the North Vietnamese regime had conducted further deliberate attacks against U.S. naval vessels operating in international waters, and I had therefore directed air action against gunboats and supporting facilities used in these hostile operations. This air action has now been carried out with substantial damage to the boats and facilities. Two U.S. aircraft were lost in the action. After consultation with the leaders of both parties in the Congress, I further announced a decision to ask the Congress for a resolution expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in southeast Asia.

1. America keeps her word. Here as elsewhere, we must and shall honor our commitments. 2. The issue is the future of southeast Asia as a whole. A threat to any nation in that region is a threat to all, and a threat to us. 3. Our purpose is peace. We have no military, political, or territorial ambitions in the area. 4. This is not just a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity. Our military and economic assistance to South Vietnam and Laos in particular has the purpose of helping these countries to repel aggression and strengthen their independence. The threat to the free nations of southeast Asia has long been clear. The North Vietnamese regime has constantly sought to take over South Vietnam and Laos. This Communist regime has violated the Geneva accords for Vietnam. It has systematically conducted a campaign of subversion, which includes the direction, training, and supply of personnel and arms for the conduct of guerrilla warfare in South Vietnamese territory. In Laos, the North Vietnamese regime has maintained military forces, used Laotian territory for infiltration into South Vietnam, and most recently carried out combat operations—all in direct violation of the Geneva Agreements of 1962. In recent months, the actions of the North Vietnamese regime have become steadily more threatening. . . . As President of the United States I have concluded that I should now ask the Congress, on its part, to join in affirming the national determination that all such attacks will be met, and that the United States will continue in its basic policy of assisting the free nations of the area to defend their freedom. As I have repeatedly made clear, the United States intends no rashness, and seeks no wider war. We must make it clear to all that the United States is united in its determination to bring about the

1512

143. Joint Resolution of Congress H.J. RES 1445: Tonkin Gulf Resolution

end of Communist subversion and aggression in the area. We seek the full and effective restoration of the international agreements signed in Geneva in 1954, with respect to South Vietnam, and again in Geneva in 1962, with respect to Laos. . . . Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, Book 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 930–932.

143. Joint Resolution of Congress H.J. RES 1445: Tonkin Gulf Resolution, August 7, 1964 [Excerpt] Introduction Following the alleged second attack on two U.S. Navy destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration submitted to Congress a resolution that in effect gave it full powers to wage war in Southeast Asia. Contrary to myths surrounding the resolution, its implications were fully discussed in the debate in Congress. The resolution was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives and by a vote of 88 to 2 in the Senate.

Primary Source Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. Sec. 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter Of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom. Sec. 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise, except that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the Congress. Source: “Text of Joint Resolution, August 7,” Department of State Bulletin 51(1313) (1964): 268.

144. Robert S. McNamara Recommends Escalation, July 1, 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction Here U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara spells out the options before the United States in Vietnam: “(1) Cut our losses and withdraw under the best conditions” possible, (2) continue forces at the then existing level and play “for the breaks” with the understanding that conditions would likely worsen, and (3) escalate. Here McNamara makes the case for escalation while estimating its probable consequences.

Primary Source Introduction Our objective is to create conditions for a favorable settlement by demonstrating to the VC/DRV that the odds are against their winning. Under present conditions, however, the chances of achieving this objective are small—and the VC are winning now—largely because the ratio of guerrilla to anti-guerrilla forces is unfavorable to the government. With this in mind, we must choose among three courses of action with respect to South Vietnam: (1) Cut our losses and withdraw under the best conditions that can be arranged; (2) continue at about the present level, with US forces limited to, say, 75,000, holding on and playing for the breaks while recognizing that our position will probably grow weaker; or (3) expand substantially the US military pressure against the Viet Cong in the South and the North Vietnamese in the North and at the same time launch a vigorous effort on the political side to get negotiations started. An outline of the third of these approaches follows. I. Expanded Military Moves The following military moves should be taken together with the political initiatives in Part II below. A. Inside South Vietnam. Increase US/SVN military strength in SVN enough to prove to the VC that they cannot win and thus to turn the tide of the war. . . . B. Against North Vietnam. While avoiding striking population and industrial targets not closely related to the DRV’s supply of war material to the VC, we should announce to Hanoi and carry out actions to destroy such supplies and to interdict their flow into and out of North Vietnam. . . . II. Expanded Political Moves Together with the above military moves, we should take the following political initiatives in order (a) to open a dialogue with Hanoi,

144. Robert S. McNamara Recommends Escalation Peking, and the VC looking toward a settlement in Vietnam, (b) to keep the Soviet Union from deepening its military involvement and support of North Vietnam until the time when settlement can be achieved, and (c) to cement the support for US policy by the US public, allies and friends, and to keep international opposition at a manageable level. While our approaches may be rebuffed until the tide begins to turn, they nevertheless should be made. . . . III. Evaluation of the Above Program A. Domestic US Reaction. Even though casualties will increase and the war will continue for some time, the United States public will support this course of action because it is a combined militarypolitical program designed and likely to bring about a favorable solution to the Vietnam problem. B. Communist Reaction to the Expanded Programs. 1. Soviet. The Soviets can be expected to continue to contribute materiel and advisors to the North Vietnamese. Increased US bombing of Vietnam, including targets in Hanoi and Haiphong, SAM [surface-to-air missile] sites and airfields, and mining of North Vietnamese harbors, might oblige the Soviet Union to enter the contest more actively with volunteers and aircraft. This might result in minor encounters between US and Soviet personnel. 2. China. So long as no US or GVN troops invade North Vietnam and so long as no US or GVN aircraft attack Chinese territory, the Chinese probably will not send regular ground forces or aircraft into the war. However, the possibility of a more active Soviet involvement in North Vietnam might precipitate a Chinese introduction of land forces, probably dubbed volunteers, to preclude the Soviets’ taking a pre-eminent position in North Vietnam. 3. North Vietnam. North Vietnam will not move towards the negotiating table until the tide begins to turn in the south. When that happens, they may seek to counter it by sending large numbers of men into South Vietnam. 4. Viet Cong. The VC, especially if they continue to take high losses, can be expected to depend increasingly upon the PAVN [People’s Army of Vietnam, regular forces of North Vietnam] forces as the war moves into a more conventional phase; but they may find ways of continuing almost indefinitely their present intensive military, guerrilla and terror activities, particularly if reinforced with some regular PAVN units. A key question on the military side is whether POL [petroleum-oil-lubricants], ammunition, and cadres can be cut off and if they are cut off whether this really renders the Viet Cong impotent. A key question on the political side is whether any arrangement acceptable to us would be acceptable to the VC.

1513

C. Estimate of Success 1. Militarily. The success of the above program from a military point of view turns on whether the increased effort stems the tide in the South; that in turn depends on two things—on whether the South Vietnamese hold their own in terms of numbers and fighting spirit, and on whether the US forces can be effective in a quick-reaction reserve role, a role in which they have not been tested. The number of US troops is too small to make a significant difference in the traditional 10–1 government-guerrilla formula, but it is not too small to make a significant difference in the kind of war which seems to be evolving in Vietnam—a “Third Stage” or conventional war in which it is easier to identify, locate and attack the enemy. (South Vietnam has 141 battalions as compared with an estimated equivalent number of VC battalions. The 44 US/3d country battalions mentioned above are the equivalent of 100 South Vietnamese battalions.) 2. Politically. It is frequently alleged that such a large expansion of US military personnel, their expanded military role (which would put them in close contact and offer some degree of control over South Vietnamese citizens), and the inevitable expansion of US voice in the operation of the GVN economy and facilities, command and government services will be unpopular; it is said that they could lead to the rejection of the government which supported this American presence, to an irresistible pressure for expulsion of the Americans, and to the greatly increased saleability of Communist propaganda. Whether these allegations are true, we do not know. The political initiatives are likely to be successful in the early stages only to demonstrate US good faith; they will pay off toward an actual settlement only after the tide begins to turn (unless we lower our sights substantially). The tide almost certainly cannot begin to turn in less than a few months, and may not for a year or more; the war is one of attrition and will be a long one. Since troops once committed as a practical matter cannot be removed, since US casualties will rise, since we should take call-up actions to support the additional forces in Vietnam, the test of endurance may be as much in the United States as in Vietnam. 3. Generally (CIA estimate). Over the longer term we doubt if the Communists are likely to change their basic strategy in Vietnam (i.e., aggressive and steadily mounting insurgency) unless and until two conditions prevail: (1) they are forced to accept a situation in the war in the South which offers them no prospect of an early victory and no grounds for hope that they can simply outlast the US and (2) North Vietnam itself is under continuing and

1514

145. McGeorge Bundy: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson increasingly damaging punitive attack. So long as the Communists think they scent the possibility of an early victory (which is probably now the case), we believe that they will persevere and accept extremely severe damage to the North. Conversely, if North Vietnam itself is not hurting, Hanoi’s doctrinaire leaders will probably be ready to carry on the Southern struggle almost indefinitely. If, however, both of the conditions outlined above should be brought to pass, we believe Hanoi probably would, at least for a period of time, alter its basic strategy and course of action in South Vietnam. Hanoi might do so in several ways. Going for a conference as a political way of gaining a respite from attack would be one. Alternatively it might reduce the level of insurgent activity in the hopes that this would force the US to stop its punishment of the North but not prevent the US and GVN from remaining subject to wearying harassment in the South. Or, Hanoi might order the VC to suspend operations in the hopes that in a period of temporary tranquillity, domestic and international opinion would force the US to disengage without destroying the VC apparatus or the roots of VC strength. Finally, Hanoi might decide that the US/GVN will to fight could still be broken and the tide of war turned back again in favor of the VC by launching a massive PAVN assault on the South. This is a less likely option in the circumstances we have posited, but still a contingency for which the US must be prepared.

Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. 3 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), 97–104.

145. McGeorge Bundy: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson, February 7, 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction National Security Council adviser McGeorge Bundy was in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) on a fact-finding visit and saw for himself the results of a Viet Cong (VC) attack on the U.S. barracks and helicopter base at Pleiku on February 7, 1965. The VC killed 9 Americans, wounded more than 120, and destroyed 16 helicopters, with only minimal casualties for themselves. The Pleiku attack served to confirm Bundy’s belief that the U.S. military must launch retaliatory air raids against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In this memorandum to U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, Bundy urges adoption of a policy of “sustained reprisal.”

Primary Source I. Introductory We believe that the best available way of increasing our chance of success in Vietnam is the development and execution of a policy of sustained reprisal against North Vietnam a policy in which air and naval action against the North is justified by and related to the whole Viet Cong campaign of violence and terror in the South. While we believe that the risks of such a policy are acceptable, we emphasize that its costs are real. It implies significant U.S. air losses even if no full air war is joined, and it seems likely that it would eventually require an extensive and costly effort against the whole air defense system of North Vietnam. U.S. casualties would be higher and more visible to American feelings than those sustained in the struggle of South Vietnam. . . . And even if it fails to turn the tide as it may the value of the effort seems to us to exceed its costs. . . . 3. Once a program of reprisals is clearly underway, it should not be necessary to connect each specific act against North Vietnam to a particular outrage in the South. It should be possible, for example, to publish weekly lists of outrages in the South and to have it clearly understood that these outrages are the cause of such action against the North as may be occurring in the current period. Such a more generalized pattern of reprisal would remove much of the difficulty involved in finding precisely matching targets in response to specific atrocities. Even in such a more general pattern, however, it would be important to insure that the general level of reprisal action remained in close correspondence with the level of outrages in the South. We must keep it clear at every stage both to Hanoi and to the world, that our reprisals will be reduced or stopped when outrages in the South are reduced or stopped and that we are not attempting to destroy or conquer North Vietnam. 4. In the early stages of such a course, we should take the appropriate occasion to make clear our firm intent to undertake reprisals on any further acts, major or minor, that appear to us and the GVN as indicating Hanoi’s support. We would announce that our two governments have been patient and forebearing in the hope that Hanoi would come to its senses without the necessity of our having to take further action; but the outrages continue and now we must react against those who are responsible; we will not provoke; we will not use our force indiscriminately; but we can no longer sit by in the face of repeated acts of terror and violence for which the DRV is responsible. . . . 9. We are convinced that the political values of reprisal require a continuous operation. Episodic responses geared on a one-forone basis to “spectacular” outrages would lack the persuasive force of sustained pressure. More important still, they would

146. Joint Statement of Soviet Premier Aleksai Kosygin and Pham Van Dong in Hanoi 1515 leave it open to the Communists to avoid reprisals entirely by giving up only a small element of their own program. The Gulf of Tonkin affair produced a sharp upturn in morale in South Vietnam. When it remained an isolated episode, however, there was a severe relapse. It is the great merit of the proposed scheme that to stop it the Communists would have to stop enough of their activity in the South to permit the probable success of a determined pacification effort. . . . We emphasize that our primary target in advocating a reprisal policy is the improvement of the situation in South Vietnam. Action against the North is usually urged as a means of affecting the will of Hanoi to direct and support the VC. We consider this an important but longer-range purpose. The immediate and critical targets are in the South in the minds of the South Vietnamese and in the minds of the Viet Cong cadres. . . . The Vietnamese increase in hope could well increase the readiness of Vietnamese factions themselves to join together in forming a more effective government . . . We think it plausible that effective and sustained reprisals, even in a low key, would have a sustained depressing effect upon the morale of Viet Cong cadres in South Vietnam. This is the strong opinion of CIA Saigon. It is based upon reliable reports of the initial Viet Cong reaction to the Gulf of Tonkin episode, and also upon the solid general assessment that the determination of Hanoi and the apparent timidity of the mighty United States are both major items in Viet Cong confidence. . . . While emphasizing the importance of reprisals in the South, we do not exclude the impact on Hanoi. We believe, indeed, that it is of great importance that the level of reprisal be adjusted rapidly and visibly to both upward and downward shifts in the level of Viet Cong offenses. We want to keep before Hanoi the carrot of our desisting as well as the stick of continued pressure. We also need to conduct the application of force so that there is always a prospect of worse to come. We cannot assert that a policy of sustained reprisal will succeed in changing the course of the contest in Vietnam. It may fail, and we cannot estimate the odds of success with any accuracy they may be somewhere between 25% and 75%. What we can say is that even if it fails, the policy will be worth it. At a minimum it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own. Beyond that, a reprisal policy to the extent that it demonstrates U.S. willingness to employ this new norm in counterinsurgency will set a higher price for the future upon all adventures of guerrilla warfare, and it should therefore somewhat increase our ability to deter such adventures. We must recognize, however, that that ability will be gravely weakened if there is failure for any reason in Vietnam. . . .

Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 687–690.

146. Joint Statement of Soviet Premier Aleksai Kosygin and Pham Van Dong in Hanoi, February 10, 1965 Introduction In November 1964 Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin sent a message of support to the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (usually known as the National Liberation Front [NLF]), the first by a Soviet leader. In February 1965 Kosygin became the first Soviet premier to visit the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Seeking to restore Soviet influence in Hanoi, he promised North Vietnamese leaders financial aid and signed a defense pact, the beginning of a long military alliance between the two states. This reversed Nikita Khrushchev’s policy of disengagement from the war in Vietnam.

Primary Source The delegation of the Soviet Union emphasized that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the outpost of the socialist camp in Southeast Asia, is playing an important role in the struggle against American imperialism and is making its contribution to the defense of peace in Asia and throughout the world. The governments of the U.S.S.R. and the D.R.V. have examined the situation that has arisen as a result of the increasing provocations and acts of outright aggression by the U.S.A. against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Both governments resolutely condemn the aggressive actions of the U.S.A. on Aug. 5, 1964, and especially the barbaric attacks by American aircraft on D.R.V. territory on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, 1965, in the area of the cities of Donghoi and Vinhlinh as incompatible with both international law and the 1954 Geneva agreements. These highly dangerous actions are at the same time provocations against the whole socialist camp and against all mankind standing for peace, freedom and justice. The U.S.S.R. government reaffirmed that, adhering to the principles of socialist internationalism, it will not remain indifferent to ensuring the security of a fraternal socialist country and will give the D.R.V. the necessary aid and support. The governments of the two countries reached an understanding on the steps that will be taken to strengthen the defense capacity of the D.R.V. and agreed to hold regular consultations on the above-mentioned questions.

1516

147. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor

The two sides were unanimous on the fact that for more than ten years now the U.S. government has been breaking the 1954 Geneva agreements on Vietnam, trying to prevent the unification of the country and to turn South Vietnam into a new type of colony and a U.S. military base. It has illegally sent to South Vietnam tens of thousands of its own soldiers and officers and a large quantity of arms and is waging an inhuman and cruel “special war” against the population of South Vietnam. The people of South Vietnam have been forced to wage an armed struggle for their liberation in this highly dangerous situation.

3. We will announce this policy of measured action in general terms and at the same time, we will go to UN Security Council to make clear case that aggressor is Hanoi. We will also make it plain that we are ready and eager for ‘talks’ to bring aggression to an end.

The Soviet Union fully supports the just, heroic struggle by the population of South Vietnam for independence, democracy and neutrality, which they are waging under the leadership of the National Front of Liberations of South Vietnam.

5. You are accordingly instructed to seek immediate GVN agreement on this program. You are authorized to emphasize our conviction that announcement of readiness to talk is stronger diplomatic position than awaiting inevitable summons to Security Council by third parties. We would hope to have appropriate GVN concurrence by Monday (Feb. 14th) if possible here.

Source: “Joint Statement of Delegations of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” Current Digest of the Soviet Press 17(6) (1965): 9–11.

4. We believe that this 3-part program must be concerted with SVN, and we currently expect to announce it by Presidential statement directly after next authorized air action. We believe this action should take place as early as possible next week.

In presenting above to GVN, you should draw fully, as you see fit, on following arguments:

147. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, February 13, 1965 [Excerpt] Introduction On February 13, 1965, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson decided to approve the “sustained reprisals” program against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) suggested by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy only a few days earlier. The air strikes were at first limited to targets below the 19th Parallel. This operation, known as ROLLING THUNDER, which began on February 24, was to be announced publicly along with the Johnson administration’s stated desire for peace talks with the North Vietnamese government to bring its “aggression” against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) to an end.

Primary Source The President today approved the following program for immediate future actions in follow-up decisions he reported to you in Deptel 1653. (The First FLAMING DART reprisal decision.) 1. We will intensify by all available means the program of pacification within SVN. 2. We will execute a program of measured and limited air action jointly with GVN against selected military targets in DRV, remaining south of 19th parallel until further notice. FYI. Our current expectation is that these attacks might come about once or twice a week and involve two or three targets on each day of operation. END FYI.

a. We are determined to continue with military actions regardless of Security Council deliberations and any ‘talks’ or negotiations when [words illegible]. [Beginning of sentence illegible] that they cease [words illegible] and also the activity they are directing in the south. b. We consider the UN Security Council initiative, following another strike, essential if we are to avoid being faced with really damaging initiatives by the USSR or perhaps by such powers as India, France, or even the UN. c. At an early point in the UN Security Council initiative, we would expect to see calls for the DRV to appear in the UN. If they failed to appear, as in August, this will make doubly clear that it is they who are refusing to desist, and our position in pursuing military actions against the DRV would be strengthened. For some reason we would now hope GVN itself would appear at UN and work closely with U.S. d. With or without Hanoi, we have every expectation that any ‘talks’ that may result from our Security Council initiative would in fact go on for many weeks or perhaps months and would above all focus constantly on the cessation of Hanoi’s aggression as the precondition to any cessation of military action against the DRV. We further anticipate that any detailed discussions about any possible eventual form of agreement returning to the essentials of the 1954 Accords would be postponed and would be subordinated to the central issue. . . . Source: The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (New York: Quadrangle, 1971), 438–439.

148. SNIE 10-3/-65: Communist Reactions to Possible U.S. Courses of Action against North Vietnam 1517

148. SNIE 10-3/-65: Communist Reactions to Possible U.S. Courses of Action against North Vietnam, February 18, 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction In this Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) of February 18, 1965, the U.S. intelligence community held that the likely response by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to the planned U.S. bombing of North Vietnam would be a reduction in its support for the insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) but that North Vietnam would not abandon the war entirely. There was also the possibility of increased North Vietnamese support for the southern insurgency, but an invasion of South Vietnam by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) was thought unlikely.

Primary Source Reactions to a Declared and Sustained US Program of Bombing in the North [. . .] 7. Over the past decade the DRV has invested much time, effort, and capital in the development of industry, transportation, and relatively modern military facilities. They will not lightly sacrifice these hard-won gains. Yet a threat by the US to mount sustained attacks on these assets would probably be greeted in Hanoi with mixed feelings of trepidation and skepticism. At the start, the Communists would not be convinced that the US intended really to follow through with this program. They would almost certainly apply a range of pressures in an endeavor to make the US desist. They would maintain strenuous diplomatic and propaganda efforts to organize international influence against the US policy. They would probably threaten dire consequences to US interests in the area. Chinese Communists threats would be more insistent, and Chinese Communist forces would probably be deployed in more threatening postures. Viet Cong attacks would probably continue, though not necessarily at a steady pace. 8. If despite these pressures, the US vigorously continued in its attacks and damaged some important economic or military assets, the DRV leaders would have to reach a decision. They almost certainly believe that, while the US could destroy much in their country by air attacks, these alone would not cause their regime to collapse or prevent them from continuing to support the insurgency in the South. And they may believe that their international political position would improve if they became the object of sustained air attack from the US. Accordingly, they might decide to intensify the struggle, accepting the destructive

consequences in the North in the expectation of early victory in the South. 9. It seems to us somewhat more likely however that they would decide to make some effort to secure a respite from US air attack, especially if the US had indicated that such a respite would follow a sharp reduction of Viet Cong activity. We do not know how far they would go in concessions, whether the US would accept what might be offered, or what the international situation might be at such a time. We think it extremely unlikely, however, that Hanoi would concede so far to US demands that it would entail abandoning its support of the insurgency in the South or giving up its intention of unifying Vietnam under Communist control. 10. The Chinese Communists would almost certainly be willing to support the DRV in even the more militant course of action outlined in paragraph 8. We have set forth in SNIE 10-3-65 (paragraphs 16–18, with State Department footnotes of dissent) the use the Chinese would be likely to make of their own forces. Possible, but Unlikely Reactions 11. Instead of temporarily easing off or intensifying present levels of pressure, the Communist leaders might actually engage in actions which would change the scale and nature of the war. These would be much more dangerous and aggressive courses and, although they seem to us unlikely in the light of logic and prudence, they are possibilities which cannot be ignored: a. They might launch a large-scale DRV invasion of South Vietnam and/or Laos. We think it unlikely that they would do this in response to bombings of North Vietnam. They would feel that at best this drastic policy would only accelerate victories in Laos and Vietnam which they are confident they will win before very long through less costly tactics. Such an invasion would virtually require a greater involvement of the Chinese in Vietnam, which is in itself distasteful to the North Vietnamese. The Communists would recognize that to launch such an invasion would be to invite further major destruction upon the DRV and perhaps upon China. b. We think it unlikely that the Chinese or DRV would respond to US air raids by air attacks on US aircraft carriers or South Vietnamese airfields. To do so would invite counterattacks on the vulnerable Communist bases and start the escalation of an air war, a form of hostilities most disadvantageous to the North Vietnamese and Chinese. A sneak attack on a carrier by an unidentifiable Chinese submarine is a more difficult possibility to weigh, but we are inclined to think the chance is slim; the risks would be fairly high and Chinese confidence in the ability

1518

149. “Aggression from the North”: State Department White Paper on Vietnam

of their inexperienced submarine force to pull it off is probably low. c. We also think it unlikely that the Chinese Communists would start another major crisis elsewhere on the periphery of China. Faced with the possibility of a full scale war in Southeast Asia, Peiping would want to have the greatest possible strength focused there. Chinese propaganda has, indeed, said that America’s “meager force” in Asia is spread thinly over a “long arc from South Korea to Indochina,” and that if the conflict were expanded, the “time, place, and scale of the war would be beyond US control.” However, we think this is no more than a general warning of the dangers of expanding the war. Peiping is likely, however, to continue talking of war “over a vast front” and perhaps even to stir up alarms elsewhere to keep US power dispersed and deter the US in Southeast Asia. The Chinese Communists might, for example, increase the apparent military threat in Korea, bombard the offshore islands in order to raise tensions in the Taiwan area, or perhaps make threatening moves on the borders of India. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, “Communist Reactions to Possible US Actions,” Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/.

Primary Source South Vietnam is fighting for its life against a brutal campaign of terror and armed attack inspired, directed, supplied, and controlled by the Communist regime in Hanoi. This flagrant aggression has been going on for years, but recently the pace has quickened and the threat has now become acute. The war in Vietnam is a new kind of war, a fact as yet poorly understood in most parts of the world. Much of the confusion that prevails in the thinking of many people, and even governments, stems from this basic misunderstanding. For in Vietnam a totally new brand of aggression has been loosed against an independent people who want to make their way in peace and freedom. Vietnam is not another Greece, where indigenous guerrilla forces used friendly neighboring territory as a sanctuary. Vietnam is not another Malaya, where Communist guerrillas were, for the most part, physically distinguishable from the peaceful majority they sought to control. Vietnam is not another Philippines, where Communist guerrillas were physically separated from the source of their moral and physical support. Above all, the war in Vietnam is not a spontaneous and local rebellion against the established government.

149. “Aggression from the North”: State Department White Paper on Vietnam, February 27, 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction In February the U.S. State Department released a white paper titled “Aggression from the North: The Record of North VietNam’s Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam.” The position paper holds Hanoi responsible for “aggression” against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and charges that the war is “not a spontaneous and local rebellion against the established government.” The paper claims that since 1959 Hanoi has sent some 37,100 military personnel south and that three-quarters of 4,400 infiltrators from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in the first eight months of 1964 have been native northerners, who had been and continue to be the backbone of the entire Viet Cong operation in South Vietnam. The paper also blames Hanoi for arms shipments to South Vietnam, including a trawler sunk in shallow waters off Phu Yen Province on February 16, 1965, that had transported more than 100 tons of arms and ammunition. The paper was clearly designed to justify a U.S. military response.

There are elements in the Communist program of conquest directed against South Vietnam common to each of the previous areas of aggression and subversion. But there is one fundamental difference. In Vietnam a Communist government has set out deliberately to conquer a sovereign people in a neighboring state. And to achieve its end, it has used every resource of its own government to carry out its carefully planned program of concealed aggression. North Vietnam’s commitment to seize control of the South is no less total than was the commitment of the regime in North Korea in 1950. But knowing the consequences of the latter’s undisguised attack, the planners in Hanoi have tried desperately to conceal their hand. They have failed and their aggression is as real as that of an invading army. This report is a summary of the massive evidence of North Vietnamese aggression obtained by the Government of South Vietnam. This evidence has been jointly analyzed by South Vietnamese and American experts. The evidence shows that the hard core of the Communist forces attacking South Vietnam were trained in the North and ordered into the South by Hanoi. It shows that the key leadership of the Vietcong (VC), the officers and much of the cadre, many of the

150. Le Duan: “Letters to the South”

1519

technicians, political organizers, and propagandists have come from the North and operate under Hanoi’s direction. It shows that the training of essential military personnel and their infiltration into the South is directed by the Military High Command in Hanoi. In recent months new types of weapons have been introduced in the VC army, for which all ammunition must come from outside sources. Communist China and other Communist states have been the prime suppliers of these weapons and ammunition, and they have been channeled primarily through North Vietnam.

Government there. The ICC found the authorities in Hanoi in specific violation of four provisions of the Geneva Accords of 1954.

The directing force behind the effort to conquer South Vietnam is the Communist Party in the North, the Lao Dong (Workers) Party. As in every Communist state, the party is an integral part of the regime itself. North Vietnamese officials have expressed their firm determination to absorb South Vietnam into the Communist world.

The record is conclusive. It establishes beyond question that North Vietnam is carrying out a carefully conceived plan of aggression against the South. It shows that North Vietnam has intensified its efforts in the years since it was condemned by the International Control Commission. It proves that Hanoi continues to press its systematic program of armed aggression into South Vietnam. This aggression violates the United Nations Charter. It is directly contrary to the Geneva Accords of 1954 and of 1962 to which North Vietnam is a party. It is a fundamental threat to the freedom and security of South Vietnam.

Through its Central Committee, which controls the Government of the North, the Lao Dong Party directs the total political and military effort of the Vietcong. The Military High Command in the North trains the military men and sends them into South Vietnam. The Central Research Agency, North Vietnam’s central intelligence organization, directs the elaborate espionage and subversion effort. . . . Under Hanoi’s overall direction the Communists have established an extensive machine for carrying on the war within South Vietnam. The focal point is the Central Office for South Vietnam with its political and military subsections and other specialized agencies. A subordinate part of this Central Office is the liberation Front for South Vietnam. The front was formed at Hanoi’s order in 1960. Its principle function is to influence opinion abroad and to create the false impression that the aggression in South Vietnam is an indigenous rebellion against the established Government. For more than 10 years the people and the Government of South Vietnam, exercising the inherent right of self-defense, have fought back against these efforts to extend Communist power south across the 17th parallel. The United States has responded to the appeals of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam for help in this defense of the freedom and independence of its land and its people. In 1961 the Department of State issued a report called A Threat to the Peace. It described North Vietnam’s program to seize South Vietnam. The evidence in that report had been presented by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam to the International Control Commission (ICC). A special report by the ICC in June 1962 upheld the validity of that evidence. The Commission held that there was “sufficient evidence to show beyond reasonable doubt” that North Vietnam had sent arms and men into South Vietnam to carry out subversion with the aim of overthrowing the legal

Since then, new and even more impressive evidence of Hanoi’s aggression has accumulated. The Government of the United States believes that evidence should be presented to its own citizens and to the world. It is important for free men to know what has been happening in Vietnam, and how, and why. That is the purpose of this report. . . .

The people of South Vietnam have chosen to resist this threat. At their request, the United States has taken its place beside them in their defensive struggle. The United States seeks no territory, no military bases, no favored position. But we have learned the meaning of aggression elsewhere in the post-war world, and we have met it. If peace can be restored in South Vietnam, the United States will be ready at once to reduce its military involvement. But it will not abandon friends who want to remain free. It will do what must be done to help them. The choice now between peace and continued and increasingly destructive conflict is one for the authorities in Hanoi to make. Source: “Aggression from the North: The Record of North Viet-Nam’s Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam,” Department of State Bulletin 52(1343) (1965): 404–426.

150. Le Duan: “Letters to the South”, February 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction In early 1965 the Viet Cong (VC) were in the middle of a major offensive in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that had inflicted severe losses on forces of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), particularly during the Battle of Binh Gia southeast of Saigon. The military situation

1520

150. Le Duan: “Letters to the South”

in South Vietnam had become so precarious that the U.S. government was considering sending in U.S. combat troops to prevent the total collapse of South Vietnam. Faced with the possibility of direct U.S. military intervention, the Communist leadership in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and in South Vietnam debated whether to fall back to a classic protracted-war guerrilla strategy or whether to continue with large-scale military attacks aimed at gaining a quick victory. In February 1965 North Vietnamese Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) first secretary Le Duan wrote a letter to the commander of Communist forces in South Vietnam, General Nguyen Chi Thanh, providing his thoughts on this subject. The strategy that Le Duan proposed in this letter, coupling massive military attacks with civilian popular “uprisings,” would later evolve into the Communist strategy for the 1968 Tet Offensive. (Note: In this letter, “special war” is the term used by the Communists to describe the counterinsurgency strategy employed by the United States during the early 1960s, while “limited war” referred to a war in which the United States would send American ground combat units into South Vietnam to fight directly against Communist forces, as was the case during the Korean War of 1950–1953.)

Primary Source My dear Xuan and friends, The Politburo has met to discuss the situation and missions for 1965. Their resolution will be sent to you separately. Because the resolution may be slow in getting to you, and because there are a number of points that cannot be discussed in a resolution, I am writing this letter to you to give you time to think about them before you discuss the Politburo resolution. First of all, I would like to inform you that the subject of changing our strategic formula did not even come up during the recent Politburo discussion. All that was discussed was how to apply the agreed-upon formulas in a manner appropriate to the new developments in the situation. Our strategic formulas are still: —Protracted struggle while striving to create an opportunity to win a decisive victory. —Conducting parallel military and political struggles leading up to a general offensive and general uprising. With regards to the first formula, it is our assessment that we have an opportunity at the present time. The primary problem is how to seize the opportunity and not let it escape our grasp. If we want to accomplish this goal, we must fully understand our second formula and make preparations to gradually but continuously build up to the launching of a general offensive while simultaneously making all necessary preparations for launching a general uprising. . . . Our forces . . . have quickly grown strong. . . . On the enemy side, the primary pillars of support for the enemy cause, the puppet army and the cities, have now undergone a number of important changes. After a series of defeats, the puppet army has begun to

lose faith in American tactics. . . . It is becoming harder and harder for the Americans and their puppets to control the cities. Our revolutionary movement is attracting widespread support among the masses and drawing together a wide group of nationalist, democratic, and peace forces. . . . The battle of Binh Gia marked a new turning point. . . . Before Binh Gia the Americans . . . still retained some confidence in the mobile units of the puppet regular army. After Binh Gia, however, they recognized clearly that our army was capable of destroying puppet mobile forces. The U.S. realizes they will lose the “special war” if they do not change their strategy. So, has the opportunity to defeat the U.S. in the “special war” arrived? And can we defeat the Americans before they have time to change their strategy? I believe our opportunity has arrived, and I believe it is still possible for us to restrict the enemy sufficiently to defeat them in the “special war.” . . . Our problem is to fight in such a way that the Americans and the puppets are defeated while at the same time we . . . virtually eliminate the possibility that the enemy will change his policy and escalate from “special war” to “limited war.” . . . At present, the U.S. relies primarily on the puppet army to carry out the war. They will only accept defeat when that source of support no longer exists. Therefore we must strive to shatter the American source of support. . . . Our goal is to cause the total disintegration of the puppet army. That is one point. A second point: if we cause the total disintegration of the puppet army before the Americans have a chance to react, then their ability to escalate the war into a “limited war” will be reduced to a very low level. Why is that true? Because, first, the U.S. will realize that if they could not win with the puppet army, then if the puppet army no longer exists their chances of being able to defeat us with an American expeditionary army become questionable. . . . The U.S. is very hesitant about becoming bogged down in a particular region for an extended period of time, because that will put the U.S. in a defensive position from a global perspective. Secondly, if they restrict themselves solely to a “special war,” if they are forced to end that war the U.S. can withdraw with less loss of face than if they withdraw after becoming bogged down in a “limited war.” And if, in addition to defeating the puppet army, we also put the U.S. on the political defensive by overthrowing the puppet government and forming a neutralist government which requests the Americans to withdraw their troops and if we simultaneously further isolate the U.S. internationally, then the possibility that the U.S. will escalate to a “limited war” will be reduced even further. If we wish to win based on the above requirements, we must cause the complete and utter disintegration of the puppet army before the U.S. has a chance to react, we must put the U.S. on the defensive politically, and at the same time we must come up with a skillful strategy that will allow the U.S. to accept defeat and withdraw without losing face. . . . Can we cause the total disintegration of the puppet army in the near future? I believe this can be

150. Le Duan: “Letters to the South” accomplished if we closely and skillfully coordinate our military actions with political actions, combining a general offensive with a general uprising. . . . I shall present below a number of specific issues regarding the military struggle and the political struggle that we need to accomplish and that we are capable of accomplishing in the immediate future. First of all, I will discuss the military struggle. . . . We need to quickly reinforce our armed forces further to cause a fundamental change in the balance of forces. . . . Our goal is to cause the complete disintegration of the puppet army. The achievement of this goal depends not only on combat operations, but also on the political struggle. In order to allow political factors to have their maximum effect in contributing to the disintegration of the puppet army, however, our military operations must first of all destroy or cause the disintegration of three or four out of the enemy’s total of nine regular divisions. . . . One important battle requirement is to force the enemy to completely exhaust his strategic reserve force in order to drive him into a completely passive and reactive strategic position that leads quickly to disintegration. . . . We must stretch enemy forces thin by launching a truly widespread and powerful guerrilla warfare movement while simultaneously massing our main forces and preparing sufficient strategic reserve forces to launch a number of offensive campaigns and deal the enemy a number of large annihilation blows on selected battlefields that have been properly prepared. . . . One more requirement for our combat operations is to draw the enemy’s military forces out of the cities . . . in order to enable our urban movement to grow stronger so we can advance toward general insurrection. We are capable of achieving the above goals for annihilating enemy forces this year. The battles of Binh Gia and Phu My have demonstrated this fact. . . . In addition to consolidating and expanding our local forces and guerrilla militia throughout the country, we must build three or four powerful main force elements based upon the units we currently possess in key areas while at the same time we rapidly increase our strategic reserve forces. In order to accomplish this quickly, in addition to vigorously recruiting young people into our army, we should mobilize twenty or thirty thousand militia troops and upgrade them into our main force units. Up here in the north we will make even stronger and more urgent efforts to send forces down to you from North Vietnam. . . . The Party Central Committee will mobilize the greatest possible efforts of the entire Party, the entire population, and the entire army to support the front lines. This is the direction of our military effort. In the following section I will discuss the direction of our political effort. . . . The cities will be the focal point for the coming general uprising. . . . Signs of a revolutionary situation have begun to appear in the cities of South Vietnam. However, the revolutionary situation is not yet ripe. If we can render the puppet army . . . ineffective, this will rapidly advance the revolutionary situation until it is ripe. . . .

1521

I will attempt to outline an overall plan for you: As we expand our guerilla warfare operations and shrink the size of those areas occupied by the enemy in the mountain jungles and in the rural lowlands and at the same time raise the struggle movement in the cities to new levels, we can help to “ripen” the situation by attacking and shattering three or four puppet regular divisions in battle. . . . We will then launch a coordinated general uprising with a general military offensive aimed straight at the enemy’s heart, his center, to seize control of the government. This will shatter the morale of the puppet army. . . . We will make strong military attacks combined with powerful political and military attacks conducted by the masses to incite military mutinies and create the possibility of causing the collapse of the remaining units of the puppet army. . . . When the situation is ripe, we will launch simultaneous uprisings in Saigon and the other large cities, such as Hue, Danang, My Tho, etc. When we send our soldiers in from the outside to launch powerful attacks aimed at shattering or paralyzing enemy troops stationed in the cities . . . the masses in the cities will rise up in insurrection to seize control of the government. In other words, we will seize the government by coordinating military attacks with popular uprisings. . . . In order to launch an uprising, our actions must create the greatest possible surprise by first drawing large puppet army units away from the cities through the use of diversionary or deception operations. . . . The primary target for our uprising will be Saigon. We must prevent the enemy from pulling forces back from other locations to relieve Saigon. For this reason, prior to the uprising we will attack and capture the Central Highlands to deny the enemy a place from which he can launch future counterattacks. At the same time we will liberate the remaining rural areas and take control over the entire rural countryside. In order to attract the middle classes and to create the greatest possible surprise for the Americans, the uprising will be carried out under a different banner: the banner of a neutralist front. This neutralist front will have as few external connections with the National Liberation Front as possible. . . . Our troops who attack and occupy the cities will operate under the guise of neutralist troops. The Liberation Front will remain on the outside and will announce its support. That will be on the surface, for the eyes of the enemy. With regards to our core mass supporters, however, we will state clearly that the neutral front is something that we advocate and that we support. . . . After the insurrection succeeds, we will form a neutral government made up of a wide range of persons who appear to have no connections with us, but naturally we will control the army and the security forces. . . . The new government will set forward the following demands: —End the fighting. Establish overt relations with the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam to discuss ending the war. —Implement a policy of neutrality. Establish relations with France and the United States and raise the issue of requesting the withdrawal of American troops.

1522

151. Maxwell Taylor, Ambassador: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk

—Request that the two joint chairmen of the 1954 Geneva Conference immediately convene a conference to discuss the issue of guaranteeing the neutrality of South Vietnam and a cessation of hostilities. It may not at first be necessary to raise the issue of establishing relations with North Vietnam. If we can accomplish the above program, we will have created conditions that will make it easier for the U.S. to agree to withdraw. And if we make full use of our opportunity and rapidly cause the complete disintegration of the puppet army, this will limit to the maximum extent possible the possibility that the U.S. will send in an expeditionary army to conduct a “limited war.” . . . I have presented a number of problems above for you all to consider. As I stated at the beginning, the issue now is to prepare to be able to seize an opportunity to win a decisive victory. Will the opportunity appear soon? We believe it will, if we actively work to create it. . . . Naturally, what I have presented here deals with only one possibility. . . . How the war situation develops depends in part on the enemy. . . . We also need to make appropriate preparations to respond to other eventualities that we have also foreseen. With wishes for Victory Ba [alias used by Communist Party first secretary Le Duan] Source: Le Duan, Thu Vao Nam [Letters to the South] (Hanoi: Su That Publishing House, 1986), 70–96. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

151. Maxwell Taylor, Ambassador: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, March 18, 1965 Introduction In early 1965 an immediate concern for the United States was the security of its air bases in Vietnam, and the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, sought the support of U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Maxwell Taylor for his recommendation that a battalion of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade be landed to provide this. Westmoreland’s request caused General Taylor to visit the wider issue of dispatching U.S. ground forces to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), then under active consideration in Washington. Taylor was not necessarily opposed to U.S. ground troops but preferred that they be used as part of an enclave strategy rather than in large-scale combat operations, as Westmoreland wanted. In this telegram to U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk, Taylor concludes that the presence of U.S. ground troops would likely not

significantly raise the performance level of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese army) and would be a propaganda bonanza for the Communists in which the United States would be seen as an “alien colonizer and conqueror.” Taylor was prescient in his belief that the presence of U.S. ground troops would encourage the ARVN to let the United States fight the war. Taylor departed Vietnam in July 1965.

Primary Source General Westmoreland has just sought my concurrence in his recommendation for the landing of the Third BLT of the 9th MEB at Phu Bai for the purpose of protecting the 8th RRU and the air strip there. He intends to move helicopters from Da Nang to the strip and thereby reduce field congestion to Da Nang. Because of the military advantages of thus rounding out the MEB, I have no reluctance in agreeing to the merit of his recommendation which, of course, should receive the concurrence of the GVN after that of Washington. This proposal for introducing the BLT is a reminder of the strong likelihood of additional requests for increases in U.S. ground combat forces in SVN. Such requests may come from the U.S. side, from the GVN side or from both. All of us here are keenly aware of the GVN trained military manpower shortage which will exist throughout 1965 and which probably can be rectified only in part by an accelerated mobilization. We will soon have to decide whether to try to get by with inadequate indigenous forces or to supplement them with Third Country troops, largely if not exclusively U.S. This matter was discussed with General Johnson during his recent visit who no doubt has raised it following his return to Washington. This message examines the pros and cons of such an action—specifically defined as the introduction of a U.S. division (appropriately modified) into SVN. The purpose of introducing a division would be primarily to relieve the present shortage of ARVN units either by replacing ARVN in the defense of key installations or by engaging in active operations against the VC in conjunction with ARVN. Such a reinforcement would allow a strengthening of military efforts in the I and II Corps areas where the situation is deteriorating and would give a boost to GVN morale, military and civilian. Likewise, it should end any talk of a possible U.S. withdrawal and convince Hanoi of the depth of our resolve to see this thing through to a successful conclusion. This statement of the purpose of introducing a U.S. division is, in effect, a tabulation of the arguments in favor of so doing. However, there are counter arguments on the other side of the case. The introduction of a U.S. division obviously increases U.S. involvement in the counterinsurgency, exposes greater forces and invites greater losses. It will raise sensitive command questions with our GVN allies and may encourage them to an attitude of

152. National Security Action Memorandum No. 328 “let the United States do it.” It will increase our vulnerability to Communist propaganda and Third Country criticism as we appear to assume the old French role of alien colonizer and conqueror. Finally, there is considerable doubt that the number of GVN forces which our action would relieve would have any great significance in reducing the manpower gap. It is possible to reach a conclusion with regard to the overall merit of this action without first examining in some detail the possible missions which could be assigned a U.S. division. There are two obvious possibilities: the first, the assignment of the division to one or more of the provinces of the high plateau where the climate is good, the terrain relatively open, and the Montagnard population more readily distinguishable from the alien Viet Cong. Here, our forces could utilize their mobility and firepower effectively and make an important contribution in cutting off the growing infiltration into and through this area. For the most part, the Montagnards are friendly to the U.S. and our forces would thus be operating in a relatively friendly environment. On the other hand, such a mission in the highlands would place our forces in an area with highly exposed lines of communication leading to the coast. Their location in this area would create serious logistic problems because of the difficulty of the movement of land transport through areas infested by the Viet Cong. There would be problems both of reinforcement and of withdrawal because of this precariousness of land communications. Finally, the GVN may question the introduction of sizeable U.S. forces into the Montagnard area where we have often been accused of favoring the Montagnards over the Vietnamese and of encouraging Montagnard separatism. The other role which has been suggested for U.S. ground forces is the occupation and defense of key enclaves along the coast such as Quang Ngai, Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa and Nah Trang. Such a disposition would have the advantage of placing our forces in areas of easy access and egress with minimum logistic problems associated with supply and maintenance. The presence of our troops would assure the defense of these important key areas and would relieve some GVN forces for employment elsewhere. The troops would not be called upon to engage in counterinsurgency operation except in their own local defense and hence would be exposed to minimum losses. On the other hand, they would be engaged in a rather inglorious static defensive mission unappealing to them and unimpressive in the eyes of the Vietnamese. Operating in major population areas would maximize the points of contact with Vietnamese and hence maximize the possible points of friction. The division would be badly fragmented to the extent that its command, control and supervision would be awkward.

1523

The foregoing analysis leads me to the following tentative conclusions. First, it is not desirable to introduce a U.S. division into South Vietnam unless there are clear and tangible advantages outweighing the numerous disadvantages, many of which have been noted above. One must make a definite determination of the numbers and types of GVN forces relieved by the introduction of the U.S. unit and thus the effect of the increased U.S. presence in closing the manpower gap of 1965. Obviously, our division would make some contribution but it remains to be proved that it will be sufficient to reverse the downward trend and give such a lift to the GVN forces that they would perform better by the stimulation of the U.S. presence rather than worse in a mood of relaxation as passing the Viet Cong burden to the U.S. If the evidence of the probable effectiveness of this U.S. contribution is convincing, then the matter of mission becomes the primary question. The inland mission in the highlands is clearly the more ambitious and, if well done, will make a greater contribution during the present critical period. On the other hand, it is the more exposed and even permits one to entertain the possibility of a kind of Dien Bien Phu if the coastal provinces should collapse and our forces were cut off from the coast except by air. The coastal enclave mission is safer, simpler but less impressive and less productive than the inland mission. The contrast of the pros and cons of the two suggests the desirability of reexamining the question to see whether the advantages of the inland disposition could not be combined in some way with the retention of a base coastal area, linked with a position inland. In any case, considerable additional study is required before we are prepared to make a recommendation either for the introduction of a division or for the assignment of its mission. In the meantime, we should be giving much thought both in South Vietnam and in Washington as to the right course of action [if] and when this issue becomes pressing—as it shortly will. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 445–447.

152. National Security Action Memorandum No. 328, April 6, 1965 Introduction In early March 1965, U.S. Army chief of staff General Harold K. Johnson had taken a fact-finding trip to Vietnam, and later that month the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) proposed that U.S. forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) be permitted to undertake a more active combat role. On April 6 President Lyndon Johnson agreed to the JCS request to deploy substantially greater

1524

152. National Security Action Memorandum No. 328

U.S. forces to South Vietnam, including two additional marine battalions, and agreed that all marine units in Vietnam could be employed in a “more active role” as advocated by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland. This change was, however, to be presented to the U.S. public as “wholly consistent with existing policy.”

their armed forces in parallel with the additional Marine deployment approved in paragraph 6.

Primary Source

We should continue roughly the present slowly ascending tempo of ROLLING THUNDER operations, being prepared to add strikes in response to a higher rate of VC operations, or conceivably to slow the pace in the unlikely event VC slacked off sharply for what appeared to be more than a temporary operational lull.

On Thursday, April 1, the President made the following decisions with respect to Vietnam: 1. Subject to modifications in the light of experience, and to coordination and direction both in Saigon and in Washington, the President approved the 41-point program of non-military actions submitted by Ambassador Taylor in a memorandum dated March 31, 1965. 2. The President gave general approval to the recommendations submitted by Mr. Rowan in his report dated March 16, with the exception that the President withheld approval of any request for supplemental funds at this time—it is his decision that this program is to be energetically supported by all agencies and departments and by the reprogramming of available funds as necessary within USIA. 3. The President approved the urgent exploration of the 12 suggestions for covert and other actions submitted by the Director of Central Intelligence under date of March 31. 4. The President repeated his earlier approval of the 21-point program of military actions submitted by General Harold K. Johnson under date of March 14 and re-emphasized his desire that aircraft and helicopter reinforcements under this program be accelerated. 5. The President approved an 18–20,000 man increase in U.S. military support forces to fill out existing units and supply needed logistic personnel. 6. The President approved the deployment of two additional Marine Battalions and one Marine Air Squadron and associated headquarters and support elements. 7. The President approved a change of mission for all Marine Battalions deployed to Vietnam to permit their more active use under conditions to be established and approved by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Secretary of State. 8. The President approved the urgent exploration, with the Korean, Australian, and New Zealand Governments, of the possibility of rapid deployment of significant combat elements from

9. Subject to continuing review, the President approved the following general framework of continuing action against North Vietnam and Laos:

The target systems should continue to avoid the effective GCI range of MIGS. We should continue to vary the types of targets, stepping up attacks on lines of communication in the near future, and possibly moving in a few weeks to attacks on the rail lines north and northeast of Hanoi. Leaflet operations should be expanded to obtain maximum practicable psychological effect on the North Vietnamese population. Blockade or aerial mining of North Vietnamese ports need further study and should be considered for future operations. It would have major political complications, especially in relation to the Soviets and other third countries, but also offers many advantages. Air operations in Laos, particularly route blocking operations in the Panhandle area, should be stepped up to the maximum remunerative rate. 10. Ambassador Taylor will promptly seek the reactions of the South Vietnamese Government to appropriate sections of this program and their approval as necessary, and in the event of disapproval or difficulty at that end, these decisions will be appropriately reconsidered. In any event, no action into Vietnam under paragraphs 6 and 7 above should take place without GVN approval or further Presidential authorization. 11. The President desires that with respect to the actions in paragraphs 5 through 7, premature publicity be avoided by all possible precautions. The actions themselves should be taken as rapidly as practicable, but in ways that should minimize any appearance of sudden changes in policy, and official statements on these troop movements will be made only with the direct approval of the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of State. The President’s desire is that these movements and changes should be understood as being gradual and wholly consistent with existing policy. Source: The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (New York: Quadrangle, 1971), 452–453.

153. President Lyndon Johnson, “Peace without Conquest”: Address at Johns Hopkins University 1525

153. President Lyndon Johnson, “Peace without Conquest”: Address at Johns Hopkins University, April 7, 1965 Introduction In the course of a major televised address at Johns Hopkins University on April 7, 1965, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson explains his Vietnam policy, including the recent U.S. military escalation there. Johnson offers to participate in discussions to end the war and pledges $1 billion in aid for the development of the Mekong Delta, to include the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and designed to benefit the entire region. As the Johnson administration expected, the North Vietnamese rejected the offer of negotiations without conditions and the economic development program, and this temporarily reduced domestic and foreign criticism of the U.S. military escalation and provided Johnson with broader approval to fight a wider war.

Primary Source Mr. Garland, Senator Brewster, Senator Tydings, Members of the congressional delegation, members of the faculty of Johns Hopkins, student body, my fellow Americans: Last week 17 nations sent their views to some two dozen countries having an interest in southeast Asia. We are joining those 17 countries and stating our American policy tonight which we believe will contribute toward peace in this area of the world. I have come here to review once again with my own people the views of the American Government. Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change. This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Viet-Nam. Viet-Nam is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Viet-Nam’s steaming soil. Why must we take this painful road? Why must this Nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure. This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace. We wish that this were not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish. THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT The world as it is in Asia is not a serene or peaceful place. The first reality is that North Viet-Nam has attacked the independent nation of South Viet-Nam. Its object is total conquest. Of course, some of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in attack on their own government. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a constant stream from north to south. This support is the heartbeat of the war. And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to their government. And helpless villages are ravaged by sneak attacks. Largescale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities. The confused nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of an old enemy. Over this war—and all Asia—is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, which has attacked India, and has been condemned by the United Nations for aggression in Korea. It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. The contest in VietNam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes. WHY ARE WE IN VIET-NAM? Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet-Nam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Viet-Nam. We have helped to build, and we have helped to defend. Thus, over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Viet-Nam defend its independence.

1526

153. President Lyndon Johnson, “Peace without Conquest”: Address at Johns Hopkins University

And I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemies, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.

And we do this to convince the leaders of North Viet-Nam—and all who seek to share their conquest—of a very simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired.

We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Viet-Nam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, and even wider war. We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Viet-Nam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in southeast Asia—as we did in Europe—in the words of the Bible: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” There are those who say that all our effort there will be futile—that China’s power is such that it is bound to dominate all southeast Asia. But there is no end to that argument until all of the nations of Asia are swallowed up. There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. Well, we have it there for the same reason that we have a responsibility for the defense of Europe. World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia, and when it ended we found ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom. OUR OBJECTIVE IN VIET-NAM Our objective is the independence of South Viet-Nam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves—only that the people of South Viet-Nam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way. We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary. In recent months attacks on South Viet-Nam were stepped up. Thus, it became necessary for us to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires. We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Viet-Nam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties.

We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement. We know that air attacks alone will not accomplish all of these purposes. But it is our best and prayerful judgment that they are a necessary part of the surest road to peace. We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in the hands of others besides ourselves. And we must be prepared for a long continued conflict. It will require patience as well as bravery, the will to endure as well as the will to resist. I wish it were possible to convince others with words of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes: Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to any challenge. Because we fight for values and we fight for principles, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination are unending. Once this is clear, then it should also be clear that the only path for reasonable men is the path of peaceful settlement. Such peace demands an independent South Viet-Nam—securely guaranteed and able to shape its own relationships to all others— free from outside interference—tied to no alliance—a military base for no other country. These are the essentials of any final settlement. We will never be second in the search for such a peaceful settlement in Viet-Nam. There may be many ways to this kind of peace: in discussion or negotiation with the governments concerned; in large groups or in small ones; in the reaffirmation of old agreements or their strengthening with new ones. We have stated this position over and over again, fifty times and more, to friend and foe alike. And we remain ready, with this purpose, for unconditional discussions. And until that bright and necessary day of peace we will try to keep conflict from spreading. We have no desire to see thousands die in battle—Asians or Americans. We have no desire to devastate that which the people of North Viet-Nam have built with toil and sacrifice. We will use our power with restraint and with all the wisdom that we can command.

153. President Lyndon Johnson, “Peace without Conquest”: Address at Johns Hopkins University 1527 But we will use it. This war, like most wars, is filled with terrible irony. For what do the people of North Viet-Nam want? They want what their neighbors also desire: food for their hunger; health for their bodies; a chance to learn; progress for their country; and an end to the bondage of material misery. And they would find all these things far more readily in peaceful association with others than in the endless course of battle. A COOPERATIVE EFFORT FOR DEVELOPMENT These countries of southeast Asia are homes for millions of impoverished people. Each day these people rise at dawn and struggle through until the night to wrestle existence from the soil. They are often wracked by disease, plagued by hunger, and death comes at the early age of 40. Stability and peace do not come easily in such a land. Neither independence nor human dignity will ever be won, though, by arms alone. It also requires the work of peace. The American people have helped generously in times past in these works. Now there must be a much more massive effort to improve the life of man in that conflict-torn corner of our world. The first step is for the countries of southeast Asia to associate themselves in a greatly expanded cooperative effort for development. We would hope that North Viet-Nam would take its place in the common effort just as soon as peaceful cooperation is possible. The United Nations is already actively engaged in development in this area. As far back as 1961 I conferred with our authorities in Viet-Nam in connection with their work there. And I would hope tonight that the Secretary General of the United Nations could use the prestige of his great office, and his deep knowledge of Asia, to initiate, as soon as possible, with the countries of that area, a plan for cooperation in increased development.

The wonders of modern medicine can be spread through villages where thousands die every year from lack of care. Schools can be established to train people in the skills that are needed to manage the process of development. And these objectives, and more, are within the reach of a cooperative and determined effort. I also intend to expand and speed up a program to make available our farm surpluses to assist in feeding and clothing the needy in Asia. We should not allow people to go hungry and wear rags while our own warehouses overflow with an abundance of wheat and corn, rice and cotton. So I will very shortly name a special team of outstanding, patriotic, distinguished Americans to inaugurate our participation in these programs. This team will be headed by Mr. Eugene Black, the very able former President of the World Bank. In areas that are still ripped by conflict, of course development will not be easy. Peace will be necessary for final success. But we cannot and must not wait for peace to begin this job. THE DREAM OF WORLD ORDER This will be a disorderly planet for a long time. In Asia, as elsewhere, the forces of the modern world are shaking old ways and uprooting ancient civilizations. There will be turbulence and struggle and even violence. Great social change—as we see in our own country now—does not always come without conflict. We must also expect that nations will on occasion be in dispute with us. It may be because we are rich, or powerful; or because we have made some mistakes; or because they honestly fear our intentions. However, no nation need ever fear that we desire their land, or to impose our will, or to dictate their institutions. But we will always oppose the effort of one nation to conquer another nation.

For our part I will ask the Congress to join in a billion dollar American investment in this effort as soon as it is underway.

We will do this because our own security is at stake.

And I would hope that all other industrialized countries, including the Soviet Union, will join in this effort to replace despair with hope, and terror with progress.

But there is more to it than that. For our generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the power and now we have the opportunity to make that dream come true.

The task is nothing less than to enrich the hopes and the existence of more than a hundred million people. And there is much to be done.

For centuries nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of a world where disputes are settled by law and reason. And we will try to make it so.

The vast Mekong River can provide food and water and power on a scale to dwarf even our own TVA.

For most of history men have hated and killed one another in battle. But we dream of an end to war. And we will try to make it so.

1528

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

For all existence most men have lived in poverty, threatened by hunger. But we dream of a world where all are fed and charged with hope. And we will help to make it so. The ordinary men and women of North Viet-Nam and South VietNam—of China and India—of Russia and America—are brave people. They are filled with the same proportions of hate and fear, of love and hope. Most of them want the same things for themselves and their families. Most of them do not want their sons to ever die in battle, or to see their homes, or the homes of others, destroyed. Well, this can be their world yet. Man now has the knowledge— always before denied—to make this planet serve the real needs of the people who live on it.

to bring peace and hope to all the peoples of the world? Have I done enough? Ask yourselves that question in your homes—and in this hall tonight. Have we, each of us, all done all we could? Have we done enough? We may well be living in the time foretold many years ago when it was said: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” This generation of the world must choose: destroy or build, kill or aid, hate or understand. We can do all these things on a scale never dreamed of before.

I know this will not be easy. I know how difficult it is for reason to guide passion, and love to master hate. The complexities of this world do not bow easily to pure and consistent answers. But the simple truths are there just the same. We must all try to follow them as best we can.

Well, we will choose life. In so doing we will prevail over the enemies within man, and over the natural enemies of all mankind. To Dr. Eisenhower and Mr. Garland, and this great institution, Johns Hopkins, I thank you for this opportunity to convey my thoughts to you and to the American people.

CONCLUSION Good night. We often say how impressive power is. But I do not find it impressive at all. The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. They are necessary symbols. They protect what we cherish. But they are witness to human folly.

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, Book 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), 394–399.

A dam built across a great river is impressive. In the countryside where I was born, and where I live, I have seen the night illuminated, and the kitchens warmed, and the homes heated, where once the cheerless night and the ceaseless cold held sway. And all this happened because electricity came to our area along the humming wires of the REA. Electrification of the countryside—yes, that, too, is impressive. A rich harvest in a hungry land is impressive. The sight of healthy children in a classroom is impressive. These—not mighty arms—are the achievements which the American Nation believes to be impressive. And, if we are steadfast, the time may come when all other nations will also find it so. Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep I ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can do to unite this country? Have I done everything I can to help unite the world, to try

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly, April 8, 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) had on their part already escalated the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with the decision in late 1964 to dispatch native northerners south and to commit regular units of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) to the fight in South Vietnam. By March 1965, three PAVN regiments were in South Vietnam. In these lengthy remarks to the Third National Assembly of North Vietnam, however, Premier Pham Van Dong condemns U.S. escalation of the war to include the injection of marines from the United States and troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), which he characterizes as part of an effort by Washington to encircle the “socialist countries” with “a network of military bases, and a U.S.-led system of military alliances.” He outlines the challenges facing North

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1529 Vietnam and pledges that the struggle to reunify Vietnam will continue, even if it takes “20 years or longer.”

Primary Source The U S. imperialists are intensifying their aggressive war in the southern part of our country. At the same time, they are extending the war to the North with their air force, seriously encroaching on the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, and directly jeopardizing the peace and security of the peoples of this part of the world. Allow me, on behalf of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, to present to the National Assembly a report on the new situation brought about by the U.S. aggressors, and on the new tasks to be fulfilled by our people to defeat them. PART I NEW SITUATION AND NEW TASKS The war of aggression waged by the U.S. imperialists on our country is taking very dangerous developments. Therefore, the patriotic struggle of our people has also to take new developments, and to become more determined and vigorous than ever. In the heat of the present situation, we realize all the more clearly the process of the U.S. imperialists’ policy of aggression against our country, and also the growth of our people’s patriotic struggle and its prospects of certain victory. Indictment Against the U.S. Imperialist Aggressors Today, from the rostrum of the National Assembly the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam solemnly announces to the entire Vietnamese people and the world peoples the indictment against the aggressive and warlike U.S. imperialists. After World War II, availing themselves of the collapse of the defeated German, Italian, and Japanese imperialists, and of the serious weakening of the British and French Imperialists in spite of their victory, the U.S. imperialists have been striving to establish world hegemony; they have successively kicked out and replaced the other imperialists to enslave the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, thus playing the role of an international gendarme. The U.S. imperialists’ policy of intervention and aggression in Viet Nam and Indochina is part of their strategy in the Western Pacific area. It is also part of U.S. overall strategy as materialized in the establishment of a network of U.S. military bases, and a U.S.-led system of military alliances aimed at encircling the socialist countries, bringing the national liberation movement under control, preparing for a nuclear war, a world war, and waging limited wars as in Korea formerly and “special war” as in South Viet Nam today.

Immediately after World War II ended with the great victory of the Soviet Army and the world democratic forces, the entire Vietnamese people, under the clearsighted leadership of the Party, stood up, accomplished the August Revolution, founded the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam on September 2, 1945, and established the people’s power all over Viet Nam, from North to South. However, only a few months after the proclamation of our independence, the Chiang Kai-shek militarist clique—a tool of the U.S. imperialists—entered North Viet Nam while the British imperialists stepped into South Viet Nam, paving the way for the French colonialists’ comeback. Our resolute and clever struggle in 1946 drove the Chiang Kai-shek militarist clique out of our country, thus avoiding the danger of U.S. imperialist intervention. For their part, the French colonialists gradually encroached on our territory from the South to the North, and finally provoked an outbreak of the war all over our country on December 19, 1946. In recalling our people’s heroic resistance war we want to make it clear that the U.S. imperialists began their intervention in our country as early as that time. In 1949, the great People’s Republic of China came into being. One year after, in 1950, the victorious campaign on the Viet NamChina border broke the imperialists encirclement of the Vietnamese revolution, and connected our country with the mighty socialist camp. Frightened by the development of our people’s resistance war, the U.S. imperialists frenziedly intensified their intervention in Viet Nam, and took a direct part in the aggressive war by sanctioning the French military plans, bearing a great part of the war expenditures, and setting up in Saigon a military mission named M.A.A.G. While the French were nearing their defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the U S. imperialists redoubled their efforts to protract and extend the Indochina war. Together with the French advocates of continued war, they mapped out the “Vautour plan” for massive bombing of the northern part of our country in an attempt to save the French from defeat at Dien Bien Phu. However, confronted with the vigorous struggle of our people and army, and the mounting demands of the world’s peoples for peace in Indochina, the U.S. imperialists could not carry out their dark schemes. On May 7, 1954, the Dien Bien Phu victory resounded throughout the world. On May 8, 1954, the Geneva Conference on Indochina held its opening session. It was the Dien Bien Phu victory which, in the main, determined the outcome of the Geneva Conference. In spite of all the sabotage activities of the U.S. imperialists the Conference ended in success. At its closing session, the U.S. Government representative was compelled to pledge respect for the Geneva Agreements on the Indochina countries.

1530

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

But immediately after the end of the 1954 Geneva Conference, the United States enticed a number of countries to sign the Manila pact and set up S.E.A.T.O., an aggressive military bloc, and disregarding the explicit clauses of the Geneva Agreements, it placed South Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia in the so-called “protection area” of the bloc. According to the 1954 Geneva Agreements, Viet Nam was temporarily divided into two zones for the sake of eliminating the state of war, mainly for the French Expeditionary Corps to regroup in South Viet Nam and withdraw thereafter to France. However, the U.S. Imperialists and their flunkeys—the Ngo Dinh Diem clique at that time—blatantly violated a very important provision of the Agreements—the provision on the holding of a nationwide free general election in July 1956 with a view to reunifying Viet Nam. Here, we clearly see the U.S. imperialists’ perfidious design of bringing about a permanent partition of our country, to turn South Viet Nam into a military base and a new-type colony of the United States, and to prepare for a new war of aggression against North Viet Nam and the whole of Southeast Asia. After the conclusion of the Geneva Agreements, the U.S. imperialists gradually replaced the French colonialists in South Viet Nam, set up the Ngo Dinh Diem puppet administration, wiped out one by one the opposition groupings, and carried out most . . . wicked repressions against the people. They drowned in blood all patriotic forces aspiring to independence, democracy and peace, national identification. They organized camouflaged concentration camps dubbed “prosperity zones”, “agricultural settlements”, and “strategic hamlets”. On the other hand, the U.S.-Diem clique frantically strengthened their military forces: they rigged up a half-a-million– strong mercenary army which a corps of U.S. advisers closely controlled from top to bottom. They build up over a hundred air and naval bases and a whole network of strategic roads. They dream of quickly stabilizing the situation in South Viet Nam, then attacking the North, and carrying out their “March to the North” plan. But the heroic South Viet Nam people, bringing into play the indomitable tradition of the nation, resolutely stood up against the U.S. imperialists and the puppets. Their patriotic structure surged up all the more impetuously as the enemy resorted to savage terror. The enemy plan for rapid pacification of the South and a march to the North was smashed. In 1960, the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation came into being, carrying aloft the banner of national salvation and calling on the South Vietnamese people to unite and struggle in accordance with its correct programme. Since then, our Southern compatriots have risen up in actions against the enemy in a still more vigorous drive. In 1961, the U.S.-Diem clique made a further step in their wicked scheme. It was the May 11, 1961, Johnson–Ngo Dinh Diem joint

communiqué which was actually a military pact marking a very serious turning point in U.S. policy of military intervention in South Viet Nam. Immediately after this, the United States set up an operational command in Saigon, brought into South Viet Nam tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen along with a great number of planes, warships, all kinds of modern weapons, napalm bombs and toxic chemicals aimed at increasing the fighting capacities of the South Viet Nam puppet army and stepping up the aggressive war in the South of our country in the form of “special warfare.” The . . . policy of the U.S. aggressors was materialized in the Staley-Taylor plan for “pacification of South Viet Nam within 15 months.” This plan aimed at herding the entire South Vietnamese population into “strategic hamlets”, isolating and annihilating the patriotic forces, first of all the armed forces, and also preparing conditions for an attack on North Viet Nam after the pacification of South Viet Nam. It has now gone bankrupt. The U.S. imperialists and their agents have suffered heavy losses and landed in a serious military and political crisis. After being compelled to swap horses in midstream and to remove the Ngo Dinh Diem clique, the U.S. imperialists set forth the Johnson-McNamara plan for the “pacification by priority sectors” in South Viet Nam, that is to say, for the consolidation of a fairly large area surrounding Saigon-Cholon. However, with the ever-stronger struggle of the South Vietnamese people and their successive victories, this plan had to be gradually reduced from 8 provinces to 5, then to 3, and finally to the defence of Saigon-Cholon only. But even in Saigon, the U.S. aggressors and their agents are in a shaky position because of the vigorous growth of the mass struggle. While intensifying their intervention and aggression in our country, the U.S. imperialists have ceaselessly stepped up their policy of intervention and aggression against the Kingdom of Laos and the Kingdom of Cambodia. Soon after the 1954 Geneva Conference, the United States brought its military personnel and its satellites’ troops into Laos and rekindled the flames of war to annihilate the Lao patriotic forces, and prevent the Kingdom of Laos from going along the path of genuine peace and neutrality. After they failed in this manoeuvre, the U.S. imperialists and their agents were forced to sign in 1962 a new Geneva Agreement recognizing, the neutral status of Laos. But over the past three years, they have frenziedly undermined Lao national concord, sabotaged the tripartite coalition government, torpedoed the policy of peace and neutrality of the Kingdom of Laos, launched repeated military operations to encroach on the area controlled by the Neo Lao Haksat and the genuine neutralist forces, ceaselessly extending the war in Laos and making the situation here more and more strained. The Laotian people and patriotic forces have heroically and persistently struggled against the U.S. imperialist aggressors and their flunkeys to defend the

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1531 achievements of the revolution and their national rights, and have won glorious victories. Under the clearsighted leadership of their Head of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian Government and people have resolutely steered their country into the path of peace and neutrality. The Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia has rejected the “SEATO protection” and refused to accept U.S. “aid”. For the last ten years, the U.S. imperialists and their agents in South Viet Nam, Thailand, and “the Free Khmer”, have continuously resorted to perfidious means, from political threat to economic pressure, from attempted assassination and subversion to violation of the Cambodian border and territory. But all these manoeuvres have been defeated by the Cambodian people’s struggle. The Kingdom of Cambodia has successfully preserved her independence and neutrality, the anti-U.S. movement there has ceaselessly developed and is now deeper and wider than ever. The above-mentioned indictment sheds light on the extremely serious crimes committed by the U.S. imperialists in our country: 1. For the last 20 years, the U.S. imperialists have been persistently pursuing their manoeuvres of aggression and enslavement in our country as well as in neighboring Laos and Cambodia. For over four years now they have waged in the southern part of our country the most “dirty” and ruthless war of aggression in the world. Recently, because of their bitter defeats in South Viet Nam, they have brazenly launched air attacks on the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, an independent and sovereign country and a member of the socialist camp. 2. The U.S. imperialists have heaped up in our country, particularly in the South, the most hideous and unpardonable crimes. Over the past years, they have used most cruel means to raze villages to the ground, and destroy crops and vegetation: they have resorted to napalm bombs, toxic chemicals, and even poison gases to massacre our compatriots with Hitler-like savagery; they have massacred big numbers of innocent people, disembowelled and quartered children, burnt alive old men, raped women; they have endeavoured to propagate depraved ways of life, particularly in towns and cities, and tried by every means to turn our youth into hooligans and poison our people’s mind. 3. The U.S. imperialists have systematically and blatantly violated the Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam. All their policies and acts in this area are aimed at doing away with the legal basis and the most important provisions of the said Agreements and denying to the Vietnamese as well as Cambodian and Lao peoples their universally-recognized national rights. The purpose of this brief indictment is not merely to record the crimes committed by the U.S. aggressors against our people. To

condemn the U.S. imperialists is to voice one’s will and determination to oppose and defeat them. Like the Vietnamese people, the peoples of Asian, African, Latin American and even European countries can draw similar indictments, denounce similar crimes and by so doing, enhance their will and determination to struggle against them and warlike U.S. Imperialism, the most wicked, aggressive and dangerous enemy of mankind today. The South Vietnamese People Will Win The past 20 years or so were years of U.S. imperialist intervention and aggression in our country and also of a persistent and staunch struggle of our people for self-liberation and in defence of their freedom and independence. In South Viet Nam, the process of development of the U.S. imperialists’ policy of intervention and aggression is also a process of development of the people’s patriotic struggle. Never before in the history of our nation’s struggle against foreign invasion, has there been such a deep and broad mobilization, and this has made it possible to bring into play to a very high extent the strength and intelligence of all social strata from the countryside to the towns, from the coastal areas to the mountainous regions. In the course of a hard struggle against a modernly-equipped and extremely cruel enemy, in the course of a nationwide, all-out and protracted war waged by the entire people, our South Vietnamese compatriots have created everything, built up a several-million– strong political army with a great variety of effective forms of struggle, built up an ever-stronger armed force, capable of defeating the enemy in ever-bigger battles, and which will deal him crushing blows. The root cause of the growth of our Southern compatriots and their glorious victories lies in the ardent patriotism, the close unity, and the fighting determination of the entire people. Our army and people’s traditional will to fight and to win has been brought into play to a very large extent. Revolution is the work of the masses. Once the masses have risen up, resolved to sacrifice everything and to defeat the enemy with a view to winning back the sacred rights of the country, the right to life and the dignity of human beings, once millions of people are imbued with such determination, they become an invincible force capable of crushing any enemy. The U.S. aggressors and their agents know very well that to have a “grip” over the people is essential for their “special warfare” in South Viet Nam. That is why all through these long years, they have tried every means—military, political and economic—to mislead and control the people, and thus keep them under their sway. This policy reached its highest peak with the “strategic hamlets” program, the most vicious trick of the U.S. imperialist aggressor and the mad “State policy” of the Ngo Dinh Diem clique who wanted to turn all

1532

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

South Vietnamese villages and towns into appalling concentration camps and heavily-fortified strongholds. But the people’s strength has smashed their schemes. The correct land policy of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation, which safeguards the achievements of the revolution and the Resistance war and meets the basic interests of the peasant masses, has powerfully aroused million of South Vietnamese to stand up and destroy the “strategic hamlets”. To date, over four-fifths of these hamlets have been completely destroyed, while the rest are in a process of disintegration. A considerable number have been turned into people’s fighting villages and strongholds of the patriotic war. The struggle for the destruction of the “strategic hamlets” is an extremely arduous and valiant one. It is a fiercest confrontation between the revolutionary forces of the people and a most ruthless and wicked enemy. The outcome has been victory for the people—the bulk of the “strategic hamlets” system has been razed to the ground, and as a result, the liberated areas have been rapidly expanded, linked together and strengthened in all respects to form a solid base for the liberation struggle. This is shaking to the roots the rule of the U.S. imperialists and their agents. Parallel to the struggle for the destruction of the “strategic hamlets” and the expansion of the liberated areas is the struggle to counter and foil enemy’s mopping-up plans, to wipe out piecemeal its military forces. In the flames of this extremely arduous and glorious fight, the South Viet Nam Liberation Army and other peoples armed forces have rapidly grown up in all fields: in number and quality, in political standard and combat efficiency, in equipment and weapons. This rapid growth has been eloquently demonstrated in all battlefields of South Viet Nam by ever-bigger battles and ever-greater and more significant victories from Nam Bo to the Central Highlands and the plains of South Central Viet Nam: Ap Bac, Bien Hoa, Phel Muong, Cha La, Binh Gia, An Lao, Phu My, Pleiku, Viet An, Phong Phu, etc. In the course of the patriotic war, the South Vietnamese army and people have created from scratch a wonderful force capable of fighting and defeating an enemy several times bigger in number and equipped with all types of planes, naval craft, armoured cars, automatic rifles, artillery, napalm bombs, noxious chemicals, and even toxic gases. The forms of struggle they have used are very original and mark a development of the people’s patriotic war to new peaks. At the same time, the mercenary troops are continually weakening, as they realize more and more clearly that they are acting as a vicious tool for the U.S. aggressors to massacre their own compatriots, destroy their homes, and betray their Fatherland. With the fierce patriotic struggle resounding ever more deeply in their hearts and among their ranks, they realize all the more clearly that they are committing crimes. That is why they do not want to fight. In their aggressive war in South Viet Nam, the U.S. imperialists rely mainly on the puppet forces; but it is now obvious that they cannot rely on an army practically demoralized although very well-armed and equipped. This is a victory of tremendous significance for the patriotic war in South Viet Nam.

The struggle for the destruction of the “strategic hamlets” and the ever-greater military victories all over South Viet Nam has had direct, deep and wide repercussions in South Vietnamese towns and cities. Over the recent years, almost all South Vietnamese towns and cities: Saigon, Hue, Da Nang, Ben Tre, My Tho, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Quang Tri, etc., have been swept by big mass movements, involving all social strata: workers, pupils, students, intellectuals, Buddhists, etc. These movements powerfully surged up wave after wave in highly vaned forms and with the exalted spirit of people rising up to become masters of their towns, lay bare the traitors and demand a U.S. withdrawal. Once, Saigon students sent an ultimatum to Nguyen Khanh. Saigon workers compelled the elders and the enterprise owners to meet all their claims. On many occasions, the masses managed to secure the control of the streets in Saigon and Hue. In Quy Nhon demonstrating students seized control of the radio broadcasting station. At present, the mass movement is vigorously forging ahead in towns and cities, rallying in its ranks broad social strata, from the labouring masses to public figures, under the slogan of peace and neutrality. In short, the South Vietnamese towns which were bases of the United States and its agents are now becoming the arena of ever more significant struggles of the people. The “strategic hamlets” network—the backbone of the ruling apparatus of the U.S. Imperialists and their agents—, the mercenary army—the main instrument of the U.S. aggressive war along neo-colonialist pattern—, and the towns—their safest rear area— all these three mainstays are now in a perilous state and a process of disintegration. The ground is crumbling under the U.S. aggressors’ feet. In the meantime since the historic Ap Bac battle in spring 1963, the patriotic struggle in South Viet Nam has undergone a wonderfully rapid growth, and the balance of forces between the people and the enemy has changed in favour of the cause of liberation of South Viet Nam. Political and military stages closely combine with each other and impel each other’s development; the various regions, the countryside and the towns emulate with one another to score resounding feats of arms, our 14-odd million Southern compatriots are powerfully marching ahead along the path to victory, and no reactionary force whatever can check this advance. The above situation explains why the U.S. aggressors can not bring up a stable government in Saigon. The successive coups d’état in South Viet Nam are reflections of the strength of the patriotic struggle to defeat the aggressors and the traitors, and also forerunners of their irretrievable collapse. Nowadays, any South Vietnamese hireling administration can be nothing else than a set of puppets in a poor show, and likely to be thrown down at any time. This also shows a basic weakness of the U.S. imperialists and constitutes a heavy defeat of their “special war.” Meanwhile, the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation, the mobilizer and organizer of the patriotic forces in South Viet Nam,

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1533 the leader who has taken the people to ever-greater victories, is now controlling 3/4 of the territory and 2/3 of the population of South Viet Nam. It has gained ever-higher international prestige and position, and is being recognized by more and more foreign countries and world opinion as the sole genuine representative of the South Vietnamese people. Its sound programme constitutes the banner of unity and struggle for national salvation which rallies broad social strata in the fight to overthrow the yoke of the U.S. imperialists and their agents with a view to achieving independence, democracy, peace and neutrality—South Viet Nam, and eventual peaceful reunification of the country. The March 22, 1965 Statement of the Front is resounding the world as the strong voice of a people determined to fight and to win, the voice of justice, the voice of the just cause of the Vietnamese people and of the present epoch, the voice filled with national pride and heroism, the voice of a people who are taking the country’s destiny into their own hands, the voice of our compatriots of South Viet Nam, the brass citadel of our Fatherland. The development of the U.S. imperialists’ aggressive policy in South Viet Nam as well as the growth of the patriotic war of our Southern compatriots clearly show that the U.S. imperialists’ “special warfare” is heading for irretrievable defeat. The U.S. imperialists have set up a most Machiavellian political and military brain-trust in an attempt to find a way to victory in South Viet Nam; they have used modem weapons, and have brought into this small battlefield 1/4 of their army officers. However, for the U.S aggressors, there is not yet a single ray of light at the end of the tunnel. The situation is such that more and more people in the United States are coming to realize that Washington is being defeated and will be completely defeated in South Viet Nam. It is very pleasing to note that our Southern compatriots are going on to ever greater victories, as the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation has worked out a correct and scientific line to meet the U.S. imperialists’ counterrevolutionary war of aggression with a patriotic war, a revolutionary war of the people, and gradually and steadily to build its forces and win step by step ever-greater political and military victories. The situation is developing in favour of our Southern compatriots, and no matter what great and frenzied efforts the enemy may make, he cannot possibly reverse the tide to avoid an ignominious defeat. The Vietnamese People Will Win Having sustained bitter defeats in South Viet Nam, the U.S. imperialist aggressors, of late, have frenziedly embarked on new and most wicked adventures in an attempt to retrieve their critical position and defeats. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam sternly exposes and denounces to all our compatriots and to the peoples

of the world the new and extremely serious war acts of the U.S. imperialists: on the one hand, the later are intensifying the aggressive war in the South, and on the other, they are carrying out air and naval attacks on the North. By engaging in this very dangerous military adventure, they stupidly expect that they can cow our people and also pose a threat to the peace-loving governments and peoples in the world. They hope that our people and the world peoples will flinch out of fear, and thus they will be in a position to shift from a weak to a strong position! But in face of their new aggressive acts, the Vietnamese people from the South to the North are waging an ever more resolute struggle, and the world peoples are extending us an ever more vigorous support. It is clear that still heavier defeats are in store for the U.S. imperialists. In an attempt to intensify the aggressive war, the U.S. imperialists have recently brought into South Viet Nam a number of antiaircraft missile units, 3,500 marines, and 2,000 South Korean troops; they are planning to send in more U.S. combat units. U.S.-piloted jet planes are carrying out bombing and strafing raids in increasing numbers in South Viet Nam. More than ever, our 14 million Southern compatriots, responding to the appeal of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation, are bringing into play their staunch fighting spirit; the entire people in arms are united and determined to hit vigorously and accurately at the U.S. aggressors and their agents, to liberate South Viet Nam, and achieve national salvation. Ten years ago, the French Expeditionary Corps in spite of its 200,000 picked troops ended in defeat at Dien Bien Phu. . . . For their part, our Southern compatriots are prepared to “fight with determination, to fight to the end, to fight until not a single U.S. soldier is to be found if they have to struggle for 10 years in our country, even 20 years or longer, however great the difficulties and hardships.” [March 22, 1965, Statement of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation.] In intensifying the aggressive war in South Viet Nam, the U.S. imperialists are expanding it to the North with their air force, on the grounds that the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam is at the origin of the patriotic struggle in South Viet Nam! These are obviously impudent acts and perfidious tricks of corsairs. The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, a member of the socialist camp, is steadily advancing to socialism; this is the common achievement of the Vietnamese revolution, the fruit of the common endeavour of the people of the whole country. It is a strong base for the patriotic struggle in the South and the peaceful reunification of the country. In laying hands on the North, the U.S. imperialists encroach upon the valuable and sacred achievement of our 30-odd million compatriots and commit an intolerable crime against our Fatherland. By attacking the Democratic Republic of

1534

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

Viet Nam, they have completely scrapped the Geneva Agreements and grossly violated international law and all human laws. They must pay for their crimes! In North Viet Nam, since August 5, 1964, the people’s armed forces and the population have fought with the greatest heroism, and dealt the U.S. imperialist aggressors ever-stronger blows. The people of the North, closely united, are determined to struggle in a self-sacrificing spirit to defeat all enemy aggressive schemes, to defend the North, and more than ever to stand side by side with our Southern compatriots and wholeheartedly support their liberation struggle till final victory. Laying hands on the North, the U.S. war-mongers expose themselves not only to well-deserved counter-blows in the North, but also to still more telling blows in the South as was pointed out in the March 22, 1965 Statement of the Liberation Front: “To defend the beloved North, the army and people of the South have directed the flames of their anger at the U.S. aggressors and their agents. If the U.S. imperialists lay hands on the North of our Fatherland the army and people of the South will deal them much harder blows. In February 1965, while the aggressors and traitors attacked the North, in the South, the Liberation Army launched stormy attacks on important military bases and main forces of the enemy, putting out of action 20,706 enemy troops (including nearly 600 U.S. aggressors killed, wounded or captured), seizing 4,114 guns of various kinds and shooting down, damaging or destroying 111 aircraft of various types.” The U.S. imperialists ceaselessly talk about seeking “a position of strength”. Why? Precisely because they are in a weak position. But never will they attain a position Of strength! In the present epoch, in Viet Nam as well as everywhere else in the world, the weakening and defeat of the U.S. imperialists have become a law of nature, an inexorable law governing the present trend of the world, an inexorable law of the development of human society: U.S.-headed imperialism and all other reactionary forces in the world are on the path to defeat and collapse; the more reckless, adventurist, impudent and perfidious they are, the more hatred for them will blaze up everywhere, and the more vigorously the world’s peoples will stand up to defeat them! That is a radiant truth of our epoch. In these circumstances, the more frenzied the U.S. attempts to extend the war to North Viet Nam, the more disastrous will be their defeat! An anti-U.S. wave of indignation is now surging up in the world. The governments and peoples of the socialist countries, newly-independent countries, the international organizations, the peoples the world over, progressive circles and various social strata in the United States are extending an ever more resolute and vigorous support and assistance to our just struggle. Our people, both in the South and in the North, are all the more firmly standing on

the frontline of the world people’s front against U.S. imperialism, bringing into play their forces to defeat the U.S. imperialists for the sake of their revolutionary cause as well as for peace, national independence, democracy and socialism in the world. That is why the entire Vietnamese people are determined to overcome all difficulties and hardships, to fight to the end in a self-sacrificing spirit and with a rock-like confidence in their certain victory. Even now, our people have already vanquished the U.S. aggressors because theirs is a just cause, and because they have the will and determination and enjoy world-wide sympathy and support. At the start of our national resistance war nearly 20 years ago, our forces were very small, but the entire Vietnamese people were at one in fighting and defeating the aggressors, and the outcome was victory for us. Today, we are much stronger than before, stronger in the North, stronger in the South, and enjoying stronger world support. For their part, the U.S. imperialists are being bogged down in South Viet Nam and encountering great difficulties in various fields and in many places. That is why our people are all the more heightening their will and determination, are animated with even greater enthusiasm and confidence in their just and certainly victorious struggle, and are resolved to devote all their forces to driving the U.S. aggressors out of our country, to defend the North, to liberate the South, eventually to build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic and prosperous Viet Nam, and to contribute to the defence of peace in Southeast Asia and the world. Our people will certainly win, the U.S. imperialist aggressors will surely be defeated. The reasons for our victory can be briefly stated as follows: 1. The Vietnamese people have grasped two points which were tested and proved in the long history of our people’s struggle against imperialist aggression, before the August Revolution, and particularly since our resistance war. a) To unite the entire people, to wage a resolute and persistent struggle, to be prepared to sacrifice everything for the nation’s supreme interests: freedom and happiness of the people, unity and territorial integrity of the Fatherland. b) To know how to use a weapon capable of defeating any imperialist aggressors including the U.S. imperialists: the people’s revolution war. Our army and people in the South have developed the people’s revolutionary war to a high level, in an all-round, uniform and steady manner. This is a valuable contribution to the struggle against U.S. aggression all over the world. 2. The world situation is very favourable to our people: a) The socialist camp is becoming ever stronger; all socialist countries are extending wholehearted support and assistance to the Vietnamese people.

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1535 b) In the world the newly-independent countries, the international working class, the forces of peace and progress in all countries including the United States, are vigorously supporting us. 3. At the same time the U.S. imperialists and all reactionary forces in the world are suffering defeat after defeat and are in the process of weakening and annihilation. Over the past few years, the weakening of U.S. imperialists has become still more obvious in economic, political and military fields. The sharpening contradictions between the United States and other imperialist countries and the struggle for democracy, freedom and peace in the United States itself have driven the U.S. imperialists into greater embarrassment and isolation than ever. In that lies the root cause of the great successive victories of the revolutionary struggle of the world’s peoples. In that also lies the root cause of the certain victory of our people. PART II THE NORTH CARRIES ON PRODUCTION AND FIGHTING, DEFENDS ITSELF AND SUPPORTS THE SOUTH Warmly Commending Our People and Army for Their Victories Since August 5, 1964, and especially since February 7, 1965, the U.S. imperialists have used planes of the U.S. Air Force and Navy and also of the South Vietnamese puppet air force for continual attacks on many places near the Demarcation Line and other areas of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. They have put into action hundreds of up-to-date supersonic jets which, starting from their bases in the Pacific (including the Seventh Fleet), in South Viet Nam, in Thailand, and using all kinds of bombs including napalm and phosphorous bombs, have carried out daily raids on populated areas, urban centres, in an attempt to cause losses and cow our people. A year ago, during the first session of the 3rd National Assembly from this rostrum, we sternly warned the U.S. imperialists: “Beware! Don’t play with fire!” Today the fire from the antiaircraft guns of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, the flames of hatred of our people, the movement against U.S. aggression throughout the world are dealing telling blows at them. Vinh Linh, Quang Binh, Ha Tinh, Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Quang Ninh, Bach Long Vi and other places have been staunchly standing on the frontline of socialist North Viet Nam, repeatedly winning victories over the U.S. aggressors, and setting a brilliant example of both gallantry in fighting and eagerness in production.

The people’s armed forces, from anti-aircraft regular units, navy, air force, people’s armed security forces to regional troops, militia and self-defence units, have been fighting with admirable gallantry, worthy of the Dien Bien Phu tradition, worthy of heroic South Viet Nam! Our officers have shown high determination and courage, some have refused to leave their fighting positions even after being hit several times by enemy bullets. Political commissar Nguyen Viet Xuan of an anti-aircraft unit had his wounded leg cut off which hindered his movements, ordered other injured fighters to be cared for first, and continued to give effective command to his unit, urging his men to shoot down more U.S. aircraft till he fainted. Navy cadet Tran Gia Tue, amidst the flames calmly, rapidly and accurately aimed at enemy targets; grievously wounded, he continued to fight; after being relieved, he undertook to supply his mates with ammunition instead of leaving the field. Pilot Pham Ngoc Lan cleverly and flexibly reacted to complicated situations, and valiantly dived straight on enemy aircraft to shoot them down, thus achieving together with his mates the first glorious feat of arms of our air force. Security sergeant Nguyen Quoc Co, amidst fierce enemy bombing picked up and threw away a number of steel-pellet bombs about to explode in an air-raid shelter, thus saving the lives of those who were there. These are but a few instances among the many examples of admirable valour in the fight. We warmly hail the splendid feats of the heroic Viet Nam People’s Army and other people’s armed forces! The militia, self-defence corps and the people’s security played an outstanding part in the fighting. They actively helped in supplying ammunition, extinguishing fires, giving first aid to the wounded, ensuring liaison, capturing prisoners, maintaining security and order, and protecting the people’s life and property. Furthermore, using rifles and machine guns, they efficiently coordinated their fire with the air defence forces and navy. A typical example is the shooting down of a U.S. jet with rifle shots by a militia team of Tran Phu Cooperative (Dien Chau district, Nghe An province) comprising four men: Tran Hieu, To Duc Hung, Nguyen Uoc and Pham Nho. Factory workers and civil servants also valiantly fought to defend their enterprises and offices, and to ensure their normal functioning during enemy attacks. The recent resounding victories are due to the line of people’s war, to the valiant and resolute fighting of our entire people. They are victories of the unity between the army and people, the army defending the Fatherland and the people, and the latter encouraging, helping the army and participating in the fight together with the army. In all places subjected to enemy attacks the people showed indomitable spirit, calm, and steady morale. Everybody stood firm on his fighting position, enthusiastically took part in the fight against the U.S. aggressors and fulfilled his

1536

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

duties in spite of bombings and strafings. Many old men stood indefatigable in the trenches or by the gun emplacements for many hours at a stretch to lend a hand to the young people fighting U.S. aircraft. Many youths offered their own bodies as mounts for A.A. machine guns and fought with admirable gallantry, others valiantly climbed on elevated and exposed places to be able to shoot more accurately at enemy planes. Many young pioneers moved about under enemy fire to act as liaison agents. Throughout three days’ fighting, Mother Suot rowed to and fro across the Nhat Le river 45 times transporting ammunition. Doan, a nurse in the Gianh river area, crawled three kilometres under fire to get medical supplies for the wounded. Even while the fight was raging, the soldiers were fed with hot rice and excellent soup served at their very gun emplacements by local women. The people constantly stood shoulder to shoulder with the troops whom they stimulated, encouraged and efficiently helped. At the same time, all combat duties and preparations: digging of air-raid shelters, evacuation of towns and cities, extinguishing fires and removal of time-bombs after enemy raids, maintenance of security and order, and protection of the people’s property, etc., were carried out with a high sense of urgency, great determination and discipline. In these circumstances of hard ordeals, our compatriots showed even greater mutual love and affection, and increased confidence in the Party and Government. They also clearly manifested their ardent patriotism and attachment to socialist construction in the North.

work and each time the hours of fierce fighting were followed by even more vigorous emulation drives marked by increased labour productivity.

Vinh Linh, Quang Binh, Ha Tinh, Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Quang Ninh, Bach Long Vi and a number of other places have shown both fierce fighting spirit and ability in production work; there fighting and production are closely linked tasks. The more resounding the victories over the enemy, the greater the people’s eagerness in production. Since late 1964, the provinces near the Demarcation Line have gloriously fulfilled three big tasks at one time: shooting down a great number of enemy aircraft, making up for the heavy losses resulting from the recent big floods and typhoons, and ensuring a vigorous development of production in the winter-spring crop. The very provinces which had to fight in the North were those which completed the transplanting of riceseedlings at an early date. In comparison with the same period last year, they have recorded an increase of nearly 50,000 hectares in acreage and also a marked progress in the application of new farming techniques, especially in irrigation and use of fertilizers. Hundreds of thousands of peasants are daily going to the fields in an exalted spirit, with ploughs in their hands and rifles on their shoulders, fighting the enemy when he comes and resuming production work after he has been driven away. In coastal areas, even on days when U.S. air and naval craft carried out raids, many fishing teams sailed out, and even got greater catches than usual. Whenever a battle is fought in Ho Xa, Dong Hoit, Ha Tinh, Vinh and Thanh Hoa, immediately after the firing ceased, workers of all enterprises and construction yards returned to their

In the last few months, our army and people in the North have inflicted significant losses on the enemy. However, our greatest victory and the enemy’s biggest defeat lie in the fact that he cannot cow our people, indeed he cannot even intimidate our children. Public opinion in the West and in the United States itself has more and more clearly realized that the air attacks on the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam have not brought about any result for the United States except the vigorous counter-blows of our people and the strong condemnation of the world’s peoples.

To engage in fighting and production has become part of the people’s daily life. The way of living has been entirely adjusted to the new situation, which means a higher sense of urgency, increased vigour, more practicalness and greater efficiency. In the face of the ever more impudent and wicked U.S. war acts, every citizen, from old people to little children, have only one wish: to hit at the U.S. aggressors even more vigorously and more accurately, wage a persistent struggle, and be prepared to sacrifice everything to win victory, to carry out production work as vigorously as fighting; to get many aircraft shot down, at the same time to get a good harvest. Only on this condition can we continuously increase our strength and fight persistently until final victory! We warmly commend the glorious victories recorded by the army and people in Vinh Linh, Quang Binh, Ha Tinh, Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Quang Ninh, Bach Long Vi and other places. We particularly commend our compatriots who have shown determination and fortitude in face of the enemy, and have done their best to contribute to the fight against the U.S. aggressors, setting a brilliant example and accumulating valuable experience for the entire people.

The Whole of North Viet Nam Carries Out Production Work, Fights and Prepares for More Fighting In the northern part of our country, all regions, branches and social strata are now seething with hatred for the U.S. imperialists, and making every effort to strengthen their fighting capacity, ready to strike at the U.S. aggressors while calmly and unflinchingly boosting production and the building of the material and technical basis of socialism. The armed forces are strengthening their fighting capacity in all fields. Officers and men are eagerly studying and striving to carry into effect President Ho Chi Minh’s teaching: “Be loyal to the Party and the people, fulfil any tasks, overcome any difficulties, defeat any enemies”. The entire armed forces are enthusiastically

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1537 emulating to build the army, to score feats of arms, and to win the honour of keeping President Ho Chi Minh’s reward banner bearing the words: “Determined to defeat the U.S. aggressors”. Such is the iron will of the armed forces of the North who are the heroic fighters of a heroic people! Everywhere, our people are doing their best to step up air defence work, develop the militia and self-defence forces, temper themselves physically, undergo military training, carry out marches with full equipment on their backs, prepare their weapons, set up aircraft-hunting teams, first-aid groups, fire brigades, anti-toxic gas groups, patrols. Our entire people are organizing themselves into battle formations! The leading bodies of the Party and the State, the people’s organizations, the economic and cultural branches—industry, agriculture, capital construction, communications and transport, post and broadcasting services, trade, finance, banking, culture, education, public health—are making with a high sense of urgency all necessary preparations to meet the requirements of the new situation and tasks. Along with the preparations for combat, the emulation movement for the “three high peaks” for the overfulfilment of the State plan is developing more vigorously than ever. The workers are highlighting the slogans “Let us hold firm both our hammer and our rifle”, and “Whenever we lose time once as a result of alerts, we will work twice as hard to make up for the lost time”, they are turning their hatred for the U.S. imperialists into a lever for practical actions in production and combat, and striving to make of each enterprise, construction site, State farm, forestry yard, department store, government office a socialist production and fighting unit. Producers are at the same time fighters, and the leaders in production, the commanders in combat. The peasants are highlighting the slogans “Let us hold firm both our plough and our rifle” and “Let us fight the enemy whenever he comes and resume production after he is put to flight”; they are actively emulating each other to secure a successful winterspring crop. They have now overfulfilled the State plan in terms of acreage and recorded market progress in the application of new farming techniques. They are determined to develop to the fullest extent the capabilities of the agricultural co-operatives to boost production to an unmatched level, thus enhancing the superiority of the new relations of production. At the same time, all ablebodied peasants are militiamen and members of the self-defence corps, ready to fight the enemy. Our youth are doing their best to play their role as a shock brigade in production, in fighting as well as in studies and training to defend the Fatherland and to build socialism. So far, more

than 1,800,000 youths have volunteered to achieve the “three ready’s”—ready to accept any task, ready to fight whenever the enemy comes, and ready to enlist in the army. They are workers, peasants, intellectuals, civil servants, students, pupils, youths from minority nationalities. The ardour and the force of our youth must be closely and vigorously mobilized to further their role on all fronts—the fighting front and the front of economic development and of defence build-up. Our women are stepping up throughout the North the “three responsibilities” movement as a support for the “three ready’s” movement of the youth. Hundreds of thousands of people, from old women to young girls, have volunteered to assume production work in their localities, to look after their families so that their husbands, sons and brothers may confidently enlist in the army, and to serve the front or to participate directly in the fight whenever necessary. The whole people of the North are warmly responding to the Statement of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation and the Statement of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, they are at the same time carrying out production—fighting and combat preparations, determined to do their best to build and defend the North and to extend wholehearted support to the cause of Liberation of the South. In the present juncture, all social strata, all citizens must work more, with a higher sense of urgency and higher productivity; everybody must, according to his capacity and strength, make the most effective contribution to the common cause of the country. In response to the appeal of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation, the South Viet Nam cadres, army-men and simple citizens regrouped to the North have enthusiastically voiced their readiness to return to their native land to fight with arms in hand or do any work for national salvation. Pending orders to this effect, all of them are striving to boost production and actively work to contribute to the defence and the building of the North. We warmly hail their patriotism and combat-readiness! New Tasks of Our People and Army in the North In face of the new and extremely serious juncture due to the U.S. imperialists’ aggressive policy in our country, proceeding from the present situation and tasks as expounded in Part I, and on the basis of the experience gained by our people and army in carrying out both production and fighting over the recent period, it is necessary to work out and urgently implement correct and adequate policies and measures so as to strengthen the economic and defence potential of the northern part of our country, thus fully demonstrating our entire people’s iron will to increase the strength of the North in all fields, defeat the U.S. imperialists and defend the Fatherland.

1538

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

Economic Tricks In the economic field, through the carrying out of the first 5-year plan, the potential of socialist North Viet Nam has been obviously strengthened. On the basis of the initial achievements in the consolidation of the socialist relations of production, and with the steady growth of the forces of the working class, the cooperative peasantry and the socialist intelligentsia in the political, cultural and technical fields, the economy of the North, organized and managed in a planned way, has gradually become a solid socialist economic system. On the other hand, the material and technical basis has been further strengthened, production has developed at a fairly quick tempo. The first establishments of heavy industry have already gone into production or are being built; light industry and locallyrun industries are much more developed than before. Industry has managed to meet part of its requirements in technical equipment and ensure the supply of raw materials in increasing quantities and that of the major part of consumer goods. With the progress made in water conservancy, intensive cultivation, increased land yield, multiplication of annual crops, reclaiming of waste lands, agriculture is undergoing an all-round development. Food production is in the process of meeting the increasing requirements of the socialist North. In the field of communications, the network of roads has been improved and expanded, the transport capacity on the main lines has been increased. First steps have been made in the way of a sound redistribution of manpower among the various economic branches and between the delta and the highlands. From a backward and dependent agrarian economy mainly based on small production, we are building an independent and selfsupporting economy, and advancing by steady steps to socialism. We are striving to enhance all capabilities of the national economy and at the same time to make the most of the aid from the fraternal countries with a view to meeting the ever greater requirements of economic construction, improvement of the people’s livelihood and strengthening of national defence. We are now in a position to mobilize rapidly and in a planned way much more manpower and material resources than before for the defence of the Fatherland. We must redouble our efforts, endeavour to overcome our weaknesses and shortcomings, strengthen the key branches of the national economy, and adequately consolidate North Viet Nam in order to raise its economic and defence potential. In the years to come, the economy must be built and developed in line with the new situations. On the one hand, the urgent requirements of the revolutionary tasks must be fully met; we must, at the same time, boost production and stand combat-ready, strengthen

our economic potential and defence capabilities, resolutely defend the North and extend all-out support to the revolution for the liberation of the South. On the other, great attention must be paid to securing the advance of the socialist revolution, adequately pursuing the construction of the material and technical basis of socialism, and firmly consolidating the socialist relations of production, in order to strengthen the defence of the North. The basic contents of this task are: 1. Adequate measures must be taken to strengthen the defence of the people’s life and property and of production bases. 2. The reserves of vital materials must be increased, the requirements of economic development and national defence must be met to the highest extent. 3. Strenuous efforts must be made to promote agricultural and industrial production with much attention being paid to locallyrun industries, and to develop post and communications in conjunction with the consolidation of the whole rear-area. In this connection, concrete plans must be worked out and efforts made to reach concrete objectives in each stage; marked progress must be recorded after several short stages. 4. While endeavouring to meet the above-mentioned urgent requirements we must adequately pursue the building of the material and technical basis of socialism, strengthen the work of basic survey, geological prospection, scientific research, training of cadres with a view to meeting the new requirements in conjunction with long-term ones. 5. On the basis of boosting production, more resources must be mobilized so as to ensure an adequate supply of manpower and resources for fighting duties and economic development—the requirements of the armed forces are to be satisfied, and the basic needs of the people’s livelihood are to be met. 6. Continued efforts must be made to steadily consolidate the socialist relations of production, and to ensure good management of the State-owned enterprises on the basis of the achievements of the “three ‘for’ and three ‘against’” movement; particular attention must be paid to the consolidation of the agricultural cooperatives in the delta and in the highlands, to fishing, and salt-making cooperatives in the costal area, on that basis, to educate, organize and lead the masses in boosting production, fighting, and making combat preparations actively fulfilling all tasks with the determination to win ever-bigger victories. Strenuous efforts must be made to improve and strengthen the management of our economy . . . , that of production, circulation

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1539 and distribution, prices and markets. The ranks of cadres and workers must be readjusted actively, rationally, closely and steadily in order to meet the new requirements in the field of production and fighting. Thrift must be strictly put into practice in production, construction and consumption; corruption, waste and bureaucratism must be fought in all State-run economic branches, government services, agricultural cooperatives, and in the life and activities of everybody. 7. To fulfil the new tasks of the new situation, we must rely mainly on our own resources while doing our best to secure the sympathy and assistance of the world’s peoples, first of all, of the fraternal socialist countries. Defence Tasks

Guiding Principles In fulfilling the above tasks of economic construction and national defence build-up, it is necessary to grasp the following guiding principles: 1. To work against time, to concentrate our forces so as to meet the most important and urgent requirements of the most essential branches and areas, to combine the immediate tasks of economic construction with those of long-term development, to carry on and promote socialist industrialization in the North. 2. To combine the forces at central and regional levels: at the central level, attention must be paid to the strengthening of forces so as to meet the important requirements which cannot be met at the regional level. The various reasons must rely mainly on their own resources and do their best to bring into play all capabilities with a view to meeting their own requirements.

It is necessary to mobilize the whole army and people to urgently strengthen the defence capabilities of our country, resolutely to defeat all acts of sabotage and encroachment on the North, to be prepared to face and smash all the enemy schemes of expanding the war, to maintain security and order, to defend the security of the Fatherland, and defend the socialist construction of our people in the North.

3. To ensure the centralized leadership and unified management of the central authorities, and on that basis, to increase the power of the various branches and the local authorities in an adequate manner, to enable them to deal in good time with all questions falling within their ability.

To this end, it is necessary to fulfil the following concrete tasks:

4. The leadership should show initiative and diligence and make “timely, practical and effective moves,” thus bringing fully into play the role of the leading bodies and officials.

1. To strengthen the armed forces, to promote training and combat readiness, to ensure that our army is ready to fight and to win everywhere and in all circumstances. In order to strengthen the armed forces so as to meet the requirements of the new situation, it is necessary to adequately extend the duration of military service and to carry out partial mobilization. 2. To strengthen particularly the active air defence capacity of the armed forces, along with the strengthening of the civilian air defence with a view to effectively countering enemy raids. 3. To strive to consolidate and develop the regional armed forces: regional troops, guerrillas, militia and self-defence corps, particularly in key areas. 4. To strengthen all rear-area work closely-related to the fighting and combat preparations of the army. 5. To intensify political work in the armed forces, to achieve a vigorous change in thinking, organization and style of work so as to meet the new requirements; to launch in the emulation movement aimed at enhancing its “determination to defeat the U.S. aggressors”.

5. To enhance ideological work, to powerfully arouse the revolutionary ardour, combativeness and creative labour of the masses, to mobilize the cadres, labouring people and the whole people of North Viet Nam, to highlight the traditions of heroic struggle and industry, to heighten their sense of response ability and discipline, to step up the emulation movement to redouble efforts, to hold the hammer or the plough in one hand and the rifle in the other, so that all branches, units and individuals may fulfil their tasks. It should be clearly realized that a good solution of the immediate requirements in the sphere of economy and national defence is basically in keeping with the requirements of economic construction and national defence build-up. We have been endeavouring to develop agriculture, locally-run industries, transport and communications, and to promote economic construction in the mountainous areas. These tasks should now be carried on with stepped-up efforts, with more concentrated forces, and at a quicker tempo. Such efforts are essential and beneficial to the fulfilment of the immediate tasks in the field of production and fighting. At the same time, favourable conditions will thus be brought about to promote socialist construction in the North and to strengthen its economic and defence potential. On the other

1540

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

hand, we must overcome all difficulties to carry on the building of key projects under construction, and start the building of a number of other necessary projects. We must step up the emulation movement for “three high peaks”, strive to raise labour productivity in all branches, to overfulfil the 1965 State Plan and the First Five-Year plan. Particular stress must be laid on the necessity to raise labour productivity in all branches of the national economy. We are facing very heavy tasks in the field of production and fighting, a greatly increased volume of work and rising demands in manpower. More than ever before, urgent steps should be made to readjust and improve organization and guidance in execution, to better technique, rationalize production and popularize the use of improved tools and semimechanized equipment in all branches of production, so that each individual worker may increase productivity twofold, and even three or fourfold. The new situation and the new tasks require that we determine the direction of economic construction in relatively wide areas with a view to increasing the output of agriculture and locally-run industries, so as to meet on the spot the totality or an important part of the requirements in the field of production and fighting, and the vital needs of the local population. Along with the task of determining and putting into execution the direction of economic construction in each area, care should be taken to ensure the unity and balance of the national economy, to abide by the principle of democratic centralism applied to economic and State management. Strengthen Ideological and Organizational Work Ideological work is of decisive importance to the fulfilment of the heavy and urgent tasks mentioned above, and should take pride of place. We must see to it that the entire army and people fully grasp the new situation and the new tasks, and on this basis, raise further their revolutionary ardour, bring into play the nation’s tradition of heroism, enhance their sense of responsibility toward the defence and construction of the North, as well as toward the patriotic in the South; we should enhance their fighting will, their determination to defeat the U.S. imperialist aggressors, their readiness to courageously endure hardships and make sacrifices, to overcome all difficulties and to fulfil any task whatever it may be; we should heighten their spirit of self-reliance: every region, every branch, every unit and every individual must rely on their own strength and promote their capabilities to the fullest extent in order to fulfil their production and fighting duties; we should enhance their sense of discipline, their determination to implement with creativeness, diligence and seriousness all initiatives, directives and orders of the competent authorities; we should enhance their revolutionary vigilance, and their sense of strict secrecy; we should overcome pacifism, desire for tranquillity, fear of sacrifice, difficulties and hardships; we should do away with the mentality of relying on outside assistance subjectivism and underestimation of

the enemy, lack of vigilance and combat readiness; we must promote industry, thrift and a simple and healthy life. Special attention should be given to organizational work in order to fulfil the immediate tasks in production and fighting. We must work out and implement in an active and steady manner the necessary organizational measures desired to strengthen combativeness in all branches and at all levels. Our apparatus should not be cumbersome, it should be light but strong and effective, democratic centralism should be observed, and strict discipline enforced; close coordination of action between the various branches at all levels should be ensured, a diligent and practical style of work should be developed. At the same time, all emulations must be thoroughly observed, especially as regards secrecy. The slogan of our Northern compatriots is: to carry out production . . . , to defend the North and support the soil. The entire political, economic and cultural life of North Viet Nam should be permeated with this slogan in all its significance and contents. It must be clearly realized that North Viet Nam is facing a new situation and new tasks in very favourable conditions. We are now given a good opportunity to fulfil, in an exalted spirit of determination to fight and to win, a number of tasks which are bound to confront us in the building of North Viet Nam, namely, boosting agricultural production and locally special run industries, strengthening certain regions of importance, etc. This is also a good opportunity for us to undertake in a more concentrated manner such tasks as basic survey, scientific and technical research, training of cadres, in order to meet the immediate requirements and at the same time prepare for the long-term economic development of North Viet Nam. These tasks in the field of production and fighting provide a strong impetus and inspiration to all branches of the national economy as well as the cultural, educational, public health and art activities. All branches and all levels must step up their activities to a quicker tempo and with a higher spirit in order to score outstanding progress. It is more necessary than ever to maintain security and order so that the most favorable conditions may be ensured for the mobilization of all forces in North Viet Nam for production and fighting. To this end, the responsible State organs must rely on the masses for the successful discharge of their mission. North Viet Nam is now engaging in a fierce struggle against the U.S. aggressors with the revolutionary optimism of people who have the situation under control, who are firmly taking in hands their own destinies, and are determined to defeat the enemy. The socialist regime in North Viet Nam will grow stronger and more consolidated in the process of production and struggle. The northern part of our country, the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, will fully play its great role as the base for the liberation of South Viet Nam and the peaceful reunification of the Fatherland.

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1541 PART III OUR PEOPLE’S PATRIOTIC STRUGGLE IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE WORLD PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE AGAINST AGGRESSIVE AND WARLIKE U.S. IMPERIALISM Characteristic Features of the Present-day World The international situation is developing very favourably for the patriotic struggle of the Vietnamese people. The outstanding features of this situation are: the all-round growth of the forces of socialism, the tempestuous development of the national liberation movement, the new progress of the working class movement in capitalist countries and the growth of the forces of world peace. Meanwhile the imperialists headed by U.S. imperialism, along with all reactionary forces in the world, are facing innumerable difficulties and are declining. Spearheading their struggle at U.S.-headed imperialism, the world’s peoples are more and more united in the common struggle for peace, national independence, democracy and socialism. The mighty socialist camp is developing unceasingly and is becoming a decisive factor in the development of human society. The socialist camp is the bulwark of world revolution and world peace, and a firm support for the national liberation forces. The great and brilliant successes scored by the peoples of the Soviet Union, China and the other socialist countries in the political, economic, cultural, scientific, technological, and national defence fields, constitute important contributions to the consolidation of the socialist camp and the strengthening of the revolutionary and peace forces. China’s first successful nuclear and the launching of the Soviet spaceship “Vostok-2” with a stepping into outer space for the first time in history to out scientific observations, are remarkable achievements which bring great enthusiasm to the peoples of the whole world. In face of the danger of aggression and war created by the U.S. imperialists, the socialist countries will certainly close their ranks and take joint actions, determined together to defeat the common enemy. The peoples of the socialist countries, firmly united under the great banner of Marxism-Leninism, on the basis of the principles of proletarian internationalism, represent an invincible and indestructible force. During the last twenty years, the national liberation movement, enjoying the encouragement and support of the socialist camp and the international workers’ movement, has grown into ever more strongly developed and has revolutionary storms resulting in the collapse of big parts of the colonial system of imperialism. More than fifty colonial and dependent countries have at varying degrees won their political independence. The flames of revolution are burning throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The U.S. imperialists have now to face millions of people who have risen up in arms against them. Like the people of South Viet Nam, the peoples of many countries understand ever more clearly that violence by the masses is the only way to oppose violence bv the imperialist aggressors. At present the movement of armed struggle is expanding or has been kindled in many countries: the Congo, Mozambique, Angola, Portuguese, Guinea, South Africa, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Honduras, Brazil and Argentina. This shows that the struggle against U.S. imperialism is developing into an intense front, with an increasing impetus. Like the Congolese patriots who affirmed their “determination to turn the Congo into a grave for U.S. imperialism”, the peoples of many Asian, African and Latin American Countries, victims of U.S. aggression, will turn their homelands into burying grounds for the U.S. brigands, the aggressors and warmongers, in order to reconquer their national independence and freedom in many places. In the flames of the struggle, the solidarity allying the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America is being strengthened. Slogans of support for the Vietnamese, the Cuban and the Congolese peoples, etc., have indeed become slogans of united struggle of the national independence movement and of the world’s peoples. The U.S. imperialists in vain endeavoured to divide and sabotage the world people’s anti-imperialist front. The 21st Conference of NonAligned Countries in Cairo, the Preparatory Meeting for the 2nd Afro-Asian Conference, the Indochinese Peoples’ Conference held in Phnom Penh, raised their voices in unison to condemn the U.S. imperialists, express their determination to support the peoples struggling against American aggression, and express their resolute opposition to the imperialists’ agents of all kinds, such as the Tshonibe clique. Due to the U.S. imperialists’ frenzied activities, Southeast Asia has become the scene of bitter struggle, a key point of the immense front of the world’s peoples against U.S. imperialism. This movement is gaining both in magnitude and strength, and reaching high degrees of development in many countries: Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, etc. It is emerging in U.S. satellite countries such as Thailand and the Philippines. The Southeast Asian peoples are doing their utmost to strengthen their solidarity . . . in order to deal ever more decisive blows to the U.S. imperialists . . . ; they are actively contributing to the cause of independence, peace and social progress of the peoples of the world. As a consequence of the powerful and unrelenting offensive of the national liberation movement in Asian, African and Latin American countries, the rear of imperialism is disintegrating, contradictions within the imperialist camp are deepening, further conditions are created for the development of the worker’s movement in capitalist countries. At the same time, this movement constitutes a great support for the building of socialism and

1542

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

communism in the socialist camp, and an important contribution to the preservation of world peace. In capitalist countries, the struggle against the arms race, for a better life, for democratic rights, is gaining momentum. In the United States itself, jointly with the struggle for their vital interests, the workers and labouring people wage a determined fight to put an end to racial discrimination against the Black people, and to oppose the U.S. policy of armed aggression in Viet Nam. With the participation of millions and millions of people and with an ever stronger impetus, the struggle in capitalist countries for peace and democracy is effective in checking and pushing back the imperialist schemes of aggression and war. This struggle also constitutes a great support for the socialist camp and the national liberation movement in the world. While the forces of socialism, national liberation, peace and democracy are powerfully and continuously developing, imperialism headed by U.S. imperialism is going deeper into the third stage of the general crisis of capitalism and it is weakening further and further. U.S. imperialism itself encounters more and more difficulties and is becoming more isolated at home and abroad. In the economic field, the United States is facing the prospect of a grave crisis, the number of unemployed (more than five million) remains constant, U.S. economy and finance are so unstable that they are badly shaken by the competition of West European countries in gold and foreign currency. In the political field, at home the Johnson Administration faces mounting protests from the labouring people and a growing struggle of the Black people for political and social rights; abroad, the prestige and influence of the United States are seriously decreasing, as a result of its continuous failures in all parts of the world, especially its bitter failure in the war of aggression in South Viet Nam. The ever-deeper contradictions within the imperialist camp make the United States ever more isolated and embarrassed. More than ever, U.S. imperialism has laid bare its extremely reactionary and cruel face, exposing itself as the enemy of socialism, national independence and progressive mankind. The more it is cornered, the more frenzied, ferocious and treacherous it becomes. This is its unchanging aggressive, warseeking and reactionary nature. That is why the peoples of the world must further increase their vigilance and resolutely struggle against imperialism, spearheading the fight at U.S. imperialism. At present, the world situation is rapidly developing in favour of the anti-imperialist struggles. Facts have proved that these struggles have been attacking U.S.-led imperialism, winning successive victories in one area after another, in one field after another. Tempered by struggle, the world’s peoples become ever more proficient in the use of every method and form of political, military, economic and cultural struggle against the policy of aggression

and enslavement carried out by imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism. In this great struggle, the peoples of the world will certainly win complete victory. The Whole World Support Us We are standing on the frontline of the world peoples’ antiimperialist struggle. The Viet Nam problem has become a central problem in international political life, a burning issue having a farreaching impact on the world’s peoples. For more than ten years now, and especially since the U.S. imperialists started brazen acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, the peoples of the fraternal socialist countries, the peoples of the newly-independent countries and peace-loving people throughout the world have constantly been siding with our heroic people in the struggle against aggressive and warlike U.S. imperialism. The Government of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and the other socialist countries have issued statements severely condemning the U.S. Government for its aggressive war in South Viet Nam, for its brazen air attacks against North Viet Nam, which constitute an aggression against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, a member of the socialist camp; they also expressed unreserved support for the just struggle of our entire people, and their determination to do their utmost to help our people (in North and South Viet Nam) in our arduous but certainly victorious struggle. Using varied forms of struggle, such as demonstrations with the participation of millions of people, with a high spirit of struggle, the peoples of the fraternal socialist countries daily express their militant solidarity and their firm determination to support our entire people’s just struggle. We are greatly moved and encouraged by this support which makes us believe still more strongly in our final victory. The governments of many newly-independent countries have raised their voices to demand that the United States stop its aggressive war in South Viet Nam and its acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, and to express deep sympathy and strong support for the just struggle of our people. Since August 1964, in Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Japan, Algeria, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, India, Iraq, Guinea, Mali, Ghana, Venezuela, Guatemala . . . millions of people have taken to the streets to demonstrate against U.S. imperialism. They smashed U.S. embassies and U.S. information halls and shouted slogans: “Down with the U.S. imperialists! U.S. imperialists, get out of South Viet Nam!” In the capitalist countries such as France, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Austria, etc., the movement against the U.S. imperialists’ policy of

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1543 aggression and war in Viet Nam has reached an unprecedented scope and degree, involving millions of people and using varied forms of struggle. International organizations like the World Peace Council, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the Committee for Solidarity with the People of South Viet Nam, the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Council, and many others have raised their voices strongly to protest against U.S. aggression in South Viet Nam, and U.S. air attacks against North Viet Nam, to express deep sympathy with our people, and strong support, both moral and material for the patriotic movement in South Viet Nam. The meeting of the International Trade Union Committee for Solidarity with the Workers and People of South Viet Nam and the International Conference for Solidarity with the People of Viet Nam against U.S. Imperialist Aggression and for the Defence of Peace held in Hanoi were warm manifestations of the support extended by the world’s peoples to our just struggle. We are greatly moved and elated by the fact that in recent months, even in the United States, the opposition to the U.S. imperialists’ attempt to step up the aggressive war in South Viet Nam and intensify their acts of war against North Viet Nam has been expanding steadily. This movement involves Americans from all walks of life: workers, the youth, women, students, intellectuals clergymen, Congressmen, newsmen. . . . The forms of struggle are reaching a higher and higher level and becoming more and more varied: statement issued by the American Communist Party to condemn the U.S. aggressive policy in Viet Nam; protest letter sent by 416 American professors and students to U.S. President Johnson; all-night demonstration by 4,200 professors and students; hunger strike by many groups of students and other people; intervention by hundreds of youths to prevent a U.S. ship from carrying troops and weapons to South Viet Nam. We were deeply moved when learning of Mrs. Helga Herz’s self immolation by fire to protest against the U.S. policy of war in Viet Nam, thus setting an example of noble sacrifice for peace and friendship between the American and Vietnamese peoples. The American peoples movement of opposition to the “dirty war” in Viet Nam has influenced many U.S. politicians. Never before has the U.S. Government faced such strong opposition by the American people. The entire Vietnamese people, the National Assembly and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam are sincerely grateful to the Governments and peoples of the fraternal socialist countries, to the Governments and peoples of the newlyindependent countries, and peace-loving people throughout the world for their sympathy and wholehearted support and assistance. We are resolved to do our utmost to further intensify the patriotic struggle, to uphold our revolutionary cause and at the

same time to actively contribute to the cause of peace, national independence, democracy and socialism in the world. The anti-U.S. struggle of our people has won unprecedented sympathy and support from the world’s peoples—the peoples of the fraternal socialist countries and the peoples of the Western countries including the United States. This is a fact of very great international significance. The struggle against U.S. imperialism has become a front comprising the forces of socialism, national liberation, peace and democracy. In the present epoch, the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism on a world-wide scale, this then, by its significance, its goal and its achievements, promotes the evolution of world events and influences international life. At the same time, this is a very complex struggle in many forms—military, political, economic and cultural—a struggle which is particularly conspicuous in a number of countries like Viet Nam and Indochina, Berlin, Cuba, the Congo while in other places it is also acute and bitter though less visible. As they grow weaker and weaker under continual attacks from all sides and are nearing their collapse, the U.S. imperialists are more frantically embarking on the adventurist path of war provocation. That is why the socialist countries and the newly independent countries, the forces of peace and democracy must further unite, and spearhead their struggle at U.S. imperialism to win victories step by step and piece by piece until complete victory. In this widespread and fierce struggle, the socialist countries extend their full support to the national liberation movement, to the anti-imperialist struggle in all fields—military, political and economic. The socialist countries should also do their utmost to support the newly-independent countries in their struggle against colonialism, old and new, and its camouflaged forms, such as UN intervention. In their struggle against imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism, to win and preserve national independence, to build a self-supporting economy, the more the newly-independent countries receive effective support and assistance in all fields from the socialist camp, the greater are their abilities to struggle powerfully and resolutely to the end in order to develop along the noncapitalist path, in conformity with their peoples’ aspirations. Our Foreign Policy Obviously the peoples of the world are more and more united in their struggle against the aggressive and warlike U.S. imperialists, to defend peace, national independence, democracy and socialism. The Vietnamese people, from North to South, in solidarity with the world’s peoples, are determined to struggle against U.S.

1544

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

imperialism in their own territory and in Asia, Africa and Latin America. That is why in the recent years, the foreign policy of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam has scored important successes. The whole world is warmly supporting the just and certainly victorious struggle of the Vietnamese people. Doubly significant is the fact that since the U.S. imperialists staged an act of war against the northern part of our country on August 5, 1964, the Republic of Indonesia, the United Arab Republic, Tanzania, . . . and Ghana have established diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. We are happy to see the international status of our country enhanced day by day. These achievements testify to the correctness of our foreign policy. More than ever, we must now spearhead our struggle at the U.S. imperialists, resolutely isolate them and defeat them. We must make great efforts to fan ever stronger and more effective international sympathy and support for our people’s patriotic struggle against U.S. aggression. In response to the warm feelings of the world’s peoples, we will contribute all the more actively to the strengthening and expansion of the world peoples’ front against the aggressive and warseeking U.S. imperialists. We will always struggle together with the peoples of the fraternal socialist countries for the consolidation of the unity of the socialist camp on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, in defence of the socialist camp and world peace, against the manoeuvres of U.S.-led imperialism. We warmly hail the victory scored by the Chinese people and their Liberation Army in checking the provocative acts of the U.S. imperialists and the Chang Kai-shek reactionary clique. We resolutely support the Chinese people’s struggle for the liberation of Taiwan, an integral part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China. We resolutely support the Korean people who are holding firm at the eastern outpost of the socialist camp, and are heroically struggling against the U.S. imperialist aggressors to drive them out of South Korea and peacefully reunify their country. We resolutely support the German Democratic Republic and the socialist countries members of the Warsaw Treaty in the struggle against the claims of the U.S. imperialists and the West German revanchists for a revision of postwar borders and for the supply of nuclear weapons to West Germany. We resolutely oppose all perfidious plots of the imperialist countries and the West German revanchists, like subversion, peaceful evolution, which create a grave danger for peace and security in Europe and the world. We resolutely support the heroic Cuban people who are carrying out a staunch struggle against U.S. imperialist aggression and holding aloft the anti-U.S. imperialist banner in the Western Hemisphere. We resolutely support the legitimate 5-point demand put

forward by Premier Fidel Castro to ensure the sovereignty, national independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Cuba. We resolutely support the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America in their struggle for recovering and preserving national independence. We are confident that the holding of the Second Afro-Asian Conference in June 1965 will make an important contribution to the strengthening of Afro-Asian solidarity against imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism. We warmly hail the recent victories of the Lao patriotic forces and resolutely support the Lao people in their struggle against U.S. imperialism and its henchmen in order to safeguard the 1962 Geneva Agreement on Laos, the Tripartite National Union Government, and peace and neutrality for Laos. We reaffirm once again our support for the reconvening of the international conference without any preconditions to ensure the implementation of the 1962 Geneva Agreement on Laos. We resolutely support the just struggle waged by the Cambodian people, under the clearsighted leadership of their Head of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, against brazen provocations by the U.S. imperialists and their henchmen, in order to defend the sovereignty, independence, neutrality, and territorial integrity of Cambodia. We fully support the proposal of the Cambodian Royal Government for the holding of an international conference to guarantee the peace, neutrality and territorial integrity of Cambodia. We warmly welcome and support the resolutions of the Indochinese Peoples’ Conference held in Phnom Penh last March. This historic conference opened an era of consolidation of the fraternal solidarity among the peoples of Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos in their common struggle against the U.S. imperialists, to defend national independence, peace and security in this part of the world. The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam has made and will make every effort to develop good-neighbour relations with the Kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos on the basis of the principles of peaceful co-existence, respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, nonaggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. We resolutely support the Indonesian people who under the clearsighted leadership of President Sukarno, are valiantly struggling to crush Malaysia, an offspring of U.S.-British imperialism. We resolutely support the people of North Kalimantan who are valiantly struggling for freedom and independence. We warmly approve and support the decision taken by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia to withdraw from the UNO and the endeavours made by the Indonesian Government and people in the struggle to defend national independence and to build a self-supporting economy.

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly 1545 We warmly hail the Japanese people who, under the leadership of the Japanese Communist Party, are undauntedly struggling against the U.S. imperialists and the Japanese monopoly capitalists, with a view to building an independent, democratic, peaceful, neutral and prosperous Japan and smashing the U.S. imperialists’ scheme in the illegal conclusion of a Japan–South Korea treaty which is aimed at pushing ahead the manoeuvre for the founding of the NEATO aggressive bloc. We resolutely support the valiant struggle for liberation of the Congolese (Leopoldville) people and other African peoples against the U.S. imperialists and their henchmen, and are confident that this struggle will gain strength and will win glorious victory. We fully sympathize with and support the valiant struggle of the peoples of the Arab countries against the collusion of U.S. imperialism and West Germany with their Israeli stooges to threaten the national independence and security of these countries. We resolutely support the ever-widening struggle of the peoples of Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala and other Latin American countries against U.S. imperialism, to drive the U.S. aggressors out of that part of the Western Hemisphere, their very “backyard”, thus making an important contribution to the struggle against U.S. imperialism in the world. Our Objectives We often say that the revolutionary cause of the Vietnamese people is closely linked to that of the world’s peoples. More than ever this correct view has now been eloquently illustrated by facts. The Vietnamese people are struggling against the U.S. imperialist aggressors, in the interests of their own revolutionary cause, and also of socialism, of the national liberation movement and world peace. On the other hand, the peoples of the socialist countries, newly-independent countries and capitalist countries and peaceloving people the world over are extending us wholehearted support and assistance because victory over the U.S. aggressors in the Viet Nam battlefield not only benefits our people but also peace, national independence, democracy and socialism in the world. Therefore the great international obligation of our people is, first of all, to fight resolutely to defeat the U.S. imperialist aggressors in our country. At the same time, we should do our best to give more information and better explanation about our struggle to the governments and peoples of other countries and to the international organizations. . . . The content and aim of this information and explanation work is to tell the truth about the U.S. imperialists’ policy of aggression and war and the just struggle of our people, our certain victory and its cause.

This task must be well done, the more so as among the people all over the world who sympathize with and support our cause, many want to know more about our country’s situation and our people’s struggle. On the other hand, the U.S. imperialists are using every possible means to deceive world opinion, to create misunderstanding and confusion about very simple and clear facts. They are even so perfidious as to mix up wrong and right, calling black white; for instance they say that if they extend the war to the North, this is because the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam has provoked the liberation struggle in the South. We must in time strongly and sharply expose the U.S. aggressors as a thief saying “Stop thief”. We should arouse the world peoples’ vigilance to these cunning tricks of the U.S. corsairs. One has to be careful when bandits speak of humanity and justice; they are only trying to enter one’s house without having to break the door. We think that the world’s people must be vigilant when President Johnson speaks of coming back to the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam! This is really ridiculous! Everybody knows that U.S. imperialism is the enemy of the Geneva Agreements, that the U.S. imperialists and their Saigon lackeys never officially recognized these Agreements, and even refused to officially recognize the International Commission for Supervision and Control of the implementation of the Geneva Agreements. At this very moment, they are more brazenly than ever trampling underfoot the Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam. Nor have they ever observed the 1954 Geneva Agreement on Cambodia and the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Agreements on Laos, and they are now stubbornly opposing the reconvening of a Geneva-type conference on Cambodia and Laos. The U.S. imperialists are now compelled to speak of the Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam, but they do so only to distort completely the basic principles of the Agreements in an attempt to further their scheme of permanent partition of our country, considering the North and the South as two separate countries. For their part, our Government and people have always been struggling to preserve the Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam as well as those on Cambodia and Laos which we consider as the legal basis of the inalienable and sacred national rights of the three fraternal peoples. President Johnson’s speech of April 7, 1965 contains a series of irreconcilable contradictions between the misleading words and the criminal deeds of the U.S. Government in Viet Nam: 1. In his speech, President Johnson talked about peace, about ending the war, and “unconditional discussions”. But meanwhile the U.S. Government is intensifying the aggressive war in the South, and extending the war to the North. . . . 2. President Johnson talked a lot about an “Independent” South Viet Nam “free from outside interference, tied to no alliance”, “a

1546

154. Pham Van Dong: Report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly

military base for no foreign country”. But it is the U.S. imperialists who are sticking to South Viet Nam at all costs, bringing in more and more U.S. combat units, and staging attacks on the North precisely in an attempt to cling to the South. It is as clear as daylight that the U.S. Government is the aggressor in South Viet Nam, yet, it has the cheek to slanderously accuse the North of “aggression” in the South! President Johnson himself stated in his speech: “We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement!” This impudent assertion exposes the whole of U.S. policy with regard to Viet Nam; this is a challenge to world public opinion. 3. President Johnson also hypocritically talked about economic development, raising the living standards, and about earmarking to this end one million dollars in an attempt to lure the Southeast Asian peoples. But the fact is that the U.S. imperialists are sowing the horrors of war every day in Viet Nam, Laos and other places, committing countless crimes, and even using toxic gases not only in military operations but also to stamp out the struggle of the people in towns and cities. 4. President Johnson threatened to continue using force, determined to fight and to win, they do not fear any but this does not make us flinch. The Vietnamese people are not afraid of difficulty or any enemy. The U.S. imperialists are being defeated, and will certainly suffer complete defeat. In view of the pressure of public opinion in the United States and the world for the U.S. Government to withdraw its troops from South Viet Nam, and to stop its acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, President Johnson has had to resort to a demagogic language, which is a mere trick, a deceitful manoeuvre aimed at misleading public opinion, and soothing the everbroader and stronger opposition in the United States and in the world to the aggressive war in Viet Nam. That is the reason why the Vietnamese people and the world’s peoples must heighten their watchfulness in the face of this ignominious trick: to talk about peace and negotiation with a view to intensifying the war, and also to slandering others as bellicose! It is the unswerving policy of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam to strictly respect the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam, and to correctly implement their basic provisions as embodied in the following points: 1. Recognition of the basic national rights of the Vietnamese people: peace, independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. According to the Geneva Agreements, the U.S. Government must withdraw from South Viet Nam all U.S. troops, military personnel and weapons of all kinds, dismantle all U.S. military

bases there, cancel its “military alliance” with South Viet Nam. It must end its policy of intervention and aggression in South Viet Nam. According to the Geneva Agreements, the U.S. Government must stop its acts of war against North Viet Nam, end definitely all encroachments on the territory and sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. 2. Pending the peaceful reunification of Viet Nam, while Viet Nam is still temporarily divided into two zones, the military provisions of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam must be strictly respected: the two zones must refrain from joining any military alliance with foreign countries; there must be no foreign military bases, troops, and military personnel in their respective territories. 3. The affairs of South Viet Nam must be settled by the South Vietnamese people themselves, in accordance with the proclamations of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation, without any foreign interference. 4. The peaceful reunification of Viet Nam is to be settled by the Vietnamese people in both zones, without any foreign interference. This stand will certainly enjoy the approval and support of all peace- and justice-loving governments and peoples in the world. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam is of the view that the above-explained stand is the basis for the soundest political settlement of the Viet Nam question. If this basis is recognized, favorable conditions will be created for the peaceful settlement of the Viet Nam question and it will be possible to consider the reconvention of an international conference along the pattern of the 1954 Geneva Conference on Viet Nam. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam declares that any approach contrary to the above stand is inappropriate, any approach tending to secure a U.N. intervention in Viet Nam’s affairs is also inappropriate because such approaches are basically at variance with the 1954 Geneva Agreements of Viet Nam. On September 2, 1945, President Ho Chi Minh solemnly proclaimed our country’s independence before our people and the peoples of the world. He said, “Viet Nam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence and has actually become a free and independent country. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to devote all their moral and physical strength, their lives and property to the preservation of this freedom and independence.” At present, when the U.S. imperialists are intensifying the aggressive war in the South, brazenly launching air attacks on the North, and violating the territory of the Democratic Republic of Viet

155. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson 1547 Nam, the Proclamation of Independence and President Ho Chi Minh’s Appeal resound all the more deeply in the hearts of our people and stimulate all of us to “devote all our moral and physical strength, our lives and property” to the preservation of freedom and independence in the North, to the recovery of freedom and independence in the South and to eventually achieving peaceful reunification of the country. The flames of hatred are burning in our hearts! The entire Vietnamese people are determined to fight more vigorously and valiantly than ever for the beloved Fatherland: to defend the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, homeland of socialism in our country, to liberate the South, to sweep all the invaders out of our territory, so that our land may become again green, our sky again bright and our people from the Red River basin to the Mekong delta may be reunited at an early date “under the same roof.” How beautiful and splendid our beloved Fatherland will be then! U.S. aggressors, beware! During the many thousand years of the history of the Vietnamese nation, each major trial was always followed by a new prodigious growth of our people who defeated the aggressors and consolidated the country. Now more than ever our hearts are filled with national pride, deep attachment to our homeland and affection for our compatriots. Each of us is a staunch fighter, determined to fight to the end in a self-sacrificing spirit, to win a great victory in the patriotic struggle against the U.S. aggressors, to fulfil our internationalist duty toward the peoples of the socialist countries and of the world, and to write down the most glorious pages in the glorious history of the Vietnamese nation! In these brave hours, we feel all the closer to our Southern brothers. Our Fatherland is very proud of the undaunted South and of its heroic sons and daughters who have been fighting with the utmost gallantry, who are worthy of the title of “Brass Citadel of the Fatherland”, and who have recorded resounding feats which give international glory to the Vietnamese people! The people of the North pledge to be worthy of the expectations and confidence of their Southern compatriots, to do their best in production and fighting to develop the economy and strengthen national defence, to defend the North and to extend all-out support to the liberation of the South. Dear compatriots! Under the glorious banner of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh, let us steadily march forward as the victors, determined to defeat the U.S. imperialist aggressors, build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic, prosperous and strong Viet Nam, and contribute to the defence of the socialist camp and of peace in Southeast Asia and the world. Source: Pham Van Dong, Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 90–158.

155. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, April 21, 1965 [Excerpt] Introduction U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara and other administration officials met in Honolulu on April 20, 1965, to discuss Vietnam policy and assess military requirements with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland; U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Maxwell Taylor; and commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Ulysses Sharp. Here McNamara sums up that meeting for President Lyndon Johnson and details the U.S. forces that should be sent to Vietnam to bolster U.S. marines and troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) already there. McNamara reports that the conferees are in agreement that after a span of as long as a “year or two,” the demonstrated military failure of Communist forces in South Vietnam will break their will to continue the struggle and bring about an acceptable political outcome.

Primary Source Mr. William Bundy, Mr. McNaughton and I met with Ambassador Taylor, General Wheeler, Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland in Honolulu on Tuesday, April 20. Following is my report of that meeting: 1. None of them expects the DRV/VC to capitulate, or come to a position acceptable to us, in less than six months. This is because they believe that a settlement will come as much or more from VC failure in the South as from DRV pain in the North, and that it will take more than six months, perhaps a year or two, to demonstrate VC failure in the South. 2. With respect to strikes against the North, they all agree that the present tempo is about right, that sufficient increasing pressure is provided by repetition and continuation. All of them envisioned a strike program continuing at least six months, perhaps a year or more, avoiding the Hanoi–Haiphong–Phuc Yen areas during that period. There might be fewer fixed targets, or more restrikes, or more armed reconnaissance missions. Ambassador Taylor stated what appeared to be a shared view, that it is important not to “kill the hostage” by destroying the North Vietnamese assets inside the “Hanoi do-nut.” They all believe that the strike program is essential to our campaign—both psychologically and physically—but that it cannot be expected to do the job alone. They all considered it very important that strikes against the North be continued during any talks.

1548

156. President Lyndon Johnson: Message to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor

3. None of them sees a dramatic improvement in the South in the immediate future. Their strategy for “victory” over time, is to break the will of the DRV/VC by denying them victory. Ambassador Taylor put it in terms of a demonstration of Communist impotence, which will lead eventually to a political solution. They see slow improvement in the South, but all emphasized the critical importance of holding on and avoiding—for psychological and morale reasons—a spectacular defeat of GVN or US forces. And they all suspect that the recent VC lull is but the quiet before a storm. 4. To bolster the GVN forces while they are building up, they all recommend the following deployments in addition to the 2,000 Koreans and 33,500 US troops already in-country (including the 4 Marine battalions at Danang-Hue): 1 US Army brigade (3 btn) at Bien Hoa/Vung Tau 4,000 closing 1 May 3 US Marine air sqs + 3 btns at Chu Lai 6,200 closing 5 May 1 Australian btn at Vun Tau 1,250 closing 21 May 1 US Army brigade (3 btn) at Qui Nhon/Nha Trang 4,000 closing 15 Jn. 1 Korean RCT (3 btn) at Quang Ngai 4,000 closing 15 Jn. Augmentation of various existing forces 11,000 already approved Logistics troops for previously approved force level 7,000 already approved Logistics troops for above enclaves and possible 3 divisions 16,000 not yet approved TOTAL: US 13 btns 82,000 ROK & ANZAC 4 btns 7,250 5. Possible later deployments, not recommended now, include a US AirMobile division (9 btns-15,800) to Pleiku/Kontum, and I Corps HQ (1,200) to Nha Trang; and even later, the remainder of the Korean division (6 btns-14,500) to Quang Ngai, and the remainder of the Marine Expeditionary Force (3 btns-24,800) to Danang. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968: Vietnam, January–June 1965, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), 574–575.

156. President Lyndon Johnson: Message to Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, May 10, 1965 Introduction U.S. president Lyndon Johnson frequently expressed a desire for peace. In early May 1965 he called the first of several halts in the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Here he explains to ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Maxwell Taylor—himself an advocate of the bombing program—that the planned suspension is designed, should Hanoi reject the demarche, to build support in the United States and abroad for stronger military steps.

Primary Source I have learned from Bob McNamara that nearly all ROLLING THUNDER operations for this week can be completed by Wednesday noon, Washington time. This fact and the days of Buddha’s birthday seem to me to provide an excellent opportunity for a pause in air attacks which might go into next week and which I could use to good effect with world opinion. My plan is not to announce this brief pause but simply to call it privately to the attention of Moscow and Hanoi as soon as possible and tell them that we shall be watching closely to see whether they respond in any way. My current plan is to report publicly after the pause ends on what we have done. Could you see Quat [Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat] right away on Tuesday and see if you can persuade him to concur in this plan. I would like to associate him with me in this decision if possible, but I would accept a simple concurrence or even willingness not to oppose my decision. In general, I think it important that he and I should get together in such matters, but I have no desire to embarrass him if it is politically difficult for him to join actively in a pause over Buddha’s birthday. [Words illegible] noted your [words illegible] but do you yet have your appreciation of the political effect in Saigon of acting around Buddha’s birthday. From my point of view it is a great advantage to use Buddha’s birthday to mask the first days of the pause here, if it is at all possible in political terms for Quat. I assume we could undertake to enlist the Archbishop and the Nuncio in calming the Catholics. You should understand that my purpose in this plan is to begin to clear a path either toward restoration of peace or toward increased military action, depending upon the reaction of the Communists. We have amply demonstrated our determination and our commitment in the last two months, and I now wish to gain some flexibility.

158. George Ball, Undersecretary of State: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson 1549 I know that this is a hard assignment on short notice, but there is no one who can bring it off better. I have kept this plan in the tightest possible circle here and wish you to inform no one but Alexis Johnson. After I have your report of Quat’s reaction, I will make a final decision and it will be communicated promptly to senior officers concerned. Source: The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (New York: Quadrangle, 1971), 456–457.

157. Message from the U.S. Government to the North Vietnamese Government on the Bombing Pause, May 11, 1965 Introduction On May 11, 1965, the U.S. government announced a halt in the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to take effect at noon Washington time on May 12 and running into the next week, with the stated goal of jump-starting peace negotiations with North Vietnam. After a week of no discernible change, on May 18 the air strikes resumed.

Primary Source The highest authority in this Government has asked me to inform Hanoi that there will be no air attacks on North Viet-Nam for a period beginning at noon, Washington time, Wednesday, May 12, and running into next week. In this decision the United States Government has taken account of repeated suggestions from various quarters, including public statements by Hanoi representatives, that there can be no progress toward peace while there are air attacks on North Viet-Nam. The United States Government remains convinced that the underlying cause of trouble in Southeast Asia is armed action against the people and Government of South Vietnam by forces whose actions can be decisively affected from North Vietnam. The United States will be very watchful to see whether in this period of pause there are significant reductions in such armed actions by such forces. (The United States must emphasize that the road toward the end of armed attacks against the people and Government of Vietnam is the only road which will permit the Government of Vietnam (and the Government of the United States) to bring a permanent end to their attacks on North Vietnam.) [Words illegible] be misunderstood as an indication of weakness, and it is therefore necessary for me to point out that if this pause should be misunderstood in this fashion, by any party, it would be necessary to demonstrate

more clearly than ever, after the pause ended, that the United States is determined not to accept aggression without reply in Vietnam. Moreover, the United States must point out that the decision to end air attacks for this limited trial period is one which it must be free to reverse if at any time in the coming days there should be actions by the other side in Vietnam which required immediate reply. But my Government is very hopeful that there will be no such misunderstanding and that this first pause in the air attacks may meet with a response which will permit further and more extended suspension of this form of military action in the expectation of equally constructive actions by the other side in the future. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 369.

158. George Ball, Undersecretary of State: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, July 1, 1965 Introduction Undersecretary of State George W. Ball was one of the few dissenting voices in the Lyndon Johnson administration concerning escalation of the war. In this memorandum to Johnson, Ball urges the president to accept a compromise settlement in Vietnam in order to avoid a “long-term catastrophe.”

Primary Source (1) A Losing War: The South Vietnamese are losing the war to the Viet Cong. No one can assure you that we can heat the Viet Cong or even force them to the conference table on our terms, no matter how many hundred thousand white, foreign (U.S.) troops we deploy. No one has demonstrated that a white ground force of whatever size can win a guerrilla war—which is at the same time a civil war between Asians—in jungle terrain in the midst of a population that refuses cooperation to the white forces (and the South Vietnamese) and thus provides a great intelligence advantage to the other side. Three recent incidents vividly illustrate this point: (a) the sneak attack on the Da Nang Air Base which involved penetration of a defense parameter guarded by 9,000 Marines. This raid was possible only because of the cooperation of the local inhabitants; (b) the B-52 raid that failed to hit the Viet Cong who had obviously been tipped off; (c) the search and destroy mission of the 173rd Air Borne Brigade which spent three days looking for the Viet Cong, suffered 23 casualties, and never made contact with the enemy who had obviously gotten advance word of their assignment.

1550

158. George Ball, Undersecretary of State: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson

(2) The Question to Decide: Should we limit our liabilities in South Vietnam and try to find a way out with minimal long-term costs? The alternative—no matter what we may wish it to be—is almost certainly a protracted war involving an open-ended commitment of U.S. forces, mounting U.S. casualties, no assurance of a satisfactory solution, and a serious danger of escalation at the end of the road. (3) Need for a Decision Now: So long as our forces are restricted to advising and assisting the South Vietnamese, the struggle will remain a civil war between Asian peoples. Once we deploy substantial numbers of troops in combat it will become a war between the U.S. and a large part of the population of South Vietnam, organized and directed from North Vietnam and backed by the resources of both Moscow and Peiping. The decision you face now, therefore, is crucial. Once large numbers of U.S. troops are committed to direct combat, they will begin to take heavy casualties in a war they are ill-equipped to fight in a non-cooperative if not downright hostile countryside. Once we suffer large casualties, we will have started a well-nigh irreversible process. Our involvement will be so great that we cannot—without national humiliation—stop short of achieving our complete objectives. Of the two possibilities I think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives— even after we have paid terrible costs. (4) Compromise Solution: Should we commit U.S. manpower and prestige to a terrain so unfavorable as to give a very large advantage to the enemy—or should we seek a compromise settlement which achieves less than our stated objectives and thus cut our losses while we still have the freedom of maneuver to do so. (5) Costs of a Compromise Solution: The answer involves a judgment as to the cost to the U.S. of such a compromise settlement in terms of our relations with the countries in the area of South Vietnam, the credibility of our commitments, and our prestige around the world. In my judgment, if we act before we commit a substantial U.S. truce [sic] to combat in South Vietnam we can, by accepting some short-term costs, avoid what may well be a longterm catastrophe. I believe we attended [sic] grossly to exaggerate the costs involved in a compromise settlement. An appreciation of probable costs is contained in the attached memorandum. (6) With these considerations in mind, I strongly urge the following program: (a) Military Program (1) Complete all deployments already announced—15 battalions—but decide not to go beyond a total of 72,000 men represented by this figure.

(2) Restrict the combat role of the American forces to the June 19 announcement, making it clear to General Westmoreland that this announcement is to be strictly construed. (3) Continue bombing in the North but avoid the HanoiHaiphong area and any targets nearer to the Chinese border than those already struck. (b) Political Program (1) In any political approaches so far, we have been the prisoners of whatever South Vietnamese government that was momentarily in power. If we are ever to move toward a settlement, it will probably be because the South Vietnamese government pulls the rug out from under us and makes its own deal or because we go forward quietly without advance prearrangement with Saigon. (2) So far we have not given the other side a reason to believe there is any flexibility in our negotiating approach. And the other side has been unwilling to accept what in their terms is complete capitulation. (3) Now is the time to start some serious diplomatic feelers looking towards a solution based on some application of a self-determination principle. (4) I would recommend approaching Hanoi rather than any of the other probable parties, the NLF,—or Peiping. Hanoi is the only one that has given any signs of interest in discussion. Peiping has been rigidly opposed. Moscow has recommended that we negotiate with Hanoi. The NLF has been silent. (5) There are several channels to the North Vietnamese, but I think the best one is through their representative in Paris, Mai van Bo. Initial feelers of Bo should be directed toward a discussion both of the four points we have put forward and the four points put forward by Hanoi as a basis for negotiation. We can accept all but one of Hanoi’s four points, and hopefully we should be able to agree on some ground rules for serious negotiations—including no preconditions. (6) If the initial feelers lead to further secret, exploratory talks, we can inject the concept of self-determination that would permit the Viet Cong some hope of achieving some of their political objectives through local elections or some other device. (7) The contact on our side should be handled through a nongovernmental cutout (possibly a reliable newspaper man who can be repudiated). (8) If progress can be made at this level a basis can be laid for a multinational conference. At some point, obviously, the government of South Vietnam will have to be brought on board, but I would postpone this step until after a substantial feeling out of Hanoi.

159. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson 1551 (7) Before moving to any formal conference we should be prepared to agree once the conference is started: (a) The U.S. will stand down its bombing of the North (b) The South Vietnamese will initiate no offensive operations in the South, and (c) The DRV will stop terrorism and other aggressive action against the South. (8) The negotiations at the conference should aim at incorporating our understanding with Hanoi in the form of a multinational agreement guaranteed by the U.S., the Soviet Union and possibly other parties, and providing for an international mechanism to supervise its execution. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 4. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 615–617.

159. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson, July 20, 1965 [Excerpt] Introduction In the spring of 1965, the Lyndon Johnson administration dramatically escalated the Vietnam War with the infusion of significant numbers of U.S. Army ground troops. Here Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara points out to President Johnson that a “favorable outcome” in the war is more likely through military force than negotiations. McNamara recommends the dispatch of additional U.S. troops to Vietnam in order to bring U.S. strength there to about 175,000 men, with the deployment of up to another 100,000 early in 1966. Ominously, McNamara states that the deployment of yet additional forces “is possible but will depend on developments.” On July 18 President Johnson announced that U.S. troops strength in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) would increase from 75,000 to 125,000 men. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) responded by increasing its own troop strength in South Vietnam.

Primary Source SUBJECT: Recommendations of additional deployments to Vietnam 1. Introduction. Our object in Vietnam is to create conditions for a favorable outcome by demonstrating to the VC/DRV that the odds are against their winning. We want to create these conditions, if possible, without causing the war to expand into one with China or the Soviet Union and in a way which preserves support of the

American people and, hopefully, of our allies and friends. The following assessments, made following my trip to Vietnam with Ambassador-designate Lodge and General Wheeler are my own and are addressed to the achievement of that object. My specific recommendations appear in Paragraph 5; they are concurred in by Ambassador Taylor, Ambassador-designate Lodge, Ambassador Johnson, General Wheeler, Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland. I have neither asked for nor obtained their concurrence in other portions of the paper. 2. Favorable outcome: In my view, a “favorable outcome” for purposes of these assessments and recommendations has nine fundamental elements: (a) VC stop attacks and drastically reduce incidents of terror and sabotage. (b) DRV reduces infiltration to a trickle, with some reasonably reliable method of our obtaining confirmation of this fact. (c) US/GVN stop bombing of North Vietnam. (d) GVN stays independent (hopefully pro-US, but possibly genuinely neutral). (e) GVN exercises governmental functions over substantially all of South Vietnam. (f) Communists remain quiescent in Laos and Thailand. (g) DRV withdraws PAVN forces and other North Vietnamese infiltrators (not regroupees) from South Vietnam. (h) VC/NLF transform from a military to a purely political organization. (i) US combat forces (not advisors or AID) withdraw. [A] favorable outcome could include also arrangements regarding elections, relations between North and South Vietnam, participation in peace-keeping by international forces, membership for North and South Vietnam in the UN, and so on. The nine fundamental elements can evolve with or without an express agreement and, except for what might be negotiated incidental to a ceasefire, are more likely to evolve without an express agreement than with one. We do not need now to address the question whether ultimately we would settle for something less than the nine fundamentals; because deployment of the forces recommended in paragraph 5 is prerequisite to the achievement of any acceptable settlement, and a decision can be made later, when bargaining becomes a reality, whether to compromise in any particular. 3. Estimate of the situation. The situation in South Vietnam is worse than a year ago (when it was worse than a year before that). After a few-months of stalemate, the tempo of the war has quickened. A hard VC push is now on to dismember the nation and to maul the army. The VC main and local forces, reinforced by militia and guerrillas, have the initiative and, with large attacks (some in regimental strength), are hurting ARVN forces badly. The main VC efforts have been in southern I Corps, northern and central II Corps and north of Saigon. The central highlands could well be

1552

159. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for President Lyndon Johnson

lost to the National Liberation Front during this monsoon season. Since June 1, the GVN has been forced to abandon six district capitals; only one has been retaken. US combat troop deployments and US/VNAF strikes against the North have put to rest most South Vietnamese fears that the United States will foresake them, and US/VNAF air strikes in-country have probably shaken VC morale somewhat. Yet the government is able to provide security to fewer and fewer people in less and less territory as terrorism increases. Cities and towns are being isolated as fewer and fewer roads and railroads are usable and power and communications lines are cut. The economy is deteriorating—the war is disrupting rubber production, rice distribution, Dalat vegetable production and the coastal fishing industry, causing the loss of jobs and income, displacement of people and frequent breakdown or suspension of vital means of transportation and communication; foreign exchange earnings have fallen; and severe inflation is threatened. The odds are less than even that the Ky government will last out the year. Ky is “executive agent” for a directorate of generals. His government is youthful and inexperienced, but dedicated to a “revolutionary” program. His tenure depends upon unity of the armed forces behind him. If the directorate holds together and the downward trend of the war is halted, the religious and regional factions will probably remain quiescent; otherwise there will be political turbulence and possibly uncoordinated efforts to negotiate settlement with the DRV. The Buddhists, Catholics, out-politicians and business community are “wait-and-seeing;” the VC, while unable alone to generate effective unrest in the cities, can “piggyback” on any anti-government demonstration or cause. Rural reconstruction (pacification) even in the Hop Tac area around Saigon is making little progress. Gains in IV Corps are being held, but in I and II Corps and adjacent III Corps areas it has lost ground fast since the start of the VC monsoon offensive (300,000 people have been lost to the VC, and tens of thousands of refugees have poured out of these areas). The Government-to-VC ratio over-all is now only a little better than 3-to-1, and in combat battalions little better than 1.5-to-1. Some ARVN units have been mauled; many are understrength and therefore “conservative.” Desertions are at a high rate, and the force build-up has slipped badly. The VC, who are undoubtedly suffering badly too (their losses are very high), now control a South Vietnamese manpower pool of 500,000 to 1 million fighting-age men and reportedly are trying to double their combat strength, largely by forced draft (down to 15-year-olds) in the increasing areas they control. They seem to be able more than to replace their losses. There are no signs that we have throttled the inflow of supplies for the VC or can throttle the flow while their material needs are as low as they are; indeed more and better weapons have been observed

in VC hands, and it is probable that there has been further buildup of North Vietnamese regular units in the I and II Corps areas, with at least three full regiments (all of the 325th Division) there. Nor have our air attacks in North Vietnam produced tangible evidence of willingness on the part of Hanoi to come to the conference table in a reasonable mood. The DRV/VC seem to believe that South Vietnam is on the run and near collapse; they show no signs of settling for less than a complete take-over. 4. Options open to us. We must choose among three courses of action with respect to Vietnam all of which involve different probabilities, outcomes and costs: (a) Cut our losses and withdraw under the best conditions that can be arranged—almost certainly conditions humiliating the United States and very damaging to our future effectiveness on the world scene. (b) Continue at about the present level, with the US forces limited to say 75,000, holding on and playing for the breaks—a course of action which, because our position would grow weaker, almost certainly would confront us later with a choice between withdrawal and an emergency expansion of forces, perhaps too late to do any good. (c) Expand promptly and substantially the US military pressure against the Viet Cong in the South and maintain the military pressure against the North Vietnamese in the North while launching a vigorous effort on the political side to lay the groundwork for a favorable outcome by clarifying our objectives and establishing channels of communication. This alternative would stave off defeat in the short run and offer a good chance of producing a favorable settlement in the longer run; at the same time it would imply a commitment to see a fighting war clear through at considerable cost in casualties and material and would make any later decision to withdraw even more difficult and even more costly than would be the case today. My recommendations in paragraph 5 below are based on the choice of the third alternative (Option c) as the course of action involving the best odds of the best outcome with the most acceptable cost to the United States. 5. Military recommendations. There are now 15 US (and 1 Australian) combat battalions in Vietnam; they, together with other combat personnel and non-combat personnel, bring the total US personnel in Vietnam to approximately 75,000. a. I recommend that the deployment of US ground troops in Vietnam be increased by October to 34 maneuver battalions (or, if the Koreans fail to provide the expected 9 battalions promptly, to 43 battalions). The battalions together with increases in helicopter lift, air squadrons, naval units, air defense, combat support and

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1553 miscellaneous log support and advisory personnel which I also recommend—would bring the total US personnel in Vietnam to approximately 175,000 (200,000 if we must make up for the Korean failure). It should be understood that the deployment of more men (perhaps 100,000) may be necessary in early 1966, and that the deployment of additional forces thereafter is possible but will depend on developments. b. I recommend that Congress be requested to authorize the call-up of approximately 235,000 men in the Reserve and National Guard. This number—approximately 125,000 Army, 75,000 Marines, 25,000 Air Force and 10,000 Navy—would provide approximately 36 maneuver battalions by the end of this year. The call-up would be for a two-year period; but the intention would be to release them after one year, by which time they could be relieved by regular forces if conditions permitted. c. I recommend that the regular armed forces be increased by approximately 375,000 men (approximately 250,000 Army, 75,000 Marines, 25,000 Air Force and 25,000 Navy). This would provide approximately 27 additional maneuver battalions by the middle of 1966. The increase would be accomplished by increasing recruitment, increasing the draft and extending tours of duty of men already in the service. d. I recommend that a supplemental appropriation of approximately $X for FY 1966 be sought from the Congress to cover the first part of the added costs attributable to the build-up in and for the war in Vietnam. A further supplemental appropriation might be required later in the fiscal year. It should be noted that in mid-1966 the United States would, as a consequence of the above method of handling the build-up, have approximately 600,000 additional men (approximately 63 additional maneuver battalions) as protection against contingencies. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 4. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 619–622.

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam, November 1965 Introduction Le Duan was the secretary-general of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) and later, following the 1969 death of Ho Chi Minh, became the de facto leader of North Vietnam. As direct U.S. involvement in

the war escalated, many in the North Vietnamese leadership grew concerned about the damage that a war against the United States might do to their efforts to develop North Vietnam’s economy and “build socialism” in North Vietnam. For the previous six years, North Vietnamese strategy had walked the delicate tightrope of trying to do as much as possible to win the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) without provoking a direct U.S. military response. Now that this strategy had failed, the leaders debated whether to revert to a low-level protracted guerrilla struggle or to take on the Americans directly in a concerted effort to win a quick victory. In preparation for a Party Central Committee plenum in December 1965, the Politburo approved a compromise resolution stating that while the overall Communist strategy would continue to be one of “protracted war,” a major effort should be made to win a “decisive victory” within a “relatively short period of time.” In this November 1965 letter, Lao Dong party first secretary Le Duan—clearly an advocate of trying to win a quick victory—writes to the top Communist commanders in South Vietnam to explain how this might be achieved. In joining those who rejected advice from the Chinese to de-escalate, he maintains that only conventional offensive warfare, as had been practiced against the French, could expel the Americans.

Primary Source Dear friends, The Politburo has just met to assess the situation and it has issued a new resolution on South Vietnam. Below I will discuss a number of specific aspects of a number of issues that could not be completely covered in the framework of the Party resolution. I 1. First of all, I would like to discuss the new characteristics of the war. We all agreed unanimously that the reason that the U.S. was forced to send tens of thousands of additional troops into South Vietnam was because of the basic failure of their “special war,” and that at the same time their attacks against North Vietnam had also failed. The American introduction of additional troops into South Vietnam further demonstrates their defensive, passive political and military posture, not only in South Vietnam and North Vietnam, but also throughout the world. With the American dispatch of 150,000–200,000 troops, or perhaps even a few more, to South Vietnam, the war in South Vietnam has shifted into a new phase, and there are also new changes in the character of the war. At the same time, the American action also raises a whole range of new issues for our side. When I say that the war now has a new character does not mean that the U.S. has changed its entire political and military scheme in South Vietnam or in all of Vietnam. The American war in South

1554

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

Vietnam is still a neocolonialist war, but one that is now being conducted with new tactics and with the introduction of additional new forces. MacNamara himself stated this in his statement to the U.S. Armed Services Sub-Committee, when he said: “Even though our tactics have changed, our goals remain the same.” However, the American policy of “escalation” in Vietnam still depends on many factors, such as whether or not their goals change, how the balance of forces between the enemy and our side changes, whether the enemy’s domestic and international situation is favorable or not, etc. As for our side, based on the enemy’s basic situation and on our own posture and strength, we still affirm that we can restrict the enemy to fighting just in South Vietnam and we are determined to defeat the enemy on that primary battlefield. For that reason, in the current situation North Vietnam is still a battlefield where the enemy will continue to carry out a war of destruction [bombing campaign]. The enemy may later increase the intensity of his attacks, but no matter how heavy our losses become, North Vietnam will fight resolutely and will defeat the American war of destruction. In South Vietnam, we need to correctly assess the current massive introduction of massive numbers of expeditionary soldiers. As I stated above, the reason the U.S. was forced to send 150,000– 200,000 troops into South Vietnam was because they were being placed increasingly on the defensive and were suffering increasing failures on many fronts. However, their action also demonstrates that the U.S. is even more determined to hold on to South Vietnam. The U.S. is gradually realizing that their introduction of expeditionary troops into South Vietnam may not, in the short term at least, lead to the outbreak of a major war that would force them to directly confront the large nations of the socialist bloc. The force directly opposing them continues to be the Vietnamese people. The American imperialists have also realized that if they lose in South Vietnam, not only will they lose to the Vietnamese people, they will also suffer a defeat of worldwide proportions. The Vietnam issue has become an issue of international significance. Our people are now confronting the American imperialists, the leading imperialist power and the most brutal enemy of mankind. The battle our people are fighting is taking place in one of the hot-spot areas of the world, it involves many burning contradictions, and it is the focal point of the struggle between two world forces, the forces of the revolution and the forces of the counterrevolution in the world today. For that reason, our people are now carrying out a sacred national duty while at the same time they are performing a noble international mission. However, we must see that the U.S. is now pouring hundreds of thousands of troops equipped with modern weapons into South Vietnam at a time when our people’s revolutionary war is being waged in an extremely powerful way throughout the country, from Quang Tri to Ca Mau, from the mountain jungles and the rural countryside to the cities, and at a time when the puppet army is being dealt crushing blows and the puppet government is

increasingly collapsing. That is why the American imperialists’ first hope in sending American troops into South Vietnam is to bolster and support the puppet army and puppet government, to prevent them from quickly disintegrating, and to defend a number of key positions as a precaution against major attacks by our forces. At the same time, with their increased forces, they will gradually, step by step, begin to counterattack in order to regain the initiative and to create a new posture of strength for their side. However, it is clear that the situation will not allow them to achieve that goal. The fact is that the U.S. is sending in its troops at a time when we have already deployed our forces throughout all South Vietnam, when our three types of troops [main force, local force, guerrilla] have been formed and taken shape, and when the three strategic areas [mountain jungles, rural countryside, the cities] have been built up and consolidated. Our guerrilla militia and province and district local force soldiers have firm footholds in all areas. Our main force units are now being built into powerful “fists,” and they have occupied key strategic locations. Throughout the battlefield, guerrilla warfare has been developed to a high level; we have gained the initiative, and we are now attacking the enemy. For that reason, even if the enemy initially strives to mass his forces to mount a counterattack, he will later be forced to disperse his forces to cope with our attacks and will be forced to return to a defensive posture. 2. With respect to forces, previously the American imperialists were forced to rely primarily on the puppet army, but now the puppet army cannot stand against us on its own. Therefore the enemy has been forced to rely on two strategic forces—U.S. troops and puppet troops—to conduct the war. Although there are not yet as many American troops as there are puppet troops, with their heavy firepower and their tremendous mobility American troops have become the backbone of the enemy’s rapid response forces, and they provide the backing that the puppet army needs. American troops have the important political mission of working to prevent the puppet army and puppet government from disintegrating. At the same time, they are also responsible for occupying strategic areas, maintaining the enemy’s posture of strength throughout the battlefield, and gradually beginning to mount counterattacks aimed at destroying our key, hard-core forces. In spite of all this, however, the puppet army is still a large force, and it has a very important political and military mission, which is to provide support and backing for the puppet government at both the national and the local level. The puppet army has been given the missions of attacking and recapturing those areas the enemy has lost, of patching back together the puppet governmental system that has collapsed, of gaining control of the lowlands, of annihilating our guerrilla and local force units, and of cooperating with U.S. troops in launching large military operations to attack our main force troops in order to regain the initiative. Based on the changes in the balance of forces and on the enemy’s new strategic intentions, we conclude that during the current

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1555 phase, the war in South Vietnam has the characteristics of both a “limited war” as well as a “special war.” While we stress the “limited war” nature, which is a new form that is becoming increasingly exhibited in the conduct of the war, we still must correctly assess the level of importance of the remaining “special war” characteristics of the war, because this second aspect is intimately connected to American neocolonialism. 3. Our assessments presented above were made so that we could lay out strategic guidelines and missions designed at defeating the American political objectives and at defeating their military forces. Working from the above analysis, we have determined that our immediate combat opponent in South Vietnam is no longer primarily the puppet army, but now it is both American troops and the puppet army. We must continue to destroy and cause the disintegration of the puppet army, and we must view that goal as a basic factor that will enable us to bring about the collapse of the puppet government and to crush one of the Americans’ most important sources of strength and support. At the same time, however, we must also defeat the American army and shatter this force that provides the backbone of the enemy’s war of aggression so that American troops are no longer strong enough to protect the puppet army and puppet government, meaning that they are no longer strong enough to perform their political mission. At the same time, we must make the Americans realize that even if they send in more troops and further reinforce their expeditionary army, they still will not be able to avoid total defeat. The dialectical relationship in this matter is that we attack U.S. troops in order to create conditions that will enable us to annihilate puppet troops, and, conversely, we annihilate puppet troops in order to create conditions that will enable us to attack and annihilate American troops. And our goal in annihilating both puppet and American troops is to crush the enemy’s military forces, to defeat the political goals of his war of aggression, and to defeat the American military strategy. For that reason, we have set forward the overall requirement that we must defeat the enemy in all three of these areas, and only if we are able to defeat the enemy in all three of these areas will we be able to say that we have defeated this war that has both “limited” and “special” characteristics in its current phase. Naturally, when we attack the enemy, we should attack those elements that are weak first and cause them to disintegrate and collapse first. For that reason, in terms of our combat opponents, we must first aim at annihilating puppet soldiers and causing the disintegration of the puppet army while at the same time trying in every way we can to inflict casualties, erode the strength of, and kill large numbers of American troops in order to create conditions that will enable us to destroy puppet forces and cause the disintegration of the puppet army as quickly as possible. Eroding the strength of and killing American soldiers is essential to enable us to retain the initiative on the battlefield, and this task becomes practical and realistic.

At present, it is important to attack both the American army and the puppet army. We are in complete agreement with Brother Nam Cong [alias used by Vo Chi Cong] and the rest of you on this point. However, I would like to remind you all of one point: When you make your deployments for battle, you must aim first at destroying puppet military forces first, because within the enemy’s military forces at present, the puppet army is the weakest element. When attacking American troops, we must identify their weak points and attack those weak points. We must attack them in situations when they are weak so that we can annihilate them. As for their strengths, or those situations when they are strong, we must avoid them, temporarily at least. However, this instruction is not absolute; it is not cast in stone. In addition to attacking the weaknesses of the Americans, we must also find effective tactics and effective forms of combat that will enable us to defeat their strengths and will prevent them from being their superiority in technology and weaponry. As for the missions and capabilities of the various battlefields, we must make the following conclusions and assessments very clear: In the mountain jungle battlefields in general, and specifically in the mountain jungles of Region 5, our important and increasingly primary combat opponent is the American army. This is because American troops, and also satellite [allied] troops, are increasingly playing the most important role and are being given the mission of directly confronting our troops in this region. At the same time, in this battlefield we must still place emphasis on attacking puppet military forces, because in the mountain jungle areas, the U.S. still uses puppet troops to defend the towns and province capitals, and sometimes the U.S. uses puppet forces in a number of situations for which U.S. troops are not suited or appropriate. In the lowland battlefields, and primarily in the lowlands of Cochin China, our specific and our most important combat opponent is the puppet army. When we go down to lower levels, when we look at smaller-scale battlefields as well as when looking at specific battles, specific attacks, we must take into consideration whether the location has only American troops or whether it has only puppet troops; or, if the specific area has both American troops and puppet troops, we must take into consideration whether there are more American soldiers or more puppet soldiers, and we must also consider when and how each will make their appearance, consider what each force’s tactical mission is, etc., in order to determine which type of soldier, American or puppet, should be the specific battlefield target, and then on that basis we should decide on what tactics we will use. Although we will base our determination of the exact combat opponent, we will engage on each individual battlefield, and in each individual battle on the specific enemy assignment of responsibilities on individual battlefields and on the relationships the various types of enemy troops have with one another, we still must affirm that we fight American troops in order to be able to fight puppet troops and that an individual battlefield fights the Americans so

1556

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

that other battlefields can fight the puppets. On the other hand, we must also affirm that we fight the puppet army precisely in order to fight the Americans, and that an individual battlefield fights the puppets so that another battlefield can kill the Americans. II Now I will turn to our strategic guidelines and intentions, the conditions, the capabilities, and the forms of struggle to be used to defeat U.S. and puppet soldiers in order to move forward toward truly gaining mastery of the mountain jungles and the rural countryside, then to surround, split, and isolate the enemy, and eventually to launch a general offensive-general insurrection that gains mastery of the cities and secures decisive victory for our side. 1. Previously, we correctly anticipated that during the course of the battle, as the enemy steadily was defeated and as we won greater and greater victories, the U.S. might send tens of thousands of American combat troops to Vietnam. The Resolution on South Vietnam of the 9th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (Third Congress) stated clearly that the “special war” was the form of warfare best suited to American neocolonialism, but it also said that if they could not win victory in the “special war,” under certain conditions the Americans could shift to a “limited war.” Based on that assessment, we made the decision to restrict the enemy to the use of “special war” and to defeat him in the “special war” while at the same time being prepared to deal with the possibility that the enemy might decide to launch a “limited war.” Restricting the enemy to fighting in South Vietnam and defeating the enemy in South Vietnam is the primary issue. It is our largest, main strategic formula. The application of that formula must permeate all of our political, military, and diplomatic activities. Given the current balance of forces in our nation, in Southeast Asia, and in the world, restricting the enemy to South Vietnam and defeating him there is still a realistic and practical possibility. At the same time, we must be prepared and ready to fight the enemy if he should expand the war into North Vietnam using ground forces. At the present time, although there is a possibility that the U.S. might expand the war into North Vietnam using ground forces, that possibility is small. This is because the American imperialists are afraid they would have to contend with the forces of North Vietnam and of the entire socialist bloc while at the same time they would have to deal with a growing and strengthening American people’s movement against the war of aggression. The American imperialists are also afraid of becoming more isolated in the face of the increasing powerful movement supporting Vietnam among peaceful, democratic, and national independence forces around the world. In the other imperialist countries, there are some who do not support the U.S. policy, and there are some that support it but do not want to and do not have the ability to join the U.S. in expanding the war. Both of these groups are looking for opportunities to contest the U.S. for control of areas of influence around the world.

The U.S. war of aggression in South Vietnam could also gradually change into a “limited war” with a number of American ground forces equivalent to the number the U.S. used in the Korean War, but with larger and more powerful air forces. However, no matter how big or how intense the war becomes, South Vietnam’s revolutionary forces, with active support and assistance from North Vietnam, still can and must defeat the American imperialists and their lackeys in this “special war.” The idea of “special” that I am using here does not have the same meaning that the Americans usually give it. I want to use this word to denote a type of war in which the American imperialists are unable to use all of their strength and in which, in the end, they must accept a certain level of defeat in order to avoid suffering an even larger, more painful defeat and avoid dangerous consequences that they themselves cannot fully predict. In the current international environment, the concrete balance of forces in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia, the strength of the socialist system, of the national democratic movement, and of the peace and democracy movement around the world, and the profound contradictions within the imperialist ranks will not permit the U.S. to unilaterally expand the war to whatever size and scale they may desire. Currently, the American imperialists have sent more than a hundred thousand troops into South Vietnam. This is a new situation. We must monitor the stages of development of this war in order to have contingency plans ready so that we are certain that we can attain victory in any situation, no matter what happens. The strategic formula of our revolutionary war in South Vietnam is to fight a protracted struggle, relying primarily on our own strength. This strategic formula is based on the following foundations: First, initially we must use weakness to fight strength. Second, the course of the revolution in South Vietnam, from its beginning until it achieves its basic, fundamental goals, will be a long process. Third, the U.S. is a rich, powerful, and warmongering imperialist nation, and we must anticipate many possible scenarios for the way the situation will develop, especially scenarios in which the war is conducted on many different scales and at many different intensities. The developments in the war over the past several years and the nature of the war during this current phase have proven that our strategic formula described above was completely correct. When we saw the grave crisis they faced in their “special war,” we decided that, while still operating from the foundation of conducting a protracted struggle, we would seize the opportunity to make an effort to win a decisive victory in a relatively short period of time. The situation in South Vietnam over the past year and more clearly demonstrates that this strategic guidance stimulated our revolutionary war to gain more and greater victories. We quickly changed the balance of forces in our favor, we exceeded our goals in the destruction of strategic hamlets and in expanding our

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1557 liberated zones, and we annihilated more than 30 puppet battalions and caused the disintegration of an important portion of the puppet army. In Region 5, we were able to gain the initiative and change the very nature of the battlefield, moving from a defensive posture to a completely offensive posture in which we have the offensive initiative. We have the ability to defeat the enemy in “special war.” That point is now clear, and it is certain. The above decision must be understood more clearly from another aspect. When we decide to try to score a decisive victory, we are taking as our goal securing a level of fundamental victory in the specific, concrete circumstances of the war as it exists. That is clearly different than securing total victory in any and all circumstances and situations. Using the same definition and meaning of this phrase, we consider the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the entire 1953–1954 Winter-Spring Campaign to have been a decisive victory, but we do not call it a total victory. The new problem that presents itself is that now, in the current situation, after the U.S. has sent several scores of thousands of American expeditionary troops into South Vietnam to fight alongside more than half a million puppet troops, do we still have the necessary conditions to win a decisive victory within the next several years? In another scenario, if the war in South Vietnam develops into a large-scale “limited war” with the presence of three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand, or even five hundred thousand American troops, what strategic guidelines should we set and what prospects for victory will we have? In the first scenario, we have concluded that, on the basis of maintaining a firm grasp on our formula of fighting a protracted struggle, we still have the capability of winning a decisive victory in a relatively short period of time. In the second scenario, if the U.S. sends in half a million American troops, more or less, and changes the “special war” into a largescale “limited war” in South Vietnam, with the possibility that the enemy might even send ground forces to invade North Vietnam (even though, in the short-term at least, the prospects for such a move are slight), given the current situation and after assessing both the U.S.’s capabilities and our own capabilities, including all aspects of the situation (political, military, and economic), we are certain that the U.S. cannot fight a protracted war and defeat us, and that in a protracted resistance war, we will certainly be able to win victory in the end. Under both scenarios, our strategic formula is still correct and we have sufficient conditions to enable us to win victory. 2. On the question of winning a decisive victory within the next several years, I have the following thoughts: We view the American introduction of several hundred thousand U.S. and satellite [allied] troops into South Vietnam as an important step in the development of the war. During this period, the American imperialists have certain, limited political and military goals, and American troops have their own strengths and weaknesses. The Politburo’s resolution mentioned a large number of

issues to deal with this scenario. Here I only want to give you some additional thoughts about fighting American troops and puppet troops and about the political struggle and the possibility of building up to launching a general offensive-general insurrection in this new situation. In the initial section of this letter, I discussed our new combat opponent and the relationship between fighting American troops and fighting the puppet army. Now I would like to talk more concretely about our goals and our capabilities for fighting the puppet and for fighting the Americans. When we consider the situation from a military perspective, annihilating [killing] puppet troops is easier than annihilating [killing] American troops. This is because the U.S. troops have little combat experience, so they are subjective [overly optimistic]. They rely on their weapons and, in part at least, on their national pride. As for the puppet troops, they have suffered defeat on the battlefield, they are now in a state of fear and confusion, and their fighting spirit has suffered. For that reason, we must further emphasize our resolve to annihilate puppet soldiers and to cause the puppet army to disintegrate even more and even faster. In addition, in our propaganda efforts, we must emphasize and stress the slogan, “Seek out the Americans and kill them.” On certain battlefields, we must carefully and fully study the most appropriate forms of tactics and fighting methods to annihilate [kill] American troops. With respect to our guerrilla forces that are now surrounding and besieging American bases, we must work to develop in them a courageous fighting spirit. We must give them timely commendations, and we must stimulate their morale so that their resolve to kill large numbers of American troops increases even further. As for the issue of fighting and defeating the puppet army, the realities of combat over the past several years has clearly shown us the direction to take to attain this goal. Even though today the puppet army still has more than half a million men, and even though it now has American troops to provide it with backup and support, we still assert that we are capable of fundamentally, basically, destroying and disintegrating the puppet army. In the mountain jungle areas, primarily through the use of our military struggle formula, our main force troops, using relatively powerful “fists,” have destroyed and caused the disintegration of many of the puppet army’s mobile units. Today, on this battlefield, even though American troops are playing an increasingly important role, we still are capable of annihilating puppet troops in the places where they are based or where they are conducting operations, while at the same time we annihilate American rapid reaction forces. In the lowland areas, by combining the use of our armed struggle and political struggle formulas, by using our three-pronged attack [military, political, and military proselyting], and in particular with widespread guerrilla warfare and local insurrections in certain locations, our local force troops, guerrilla militia, and revolutionary masses have swept away a rather significant portion of the puppet governmental apparatus at the village and hamlet

1558

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

level, have shattered the enemy’s network of strategic hamlets, and have defeated many enemy military sweep operations. Today, after the arrival of tens of thousands of American expeditionary troops in South Vietnam, the puppet army is able to send additional forces to the lowlands, and he now received a high level of U.S. artillery and air support. Our battles will be fought under even fiercer and more savage conditions, but if we use correct and flexible fighting methods and tactics, we certainly will continue to be able to attack the enemy in the lowlands. If we want to defeat the puppet army in the lowlands, the most important thing for us is to firmly maintain and expand our mastery and control in the rural countryside. In order to secure and maintain our control in the rural countryside, the first thing we must do is to build and rationally deploy our battlefield armed forces in each district, province, and military region. We must strengthen the forces and improve the fighting skills of our local force troops. We must powerfully and broadly expand our guerrilla network. We must build combat villages and hamlets, and we must equip the guerrillas with additional ordinary weapons (such as punji stakes, mines, rifles, and hand grenades). We must enable the guerrillas to fight the enemy by themselves when enemy troops enter their villages and hamlets, and at the same time enable them to coordinate with our main force and local force troops to annihilate [kill] large numbers of enemy troops. We must devote attention to consolidating and expanding our mass political army. We must mobilize the various classes of the population to rise up to take control of their villages and hamlets, to maintain and step up production in order to provide for their daily lives while at the same time providing the necessary manpower and resources to kill the enemy and defend their villages and their nation. We must properly implement our police of greater solidarity to unite the entire population behind us. We must gradually, step by step, provide land to the peasants. We must firmly understand and implement the policies of the Party in the rural countryside and aim the spear-point of our struggle against the American imperialists and against powerful, wicked landlords and enemy lackeys. In addition to stepping up production and combat activities, we must also make sure we properly conduct health, education, cultural, and social activities. On the rural battlefield, we must set forward missions and goals that are appropriate for each individual area. We must have a plan to tightly coordinate the combat operations of various units and forces and of the different local areas. We must always fully understand and follow our formula of attaining mastery and control to destroy [kill] the enemy and of destroying the enemy in order gain increasingly firm control. This means that we must know how to conduct a solid defense and how to launch powerful attacks, that we must constantly maintain the initiative, that we must protect and expand our forces, that we must use every possible means to mount counterattacks against the enemy to secure and defend each village and hamlet, and that we gradually

expand our area of control and shrink the size of the enemy’s area of control. In order to counter the enemy’s “pacification” program in the rural countryside and reduce the enemy’s advantages and strengths in the lowlands, we must tightly coordinate the three prongs of our attack [military, political, and military proselyting], and we must expand guerrilla warfare to even greater heights. At the same time, we must also step up the political struggle and our military proselyting operations, we must properly consolidate, fortify, and expand our combat villages and hamlets, we must dig underground bunkers to take shelter and hide, and we must build networks of tunnels to use to counter enemy air and artillery strikes and to fight the enemy. Recently, the enemy massed his forces and conducted extremely intense sweep operations in a number of areas, including the outskirts of Saigon–Cho Lon, Long An, My Tho, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, etc. However, because we had deployed our forces rationally, because we properly coordinated all aspects of our activities, and because we took the initiative in attacking the enemy, we were able to gain and maintain control of these areas and to inflict many casualties on enemy forces. On the other hand, in a number of other areas in Tri-Thien and western Cochin China [the lower Mekong Delta], because our forces did not carry out the above tasks properly, our defenses were not firm, our attacks were not powerful, and we suffered rather heavy casualties. To coordinate our attacks against the enemy in the mountain jungles and in the lowlands in the immediate future, we must strive to shatter, disperse, or cause the desertion of around 300,000 to 400,000 puppet army soldiers, and of that total we must destroy at least 70 to 80 enemy battalions. That is one of the requirements for our plan to win a decisive victory. Attacking puppet troops must go hand in hand with attacking and defeating American troops. The fact that the U.S. is sending several hundred thousand expeditionary troops to fight in South Vietnam means that our people’s cause of opposing the Americans to save our nation will be longer, more difficult, and more savage. However, the more American troops that come to Vietnam, the more of them we will be able to kill. If large numbers of American troops are killed, the puppet army will disintegrate even faster, the U.S.’s hope of securing a victory through military means will collapse, and the American people’s movement opposed to the U.S.’s dirty war in Vietnam will grow. In the near future, do we have the capability of annihilating an important portion of the American army? I believe that we have that capability. The victory won by our troops at the recent battle of Van Tuong [the Batangan Peninsula, August 1965] is living proof of that capability. At Van Tuong, the Americans chose the battlefield, they used 9,000 troops, and they massed overwhelming superiority in firepower and military equipment. In spite of this, however, two of our main force battalions dealt them a terrible defeat—our losses were only 1/20th of those suffered by the enemy. If the battle of Ap Bac in early 1963 demonstrated our

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1559 ability to defeat the American tactics of “helicopter assault” and “armored assault” to support large puppet army forces conducting sweeps in the lowlands, and if the battle of Binh Gia in late 1964 signaled the maturation of our main force troops in their ability to annihilate large enemy regular rapid reaction units, then the battle of Van Tuong has now provided eloquent proof of our ability to defeat American troops even when they have absolute superiority in equipment and firepower. And after the battle of Van Tuong, in a large number of subsequent battles our soldiers have won glorious victories over American troops. Currently, we have many possibilities for fighting American troops on mountain jungle and semimountain jungle battlefields and when they are maneuvering out in the field, outside of their defensive fortifications. At the same time, we also have ways of attacking the Americans inside their bases and around their bases. If we want to do this, however, we must clearly recognize the strengths and the weaknesses of American troops. Fighting on mountain jungle battlefields is something that American troops have been forced into, and something they do with great reluctance, because in that terrain the effectiveness of their superiority in weapons and technology is reduced and their weaknesses are more easily exposed. For us, on the other hand, the mountain jungles are our bases. These are the places where our military units have been built into powerful forces, and these are the battlefields that we know like the back of our hand and where we have a powerful battlefield posture that we can use to destroy both American as well as puppet troops. If we want to defeat the American army in the mountain jungle, the first thing we must do is to gain control of, gain mastery over, the mountain jungles. For a long time we have said that we controlled the mountain jungles, but in fact, there were many vast areas of mountain jungle that the enemy did not completely occupy or where he did not conduct operations, so there were no enemy forces there. As for our side, we too did not have sufficient forces to control these areas. That is the reason that there were instances when the enemy launched attacks into the mountain jungles and struck deep into our base areas, such as in Do Xa in 1963, and in Bien Hoa and Thu Dau Mot in September and October of this year, and yet we failed to annihilate significant numbers of enemy forces and inflicted only light casualties and attrition on the enemy forces. That demonstrates that in practical terms, we do not yet control the mountain jungle areas. In order to truly control and master the mountain jungles, we must firmly grasp the following points: First, we must correctly implement the Party’s policies toward the ethnic minority peoples living in the mountain areas, and we must build their tribal villages into combat villages. Second, we must “transplant” people into unpopulated or underpopulated areas and build up local armed forces in order to maintain control throughout all the mountain jungles areas. Third, we must quickly build up powerful main force units with excellent equipment and a high level of mobility, and we must

ensure that they are properly supplied and that they have good logistics support. The special characteristics of revolutionary warfare, of national liberation warfare, and of our strategic guidelines in the resistance war against the Americans demand that our armed forces and our political forces must be in control of, must be in control of their own battles. This means that they must have firm footholds, and they must be able to stand their ground firmly on the mountain jungle battlefields as well as in the lowlands in order to fight the enemy. We cannot fight and then run away, abandoning the land and abandoning the people. The mountain jungles have terrain that is favorable to our effort to develop a posture of control and mastery. The more we control the mountain jungles, the better we will be able to gain firm control of other battlefields. For that reason, we must fully recognize the importance of “transplanting” people in the mountain jungle areas. We must organize powerful guerrilla teams that engage in [agricultural] production in addition to fighting. At the same time, we must also rationally deploy our armed forces in such a way that we gain the initiative, fight off large enemy sweep operations properly, and firmly protect our bases. In areas where the population is too sparse and where we have no guerrilla militia forces, we must station a small element of our main force troops to help build and develop guerrilla militia forces and local force units. In that way not only will we be able to gain mastery of the mountain jungles; when the enemy does attack, we will be better able to restrict his activities and destroy more of his forces. In parallel with developing a network of guerrillas and local force units, we must quickly build our main force troops into powerful fists composed of light, tightly organized large units with high fighting spirit, with truly excellent technical and tactical skills, with very heavy firepower (including individual weapons, heavy weapons fire support weapons, antiaircraft guns, and light artillery pieces), with the ability to move rapidly, and with relatively ample food and ammunition reserve stockpiles. In order to gain the offensive initiative, we usually use such tactics as luring the enemy in to destroy him, as attacking or besieging an outpost in order to lure in and destroy relief forces, as attacking enemy lines of communications and then destroying relief forces sent to reopen them, as attacking puppet army forces as a way to lure American troops out to places where we can kill them, etc. Here, however, I want to discuss the subject of using counterattacks to kill the enemy and to defeat enemy offensive attacks. For a long time we have been unable to accomplish this goal. Almost all of the times when the enemy took the initiative in attacking mountain jungle areas, he encountered only scattered resistance and our armed forces were unable to launch counterattacks against his forces. We must understand what it means to have the initiative and what it means to be defensive or passive in counterattacks and combating enemy sweep operations. Usually when he drafts an

1560

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

offensive plan and deploys his forces to move into the areas he intends to sweep, the enemy has the initiative, which means he has the initiative in the initial phase. However, on a battlefield that the enemy has chosen, if we have good control of these areas, if we have deployed our forces in battle positions, and if we take the initiative in combating the enemy sweep, the enemy may gradually lose the initiative he initially enjoyed, and he may gradually be placed more on the defensive and in the passive position of trying to ward off our attacks. In addition, when the enemy has almost finished or has just finished his sweep operation, if we have reserve forces already prepared and if we have a plan ready to mount a determined counterattack, we can drive the enemy totally onto the defensive and inflict heavy losses on his forces, because the enemy troops will be in the process of withdrawing and they will have neither the mental preparations nor the forces available to fend off our attacks. During the Second World War, Stalin put forward his famous concept about strategic and campaign counteroffensives, and he often talked about the idea of “a counteroffensive of an offensive nature.” The battle of Stalingrad was a famous counteroffensive campaign. All of the campaigns fought during 1943, 1944, and early 1945 were part of the Red Army’s counteroffensive strategy of fighting on Soviet soil and then attacking across the borders of the Soviet Union all the way to the final fascist lair in Germany. During our resistance war against the French, we defeated several large French Army offensive operations in the Viet Bac Campaign (1947) and the Hoa Binh Campaign (1952). These were campaigns in which we counterattacked and defeated enemy offensive attacks. In South Vietnam, there was the battle in which we annihilated a puppet battalion at Phu Tuc (Chau Thanh District, Ben Tre Province, 1964) when the enemy battalion was returning home from a sweep operation. This battle could also be described as a form of counterattack aimed at defeating enemy offensive sweep operations. During the coming dry season, with additional troops and transportation equipment for mobility, the U.S. is certain to launch many attacks into battlefields in the mountain jungle and semimountain jungle areas. The principal forces used on these operations will be American troops, sometimes accompanied by puppet troops and satellite [allied] troops. The American goals in these operations will be to seize the initiative, to score a number of victories to cause political effects favorable to their side, to inflict damage on us and cause us difficulties, and to push us back into a defensive, reactive posture. In order to deal with these new enemy military operations, we must make adequate preparations of all types to counterattack against the enemy. We must view the American dryseason attacks as excellent opportunities that will provide favorable conditions for us to destroy U.S. and puppet military forces, and especially to kill American troops. Counterattacking against the enemy when he conducts an offensive attack demonstrates that we have a firm understanding of

our tactic of fighting the enemy when the enemy is in the field, outside of his fortified defensive positions. If we want to be able to do that, we must obtain a firm understanding of the situation, we must do an excellent job of preparing the battlefield and of preparing our own forces, we must lure the enemy into battle sites that we have prepared beforehand, we must firmly grasp opportunities, and we must take the initiative by attacking the enemy and catching him by surprise. This kind of battle has many advantages over attacking outposts and then destroying enemy relief forces. For that reason, from a tactical standpoint we should not make frontal attacks; instead we can use more flexible fighting methods, such as attacking the enemy’s flanks, engaging the enemy in close-quarters battle until he is exhausted, and dividing the enemy force in order to be able to destroy it. The fundamental point is that we must maintain excellent coordination between our three types of troops [main force, local force, guerrillas], we must maintain a firm grasp of the situation on the battlefield, and, most important of all, we must have adequate reserve forces. In addition to having plans to take the initiative in launching counterattacks, we still must have plans for offensive attacks, the kind that we regularly launched during the recent winter-spring and spring-summer campaigns. However, in these offensive plans we usually use the tactic of attacking a point and then destroying the relief force, and if we do not have a certain amount of reserve forces to commit to the battle at the final moment, after we attack the enemy relief force the enemy can mass his strength to make another counterattack and either put us back on the defensive or force us to withdraw. That is something that regularly happens in the final phase of our campaigns, such as the Binh Gia and Dong Xoai campaigns, for instance. If at those times we had a reserve force prepared and on hand, ready to use to strike powerful blows during the final phase of the campaign, it is certain that we would have won even greater victories in those battles. Firmly maintaining an offensive philosophy and initiating attacks in order to defend our positions—those are our strategic and tactical concepts for this revolutionary war. Only if we fully absorb these concepts will we be able to understand the true content of a counterattack, and only then will we be able to recognize possibilities for annihilating U.S. and puppet troops when they are moving in the field, outside of their prepared defensive fortifications, and when they enter our mountain jungle areas. This is the battlefield on which the enemy’s superiority in air, artillery, and armor is reduced, and it is the area where our troops can exploit to the maximum our fighting spirit and our superiority in tactics. In order to further illuminate the way we should conduct counterattacks, I would like to discuss reserve forces and guidelines for employing reserve forces. Viewing the situation from an overall standpoint, if we want to conduct a protracted war we must build up our forces, from small units all the way up to large forces, in individual areas as well as throughout the battlefield. We must fight at all levels, from

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1561 scattered guerrilla attacks to large-scale maneuver attacks, we must erode the enemy’s strength by inflicting casualties, both in small numbers and in large numbers, and we must build increasingly powerful tactical reserve forces as well as strategic reserve forces. In any battle or in any campaign, whether we are using large numbers of troops or just small numbers of troops, we must always have a reserve force ready so that we can seize the initiative and ensure victory. This is particularly true when fighting against American troops. We must be able to use reserve forces well in order to deal with sudden, unexpected enemy air attacks or air assault landings by air cavalry units. To be able to resist these strengths of the American army, when we counterattack against the enemy, if we are using a regiment for the counterattack, we must have at least one or two regiments in reserve, and if we are using one battalion for the counterattack, we must have one or two battalions in reserve in order to be ready to engage enemy troops making air assaults. For us, reserve forces do not consist solely of main force troops; they also include guerrilla fighters. Guerrillas are regular combat forces, but they are also a reserve force. When the enemy makes an attack into one of our areas, guerrilla troops cling to the enemy force to fight it. After our main force units make a counterattack, guerrilla teams may be used as a reserve force to continue the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. Not only do we need to have a military reserve force; we also need to build truly powerful political reserve forces to work with our military forces in striking blows that truly take him by surprise during the conduct of a general offensive–general insurrection. In order to preserve the source of our reserve forces, local Party chapters at all levels must intensify their efforts to incite the masses to struggle against the enemy’s plans to draft soldiers into his army. In the near future, American troops will use the dry season to launch their initial counterattacks in an effort to win a number of military and political victories in order to save the puppet army and puppet government from total collapse. We must coordinate more closely between battlefields and we must take the initiative in launching attacks and counterattacks with the resolute fighting spirit of Van Tuong, Binh Gia, and Ba Gia in order to win clear victory over U.S. troops during the dry season and begin the test of strength between the American imperialists and our own soldiers and civilians in this new phase of the war. Although there are fewer American troops than there are puppet troops, the Americans had tremendous firepower and they have large bases in our country that are filled with modern military equipment, fuel, and ammunition. For that reason, attacks to inflict damage on American bases, airfields, and large storage facilities and to destroy large puppet and American military units are all of great importance. As for fighting American forces inside and around their bases in South Vietnam, there are three ways to fight them:

—Make sapper attacks, conducted either independently or in coordination with firepower [shelling] attacks and ground attacks by assault [infantry] forces. —Shell the Americans from outside their perimeters. —Fight them in American killing belts using guerrillas and local force units. Using these three fighting methods, during the recent past our forces have inflicted attrition on and have destroyed a rather large number of American troops and military equipment. These are very creative tactics that exhibit the incredibly courageous spirit and the very high level of technical and tactical skills of our people’s armed forces. We must quickly reinforce and strengthen our troops and strongly motivate them to develop the above-mentioned fighting methods so that we can inflict even greater damage on the U.S.’s weapons and military equipment, inflict casualties on his personnel (especially on American pilots and American advisors), cause the Americans further logistical and transportation problems, and force them to use large numbers of their troops to protect their bases. Sapper tactics are a very unique fighting method that has been developed by our army. We must quickly increase the size of our sapper force and we must organize and train our sappers to turn them into a truly elite branch we can use to attack enemy bases, headquarters, and nerve centers. We must use specialized sapper teams, powerful explosives, and various specialized types of weapons to attack enemy ammunition stockpiles, fuel dumps, airfields, warships, and locations where large numbers of American officers are concentrated. Recently the U.S. Military Command in South Vietnam was forced to admit that, given the accuracy displayed during the shelling of Bien Hoa Airbase, the Viet Cong could attack any American base in South Vietnam. That admission shows all the more clearly the need for us to strive to develop and expand the use of this extremely effective fighting method. We must organize and train many units to be able to use mortars, recoilless rifles, mountain howitzers, and other types of long-range weapons skillfully in order to intensify our shelling attacks on U.S. bases. Using the types of weapons we currently have on hand and new weapons that will be soon sent south, we will strike surprise blows that will win great victories and further disrupt and confuse the American efforts to protect their bases in South Vietnam. Based on the innovations made by our armed forces in Danang and Chu Lai, we need to expand our use of belts of guerrillas and local force troops around U.S. bases. Surrounding, besieging, sniping, and the use of scattered, isolated attacks must become our standard, regular tactics to erode the enemy’s manpower strength. The belts must be made very strong; they must be constructed in depth, with many layers, in order to attack and kill enemy troops when they push out from the bases or when they conduct sweep operations. Guerrillas and local force troops must receive careful training, they must be thoroughly familiar with the terrain inside and around the base, they must clearly understand U.S. tactics

1562

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

and the pattern of operations used by U.S. troops, and they must be skilled in the use of many different types of weapons so that they can kill individual enemy soldiers and destroy individual U.S. tanks and small units. When conditions are favorable, we might also use commando forces to penetrate deep into enemy bases and make powerful attacks against larger enemy units. In addition to the military struggle, we must devote a great deal of attention to organizing and leading the masses who live in areas around U.S. bases in conducting political struggles and carrying out military proselyting operations directed at American troops with the goal of limiting or restricting enemy sweep operations and bombardments and of protecting the people’s lives and property. During the upcoming spring-summer campaign, we need to strive to kill around 10,000 American soldiers, as was projected, and during the coming few years, we need to kill approximately 40,000–50,000 American soldiers. That is a new goal to help us advance toward scoring a decisive victory in this war. In addition to killing American and puppet troops, we must inflict heavy losses on the American air forces and at the same time limit the damage caused by air attacks. That is a common mission for both North and South Vietnam, and it is one of the goals we must achieve to win victory. In North Vietnam, our soldiers and civilians have fought very skillfully and have shot down many U.S. aircraft. In South Vietnam, even though our forces there have only limited air defense forces, our armed forces have found many very effective tactics. They have destroyed rows of enemy aircraft as they sat on their airbases and they have attacked and destroyed enemy bomb storage depots and petroleum storage facilities, thereby restricting enemy air activities. We need to conduct a general review of these activities and quickly disseminate valuable experiences and lessons learned about how to destroy American aircraft and about how to avoid and protect against air attacks. We must mobilize all our different types of troops [main force, local force, guerrillas] and the different specialty branches and different services of our armed forces to launch an emulation campaign to shoot down or destroy even more enemy aircraft. Destroying aircraft must go hand in hand with eliminating enemy pilots. According to statements made by U.S. pilots we have captured in North Vietnam and according to other documents and information we have collected, because of our heavy and accurate fire the U.S. is increasingly short of good pilots who are skilled in the use of modern aircraft in all weather and combat conditions. For that reason, we must pay special attention to capturing American pilots when we shoot down their aircraft, and we must make powerful attacks against airfields and against the barracks where American pilots live. 3. On the issue of insurrection [uprisings], the following question has been raised: Now that the U.S. has sent U.S. troops to

occupy a number of areas in South Vietnam, is it still possible for us to build up to conducting an insurrection? In order to reach a clear assessment of this matter, we must first of all understand what an insurrection is and review whether we have had insurrections in South Vietnam during the past few years. An insurrection is the rising up of the masses in the rural countryside or in the cities and the use of political strength, armed [military] strength, or both political and armed strength to overthrow the enemy’s local governments or his national government. Insurrection is also the rising up of large or small units within the enemy’s army to stand on the side of the revolution and of the people in opposing the puppet government. If we agree on this understanding of the term “insurrection,” then we can see that over the past several years in South Vietnam the popular masses and a number of puppet military units have conducted insurrections numerous times. Uprisings using primarily political strength, in coordination with the use of mass armed strength, were conducted in a number of mountain jungle areas of Region 5 and the lowlands of Cochin China in later 1959 and early 1960. These uprisings, which gained control of governmental power at the village and hamlet level, were local insurrections and were our first large high-tide insurrectionary movement. The wave of uprisings conducted in the lowlands of Region 5 for the past year or more are our second large high tide insurrectionary movement. Generally speaking, the movement in which the vast masses of the rural population have risen up to destroy strategic hamlets, to shatter their bonds of repression, and to develop guerrilla warfare to fight the enemy has been a widespread insurrection throughout rural South Vietnam that has lasted for the past several years. The uprisings of the different classes of the urban population in the student movement, the Buddhist movement, and the mass labor movement that led to a change in the puppet government, a change that was not what the U.S. wanted, were actions of a violent nature that can be viewed as practice exercises for an eventual uprising in the cities. The uprisings of a number of small puppet military units in many different provinces to oppose the puppet government and brutal commanders and to support the mass struggle and join the revolution and the National Liberation Front are also a type of small-scale insurrection. If we understand the term “insurrection” in this manner, then in the near future, after we win greater victories and after both American military forces and the puppet army suffered greater failures, is it not possible that the different classes of the population in areas temporarily under enemy control and puppet soldiers might also rise up in insurrection? The general insurrection that we put forward as a possibility, a practical guideline to help to win a decisive victory in South Vietnam, certainly must be combined with a general military offensive. In fact, any insurrection that wants to win victory must crush the enemy’s military resistance. Conversely, in a revolutionary war, if one wants to completely and totally defeat the enemy, a general

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1563 military offensive must receive the support and assistance of insurrections of different levels and intensities among the masses and within the enemy army. During the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and in the midst of a situation in which the Russian Imperial Army had suffered heavy defeats on the front lines, the workers and an important segment of the Imperial Russian Army in many cities rose up to seize the reins of government. The reasons that our own 1945 August Revolution was able to secure a quick victory was that the French Army and the Japanese Army had both been defeated and because millions of the popular masses, under the leadership of our Party, rose up as one in rebellion to seize control of the government throughout our nation. In South Vietnam, from late 1959 through early 1960, the reason that the “simultaneous uprisings” of the masses in the rural countryside were able to be successful and that these uprisings have continued to grow and develop right up to the present is that they were closely coordinated with increasingly powerful attacks by military forces conducting a guerrilla war. And the primary reason that the recent waves of violent actions by the masses in Hue, Danang, and Saigon did not develop into insurrections to seize the reins of government was that they lacked any direct coordination with military attacks that would destroy or disperse the puppet army to a major extent, and also that these political struggle lacked close leadership by our Party. At present, tens of thousands of American troops have been sent into South Vietnam. However, even in those areas where American troops are stationed, there is no reason to believe that the masses cannot rise up in insurrection. The student uprising in South Korea that overthrew Singman Rhee even though tens of thousands of American troops were stationed in that country is a concrete example of that possibility, is it not? In addition, as I stated in the analysis I provided above, even the arrival of American troops cannot prevent the disintegration of the puppet army and the puppet government, and the American troops themselves will be annihilated, one piece at a time. In that event, the popular masses in areas behind the enemy’s lines and the soldiers in a number of puppet army units could also rise up in revolt. This is a practical, realistic possibility if local Party chapters provide close leadership of the political struggle movement and of military proselyting operations, and if they combine these two attack spearheads with a military struggle to create overwhelming force to defeat our enemies. And the coordination of the waves of military attacks with mass uprisings in the cities and mutinies of a number of puppet army units aimed at overthrowing the puppet government and ending the war is what we call the general offensive-general insurrection. However, there is one difference from our August Revolution: If the future general military offensive in South Vietnam occurs over a certain period of time and is made up of many attacks and

many waves of operations, then the mass insurrection in the cities and the mutinies in a number of units of the puppet army will also take place over a period of time and will consist of many uprisings and many waves of struggle. The practical realities of the progress of the South Vietnamese revolution over the past several years and the historical experience of many insurrections and revolutions in other countries clearly demonstrates the possibility for and the necessity of closely coordinating and combining military attacks with political attacks during the phase when a revolutionary war wins decisive victory. For that reason, we cannot simply mechanically assert, as a matter of blind faith, that the general insurrection will burst forth simultaneously and proceed as rapidly and as smoothly as did our August Revolution. Instead, we must first derive the fundamental content of the August Revolution, its essence, and then apply it to the new stage of development of the revolution in South Vietnam, the outstanding feature of which is combining military struggle with political struggle. With this concept in mind, I completely agree with all of you, and also with our comrades in Region 5, that even if the U.S. sends several hundred thousands of expeditionary troops into South Vietnam, we still are capable of progressing to the point of conducting a general offensive-general insurrection. The decision on how to combine insurrections with military attacks for individual cities and province capitals must be based on the specific situation in each location. For small province capitals where there are large enemy forces, such as the province capitals in the Central Highlands, we might make the military attack our primary effort, and mass uprisings would provide support. In places with large populations but where the number of enemy forces is small, we could conduct insurrection in combination with a limited military attack, but there mass uprisings will play the decisive role. In province capitals with a large civilian population and that also have relatively large numbers of enemy forces, we must closely coordinate military attacks with mass uprisings. In Saigon, Hue, Danang, and other cities with large populations but where enemy forces are both large and powerful, if our revolutionary army lures the enemy out to pre-prepared locations and then launches major attacks, the revolutionary masses can seize the opportunity by relying on their own organized forces, with active assistance provided by people’s armed forces operating from springboard positions on the outskirts of the cities and by mutinies inside the puppet army, to rise up to take control of individual parts of the city and to set up a people’s government of some appropriate form. Here I am just illustrating general guidelines, and it is certain that the actual attacks and uprisings will take much more lively, flexible, rich, and varied forms, because in a revolution the creativity of the masses is limitless. The war in South Vietnam is now developing rapidly. We must constantly keep up with the situation, and especially with changes that are capable of creating turning points in the war. We cannot

1564

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

always correctly anticipate the course of material developments, but we are capable of mastering the situation, because every day we are directing the resistance war on the basis of the laws of revolutionary war that we already understand and based on correct assessments we have made of the enemy’s intentions. III I am devoting this section to the discussion of a number of issues regarding upcoming operational missions, but before going into these matters, I want to discuss the building of base areas and creation of a battlefield for annihilating the enemy in the mountain jungle region of the provinces of Phuoc Long, Phuoc Thanh, Quang Duc, and Lam Dong. I have frequently told COSVN that the above mountain jungle area occupies a special strategic location for both defensive and offensive operations. We must work actively to build this area up into a solid base area that can protect COSVN and guarantee that COSVN can continue to guide and direct our operations, and at the same time turn the area into a battlefield in which our large main force units can annihilate large numbers of enemy troops and generate steadily increasing pressure on Saigon. At present, we have a number of difficulties in this area, such as that it is sparsely populated, it has little food, and communication and transportation routes are poor. However, because of its great strategic location, we can and we must overcome those problems. We must “transplant” into this area additional population taken from the lowlands areas, so that these people can engage in production to support themselves while at the same time we build these people into guerrilla or local force units. We are capable of accomplishing this if we resolutely fight to gain control of the people that the enemy is trying, through his sweep operations, to move into areas he controls. We can propagandize and mobilize them and then select some of them to “transplant” out into the area we control in order to create a rear area that has a civilian population, that has food, that has local armed and paramilitary forces, and that is a source of resources for our resistance war. In addition to “transplanting” people and stepping up production to attain self-sufficiency, we need to strive to collect more rice from the Cambodia and make better arrangements for transporting this rice to our forces. We will strive to build a number of new routes to increase our transportation of weapons down from North Vietnam in order to overcome our logistics difficulties both in this area and throughout the rest of South Vietnam. While you prepare to implement the Politburo’s resolution, you should pay attention to the following points: 1. During this current phase, it is essential that we gain and firmly maintain the offensive initiative on the battlefield. We must constantly make powerful attacks while at the same time defending ourselves properly. We must constantly expand our mastery and control of the mountain jungles and the rural lowlands, and we must build up to gain control of a number of areas around the

cities and inside the cities. If we want to secure and maintain the initiative, we must rationally deploy our armed forces and our mass political forces. We must closely coordinate our operations on the different battlefields, stretch American forces and the puppet army thin, and draw them out in order to attack them. We must surround, cut off, and isolate the enemy in order to destroy him. We must cut the enemy’s roads, both major roads and small roads and other lines of communications, for short periods of time and eventually build up to permanently paralyzing his road networks and other lines of communications. At the same time, we must concentrate our military forces and maneuver them to destroy individual large U.S. and puppet army units. 2. In order to ensure close coordination between the different battlefields, we must firmly grasp the special characteristics of the different strategic areas [mountain jungle, rural lowlands, cities], firmly understand our combat opponent, and assign appropriate missions and responsibilities to each individual battlefield. The lowlands battlefield is responsible for inflicting attrition on the enemy, for killing enemy troops, for pinning down enemy troops, and for providing personnel and material resources to our forces. The mountain jungle battlefield is responsible for annihilating enemy troops and pinning down enemy forces, with the primary focus being on U.S. and puppet regular army units. At the same time, it is also responsible for improving and expanding our base areas. As we get down to smaller, individual battlefields, we must clearly determine which locations and which units are primarily responsible for stretching the enemy thin, pinning him down, and inflicting attrition on his forces, and which locations and which units are responsible for annihilating and destroying enemy troops. For example, in the lowlands, the guerrilla militia, district local force units, and mass political forces will be responsible for pinning down and inflicting attrition on the enemy in a few sectors, so that our provincial local force and regional main force units can attack and annihilate enemy forces in other sectors and areas. In the mountain jungles we also have the issue of coordinating the missions of inflicting attrition and of annihilating enemy units, and coordinating between primary and secondary battlefields. For instance, the mountain jungle areas of Tri Thien and Region 6 are responsible for stretching enemy forces thin and pinning enemy troops down in order to allow the main force units subordinate to COSVN and to Region 5 to annihilate enemy forces in the mountain jungles of Region 7 and the Central Highlands. 3. Closely coordinate our three types of troops and flexibly employ our different tactical and combat methods. I will not review the ways to coordinate between our different types of troops or review our different tactics and combat methods; instead I just want to emphasize the importance of this subject. The realities of the revolutionary war in South Vietnam clearly show that our people’s armed forces can inflict attrition and can kill large numbers of enemy troops, no matter whether they are puppet soldiers, American soldiers, or satellite [allied] soldiers, and no matter what

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam 1565 battlefield they are on or how modern the enemy’s equipment is. Even our enemies have had to admit that our army is one of the best armies in the world. This is because, in addition to our absolute political superiority and superiority in morale, our people’s armed forces know how to closely coordinate our three types of troops and how to flexibly employ various types of tactics and combat methods suited to the Vietnamese people and the country of Vietnam. That does not mean that every location, every unit, and every type of soldier always fights well. The truth is that our people’s armed forces have not developed uniformly in terms of their quantity or their quality. A number of local areas and a number of units have displayed shortcomings and weaknesses in combat. We must strive to build different types of troops and different specialty branches that are appropriately organized and equipped, we must strengthen their political and ideological education, and we must increase their military training. In particular, we need to conduct systematic reviews and derive lessons learned in the art of people’s war and the art of guerrilla warfare, and especially lessons in fighting methods, so that these lessons can be quickly disseminated in order to improve the combat efficiency of all of our battlefields, all of our units, and all of our different types of troops. 4. We must maintain a firm grasp on our reserve forces and know how to defeat the enemy by taking him by surprise. In Section II, I talked about the issue of reserve forces, so here I would just like to remind you comrades that you must consider this as a principle to follow when you employ your troops throughout your entire battlefield, in individual campaigns, and in individual battles. Knowing how to defeat the enemy by taking him by surprise does not mean winning by chance or by luck. We must have knowledge and understanding, we must have made prior preparations, we must have plans to overcome all problems and obstacles, and we must have a perfect revolutionary spirit and a very high “determined to fight, determined to win” spirit. If we want to defeat the enemy by taking him by surprise, from the tactical standpoint, we must train our combat units very carefully, and we must take security measures and protect the secrecy of our battle plans. We must quickly discover and identify enemy agents. We must use deception. We must maintain hold onto and correctly employ reserve units. We must know how to pick the right time, the right opportunity, to begin and to end a battle. If we want to defeat the enemy by taking him by surprise from the strategic standpoint, we must maintain absolute secrecy about our strategic guidelines and intentions. We must build reserve forces among our three types of troops, and, in particular, we must build strategic reserve forces from our main force units. At the same time, we must also build reserve forces in our political army in the large cities. We must also know how to develop and seize opportunities to attack when the enemy is confused, frightened, and disintegrating on the battlefield, or when the U.S. or the puppet government faces a serious political or economic crisis.

5. Study and absorb even more thoroughly our formula of fighting the enemy both militarily and politically. The question of attacking the enemy militarily has been mentioned frequently above, so here I would just like to say a little more about the possibility and the necessity for intensifying the political struggle. Practical realities have shown that the fact that the U.S. has sent U.S. and satellite troops into South Vietnam has not reduced our people’s ability to assemble political forces and conduct political struggles. On the contrary, it has increased our possibilities to do this, and at the same time it has driven the enemy increasingly into a position of political isolation and defeat. The recent reports received from the Region 5 Party Committee have illuminated and proven that assessment. The reasons for these possibilities are as follows: —The more American and satellite troops that the U.S. send into South Vietnam, the more military bases they build, the more they expand the areas in which their are based, the more they use modern war-making equipment to conduct brutal destruction, such as using B-52s in carpet-bombing missions and using poisonous chemicals to clear vegetation, etc., the more they intensify the bitter contradictions between our people and the American imperialists, and the more they increase the hatred our compatriots have toward these nation-stealing aggressors. —Even though the U.S. is intensifying the ferocity of the war with every passing day, it is still pursuing a neocolonialist policy, and it still must use demagoguery to try to win over the people. Because of the rather good and rather profound level of revolutionary awareness that our people have acquired during the course of the struggle, our people can exploit and deepen the enemy’s political weaknesses, and they can expose his demagogic schemes in order to intensify the political struggle even further. —The more expeditionary troops the U.S. sends into South Vietnam, the more internal contradictions are created within the leadership of the puppet army and puppet government and the greater the puppet regime’s economic and financial problems will become, and the increasing numbers of American troops will steadily drive up the cost of living becomes for the people residing in the areas the enemy controls. These things will increasingly impel the people to struggle even more vigorously against the enemy. —The U.S. has sent an expeditionary army into South Vietnam to score victories in order to improve the morale of the puppet army and puppet government. Instead, however, the American troops themselves have been defeated, which has caused the U.S. to begin talking about negotiations. That increases the contradictions between the Americans and the puppets and causes the puppet army to become more frightened and confused, so the puppet army’s morale declines even further.

1566

160. Le Duan: Letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam

—The more the U.S. leaders intensify the war in South Vietnam and expand the scope of the bombing in North Vietnam, the more the American people and progressive people throughout the world will oppose them. For these reasons, in the political struggle, and especially in urban operations, we can and we must strive to draw the masses together, draw together every class of the population, and even attract progressives who are part of the puppet army and puppet government to join in one united resistance front to oppose the Americans and save the nation. We must build a truly broad-based national solidarity bloc that aims the sharp spear-point of the struggle straight at the American imperialists and the Vietnamese traitors. 6. Rapidly build up our political forces in the cities and intensify our urban operations. First of all, we must build up hard-core forces made up of grass-roots Party and mass organizations at the local level [wards, subwards] so that we can more easily conceal our forces. We must strive to develop and recruit Party members locally while at the same time we select a number of Party members from the rural countryside to send in to operate inside the cities. We must deploy and assign Party members and loyal, trusted supporters, such as youths, women, and students, to operate in city blocks, in markets, in schools, and in religious organizations, especially Buddhist organizations, in order to propagandize, mobilize, and draw the masses together through appropriate types of organizations. Relying on our Party members and loyal mass followers, we must aggressively build secret guerrilla units, teams of sappers and commandos, and covert long-term forces that will wait for opportunities to mount military attacks against the enemy. In order to draw together forces and to intensify the struggle movement in the cities, we should conduct studies to develop a number of appropriate slogans that are capable of sowing division within the enemy’s ranks and at the same time of winning over and bringing together large masses of the population. For example, they could be slogans opposing governmental terrorism and forcible military conscription, opposing enemy chemical weapons and B-52 attacks, opposing American interference in Vietnamese affairs, demands for the formation of a broad-based civilian government made up of representatives of all political and religious factions, etc. 7. Further intensify puppet proselyting and enemy proselyting operations. With respect to the puppet army, we must firmly understand our new stratagem, which is to aim the sharp point of our spear directly at the American imperialist aggressors and their traitorous lackeys, to isolate brutal enemy officers and thugs, to neutralize the fence-sitters, and to win over, draw in, and persuade the great masses of enemy troops (including entire military units) who desire peace to either sit still doing nothing or to come over to join us on the side of the revolution. Our goal is to split and divide puppet troops so that, even though the puppet army is large, only a small element of the army will actively and ferociously oppose us.

Then, even though our army is smaller than theirs, we will be able to mass our forces to attack U.S. troops and those puppets who are the most stubborn. Doing this will also enable us to implement our policy of forming a worker-peasant-soldier alliance and to move toward forming a number of neutral army units during localized insurrections and during the general offensive-general insurrection phase in the future. First of all, we should focus on the general format of appealing to puppet soldiers to return to their homes to make their livings, or when fighting breaks out, appealing to them to run to join the ranks of the liberation army, to turn their guns on the enemy and then bring their weapons with them when they come over to the side of the people. For puppet officers, we need to intensify our secret contact operations and deploy a number of important agents as long-term, stay-behind agents to lie in wait for use when necessary. We must strive to convince a few puppet army battalions and regiments to secede from the enemy’s ranks and to either stand on the side of the people or to completely come over to join the liberation army. We will keep such units intact and allow their officers to retain their current ranks. To coordinate with our military and political attacks, we must mobilize all classes of the population to correctly carry out military proselyting operations in order to help stimulate and accelerate the collapse and disintegration of the puppet army. Currently, a number of localities in South Vietnam are confused and unsure about how to deal with puppet prisoners of war and deserters who are coming over to our side in ever-increasing numbers. In order to resolve this problem, you should carry out the following three tasks: a) Properly carry out the work of politically educating these prisoners and deserters. b) Send most of them to carry out production tasks in your own local liberated areas. c) Assign a small number whose revolutionary consciences have been awakened to our armed units or to army or headquarters production units. Puppet prisoners of war should no longer be released and allowed to return to enemy-controlled areas, as was done in the past, because we do not want them to be picked up by the enemy again and be sent back as replacements and reinforcements for the puppet army. Naturally, enemy thugs and dangerous elements must be imprisoned for reeducation. As for American and satellite [allied] troops, the primary thing is to propagandize them so that they understand that America’s war is an unjust war of aggression and that the Vietnamese people and the people of their own country are not enemies. We must also spread propaganda among them so that they understand our humane policy of amnesty and forgiveness toward prisoners of war and deserters in order to reduce their arrogance and brutality against the civilian population. Enemy proselyting leaflets

161. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson 1567 and documents should be kept short. We should use excerpts and quotes from the American and foreign press denouncing America’s war policy in order to show American soldiers the truth. In addition, we must try to capture large numbers of American prisoners and to carry out our prisoner of war operations and policies very correctly. Everything, from their detention, administration, and education to how we deal with them on a daily basis, must be conducted strictly in accordance with the policies we have previously promulgated. We must strengthen our organizations engaged in puppet proselyting and enemy proselyting operations, and we must strengthen the guidance and leadership provided by Party committees at all levels to direct this important work. 8. Build resolve to defeat the American aggressors. We must mobilize the entire Party, the entire population, and the entire army to resolutely overcome all difficulties and hardships and to strive to advance to defeat the war of aggression being conducted by several hundred thousand U.S. troops and half a million puppet troops while at the same time standing ready to fight a protracted war until final victory is secured in the event that the U.S. sends in several hundred thousand more American troops in order to further intensify the war in South Vietnam and if it expands the ground war to include the entire nation [meaning, if the U.S. invades North Vietnam]. Special attention must be devoted to ensuring that we do a good job in our political and ideological operations of educating all classes of the population to profoundly hate the enemy; to ensuring that cadres, Party members, and the broad masses of the population clearly understand the Party’s policies and that they fully understand our formula of conducting a protracted war and relying primarily on our own strength; and to ensuring that everyone has firm faith in our final victory, that they do not fear the U.S., and that they have no illusions about the prospects for peace. 9. Mobilize the population to contribute to the resistance war and pay attention to building up the people’s strength for a long, protracted battle. In the liberated zones and the areas we partially control, in addition to protecting and ensuring production, we must also increase production. In particular, we must strive to increase our production of rice and food crops by fifty or one hundred percent in order to improve the people’s standard of living and to increase our contributions to the resistance war. We must move people who live in the lowlands up into the mountain jungles in order to increase the size of our production forces and to plant large quantities of corn and manioc. At the same time, we must strive to buy food from the lowlands and from outside markets and ship it up to our forces to ensure that our troops have adequate supplies of food. We must ensure that the level of support [taxes] the people give to the resistance is set at a proper, median level. In Cochin China, I am not sure if the current level of contributions from the people is too high or too low, but in Region 5 the level of support seems to be rather heavy and burdensome.

In this situation, when the enemy is conducting savage military sweeps and bombardments and when he is striving to steal the people’s livelihoods and to drain them dry, if we ask the people to contribute too much, I am afraid that the masses will not have sufficient strength to endure a long, protracted struggle. In order to reduce the level of contributions from the people, for the past several years the Central Committee [Hanoi] has tried to meet the financial requirements of the resistance war in South Vietnam. However, our financial capabilities up here [in North Vietnam] are limited. We recommend that you down at the battlefield level make careful calculations in order to limit expenditures and economize. The issue of providing weapons and ammunition to the battlefields is currently the leading concern of the Party Central Committee and of our military headquarters staff up here [in North Vietnam]. We are making calculations and trying to make use of every possibility, both foreign and domestic, to meet these needs, and at the same time we are trying to overcome all difficulties in order to transport weapons and ammunition from North Vietnam down to you. Within the confines of South Vietnam, however, you all must provide proper guidance and supervision to ensure that all the supplies that we have sent and will send reach their intended destinations. In addition, we suggest that you pay the utmost attention to economizing on the expenditure of ammunition and that you at the same time place heavy emphasis on capturing enemy weapons and ammunition so that these can be used by our forces. *** The above are a number of ideas I wished to present to you. If there is some issue on which you do not completely agree, please let us know so that we can discuss the matter further. I wish you all health and victory. [signed] Ba [alias used by Le Duan] Source: Le Duan, Thu Vao Nam [Letters to the South] (Hanoi: Su That Publishing House, 1986), 119–162. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

161. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson, November 30, 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction Returning to Washington, D.C., after a two-day trip to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara reported to President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 30, 1965. McNamara believes that People’s Army

1568

161. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Memorandum to President Lyndon Johnson

of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) forces in South Vietnam will likely increase by about one-third in the course of a one-year period and that the U.S. troop levels there will thus have to be increased accordingly. He also recommends an escalation of the bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and suggests the imposition of a bombing halt and an attendant appeal for negotiations to build support for such a step. With both sides fully committed to the war effort, the result was a steady escalation of the war.

Primary Source The Ky “government of generals” is surviving, but not acquiring wide support or generating actions; pacification is thoroughly stalled, with no guarantee that security anywhere is permanent and no indications that able and willing leadership will emerge in the absence of that permanent security. (Prime Minister Ky estimates that his government controls only 25% of the population today and reports that his pacification chief hopes to increase that to 50% two years from now.) The dramatic recent changes in the situation are on the military side. They are the increased infiltration from the North and the increased willingness of the Communist forces to stand and fight, even in large-scale engagements. The Ia Drang River Campaign of early November is an example. The Communists appear to have decided to increase their forces in SVN both by heavy recruitment in the South (especially in the Delta) and by infiltration of regular NVN forces from the North. . . . The enemy can be expected to enlarge his present strength of 110 battalion equivalents to more than 150 battalion equivalents by the end of calendar 1966, when hopefully his losses can be made to equal his input. As for the Communist ability to supply this force, it is estimated that, even taking account of interdiction of routes by air and sea, more than 200 tons of supplies a day can be infiltrated—more than enough, allowing for the extent to which the enemy lives off the land, to support the likely PAVN/VC force at the likely level of operations. To meet this possible—and in my view likely—Communist buildup, the presently contemplated Phase I forces will not be enough (approx. 220,000 Americans, almost all in place by end of 1965). Bearing in mind the nature of the war, the expected weighted combat force ratio of less than 2-to-1 will not be good enough. Nor will the originally contemplated Phase II addition of 28 more U.S. battalions (112,000 men) be enough; the combat force ratio, even with 32 new SVNese battalions, would still be little better than 2-to-1 at the end of 1966. The initiative which we have held since August would pass to the enemy; we would fall far short of what we expected to achieve in terms of population control and disruption of enemy bases and lines of communications. Indeed, it is estimated that with the contemplated Phase II

addition of 28 U.S. battalions, we would be able only to hold our present geographical positions. 2. We have but two options, it seems to me. One is to go now for a compromise solution (something substantially less than the “favorable outcome” I described in my memo of Nov 3) and hold further deployments to a minimum. The other is to stick with our stated objectives and win the war, and provide what it takes in men and materiel. If it is decided not to move now toward a compromise, I recommend that the US both send a substantial number of additional troops and very gradually intensify the bombing of NVN. Amb. Lodge, Wheeler, Sharp and Westmoreland concur in this prolonged course of action, although Wheeler and Sharp would intensify the bombing of the North more quickly. (recommend up to 74 battalions by end-66: total to approx 400,000 by end-66. And it should be understood that further deployments (perhaps exceeding 200,000) may be needed in 1967.) 3. Bombing of NVN. . . . over a period of the next six months we gradually enlarge the target system in the northeast (HanoiHaiphong) quadrant until, at the end of the period, it includes “controlled” reconnaissance of lines of communication throughout the area, bombing of petroleum storage facilities and power plants, and mining of the harbors. (Left unstruck would be population targets, industrial plants, locks and dams). 4. Pause in bombing NVN. It is my belief that there should be a three- or four-week pause in the program of bombing the North before we either greatly increase our troop deployments to VN or intensify our strikes against the North. (My recommendation for a “pause” is not concurred in by Lodge, Wheeler, or Sharp.) The reasons for this belief are, first, that we must lay a foundation in the minds of the American public and in world opinion for such an enlarged phase of the war and, second, we should give NVN a facesaving chance to stop the aggression. I am not seriously concerned about the risk of alienating the SVNese, misleading Hanoi, or being “trapped” in a pause; if we take reasonable precautions, we can avoid these pitfalls. I am seriously concerned about embarking on a markedly higher level of war in VN without having tried, through a pause, to end the war or at least having made it clear to our people that we did our best to end it. 5. Evaluation. We should be aware that deployments of the kind I have recommended will not guarantee success. U.S. killed-inaction can be expected to reach 1000 a month, and the odds are even that we will be faced in early 1967 with a “no-decision” at an even higher level. My overall evaluation, nevertheless, is that the best chance of achieving our stated objectives lies in a pause followed, if it fails, by the deployments mentioned above. Source: The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 4. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 622–623.

163. Le Duan, First Secretary: Speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee 1569

162. Henry Byroade, Ambassador in Rangoon: Aide-Mémoire to North Vietnamese Consul General Vu Huu Binh, December 29, 1965 Introduction Following the imposition of another bombing halt on December 25, 1965, Washington made increased efforts to open negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In this aide-mémoire, U.S. ambassador to Burma (present-day Myanmar) Henry Byroade informs North Vietnamese consul general in Burma Vu Huu Binh that the suspension in bombing can be extended should Hanoi make “a serious contribution toward peace.” The halt was extended on the urging of U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara, but when Hanoi rejected negotiations and following intense lobbying by Admiral Ulysses S. G. Sharp, U.S. Pacific Command commander, the bombing of North Vietnam resumed on January 31, 1966.

Primary Source 1. As you are no doubt aware, there has been no bombing in North Viet-Nam since December 24 although some reconnaissance flights have continued. No decision has been made regarding a resumption of bombings and unless there is a major provocation we would hope that the present stand-down, which is in its fifth day, could extend beyond New Year. If your government will now reciprocate by making a serious contribution toward peace, it would obviously have a favorable effect on the possibility of further extending the suspension. 2. I and other members of my Embassy staff stand available at any time to receive any communication you may wish to address to me or to us. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968: Vietnam, June–December 1965, Vol. 3 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), 722.

163. Le Duan, First Secretary: Speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, December 1965 [Excerpts] Introduction In December 1965 with almost 200,000 American troops fighting in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and with the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV,

North Vietnam) steadily intensifying, the North Vietnamese Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) Central Committee met in Hanoi to discuss a resolution that would determine the party’s strategy for the conduct of the war against the Americans. There was considerable debate within the party leadership about how the war was going, how the war should be fought, and whether or not North Vietnam should agree to sit down to negotiate with the Americans. Fallout from the growing Sino-Soviet conflict exacerbated this debate, since many party members believed that Vietnam had now aligned itself with China. In a secret speech to the Central Committee during the discussion of the new resolution, First Secretary Le Duan addresses the questions of negotiating with the Americans and of where North Vietnam stands in the Sino-Soviet conflict.

Primary Source . . . The question of fighting and talking is not an entirely new issue. In our own nation’s history, Nguyen Trai implemented the strategy of using weakness to fight strength and of fighting and talking in order to defeat the Ming dynasty’s feudal army. Our Chinese comrades decided to fight and talk simultaneously when they were fighting against the American–Chiang Kaishek clique. . . . In military terms, we do not advocate fighting until the enemy is totally destroyed . . . and the American imperialists are compelled to accept unconditional surrender. Instead, we advocate fighting until the puppet army has essentially disintegrated and until we have destroyed an important portion of the American army so that the American imperialist will to commit aggression will have been shattered and they are forced to recognize our conditions! That means the question of fighting and talking . . . involves selecting the correct stratagem, and it is directly linked to our political and military policies. . . . Currently, the American imperialists are still planning to intensify and expand the war . . . but they also are eager for us to sit down with them at the negotiating table so that they can force us to make concessions. As for our side, we believe we cannot sit down at the table until we have caused the puppet army to disintegrate and until we have crushed the American imperialist will to commit aggression. This is very secret, and we have not yet advised any of the fraternal communist parties of our position on this matter. . . . This issue is very complicated because there are many differing opinions on the question of holding talks. . . . There are the concepts of countries that sincerely support us, but who . . . are worried that in prolonged combat our side’s losses and sacrifices will be too great. And there are the concepts of a number of large nations in our camp [the communist bloc] whose strategic missions in the world are different than ours. For that reason everything about their concepts, from the contents of their ideas to the tone of voice in which they couch them, is different than ours. . . . Maintaining solidarity within our camp and winning the sympathy and assistance of our camp is a strategic problem. The

1570

163. Le Duan, First Secretary: Speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee

question of fighting and talking, on the other hand, is an issue involving a stratagem. However, the stratagem is very important, because if our stratagem is incorrect we might . . . cause the war to drag on and become protracted, thereby forcing our people to sacrifice more lives and more blood when we might have been able to reduce such losses. In our situation, we may not have to wait until we have essentially won before we agree to begin talks. At some point in time, under certain specific conditions, we may be able to fight and talk simultaneously in order to restrict our opponent’s military actions, to win broader sympathy and support throughout the world, and to conceal our own strategic intentions. The issue right now is when will be the right time to employ this stratagem. That time will come when our forces have won greater and more complete victories on the battlefield, when the enemy’s situation has become more desperate and confused, and when the enemy’s will to commit aggression has deteriorated further. The timing will also depend on agreement between the fraternal socialist nations and parties about the concept of fighting and talking. . . . VI—A Number of Thoughts about International Aspects of the Problem of South Vietnam . . . We are faced with one unfortunate fact: the revolutionary war in the southern half of our country is raging at a time when our camp, and the international communist movement, is not of one accord about the path of the world revolution. At certain times the public disagreements and arguments quieted down for a while, but recently the situation has reemerged and developed so that the tension is now even greater than it was when [Nikita] Khruschev was the leader of the Soviet Union. That is a fact. Previously, before Khruschev was removed from office, the three fraternal communist parties of the Soviet Union, China, and Vietnam, joined by the Lao communist party, sat down together in a meeting to discuss the problem in Laos. Now, however, the prospects for united action by our camp, or for a three-sided or four-sided discussion aimed at joining together to combat the American imperialists on the Vietnam problem, are very dim. Faced with this difficult situation, our Party Central Committee has had to be very cautious. We have had to think carefully and weigh many factors, and we have had to work with all of our might to win the most effective support and assistance from the nations in our camp as well as to try to avoid allowing the worst effects of the disagreement to harm our people’s cause of combating the Americans to save the nation. Our party has always and will always advocate solidarity in the international communist movement and solidarity between the Soviet Union and China, a solidarity based on Marxism-Leninism and on the ideology of the international proletariat. We sincerely believe in such solidarity, because we believe that the Vietnamese revolution in general and the revolution in South Vietnam in particular are integral parts of the world proletarian revolution. . . .

However, from another standpoint, as we work to win support and assistance from parties and nations in our camp and from the international communist movement, we must consider the strategic missions and the political positions of each individual party and country in order to present these parties and countries with logical requests for the correct level of assistance, because we must clearly understand that while the parties and nations that belong to our camp . . . are connected to one another through the spirit of international proletarianism, there are also differences in the concrete relationships between individual nations, differences created by their geographic locations, by their histories, by whether their strategic missions in the world are similar or different, and by regional issues. . . . With respect to the Party Central Committee’s domestic and foreign policies, generally speaking all cadre and Party members basically agree with and support these policies. Recently, however, in light of the public arguments within the international communist movement about issues related to the revolutionary situation in our nation of Vietnam, a small number of our Party members have evidenced anxiety and suspicion that, in their eyes at least, it seemed that our Party’s international path might have changed. . . . In order to dispel all these suspicions I believe it is necessary to discuss a few vital points. . . . We must recognize that the strategic policy of our Party differs from the policies of the Soviet Communist Party and of the Chinese Communist Party. Our Party has concluded that the world revolution is now in an offensive position, and our Party advocates an intensification of the revolution’s attacks against imperialism . . . so that we can achieve victory for the world proletarian revolution. This revolutionary strategy is fundamentally different than the defensive strategy of détente that is being followed by the Soviet Communist Party. . . . When we delve more deeply into ideas about current international issues, we can also see many points of difference between the policies of our Party and the policies being followed by the Soviet and Chinese Communist Parties. . . . [However], just because we have differences does not mean that we place the Vietnamese revolutionary movement outside of the world proletarian revolutionary movement or that we place our nation outside of the socialist camp, and it does not mean that we are not determined to maintain solidarity with the Soviet Union and with China. . . . Our Party’s policy is to defend the Soviet Union, to defend China, to maintain solidarity with the Soviet Union, and to maintain solidarity with China in order to unite and protect the entire socialist camp and the international communist movement. We are determined never to deviate from that path. If we want to maintain solidarity with the Soviet Union and with China, then our Party must be independent and self-reliant. . . . We need this spirit of independence and self-reliance, but we must always be very modest. We must always view the Soviet Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party as our older brothers, as parties with vast experience in revolutionary struggle that we

164. William Bundy: Memorandum for Secretary of State Dean Rusk 1571 must study and as parties from whom we must learn. . . . However, studying their experiences is one thing, but independence in policy direction is something altogether different. In order to be creative, we must be independent and self-reliant. Mechanical imitation can lead to errors, and sometimes it is even “reactionary,” as Comrade Mao Zedong himself has said. . . . With regard to the problem of South Vietnam, our Party took the initiative in launching a revolution that applied policies, formulas, and methods we had learned through the course of the August [1945] Revolution and during the first resistance war [the war against the French]. When we made the decision to launch the revolution in South Vietnam, Khruschev did not approve, and our Chinese comrades counseled us that we should view this as a long-term effort and that we should hold back to wait for an opportunity. However, we did not do that, and the tremendous victories won by the South Vietnamese revolution over the past several years clearly cannot be separated from our Party’s spirit of independence and self-reliance. In summary, I want to stress that . . . our policies and positions must be independent. . . . The reason I have spoken so much about the spirit of independence and self-reliance is that I believe our party has a serious problem: it lacks independence and selfreliance. Because of this lack of independence and self-reliance, a number of cadres and Party members can be easily swayed and lured off course, especially on international issues, and in that way they begin to suspect the correctness of our Party Central Committee’s policies and programs. . . . I have not talked about these matters in order to make us feel pessimistic and downhearted. . . . Even though there are profound differences of opinion between the two countries, both the Soviet Union and China are continuing to provide us with ample, effective, and ever increasing assistance. We are sincerely thankful for the precious assistance provided to us by the Soviet Union, China, and the other fraternal nations. These are not just polite words spoken from the tips of our tongues, but they come instead from the bottoms of our hearts. . . . Uncle Ho and the Politburo are extremely concerned about solidarity within our camp and within the international communist movement. However, we know that this is a very complex problem that cannot be solved in a short period of time. While our nation is still at war, we need to maintain a truly high degree of agreement and unanimity. The entire Party must unite around the Central Committee. . . . The entire Party must speak and act in strict accordance with the policies and positions of the Central Committee. . . . We must expunge all of the incorrect suspicions I mentioned earlier in order to be able to concentrate our strength and our will on the work of fighting the Americans to save the nation and of defeating the American aggressors. . . . Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 24, 1965 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 24, 1965] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2003), 524–621. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

164. William Bundy: Memorandum for Secretary of State Dean Rusk, February 3, 1966 [Excerpt] Introduction An advocate of a hard-line approach toward the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), William Bundy was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and was also a key Vietnam policymaker. Here Bundy writes to Secretary of State Dean Rusk regarding Hanoi’s response to the aidemémoire of December 19, 1965, in which the North Vietnamese leadership denounced U.S. public policy positions; however, the aide-mémoire had been sent only after the bombing pause had ended. Bundy speculates that the reason for the delay was probably the reluctance of the North Vietnamese leadership to open discussions during a pause in the bombing. This would appear to display weakness and indicate that the North Vietnamese government feared the U.S. bombing.

Primary Source It seems to me that our response to this approach will take careful thought. As a first step, since Byroade’s cables are hard to read together, I have done the attached pull-together, which contains the full text of the aide mémoire, and also the points made in the oral conversation. I think this gives us a much better starting point, with numerical headings, for our own reply. (Tab A). We may know much better, on the basis of Byroade’s interim response, whether Hanoi really intended to start a dialogue after the resumption. In the meantime, the present facts appear to indicate that Hanoi may have sent the instructions prior to the resumption, but that it should have been possible to send a last-minute “recall” or “cancel” message if Hanoi had desired. Byroade reports that the DRV interpreter came to him to seek the appointment in the “early afternoon” of January 31, Rangoon time. (Rangoon time is 1½ hours earlier than Saigon time.) This would suggest that the appointment was sought not earlier than 1500 Saigon time, whereas the first bombs had fallen at about 0900 Saigon time. The fact that the aide mémoire was still being typed when Byroade arrived at 1930 Rangoon time would suggest that the instructions must have been freshly received and that there may even have been a preliminary instruction to seek an appointment, followed by the later transmission of the detailed instructions. By 1730 Rangoon time (1900 Saigon time) ten hours had elapsed after the resumption (which we assume was instantaneously reported to Hanoi). We believe that Hanoi’s communications to Rangoon may go either by direct commercial cable or by relay through Peiping, using some cryptographic system that is presumably immune to Chicom reading. We are now checking whether NSA [National Security Agency] has any reading on message transmissions of that date, but what stands out is that

1572

165. Aide-Mémoire from the U.S. State Department to the North Vietnamese Government

it would surely have been possible for Hanoi to send a fast commercial cable that need not have said anything more than a short instruction not to carry out prior instructions. In other words, the evidence does add up to a high probability that Hanoi was prepared to go through with the contact notwithstanding the resumption. Indeed, there appears to be a substantial possibility on the timing, that Hanoi even waited till it knew of the resumption before it dispatched the instructions. Paradoxical as it may seem, Hanoi may have been unwilling to open any dialogue during the suspension, lest this appear as a sign of weakness, and fear of our bombing. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, VI.C.I (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 139–140.

165. Aide-Mémoire from the U.S. State Department to the North Vietnamese Government, Delivered to North Vietnamese Consul General Vu Huu Binh in Rangoon, February 16, 1966 Introduction Responding to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) aide-mémoire of January 31, 1966, denouncing U.S. policy in Vietnam, the U.S. State Department sent an aide-mémoire through its ambassador to Burma (present-day Myanmar), Henry Byroade, to North Vietnamese consul general Vu Huu Binh in Rangoon (present-day Yangon). For the first time, Washington states that it is prepared to withdraw its troops from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) as part of a negotiated settlement. The United States defines its Vietnam policy as being in accordance with the military provisions of the 1954 General Accords, while at the same time the United States ignores the political provisions that had identified Vietnam as one state and had called for national elections in 1956. The North Vietnamese leadership subsequently informed Byroade that it was breaking off all diplomatic contact with the U.S. government as long as the bombing continued.

Primary Source 1. The USG [U.S. government] has taken note of the Aide Mémoire delivered to the American Ambassador in Rangoon on January 31, 1966. 2. The USG fully respects the basic rights of the Vietnamese people to peace, independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, as set forth in the Geneva Accords of 1954. As the USG has repeatedly said, it believes that these Accords, together with the 1962 Accords

concerning Laos, are an adequate basis for peace in Southeast Asia or for negotiations looking toward a peaceful settlement. 3. The USG has repeatedly stated and hereby reaffirms that it is prepared to withdraw its forces from South Viet-Nam when peace is restored. The US has never stated that it must be the sole judge of when this condition exists. Plainly, the restoration of peace of the Geneva Accords dealing with the regroupment of opposing forces to their respective areas, and dealing with the obligations that the two zones shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy. It is the view of the USG that the DRV in introducing armed forces, military equipment, and political cadres into South Viet-Nam, has breached the provisions of the Accords, and has thus made necessary the actions undertaken by the USG in support of the legitimate right of the Republic of Viet-Nam to self-defense. The withdrawal of US forces would be undertaken in the light of the actions taken by the DRV in this regard, and would necessarily be subject also [to] the existence of adequate measures of verification. The USG seeks no military bases of any kind in South Viet-Nam and has no desire whatever to retain its forces in South Viet-Nam after peace is secured. 4. With respect to the third of the DRV’s four points, the US takes note that Chairman Ho Chi Minh in his letter of January 29 described the program of the NLF as seeking “to achieve independence, democracy, peace and neutrality in South Viet-Nam and to advance toward peaceful reunification.” If this is all that is intended when it is stated that the affairs of the South Vietnamese be settled “in accordance with the program of the NLF,” the third point would not be an obstacle to negotiations. However, it appears that in referring to the program of the NLF the DRV may contemplate that the NLF arbitrarily be accorded integral participation in a coalition government or be accepted as the “sole genuine representative of the entire South Vietnamese people” prior to, and without regard to, an election. If this is what is meant by the third point, we would consider it in contradiction of the very objections specified above, and quite without warrant in the Geneva Accords of 1954. It remains the essence of the USG view that the future political structure in South Viet-Nam should be determined by the South Vietnamese people themselves through truly free elections. The USG is categorically prepared to accept the results of elections held in an atmosphere free from force, intimidation or outside interference. 5. In the light of the foregoing and to make clear our understanding of a possible basis for discussions leading to a peaceful settlement, we submit for consideration of the DRV the following:

166. Ho Chi Minh: Replies to an Interview with Japanese NDN TV 1573 Point I—The basic rights of the Vietnamese people to peace, independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity are recognized as set forth in the Geneva Accords of 1954. Obtaining compliance with the essential principles in the Accords is an appropriate subject for immediate, international discussions, or negotiations without preconditions. Such discussions or negotiations should consider, among other things, appropriate means, including agreed stages, for the withdrawal of military and quasi-military personnel and weapons introduced into South Viet-Nam or North Viet-Nam from one area to the other or into either area from any other outside source; the dismantling of any military bases in either areas, and the cancellation of any military alliances, that may contravene the Accords; and the regrouping and redeployment of indigenous forces. Point II—Strict compliance with the military provisions of the Geneva Accords must be achieved in accordance with schedules and appropriate safeguards to be agreed upon in the said discussions or negotiations. Point III—The internal affairs of South and North Viet-Nam must be settled respectively by the South and North Vietnamese peoples themselves in conformity with the principles of selfdetermination. Neither shall interfere in the affairs of the other nor shall there by any interference from any outside source. Point IV—The issue of reunification of Viet-Nam must be decided peacefully, on the basis of free determination by the people of South and North Viet-Nam without outside interference. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. 4 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 228–230.

166. Ho Chi Minh: Replies to an Interview with Japanese NDN TV, April 1966 Introduction In this interview with the Japanese network NDN TV, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), comments on the course of the war and diplomatic efforts to end it. He claims that the “U.S. imperialists are waging aggression against Viet-nam” but that the more extensive the U.S. military involvement, the greater will be U.S. defeats. He makes exorbitant claims of U.S. losses in the war and states that the war has made the Vietnamese people more united and determined to push through to victory. He also argues that its policies are increasingly isolating the United States diplomatically.

Primary Source Question: Mr. President, would you please tell us about the characteristic feature of the war in Viet-Nam in the recent period and its prospects? Answer: This characteristic feature is: The more the U.S. imperialists bring troops into South Viet-Nam and intensify the air raids against towns and villages of the Democratic Republic of VietNam, the heavier are their defeats. In South Viet-Nam: During the first two months of 1966 alone, the South Viet-Nam army and people wiped out 32,000 enemy troops (including 16,000 Americans), neatly annihilated seven enemy battalions and thirty enemy companies (including four U.S. battalions), shot down or destroyed over 500 planes, and destroyed about 300 military vehicles. In North Viet-Nam: The U.S. air attacks have also been defeated. Up to March 8, 1966, the North Viet-Nam army and people have downed over 900 U.S. planes. On the international front, the U.S. so-called peace offensive has also failed. It has not been able to deceive anybody; instead, it has only increased U.S. isolation. Now, President Johnson is feverishly preparing to dispatch tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to South Viet-Nam. The army of aggression from the United States and its satellites is carrying out the savage and criminal “kill all, burn all, destroy all” policy. But as the enemy grows more ferocious, the Vietnamese people become more closely united and firmly determined to defeat him. In the end, the U.S. imperialists will inevitably be defeated. Although the Vietnamese people’s Resistance War against U.S. aggression for national salvation is to be a protracted and arduous one, its victory is left in no doubt. Question: Mr. President, could we know your views on the recent Honolulu Conference between the U.S. authorities and the South Viet-Nam Administration? Answer: That conference discussed the question of stepping up real war and sham peace in Viet-Nam. It was a most serious challenge to the Vietnamese people, to the American people, and to peace-loving people in the world. It laid bare the deceitfulness of President Johnson’s so-called peace offensive. The Thieu-Ky puppet clique were summoned to Honolulu to receive directly from their U.S. masters instructions to prepare conditions for an intensification and expansion of the aggressive war in Viet-Nam. This exposed further their nature as traitors to their country and faithful lackeys of the U.S. aggressors, to the peoples of all countries.

1574

167. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk

Question: How do you assess, Mr. President, the threats uttered by a number of people in the U.S. ruling circles to send U.S. troops for expanding the war in central and southern Laos and the repeated provocations staged by Thailand and South Vietnamese troops against the Kingdom of Cambodia? Answer: The acts of aggression by the U.S. imperialists and their henchmen against Laos and Cambodia are part of the U.S. scheme to extend the war of aggression to the whole of Indochina. The United States has been carrying out this scheme step by step: In Laos, it has been savagely intensifying its air attacks on the Liberated Zone. It has been using puppet troops to launch repeated attacks against the Lao people’s Liberation Forces. It has been stealthily bringing Thailand troops in increasing numbers into Laos. It is now contemplating to dispatch U.S. troops to central and southern Laos for direct aggression. With regard to the Kingdom of Cambodia, the U.S. aggressors have not only incited their South Vietnamese and Thailand henchmen to stage repeated provocations on the border, but have also arrogantly stated that U.S. troops may violate the Cambodian territory at any time. These are most brazen encroachments on the independence, sovereignty, and neutrality of the Lao and Khmer peoples, and a serious threat to peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia. Since the U.S. imperialists want to turn the countries of Indochina into a single battlefield, the Indochinese peoples will unite still more closely and struggle resolutely to defeat them. Question: Recently, the Japanese Government has engaged in certain activities with a view to carrying out its so-called peace work. What is your opinion on this subject? Answer: President Johnson’s “search for peace” is a hoax. The activities of the Japanese Government to carry out its so-called peace work are aimed at giving publicity to this U.S. swindle. They are also designed to lull into inactivity the Japanese people’s resolute struggle against the U.S. war of aggression in Viet-Nam. Another purpose is to cover up the fact that the Japanese Government is helping the U.S. imperialists expand the war in Viet-Nam and allowing them to use Japanese territory as an important base for this war. Should the Japanese Government really want to contribute to the restoration of peace in Viet-Nam, it would not have colluded with the U.S. aggressors. Unfortunately, it has worked hand in glove with the U.S. imperialists. Question: As far as we know, your January 24, 1966, letter to the Heads of State of a number of countries has had widespread

impact throughout the world. Will you kindly tell us about the significance of that letter? Answer: The U.S. imperialists are waging aggression against VietNam and jeopardizing ever more seriously the peace and security of the peoples of Indochina and Asia. This is an extremely gross violation of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam and all norms of international law. Our people have to fight in self-defense, for the independence of their Fatherland, and for world peace. In the letter I sent to the Heads of State of a number of countries on January 24, 1966, I pointed out these facts and voiced the Vietnamese people’s determination to fight against the U.S. imperialist aggressors and fulfill their national and international obligations. Though protracted and arduous, this just struggle of ours is sure to end in victory. I also expounded the fair and reasonable stand of our Government and people regarding a settlement of the VietNam problem. This stand is a just stand of peace; therefore, it is gaining increasing approval and support from many Heads of State, governments, and the peoples of the world. I take this opportunity to convey our sincere thanks to all our friends throughout the five continents for their valuable support. Lastly I wish to express our heartfelt thanks to the Japanese people for their warm support of our people’s struggle against U.S. aggression, for national salvation. Source: Ho Chi Minh, On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–66, edited by Bernard B. Fall (New York: Praeger, 1967), 371–374.

167. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, June 29, 1966 [Excerpts] Introduction Leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) passed their own peace proposal to the United States through Polish representative to the International Control Commission (ICC) Janusz Lewandowski, then to Italian ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Giovanni d’Orlandi, and then to U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. The North Vietnamese plan called for a “political compromise” rather than focusing on de-escalation. Hanoi sought to explore the U.S. position but by working indirectly through the Soviet government, with the discussions to be kept secret from Beijing. This marked the beginning of Operation MARIGOLD, the abortive diplomatic effort

168. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk 1575 to end the war. Here Ambassador Lodge reports to Washington the essence of the North Vietnamese proposal. Washington remained highly skeptical of the proposal, and in the end nothing came of it.

Primary Source 9. The Pole began by saying that Hanoi has been deeply disappointed by the proposals made by Ronning which, they are sure, had emanated originally from the United States and not from the Canadians. Ronning had proposed that the U.S. stop the bombing if North Viet-Nam stopped the infiltration, and had talked about the exchange of prisoners’ parcels and letters. This had bitterly disappointed North Vietnam. The first point, they had said, would be unconditional surrender, and they could not accept it, but they are open to a “political compromise” settling once and for all the entire Viet-Nam question. 10. When D’Orlandi said that he was skeptical, the Pole said that Hanoi was prepared to go “quite a long way.” “It is useless for me to add,” said the Pole, “that should there not be any kind of a preliminary agreement, Hanoi will deny flatly ever having made any offer.” According to the Pole, the North Vietnamese are “tightly controlled” by the Chinese Communists. The preliminary talks, therefore, should be between Moscow and Washington. When and if proposals should emerge which could be considered as a basis for negotiations, Hanoi would at that time and under those circumstances get into it. The Pole said that Hanoi was afraid of the Chinese Communists who have an interest in dragging on the war for many years. D’Orlandi added that the Pole was evidently “proud of himself’ for having brought these proposals about. 11. The proposals are as follows: A. They insist that the so-called National Liberation Front “take part” in the negotiations. The key word is “take part.” According to D’Orlandi, there is “no question of their being the representative; they are not to have any monopoly.” B. There must be suspension of the bombing. 12. These are the two proposals. 13. Then there are other points, which D’Orlandi called “negative ones,” which are that (a) Hanoi will not ask for immediate reunification, either by elections or otherwise, of North and South Vietnam; (b) They will not ask for establishment of a “socialist” system in South Viet-Nam; (c) They will not ask South Viet-Nam to change the relationships which it has in the field of foreign affairs; and (d) They will not ask for neutralization. (e) Although they will ask for U.S. withdrawal, they are ready to discuss a “reasonable calendar.” (f) Although “we would like someone other than Ky”—to quote the words of Hanoi—they do not want to interfere with the South Vietnamese Government.

[. . .] 18. The Pole said that his Government would be willing to arrange for D’Orlandi to meet with appropriate Polish spokesmen anywhere—Hong Kong or Singapore. In response to a question by D’Orlandi as to why they had come to him, the Pole said they wanted “an able debater to put the case to President Johnson, and we feel that the Italian Government has the sympathy of the United States Government.” Moreover, the Italians have the same interest we have in agreement between Washington and Moscow, and in shutting out Peking. 19. D’Orlandi’s impression is that the Poles are desperately seeking a way out on Moscow’s instructions. This, he said, may need further exploration. He had the definite impression that now Hanoi “was amenable to common sense” saying “they do not want anything that would not stop the whole war. They want a political settlement, and are prepared to go a long way.” Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. 4 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 468–470.

168. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, November 30, 1966 [Excerpt] Introduction Following the U.S. bombing of oil storage areas near Hanoi and Haiphong, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), declared negotiations with the United States to end the war “out of the question.” This U.S. escalation of the ROLLING THUNDER bombing campaign imperiled the indirect talks between North Vietnam and the United States in Operation MARIGOLD now ended. Here U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge reports on the efforts of Polish representative to the International Control Commission (ICC) Janusz Lewandowski to keep the talks alive.

Primary Source Lewandowski then began his statement. He first thanked me for coming today. He then said: “My trip to Hanoi was very important. You should understand that what has been reached up to now in our conversations in Saigon and in my conversations in Hanoi may be decisive. Both Mr. Rapacki and Mr. Gomulka think so. D. “I presented to Hanoi my understanding of the U.S. position based on our conversations of November 14 and our previous conversations.” He indicated the numbers of the paragraphs as he went along, as follows:

1576

168. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Secretary of State Dean Rusk

“1. I have insisted that the United States is interested in a peaceful solution through negotiations. “2. Negotiations should not be interpreted as a way to negotiated surrender by those opposing the United States in Viet-Nam. A political negotiation would be aimed at finding an acceptable solution to all the problems, having in mind that the present status quo in South Viet-Nam must be changed in order to take into account the interests of the parties presently opposing the policy of the United States in South Viet-Nam, and that such a solution may be reached in an honorable and dignified way not detrimental to national pride and prestige. “3. That the United States are not interested from a point of view of its national interests in having a permanent or long term military presence in South Viet-Nam once a peaceful solution to the conflict has been reached. That is why the offer made in Manila regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the liquidation of American bases should be considered in all seriousness. “4. The United States would be ready, should other parties show a constructive interest in a negotiated settlement, to work out and to discuss with them proposals of such a settlement covering all important problems involved from a cease-fire to a final solution and withdrawal of U.S. troops. “5. That the United States, within a general solution, would not oppose the formation of a South Vietnamese Government based on the true will of the Vietnamese people with participation of all through free democratic elections, and that the United States would be prepared to accept the necessary control machinery to secure the democratic and free character of such elections and to respect the results of such elections. “6. The United States hold the view that unification of Viet-Nam must be decided by the Vietnamese themselves for which the restoration of peace and the formation of proper representative organs of the people in South Viet-Nam is a necessary condition. “7. The United States are ready to accept and respect a true and complete neutrality of South Viet-Nam. “8. The United States are prepared to stop the bombing of the territory of North Viet-Nam if this will facilitate such a peaceful solution. In doing so, the United States are ready to avoid any appearance that North Viet-Nam is forced to negotiate by bombings or that North Viet-Nam have negotiated in exchange for cessation of bombing. Stopping of bombings would not involve recognition or confirmation by North Viet-Nam that its armed forces are or were infiltrating into South Viet-Nam. “9. I have informed the proper governmental sources that at the same time, the United States, while not excluding the unification of Viet-Nam, would not agree to unification under military pressure.

“10. While the United States are seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict, it would be unrealistic to expect that the United States will declare now or in the future its acceptance of North Viet-Nam’s four or five points.” End of statement. E. He then stopped and said, “I ask you whether this is a correct statement of the United States point of view.” F. I said that obviously on a matter of such importance, I would have to refer to my government for a definitive reply, but I could say off hand that much of what he cited was in keeping with the spirit of our policy. G. Personally, I would like to have a closer definition of the language in his paragraph 2 stating that the “present status quo in Viet-Nam must be changed in order to take into account the interested parties opposing the policy of the United States in South Viet-Nam.” He said that he would be glad to change the word from “must” to “would.” I said that this was obviously something which could be discussed. H. Another point which I felt might need some clarification would be the first sentence in paragraph 8 which stated: “The United States are prepared to stop the bombing of the territory of North Viet-Nam if this will facilitate a peaceful solution.” I. In general, it was correct to say that we were interested in a peaceful solution, we wished to humiliate nobody, we did not wish anyone to lose pride or prestige, and that our offer at Manila was made in good faith. J. Lewandowski then said that what he had just read was “very firmly based on conversations with the most respectable government sources in Hanoi” and that it was in addition “vouched for by Mr. Rapacki.” He said that he made that statement so as to “avoid any belief on your part that this was not a serious proposition.” K. He added: “I am authorized to say that if the United States are really of the views which I have presented, it would be advisable to confirm them directly by conversation with the North Vietnamese Ambassador in Warsaw.” L. He then repeated once again that “in case of any leak, a denial would be issued.” He repeated that “secrecy is of fundamental importance in this case. In fact, it is an essential element of the whole proposition.” M. He then said: “The United States should stop the bombing of North Viet-Nam apart from all other things.” N. He stated: “I was also informed by Hanoi and Warsaw that I should be ready to place myself at your disposal for any comment that you might wish to make.”

170. Nguyen Duy Trinh, Foreign Minister: Report to the Party Central Committee 1577 O. I said that I would be interested in knowing who was the “responsible government source in Hanoi” with whom he spoke. After some hesitation, he said that it was Pham Van Dong, who spoke after “collective debate among all the proper authorities.” In other words, this had “the Presidium behind it.” He then said: P. “If you agree that my presentation is in accord with yours and are ready to confirm it with the North Vietnamese Ambassador in Moscow, I would ask for another meeting to clear up things of a practical character.” I asked what these were, and he said “the identity of the U.S. representative.” He added that both Rapacki and Gomulka attached great importance to his talks with me. “They specifically want to convince you of the importance which should be attached by the United States,” he added. Q. I assured him that we did attach great importance to this. He added that Moscow had been informed. R. He then said that he hoped we would get at this as “fast as possible.” The more delay, the greater the danger. The dangers were two-fold—1) the danger of a leak, and 2) that there would be someone “working against a solution.” He felt that we should “keep the present channel” and that we should “not try other channels.” To do so would not only create the danger of a leak but also the danger of misinterpretation. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. 4 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 890–894.

169. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Telegram to Acting Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach, December 9, 1966 Introduction In the first few days of December 1966, at the same time that the U.S. government had informed the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) of its willingness to enter into direct talks, U.S. fighter-bombers struck oil storage areas in the suburbs of Hanoi and Haiphong. Here U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge reports to Acting Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach that Polish representative to the International Control Commission (ICC) Janusz Lewandowski had told Italian ambassador to South Vietnam Giovanni d’Orlandi that it was his belief that Hanoi was not prepared to enter into direct talks with the United States. D’Orlandi, however, informed Lodge that he believed that Lewandowski had in fact persuaded North Vietnamese premier

Pham Van Dong to work to overcome the opposition of the North Vietnamese leadership to such talks.

Primary Source D’Orlandi asked to see Secretary and Ambassador this evening following dinner party in Secretary’s honor. Conversation was as follows: 1. Lewandowski had called urgently on D’Orlandi evening of December 8, on instructions, to express grave concern that U.S. had carried out heavy bombing attacks in Hanoi area on December 2 and December 4, directly following December 1 conversation between Lewandowski and Lodge. Lewandowski conveyed lurid reports from Polish attache Hanoi alleging that December 2 attack had included bombing and machine-gunning within city area and had caused 600 casualties. December 4 attack also described as serious and in Hanoi area. Lewandowski protested to D’Orlandi— urging him to convey message to Lodge and to Secretary if possible—that such attacks could only threaten or destroy possibility of contact in Warsaw. Lewandowski argued that Hanoi could not be expected to enter discussions in face of such escalation. (While whole tenor of message was extremely strong, Lewandowski did not repeat not state that he was actually reporting Hanoi’s expressions of view, but rather Warsaw judgment.) 2. D’Orlandi had responded to Lewandowski that no contact had in fact taken place as yet because of apparent refusal of Rapacki to convey firm message, that U.S. had taken forthcoming action in declaring itself ready for discussions and prepared to make contact on December 6, and that it was thus not fair to say possibility of contact destroyed by U.S. action. D’Orlandi went on to say that his hope had been to make contact in any event. Source: United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, VI.C.4 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 77–79.

170. Nguyen Duy Trinh, Foreign Minister: Report to the Party Central Committee on Initiating a New Talk-Fight Strategy, January 23, 1967 [Excerpts] Introduction In December 1966 the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for the first time permitted an American journalist, Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times, to visit North Vietnam. Salisbury’s articles about the effects of the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam generated tremendous public

1578

170. Nguyen Duy Trinh, Foreign Minister: Report to the Party Central Committee

attention, especially among those opposed to the war. That same month, however, the secret diplomatic initiative code-named Operation MARIGOLD aimed at initiating direct talks between the United States and North Vietnam collapsed. In January 1967 the North Vietnamese Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) Central Committee met to discuss and approve a new stratagem called “Talk-Fight” that was designed to exploit growing opposition to the war in the United States. Here North Vietnamese foreign minister Nguyen Duy Trinh briefs the Central Committee on the outlines of the new stratagem.

Primary Source I—THE CURRENT SITUATION AND OUR POLICY 1. The American imperialists are facing increasing defeats and are increasingly confused and on the defensive, both militarily and politically. . . . They are facing many internal problems inside the United States. The desire to bring the war to an end quickly has become relatively widespread because the war of aggression in Vietnam has begun to weigh heavily on the political, the social, and, to some extent, the economic life of the American people. . . . In the international community, the U.S. is more isolated than ever before. Even the U.S.’s closest allies do not support the war of aggression in Vietnam. Many neutral countries and many politicians are increasingly critical of the U.S.’s escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. . . . The U.S. is striving in every way possible to conceal the true “Americanization” of the war. . . . The U.S. has launched a series of “peace campaigns,” presenting first 14 points, then seven points, then three points, etc. They have sent representatives to lobby for support from many different nations, and even from U Thant and the Pope. They are also lobbying for the support of a number of socialist Eastern European countries and have sent people to make feelers to us directly. During these “peace offensives,” the U.S. has made maximum use of their “bombing” and “cessation of bombing” cards, and their recent attacks against a number of locations in Hanoi were aimed at placing further pressure on us. . . . It is clear that the American imperialists are confused and on the defensive, both militarily and politically. However, their evil desire to seize and occupy the southern half of our nation has so far remained unchanged. . . . They are now forced to choose between three options: 1/—Expand their limited ground war of aggression into North Vietnam. . . . 2/—Send in additional troops and equipment to fight a protracted war in South Vietnam. . . . 3/—Strive to achieve an important military victory by 1968 and then use their position of strength to achieve a political settlement on terms favorable to them. . . . The general trend of the American leadership is to try to end the war quickly, before the 1968 elections. . . . [President Lyndon] Johnson himself is following a middle-of-the-road policy (middle

course) [in English] in order to win the support of both the “hawks” and the “doves,” but Johnson usually listens to the “hawks” more than he does to the doves. . . . He wants to choose the third option to seek a way out in order to win the support of the majority and retain the Presidency during the coming elections. . . . Even though we are facing a few problems in the new stage of our struggle against the Americans to save our nation, our position is the position of victory, and the enemy’s position is a position of defeat. The enemy’s fundamental weak point, his political posture, is increasingly becoming clearer and is causing the enemy to more isolated than ever before. 2. From the basis of this posture of victory, the situation is becoming increasingly favorable for us to seize the initiative by employing our strategy of fighting while talking, talking while fighting. . . . We have won increasingly greater and stronger political support and material assistance from the fraternal socialist nations, which has made an important contribution to the intensification of our people’s just struggle in both North and South Vietnam. We have also striven to expand and strengthen the united front of the world’s population opposed to American imperialist aggression in Vietnam. . . . We have also striven to find ways to create divisions within the ranks of the imperialists, have attracted support from neutralist forces, and have caused our enemy additional difficulties and confusion. . . . During the recent phase, we have not yet had an opportunity to employ our “fighting while talking, talking while fighting” stratagem because we had only defeated the American imperialist “special war,” and the enemy still believed that the massive introduction of American troops into combat operations in South Vietnam could still secure victory. . . . Now the situation has become favorable for us to seize the initiative by utilizing our stratagem of fighting while talking, talking while fighting. It is now favorable because of four factors: —First, . . . The balance of forces is increasingly becoming favorable for our side. —Second, the enemy has clearly recognized that he cannot defeat us, he is undecided and hesitant, and he is tending toward selecting option number three. On our side, . . . we need to make a major effort to concentrate the forces of both North and South Vietnam to create an opportunity to win a decisive victory within a relatively short period of time. —Third, the fraternal socialist nations have clearly recognized our resolve. Even though some of them have some differences with us over strategy or stratagems, they all sympathize with and support us . . . , although their level of support varies. . . . —Fourth, generally speaking, international opinion . . . has strongly supported our four-point program. . . . but they also do not want us to totally reject negotiations while we continue to fight. . . .

170. Nguyen Duy Trinh, Foreign Minister: Report to the Party Central Committee 1579 During the coming phase, we must, in coordination with the military struggle and the political struggle, further intensify our diplomatic struggle by taking the offensive to attack the enemy politically and employ our stratagem of fighting while talking, talking while fighting. . . . The military struggle will be the directly decisive element. The military struggle must be closely coordinated with the political struggle. . . . The diplomatic struggle must support the military struggle and the political struggle, and success in the military struggle and in the political struggle will create favorable conditions for us to expand the diplomatic struggle. The mission of the diplomatic struggle is to contribute . . . to the achievement of our current two primary concrete goals: —Forcing the U.S. to end the bombing of North Vietnam; —Forcing the U.S. to withdraw its troops from South Vietnam. . . . On the basis of firmly maintaining our four-point program, we will develop total supremacy on the political front, seize the initiative in attacking the enemy, support the struggle on the battlefield, . . . and create an opportunity to win a decisive victory. We will employ our stratagem of fighting while talking, talking while fighting. This means that, while in South Vietnam we will continue to fight to try to win a decisive victory, there can be talks between the enemy and ourselves in various forms, ranging from individual contacts to a peace conference. Naturally, victory on the battlefield in South Vietnam is the decisive factor. As long as we have not won such a victory, we cannot win victory at the conference table. . . . On our side . . . we must first of all fight for the demand that the enemy end the bombing of North Vietnam. . . . The enemy knows that if he does not end the bombing there is no possibility of negotiations. After we achieve this first step, we need to continue to struggle to force them to prolong the cessation of the bombing while at the same time we focus on demanding that they withdraw their troops from South Vietnam. . . . The enemy’s position is to stubbornly try to hang on in South Vietnam, and his plan is to link the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam with a solution to the problem in South Vietnam. The enemy has presented a plan that we must accept or reject in toto (a package deal) [in English] to achieve this goal. Meanwhile . . . the most important issue for us is still the liberation of South Vietnam. Our strategy is to demand that they end the bombing unconditionally and not link the end of the bombing with a settlement of the problem in South Vietnam. The concrete goals of our application of the “fighting while talking, talking while fighting,” stratagem are 1) To win additional support from international public opinion. . . . 2) To exacerbate the enemy’s domestic problems and his international difficulties. . . . 3) To contribute to the collapse of the puppet army and to . . . strengthen our urban movement in South Vietnam. . . . Looking at the entire process of our employment of the “fighting while talking, talking while fighting” stratagem, we can visualize three different phases:

—Phase One is the phase in which we force the enemy to end the bombing of North Vietnam without conditions, leading to official and public contacts between North Vietnam and the United States. During this phase, after the U.S. agrees to end the bombing of North Vietnam, North Vietnam and the United States will talk to one another . . . while in South Vietnam, the two sides will continue to fight one another. In reality, we will utilize the forum provided by these talks to denounce the U.S. to the general public. —Phase Two is the phase when we force the enemy to continue the unconditional cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam, force him to talk to the NLF, and force him to withdraw his troops from South Vietnam. . . . The course of the struggle during this phase will be intimately linked with the military and political struggle on the battlefield in South Vietnam. Only when we secure a decisive victory on the battlefield will we be able to secure success in this phase. —Phase Three is the phase in which the international community recognizes and confirms the results achieved during Phase Two. . . . Of the three phases outlined above, Phase Two is the most important phase. It is the decisive phase. However, Phase One is the initial phase and is also of great importance. . . . The above is our vision of the major features of the process of utilizing our stratagem. . . . The basic situation is advantageous for us, but it will develop in a very complex fashion, because the enemy is very stubborn and devious, because internally there are many differing opinions within the enemy camp, and because the serious disagreement within the socialist camp will also influence, to a certain extent at least, the enemy’s attitude. . . . We must be on guard against and overcome misguided assessments and ideas within our own internal ranks. At the same time, we need to develop a plan to persuade both those fraternal socialist nations that may suspect that we are seeking negotiations too soon and may therefore take an attitude that, directly or indirectly, does not agree with us, and those that are so much in favor of negotiations to settle the problem that they pressure us to reach a political settlement too soon, before the situation is ripe. We must be extremely careful to keep our enemy from exploiting disagreements about strategy between us and our fraternal socialist allies. . . . The goal of the initial phase of the use of our stratagem is to force the enemy to end the bombing of North Vietnam without conditions, and only then will there be talks between North Vietnam and the United States. The two sides will sit down to talk with each other, officially and publicly at the ambassadorial level. The purpose of the talks will not be to resolve the Vietnam problem but to clarify each side’s views while the fighting continues in South Vietnam. This action will be to our advantage both politically and militarily. Even though it will be difficult for the enemy to end the bombing of North Vietnam, the pressure of public opinion demanding

1580

170. Nguyen Duy Trinh, Foreign Minister: Report to the Party Central Committee

that the U.S. end the bombing immediately and unconditionally has turned the bombing of North Vietnam into one of the most prominent issues, and we believe it is possible that at some point the enemy will have to consider taking such an action. The immediate situation demands that we . . . take the initiative by presenting the issue as follows: If the United States ends the bombing permanently and unconditionally, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States could hold talks. . . . Public opinion is now heated and is favorable to our side and not to the enemy. After the recent U.S. bombing of Hanoi, a powerful movement has grown up around the world that is vigorously denouncing the Americans. Taking one more step with respect to the demand that the U.S. end the bombing of North Vietnam, after the U.S. refused U Thant’s request and refused to extend the cessation of the bombing through several holidays, international opinion no longer trusts the U.S. and is worried that the U.S. might escalate the bombing further. In this environment, Comrade Pham Van Dong’s reception of the American journalist Salisbury and the press conference held by our representative in Paris has caused a great deal of public interest and created a new opportunity to take another step forward in the struggle to demand that the U.S. end the bombing of North Vietnam. . . . The U.S. ruling circles are becoming increasingly divided internally. . . . The Americans clearly see our resolve and have recognized, to some extent, our intentions, so they are afraid that we will step up our supply efforts. They are afraid that if they stop the bombing, they will face both military and political difficulties. They are afraid of a recurrence of the situation of fighting during talks that took place during the Korean War. If they stop the bombing, it will be even harder for them to resume it again. However, they also see that if they do not stop the bombing, it will be difficult to enter into negotiations and that they will become increasingly isolated in the face of public opinion. . . . During his speech to Congress, Johnson clearly portrayed the bleak status of the war of aggression in Vietnam. During the coming days, the debate on the Vietnam issue will become heated. However, public opinion does not yet clearly realize that we could begin talking to the Americans if they stop the bombing of North Vietnam permanently and unconditionally. For that reason, if we raise this matter publicly, public pressure on the U.S. will increase and the Americans will become even more confused, clumsy, and will be placed on the defensive. It may also deepen internal disagreements, further divide their ranks, and make their stance even shakier. If we do not take the offensive now, we will be missing an excellent opportunity, because: —Public opinion is now heated on this subject, and if we do not do something further, it will quiet down. Once that happens, when we raise an issue it will be hard to gain as much attention as we can get at this point in time. —It is still possible that Johnson will decide to escalate in order to win over the opposing factions. If that happens,

it will be harder for us to employ this stratagem in that situation. Also, if the U.S. sees that we do not take action, they will mount a public offensive and distort and slander our position. —Our friends may take some misguided action in one direction or another, which would further complicate our effort to utilize this stratagem. 3. How we will publicly present this question to the world: . . . We will say something like, “recently, the U.S. has suggested that it would like to talk to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” Finally, we will say, “After the United States has unconditionally ended the bombing and all other acts of war directed against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States could talk to one another.” (The above is the general thrust of the content of our statement, which will be given in the form of an answer by our Foreign Minister during a press interview. After it is written out formally as an answer, we will review the wording and tighten it up.) 4. After our statement is made public, there are several possibilities: —The U.S. will reject it out of hand and will continue to escalate. —The U.S. will put forward conditions for bargaining purposes. After a period of bargaining, they might: + Lie and place the blame on us in order to continue escalating their attacks. + Halt the bombing as a practical matter in order to talk to us. + Accept our conditions and end the bombing in order to sit down with us for discussions. At present the first possibility is unlikely because the U.S., like us, wants to win over public opinion. The third possibility is very unlikely. As for the second possibility—that after a period of bargaining they will stop the bombing in practical terms in order to talk to us—there are difficulties here as well. We are not subjective [overoptimistic] about this, but we need to fight hard to push the U.S. into taking this option. Whether we succeed in attaining this option or not, we will still benefit because we will have won over public opinion, which will place pressure on the U.S. and further isolate the Americans. . . . No matter what happens, however, we must fight strongly in the arena of public opinion (while at the same time making even more powerful military and political attacks against them) in order to be able to pressure them into stopping the bombing and sitting down to talk. . . . We will provide timely notification of our moves to the Soviet Union, China, other fraternal nations, and nations that have good relations with us so that everyone understands what we are doing and supports us. . . . The National Liberation Front will demonstrate its support for the answer given by the Foreign Minister

172. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Lyndon Johnson of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the interview. At the same time, the Front will emphasize its resolve to hold firm to South Vietnam’s demands (the demands that the U.S. immediately and unconditionally end the bombing of North Vietnam, that the U.S. recognize the four point program and the five point proclamation, that it recognize the Front as the only true representative of the people of South Vietnam, and that all U.S. and satellite [allied] military personnel must be withdrawn from South Vietnam). . . . Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 28, 1967 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 28, 1967] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2003), 116–140. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

171. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Telegram to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., February 10, 1967 [Excerpt] Introduction In early February 1967 Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin traveled to London for talks with British prime minister Harold Wilson that included the U.S. proposals for peace talks with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The British then passed along the substance of these discussions with Washington. In the U.S. State Department response, shared by U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk with ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) Henry Cabot Lodge, the Lyndon Johnson administration reverses the sequence of proposals that had been presented earlier. Now the North Vietnamese government will have to assure the United States that it has halted infiltration into South Vietnam before there can be any halt in the bombing of North Vietnam. The Johnson administration believed that should Hanoi agree to this, the Communist forces in South Vietnam would be significantly weakened.

1581

augmenting their force in South Vietnam. The cessation of bombing of North Vietnam is an action which will be immediately apparent. This requires that the stoppage of infiltration become public very quickly thereafter. If Hanoi is unwilling to announce the stoppage of infiltration, the United States must do so at the time its stops augmentation of US forces. In that case, Hanoi must not deny it. C. Any assurances from Hanoi can reach the United States direct, or through Soviet channels, or through the Soviet and British Governments. This is for North Vietnam to decide. END QUOTE. 3. In explaining about text, we believe British will have made clear that our stopping “augmenting” would still permit rotation and continued supply. Stoppage of infiltration defined as meaning that men and arms cannot move from DRV into South Vietnam. You should note also that wording of subpara A preclude any sudden last-minute reinforcements after bombing has stopped. . . . 4. . . . Deprived of additional men and of urgently needed equipment from the North, we believe NVANC forces would be significantly weakened in concrete terms and would probably suffer serious adverse effects on their morale. If infiltration in fact ceases and this word can be picked up by SVN and allied psychological warfare units, we believe there are big chances that Chien Hoi and reconciliation programs would produce substantially larger returns. In short, we think proposal is defensible and forthcoming, if it should ever be surfaced, but at the same time clearly favorable in terms of its effect on the military and morale situation. . . . Source: U.S. Department of State, Memo, Declassified Top Secret, State 135513, 1967.

172. Ho Chi Minh: Letter to Lyndon Johnson, February 15, 1967

Primary Source

Introduction

2. We have provided British with text of proposal. They had already outlined a variation of it orally to Kosygin, who expressed interest today and asked for written text to forward at once to Hanoi. This has been provided and reads as below. You may convey to Ky orally as much of digest of proposal as you deem wise in view of great necessity for secrecy.

On February 15, 1967, in a personal letter to U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) responds to the U.S. proposal for a bombing halt. In this uncompromising missive, Ho accuses the United States of violating pledges that it had made at the 1954 Geneva Conference, intervening in Vietnamese affairs, and turning the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) into a U.S. “neocolony and military base.” He also accuses the United States of war crimes. The only way to bring about peace is for the United States to cease its “aggression” by immediately halting the bombing of North Vietnam and withdrawing its own and “satellite” troops from South Vietnam, recognizing the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (usually known as the National Liberation Front [NLF]), and permitting the holding of free elections.

QTE A. The United States will order a cessation of bombing of North Vietnam as soon as they are assured that infiltration from North Vietnam to South Vietnam has stopped. This assurance can be communicated in secret if North Vietnam so wishes. B. Within a few days (with a period to be agreed with the two sides before the bombing stops) the United States will stop further

1582

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church

Ho does not mention North Vietnam’s infiltration of troops into South Vietnam, which the United States had demanded as a precondition to halt the bombing; rather, he says that if the United States is sincere about direct peace talks with the North Vietnamese government, the United States must first halt unconditionally all bombing of North Vietnam.

Primary Source To His Excellency Mr. Lyndon B. Johnson, President, United States of America Excellency, on February 10, 1967, I received your message. Here is my response. Viet-Nam is situated thousands of miles from the United States. The Vietnamese people have never done any harm to the United States. But, contrary to the commitments made by its representative at the Geneva Conference of 1954, the United States Government has constantly intervened in Viet-Nam, it has launched and intensified the war of aggression in South Viet-Nam for the purpose of prolonging the division of Viet-Nam and of transforming South Viet-Nam into an American neo-colony and an American military base. For more than two years now, the American Government, with its military aviation and its navy, has been waging war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, an independent and sovereign country. The United States Government has committed war crimes, crimes against peace and against humanity. In South Viet-Nam a halfmillion American soldiers and soldiers from the satellite countries have resorted to the most inhumane arms and the most barbarous methods of warfare, such as napalm, chemicals, and poison gases in order to massacre our fellow countrymen, destroy the crops, and wipe out the villages. In North Viet-Nam thousands of American planes have rained down hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, destroying cities, villages, mills, roads, bridges, dikes, dams and even churches, pagodas, hospitals, and schools. In your message you appear to deplore the suffering and the destruction in Viet-Nam. Permit me to ask you: Who perpetrated these monstrous crimes? It was the American soldiers and the soldiers of the satellite countries. The United States Government is entirely responsible for the extremely grave situation in Viet-Nam. The American war of aggression against the Vietnamese people constitutes a challenge to the countries of the socialist camp, a threat to the peoples’ independent movement, and a grave danger to peace in Asia and in the world. The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, liberty, and peace. But in the face of the American aggression they have risen up as one man, without fearing the sacrifices and the privations. They are determined to continue their resistance until they have

won real independence and liberty and true peace. Our just cause enjoys the approval and the powerful support of peoples throughout the world and of large segments of the American people. The United States Government provoked the war of aggression in Viet-Nam. It must cease that aggression, it is the only road leading to the re-establishment of peace. The United States Government must halt definitively and unconditionally the bombings and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of VietNam, withdraw from South Viet-Nam all American troops and all troops from the satellite countries, recognize the National Front of the Liberation of South Viet-Nam, and let the Vietnamese people settle their problems themselves. Such is the basic content of the four-point position of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, such is the statement of the essential principles and essential arrangements of the Geneva agreements of 1954 on VietNam. It is the basis for a correct political solution of the Vietnamese problem. In your message you suggested direct talks between the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the United States. If the United States Government really wants talks, it must first halt unconditionally the bombings and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. It is only after the unconditional halting of the American bombings and of all other American acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam that the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the United States could begin talks and discuss questions affecting the two parties. The Vietnamese people will never give way to force, it will never accept conversation under the clear threat of bombs. Our cause is absolutely just. It is desirable that the Government of the United States act in conformity to reason. Sincerely, Ho Chi Minh Source: “President Ho Chi Minh’s Reply,” Department of State Bulletin 56(1450) (1967): 596–597.

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church, April 4, 1967 Introduction In a sermon at the Riverside Church in New York City delivered on April 4, 1967, U.S. civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. announces his firm opposition to the Vietnam War. King traces

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church 1583 the course of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and points out the enormous financial drain of the war, which is taking funds from the effort to eradicate poverty at home. King sets forth his own five-point peace program: an immediate halt in the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), a unilateral cease-fire, an end to the U.S. military buildup in Laos and Thailand, recognition that the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (usually known as the National Liberation Front [NLF]) must play a role in negotiations and a future Vietnamese government, and, in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreements, the setting of a date for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam.

Primary Source Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the most distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it’s always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it’s always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit. I come to this great magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization that brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our

nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us. Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church—the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate—leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans. Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political

1584

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church

plaything on a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. For those who ask the question, “Aren’t you a civil rights leader?” and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957, when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: “To save the soul of America.” We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard from Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be! Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.” It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that “America will be” are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954 [during the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama]. And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men—for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church 1585 constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954—in 1945 rather—after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking selfdetermination and a government that had been established not by China—for whom the Vietnamese have no great love—but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed and Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem’s methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones? We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call “fortified hamlets.” The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers. Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation front, that strangely anonymous group we call “VC” or “communists”? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being

1586

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church

as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of “aggression from the North” as if there was nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only real party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of a new violence? Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition. So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western worlds, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led this nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a unified Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be considered.

Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands. Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred, or rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores. At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor. Surely this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: Each day the war goes on the hatred increased in the hearts of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church 1587 carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism. Unquote. If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible. As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation’s role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. [sustained applause] I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. [applause] Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. [applause] These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.

Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government. Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement. [sustained applause] Part of our ongoing [applause continues], part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. Meanwhile [applause], meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality [applause], and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. [sustained applause] So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make

1588

173. Martin Luther King Jr. Declares His Opposition to the War during a Sermon at New York’s Riverside Church

peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” [applause] Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a personoriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. [applause] War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy [applause], realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. [applause]

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. [sustained applause] America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low [audience: Yes]; the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.” A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love

174. Central Intelligence Agency: Intelligence Memorandum is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another [audience: Yes], for love is God. [audience: Yes] And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.” Unquote. We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.” We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

1589

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated: Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide, In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light. Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ’tis truth alone is strong Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. [sustained applause] Source: Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor, New York, NY. Copyright 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; copyright renewed 1991, Coretta Scott King.

174. Central Intelligence Agency: Intelligence Memorandum, “Bomb Damage Inflicted on North Vietnam through April 1967”, May 12, 1967 Introduction The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was not optimistic in its assessment of the effects of Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the U.S. bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). In this report of May 1967, the CIA concludes that North Vietnam has been able to offset U.S. efforts to halt the flow of men and supplies into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) by increased imports; the dispersion of assets, such as petroleum storage facilities; and the rapid repair of transportation facilities, such as roads and bridges.

Primary Source Through the end of April 1967 the US air campaign against North Vietnam—Rolling Thunder—had significantly eroded the

1590

175. President Lyndon Johnson: Address in San Antonio, Texas

capacities of North Vietnam’s limited industrial and military base. These losses, however, have not meaningfully degraded North Vietnam’s material ability to continue the war in South Vietnam. Total damage through April 1967 was over $233 million, of which 70 percent was accounted for by damage to economic targets. The greatest amount of damage was inflicted on the so-called logistics target system—transport equipment and lines of communication. By the end of April 1967 the US air campaign had attacked 173 fixed targets, over 70 percent of the targets on the JCS list. This campaign included extensive attacks on almost every major target system in the country. The physical results have varied widely. All of the 13 targeted petroleum storage facilities have been attacked, with an estimated loss of 85 percent of storage capacity. Attacks on 13 of the 20 targeted electric power facilities have neutralized 70 percent of North Vietnam’s power-generating capacity. The major losses in the military establishment include the neutralization of 18 ammunition depots, with a loss capacity of 70 percent. Over three fourths of the 65 JCS-targeted barracks have been attacked, with a loss of about one fourth of national capacity. Attacks on 22 of the 29 targeted supply depots reduced capacity by 17 percent. Through the end of April 1967, five of North Vietnam’s airfields had been attacked, with a loss of about 20 percent of national capacity. North Vietnam’s ability to recuperate from the air attacks has been of a high order. The major exception has been the electric power industry. One small plant—Co Dinh—is beyond repair. Most of the other plants would require 3–4 months to be restored to partial operations, although two plants—Haiphong East and Uong Bi— would require one year. For complete restoration, all of the plants would require at least a year. Restoration of these plants would require foreign technical assistance and equipment. The recuperability problem is not significant for the other target systems. The destroyed petroleum storage system has been replaced by an effective system of dispersed storage and distribution. The damaged military target systems—particularly barracks and storage depots—have simply been abandoned, and supplies and troops dispersed throughout the country. The inventories of transport and military equipment have been replaced by large infusions of military and economic aid from the USSR and Communist China. Damage to bridges and lines of communications is frequently repaired within a matter of days, if not hours, or the effects are countered by an elaborate system of multiple bypasses or pre-positioned spans. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, “Intelligence Memorandum: Bomb Damage Inflicted on North Vietnam through April 1967,” May 12, 1967, Declassified November 17, 1975.

175. President Lyndon Johnson: Address in San Antonio, Texas, September 29, 1967 [Excerpt] Introduction In June 1967 two Frenchmen, Dr. Herbert Marcovich and Raymond Aubrac, approached Dr. Henry Kissinger, then a private U.S. citizen and Harvard University professor who was attending a conference in Paris, about establishing contact with the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to discuss the possibility of serving as intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi. Aubrac had known Ho since 1946. The Lyndon Johnson administration agreed, and the two Frenchmen traveled to Hanoi in late July to present a new U.S. proposal. The United States would halt the bombing of North Vietnam in return for a pledge from Hanoi to enter into substantive peace talks without Washington insisting on Hanoi’s de-escalation of its military effort in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). The message did, however, warn against any North Vietnamese effort to “take advantage” of the situation. As it turned out, the North Vietnamese leadership rejected the U.S. offer, which they said still imposed conditions. President Johnson then made the offer public in the course of a speech in San Antonio, Texas, on September 29. The demarche became known as the San Antonio Formula.

Primary Source Our desire to negotiate peace—through the United Nations or out—has been made very, very clear to Hanoi—directly and many times through third parties. As we have told Hanoi time and time and time again, the heart of the matter really is this: The United States is willing to stop all aerial and naval bombardment of North Viet-Nam when this will lead promptly to productive discussions. We, of course, assume that while discussions proceed, North Viet-Nam would not take advantage of the bombing cessation or limitation. But Hanoi has not accepted any of these proposals. So it is by Hanoi’s choice, and not ours and not the rest of the world’s, that the war continues. Why, in the face of military and political progress in the South, and the burden of our bombing in the North, do they insist and persist with the war? From the many sources the answer is the same. They still hope that the people of the United States will not see this struggle through to the very end. As one Western diplomat reported to me only this week—he had just been in Hanoi—“They believe their staying power is greater than ours and that they can’t lose.” A visitor from

176. General William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam: National Press Club Address 1591 a Communist capital had this to say: “They expect the war to be long, and that the Americans in the end will be defeated by a breakdown in morale, fatigue, and psychological factors.” The Premier of North Viet-Nam said as far back as 1962: “Americans do not like long, inconclusive war . . . Thus we are sure to win in the end.”

something, because we are looking for a fight.” That fight occurred in the Communist Tet Offensive of late January 1968.

Are the North Vietnamese right about us?

With 1968, a new phase is now starting. We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view. What is this third phase we are about to enter?

I think not. No. I think they are wrong. I think it is the common failing of totalitarian regimes, that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy: —They mistake dissent for disloyalty; —They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy; —They mistake a few committees for a country; —They misjudge individual speeches for public policy. They are no better suited to judge the strength and perseverance of America than the Nazi and the Stalinist propagandists were able to judge it. It is a tragedy that they must discover these qualities in the American people, and discover them through a bloody war.

Primary Source Improving Vietnamese Effectiveness

In Phase III, in 1968, we intend to do the following: Help the Vietnamese Armed Forces to continue improving their effectiveness. Decrease our advisers in training centers and other places where the professional competence of Vietnamese officers makes this possible. Increase our advisory effort with the younger brothers of the Vietnamese Army: the Regional Forces and Popular Forces.

And, soon or late, they will discover them. In the meantime, it shall be our policy to continue to seek negotiations, confident that reason will some day prevail, that Hanoi will realize that it just can never win, that it will turn away from fighting and start building for its own people. Source: “Answering Aggression in Viet-Nam,” Department of State Bulletin 57(1478) (1967): 519–522.

176. General William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam: National Press Club Address, November 21, 1967 [Excerpts] Introduction In mid-November 1967, U.S Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland returned to the United States and provided President Lyndon Johnson a decidedly upbeat assessment on the progress of the war. Johnson then asked Westmoreland to make his views public. On November 21 the general appeared before the National Press Club. In his remarks Westmoreland asserts that the United States, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), and Korean forces are winning the war and that victory is “within our grasp—the enemy’s hopes are bankrupt.” Westmoreland subsequently told a Time interviewer that “I hope they try

Use U.S. and free-world forces to destroy North Vietnamese forays while we assist the Vietnamese to reorganize for territorial security. Provide the new military equipment to revitalize the Vietnamese Army and prepare it to take on an ever-increasing share of the war. Continue pressure on North to prevent rebuilding and to make infiltration more costly. Turn a major share of frontline DMZ defense over to the Vietnamese Army. Increase U.S. support in the rich and populated delta. Help the Government of Viet-Nam single out and destroy the Communist shadow government. Continue to isolate the guerrilla from the people. Help the new Vietnamese government to respond to popular aspirations and to reduce and eliminate corruption. Help the Vietnamese strengthen their policy forces to enhance law and order. Open more roads and canals. Continue to improve the Vietnamese economy and standard of living.

1592

177. President Lyndon Johnson: News Conference

The Final Phase

He is losing control of the scattered population under his influence.

Now for phase IV—the final phase. That period will see the conclusion of our plan to weaken the enemy and strengthen our friends until we become progressively superfluous. The object will be to show the world that guerrilla warfare and invasion do not pay as a new means of Communist aggression.

He is losing credibility with the population he still controls. He is alienating the people by his increased demands and taxes, where he can impose them. He sees the strength of his forces steadily declining.

I see phase IV happening as follows: Infiltration will slow.

He can no longer recruit in the South to any meaningful extent; he must plug the gap with North Vietnamese.

The Communist infrastructure will be cut up and near collapse.

His monsoon offensives have been failures.

The Vietnamese Government will prove its stability, and the Vietnamese Army will show that it can handle Viet Cong.

He was dealt a mortal blow by the installation of a freely elected representative government.

The Regional Forces and Popular Forces will reach a higher level of professional performance.

And he failed in his desperate effort to take the world’s headlines from the inauguration by a military victory.

U.S. units can begin to phase down as the Vietnamese Army is modernized and develops its capacity to the fullest.

Lastly, the Vietnamese Army is on the road to becoming a competent force. Korean troops in Viet-Nam provide a good example for the Vietnamese. Fifteen years ago the Koreans themselves had problems now ascribed to the Vietnamese. The Koreans surmounted these problems, and so can and will the Vietnamese. . . .

The military physical assets, bases and ports, will be progressively turned over to the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese will take charge of the final mopping up of the Viet Cong (which will probably last several years). The U.S., at the same time, will continue the developmental help envisaged by the President for the community of Southeast Asia. You may ask how long phase III will take, before we reach the final phase. We have already entered part of phase III. Looking back on phases I and II, we can conclude that we have come a long way. I see progress as I travel all over Viet-Nam.

We are making progress. We know you want an honorable and early transition to the fourth and last phase. So do your sons and so do I. It lies within our grasp—the enemy’s hopes are bankrupt. With your support we will give you a success that will impact not only on South Viet-Nam but on every emerging nation in the world. Source: “Progress Report on the War in Viet-Nam,” Department of State Bulletin 57(1485) (1967): 785–788.

I see it in the attitudes of the Vietnamese. I see it in the open roads and canals. I see it in the new crops and the new purchasing power of the farmer. I see it in the increasing willingness of the Vietnamese Army to fight North Vietnamese units and in the victories they are winning. Parenthetically, I might say that the U.S. press tends to report U.S. actions; so you may not be as aware as I am of the victories won by South Vietnamese forces. The enemy has many problems:

177. President Lyndon Johnson: News Conference, February 2, 1968 [Excerpts] Introduction At the end of January 1968 during the Lunar New Year holiday of Tet, Communist forces launched a massive military offensive all over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Both the timing of the attacks and their intensity caught the United States by surprise. Although Communist forces suffered massive casualties and failed to achieve their goal of triggering a general uprising of the Vietnamese people against the Americans and the South

178. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Television Interview 1593 Vietnamese government, the Tet Offensive stunned the American people, coming as it did on the heels of U.S. commander in Vietnam General William Westmoreland’s rosy assessment of two months before. American public opinion now turned decisively against the war. In the course of this news conference on February 2, 1968, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson seeks to place the Communist offensive in proper light and to play up the U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnam) success in turning back the North Vietnamese offensive.

Primary Source Q. Sir, do you see anything in the developments this week in these attacks in Vietnam that causes you to think you need to reevaluate some of the assumptions on which our policies and strategy there has been based? I am thinking in terms of the security ratings, amount of population that is considered under government control? Do you think the basic assumption is still valid? The President: We do that every week. I see nothing that would indicate that that shouldn’t be done. We must, all the time to try to keep up, and to be sure we have not made errors and mistakes. If you are saying, have we felt that what happened could not happen, the answer is no. As a matter of fact, . . . if you have seen any of the intelligence reports, the information has been very clear that two things would happen: One is that there would be a general uprising, as I stated. Two, there would be a general invasion and attempt to secure military victory, and that the objective would be to get a military victory and a psychological victory. That is one of the great problems the President has to deal with. He is sitting there reading these information reports while his own people, a good many of the best intentioned, are supplying him with military strategy, and the two do not fit in. So you have to be tolerant and understand their best intentions while you are looking at the other fellow’s hole card. That is what General Westmoreland has been doing while all of these Monday morning quarterbacks are pointing out to him that this is the way he should move or this is the way you should not move. This is part of what happens when you look at history. It may be that General Westmoreland makes some serious mistakes or that I make some. We don’t know. We are just acting in light of the information we have. We believe we have information about what they are trying to do there. We have taken every precaution we know of. But we don’t want to give you assurance that all will be satisfactory. We see nothing that would require any change of great consequence.

We will have to move men from this place to that one. We will have to replace helicopters. Probably we had 100-odd helicopters and planes seriously damaged, and we will have to replace them. Secretary McNamara told me he could have that done very shortly. We will have to replace the 38 planes lost, but we have approximately 5,900 planes there. We anticipate that we will lose 25 or 30 every month just from normal crashes and so forth. . . . Now, I am no great strategist and tactician. I know that you are not. But let us assume that the best figures we can have are from our responsible military commanders. They say 10,000 died and we lost 249 and the South Vietnamese lost 500. Now that doesn’t look like a Communist victory. I can count. It looks like somebody has paid a very dear price for the temporary encouragement that some of our enemies had. We have approximately 5,900 planes and have lost 38 completely destroyed. We lost 100-odd that were damaged and have to be repaired. Maybe Secretary McNamara will fly in 150 shortly. Now, is that a great enemy victory? In Peking today they say that we are in panic. You have to judge that for yourself. In other Communist capitals today they say that we have definitely exhibited a lack of power and that we do not have any military strength. You will have to judge that for yourself But General Westmoreland—evaluating this for us and the Joint Chiefs of Staff reviewing it for him tell me—that in their judgment their action has not been a military success. I am measuring my words. I don’t want to overstate the thing. We do not believe that we should help them in making it a psychological success. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968–69, Book 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), 159–161.

178. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Television Interview, February 4, 1968 [Excerpts] Introduction With the Communist Tet Offensive still raging in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk defend U.S.

1594

178. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Television Interview

Vietnam policy while answering questions put to them by NBC News State Department correspondent Elie Able.

Primary Source Able: Secretary McNamara, it is 3 years this week since we started bombing North Viet-Nam. It was also in ’65 that we started the big buildup on the ground. What happened this week? How do you relate the ability of the Viet Cong to stage as major an offensive as this one was to the efforts we have been making these past 3 years? McNamara: Three years ago, or more exactly, 2 1/2 years ago, in July of 1965, President Johnson made the decision—announced to our people the decision to move significant numbers of combat troops into South Viet-Nam. At that time the North Vietnamese and their associates, the Viet Cong, were on the verge of cutting the country in half and of destroying the South Vietnamese Army. We said so at the time, and I think hindsight has proven that a correct appraisal. What has happened since that time, of course, is that they have suffered severe losses, they have failed in their objective to destroy the Government of South Viet-Nam, they have failed in their objective to take control of the country. They have continued to fight. Just 4 days ago I remember reading in our press that I had presented a gloomy, pessimistic picture of activities in South VietNam. I don’t think it was gloomy or pessimistic; it was realistic. It said that while they had suffered severe penalties, they continued to have strength to carry out the attacks which we have seen in the last 2 or 3 days. Able: Mr. Secretary, are you telling us the fact that the Viet Cong, after all these years, were able to, temporarily at least, grab control of some 20-odd Provincial capitals and the city of Saigon, are you telling us this has no military meaning at all?

[. . .] Frankel: Secretary Rusk, the administration has naturally been stressing the things that they think the Viet Cong did not achieve in this week of attacks—didn’t cause an uprising, which you say may have been one of their goals, didn’t seize cities for any permanent period. But yet we have also been given to understand that the real name of this game out there is “Who can provide safety for whom?” And haven’t they in a very serious way humiliated our ability in major cities all up and down this country to provide the South Vietnamese population that is listed as clearly in our control with a degree of assurance and safety that South Vietnamese forces and American forces together could give them? Rusk: There is almost no way to prevent the other side from making a try. There is a way to prevent them from having a success. I said earlier that I thought there would be a number of South Vietnamese who would take a very grumpy view over the inability of the Government to protect them against some of the things that have happened in the last 3 or 4 days. But the net effect of the transaction is to make it clear that the Viet Cong are not able to come into these Provincial capitals and seize Provincial capitals and hold them; that they are not able to announce the formation of a new committee, or a coalition or a federation, and have it pick up any support in the country. That they are not able to undermine the solidarity of those who are supporting the Government. No; I think there is a psychological factor here that we won’t be able to assess until a week or two after the event, and I might say also that we know there is going to be some hard fighting ahead. We are not over this period at all. As a matter of fact, the major fighting up in the northern part of South Viet-Nam has not yet occurred, so there are some hard battles ahead. [. . .]

McNamara: No; certainly not. I think South Viet-Nam is such a complex situation—one must always look at the pluses and the minuses, and I don’t mean to say there haven’t been any minuses for the South Vietnamese in the last several days. I think there have been. But there have been many, many pluses. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong have not accomplished either one of their major objectives, either to ignite a general uprising or to force a diversion of the troops which the South Vietnamese and the United States have moved into the northern areas of South Viet-Nam, anticipating a major Viet Cong and North Vietnamese offensive in that area. And beyond that, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong have suffered very heavy penalties in terms of losses of weapons and losses of men in the past several days. They have, of course, dealt a very heavy blow to many of the cities of South Viet-Nam.

Frankel: Secretary McNamara, let me take advantage of your valedictory mood. Looking back over this long conflict and especially in this rather agonized week in Viet-Nam, if we had to do it all over again, would you make any major changes in our approach? McNamara: This is not an appropriate time for me to be talking of changes, with hindsight. There is no question but what 5 or 10 or 20 years from now the historians will find actions that might have been done differently. I am sure they will. . . . I am learning more and more about Viet-Nam every day. There is no question I see better today than I did 3 years ago or 5 years ago what might have been done there. On balance, I feel much the way the Asian leaders do. I think the action that this Government has followed, policies it has followed, the objectives it has had in Viet-Nam, are wise. I do

179. Senator Robert F. Kennedy Calls Vietnam an Unwinnable War not by any means suggest that we have not made mistakes over the many, many years that we have been pursuing those objectives. Frankel: You seem to suggest that we really didn’t—that none of us appreciated what we were really getting into. McNamara: I don’t think any of us predicted 7 years ago or 15 years ago the deployment of 500,000 men to Viet-Nam. I know I didn’t. Source: Peter Braestrup, Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington, Vol. 2 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1977), 95–111.

179. Senator Robert F. Kennedy Calls Vietnam an Unwinnable War, February 8, 1968 Introduction By February 1968 an overwhelming majority of Americans were opposed to the war or, more accurately, President Lyndon Johnson’s handling of it. Already in November 1967, antiwar senator Eugene McCarthy had announced his intention to challenge Johnson in the Democratic Party primaries. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York was edging toward the same challenge. On February 8, 1968, Kennedy publicly declares his opposition to the war.

Primary Source Our enemy, savagely striking at will across all of South Vietnam, has finally shattered the mask of official illusion with which we have concealed our true circumstances, even from ourselves. But a short time ago we were serene in our reports and predictions of progress. The Vietcong will probably withdraw from the cities, as they were forced to withdraw from the American Embassy. Thousands of them will be dead. But they will, nevertheless, have demonstrated that no part or person of South Vietnam is secure from their attacks: neither district capitals nor American bases, neither the peasant in his rice paddy nor the commanding general of our own great forces. No one can predict the exact shape or outcome of the battles now in progress, in Saigon or at Khesanh. Let us pray that we will succeed at the lowest possible cost to our young men. But whatever their outcome, the events of the last two weeks have taught us something. For the sake of those young Americans who

1595

are fighting today, if for no other reason, the time has come to take a new look at the war in Vietnam, not by cursing the past but by using it to illuminate the future. And the first and necessary step is to face the facts. It is to seek out the austere and painful reality of Vietnam, freed from wishful thinking, false hopes and sentimental dreams. It is to rid ourselves of the “good company,” of those illusions which have lured us into the deepening swamp of Vietnam. We must, first of all, rid ourselves of the illusion that the events of the past two weeks represent some sort of victory. That is not so. It is said the Vietcong will not be able to hold the cities. This is probably true. But they have demonstrated despite all our reports of progress, of government strength and enemy weakness, that half a million American soldiers with 700,000 Vietnamese allies, with total command of the air, total command of the sea, backed by huge resources and the most modern weapons, are unable to secure even a single city from the attacks of an enemy whose total strength is about 250,000. . . . For years we have been told that the measure of our success and progress in Vietnam was increasing security and control for the population. Now we have seen that none of the population is secure and no area is under sure control. Four years ago when we only had about 30,000 troops in Vietnam, the Vietcong were unable to mount the assaults on cities they have now conducted against our enormous forces. At one time a suggestion that we protect enclaves was derided. Now there are no protected enclaves. This has not happened because our men are not brave or effective, because they are. It is because we have misconceived the nature of the war: It is because we have sought to resolve by military might a conflict whose issue depends upon the will and conviction of the South Vietnamese people. It is like sending a lion to halt an epidemic of jungle rot. This misconception rests on a second illusion—the illusion that we can win a war which the South Vietnamese cannot win for themselves. You cannot expect people to risk their lives and endure hardship unless they have a stake in their own society. They must have a clear sense of identification with their own government, a belief they are participating in a cause worth fighting for. People will not fight to line the pockets of generals or swell the bank accounts of the wealthy. They are far more likely to close their eyes and shut their doors in the face of their government— even as they did last week.

1596

179. Senator Robert F. Kennedy Calls Vietnam an Unwinnable War

More than any election, more than any proud boast, that single fact reveals the truth. We have an ally in name only. We support a government without supporters. Without the efforts of American arms that government would not last a day. The third illusion is that the unswerving pursuit of military victory, whatever its cost, is in the interest of either ourselves or the people of Vietnam. For the people of Vietnam, the last three years have meant little but horror. Their tiny land has been devastated by a weight of bombs and shells greater than Nazi Germany knew in the Second World War. We have dropped 12 tons of bombs for every square mile in North and South Vietnam. Whole provinces have been substantially destroyed. More than two million South Vietnamese are now homeless refugees. Imagine the impact in our own country if an equivalent number—over 25 million Americans—were wandering homeless or interned in refugee camps, and millions more refugees were being created as New York and Chicago, Washington and Boston, were being destroyed by a war raging in their streets. Whatever the outcome of these battles, it is the people we seek to defend who are the greatest losers. Nor does it serve the interests of America to fight this war as if moral standards could be subordinated to immediate necessities. Last week, a Vietcong suspect was turned over to the chief of the Vietnamese Security Services, who executed him on the spot—a flat violation of the Geneva Convention on the Rules of War.

which we have already once defeated in battle, dares to seize an American ship and hold and humiliate her crew. The fifth illusion is that this war can be settled in our own way and in our own time on our own terms. Such a settlement is the privilege of the triumphant: of those who crush their enemies in battle or wear away their will to fight. We have not done this, nor is there any prospect we will achieve such a victory. Unable to defeat our enemy or break his will—at least without a huge, long and ever more costly effort—we must actively seek a peaceful settlement. We can no longer harden our terms every time Hanoi indicates it may be prepared to negotiate; and we must be willing to foresee a settlement which will give the Vietcong a chance to participate in the political life of the country. These are some of the illusions which may be discarded if the events of last week are to prove not simply a tragedy, but a lesson: a lesson which carries with it some basic truths. First, that a total military victory is not within sight or around the corner; that, in fact, it is probably beyond our grasp; and that the effort to win such a victory will only result in the further slaughter of thousands of innocent and helpless people—a slaughter which will forever rest on our national conscience. Second, that the pursuit of such a victory is not necessary to our national interest, and is even damaging that interest. Third, that the progress we have claimed toward increasing our control over the country and the security of the population is largely illusory.

The photograph of the execution was on front pages all around the world—leading our best and oldest friends to ask, more in sorrow than in anger, what has happened to America?

Fourth, that the central battle in this war cannot be measured by body counts or bomb damage, but by the extent to which the people of South Vietnam act on a sense of common purpose and hope with those that govern them.

The fourth illusion is that the American national interest is identical with—or should be subordinated to—the selfish interest of an incompetent military regime.

Fifth, that the current regime in Saigon is unwilling or incapable of being an effective ally in the war against the Communists.

We are told, of course, that the battle for South Vietnam is in reality a struggle for 250 million Asians—the beginning of a Great Society for all of Asia. But this is pretension.

Sixth, that a political compromise is not just the best path to peace, but the only path, and we must show as much willingness to risk some of our prestige for peace as to risk the lives of young men in war.

We can and should offer reasonable assistance to Asia; but we cannot build a Great Society there if we cannot build one in our own country. We cannot speak extravagantly of a struggle for 250 million Asians, when a struggle for 15 million in one Asian country so strains our forces, that another Asian country, a fourth-rate power

Seventh, that the escalation policy in Vietnam, far from strengthening and consolidating international resistance to aggression, is injuring our country through the world, reducing the faith of other peoples in our wisdom and purpose and weakening the world’s resolve to stand together for freedom and peace.

180. General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Report on the Situation in Vietnam 1597 Eighth, that the best way to save our most precious stake in Vietnam—the lives of our soldiers—is to stop the enlargement of the war, and that the best way to end casualties is to end the war.

to Vietnam by the end of the year and hold the remainder in the United States as a strategic reserve.

Ninth, that our nation must be told the truth about this war, in all its terrible reality, both because it is right—and because only in this way can any Administration rally the public confidence and unity for the shadowed days which lie ahead.

1. The Chairman, JCS and party visited SVN on 23, 24 and 25 February. This report summarizes the impressions and facts developed through conversations and briefings at MACV and with senior commanders throughout the country.

No war has ever demanded more bravery from our people and our Government—not just bravery under fire or the bravery to make sacrifices—but the bravery to discard the comfort of illusion—to do away with false hopes and alluring promises.

2. Summary

Reality is grim and painful. But it is only a remote echo of the anguish toward which a policy founded on illusion is surely taking us.

—There is no question in the mind of MACV that the enemy went all out for a general offensive and general uprising and apparently believed that he would succeed in bringing the war to an early successful conclusion.

This is a great nation and a strong people. Any who seek to comfort rather than speak plainly, reassure rather than instruct, promise satisfaction rather than reveal frustration—they deny that greatness and drain that strength. For today as it was in the beginning, it is the truth that makes us free. Source: U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., Vol. 119, no. 19 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968).

180. General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Report on the Situation in Vietnam, February 27, 1968 [Excerpts] Introduction In late February 1968 with the Communist Tet Offensive having been defeated, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General Earle G. Wheeler traveled to Saigon to confer with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), commander General William Westmoreland, who now saw an opportunity to pursue a more aggressive policy. With reinforcements Westmoreland could attack People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) base areas and sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia and even possibly cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail infiltration system fueling the insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). In discussing Vietnam troop requirements, the two generals settled on a figure of 206,756 additional men. Probably by design this represented the total of previous shortfalls in Westmoreland’s requests, but such a figure would also force mobilization of the reserve forces. Wheeler wanted to deploy about half this number

Primary Source

—The current situation in Vietnam is still developing and fraught with opportunities as well as dangers.

—The enemy failed to achieve this initial objectives but is continuing his effort. Although many of his units were badly hurt, the judgment is that he has the will and the capability to continue. —Enemy losses have been heavy; he has failed to achieve his prime objectives of mass uprisings and capture of a large number of the capital cities and towns. Morale in enemy units which were badly mauled or where the men were oversold the idea of a decisive victory at TET probably has suffered severely. However, with replacements, his indoctrination system would seem capable of maintaining morale at a generally adequate level. His determination appears to be unshaken. —The enemy is operating with relative freedom in the countryside, probably recruiting heavily and no doubt infiltrating NVA units and personnel. His recovery is likely to be rapid; his supplies are adequate; and he is trying to maintain the momentum of his winter-spring offensive. —The structure of the GVN held up but its effectiveness has suffered. —The RVNAF held up against the initial assault with gratifying, and in a way, surprising strength and fortitude. However, ARVN is now in a defensive posture around towns and cities and there is concern about how well they will bear up under sustained pressure. —The initial attack nearly succeeded in a dozen places, and defeat in those places was only averted by the timely reaction of US forces. In short, it was a very near thing. —There is no doubt that the RD Program has suffered a severe set back.

1598

180. General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Report on the Situation in Vietnam

—RVNAF was not badly hurt physically—they should recover strength and equipment rather quickly (equipment in 2–3 months—strength in 3–6 months). Their problems are more psychological than physical.

in paragraph 6 Enclosure (1)). Besides strength losses, the enemy now has morale and training problems which currently limit combat effectiveness of VC guerrilla, main and local forces. (Discussions of forces are in paragraphs 2, 5, Enclosure (1)).

—US forces have lost none of their pre-TET capability.

(a) I Corps Tactical Zone: Strong enemy forces in the northern two provinces threaten Quang Tri and Hue cities, and US positions at the DMZ. Two NVA divisions threaten Khe Sanh. Eight enemy battalion equivalents are in the Danang-Hoi An area. Enemy losses in I CTZ have been heavy, with about 13,000 killed; some NVA as well as VC units have been hurt badly. However, NVA replacements in the DMZ area can offset these losses fairly quickly. The enemy has an increased artillery capability at the DMZ, plus some tanks and possibly even a limited air threat in I CTZ.

—MACV has three principal problems. First, logistic support north of Danang is marginal owing to weather, enemy interdiction and harassment and the massive deployment of US forces into the DMZ/Hue area. Opening Route 1 will alleviate this problem but takes a substantial troop commitment. Second, the defensive posture of ARVN is permitting the VC to make rapid inroads in the formerly pacified countryside. ARVN, in its own words, is in a dilemma as it cannot afford another enemy thrust into the cities and towns and yet if it remains in a defensive posture against this contingency, the countryside goes by default. MACV is forced to devote much of its troop strength to this problem. Third, MACV has been forced to deploy 50% of all US maneuver battalions into I Corps, to meet the threat there, while stripping the rest of the country of adequate reserves. If the enemy synchronizes an attack against Khe Sanh/Hue–Quang Tri with an offensive in the Highlands and around Saigon while keeping the pressure on throughout the remainder of the country, MACV will be hard pressed to meet adequately all threats. Under these circumstances, we must be prepared to accept some reverses. —For these reasons, General Westmoreland has asked for a 3 division–15 tactical fighter squadron force. This force would provide him with a theater reserve and an offensive capability which he does not now have. 3. The situation as it stands today:

(b) II Corps Tactical Zone: The 1st NVA Division went virtually unscathed during TET offensive, and represents a strong threat in the western highlands. Seven combat battalion equivalents threaten Dak To. Elsewhere in the highlands, NVA units have been hurt and VC units chopped up badly. On the coast, the 3rd NVA Division had already taken heavy losses just prior to the offensive. The 5th NVA Division, also located on the coast, is not in good shape. Local force strength in coastal II CTZ had dwindled long before the offensive. The enemy’s strength in II CTZ is in the highlands where enemy troops are fresh and supply lines short. (c) III CTZ: Most of the enemy’s units were used in the TET effort, and suffered substantial losses. Probably the only major unit to escape heavy losses was the 7th NVA Division. However, present dispositions give the enemy the continuing capability of attacking the Saigon area with 10 to 11 combat effective battalion equivalents. His increased movement southward of supporting arms and infiltration of supplies has further developed his capacity for attacks by fire.

a. Enemy capabilities (1) The enemy has been hurt badly in the populated lowlands, but is practically intact elsewhere. He committed over 67,000 combat maneuver forces plus perhaps 25% or 17,000 more impressed men and boys, for a total of about 84,000. He lost 40,000 killed, at least 3,000 captured, and perhaps 5,000 disabled or died of wounds. He had peaked his force total to about 240,000 just before TET, by hard recruiting, infiltration, civilian impressment, and drawdowns on service and guerrilla personnel. So he has lost about one fifth of his total strength. About two-third of his trained, organized unit strength can continue offensive action. He is probably infiltrating and recruiting heavily in the countryside while allied forces are securing the urban areas. (Discussions of strengths and recruiting are in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Enclosure (1)). The enemy has adequate munitions, stockpiled in-country and available through the DMZ, Laos, and Cambodia, to support major attacks and countrywide pressure; food procurement may be a problem. (Discussion is

(d) IV Corps Tactical Zone: All enemy forces were committed in IV Corps, but losses per total strength were the lightest in the country. The enemy continues to be capable of investing or attacking cities throughout the area. (2) New weapons or tactics: We may see heavier rockets and tube artillery, additional armor, and the use of aircraft, particularly in the I CTZ. The only new tactic in view is infiltration and investment of cities to create chaos, to demoralize the people, to discredit the government, and to tie allied forces to urban security. . . . 4. What does the future hold? a. Probable enemy strategy. (Reference paragraph 7b, Enclosure (1)). We see the enemy pursuing a reinforced offensive to enlarge

180. General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Report on the Situation in Vietnam 1599 his control throughout the country and keep pressures on the government and allies. We expect him to maintain strong threats in the DMZ area, at Khe Sanh, in the highlands, and at Saigon, and to attack in force when conditions seem favorable. He is likely to try to gain control of the country’s northern provinces. He will continue efforts to encircle cities and province capitals to isolate and disrupt normal activities, and infiltrate them to create chaos. He will seek maximum attrition of RVNAF elements. Against US forces, he will emphasize attacks by fire on airfields and installations, using assaults and ambushes selectively. His central objective continues to be the destruction of the Government of SVN and its armed forces. As a minimum he hopes to seize sufficient territory and gain control of enough people to support establishment of the groups and committees he proposes for participation in an NLF dominated government. b. MACV Strategy: (1) MACV believes that the central thrust of our strategy now must be to defeat the enemy offensive and that if this is done well, the situation overall will be greatly improved over the pre-TET condition. (2) MACV accepts the fact that its first priority must be the security of Government of Vietnam in Saigon and provincial capitals. MACV describes its objectives as: —First, to counter the enemy offensive and to destroy or eject the NVA invasion force in the north. —Second, to restore security in the cities and towns. —Third, to restore security in the heavily populated areas of the countryside. —Fourth, to regain the initiative through offensive operations. c. Tasks: (1) Security of Cities and Government. MACV recognizes that US forces will be required to reinforce and support RVNAF in the security of cities, towns and government structure. At this time, 10 US battalions are operating in the environs of Saigon. It is clear that this task will absorb a substantial portion of US forces. (2) Security in the Countryside. To a large extent the VC now control the countryside. Most of the 54 battalions formerly providing security for pacification are now defending district or province towns. MACV estimates that US forces will be required in a number of places to assist and encourage the Vietnamese Army to leave

the cities and towns and reenter the country. This is especially true in the Delta. (3) Defense of the borders, the DMZ and the northern provinces. MACV considers that it must meet the enemy threat in I Corps Tactical Zone and has already deployed there slightly over 50% of all US maneuver battalions. US forces have been thinned out in the highlands, notwithstanding an expected enemy offensive in the early future. (4) Offensive Operations. Coupling the increased requirement for the cities and subsequent reentry into the rural areas, and the heavy requirement for defense of the I Corps Zone, MACV does not have adequate forces at this time to resume the offensive in the remainder of the country, nor does it have adequate reserves against the contingency of simultaneous large-scale enemy offensive action throughout the country. 5. Force Requirements: a. Forces currently assigned to MACV, plus the residual Program Five forces yet to be delivered, are inadequate in numbers and balance to carry out the strategy and to accomplish the tasks described above in the proper priority. To contend with, and defeat, the new enemy threat, MACV has stated requirements for forces over the 525,000 ceiling imposed by Program Five. The add-on requested totals 206,756 spaces for a new proposed ceiling of 731,756, with all forces being deployed into country by the end of CY 68. Principal forces included in the add-on are three division equivalents, 15 tactical fighter squadrons and augmentation for current Navy programs. MACV desires that these additional forces be delivered in three packages as follows: (1) Immediate Increment, Priority One: To be deployed by 1 May 68. Major elements include one brigade of the 5th Mechanized Division with a mix of one infantry, one armored and one mechanized battalion; the Fifth Marine Division (less RLT-26); one armored cavalry regiment; eight tactical fighter squadrons; and a groupment of Navy units to augment on-going programs. (2) Immediate Increment, Priority Two: To be deployed as soon as possible but prior to 1 Sep. 68. Major elements include the remainder of the 5th Mechanized Division, and four tactical fighter squadrons. It is desirable that the ROK Light Division be deployed within this time frame. Follow-On Increment: To be deployed by the end of CY 68. Major elements include one infantry division, three tactical fighter squadrons, and units to further augment Navy Programs. Source: The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (New York: Quadrangle, 1971), 628–634.

1600

181. Walter Cronkite Criticizes U.S. Policy

181. Walter Cronkite Criticizes U.S. Policy, February 27, 1968 [Excerpts] Introduction CBS News television anchorman Walter Cronkite was often held to be “the most trusted man in America.” Upon returning from a trip to Vietnam to report on conditions there following the Communist Tet Offensive, Cronkite announces on the evening news that he believes that the United States is not winning the war but is in fact “mired in stalemate” there. President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly lamented that “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” Although Cronkite was certainly not the only American journalist to take that position, he was the most influential and wellrespected reporter to do so.

Primary Source Walter Cronkite: These ruins are in Saigon, capital and largest city of South Vietnam. They were left here by an act of war, Vietnamese against Vietnamese. Hundreds died here. Here in these ruins can be seen physical evidence of the Vietcong’s Tet offensive, but far less tangible is what those ruins mean, and like everything else in this burned and blasted and weary land, they mean success or setback, victory or defeat, depending upon whom you talk to. President Nguyen Van Thieu: I believe it gives to the VC, it shows first to the VC that the—the Vietnamese people from whom they hoped to have a general uprising, and to welcome the VC in the cities, this is a very bad test for them. Nguyen Xuan Oanh (critic of government): I think the people have realized now that there [are] no secure areas. Your own home in the heart of the city is not secure. I am stunned myself when I see that the Vietcong can come to your door and open the door and just kill you instantly, without any warning, and without any protection from the government. Cronkite: There are doubts about the measure of success or setback, but even more, there are doubts about the exact measure of the disaster itself. All that is known with certainty is that on the first two nights of the Tet Lunar New Year, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Regular Forces, violating the truce agreed on for that holiday, struck across the entire length of South Vietnam, hitting the largest 35 cities, towns, and provincial capitals. How many died and how much damage was done, however, are still but approximations, despite the official figures. The very preciseness of the figures brings them under suspicion. Anyone who has wandered through these ruins knows that an exact count is impossible. Why, just a short while ago a little old man came and told us that two VC were buried in a hastily

dug grave up at the end of the block. Had they been counted? And what about these ruins? Have they gone through all of them for buried civilians and soldiers? And what about those 14 VC we found in the courtyard behind the post office at Hue? Had they been counted and tabulated? They certainly hadn’t been buried. We came to Vietnam to try to determine what all this means to the future of the war here. We talked to officials, top officials, civilian and military, Vietnamese and American. We toured damaged areas like this, and refugee centers. We paid a visit to the Battle at Hue, and to the men manning the northernmost provinces, where the next big communist offensive is expected. All of this is the subject of our report. . . . We’d like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another stand-off may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khe Sanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige, and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff. On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won’t show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another stand-off. We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that—negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer’s almost certain stand-off will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of 100-, or 200-, or 300,000 more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

182. A Communist Party Evaluation of the 1968 Tet Offensive To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. Source: Peter Braestrup, Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington, Vol. 2 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1977), 180–189.

182. A Communist Party Evaluation of the 1968 Tet Offensive, March 1968 Introduction In its Resolution No. 6, the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the organization controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and running the Communist military effort in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), analyzes the recent Communist Tet Offensive. The document trumpets as successes that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and U.S. troops have been forced to defend the cities of South Vietnam and that the Communist forces have “liberated” 1.5 million Vietnamese. The report also addresses failures, chief among them being the inability to bring about a general uprising against the South Vietnamese government. COSVN leaders also seek to rally the rank and file for renewed military efforts to bring final victory.

Primary Source I. Great and unprecedented successes recorded in all fields during the first-month phase of the General Offensive and General Uprising. Since the beginning of Spring this year, the “Anti-U.S. National Salvation” resistance war of our people in the South has entered a new phase: In this phase of General Offensive and General Uprising, after a month of continuous offensives and simultaneous uprisings conducted on all battlefields in the South, we have recorded great and unprecedented victories in all fields, inflicting on the enemy heavier losses than those he had suffered in any previous period. 1. We wore down, annihilated and disintegrated almost one-third of the puppet troops’ strength, wore down and annihilated about

1601

one-fifth of U.S. combat forces, one-third of the total number of aircraft, one-third of the total number of mechanized vehicles, and an important part of U.S. and puppet material installations; destroyed and forced to surrender or withdraw one-third of the enemy military posts, driving the enemy into an unprecedentedly awkward situation: from the position of the aggressor striving to gain the initiative through a two-prong tactic [military action and rural pacification], the enemy has withdrawn into a purely passive and defensive position, with his forces dispersed on all battlefields in the South for the purpose of defending the towns, cities and the main lines of communications. The struggle potential and morale of U.S. and puppet troops have seriously weakened because our army and people have dealt thundering blows at them everywhere, even at their principal lairs, and because they are facing great difficulties in replenishing troops and replacing war facilities destroyed during the past month. 2. We attacked all U.S.-puppet nerve centers, occupied and exerted our control for a definite period and at varying degrees over almost all towns, cities and municipalities in the South, and destroyed and disintegrated an important part of puppet installations at all levels, seriously damaging the puppet administrative machinery. 3. We liberated additional wide areas in the countryside containing a population of 1.5 million inhabitants; consolidated and widened our rear areas, shifted immense resources of manpower and material, which had been previously robbed by the enemy in these areas, to the support of the front-line and of victory; encircled and isolated the enemy, and reduced the enemy’s reserves of human and material resources, driving him into a very difficult economic and financial situation. 4. We have quantitatively and qualitatively improved our armed forces and political forces which have become outstandingly mature during the struggle in the past month. Our armed forces have progressed in many aspects, political organizations are being consolidated and have stepped forward, much progress has been realized in leadership activities and methods and we have gained richer experiences. The above-mentioned great and unprecedented successes in all fields have strongly encouraged and motivated compatriots in towns and cities and areas under temporary enemy control to arise to seize the state power, have created a lively and enthusiastic atmosphere and inspired a strong confidence in final victory among compatriots in both the North and the South. These successes have moreover won the sympathy and support of the socialist countries and the world’s progressive people (including the U.S. progressive people) for our people’s revolutionary cause, seriously isolated the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys, deepened their internal contradictions and thereby weakened the U.S. will of aggression.

1602

182. A Communist Party Evaluation of the 1968 Tet Offensive

The above-mentioned great successes in all fields have been recorded thanks to the clear-sighted and correct policy, line and strategic determination of the Party, the wise and resolute leadership of the Party Central Committee, the correct implementation of the Party’s policy and line by Nam Truong and Party committee echelons, the sacrifice and devotion of all Party cadres and members who have in an exemplary manner carried out the Party’s strategic determination, the eagerness for independence and freedom of the people in the South who are ready to shed their blood in exchange for independence and freedom, the absolute loyalty to the Party’s and masses’ revolution of the People’s armed forces who have fought with infinite courage, the great assistance from the northern rear area and brotherly socialist countries, and the sympathy and support from the world people. We have won great successes but still have many deficiencies and weak points: 1. In the military field—From the beginning, we have not been able to annihilate much of the enemy’s live force and much of the reactionary clique. Our armed forces have not fulfilled their role as “lever” and have not created favorable conditions for motivating the masses to arise in towns and cities. 2. In the political field—Organized popular forces were not broad and strong enough. We have not had specific plans for motivating the masses to the extent that they would indulge in violent armed uprisings in coordination with and supporting the military offensives. 3. The puppet troop proselyting failed to create a military revolt movement in which the troops would arise and return to the people’s side. The enemy troop proselyting task to be carried out in coordination with the armed struggle and political struggle has not been performed, and inadequate attention had been paid to this in particular. 4. There has not been enough consciousness about specific plans for the widening and development of liberated rural areas and the appropriate mobilization of manpower, material resources and the great capabilities of the masses to support the front line. 5. The building of real strength and particularly the replenishment of troops and development of political forces of the infrastructure has been slow and has not met the requirements of continuous offensives and uprisings of the new phase. 6. In providing leadership and guidance to various echelons, we failed to give them a profound and thorough understanding of the Party’s policy, line and strategic determination so that they have a correct and full realization of this phase of General Offensive and General Uprising. The implementation of our policies has not been

sharply and closely conducted. We lacked concreteness, our plans were simple, our coordination poor, control and prodding were absent, reporting and requests for instructions were much delayed. The above-mentioned deficiencies and weak points have limited our successes and are, at the same time, difficulties which we must resolutely overcome. II. The present form of the war between the enemy and us and prospects of future developments. 1. Our present “Anti-U.S. National Salvation” resistance war has a very new form and is more favorable to us than ever. a. We are in a completely active and offensive position; we have brought the war into towns and cities, the enemy’s rear areas and important and densely populated areas close to towns and cities; our rear areas have increasingly expanded to form a strong, linked-up position which gradually and tightly encircles the enemy’s last strong points. Throughout the three areas, the masses have continuously risen up and strengthened their position of mastery with a higher and higher revolutionary spirit. In towns and cities particularly, in the face of the enemy’s recent murderous and savage actions against the people, including puppet troops’ and civil servants’ dependents, the masses, boiling with anger, have been supporting our troops and awaiting favorable occasions to arise, eradicating wicked [enemy] individuals, sweeping the enemy’s state power, and building the people’s revolutionary state power. All intermediary classes of people are leaning toward the revolution’s side. b. The enemy is in a passive position, being encircled, divided and dispersed on all battlefields. He is facing difficulties in all aspects such as: a stalemate in strategy; passiveness in tactics; difficulties in replenishing troops and replacing war facilities which had been destroyed; difficulties in the economic field because of the restriction of their reserve of manpower and material resources. Because of their serious isolation in the political field and the state of confusion of the puppet army, the puppet regime is gradually losing authority and running toward total failure. 2. Although the enemy is suffering heavy defeat and is in a passive and confused situation, he still has strength and is very stubborn. In his death throes he will resort to more murderous and savage actions. He will massacre the people, thrust out to break the encirclement and create many new difficulties for us. The struggle between the enemy and us will become fiercer, particularly in areas adjoining the towns and cities. Therefore, we must be extremely vigilant, urgently and actively exploit our past successes, overcome all difficulties and hardships with determination to secure final victory and be ready to fight vigorously should the war be prolonged and widened.

183. President Lyndon Johnson: Televised Address However, it must be clearly realized that this will be but the enemy’s convulsions before death, his reaction from a weak, not a strong position. The situation will continue to develop in a way favorable to us and detrimental to the enemy with the possibility of sudden developments which we must be ready to take advantage of in order to secure final victory. Source: Viet-Nam Documents and Research Notes, No. 38 (Saigon: U.S. Mission in Viet Nam, July 1968).

183. President Lyndon Johnson: Televised Address, March 31, 1968 [Excerpts] Introduction Compounding problems for President Lyndon Johnson, 1968 was an election year. On March 12 in New Hampshire, anti–Vietnam War senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota stunned Johnson by winning 42 percent of the vote in that state’s Democratic primary (although many of those voting for McCarthy were in fact signaling their displeasure with Johnson for not using greater military force). This prompted antiwar senator Robert Kennedy of New York to join the race. Worried Democratic Party leaders urged the president to do something dramatic to bolster his sagging popularity. On March 31 in a televised address to the nation, Johnson reiterates his Vietnam policies and also announces a halt in the bombing of most of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). Then at the close of his remarks he stuns the nation by announcing that given the nature of the challenges, he cannot in good conscience devote even “an hour” of his time to “personal partisan causes” or to anything other than the “awesome duties” of the presidency and that he will neither seek nor accept another term as president.

Primary Source Good evening, my fellow Americans. Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Viet-Nam and Southeast Asia. No other question so preoccupies our people. No other dream so absorbs the 250 million human beings who live in that part of the world. No other goal motivates American policy in Southeast Asia. For years, representatives of our Government and others have traveled the world seeking to find a basis for peace talks.

1603

productive discussions—and that we would assume that North Viet-Nam would not take military advantage of our restraint. Hanoi denounced this offer, both privately and publicly. Even while the search for peace was going on, North Viet-Nam rushed their preparations for a savage assault on the people, the Government, and the allies of South Viet-Nam. Their attack—during the Tet holidays—failed to achieve its principal objectives. It did not collapse the elected government of South Viet-Nam or shatter its army, as the Communists had hoped. It did not produce a “general uprising” among the people of the cities, as they had predicted. The Communists were unable to maintain control of any of the more than 30 cities that they attacked. And they took very heavy casualties. But they did compel the South Vietnamese and their allies to move certain forces from the countryside into the cities. They caused widespread disruption and suffering. Their attacks, and the battles that followed, made refugees of half a million human beings. The Communists may renew their attack any day. They are, it appears, trying to make 1968 the year of decision in South VietNam—the year that brings, if not final victory or defeat, at least a turning point in the struggle. This much is clear: If they do mount another round of heavy attacks, they will not succeed in destroying the fighting power of South Viet-Nam and its allies. But tragically, this is also clear: Many men—on both sides of the struggle—will be lost. A nation that has already suffered 20 years of warfare will suffer once again. Armies on both sides will take new casualties. And the war will go on. There is no need for this to be so. There is no need to delay the talks that could bring an end to this long and this bloody war.

Since last September, they have carried the offer that I made public at San Antonio.

Tonight I renew the offer I made last August—to stop the bombardment of North Viet-Nam. We ask that talks begin promptly, that they be serious talks on the substance of peace. We assume that during those talks Hanoi will not take advantage of our restraint.

That offer was this: that the United States would stop its bombardment of North Viet-Nam when that would lead promptly to

We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations. So tonight, in the hope that this action will lead to

1604

183. President Lyndon Johnson: Televised Address

early talks, I am taking the first step to deescalate the conflict. We are reducing—substantially reducing—the present level of hostilities. And we are doing so unilaterally and at once.

Tonight, we and the other allied nations are contributing 600,000 fighting men to assist 700,000 South Vietnamese troops in defending their little country.

Tonight I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Viet-Nam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens Allied forward positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat.

Our presence there has always rested on this basic belief: The main burden of preserving their freedom must be carried out by them—by the South Vietnamese themselves.

The area in which we are stopping our attacks includes almost 90 percent of North Viet-Nam’s population and most of its territory. Thus there will be no attacks around the principal populated areas or in the food-producing areas of North Viet-Nam. Even this very limited bombing of the North could come to an early end if our restraint is matched by restraint in Hanoi. But I cannot in good conscience stop all bombing so long as to do so would immediately and directly endanger the lives of our men and our allies. Whether a complete bombing halt becomes possible in the future will be determined by events. Our purpose in this action is to bring about a reduction in the level of violence that now exists. It is to save the lives of brave men and to save the lives of innocent women and children. It is to permit the contending forces to move closer to a political settlement. And tonight I call upon the United Kingdom and I call upon the Soviet Union, as cochairmen of the Geneva conferences and as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, to do all they can to move from the unilateral act of deescalation that I have just announced toward genuine peace in Southeast Asia. Now, as in the past, the United States is ready to send its representatives to any forum, at any time, to discuss the means of bringing this ugly war to an end. I am designating one of our most distinguished Americans, Ambassador Averell Harriman, as my personal representative for such talks. In addition, I have asked Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, who returned from Moscow for consultation, to be available to join Ambassador Harriman at Geneva or any other suitable place just as soon as Hanoi agrees to a conference. I call upon President Ho Chi Minh to respond positively and favorably to this new step toward peace. But if peace does not come now through negotiations, it will come when Hanoi understands that our common resolve is unshakable and our common strength is invincible.

We and our allies can only help to provide a shield behind which the people of South Viet-Nam can survive and can grow and develop. On their efforts—on their determinations and resourcefulness—the outcome will ultimately depend. . . . The actions that we have taken since the beginning of the year to reequip the South Vietnamese forces; to meet our responsibilities in Korea, as well as our responsibilities in Viet-Nam; to meet price increases and the cost of activating and deploying Reserve forces; to replace helicopters and provide the other military supplies we need—all of these actions are going to require additional expenditures. The tentative estimate of those additional expenditures is $2.5 billion in this fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the next fiscal year. These projected increases in expenditures for our national security will bring into sharper focus the Nation’s need for immediate action, action to protect the prosperity of the American people and to protect the strength and the stability of our American dollar. On many occasions I have pointed out that without a tax bill or decreased expenditures next year’s deficit would again be around $20 billion. I have emphasized the need to set strict priorities in our spending. I have stressed that failure to act—and to act promptly and decisively—would raise very strong doubts throughout the world about America’s willingness to keep its financial house in order. Yet Congress has not acted. And tonight we face the sharpest financial threat in the post-war era—a threat to the dollar’s role as the keystone of international trade and finance in the world. . . . One day, my fellow citizens, there will be peace in Southeast Asia. It will come because the people of Southeast Asia want it—those whose armies are at war tonight and those who, though threatened, have thus far been spared. Peace will come because Asians were willing to work for it—and to sacrifice for it—and to die by the thousands for it. But let it never be forgotten: Peace will come also because America sent her sons to help secure it.

183. President Lyndon Johnson: Televised Address It has not been easy—far from it. During the past 4–1/2 years, it has been my fate and my responsibility to be Commander in Chief. I lived daily and nightly with the cost of this war. I know the pain that it has inflicted. I know perhaps better than anyone the misgivings that it has aroused. Throughout this entire long period, I have been sustained by a single principle: that what we are doing now in Viet-Nam is vital not only to the security of Southeast Asia, but it is vital to the security of every American. Surely we have treaties which we must respect. Surely we have commitments that we are going to keep. Resolutions of the Congress testify to the need to resist aggression in the world and in Southeast Asia. But the heart of our involvement in South Viet-Nam—under three different Presidents, three separate administrations—has always been America’s own security.

1605

And in these times as in times before, it is true that a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand. There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all peoples. So I would ask all Americans, whatever their personal interests or concern, to guard against divisiveness and all its ugly consequences. Fifty-two months and 10 days ago, in a moment of tragedy and trauma, the duties of this Office fell upon me. I asked then for your help and God’s, that we might continue America on its course, binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity, to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all of our people.

And the larger purpose of our involvement has always been to help the nations of Southeast Asia become independent and stand alone, self-sustaining as members of a great world community— at peace with themselves and at peace with all others.

United we have kept that commitment. United we have enlarged that commitment.

With such an Asia, our country—and the world—will be far more secure than it is tonight.

Through all time to come, I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, and a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement.

I believe that a peaceful Asia is far nearer to reality because of what America has done in Viet-Nam. I believe that the men who endure the dangers of battle—fighting there for us tonight—are helping the entire world avoid far greater conflicts, far wider wars, far more destruction, than this one. The peace that will bring them home some day will come. Tonight I have offered the first in what I hope will be a series of mutual moves toward peace. I pray that it will not be rejected by the leaders of North Viet-Nam. I pray that they will accept it as a means by which the sacrifices of their own people may be ended. And I ask your help and your support, my fellow citizens, for this effort to reach across the battlefield toward an early peace. . . . Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only. For 37 years in the service of our nation, first as a Congressman, as a Senator and as Vice President and now as your President, I have put the unity of the people first. I have put it ahead of any divisive partisanship.

Our reward will come in the life of freedom, peace, and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead. What we won when all of our people united must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people. Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this Office—the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President. But let men everywhere know, however, that a strong, a confident, and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable

1606

184. Secret Cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to COSVN

peace—and stands ready tonight to defend an honored cause— whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifices that duty may require. Thank you for listening. Good night and God bless all of you. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968–69, Book 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), 469–476.

184. Secret Cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to COSVN, April 3, 1968 [Excerpts] Introduction On April 3, 1968, the Politburo of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) sent a cable to the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the Communist headquarters in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) running the war there, informing the Communist leaders in South Vietnam of its planned response to President Lyndon Johnson’s actions in ordering a halt to the bombing of most, but not all, of North Vietnam and calling on the Communist side to enter into peace talks with the United States.

Primary Source As the result of our massive victories in all areas, military, political, and diplomatic, especially the victories we won in the general offensive and uprisings during the Tet Lunar New Year, the situation on the battlefield in South Vietnam and the situation in the U.S. and throughout the world is developing in directions that are very favorable to us and very unfavorable for the enemy. Because of major political, social, and economic problems, because of the ferocious struggles going on within American leadership circles, especially during the primary elections in the U.S., and because of powerful pressure from U.S. and world public opinion, Johnson has been forced to “restrict the bombing” of North Vietnam. . . . The Politburo has decided that on the diplomatic front, both North and South Vietnam [North Vietnam and the NLF] must continuously launch sharp and effective attacks against the enemy aimed at supporting our effort to secure even greater military and political victories, at winning even wider sympathy and support from our [the socialist] camp, from the people of the world, and from the American people, and at deepening the contradictions within American political circles, the contradictions between the U.S. and their puppets, the contradictions within the puppet camp,

and the contradictions between the U.S. and the other imperialist countries in order to further isolate the enemy. . . . To achieve these goals, North Vietnam’s government has already issued a public statement that . . . initiates another step in our stratagem by announcing that we have selected a representative who is prepared to meet with an American representative to confirm that the U.S. will unconditionally end the bombing and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam so that talks may begin. . . . The Politburo believes that at this time the National Liberation Front must issue a solemn statement presenting its position regarding a political settlement in South Vietnam and announce that it is prepared to enter into talks with the United States based on the Front’s position. The content of the Front’s statement will consist of three parts: a) An affirmation of the Front’s determination to fight and to win victory, written in strong, resolute language; b) An exposition of the Front’s position on a political settlement for South Vietnam . . . ; c) An expression of willingness to talk to the U.S. on the basis of the Front’s position. This statement will be issued approximately one week after the [North Vietnamese] government’s statement. Because this statement must be issued quickly, the Politburo has instructed our staffs up here [in North Vietnam] to draft the statement. The Politburo will review the statement and have it released. We wanted to give COSVN advance notice of what we are doing. . . . Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 29, 1968 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 29, 1968] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2004), 203–205. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

185. COSVN Directive, June 10, 1968 [Excerpt] Introduction In May 1968 in hopes of strengthening their hand in the Paris Peace Talks, which opened on May 13, the North Vietnamese opened the second phase of their General Offensive, which the Americans dubbed “Mini Tet.” The Communist rallying cry was “Blood in May, Peace in June.” Although occurring countrywide, these attacks were nowhere near the level of the Tet Offensive and consisted principally of rocket and mortar attacks against cities, towns, and U.S. installations. Widely anticipated by authorities of the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), Mini Tet ended in extensive Communist casualties and failure. Nonetheless, the Communist side here claims that they have achieved a significant victory and that they retain the military initiative.

186. President Lyndon Johnson: Announcement of U.S. Bombing Halt 1607

Primary Source 3. Four main weak points stood out in the second phase: —Militarily, our attacks were concentrated upon main targets, whereas secondary targets were neglected, or were not attacked as vigorously as they should have been. —The uprising of the people was slow and scattered. —Troop proselyting was deplorably weak. —Development of our political armed forces and the strengthening of rear areas was poor. These four reasons limited our success. . . . Viewed objectively, our second phase was launched under conditions where the enemy had been warned [officially deleted] and had strengthened his defensive system. We therefore met considerable difficulties created by him. In addition, we did not have enough time for the Party Branches and people to assimilate the resolutions of the Party which caused the forces of the Party, army and people to be less than fully prepared. Subjectively, these weak points and deficiencies originated from our lack of efforts which can be illustrated as follows: First: We still did not sharply and profoundly assimilate the basic lines of the Party’s policy and strategic determination. We did not fully understand the characteristics of the new phase. From the basic assumption that the General Offensive/General Uprising was a “one blow affair” to the realization that it was a phase [of operations], there was a tendency to consider it as a “protracted” struggle and a failure to view it as a phase of continuous offensives and uprising which require a positive urgency in gaining success every hour and every minute. We did not correctly take into consideration the relationship that existed between attacks and uprisings; armed forces and political forces; urban and rural areas; killing the enemy, destroying his key agencies in cities, bases and liberation of the rural areas; attack and building of strength; main points and secondary points; firmness and intrepidity, etc. . . . Second: In the face of the rigors of war, our ideological indoctrination was not thorough, opportune or persevering, and our soldiers were not taught how to thoroughly rid themselves of their rightist and shirking attitudes. Among cadre and Party members, including some at leadership levels, inaccurate estimations of the enemy and friendly situations still existed. (They viewed the enemy’s forces without considering his serious weaknesses and remarked only on our own difficulties, without realizing the huge potential of our people and the opportunity that was increasingly open for us.) They lacked zeal in attacking the enemy and they were hesitant and sheep-like. They lost their self-confidence, feared to make sacrifices, suffered hardships and had very little sense of responsibility.

Third: The leadership plan at all levels was deficient and the performance of tasks was too simple and lackadaisical. There was no thorough understanding of the Party’s policy and strategic determination in general and of the requirements of the second phase in particular. Leadership was not “total, continuous, expedient or daring. . . .” Furthermore, it failed to transform itself into a tool for the people, as it did not realize the potential of the local areas. Leadership at various levels also lacked a sense of urgency and motivation. Close coordination among various levels was poor. The Standing Committee of Nam Truong loosely coordinated with the regions, the regions with the provinces, the provinces with the districts, etc. . . . [sic] A number of Party Committee echelons and cadre did not keep pace with the requirements of the new phase. They were slow, hesitating and reluctant. Fourth: Two Party branches and popular organizations in the cities and rural areas were as poor in quantity as they were in quality. The Party Committee echelons did not pay enough attention to strengthening leadership and developing the Party’s basic structures in accordance with the requirements of the new phase. These four causes limited our successes, and at the same time, constitute very great obstacles to the future implementation of the strategic determination of the Party. We must do our best to overcome these obstacles with a resolute Revolutionary spirit and a very high sense of responsibility. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 151.

186. President Lyndon Johnson: Announcement of U.S. Bombing Halt, October 31, 1968 [Excerpt] Introduction During negotiations in Paris, U.S. representative W. Averell Harriman reached an understanding with his counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The U.S. would halt the bombing unconditionally, and Hanoi would then cease rocket attacks and shelling cities in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and would respect the demilitarized zone (DMZ). “Meaningful” peace talks would then begin. Although South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu was strongly opposed, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson on October 31 announced the bombing halt, in effect ending Operation ROLLING THUNDER. The North Vietnamese responded as agreed. The halt in the bombing, long sought by Democratic Party presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, who had been edging up in the polls,

1608

186. President Lyndon Johnson: Announcement of U.S. Bombing Halt

came too late to save his candidacy. Republican Richard Nixon won a narrow election victory a week later.

Primary Source Good evening my fellow Americans: I speak to you this evening about very important developments in our search for peace in Vietnam. We have been engaged in discussions with the North Vietnamese in Paris since last May. The discussions began after I announced on the evening of March 31 in a television speech to the nation that the United States—in an effort to get talks started on a settlement of the Vietnam war—had stopped the bombing of North Vietnam in the area where 90 percent of the people live. When our representatives—Ambassador Harriman and Ambassador Vance—were sent to Paris, they were instructed to insist throughout the discussions that the legitimate elected government of South Vietnam must take its place in any serious negotiations affecting the future of South Vietnam. Therefore, our Ambassadors Harriman and Vance made it abundantly clear to the representatives of North Vietnam in the beginning that—as I had indicated on the evening of March 31—we would stop the bombing of North Vietnamese territory entirely when that would lead to prompt and productive talks, meaning by that talks in which the Government of Vietnam was free to participate. Our Ambassadors also stressed that we could not stop the bombing so long as by doing so we would endanger the lives and the safety of our troops. For a good many weeks, there was no movement in the talks at all. The talks appeared to really be deadlocked. Then a few weeks ago, they entered a new and a very much more hopeful phase. As we moved ahead, I conducted a series of very intensive discussions with our allies, and with the senior military and diplomatic officers of the U.S. Government, on the prospect for peace. The President also briefed our congressional leaders and all of the presidential candidates. Last Sunday evening, and throughout Monday, we began to get confirmation of the essential understanding that we had been seeking with the North Vietnamese on the critical issues between us for some time. I spent most of all day Tuesday reviewing every single detail of this matter with our field commander, General Abrams, whom I had ordered home, and who arrived here at the White House at 2:30 in the morning and went into immediate conference with the President and the appropriate members of his Cabinet. We received General Abrams’ judgment and we heard his recommendations at some length. Now, as a result of all of these developments, I have now ordered that all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam cease as of 8 a.m., Washington time, Friday morning. I have

reached this decision on the basis of the developments in the Paris talks. And I have reached it in the belief that this action can lead to progress toward a peaceful settlement of the Vietnamese war. I have already informed the three presidential candidates, as well as the congressional leaders of both the Republican and Democratic Parties of the reasons that the Government has made this decision. This decision very closely conforms to the statements that I have made in the past concerning a bombing cessation. It was on August 19 that the President said: “This administration does not intend to move further until it has good reasons to believe that the other side intends seriously, seriously, to join us in deescalating the war and moving seriously toward peace.” Then again on September 10, I said: “The bombing will not stop until we are confident that it will not lead to an increase in American casualties.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff, all military men have assured me—and General Abrams firmly asserted to me on Tuesday in that early, 2:30 a.m. meeting—that in their military judgment this action should be taken now, and this action would not result in any increase in American casualties. A regular session of the Paris talks will take place on Wednesday, November 6, at which the representatives of the Government of South Vietnam are free to participate. We are informed by the representatives of the Hanoi Government that the representatives of the National Liberation Front will also be present. I emphasize that their attendance in no way involves recognition of the National Liberation Front in any form. Yet, it conforms to the statements that we have made many times over the years that the NLF would have no difficulty making its views known. What we now expect—what we have a right to expect—are prompt, productive, serious and intensive negotiations in an atmosphere that is conducive to progress. We have reached the stage where productive talks can begin. We have made clear to the other side that such talks cannot continue if they take military advantage of them. We cannot have productive talks in an atmosphere where the cities are being shelled and where the demilitarized zone is being abused. I think I should caution you, my fellow Americans, that arrangements of this kind are never foolproof. For that matter, even formal treaties are never foolproof, as we have learned from our experience. But in the light of the progress that has been made in recent weeks, and after carefully considering and weighing the unanimous military and diplomatic advice and judgment

187. National Security Study Memorandum No. 1 tendered to the Commander in Chief, I have finally decided to take this step now and to really determine the good faith of those who have assured us that progress will result when bombing ceases and to try to ascertain if an early peace is possible. The overriding consideration that governs us at this hour is the chance and the opportunity that we might have to save human lives, save human lives on both sides of the conflict. Therefore, I have concluded that we should see if they are acting in good faith. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968–69, Book 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), 1099–1103.

187. National Security Study Memorandum No. 1, January 21, 1969 [Excerpts] Introduction

1609

4. The enemy have suffered some reverses but they have not changed their essential objectives and they have sufficient strength to pursue these objectives. We are not attriting his forces faster than he can recruit or infiltrate. 5. The enemy is not in Paris primarily out of weakness. The disagreements within these parameters are reflected in two schools in the government with generally consistent membership. The first school, which we will call Group A, usually includes MACV, CINCPAC, JCS and Embassy Saigon, and takes a hopeful view of current and future prospects in Vietnam within the parameters mentioned. The second school, Group B, usually includes OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense], CIA and (to a lesser extent) State, and is decidedly more skeptical about the present and pessimistic about the future. There are, of course, disagreements within agencies across the board or on specific issues. As illustration, these schools line up as follows on some of the broader questions:

Dr. Henry Kissinger, named by President-elect Richard Nixon as his national security adviser, asked his staff to draw up a list of 28 major questions. These were then submitted to the federal agencies involved in Vietnam policy. The answers ran 548 pages, which are summarized in the document below. Opinions run from relative optimism to relative pessimism, but there is general agreement that the Communist side is negotiating in Paris from strength and that Communist forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) are fully capable of defeating South Vietnamese armed forces should the United States withdraw.

In explaining reduced enemy military presence and activities, Group A gives greater relative weight to allied military pressure than does Group B.

Primary Source

In looking at the political scene, Group A accents recent improvements while Group B highlights remaining obstacles and the relative strength of the NLF.

The responses to the questions posed regarding Vietnam show agreement on some matters as well as very substantial differences of opinion within the U.S. Government on many aspects of the Vietnam situation. While there are some divergencies on the facts, the sharpest differences arise in the interpretation of those facts, the relative weight to be given them, and the implications to be drawn. In addition, there remain certain areas where our information remains inadequate. There is general agreement, assuming we follow our current strategy, on the following— 1. The GVN and allied position in Vietnam has been strengthened recently in many respects.

The improvements in RVNAF are considered much more significant by Group A than Group B. Group A underlines advancements in the pacification program, while Group B is skeptical both of the evaluation system used to measure progress and of the solidity of recent advances.

Group A assigns much greater effectiveness to bombing in Vietnam and Laos than Group B. Following is a summary of the major conclusions and disagreements about each of six broad areas with regard to Vietnam: the negotiating environment, enemy capabilities, RVNAF capabilities, pacification, South Vietnamese politics, and U.S. military operations. . . . Negotiating Environment

2. The GVN has improved its political position, but it is not certain that GVN and other non-communist groups will be able to survive a peaceful competition with the NLF for political power in South Vietnam. 3. The RVNAF alone cannot now, or in the foreseeable future, stand up to the current North Vietnamese-Viet Cong forces.

There is general U.S. government agreement that Hanoi is in Paris for a variety of motives but not primarily out of weakness; that Hanoi is charting a course independent of Moscow, which favors negotiations, and of Peking, which opposes them; and that our knowledge of possible political factions among North Vietnamese leaders is extremely imprecise. There continues wide

1610

187. National Security Study Memorandum No. 1

disagreement about the impact on Southeast Asia of various outcomes in Vietnam.

Intelligence dissent. Within State, the Bureau of Intelligence supports the NIE while the East Asian Bureau dissents.

Various possible North Vietnamese motives for negotiating are discussed, and there is agreement that the DRV is in Paris for mixed reasons. No U.S. agency responding to the questions believes that the primary reason the DRV is in Paris is weakness. All consider it unlikely that Hanoi came to Paris either to accept a face-saving formula for defeat or to give the U.S. a face-saving way to withdraw. There is agreement that Hanoi has been subject to heavy military pressure and that a desire to end the losses and costs of war was an element in Hanoi’s decision. The consensus is that Hanoi believes that it can persist long enough to obtain a relatively favorable negotiated compromise. The respondents agree that the DRV is in Paris to negotiate withdrawal of U.S. forces, to undermine GVN and USG [U.S. government] relations and to provide a better chance for FV victory in the South. State believes that increased doubt about winning the war through continued military and international political pressure also played a major role. Hanoi’s ultimate goal of a unified Vietnam under its control has not changed.

Both the majority and the dissenters reject the view that an unfavorable settlement in Viet-Nam will inevitably be followed by Communist takeovers outside Indo China.

There continues to be a sharp debate between and within agencies about the effect of the outcome in Vietnam on other nations. The most recent NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] on this subject (NIE 50-58) tended to downgrade the so-called “domino theory.” It states that a settlement which would permit the Communists to take control of the Government in South Viet-Nam, not immediately but within a year or two, would be likely to bring Cambodia and Laos into Hanoi’s orbit at a fairly early state, but that these developments would not necessarily unhinge the rest of Asia. The NIE dissenters believe that an unfavorable settlement would stimulate the Communists to become more active elsewhere and that it will be difficult to resist making some accommodation to the pressure than generated. They believe, in contrast to the Estimate, these adjustments would be relatively small and insensitive to subsequent U.S. policy. Factors entering into the judgments are estimates of (1) Hanoi’s and Peking’s behavior after the settlement; (2) U.S. posture in the regions; (3) Asian leaders’ estimates of future U.S. policy; (4) the reactions of the area’s non-Communist leaders to the outcome in Viet-Nam; (5) vulnerabilities of the various governments to insurgency or subversion, and (6) the strengths of opposition groups within each state. The assessments rest more on judgments and assumptions than on tangible and convincing evidence, and there are major disagreements within the same Department. Within the Defense Department, OSD and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] support the conclusions of the NIE, while Army, Navy and Air Force

Indeed, even the dissenters, by phrasing the adverse results in terms such as “pragmatic adjustments” by the Thais and “some means of accommodation” leave it unclear how injurious the adverse effects would be to U.S. security. . . . The Enemy Analyses of various enemy tactics and capabilities reveal both significant agreements and sharp controversies within the Government. Among the major points of consensus: A combination of military pressures and political tacts explains recent enemy withdrawals and lower levels of activity. Under current rules of engagement, the enemy’s manpower pool and infiltration capabilities can outlast allied attrition efforts indefinitely. The enemy basically controls both side’s casualty rates. The enemy can still launch major offensives, although not at Tet levels, or, probably, with equally dramatic effect. Major controversies include: CIA and State assign much higher figures to the VC Order of Battle than MACV, and they include additional categories of VC/NLF organization. MACV/JCS and Saigon consider Cambodia (and specifically Sihanoukville) an important enemy supply channel while CIA disagrees strongly. . . . It is generally agreed that the NVN/VC manpower pool is sufficiently large to meet the enemy’s replenishment needs over an extended period of time within the framework of current rules of engagement. According to the JCS, “The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong have access to sufficient manpower to meet their replenishment needs— even at the high 1968 loss rate of some 291,000—for at least the next several years. . . . Present operations are not outrunning the enemy’s ability to replenish by recruitment or infiltration.” The South Vietnamese Armed Forces The emphatic differences between U.S. agencies on the RVNAF outweigh the points of agreement. There is consensus that the

187. National Security Study Memorandum No. 1

1611

RVNAF is getting larger, better equipped and somewhat more effective. And all agree that it could not now, or in the foreseeable future, handle both the VC and sizable NVA forces without U.S. combat support. On other major points there is vivid controversy. The military community gives much greater weight to RVNAF statistical improvements while OSD and CIA highlight remaining obstacles, with OSD being the most pessimistic. Paradoxically, MACV/CINPAC/JCS see RVNAF as being less capable against the VC alone than does CIA. . . .

(2) What is being done to strengthen it for the coming political struggle with the NLF? (3) What are the prospects for continued non-Communist government in South Vietnam?

Pacification

Within these broad thrusts of the responses there are decided differences of emphasis among the agencies. Thus MACV/JCS and Saigon, while acknowledging the problems, accent more the increasing stability of the Thieu regime and the overall political system; the significance of the moves being made by the GVN to bolster its strength; and the possibility of continued nonCommunist rule in South Vietnam given sufficient U.S. support. CIA and OSD on the other hand, while acknowledging certain progress, are decidedly more skeptical and pessimistic. They note recent political improvements and GVN measures but they tend to deflate their relative impact and highlight the remaining obstacles. State’s position, while not so consistent or clear-cut, generally steers closer to the bearishness of OSD and CIA. . . .

Two well-defined and divergent views emerged from the agencies on the pacification situation in South Vietnam. One view is held by MACV and Embassy Saigon and endorsed by CINCPAC and JCS. The other view is that of OSD, CIA and State. The two views are profoundly different in terms of factual interpretation and policy implications. Both views agree on the nature of the problem, that is, the obstacles to improvement and complete success. What distinguishes one view from the other is each’s assessment of the magnitude of the problem, and the likelihood that obstacles will be overcome. The first group, consisting of MACV JCS Saigon, maintains that “at the present time, the security situation is better than any time during period in question,” i.e., 1961–1968. MACV cites a “dramatic change in the security situation,” and finds that the GVN controls three-fourths of the population. JCS suggests that the GVN will control 90% of the population in 1969. The second group, OSD CIA State, on the other hand, is more cautious and pessimistic, their view is not inconsistent with another Tet-offensive-like-shock in the countryside, for example, wiping out the much-touted gains of the 1968 Accelerated Pacification Program, or with more gradual erosion. Representing the latter view, OSD arrives at the following conclusions: (1) “The portions of the SVN rural population aligned with the VC and aligned with the GVN are apparently the same today as in 1962 [a discouraging year]: 5,000,000 GVN aligned and nearly 3,000,000 VC aligned. (2) “At the present, it appears that at least 50% of the total rural population is subject to significant VC presence and influence.” CIA agrees, and State (INR) [Bureau of Intelligence and Research] goes even further, saying: “Our best estimate is that the VC have a significant effect on at least two-thirds of the rural population.”

The essence of the replies from U.S. agencies is as follows: (1) Stronger recently than for many years but still very weak in certain areas and among various elites. (2) Some steps are being taken but these are inadequate. (3) Impossible to predict but chancy at best.

U.S. Military Operations The only major points of agreement with the U.S. Government on these subjects are: The description of recent U.S. deployment and tactics; The difficulties of assessing the results of B-52 strikes, but their known effectiveness against known troop concentrations and in close support operations; The fact that the Soviets and Chinese supply almost all war material to Hanoi and have enabled the North Vietnamese to carry on despite all our operations. Otherwise there are fundamental disagreements running throughout this section, including the following: OSD believes, the MACV/JCS deny, that there is a certain amount of “fat” in our current force levels that could be cut back without significant reduction in combat capability. MACV/JCS and, somewhat more cautiously CIA ascribe much higher casualty estimates to our B-52 strikes.

The Political Scene This section on the political situation can be boiled down to three fundamental questions: (1) How strong is the GVN today?

MACV/JCS assign very much greater effectiveness to our past and current Laos and North Vietnam bombing campaigns than do OSD and CIA.

1612

188. Nguyen Van Thieu: Address to the National Assembly

MACV/JCS believe that a vigorous bombing campaign could choke off enough supplies to Hanoi to make her stop fighting, while OSD and CIA see North Vietnam continuing the struggle even against unlimited bombing. Source: U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), E4977–E4981.

188. Nguyen Van Thieu: Address to the National Assembly, April 7, 1969 Introduction On April 7, 1969, in a speech to the National Assembly of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), President Nguyen Van Thieu presented his own six-point program for peace in South Vietnam and the reunification of the two Vietnamese states.

Primary Source Today, in this forum, I wish to solemnly confirm once more to the world, to our allies, to our fellow countrymen, and to our enemy that in our constant search for a constructive solution to the conflict, we consider that the following six points constitute a reasonable and solid basis for the restoration of peace in Viet-Nam: 1. Communist aggression should stop. Communist North Viet-Nam should give up its attempts to conquer the RVN by force. It should stop violating the DMZ and the frontiers of the RVN, and stop its wanton attacks against the innocent population of the RVN. 2. Communist North Vietnamese and auxiliary troops and cadres should be completely withdrawn from the Republic of Viet-Nam. As the military and subversive forces of Communist North VietNam are withdrawn, infiltration ceases, and the level of violence thus subsides, the RVN will ask its allies to remove their forces, in accordance with the Manila joint-communique of seven nations in October, 1966. 3. The territories of the neighboring countries of the RVN should not be violated and used by Communist North Viet-Nam as bases and staging areas for aggression against the RVN. Communist North Vietnamese troops and cadres illegally introduced and stationed in Laos and Cambodia should be withdrawn from these countries. Communist North Viet-Nam military installations in these countries should be dismantled.

4. The RVN adopts the policy of National Reconciliation. Those now fighting against us, who renounce violence, respect the laws, and faithfully abide by the democratic processes, will be welcomed as full members of the National Community. As such, they will enjoy full political rights and assume the same obligations as other lawful citizens under the National Constitution. 5. The reunification of the two Viet-Nams is to be decided by the free choice of the entire population of Viet-Nam through democratic processes. To establish the atmosphere conducive to national reunification, after peace has been reestablished, modalities of economic and cultural exchanges between the two Viet-Nams and other countries of this area, can be actively explored, together with other intermediary measures of peaceful coexistence so that, pending reunification, the two Viet-Nams can participate more fully and more constructively in the various undertakings of the international community. 6. There must be an effective system of international control and reliable international guarantees against the resumption of Communist aggression. The control mechanisms should be freed from the paralyzing effects of the Veto system. It should have sufficient personnel and adequate means to detect any violation of peace agreement. When violations are committed, and aggression is renewed, there should be prompt and effective response from a reliable system of international guarantees, otherwise any peace agreement will be only a sham device used by the Communists to weaken our system of defense, and not a basis for long lasting peace and stability for this part of the world. Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), 437–438.

189. President Richard Nixon: Televised Address, May 14, 1969 [Excerpt] Introduction In the course of a televised address to the American people on May 14, 1969, U.S. president Richard Nixon addressed the matter of negotiations to end the war in Vietnam. The centerpiece was a mutual military withdrawal. In his remarks, Nixon says that he is prepared to withdraw U.S. forces on a specified timetable if the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV,

189. President Richard Nixon: Televised Address North Vietnam) will do the same—not only from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) but also from neighboring Laos and Cambodia—to ensure that these nations would not serve as bases for a renewed war. Internationally supervised elections can then take place. The actual U.S. negotiating position was more demanding, however.

Primary Source And so this brings us to the matter of negotiations. We must recognize that peace in Vietnam cannot be achieved overnight. A war that has raged for many years will require detailed negotiations and cannot be settled by a single stroke. What kind of a settlement will permit the South Vietnamese people to determine freely their own political future? Such a settlement will require the withdrawal of all non–South Vietnamese forces, including our own, from South Vietnam, and procedures for political choice that give each significant group in South Vietnam a real opportunity to participate in the political life of the nation. To implement these principles, I reaffirm now our willingness to withdraw our forces on a specified timetable. We ask only that North Vietnam withdraw its forces from South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos into North Vietnam, also in accordance with a timetable. We include Cambodia and Laos to ensure that these countries would not be used as bases for a renewed war. Our offer provides for a simultaneous start on withdrawal by both sides, for agreement on a mutually acceptable timetable, and for the withdrawal to be accomplished quickly.

1613

a dramatic step forward, a reasonable offer that could lead to a settlement. The South Vietnamese Government has offered to talk without preconditions. I believe the other side should also be willing to talk without preconditions. The South Vietnamese Government recognizes, as we do, that a settlement must permit all persons and groups that are prepared to renounce the use of force to participate freely in the political life of South Vietnam. To be effective, such a settlement would require two things: first, a process that would allow the South Vietnamese people to express their choice, and, second, a guarantee that this process would be a fair one. We do not insist on a particular form of guarantee. The important thing is that the guarantees should have the confidence of the South Vietnamese people, and that they should be broad enough and strong enough to protect the interests of all major South Vietnamese groups. This, then, is the outline of the settlement that we seek to negotiate in Paris. Its basic terms are very simple: mutual withdrawal of non-South Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam and free choice for the people of South Vietnam. I believe that the long-term interests of peace require that we insist on no less, and that the realities of the situation require that we seek no more. And now, to make very concrete what I have said, I propose the following specific measures which seem to me consistent with the principles of all parties. These proposals are made on the basis of full consultation with President Thieu. —As soon as agreement can be reached, all non-South Vietnamese forces would begin withdrawals from South Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese delegates have been saying in Paris that political issues should be discussed along with military issues, and that there must be a political settlement in the South. We do not dispute this, but the military withdrawal involves outside forces, and can, therefore, be properly negotiated by North Vietnam and the United States, with the concurrence of its allies.

—Over a period of 12 months, by agreed-upon stages, the major portions of all U.S., allied, and other non-South Vietnamese forces would be withdrawn. At the end of this 12-month period, the remaining U.S., allied, and other non-South Vietnamese forces would move into designated base areas and would not engage in combat operations.

The political settlement is an internal matter which ought to be decided among the South Vietnamese themselves, and not imposed by outsiders. However, if our presence at these political negotiations would be helpful, and if the South Vietnamese concerned agreed, we would be willing to participate, along with the representatives of Hanoi, if that also were desired.

—The remaining U.S. and allied forces would complete their withdrawals as the remaining North Vietnamese forces were withdrawn and returned to North Vietnam.

Recent statements by President Thieu have gone far toward opening the way to a political settlement. He has publicly declared his Government’s willingness to discuss a political solution with the National Liberation Front, and has offered free elections. This was

—An international supervisory body, acceptable to both sides, would be created for the purpose of verifying withdrawals, and for any other purposes agreed upon between the two sides. —This international body would begin operating in accordance with an agreed timetable and would participate in arranging supervised cease-fires in Vietnam.

1614

190. COSVN Resolution No. 9

—As soon as possible after the international body was functioning, elections would be held under agreed procedures and under the supervision of the international body.

Nixon could also renew the bombing and expand the war into both Laos and Cambodia.

—Arrangements would be made for the release of prisoners of war on both sides at the earliest possible time.

On our part, the outstanding point is that, on the basis of thoroughly understanding the Central Committee’s strategic determination, we have achieved obvious progress since the Spring of 1969 to date in applying the guidelines and methods of struggling and building, both in military and political fields, and making them more fitting to the rules of the General Offensive and Uprising; especially, we have applied and developed the direction and method of fighting with high efficiency which caused very heavy losses to the enemy at very light cost in friendly casualties; we have applied and developed the guidelines and methods for operations in the three areas designed to win and hold control of the weak areas, the areas bordering the cities and parts of the cities and municipalities. This is an improvement in the quality of our Party body’s leadership and guidance aimed at securing a more thorough understanding of the Central Committee’s lines, policies, and resolutions and fully applying them in a most fitting way to the practical realities of the General Offensive and Uprising in our war theater. This [improvement] has opened up vast possibilities for our army and people to fight strongly and sustainedly, to become stronger as they fight, to win bigger victories as they fight, to launch strong military attacks at the same time as they launch strong political offensives in the cities and countryside, to firmly hold and expand the liberated areas, to widen our mastership, to secure our strategic positions, and to keep up and develop our offensive position and our encirclement of the enemy, especially on the major battlefield under extremely fierce and complicated [fighting] conditions of our war theater. . . .

—All parties would agree to observe the Geneva Accords of 1954 regarding South Vietnam and Cambodia, and the Laos Accords of 1962. I believe this proposal for peace is realistic, and takes account of the legitimate interests of all concerned. It is consistent with President Thieu’s six points. It can accommodate the various programs put forth by the other side. We and the Government of South Vietnam are prepared to discuss the details with the other side. Secretary Rogers is now in Saigon and he will be discussing with President Thieu how, together, we may put forward these proposed measures most usefully in Paris. He will, as well, be consulting with our other Asian allies on these measures while on his Asian trip. However, I would stress that these proposals are not offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. We are quite willing to consider other approaches consistent with our principles. We are willing to talk about anybody’s program—Hanoi’s 4 points, the NLF’s [National Liberation Front] 10 points—provided it can be made consistent with the very few basic principles I have set forth here tonight. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 372–374.

Primary Source

Introduction

However, the General Offensive and Uprising is a phase which marks a leap forward of our people’s revolutionary warfare; it requires more than ever a strong impulse and improvement in leadership and guidance. Yet the reality of the recent past indicated that the leadership and guidance of our authorities at various echelons did not meet these objective requirements; worse still, in some places and at times, this leadership and guidance evolved too slowly.

In the course of its Ninth Conference, the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the Communist headquarters running the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), claims that its military effort beginning with the 1968 Tet Offensive has tipped the war in its favor. In this document, COSVN claims that proof of this can be seen in the de-escalation of the U.S. military effort in Vietnam and the negotiations in Paris that include not only representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) but also of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) in South Vietnam, the rival Communist government for South Vietnam formed in June 1969. While optimistic that Nixon will be forced to seek an early end to the war, COSVN warns that

a. The key issue which is the origin of all shortcomings and weak points in the leadership and guidance of our authorities at various echelons during the recent period lies in the fact that we did not thoroughly comprehend the basic problems of the General Offensive and Uprising and problems relating to [Party] policies and guidelines; worse still, in some places and at times we made serious mistakes both in ideological concepts, viewpoints, and standpoints, and in the supervision of policy execution. A few of our cadres and Party members, including those at Region and Province Party Committee levels, are usually superficial and narrow-minded in assessing our strength and the enemy’s; they

190. COSVN Resolution No. 9, July 1969 [Excerpts]

191. Final Statement of Ho Chi Minh only see the manifestations [of things] and fail to see their nature, they overestimate the enemy and underestimate the revolutionary capacities of the masses; therefore, when faced with difficulties, they become skeptical and lack resolution vis-à-vis the Central Committee’s strategic determination; and they lose interest in attacking, which is the highest principle of the General Offensive and Uprising. Because they are not firmly anchored in the working class standpoint, they lack absolute determination, and their thinking is subjective and superficial; therefore, they usually have an erroneous conception of the transitional nature of the General Offensive and Uprising, now thinking it is a one-blow affair and consequently lacking vigilance against the enemy plots, now thinking it is a period of protracted struggle and consequently lacking boldness and a sense of urgency; worse still, they become right-leaning and shrink back from action. Part II. Future Enemy Schemes and Our Immediate Tasks The Americans’ subjective intention is to carry out the precept of deescalating [the war] step by step; to strive to seize the initiative in a passive position; to win a strong position on the battlefield as they de-escalate; to de-escalate in order to “de-Americanize” the war but not to immediately end the war; to reinforce the puppet army as American troops are withdrawn; to have necessary time for having appropriate de-escalation steps; and at every de-escalation step, to strive to launch partial counter-offensives infierce competition with our forces. b. At present, there is very little possibility that the enemy will carry out a massive troop build-up and expand the limited war to the whole country; however, we still need to keep our alertness. There are two possible developments to the war as follows: One: In the process of de-escalating the war, the Americans may suffer increasing losses and encounter greater difficulties; therefore they may be forced to seek an early end to the war through a political solution which they cannot refuse. Even in this case, there will be a period of time from the signing of the agreement ending the war until all American troops are withdrawn from South Viet-Nam. During this period of time, our struggle against the enemy will go on with extreme complexity and we will have to be extremely alert. Two: If our attacks in all aspects are not sufficiently strong and if the Americans are able to temporarily overcome part of their difficulties, they will strive to prolong the war in South Viet-Nam for a certain period of time during which they will try to de-escalate from a strong position of one sort or another, and carry out the de-Americanization in a prolonged war contest before they must admit defeat and accept a political solution. In both these eventualities, especially in the case of a prolonged de-escalation, the Americans may, in certain circumstances, put

1615

pressure on us by threatening to broaden the war through the resumption of bombing in North Viet-Nam within a definite scope and time limit, or the expansion of the war into Laos and Cambodia. Whether the war will develop according to the first or second eventuality depends principally on the strength of our attacks in the military, political and diplomatic fields, especially our military and political attacks, and on the extent of military, political, economic and financial difficulties which the war causes to the Americans in Viet-Nam, in the U.S.A. itself, and over the world. Source: U.S. Embassy Vietnam, COSVN: Resolution No. 9 (Saigon: U.S. Embassy Vietnam, 1969).

191. Final Statement of Ho Chi Minh, September 9, 1969 Introduction President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) did not live to see the reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule. He died of a heart attack on September 2, 1969, on the anniversary of his independence speech in 1945. In this statement, released a week after his death, Ho anticipates his own death and calls for the building of a “peaceful unified, independent, democratic and prosperous Vietnam.”

Primary Source Our people’s struggle against U.S. aggression, for national salvation, may have to go through even more difficulties and sacrifices, but we are bound to win total victory. This is a certainty. I intend, when that comes, to tour both North and South to congratulate our heroic compatriots, cadres and combatants, and visit old people and our beloved youth and children. Then, on behalf of our people, I will go to the fraternal countries of the socialist camp and friendly countries in the world, and thank them for their wholehearted support and assistance to our people’s patriotic struggle against U.S. aggression. Tu Fu, the well-known Chinese poet of the T’ang period, wrote: “Few have ever reached the age of seventy.” This year, being seventy-nine, I count among those “few”; still, my mind has remained very lucid, though my health has somewhat declined in comparison with previous years. When one is on the wrong side of seventy, health deteriorates with age. This is no wonder.

1616

191. Final Statement of Ho Chi Minh

But who can say how much longer I shall be able to serve the revolution, the Fatherland and the people? I therefore leave these few lines in anticipation of the day when I shall go and join Karl Marx, V. I. Lenin and other elder revolutionaries; this way, our people throughout the country, our comrades in the Party, and our friends in the world will not be taken by surprise. First about the Party: Thanks to its close unity and total dedication to the working class, the people and the Fatherland, our Party has been able, since its founding, to unite, organize and lead our people from success to success in a resolute struggle. Unity is an extremely precious tradition of our Party and people. All comrades, from the Central Committee down to the cell, must preserve the unity and oneness of mind in the Party as the apple of their eye. Within the Party, to achieve broad democracy and to practice selfcriticism and criticism regularly and seriously is the best way to consolidate and further solidarity and unity. Comradely affection should prevail. Ours is a Party in power. Each Party member, each cadre, must be deeply imbued with revolutionary morality, and show industry, thrift, integrity, uprightness, total dedication to public interests and complete selflessness. Our Party should preserve absolute purity and prove worthy of its role as leader and very loyal servant of the people. About the working youth and union members and our young people: On the whole they are excellent; they are always ready to come forward, fearless of difficulties and eager for progress. The Party must foster their revolutionary virtues and train them as our successors, both “red” and “expert,” in the building of socialism. Training and educating future revolutionary generations is of great importance and necessity. About our laboring peoples: In the plains as in the mountain areas, they have for ages endured hardships, feudal and colonial oppression and exploitation; they have moreover experienced many years of war. Yet, our people have shown great heroism, courage, enthusiasm and industriousness. They have always followed the Party since it came into being, with unqualified loyalty. The Party must work out a very effective plan for economic and cultural development constantly to raise the living standard of the people.

About the resistance war against U.S. aggression: It may drag on. Our compatriots may have to face new sacrifices in property and life. Whatever may happen, we must keep firm our resolve to fight the U.S. aggressors till total victory. Our rivers, our mountains, our people will always be. The American aggressors defeated, we will build a country ten times more beautiful. Whatever difficulties and hardships may be ahead, our people are sure of total triumph. The U.S. imperialists shall have to quit. Our Fatherland shall be reunified. Our compatriots in the North and in the South shall be reunited under the same roof. We, a small nation, will have earned the unique honor of defeating, through a heroic struggle, two big imperialisms—the French and the American—and making a worthy contribution to the national liberation movement. About the world communist movement: Having devoted my whole life to the revolution, I am proud of the growth of the international communist and workers’ movement as well as grieved at the dissensions now dividing the fraternal parties. I hope that our Party will do its best to contribute effectively to the restoration of unity among the fraternal parties on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, in a way which conforms to both reason and sentiment. I am sure that the fraternal parties and countries will have to unite again. About personal matters: All my life, I have served the Fatherland, the revolution and the people with all my heart and strength. If I should now depart from this world, I would regret nothing, except not being able to serve longer and more. When I am gone, grand funerals should be avoided so as not to waste the people’s time and money. Finally, to the whole people, the whole Party, the whole army, to my nephews and nieces, the youth and children, I leave my boundless love. I also convey my cordial greetings of our comrades and friends, to the youth and children of the world. My ultimate wish is that our whole Party and people, closely joining their efforts, build a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic and prosperous Vietnam, and make a worthy contribution to the world revolution. Source: Viet-Nam Documents and Research Notes, No. 68 (Saigon: U.S. Mission in Viet Nam, 1969), 59–61.

192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization

1617

192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization, November 3, 1969

* 540,000 Americans were in Vietnam with no plans to reduce the number.

Introduction

* No progress had been made at the negotiations in Paris and the United States had not put forth a comprehensive peace proposal.

Although touted as beginning under President Richard Nixon, Vietnamization—the building up of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and turning more of the war over to them—actually began in the last year of the Lyndon Johnson administration. In the course of this televised address to the American people on November 3, 1969, Nixon traces the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and his hopes for Vietnamization. Unfortunately, Vietnamization did not work as hoped. Although the South Vietnamese armed forces were larger and better equipped, the same problems remained: too few qualified officers, poor leadership, inability to maintain sophisticated equipment, and rampant corruption. In the course of this speech, Nixon also enunciates what becomes known as the Nixon Doctrine. The United States will honor its current treaty negotiations and provide a nuclear umbrella for its key allies. In the case of aggression, the United States will provide military and economic assistance only.

Primary Source Good evening, my fellow Americans. Tonight I want to talk to you on a subject of deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world—the war in Vietnam. I believe that one of the reasons for the deep division about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their Government has told them about our policy. The American people cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overriding issues of war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy. Tonight, therefore, I would like to answer some of the questions that I know are on the minds of many of you listening to me. How and why did America get involved in Vietnam in the first place? How has this administration changed the policy of the previous administration? What has really happened in the negotiations in Paris and on the battlefront in Vietnam? What choices do we have if we are to end the war? What are the prospects for peace? Now, let me begin by describing the situation I found when I was inaugurated on January 20: * The war had been going on for 4 years. 1,000 Americans had been killed in action. * The training program for the South Vietnamese was behind schedule.

* The war was causing deep division at home and criticism from many of our friends as well as our enemies abroad. In view of these circumstances there were some who urged that I end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces. From a political standpoint this would have been a popular and easy course to follow. After all, we became involved in the war while my predecessor was in office. I could blame the defeat which would be the result of my action on him and come out as the peacemaker. Some put it to me quite bluntly: This was the only way to avoid allowing Johnson’s war to become Nixon’s war. But I had a greater obligation than to think only of the years of my administration and of the next election. I had to think of the effect of my decision on the next generation and on the future of peace and freedom in America and in the world. Let us all understand that the question before us is not whether some Americans are for peace and some Americans are against peace. The question at issue is not whether Johnson’s war becomes Nixon’s war. The great question is: How can we win America’s peace? Well, let us turn now to the fundamental issue. Why and how did the United States become involved in Vietnam in the first place? Fifteen years ago North Vietnam, with the logistical support of Communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a Communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution. In response to the request of the Government of South Vietnam, President Eisenhower sent economic aid and military equipment to assist the people of South Vietnam in their efforts to prevent a Communist takeover. Seven years ago, President Kennedy sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisers. Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam. Now, many believe that President Johnson’s decision to send American combat forces to South Vietnam was wrong. And many others—I among them—have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted.

1618

192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization

But the question facing us today is: Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it? In January I could only conclude that the precipitate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster not only for South Vietnam but for the United States and for the cause of peace.

This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace—in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere. Ultimately, this would cost more lives. It would not bring peace; it would bring more war.

For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allow the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North 15 years before. They then murdered more than 50,000 people and hundreds of thousands more died in slave labor camps. We saw a prelude of what would happen in South Vietnam when the Communists entered the city of Hue last year. During their brief rule there, there was a bloody reign of terror in which 3,000 civilians were clubbed, shot to death, and buried in mass graves. With the sudden collapse of our support, these atrocities of Hue would become the nightmare of the entire nation—and particularly for the million and a half Catholic refugees who fled to South Vietnam when the Communists took over in the North. For the United States, this first defeat in our Nation’s history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in Asia but throughout the world. Three American Presidents have recognized the great stakes involved in Vietnam and understood what had to be done. In 1963, President Kennedy, with his characteristic eloquence and clarity, said: . . . we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independence. We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there. President Eisenhower and President Johnson expressed the same conclusion during their terms of office. For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would thus be a disaster of immense magnitude. A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends. Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest.

For these reasons, I rejected the recommendation that I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all of our forces. I chose instead to change American policy on both the negotiating front and battlefront. In order to end a war fought on many fronts, I initiated a pursuit for peace on many fronts. In a television speech on May 14, in a speech before the United Nations, and on a number of other occasions I set forth our peace proposals in great detail. We have offered the complete withdrawal of all outside forces within 1 year. We have proposed a cease-fire under international supervision. We have offered free elections under international supervision with the Communists participating in the organization and conduct of the elections as an organized political force. And the Saigon Government has pledged to accept the result of the elections. We have not put forth our proposals on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. We have indicated that we are willing to discuss the proposals that have been put forth by the other side. We have declared that anything is negotiable except the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future. At the Paris peace conference, Ambassador Lodge has demonstrated our flexibility and good faith in 40 public meetings. Hanoi has refused even to discuss our proposals. They demand our unconditional acceptance of their terms, which are that we withdraw all American forces immediately and unconditionally and that we overthrow the Government of South Vietnam as we leave. We have not limited our peace initiatives to public forums and public statements. I recognized, in January, that a long and bitter war like this usually cannot be settled in a public forum. That is why in addition to the public statements and negotiation I have explored every possible private avenue that might lead to a settlement. Tonight I am taking the unprecedented step of disclosing to you some of our other initiatives for peace—initiatives we undertook privately and secretly because we thought we thereby might open a door which publicly would be closed. I did not wait for my inauguration to begin my quest for peace.

192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization Soon after my election, through an individual who is directly in contact on a personal basis with the leaders of North Vietnam, I made two private offers for a rapid, comprehensive settlement. Hanoi’s replies called in effect for our surrender before negotiations. Since the Soviet Union furnishes most of the military equipment for North Vietnam, Secretary of State Rogers, my Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Kissinger, Ambassador Lodge, and I, personally, have met on a number of occasions with representatives of the Soviet Government to enlist their assistance in getting meaningful negotiations started. In addition, we have had extended discussions directed toward that same end with representatives of other governments which have diplomatic relations with North Vietnam. None of these initiatives have to date produced results. In mid-July, I became convinced that it was necessary to make a major move to break the deadlock in the Paris talks. I spoke directly in this office, where I am now sitting, with an individual who had known Ho Chi Minh on a personal basis for 25 years. Through him I sent a letter to Ho Chi Minh. I did this outside of the usual diplomatic channels with the hope that with the necessity of making statements for propaganda removed, there might be constructive progress toward bringing the war to an end. Let me read from that letter to you now: Dear Mr. President: I realize that it is difficult to communicate meaningfully across the gulf of four years of war. But precisely because of this gulf, I wanted to take this opportunity to reaffirm in all solemnity my desire to work for a just peace. I deeply believe that the war in Vietnam has gone on too long and delay in bringing it to an end can benefit no one—least of all the people of Vietnam. . . . The time has come to move forward at the conference table toward an early resolution of this tragic war. You will find us forthcoming and open-minded in a common effort to bring the blessings of peace to the brave people of Vietnam. Let history record that at this critical juncture, both sides turned their face toward peace rather than toward conflict and war. I received Ho Chi Minh’s reply on August 30, 3 days before his death. It simply reiterated the public position North Vietnam had taken at Paris and flatly rejected my initiative. The full text of both letters is being released to the press. In addition to the public meetings that I have referred to, Ambassador Lodge has met with Vietnam’s chief negotiator in Paris in 11 private sessions.

1619

We have taken other significant initiatives which must remain secret to keep open some channels of communication which may still prove to be productive. But the effect of all the public, private, and secret negotiations which have been undertaken since the bombing halt a year ago and since this administration came into office on January 20, can be summed up in one sentence: No progress whatever has been made except agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Well now, who is at fault? It has become clear that the obstacle in negotiating an end to the war is not the President of the United States. It is not the South Vietnamese Government. The obstacle is the other side’s absolute refusal to show the least willingness to join us in seeking a just peace. And it will not do so while it is convinced that all it has to do is to wait for our next concession, and our next concession after that one, until it gets everything it wants. There can now be no longer any question that progress in negotiation depends only on Hanoi’s deciding to negotiate, to negotiate seriously. I realize that this report on our efforts on the diplomatic front is discouraging to the American people, but the American people are entitled to know the truth—the bad news as well as the good news—where the lives of our young men are involved. Now let me turn, however, to a more encouraging report on another front. At the time we launched our search for peace I recognized we might not succeed in bringing an end to the war through negotiation. I, therefore, put into effect another plan to bring peace—a plan which will bring the war to an end regardless of what happens on the negotiating front. It is in line with a major shift in U.S. foreign policy which I described in my press conference at Guam on July 25. Let me briefly explain what has been described as the Nixon Doctrine— a policy which not only will help end the war in Vietnam, but which is an essential element of our program to prevent future Vietnams. We Americans are a do-it-yourself people. We are an impatient people. Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into our foreign policy. In Korea and again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the arms, and most of the men to help

1620

192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization

the people of those countries defend their freedom against Communist aggression. Before any American troops were committed to Vietnam, a leader of another Asian country expressed this opinion to me when I was traveling in Asia as a private citizen. He said: “When you are trying to assist another nation defend its freedom, U.S. policy should be to help them fight the war but not to fight the war for them.” Well, in accordance with this wise counsel, I laid down in Guam three principles as guidelines for future American policy toward Asia:

Our air operations have been reduced by over 20 percent. And now we have begun to see the results of this long overdue change in American policy in Vietnam. After 5 years of Americans going into Vietnam, we are finally bringing American men home. By December 15, over 60,000 men will have been withdrawn from South Vietnam, including 20 percent of all of our combat forces. The South Vietnamese have continued to gain in strength. As a result they have been able to take over combat responsibilities from our American troops.

* First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments. * Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with US or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security. * Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.

Two other significant developments have occurred since this administration took office. * Enemy infiltration, infiltration which is essential if they are to launch a major attack, over the last 3 months is less than 20 percent of what it was over the same period last year. * Most important—United States casualties have declined during the last 2 months to the lowest point in 3 years. Let me now turn to our program for the future.

After I announced this policy, I found that the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, and other nations which might be threatened by Communist aggression, welcomed this new direction in American foreign policy. The defense of freedom is everybody’s business—not just America’s business. And it is particularly the responsibility of the people whose freedom is threatened. In the previous administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In this administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace. The policy of the previous administration not only resulted in our assuming the primary responsibility for fighting the war, but even more significantly did not adequately stress the goal of strengthening the South Vietnamese so that they could defend themselves when we left. The Vietnamization plan was launched following Secretary Laird’s visit to Vietnam in March. Under the plan, I ordered first a substantial increase in the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces. In July, on my visit to Vietnam, I changed General Abrams’ orders so that they were consistent with the objectives of our new policies. Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.

We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater. I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program. And there are obvious reasons for this decision which I am sure you will understand. As I have indicated on several occasions, the rate of withdrawal will depend on developments on three fronts. One of these is the progress which can be or might be made in the Paris talks. An announcement of a fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in. The other two factors on which we will base our withdrawal decisions are the level of enemy activity and the progress of the training programs of the South Vietnamese forces. And I am glad to be able to report tonight progress on both of these fronts has been greater than we anticipated when we started the program in June for withdrawal. As a result, our timetable for withdrawal is more

192. President Richard Nixon’s Speech on Vietnamization optimistic now than when we made our first estimates in June. Now, this clearly demonstrates why it is not wise to be frozen in on a fixed timetable. We must retain the flexibility to base each withdrawal decision on the situation as it is at that time rather than on estimates that are no longer valid. Along with this optimistic estimate, I must—in all candor—leave one note of caution. If the level of enemy activity significantly increases we might have to adjust our timetable accordingly. However, I want the record to be completely clear on one point. At the time of the bombing halt just a year ago, there was some confusion as to whether there was an understanding on the part of the enemy that if we stopped the bombing of North Vietnam they would stop the shelling of cities in South Vietnam. I want to be sure that there is no misunderstanding on the part of the enemy with regard to our withdrawal program. We have noted the reduced level of infiltration, the reduction of our casualties, and are basing our withdrawal decisions partially on those factors. If the level of infiltration or our casualties increase while we are trying to scale down the fighting, it will be the result of a conscious decision by the enemy. Hanoi could make no greater mistake than to assume that an increase in violence will be to its advantage. If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam, I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation. This is not a threat. This is a statement of policy, which as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, I am making in meeting my responsibility for the protection of American fighting men wherever they may be. My fellow Americans, I am sure you can recognize from what I have said that we really only have two choices open to us if we want to end this war. * I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action. * Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary, a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom.

1621

I have chosen this second course. It is not the easy way. It is the right way. It is a plan which will end the war and serve the cause of peace— not just in Vietnam but in the Pacific and in the world. In speaking of the consequences of a precipitate withdrawal, I mentioned that our allies would lose confidence in America. Far more dangerous, we would lose confidence in ourselves. Oh, the immediate reaction would be a sense of relief that our men were coming home. But as we saw the consequences of what we had done, inevitable remorse and divisive recrimination would scar our spirit as a people. We have faced other crises in our history and have become stronger by rejecting the easy way out and taking the right way in meeting our challenges. Our greatness as a nation has been our capacity to do what had to be done when we knew our course was right. I recognize that some of my fellow citizens disagree with the plan for peace I have chosen. Honest and patriotic Americans have reached different conclusions as to how peace should be achieved. In San Francisco a few weeks ago, I saw demonstrators carrying signs reading: “Lose in Vietnam, bring the boys home.” Well, one of the strengths of our free society is that any American has a right to reach that conclusion and to advocate that point of view. But as President of the United States, I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this Nation to be dictated by the minority who hold that point of view and who try to impose it on the Nation by mounting demonstrations in the street. For almost 200 years, the policy of this Nation has been made under our Constitution by those leaders in the Congress and the White House elected by all of the people. If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this Nation has no future as a free society. And now I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this Nation who are particularly concerned, and I understand why they are concerned, about this war. I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do. There are powerful personal reasons I want to end this war. This week I will have to sign 83 letters to mothers, fathers, wives, and loved ones of men who have given their lives for America in Vietnam. It is very little satisfaction to me that this is only one-third as many letters as I signed the first week in office. There is nothing I want more than to see the day come when I do not have to write any of those letters.

1622

193. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew: Criticism

I want to end the war to save the lives of those brave young men in Vietnam. But I want to end it in a way which will increase the chance that their younger brothers and their sons will not have to fight in some future Vietnam someplace in the world. And I want to end the war for another reason. I want to end it so that the energy and dedication of you, our young people, now too often directed into bitter hatred against those responsible for the war, can be turned to the great challenges of peace, a better life for all Americans, a better life for all people on this earth. I have chosen a plan for peace. I believe it will succeed. If it does succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then won’t matter. I know it may not be fashionable to speak of patriotism or national destiny these days. But I feel it is appropriate to do so on this occasion. Two hundred years ago this Nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become the strongest and richest nation in the world. And the wheel of destiny has turned so that any hope the world has for the survival of peace and freedom will be determined by whether the American people have the moral stamina and the courage to meet the challenge of free world leadership. Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support. I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge. The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris. Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that. Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a

war-weary world. He said: “This is the war to end war.” His dream for peace after World War I was shattered on the hard realities of great power politics and Woodrow Wilson died a broken man. Tonight I do not tell you that the war in Vietnam is the war to end wars. But I do say this: I have initiated a plan which will end this war in a way that will bring us closer to that great goal to which Woodrow Wilson and every American President in our history has been dedicated—the goal of a just and lasting peace. As President I hold the responsibility for choosing the best path to that goal and then leading the Nation along it. I pledge to you tonight that I shall meet this responsibility with all of the strength and wisdom I can command in accordance with our hopes, mindful of your concerns, sustained by your prayers. Thank you and goodnight. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 901–909.

193. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew: Criticism of What He Perceives as Biased Television Coverage of the Richard Nixon Administration’s Vietnam Policy, November 13, 1969 [Excerpts] Introduction Vice President Spiro Agnew was the Richard Nixon administration’s point man on Vietnam. Agnew was especially critical of the American news media for what he said was its unfair coverage of Nixon administration Vietnam policy. In these remarks, Agnew accuses the media of bias in reporting and of not reflecting the views of the majority of Americans.

Primary Source Tonight I want to discuss the importance of the television news medium to the American people. No nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. No medium has more profound influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power. So, nowhere should there be more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media. The question is, Are we demanding enough of our television news presentations? And are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?

193. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew: Criticism

1623

Monday night a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administration, one of the most important of our decade.

In Will Rogers’s observation, what you knew was what you read in the newspaper. Today for growing millions of Americans, it’s what they see and hear on their television sets.

His subject was Vietnam. His hope was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualties in the longest war in its history.

Now how is this network news determined? A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators and executive producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of film and commentary that’s to reach the public. This selection is made from the 90 to 180 minutes that may be available. Their powers of choice are broad.

When the President completed his address—an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of—his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say. It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. . . . Now every American has a right to disagree with the President of the United States and to express publicly that disagreement. But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a Presidential address without having a President’s words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.

They decide what 40 to 50 million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and in the world. We cannot measure this power and influence by the traditional democratic standards, for these men can create national issues overnight. They can make or break by their coverage and commentary a moratorium on the war. They can elevate men from obscurity to national prominence within a week. They can reward some politicians with national exposure and ignore others. . . . Nor is their power confined to the substantive. A raised eyebrow, an inflection of the voice, a caustic remark dropped in the middle of a broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds about the veracity of a public official or the wisdom of a Government policy.

When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitler’s Germany, he didn’t have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about whether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Britain had the stamina to see the war through.

One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the powers of the networks equal to that of local, state and Federal Governments all combined. Certainly it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history.

When President Kennedy rallied the nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action he’d asked America to follow.

Now what do Americans know of the men who wield this power? Of the men who produce and direct the network news the nation knows practically nothing. Of the commentators, most Americans know little other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence seemingly well-informed on every important matter.

The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus your attention on this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting and interpreting the great issues in our nation.

We do know that to a man these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City, the latter of which James Reston terms the most unrepresentative community in the entire United States.

First, let’s define that power. At least 40 million Americans every night, it’s estimated, watch the network news. Seven million of them view A.B.C., the remainder being divided between N.B.C. and C.B.S. According to Harris polls and other studies, for millions of Americans the networks are the sole source of national and world news.

Both communities bask in their own provincialism, their own parochialism. We can deduce that these men read the same newspapers. They draw their political and social views from the same sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints.

1624

194. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/TW: Policy toward Captured American Pilots in North Vietnam

Do they allow their biases to influence the selection and presentation of the news? David Brinkley states objectivity is impossible to normal human behavior. Rather, he says, we should strive for fairness. Another anchorman on a network news show contends, and I quote: “You can’t expunge all your private convictions just because you sit in a seat like this and a camera starts to stare at you. I think your program has to reflect what your basic feelings are. I’ll plead guilty to that.” Less than a week before the 1968 election, this same commentator charged that President Nixon’s campaign commitments were no more durable than campaign balloons. He claimed that, were it not for the fear of hostile reaction, Richard Nixon would be giving into, and I quote him exactly, “his natural instinct to smash the enemy with a club or go after him with a meat axe.” Had this slander been made by one political candidate about another, it would have been dismissed by most commentators as a partisan attack. But this attack emanated from the privileged sanctuary of a network studio and therefore had the apparent dignity of an objective statement. The American people would rightly not tolerate this concentration of power in Government. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by Government? The views of the majority of this fraternity do not—and I repeat, not—represent the views of America. That is why such a great gulf existed between how the nation received the President’s address and how the networks reviewed it. Source: Spiro T. Agnew, “Television News Coverage,” American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/spiroagnewtvnewscoverage.htm.

194. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/ TW: Policy toward Captured American Pilots in North Vietnam, November 20, 1969 Introduction During the summer of 1969 the Richard Nixon administration launched a public campaign on the treatment of American prisoners of war (POWs) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV,

North Vietnam). The campaign demanded that the North Vietnamese government accept the Geneva Convention provisions regarding the treatment of POWs and allow the International Red Cross to visit the POW camps in North Vietnam. In apparent response to this campaign, in November 1969 the Communist Party Politburo in Hanoi approved this policy resolution regarding the treatment of American POWs.

Primary Source 1. Our humanitarian policy toward American pilots is aimed at further illuminating our just cause in order to win over the American people, support our enemy proselyting operations, and win the sympathy of world opinion for our people’s resistance war against the Americans to save the nation. Even though we do not view American pilots as prisoners of war and we are not bound by the terms of the 1949 Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners of war, we should apply the points of the Geneva Convention that are consistent with our humanitarian policies. 2. For that reason, we must fully implement the following points: —Provisions for their daily lives (food, clothing, medicine) should be maintained at the current levels. —Their places of detention must be clean and airy. A program should be implemented to allow them to exercise and work in order to help them maintain their health. —With regard to political education, we should study appropriate goals and subjects, with the primary focus on making them understand the goals and the justice of our people’s cause of resisting the Americans to save the nation, to understand the humanitarian policies of our government, and to cause them to respect the regulations of our prison camps. —With regard to mail, they should be allowed to send one letter a month, and they should be allowed to receive gifts once every two months. This must be properly organized, implemented, and inspected in order to ensure that the mail is delivered fully and quickly. Inspection of gifts should be focused primarily on preventing the receipt of weapons, explosives, anesthetics, and poisons. —From now until early 1970, we should gradually allow the American pilots that we are currently detaining in secret to contact their families by sending postcards. —The personal effects of the pilots must be properly stored and maintained so that they can be returned to them in the future, or, in the event that the prisoner dies, to be returned to their families. Items that have been misplaced should be looked for and recovered so that they can be properly maintained for future return. —As for the issue of religious services, arrangements should be made for them to attend church services regularly.

195. President Richard Nixon: Speech on Cambodia We should assign a number of good [reliable] Catholic priests or Protestant pastors (depending on the prisoners’ religion) to this task in order to combine holding church services with our efforts to educate them. —With regards to the graves of those who have died, they need to be concentrated into a number of central location to facilitate administration and so that later we can return the remains to their families. 3. In addition to strengthening the forces assigned to handle the American pilots, we need to ensure that the cadre and enlisted men directly responsible for this task fully understand the political significance of our policy toward the pilots in order to increase their spirit of responsibility, strive to overcome difficulties, and fully implement the policy provisions outlined in this resolution. 4. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General Political Department will study the possibility of allowing the Red Cross Associations of some countries to visit the prisoners. For the Politburo [signed] Nguyen Duy Trinh Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 30, 1969 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 30, 1969] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2004), 303–305. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

195. President Richard Nixon: Speech on Cambodia, April 30, 1970 [Excerpts] Introduction President Richard Nixon sought to demonstrate U.S. resolve and pressure the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in the Paris negotiations by intervening in Cambodia, the border area of which was adjacent to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and honeycombed with People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) supply dumps. This step had long been advocated by the U.S. military but had been rejected by President Lyndon Johnson. The secret bombing of the Cambodian border areas by U.S. B-52 bombers—dubbed Operation MENU—began on March 18, 1969, and extended over a span of 14 months. When this action did not have the desired effect, Nixon authorized the use of ground troops. Beginning on April 14, 1970, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) troops entered Cambodia to destroy PAVN border supply caches. Then, despite opposition from Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers, Nixon authorized the use of American ground forces. The resulting Cambodian Incursion involved 50,000 ARVN and 30,000 U.S. troops. On April 30, Nixon informed the American people by

1625

television that U.S. troops were invading Cambodia. Nixon says that this is in response to a request from the South Vietnamese government. It is not an invasion but instead is an incursion, an extension of the war “to protect our men who are in Viet-Nam and to guarantee the continued success of our withdrawal and the Vietnamization programs.”

Primary Source Good evening, my fellow Americans. Ten days ago, in my report to the Nation on Viet-Nam, I announced a decision to withdraw an additional 150,000 Americans from Viet-Nam over the next year. I said then that I was making that decision despite our concern over increased enemy activity in Laos, in Cambodia, and in South Viet-Nam. At that time, I warned that if I concluded that increased enemy activity in any of these areas endangered the lives of Americans remaining in Viet-Nam, I would not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation. Despite that warning, North Viet-Nam has increased its military aggression in all these areas, and particularly in Cambodia. After full consultation with the National Security Council, Ambassador Bunker, General Abrams, and my other advisers, I have concluded that the actions of the enemy in the last 10 days clearly endanger the lives of Americans who are in Viet-Nam now and would constitute an unacceptable risk to those who will be there after withdrawal of another 150,000. To protect our men who are in Viet-Nam and to guarantee the continued success of our withdrawal and Vietnamization programs, I have concluded that the time has come for action. Tonight I shall describe the actions of the enemy, the actions I have ordered to deal with that situation, and the reasons for my decision. Cambodia, a small country of 7 million people, has been a neutral nation since the Geneva agreement of 1954—an agreement, incidentally, which was signed by the Government of North Viet-Nam. American policy since then has been to scrupulously respect the neutrality of the Cambodian people. We have maintained a skeleton diplomatic mission of fewer than 15 in Cambodia’s capital, and that only since last August. For the previous 4 years, from 1965 to 1969, we did not have any diplomatic mission whatever in Cambodia. And for the past 5 years, we have provided no military assistance whatever and no economic assistance to Cambodia. North Viet-Nam, however, has not respected that neutrality.

1626

195. President Richard Nixon: Speech on Cambodia

For the past 5 years . . . North Viet-Nam has occupied military sanctuaries all along the Cambodian frontier with South Viet-Nam. Some of these extend up to 20 miles into Cambodia. The sanctuaries . . . are on both sides of the border. They are used for hit-and-run attacks on American and South Vietnamese forces in South Viet-Nam.

Tonight American and South Vietnamese units will attack the headquarters for the entire Communist military operation in South Viet-Nam. This key control center has been occupied by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong for 5 years in blatant violation of Cambodia’s neutrality.

These Communist-occupied territories contain major base camps, training sites, logistics facilities, weapons and ammunition factories, airstrips, and prisoner of war compounds.

This is not an invasion of Cambodia. The areas in which these attacks will be launched are completely occupied and controlled by North Vietnamese forces. Our purpose is not to occupy the areas. Once enemy forces are driven out of these sanctuaries and once their military supplies are destroyed, we will withdraw.

For 5 years neither the United States nor South Viet-Nam has moved against these enemy sanctuaries, because we did not wish to violate the territory of a neutral nation. Even after the Vietnamese Communists began to expand these sanctuaries 4 weeks ago, we counseled patience to our South Vietnamese allies and imposed restraints on our own commanders. In contrast to our policy, the enemy in the past 2 weeks has stepped up his guerrilla actions, and he is concentrating his main forces in these sanctuaries . . . where they are building up to launch massive attacks on our forces and those of South Viet-Nam. North Viet-Nam in the last 2 weeks has stripped away all pretense of respecting the sovereignty or the neutrality of Cambodia. Thousands of their soldiers are invading the country from the sanctuaries; they are encircling the Capital of Phnom Penh. Coming from these sanctuaries . . . they have moved into Cambodia and are encircling the Capital. Cambodia, as a result of this, has sent out a call to the United States, to a number of other nations, for assistance. Because if this enemy effort succeeds, Cambodia would become a vast enemy staging area and a springboard for attacks on South Viet-Nam along 600 miles of frontier, a refuge where enemy troops could return from combat without fear of retaliation. North Vietnamese men and supplies could then be poured into that country, jeopardizing not only the lives of our own men but the people of South Viet-Nam as well. . . . In cooperation with the armed forces of South Viet-Nam, attacks are being launched this week to clean out major enemy sanctuaries on the Cambodian-Viet-Nam border. A major responsibility for the ground operations is being assumed by South Vietnamese forces. For example, the attacks in several areas . . . are exclusively South Vietnamese ground operations under South Vietnamese command, with the United States providing air and logistical support. There is one area, however . . . where I have concluded that a combined American and South Vietnamese operation is necessary.

These actions are in no way directed at the security interests of any nation. Any government that chooses to use these actions as a pretext for harming relations with the United States will be doing so on its own responsibility and on its own initiative, and we will draw the appropriate conclusions. Now, let me give you the reasons for my decision. A majority of the American people, a majority of you listening to me, are for the withdrawal of our forces from Viet-Nam. The action I have taken tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that withdrawal program. A majority of the American people want to end this war rather than to have it drag on interminably. The action I have taken tonight will serve that purpose. A majority of the American people want to keep the casualties of our brave men in Viet-Nam at an absolute minimum. The action I take tonight is essential if we are to accomplish that goal. We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in Viet-Nam and winning the just peace we all desire. We have made and we will continue to make every possible effort to end this war through negotiation at the conference table rather than through more fighting on the battlefield. . . . My fellow Americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions which have been created by free civilizations in the last 500 years. Even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed. Small nations all over the world find themselves under attack from within and from without. If, when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

196. Summary of COSVN Directive No. 01/CT71 It is not our power but our will and character that is being tested tonight. The question all Americans must ask and answer tonight is this: Does the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world have the character to meet a direct challenge by a group which rejects every effort to win a just peace, ignores our warning, tramples on solemn agreements, violates the neutrality of an unarmed people, and uses our prisoners as hostages? If we fail to meet this challenge, all other nations will be on notice that despite its overwhelming power the United States, when a real crisis comes, will be found wanting. During my campaign for the Presidency, I pledged to bring Americans home from Viet-Nam. They are coming home. I promised to end this war. I shall keep that promise. I promised to win a just peace. I shall keep that promise. We shall avoid a wider war. But we are also determined to put an end to this war. . . . No one is more aware than I am of the political consequences of the action I have taken. It is tempting to take the easy political path: to blame this war on previous administrations and to bring all of our men home immediately, regardless of the consequences, even though that would mean defeat for the United States; to desert 18 million South Vietnamese people who have put their trust in us and to expose them to the same slaughter and savagery which the leaders of North Viet-Nam inflicted on hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese who chose freedom when the Communists took over North Viet-Nam in 1954; to get peace at any price now, even though I know that a peace of humiliation for the United States would lead to a bigger war or surrender later. I have rejected all political considerations in making this decision. Whether my party gains in November is nothing compared to the lives of 400,000 brave Americans fighting for our country and for the cause of peace and freedom in Viet-Nam. Whether I may be a one-term President is insignificant compared to whether by our failure to act in this crisis the United States proves itself to be unworthy to lead the forces of freedom in this critical period in world history. I would rather be a one-term President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at the cost of seeing America become a second-rate power and to see this nation accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 405–410.

1627

196. Summary of COSVN Directive No. 01/CT71, January–February 1971 [Excerpts] Introduction Resolution No. 9 drawn up by the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the Communist headquarters running the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), was the guideline for the Communist military effort in South Vietnam until early 1971, when the resolution was apparently superceded by Directive No. 01/CT71. While admitting that U.S. and South Vietnamese pacification efforts have registered some success, the directive points to positive developments for the Communist side such as the expansion of the war to Cambodia, which the directive claims have helped unify the peoples of Indochina; the increased cost of the war to South Vietnam because of Vietnamization; and the growing antiwar movement in the United States.

Primary Source Following are the characteristics particular to the struggle on the South Viet-Nam battlefield and the general characteristics of the Indochinese theater of operations. 1. Pacification and counterpacification struggles by enemy and friendly forces were and are being conducted under highly violent forms. The enemy has achieved some temporary results, but is steadily failing in implementing his basic schemes. Meanwhile, we have fought courageously and persistently, surmounted all difficulties, and are forging ahead, although some minor difficulties still exist in conducting fierce attacks against the enemy. During the past two years, the U.S. and puppet focused their efforts on pacifying and encroaching upon rural areas, using the most barbarous schemes. They strengthened puppet forces, consolidated the puppet government, and established an outpost network and espionage and People’s Self-Defense Force organizations in many hamlets and villages. They provided more technical equipment for, and increased the mobility of, puppet forces, established blocking lines, and created a new defensive and oppressive system in densely populated rural areas. As a result, they caused many difficulties to and inflicted losses on friendly forces. Generally, however, they were unable to attain their basic objectives. They failed to destroy or wipe out the revolutionary infrastructure or our local and guerrilla forces which continued to remain in their areas of operation. In some areas, we were even able to increase our forces. In spite of his oppressive control, the enemy failed to subdue our people. Along with our cadre and Party members, the people in rural areas continually attacked the enemy and constantly maintained and developed the revolutionary movement. On the other hand, enemy forces and war facilities were increasingly depleted and destroyed. Enemy military forces were thinly dispersed and many of his outposts were

1628

196. Summary of COSVN Directive No. 01/CT71

encircled or isolated. The noteworthy point is that in implementing his pacification and Vietnamization programs, the enemy was forced to resort to dictatorial and fascist policies which deepened the contradictions between people of various strata, including personnel of the puppet army and administration, and various political factions, on one hand and the U.S.-Thieu-Ky-Khiem clique on the other hand; this situation further aggravated the political, economic and financial crisis of the U.S.-puppets, sapped the internal unity of the puppets and isolated the U.S.-Thieu-Ky-Khiem clique. This created new favorable conditions for popular struggle movements in Saigon and other cities and rural areas. 2. The 18 March 1970 coup d’etat and the subsequent expansion of the war of aggression by the U.S. imperialists to Cambodia, which was intended to support the Vietnamization program in South Viet-Nam, failed to enable them to attain their proposed goals of destroying our agencies, storage facilities, and base areas, destroying and depleting our main forces, halting the revolutionary movement in Cambodia, and saving the Lon Nol clique from a dangerous situation. On the contrary, this created conditions for the Cambodian revolutionary movement to leap forward and strengthened the unity of the peoples of Laos, Cambodia, and Viet-Nam in their struggles. A unified front was established through which the Indochinese peoples are fighting their common enemy, the U.S. imperialists and their henchmen. A large strategic theater of operations was developed, binding the three countries together, linking the big frontline with the big rear area, and turning Indo-China into a unified battlefield. In this theater, Cambodia is the most vulnerable point of the U.S. and puppets, South Viet-Nam is the main war theater with a decisive bearing on the common victory, and Laos is a significant area of operations. In 1970, the U.S. imperialists ventured to expand the war in Cambodia, but failed to save themselves from the dangerous situation. On the contrary, they suffered heavier military, political, and diplomatic failures and became further bogged down and strategically deadlocked. The U.S. withdrew its troops while puppet troops had to replace U.S. troops and concurrently play the key role in supporting the puppet Cambodian troops. Since enemy troops were forced to disperse thinly, the enemy experienced increasing difficulties in his pacification and Vietnamization plans and will certainly meet defeat. 3. Because the enemy exerted great efforts to implement the Nixon doctrine in South Viet-Nam and Indo-China, we had to surmount great difficulties and trials in the resistance against the U.S. for national salvation. The [revolutionary] movement in the rural area was subjected to unprecedented disturbances by barbarous enemy attacks through

his pacification and encroachment programs. However, we were still able to maintain the operational positions of our infrastructure and armed forces. We managed to maintain and in some areas even expand, our control over villages and hamlets in spite of the presence of enemy outposts. In many areas, we even undermined or reduced the effectiveness of the enemy defensive and oppressive control system. The [struggle] movement in urban areas against the burden born from the Vietnamization plan developed on a large scale with support from all social classes. They openly demanded U.S. troop withdrawals, an overthrow of the Thieu-Ky-Khiem clique, and the establishment of a Government which would restore peace. The movement was supported by uncommitted factions and many personalities of various [political] parties, including those in the puppet National Assembly and the puppet government. Such a movement has caused continual failures for the U.S.-Thieu-KyKhiem clique in its efforts to rally a political force to support its oppression of revolutionary forces and opposition parties. In this extremely fierce and complicated war, our main force units effectively fulfilled their role by attracting, containing and destroying many enemy mobile forces to successfully support political and armed [struggle] movements in South Viet-Nam and Cambodia. Through their successful maintenance and expansion of our strategic bases and corridors, they have proven to be increasingly significant in the new war position of the Indochinese people. The great victories achieved on the battlefield by the people of the three Indochinese countries, in conjunction with positive diplomatic activities, won increasingly broad support and cooperation from all democratic and peace-loving people throughout the world and isolated the Nixon clique and its lackey governments. . . . Noteworthy is the fact that although they would continue to withdraw their troops, they would retain an important element of U.S. and satellite forces to operate with puppet forces which are large in number but low in morale. These troops are reinforced with equipment and given additional training and support from U.S. troops, especially the U.S. Air Force, [and] therefore they have considerable firepower and great mobility. They have a new defensive and oppressive control system designed to safeguard both rural and urban areas [and] therefore they have the hope to maintain and improve their position. Nevertheless, they also have very fundamental difficulties that cannot be surmounted even with the large military and economic potentials of the ringleader imperialists. They have to deescalate the war, continue to withdraw their troops, and rely on the puppet government and Army which are increasingly demoralized and politically weakened. They have to cope with three Indochinese

197. President Richard Nixon: Televised Interview countries which have power and sound leadership in addition to their tradition of fighting the aggressors. They also have to face the peace movements in the U.S. and throughout the world demanding the end of the war of aggression in Viet-Nam and Indo-China. The basic enemy weaknesses and our objective advantages are as follows: The more the U.S. speeds up the Vietnamization program, the more the puppet government is compelled to expedite its dictatorial and fascist policies on conscription, troop upgrading, taxation and inflation, and to send puppet troops to the battlefields to die in the place of U.S. soldiers. By so doing, the puppet government would aggravate the contradictions between itself and the people of various classes, including the uncommitted class and a large number of puppet government personnel. It would make the demands for social welfare, economic improvement, freedom, democracy, culture, the end of war, and restoration of peace become more pressing. It would ripen the political awareness demanding U.S. troop withdrawals and the replacement of the Thieu-Ky-Khiem government by a new one which would restore peace; aggravate the political, economic, and financial crises; and deepen the internal dissensions in the puppet government. These are the objective conditions necessary for us to expand the struggle movement against the Americans for national salvation and rally the new forces including the uncommitted class, puppet soldiers and personnel, and a number of personalities in the puppet government to promote a new movement against the U.S. and the Thieu-Ky-Khiem clique. Source: Viet-Nam Documents and Research Notes, No. 99 (Saigon: U.S. Mission in Viet Nam, October 1971).

197. President Richard Nixon: Televised Interview, March 22, 1971 [Excerpt] Introduction In this interview with Howard K. Smith broadcast on ABC Television on March 22, 1971, President Richard Nixon attempts to put a positive face on Operation LAM SON 719. Undertaken by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) supported by U.S. airpower and artillery from within South Vietnam, ARVN forces drove west along Route 9 into southern Laos to Tchepone. The operation was designed to prove that Vietnamization was working, purchase additional time for U.S. troop withdrawals, and weaken Communist forces in South Vietnam by cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail resupply network. LAM SON 719 lasted from February 8 to March 24, 1971, and ended in an exceedingly costly near rout for ARVN forces.

1629

Primary Source Mr. Smith: Well, now, sir, they give the impression of retreating from Laos now, and there is still a whole month of dry season before the rains come. If they retreat now, won’t the Communists have plenty of time to repair their trails and repair their pipelines before the rains come? The President: They can never gain back the time, Mr. Smith. Six weeks is a period in which the Communists not only have found, as we pointed out earlier, that the supplies to the South have been drastically cut. During that 6-week period they have had chewed up great amounts of ammunition, great amounts of materiel that otherwise would have gone south and would have been used, incidentally, against many Americans fighting in South Viet-Nam, and also in that 6-week period the South Vietnamese have developed a considerable capability on their own and considerable confidence on their own. They are better units to handle the situation as we withdraw. Now, insofar as what they are going to be able to do for the balance of this dry season is concerned, I can only suggest that I cannot predict what will happen today, tomorrow, or the next day. There is going to be some more severe fighting as the South Vietnamese continue to withdraw from Laos. That we expected. But let me try to put it in perspective. I have noted a considerable amount of discussion on the networks and in the newspapers and so forth, and it is altogether, let me say, understandable and justifiable discussion, as to whether this is a victory or a defeat. And I know that that is a question perhaps that you would raise; certainly, our viewers would raise it. Let me hit it very directly. This is not the kind of an operation that you can really describe in the traditional terms of victory or defeat, because its purpose was not to conquer territory. Its purpose was not to destroy an army. Its purpose was simply to disrupt supply lines. Its purpose, in other words, was not to conquer or occupy a part of Laos. Its purpose was to defend South Viet-Nam. Now, let’s measure this operation in terms of accomplishing that purpose. For 6 weeks the South Vietnamese have disrupted the enemy’s supply lines. For 6 weeks they have tied down some of the enemy’s best divisions. For 6 weeks we have seen, too, that the South Vietnamese have been able to handle themselves quite well under very, very difficult circumstances. Now, what does this mean for the future? Well, I think when we judge whether this operation is going to be labeled a success or a failure, we cannot judge it before it is concluded, and we cannot judge it even after it is concluded. We can only see it in perspective because its goals were long range—long range being, first,

1630

198. John Kerry: Statement of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

to insure the continuation of the American withdrawal; second, to reduce the risk to the remaining Americans as we withdraw; and third, to insure the ability of the South Vietnamese to defend themselves after we have left. Those were the three goals of this operation. How do we know whether or not those goals will be achieved? Well, I will say this. My interim assessment based on General Abrams’ advice and the advice that I get from all people in the field is this: As far as our withdrawal is concerned, it is assured. The next withdrawal announcement will be made in April. It will be at least at the number that I have been withdrawing over the past few months; and second, as far as the danger to the American forces remaining, particularly in the northern part of South Viet-Nam, there are 100,000 there, as you know, that danger has been substantially reduced. That operation has already accomplished that much.

presidential elections, testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and details atrocities committed by U.S. troops in what he calls the “civil war” in Vietnam.

Primary Source I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit—the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

Third, as far as the ARVN [Army of the Republic of Viet-Nam] is concerned—and here I come back to an expert—General Abrams, who tells it like it is and says it like it is, says that some of their units did not do so well but 18 out of 22 battalions conducted themselves with high morale, with great confidence, and they are able to defend themselves man for man against the North Vietnamese.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

And so that I would say insofar as achieving our goals of assuring American withdrawal, reducing the threat to the remainder of our forces, and, finally, our goal of seeing to it that the ARVN develops the capability to defend itself, that the operation in Laos at this interim period has made considerable progress in achieving those goals.

We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine’s in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1971 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), 451–452.

198. John Kerry: Statement of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 23, 1971 [Excerpts]

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out. . . .

Introduction

In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

Founded in April 1967 and dissolved in 1973, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) claimed a membership of several thousand people. The VVAW’s stated aim was to lend credence to the antiwar movement by enlisting those who had actually served in Vietnam and had experienced the war firsthand. Here John Kerry, a VVAW member, decorated former U.S. Navy officer, and future U.S. senator and Democratic Party nominee in the 2004 U.S.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

198. John Kerry: Statement of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 1631 We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American. We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a onesided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism—and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong. We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum. We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals. We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against “oriental human beings.” We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn’t lose, and we couldn’t retreat, and because it didn’t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others. Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese. Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the

entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.” We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?. . . . We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country—the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything. An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, “my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people,” and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end. We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We’re here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They’ve left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country. . . . We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission—to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say “Vietnam” and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead

1632

199. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr.: Analysis of the Decline of U.S. Armed Forces

where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

services today are places of agony for the loyal, silent professionals who doggedly hang on and try to keep the ship afloat.

Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia, 92th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 22, 1971), 180–210.

The responses of the services of these unheard-of conditions, forces and new public attitudes, are confused, resentful, occasionally pollyanna-ish, and in some cases even calculated to worsen the malaise that is wracking them.

199. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr.: Analysis of the Decline of U.S. Armed Forces, June 7, 1971 [Excerpts] Introduction On June 7, 1971, U.S. Marine Corps colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr. published an article titled “The Collapse of the Armed Forces” in the Armed Forces Journal. In this scathing critique of the state of the U.S. military, Heinl claims that the military is at its worst level of effectiveness than at any time in the 20th century and possibly in the history of the nation. He asserts that military units in Vietnam are nearly mutinous, drug-ridden, and in a state of near collapse and that elsewhere the situation is almost as serious. It was not easy for critics to dismiss Heinl’s views. Heinl was a veteran of 27 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, the distinguished author of five books (including The Marine Officer’s Guide and Soldiers of the Sea), and the former head of the U.S. Marine Corps’ military historical program. Although his article was highly controversial and came in for much criticism, much of the criticism was because he had understated the situation in the armed forces.

Primary Source The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and noncommissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious. Intolerably clobbered and buffeted from without and within by social turbulence, pandemic drug addiction, race war, sedition, civilian scapegoatise, draftee recalcitrance and malevolence, barracks theft and common crime, unsupported in their travail by the general government, in Congress as well as the executive branch, distrusted, disliked, and often reviled by the public, the uniformed

While no senior officer (especially one on active duty) can openly voice any such assessment, the foregoing conclusions find virtually unanimous support in numerous non-attributable interviews with responsible senior and midlevel officers, as well as career noncommissioned officers and petty officers in all services. Historical precedents do exist for some of the services’ problems, such as desertion, mutiny, unpopularity, seditious attacks, and racial troubles. Others, such as drugs, pose difficulties that are wholly new. Nowhere, however, in the history of the Armed Forces have comparable past troubles presented themselves in such general magnitude, acuteness, or concentrated focus as today. By several orders of magnitude, the Army seems to be in worst trouble. But the Navy has serious and unprecedented problems, while the Air Force, on the surface at least still clear of the quicksands in which the Army is sinking, is itself facing disquieting difficulties. Only the Marines—who have made the news this year by their hard line against indiscipline and general permissiveness—seem, with their expected staunchness and tough tradition, to be weathering the storm. To understand the military consequences of what is happening to the U.S. Armed Forces, Vietnam is a good place to start. It is in Vietnam that the rearguard of a 500,000-man army, in its day (and in the observation of the writer) the best army the United States ever put into the field, is numbly extricating itself from a nightmare war the Armed Forces feel they had foisted on them by bright civilians who are now back on campus writing books about the folly of it all. “They have set up separate companies,” writes an American soldier from Cu Chi, quoted in the New York Times, “for men who refuse to go out into the field.” It is no big thing to refuse to go. If a man is ordered to go to such and such a place he no longer goes through the hassle of refusing; he just packs his shirt and goes to visit some buddies at another base camp. Operations have become incredibly ragtag. Many guys don’t even put on their uniforms any more. . . . “Frag incidents” or just “fragging” is current soldier slang in Vietnam for the murder or attempted murder of strict, unpopular, or

199. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr.: Analysis of the Decline of U.S. Armed Forces 1633 just aggressive officers and NCOS. With extreme reluctance (after a young West Pointer from Senator Mike Mansfield’s Montana was fragged in his sleep) the Pentagon has now disclosed that fraggings in 1970 (209) have more than doubled those of the previous year (96). Word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies or in bivouacs of certain units. In one such division—the morale-plagued Americal—fraggings during 1971 have been authoritatively estimated to be running about one a week. Yet fraggings, though hard to document, form part of the ugly lore of every war. The first such verified incident known to have taken place occurred 190 years ago when Pennsylvania soldiers in the Continental Army killed one of their captains during the night of 1 January 1781.

As for drugs and race, Vietnam’s problems today not only reflect but reinforce those of the Armed Forces as a whole. In April, for example, members of a Congressional investigating subcommittee reported that 10 to 15% of our troops in Vietnam are now using high-grade heroin, and that drug addiction there is “of epidemic proportions.” Only last year an Air Force major and command pilot for Ambassador Bunker was apprehended at Tan Son Nhut air base outside Saigon with $8-million worth of heroin in his aircraft. This major is now in Leavenworth. Early this year, an Air Force regular colonel was court-martialed and cashiered for leading his squadron in pot parties, while, at Cam Ranh Air Force Base, 43 members of the base security police squadron were recently swept up in dragnet narcotics raids.

Bounties, raised by common subscription in amounts running anywhere from $50 to $1,000, have been widely reported put on the heads of leaders whom the privates and Sp4s want to rub out.

All the foregoing facts—and many more dire indicators of the worst kind of military trouble—point to widespread conditions among American forces in Vietnam that have only been exceeded in this century by the French Army’s Nivelle mutinies of 1917 and the collapse of the Tsarist armies in 1916 and 1917.

Shortly after the costly assault on Hamburger Hill in mid-1969, the GI underground newspaper in Vietnam, “GI Says,” publicly offered a $10,000 bounty on LCol Weldon Honeycutt, the officer who ordered (and led) the attack. Despite several attempts, however, Honeycutt managed to live out his tour and return Stateside. . . .

It is a truism that national armies closely reflect societies from which they have been raised. It would be strange indeed if the Armed Forces did not today mirror the agonizing divisions and social traumas of American society, and of course they do.

The issue of “combat refusal,” an official euphemism for disobedience of orders to fight—the soldier’s gravest crime—has only recently been again precipitated on the frontier of Laos by Troop B, 1st Cavalry’s mass refusal to recapture their captain’s command vehicle containing communication gear, codes and other secret operation orders. . . . “Search and evade” (meaning tacit avoidance of combat by units in the field) is now virtually a principle of war, vividly expressed by the GI phrase, “CYA (cover your ass) and get home!” That “search-and-evade” has not gone unnoticed by the enemy is underscored by the Viet Cong delegation’s recent statement at the Paris Peace Talks that communist units in Indochina have been ordered not to engage American units which do not molest them. The same statement boasted—not without foundation in fact— that American defectors are in the VC ranks. Symbolic anti-war fasts (such as the one at Pleiku where an entire medical unit, led by its officers, refused Thanksgiving turkey), peace symbols, “V”-signs not for victory but for peace, booing and cursing of officers and even of hapless entertainers such as Bob Hope, are unhappily commonplace.

For this very reason, our Armed Forces outside Vietnam not only reflect these conditions but disclose the depths of their troubles in an awful litany of sedition, disaffection, desertion, race, drugs, breakdowns of authority, abandonment of discipline, and, as a cumulative result, the lowest state of military morale in the history of the country. Sedition—coupled with disaffection within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable—infests the Armed Services: —At best count, there appear to be some 144 underground newspapers published on or aimed at U.S. military bases in this country and overseas. Since 1970 the number of such sheets has increased 40% (up from 103 last fall). These journals are not mere gripe-sheets that poke soldier fun in the “Beetle Bailey” tradition, at the brass and the sergeants. “In Vietnam,” writes the Ft Lewis-McChord Free Press, “the Lifers, the Brass, are the true Enemy, not the enemy.” Another West Coast sheet advises readers: “Don’t desert. Go to Vietnam and kill your commanding officer.” —At least 14 GI dissent organizations (including two made up exclusively of officers) now operate more or less openly. Ancillary

1634

199. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr.: Analysis of the Decline of U.S. Armed Forces

to these are at least six antiwar veterans’ groups which strive to influence GIs. . . . Racial conflicts (most but not all sparked by young black enlisted men) are erupting murderously in all services. At a recent high commanders’ conference, General Westmoreland and other senior generals heard the report from Germany that in many units white soldiers are now afraid to enter barracks alone at night for fear of “headhunting” ambushes by blacks. In the quoted words of one soldier on duty in West Germany, “I’m much more afraid of getting mugged on the post than I am of getting attacked by the Russians.” Other reports tell of jail-delivery attacks on Army stockades and military police to release black prisoners, and of officers being struck in public by black soldiers. Augsburg, Krailsheim, and Hohenfels are said to be rife with racial trouble. Hohenfels was the scene of a racial fragging last year—one of the few so far recorded outside Vietnam. In Ulm, last fall, a white noncommissioned officer killed a black soldier who was holding a loaded .45 on two unarmed white officers. Elsewhere, according to Fortune magazine, junior officers are now being attacked at night when inspecting barracks containing numbers of black soldiers. Kelley Hill, a Ft Benning, Ga., barracks area, has been the scene of repeated nighttime assaults on white soldiers. One such soldier bitterly remarked, “Kelley Hill may belong to the commander in the daytime but it belongs to the blacks after dark.” . . . The drug problem—like the civilian situation from which it directly derives—is running away with the services. In March, Navy Secretary John H. Chafee, speaking for the two sea services, said bluntly that drug abuse in both Navy and Marines is out of control. In 1966, the Navy discharged 170 drug offenders. Three years later (1969), 3,800 were discharged. Last year in 1970, the total jumped to over 5,000. Drug abuse in the Pacific Fleet—with Asia on one side, and kinky California on the other—gives the Navy its worst headaches. To cite one example, a destroyer due to sail from the West Coast last year for the Far East nearly had to postpone deployment when, five days before departure, a ring of some 30 drug users (over 10 percent of the crew) was uncovered. Only last week, eight midshipmen were dismissed from the Naval Academy following disclosure of an alleged drug ring. While the

Navy emphatically denies allegations in a copyrighted article by the Annapolis Capitol that up to 1,000 midshipmen now use marijuana, midshipman sources confirm that pot is anything but unknown at Annapolis. Yet the Navy is somewhat ahead in the drug game because of the difficulty in concealing addiction at close quarters aboard ship, and because fixes are unobtainable during long deployments at sea. The Air Force, despite 2,715 drug investigations in 1970, is in even better shape: its rate of 3 cases per thousand airmen is the lowest in the services. By contrast, the Army had 17,742 drug investigations the same year. According to Col. Thomas B. Hauschild, of the Medical Command of our Army forces in Europe, some 46 percent of the roughly 200,000 soldiers there had used illegal drugs at least once. In one battalion surveyed in West Germany, over 50 percent of the men smoked marijuana regularly (some on duty), while roughly half of those were using hard drugs of some type. What those statistics say is that the Armed Forces (like their parent society) are in the grip of a drug pandemic—a conclusion underscored by the one fact that, just since 1968, the total number of verified drug addiction cases throughout the Armed Forces has nearly doubled. One other yardstick: according to military medical sources, needle hepatitis now poses as great a problem among young soldiers as VD. At Ft Bragg, the Army’s third largest post, adjacent to Fayetteville, N.C. (a garrison town whose conditions one official likened to New York’s “East Village” and San Francisco’s “Haight-Ashbury”) a recent survey disclosed that 4% (or over 1,400) of the 36,000 soldiers there are hard-drug (mainly heroin and LSD) addicts. In the 82nd Airborne Division, the strategic-reserve unit that boasts its title of “America’s Honor Guard,” approximately 450 soldier drug abusers were being treated when this reporter visited the post in April. About a hundred were under intensive treatment in special drug wards. . . . In 1970, the Army had 65,643 deserters, or roughly the equivalent of four infantry divisions. This desertion rate (52.3 soldiers per thousand) is well over twice the peak rate for Korea (22.5 per thousand). It is more than quadruple the 1966 desertion-rate (14.7 per thousand) of the then well-trained, high-spirited professional Army. If desertions continue to rise (as they are still doing this year), they will attain or surpass the WWII peak of 63 per thousand which, incidentally, occurred in the same year (1945) when more soldiers were actually being discharged from the Army for psychoneurosis than were drafted.

200. Democratic Republic of Vietnam Peace Proposal The Air Force—relatively uninvolved in the Vietnam war, allvolunteer, management-oriented rather than disciplinary and hierarchic—enjoys a numerical rate of less than one deserter per thousand men, but even this is double what it was three years ago. The Marines in 1970 had the highest desertion index in the modern history of the Corps and, for that year at least, slightly higher than the Army’s. As the Marines now phase out of Vietnam (and haven’t taken a draftee in nearly two years), their desertions are expected to decrease sharply. Meanwhile, grimly remarked one officer, “Let the bastards go. We’re all the better without them.” Letting the bastards go is something the Marines can probably afford. “The Marine Corps Isn’t Looking for a Lot of Recruits,” reads a current recruiting poster, “We just Need a Few Good Men.” This is the happy situation of a Corps slimming down to an elite force again composed of true volunteers who want to be professionals. But letting the bastards go doesn’t work at all for the Army and the Navy, who do need a lot of recruits and whose reenlistment problems are dire. Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr, Chief of Naval Operations, minces no words. “We have a personnel crisis,” he recently said, “that borders on disaster.” The Navy’s crisis, as Zumwalt accurately describes it, is that of a highly technical, material oriented service that finds itself unable to retain the expensively-trained technicians needed to operate warships, which are the largest, most complex items of machinery that man makes and uses. . . . The trouble of the services—produced by and also in turn producing the dismaying conditions described in this article—is above all a crisis of soul and backbone. It entails—the word is not too strong—something very near a collapse of the command authority and leadership George Washington saw as the soul of military forces. This collapse results, at least in part, from a concurrent collapse of public confidence in the military establishment. . . . But the fall in public esteem of all three major services—not just the Army—is exceeded by the fall or at least the enfeeblement of the hierarchic and disciplinary system by which they exist and, when ordered to do so, fight and sometimes die. . . . Source: Col. Robert D. Heinl Jr., “The Collapse of the Armed Forces,” Armed Forces Journal, June 7, 1971. Reprinted as evidence in House Committee Hearings on Subversion within the Armed Forces, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), 7132–7140.

1635

200. Democratic Republic of Vietnam Peace Proposal, June 26, 1971 Introduction Beginning in February 1971, Le Duc Tho, representing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), met with U.S. national security adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger in Paris in a series of secret negotiating sessions. On May 31 Kissinger presented a proposal whereby the United States would agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of all of its forces from the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in return for the release by North Vietnam of its U.S. prisoners of war (POWs). On June 16 at the next meeting of the two men, Le Duc Tho presented a counterproposal for the a U.S. troop withdrawal and North Vietnamese release of POWs to be accomplished at the same time. The counterproposal also demanded an end to U.S. support for South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu.

Primary Source 1. The withdrawal of all the forces of the United States and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp for South Vietnam and the other Indochinese countries must be achieved in 1971. 2. The release of all the military men and civilians captured in the war will be carried out at the same time and will be completed at the same moment as the withdrawal of troops mentioned in Point 1. 3. In South Vietnam, the United States ceases supporting ThieuKy-Khiem to allow the formation in Saigon of a new administration standing for peace, independence, neutrality, and democracy. The PRGRSV [Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam] will engage in talks with the said administration with a view to settling the internal affairs of South Vietnam and achieving national concord. 4. The U.S. Government must assume the entire responsibility for the damage caused by the United States to the entire Vietnamese people. The DRV Government and the PRGRSV request from the U.S. Government reparations for damage caused by the United States in the two zones of Vietnam. 5. The United States must respect the 1954 Geneva Agreements in Vietnam and Indochina and those of 1962 on Laos. It must cease its aggression against and intervention in the Indochinese countries to let the Indochinese people settle their own affairs. 6. The problems existing between the Indochinese countries will be settled by the Indochinese parties on the basis of mutual respect for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for

1636

201. Peace Proposal of the Provisional Revolutionary Government

noninterference on internal affairs. For its part, the DRV is prepared to participate in the settlement of these problems.

those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp, the parties will at the same time agree on the modalities:

7. All the parties will observe a cease-fire after the conclusion of agreements of the aforementioned problems.

A—Of the withdrawal in safety from South Vietnam of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp.

8. An international supervision will be set-up. 9. An international guarantee will be indispensable for the realization of the basic national rights of the Indochinese people, for the neutrality of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and for the establishment of a lasting peace in this region. These nine points make up a whole. Source: “Democratic Republic of Vietnam Peace Proposal, June 26, 1971,” The Wars for Viet Nam, Vassar College, http://vietnam.vassar .edu/abstracts/index.html.

201. Peace Proposal of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, July 1, 1971 Introduction On July 1, 1971, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), the Communist front in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), issued a public and more detailed version of the secret North Vietnamese peace proposal presented in Paris the week before.

Primary Source 1—Regarding the deadline for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. The U.S. Government must put an end to its war of aggression in Viet Nam, stop its policy of “Vietnamization” of the war, withdraw from South Viet Nam all troops, military personnel, weapons, and war materials of the United States and of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp, and dismantle all U.S. bases in South Viet Nam, without posing any condition whatsoever. The U.S. Government must set a terminal date for the withdrawal from South Viet Nam of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp. If the U.S. Government sets a terminal date for the withdrawal from South Viet Nam in 1971 of the totality of U.S. forces and

B—Of the release of the totality of militarymen of all parties and of the civilians captured in the war (including American pilots captured in North Viet Nam) so that they may all rapidly return to their homes. These two operations will begin on the same date and will end on the same date. A cease-fire will be observed between the South Viet Nam People’s Liberation Armed Forces and the armed forces of the United States and of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp as soon as the parties reach agreement on the withdrawal from South Viet Nam of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp. 2—Regarding the question of power, in South Viet Nam. The U.S. Government must really respect the South Viet Nam people’s right to self-determination, put an end to its interference in the internal affairs of South Viet Nam, cease backing the bellicose group headed by Nguyen Van Thieu at present in office in Saigon, and stop all maneuvers, including tricks on elections, aimed at maintaining the puppet Nguyen Van Thieu. The political, social and religious forces in South Viet Nam aspiring to peace and national concord will use various means to form in Saigon a new administration favouring peace, independence, neutrality and democracy. The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet Nam will immediately enter into talks with the administration in order to settle the following questions: A—To form a broad three-segment government of national concord that will assume its functions during the period between the restoration of peace and the holding of general elections and organize general election in South Viet Nam. A ceasefire will be observed between the South Viet Nam People’s Liberation Armed Forces and the armed forces of the Saigon Administration as soon as a government of national concord is formed. B—To take concrete measures with the required guarantees so as to prohibit all acts of terror, reprisal, and discrimination against persons having collaborated with one or the other party, to ensure

202. Le Duc Tho: Cable No. 119 every democratic liberty to the South Viet Nam people, to release all persons jailed for political reasons, to dissolve all concentration camps and to liquidate all forms of constraint and coercion so as to permit the people to return to their native places in complete freedom and to freely engage in their occupations. C—To see that the people’s living conditions are stabilized and gradually improve, to create conditions allowing everyone to contribute his talents and efforts to heal the war wounds and rebuild the country. D—To agree on measures to be taken to ensure the holding of genuinely free, democratic and fair general elections in South Viet Nam. 3—Regarding the question of Vietnamese armed forces in South Viet Nam. The Vietnamese parties will together settle the question of Vietnamese armed forces in South Viet Nam in a spirit of national concord, equality and mutual respect, without foreign interference, in accordance with the post-war situation and with a view to lightening the people’s contribution.

1637

South Viet Nam will pursue a foreign policy of peace and neutrality, establish relations with all countries regardless of their political and social regime, in accordance with the five principles of peaceful coexistence, maintain economic and cultural relations with all countries, accept the cooperation of foreign countries in the exploitation of the resources of South Viet Nam, accept from any country economic and technical aid without any political conditions attached, and participate in regional plans of economic cooperation. On the basis of these principles, after the end of the war, South Viet Nam and the United States will establish relations in the political, economic and cultural fields. 6—Regarding the damage caused by the United States to the Vietnamese people in the two zones. The U.S. Government must bear full responsibility for the losses and destruction it has caused to the Vietnamese people in the two zones. 7—Regarding the respect for and international guarantee of the accords that will be concluded.

4—Regarding the peaceful reunification of Viet Nam and the relations between the north and south zones.

The parties will find agreement on the forms of respect for and international guarantee of the accords that will be concluded.

A—The reunification of Viet Nam will be achieved step by step, by peaceful means, on the basis of discussions and agreements between the two zones, without constraint and annexation from either party, without foreign interference.

Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 7th rev. ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 640–641.

Pending the reunification of the country, the north and the south zones will re-establish normal relations, guarantee free movement, free correspondence, free choice of residence and maintain economic and cultural relations on the principle of mutual interests and mutual assistance. All questions concerning the two zones will be settled by qualified representatives of the Vietnamese people in the two zones on the basis of negotiations, without foreign interference. B—In keeping with the provisions of the 1954 Geneva agreements on Viet Nam, in the present temporary partition of the country into two zones, the north and the south zones of Viet Nam will refrain from joining any military alliance with foreign countries, from allowing any foreign country to have military bases, troops and military personnel on their soil, and from recognizing the protection of any country, of any military alliance or bloc. 5—Regarding the foreign policy of peace and neutrality of South Viet Nam.

202. Le Duc Tho: Cable No. 119, March 27, 1972 [Excerpts] Introduction Following the May 1970 Cambodian Incursion by forces of the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that drove Vietnamese Communist forces out of their Cambodian sanctuaries, the bulk of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) main-force units spent the next two years fighting in Cambodia and Laos to rebuild their base areas. As a result, the level of combat activity in South Vietnam dropped precipitously, allowing U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to secure control of almost the entire country. In early 1972 U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam dropped below 100,000 and continued to fall rapidly. With its rear areas and logistics pipelines in Cambodia and Laos now secure, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) was ready to resume the battle for control of South Vietnam. Anticipating that the upcoming 1972 presidential election campaign in the United States would restrict

1638

202. Le Duc Tho: Cable No. 119

any response by the Richard Nixon administration and worried that Nixon’s new overtures to China and the Soviet Union might affect the level of support that they would receive from their allies in the future, the North Vietnamese prepared to launch an all-out military offensive throughout South Vietnam. On March 27, 1972, four days before this Communist Easter Offensive was scheduled to begin, Politburo member Le Duc Tho, the man in charge of North Vietnam’s secret negotiations with the United States, sent a top-secret cable to the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) providing the Politburo’s latest assessment of the situation. In it he sets forward the goals of the upcoming offensive and explains the connection between this offensive and North Vietnam’s negotiating strategy.

Primary Source The Central Military Party Committee met recently and sent the resolution it passed to you. . . . The Politburo agreed with the Central Military Party Committee’s assessment of the situation and approved its policy decisions. I am sending you this cable to let you know the Politburo’s ideas so you can understand things more clearly. At present the balance of forces between our side and the enemy side is undergoing tremendous changes that are very favorable to our side. As a result of our victories and of the defeats suffered by the Americans and their puppets, the American imperialists and their satellite nations have been forced to withdraw the vast bulk of their troops from the battlefield. They will continue to withdraw additional troops. This is a process that cannot be stopped. . . . Although the puppet army is now better equipped than it was before, the enemy simply cannot be as strong as he was when there were large numbers of American troops on the battlefield. . . . Domestically, the U.S. is also facing many insoluble problems. The Vietnam War is still one of the most difficult issues, an issue that has driven the American political and economic situations into a crisis of unprecedented proportions. . . . The U.S. economic situation continues to deteriorate. . . . Because of this situation, the vast majority of the American people are very dissatisfied. They want to end the war in order to escape from this morass. Faced with this situation, Nixon wants to use his visits to China and the Soviet Union to break the impasse and deceive the public. However, it will be difficult for him to completely solve . . . the problems of Vietnam and Indochina . . . because no one else can speak for us in settling the problem. The situation . . . is going downhill for the U.S., making the situation in the U.S. even more unsettled in this US Presidential year. As for our side, in 1971 we won more victories on all three Indochina battlefields than we have won in any years since the Tet Offensive. . . . Our main force troops have been honed, reinforced, and are better equipped than they were before. . . . The battlefield situation in the three nations of Indochina is currently developing in our favor. Our Party and our people have high resolve. The peoples of the world continue to strongly support us. China, the Soviet

Union, and the other fraternal socialist nations continue to increase their assistance to us, and up to this point we have encountered no problems as the result of Nixon’s recent visit to China. With the above-described balance of forces, this time we will attack on all battlefields with three strategic punches . . . and attack continously for an extended period of time, so it is certain that the enemy will suffer even greater, more significant defeats. . . . We have great prospects for winning a great victory in the coming phase. Based on the very favorable situation described above and with a firm understanding of our new opportunities and new capabilities, the Politburo has decided to make a coordinated effort on three fronts (military, political, and diplomatic) to deal a fundamental defeat to the enemy’s “Vietnamization” policy by using simultaneous military attacks and popular uprisings to destroy or disperse the bulk of the enemy’s forces, to liberate most of the rural countryside, and to intensify the political struggle and uprisings in the cities in order to secure a decisive victory in 1972. The situation is very favorable for our side, but we are not subjective and we do not underestimate our enemy. . . . We must take precautions against the possibility that the Vietnam problem will not be settled at the conference table . . . but we must throw everything we have into this determined effort to secure a decisive victory during 1972, and we have good prospects for being able to achieve that goal. The time period advantageous for a solution, on the battlefield as well as at the conference table, is after we have achieved success in the spring-summer-fall campaigns and before the U.S. Presidential election is held. That will be the best time for us to secure a decisive victory on all fronts—the military front as well as on the political and diplomatic fronts. . . . So far during this war . . . we have launched only one all-out general offensive and uprising—the 1968 Tet Offensive. This time we will launch another offensive and uprising (at this time we are not officially calling it a general offensive, although in practical terms it is a general offensive and uprising throughout all of South Vietnam). However, the general offensive this time differs from our 1968 general offensive in that its targets, goals, content, and even its scale are all greater than those of the Tet Offensive. . . . The goals of this offensive are to fundamentally defeat the enemy’s “Vietnamization” strategy, to destroy or cause the disintegration of the bulk of the puppet armed forces, to liberate most of the rural countryside, to intensify the political struggle and the mass uprisings in the cities, and, in coordination with the diplomatic struggle, to force the enemy to admit defeat and accept our demands so that we can secure a decisive victory. The distinctive feature of this offensive is that we will employ the entire strength of our main force army to completely destroy the enemy’s elite mobile forces and a number of the enemy’s regular divisions. . . . If a large number of the enemy’s regular divisions . . . are destroyed, the balance of forces on the battlefield will shift dramatically. . . . In parallel with our main force attacks, we will also conduct our three-pronged attack [military, political, military proselyting], and that will destroy and shatter the enemy’s local

202. Le Duc Tho: Cable No. 119 level armed forces and forces of oppression. . . . This tide of victory will create favorable conditions for the political struggle movement in the cities to grow strong . . . The destruction of enemy forces, the liberation of the rural countryside, and the uprisings in the cities are intimately and organically linked, and for that reason we must ensure that there is very close coordination between these three strategic blows. Another special characteristic of this offensive is that we will fight continuously for a long time, through the end of the springsummer season and into the fall. This is different from our previous offensives, when we stopped to rest and regroup for a time at the end of the spring-summer season before renewing our attacks. . . . The diplomatic struggle must be closely coordinated with our effort to accomplish our strategic goals on the battlefields, and we must work out carefully coordinated steps to ensure coordination. The battlefield is where victory will be decided. The victories we win on the battlefield will provide the foundation upon which we will reach a successful resolution at the negotiating table. . . . The goal of the revolution in South Vietnam is to carry out a national, democratic revolution. We may divide the effort to accomplish this into two phases. The first phase began when we launched the resistance war against the Americans and will last until we secure a decisive victory and end the war through a political solution. The second phase will last from the time we secure victory through a political solution until we finally reunite our Fatherland. . . . The level of success achieved in the first phase will determine the conditions required for developments in the second phase. . . . We will launch continuous attacks throughout the spring, summer, and fall, but these will be divided into two attack waves. The spring-summer attack wave will be the important wave. During this wave our main forces will strike hard blows in parallel with our attacks on the pacification and an intensification of the political struggle and uprisings in the cities throughout the battlefields of all of South Vietnam. If during this phase we win big victories and achieve the goals we set for ourselves by destroying a number of the enemy’s elite divisions and liberating the bulk of the rural countryside and a few provincial capitals . . . , the situation will change in a significant manner, and it may progress by leaps and bounds. If that happens . . . the political struggle movement and the mass uprisings in the cities will grow strong and develop rapidly. The enemy’s ranks will become more divided and the antiAmerican, anti-Thieu front will be expanded further. Faced with that situation, the enemy will be forced to replace Thieu, install another enemy lackey in Thieu’s place, and open up the government to allow opposition parties and factions to participate so that this government can negotiate with the Provisional Revolutionary Government. . . . That situation will create conditions that will facilitate talks between the Provisional Revolutionary Government and the new government in Saigon to seek a peaceful solution to the Vietnam problem. Using the victories we win in the spring and summer as our foundation, . . . we will launch the fall offensive wave to deal the

1639

enemy a follow-up blow to make his forces disintegrate further and to apply pressure in the diplomatic struggle that will be going on at that time. If we again win a major victory in the fall campaign . . . the U.S. and the new government in Saigon will be forced to accept our demands at the conference table. Our two primary demands will be that the U.S. and its satellite nations must totally withdraw all their troops and that a tripartite coalition government be formed to conduct general elections as demanded in our sevenpoint program. . . . We will have secured a decisive victory on all three fronts—military, political, and diplomatic. The above is our projection of the steps we will follow if things progress favorably. However, it is also possible that the level of victory we score in the spring, summer, and fall will not fully meet the goals we set. In that case, it is not certain that the enemy will accept our demands on the negotiating front. Even though, on the military front, the Americans will in the end be forced to withdraw all their troops, on the political front it is not certain that the enemy will agree to replace Thieu immediately. Instead, they may wait until they conclude a treaty with us before they agree to replace him. . . . Based on the actual situation at the time, we will review the pluses and minuses to decide whether to continue to fight or whether to enter into a peace settlement. However, . . . we must resolutely strive to achieve the decisive victory we have projected. The second phase will last from the time that we secure a political settlement until we complete the national, democratic revolution in Vietnam and move toward the peaceful reunification of our nation. After we secure a political solution, how long it will take us to achieve this goal will depend on the degree of success we achieve on the battle and on the balance of forces between our side and the enemy. . . . While you make your preparations, it is important for you to remember that the fighting between our side and the enemy in this offensive will be extremely ferocious. We are determined and will throw everything we have into this effort to accomplish our strategic intentions, no matter what it takes. However, the enemy also knows that this offensive will be decisive in determining the outcome of the war on the battlefields of all three nations of Indochina. For that reason, he will take ferocious countermeasures. We need to be on guard against the possibility that the enemy might employ even more powerful and brutal weapons in response to our attacks, because Nixon is a very daring individual who might take that risk, no matter what the consequences. We should not underestimate him. . . . The Central Committee policies and decisions discussed above should only be disseminated within the COSVN and Region Party Committees. At the provincial level, disseminate these policies gradually, step by step, and only to a certain extent, because they include extremely secret matters and issues that do not need to be discussed right away. After you receive this cable, hold preliminary discussions about it within your current affairs committees and cable us any ideas or thoughts you may have. I may go to Paris around 15 April.

1640

203. President Richard Nixon: Address to the Nation

I wish you all good health. Please send my regards to all of our people.

other communications will be cut off to the maximum extent possible. Air and naval strikes against military targets in North Vietnam will continue.

[signed] Le Duc Tho Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 33, 1972 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 33, 1972] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2004), 222–223. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

203. President Richard Nixon: Address to the Nation, May 8, 1972 [Excerpts] Introduction In response to the massive March 1972 military offensive by the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), which included an invasion of the northern provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and was designed to secure more favorable peace terms, U.S. president Richard Nixon ordered a massive bombing of North Vietnam. Dubbed Operation LINEBACKER (and later known as LINEBACKER I), this bombing was much more intense and effective than that of ROLLING THUNDER during the Lyndon Johnson administration. Nixon also ordered the mining of North Vietnam’s ports, including Haiphong. In the course of his address to the American people on May 8, 1972, Nixon justifies these actions as necessary to cut off the flow of weapons and military supplies to North Vietnam.

Primary Source It is plain then that what appears to be a choice among three courses of action for the United States is really no choice at all. The killing in this tragic war must stop. By simply getting out, we would only worsen the bloodshed. By relying solely on negotiations, we would give an intransigent enemy the time he needs to press his aggression on the battlefield. There is only one way to stop the killing. That is to keep the weapons of war out of the hands of the international outlaws of North Vietnam. . . . I therefore concluded that Hanoi must be denied the weapons and supplies it needs to continue the aggression. In full coordination with the Republic of Vietnam, I have ordered the following measures which are being implemented as I am speaking to you. All entrances to North Vietnamese ports will be mined, to prevent access to these ports and North Vietnamese naval operations from these ports. United States forces have been directed to take appropriate measures within the internal and claimed territorial waters of North Vietnam to interdict the delivery of supplies. Rail and all

These actions are not directed against any other nation. Countries with ships presently in North Vietnamese ports have already been notified that their ships will have three daylight periods to leave in safety. After that time, the mines will become active and any ships attempting to leave or enter these ports will do so at their own risk. These actions I have ordered will cease when the following conditions are met: First, all American prisoners of war must be returned. Second, there must be an internationally supervised cease-fire throughout Indochina. Once prisoners of war are released, once the internationally supervised cease-fire has begun, we will stop all acts of force throughout Indochina, and at that time we will proceed with a complete withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam within 4 months. Now these terms are generous terms. They are terms which would not require surrender and humiliation on the part of anybody. They would permit the United States to withdraw with honor. They would end the killing. They would bring our POW’S home. They would allow negotiations on a political settlement between the Vietnamese themselves. They would permit all the nations which have suffered in this long war—Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, South Vietnam—to turn at last to the urgent works of healing and of peace. They deserve immediate acceptance by North Vietnam. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1972 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 584–585.

204. Jane Fonda: Broadcast from Hanoi, August 22, 1972 Introduction In July 1972 anti–Vietnam War activist and Hollywood movie star Jane Fonda flew to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). During two weeks in North Vietnam, she toured Hanoi and was photographed inspecting bomb damage and seated in a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun position. Fonda also met with North Vietnamese vice premier Nguyen Duy Trinh and with eight U.S. prisoners of war, and she broadcast statements opposing the war in which she claimed that U.S. air strikes were specifically targeting the North Vietnamese dike system. Fonda was

205. Statement of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam 1641 known as “Hanoi Jane” by her detractors and was much reviled by many Americans for this action. In the course of a television interview in 1988, Fonda apologized for her actions and any “hurt” they may have caused.

Primary Source This is Jane Fonda. During my two week visit in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, I’ve had the opportunity to visit a great many places and speak to a large number of people from all walks of life—workers, peasants, students, artists and dancers, historians, journalists, film actresses, soldiers, militia girls, members of the women’s union, writers. I visited the [Dam Xuac] agricultural coop, where the silk worms are also raised and thread is made. I visited a textile factory, a kindergarten in Hanoi. The beautiful Temple of Literature was where I saw traditional dances and heard songs of resistance. I also saw an unforgettable ballet about the guerrillas training bees in the south to attack enemy soldiers. The bees were danced by women, and they did their job well. In the shadow of the Temple of Literature I saw Vietnamese actors and actresses perform the second act of Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, and this was very moving to me—the fact that artists here are translating and performing American plays while US imperialists are bombing their country.

north and south, into a neo-colony of the United States by bombing, by invading, by attacking in any way. One has only to go into the countryside and listen to the peasants describe the lives they led before the revolution to understand why every bomb that is dropped only strengthens their determination to resist. I’ve spoken to many peasants who talked about the days when their parents had to sell themselves to landlords as virtual slaves, when there were very few schools and much illiteracy, inadequate medical care, when they were not masters of their own lives. But now, despite the bombs, despite the crimes being created— being committed against them by Richard Nixon, these people own their own land, build their own schools—the children learning, literacy—illiteracy is being wiped out, there is no more prostitution as there was during the time when this was a French colony. In other words, the people have taken power into their own hands, and they are controlling their own lives. And after 4,000 years of struggling against nature and foreign invaders—and the last 25 years, prior to the revolution, of struggling against French colonialism—I don’t think that the people of Vietnam are about to compromise in any way, shape or form about the freedom and independence of their country, and I think Richard Nixon would do well to read Vietnamese history, particularly their poetry, and particularly the poetry written by Ho Chi Minh.

I cherish the memory of the blushing militia girls on the roof of their factory, encouraging one of their sisters as she sang a song praising the blue sky of Vietnam—these women, who are so gentle and poetic, whose voices are so beautiful, but who, when American planes are bombing their city, become such good fighters.

Source: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Internal Security, Hearings Regarding H.R. 16742: Restraints on Travel to Hostile Areas, 92th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 19 and 25, 1972), 7671.

I cherish the way a farmer evacuated from Hanoi, without hesitation, offered me, an American, their best individual bomb shelter while US bombs fell near by. The daughter and I, in fact, shared the shelter wrapped in each others arms, cheek against cheek. It was on the road back from Nam Dinh, where I had witnessed the systematic destruction of civilian targets—schools, hospitals, pagodas, the factories, houses, and the dike system.

205. Statement of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, September 11, 1972 [Excerpt]

As I left the United States two weeks ago, Nixon was again telling the American people that he was winding down the war, but in the rubble-strewn streets of Nam Dinh, his words echoed with sinister [words indistinct] of a true killer. And like the young Vietnamese woman I held in my arms clinging to me tightly—and I pressed my cheek against hers—I thought, this is a war against Vietnam perhaps, but the tragedy is America’s.

On September 11, 1972, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), the Communist alternative or rival to the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), issued a statement just prior to the next meeting in Paris of the peace negotiators. In a new development, the PRG holds that any solution must recognize the existence in South Vietnam of “two administrations, two armies, and other political forces.”

One thing that I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt since I’ve been in this country is that Nixon will never be able to break the spirit of these people; he’ll never be able to turn Vietnam,

Introduction

Primary Source The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam solemnly declares as follows:

1642

206. Document by the South Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks

If a correct solution is to be found to the Vietnam problem, and a lasting peace ensured in Vietnam, the U.S. Government must meet the two following requirement: 1—To respect the Vietnamese people’s right to true independence and the South Vietnamese people’s right to effective selfdetermination; stop the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam, the bombing, mining and blockade of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; completely cease the “Vietnamization” policy; and all U.S. military activities in South Vietnam; rapidly and completely withdraw all U.S. troops, advisors, military personnel, technical personnel, weapons and war materials and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp from South Vietnam; liquidate the U.S. military bases in South Vietnam; end all U.S. military inivolvement in Vietnam; and stop supporting the Nguyen Van Thieu stooge administration. 2—A solution to the internal problem of South Vietnam must proceed from the actual situation that there exist in South Vietnam two administrations, two armies, and other political forces. It is necessary to achieve national concord. The sides in South Vietnam must unite on the basis of equality, mutual respect and mutual nonelimination. Democratic freedoms must be guaranteed to the people. To this end, it is necessary to form in South Vietnam a provisional government of national concord with three equal segments to take charge of the affairs in the period of transition and to organize truly free and democratic general elections. Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 7th rev. ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 648–649.

206. Document by the South Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks, October 24, 1972 Introduction On October 8, 1972, Le Duc Tho, the representative from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to the Paris peace talks, agreed for the first time that the government of President Nguyen Van Thieu in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) might remain in place and that after a ceasefire the Thieu government would negotiate with the Communist Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), the Communist government in South Vietnam, for a permanent political settlement. U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger then flew off to Saigon for talks with Thieu, who strongly objected to the terms of the proposed peace agreement. Chief among them

was that People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) units would be allowed to remain in place in South Vietnam after the U.S. military had departed. Thieu characterized the peace agreement as little more than a “decent interval” before South Vietnam would fall to the Communists. This document from the South Vietnamese Foreign Ministry enumerates Thieu’s objections.

Primary Source 1. There have been innumerable rumors and speculations with regard to a peaceful solution of the war in Indochina and in Vietnam in particular. The speculations are all the more feverish as the US Presidential elections come closer, and feed on missions carried out by US Presidential adviser Henry Kissinger to Peking, Moscow, Paris and these days to Saigon and Phnom Penh to meet with leaders of friendly and hostile countries. Meetings in Paris between Dr. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho resulted in agreement on a number of points between the U.S. and North Vietnam, which in turn induced a belief in some quarters of the public opinion that a ceasefire is imminent in Indochina with conditions which are unacceptable to the Republic of Vietnam. 2. The United States has informed the Republic of Vietnam progressively about the evolution of the talks with North Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam always discussed with the US the course of action to be followed by both parties. Throughout the consultations with the US, the Government of the Republic of Vietnam has observed an absolute discretion so as not to prejudice their outcome, and in order to avoid erroneous speculations about a conflict between the Republic of Vietnam and the US. However, the international press has advanced many stories with regard to those discussions. Those news items, either accurate or misleading, have had an unsettling impact on public opinion in Vietnam. 3. In order to eliminate any doubt, the Republic of Vietnam wishes to affirm that: Although the Government and people of the Republic of Vietnam fervently wish a return of peace in their land, they cannot accept a peace at all costs, especially a peace that would pave the way to the subjugation of 17 million South Vietnamese people by the Communists. Such a solution would be a betrayal of the many sacrifices consented by combatants of the Republic of Vietnam and the free world who have fought and died for the survival of the Republic of Vietnam. 4. For the aforementioned reasons, and after long and delicate discussion with Dr. Kissinger during the latter’s stay in Saigon from October 18th to 23rd, in a frank and cordial atmosphere, President Nguyen Van Thieu had to prepare certain modifications in the cease-fire proposal put forward by North Vietnam. President

207. Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor: News Conference 1643 Nguyen Van Thieu affirmed the RVN’s position after the consultations with the National Security Council. 5. The need for further negotiations is based on the consideration of three essential points of the proposed agreement, as follows: A. North Vietnam does not explicitly recognize the demilitarized zone at the 17th parallel as established by the 1954 Geneva Agreements. The Geneva Accords recognize that the territory of Vietnam is temporarily separated into two states and as a corollary, that there exists a constitutional and legal government in South Vietnam. It must be clear that North Vietnam cannot assume for itself the right to invade South Vietnam at any moment. B. The important question of the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam is also under negotiation. As a result of infiltrations effected in the past and of the open invasion carried out this year, North Vietnam’s army has presently no less than 300,000 troops in South Vietnam, who constitute a mortal threat to the security of the Republic of Vietnam, at present as well as in the future, in case of a cease-fire. C. Although there has been some change in the proposals previously put forward by the other side, the political arrangements are still under discussion. The Republic of Vietnam is determined to assure arrangements which reflect political realities in South Vietnam and respect basic principles of freedom and democracy as translated in the practice of “one man one vote” in the Republic of Vietnam. Any solution must maintain the constitutional and legal structure adopted by the people of the Republic of Vietnam. 6. There are many other points in the proposed cease-fire agreement which are less important but still require a thorough examination by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam. It is regrettable though that the Government of the Republic of Vietnam had been consulted in a so short period of time that it therefore has not been in a position to examine them in detail. 7. The position of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam is that the Hanoi authorities should hold direct discussions with the Republic of Vietnam to find a solution to the conflict. The Republic of Vietnam has repeatedly proposed bilateral discussions with Hanoi either open or secret, any time anywhere. 8. Problems with regard to the so-called National Liberation Front are a matter of internal affairs of the Republic of Vietnam, and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam has pledged to solve them within the democratic framework and in a spirit of national reconciliation. Source: Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: A History in Documents (New York: New American Library, 1981), 410–411.

207. Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor: News Conference, October 26, 1972 [Excerpt] Introduction Returning from Saigon, U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger held a nationally televised press conference in which he struck a very positive note about the prospects for peace. In this portion of the transcript, Kissinger glosses over the fundamental objections raised by President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), stating only that a half dozen matters needed to be hammered out, including “certain ambiguities,” “linguistic problems,” and “technical problems.” He does not mention that the United States would be presenting substantial demands that will change the character of the document already agreed to and says that it should take no more than one more meeting and “several hours of work” to achieve final agreement.

Primary Source Now, what is it, then, that prevents the completion of the agreement? Why is it that we have asked for one more meeting with the North Vietnamese to work out a final text? The principal reason is that in a negotiation that was stalemated for five years, and which did not really make a breakthrough until October 8, many of the general principles were clearly understood before the breakthrough, but as one elaborated the text, many of the nuances on which the implementation will ultimately depend became more and more apparent. It was obvious, it was natural, that when we were talking about the abstract desirability of a cease-fire that neither side was perhaps as precise as it had to become later about the timing and staging of a cease-fire in a country in which there are no clear frontlines. And also the acceptance on our part of the North Vietnamese insistence on an accelerated schedule meant that texts could never be conformed, that English and Vietnamese texts tended to lag behind each other, and that ambiguities in formulation arose that require one more meeting to straighten out. Let me give you a few examples, and I think you will understand that we are talking here of a different problem than what occupied us in the many sessions I have had with you ladies and gentlemen about the problem of peace in Vietnam, sessions which concerned abstract theories of what approach might succeed. We are talking here about six or seven very concrete issues that, with anything like the good will that has already been shown, can easily be settled. For example, it has become apparent to us that there will be great temptation for the cease-fire to be paralled by a last effort to seize as much territory as possible and perhaps to

1644

208. North Vietnamese Government Statement

extend operations for long enough to establish political control over a given area. We would like to avoid the dangers of the loss of life, perhaps in some areas even of the massacre that may be inherent in this, and we therefore want to discuss methods by which the international supervisory body can be put in place at the same time that the cease-fire is promulgated. The Secretary of State has already had preliminary conversations with some of the countries that are being asked to join this body in order to speed up this process. Secondly, because of the different political circumstances in each of the Indo-Chinese countries, the relationship of military operations there to the end of the war in Viet-Nam, or cease-fires there in relation to the end of the war in Viet-Nam, is somewhat complex; and we would like to discuss more concretely how to compress this time as much as possible. There were certain ambiguities that were raised by the interview that the North Vietnamese Prime Minister, Pham Van Dong, gave to one of the weekly journals in which he seemed to be, with respect to one or two points, under a misapprehension as to what the agreement contained, and at any rate, we would like to have that clarified. There are linguistic problems. For example, we call the National Council of Reconciliation an administrative structure in order to make clear that we do not see it as anything comparable to a coalition government. We want to make sure that the Vietnamese text conveys the same meaning. I must add that the words “administrative structure” were given to us in English by the Vietnamese, so this is not a maneuver on our part. There are some technical problems as to what clauses of the Geneva accords to refer to in certain sections of the document, and there is a problem which was never settled in which the North Vietnamese, as they have pointed out in their broadcast, have proposed that the agreement be signed by the United States and North Viet-Nam—we on behalf of Saigon, they on behalf of their allies in South Viet-Nam. We have always held the view that we would leave it up to our allies whether they wanted a two-power document or whether they wanted to sign themselves a document that establishes peace in their country. Now, they prefer to participate in the signing of the peace, and it seems to us not an unreasonable proposal that a country on whose territory a war has been fought and whose population has been uprooted and has suffered so greatly—that

it should have the right to sign its own peace treaty. This, again, strikes us as a not insuperable difficulty, but its acceptance will require the redrafting of certain sections of the document, and that, again, is a job that will require several hours of work. We have asked the North Vietnamese to meet with us on any date of their choice. We have, as has been reported, restricted our bombing, in effect, to the battle area in order to show our good will and to indicate that we are working within the framework of existing agreements. We remain convinced that the issues that I have mentioned are soluble in a very brief period of time. We have undertaken, and I repeat it here publicly, to settle them at one more meeting and to remain at that meeting for as long as is necessary to complete the agreement. Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 7th rev. ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 490–491.

208. North Vietnamese Government Statement, October 26, 1972 [Excerpt] Introduction Furious that the U.S. government was now demanding changes in the peace treaty that it had already agreed to, the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) released its record of the last stages of the Paris negotiations. Washington did not challenge the accuracy of Hanoi’s statement.

Primary Source With a view to making the negotiations progress, at the private meeting on October 8, 1972, the DRV side took a new, extremely important initiative: it put forward a draft “agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam,” and proposed that the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, with the concurrence of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, and the Government of the United States of America, with the concurrence of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam, immediately agreed upon and signed [as received] this agreement to rapidly restore peace in Vietnam. In that draft agreement, the DRV side proposed a cessation of the war throughout Vietnam, a cease-fire in South Vietnam, an end to all U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, a total withdrawal from South Vietnam of troops of the United States and those of the foreign countries allied with the United States and with the Republic of Vietnam, and the return of all captured and detained personnel of the parties. From the enforcement of the ceasefire to the installation of the government formed after free and

208. North Vietnamese Government Statement

1645

democratic general elections, the two present administrations in South Vietnam will remain in existence with their respective domestic and external functions.

formulation of the agreement was complete. The main issues of the agreement which have been agreed upon may be summarized as follows:

These two administrations shall immediately hold consultations with a view to the exercise of the South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination, achieving national concord, ensuring the democratic liberties of the South Vietnamese people, and forming an administration of national concord which shall have the task of promoting the South Vietnamese parties’ implementation of the signed agreements and organizing general elections in South Vietnam. The two South Vietnamese parties shall settle together the internal matters of South Vietnam within three months after the cease-fire comes into effect. Thus the Vietnam problem will be settled in two stages in accordance with the oft-expressed desire of the American side: The first stage will include a cessation of the war in Vietnam, a cease-fire in South Vietnam, a cessation of the U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and an agreement on the principles for the exercise of the South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination. In the second stage, the two South Vietnamese parties will settle together the internal matters of South Vietnam. The DRV side proposed, that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States sign this agreement by mid-October 1972.

(1) The United States respects the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Vietnam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva agreements.

The above initiative of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam brought the negotiations on the Vietnam problem, which had dragged on for four years now, onto the path to a settlement. The American side itself admitted that the draft “agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam” put forward by the DRV side was indeed an important and very fundamental document which opened up the way to an early settlement.

(3) The return of all captured personnel of the parties shall be carried out simultaneously with the U.S. troops withdrawal.

After several days of negotiations, on October 17, 1972, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States reached agreement on almost all problems on the basis of the draft agreement of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, except for only two unagreed issues. With its goodwill, the DRV side did its utmost to remove the last obstacles in accepting the American side’s proposals on the two remaining questions in the agreement. In his October 10, 1972 message to the premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the President of the United States appreciated the goodwill of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and confirmed that the formulation of the agreement could be considered complete. But in the same message, he raised a number of complex points. Desirous of rapidly ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam clearly explained its views on this subject. In his October 22, 1972 message, the President of the United States expressed satisfaction with the explanations given by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Thus by October 22, 1972, the

(2) Twenty-four hours after the signing of the agreement, a ceasefire shall be observed throughout South Vietnam. The United States will stop all its military activities, and end the bombing and mining in North Vietnam. Within 60 days, there will be a total withdrawal from South Vietnam of troops and military personnel of the United States and those of the foreign countries allied with the United States and with the Republic of Vietnam. The two South Vietnamese parties shall not accept the introduction of troops, military advisors and military personnel, armaments, munitions, and war material into South Vietnam. The two South Vietnamese parties shall be permitted to make periodical replacements of armaments, munitions, and war material that have been worn out or damaged after the ceasefire, on the basis of piece for piece of similar characteristics and properties. The United States will not continue its military involvement or intervene in the internal affairs of South Vietnam.

(4) The principles for the exercise of the South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination are as follows: The South Vietnamese people shall decide themselves the political future of South Vietnam through genuinely free and democratic general elections under international supervision; the United States is not committed to any political tendency or to any personality in South Vietnam, and it does not seek to impose a pro-American regime in Saigon; national reconciliation and concord will be achieved, the democratic liberties of the people ensured; an administrative structure called the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord of three equal segments will be set up to promote the implementation of the signed agreements by the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam and to organize the general elections, the two South Vietnamese parties will consult about the formation of councils at lower levels; the question of Vietnamese armed forces in South Vietnam shall be settled by the South Vietnamese parties in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, equality and mutual respect, without foreign interference, in accordance with the post-war situation; among the questions to be discussed by the two South Vietnamese parties shall sign an agreement on the internal matters of South Vietnam as soon possible and will do their utmost to accomplish this within three months after the cease-fire comes into effect.

1646

208. North Vietnamese Government Statement

(5) The reunification of Vietnam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means. (6) There will be formed a four-party joint military commission, and a joint military commission of the two South Vietnamese parties. An international commission of control and supervision shall be established. An international guarantee conference on Vietnam will be convened within 30 days of the signing of this agreement. (7) The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, the Government of the United States of America, and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam shall strictly respect the Cambodian and Lao peoples’ fundamental national rights as recognized by the 1954 Geneva agreements on Indochina and the 1962 Geneva agreements on Laos, i.e., the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of these countries. They shall respect the neutrality of Cambodia and Laos. The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam undertake to refrain from using the territory of Cambodia and the territory of Laos to encroach on the sovereignty and security of other countries. Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Laos and Cambodia, totally withdraw from and refrain reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material. The internal affairs of Cambodia and Laos shall be settled by the people of each of these countries without foreign interference. The problems existing between the three Indochinese countries shall be settled by the Indochinese parties on the basis of respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. (8) The ending of the war, the restoration of peace in Vietnam will create conditions for establishing a new, equal, and mutually beneficial relationship between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States. The United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to post-war reconstruction in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indochina. (9) This agreement shall come into force as of its signing. It will be strictly implemented by all the parties concerned. The two parties have also agreed on a schedule for the signing of the agreement. On October 9, 1972, at the proposal of the U.S. side,

it was agreed that on October 18, 1972, the United States would stop the bombing and mining in North Vietnam; on October 19, 1972, the two parties would initial the text of the agreement in Hanoi; on October 26, 1972, the foreign ministers of the two countries would formally sign the agreement in Paris. On October 11, 1972, the U.S. side proposed the following change to the schedule: On October 21, 1972, the United States would stop the bombing and mining in North Vietnam; on October 22, 1972, the two parties would initial the text of the agreement in Hanoi; on October 30, 1972, the foreign ministers of the two countries would formally sign the agreement in Paris. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam agreed to the new U.S. schedule. On October 20, 1972, under the pretext that there still remained a number of unagreed points, the U.S. side again put forth another schedule: On October 23, 1972, the United States would stop the bombing and mining in North Vietnam; on October 24, 1972, the two parties would initial the text of the agreement in Hanoi; on October 31, 1972, the foreign ministers of the two countries would formally sign the agreement in Paris. Despite the fact that the U.S. side had changed many times what had been agreed upon, the DRV side with its goodwill again agreed to the U.S. proposal while stressing that the U.S. side should not under any pretext change the agreed schedule. Thus, by October 22, 1972, the DRV side and the U.S. side had agreed both on the full text of the “agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam” and on a schedule to be observed for the formal signing of the agreement on October 31, 1972. Obviously, the two sides had agreed upon an agreement of extremely important significance, which meets the wishes of the peoples in Vietnam, the United States and the world. But on October 23, 1972, contrary to its pledges, the U.S. side again referred to difficulties in Saigon, demanded that the negotiations be continued for resolving new problems, and did not say anything about the implementation of its commitments under the agreed schedule. This behaviour of the U.S. side has brought about a very serious situation which risks to jeopardize the signing of the “agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam.” The so-called difficulties in Saigon represent a mere pretext to delay the implementation of the U.S. commitments, because it is public knowledge that the Saigon administration has been rigged up and fostered by the United States. With a mercenary army equipped and paid by the United States, this administration is a tool for carrying out the “Vietnamization” policy and the neocolonialist policy of the United States in violation of the South Vietnamese people’s national rights. It is an instrument for the United States to sabotage all peaceful settlement of the Vietnam problem.

209. President Richard Nixon: Letter to President Nguyen Van Thieu 1647 Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 7th rev. ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 484–487.

209. President Richard Nixon: Letter to President Nguyen Van Thieu, November 14, 1972 Introduction President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) refused to budge on the peace negotiations. U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon to sign the agreement without him, but the president refused, blaming Hanoi for the impasse. Kissinger has suggested that Nixon rejected implementing the October agreement without Thieu because he would have found it awkward prior to the November 1972 presidential election to risk his support among conservatives who were his political base. In order to regain Thieu’s cooperation in the peace negotiations, in November Nixon sent Kissinger’s deputy General Alexander Haig to Saigon, and in Operation ENHANCE PLUS the Pentagon turned over massive amounts of military equipment to the South Vietnamese armed forces. In this note to Thieu, Nixon spells out the demands that the United States will make of the negotiators from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) in Paris, including the withdrawal of a number of its troops into North Vietnam, but states that he does not expect all U.S. demands to be met. He also hints at a withdrawal of U.S. assistance if Thieu does not agree to the final text reached.

Primary Source I was pleased to learn from General Haig that you held useful and constructive discussions with him in Saigon in preparation for Dr. Kissinger’s forthcoming meeting with North Vietnam’s negotiations in Paris. After studying your letter of November 11 with great care I have concluded that we have made substantial progress towards reaching a common understanding on many of the important issues before us. You can be sure that we will pursue the proposed changes in the draft agreement that General Haig discussed with you with the utmost firmness and that, as these discussions proceed, we shall keep you fully informed through your Ambassador to the Paris Conference on Vietnam who will be briefed daily by Dr. Kissinger. I understand from your letter and from General Haig’s personal report that your principal remaining concern with respect to the draft agreement is the status of North Vietnamese forces now in

South Vietnam. As General Haig explained to you, it is our intention to deal with this problem first by seeking to insert a reference to respect for the demilitarized zone in the proposed agreement and, second, by proposing a clause which provides for the reduction and demobilization of forces on both sides in South Vietnam on a one-to-one basis and to have demobilized personnel return to their homes. Upon reviewing this proposed language, it is my conviction that such a provision can go a long way towards dealing with your concern with respect to North Vietnamese forces. General Haig tells me, however, that you are also seriously concerned about the timing and verification of such reductions. In light of this, I have asked Dr. Kissinger to convey to you, through Ambassador Bunker, some additional clauses we would propose adding to the agreement dealing with each of these points. In addition, I have asked that Dr. Kissinger send you the other technical and less important substantive changes which General Haig did not have the opportunity to discuss with you because they had not yet been fully developed in Washington. With these proposed modifications, I think you will agree that we have done everything we can to improve the existing draft while remaining within its general framework. You also raise in your letter the question of participation by other Asian countries in the International Conference. As you know, the presently contemplated composition are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the members of the ICCS, the parties to the Paris Conference on Vietnam and the Secretary General of the United Nations. We seriously considered Cambodian and Laotian participation but decided that these would be unnecessary complications with respect to representation. We do not, however, exclude the possibility of delegations from these countries participating in an observer status at the invitation of the conference. As for Japan, this question was raised earlier in our negotiations with Hanoi and set aside because it inevitably raises the possibility of Indian participation. I have, however, asked that Dr. Kissinger raise this matter again in Paris and he will inform your representative what progress we make on this. What we must recognize as a practical matter is that participation of Japan is very likely to lead to the participation of India. We would appreciate hearing your preference on whether it is better to include both countries or neither of them. Finally, in respect to the composition of the ICCS, I must say in all candor that I do not share your view that its contemplated membership is unbalanced. I am hopeful that it will prove to be a useful mechanism in detecting and reporting violations of the agreement. In any event, what we both must recognize is that the supervisory mechanism in itself is in no measure as important as our own firm determination to see to it that the agreement works and our vigilance with respect to the prospect of its violation.

1648

210. President Richard Nixon: Letter to President Nguyen Van Thieu

I will not repeat here all that I said to you in my letter of November 8, but I do wish to reaffirm its essential content and stress again my determination to work towards an early agreement along the lines of the schedule which General Haig explained to you. I must explain in all frankness that while we will do our very best to secure the changes in the agreement which General Haig discussed with you and those additional ones which Ambassador Bunker will bring you, we cannot expect to secure them all. For example, it is unrealistic to assume that we will be able to secure the absolute assurances which you would hope to have on the troop issue. But far more important than what we say in the agreement on this issue is what we do in the event the enemy renews its aggression. You have my absolute assurance that if Hanoi fails to abide by the terms of this agreement it is my intention to take swift and severe retaliatory action. I believe the existing agreement to be an essentially sound one which should become even more so if we succeed in obtaining some of the changes we have discussed. Our best assurance of success is to move into this new situation with confidence and cooperation. With this attitude and the inherent strength of your government and army on the ground in South Vietnam, I am confident this agreement will be a successful one. If, on the other hand, we are unable to agree on the course that I have outlined, it is difficult for me to see how we will be able to continue our common effort towards securing a just and honorable peace. As General Haig told you I would with great reluctance be forced to consider other alternatives. For this reason, it is essential that we have your agreement as we proceed into our next meeting with Hanoi’s negotiators. And I strongly urge you and your advisors to work promptly with Ambassador Bunker and Our Mission in Saigon on the many practical problems which will face us in implementing the agreement. I cannot overemphasize the urgency of the task at hand nor my unalterable determination to proceed along the course which we have outlined.

Mrs. Nixon joins me in extending our warmest personal regards to Madame Thieu and to you. We look forward to seeing you again at our home in California once the just peace we have both fought for so long is finally achieved. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010), 395–398.

210. President Richard Nixon: Letter to President Nguyen Van Thieu, January 5, 1973 Introduction On December 13 with negotiations in Paris, which had resumed in early November, having broken down, U.S. president Richard Nixon chose to blame the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) for the impasse rather than blaming President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), who had insisted on changes in the document that the United States had already agreed to. Nixon gave Hanoi an ultimatum to return to the conference table within 72 hours “or else.” When the North Vietnamese leadership rejected this, on December 18 Nixon launched new air raids against North Vietnam. Dubbed LINEBACKER II and also known as the Christmas Bombings, this 11-day air campaign saw North Vietnam shoot down 15 U.S. B-52 bombers but left the North Vietnamese air defense in a shambles and virtually all military targets destroyed. With the North Vietnamese leaders unwilling to risk attacks on neighborhoods and its vital dike system, they agreed to return to the negotiating table. In this letter to Thieu, Nixon warns the South Vietnamese president that his refusal to agree to the terms hammered out in Paris will jeopardize future U.S. aid, but Nixon also extends a pledge to Thieu—kept secret from the American people—that the United States will response to any North Vietnamese violation of the agreed-upon peace terms with “full force” against North Vietnam.

Primary Source This will acknowledge your letter of December 20, 1972.

Above all we must bear in mind what will really maintain the agreement. It is not any particular clause in the agreement but our joint willingness to maintain its clauses. I repeat my personal assurances to you that the United States will react very strongly and rapidly to any violation of the agreement. But in order to do this effectively it is essential that I have public support and that your Government does not emerge as the obstacle to a peace which [the] American public now universally desires. It is for this reason that I am pressing for the acceptance of an agreement which I am convinced is honorable and fair and which can be made essentially secure by our joint determination.

There is nothing substantial that I can add to my many previous messages, including my December 17 letter, which clearly stated my opinions and intentions. With respect to the question of North Vietnamese troops, we will again present your views to the Communists as we have done vigorously at every other opportunity in the negotiations. The result is certain to be once more the rejection of our position. We have explained to you repeatedly why we believe the problem of North Vietnamese troops is manageable under the agreement, and I see no reason to repeat all the arguments.

211. COSVN Directive 02/73: Policies Related to the Political Settlement and Cease-Fire 1649 We will proceed next week in Paris along the lines that General [Alexander] Haig explained to you. Accordingly, if the North Vietnamese meet our concerns on the two outstanding substantive issues in the agreement, concerning the DMZ and the method of signing, and if we can arrange acceptable supervisory machinery, we will proceed to conclude the settlement. The gravest consequences would then ensue if your government chose to reject the agreement and split off from the United States. As I said in my December 17 letter, “I am convinced that your refusal to join us would be an invitation to disaster—to the loss of all that we together have fought for over the past decade. It would be inexcusable above all because we will have lost a just and honorable alternative.” As we enter this new round of talks, I hope that our countries will now show a united front. It is imperative for our common objectives that your government take no further actions that complicate our task and would make more difficult the acceptance of the settlement by all parties. We will keep you informed of the negotiations in Paris through daily briefings of Ambassador Lam. I can only repeat what I have so often said: The best guarantee for the survival of South Vietnam is the unity of our two countries which would be gravely jeopardized if you persist in your present course. The actions of our Congress since its return have clearly borne out the many warnings we have made. Should you decide, as I trust you will, to go with us, you have my assurance of continued assistance in the post-settlement period and that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam. So once more I conclude with an appeal to you to close ranks with us. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. 9 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2010), 906.

211. COSVN Directive 02/73: Policies Related to the Political Settlement and Cease-Fire, January 19, 1973 [Excerpt] Introduction Even before a final peace treaty was signed in Paris, the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) informed the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the Communist headquarters running the war in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), that agreement was near. This COSVN document sets the official Communist position regarding implementation of the peace agreement.

Primary Source II. Direction of Our Policies in the Event the Agreement Is Signed and the Cease-Fire Goes into Effect 1. In the face of the new situation, in order to ensure the fulfillment of our basic mission which is to achieve the national democratic revolution in the South as a step toward peacefully unifying our country, the direction of our immediate mission when the Agreement is signed is as follows: “To mobilize the entire Party and people to bring our victory into full play by taking part in the high political movement in the three areas using the slogans calling for ‘peace, independence, democracy, rice and clothing for the people, national concord’ and demanding the implementation of the Agreement. To disintegrate and seriously collapse the puppet army and Government, take over control of the rural area, seize power at the base level; simultaneously, to build and develop our political and armed forces, build and strengthen the revolutionary administration and liberated area in all aspects, smash all enemy schemes to sabotage the Agreement, prevent large scale conflicts, maintain peace, hold general elections as provided for in the Agreement, bring the South Viet-Nam revolution toward the fulfillment of its basic objectives, at the same time, maintain constant alertness and readiness to deal with the U.S. imperialists’ plot to resume hostilities.” In order to fulfill this immediate mission, we must strive to meet the following key requirements: First, we must reach unity of mind in the entire Party with regard to the victory already gained. We must confidently strive to carry out the Party’s immediate political mission at all costs and, at the same time, remain firm in the event the Americans obdurately renege their commitments, sabotage the implementation of the Agreement or even resume hostilities. Second, we must concentrate efforts to turn the political struggle movement into a high revolutionary movement focussing on the principal slogans mentioned above. Third, we must strive to severely disintegrate and collapse the puppet army and government, especially at the base level. Fourth, we must build our forces in every aspect so they become strong, stable and present everywhere, especially in prosperous and populated areas, in the cities, in the religious communities. Development [of our forces] must go hand in hand with consolidation and preservation of forces, cadres and base organizations. Fifth, we must strengthen our base areas and liberated areas in all aspects, consolidate and expand the revolutionary administration

1650

212. Paris Peace Agreement

in all areas, and continue to bring the enemy-controlled area and cities to a new step of evolution.

b. We must fully grasp the following guideline and method of operation:

Sixth, we must maintain firmly and improve the development of our armed forces in the new situation, strive to strengthen our three-troop-category forces and make sure that they are ready in any circumstance.

One: We must closely combine political struggle with armed struggle and legalistic struggle, using political struggle as the base, armed struggle as support, while bringing into full play the legalistic effects of the Agreement.

Seventh, we must build up the Party’s strength, especially the strength of base-level Party chapters.

Two: We must closely combine the overt form of organization with the semi-overt and clandestine forms of organization, using the clandestine form as a base.

2. Strategic principles and struggle guidelines [which] we must fully grasp in the new phase. a. The following strategic principles must be fully grasped: One: We must fully grasp the objective of the national democratic revolution and closely combine the national mission with the democratic mission in the new situation. Therefore, the slogans calling for “peace, independence, democracy, rice and clothing, national concord” are not only principal slogans to be used in the immediate future but also strategic slogans to be used during the whole new phase. Two: We must fully grasp the offensive strategy of pushing back the enemy step by step and winning victory bit by bit before achieving complete victory. On the basis of persisting in the thought of unceasing and continuous revolution, we must create opportunities and grasp the opportunities in order to accelerate the development of the revolution in the new phase. Three: We must fully grasp the concept of violence in the context of the new situation, in the political struggle phase. We must absolutely bring into play the masses’ political violence, and stand ready to surmount fierceness and bloodshed in the course of promoting the political movement into a high tide. At the same time, we must not neglect military violence. On the contrary, we must stand constantly ready, especially we must unceasingly build up our three-troop– category armed forces as a firm support for our political struggle. Four: We must closely associate the mission of achieving the national democratic revolution in the South with the mission of protecting and building socialism in the North as a step toward the unification of our country. Five: We must coordinate the revolutionary movement in South Viet-Nam with the revolutionary movements in Kampuchea and Laos and the Indochinese revolution in general, coordinate the struggle movement for peace, independence, democracy, improvement of living standards with the movement for peace, national liberation and socialism all over the world.

Three: We must closely coordinate our offensive activities with activities to build our forces in all aspects for the purpose of creating a new position, strength and situation. Four: We must closely coordinate the masses’ struggle in the three strategic areas with the struggle of the overt organizations which are provided for in the Agreement [the Joint Military Commission, the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, and the Prisoner Exchange Commission], using the masses’ struggle as a base while bringing into full play the struggling effects of the overt organizations. Source: U.S. Mission in Vietnam, Viet-Nam and Research Notes, Document 113 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Library of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, June 1973), 1–8.

212. Paris Peace Agreement, January 27, 1973 [Excerpt] Introduction On January 23, 1973, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) and the United States concluded a new peace agreement, which was now imposed on the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam). Four parties signed: the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), the Communist provisional government in South Vietnam. Despite a few cosmetic changes, the agreement was for all practical purposes identical to that signed the previous October. The agreement acknowledges the “independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Viet-Nam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam.” This was what Hanoi had argued for years: that Vietnam was one country and that its effort in South Vietnam was not foreign aggression but rather a legitimate struggle for national independence and unity. The agreement provides for a cease-fire, withdrawal of all U.S. troops and advisers from South Vietnam, release of prisoners, the formation of a Council of National Reconciliation and Concord to resolve disagreements between South

212. Paris Peace Agreement Vietnam and North Vietnam and organize new general elections, new supervisory machinery (the International Commission of Control and Supervision, consisting of representatives of Canada, Hungary, Poland, and Indonesia), and withdrawal of foreign troops from Laos and Cambodia. The agreement also leaves in place in South Vietnam an estimated 150,000 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) troops.

Primary Source Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam The Parties participating in the Paris Conference on Viet-Nam, With a view to ending the war and restoring peace in Viet-Nam on the basis of respect for the Vietnamese people’s fundamental national rights and the South Vietnamese people’s right to selfdetermination, and to contributing to the consolidation of peace in Asia and the world. Have agreed on the following provisions and undertake to respect and to implement them: Chapter I The Vietnamese People’s Fundamental National Rights Article 1. The United States and all other countries respect the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of VietNam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam. Chapter II Troops

Cessation of Hostilities—Withdrawal of

Article 2. A cease-fire shall be observed throughout South VietNam as of 2400 hours G.M.T., on January 27, 1973. At the same hour, the United States will stop all its military activities against the territory of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam by ground, air and naval forces, wherever they may be based, and end the mining of the territorial waters, ports, harbors, and waterways of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. The United States will remove, permanently deactivate or destroy all the mines in the territorial waters, ports, harbors, and waterways of North VietNam as soon as this Agreement goes into effect. The complete cessation of hostilities mentioned in this Article shall be durable and without limit of time. Article 3. The parties undertake to maintain the cease-fire and to ensure a lasting and stable peace. As soon as the cease-fire goes into effect:

1651

a. The United States forces and those of the other foreign countries allied with the United States and the Republic of Viet-Nam shall remain in-place pending the implementation of the plan of troop withdrawal. The Four-Party Joint Military Commission described in Article 16 [not included here] shall determine the modalities. b. The armed forces of the two South Vietnamese parties shall remain in-place. The Two-Party Joint Military Commission described in Article 17 [not included here] shall determine the areas controlled by each party and the modalities of stationing. c. The regular forces of all services and arms and the irregular forces of the parties in South Viet-Nam shall stop all offensive activities against each other and shall strictly abide by the following stipulations: —All acts of force on the ground, in the air, and on the sea shall be prohibited; —All hostile acts, terrorism and reprisals by both sides will be banned. Article 4. The United States will not continue its military involvement or intervene in the internal affairs of South Viet-Nam. Article 5. Within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement, there will be a total withdrawal from South Viet-Nam of troops, military advisers, and military personnel, including technical military personnel and military personnel associated with the pacification program, armaments, munitions, and war material of the United States and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3 (a). Advisers from the above-mentioned countries to all paramilitary organizations and the police force will also be withdrawn within the same period of time. Article 6. The dismantlement of all military bases in South VietNam of the United States and of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3 (a) shall be completed within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement. Article 7. From the enforcement of the cease-fire to the formation of the government provided for in Article 9 (b) and 14 of this Agreement, the two South Vietnamese parties shall not accept the introduction of troops, military advisers, and military personnel including technical military personnel, armaments, munitions, and war material into South Viet-Nam. The two South Vietnamese parties shall be permitted to make periodic replacement of armaments, munitions and war material which have been destroyed, damaged, worn out or used up after the cease-fire, on the basis of piece-for-piece, of the same characteristics and properties, under the supervision of the Joint Military

1652

212. Paris Peace Agreement

Commission of the two South Vietnamese parties and of the International Commission of Control and Supervision. Chapter III The Return of Captured Military Personnel and Foreign Civilians, and Captured and Detained Vietnamese Civilian Personnel Article 8 a. The return of captured military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties shall be carried out simultaneously with and completed not later than the same day as the troop withdrawal mentioned in Article 5. The parties shall exchange complete lists of the above-mentioned captured military personnel and foreign civilians on the day of the signing of this Agreement. b. The Parties shall help each other to get information about those military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties missing in action, to determine the location and take care of the graves of the dead so as to facilitate the exhumation and repatriation of the remains, and to take any such other measures as may be required to get information about those still considered missing in action. c. The question of the return of Vietnamese civilian personnel captured and detailed in South Viet-Nam will be resolved by the two South Vietnamese parties on the basis of the principles of Article 21 (b) of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in VietNam of July 20, 1954. The two South Vietnamese parties will do so in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, with a view to ending hatred and enmity, in order to ease suffering and to reunite families. The two South Vietnamese parties will do their utmost to resolve this question within ninety days after the cease-fire comes into effect. Chapter IV The Exercise of the South Vietnamese People’s Right to Self-Determination Article 9. The Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam undertake to respect the following principles for the exercise of the South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination: a. The South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination is sacred, inalienable, and shall be respected by all countries. b. The South Vietnamese people shall decide themselves the political future of South Viet-Nam through genuinely free and democratic general elections under international supervision. c. Foreign countries shall not impose any political tendency or personality on the South Vietnamese people.

Article 10. The two South Vietnamese parties undertake to respect the cease-fire and maintain peace in South Viet-Nam, settle all matters of contention through negotiations, and avoid all armed conflict. Article 11. Immediately after the cease-fire, the two South Vietnamese parties will: —achieve national reconciliation and concord, end hatred and enmity, prohibit all acts of reprisal and discrimination against individuals or organizations that have collaborated with one side or the other; —ensure the democratic liberties of the people: personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of meeting, freedom of organization, freedom of political activities, freedom of belief, freedom of movement, freedom of residence, freedom of work, right to property ownership, and right to free enterprise. Article 12 a. Immediately after the cease-fire, the two South Vietnamese parties shall hold consultations in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, mutual respect, and mutual non-elimination to set up a National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord of three equal segments. The Council shall operate on the principle of unanimity. After the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord has assumed its functions, the two South Vietnamese parties will consult about the formation of councils at lower levels. The two South Vietnamese parties shall sign an agreement on the internal matters of South Viet-Nam as soon as possible and do their utmost to accomplish this within ninety days after the cease-fire comes into effect, in keeping with the South Vietnamese people’s aspirations for peace, independence and democracy. b. The National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord shall have the task of promoting the two South Vietnamese parties’ implementation of this Agreement, achievement of national reconciliation and concord and ensurance of democratic liberties. The National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord will organize the free and democratic general elections provided for in Article 9 (b) and decide the procedures and modalities of these general elections. The institutions for which the general elections are to be held will be agreed upon through consultations between the two South Vietnamese parties. The National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord will also decide the procedures and modalities of such local elections as the two South Vietnamese parties agree upon. Article 13. The question of Vietnamese armed forces in South Viet-Nam shall be settled by the two South Vietnamese parties in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, equality and

213. President Richard Nixon: Letter to Pham Van Dong mutual respect, without foreign interference, in accordance with the postwar situation. Among the questions to be discussed by the two South Vietnamese parties are steps to reduce their military effectives and to demobilize the troops being reduced. The two South Vietnamese parties will accomplish this as soon as possible.

1653

213. President Richard Nixon: Letter to Pham Van Dong, February 1, 1973 [Excerpt] Introduction

Article 14. South Viet-Nam will pursue a foreign policy of peace and independence. It will be prepared to establish relations with all countries irrespective of their political and social systems on the basis of mutual respect for independence and sovereignty and accept economic and technical aid from any country with no political conditions attached. The acceptance of military aid by South Viet-Nam in the future shall come under the authority of the government set up after the general elections in South Viet-Nam provided for in Article 9 (b).

During the final phase of the peace negotiations in Paris, U.S. negotiator National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had promised Le Duc Tho, Kissinger’s counterpart from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), that U.S. president Richard Nixon would send a letter to North Vietnamese president Pham Van Dong committing the United States to extend postwar reconstruction aid to North Vietnam. Not released publicly until 1977, this letter pledged the establishment of a join commission to negotiate the aid package, tentatively set at $3.25 billion over a five-year period.

Chapter V The Reunification of Viet-Nam and the Relationship Between North and South Viet-Nam

Primary Source

Article 15. The reunification of Viet-Nam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Viet-Nam, without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference. The time for reunification will be agreed upon by North and South Viet-Nam.

The President wishes to inform the Democratic Republic of Vietnam of the principles which will govern United States participation in the postwar reconstruction of North Vietnam. As indicated in Article 21 of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam signed in Paris on Jan. 27, 1973, the United States undertakes this participation in accordance with its traditional policies. These principles are as follows:

Pending reunification: a. The military demarcation line between the two zones at the 17th parallel is only provisional and not a political or territorial boundary, as provided for in paragraph 6 of the Final Declaration of the 1954 Geneva Conference. b. North and South Viet-Nam shall respect the Demilitarized Zone on either side of the Provisional Military Demarcation Line. c. North and South Viet-Nam shall promptly start negotiations with a view to reestablishing normal relations in various fields. Among the questions to be negotiated are the modalities of civilian movement across the Provisional Military Demarcation Line. d. North and South Viet-Nam shall not join any military alliance or military bloc and shall not allow foreign powers to maintain military bases, troops, military advisers, and military personnel on their respective territories, as stipulated in the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam. [. . .] Source: “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” Department of State Bulletin 68(1755) (1973): 169–172.

1. The Government of the United States of America will contribute to postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam without any political conditions. 2. Preliminary United States studies indicate that the appropriate programs for the United States contribution to postwar reconstruction will fall in the range of $3.25 billion of grant aid over five years. Other forms of aid will be agreed upon between the two parties. This estimate is subject to revision and to detailed discussion between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Democratic Republic [of] Vietnam. 3. The United States will propose to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam the establishment of a United States–North Vietnamese joint Economic Commission within 30 days from the date of this message. 4. The function of the commission will be to develop programs for the United States contribution to reconstruction of North Vietnam. This United States contribution will be based upon such factors as: (a) the needs of North Vietnam arising from the dislocation of war;

1654

214. COSVN Directive 03/CT 73

(b) The requirements for postwar reconstruction in the agricultural and industrial sectors of North Vietnam’s economy. 5. The Joint Economic Commission will have an equal number of representatives from each side. It will agree upon a mechanism to administer the program which will constitute the United States contribution to the reconstruction of North Vietnam. The commission will attempt to complete this agreement within 60 days after its establishment. 6. The two members of the commission will function on the principle of respect for each other’s sovereignty, noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit. The offices of the commission will be located at a place to be agreed upon by the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. 7. The United States considers that the implementation of the foregoing principles will prompt economic, trade and other relations between the United States of America and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and will contribute to insuring a stable and lasting peace in Indochina. These principles accord with the spirit of Chapter VIII of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam which was signed in Paris on Jan. 27, 1973. . . . Source: “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” Department of State Bulletin 76(1983) (1977): 674–675.

214. COSVN Directive 03/CT 73, March 1973 [Excerpts] Introduction Although the United States was no longer at war, fighting continued in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in what many have called the “Third Vietnam War” of 1973–1975. The Paris accords had not delineated territorial boundaries between the two sides and merely specified a “cease-fire in place.” As a result, immediately before the truce took hold, heavy fighting occurred, with both sides endeavoring to seize as much territory as possible. In this document, the leadership of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the Communist headquarters controlling the war in South Vietnam, admits that its forces have suffered “a number of losses” and calls for an increase in military forces and predicts final victory.

Primary Source I. Nature of the Situation, the Form of the Struggle between Us and the Enemy at this Time, the Enemy’s Plots, and Facts Concerning

the Possibilities for Development of the Situation after 60 Days of Implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement. 1. Message No. 775 of 25 February 1973 made it clear that: The main feature of the situation at this time is that the Agreement to End the War and Restore Peace in Viet-Nam (VN) has been signed, and the U.S. must withdraw all its troops and must cease the bombing and shelling of our people with its fleet. However, the U.S. is, on the other hand, shielding its puppets in their not implementing the Ceasefire order and in violating the Agreement. The situation in South Viet-Nam (SVN) is not yet stable. The instability and complexity of the situation is seen clearly in the following points: Although there is an Agreement to End the War and Restore Peace in VN, in truth in SVN there are many places where the shooting and bombing and shelling continue, and in some places more than prior to the Agreement. Armed conflict continues without pause because of the enemy’s police operations and aggression and infringement, but the scale and the methods are not what they were when the war was still going on and are concentrated in a limited number of areas. There are no B-52’s, artillery, fleet, or, actions by aircraft and infantry of the U.S. and satellites. The puppets are applying pressure and violating the agreement in this way, but they are still bound by the Paris Agreement. They can postpone and delay the implementation of the Agreement, but they cannot altogether not implement it, as in the cases of the initiation of the FPJMC [Four-Party Joint Military Commission], and the TPJMC [Two-Party Joint Military Commission], the International Commission for Control and Supervision (ICCS), the exchange of POW’S. The form of the struggle between us and the enemy is: The enemy distorts the Ceasefire Agreement, impedes the implementation of the Agreement, creates suspicion and divisions and hatred among the people, and maintains the tense situation. We disseminate the Agreement broadly, bring out the significance of the Agreement as a great victory, open up the movement of struggle to demand that the enemy implement the Agreement, and follow the trend in demanding peace and national concord among all classes of people—even within the puppet army and puppet government—and this forms our new struggle position in the new situation. The enemy launches police operations and oppresses and terrorizes the people, not permitting them freedom of movement in order to make their living. At the same time, he launches military operations with air and artillery support, tries to reoccupy the

214. COSVN Directive 03/CT 73 areas he has lost, does damage to the fields and gardens, gathers the people up, and builds additional outposts. We are determined to foil enemy oppression and aggression by mobilizing the masses to engage in political, armed and militaryproselyting struggle in coordination with legality to defend the lives and property of the people, to defend the liberated areas, to defeat the enemy’s plots of obstruction and destruction, and to force the enemy to implement the agreement. The enemy is delaying, creating problems and even engaging in physical abuse with regard to the initiation of the organizations for the implementation of the Agreement (the ICCS, the JMC’s, the negotiations between the two SVN parties). The enemy is fabricating and distorting the provisions of the Cease-fire Agreement and its Protocols. We are determined to struggle to initiate the abovenamed organizations in order to guarantee the implementation of the Agreement according to the time-schedule and the scope of responsibility set forth in the Agreement and its Protocols. . . . After 60 days, the situation may change as follows: Firstly, if we evaluate the situation of ourselves and the enemy correctly and in good time, exploit quickly the effects of the Ceasefire Agreement, apply the principles and methods for struggles, prevent the enemy from striking into our territory, bring the political and military-proselyting movements of the masses up to meet requirements, and coordinate the military victories which have forced the enemy to cease his advances and to implement the Cease-fire Agreement—then the situation will develop every day more to our advantage. We will repel the enemy’s plot to impede the Ceasefire Agreement and advance our movement another step, continuing to win new victories. As in reality there are two governments, two armies and two areas of control, it is not possible to avoid having scattered, small military engagements, but we must try hard to hold the enemy back and we must know how to defeat the enemy and to force him to implement the Agreement. Secondly, if we make the changes in directions too slowly and are not resolute in attacking the enemy, the enemy will continue to infringe further on us and to create a tense situation to cause us greater difficulties, to limit and paralyze the actions of the TPJMC, and to draw out the talks concerning the establishment of the National Council for National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC); the enemy will create a political and military situation to his advantage. Thirdly, it is also possible that, because of his collapse and isolation from which recovery is impossible, the enemy will draw out matters and the current situation will collapse entirely; or, because they hope to achieve victory by arms, we cannot exclude the possibility the enemy may initiate an adventurous civil war. We must be prepared to smother any such action by the enemy and to win a great victory for the nationalist democratic revolution in SVN.

1655

How the situation develops will depend on our subjective efforts, particularly on whether or not we can control our thinking so we can retain the initiative, on whether or not we can change the directions of our policies and methods for struggle to be appropriate, and on whether or not we have the resolve to develop ourselves in every way in order to change the ratio of forces between us and the enemy. . . . C) We have the Paris Agreement as the new element in the current situation and as the new weapon with which to attack the enemy and to develop our strength. We need to avoid two attitudes: 1. Holding that the Paris Agreement is a complete weapon and can replace the other types of struggle, imagining that with the Agreement we can solve all our problems, not seeing that the ratio of forces is actually the decisive factor. With the Paris Agreement, we have an additional sharp weapon with which to attack the enemy. The agreement creates more advantageous circumstances for us to develop more power and better position and to change the ratio of forces between us and the enemy in our favor. 2. Holding that the enemy has so seriously broken the Agreement that it no longer is valid and has no value, feeling that the current situation is “a return to normal war” as before, or “undeclared war” and, when the U.S. has withdrawn completely they will resume the war immediately. This attitude leads to the idea of going back a step and engaging in armed operations as before; it does not see that the Agreement has been achieved only by the blood of our people in struggle, and the Agreement opens for us a new phase and creates for us a new weapon and new circumstances in our favor for attack upon the enemy. This attitude is the main mistaken attitude at this time. It must be recognized that we have the strength of the masses, the strength of all our armed forces, and now we have the legal sanction to apply to give us the cutting edge of the three strengths in all our struggles, and so we have obtained a new considerable strength for attack upon the enemy. This strength must be shown concretely in the activities of our armed forces and in the three prongs in the villages, in order to develop the new assault posture in the new situation. D) Because of a lack of deep awareness of the enemy’s so very stubborn plots and because of simplistic assessments when the Ceasefire Agreement went into effect, our mental and material preparations to contend steadfastly with the enemy have not been sufficient. In many places the people who have come forth are still confused about the application of the struggle principles and methods in the new situation, while the enemy is infringing on us in many places and is secretly causing us a number of losses and difficulties, but in general the trend of the development of the situation is in our favor. The enemy builds more outposts in many places, but he is drawn-out and has many shortcomings— his soldiers and a large number of the outpost commanders and

1656

215. President Richard Nixon: News Conference

personnel of the puppet government are now suffering from low morale, are tired and disgusted, and want peace. We must calmly and correctly evaluate the nature of the situation in our own areas, make plans for implementation, and avoid two wrong attitudes:

nature of the war, the guerrilla nature, and that even in Korea, in which we do not have a guerrilla war, we still have violations. They recede each year, but we still have them. Long, 15, 20 years after the war is over.

1. Anxiety and subjectivity in wanting to contend with the enemy’s incursions by expanding the scope of military attacks on all the battlefields, as the only way quickly to recover lost territory.

In the case of these violations, we are concerned about them on two scores. One, because they occur, but two, we are concerned because of another violation that could lead to, we think, rather serious consequences. We do not believe it will. We hope that it will not. And that is the report that you ladies and gentlemen have been receiving from your colleagues in Vietnam with regard to infiltration.

2. Passivity, feeling that even use of the military cannot restore the previous position, and acceptance of Ceasefire Agreement violations just to maintain our position “whereafter we can advance step by step”: The essence of this attitude is acceptance of enemy infringements. The above two attitudes: anxiety and subjectivity, and passivity and loss of confidence and struggle orientation, are both in essence rightist; they are wrong evaluations of the situation and represent a failure to recognize strong and weak points and the enemy’s new shortcomings, a loss of firm thinking concerning attacks upon the enemy by the right means and in the right form, and a lack of knowledge of the use of the armed forces in conjunction with the political and military-proselyting and of the new weapon, i.e., the Ceasefire Agreement, in each prong of attack as they are joined tightly together. Source: U.S. Mission in Vietnam, Viet-Nam and Research Notes, Document 115 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Library of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, September 1973), 4–10, 11–13.

215. President Richard Nixon: News Conference, March 15, 1973 [Excerpt] Introduction In view of the high level of fighting going on in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), U.S. president Richard Nixon sought to pressure the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) to halt or to at least reduce significantly the resupply of its forces in South Vietnam. In addition to State Department bulletins, Nixon threatens during a news conference on March 15, 1973, to intervene with airpower. Such U.S. military action would have been highly unlikely given the determination of Congress to end U.S. involvement in Indochina and revelations of Nixon’s coverup in the Watergate Scandal.

You will note that there have been reports of infiltration by the North Vietnamese into South Vietnam of equipment exceeding the amounts that were agreed upon in the settlement. Now, some equipment can come in. In other words, replacement equipment, but no new equipment, nothing, which steps up the capacity of the North Vietnamese or the Vietcong to wage war in the South. No new equipment is allowed under the agreement. Now, as far as that concern is concerned, particularly on the infiltration, that is the more important point, rather than the cease-fire violations which we think, over a period of time, will be reduced— but in terms of the infiltration, I am not going to say publicly what we have said. I only suggest this: That we have informed the North Vietnamese of our concern about this infiltration and what we believe it to be, a violation of the cease-fire, the cease-fire and the peace agreements. Our concern has also been expressed to other interested parties and I would only suggest that based on my actions over the past four years, that the North Vietnamese should not lightly disregard such expressions of concern, when they are made, with regard to violation. That is all I will say about it. Q. Mr. President, in connection with this matter, there is a report also that not just equipment, but a new infusion of North Vietnamese combat personnel have been introduced into South Vietnam, which is apart from just equipment. Can you confirm this? Is this partly what you are talking about?

Q. Mr. President, can you say, sir, how concerned you are about the reports of cease-fire violations in Vietnam.

A. Mr. Theis, the reports that we get with regard to infiltration, as you know, are always either too little or too late or too much. And I am not going to confirm that one, except to say that we have noted the report having been made. We, however, are primarily concerned about the equipment, because as far as the personnel are concerned, they could be simply replacement personnel.

A. Well, I am concerned about the cease-fire violations. As you ladies and gentlemen will recall, I have consistently pointed out in meetings with you, that we would expect violations because of the

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1973 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 205–206.

Primary Source

217. War Powers Resolution

216. Fulbright-Aiken Amendment: Public Law 93-52, Section 108, July 1, 1973

1657

Primary Source § 1542. Consultation; initial and regular consultations

This congressional amendment in effect ties the hands of the Richard Nixon administration regarding Indochina. The amendment specifically prohibits a resumption of bombing or other U.S. combat activity in Indochina.

The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations.

Primary Source

§ 1543. Reporting requirement

Introduction

SEC. 108. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, on or after August 15, 1973, no funds herein or heretofore appropriated may be obligated or expended to finance directly or indirectly combat activities by United States military forces in or over or from off the shores of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia. Approved July 1, 1973. Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 7th rev. ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), 577.

217. War Powers Resolution, November 7, 1973 [Excerpt] Introduction First introduced by Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.) following the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, this legislation was related to the American experience in Vietnam and was also the result of an effort by Congress to reassert some of the authority over the military lost to the president from 1941. The law, overwhelmingly passed by Congress on November 7, 1973, limits the war-making powers of the chief executive. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (Public Law 93-148, 93rd Congress, H.J. Resolution 542, November 7, 1973), simply known as the War Powers Act, requires the president to consult with Congress before military forces are sent into combat abroad or to areas where hostilities are likely and to report in writing within 48 hours after troops are deployed. The president must then terminate the use of military force within 60 to 90 days. The deployment can continue for another 60 days and then for another 30 days beyond that if the president certifies to Congress in writing that the safety of the force so requires. Unless Congress authorizes a continuation through a declaration of war, a concurrent resolution, or other appropriate legislation, the deployment cannot be continued beyond 90 days.

(a) Written report; time of submission; circumstances necessitating submission; information reported In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced— (1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances; (2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair or training of such forces; or (3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation; the President shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President, pro tempore of the Senate a report, in writing, setting forth— (A) the circumstances necessitating the introduction of United States Armed Forces; (B) the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place; and (C) the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement. (b) Other information reported The President shall provide such other information as the Congress may request in the fulfillment of its constitutional responsibilities with respect to committing the Nation to war and to the use of United States Armed Forces abroad. (c) Periodic reports; semiannual requirement Whenever United States Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities or into any situation described in subsection (a) of this section, the President shall, so long as such armed forces continue to be engaged in such hostilities or situation, report to the Congress

1658

218. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/TW

periodically on the status of such hostilities or situation as well as on the scope and duration of such hostilities or situation, but in no event shall he report to the Congress less often than once every six months. § 1544. Congressional action

(a) Transmittal of report and referral to Congressional Committees; joint request for convening Congress Each report submitted pursuant to section 1543(a)(1) of this title shall be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate on the same calendar day. Each report so transmitted shall be referred to the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate for appropriate action. If, when the report is transmitted, the Congress has adjourned sine die or has adjourned for any period in excess of three calendar days, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate, if they deem it advisable (or if petitioned by at least 30 percent of the membership of their respective Houses) shall jointly request the President to convene Congress in order that it may consider the report and take appropriate action pursuant to this section. (b) Termination of use of United States Armed Forces; exceptions; extension period Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 1543(a)(1) of this title, whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces. (c) Concurrent resolution for removal by President of United States Armed Forces Notwithstanding subsection (b) of this section, at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such

forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution. Source: The War Powers Resolution, Pub. L. 93-148 [H.J. Res. 542], 87 Stat. 555, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1541–1548, passed over President’s veto November 7, 1973, Sec. 2(a).

218. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/ TW: Richard Nixon’s Resignation of the Presidency of the United States and a Number of Urgent Party Tasks, August 13, 1974 [Excerpts] Introduction On August 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon officially resigned as president of the United States. Four days later the Politburo of the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) approved a resolution providing the party’s assessment of the reasons for the resignation, what effect the resignation would have on America’s Vietnam policy, and how Communist forces should attempt to exploit the opportunity provided them by Nixon’s resignation.

Primary Source Nixon’s resignation as President of the United States is an important political event that signals the weakness and defeat of the American imperialists. . . . We must analyze both the underlying reasons and the direct reasons for Nixon’s resignation of the office of President, and from that draw the necessary conclusions. . . . The state monopoly capitalist clique in the U.S. has been forced to replace America’s leader in order to deceive the American people and the people of the world so that the U.S. can, after making some slight adjustments, continue to implement the American world counter-revolutionary strategy that bears the name, the “Nixon Doctrine.” Nixon was not forced to resign from the office of President of the United States solely because of the crimes committed in the Watergate affair. . . . The Watergate affair was just a chance opportunity that set off an explosion of the U.S.’s social contradictions and of the internal contradictions within the American monopoly capitalist class. In fact, the primary cause of these contradictions is the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam. This war has been so costly, in lives, property, and dollars, that it has caused the American imperialist crises on the economic, political, and military fronts to develop rapidly and to grow more serious with each passing day. . . . During the final days of the Johnson Administration, the general opinion of the U.S. public was that the U.S. would have to

219. Conclusion of Phase Two of the Politburo Conference of the Lao Dong 1659 quickly end its war of aggression in Vietnam. Instead, however, under the Nixon Administration the war was prolonged, expanded, and waged even more savagely. The serious crisis of all aspects of American domestic affairs and the weakening position of the United States in the international community were urgent problems that needed to be addressed and solved as far back as the last days of the Johnson Administration. However, throughout his five long years in power, Nixon demonstrated that he was incapable of resolving these problems. After the Paris Agreement on Vietnam was signed, the U.S.’s problems grew even greater. As a result of this situation, under the Nixon Administration the contradictions between the American people and the American ruling clique grew steadily more serious. . . . In light of the desperate situation facing the United States, for their own interests the American ruling class made Nixon its sacrificial lamb in order to trick the U.S. public and the people of the world. That is the real reason that, in the end, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party agreed to force Nixon to resign. . . . Nixon’s fall demonstrates the failure of America’s world strategy, the crisis and weakness of the American imperialists, and the corruption of the U.S. capitalist regime. . . . It was a powerful political and spiritual blow to the Nguyen Van Thieu puppet government, the lackeys of the Americans, who are now shocked, frightened, and wavering because of Nixon’s collapse. Gerald Ford replaced Nixon as President in the midst of a deep crisis in America, a crisis of unprecedented proportions. First of all, Ford will have to solve that crisis in American society. At the same time, he will also have to deal with a world revolutionary situation that is now growing rapidly because of the U.S.’s weakened position. . . . We have no illusions about the replacement of the U.S. President. This is just a trick by the American monopoly capitalist clique, changing horses in midstream to try to redeem its desperate situation. . . . Ford will continue the Nixon Doctrine without Nixon, he will continue the evil “Vietnamization” policy, and he will continue to sabotage the Paris Agreement on Vietnam. He may use a few more demagogic tricks than Nixon did, but America’s basic policies, both domestic and foreign, remain unchanged. For that reason, it is certain that Gerald Ford will not be able to reverse the direction of America’s difficult situation, neither domestically nor abroad. By stubbornly following in Nixon’s footsteps, Ford will lead the United States down to even greater defeats. . . . In order to further exacerbate the contradictions, to add to the difficulties of the American imperialists, and to win victory for our people in both North and South Vietnam, we must properly implement the following measures: In both North and South Vietnam, we must launch a continuous and wide-ranging propaganda campaign aimed at both domestic public opinion and world opinion. . . . In South Vietnam, we need to exploit Nixon’s fall to step up our struggle against the U.S. and the Saigon Government on all fronts—political, military, and diplomatic. We must link the

corruption, the rottenness, the failures, and the stagnation of the Nixon Administration to the corruption, the rottenness, the failures, and the stagnation of the Nguyen Van Thieu Government. We must stress the fact that Nguyen Van Thieu was Nixon’s lackey and that only by overthrowing Nguyen Van Thieu will our nation ever be able to enjoy peace and national reconciliation. We need to form a broad-based front against Thieu, a front that demands that Thieu be thrown out, that a government be formed that truly supports the implementation of the Paris Agreement, that this new government implements the exercise of freedom and democracy in the areas controlled by the Saigon government, that it frees political prisoners, and that it implements peace and national reconciliation. . . . Militarily, we must step up combat operations, shatter the enemy’s pacification and land-grabbing military sweep operations, kill enemy troops and erode the enemy’s manpower strength, recover those areas that the enemy has seized from us, protect our liberated zones, protect our base areas, and work to implement our policy of mounting a three-pronged attack [military, political, military proselyting] in order to win even greater victories. In the diplomatic struggle, when the time is right the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam may launch a diplomatic offensive to push the Americans and their puppets back up against the wall and to win widespread sympathy and support, both at home and abroad. . . . In North Vietnam, . . . do everything possible to support and assist South Vietnam to defeat the puppet army, which is controlled and fed by the Americans. The Party Secretariat and the Central Office for South Vietnam will prepare a plan to disseminate, direct, and push the implementation of this resolution. [signed] Truong Chinh Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 35, 1974 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 35, 1974] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2004), 116–123. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

219. Conclusion of Phase Two of the Politburo Conference of the Lao Dong, January 8, 1975 [Excerpt] Introduction In early January 1975 the Politburo of the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) concluded an extended three-week session during which it debated the General Staff’s military plan to defeat the forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and win the war. A document summarizing the results of the Politburo session laid

1660

220. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State: Request for Emergency Aid for the Republic of Vietnam

out the general outlines of the plan and discussed the possibility that the United States might reintervene militarily to try to save South Vietnam from total defeat. (Note: Cochin China is the southern half of South Vietnam, from the southern end of the Central Highlands southward, including Saigon and the Mekong Delta.)

Primary Source . . . This final battle is first of all the responsibility of our military and political forces on the battlefields of Cochin China, including the forces of Saigon–Gia Dinh. At the same time, it is also the responsibility of the soldiers and civilians of our entire nation, but the decisive role will be played by COSVN’s main force units and by large main force units sent down from other battlefields. The 1975 operations plan lays out the responsibilities of each individual battlefield and at the same time states that the direction of operations for all battlefields will be aimed at the common goal of moving by the fastest route possible toward fighting the final strategically decisive battle in the enemy’s last lair. The Cochin China [Nam Bo] battlefield has three important missions: to attack the enemy’s “pacification” program; to attack puppet main force [regular army] units; and to surround and pressure the cities. To attack “pacification,” with the focal point of our attack being the Mekong Delta, we must utilize between 20,000 and 30,000 main force troops from Eastern Cochin China [Dong Nam Bo] to attack down into the delta, in coordination with attacks and uprisings by local armed forces and political forces, and open up a unified, integral liberated zone linking Eastern Cochin China with Regions 8 and 9. At the same time, we must place heavy pressure on My Tho and Saigon, and especially on Saigon, to create conditions that will enable the masses there to rise up. To contribute toward the goal of surrounding and pressuring Saigon, our main force troops must annihilate a significant portion of the puppet’s main force [regular] units in Eastern Cochin China. In the Region 5–Central Highlands area, we will use three main force divisions to attack the Central Highlands to open up a corridor linking the Central Highlands with Eastern Cochin China to create conditions that will enable our main force troops to move rapidly down into Eastern Cochin China to support COSVN’s main force units in the attack on Saigon. We will begin the offensive with an opening attack to capture Ban Me Thuot, then strike straight down to Tuy Hoa and Phu Yen, cutting the Region 5 coastal lowlands in two and creating an additional sector through which we can advance rapidly to the south to surround and pressure Saigon. We will use Military Region 5 forces and the military and political forces of the coastal provinces of Central Vietnam to liberate the area from Binh Dinh northward to put pressure on Da Nang. In the Tri-Thien Battlefield, we will attack and capture the lowlands and take firm control of the area south of Hue City in order to isolate Hue from Da Nang, to put pressure on both these cities, and to prevent the enemy from regrouping and pulling his forces back to the south. We will incite armed mutinies and secession in Central Vietnam.

When the opportunity arises, we will send three additional divisions down to Eastern Cochin China. We will use two corps to launch lightning attacks to annihilate several of the puppet regular divisions down there and then penetrate straight into Saigon. We must have plans ready in both South Vietnam and in North Vietnam for how we will respond to possible U.S. resumption of attacks by air and naval forces. The possibility that the U.S. will reintervene in the Vietnam War is low. However, even if that possibility is only five or seven percent, we still must be on guard, because the U.S. is still plotting to maintain its neocolonialist rule. No matter what the U.S. wants to do, it will only be able to take limited action, for example by providing a small amount of additional military and economic aid or, at the very most, by providing air and naval fire support (and only in the event that the puppets are able to resist for a protracted period of time). These are the primary military attacks in our 1975 strategic plan. . . . Source: Dai Thang Mua Xuan, 1975: Van Kien Dang [Great Spring Victory 1975: Party Documents] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2005), 21–31. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

220. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State: Request for Emergency Aid for the Republic of Vietnam, April 15, 1975 Introduction In March 1975 three divisions of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) launched an offensive against forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu then made a fatal decision, ordering the withdrawal of South Vietnamese forces from the region. This soon became a rout. As the South Vietnamese military situation rapidly deteriorated, in early April the Gerald R. Ford administration asked Congress for an emergency appropriation of $800 million to assist South Vietnam. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger appeared before Congress to support the appeal, claiming that the United States had a “moral obligation” to extend the assistance and blaming the military imbalance in South Vietnam on cuts in U.S. aid to the Saigon regime.

Primary Source The long and agonizing conflict in Indochina has reached a tragic stage. The events of the past month have been discussed at great length before the Congress and require little additional elaboration. In Viet-Nam President Thieu ordered a strategic withdrawal from a number of areas he regarded as militarily untenable.

220. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State: Request for Emergency Aid for the Republic of Vietnam 1661 However, the withdrawal took place in great haste, without adequate advance planning, and with insufficient coordination. It was further complicated by a massive flow of civilian refugees seeking to escape the advancing North Vietnamese Army. Disorganization engendered confusion; fear led to panic. The results, as we all know, were tragic losses—of territory, of population, of material, and of morale. But to fully understand what has happened, it is necessary to have an appreciation of all that went before. The North Vietnamese offensive, and the South Vietnamese response, did not come about by chance—although chance is always an element in warfare. The origins of these events are complex, and I believe it would be useful to review them briefly. Since January 1973, Hanoi has violated—continuously, systematically, and energetically—the most fundamental provisions of the Paris agreement. It steadily increased the numbers of its troops in the South. It improved and expanded its logistics system in the South. It increased the armaments and ammunition of its forces in the South. And as you know, it blocked all efforts to account for personnel missing in action. These are facts, and they are indisputable. All of these actions were of course in total violation of the agreement. Parallel to these efforts, Hanoi attempted—with considerable success—to immobilize the various mechanisms established by the agreement to monitor and curtail violations of the cease-fire. Thus, it assiduously prepared the way for further military actions. South Viet-Nam’s record of adherence to the agreement has not been perfect. It is, however, qualitatively and quantitatively far better than Hanoi’s. South Viet-Nam did not build up its armed forces. It undertook no major offensive actions—although it traded thrusts and probes with the Communists. It cooperated fully in establishing and supporting the cease-fire control mechanisms provided for in the agreement. And it sought, as did the United States, full implementation of those provisions of the agreement calling for an accounting of soldiers missing in action. But perhaps more relevant to an understanding of recent events are the following factors. While North Viet-Nam had available several reserve divisions which it could commit to battle at times and places of its choosing, the South had no strategic reserves. Its forces were stretched thin, defending lines of communication and population centers throughout the country. While North Viet-Nam, by early this year, had accumulated in South Viet-Nam enough ammunition for two years of intensive combat, South Vietnamese commanders had to ration ammunition as their stocks declined and were not replenished.

While North Viet-Nam had enough fuel in the South to operate its tanks and armored vehicles for at least 18 months, South VietNam faced stringent shortages. In sum, while Hanoi was strengthening its army in the South, the combat effectiveness of South Viet-Nam’s army gradually grew weaker. While Hanoi built up its reserve divisions and accumulated ammunition, fuel, and other military supplies, U.S. aid levels to Viet-Nam were cut—first by half in 1973 and then by another third in 1974. This coincided with a worldwide inflation and a fourfold increase in fuel prices. As a result almost all of our military aid had to be devoted to ammunition and fuel. Very little was available for spare parts, and none for new equipment. These imbalances became painfully evident when the offensive broke full force, and they contributed to the tragedy which unfolded. Moreover, the steady diminution in the resources available to the Army of South Viet-Nam unquestionably affected the morale of its officers and men. South Vietnamese units in the northern and central provinces knew full well that they faced an enemy superior both in numbers and in firepower. They knew that reinforcements and resupply would not be forthcoming. When the fighting began they also knew, as they had begun to suspect, that the United States would not respond. I would suggest that all of these factors added significantly to the sense of helplessness, despair, and, eventually, panic which we witnessed in late March and early April. I would add that it is both inaccurate and unfair to hold South VietNam responsible for blocking progress toward a political solution to the conflict. Saigon’s proposals in its conversations with PRG [Provisional Revolutionary Government] representatives in Paris were in general constructive and conciliatory. There was no progress toward a compromise political settlement because Hanoi intended that there should not be. Instead, North Viet-Nam’s strategy was to lay the groundwork for an eventual military offensive, one which would either bring outright victory or at least allow Hanoi to dictate the terms of a political solution. Neither the United States nor South Viet-Nam entered into the Paris agreement with the expectation that Hanoi would abide by it in every respect. We did believe, however, that the agreement was sufficiently equitable to both sides that its major provisions could be accepted and acted upon by Hanoi and that the contest could be shifted thereby from a military to a political track. However, our two governments also recognized that, since the agreement manifestly was not self-enforcing, Hanoi’s adherence depended heavily on maintaining a military parity in South Viet-Nam. So long as North Viet-Nam confronted a strong South Vietnamese army and so long as the possibility existed of U.S. intervention to offset the strategic advantages of the North, Hanoi could be expected to forgo major military action. Both of those essential conditions were dissipated over the past two years. Hanoi attained

1662

221. Lao Dong Party Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW

a clear military superiority, and it became increasingly convinced that U.S. intervention could be ruled out. It therefore returned to a military course, with the results we have seen. The present situation in Viet-Nam is ominous. North Viet-Nam’s combat forces far outnumber those of the South, and they are better armed. Perhaps more important, they enjoy a psychological momentum which can be as decisive as armaments in battle. South Viet-Nam must reorganize and reequip its forces, and it must restore the morale of its army and its people. These tasks will be difficult, and they can be performed only by the South Vietnamese. However, a successful defense will also require resources— arms, fuel, ammunition, and medical supplies—and these can come only from the United States. Large quantities of equipment and supplies, totaling perhaps $800 million, were lost in South Viet-Nam’s precipitous retreat from the northern and central areas. Much of this should not have been lost, and we regret that it happened. But South Viet-Nam is now faced with a different strategic and tactical situation and different military requirements. Although the amount of military assistance the President has requested is of the same general magnitude as the value of the equipment lost, we are not attempting simply to replace those losses. The President’s request, based on [U.S. Army chief of staff] General [Frederick C.] Weyand’s assessment, represents our best judgment as to what is needed now, in this new situation, to defend what is left of South Viet-Nam. Weapons, ammunition, and supplies to reequip four divisions, to form a number of ranger groups into divisional units, and to upgrade some territorial forces into infantry regiments will require some $326 million. The balance of our request is for ammunition, fuel, spare parts, and medical supplies to sustain up to 60 days of intensive combat and to pay for the cost of transporting those items. These are minimum requirements, and they are needed urgently. The human tragedy of Viet-Nam has never been more acute than it now is. Hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese have sought to flee Communist control and are homeless refugees. They have our compassion, and they must also have our help. Despite commendable efforts by the South Vietnamese Government, the burden of caring for these innocent victims is beyond its capacity. The United States has already done much to assist these people, but many remain without adequate food, shelter, or medical care. The President has asked that additional efforts and additional resources be devoted to this humanitarian effort. I ask that the Congress respond generously and quickly. The objectives of the United States in this immensely difficult situation remain as they were when the Paris agreement was signed—to end the military conflict and establish conditions which will allow a fair political solution to be achieved. We believe that despite the tragic experience to date, the Paris agreement remains a valid

framework within which to proceed toward such a solution. However, today, as in 1973, battlefield conditions will affect political perceptions and the outcome of negotiations. We therefore believe that in order for a political settlement to be reached which preserves any degree of self-determination for the people of South Viet-Nam, the present military situation must be stabilized. It is for these reasons that the President has asked Congress to appropriate urgently additional funds for military assistance for Viet-Nam. I am acutely aware of the emotions aroused in this country by our long and difficult involvement in Viet-Nam. I understand what the cost has been for this nation and why frustration and anger continue to dominate our national debate. Many will argue that we have done more than enough for the Government and the people of South Viet-Nam. I do not agree with that proposition, however, nor do I believe that to review endlessly the wisdom of our original involvement serves a useful purpose now. For despite the agony of this nation’s experience in Indochina and the substantial reappraisal which has taken place concerning our proper role there, few would deny that we are still involved or that what we do—or fail to do—will still weigh heavily in the outcome. We cannot by our actions alone insure the survival of South Viet-Nam. But we can, alone, by our inaction assure its demise. The United States has no legal obligation to the Government and the people of South Viet-Nam of which the Congress is not aware. But we do have a deep moral obligation—rooted in the history of our involvement and sustained by the continuing efforts of our friends. We cannot easily set it aside. In addition to the obvious consequences for the people of Viet-Nam, our failure to act in accordance with that obligation would inevitably influence other nations’ perceptions of our constancy and our determination. American credibility would not collapse, and American honor would not be destroyed. But both would be weakened, to the detriment of this nation and of the peaceful world order we have sought to build. Source: “Military and Humanitarian Assistance to South Viet-Nam,” Department of State Bulletin 72(1871) (1975): 583–586.

221. Lao Dong Party Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW: Policy toward Enemy Soldiers Who Are Captured or Surrender in the New Situation, April 18, 1975 [Excerpts] Introduction In mid-April 1975 as 15 Communist divisions tightened the noose around Saigon and the imminent collapse of the Republic

221. Lao Dong Party Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) regime became apparent, the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) issued a directive on the treatment of enemy personnel who were captured or turned themselves in. This document laid the foundation for the establishment of the infamous reeducation camps in which more than 100,000 former South Vietnamese soldiers and civilian officials were imprisoned, many for a decade or more.

Primary Source In this new situation, currently the number of enemy prisoners of war, of enemy troops who return to our side when their revolutionary consciences are awakened, and of enemy soldiers who mutiny against their superiors is constantly growing, and our liberated zone in South Vietnam is constantly expanding and becoming integrated into one. The Secretariat has decided that these enemy troops will be categorized in the following manner and that our policy for dealing with them will be: I—Categories 1. Mutineers: Enemy soldiers who carry out actions directed against the enemy and join the revolution. Such actions include uprisings to cause mutinies, serving as our agents inside the enemy’s ranks, sabotaging the enemy, or directly or indirectly assisting our side in battle. 2. Soldiers whose revolutionary consciences have been awakened and who return to the revolution (they should not be surrendering soldiers): Enemy soldiers who take the initiative to desert the enemy’s ranks in order to join the ranks of the revolution. 3. Prisoners of War: Enemy soldiers that we capture during or after a battle. 4. Soldiers who turn themselves in after fleeing in battle: Enemy soldiers who have been forced to flee and hide after our forces attack and who then turn themselves in to revolutionary governmental authorities. II—Policies Toward Each Individual Category 1. Mutineers: Politically, they will be considered as revolutionary masses [civilian supporters]. In terms of their lives and rations, they will be treated the same as our own cadre and enlisted soldiers. . . . 2. Soldiers whose revolutionary consciences have been awakened: They will receive the same rights as ordinary citizens and will be dealt with, both in spirit and in material terms, as ordinary citizens. 3. Prisoners of War: They will be dealt with humanely in strict accordance with our policies. In the present situation, they will be handled as follows: a) Privates and Non-Commissioned Officers:

1663

—Those whose families live in liberated zones will have the revolution’s policies explained to them and then will be allowed to return home, where local governmental authorities will register, administer, and educate them. —Those who come from areas still under enemy control or who are not yet able to return home because they are far from home will be temporarily concentrated together [detained] so that we can administer and educate them and use them to perform work duties. When conditions permit, they will be allowed to return home to their families. b) Officers: All officers will be detained for control, education, and labor purposes. Later, depending on the amount of progress made by each, they will be recategorized. Specific detailed policies for handling each category will be set at a later date. Those individuals (including both officers and enlisted men) who have specialized technical skills that we need may be employed in individual tasks for a certain length of time, but we must be vigilant toward them and we must tightly control them. Later, depending on our requirements and on the amount of progress each individual has demonstrated, they may be recruited and employed in various sectors outside the armed forces. c) With regards to those who are thugs, intelligence or military security service personnel, psychological warfare officers, pacification or chieu hoi cadre, and leaders of reactionary political parties or party factions within the enemy armed forces, regardless of whether they are privates, noncommissioned officers, or commissioned officers they must be sent to long-term concentrated reeducation. They must be imprisoned separately in secure locations, and they must be tightly controlled and administered. d) With regards to those individuals who were formerly soldiers in our army but who deserted to the enemy and joined the puppet army, these individuals are to be dealt with as prisoners of war. Any of them who worked for the enemy as a spy, in psychological warfare operations, in pacification or chieu hoi operations, or who commanded enemy forces in attacks against the revolution will be dealt with as an enemy thug. 4. Soldiers who turn themselves in after fleeing in battle: a) Those who turn themselves in and who actively, willingly carry out tasks we entrust to them or who perform services for us by telling us enemy secrets, including the location of enemy supply warehouses, caches, and documents; by informing us of the locations of reactionary leaders who are still hiding from our forces; by helping us to utilize enemy

1664

221. Lao Dong Party Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW

technical weapons and equipment; by encouraging large numbers of other enemy soldiers to turn themselves in, etc., will be treated as soldiers whose revolutionary consciences have been awakened. b) As for the rest, in general they will be treated the same as prisoners of war, but attention must be paid to the following issues: —Privates and noncommissioned officers will be registered, their weapons will be confiscated from them, and our policies will be explained to them. If their homes are in the liberated zone, they will be allowed to return home immediately and responsibility for administering them and educating them will be turned over to the local government. Those who cannot yet return home because their homes are in enemy-controlled areas or because they are too far from home will be concentrated together to be educated and to carry out labor duties. —Officers must be detained so that they can be reeducated. However, depending on the political situation in individual areas, appropriate measures may be taken so that those who continue to hide out from us will not be too frightened and will be willing to turn themselves in. We may not need to imprison them at first. Based on how the situation develops, we can gradually and systematically concentrate [detain] them later. —Thugs, spies, and those guilty of numerous crimes must be arrested and detained immediately. —Those who refuse to turn themselves in within the specified time period must be arrested and detained. Those who hide from us in order to oppose and sabotage us will be punished appropriately according to the existing laws dealing with the crime of sabotage. 5. People’s Self-Defense Forces and Popular Forces whose units have disintegrated: —People’s Self-Defense Force units will be disbanded, their weapons and military equipment will be confiscated, and they will be treated as ordinary civilians. —Popular Forces soldiers will be turned over to local governmental authorities for registration, administration, and education. They will not be concentrated and detained like prisoners of war. —Regular Army or Regional Forces soldiers who had been detailed to command or to serve as core cadre for Popular Forces or People’s Self-Defense Forces units and individuals who are thugs or intelligence agents will be treated the same as those types of individuals in the prisoner of war category (see above).

Enemy enlisted men and officers from all services and all types of units who deserted to return home, who retired from the enemy armed forces, or who were previously discharged from the enemy armed forces will be treated as ordinary civilians. If anyone in this category has committed crimes, the local authorities will deal with them in accordance with our general policy toward criminals. 6. A number of special cases: —Enemy soldiers detailed to work in governmental or police posts will be dealt with by our security agencies [the Ministry of Public Security]. —If enemy officers who have influence in ethnic minority groups or in one of the religions are needed to win over the civilian masses, an appropriate policy to appeal to them and ease their treatment may be established. —With respect to officers of the rank of general or colonel, if it is determined that we need to use them for the good of the revolution, a suitable policy for their treatment may be devised. . . . —Puppet prisoners of war captured in 1972 who are still in detention will be handled like current prisoners of war. Privates and noncommissioned officers who have been successfully reeducated may be allowed to return home to their families. Note: 1. All military proselyting, military intelligence, and [public] security agents whom we have sent to operate within the enemy’s army are considered to be cadre and soldiers in our army. Their cases must be handled carefully and exactly in accordance with our policies, and under no circumstances are they to be mistakenly handled as enemy soldiers. 2. At present, we will not allow prisoners of war or enemy soldiers who have turned themselves in to be used as replacements in our armed forces units. 3. All types of prisoners of war and enemy soldiers who have turned themselves in will be detained in “B” [Code designation for South Vietnam]. They will not be sent to “A” [Code designation for North Vietnam] except in special circumstances in which we need to immediately exploit [interrogate] them in order to support our requirements. For the Party Secretariat [signed] To Huu Source: Van Kien Dang, Toan Tap 36, 1975 [Collected Party Documents, Volume 36, 1975] (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2004), 121–125. Translated by Merle L. Pribbenow.

222. Le Duan: Speech at the Meeting Held in Hanoi to Celebrate Victory 1665

222. Le Duan: Speech at the Meeting Held in Hanoi to Celebrate Victory, May 15, 1975 Introduction In a speech in Hanoi on May 15, 1975, Le Duan, head of the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), trumpeted the Communist victory in the Ho Chi Minh Campaign in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) and the reunification of Vietnam and outlined the reasons behind these successes.

Primary Source Compatriots and combatants throughout the country, All Party Comrades,

“No matter what difficulties and hardships lie ahead, our people are sure of total victory. The US imperialists will certainly have to quit. Our Fatherland will certainly be reunified. Our fellow countrymen in the South and in the North will certainly be reunited under one roof. We, a small nation, will have earned the signal honour of defeating through heroic struggle, two big imperialisms—the French and the American—and of making a worthy contribution to the world national liberation movement.” We are very proud to have thoroughly carried out these recommendations of President Ho Chi Minh in his sacred Testament. This glory belongs to our heroes, martyrs, compatriots and comrades who have sacrificed their lives for the independence and freedom of the country, for the happiness of the people, for our sacred duty to the nation and our noble internationalist obligation. The Fatherland and the people will forever remember the services of those martyrs, the loyal sons and daughters of the people whose example of courage will shine eternally!

Comrades and friends, Today, with boundless joy, throughout the country our 45 million people are jubilantly celebrating the great victory we have won in the general offensive and uprising this Spring of 1975, in completely defeating the war of aggression and the neocolonialist rule of US imperialism, liberating the whole of the southern half of our country so dear to our hearts and gloriously ending the longest, most difficult and greatest patriotic war ever waged in the history of our people’s struggle against foreign aggression. We hail our glorious Fatherland from now on definitively rid of the slavery of foreign domination and the scourge of partition. We hail the beautiful land of Viet Nam from Lang Son to the Cape of Ca Mau, from now on completely independent and free, and independent and free forever. We hail the new era in our nation’s 4,000-year history—an era of brilliant prospects for the development of a peaceful, independent, reunified, democratic, prosperous and strong Viet Nam, an era in which the labouring people have become the complete masters of their destiny and will pool their physical and mental efforts to build a plentiful and happy life for themselves and for thousands of generations to come. This glory belongs to our great President Ho Chi Minh, the outstanding national hero who brought fame to our land, the first Vietnamese Communist who founded and trained our Party, who steered the ship of the Vietnamese revolution through many a storm to enable it to reach the shore of glory today. In this stirring atmosphere of total victory, our hearts are filled with great emotion at the memory of our beloved Uncle Ho, and we seem to hear again his teaching:

This glory belongs to the heroic people of Viet Nam, in whose veins flows the blood of Trung Sisters, of Lady Trieu, of Ly Thuong Kiet and Tran Hung Dao, of Le Loi, Quang Trung and Phan Dinh Phung, of Hoang Hoa Tham and Truong Cong Dinh and who today under the banner of the Party and of our great President Ho Chi Minh, have upheld their matchless revolutionary heroism and braved untold difficulties and dangers. From the days of blood and fire of the Nghe Tinh Soviets and the Nam Ky Uprising, they marched forward to the glorious victory of the August Revolution. From the resounding victory at Dien Bien Phu, which dealt a mortal blow to old colonialism, they went on to win repeated victories over the successive strategies of neocolonialism, and finally achieved total victory in their marvellous general offensive and uprising in the Spring of 1975. Today, the day of triumph of the nation, from this historic land of Thang Long, the heart of the country, we send our boundless love and our warmest congratulations to our compatriots and comrades in the South who, battling against waves and wind for 30 years on end, have struggled unflinchingly and indomitably for the great cause under the banner of the National Front for Liberation of South Viet Nam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet Nam and courageously raised the great storm that has finally swept away the enemy, thus adding still greater renown to the glorious tradition of the “Bronze Citadel” of the Fatherland. We offer our warmest congratulations to our compatriots in the heroic North who over the past decades have been building socialism with industry and thrift, fearing no difficulty and sparing no sacrifice, who have sent tens of thousands of their sons to the frontline to kill the aggressors, and defeated the war of destruction of the US aggressors while firmly defending the North, the powerful base of the revolution in the whole country.

1666

222. Le Duan: Speech at the Meeting Held in Hanoi to Celebrate Victory

This glory belongs to the heroic Viet Nam people’s armed forces, the revolutionary army of the people, completely “loyal to the country and the people and able to fulfil any task, overcome any hardship, and defeat any enemy.” Armed at the beginning with mere wooden spears and flintlock, it has grown up at a stupendous speed, like Phu Dong into powerful units which have won all of the hundreds of battles fought across the land of Viet Nam. We send our deepest love and the expression of our boundless pride to all the officers and men of the Viet Nam People’s Army. We send our warmest congratulations to the officers and men of all three categories of armed forces and of all arms and services all who, during the 55 recent historic days, fought with peerless valour, great resourcefulness and tremendous power and speed, smashing the enemy and winning resounding victories to give a still brighter hue to their traditional “Determined to Fight and to Win” banner. This glory belongs to our Party, the experienced and staunch vanguard of the Vietnamese working class, faithful representative of the vital interests and legitimate aspirations of the people and the entire nation of Viet Nam, the leader and organizer of all the victories of the Vietnamese revolution. Our Party has skillfully and successfully combined the revolutionary science of MarxismLeninism—the culmination of the intelligence of mankind—with the extraordinary revolutionary energy and the inexhaustible creativeness of our people, with the tradition and quintessential qualities of our nation, to work out a correct, creative, independent and sovereign line, mobilize, foster and bring into play all potentials of the country and all forces of the nation, and to combine these with the strength of our times into a tremendous aggregate force, able to defeat all enemies. The Vietnamese communist[s], with their tradition of solidarity and unity, with their iron determination, their courage before all trials, have always marched in the van of the great struggle of the people, and have proved equal to the glorious tasks assigned them by history and the nation. Our victory is the victory of the unbreakable solidarity of the three Indochinese peoples thoroughly tested in the flames of struggle against the common enemy. In this day of great joy, we hail the great victories of the fraternal peoples of Laos and Cambodia, and express to those companions-in-arms who have been fighting in the same trench as we have our boundless gratitude and our unshakable solidarity. Our victory is also the victory of the forces of socialism, national independence, democracy and peace throughout the world, who have supported us in the struggle against aggressive US imperialism. On behalf of the Viet Nam Workers’ Party and the entire people of Viet Nam, we express our most profound gratitude to the Soviet Union, China and the other fraternal socialist countries, and to all communist and workers’ parties, for the very great and precious support and assistance they have given out of their noble

internationalist attachment to us. We sincerely thank the working class of all countries in the world, the nationalist countries, the various international democratic organizations, and the whole of progressive mankind for having provided vigorous encouragement and support to our war of resistance for national salvation. To progressive people in the United States who out of their love for peace and justice have given their sympathy and support to our people’s just struggle we send our greetings of friendship. Fellow-countrymen and combatants, Comrades and friends, The victory of our war of resistance against the US aggressors and for national salvation is the victory of the banner of national independence, the victory of a patriotism forged by thousands of years of glorious effort to build and defend our nation and now raised to a new height by the Party of the working class. “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.” This truth has served as the bugle-call urging our people, generation after generation, to rush forward and chase out all invaders and traitors. From it our people have drawn the irresistible strength to break the fetters of old colonialism and, today, the yoke of neocolonialism. This victory is the victory of socialism, the highest ideal of mankind and the most profound aspiration of the labouring people, which has become a reality over half of our country as well as for one-third of mankind, a system in which the people have become the real masters, free from the exploitation of man by man, a system in which everyone lives in independence and freedom, has enough food and clothing, receives proper education and enjoys a rich and healthy moral life. Such a system is indeed the source of the inexhaustible strength of the People in the North, and a great stimulus to our compatriots in the South. There can be no genuine independence and freedom for the nation unless the labouring people are freed from oppression and exploitation. Likewise, the labouring people cannot be freed from the yoke of oppression and exploitation so long as national independence and freedom have not been achieved. For the Vietnamese people, the bright road to independence, freedom and socialism was opened up by the triumph of the August Revolution and then by the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu. However, US imperialism, the international gendarme, alarmed by the mounting might of socialism and the national liberation movement throughout the world, ousted the French colonialists and invaded the southern part of our country, turning it into a US neocolony and military base. The scheme of US imperialism was to erase the gains of national independence and socialism of our people and, by so doing, to contain and eventually put down the national liberation movement, contain and push back socialism in this part of

222. Le Duan: Speech at the Meeting Held in Hanoi to Celebrate Victory 1667 the world. As the US aggressors themselves have admitted, Viet Nam became the testing ground for the power and prestige of US imperialism. Viet Nam became the area of the fiercest historic confrontation between the most warlike, the most stubborn aggressive imperialism with the most powerful economic and military potential on one side, and the forces of national independence, democracy and socialism of which the Vietnamese people are the shock force in this region on the other. The victory of Viet Nam, therefore, is not only a victory of national independence and socialism in Viet Nam, but has also a great international significance, and an epoch making character. It has upset the global strategy of US imperialism. It has proved that the three revolutionary torrents of our times are on the offensive, repulsing imperialism step by step and overthrowing it part by part. Today, imperialism, even US imperialism, cannot grab a single square inch of any socialist country; neither can it push back the movement for national independence in the world, nor hinder the advance toward socialism of various countries. In this context, the victory of Viet Nam has opened a new stage of development, extremely favourable, for the world revolutionary movement. Together with the great victories of the fraternal Lao and Cambodian peoples, our victory has made a positive contribution to strengthening the forces of world socialism and created new favourable conditions for the safeguarding of peace and national independence in Indochina and Southeast Asia.

Art]: “One man fights a battle, thousands fight a battle, thousands like one man in battle.”

Our victory is the victory of a correct and creative revolutionary line and method, and of the correct and creative line of revolutionary war of our Party. This revolutionary line and method consisted in holding high the two banners of national democratic revolution and socialist revolution, combining the strength of national independence and socialism, mobilizing the strength of our entire people, and combining our nation’s might with that of our era, the strength existing in our country with that existing in the world, in order to create a great aggregate strength to fight and defeat US imperialism. The line of our revolutionary war in the stage of our struggle against the US aggressors and for national salvation consisted in constantly applying the strategy of offensive, and also in knowing how to defeat the enemy step by step, forcing him to de-escalate from one rung to another and finally defeating him. It consisted in combining military actions with political struggles, attacks by the armed forces with mass uprisings, seizing control with wiping out the enemy, and wiping out the enemy with seizing control. It consisted in fighting the enemy on three fronts (political struggles, military actions and agitation work among enemy soldiers) and in all three strategic areas, namely the mountain areas, the rural areas, and the urban areas. This line has encouraged and organized millions of people to rush to the front to destroy the enemy and save the country, thus forming an invincible battle-array for the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam exactly as described in the book “Binh Thu Yeu Luoc” [Essentials of Military

Fellow countrymen and combatants,

This line is the creative application of the revolutionary military science of Marxism-Leninism to the realities of the revolutionary war in our country; it is the result of inheriting and developing the military art of our ancestors, learning from and improving upon the lessons of the August Revolution and the anti-French resistance, and summing up and enhancing the inexhaustible creative experiences of our people. In the light of this line the anti-US struggle for national salvation of the people throughout our country has become the greatest epic of revolutionary war in Viet Nam, radiant with so many glorious and outstanding exploits: the concerted uprisings in 1960 which developed into the revolutionary war to defeat the “special war” strategy; the general offensive and uprising at Tet of the year Mau Than (1968) to defeat the “limited war” strategy; the 1972 strategic offensive in the South and the great triumph over the strategic air blitz in 1972 which forced the US to quit and the general offensive and uprising in Spring 1975 which toppled the puppet regime. Within 55 days and nights of lightning offensives and stormy uprisings we have smashed the one million–odd army of the enemy, giving him no time to organize any significant resistance. This is the highest and most marvelous expression of the all-round revolutionary war strategy in South Viet Nam.

Comrades and friends, With the victory of the anti-US war of resistance for national salvation an extremely brilliant chapter of our country’s history has begun. A new, tremendous and very inspiring task is awaiting our 45 million people. This task is to thoroughly act upon the Testament of our great Uncle Ho: “Our entire Party and people closely joining their efforts will build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic, prosperous and strong Viet Nam, and make a worthy contribution to the world revolution.” Let us engage in construction and creative labour in order to bring about progress and prosperity to our Viet Nam, happiness and well-being to our people. Our people have made countless sacrifices and overcome untold hardships and difficulties to recover our country. This country belongs to our people. Let us prove ourselves worthy of our great Fatherland, of our heroic people, of so many martyrs who have laid down their lives, of the great sacrifices of our people. Let us strive to be worthy of Uncle Ho’s “boundless love.” Let us prove ourselves worthy of being the real masters of the country. Let our compatriots in the North step up socialist construction. Let

1668

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day

our compatriots in the South unite and strive to build there a fine national democratic regime, a prosperous national and democratic economy, a progressive and healthy national and democratic culture. In the spirit of national reconciliation and concord, our people have shown leniency to all those who have strayed from the right path and who are now returning to the people, no matter what their past was. Provided they sincerely mend their abilities to the service of the homeland, their place among the people will be guaranteed and all the shame put on them by criminal US imperialist will be washed away. After so many years of war our people have today fully won the right to build their country in peace, in the South as well as in the North. Let our compatriots in the whole country start a stirring movement of labour. By our creative labour we will rapidly heal the wounds of war, restore and develop the economy, improve our living conditions. By our creative labour we will shake off all vestiges of the parasitic life and the sham prosperity generated in South Viet Nam by our wicked enemy. By our creative labour we will transform the abundant resources of our land into inexhaustible sources of riches for our people, into modern agriculture, modern industry and advanced culture and science. Creative labour will not only embellish our homeland and bring to our people a happy and ever happier life, but will also transform the Vietnamese into new men and women, the masters of nature of society, the masters of their own lives. As a people who have made tremendous sacrifices to win peace, national independence, democracy and social progress, the Vietnamese people are determined to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other peoples throughout the world to safeguard peace, to struggle tirelessly for national independence, democracy and social progress, and develop friendly relations with all countries on the basis of equality, mutual respect, mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence. We will do our best to strengthen solidarity and increase mutual support and assistance with the fraternal socialist countries and the international communist and workers’ movement in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, in order to win ever more splendid successes for the lofty ideal of Marxism-Leninism. We pledge to strengthen the unshakable militant friendship between the Vietnamese people and the people in our two fraternal neighbour countries—Laos and Cambodia—on the basis of respect for each other’s independence sovereignty and territorial integrity, for the sake of the security growth and prosperity of each people, and for lasting and stable peace in this part of the world. We will persist in our policy of strengthening solidarity and friendship with our neighbour in Southeast Asia and the countries of the Third World in the struggle to regain and maintain national

independence, consolidate sovereignty and oppose all schemes and manoeuvres of imperialism and old and new colonialism. Fellow countrymen and combatants, Comrades and friends, In the four thousand years of our nation’s history, the last hundred years were the hardest and fiercest period of struggle against foreign aggression, but they were at the same time the period of our most glorious victories. Our people have overthrown the domination of the Japanese fascists, defeated the old colonialism of France and have now completely defeated the neocolonialism of the United States. By those splendid exploits, our nation has joined the ranks of the vanguard nations of the world and has won the affection and esteem of the whole of progressive mankind. A nation which has recorded such splendid exploits deserves to enjoy peace, freedom and happiness. Such a nation surely has enough determination and energy, strength and talent to overcome all difficulties and reach the great heights of our times, to turn a poor and backward country heavily devastated by war, in which US imperialism has perpetrated so many crimes, into a civilized, prosperous and powerful country, an impregnable bastion of national independence, democracy and socialism in Indochina and Southeast Asia. With boundless pride, with complete confidence in our success, let our entire Party, our entire people and our entire army march forward! A splendid future is awaiting us! Long live a peaceful, independent, reunified, democratic, prosperous and strong Viet Nam! Long live the Viet Nam Workers’ Party! President Ho Chi Minh will live forever in our cause! Source: Le Duan, Le Duan: Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 516–540.

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day, September 2, 1975 [Excerpts] Introduction Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of independence in Hanoi, Premier Pham Van Dong of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) heralds the role of the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) in bringing about the reunification of Vietnam.

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day

Primary Source Today, the people throughout our country are jubilantly celebrating the 30th anniversary of the victory of the great August Revolution and of the founding of the D.R.V.N. Our joy and enthusiasm are all the greater since we are celebrating these historic events following the glorious victory of Spring 1975 which climaxed in the historic Ho Chi Minh campaign. We have completely defeated the war of aggression of U.S. imperialism, brought to a victorious conclusion the national democratic revolution in the South, firmly defended the cause of socialism in the North, paved the way for our people, now masters of the whole territory of our homeland, to march forward and build a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic and prosperous Viet Nam, a socialist Viet Nam, and now continue to make an active contribution to the revolutionary cause of the peoples of the world. Today, on the occasion of the great festive day of the nation, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Worker’s Party Government of the D.R.V.N., I extend my warmest and most cordial congratulations to our compatriots and combatants throughout the country and to overseas Vietnamese. We convey to the families of fallen heroes and heroines and to all war invalids our most profound sentiments and best Wishes. Today, on the occasion of the great festive day of our nation, our Party, Government and people warmly greet the Party and Government delegations of the Soviet Union, China and the other fraternal socialist countries, the delegations of Laos and Cambodia, the delegations and representatives of other countries, the delegations of a number of other fraternal Parties, and the delegations of various international democratic organizations. We express sincere thanks to you, comrades and friends for your kindness in being present here today to join us in celebrating the glorious National Day of our people bringing with you inestimable sympathy and support for our Vietnamese people. Today, the entire Vietnamese nation is living the most glorious and exciting moments in its history. In this solemn hour, with profound emotion and boundless gratitude, we turn our thoughts to our great President Ho Chi Minh, the founder of our Party and State, the teacher and guide of our people in our persistent revolutionary struggle, who has led us from one victory to another until the complete and glorious victory of today. In this solemn hour, every one of us pledges to do his and her best to continue the great cause of President Ho Chi Minh, carry out in the best possible manner the last recommendations in his Testament, work self-sacrificingly for the victory of the Vietnamese revolution and contribute to the victory of the world revolution. The greatness of the August Revolution lies in the fact that for the first time in world history, in a colonial and semi-feudal country,

1669

in the favourable conditions created by the brilliant victory of the Soviet Army in World War Two, the Vietnamese people, under the leadership of their Party, staged an armed uprising, overthrew the rule of the French colonialists and the Japanese militarists, won back power for the people and founded the D.R.V.N., the first people’s democratic State in Southeast Asia. The August Revolution opened a new era in the 4,000-year long history of the Vietnamese nation, an era in which the entire country became independent and free and was advancing to socialism. This was also the objective for which our Party had been struggling ever since its foundation fifteen years earlier, an objective which conforms to the deep aspirations of our people and also to the law governing the development of the world. On September 2, 1945, in the Declaration of Independence, President Ho Chi Minh proclaimed: “Viet Nam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence, and in fact has become a free and independent country. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their freedom and independence.” However, the imperialist powers headed by U.S. imperialism, the richest and strongest imperialist power at that time, which was nurturing a mad dream of world hegemony, took fright at the success of the Vietnamese revolution and its impact on the world revolution. They gave every possible support and assistance to the French imperialists in launching a war of reconquest in an attempt to reimpose their colonial yoke on Viet Nam. However, the historic Dien Bien Phu victory put a definitive end to the French colonial regime, which had lasted almost a century in our country, and dealt a mortal blow at old-style colonialism on a world scale. Not reconciled to defeat, U.S. imperialism rushed into the South of our country, and waged the longest, most atrocious colonialist war of aggression on the largest scale ever seen in our times. Throughout twenty years of the anti-U.S. war of resistance for national salvation, the Vietnamese people have persevered in an extremely arduous but also extremely glorious struggle and finally won complete victory over the U.S. aggressors, putting a definitive end to U.S. neocolonialism in South Viet Nam, contributing to hastening the bankruptcy of neocolonialism in various forms throughout the world, and upsetting the global strategy of U.S. imperialism. The past thirty years of fighting against imperialist aggression, chiefly U.S. aggression, have demonstrated this eloquent truth of our times: the revolutionary cause of the people—the national democratic revolution and the socialist revolution are closely connected both within a country and on a world scale—is a just and surely victorious cause. It draws its strength from the fact that it is made up of forces deeply rooted in history, and has the capability of surmounting all obstacles standing in

1670

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day

its way. U.S. imperialism wanted to use Viet Nam to test its mad design: to check the development of the national democratic revolution as well as the socialist revolution. The Vietnamese people proudly took up this challenge and, as has been rightly pointed out by many persons in the world, Viet Nam became the frontline and our people became the shock army in the fight against U.S. aggression. Thus, the victory of the Vietnamese people is also a very significant victory for the world revolution, for all friends of peace, justice and freedom. Today, as we review the victories of historic and epochal significance of our Vietnamese people in the past 30 years, we are all the prouder of our Party, the organizer of all victories of our people, and of the correct, clear-sighted, independent, sovereign, intelligent and creative leadership of our Party. This leadership has been reflected first of all in our Party’s revolutionary line, in its political, military and international line. This line stems from the laws governing the evolution of history in our era, in which Lenin’s appeal: “Proletarians and oppressed peoples all over the world, unite!” embodies the revolutionary struggle of the time. The Party’s revolutionary line has brought into play the national tradition of resistance to foreign aggression, achieved the unity of the entire people, mobilized the strength of the armed forces throughout the country, developed the effect of the people’s power, of the D.R.V.N., of the P.R.G.R.S.V.N., and carried out a people’s war, a revolutionary war, in very diversified forms. This was a sacred war for national salvation carried out under the slogan: “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.” The more brutal the enemy became and the more crimes they perpetrated, the deeper the hatred of every Vietnamese and the higher their determination to fight, and consequently the revolutionary war of our people became an “immense net covering both sky and earth” from which the enemy found it impossible to escape. This land is our native land, our fatherland. Caught in this encirclement with no escape route, the foreign aggressors and their henchmen were sure to meet with defeat. The resistance against the French, and especially that against the Americans, were immortal epics of the Vietnamese people and of the combatants of the People’s Army in both zones who “are loyal to the country and the people, and will fulfil any task, overcome any difficulty and defeat any enemy.” It is the epic of all Vietnamese citizens, men and women, old and young, in all parts of the country, who fought the enemy with legendary courage and intelligence. It can be said that the people, the Vietnamese people, have defeated U.S. technology and defeated blind brute force, because they are men and women armed with lofty ideas and sentiments, and deep confidence in their just and surely victorious fight.

While evoking these exploits of our combatants and people throughout the country in the past two wars of resistance we turn our thoughts, with great emotion and pride to the people and combatants in the South, the “Brass Wall” of the Fatherland. These outstanding sons and daughters of the country, heroes of a heroic nation, have made a worthy contribution to the glorious victory of the nation. Our Party’s revolutionary line has succeeded in enlisting the sympathy, support and assistance of the fraternal socialist countries, the international Communist and workers’ movement, the Third World countries and the whole of progressive mankind including progressive people in the United States. The just fight of our people against the criminal war of aggression of U.S. imperialism has had a broad and deep impact on human conscience, giving rise to a world-wide movement of popular support for Vietnam’s anti-U.S. resistance. This was one of the largest and most enduring international movements ever seen. Imbued with the principles of the great doctrine of MarxismLeninism and noble proletarian internationalism, our Party and our people are deeply conscious that the revolutionary cause of our people is part and parcel of the revolutionary cause of the peoples of the world. We have done our best to win the greatest possible sympathy, support and assistance from our comrades and friends in all continents. Today, we take great pride in having used in the most effective manner the very great and precious support and assistance of the peoples of the other fraternal socialist countries and the world’s peoples as a whole. We also take great pride in having contributed a worthy share to the growth of the fraternal socialist countries and the world revolutionary movement. Today we celebrate with great joy the fraternal friendship and close militant solidarity which have bound our people to the peoples of Laos and Cambodia. This friendship and solidarity has made a very important contribution to the victory of each people. Enhancing this fine tradition, we pledge to do our best to strengthen the fraternal friendship and co-operation among the peoples of our three countries in consolidating our national independence and building our respective countries into prosperous and happy ones. The Party’s leadership has also been reflected in an overall strategy applied in a very flexible and intelligent manner, which caused us to constantly hold the initiative and an offensive posture on all military, political and diplomatic fronts, and constantly drive the enemy into a position of passivity and failure. It was from a position of passivity and failure that the enemy escalated the war and when inevitably they had to de-escalate they found themselves in a still worse position of passivity and failure. That was how we defeated U.S. imperialism step by step: at the end of 1964 we defeated its special war; in the Tet of Mau Than (1968) we defeated

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day its limited war; in 1972 we defeated its “Vietnamization” of the war and with the Paris Agreement, we completely drove more than half a million U.S. aggressor troops from the South of our country. Thus, from the day U.S. imperialism began its war of aggression against our country up to the signing of the Paris Agreement it was a process of fighting to drive the Yankees away. The period that followed was a process of fighting to topple the puppets. In effect, the New Year Message of Uncle Ho was an illustration of a very clever and clearsighted strategy and military art! Our Party’s military line and strategy, both in the former anti-French resistance and in the recent anti-U.S. resistance, consisted in waging a protracted war aimed at whittling away and wiping out the enemy forces step by step, while fostering and developing our forces, at the same time creating opportunities to fight and defeat the enemy in battles of a decisive character. This is the dialectics of the strategy of protracted war the anti-French war of resistance began with pointed bamboo sticks, went on to win resounding victories and ended with the famous Dien Bien Phu victory. In the 20-year-long war of resistance against U.S. imperialism, this dialectics led to victories of very important strategic significance, and finally resulted in the victory of Spring 1975. In this battle, within only 55 days, our army, through lightning attacks and with overwhelmingly superior forces, defeated more than one million enemy troops with abundant modern equipment, liberated Saigon and the whole of our beloved South, winning full, total and thorough victory, paving the way for the further development of the great revolutionary cause of our people. Today, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the D.R.V.N., let us review the exploits in fighting and the achievements in the building of the new system whose superiority has been developed in the flames of war and amidst the innumerable difficulties of national reconstruction following the August Revolution. The superiority of the new system finds its full expression in the fact that it is the people’s democratic regime advancing to socialism without passing through the stage of capitalist development. The invincible strength of the new regime actually lies in the fact that for the first time in our national history, we have a regime of the people, by the people and for the people. It has the capability of mobilizing to the highest level the strength and ardour of the entire nation. Thanks to this, it successfully tided over the worst trials of 1946 and at the end of the same year held high the banner of resistance against the French colonialists in the spirit of a victor. The nine years of resistance against the French marked an allsided development of the D.R.V.N. Under the Party’s leadership, democratic reforms, especially the land reform, were undertaken, realizing the age-old dream of the peasant masses, bringing about deep changes in the countryside, exerting a positive effect on the whole of the political, economic and social life, and making an important contribution to the war of resistance.

1671

Following the Dien Bien Phu victory and two years after the signing of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet Nam, the whole of Viet Nam should have become a unified country, completely independent and free, and steadily advancing to socialism. But the imperialist powers, headed by U.S. imperialism, blatantly violated the Geneva Agreements, creating conditions for the United States to oust France and intervene in South Viet Nam and launch a new war of aggresion, thus compelling our people to take up arms again to carry out a twenty-year-long war of resistance against the U.S. aggressors. It was precisely in this glorious fight that the D.R.V.N., the socialist North, has developed to the highest level the superiority and all the capacities of the new system, and proved worthy of being the firm base of the revolution throughout the country: the nationaldemocratic revolution in the South and the socialist revolution in the North. The Ho Chi Minh Trail along the majestic Truong Son (Long Range) and linking North and South was a marvellous exploit in the history of war, a proud demonstration of the strength of the combative solidarity of our people throughout the country. The harder the enemy tried to block it and destroy it, the more quickly and steadily it developed and grew with the level of the war, and in the Spring of 1975 made an important contribution to our glorious victory in liberating Saigon and completely liberating our beloved South Viet Nam. In the strategy of U.S. imperialism, to attack North Viet Nam has always been a very important objective. In fact, the United States mobilized major air and naval forces to attack North Viet Nam, destroy economic installations, towns and countryside, destroy the environment in an attempt to “bomb the North back to the Stone Age.” However, the strength of our people throughout the country and our extremely effective air defence system caused U.S. imperialism to take heavier and heavier losses as it escalated the air war[;] its losses became so high as to be intolerable and it had to de-escalate after the Nau Than Tet in 1968. However, stubborn by nature, in 1972 and especially in late December of that year, deploying huge air forces including B-52 strategic bombers, the United States launched a frantic air blitz against Hanoi and other cities and towns of North Viet Nam with the intention of nullifying many provisions already agreed upon by the two sides in their negotiations. But this time it incurred a still heavier military and political defeat. World opinion greeted the glorious victory of our people with high elation since it led to the signing of the Paris Agreement on Vietnam. North Viet Nam has fought and built at the same time, fighting well to defend its building work and building rapidly to increase its combat forces. That is the process of the all-round growth of the D.R.V.N., which is worthy of being the revolutionary base of the entire country and an outpost of socialism in Southeast Asia.

1672

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day

Immediately after the Dien Bien Phu victory, in completely liberated North Viet Nam, in the light of the Party’s line on the advance to socialism while bypassing the stage of capitalist development, we moved rapidly to the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and private capitalist industry and commerce. The land reform and agricultural co-operativization had the effect of boosting agricultural production, doubling rice productivity and output compared with the years before the revolution. At the same time, we stepped up the production of consumer goods, and strove to develop a number of essential branches of heavy industry such as electricity, coal, engineering, metallurgy, chemicals and building materials. We paid particular attention to maintaining and strengthening the communications and transport network with a view to serving the front, the economy and the people’s life along with initial steps in the building of the material and technological base of socialism. We attached great importance to the development of science and technology, and exerted great efforts in training a contingent of qualified workers, scientific and technical workers and economic management cadres who are politically staunch and professionally proficient. We have also done our best to develop socialist culture, education, public health, literature, the arts, physical culture and sports, the protection of mothers and children; we have recorded encouraging achievements, especially in general and higher education. These profound changes in economic, cultural and social life made North Viet Nam radically different from what it was in the past. The feudal landlord class has been abolished, the bourgeois class has been reformed, the regime of exploitation of man by man has been eliminated and socialist relations of production have been established in two forms: State-run economy and collective economy. The working people, comprising the working class, the peasantry and the socialist intelligentsia have become collective masters of their destiny. Political security and social order have been maintained. North Vietnamese society has become a single united bloc of the working people including people belonging to various nationalities and religions and striving together for national independence and socialism. . . . At present, under the leadership of the Party and through close co-operation between the Government of the D.R.V.N. and the P.R.G.R.S.V.N., we proceed from the situation and tasks of the revolution in the entire country in the new stage to solve all problems concerning the two zones. In particular, on the economic front, we must strive to give full scope to our new capabilities in order to step up the rehabilitation and development of the national economy—carry out socialist transformation and construction, speed up socialist industrialization and the process of advancing from small to large-scale production, and step by step improve the living standard of our people throughout the country.

In the South we must strive to do away with the long, heavy legacy of dozens of years of aggressive war and U.S. neocolonialism in all spheres—political, economic, cultural, social and ideological. We must rapidly stabilize social order, strengthen political security, set up and consolidate the revolutionary power everywhere. We will also strive, through many effective measures, to care for the life of the working people, and provide jobs for the millions of unemployed left by the old regime and by the war. These tasks benefit from the effective participation of the working people and other patriotic sections of the population. In the economic field, we are encouraging the normal operation of all enterprises and factories of all sizes in order to contribute to economic rehabilitation and development. We call on the working class and other sections of the working people in the towns and countryside to bring into play their role as masters of society under the new regime by working harder than before, working with higher productivity, higher technique and discipline. We also call on the national bourgeoisie, who were formerly held down by foreign competition, to put all their talents and ardour into the service of the great cause of the nation now that the country has become independent and free. Our people in the South are facing difficult and complicated revolutionary tasks which require much courage, intelligence and creativeness. Today we joyfully express to our beloved South Vietnamese compatriots and our confidence and elation at the outstanding achievements they have recorded over the past four months and the prospects of still greater achievements in the days ahead. The South, with its fertile land, is favoured by nature in many other ways. It may carry out large-scale agricultural production in areas with long traditions of rice growing, valuable industrial crops and fruit trees, or stock-breeding and fishing. It is certain that the South of our country will soon become a prosperous centre for agricultural production and fishing to supply the people and provide for exports. In addition, the South has many industrial branches, especially light and food industries which, though mostly of small scale, are capable of producing many items necessary to the people’s life and also export items. Communications and transport, and especially the building industry in South Viet Nam, have substantial forces and capabilities that should be utilized in this manner. With the people’s support, the new administration will rapidly stabilize the political and economic situation and will normalize the people’s life on the basis of a plan for the entire country, the South will make new and very inspiring steps forward. Saigon, Ho Chi Minh city, will have a very important role in many respects and will broaden its foreign relations with countries in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. At present, at a time when the entire country has regained independence and freedom and is advancing to socialism, socialist North Viet Nam has all the greater obligation to even fuller play to its achievements and experiences and make the most effective contribution to the rehabilitation and development of the economy in the South. The North must endeavour to develop its

223. Pham Van Dong: Speech Delivered on National Day co-operativized agriculture, increase the output and productivity of food crops and other plants, develop stock-breeding into a main branch of production, and steadily take agriculture and forestry, from the productive to the processing branches, to large-scale socialist production. The North should attach greater importance to the production of consumer goods, especially those which it has the capacity to produce in great quantities, with high output and low production costs. In particular, North Viet Nam should display courage and intelligence in expanding rapidly the existing heavy industries which are very necessary to itself and to the entire country. Today in North Viet Nam there has taken shape in the most rational [form] a managerial system of the national economy from the centre down to the grassroots, combining management in each branch with management in each locality. The contingent of workers and scientific and technical cadres who have been tempered in fighting and production should make intensive efforts to shoulder the new tasks which are much greater and more complicated than before. Practice has shown that the Party’s line on the building of the material and technical basis of socialism is correct and clearsighted. But the organization for the application of this line still falls short of requirements. At present, we are facing very favourable conditions: peace has taken the place of war, our homeland and our cause are now one country and one cause, our position and strength have become many times more powerful in all fields. The new bright situation and new tasks together with the very prospects require that all branches, all levels, all responsible comrades and all the working people make enormous efforts to heighten rapidly their standards and capacities, their organizational and managerial capacities, in order to increase to the highest possible level their effectiveness in the grassroots organizations: factories and cooperatives, which labour to produce material wealth with ever increasing productivity. In this spirit, we must see to the full achievement of the 1975 State Plan and prepare for the implementation of the 1976 State Plan and the forthcoming five-year plan with still greater progress. The victory of the revolutionary cause of our people is also a victory of the great doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, the peak of human wisdom, which has lighted our revolutionary path full of glorious victories. Our Party and people plan to study Marxist-Leninist theory and apply it creatively in the new stage of the revolution in order to win still bigger successes for our socialist cause. Today, celebrating the historic victory of our nation, the Vietnamese people express their sincere and profound gratitude for the sympathy and the great and precious support and assistance extended to us by the peoples of the Soviet Union, China and the other socialist countries, the peoples of our two fraternal neighbours, Laos and Cambodia, the international communist and workers’ movement, and the peoples of all other countries in the world including progressive people in the United States. We

1673

cordially convey to our comrades and friends in all continents our warmest congratulations. For us Vietnamese, a glorious page in our history has been turned and a new period has begun: the period of peaceful construction. This new work requires that we strengthen our great friendship and co-operation in all fields with the other socialist countries which are bound to us by the common ideal of building socialism and communism. We will strive to strengthen our great friendship and our relations in all fields with our two fraternal neighbouring countries, relations which have become still closer in the new situation. It is our wish to expand our friendly relations in many respects with other countries in Southeast Asia. Now that peace has been restored, we are provided with favourable conditions to expand our good relations with the bloc of non-aligned countries, the countries of the Third World, for a noble objective—consolidating national independence and building their respective countries into prosperous ones. We are establishing normal relations and expanding economic, cultural, scientific and technical relations with all other countries on the principles of mutual respect for each other’s independence and sovereignty, noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit. In this spirit, the D.R.V.N. is ready to establish normal relations with the United States on the basis of the Paris Agreement. It is certain that the majority of the American people and many political circles in the United States will support this positive trend. Our century has witnessed earth-shaking events that have profoundly modified the face of our planet. This revolutionary process is continuing, possibly at a still quicker pace. It will alter the balance of forces in a way more and more favourable for peace, national independence, democracy and socialism, while imperialism and other reactionary forces headed by U.S. imperialism are declining and sustaining more and more defeats caused by mounting difficulties and never-ending crises, and are being continually attacked from all sides. The Vietnamese people are firmly convinced that the revolutionary cause of the peoples in the Arab countries, the peoples in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world will be crowned with glorious victory. Today, the Vietnamese people as a whole are overwhelmed with joy at the complete and great victories recently won by our nation, victories for peace, independence, democracy and socialism. A new era has opened in our country’s history, the era of a regime in which the people are masters of their own destiny and can build with their own hands a happy life, while our Party, as Uncle Ho said, “remains the leader and truly faithful servant of the people.” The entire people of Viet Nam, fired with enthusiasm, are striving to turn their revolutionary heroism in combat into courage in peaceful construction with a view to exploiting the immense riches

1674

224. President Bill Clinton Lifts the Trade Embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

of the country, mobilizing the very abundant labour forces of the people and step by step building the material and technical basis of socialism, building a modern industry, a modern agriculture, an advanced culture and science, and on this basis, to improve continuously the life of the people. Our people are deeply conscious that to build socialism, it is necessary to have socialist men who love their fatherland, their people, labour and science, who cherish the independence and freedom of their own country and of other countries, who treasure . . . their own people and those of the whole of progressive mankind. Under the banner of the fatherland and socialism, the banner of patriotism combined with proletarian internationalism, let our people steadily march forward to carry out in the best possible way the last behest of our beloved President Ho Chi Minh: “Let our entire Party and the people, closely joining their efforts, build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic and prosperous Vietnam, and make a worthy contribution to the world revolution.” Long live the D.R.V.N.! Long live a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic and prosperous Viet Nam! Long live the Viet Nam Workers’ Party, the organizer of all victories of the Vietnamese revolution! Our great President Ho Chi Minh will live forever in our cause! Source: Pham Van Dong, Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977), 375–397.

224. President Bill Clinton Lifts the Trade Embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, February 3, 1994 [Excerpts] Introduction Following the military victory by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) over the forces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) in April 1975, the United States pursued a punitive foreign policy toward the new united Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), established on July 2, 1976. Washington not only refused to normalize relations with the SRV but also actively sought to isolate the SRV politically, economically, and diplomatically. Both sides were intransigent. U.S. leaders

were clearly frustrated at the North Vietnamese government’s violations of the Paris Peace Accords and the defeat of South Vietnam. On its part, the SRV demanded payment of the $3.3 billion in reconstruction aid pledged by President Richard Nixon. A particularly thorny issue was the fate of some 2,400 Americans missing in action (MIAs) in Southeast Asia. Vietnam’s 10-year-long occupation of Cambodia beginning in 1979 further exacerbated the situation. Although efforts had been made under previous administrations, the greatest progress toward normalized U.S.Vietnamese relations occurred under the Bill Clinton administration, which in February 1994 lifted the American trade embargo on the SRV. That action allowed American trade and investment. The United States also dropped its veto on credits and loans to Vietnam from international lending associations.

Primary Source From the beginning of my administration, I have said that any decisions about our relationships with Vietnam should be guided by one factor and one factor only: gaining the fullest possible accounting for our prisoners of war and our missing in action. We owe that to all who served in Vietnam and to the families of those whose fate remains unknown. Today I am lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam because I am absolutely convinced it offers the best way to resolve the fate of those who remain missing and about whom we are not sure. We’ve worked hard over the last year to achieve progress. On Memorial Day, I pledged to declassify and make available virtually all Government documents related to our POW’s and MIA. On Veterans Day, I announced that we had fulfilled that pledge. Last April, and again in July, I sent two Presidential delegations to Vietnam to expand our search for remains and documents. We intensified our diplomatic efforts. We have devoted more resources to this effort than any previous administration. Today, more than 500 dedicated military and civilian personnel are involved in this effort under the leadership of General Shalikashvili, Secretary Aspin, and our Commander in the Pacific, Admiral Larson. Many work daily in the fields, the jungles, the mountains of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, often braving very dangerous conditions, trying to find the truth about those about whom we are not sure. Last July, I said any improvement in our relations with Vietnam would depend on tangible progress in four specific areas: first, the recovery and return of remains of our POW’s and MIA; second, the continued resolution of discrepancy cases, cases in which there is reason to believe individuals could have survived the incident in which they were lost; third, further assistance from Vietnam and Laos on investigations along their common border, an area where many U.S. servicemen were lost and pilots downed; and fourth, accelerated efforts to provide all relevant POW/MIArelated documents.

225. President Bill Clinton: Announcement of Normalization of Diplomatic Relations with Vietnam 1675 Today, I can report that significant, tangible progress has been made in all these four areas. Let me describe it. First, on remains: Since the beginning of this administration, we have recovered the remains of 67 American servicemen. In the 7 months since July, we’ve recovered 39 sets of remains, more than during all of 1992. Second, on the discrepancy cases: Since the beginning of the administration, we’ve reduced the number of these cases from 135 to 73. Since last July, we’ve confirmed the deaths of 19 servicemen who were on the list. A special United States team in Vietnam continues to investigate the remaining cases. Third, on cooperation with Laos: As a direct result of the conditions set out in July, the Governments of Vietnam and Laos agreed to work with us to investigate their common border. The first such investigation took place in December and located new remains as well as crash sites that will soon be excavated. Fourth, on the documents: Since July, we have received important wartime documents from Vietnam’s military archives that provide leads on unresolved POW/ MIA cases. [. . .] I have made the judgment that the best way to ensure cooperation from Vietnam and to continue getting the information Americans want on POW’s and MIA’s is to end the trade embargo. I’ve also decided to establish a liaison office in Vietnam to provide services for Americans there and help us to pursue a human rights dialog with the Vietnamese Government. I want to be clear: These actions do not constitute a normalization of our relationships. Before that happens, we must have more progress, more cooperation, and more answers. Toward that end, this spring I will send another high level U.S. delegation to Vietnam to continue the search for remains and for documents. Earlier today I met with the leaders of our Nation’s veterans organizations. I deeply respect their views. Many of the families they represent have endured enormous suffering and uncertainty. And their opinions also deserve special consideration. I talked with them about my decision. I explained the reasons for that decision. Some of them, in all candor, do not agree with the action I am taking today. But I believe we all agree on the ultimate goal: to secure the fullest possible accounting of those who remain missing. And I was pleased that they committed to continue working with us toward that goal. Whatever the Vietnam war may have done in dividing our country in the past, today our Nation is one in honoring those who served and pressing for answers about all those who did not return. This decision today, I believe, renews that commitment and our constant, constant effort never to forget those until our job is done. Those who have sacrificed deserve a full and final accounting. I am absolutely convinced, as are so many in the Congress who served

there and so many Americans who have studied this issue, that this decision today will help to ensure that fullest possible accounting. Thank you very much. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1994, Book 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), 178–180.

225. President Bill Clinton: Announcement of Normalization of Diplomatic Relations with Vietnam, July 11, 1995 Introduction Despite the end of the U.S. trade embargo of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), some trade restrictions impeded American companies from taking a greater role in developing the growing SRV economy. U.S. humanitarian aid increased, as did cultural and educational exchanges, and American tourism skyrocketed as veterans and Vietnamese Americans returned to visit friends and relatives. In January 1995 American and Vietnamese officials signed an agreement exchanging liaison offices in their respective capitals. On July 11, 1995, despite some opposition from the lobby for those missing in action (MIA) and from Republican conservatives, President Bill Clinton extended full diplomatic ties to the SRV. The first U.S. envoy to the SRV was Congressman Douglas “Pete” Peterson (D-Fla.), a former Vietnam prisoner of war (POW).

Primary Source Today I am announcing the normalization of diplomatic relationships with Vietnam. From the beginning of this administration, any improvement in relationships between America and Vietnam has depended upon making progress on the issue of Americans who were missing in action or held as prisoners of war. Last year, I lifted the trade embargo on Vietnam in response to their cooperation and to enhance our efforts to secure the remains of lost Americans and to determine the fate of those whose remains have not been found. It has worked. In 17 months, Hanoi has taken important steps to help us resolve many cases. Twenty-nine families have received the remains of their loved ones and at last have been able to give them a proper burial. Hanoi has delivered to us hundreds of pages of documents shedding light on what happened to Americans in Vietnam. And Hanoi has stepped up its cooperation with Laos, where many Americans were lost. We have reduced the number of so-called discrepancy cases, in which we have had reason to

1676

225. President Bill Clinton: Announcement of Normalization of Diplomatic Relations with Vietnam

believe that Americans were still alive after they were lost, to 55. And we will continue to work to resolve more cases. Hundreds of dedicated men and women are working on all these cases, often under extreme hardship and real danger in the mountains and jungles of Indochina. On behalf of all Americans, I want to thank them. And I want to pay a special tribute to General John Vessey, who has worked so tirelessly on this issue for Presidents Reagan and Bush and for our administration. He has made a great difference to a great many families. And we as a nation are grateful for his dedication and for his service. Thank you, sir. I also want to thank the Presidential delegation, led by Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Hershel Gober, Winston Lord, James Wold, who have helped us to make so much progress on this issue. And I am especially grateful to the leaders of the families and the veterans organizations who have worked with the delegation and maintained their extraordinary commitment to finding the answers we seek. Never before in the history of warfare has such an extensive effort been made to resolve the fate of soldiers who did not return. Let me emphasize, normalization of our relations with Vietnam is not the end of our effort. From the early days of this administration I have said to the families and veterans groups what I say again here: We will keep working until we get all the answers we can. Our strategy is working. Normalization of relations is the next appropriate step. With this new relationship we will be able to make more progress. To that end, I will send another delegation to Vietnam this year. And Vietnam has pledged it will continue to help us find answers. We will hold them to that pledge. By helping to bring Vietnam into the community of nations, normalization also serves our interest in working for a free and peaceful Vietnam in a stable and peaceful Asia. We will begin to normalize our trade relations with Vietnam, whose economy is now liberalizing and integrating into the economy of the AsiaPacific region. Our policy will be to implement the appropriate United States Government programs to develop trade with Vietnam consistent with U.S. law. As you know, many of these programs require certifications regarding human rights and labor rights before they can proceed. We have already begun discussing human rights issues with Vietnam, especially issues regarding religious freedom. Now we can expand and strengthen that dialog. The Secretary of State will go to Vietnam in August where he will discuss all of these issues, beginning with our POW and MIA concerns.

I believe normalization and increased contact between Americans and Vietnamese will advance the cause of freedom in Vietnam, just as it did in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I strongly believe that engaging the Vietnamese on the broad economic front of economic reform and the broad front of democratic reform will help to honor the sacrifice of those who fought for freedom’s sake in Vietnam. I am proud to be joined in this view by distinguished veterans of the Vietnam war. They served their country bravely. They are of different parties. A generation ago they had different judgments about the war which divided us so deeply. But today they are of a single mind. They agree that the time has come for America to move forward on Vietnam. All Americans should be grateful especially that Senators John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Robb, and Representative Pete Peterson, along with other Vietnam veterans in the Congress, including Senator Harkin, Congressman Kolbe, and Congressman Gilchrest, who just left, and others who are out here in the audience have kept up their passionate interest in Vietnam but were able to move beyond the haunting and painful past toward finding common ground for the future. Today they and many other veterans support the normalization of relations, giving the opportunity to Vietnam to fully join the community of nations and being true to what they fought for so many years ago. Whatever we may think about the political decisions of the Vietnam era, the brave Americans who fought and died there had noble motives. They fought for the freedom and the independence of the Vietnamese people. Today the Vietnamese are independent, and we believe this step will help to extend the reach of freedom in Vietnam and, in so doing, to enable these fine veterans of Vietnam to keep working for that freedom. This step will also help our own country to move forward on an issue that has separated Americans from one another for too long now. Let the future be our destination. We have so much work ahead of us. This moment offers us the opportunity to bind up our own wounds. They have resisted time for too long. We can now move on to common ground. Whatever divided us before let us consign to the past. Let this moment, in the words of the Scripture, be a time to heal and a time to build. Thank you all, and God bless America. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995, Book 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), 1073–1074.

Appendices

This page intentionally left blank

Appendix A Unit Designations

The following are some general rules for unit designations, along with the notable exceptions. This is basically the system that is used by the military itself as well as virtually all military historians. Some of this might seem arcane, but knowledgeable readers will spot the deviations right away.

kept numerical designations at the company level (e.g., 1st Company, 3rd Company). Exception: The New Zealand artillery battery had a unique numerical designation. Following the British practice, its official designation was Number 161 Field Battery, or 161 Field Battery for short.

• Adjectives versus titles: Words such as “main force,” “local force,” “VC,” “PAVN,” “ARVN,” and “U.S.” are not part of the designations of any units. These are clarifying adjectives. Thus, there are no such units as the 1st U.S. Infantry Division, the 9th VC Division, or the 304th PAVN Infantry Division. They should always be listed as the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, the VC 9th Division, and the PAVN 304th Infantry Division, respectively. Likewise, the words “main force” and “local force” are not part of unit designations. They are allied intelligence classifications. They are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized. • Numbering: With few exceptions, Arabic numerals are used to designate units at every level from squad all the way up to army group. • Squads and platoons: In designating squads and platoons, 2nd Squad or 3rd Platoon, for example, should always be capitalized. These are proper nouns, the official names of units. Those names never change. • Companies: Companies are designated by capital letters (e.g., A Company, C Company, etc.). Sometimes the international phonetic alphabet is used (e.g., Alpha Company, Charlie Company).

• Battalions: Battalions are designated by Arabic numerals (e.g., 1st Battalion, 3rd Battalion). Most often battalions are part of a larger regiment and are designated as such (e.g., 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment). Exception: Separate battalions were not elements of larger regiments and had unique numerical designations (e.g., 52nd Aviation Battalion; 95th Military Police Battalion). • Regiments: Regiments are designated by Arabic numerals but are almost always some type of regiment (i.e., of a specific branch), such as the 11th Artillery Regiment, 47th Infantry Regiment. Once the regiment has been introduced, it is acceptable to abbreviate its designation by dropping off the word “Regiment” (e.g., 47th Infantry or even 47th Inf.). Exception: All U.S. Marine Corps regiments are designated as Xth Marine Regiment or Xth Marines for short. Even though the 11th Marines is an artillery rather than an infantry regiment, it is still called simply the 11th Marines. Important distinction: In the U.S. Army the regiment has not been a tactical command echelon since 1958. In the U.S. Marine Corps it still is. What this means in practice is that all three battalions of a given U.S.

Exception: Company level is one of the places where the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and the Viet Cong (VC) did it differently. They 1679

1680

Appendix A: Unit Designations Marine Corps regiment usually operate together under the command of that regiment. In the U.S. Army the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd battalions of a given infantry regiment might not even be in the same division. For example, the 1st and 3rd battalions, 12th Infantry, were assigned to the 4th Infantry Division, while the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry, was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division. Exception: Certain specialized U.S. Army units did operate as separate (nondivisional) regiments. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment is the primary example. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) and the PAVN also had separate regiments.

• Abbreviating battalions and regiments: Most army regiments exist in name only, but that name remains an integral part of the battalion designation. Therefore, there is a key distinction in the way that the battalion and regiment designation is abbreviated in the U.S. Army versus the U.S. Marine Corps. This distinction may seem arcane, but it is important. U.S. Army: The abbreviation for the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, is 2-47 Infantry. The hyphen (-) indicates that the 2 and the 47 are part of the battalion’s full designation and cannot be separated. Only a single echelon of command and control is indicated here. U.S. Marine Corps: The abbreviation for the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, is 2/1 Marines. The slash (/) indicates two distinct command and control echelons. Company designations: One effect of the difference between the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps is the way the companies are designated. In any given army battalion the companies are designated as A through C, or later A through D when the U.S. Army added a fourth rifle company. Thus, in the 2-47th Infantry. the companies were designated A though D, and in the 3-47th Infantry. they started right back with A through D. In U.S. Marine Corps regiments, all the rifle companies are lettered sequentially throughout the regiment. Hence, the 1/1 Marines has Company A through Company C, the 2/1 Marines has Company D through Company F, and the 3/1 Marines has Company G through Company I. General recommendation: I recommend for the most part not even using the word “regiment” when referring to U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps divisional units. The name “11th Marines” always stands for 11th Marine Regiment. There is no other way to interpret it. The name “2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry,” always stands for 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment. There is no other way to interpret

it. Also, it should always be 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, and not 2nd Battalion of the 47th Infantry. • Brigades: Brigades are designated by Arabic numerals. Brigades existed in the U.S. Army but not in the U.S. Marine Corps. There were two basic types. Divisional brigades: Divisional brigades were the command and control headquarters between the division and the maneuver battalions. These were not standing organizations, as with the U.S. Marine Corps regiments. The maneuver battalions of an army division were attached and detached from the brigades as the operational requirements dictated. Thus, the brigades of a division were numbered as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd brigades of that division (e.g., 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division; 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division; 3rd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division). Separate brigades: Nondivisional brigades generally operated directly under the control of a corps-level headquarters. They had unique numbers, and their designations always included the type of unit (e.g., 173rd Airborne Brigade; 196th Light Infantry Brigade; 1st Aviation Brigade; 1st Signal Brigade). Non-U.S. brigades: Like the U.S. Marine Corps divisions, the divisions of the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, South Korean Army), the ARVN, the VC, and the PAVN were organized along regimental lines rather than brigade lines. The sole exceptions to this were the ARVN airborne and marine divisions, both of which were organized into brigades rather than regiments. The ARVN and the PAVN did have nondivisional separate brigades. • Groups: Groups were mostly U.S. Army units that essentially were separate brigades in all but name. They were mostly corps-level assets and were designated by unique Arabic numerals (e.g., 23rd Artillery Group; 11th Aviation Group; 67th Medical Group; 5th Special Forces Group). • Divisions: Divisions are designated by Arabic numerals. Divisions in almost all armies are some specific type of a division that is part of its proper name that must always be included. The 1st Infantry Division, for example, can never be abbreviated as “1st Division.” During the Vietnam War the U.S. Army had three different 1st Divisions—the 1st Armored Division, the 1st Infantry Division, and the 1st Cavalry Division—with the latter two being in Vietnam. Nor can the division ever be abbreviated by dropping off the word “division.” The name “1st Infantry” always means the 1st Infantry Regiment and not the 1st Infantry Division. The name “1st Cavalry” always means the 1st Cavalry Regiment, not the 1st Cavalry Division. If abbreviations are really necessary, then I recommend using “1st ID” and

Appendix A: Unit Designations “1st CD.” Also, there was no such organization as the 1st Air Cavalry Division; it was the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). • Corps: Corps and corps-level organizations are designated by Roman numerals (e.g., XXIV Corps). The general convention is to use XXIV Corps rather than XXIVth Corps. The I Field Force and the II Field Force were corps-level units, as was the III Marine Amphibious Force.

1681

• Field armies: Field armies and equivalent U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy echelons are always designated by spelling out the number (e.g., Seventh Fleet; Seventh Air Force). The U.S. Army equivalent in Vietnam did not have a numerical designation and was called simply the U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV). The Eighth Army was in Korea at the time. DAVID T. ZABECKI

This page intentionally left blank

Appendix B Military Ranks

All modern armies have two primary classes of soldiers: officers and enlisted men. This distinction originated in the armies of ancient times. In the medieval period the distinction was between knights and men at arms: nobility and commoners. Up through the beginning of the 20th century the distinction between military officers and enlisted soldiers reflected the social class distinctions of society as a whole. An officer was by definition a gentleman, while a common soldier was not. The breakdown in the old social orders that started during World War I was likewise reflected in the world’s armies. By the end of World War II the distinction between officers and enlisted troops in many Western armies had become far more a professional one than a social one. In many East Asian militaries, however, there remained throughout the Vietnam War period a significant class difference between the commissioned and enlisted ranks. As in the armies of all Communist countries, the officer ranks of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and the Viet Cong (VC) were populated by party members whose ideological reliability was beyond question. Unlike Western armies and particularly unlike the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), the vast majority of PAVN and VC officers began their military careers as enlisted men and rose through the ranks, achieving officer rank after their military skills and political loyalty had been tested. PAVN forces in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) did not institute a formal military rank structure until 1958 in North Vietnam, and VC forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) essentially had no formal rank structure until the end of the war. One’s military rank was simply the position that one held (platoon commander, deputy company commander, company commander, battalion commander, etc.) or that one was authorized

to hold; a staff officer, for instance, might hold the rank of company commander (dai doi truong) even though he was not actually commanding a company. During the Vietnam War the primary distinction within both the PAVN and the VC was not between “officer” and “enlisted man” but rather between “cadre,” which included both officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and privates, who were commonly referred to simply as “fighters” or “warriors” (chien si). Officers comprise 10–15 percent of most modern armies. East Asian militaries with weak NCO corps generally had a much higher percentage of officers, as did all armies that were based on the Soviet model. Officers are further divided into three basic groups. Company-grade officers (lieutenants and captains) are responsible for the leadership of platoons and companies. Field-grade officers (majors and colonels) lead battalions and regiments. General officers command the higher echelons and also coordinate the overall direction of an army and its military activities. It is the generals who answer directly to the political leadership of modern democracies. Navies also recognize three broad groups of officers without necessarily using the army terms. In most militaries, generals and admirals are collectively called flag officers because each one has a personal flag bearing the insignia of his rank. Although female officers and even flag officers are relatively common in the U.S. military today, this was not the case during most of the Vietnam War era. Many of the female American officers at the time were nurses, doctors, or other medical specialists. The first American female general officer was Brigadier General Anna Mae Hays, who as chief of the Army Nurse Corps was promoted to flag rank on June 11, 1970. Later that same day the chief of the Woman’s Army Corps, Colonel Elizabeth P. Hoisington, was also promoted to brigadier general. Neither, however, actually 1683

1684

Appendix B: Military Ranks

served in Vietnam. Of all the armies that fought in Vietnam, the VC probably had the highest percentage of female officers as well as the highest percentage of female combatants. Enlisted soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are divided into two basic categories: enlisted men and NCOs. The term for NCOs varies from military to military (e.g., petty officer in most navies; sous officier in the French Army), but the meaning is universal. In all Western militaries NCOs are the backbone of the organization. They are the ones responsible for training individual soldiers and for training and leading fire teams and squads. They hold key leadership positions in platoons and companies, and at the higher levels they assist staff officers in the planning and execution of operations. In all armies the larger majority of the enlisted ranks denote the distinctions within the NCO corps. During the 20th century the American and British Commonwealth armies, including Australia and New Zealand, have had the strongest and most professional NCO corps. One of the biggest challenges that faced the American and Australian advisers supporting the ARVN units was the training and development of NCOs. NCOs include corporals, sergeants, and in some armies warrant officers. It is this category of warrant officer that is most difficult to classify, because the exact status varies from army to army. Many Western armies follow the British Commonwealth model in which warrant officers are the highest category of NCOs. In the American military, on the other hand, warrant officers are a distinct personnel class between officers and enlisted troops. NCOs are considered specialist officers, highly skilled in a certain functional area, and receive pay equivalent to company grade officers but do not have the full range of command authority and responsibilities. The majority of the U.S. Army helicopter pilots who served in Vietnam were warrant officers. In the American military, warrant officers are much closer to commissioned officers. In the Australian and New Zealand armies, they are clearly the most senior of the NCOs. Contrary to widely held popular belief, the rank of sergeant major, for example, does not exist in military organizations based on the British model. Rather, it is a position title—or an appointment, as the British call it—such as squad leader or company commander. The rank of the NCO holding the sergeant major position is always a warrant officer, but the NCO is always addressed by the position title of sergeant major. The Australians and New Zealanders do not have company first sergeants. The senior NCO in any given company is called the company sergeant major. While the Australian and New Zealand armies each have two grades of warrant officer, the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force have only one grade of warrant officer. Thus, there is no real direct comparison between British Commonwealth and American warrant officers, which partially explains the difficulty in correlating exactly the military ranks of the world’s armies. The confusion between American and British warrant officers causes problems to this day in many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters. During the Vietnam

War period the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps all had four grades of warrant officer. The U.S. Air Force also was authorized four grades of warrant officer but stopped making warrant officer appointments in 1959. Many of those who held warrant officer rank at the time later moved into the commissioned grades, but a small handful of U.S. Air Force warrant officers remained on duty up through the late 1970s. Establishing rank equivalency among armies is an inexact science at best, as the confusion over warrant officers and sergeants major illustrates. Common sense would seem to dictate that two soldiers in different armies with the exact same rank titles would be essentially the same. This, however, is not necessarily always the case. The problem of rank equivalency is further compounded by the fact that all armies do not have the same number of ranks, especially for enlisted and NCOs. All four of the American military services have nine enlisted grades, but more than one rank can exist within a given pay grade. In the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps, for example, the second-highest enlisted pay grade, E-8, includes the ranks of master sergeant and first sergeant. Both receive the same pay, but the duties of a first sergeant are more demanding; therefore, first sergeants always take precedence over master sergeants. In the U.S. Air Force, however, the rank of master sergeant is pay grade E-7 and therefore one rank lower than U.S. Army or U.S. Marine Corps master sergeants. U.S. Air Force staff sergeants are also one pay grade lower than those of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps. This misalignment in American rank titles is the result of a major revision in the enlisted rank structure introduced in 1958. All of the services were authorized to increase the number of enlisted pay grades from seven to nine. The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force established two new ranks on the top of their structures, introducing senior chief petty officer and master chief petty officer in the navy and senior master sergeant and chief master sergeant in the air force. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps added one rank at the top, establishing the rank of sergeant major (SGM), which since the 1920s had been a position title only but not an actual rank. The army added its second new rank at the bottom, establishing two pay grades of private. The U.S. Marine Corps, however, established its second new rank as lance corporal, placing it above private first class (PFC) and below corporal. Thus, army PFCs to this day hold the pay grade of E-3, while marine PFCs are in pay grade E-2. Sometimes the number of pay grades and ranks are not even consistent among the military organizations of the same country. The Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force each had six enlisted ranks, while the Australian Army had seven. Soldiers serving in the lowest ranks of the Australian Army had several different titles, depending on their branch. But privates (infantry), troopers (cavalry and armor), gunners (artillery), and sappers (engineers) were all the same rank. Lance corporal is the first rank in the Commonwealth armies that has a rank insignia. A

Appendix B: Military Ranks lance corporal wears a single chevron and is an NCO. A U.S. Army soldier who wore a single chevron was only a PFC and not an NCO. At the start of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army had specialist ranks in pay grades E-4 through E-9. In theory the specialists were not NCOs, although they received pay at those levels. In practice, however, those holding the rank of specialist 5 though specialist 9 were treated as NCOs, and the distinction quickly blurred between the specialists and the “hard stripe” sergeants. The army eliminated the specialist 8 and specialist 9 ranks in 1965 and the specialist 7 rank in 1978. Today, only the specialist 4 rank remains. Specialist 4 is not an NCO, while corporal, which is also in pay grade E-4, is an NCO. The U.S. Army made two other important changes to its enlisted rank structure in 1968. Until then, private E-1 and private E-2 had no insignia of rank. Private first class, pay grade E-3, was indicated by the traditional single chevron, popularly called the “mosquito wing.” That year, the single chevron became the rank insignia for private E-2, while the insignia for PFC became a single chevron with a “rocker” underneath. That same year the U.S. Army also introduced a second sergeant major rank. A command sergeant major (CSM) became the seniorranking NCO at any echelon from battalion through field army. Most of the echelons above battalion also had other sergeants major in key staff positions, but there was only one CSM at each level. Although sergeants major and command sergeants major are both in the same pay grade (E-9), the CSM is the senior in rank. Sergeants major continued to wear their traditional rank insignia of a star between three upper chevrons and three lower rockers. The rank of CSM is indicated by a wreath around the star. Thus, in the 2002 classic Vietnam War movie We Were Soldiers, actor Sam Elliot, portraying Sergeant Major Basil Plumley, is seen wearing only the star on his rank insignia, which was correct for the 1964 date of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. A sergeant major in the U.S. Marine Corps is the equivalent of a command sergeant major in the U.S. Army. There is only one at any given echelon above company. A marine master gunnery sergeant is the equivalent of an army sergeant major. There is far more commonality among the officer ranks of the world’s armies. Most militaries have three levels each of company grade and field grade officers and four levels of general officers. The initial general officer rank in most armies is brigadier general (one star), although the Commonwealth armies use the rank title of brigadier. In the Royal Australian Navy the first flag officer rank is commodore and the next one up is rear admiral. In the U.S. Navy, however, those ranks are awkwardly designated rear admiral (lower half) and rear admiral (upper half), respectively. Major generals (two stars) typically command divisions. Lieutenant generals (three stars) typically command corps. Generals (four stars) command field armies, theaters, and major commands and serve as national chiefs of staff. However, the PAVN differed considerably from the standard practice in the rest of the world. Instead of three levels of companyand field-grade officers, the PAVN had four levels of company-

1685

grade officers (not counting the sublieutenant rank), four levels of field-grade officers, and four levels of general officers. In the PAVN, battalions were commanded by company-grade officers (usually by captains and senior captains but sometimes by first lieutenants), and regiments and divisions were commanded by field-grade officers (a division commander was usually a lieutenant colonel or colonel and only rarely a senior colonel). Generals never commanded a division; one-star generals (thieu tuong) commanded corps, military regions, or even higher-level formations. In terms of his duties and responsibilities, a PAVN senior colonel was probably comparable to a brigadier or major general in most other armies, and a PAVN one-star general was approximately the equivalent of a lieutenant general (three stars). Another complicating factor was linguistic. The Vietnamese word thieu tuong was used to refer to a one-star general in the PAVN, but in the ARVN a thieu tuong wore two stars and was called a major general; similarly, the PAVN trung tuong wore two stars, but in the ARVN a trung tuong wore three stars and was called a lieutenant general. Through the end of World War II many of the world’s major armies had a five-star general rank. That rank largely fell into disuse after 1945 but still remained as an official rank and is therefore listed in these tables. American officers holding five-star rank never retire. They draw full active-duty pay for the remainder of their lives, although after a certain point their actual military duties and responsibilities become minimal. During the period of America’s involvement in Vietnam there were four American officers still living who held five-star rank, but they held no official positions in the command structure by that point. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur died in 1964, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz died in 1966, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower died in 1969, and General of the Army Omar Bradley died in 1981. (Although Eisenhower had to resign his commission when he became president in 1953, it was reinstated when he left the White House in 1961.) General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, who commanded French forces in Indochina in 1951, received a posthumous promotion to marshal of France immediately after his death in 1952. Officer candidates have their own separate rank structures in most armies. But the ranks of cadet, midshipman, aspirant, etc., are essentially temporary training ranks and in most armies do not take part in combat operations until they receive their commissions. The following table represents an attempt to equate the enlisted and officer ranks of the various militaries of the 1945–1975 wars involving Vietnam. In regard to determining the level at which to place a given rank, the duties and responsibilities of the person holding that rank take precedence over the face value of the rank title or the insignia worn. The tables do not include officer candidates or American-style warrant officers. Warrant officers as NCOs are included. Many armies also have special rank structures and designations for musicians, buglers, and pipers, which likewise are not included in the table. DAVID T. ZABECKI

1686

Appendix B: Military Ranks

Army Ranks U.S. Army Officers

Enlisted

French Army

Australian Army

New Zealand Army

General of the Army

Maréchal de France

General

Général d’Armée

General

General

Lieutenant General

Général de Corps d’Armée

Lieutanant General

Lieutenant General

Major General

Général de Division

Major General

Major General

Brigadier General

Géneral de Brigade

Brigadier

Brigadier

Colonel

Colonel

Colonel

Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Major

Commandant

Major

Major

Captain

Capitaine

Captain

Captain

First Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Second Lieutenant

Sous-Lieutenant

Second Lieutenant

Second Lieutenant

Command Sergeant Major Sergeant Major

Adjutant-Chef

Warrant Officer Class 1

Warrant Officer Class 1

First Sergeant Master Sergeant

Adjutant

Warrant Officer Class 2

Warrant Officer Class 2

Platoon Sergeant Sergeant First Class Specialist 7

Sergent-Chef

Staff Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Staff Sergeant Specialist 6

Sergent-Comptable

Sergeant

Sergeant

Sergeant Specialist 5

Sergent

Corporal Bombardier

Corporal Bombardier

Corporal Specialist 4

Caporal-Chef

Lance Corporal Lance Bombardier

Lance Corporal Lance Bombardier

Private First Class

Caporal

Private (E-2)

Soldat de 1ère Classe Private Trooper Gunner Sapper

Private Trooper Gunner Sapper

Private (E-1)

Soldat de 2ème Classe

Appendix B: Military Ranks

Thailand Army Officers

South Korea Army

Socialist Republic of (North) Vietnam Army

Republic of (South) Vietnam Army

Chom Pon

Wonsu

Thuong Tuong

Phon Ek

Taejang

Dai Tuong

Dai Tuong

Phon Tho

Chungjang

Thuong Tuong

Trung Tuong

Phon Tri

Sojang

Trung Tuong

Thieu Tuong

Phan Ek Phiset

Chungjang

Thieu Tuong

Chuan Toung

Dai Ta Phan Ek

Taeryong

Thuong Ta

Dai Ta

Phan Tho

Chungryong

Trung Ta

Trung Ta

Phan Tri

Soryong

Thieu Ta

Thieu Ta

Roi Ek

Taewi

Dai Uy

Dai Uy

Roi Tho

Chungwi

Thuong Uy

Trung Uy

Trung Uy Roi Tri

Enlisted

Sowi

Cha Sip Ek Phiset

Wonsa

Cha Sip Ek

Sangsa

Cha Sip Tho

Chungsa

Cha Sip Tri

Hasa

Sip Ek

Byongjang

Sip Tho

Sangbyong

Sip Tri

Ilbyong

Sip Tri Kong Pra

Yibyong

Phon Thahan

Mudungbyong

Thieu Uy

Thieu Uy

Chuan Uy

Chuan Uy

Thuong Si

Thoung Si Nhat Thuong Si

Trung Si

Trung Si Nhat Trung Si

Ha Si

Ha Si Nhat Ha Si

Binh Nhat

Binh Nhat

Binh Nhi

Binh Nhi

Trung Dinh

1687

1688

Appendix B: Military Ranks

Navy Ranks United States Navy Officers

Royal Australian Navy

Socialist Republic of (North) Vietnam Navy

Republic of (South) Vietnam Navy

Fleet Admiral Admiral

Admiral

Dai Tuong

Vice Admiral

Vice-Admiral

Do Doc

Trung Tuong

Rear Admiral (Upper Half)

Rear Admiral

Pho Do Doc

Thieu Tuong

Rear Admiral (Lower Half)

Commodore

Chuan Do Doc

Chuan Toung

Dai Ta Captain

Captain

Thuong Ta

Dai Ta

Commander

Commander

Trung Ta

Trung Ta

Lieutenant Commander

Lieutenant-Commander

Thieu Ta

Thieu Ta

Lieutanant

Lieutenant

Dai Uy

Dai Uy

Lieutenant (Junior Grade)

Sub-Lieutenant

Thuong Uy

Trung Uy

Trung Uy Ensign

Enlisted

Acting Sub-Lieutenant

Master Chief Petty Officer

Warrant Officer

Senior Chief Petty Officer

Chief Petty Officer

Chief Petty Officer

Thieu Uy

Thieu Uy

Chuan Uy

Chuan Uy

Thuong Si

Thoung Si Nhat Thuong Si

Trung Si

Petty Officer First Class

Petty Officer

Petty Officer Second Class

Leading Seaman

Petty Officer Third Class

Able Seaman

Seaman Airman Fireman

Trung Si Ha Si

Ha Si Nhat Ha Si

Binh Nhat

Seaman Apprentice Airman Apprentice Fireman Apprentice

Seaman Recruit

Trung Si Nhat

Binh Nhat

Binh Nhi

Seaman

Binh Nhi

Trung Dinh

Appendix B: Military Ranks

1689

Air Force Ranks United States Air Force Officers

French Air Force

Royal Australian Air Force

Socialist Republic of (North) Vietnam Air Force

Republic of (South) Vietnam Air Force

General of the Air Force General

Général d’Armée Aérienne

Air Chief Marshal

Lieutenant General

Général de Corps d’Armée Aérienne

Air Marshal

Dai Tuong Thuong Tuong

Trung Tuong

Major General

Général de Division Aérienne

Air Vice Marshal

Trung Tuong

Thieu Tuong

Brigadier General

Général de Brigade Aérienne

Air Commodore

Thieu Tuong

Chuan Toung

Dai Ta Colonel

Colonel

Group Captain

Thuong Ta

Dai Ta

Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Wing Commander

Trung Ta

Trung Ta

Major

Commandant

Squadron Leader

Thieu Ta

Thieu Ta

Captain

Capitaine

Flight Lieutenant

Dai Uy

Dai Uy

First Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Flying Officer

Thuong Uy

Trung Uy

Trung Uy

Enlisted

Second Lieutenant

Sous-Lieutenant

Pilot Officer

Thieu Uy

Thieu Uy

Chief Master Sergeant

Adjutant-Chef

Warrant Officer

Thuong Si

Thoung Si Nhat

Senior Master Sergeant

Adjutant

Flight Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Sergent-Chef

Technical Sergeant

Sergent-Comptable

Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Sergent

Corporal

Sergeant Senior Airman

Caporal-Chef

Leading Aircraftman

Airman First Class

Caporal

Airman

Soldat de 1ère Classe

Airman Basic

Soldat de 2ème Classe

Thuong Si

Trung Si

Trung Si Nhat Trung Si

Ha Si

Ha Si Nhat Ha Si

Binh Nhat

Binh Nhat

Binh Nhi

Aircraftman

Binh Nhi

Trung Dinh

1690

Appendix B: Military Ranks

Marine Ranks United States Marine Corps

South Korea Marines

Republic of (South) Vietnam Marines

Officers

Enlisted

General

Taejang

Lieutenant General

Chungjang

Trung Tuong

Major General

Sojang

Thieu Tuong

Brigadier General

Chungjang

Chuan Toung

Colonel

Taeryong

Dai Ta

Lieutenant Colonel

Chungryong

Trung Ta

Major

Soryong

Thieu Ta

Captain

Taewi

Dai Uy

First Lieutenant

Chungwi

Trung Uy

Second Lieutenant

Sowi

Thieu Uy

Sergeant Major Master Gunnery Sergeant

Wonsa

Thoung Si Nhat

First Sergeant Master Sergeant

Sangsa

Thuong Si

Gunnery Sergeant

Chungsa

Trung Si Nhat

Staff Sergeant

Hasa

Trung Si

Sergeant

Byongjang

Ha Si Nhat

Corporal

Sangbyong

Ha Si

Lance Corporal

Ilbyong

Binh Nhat

Private First Class

Yibyong

Binh Nhi

Private

Mudungbyong

Trung Dinh

References Emerson, William K. Chevrons: Illustrated History and Catalog of U.S. Army Insignia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983. Katcher, Phillip. Armies of the Vietnam War, 1962–1975. London: Osprey, 1980.

Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Rottman, Gordon L. Viet Cong Fighter. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2007. Russell, Lee E. Armies of the Vietnam War (2). Oxford, UK: Osprey, 1983.

Appendix C Order of Battle

tary historian is to construct the best picture possible using the best available data. More than 35 years after the fall of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam), OB information on the Vietnam War remains incomplete. In the following tables, the information for U.S. military units is virtually complete and accurate. The information for Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF, South Vietnamese Armed Forces) is somewhat less complete. The information for Communist troops—People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) units—is often incomplete. In many cases, only partial listings of subordinate units are known. In some cases this information is not available at all. In most cases it is possible to reconstruct only partial and spotty listings of commanders.

Order of battle (OB) is the process of determining the identification, disposition, strength, command structure, subordinate units, and equipment of any military force. During military operations, OB is an integral part of the tactical intelligence process, one of the many tools used by military intelligence analysts to determine enemy capabilities and probable courses of action. All armies go to great lengths to prevent their enemies from obtaining this information. Likewise, all armies engage in deception operations to feed false and misleading information to the opposing forces. For these reasons, OB, like so much else in the realm of military intelligence, is as much an art as a science. Intelligence analysts face the daunting task of building a coherent picture of an enemy from partial, often conflicting, and sometimes false information gathered from a wide variety of sources of varying accuracy and reliability. The OB picture of an enemy force is never complete and never stable. It is a constantly moving picture that changes shape as units lose or build strength, change location, change commanders, and even exchange subordinate units and elements. The OB picture can be considered true and accurate only after the war is over and perhaps not even then. The historian uses OB information in much the same manner as the intelligence analyst. Whereas the intelligence analyst is trying to predict the future, the historian is trying to reconstruct the past. Historians use similar research and analytical tools, and they face similar challenges in regard to incomplete, conflicting, and often intentionally misleading information. Many years after an event, the surviving or available records still might not provide enough information to construct the true picture. The objective of both the intelligence analyst and the mili-

I. U.S. Order of Battle A. U.S. Joint Commands The first U.S. military organization arrived in Vietnam in 1950. The mission of the Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Indochina (MAAG-Indochina), was to provide assistance and advice to the French forces there. In 1955 MAAG-Indochina became MAAGVietnam, with a mission of providing joint service support to the South Vietnamese. In 1962 the United States also established the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), to coordinate the expanding U.S. military activities in Vietnam. In 1964 MACV was reorganized and absorbed MAAG-Vietnam, which became the Field Advisory Element, MACV. The Field Advisory Element provided the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) with adviser teams from the corps level down to the regimental level. In essence, the senior

1691

1692

Appendix C: Order of Battle

American adviser at any given level functioned as almost a shadow commander. From about mid-1970 the senior U.S. Army officer in each corps tactical zone (CTZ) was considered the senior adviser as well. The one exception was when John Paul Vann became the senior adviser in II CTZ in May 1971. The Field Advisory Element had an assigned strength of 4,741 men in 1964 and reached its peak in 1968 with 9,430 men. MACV was a subordinate unified command of the U.S. Pacific Command, headquartered in Hawaii. The commander of MACV had control and authority over all U.S. military operations in South Vietnam. This included naval operations in Vietnamese coastal waters and all air missions over South Vietnam. The commander of MACV did not have any control over the air war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), over the high seas operations of the U.S. Seventh Fleet (including air strikes launched from its carriers), or over any missions carried out by aircraft of the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC). In theory the commander of MACV reported to the commander in chief of the Pacific Command (CINCPAC). In practice, however, the commander of MACV often reported directly to the U.S. secretary of defense. In hindsight, it can be seen very clearly that the United States violated the principle of unity of command almost from the start. Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina Date formed in Vietnam: September 17, 1950 Date reorganized as MAAG-Vietnam: October 31, 1955 Headquarters: Saigon (Cho Lon) COMMANDING GENERALS Brigadier General Francis G. Brink Major General Thomas J. H. Trapnell Lieutenant General John W. O’Daniel

October 1950 August 1952 April 1954

Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAG-Vietnam) Date formed from MAAG-Indochina: November 1, 1955 Date merged with MACV: May 15, 1964 Headquarters: Saigon COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams Lieutenant General Lionel C. McGarr Major General Charles J. Timmes

November 1955 September 1960 July 1962

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) Date formed in Vietnam: February 8, 1962 Date inactivated in Vietnam: March 29, 1973 Headquarters: Saigon (Tan Son Nhut Air Base)

MAJOR SUBORDINATE COMMANDS Field Advisory Element, MACV U.S. Army, Vietnam I Field Force II Field Force XXIV Corps 5th Special Forces Group III Marine Amphibious Force Naval Forces, Vietnam Seventh Air Force COMMANDING GENERALS General Paul D. Harkins General William C. Westmoreland General Creighton W. Abrams General Frederick C. Weyand

February 1962 June 1964 July 1968 June 1972

FIELD ADVISORY ELEMENT, MACV

Senior U.S. Army advisers I CORPS TACTICAL ZONE Brigadier General A. L. Hamblen Jr. Colonel John J. Beeson III Brigadier General Salve H. Matheson Colonel John J. Beeson III Colonel Ronald H. Renwanz Brigadier General Henry J. Muller Jr. Brigadier General Charles A. Jackson Lieutenant General James W. Sutherland Lieutenant General Welborn G. Dolvin Major General Frederick J. Kroesen Major General Howard H. Cooksey

June 1966 July 1967 January 1968 April 1968 August 1968 September 1969 July 1970 October 1970 July 1971 April 1972 June 1972

II CORPS TACTICAL ZONE Brigadier General James S. Timothy Major General Richard M. Lee Colonel Charles A. Cannon Major General John W. Barnes Colonel Robert M. Piper Brigadier General Gordon J. Duquemin Brigadier General Jack MacFarlane Lieutenant General Arthur S. Collins Jr. Major General Charles P. Brown Mr. John Paul Vann Major General Michael D. Healy

June 1966 August 1966 November 1966 November 1967 January 1968 December 1969 July 1970 October 1970 January 1971 May 1971 June 1972

III CORPS TACTICAL ZONE Colonel Arndt L. Mueller Colonel Gus S. Peters Brigadier General Donald D. Dunlop Brigadier General Carleton Preer Jr. Brigadier General Dennis P. McAuliffe

June 1966 November 1967 June 1968 May 1969 January 1970

Appendix C: Order of Battle Lieutenant General Michael S. Davison Major General Jack J. Wagstaff Major General James F. Hollingsworth Major General Marshall B. Garth

October 1970 May 1971 January 1972 September 1972

IV CORPS TACTICAL ZONE Colonel George A. Barton Colonel Leroy B. Wilson Brigadier General William R. Desorby Major General George S. Eckhardt Major General Roderick Wetheril Major General Hal D. McCown Major General John H. Cushman Brigadier General Frank E. Blazey Major General Thomas M. Tarpley

June 1964 June 1966 August 1966 January 1967 June 1969 January 1970 May 1971 February 1972 March 1972

U.S. MILITARY STRENGTH IN VIETNAM 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

23,310 184,310 385,300 485,600 536,000 484,330 335,790 158,120 24,000

B. U.S. Army Major Commands U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), was established in 1965 to coordinate administrative and logistical support to all U.S. Army units operating in Vietnam. Actual command and control of combat units and operations remained with MACV. On paper, the commander of MACV was also the commander of USARV. In practice, the deputy commander of USARV ran the organization on a dayto-day basis. In November 1965 the Americans established Field Force, Vietnam, as a corps-level headquarters to control ground combat operations. As the number of U.S. ground combat units grew rapidly, II Field Force, Vietnam, was established in March 1966, with Field Force, Vietnam, redesignated I Field Force, Vietnam. Initially the Americans used the designation “field force” rather than “corps” to avoid confusion with the geographically based corps tactical zones of the ARVN. In February 1968, however, the U.S. Army established its third corps-level headquarters, designating it XXIV Corps. Throughout the war, many U.S. divisions and separate brigades came under the operational control of different field forces/ corps at different times. Most U.S. Army combat forces in Vietnam were organized into divisions. Some units operated as separate brigades. In April 1967 three such separate brigades were organized into a provisional division designated Task Force Oregon. That September, Task Force Oregon was formally organized into the 23rd Infantry Division, re-

1693

taining only one of Task Force Oregon’s three brigades and adding two more. During the war, most U.S. Army units of similar type remained fairly consistent in organization and strength. A typical U.S. division had between 16,570 and 17,730 soldiers. A division’s principal combat forces consisted of 10 or 11 maneuver (infantry, armor, or cavalry) battalions and 4 artillery battalions. A typical infantry battalion had 920 officers and soldiers, while a typical artillery battalion had 641 officers and soldiers. U.S. Army, Vietnam Date formed in Vietnam: July 20, 1965 Date inactivated in Vietnam: May 15, 1972 Headquarters: Long Binh MAJOR SUBORDINATE UNITS 1st Logistical Command 1st Aviation Brigade 18th Military Police Brigade 34th General Support Group 525th Military Intelligence Group U.S. Army Engineer Command (Provisional) DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERALS, MACV Major General John Norton Lieutenant General Jean E. Engler Lieutenant General Bruce Palmer Jr. Lieutenant General Frank T. Mildren Lieutenant General William J. McCaffrey Major General Morgan C. Roseborough

July 1965 January 1966 July 1967 June 1968 July 1970 September 1972

I Field Force, Vietnam Date formed in Vietnam: November 15, 1965 Date inactivated in Vietnam: April 30, 1971 Headquarters: Nha Trang SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Cavalry Division 4th Infantry Division 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division 173rd Airborne Brigade 41st Artillery Group 52nd Artillery Group COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General Stanley R. Larson Lieutenant General William R. Peers Lieutenant General Charles A. Cocoran Lieutenant General Arthur S. Collins Jr. Major General Charles P. Brown

November 1965 March 1968 March 1969 March 1970 January 1971

1694

Appendix C: Order of Battle

II Field Force, Vietnam Date formed in Vietnam: March 15, 1966 Date inactivated in Vietnam: May 2, 1971 Headquarters: Long Binh

Date arrived in Vietnam: September 11, 1965, from Fort Benning Date departed Vietnam: April 29, 1971, to Fort Hood Headquarters: An Khe, September 1965; Bien Hoa, May 1969

SUBORDINATE UNITS 1st Cavalry Division 1st Infantry Division 9th Infantry Division 25th Infantry Division 101st Airborne Division 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division 173rd Airborne Brigade 196th Infantry Brigade 199th Infantry Brigade 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment 23rd Artillery Group 54th Artillery Group COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General Jonathan O. Seaman Lieutenant General Bruce Palmer Jr. Major General Frederick C. Weyand Major General Walter T. Kerwin Jr. Lieutenant General Julian J. Ewell Lieutenant General Michael S. Davison

March 1966 March 1967 July 1967 August 1968 April 1969 April 1970

XXIV Corps Date formed in Vietnam: August 15, 1968 Date departed Vietnam: June 20, 1972 Headquarters: Phu Bai, August 1968; Da Nang, March 1970 SUBORDINATE UNITS III Marine Amphibious Force (after March 1970) 1st Cavalry Division 23rd Infantry Division 101st Airborne Division 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division 196th Infantry Brigade 108th Artillery Group COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General William B. Rosson Lieutenant General Richard G. Stilwell Lieutenant General Melvin Zais Lieutenant General James W. Sutherland Jr. Lieutenant General Welborn G. Dolvin

February 1968 July 1968 June 1969 June 1970 June 1971

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) (“The First Team”) Date formed: September 13, 1921

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 17th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 19th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 20th Artillery 1st Battalion, 21st Artillery 1st Battalion, 30th Artillery 1st Battalion, 77th Artillery 11th Aviation Group PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Ia Drang Valley Operation MASHER/WHITE WING Operation PAUL REVERE II Operation BYRD Operation IRVING Operation PERSHING Operation BOLLING Tet Offensive Khe Sanh Operation PEGASUS A Shau Valley Cambodia, 1970 COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Harry W. B. Kinnard Major General John Norton Major General John J. Tolson III Major General George I. Forsythe Major General Elvy B. Roberts Major General George W. Casey Brigadier General Jonathan R. Burton Major General George W. Putman Jr.

July 1965 May 1966 April 1967 July 1968 May 1969 May 1970 July 1970 July 1970

1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”) Date formed: December 22, 1917 Date arrived in Vietnam: October 2, 1965, from Fort Riley Date departed Vietnam: April 15, 1970, to Fort Riley

Appendix C: Order of Battle Headquarters: Bien Hoa, October 1965; Di An, February 1966; Lai Khe, October 1967; Di An, November 1969 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery 8th Battalion, 6th Artillery 1st Battalion, 7th Artillery 6th Battalion, 15th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 33rd Artillery 1st Aviation Battalion

October 1965 March 1966 February 1967 March 1968 September 1968 August 1969 March 1970

4th Infantry Division (“Ivy Division”) Date formed: December 1917 Date arrived in Vietnam: September 25, 1966, from Fort Lewis Date departed Vietnam: December 7, 1970, to Fort Carson Headquarters: Pleiku, September 1966; Dak To, March 1968; Pleiku, April 1968; An Khe, April 1970 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry

1st Battalion, 14th Infantry 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor 1st Battalion, 69th Armor 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 9th Artillery 5th Battalion, 16th Artillery 6th Battalion, 29th Artillery 4th Battalion, 42nd Artillery 2nd Battalion, 77th Artillery 4th Aviation Battalion PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation ATTLEBORO Operation JUNCTION CITY Operation FRANCIS MARION Dak To Tet Offensive Cambodia, 1970 Operation WAYNE GREY Operation PUTNAM TIGER

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation EL PASO II Operation ATTLEBORO Operation CEDAR FALLS Operation JUNCTION CITY Tet Offensive Operation QUYET THANG COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Jonathan O. Seaman Major General William E. DePuy Major General John H. Hay Jr. Major General Keith L. Ware Major General Orwin C. Talbott Major General Albert E. Milloy Brigadier General John Q. Herrion

1695

COMMANDING GENERALS Brigadier General David O. Byars Major General Arthur S. Collins Jr. Major General William R. Peers Major General Charles P. Stone Major General Donn R. Pepke Major General Glenn D. Walker Major General William A. Burke Brigadier General Maurice K. Kendall

August 1966 September 1966 January 1967 January 1968 December 1968 November 1969 July 1970 December 1970

9th Infantry Division (“Old Reliables”) Date formed: August 1, 1940 Date arrived in Vietnam: December 16, 1966, from Fort Riley Date departed Vietnam: August 27, 1969, to Fort Lewis Headquarters: Bear Cat, December 1966; Dong Tam, August 1968 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry

1696

Appendix C: Order of Battle

5th Battalion, 60th Infantry 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 4th Artillery 1st Battalion, 11th Artillery 3rd Battalion, 34th Artillery 1st Battalion, 84th Artillery 9th Aviation Battalion

3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry 1st Battalion, 52nd Infantry 6th Battalion, 11th Artillery 1st Battalion, 14th Artillery 3rd Battalion, 16th Artillery 3rd Battalion, 18th Artillery 1st Battalion, 82nd Artillery 3rd Battalion, 82nd Artillery 16th Aviation Group

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation PALM BEACH Operation ENTERPRISE Operation JUNCTION CITY II Tet Offensive Operation QUYET THANG Operation DUONG CUA DAN Operation SPEEDY EXPRESS Operation RICE FARMER COMMANDING GENERALS Major General George C. Eckhart Major General George C. O’Connor Major General Julian J. Ewell Major General Harris W. Hollis

December 1966 June 1967 February 1968 April 1969

Task Force Oregon Date formed in Vietnam: April 12, 1967 Date converted to 23rd Infantry Division: September 22, 1967 Headquarters: Chu Lai SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division 196th Infantry Brigade COMMANDING GENERALS Major General William B. Rosson Major General Richard T. Knowles

COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Samuel W. Koster Major General Charles M. Gettys Major General Lloyd B. Ramsey Major General Albert E. Milloy Major General James L. Baldwin Major General Frederick J. Kroesen Jr.

September 1967 June 1968 June 1969 March 1970 November 1970 July 1971

25th Infantry Division (“Tropic Lightning”) Date formed: October 10, 1941 Date arrived in Vietnam: March 28, 1966, from Schofield Barracks Date departed Vietnam: December 8, 1970, to Schofield Barracks Headquarters: Cu Chi April 1967 June 1967

23rd Infantry Division (“Americal Division”) Date formed in Vietnam: September 22, 1967 Date inactivated in Vietnam: November 29, 1971 Headquarters: Chu Lai SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 11th Infantry Brigade 196th Infantry Brigade 198th Infantry Brigade 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA Operation MUSCATINE Tet Offensive Operation BURLINGTON TRAIL Operation LAMAR PLAIN

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor 1st Battalion, 69th Armor 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry

Appendix C: Order of Battle PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Tet Offensive Operation CARENTAN II Operation TEXAS STAR Operation APACHE SNOW Operation LAMAR PLAIN Operation RANDOLPH GLEN Operation JEFFERSON GLENN Operation LAM SON 719

1st Battalion, 8th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 9th Artillery 7th Battalion, 11th Artillery 3rd Battalion, 13th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 77th Artillery 6th Battalion, 77th Artillery 25th Aviation Battalion PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation PAUL REVERE Operation CEDAR FALLS Operation JUNCTION CITY Operation YELLOWSTONE Tet Offensive Operation QUYET THANG Operation SARATOGA Cambodia, 1970 COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Frederick C. Weyand Major General John C. F. Tillson III Major General Fillmore K. Mearns Major General Ellis W. Williamson Major General Harris W. Hollis Major General Edward Baultz Jr.

COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Olinto M. Barsanti Major General Melvin Zais Major General John M. Wright Jr. Major General John J. Hennessey Major General Thomas M. Tarpley

January 1966 March 1967 August 1967 August 1968 September 1969 April 1970

101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) (“Screaming Eagles”) Date formed: August 15, 1942 Date arrived in Vietnam: November 19, 1967, from Fort Campbell Date departed Vietnam: March 10, 1972, to Fort Campbell Headquarters: Bien Hoa, November 1967; Hue, February 1968; Bien Hoa, June 1968; Hue/Phu Bai, December 1969 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry 2nd Battalion, 11th Artillery 1st Battalion, 39th Artillery 4th Battalion, 77th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 319th Artillery 2nd Battalion, 320th Artillery 1st Battalion, 321st Artillery 101st Aviation Group

November 1967 July 1968 May 1969 May 1970 January 1971

1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) Date arrived in Vietnam: July 25, 1968, from Fort Carson Date departed Vietnam: August 27, 1971, to Fort Carson Headquarters: Quang Tri SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry 1st Battalion, 77th Armor 5th Battalion, 4th Artillery PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation DEWEY CANYON II COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Richard J. Glikes Colonel James M. Gibson Colonel John L. Osteen Jr. Brigadier General William A. Burke Brigadier General John G. Hill Jr. Brigadier General Harold H. Dunwoody

July 1968 October 1968 June 1969 April 1970 July 1970 May 1971

3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division Date arrived in Vietnam: February 18, 1968, from Fort Bragg Date departed Vietnam: December 11, 1969, to Fort Bragg Headquarters: Hue, February 1968; Saigon, September 1968 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 505th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 321st Artillery PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation CARENTAN II

1697

1698

Appendix C: Order of Battle

COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Alex R. Bolling Jr. Brigadier General George W. Dickerson

February 1968 December 1968

11th Infantry Brigade (Light) Date arrived in Vietnam: December 19, 1967 Date assigned to 23rd Infantry Division: February 15, 1969 Date departed Vietnam: November 13, 1971 Headquarters: Duc Pho, December 1967; The Loi, July 1971 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry 6th Battalion, 11th Artillery

December 1967 March 1968 October 1968 April 1969 September 1969 March 1970 September 1970 March 1971

173rd Airborne Brigade Date arrived in Vietnam: May 7, 1965, from Okinawa Date departed Vietnam: August 25, 1971 Headquarters: Bien Hoa, May 1965; An Khe, November 1967; Bong Son, May 1969 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry 3rd Battalion, 503rd Infantry 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry 3rd Battalion, 319th Artillery PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation ATTLEBORO Operation CEDAR FALLS Operation JUNCTION CITY Dak To

COMMANDING OFFICERS Brigadier General Ellis W. Williamson Brigadier General Paul F. Smith Brigadier General John R. Deane Jr. Brigadier General Leo H. Schweiter Brigadier General Richard J. Allen Brigadier General John W. Barnes Brigadier General Hubert S. Cunningham Brigadier General Elmer R. Ochs Brigadier General Jack MacFarlane

May 1965 February 1966 December 1966 August 1967 April 1968 December 1968 August 1969 August 1970 January 1971

196th Infantry Brigade (Light) Date arrived in Vietnam: August 26, 1966 Date assigned to Task Force Oregon: September 22, 1967 Date relieved from 23rd Infantry Division: November 29, 1971 Date departed Vietnam: June 29, 1972 Headquarters: Tay Ninh, August 1966; Chu Lai, June 1967; Tam Ky, November 1967; Phong Dien, April 1968; Hoi An, June 1968; Chu Lai, July 1968; Da Nang, April 1971

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA Operation MUSCATINE Tet Offensive Operation BURLINGTON TRAIL Operation LAMAR PLAIN COMMANDING OFFICERS Brigadier General Andy A. Lipscomb Colonel Oran K. Henderson Colonel John W. Donalson Colonel Jack L. Treadwell Colonel Hugh F. T. Hoffman Colonel Kendrick B. Barlow Colonel John L. Insani Colonel Warner S. Goodwin

Tet Offensive Operation MCLAIN Operation COCHISE GREEN Operation WASHINGTON GREEN

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry 3rd Battalion, 82nd Artillery PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation ATTLEBORO Operation JUNCTION CITY Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA Operation MUSCATINE Tet Offensive Operation BURLINGTON TRAIL Operation LAMAR PLAIN COMMANDING OFFICERS Brigadier General Richard T. Knowles Brigadier General Frank H. Linnell Colonel Louis Gelling Colonel Frederick J. Kroesen Jr. Colonel Thomas H. Tackaberry Colonel James M. Lee Colonel Edwin L. Kennedy Colonel William S. Hathaway Colonel Rutland D. Beard Jr.

November 1966 May 1967 November 1967 June 1968 May 1969 November 1969 April 1970 November 1970 June 1971

Appendix C: Order of Battle Brigadier General Joseph P. McDonough

November 1971

198th Infantry Brigade (Light) Date arrived in Vietnam: October 21, 1967 Date assigned to Task Force Oregon: October 21, 1967 Date departed Vietnam: November 13, 1971 Headquarters: Duc Pho, October 1967; Chu Lai, December 1967 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry 1st Battalion, 52nd Infantry 1st Battalion, 14th Artillery

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry 3rd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry October 1967 June 1968 December 1968 May 1969 November 1969 July 1970 March 1971

199th Infantry Brigade (Light) Date arrived in Vietnam: December 10, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: October 11, 1970 Headquarters: Song Be, December 1966; Long Binh, March 1967; Bien Hoa, April 1967; Long Binh, July 1967; Gao Ho Nai, March 1968; Long Binh, July 1968 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry 5th Battalion, 12th Infantry 2nd Battalion, 40th Artillery PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation FAIRFAX Operation UNIONTOWN Tet Offensive Phu Tho Racetrack

December 1966 March 1967 September 1967 May 1968 August 1968 May 1969 December 1969 July 1970 September 1970

11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (“Black Horse”) Date arrived in Vietnam: September 8, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 5, 1971 Headquarters: Bien Hoa, September 1966; Long Binh, December 1966; Xuan Loc, March 1967; Lai Khe, February 1969; Long Gaio, March 1969; Bien Hoa, October 1969; Di An, July 1970

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation WHEELER/WALLOWA Operation MUSCATINE Tet Offensive Operation BURLINGTON TRAIL Operation LAMAR PLAIN COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel J. R. Waldie Colonel Charles B. Thomas Colonel Robert B. Tully Colonel Jere D. Whittington Colonel Joseph G. Clemons Colonel William R. Richardson Colonel Charles R. Smith

COMMANDING OFFICERS Brigadier General Charles W. Ryder Jr. Brigadier General John F. Freund Brigadier General Robert C. Forbes Brigadier General Franklin M. Davis Jr. Colonel Frederic E. Davison Brigadier General Warren K. Bennett Brigadier General William R. Bond Colonel Joseph E. Collins Lieutenant Colonel George E. Williams

1699

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation CEDAR FALLS Operation JUNCTION CITY Tet Offensive Operation TOAN THANG Cambodia, 1970 COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel William W. Cobb Colonel Roy W. Farley Colonel Jack MacFarlane Colonel Charles R. Gorder Colonel Leonard D. Holder Colonel James H. Leach Colonel George S. Patton Colonel Donn A. Starry Colonel John L. Gerrity Colonel Wallace H. Nutting

September 1966 May 1967 December 1967 March 1968 March 1969 April 1968 July 1969 December 1969 June 1970 December 1970

U.S. Army Special Forces, Vietnam (Provisional) Date formed in Vietnam: September 1962 Date inactivated in Vietnam: September 30, 1964 Headquarters: Nha Trang SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS C-3 Operational Detachment B-7 Operational Detachment B-130 Operational Detachment B-320 Operational Detachment B-410 Operational Detachment

1700

Appendix C: Order of Battle

COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel George C. Morton Colonel Theodore Leonard

September 1962 November 1963

5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces Date arrived in Vietnam: October 1, 1964, from Fort Bragg Date departed Vietnam: March 3, 1971, to Fort Bragg Headquarters: Nha Trang SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS Joint Combined Coordination Detachment Operational Detachment B-50 (Project Omega) Operational Detachment B-51 Operational Detachment B-52 (Project Delta) Operational Detachment B-53 Operational Detachment B-55 (5th Mobile Strike Force Command) Operational Detachment B-56 (Project Sigma) Operational Detachment B-57 (Project Gamma) Company A (C-3 Operational Detachment) Company B (C-2 Operational Detachment) Company C (C-1 Operational Detachment) Company D (C-4 Operational Detachment) Company E (C-5 Operational Detachment) COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel John H. Spears Colonel William A. McKean Colonel Francis J. Kelly Colonel Jonathan F. Ladd Colonel Harlod R. Aaron Colonel Robert B. Rheault Colonel Alexander Lemberes Colonel Michael D. Healy

August 1964 July 1965 June 1968 June 1968 June 1968 May 1969 July 1969 August 1969

1st Aviation Brigade Date formed in Vietnam: May 25, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 28, 1973 Headquarters: Tan Son Nhut, May 1966; Long Binh, December 1967; Tan Son Nhut, December 1972 SUBORDINATE OPERATIONAL AND COMBAT UNITS 11th Aviation Group 12th Aviation Group 16th Aviation Group 17th Aviation Group 160th Aviation Group 164th Aviation Group 165th Aviation Group 10th Aviation Battalion 11th Aviation Battalion 13th Aviation Battalion

14th Aviation Battalion 52nd Aviation Battalion 58th Aviation Battalion 145th Aviation Battalion 210th Aviation Battalion 212th Aviation Battalion 214th Aviation Battalion 222nd Aviation Battalion 223rd Aviation Battalion 268th Aviation Battalion 269th Aviation Battalion 307th Aviation Battalion 308th Aviation Battalion 7th Squadron, 1st Cavalry 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry COMMANDING OFFICERS Brigadier General George P. Seneff Major General Robert R. Williams Brigadier General Allen M. Burdett Jr. Brigadier General George W. Putnam Jr. Colonel Samuel G. Cockerham Brigadier General Jack W. Hemingway Brigadier General Robert N. Mackinnon Brigadier General Jack V. Mackmull

May 1966 November 1967 April 1969 January 1970 August 1970 August 1970 September 1971 September 1972

C. U.S. Marine Corps Major Commands The major Marine Corps headquarters in Vietnam was the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF), roughly the equivalent of a U.S. Army corps. Initially III MAF reported directly to MACV and was responsible for all U.S. combat operations in the north of the country. The U.S. Army’s XXIV Corps was subordinate to III MAF. The U.S. Marine Corps started withdrawing from Vietnam in 1969, and by early 1970 the U.S. Army had the preponderance of U.S. forces in northern South Vietnam. In April 1970 the command relationships reversed, with XXIV Corps now the major subordinate command under MACV and with III MAF subordinates reporting to XXIV Corps. A U.S. Marine Corps division was roughly the equivalent of a U.S. Army division although slightly smaller and more lightly equipped. Whereas U.S. Army divisions were organized into three or more brigades, U.S. Marine Corps divisions were organized into three or more regiments. The key difference between U.S. Army brigades and U.S. Marine Corps regiments is that the regiments are composed of permanently organic battalions. U.S. Army brigades are purely command and control headquarters, with no permanent battalions. A U.S. Army division’s combat battalions can be grouped and regrouped under the various brigade headquarters as the mission dictates.

Appendix C: Order of Battle The 1st Marine Air Wing (1st MAW) reported directly to III MAF and provided air support independent of the Seventh Air Force. At its peak, the 1st MAW had three helicopter groups and three fighter-bomber groups, for a total of approximately 225 rotary and 250 fixed-wing aircraft.

MAJOR SUBORDINATE COMMANDS XXIV Corps (until March 1970) 1st Marine Division 3rd Marine Division 1st Marine Air Wing

May 1965 June 1965 February 1966 March 1966 June 1967 March 1969 March 1970 December 1970

1st Marine Division Date formed: 1942 Date arrived in Vietnam: February 1966 Date departed Vietnam: April 1971 Headquarters: Chu Lai, February 1966; Da Nang, November 1966 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Marine Regiment 5th Marine Regiment 7th Marine Regiment 11th Marine Regiment (Artillery) 27th Marine Regiment (attached February 1968 from the 5th Marine Division) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation UNION Operation SWIFT Hue Operation HOUSTON Operation MAMELUKE THRUST Operation TAYLOR COMMON COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Lewis J. Fields Major General Herman Nickerson Jr.

October 1967 December 1968 December 1969 April 1970

3rd Marine Division Date formed: 1942 Date arrived in Vietnam: May 6, 1965 Date departed Vietnam: November 30, 1969 Headquarters: Da Nang, May 1965; Hue, October 1966; Quang Tri, March 1968; Dong Ha, June 1968; Da Nang, November 1969

III Marine Amphibious Force Date formed in Vietnam: May 7, 1967 Date departed Vietnam: April 14, 1971 Headquarters: Da Nang

COMMANDING OFFICERS Major General William R. Collins Major General Lewis W. Walt Major General Keith B. McCutcheon Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman Lieutenant General Herman Nickerson Jr. Lieutenant General Keith B. McCutcheon Lieutenant General Donn J. Robertson

Major General Donn J. Robertson Major General Ormond R. Simpson Major General Edwin B. Wheeler Major General Charles F. Widdecke

1701

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 3rd Marine Regiment 4th Marine Regiment 9th Marine Regiment 12th Marine Regiment (Artillery) 26th Marine Regiment (attached April 1967 from the 5th Marine Division) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation STARLITE Operation HASTINGS Operation PRAIRIE Operation PRAIRIE II Operation BUFFALO Operation KENTUCKY Khe Sanh Operation LANCASTER II Operation DEWEY CANYON Operation APACHE SNOW COMMANDING GENERALS Major General William R. Collins Major General Lewis W. Walt Major General Wood B. Kyle Major General Bruno A. Hochmuth Major General Rathvon McC. Tompkins Major General Raymond G. Davis Major General William K. Jones

March 1965 June 1965 March 1966 March 1967 November 1967 May 1968 April 1969

1st Marine Air Wing Date arrived in Vietnam: May 1965 Date departed Vietnam: April 14, 1971 Headquarters: Da Nang

February 1966 October 1966

COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Paul J. Fontana Major General Keith B. McCutcheon Major General Louis B. Robertshaw Major General Norman J. Anderson

May 1965 June 1965 May 1966 June 1967

1702

Appendix C: Order of Battle

Major General Charles J. Quilter Major General William G. Thrash Major General Alan J. Armstrong

June 1968 July 1969 July 1970

D. U.S. Air Force Major Commands The 2nd Air Division controlled air operations in South Vietnam from October 1962 until the division was converted to the Seventh Air Force in April 1966. The commander of the Seventh Air Force also served as MACV’s deputy commander for air. Not all Seventh Air Force’s operations, however, came directly under MACV’s control. When operating against targets in North Vietnam or Laos, the commander of the Seventh Air Force took his orders from the commander of the Pacific Air Force, who reported to the CINCPAC. The Seventh Air Force also did not directly control operations of the 1st MAW. Further muddling the air command and control structure, the U.S. Strategic Air Command, based in Omaha, Nebraska, retained direct control over all B-52 bomber missions flown against Southeast Asian targets. Another organizational anomaly was the Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force, stationed in Udorn, Thailand. The Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force was an air division–size organization taking orders from two different higher headquarters. In operational matters, the Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force took its orders from the Seventh Air Force; for logistical matters, it took its orders from the Thirteenth Air Force, based in the Philippines. When the 2nd Air Division was converted to the Seventh Air Force, it had approximately 30,000 personnel and almost 1,000 aircraft. In 1968 the Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force had 35,000 personnel and 600 aircraft. 2nd Air Division Date formed in Vietnam: October 8, 1962 Date converted to Seventh Air Force: April 1, 1966 Headquarters: Tan Son Nhut Air Base COMMANDING GENERALS Brigadier General Rollen H. Anthis Brigadier General Robert R. Rowland Brigadier General Milton B. Adams Lieutenant General Joseph H. Moore Seventh Air Force Date formed in Vietnam: April 1, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 1973 Headquarters: Tan Son Nhut Air Base SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 834th Air Division 483rd Tactical Airlift Wing 315th Special Operations Wing Airlift Control Center

October 1962 December 1962 December 1963 January 1964

3rd Tactical Fighter Wing 12th Tactical Fighter Wing 31st Tactical Fighter Wing 35th Tactical Fighter Wing 366th Tactical Fighter Wing Air Force Advisory Group COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General Joseph H. Moore General William W. Momyer General George S. Brown General Lucius D. Clay Jr. General John D. Lavelle General John W. Vogt Jr.

April 1966 June 1966 August 1968 September 1970 August 1971 April 1972

SEVENTH/THIRTEENTH AIR FORCE Date formed in Thailand: January 6, 1966 Date departed Thailand: April 1973 Headquarters: Udorn, Thailand SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 8th Tactical Fighter Wing 355th Tactical Fighter Wing 388th Tactical Fighter Wing 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing 553rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing 56th Special Operations Wing COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Charles R. Bond Major General William C. Lindley Major General Louis T. Seith Major General Robert L. Petit Major General James F. Kirkendall Major General Andrew Evans Jr. Major General DeWitt R. Searles Major General James D. Hughes

January 1966 June 1967 June 1968 June 1969 March 1970 October 1970 June 1971 September 1972

E. U.S. Navy Major Commands The American naval effort in Vietnam was almost as fragmented as the air effort. U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, established in April 1966, reported directly to MACV and controlled operations on inland waterways and coastal operations in the II, III, and IV CTZs. Naval operations in the I CTZ were the responsibility of the III MAF. The U.S. Seventh Fleet, which reported to the commander of the Pacific Fleet and then to the CINCPAC, controlled all naval operations beyond South Vietnamese coastal waters and all operations directly against North Vietnam. The main striking force of the Seventh Fleet was Task Force 77. Consisting of two to three attack carriers and supporting escorts, Task Force 77 first operated from Dixie Station and then, after mid-1966, from Yankee Station. Task Group 70.8, a cruiser and de-

Appendix C: Order of Battle stroyer force, conducted antishipping and shore gunfire operations against North Vietnam. Task group 70.8’s subordinate Task Unit 70.8.9 provided naval gunfire support to MACV’s ground forces in South Vietnam. Task Force 73 was the fleet’s logistical support element, including the hospital ships Sanctuary and Repose. Task Force 76 was the fleet’s amphibious element and conducted the initial landings in Da Nang in March 1965. In 1969 Task Force 76 conducted Operation BOLD MARINER, the largest amphibious operation of the war. U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, consisted of three main task forces. Task Force 115 was the Coastal Surveillance Force, operating 81 fast patrol boats and 24 Coast Guard cutters. Task Force 116 operated as the River Patrol Force and controlled up to three Sea Air Land (SEAL) platoons at any one time. Task Force 117 was the Riverine Assault Force, the U.S. Navy component of the joint U.S. Army–U.S. Navy Mobile Riverine Force. Naval Forces, Vietnam, also controlled operations of the approximately 50 U.S. Coast Guard vessels that served in Vietnam. Seventh Fleet Date began operating in Vietnam waters: 1961 Date ceased major operations in Vietnam waters: mid-1973 Headquarters: Japan MAJOR SUBORDINATE COMMANDS Task Force 73 Task Force 76 Task Force 77 Task Group 70.8 COMMANDING OFFICERS Vice Admiral Roy L. Johnson Vice Admiral Paul P. Blackburn Jr. Rear Admiral Joseph W. Williams Vice Admiral John J. Hyland Vice Admiral William F. Bringle Vice Admiral Maurice F. Weisner Vice Admiral William P. Mack Vice Admiral James L. Holloway III

1703

Coast Guard Command, Vietnam Coast Guard Squadron 1 Coast Guard Squadron 3 COMMANDING OFFICERS Rear Admiral Norvell G. Ward Rear Admiral Kenneth L. Veth Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Vice Admiral Jerome H. King Rear Admiral Robert S. Salzer Rear Admiral Arthur W. Price Jr. Rear Admiral James B. Wilson

April 1966 April 1967 September 1968 May 1970 April 1971 June 1972 August 1972

II. Allied Forces Order of Battle Seven U.S. allies sent military units and personnel to Vietnam. Both Korea and Thailand provided division-sized units. Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines sent smaller units. Nationalist China and Spain also sent very small groups of advisers and observers to Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1970, the Republic of China (ROC), also known as Taiwan and Nationalist China, had between 20 and 31 soldiers in Vietnam, and from 1966 to 1970 Spain had between 7 and 13. A very small number of British officers also served in Vietnam while seconded to Australian and New Zealand units.

A. Republic of Korea Forces in Vietnam

June 1964 March 1965 October 1965 December 1965 November 1967 March 1970 June 1971 May 1972

Naval Forces, Vietnam Date formed in Vietnam: April 1, 1966 Date inactivated in Vietnam: March 29, 1973 Headquarters: Saigon SUBORDINATE OPERATIONAL UNITS Task Force 115 Task Force 116 Task Force 117 Naval Advisory Group 3rd Naval Construction Brigade Military Sea Transportation Service Office, Vietnam

Of all America’s allies, the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) sent the largest contingent of combat forces to Vietnam. At their peak in 1968, Korean forces were organized into two divisions, a Marine Corps brigade and associated support elements for a total of 22 maneuver battalions. They were grouped under a corps-sized headquarters, established in August 1966. Highly respected militarily by both allies and foes, the bulk of the Korean forces did not start to withdraw from Vietnam until January 1973. Republic of Korea Forces, Vietnam Field Command Date arrived in Vietnam: August 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 17, 1973 Headquarters: Nha Trang MAJOR SUBORDINATE UNITS Capital Division 9th Infantry Division 2nd Marine Corps Brigade 100th Logistical Command Capital Division (“Tigers”) Date arrived in Vietnam: September 29, 1965 Date departed Vietnam: March 10, 1973 Headquarters: Qui Nhon

1704

Appendix C: Order of Battle

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS The Cavalry Regiment 1st Infantry Regiment 26th Infantry Regiment 10th Field Artillery Battalion 60th Field Artillery Battalion 61st Field Artillery Battalion 628th Field Artillery Battalion 9th Infantry Division (“White Horse”) Date arrived in Vietnam: September 27, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 16, 1973 Headquarters: Ninh Ho SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 28th Infantry Regiment 29th Infantry Regiment 30th Infantry Regiment 30th Field Artillery Battalion 51st Field Artillery Battalion 52nd Field Artillery Battalion 966th Field Artillery Battalion 2nd Marine Corps Brigade (“Blue Dragons”) Date arrived in Vietnam: October 19, 1965 Date departed Vietnam: February 1972 Headquarters: Hoi An SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Marine Battalion 2nd Marine Battalion 3rd Marine Battalion 5th Marine Battalion

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Royal Thai Army Brigade 2nd Royal Thai Army Brigade 3rd Royal Thai Army Brigade 1st Artillery Battalion (155-millimeter [mm]) 1st Artillery Battalion (105-mm) 2nd Artillery Battalion 3rd Artillery Battalion 1st Armored Cavalry Squadron Royal Thai Army Volunteer Force Date formed in Vietnam: September 1, 1971 Date departed Vietnam: March 1972 Headquarters: Saigon SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 2nd Royal Thai Army Brigade 1st Artillery Battalion (155-mm) 1st Artillery Battalion (105-mm) 2nd Artillery Battalion

C. Australian Forces in Vietnam The Australians were the first U.S. allies to send military forces to Vietnam. The Australian Army Training Team arrived in July 1962. In 1965 the Australian government decided to commit combat forces to Vietnam, establishing the Australian Army Force, Vietnam. In May 1966 this headquarters was converted to the Australian Forces, Vietnam, a joint headquarters controlling both army and air force units. The 1st Australian Task Force was the principal Australian ground combat headquarters. The Australians rotated entire battalions in and out of Vietnam. At least 12 different maneuver battalions served in Vietnam at one time or another, with 3 being the maximum number of maneuver battalions in Vietnam at any one time between 1968 and 1970.

B. Thailand Forces in Vietnam The Royal Thai Army Regiment arrived in Vietnam in September 1967 and operated in conjunction with the U.S. 9th Infantry Division. That regiment rotated back to Thailand in August 1968 and was replaced by the Royal Thai Expeditionary Division. At their peak in 1970, Thai forces fielded six maneuver battalions. They began withdrawing shortly thereafter. By September 1971 only one maneuver brigade and its supporting units remained. That force was redesignated the Royal Thai Army Volunteer Force. Royal Thai Army Regiment (“Queen’s Cobras”) Date arrived in Vietnam: September 19, 1967 Date departed Vietnam: August 15, 1968 Headquarters: Bear Cat Royal Thai Expeditionary Division (“Black Panthers”) Date arrived in Vietnam: February 25, 1969 Date reorganized to brigade strength: August 31, 1971 Headquarters: Bear Cat

Australian Army Training Team, Vietnam Date arrived in Vietnam: July 31, 1962 Date departed Vietnam: December 18, 1972 Headquarters: Saigon Australian Army Force, Vietnam Date arrived in Vietnam: May 25, 1965 Date reorganized as Australian Forces, Vietnam: May 2, 1966 Headquarters: Saigon Australian Forces, Vietnam Date organized from Australian Army Force, Vietnam: May 3, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 15, 1972 Headquarters: Saigon SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Australian Task Force

Appendix C: Order of Battle 1st Australian Logistic Support Group Royal Australian Air Force, Vietnam 1st Australian Task Force Date formed in Vietnam: April 1, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: March 12, 1972 Headquarters: Nui Dat SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment 9th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment Number 1 Armoured Personnel Carrier Squadron 3rd Cavalry Regiment 1st Armoured Regiment 4th Field Artillery Regiment 12th Field Artillery Regiment Number 1 Special Air Service Squadron Number 2 Special Air Service Squadron Number 3 Special Air Service Squadron Australian Army Assistance Group, Vietnam Date formed in Vietnam: March 6, 1972 Date departed Vietnam: January 31, 1973 Headquarters: Saigon

D. New Zealand Forces in Vietnam Throughout most of the Vietnam War, the New Zealand Battalion of the 28th Commonwealth Brigade was serving in Malaysia. The New Zealanders did, however, send the 161st Field Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery, to provide fire support for Australian forces. Later New Zealand sent one and then another rifle company. New Zealand “V” Force Date arrived in Vietnam: July 21, 1965 Date departed Vietnam: June 1972 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS ”V” Rifle Company, Royal New Zealand Infantry “W” Rifle Company, Royal New Zealand Infantry Number 161 Field Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery Number 4 Troop, Royal New Zealand Special Air Service

1705

arrived and concentrated on pacification missions in Tay Ninh Province. Philippine forces reached their peak strength of slightly more than 2,000 in 1966 and 1967. The 1st Philippine Civic Action Group left Vietnam by the end of 1969. 1st Philippine Civic Action Group, Vietnam Date formed in Vietnam: September 14, 1966 Date departed Vietnam: December 13, 1969 Headquarters: Tay Ninh SUBORDINATE UNITS Philippine Security Infantry Battalion Philippine Field Artillery Battalion Philippine Construction Engineer Battalion Philippine Medical and Dental Battalion

III. Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Many units of the ARVN traced their origins to French colonial units that fought against the Viet Minh. Most of those units originally were turned over to the State of Vietnam. After the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam on October 26, 1955, all ARVN units went through a confusing series of reorganizations and mergers. While the vast bulk of ARVN consisted of ground forces, the Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnamese Navy) and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) played significant roles, and by the early 1970s both had developed into large well-equipped services.

A. Republic of Vietnam Navy The VNN was formed in 1952. Initially commanded by French officers, the VNN came under Vietnamese command in early 1954. By the early 1970s the VNN had grown from a few small amphibious ships and a few dozen landing craft in 1954 to a force equipped with more than 2,000 warships and smaller naval craft, including former U.S. Navy destroyer escorts and tank landing ships, and organized into an oceangoing fleet, five coastal zones, two river patrol zones, and a SEAL special operations unit. COMMANDERS Lieutenant Commander Le Quang My Lieutenant Commander Tran Van Chon Lieutenant Commander Ho Tan Quyen Navy Captain Chung Tan Cang Commander Tran Van Phan Navy Captain Tran Van Chon Commodore Lam Nguon Tanh Vice Admiral Chung Tan Cang

1955 1957 1959 1963 1965 1966 1974 1975

B. Republic of Vietnam Air Force E. Philippine Forces in Vietnam In 1965 the Philippine Army had approximately 70 soldiers in Vietnam. In September 1966 the 1st Philippine Civic Action Group

Formed as a separate service in 1955, the VNAF began as a small force of a few thousand personnel and was equipped with a few squadrons of small transport aircraft (C-47 and C-45),

1706

Appendix C: Order of Battle

light observation aircraft, and F8F “Bearcat” propeller-driven fighter-bombers. By 1972 the VNAF had grown to a force of more than 60,000 men organized into six air divisions and equipped with more than 1,500 aircraft, including supersonic F-5 fighterbombers; A-37 jet and A-1 propeller-driven attack bombers; AC-47 and AC-119 gunships; C-130, C-123, C-47, and C-7 transports; O-1 observation aircraft; and UH-1 and CH-47 helicopters. COMMANDERS Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Khanh Major Tran Van Ho Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Xuan Vinh Lieutenant Colonel Huynh Huu Hien Colonel Do Khac Mai Colonel (later Major General) Nguyen Cao Ky Colonel (later Lieutenant General) Tran Van Minh

1955 1955 1957 1962 1963 1964 1967

Republic of Vietnam Air Force Air Divisions (1973) 1st Air Division, based at Da Nang 2nd Air Division, based at Nha Trang 3rd Air Division, based at Bien Hoa 4th Air Division, based at Can Tho 5th Air Division, based at Tan Son Nhut 6th Air Division, based at Pleiku

C. Regional Commands Between 1957 and 1963 the ARVN established four corps-level commands that divided responsibility for the security of the country into four CTZs. Each of the ARVN’s 11 infantry divisions were allocated to a corps. Two elite divisions, the Airborne Division and the Marine Division, constituted the country’s strategic reserve and were controlled directly by the Joint General Staff. Within each of the CTZs, the ARVN designated at least one semiautonomous Special Tactical Zone (STZ) for the purpose of focusing military efforts and resources in critical areas. In addition to the regular forces, the commander of each CTZ also controlled the territorial forces, which consisted of the Civil Guard and the Self-Defense Corps. The latter was later designated the Popular Forces (PF), and the former became the Regional Forces (RF). I Corps Date formed: June 1, 1957 Headquarters: Da Nang Area of responsibility: Quang Tri Province, Thua Thien Province, Quang Nam Province, Quang Tin Province, Quang Ngai Province (after November 1963) MAJOR SUBORDINATE UNITS 1st Infantry Division 2nd Infantry Division 3rd Infantry Division 1st Ranger Group

1st Armor Brigade STZ: Quang Da Special Zone COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General Thai Quang Hung Lieutenant General Tran Van Don Major General Le Van Nghiem Major General Do Cao Tri Lieutenant General Nguyen Khanh Major General Ton That Xung Lieutenant General Nguyen Chanh Thi Major General Nguyen Van Chuan Lieutenant General Ton That Dinh Major General Huynh Van Cao General Tran Thanh Phong Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong

November 25, 1956 October 15, 1957 December 7, 1962 August 21, 1963 December 11, 1963 January 30, 1964 November 14, 1964 March 14, 1966 April 9, 1966 May 15, 1966 May 20, 1966 May 30, 1966 May 3, 1972

II Corps Date formed: October 1, 1957 Headquarters: Pleiku Area of responsibility: Kontum Province, Binh Dinh Province, Pleiku Province, Phu Bon Province, Phu Yen Province, Darlac Province, Khanh Hoa Province, Quang Duc Province, Tuyen Duc Province, Ninh Thuan Province, Lam Dong Province, Binh Thuan Province MAJOR SUBORDINATE UNITS 22nd Infantry Division 23rd Infantry Division 2nd Ranger Group 2nd Armor Brigade STZ: 24th STZ COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Tran Ngoc Tam Major General Ton That Dinh Lieutenant General Nguyen Khanh Lieutenant General Do Cao Tri Major General Nguyen Huu Co Lieutenant General Vinh Loc Lieutenant General Lu Lan Lieutenant General Ngo Dzu Major General Nguyen Van Toan Major General Pham Van Phu

October 1, 1957 August 13, 1958 December 20, 1962 December 12, 1963 September 15, 1964 June 23, 1965 February 28, 1968 August 28, 1970 May 10, 1972 October 30, 1974

III Corps Date formed: March 1, 1959 (provisional); May 20, 1960 (permanent) Headquarters: Bien Hoa Area of responsibility: Phuoc Long Province, Long Khanh Province, Binh Tuy Province, Binh Long Province, Binh

Appendix C: Order of Battle Duong Province, Bien Hoa Province, Phuoc Tuy Province, Tay Ninh Province, Hau Nghia Province, Long An Province MAJOR SUBORDINATE UNITS 5th Infantry Division 18th Infantry Division 25th Infantry Division 81st Ranger Group 3rd Armor Brigade STZs: Capital Military District; Rung Sat Special Zone COMMANDING GENERALS Lieutenant General Thai Quang Hoang Lieutenant General Nguyen Ngoc Le Major General Le Van Nghiem Major General Ton That Dinh Lieutenant General Tran Thien Khiem Major General Lam Van Phat Lieutenant General Tran Ngoc Tam Major General Cao Van Vien Major General Nguyen Bao Tri Lieutenant General Le Nguyen Khang Lieutenant General Do Cao Tri Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Minh Lieutenant General Pham Quoc Thuan Lieutenant General Du Quoc Dong Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Toan

March 1, 1959 October 11, 1959 May 5, 1960 December 7, 1962 January 5, 1964 February 2, 1964 April 4, 1964 October 12, 1964 October 11, 1965 June 9, 1966 August 5, 1968 February 23, 1971 October 29, 1973 October 30, 1974 January 1975

IV Corps Date formed: January 1, 1963 Headquarters: Can Tho Area of responsibility: Go Cong Province, Kien Tuong Province, Dinh Tuong Province, Kien Hoa Province, Kien Phong Province, Sa Dec Province, Vinh Long Province, Vinh Binh Province, Chau Doc Province, An Giang Province, Phong Dinh Province, Ba Xuyen Province, Kien Giang Province, Chuong Thien Province, Bac Lieu Province, An Xuyen Province MAJOR SUBORDINATE UNITS 7th Infantry Division 9th Infantry Division 21st Infantry Division 4th Ranger Group 4th Armor Brigade STZ: 44th STZ COMMANDING GENERALS Major General Huynh Van Cao Major General Nguyen Huu Co Major General Duong Van Duc Major General Nguyen Van Thieu Lieutenant Colonel Dang Van Quang

January 1, 1963 November 4, 1963 March 4, 1964 September 15, 1964 January 20, 1965

Major General Nguyen Van Manh Lieutenant General Nguyen Duc Thang Lieutenant General Nguyen Viet Thanh Major General Ngo Dzu Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong Major General Nguyen Vinh Nghi Major General Nguyen Khoa Nam

1707

November 23, 1966 February 29, 1968 July 1, 1968 May 1, 1970 August 21, 1970 May 4, 1972 October 30, 1974

1st Infantry Division Date formed: January 1, 1955 Origins and redesignations: 21st Mobile Group (French), September 1, 1953; 21st Infantry Division, January 1, 1955; 21st Field Division, August 1, 1955; 1st Field Division, November 1, 1955; 1st Infantry Division, January 1, 1959 Headquarters: Hue SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Infantry Regiment 3rd Infantry Regiment 51st Infantry Regiment 54th Infantry Regiment PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Hue Uprising, 1966 Defense of Hue City, Tet Offensive, 1968 Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Hue Hue, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Le Van Nghiem Colonel Nguyen Khanh Colonel Ton That Dinh Colonel Nguyen Van Chuan Colonel Ton That Xung Colonel Nguyen Duc Thang Colonel Nguyen Van Thieu General Do Cao Tri Colonel Tran Thanh Phong General Nguyen Chanh Thi Major General Nguyen Van Chuan General Phan Xuan Nhuan Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong Major General Pham Van Phu Brigadier General Le Van Than Major General Nguyen Van Diem

January 1, 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 ca. 1964 November 1964 March 12, 1966 June 1966 August 21, 1970 1972 October 31, 1974

2nd Infantry Division Date formed: February 1, 1955 Origins and redesignations: 32nd Mobile Group (French), November 3, 1953; 32nd Infantry Division, February 1, 1955;

1708

Appendix C: Order of Battle

32nd Field Division, August 1, 1955; 2nd Field Division, November 1, 1955; 2nd Infantry Division, January 1, 1959 Headquarters: Da Nang, 1955; Quang Ngai, 1965; Chu Lai, 1972; Ham Tan, 1975

September 1, 1955; 3rd Field Division, November 1, 1955; 5th Infantry Division, January 1, 1959 Headquarters: Song Mao, 1955; Bien Hoa, 1961; Phu Loi, 1964; Lai Khe, 1970

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 4th Infantry Regiment 5th Infantry Regiment 6th Infantry Regiment

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 7th Infantry Regiment 8th Infantry Regiment 9th Infantry Regiment

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Chu Lai, spring of 1975 Tam Ky, spring of 1975 Phan Rang, spring of 1975

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Cambodia, 1970 Easter Offensive, 1972, An Loc Phuoc Long Ben Cat, spring of 1975

COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Ton That Dinh Lieutenant Colonel Dang Van Son Lieutenant Colonel Le Quang Trong Colonel Duong Ngoc Lam Colonel Lam Van Phat Colonel Truong Van Chuong Brigadier General Ton That Xung Brigadier General Ngo Dzu Colonel Nguyen Thanh Sang Major General Hoang Xuan Lam Major General Nguyen Van Toan Brigadier General Phan Hoa Hiep Brigadier General Tran Van Nhut

January 1, 1955 November 22, 1956 June 14, 1957 August 23, 1958 June 8, 1961 June 18, 1963 December 6, 1963 January 30, 1964 July 29, 1964 October 15, 1964 January 10, 1967 January 22, 1972 August 27, 1972

3rd Infantry Division Date formed: October 1, 1971 Origins and redesignations: None Headquarters: Ai Tu, 1971; Da Nang, 1972 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 2nd Infantry Regiment 56th Infantry Regiment 57th Infantry Regiment

March 1, 1955 October 25, 1956 March 18, 1958 September 16, 1958 November 19, 1958 August 3, 1959 May 20, 1961 October 16, 1961 December 20, 1962 February 2, 1964 June 5, 1964 October 21, 1964 July 19, 1965 August 15, 1969 June 14, 1971 September 4, 1972 November 7, 1973

7th Infantry Division Date formed: January 1, 1955 Origins and redesignations: 7th Mobile Group (French); 2nd Mobile Group (French); 31st Mobile Group (French), September 1, 1953; 31st Infantry Division, January 1, 1955; 31st Field Division, August 1, 1955; 11th Field Division, August 1955; 4th Field Division, November 1, 1955; 7th Infantry Division, January 1, 1959 Headquarters: Tam Ky, 1955; Bien Hoa, 1955; My Tho, 1961; Dong Tam, 1969

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Easter Offensive, 1972, Quang Tri Da Nang, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Brigadier General Vu Van Giai Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh

COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Vong A Sang Colonel Pham Van Dong Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Quang Thong Colonel Ton That Xung Lieutenant Colonel Dang Van Son Colonel Nguyen Van Chuan Brigadier General Tran Ngoc Tam Colonel Nguyen Duc Thang Colonel Nguyen Van Thieu Brigadier General Dang Thanh Liem Brigadier General Cao Hao Hon Brigadier General Tran Thanh Phong Major General Pham Quoc Thuan Major General Nguyen Van Hieu Brigadier General Le Van Hung Brigadier General Tran Quoc Lich Colonel Le Nguyen Vy

October 1, 1971 May 1972

5th Infantry Division Date formed: February 1, 1955 Origins and redesignations: 6th Infantry Division, February 1, 1955; 6th Field Division, August 1, 1955; 41st Field Division,

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 10th Infantry Regiment 11th Infantry Regiment 12th Infantry Regiment

Appendix C: Order of Battle PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operations against Hoa Hao Forces, 1956 Tet Offensive, 1968, My Tho Cambodia, 1970 Easter Offensive, 1972, Cambodian Border Tan An, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huu Co Colonel Ton That Xung Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Dzu Colonel Tran Thien Khiem Colonel Huynh Van Cao Colonel Bui Dinh Dam Brigadier General Nguyen Huu Co Colonel Pham Van Dong Brigadier General Lam Van Phat Colonel Bui Huu Nhon Colonel Huynh Van Ton Brigadier General Nguyen Bao Tri Brigadier General Nguyen Viet Thanh Brigadier General Nguyen Thanh Hoang Major General Nguyen Khoa Nam General Tran Van Hai

Origins and redesignations: 10th Infantry Division, May 16, 1965; 18th Infantry Division, January 1, 1967 Headquarters: Xuan Loc SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 43rd Infantry Regiment 48th Infantry Regiment 52nd Infantry Regiment January 1, 1955 June 15, 1955 April 27, 1957 March 17, 1958 March 30, 1959 December 22, 1962 November 1, 1963 November 5, 1963 December 2, 1963 February 2, 1964 March 7, 1964 September 16, 1964 October 9, 1965 July 3, 1968 January 16, 1970 October 30, 1974

9th Infantry Division Date formed: January 1, 1962 Origins and redesignations: None Headquarters: Phu Thanh, 1962; Sa Dec, 1963; Vinh Long, 1972 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 14th Infantry Regiment 15th Infantry Regiment 16th Infantry Regiment

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Easter Offensive, 1972, An Loc Xuan Loc, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Nguyen Van Manh Brigadier General Lu Lan Brigadier General Do Ke Giai Major General Lam Quang Tho Brigadier General Le Minh Dao

June 5, 1965 August 20, 1965 September 16, 1966 August 20, 1969 April 4, 1972

21st Infantry Division Date formed: June 1, 1959 Origins and redesignations: 1st Light Division, August 1, 1955; 11th Light Division, November 1, 1955; 3rd Light Division, August 1, 1955; 13th Light Division, November 1, 1955; merged as 21st Infantry Division, June 1, 1959 Headquarters: Sa Dec, 1959; Bac Lieu, 1960 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 31st Infantry Regiment 32nd Infantry Regiment 33rd Infantry Regiment PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operations against Hoa Hao Forces, 1956 U Minh Forest Easter Offensive, 1972, An Loc Mekong Delta, spring of 1975

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Cambodia, 1970 Easter Offensive, 1972, An Loc Mekong Delta, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Bui Dzinh Colonel Doan Van Quang Brigadier General Vinh Loc Brigadier General Lam Quang Thi Major General Tran Ba Di Brigadier General Huynh Van Lac

1709

January 1, 1962 November 7, 1963 February 9, 1964 May 29, 1965 July 3, 1968 October 26, 1973

18th Infantry Division Date formed: May 16, 1965 (provisional); August 1, 1965 (permanent)

COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Bao Tri Lieutenant Colonel Tran Thanh Chieu Colonel Tran Thien Khiem Colonel Bui Huu Nhon Colonel Cao Hao Hon Brigadier General Dang Van Quang Colonel Nguyen Van Phuoc Brigadier General Nguyen Van Minh Major General Nguyen Vinh Nghi Brigadier General Ho Trung Hau Brigadier General Chuong Dzenh Quay Brigadier General Le Van Hung Brigadier General Mach Van Truong

June 1, 1959 September 8, 1959 February 2, 1960 December 1962 November 1963 June 1, 1964 January 20, 1965 March 21, 1965 June 13, 1968 May 3, 1972 August 21, 1972 June 9, 1973 1974

1710

Appendix C: Order of Battle

22nd Infantry Division Date formed: April 1, 1959 Origins and redesignations: 2nd Light Division, August 1, 1955; 12th Light Division, November 1, 1955 (disbanded March 31, 1959, and troops incorporated into the 22nd Infantry Division); 4th Light Division, August 1, 1955; 14th Light Division, November 1, 1955; 22nd Infantry Division, April 1, 1959 Headquarters: Kontum, 1959; Ba Gi, 1965; Binh Dinh, 1972; Tan An, 1975 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 40th Infantry Regiment 42nd Infantry Regiment 47th Infantry Regiment PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operations against Hoa Hao Forces, 1956 Easter Offensive, 1972, Kontum Binh Dinh, spring of 1975 Tan An, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Tran Thanh Chieu Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Bao Tri Colonel Nguyen Thanh Sang Brigadier General Linh Quang Vien Colonel Nguyen Van Hieu Brigadier General Nguyen Xuan Thinh Brigadier General Nguyen Thanh Sang Brigadier General Nguyen Van Hieu Brigadier General Le Ngoc Trien Colonel Le Duc Dat Brigadier General Phan Dinh Niem

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operations against Hoa Hao Forces, 1956 Cambodia, 1970

COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen The Nhu Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Vinh Lieutenant Colonel Bui Dzenh Lieutenant Colonel Tran Thanh Phong Colonel Le Quang Trong Brigadier General Hoang Xuan Lam Brigadier General Lu Lan Brigadier General Nguyen Van Manh Brigadier General Truong Quang An Brigadier General Vo Van Canh Brigadier General Ly Tong Ba Brigadier General Tran Van Cam Brigadier General Le Trung Tuong Colonel Nguyen Van Duc

1955 1956 1958 May 19, 1959 May 17, 1963 December 14, 1963 October 14, 1964 August 20, 1965 November 24, 1966 September 9, 1968 January 25, 1972 October 20, 1972 November 24, 1973 mid-March 1975

25th Infantry Division Date formed: July 1, 1962 Origins and redesignations: None Headquarters: Thuan Hoa, 1962; Cay Diep, 1964; Cu Chi, 1970 April 1, 1959 September 8, 1959 November 5, 1963 February 5, 1964 September 7, 1964 October 24, 1964 March 1, 1965 June 28, 1966 August 11, 1969 March 1, 1972 April 28, 1972

23rd Infantry Division Date formed: April 1, 1959 Origins and redesignations: 5th Light Division, August 1, 1955; 15th Light Division, November 1, 1955; 23rd Infantry Division, April 1, 1959 Headquarters: Nha Trang, 1955; Duc My, 1956; Ban Me Thuot, 1961; Long Hai, 1975 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 41st Infantry Regiment 44th Infantry Regiment 45th Infantry Regiment 53rd Infantry Regiment

Easter Offensive, 1972, Kontum Ban Me Thuot, spring of 1975

SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 46th Infantry Regiment 49th Infantry Regiment 50th Infantry Regiment PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Cambodia, 1970 Easter Offensive, 1972, An Loc Tay Ninh, spring of 1975 Cu Chi, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Nguyen Van Chuan Colonel Lu Lan Colonel Nguyen Viet Dam Brigadier General Nguyen Thanh Sang Brigadier General Phan Trong Chinh Lieutenant General Nguyen Xuan Thinh Brigadier General Le Van Tu Colonel Nguyen Huu Toan Brigadier General Ly Tong Ba

July 1962 December 28, 1962 March 19, 1964 December 1964 March 16, 1965 January 10, 1968 January 25, 1972 November 7, 1973 late 1974

Airborne Division Date formed: May 1, 1955 Origins and redesignations: 1st Airborne Battalion (French), August 1, 1951; Groupment Aeroporte 3 (French), May 1, 1954; Airborne Group, May 1, 1955; Airborne Brigade, December 1, 1959; Airborne Division, December 1, 1965

Appendix C: Order of Battle Headquarters: Tan Son Nhut, 1955; Quang Tri (Forward Headquarters), 1972 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 1st Airborne Brigade 2nd Airborne Brigade 3rd Airborne Brigade 7th Ranger Group

March 1, 1955 September 1, 1956 November 12, 1960 December 19, 1964 November 11, 1972

Marine Division Date Formed: October 1, 1954 Origins and redesignations: 1st and 2nd Battalions de Marche (French); Marine Infantry Battalion, October 1, 1954; Marine Infantry Group, April 16, 1956; Marine Brigade, January 1, 1962; Marine Division, October 1, 1968 Headquarters: Saigon, 1954; Vung Tau, 1975 SUBORDINATE COMBAT UNITS 147th Marine Brigade 258th Marine Brigade 369th Marine Brigade 468th Marine Brigade PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Tet Offensive Cambodia, 1970 Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Quang Tri Da Nang, spring of 1975 Vung Tau, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Le Quang Trong Major Pham Van Lieu

July 31, 1956 September 30, 1956 May 7, 1960 December 16, 1963 February 26, 1964 May 5, 1972

IV. People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Dak To Tet Offensive Cambodia, 1970 Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Binh Long Easter Offensive, 1972, Quang Tri Nha Trang, spring of 1975 Phan Rang, spring of 1975 Xuan Loc, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant Colonel Do Cao Tri Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi Colonel Cao Van Vien Lieutenant General Du Quoc Dong Brigadier General Le Quang Luong

Captain Bui Pho Chi Major Le Nhu Hung Major Le Nguyen Khang Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ba Lien Lieutenant General Le Nguyen Khang Brigadier General Bui The Lan

1711

October 1, 1954 January 16, 1956

The PAVN was the lineal successor of the Viet Minh force that defeated the French. All of the Viet Minh divisions that fought in the Red River Delta and at Dien Bien Phu continued with the same designations through 2010. As with armies of all Communist nations, the PAVN was organized to give the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) tremendous influence over its daily operations. At all echelons, political officers had equal authority with commanders but theoretically different responsibilities. In October 1945 the Viet Minh organized all of Vietnam into 14 military regions. In 1950 the 14 regions were reorganized into 9 military regions, with a special military zone in the Central Highlands, another for Hanoi, and later another for Saigon–Gia Dinh. The PAVN retained this system after the 1954 partition and throughout the Vietnam War. Military Regions V through IX comprised South Vietnam. In 1961 Major General Tran Luong (Tran Nam Trung) established the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), representing the VCP Central Committee to coordinate all military operations in Military Regions VI, VII, VIII, and IX, and the Saigon–Gia Dinh Special Zone. COSVN was primarily located just inside Cambodia, opposite Tay Ninh Province. The People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) was officially the armed wing of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), also known as the Viet Cong (VC). Despite the official fiction that the PAVN and the PLAF were separate and distinct, VC military units actually operated under the direct command of COSVN. As the war progressed, PAVN and VC regiments and battalions often were grouped in the same division. VC units suffered huge losses in the 1968 Tet Offensive, and many were never again battlefield-effective units. After the Tet Offensive, PAVN units increasingly carried the weight of the war. The PAVN officially absorbed the PLAF in June 1976. The distinction between PAVN units and VC units was one made only by the allied side as part of the effort to denounce North Vietnamese aggression. The Communists made no distinction at all between PAVN and VC units and never referred to a unit as a PAVN or North Vietnamese unit or as a VC unit. As far as they were concerned, all of their units were part of one big army. All units operating in South Vietnam were overtly referred to as part of the PLAF, which was supposedly the military arm of the NLF or, from 1969, of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam. From the very beginning, however, the PLAF was considered to be a part of PAVN, and the chain of command

1712

Appendix C: Order of Battle

for all units, including both those that the allies called the PAVN and those that we called the VC, ran straight back to the PAVN General Staff and the PAVN high command in Hanoi. Indeed, the first commanders of every Communist division formed in South Vietnam, including the VC 5th and 9th divisions, were all natives of North Vietnam. The first commander of the VC 9th Division, for instance, was Hoang Cam, a native of northern Vietnam who had never even set foot in South Vietnam until he arrived there a few months before the 9th Division was formed in September 1965. Indeed, up until his departure from North Vietnam by ship in early 1965, Hoang Cam was the commander of the PAVN 312th Division in North Vietnam. Hoang Cam and the PLAF’s deputy political commissar Tran Do, another native of northern Vietnam, sailed from China to Sihanoukville posing as crew members on a Chinese ship and then slipped across the Cambodian border to COSVN headquarters. The PLAF’s first corps-level organization was the 559th Transportation Group. Composed of an infantry division, an engineering division, a transportation division, an antiaircraft division, and three sector divisions, the 559th Transportation Group ran operations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The PLAF’s first corps of mainforce combat units was LXX Corps, established in October 1970. The 301st Group, established with three main-force divisions in March 1971, was redesignated IV Corps in July 1974. Between October 1973 and March 1975 the PAVN established three other corps, all of which played key command and control roles in the final spring 1975 campaign. Starting in March 1965, PAVN divisions deploying to South Vietnam started the practice of leaving cadre units, or frame units, in North Vietnam. The frame units raised and trained replacement units and provided the strategic reserve for the defense of North Vietnam. Replacement units received the same numerical designation as the frame unit, followed by a letter designation. Thus, the 325th Infantry Division spawned the 325-B, 325-C, and 325-D Infantry divisions between 1964 and 1966. In 1964 the 325th Infantry Division was redesignated 325-A. The 325-B and 325-C Infantry divisions were eventually devastated by long combat operations in South Vietnam. In 1972 the 325-D Infantry Division was redesignated the 325th Infantry Division. This practice, of course, caused a great deal of confusion among allied OB analysts. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the North Vietnamese had 685,000 regular troops under arms. The ground forces consisted of 24 divisions, 3 training divisions, 15 surface-to-air missile (SAM) regiments, and 40 antiaircraft artillery gun regiments. North Vietnam’s navy had 3,000 troops, and its air force had another 12,000 troops. North Vietnam’s air force had two MiG-21 interceptor regiments, one MiG-19 interceptor regiment, one MiG-17 fighter-bomber regiment, one air transport regiment (fixed-wing transports and helicopters), and one air training regiment. In addition to the regular forces, the North Vietnamese had some 50,000 troops in the Frontier Force, the Coast Security Force,

and the People’s Armed Security Force, plus a militia of nearly 1.5 million.

A. PAVN High Command COMMANDER IN CHIEF AND MINISTER OF NATIONAL DEFENSE Senior General Vo Nguyen Giap December 1945– February 1980 CHIEFS OF STAFF Major General Hoang Van Thai Senior General Van Tien Dung

December 1945–1953 1953–1980

COMMANDING GENERALS, POLITICAL GENERAL DIRECTORATE General Nguyen Chi Thanh June 1950–1961 Lieutenant General Song Hao 1961–ca. December 1975 Sen. General Chu Huy Man ca. April 1977–ca. October 1984 COMMANDING GENERALS, REAR SERVICES GENERAL DIRECTORATE Major General Dinh Duc Thien 1965–? Lieutenant General Bui Phung 1977–1982

First Secretaries, COSVN MILITARY COMMITTEE/MILITARY AFFAIRS PARTY COMMITTEE Major General Tran Luong May 1961–October 1963 Nguyen Van Linh October 1963–1964 Senior General Nguyen Chi Thanh 1964–June 1967 Pham Hung June 1967–May 1975 COMMANDING GENERALS, SOUTHERN REGIONAL MILITARY HEADQUARTERS Colonel General Tran Van Tra October 1963–January 1967 Lieutenant General Hoang Van Thai January 1967–1973 Colonel General Tran Van Tra 1973–May 1975

B. Navy Branch Date formed: May 7, 1955 NAVY UNITS (1973) 171st Patrol Boat Regiment (originally 130th Patrol Boat Group) 172nd Torpedo Boat Regiment (originally 135th Torpedo Boat Group) 125th Maritime Transportation Regiment (originally Maritime Infiltration Group 759) 126th Water Sapper Regiment (originally 8th Water Sapper Group)

Appendix C: Order of Battle 128th Fishing Boat Regiment (heavily armed fishing boats responsible for patrol/coastal surveillance duties in addition to fishing)

POLITICAL OFFICERS Senior Colonel Dang Tinh Hoang Phuong

COMMANDING OFFICERS Major General Ta Xuan Thu Senior Colonel Nguyen Ba Phat Senior Colonel Doan Ba Khanh Senior Colonel Giap Van Cuong

January 1959 March 1967 late 1974 1980–1990

371st Air Force Division Date formed: March 24, 1967

POLITICAL OFFICERS Major General Ta Xuan Thu Senior Colonel Doan Phung Hoang Tra Senior Colonel Tran Van Giang

January 1959 March 1967 April 1970 late 1974

Date formed: March 3, 1955

POLITICAL OFFICERS Colonel Hoang The Thien Colonel Phan Khac Hy Lieutenant Colonel Do Long

October 1963 1975

COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Nguyen Van Tien Colonel Dao Dinh Luyen

March 1967 October 1969

POLITICAL OFFICERS Colonel Pham Khac Hy Colonel Do Long

March 1967 1969

Subordinate Units Note: A fighter regiment normally was equipped with 36 fighter aircraft and had 40–50 pilots. However, this varied greatly during the course of the war, depending on aircraft and pilot availability.

C. Air Force Branch COMMANDING OFFICERS Senior Colonel Dang Tinh Colonel Nguyen Van Tien Colonel Dao Dinh Luyen

1713

September 1955 March 1967 1969–1986

September 1956 March 1967 1970s

921ST FIGHTER REGIMENT (MIG-17S, 1964–1965; MIG-21S, 1966–1975) Date formed: May 30, 1963, Mengdu Air Base, China PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation ROLLING THUNDER, 1965–1968 Operation BOLO, January 1967 Operation LINEBACKER I, May–October 1972 Operation LINEBACKER II, December 1972 COMMANDING OFFICERS Dao Dinh Luyen Tran Manh

1963 1965

SUBORDINATE UNITS Air Force Branch Anti-Aircraft Artillery Branch Missile Branch Radar Branch 361st Air Defense Division 363rd Air Defense Division 365th Air Defense Division 367th Air Defense Division 371st Air Force Division (see below) 375th Air Defense Division 377th Antiaircraft Artillery Division

POLITICAL OFFICERS Do Long Chu Duy Kinh

1964 1967

COMMANDING OFFICERS Senior Colonel Phung The Tai Senior Colonel Le Van Tri

COMMANDING OFFICER Nguyen Phuc Trach

1965

POLITICAL OFFICER Nguyen Van Tieu

1965

D. Air Defense–Air Force Service (also known as the Air Defense Command) Date formed: October 22, 1963

923RD FIGHTER REGIMENT (MIG-17S) Date formed: September 7, 1965 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation ROLLING THUNDER, 1965–1968 Bombing of U.S. Navy destroyer Higbee, April 19, 1972 Operation LINEBACKER I, May 1972 Bombing of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, April 28, 1975

October 1963 April 1973

1714

Appendix C: Order of Battle

925TH FIGHTER REGIMENT (MIG-19S) Date formed: 1969

POLITICAL OFFICER Nguyen Dam

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Operation LINEBACKER I, May 1972

929th Light Bomber Battalion Twelve IL-28 twin-engine light jet bombers.

COMMANDING OFFICERS Le Quang Trung Ho Van Quy

Date formed: mid-1965 1969 1970

POLITICAL OFFICER Ho Vinh

1969

1959

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Two-aircraft bombing attack against Lao government position in Xieng Khoang Province, Laos, October 9, 1972

E. Regional Commands MILITARY REGION I (FORMERLY VIET BAC MILITARY REGION) Area of responsibility: Viet Bac, northeastern North Vietnam

927TH FIGHTER REGIMENT (MIG-21S) Date formed: December 1, 1971 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation LINEBACKER I, May–October 1972 Operation LINEBACKER II, December 1972

COMMANDING OFFICERS Chu Van Tan Le Quang Ba Dam Quang Trung

1954 1957 1961

1957–1975

COMMANDING OFFICER Nguyen Hong Nhi

1972

POLITICAL COMMISSAR Chu Van Tan

POLITICAL OFFICER Tran Ung

1972

Military Region II (formerly Northwest [Tay Bac] Military Region) Area of responsibility: Tay Bac, northwestern North Vietnam

Group Z Composite regiment equipped with MiG-17s and MiG-21s. Group Z’s pilots were North Korean, but the group’s ground support personnel and aircraft were Vietnamese.

COMMANDING OFFICERS Bang Giang Lieutenant General Vu Lap

Date formed: 1967 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Operation ROLLING THUNDER, early 1967–1968

Military Region III (1963–1967, 1976–present) Area of responsibility: Red River Delta, North Vietnam, formed 1963 by merging the Left Bank and Right Bank Military Regions; disbanded 1967 and reestablished 1976

919th Air Transport Regiment An-2, An-24, IL-14, IL-18, and Li-2 fixed-wing transport aircraft and Mi-4 and Mi-6 helicopters.

COMMANDING OFFICERS Major General Hoang Sam General Dang Kinh

1963 1976

Date formed: May 1, 1959

POLITICAL COMMISSARS Tran Do Nguyen Quyet

1963 1976

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS An-2 rocket attacks against South Vietnamese commando boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, 1966 An-2 air attack against covert U.S. Air Force radar site in Laos (Lima Site 85), January 12, 1968 (two aircraft lost) IL-14 resupply flights and air support flights to Hue and Khe Sanh areas, February 1968 (four aircraft lost) COMMANDING OFFICER Nguyen Van Giao

1959

1957 1978

Left Bank Military Region (1957–1963, 1967–1976) Area of responsibility: Northern half of Red River Delta, North Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Hoang Sam Nguyen Nhu Thiet

1957 1967

Appendix C: Order of Battle POLITICAL OFFICERS Nguyen Quyet Dang Kinh

1957 1967

Right Bank Military Region (1957–1963, 1967–1976) Area of responsibility: Southern half of Red River Delta, North Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Vuong Thua Vu Hoang Sam POLITICAL OFFICERS Tran Do To Ky

1957 1967

1957 1967

Military Region IV Area of responsibility: Panhandle, North Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS General Nguyen Don Major General Tran Van Quang Lieutenant General Dam Quang Trung Lieutenant General Le Quang Hoa

1967 1965 1967–1975 ca. December 1975

Military Region V Area of responsibility: Quang Tri, Thua Thien, Quang Nam, Quang Tin, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Pleiku, Phu Bon, and Phu Yen provinces, South Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Major General Nguyen Don Lieutenant General Hoang Van Thai Lieutenant General Chu Huy Man Lieutenant General Doan Khue

1957 August 1966 1967 ca. 1977

Military Region VI Area of responsibility: Quang Duc, Tuyen Duc, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, Lam Dong, and Binh Tuy provinces, South Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Yblok Eban Colonel Nguyen Minh Chau Sr. Colonel Nguyen Trong Xuyen

July 1961 June 1963 mid-1969

Military Region VII Area of responsibility: Phuoc Long, Long Khanh, Phuoc Tuy, Binh Long, Binh Duong, Bien Hoa, Tay Ninh, and Hau Nghia provinces, South Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Nguyen Binh

December 1945

Huynh Van Nghe Tran Van Tra Nguyen Huu Xuyen Colonel Le Van Ngoc Colonel General Tran Van Tra

1715

1948 1950 1961 ca. 1975 1976–1978

Military Region VIII Area of responsibility: Long An, Kien Tuong, Kien Phong, Dinh Tuong, Go Cong, and Kien Hoa provinces, South Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Tran Van Tra Le Quoc San Dong Van Cong

August 1946 1961 October 1972

Military Region IX Area of responsibility: Chau Doc, An Giang, Vinh Long, Phong Dinh, Vinh Binh, Ba Xuyen, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu, Chuong Thien, and An Xuyen provinces, South Vietnam COMMANDING OFFICERS Vu Duc Huynh Phan No Truong Van Giau Phan Trong Tue Nguyen Chanh Duong Quoc Chinh Dong Van Cong Le Duc Anh Phan Ngoc Hung

November 1945 November 1946 1948 1949 1950 1952 1963 1969 November 1973

Saigon–Gia Dinh Special Zone Merged with Military Region VII in October 1967. Area of responsibility: Rung Sat Special Zone, Long Tao River, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Long Binh

F. Main-Force Combat Units I Military Corps (Quyet Thang Corps) Date formed: October 24, 1973 SUBORDINATE UNITS 308th Infantry Division 312th Infantry Division 320-B Infantry Division 367th Antiaircraft Artillery Division 45th Artillery Brigade 202nd Tank Brigade 299th Engineer Brigade 140th Signal Regiment

1716

Appendix C: Order of Battle

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Saigon, spring of 1975

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Saigon, spring of 1975

COMMANDING OFFICERS Major General Le Trong Tan Major General Nguyen Hoa

October 1973 mid-1974

POLITICAL OFFICERS Major General Le Quang Hoa Major General Hoang Minh Thi

October 1973 mid-1974

II Military Corps Date formed: May 17, 1974

March 1975 1977

POLITICAL OFFICERS Dang Vu Hiep Phi Trieu Ham Pham Sinh

March 1975 1977 ca. 1978

IV Military Corps (Cuu Long Corps) Date formed: July 20, 1974

SUBORDINATE UNITS 304th Infantry Division 324th Infantry Division 325th Infantry Division 673rd Antiaircraft Artillery Division 203rd Tank Brigade 164th Artillery Brigade 219th Engineer Brigade 463rd Signal Regiment

SUBORDINATE UNITS 5th Division (VC) 7th Infantry Division 9th Division (VC) 341st Infantry Division 24th Mobile Artillery Regiment 71st Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment 25th Engineer Regiment 429th Sapper Regiment 69th Signals Regiment

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Hue, spring of 1975 Da Nang, spring of 1975 Phan Rang, spring of 1975

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Route 14, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975

COMMANDING OFFICERS Lieutenant General Hoang Van Thai Major General Nguyen Huu An POLITICAL OFFICER Major General Le Linh

COMMANDING OFFICERS Vu Lang Kim Tuan (Nguyen Cong Tien)

1974

1974 1975

COMMANDING OFFICER Major General Hoang Cam

July 1974

POLITICAL OFFICER Major General Hoang The Thien

March 1975

III Military Corps (Tay Nguyen Corps) Date formed: March 26, 1975

LXX Military Corps Date formed: October 1970

SUBORDINATE UNITS 10th Infantry Division 320th Infantry Division 316th Infantry Division 40th Artillery Regiment 675th Artillery Regiment 234th Antiaircraft Regiment 593rd Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment 273rd Tank Regiment 7th Engineer Regiment 29th Signal Regiment

SUBORDINATE UNITS 304th Infantry Division 308th Infantry Division 320th Infantry Division PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Route 9 Laos 232nd Group Date formed: February 1975

Appendix C: Order of Battle SUBORDINATE UNITS 3rd Infantry Division 5th Infantry Division 9th Infantry Division (attached from IV Corps) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Saigon, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Major General Nguyen Minh Chau General Le Duc Anh POLITICAL OFFICERS Major General Tran Van Phac General Le Van Tuong

February 1975 April 1975

February 1975 March 1975

1970–1973 (killed by mine explosion) 1973

1st Infantry Division Date formed: December 20, 1965 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 24th Infantry Regiment 32nd Infantry Regiment 33rd Infantry Regiment 66th Infantry Regiment 88th Infantry Regiment 95-B Infantry Regiment

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Central Highlands Cambodia, 1970–1971 Easter Offensive, 1972

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Cambodia, 1971

March 1971

COMMANDING OFFICERS Colonel Nguyen Huu An Colonel Tran Van Tran

1966 1968

March 1971 2nd Infantry Division Date formed: October 20, 1965

559th Transportation Group Date formed: May 19, 1959

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 1st Infantry Regiment (VC) 31st Infantry Regiment 21st Infantry Regiment

SUBORDINATE UNITS 377th Air Defense Division 470th Sector Division 471st Sector Division 472nd Sector Division 473rd Engineering Division 571st Transportation Division 968th Infantry Division

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 1st Infantry Regiment 52nd Infantry Regiment (VC) 141st Infantry Regiment 368th Artillery Regiment Strength: December 1967, 6,450; December 1972, 4,000

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Ho Chi Minh Trail COMMANDING OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Vo Bam

1965 1967

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 52nd Infantry Regiment 101-D Infantry Regiment 44th Sapper Regiment Strength: December 1967, 9,525; December 1972, 3,400

SUBORDINATE UNITS 5th Division 7th Division 9th Division 28th Artillery Regiment

POLITICAL OFFICER Tran Do

POLITICAL OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Dang Tinh Major General Hoang The Thien

301st Group Date formed: March 18, 1971 (reorganized as IV Corps on July 20, 1974)

COMMANDING OFFICER Tram Van Tra

Major General Phan Trong Tue Sr. Colonel Dong Sy Nguyen

May 1959

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation TEXAS Tet Offensive

1717

1718

Appendix C: Order of Battle

Laos Easter Offensive, 1972, Kontum Da Nang, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1979 COMMANDING OFFICERS Nguyen Nang Le Huu Tru Giap Van Cuong Hoang Anh Tuan (alias Hoang Xuan Anh) Le Kich Dao Ngoc Tu Nguyen Chon Duong Ba Loi Nguyen Viet Son Pham Duu Nguyen Chon

October 1965 ca. July 1967 December 1967 Early 1968 August 1969 1970 late 1971 June 1972 September 1972 ca. 1973–1974 1974

POLITICAL OFFICERS Nguyen Minh Duc Nguyen Ngoc Son Nguyen Huy Chuong Le Dinh Yen Mai Thuan

October 1965 December 1967 October 1969 ca. February 1972 ca. February 1975

3rd Infantry Division Date formed: September 2, 1965 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 2nd Regiment (VC) 12th Infantry Regiment (also known as the 18th Infantry Regiment) 22nd Infantry Regiment SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 2nd Infantry Regiment 12th Infantry Regiment 21st Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1967, 2,870; December 1972, 3,500 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation MASHER/WHITE WING Tet Offensive Easter Offensive, 1972, Binh Dinh Route 19, northern Binh Dinh, 1972 Qui Nhon, spring of 1975 Vung Tau, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Giap Van Cuong Lu Giang Huynh Huu Anh

Tran Trong Son Do Quang Huong Tran Van Khue

ca. May 1974 ca. February 1975 ca. March 1975

POLITICAL OFFICERS Dang Hoa Nguyen Nam Khanh Mai Tan

September 1965 ca. April 1968 June 1971

5th Division (VC) Date formed: November 23, 1965 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 274th Infantry Regiment (VC) 275th Infantry Regiment (VC) SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 174th Infantry Regiment 205th Infantry Regiment 275th Infantry Regiment (VC) Strength: December 1967, 3,300; December 1972, 3,900 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Vung Tau Cambodia, 1971 Easter Offensive, 1972, Loc Ninh Saigon, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Nguyen Hoa Nguyen The Truyen Tran Minh Tam Vo Minh Nhu Nguyen Huy Bien Bui Thanh Van

November 1965 April 1966 1967 1968 1969 1971

POLITICAL OFFICERS Le Xuan Luu Nguyen Van Cuc Nguyen Xuan Hoa

November 1965 ca. 1972 1974

6th Infantry Division Date formed: ca. 1972 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 4th Infantry Regiment 33rd Regiment Strength: December 1972, 2,300 September 1965 ca. April 1968 July 1970

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Xuan Loc, spring of 1975 Bien Hoa, spring of 1975

Appendix C: Order of Battle COMMANDING OFFICER Dang Ngoc Si

ca. August 1974

7th Infantry Division Date formed: June 13, 1966

COMMANDING OFFICER Sr. Colonel Huynh Cong Than (also known as Huynh Van Nhiem)

August 1974

9th Division (VC) Date formed: September 2, 1965

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 141st Infantry Regiment 165th Infantry Regiment 52nd Infantry Regiment SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 141st Infantry Regiment 165th Infantry Regiment 209th Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1967, 5,250; December 1972, 4,100 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS JUNCTION CITY, Tay Ninh Tet Offensive, Tay Ninh Cambodia, 1970 Easter Offensive, 1972, Binh Long Province Phuoc Long Xuan Loc, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1979–1983

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 16th Infantry Regiment (VC) (also known as the 101st Infantry Regiment and the 70th Infantry Regiment) 271st Infantry Regiment (VC) 272nd Infantry Regiment (VC) 273rd Infantry Regiment (VC) SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 3rd Infantry Regiment (also known as the 95-C Infantry Regiment) 271st Infantry Regiment (VC) 272nd Infantry Regiment (VC) Strength: December 1967, 10,260; December 1972, 4,100

COMMANDING OFFICERS Nguyen Hoa Nguyen The Bon Dam Van Nguy Le Nam Phong

June 1966 1967 ca. 1970 September 1973

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Binh Gia Bau Bang Operation ATTLEBORO Operation CEDAR FALLS Tet Offensive, Saigon Cambodia, 1970 Easter Offensive, 1972, Route 13 Phuoc Long, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1978

POLITICAL OFFICERS Duong Thanh Vuong The Hiep Le Thanh Tu Vinh Phan Liem

June 1966 1967 ca. 1970 July 1974 March 1975

COMMANDING OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Hoang Cam Ta Minh Kham Le Van Nho Nguyen Thoi Bung Vo Van Dan

September 1965 1967 1969 ca. 1969 ca. 1972

POLITICAL OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Le Van Tuong Nguyen Van Tong Nguyen Van Quang Pham Xuan Tung Tam Tung

September 1965 1967 ca 1969 ca 1972 ca. July 1974

8th Infantry Division Date formed: August 1974 SUBORDINATE UNITS 24th Infantry Regiment 88th Infantry Regiment 320th Infantry Regiment (also known as the 32nd Infantry Regiment) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS My Tho, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975

1719

10th Infantry Division Date formed: September 20, 1972 SUBORDINATE UNITS (SEPTEMBER 1972) 28th Infantry Regiment

1720

Appendix C: Order of Battle PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Phuoc Long, January 1975 Tay Ninh, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1978 Chinese Border, 1979

66th Infantry Regiment 95-B Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 3,800 SUBORDINATE UNITS (MARCH 1975) 24B Infantry Regiment 28th Infantry Regiment 66th Infantry Regiment

COMMANDING OFFICERS Do Quang Huong Sr. Colonel Tran Hai Phung Colonel Cao Hoai Sai

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Ban Me Thuot, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1978

304th Infantry Division Date formed: January 4, 1950

COMMANDING OFFICERS Nguyen Manh Quan Do Duc Gia Ho De Hong Son Sr. Colonel Phung Ba Thuong

September 1972 May 1973 mid-1974 April 1975 September 1976

POLITICAL OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Dang Vu Hiep La Ngoc Chau Luu Quy Ngu

September 1972 May 1973 1975

31st Infantry Division Date formed (Front 31): March 1973 Date formed as 31st Division: July 11, 1974 SUBORDINATE UNITS 335th Infantry Regiment 866th Infantry Regiment COMMANDING OFFICERS Vu Lap (Front 31) Sr. Colonel Nguyen Le Hoan

March 1973 July 1974

POLITICAL OFFICERS Le Linh (Front 31) Sr. Colonel Le Nguyen Vu

March 1973 July 1974

303rd Infantry Division Date formed: August 19, 1974 SUBORDINATE UNITS 201st Infantry Regiment (VC) 205th Infantry Regiment (VC) 271st Infantry Regiment (VC) 262nd Artillery Regiment

August 1974 1977 September 1977

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 9th Infantry Regiment 24th Infantry Regiment 66th Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 5,000 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Day River Dien Bien Phu Hoa Binh The Hill Fights, Khe Sanh, 1967 Khe Sanh, 1968 Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Quang Tri Da Nang, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1978 COMMANDING OFFICERS Hoang Minh Thao Hoang Sam Nam Long Ngo Ngoc Duong Mai Hien Hoang Kien Thai Dung Hoang Dan Le Cong Phe Nguyen An

February 1950 November 1953 late 1955 ca. 1960s March 1965 August 1965 1967 June 1968 ca. 1973 ca. 1974

POLITICAL OFFICERS Tran Van Quang Le Chuong Truong Cong Can Tran Huy Truong Cong Can

February 1950 1951 late 1955 ca. 1960s August 1965

Appendix C: Order of Battle Tran Nguyen Do Hoang The Thien

January 1968 June 1968

308th Infantry Division Date formed: August 1949 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 36th Infantry Regiment 88th Infantry Regiment 102nd Infantry Regiment 268th Artillery Regiment (also known as the 58th Artillery Regiment) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Vinh Yen Day River Hoa Binh Tu Vu Xom Pheo Black River Operation LORRAINE Laos, 1953 Dien Bien Phu Khe Sanh Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Quang Tri COMMANDING OFFICERS Vuong Thua Vu Vu Yen Pham Hong Son Vu Yen Nguyen Thai Dung Vu Yen Nguyen Huu An Truong Dinh Mau Dao Dinh Sung Nguyen Huu An Nguyen The Bon Mac Dinh Vinh Pham Duy Tan

August 1949 1955 1958 1959 June 1963 June 1967 March 1969 July 1971 April 15, 1972 July 17, 1972 Early 1973 October 1973 1979

POLITICAL OFFICERS Song Hao Le Vinh Quoc Dang Quoc Bao Le Linh Nguyen Kien Hoang Phuong Nguyen Hung Phong Hong Kim

August 1949 1955 1958 1959 1963 March 1969 May 1970 October 1973

312th Infantry Division Date formed: October 27, 1950 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 141st Infantry Regiment 165th Infantry Regiment 209th Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 6,000 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Vinh Yen Hoa Binh Black River Laos, 1953 Dien Bien Phu Tet Offensive Laos, 1969 Laos, 1971–1972 Easter Offensive, 1972, demilitarized zone (DMZ) Saigon, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Le Trong Tan Dam Quang Trung Sr. Colonel Hoang Cam Nguyen Nang La Thai Hoa Nguyen Chuong

October 1950 1954 1956 mid-1960s October 1971 early 1975

POLITICAL OFFICERS Tran Do Le Chieu Pham Sinh Nguyen Xuyen

ca. 1953 mid-1969 October 1971 early 1975

316th Infantry Division Date formed: May 1, 1951 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 148th Infantry Regiment 149th Infantry Regiment 174th Infantry Regiment 187th Artillery Regiment PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Mao Khe Black River Operation LORRAINE Laos, 1953 Dien Bien Phu Laos, 1962 Laos, 1964–1965

1721

1722

Appendix C: Order of Battle SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 27th Infantry Regiment 48-B Infantry Regiment 64-B Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 3,500

Laos, 1967–1973 Ban Me Thuot, spring of 1975 Chinese Border, 1979 COMMANDING OFFICERS Le Quang Ba Chu Phuong Doi Sr. Colonel Le Thuy Le Hoan Sr. Colonel Dam Van Nguy POLITICAL OFFICERS Chu Huy Man Le Tu Dong Nguyen Kien Le Vu Colonel Ha Quoc Toan

1953 1958 1964 ca. 1969 1973

May 1951 late 1954 1955 ca. 1969–1970 1973

320th Infantry Division Date formed: January 16, 1951 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 48th Infantry Regiment 64th Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 3,000

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Easter Offensive, 1972, DMZ Chinese Border, 1979 COMMANDING OFFICERS Pham Than Son Bui Sinh Ha Vi Tung Sr. Colonel Luu Ba Xao

September 1965 early 1966 mid-1969 ca. 1973

POLITICAL OFFICERS Nguyen Duy Tuong Nguyen Huan Tran Ngoc Kien

September 1965 early 1966 mid-1969

324-B Infantry Division Date formed: ca. 1965 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 803rd Infantry Regiment 812th Infantry Regiment 90th Infantry Regiment

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Day River Dong Ha-Cam Lo, DMZ, 1968 Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Kontum Ban Me Thuot, spring of 1975 Phu Bon, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 29th Infantry Regiment 803rd Infantry Regiment 812th Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1967, 7,800; December 1972, 5,000

COMMANDING OFFICERS Van Tien Dung Sung Lam Nguyen Cong Tien (Kim Tuan) Bui Dinh Hoe

January 1951 ca. 1967 1971 March 1975

POLITICAL OFFICERS Sr. Colonel Luong Tuan Khang Phi Trieu Man Colonel Bui Huy Bong

ca. 1965 ca. 1971 March 1975

320-B Infantry Division Date formed: September 1965 (redesignated the 390th Infantry Division on May 4, 1979)

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Con Thien, 1967 Hue, 1968 Hamburger Hill (Operation APACHE SNOW), 1969 Operation LAM SON 719 Easter Offensive, 1972, Hue Hue, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICER Duy Son

ca. 1975

POLITICAL OFFICER Nguyen Trong Dan

ca. 1975

325th Infantry Division Date formed: March 11, 1951 (redesignated the 325-A Infantry Division in late 1964)

Appendix C: Order of Battle SUBORDINATE UNITS (1964) 18th Infantry Regiment 95th Infantry Regiment 101st Infantry Regiment

POLITICAL OFFICER Nguyen Cong Trang

ca. 1965

325-D Infantry Division Date formed: 1966 (redesignated the 325th Infantry Division in 1972)

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Laos, 1961 COMMANDING OFFICERS Tran Quy Hai Major General Nguyen Huu An

ca. 1953 1964

POLITICAL OFFICERS Chu Van Bien Hoang Van Thai Quach Si Kha Nguyen Minh Duc

ca. 1951 1955 1961 1964

325-B Infantry Division Date formed: November 1964 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1965) 18-B Infantry Regiment 95-B Infantry Regiment 101-B Infantry Regiment (also known as the 33rd Infantry Regiment) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT A Shau Valley COMMANDING OFFICER Vuong Tuan Kiet

ca. 1964

POLITICAL OFFICER Quoc Tuan

ca. 1964

SUBORDINATE UNITS (1972) 18-D Infantry Regiment 95-D Infantry Regiment 101-E Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 5,000 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Easter Offensive, 1972, DMZ Hue, spring of 1975 Da Nang, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1978 COMMANDING OFFICERS Thang Binh Le Kich Colonel Pham Minh Tam

1968 ca. 1971 May 1974

POLITICAL OFFICERS Vu Duc Thai Sr. Colonel Nguyen Cong Trang Colonel Le Van Duong

1968 ca. 1971 May 1974

341st Infantry Division Date formed: February 1962 (disbanded ca. 1963; reconstituted March 1965; disbanded late 1966; reconstituted November 1972) SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 266th Infantry Regiment 270th Infantry Regiment 273rd Infantry Regiment

325-C Infantry Division Date formed: 1965 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1967) 18-C Infantry Regiment 95-C Infantry Regiment 101-D Infantry Regiment Strength: 1967, 7,790

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Xuan Loc, spring of 1975 Saigon, spring of 1975 Cambodia, 1978

PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Khe Sanh Hue

COMMANDING OFFICERS Bao Cuong Tran Van Tran

COMMANDING OFFICER Chu Phuong Doi

1723

ca. 1965

December 1972 November 1973

1724

Appendix C: Order of Battle

POLITICAL OFFICER Tran Nguyen Do

November 1973

351st Heavy Division Date formed: 1953 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1954) 45th Artillery Regiment (Viet Minh) 675th Artillery Regiment (Viet Minh) 367th Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment (Viet Minh) 237th Heavy Weapons Regiment (Viet Minh) 151st Engineer Regiment (Viet Minh) PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Dien Bien Phu COMMANDING OFFICER Vu Hien

1953

711th Infantry Division Date formed: June 1972; disbanded June 1973 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1973) 31st Infantry Regiment 38th Infantry Regiment Strength: December 1972, 3,500 PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT Easter Offensive, 1972 COMMANDING OFFICER Nguyen Chon 968th Infantry Division Date formed: July 1970 SUBORDINATE UNITS (JANUARY 1970) 9th Infantry Regiment 19th Infantry Regiment 29th Infantry Regiment PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Operation LAM SON 719, 1971 Central Highlands, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICER Hoang Bien Son POLITICAL COMMISSAR Nguyen Ngoc Son

202nd Tank Brigade (formerly 202nd Tank Regiment) Date formed (regiment): October 5, 1959 Date formed (brigade): October 25, 1973 SUBORDINATE UNITS (1970) 177th Tank Battalion 195th Tank Battalion 397th Tank Battalion PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENTS Laos, Plain of Jars, 1969–1970 Operation LAM SON 719 (one battalion) Easter Offensive, 1972, Quang Tri Saigon, spring of 1975 COMMANDING OFFICERS Dao Huy Vu Le Xuan Kien Nguyen Van Lang Do Phuong Ngu

October 1959 June 1965 November 1971 1972

POLITICAL OFFICERS Dang Quang Long Vo Ngoc Hai Hoang Khoai Le Quang Phuoc

October 1959 June 1965 1972 December 1973

G. Vietnamese Advisory Groups/Military Commands in Laos Military Advisory Group 100 Date formed: August 1954; disbanded January 1958 June 1972

COMMANDING OFFICER Chu Huy Man

August 1954

Military Specialist Group 959 Later called Command Headquarters 959, the advisory group supporting the Pathet Lao Headquarters and General Staff. Date formed: September 1959 COMMANDING OFFICERS Le Chuong Nguyen Trong Vinh Huynh Dac Huong

September 1959 May 1964 mid-1972

Military Specialist Group 463 Later called Command Headquarters 463, the advisory group supporting the Pathet Lao in the Plain of Jars–Xieng Khoang Military Region. Date formed: April 15, 1963; disbanded June 1973

Appendix C: Order of Battle COMMANDING OFFICER Lt. Colonel Nguyen Binh Son

April 1963

POLITICAL OFFICERS Major Le Van Vu Ngan

April 1963 1971

Military Specialist Group 565 Later called Command Headquarters 565, the advisory group supporting the Pathet Lao in southern Laos. Date formed: May 19, 1965; disbanded October 1974 COMMANDING OFFICER Sr. Colonel Dong Sy Nguyen Hoang Tuan Khanh

May 1965 November 1965

POLITICAL OFFICER Tran Quyet Thang

1969

V. French Forces in Indochina The French military returned to Indochina immediately following the end of World War II. By the late 1940s, all French Union forces in Indochina came under the control of the French high commissioner, who exercised command through the military commander in chief. In practice, however, French political and military leaders in Paris intervened in local decisions to the point of almost constant interference. That situation improved only slightly between December 1950 and April 1952 when General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny held both offices. French military headquarters was located in Hanoi. A post–World War II amendment to France’s Budget Law restricted the use of conscripted French nationals to the defense of homeland territory, which included France, Algeria, and Frenchoccupied Germany. Thus, all French regular units sent to Vietnam consisted of volunteers. This of course restricted the size of the ethnic French element of the French Expeditionary Force. French Foreign Legion units in Vietnam consisted largely, but not exclusively, of non-French Europeans. They were organized and equipped the same as regular French units and had French officers. The North African colonial units were similarly organized, equipped, and led. Because Algeria was considered part of metropolitan France, the Algerian units were allowed to have Algerian officers. Many of the colonial units in Vietnam recruited locally and included varying proportions of Vietnamese in their ranks. The French also raised colonial units in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The French Expeditionary Force was supposedly backed by the French-controlled Vietnamese National Army of 100,000 troops. That force, however, never came close to living up to expectations. In 1947 the French had some 115,000 troops in all of Indochina.

1725

In May 1953 the French Expeditionary Force numbered 189,000 troops. At any given time, as many as 100,000 troops of the French Expeditionary Force were in static defenses and garrisons. Remaining forces available for offensive operations were often organized into Mobile Groups (groupes mobiles, or GM). The GMs were the main French striking units in Indochina. They were ad hoc regimental combat teams, usually consisting of three infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, and armor support. GMs often worked in conjunction with parachute battalions. Some GMs were fairly stable, tending to have the same battalions from operation to operation. Others swapped out battalions on a frequent basis. Typically, GMs numbered some 6,000 men. Variations on the GM concept included several amphibious groups, at least one airborne group, and armored subgroups that operated in conjunction with the GMs. Much of the fighting in Tonkin between 1951 and 1953 was carried out by GMs 1 through 4. Although ethnic French units were heavily represented in the GMs, some were made up of colonial or Vietnamese units. GM 1 consisted of crack North African and Senegalese battalions, while most of GM 3’s soldiers were tough Muong mountain troops. GM 9 fought at Dien Bien Phu, while GM Nord was part of the Operation CASTOR relief column. GM 100, which was decimated by fighting in southern Vietnam, was formed around the two battalions of the Korea Regiment, French troops who had fought under the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea. No comprehensive OB sources exist in English for the French forces in Indochina between 1945 and 1954. The following list was compiled from official French military records. Because the GMs were not regularly constituted units, they do not appear on this list. The one exception to this is GM 1, which also bore the designation Groupe Mobile Nord-Africain. That unit is carried on the French list as a regularly constituted infantry unit between August 25, 1949, and August 11, 1954. A note of explanation: Units designated marche, perhaps best translated as “mobile,” in the French Army have no equivalent in the U.S. Army. These units were often assembled for a specific purpose, but as with an American task force, they tended to become permanent. Also, French artillery groups, commanded by a lieutenant colonel and containing three or more separate batteries, were the equivalent of a U.S. artillery battalion.

A. French High Commissioners in Indochina Admiral Georges d’Argenlieu Émile Bollaert Léon Pignon General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny Maurice Dejean General Paul Ély Ambassador Henri Hoppenot

August 31, 1945 October 1947 October 5, 1948 December 16, 1950 July 3, 1952 June 9, 1954 July 27, 1955

1726

Appendix C: Order of Battle

B. French Commanders in Chief in Indochina General Philippe Leclerc General Jean-Étienne Valluy General Raoul Salan Lieutenant General Roger Blaizot General Marcel Carpentier General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny General Raoul Salan General Henri Navarre General Paul Ély General Pierre Elie Jacquot

June 1945 October 1, 1946 February 10, 1948 June 10, 1948 April 1, 1949 December 16, 1950 April 1, 1952 May 29, 1953 June 9, 1954 June 1, 1955

C. Supreme French Headquarters in Indochina Headquarters, French Expeditionary Corps, Far East Date formed in Indochina: September 16, 1945 Date reorganized in Indochina: January 1, 1946 Headquarters, Supreme Command of French Troops, Far East Date formed in Indochina: January 1, 1946 Date reorganized in Indochina: June 11, 1948 Headquarters, Supreme Command of Ground Forces, Far East Date formed in Indochina: June 12, 1948 Date reorganized in Indochina: September 9, 1949 Headquarters, Commander in Chief of Military Forces, Far East Date formed in Indochina: September 10, 1949 Date reorganized in Indochina: December 31, 1950 Headquarters, Joint and Ground Forces, Far East Date formed in Indochina: January 1, 1951 Date inactivated in Indochina: August 11, 1954

D. Major Subordinate French Headquarters French Forces of Northern Vietnam, China, and Indochina Date formed in Indochina: End of 1945 Date reorganized in Indochina: November 1, 1946 French Troops in Indochina, North Date formed in Indochina: November 2, 1946 Date inactivated in Indochina: August 11, 1954 French Troops in Indochina, South Date formed in Indochina: September 13, 1946 Date reorganized in Indochina: March 9, 1949 Franco-Vietnamese Forces, South Date formed in Indochina: March 10, 1949 Date reorganized in Indochina: May 5, 1951

Land Forces, South Vietnam Date formed in Indochina: May 6, 1951 Date inactivated in Indochina: August 11, 1954 French Troops, Central Annam Date formed in Indochina: August 1, 1947 Date reorganized in Indochina: October 9, 1949 Land Forces, Central Vietnam Date formed in Indochina: October 10, 1949 Date inactivated in Indochina: August 11, 1954 Land Forces, Montagnard Plateau Date formed in Indochina: March 15, 1951 Date reorganized in Indochina: December 31, 1952 Southern Montagnard Plateau Date formed in Indochina: January 1, 1953 Date inactivated in Indochina: August 11, 1954 French Land Forces in Laos and Laotian Land Forces Date formed in Indochina: End of 1945 Date inactivated in Indochina: August 11, 1954 Military Command, Cambodia Date formed in Indochina: January 1, 1946 Date reorganized in Indochina: January 19, 1949 Forces Command, Cambodia Date formed in Indochina: January 20, 1949 Date reorganized in Indochina: March 31, 1951 Land Forces, Cambodia Date formed in Indochina: April 1, 1951 Date inactivated in Indochina: October 31, 1953

E. Divisions 2nd Armored Division (Elements) Date arrived in Vietnam: October 14, 1945 Date departed Vietnam: October 7, 1946 3rd Colonial Infantry Division Date arrived in Vietnam: October 1945 Date departed Vietnam: September 12, 1946 9th Colonial Infantry Division Date arrived in Vietnam: end of 1945 Date departed Vietnam: November 1, 1956 1st Tonkin Marche Division Date formed in Vietnam: start of 1951

Appendix C: Order of Battle Date inactivated in Vietnam: August 11, 1954 Zone of responsibility: Tonkin, West 2nd Tonkin Marche Division Date formed in Vietnam: start of 1951 Date inactivated in Vietnam: August 11, 1954 Zone of responsibility: Tonkin, North 3rd Tonkin Marche Division Date formed in Vietnam: November 1, 1951 Date inactivated in Vietnam: August 11, 1954 Zone of responsibility: Tonkin, South 4th Tonkin Marche Division Date formed in Vietnam: June 1, 1954 Date Inactivated in Vietnam: August 11, 1954 Zone of responsibility: Hai Phong

F. Foreign Legion Units REGIMENTS 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment 5th Foreign Infantry Regiment 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade SEPARATE BATTALIONS 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion 2nd Foreign Parachute Battalion Marche Battalion, 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment 5th Battalion, 4th Foreign Infantry Regiment 3rd Battalion, 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment

G. Airborne Units There were two Free French Special Air Service (SAS) units organized in World War II, trained and operating under the control of the British SAS. After the war they kept that designation in the French Army and went to Indochina. REGIMENTS Colonial Parachute Commando Demi-Brigade (SAS). 1st Parachute Demi-Brigade (SAS) 1st Parachute Chasseurs Regiment 2nd Colonial Parachute Commando Demi-Brigade SEPARATE BATTALIONS 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion 2nd Colonial Parachute Battalion 3rd Colonial Parachute Battalion 4th Colonial Parachute Battalion 5th Colonial Parachute Battalion 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion

7th Colonial Parachute Battalion 8th Colonial Parachute Battalion 9th Colonial Parachute Battalion 10th Dismounted Chasseurs Parachute Battalion Marche Battalion, 35th Airborne Artillery Regiment

H. Infantry Units REGIMENTS Korea Regiment Mobile Group 1 6th Colonial Infantry Regiment 11th Colonial Infantry Regiment 21st Colonial Infantry Regiment 22nd Colonial Infantry Regiment 23rd Colonial Infantry Regiment 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment 1st Algerian Rifle Regiment 2nd Algerian Rifle Regiment 3rd Algerian Rifle Regiment 7th Algerian Rifle Regiment 22nd Algerian Rifle Regiment Moroccan Colonial Infantry Regiment 1st Moroccan Rifle Regiment 2nd Moroccan Rifle Regiment 3rd Moroccan Rifle Regiment 4th Moroccan Rifle Regiment 5th Moroccan Rifle Regiment 6th Moroccan Rifle Regiment 24th Senegalese Rifle Marche Regiment 4th Tunisian Rifle Regiment 1st Tonkin Rifle Regiment Cambodian Composite Regiment SEPARATE BATTALIONS Marche Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment Marche Battalion, 43rd Infantry Regiment 1st Marche Battalion, 49th Infantry Regiment Marche Battalion, 110th Infantry Regiment Marche Battalion, 151st Infantry Regiment 1st Marche Battalion, 1st Colonial Infantry Regiment 1st Marche Battalion, 2nd Colonial Infantry Regiment Marche Battalion, 5th Colonial Infantry Regiment Marche Battalion, 16th Colonial Infantry Regiment Marche Battalion, 19th Colonial Infantry Regiment 1st African Light Infantry Battalion 1st Marche Battalion, 201st North African Pioneer Infantry Regiment 1st Marche Battalion, 6th Algerian Rifle Regiment 21st Algerian Rifle Battalion 22nd Algerian Rifle Battalion 23rd Algerian Rifle Battalion 25th Algerian Rifle Battalion

1727

1728

Appendix C: Order of Battle

27th Algerian Rifle Battalion 205th Algerian Rifle Battalion 217th Algerian Rifle Battalion 4th Battalion, Chad Marche Regiment Marche Battalion, 7th Moroccan Rifle Regiment 1st Marche Battalion, 8th Moroccan Rifle Regiment 1st Moroccan Far East Battalion 2nd Moroccan Far East Battalion 3rd Moroccan Far East Battalion 5th Moroccan Far East Battalion 8th Moroccan Far East Battalion 9th Moroccan Far East Battalion 10th Moroccan Far East Battalion 11th Moroccan Far East Battalion 17th Moroccan Far East Battalion 207th Moroccan Far East Rifle Marche Battalion 214th Moroccan Far East Rifle Battalion Marche Battalion, 13th Senegalese Rifle Regiment 26th Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 27th Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 28th Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 29th Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 30th Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 31st Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 32nd Senegalese Rifle Marche Battalion 104th Senegalese Battalion 1st French East African Marche Battalion 2nd French East African Marche Battalion 3rd French East African Marche Battalion Marche Battalion, 4th Tonkin Rifle Regiment Annam Battalion Saigon–Cholon Garrison Battalion 1st Far Eastern Marche Battalion 2nd Far Eastern Marche Battalion 3rd Far Eastern Marche Battalion 4th Far Eastern Marche Battalion 5th Far Eastern Marche Battalion 6th Far Eastern Marche Battalion 7th Far Eastern Marche Battalion 1st Indochina Marche Battalion 2nd Indochina Marche Battalion 3rd Indochina Marche Battalion 1st Muong Battalion 2nd Muong Battalion 1st Thai Battalion 2nd Thai Battalion 3rd Thai Battalion 1st Laotian Chasseurs Battalion 2nd Laotian Chasseurs Battalion 3rd Laotian Chasseurs Battalion 4th Laotian Chasseurs Battalion

5th Laotian Chasseurs Battalion 6th Laotian Chasseurs Battalion 7th Laotian Chasseurs Battalion 8th Laotian Chasseurs Battalion Phnom Penh Garrison Battalion

I. Armor and Cavalry Units REGIMENTS 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment 4th Dragoon Regiment 5th Armored Cavalry Regiment 9th Dragoon Marche Regiment 8th Algerian Spahis Regiment 2nd Moroccan Spahis Regiment 5th Moroccan Spahis Regiment 6th Moroccan Spahis Regiment Far East Spahis Marche Regiment Far East Colonial Armored Regiment SEPARATE SQUADRONS AND BATTALIONS 4th Dragoon Battalion 7th Squadron, 1st Moroccan Spahis Marche Regiment 1st Far East Independent Reconnaissance Squadron 2nd Far East Independent Reconnaissance Squadron 3rd Far East Independent Reconnaissance Squadron 4th Far East Independent Reconnaissance Squadron 5th Far East Independent Reconnaissance Squadron

J. Artillery Units REGIMENTS 2nd Artillery Regiment 4th Colonial Artillery Regiment 10th Colonial Artillery Regiment 41st Colonial Artillery Regiment 69th African Artillery Regiment Moroccan Colonial Artillery Regiment SEPARATE BATTALIONS Marche Battalion, 64th Artillery Regiment Marche Battalion, 66th Artillery Regiment 1st Battalion, Far East Colonial Antiaircraft Regiment 21st Aerial Artillery Observation Battalion 22nd Aerial Artillery Observation Battalion 23rd Aerial Artillery Observation Battalion 24th Aerial Artillery Observation Battalion 261st Antiaircraft Battalion French East African Colonial Artillery Battalion Levant Colonial Mountain Artillery Battalion 1st Central Annam Artillery Battalion 2nd Central Annam Artillery Battalion

Appendix C: Order of Battle

K. Engineer Units BATTALIONS 22nd Engineer Battalion 26th Engineer Sanitation Battalion 31st Engineer Marche Battalion 61st Engineer Battalion 62nd Engineer Battalion 71st Engineer Battalion 72nd Engineer Battalion 73rd Engineer Battalion 75th Engineer Battalion 61st Colonial Engineer Battalion 71st Colonial Engineer Battalion 72nd Colonial Engineer Battalion 73rd Colonial Engineer Battalion DAVID T. ZABECKI AND MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II

1729

References Berger, Carl, ed. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961– 1973: An Illustrated Account. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Collins, James Lawton, Jr. The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Lanning, Michael Lee, and Dan Cragg. Inside the VC and the NVA: The Real Story of Vietnam’s Armed Forces. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Pike, Douglas. PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Pribbenow, Merle L., and William J. Duiker. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003.

This page intentionally left blank

Chronology

2879 BCE

Vietnamese history as the Hai Ba Trung (the Two Trung Ladies, or the Trung Sisters).

Establishment of the Kingdom of Van Lang by Hung Vuong (King Hung) of the Hong Bang dynasty (2879– 258 BCE), considered by Vietnamese as the founder of Vietnam.

42 Battle of Lang Bac. Chinese General Ma Yuan (Ma Vien), commanding an invading army, defeats Trung Trac’s forces and reestablishes direct Chinese rule over northern Vietnam.

258 BCE King Thuc Phan of neighboring Tay Au invades Van Lang and annexes it to his own territory. A new kingdom, Au Lac, is established with himself as ruler.

192 The Indianized Kingdom of Champa is established in the vicinity of the present-day city of Hue.

207 BCE The Chinese warlord Trieu Da (Chao To), who has broken with the Qin (Ch’in) emperor, defeats King An Duong Vuong and conquers Au Lac. Trieu Da combines it with previously held territory to form the new kingdom of Nam Viet (Nan Yueh), or the “southern country of the Viet,” with its capital at Phien Ngung (later Canton; present-day Guangzhou).

248 Unsuccessful Vietnamese revolt led by Ba Trieu, Lady Trieu.

542 Revolt by Vietnamese nationalist Ly Bon, defeated in the Battle of Dien-Triet Lake (546).

111 BCE 931

A Han expeditionary force conquers Nam Viet and adds it to the Chinese empire. For the next 1,000 years present-day northern Vietnam, except for a few brief but glorious rebellions, is a Chinese province.

Duong Dinh Nghe, ruler of Ai and Hoan (present-day Ha Trung and Thanh Hoa), drives Chinese forces from Giao Chi and wins recognition from them as military governor there.

39–42 CE 938

Vietnamese, led by Trung Trac, daughter of the Lac lord of Me-Linh Chan, assisted by her sister Trung Nhi, revolt against the Chinese. The two women are revered in

Ngo Quyen defeats the Chinese in the Battle of the Bach Dang River. After more than 1,000 years of Chinese

1731

1732

Chronology control, the Vietnamese are again independent. Vietnamese now control all of the territory from the foothills of Yunnan to the 17th Parallel.

Hai Van Pass. In the 17th century the remnants of the old Kingdom of Champa are definitively absorbed.

1481 939

The Vietnamese government creates the Don Dien agricultural settlements as a means of absorbing lands to the south.

Ngo Quyen takes the title of king of the now independent Nam Viet.

966

1527 Bo Linh declares himself emperor of northern Vietnam, naming his realm Dai Co Viet.

Mac Dang Dung, governor of Thang Long (present-day Ha Noi), overthrows the Le dynasty and by 1527 is king in all but name, prompting the southern feudal lord Nguyen Kim to set up a government-in-exile in Laos to support a Le descendant.

982 Le Hoan (Le Dai Hanh) defeats a Sung invasion, preserving national independence. He also launches a victorious southern expedition against the Kingdom of Champa.

1535 The first lasting contact between Vietnam and Europe, resulting from the arrival of Portuguese explorer and sea captain Antônio da Faria, occurs.

1069 Ly Thanh Tong seizes the Cham capital of Indrapura and imprisons its king, who wins release by ceding the districts of Dia Ly, Ma Ling, and Bo Chinh. These subsequently become the Vietnamese provinces of Quang Binh and Quang Tri.

1545 Supporters of Mac Dang Dung murder Nguyen Kim, and Vietnam dissolves into a long civil war that lasts for the next two centuries.

April 1288 Second Battle of Bach Dang River. The Vietnamese, led by Tran Hung Dao, defeat invading Monguls.

1615 The first permanent Catholic mission is established in Vietnam at Tourane (present-day Da Nang).

Early 14th Century Two more Cham districts, the O and the Ri, are given to Dai Viet in exchange for Vietnamese princess Huyen Tran’s hand in marriage. In the 15th century Chams cede all territory north of the present-day province of Quang Nam. These 14th- and 15th-century additions become the future Thua Thien Province, with its imperial capital at Hue.

1626 French priest Alexandre De Rhodes arrives in Vietnam. He is generally credited with the creation of quoc ngu, the written Vietnamese language that uses the Latin alphabet and diacritical marks.

1630s The Nguyen rulers in southern Vietnam build a wooden wall across a narrow waist of Vietnam at Dong Hoi, ironically not far from the 1954 division of the 17th Parallel. Reportedly the wall is 20 feet high and 6 miles long. For the next 150 years Vietnam is divided along that fortified line. The Trinh lords ruled northern Vietnam and the Nguyen family ruled southern Vietnam. Each family claims to rule in the name of the powerless Le king.

1407–1427 The Ming dynasty of China briefly reestablishes Chinese control over Vietnam.

1418 Le Loi (Le Thai To), proclaiming himself King Binh Dinh Vuong, begins an insurrection against the occupying Ming, defeating them in 1427. Le Loi establishes the Le dynasty that lasts until 1788, when it is ended by the Tay Son Rebellion.

1471

1636 The Dutch establish a trading post at Hanoi.

1658 The Vietnamese take the second Cham capital of Vijaya. This provides a permanent Vietnamese foothold south of

By this date the Vietnamese have taken all of southern Vietnam north of Saigon (then the fishing village of Prey Kor).

Chronology Vietnamese troops invade Cambodia to settle a succession struggle. Two years later Cambodia begins paying regular tribute to Vietnam.

1733

de Behaine and French mercenaries, reunites Vietnam from the Linh Giang River to Gia Dinh. That same year Nguyen Anh crowns himself emperor with the name of Gia Long, establishing the Nguyen dynasty. He rules during 1802–1820.

1672 Saigon falls to Vietnamese control.

1803 1680

The official name of Vietnam is established when Gia Long envoys travel to Beijing (Peking) to establish diplomatic relations with China.

The French establish their first regular trading post in Vietnam at Pho Hien.

1714–1716

1820–1841

Civil war occurs in Cambodia, and Vietnam intervenes.

1739–1749

Reign of Emperor Minh Mang.

1841–1845

War occurs between Cambodia and Vietnam in which Cambodians are defeated and lose to Vietnam additional territory in the Mekong River region.

Vietnamese-Siamese wars over Cambodia occur and end with joint rule over Cambodia by the two invaders.

1841–1847 1755–1760

Reign of Emperor Thieu Tri.

Vietnamese expansion into Cambodia continues.

April 1847 1769–1773

15

War occurs between Vietnam and Siam over Cambodia, with Siam regaining control.

At Tourane (Da Nang), French warships sink three Vietnamese ships.

1848–1883 1773

Reign of Emperor Tu Duc. The Tay Son Rebellion begins, named for Nguyen Nhac, Nguyen Lu, and Nguyen Hue, three brothers from the village of Tay Son in present-day Binh Dinh Province.

1856 The French warship Catinat shells Tourane (Da Nang).

January 1785

August 1858

19

31

Battle of Rach Gam-Xoai Mut, in which Nguyen Hue defeats an invading Siamese army.

January 1789 25–30 Victory of Ngoc Hoi–Dong Da, the greatest military achievement in modern Vietnamese history. In a lightning five-day campaign King Quang Trung (Nguyen Hue) defeats a Chinese expeditionary force commanded by Qin dynasty viceroy Sun Shiyi (Sun Shi-yi), assisted by General Xu Shiheng and supporting Le King Chieu Thong as king of Annam.

1789–1802 Reign of Quang Trung.

1802

Admiral Rigault de Genouilly’s squadron of 14 vessels with 3,000 troops arrives at Tourane (Da Nang). The troops, including 300 Filipinos sent by Spain, land the next day, storming Tourane’s forts after only perfunctory Vietnamese resistance, taking them and the port, and inaugurating the first phase of the French conquest of Indochina.

February 1859 17

The French shift their operations to the south and on this date take the fishing village of Saigon, selected because of its strategic location, its promise as a deep-water port, and the fact that it could be important in controlling the southern rice trade.

March 1860–January 1861 Nguyen Anh, heir to the Nguyen warlord family ousted by the Tay Son Rebellion, having captured all three Tay Son capitals with the aid of French missionary Pigneau

The siege of Saigon, garrisoned by 1,000 French troops against a force of 12,000 Vietnamese, occurs but is raised by the arrival of a French relief expedition.

1734

Chronology

1862 Emperor Tu Duc is forced to sign a treaty with France providing for an indemnity of 20 million francs, three treaty ports in Annam and Tonkin, and French possession of the eastern provinces of Cochin China, including Saigon.

consequence of this treaty, China relinquishes nominal suzerainty over Vietnam.

1887 Paris forms its conquests into French Indochina.

1893 1866–1867

Laos is added to French Indochina. Technically only Cochin China is an outright colony; Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos are merely “protectorates.” The French leave the emperor as a symbol of Vietnamese unity at Hue, although the French governor-general is in overall control, responsible to the minister of colonies in Paris.

French Navy lieutenant François Garnier leads an expedition up the Mekong River. The expedition determines that the river is not navigable past the waterfalls at the Lao-Cambodian border.

1867 French forces have conquered all of Cochin China and also occupied three western provinces of Cambodia.

1896 Colonel Joseph Galliéni leads an effort against Vietnamese guerrilla leader De Tham, with only partial success. By 1905 De Tham has expanded his activities and established the Nghia Hung party. During the next eight years his forces inflict serious losses on the French.

1870s The French turn their attention to northern Vietnam, where Emperor Tu Duc’s hold is weak.

November 1873

1904–1905

Former French Navy lieutenant François Garnier and a force of some 180 men in three small ships seize the citadel at Hanoi. Garnier is killed the next month while endeavoring to take all of Tonkin, and Paris repudiates his actions. Even so, Emperor Tu Duc suffers an irreparable loss of prestige.

Russo-Japanese War. For the first time in modern history, an Asian power defeats a European state. During this war the Russian fleet, after sailing from the Baltic and Black seas around the Horn of Africa and across the Indian Ocean, anchors in Cam Ranh Bay along the Vietnamese coast to take on fuel and provisions on its way to the decisive naval battle against Japan in the Tsushima Strait.

March 1874 Emperor Tu Duc recognizes French control of Cochin China and grants concessions in Hanoi and Haiphong.

March 1913 Vietnamese nationalist leader De Tham is assassinated by an associate, a Vietnamese working for the French. Although De Tham’s followers try to continue the struggle, the nationalist movement soon collapses.

1882–1885 The Black Flag Wars, also known as the Tonkin Wars, between France and Vietnam/China occur.

1914–1918 December 1884–March 3, 1885

World War I. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson raises Vietnamese nationalist hopes by calling for the selfdetermination of peoples.

The Chinese siege of Tuyen Quang occurs but is raised by the French.

1885–1913

1920

Vietnamese nationalists, acting in the name of Emperor Ham Nghi against French rule, stage a brief rebellion. Betrayed to the French, Ham Nghi is captured in 1888 and sent into exile in Algeria. Led by Vietnamese nationalist De Tham, resistance to the French in Tonkin continues.

Ho Chi Minh, foremost exponent of modern Vietnamese nationalism and member of the French Socialist Party, votes with the majority at the party conference at Tours to form the French Communist Party, becoming its expert on colonial affairs.

1923 June 1885 9

Treaty of Tientsin between China and France resulting from French military operations against China. As a

Ho Chi Minh travels to the Soviet Union, where he becomes a member of the Comintern and writes for Pravda and other Communist publications.

Chronology

Late 1924

November 1940–January 1941

Ho Chi Minh is sent to Kwangzhou, China, as a member of a Soviet advisory group working with the Chinese government. In China, Ho founds the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association (Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, or Thanh Nien for short), the forerunner of the Vietnamese Communist Party.

December 1927 25

Nguyen Thai Hoc and comrades establish the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party) as the first well-organized nationalist revolutionary party in Vietnam.

War occurs between France and Thailand, ending in a Japanese-brokered peace treaty whereby France transfers to Thailand three Cambodian and two Laotian provinces on the right bank of the Mekong River, in all some 42,000 square miles of territory. These are regained by France after World War II.

November 1940 The ICP stages a revolt in southern Vietnam that is crushed by the French military.

Late 1940 Ho Chi Minh returns to Vietnam for the first time in more than 20 years and establishes a revolutionary base area at Pac Bo in a remote mountain region along the Chinese border.

1928 Fleeing China, Ho Chi Minh travels to Thailand, where he spends almost one year building a Communist revolutionary organization among the ethnic Vietnamese community living in northeastern Thailand. This Vietnamese organization in Thailand would provide an important source of financial support, personnel, and weapons to the Vietnamese Communists during the Indochina War (1946–1954).

1735

May 1941 Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants form the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for Independence of Vietnam), commonly known as the Viet Minh.

July 1941 February 1930 3

Japan moves into southern Indochina, placing its long-range bombers within striking distance of Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines. Alarmed by this development and endeavoring to force Japan to withdraw, the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands impose an embargo on scrap iron and oil against Japan. As a result of this decision, Tokyo opts for war against the United States.

In Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh helps carry out a fusion of three Vietnamese Communist parties into what becomes the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), by World War II the dominant nationalist force in Indochina.

1930–1931 Vietnamese nationalist uprisings occur, most notably at Yen Bai. Easily crushed by the French, these are led by moderate nationalists who take as their model the Chinese Nationalists. Their organization, the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnam Nationalist Party), seeks an end to French rule and the establishment of a republican form of government.

March 1945 9

11

April 1930 30

Communist cadres lead hundreds of peasants in protests in many districts of Nghe An Province. Sporadic smaller-scale protests continue to the end of the year. Some 100 peasants are killed, but the events are not widely known and do not have the impact of the Yen Bai revolt.

The Japanese stage a coup d’état against the French government authorities and military and take power directly in Vietnam. Tokyo grants Vietnam its independence, proclaimed by Bao Dai, who for the previous decade was the Frenchcontrolled emperor of Annam and had spent the war years at Hue.

June 1945 Provisional president of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle appoints General Jacques Philippe de Hauteclocque Leclerc to command the French Expeditionary Corps to restore French sovereignty in Indochina.

September 1940 24

Under the threat of force, French governor-general of Indochina Admiral Jean Decoux grants the Japanese government the right to build three airfields and to station 6,000 troops in Tonkin.

July 1945 16

The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Deer Team, consisting of seven American military intelligence personnel, parachutes into Ho Chi Minh’s Pac Bo base

1736

Chronology area in northern Vietnam to advise and train Communist military forces led by Ho’s military commander, Vo Nguyen Giap.

October 1945 25

French general Jacques Leclerc begins the reconquest of Indochina for France, predicting that it will take about a month for “mopping-up operations.”

July–August 1945 The Potsdam Conference in Germany produces an agreement regarding the disarmament of Japanese forces in Indochina. Chinese Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist) forces will take surrender of Japanese troops north of the 16th Parallel, and British troops will do so south of that line.

November 1945 11

January 1946 6

August 1945 15

16

19 24 25 27

Provisional president of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle appoints monk-turned-admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu as high commissioner for Indochina with instructions to restore French sovereignty in Indochina. In Hanoi, veteran Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh declares himself president of the provisional government of a “free Vietnam.” The Viet Minh seize power in Hanoi. In Saigon, Viet Minh leader Tran Van Giau declares the insurrection under way in southern Vietnam. Emperor Bao Dai abdicates, becoming First Citizen Vinh Thuy. Ho Chi Minh convenes his first cabinet meeting at Hanoi.

Elections occur in North Vietnam. Although the elections were not entirely free, there is no doubt that Ho Chi Minh and his supporters have won. The government is Communist-dominated but includes anti-Communist nationalists because Ho still hopes for recognition and aid from the United States.

February 1946 28

The Franco-Chinese Accords secure Chinese withdrawal from North Vietnam in return for France yielding certain concessions in China. Chinese forces leave North Vietnam the next month.

March 1946 6

September 1945 Ho Chi Minh publicly announces the formation of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), with its capital at Hanoi. 5 French general Jacques Leclerc arrives in Saigon. 13 In accordance with the Potsdam Agreements, 5,000 troops of the 20th Indian Division, commanded by General Douglas Gracey, arrive in southern Indochina. Gracey, who detests the Viet Minh, subsequently rearms some 1,400 French soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese. 14 Nationalist Chinese troops enter North Vietnam to disarm Japanese troops north of the 16th Parallel. 16–22 The North Vietnamese government organizes Tuan Le Vang (Gold Week), appealing to the people to turn in gold and other valuables so that the government might purchase arms from the Chinese. Much of the money goes to bribe Chinese commander Lu Han to secure his support and end aid to the nationalist parties. 22 French troops return to Vietnam. 26 OSS lieutenant colonel A. Peter Dewey is killed in Saigon by the Viet Minh.

In a bid to widen his base at home and win Western support abroad, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh overtly dissolves the ICP.

2

27

North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with French representative Jean Sainteny to set future relationship between North Vietnam and France. North Vietnam agrees to a French military presence in North Vietnam: 15,000 French and 10,000 Vietnamese troops under unified French command to protect French lives and property, although Paris promises to withdraw 3,000 of them each year. All are to be withdrawn by the end of 1951, with the possible exception of those guarding bases. In return, France recognizes North Vietnam as a “free state with its own government, parliament, army and finances, forming part of the Indochinese Federation of the French Union.” In a key provision, France also agrees to a referendum in southern Vietnam to see if it desires to join North Vietnam in a unified state, although no date for the vote is specified. Paris also agrees to train and equip units of the new Vietnamese Army. French commander in Indochina General Jacques Leclerc declares, in a report to Paris kept secret from the French people, that there will be no solution through force in Indochina.

April 1946 3

North Vietnamese representative Vo Nguyen Giap and French general Raoul Salan reach agreement on the stationing of French troops in North Vietnam.

Chronology

June 1946 1

troops at Haiphong, ordering him to “give a severe lesson to those who have treacherously attacked you. Use all the means at your disposal to make yourself complete master of Haiphong and so bring the Vietnamese army around to a better understanding of the situation.” Debès duly delivers an ultimatum to Vietnamese officials at Haiphong, ordering them to withdraw from the French section of the city, the Chinese quarter, and the port. He gives them only two hours to reply. The French then subject Vietnamese military positions to air, land, and sea bombardment, the bulk of the firepower from the French Navy cruiser Suffren. Casualty figures of from 200 to 20,000 are cited. Fighting in the port city continues into November 28.

Shortly after the departure of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh for France to meet with French government officials, French high commissioner for Indochina Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu torpedoes French diplomat Jean Sainteny’s work by proclaiming in Saigon the establishment of the “Republic of Cochin China.” This in effect nullifies justification for the planned referendum in South Vietnam to see if its people wish to join North Vietnam.

July 6–September 10, 1946 The Fontainebleau Conference between a North Vietnamese delegation headed by Ho Chi Minh and French government officials fails to resolve the issue of Cochin China. The sum of its work is a draft accord reinforcing France’s economic rights in North Vietnam.

December 1946 19

August 1946 North Vietnam establishes a representative office in Bangkok, Thailand, the first North Vietnamese diplomatic office abroad. This office becomes important for the purchase of weapons and ammunition to be shipped clandestinely to Vietnam.

15

22

23

An armed clash occurs between French troops, escorting a commission to Lang Son to investigate French dead at the hands of the Japanese, and Vietnamese forces. The French lose six men, and each side accuses the other of responsibility. This is overshadowed by another more ominous event the same day. The French Navy has virtually blockaded Tonkin’s principal port of Haiphong, and a French patrol vessel seizes a Chinese junk attempting to smuggle contraband. Vietnamese soldiers on the shore fire on the French vessel, and shooting also breaks out in the city itself. A subsequent agreement between French and Vietnamese officials brings fighting to an end by the afternoon of November 22, however. French high commissioner to Indochina George Thierry d’Argenlieu, then in Paris, seeks to use the violence in Haiphong to teach the Vietnamese a lesson. Obtaining the approval of French premier Georges Bidault, d’Argenlieu cables General Jean-Étienne Valluy, his deputy in Saigon, who in turn orders General Louis Constant Morlière, commander in North Vietnam, to use force against the Vietnamese. Morlière points out in vain that the situation in Haiphong has stabilized and that any imprudent act might lead to general hostilities. French general Jean-Étienne Valluy in Saigon telegraphs Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès, commander of French

French general Louis Constant Morlière demands the disarmament of the Tu Ve, the Viet Minh militia that has been sniping at French troops in Hanoi. That night fear and mistrust, fueled by bloodshed and broken promises, finally erupt into full-scale fighting. The Indochina War has begun.

February 1947

November 1946 20

1737

After almost two months of fighting, Ho Chi Minh orders those Viet Minh military forces still fighting inside Hanoi to withdraw from the city. Ho moves his government and military headquarters into the mountain jungles of the Viet Bac region, north of Hanoi.

May 1947 11 12

France proclaims Laos an independent state within the French Union. Paul Mus, personal adviser to French high commissioner Émile Bolleart, meets with North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh to present a plan drawn up by General Jean-Étienne Valluy and approved by Socialist premier Paul Ramadier calling on the Viet Minh to refrain from hostilities, lay down some arms, permit French troops freedom of movement, and return prisoners, deserters, and hostages. Ho rejects this as tantamount to surrender.

October 1947 7

The French begin Operation LÉA. Directed by General Raoul Salan, LÉA involves some 12,000 men during a threeweek period over some 80,000 square miles of nearly impenetrable terrain in the northeast Viet Bac region.

November 1947 20

The French launch Operation CEINTURE (BELT), designed to crush enemy forces in a quadrangle northwest of Hanoi

1738

Chronology and capture the North Vietnamese leadership, who escape.

November 1949 4

North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh decrees mobilization for all adult males between 16 and 55.

January 1948 15–16 The ICP Central Committee decides to shift the fighting from the defensive to a contention stage.

January 1950 14

February 1948 The newly independent nation of Burma (present-day Myanmar) recognizes the North Vietnamese government, which establishes diplomatic office in Rangoon, the Burmese capital. Burma covertly provides 500 weapons and ammunition to Viet Minh forces in Laos, the first foreign military assistance to be received by Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces.

18

30

North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh declares the government of North Vietnam as the only legal government of Vietnam. The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) formally recognizes the North Vietnamese government and agrees to furnish it with military assistance. The Soviet Union extends formal diplomatic recognition to North Vietnam.

January–February 1950 North Vietnamese chairman Ho Chi Minh visits Beijing and Moscow, where he secures promises of military and economic assistance from China and the Soviet Union.

April 1948 The French induce Emperor Bao Dai to return to Vietnam.

February 1950 June 1948 5

High Commissioner Émile Bollaert and General Nguyen Van Xuan sign the Baie d’Along Agreement, which names Bao Dai chief of state and recognizes the independence of Vietnam within the French Union. Vietnamese from all sides condemn the Bao Dai government as a French puppet.

7 21 27

Great Britain and the United States extend full diplomatic recognition to the State of Vietnam. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh declares a general mobilization in North Vietnam. The U.S. National Security Council (NSC) signs NSC-64, a memorandum recommending “that all practicable measures be taken” to block further Communist expansion in Southeast Asia.

March 1949 8

Paris concludes the Élysée Agreements with former emperor Bao Dai. These create the State of Vietnam, with Paris conceding that Vietnam is in fact one country.

June–October 1949 The Thap Van Dai Son (Ten Thousand Mountains) Campaign takes place. The Viet Minh army sends four battalions across the Chinese border to help Chinese Communist forces defeat Chinese nationalist forces in Yunan, Kwangsi, and Kwanzhou provinces.

March 1950 6

May 1950 8 30

25 The State of Vietnam is formally established by Bao Dai decrees.

August 1949 28

The Viet Minh 308th Division, the first division formed by the armed forces of North Vietnam, is created.

October 1949 The Communists defeat the GMD and come to power in China.

The United States announces plans to extend economic and military aid to the French in Indochina. A U.S. economic mission is established in Saigon.

June 1950

July 1949 1

A U.S. mission arrives in Saigon to study economic assistance to the State of Vietnam.

27

The Korean People’s Army (KPA, North Korean Army) attacks south across the 38th Parallel in Korea. U.S. president Harry S. Truman authorizes U.S. air and naval operations against North Korean forces south of the 38th Parallel. He also announces the deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait. That same day, the United Nations (UN) Security Council passes a resolution calling upon members to provide assistance to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) in resisting aggression. Truman also announces the “acceleration in the furnishing of military assistance to the forces of France and the associated states in Indochina and

Chronology

30

dispatch of a military mission to provide close working relations with those forces.” Eight C-47 transports arrive in Saigon with the first direct shipment of U.S. military equipment to the French fighting in Indochina.

July 1950 26

U.S. president Harry S. Truman signs legislation providing $15 million in aid to the French war effort in Indochina.

1739

the Red River delta. Viet Minh commander General Vo Nguyen Giap’s goal is to take the city of Hanoi.

February 1951 11–19 Meeting of the Second National Communist Party Congress, which changes the party’s name to the Lao Dong Party (Vietnam Workers’ Party).

March 1951 In Operation HOANG HOA THAM, Viet Minh forces again try to secure the Red River Delta and are again defeated.

August 1950 3

The U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group–Indochina (MAAG-I) is established in Saigon. The mission of the 35-man group is to screen French requests for American military aid, assist in the training of South Vietnamese troops, and advise on strategy.

Summer 1950

May–June 1951 In Operation HA NAM NINH, the third Viet Minh offensive to try to secure the Red River Delta, the attacks, centered in the southeastern part of the delta, are again blunted by the French.

September 1951

The Viet Minh 308th Division and two independent regiments cross the border into China, where they are given additional combat training and issued more modern equipment.

September 1950 16

After the newly trained and reequipped Viet Minh units return from China, accompanied by Chinese military advisers, Viet Minh forces launch the Border Campaign, designed to destroy all French forces stationed along the Sino-Vietnamese border.

October 1950 7

17

The French garrison evacuating Cao Bang and a relief column from That Khe are destroyed by the Viet Minh in fighting at Dong Khe. The French evacuate Lang Son.

7

Nguyen Binh, the commander of all Viet Minh military forces in Cochin China, is killed in northeastern Cambodia by a French Army patrol. French commander in Indochina General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny travels to Washington seeking more aid from the United States. The United States signs an agreement with the State of Vietnam to provide it with economic assistance.

November–February 1952 The “meat-grinder” Battle of Hoa Binh is initiated by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Casualty totals suggest a French victory, but the battle is actually something of a stalemate.

July 1952 U.S. president Harry S. Truman upgrades the American legation in Saigon to embassy status.

December 1950 General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, one of France’s most famous generals, is appointed commander in Indochina and also named high commissioner, giving him civilian as well as military authority.

October 1952 Over the course of the next several months beginning in October 1952, Viet Minh forces undertake the conquest of Thai Highlands in northwestern Vietnam in what becomes known as the Northwest Campaign.

December 1950 23

The United States signs a mutual defense assistance agreement with France, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

January 1951 The Viet Minh carries out Operation TRAN HUNG DAO, also known as the General Counteroffensive, by large conventional units against main French defensive line in

October–November 1952 In Operation LORRAINE, General Raoul Salan, who assumes command in Indochina on General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s departure for France, employs 30,000 troops in the largest French military operation of the war. Salan hopes that by striking Viet Minh general Vo Nguyen Giap’s base areas, he can force Giap to return divisions to

1740

Chronology their defense and thereby abandon the effort to conquer the Thai highlands. The operation is largely unsuccessful, however.

March 1954

April 1953 Viet Minh and Communist Pathet Lao troops seize much of northern Laos. U.S. vice president Richard Nixon visits Vietnam and tells the French that “It is impossible to lay down arms until victory is won.”

13

April 1954 26

May 1953 20

General Henri Navarre assumes command of French Union forces in Vietnam.

July 1953

27

Operation HIRONDELLE (SWALLOW), a 2,000-man paratroop operation initiated by new French commander in Indochina General Henri Navarre, is intended to destroy supplies at the important Viet Minh base of Lang Son. An armistice is signed in Korea.

29

6

U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower approves $385 million in military aid for the French in Indochina. 7

October 1953 Paris grants full independence to the Kingdom of Laos.

November 1953 20

In Operation CASTOR, 2,200 French paratroopers drop into the valley north and south of the village of Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Tonkin to defeat the Viet Minh garrison there, create a new airhead, and draw Viet Minh forces into pitched battle.

December 1953

25

The Viet Minh begin a drive that overruns much of southern and central Laos against only light resistance. French Union forces evacuate Thakhek on the Mekong River.

8

American pilot James B. McGovern Jr. and copilot Wallace Buford are shot down and killed while flying an aerial resupply mission for the beleaguered French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. The pilots were flying a C-119 Flying Boxcar for the Taiwan-based Civil Air Transport, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) front airline that was later renamed Air America. Following the death of OSS lieutenant colonel Peter Dewey in Saigon on September 26, 1945, McGovern and Buford are the second and third Americans to die in the Indochina War. The last French troops surrender at Dien Bien Phu, officially ending the battle. The Indochina phase of the Geneva Conference begins.

June 1954

17 18

20

26

January 1954 Operation ATLANTE, a 15-battalion mainly Vietnamese National Army (VNA) land assault northward from Nha Trang with amphibious landing near Tuy Hoa, occurs. Giap anticipates this and orders his forces not to give battle but merely to harass attacking units. The VNA performs poorly, with whole units deserting. ATLANTE bogs down and simply peters out.

An international conference to discuss a range of Asian issues, including Indochina, opens at Geneva. U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States will not intervene militarily in Indochina.

May 1954

September 1953 30

In a series of raids, Viet Minh commandos attack French air bases at Gia Lam near Hanoi and Do Son and Cat Bi airfields near Haiphong, destroying 22 aircraft vital to the French effort at Dien Bien Phu. The siege of the French entrenched positions at Dien Bien Phu officially begins with a heavy Viet Minh bombardment.

French Groupe Mobile 100 is destroyed by two Viet Minh regiments along Route 19. French control in the Central Highlands is now limited to a small area around Ban Me Thuot and Dalat. Pierre Mendès-France becomes French premier and foreign minister. From his chateau in Cannes, France, Bao Dai selects Ngo Dinh Diem as the new premier of the State of Vietnam. French premier Pierre Mendès-France imposes a 30-day timetable for an Indochina agreement, promising to resign if one is not reached by the end of the deadline. New State of Vietnam premier Ngo Dinh Diem arrives in Saigon.

July 1954 7

21

State of Vietnam premier Ngo Dinh Diem officially forms his new government, which claims to embrace all of Vietnam. The Geneva Conference issues three cease-fire agreements and one final declaration. Cambodia, Laos, and

Chronology Vietnam are all declared independent. Vietnam is temporarily divided into northern and southern zones pending nationwide elections, to be held in 1956.

August 1954 Hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly Catholic, begin moving from North Vietnam to southern Vietnam under the terms of the Geneva Accords.

September 1954 8

The Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty and Protocol is signed in Manila. Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) member states—the United States, France, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand—pledge themselves only to “act to meet the common danger” in the event of aggression against any signatory state. A separate protocol extends the treaty’s security provisions to Laos, Cambodia, and the “free territory under the jurisdiction of the State of Vietnam.”

16

French forces complete their evacuation of Hanoi. U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower writes to State of Vietnam premier Ngo Dinh Diem and promises direct assistance to his government, now in control of southern Vietnam.

The French Army completes its withdrawal from the Haiphong area under the terms of the Geneva Agreement, leaving all of North Vietnam in Communist hands.

July 1955 19

20

The North Vietnamese government in Hanoi proposes to the State of Vietnam government in Saigon the naming of representatives for the conference to negotiate general elections as called for in 1954 Geneva Agreement. The State of Vietnam rejects the request by the North Vietnamese government for the opening of negotiations regarding the elections to reunify Vietnam. The State of Vietnam claims that it was not a party to the Geneva Agreement and that the elections in North Vietnam would not be free.

August 1955 9

October 1954 9 24

31

The government of the State of Vietnam declares that it will not enter into negotiations with the North Vietnamese government on elections as long as a Communist government continues in North Vietnam. U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles supports the position of the government of the State of Vietnam regarding its refusal to hold national elections to reunify the two Vietnamese states.

November 1954

October 1955

8

23

Former U.S. Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins arrives in Saigon. Appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as special ambassador with authority over all U.S. government agencies in Vietnam, Collins assures Diem of American support in his test of wills with army chief of staff General Nguyen Van Hinh, who at the end of the month goes into exile.

1741

26

After Emperor Bao Dai, still in France, tries to remove Ngo Dinh Diem as premier, Diem organizes a referendum, held on this date. Carefully managed by Diem, it results in a 98 percent vote in his favor. Using the referendum results as justification, State of Vietnam premier Ngo Dinh Diem proclaims the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) with himself as president.

January 1955 1

Washington begins channeling its aid directly to the Ngo Dinh Diem government of the State of Vietnam.

January 1956 11

February 1955 12

The U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) takes over responsibility for training and organization of the State of Vietnam Army from the French.

March 1956 4

March–April 1955 Fighting occurs between State of Vietnam Army units loyal to Diem and the gangster organization in Saigon known as the Binh Xuyen.

State of Vietnam premier Ngo Dinh Diem formally requests U.S. military advisers.

South Vietnamese go to the polls and elect a 123-member national legislative assembly.

April 1956 6

May 1955 10

South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s government issues Ordinance No. 6, allowing arrest and detention of anyone “considered dangerous to national defense and common security.”

26

The South Vietnamese government again declares that it is a “non-signatory to the Geneva Agreements” and “continues not to recognize their provisions.” France officially abolishes its high command in Indochina.

1742

Chronology

May 1956 11

22

The North Vietnamese government again proposes convening the Consultative Conference on elections called for in the 1954 Geneva Agreement. The South Vietnamese government, in a diplomatic note to the British government, again rejects talks on countrywide elections.

obligations under the 1954 Geneva Accords during the period December 1955–August 1956.

February 1957 9

The PAVN requests that the ICC investigate the detention of 1,700 former Viet Minh by South Vietnamese authorities at Hoi An in Quang Nam Province.

July 1956

May 1957

20

5–19

The deadline set by the 1954 Geneva Conference for free elections. The date passes without elections being held. South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem claims that lack of freedom in North Vietnam makes it impossible to hold elections.

August 1956 Le Duan, leader of the covert Communist forces remaining in South Vietnam, writes the “Tenets of the Revolution of South Vietnam,” a call to arms that advocates the use of “revolutionary violence” to “liberate” South Vietnam.

South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem visits the United States and addresses a joint session of Congress. President Dwight D. Eisenhower calls him the “miracle man” of Asia and reaffirms U.S. support for the Diem regime.

August 1958 10

Some 400 raiders attack the large Michelin rubber plantation north of Saigon, easily defeating its security force and making off with more than 100 weapons and 5 million piasters (some $143,000).

December 1958 September 1956 14

22

The last French troops leave Saigon.

October 1956 26

The new South Vietnamese constitution, heavily weighted toward control by the executive, goes into effect. South Vietnam is divided into 41 provinces and then subdivided into districts and villages. These apparent reforms are largely a sham, as South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem increasingly subjects South Vietnam to authoritarian rule.

January 1959 The Central Committee of the ruling North Vietnamese Lao Dong Party meets to debate Resolution 15, which authorizes the use of armed insurrection in South Vietnam although maintaining that it should remain secondary to the “political struggle.” After prolonged discussion, the resolution is finally approved in a second Central Committee session held in May.

November 1956 Land reform in North Vietnam leads to outright revolt. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) 325th Division is called out to crush rebels in Nghe An Province. In all, some 6,000 farmers are deported or executed.

North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong writes to South Vietnamese premier Ngo Dinh Diem and repeats proposals for mutual force reductions, economic exchanges, free movement between zones, and an end to hostile propaganda.

February 1959 6

The ICC concludes that South Vietnamese authorities have subjected to reprisal former Viet Minh in Quang Nam Province.

Early 1957 Le Duan is recalled from South Vietnam to take over leadership of the Lao Dong Party in Hanoi following the removal of party secretary-general Truong Chinh as a result of the failure of North Vietnam’s land reform program.

April 1959 4

30

January 1957 3

The International Control Commission (ICC) established under the 1954 Geneva Accords report accuses both North Vietnam and South Vietnam of failing to fulfill

U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, speaking at Gettysburg College, commits the United States to maintaining South Vietnam as a separate national entity. In Saigon, 18 prominent opposition politicians, calling themselves the Committee for Progress and Liberty, issue an open letter to South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem protesting governmental abuses. They are promptly arrested.

Chronology

May 1959

6

U.S. military advisers are assigned at the regimental level in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). North Vietnam establishes the 559th Transportation Group (named for the fifth month of 1959) to move supplies south through eastern Laos, thus beginning the Ho Chi Minh Trail complex. At the invitation of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. three training teams of 10 men each from 77th Special Forces Group on Okinawa arrive in South Vietnam and set up training schools at Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Song Mao. The South Vietnamese legislature passes National Assembly Law 10/59, an internal security measure that empowers government to try suspected terrorists by roving tribunals that can impose the death penalty.

February 1960 5

8

September 1959

26

North Vietnam forms Military Specialist Group 959 to support and advise dissident Communist Pathet Lao forces and, later, to command Vietnamese regular army units fighting in Laos. The 2nd Liberation Battalion ambushes two companies of the ARVN 23rd Division, killing 12 men and capturing most of their weapons. This attack leads the South Vietnamese government and U.S. officials to begin referring to the rebels as Viet Cong (VC), a pejorative for “Vietnamese Communist.”

December 1959 31

The South Vietnamese government requests that Washington double its MAAG strength from 342 to 685 men.

April 1960 North Vietnam imposes universal military conscription.

May 1960 Thirty instructors from the U.S. Army 7th Special Forces Group deploy to South Vietnam.

August 1960 9

Laotian Army captain Kong Le mounts a neutralist coup that overthrows the right-wing Royal Lao government, sparking all-out civil war in Laos.

September 1960 At the Lao Dong Third Congress, held in Hanoi, the leadership goes on public record as supporting the establishment of a united front and approving a program of the violent overthrow of the government led by President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. There were now two preeminent tasks: carrying out a “socialist revolution” in North Vietnam and “liberating the South.”

July 1959 North Vietnamese authorities organize Group 759 to oversee the movement of supplies to Communist insurgents in South Vietnam by sea. Two U.S. servicemen are killed in a Communist attack on Bien Hoa in South Vietnam, the first Americans to die in the Vietnam War.

1743

November 1960 The leadership of North Vietnam calls for intensified struggle in South Vietnam and establishment of a “broad national united front.” 11–12 In Saigon, three battalions of ARVN paratroopers and marines under command of Colonel Nguyen Van Thai and Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Van Dong surround the presidential palace in an effort to force President Ngo Dinh Diem to institute reforms, a new government, and more effective prosecution of the war. Diem outmaneuvers them by agreeing to a long list of reforms—including freedom of the press, a coalition government, and new elections—until he can bring up loyal units. Most ARVN officers participating in the coup flee to Cambodia, returning only after Diem is overthrown.

Some 760 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam.

December 1960 January 1960 16

An uprising occurs in South Vietnam in Ben Tre Province, some 100 miles from Saigon in the Mekong Delta, largely in reaction to repression on the part of the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

Late January 1960 Communist forces attack a regiment of the ARVN 21st Infantry Division at Trang Sup, Tay Ninh Province, securing several hundred weapons.

20

The North Vietnamese government announces the formation of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]). Designed to replicate the Viet Minh as an umbrella nationalist organization, the NLF reaches out to all those disaffected by the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. From the beginning, the NLF is completely dominated by the Lao Dong Party Central Committee and is North Vietnam’s shadow government in South Vietnam.

1744

Chronology

31

Some 900 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam.

achieved. Staley’s recommendations center on protection of the civilian population. He advocates substantial increases in the size of the ARVN, the Civil Guard, and local militias and seeks improved arms and equipment at the local level. Finally, he calls for construction of a network of strategic hamlets, based on South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s earlier Agroville Program.

January 1961 19

Outgoing U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower tells incoming president John F. Kennedy that Laos is “the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia” and that the situation there may require U.S. armed intervention.

March 1961 27

August 1961

A regimental cadre core group of several hundred officers and noncommissioned officers, carrying full equipment and weapons, arrives in War Zone D, northeast of Saigon, after infiltrating down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam. After arrival, the first full VC regiment, the 761st Regiment (also known as the 271st Regiment), is formed around this core group.

Phuong Dong 1 (Vostok 1), a large infiltration group consisting mostly of senior headquarters staff officers (600 officers and men led by PAVN General Staff deputy chief Tran Van Quang), arrives in War Zone D northwest of Saigon after marching down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam.

September 1961 April 1961

9

North Vietnamese troops capture Tchepone on Route 9 in Laos and immediately begin construction work to turn it into a major hub on the Ho Chi Minh Trail network to ship supplies and reinforcements to Communist forces in South Vietnam. Ngo Dinh Diem is reelected president of South Vietnam with a reported 89 percent of the vote.

18

October 1961

May 1961 9–15

15

U.S. vice president Lyndon Johnson visits Saigon. Although later expressing reservations privately about South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, Johnson publicly hails him as the “Winston Churchill of Southeast Asia.” Less than a week after Johnson’s return to Washington, Kennedy agrees to an increase in ARVN strength from 170,000 to 270,000 men. The U.S. State Department informs America’s allies that the United States will increase MAAG personnel beyond the limit imposed by the 1954 Geneva Accords, citing as justification North Vietnamese violations of the agreement.

June 1961

18

A 14-nation conference convenes in Geneva and over the next year works out a tripartite coalition government for Laos.

June–July 1961 A U.S. fact-finding mission under Dr. Eugene Staley takes place in South Vietnam. Staley’s findings, reported to President John F. Kennedy in August, stress that South Vietnam needs a self-sustaining economy and that military action alone will not work. Only with substantial social and political reform can favorable results be

VC forces carry out a series of attacks in Kontum Province. A VC battalion besieges the provincial capital of Phuoc Vinh, some 36 miles north of Saigon.

U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s chief military adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow lead a second fact-finding trip to South Vietnam. They see the situation there primarily in military terms and recommend to Kennedy a change in the U.S. role from advisory only to a “limited partnership” with South Vietnam. They urge increased U.S. economic aid and military advisory support, to include intensive training of local self-defense forces and a large increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel. A secret appendix recommends deployment of 8,000 American combat troops that might be used to support the ARVN in military operations. The Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) is formed in War Zone D northeast of Saigon to command the Communist effort in South Vietnam. South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem declares a state of national emergency because of increased VC activity and the severe floods that have beset South Vietnam.

November 1961 16

22

U.S. president John F. Kennedy announces his decision to increase South Vietnamese military strength but not commit U.S. combat forces there. U.S. National Security Action Memorandum No. 111 authorizes the commitment to South Vietnam of additional helicopters, transport planes, and warplanes as

Chronology well as personnel to carry out training and actual combat missions.

December 1961 6

8

11 16 31

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) authorizes Operation FARM GATE. U.S. personnel and aircraft may undertake combat missions, providing at least one Vietnamese national is carried on board strike aircraft for training purposes. The U.S. State Department issues a White Paper accusing the North Vietnamese government of aggression against South Vietnam and warning of a “clear and present danger” of Communist victory. The U.S. Navy ship Core arrives at Saigon with the first U.S. helicopter units and 400 air and ground crewmen. The first U.S. FARM GATE mission is flown in South Vietnam. Some 3,200 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam. Communist troop strength in South Vietnam stands at 24,500 full-time soldiers and 100,000 local guerrillas. During 1961, 7,664 Communist troops from North Vietnam have infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam.

1745

Cu flees to Cambodia, where he remains until November 1963.

May 1962

15

Communist forces gain control of a large area of Laos as several thousand Royal Lao Army troops flee into Thailand. U.S. president John F. Kennedy announces the dispatch of U.S. troops to Thailand (at Thai government request) because of the Communist offensive in Laos and the movement of Communist forces toward the Thai border.

June 1962 2

Canadian and Indian members of the ICC declare the North Vietnamese government guilty of violating the 1954 Geneva Accords in carrying out “hostile activities, including armed attacks,” against South Vietnamese armed forces and the South Vietnamese administration. All three members of the ICC (Canada, India, and Poland) find South Vietnam guilty of violating the Geneva Accords by receiving additional military aid and entering into a “factual military alliance” with the United States.

July 1962 January 1962 12

23

Operation RANCH HAND, the spraying of defoliant herbicides in South Vietnam, begins.

A declaration and protocol on the neutrality of Laos is signed by the 14-nation conference in Geneva. The tripartite coalition government that it establishes proves short-lived, however.

February 1962 4

6

11

14

27

The first U.S. helicopter is shot down over South Vietnam while ferrying ARVN troops into battle near the village of Hong My. The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), is established, commanded by General Paul D. Harkins, to direct the U.S. war effort inside South Vietnam. First FARM GATE casualties. Nine U.S. and South Vietnamese crewmen are killed in the crash of a C-47 aircraft near Saigon. U.S. president John F. Kennedy authorizes U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam to return fire if fired upon. South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem survives another coup attempt when Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnam Air Force) pilots Lieutenants Pham Phu Quoc and Nguyen Van Cu try to kill him and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu by bombing and strafing the presidential palace. As a result, dozens of Diem political opponents disappear, and thousands more are sent to prison camps. Lieutenant Quoc is arrested after his AD-6 crash-lands in Nha Be, near Saigon. Lieutenant

December 1962

31

Communist troop strength in North Vietnam stands at 40,000. During 1962 almost 10,000 North Vietnamese infiltrators make their way down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Some 11,300 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam.

January 1963 2

ARVN forces suffer a major defeat in the Battle of Ap Bac, which occurs some 40 miles southwest of Saigon.

February 1963 26

U.S. helicopter crews escorting ARVN troops are ordered to shoot first in encountering enemy soldiers.

May 1963 8

Buddhist riots in Hue occur protesting the South Vietnamese government ban on flying the multicolored flag of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. South Vietnamese riot police kill eight demonstrators, including some children, leading to widespread Buddhist antigovernment demonstrations throughout South Vietnam.

1746

Chronology

June 1963 11

2

The elderly Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burns himself to death in protest of South Vietnamese government policies.

July 1963 17

In Saigon, South Vietnamese police break up a Buddhist protest demonstration against alleged religious discrimination.

4 14

August 1963 20 21

22 24

South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem declares martial law. South Vietnamese Special Forces loyal to President Ngo Dinh Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu attack Buddhist pagodas in Saigon, Hue, and other cities. Many of the structures are damaged, and more than 1,400 Buddhists are arrested. Henry Cabot Lodge replaces Frederick Nolting as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. A U.S. State Department cable to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in Saigon acknowledges Ngo Dinh Nhu’s responsibility for the raids on Buddhist pagodas and says that South Vietnamese generals should be told that Washington is prepared to discontinue economic and military aid to Diem.

22

23

December 1963 21

31

September 1963 2

U.S. president John F. Kennedy, in a CBS news interview, says that the war in South Vietnam cannot be won “unless the people support the effort,” adding “in my opinion, in the last two months, the Government has gotten out of touch with the people.”

October 1963 2

3

The U.S. government decides to suspend economic subsidies for South Vietnamese commercial imports, to freeze loans for developmental projects, and to cut off financial support of Ngo Dinh Nhu’s 2,000-man South Vietnamese Special Forces. This is a clear signal to those planning a coup against South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. The first clandestine North Vietnamese infiltration trawler arrives at a covert landing site in the Mekong Delta and unloads more than 20 tons of weapons and ammunition.

November 1963 1

A military coup led by major generals Duong Van Minh, Ton That Dinh, and Tran Van Don overthrows the South Vietnamese government of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

Both South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother and chief adviser Ngo Dinh Nhu, who U.S. leaders assumed would be given safe passage out of the country, are murdered by the coup leaders, who set up a provisional government, suspend the constitution, and dissolve the National Assembly. Washington recognizes the new South Vietnamese provisional government. In Saigon, U.S. Army major general Charles Timnes announces that 1,000 Americans will be returning home by the end of December. U.S. president John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He is succeeded by Vice President Lyndon Johnson. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson reaffirms Washington’s commitment to South Vietnam and to the defeat of the Communist forces there.

U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara reports to President Lyndon B. Johnson that the situation in South Vietnam is “very disturbing” and that “current trends, unless reversed in the next 2–3 months, will lead to neutralization at best or more likely to a Communistcontrolled state.” Some 16,300 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam. Communist troop strength in South Vietnam stands at 70,000. Between early 1959 and the end of 1963, more than 40,000 Communist troops have infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese leadership decides to send PAVN regular army units to South Vietnam. In Hanoi, the Lao Dong Party Central Committee’s 9th Plenum approves resolution condemning “revisionism.” This resolution aligns the party firmly with China in the Sino-Soviet split, causing internal divisions within the party that will fester for several years and ultimately result in the 1967 Anti-Party Affair arrests and purges.

January 1964 16

27

U.S. president Lyndon Johnson authorizes covert operations against North Vietnam (OPLAN 34A). Such operations, to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces supported by U.S. forces, would gather intelligence and conduct sabotage in order to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime. OPLAN 34A operations begin in February. Two PAVN regiments and Pathet Lao forces launch an offensive in central Laos to clear the corridor along the Laotian–North Vietnamese border for expanded troop infiltration and supply shipments down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Chronology 30

Major General Nguyen Khanh ousts the South Vietnamese government headed by General Duong Van Minh. U.S. officials, caught by surprise, promptly hail Khanh as the new savior because he promises to rule with a strong hand.

March 1964 U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara visits South Vietnam and vows U.S. support for the Nguyen Khanh government. McNamara barnstorms the country, describing Khanh in memorized Vietnamese as the country’s “best possible leader.”

April 1964 North Vietnam commences infiltration of regular PAVN units into South Vietnam.

May 1964 15

South Vietnamese leader General Nguyen Khanh signs a decree removing the Ngo Dinh Diem regime restrictions against Buddhists in South Vietnam and granting them the same rights as those enjoyed by Catholics.

June 1964 9

20

In response to the Communist Pathet Lao/PAVN spring offensive in Laos, the United States begins Operation BARREL ROLL, a bombing campaign to support Royal Laotian Army and CIA-trained Hmong irregular forces led by General Vang Pao. General William C. Westmoreland replaces General Paul D. Harkins as commander of MACV. Both Westmoreland and U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge favor vigorous action to stiffen South Vietnamese leader General Nguyen Khanh’s resolve.

July 1964 7

General Maxwell Taylor arrives in South Vietnam as the new U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. 25 The government of the Soviet Union calls for reconvening the Geneva Conference on Laos. 30–31 South Vietnamese naval forces, using American Swift Boats, carry out commando raids on Hon Me and Hon Nhieu islands, 7 and 2.5 miles, respectively, off the coast of North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government accuses the United States and South Vietnam of an “extremely serious” violation of the 1954 Geneva Accords.

3

North Vietnam endorses the Soviet Union’s call for reconvening the Geneva Conference “to preserve the peace of Indochina and Southeast Asia.” 4 Captain John Herrick, the commander of the U.S. Navy destroyer Maddox, claims that his ship and the accompanying destroyer C. Turner Joy are under attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although doubts are quickly raised by Herrick himself as to whether an attack has actually occurred, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson orders strikes by carrier aircraft (Operation PIERCE ARROW) against “gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam.” 5 During the PIERCE ARROW attacks on North Vietnam, two American aircraft are shot down. One pilot is killed, and Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Everret Alvarez is captured and becomes the first U.S. prisoner of war (POW) in North Vietnam. 7 The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing “all necessary steps, including the use of armed force,” in Southeast Asia. Senate passage comes with only two dissenting votes; the House vote is unanimous. South Vietnamese leader Nguyen Khanh declares a “state of emergency.” 16 General Nguyen Khanh, elected president of South Vietnam by the Military Council, ousts General Duong Van Minh as chief of state and installs a new constitution, which the U.S. embassy had helped draft. 21–25 In South Vietnam, student demonstrations occur against President Nguyen Khanh and the South Vietnamese military government. These then turn into riots. 27 The new constitution of South Vietnam is withdrawn, and the ruling Revolutionary Council is dissolved. A triumvirate of generals Nguyen Khanh, Duong Van Minh, and Tran Thien Khiem is created. 29 Nguyen Xuan Oanh, former professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, is named acting premier of South Vietnam. Oanh says that President Nguyen Khanh has suffered a mental and physical breakdown.

September 1964 5

13 26

August 1964 2

North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the U.S. destroyer Maddox on patrol in international waters some 28 miles from the coast of North Vietnam.

1747

30

The North Vietnamese government renews its appeal to the 1954 Geneva Conference cochairmen to reconvene the conference. In South Vietnam, a bloodless coup by Brigadier General Lam Van Phat is aborted. In South Vietnam, a provisional legislature (the High National Council) is inaugurated. At the University of California, Berkeley, the first major anti–Vietnam War demonstrations occur in the United States.

1748

Chronology U.S. presidential adviser William Bundy says that bombing North Vietnam would reduce the threat to South Vietnam within months.

20

September 1964 MACV commander General William Westmoreland initiates HOP TAC, a pacification operation in six provinces around the city of Saigon. The North Vietnamese Politburo in Hanoi approves a resolution calling for an urgent effort to win a decisive victory in South Vietnam and for sending large PAVN units south to conduct large-scale attacks to secure such a victory.

24

31

October 1964

14

31

General Nguyen Chi Thanh is sent down from North Vietnam to take over command of the COSVN and direct the effort to win a decisive Communist victory in South Vietnam. Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, opening the way for closer Soviet–North Vietnamese relations and resumption of Soviet military aid to North Vietnam. Tran Van Huong is named premier of South Vietnam.

November 1964 1

3 20

Communist forces attack Bien Hoa Air Base in South Vietnam, destroying six B-57 bombers and killing 5 U.S. military personnel. Lyndon Johnson is elected president of the United States in a landslide victory, with 61 percent of the vote. The lead element of the PAVN 325th Division departs North Vietnam to infiltrate south. By the spring of 1965 the entire division and a separate independent PAVN regiment (the newly formed 320th Regiment) have arrived in South Vietnam.

Nguyen Khanh and other generals dissolve the High National Council in the Tran Van Huong government, arrest opponents, and conduct a purge of military leadership, despite the opposition by U.S. ambassador Maxwell Taylor. Two Americans are killed when VC sappers bomb U.S. billets in Saigon. U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell Taylor tells the press that South Vietnamese leader General Nguyen Khanh has outlived his usefulness. Some 23,300 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam. During 1964 more than 17,000 Communist troops from North Vietnam have infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. In more than 80 voyages, North Vietnamese infiltration trawlers have delivered 4,000 tons of weapons and ammunition to Communist forces in South Vietnam.

January 1965 4

In his State of the Union address, President Lyndon Johnson reaffirms the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam. 7 The Armed Forces Council (AFC) and General Nguyen Khanh restore a civilian government in South Vietnam under Tran Van Huong. 19–24 Buddhist demonstrations erupt in South Vietnam in the cities of Saigon and Hue. These include the sacking of the United States Information Service (USIS) building. The demonstrators demand military ouster of the Tran Van Huong government. 27 In South Vietnam, the Armed Forces Council ousts the Tran Van Huong government and reinstalls General Nguyen Khanh in power.

February 1965 December 1964

5

8–20

14

Communist forces launch their first multiregimental operation of the war, the Binh Gia Campaign, east of Saigon. The campaign, which lasts into January 1965, inflicts heavy losses on the ARVN and gives rise to serious American concerns about ARVN capabilities. The first Medal of Honor awarded to a U.S. serviceman during the Vietnam War is presented to Captain Roger Donlon for his heroic action during a battle at Nam Dong Special Forces Camp on July 6, 1964. Student and Buddhist demonstrations in South Vietnam threaten the military-supported Tran Van Huong government. U.S. aircraft begin bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail network in Laos.

7

8

9

Communist forces attack U.S. installations at Pleiku in South Vietnam, killing 8 U.S. servicemen, wounding 109, and destroying or damaging 20 aircraft. In retaliation in FLAMING DART I that same day, 49 A-4 and F-8 aircraft from the carriers Coral Sea and Hancock strike North Vietnamese training installations at Dong Hoi, some 40 miles north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). One A-4 is lost in the attack. Twenty-four VNAF propeller-driven A-1 Skyraiders, led in person by Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, hit the Chap Le barracks and communication center at Vinh Linh, 15 miles north of the DMZ. The attackers destroy 47 buildings and damage another 22. A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da Nang in South Vietnam.

Chronology 10

11

15 18 20

27 28

In South Vietnam, VC operatives smuggle 100 pounds of explosives into the four-story Viet Cuong Hotel, used as a billet for U.S. military personnel in the coastal city of Qui Nhon in Binh Dinh Province. The resulting blast, which kills 23 Americans and wounds another 21, reduces the building to rubble. Two VC are slain at the hotel, and dozens more are killed when South Vietnamese gunboats and U.S. helicopters attack some 50 sampans trying to carry out a raid against Qui Nhon Harbor. In retaliation for the Communist Qui Nhon attack in South Vietnam, the United States launches FLAMING DART II. Ninety-nine sorties are launched from the carriers Coral Sea, Hancock, and Ranger against the PAVN facilities at Chanh Hoa. At the same time, 28 VNAF A-1 aircraft again strike the Chap Le facility. Three U.S. Navy aircraft are shot down in the attack, and one pilot is taken prisoner. The PRC threatens to enter the Vietnam War if the United States invades North Vietnam. South Vietnamese army and marine units oust General Nguyen Khanh from power in a bloodless coup. In South Vietnam, forces loyal to the Armed Forces Council regain control, but the Armed Forces Council demands General Nguyen Khanh’s resignation. The U.S. State Department issues a White Paper detailing North Vietnamese “aggression” against South Vietnam. U.S. and South Vietnamese officials declare that President Lyndon Johnson has decided to begin reprisal attacks against North Vietnam to secure a negotiated settlement.

March 1965 2

8

9

Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the sustained U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, begins with first an air mission. One hundred U.S. Air Force and VNAF sorties strike the Xom Bang Ammunition Depot 35 miles north of the DMZ. UN secretary-general U Thant proposes a preliminary conference to discuss Vietnam to include the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, China, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. The U.S. 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB), deployed from Okinawa, begins arriving at Da Nang in South Vietnam. Washington rejects UN secretary-general U Thant’s proposal for a peace conference on Vietnam until North Vietnam ends its aggression in South Vietnam.

2 3–4

7

8

Equipment for the first two SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) regiments along with Soviet advisers/instructors arrive by train in North Vietnam to strengthen North Vietnam’s air defenses. The U.S. government announces that it will send several thousand additional troops to South Vietnam. The first air battles occur between U.S. aircraft and North Vietnamese MiG fighters over North Vietnam. One U.S. aircraft and three MiGs are destroyed. President Lyndon Johnson, speaking at Johns Hopkins University, announces that the United States is willing to hold “unconditional discussions” with the North Vietnamese government and presents the inducement of a $1 billion economic aid program for Southeast Asia. North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong rejects U.S. president Lyndon Johnson’s peace proposal and announces North Vietnam’s four-point position on peace, including settlement of South Vietnam’s internal affairs “in accordance with the program of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, without any foreign interference.”

May 1965 The U.S. Navy begins Operation MARKET TIME to interdict Communist surface traffic in South Vietnamese coastal waters. 3 Some 3,500 men of the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, deploying from Okinawa, begin landing in South Vietnam. 13–18 A six-day pause occurs in the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam. 26–30 A Communist regiment in Quang Ngai Province inflicts extremely heavy losses on ARVN forces, elevating U.S. worries about the ARVN’s ability to defend South Vietnam without the assistance of U.S. ground forces.

June 1965 8

9

11

16

April 1965 The United States begins Operation STEEL TIGER, an air interdiction campaign over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the northern panhandle of Laos.

1749

18

The U.S. State Department reveals that American troops are authorized to participate in direct combat if so requested by the ARVN. Two Communist regiments attack the Dong Xoai District capital and U.S. Special Forces camp northwest of Saigon, mauling several ARVN battalions. In South Vietnam, a National Directorate comprising 10 military leaders forms a war cabinet headed by Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky as premier. U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara announces new troop deployments to South Vietnam, bringing U.S. troop strength there to 70,000 men. Arc Light operations begin as B-52 bombers strike Communist targets within South Vietnam.

1750

Chronology

July 1965 8 24

Henry Cabot Lodge is reappointed U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, succeeding Maxwell Taylor. The first use of SAMs against U.S. aircraft over North Vietnam occurs. SAMs fired by Soviet missile crews shoot down one U.S. F-4 aircraft. One U.S. pilot is killed, and another is captured.

2 4 6–9

The Foreign Ministry of North Vietnam formally rejects UN action regarding Vietnam. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee opens formal televised hearings on the Vietnam War. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson holds talks in Honolulu with South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky.

March 1966 August 1965 18–19 Operation STARLITE, the first large ground operation by U.S. ground forces in South Vietnam, takes place in Quang Ngai Province. In the operation, the U.S. 3rd Marine Division mauls a VC regiment.

September 1965 11

The U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) begins arriving in South Vietnam.

12

In South Vietnam, Buddhists and students begin demonstrations in Hue and Da Nang to protest the ouster of ARVN I Corps commander General Nguyen Chanh Thi and to demand elections for a new national assembly. 16–20 Mass Buddhist protests occur in Saigon against the South Vietnamese government. 23 In South Vietnam, general strikes occur in the cities of Da Nang and Hue.

April 1966 October 1965

14–17 In the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands between the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division and PAVN forces, heavy losses occur on both sides. 27 A March for Peace in Vietnam draws 15,000 to 35,000 marchers in Washington, D.C.

Communist sappers set off explosives in a Saigon hotel, killing three Americans and four South Vietnamese. 2–5 South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky threatens to employ troops to quell the antigovernment rebellion in Da Nang and then orders two Ranger battalions flown there. 11 U.S. Air Force B-52s bomb North Vietnam for the first time. 12–14 The National Directorate of South Vietnam promises elections for a constituent assembly within three to five months. Buddhist demonstrations come to an end.

December 1965

May 1966

15–16 In the United States, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam sponsors nationwide demonstrations in some 40 cities.

November 1965

24

31

The U.S. Air Force carries out strikes against targets in the southern panhandle of Laos. Operation TIGER HOUND begins, and the Arc Light campaign by B-52s is extended to Laos. The United States begins a second pause in the bombing of North Vietnam in an effort to get the leaders of the North Vietnamese government to negotiate. Some 184,300 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam. Communist troop strength in South Vietnam is 170,000 full-time soldiers and 174,000 guerrillas. More than 50,000 North Vietnamese troops have infiltrated into South Vietnam during 1965.

January 1966 31

U.S. air strikes in Operation ROLLING THUNDER resume against North Vietnam.

February 1966 1

The UN Security Council meets to consider a U.S. draft resolution calling for an international conference to bring about peace in South Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

1

15

South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky airlifts 1,000 South Vietnamese marines to the city of Da Nang.

June 1966 1 19 23 29

Students in the city of Hue in South Vietnam burn the U.S. cultural center and consulate. The National Directorate in South Vietnam schedules assembly elections for September. South Vietnamese troops seize the chief Buddhist stronghold in Saigon. U.S. aircraft carry out the first strikes against oil installations in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas of North Vietnam.

July 1966 Following the conclusion of a secret agreement with Cambodian ruler Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a covert Vietnamese Communist logistics support group is formed in Cambodia to ship military equipment unloaded from Communist cargo ships at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville to base camps along the South Vietnamese–Cambodian border. From 1966 to 1969,

Chronology

8

30

more than 21,000 tons of weapons and ammunition are shipped through Sihanoukville to Communist forces in South Vietnam. South Vietnamese chief of state General Nguyen Van Thieu states that the allies should invade North Vietnam if necessary to end the war. U.S. aircraft for the first time intentionally strike targets in the DMZ separating North Vietnam and South Vietnam. These air strikes last until August 5, 1966.

31

South Vietnamese go to the polls to elect a 117-member constituent assembly from among officially approved anti-Communist slates. Buddhist leaders denounce the election as fraudulent.

October 1966

25

26

The U.S. Navy begins Operation SEA DRAGON, the interdiction of Communist supply vessels in coastal waters off North Vietnam. A meeting occurs in Manila of representatives from the United States and five other nations assisting South Vietnam. They offer to withdraw their troops from South Vietnam six months after Hanoi disengages from the war. President Lyndon Johnson visits U.S. troops in South Vietnam.

8

10

27

7

30

U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara announces that the number of U.S. troops in South Vietnam will continue to grow in 1967 but at a lower rate than in 1966. Polish ICC representative Janusz Lewandowski formulates a 10-point peace position on which basis North Vietnam would negotiate seriously with the United States.

10

December 1966 The U.S. State Department decides to contact the North Vietnamese representative in Warsaw regarding secret talks. 2–5 U.S. bombers raid truck depots, rail yards, and fuel dumps in the immediate vicinity of Hanoi in North Vietnam. 9 Polish ICC representative Janusz Lewandowski informs U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge that no contact can take place in Warsaw in the face of the U.S. escalation of bombing North Vietnam. 14–15 Additional U.S. air strikes occur very close to the city of Hanoi in North Vietnam. 26 Responding to reports by correspondent Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times, U.S. officials admit that

The U.S. Navy establishes the Mekong Delta Mobile Riverine Force in South Vietnam. Operation CEDAR FALLS, involving large numbers of U.S. and ARVN troops, commences. The purpose of the operation is clearing the VC from the Iron Triangle, a 60–square mile area of jungle believed to contain numerous VC base camps and supply dumps. In the course of his State of the Union address, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson calls for a 6 percent surcharge on income taxes to support the war. The Vietnamese Lao Dong Party Central Committee’s 13th Plenum secretly approves resolution on implementing a talk-fight strategy to begin negotiations with the United States. The strategy specifies that Communist forces must first win a major victory in South Vietnam to give negotiators leverage in the talks.

February 1967

November 1966 5

U.S. planes have “accidentally struck civilian areas while attempting to bomb military targets.” There are now some 385,300 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam. Communist troop strength in South Vietnam is 230,000 full-time soldiers. More than 60,000 North Vietnamese troops have arrived in South Vietnam during 1966.

January 1967

September 1966 11

1751

2

22

U.S. president Lyndon Johnson sends a proposal to British prime minister Harold Wilson for an “assured stoppage” of the infiltration of South Vietnam by North Vietnam in return for a bombing halt and no further augmentation of U.S. forces in South Vietnam. The United States begins a six-day pause in Operation ROLLING THUNDER, the bombing of North Vietnam. The U.S. government insists that the formula for talks, presented by British prime minister Harold Wilson to Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin, requires that North Vietnamese infiltration of South Vietnam stop before the institution of a bombing halt, not afterward as Wilson had suggested orally. Operation JUNCTION CITY, the largest American operation of the Vietnam War, is launched to destroy Communist forces in War Zone C, the key Communist base area northwest of Saigon, where the COSVN is located. The operation lasts until April 15.

March 1967 21

The North Vietnamese government releases the February exchange of notes between U.S. president Lyndon Johnson and North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh in which Ho rejected peace talks unless the United States agrees

1752

Chronology election but rejects peace candidate Au Truong Thanh on a trumped-up charge of links to the Communists and exiled South Vietnamese general Duong Van Minh. In the wake of Nguyen Chi Thanh’s death, the North Vietnamese Politburo debates a daring new plan for an all-out Communist offensive and uprisings, a plan that will become the 1968 Tet Offensive.

to unconditionally halt the bombing and all other acts of war against North Vietnam.

April 1967 15 20 24

Massive anti–Vietnam War demonstrations occur in cities across the United States. U.S. aircraft strike a power plant in Hanoi for the first time. U.S. aircraft attack two air bases in North Vietnam for the first time.

August 1967 31

May 1967 1 13

14

Ellsworth Bunker replaces Henry Cabot Lodge as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky says that he might react “militarily” if a civilian with whose policies he disagrees is elected president. South Vietnamese chief of state Nguyen Van Thieu says that he believes that 50,000 U.S. or allied troops will be needed in South Vietnam for 10 to 20 years after the end of the war.

September 1967

3

June 1967

30

The PAVN General Staff submits to the party Politburo in Hanoi a plan for a major large-unit offensive in 1968. The Politburo concludes that the plan is inadequate. Following three days of meetings of the ruling Armed Forces Council in South Vietnam, Premier Nguyen Cao Ky withdraws from the presidential race and agrees to be the vice presidential candidate on a ticket headed by the more senior general Nguyen Van Thieu.

The U.S. Senate Preparedness Subcommittee declares that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara has “shackled” the air war against North Vietnam and calls for the “closure, neutralization, or isolation of Haiphong.”

10

11 29

PAVN general Vo Nguyen Giap travels to Eastern Europe for “medical treatment.” He does not return to North Vietnam until February 1968, after the 1968 Tet Offensive has begun. Generals Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky are elected president and vice president, respectively, of South Vietnam. The Thieu-Ky slate secures 35 percent of the vote. The first U.S. air raid on North Vietnamese ports occurs when the port area of Cam Pha, 46 miles northeast of Haiphong, is attacked. Heavy U.S. air strikes occur against the port of Haiphong and its suburbs in an effort to cut it off from Hanoi. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson declares in a speech at San Antonio that the United States will stop the bombing of North Vietnam if this “will lead promptly to productive discussions.”

July 1967 North Vietnamese security officials carry out the first wave of arrests of individuals implicated in the AntiParty Affair, also called the Hoang Minh Chinh Affair. This is a supposed dissident plot against the party leadership. By the time the arrests end in early 1968, hundreds of party and government officials, including several current or former Central Committee members and senior military officers who are close associates of General Vo Nguyen Giap, will have been arrested or purged. 6 General Nguyen Chi Thanh, commander of all Communist forces in South Vietnam, dies of a heart attack in Hanoi. He is replaced by Politburo member Pham Hung. 16 The U.S. government admits in a diplomatic note to the Soviet Union that U.S. aircraft may have inadvertently struck the Soviet ship Mikhail Frunze in Haiphong Harbor on June 29. 18–19 The South Vietnamese Constituent Assembly approves 11 candidate slates for the upcoming presidential

October 1967 12

U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk declares that the Vietnam War is a test of Asia’s ability to withstand the threat of “a billion Chinese . . . armed with nuclear weapons.” 12–14 Heavy U.S. Navy air strikes occur against Haiphong shipyards and docks in North Vietnam. 16 The U.S. Congress passes the fiscal year 1967 Department of Defense Appropriations Act (Public Law 89-687). An amendment to the act, introduced by Senator Richard B. Russell (D-Ga.), gives President Lyndon Johnson the authority until June 30, 1968, to order to active duty any unit of the Ready Reserve for a period not to exceed 24 months. 20–24 The Lao Dong Party Politburo in Hanoi meets again to debate the plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive. The Politburo approves only a portion of the plan. 21–23 Some 50,000 Americans rally against the war in Washington, D.C., and march on the Pentagon, which is protected by 10,000 troops.

Chronology

November 1967

2

21

29

The PAVN mounts the Dak To Campaign in the northern Central Highlands. Both PAVN and U.S. forces suffer heavy casualties. The heaviest fighting is that on Hill 875 during November 18–23. The Lao Dong Party Politburo in Hanoi finally approves the plan for the January 1968 Tet Offensive. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson convenes a meeting of senior unofficial advisers, known as the so-called Wise Men, who recommend that the administration stay the course in Vietnam and provide more upbeat progress reports. MACV commander General William Westmoreland declares in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington that the war has reached the point when “the end begins to come into view.” U.S. president Lyndon Johnson announces that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara will resign to become president of the World Bank.

30

31

December 1967 30 31

The South Vietnamese government announces a 36-hour truce for the Lunar New Year (Tet) holidays. There are some 485,600 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam. Communist full-time troop strength in South Vietnam is 278,000, with another 100,000 part-time guerrillas. More than 80,000 North Vietnamese soldiers have infiltrated into South Vietnam during the year.

7–8

20

The Lao Dong Party Central Committee holds its 14th Plenum in a secret location outside of Hanoi to formally approve the plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive. 25

January 1968

21 23

25

North Vietnamese foreign minister Nguyen Duy Trinh announces for the first time that North Vietnam “will hold talks with the United States” after it has “unconditionally” halted bombing and “other acts of war” against North Vietnam. Communist forces begin the siege of the U.S. Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh near the DMZ and Laos. North Korean naval forces seize the U.S. Navy electronic intelligence ship Pueblo and its crew, diverting U.S. military attention and resources, including several carrier battle groups, toward the Korean Peninsula. Clark Clifford, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson’s choice to be the new secretary of defense, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the no-advantage clause of the San Antonio speech means that North Vietnam could

continue to transport the “normal” level of goods and men into South Vietnam after a U.S. bombing halt. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson announces the call-up of 28 units of the Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and Naval Reserve, totaling 14,787 reservists. Although the mobilizations are in response to the situation in Korea, some of those called up will later serve in Southeast Asia. First attacks, which are premature, occur in the Communist Tet Offensive at Da Nang, Pleiku, Nha Trang, and nine other cities in central South Vietnam. Major attacks occur in the Communist Tet Offensive. The offensive is widespread throughout South Vietnam, including Saigon and Hue, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals. The attacks catch allied forces off guard in both their timing and magnitude. Militarily, the Tet Offensive proves to be a tactical disaster for the Communists. By the end of March 1968 they have not achieved a single one of their objectives, and more than 58,000 VC and PAVN troops have been killed. U.S. forces suffer 3,895 dead, and ARVN losses are 4,954. Non-U.S. allies lose 214 troops. More than 14,300 South Vietnamese civilians also die, and hundreds of thousands are rendered homeless.

February 1968

Early January 1968

1

1753

26

27

PAVN troops overrun the U.S. Army Special Forces camp at Lang Vei, southwest of the U.S. Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins hearings on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Senators William Fulbright and Wayne Morse charge the Defense Department with withholding information on U.S. naval activities in the Gulf of Tonkin that might have provoked North Vietnam. ARVN and U.S. forces recapture the city of Hue after 25 days of occupation by Communist troops. MACV commander William Westmoreland states that additional U.S. troops “will probably be required” in Vietnam. Allied troops discover the first mass graves in the city of Hue. During February 1–25, the occupying Communist forces massacred as many as 7,000 people identified with South Vietnam. Searchers recover only some 2,800 bodies. CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite, who has just returned from Saigon and Hue, tells Americans during an evening broadcast that he is certain that “the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.”

March 1968 16

A platoon from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd

1754

22

31

Chronology (Americal) Division, commanded by Lieutenant William Calley, massacres between 200 and 500 unarmed civilians in My Lai, a cluster of hamlets making up Son My village of the Son Tinh District in the coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai Province in the I Corps Tactical Zone. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson announces that MACV commander General William Westmoreland will be returning to Washington as chief of staff of the U.S. Army and will be replaced as commander of MACV by his deputy, General Creighton Abrams. In the course of a televised address, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson announces a bombing halt over North Vietnam except for “the area north of the Demilitarized Zone.” He calls on the North Vietnamese government to agree to peace talks. At the end of his remarks, he announces that he is withdrawing from the presidential race.

June 1968 10 27

October 1968 31

1

2

11

26

The North Vietnamese government offers to send representatives to meet with U.S. officials “with a view to determining with the American side the unconditional cessation of the U.S. bombing raids and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam so that talks may start.” U.S. president Lyndon Johnson agrees. In response to the Tet Offensive, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford announces a second round of call-ups, totaling 24,500 reservists and National Guardsmen, including 1,028 U.S. Navy reservists. The reporting date of the second call-up is May 13. Massive anti–Vietnam War demonstrations occur on college campuses across the United States, including some 200,000 protesters in New York City.

6 12

27

5–13

12

After some haggling over the site, President Lyndon Johnson announces U.S. acceptance of the North Vietnamese government’s suggestion that preliminary peace talks be held in Paris. In what will turn out to be the second phase of the Tet Offensive, the second large-scale Communist offensive of the year occurs. Although it is smaller than the initial phase of the Tet Offensive, it sees Communist forces strike some 119 allied targets. U.S. and ARVN forces defeat all attacks of this so-called Mini–Tet Offensive. Preliminary talks between the United States and North Vietnam open in Paris.

May 25–June 4, 1968 The third widespread Communist offensive of the year occurs in South Vietnam and is defeated by allied forces.

The North Vietnamese delegation at Paris announces that a meeting to include representatives of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the NLF, and the United States will be held in Paris sometime after November 6. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu states that his government will not take part in the Paris peace negotiations. Richard Nixon narrowly defeats Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 U.S. presidential election. U.S. secretary of defense Clark Clifford threatens that the United States might proceed with the Paris negotiations without participation of the South Vietnamese government. The South Vietnamese government announces that it will take part in the Paris peace talks after the U.S. government reiterates its nonrecognition of the NLF as a separate entity.

December 1968 23

May 1968 3

U.S. president Lyndon Johnson announces the end of ROLLING THUNDER, the complete cessation of “all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam” as of November 1.

November 1968

April 1968 3

General Creighton Abrams formally replaces General William Westmoreland as commander of MACV. U.S. troops withdraw from their base at Khe Sanh after a 77-day siege.

31

NLF representative in Paris Tran Buu Kiem rejects direct negotiations between the NLF and South Vietnam and insists on talks only with the United States. There are some 536,000 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam. More than 140,000 North Vietnamese troops, including replacement troops and new units, have arrived in South Vietnam since January 1, 1968.

January 1969 16

20 25

After protracted negotiations, the United States and North Vietnam announce agreement on a roundtable conference format for the Paris peace talks. Richard Nixon takes office as president of the United States. Four-party peace talks begin in Paris.

February 1969 23–24 Communist forces launch mortar and rocket attacks on some 115 targets in South Vietnam, including the cities

Chronology of Saigon, Da Nang, and Hue and the large U.S. base at Bien Hoa.

March 1969 18

19 26

27

Operation MENU, the secret U.S. air strikes inside Cambodia by B-52 bombers, begins. The operation continues until May 26, 1970. U.S. secretary of defense Melvin Laird proclaims Vietnamization of the war. Women Strike for Peace, the first big anti–Vietnam War rally during the Richard Nixon administration, occurs in Washington, D.C. In Paris U.S. ambassador to the peace negotiations Henry Cabot Lodge and South Vietnamese delegation chief Pham Dang Lam declare that a peace settlement must include the withdrawal of all North Vietnamese “regular and subversive forces” from Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam.

10

1755

Pacific, President Richard Nixon announces that by August the United States will withdraw 25,000 troops from South Vietnam. The PRG of South Vietnam is formed by the NLF and other pro-NLF anti–South Vietnam organizations and individuals.

July 1969 11

25

South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu offers internationally supervised elections and Communist participation in an “electoral commission” but on the provision that the Communists first renounce violence. South Vietnam would oversee the election. On the island of Guam, President Richard Nixon announces the Nixon Doctrine. The United States will have primary responsibility for defense of its allies against nuclear attack, but non-Communist Asian states will bear the brunt of their conventional defense as well as be responsible for their own internal security.

April 1969 5–6 7

30

A weekend of anti–Vietnam War protests occurs in a number of U.S. cities. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu says that he would ask the South Vietnamese allies to remove their military forces from South Vietnam after North Vietnam withdraws its regular troops and “auxiliary troops and cadres.” Peak U.S. military strength in South Vietnam occurs, with 543,400 personnel in the country.

August 1969 4

September 1969 2

16

May 1969 The NLF delegate to the Paris peace talks, Tron Buu Kiem, demands an unconditional U.S. troop withdrawal from South Vietnam and the settlement of remaining military and political issues among the Vietnamese parties to exclude South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu. 10–20 The Battle of Hamburger Hill (Ap Bia Mountain) near the Laotian border in Thua Thien Province results in heavy U.S. casualties and intense domestic political criticism of U.S. military policies in Vietnam. 12 Communist forces launch their largest number of attacks throughout South Vietnam since the 1968 Tet Offensive, shelling 159 cities, towns, and military bases. 14 In his first major speech on Vietnam, U.S. president Richard Nixon proclaims an eight-point peace proposal that calls for simultaneous withdrawal of U.S. troops and “all non–South Vietnamese forces” from South Vietnam.

U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger meets secretly in Paris with North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy.

North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh dies in Hanoi. North Vietnamese officials announce his death the next day. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces the withdrawal from South Vietnam of an additional 35,000 U.S. troops.

8

October 1969 15

16

25

November 1969 3

June 1969 8

During the course of a meeting with South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island in the

Anti–Vietnam War demonstrations known as the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, involving hundreds of thousands of people, occur across the United States. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces U.S. plans to keep a “residual force” of some 6,000–7,000 troops in South Vietnam after hostilities end there. The PAVN launches Campaign 139, a multidivisional operation in cooperation with Communist Pathet Lao forces to capture the Plain of Jars in central Laos. The offensive continues until April 1970.

15

In a major address on the Vietnam War, U.S. president Richard Nixon appeals to the “silent majority” of Americans and argues that “precipitate withdrawal” from South Vietnam would lead to a “disaster of immense magnitude.” An anti–Vietnam War demonstration at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., the largest

1756

16

24

Chronology demonstration in that city to date, draws some 250,000 people. The U.S. Army announces an investigation into charges that U.S. forces shot more than 100 Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968. U.S. Army lieutenant William Calley Jr. is ordered to stand trial for the premeditated murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai in March 1968.

December 1969 1 4

12

15

31

The first U.S. military draft lottery since 1942 is held at Selective Service headquarters. A Louis Harris survey reports that 46 percent of those polled indicate sympathy with the goals of the November Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrations; 45 percent disagree. The last mobilized Reserve Component unit, Company D, 151st Infantry, Indiana National Guard, returns to the United States from Vietnam. President Richard Nixon announces a third reduction in U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam in which 50,000 men are to leave by April 15, 1970. Some 475,200 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam. More than 80,000 North Vietnamese troops have infiltrated into South Vietnam since January 1, 1969.

23

In Beijing, Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk announces that he will form both a “national union government” and a “national liberation army.” The North Vietnamese government and the Pathet Lao, the Communist organization in Laos, declare their support. 27–28 ARVN forces, supported by U.S. forces, launch their first major attack against Communist base areas in Cambodia. 28 The U.S. government announces that American troops will be permitted, on the judgment of field commanders, to cross into Cambodia in response to Communist threats. Washington insists that this does not mean a widened war.

April 1970 4

5 8

11

January 1970 28

A Gallup Poll shows that 65 percent of those Americans interviewed approve of President Richard Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam War, his highest approval rating to date.

February 1970 21

U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger begins secret peace talks in Paris with North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho.

March 1970 13

17

18

With Prince Norodom Sihanouk abroad, the leaders of Cambodia demand that Vietnamese Communist troops withdraw from the country immediately. Cambodian crowds sack the North Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh. Cambodian troops, supported by ARVN artillery, attack Vietnamese Communist sanctuaries along the Cambodian-Vietnamese border. The Cambodian National Assembly deposes Prince Sihanouk, declaring General Lon Nol interim chief of state. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu announces his hopes of working with the new Cambodian government to control Communist border activity.

20

21 30

The largest rally supporting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War to date is held in Washington, D.C. The Politburo of the Lao Dong Party in Hanoi orders Vietnamese Communist forces to seize control of all Cambodian provinces along the South VietnameseCambodian border. Two ARVN battalions push more than 10 miles into Cambodia, this time without U.S. air support. Vietnamese Communist troops drive back Cambodian government forces in heavy fighting some nine miles from the South Vietnamese border. Cambodian government troops begin the massacre of several thousand Vietnamese civilians living in Southeast Cambodia. Some 40,000 Vietnamese in Phnom Penh are sent to concentration camps. A Gallup Poll shows that 48 percent of Americans approve of President Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policy, while 41 percent disapprove. President Richard Nixon announces in a televised speech his intention to withdraw 150,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam in the course of the next year. ARVN troops cross the Cambodian border for the third time in a week to attack Communist base areas. In a nationally televised address, President Richard Nixon announces that U.S. troops are attacking Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. The destruction of base areas is the primary goal, but one objective is to locate and destroy the COSVN headquarters in the Fishhook area some 50 miles northwest of Saigon. In reaction to the Cambodian Incursion, widespread antiwar protests erupt on U.S. college campuses.

May 1970 3

The Pentagon confirms that the United States has conducted heavy bombing of targets in North Vietnam, the first major bombing of North Vietnam since the

Chronology

4

6

9

12

20 21

26

November 1968 bombing halt. A Pentagon spokesman calls these “protective reaction” strikes. Ohio National Guardsmen fire on antiwar student demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing 4 people and wounding 11. Some 200 college campuses across the United States shut down in protest of the Vietnam War and events at Kent State University. Some 75,000–100,000 people gather in Washington, D.C., in a hastily organized protest against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. South Vietnamese vice president Nguyen Cao Ky reveals that on May 9, South Vietnamese and U.S. Navy warships began a blockade of some 100 miles of Cambodian coastline to prevent Communist resupply there by sea to fuel the Sihanouk Trail logistics network. Some 100,000 people demonstrate in New York City in support of President Richard Nixon’s Indochina policies. South Vietnamese vice president Nguyen Cao Ky announces that ARVN troops will remain in Cambodia after U.S. troops withdraw from that country. Operation MENU, the U.S. air strikes against Cambodian sanctuaries by B-52 bombers, ends.

17

26

The PRG delegation in Paris proposes an eight-point peace plan, calling for the complete U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam by June 30, 1971, and a political settlement between the PRG and an interim South Vietnamese government that would exclude President Nguyen Van Thieu, Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, and Premier Tran Thien Khiem. A Gallup Poll finds that 55 percent of Americans surveyed favor the Senate Hatfield-McGovern Amendment to cut off funds for continued U.S. military activities in Indochina unless there is a declaration of war; 36 percent are opposed.

October 1970 7

8

U.S. president Richard Nixon announces a five-point proposal to end the war, based on a cease-fire in place in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. He proposes the eventual withdrawal of all U.S. forces, the unconditional release of POWs, and a political solution reflecting the will of the South Vietnamese people. The Communist delegations in Paris reject U.S. president Richard Nixon’s five-point proposal, insisting instead on unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Indochina.

June 1970

November 1970

3

5

7

24 30

U.S. president Richard Nixon declares in a televised speech that the U.S. and ARVN invasion of Cambodia is the “most successful operation” of the war, enabling him to resume U.S. troop withdrawals. Secretary of State William Rogers says that no U.S. troops will assist Lon Nol’s Cambodian government even if its existence should be threatened by Communist forces. The U.S. Senate repeals the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in a vote of 81 to 10. U.S. forces end two months of operations inside Cambodia. Some ARVN forces remain in Cambodia. The U.S. Senate approves the Cooper-Church Amendment in a vote of 53 to 37. The amendment is aimed at limiting future presidential action in Cambodia by prohibiting military personnel in either combat or advisory roles or in direct air support of Cambodian forces. This step, the first limitation ever voted on regarding the powers of a president as commander in chief during a war, nevertheless allows strategic bombing.

1757

U.S. officials report the lowest weekly toll of U.S. troops killed in action in five years (since October 25, 1965). 17 The U.S. Army court-martial of Lieutenant William L. Calley, charged with killing civilians at My Lai, begins at Fort Benning, Georgia. 20–21 U.S. forces raid the Son Tay POW compound 25 miles from Hanoi but find no U.S. personnel there.

December 1970 10

31

U.S. president Richard Nixon warns North Vietnamese leaders that he will resume bombing North Vietnam if fighting in South Vietnam intensifies. There are some 334,600 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam.

January 1971 1

The U.S. Congress forbids the use of U.S. ground troops in Laos and Cambodia although not the use of airpower there.

February 1971 September 1970 1

The U.S. Senate rejects by a vote of 55 to 39 the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment that sets a deadline of December 31, 1971, for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam.

8

ARVN forces invade southern Laos. Dubbed Operation LAM SON 719, its goal is the disruption of the Communist supply and infiltration network in southern Laos. The operation is supported by U.S. airpower and artillery, but no U.S. advisers are allowed to cross the border.

1758

Chronology

March 1971

July 1971

6

1

24

29

A total of 120 U.S. Army helicopters, protected by helicopter gunships and U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers, lift two ARVN battalions into Tchepone, Laos, one of Operation LAM SON 719’s key objectives. ARVN Operation LAM SON 719 ends precipitously. The ARVN captures extensive quantities of Communist supplies but sustains heavy casualties, particularly among junior officers. More than 100 U.S. helicopters are also lost. At Fort Benning, Georgia, a U.S. Army court finds Lieutenant William Calley guilty of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai 4. He is sentenced to life in prison. His sentence is later reduced to 10 years in prison, and in 1974 he will be paroled.

15

August 1971 20

April 1971 7

16

24

U.S. president Richard Nixon, in a televised address, states in reference to Operation LAM SON 719 that “Tonight I can report Vietnamization has succeeded.” Nixon announces the withdrawal from South Vietnam of an additional 100,000 U.S. troops. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces that a residual U.S. force will remain in South Vietnam as long as it is needed in order for the South Vietnamese “to develop the capacity for self-defense.” More than 200,000 people participate in a rally in Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam War.

31

June 1971 13

26

30

The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers, the heretofore secret Pentagon analysis of the three-decades-long U.S. involvement in Indochina. The North Vietnamese government offers to release U.S. POWs at the same time as civilian prisoners and withdrawal of U.S. forces but insists that the United States also abandon its support of South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu. The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Pentagon Papers can be published.

Retired ARVN general Duong Van Minh, the only opposition candidate in the South Vietnamese presidential election, withdraws from the race, charging that it is rigged in President Nguyen Van Thieu’s favor. Lon Nol’s pro-American government in Cambodia launches Operation CHENLA II, a major military operation designed to seize control of the key provinces and road networks north of Phnom Penh. By the time the operation ends in failure in December, Vietnamese and Cambodian Communist forces have inflicted extremely heavy losses on Lon Nol’s army.

October 1971 3 11

May 1971 The Lao Dong Party Politburo in Hanoi decides to launch an all-out offensive in South Vietnam in 1972 to seek a “decisive victory” and force the United States to “negotiate an end to the war from a posture of defeat” before the U.S. presidential election in November 1972. In Paris, the U.S. delegation secretly proposes to the delegation from North Vietnam a deadline for the withdrawal of all American troops in return for the repatriation of all American POWs and a cease-fire.

The PRG delegation to the Paris peace talks proposes a plan whereby it would negotiate with a neutral coalition government that excludes South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu, Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, and Premier Tran Thien Khiem. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces that he will visit the PRC.

South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu is elected to another four-year term. At the Paris peace talks, the American delegation proposes free elections in South Vietnam to be organized by an independent body representing all political forces in South Vietnam, with South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu resigning one month before the elections.

November 1971 12

U.S. president Richard Nixon announces the withdrawal from South Vietnam of an additional 45,000 U.S. troops.

December 1971 18

The PAVN launches a massive multidivisional offensive campaign to recapture the Plain of Jars. 26–30 U.S. aircraft resume the bombing of North Vietnam, mounting heavy attacks. Washington characterizes these as “protective reaction” strikes. 31 Some 156,800 U.S. military personnel are in South Vietnam. During the two-year period from January 1, 1970, to December 31, 1971, 195,000 North Vietnamese troops have been sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam.

January 1972 2

President Richard Nixon announces that U.S. forces will continue to withdraw from South Vietnam but that

Chronology

13

25

26

25,000–35,000 U.S. troops will remain until the release of all U.S. POWs. President Richard Nixon announces that 70,000 U.S. troops will leave South Vietnam over the next three months, reducing U.S. troop strength there by May 1 to only 69,000 men. U.S. president Richard Nixon reveals the details of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s secret trips to Paris and the text of the October 11, 1971, U.S. peace proposal. Radio Hanoi announces that the North Vietnamese government has rejected the latest U.S. peace proposal.

February 1972 At the Paris peace talks, the PRG delegation presents a revised version of its July 1971 peace proposals, calling for the resignation of South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu in exchange for the immediate discussion of a political settlement, a specific date for the total U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam and release of all military and civilian prisoners, and an end to Saigon’s “warlike policy.” 16 A Gallup Poll finds that 52 percent of those Americans interviewed approve of President Richard Nixon’s handling of the war; 39 percent disapprove. 21–16 U.S. president Richard Nixon visits the PRC.

1759

15–20 Widespread anti–Vietnam War demonstrations occur across the United States. 22 Anti–Vietnam War demonstrators hold marches and rallies throughout the United States to protest the renewed U.S. bombing of North Vietnam. 26 U.S. president Richard Nixon announces the withdrawal of 20,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam to take place during the next two months, reducing U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam by July 1 to 49,000 men. 27 The Paris peace talks resume. 30 U.S. president Richard Nixon warns that the North Vietnamese are “taking a very great risk if they continue their offensive in the South.”

3

May 1972 1

4

8

March 1972 23

30

Washington announces the indefinite suspension of the Paris peace talks until the Communist side agrees to “serious discussions” of predetermined issues. PAVN forces launch their Nguyen Hue Campaign, known to the Americans as the Easter Offensive or the Spring Offensive, the largest Communist military action since 1968 that takes the form of a conventional military invasion of South Vietnam by 14 PAVN divisions and 26 separate regiments, including 120,000 troops and some 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The focus of the offensive will be Quang Tri in northern South Vietnam, Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc in Military Region III, just 65 miles north of Saigon.

8–12

ARVN forces and their U.S. advisers abandon Quang Tri, the northernmost provincial capital of South Vietnam, following five days of heavy fighting. Citing a “complete lack of progress,” the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments announce an indefinite halt to the Paris peace talks. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces the mining of all North Vietnamese ports, the interdiction of rail and other communications, and air strikes against military targets in North Vietnam (Operation LINEBACKER) until the return of U.S. POWs and an internationally supervised cease-fire throughout Indochina. A wave of antiwar protests takes place across the United States.

June 1972

28

U.S. Army general Fred Weyand replaces General Creighton Abrams as commander of MACV, with Abrams returning to Washington as army chief of staff. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to South Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. Additionally, he announces that another 10,000 troops will be withdrawn from South Vietnam by September 1, leaving a total of 39,000 U.S. military personnel there.

July 1972 April 1972 6 7 8 15

The United States resumes heavy bombing of North Vietnam. The Battle of An Loc (April 7–June 18, 1972) begins in South Vietnam. The Battle for Kontum begins in the Central Highlands. U.S. aircraft resume bombing military targets in the vicinity of Hanoi and Haiphong, the first such strikes in four years.

13

Formal peace talks resume in Paris.

August 1972 27

28

In the heaviest bombing in four years, U.S. aircraft flatten North Vietnamese barracks near Hanoi and Haiphong as well as bridges along the railroad line to the border with China. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces an end to the military draft by July 1973.

1760

Chronology

September 1972 11

At the Paris peace talks, the PRG delegation announces that any settlement in South Vietnam must reflect the “reality” of “two administrations, two armies and other political forces.” 15 ARVN forces retake Quang Tri. Following the loss of Quang Tri, the North Vietnamese government decides to take advantage of the U.S. presidential campaign by making political concessions designed to entice President Richard Nixon to accept a negotiated peace agreement with the Communists before the November election in exchange for the total withdrawal of all U.S. forces from South Vietnam. 26–27 U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger holds additional secret talks in Paris with North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho.

October 1972 8

Le Duc Tho, the North Vietnamese representative to the Paris peace talks, presents a draft peace agreement proposing that two separate administrations remain in South Vietnam and negotiate a formula for general elections. 19–20 U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger meets in Saigon with South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu. Thieu opposes the draft treaty provisions that allow North Vietnamese troops to remain in place in South Vietnam. U.S. president Richard Nixon announces a halt in the bombing of North Vietnam above the 20th Parallel. He also sends a message to North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong confirming that the peace agreement is complete and pledging that it will be signed by the two foreign ministers on October 31, but Nixon seeks clarification on several points. 23 A U.S. message to the North Vietnamese government in Hanoi requests further negotiations, citing difficulties raised by the South Vietnamese government. 26 Radio Hanoi announces that the secret talks in Paris have produced a tentative agreement to end the war. U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger says that “Peace is at hand” and that only one additional meeting is needed to complete the agreement.

November 1972 1

South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu publicly objects to provisions in the draft peace agreement permitting North Vietnamese troops to remain in South Vietnam and providing for a three-segment “administrative structure” to preside over the political settlement and new elections. He denounces the draft agreement as “surrender of the South Vietnamese people to the Communists.”

16

U.S. president Richard Nixon sends a letter to South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu pledging to press the North Vietnamese government for changes demanded by Thieu. 20–21 U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative to the Paris peace talks Le Duc Tho begin the 21st round of secret negotiations near Paris.

December 1972 13 16

The Paris peace talks deadlock. U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger holds a press conference and publicly blames the North Vietnamese government for the breakdown in peace negotiations. 18–29 The United States renews the bombing of the HanoiHaiphong area (Operation LINEBACKER II, also known as the Christmas Bombings), now employing B-52 strategic bombers as well as fighter-bombers. 22 The U.S. government announces that the bombing of North Vietnam will continue until the North Vietnamese government agrees to negotiate “in a spirit of good will and in a constructive attitude.” 30 The U.S. government announces that negotiations between National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative to the Paris peace talks Le Duc Tho will resume on January 2 and that U.S. bombing will cease north of the 20th Parallel of North Vietnam. 31 Approximately 24,000 U.S. military personnel remain in South Vietnam, the lowest total in almost eight years.

January 1973 8–12

15

17

20

23

U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative to the Paris peace talks Le Duc Tho resume their private negotiations in Paris. Citing “progress” in the Paris peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announces an end to all U.S. offensive military action against North Vietnam. U.S. president Richard Nixon warns South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu in a private letter that his refusal to sign the agreement reached at Paris would render it impossible for the United States to continue assistance to South Vietnam. U.S. president Richard Nixon sends an ultimatum to South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu regarding signing the peace agreement reached in Paris. Nixon demands an answer by January 21. U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho initial the peace agreement in Paris. A cease-fire will commence on January 27, and all POWs will be released within 60 days.

Chronology 27

28

30

Foreign ministers of the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the PRG formally sign the two-party and four-party versions of the peace agreement. At 8:00 a.m. Saigon time the cease-fire goes into effect, although both sides violate it. South Vietnamese forces continue to take back villages occupied by Communists in the two days before the cease-fire deadline. In Washington, U.S. secretary of defense Melvin Laird announces an end to the military draft.

24

25

renew the bombing unless there is a “flagrant” violation of the agreement, such as a full-scale invasion of South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese governments publish texts of the North Vietnamese and U.S. notes accusing each other of violations of the peace agreement. The South Vietnamese and PRG delegations to the talks in Paris offer incompatible proposals for a political settlement.

February 1973

May 1973

1

10

12 16

17

21

In a secret letter to North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong, U.S. president Richard Nixon pledges to contribute to “postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam” in the “range of $3.25 billion” over five years. The release of U.S. POWs begins in Hanoi. The Four-Party Joint Military Commission set up by the Paris Peace Accords appeals to both sides in South Vietnam to respect the cease-fire and reaffirms prohibition on air combat missions. The governments of the United States and North Vietnam issue a joint communique following a four-day visit by U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger to Hanoi. They announce an agreement to establish a Joint Economic Commission to develop economic relations, particularly the U.S. contribution to “healing the wounds of war” in North Vietnam. A peace agreement is signed in Laos. The United States halts its bombing there.

28

29

U.S. president Richard Nixon threatens to take unilateral action to force North Vietnam to suspend or reduce use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network to move military equipment into South Vietnam. U.S. president Richard Nixon again warns the leaders of North Vietnam that they “should have no doubt as to the consequences if they fail to comply with the [peace] agreement.” The last 67 American POWs held by North Vietnam leave Hanoi. The last U.S. troops leave South Vietnam, and MACV headquarters is disestablished.

9

13

20

29

26 A Joint communique from U.S. president Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu charges Communist violations of the cease-fire agreement by the infiltration of forces into South Vietnam and warns that continued violations “would call for appropriately vigorous reactions.” U.S. secretary of defense Elliot Richardson says that the United States will not

Although U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative to the Paris peace talks Le Duc Tho negotiate a new agreement for implementation of the Paris Peace Accords, fighting in South Vietnam reaches its highest level since mid-February. The signatories to the Paris Peace Accords issue a joint communiqué on its implementation that calls for a resumption of processes interrupted in April, including meetings of the U.S.–North Vietnamese Joint Economic Commission. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger notes a “satisfactory conclusion” on points of concern to the United States. Declassified Defense Department documents show that in seven years of war, 3.2 million tons of bombs have been dropped on South Vietnam, 2.1 million tons of bombs have been dropped on Laos, and 340,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on North Vietnam. The U.S. House of Representatives passes a compromise bill with an August 15 deadline to halt all bombing of Cambodia and adds North Vietnam and South Vietnam to areas included in the ban on combat activities. President Richard Nixon reluctantly signs the bill into law on July 1.

July 1973

April 1973 3

The U.S. House of Representatives passes a second supplemental appropriations bill with an amendment deleting authorization for the transfer of $430 million by the Defense Department for the bombing of Cambodia. Another amendment prohibits the use of funds for combat activities in or over Cambodia by U.S. forces.

June 1973

March 1973 15

1761

The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Foreign Assistance Bill after agreeing to an amendment prohibiting the use of authorized funds to aid in the reconstruction of North Vietnam unless specifically authorized by the Congress.

August 1973 14

The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends, bringing to a halt all U.S. military activity in Indochina.

1762

Chronology

September 1973

January 1974

10

4

The South Vietnamese government protests the construction of air bases in the PRG zone in South Vietnam on the basis that it has control of all air space over South Vietnam.

20

October 1973 1

3–7

13

15

16

South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu declares that the Communists are planning a spring 1974 “general offensive” and calls for “preemptive attacks” against them. VNAF airplanes carry out heavy raids against the PRG zone in Tay Ninh Province, beginning a bombing campaign throughout Military Region III. Following an extended debate that began in July, the 21st Plenum of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party in Hanoi approves a resolution stating that “revolutionary violence” is the only path to victory and instructing Communist forces in South Vietnam to conduct offensive operations in spite of the cease-fire agreement. The Central Committee’s decision results in the drafting of a plan for another major offensive aimed at calling for the resolution authorizing the drafting of a plan aimed at achieving final victory in 1976. The leaders of Communist forces in South Vietnam issue an order to begin counterattacks of South Vietnamese military bases and other points in retaliation for Saigon’s earlier offensive operations. U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Kissinger accepts, but Tho declines the award until such time as “peace is truly established” in Vietnam.

November 1973 7

15

The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Act limiting the president’s power to commit U.S. armed forces abroad without congressional approval. The U.S. Congress passes a Military Procurement Authorization bill that prohibits funds for any U.S. military action in any part of Indochina.

South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu announces that “as far as the armed forces are concerned, I can tell you the war has restarted.” Naval battle between Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN, South Vietnam Navy) and Chinese Navy ships in which one large VNN ship is sunk and more than 50 Vietnamese sailors are killed. Following the battle, Chinese forces seize and occupy the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, claiming them as Chinese territory. The United States takes no action in response to the Chinese attack.

February 1974 South Vietnamese forces launch major offensive operations against PRG-controlled areas in Quang Ngai Province and the Cu Chi–Trang Bang area west of the city of Saigon.

March 1974

22

The Central Military Committee of the North Vietnamese Lao Dong Party passes a resolution that if the United States and South Vietnam “do not implement the agreement,” it must “destroy the enemy and liberate the South.” This month sees the heaviest fighting in South Vietnam since the cease-fire. In the last major political initiative by either side in the war, the PRG offers to hold elections within one year of the establishment of a National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord.

April 1974 4

11 12

16

The U.S. House of Representatives rejects the Richard Nixon administration request to increase military aid to South Vietnam. The ARVN evacuates the Ranger base at Tong Le Chan, surrounded by Communist troops since the cease-fire. South Vietnamese representatives withdraw from the Paris talks on political reconciliation with representatives of the PRG. The South Vietnamese government withdraws diplomatic “privileges and immunities” of the PRG delegation to the Joint Military Commission.

December 1973

May 1974

31

10

Approximately 50 U.S. uniformed military personnel remain in South Vietnam. Communist forces in South Vietnam total 380,000 fulltime soldiers and 120,000 part-time guerrillas. More than 100,000 North Vietnamese troops with full equipment have been sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to fight in South Vietnam in defiance of the provisions of the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords.

13

The PRG delegation walks out of the Joint Military Commission, refusing to return until the commission’s privileges and immunities are restored. The PRG delegation suspends its participation in the Paris political talks, citing the earlier suspension of the conference by South Vietnam, withdrawal of diplomatic privileges for the PRG delegation in Saigon, and what it styles South Vietnamese “land grabbing” operations.

Chronology

July–August 1974 Communist forces regain major areas of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces in their first major offensive in the South Vietnamese lowlands.

March 1975 10 12

August 1974 6

9

20

In a vote of 233 to 157, the U.S. House of Representatives cuts military aid appropriations for South Vietnam from $1 billion to $700 million. Under threat of impeachment for the Watergate Scandal, Richard Nixon resigns the presidency of the United States. He is succeeded by Vice President Gerald R. Ford. The U.S. Congress agrees on a reduction in aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion to $700 million.

September 1974 28

In the northern provinces of South Vietnam, North Vietnamese troops, after a series of successful pushes in July and August, close to within 15 miles of Hue.

14

15

19

21

October 1974

8

The Communist political and military leadership in Vietnam concludes that the United States is unlikely to intervene and could not save the regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu even if it did intervene. The PRG calls on public figures and organizations in South Vietnam to work for the overthrow of the Nguyen Van Thieu government and establishment of a new regime in Saigon.

25

December 1974 13

31

PAVN general Tran Van Tra and COSVN head and political commissar for Communist forces in South Vietnam Pham Hung order the 7th Division and the newly formed 3rd Division to attack and seize Phuoc Long Province north of Saigon. Approximately 50 U.S. uniformed military personnel remain in South Vietnam.

26 30

Communist forces attack Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands, opening their Spring Offensive. Ban Me Thuot falls to Communist forces. The U.S. Congress turns down President Gerald Ford’s request for $300 million in emergency military aid for South Vietnam. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu orders the precipitous withdrawal of ARVN forces from the Central Highlands. ARVN forces begin a retreat from Kontum and Pleiku that soon becomes a debacle. Tens of thousands of troops and massive amounts of military equipment and weapons, including hundreds of armored vehicles and artillery pieces, are lost during the retreat to the coast. Communist forces capture Quang Tri City following the withdrawal of the South Vietnamese Marine Division from the province. The PAVN II Corps launches an offensive against Hue City. Following contradictory orders from Saigon about whether or not Hue should be defended, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) attempt to withdraw south to Da Nang turns into rout and the ARVN 1st Division disintegrates. The North Vietnamese Politburo revises its timetable for ending the war, deciding that Saigon should be taken before the beginning of the mid-May rainy season. Communist commander of the offensive General Van Tien Dung asks permission to call this the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, in the hope of achieving victory before Ho’s May 19 birthday anniversary. The Politburo agrees. The city of Hue falls to Communist troops. Da Nang, flooded with refugees, is already under rocket attack. The city of Da Nang falls to Communist forces. North Vietnamese leaders order the commander of their forces in South Vietnam, General Van Tien Dung, to push toward Saigon in the Ho Chi Minh Campaign.

January 1975

April 1975

1

1

6 8

The Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer, Cambodian Communists) begin a final offensive against the besieged Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Communist forces take Phuoc Binh, the capital of Phuoc Long Province. Communist forces complete the seizure of Phuoc Long Province. The United States does not intervene with airpower.

3–26 4

February 1975 26

A bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation arrives in Saigon to make a firsthand assessment of the situation.

1763

9–22

Cambodian president Lon Nol abdicates and flees Cambodia. Nha Trang City, the headquarters of the ARVN II Corps, is evacuated, meaning that the entire northern half of South Vietnam is now in Communist hands. Operation BABYLIFT evacuates more than 3,300 Amerasian infants and children from Vietnam. A U.S. Air Force C-5A Galaxy evacuating children under Operation BABYLIFT crashes on takeoff from Tan Son Nhut, killing 153 of 328 on board. The Battle for Xuan Loc, capital of Long Khanh Province and strategically important to the defense of Saigon,

1764

10

12 16

17 21 26

28

29

Chronology takes place. The ARVN fights well in the battle, its only major stand of the Communist offensive. U.S. president Gerald Ford requests an additional $722 million in military aid to South Vietnam. Congress refuses. Operation EAGLE PULL, the evacuation of U.S. personnel from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, occurs. U.S. president Gerald Ford orders all “unneeded” Americans to leave South Vietnam. The ARVN Phan Rang Air Base, a brigade of paratroopers, and several infantry regiments are overrun by a North Vietnamese armored column. Two ARVN generals and one U.S. government official are captured following this attack. Khmer Rouge forces take the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu resigns in favor of Vice President Tran Van Huong. The final Communist assault on Saigon begins as 270,000 Communist combat troops organized into five corps advance toward the city from all sides. South Vietnamese president Tran Van Huong resigns in favor of Duong Van Minh, who helped overthrow President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963. Five captured VNAF jets flown by North Vietnamese pilots bomb Tan Son Nhut Air Base on the outskirts of Saigon. After Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut Airfield comes under heavy artillery attack, U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin orders a full U.S. evacuation from Saigon. Fearing its negative impact on morale, he has delayed too long. The operation, known as FREQUENT WIND, takes place in chaotic circumstances as helicopters and U.S. marines evacuate 395 Americans and 4,475 Vietnamese. Only a minority of Vietnamese thought to be at risk are evacuated or manage to escape by other means.

30

Communist forces capture Saigon, for all practical purposes bringing the Vietnam War to a close.

May 1975 Communist Pathet Lao forces seize control of the coalition government of Laos and eliminate the last remaining anti-Communist military forces, completing the Communist takeover of all of Indochina. 1 Communist forces complete the occupation of the Mekong Delta, eliminating the last remaining pockets of resistance of ARVN forces. 12–15 Khmer Rouge naval vessels capture the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez off the Cambodian coast, prompting a U.S. military operation to rescue the ship and its crew. Thirty-eight U.S. servicemen are killed and several U.S. helicopters are shot down by Khmer Rouge forces before the ship and its civilian crew are recovered.

May–June 1975 After Khmer Rouge forces seize Vietnamese territory along the border in the Mekong Delta as well as several offshore islands in the Gulf of Thailand, PAVN ground, naval, and air forces launch attacks to recapture the lost territory. The last offshore island is not retaken until June 14. These battles set the stage for full-scale warfare between Vietnam and Cambodia that breaks out several years later, culminating in the Vietnamese overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime and the 10-year Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia (1979–1989).

July 1976 2

The reunification of Vietnam is completed with the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). SPENCER C. TUCKER AND MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II

Glossary

AA

Antiaircraft artillery (also AAA).

APO

Army Post Office.

ACAV

Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle. M113 armored personnel carrier modified with two additional 7.62-millimeter (mm) machine guns and shielding for its main .50-caliber machine gun.

ARA

Aerial rocket artillery.

A-rations

Hot food prepared by cooks and served in mess halls or flown out to the troops in the field.

Arc Light

Code name for B-52 bombing program within South Vietnam.

ARG/SLF

Amphibious Ready Group/Special Landing Force.

ARVN

Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the proAmerican army of South Vietnam.

ASEAN

The Association of South East Asian Nations, founded in 1967 to oppose the threat of feared Communist expansionism. Members include Brunei, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (admitted in July 1995).

attack aircraft

Aircraft employed for the delivery of air-toground ordnance.

AWCC

Air Warning Control Center, established to broadcast warnings of artillery fire to friendly aircraft in the vicinity.

Agent Orange

AK-47

The most widely used of the several colorcoded herbicides employed in the defoliation of Vietnamese forests and jungles. Russian-designed assault rifle. Automvat Kalashinikov (AK), manufactured throughout the Communist bloc, is considered to be one of the most successful infantry weapons of the twentieth century. The AK-47 was used extensively by Communist forces in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) from 1965 on.

AID

See USAID.

Americal

U.S. 23rd Infantry Division.

AO

Area of operations. Tactical operations area for a specific combat unit.

AOA

Amphibious objective area.

AOI

Area of interest.

AOR

Area of responsibility.

AWOL

Absent without leave.

ap

Vietnamese word for “hamlet.”

B-40

APC

Armored Personnel Carrier.

APERS

Antipersonnel ammunition. See Beehive ammunition.

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong (VC) term used to refer to the Soviet-designed RPG-2, a rocket-propelled grenade. See also RPG.

1765

1766

Glossary

B-41

PAVN and VC term used to refer to the Soviet-designed RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade. See also RPG.

Ba Muoi Ba

A Vietnamese beer, named for its trademark, the number “33.”

bug out

Slang term meaning to run from the enemy. The term denotes cowardly action.

base area

Area used for the assembly of troops and logistical support.

CAC

battalion

An army and marine corps organizational unit of three or more companies, normally commanded by a lieutenant colonel.

battery

The basic army or marine corps artillery firing unit of approximately 100 soldiers and equipped with two to six guns, commanded by a captain.

Combined Action Companies. Organized by the U.S. Marine Corps beginning in August 1965, CACs were composed of a Vietnamese Popular Forces company (three platoons) and a U.S. Marine Corps rifle platoon. See also CAP.

cai tang

Vietnamese practice of reburial. Traditionally and especially before 1954, about three to five years after an individual died and was buried in a temporary grave, the individual’s relatives would exhume the remains, remove whatever flesh might still remain, wash the bones with scented alcohol, and rebury the remains in a permanent grave. The remains might also be moved to another grave, at a site selected so as to bring success and luck to the dead person’s descendants.

CAP

Combined Action Platoon. Organized in February 1967 by the U.S. Marine Corps to wage the “other war.” The CAP combined a U.S. Marine Corps rifle squad of 14 men and 1 U.S. Navy corpsman with 3 10-man Popular Force (PF) militia squads and a 5-man platoon headquarters into a combined platoon of 50 American and Vietnamese soldiers to provide security at the local level and initiate civic action programs as part of the pacification effort. See also CAC.

CAP

Combined Action Program. U.S. Marine Corps program designed to integrate personnel with local security forces at the hamlet and village levels as part of the counterinsurgency program. See also CAC.

CAP

Combat Air Patrol of fighter aircraft designed to provide protection against enemy fighters striking one’s own attack or bomber aircraft. CAPS were also often flown over U.S. 7th Fleet aircraft carriers when they were operating deep inside the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam.

Capital Military District

For the ARVN, the area of Saigon and its immediate environs, including Gia Dinh Province and the Rung Sac Special Zone.

CAR

Combat Action Ribbon (U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps).

BCT

Brigade Combat Team.

BDA

Bomb damage assessment.

beehive ammunition

Antipersonnel ammunition for howitzers and recoilless rifles used by U.S. forces. Beehive ammunition was designed to be used against a massed infantry attack and delivered thousands of small metal arrowlike projectiles (fléchettes) instead of shrapnel that exploded in a 30-degree arc.

berm

Built-up dirt wall used as a defensive barrier against an attack.

Big Red One

U.S. 1st Infantry Division.

bird dog

A very small light single-engine fixed-wing observation aircraft (U.S. Air Force designation, O-1).

Black Horse

U.S. 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

BLT

Battalion landing team. Marine amphibious group.

BMEO

Brigade Marine l’Extrême Orient (French Far East Naval Brigade), the first French riverine unit.

boonies

Slang term meaning “the field,” “enemy territory,” “Indian country,” or “Apache country.”

brigade

For the U.S. Army in Vietnam, a division was grouped into three brigades, each made up of two to four battalions and commanded by a colonel. The number of soldiers would vary according to the purpose of a particular mission. There were also separate U.S. infantry brigades. In the ARVN, only the Airborne Division and the Marine Division used the brigade system of organization. While People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North

Vietnamese Army) divisions were always organized into regiments, the PAVN did have a small number of independent brigades.

Glossary CAS

Close air support.

CBU

Cluster Bomb Unit.

CDEC

Combined Document Exploitation Center. Joint U.S.-ARVN unit that specialized in translating, analyzing, and exploiting captured VC and PAVN documents. Located on the outskirts of Saigon.

CG

Commanding general.

Charlie

One of the many names for Communist troops; military phonetic for the letter “c”; also a shortened form of Victor Charlie (Viet Cong).

chicken-plate

Bullet- and fragmentation-resistant breastplate worn by helicopter crews.

CHICOM

Chinese Communist; also Chinese Communist-made weaponry.

Chieu Hoi

Open Arms Program, developed to attract Communist deserters.

detonated or emplaced to fire electronically (command detonated). The VC and the PAVN also had their own locally manufactured Claymore mines, which they called DH (dinh huong, meaning “directional”) mines. clear and hold

A military strategy used in the pacification program. In the clear phase, friendly troops would surround, capture, and search an area to clear it of Communist forces. When the area was cleared, other troops (usually South Vietnamese forces) would be stationed in the area to defend it while the original troops moved on to clear another area.

CMB

Combat Medical Badge (U.S. Army).

CMIC

Combined Military Interrogation Center. Joint U.S.-ARVN interrogation center specializing in the interrogation of VC and PAVN military personnel, including both prisoners of war and defectors, who were believed to have knowledge of information of significant value. The CMIC was located on the outskirts of Saigon.

CNC

Cuc Nghien Cuu (Research Department). North Vietnam’s military intelligence organization.

CHNAVADVGRP Chief, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam (U.S. Navy). chogey

A Korean War slang term transferred to Vietnam and meaning to leave an area (e.g., “cut a chogey”).

1767

CIA

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

CIB

Combat Infantryman Badge, U.S. Army.

CNO

Chief of naval operations (U.S.).

CIDG

Civilian Irregular Defense Group. Originally a CIA project that combined self-defense functions with economic programs to win the support of the civilian population, CIDG units were recruited, paid, and advised by U.S. Army Special Forces personnel working alongside Luc Luong Dac Biet (South Vietnamese Special Forces) officers.

CO

Commanding officer.

CO

Conscientious objector.

company

A basic military unit of two or more platoons. In the U.S. armed forces (both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps), permanent companies usually had alphabetic names (e.g., Alpha Company, Bravo Company, Charlie Company). Vietnamese companies (including ARVN, VC, and PAVN) normally had numerical designations (e.g., 1st Company, 4th Company, 812th Company, etc.).

CINCPAC

Commander in chief, Pacific Command. Commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, including Southeast Asia.

CIO

South Vietnamese Central Intelligence Organization.

COMUSMACV

Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

civic action

Civil affairs program designed to win the loyalty of civilians as part of general pacification programs.

CONUS

Continental United States.

cordon and search

Operations to surround and then search a specific area.

An antipersonnel mine that produced a directional fan-shaped pattern of fragments. The American Claymore mine was the M18 antipersonnel mine. Light, easily transported, and highly directional, the Claymore mine sprayed out more than 100 steel balls in a 40-degree arc. The M18 could be hand

CORDS

Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; also Civil Operations and Rural Development Support. CORDS, an organization that directed the work of all U.S. civilian agencies engaged in pacification work in South Vietnam, fell under the military chain of command. CORDS was the

claymore

1768

Glossary successor to the Office of Civilian Operations (OCO). Note: The reason for the two different names for CORDS is that the South Vietnamese government refused to accept the American wish to use the word “revolutionary” in the name of the new pacification program. The South Vietnamese called the program “rural development,” while the U.S. Government, for political reasons, insisted on calling it “revolutionary development.”

corps

COSVN

A military organization consisting of two or more divisions plus combat support and logistics units. In the ARVN table of organization, but not in the U.S. or PAVN systems, a corps was responsible for a military region. Central Office for South Vietnam (Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam), the highest-level Vietnamese Communist Party (then called the Lao Dong Party, or the Communist Workers’ Party) headquarters in South Vietnam. Acting as the direct representative of the Communist Party Central Committee in Hanoi, the COSVN directed all aspects of the war in South Vietnam (military, political, governmental, economic, and social). From 1964 through to the end of the war in 1975, the COSVN was always headed by a member of the Communist Party Politburo (General Nguyen Chi Thanh from 1964 to 1967 and Pham Hung from 1967 to 1975).

CP

Command post.

C-rats

C-rations.

CSA

Chief of staff of the U.S. Army.

CTZ

Corps tactical zone, a military region. The ARVN divided Vietnam into four military regions, I to IV.

CUPP

U.S. Marine Corps–Regional Forces/Popular Forces Combined Unit Pacification Program.

DEROS

Date of estimated return from overseas service, the date eligible to return to the United States.

deuce-anda-half

Slang term for the ubiquitous American 2.5-ton military truck.

DIA

Defense Intelligence Agency.

dien cai dau (dinky dau)

Vietnamese for “crazy,” widely used by GIs and by the Vietnamese to describe Americans in Vietnam.

Dinassauts

French integrated tactical units composed of naval and army forces for riverine warfare during the Indochina War.

dink

Derogatory slang term used by American GIs to refer to Vietnamese, derived from a Vietnamese term for crazy, dien cai dau, which GIs pronounced as “dinky dau”.

DIOC

District Intelligence Operations Center. A joint South Vietnamese–U.S. organization set up as part of the Phoenix Program that coordinated all intelligence regarding VC activities in a district.

DIVARTY

Division artillery.

division

An organizational and tactical unit that in the U.S. armed forces consisted of 15,000–20,000 men organized into two to three brigades, used for sustained combat. ARVN divisions were slightly smaller and were made up of three to four infantry regiments. VC/PAVN divisions were considerably smaller (8,000– 9,000 in theory but in practice usually around 5,000–6,000 men) and were organized into two to three infantry regiments.

DKB

PAVN and VC term used to refer to the Soviet-designed single-tube 122-mm rocket.

DKZ

PAVN and VC term for recoilless rifles.

DMZ

Demilitarized zone. Established in the 1954 Geneva Accords to provisionally divide North Vietnam and South Vietnam at the 17th Parallel, pending elections that were to have been held in 1956. Demarcation line just below the 17th Parallel following the Ben Hai River.

doc lap

Vietnamese term for “independence.” The South Vietnamese Presidential Palace, South Vietnam’s equivalent to the U.S. White House, was called Dinh Doc Lap, or Independence Palace.

DOD

Department of Defense.

donut dollies

Nickname for workers in the Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas (SRAO) program in Vietnam, which provided a variety of recreational activities for American troops. The women were so-named because they often dispensed donuts and coffee to the troops, especially in the field. The women also assisted in hospitals and provided games and conversation in the field.

Glossary door gunner

A soldier who fired from the open door of a helicopter, a hazardous position usually filled by volunteers.

dragon ship

AC-47 gunship (also called “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Spooky”).

DRV

Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), established on September 2, 1945.

duster

M-42 tracked vehicle mounted with twin 40-mm antiaircraft guns.

dustoff

Helicopter evacuation of wounded.

DZ

Drop zone for airborne forces.

Eagle Flight

A special U.S. helicopter assault force used to observe Communist positions, react to emergencies, and raid and ambush.

ECM

Electronic countermeasures designed to defeat enemy radar systems.

ELINT

Electronic intelligence. Intelligence derived from the collection and analysis of enemy electronic signals (principally enemy radars).

FAC

Forward air controller. Low-flying spotter planes identified Communist positions and called the FAC, who in turn ordered air strikes against these positions.

FADAC

The U.S. Army’s first digital fire direction computer.

FANK

Forces Armées Nationale Khmer (Khmer National Armed Forces), the Cambodian armed forces of the Lon Nol government.

1769

Fishhook

Area of Cambodia jutting into South Vietnam along the northern borders of Tay Ninh and Binh Long Province, northwest of Saigon. Location of numerous Communist headquarters, base camps, and supply caches.

flashback

A strong recurrence of memory, usually a reaction from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

flight

A basic air force organizational and tactical unit; a group of three to five aircraft used together in a common mission.

FMF

Fleet Marine Force.

FMFPAC

Fleet Marine Force, Pacific Command.

FO

Forward observer. A field artillery lieutenant assigned to an infantry or armor company for the purposes of calling for and adjusting artillery fire on a target.

FOB

Forward operating base.

Force Recon

The U.S. Marine Corps’ elite reconnaissance element.

four-deuce

Slang term for the American 4.2-inch heavy mortar.

FPO

Fleet Post Office; U.S. Navy address/zip code.

frag

Hand grenade, fragmentation. Also to kill or attempt to kill one’s own officers or noncommissioned officers, usually with a fragmentation grenade.

FRAGO

Fragmentary order, the standard type of order issued to U.S. troops conducting combat operations, called a “fragmentary order” because it was short and did not cover the full range of elements that were prescribed in the U.S. Army Field Manual for military orders.

FDC

Fire Direction Center.

FDO

Fire direction officer.

field force

U.S. Corps-sized commands subordinate to MACV.

firebase

A small artillery base, usually temporary, used as a base from which to launch patrols and to support ground operations.

freedom birds

A brief and violent exchange of small-arms fire between two opposing units rather than combat action between two larger forces during an assault.

Nickname given to aircraft that carried U.S. soldiers back home to the United States after their tour of duty in Southeast Asia was over.

free fire zone

An area in which targets could be engaged at any time with any and all available weapons systems.

fresh meat

New replacements or new arrivals in Vietnam.

FSB

Fire-support base.

FUNK

Front Unité Nationale Kampuchea (National United Front of Cambodia). The Khmer Rouge–controlled front organization headed by Cambodia’s Prince Sihanouk following the

firefight

First Team

U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Also referred to as “Aircav,” “1st Horse,” or “1st Aircav.”

FISCOORD

Fire-support coordinator for artillery at the company, battalion, or brigade level. Usually the senior artilleryman present who prepared fire plans and integrated all indirect-fire weapons.

1770

Glossary at HA when necessary to clear an intervening mask or attack a target in defilade.

coup that overthrew Sihanouk’s government in March 1970. See Khmer Rouge. G-1

The deputy chief of staff for personnel at the divisional, corps, field forces, or Department of the Army levels.

G-2

The deputy chief of staff for intelligence at the divisional, corps, field forces, or Department of the Army levels.

G-3

The deputy chief of staff for operations at the divisional, corps, field forces, or Department of the Army levels.

G-4

The deputy chief of staff for logistics at the divisional, corps, field forces, or Department of the Army levels.

GCMA

Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés. French Special Forces that conducted long-range penetration missions and clandestine raids into Viet Minh territory during the Indochina War.

GM

Groupe mobile. French military unit equivalent to a U.S. regimental combat team or a light separate brigade.

going downtown Flying an air strike mission against the Hanoi area. GPES

Ground Proximity Extraction System. Used during air resupply to extract loads from transport aircraft, as during the siege of Khe Sanh. A long hook attached to cargo in a C-130 would catch an arrester wire on the runway, pulling the cargo from the plane.

Green Berets

Nickname for U.S. Army Special Forces.

group

A command unit of two or more battalions used for combat service and support and usually commanded by a colonel. Also an artillery unit consisting of three or more battalions commanded by a colonel used for general support within a designated area.

HE

High-explosive artillery shell or bomb.

Headhunters

Nickname for the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), also known as the “Blues.” The element of the 1st Cavalry Division designated to perform reconnaissance missions. Their mission was to fix and hold Communist forces until the rest of the division could engage.

hearts and minds In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “So we must be ready to fight in Vietnam, but the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there.” The U.S. government tried to win the loyalty and trust of the Vietnamese through various pacification programs that included providing security from VC harassment and civic improvements with the objective of encouraging villagers to fight against the Communists. HEAT

High explosive, antitank.

H&I

Harassment and interdiction fire. Random rounds fired at suspected or likely enemy locations and routes.

HOB

Height of burst. That height above the ground at which a mortar or artillery round detonated, depending on the setting of the mechanical time fuse or the proximity fuse.

Ho Chi Minh Trail

Network of roads and trails leading from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam.

Hoi Chanh

A Communist defector under the Chieu Hoi Program.

hootch

Slang for a soldier’s shelter. Also used to refer to the thatched-roof huts in which Vietnamese rural peasants usually lived.

grunt

U.S. nickname for an infantry soldier. Also “Boonie Rat,” “11 Bang-Bang,” “11 Bush,” “Bush Buster.”

hop tac

Vietnamese for “cooperation.” Operation HOP TAC was the unsuccessful 1964 pacification program concentrated around Saigon.

gunship

An armed helicopter or converted fixed-wing cargo plane with loitering ability to provide aerial support to ground troops.

HQ

Headquarters.

Huey

Slang for the UH-1 series of helicopters.

IADS

Integrated air defense system.

GVN

Government of Vietnam. U.S. term for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam).

ICC

HA

High-angle fire with an elevation greater than 800 mils (45 degrees). All mortars fired HA only. Field artillery howitzers normally fired

International Control Commission. Established by the 1954 Geneva Conference to supervise implementation of the Geneva Accords, the ICC consisted of representatives of three countries that were not

Glossary participants in the conflict but nonetheless represented different points of view: India (neutralist), Canada (Western), and Poland (Communist). ICCS

International Commission of Control and Supervision. The ICCS was an international military peacekeeping force established by the 1973 Paris Peace Accords to supervise the cease-fire in South Vietnam. The ICCS was originally made up of military personnel from Poland, Hungary, Indonesia, and Canada. Canada withdrew from the ICCS after only a few months and was replaced by Iran.

ICM

Improved conventional munitions. Artillery rounds that burst in the air and showered the target area with dozens of bomblets called submunitions. Also known by the slang term “firecracker.”

Igloo White

Code name for the electronic intelligence collection program that monitored, collated, and analyzed data collected by electronic sensors planted along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

ILLUM

Illumination rounds fired by either artillery or mortars.

IPSD

Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog).

IVS

International Voluntary Services. A private nonprofit organization that served as a model for the Peace Corps that first came to South Vietnam in 1957. Funded primarily by USAID, support also came from the South Vietnamese government during the early years. IVS workers were required to study Vietnamese and received instruction in Vietnamese culture. Individuals signed up for a two-year stay in-country, with assignments at the village level ranging from agricultural development to the teaching of English. The IVS saw its function as humanitarian and divorced from USAID political objectives. The South Vietnamese government ceased approving IVS projects in 1971.

J-1

J-2

The director of personnel on a joint staff such as MACV, the Pacific Command, or the Department of Defense Joint Staff in Washington. The director of intelligence on a joint staff such as MACV, the Pacific Command, or

1771

the Department of Defense Joint Staff in Washington. J-3

The director of operations on a joint staff such as MACV, the Pacific Command, or the Department of Defense Joint Staff in Washington.

J-4

The director of logistics on a joint staff such as MACV, the Pacific Command, or the Department of Defense Joint Staff in Washington.

JCS

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Heads of the U.S. military, consisting of the chairman, the U.S. Army chief of staff, the chief of naval operations, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, and the U.S. Marine Corps commandant (ex officio). The JCS advises the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council on military matters.

JGS

Joint General Staff. The national-level headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army). The Chief of the ARVN JGS was, in theory, the commander of all ARVN forces (including army, navy, air force, and territorial forces), although in practice the South Vietnamese president (especially Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu) frequently bypassed the JGS and issued orders directly to subordinate military commanders.

Jolly Green Giant U.S. Air Force HH-3 and HH-53 heavy rescue helicopters. JUSPAO

Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office, created in 1965 to take charge of both relations with the news media and psychological warfare operations.

JUWTF

Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force, composed of unconventional warfare personnel from the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Navy.

Khmer Krom

Cambodian word meaning “lower Khmer” and used to refer to ethnic Cambodian residents of South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

Khmer Rouge

Literally “Red Khmer.” The Cambodian Communist organization headed by Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan.

KIA

Killed in action.

Killer Junior

A close-in artillery technique designed to defend firebases against enemy ground attack using mechanical time-fused

1772

Glossary projectiles set to burst approximately 30 feet off the ground at ranges of 200 to 1,000 meters. Primarily employed by 155-mm artillery and used by U.S. firebases against ground assaults.

LZ

Landing zone for helicopters.

M-14

A 7.62-mm semiautomatic rifle with wooden stock. The M-14 was the standard U.S. infantry weapon during 1957–1967. See also M-16.

Kit Carson Scouts

Former Viet Cong (VC) or People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) soldiers who were used as scouts by U.S. units.

M-16

KKK

Khmer Kampuchea Krom. The KKK was an anti-Communist faction loosely allied with the Khmer Serai and seeking automony for Khmer Krom people living in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam in return for military services. During the 1960s Khmer Krom soldiers made up the bulk of many territorial force and irregular units of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army).

A 5.65-mm fully automatic U.S. assault rifle, primary an infantry weapon of the war. The M-16 incurred great controversy, as early models tended to jam in combat. Troops initially preferred the M-14.

M-60

Standard American light machine gun firing the 7.62-mm North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standard round. The M-60 fired from fixed mounts, tripods, or a bipod attached to the barrel.

M-79

U.S. shoulder-fired 40-mm grenade launcher. Also called the “Thumper” or the “Elephant Gun.”

MAAG

Military Assistance and Advisory Group.

MAC

Military Airlift Command.

MACV

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

MACV-SOG

MACV Studies and Observation Group (unconventional warfare units).

KPNLF

Non-Communist Khmer People’s Liberation Front in Cambodia, organized following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979 to oppose the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia.

laager

Slang, also lager. A Boer War term that denotes preparing a defensive position, usually at night. This term was more common in U.S. armored or mechanized infantry units. See also NDP.

mad minute

Used by U.S. forces in an effort to force or “trip” a VC or PAVN ambush or assault. Just prior to daybreak, all forces within a position would open fire into the area surrounding the position, utilizing all weapons.

LAW

Light antitank weapon (M-72). A LAW was a shoulder-fired U.S.-made 66-mm antitank rocket fired from a collapsible, disposable launch tube.

MAF

Marine Amphibious Force.

Main force

Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) regular combat units.

MARKET TIME

Codeword for interdiction efforts against North Vietnamese seaborne infiltration.

MATS

Military Air Transport Service.

MAW

Military Air Wing.

lima sites

Rough primitive airstrips in Laos used by the United States to support covert military operations.

LLDB

Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB, South Vietnamese Special Forces).

LOC

Line of communication.

MEB

Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

Local force

Viet Cong (VC) territorial forces, organized at the province and district levels.

mechanized infantry

LOH

Light observation helicopter (pronounced loach).

Combat infantry units trained and equipped to be carried into battle in armored personnel carriers.

MEDCAP

LP

Listening post. Small outposts, usually consisting of a squad or less, placed outside of a defensive perimeter to provide early warning of approaching enemy forces.

Medical Civic Action Program that brought military doctors and medics to rural villages and hamlets.

medevac

Acronym combining the words “medical” and “evacuation”; term applied to the movement of casualties from the battlefield to more secure locations for immediate medical attention.

LPLA

Lao People’s Liberation Army, the military arm of the Communist Pathet Lao.

Glossary MIA

Missing in action.

Montagnard

French term for indigenous Vietnamese mountain people. Often shortened to “Yard.”

1773

ian agencies in South Vietnam under the jurisdiction of the U.S. embassy. OP

Observation post. A position used for either reconnaissance or for artillery forward observers to call in fire.

opcon

Operation control. For example, the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, was under the Opcon of the 3rd Marines.

MOS

Military Occupational Specialty.

MP

Military Police.

MRF

Mobile Riverine Force.

MSC

Military Sealift Command.

MSS

Military Security Service (South Vietnam), an ARVN intelligence and security agency.

OPLAN

Operations plan.

Muscle Shoals

Codeword for electronic sensor operations in the DMZ.

OPORD

Operations order.

OSS

MUST

Medical Unit Self-contained, Transportable.

U.S. Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA.

NAG

Naval Advisory Group. NAG was the U.S. Navy Section in MAAG Vietnam until May 1964. In April 1965 NAG became an operational naval command.

P-38

GI slang designation for the C-ration can opener.

PAO

Public Affairs officer.

paramilitary

Militia-type forces that operate separately from regular military formations.

Parrot’s Beak

The area of Cambodia jutting deep into South Vietnam west of Saigon on the northern edge of the Mekong Delta and bordering the South Vietnamese provinces of Tay Ninh, Hau Nghia, Long An, and Kien Tuong.

pathfinder

Airborne and airmobile term for specially trained soldiers inserted ahead of the main body of troops to mark a drop zone or a landing zone.

PAVN

People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese Army). NVA was the acronym used by U.S. forces for the PAVN during the war.

PBR

Patrol boat, riverine. A small heavily armed naval vessel used by the U.S. and South Vietnamese navies to patrol the rivers of South Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta.

PCF

Patrol craft, fast. A small heavily armed coastal patrol boat used by the U.S. and South Vietnamese navies to patrol South Vietnam’s coastal waters. See also MARKET TIME.

PCS

Permanent change of station.

PD

Point detonating fuse for artillery and mortar rounds.

phougas

Drums of jellied gasoline placed around a fortification that could be used as a defensive weapon (also called “foo-gas”).

PIRAZ

Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone. PIRAZ ships were U.S. destroyers, frigates, and cruisers operating in the Gulf of Tonkin to provide support for allied war planes.

napalm

Incendiary weapon used by both France and the United States in Vietnam. A jellylike substance, napalm adheres to a substance while it burns.

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NDP

Night defensive position.

NLF

National Liberation Front, officially the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, also known as the Viet Cong (VC).

no-fire line

U.S. fire-control measure. The no-fire line was the designated point on a map beyond which no indirect-fire weapons or air assets could be employed without permission from the sector commander.

NSA

National Security Agency, the U.S. agency responsible for the centralized coordination, direction, and performance of American signals intelligence.

nug

Short for “nugget,” a new arrival or newly arrived replacement in Vietnam.

Nung

Chinese ethnic group. Nungs often served as mercenaries for the French and later the United States.

NVA

OCO

North Vietnamese Army. U.S. designation for the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army). Office of Civilian Operations. The OCO was the predecessor to the Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). The OCO organized all U.S. civil-

1774

Glossary

platoon

The basic infantry unit of 22–40 men (two or more squads) commanded by a lieutenant.

POL

Petroleum, oil, and lubricants.

POW

Prisoner of war.

PRC-25

The standard field radio carried by American radio telephone operators (RTOs).

PRU

Provincial Reconnaissance Unit. PRUs were irregular armed units funded and advised by the CIA and under the direct authority of the province chief. Operating as part of the Phoenix Program, the PRUs were responsible for targeting and capturing or eliminating key members of the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI).

PSDF

People’s Self-Defense Forces. Paramilitary South Vietnamese local militia consisting of part-time soldiers, most of whom were young students, older men, and others who were not of military age or were not qualified for military service. The PSDF was formed after the 1968 Tet Offensive.

PSYOPS

Psychological operations.

PSYWAR

Psychological warfare.

Puff (Puff the Magic Dragon)

Nickname for AC-47 aircraft mounting a bank of 7.62-mm electrically driven Gatling guns.

punji stake

A sharpened bamboo stake covered with feces or poison and placed at the bottom of a pit, under water, or along a trail to be stepped on by troops. The punji stake was an effective physical and psychological weapon.

PX

Post Exchange (U.S. Army). In the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, it was referred to as the Base Exchange (BX) or the Naval Exchange (NEX), respectively.

PZ

Pickup zone for helicopter landing and extraction of personnel.

rallier

An individual defecting from the other side.

RCT

Regimental Combat Team.

RD

Revolutionary Development; also Rural Development. The term for a South Vietnamese pacification program that was begun under U.S. auspices in the mid-1960s. The RD Training Center at Vung Tau trained RD cadre teams that were sent out to operate in rural villages. The program was directed by South Vietnam’s Ministry of Revolutionary Development (called by the South

Vietnamese the Ministry of Rural Development) and funded by the Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). RDF

Radio direction finding. RDF was the use of electronic equipment to pinpoint the location of enemy radio transmitters. RDF provided essential information about the command structure and unit deployment of the opposing side. RDF and associated signals intelligence activities were utilized by all major Indochina antagonists.

recon

Reconnaissance patrol, used to secure information about enemy troop strengths, movements, etc.; also called “recce.”

redleg

U.S. slang for artillerymen (from red, the color of the artillery).

regiment

Once a basic organizational unit in the U.S. Army, larger than a battalion, smaller than a brigade; now only used for armored cavalry units. In the U.S. Marine Corps, a regiment is a basic organizational unit of three infantry battalions. The regiment, made up of three battalions plus smaller combat support and logistics units, was also a standard military organizational unit in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army), the Viet Cong (VC), and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army).

REMF

A vulgar slang term used to refer to military personnel assigned to noncombat duties in the rear. “RE” meant “Rear Echelon.”

restricted fire line

U.S. fire control measure. The restricted fire line was a designated point on a map beyond which targets could be engaged only with indirect-fire weapons or air assets with permission from tactical headquarters or when direct contact was in progress.

RFs/PFs

South Vietnamese Regional Forces and Popular Forces (also known as “Ruff-Puffs”). RFs/ PFs were locally recruited South Vietnamese forces not counted as part of the regular military establishment. The RFs were organized in company and battalion size units, some in battle groups of two or three battalions. RFs were the organic forces of the provinces and were under the command and control of the provincial military headquarters. Armed with light weapons, they were equipped and

Glossary trained and held ranks similar to the regular army. The PFs belonged to the villages and operated in separate platoons. They were assigned to defend their villages and prevent infiltration by the Viet Cong (VC).

1775

Vietnamese bar girls at exorbitant prices. The girls made a commission from the bar on each Saigon tea that a GI bought for them. SAM

Surface-to-air missile.

sapper

Specially trained assault engineers and demolition experts skilled at penetrating enemy defenses to destroy equipment and fortifications. Sappers, often a part of highrisk missions, were organized and deployed in units ranging from squads up to battalionor regimental-sized groups. During the Vietnam War the term “sapper” always referred to Communist troops. Today, however, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps use the term for their specially trained assault engineers.

SAR

Search and rescue.

SCT

Sea Commando Team.

Seabees

Naval construction engineers (from CB, for Construction Battalion).

SEAL

Sea, air, and land. SEAL is the designation used to refer to elite U.S. Navy commandos.

search and destroy

Operations designed to search out enemy units and/or logistical installations and then destroy them, superseded by “clear and hold.”

SEPES

Service des Etudes Politiques et Sociales (Political and Social Research Agency). The SEPES was the South Vietnamese intelligence, secret police, and covert political propaganda agency under the regime of President Ngo Dien Diem.

SHINING BRASS

The logistics staff officer at the battalion, regimental, group, and brigade levels.

Code name for U.S.-led ground reconnaissance operations into Laos (October 1965– March 1967).

short rounds

S-5

The civil affairs staff officer at the battalion, regimental, group, and brigade levels.

Artillery or bombs that fall short, sometimes striking noncombatants or friendly forces.

short-timer

SAC

U.S. Strategic Air Command.

A person coming to the end of his assignment in Vietnam.

Saigon commando

The slang derogatory term given by combat troops to soldiers assigned to rear areas. Often soldiers assigned to these billets wore the popular “boonie hats” and camouflage uniforms denied to frontline forces. See also REMF.

SKS

Saigon tea

Nonalcoholic drink (soda, cold tea, or colored scented water) that GIs bought for

Soviet-designed semiautomatic rifle. The SKS was standard issue for Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North Vietnamese Army) infantry forces from 1965 onward. Often called the “CKC” because the Cyrillic letters for “SKS” stamped on the rifle by the Soviet manufacturer looked like the Roman letters “CKC.”

RIF

Reconnaissance-in-force. RIF was a sweep by forces to locate the enemy.

Rome Plow

A massive bulldozer used for clearing forest, jungle, and brush. The Rome Plow was manufactured by the Rome (Georgia) Caterpillar Company.

RON

Remain overnight.

RPG

Rocket-propelled grenade (Soviet-designed antitank grenade launcher). The VC and PAVN were equipped with the RPG-2 (B-40) and the larger and more modern RPG-7 (B-41). See also B-40 and B-41.

RR

Recoilless rifle.

R&R

Rest and recuperation.

RT

Reconnaissance team.

RTAFB

Royal Thai Air Force Base.

RTO

Radio telephone operator.

Ruff-Puffs

U.S. term for South Vietnamese Regional Forces and Popular Forces (RFs/PFs).

RVN

Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).

RVNAF

Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (South Vietnamese Armed Forces).

S-1

The administration and personnel staff officer at the battalion, regimental, group, and brigade levels.

S-2

The intelligence staff officer at the battalion, regimental, group, and brigade levels.

S-3

The operations staff officer at the battalion, regimental, group, and brigade levels.

S-4

1776

Glossary

SLAM

Search, locate, annihilate, and monitor.

SLF

Special Landing Force. Each 2,000-man SLF was composed of a U.S. Marine Corps Battalion Landing Team (BLT) and a helicopter squadron.

thunder run

Combat movement of an armored column up or down an enemy-contested road.

toe poppers

Slang term for Communist antipersonnel mines designed to maim (break a foot or blow off toes).

slick

A transport helicopter lacking external guns and rockets, the slick got its name from its slick exterior.

tour of duty

The 365 days that a soldier in the U.S. Army or the 13 months that a soldier in the U.S. Marine Corps spent in Vietnam.

Slope

Derogatory slang term used by American GIs to refer to Vietnamese.

Track

Slang term for an armored vehicle.

Tunnel rat

SOD

Special Operations Detachment.

SOG

Studies and Observations Group. Operating out of MACV, this organization carried out clandestine operations, such as Road Watch Teams in Laos, in conjunction with the CIA.

sortie

One mission by one aircraft.

A U.S. soldier, usually slight in stature, detailed to go into tunnels armed with only a pistol and a flashlight. This was extremely hazardous duty, as the men frequently encountered booby traps, poisonous snakes, and flooded tunnels. Psychological stress was profound.

SP

Self-propelled (artillery).

USAF

United States Air Force.

special operations

Military missions requiring specialized or elite units.

USAID

Spookie

GI slang term for the AC-47 gunship. See also Puff (Puff the Magic Dragon).

United States Agency for International Development, which administered U.S. aid to South Vietnam.

USIA

squad

A basic fighting unit of 8–10 men commanded by a sergeant and grouped for drill, inspection, and other purposes. A squad is part of a platoon.

United States Information Agency, the agency responsible for disseminating information about the United States overseas.

USMC

United States Marine Corps.

USOM

A battalion-sized U.S. Army air or armored cavalry unit commanded by a lieutenant colonel. In the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force, a squadron is two or more flights of aircraft.

United States Operations Mission. Field agency in South Vietnam that administered the USAID program there.

USN

U.S. Navy.

VC

Viet Cong, derived from Cong San Viet Nam, which means Vietnamese Communist. VC was the term used by the U.S. military to designate Communist forces in South Vietnam (the North Vietnamese military or People’s Army of Vietnam [PAVN, North Vietnamese Army] being known as NVA). To Vietnamese, VC were everyone who was in or served the Communist military and public security, wherever and of whatever rank.

VCI

Viet Cong infrastructure, the political cadre of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]) within the South Vietnamese villages.

Victor Charlie

Phonetic alphabetization for Viet Cong (VC). See also Charlie.

Viet Minh

Common name for the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, the Communist front

squadron

SRV

Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Vietnam reunified after 1975 as the SRV.

striker

A Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) soldier, usually an ethnic Montagnard or Khmer Krom.

TAC

Tactical Air Command.

tacair

Tactical air support.

TAOR

Tactical area of responsibility. TAOR is the area for operations by a specific military unit.

TDY

Temporary duty. TDY is usually a sixmonths assignment.

Tet

Vietnamese lunar new year.

TFS

Tactical Fighter Squadron.

TFW

Tactical Fighter Wing.

Thunder Road

South Vietnam’s heavily fought-over Highway 13.

Glossary

1777

organization founded in 1941 to resist French colonial rule and occupying Japanese forces. The Viet Minh fought the French in the Indochina War.

wing

A major organizational U.S. Air Force unit in which aircraft fly in a side-by-side formation. A wing includes one primary mission group plus support.

VNAF

Republic of Vietnam Air Force (South Vietnamese Air Force).

Wise Men

A select group of senior advisers to President Lyndon Johnson.

VNN

Republic of Vietnam Navy (South Vietnamese Navy).

The World

Slang term for the continental United States, also called “land of the big PX.”

VT

Variable time. A proximity fuse for field artillery designed to produce a 65-foot height of burst without having to adjust the height of burst by firing.

XO

Executive officer.

Yankee Station

An operating area off the Vietnamese coast in the South China Sea used by the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet Attack Carrier Striking Force (Task Force 77). Air strikes against North Vietnam were launched from Yankee Station, which was also the code name for the Gulf of Tonkin.

VVAW

Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

White Mice

Derogatory term for the South Vietnamese National Police. The term was derived from the white uniforms that the South Vietnamese police wore.

Yard

U.S. GI slang term for a Montagnard.

WIA

Wounded in action.

ZOA

Zone of operation.

Willy Pete

White phosphorus shell round used for screening, signaling, incendiary action, and illumination. Also known as Wilson Pickett (WP).

DAVID COFFEY, STANLEY S. MCGOWEN, JULIUS A. MENZOFF, MERLE L. PRIBBENOW II, HARVE SAAL, SPENCER C. TUCKER, JAMES H. WILLBANKS, SANDRA WITTMAN, AND DAVID T. ZABECKI

This page intentionally left blank

Selected Bibliography

Ahern, Thomas L. Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009. Allison, William Thomas. Military Justice: The Rule of Law in an American War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. Alvarez, Everett, Jr., and Anthony S. Pitch. Chained Eagle. New York: Dell, 1989. Anderson, Charles B. The Grunts. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1976. Anderson, David L., ed. The Human Tradition in the Vietnam Era. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000. Anderson, David L., ed. Shadows on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993. Anderson, David L., and John Ernst, eds. The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. Anderson, William C. Bat-21. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980. Andradé, Dale. America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1990. Andradé, Dale. Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Andradé, Dale. Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America’s Last Vietnam Battle. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995. Appy, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers & Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Arlen, Michael. Living-Room War. 1969; reprint, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997.

Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battle Field: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Balaban, John. Remembering Heaven’s Face: A Moral Witness in Vietnam. New York: Poseidon, 1991. Ball, George W. The Past Has Another Pattern. New York: Norton, 1982. Baritz, Loren. Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did. New York: Morrow, 1985. Barrett, David M. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Bass, Thomas A. Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home. New York: Soho Press, 1996. Beidler, Philip D. American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1982. Belknap, Michael R. The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat. The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991. Bergerud, Eric M. Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993. Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1989. Berman, Larry. No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 2001. Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. 1779

1780

Selected Bibliography

Berman, Larry. Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1982. Berman, William C. William Fulbright and the Vietnam War: The Dissent of a Political Realist. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988. Bey, Douglas. Wizard 6, a Combat Psychiatrist in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. Bigeard, General Marcel. Pour une parcelle de gloire. Paris: Plon, 1976. Bigler, Philip. Hostile Fire: The Life and Death of First Lieutenant Sharon Lane. Arlington, VA: Vandamere, 1996. Billings-Yun, Melanie. Decision against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Penguin, 1992. Blair, Anne E. Lodge in Vietnam: A Patriot Abroad. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Bodard, Lucien. The Quicksand War: Prelude to Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Botkin, Richard. Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph. Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009. Bowman, John S, ed. The World Almanac of the Vietnam War. New York: Pharos Books, 1985. Brace, Ernest C. A Code to Keep: The True Story of America’s Longest-Held Civilian Prisoner of War. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988. Bradley, Mark Philip. Vietnam At War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Bradley, Mark Philip, and Marilyn B. Young, eds. Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994. Brigham, Robert K. ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Broughton, Jack. Going Downtown: The War against Hanoi and Washington. New York: Pocket Books, 1990. Browne, Malcolm. Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter’s Life. New York: Crown, 1993. Browne, Malcolm. The New Face of War. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1965. Bryan, C. D. B. Friendly Fire. New York: Putnam, 1976. Bui Diem, with David Chanoff. In the Jaws of History. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1987. Burchett, Wilfred G. The Furtive War: The United States in Vietnam and Laos. New York: International Publishers, 1963. Burkett, B. G., and Glenna Whitley. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Dallas, TX: Verity, 1998. Butler, David. The Fall of Saigon: Scenes from the Sudden End of a Long War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Buttinger, Joseph. The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1958. Buzzanco, Robert. Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Cable, Larry E. Conflict of Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1988. Cady, John F. The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1954. Cao Van Vien and Dong Van Khuyen. Reflections on the Vietnam War. Indochina Monographs. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Capps, Walter H., ed. The Vietnam Reader. New York: Routledge, 1991. Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. Castle, Timothy N. One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Catton, Philip E. Diem’s Final Failure: Prelude to America’s War in Vietnam. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2002. Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Chanoff, David, and Doan Van Toai. Portrait of the Enemy. New York: Random House, 1986. Chapuis, Oscar M. A History of Vietnam: From Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. Chapuis, Oscar M. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Charlton, Michael, and Anthony Moncrieff. Many Reasons Why: The American Involvement in Vietnam. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Charton, Pierre. Indochine 1950: La Tragédie de l’évacuation de Cao Bang. Paris: Société de production littéraire, 1975. Chen, King C. China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: Issues, Decisions, and Implications. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1987. Chomsky, Noam. Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture. Boston: South End, 1993. Clayton, Anthony. Three Marshals of France: Leadership After Trauma. London: Brassey’s, 1992. Clifford, Clark, with David Holbrooke. Counsel to the President: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1991. Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Clodfelter, Mark. Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772–1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. Coan, James P. Con Thien: The Hill of Angels. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Coedès, Georges. The Making of South East Asia. Translated by H. M. Wright. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.

Selected Bibliography Colby, William. Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. Colby, William, with James McCargar. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. Coleman, J. D. Pleiku: The Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988. Conboy, Kenneth J., and James Morrison. Shadow War: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos. Boulder, CO: Paladin, 1995. Corfield, Justin. The History of Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Cosmas, Graham A., Terrance P. Murray, William R. Melton, and Jack Shulimson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Vietnamization and Redeployment, 1970–1971. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1986. Cummings, Dennis J. The Men behind the Trident: Seal Team One in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Currey, Cecil B. Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997. Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Dalloz, Jacques. The War in Indo-China, 1945–54. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1990. Dang Van Viet. Highway 4: The Border Campaign (1947–1950). Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1990. Davidson, Phillip A. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Dawson, Alan. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977. Deac, Wilfred P. Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970–1975. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. DeBenedetti, Charles, with Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990. De Folin, Jacques. Indochine, 1940–1955: La fin d’un rève. Paris: Perrin, 1993. DeForest, Orrin, and David Chanoff. Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. De Gaulle, Charles. The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, Vol. 3, Salvation, 1944–1946. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Denton, Jeremiah A., with Ed Brandt. When Hell Was in Session. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Devillers, Philippe. Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 à 1952. Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1952. Dillard, Walter Scott. Sixty Days to Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam 1973. Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1982.

1781

Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1971. Dommen, Arthur J. The Indochinese Experience of the French and Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Dong Van Khuyen. The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980. Donovan, David. Once a Warrior King: Memories of an Officer in Vietnam. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. Dooley, Thomas A. Deliver Us from Evil: The Story of Viet Nam’s Flight to Freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956. Duiker, William J. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. Duiker, William J. Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1989. Duiker, William J. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Hyperion, 2000. Duiker, William J. The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900– 1911. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. Duiker, William J. Vietnam: Revolution in Transition. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Duncanson, Dennis J. Government and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Ebert, James R. A Life in a Year: The American Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965–1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Edelman, Bernard, ed. Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1985. Ellsberg, Daniel. Papers on the War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Ellsberg, Daniel. Secrets: A Memoir on Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. Elwood-Akers, Virginia. Women War Correspondents in the Vietnam War, 1961–1975. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1988. Emerson, Gloria. Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from the Vietnam War. New York: Random House, 1976. Engelmann, Larry. Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Esper, George, and the Associated Press. The Eyewitness History of the Vietnam War, 1961–1975. New York: Ballantine Books, 1983. Fall, Bernard B. Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. New York: Lippincott, 1966. Fall, Bernard B. Last Reflections on a War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Fall, Bernard B. Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina. Rev. ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Fall, Bernard B. The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1967. Fall, Bernard B. Viet-Nam Witness, 1953–66. New York: Praeger, 1966. Fall, Dorothy. Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006.

1782

Selected Bibliography

FitzGerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Ford, Harold P. CIA and the Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962–1968. Washington, DC: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1988. Franklin, H. Bruce. M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America: How and Why Belief in Live POWs Has Possessed a Nation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Frankum, Ronald B., Jr. Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1975. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Freeman, James M. Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese-American Lives. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989. Frier, Gilles. Les trois guerres d’Indochine. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1993. Fry, Joseph A. Debating Vietnam: Fulbright, Stennis, and Their Senate Hearings. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Gabriel, Richard A., and Paul L. Savage. Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Gaiduk, Ilya V. The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. Gargus, John. The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Garland, Albert N., ed. A Distant Challenge: The U.S. Infantryman in Vietnam, 1967–1972. Nashville: Battery, 1983. Garnier, Francis. Voyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine, 1866–88. Paris: Editions la Découverte, 1985. Gole, Henry G. General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. Glasser, Ronald J. 365 Days. New York: G. Braziller, 1971. Glenn, Russell W. Reading Athena’s Dance Card: Men against Fire in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Goff, Stanley, and Robert Sanders, with Clark Smith. Brothers: Black Soldiers in the Nam. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982. Goldman, Peter, and Tony Fuller. Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did to Us. New York: Morrow, 1983. Goldstein, Gordon M. Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam. New York: Times Books, 2008. Gottlieb, Sherry Gershon. Hell No, We Won’t Go! Resisting the Draft During the Vietnam War. New York: Viking, 1991. Gould, Lewis L. 1968: The Election That Changed America. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993. Grant, Zalin. Survivors. New York: Norton, 1975. Gras, Yves. Histoire de la Guerre d’Indochine. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1992. Greene, Bob. Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam. New York: Putnam, 1989. Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. Groom, Winston, and Duncan Spencer. Conversations with the Enemy: The Story of Pfc. Robert Garwood. New York: Putnam, 1983.

Guilmartin, John F. A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Gruner, Elliott. Prisoners of Culture: Representing the Vietnam POW. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Gustainis, J. Justin. American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War. New York: Praeger, 1993. Ha Mai Viet. Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Hackworth, David H., and Eihys England. Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. New York: Touchstone, 2003. Hackworth, Colonel David H., and Julie Sherman. About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House, 1972. Halberstam, David. Ho. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. Rev. ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Hammel, Eric. Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, Tet, 1968. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1991. Hammel, Eric. Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds; An Oral History. New York: Crown, 1989. Hammer, Ellen J. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: Dutton, 1987. Hammer, Ellen J. The Struggle for Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1988. Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002. Hathorn, Reginald. Here Are the Tigers: The Secret Air War in Laos. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008. Hayslip, Le Ly, and Jay Wurts. When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Head, William, and Lawrence E. Grinter, ed. Looking Back on the Vietnam War: A 1990’s Perspective on the Decisions, Combat, and Legacies. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Heineman, Kenneth J. Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era. New York: New York University Press, 1993. Hellman, John. American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Hemingway, Albert. Our War Was Different: Marine Combined Action Platoons in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994.

Selected Bibliography Herr, Michael. Dispatches. New York: Knopf, 1977. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Herrington, Stuart A. Silence Was a Weapon: The Vietnam War in the Villages; A Personal Perspective. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982. Hersh, Seymour M. Cover-Up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. New York: Random House, 1972. Hersh, Seymour M. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970. Hess, Gary. R. Vietnam: Explaining America’s Lost War. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Hickey, Gerald Cannon. Window on a War: An Anthropologist in the Vietnam Conflict. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002. Higham, Charles. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Hobson, Chris. Vietnam Air Losses: United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973. Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing, 2001. Ho Khang. The Tet Mau Than 1968 Event in South Vietnam. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2001. Ho Mai Viet. Steel and Blood: South Vietnamese Armor and the War for Southeast Asia. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Hoang Hai Van and Tan Tu. Pham Xuan An: A General of the Secret Service. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2003. Hoang Van Thai. How South Vietnam Was Liberated. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 1996. Hoffmann, Stanley. Primacy or World Order: American Foreign Policy since the Cold War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. Holm, Tom. Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Hooper, Edwin B., Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, Vol. 1, The Setting of the Stage to 1959. Washington, DC: U.S. Navy, Naval History Division, 1976. Hubbell, John G., Andrew Jones, and Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976. Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Huynh, Jade Ngoc Quang. South Wind Changing. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 1994. Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

1783

Jensen-Stevenson, Monika, and William Stevenson. Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam. New York: Dutton, 1990. Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Jones, Charles. Boys of ’67. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2006. Kahin, George McT. Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1986. Kane, Rod. Veteran’s Day. New York: Orion Books, 1989. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. Katsiaficas, George N., ed. Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views of the War. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1992. Kelley, Michael P. Where We Were in Vietnam: A Comprehensive Guide to the Firebases, Military Installations and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War, 1945–75. Central Point, OR: Hellgate, 2002. Kimball, Jeffrey P., ed. To Reason Why: The Debate about the Causes of Involvement in the Vietnam War. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. King, Peter, ed. Australia’s Vietnam: Australia in the Second Indochina War. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1983. Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. Kirk, Donald. Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. New York: Praeger, 1971. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Kissinger, Henry. Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982. Kolko, Gabriel. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1985. Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Krall, Yung. A Thousand Tears Falling: The True Story of a Vietnamese Family Torn Apart by War, Communism, and the CIA. Atlanta: Longstreet, 1995. Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Krohn, Charles A. The Lost Battalion of Tet: Breakout of the 2–12 Cavalry at Hue. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Kutler, Stanley I., ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. New York: Scribner, 1996. Lacouture, Jean. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography. New York: Random House, 1968. Lam Quang Thi. The Twenty-Five-Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2001. Lamb, Christopher Jon. Belief Systems and Decision Making in the Mayaguez Crisis. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1988. Lane, Mark. Conversations with Americans. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.

1784

Selected Bibliography

Lang, Daniel. Casualties of War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969. Langguth, A. J. Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. Lansdale, Edward Geary. In the Midst of Wars: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. Larsen, Stanley Robert, and James Lawton Collins Jr. Allied Participation in Vietnam. Vietnam Studies Series. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. Larzelere, Alex. The Coast Guard at War: Vietnam, 1965–1975. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Le Thanh Khoi. Histoire du Viet Nam des Origines à 1858. Paris: Sudestasie, 1981. Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans, Neither Victims nor Executioners. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu. Le Duc Tho–Kissinger Negotiations in Paris. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 1996. Ly Quy Chung, ed. Between Two Fires: The Unheard Voices of Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1970. Macdonald, Peter. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1993. MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 1966 to October 1967. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1998. Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam, 1945– 1975. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981. MacPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984. Maneli, Mieczyslaw. The War of the Vanquished. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Mangold, Tom, and John Penycate. The Tunnels of Cu Chi. New York: Random House, 1985. Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994. Marolda, Edward J., and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959–1965, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. Marr, David G. Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Marshall, Kathryn. In the Combat Zone: An Oral History of American Women in Vietnam, 1966–1975. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987. Marshall, S. L. A. Ambush. New York: Cowles, 1969. Marshall, S. L. A. Battles in the Monsoon: Campaigning in the Central Highlands, South Vietnam, Summer, 1966. New York: William Morrow, 1967.

Marshall, S. L. A. Bird: The Christmastide Battle. New York: Cowles, 1968. Marshall, S. L. A. West to Cambodia. New York: Cowles, 1968. Marshall, S. L. A., and David Hackworth. DA Pam 525–2 Vietnam Primer. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. Mason, Robert. Chickenhawk. New York: Viking, 1983. Mauer, Harry. Strange Ground: Americans in Vietnam, 1945– 1975, an Oral History. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. McCallum, Jack E. Military Medicine: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. McCarthy, Mary. The Seventeenth Degree. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1974. McCloud, Bill. What Should We Tell Our Children about Vietnam? Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. McConnell, Malcolm. Inside the Hanoi Secret Archives: Solving the MIA Mystery. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. McNab, Chris, and Andy Weist. The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War. San Diego: Thunder Bay, 2000. McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect, the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. McNeill, Ian. To Long Tan: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War, 1950–1966. St. Leonards, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin/Australian War Memorial, 1993. Metzner, Edward P. More Than a Soldier’s War: Pacification in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Metzner, Edward P., Huynh Van Chinh, Tran Van Phuc, and Le Nguyen Binh. Reeducation in Postwar Vietnam: Personal Postscripts to Peace. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001. Michel, Marshall L., III. Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965–1972. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Michel, Marshall L., III. The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002. Military History Institute of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Miller, John G. The Bridge at Dong Ha. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam. New York: Harper, 2008. Moore, Harold G., and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1992. Morgan, Joseph G. The Vietnam Lobby: The American Friends of Vietnam, 1955–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Selected Bibliography Morgan, Ted. Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War. New York: Random House, 2010. Morrison, Wilbur H. The Elephant and the Tiger: The Full Story of the Vietnam War. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990. Moss, George. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. Moyar, Mark. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Murphy, Edward F. Dak To: The 173rd Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, June–November 1967. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. Murphy, Edward F. The Hill Fights: The First Battle of Khe Sanh. New York: Random House, 2003. Murphy, John. Harvest of Fear: A History of Australia’s Vietnam War. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994. Nalty, Bernard C. The War against Trucks: Aerial Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1968–1972. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, U.S. Air Force, 2005. Neilands, J. B., et al. Harvest of Death: Chemical Warfare in Vietnam and Cambodia. New York: Free Press, 1972. Newman, John M. JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power. New York: Warner Books, 1992. Newman, John M. Vietnam War Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Imaginative Works about Americans Fighting in Vietnam. 3rd ed. Lanham, NJ: Scarecrow, 1996. Ngo Quang Truong. Territorial Forces. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981. Nguyen Cao Ky. Twenty Years and Twenty Days. New York: Stein and Day, 1976. Nguyen Khac Vien. The Long Resistance, 1858–1975. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1975. Nguyen Khac Vien. Vietnam: A Long History. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987. Nguyen Tien Hung and Jerrold L. Schechter. The Palace File. New York: Harper and Row, 1986. Nichols, John B., and Barrett Tillman. On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Nixon, Richard M. No More Vietnams. New York: Arbor House, 1985. Nixon, Richard M. The Real War. New York: Warner, 1980. Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978. Nolan, Keith William. Battle for Hue: Tet, 1968. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Nolan, Keith William. The Battle for Saigon: Tet, 1968. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1996. Nolan, Keith William. House to House: Playing the Enemy’s Game in Saigon, May 1968. St. Paul, MN: Zenith, 2006.

1785

Nolan, Keith William. Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/ Lam Son 719, Vietnam 1971. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Nolan, Keith William. Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege, Vietnam 1970. Novato, CA: Presidio, 2000. Nolting, Frederick. From Trust to Tragedy: The Political Memoirs of Frederick Nolting, Kennedy’s Ambassador to Diem’s Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1988. Novosel, Michael J. Dustoff: The Memoir of an Army Aviator. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1999. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954–1980. Rev. ed. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981. Oberdorfer, Don. TET! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. O’Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone. New York: Delacorte, 1973. Olson, James S., ed. Dictionary of the Vietnam War. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. The Vietnam War: Handbook of the Literature and Research. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. An Outline History of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, 1930–1975. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Palmer, Dave R. Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1995. Palmer, Laura. Shrapnel in the Heart: Letters and Remembrances from the Vietnam Memorial. New York: Random House, 1987. Patti, Archimedes L. A. Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. Pedroncini, Guy, and General Philippe Duplay, eds. Leclerc et l’Indochine. Paris: Albin Michel, 1992. Personalities of the South Vietnam Liberation Movement. New York: Commission for Foreign Relations of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, 1965. Peterson, Michael E. The Combined Action Platoons: The U.S. Marines’ Other War in Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1989. Pham Cao Duong. Lich Su Dan Toc Viet Nam, Quyen I, Thoi K Lap Quoc [History of the Vietnamese People, Vol. I, The Making of the Nation]. Fountain Valley, CA: Truyen Thong Viet, 1987. Phillips, Rufus. Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Phillips, William R. Night of the Silver Stars: The Battle of Lang Vei. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Philpott, Tom. Glory Denied: The Saga of Jim Thompson, America’s Longest-Held Prisoner of War. New York: Norton, 2001.

1786

Selected Bibliography

Pike, Douglas. A History of Vietnamese Communism, 1923–1978. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1978. Pike, Douglas. Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. Pisor, Robert. The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh. New York: Norton, 1982. Plaster, John. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Porter, Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Prados, John. The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War. New York: Wiley, 1999. Prados, John. Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945– 1975. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009. Prados, John, and Ray W. Stubbe. Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Pratt, John Clark, ed. Vietnam Voices: Perspectives on the War Years, 1941–1982. New York: Viking, 1984. Pribbenow, Merle L., and William J. Duiker. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Prochnau, William. Once upon a Distant War: David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Peter Arnett—Young War Correspondents and Their Early Vietnam Battles. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Puller, Lewis B., Jr. Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller, Jr. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. Pyle, Richard, and Horst Faas. Lost over Laos: A True Story of Tragedy, Mystery, and Friendship. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Race, Jeffrey. War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. Randle, Robert F. Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. Randolph, Stephen P. Powerful and Brutal Weapons: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Easter Offensive. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Reardon, Carol. Launch the Intruders: A Naval Attack Squadron in the Vietnam War, 1972. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Robbins, Christopher. Air America. New York: Putnam, 1979. Rotter, Andrew, ed. Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam War Anthology. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991. Rowe, John Crowe, and Rick Berg, ed. The Vietnam War and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Roy, Jules. The Battle of Dienbienphu. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Rusk, Dean. As I Saw It. Edited by Daniel S. Papp. New York: Norton, 1990.

Sack, John. M. New York: New American Library, 1966. Safer, Morley. Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1990. Sainteny, Jean. Histoire d’une Paix Manquée: Indochine, 1945– 1947. Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953. Sainteny, Jean. Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam: A Personal Memoir. Chicago: Cowles, 1972. Salisbury, Harrison E., ed. Vietnam Reconsidered: Lessons from a War. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Santoli, Al, ed. Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Thirty-Three American Soldiers Who Fought It. New York: Random House, 1981. Santoli, Al, ed. To Bear Any Burden: The Vietnam War and Its Aftermath in the Words of Americans and Southeast Asians. New York: Dutton, 1985. Schell, Jonathan. The Military Half. New York: Knopf, 1968. Schell, Jonathan. The Village of Ben Suc. New York: Knopf, 1967. Scholl-Latour, Peter. Death in the Ricefields: An Eyewitness Account of Vietnam’s Three Wars, 1945–1979. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985. Schreadley, R. L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. Schwenkel, Christina. The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. Shultz, Richard H., Jr. The Secret War against Hanoi. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Scruggs, Jan C., and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper and Row, 1985. Sevy, Grace, ed. The American Experience in Vietnam: A Reader. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Shapley, Deborah. Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Sharp, Ulysses S. Grant. Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1978. Shaw, John M. The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and America’s Vietnam War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Traumatic Stress and the Undoing of Character. New York: Antheneum, 1994. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. Sheppard, Don. Riverine: A Brown-Water Sailor in the Delta, 1967. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992.

Selected Bibliography Showalter, Dennis E., and John G. Abert, eds. An American Dilemma: Vietnam, 1964–1973. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1993. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1965. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1978. Shulimson, Jack. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War. Marine Corps Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Historical Center, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1982. Shulimson, Jack, Leonard A. Blasiol, Charles R. Smith, and David A. Dawson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997. Shulimson, Jack, and Charles M. Johnson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977. Sigler, David Burns. Vietnam Battle Chronology: U.S. Army and Marine Corps Combat Operations, 1965–1973. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992. Simpson, Howard R. Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. Simpson, Howard R. Tiger in the Barbed Wire: An American in Vietnam, 1952–1991. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1992. Smith, Winnie. American Daughter Gone To War: On the Front Lines With an Army Nurse in Vietnam. New York: Morrow, 1992. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977. Solis, Gary D. Son Thang: An American War Crime. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1999. Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941– 1960. United States Army in Vietnam Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983. Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1993. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. The Rise and Fall of an American Army: The U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. Stanton, Shelby L. U.S. Army and Allied Ground Forces in Vietnam Order of Battle. Washington, DC: U.S. News Books, 1981. Stevens, Fitzgerald. The Trail. New York: Garland, 1993. Stockdale, James B. A Vietnam Experience: Ten Years of Reflection. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 1984.

1787

Sullivan, John F. Of Spies and Lies: A CIA Lie Detector Remembers Vietnam. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Summers, Harry G. Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press 1995. Swift, Earl. On Strategy. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1982. Swift, Earl. Where They Lay: Searching for America’s Lost Soldiers. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Taylor, John M. General Maxwell Taylor: The Sword and the Pen. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Taylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Taylor, General Maxwell D. Swords and Plowshares. New York: Norton, 1972. Telfer, Gary L. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984. Terry, Wallace. Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. New York: Random House, 1984. Thompson, Virginia. French Indo-China. New York: Octagon Books, 1968. Timberg, Robert. The Nightingale’s Song. New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster, 1996. Toczek, David M. The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007. Todd, Olivier. Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon. New York: Norton, 1987. Tourison, Sedgwick D. Project Alpha: Washington’s Secret Military Operations in North Vietnam. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Tourison, Sedgwick D. Talking with Victor Charlie: An Interrogator’s Story. New York: Ivy, 1991. Tran Van Nhut. An Loc: The Unfinished War. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2009. Trujillo, Charley, ed. Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam. San Jose, CA: Chusma House, 1990. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Charnoff and Doan Van Toai. A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. Tuchman, Barbara W. The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. New York: Knopf, 1984. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Turley, Gerald H. The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985. U.S. Department of State. Aggression from the North: The Record of North Viet-Nam’s Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965. Valentine, Douglas. The Phoenix Program. New York: Morrow, 1990.

1788

Selected Bibliography

Valette, Jacques. La Guerre d’Indochine, 1945–1954. Paris: Armand Colin, 1994. VanDeMark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Van Devanter, Lynda. Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam. New York: Beaufort Books, 1983. Vo Nguyen Giap. “Big Victory, Great Task.” North Viet-Nam’s Minister of Defense Assesses the Course of the War. New York: Praeger, 1968. Vo Nguyen Giap. Dien Bien Phu. 5th ed., revised and supplemented. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 1994. Vo Nguyen Giap. The Military Art of People’s War: Selected Writings of Vo Nguyen Giap. Edited with an introduction by Russell Stetler. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Vo Nguyen Giap. People’s War People’s Army: The Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for Underdeveloped Countries. New York: Praeger, 1962. Vo Nguyen Giap. Unforgettable Months and Years. Translated by Mai Elliott. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975. Vo Nguyen Giap. Viet Nam People’s War Has Defeated U.S. War of Destruction. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1969. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Dien Bien Phu: Rendezvous with History, a Memoir. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2004. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Duong Toi Dien Bien Phu [The Road to Dien Bien Phu]. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 2001. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. Fighting under Siege: Reminiscences. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2004. Vo Nguyen Giap and Huu Mai. The General Headquarters in the Spring of Brilliant Victory. Hanoi: Gioi Publishers, 2002. Walt, Lewis W. Strange War, Strange Strategy: A General’s Report on Vietnam. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1976. Warr, Nicholas. Phase Line Green: The Battle for Hue, 1968. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Wexler, Sanford. The Vietnam War: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File, 1992. Wheeler, John. Touched with Fire: The Future of the Vietnam Generation. New York: F. Watts, 1984. Whitlow, Robert H. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Advisory & Combat Assistance Era, 1954–1964. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977. Whitlow, Robert, Jack Shulimson, and Gary L. Telfer. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: An Anthology and Annotated Bibliography, 1954–1973. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1985. Wiest, Andrew. Vietnam’s Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN. New York: New York University Press, 2007.

Wiest, Andrew, ed. Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006. Wilcox, Fred A. Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange. New York: Random House, 1983. Willbanks, James H. Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Willbanks, James H. The Battle of An Loc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Willbanks, James H. The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Willbanks, James H. Thiet Giap! The Battle of An Loc, April 1972. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1993. Willenson, Kim. The Bad War: An Oral History of the Vietnam War. New York: New American Library, 1987. Williams, Reese. Unwinding the Vietnam War: From War into Peace. Seattle, WA: Real Comet, 1987. Williams, William Appleman, Thomas McCormick, Lloyd Gardner, and Walter LaFaber, eds. America in Vietnam: A Documentary History. New York: Norton, 1989. Windrow, Martin. The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004. Winters, Francis X. The Year of the Hare: America in Vietnam, January 25, 1963–February 15, 1964. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Wittman, Sandra M. Writing about Vietnam: The Literature of the Vietnam Conflict. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989. Wolff, Tobias. In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War. New York: Knopf, 1994. Wyatt, Clarence R. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Zabecki, David T. ed. Vietnam: A Reader. New York: ibooks, 2002. Zaffiri, Samuel. Hamburger Hill: The Brutal Battle for Dong Ap Bia, May 11–20, 1969. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988. Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow, 1994. Zaroulis, N. C., and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up? American Protest against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984. Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Zumwalt, Elmo, Jr. On Watch: A Memoir. New York: Quadrangle/ New York Times Books, 1976. Zumwalt, Elmo, Jr., and Elmo Zumwalt III, with John Pekkanen. My Father, My Son. New York: Macmillan, 1986. SPENCER C. TUCKER AND SANDRA M. WITTMAN

List of Editors and Contributors

Editor Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Senior Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, LLC

Associate Editor Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Fellow ABC-CLIO, LLC

Assistant Editors Merle L. Pribbenow II Retired Central Intelligence Agency officer Independent Scholar Lieutenant Colonel James H. Willbanks, PhD, United States Army (Ret.) Director, Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Major General David T. Zabecki, PhD, Army of the United States (Ret.) Senior Research Fellow in War Studies, the University of Birmingham, England

Dr. Donna Alvah Assistant Professor & Margaret Vilas Chair of U.S. History St. Lawrence University Kevin Arceneaux Institution for Social and Policy Studies Yale University Dr. Gayle Avant Baylor University Lacie A. Ballinger Department of History Texas Christian University Captain Patrick K. Barker U.S. Air Force Academy

Dr. Jeffrey D. Bass Quinnipiac University Dr. Randal Scott Beeman Bakersfield College Dr. John L. Bell Jr. Department of History Western Carolina University Walter F. Bell Information Services Librarian Aurora University Dr. David M. Berman School of Education Department of Curriculum and Education University of Pittsburgh

John M. Barcus Department of History Louisiana State University

Andrew J. Birtle Independent Scholar

Dr. Mark Barringer Department of History Texas Tech University

Dr. Ernest C. Bolt Jr. Mitchell-Billikopf Professor of History University of Richmond

Dr. Harry Basehart Department of Political Science Salisbury State University

Colonel Walter J. Boyne (Retired) U.S. Air Force

Contributors Elizabeth Urban Alexander Department of History Texas Christian University

1789

1790

List of Editors and Contributors

Dr. Robert K. Brigham Department of History Vassar College George M. Brooke III Department of History Virginia Military Institute Dr. Stefan M. Brooks Lindsey Wilson College Robert M. Brown U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Dean Brumley Department of History Texas Christian University Peter W. Brush Librarian Vanderbilt University Dr. Hum Dac Bui Independent Scholar Dr. Robert J. Bunker CEO, Counter-OPFOR Corporation Dr. Laura M. Calkins Texas Tech University Dr. Paul R. Camacho Director William Joiner Center University of Massachusetts, Boston J. Nathan Campbell Department of History Episcopal School of Dallas Dr. Ralph G. Carter Department of Political Science Texas Christian University Thomas R. Carver Independent Scholar Albert T. Chapman Government Information & Political Science Librarian Purdue University

Rajesh H. Chauhan Independent Scholar Dr. Edwin Clausen Arizona International College University of Arizona Dr. Francis M. Coan Tunxis Community College Dr. David Coffey Professor and Chair Department of History and Philosophy University of Tennessee at Martin Dr. Jeffery B. Cook North Greenville University Justin J. Corfield Geelong Grammar School Australia Kelly E. Crager Head, Oral History Project Vietnam Center and Archive Texas Tech University Michael H. Creswell Independent Scholar Matthew A. Crump Department of History Texas Christian University Dr. Cecil B. Currey University of South Florida Dr. Arthur I. Cyr Clausen Distinguished Professor Director, Clausen Center Carthage College

Scott R. DiMarco Director of Library and Information Resources Mansfield University of Pennsylvania Dr. Paul William Doerr Department of History and Classics Acadia University Dr. Arthur J. Dommen The Indochina Institute George Mason University Michael E. Donoghue Independent Scholar Dr. Timothy G. Dowling Department of History Virginia Military Institute Benjamin C. Dubberly Department of History Texas Tech University Dr. Joe P. Dunn Department of History and Politics Converse College R. Blake Dunnavent Department of History Lubbock Christian College Dr. Bruce Elleman History Department Texas Christian University Dr. Mark A. Esposito Department of History West Virginia University Colonel Peter Faber National War College

Dr. Paul S. Daum Department of History New England College

Dr. Will E. Fahey Jr. Independent Scholar

Christopher R. W. Dietrich University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Charles N. Fasanaro Independent Scholar Dr. Richard M. Filipink Department of History Western Illinois University

List of Editors and Contributors Dr. Arthur Thomas Frame Professor of Strategy and Operational Warfare U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Dr. Ronald B. Frankum Jr. Department of History Millersville University Dr. Christos G. Frentzos Department of History Austin Peay State University James Friguglietti Department of History Montana State University, Billings Dr. Peter K. Frost Department of History Williams College First Lieutenant Noel D. Fulton Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy George J. Gabera Independent Scholar Charles J. Gaspar Department of Humanities and Communication Arts Brenau University John M. Gates Department of History Wooster College Captain Larry Gatti Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy Laurie Geist Department of Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Dr. Marc J. Gilbert Department of History North Georgia College

Dr. Mark Gilderhus Department of History Texas Christian University

Pia C. Heyn Independent Scholar

Dr. James T. Gillam Spelman College

Second Lieutenant Joel E. Higley Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy

Dr. Harold J. Goldberg Department of History University of the South

Second Lieutenant Lincoln Hill Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy

Timothy G. Grammer Independent Scholar

Ho Dieu Anh Independent Scholar

Benjamin P. Greene United States Naval Academy

Dr. Charles Francis Howlett Molloy College

John Robert Greene Department of History Cazenovia College

Dr. Richard A. Hunt Center for Military History

Captain John E. Grenier Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy Dr. Charles J. Gross Departments of the Army and the Air Force National Guard Bureau Brian Gurian Independent Scholar Debra Hall Department of History Cazenovia College Dr. Michael R. Hall Department of History Armstrong Atlantic State University Dr. Mitchell K. Hall Department of History Central Michigan University Dr. William P. Head Historian/Chief, WR-ALC Office of History U.S. Air Force Glenn E. Helm Director Navy Department Library Washington Navy Yard

1791

Dr. Arnold R. Isaacs Independent Scholar Dr. Eric Jarvis Department of History King’s College Canada Susan G. Kalaf Independent Scholar Sean N. Kalic Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Dr. Robert B. Kane Troy University Rhonda Keen-Payne School of Nursing Texas Christian University David M. Keithly Independent Scholar Mary L. Kelley Department of History Texas Christian University Ann L. Kelsey Independent Scholar

1792

List of Editors and Contributors

Dr. Gary Kerley North Hall High School Dr. Jeff Kinard Guilford Technical Community College Lieutenant Colonel Richard L. Kiper Independent Scholar Dr. Arne Kislenko Department of History Ryerson University Canada Srikanth Kondapalli Associate Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University India Dr. Nicholas A. Krehbiel Washburn University Second Lieutenant Brent Langhals Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy Captain Alex R. Larzelere (Retired) U.S. Coast Guard Dr. Clayton D. Laurie Intelligence Historian Center for the Study of Intelligence Central Intelligence Agency Dr. William M. Leary Department of History University of Georgia

Dr. Robert G. Mangrum Department of History, Political Science, and Geography Howard Payne University Dr. Sanders Marble Office of Medical History U.S. Army Steven Fred Marin Victor Valley College J. David Markham President International Napoleonic Society Justin Marks Department of History Cazenovia College Dr. Edward J. Marolda Senior Historian Naval Historical Center Department of the Navy Washington Navy Yard

Dr. Edward M. McNertney Department of Economics Texas Christian University Dr. Julius A. Menzoff Savannah State University Dr. Edwin E. Moise Department of History Clemson University Louise Mongelluzo Department of History Cazenovia College Kirsty Anne Montgomery Department of History University of Chicago Dr. John Morello Devry University Dr. Malcolm Muir Jr. Department of History Virginia Military Institute

Dr. Daniel P. Marston Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Australian National University

Dr. Caryn E. Neumann Department of History Miami University of Ohio

Dr. Joseph P. Martino Colonel U.S. Air Force, Retired

Ngo Ngoc Trung Institute for East Asian Studies University of California, Berkeley

Stephen R. Maynard Independent Scholar

Dr. Michael R. Nichols Department of History Tarrant County College

Mark F. Leep Independent Scholar

Terry M. Mays Department of Political Science The Citadel

Jonathan H. L’Hommedieu Department of Contemporary History University of Turku Finland

Dr. Jack McCallum Adjunct Professor Department of History and Geography Texas Christian University

Lorenz M. Lüthi Independent Scholar

Dr. Stanley S. McGowen Department of History Texas Christian University Dr. James McNabb Independent Scholar

Dr. Long Ba Nguyen Viet Business Publications Canada Nguyen Cong Luan Independent Scholar Cynthia Northrup Department of History University of Texas at Arlington Dr. Michael G. O’Loughlin Department of Political Science Salisbury State University

List of Editors and Contributors Dr. Eric W. Osborne Department of History Virginia Military Institute

Dr. Michael Richards Department of History Sweet Briar College

Dr. Michael Share Department of History University of Hong Kong

Edward C. Page Department of History Texas Christian University

Dr. Priscilla Roberts Professor of History, School of Humanities Honorary Director, Centre of American Studies University of Hong Kong

Tara K. Simpson Independent Scholar

John Gregory Perdue Jr. Department of History University of Texas Delia Pergande Department of History University of Kentucky Dr. Pham Cao Duong Independent Scholar

Glenn M. Robins Independent Scholar Dr. John D. Root Lewis Department of Humanities Armour College Illinois Institute of Technology

Dr. Yushau Sodiq Department of Religion Texas Christian University Dr. Lewis Sorley Independent Scholar John Southard Texas Tech University Dr. James E. Southerland Brenau University

Thomas T. Phu Independent Scholar

Dr. Rodney J. Ross Senior Professor of History/Geography Harrisburg Area Community College

Allene S. Phy-Olsen Languages/Literature Department Austin Peay State University

Karl Lee Rubis Department of History University of Kansas

Dr. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr. Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, Inc.

Harve Saal MACV, Studies and Observations Group MACV-SOG History Project

Dr. Barry M. Stentiford Independent Scholar

Dr. Steve Potts Independent Scholar

Dr. David C. Saffell Department of History and Political Science Ohio Northern University

Dr. Kenneth R. Stevens Department of History Texas Christian University

Stephen R. Sagarra Independent Scholar

Leslie-Rahye Strickland Independent Scholar

Dr. Stanley Sandler JFK Special Warfare School Fort Bragg

First Lieutenant Tracy R. Szczepaniak Department of History U.S. Air Force Academy

Dr. Claude R. Sasso William Jewell College

Dr. Brenda J. Taylor Department of History Texas Wesleyan University

Dr. Charlotte A. Power Department of History Black River Technical College Tammy Prater Independent Scholar Dr. John Clark Pratt Department of English Colorado State University Merle L. Pribbenow II Independent Scholar Jamie Bryan Price Reference Librarian and Assistant Professor Jefferson College of Health Sciences

1793

Dr. Phoebe S. Spinrad Independent Scholar Dr. Richard D. Starnes Department of History Western Carolina University

Captain Carl Otis Schuster (Retired) U.S. Navy Hawaii Pacific University

Lieutenant Colonel John G. Terino Jr. School of Advanced Air and Space Studies

Jeff Seiken Independent Scholar

Christopher C. Thomas Texas A&M University

1794

List of Editors and Contributors

Dr. Francis H. Thompson Department of History Western Kentucky University Dr. Earl H. Tilford Jr. Army War College Rebecca Tolley-Stokes University of Maryland, Baltimore County Dr. Vincent A. Transano Naval Facilities Engineering Command Naval Construction Battalion Center Dr. Stephanie Lynn Trombley Global Security and Intelligence Studies Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Dr. Spencer C. Tucker Senior Fellow Military History, ABC-CLIO, Inc. Zsolt J. Varga Department of History Texas Christian University Dr. Richard B. Verrone Texas Tech University Dr. Thomas D. Veve Social Sciences Division Dalton State College

Dr. John F. Votaw Independent Scholar Hieu Dinh Vu Independent Scholar Dr. Kathleen Warnes Independent Scholar Wes Watters Department of History Texas Christian University Dr. Seth Weitz Indiana University–Northwest Dr. James Michael Welsh English Department Salisbury State University Mike Werttheimer Naval Historical Center Department of the Navy Washington Navy Yard Dr. James Edward Westheider University of Cincinnati–Clermont College Donald Whaley Department of History Salisbury State University

Dr. Wyndham E. Whynot Department of History and Political Science Livingstone College Dr. James H. Willbanks Director Department of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth Sandra M. Wittman Library Services Oakton Community College Dr. Anna M. Wittmann Department of English and Film Studies University of Alberta Dr. Laura Matysak Wood Department of Social Sciences Tarrant County College Lee Ann Woodall Department of History McMurry University Dr. David T. Zabecki Major General Army of the United States, Retired Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. U.S. Navy, Retired

Categorical Index

Individuals Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr. 2 Abzug, Bella 4 Acheson, Dean Gooderham 4 Adams, Edward 6 Adams, Samuel A. 7 Agnew, Spiro Theodore 10 Aiken, George David 12 Alessandri, Marcel 37 Ali, Muhammad 38 Alsop, Joseph Wright, V 40 Alvarez, Everett, Jr. 41 Arnett, Peter 65 Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius 66 Ba Cut 89 Baez, Joan Chandos 89 Ball, George Wildman 90 Bao Dai 94 Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr. 95 Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul 98 Beckwith, Charles Alvin 98 Berger, Samuel David 102 Berrigan, Daniel 102 Berrigan, Philip 104 Bidault, Georges 104 Blaizot, Roger 114 Blassie, Michael Joseph 114 Blum, Léon 116 Bollaert, Émile 121 Bowles, Chester Bliss 127 Bradley, Omar Nelson 128

Brady, Patrick Henry 129 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich 130 Brown, George Scratchley 132 Brown, Hubert Gerald 133 Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr. 134 Browne, Malcolm Wilde 135 Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este 135 Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz 136 Bui Diem 140 Bui Tin 141 Bundy, McGeorge 143 Bundy, William Putnam 144 Bunker, Ellsworth 145 Burchett, Wilfred 146 Burkett, Bernard Gary 146 Bush, George Herbert Walker 147 Calley, William Laws, Jr. 149 Cao Van Vien 170 Carpentier, Marcel 171 Carter, James Earl, Jr. 172 Case, Clifford Philip 173 Catroux, Georges 179 Cédile, Jean 181 Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr. 187 Chappelle, Georgette Meyer 188 Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph 189 Chennault, Anna 190 Chennault, Claire Lee 191 Chomsky, Avram Noam 204 Church, Frank Forrester 205 Chu Van Tan 206 1795

Clarey, Bernard Ambrose 212 Clark, William Ramsey 213 Cleland, Joseph Maxwell 215 Clemenceau, Georges 216 Clifford, Clark McAdams 218 Clinton, William Jefferson 219 Coffin, William Sloane, Jr. 221 Cogny, René 222 Colby, William Egan 223 Collins, Joseph Lawton 224 Conein, Lucien Emile 228 Cooper, Chester Lawrence 237 Cooper, John Sherman 237 Cronauer, Adrian 246 Cronkite, Walter Leland 246 Cunningham, Randall Harold 249 Cuong De 250 Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr. 251 Da Faria, Antônio 253 Daley, Richard Joseph 256 Dao Duy Tung 259 D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry 259 Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr. 262 Davis, Raymond Gilbert 262 Davis, Rennard Cordon 263 Day, George Everett 264 Dean, John Gunther 265 Dèbes, Pierre-Louis 266 De Castries, Christian Marie 266 Decoux, Jean 269 De Gaulle, Charles 275

1796

Categorical Index

Dellinger, David 277 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr. 281 DePuy, William Eugene 281 De Rhodes, Alexandre 283 De Tham 288 Devillers, Philippe 288 Dewey, Albert Peter 289 Dith Pran 299 Doan Khue 300 Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich 301 Do Cao Tri 302 Do Muoi 305 Donlon, Roger Hugh C. 309 Donovan, William Joseph 309 Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III 310 Do Quang Thang 311 Doumer, Paul 312 Dulles, Allen Welsh 314 Dulles, John Foster 315 Duong Quynh Hoa 316 Duong Van Duc 317 Duong Van Minh 317 Dupuis, Jean 318 Durbrow, Elbridge 319 Duy Tan 320 Dylan, Bob 321 Eden, Sir Robert Anthony 327 Eisenhower, Dwight David 328 Ellsberg, Daniel 340 Ély, Paul Henri Romuald 342 Enthoven, Alain 349 Enuol, Y Bham 349 Ewell, Julian Johnson 355 Fall, Bernard B. 358 Faure, Edgar 359 Felt, Harry Donald 362 Fernandez, Richard 363 Ferry, Jules 364 Fishel, Wesley Robert 370 Fonda, Jane Seymour 373 Ford, Gerald Rudolph 377 Forrestal, Michael Vincent 378 Fortas, Abraham 379 Fulbright, James William 403 Galbraith, John Kenneth 405 Galloway, Joseph Lee 406 Garnier, Marie Joseph François 408 Garwood, Robert Russell 408 Gavin, James Maurice 409 Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth 410 Gelb, Leslie Howard 410 Genovese, Eugene Dominick 415

Ginsberg, Allen 418 Godley, George McMurtrie 419 Goldberg, Arthur Joseph 420 Goldman, Eric Frederick 420 Goldwater, Barry Morris 421 Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson 422 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich 423 Gracey, Douglas David 424 Gravel, Maurice Robert 424 Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr. 425 Greene, Graham 428 Greene, Wallace Martin 429 Gruening, Ernest Henry 432 Guizot, François 435 Habib, Philip Charles 439 Hackworth, David Haskell 440 Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. 441 Halberstam, David 445 Halperin, Morton H. 446 Ham Nghi 449 Hanoi Hannah 455 Harkins, Paul Donal 458 Harriman, William Averell 459 Harris, David 460 Hartke, Vance Rupert 460 Hatfield, Mark Odom 464 Hayden, Thomas Emmett 466 Healy, Michael D. 467 Heath, Donald Read 468 Helms, Richard McGarrah 476 Henderson, Oran K. 477 Heng Samrin 478 Herbert, Anthony 479 Hersh, Seymour Myron 481 Hershey, Lewis Blaine 482 Herz, Alice 483 Hickey, Gerald Cannon 484 Hilsman, Roger 487 Hoang Duc Nha 496 Hoang Van Hoan 498 Hoang Van Thai 498 Ho Chi Minh 499 Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur 505 Hoffman, Abbie 506 Hooper, Joe Ronnie 509 Hoopes, Townsend 510 Hoover, John Edgar 510 Hope, Leslie Townes 512 Humphrey, Hubert Horatio 522 Hun Sen 524 Huynh Phu So 525 Huynh Tan Phat 526

Huynh Van Cao 526 Jacobson, George D. 543 James, Daniel, Jr. 543 Javits, Jacob Koppel 546 Jiang Jieshi 547 Johnson, Harold Keith 548 Johnson, Lyndon Baines 549 Johnson, Ural Alexis 553 Jones, David Charles 554 Kattenburg, Paul 562 Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville 562 Kelly, Charles L. 563 Kelly, Francis J. 564 Kennan, George Frost 565 Kennedy, Edward Moore 566 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald 567 Kennedy, Robert Francis 570 Kerrey, Joseph Robert 573 Kerry, John Forbes 574 Kerwin, Walter T., Jr. 576 Khai Dinh 577 Khieu Samphan 583 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich 588 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 590 Kinnard, Harry William Osborn 593 Kissinger, Henry Alfred 593 Knowland, William Fife 596 Komer, Robert W. 598 Kong Le 599 Koster, Samuel William, Sr. 608 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich 609 Kovic, Ronald 610 Kraft, Joseph 611 Krulak, Victor H. 611 Kunstler, William Moses 612 Laird, Melvin Robert 615 Lake, William Anthony Kirsop 616 Laniel, Joseph 626 Lansdale, Edward Geary 626 Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de 633 Lavelle, John Daniel 635 Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe 636 Le Duan 637 Le Duc Anh 638 Le Duc Tho 639 Lefèbvre, Dominique 641 Le Kha Phieu 643 Le Loi 644 LeMay, Curtis Emerson 645 Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis 646 Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie 647 Le Nguyen Khang 648

Categorical Index Le Nguyen Vy 648 Le Quang Tung 649 Leroy, Catherine 649 Le Thanh Nghi 650 Le Thanh Tong 651 Letourneau, Jean 651 Le Trong Tan 652 Le Van Hung 653 Le Van Kim 653 Le Van Vien 654 Levy, Howard Brett 655 Lifton, Robert Jay 657 Lin, Maya Ying 658 Lippmann, Walter 663 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. 674 Lon Nol 682 Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth 685 Luce, Henry Robinson 686 Lu Han 686 Luong Ngoc Quyen 687 Ly Bon 687 Lynd, Staughton 688 MacArthur, Douglas 691 Mailer, Norman 696 Mansfield, Michael Joseph 700 Mao Zedong 701 Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood 706 Martin, Graham A. 707 McCain, John Sidney, Jr. 712 McCain, John Sidney, III 713 McCarthy, Eugene Joseph 715 McCloy, John Jay 716 McCone, John Alex 716 McConnell, John Paul 717 McGarr, Lionel Charles 718 McGee, Gale William 719 McGovern, George Stanley 719 McNamara, Robert Strange 720 McNaughton, John Theodore 724 McPherson, Harry Cummings 725 Meaney, George 726 Medina, Ernest Lou 735 Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham 738 Mendès-France, Pierre 738 Minh Mang 757 Mitchell, John Newton 763 Moffat, Abbot Low 766 Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich 767 Momyer, William Wallace 768 Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr. 770 Moore, Robert Brevard 771 Moorer, Thomas Hinman 771

Mordant, Eugène 774 Morrison, Norman 775 Morse, Wayne Lyman 775 Moyers, Billy Don 778 Muller, Robert 780 Murphy, Robert Daniel 781 Muste, Abraham Johannes 784 Napoleon III 790 Navarre, Henri Eugène 800 Ngo Dinh Can 805 Ngo Dinh Diem 806 Ngo Dinh Khoi 810 Ngo Dinh Luyen 810 Ngo Dinh Nhu 811 Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame 812 Ngo Dinh Thuc 813 Ngo Quang Truong 814 Ngo Quyen 814 Nguyen Binh 815 Nguyen Cao Ky 815 Nguyen Chanh Thi 817 Nguyen Chi Thanh 819 Nguyen Co Thach 819 Nguyen Duy Trinh 820 Nguyen Hai Than 822 Nguyen Ha Phan 822 Nguyen Hue 823 Nguyen Huu An 824 Nguyen Huu Co 825 Nguyen Huu Tho 825 Nguyen Huu Tri 826 Nguyen Khanh 827 Nguyen Khoa Nam 827 Nguyen Luong Bang 828 Nguyen Manh Cam 828 Nguyen Ngoc Loan 829 Nguyen Ngoc Tho 830 Nguyen Phuc Anh 831 Nguyen Sinh Sac 832 Nguyen Thai Hoc 833 Nguyen Thi Binh 834 Nguyen Thi Dinh 835 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai 836 Nguyen Tuong Tam 837 Nguyen Van Binh 837 Nguyen Van Cu 838 Nguyen Van Hieu 839 Nguyen Van Hinh 839 Nguyen Van Linh 839 Nguyen Van Thieu 840 Nguyen Van Toan 843 Nguyen Van Xuan 843

Nguyen Viet Thanh 844 Nitze, Paul Henry 845 Nixon, Richard Milhous 846 Noel, Chris 850 Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr. 851 Nong Duc Manh 852 Novosel, Michael, Sr. 853 Nuon Chea 855 Oberg, Jean-Christophe 859 O’Daniel, John Wilson 860 Olds, Robin 862 Palme, Olof 874 Palmer, Bruce, Jr. 875 Patti, Archimedes L. A. 882 Patton, George Smith, IV 882 Paul VI, Pope 883 Pearson, Lester Bowles 885 Peers, William R. 886 Perot, Henry Ross 893 Peterson, Douglas Brian 894 Pham Cong Tac 895 Pham Duy 895 Pham Hung 896 Pham Ngoc Thao 897 Pham The Duyet 898 Pham Van Dong 898 Pham Van Phu 899 Pham Xuan An 900 Phan Boi Chau 900 Phan Chu Trinh 901 Phan Dinh Phung 902 Phan Huy Quat 903 Phan Khac Suu 904 Phan Quang Dan 904 Phan Van Khai 905 Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix 906 Phoumi Nosavan 910 Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre 912 Pignon, Léon 913 Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich 918 Polgar, Thomas 919 Pol Pot 919 Porter, William James 922 Powell, Colin Luther 927 Proxmire, Edward William 942 Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr. 949 Quach Tom 951 Radford, Arthur William 957 Read, Benjamin Huger 961 Reagan, Ronald Wilson 962 Reinhardt, George Frederick 966 Rheault, Robert B. 969

1797

1798

Categorical Index

Richardson, John Hammond 970 Ridenhour, Ronald 970 Ridgway, Matthew Bunker 971 Rigault de Genouilly, Charles 976 Risner, James Robinson 977 Rivers, Lucius Mendel 984 Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil 985 Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich 986 Rogers, William Pierce 988 Romney, George Wilcken 994 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 994 Rostow, Eugene Victor 995 Rostow, Walt Whitman 996 Rowe, James Nicholas 999 Rubin, Jerry 1000 Rusk, David Dean 1003 Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr. 1005 Russo, Anthony J., Jr. 1006 Sabattier, Gabriel 1009 Sainteny, Jean 1012 Salan, Raoul Albin Louis 1013 Salisbury, Harrison Evans 1014 Sarraut, Albert 1018 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. 1019 Schlesinger, James Rodney 1020 Scruggs, Jan Craig 1022 Seale, Bobby 1024 Seaman, Jonathan O. 1028 Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr. 1034 Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney 1035 Shoup, David Monroe 1036 Sihanouk, Norodom 1037 Sijan, Lance Peter 1039 Simons, Arthur David 1040 Sisowath Sirik Matak 1048 Smith, Walter Bedell 1049 Snepp, Frank Warren, III 1050 Souphanouvong 1054 Souvanna Phouma 1057 Spellman, Francis Joseph 1058 Spock, Benjamin McLane 1059 Staley, Eugene 1061 Starry, Donn Albert 1062 Stennis, John Cornelius 1063 Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II 1065 Stilwell, Richard Giles 1066 Stockdale, James Bond 1066 Stockdale, Sybil Bailey 1067 Sullivan, William Healy 1076 Summers, Harry G., Jr. 1077 Tallman, Richard Joseph 1086 Tarr, Curtis W. 1090

Taylor, Maxwell Davenport 1092 Thanh Thai 1111 Thich Quang Duc 1112 Thich Tri Quang 1113 Thieu Tri 1114 Thomas, Allison Kent 1114 Thomas, Norman Mattoon 1114 Thompson, Hugh, Jr. 1115 Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker To Huu 1122 Ton Duc Thang 1122 Ton That Dinh 1123 Ton That Thuyet 1124 Tran Buu Kiem 1129 Tran Do 1130 Tran Hung Dao 1132 Tran Kim Tuyen 1133 Tran Thien Khiem 1134 Tran Van Chuong 1135 Tran Van Do 1136 Tran Van Don 1137 Tran Van Giau 1137 Tran Van Hai 1138 Tran Van Huong 1138 Tran Van Lam 1139 Tran Van Tra 1140 Trieu Au 1141 Trieu Da 1141 Truman, Harry S. 1143 Trung Trac and Trung Nhi 1144 Truong Chinh 1144 Truong Dinh Dzu 1146 Truong Nhu Tang 1147 Tsuchihashi Yuitsu 1148 Tu Duc 1149 Twining, Nathan Farragut 1153 Ut, Nick 1219 U Thant 1221 Valluy, Jean-Étienne 1223 Van Cao 1224 Vance, Cyrus Roberts 1224 Van Es, Hubert 1226 Vang Pao 1227 Van Lang 1228 Vann, John Paul 1228 Van Tien Dung 1229 Versace, Humbert Rocque 1230 Vessey, John William, Jr. 1231 Vo Chi Cong 1300 Vogt, John W., Jr. 1301 Vo Nguyen Giap 1302 Vo Tran Chi 1304

1117

Vo Van Ba 1304 Vo Van Kiet 1305 Vu Hong Khanh 1306 Vu Oanh 1309 Vu Quoc Thuc 1310 Vu Van Giai 1310 Waldron, Adelbert F., III 1314 Wallace, George Corley, Jr. 1315 Walt, Lewis William 1316 Ware, Keith Lincoln 1317 Warnke, Paul Culliton 1317 Webb, James Henry, Jr. 1330 Wei Guoqing 1331 Weiss, Cora 1333 Westmoreland, William Childs 1335 Weyand, Frederick Carlton 1337 Wheeler, Earle Gilmore 1338 Williams, Samuel Tankersley 1342 Wilson, James Harold 1343 Wilson, Thomas Woodrow 1344 Xuan Thuy 1352 Zhou Enlai 1361 Zorthian, Barry 1362 Zumwalt, Elmo Russell, Jr. 1363

Events ABILENE, Operation

1 Agroville Program 12 Airborne Operations 14 ALA MOANA, Operation 37 An Loc, Battle of 50 Antiwar Protests, Non-U.S. 55 APACHE SNOW, Operation 57 Ap Bac, Battle of 57 Arc Light Missions 59 A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for 77 ATLAS WEDGE, Operation 78 ATTLEBORO, Operation 80 August Revolution 82 BABYLIFT, Operation 87 Bach Dang River, Battle of 88 Ban Me Thuot, Battle of 93 BARREL ROLL, Operation 96 Ben Tre, Battle of 101 Binh Gia, Battle of 106 BINH TAY I–IV, Operations 108 BLUE LIGHT, Operation 116 BOLD MARINER, Operation 119 BOLO, Operation 121 BRAVO I and II, Operations 129 BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation 132

Categorical Index BUFFALO, Operation

139

BULLET SHOT, Operation

142 Cambodia, Vietnamese Invasion and Occupation of 154 Cambodian Airlift 156 Cambodian Incursion 157 CASTOR, Operation 174 CEDAR FALLS, Operation 180 CHAOS, Operation 186 CHECO Project 189 Chieu Hoi Program 193 COMMANDO FLASH, Operation 225 COMMANDO HUNT, Operation 226 CONSTANT GUARD, Operation 233 Con Thien, Siege of 235 CRIMP, Operation 245 Dak To, Battle of 254 DANIEL BOONE, Operation 259 DECKHOUSE V, Operation 268 Deer Mission 270 DEFIANT STAND, Operation 272 DELAWARE–LAM SON 216, Operation 276 Democratic National Convention of 1968 279 DeSoto Missions 285 DEWEY CANYON I, Operation 290 DEWEY CANYON II, Operation 292 Dien Bien Phu, Battle of 293 Dien Triet Lake, Battle of 296 Dong Ha, Battle of 306 Dong Quan Pacification Project 307 Dong Xoai, Battle of 308 DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation 311 EAGLE PULL, Operation 323 Easter Offensive 323 Elections, National, Republic of Vietnam, 1955, 1967, 1971 329 Elections, U.S., 1964 332 Elections, U.S., 1968 333 Elections, U.S., 1972 336 Elections, U.S., 1976 338 EL PASO II, Operation 341 ENHANCE, Operation 346 ENHANCE PLUS, Operation 346 ENTERPRISE, Operation 348 FAIRFAX, Operation 357 FARM GATE, Operation 358 Five O’Clock Follies 371 FLAMING DART I and II, Operations 372 Fontainebleau Conference 375 Forrestal, USS, Flight Deck Fire 379 FRANCIS MARION, Operation 390

Franco-Thai War

391

FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation

LINEBACKER I, Operation

393

394 FREQUENT WIND, Operation 402 GAME WARDEN, Operation 406 GREELEY, Operation 427 Groupement Mobile 100, Destruction of 431 Guam Conference 433 Gulf of Tonkin Incident 435 Haiphong, Shelling of 444 Hamburger Hill, Battle of 447 Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive 453 HARVEST MOON, Operation 461 HASTINGS, Operation 462 HAWTHORNE, Operation 465 HICKORY–BELT TIGHT–BEAU CHARGER–LAM SON 54, Operation 484 HICKORY II, Operation 485 Hoa Binh, Battle of 493 HOANG HOA THAM, Operation 497 Ho Chi Minh Campaign 501 HOMECOMING, Operation 507 Honolulu Conference 508 HOP TAC, Operation 513 Hue, Battle of 516 Hue and Da Nang, Fall of 519 Hue Massacre 521 Humanitarian Operation Program 522 Ia Drang, Battle of 527 Indochina War 531 IRVING, Operation 539 Jackson State College Shootings 541 JACKSTAY, Operation 542 JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation 546 JUNCTION CITY, Operation 555 Kent State University Shootings 571 KENTUCKY, Operation 573 Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, Fall of 578 Khe Sanh, Battle of 579 KINGFISHER, Operation 591 Kontum, Battle for 599 Korean War 603 LAM SON 719, Operation 617 Lang Bac, Battle of 622 Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for 624 LÉA, Operation 636 LE HONG PHONG II, Operation 642 LEXINGTON III, Operation 656

1799

659 660 Loc Ninh, Military Operations near 672 LORRAINE, Operation 684 MACARTHUR, Operation 692 MALHEUR I and II, Operations 698 Manila Conference 699 March on the Pentagon 703 MARIGOLD, Operation 704 MARKET TIME, Operation 705 MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation 708 MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation 709 Mayaguez Incident 710 MAYFLOWER, Operation 712 Mekong River Project 737 MENU, Operation 739 Midway Island Conference 741 Mini–Tet Offensive 759 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam 773 Mortuary Affairs Operations 777 Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon 778 My Lai Massacre 784 Nam Dong, Battle of 787 Na San, Battle of 791 NEVADA EAGLE, Operation 803 Ngo Dinh Diem, Overthrow of 809 NIAGARA, Operation 844 Operation Plan 34A 864 Order of Battle Dispute 864 Oriskany, USS, Fire aboard 866 Paris Negotiations 876 PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation 880 PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations 883 Peers Inquiry 886 PEGASUS–LAM SON 207A, Operation 887 PENNSYLVANIA, Operation 888 PERSHING, Operation 893 Phoenix Program 909 PIERCE ARROW, Operation 911 PIRANHA, Operation 914 POPEYE, Operation 921 Potsdam Conference 926 PRAIRIE I, Operation 929 PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations 929 Project Agile 934 Project Delta 935 Project Omega 936 Project 100,000 937 Project Sigma 938 Protective Reaction Strikes 938 LINEBACKER II, Operation

1800

Categorical Index

PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation

939 Psychological Warfare Operations 942 Pueblo Incident 947 Quang Tri, Battle of 952 RANCH HAND, Operation 958 Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for 976 ROLLING THUNDER, Operation 989 Route Coloniale 4, Battles for 998 Saigon Military Mission 1011 SAM HOUSTON, Operation 1015 SCOTLAND, Operation 1021 SEA DRAGON, Operation 1023 Search-and-Rescue Operations 1031 Selective Service 1032 SHINING BRASS, Operation 1036 Sigma I and II 1037 Sino-French War 1041 Sino-Soviet Split 1043 Sino-Vietnamese War 1044 SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation 1051 Song Be, Battle of 1052 Son Tay Raid 1052 Son Thang Incident 1053 Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam 1060 STARLITE, Operation 1061 STEEL TIGER, Operation 1063 Strategic Hamlet Program 1070 SUNFLOWER, Operation 1078 SUNRISE, Operation 1078 SWITCHBACK, Operation 1084 Taylor-Rostow Mission 1095 Tay Son Rebellion 1097 Teach-Ins and Sit-Ins 1098 Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle 1105 TEXAS, Operation 1108 TEXAS STAR, Operation 1108 THUNDERHEAD, Operation 1118 TIGER HOUND, Operation 1119 Tinker v. Des Moines 1120 TOAN THANG, Operation 1121 Tuyen Quang, Siege of 1152 UNION I and II, Operations 1160 UNIONTOWN, Operation 1162 United States v. O’Brien 1217 United States v. Seeger 1217 University of Wisconsin Bombing 1218 UTAH, Operation 1220 VAN BUREN, Operation 1223 VULTURE, Operation 1307

Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong Spy Case 1308 Wars of National Liberation 1323 WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation 1326 Watergate Scandal 1327 Welsh v. United States 1333 WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation 1340 Woodstock 1349 Xa Loi Pagoda Raid 1351 Xuan Loc, Battle of 1352 YANKEE TEAM, Operation 1356 YELLOWSTONE, Operation 1357 Yen Bai Mutiny 1358

Groups and Organizations Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee 8 African Americans in the U.S. Military 8 Agricultural Reform Tribunals 11 Air America 13 Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company 30 Air War Study Group Report, Cornell University 36 Amerasians 41 American Friends of Vietnam 43 American Red Cross 44 Army Concept Team in Vietnam 64 Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam 78 Baltimore Four 91 Binh Xuyen 109 Bird & Sons 109 Black Flags 110 Black Muslims 111 Black Panthers 112 Buddhism in Vietnam 137 Camden 28 161 Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang 165 Caravelle Group 171 Catonsville Nine 178 Central Intelligence Agency 182 Central Office for South Vietnam 184 Chams and the Kingdom of Champa 185 Chicago Eight 192 Chinese in Vietnam 202 Civilian Irregular Defense Group 209 Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support 209 Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam 217 Concerned Officers Movement 227 Conscientious Objectors 230

Continental Air Services 236 Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang 253 Dinassauts 298 European Defense Community 354 Federal Bureau of Investigation 360 Fellowship of Reconciliation 361 Forces Armées Nationales Khmères 376 Fort Hood Three 380 Forward Air Controllers 381 Four-Party Joint Military Commission 381 France, Air Force, 1946–1954 383 France, Army, 1946–1954 384 France, Navy, 1946–1954 387 Free World Assistance Program 395 French Foreign Legion in Indochina 396 Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées 403 Hardhats 457 High National Council 486 Hispanics in the U.S. Military 488 Hmongs 491 Hoa Hao 494 International Commission for Supervision and Control 536 International Rescue Committee 537 International War Crimes Tribunal 537 Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office 553 K-9 Corps 559 Kampuchean National Front 561 Khmer Kampuchea Krom 584 Khmer Rouge 585 Khmer Serai 587 Kien An Airfield 589 Kit Carson Scouts 596 Lao Dong Party 628 Le Dynasty 641 Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols 681 Marine Combined Action Platoons 704 May Day Tribe 711 Medics and Corpsmen 733 Michigan State University Advisory Group 741 Military Airlift Command 743 Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam 744 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 746 Military Revolutionary Council 753 Military Sealift Command 754 Missing in Action, Allied 760

Categorical Index Missing in Action and Prisoners of War, Communist 762 Mobile Guerrilla Forces 764 Mobile Riverine Force 764 Mobile Strike Force Commands 765 Montagnards 768 National Bank of Vietnam 792 National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam 793 National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord 793 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam 794 National Leadership Council 796 National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia 796 Native Americans in the U.S. Military 798 Nguyen Dynasty 821 Nurses, U.S. 855 Office of Strategic Services 861 Pathet Lao 881 People’s Self-Defense Forces 892 Prisoners of War, Allied 931 Provincial Reconnaissance Units 940 Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam 941 RAND Corporation 960 Raven Forward Air Controllers 961 Red River Fighter Pilots Association 963 Refugees and Boat People 965 Republican Youth 967 Research and Development Field Units 967 Reserve Officers’ Training Corps 968 River Assault Groups 978 Road Watch Teams 984 Seabees 1023 SEAL Teams 1027 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization 1055 Strategic Air Command 1068 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1072 Students for a Democratic Society 1072 Studies and Observation Group 1074 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth 1083 Tactical Air Command 1085 Task Force 116 1091 Task Force Oregon 1092 Territorial Forces 1101 Tran Dynasty 1131 Transportation Group 559 1133

Trinh Lords 1142 Tuesday Lunch Group 1150 Tunnel Rats 1151 Tu Ve 1152 United Front 1162 United Nations and the Vietnam War 1165 United Services Organization 1166 United States, Nongovernmental Organizations, 1954–Present 1181 United States Agency for International Development 1182 United States Air Force 1184 United States Army 1187 United States Army Special Services 1192 United States Coast Guard 1193 United States Congress and the Vietnam War 1195 United States Department of Justice 1198 United States Department of State and Formation of U.S. Policy toward Vietnam 1199 United States Information Agency 1201 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff 1202 United States Marine Corps 1204 United States Merchant Marine 1205 United States Navy 1206 United States Reserve Components 1208 United States Special Forces 1212 United States Veterans Administration 1216 Viet Minh 1235 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force 1247 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army 1249 Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force 1264 Vietnam, Republic of, Army 1266 Vietnam, Republic of, Commandos 1269 Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff 1269 Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps 1270 Vietnam, Republic of, National Police 1271 Vietnam, Republic of, Navy 1273 Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces 1276 Vietnamese Communist Party 1282 Vietnamese National Army 1286 Vietnam Information Group 1287 Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang 1290 Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi 1292

1801

Vietnam Veterans Against the War 1293 Vietnam Veterans of America 1297 Vietnam War Frauds, Fakes, and Wannabes 1298 Voices in Vital America 1301 War Resisters League 1320 Washington Special Actions Group 1327 Weathermen 1329 White Star Mobile Training Teams 1341 Wise Men 1344 Women in the Vietnam War, U.S. 1346 Women in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese 1347 Women Strike for Peace 1349 Youth International Party 1358

Places Andersen Air Force Base 48 Angkor Wat 49 An Khe 50 Annam 51 A Shau Valley 76 Au Lac, Kingdom of 83 Australia 83 Ban Karai Pass 92 Ben Suc 100 Bien Hoa Air Base 105 Bui Phat 141 Cambodia 150 Cam Lo 162 Camp Carroll 162 Cam Ranh Bay 163 Canada 164 Cao Bang 167 Central Highlands 182 China, People’s Republic of 194 China, Republic of 201 Clark Air Force Base 214 Cochin China 221 Con Son Island Prison 232 Corps Tactical Zones 240 Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines 247 Cu Chi Tunnels 248 Da Lat 256 Da Nang 257 Demilitarized Zone 278 Dixie Station 300 Fire-Support Bases 369 Fishhook 370 France and Vietnam, 1954–Present

389

1802

Categorical Index

Free Fire Zones 394 French Indochina, 1860s–1946 398 Germany, Federal Republic of 417 Guam 432 Hainan Island 442 Haiphong 443 Hanoi 452 Hoa Lo Prison 494 Ho Chi Minh Trail 502 Hue 515 India 530 Indonesia 535 Iron Triangle 539 Japan 544 Kep Airfield 573 Koh Tang 597 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of 600 Korea, Republic of 601 Landing Zone 619 Lang Son 623 Laos 629 Lima Site 85 657 Long Binh 680 Long Chieng 681 Malaysia 697 McNamara Line 722 Mekong Delta 735 Mekong River 736 Military Regions 751 Mu Gia Pass 780 Nam Viet 788 New Zealand 805 Nui Ba Den 854 Oakland Army Base 859 Olongapo, Philippines 863 Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea 875 Parrot’s Beak 879 Philippines 906 Phnom Penh 908 Plain of Jars 916 Plain of Reeds 917 Pleiku 917 Poland 918 Poulo Condore 926 Quang Ngai 952 Qui Nhon 953 Red River Delta 963 Reeducation Camps 964 Route Packages 998 Saigon 1010

Sanctuaries 1017 Tan Son Nhut 1088 Tay Ninh 1096 Thailand 1109 Thanh Hoa Bridge 1111 Thud Ridge 1117 Tonkin 1122 Top Gun School 1124 Truong Son Corridor 1147 Truong Son Mountains 1148 Tunnels 1151 U Minh Forest 1155 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 1158 United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam Wars 1163 United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade 1190 United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii 1191 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1945–1954 1240 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, 1954–1975 1243 Vietnam, History of, Prehistory to 938 CE 1253 Vietnam, History of, 938 CE through the French Conquest 1254 Vietnam, Republic of, 1954–1975 1258 Vietnam, Republic of, Da Lat Military Academy 1269 Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center 1275 Vietnam, Socialist Republic of, 1975–Present 1276 Vietnam Veterans Memorial 1295 Vinh 1299 Vung Tau 1308 War Zone C and War Zone D 1324 Yankee Station 1355

Ideas and Movements Air Mobility 29 Alpha Strike 39 Amnesty 45 Amphibious Warfare 46 Antiwar Movement, U.S. 53 Armored Warfare 63 Artillery Fire Doctrine 73 Assimilation versus Association 77 Attrition 82 Body Count 118 Bombing Halts and Restrictions 122

Cao Dai 168 Catholicism in Vietnam 176 Civic Action 206 Civil Rights Movement 210 Clear and Hold 215 Confucianism 229 Containment Policy 234 Counterculture 241 Counterinsurgency Warfare 243 Dau Tranh Strategy 260 Defoliation 273 Desertion, U.S. and Communist 284 Détente 286 Doi Moi 303 Domino Theory 303 Electronic Intelligence 339 Enclave Strategy 345 Flexible Response 373 Fragging 382 Fratricide 392 Great Society Program 426 Hot Pursuit Policy 514 Imperial Presidency 529 Jaunissement 545 Land Reform, Vietnam 621 Logistics, Allied, People’s Army of Vietnam, and Viet Cong 675 Madman Strategy 696 Mine Warfare, Land 755 Mine Warfare, Naval, Communist Forces and Allied Countermining Operations 756 Mining and Mine Clearance in North Vietnam 758 Nam Tien 787 Naval Gunfire Support 799 Neutrality 802 Pacification 869 Public Opinion and the War, U.S. 945 Quadrillage/Ratissage 951 Riverine Warfare 981 Rules of Engagement 1001 San Antonio Formula 1016 SEALORDS 1025 Sea Power, Role in War 1029 Search and Destroy 1030 SLAM 1049 Tache D’Huile 1085 Taoism 1089 Tet Offensive, Overall Strategy 1102 Vietnamese Culture 1283 Vietnamization 1288

Categorical Index

Technologies, Objects, and Artifacts Aircraft, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 16 Aircraft, Bombers 24 Aircraft Carriers 25 Air-to-Air Missiles 34 Air-to-Ground Missiles 35 Antiaircraft Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 52 Armored Personnel Carriers 61 Artillery, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 70 BLU-82/B Bomb 115 Body Armor 118 Bombs, Gravity 125 Booby Traps 125 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program 270 Defense Satellite Communications System 272 Dikes, Red River Delta 297 Drugs and Drug Use 313 Grenade Launchers 429 Hand Grenades 450 Helicopters, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 468 Helicopters, Employment of in Vietnam 473 Herbicides 479 Hourglass Spraying System 515 Long-Range Electronic Navigation 681 Machine Guns, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 694 Mortars, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 776 Napalm 788 New Jersey, USS 804 PIRAZ Warships 914 Pistols 915 Precision-Guided Munitions 930 Punji Stake 949 Radio Direction Finding 958 Rifles 972 Riverine Craft 978 Rockets and Rocket Launchers 986 Submachine Guns 1074 Surface-to-Air Missiles, Democratic Republic of Vietnam 1079 Swift Boats 1081 Tanks, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 1087 Tiger Cages 1118

Uniforms 1155 Warships, Allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam 1321 Wild Weasels 1341

Agreements, Reports, and Other Documents Case-Church Amendment 174 “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” Report 228 Cooper-Brooke Amendment 238 Cooper-Church Amendment 239 Elysée Agreement 343 Geneva Accords of 1962 411 Geneva Conference and Geneva Accords of 1954 412 Geneva Convention of 1949 414 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 435 Hatfield-McGovern Amendment 464 Hilsman-Forrestal Report 488 Ho-Sainteny Agreement 514 Huston Plan 525 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech 552 Key West Agreement 577 National Assembly Law 10/59 791 National Security Action Memorandum Number 328 797 Navarre Plan 801 Nixon Doctrine 850 Paris Peace Accords 877 Pentagon Papers and Trial 889 Port Huron Statement 923 Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam 933 Revers Report 969 Rusk-Thanat Agreement 1004 Taylor-McNamara Report 1094 Tianjin, Treaty of 1118 Vientiane Agreement 4232 Vientiane Protocol 1233 War Powers Act 1319

Miscellaneous Air Defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam 27 Airpower, Role in War 31 Art and the Vietnam War 67 Atrocities during the Vietnam War 79 Casualties 175

1803

China, People’s Republic of, Policy toward Vietnam 199 DEROS 283 Don Dien 306 Dustoff 320 Economy, U.S., and the Vietnam War 325 Embargo, U.S. Trade 343 Ethnology of Southeast Asia 350 Film and the Vietnam Experience 364 Geography of Indochina and Vietnam 416 Hamlet Evaluation System 449 Harassment and Interdiction Fires 455 Historiography, Vietnam War 489 Literature and the Vietnam War 664 Medevac 726 Media and the Vietnam War 727 Medicine, Military 729 Military Decorations 747 Munich Analogy 781 Music and the Vietnam War 782 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 923 Quoc Ngu 954 Racial Violence within the U.S. Military 955 Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Training 1080 Television and the Vietnam War 1099 Torture 1125 United States, Involvement in Indochina through 1954 1167 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965 1169 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968 1172 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973 1175 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975 1177 United States, Involvement in Vietnam, 1975–Present 1179 United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize 1211 Viet Cong Infrastructure 1234 Vietnam, Climate of 1237 Vietnam, Climate and Terrain, Impact of on the Vietnam War 1238 Vietnam Magazine 1289 Vietnam Syndrome 1291 Wage and Price Controls 1313

This page intentionally left blank

Index

1st Air Cavalry Division (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), xliii, 30, 50, 158, 160, 254, 276, 283 (image), 312, 349, 370, 461, 474, 517, 519, 527, 528 (image), 593, 771, 893, 1239, 1245, 1324, 1325 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment (ARVN), 160 1st Infantry Division (ARVN), 2, 306, 307, 448, 814 1st Infantry Division (PAVN), 254, 390–391 1st Infantry Division (U.S. [“Big Red One”]), 78, 81, 245, 248, 1029, 1324, 1325 1st Infantry Regiment (VC), 462 1st Marine Field Artillery Group (U.S.), 73 2nd Armored Brigade (U.S.), 160 2nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 312 2nd Infantry Division (PAVN), 1340 2nd Infantry Division (VC), 462 3rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 325 3rd Infantry Regiment (ARVN), 448 3rd Marine Division (U.S.), 290, 306, 485, 591–592 3rd Sapper Battalion (PAVN), 291 4th Air Cavalry Division (U.S.), 180 4th Infantry Division (U.S.), 160, 254, 388, 427, 1324 4th Marine Division (U.S. [“Magnificent Bastards”]), 306, 485 5th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 529 5th Infantry Division (ARVN), 51, 150, 1324 5th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 1, 51 5th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 292, 466 5th Marine Regiment (U.S.), xliv (image) 5th Ranger Group (ARVN), 357 6th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 291 7th Air Cavalry (U.S. [“Airmobile”]), 406, 527, 528

7th Infantry Division (ARVN), 57, 58, 981 7th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51 9th Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 9th Infantry Division (ROK [“White Horse”]), 163, 602 (image) 9th Infantry Division (U.S.), 348, 467, 981, 983–984 9th Infantry Division (VC/PAVN), 51, 80–81, 107, 342 9th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 57, 139, 448, 485 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (U.S. [“Blackhorse”]), 78, 370 12th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 14th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rangers”]), 470 (image) 16th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 1 18th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 391 21st Infantry Division (ARVN), 981 21st Marine Regiment (U.S. [“Gimlets”]), 306 22nd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 312, 1326 23rd Infantry Division (ARVN), 160, 608 23rd Infantry Division (U.S. [“Americal Division”]), 119–120, 785, 1340 24th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 163, 254, 427, 466 25th Infantry Division (U.S. [“Tropic Lightning”]), 78, 81, 208, 249, 370, 457, 1324 26th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Blue Spaders”]), 180 26th Marine Regiment (U.S.), 485 29th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 57, 448 31st Marine Amphibious Unit (U.S.), 48 31st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 32nd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 33rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 528 39th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 348

I-1

42nd Regiment (ARVN), 427, 466 52nd Ranger Battalion (U.S.), 308 57th Medical Detachment (U.S.), 320, 564 66th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 82nd Airborne Division (U.S.), 29, 467 82nd Medical Detachment (U.S.), 853 90th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 140 101st Airborne Division (U.S. [“Screaming Eagles”]), 15, 50, 57, 276, 292, 349, 448, 464, 474, 546, 803, 1340 101st Aviation Group (U.S.), 292 101st Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 81 173rd Airborne Brigade (U.S. [“Sky Soldiers”]), 15, 50, 180, 245, 248, 254, 427, 428, 693, 1325 (image), 1326 174th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254, 428 187th Infantry Regiment (U.S. [“Rakassans”]), 57 196th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 81, 292, 306 199th Light Infantry Brigade (U.S.), 357, 1162 237th Infantry Regiment (VC), 81 271st Infantry Regiment (VC), 107 272nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 81, 107, 341, 342 304B Infantry Division (PAVN), 163, 517, 977 320th Infantry Division (PAVN), 306 320th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 254 324B Infantry Division (PAVN), 235, 462, 463, 517, 977 325th Infantry Division (PAVN), 77, 235 325C Infantry Division (PAVN), 517, 579, 1244 327th Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 502nd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 466 503rd Infantry Regiment (U.S.), 254, 255 506th Infantry Battalion (VC), 348 675B Artillery Regiment (PAVN), 291

I-2

Index

762nd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 763rd Infantry Regiment (VC), 308 803rd Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 235 812th Infantry Regiment (PAVN), 485 I Corps (ARVN), 517, 520, 814 I Corps (U.S.), 50, 311 II Corps (ARVN), 161 II Field Force, 875 III Corps (ARVN), 158, 161 III Corps (U.S.), 51 III Marine Amphibious Force (U.S. [MAF]), 31, 312, 704 LXX Corps (PAVN), 617 ABILENE, Operation, 1–2 Abrams, Creighton Williams, Jr., 2–3, 2 (image), 51, 133, 347, 548, 576, 599, 616, 625, 692–693, 814, 847, 872, 875, 934, 970, 1062, 1174, 1175, 1176–1177, 1176–1177, 1188, 1203 (image), 1212, 1215, 1345 (image) analysis of the enemy systems used in the Vietnam War, 3 as commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 3 as overseer of Vietnamization, 747 Abzug, Bella, 4, 187, 712 Accelerated Pacification Campaign, 872–873 Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program, 407 Acheson, Dean Gooderham, 4–6, 5 (image), 566, 603, 1143, 1168 “defense perimeter” in Asia established by, 5 memorandum of, 1404Doc. press release urging aid for Indochina, 1410Doc. report to the National Security Council, 1416–1417Doc. telegram to Abbot L. Moffat, 1390–1391Doc. telegram to the consulate in France, 1403–1404Doc. telegram to the consulate in Hanoi, 1404Doc. telegram to the embassy in France, 1402–1403Doc. telegram to the embassy in the United Kingdom, 1407–1408Doc. telegram to the legation in Saigon, 1415–1416Doc. telegram to Walter Robertson, 1378–1379Doc. telegrams to David Bruce, 1409–1410Doc., 1412–1413Doc. ACTIV. See Army Team Concept in Vietnam Adams, Eddie, 6–7, 6 (image), 727 Adams, Samuel A., 7–8, 865 Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee (AHMBC), 8

Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), 934 Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (AARS), 1032 African Americans, in the U.S. military, 8–10, 9 (image), 69 effects of the civil rights movement on, 212 Agent Orange. See Defoliation; Herbicides Agnew, Spiro Theodore, 10–11, 11 (image), 45, 338, 457, 464, 465 criticism of the media, 1622–1624Doc. resignation of the vice presidency by, 11, 377 Agricultural reform tribunals, 11–12 Agroville Program, 12, 808, 811, 1061 Aiken, George David, 12–13, 13 (image) Air America, 13–14 Airborne operations, 14–16 Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 16–24, 17 (image), 19 (image), 23 (image), 579 allied bombers, 16–18 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, 16, 24, 32, 48, 59–60, 60 (image), 79, 97, 108, 125, 142–143, 158, 292, 312, 325, 340, 370, 376, 462, 466, 503, 527, 578, 582, 592, 625, 646, 659 (image), 661, 662, 693, 698, 709, 724, 740, 770, 802, 845, 879, 887, 944, 952, 958, 1001, 1018, 1021, 1034, 1036, 1049, 1053, 1068, 1130, 1154, 1184 Douglas A-1 Skyraider, 16, 17 (image), 24, 27, 77, 300, 372, 578, 838, 911, 917, 1080, 1265, 1356 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, 16, 24, 27, 35, 41, 300, 339, 372, 379, 679, 713, 911, 930, 1066, 1124, 1205, 1265 Douglas AD-6 Skyraider, 838, 1264 Douglas B-26 Invader, 16, 24, 105, 342, 383, 644 Douglas EB/RB-66 Destroyer, 17, 24–25, 31 (image) Grumman A-6 Intruder, 24, 25, 300, 340, 659, 1206 Martin B-57/RB-57 Canberra, 18, 25, 27, 35, 105, 990 (image) Vought A-7 Corsair II, 18, 25, 27, 35, 300, 659, 758, 1032 allied fighters and fighter-bombers, 18–20 McDonnell Douglas Phantom F4, xliii (image), 18, 19 (image), 27, 28, 35, 121, 226, 233, 300, 339, 379, 1040, 1051, 1079, 1085, 1086, 1119, 1205, 1206, 1248, 1341, 1342 allied trainers, transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and defoliators, 20–23 Democratic Republic of Vietnam aircraft, 23–24 See also Tactical Air Command Aircraft carriers, 25–27, 26 (image) length of individual tours/cruises, 26–27

reconnaissance tasks of, 27 Air defenses, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 27–29, 28 (image) antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 28, 52–53 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image) Air Ground Aid Service (AGAS), 270 AirLand Battle doctrine, 1062 Air mobility, 29–30, 29 (image) Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company (ANGLICO), 30–31 Airpower, role of in the Vietnam War, 31–32, 33 (map), 34 air operations over Cambodia, 34 amount/tonnage of bombs dropped during the war, 31–32 focus of air operations in South Vietnam, 32 Air War Study Group Report (Cornell University), 36–37 ALA MOANA, Operation, 37 Albert, Carl, 280 Albright, Madeleine K., 1181 Alcatraz Gang, 1066 Alessandri, Marcel, 37–38, 172, 1009 Alexander, Jerome, 1031 (image) Ali, Muhammad, 38, 39 (image), 111, 231 (image) Allen, James, 238 Allied strength in Vietnam, 1964–1972 (table) Alpha Strike, 39–40 Alsop, Joseph Wright, V, 40 Alvarez, Everett, Jr., 41, 41 (image), 931 Amerasians, 41–43, 42 (image) American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 45, 46 American Friends of Vietnam (AFV), 43–44, 861 American Indian Movement (AIM), 798 American Red Cross, 44–45, 45 (image) Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas (SRAO) program of, 44–45 American Society of Friends (Quakers), 53 Amin, Jamil Abdullah al-. See Brown, Hubert Gerald Amnesty, 45–46 Amphibious Objective Area (AOA), 47 Amphibious warfare, 46–48, 47 (image) amphibious task force of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, 47 brown water versus blue water operations, 47 deployment of the Special Landing Force (SLF), 47 during the period of Vietnamization, 48 marine landings, 47 Andersen, Christopher, 375 Andersen Air Force Base, 48–49 Anderson, Jack, 921 Anderson, William, 927, 1118 Andreotta, Glenn, 786, 1116 Andropov, Yuri, 423 Angell, Joseph, 189

Index Angkor Wat, 49–50, 49 (image), 150–151 ANGLICO. See Air Naval Gunnery Liaison Company An Khe, 50 An Loc, Battle of, 50–51 casualties of, 51 Annam, 51–52 Antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 52–53, 1248 Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems Treaty (ABM Treaty) (1972), 778 Anti-Party Affair, 638, 639, 1043 Anti-Rightist campaign, 1043 Antiwar movement, in the United States, 53–55, 54 (image), 610 bombing of North Vietnam as the catalyst for, 53–54 common denominators among college campuses, 571 spread of beyond college campuses, 54 See also Baltimore Four; Camden 28; Catonsville Nine; Chicago Eight; Fort Hood Three; Jackson State College, shootings at; Kent State University shootings; March on the Pentagon; May Day Tribe; Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) Antiwar protests, non-U.S., 55–57, 56 (image) APACHE SNOW, Operation, 57, 709 Ap Bac, Battle of, 57–59, 58 (image), 1035, 1261 casualties of, 57 (table) Ap Bia Mountain, Battle of. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Appeasement policy, 781 Approval ratings, of U.S. presidents during U.S. involvement in Indochina, 569 (table) Appy, Christian, 313 Aptheker, Herbert, 688 Arc Light missions, 59–61, 60 (image), 1069, 1186 ARDMORE, Operation, 579 Armored personnel carriers (APCs), 61–63, 61 (image) characteristics of, 62–63 (table) Armored warfare, 63–64, 63 (image) antitank attack methods, 63–64 lack of armor in North Vietnamese forces, 64 Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV), 64–65 Army of the Republic of Vietnam. See Vietnam, Republic of, Army Arnett, Peter, 65–66, 66 (image), 727, 728, 1078 Arnheiter, Marcus Aurelius, 66–67 Arnold, Henry, 960 Art, and the Vietnam War, 67–70, 69 (image) African American artists’ response to the Vietnam War, 69–70

Artillery, 70–73, 72 (image) antipersonnel “Beehive” rounds, 72–73 high-explosive antitank (HEAT) ammunition, 72 improved conventional munitions (ICM), 73 number of U.S. Army artillery battalions in Vietnam, 73 specific People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) artillery, 71–72, 1251 (table) specific U.S. artillery, 71 (table) use of by the Viet Cong, 71 See also Antiaircraft artillery (AAA) Artillery fire doctrine, 73–76, 75 (image) chain of command for artillery, 74 direct support (DS) and general support (GS) operations, 73–74 and the effectiveness of firebases, 75–76 and fire direction centers (FDCs), 74 specific doctrines for artillery maneuvers, 74–75 Artists and Writers Protest (AWP) group, 67 Aschenbrenner, Michael, 70 A Shau Valley, 76–77, 1239 A Shau Valley Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 77 Ashley, Eugene, Jr., 625 Asselin, Pierre, 490 Assimilation versus association, 77–78 Athenagoras I, Patriarch, 884 Atlantic Charter, 1167–1168 ATLAS WEDGE, Operation, 78–79 casualties of, 79 Atrocities, 79–80, 79 (image) committed by U.S. armed forces, 55, 79–80, 149–150, 481, 521 committed by the Viet Cong (VC), 79, 80, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) committed by Republic of Korea (ROK) allied forces, 80 See also Torture ATTLEBORO, Operation, 80–81 casualties of, 81 Attrition, 82 Aubrac, Raymond, 889, 1016–1017 August Revolution, 82–83, 1010 Au Lac, kingdom of, 83 Ault Report, 1124 Australia, 83–86, 85 (image), 395 casualties suffered by in the Vietnam War, 85, 86 deployment of ground troops to Vietnam, 84 military advisors provided to Vietnam, 83 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operations in Vietnam, 84 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) operations in Vietnam, 84–85, 1321 See also CRIMP, Operation Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV), 83 Australian Special Air Services (SAS), 15

I-3

“Awesome foursome,” 961 B-52 raids. See Arc Light missions BABYLIFT, Operation, 87–88, 87 (image)

Bach Dang River, Battle of, 88–89 Ba Cut, 89, 830 Baez, Joan Chandos, 55, 89–90, 90 (image) Baker, Carroll, 1166 (image) Baker, Ella, 1072 Ball, George Wildman, 54, 90–91, 91 (image), 218, 345, 551, 562, 569, 808, 1201, 1345, 1345 (image) memorandum to President Johnson, 1549–1551Doc. telegram to President Johnson and Dean Rusk, 1506–1508Doc. Ball, Roland, 583 Baltimore Four, 91–92 Ban Karai Pass, 92–93 Ban Me Thuot, Battle of, 93–94, 93 (image) Bao Dai, xli, 94–95, 94 (image), 140, 330, 654, 655, 806, 807, 811, 839, 913 (image), 1010, 1258, 1272, 1286, 1287 abdication message of, 1376–1377Doc. Barker, Frank Akeley, Jr., 95–96 BARREL ROLL, Operation, 26, 32, 96–97, 503, 1119 sorties involved in and total ordnance dropped, 97 (table) BARRIER REEF, Operation, 917, 1026 Barrow, Robert, 290–291 Basic Principles of Mutual Relations (1972), 778 Bassford, Christopher, 1077 Batcheller, Gordon, 516 Bates, Carol, 797 Ba Trieu. See Trieu Au Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961), 568 Beau, Jean-Baptiste Paul, 78, 98 BEAU CHARGER, Operation, 47 BEAVER TRACK, Operation, 47, 485 Beckwith, Charles Alvin, 98–100, 99 (image) role of in the formation of Delta Force, 99 Bennett, John, 218 Benson Report (1969), 969 Ben Suc, 100–101, 100 (image) Ben Tre, Battle of, 101–102, 101 (image) BENTRE, Operation, 388 Berger, Samuel David, 102 Berlin Wall, 568 Bernard, Harry V., 270, 862 Bernhardt, Michael, 971 Berrigan, Daniel, 102–104, 103 (image), 178, 179, 217 Berrigan, Philip, 91–92, 103, 104, 178, 179 Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 537 Betts, Richard K., 491 Bidault, Georges, 104–105, 105 (image), 375, 651–652, 1307 Bien Hoa Air Base, 105–106, 106 (image) Bigeard, Marcel, 174, 295–296 Big Medicine, Joseph, Jr., 799 (image)

I-4

Index

BIG PATCH, Operation, 1325

Binh Gia, Battle of, 106–108, 107 (image) casualties of, 107 BINH TAY I–IV, Operations, 108–109, 157, 160–161 Binh Xuyen, 109, 169, 314, 654, 1010 Bird, William H., 109, 156 Bird & Sons, 109, 156–157, 236 Blackburn, Donald D., 1052 Black Flags, 110–111, 110 (image) BLACKJACK, Operation, 564, 764 Black Muslims, 111–112, 112 (image) Black Panthers, 112–113, 242, 361, 1024–1025 Black Power movement, 212, 591 Black Virgin Mountain. See Nui Ba Den Blair, John D., IV, 77 Blaizot, Roger, 114, 172, 532, 1242 Blassie, Michael Joseph, 114–115, 115 (image) BLU-82/B bomb, 115–116, 1239–1240 Bluechel, Herbert J., 290 BLUE LIGHT, Operation, 116 BLUE MARTIN, Operation, 47 Blum, Léon, 116–117, 117 (image) Boat people. See Refugees and boat people Body armor, 118 Body count, 118–119, 119 (image) Boettcher, Thomas, 313 BOLD MARINER, Operation, 119–121, 120 (image), 1030 Bollaert, Émile, 121 BOLO, Operation, 121–122, 862–863 Bombing, of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, restrictions on, 122, 123 (map), 124–125 Bombs BLU-82 (“Daisy Cutter”) bombs, 115–116, 619, 1239–1240 gravity (cluster bombs), 125 Bon Son Campaign. See MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation Booby traps, 125–127, 126 (image) hand grenades used in, 452 Border Campaign. See LE HONG PHONG II, Operation Boston Five, 1060 Bowles, Chester Bliss, 127–128, 127 (image) Bradley, Mark, 490 Bradley, Omar Nelson, 128–129, 128 (image), 606, 1345 Brady, Patrick Henry, 129, 564 Braestrup, Peter, 1100 Brandt, Willy, 286, 418 BRAVO I–II, Operations, 129–130, 649, 1123 Brechignac, Jean, 174 Breezy Cove, 1026 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich, 130–132, 131 (image), 286–287, 287 (image), 609, 918 the Brezhnev Doctrine, 131, 423 domestic policy of, 131 relationship with North Vietnam, 131 relationship with the West, 131–132

See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon Brigham, Robert, 490 BRIGHT LIGHT, Operation, 132, 1028 Brindley, Thomas, 580–581 Brodie, Bernard, 960, 1029 BROTHERHOOD, Operation, 907, 1012 Brown, Andrew J., 915 (image) Brown, Earl, 656 Brown, George Scratchley, 132–133 Brown, Hank, 134 Brown, Harold, 196 Brown, H. Rap, 1072 Brown, Hubert Gerald, 133–134, 133 (image) Brown, James, 958–959 Brown, Malcolm, 58 Brown, Rayford, 560 (image) Brown, Samuel Winfred, Jr., 134–135, 773 Brown, Winthrop, 631 Browne, Malcolm Wilde, 135 Browne, Michael W., 1246 Bruce, David Kirkpatrick Este, 135–136, 135 (image) telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420–1421Doc. Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz, 136–137, 137 (image), 1226 Bucher, Lloyd M., 947 BUCKSKIN, Operation, 245 Buddhism, 137–139, 138 (image) Buddhist protests in Vietnam, 138 introduction of into Vietnam from China, 137 Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia, 151 Buddle, Reggie L., 1299 BUFFALO, Operation, 139–140, 485 Bui Diem, 140–141 Bui Phat, 141 Bui Tin, 141–142, 142 (image), 875 Bui Van Sac, 818 BULLET SHOT, Operation, 142–143 Bundy, McGeorge, 143–144, 143 (image), 372, 797, 871, 917, 1345, 1345 (image) cablegrams to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499–1501Doc. memorandum to President Johnson, 1514–1515Doc. Bundy, William Putnam, 144–145, 1095 memorandum to Dean Rusk, 1571–1572Doc. Bunker, Ellsworth, 145–146, 145 (image), 302, 347, 496 (image), 576, 599, 872, 1175 Burchell, Don, 949 (image) Burchett, Wilfred, 146, 1145 Burkett, Bernard Gary, 146–147, 1298, 1299 Bush, George Herbert Walker, 147–148, 147 (image), 187, 220, 305, 464, 781, 1280 education of, 147 political career of, 148 service of in World War II, 147 Bush, George W., 148, 595, 715, 1181, 1209– 1210, 1299, 1319–1320

BUTTERCUP, Operation, 1129

Byrne, William Matthew, 341, 1007 Byrnes, James F., note to French ambassador Henri Bonnet, 1382–1383Doc. Byroade, Henry, aide-mémoire to North Vietnamese consul Vu Huu Binh, 1569Doc. CALCAV. See Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Calley, William Laws, Jr., 149–150, 150 (image), 608, 785, 786, 886, 971, 1116, 1190 Cambodia, xlv, 49, 128, 150–154, 153 (image), 155, 325, 352, 414, 1246, 1274, 1278 air operations over, 34 bombing of, 151, 370, 594, 740, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 history of, 150–151 neutral status of, 802, 1018 North Vietnamese headquarters in, 557 political stability in, 154 political turmoil and civil war in, 152–154 population of, 1964–1964, 585 (table) Theravada Buddhism in, 151 See also Angkor Wat; Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of; Cambodian airlift; Cambodian Incursion; Hot pursuit policy; Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of, 152–153, 154–156, 200 background of, 154–155 Cambodian airlift, 156–157 Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 158 (image), 159 (map), 160–161, 803, 848, 1176 first phase of, 157–158 number and types of troops involved in, 157–158 second phase of, 158, 160 third phase of, 879 Camden 28, 161–162 Cam Lo, 162 CAMPAIGN 275, 93 Camp, Carter, 798 Camp Carroll, 162–163 Campbell, Roger, 581 Cam Ranh Bay, 163–164, 164 (image), 1279 Canada, 164–165, 165 (image) Canines. See K-9 Corps Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), 165–167, 803, 811, 967 Cao Bang, 167–168 Cao Dai, 168–170, 169 (image), 314, 654, 1089, 1096 Cao Van Vien, 170–171 Caravelle Group, 171, 903 CARBANADO, Operation, 270 Carmichael, Stokley, 1072 Carpentier, Marcel, 167, 171–172, 532, 545, 642, 643, 998, 1242, 1286

Index Carter, James Earl, Jr., 46, 136, 137, 172–173, 173 (image), 284, 287, 338 (image), 339, 378, 411, 547, 1278, 1318 Case, Clifford Philip, 173–174 Case-Church Amendment (1973), 174 Casey, Aloysius, 635 Casey, Patrick, 635 CASTOR, Operation, 15, 174–175, 800–801, 802 Casualties, of the Vietnam War, 175–176, 175 (table) Australian, 176 French, 175 Republic of Korea (ROK), 176 Republic of Vietnam (RVN), 175 U.S., 175 Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 176 Catholicism, 176–178, 177 (image) Catonsville Nine, 178–179 Catroux, Georges, 179–180 Cau Nguyen Loi, 1119 (image) CEDAR FALLS, Operation, 81, 100, 101, 180–181, 181 (map), 539, 555, 873 casualties of, 180 target of, 180 Cédile, Jean, 181 Center for Constitutional Rights, 613 Central Highlands, 182, 184, 1015, 1239, 1264 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 43, 182– 184, 186, 190, 223–224, 229, 244, 319, 412, 459, 507, 717, 1050, 1126–1127, 1328 Border Surveillance program of, 244 cablegram on the CIA channel to Henry Cabot Lodge concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc. intelligence memorandum concerning bombing damage to North Vietnam, 1589–1590Doc. See also Air America Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), 157, 160, 184–185, 1245, 1323 cable from the North Vietnamese Politburo to, 1606Doc. Directive 02/73, 1649–1650Doc. Directive 03/CT 73, 1654–1656Doc. Directive (un-numbered), 1606–1607Doc. Resolution No. 9, 1614–1615Doc. summary of Directive No. 1/CT71, 1627–1629Doc. Chamberlain, Neville, 781 Chams, 185–186, 186 (image), 199 Chandler, David, 920 CHAOS, Operation, 186–187 Chapman, Leonard Fielding, Jr., 187–188, 188 (image) Chappelle, Georgette Meyer, 188–189 Charner, Léonard Victor Joseph, 189 Charton, Pierre, 643 CHECO Project, 189 Chemical warfare. See Defoliation; Herbicides; RANCH HAND, Operation

Cheney, Dick, 187 Chen Geng, 1332 Cheng Heng, 684 Chennault, Anna, 190–191, 190 (image), 192 Chennault, Claire Lee, 191–192, 191 (image), 1009 Chen Yun, 196 Chernenko, Konstantin, 423 Chiang Kai-shek. See Jiang Jieshi Chicago Eight, 192–193, 193 (image), 506, 613, 1329 Chieu Hoi Program, 193–194, 596, 869, 943 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 156, 172, 194–199, 195 (image), 197 (image), 204, 234, 293, 1241, 1332 domestic policies of, 195 economic development in, 198 formation of after the Chinese Civil War, 195 National People’s Congresses (NPCs) of, 196–197 relations with the Soviet Union, 195, 423 relations with the United States, 195, 196 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 status of following the Korean War, 607 Tiananmen Square uprising in, 197–198 See also China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam; Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward; Hundred Flowers campaign China, People’s Republic of (PRC), policy of toward Vietnam, 199–201, 200 (image), 201 (image) amount of foreign aid to North Vietnam, 199 military aid to North Vietnam, 324 post–Vietnam War policy, 200–201, 204 provision of war materiel to the Viet Minh and North Vietnamese, 676 support of the Viet Minh, 293, 532–533, 547–548 China, Republic of, 201–202, 548 China Lobby, 597 Chinese, in Vietnam, 202–204, 203 (image) attacks on the Chinese community, 202 control of South Vietnam’s commerce by the Chinese, 203 expulsion of the Chinese from Vietnam, 204 organization of the Chinese in Vietnam, 202 response of the Chinese to Vietnamese decrees and demands, 203 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 195, 196, 197 Chin Vinh. See Tran Do Chomsky, Avram Noam, 204–205, 205 (image) Chou En-lai. See Zhou Enlai Christmas Bombings. See LINEBACKER II, Operation Church, Frank Forrester, 173, 174, 205–206, 238–239, 464, 1196 Churchill, Winston, 995, 1143 Chu Van Tan, 206 CIDG. See Civilian Irregular Defense Group

I-5

Civic action, 206–209, 207 (image) combined action platoon (CAP) mission, 208 Helping Hand program, 208 Marine Corps civic action programs, 207–208 medical civic action programs (MEDCAPS), 207 Civil Air Transport (CAT), 13 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), 209, 223, 244, 564, 769, 1084, 1213, 1214 Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), 120, 208, 209–210, 223, 357, 433, 509, 872, 873, 909, 934, 1183–1184, 1272 Civil Rights Act (1964), 591 Civil rights movement, 210–212, 211 (image), 607 and the Black Power movement, 212 effect of on African American soldiers in Vietnam, 212 and voter registration of African Americans, 212 (table) Clarey, Bernard Ambrose, 212–213 Clark, Joseph S., 1196 Clark, Mark, 113 Clark, William Ramsey, 213–214, 213 (image), 1198 Clark Air Force Base, 215 Clausewitz, Carl von, 990, 1077 Clay, Cassius. See Ali, Muhammad Claymore Mines. See Armored warfare; Firesupport bases; Mine warfare, land Clear and hold operations, 215 Cleaver, Eldridge, 113 Cleland, Joseph Maxwell, 215–216, 215 (image), 925, 1216 Clemenceau, Georges, 216–217, 216 (image) Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), 217–218, 217 (image) Clifford, Clark McAdams, 218–219, 218 (image), 510, 551, 1209, 1318 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 220 Clinton, William Jefferson, 148, 219–221, 344, 616, 762 lifting of the trade embargo on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1674–1675Doc. normalization of relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 1675–1676Doc. Cluster bombs. See Bombs, gravity (cluster bombs) Coalition for a Democratic Majority, 996 Coastal surveillance force. See MARKET TIME, Operation Cochin China, 51–52, 95, 155, 181, 221, 343, 375, 398, 400, 401, 408, 416, 1241 Co Chi tunnels, 245, 248–249 Coffin, William Sloane, 218, 221–222, 222 (image)

I-6

Index

Cogny, René, 222–223, 295, 802 COINTELPRO, 1025 Colburn, Lawrence, 786, 1116 Colby, William Egan, 223–224, 223 (image), 319, 599, 615, 815, 872, 873, 909, 970, 1095, 1175, 1176 Collins, Arthur, 456 Collins, Joseph Lawton, 224–225, 225 (image), 314, 812, 1169 Collins-Ely Agreement, 861 Colvin, John, 1245 Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC), 967–968 Combat Operations Research Center (CORC), 967–968 Combined action platoons. See Marine combined action platoons COMMANDO FLASH, Operation, 225–226 COMMANDO HUNT, Operation, 34, 60, 226–227, 505, 617, 1063, 1185–1186 Committee on the Present Danger, 996 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 1244 Concerned Officers Movement (COM), 227–228 CONCORDIA, Operation, 306 “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report (COWIN Report), 228 Conein, Lucien Emile, 129, 228–229, 674, 808, 809, 970, 1012, 1133 Confucianism, 229–230, 230 (image) Conscientious objectors (COs), 230–232, 231 (image) Conscription. See Selective Service Con Son Island Prison, 232–233, 233 (image), 763 CONSTANT GUARD, Operation, 233–234 Containment policy, 234–235, 566, 569, 781, 945, 1143, 1199 militarization of following the Korean War, 607 Contemporary Historical Examination of Combat Operations. See CHECO Project Con Thien, siege of, 235–236, 236 (image) casualties of, 236 See also BUFFALO, Operation Continental Air Services (CAS), 236–237 Cooper, Chester Lawrence, 237, 871 Cooper, John Sherman, 237–238, 239 (image), 464, 1196 Cooper-Brooke Amendment (1972), 238–239 Cooper-Church Amendment (1970), 239, 617, 849, 1196–1197 CORDS. See Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support CORONADO I–XI, Operations, 983 Corps tactical zones (CTZs), 240–241, 240 (image), 241 (map) Corsi, Jerome E., 1084 Cosell, Howard, 39 (image) COSVN. See Central Office for South Vietnam

Counterculture(s), 241–243, 242 (image) components of, 242 sociological definition of, 241 Counterinsurgency warfare, 243–245 CIA involvement in, 244 U.S. experience with, 243–244 Cousins, Norman, 53 COWIN Report. See “Conduct of the War in Vietnam” report Cranston, Alan, 610 CRIMP, Operation, 245–246 Crittenberger, Willis, 871 CROCKETT, Operation, 579 Croizat, Victor, 1270 Croly, Herbert, 663 Cronauer, Adrian, 246 Cronkite, Walter Leland, 246–247, 247 (image), 1100 criticism of U.S. policy in Vietnam, 1601–1602Doc. Cuba, 155 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 568 Cubi Point Naval Air Station, 247–248, 248 (image) Cultural Revolution, 197, 703, 1043 Cunningham, Randall Harold, 249–250, 250 (image), 1124 Cuong De, 250–251 Cushman, Robert Everton, Jr., 48, 251–252, 251 (image), 592, 1203 (image) Dabney, William, 580–581 Da Faria, Antônio, 253 Daisy Cutter. See BLU-82/B bomb Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang, 253–254 Dak To, Battle of, 254–256, 254 (image), 255 (map), 465–466, 692–693, 1239 casualties of, 254, 255, 693 Da Lat, 256 Da Lat Military Academy, 1269 Daley, Richard Joseph, 256–257, 257 (image) Da Nang, 257–258, 258 (image), 345, 345 (image) See also Hue and Da Nang, fall of Dang Con San Viet Nam. See Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam (Vietnamese Workers’ Party), 1244 Dang Si, 1113 Dang Xuan Khu. See Truong Chinh DANIEL BOONE, Operation, 259 Dao Duy Tung, 259 Daoism. See Taoism D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry, 95, 259–260, 276, 375, 401, 532, 769, 1168, 1241 Darst, David, 178 Date of Estimated Return from Overseas. See DEROS Dau Tranh strategy, 260–262, 261 (image) Davidson, Carl, 1073 Davidson, Phillip Buford, Jr., 262

Davis, Angela, 113 Davis, Raymond Gilbert, 262–263, 290 Davis, Rennard Cordon, 192, 263–264, 263 (image), 711 Davison, Michael S., 158 Day, George Everett, 265–266, 932–933, 1126 Dean, Arthur, 1345 Dean, John Gunther, 265–266, 265 (image) Débes, Pierre-Louis, 266 ultimatum to the Haiphong Administrative Committee, 1389–1390Doc. De Castries, Christian Marie, 266–268, 267 (image) See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Dechaux, Jean, 174 DECKHOUSE I, Operation, 47 DECKHOUSE V, Operation, 268–269, 268 (image) Decoux, Jean, 269–270, 392 Deer Mission, 270 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), 270–272, 271 (image) Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS), 272 DEFIANT STAND, Operation, 272–273 Defoliation, 273–275, 274 (image), 1239 amount of herbicides used in, 273 (table), 480 (table) initial results of, 273 long-term effects of, 273–274 See also RANCH HAND, Operation Deforest, Orrin, 1127 De Gaulle, Charles, 105, 269, 275–276, 275 (image), 637, 774, 995, 1014, 1129 DELAWARE-LAM SON 216, Operation, 276–277 casualties of, 277 Dellinger, David, 192, 277–278, 277 (image), 1060 Dellums, Ron V., 1197 DeLoach, Cartha, 511 Delta Force, 99 Demilitarized zone (DMZ), 278–279, 278 (image), 279 (map), 306, 325 establishment of, 413–414 Democratic National Convention (1968 [Chicago]), 55, 113, 134, 178, 218, 264, 278, 279–281, 280 (image) See also Chicago Eight Deng Xiaoping, 196, 198, 1046 Denney, Stephen, 964 Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr., 281, 495 Deo Mu Gia. See Mu Gia Pass DePuy, William Eugene, 1, 281–282, 282 (image), 555, 728 view of pacification, 871 See also Search and destroy De Rhodes, Alexandre, 283 DEROS (Date of Estimated Return from Overseas), 283–284, 283 (image) DESERT SHIELD, Operation, 270–271 DESERT STORM, Operation, 270–271

Index Desertion, 284–285 of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 284–285 of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC), 285 of U.S. military personnel, 284 DeSoto missions, 285–286, 864 Détente, 286–288, 287 (image), 778 De Tham, 288 Devillers, Philippe, 288–289 Dewey, Albert Peter, 289–290, 289 (image), 310, 862 Dewey, Thomas, 315, 988 DEWEY CANYON I, Operation, 290–292, 291 (image), 617, 1294 casualties of, 291 success of, 292 DEWEY CANYON II, Operation, 292–293, 1294 casualties of, 292 Dewey Canyon III, 657 Diem, overthrow of. See Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Dien Bien Phu, Battle of, 15, 76, 140, 174, 234, 267, 293–296, 294 (image), 295 (map), 342, 535, 675, 1169, 1250 artillery of the French forces, 295 artillery of the Viet Minh, 294–295 casualties of, 295, 296 effects of the French defeat, 296 French rescue plans for (Operation ALBATROSS and Operation CONDOR), 296 See also VULTURE, Operation Dien Triet Lake, Battle of, 296–297 Dikes, on the Red River Delta, 297–298 Diller, Richard W., 276, 887 Dillon, C. Douglas, 329, 1345 telegram to John Foster Dulles, 1433Doc. Dinassauts, 298–299, 764 Dith Pran, 299–300, 299 (image) Dix, Drew, 940 Dixie Station, 300 Doan Khue, 300–301 Dobrynin, Anatoly Fedorovich, 301, 301 (image) Do Cao Tri, 158, 302–303, 302 (image), 827 Dogs. See K-9 Corps Doi Moi, 303, 820, 1278–1279 Domino theory, 303–305, 304 (image), 569, 781, 945 Do Muoi, 305–306 Don Dien, 306 Dong Ap Bia. See Hamburger Hill, Battle of Dong Da, Battle of. See Hanoi, Battle of, and the First Tet Offensive Dong Ha, Battle of, 306–307 casualties of, 307 (table) Dong Quan Pacification Project, 307–308 Dong Xoai, Battle of, 308–309, 308 (image) Don Khoi, 835 Donlon, Roger Hugh C., 309 Donnell, John, 1078

Donovan, Jack, 1341 Donovan, James, 1036 Donovan, William Joseph, 182, 309–310, 310 (image), 861, 862 Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III, 310–311, 880 Do Quang Thang, 311 D’Orlandi, Giovanni, 704 Doubek, Bob, 1295, 1296 DOUBLE EAGLE, Operation, 47, 311–312, 312 (image), 709 Doumer, Paul, 78, 312–313 Dow Chemical Company, 789 Draft, military. See Selective Service Driscoll, William, 250 (image), 1124 Drugs and drug use, 313–314 Duc Thanh Tran. See Tran Huang Dao Duc Tong Anh Hoang De. See Tu Duc Dulles, Allen Welsh, 183, 314–315, 314 (image), 1011 Dulles, John Foster, 183, 315–316, 315 (image), 329, 330, 412, 597, 802, 807, 957, 1011, 1055, 1056, 1169, 1199, 1307 minutes of meeting with Eisenhower, 1437–1439Doc. telegram to the embassy in Saigon, 1452–1453Doc. telegrams to C. Douglas Dillon, 1423Doc., 1423–1424Doc., 1426–1427Doc., 1436– 1437Doc., 1439–1440Doc. Dumb bombs. See Bombs, gravity “Dump Johnson” movement, 685 Duong Hiuu Nghia, 318 Duong Quynh Hoa, 316–317 Duong Thanh Nhat, 318 Duong Van Duc, 317 Duong Van Minh, 129, 317–318, 317 (image), 331, 458, 653, 675, 753, 808, 809, 827, 830, 831 (image), 1134, 1135, 1261, 1263, 1264 Dupré, Marie-Jules, 110 Dupuis, Jean, 110, 318–319 Durbrow, Elbridge, 319–320 assessment of the Diem regime, 1462Doc. telegrams to Christian Herter, 1473– 1475Doc., 1481Doc. Dustoff, 320 Dutton, Frederick, 1195 Duy Tan, 320–321, 321 (image) Dylan, Bob, 55, 89, 90 (image), 321–322 EAGLE CLAW, Operation, 554

EAGLE PULL, Operation, 48, 323 Easter Offensive, xlv, 31, 51, 60, 142, 162, 163, 182, 226, 233, 258, 278, 323–325, 324 (image), 346, 348, 393, 498, 599, 652, 672, 680, 736, 749, 758, 769, 814, 842, 843, 909, 910, 917, 946, 952, 1024, 1029, 1080, 1096, 1140, 1175, 1176, 1186, 1205, 1246, 1251, 1270, 1300, 1304, 1310, 1327, 1364 role of aircraft in, 1069, 1184–1185, 1300 See also Kontum, Battle for

I-7

East Meets West (EMW) Foundation, 1182 Eberhardt, David, 92 Eden, Robert Anthony, 327–328, 327 (image), 767 Edwards, Mel, 67 Egan, David, 1116 Eisenhower, Dwight D., xli, 43, 166, 172, 224, 244, 296, 316, 328–329, 328 (image), 342, 409, 568, 607, 692, 696, 807, 847, 957, 1055, 1056, 1164, 1169, 1169, 1199–1200, 1202, 1259 (image) approval ratings for, 569 (table) belief in the “domino theory,” 304, 305 conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1463Doc. domestic policies of, 328 international policies of, 328–329 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1450–1451Doc. minutes of meeting with Dulles, 1437–1439Doc. news conference notes, 1437Doc. policies of in Southeast Asia, 329 Electronic intelligence (ELINT), 339–340, 864 “Eleven Day War.” See LINEBACKER II, Operation Elleman, Bruce, 1046 Ellis, Randolph, 1151 Ellsberg, Daniel, 7, 340–341, 341 (image), 489–490, 594, 763, 891 (image), 960, 1006, 1035. See also Pentagon Papers and trial EL PASO II, Operation, 341–342 casualties of, 342 Ély, Paul Henri Romuald, 342–343, 532, 957, 1014 Elysée Agreement (1949), 343, 545, 913, 1402Doc. Emerson, Gloria, 662 Emspak, Frank, 793 Enclave strategy, 345–346, 345 (image) END SWEEP, Operation. See Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam ENHANCE, Operation, 346, 1265 ENHANCE PLUS, Operation, 346–348, 347 (image), 842 ENTERPRISE, Operation, 348–349, 348 (image) Enthoven, Alain C., 349, 722 Enuol, Y Bham, 349–350 Erhard, Ludwig, 417 Erskine, Graves B., 172, 545 European Defense Community (EDC), 354– 355, 413 Ewell, Julian Johnson, 355 EXODUS, Operation, 880 FAIRFAX, Operation, 357–358

Fall, Bernard, 294, 358, 358 (image), 643, 933, 1244 Fancy, Henry F., 655, 656 FARM GATE, Operation, 358–359, 959, 1184 Fatherland Front, 898 Faure, Edgar, 359–360, 360 (image)

I-8

Index

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 190, 360–361, 1327, 1329 Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 361–362 and Project Daily Death Toll (DDT), 362 Felt, Harry Donald, 362–363 Fernandez, Richard, 218, 363–364 Ferry, Jules, 78, 364 Fieser, Louis, 788 Film, and the Vietnam experience, 364–368, 366 (image) background of, 364–365 colonial period, 365 combat films, 365–367 comedies, 367 films concerning soldiers returning home, 367–368 films concerning the war’s aftermath, 368 Fire-support bases (FSBs), 290, 369 First National Conference on the Emotional Needs of Vietnam-Era Veterans, 657 Fishel, Wesley Robert, 370, 741 Fisher, Roger, 722 Fishhook, 370–371 FitzGerald, Frances, 433–434 Five O’Clock Follies, 371–372, 371 (image), 553, 554, 1099 FLAMING DART I–II, Operations, 26, 372, 816, 917, 990 Flexible response, 373 Flynn, John, 933 Fonda, Jane Seymour, 373–375, 374 (image), 860, 1293 broadcast of from Hanoi, 1640–1641Doc. Fontainebleau Conference, 375 Food for Peace program, 719 Forces Armées Nationale Khmères (FANK [Khmer National Armed Forces]), 50, 152, 157, 158, 161, 376–377, 585 Ford, Gerald R., 46, 284, 287, 338, 377–378, 377 (image), 1021, 1197, 1319 and the Mayaguez incident, 378, 710–711 pardoning of Nixon by, 378 Forrestal, James, 577 Forrestal, Michael Vincent, 378–379, 1095 Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of, 379 Fortas, Abraham, 379–380, 380 (image), 1345 Fort Hood Three, 380–381 Forward air controllers, 381 Fosdick, Raymond B., memorandum to Philip Jessup, 1405–1406Doc. “Four Nos” policy, 793–794 Four-Party Joint Military Commission, 381– 382, 382 (image) Fragging, 382–383 France, 15, 1168 involvement of in Southeast Asia, 243, 500 military logistics used in Vietnam, 676–677 nineteenth-century military intervention in Vietnam, 641–642 and Vietnam (1954–present), 389–390, 390 (image), 1240–1242

See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; FrancoThai War (1940–1941); Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946); Indochina War (1946–1954) France, Air Force of, 383–384 France, Army of (1946–1954), 384–387, 385 (image) armor of, 384, 386 French Expeditionary Force in Vietnam, 386 (table) infantry weapons of, 385 initial strategy of in Indochina, 386 makeup of in Vietnam, 384 tactics used by to combat guerilla warfare, 386 France, Navy of, 387–389 lack of a coordinated strategy in Indochina, 388 and riverine warfare, 387–388 FRANCIS MARION, Operation, 390–391, 1015 Franco, Francisco, 1058 Franco-Thai War (1940–1941), 391–392 Franco–Viet Minh Convention, excerpts from, 1382Doc. Franco-Vietnamese Modus Vivendi, 1386–1387Doc. Fraser, Michael Allan, 1299 Fratricide, 392–393 Freedom Company, 907 FREEDOM DEAL, Operation, 1048 FREEDOM PORCH BRAVO, Operation, 393–394 Freedom Rides, 1072 Freedom Summer, 1072 FREEDOM TRAIN, Operation, 393, 394 Free fire zones, 394–395, 395 (image) Free Khmer. See Khmer Serai Free Speech Movement (FSM), 53 Free World Assistance Program, 395–396, 602, 907 Free World Military Assistance Council, 747 French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), 1272 French Foreign Legion, 396, 396 (image), 397 (map), 398 French Indochina, 398, 399 (map), 400–402, 400 (image) missionaries in, 398, 400 nineteenth-century emperors of, 398 FREQUENT WIND, Operation, 27, 48, 402, 708, 755, 965, 1030, 1051 Friendly Fire. See Fratricide Froines, John, 192 Front for National Salvation, 811 Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO [United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races]), 403 Fulbright, J. William, 235, 238, 403–404, 404 (image), 508, 551, 1195, 1196 Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, 1657Doc. Fuller, J. F. C., 1077 Gabriel, Richard A., 1188

GADSEN, Operation, 556 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 405 Gallieni, Jiseph, 78 Galloway, Joseph Lee, 406, 771 GAME WARDEN, Operation, 406–408, 407 (image), 1030, 1091 Garcia, Rupert, 70 Garnier, Marie Joseph Francis, 110, 408 Garwood, Robert Russell, 408–409, 409 (image), 761, 797, 931, 933 Gavin, James Maurice, 29, 409–410, 1030–1031 Gayler, Noel Arthur Meredyth, 410 GBT intelligence network, 270, 862 Gelb, Leslie Howard, 410–411, 411 (image), 491 Geneva Accords (1954), 411–412, 880, 898, 1050, 1165, 1169, 1271, 1272 Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962), 631, 1245 Geneva Convention (1949), 414–415, 1125 Geneva Convention and Geneva Accords (1954), 165, 330, 343, 412–414, 413 (image), 597, 767 final declaration of, 1445–1446Doc. response of the United States to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. Genovese, Eugene Dominick, 415–416 Germany, Federal Republic of (FRG [West Germany]), 417–418 Gia Long. See Nguyen Phuc Anh GIANT SLINGSHOT, Operation, 1025–1026, 1364 Giles, Jean, 174, 791 Gilpatric Task Force Report, 1481–1482Doc. Gilpatrick, Roswell, 808 Ginsberg, Allen, 418–419, 418 (image) Global positioning system (GPS), 681 Godley, George McMurtrie, 419–420 Goff, Dave, 1298–1299 Goldberg, Arthur Joseph, 420, 1345, 1345 (image) Goldman, Eric Frederick, 420–421 Goldwater, Barry, 53, 332–333, 421–422, 421 (image) Golub, Leon, 68–69 Goodacre, Glenna, 857 Goodpaster, Andrew Jackson, 422–423 Go Public Campaign, 796, 1067–1068 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich, 196, 423– 424, 423 (image), 1158, 1160, 1181, 1279 Gordon, Lawrence, 270, 862 Gracey, Douglas David, 424, 1164, 1240 Gradualism, xliii Graham, James C., 8 Gras, Yves, 643 Gravel, Maurice Robert, 424–425 Gravel, Mike, 892 Gravely, Samuel Lee, Jr., 425–426 Graves Registration. See Mortuary Affairs operations Great Leap Forward, 198, 702–703, 1043–1044

Index Great National Solidarity Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Great Society Program, 426–427, 549 impact of the Vietnam War on, 550–551 GREELEY, Operation, 427–428 Greenblatt, Robert, 1060 Greene, David M., 1030 Greene, Graham, 428–429, 428 (image) Greene, Wallace Martin, 429 Gregory, Dick, 1358 Grenade launchers, 429–431, 430 (image) Grew, Joseph telegram to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, 1373Doc. telegram to Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, 1374Doc. Griffin, R. Allen, telegram to Richard Bissell, Jr., 1417–1418Doc. Griswold, Erwin, 890 Gromyko, Andrei, 1225 Groom, John F., 1119 Grossman, Jerome, 773 Groupement Mobile 100, destruction of, 431–432 Gruening, Ernest Henry, 432, 550, 776, 1171, 1195 Guam, 432–433 Guam Conference (1967), 433–434, 434 (image) Guizot, François, 435 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, xlii, 26, 286, 435–436, 864, 1171, 1195 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964), 144, 436– 437, 437 (image), 530, 550, 562, 864, 996, 1171, 1195 text of, 1512Doc. Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist), 199, 201, 202, 388 Gurfein, Murray I., 890 Habaib, Philip Charles, 439–440 Hackworth, David Haskell, 75, 440–441, 440 (image), 466, 707, 1077 Hague Convention (1907), 802, 1018 Hai Ba Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr., 180, 441–442, 441 (image), 740 Hainan Island, 442–443 Haiphong, 443–444 shelling of, 444–445 Halberstam, David, 58, 445–446, 445 (image), 611, 717, 1035, 1094 Haldeman, H. R., 696 Halperin, Morton H., 446–447 Hamburger Hill, Battle of, 447–448, 447 (image), 448 (map), 1239 Hamilton, Steve, 460 Hamlet Evaluation System (HES), 223, 449, 869 Hammond, William M., 729 Ham Nghi, 449–450 Hampton, Fred, 113

Hand grenades, 450–452 chemical grenades, 451 concussion grenades, 451 fragmentation grenades, 450 hand grenades used in booby traps, 452 incendiary grenades, 451 smoke grenades, 451 sources of grenades used by Communist forces, 450–451 Hanh Lang Truong Son. See Truong Son Corridor Hanoi, 452–453, 452 (image) bombing of, xlv, 453 industry and commerce of, 452–453 population of during the Vietnam War, 452 Hanoi, Battle of, 453–454 Hanoi Hannah, 455 Hanoi Hilton. See Hoa Lo Prison Hanoi March, 977 Harassment and interdiction fires (H&I fires), 455–457, 456 (image) debate concerning the effectiveness of, 456, 457 and the use of remote sensors, 456–457 Hardhats (National Hard Hats of America), 457 HARDNOSE, Operation, 984 Harkin, Thomas, 927, 1118, 1119 (image) Harkins, Paul Donal, 363, 458–459, 458 (image), 569, 674, 809, 851, 1035, 1070, 1095 Harriman, William Averell, 459–460, 459 (image), 562, 631, 876, 1076, 1225 Harris, David, 460 Hart, Frederick, 70, 658, 1296 Hart, Gary, 134 Hartke, Vance Rupert, 460–461 HARVEST MOON, Operation, 461–462, 461 (image) HASTINGS, Operation, 462–463, 463 (image) Hatfield, Mark Odom, 464, 464–465, 720, 1197 Hatfield-McGovern Amendment (1970), 464–465, 720 Hawk, David, 773 Hawkins, Augustus, 927, 1118 Hawkins, Gains, 865 HAWTHORNE, Operation, 465–466, 465 (image) Hay, John H., Jr., 673 Hayden, Thomas, 192, 264, 373, 374, 466–467, 688, 923, 1072 Healy, Michael D., 467–469 Heath, Donald Read, 468, 861 telegram to Dean Acheson, 1420Doc. Heath, Edward, 1165 Hedrick, Wally, 67 Heinl, Robert D., Jr., analysis of the decline of U.S. armed forces, 1632–1635Doc. Helicopters, xlii, xliii, 14, 15, 46, 30, 50, 58, 70, 73, 74, 77, 84, 100, 106 (image), 108, 115, 158, 180, 245, 268, 273, 276, 277, 290, 291, 292, 347 (image), 383, 402, 445, 468–473, 470 (image), 471 (image), 472 (image), 474 (image), 520, 556, 564, 569, 577, 578, 598, 607, 617, 625, 676,

I-9

678–679, 693, 695, 711, 732, 743, 744, 758, 764, 771, 777, 853, 867, 883, 894, 917, 977, 987, 1016, 1030, 1032, 1080, 1107, 1108, 1116, 1118, 1119, 1171, 1177, 1180 (image), 1194, 1205, 1215, 1238, 1249, 1265, 1326, 1340 Democratic Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 473 U.S. and Republic of Vietnam helicopters, 469–473 AH-1 Cobra, 36, 1051 Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”), 30, 64, 84, 105, 346, 347 (image), 407, 462, 470 (image), 618, 1091, 1265, 1289 (image) Boeing CH-47 Chinook, 1, 65, 105, 346 CH-21 Shawnee, 58 (image), 64 Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw, 30, 77, 473, 1074 See also Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War Helicopters, uses of in the Vietnam War, 473–476, 474 (image), 1265 ambulance helicopters, 732 combat and fire support, 473–474 evacuation of casualties (medevac), 32, 308, 320, 323, 473, 475, 564, 592, 726–727, 727 (image) Ground Proximity Extraction System (GPES) run, 679 Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) run, 679 rescue, 472 (image), 914, 1052–1053, 1215 supply missions, 473, 475, 678–679 total number of helicopter losses in the Vietnam War, 476 total number of helicopter missions in the Vietnam War, 475–476 transport, 180, 475 U.S. Marine Corps helicopter missions, 474–475 See also Air mobility; Landing zone Heller, Lennie, 460 Helms, Jesse, 134 Helms, Richard McGarrah, 14, 476–477, 477 (image) Henderson, Oran K., 477–478, 608, 887 Hendricks, Jon, 68 Hendrix, Jimi, 783 (image) Heng Samrin, 155, 156, 478–479, 478 (image), 561, 586 Hennessy, John J., 977 Herbert, Anthony B., 479, 1126 Herbicides, 479–480, 1239, 1325 Agent Blue, 480 Agent Green, 479, 480 Agent Orange, 480, 1216, 1240 Agent Pink, 479 Agent Purple, 479 Agent White, 480 dioxin content of, 479–480 types of herbicides used in Vietnam, 273 (table), 480 (table)

I-10

Index

Herman, Judith, 925 Herr, Michael, 783 Herring, George, 704 Hersh, Seymour Myron, 481–482, 481 (image), 786 Hershey, Lewis Blaine, 482–483, 1033 Herz, Alice, 483–484, 775 Heschel, Abraham, 217 Hess, Gary, 489, 490 Hickel, Walter, 803 Hickey, Gerald Cannon, 484, 768, 770, 1078 HICKORY-BELT TIGHT-BEAU CHARGER-LAM SON 54, Operation, 484–485 HICKORY II, Operation, 485–486 High National Council (HNC), 486–487 Hilsman, Roger, 244, 487–488, 487 (image), 808, 1070, 1095 “The Situation and Short-Term Prospects in South Vietnam,” 1491–1492Doc. Hilsman-Forrestal Report, 488 Hispanics, in the U.S. military, 488–489 Historiography, of the Vietnam War, 489–491 on history and memory, 491 new historical methodologies, 490–491 on the origins of the Vietnam War, 490 orthodox, revisionist, and neo-orthodox views, 489–490 Hitch, Charles J., 721–722 Hmongs, 491–493, 492 (image) Hoa, 1045 Hoa Binh, Battle of, 493 Hoa Hao, 314, 494, 654 Hoa Lo Prison (the “Hanoi Hilton”), 494–496, 495 (image) deplorable conditions at, 495 improved conditions at after the death of Ho Chi Minh, 496 torture used at, 495 Hoang Cam, 555, 556 Hoang Duc Nha, 496, 496 (image) Hoang Hao Tham. See De Tham HOANG HOA THAM, Operation, 497–498, 634 Hoang Thuy Nam, 537 Hoang Van Hoan, 498 Hoang Van Thai, 498–499 Hoang Xuan Lam, 517, 618, 619, 1220 Ho Chi Minh, xli, xlii, 11, 140, 151, 166, 199, 200 (image), 234, 270, 310, 375, 401, 499–501, 499 (image), 531, 537, 577, 621, 628, 794, 806, 822, 898, 1158, 1168, 1240, 1241–1242, 1241 (image), 1244, 1302 account of meeting with Paul Mus, 1394Doc. answers to the U.S. press regarding U.S. intervention in Indochina, 1411–1412Doc. appeal made on the occasion of the founding of the Communist Party, 1367Doc. death of, 496, 500–501, 1246 declaration of the policy of the Provisional Coalition Government, 1381–1382Doc.

as a diplomat, 500 final statement of, 1615–1616Doc. and the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party, 499 as leader of the Lao Dong, 500 letter from abroad, 1368–1369Doc. letter to compatriots in Nam Bo, 1383Doc. letter to James F. Byrnes, 1379–1380Doc. letter to Léon Archimbaud, 1366Doc. letter to President Johnson, 1581–1582Doc. letter to President Truman, 1379Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. proclamation to the people after negotiations with France, 1387–1389Doc. replies to an interviewer on Japanese TV, 1573–1574Doc. reply to a foreign correspondent, 1427Doc. reply to Georges Bidault, 1384Doc. report to the National Assembly, 1427–1429Doc. report to the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1442–1443Doc. speech concerning the resistance war in South Vietnam, 1380–1381Doc. speech at the Tours Congress, 1365–1366Doc. talk to a cadres’ meeting concerning draft law, 1472–1473Doc. talk to officers preparing for military campaign, 1421–1422Doc. telegram to Léon Blum, 1392Doc. as a war leader, 500 Ho Chi Minh Campaign, 501–502, 641 Ho Chi Minh City. See Saigon Ho Chi Minh Trail, xli, 225, 226, 377, 412, 502–503, 503 (image), 504 (map), 505, 617, 631, 676, 723–724, 802, 1018, 1063, 1119, 1133, 1245, 1250, 1252, 1324 bombing of, 32, 34, 503, 505, 802, 1018 building of, 502–503 electronic barrier across (the “McNamara Line”), 503, 505 improvements to, 680 in Laos, 505 length of, 503 transport of supplies on, 503 Hochmuth, Bruno Arthur, 505–506, 573, 592 Hoffman, Abbie, 192, 263 (image), 506–507, 506 (image), 1000, 1358–1359, 1359 (image) Hoffman, Julius Jennings, 113, 192, 613, 1000, 1025 Hogan, John, 178 Holbrooke, Richard, 1278 Holder, Stan, 798 Hollingsworth, James F., 51, 1086 Holm, Jeanne, 1346 Holt, Harold, 1056 (image) Holyoake, Keith Jacka, 1056 (image) HOMECOMING, Operation, 507–508, 797, 933, 1177

Hong Nham. See Tu Duc Honolulu Conference (1966), 508–509, 509 (image) Hooper, Joe Ronnie, 509–510 Hoopes, Townsend, 510 Hoover, J. Edgar, 361, 510–512, 511 (image), 1198 calls for the ouster of, 511–512 criticism of, 511 domestic counterintelligence programs of, 511 and the expansion of the role of law enforcement in the United States, 511 Hope, Leslie Townes, 512–513, 512 (image) HOP TAC, Operation, 513–514, 675 Ho-Sainteny Agreement (1946), 514, 637, 1013 Hot pursuit policy, 514–515 Hourglass spraying system, 515 Ho Viet Thang, 621 Hue, 515–516 Hue, Battle of, 516–517, 517 (image), 518 (map), 519 atrocities committed by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 519, 521–522, 521 (image) casualties of, 516 (table) initial Communist attack, 516–517 U.S. air assaults on Communist positions, 517 Hue and Da Nang, fall of, 519–521, 520 (image) Hughes, Thomas, 345 Humanitarian Operation Program, 522 Humphrey, Hubert H., 279, 280, 334–335, 522–524, 523 (image), 571, 1345 Humphrey, Ronald, 1202 Hundred Flowers campaign, 197, 1043 Hung Dao Vuong. See Tran Hung Dao Hun Sen, 153–154, 156, 524–525, 586, 587, 1039 Hurley, Patrick, 195 Hussein, Saddam, 148 Huston, Tom, 1198 Huston Plan, 511, 525, 1198 Huynh Cong Ut. See Ut, Nick Huynh Phu So, 525 Huynh Tan Phat, 526, 941, 941 (image) Huynh Van Cao, 130, 526 Ia Drang, Battle of, xliii, 50, 527–529, 528 (image), 529 (map), 1173, 1239 casualties of, 529, 1173 Imperial presidency, 529–530 India, 530–531 Indochina, geography of, 416–417 Indochina War (1946–1954), xli, 531–535, 533 (image), 534 (map), 621, 675, 978 changes in French commanders during, 532 Chinese support for the Viet Minh during, 532–533 U.S. policy concerning, 533 as the war of the “elephant and tiger,” 531

Index See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Indochinese Communist Party. See Lao Dong Party Indonesia, 535–536 Initial Defense Satellite Communication System. See Defense Satellite Communications System Institute for Defense Analysis, 1099 Intelligence, electronic. See Electronic intelligence (ELINT) Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX), 909 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 780 International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), 919 International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC), 165, 530, 536–537, 919, 1244 International Control Commission (ICC), 165, 411–412, 414 International Rescue Committee (IRC), 537 International Volunteer Service (IVS), 1183 International War Crimes Tribunal, 537–538, 538 (image) Iran-Contra Affair, 962 IRON HAND, Operation. See Wild Weasels Iron Triangle, 180, 539 IRVING, Operation, 539–540 IVORY COAST, Operation, 1052–1053 Jackson, Henry M., 339 Jackson, Joe M., 578 Jackson State College, shootings at, 541, 572 JACKSTAY, Operation, 542, 542 (image) Jacobs, Seth, 490 Jacobson, George D., 543 James, Daniel, Jr., 543–544, 544 (image) Japan, 544–545, 1167 impact of on the Vietnam conflict, 544 as the most important Asian ally of the United States, 545 Jason Study, 725 Jaubert, François, 388 Jaunissement, 545, 634 Javits, Jacob Koppel, 546, 546 (image), 1064 JEFFERSON GLENN, Operation, 546–547 casualties of, 547 Jenkins, Henry, 734 Jiang Jieshi, 547–548, 547 (image), 701, 702, 1163 Jiang Qing, 198 Jiang Zemin, 196 Johns, Jasper, 68 Johnson, Claudia Alta, 427 (image) Johnson, Harold Keith, 1, 548, 933, 1172, 1174 Johnson, James, 380–381 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, xlii–xliii, 43, 53, 54, 124, 124 (image), 144, 145, 165, 173–174, 186, 219, 235, 242, 244, 247, 277, 279, 286, 304 (image), 329, 346, 372, 395, 427

(image), 460, 483, 505, 509 (image), 515, 523, 549–552, 549 (image), 562, 660, 700, 779 (image), 798, 807, 816–817, 846, 884 (image), 889, 903 (image), 1056 (image), 1078, 1143, 1170, 1171, 1172, 1195–1196, 1201, 1261, 1339, 1345, 1345 (image) address in San Antonio, Texas, 1590–1591Doc. announcement of bombing halt over North Vietnam, 1607–1609Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) authorization of the DeSoto missions by, 285 belief in the domino theory, 305, 550 message to Congress (1964), 1511–1512Doc. message to Maxwell Taylor, 1548–1549Doc. news conference excerpts (1968), 1592–1593Doc. “Peace without Conquest” address at Johns Hopkins University, 1525–1528Doc. and the presidential election of 1964, 332– 333, 550 (table), 552 and the presidential election of 1968, 333– 334, 551, 571 response to the Pueblo incident, 947–948 revival of pacification, 871 telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1506Doc. television address, 1603–1606Doc. visit to Cam Ranh Bay, 163 See also Great Society Program; Guam Conference (1967); Honolulu Conference (1967); Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech; San Antonio Formula; United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize Johnson, Lyndon Baines, Johns Hopkins University Speech, 552–553 as the “Mekong Delta Speech,” 552 Johnson, Robert, 345 Johnson, Ural Alexis, 412–413, 553 Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), 762 Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA), 761 Joint U.S. Public Affairs Organization (JUSPAO), 553–554, 942–945 Jones, David Charles, 554–555, 554 (image) Jones, Kim, 70 Joseph, Cliff, 69 Juin, Alphonse, 774 JUNCTION CITY, Operation, 15, 81, 157, 555–557, 555 (image) casualties of, 556 Phase I, 556 Phase II, 556 Phase III, 556 primary objective of, 555 K-9 Corps, 559–561, 559 (table), 560 (image) the ARVN dog program, 559

I-11

medical histories of the dogs (Howard Hayes’ epidemiological research), 560–561 tributes to the dogs that served, 561 the U.S. Air Force dog program, 559–560, 560 the U.S. Army dog program, 560 the U.S. Marine Corps dog program, 560 the U.S. Navy dog program, 560 Kalergis, H., 456 Kampuchea. See Cambodia Kampuchean National Front, 561–562 Karman, Theodore von, 960 Karnow, Stanley, 1010, 1094 Kattenburg, Paul, 562 Katzenbach, Nicholas deBelleville, 562–563, 563 (image), 1198 Kaufmann, William, 960 Kegler, Maynard, 311 Kelly, Charles L., 563–564 Kelly, Francis J., 564–565, 764 Kennan, George Frost, 234, 551, 565–566, 565 (image), 1199 Long Telegram of February 22, 1946, 566 “X article” of, 566 See also Containment policy Kennedy, Edward Moore, 279, 566–567 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, xlii, 9, 53, 144, 183, 235, 242, 244, 276, 311, 319, 329, 359, 361, 405, 459, 549, 567–570, 567 (image), 591, 631, 717, 781, 807, 808, 809–810, 851, 864, 1020, 1200–1201, 1202–1203, 1213, 1261 aid to the Republic of Vietnam under his administration, 83 anti-Communist sentiments of, 567–568 approval ratings for, 569 (table) assassination of, 144, 247, 315, 570 belief in the domino theory, 305 health problems of, 568 New Frontier agenda of, 568 policies regarding Vietnam, 569–570, 1170–1171 remarks on the situation in Vietnam, 1495–1496Doc. support for counterinsurgency, 647 See also Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961); Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Geneva Accords/Agreement (1962) Kennedy, Joseph P., 567, 1058 Kennedy, Robert Francis, 54, 334, 334 (image), 335, 459, 551, 567, 570–571, 685, 715, 1020 assassination of, 279, 523, 571 as legal counsel to Senate committees in the 1950s, 570 letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 1490Doc. and the presidential election of 1968, 571 public opposition of to the Vietnam War, 1595–1597Doc. as U.S. attorney general, 570–571

I-12

Index

Kent State University shootings, 55, 571–573, 572 (image), 594, 610 KENTUCKY, Operation, 573 casualties of, 573 Kep Airfield, 573 Kerr, Clark, 53 Kerrey, Joseph Robert, 573–574, 951 Kerry, John Forbes, 134, 265, 574–576, 575 (image), 760–761, 951, 1083–1084, 1197 antiwar activities of, 574, 1630–1632Doc. and the presidential election of 2004, 575–576 Kerwin, Walter T., Jr., 576–577 Key West Agreement (1948), 577 Khai Dinh, 577–578 Kham Duc Special Forces Camp, fall of, 578–579 Khe Sanh, Battle of, xliii, 72 (image), 576, 579– 583, 580 (image), 581 (map), 1103, 1339 and air resupply, 679 board replica of Khe Sanh at the White House, 581–582, 1103 casualties of, 582 as a Communist ruse, 582 See also Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for Khieu Samphan, 583–584, 583 (image), 586, 587 Khmer Kampuchea Krom, 584–585, 584 (image) Khmer National Armed Forces. See Forces Armées Nationales Khmères Khmer Republic, 49 Khmer Rouge, 50, 151, 152–153, 154, 378, 585–587, 586 (image), 855, 908–909, 920, 1039, 1247 as the peap prey (“forest army”), 586 See also Cambodia, Vietnamese invasion of Khmers. See Cambodia; Southeast Asia, ethnology of Khmer Serai, 587–588, 1038 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich, 243, 411, 568, 588–589, 588 (image), 631, 1043–1044, 1159, 1165, 1245 developments leading to the downfall of, 589 See also Berlin Wall; Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) Kien An Airfield, 589 Kienholz, Ed, 68 Kiesinger, Kurt, 417 KILLER, Operation, 972 Kim Il Sung, 600, 603, 604 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 9, 54, 113, 210–211, 218, 361, 511, 590–591, 590 (image), 937, 1060, 1072 antiwar stance of, 591 assassination of, 10, 257, 591, 955 “I Have a Dream” speech, 591 sermon against the Vietnam War, 1582–1589Doc.

KINGFISHER, Operation, 591–593

casualties of, 592 KINGPIN, Operation. See Son Tay Raid Kinnard, Douglas, 118, 119 Kinnard, Harry William Osborn, 29, 593 Kirk, Donald, 332 Kissinger, Henry Alfred, 161, 286, 340, 347, 378, 496 (image), 593–596, 594 (image), 616, 660, 696, 710, 740, 743, 773, 778, 842, 847, 850, 878 (image), 888–889, 989, 1016–1017, 1175, 1178, 1179, 1186, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1247, 1292, 1327 news conference excerpt, 1643–1644Doc. request for emergency aid for South Vietnam, 1660–1662Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973); Watergate Scandal Kit Carson Scouts, 596 Knight, Hal, Jr., 740 Knowland, William Fife, 596–597, 597 (image) Kohler, Foy, 712 Koh Tang, 597–598 Komer, Robert W., 143, 144, 223, 244, 433, 576, 598–599, 598 (image), 871–873, 909, 934 Kong Le, 599, 630, 631, 1057 Kontum, Battle for, 599–600 casualties of, 600 Kopechne, Mary Jo, 567 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (DPRK), 600–601 as an ally of North Vietnam, 600–601 See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of (ROK), xliii, 80, 163, 395, 601–603, 602 (image). See also Korean War (1950–1953) Korea, Republic of, Army (ROKA), 540, 600, 601, 602, 603, 605, 606, 882, 883, 893 Korean War (1950–1953), 195, 304, 355, 530, 533, 600, 601, 603–608, 604 (image), 1168–1169, 1199 aeromedical evacuations during, 726 casualties of, 607 effect of on U.S. foreign policymakers, 607 the Inchon landing, 605 lack of U.S. forces’ preparedness for, 605 results of, 607 Koshiro Iwai, 545 Koster, Samuel William, Sr., 608–609, 785, 786, 886–887, 1340 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich, 286, 609–610, 609 (image), 917, 1078, 1245, 1343 joint statement of with Pham Van Dong, 1515–1516Doc. Kovic, Ronald, 610–611, 650 Kraft, Joseph, 611 Krassner, Paul, 1000, 1358 Krepinevich, Andre, 490 Kroesen, Frederick, 814 Krulak, Victor H., 207, 244, 611–612, 612 (image), 738, 1095

disagreement with Westmoreland’s strategy and tactics, 612 Ksor Kok, 770 Kuby, Ron, 613 Ku Klux Klan, 361 Kulikov, Viktor, 1247 Kunstler, William Moses, 178, 192, 612–613 Ky Ngoai Hau Cuong De. See Cuong De Lacy, William S. B., 813 Ladd, Jonathan, 625 Lair, James W., 13 Laird, Melvin Robert, 157, 227, 615–616, 616 (image), 921, 939, 989, 1203 (image) Lake, William Anthony Kirsop, 616–617 Lamb, Al, 1341 LAM SON 719, Operation, 48, 226, 505, 617–619, 618 (map), 842, 848, 989, 1018, 1176, 1294 casualties of, 619 objectives of, 617 as a test of Vietnamization, 617 Landing zone (LZ), 619–621, 620 (image), 620 (map) hot LZ, 619 Land reform, Vietnam, 621–622 Diem’s land reform law, 621, 769 Ho’s land reform policy, 628 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam land reform program, 621–622 Thieu’s land reform law, 622, 841–842 of the Viet Minh, 621 Lane, Mark, 1293 Lane, Sharon, 857 Lang Bac, Battle of, 622–623 La Ngoc Chau, 527 Lang Son, 623–624, 623 (image) Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Battle for, 624–625 casualties of, 625 Laniel, Joseph, 626, 626 (image) Lansdale, Edward Geary, 183, 229, 310, 319, 626–627, 807, 907, 996, 1010, 1012, 1031 Lao Dong Party (Indochinese Communist Party Politburo [ICP]), 500, 502, 628, 1240, 1244, 1348 phase two of the Politburo Conference, 1659–1660Doc. Secretariat Directive No. 218-CT/TW, 1662–1664Doc. secret cable no. 17-NB to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1478–1479Doc. secret cable no. 160 to the Cochin China regional party committee, 1475–1476Doc. Lao Issara, 630 Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), 632–633 major issues between the party and the United States, 633

Index Laos, xlii–xliii, 14, 96, 110, 161, 174, 223, 414, 492, 536, 537, 568–569, 629–633, 629 (image), 631 (image), 632 (image), 1246 bombing of, 505, 631 neutral status of, 802, 1018 Latham, Michael, 490 Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de, 172, 222, 225 (image), 386, 493, 532, 545, 633–635, 634 (image), 1286–1287 Lau Ben Kon. See Nuon Chea Lavelle, John Daniel, 635, 938–939, 939 Lavelle Case, 635 Layton, Gilbert, 769 LÉA, Operation, 636 League of Wives of American Prisoners of War, 1067 LEAPING LENA, Operation, 681, 935 Le Chieu Thong, 453, 454 Leclerc, Jacques-Philippe, 276, 384, 531–532, 636–637, 636 (image), 1163 (image) Le Duan, 628, 637–638, 637 (image), 1162, 1244, 1247, 1250, 1303 “Duong Loi Cach Mang Mien Nam” (The Path of Revolution in the South), 1459–1462Doc. letter to the Central Office for South Vietnam, 1553–1567Doc. “Letters to the South,” 1519–1522Doc. speech to the 12th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 1569–1571Doc. speech in Hanoi celebrating victory, 1665–1668Doc. Le Duc Anh, 638–639 Le Duc Tho, 595, 639–641, 640 (image), 878 (image), 1186, 1278, 1279 Cable No. 119, 1637–1640Doc. See also Paris peace negotiations; Paris Peace Accords (1973) Le dynasty, 641 Lefèbvre, Dominique, 641–642 Le Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées (FULRO, United Struggle Front for Oppressed Races), 769, 770 LE HONG PHONG I, Operation, 642 LE HONG PHONG II, Operation, 642–643 casualties of, 643 Le Kha Phieu, 643–644, 644 (image) Le Loi, 644–645, 1123 LeMay, Curtis Emerson, 645–646, 645 (image), 960, 1068 Lemnitzer, Lyman Louis, 646–647, 647 (image) Le Myre de Vilers, Charles Marie, 647–648 leng Sary, 586, 587 Le Nguyen Khang, 648 Le Nguyen Vy, 648–649 Lenin, Vladimir, 702, 1286 (image) Lenin Polemics, 1044 Le Quang Trieu, 318, 649 Le Quang Tung, 130, 318, 649, 649 (image), 967

Le Quang Vinh. See Ba Cut Leroy, Catherine, 649–650 Le Thai To. See Le Loi Le Thanh Nghi, 650–651 Le Thanh Tong, 651 Letourneau, Jean, 651–652 Le Trong Tan, 652–653, 1130 Le Van Giac. See Le Duc Anh Le Van Hung, 653, 828 Le Van Kim, 129, 653–654, 809, 827, 1134, 1137 Le Van Nhuan. See Le Duan Le Van Vien, 654–655, 654 (image) Levy, Howard Brett, 655–656, 656 (image) Lewandowski, Janusz, 550, 704, 919 Lewis, Tom, 92, 178, 179 Lewy, Guenter, 490 LEXINGTON III, Operation, 656–657 Le Xuan Phoi, 528 Le Xuan Tau, 625 Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, 490 LIEN KET 22, Operation, 709 Lifton, Robert Jay, 657, 924, 925, 1293, 1294 Lightfoot, George, 1031 (image) Lima Site 85, 657–658 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 568, 589 Lin, Maya Ying, 658, 1296 Lin Biao, 197 LINEBACKER I, Operation, xlv, 31, 32, 60, 325, 659–660, 659 (image), 848, 860, 939, 1069, 1111, 1176, 1186 as the classic air interdiction campaign, 659, 660, 661 operational objectives of, 659 reasons for its success, 660 strategic objectives of, 660 LINEBACKER II, Operation, xlv, 32, 48, 60, 297, 340, 347, 595, 640, 660–663, 849, 860, 877, 1069, 1177, 1186 casualties of, 662 psychological effect of on Hanoi’s leaders, 662 use of LORAN in, 681 Li Peng, 196 Lippmann, Walter, 234, 663–664, 663 (image) Literature and the Vietnam War, 664–672 drama, 669–671 novels, 664–667 poetry, 667–669 prose narrative, 671–672 short stories, 667 Li Zhisui, 702 L’Obervateur, 583 Loc Ninh, military operations near, 672–674, 673 (image) Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 129, 459, 570, 674– 675, 674 (image), 704, 808, 809, 871, 970, 1095, 1261, 1345 cablegram to on the CIA channel concerning Vietnam, 1498Doc., 1498–1499Doc.

I-13

cablegram to McGeorge Bundy, 1499–1500Doc. cablegram to from John McCone, 1499Doc. phone conversation with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1502Doc. telegram to Nicholas Katzenbach, 1577Doc. telegrams to Dean Rusk, 1574–1577Doc. Lodge Bill, 1213 Logistics, allied, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Vietcong, 675–680 French military logistics, 676–677 physical characteristics of Vietnam affecting military logistics, 676 Viet Minh military logistics, 677–678 Long Binh, 680 Long Chieng, 681 Long-Haired Army (Doi Quan Toc Dai), 835 Long March, 702 Long-range electronic navigation (LORAN), 681 limitations of, 681 Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs), 681–682, 682 (image) Lon Nol, xlv, 49–50, 151–152, 156, 157, 158, 161, 265 (image), 376, 682–684, 683 (image), 908, 1048 defeat of by the Khmer Rouge, 155, 909 LORRAINE, Operation, 684–685, 1242 Lowenstein, Allard Kenneth, 333–334, 685, 685 (image) assassination of, 685 Lowndes, David, 580, 581, 582, 583, 625 Lucas, Andre C., 977 Luce, Don, 927, 1118 Luce, Henry Robinson, 686, 686 (image) Luc Luong Dac Biet. See Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident, 702 Lu Han, 686–687 Luong Ngoc Quyen, 687 Lutyens, Edwin, 658 Lyautey, Hubert Gonzalve, 1085 Lyautey, Louis, 78 Ly Bon, 687–688 Lynd, Staughton, 688–689, 688 (image) Ly Quy Chung, 332 MacArthur, Douglas, 604–606, 691–692, 692 (image) MacArthur, Douglas, II, memorandum, 1424–1425Doc. MACARTHUR, Operation, 692–694. See also Dak To, Battle of casualties of, 693 Machine guns, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 694–696, 694 (table), 695 (image) classifications of (heavy, medium, and light), 694 as crew-served weapons, 694 dominant tactical feature of (rate of fire), 694

I-14

Index

Madman Strategy, 696 Magsaysay, Ramón, 627, 907 Mai Chi Tho, 1279 Mai Huu Xuan, 129, 318 Mailer, Norman, 696–697, 697 (image) Mai Van Bo, 889 Malaysia, 697–698 Malcolm X, 111, 591, 1025 Malenkov, Georgy, 588 MALHEUR I and II, Operations, 698–699 casualties of, 698–699 Maneli, Mieczyslaw, 537 Manila Conference, 699–700, 699 (image) Manor, Leroy J., 1052–1053 Mansfield, Michael Joseph, 238, 700–701, 701 (image), 1195, 1196 report to President Kennedy on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 1492–1493Doc. Many Flags Program. See Free World Assistance Program Mao Zedong, 195, 195 (image), 196, 199, 287, 547, 604, 605, 701–703, 701 (image), 870, 1043–1044, 1199 contribution to Marxism, 702 See also Cultural Revolution; Great Leap Forward March against Death, 773 March on the Pentagon, 703–704, 703 (image) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1072 March to the South. See Nam Tien Marco Polo Bridge Incident. See Lugouqiao (Lukouch’iao) Incident Marcos, Ferdinand, 907, 907–908, 1056 (image) Marcovich, Herbert, 889, 1016–1017 Maricourt, Alain D. de, 643 MARIGOLD, Operation, 550, 704 Marine combined action platoons (CAPs), 704–705 MARKET TIME, Operation, 676, 705–706, 706 (image), 981, 1029, 1081, 1091, 1207, 1364 patrol system of, 705 Marshall, George C., 195, 968 telegram to the Consul General of Saigon, 1397–1398Doc. telegrams to Jefferson Caffery, 1393– 1394Doc., 1395–1396Doc. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood, 706–707, 1105 Martin, Graham A., 378, 707–708, 1178, 1179 Marx, Karl, 702 Marxism, 702 MASHER/WHITE WING, Operation 67, 708–709, 708 (image) casualties of, 709 Massachusetts Political Action for Peace (MassPax), 773 MASSACHUSETTS STRIKER, Operation, 709–710, 710 (image) Masson, René, 174

Mast, Charles, 969 Mayaguez incident, 378, 597, 710–711, 711 (image), 1206, 1319 casualties of, 711 May Day Trive, 711–712 MAYFLOWER, Operation, 712 McCain, John Sidney, Jr., 712–713 McCain, John Sidney, Sr., 712, 713 McCain, John Sidney, III, 264, 495, 379, 713– 715, 714 (image), 797, 1084, 1127, 1128, 1128 (image), 1128–1129 McCarthy, Eugene, 54, 55, 339, 523, 551, 571, 685, 715 McCarthy, Joseph, 597, 1058 McCarthy, Mary, 977 McCauley, Brian, 759 McChristian, Joseph, 865 McClellan, Stan, 371 (image) McCloy, John Jay, 716, 716 (image), 1345 McClure, Robert A., 1213 McCone, John Alex, 183, 716–717 cablegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1499Doc. McConnell, John Paul, 717–718, 718 (image), 1030 McCoy, Alfred, 1126 McDade, Robert, 527–528 McGarr, Lionel Charles, 718–719, 1070 McGee, Gale William, 719 McGovern, George Stanley, 54, 336–337, 405, 465–466, 719–720, 720 (image), 1195, 1196, 1197 McKean, Roland N., 721–722 McMahon, Robert, 491 McNamara, Robert Strange, 29, 39, 124, 219, 503, 505, 551, 562, 563, 599, 720–722, 721 (image), 725, 772, 775, 809, 846, 889, 937, 960, 981, 997, 1017, 1034, 1084, 1093–1094, 1170, 1172, 1188, 1200, 1202, 1203, 1262, 1318, 1345 memoranda to President Johnson, 1504–1506Doc., 1547–1548Doc., 1551– 1553Doc., 1567–1568Doc. memorandum to President Kennedy, 1486–1489Doc. memorandum of with Dean Rusk and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc. recommendation of for troop escalation in Vietnam, 1512–1514Doc. report of the McNamara-Taylor mission to South Vietnam, 1496–1498Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. See also McNamara Line; Taylor-McNamara Report McNamara Line, 485, 503, 722–724 the antivehicular barrier in Laos, 723–724 the barrier in Vietnam, 723 and the Jasons, 722 McNaughton, John Theodore, 724–725, 960 McPherson, Harry Cummings, 725–726 Meaney, George, 726 Medevac, 564, 726, 727 (image), 732

Media and the Vietnam War, 727–729, 728 (image) “court journalism,” 728 oversight of by public affairs officers (PAOs), 728 rules imposed on by the MACV, 728 Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP), 734 Medical evacuation. See Medevac Medicine, military, 729–733, 730 (image), 730 (table), 731 (image) division of the military medical system (five echelons), 730–731 drug abuse in Vietnam, 732 major disease problems in Vietnam, 732 psychiatric illnesses, 732 surgical specialists in Vietnam, 732–733 twentieth-century advances in battlefield medicine and surgery, 730 See also Medevac Medics and corpsmen, 733–735, 734 (image) casualty rates among, 733 required test standards for, 733 training classes for, 733 Medina, Ernest Lou, 149, 608, 735, 785 Meisner, Maurice, 702 Mekong Delta, 416, 417 (image), 735–736, 981 Mekong River, 735, 735–736, 736 (image) Mekong River Project, 737 Melby, John F., telegram to Dean Rusk, 1412Doc. Melville, Marjorie Bradford, 178 Melville, Thomas, 178 Mendenhall, Joseph Abraham, 612, 738, 1095 Mendès-France, Pierre, 535, 738–739, 739 (image) Mengel, James L., 92 MENU, Operation, 739–741, 847, 879, 1048, 1197 objectives of, 739–740 Meos. See Hmongs Meshad, Shad, 925 Michigan State University Advisory Group, 741 Midway Island Conference (1969), 741–743, 742 (image) Mien Tong. See Thieu Tri Mildren, Frank T., 455 Military Airlift Command (MAC), 743–744 Military Air Transport Service (MATS), 743 Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, xlii, 319, 329, 458, 676, 744–746, 745 (image), 861, 1169, 1187, 1270 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), xlii, 2, 3, 47, 80, 120, 133, 157, 244, 291, 347, 363, 395, 422, 433, 509, 569, 746–747, 746 (image), 981, 1171, 1187, 1213, 1214, 1270, 1272, 1335, 1340 See also Five O’Clock Follies; Order of battle dispute (1967) Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group (MACV SOG), 15, 132, 579, 984–985, 1214

Index Military decorations, 747–751, 748 (table), 749 (table), 750 (tables), 751 (table) French, 747 North Vietnamese and NLF, 748–749 South Vietnamese, 747–748 U.S., 749–751 Military regions, 751–753, 752 (image) Military Revolutionary Council, 753–754 Military Sealift Command (MSC), 754–755, 754 (image) Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), 754 Miller, Henry L., 372 Milloy, Albert E., 1 Mine warfare, land, 755–756, 755 (image) Mine warfare, naval, Communist forces and allied countermining operations, 756–757 Minh Mang, 757 Mining and mine clearance in North Vietnam, 758–759, 758 (image) Mini-Tet Offensive, 759–760, 1121 casualties of, 760 Mische, George, 178 Missiles air-to-air missiles, 34–35 air-to-ground missiles, 35–36 guidance systems for air-to-air missiles, 35 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 28, 28 (image), 340, 780, 1079–1080, 1248, 1251, 1341–1342 Missing in action, allied (MIAs), 760–762, 761 (table), 1180, 1302 Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist, 762–763 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1072 Mitchell, John Newton, 763–764, 763 (image), 890, 1198 “Mobe, the,” 773 Mobile Guerrilla Forces, 564, 764 Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), 764–765, 765 (image), 981–984 Mobile Strike Force Commands, 765–766 Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), 277 Moffat, Albert Low, 766, 1168 memorandum to John Carter Vincent, 1384–1386Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich, 767–768, 767 (image) Momyer, William Wallace, 579, 582, 768, 961, 1049 Mondale, Walter, 338 (image), 339 MONGOOSE, Operation, 627 Montagnards, 15, 110, 182, 184, 209, 244, 256, 349–350, 351, 352 (image), 403, 768–770, 769 (image), 943, 1183 tribal groupings of, 768 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 590

Montini, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria. See Paul VI, Pope Moore, Harold Gregory, Jr., 406, 527, 770–771, 1173 Moore, Robert Brevard, 771 Moorer, Thomas Hinman, 771–774, 772 (image), 985, 1034, 1203 (image), 1203, 1274 (image) message to Captain John Herrick, 1510–1511Doc. order to all subordinate units, 1509–1510Doc. Mora, Dennis, 380–81 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, 773–774, 774 (image), 848 Mordant, Eugène, 774–775, 1009 Morgan, Charles, Jr., 656 Morrill Act (1862), 968 Morrison, Norman, 775 Morse, Wayne Lyman, 550, 775–776, 864, 1195 Mortality rates among soldiers, from the midnineteenth century, 729–730 Mortars, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 776–777, 776 (image) Mortuary Affairs operations, 777 Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon, 778 Mountbatten, Louis, 1163 Mournier, Emmanuel, 166, 811 Moyers, Billy Don, 778–780, 779 (image) Moylan, Mary, 178 Mudd, Roger, 610 Mu Gia Pass, 780 Muhammad, Elijah, 111 Mullender, Philippe. See Devillers, Philippe Muller, Robert, 780–781 Munich analogy, 781 Muoi Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Murphy, Robert Daniel, 781–782, 1345 Mus, Paul, account of meeting with Ho Chi Minh, 1394Doc. Music and the Vietnam War, 782–783 Muskie, Edmund S., 279, 336–337 Muste, Abraham Johannes, 361, 784, 1060 My Lai Massacre, 55, 149–150, 481, 521, 608, 784–786, 785 (image), 886, 970–971, 1092, 1115–1116. See also Peers Inquiry Nakahara Mitsunobu, 545 Nam Dong, Battle of, 787 casualties of, 787 Nam Dong Publishing House, 833 Nam Tien, 787–788 Nam Viet, 788 NANTUCKET BEACH, Operation. See BOLD MARINER, Operation Napalm, 788–790, 789 (image) Napoleon III, 790–791, 790 (image) Na San, Battle of, 791 casualties of, 791 Nasser, Abdel Gamal, 316

I-15

National Assembly Law 10/59, 791–792 National Bank of Vietnam, 792–793 National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC), 793 National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC), 793–794 National Defense Act (1916), 968 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front [NLF]), xli, 178, 261, 794–795, 795 (image), 870, 1162, 1261, 1323, 1348 manifesto of, 1479–1481Doc. See also Viet Cong National Hard Hats of America. See Hardhats National Intelligence Estimate (1954), 1447–1448Doc. National Intelligence Estimate (1956), 1457Doc., 1458–1459Doc. National Leadership Council (NLC), 796, 816, 1270 National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (NLOF), 796–797 National Mobilization Committee (NMC), 192 National Party of Greater Vietnam. See Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang National Security Act (1947), 577, 1202 National Security Council (NSC), 182 draft statement and study on U.S. policy toward all-Vietnam elections (NSC 5519), 1454–1456Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 52, 1213 National Security Action Memorandum Number 57, 1084 National Security Action Memorandum Number 80, 1484Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 111, 1489–1490Doc. National Security Action Memorandum Number 328, 797–798, 1523–1524Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 64 (NCS-64), 744, 1406–1407Doc. National Security Council Memorandum 5429/1 (NSC-5429/1), 744–745, 1202 National Security Council Memorandum 5429/2 (NSC-5429/2), 1448–1450Doc. National Security Council Planning Board Report (No. 1074-A), 1434–1436Doc. National Security Council Report 50 (NSC-50), 314 National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), 5, 846 National Security Council Report 124/2 (NSC124/2), 304 National Security Council Staff Study (Annex to NSC 48/4), 1418–1420Doc. National Security Study Memorandum 1 (NSSM-1), 594, 1609–1612Doc. National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), 924

I-16

Index

Native Americans in the U.S. military, 798, 799 (image) Naval gunfire support, 799–800 Navarre, Henri Eugène, 174, 267, 293, 386, 532, 534, 535, 626, 652, 800–801, 801 (image), 861, 1242, 1303 See also Navarre Plan Navarre Plan, 652, 801–802 Nedzi, Lucien N., 1197 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 536 Nelson, Deborah, 1126 Nessen, Ron, 711 Neuhaus, Richard, 217 Neutrality, 802–803 NEUTRALIZE, Operation, 235 NEVADA EAGLE, Operation, 803 casualties of, 803 New Jersey, USS, 804–805, 804 (image) New Journalism, 696 NEW LIFE, Operation, 48 New Look policy, 846, 972 New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 773 Newton, Huey P., 112, 113, 1024 New Zealand, 395, 805 Ngo Dinh Can, 805–806, 1123 Ngo Dinh Diem, xli, 12, 43, 109, 130, 137, 140, 177, 224–225, 314, 316, 319, 330, 370, 414, 458, 488, 500, 537, 569, 569–570, 621, 627, 653, 654–655, 674–675, 791– 792, 806–809, 807 (image), 811, 812, 813, 817, 826, 847, 861, 869–870, 1010, 1012, 1070, 1095, 1123, 1169–1171, 1199, 1258–1262, 1259 (image), 1272 assassination of, 139, 144, 318, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 attacks against the Chinese community in Vietnam, 202 conversation with Eisenhower, 1463Doc. rejection of the MSU Advisory Group’s advice, 741 reliance on Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang, 165–166 See also Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, overthrow of, 129–130, 317– 318, 809–810, 1201 Ngo Dinh Khoi, 806, 810 Ngo Dinh Luyen, 806, 810–811 Ngo Dinh Nhu, xlii, 12, 129, 130, 166, 318, 319, 488, 569–570, 601–602, 627, 674–675, 792, 807, 808, 809, 811–812, 1070, 1079 (image), 1133 assassination of, 570, 809, 810, 812, 813, 1010 Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame, 808, 809, 812–813 Ngo Dinh Thuc, 138, 166, 806, 808, 813, 813 (image) Ngo Quang Troung, 2, 516, 519, 814 Ngo Quyen, 814–815 Ngo Thi Trinh. See Hanoi Hannah Nguyen Ai Quoc. See Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Binh, 815 Nguyen Buu Dao. See Khai Dinh Nguyen Cao Ky, 139, 144, 330–331, 331 (image), 331–332, 433, 508, 700, 753, 796, 815–817, 816 (image), 817, 827, 830, 841, 1056 (image), 1262, 1263–1264 Nguyen Chan. See Tran Van Tra Nguyen Chanh Thi, 139, 675, 816, 817–819, 818 (image), 1263 Nguyen Chi Thanh, 794, 819, 1102, 1303 article concerning the Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1493–1494Doc. Nguyen Cong. See Do Muoi Nguyen Co Thach, 819–820, 964 Nguyen Duc Thang, 871 Nguyen Duy Trinh, 820–821, 821 (image) report to Party Central Committee on the new talk-fight strategy, 1577–1581Doc. Nguyen dynasty, 821 Nguyen Hai Than, 687, 822 Nguyen Ha Phan, 822–823 Nguyen Hue, 453–454, 823–824, 823 (image) Nguyen Hue Campaign. See Easter Offensive Nguyen Huu An, 528, 693, 693–694, 824–825 Nguyen Huu Co, 130, 796, 825, 825 (image) Nguyen Huu Tho, 794, 795, 825–826, 941 (image) Nguyen Huu Tri, 826 Nguyen Khac Xung. See Le Thanh Nghi Nguyen Khanh, 139, 318, 513, 648, 653, 675, 753, 818 (image), 827, 1094, 1135, 1261–1262 Nguyen Khoa Nam, 653, 827–828 Nguyen Kim Thanh. See To Huu Nguyen Luong Bang, 828, 1130 Nguyen Manh Cam, 828–829 Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 829–830, 829 (image), 1108, 1272 Nguyen Ngoc Tho, 830–831, 831 (image) Nguyen Phuc Anh, 831–832 Nguyen Phuoc Dom. See Minh Mang Nguyen Phuong Thao. See Nguyen Binh Nguyen Sinh Cung. See Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Sinh Sac, 832–833 Nguyen Thai Hoc, 833–834 Nguyen Thanh Linh, 245 Nguyen Thi Binh, 834–835, 834 (image), 941, 1129 Nguyen Thi Dinh, 835–836, 836 (image) Nguyen Thi Giang, 834 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, 836–837 Nguyen Ton Hoan, 753 Nguyen Trai, 644 Nguyen Tuong Tam, 837 Nguyen Van, 516 Nguyen Van Binh, 837–838, 838 (image) Nguyen Van Cao. See Van Cao Nguyen Van Coc, 863 Nguyen Van Cu, 838 Nguyen Van Cuc. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Hieu, 839

Nguyen Van Hinh, 839, 861 Nguyen Van Linh, 839–840, 840 (image), 1278 Nguyen Van Muoi. See Nguyen Van Linh Nguyen Van Nhung, 318, 649, 1262 Nguyen Van Thang. See Nguyen Hai Than Nguyen Van Thieu, xlii, xlvi, 11, 94, 144, 146, 157, 292, 324, 330–331, 331 (image), 501, 508, 509 (image), 519, 595, 599, 618, 619, 640, 793–794, 796, 817, 827, 840–843, 841 (image), 848, 1056 (image), 1186, 1246, 1263 address to the National Assembly of South Vietnam, 1612Doc. See also Midway Island Conference Nguyen Van Toan, 843 Nguyen Van Vinh, 502 Nguyen Van Vy, 129 Nguyen Van Xuan, 843–844, 843 (image) Nguyen Viet Thanh, 844 Nguyen Xuan Oanh, 1262 Nhan Van Giai Pham, 1224 Nhat Linh. See Nguyen Tuong Tam NIAGARA, Operation, 844–845 casualties of, 845 Nicholas, Fayard, 512 (image) Nicholas, Harold, 512 (image) Nickerson, Herman, Jr., 596 Nitze, Paul Henry, 845–846, 845 (image) Nixon, Richard M., xliv–xlv, 45, 55, 150, 157, 174, 225–226, 239, 297, 325, 326, 338, 380, 418, 464, 483, 523, 553. 571, 615, 617, 619, 640, 660, 660–661, 760, 761, 772, 842, 846–849, 847 (image), 927, 939, 946, 957, 986, 988–989, 1090, 1169, 1196–1197, 1200 (image), 1201, 1246, 1316 (image) address to the nation, 1640Doc. approval ratings for, 569 (table) and the bombing of Cambodia, 151, 370, 802–803, 847–848, 1176 and détente, 286–287 foreign policies developed with Kissinger, 593–595 involvement in the aftermath of My Lai, 887 letter to Pham Van Dong, 1653–1654Doc. letters to Nguyen Van Thieu, 1647–1649Doc. news conference excerpt, 1656Doc. and the opening of China, 200, 595 pardon of by Ford, 378 and the presidential election of 1968, 334– 335, 551 and the presidential election of 1972, 336– 337, 336 (image) resignation of, 361, 849 secret authorization of more aggressive bombing of North Vietnam, 635 “Silent Majority” speech, 773, 848, 946 speech on Cambodia, 1625–1627Doc. speech on Vietnamization, 1617–1622Doc.

Index success of in foreign affairs (“linkage diplomacy”), 849 televised interview with, 1629–1630Doc. television address, 1612–1614Doc. See also Moscow meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Madman Strategy; Midway Island Conference; Nixon Doctrine; Vietnamization; Watergate Scandal Nixon Doctrine, 848, 850, 1175, 1292 Noel, Chris, 850–851, 850 (image) Nolting, Frederick Earnest, Jr., 569, 809, 851–852, 1261 Nong Duc Manh, 852–853, 852 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 5, 23, 104, 172, 214, 220, 234, 276, 315, 319, 355, 413 Novosel, Michael, Jr., 853 Novosel, Michael, Sr., 853–854 Nui Ba Den, 555, 854–855, 854 (image), 1096 Nuon Chea, 855 Nur, Paul, 769 Nurses, U.S., 855–857, 856 (images) Nuttle, David, 769 Oakland Army Base, 859 Obama, Barack, 715 Oberdorfer, Don, 521 Oberg, Jean-Christophe, 859–860 O’Brien, David, 1217 O’Daniel, John Wilson, 860–861, 860 (image) report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1425–1426Doc. Office of Civilian Operations (OCO), 871, 922 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 182, 183, 223, 229, 289, 309–310, 861–862 See also Deer Mission Ohly, John, memorandum to Dean Acheson, 1413–1414Doc. Oldenburg, Claes, 68 Olds, Robin, 862–863, 863 (image) Olongapo, Philippines, 863–864 O’Neill, John, 1084 Open Arms Program. See Chieu Hoi Program Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34A, 550, 864 Orderly Departure Plan, 1181 Order of battle dispute (1967), 864–866 Oriskany, USS, fire aboard, 26 (image), 866– 867, 866 (image) O’Sullivan, James L., telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Otis, Glenn K., 1107 Pacification, 869–874, 870 (image), 933, 1176. See also Accelerated Pacification Campaign; Phoenix Program Page, Michael, 70 Palme, Olof, 859, 860, 874, 874 (image) Palmer, Bruce, Jr., 81, 303, 603, 674, 722, 814, 875, 1335 Palmer, Dave Richard, 1031

Paracel and Spratley Islands, South China Sea, 875–876 Paris peace negotiations, 551, 639–641, 876–877 document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Vietnam concerning the negotiations, 1642–1643Doc. Paris Peace Accords (1973), 760, 793, 842, 877–879, 878 (image), 1165, 1177 failure of, 878–879 text of, 1650–1652Doc. Park Chung Hee, 1056 (image) Parks, Rosa, 211, 211 (image) Parrot’s Beak, 879, 1026 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) (1963), 1044 PASSAGE TO FREEDOM, Operation, 310, 754, 880– 881, 880 (image), 1012, 1170, 1242 Pathet Lao, 411, 412, 630, 631, 632, 881–882, 881 (image), 1054, 1057, 1162, 1250 Patti, Archimedes L. A., 882 Patton, George Smith, IV, 882–883 PAUL REVERE I–IV, Operations, 883, 1015 casualties of, 883 Paul VI, Pope, 838, 883–885, 884 (image), 1959 Peace Corps, 311 Pearson, Lester B., 164, 165, 885, 885 (image) Peers, William R., 118, 608, 786, 886, 886 (image). See also Peers Inquiry Peers Inquiry, 886–887 PEGASUS-LAM SON 207A, Operation, 582, 887–888, 888 (image), 1022 casualties of, 888 Pell, Claiborne, 921 Peng Phongsavan, 1232 (image) PENNSYLVANIA, Operation, 888–889 Pentagon, March on the. See March on the Pentagon Pentagon Papers and trial, 340–341, 341 (image), 889–892, 891 (image), 960, 1006–1007, 1035, 1173, 1174 People’s Anti-Corruption Movement, 842 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). See Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF), 892, 1348 (image) Perot, Henry Ross, 760, 796, 893, 893 (image) PERSHING, Operation, 893–894, 894 (image) casualties of, 894 Peterson, Douglas Brian, 220, 894–895, 1181 Pham Cong Tac, 895, 895 (image) Pham Duy, 895–896 Pham Hong Thai, 833 Pham Hung, 896–897 Pham Ngoc Thao, 129, 897, 897 (image) Pham Phu Quoc, 838 Pham Quynh, 810 Pham The Duyet, 898 Pham Thi Yen, 1129 Pham Van Dinh, 163

I-17

Pham Van Dong, 638, 818 (image), 820, 889, 898–899, 898 (image), 964, 1278 joint statement of with Aleksei Kosygin, 1515–1516Doc. message to the Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, 1456Doc. report to the Second Session of the Third National Assembly, 1528–1547Doc. speech delivered on National Day, 1668–1674Doc. Pham Van Phu, 93, 94, 899–900 Pham Van Thien. See Pham Hung Pham Xuan An, 617, 818, 900, 1133 Phan Boi Chau, 499, 833, 900–901 Phan Chu Trinh, 901–902 Phan Dinh Khai. See Le Duc Tho Phan Dinh Phung, 902 Phan Huy Quat, 140, 796, 903–904, 903 (image) Phan Khac Suu, 904 Phan Quang Dan, 904–905 Phan Van Hoa. See Vo Van Kiet Phan Van Khai, 905–906, 905 (image) Philastre, Paul-Louis-Félix, 906 Philippine Civil Action Group (PHILCAG), 907–908 Philippines, 906–908 Phnom Penh, 908–909 Pho Duc Chinh, 834 Phoenix Program, 184, 869, 872, 873, 909–910, 940, 1126, 1176 demise of, 909 success of, 910 Phong Trao Cach Mang Quoc Gia (National Revolutionary Movement), 166 Phoumi Nosavan, 910–911, 910 (image) Phoumi Vongvichit, 1232 (image) Phou Pha Thi. See Lima Site 85 PHU DUNG, Operation. See SHINING BRASS, Operation Pickett, Clarence, 53 PIERCE ARROW, Operation, 26, 911–912, 912 (image) Pigneau de Béhaine, Pierre, 912–913 Pignon, Léon, 913, 913 (image) Pike, Douglas, 1158 PIRANHA, Operation, 914 casualties of, 914 PIRAZ warships, 914–915 Pistols, 915–916, 915 (image) French, 915 U.S., 915–916 Vietnamese, 916 Plain of Jars, 916, 916 (image) Plain of Reeds, 917 Platt, Jonas, 1220 Pleiku, 917–918 POCKET MONEY, Operation, 758 Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich, 918 Podhoretz, Norman, 490 Poland, 918–919

I-18

Index

Polgar, Thomas, 919 Pol Pot, 154, 155, 156, 561, 585, 587, 855, 919–921, 920 (image), 1039 trial of, 587, 921 Poola, Pascal, 798 POPEYE, Operation, 921 Porter, Melvin, 189 Porter, William James, 144, 340, 871, 922–923, 922 (image) Port Huron Statement, 53, 923, 1072–1073 Potsdam Conference (1945), 862, 926 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 923– 926, 924 (image), 925 (table) Poulo Condore, 926–927 Powell, Colin Luther, 927–929, 928 (image), 1292. See also Powell Doctrine Powell Doctrine, 928, 1292 PRAIRIE I, Operation, 929 casualties of, 929 PRAIRIE II–IV, Operations, 929–930 casualties of, 929, 930 PRAIRIE FIRE, Operation, 163, 503, 985 Precision-guided munitions, 930–931 electro-optical guided bomb (EOGB) program, 930–931 laser-guided bomb (LGB) program, 930, 931 President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 572 President’s Special Committee, report on Southeast Asia, 1434Doc. Prisoners of war (POWs), 141 repatriation of following the Korean War, 607 See also Four-Party Joint Military Commission; HOMECOMING, Operation; Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist; Prisoners of war, allied Prisoners of war, allied, 931–933, 932 (image), 1302 Prisoners of war, Communist. See Missing in action and prisoners of war, Communist Program for the Pacification and LongTerm Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), 548, 598, 933–934, 1174, 1175 Programs Evaluation Office (PEO), 1341 Project 100,000, 937–938 Project Agile, 934–935 development of Agent Orange, 935 development of the Armalite AR-15, 935 Project Delta, 681–682, 935–936, 938 Project Dye Marker. See McNamara Line Project Gamma, 682 Project Igloo White, 723–724 Project Illinois City, 485 Project Muscle Shoals, 503 Project Nine, 485, 503 Project Omega, 682, 936–937, 938 Project Practice Nine. See McNamara Line Project Sigma, 682, 938 Protective Reaction Strikes, 938–939 PROUD DEEP ALPHA, Operation, 226, 939–940

Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), 184, 940 Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), 941–942, 941 (image) Proxmire, Edward William, 942, 942 (image) Psychological warfare operations (PSYOPS), 942–945 deficiencies of, 944 media used in, 944 military targets of, 943 themes of, 943–944 Public opinion and the war, U.S., 945–947, 946 (table) Pueblo incident, 601, 710, 947–949, 948 (image), 1209, 1212 Puller, Lewis Burwell, Jr., 949 Punji stake, 949–950, 949 (image) Python God movement, 769 Qiao Shi, 196 Quach Tom, 951 Quadrillage/ratissage, 951 Quakers. See American Society of Friends (Quakers) Qualye, Daniel, 1209–1210 Quan Ngai, 952 Quang Tri, Battle of, 952–953, 953 (image) casualties of, 953 Quang Trung. See Nguyen Hue Qui Nhon, 953–954 Quoc Ngu, 954 Racial violence within the U.S. military, 955– 956, 956 (image) Radcliffe, Henry, 139 Radford, Arthur William, 329, 846–847, 957, 957 (image), 1093 Radio direction finding (RDF), 958 ground installations of, 958 mobile capabilities of, 958 signals intelligence activities, 958 Ranariddh, Norodom, 153, 586, 1039 RANCH HAND, Operation, 226, 958–960, 959 (image), 1239 RAND Corporation, 960–961 RANDOLPH GLEN, Operation, 1108–1109 Rangel, Charles, 712 Rangoon Initiative, 1221 Raven Forward Air Controllers, 961 Read, Benjamin Huger, 961–962 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 137, 760, 850, 962– 963, 962 (image), 1180, 1319 Red River Delta, 963 Red River Fighter Pilots Association, 963–964 Reed, Charles airgram to Dean Acheson, 1396–1397Doc. telegram to James F. Byrnes, 1392–1393Doc. telegrams to George C. Marshall, 1398–1400Doc. Reeducation camps, 964–965

Refugees and boat people, 965–966, 965 (image) Regional forces. See Territorial forces Reinhardt, George Frederick, 166, 966–967 Reissner, Robert, 495 Rejo, Pete, 1151 Republican Youth, 967 Research and development field units, 967– 968. See also Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC); Combat Operations Research Center (CORC) Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), 968–969 Reston, James, 611 Revers, Georges, 969. See also Revers Report (1949) Revers Report (1949), 969 Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center. See Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party. See Can Lao Nhan Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party) Rheault, Robert B., 969–970, 1190 Rhee, Syngman, 601, 603 Richardson, John Hammond, 970 cablegram to CIA director concerning the situation in South Vietnam, 1498Doc. Ridenhour, Ronald L., 150, 785–786, 970–971 Ridgway, Matthew Bunker, 329, 409, 606, 861, 971–972, 971 (image), 1307, 1345 Rifles, 972–976, 973 (image), 974 (image) AK-47, 975–976 Australian, 975 classification of, 972–973 French, 975 New Zealand, 975 U.S., 973–975 Vietnamese, 975 Rigault de Genouilly, Charles, 976 Ripcord Fire-Support Base, Battle for, 976–977 casualties of, 977 Ripley, John, 307 Risner, James Robinson, 977–978 River Assault Flotilla 1, 981–982 River assault groups, 978 Riverine craft, 978–981, 979 (image), 980 (image) armored troop carrier (ATC), 979–980 assault patrol boat (ASPB), 979 command-and-communication boat (CCB), 979–980 fast patrol craft (PCF), 979 France Outre Mere (FOM), 980 patrol air cushion vehicle (PACV), 980 river patrol boat (PBT), 978, 979 river patrol craft (PBC), 980 Riverine warfare, 981–984, 982 (image) RIVER RAIDER I, Operation, 983

Index River Rats. See Red River Fighter Pilots Association Rivers, Lucius Mendel, 984 Road Watch Teams (RWTs), 984–985 Roberts, Elvy, 158 Robinson, James W., 1 Robinson, Rembrandt Cecil, 985 Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich, 334, 338, 986, 986 (image) Rockets and rocket launchers, 986–988 Chinese, 987, 988 Soviet, 987, 988 U.S., 987, 988 Vietnamese, 987 Rodgers, William, 157 Rodriguez, Felix, 940 Rogers, William Pierce, 553, 849, 988–989 ROLLING THUNDER, Operation, 26, 32, 34, 122, 123 (map), 124, 503, 550, 552, 573, 712, 722, 758, 768, 889, 917, 989–994, 990 (image), 992 (map), 1069, 1150, 1172, 1184–1185, 1248, 1341–1342 casualties of, 989 failure of, 993, 1184 objectives of, 991, 1184 phases of, 991, 993 targets of, 991 Rome Plow, 1239 Romney, George Wilcken, 334, 994 Romney, Mitt, 994 Ronning, Chester A., 820 “Ronning Missions,” 820 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 234, 309, 861, 994–995, 995 (image), 1009, 1168 memorandum to Cordell Hull, 1369Doc. Rosenquist, James, 68 Rosson, William B., 698, 1092, 1340 Rostow, Eugene Victor, 995–996, 1070 Rostow, Walt Whitman, 143, 219, 563, 569, 721, 725, 996–998, 997 (image), 1093, 1170. See also Taylor-Rostow Report ROTC Vitalization Act (1964), 968 Rousselot, Robert E., 236 Route Coloniale 4, Battles for, 998 Route packages, 998–999 Rovere, Richard, 716 Rowe, James Nicholas, 999–1000, 999 (image), 1126, 1155 Rowny, Edward L., 64 Roy, Jules, 626 Rubin, Jerry, 192, 263 (image), 703, 1000, 1000 (image), 1358–1359 Rudd, Mark, 1218 Rules of Engagement (ROE), 1001–1003 purposes of, 1001 Rung Sat, 1028 Rusk, David Dean, 219, 319, 412, 562, 563, 569, 885, 889, 1003–1004, 1004 (image), 1200, 1345 (image) memorandum of with McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1482–1484Doc.

memorandum to President Kennedy, 1487–1489Doc. telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1581Doc. telegram to Maxwell Taylor, 1516Doc. television interview with, 1593–1595Doc. Rusk-Thanat Agreement (1962), 1004–1005 Russell, Richard Brevard, Jr., 1005–1006, 1006 (image), 1209 Russell Amendment, 1209 RUSSELL BEACH, Operation, 873 Russell Tribunal. See International War Crimes Tribunal Russo, Anthony J., Jr., 891, 1006–1007, 1007 (image) Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 401, 544 Ryan, John D., 1203 (image) Sabattier, Gabriel, 774–775, 1009–1010 SAFESIDE, Operation, 560

Sagan, Ginette, 964 Saigon, 501, 1010–1011, 1011 (image) Saigon Circle. See Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Saigon Military Mission (SMM), 1011–1012 Sainteny, Jean, 1012–1013, 1168, 1241 Salan, Raoul Albin Louis, 386, 514, 532, 684, 791, 1013–1014, 1013 (image), 1242 Salisbury, Harrison Evans, 1014–1015, 1015 (image) Saloth Sar. See Pol Pot Samas, David, 380–381 SAM HOUSTON, Operation, 391, 1015–1016 casualties of, 1016 Samphan, Khieu, 155 Sams, Kenneth, 189 San Antonio Formula, 846, 1016–1017 Sanctuaries, 1017–1018 Sarraut, Albert, 1018–1019, 1019 (image) Saul, Peter, 67, 69 Sauvageot, Jean, 705 Savage, Paul L., 1188 Savang Vatthana, 632 Savio, Mario, 53 Schell, Jonathan, 952 Schemmer, Benjamin, 495 Schening, Richard, 139 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr., 489, 529, 1019– 1020, 1020 (image) Schlesinger, James Rodney, 224, 711, 960, 1020–1021 Schmidt, Helmut, 286, 418 Schumaker, Bob, 494 Schuman, Robert, 652 Schungel, Daniel F., 625 Schweiter, Leo H., 693 SCOTLAND, Operation, 582, 1021–1022 casualties of, 1022 Scranton Commission. See President’s Commission on Campus Unrest Scruggs, Jan Craig, 1022–1023, 1295, 1296 Seabees, 1023

I-19

Seaborn, J. Blair, 537 notes of on meeting with Pham Van Dong, 1508–1509Doc. SEA DRAGON, Operation, 85, 799, 804, 1023– 1024, 1024 (image), 1030, 1207 Sea Float, 1026 Seale, Bobby, 112, 113, 192, 264, 1024–1025 SEALORDS operations, 984, 1025–1027, 1026 (image), 1091 SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) teams, 574, 1027–1028 Seaman, Jonathan O., 81, 357, 555, 608, 887, 1028–1029 Sea power, role in war, 1029–1030 Search and destroy, 1030–1031, 1031 (image) Search-and-rescue operations, 1031–1032 SEARCH TURN, Operation, 1025 Secret Army Organization, 1014 Seeger, Daniel Andrew, 1218 Seeger v. United States (1965), 1333, 1334 Seek, Locate, Annihilate, and Monitor. See SLAM Selective Service, 242, 482–483, 1032–1032, 1033 (image), 1033 (table) Selective Training and Service Act (1940), 1033 Shanghai Communiqué (1972), 702 Sharon Statement, 923 Sharp, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr., 122, 286, 300, 991, 998–999, 1034–1035 Shatan, Chaim, 924 Sheehan, Cornelius Mahoney, 58, 67, 341, 890, 894, 1035–1036 SHENANDOAH II, Operation, 673 Shields, Marvin G., 1023 SHINING BRASS, Operation, 503, 1036 Shinseki, Eric, 1216 Shoup, David Monroe, 1036–1037, 1037 (image) Shulimson, Jack, 582 Shultz, George, 964 Sian (Xi’an) Incident, 702 Sigma I and II, 1037 Sihamoni, Norodom, 154 Sihanouk, Norodom, xlv, 151, 152, 157, 561, 585, 631, 683–684, 908, 918, 1037–1039, 1038 (image), 1048, 1129 Sihanouk Trail, 676 Sijan, Lance Peter, 932–933, 1039–1040 Simons, Arthur David, 893, 1040–1041, 1052–1053 Sinn, Jerry, 1151 Sino-French War (1884–1885), 1041–1043, 1042 (image) Sino-Soviet split, 1043–1044 Sino-Vietnamese War (1979), 1044–1048, 1045 (image), 1047 (map) casualties of, 1046 causes of, 1044–1046 Sisowath Sirik Matak, 683–684, 1048–1049 Sit-ins. See Teach-ins and sit-ins Sitton, Ray B., 740

I-20

Index

Six, Robert, 236 Six-Day War (1967), 550 Skriabin, Vyacheslav. See Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Slagel, Wayne, 734 SLAM, 579, 1049 Slater, Albert, 139 Sletten, David, 1121 (image) Smart bombs. See Precision-guided munitions Smith, Hedrik, 1035 Smith, K. Wayne, 722 Smith, Walter Bedell, 319, 412, 597, 1049– 1050, 1050 (image) declaration to the Geneva Conference, 1447Doc. telegrams to John Foster Dulles, 1440– 1442Doc., 1143–1445Doc. Snepp, Frank Warren, III, 919, 1050–1051, 1127 SOMERSET PLAIN–LAM SON 246, Operation, 1051– 1052, 1051 (image) casualties of, 1052 Song Be, Battle of, 1052 casualties of, 1052 Son Sen, 587 Son Tay Raid, 132, 1052–1053 Song Thang Incident, 1053–1054 Souphanouvong, 1054–1055, 1055 (image) Southeast Asia, ethnology of, 350–352, 351 (image), 352 (image), 353 (map), 354, 354 (image) ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, 350, 351 ethnic groups within Vietnam, 350–351 highland tribal groups in Vietnam, 351 the Tais people of Vietnam and Thailand, 352, 354, 354 (image) Southeast Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy. See SEALORDS Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 195, 234, 329, 411, 601, 1005, 1055–1057, 1056 (image), 1169, 1200 protocol to the SEATO Treaty, 1450Doc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 590–591 Souvanna Phouma, 631, 632, 1057–1058 Soviet Union. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Soviet-Vietnam Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (1978), 610, 638 Soyster, Harry, 1128 Special Forces. See United States Special Forces; Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces Special Landing Force (SLF), 462, 485 Special National Intelligence Estimate 10-3/65, 1517–1518Doc. Special Technical and Economic Mission (STEM), 307 SPEEDY EXPRESS, Operation, 355 Spellman, Francis Joseph, 806, 813, 1058–1059 Spero, Nancy, 68

Spock, Benjamin McLane, 53, 1059–1060, 1059 (image), 1198 Spratly Islands. See Paracel and Spratly Islands, South China Sea Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, 784, 1060 Spring Offensive. See Easter Offensive Staley, Eugene, 569, 1061 Stalin, Joseph, 355, 588, 604, 605, 1043, 1158–1159 Stannard, John E., 276–277 STARLITE, Operation, 50, 799, 914, 1061, 1062 (image), 1204 casualties of, 1061 Starry, Donn Albert, 1062–1063, 1174 STEEL TIGER, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119 Stennis, John Cornelius, 1063–1065, 1064 (image) Stephenson, William, 862 Steve Canyon program, 961 Stevenson, Adlai Ewing, II, 1019, 1020, 1065– 1066, 1065 (image), 1221 Stevenson, Charles, 1076 Stilwell, Richard Giles, 1066 Stilwell, Joseph W., 564 Stockdale, James Bond, 495, 796, 932–933, 1066–1067, 1067 (image), 1126 Stockdale, Sybil Bailey, 796, 1067–1068 Stolen Valor Act (2006), 1299 Stone, I. F., 433, 611 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 142, 1068– 1069, 1184 Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT I Interim Agreement) (1972), 778 Strategic Hamlet Program, 244, 513, 697, 808, 811, 870–871, 952, 1061, 1070–1071, 1071 (image), 1171 failure of, 1071 See also SUNRISE, Operation Stratton, Samuel, 608 Struggle Movement, 675 Stubbe, Ray W., 582 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 133, 1072 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 53, 192, 242, 373, 923, 1072–1074, 1073 (image) See also Weathermen Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG), 1074, 1215 Subic Bay Naval Base, 863 Submachine guns, 1074–1076, 1075 (image) Chinese, 1076 French, 1076 Soviet, 1076 Swedish, 1076 U.S., 1075–1076 Vietnamese, 1076 Sullivan, William Healy, 1076–1077, 1095 Summers, Harry G., Jr., 490, 728, 1077–1078 SUNFLOWER, Operation, 1078

SUNRISE, Operation, 1078–1079, 1079 (image) Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). See Missiles, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) training, 999–1000, 1080–1081 Sutherland, Donald, 373, 1293 Sutherland, James, 292 Suvero, Mark di, 67 Sweeney, Dennis, 460 Swift boats, 1081–1083, 1082 (image) Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 575, 1083–1084 SWITCHBACK, Operation, 1084, 1214 Symington, Stuart, 1076

Tache d’huile, 1085 Tactical Air Command (TAC), 1085–1086 Tactical air control and navigation (TACAN), 681 Taft, Robert, 46 Taiwan. See China, Republic of Tallman, Richard Joseph, 1086 Tam Dao Mountains. See Thud Ridge Ta Mok, 587 Tam Vu. See Tran Van Giau Tan, Frank, 270, 862 Ta Ngoc Phach. See Tran Do Tanks, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 63, 1087–1088, 11087 (image), 1252 Tan Son Nhut, 1088–1089 Taoism, 1089–1090 Tarpley, Thomas, 292 Tarr, Curtis W., 1090–1091, 1090 (image) Task Force 116, 1091 Task Force 117. See Mobile Riverine Force Task Force 194. See SEALORDS Task Force Oregon, 698, 699, 1092 Taussig, Charles, memorandum of conversation with Franklin Roosevelt, 1369–1370Doc. Taylor, Maxwell Davenport, 244, 345, 405, 550, 553, 569, 607, 721, 728 (image), 753, 796, 808, 809, 997, 1092–1094, 1093 (image), 1170, 1202, 1203, 1213, 1345 cable to President Kennedy, 1484–1486Doc. telegram to Dean Rusk, 1522–1523Doc. See also Taylor-McNamara Report; TaylorRostow Report Taylor, Rufus, 7–8 Taylor, Telford, 656 Taylor-McNamara Report, 1094–1095 text of, 1496–1498Doc. Taylor-Rostow Report, 1095–1096 Tay Ninh, 1096–1097 Tay Son Rebellion, 1097 Teach-ins and sit-ins, 1072, 1098–1099, 1098 (image) Television and the Vietnam War, 1099–1100, 1100 (image) reporting of the Battle of Khe Sanh, 1099–1100

Index reporting of the Tet Offensive, 1100 Territorial forces, 1101–1102 Tet Offensive, xliii–xliv, xliv (image), 2, 6, 7, 32, 40, 55, 65, 70, 76, 81, 101, 101 (image), 102, 105, 106, 124, 145, 163, 170, 182, 194, 202, 203, 203 (image), 219, 251, 254, 258, 259, 313, 316, 317, 333, 349, 380, 486, 498, 500, 509, 519, 521, 551, 554, 576, 582, 638, 643, 665, 680, 722, 732, 735, 749, 757, 760, 841, 844, 845, 865, 873, 932, 940, 945, 947, 955, 959, 993, 1010–1011, 1023, 1083, 1089, 1092, 1096, 1100, 1117, 1121, 1130, 1138, 1140, 1155, 1162, 1173–1174, 1196, 1204, 1212, 1238, 1245–1246, 1252, 1265, 1270, 1272, 1300, 1303, 1304, 1336, 1337, 1339, 1240 assessment of by Saigon and Washington, 872 casualties of, 317, 1104 Communist Party evaluation of, 1601–1603Doc. failure of, 1010, 1304, 1336 participation of women in, 1348 political impact of, 106, 144, 145 terror tactics used by the Viet Cong (VC) during, 80 See also Ben Tre, Battle of; Hue, Battle of; Khe Sahn, Battle of; Tet Offensive, overall strategy; Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle Tet Offensive, overall strategy, 1102–1103, 1103 (image), 1104 (image) Tet Offensive and the Saigon Circle, 1105– 1108, 1106 (map) TEXAS, Operation, 1108 casualties of, 1108 TEXAS STAR, Operation, 976, 1108–1109 casualties of, 1109 Thai Khac Chuyen, 970 Thailand, xliii, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 48, 59, 70, 96, 110, 150, 156, 223, 234, 269, 305, 343, 352, 395, 1109–1111, 1110 (image) See also Franco-Thai War (1940–1941) Thai Thanh, 896 Thanh Hoa Bridge, 1111 Thanh Nien, 628 Thanh Nien Cong Hoa. See Republican Youth THAN PHONG II, Operation, 709 Thanh Phong Massacre, 574 Thanh Thai, 1111–1112 Thanh To Nhan Hoang De. See Minh Mang THAYER/IRVING, Operation, 709 Thich Quang Duc, 483, 775, 808, 809, 1112– 1113, 1112 (image) Thich Tri Quang, 138, 674, 817, 1113 Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, 658 Thieu Tri, 1114 Third Indochina War, 1247 Thomas, Allison Kent, 1114

Thomas, Norman Mattoon, 1114–1115, 1115 (image) Thompson, Floyd James, 931 Thompson, Hugh, Jr., 785, 786, 1115–1117, 1116 (image) Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Ker, 12, 1061, 1070, 1117 Thud Ridge, 1117 THUNDERHEAD, Operation, 1118 Tianjin, Treaty of (1885), 1118 Tiger cages, 1118–1119, 1119 (image) TIGER HOUND, Operation, 32, 97, 1063, 1119–1120 Tilford, Earl H., Jr., 505 Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), 1120–1121 TOAN THANG, Operation, 1121–1122, 1121 (image) casualties of, 1121 TOAN THANG 3, Operation, 78 TOAN THANG 42, Operation, 157, 158 TOAN THANG 43–46, Operations, 160 Toche, Jean, 68 To Huu, 1122 Tolson, John J., 276, 887–888, 893–894 Ton Duc Thang, 1122 Tonkin, 1122–1123 Ton That Dinh, 129, 130, 649, 808, 1123–1124, 1261, 1263 Ton That Thuyet, 1124 Top Gun School, 1124–1125 Torture, 495, 1125–1129, 1127 (image),1128 (image) Total Force Concept, 1212 Tourison, Sedgwick, 951 Tran Buu Kiem, 1129–1130, 1129 (image) Tran Do, 1105–1106, 1130–1131 Tran dynasty, 1131–1132 Tran Hieu, 1164 Tran Hung Dao, 1132 TRAN HUNG DAO, Operation. See SEALORDS Tran Kim Tuyen, 967, 1133 Tran Le Xuan. See Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Tran Ngoc Chau, 940 Tran Quoc Tuan. See Tran Hung Dao Tran Quy Hai, 845 Transportation Group 559, 1133–1134 Tran Thien Khiem, 318, 827, 1133, 1134–1135, 1134 (image) Tran Trong Kim, 140 Tran Van Chuong, 1135–1136, 1136 (image) Tran Van Dac, 1105 Tran Van Do, 1136–1137 Tran Van Don, 129, 130, 331, 649, 653, 808, 809, 827, 1123, 1134, 1137, 1137 (image), 1261 Tran Van Giau, 1137–1138 Tran Van Hai, 1138 Tran Van Huong, 139, 501, 839, 1138–1139, 1139 (image), 1262, 1264 Tran Van Lam, 1139–1140, 1140 (image) Tran Van Tra, 842, 941, 1140–1141, 1141 (image)

I-21

Treaty of Independence of the State of Vietnam, 1439Doc. Trieu Au, 1141 Trieu Da, 1141–1142 Trieu Thi Trinh. See Trieu Au Trieu Vu Vuong. See Trieu Da Trinh lords, 1142 Trinh Van Can, 687 Trinité, Louis de la. See D’Argenlieu, Georges Thierry Trudeau, Pierre Elliot, 165 Truehart, William, 851 Truman, Harry S., 5, 182, 304, 314, 316, 328, 530, 603, 604, 606, 691, 744, 781, 862, 1020, 1143–1144, 1143 (image), 1168, 1199 statement announcing military aid to Indochina, 1410–1411Doc. telegram to Jiang Jieshi, 1376Doc. U.S. State Department memoranda to, 1370–1371Doc., 1371–1373Doc. Trung Nu Vuong. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Queens. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, 1144 Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam. See Central Office for South Vietnam Truong, David H. D., 1198 Truong Chinh, 621, 628, 638, 1144–1146, 1244, 1278 Truong Dinh Dzu, 1146–1147, 1146 (image) Truong Nhu Tang, 941, 1147 Truong Son Corridor, 1147–1148 Truong Son Mountains, 1148 Truong Van Nghia. See De Tham Truscott, Lucian K., 576 Tsuchihashi, Yuitsu, 1148–1149 TUCSON, Operation, 556 Tu Duc, 1149–1150, 1149 (image) Tuesday Lunch Group, 1150 Tully, Robert, 527 Tu Luc Van Doan (Self-Reliance Literary Group), 837 Tunnel rats, 1151, 1151 (image) Tunnels, 1151–1152. See also Tunnel rats Tun Razak, 698 Turner, Ted, 374 Turse, Nick, 1126 Tu Ve, 1152 Tuyen Quang, siege of, 1152–1153 casualties of, 1153 Twining, Nathan Farragut, 1153–1154, 1154 (image) Two Ladies Trung. See Trung Trac and Trung Nhi Udall, Morris, 786 U Minh Forest, 1155 Underwater demolition teams (UDTs), 1027–1028 Ung Lich. See Ham Nghi

I-22

Index

Uniforms, 1155–1158, 1157 (image) French expeditionary forces, 1155–1156 Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, 1156 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, 1157–1158 Viet Minh, People’s Army of Vietnam, and Viet Cong, 1156 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 195, 234, 243, 1158–1160, 1291 military and economic aid sent to North Vietnam by, 199, 324, 344, 676, 1159– 1160, 1244 and the Sino-Soviet split, 195–196 See also Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) UNION I and II, Operations, 1160–1161, 1161 (image) casualties of, 1161 UNIONTOWN, Operation, 1162 United Buddhist Association (UBA), 827 United front strategy, 1162–1163 United Kingdom and the Indochina and Vietnam wars, 1163–1165, 1163 (image) United Nations (UN), 315. See also United Nations and the Vietnam War United Nations and the Vietnam War, 1165–1166 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 966 United Services Organization (USO), 1166, 1166 (image) Family Support Fund, 1166 Operation Enduring Care, 1166 United States, 1291 message to the North Vietnamese government on the pause in bombing, 1549Doc. military logistics used in Vietnam, 678–679 national elections (1964), 332–333 national elections (1968), 333–335, 334 (image), 848 (table) national elections (1972), 336–337, 336 (image), 337 (table), 346 national elections (1976), 338–339, 338 (image) praise of for the Elysée Agreements, 1402Doc. relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), 195, 196 response of to the Geneva declarations, 1446Doc. trade embargo of against North Vietnam, 343–345, 344 (table). See also United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War; United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954–1965; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965–1968; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969–1973; United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973–1975;

United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975–present United States, economy of, and the Vietnam War, 325–327 deficit spending during the war, 326 (table) effects on macroeconomic theory, 326 impacts of increased budget deficits, 325–326 and inflation, 326 United States, involvement in Indochina through 1954, 1167–1169, 1167 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1954– 1965, 1169–1172, 1171 (image) U.S. Army manpower in Vietnam, 1170 (table) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1965– 1968, 1172–1175, 1172 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1969– 1973, 1175–1177, 1175 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1973– 1975, 1177–1179, 1178 (image) United States, involvement in Vietnam, 1975– present, 1179–1181, 1180 (image) United States, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 1954–present, 1181–1182 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 1182–1184 United States Air Force (USAF), 121–122, 142–143, 156, 226, 300, 780, 1184–1186, 1185 (image) U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), 270 U.S. Seventh Air Force, 92 See also Airborne Operations; Aircraft, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Andersen Air Force Base; FARM GATE, Operation; ROLLING THUNDER, Operation; Wild Weasels United States Army, 1187–1190, 1187 (image), 1238 army units in Vietnam, 1214 (table) casualties during the Vietnam War, 1190 corps tactical zones in South Vietnam, 1189 (map) deaths by Vietnam province, 1097 (table) office corps of, 1188 organization of a typical infantry division, 1188 (table) position on National Security Council Action No. 1074-A, 1432Doc. replacement system of, 1188 See also K-9 Corps United States Army, Vietnam, Installation Stockade (USARVIS), 1190–1191 United States Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (USACILHI), 761, 1191–1192, 1191 (image) United States Army Special Services, 1191–1193 United States Coast Guard, 1193–1194, 1194 (image), 1275

United States Congress and the Vietnam War, 1195–1198 United States Department of Justice, 1198–1199 United States Department of State aide-mémoire to the North Vietnamese government, 1572–1573Doc. and formation of U.S. policy toward Vietnam, 1199–1201, 1201 (image) memorandum of meeting of August 31, 1963, 1494–1495Doc. paper on military aid for Indochina, 1408–1409Doc. paper on U.S. post–World War II policy concerning Asia, 1374–1376Doc. policy statement on Indochina, 1400–1402Doc. telegram to the U.S. State Department from Hanoi, 1391Doc. White paper on Vietnam, 1518–1519Doc. United States Information Agency (USIA), 1201–1202 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 259, 297, 359, 372, 422, 551, 576, 691, 1202– 1204, 1203 (image), 1269, 1292, 1339 memorandum 46-64, 1502–1504Doc. memorandum of with Rusk and McNamara, 1482–1484Doc. memorandum to Charles E. Wilson, 1430–1432Doc. memorandum to George C. Marshall, 1414–1415Doc. See also Key West Agreement (1948) United States Marine Corps (USMC), 207–208, 300, 1204–1205, 1205 (image), 1238, 1263 casualties during the Vietnam War, 1205 use of helicopters by, 474–475 See also JACKSTAY, Operation; Special Landing Force (SLF) United States Merchant Marine, 1205–1206 United States Navy, 780, 1206–1208, 1207 (image), 1275, 1321 (image) adverse effects of the Vietnam War on, 1208 Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC), 270 lack of preparedness for the Vietnam War, 1206 U.S. Seventh Fleet, 268, 268 (image) warships of, 1322–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) See also DeSoto Missions; Dixie Station; Forrestal, USS, flight deck fire of; GAME WARDEN, Operation; Guam; JACKSTAY, Operation; Naval gunfire support; Riverine craft; Riverine warfare; YANKEE TEAM, Operation United States Navy Fighter Weapons School. See Top Gun School United States Navy River Patrol Force. See Task Force 116 United States Reserve Components, 1208–1212

Index calling up of reservists, 1209 categories of reservists, 1209 organization, training, and structure of, 1208–1209 reservists serving in the Vietnam War Air Force Reserve, 1210 Air National Guard, 1210 Army National Guard, 1210–1211 Army Reserve, 1211 Navy Reserve, 1211 See also United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize United States Reserve Components, Decision Not to Mobilize, 1211–1212 United States Special Forces (USSF), 1212– 1216, 1213 (image) United States Special Operations Forces (SOF), 579 United States Veterans Administration (VA), 1216 United States v. O’Brien (1968), 1217 United States v. Seeger (1965), 1217–1218 United We Stand, 893 University of Wisconsin bombing, 1218–1219 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 236 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (1960), 545 U.S. v. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (1972), 1198 U Thant, 700, 1165, 1221, 1221 (image) Ut, Nick, 1219–1220, 1219 (image) UTAH, Operation, 1220 casualties of, 1220 Valluy, Jean-Étienne, 532, 1223, 1241, 1242 telegram to Pierre-Louis Debès, 1389Doc. Van Ba. See Ho Chi Minh VAN BUREN, Operation, 1223–1224 casualties of, 1224 Van Cao, 1224 Vance, Cyrus, 64, 876, 1224–1226, 1225 (image), 1345 Vance incident, 66–67 Van Devanter, Lynda, 1294 Van Es, Hubert, 1226–1227, 1226 (image) Van Fleet, James A., 606, 972 Vang Pao, 96, 632, 965, 1227 Van Lang, 1228 Vann, John Paul, 65, 467, 600, 1035, 1228– 1229, 1228 (image) Van Tien Dung, 93, 94, 1229–1230, 1229 (image), 1252 Vaught, James B., 276 Versace, Humbert Rocque, 933, 1126, 1230–1231 Vessey, John W., Jr., 73, 761, 820, 1180, 1231– 1232, 1231 (image), 1278 Veteran Outreach Centers (Vet Centers), 657, 925 Veterans for America (VFA), 780, 781

Vientiane Agreement, 1232–1233, 1232 (image) Vientiane Protocol, 1233–1234 Viet Cong (VC), xli, xliv, 15, 75, 77, 78, 141, 157, 163, 169, 171, 183, 184, 215, 244, 319, 372, 394, 537, 638, 795 (image), 1238, 1240, 1245, 1265, 1323 atrocities committed by, 79, 80, 519, 521– 522, 521 (image) effect of the Tet Offensive on, 1104, 1304 infrastructure of, 1234–1235, 1234 (image) military logistics used in Vietnam, 678 use of tunnels by, 245, 248–249 See also Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Viet Cong Military Region IV, 100, 180 Viet Minh, xli, 140, 174, 199, 243, 289, 298, 307, 310, 386, 412, 493, 497, 500, 536, 544–545, 822, 898, 1162, 1199, 1235, 1236 (map), 1237, 1240, 1244, 1250, 1287, 1332 Chinese support of, 293, 532–533, 1199 contributions of Japanese deserters to, 545 creation of, 628 impact of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on, 547 land reform of, 621 military logistics used in Vietnam, 677–678 OSS support of, 862, 1167 river warfare of, 387 See also Dien Bien Phu, Battle of Vietnam, climate of, 1237–1238, 1237 (image) impact of climate and terrain on the Vietnam War, 1238–1240 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam), 35, 43, 52, 238, 378, 401, 422, 495, 500, 501, 536, 537 bombing of, 122, 123 (map), 124, 325, 1246 declaration of independence, 1377–1378Doc. peace proposal of, 1635–1636Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 194-NQ/TW, 1624–1625Doc. Politburo Resolution No. 236-NQ/TW, 1658–1659Doc. Soviet and Chinese military support for, 324 statement of, 1644–1647Doc. U.S. trade embargo against, 343–345, 344 (table) See also Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]); Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]) Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1945–1954]), 1240–1242, 1241 (image) national call to arms in, 1242 negotiations with the French, 1241–1242 surrender of the French in, 1242 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV, North Vietnam [1954–1975]), 1243–1247, 1243 (image), 1245 (image)

I-23

acceptance of the Geneva Accords by, 1245 declaration on normalizing relations between northern and southern zones, 1451–1452Doc. emigration from, 1244 goals of, 1244–1245 people’s courts in, 1244 and reunification, 1244, 1250 role of the peasantry in land reform, 1243–1244 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Air Force (Vietnam People’s Air Force [VPAF]), 1247–1249, 1248 (image) air defense system of, 1248 effects of U.S. bombing on, 1248–1249 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Armed Forces (Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces [RVNAF]), 1269, 1270 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Army (People’s Army of Vietnam [PAVN]), xlii, xliv, xlv, xlvi, 7, 14, 30, 49–50, 51, 77, 78–79, 93, 142, 157, 163, 169, 201 (image), 208, 215, 225, 226, 244, 290, 291, 390–391, 1239, 1240, 1245, 1247, 1249–1253, 1265 artillery used by, 71–72, 1251 (table) defense of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by, 505 in eastern Cambodia, 155 equipment of, 1252 initial lack of organization in, 1249 logistics of, 1251–1252 military logistics used in Vietnam, 679–680 number of personnel in, 1250, 1252 origin of, 167 reunification of Vietnam as driving force behind its strategy, 1250 support of the Pathet Lao by, 411, 412 tanks as prime targets of, 63 use of tanks by, 1252 victories of over the French, 1249–1250 and wartime atrocities, 79–80 women in, 1348–1349 See also Easter Offensive; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of; Sanctuaries; Tet Offensive Vietnam, Democratic Republic of, Navy (Vietnam People’s Navy [VPN]), 1321 Vietnam, geography of, 416–417 Vietnam, history of (prehistory to 938 CE), 1252–1254 Chinese domination of, 1253–1254 prehistory, 1253 under the Thuc and the Trieu, 1253 Vietnam, history of (938 CE through the French conquest), 1254–1255, 1255 (image), 1256 (map), 1257–1258, 1257 (image) cultural development during, 1255, 1257 French conquest during, 1257–1258 and the Nam Tien (March to the South), 1257 Vietnamese dynasties, 1254–1255

I-24

Index

Vietnam, Republic of (RVN, South Vietnam), xli, 43, 64, 173, 324, 500, 501, 536, 1238, 1258–1264, 1259 (image), 1260 (image), 1264 (image) aid to under the Kennedy administration, 83 declaration of concerning reunification, 1458Doc. document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Paris Peace Talks, 1642–1643Doc. Law 10/59 of, 1472Doc. national assembly and constitution of, 1260, 1263 national elections in, 329–332, 331 (image) 1955 election, 330 1967 election, 330–331 1971 election, 331–332 opposition to Diem within, 1260–1261, 1262 opposition to the Paris peace agreements, 1264 peace proposal of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1636–1637Doc. prime ministers of, 1955–1975, 1135 (table) protests by students and Buddhist monks in, 1262 statement of the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam, 1641–1642Doc. Vietnam, Republic of, Air Force, 1264–1266, 1269 expansion of, 1265 types of U.S. planes used in, 1264–1265 Vietnam, Republic of, Army (Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN]), xli, xlv, 2, 15, 51, 57, 58, 64, 100, 101, 180, 208, 226, 240 (image), 278, 292, 319, 347, 422, 1261, 1266–1268, 1267 (image), 1268 (image) and the Cambodian Incursion, 157–158, 160–161 corruption in, 1266–1267 fighting against the Binh Xuyen, 169 lack of leadership in, 1268 military logistics used in Vietnam, 678, 679 military strength of (1955–1972), 1266 (table) number of personnel in, 1268 organization of, 1268 pacification efforts of, 1246 U.S. training of, 1267 women in, 1348–1349 See also Enclave strategy; Ho Chi Minh Campaign; Hue, Battle of Vietnam, Republic of, Joint General Staff (JGS), 1269–1270 Vietnam, Republic of, Marine Corps (RVNMC), 1270–1271, 1271 (image) Vietnam, Republic of, National Police, 1271–1273 National Police Field Force (NPFF), 1272

Vietnam, Republic of, Navy (VNN), 1273– 1275, 1274 (image), 1321–1322 and the Cambodian Incursion, 1274 deficiencies of, 1273–1274 patrol of the coastal zones by, 1273 River Force of, 1273 Vietnam, Republic of, Revolutionary Development Cadre Training Center, 1275 Vietnam, Republic of, Special Forces, 244, 1276 Vietnam, Socialist Republic of (SRV), 204, 1276–1282, 1277 (image), 1279 (image), 1281 (image), 1286 Doi Moi reform program in, 303, 820, 1278–1279 economic growth in after 2000, 1281–1282 economy of, 1277 farm collectivization in, 1277 liberalization in, 1280 lifting of the trade embargo against, 1674–1675Doc. outside investment in, 1280–1281 PAVN influence in, 1280 political struggles in, 1279–1280 population of, 1281 post–Vietnam War problems faced by, 1276 power of the Communist Party in, 1276–1277 relations with Cambodia, 1278 relations with China, 1278 relations with the United States, 1280, 1675–1676Doc. Vietnam Independence League. See Viet Minh Vietnam Information Group (VIG), 1287–1288 Vietnam Magazine, 1289–1290 Vietnam Nationalist Party. See Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party) Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese National Party), 833, 1290–1291 admission of women to, 1347 Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association. See Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi Vietnam Syndrome, 1291–1292 Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, 1292–1293 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), 610, 657, 1293–1295, 1294 (image) Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), 1297–1298 statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1630–1632Doc. Vietnam Veterans Intertribe Association, 798 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 658, 1022, 1295– 1297, 1296 (image) Vietnam War (1961–1975), xliii (image), xlvi (image), 675 as “America’s first rock-and-roll war,” 782 casualties of, 175–176, 175 (table), 1247 cost of, xlii, 426 (table)

economic indicators during, 1314 (table) effect of on the U.S. economy, 325–327 escalation of, xliii goals of, xliii as the “Helicopter War,” 30 as “Johnson’s War,” 551 as a “living room war,” 728 number of U.S. deaths in, xlii opposition to in the United States, 551 overview of, xli–xlvi as the “television” war, 242, 1099 War Zone C, 555 See also Historiography, of the Vietnam War; Women, in the Vietnam War Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, 1126 Vietnam War frauds and fakes, 1298–1299 Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), 1276– 1277, 1282–1283 Vietnamese culture, 1283–1286, 1285 (image), 1286 (image) effects of war on, 1285 fine arts of, 1284–1285 influence of Chinese culture on, 1283–1284 literature of, 1284 music of, 1284 under Communism, 1285–1286 Vietnamese National Army, 1286–1287 Vietnamese Workers’ Party Third National Congress on missions and policies, 1476–1478Doc. Vietnamization, xlv, 48, 163, 170, 224, 594, 615, 616, 679, 847, 1074, 1175, 1246, 1265, 1288–1289, 1289 (image). See also Jaunissement Vilers, Le Myre de, 79 Vinh, 1299–1300 Vinh San. See Duy Tan Vinh Yen, Battle of, 497 Vo Bam, 1133 Vo Chi Cong, 1300 Vogt, John W., Jr., 1301, 1301 (image) Voices in Vital America (VIVA), 797, 1301–1302 Vo Nguyen Giap, xli, xlv, 51, 81, 167, 175, 324– 325, 386, 497, 514, 556–557, 579, 582, 618, 634, 638, 642–643, 684, 693, 759, 791, 801, 998, 1046, 1102, 1105, 1249, 1252, 1279, 1302–1304, 1303 (image) initial actions of against the French in Vietnam, 1240–1241, 1242, 1303 issuance of a national call to arms by, 1303 as leader of the military campaign against the Republic of Vietnam, 1303–1304 opposition to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, 1304 “People’s War, People’s Army,” 1463–1472Doc. report on the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 1429–1430Doc. revamping of the Viet Minh’s intelligence organization, 636

Index See also Dau Tranh strategy; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of; Easter Offensive; Indochina War Voting Rights Act (1965), 591 Vo Tran Chi, 1304 Vo Van Ba, 1304–1305 Vo Van Kiet, 1278, 1305–1306, 1305 (image) Vua Duc Tong. See Tu Duc Vua Thanh To. See Minh Mang Vu Hai Thu. See Nguyen Hai Than Vu Hong Khanh, 1307–1307 VULTURE, Operation, 847, 907, 957, 1169, 1307–1308 Vu Ngoc Nha–Huynh Van Trong spy case, 1308 Vung Tau, 1308–1309, 1309 (image) Vung Tau Charter, 827 Vu Oanh, 1309–1310 Vu Quoc Thuc, 1310 Vu Thu Hien, 639 Vu Van Giai, 1310–1311 Vu Van Giang. See Vu Hong Khanh Wage and price controls, 1313–1314, 1314 (table) Waldron, Adelbert F., III, 1314–1315 Walkabout, Billy, 798 Walker, Walton, 605, 606 Wallace, George C., 335, 339, 646, 1315–1316, 1315 (image) Walt, Lewis William, 207, 1316–1317, 1316 (image) Ware, Keith Lincoln, 1106, 1317 Warner, John, 250 (image) Warnke, Paul Culliton, 1317–1319, 1318 (image) War Powers Act (1973), 546, 849, 1064, 1178, 1197, 1319–1320 text of, 1657–1658Doc. War Resisters League, 1320–1321 Warships, allied and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1321–1323, 1321 (image), 1322 (image) Wars of national liberation, 1323–1324 War Zones C and D, 1324–1326, 1325 (image) WASHINGTON GREEN, Operation, 873, 1326–1327 Washington Special Actions Group, 1327 Wasiak, Joseph E., 276 Watergate Scandal, 187, 530, 595, 763, 772–773, 847, 849, 892, 1020, 1203, 1327–1329, 1328 (image)

Weathermen, 1218–1219, 1329–1330, 1330 (image) Webb, James Henry, Jr., 1330–1331, 1331 (image) Wei Guoqing, 1331–1332 Weiner, David, 973 (image) Weiner, Lee, 192 Weinglass, Leonard, 192 Weiss, Cora, 1333 Welsh v. United States (1970), 1218, 1333– 1335, 1334 (image) Westmoreland, William C., xliii, 81, 118, 180, 215, 235, 236, 244, 300, 302, 346, 406, 458, 461, 462, 509 (image), 513, 517, 550, 555, 576, 578, 579–580, 596, 599, 608– 609, 625, 693, 700, 723, 728 (image), 771, 844, 845, 872, 887, 934, 1078, 1092, 1204, 1209, 1318, 1335–1337, 1336 (image) accusations against concerning enemy casualty figures, 1336–1337 and the buildup of U.S. troops in Vietnam, 219, 510, 550, 551, 747, 991, 1094, 1105, 1173–1174 difficulties with ROKA forces in Vietnam, 602 lawsuit against CBS, 865–866 National Press Club address, 1591–1592Doc. on the operations in War Zones C and D, 1325–1326 and the Peers Inquiry, 886, 887 reaction to the Tet Offensive, 1136 service of in Korea, 1335 on SLAM, 1049 strategies and tactics employed by, 598, 1335–1336 view of the media, 729, 1100 view of pacification, 871 See also Honolulu Conference (1967); Khe Sanh, Battle of; Search and destroy Weyand, Frederick Carlton, 347, 1103, 1105, 1106, 1177, 1337–1338 Whalen, Charles W., Jr., 1197 Wheeler, Earle Gilmore, 118, 1105, 1174, 1338–1339, 1338 (image), 1345 (image) report on the situation in Vietnam, 1597–1599Doc. Wheeler, Jack, 1295, 1296 WHEELER/WALLOWA, Operation, 784, 1340–1341, 1341 (image) White Star Mobile Training Teams, 1341 Whitley, Glenna, 1298 Wickwire, Peter, 139

I-25

Wiener, Sam, 69 Wild Weasels, 1341–1342 Wilk, David, 1299 Williams, Charles Q., 308 Williams, Samuel Tankersley, 319, 1342–1343 Willoughby, Frank C., 624 Wilson, Charles E., 409 Wilson, George C., 1 Wilson, James Harold, 1078, 1164, 1343–1344, 1343 (image) Wilson, Thomas Woodrow, 1344 Wilson, Woodrow, 315, 401, 663 Winter Soldier Investigation, 574, 657, 1083 Wise Men, 551, 716, 782, 972, 1225, 1344– 1346, 1345 (image) Women, in the Vietnam War U.S. women, 1346–1347, 1346 (image) Vietnamese women, 1347–1349, 1348 (image) Women Strike for Peace, 1349 Women’s Liberation Association (WLA), 1348 Women’s Solidarity League, 967 Woodring, Willard, 139 Woods, Robert, 1151 Woodstock, 1349–1350, 1350 (image) Woodward, Gilbert H., 948 Wyatt, Clarence R., 727 Xa Loi Pagoda Raid, 1351–1352 Xuan Loc, Battle of, 1352 Xuan Thuy, 876, 1352–1353, 1353 (image) XYZ, 820 Yankee Station, 1355 YANKEE TEAM, Operation, 1356–1357, 1356

(image) Yellowing. See Jaunissement YELLOWSTONE, Operation, 1357 Yen Bay (or Yen Bai) Mutiny, 833, 1358 Young, Samuel, 1072 Young Americans for Freedom, 923 Young Turks, 753, 796, 816, 841, 1138, 1262 Youth International Party (Yippies), 192, 506, 1000, 1358–1360, 1359 (image) Zhang Xueliang, 702 Zhou Enlai, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200 (image), 412, 595, 1361–1362, 1362 (image) Zhu De, 196, 702 Zorthian, Barry, 553, 728, 1362–1363 Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr., 250 (image), 956, 956 (image), 1025, 1203 (image), 1363–1364, 1363 (image)